Although he knew it was far too late, Edward was beginning to reconsider his choice to become a criminal. In spite of its perks, it also left a lot of room for influential people to frame you, and he could have sworn one of the generals had been smirking when he was sentenced to death for the murder of Major General Hakuro's family and the man himself.

Yes, that had been the highlight of his trial; his whole day, in fact, because he definitely wanted to die and most certainly didn't have a brother and a good friend who were hoping against hope for his charges to be lifted.

But he did, and he had let them down so hard. Al's horrified face in the stands of the courtroom was imprinted on his memory, and the guilt that had already pervaded his mind had grown immensely.

He had to fix this. But there was no way he could.

Breaking out of prison? Nope, absolutely impossible. Bribing a general or some such person of high social standing was also a no, he couldn't make contact with any generals; even if he could, all that money he owned had already been given to the families and organizations he'd stolen from in retribution for his crimes. He had heard that Mustang was tracking down all the missing objects. All his hard work for nothing. He should have been more careful.

He was about to continue his gloomy thoughts when he heard a gunshot down the hall, followed by a startled shout. He was so surprised he jolted to a sitting position and crashed off the cot from lack of balance. Several noises of alarm sounded from all the other cells, and when Ed craned his neck to look he saw prisoners rushing to the bars of their cells across the hall and peering the way the sound had come from. More yelling had started and footsteps thumped somewhere near the commotion.

After getting over his shock, Edward immediately rolled himself onto his stomach and dragged himself to the bars. He pulled himself into a standing position, using the wall for support, and looked out just in time to see a guard fly past the opening to his corridor. He blinked, not sure if he had imagined it or not.

"Wow, they're really going at it!" Ed glanced at Ling, whose usual smile had an edge to it in spite of his cheery words.

Not a moment later the shouting stopped, leaving behind an eerie silence, and murmurs swept down the hall. Then around the corner ran a blond soldier, carrying . . . No, he was imagining things. There was no way that guard was carrying his automail. . . .

The soldier stopped in front of his cell as if to prove him wrong, and judging by the gaping of the other prisoners he could see, this wasn't a hallucination.

The soldier fished a set of keys out of his pocket and inserted one into the lock. The door swung open. Ed just stared.

"Time to go, pipsqueak," the soldier informed him. Ed let out a startled yelp as he was grabbed around the waist to be carried under the man's arm.

"What—?"

"I was sent to get you out," the soldier explained, leaving the cell and starting down the corridor. Ed could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

Ed's eyes narrowed. "Why would you help me? Did one of my previous employers—"

"Yoo-hoo!"

The soldier paused in his step and Ed stopped talking. They both turned their heads to look back down the hall at Ling, whose voice had risen above the cacophony of confused prisoners.

"What do you want?" the soldier snapped. "We don't exactly have all the time in the world."

Ling's smile grew wider. "Would you mind taking me with you?"

"Yes." He began to continue forward when Ling spoke again.

"I could help you! I'm good with swords."

The soldier seemed to think for a moment before coming to a decision. "Fine, but we're getting rid of you as soon as we've made it to safety." He strode back to Ling's cell and dropped the automail limbs so he could retrieve his keys before unlocking it. The soldier then put down Ed, unwound the binds around his hand, and produced some chalk from another pocket. "Transmute a sword."

"And why should I?"

The footsteps of reinforcements came into earshot.

"Just do it before they get here!"

Clenching his teeth, Ed hastily scribbled a simple transmutation circle next to the cell bars and pressed his hand to it. A moment later a sword emerged from the iron, and he tossed it to Ling. The soldier then picked Ed back up again while Ling tested the balance of his blade.

"You have the tackiest sense of taste," he commented as they took off down the hall again, this time in the opposite direction from before.

"Shut up!"

The footsteps of the new guards came echoing into the corridor, and the strange soldier sped up a bit. Then yet more soldiers spilled in ahead of them.

Great.

In the next several minutes, Ed was swung violently about as the surprisingly agile soldier jumped from one spot to another, dodging shots and retaliating with a mixture of hand-to-hand combat and gun work. Ling wasn't too shabby himself, proving to be almost as good as the soldier

However, Edward got the impression that the fight lasted longer than the soldier would have liked. Having been trained in combat, the guards certainly weren't incompetent, so together they were a match for their opponents. At one point the soldier decided to take his frustration out on them, and didn't hesitate to kill. Ed had to close is eyes to avoid any nausea at the sight of it.

They finally made it out of the building about thirty minutes later and stopped to rest briefly in an alley half a mile from the prison. Ling leaned against the wall, and Ed was dropped unceremoniously on the dirt.

"Ow!" He pushed himself into a sitting position and glared at his rescuer.

The soldier hummed. "They'll be sending people to search for us and will probably say to shoot if we resist; they'll be looking for a Xingese guy, the pipsqueak, and a soldier, so they won't glance at a civilian. . . ."

Alchemic lightning crackled around the officer, red unlike the normal blue, and left behind a brown-haired, blue-eyed man wearing a casual suit.

Ed's mouth fell open, and Ling dropped both his sword and Ed's automail.

"How the hell—? What was that? You're an alchemist?"

The no-longer-a-soldier smirked. "No, I'm a homunculus." Ignoring Ed's further shock, he turned to Ling. "You can go now."

Ling, however, was without certain answers and wasn't about to let them go. "Hold up. What exactly is a homunculus?"

The soldier's grin dropped. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to tell you that," he sighed mock dramatically, making a despairing gesture. "Not that you need to know."

Ling went to pick up the sword, and the homunculus made no move to stop him.

"We don't have time for this, and besides, I don't like fighting." He walked toward Ling, who tensed, but only bent down to collect the automail. "As I said before, you can run along now. I did say before that we'd be dropping you off as soon as we were safe enough not to need you, didn't I?" He straightened and turned around to pick up Ed as well.

Ed snapped out of his stupor and scrambled to get away. "What the hell do you mean, saying you're a homunculus? Homunculi don't exist!"

The supposed homunculus rolled his eyes. "Want me to prove it to ya?" Without waiting for a reply, he transformed one of his hands into a blade and sliced the other off. He didn't manage to hide a wince. Ed was about to politely inquire as to why he had done such a thing when there was a crackle of red and the hand reformed itself.

"Ta-da!"

Ed gaped again and pointed at the hand. "B-but that's not possible! What about equivalent exchange?"

The now-proven homunculus put a hand to his chin as if stroking imaginary facial hair. "Hm . . . screw equivalent exchange." He picked up the indignant Ed successfully this time. "All right, time to move." He turned and smirked at Ling. "Bye." And with that cheerful farewell, the homunculus dashed away.

Ed was still trying to figure out how this was possible, but decided to drop it for now. It was making his head hurt.

Unlike he would have expected, Ling didn't follow them. He supposed he was more cautious than Ed had originally believed.

Brushing Ling from his thoughts, he looked up and glanced around at the surrounding alley walls. "You know, you could have just attached my arm and leg back there and I would have gotten away on my own."

The homunculus scoffed. "We didn't have much time."

"But at least we had some time."

There was no reply.

A few minutes later, they cut dangerously close to a main road. They stopped next to an iron-barred sort of doorway leading to the sewers and, much to Ed's approval, went inside. If one was to hide anywhere in a city, the sewers were the best choice.

Having been in places such as this before, Ed expected the dark and the damp. What he didn't expect was the rustling sounds and low growling coming from above. When he looked up, his was surprised and confused at the sight of several pairs of glowing eyes staring down at him. "What's up there?" He had too many questions to ask as of late.

"Huh?" The homunculus glanced up. "Oh, them. Those are chimeras, we have them guard the place."

This day was almost too much, and it wasn't even noon yet. A stranger comes along and saves him, reveals the ability to alchemically change his appearance and regrow severed body parts, and turns out to be a homunculus, of all things. Now there were a bunch of chimeras guarding a sewer leading to—to—a lair, or something.

If this didn't turn out to be a dream, Ed wouldn't know what to think.

'-'

Van Hohenheim knew for a fact that the cafés in East City were the best. This was why, while waiting for the train headed to South City, he chose to purchase coffee and a pastry from the café closest to the train station.

He seated himself at an empty table once he had received his food and drink and picked up an abandoned newspaper from the seat next to him.

FULLMETAL THIEF'S FATE IS DECIDED

Ah, he'd heard about that. An infamous thief had been caught; he supposed the trial had been held. He took a sip of his drink.

He continued reading and choked on his coffee when he read the next line. He spent a minute coughing and pounding his chest before continuing to read hurriedly.

The trial of the Fullmetal Thief, identified as Edward Elric, age seventeen, was held yesterday from the early morning to late afternoon. Authorities say Elric admitted to being the thief after he was brought it.

Following the murder of General Hakuro, Elric was convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. Read more on page 3.

Hohenheim had enough after that. He slammed down his coffee, left some change on the table, and stalked off, leaving his poor pastry untouched.

The station was packed with people coming and going, rushing about in a hurry to get somewhere. Hohenheim ignored their shouting and bustling about and strode straight to the ticket booth.

"How much for a ticket to Resembool?"

So. Hi. I know this is really, really late, but I kind of bumped into a wall and sat there staring at it for a while. . . . But at least the chapter is a few hundred words longer than usual, right? The chapter word counts should stabilize at about this length, because I actually outlined this chapter before writing it. I should always do that.

Anyway, the reason this chapter came out before December is that I wanted to let all of you know that I will be gone for all of November and probably some of December as well. Why, you ask? NaNoWriMo! Some of you probably already know what this is, but for those who don't, it's a writing challenge where you attempt to write 50,000 words before the end of November. I've never done it properly before, but I shall use this chance to finish my awful original novel so I can rework the plot and write the glorious second draft.

Yeah, sorry about that. Please review! I'll see you guys later. :)

-Quiet Leaf