Len broke an external light fixture climbing to the roof of the train. Sand dunes stretched to the edge of sight, starkly pale under the moon. The thin light revealed several figures moving up the train. He went in pursuit.

"Find a place to hide, and stay quiet." Said Adda, standing in the door of his cabin.

"But I wanna help!" Maes protested from inside.

"And I want a good night's sleep." Adda shut the door. Taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, he sealed the compartment shut with a quick transmutation. "It's not our lucky night."

.

Len was pinned down under fire. He lay in the bed of the coal car. Two bandits were taking pot shots at him. They stood on the engine covered by the roof of the cab, which was taller than the engine in front or coal cars other figures moved about the engine. One perched on footboard, the narrow, external walkway along the side of the engine. The other crawled on it without brace or foothold, like Maes in his magnetic gloves. With the screech of metal, it plunged one hand straight into the hull. Water hemorrhaged through the breach.

As Adda's footsteps faded down the hall, Maes set about escaping through the window. It was covered with a grate, but the boy used his trusty multi-tool to dislodge it from the frame. The space it left, too small for an adult, was just big enough for him.

From the window, he used his magnetic gloves to scale the train once more. On the roof, he could just make out the fight unfolding several cars ahead. Maes crept up the train, unseen by Len and the bandits both. After a precarious, windswept journey, he reached the cabin.

Peering up over the top, he was level with the boots of the bandits sheltering behind the cabin roof. Capitalizing on their distraction, he tackled one behind, taking out his knees. The bandit tumbled from the train with a cry, while Maes's gloves saved him.

His thrill of triumph turned to dread, as the remaining bandit turned his gun on the boy.

Len leapt upon the cabin roof, black with coal dust, grabbing the bandit's gun with one hand and slitting his throat with the knife held in the other.

Maes stared, wide-eyed, as the body tumbled, limp, over the side.

The train was passing from the dunes into a wide, flat expanse of sand. With a roar that shook the night, several cobbled-together all terrain vehicles shot out from shadowed crevasses of the withdrawing slopes, flanking the train on both sides.

One of the two remaining bandits jumped off, into one of the vehicles.

"More friends." Len turned his gun on the remaining bandit. "My lucky night."

The two bullets Len fired had no effect but to make it look at him. The moonlight showed a flat face with empty, shadowed eye sockets. The lipless mouth opened, producing a sound like rock grinding against rock.

It threw itself at Len with inhuman speed.

Len ran. Leaping over the cabin, he landed with a crunch in the tender.

The thing landed right behind him, wading through coal like a human would through water.

Len changed course on a dime, ducking under its outstretched arms. It corrected all too quickly. Its fingers grasped Len's forearm, its digits hard as the coal in the tender.

With the sound of tearing fabric, Len threw himself over the side of the train.

He landed in a roofless ATV running parallel to the train. It lurched with the impact. The driver took one look at Len and leapt from the vehicle, causing it to swerve and fishtail. Len grabbed the wheel just in time to avoid wiping out. He stomped on the gas pedal, speeding back into the fight.

.

As water drained from the locomotive, the train shuddered and lost speed. Bandits threw grappling hooks and began jumping aboard. Their main target was the supply cars, breaking them open and throwing weapons, ammunition, and other supplies into the ATVs driving adjacent.

What few personnel had been awake and prepared at the time of the attack struggled to repel hostile forces on both sides. Alarms blared and lights flashed, as the defending reinforcements staggered from sleep, scrambling for clothes and weapons.

Adda made his way up the embattled train, gunfire pounding his ears.

"Could this night get worse?" He asked, of no one in particular. The answer was yes, as he encountered Maes.

"How did you – "

"Never mind me!" The boy was overwrought with thrill and terror. "The bad guys brought a monster! It was breaking the train and now it's chasing your scary friend!"

Adda stood for a moment, frozen. Maes, Len, or the train? He might be able to save one, but only by forsaking the others.

"Show me the damage."

Maes led him to the breach, climbing precariously along the outside of the locomotive with his magnetic gloves, while Adda edged along the footboard, clinging to the handrail for dear life.

"Be careful of the water!" Maes warned, putting his knowledge of trains to good use. "It's boiling hot!"

"Thanks!" Adda drew a piece of chalk from his pocket. The water was shooting out at a right angle from the engine's hull. Adda reached around it, enclosing the breach with an array.

He brought his hands together, and laid them on the train. He used nonessential material to seal the leak.

The train continued to slow, coughing and sputtering consumptively.

"It's no good!" The engineer, an older man with a busy white mustache, had climbed from the cabin to join Adda on the footboard. "We've lost too much water!"

"Can we spare any coal and make it to Point East?" Adda asked.

"Maybe some…" Said the engineer doubtfully.

"Bring me all you can spare."

.

The creature voiced its strange roar. For want of a moving target, it pummeled and tore at the train underneath it, but in that area did no vital damage.

That is, until a group of Amestrian reinforcements opened fire on it. Some of their bullets left pockmarks on its surface, but did no more than superficial damage.

Moving with uncanny speed for its size and weight, it broke the arm of one soldier and the ribs of another with a single blow from its fist. The third and forth emptied their guns into the monster as backed them into a corner.

"Hey ugly!"

A humanoid form clothed in the black and white fur of a honey badger jumped on the creature, slashing it with claws – that broke on a body harder than the hide of any animal. The stone monster seized the chimera and threw him down with a force that dented the metal roof.

Winded, he lay frozen as the monster approached him.

The train car rocked as something huge charged up it. A second chimera, enormous and grey, slammed into the stone creature from behind. Its feet scattered sparks as they skidded on metal. It dug in and pushed back. The chimera was larger, but the stone creature was denser. The train car sagged beneath the weight of their struggle.

.

As Len had never gone to bed, he was still fully armed. He lobbed a grenade into the first enemy vehicle he passed. The darkness flared red as he pulled away. Realizing their vehicle had been hijacked, another ATV pulled alongside Len's, opening fire from their mounted gun turret.

The train was passing out of the flat terrain. Jagged outcroppings of sandstone arched up from the sand like the skeleton of a dead giant. Len banked hard. The ATVs collided, forcing the other ATV's wheels onto the rocks where they were low to the ground, yet swiftly climbing. The vehicle capsized, scattering parts and passengers.

The fourth ATV was lost to Len's sight as the rocks drew closer and higher. Beyond him rose the largest yet formation, rising sharp and shear as a wall from the desert floor, looming ever closer as the train began to pick up speed.

The ATV carried a grappling hook and, using it for its intended purpose, Len threw it as hard as he could at the train. It caught. He leapt clear of the ATV a split second before it smashed into the rocks, sending a pillar of black smoke into the sky.

.

Standing on the handrail, clinging with one arm to some mechanical outcropping he didn't know the name of, Adda drew an array on top of the train. He formed a raised lip in the metal, funneling into a small hole in the boiler.

Meanwhile, the engineer, fireman, and Maes formed a relay line, passing coal from the tender to the alchemy-made funnel on top of the locomotive.

Adda drew a second, more complicated array around this. He knew nothing of trains, but he knew the chemical composition of coal: mostly carbon, but some hydrogen too. Bringing his hands together, he used the freely available oxygen around them, with hydrogen from the coal. Water blossomed in the funnel, flowing downward to replace their depleted supply.

The train ceased shuddering, and their speed began to level out.

Maes opened his mouth to cheer. At the same moment, he felt something constrict his arms flush against his torso. Even as he looked down to see a cable wrapped around him, a sharp tug pulled him from the roof of the train into empty air.

Adda and the conductor turned at the sound of his cry, only to see the boy being hauled into a retreating ATV.

Adda swore and reached for his gun, but his target was already receding into the darkness. And even if he were to get a shot on target, he realized, interfering with the vehicle would endanger Maes' life. He could only watch, helpless, as the son of Edward Elric vanished into the lawless wasteland.

Back on the roof, Len found Rhonda the rhino chimera locked in combat with the unknown monster. The train car groaned, warping under the weight of the stone monster and armored chimera as they struggled.

"You're late." Said Oz.

"Shut up and pull." Len thrust one end of the cable he had used to scale the train at Oz.

They swung the rope under the monster's feet. Len laughed, because it reminded him of nothing so much as children playing jump rope. But the monster was too heavy to jump. With Oz on one side and Len on the other, they pulled the rope taught against the creature's lower legs.

Other soldiers grabbed the rope on both sides. The soldiers pulled. The rhino pushed. Their combined strength knocked the creature's feet out from under it, even as the rope frayed and snapped. Everyone fell – everyone except Rhonda. As the stone monster stumbled, off balance, she gave one final shove. The stone monster plummeted over the side. She saw its body shatter on impact.

A moment passed in silence, as each registered the fact they were alive, and the danger had passed just as quickly as it had come.

"Where's the monster?" Asked Adda, poking his head over the top of the roof.

"It's dead." Said Len, still panting. "Where's the kid?"