Hey everyone! I hope you are all managing in the wake of this pandemic! Really nothing more I can say on the matter, except I hope your loved ones are staying safe.

Anyway, this chapter is not a direct continuation of the last; that will come next time. Rather, this is mapping out events that are happening with Al and the Freedom Fighters at the same time Ed is up North. Hope you enjoy this!

"Hello, Alphonse." The librarian said as she addressed the armored boy. "What can I help you with today?" Normally, the State Library was only open to registered State Alchemists, but the Full Metal Alchemist often brought his brother along.

"I have a waver from the Fuher; there was something Ed wanted me to look into while he was away."

The librarian skimmed it, and was satisfied with the contents. Handing it back to him, she said "Everything appears to be in order. What can I help you find?"

"I'm actually not quite sure what I'm looking for." Al admitted. "I'm researching history on chimera creation. I also am looking for chimera in myth, so a combination of the two would be helpful."

"Hmm." The librarian said as she looked through the listings. "I don't think there's anything that matches that criteria exactly, though we have books on both subjects. Any chimerical myths you were curious about?"

"Not particularly. But maybe you have something on kings of the world? Particularly on this continent?"

The librarian searched more. "We have a couple, yes." She said. "Though I don't think they had anything to do with chimeras."

"A certain diary says otherwise." Al thought. "I just wanted to verify that. If you could give me all of the books regarding Eurasian Royalty, and all recordings of chimeras, that would be a great help."

Al hesitated to ask. He never wanted to have anything to do with him again...but he needed all the help he could get if he was going to solve the mystery of the mobians' ancient past. "I would also like to see all of Shou Tucker's research, please."

The librarian's eyes widened. "Alphonse, that's-!"

"Please." Al asked. "It's important."

"This is INCREDIBLE!" Winry practically screamed. To pass the time, Bunnie reluctantly agreed to let Winry study her own mechanical arm. Winry eagerly lifted a panel on her arm, and she was not disappointed with what she saw.

And as predicted, Bunnie was instantly regretting this. "Ah think you've seen enough, Winry Girl.."

"Are you kidding me!?" Winry practically screeched. "I've never seen anything like this! The gears, the wires...this is like AutoMail, but even better!" She then went silent as something else caught her attention. "But what are these?" She asked as she tapped on what to her looked like tiny black squares. "I can't determine their function, but I know they're important..."

"Those are the microchips." Sally answered as she came up to look with her. "They contain data...sorry, digital information, and determine how fast and accurate power and information is processed."

"What!?" Winry shouted as her head darted back and fourth between them. "That's incredible! Sally, you must show me how to make these!"

"Maybe some other time. We're leaving soon." Sally winked at her. Winry sighed, but understood the hidden meaning.

Suddenly, Al came in, carrying a stack of books. "You're back!" Sonic exclaimed as he sat up from the couch. "Got what you needed?"

"We'll see soon enough." Al said as he set them down. "So, let's all sit down and study up."

Sonic yawned and laid back on the couch. "Well, have fun with that..."

"Hold on! You're reading too!" Al protested.

"What!?" Sonic exclaimed. "Sorry Al, but readn' ain't my thing." He waved him off.

"We need all eyes looking!" Winry said.

Sonic groaned. "Maybe when Knuckles picks up a book for once..." Sonic turned to see Knuckles, sitting down on the floor and looking through one of the books. "Wha-?"

Knuckles, immediately catching onto what he was thinking, gave him a dirty look. "My father taught me how to read. I keep the Book of Myths with me as a reference whenever there's a phenomena I don't understand. And whenever I'm not on patrol, one of my hobbies is reading in my den. Tell me, what made you think I didn't like to read, or was illiterate?"

Sonic desperately tried to come up with a response. "Uh, well, I, uh..."

"Sonic, go pick up a book and start reading." The echidna told him.

"Okay." Sonic said as he got off the couch, for once doing exactly as he was told.

For several hours, the group looked through the books. When Winry began to nod off, Al took that as a sign they needed to take a break. Closing his book, he said "Okay. Let's go over what we've learned so far."

The others stretched and yawned, even Sally being thankful to take a break. "Why don't you go ahead and tell us what you found, mate." St. John said.

"I started with the earliest recordings of chimeras." Al said. "However, it came long after Felicia's days, and they were usually a combination of different livestock, not a dog and a horse like Felicia's first. Nor did they mention any human combinations." Al had a brief flashback of Nina Tucker. There were a few times Al was glad he did not have a face. He feared if he did, he wouldn't be able to stop himself from crying. And now he wasn't sure if he had the figurative stomach to look at Tucker's notes.

"Al?" Winry asked. "Are you alright?"

Al snapped out it. "Uh, yeah. It's nothing." He didn't notice the skeptical look Sally gave him. "Anyway, if Felicia's chimeras existed, they were lost to history."

"Sadly, that seems to be the case." Knuckles said as he held up his book. "This encyclopedia on chimera creation and biology doesn't make any mention of beings similar to us."

"Seems we're at a dead end here."

"Then, maybe the Red King can help us instead!" Sonic suddenly announced.

Everyone looked to Sonic in confusion. "Who-?" Sally asked.

"I've been looking through the Glossary of Kings Al brought here." Sonic explained as he flipped the pages to the atlas the book had. "Though Felicia's diary never mentioned him by name, it was noted he was at war with Croit. A few empires were noted to be in conflict with Croit, but only one such monarch waged war with them before the first recorded chimeras." He then flipped to an illustration of a man with a red beard and crown. "King Minos of Laktara. It's said he ruled an empire that extended to the next continent east of here, and was about to overwhelm Croit. And by all means, he should have won from what little I could make of this."

"What makes you say that, Sonic?" Winry asked.

"I skimmed a paragraph saying his soldiers were thought to be 'inhuman'." Sonic answered. "For all we know, that could be very literal."

"And how did he loose the war?" Tails asked.

"It's pretty vague on that part, little buddy. It just says he gave up, and his dynasty crumbled after that."

"He had no heirs?" Sally then asked.

"He had a son, but it seemed he went missing." Sonic said. "However it happened, that's probably why he abandoned his war."

"None of that proves he was the King who coerced Felicia into creating chimeras." Al said.

"Maybe not, but that's all we've got." Sonic said. "The best way to confirm that would be to go to his stronghold."

After a moment of silence, Al quickly picked up another book. "Let's see..." he said as he flipped the pages. "His stronghold was Castle Crimson. Laktara is our next door neighbor directly east of us. A train ride and some hiking should get us there fairly quickly."

"Then that's where we will go." Sally said.

"Hold on!" Winry stopped them. "We can't just waltz into another country on a whim! We need passports, which takes weeks to get hold of at best! And it's expensive!"

Sonic sighed, throwing his arm up. "Well, great! Is there any more complications you'd like to bring up?" The two humans pointed at him, and by implication, the other mobians. "Oh." Sonic said. "Of course."

"Believe it or not, I don't want either one of you to get in any trouble." St. John said. "But somehow, we need to get to that castle." St. John brushed his hair back as he took all of it in. "Funny, I thought we had our origins figured out. But now, we've got to know. It...it could answer a lot of unasked questions..."

Al sighed, as he began pacing, thinking about how to approach this. "Have you ever been to Laktara, Al?" Winry asked.

"No." Al answered. "It never came up. All of our leads on the philosopher stone were within Amestris."

"But if you had to go there, could you?" Tails asked.

"If Ed were here, it'd be easy. He became famous, and I wouldn't be surprised if they heard of him..." Al's eyes would have lit up if he were human. "Wait a minute..."

Robotnik grumbled as he filled out paperwork the old fashioned way: by pen. King Bradley insisted it be done this way; otherwise, the senate would be asking more questions than necessary. "Perhaps I should 'invent' computers for this world as well." Thankfully, he was allowed to keep some of the technology of his world to customize his office. When he saw Snively on the outside monitor, he said "Enter, Snively." Snively did so. "Snively, it seems Mr. Elric's brother is planning a trip."

"I will make sure they stay here right away." Snively responded.

"On the contrary, I don't want them stopped. I want them followed."

"Sir?" The dwarf asked.

"It seems they do have a bit of a brain; they know of the creation of this world's first chimeras, their ancestors." Robotnik explained. "But neither of us know for certain anything beyond that. Not how we wound up on Mobius, the fate of that ancient alchemist...I'm curious as well...and would like to find out." Robotnik reclined in his chair and put his fingers together. "Send a squad of combots to follow them. In stealth mode. And send me a report of what they have learned thus far."

"Yes sir." Snively answered as he exited.

Al hurried along the hall, trying not to arouse suspicions. Making sure no one was watching, he went into the men's room. He quickly pulled out a note that Ed scribbled for him. "Look for our sign in the bathroom." Al looked through all the stalls, until he found a lone square with the symbol of their Alchemy, crudely hand drawn with a red marker. Al tapped it slightly; it seemed to be hollowed out, just like he said it would. The boy made a small transmutation circle, and felt the tile loosen. He pulled it out, and upon opening it, saw the minerals.

Al exited the bathroom, oblivious to the stare Snively gave him from behind. "What on Mobius were you doing in there?" Al would have no need of a lavatory. Snively went in, wondering if there was anything out of the ordinary. He eventually found the missing tile, and knew Al took it. "Why would he take something so mundane...?" Suddenly, he thought back to when Ed returned the desorganizero. "Ah. Seems about right." Robotnik said back when the ore was returned to him. Snively' s eyes widened. "He has a portion of the ore!" Snively was about to run out and scream to his uncle what he found, but then he stopped himself. His eyes narrowed as he sneered at the thought of the brothers using it against him. "This could get interesting..."

This will be a good place to stop for now.

Now, many of you are probably sick of hearing this, but we need to talk about the Mignonga lawsuit again. One of my reviewers noted that he or she felt it was too long and was better suited for a blog. Alas, I don't have a blog, but I will try to keep it as short as possible, and unless something earth-shattering happens between then and now, I'm unlikely to talk about this again.

Anyway, Vic went ahead with his lawsuit. Many predicted this would last a year or two and that ultimately a settlement would be reached. But in a matter of months, the judge dismissed all charges brought against Funimation, Jamie Marchi and Monica Rial. The case, according to Beard and Rekita, is being appealed. This is where it should have ended, but ISWV has not reacted very...maturely, shall we say.

So, what went wrong for Vic? Well...lots of things.

First and foremost, defamation lawsuits are very hard to win. Long and short of it is that in order to win such a suit, you have to prove the other party knowingly slandered your name. Funimation as a company never said anything beyond terminating Vic's contracts, so that was a no go. Marchi and Rial have been more or less consistent with their stories, and no one has been able to definitively prove they were lying.

Second, they chose to hold the suit in TEXAS. For those who don't know, Texas has very strong anti-SLAPP laws. A SLAP lawsuit is a suit that has no chance of winning in court, but plaintiff hopes to bleed the defendants dry. This has been a problem across the country, and Texas is one of the few states that have taken it very seriously (more likely in order to protect large companies rather than individuals, but that's a debate appropriate elsewhere)

Third, Vic's deposition. Now, for the record, court cases are rarely won or lost based on depositions, as they are usually just a procedure done before the case is taken to court so everyone has their story straight. But boy o boy, did Vic not do himself any favors. He corroborated many of the things he was accused of. Yes, he downplayed it and tried to present the said events in a way that were more "Hey, it wasn't that bad", but if you're going to court, the last thing I would answer when asked if a 50 year-old man giving his number to 14 year old girls is really okay? With "I see nothing wrong with that." Now, we can get into semantics and contradictions, what he really meant, etc. But it's clear whether intentional or not, Vic has been making several people uncomfortable for years, and just saying "It wasn't exactly like that" isn't good enough. One event that really made me uncomfortable was his whole schtik with the twins. Basically, he invited cosplaying twins, barely 20 years old, into his room, and revealed he wanted to have a threesome, dismissing his then fiancé to their faces, and even kissed one of them in an attempt to change their minds.

Seriously, with this ridiculous behavior, why is Vic suing again?

Fourth, what went wrong was his attorney, and his so-called legal advisor. Ty Beard was not qualified to run this sort of case, as he was a REAL ESTATE lawyer. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that there's a reason so many people specialize in certain things. It was reported that during the hearings, Beard made a complete fool of himself, the judge had to correct him on several things, and kept forgetting standard protocol. The one damning thing that the judge said: "The problem here is your claims lack evidence, and you have none." It got so bad that Beard's firm had to step in and have another lawyer represent Vic while Beard just sat and watched. Then there is Reiketa himself. Though he did not officially represent Vic, he was the one who contacted him, encouraged him to pursue the suit and claimed it would be a slam-dunk. Other lawyers who took notice of the case warned you this was not going to play out that way, and look what happened. Did nothing about this chud set off any alarm bells with you all? Like the fact he forwarded a letter to the soon-to-be defendants that read like it came from a 14 year old edgelord who found his dad's liquor cabinet? The fact that this man who previously had no interest in geek culture suddenly appeared on these other questionable YouTube channels for views? His blackface that he still refuses to apologize for? The fact that all lawyers not involved in the case pointed out the flaws in his arguements and questioned if he actually got his degree? Sorry; if there was ever a lawyer who had to be disbarred, he would be one of the first that comes to mind.

And finally, there is one more reason this suit went the way it did.

It's you.

Now, I hope I don't mean ALL of you. Between KV and ISWV, neither of the two groups were perfect. But ISWV was just something else. From people playing faux detectives, harassing the VAs who came forward, making this suit involving one man somehow be an affront on male rights, sending death threats/doxxing to both the lawyers who commented on the case and the judge, how did you think this was going to go?

Anyway, when all is said and done, it's, well...done. Vic took his shot, and he missed. Even though he and his lawyers are trying to get everyone excited with the appeals, I think even he knows that he's not coming back from this. Sorry, but you wanted justice? Well, you got it.

Don't play the game if you're not prepared to lose.

Well, this will be the last time I speak of this. Again, sorry I brought this up, but it had to be said.

Next chapter, we'll see what Ed is up to in the North.