Yo! My first Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood story that's not a crossover! It's about time!

Summary: "Humanity has always been plagued by the seven sins, and now they have physical forms, thanks to that bastard. What if I fought fire with fire?" - Van Hohenheim.

Disclaimer: Me no own Fullmetal Alchemist. Me only own ideas for Hohenheim's Homunculi.

The tall man sighed as he studied his notes one more time. "The Dwarf in the Flask is going to kill everyone in Amestris just to be more powerful." The man crumpled up a map of Amestris in frustration. "I know he removed his seven sins from himself in an attempt to become the perfect being, and that the Homunculi embodiments of those sins are helping him along in various ways."

Hohenheim rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I can't fight against the Dwarf and the seven sins by myself. I need some way of getting allies that can understand the gravity of the situation and that actually stand a chance against a Homunculus."

A proverbial light bulb ignited above Hohenheim's head. "What if I removed my seven virtues to fight against his seven sins?" The man pondered that for a moment, working out possible kinks and flaws in the plan until he had a working solution.

Stretching out his hand, seven red stones pushed their way out of his skin and into his palm. "These contain a few hundred souls each." Hohenheim muttered. "Each set of souls inside a stone already knows what I want them to do."

He lifted his hand and the stones became surrounded by a reddish glow, before lifting off and floating away in different directions. "Humility. Chastity. Charity. Kindness. Diligence. Temperance. Patience. The ones gifted with each virtue will be specially prepared to fight against the Homunculi." Hohenheim frowned as one last detail occurred to him. "Of course, those chosen will be cursed with immortality." He commented sadly. "I just hope I won't break some family apart by mistake."

The stone meant for Humility drifted around aimlessly, trying to sense a human that would be a good fit for it. The search came to an end when out of all possible candidates to become the embodiment of modesty, it chose to merge with a soul anchored to a suit of armor.

Shortly afterward, the huge form flickered and vanished.

Chastity was the stone with the souls most able to co-operate and form coherent thought. Let's see, a good host for us would be someone wise, knowledgeable, and well versed with how the world operates.

The stone's path finally guided it to a southern city, where it sensed a human that would work quite well. Speeding up, the stone floated down a darkened street and into a butcher shop.

Charity had drifted with the wind until it found its way to an eastern city. It finally got its wish of finding a host when it found a young woman with brown hair, exuding the desire to give as she assisted an older man in serving food to his patrons.

Unfortunately, the woman fainting as a result of the merging earned the food place a bit of a bad reputation.

Kindness was slow in finding a host, but not for lack of trying. It stopped and yearned to help every single person it spotted, even though it knew it couldn't do anything until it merged with a human. It eventually made its way to a nameless hospital, the ultimate place of caring, where out of all the people in there it merged with a comatose woman.

Because her wounds were healed and the coma was solely based on her state of mind, the stone was unable to wake her. It took several months before she opened her eyes.

Diligence, on the other hand, was first to find its host, partly because it took the task seriously, and partly because it didn't have far to look. Its search was over when it found a young blond girl muttering 'gotta build the best auto-mail' in her sleep. Almost glowing with delight, the stone quickly found its way into the girl.

A dog's barking instantly alerted the girl's grandmother that something was wrong.

Temperance didn't really know where to look, so it followed Humility in the hope of getting lucky and finding a host with little effort on its part. Its luck proved strong when Humility vanished with a suit of armor, and Temperance sensed a perfect candidate in the form of a sleeping teenage boy in the same room.

Taking after its namesake, Patience floated around calmly, knowing that it'll find a host sooner or later. Its search eventually led it to Eastern Command, where a certain Flame Colonel was being urged to do his work by a woman who seemed just perfect for Patience.

The work never got done. Hawkeye fainted and Mustang shot up in concern, forgetting all about it as he sought to revive her.

Hohenheim's eyes narrowed slightly and the man looked up towards the setting sky. "It is done." He commented. "The last virtue stone has found a host."

He sighed. "I truly wonder if some power and the ability to perform alchemy without a circle is adequate compensation for being forced to bear the curse of immortality." He looked down sadly. "I'm afraid it might not be."

"WHAT THE HELL?" Edward Elric yelled when he woke up the next morning and noticed his brother with a distinct lack of armor in the room. "How did you get your body back?"

Al shrugged, bewildered. "I don't know, brother. I woke up and found myself back to normal. I haven't a clue what happened." He suddenly paled. "There's a mass of souls inside me. One is trying to explain what happened to me."

Ed blanched, partly at his brother's words and partly because the same thing was happening to him. "What the hell is going on?" He asked the entity inside him. "Why is Al back to normal? Why didn't I regain my limbs too? Why are all of you...?" He almost fainted when the entity told him what it was. "Wait... we have Philosopher's Stones inside of us? How could this have happened?"

"We were put inside you to make you better equipped to fight the Homunculi Sins." A male soul explained. "Besides you and your brother, there are five others who you must team up with if you want to stand a chance against them. For all intents and purposes, the seven of you are now Homunculi yourselves. The one who set this plan in motion has chosen you to be his Temperance. Temperance the Restrained, will you do what is right?"

Ed nodded, somehow grinning and frowning at the same time. "I don't like this, but I won't complain about having an edge over those Sin guys. So is my brother one of the Seven?"

Al nodded. "I'm Humility the Modest, brother."

Ed smirked. "That fits. So how did you get your body back?"

Al smiled. "When the Stone first merged with me, my soul was forced out of the armor. Then I was reunited with my body in front of the Gate, where three of the souls from the Stone offered themselves to allow all of me to return here. Truth said it was one each for my body, mind, and soul returning safely. Oh, and I can perform alchemy without a circle now, just like you!" To prove his point, Al clapped his hands and a wooden lance rose up from the floorboards into his hand.

Ed nodded gleefully, before returning into his mind to talk to the souls again. "One last question. Who was it that set this plan in motion?"

A soul seemed almost reluctant as it answered. "Hohenheim."

Author's note: Ok, I revealed Ed, Al, Hawkeye, and Winry as four of the virtue homunculi. A virtual cookie to whoever guesses the other three!