Hello and Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone wherever you may be! Sorry that this took me so long to get posted, but I've been going back to school and now that the semester is over, I got back into this. I'm hoping I'll get my motivation back to keep going with this, because i've had fun writing it, and I've loved hearing from everyone; you have no idea how much you all mean to me.

Enjoy!

Chapter 64

I do not like the sound of that one, I thought to myself. Whatever "the Briggs Way" was, I didn't want to be actively involved. I'd be perfectly fine watching it from the sidelines, personally, but the General and the Captain had other ideas.

I got hoisted under an arm that was almost as thick around as I was and hauled up a set of stairs, having to strain my head around to watch the Elrics and Falman lugging huge gas tanks right behind us.

"I would like to point out that, even though I have no choice at the moment: I am very much against this!" I pushed against Buccaneer's arm so I could breathe and kicking my legs helplessly.

"Not a good time to struggle, missy." Buccaneer threatened. I just glared at him, but he had a point. If I kicked around too much I might end knocking one of the gas tanks and we needed the fuel if we were gonna beat Sloth.

I let myself go limp and managed to look at Ed from upside down. His eyes caught mine and he gave me a half grin.

"I am so over being man handled." I deadpanned, and Ed snorted.

We reached the top level of the fort and Buccaneer had Ed and Falman hiding in the rafters while he and Al stayed off to the side in one of the halls, the big captain keeping me close so I'd be out of the way.

We all waited, nerves tense, as the elevator dinged open and our big bad Homunculus friend slumped out, looking confused.

"Now!" Buccaneer shouted, and within seconds the monster was doused with nasty smelling gasoline.

"Okay, now what do we do?" I asked from my prison on Buccaneer's shoulder.

"Just wait girly." He smirked as the elevator dinged again, and all I could see was a huge barrel rolling forwards.

What in the seven levels of he** was that thing?!

"Move it you little runt!" Armstrong yelled, and with a bang that made my ears ring, the Homunculus was pushed back until he hit the railing outside, the shell in his stomach not even leaving a dent.

"We need one more!" I yelled, only to hear that we were out of ammo.

My mind raced to think of an idea, but Falman was on top of things much faster than I was. He whipped his gun out and fired a few round at the biggest icicle hanging from the roof, causing it to drop on to the Homunculus' head and knock him off balance. It was enough for Ed and Al to team up and kick him in the stomach just right to send him flying over the railing and into the snow several stories underneath us.

Buccaneer strode to the railing, taking me off his shoulder to then wrap me up in his big winter uniform coat so I didn't freeze from the wind chill.

And to think that just a few hours ago he was trying to kill me, the big marshmallow.

"That fuel is specially blended for the cold." He explained, walking up to be level with the Elrics. "It'll vaporize almost instantly, and as it evaporates, it'll sap his body heat."

"Ultimate and instant frostbite." I mumbled. "And with this blizzard, I don't think he's going anywhere soon."

"Very true, girlie. You're a smart little thing." Buccaneer said.

"I'm not as small as I used to be, I'll have you know."

"Oh please. You're still shorter than me." Ed scoffed, making me stick my tongue out at him.

Gen. Armstrong joined us not long after, and we all watched as the Homunculus slowly froze over and then fell, unmoving.

"You can sleep there until spring, monster." She growled at the hulking mass that would soon become a solid snowbank in a few days if the snow kept up. If we were this far north, I didn't see it stopping soon. "All right Buccaneer: take these three away."

*insert record scratch here*

"I'm sorry; say that again?!" I screamed, only to be slung over Buccaneer's shoulder again with my wrists tied together. Ed and I protested the whole way, but Armstrong reasoned that we'd only be getting out of this once we told her exactly what had just happened.

The only problem: neither of us really knew what had just happened.

I woke up the next morning shivering, which shouldn't have surprised me, considering where we were. What did surprise me, was that I'd managed to snuggle up next to Ed at some point in the night, which probably saved both of us.

"I don't know how my dad survived up here; this is miserable." I complained once I was fully awake.

"Your dad lived up here?" Al asked from the bench next to us. He'd found a book and was studying diligently, even if his hands were chained just like mine and Ed's.

"Yeah; my dad was a military man. He was stationed in the north right around the same time he met Mom." I replied, remembering Grandpa's stories of how my parents had met.

"Hey; you three sleep well?" The assistant doctor stopped by our tiny cell with two steaming mugs that looked very inviting, but the smell tipped me off. I wasn't really a coffee drinker; it was something about the after taste that put me off.

And probably a good thing I didn't take it, considering that it was 100 cenz.

"I'm a lot smarter than people seem to like to give me credit for." I snuggled under Ed's jacket and he just raised an eyebrow at me.

"It's warm; shut up." I mumbled, feeling my cheeks heat up. Plus it smells like you; it's comforting, is what I didn't say out loud.

"Did you find anything else out?" Al asked.

"We sent a party down to investigate the hole; they should be back soon. Also, Major Miles is at the hospital."

"Did he get hurt?" I was on alert instantly. I didn't see him get hurt during our brief skirmish with the Homunculus, but with the way things were getting thrown around it could've been easy to miss.

"No; he's visting a soldier who got wounded fighting Scar." The AD said, and the sound of Scar's name made my blood go cold. Scar being up north didn't bode well for any of us.

I still remembered our fight against him; while Ed and Al had been fighting him in the back alleys, I was trying not to get myself killed fighting Treachery or whatever his name was. My fingers found my bracelet and ran over the grooves of the embellishments. I'd been so terrified that either Ed or myself was going to die, and it had been a while since I'd felt that terror, not since Mom died.

"Hey, they're awake!" a few new voices echoed down the hall. They belonged to a few of the other Briggs soldiers, who stood next to our cell.

"We just wanted to say thanks for yesterday; you saved our buddy's lives." One of them said.

"Dad wasn't kidding; you really do stick together. I love that."

"Who was your dad, little lady?" one of the soldiers asked after a brief moment of silence.

"2nd Lieutenant Andrew Samuels." I said, and their jaws dropped collectively.

"Oh boy I think you broke them." Ed smirked at me.

"Shut your face, Elric."

"No, I can see it now; the hair tips you off. All those photos of blond or dark haired soldiers, and he's the only redhead." The AD said, breaking the silence.

"Just being the anomaly like always, I guess." I mumbled.

"On a side note, we just wanted to let you know that since you saved our pals that makes you our pals too, now." Another soldier piped up.

"Think you can let your pals out, then?" Ed held up his cuffed hands expectantly.

"No, we're not allowed to do that; sorry."

"Gold star for trying though." I patted Ed on the shoulder.

Armstrong sent for us not long after that, and her objective: having us explore the tunnel running under Fort Briggs.

"Oh great; I love going down deep, dark, spooky tunnels." I mumbled as we got saddled up and lowered down. We followed Armstrong's lead, Buccaneer flanking me and the Elrics.

"This is a serious tunnel." Ed let his gaze wander. The tunnel itself was perfectly round, not something that usually happened when a tunnel was being done by human hands.

"I still can't believe an intruder got so far through our defenses." Armstrong muttered angrily.

"Has anyone else made it into the fort before, sir?" I wondered.

"No, not in all the time I've had command here." She told me. "But once, nearly 20 years ago, a mysterious woman attacked the mountain guard; she stole food and supplies for an entire month."

I felt Ed freeze in front of me; the two of us had been saddled together with my arms around his waist. I had an idea who that "mysterious woman" had been, and judging by the looks that Ed and Al were sharing, so did they.

I'm not sure how long we rode, but eventually we got the order to dismount. Armstrong sat down and planted her sword in front of her, acting almost like a barrier.

"Now then, we're safely away from any prying eyes. You can tell me everything without fearing discovery. And I mean everything." She told us.

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

All I could think was that Winry was unfortunately involved. What had Bradley said to them that day?

I looked at the Elrics and we all came to a silent agreement.

"We need your help General."

I don't know how long we sat there as Armstrong processed our story, muttering a few keywords to herself, fingers tapping on the end of her sword.

The tension in the air was thick, and while it felt good to tell someone else what was happening, it still didn't make me feel any less burdened. We all had just unloaded everything onto her, and now she and Buccaneer and Falman were all trying to process it.

I took several deep breaths to get my heart under control as I thought about the fact that we had hostages involved, even if they didn't know it: Winry and all of Mustang's men, and I knew just from what I'd seen that the colonel would be devastated if anything happened to Hawkeye.

"We've done joint exercises with Eastern Command before, so I know Officers Hawkeye and Havoc, and I hate it if anything happened to either of them." Armstrong said.

"And . . . what about Colonel Mustang?" Falman offered, but Armstrong waved it off with a: "I couldn't care less about him."

"I like her." I smiled at the boys and Ed gave me a look that told me I'd lost my mind.

"Now the question is: what do we do next?" Armstrong gestured to the tunnel behind her. "What do you alchemists make of this tunnel here?"

I put my hand along the wall and ran my fingers over it; I could feel some kind of weird buzzing under my fingertips, but more than that, the tunnel wasn't completely straight.

"First thing: it didn't originate in Drachma." Ed said, pulling a map towards him.

"Secondly, just from what I got, the tunnel is curved; I'm thinking it's in a huge circle shape." I looked down the line of tracks under my feet and scowled.

"Why is that important?"

"It's all about alchemy; the circle denotes the flow of power and then the symbols in the circle denote how the power gets used." I said, kneeling next to Ed to look at the map. I borrowed his pencil and drew a big circle around the marker saying Ishval.

"Lt. Falman, I need you to list off all the major events in Amestris that were accompanied by bloodshed." Ed said, and once Falman started listing off the dates, I started to see a pattern, but I wasn't about to jump to conclusions yet.

"Recently, in 1914, there was the Liore insurrection."

Ed froze.

"An insurrection?" I wondered. Ed had told me (read: bragged) about stopping the fake priest in Liore and then the Eastern Command had settled things down.

"Then the Central command forces came in and after that, Liore fell to pieces."

"Oh no . . ." Ed whispered to himself, but forced himself to draw the circle around Liore.

"And then connect the dots . . ." I mumbled, and then all the pieces fell into place and hit me like a heart attack.

It was a human transmutation circle.

It took a hot minute for me to calm down after that; I'd retreated into the darkness and thrown up, finally staggering into the light of the lamp once again. Al gathered me up in his arms and the cool temperature of his armor helped me calm down a bit.

I had to tune out most of what was going on; I felt like it was the only way to keep myself from screaming. Al just let me use him as a comfort item the whole time the big kids were talking, which I was grateful for. If I opened my mouth again I was afraid I would throw up.

I didn't get back into the conversation until hoof beats sounded down the tunnel. Another Briggs soldier rode up and told Armstrong that she was wanted back at the fort; General Raven wanted to see her.

The name made me sit up with apprehension. From my days back in Central, Gen. Raven had always been one of the higher ups I'd avoided. He hadn't started to make me nervous until I was about 11 and starting to experience puberty, and then the subtle but lewd commentary had started up. Hughes had done everything in his power to make sure I was never alone around Raven, which I was grateful for. He either couldn't tell that I was uncomfortable, or he didn't care.

"General, there's one more thing I wanted to ask you." Ed spoke up, addressing Armstrong directly. "Would you be able to con some information out of General Raven?"

"What do you have up your sleeve, Ed?" I asked. He looked at me and gave me a sly smirk.

I was feeling okay enough to walk once I got some water in my system, but I still held tight to Ed's hand as we walked back up to the main levels of the fort. The previous conversation was still weighing heavily in my mind, and Al's too, because he spoke up suddenly: "Winry's apple pie."

"That's the first thing I wanted to eat when I got my body back. But now, even that might be out of reach."

"You'll have all the apple pie you could ever want." Ed reassured his brother. "We're going to get our bodies back, and the b***ds who have been messing with our country are going to pay."

"Hey, EJ, when all this is over, you'll have to make your grandma's spaghetti for us again." Al said, giving my hand a squeeze.

"Oh yeah; that stuff was good. I almost forgot about that." Ed muttered.

"You forgot the time we first met and you kidnapped me?" I said. Ed startled a little before turning to glare at me.

"You are never gonna let me live that down, are you?"

"Don't count on it; I'll be telling that story to your grandkids and they can all get a laugh out of it." I nudged the older Elric with my elbow. Ed just scowled at me and ignored the fact that Al and I were laughing at his expense as we continued walking.

"A different approach to eavesdropping, but I like it." I commented. Armstrong had gone off with General Raven into a separate room, and we'd rigged up a radio system similar to Sgt. Fuery's back at Central command in order to listen in. So far, the conversation was going smoothly; Armstrong mentioned our attack by the Homunculus, and flippantly said that the Elrics and I were up at the fort.

"Samuels? Oh, you mean little miss Emmaly Jasper." I shivered at the way Raven said my full name. "Yes, I remember her. It's been a while since I've seen her; I wonder how she's doing now."

"Oh I'll bet you do, you nasty old man." I mumbled.

"They said they came here to research living transmutation or something. I distrusted them instantly." Armstrong paused. "I thought about torturing them to get the information, but the thought of hurting those children . . . needless to say, I couldn't do it."

"She's a better actress than I give her credit for." I mumbled. She would've tortured the three of us in a second and not lost any sleep over it.

"But General, aren't you known as the northern wall of Briggs? Walls aren't so soft as that." Raven said. Armstrong just chuckled.

"You know General, at my age, most women are expected to have had a child or two; unfortunately, I'm well past that now." She continued.

"Come now; surely men are lining up to have children with you." The comment made me stick my tongue out and gag.

"I hate to say it, but like everyone else, I'm growing older, and my body is too. But that monster . . . it had an amazing body . . . An immortal body . . . like something from a dream."

There was a scraping noise and the sound of footsteps, and I couldn't believe our luck that Raven would walk right into our trap.

"What if I told you that soon, it wouldn't be a dream anymore?" Raven said. "Tell me General: would you be interested in a legion of immortal soldiers?"

Whoo! Now we're getting into the good stuff! I'm excited for this next arc and for all the interactions we get to see, and needing to go back and rewatch the series has just reignited my love for FMA to new heights!

Wishing you and yours a very happy holiday, and I'll see you all in the new year!

~~Sady Mordan