I twitch slightly as I see Edward duck into another alley acting like he’s being subtle. He has to realize that even if he crouches and darts into alleys he’s moving in clear view of the street right? If anything he’s more suspicious for running and rolling around…

The lizardman interrupts my thoughts, pacing back and forth on the roof. “W-we are here! We can go meet Greed now, yes? I don’t need to be cuffed with stone anymore, yes?” He holds up his stone handcuffs for me but when I turn towards him he winces and shrinks a bit into his hood again.

He stutters out a quick. “O-or not… I… I think I’ve come to like them. Let’s just keep going! Greed is downstairs follow me!” he quickly makes his way down to the building as I jump down beside him with Zig in tow. As we hit the ground beneath us Edward stumbles a bit catching sight of us jumping in from out of sight. At first, he looks slightly embarrassed, then he starts to turn red with anger.

As he storms towards us he starts whisper shouting at me. “You said you’d wait until morning!” He’s seriously accusing me of that now?

Turning between him and the bar I make a nod towards it. “And what exactly are you doing right now? Going for a night stroke without Al?”

He stops for a moment looking down at his hands then back towards the bar. “No… you wouldn’t understand. I’m his big brother… I have to look out for him. I don’t want him to have to do things like… kill… It’s my job to protect him from those sorts of mistakes.”

So he really did come out here to stop us. “So you came out here to risk yourself because of some stupid notion that because you are older than him you get to make all of his life's choices?”

He glares at me clenching his fists. “You don’t even know him! We barely know each other! You… he’s just a kid! So you know what? Yes! I’m here to protect him because everyone just… everyone else just doesn’t make sense anymore! So are you going to get out of my way so I can do this the right way or am I going to have to show you how much I’ve improved?” He starts to move into a more stable fighting stance while glaring at me. Aww, that’s adorable. He thinks he’s a serious threat.

Letting out a long sigh I’m about to respond when I feel several new pairs of eyes on me. My attention snaps to their directions, seeing several uniquely dressed individuals and a marked absence of the lizard man. “Shut up, for now, we have company.”

Thankfully that seems to snap some sense into him because he stops directing all of his attention from me and searches for things around him. Catching the sight of several men and a woman with a green tattoo moving out from around the beat-up bar.

A fairly short man wearing a white gi with sharp features speaks up first. “Bido says you're looking to speak to the boss… But something tells me you don’t have the best of intentions.” Huh, that must have been the lizardman.

He walks a bit closer to us flanked by a large man that’s close in size to Al and a short athletic woman with a green tattoo climbing up her shoulder onto her face. He takes a few sniffs and turns towards Zig with a confused look.

“Huh, you smell a bit like Martel…” Looking back at the girl behind him. That’s when I notice that the two of them are having a staring competition neither has blinked.

That’s peculiar. “Zig? You okay?” Concentrating I feel out for the Chi around me and all of them feel off. Like Zig but weaker, less pronounced.

Zig nods but still doesn’t take his eyes off the woman.

The man in the front puts a sword on his shoulder. His serious demeanor cracks though and he lets out a laugh. “Well? Are you going to come on down? I’m sure he’d want to have a chat with you too.”

They are a lot less… hostile than I was expecting. Edward also looks a bit confused sharing a glance with me. Before smiling smugly and strutting behind the man.

It wouldn’t hurt to follow them, I’m fairly confident in being able to fight them. If anything an enclosed area is an advantage to me, it would lower their ability to dodge stone. While a peaceful solution would be nice, I kind of want this to fall through just to shove it in Edwards's face. Is that bad?

As we start heading in Zig makes a motion for me to continue without him. What’s going on with him and that girl?

“You going to be okay Zig?” He just nods and it seems like she’s also staying behind to talk with her group.

He waves me off and… is he straightening his clothes? Taking a closer look the girl with the green tattoo covering her shoulder to neck seems like a sort of snake… all of them are chimera so maybe she’s a snake person? Do they have some sort of weird animal connection? Well, Zig has been with me this long I trust him to not do anything stupid when I’m not around.

I signal to him to be careful and head on down behind the others the hulking man flanking me his fingers strumming across the hilt of a hammer on his back. That’s an impractical spot for it… Not my problem though.

We cross hallways and many other chimeras in the halls. Some look more humanoid others look more animalistic with small features popping out such as horns or inhuman eyes.

Eventually, we arrive at a somewhat bare room a man with small sunglasses, spiky hair, and a fur-trimmed jacket smiles at us. Just from a feeling I know he’s the homunculi we are looking for.

“Hoho! You’ve certainly caused a bit of a mess haven’t you?” He walks up and leans down for a look at Edward.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“So you’re the full metal alchemist huh? I kind of figured you’d be older. Oh well.” He puts his hands in his pockets obviously not seeing us as a threat. Edward looks conflicted like he wants to argue but at the same time isn’t sure if that was an insult or not.

“Anyways, the names Greed. And I want to be your friend.” Interesting… he isn’t referring to Edward as ‘the sacrifice’ so that’s a step in the right direction. But he’s also named greed…

He seems a bit open to talking at least. “What do you want Greed?”

He smiles at me with a manic grin stretching a little farther than is likely comfortable. “What do I want!? I’m Greed personified! I want everything you can think of Money and Woman, power and sex, status, glory! I want it all! But! I’m not unfair, I’m willing to make trades for what I want. Just know that I get what I want either way so it’s better to hear my deals first.”

So he’s not connected to Lust and Envy?

Edward asks the question for me. “Do you know anything about two homunculi named Lust and Envy?”

He seems startled for a moment before his eyes land on Edwards automail arm and he takes a longer look at my face and automail arms as well before he starts cracking up.

“HOHOHO! That’s sure a blast from the past! I haven’t talked to those two in a century! It’s kind of a long story but suffice to say we don’t talk much anymore. Since you two know about them you’re either their lapdogs or…”

His gaze scans us up once again smirking to himself. “Or you’re both sacrifices. Naughty naughty! Committing the taboo, especially when you're so young. Well, I guess most people are a bit young to me nowadays.”

So he hasn’t had any contact with them… is he just here by coincidence then? He might be lying though. “What does it mean to be a sacrifice anyways?”

“Well, I could answer that, but, you’re going to need to make it worth my while first.” He turns towards Edward. “A little lizard tells me you’re traveling with an empty suit of armor that's about to walk around on its own.”

Edward slowly nods. “Yeah, he’s my brother. He’s only like that for now… I’m going to get our bodies back.”

“Oh-ho? Your bother? Isn’t that just special? In exchange for information on the whole sacrifice thing, how about you tell me how you did that? A soul transmuted and anchored to a suit of armor? Sounds like proper immortality to me.” He lowers his sunglasses to meet Edwards's eyes more directly.

Edwards looks at him confused. “You must be really out of touch with your ouroboros gang then. We had to fight a couple of suits just like Al back in the fifth laboratory.”

I can’t help but glare at Edward. What the hell? He just weakened one of the only chips we had to trade with him. If he knows where to get the information he could just go to them instead.

He looks a bit surprised. “Really? Huh, maybe your brother isn’t so special after all.” He frowns a bit seeming to consider something.

“How about this then. You sound pretty desperate to get your bodies back. How about instead of information on the sacrifices I trade how to fabricate a homunculus in no time at all for your brother's soul to inhabit. In exchange, you tell me how to transmute a soul to a suit of armor? Classic equivalent exchange?” Honestly… that’s a great deal. If Edward would tell me the details about how to transmute a soul into a suit like Al I’d consider taking the deal myself.

Edward even looked like he was considering it too. That’s when Greed had to open his mouth and just keep going though. “Honestly, I don’t really know why you’d want your original bodies anyways. Seems to me like your brother is perfect the way he is. No pain, no need for sleep or eating, and he’s a true immortal to boot! Oh well, you’re allowed to make your own mistakes.”

Edwards's glare intensifies as he grips his fist in anger. “That’s enough! Shut your damn mouth! Sounds great to you? Seems perfect? You don’t know anything about the hell he’s had to go through stuck with that body! And you want to learn how to transmute a soul? You think you understand that huh?! I’m not going to give you any-” I smack him upside the head with my metal fist making him fall forward and faceplant.

Everyone else in the room seems a bit stunned at that. Greed looks like he was getting ready for a fight but is now looking at me confused.

Edward looks up glaring at me as he rubs his head. “Shut up Edward, it’s a good deal.” I let out a long sigh before turning back towards Greed. “Sorry about that Greed. I’ll try to convince him to go ahead with it. Would you be willing to toss in the details on what a sacrifice means too? I might be able to teach a thing or two about alchemy in exchange for that too.”

Greed is stunned silent for a moment before finally breaking out into a roarus laughter. “HAHAHA! Now you! You’ve got a fire in you, both of you do! You know what? Sure why the hell not. So how are we going to do this? Want to do your transaction first before trying to get him to agree?” Greed looks down at Edward who’s seemed to calm down a bit.

“Sure, sorry about Edward. There are a few buttons that set him off.” I’ve got to make this deal work to learn anything. I doubt the other homunculus will be willing to teach us this sort of information.

“Huh, alright. I might as well make this work. Now just keep in mind this is a business transaction and don’t try to cheat me.” Greed glares right at me. “I don’t like to have my possessions stolen.” but just as fast his smile returns. “But we probably won’t have to deal with that! Feel free to stay here or go back to that place you were staying until tomorrow. I know you humans need a bit more sleep to work properly.” With a dismissal wave of his hand, he shoes us away and walks out of the room.

Edward slowly gets up and dusts himself off. Giving me another glare. “What was that for? He was insulting Al. I’m gonna smash that-” I give him a much lighter knock on the head this time.

This idiot… “He’s willing to trade. It’s a pretty good trade too. If we learn how they are made we might be able to better fight them in the future. There’s also learning about the whole sacrifice thing? Unless you’re okay with not knowing something potentially life-threatening to both you and Al?”

He looks shocked for a moment as he hadn’t really been thinking before gritting his teeth. “Fine… you have a point… but I’m going to kick your ass later. We should let teacher and Al know we are okay. I don’t want Al to come here and get hurt…”

As we head out of the base Edward has a small smirk. “I knew we could handle them without killing them.” Greeds not going to survive either way. I need to kill him for a quest but I might as well get something out of him first. Hah, I guess that’s my greed talking.

As we leave I feel out for Zig's presence and I can feel him with another on the nearby roof. So after saying my goodbyes to Edward I climb up to see what he’s up to. What I don’t expect is to see him making out with the snake woman we had just met as her body is seemingly twisted in a bone-crunching shape around him. Scales spattered on the parts of her face I can see too.

Huh, good for him. I guess there’s some sort of instinctual attraction between them. I hop down the building and head off to Izumi’s place so they aren’t worried when they find I’m gone.

Tomorrow's looking good. I’ll start learning what the hell is going on in Amestris. I might learn about their connection to this ‘father’ and how to make artificial life. If Edward would just learn to keep control of his temper I wouldn’t have to beat his head in so much for things to work out. Heh, I guess he’s going to want to spar tomorrow. I’ll make sure to not go easy on him.