Author's Note: I WILL NOT ABANDON THIS STORY

I LOVE THE REVIEWS

FORGIVE MY LATENESS

Chapter 32: The Path to Truth

Ling had never been in a situation quite as odd as this.

So to speak.

He had the funniest sensation of being inside himself, but himself was not quite himself anymore.

He was floating, fully aware of a frantic flurry of lost, mingled souls swirling around him from the bottomless pit below and wailing for release in their indistinguishable voices.

But then he spoke; a large, menacing face appeared… although it was not a face so much as a dark shape among all the squirming souls, with white voids where eyes and a mouth should have been.

"HAHAHAHA!" laughed The Situation. "I have you now! Your body is mine!"

"That's cool," said Ling, sitting cross-legged in the empty space. "I only request one favor of you."

"And what is that?"

"Become my friend?"

"… What?"

"Be my friend."

"I… I don't understand."

"You know, friends? I want to do what friends do."

"Like what exactly?"

"You know… we could have coffee together and discuss our feelings… watch movies… get our hair done… and have sleepovers at which we pillow fight and enjoy snacks and get murdered by angry spirits after disturbing their peace with a Ouija board we found in the attic."

"… Ah. Okay, kid, sure."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Wow, thank you! You may enter me now."

"Great, thanks."

The Situation emerged back into his new body's consciousness, vaguely aware of having forgotten some small detail of his life. Or perhaps, his whole life.

"My son…" said Father.

The Situation bowed before him. "I'm here to serve you, Father. Thank you for birthing me."

"Whoa, wait a second!" shouted Ed.

"What?"

"What do you think you're doing!? Give Ling his body back, you parasite!"

"Parasite?" The Situation's hands turned the deep orange of his carbon skin shield. "That's rude!"

"You'll pay for what you did to Ling!"

"He's fine. He's just a little… dead, that's all."

"Why you-" still trapped under Spam's giant paw, Ed squiggled harder than ever to escape.

"Stop that," whined Spam. "It tickles!"

Taking advantage of his newfound weakness, the Elrics started twisting and turning under the great squishy paws.

"Ah – haha – no, sto – heheheheh – stop that right - EHHEAHAHAHA-" Spam removed his front paws and brought them to his face, scrunching his large, fluffy ears over his eyes.

"Awwwww," said Al. "I just want to pet him, Niisan!"

"Urgh, you're just like Ling." Ed's eyes widened. "Ling!" He turned around to address The Situation, and then pointed at Father. "Didn't you use to work against this guy and his dirty military? Why aren't you fighting him?"

"Ha?"

"The Situation is born anew," explained Father. "Since I obviously did a poor job raising him the first time around, I thought I'd try again."

"That's barbaric!" shouted Al. "You can't just erase someone's entire life like that!"

"Yeah," Ed darted his eyes. "No one should ever use alchemy to erase memories from family members. No one. Not ever."

Al glanced at him and Ed avoided making eyehole contact with him… He recalled only too clearly having erased Alphonse's memory of their childhood cat, Seymour.

Al was six when he rescued a street kitten named Seymour, whom he loved very dearly. Al would sneak him into school in his backpack every day, transmute crude cat toys out of yarn and fabric for him, and spend hours and hours playing with him. But one day, Ed needed a subject for a cross-species experiment to apply for an alchemy scholarship at Central University, and he decided to try transmuting Seymour into a reptile.

Ed was not quite sure what he transmuted that day, but he would later suspect he had created an entirely new species. Seymour had the same disposition as before, but in the weeks after the experiment he developed scales under his fur, and hissed instead of mewing. Al learned to continue loving him, but after playfully scratching Al and sending him to the hospital, it became apparent that Seymour was highly venomous and some government officials had to come and take Seymour away. Ed needed to erase Al's memory for the sake of their friendship. Somewhere, deep inside his being, Al was still looking for Seymour.

"You won't get away with doing that to Ling!" shouted Ed, shifting the focus to the more pressing situation of The Situation.

"I'm afraid there is not much you can do without your alchemy," said Father. "Spam, hold them down again, would you?"

"Yes, Father!"

"Oh enough with this, already." Ed took out his pocket watch and opened it. The dim lighting of the dungeon-like room caught on the round metal interior. He wiggled the reflection on the floor in front of Spam.

Spam's ears perked and he tilted his head. "What is that?"

"Why don't you catch it and find out."

Spam smacked one massive paw against the concrete, then another; once Ed had Spam's attention, he directed the reflected light towards the wall and Spam bounded after it and rammed straight into the wall face-first. A few small cats spurted out of him, here and there.

"Niisan! That's cruel!"

"It bought us a few minutes."

"But Niisan!"

"He's not even a real cat, get over it."

"Am I not a real Gate of Truth, Father?" Fat-Ass had been nursing a sense of inadequacy a while now.

"Fat-Ass, your Gate is an infinite world of blood and darkness. That is a far cry from 'Truth.'"

The Situation looked at his hand. "Is this a fake tan, Father?"

"Oh for goodness sake." Father closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Spam, put yourself together and take the Elrics to meet King Bradley to sort them out."

Spam pulled his face off the wall, his snouted face cackling as it repaired itself. "Why do I have to do it?"

"Because you did not take out the garbage this morning like I asked."

"Are you suggesting I'm garbage?" asked Al.

"Don't be stupid!" Ed said to his brother. "You can be recycled!"

"Thanks, Niisan,"

"If you think we'll stand by while you use us as sacrifices and Ling as a leotard for your weird horrible brother-!" Ed and Al were escorted upstairs by the blond Amestrian soldier that was Spam.

"Where are you taking us?" asked Al. "This isn't the way to the Fuhrer's office."

"We're not going there yet," said Spam. He opened some plain grey door and shoved them both inside what was clearly the shower room. "You haven't kept up to speed with your nudity quota, Edward. You will have to take a shower."

"Now?"

"Yes, now." He slammed the door.

"… so we had to use Spam's core with all the cats as energy to get through the fake Gate to the real Gate," said Ed as he lathered his scalp with standard issue military shampoo that dried out everyone's hair.

"Wait, you used souls as a toll to pass through the Gate?!" Al felt appalled.

"It's not like they had bodies to return to."

"…"

"What, you'd prefer to share that armor with 400 cat souls? Wait, no, don't answer that."

Al slumped against the wall.

"Oh there was one more thing, Al." Ed now moved on to the conditioner. "On the way back to this world, I saw your body."

"WHAT?!" Al jumped up and nearly fell apart from the news. "You saw my body? Really? It exists?"

"It sure does! It wasn't rotting or anything, and it said it was waiting for you."

"Oh my god!" Al was positively giddy. "Your theory about our bodies being linked was right! That means I can go back to mine!"

"Yeah… but I gotta say, Al, that thing was really obese."

"I… what did you say?"

"I guess we know where all those alcohol calories went, huh, Al?"

Upon hearing this news, Al had to lie down, so saturated was his life with stupid.

"It's nothing a little diet and exercise won't fix, Al- AHHHHH!"

He ran out of the shower stall, nearly slipping on the wet tiled floor.

"What, Niisan, what is it?!"

"SHOWER SHARK!"

"What?"

"What is going on here?" Spam opened the door to see what all the fuss was about.

"Knock first! Knock!"

"What the hell is that?" Spam glared at Ed's lower frontal region while the shower shark flopped around near the drain.

"What?"

"That… those… whatever – what's the deal?"

"Um… you mean to say… Do you not have boy parts, Spam?"

"Boy parts?"

"You know… the parts… that boys have?" Ed was not prepared to have this talk with one of his greatest enemies.

Spam frowned to himself. "Something tells me I've been lied to my whole life."

Al shifted uncomfortably. "Spam, do you… uh… want to talk about it?"

"N-no…" He shook himself back to his senses. "I'm going to go downstairs and have an episode. You go ahead and find Bradley so he can blackmail you."

"Um, okay."

"Feel better."

"Shut up."

"I don't understand what we're doing here." Ed sat with arms folded in Bradley's office at the table with Roy and Al, both of whom purposely avoided looking in his direction. One of the Fuhrer's assistants went around the table pouring tea.

"And I don't understand why you didn't put clothes on, Niisan," said Al who was so embarrassed that he blushed a deep red, somehow.

"I'm a person of habit, Al. I usually take showers at the inns and take my time getting dressed without being pressured to 'meet the President.' Besides, best to get the nudity quota out of the way."

"You three have been far too comfortable," said Fuhrer Bradley darkly, walking through the doorway and sitting down to join them. "You especially," he added, glancing at Ed.

"I have to tell you, Fuhrer, I'm really glad that you don't do the whole 'plastic on furniture' thing like most other old people do. Really glad."

A vein twitched in Bradley's temple.

"Is this velvet?"

"I've gathered you here today to make a few things clear," said Bradley, waving away his assistants to ensure privacy. "One, you are sacrifices, and that is the only reason you are still breathing. Two, your loved ones are hostages. Three, I am a Homunculus. And four, your performance reviews are coming up and quite frankly, you are not up to scratch."

"I don't know which of these things to worry about more," said Al, agitated.

Ed stood up in a rage. "What the hell?! You can't just take people hostages and threaten our performance reviews!"

Bradley grimaced. "Please sit down, Fullmetal. Please."

Ed sat back down. "Do you have any idea how hard we've worked this year?!"

"You are not understanding who you are dealing with."

Roy gave Ed a significant look. "We were right in our suspicions about him being one of the ones behind all of this, Fullmetal. He is a Homunculus."

"Then how is he able to walk around in the sun like he does?"

"Now that you three understand how little power you hold, I trust that you'll stop your investigations and your meddling."

"Wait…" Ed frowned. "Does that mean you're not, like, imprisoning us or anything?"

"No, why would we?"

"Several reasons, actually- OW!" Al kicked his brother under the table.

"If that's all, Fuhrer," stammered Roy, "we understand completely and will be on our way."

He got up, and the two brothers did the same.

"Very well. Just one more thing."

"What?"

Bradley whipped out his sword and stabbed Al.

"Um… Is everything okay, Fuhrer Bradley?" asked Al after a ringing silence.

"I… I apologize. I thought I heard someone sneeze."

"Sometimes when the wind blows through me, I make strange noises."

"Ah. I do have my window open. It's quite lovely outside."

"Tell me about it," said Ed, stretching.

Roy stepped out of Central HQ into the bright morning sun with a deep frown on his face and a certain heaviness in his stride. He did not like the idea of Bradley using his subordinates' lives as collateral…

He wondered if his Lieutenant had already received news of her reassignment, or if she became aware of their current situation. But when he made his way down the stairs, he found Major Armstrong instead.

"Huh? What are you doing here? Where's Lieutenant Puffinkidney?"

"SHE LEFT, SIR. SHE SAID SHE WAS TIRED OF WAITING."

"I've only been gone for seven hours. How rude of her."

"IF THERE IS ANYTHING I HAVE LEARNED FROM SITCOMS AND ROMCOMS, COLONEL, IS THAT YOU NEVER LEAVE A WOMAN WAITING. OTHERWISE YOU CAN ONLY WIN HER BACK WITH AN ACT OF TRUE LOVE."

"I tried that 'winning her back' nonsense a while back. She didn't appreciate my efforts at all."

"PERHAPS PURCHASING LINGERIE WAS NOT THE IDEAL OPTION."

"Speak for yourself, I feel great."

"Colonel!" Liza Hawkeye came running up to them. "I apologize for leaving my post, sir."

"There you are, Lieutenant," scoffed Roy. "Off shopping again?'"

"With all due respect, sir, I'm on duty, and I've been standing out here for hours."

"INDEED, COLONEL. SHE REQUIRED A BREAK."

"Okay then, Lieutenant. I'll let it slide this time."

"Thank you, sir."

She could not bring herself to admit that she actually left to get a haircut.

"IF THAT IS ALL, COLONEL, I WILL BE ON MY WAY."

"Thank you, Major. Have a good day." They saluted, and he left.

Roy turned to Liza.

"Did all go well, sir?" she asked him.

"Not exactly… Did anything happen while I was away?"

"Yes, sir… It seems I was reassigned."

"As I feared."

"What happens now, sir?"

"I am afraid that as of now, Lieutenant, you are no longer working for me. I know this change will be terribly difficult for you, but you must remember- where are you going?"

"… So the enemy has eyes on us, and Winry is a hostage," said Ed, slurping down an ice cream cone. He and Al sat outside on the edge of a large stone fountain, watching other people walk by. Ed marveled at how anyone who happened to glance at them would never know of their dire predicament.

Al looked down at his own ice cream cone that Ed treated him to. The gesture was nice, but the melting snack was ruining his empty glove.

"Should we call Winry?"

"And tell her what? 'Hey careful of anyone following you or tapping your phones or sneaking photos of you'? She does this to other people all the time, she knows how to recognize and handle it."

"… I see."

"Hey what ever happened to that rat dog you found?"

"I think it slipped out of one of my joints a while ago."

"Ah."

"Niisan, why do you think we've been chosen as sacrifices? Along with Colonel Mustang?"

"I dunno. Maybe they want to throw us in a volcano to make sure we have a good harvest next year."

"But we only need one person for that."

"I know, I was joking."

"I don't want to be sacrificed, Niisan. I've already lost so much."

"I know, Al. We just have to keep moving forward. Like that time when we won the county fair corn maze challenge by transmuting doors through it."

"We didn't win, Niisan, they ended up banning us."

"The point is, Al, we got to the finish line. And no one can take that away from us."

"They took away our trophy."

"It would have burned in the house fire, anyway. Honestly, Al, you're not looking at the bright side."

"Like the bright side of the gate where my body crumbled into nothing."

"Finish your ice cream!"

Al threw it on the ground.

CHAPTER EPILOGUE

Spam approached his Father in the vast underground room that was their den.

"Father…"

"What is it, my son?"

"Am I… am I female?"

Father regarded him. "No, my son."

"Then what am I?"

"You see, Spam, I have created you to be the perfect shapeshifter, genderless and fluid. You are sexless, like an angel. Or a Ken Barbie doll, however you want to put it."

"Then why on Earth did you raise me as a boy?!"

"Because at the time before I created you, the interior designer asked me if I should make your room pink or blue and I was not sure. So in the end I flipped a coin."

"Are you out of your mind, Father?!" Spam threw his hands in the air. "You could have picked yellow!"

"Huh. That never occurred to me." He put a hand on his chin. "It is not too late to repaint it yellow."

"I LIKE THE PINK!" Spam marched out of there, distraught.

Author's Note: I think that Envy is originally supposed to be androgynous, but in my headcanon he/she can be either gender, or both, or neither... But poor Spam here was never taught these things.

Anyway-

To the anon who requested more boob jokes, I present you with this:

"Why are you pointing?" said one boob to the other.

"I'm not, it's cold," replied other boob.

:DDDD