บท 31: Chapter 31
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Full Details at the top of Chapter 28.
———
? POV
Ishval, An uprising in Reole and border conflicts in the East and West.
It can't be possible.
A massive transmutation circle. This is bad.
People need to be warned!
"Hello! Or should I say 'Goodbye'?" A voice from behind him said, He knew her.
"Leutnant Maria Ross, what are you doing?" Leutnant Colonel Hughes asked, as his hands carefully wandered to his pockets, "No, who are you?"
"Oh, how did you realize?"
"Maria Ross has a birthmark under her left eye."
"My bad." The person in the shape of Maria Ross said as she touched her left cheek and a birthmark appeared on it, "You just know too much."
Hughes chose that moment of confusion to throw one of his throwing knives right in between her eyes. Before rushing out of the room.
Just what are these things?
"Leutnant Colonel Hughes, Are you going to brag over your family again over the phone?" The receptionist at the front desk asked.
He quickly calmed himself down and said, "No, I need to call the president's off."
Does he?
For him to be attacked, someone must have been keeping an eye on him. The only people who knew that he knew the truth about the Philosopher Stones were the Elric Brothers, who discovered it in the first place; Major Luis Armstrong, who has no motivation to keep the truth secret; Maria Ross, whom they are trying to blame his murder on right now; her partner Denny Brosh, who is also far too low on the totem pole; and President King Bradley himself.
Among them, the only one with the power to organize such a massive conspiracy is King Bradley. He has to be the mastermind.
He put the phone back and said, "Sorry for interrupting you."
"Huh, Lieutnant?"
This is a massive conspiracy. But I know who I can trust. Calling a number through the phone booth.
On the receiving end, a voice replied, "Hello, this is East Area HQ. Sorry, I am not allowed to connect phones using an outside line."
"This is Lieutenant Colonel Hughes from Central. This is an emergency, so I am calling from outside."
"Please give me your identification."
"Ah, that's a pain in the ass." Ankle, Sugar, Oliver, Eight, Zero, Zero." He answered in haste.
"I've confirmed the code. Please wait a moment!"
"Hurry up; the military is in trouble." He shouted into the phone.
"And so are you." The Voice of Maria Ross, "This has become a real pain. No idea where Lust has run off. But put that phone down."
"Aren't we through with that already?" He said, while reading the knife in his sleeve and putting the phone aside, "You aren't Maria Ross."
"No, I am not."
"I can't die here." He turned around, ready to attack, but froze as he saw who stood there. He couldn't.
"You aren't going to stab your wife, are you?" His wife said, "Nice effects, aren't they?"
She pulled the trigger.
…
Nothing happened besides clicking.
"You already know that this isn't your wife. Why are you freezing? Do you want to die?" A male voice spoke from behind them.
———
Harry Potter POV
'I just came in time.' He thought, as he had disabled the gun with a spell,
"Who are you? Why are you interfering?" Envy, in the shape of Gracia Hughes, said.
Harry grinned as he closed the distance between them, grabbing Envy and pulling souls out of him. "Your hunter. Stupor."
It only stunned him for a moment, but that was what Harry wanted to accomplish. He needed time to absorb the souls inside of Envy.
His plan would only work if he was weakened; with many souls, Envy would just resist his magic.
That surprise attack was enough to overpower the Homunculus and put him to sleep with a stronger stunner.
"Phew, good that it worked. It would have been bad if he managed to turn into his big form." He said this as he put the weakened Envy on the floor.
"Who are you? What did you do to Gracia?" Lieutenant Hughes shouted at him.
"Nothing. Your wife is at home. You have figured out what is going to happen to this country. It isn't the first time. The last time it happened was in Xerxes. The same masterminds are controlling the military; this is one of them. He is a homunculus that can change its shape. But the top of your military is also involved. They have many spies." Harry explained quickly, looking at the phone.
Hughes realized what he was implying: "I can't do anything." They need to be stopped. What do you expect me to do?"
"I agree." Harry nodded as he pulled a dead body out of his inventory and put it on the floor beside Hughes. "But for now, it's better if you die."
"Wha-?"
Harry pointed his finger at the corpse and transfigured it into a copy of Hughes with a bullet wound in his head.
"They will know that something is wrong!" Hughes said, pointing at the unconscious Envy, "If you kill him, it wouldn't make any sense that I also died."
"Oh, I am not going to kill him yet. Legilliemns! Obliviate!" He casted as he modified the memories of Envy. He changed a lot of them, giving him the feeling that nothing was wrong with his souls and he was just running low on them.
He would get more back in the future from Father the Dwarf in the Bottle, the first Homunculus.
"I modified his memories. He believes he has killed you and just runned low on souls." Harry explained.
"Modified? Wait… Souls? What is happening?"
"These Homunculi are using Philosopher Stones to live. Oh, and I am a wizard." Harry said, "It's better if we leave for now. The military will soon be here. Reneverate!"
Envy was slowly getting back to consciousness. But Harry and Hughes were already gone by then. He just saw the dead body of a fake husky on the floor.
———
"Eliza… My poor Angel." Hughes cried from beside him as they watched his own furnery from a distance. "Are you sure I can't see them?"
"You know as well as me that they need to believe you dead." Harry sighed. This man had become very annoying. Once Harry had shared his plan with him and explained everything that was going on, basically the moment the ice was broken, this dude was bragging about his daughter. "They will be here soon. If everything goes according to plan, you will soon see your daughter again."
"I know, I know. But I almost died." He sighed as they waited while he was gushing about his daughter.
Knock, Knock
"Come in," Harry said calmly.
A massive man entered the room. He had a large frame of exceptionally sculpted and well-defined muscles.
His head is completely bald, save for a single lock of curly blond hair hanging from just above his brow.
His eyebrows, too, are bare of hair, and he sports a thick, blond handlebar mustache, which hides his mouth while accentuating his strong, cleft chin.
"Ah, Major Armstrong Thank you for coming." Harry nodded.
"I brought the people you asked for, Mr. Potter. I hope you are able to share the information about Lieutenant Colonel Hughes's death now." The massive man said this as he starred intently at Harry.
Behind two smaller people entered the room, well, normal-sized, but in comparison to the major, you could say small.
A clean-shaven young man with dark eyes and dark hair, followed by a pale-skinned young woman in her mid-to-late twenties with mid-back length blonde hair that is fastened up in the back by a dark-colored clip barrette in a style that resembles a bird tail.
"I see you brought Colonel Mustang and Lieutenant Hawkeye." Harry nodded with a smile. "Pleased to meet you."
"Who are you? And what information do you have about the death of Lieutenant Colonel Hughes?" The Colonel was clearly not in the mood for games.
The door of the side room opened, and Hughes came in and said, "Why so serious? You are acting as if someone died. I just knew you cared!"
All three newcomers looked at the perceived dead man in shock, while Harry sighed. Suddenly they were all combat-ready, with Lieutenant Hawkeye pointing her gun right at Hughes. "Who are you? What is going on here?"
"Do you have to tease them? They just came from your furnery!" Harry sighed as he chided the man in the glasses.
"Oy, don't blame it on me. You were doing nothing else with that smug villain look on the cheek. Stop acting so cool!" Hughes shot back.
"Stop this theater, and explain what is going on!"
"Well, thanks to the Elric Brothers discovery about the truth of the Philosopher Stones, I figured out a massive plot involving a nation-wide transmutation circle and the upper echelons of the military. But someone kept an eye on me and tried to kill me. If it weren't for Harry there, I would have died, but we faked my death." Hughes gave a short summary.
While Mustang and Hawkeye didn't know the truth about Philosopher Stones yet, Major Armstrong had been present when the Elric Brothers revealed the truth. "You don't mean to say... It can't be."
"Yes, the whole Central Army leadership is involved in a plot to sacrify the whole country in order to create a powerful philosopher stone containing the souls of all Amestris people." Hughes nodded.
"Wha…"
"Not the first time it happened. The last time it happened was in Xerxes. The same being is behind it once again." Harry added before he began to explain.
…
"And you are telling me the upper leadership is involved in this. For Immortality? Do they know the truth about Xerxes King?" Mustang asked.
"No idea. But they know that immortality is possible. Slave 23 is proof. And King Bradley is the Homunculi Wrath either way. He is an absolute monster. Wrath and Pride are both the scariest of the Homunculi, followed by Sloth. I have already taken care of lust and gluttony. Envy is not really strong, just troublesome with his shape changing. And greed has betrayed them. He is in Dublith right now and may be a potential ally."
"This slave 23 is still alive? Who is he?" Mustang questioned further storing the information about the Homunculi for further planning.
"Oh, you met his sons. He recently had a family. His name is Van Hohenheim; he is the absent father of the Elric Brothers. He has been working on a plan to prevent the Homunculi from succeeding for the last 400 years. That's why he had to leave his family."
"The Elric Brothers seem to always be in the center of this sh*t. So why are you revealing the truth to us? What are you planning, and what do you want? From my understanding, this has nothing to do with you. You can just go to your own world." Mustang said calmly, but he intently starred at Harry.
"Alchemy, Trade, and Knowledge. I want to learn alchemy; it would be nice if you could teach me, as a down payment for my help, the very basics for now; the rest I will get myself. Specifically from you after this is over. I know that you are planning to become the leader of this land. I want trade relations with my own and scientific information on weapons and different alchemical research." Harry requested.
"I see. What stops you from invading us in the future? You yourself are already powerful with your magic. But then you would have an army with firearms at your back too." Mustang pointed this out.
"The two of us can sign a non-aggression; these ones are binding through the universe itself. And if I signed one permanently, it would bind me for eternity. You just have a human life span, and it would be bound to you. Once you die in decades, your people wouldn't have to keep to it." Was the honest reply from Harry. His contracts were just too broken and useful.
"Hmm, if you can prove that these contracts really work, I will agree to them. So what is the plan?"
Harry grinned. "Isn't it obvious? We need to overthrow your government. And kill the remaining homunculi. For that, we need allies. You should keep your head down and secretly recruit the people you trust. I will recruit others too. I have already recruited Scar."
"The serial killer?"
"Yep, he is an Ishvalian. He was angry to hear the true reason behind the massacre of his people and was willing to work with you. Right now, he is trying to recruit his own people."
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