Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stepping back into Central City years after his last visit, Edward couldn't help but notice how much it had changed. It was a principle of alchemy that things ought to be destroyed to then be recomposed into something new, and that seemed to apply to society as well. Even though nominally there had not been any clean break yet, the fall of Fuhrer Bradley and the cabal of homunculi that had been orchestrating Amestris' history from the shadows for centuries had steered the country on a completely new trajectory. Old restrictions and oppressive rules were being torn down every day, and the results could be seen in the fabric of the city itself. The population must have grown two or three times since before that battle, mused the alchemist. New houses and commercial activities were being built everywhere, and business was booming. People would move in from the countryside, seeking new opportunities in a market that offered more of them than ever before. Still, if this was alchemy, it was shoddy work; the growth was incoherent, chaotic, and probably excessive. Going through multiple neighbourhoods of barely held together houses of bricks and mortar, or even more precarious metal sheet shacks, Edward had to wonder if this wasn't all a result of an excitement about promises that surpassed the city's capacity to deliver them, and whether people would eventually realise that and start turning back with their tail between their legs - or if the city, like the living being that it seemed to be, would eventually grow and adapt to welcome all and give everyone a purpose.

He also suspected that all this had to do with the reason why Fuhrer Mustang in person would want to see his old war buddy. When he'd been informed that there was a state grant for alchemy work Edward had not wanted anything to do with it initially - but it had been Winry, of all people, to convince him to give it some consideration, by going over and over the clauses of the call to make sure that this was strictly civilian work they were talking about. Alchemy for the good of the people, for once, though the document was rather vague on the specific goals of the project. Judging from how many uniformed and armed men Edward has encountered on his trip, the military was still an overgrown tumour that sucked up way too much of this country's lifeblood to very little purpose, besides being a dangerous hammer itching for nails to hit. Mustang being an army guy (well, technically Edward had been too...), he didn't expect as much of him in the way of disarmament as he would have done himself, but it was not like he hadn't taken at least some baby steps. Edward was sure that wrangling power away from a bunch of people with guns was an operation that had to be carried out with tact and caution, using the carrot more than the stick. In that sense, if he could contribute to an enterprise in which the taxpayer's money went to something that truly benefited the masses, it probably would make sense to do so. It wouldn't just do good in itself, but strengthen the legitimacy of such enterprises in the future and give political credit to the reformers' agenda. Or at least, so did the rational part of Edward Elric's brain claim it would work.

It was barely enough to convince the rest to tolerate working yet again with Roy Mustang as a boss.

"Hello, Colonel! How's life? Anything important happen?"

Edward Elric waltzed cheerfully in the vast office of the Fuhrer, his automail leg thumping loudly on the marble floor with its full weight, amidst the confused and somewhat scandalised stares of guards and aides in front of such a brazen breach of protocol. Knowing better, Roy Mustang, at his desk far in the distance, merely sighed and spun on his chair to face the visitor.

"If you wish to address me by my full military rank, it's General Field Marshall Mustang now," he said, with a smirk. "But I suspect you didn't suddenly grow a respect muscle since we last spoke, huh? That, or anything else."

The alchemist replied with a toothy grin. "Oh, I'm sorry, old habits die hard. Colonel's Colonel. With all this power, someone's gotta keep you grounded. If you're the king, I'm willing to play the jester."

"I remember reading that kings sometimes also kept midgets," said Mustang, without losing a beat. "Know any, Fullmetal?"

"Ha-ha. That's two, now. Petty insults are below you, Colonel."

"But not below you, it seems, which rather drives home my point."

Guards seemed genuinely puzzled and waited with bated breath - many of them had been around enough to remember when saying much less to the Fuhrer's face would earn you a one way trip to the gallows. This was a new, more liberal era, to the delight of some and the chagrin of others - but still, they mostly expected the supreme leader of the nation to have the rude interloper kicked out, at the very least.

"Well, that's enough pleasantries I'd say," said Mustang instead. "Leave us alone. This meeting will be classified."

Some of the men and women from the security detail raised an eyebrow, but very professionally they didn't show any other signs of surprise or disapproval and simply marched orderly out of the door, closing it behind them. Edward and Roy remained alone in the office, and the younger alchemist took a seat in front of the desk.

"I'm going to get right down to business and assume you don't invite for a classified chat every single applicant to your alchemy grant, do you? I thought you'd have better things to do with your time."

Mustang sighed. "You thought well. This meeting is taking a big enough toll on the schedule as is; but the work is classified. Have you ever heard of Project Persephone?"

The other man frowned. "First time I do."

"Then at least the participants are half good at keeping their mouth shut. I'll give you the long and short of it, and be well aware that any of the following information is classified as Top Secret, you are barred from disclosing it to anyone without adequate clearance unless given explicit permission, penalties apply, you know the drill from your days as a State Alchemist I'm sure. Any objections?"

"If this has anything to do with weapons or-"

"It doesn't, it's strictly civilian work, precisely as the grant implied."

The other seemed puzzled but nodded. "Then it's fine, I guess. I just can't imagine why the secrecy."

"I'll get there. Have you read the works of Salthum? Populations and Sustenance, in particular?"

"I remember skimming it back in the day, but it wasn't directly relevant to alchemy, so I didn't study it in depth. Is that the one in which he outlines the idea that populations grow exponentially but agricultural production is bounded to only grow linearly, and so eventually the former must surpass the carrying capacity of the latter, and everyone will starve?"

"Precisely." Mustang put his hand under the desk, producing one copy of the book and pushing it towards Edward. "As many critics have pointed out, Salthum's apocalyptic forecasts haven't often come to pass as a multitude of other factors have intervened - either innovations in agriculture or alchemy, or drastic population reduction due to wars. However, it's not like the core principle isn't necessarily sound - just simplistic. Absent all other factors, population could indeed outstrip food production."

"Is that what is happening?" inquired Ed. "I know food prices have been rising, but-"

"It's a long term worry, for now, but yes, it is a worry," replied Mustang. "Too many things have changed, too quickly, I'm afraid. Father had kept the entirety of western alchemy under its heel - quite literally. He both provided us with a trickle of innovations from his considerable depth of knowledge as they were needed, and shut us out from most of the Earth's subterranean flow of energy. With his defeat, all that has been upended. Alchemy has achieved a boost in power and popularity, but the biggest boom has been in medical technology, both because it's the one that people are most willing to pay for upfront, and because of our renewed relationship with Xing, which has a wealth of expertise on the matter. As a result, child mortality is down by 30%, and population has grown even faster than ever during the last years. I've been pushing reforms to the country's old restrictions on movement, but that comes at a price - the countryside is emptying as everyone flocks to the city, seeking new opportunities."

"Careful, Colonel. You almost sound regretful there. I'm still holding onto your 520 Cens."

"With inflation going as is, those might soon not be worth anything at all. Don't be daft, Fullmetal; I know very well this is the price to be paid on the path to making the country democratic. But it would be foolish to deny that it is a price. The shock is major. Demand for food is at an all time high just as offer is crashing. Normally, a Salthumian crisis is averted because some new technology catches up and makes production easier and cheaper. But we don't have large agricultural giants that can invest significant capital in such research and take the associated risks, and even then, they would only do so after prices have gone up enough that it's worth their while. And then it would still take some time to see results."

"You're saying people would starve?"

"I'm saying people would have to spend half their salary to put bread on their table. Countries have fallen over less. If it came to the worst, some less liberal figure than me might emerge in the military to exploit that discontent and ride it to this office. That puts me in front of a firing squad, and this country back on the road to military dictatorship. As much as you'd enjoy the former, I'm sure you'd be less happy with the latter."

Edward nodded, now deadly serious.

"So, we've put together a team of alchemists expert in biology and life-sewing, secured a nice location with fertile terrain in the Eastern territories, and launched Project Persephone. We're putting a lot of funding towards developing new agricultural techniques to improve food production. The project has a five years scope; we'll renew it if necessary, but I hope it won't be. If anything good comes out of it, we will support any researchers who developed the relevant innovations in putting up their own company to mass produce it and sell it. That's the prize, salary and glory aside."

"I don't really care about that kind of thing," replied the alchemist. "And you know full well I can't do… practical work any more. Why are you even involving me?"

Mustang scoffed. "Because you're the most well-versed researcher in the theory of biological alchemy that I know of, besides perhaps Alphonse, and his links with Xing made him a hard sell politically. Because you've personally glimpsed beyond the Gate of Truth more than any other person alive, me included. Because most of the researchers are actually former bio-weapon specialists from the old regime, and I need someone I can trust to provide some ethical oversight. Take your pick."

"Would be bad if someone used alchemy to do something horrible like in Ishval, huh?"

"You really have no filter, Fullmetal," said the other, coldly. "Yes, that is why I'm trusting you with this job. Even more than I'd trust myself, assuming I had the time to take it over personally, which I don't."

Edward sat back and sighed, slouched against the chair, his gaze on the ceiling while lost in thoughts. He was not keen to take on more heavy duties and responsibilities; he had done his part to protect the country ten times over, and no one would have blamed him for wanting to live quietly and research the rest of his days. Well, no one but himself - especially if the prophecy of famine and chaos that Mustang was laying in front of his eyes actually came to pass. And it's not like he was being asked to go to war. This was just a job, same as what he did every day for a living - only far more impactful.

"You're asking me to go to a bunch of alchemists who can actually still, you know, perform alchemy, and be the teacher's pet who scolds them if they do something naughty. They won't like it," said Edward. "Heck, I won't like it."

"I'm hoping whatever cred you have gained with them by being the hero who saved this country and all makes it more tolerable," replied Mustang. "And I know full well that you would lose your wits if I put you in a purely administrative job. I am actually counting on you getting directly involved in whichever research you think suits your talents best, and having an advisory role all around. But when push comes to shove - yes, you are to be an overseer, and if someone doesn't like it they can bring their grievances to me directly."

"And where and for how long should I perform these duties?"

"As long as needed. I can't disclose you the location before you accept, but rest assured, it's a nice enough place. Plenty of clean air, green countryside and peace."

"Right, and what about Winry? She's got customers in Resembool - and I'll remind you we have a kid that I already don't see quite often enough."

"Perfect chance to spend more time together, then. She can come with, we have houses for the researchers' families. And she'll find plenty of work; some of the manual work in the fields is dangerous, and some researchers are veteran State Alchemists. Plenty of automail to repair. Or if she's interested, there's a branch of the project looking into mechanics and automation. And as for the salary..."

Mustang picked up a scrap of paper and a pen and scribbled something, then passed it to Edward. The younger alchemist took a look at it, rubbed his eyes, looked at it again, then put it down. He passed his hand through his blonde hair, ruffing it up, then sighed again.

"You've set quite the trap, Colonel," he said. "You knew I wouldn't be able to say no."

"What, money is what gets you at the end?," the man smirked. "You, of all people, Fullmetal?"

"Money for stuff I would regret I'd never take. Money for good work..."

He trailed off.

"Guess the best traps are the ones you have to walk in even knowing they're there," he mumbled.

"Only kind I ever lay," confirmed Mustang with a smile.

"Very well." Edward's face set on a serious expression. "Condition one, if Winry's not ok with it, I won't take the job. Condition two, I want a veto right."

Mustang frowned. "Veto?"

"If you trust my judgement so much - over your own, your words, Colonel - then you'll give me full power to terminate any project I don't deem ethical, at my sole judgement, without recourse."

"Fullmetal, do you realise how much money and work has already-"

"Without recourse. If you trust me, you know I won't use this to shut down anything I just believe to be stupid or unlikely to work. But I won't accept being complicit in anything I couldn't live with. I hope I won't need to use this at all."

This time it was Mustang's turn to sigh. "Very well," he said in the end. "You'll have it."

"Then we have a deal." Edward extended his hand, and shook Mustang's with a cocky grin. "Congratulations, Colonel, seems like you managed to enlist my help in saving this country… again."

The Fuhrer of Amestris made a desolate face. "Heavy is the head that wears the crown."

"Then maybe the king should toss it and melt it in a furnace."

A hint of genuine annoyance crept on Mustang's face. "I'm trying, Fullmetal. Don't think you could do my job better than me without having been in my shoes."

"What, are you offering me a promotion already? Man, this job interview is going great!"

The other was about to answer, then he decided to act as befitting his age and role and let it go, for once. He even lasted right until Edward was opening the door, and about to leave the office.

"You know, Fullmetal," he said, lazily. "Technically, I could have you shot for your insolence."

"That's the problem there, you shouldn't," replied back the other. "There's an idea for a reform. Cheap and easy. See? I'm already doing better than you!"

And he left, closing the door behind him. Mustang took a hand to his forehead and sighed, as if nursing a headache. He paused for a long moment.

Then he slid a sheet of paper with the Fuhrer's Office Crest from the stack on his desk, picked up his pen, and started writing down:

EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 345 - ON THE CRIME OF LESE-MAJESTY AND ITS PUNISHMENTS

The Shadwell Agroalchemic Research Centre was, by design, not easy to reach, but Edward had to admit Roy had not lied to him when he'd said it was a nice place. It was nothing like the Resembool countryside he was used to; they were further north, here, and the first reliefs that went on to eventually grow into the massive Briggs Mountain started in this area. They were far from the icy, sharp rock faces upon which General Armstrong ruled as a queen, though; these were older and had been shaped by the erosion of wind and water as much as they had been by the powerful push of the Earth's mantle. Just looking at them, Edward could see it, the cycle of destruction of the crust, its rebirth as massive forces extruded rock upwards, its shaping and transformation by the elements and by the life that had grown on them and made them into their home. That, too, was alchemy.

"Almost there, guvnor!," called out the cart driver, as they turned one more vertiginous twist in the mountain road that would have been all but suicide to try to travel by car. Alchemical musings aside, Edward was mostly preoccupied with the way his luggage, including some rather fragile instruments, was being rattled by the road, and the way his ass and the automail leg joint had gone really sore from all the bumps, but even so, he did forget it all for a moment at the sight. The Centre was not a single building, but rather, a sort of village, laid out all the way from halfway up one of the less steep mountains, down into a glacial valley into which a crystalline river flowed. The entire area was covered in fields; the valley shone with the gold of grains and other cereals whereas the mountainside was terraced and seemed to be occupied by vineyards and fruit trees. According to the briefs, this particular region hosted some unique microclimates; in winter, dry and hot hair would blow from the eastern desert, making the valleys much warmer than they had any right to be at this latitude. That peculiarity, together with its remoteness, had it picked as the site of choice for the project; it was apparently possible to get as much as three crops per year if one timed the sowing properly with the climate forecasts, which meant research would get feedback and proceed much faster.

Even once in sight, it took another forty minutes or so for the cart to finally come to rest next to the Centre's main residential village, a collection of small prefabricated houses collected around a couple of streets and nestled in between two mountain slopes. Seeing them made Edward think again about how much fun he would have going up, and down, and up again them, day in day out, in the next months or years. It was enough to made him wish he hadn't been quite so principled and gotten back his organic leg when he had the chance. Well, at least he had gotten fitted with an aluminium automail model to come here; turns out that had been the right choice, as he'd need the lightness more than the robustness. He was getting down the cart when someone came towards him, greeting him in sweeping arm movements. It was a young woman, of twenty at most, with eyes and skin that betrayed a mixed Ishvalan ancestry. She was wearing a simple practical getup, shirt and jeans caked in mud, and if not for the little name tag hanging from a lanyard at her neck Edward would have just assumed her to be a local farm worker. The tag read 'Ara Hirom'.

"Professor Elric!," she greeted him, waving excitedly. Edward felt a bit tired just at the sight, which then immediately struck him as the most stereotypical possible old man thing to feel.

"I don't have any teaching job," he replied. "Edward is fine."

"...Doctor Elric?," tried the girl. Edward was about to object that he didn't have a doctorate either - his education had been somewhat unconventional - but in the end decided to roll with it, he'd earned that much.

"Sure. You're Ara, right? Are you a researcher here?"

"Just doing a student internship, doctor," she replied. "I'm one of a group of one hundred that has been offered the chance to work at the project as support for our dissertation work. We move things along here!"

"I can see that," said Edward, eyeing again her getup. She looked like she had been working the fields not five minutes ago. "They sent you to welcome me?"

"Oh, uhm, in a sense," she replied, suddenly fidgeting in a fit of embarrassment. "I'm going to be your assistant for your time here."

"Is that so." Edward considered the young woman. Student not yet out of college, probably could barely transmute a stone cube into a ball, and from the looks of it her job here involved less alchemy than manure shovelling. That she was his designated assistant spoke volumes of what the higher ups at the project thought of him and how cooperative they would be. Still, they might actually have done him a favour. A young student that might still turn out to be an incompetent was always better than an old researcher that has already removed all doubt.

"All right, let's get going then, Ara," he called out, picking back up his luggage. "I'd like to see where I can leave my stuff, change and have a shower. Then we can tour the facility."

The lodgings turned out to be fine - a nice little thatched roof cottage with enough room for a family, a good kitchen and a back garden. Edward was relieved to see that, as it meant hopefully that Winry and little Maes would be happy with it too. After a short break to freshen himself up, though, Edward had to face his first impact with reality, which at the Research Centre took the form of many, many, many steep mountain dirt paths and stairs carved into the rock. He sighed and suffered it stoically like a true war veteran; through all of it, he had with him the chatter of an overly excited and barely restrained Ara, who seemed overwhelmed by his double status as both somewhat reclusive celebrity scientist and national hero. Truth was, Edward didn't mind much; the girl still knew how to be polite and not too nosy, and it could not be said that he ever minded a bit of worship. He answered her questions, retold some old stories, and they had a pleasant enough chat in the long stretches between one facility and the next, where they usually stopped the old times talk to instead go over the science at hand.

There were a lot of facilities. There were three different terraced tiers of fields, stationed at different heights along the mountain's flank (and Ara assured Edward that equivalent terraces existed on the opposite side of the valley, which he had no wishes to personally go check). The fields were split in patches and used for all sorts of experiments. Most of them involved some kind of chimerization, but some were instead experiments with novel fertilizers or soil alchemy. Edward got almost nauseous at the sight of the grapevines that could rearrange themselves for maximum solar exposure thanks to octopus tentacles grafted in place of their tendrils and was then relieved to see a simple patch of potatoes whose soil had apparently been transmuted to super-charge their growth. As it turned out, hearing the researcher working on those fields, neither worked fantastically. The octopus vines were short lived due to an incompatibility in the environmental needs of their respective parts, as the tentacles needed salt water to not shrivel, and the rest of the plants needed a distinct lack of it for the very same reason. So they never paid off their original investment in effort, which the creator apparently planned to overcome via some clever and sophisticated alchemy and Edward was pretty sure would never work out because the idea was obviously just stupid. Meanwhile, the potatoes might have been more promising, if only the special soil wasn't even friendlier to certain microorganisms that had a particular taste for them and had laid waste to every attempted crop yet.

Besides the fields, there were the labs, some clustered in a fenced location a bit above the village, but many built in loco near the agricultural facilities to provide support when needed. Edward visited those too, finding all the usual trappings inside, many of which he was deeply familiar with, though some models of multi-layered alchemical armillary spheres for parallelized transmutation caught his attention, as they were a fairly new innovation and he had still never seen one of those in person. The equipment was certainly top of the line, which he was not very surprised by. Obviously, Mustang was placing a lot of expectations on this place, and the funding was proportional.

Finally, there were stables and animal pens. This part was the one that worried Edward the most, and his worries weren't allayed when Ara recommended that he brace himself given his previous experience with the octopus vines. Truth was, Edward had seen some truly fucked up things back in the day; but as his life got more normal and he settled in the role of a husband and father simply researching theoretical alchemy with pen and paper, they had grown rather distant in his memory, and as they did, anything that reminded him of them tended to have a worse and worse impact on him. Even just the sight of the blood when Winry had delivered Maes had sent his head spinning and rendered him useless, which he felt quite ashamed of, given that he'd once found himself waddling in a literal sea of it. But the truth was, his head was full of memories he wanted less and less a part of and that sometimes reared their ugly heads, and whatever lay inside this huge stable he was being led into, he suspected, would likely trigger them. But then again, work was work, and he had accepted this one. Edward took a deep breath and stepped in.

At first, besides the indeed quite nauseous stink of piss and manure, it all looked fairly normal, though very different from the small farms he was used to. Pigs were hosted in small cages on the sides of the stable, held on multiple layers. But when Edward's eyes got used to the darkness, he started realising something was wrong. The cages were way too small and tightly packed, even if you assumed that they weren't meant to leave the pigs any room to move. Some pigs made an insufferable noise, erupting in prolonged squeals and oinks that blended together in a violent cacophony. Others simply looked lethargic instead, and upon closer inspection, many bore the signs of fever and infection, with reddened and glazed eyes. And there was a sweet smell of putrefaction mixed in with the rest. Looking at one of them, Edward finally realised what was wrong - what alchemy had accomplished here.

"Oi, Ara, is that a guest?," asked loudly another young man, who walked in carrying a bucketful of feed. The girl signed to him to pipe down, and he got the drift.

"Oh, sorry, doctor!," he greeted, putting his bucket down next to Edward. He put his hands on his side, looking with satisfaction at the animals. "What do you think of our piggies?"

"They have no legs," said Edward, flatly. "Makes for a more efficient farm, I guess?"

"Hah, you got it, doc. You're as clever as they say I guess," replied the other, casually. "Yeah, that was the idea. Got it done by transmutation when they're just piglets, so they don't scar or anything. Just, poof, no more legs. They give all sorts of problems, though, in practice."

The man nodded. "Let me guess. They get sores on the underside?"

"Yup. Wish we had someone like you to warn us beforehand. This batch you see here was the first one, and even after we learned our lesson, they just never fully recovered. Now we need to turn them around one by one by hand periodically, so they don't get them too quick. We were actually thinking of building some kind of mechanical system to - hey, now that I think about it, wasn't your wife an engineer, doc? Is she coming over?"

"She'll come with our son in a month," explained Edward. "But there's no shot that will work. I know how much those mechanisms cost, and how much maintenance they require. No way it'll save you more than just putting regular pigs in a slightly bigger cage."

"Hm, might be true. Figures. Well, we'll sort it out. We have faith that our pink potatoes here can push meat production up by 30%, Cens per Cens."

The alchemist shook his head, and reached out with the hand to touch the snout of one of the closest pigs. It looked like - well, it didn't look like anything that would usually count as alive.

"Can't you find a way to just remove their brains too?," he said. "They wouldn't suffer. And the brain takes a lot of nutrition."

"We tried. Doesn't stick, unfortunately. Turns out they need most of it to run properly their heart and lungs and stuff. We've been experimenting with transmuting away specific lobes though, see if that works."

When he had entered the stable, Edward had expected to feel disturbed or nauseous at the sight of whatever was inside, but now, he actually just felt saddened. He was reminded of a different memory - a rabbit that he'd held in his hand, feeling its warmth right before he had snuffed it out with a sharp cut of a knife, because he needed to eat, to survive. He had discovered something back then, a sense of oneness, of the vast complex network of interaction connecting all of the world together, and that glimpse had stayed with him throughout all these years as his best intuition on the true meaning of alchemy. He did not think anyone could feel the same here, though rationally speaking, there was perhaps not much difference; something wanting to eat, and something else paying the price for that. A cruel price, but let it not be said that Nature ever shied away from being all too cruel as well. Humans, in this sense, had nothing if not a great teacher.

He did consider for a moment whether he should exert his authority here. Had it been for him alone, he would have not wanted to have anything else to do with it. But this was not just about him, and his responsibilities were greater and owed to more than just his own conscience. If this really worked - and it was not possible to say it would - then would it be useful? Would it save human lives? Would any of that be worth the suffering of some pigs? Would anyone be willing to give it up for their sake? His veto right was a serious thing, and one to be used seriously; Edward did not love nor relish the notion of absolute power, even within such a limited environment. He would only resort to it over truly unacceptable violations of fundamental ethical principles, not just things that triggered his personal distaste.

He walked away from the pig, back towards the entrance.

"Well, that was interesting, but I'm afraid if I stay here any longer I'll puke," he lied. "Let's move on to the next one."

A few days had gone by. Edward had settled in an office, and the first task he'd set for himself was to go through reports on all of the currently ongoing as well as the terminated projects, to get a full bird's eye view of both the work being done and the people doing it. It was a mostly dull activity; he flipped through dozens of pages of references or inconsequential details to get at the few sparks of interesting science hidden within each of them. The situation didn't look dire, but neither was it too encouraging. Lots of the work was rather ordinary, some ideas appeared genuinely brilliant, and others had a bit stronger a tinge of madness to them than Edward would have liked, but the one thing they all had in common was mediocre results. The key problem was always costs: alchemists hired here, it seemed, were keen on trying grand, ambitious ideas that would simultaneously lead to major agricultural gains and monumental alchemic breakthroughs, all in one, without regard to how much effort went into the practice. Many of them being former State Alchemists, it seemed like the less than parsimonious approach of the military had really rubbed off on them. But with agriculture it was different - there was no point in most methods that required constant intervention by a specialised alchemist, for example, because there was no way to scale such things up to the point of feeding an entire country; there just weren't enough alchemists to begin with, and they were all otherwise busy (even if they didn't perceive such menial work below them, which they usually did). These were nothing but cool nifty science ideas that would never leave the lab; if they could just put alchemists to work on it at that scale, they might as well just mass transmute shit back into food. Edward had to reluctantly admit that sadly the legless pigs were probably one of the most practical ideas being attempted, as they only required a single intervention by an alchemist at the beginning of their lives and nothing else, and even those were turning out to be a money sink, failing to deliver the hoped for gains, which would be marginal to begin with.

Edward tossed aside the latest folder, sighed and leaned back against the chair. He'd seen enough alchemy today to last a lifetime, and none of it really felt like the sort of promising breakthrough that Mustang was hoping for. But still, things had to be tried; for all the worth of theoretical work, science still doesn't progress just by sitting on a chair and thinking really hard. But if he also had to work on something personally, he would definitely like something that felt like it had some actual hopes of success.

"Ara," he called out, still massaging his forehead between index and thumb. "All these ideas seem to require actively performing alchemy to keep going. Is there anything here that doesn't?"

The girl raised her head from the pile of documents she was browsing in turn. As his assistant, she'd insisted that she should help with this, and despite his initial resistances, Ed ended up accepting her much needed support. She mostly acted as a filter, browsing through the folders before they got to him, classifying them and highlighting potentially interesting ones.

"Hm, I remember something," she said, tapping her finger on her lips. "There was one by doctor Vought that touched on that. Let me look it up."

She dug into another pile of folders, running her hands along the spines and mumbling. Finally, she plucked a thick green folder out and tossed it to Edward. With now consummate experience, he grabbed it out of the air and unfolded it open on his desk. He had only started running his eyes through the first lines of the introductory abstract when his golden eyebrows started forming a very displeased V shape. He jumped forward to the experimental details section and read some more. His expression turned to straight up scary.

"Ara," he said, coldly. "Have doctor Vought called for an appointment with me. I need to exchange a few words with him."

"Doctor Vought, it's an honour to meet you. I believe you served under the moniker of the Blooming Alchemist? I don't think our ways ever crossed back then."

"I went under that name indeed, but it never held a candle to the fame of the Fullmetal Alchemist. The honour is mine."

The man shook Edward's hand, and despite the cordiality of his words, not a lot of warmth came with them. Edward could well live with that - he hadn't put much into his either. Having absolved the barest of formalities, he moved straight to business.

"So, doctor Vought," he begun. "You are aware of my role here, I'm sure. I have called you because I need some... clarifications about your ongoing project. Project EJ-13, I believe it's classified as. Do you mind going over it with me?"

The doctor frowned. He was an older man than Edward, far taller, imposing, with a hooked nose, sharp lineaments and penetrating eyes. His displeasure would have been a frightening thing to see on someone impressionable, which Edward definitely wasn't. "Is something the problem?"

"I just want to have a chat about the science of it," reassured him Edward, with a thin smile. "Alchemist to alchemist."

"Well, in that case," Vought cleared his throat. "I am sorry, but the details of it get very technical. If you are not specialised in the topic - I do not mean any offense, but..."

The younger alchemist reassured him with a casual handwave. "None taken. I do know you have quite the impressive experience, I have seen your resume. Years spent in Central City, in Laboratories no. 1, 2 and... 5, I believe?"

He raised his eyes and paused for a moment.

"I've earned some significant experience there too," he said. "So, please, humour me. I'll try to follow as far as I can."

Doctor Vought shifted a bit on his chair. He didn't quite look at ease, but he obviously didn't see a way out. He sounded mostly annoyed when he started talking, with the petulant tone of someone reluctantly teaching a not-too-bright child.

"Well, my work, as you will know, focuses on fungi. Not mushrooms, though these nutritious and tasty products are the end goal of my efforts; but fungi, that vast, invisible network of threads permeating the ground below us and from which all plant life depends, and of which mushrooms are merely the fruiting bodies, the reproductive organs if we want - are you with me so far?"

"Absolutely!," Edward's smile got even more wide and cordial. "Please continue."

"Fungi, I believe, have the potential to be an important source of food, and not just that - they might be steered to enhance the growth of actual agricultural crops too. They could grow without light, not needing any photosynthesis, which would allow us to exploit vast underground spaces and caverns to redouble our amount of arable land. And they thrive in waste, turning it into nutrients, which makes them a potential solution for a different problem - a way to literally turn garbage into food."

The other nodded. "Well, that sounds just awesome! And how are we going to use them best?"

"Ah, that is the core idea of the project. See, fungi are somewhat... difficult to control or grow at will. Their precise ways of spreading and reproduction still escape us. However, we believe that they can be made better at transforming and enriching the soil, as well as exploiting whichever nutrient source we wish to use, if they possessed an ability to, well-"

"-perform alchemy." completed Edward for him.

The smile was gone.

Vought pursed up his lower lip. "That is the gist of it. Of course, nothing like the refined arts that us alchemists can actually perform - mere trickery, simple decomposition of nutrients and such, nothing more than automatisms. Still, this requires finding a way to connect the fungi to, uh, the source of alchemy."

"The Gate of Truth," continued the other. "Why, I wonder how you would do that. Only human souls have a connection to the Gate, that I know of."

"We use embryonic, undeveloped souls. We produce them with in vitro fertilisation and then-"

Edward Elric's fist smashed on the green folder in which the doctor's project reports were held. Some sheets of papers were ejected by the sheer force of the impact and fluctuated down to the floor.

"You are aware of my job here, yes, Doctor?," he said, coldly.

The man stood up from his chair. "I have done nothing that is not allowed by the law of this country. Human embryos are a legitimate object of research."

"They would be if you simply destroyed them rather than binding their souls to something that can live, oh, let me see, approximately thousands of years in some cases. An act whose consequences we understand very little. But see, even if I would say that is definitely very questionable, it is not even the worst part of your stupid idea."

"How dare you! My project is-"

"The worst part of your stupid idea," continued Edward, undeterred, "is that you took a kind of organism that we barely understand, that can spread over hundreds of hectares of land, reach underground to unknown depths, spread its spores in the air tons at a time, that has no intelligence, that has no self-awareness, that has no morals, that has no way of communicating with us, that is crucial to the survival of every ecosystem you might care to name, and that for all we know of it is basically one of the closest things in the natural world to being immortal and unkillable if given enough time to spread, and decided that it would be a neat idea to give it the ability to perform alchemy! Doctor, WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING?!"

Edward got up from his chair too, staring at the man on the other side from below.

"Effective immediately, this utter insanity is cancelled. Tier 4 alchemic risk protocols are in place. Your research fields will be burned. The research fields adjacent to yours will be burned. The soil below each of those up to a depth of 20 metres will be burned. Your documents will be burned. Your equipment will be burned. All information concerning the project will be put under the highest classification, which means you will be forbidden from talking about it to anyone without the required clearance on pain of jail or death. And if you feel like objecting to any of that, remember that while I can regretfully not burn you, I can still at least fire you."

Doctor Vought's face was now flush with anger. He leaned on the desk towards Edward, wagging about the index of his right hand dramatically, getting way into his personal space.

"YOU ARROGANT PUNK!," he shouted, right in his face. "YOU TALENTLESS HACK! YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND A SINGLE THING OF WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, AND YOU WILL NOT PUT AN END TO MY LIFE'S WORK! YOU THINK YOU CAN COME TO US, YOUR SENIORS, AND TELL US WHAT TO DO JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE SUCKLING AT THE FUHRER'S TEAT? YOU ARE A FRAUD, A NOBODY! YOU CAN'T EVEN PERFORM ALCHEMY! YOU ARE AN IGNORANT, PETTY, STUPID LITTLE-"

And Edward could have withstood all of that with a shrug and a smile. Really, he could have. He didn't quite get what was going on in the head of people like this old dude, who heard the words "war hero" and "saved the country" and thought they could just scare him with... whatever this little theatrical show was. Words would not matter much, when all was said and done. But the thing is, instead, doctor Vought did something more. He lifted his left hand too, and went to grab the lapel of Edward's jacket. And was that an alchemical circle Edward saw tattooed on the palm of his hand? Well, you probably did not want to find out directly what kind of transmutations someone going by the name "the Blooming Alchemist" could perform on the human body. Yeah, this was a clear case of self-defence, cut and dried.

"-SELF IMPORTANT TYRAAAAAAAAA-"

Vought's screaming lost what little articulation it had when Edward swiftly disentangled himself from his grab, climbed on the desk, closed his arm into a lock and then spun right on top of him, twisting it over his head and then behind his back, then segueing with a throw that sent the alchemist's entire body flying and eventually painfully slamming into the ground.

The old man screamed and grabbed his arm.

"YOU BROKE IT! YOU BROKE IT YOU LITTLE FUCK!"

"Oh, grow up," said Edward, with a shrug. "At least you still have it. I believe this wraps up our little meeting and settles the matter, then. As soon as you can get up and walk, I want you out of the office and out of this compound forever before the day is done."

"Fuhrer's Office here. I would like to be put in contact with Edward Elric, right away."

"..."

"Fullmetal. I have here a report on your recent... exploits. I'm impressed you kept your martial arts skills so well trained, but they're not really why I picked you for the role."

"..."

"Oh don't give me that bullshit. I know Vought is an arrogant prick, but I'm fairly sure he wasn't going to-"

"..."

"The problem is now we've lost him for good for the project! Maybe his work could still be salvaged."

"..."

"I know what I said. But could there be really nothing we might do with-"

"..."

"The whole continent? Seriously? You think-"

"..."

"...extinction? Edward, are you sure of this?"

"..."

"Ok, you know what, just send me a full report. I'll concede it sounds like you might have averted a serious risk. But please, going forward, no more throwing people. I doubt the other alchemists there will appreciate that style of scientific argumentation."

In the end, the records showed that "while an attempt to find a common path was made, doctor Vought's personal research goals turned out to fall outside the scope of the project, and regrettably he and the project had to part ways," which was the most polite way Ara could find to convey Edward's dry "good fucking riddance" comment in an official report. He had to leave some of the paperwork to her as he was busy enough with coordinating the clean up; a tier 4 alchemic risk protocol was no joke. It was the kind of containment procedure that would have been applied to the original Dwarf in a Bottle, had Xerxes had such things. Despite the protest of the researchers who were unfortunately caught in the splash damage of it, in the end, it was necessary to completely scorch a radius of 100 metres from Vought's patch, as the thing he had created was uncannily able to spread and adapt already. A rock dome was transmuted around the area, extending underground as well as a full sphere, and everything inside was simply sterilised by transmuting the soil into termite and burning it until anything living was broken down into its fundamental elements.

Once it was all said and done, though, this left Edward with a non insignificant problem; a whole branch of the program, dealing with chimerization of plants and fungi alike, was left orphaned of its director. Not everyone was particularly heartbroken about this - it seemed like Vought had no dearth of enemies, and many had considered his ideas just as insane as Ed had, but were unable to oppose him due to hierarchical concerns. But still, that was almost a third of all the program's researchers, working on probably the most promising approach of all, who now had no direct coordination. Edward himself thought that the creation of new crops, all in all, was likely to be where one could strike gold (or at least transmute it from lead, as it befits an alchemist). And so, in the end, he had to pick up the slack personally, as a way of taking responsibility for his admittedly unorthodox sacking of Vought. Thus the project found itself with Edward Elric, interim director of the Chimeric Crops Division up until the time at which a more suitable process could be put in place to select a permanent successor.

The lab had an usual appearance, half advanced alchemic research centre, half greenhouse. There were vials, stills and retort flasks as well as a row of highly detailed, increasingly complex armillary alchemical spheres on one side; the other had large windows that allowed light to shine on shelves full of small pots with seedlings of a number of crops and blocks of rotten wood used to host fungi. Samples to be used for experiments, or in some cases products of such experiments that would only be transplanted in open air once they reached sufficient maturity. Edward walked down it accompanied by Ara, and the mix of scientific equipment and earthen smells made him think of home and childhood. Not all good memories, of course, but still, there was some nostalgia there.

He stopped in front of the armillary spheres. "That's a complex array," he commented. "I hadn't seen one this large yet. Is this for vital elements separation?"

"Yes, director," one of the researchers that had been operating the equipment nodded and joined them. "It's the most sophisticated in Amestris, I believe, designed explicitly for this purpose. We can separate the four vital elements up to 99.99% purity; in addition, these can be configured to separate individual chains of elements with specified sequences up to twenty elements in a row."

Edward whistled. Ara seemed a bit puzzled though.

"Isn't transmutation specific to the individual elements?," she asked. "Sorry, I haven't taken Parallel Transmutation courses yet."

"It's all right," Edward waved his hand, while still focused on the equipment, which he was inspecting with reverence. "You can only tune one individual transmutation circle to separating out a specific element, true. But the transmutation takes time, and the speed depends on the efficiency of the circle's array. Relative orientations of the circles also determine the intensity of interference between them. As it turns out, we can leverage that. We can keep transmuting some bonds between adjacent broken and other specific ones back together, at differential speeds carefully chosen so that only certain processes will almost exactly cancel each other out. See here?"

He touched one of the circles. After a quick nod of assent from the researcher guaranteeing it was fine, he let the inner part of the circle slide, and it rolled around smoothly on a guide; the inner and outer circles bore different symbols, and after a bit of rotation, the overall transmutation circle was different.

"This way you can tune them to focus on different sequences. The four vital elements being Caelum, Glaesum, Album and Tepor..."

"I know that much!," hurried to protest Ara.

"...you can make use of the different strength of their bonds with finely tuned transmutations to for example break all bonds but C-T ones, and get all the pairs of that sort. But I have to admit I have never delved into the theory beyond pairs, the equations get complicated and I'm usually no fan of diagonalizing large matrices. I imagine that will have to change?"

The other researcher laughed. "Luckily, not too much! We used to have a team of computers for that, but now we just have a couple computational transmuters in the basement. Largest in Amestris as well; they're quite a sight. They can solve the linear system for the tuning of this array to extract a 20-bases sequence in a matter of minutes. Without those, it would be impossible to even hope to map out the entire vital sequence of anything."

Edward looked up in genuine admiration. "You can attempt that much? I haven't seen any projects claiming that much yet."

"It takes time," admitted the other. "But we hope to be finished with the common wheat at some point next year. Of course, in between that work, we also use these arrays for all sorts of precision chimerizations. We can distil out certain vital segments out of any living tissue and implant them in precise spots in the seed of some crop to achieve the desired result."

"And does that work?"

The other made a pained face. "Can't say it did until now," he replied. "There's always some compatibility issue. We know that the worm so-and-so repels certain parasites, so we try putting the bit of its vital sequence we think is responsible for that inside a potato plant, and usually it either turns out that it wasn't the right sequence, or that it interacts in some obscure way with the rest of the plant's metabolism, or that it has weird side effects, like ruining the taste or making the plant toxic. We just don't know enough yet. And of course, we also have to be careful about the risks, as no one wants their project to be Elric'd like-"

The researcher stopped right there, suddenly struck by who he was talking with. The colloquialism had simply slipped by before he could consider the context. Ara took a step back amidst the awkward silence. Edward rose his eyebrows in surprise for a moment, but then ended up erupting in a laugh.

"Guess burning someone's entire fields to nothing is one hell of a first impression, huh?," he said, still chuckling. "Don't worry, if you're good, big bad Edward Elric won't come for your project. Now let's go in more detail over these chimera attempts, I wonder if there's some pattern to spot..."

It took all day to unload the luggage and working tools Winry had carried with her, convince Maes to calm down after running up and down the hill all day and go to bed, so that Edward could finally had the chance to be alone with his wife in the quiet of their new bedroom. His first month there had gone by very quickly, especially the exciting beginning; after that, Edward had settled in working on chimeric crops while he kept overseeing the rest of the project too. Before he knew it, the day had come that they'd agreed Winry would join him.

"So, do you like it here?," he asked her, while lying on his back on the bed and gazing at the ceiling. "I hope it's not, like, a dump you hate."

"Maes loves it for sure, and that's something," she replied, drying her hair with a towel after a shower had finally washed away all the grime from hours of travel. "It's a nice place, reminds me of Rush Valley. I'll have to see how the work is before deciding what I feel like about it."

"Fair enough."

"Don't overthink it. I agreed I'd come, and I think you're doing good work and want to help. That's all there is to it. Even if it turned out to be not quite as good as what I had going on before, I can take it."

"Far from me doubting your resilience, you woman of steel. It's just-"

Winry tossed away the towel and sighed. "Just what?"

Edward pouted. If he couldn't afford acting a bit childish when alone with his wife, after all, when would he? "Well, I just feel a bit stumped I guess. This whole bit about coming here only makes sense if I contribute something to the job. I think kicking that asshole Vought out was sorely needed-"

"Yeah, yeah, you've told me already plenty of times. Moving on."

"-right, but besides that, I still feel like I'm still playing catch up. I'm reading up on stuff, learning from the other researcher, but science-wise, I'm probably more of a burden than a help. Like, we have all these different candidate crops that we're trying to somehow chimerize with fungi to make them non dependent on sunlight so that we might grow them in caves or multi-story buildings and-"

"Ok, you know what, time out, before you start going full nerd on this. You know I can't follow you and the precise details are not the point, are they?"

She sat down on the mattress right next to him and put a hand on his metallic leg. Edward couldn't feel it directly, as even with the nerve connections, automail had only the bare minimum of biofeedback necessary to keep balance, but she tapped her fingers lightly and slid them across the grooves, and the slight vibrations from that propagated up to the hip, where the metal joined the flesh.

"Nothing of worth gets done in a day and you know that better than anyone. Do you know how hard is it to make every leg like this one? If you just looked at the full set of pieces needed and the blueprints you'd go insane and do nothing. But in reality, you just focus on the small bits. You put in a screw and a bolt, and one step a time, the full thing takes shape."

Edward sighed. "I know."

"Of course you do. You wouldn't have done all the work you have if you didn't. And yet every time you will feel the same exact frustration, as if nothing less than lifting the world wholesale was good enough a contribution from the Great Edward Elric. You're just tired and overly pressured. It happens. Kick back, relax a bit and stop pouting already."

The hand that had been following up the automail slyly slid over the junction and touched his skin. Winry's fingers caressed the inside of his thigh, making Edward feel ticklish.

"Is that a proposal?." he said, laughing. "On how to relax."

"We've been away for a month, you dumb alchemist," she replied. "It's a request."

He grabbed the towel that she still wore around her body after the shower and pulled it off with a single tug, then dragged Winry down on the bed with him.

The day after, Edward felt like he could finally make a fresh start, and was determined to not immediately waste his retrieved motivation, and instead follow Winry's advice. He needed to find a way to break down all his problems in simpler parts and nibble at them. So, he walked into the office, refused Ara's offer of making him a coffee and instead made one for both her and himself, and all the while, thought about what would be the best angle to attack.

"Ara, what have you been working on?," he asked casually while sitting at his desk. He wondered if that might be a good jumping point.

"Oh, I'm just putting together chunks of the vital sequences of this one kind of wheat we're working with," she replied. "Lafter was hoping we could chimerize it with an Agaricus fungus as there are some similarities in metabolism."

"Hm."

That sounded much like the same kind of thing they'd done without fruit for the last month, and from the reports he'd read, also quite a bit before. It had never gone anywhere. And while yes, sometimes problems require you to chip at them slowly, you also need an instinct to spot dead ends and cut your losses.

"Ok, do you mind if I think a bit aloud? Help me if there's anything I'm missing," said Edward.

"Not at all," replied Ara, and she put down pen and paper to lay back on her chair. She didn't look like she was having a lot of fun with this drudgery either.

"So, we want to chimerize plants with fungi. We've tried lots of fungi, and lots of crops. The benefits are obvious, and the general theory seems solid enough - we need to find a way to replace roots with mycelium, shift the metabolism pathways so that energy is taken from organic matter decomposition rather than photosynthesis, and that's about it for the principles."

"There's also the Massen-Baudhenoff problem," interjected the assistant.

Edward clicked his tongue. "Right, that too, but that we only found out by trying - that if you simply join the two organisms together there are violent cross-immune responses between the two halves that end up killing the whole organism. But that's really the gist of it, right? Making chimeras is easy enough, the problem is guaranteeing they live. And for them to work as crops, the chimeras need to be remarkably stable."

"There are cases of it. Didn't you say that you knew some people who were chimeras themselves, doctor?"

"They were, but most of them were with other mammals, or at least other animals. I met a snake chimera once, that actually makes me wonder how her thermoregulation system worked but - never mind. Point is, none of those organisms were actually as far between them as a fungus and a plant. If anything, fungi are more compatible with animals, as doctor Vought's unconscionable project showed!"

"But that's why we're doing sequencing," interjected Ara. "To find a fungus-plant pair that is most compatible."

"Yes, but let's run the numbers of that. It costs us a couple of years to sequence a single organism in full. There are thousands of candidates on both sides, and we can not in any way automate either the chimerization or the compatibility analysis, not even with the computational transmuters. Unless we get really, really lucky it might be centuries before we manage to brute force our way through this and all the possible combinations."

He grabbed a handful of sheets of paper from a folder; each was the report card describing in detail the qualities of one candidate crop under study.

"And crops also have to be useful, so that's another constraint," he added. "There really isn't much variety here to begin with, so I wouldn't expect many surprises. At least fifty candidates that I've seen are varieties of Brassica. Others are just flawed attempts at developing better crops that we should try to somehow make viable. Look at all these types of wheat! Cultivar A has bigger florets and produces so much fruit it bends under its own weight. Cultivar B is pest resistant but tastes bad. Cultivar C has a stronger, thicker stem that makes it resistant to bad weather but is not very productive. These are just the same plant with minimal differences."

"We're already focusing on a few representatives, though," said Ara, thoughtful. "Which makes the job a bit easier, though still huge. What else are you trying to suggest?"

"Not sure," Edward sighed, leaning back. "Just thinking out loud, as I said. I guess I wish there was a pattern to spot, some simple, obvious thing that was eluding us all this time-"

As he said those words, he was struck suddenly by an idea so clear and obvious, it felt like he must have been stupid for not thinking about it earlier. Yeah, keeping things simple was the way to go, but could it possibly this simple?

Cultivar A has bigger florets and produces so much fruit it bends under its own weight.

Cultivar C has a stronger, thicker stem that makes it resistant to bad weather but is not very productive.

The project had each team or individual researcher work on different crops, often with little communication as they all focused on their own work, and the promised reward meant there was a certain amount of protectiveness of each own's results. And Vought had been the only one who could have had a good overall view of the goings on of the entire division, but he was too busy with his crazy alchemic fungus ideas to lower himself to read about wheat cultivars. Which meant that, yes, this could have just gone overlooked until now.

"Ara," said Edward, grinning ear to ear as he picked up the relevant cards. "I know it's a bit different, but there's something that we should try..."

"Hello, Colonel! Glad you wanted to see me again so soon after our last meeting, but I'll warn you, I'm a married man."

At this point the guards and aides weren't as shocked as before. They either remembered or had heard of Edward's first visit, and besides, the crime of lese-majesty had been abolished for quite some time now. Not to say that this wasn't still an outrageous breach of etiquette, but if the Fuhrer was okay with it, no point getting scandalised about it.

"It's been one year, Fullmetal," replied Roy Mustang with a sigh. "Though I'll admit that's less time even I dared hoping for."

"Oh, you'll make me blush, now." Edward slammed down on a chair, grinning. "Sorry, I've been busy and stuff."

"I know. Honestly I'm mostly happy, though you solving this so quickly after your little episode with Vought almost makes everyone involved look like an idiot by comparison. Couldn't you have taken, like, a little more?"

"Sorry Colonel, politics are your job, not mine. Besides, the researchers all were doing their absolute best. It's not their fault if the organisation was lacking."

"And what about the organisers?," asked Mustang, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh, those, it's absolutely their fault. They're idiots," said Edward without missing a beat. "What, you know any of them, Colonel?"

Mustang sighed again. "I'll let you have this one, Fullmetal. Anyway, what can I say?"

He stretched out his hand, opening the palm towards Edward.

"Great job. You probably saved our country again," he said, fully serious.

Likewise, the other alchemist dropped the mocking expression and accepted the handshake. "I take it it's working well, then?"

"It seems to have become incredibly popular with every adopter. Something as simple as chimerization of two different cultivars has produced a variety that's stable and inherits the best traits of its ancestors - the Elric wheat is robust and productive; yields per acre are up by over 30%. It also helped that you forfeited your patenting rights making it public domain, so it's even cheaper to adopt. Quite the bold choice there."

"Oh, having the name attached and going down in history for it is enough," said Edward, waving a hand. "You know how they say, glory is its own reward."

"Pretty sure that's not the saying, Fullmetal. But I suppose glory is almost as cheap as virtue."

"Well, then I suppose my job here is done! Which makes this as good a moment as any to hand you this," replied the other, pushing a sheet of paper on the desk. Mustang picked it up and read it with a frown.

"Your resignation? Really? Now?," he asked.

"The work can go on without me. Winry has gotten involved with designing new mechanical harvesters for the wheat, but she needs to move to Opperham, where the factories are, to work closely with their engineers. And Maes has to begin school soon. Last time she followed me around, so this is only fair."

He made a grimace. "Also, to put it bluntly, if I have to go up and down those damned mountain paths any longer I'll have to get an automail butt too."

Roy Mustang put the resignation letter on his desk, shook his head, then picked a pen and put his signature at the bottom of it.

"I guess that's just like you, Fullmetal. Do the fun stuff, then let everyone else deal with the boring part, huh?"

"You bet. You can call back on me any time if you have more fun stuff though."

Mustang smiled as he handed back the letter.

"You know though, getting uninvolved might mean that your work takes unexpected directions. For example, while the official name is Elric wheat, there's another that's taking more traction among people using it and commercialising it alike."

Edward frowned slightly. "Huh, really? Haven't heard of it. What is it?"

"Oh, nothing special. See, the stalks are much shorter than the usual kind."

Roy Mustang chuckled.

"So, they're calling it dwarf wheat."