Ed, Greed, and the two Chimera travel to a village outside of Central and find Hohenheim. After being greeted with a punch to the face, Hohenheim meets Greed and then goes through the process of explaining everything. He offers to let Ed use him as a Philosopher’s Stone, but Ed refuses to use those innocent lives. Hohenheim is glad to hear this and then turns the subject to how Father is planning to use the solar eclipse tomorrow. Ed makes it clear that the only reason he’s joining forces with Hohenheim is because it improves their chances of winning, but Hohenheim doesn’t mind the reason as long as they’re fighting together. As Ed starts to walk off, he tells Hohenheim about Trisha’s last words, and he’s surprised to see his father cry about it. Leaving his father to reminiscence about his mother, Ed has dinner and then buys some red cloth to transmute a new coat because he knows the final battle is coming. He also asks the Chimera about sticking with him, and they explain that their intuition tells them it’s better this way. Greed, on the other hand, refuses to reveal why he’s going with them back to Central. As the group walks along the woods outside of the village, they run into Al, and Al wants Ed to follow him. Realizing what’s going on, Ling takes control of his body momentarily to warn Ed, and it turns out that Pride is possessing Al’s armor.

Around this time, over in the East, Grumman’s men are still searching for King Bradley’s body. Grumman feels that they can’t head towards Central yet, and Miles suspects that Grumman is willing to let Mustang and Olivier do the dirty work so that he can come in afterward as the hero. Back where Ed and company are, Pride reveals that he’s there to get rid of Greed and take custody of Ed. He’s quickly able to grab Greed and tries to make Ed submit by threatening the nearby village, however Ed responds by using his alchemy to knock out all light in the area. This makes it impossible to see, but it also means that Pride cannot use the shadows. Greed suspects that Pride’s real body is inside the forest, so he sends Heinkel after Selim while Darius and Ed try to get away. Unfortunately, they get attacked by Gluttony who had been waiting nearby. Since Gluttony is hampered by the darkness, Darius agrees to try to fight the Homunculus, and while he’s initially successful, he inadvertently knocks Ed out in the process. Ling then convinces Greed to trade places with him and is subsequently able to fight Gluttony effectively. This angers Gluttony enough to cause him to open up his stomach, but before he can use it, someone arrives and slices him up. Ling realizes that this person is none other than his bodyguard Lan Fan, and she now sports a bladed automail arm.

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