The streets of Central City are dark and narrow. The walls are made of stone. Isaac McDougal is in an alley. He is listening.
He hears boots. Soldiers are coming. There are three or four soldiers with lights. They are looking for him.
McDougal puts his hands up. He knows alchemy - water alchemy. Water is all around him. Water in the street. Water on the walls. Water in a small hole. All of this water moves. It becomes hot. Very hot. The water becomes steam and the steam is burning hot.
The soldiers scream. One soldier tries to run. But he cannot. The water is too hot. Then it becomes ice - very cold ice. The ice stops the soldier.
McDougal does not look at the soldiers. He walks away.
"I need to make the circles," he says.
---
Two streets away, Roy Mustang is standing outside the army building. He is looking at some papers. The papers are his orders. Lieutenant Hawkeye is with him.
"The Führer is giving you something difficult," Hawkeye says.
Mustang is angry. "Yes. I must find a man. His name is Isaac McDougal. He was a soldier. He knows alchemy - water alchemy. He can make water very hot or very cold. People are dying. I must stop him."
Behind them, they hear something heavy. Metal feet. Edward Elric comes walking toward them. Edward is only fifteen years old. He is small. His right arm is metal - automail. Behind him is Alphonse Elric. Alphonse is wearing a big suit of metal armor.
"Who are we looking for?" Edward asks. He sits down without asking.
Mustang opens a file. There is a picture of a man with angry eyes. "This is Isaac McDougal. People call him the Freezing Alchemist. He is very dangerous. Very fast. Many soldiers are dead because of him. You must be careful."
Edward is reading the file. He is not listening to the warning.
---
They find McDougal in a narrow alley. There are other soldiers there. They cannot move - they are frozen in ice. Their clothes are ice. Their faces are white and cold.
McDougal is in the middle of the alley. His hands are up. Water is moving around his hands like a dance.
"You are very young," McDougal says when he sees Edward. "Are you a child?"
Edward is angry. He hates when people call him young or small. "I am the Fullmetal Alchemist. You must stop. You are under arrest."
"Am I," McDougal says. He looks at Edward like he is looking at a door. "You are the Fullmetal Alchemist. Where is your circle?"
Edward claps his hands together. He puts his hands on the ground. Alchemy moves through him. The ground comes up - a big wave of stone. It should hit McDougal and knock him down. But McDougal's water is faster. Water becomes ice and the ice stops the wave.
The temperature drops. It is very cold now. Hot steam comes toward Edward's right side.
Edward is not afraid. He is made of metal on that side. The steam hits the metal arm and disappears. Edward moves forward into the steam.
McDougal is looking at the metal arm. Something changes in his face. He is thinking about something new.
"I see," McDougal says.
The fight is short. Edward is fast and he is strange - not normal. Alphonse comes around the other side of the alley. McDougal cannot escape. He goes to his knees.
A soldier comes and puts chains on his wrists. McDougal is looking at his own hands.
Then something blue happens. The chains break. They become liquid and then they become something new - not chains. Water comes up from the ground.
McDougal is moving. He moves to the side where there is a hole - a drain. He is in the water and then he is gone.
Edward watches the empty street.
"Huh," he says.
---
Mustang is angry when they come back.
"You walked to him," Mustang says. He is standing very still. His voice is quiet but angry. "You did not know what he could do."
"I found out what he could do," Edward says.
"That is not how this works." Mustang sits down. He puts his hand on his face. "McDougal has circles on his hands. Alchemy circles. His hands are his tools for alchemy. You cannot stop him with chains. You cannot hurt his hands." He looks at Edward. "He is dangerous because he is fast. He can do alchemy as fast as he can move his hands."
Edward says nothing.
"You must gather information first," Mustang says. "Then you can fight. Not before."
Alphonse says carefully, "We did not know these things before."
Mustang stops being angry. "I know. But McDougal was a good soldier. He fought in a war. Something bad happened to him in that war. He is not a criminal like other criminals. He thinks he is doing something necessary." He looks at Edward and Alphonse. "Men who think like that are very dangerous."
Edward is looking at the picture again. McDougal's eyes look like a man who has decided that some things are acceptable.
Edward has seen eyes like that before. He sees them in the mirror sometimes.
---
Major Armstrong finds McDougal before the sun comes up.
Armstrong is very big. He has big muscles. He is looking for McDougal in the streets. He is not quiet. He is making noise.
McDougal is behind a building. He is drawing something on the ground with a stick. He is drawing a circle - an alchemy circle.
The shadow of Armstrong falls on him.
"Isaac McDougal," Armstrong says. His voice is sad. "Please. Stop."
The fight is very big. Armstrong uses stone alchemy. McDougal uses water alchemy. Stone is hard and water is soft. They fight and the ground breaks. A wall is stone, then water, then ice, then broken. The ground shakes.
But McDougal is fast. Edward and Alphonse come running. They hear the noise. But when they arrive, McDougal is already gone.
Armstrong is breathing hard.
---
Mustang finds McDougal by a gate in the east. The sun is not up yet. The street is wet.
"Hello, Isaac McDougal," Mustang says. His hands are covered with special gloves. "This ends now."
"Yes," McDougal says. "I know what you are. You are the Flame Alchemist. You and all of them - you are the Führer's tools. Do you know what he is making? Do you know what Central Command is doing to this country?" His hands go up. Water comes up from the ground. It becomes a wall of water. "You are burning things to keep the people warm when the house is already burning."
Mustang moves his fingers. Fire comes. The fire is very hot. It meets the water and makes steam. They cannot see.
McDougal runs. He is running to a place. A special place.
---
The city screams.
Ice comes up. Not from one place - from six places! All at the same time! The ice is white and cold and it goes very high. Three stories up! And more!
People run. Windows break from the cold. Soldiers try to escape.
Edward and Alphonse see this. They are standing and watching.
"Brother," Alphonse says. "This is very big. This is too much power for a person."
"Yes," Edward says. "A Philosopher's Stone. He must have a Philosopher's Stone."
A Philosopher's Stone - this is something special. It is not normal alchemy. It gives power that is not normal.
---
They find McDougal in a street near the center. He has his hands on the cold stone. Water is coming from below - from very far below. He is very tired.
He is making all of this happen. The ice circles. All of them. Six circles around the city.
"Do you understand now?" McDougal says. His voice is not strong. "Do you understand what they are? What the Führer is doing?" He looks at Edward. Then he looks at Alphonse. "Your suit. This metal armor. There is no one inside it."
Alphonse stops moving.
"The metal arm. The armor." McDougal is looking at Edward now. "You did something. You tried something with alchemy. Both of you. You tried to make a person. You tried to bring someone back."
There is silence. No one speaks.
Edward hits him.
Stone comes up from the ground. It is very fast and very hard. It hits McDougal across his body. He falls.
"Do not," Edward says. His face is doing something. Something complicated. "Do not talk about that."
McDougal is on the ice. He is smiling. But he is also moving. Water comes and he is flowing with it, into an alley, around a corner.
He is gone.
Edward stands in the cold street and breathes.
"Brother," Alphonse says.
"I know," Edward says. "Come on."
---
At the end of the alley is the Führer.
King Bradley is not a big man. He is not young. He has one eye - the other is covered. He has a sword. The sword is long and very sharp.
McDougal sees him and puts his hands up. Water comes. Ice comes. Big walls of ice.
Bradley walks toward him. Not around the ice - through it. The sword moves. It is very fast. Faster than ice can form.
The ice breaks. All of it.
McDougal is trying. His hands are moving very fast. But Bradley is faster.
The sword moves and then it is done.
McDougal falls to the ground slowly. He goes to his knees first. Then he lies on his side on the cold stone.
Blood comes from McDougal. It is dark red. It goes into the water in the street.
Something small and red falls from McDougal's hand. It is the Philosopher's Stone. It is small like a pebble. It falls into the water.
Edward sees it from the alley. He is walking toward it. He is fast but it is already falling through a crack in the stone.
The red stone becomes dust - gray dust and pink dust - and then it is nothing.
Bradley is looking at Edward. He has his sword in his hand.
"Ah," he says. He is smiling. "Fullmetal. Hello. Are you and your brother hurt?"
Edward is looking at the place where the stone was.
"No," he says. "We are fine."
---
Mustang is sitting at a window. Below him, the ice is melting. The sun is higher now. Water is in the streets. The city smells like the river.
He thinks about McDougal. McDougal was a soldier. He came from a war. Something in the war broke him. He came home and he wanted to stop something. But he is dead now.
Mustang thinks about what McDougal said: "You are burning things to keep people warm when the house is already burning."
He thinks about this for a long time.
Hawkeye comes into the room. She does not ask to come in.
"Edward and Alphonse are asking about Reole again," she says.
"Tell them we leave tomorrow," Mustang says.
"You told them that yesterday," Hawkeye says.
Mustang turns from the window. "Tell them again." He pauses. "What do we know about the Philosopher's Stone?"
Hawkeye's face does not change. "Very little. Not much, officially."
"And not officially?"
"Also very little." She waits. "But McDougal had one. He used it and now it is gone."
"Yes. Someone gave it to him. Or he found it. That means there are more." Mustang looks at the city. The water is still melting. "Find out where these stones come from. But be quiet. Do not let anyone know."
---
In the south, in a town called Reole where the radio is always on and the sun is hot, a woman is sitting at a table. A man with one glass eye is eating food. The woman has a newspaper.
"The Freezing Alchemist is dead," she says.
"A waste," the man says. He is still eating.
"Yes. He was tired. The Stone burns very bright and then it burns out. He knew this but he was in a hurry." She picks up her water glass. She turns it slowly. "We have time. We will do this correctly. We will not hurry."
"When do we start?" the man asks.
She looks out the window. The people of Reole are walking in the heat. They are going to listen to the radio man. They do not know what is coming. The town and the radio man are part of something big. Something they cannot see.
"Soon," the woman says. "Our work begins soon. And we will do it carefully."