124 Brothers, Mothers

The day prior, Vehran had gotten a gift he had expected since Ishvala had touched him and his brother, and he had been growing slightly stronger and feeling more and more alive every day with the rich natural air. The rest of his people had been expressing the same thing in varying ways and levels, but Vehran was the first to awaken any sort of physical manifestation of that progress. At least, he hoped so. He had been praying to Ishvala to help him solidify this result and to see what it meant recently, and even now.

As any who prays, none expect a literal result that quakes in their ears and resounds as if a voice was truly there. This is why when Vehran caught a recognizable voice vibrating within his mind in response to him, he nearly jumped from his squatted position. Fortunately, he did not do so as he wasn't alone. Several men and women were starting the evening meal time with a prayer in a small community hall where leaders of the small joints of administration partook together. Vehran had appointed these people himself, and quickly at that.

A man who traveled to the river route to Xing and fished its shores more frequently than the rest was asked to lead the charge in investigating the oceans and their fish-ability. Lack of enough stone made wood the next viable building material, but at the moment that was looking like crudely made log houses with frond roofs. It was all they needed, for now, Unfortunately, nobody had any experience with trees so carpentry for building was something anyone could take the charge of if they proved themselves.

The dinner was quiet as their culture would suggest, while the women in attendance would often peak glances at the stern yet dashing young leader in the silence. It was among them who noticed Vehran's brows furrowed rapidly while he twitched lightly as if startled.

'That power is yours now, Vehran. A part of you, not me. Use it as you will, but think first and be slow to anger. And do me a favor, I can't hear those who pray to Ishvala so spread the word.'

'I will do so, my God.'

'Good. Behran shouldn't be far behind you. Now here's some help with that power of yours.'

This time, Vehran couldn't hold in the plainly audible gasp he released as a result of the rapid influx of the energy he had felt before. The ability Scar had received was given to him in the highest purity even when Scar wasn't one of the Ishvalans who had died and resurrected, because it was easy to replicate. It was their way of resisting death.

Vehran's skin and the muscles underneath which were now somewhat visible had started to turn into a reddish-orange hue from the neck and down the arms as he raised his head while wincing slightly, steam started to wisp off his skin in small doses as his body became hotter and even his hair seemingly wasn't spared from this effect as it changed shades to a mix of sunset. Steam exited from between his clenched teeth and his pupils gained the same shade of sunset orange.

The Ishvalans in the room were not only enraptured, but they were also suppressed somewhat. They felt that the form of Vehran now was their immediate superior in a hierarchy they had only begun to feel in their core, a hierarchy that would refuse to fade from the backs of their minds in the future. That bloodline suppression was a factor Yuri had artificially added for the people he chose now and/or in the future. He would definitely include it for leaders he chose of any place he added to Avalon.

The ability the Ishvalans were soon to awaken en masse was something Yuri called Overclock. It was an ability designed to avoid the death they had already endured that could reach great heights with practice and constant lifeforce accumulation. Lifeforce would accelerate and stimulate their basic abilities, especially regeneration, through black lines that would stretch across their body and help them train their lifeforce until the lines took on the color of its intent.

The next level of this ability was something Vehran was touching on right now, a free trial that Yuri was giving him a taste of since he didn't have the energy to do it himself even if he had the talent. Partial elementalization. They would start to take on the form of their lifeforce intent and increased training would allow them to become their own Intent for a short time. Even destruction of their vital areas wouldn't be fatal and could regenerate, since their souls were used to being called back and would remain stitched together until absolute destruction. Mana was used heavily to help reinforce their elemental bodies and contain them in a humanoid shape while adding anything the change didn't like long-ranged attacks or increased firepower that would cost too much with lifeforce.

The only problem was death in this form was complete soul destruction, and only advanced Time magic which would likely be beyond them for a long long time could change that.

The land they were in before was completely shallow in terms of Chi, nearly barren, which caused nearly their whole population to be able to feel the lifeforce in the air only a few days after arriving in Avalon and sucking it in greedily. This increased rate of lifeforce collection was supplemented to an increased potential to store it, but they would be hard-pressed to go very far in 'Overclock' without having a connection to mana, which the brothers had gotten a very early head start on.

{The name Overclock feels wrong even though I chose it. If you help me rename it I'll give you a shout-out because I'm told I have a very basic bitch name sense.}

'Incredible...' Vehran looked at his sunset-orange hands and fought to keep his mouth from hanging open in front of his peers. 'The power from yesterday was merely a few red lines stretching on me that made me feel more powerful and alive, but this is so much more... I feel like I could've won the war alone with this.'

'You could've. Now you can't do this form without sacrificing years of your life for now when I'm not helping you, so you'll have to train with the Lifeforce and the Mana of my world to get here again. Good luck.'

After a lull, the orange glow which covered his limbs and up to his jawline receded down into his shirt again and his eyes cooled down under the gaze of the still awestruck Ishvalan small council.

"Lord Nightingale has answered my prayer. May our people be blessed for their efforts!"

A man walked in through the doorless entrance of their gathering hall and cast a green light through the whole room while the attendees were forced to look back in confusion.

Behran was just as Vehran earlier, his body glowing with a green power highlighting the muscles underneath his glowing skin. Unlike his brother, the right and the left arm retained some of their lines as still black and had different patterns on them. On the right, a series of triangles were weaved while a circle was made on both his palms and on the left, ovals were overlapped repeatedly. The green glow took on a verdant hue on his left arm, and a venomous glow on his right. The bloodline suppression was felt at the same level by everyone, and Vehran was given a taste of what his own felt like for the first time.

Behran let a confident smirk hang with ease on his face as power suffused him, "Lord Nightingale has rewarded my study of Alkahestry. Concerning the body, I can give and I can take away."

The Intent he took overlapped with his array tattoos made from a serious proficiency with Alchemy and Alkahestry, and while he didn't necessarily change to his intent he could heal and corrode those he touched with a certain hand.

Yuri actually praised both his Alchemy and Alkahestry studies, but Behran knew that Alkahestry was the lesser offender in the minds of the Ishvalan conservatives so conceded to not gloat the other point. His eyes, his hair, and his body lost the green glow as well but the shadow of superiority he had cast would not leave the impressions of those present or those who would come later, begrudged though they may be.

The brothers smiled at each other, fully confident in facing every tomorrow.

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Yuri felt his soul clone talking to the Elrics and decided to take over from there. It dispelled and he brought Toni and him over to the estate, right on a couch Alera was already occupying. With Toni on his left and Ally on his right, Ally took less than a mere moment to leap at him and wrap him in a tight welcome hug as she landed repeated kisses on his cheeks, making Yuri let out soft giggles at her pecks.

She swiveled on him to take the lap position and Yuri stopped giggling to take her lips and wrap his free hand around her waist, his other one still holding Toni's hand. Their tongues softly caressed each other and swam and wrapped each other in a gentle tug-of-war, his hand brushed her nape and combed the tresses of her hair while thoroughly enjoying Ally's affection.

Trisha was confused. It looked like he was gone for a split second but when he returned Ally treated him like an entirely different person? While it was true that the brand of clone Yuri made was more of an extension of himself than an imitation/stand-in like a Shadow Clone, it still didn't feel like the real thing and the clones themselves were more of a hive-mind whose sentience leaned on the original, so Yuri wouldn't get the same pleasure or fulfillment from using them as a connection to his girls and the girls would know that he was basically playing long distance with them if he did so. Not really an option in his mind.

Trisha looked down at her kids, both leaning their heads on her lap from either side on the couch opposite them, and was glad they were asleep either way.

"I missed you, baby," Yuri toned softly between kisses. "Did you get enough rest?"

"I did," She cooed lightly. "Woke up when the family arrived. Why are they, uh..."

"Missing an arm?" Toni cut in and Trisha looked like she was bordering on tears whenever she thought too hard about it as she pets their stumps.

"Yeah... I gave them a checkup, whoever healed them did great but we can-" Ally was about to suggest regenerating the limbs when she saw Yuri give a deep stare and shook his head lightly.

'If they want their arms back, they can have it, but I'm not doing it without them asking. I have a feeling their answers will be exactly as self-reliant as we've trained them to be.' He projected to both of them and they gave a nod of understanding.

"You're like my husband, aren't you? Another immortal alchemist? Though I've never seen him having a new world with indigenous healing people, or he would've brought us to it before he left for his crusade..." Trisha intoned lightly. She was pensive, her benefactor was mysterious and extremely powerful, dealing with forces beyond her comprehension and teaching her children to raise her from the dead. Most strangely, he also settled down in Resembool of all places.

"A different kind of immortal, though he is much older than me. Hell, I'm not even..."

'...Wait, I totally am older than 30. Dear god, I would've dreaded turning 30 in my old life and now I'm as old as my dad when they had me and I can hardly feel time passing...'

"We're not even 40!" Toni smirked at Yuri's little crisis and answered snidely. She was the same age as Yuri when they met, both 26, now 32. Ally is a bit younger, she's still 28, but they know soon that birthday parties will turn into decennial instead of annual events at the rate they are viewing time. For them at least, the kids are a different story.

But for Trisha, being not even 40 meant he had achieved all that power to stand on her husband's level, or even well beyond, in less than 10% of the time it took him! It sounded preposterous!

But truthfully, the penitent man was not someone who used his Alchemy lightly. Despite having a number of souls that rivaled the current Dwarf in the Flask, his Alchemical lightning was never red, meaning he never used them, instead talking to them and remembering each and every name like he was a graveyard. He might have used those years to advance in skill and knowledge, but never power.

"So what's your goal?" She leered with a suspicion that a housewife tried to but couldn't contain. "You must know what's wrong with this country, are you here to help save it or damn it?" She leveled a harmless yet prying glare. If she needed to warn her husband or die again trying to pry his fingers off of her children, she would try no matter how hopeless it seemed. But it was awkward to make this stand while looking at him through Ally's hair and she refused to move. Hell, Toni pretended to get jealous just to lean in and take a half-share of his lap and kisses. 'Guys, please, just a minute, haha' He projected to them.

"Haha, down mama tiger. I don't pick sides, I put a new one on the board. But I can assure you I have nothing but respect for the kind of man your husband is and the efforts he makes to redeem the future and prevent the past from repeating."

"T-That's not what this is about!" She sputtered in the face of his confidence and flattery but still bravely sought the answer she needed to hear while trying to let her kids stay sleeping. "This is about all of Amestris, and if you get in the way of my husband millions of lives will be lost!"

'Tiger mom is growing on me' Toni wistfully mused.

'Don't worry, we'll find out you two are better ones soon enough.' Yuri teased.

'...Why are the two of them blushing?! I'm being serious here!!' Trisha thought to herself.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Elric. No good lives will be lost in this nation on my watch," Yuri assured, and Trisha missed the implication as she allowed the pressure in her head to vanish after his promise.

'Yes, the GOOD people of Amestris will not die, but who knows how many bad ones I can profit from.'

Serial killers, r*pists, career criminals, dealers of all unchecked commodities, who knew how many of them swarmed the streets of the nation that did exactly what it needed and no more to create a nation that would be fit to feed its underking. Even the Central and most successful district it had to offer was covered in gray paint and lacked all signs of life. It was already dressed like the false nation it was, and the police were not funded or prepared enough to perfectly handle domestic affairs as a result.

Yuri would bring the cleansing it needed and from there, the rest would be history.

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With a small poof of wind that was hidden in a climate of innumerable gales, Yuri arrived in a plain of tilted rock formations and deep-cut dry canyons. Near an inconvenient cliff overlooking one of these canyons, Yuri found evidence of Alchemy being used to artificially extend a certain section of it. He approached, finding nothing visibly wrong aside from the extension but fully feeling the marker Hohenheim left.

A long stare was more than enough for the residents of the marker to activate their own deterrents.

'OoOoOoooOohhhhhh, go awAAAAAAAAY from this plAAAAAAAce!!!' A voice tried to sound as ghostly as possible, he sounded young.

The residents of the marker, one of many that were vertices of a circle that was made by Behran himself and discovered by the gang through Scar later, were souls that Hohenheim spilled from his own personal pool so he could activate it at will from any distance away. It took him over 300 years to convince these 500,000 souls to lay down their afterlife while he staked his own to save the people of Amestris from a second grand nightmare.

The circle was a beauty, crossing through every point in the giant human transmutation circle and canceling its stability and effects with the combined power of Alchemy and Alkahestry. The fact that Behran, younger than 30, came to the same result as Hohen who is 400 years his senior in the fields separately was a testament to Behran's genius. Yuri was glad he kept him.

'Shut up, Antion! We could've just stayed silent!'

'I'm playing dead, does that count?'

'Relax, you two. He probably can't hear us anyway-'

"I can hear you. Very scary, by the way."

""AAAAAHHH!!!"" "Call Hohen!!! Call Hohen!!!"

"Relaaaax, guys, I'm not gonna eatchya. I mean you can call him if you want, but he can't and won't stop me anyway."

"W-What are you trying to do?!"

Yuri smiled lightly, then flexed his hands into a cat's cradle only he could see. [Adept of Fate] went to work and Yuri went to enchanting a preexisting work of a different world's formula to perform with his fine print in mind. Even if Hohen came to investigate while he felt that his formula was still operating, he couldn't see the magic fucking with his science if he tried.

'Can't wait to pick his brain when we come face to face, he's a fascinating character. That and I shouldn't try to replace the boys' father when he's still alive and I can save him. I have my own coming on the way soon anyway, if I know my Ally...'