Kimblee might have fought better if he didn't have to worry about keeping his hat from flying away.
Summary:
In the western regions of Amestris, Kimblee and his crew stop at the winding railways to determine where Scar has gone. The group follows a trail towards the north that's supposedly blocked by rock slides, but Kimblee discovers that there are signs of transmutation in the fallen rocks, which means Scar must have passed by. Kimblee then heads north by train to cut off Scar's escape. After getting word that Scar and companion have jumped onto a cargo train, Kimblee decides to go after Scar while the train is still on the move. After Kimblee's military train catches up to the cargo train, Kimblee jumps onto the cargo train and discovers a hooded man inside one of the cars, but the hooded man turns out to be Yoki instead of Dr. Marcoh. Scar jumps back into the car and attacks Kimblee. As the moonlight shines into the car, the two adversaries recognize each other from Ishval, and in anger Scar destroys the roof of the car.
Kimblee got caught napping.
Bye bye for now.
Scar continues to attack Kimblee while Yoki tries to stay out of the way. Kimblee recognizes that Scar is in better shape than he is, but he thinks that he can take advantage of Scar only being able to decompose. Much to Kimblee's surprise, Scar suddenly pulls out a makeshift spear and throws it through Kimblee's abdomen. Badly injured and pinned against the car in front, Kimblee has no choice but to destroy the linkage so that the car that Scar is standing on is disconnected from the the train engine. Hearing the explosion, the train operators stop the train after discovering that their rear cars are gone. At the back of the train, the operators discovers the wounded Kimblee who demands that the train keep on going to the north.
Slipping just as you arrive at a new location is not a good omen.
The wilderness of Briggs is full of dangerous creatures.
At Rush Valley, Winry phones into Central and finds out that the brothers have headed north. Winry tells Garfield about the situation, and Garfield states that the brothers might die without proper equipment. Meanwhile, Ed and Al have arrived in North City and they get a ride from a guy with a horse-drawn cart. The guy leads them to entrance to the path to the Briggs fortress, and before leaving the guy tells the Elrics not to stray from the path. The guy also makes a comment about automail is bad in the north, but the Elrics don't understand. A while later, the brothers find themselves under blizzard conditions where they can't see more than a few feet in front. Suddenly, the two are attacked by large man in a military uniform with a strange automail arm. The man catches Al with a net gun and starts fighting Ed, claiming that the brothers are spies from Drachma. Ed tries to break up the confusion, but the man attacks relentlessly. In the heat of the fight Ed suddenly discovers that his automail right arm isn't working very well, and this allows the man to catch Ed's automail arm with his saw blade equipped automail arm. The big man tries to cut through Ed's automail arm, and to Ed's surprise he is not able to decompose the man's automail. Ed is finally able to break free after jamming the sword with the ribbons on Al's helmet, but seconds later the brothers find themselves surrounded by half a dozen camouflaged Briggs soldiers.
Ed isn't really worried about being tossed around by Buccaneer; he's more worried about what Winry would do to him if his arm breaks again.
Now that's what I'd call a fortress.
As the weather clears up, the brothers discover they are only about 20 feet away from the fortress, and the man they've been fighting is a captain named Buccaneer. Looking down at brothers from the imposing fortress is Major General Olivier Mira Armstrong, the commander of the fortress and Alex Armstrong's older sister, and the Elrics are surprised that Olivier looks nothing like Alex. Despite Ed's claim of being a State Alchemist, Olivier has Ed and Al searched and Alex's introduction letter is brought to her. Olivier can see from the seal that the letter is from Alex, but instead of reading the letter Oliver tears the letter into shreds and throws the scraps into the wind. Olivier explains she has no need for introduction letters since she judges people with her own eyes. The major general grants the Elrics permission to enter the fortress, but she warns the brothers that she's not going to treat them like kids, because only the tough survive out in the Briggs.
An accurate depiction of the relationship between Olivier and Ed.
Elsewhere in the snowy northern landscape, Marcoh and May have located the cabin where Scar hid his brother's research, and Marcoh wonders if the research will bring about hope or despair.
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This episode marks the official beginning of Ed and Al's great northern adventures and the long arc of FMA that takes place in and around the Briggs. The (in)famous Olivier Mira Armstrong finally appeared in person, and in accordance to the hints she is nothing like her brother in both looks and personality. The Elrics will be suffering for a bit under Olivier's hard-nosed supervision, but the brothers have been through worse, and Olivier and her crew aren't really horrible people. It's more like they've been hardened by their surroundings.
Speaking of the surroundings, this episode brings up some interesting facts about automail in that the usual automail from the warmer parts don't work very well in the cold. It seems that the Elrics just came up the north on a whim and didn't do any research. The northern automail such as Buccaneer's "Crocodile" is made of different metals and that's why Ed was unable to decompose Buccaneer's arm. The conclusion to all of this is that Ed will need some northern gear before he can do anything outside.
The other half of this episode is about the long overdue rematch between Scar and Kimblee. The fight was short and rather one sided, but at least the animation was pretty good. Just like Ed wasn't prepared to go up north, Kimblee wasn't really prepared to take on Scar. Not only is Kimblee not in the best shape and not dressed for the occasion, he also underestimated what Scar is capable of. I find it really funny that just as Kimblee was thinking that Scar's alchemy can only destroy, Scar pulls out a spear and throws it through Kimblee's stomach. That was perfect timing. Despite his serious injuries, Kimblee is going to survive since it'd be really pointless to introduce him into the story and have him killed off so quickly.
The pace of the series is picking back up again, and the next episode should be quite exciting with Olivier and the Briggs soldiers taking on the big homunculus Sloth.
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