Brutus and Barker

Brutus is defined above all by his hulking pair of oversized automail arms, built for sheer crushing force. His partner Barker cuts a slighter figure and is recognizable by a set of sharply pointed sideburns. Both are Amestrian men who ply their trade in Rush Valley.

The two operate as a boastful, opportunistic team. Brutus revels in flaunting his power and mocking the challengers he beats, while Barker works the crowd, baiting passersby into the contest with taunts and inflated promises of prize money. Neither is above cheating to guard their earnings.

Brutus is introduced at the start of Chapter 17, drawing a thick crowd that catches the eye of Edward, Alphonse, and Winry as they arrive in Rush Valley. He runs an arm-wrestling booth where Barker dangles a large cash reward for anyone able to beat him, charging a 10,000 Cens entry fee. After Brutus crushes a challenger and wrecks the man's automail with a boast, Barker sizes up Alphonse and then needles Edward, dismissing him as a little sprout. Fired up, Edward takes the seat and slams Brutus down so hard that the champion's automail shatters, having quietly used alchemy to weaken the metal. Winry brands him a cheat while Edward savors the win.

The 2003 anime retells the episode with fresh twists. Here Brutus openly cheats, relying on a transmutation circle hidden beneath the table that Barker triggers whenever a loss looms. Paninya, granted an automail right arm in this continuity, challenges Brutus and is robbed of victory by the circle. The Elrics catch on to the trick, and Edward enters partly to punish the pair. After his automail is insulted, an incensed Winry demands he win, and he does. Later the con men, Brutus now sporting a comically tiny replacement forearm, corner the group to demand their money back on the grounds that Edward cheated. Learning the truth, a humiliated Winry batters both the brothers and the swindlers with her wrench before walking off with the prize. The 2009 adaptation cut the duo down to a brief, silent cameo in episode eleven, and their names survive only through the franchise's trading card game, leaving neither with an official Japanese name.