Combined Strength

Wielding his salvaged Philosopher's Stone, Alphonse trades blows with Pride, regenerating his armor and forging a discarded metal foot into a blade to pierce the homunculus's defense. When a decoy flash bomb from Fu lets him trap Pride under a fresh dome, Kimblee wonders aloud why the boy never simply used the stone to restore his body and flee. Alphonse answers that they could never abandon everyone else, then reveals Kimblee has swallowed a Philosopher's Stone of his own.

At Central Command, Alex Armstrong finally wounds Sloth's head, and Olivier strikes the exposed weak point beneath the skin. The homunculus proves faster than his bulk suggests, confirming himself the swiftest of his kind as he overwhelms them both.

Alphonse springs his real trap: the repeated dust clouds are meant to foul Pride's new sense of smell so a transformed Heinkel, healed by Marcoh's stone, can bite into his neck. Yoki arrives in a jeep, deflecting Pride's strike and freeing Alphonse, and the group flees toward Central with Kimblee's broken body hurled behind them. Rather than die, Kimblee lets Pride absorb him to live on inside the homunculus.

Underground, May keeps running from the empowered Envy, realizing the Philosopher's Stones sustaining the Mannequins are exactly what she needs to save her clan. Alex, meanwhile, drives a giant spike through Sloth's arm and head and puts the choice of survival to the wavering Central soldiers. In the white room, with Jerso's saliva and Zampano's quills nearly spent and Edward pinned down, Mustang blasts through the wall Edward built earlier and offers his help.

The episode adapts the manga chapters covering everyone's combined strength and the archenemy. Its title card displays the arrays tattooed on Kimblee's palms. A continuity slip appears in Kimblee's suit, which briefly tears at the sleeve during Heinkel's chokehold before appearing whole again. His remark about Alphonse not simply fleeing with the stone is ironic, given that Kimblee himself spent years imprisoned with one and never used it to escape.