Upheaval in Central

Mustang's cornered squad is saved when Charlie, Richard, Damiano, and Alexandre open fire on the Central commandos instead of him. Realizing she was among those marked for death, Mrs. Bradley questions whether her husband betrayed her or the military betrayed him, and Mustang vows to keep her safe. His platoon retreats, clearing a path with flame alchemy, while at Central Command Brigadier General Klemin seethes that the colonel keeps slipping away after wounding scores of men without a single kill.

In the conference room, Olivier Armstrong dismisses the notion that she is merely a hostage keeping Briggs in line. She reveals that her soldiers can act without her, and deep within the city Captain Buccaneer rouses the Briggs guard hidden in the Armstrong mansion to strike at Central's forces.

Running low on ammunition, Mustang's unit is resupplied when an ice cream van driven by Rebecca Catalina and Maria Ross plows through their pursuers, loaded with weapons and Xingese tear gas. Fuery patches their radio into a phone line, and their anonymous benefactor turns out to be Jean Havoc, running a covert arms trade from his family store. Meanwhile Olivier, refusing to spare her homeland's traitors, stabs one general, shoots Gardner dead, and takes another hostage.

Outside Kanama, Edward's party sees smoke rising from the capital and moves to attack, aiming to smash Father's new vessel and free the trapped Xerxesian souls. Blocked from the tunnel, they reroute through Laboratory 3, then split into two groups. May rushes underground with Envy in her jar just before soldiers seal the area. In the lair, Father extends his reach and homes in on the faint noise of Pride rapping his stick against Alphonse's helmet, and a furious general activates the Mannequin Soldiers en masse.

The episode adapts the manga chapters covering the soldiers' return and the army of immortals, and its title card bears the male dragon of the Amestrian flag. Where the manga explains Central's weak defenses purely through its history of never being attacked, this version has Olivier also cite Isaac McDougal's near-success in the first episode, while noting the capital has never faced a large-scale force. It marks the close of the series' fourth season.