Hagane no Renkin Jutsushi (Fullmetal Alchemist) Ep 12 - Sareki no Daichi Kouhen (The land of sand - Part 2)

Mugear lead his men to the laboratory where Ed, Al, Russell and Fletcher are at. Russell lies that there is nothing wrong but Mugear keeps knocking on the door. Fletcher then decides to use alchemy to create a tree and block the door in order to give the Elric brothers time to escape.

After they leave, Mugear comes into the laboratory and asks about the progress of the experiment. Russell then passes a completed crystal of the red water which makes Mugear very happy. However, Mugear turns on them by using that crystal to perform alchemy and hold the Tringun brothers in captive since he already knew right from the beginning that they were imposters. Russell then asks Mugear about the whereabouts of their father, Nash and he reveals that Nash was killed because he refused to complete the most crucial portion of the experiment i.e. making pregnant women drink the red water and using the crystallized foetus as the exchange terms to create gold.

At the same time, Ed and Al return to Belsio's place and hear from him about Nash Trigun's past. He had been to Centora for the experiment but came back alone without his family and in a sorry state. Mugear came to Nash and asked him to continue the red water experiments. Although Nash was initially resistant to the idea, he finally agreed for the sake of making Zenotime prosperous again.

However, this led to more troubles as the vapour from the red water caused the people to fall sick and many babies died during that time. As such, Nash finally stopped the experiment and disappeared. This made Zenotime go back to its poverty state where no gold could be mined.

After hearing this story, Al tells Ed that he finds the Tringun brothers quite similar to them but Ed doesn't feel this way since he's feeling sore about his name being used. However, he finally decides to go and look for Mugear again so as to save the Tringun brothers.

Mugear tries to lie to Ed and Al in order to make them do his bidding. However, he ends up being killed by falling stones when the cave containing the red water fountain collapses.

Ed and Al leave Zenotime to return to Centora and the Tringun brothers reveal that they are staying behind to do their bit for the town and to make up for what they did. Although Russell offers to divulge the composition of the red water to assist Ed in his search for Kenja no Ishi, Ed declines the offer and decides to use his own abilities to achieve his aim...

There's not much action here other than Ed creating and breaking some walls and the Tringun brothers using trees to absorb the red water which had overflowed. The next episode seems more exciting since it's a battle between Mustang and Ed. Oh, I'm looking forward to seeing Mustang and Hughes squabble again... ^__^