Atlas

Commander Atlas is a security chief assigned to protect the Crichton family when the Cretan military took them into protective custody. In order to pursue his plan to acquire the Sanguine Star, Atlas took the identity (and possibly the life) of a young man who left the western section of Amestris looking for work in Central. He committed a crime so he could disappear into the Amestrian prison system to wait for his plan to pan out.

However, he broke out of the prison with his alchemy when he read a newspaper article stating that Julia Crichton had been arrested by the Amestrians when she tried to illegally cross the border into Amestris. Edward and Alphonse Elric try to capture him, recognizing his prison clothes, but due to his alchemy being completely unknown to them, he manages to escape.

He next appears on the train that Ed and Al are taking to Table City, and fights a wolf chimera before fighting Ed again. When both Elrics manage to stop the train (although crashing it into the station), he heads to the prison and begins taking it apart with his alchemy, allowing Julia to escape during the chaos. When Ed and Al pursue him again, he attacks them, also endangering Julia at the time. Al catches Julia, but when Julia falls toward the valley, he leaps headlong after Julia and Al to rescue Julia (and Al by accident).

When he emerges from the snowbank he created to protect himself and Julia, Miranda appears with her Black Bats to take Julia back. Atlas then claims to be Ashley Crichton, Julia's long missing brother who she believed had died the same night her parents died. Manipulating Julia's fondness for her brother in order to set up the circumstances to create a Sanguine Star, Atlas eventually pretended to agree to Julia's plan to create the Star in order to give the Milosians the power they needed to free their nation from both Creta and Amestris.

He went with Julia, Miranda, and Miranda's second in charge, Alan, to the Observation Tower, and pointed their attention to the speaking tubes in the ornate cage in the tower. He then stabbed Miranda, so her blood would pour into the tube and begin the transformation of the cage into the chamber that would initiate the transmutation. Alan revealed himself to be Raul, a secret ally of Atlas, who hoped to make an independent nation that he and Atlas would rule and which would be stronger than either Amestris or Creta due to the Sanguine Star. But Atlas then stabbed Raul as well in order to have more blood to start the transmutation.

His plan succeeded that far, as the various underground chambers known to the Amestrians sent the various soldiers guarding them to their deaths, adding more blood for the Star. Atlas then cut through Julia's clothes and cut off the tattoo on the side of his body (that he had taken from the real Ashley) to lay above Julia's tattoo. This was why he had waited five years in jail, because Julia had been too young before for her tattoo to match in size to Ashley's. With both tattoos united, Atlas had a map to lead him to the chamber where the Sanguine Star would be once the transmutation had completed.

Ed and Julia chased Atlas to the room, and Julia succeeded in taking the Star, but then swallowed it. Atlas followed her to the valley, where she had gone to try to stop a lava flow that threatened to kill everyone in the valley. Atlas demanded "his" Sanguine Star, only to be attacked by Lt Colonel Herschel, the genuine Ashley. Herschel/Ashley killed Atlas for revenge, removing the powerful alchemist who had betrayed everyone from the story henceforth.