Chapter One - Discover

There was no way that this was going to work. The fall alone was about 50 feet tall, and then we had to jump down to get a good start. That made it 52 at least. This was not going to work.

"You ready, Al?" I turned to my brother, my blonde braid flipping over my shoulder. He nodded, as much as he could in his metallic suit. I backed away from the edge of the building, eyeing the door one last time. On the inside, our attackers still pounded against the door furiously. I gave a signal to Al, running towards the edge of the building right as they all burst through.

The last thing that they saw was the edge of my red coat vanishing over the edge of the building.

As the world seemed to rush closer, I prepared myself for the landing I knew was going to hurt at least my flesh leg. As the impact became closer and closer, I was suddenly aware that Al had propelled himself in front of me. He was going to be the first to land, no doubt planning on catching me. As he came to a stop, he outstretched his metal arms just in time to catch me as I fell. I landed with a grunt in his arms, startled when I was on my feet in the next instant. I could hear gunshots ringing out in the sky. Metallic clinks and clangs rang out as the bullets bounced off of Al. He was running behind me as I ran ahead, casting a grateful look over my shoulder towards my younger brother. He seemed to smile, understanding the thanks in my eyes.

We ran as fast as our legs could carry us, eventually getting out of gun range. A few of them had been smart enough – or dumb enough – to follow us, but that had only led to their defeat. We were now running down an alley we knew well, one that led back to Central. If my train of thought was correct, they were still following us. We needed to get them to Headquarters, so provoking them and taunting them was our plan. Well, it was my plan – Al hadn't agreed to it completely.

As Al yanked me behind him, I heard some more gunshots sound out. Good, they had followed us. I slapped my hands together, crouching by Al's knees as I shot rock towards our attacker. On the sidelines, horrified expressions and gasps were what identified citizens. They all backed away, watching in horror as a battle unfolded in front of them. I got out from behind Al, looking to our attackers and seeing that there was more than one. They had all managed to catch up to us, their guns all pointed towards me.

"Back down, Fullmetal. Hand over what you took and no one has to get hurt," A voice called from the middle of the group. Out walked a man clad in black, his white hair falling to his waist. I sighed, locking eyes with him as he continued to walk to the front of the group.

"No way in hell is that happening. Sorry," I retorted with a roll of my eyes. Suddenly, a gunshot sounded. I put my auto-mail arm up in front of my face just in time as in the next instant a bullet collided with it. I stumbled back from the shocking impact, my eyes darting to the man who had shot at me. He looked horrified that he had even done it, but his leader looked absolutely thrilled. The leader of the group rolled up the sleeves of his tight leather jacket, exposing pale white forearms. His hands were outstretched, now pointing towards the both of us to reveal transmutation circles.

The next instant was chaos. I shouted out for the people to run, Al rushing up to the man and engaging in combat. Gunshots were everywhere, my arm permanently deflecting as many as I could. A few of them missed their mark and ended up hitting my leg, but lucky for me, that was also metal. As I ran up to the leader and started to transmute alongside Al; that was when he acted.

He shouted out to his followers, watching as they scattered. He then winked to us, his white hair shading his perfect face in a sinister manner. He placed his hands to the ground, activating whatever transmutation he had. The ground started to rumble as Al and I quickly tried to get out of the way. In the next instant that we blinked, I was thrown off the edge towards on of the railed fountains that scattered Central. Al made a crashing sound as he impacted into a near building. I fell underwater, hearing the muffled cries of Al as he continued to fight the leader. I quickly swam towards the surface, jumping out of the water almost as fast as I had been propelled into it.

"Fullmetal, Alphonse, duck!" A voice shouted out. Not thinking twice, both of us did as we were told as flames shot above our heads. The leader let out a terrifying scream as the flames made contact with his flesh, burning him into submission within seconds. I got to my feet, eyeing Al as he did so as well.

"You okay, Al?" I asked, taking off my jacket in a feeble attempt to dry off my auto-mail. If it got wet and stayed that way for too long, who knew what was going to happen next. For all I knew, a wrench could be being thrown at my head for being so reckless; and that was something I preferred to avoid.

"I'm fine. What about you?" Al took a step closer to me as I shrugged off his concern. I watched as Mustang neared, taking one look to the burnt leader before he summoned Hawkeye to come and take care of the man. She did it without hesitation, placing handcuffs on his wrists as they wheeled him away on a gurney. Mustang made his way to us, watching as I continued to try and save my arm.

"Not waterproof, huh?" He joked as I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue.

"I could say the same about you," I retorted as I flicked a few droplets of water from my hair onto him. Al laughed beside me as Mustang gave us both a cross look. I ignored him as I sat down on a nearby ledge, probably to the fountain, and began to try and dry my leg as well. Al sat beside me, keeping up a conversation with Mustang while I tuned both of them out.

As I rolled up my pants, my hand casually grazed my pocket, reminding me what I had. What Al and I had finally succeeded in finding after all of this time. Mind you, it was nothing major, and it was definitely no better a lead than the Homunculus, but we had found it. We had gotten our hands on something that had been rumored about for thousands of years and was said to have limitless powers. Of course, there were also the stories that said it only accepted certain people for its host, but Al and I could get around that if it meant we got our bodies back.

"Fullmetal, are you even listening to us?" Mustang piped up, slapping me on the back of the head. I grumbled, glaring harshly up to him.

"What was that for?" I shouted as I stood. Al grabbed my arm and dragged me back down before I could be burnt to a cinder, in his words. I glared to both of them, my glare then finally settling on Mustang.

"So, let's see it then. What did you go through all that trouble to get your hands on?" The Colonel stuck out his hand, expecting me to hand it over. I rolled my eyes, sliding my arms back into my jacket as I stood and looked to him nonchalantly.

"It was useless. We went in there for nothing. They didn't have it," I walked away before he could catch the lie that was written in my eye. Al followed, catching up to me before he whispered in my ear,

"Why didn't you tell him?" Al and I rounded a corner, returning to the normal streets of Central.

"Because, he would have taken it," I replied, eyeing Al with more meaning than what was in my sentence. Al nodded, straightening back up as we started small talk on our walk to the train station.

We had to find someone who knew what "Innocence" was to tell us how to work it.