Ok hi guys, I gave it my best to think up something for my other, unfinished stories but I swear - one or two chapters and writers block comes a long like a slap in the face - even after so long.

So excuse my grammar, I haven't written in so long (school has been out and I haven't written a story on here in a LONG while.)...WELL anyway - cutting to the chase - I seem to notice a complete lack of FullMetal Alchemist stories on here with war involving all the guys in the series. (I don't know WHY but I'm on a kick with amnesia, sickness, war, nightmares, etc.)..I've gone through WAY too many stories to count. SO here I am! Sorry for the long intro. This would be called The Ways of War until I find a better name. Enjoy! (oh b.t.w - I have a idea of the years so sorry if there a little off :P)

Reisombol - 1909 - Night

Roy Mustang, Lt. Colonel in the military, had just arrived at Edward Elric's home town. What he has seen upon arriving at the house written in the report was brute and spine-chilling. Not that no one was there, no, but that there was a blood-splattered, mangled, body - if it can be called that - lying on the floor of a back room in the house. An alchemic transmutation circle drawn in the center of the room, while the 'body' lye in the middle of it.

What in the world was this and why was it here? One had to ask. What Roy Mustang thought, albeit the 'normal' thought of people, definitely had to be 'What did that boy try to do?' and ' Where in the hell are they now?'. In Reisombol the houses were far apart, spread about. He and whoever else was with him, if they had lived, could not have gotten far.

It was then he saw it - the broken body lying there, unconscious and bloody. Next to it was something,appearing to be armer, calling out 'brother' frantically. Roy cautiously walked to them, his assistant, Lt. Riza Hawkeye, at his side (yeah pretty obviously gun in hand, its hawkeye for goodness sake!). " Are you...two...okay? What's wrong with your brother?" Roy, still being cautious, asked - his voice barely showing emotion (just like his face -.-). "You have to help brother, please! He's dying!" the suit of armor said (yeah you can probably guess who it is, right? its so discreet.) in a panicked, yet hollow voice.

Roy took a glance at the boy in the armors arms. He really DID look like he needed help. Two of his limbs look like they had been amputated. He was panting and looked as pale a dead person. Without another word they sprinted to get to the nearest doctors, the Rockbells (yes I am saying that they're doctors, I don't specifically mean Winry's parents.). When they got there, all occupants at the house gasped in horror. What they saw is something none of them will ever forget.

"Edward!" they all gasped in horrified shock "What happened?". The boy now known as Edward (I know I was so subtle about it, right? :D) was even more pale by now (if it was even possible) and his lips were going blue. The younger look girl and man, looking to be about 30 (I don't know their age sorry) years old, took him from Edward's brother. They ran off, apparently knowing what to do as the oldest woman in the room followed.

He had to survive. No one thought that bright, short-tempered, little kid could ever leave them. He could never ever leave them, especially not his brother. His little brother - he held him so close to his heart. But what happened when a heart that cared so much for these people stopped beating? No one wanted to think about it. Who did? It wouldn't be death. Death would mean your completely gone. No matter what you went to - flames, paradise, absolute nothingness, anything - you were still somewhere.

He struggled to breathe. There was too much blood. He was getting more and more pale by the second. Eventually there was worry about brain damage or something worse from all the blood lose. He weakly opened his eyes to find his brother staring down at him with as much worry a suit of armor could hold.

He tried smiling but just broke into body-racking sobs as he said " Al, Alphonse, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry!". It was not above a whisper, but his brother heard it. " It's all..sob...my fault! That..sob..that body..sob..I'm sob so sob sorry!" Al could not help to think 'it isn't all your fault, brother.' but that thought did not come out. Instead the first thing to come out was " Don't cry. It isn't your fault alone, brother. (it will be Ed when its slanted.) sob I couldn't protect my little brother! And you did protect me, Ed! Stop doing this. Your supposed to be the strong one, brother, so be strong!" With Al wrapping up his final sentence Ed slowly faded back into the darkness.

It all passed so fast - blood was everywhere. Somehow though, Edward pulled through. He cried every night about something with 'armor' and 'brother' though Roy could never hear him fully. He moaned and panted from the injuries and something else he had seemingly decided to do (reference from the early on chapters in manga!). 'He had to be strong' the boy would say 'for Al' he would add almost every time. ' If Ed isn't stubborn then I would question his existance.' the young girl, found out to be Winry, would say and then always added or put before that statement 'Al is strong, too.'.

Lt. Colonel Roy had to leave soon and so he told the young boy, with no life in his eyes, that he could become a state alchemist and fix his brother or just sit pathetically. That was how the boy decided to get the surgery. Thats where it all started. Back in that time they never thought this would happen. None of them.

Central City - 1916

"Happy Birthday Ed!" they all shouted out. He was happy and content with the little cake in the office filled with Breda, Havoc, Fury, Falman, Armstrong, Al, Hawkeye, Ross, Brosh (Ross' partner), and Roy. They have all stayed late in the office (besides Al for obvious reasons) just for his birthday. He thanked them, then dug in.

'How could it be like this now?' thought Lt. Ross. That 'now' was all of those soldiers there were leaving. Another war - it was a civil one. Even Al - who was not even in the military - got that notice. They all had to leave tomorrow.

Ed and everyone else there was on the verge of tears and nervous. What could another civil war bring? It would not be Ishbal - they fixed that problem. Who was it? No one wanted to go to war - they all experienced it somehow. Whether it be their hometown going to ruble when it happened (Ishbal war, Ed and Al's hometown), going into the front lines (almost all of them), or anything else - they didn't want it. They were going none the less. How old did you have to be to get put through this? Ed was just turning 17 and Al was 15 (they were a year apart but I think Al was 14 when Ed was turning 16 so...yeah), they were still kids! How did this happen to any of them?

Tomorrow they started a new chapter, heck maybe even a whole new book, in their life. What would happen? Would it be the last chapter, of the last book in the series? Would they die there or would they live to tell the tale? No one knew. Who could? It was a mystery. None of them wanted to find that mystery out.

As they got their uniforms (Al had been signed up unwillingly into the war to be an alchemist, so he got the dog of the military pocket watch right before they left, as well as the title 'Major') and head on to the train they could not help but be solemnly quiet as their train pulled out of the station. Each division had their own cart - Intelligence (run by Hughes, who is in fact alive somehow in this yes), Roy's Division (since I have no idea what their name would be), and many others.

They were going to war.

Time Skip - 1917

"Happy Birthday, Fullmetal."

" Yeah thanks a lot, Flame, it doesn't matter now."

" Good luck with the separate division. I don't want to see you in those medical tents."

" I should be telling you that."

It had been one full year since they had received the letter that would shatter their peace for who knows how long. It had been one full year since they had been saying 'Happy Birthday' to Ed. How young is too young? They had thought, not one of them knew that answer. The youngest their was Alphonse Elric, the 'Armor Alchemist' (since he had armor as a body before he got the original body back), who was 16. A few months from his own birthday. Is that old enough? 'Certainly not' people would probably say, but of course in war and in the military nothing was 'certain'.

Everyone had faired so far - somehow - and they were all living. They were in rigid temperatures - brute cold from five o'clock in the morning until midnight, then blazing hot in between those hours (basically opposite of the desert). All of it seemed okay if you got past some thoughts. On the surface, anyway. On the inside they were breaking - oh yes definitely breaking - down and it hurt. Even uninjured it hurt, for no one can heal a breaking heart except time, and time was not something those hearts - those breaking hearts - were going to get.

The men and women in the earlier civil war - Ishbalian war - were breaking less but they had not yet mended from the last time war had brought its ugly fist back down. It was understatement for the other, older war veterans - their heart had been practically immune to war. Yet no one could be - it hurt anyone - taking another human beings life. They thought that the one person - so strong that he did not cry at night, so strong that he kept going, so strong that he did not seem to break - had broke.

The soldiers were in line as their captain walked past them, his brother at his side. "We have a breach on the front lines. Soldiers - about two dozen to be seen at the moment - are lining up to attack. Our men are injured and tired - they can't hold of many more raids...(a pause) o-oh Fullmetal sir!" the soldier saluted as he pass, knowing everything would be handled. "Your forgetting thats my specialty" the man's gentle but hard, joking voice said. Everyone in the army loved his voice - not because of its general sound but because of its joking, nice, and all around gentle nature. It was one of those voices where you knew you would trust that person to protect you from danger if you were not its cause. It was the voice of Edward Elric.

Going onto the battlefield he immediately ordered all soldiers to get away and regroup. They fought valiantly against the brute force of the other side's soldiers. They were getting tired though.

Alphonse's POV

I'm getting tired. I completely agreed to let the soldiers regroup back at the base - to get medical treatment too - but yet I can tell this isn't going to end good. I haven't been shot yet and I can't tell if Brother has yet. I can tell he's slowing down though. We won't give up. I can't find Ed anymore - something that worries me - and its clear that more soldiers are coming.

"Brother!"
"..."

"Brother, answer me, where are you?"

"...(faint whisper)"

" Edward! Where in the hell did you go?"

"A-Al..." He sounds so...frail.

"Ed! I can't find you! Where did you go dammit?"

(BACK TO REGULAR POV)

He froze. Lying on the ground he saw a faint speck of color - blonde and red. He made a sprint for it - and what he saw he would never forget. Lying there in the dirt was his brother beaten and shot. It seems the shot was unfocused as it was barely more than a graze but it did not take away from the severity of his wounds. He had multiple slits and it looked as though he had been partially trampled on. He was half-conscious, whizzing, bloody, and scared looking.

"Brother! Edward! Are you ok? Where are you bleeding?"

"A-Al...pant...I sh-...pant...should...pant b..pant..e...saying...pant...cough...pant...that...pant...t-to...yo- cough cough cough cough"

"Stop talking - you don't have to - just point and tell me where it hurts, okay? It's going to be alright."
( All this talk he had to put up a boundary with alchemy so the soldiers would not get them, since no one else is there to attack)

The wall broke - right then and there. Alphonse tried to fend them off while protecting his brother. 'Don't worry brother, just try and stay awake. I'll protect you.' he had said - worry ridden all over his face and gentleness in his every word. Ed had, unknown to his brother, begun to sob - silent, steady sobs that racked his body. He could not stand it - staining his already bloodied hands with more of the putrid substance.

He had mercy on one of the soldiers - a mistake and he knew it - and had be shot down. In white, sizzling pain he tried to get up again but the soldier just held him down and pounded his lithe form, which was already breaking, until it was just about to break. He tried to stop him - someone else beat him to it though. Another soldier, it seemed, had missed Edward's brother and, in shear luck, hit the man on top of him. It was a knife - more than one - but only one was needed because the one that hit had hit directly into the skull - killing him in seconds.

He did not want to kill anymore - it had always been the golden rule through all his travels trying to find the philosophers stone, but yet here he was. Here he was in the middle of a war killing people left and right. He had the taint of blood forever etched onto his fingers (at least in his mind) as it etched in further with every murder, like a knife cutting deeper every time you ran the blade through it.

"Al.." he murmured

"Al...stop..." it was barely a whisper

"Al - please stop..." it was weak but it was louder. His brother paid it no heed.

"Al..phonse...help" He said weakly, scrambling to his feat. His legs could not hold him up as he tumbled down again. He was dying. The soldiers flanked them on both sides and he subconsciously knew that they would never hold them off long enough. Alphonse was trying to hold them off but he could not be in two places - Ed had to defend himself - even if just a tiny bit - and it was almost impossible. His auto-mail arm was almost broken and his left arm was dead-weight, he was bleeding out, and he could feel his legs giving out whenever he moved or even tried to stand.

Alphonse was not any better - beaten, battered, and bloody. He could hold the soldiers off longer then Ed could at this point. He knew he had to, too, because Ed was dying down. He needed to get his older brother help, and fast. How longer could they hold out like this? It was unknown to them. They could last seconds more or maybe hours but it would become more and more of a struggle.

Just then the unimaginable happened - time slowed down as a soldier shot at him. He was too slow - he could not dodge it as it headed for his head. Edward transmuted a wall just in time. It was weak but it stopped the built. 'Thank you brother!' was what Alphonse would have said - but the words died in his throat - for lying there on the ground in a crumpled heap was none of than Edward.

Wow...I'd say its pretty long. On the original pages I'm doing this on its almost six pages long. I know thats long then some of my stories combined in just one chapter. I'm working on another story which is a second chapter to something - you know trying to catch up with it all. Hope you guys like it. By the way - I know that Hughes died in the series and that all that but - it isn't the series is it? Tell me if my grammar is bad or if I made any mistakes. I tried to get this done fast (took me 4 days!) so I can't promise the next chapter will come so soon. :) Oh yeah ONE MORE THING - The italic at first was a sort of explanation and then with the war that wasn't a flash back but sort of a...I don't know how to explain it but its more of a explaining what I meant by broke. Now broke at the moment can mean literally or figuratively since I sort of left that open. Thats all - thanks for reading! :)