A/N: SaphiraIce here! So I finally started a fanfic =D Its original idea started off really different, and I've already changed the plot a lot of times, but I find this would be better so voila! umm... yeah as you can see it's a FMAxHP fanfic but I'll have to warn ya', I've never read the HP books and my memories of FMA is a bit foggy lol

If you have nothing important to do, which I'm quite sure you don't, because you're reading this, try one of the fanfictions at our favourite section, they will rock you're socks. :D

Disclaimer: I don't own HP, FMA or the poem at the starting, but I guess I own the idea of this plot...

Summary: Ed offers Truth his gate, but whoever said that Truth will let you choose your payment?

Arc I: Memories come with Changes
Chapter 1: Not Anymore

you are trapped in a cage..

no one sees it.. not even you..

you don't know what it's made of..

you don't even know where it came from..

but you feel it.. it's all around you..

it is full of strength

that it forbids you to move freely..

it separates you from your wisdom

and it strangles your thoughts..

you are robbed

but you don't know what was taken..

you're in a place

but you don't know where you're heading..

you don't even know how you got there..

or who has brought you there..

you know you've been through a lot

but your memories are distorted..

it is seizing you little by little..

you can't stay but you can't go..

you are trapped but no one sees it..

NOT EVEN YOU...

by Unknown

For as long as I can remember, I have always felt as if something important in my life has been missing...

One of the caretakers at the orphanage had once again scolded Eltanin for dropping a plate onto the floor and once again she apologised quickly and cleared up the porcelain shards with a dustpan. She was only six years old.

That girl had on a day almost six years ago appeared in a basket with a note in front of the orphanage. On the note stood her birth date and first name, nothing else. No one really liked her, because her stunningly golden hair and eyes frightened them. As if she were a child of the devil. Her shoulder-length hair could have passed off as blond but those eyes, they were unnatural. The other kids there always called her 'the gold-eyed freak' or the 'snake'. The latter was a pun on her name. It derived from the Arabic name of a constellation and held the meaning: the great serpent.

After lunch that girl went to the garden and sat under a small tree just as she always did. From there Eltanin enviously watched the others play. She probably knew the outcome of this, but she just couldn't help it. She was always alone and all she ever wanted was to also be in a group, play with friends and just have fun. The other kids didn't like to be watched by the likes of her and finally one of them decided to walk towards her direction. The moment she saw him she turned her head away, pretending to have been looking at something else. But it was futile, he had already seen her and she knew it. As usual the beating would soon come and none of the caretakers would take any notice. Maybe they didn't know or maybe they didn't care. Eltanin thought it was more likely to be the latter.

She didn't know the other kids' names. If something didn't interest her, she wouldn't have remembered it and that boy's name sure didn't interest her, just like all the other kids here and a whole bunch of other things. All they did was bully her the whole time. Sometimes she wondered if that was a normal thing to do, to bully the weak and strange ones. But sadly for her, she was the only odd one around here.

Just as expected he punched her in the face, but she didn't shout for help or scream from the pain, she knew it would be useless, just like the countless times she had actually done it. She briefly wondered if she had got used to the beating and used to the pain when she noticed that the punch didn't hurt so much, until he punched her again and this time it started to really hurt, but she tried not to let it show. It seemed that her lack of emotion just seemed to annoy the boy further.

"What do you think you were looking at you snake?" he punched her again, while some of the others started cheering.

Eltanin looked at him with her dull golden eyes. When had they become so dull, so lifeless? Simple, ever since she could remember. The boy hated those eyes, they were just so surreal.

"Why don't you scream, like the coward you are? Answer me you freak!" This time he grabbed her shirt and lifted her off the ground before he started punching her a few times in the face again.

'It'll pass, just like it always does.' she kept repeating in her mind, just like every other time.

One of the girls he was playing with started to scream when she saw blood come out of Eltanin's mouth. The bully also noticed it and for a moment panic was clear on his face, but he quickly replaced it with a smirk and kicked her with his knee in the gut before throwing her onto the ground and kicking her a few more times for good measures while laughing. The group then walked off.

She curled up and hugged her knees hoping that the pain would soon reside and cried. Oh, how she hated the holidays, where she was bullied most of the time. At least when she was in kindergarten the teacher would make sure that around the school campus no beatings would take place. Luckily it was already the last day of the holidays and tomorrow she would be able to start attending primary school. She really hoped it would be the same as kindergarten, at least concerning recess.

She didn't, or rather she couldn't blame those that didn't look at her with those deep hateful eyes. She believed they were probably just too scared to speak up, just like she was too scared to say anything about it to anyone. And so she had decided to stay polite, to stay kind to other people, at least to the best of her abilities. Maybe she was just being foolish but she really believed and hoped that one day, just maybe one day, her kindness would be repaid.

… It might have been many things, considering I have almost nothing. No parents or family, no friends, no money, no happiness...

Roy Mustang, he was a police officer and one of the few people that knew of the existence of wizards and one of those of who were badly affected by the wizarding war. Roy Mustang was one of the few people who joined the Wizard Extermination Syndicate, short WES.

This syndicate was filled with many people, who swore to get rid of all wizards, the wizards who took their loved ones from them, the wizards who stole their family and friends, the wizards who involved innocent people in their own selfish war for power.

Yes, this syndicate swore to clear the world of the wizarding society and those who were foolish enough to dwell in said people's practise.

Anyhow, at the age of five Roy Mustang moved from China to London because of his parents' job. Unfortunately, they were caught in a war that wasn't theirs and his parents were tortured by wizards before they were killed in front of Roy's, then, innocent eyes.

Roy was then sent to an orphanage and a day after; a certain Ms Carrow picked him up from there and raised him. Ms Carrow was a leader of the syndicate along with her brother. She and her brother themselves didn't seem to really care about the kids in the syndicate and neither do they know a lot about martial arts or weapons, and it didn't seem like they wished to know. But luckily, under the members there were quite many specialists. Roy attended school like a normal kid but at 'home' he had to train until he'd mastered the arts, though he preferred explosives.

Now as an adult, he was one of the aces of the secret organisation. The reason he worked as a police was because he didn't trust the syndicate totally. The Carrows always looked at the members strangely. Roy thought it was in a kind of disgusted way but it also seemed like they were looking at the members, as if they were just tools or puppets. Not only that, but why was an organisation that fought for justice in the dark? So he decided to do a proper job. Naturally, it also provided him with a reason for having weapons in his house.

Roy rubbed his eyes, he had just got a letter with his next target's information on it.

'Seriously, how many people wish to delve into this horrible sorcery business?'

His next target was a wizard who started dealing with a drug dealer, who happened to also be an informant of their group. Roy shook his head. 'What irony... A police officer and a drug dealer in the same organisation.'No matter, there was nothing he could do about that at the moment. But it also helped a lot to catch and get rid of the wizards that had become addicts of such a horrible creation.

'And the wizards themselves... to have fallen so low. They who have learnt to control a power so mysterious and strong have fallen to the degree of drug addicts. Disgusting.'

His mission started at nightfall. Taking the place of the informant in a cut-off alley, Roy waited a while. It didn't take long before a man with a lamp in his hands came into sight. Like all other wizards who Roy had seen before, he was dressed normally.

'How funny that as a kid I always thought wizards wore robes. I guess all of that was just part of the fairy tales.'

Roy kicked the lamp out of the wizard's hand. That made the wizard automatically take a step back and then he slowly reached inside his jacket, as if he was going to take his wand out.

'Bingo!'

The police officer had always felt angry towards wizards, even though he felt as if what he was doing was wrong. He just couldn't help it, but to blame them on his parents' death.

Before the wizard could do anything, Roy quickly took a step forwards, successfully grabbing the other's hands with one of his own, causing something to drop onto the floor. At the same time his other hand took a knife hanging from his belt.

In a threatening voice Roy stated to the wizard at knife point: "So you are a wizard."

"How-" that was all the angered young man needed to hear, to definitely complete his suspicion. Roy sliced through the man's neck, causing the head to fall off the body and roll onto the floor letting blood flow freely...

In the morning some poor soul would walk by a shady looking bar with the name "The Leaky Cauldron" just to see that in the alley nearby, there lay a still body in a sea of its own blood...

The next day at the headquarters, when Roy went to report the success of his mission, though as always he couldn't get rid of the feeling that all of this was somehow indeed wrong, Ms Carrow was reading a newspaper. The headlines read:

"Mysterious death of the muggle-born wizard, Alexander Brooks!"

Roy was confused, did the people who practise magic write their own newspaper? It definitely had to be a wizard newspaper, if not everyone would know about wizards. Roy took another look at it and saw the name: 'The Daily Prophet'. He had never heard of such a newspaper before. How did the wizards make sure that it was only distributed among themselves?

'Just where did she get that newspaper from? And what in the world is a muggleborn?'

Today was the first day of school and Eltanin was really very glad for it. She was in the first primary class now and so far it seemed that, at least during the lessons she wouldn't get bullied. But still, she couldn't help but look from time to time around the class and feel like someone was giving her the cold stare. Because of that she couldn't concentrate during lesson, but she also wasn't really interested in the things they were learning at the moment. Not like they were learning much now anyway, it was mainly learning the other kids' names and things like that.

Recess came way too fast for the blond girl, but there was something she needed to do. She needed to make sure she had enough money to live with and it wasn't like this was her first time, she had stolen before and she would do it again.

Making sure to avoid her new classmates for she didn't want to get in a fight or anything similar on the first day of school with people that she was definitely going to see every day for the next few years, she made her way into the crowd in front of the school's snack-bar. While she was walking there she had also taken note of the fact that the teachers were watching the grounds just like in kindergarten. Eltanin smiled.

Time to start pickpocketing.

Today seemed like a good day, so far Eltanin had made quite a bit of money. So she decided to dare another attempt.

And that was her mistake. The crowd had already lessened quite a bit since the starting of recess and in her haste she wasn't careful and that lead to her twisting her ankle, while running up to a boy who was probably in the fifth class. Her ankle had already been hurt due to the boy at the orphanage beating her up quite frequently during the holidays. As a result she crashed into him, but not before she managed to take his wallet and a few notes from it, then he noticed her from the push. The boy snatched his wallet back and then grabbed her by her shirt and lifted her up, staring into her eyes. He was a bit startled though, like everybody else who saw her shockingly golden eyes for the first time. One of his friends whispered something to him and then promptly he dropped her onto the floor. Forgetting the pain in her ankle she quickly stood up and ran into the schoolhouse and into the class room. Looking out of the window she saw a teacher standing near where the boy was before.

She sighed. 'He probably only let me go because of the teacher...'

A bell rang to signify the end of recess.

'At least I made some profit today...'' She thought as she watched her classmates filled up the seats again.

It wasn't long before school ended for the morning. In Eltanin's opinion it just seemed to have finished way to quickly. She packed her school things into her bag as fast as she could and made her way out of the school without many problems. Now she just had to get back safely to the orphanage. She was walking down the streets just a bit away from the school, when she heard some running from behind her. The blond girl turned around just to see that the boy from recess was charging towards her. Quickly, she started to sprint into the nearest alley in the hopes of losing the boy there. But just as her luck had it, before she could go any further into the alley the boy caught up to her, forcefully turned her around and punched her in her face. He grabbed her shirt and slammed her little body against the wall.

In rage he shouted at her. "Bitch! Give me the rest of my money back!"

At that moment all she could think was: 'Am I going to die here?'

Policeman Roy was going for his lunch break. Today he was going to Riza's to enjoy a meal with her. After the wizarding war he met Riza through the syndicate. They became very close friends and when they worked together, they seemed to be unstoppable.

On his was to his friend's house, he saw how suddenly a strong gust of wind came out of an alley. In his mind there was only one explanation for such an incomprehensible event: ...Magic.

'And in broad daylight too...'

Without much further thought he ran to the direction of the alley.

But what Roy saw wasn't what he expected. By the time he reached it the wind had stopped a while ago. In front of him lay a young boy. His whole body was littered with fresh cuts, but the wounds were shallow. The boy was slowly getting up again. Beside the boy stood a smaller girl with a frail body leaning against a wall, who seemed badly beaten up. She looked like she was desperately clinging onto the wall for support and would fall and collapse onto the ground any moment soon.

Roy Mustang was shocked to say the least and he really didn't know what he should be thinking about the whole incident. First, the person that used magic was either one of the too kids and by the looks of it, it would have to have been the girl. Secondly, he never thought anyone would teach magic to a little kid!

The two kids apparently hadn't noticed him yet, because when the boy got up he grabbed the girl by her shirt and smashed her into the wall, which was followed by a sickening crack, while shouting some profanities. That was when Roy got out of his daze and took action. The boy was about to punch the girl, but Roy quickly took a hold of his arm. The boy was shocked; he obviously hadn't noticed the black-haired man until then.

"You, young man, are coming with me to the police station." Roy stated calmly.

"But-, she-! She used some strange magic and all of a sudden there was this strong wind and it cut me all over! Officer, please believe me!" the boy argued and then added after remembering his whole reason for being here: "And she stole my money!"

"Save your excuses."

Roy was about to turn to the girl to ask where she lived so that he could drop her back home, but suddenly she started to cry, her blank expression turning into a sad and hurt, but grateful one. And then, just like that, she collapsed.

'Oh, boy... I better call Riza to help me.'

Roy then immediately called Riza and asked her to come with her car.

Luckily Riza didn't live so far away and it wasn't long until she arrived. Roy asked her to bring the girl to his house and take care of her while he took the boy to the police station. Seemingly understanding the situation Riza nodded wordlessly and then proceeded to carefully bring the girl into her car and drive off. Roy didn't miss the somehow peaceful face of the girl when Riza placed her in the backseat of the car.

I've always wondered if somehow I'll ever get a family or friends, who I can be happy with. I guess in some ways I achieved getting some money, at least enough for me to survive for the time being. But somehow I feel like something is still missing... Something of importance and without it, I feel empty, useless. Insignificant.

A/N: First chapter done yay! :D First I want you, my dear readers, to know that this hopefully won't become some nonsensical fanfiction because I got the general idea planed out. But of course ideas and suggestions are always welcomed, though that doesn't mean I'll definitely use them! ;D

And secondly: criticism is wished and very appreciated!

Thirdly, to the wonderful people who want to review, could you answer the following questions? I would like to know your opinion.

1. What do you think of the syndicate?

2. What do you think Eltanin is missing?

3. I know not much happened yet, but are the characters so far in character?

That's it, thanks for reading (and if you're going to review, for reviewing!), I'll talk to you again in the next chapter! :D

SaphiraIce over and out!