It was the headline of the day's newspaper. And in big, bolded print it read:

Roy Mustang arrested for Identify Fraud

"What the hell?" Ed murmured to himself, scanning the title over again. He must've read it fifty times before he was inside his and Al's apartment, and twenty more before Al asked him what about the paper interested him so much. Still trying to puzzle together the meaning of the words himself, Ed flicked the paper toward Al.

The armored spirit's gaze scanned it once, and unlike his brother, he got it almost immediately. "The Colonel was arrested?"

Ed sat down at the table with a plop! , settling himself and pouring a cup of coffee. Irritated, he muttered "And he's apparently not even the Colonel. Al, what does the rest of it say?"

Alphonse read out loud:

"Colonel Roy Mustang has been arrested for Identity Fraud. It has been discovered that the former Flame Alchemist has fabricated his history, name, age, and place of origin. Authorities suspect he is a foreign spy, sent to dismantle the military from the inside-out. Precautions are being made, and inspections are under way. Further updates will be made in the future."

Ed stirred sugar into his coffee absent-mindedly, tapping his temple with his left hand. "Fabricated his history, name, age and place of origin…'"he quoted the article. Annoyed, he grinded his teeth. "So the bastard was lying to us about everything, huh!?" he stood up so abruptly the table shook. "NOT ANY-DAMN-MORE!" The blond stormed over to the door, grabbing his coat and completely disregarded the idea of drinking any of his breakfast brew. "Come on Al, we're gonna go kick his ass!"

Al nodded, knowing full well what Ed meant was find out what was really going on. He tossed the newspaper onto the table and followed his older brother out the door, closing it softly with a click behind him.

He didn't know Edward wouldn't be returning for quite some time.

"He's being detained." The guard's expression was flat.

"You've told me this twelve times!" Edward slammed his palms against the table top to emphasize his irritation "I said, WHERE IS HE!?"

"Being detained." Again with that answer. "FullMetal, sir, I'm afraid I'll have to remove you from the premise by force if you don't cooperate."

"WELL I'M NOT GOING TO COOPERATE!"

The guard sighed, twitching slightly. The man was quite a bit taller than Edward (as was everyone else) and had a tad bit more muscle mass than the fourteen-year-old did. Chances are, if he really meant it, he really could 'throw' Ed out. The only reason he hadn't already was because Ed outranked him, being a State Alchemist and all. Alphonse probably would've been able to convince him, but he was stopped at the door for being a 'suspicious person', so instead of risking a check-over, the brothers decided to temporarily split up until after Edward talked with Mustang. The guard opened his mouth to give Ed some more information he didn't want to hear when the building abruptly shook.

A loud BOOOM was hear, and debris broke and dusted the room, cluttering Edward's shoulders and getting tangled up into his hair.

"What was that?" Ed coughed, blinking the dust out of his eyes.

The man had whirled around and drew his gun, running towards the source of the explosion to investigate. Edward didn't take long to follow. As he followed the guard through the corridors, he was grabbed by the shoulder and turned around.

"Edward, what the hell are you doing here-?" Roy growled, shaking him slightly. There were bags under his eyes and a slight scruff on his chin. His clothes seemed to not be prisoner's clothes, rather a casual outfit Ed had seen him in once or twice before (minus the coat and shoes). His hair was still a slightly messy tangle with the same bangs, and really he just looked pretty normal.

Besides one thing.

His eyes.

They were shining bronze.

"I came after you, you dumbass!" Ed hissed, backing away from him. "What the hell was that explosion!?"

"That would be me." Riza said from behind the colonel. Her eyes were a magenta color now.

"More specifically, me." Chirped someone else. A tall woman with green hair, pointed ears, and fairy wings waved.

"Who and what the hell is that?" Ed snapped, pointing toward her.

"Oh how rude." She pouted. "I have a name, you know."

"This is not the time!" Roy snapped. His glare came back to Ed. "Get out of here FullMetal-"

"Too late for that." Riza said. She whipped up her gun and pointed at a group of men running down toward them, their weapons drawn as well. She fire a few warning shots and turned to look at Mustang, discarding the now empty cartridge. "They've seen him, we'll just have to take him with us."

"Take me with you!?" Ed snapped "What the hell are you talking about-"

"I guess you're right." Roy grumbled, he holstered Ed up like a suitcase, ignoring his very loud questions and threats "Muzét, get us out of here!"

"Do what he says." Hawkeye said, shooting down the hall more. "To the Shrine."

"As you command." Muzét chirped, waving her tendrils of hair like she was brandishing a knife, cutting open hole through thin air. Ed gasped, his eyes widening at the purple-ish void that had been made through nothing.

"Wh-what is THAT!?" he demanded.

"I'll explain later, Edward!" Roy snapped. "Milla, we need to go!"

The lieutenant nodded "Understood." She shot their pursuers a few more times, adding to their hesitation as they advanced toward the rift. Roy murmured some choice words under his breath and turned to Muzét again.

"Make sure he gets through okay, understood?" he hissed.

"You mean Edward? Of course." She giggled "Milla would be mad at me if I didn't."

"Muzét!" Riza snapped.

"Right. Come on now." The strange fairy-creature picked Ed up, accompanied by several loud and rude protests, and threw him into the rift.

Ed went in screaming headfirst, not knowing where this thing would take him and not knowing what was going on. The next thing he was aware of, his face was flat on some wooden floor. He shook his head and pushed himself up with his arms, turning his head so he could look behind him at the rift. The strange pixie woman flew out and dumped Roy onto the ground, and Riza jumped out quickly after, landing gracefully on her feet.

"Muzét." She said.

The green-haired woman slapped the air closed with an out-of-place giggle. "Well, now what?"

Roy got up and dusted himself off, his eyes went over to Ed. "Are you okay?"

"Fine!" Ed snapped "Now what the hell just happened!?"