This is my first story in a long time so I might be rusty.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except Charger Chester.
Ed and Al were enjoying their lunch at a restaurant and reading a tabloid. "Check this out Al this paper is trying to spread a rumor that the military uses witchcraft, I know the army isn't always doing the best thing but witchcraft? Give me a break; if that really existed, and we really used it don't you think stranger things would be going on?" "Typical liars" replied Al. "Yea it's actually kind of funny what kind of lies someone would publish these days and to think there are actually some people who believe stuff like this" said Ed.
Ed put the tabloid down and picked up the newspaper. "Time for something more realistic," said Ed. As they looked through the pages they noticed one story that had really been developing over the days. "The electric alchemist looter is still at large" said Ed. "I think this means the military is paying more attention to him now" said Al. "An electric alchemist sounds like a tough criminal, but not too much is known about him yet only the fact that one place he robbed caught fire and the evidence points to an electrical fire. So this means he might not even be an electric alchemist" said Ed.
The waitress was moving from table to table refilling drinks and mistakenly poured milk into Ed's glass. Ed reached for his drink not knowing it and took a sip. "Yuck this taste like milk, I didn't order milk" yelled Ed as he spit up the milk. "Why don't you just drink it" said Al. "Milk taste like vomit" yelled Ed.
Later that day they arrived at central. "Fullmetal I need to speak with you" said Roy. Ed walked into the office "What's this about?"
"It's about the recent string of robberies. The military has been having issues getting an identity on this electric alchemist who is using alchemy for crime in fact he's already committed one murder during a robbery of a bar."
"Were there any witnesses?"
"Nope Ed, no reliable witnesses, I'm afraid they are all drunks and the only sober person was the bar tender who was killed, so once again we've reached a dead end. However I'm pretty sure he'll strike again and the bad thing is we probably won't be able to stop him from doing it but if we can catch him in the act we should be able to make an arrest."
"So at this time we don't have any other information?"
"No Ed we are still looking for an ID, if we had that this would be a lot easier."
"How about the witnesses at the scene of the last robbery what did they see?"
"Well fullmetal they were so messed up their answers varied from Pink electrical elephants to nothing, but there was one person who said the suspect had electricity coming out his hands and spiked blonde hair, but like I said everybody was drunk and even he was drunk so I assume their judgment was way off."
"Well if I see anything I'll be sure and report it."
"Be careful with this guy Fullmetal, because whatever he is he is dangerous. It'd be much safer to identify him first because I believe he is using several identies so once we get a positive identity on him we could arrest him with a warrant."
Roy walked toward the office window and peered out at the street thinking about something, then he turned toward Ed "By the way Fullmetal there is a lot of paper work to sort out, and I have an officer's meeting coming up in an hour so I'm commissioning you to sort out my paper work."
"What you got to be kidding me!"
"That's an order Fullmetal you wouldn't a court marshal now would you?"
Ed sighed and mumbled "Bastard Coronal" as he looked at the pile of papers.
Roy walked out and left Ed all his work, Ed spent the next two hours cleaning up Roy's paper work when Hughes arrived.
"Howdy Ed, what are you doing Roy's paperwork for."
"He said he had an officer meeting so he ordered me to sort out his paperwork, hey aren't you suppose to be at the meeting?"
"Meeting, what Meeting, I haven't heard about any meeting" Said Hugh as he started laughing.
"Hey what's so funny?"
Hughes started laughing "there's no meeting Coronal just tricked you."
Ed got really pissed off and shouted "Bastard Coronal" so loud it echoed across the town. Roy was at a restaurant with a young woman as he picked up his drink he heard the echo. "I could have sworn I just heard someone calling me a bastard" said Roy. The woman looked back at Roy and said "Don't worry I don't think they found out that easily."
As night fall came Charger Chester was on the prowl looking for his next target. He spotted a furniture store which had closed for the night and decided that would be his next target. Instead of breaking a window he decided to use his alchemy to transmute a hole in the wall and enter. This did not set the alarm off and Charger entered undetected. As he made his way to the safe he and blasted the lock off with his electric alchemy opening the safe door. As he reached for the money it set the store's alarm off. Many nearby residents heard the alarm and started looking but only one person saw the robber. Before anybody could arrive to make the arrest Charger disappeared with all the money. Hawkeye and Havoc showed up at the store fifteen minutes later to investigate.
"Sir so you say you saw the suspect" Said Hawkeye.
"Yes he had spiked blonde hair and black gloves which had a red alchemy circles on them and they looked similar to the ones the flame wears except they shot electricity" said the witness.
"So it is true, the criminal is an electric alchemist" said Havoc.
"Let's check for fingerprints or any other prints before we go assuming" said Hawkeye.
They took the evidence back to central which was the safe. Central determined that electricity was in fact used. However they were confused about how he broke in because electric alchemy wasn't used for the initial beak in.
That night Roy had just got back from his date when he received the news about the break.
"Hmm so it is true, and all we have is this sketch of what one person saw. Well that is better than nothing maybe this could help us close in, but we still don't have enough sufficient evidence to serve anybody with a warrant" said Roy.
"Well Coronel at least we have something" said Hawkeye.
Roy started looking around and sees his paperwork cleaned up the Hawkeye asked "If you weren't here then how did your paperwork get done."
"Oh Fullmetal did it for me" said Roy.
"How suspiciously nice of him" said Hawkeye.
Roy started having a flashback to the echo he heard the night before. "Hmm that voice that shouted Bastard Coronal last night could that have been…wait a minute who would tell fullmetal about affair." Suddenly Roy had flashbacks of Hughes always running his mouth. He turned to Hawkeye and said "Lieutenant get Hughes and bring him to my office this instant!"
"Right away sir" said Hawkeye.
Roy paced back and forth across his office as he waited for Hughes. Five minutes later Hawkeye arrived back.
"I found him" said Hawkeye.
"Thank you Lieutenant you are dismissed, now I have a private discussion to handle" said Roy.
The doors closed then Roy asked Hughes "Did you tell a certain short Elric brother about my affair?"
Hughes was getting nervous "I saw him doing your paper work and he asked me why I wasn't at an officer meeting and…" suddenly Hughes realized he said the wrong thing and quit talking.
Roy was getting impatient "Hughes you didn't tell him what I was really doing?"
Hughes was getting nervous and said "I might have accidently told him that you tricked him into doing your paper work…"
Roy slammed his fist on the table "Damn it Hughes, I told you not to tell Fullmetal he was being tricked, but no you had to run your mouth like always, I swear if the furor didn't frown on punishment by fire I…"
"I didn't tell him about the affair."
"Well then I guess the damage is limited but please think before you run your mouth next time I don't want Shorty or any of the other officers finding out…" Just that moment Ed was headed toward the office and all he heard was Shorty he blasted through the doors and yelled "Who are you calling so short that you can't see him through stacks of your paperwork."
"I hate when I can't talk about somebody behind their back" said Roy.
"What are you hiding from me?"
"The meeting was cancelled" said Roy.
"What? But Hughes told me it was a fake to trick me to do your paper work" shouted Ed.
"No I don't remember saying that" said Hughes.
"Denying it now?" mumbled Ed.
"I must have said something wrong by accident" said Hughes.
"Fullmetal even if it was a trick it is still an order from a higher officer and disobeying it would result in a possible court marshal or maybe docking of pay" said Roy.
Ed still didn't believe what he heard but then the conversation shifted to evidence recovered from Charger's latest robbery.
"In fact I do have new information about the latest robbery including this sketch of how the suspect may look and one taunting call he made late last night to central which we recorded and wrote down and traced to a payphone but were not able to catch him" said Hughes.
"Hmm maybe this will help us get a little bit of a lead" said Roy as he started to listening the call recording.
"Hi all I just robbed an antique store and you didn't catch me" said Charger
"What, you're the robber I don't believe it" said the phone operator.
"You have to find me to catch me."
"You wouldn't mind telling me your name would you?"
"So far it's Charger Chester but in order to find out my real name you're going to have to catch me I'm not telling you fools anything else except there are more robberies coming."
Then Charger hung up and the recording ended.
"How stupid, if he does this once he'll probably do it again and maybe this is how we can trap him" said Roy.
"Yea I don't think he knows we can tap phones" said Hughes.
"I guess all we need to do is home in on his location and arrest him while he's on the phone" said Ed.
"You know since he is dumb enough to taunt us maybe he is also dumb enough to put his money in the bank" said Hughes.
"Hmm that is a possibility but monitoring all the banks for this info would be hard without some named suspects" said Roy.
"Once we get a name we really should consider monitoring their bank account if they really are that stupid" said Hughes.
"Arresting him like this would probably be safer but that electric alchemy would be the biggest thing to worry about, but he seems to be a little stupid so perhaps we could take advantage of it" said Roy.
End of Chapter