CHAPTER ONE

"Brother? Ed stay awake! No damn it you can't die here! We still have lots to do! You promised to get my body back Brother! And there is cake that Winry made for your birthday back at the Colonel's office! We all have to sing for you. Right guys?"

The younger brother looks up at everyone. They just watch the boys, dumbfounded. How could the mission go so wrongly? What went wrong? Should they have come sooner? An ambulance pulls up at the end of the alleyway.

"Heh, heh, heh. He's gone armor boy! You all killed him." A man sitting a few yards away with his hands cuffed comments.

"Shut up!" Alphonse whips around towards the criminal. "Brother will be fine, he's just sleeping. He likes to sleep." The boy rocks back and forth clutching his brother's body.

"Alphonse, the medics are here to take him." The Colonel, Roy Mustang, places his hand on the younger boy's shoulder. "Let these men help him now."

THREE DAYS EARLIER

"That damn Colonel!" Edward groans as he walks to his superior's office. "I just get back to East City and he already wants me to go on another mission! Besides that, eight o'clock is too damned early."

Alphonse, his younger brother, sighs. "Ed."

"What Al?" He looks at the suit of armor walking next to him. "I'm fed up! He sends us on these wild goose chases looking for the stone and he still wants us to do his extra work, just because he's too lazy to find someone else to bark orders at!"

"It isn't so bad brother. Maybe we won't have to travel this time."

"Hmph." Edward continues to walk until the two of them reach the Colonel's office. He rests his automail hand on the doorknob, sighing heavily. Ed opens the door to see Mustang's men hard at work. The only woman in the room, First Lieutenant Hawkeye, looks up as they enter the room.

"Good morning boys." She smiles at them. "Edward, the Colonel is waiting for you in his office."

"Yeah, yeah." Edward mumbles.

He waves to everyone and walks past the desks barging into Mustang's office, slamming the door behind him. Alphonse chuckles and clanks over to the clump of tiny desks. Everyone looks up at him as he fidgets with his hands.

"Yes, Alphonse?" Hawkeye questions, breaking the silence.

"Um, well I was wondering if you all would celebrate Brother's birthday with me. It is in a few days and Winry is coming up this morning as a surprise and I would like for all of you to come to the party we are going to throw. It won't be anything big of course!"

"I'll come." Havoc says lighting a cigarette. Breda, Fuery, and Falman all nod in agreement. Hawkeye speaks up to, "We would all love to come Alphonse."

"That's great!" He claps his hands together beaming on the inside. From inside the other room they can hear Edward yelling. Al sighs loudly.

Edward's Perspective

I feel like I should have kicked the door open. I slump in a chair, facing Mustang. He pretends to not notice me and continues reading one of his hundreds of reports stacked on his desk. I clear my throat loudly and he finally looks up at me.

"Well good morning to you Fullmetal. I almost didn't see you there." He laughs at his short joke and I feel my eye twitch. "You know if you sat up like a big boy you wouldn't be so short."

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A RUNT SO TINY HE COULD ONLY BE SEEN WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS, YOU JERK!" I yell nearly jumping over the desk to take a swing at him.

"I see you are as lively as ever Fullmetal." Mustang chuckles, folding his hands under his chin. "I have a very important mission for you. It is top priority and very dangerous. Would you like to hear the details?"

I nod, sitting back down. He hands me a thick file concerning the assignment. I flip through the papers, skimming over it as Mustang briefs me on the latest events.

"Recently we've been having trouble keeping prisoners in our jail cells. The prisoners are only the ones that have been sentenced to death row." He informs me, and then continues. "There is a traitor in our midst. Your job, if you were to accept, is to be placed on death row, only for the assignment of course, and to try to find out who is releasing these men. A fake trial has already been set up for you today in the case that you do accept."

I glance up from the file. "What is this guy doing with the fugitives? Is he just letting them go free or does he have a plan for all of them?"

"We don't know." The Colonel says, defeated. "We guess that the guy is rounding up the strongest people he can that hate the military. He might have a plan to turn their hatred against the state and attack the military when we least expect it."

"So all I have to do is act like I hate the military, find out what this guy is doing, and tell you where he is hiding the prisoners? That doesn't seem too hard." I shrug and throw the file back on Mustang's desk. "Sure I'll do it."

"There is one more thing though." Mustang looks at me cautiously. "Alphonse won't be able to know that you being on death row is just an act."

"What? Why the hell not?" I yell at him. "You expect me to let my brother believe I'm going to die and that he won't ever get is body back?

"It is just a precaution for your safety Fullmetal." He says it so calmly, as if there is nothing to it. "If Al were to unconsciously let it slip that you weren't really going to die, the man we are searching for might find out what we are doing. Then who knows what this guy might do."

"Al wouldn't 'let it slip'! You can trust him!" I stand up quickly and pound on his desk hard with my right hand. I accidently leave a dent from my automail.

"Fullmetal, if you have to tell Alphonse then we won't require your service for this assignment." Mustang's tone is as sharp as a nail. I take a minute to evaluate what I want to do.

"Fine, I'll do it."

Alphonse's Perspective

The yelling in the other room subsides. After a short while, Major Armstrong and Lt. Colonel Hughes come in to wait for the Mustang. We share some small talk and I ask them to come for Ed's birthday celebration. They agree and the Major has tears in his eyes and starts babbling how kind it is of me to throw Ed a birthday party.

Mustang's door opens and I turn around to greet Brother. Although my greeting falls short as I see Mustang walking Edward out of his office with his hands cuffed in front of him.