"I'm being sent on a mission with the Colonel!" Edward screamed. If there was anything Edward couldn't stand, it was milk and Colonel Mustang. He has already encountered the first today.
"This is an investigation best suited for skilled state alchemists. So far, the Colonel has mostly sent you away on research projects and inspections. I just thought you'd like an opportunity to do something more interesting." The General laughed. Edward himself had never even seen this General before, and wasn't even sure of his name. "But why does the Colonel have to come, too? I can handle this mission easily myself!"
"I'm sure you can. But…" the General looked around nervously. "Okay come here." He motioned for Edward to come closer so he could tell him. Edward complied. "Don't you think it's strange you've only been sent on that variety of mission?" Edward looked confused. "No…?" "Well, it is." The General informed him. "Normally, after being in the military for about as long as you have, about three years, right? Normally, you'd have been sent on some variety of dangerous mission. But you haven't at all, have you?"
Edward thought about it for a second. He had been on dangerous missions before, just not any that were really supposed to be dangerous. "So? What's your point?" "The point is, Edward, is that I think Colonel Mustang has been intentionally keeping you from doing any 'dangerous' missions, because he doesn't believe you're capable since you're still so young. He thinks you can't do anything like that because you're a child."
Edward looked appalled. He had never really thought about it, but it was strange none of his missions were really dangerous. It must have looked doubly odd to the rest of the military, who had no clue about his interests in the Philosopher's stone. But could it be true? Did the Colonel really think Edward was a useless good-for-nothing because he was still just a 15-year-old kid?
"If you go on this mission with him, you can prove yourself, Edward." The general was right. "Of course I'll go!" said Edward. "Good. I'll see you there later this evening, FullMetal."
Edward walked off, rather pleased. He would show that good-for-nothing Colonel who the real child was.
Later that night. 1900 hours. An abandoned factory, suspicious criminal reported hideout.
"Ah, glad you could make it, FullMetal." Colonel Mustang smirked. "Same here." Yeah right, you jerk. You just want me to screw up. "Well, then, why don't we get started working here then?" Colonel said, and he started to walk off. "Wait," Edward stopped, "What about that General? Wasn't he coming?" The Colonel stared at Edward. "Are you crazy? Generals don't go on missions like this. This is a job for someone of our ranking, not a higher up. Get a move on, pipsqueak."
Edward's ears twitched. "What did you say?" "I said, move your lazy rear and get to work, FullMetal. Don't be such a child." The Colonel turned the corner and walked off.
"Don't be such a child." Edward mimicked in a high, whiney voice. "Get a move on, pipsqueak." He trudged off the opposite direction. Colonel really does think I'm just a useless kid. Well, I'll show him who's the child here, he better just wait. He looked around and squinted in the twilit night. No strange, freak criminals in here.
Edward continued to scour the building for insane criminals for several hours, well into the night. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He flopped over onto a crate. "Ahhh… my legs… ooohhh…" More than exhausted, he was getting really, really bored. And where had Colonel Mustang gone? For all Ed could have known, the Colonel left hours ago to get some coffee.
"Aaaaaahhhh!" Edward heard a scream echoing from the other side of the factory. "Colonel?" Edward stood up and ran over to investigate. On the far side of the factory, one of the doors appeared to be lit on the other side. "Colonel?" Edward asked again. He pushed open the old, creakey door.
All he could tell next was he felt his legs yank out from under him. It hurt so much. He felt like he was being stretched out like a wad of taffy. His arms, his legs, his entire body, being pulled out in nothingness. His spine was being torn at from the center, and he could feel several hard, mangling knotted somethings being shoved in between the bones. His shoulders were being pulled sideways, and his neck was making cracking noises. His left arm hurt a lot, he could feel the bone getting longer and longer, and each little bone in his hand, too. He could feel scraps of metal flying around him and clattering –kathunk- into his automail. His leg extending, pulling out, his ribs giving way to his growing insides. He tried to cry out, "Aaaaaahhhh", but he couldn't hear himself.
Ed awoke several hours later. He was back where they had started, outside the abandoned factory. He was lying on the ground. "Auugh…" He groaned. "Ah!" he gasped. What the? That's not my voice! He grabbed at his throat and felt it. Something was definitely weird, here. What's going on? What happened? I don't remember! Why am I here? Thousands of questions shot through his mind.
He looked down.
"Waauuughhh!" He cried, jumping back up. What the…? Below him, there were two long, masculine legs coming out from his pant legs. One made out of flesh, one made out of very stylized steel. What the? My pant legs? They only reached to just below the knee, and they were really tight! What's going on? Edward was really starting to panic now. He looked at himself, further up. His shirt was small now, too. It reached above his belly button, revealing a smooth and tough-looking six pack. Edward carefully poked it. OMG! It was real. He looked at his hands. They were really big now. His automail had grown in size to match his flesh limbs. His left arm was strong, and muscular. Is this… me? Edward wondered.
He looked around him. His jacket and overshirt lay behind him. He decided to see if he could put them on, but as soon as he got both of his arms in the overshirt, the back ripped in two and in turn ripped the arms off with it.
What on earth is going on? What's happening to me? Is this even me? Suddenly, a thought occurred to Edward. He put his hands on his face, and felt it. His chin was broad, and his nose… was really big. Or at, least, it seemed like it was really big, but Edward himself had always had a sort of a small nose. It felt like an adult's face, no doubt about it. He ran his fingers through his hair. It was a lot longer, now, too. He pulled it out in front of him. It was blonde, his color blonde hair.
So was this him? Or… was this him, as an adult?
Edward began to feel excited. What if this was him, as an adult? That would mean that as an adult, he would be very tall, and as far as he could tell, very tall with an incredible figure. This thought pleased him indefinitely. Even if his nose was big, as far as he could figure his face wasn't so bad either. His mind began to wander.
So as an adult he could be tall and handsome, and people would look up to him, "Hey, look! It's the FullMetal Alchemist! He's intelligent, and so good-looking. All the ladies love him, too. It's just not fair. How does that man do it?"
"Mr.Elric, you're so handsome! I love you! But you're so cool and successful and smart, you'd never go out with a girl like me, I'm sure." And he would reply sweetly, "You're so kind, why wouldn't I go out with you? You're so cute, too. Don't put yourself down like that." "I'm sorry, Mr.Elric. I won't again." "Call me Edward." "Alright, Edward." Their faces moved in closer.
Edward's dreamy thought bubble suddenly popped. And he looked kind of awkwardly strung between pleased and scared. For a second, the girl had started to look like Winry.
He sighed. He began to chuckle. But if he was an adult now… how could he so quickly become such a player? The thought tickled him, anyway. After a while sitting there daydreaming and admiring himself, he began to wonder what had happened to the Colonel. He thought back, and remembered the scream he heard earlier.
Oh no! What if the Colonel had been hurt and he hadn't even done anything about it? He disliked the Colonel a lot, but he didn't want him to be attacked and murdered by some crazed madman and die! It was his fault it had happened! Edward jumped up and started to go back into the factory, but stopped very quickly and fell over. His pants were starting to cut off the circulation to his legs. It hurt a lot, but he couldn't just stop now. Awkwardly, he stood back up and walked off in a strange manner. His legs weren't the only things being hurt by his too-small pants.
"Colonel?" Edward called out. He was redoing almost the same routine as before again, except this time his voice had gotten a lot deeper. "Colonel?" Instead of just wandering around inside, he decided to check all of the doors to the outside, too, since he was outside a door when he woke up, if the criminal was behind all of this, maybe something had happened the Colonel, too. After about half an hour of wandering, he opened one door to the outside that didn't open all the way. It softly went, 'thud' on something soft. "Colonel?" Edward repeated, and turned his head around the door. "Co- Colonel!" This was the Colonel alright, but Ed hadn't even slightly expected this.
He was laying there outside of the door, sleeping. His face was round, and his skin, you could tell by looking at it, was really soft. His clothes were falling off around him. He looked like he was about five years old. And he was sleeping soundly as one, too.
"Colonel?" Edward was now asking slowly and softly, as any sensible adult would to wake up a child. "Colonel Mustang? Wake up…" Edward prodded the Colonel's head in what he thought was softly, but his entire head jerked and hit the door. "Oops!" Edward fell back onto his behind. Even if he did look like a child, this was still his boss, and he was still a bit intimidated by him. Almost more so now that he appeared so innocent.
His eyes opened slowly, and Edward instantly wanted to crawl away and hide somewhere. He just realized, when he woke up, he was alone! But he woke the Colonel up! What would the Colonel do? With him around! He figured that if the Colonel had woken up on his own and gone to find Edward, when they met the Colonel would be calm and collected. But if he was there when he finds out, what would the Colonel's reaction be? Quickly, he scooted out of immediate view.
"Huh?" The Colonel asked. "What happened?" Edward's emotions changed almost instantly. More than anything, he wanted to laugh. Roy didn't just sound like a child, he sounded almost like a little girl. Edward held back hysterics. He was positive there was a little girl back in Risenbul who sounded exactly like him.
The Colonel rubbed his eyes, and stared at the ground for a moment. "Huh?" Ed couldn't take it, it was insanely funny. He legs kicked in the air silently. "What the?" The Colonel's eyes widened as he stared down at himself, and Edward almost felt like he could die. His face was ridiculous, too. It was maddeningly over-exaggerated, like so many funny little kid's expressions are. "Auh?" Colonel mustang looked scared and pulled at his hair, and Ed's legs flailed around insanely in the background. If there had been metal by his feet, the sounds of his kicks could be mistaken for the firing of a machine gun. His eyes were closed, and tears were running down his reddened face, he was trying not to laugh so hard.
When he opened his eyes again, his legs stopped flailing senselessly and he slowly lowered them to the ground. It wasn't funny anymore.
The Colonel was now curled up in a ball on his side, shaking. He looked for all of goodness like he was going to burst into tears. The way he looked now, even Ed couldn't bring himself to laugh. Seeing a child cry is hard for almost anyone, even someone as tough as Edward Elric. And the Colonel really did look like he was going to cry. He looked so, so scared.
Ed wanted to say something, but he was still worried about what the Colonel might do if he saw him here, now. He decided it was better now than ever. "Colonel?"
The Colonel's head jolted up. "E…Edward? Is that you?" The little girl voice was back, but Ed managed to hide his urge to laugh at it. "It's me." Edward replied, as calmly as he could manage. "What's happening?" The Colonel sat up. Ed laughed. "Like I'd have any clue, Colonel. I don't know." The two stared at each other awkwardly for a minute or two. They both seemed to be readjusting themselves to recognize one another.
"What do you think happened?" The Colonel asked after some time. "The only thing I can think of is that, either it was the criminal we were looking for, or, it was something else in that room." Again another long pause. "Hey!" Ed stood up. "What if whatever it was is still in that room? We should go back and find out, right now! Maybe if we find it, we could figure out how to change back!" Ed began to open the door again. "No!" The Colonel grabbed Ed's ankle, and the two looked at each other very, very strangely. "Um… no. That would be a stupid idea, Edward. So many things could go wrong, and… it's best that we not, in our current state. We should head back to HQ and send in a specialized team to investigate it." "But Colonel, what if-?" "No way, Edward, we're going back to HQ!" Edward glared down at Colonel Mustang. He had clearly decided for the both of them.
"Fine." Edward groaned, and he took the Colonel by the hand, and started to lead him away from the building. "Let's get going then." "Ah, wait!" "What, Colonel? You were the one who was so intent on leaving!" "No, that's not it, it's just that-" Ed turned his head to look back at where they were. Laying on the ground were the Colonel's pants, and boxers. The Colonel lit up bright red. His shirt and jacket fell all the way past his knees, and it looked like a bizarre, overly-long-armed girl's nightgown. "Um…" he blushed awkwardly. Ed turned back to the Colonel slowly, then ran back and grabbed his clothes, and quickly reassumed his position. "Colonel," he said very carefully, avoiding eye contact as much as the Colonel was, "I think we need to get some new clothes, first."
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I hope you guys like this one! It's not going to be very long, and won't update very often, but it will update whenever I'm braindead during Timebreak!. Very soon, this one will be a Royai/EdWin fiction. I hope you guys like it, anyway! . Reviews loved, chow!