Ed was waiting at King's Cross railway station, tapping his foot impatiently. He was supposed to meet Colonel Mustang here. He was scanning the crowd for a blue uniform when he heard a familiar voice behind him. "You sure you can see everything from down there?"
Ed turned around, facing Mustang. The latter was wearing plain brown pants, a white shirt and a brown jacket. Ed stared for a moment, trying to comprehend the image of the Colonel in civilian clothes. After a few seconds he snapped out of it. "So Mustang, care to tell me why I have to travel halfway 'round the world – by boat, of all things – to a country where they've never even heard of alchemy, and everyone uses freakingly advanced technology, just to meet up with you?"
"Fullmetal, if you just have a little more patience ("I'm not small!"), then I'll have the chance to brief you about this mission."
Mustang was smirking, but when Ed grumbled "just get on with it," he became serious again.
"We're here to investigate a new branch of alchemy-"At that point, Ed interrupted him.
"Wait a minute, we? D'you mean I actually have to work together with you?"
Mustang looked at his pissed-off subordinate and smirked again. "Yes. Orders from higher up, nothing I can do about it. So suck it up, will ya?"
"Grmbl." Ed sat down on the bench he had been standing on. "So a new branch of alchemy. What d'ya mean with new?" Mustang sat down next to him.
"I mean that people of our country only recently discovered the existence of it."
"And how is it different from our alchemy?"
Mustang hesitated, "well…" Ed looked at him weirdly. Colonel Bastard was actually not overconfident about something?
"Well what?" He asked him impatiently.
Mustang sighed. "They wave sticks and say words and call it magic."
"What?" At first, Ed thought he'd misheard it. What kind of insane alchemy was that?
Mustang continued. "I'm not done yet. They call theirselves wizards and witches and their magic can achieve feats which are impossible with our alchemy." This surprised Ed.
"Like what?"
Every trace of a smirk was gone from Mustang's face. "Like making inanimate objects float."
All of the surprise Ed had felt before was now replaced with curiosity. "How do they explain it?"
Mustang was silent for a moment. "They don't."
The scientist in Ed was suddenly very angry at these people. "What? They make things float but they don't care how they do it?"
"Yes, and there's something else. They use no apparent equivalency."
Ed's face went pale after that one. "What?"
"That's what I thought. But we're here to figure out how they do it." Ed calmed down a bit. "And how're we gonna do that?"
And the smirk was back again. "We're going to go back to school."
"You're kidding, right?" Ed certainly hoped he was. He had been to elementary school, and that was enough for him.
"I'm serious, Fullmetal. We're going to a magic school."
Ed snorted. "If you think I'm gonna learn how to wave a stick, then you're wrong, Colonel Basterd. No way that's gonna happen."
Mustang had expected that. "I thought so. Good thing you don't have to, then."
Ed looked up, confused. "What? But you just said-"
"That we're going to a magic school." Mustang interrupted him. "Not that we're actually going to learn it."
"What are we gonna do there, then?"
"Well, I'm gonna be teaching stuff, for which you, in return, can have access to the library and can sit in on lessons to figure out how it works. What?" He looked at Ed, who had almost fallen of the bench with laughter.
"You, a teacher? What are you gonna teach those kids? How to procrastinate through their homework?"
Mustang smiled at the thought of all the paperwork he could not do now. "No, I'm going to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
"But how are you gonna teach how to wave the sticks without doing so yourself?"
Mustang smirked evilly. "Oh, I think I'm mainly going to teach them what to do when you're attacked and not in the possesion of a wand."
Ed sat back again, and looked around the railway station. "So tell me, why are we here? Do we have a train to catch?"