First GA/FMA one-shot :) Part of my best friend's Christmas present (she got a printed copy sometime last week), so this is for you, Momo!
I tried to make it as long as possible - I rushed the end, since I was about to run out of time, but I still managed over 10000 words... Yay~ (There's a 1000-word-long A/N, so don't count that xD)
Disclaimer~
When The Impossible Happens.
Roy Mustang was early, as usual.
To be honest, his right-hand man wouldn't have it any other way. She would scold him for arriving just on time, and repeatedly tell him in the harshest way possible while still sounding respectful that if he was always on time, he would never have any time to prepare.
So Roy Mustang hung up his coat on the slightly dented (courtesy of a certain short-tempered subordinate) steel coat rack at precisely six a.m. - one and a half hours before he was supposed to show up for work. He strode through his sparsely decorated office and slumped into his padded office chair behind his desk - the head desk. He ruffled the completed financial accounts neatly stacked in the top-left-hand corner of his pristine wooden workspace, fiddled absent-mindedly with his various arrays of full pencil pots littered along the far edge of the desk, and spent a full ten minutes spinning around and around on his new black leather swivel chair, resulting in a very green-looking Roy Mustang and a new brand of air freshener used on the bathroom toilet.
He returned from the white-tiled room down the hall, and he was baffled by the sight that still insisted on confronting his eyes, as it had done for the past half hour, no matter how hard he seemed to stare at the space in front of him.
His office was empty.
It seems a pretty normal thing, right? For someone to be greeted by an empty office when they arrive an hour and a half early for work.
It wasn't normal for Roy Mustang.
Because every single day for the past ten years, the man had been greeted by a not-so-friendly smile and a four-inch pile of paperwork, no matter the day of the week, weather or time of day. Once, he had even arrived at four a.m. for a 'surprise' early meeting with Major General Hakuro (he hadn't been very happy about that), and lo and behold - Riza Hawkeye was sitting, straight-backed, behind her desk when he arrived.
But not today she wasn't.
Roy decided to scour the office, searching every cubic millimetre of the workspace, in case this was a test. When faced with a troublesome situation, religious people often try to think of it as a test from god - Roy thought in a similar way about Riza Hawkeye. Occasionally she would set up a ridiculous situation for him to walk in on and see how he reacted, just to see if his charm/perceptiveness/ability to handle difficult situations was up to par.
He strongly assured himself that this was just one of those times, but for some reason he found it very hard to believe.
Twenty-three minutes, an upturned office and a very irritated Roy Mustang later, said man stalked out of his office, slamming the door as hard as he possibly could on his way out. No one paid him a second glance (there were many people in the corridors now - after all, it was six fifty-three a.m.), as everyone, by now, was used to very loud door-slamming sessions from Roy Mustang's office (again, courtesy of his youngest subordinate), and to them, today was no exception.
Well, apart from the fact that the very annoyed alchemist now stomping down the hallways wasn't short and blonde. This turned a few heads, but not enough to cause a fuss and hinder said alchemist's journey through the weaving corridors to the Department of Intelligence and Investigations.
"Hello? How may I help you?" The young intern at the front desk seemed overly cheerful - apparently, she'd been sitting there, bored out of her mind, for as long as Roy had been searching for Riza Hawkeye.
"Colonel Roy Mustang," Roy grunted, "here to see Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes."
Because whenever someone was missing, the best place to go was the Investigations Department.
The woman checked his face against his file, checked his uniform for the correct rank and nodded briskly. "Go right through, sir."
Roy nodded harshly in her direction and sullenly tromped through the narrow hallways. He was familiar with the slightly arched ceiling and the musty, papery smell of the Department of Intelligence and Investigations. He visited his best friend at least once a week here, and even on the days when his best friend visited him, he carried the scent with him wherever he went.
He was so lost in the smell of his surroundings that he almost walked straight past Maes Hughes's office. He stopped abruptly and backtracked three steps, before thumping loudly and informally on the mahogany door in front of him. Within seconds, the door burst open, revealing a very hyper Maes Hughes and the remnants of six cups of coffee.
"Hughes," Roy sighed, exasperated. Whenever his best friend was forced to arrive to work earlier than seven o'clock, coffee was a necessity. Over the years, Roy had found out that with every extra ten minutes came a cup of coffee - five cups of coffee equals fifty minutes, so Roy assumed Hughes had arrived not long after Roy himself.
Unfortunately, coffee had the loathed to Roy side-effect of making his best friend incredibly hyper.
"Hello, my best friend!" Hughes cried out joyously, wrapping Roy in a brief but strangling embrace and flashing what Roy thought to be eight photos of Elysia under Roy' nose, so close his eyes couldn't focus and Roy could only make out a few smudges of pink and green. "Isn't she just adorable? So cute it's unbearable! Look at her! Look at her, Roy! She's so sweet!"
Roy merely sighed in response - in all honesty, what could he say?
Hughes produced another two handfuls of pictures, and squealed euphorically, "She'll be three in two weeks! Two weeks, and my lovely daughter is gonna be three!"
Hughes didn't even seem to realise Roy was there anymore. The door was still wide open, and a few people were standing near the gaping doorway, smirking or giggling at the scene in front of them. Roy scowled and shut the door.
"It feels like my dear Gracia gave birth just yesterday! Oh, how time flies!" Hughes began to laugh manically, and pranced around his office, apparently dancing with what Roy guessed was his favourite photo.
"Hughes," Roy grumbled, eager for his best friend to start actually paying attention. Roy's patience had already diminished severely after the hour he spent trying and failing to find his subordinate, and he was in no mood to put up with Hughes's antics.
"Mm?" Hughes showed the first signs of clear recognition since Roy came in six minutes ago and paused in his ballroom dancing, his arms still outstretched in front of him, clutching the photo with both hands.
"I arrived at my office this morning, Hughes, at exactly six a.m.," Roy started, his tone wavering slightly with uncertainty, "and Hawkeye wasn't there."
Hughes's jaw dropped, and the beloved photo slipped out of his grasp, landing softly on the plush burgundy carpet. Hughes stayed frozen in that position, his arms still reaching forward, grabbing at nothingness, for a good few seconds, before he composed himself enough to stutter, "W-what?"
Roy didn't respond, and instead set his mouth into a firm line, his eyebrows furrowing slightly, and he glared at Hughes, as if glaring at him would convey the message and Maes would immediately jump right to it like a dog.
Strangely, though, it did.
Hughes burst out of his ice sculpture, gracefully swept down to the ground and picked up his much-cherished photo before skidding behind his desk and looking up at Roy, mirroring his expression. "We need to find her."
Roy rolled his eyes, hanging his head in exasperation and letting out a strangled sigh. "I know, Hughes. That's why I've come to you."
His best friend's face lit up with understanding, and he clapped in realisation. "Oh!"
Roy gave Hughes a you're-such-an-idiot look, before his face softened slightly and he chuckled at his friend's ability to be both the cleverest and the dumbest man he knew. He would never be able to understand Hughes.
"Right," Hughes cheered, grinning broadly (and rather dangerously). "Let's start investigating, shall we?"
The pair was at it for the rest of the day, to no avail. They'd upturned every corner of the Department of Intelligence and Investigations, as well as most of Roy's sector. They'd questioned every passing soldier and even asked for permission to speak with the Fuhrer. Grumman had subsequently shaken the idea off, claiming she 'probably had some important work to do off site'. Not that either of the men believed him one bit. The man might've been old, but he certainly wasn't stupid, and Roy and Hughes knew it. The Fuhrer was as concerned as they were, which certainly didn't help lighten the mood between the duo.
"I give up!" Hughes exclaimed eventually, throwing his notepad with which he was currently taking notes down the corridor. It flew almost the entire length of the hallway (damn the corridors for being straight) and smashed into the back of an irritated Major General Hakuro's knee. "Oops," Hughes whispered, a nervous smile plastered on his face as he rubbed the back of his head.
Hakuro cursed loudly as the hardback notebook hit the inside of his knee, and, annoyed already by an argument with a very persistent Xingese prince who refused to pay for the damage he'd done to various military buildings across Central and East City, he stomped down the hall, his standard issue lace-up boots clacking on the white linoleum flooring as he strode towards Hughes, red-faced and practically bursting with barely-restrained anger. Roy could swear he saw the General's grey hair turn white as he made his way threateningly towards them.
"S-sorry, sir," Hughes laughed nervously, "I was aiming for the window."
The General's face scrunched up even further, and his skin almost looking like it was bubbling from the heat of it. "Why were you even throwing anything at all, Lieutenant Colonel?" he barked.
"Because he's an idiot, sir," Roy calmly cut it. "I tried to stop him but he would not listen to me. Let me deal with him, sir."
The General's face got no lighter, but his tone was significantly quieter when he next spoke. Neither of the two were sure whether this was out of a sudden bout of calmness or whether it was supposed to be threatening to them in any way. "You better deal with him, Mustang," he growled, before stalking past them and beyond, shoving Hughes roughly in the shoulder as he passed.
As soon as Hakuro was out of earshot, the two mumbled simultaneously, "Bastard."
Roy sighed heavily, slouching slightly. "What's the time?"
Hughes raised an eyebrow as he gestured for Roy to keep walking. "You can't check your own pocket watch?"
"Left it at home. I was in a rush this morning - I got up at half five."
Hughes mouthed a silent 'Oh', before linking his arm with Roy's, to Roy's great irritation, and dragging Roy towards the canteen. "Come on. I bet it's somewhere around seven-ish. Neither of us have eaten since breakfast, so let's get something to eat, because I'm starving."
Roy rolled his eyes, though more in amusement than annoyance. "Fine. I guess just a ten-minute break would be okay."
The pair almost fell down both flights of stairs, as Hughes refused to let go of Roy's arm, but somehow managed to make it to the rather crowded canteen in one piece. Their linked arms earned a couple of sniggers which Roy quickly drove off with a sharp glare, tugging on Hughes's hand firmly clutching his uniform. "Hughes. Let go, or I will burn you."
Miraculously, the bug disappeared.
They grabbed their daily portion of military gruel and settled down towards the back of the canteen, away from prying eyes and flirty women.
"So," Hughes started cheerfully, "what should we do next?"
Roy sighed, absently swirling his spoon around in his soup. "I don't know. I don't think there's anything we haven't tried yet. Unless we report her as officially missing, which would be ridiculous at this point since she's only been gone for a day, then I don't think there is much else we can do."
Hughes pouted slightly. "That's disappointing," he sighed. "I was hoping for something fun to do. You know, something up-beat. All I've been investigating lately is murders. It's kinda depressing."
Roy laughed mirthlessly. "I'd be surprised if it wasn't." Roy tapped his pen against the edge of the lilac canteen table, the quick, out-of-time rhythm flitting around the air until Hughes couldn't stand it and slapped the pen away. Roy scowled, but didn't bother retrieving it. "Hey, Hughes," he asked after a moment's silence.
"Yeah?" Hughes slumped forward, resting his chin on his left hand.
"What do you think happened to her?"
Hughes took a large swig of his own soup, drinking it straight from the bowl, before answering. "I dunno. It's unlikely she's just skiving, and she would've called you if she was ill. Maybe she got into some sort of fight downtown."
Roy let out a burst of laughter at the strange mental image of Hawkeye taking down a gang somewhere. "Nah. That's more Fullmetal's thing."
Hughes grinned. "I guess you're right there."
Roy paused for a minute, before blinking in thought and starting slowly, "Maybe... Maybe she met this really charming, handsome guy on the way to work and couldn't resist staying with him for the day."
It was Hughes's turn to fall about in fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the sudden uproar turned a few heads. "Y-you're k-kidding me, r-right?" he eventually managed to get out, every word accentuated with a giggle.
Roy smirked broadly. "Maybe."
The next morning was, to directly quote Roy Mustang, 'the craziest, most impossible, ridiculously physics-defying-est day I have ever seen'.
It started much as the previous day had: Roy arriving early, Hawkeye suspiciously missing (again), and a long conversation with Hughes about his family, Roy's family and everything in between.
"Hughes," Roy cut in for the nth time that morning, "We need to talk about Hawkeye."
The soldier abruptly stopped rambling and glanced at the ceiling momentarily (as if that would tell him the meaning of the world, Roy thought sourly) before his face lit up with understanding and remembrance of a conversation started two hours ago by the man sitting next to him. "Oh!"
Roy groaned at his best friend's idiocy, resisting the urge to whack him very hard around the back of the head with the stainless steel paperweight Hawkeye had given him for his birthday the year before.
"So she's still missing?" Hughes asked interestedly.
"Yes," Roy deadpanned. "That's what I've been telling you for the past two hours!"
Hughes chuckled. "I'm kidding with you, Roy." Maes's laughs faded into a faint smile as he brought the lukewarm coffee to his lips. "You have anything new on her whereabouts?" he asked offhandedly, as if one of his close colleagues wasn't missing.
"No," Roy said grimly, pursing his lips at his own cold coffee. He stood up from the chair in front of Hughes's desk with a barely-repressed huff and sidled over to the door. "Just gonna throw this away and get a new one. Be right back." The door was half-closed before it paused and opened again, revealing half a dark-haired head. "I will be hoping you'll have some new information on her by the time I get back." With that, he shut the door behind him.
Hughes chuckled, before sighing mournfully at the huge amount of work he'd been neglecting over the past two days in order to talk to Roy. The papers were piling up on the corner of his desk, taking up the precious space where his worshipped coffee cups (all appropriately labeled 'Wonderful daddy') usually sat. He huffed at the mess they were making as the seven-inch stack of paper (how on earth that much work accumulated over just two days, Hughes would never know) wobbled precariously and a few sheets slid onto the carefully preserved empty space in the middle of his desk. Honestly, the Department were always lumping all the Missing People cases on him, and with the recent upsurge in reports of missing people, the work was getting bigger and-
You could almost hear the mental 'screech' of metaphorical tyres in Hughes's head as his thoughts came to a complete halt, every thought process collapsing under its own weight in the enormity of the one thought now ferociously gunning down every other thought trying to force its way into his head.
He suddenly grabbed manically at the humongous pile of work on his desk, sifting through them faster than you would've thought possible. Hughes counted every single file - there were sixty-eight reports of missing people littering his desk. Sixty-eight in just two days.
Hughes rifled through the reports once more. Baffled, slightly choked laughter bubbled forth from his throat as he reached the file that had been on the top of the stack, freshly dropped off only fifteen minutes ago - 'Hawkeye, Riza' was printed clearly on the front in clear, black capitals. It looked like Roy and he weren't the only ones noticing her absence.
The door gently clicked open, alerting Hughes to the welcome intruder. In his current state of pre-hysterics, the dull sound was enough to shock Hughes out of his skin.
"... Hughes?" Roy dared to murmur questioningly as Hughes squeaked in bizarre surprise at his entrance.
Hughes couldn't find it in himself at that moment to form a coherent sentence (not that he'd know what to say, even if he could). He slowly raised the file up in front of his face, his shaking hands wavering slightly in the air and making it extremely difficult for Roy to read the label on the file, what with it being upside-down and shaking like there was an earthquake under Hughes's feet.
Thirty seconds and much squinting later, Roy's eyes bulged impossibly wide, and his square jaw promptly dropped.
His recovery came far quicker than his best friend's, though, and he managed to catch himself before his steaming cup of coffee acquainted itself with the floor.
He rushed forward, haphazardly half-placing, half-dropping his now forgotten coffee on Hughes's desk. He grabbed the file from a still dazed Hughes, flipped it open to the first page, where an unnerving 'MISSING' had been stamped lopsidedly over Hawkeye's picture in red ink.
"She's really missing," he breathed.
Hughes blinked, finally coming back to life. "Give me that," he said quickly.
Roy barely had time to react before the slightly crumpled, wafer-thin file was snatched out of his hand. "Hughes-"
"They're all missing," Hughes murmured under his breath.
Roy groaned. Hughes wasn't listening. The Colonel slumped in the chair drawn up in front of Hughes's desk, deciding to just wait until Hughes told him what he was thinking. Hughes was having one of his famous 'investigator' moments - Roy could tell.
There was a long, drawn-out silence lasting what Roy guessed was around ten minutes (Hughes refused to keep any form of clock in his office, something which bugged Roy to no end) before Hughes spoke again.
"They're all missing," he repeated more firmly. "Sixty-eight people have gone missing in the last two days, and god knows how many others are missing which haven't been officially reported yet. It seems it's just a coincidence that Hawkeye was taken, as the missing people have a very, very broad range of jobs and status." Hughes paused momentarily, caught up in yet another tangle in his web of thoughts. "But why these people...? I can't find any connection between any of them. See, look here: 'Boston, Amelia' - age nineteen, works for a low-class bar in West City. 'Roberts, Natalie' is thirty-two and is the CEO of a pretty well-known company. Then there's Hawkeye. What on earth could link them all together...?"
By this time, Hughes seemed to be talking more to himself than to Roy. Roy was beginning to feel uncomfortable with his own presence, as if merely by being in the room while Hughes was explaining he was encroaching upon Hughes's privacy. It was really quite an annoying feeling in Roy's eyes.
A gear clicked into place in Roy's mind, and for a second he wasn't sure that what he was thinking could possibly be the truth - it seemed far too childish and far too dangerous. So, he did something that Hawkeye had always told him to do to his paperwork before he submitted it - check.
"Uh... Hughes?"
Hughes blinked, jerking his head up as if just woken up from a very vivid dream. "Yes?"
"Can I see all those files?"
Hughes's expression phased into one of curious bemusement as he answered, "Sure. Go ahead."
Roy eagerly reached for the nearest file; 'Walker, Mary' was printed on the front in small, bold letters. He cast the file aside and reached across Hughes's arm for another one. Upon retrieval, the name 'Smith, Catherine' graced his eyes.
The process repeated until Roy had inspected every single file. With every slip of paper glanced at, the strange twisting feeling in Roy's gut added another knot to itself.
"Hughes..." Roy started, the tenseness in his voice obvious to his best friend, "I think I know what's connecting them all."
Hughes's eyes widened fractionally. "What?"
Roy stared Hughes straight in the eye, his face grim with sudden anxiety. "They're all women."
There was an excruciatingly long silence that could only have been a few seconds, in which Hughes's mind ran over every single possibility that implied, the most obvious one that sprang to mind being 'rape'.
"Oh."
There was another extended pause.
Roy continued, as if nothing had just happened to the temperature in the room. "They're all female and between the ages of seventeen and thirty-five. They're all perfectly healthy, and, judging from their profiles, rather pretty, too." Roy strongly emphasized the word 'pretty', knowing the implications. If there was one thing that was certain about this case, it was that the suspect was male.
Roy could hear Hughes gulp before he said, rather roughly, "Right. We need to report this to the Fuhrer, then, I guess."
Roy nodded slowly, but the two remained where they sat, frozen to their seats by the possibilities. If this man had gone so far as to kidnap sixty-eight women, then who knows what greater lengths he would go to? Would he kill them? Torture them? Rape them? Roy shuddered involuntarily as he remembered that his cherished subordinate was in that missing lump of femininity.
The pair eventually stood up, at almost the exact same time, their chairs' screeches of protest against the flooring muffled by the lush burgundy carpet under their feet.
They rushed to the door, not bothering to close it properly as they strode as fast as possible without seeming suspicious towards the Fuhrer's office.
His secretary was just leaving the large expanse of a room as Roy and Maes arrived - she jumped at the sudden appearance of people in the corridor. The only room on the floor was the Fuhrer's office, so it was rare for her to see officers wandering the level.
"Hello?" she asked automatically. "May I help you?"
"Colonel Roy Mustang and Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes here to see Fuhrer King Grumman," Roy said in a harsh baritone, his stance straightening up until he was a good six inches taller than her.
She cocked her head to the side, readjusting the clipboard and various papers she was clutching closely to her chest. "Do you have an appointment?"
Roy shook his head. "No. But this is a matter of emergency."
The secretary looked hesitantly between them, as if unsure whether to let them in or not, before nodding her head hurriedly and muttering, "Please wait for a moment." She opened the door she was standing in front of, poked her head around the corner and said, "Fuhrer, sir, there are some men wishing to see you."
Roy clearly heard Grumman's laughter ring throughout the room and through the crack in the doorway. "Let them in, let them in, Sally."
"Yes, sir." She saluted, before turning back to Hughes and Roy. "You may go in," she smiled uncomfortably, before marching swiftly down the corridor and click-clacking down the stairs at the other end, the footfalls of her high heels reverberating down the narrow hallway.
Roy shared a tense glance with Hughes in preparation for their entrance, and he strode through the doorway.
"Fuhrer Grumman, sir." Roy saluted stiffly, Hughes in tow.
"Ah, it's nice to see you again, Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel!" The Fuhrer greeted cheerily, waving off the salutes as he ushered them into matching chairs opposite his desk. "So," he started lightly after they'd made themselves comfortable on the not-co-comfortable chairs, "to what may I owe the pleasure of this meeting?"
The next half hour was spent explaining the details of the circumstances of the country to Grumman. Hughes presented most of the information and the solid facts, while Roy helped along the explanation with his (in)famous tongue.
After they'd finally finished the long explanation and listed every single possibility that could be associated with their evidence, the Fuhrer assured them that he would get men to investigate it further, and that he'd tell the duo everything his men found out. He also subtly suggested a raise for the pair for their hard work and intelligence in pushing the mystery's tyres out of the mud, and getting the car started again.
Hughes and Roy left the office in a much lighter mood than when they'd entered. Not any less tense or worried about the possible situation of their country, but certainly relieved of much stress and most of the burden they'd hoisted onto their shoulders when they'd discovered the link. Roy didn't know quite how, but the Fuhrer just seemed to have that effect on people, and Roy decided he'd never been as pleased for it as he was now.
"That went better than expected," Hughes murmured cheerfully, stretching his arms above his head as they wandered down the familiar military hallway.
"Yes, it did." Roy smiled. He paused in his tracks, fishing around in his left pocket. Maes looked at him strangely until Roy muttered, "Time." He found the object he was looking for, and tugged the gleaming silver pocket watch out of his blue pocket. He clicked it open, glancing at the time and raising his eyebrows, before shoving it back in the deep folds of material on his left thigh.
Hughes looked at him questioningly when he spotted the surprise etched on Roy's face.
"Half three," Roy chuckled. "We've been at this for hours."
Hughes burst out in tired laughter. "Wow. That's a long time, even for me and you." Hughes grinned. "You wanna grab something to eat? I dunno about you, but I'm starving."
Roy grinned back. "Sure. I left my meal pass in the office, though. We'll have to go get it first."
"Aww," Hughes loudly complained. "I wanted to eat now!" He grinned from ear to ear as he trotted towards Roy's office.
Roy sighed in exasperated amusement, following after him.
The pair's journey through the winding corridors to Roy's office took far longer than it had when they were going the other direction. After all, there was no reason for them to rush anywhere now - they could allow themselves a little relaxation time. They were chatting as they went along - they'd played their part, and now everything was down to the Fuhrer and whichever men he sent to investigate. All they had to do now was sit back and watch.
Fifteen minutes later, Roy and Hughes arrived at the familiar, slightly chipped door reading 'Colonel Roy Mustang' in golden letters. They stopped short at the entrance, unable to do much apart from stand there in shock at the sight in front of them.
"Oops," Hughes muttered slowly and airily, as if he was in a daze. "Looks like we forgot to close the door."
In front of them, snuggled in the depths of Roy's new swivel chair, surrounded by a dozen scantily-clothed maids, was a stranger.
He was certainly not someone from the military. The uniform was nowhere in sight; instead, he was wearing a lilac, frilly dress shirt and light blue flared jeans adorned his crossed legs. His hair was a shimmering blonde (rather like Miss Rockbell's, Roy noted absentmindedly) and fell to nearly his shoulders. It was brushed out of the way of his face by an exceptionally pretty maid, revealing piercing, playful and intense light purple irises glittering in the light and long, dark eyelashes. He blinked slowly as he noticed the new entrants to the room, glancing at them out of the corner of his eye, but not turning his head to face them. He had an almost creepy smile on his feminine face, which rested on his left palm.
Roy was left scrabbling through the depths of his mind for words to string into a coherent sentence. "Uh... Who are you?" he asked with as much force as possible, though he had a sinking feeling that wasn't very much.
The man finally turned to face them, two maids swirling the chair around until he faced them. "Me? I'm just a passer-by," the strange man said with a chuckle.
"What's your name?" Hughes asked, stepping forward, managing a much more commanding tone than his best friend.
"My name?" the strange man laughed - a full, natural sound - as he threw his head back in what must've been some kind of private joke. After he recovered, he said, the smile showing through in his voice, "Narumi L. Anju."
Hughes blinked. "That's... a strange name. Where are you from?"
Narumi's grin grew broader and fractionally more dangerous. "You wouldn't have heard of it."
Roy blinked a few times, finally realising the situation, as he growled, rather irritably, "Get out of my chair."
Narumi blinked innocently. "Your chair?" He paused. "Oh, you must be 'Colonel Roy Mustang', then," said the stranger, quoting the label on the office door. He smiled, standing up and strolling around to the other side of Roy's desk. He grinned in a way that reminded Roy of a child, holding out his right hand. Roy noted with mild annoyance that the man was a good couple of inches taller than he was. "Nice to meet you."
Roy grasped his hand and they shook hands, Narumi with a childish grin and Roy with a military nod of his head.
Narumi giggled slightly. "You have a strong handshake, Mr. Mustang. I guess I shouldn't have expected any less from a military man, eh?" he joked.
Roy smirked wryly. "Quite."
Hughes marched forward, extending his own right hand, and smiled. "Maes Hughes."
Narumi smiled again. That man is always smiling, Roy noted, as they shook hands. "Nice to meet you too, Mr. Hughes."
"Call me Hughes," Hughes laughed.
There was a long, slightly awkward pause, of which the stranger seemed completely unaware - he was humming a strange tune, reminding Roy of something oriental and something southern at the same time.
"Have you seen my daughter?" Hughes said suddenly, completely out of the blue, shocking Narumi so his absent-minded humming was out of tune. At Narumi's very confused expression, Hughes laughed, chirping, "Silly me, of course you haven't! Look, look!" Hughes proceeded to shove photos of Elysia at various ages doing various activities under Narumi's nose.
Narumi took the photos, scanned them all, and his eyes lit up. "She's so cute!" he squealed.
Hughes's face lit up like a light bulb at the first positive response in a very long time. "Isn't she just adorable?"
Hughes and Narumi were squealing and giggling over the photos for a good few minutes. Roy sighed in frustration. "You like kids, Mr. Anju?"
Narumi looked up. "Oh, just call me Narumi. And yes, yes I do. I love kids. I'm a school teacher at home, after all - what kind of teacher doesn't like kids?" he laughed.
Roy blinked as he absorbed the new trivia. It wasn't unexpected, really, when he thought about it - Narumi seemed to have the perfect personality for it, after all.
There was another long session of photo-cuddling before Roy decided he had just had enough. "So," Roy began eventually, quite frustrated and incredibly exasperated a having two Hugheses in the room at the same time, with twelve pictures of Elysia on hand. In order to change the subject onto a far more productive one, Roy used his best 'superior officer' voice to ask, quite loudly, "What were you doing in my office, exactly?"
Narumi blinked innocently, finally distracted form the photos. "Oh, nothing much. Just sort of... landed here by accident, I guess." He laughed, scratching the back of his head. "Sorry 'bout that."
"'Landed here'?" Roy repeated, one eyebrow raised.
Narumi's eyes widened and then narrowed almost imperceptibly, but to a trained soldier's eye, it was fairly obvious that 'landed here' hadn't been supposed to come out of his mouth. "Um... yeah. It's a pretty long story." At Roy's disbelieving stare, he said, "You wouldn't believe it, even if I told you."
"Try us," Hughes said friendlily. Roy guessed that the positive reaction to the photos had immediately earned Narumi a place in Hughes's good books, whether he was a mass murderer or not.
Narumi sighed, smiling. "All right. But don't say I didn't warn ya.
"I time-traveled here by Noda-sensei's time-traveling alice. I was supposed to end up in 1914 in my world, but it looks like I managed to skip dimensions, too. I landed outside the military base, and I thought I might be able to find someone who could direct me back to my universe there, so I use my human pheromone alice to enchant the receptionists into telling me where to find someone clever. They told me to come to your office, Mr. Mustang."
At Roy's baffled expression, Narumi giggled. "I'd take that as a compliment."
There was a prolonged silence, during which Roy tried and failed miserably to wrap his mind around the concept of time-travel. Obviously, something rather extraordinary had happened in order for a non-military man such as Narumi to get into his office unaccompanied (and surrounded by so many pretty women). But really, time-travel...?
"I don't believe it."
Roy turned, blinking to face Hughes, who had a very skeptical mask on his face, the corners of his wide mouth turned down slightly.
Narumi grinned like the cat that got the cream, his eyes sparkling. "I told you you wouldn't."
Hughes's frown grew.
Roy decided to intervene before Hughes pulled a gun on him. Being in the Department of Intelligence and Investigations, Hughes never liked being outsmarted in any way, and had a tendency of becoming quite violent if he was proved wrong, or someone else against him was proved right. "Let's ignore how you got here for now. Let's just concentrate on getting you back to... wherever you came from."
Hughes nodded grudgingly, and Narumi grinned, chirping, "Sounds fine to me!"
"First," Hughes started, his mood rapidly swinging back towards 'happy', "you said you time-traveled. What time are you from?"
"2006."
Hughes and Roy paled, their eyes bulging early out of their sockets. "What?" they chorused.
Narumi grinned, his hands held behind his back. "Quite futuristic, huh?" he laughed.
"R-right," Hughes stammered, attempting to regain his composure. "So we need to get you back to 2-2006. In another universe."
Narumi nodded. "Yup!"
Roy and Hughes exchanged a helpless and rather pale glance, before Roy said, "Do you have any idea how to do that?"
Narumi looked up briefly in thought, before smiling brightly and deciding, "Nope!"
Hughes groaned.
Narumi shrugged helplessly, laughing weakly.
"Right." Roy sighed. This was turning out to be a very busy day.
"Well," Hughes said lightly, trying to brighten the mood by smiling, "we may as well get started now, right, Roy?"
Roy sent him a spine-chilling glare that simply made Hughes burst out in laughter.
The three had settled around the large table in the middle of the main office, laying out various maps of Amestris, Aerugo, Creta and Drachma and trying to align them with Narumi's very sketchy drawings of what he claimed his world maps looked like. There was a quite wobbly sketch of the world, a sketch of the continent he lived on with his home country circled in red marker, and a much finer drawing of his home country, 'Japan'. They had decided that Narumi's home continent, 'Asia', was similar to the Far East of Roy's world, and from description, the largest country in Asia, 'China', sounded quite similar to Xing. Having aligned Xing with China (Hughes was pleased to see they were of similar size), they tried to match up Amestris with a country, only to find it lined up with a large patch of sea above a continent apparently named 'Europe'. Narumi had laughed nervously, claiming his 'drawing skills weren't the best', and said that Europe would probably be further north, and after cutting up and repositioning various parts of Narumi's sketch, they decided that Amestris lay roughly around the area of 'Germany', with West City lying just within the borders of a little country to Germany's west, called 'Switzerland'.
"So now that we've sorted that out," Hughes sighed, "what do we do?"
Roy frowned in thought. "I guess... we go to Xing."
"Seriously?" Narumi complained. "But we'd have to cross a desert!"
Roy sent Narumi a half-hearted glare. "Do you want to get home or not?"
Narumi pouted.
"But Roy," said Hughes, "How do you actually plan to get Narumi home once we get there? Alchemy?"
Roy nodded. "Alchemy. It's the only possible way in this world."
Hughes nodded, exhaling deeply. "Do you think you could come up with the transmutation circle yourself? By the sounds of things, it'll have to be pretty damn complicated."
Roy frowned. "... No. I'll have to ask Fullmetal for that."
Hughes laughed. "And how exactly are you going to explain why you need a transmutation circle for time- and space-travel?"
Roy's frown deepened and his eyebrows furrowed. "I'll just explain everything to him, and if he refuses or kicks up a fuss, I'll bribe him with more research funds. Simple."
Hughes smirked. "You're evil, Roy."
Roy chuckled darkly. "I know."
Hughes sobered up, sighing in discontentment. "I guess we're gonna have to get permission from the brass."
"Looks like it."
"When are we leaving?" Narumi asked.
Roy checked the clock - ten-thirty. "Hopefully the day after tomorrow. Possibly tomorrow, if we can get permission today."
Narumi nodded, grinning and yawning as he leaned back in the chair, stretching his arms above his head and clicking his neck, sighing at the muscle release. "That sounds good."
"I guess we'll be making another Fuhrer trip, then," Hughes laughed.
Roy sighed, smirking slightly. "I guess so," he murmured wryly.
"It's half ten - should we go now?" Hughes asked, yawning.
Roy nodded. "Grumman will still be here, so I don't se why not. The quicker we get permission, the quicker we can get to Xing, after all."
"Blergh. Fine," Hughes sighed as he stood up. "I hope I don't have to stand at attention for too long - my back's killing me from all this sitting down."
Roy chuckled, though he also grunted as he stood up. "Y'know, Hughes, I really don't know how Fullmetal manages it. Two-day-long train journeys? I can barely manage six hours, let alone forty-eight."
Hughes laughed. "That's true. Well, he's fifteen. He's young, unlike us."
Roy groaned. "Stop. You're making me feel old."
Hughes's laughter could be heard echoing down the corridor as he exited the office.
"Can I come?" Narumi asked. "I want to meet your King!"
Roy rolled his eyes. "He's not the King; that would be a monarchy. We're a military dictatorship. It's the Fuhrer, the head of the army. And yes, we'll need you to come - proof that we're not just going o Xing on vacation."
"Yay!" Narumi sang, skipping down the scarcely-occupied corridors after the duo.
They arrived ten minutes later, and Roy knocked this time, as the secretary was nowhere in sight.
"Come in." Grumman's voice reverberated through the wooden door, and Roy calmly entered, followed swiftly by Hughes and a giggling Narumi.
"Fuhrer, sir," Roy greeted, a sharp salute punctuating his entrance to the stark room.
"Ah, Colonel and co. Nice to see you again - and so soon! But surely you must have better things to do than visit a senile old man like me?" Grumman laughed merrily.
Roy smiled, dropping his hand and standing to attention, followed swiftly by Hughes and a rather confused and slightly awkward-looking Narumi. "Sir," Roy chuckled, "I believe you could never be senile, even if you tried."
Grumman cackled heartily. "If you say so, Mustang." He sobered up after a few moments, though his warm smile still lingered on his wrinkled face. "So what is it this time?"
Roy straightened his back, saluting again. "Requesting permission to leave to Xing, sir!"
Grumman raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "Oh? May I ask why?"
It was Hughes's turn to answer. "To, uh, 'escort' this man here," Hughes gestured to Narumi behind him, "home."
Grumman nodded, turning his attention to Narumi. "Pardon me for saying, but you don't look Xingese. Then again, you don't look Amestrian, either. Where are you from?"
Narumi laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head as he said, "Japan."
"'Japan'?" The Fuhrer repeated skeptically.
"That's..." Hughes started, but found himself unable to find quite the right words to explain the situation without sounding like a nutjob.
Roy took over. "You're not going to believe this, sir, but this man is from another dimension."
Grumman sighed. "You're right - I don't. But please explain anyway."
Hughes shared an apprehensive glance with Roy, before sucking in a deep breath. "Apparently, in his dimension, things called 'alices' exist. They are special powers that only a very small minority possesses. Mr. Anju is one of these people, as is his friend. His friend, Mr. Noda, is the one who sent Mr. Anju to this dimension - apparently, his 'time-travel alice' malfunctioned, and Mr. Anju, instead of ending up in 1914 in his own world, ended up in 1914 in our world.
"We aligned our world maps with his, and it seems that there is a country very similar and in a very similar place to Xing in his world, and that it's not far off where Mr. Anju is from. We believe that, with the Fullmetal Alchemist's help, we can use alchemy to open up the portal between worlds again and send Mr. Anju back home."
There was an excruciatingly long silence, during which Grumman sighed multiple times and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Even Hughes couldn't tell what Grumman was thinking at that moment in time - the Fuhrer was incredibly good at hiding thoughts, a very useful skill when you're the leader of a country. It can, however, make situations like this one incredibly nerve-wracking for the other party.
"Okay," he breathed eventually, responding far better to the information than Hughes and Roy thought he would. The Fuhrer gave Narumi one more once-over, before nodding stoically. "Permission granted."
Roy smiled broadly, snapping to attention. "Thank you, sir."
Grumman smiled back wearily. "Just don't be gone too long. The peace talks with Drachma aren't going too well - I'll need you back here in time for the war," he half-joked, though Roy's sinking stomach knew there was far more seriousness in that statement than he'd like to admit.
"Yes, sir!"
Hughes, Roy and Narumi proceeded to exit the overly-expansive room, just in time to hear a deafeningly loud crash sound from the floor below, followed by a string of rough, screamed curses.
"Hear that?" Roy asked as they marched down the corridor.
Narumi nodded, a questioning expression on his face. Hughes snorted.
Roy grinned. "Narumi; meet the Fullmetal Alchemist."
"Hello, Fullmet-"
"Shut the fuck up, Colonel Bastard! Just fuck off, okay? I'm not in the mood," said alchemist snarled. It took him a minute to realise that Roy wasn't alone, and he turned to smile grimly at Hughes. "Yo, Hughes. You wouldn't mind telling your friend to bugger the hell out of here, would you?"
Hughes snorted. "No can do, I'm afraid. We need your alchemical prowess, Ed."
"Can it wait a day or two? 'Cause, y'know, I'm kinda really fucking busy."
Hughes shrugged helplessly, an apologetic smile adorning his face. "Sorry. It's urgent."
Ed grimaced. "Great."
"Fullmetal," Roy commanded, though his intimidating tone had no effect on his subordinate, "Clean your tongue. We have a guest."
Ed raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? Does this 'guest' have anything to do with why I'm being dragged to god-knows-where and asked to perform some impossible transmutation?"
Hughes nodded. "Yup." He stepped out of the way of Narumi, letting the two see each other for the first time. "Ed, meet Narumi L. Anju, a man from another dimension with magical powers. Narumi, meet Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist; the brattiest, stroppiest, youngest member of the Amestrian military."
Ed sent a fiery glare Hughes's way at the insults, but held out his left hand anyway. "Edward Elric."
Narumi stepped forward, shaking his hand enthusiastically. "Narumi. Nice to meet you, Ed."
Edward nodded, but said nothing else. Instead, he settled for shoving his hands into his pockets and staring around the dull hallway with a nonchalant, vaguely irritated expression on his slightly scarred face.
"Narumi, we're going to get some food," Hughes said cheerily. "Look after Ed while we're gone, okay? He'll show you to Roy's office."
"I'll do fucking nothing."
But the retort was lost amid the chatter of the now densely crowded hallway, and Ed growled in annoyance. He glanced back over his shoulder as he strode away, calling, "Come on then, Naru."
Narumi had quite a bit of trouble following the boy. He didn't slow down or wait for Narumi to catch up, and his rather small frame allowed him to slip between crowds of people far easier than Narumi. By the time they reached Roy's familiar office, Ed was scowling at the floor and Narumi was panting from jogging the whole way and weaving through innumerable soldiers. Who knew someone so short could have such long strides?
Narumi said after a moment, "Aren't we going to go in?"
"Mustang has the keys," Ed muttered.
"Oh."
There was a pause. Narumi finally decided that he'd had enough of awkward silences today.
"Hughes said you're the youngest soldier here. Is that true?" he asked after a minute or two.
Ed nodded, but didn't make eye contact. "Yeah. Even now, three years after I joined, I'm still the youngest. It's ridiculous, really. The whole military is fucked up."
Narumi considered this. "How old were you when you signed up?"
Ed laughed mirthlessly. "Twelve."
"What? That's outrageous! God, I teach children your age who can't even divide a hundred and forty-four by twelve!" Narumi shrieked, hoping desperately that Edward was joking.
"I know." Ed grinned, seemingly getting some sort of sick amusement from Narumi's flailing.
"Hang on," Narumi said after he'd calmed down a bit, "that would make you fifteen, right?"
Ed nodded.
"Oh."
Silence.
Ed's eyebrows furrowed. "Why the 'oh'?"
"It's just," Narumi started awkwardly, "you're a little short for fifteen, that's-"
Unfortunately for poor Narumi, unwarned against such dangerous acts, his sentence was cut short by a burning ball of fire.
"Who are you calling so small he could fit through a hole in a sieve ands run out with the water rather than stay with the solids like he was supposed to?"
Narumi did the first thing that came to mind: he screamed.
"Hey, Roy," Hughes said as the duo wandered back from the mess hall. "We forgot to warn Narumi not to mention Ed's height."
There was a long, tense pause.
"Oops."
Roy and Hughes arrived to the scene to find Ed leaning innocently against the white wall beside the door, humming to himself.
"Fullmetal?"
"Yeah, Colonel Bastard?" Ed replied.
"... Where's Narumi?"
There was a noticeable pause before Ed spoke, and Hughes gulped at the red-tinged glint in Ed's eyes as he looked at the pair. "In your office."
"My office door was locked."
"It still is."
Roy gave Ed a strange, mildly threatening look as he passed him, only for every trace of stoniness to disappear form his handsome features when he spotted the wreckage of door over Ed's shoulder. "Shit."
Roy's door was practically non-existent. He looked dazedly around the inside of his office, littered with shards of wood from the door, until his gaze focused on a whimpering figure in the furthest corner of the room. Roy paled. "Uh... Narumi?"
There was a loud sob and a high-pitched wail in response.
Roy sighed, lifting his hands to his face. "Fullmetal... what have you done now?"
"He called me short," Ed snapped from outside the doorway.
"That was no reason to traumatise the man!"
Before E could spit back a retort, Hughes cut in. "Okay, okay. Calm down, you two. Let's just... focus on calming Narumi down, okay?"
Ed harrumphed, crossing his arms across his chest. Roy nodded, though he was still scowling enough to scare an innocent passer-by.
"Narumi?" Roy said quietly. "Are you okay?"
"No!" Narumi wailed, reaching out and grabbing hold of Roy's trouser leg, clutching onto it and crying.
Roy's frown deepened. "Fullmetal," he called over his shoulder, though his gaze never strayed form Narumi's pathetic form at his feet, "What he hell did you do to the poor man?"
Ed whipped his head around the doorframe, an indignant anger plastered onto his face. "I didn't do anything! I just... kicked him through the door."
"Fullmetal," Roy growled.
"He called me short!"
"Just shut up, you two!" Hughes yelled, striding over to Narumi and crouching down beside him. "It's okay, Narumi," he said comfortingly. "Ed was just being nasty, wasn't he?"
Narumi nodded, sniveling when Roy attempted to kick him arms off his leg.
"Come on," Hughes said awkwardly. "It's okay now, so you can stop crying."
Narumi was eventually persuaded into standing up, and so twenty minutes later found him standing at the side of the room, trying to put as much distance between him and Edward as possible.
"So," Roy started. "It's half midnight. We shouldn't need too much sleep, as we have an eleven-hour train journey tomorrow before we even have to think about changing stations. Then it's another twelve hours from East City to Resembool, and six hours from Resembool to the furthest station east. We'll have to pick up a couple of camels from there and get a guide to cross the desert. Then there's approximately twenty-nine hours from the far west of Xing to the far east, where your 'Japan' is located. We'll perform the alchemy that Fullmetal will perfect on the train, and you'll be home."
Hughes nodded enthusiastically. "When do we leave tomorrow?"
"As early as possible," Narumi said. "Four? I mean, we're all still awake now, so we may as well sleep on the train, like you said. It'll give us a few hours for preparation and we can get to Xing much quicker that waiting 'till morning."
"That sounds good to me. Fullmetal?" Roy asked.
Ed grunted in agreement. "Yeah, I guess."
Roy nodded. "Then we'll be leaving at four."
They ended up leaving at half three; Ed was irritating Narumi to end out of pure boredom (the boy didn't own much, so he hadn't needed to pack much for a two-day trip). Roy had decided it would be best to drag them off to the train station early, if only to give Ed something to do. Narumi's outraged shouts of protest were beginning to grate on Roy's nerves.
"Are we all set?" Hughes called out as they watched the train gradually closing in on the station, the white headlights shedding cheery light on the still-dark station.
There was a series of shouts, exclamations and grunts, of which Hughes guessed the general consensus was 'yes'.
They boarded the train, Ed greeting the driver (he'd ridden so many trains he could recognize most of the drivers, and even knew a couple by name) and they settled on a table, Ed and Hughes bagging the window seats. Roy had grudgingly consented to sitting next to the grumpy teen out of pure sympathy for Narumi. Ed wasn't so pleased with the decision, but he was obviously worn out, and didn't mention it. He'd fallen asleep before the train had even reached the outskirts of Central City, anyway.
The journey was long, and the unlikely group were forced to endure each other's company for much longer than either Ed or Narumi would've liked.
Roy occupied himself by playing various games of cards when the others weren't busy - he'd caught Ed cheating five times, and the young blonde had refused to play after 'Roy ruined his fun'.
Hughes spent most of the journey filling in various crossword puzzles from the previous year. The others had helped, Roy supplying 'donkey', 'industrial' and 'supplement' and Ed muttering 'gravitational potential' under his breath when he'd finally got exasperated with Hughes's lack of scientific knowledge. Narumi hadn't helped at all - the most he'd done was yell out a couple of unrelated words and irritate Roy with his childish stupidity.
The journey had also taken far longer than the four had anticipated. Ed had insisted on staying a night in Resembool to visit Winry and her grandmother, and, though the four were treated with a delicious apple pie, they wasted a good deal of time there. Roy had a hunch that the stay in Resembool was only to prolong the trip across the desert - he knew Ed would not like the heat one bit, what with two of his limbs being made of metal and all.
However, to Edward's great dismay, the time did come when they were faced with crossing the desert. It took a whole ten hours from west to east, and Ed did not stop complaining the entire time. Roy had snapped a few times and yelled at the top of his lungs for Ed to 'shut the fuck up and just bear it like a man', to which Ed had immaturely mumbled something about being fifteen and not legally a man.
They had to wait an hour at border control when they reached Xing, too. Apparently there had been a group of Amestrian thieves pass through recently, and they'd looted the Emperor's palace. Therefore, extra precautions were taken, leaving Roy and co. stranded at the side of the dust road in the blazing heat for over an hour.
By the time they finally made it to Xing, it was the early hours of the evening and they were in desperate need of a place to stay. Roy, Ed and Hughes had bagged them a place at a fancy-looking inn with their pocket watches and military uniforms. The group slept like logs that night after the sleepless night before, so they were pleasantly unaware of the various whispers ad murmurs around the inn about who they were. Not that they'd care even if they had been awake to hear them, anyway.
They made it to their equivalent of 'Japan' by noon the next day. Narumi had persistently been complaining about the lack of aeroplanes, confusing the military trio greatly. When they finally arrived, Hughes had collapsed from a mixture of relief and exhaustion, and he'd refused to get up for another fifteen minutes, despite being positioned face-down in the middle of a busy street. Roy had eventually kicked him hard enough in the ribs for Hughes to get out of the way of a butcher's truck, and they'd continued on their way.
Two hours later, they found a quiet, abandoned building at the edge of town, and they slipped in unnoticed, hoping that no one would notice the bright glow of the transmutation. It took Ed a full forty-five minutes to draw out the mind-bogglingly complicated circle, during which Hughes and Roy played a short game of poker. Narumi, meanwhile, decided to be productive, and counted the number of cracks in the ceiling.
As Ed was perfecting the last few runes on the circle, Roy spoke up. "Narumi, I've been thinking."
"Yep?" Narumi chirped back cheerily.
"When I first saw you in my office, there were a ton of women there. Where on earth did they come from?"
"I'm finished," Ed announced, dramatically dusting off his hands as he stood up, hands on hips. He turned his head in Narumi's direction. "You gonna step in now, or what?"
Narumi obliged, cautiously leaping into the centre of the circle so as not to disrupt the fine details of the outer circle. It was around four metres in diameter, and Hughes couldn't help but ogle at it.
"Those women," Narumi said lightly as Ed prepared for the transmutation, "are fine women of Amestris. They couldn't help but fall in love with my good looks," he giggled, winking in Roy's direction.
"What are you saying?" Roy said slowly and deeply, not liking where this conversation was going.
Narumi chuckled. "My 'alice' - my power. It's the alice of human pheromones; I can make any person do anything I want them to, even males, by making them fall in love with me. I used my alice on those women." He shrugged, as if it was an everyday occurrence. "That's it, really." He grinned.
Hughes paled. "So you're saying... all those women reported missing over the past two days, that was... you?"
Narumi blinked innocently. "They were reported missing? Oops."
Roy breathed, "You're kidding me."
Narumi laughed.
"Shut up, I'm trying to concentrate," Ed muttered, cutting into the conversation and abruptly drawing it to a close. He clapped, the vivid sound echoing and reverberating through the fragile building, before smashing his palms down onto the dirty wooden floor. There was a breathtaking flash of pale golden light that spread around the circle from under Ed's fingertips, and soon the entire room was alight with the glow of the transmutation.
Just as Narumi was becoming invisible in the blinding light, Roy called out in desperation, "What does Hawkeye look like in a miniskirt?"
Narumi blinked, trying to recall which one of the sixty-eight women he stole was Hawkeye. After a few deafening moments, he shouted back over the noise of the transmutation, "The best!", a devilish grin mauling his feminine features.
Not a millisecond later, Narumi was gone, taking the alchemical glow with him, and the trio was left in the half-light once more, almost unable to believe that any of what had just happened was real.
"That... really just happened, right?" Hughes whispered after what must have been a good five minutes.
"Yeah," Roy whispered back, breathless.
The duo turned to see why Fullmetal hadn't moved since the transmutation, only to see him passed out on the floor, looking more peaceful than he had done in months.
"Must've been a pretty big transmutation," Hughes murmured, and Roy nodded in agreement. Then again, should he have expected anything less? They were sending a man to an alternate dimension, after all.
"Well," Hughes said, drawing in a deep breath and stretching, "at least we figured out the mystery. We'll almost definitely get a raise now, huh?" he laughed, grinning broadly.
Roy let out a small chuckle. "Yeah. We better, or I'm filing a letter of complaint."
They both burst out laughing, the relief washing over them like a waterfall, making the light-headed and giddy - a feeling they'd missed sorely.
Hughes smiled. "Let's head back as soon as Ed's awake."
Roy nodded in agreement, and crashed down onto the floor, lying spread-eagled, enjoying the temporary release and feeling of utter freedom.
Roy was happy about the raise he was given. Very, very happy. He was also pleased about the even greater reputation he now had, and the impressed glances people sent him in the corridor. On top of that, the women had all turned up within a day or two following the event, and Roy and Hughes were hailed as minor heroes. Roy greatly cherished the feeling, and he was given a fresh taste of why he'd joined the military in the first place.
One thing that stood out above everything else, though, was one single thought that he hadn't been able to get out of his mind since that fated day;
Hawkeye looked good in a miniskirt.
Teehee. Roy-/Hughes-centric, of course, because Momo is Momo - although I couldn't help dumping Ed in there too xD
I don't expect to get many reviews or faves on this - after all, FMA/GA is a very unloved fandom. So if you are reading this, please drop a review, even if it's just one letter, just to tell me someone has actually read this. It would be much appreciated, and I'll mention you in the next chapter of whichever story I update next. :3