Chapter 1: Reaching

"Brother, look over here."

Ed was focusing intently on the bookshelf, looking across every title that could give him clues, even skimming the first pages of a few of the books. However, being broken out of his focus, he set the book down and turned back to his brother. At the desk in the middle of the room, Al had a book open and was running his finger down the pages taking in all they said. "You find something?" Ed asked.

"Yeah, listen to this. Water, 35 liters. Carbon, 20 kilograms. Ammonia, 4 liters. Lime, 1.5 kilograms."

Al didn't need to finish reading the list for Ed to rush over to Al, nearly tripping over a book in the process. He saw for himself the list of compounds. Those that alone seemed so meaningless, so cheap, but he couldn't shake the memories that came rushing back to him of that day 8 years ago where he was assembling these very same ingredients. "No doubt about it," Ed said going down the list he could recall by heart. He closed his eyes for a moment, not wanting to let the emotions take hold of him. He could feel the anger, that someone would violate the most sacred taboo and that countless people would suffer because of it. But he could also feel the pity, knowing that whoever would think to attempt such a transmutation couldn't fully know the consequences.

But still, those were just words, just a formula. It shouldn't even work here. But a lot of things he once thought impossible became all too real.

"That's not the only thing I found over here," Al said. Moving the book out of the way, Ed could see several papers with various transmutation circles on them, one of them he recognized as the one needed for human transmutation.

"What are they trying to do here?" Ed asked in a quiet scream, knowing that they were here to learn, not cause a big commotion.

"Whatever it is, it can't be good," Al said. "We should probably get out of here soon before any of the guards find us."

Partly hearing his brother, but also getting more outraged by this, Ed wanted more answers. Looking down at the desk, he saw several drawers that appeared to be locked. "Whoever uses this office wouldn't want someone snooping around to be able to figure out what they were doing," Ed said. Grabbing onto one of the drawer handles with his right hand; he pulled some, confirming his suspicion that it was locked. "Thought so." Yanking harder, Ed pulled the drawer out, breaking the lock in half.

Shining his flashlight into the drawer, Ed could see a number of notebooks haphazardly thrown in there. He pulled the top one out and set it on the desk, seeing its title was, "Alchemic Weapons of War." Feeling both joy and horror that their suspicions were confirmed, Ed began flipping through the pages of it seeing if any of the equations made sense to them. He stopped when his eyes spotted a transmutation circle, but one unlike anything he had seen before.

"What do you make of this Al?" he asked pointing to it.

Al studied it for a moment, thinking of everything he had learned from his teacher and the things he remembered from passing through the portal. "I haven't seen anything quite like it."

"Keep an eye on the door; I want to get a good look at this."

With Al running to the other side of the office, placing his ear against the door for the sounds of guards patrolling, Ed rummaged through the book. He saw chemical equations, many of them with familiar elements, but a few contained elements he had never heard of before, though these were interspersed with alchemic recipes. He saw a number of notes scribbled, one saying "Discuss with Albert," and another which said, "Lack resources to reproduce." He began breathing heavily; trying to take this all in, understand what it all meant. A part of him wanted to destroy it, so that no one would ever be able to use alchemy as a weapon. He'd seen enough bloodshed; he'd seen how so many lives could be taken in an instant with alchemy. He looked up from the notes to his brother at the door, and recalled how close he and his brother had been to being victims of a fool's ambitions, and they were the lucky ones.

.

"Brother," Al whispered, "I hear some people coming."

Turning his flashlight off, Ed placed the book back in the drawer and closed it. He looked at the nameplate of the desk under the moonlight which barely gave light to the room. "Rudolf Hess, do you have any idea what you're messing with here?" he said mostly to himself. He wondered if Rudolf would notice things being out of place, but Ed had the information he needed and feared, so that was enough, at least for now.

"All right, let's go."

Ed walked up to the door and placed his ear against it, hearing the footsteps grow softer showing that whoever it was had passed by. He nodded and opened the door slightly and he and Al tip toed out of it as quietly as they could, Ed hoping his leg wouldn't make much noise as they exited.

The two of them made their way down the small hallway that deadened into the office, trying to remember how they got into there originally. "This way," Al said quietly pointing to the right and the two of them started running, hoping that the guards had gone the other direction.

"You remember the way out of here?" Ed asked.

"Not really," Al said.

"Guess we're making it up as we go then."

The two of them rounded several corners, looking for a staircase that would take them back down to the ground floor. However, after a few minutes of running, it seemed like they were going in circles. "We really should have written down where we were going," Al said.

"Hey, what are you two doing here?" another voice said, and before the brothers could respond, they had a flash light shown in their face.

"Brother, what should we do?" Al asked.

"Just tell them the truth. We got lost, in here and were just looking for our way out."

"This place is locked up after 8, so I kind of doubt that. I think Mr. Haushofer will want to hear the truth."

"Eh, it was worth a shot," Ed said with a shrug of his shoulders. He then got looked at the two guards, seeing both of them had a knight stick, but it didn't look like they had guns. That would make them easy enough to beat.

Without warning, Ed ran at them, pulling his right arm back. One of the guards raised his knight stick to try blocking the oncoming attack, but wasn't fast enough for Ed to deliver a bone crunching punch to the guy's face. The other guard turned to attack Ed, but Ed used his right arm to harmlessly deflect the attack. Before the guard could figure out what happened, Ed kicked the guard into a wall and took off running again.

"Brother, wait for me!" Al said while running to catch up to Ed, jumping over the one guard who was still on the ground."

"So, about that escape plan," Ed said hearing the guard start to get back up behind them.

"That might not have been the best thing to do," Al said.

"They'll live, just with a few bruises for a few days."

The two of them kept running until they ended up reaching a dead end. "Dammit," Ed said clapping his hands together out of habit from those many years ago. Turning behind them, they saw the guards, however this time there were at least half a dozen of them. Ed tensed himself, thinking of fighting would be the best option, but reconsidered when he saw that one of them had a gun. Only one gun he might be able to take care of, especially if he could deflect with his auto-mail. But he couldn't be sure there weren't others, and he couldn't let anything happen to Al.

He started backing up, holding his hands in the air.

"We don't want any trouble," he said and Al also raised his hands.

"What do we do brother?" Al asked once they were firmly against the wall. Ed rested his palms against the wall behind them, wishing it was a door instead.

The wall behind them started to glow, something that both the brothers and the guards looked at in shock. As the light started the fade, the wall had transformed.

"A door?" Al said.

"The hell?" Ed asked. However, before they could ponder this further, Al opened the door and walked through it and Ed quickly followed. The two of them shut the door.

"Can you turn it back?" Al asked.

Ed wasn't sure, it being so long since he'd used alchemy, but clapped his hands together as he had done a number of times, and placed his hands against the door, willing the material to reconstruct into the wall as it was earlier.

Ed then held his hands in front of his face, trying to figure out why of all times this was working. Something strange was going on here, and while it might have saved them there, he didn't like it. The faster he could get out of here, the better.

"It's some kind of factory down there." Turning around, Ed saw that they were on some kind of railing overlooking a number of machines though he couldn't be sure of exactly what they were making. He did see some stairs leading up from where they were, and a small ladder at the top of that which led up to the ceiling. He didn't want to go higher, but looking the other side, he didn't see a way to get to the ground. He wondered if he could use alchemy again to make something they could get down with, but didn't want to use it anymore than he had to, especially not knowing how or why it worked all of a sudden.

"That ladder should lead us up to the roof, from there we can probably find another way to get down," he said to which his brother nodded. The two of them made their way up the stairs, Ed using his flashlight to see if there was anything more that he could learn about the factory, but the need to get out of here overcame his curiosity.

They made their way to the ladder and climbed it as quickly as they could, Ed reaching the top, and seeing that the ceiling had a door on it, which he opened. The two of them climbed though the opening, finding themselves on top of the roof of the building, overlooking much of the town. "That was too close," Ed said taking a loop up at the stars in the sky, looking so different but similar to the ones over his home.

"You think they'll find us?" Al asked, walking over to the edge of the room, wondering what the best way to get down from here was. He saw another door, one that would get them back inside the building, but there wasn't an easy way to get down directly from here.

"Hopefully it will take them a while at least," Ed said. He also saw the door, but was sure that if they figured out where the door Ed made would take him, they'd come this way to find the two of them. They were about a meter from the nearest building, which he could see had a ladder alongside the side of it. That was too much of a jump, but that gave him an idea.

Before he could ponder the plausibility of it, the second door burst open with at least a dozen guards heading at them. "Come on Al, we're getting out of here."

Before Al could question what was going on, he saw Ed running and ran to join him. Ed clapped his hands together and slammed them against the material below him, stretching it out and draping it over the space between the buildings. "You go first," Ed said and Al carefully ran across it, the uneven surface and the downhill slope made it so he had to be careful, but he made it to the other side. Ed then joined his brother, racing across it, but once he made it across, he used his alchemy again on the makeshift bridge to destroy it, ensuring they weren't going to be followed.

As the two of them went down the ladder, Al said, "Man, and he thought your stories about Amestris were crazy. He's not going to believe this one."

A/N: Okay...explanation time...

I came up with this idea about a month ago as I was trying to sleep. I let my mind wonder, and created this story. My friend said it was like telling a bed time story to myself. After doing some thinking, I really liked what was going on with the idea, so decided to make it into a sequel to the FMA movie. Just a fair warning, one thing I didn't like about the movie was some of the character deaths seeming so meaningless, so I'll be changing the plot of the movie a little bit to keep them alive. No promises of who all will show up here, but expect to see a certain rocket scientist next chapter...

Also, thanks to my sister (animefreak017) for editing this chapter for me.