Edward Is finally back in the Rockbell house with a storm cloud over his head as he enters the living room and falls face first against the sofa. Winry and Al just happen to walk in the room seeing a misfortunate Alchemist laying flat on his stomach.
"What happened big brother?"
" Some people destroyed the train tracks and apparently tipped the train and now I can't get to central…"
His voice didn't sound to clear because his mouth was against the sofa.
" So that means you can't get to central? What are you going to do once you're not a state alchemist anymore!?"
"He will probably join the circus" Winry then laughed buts she's trying to contain it.
Edwards sits upwards and puts a finger in his chin "Well I do have an abnormal size so I-"
Suddenly he noticed something, he was admitting that he was small. Without a second though he started to scream and scratch his head repeatedly with both hands.
"What am I going to do!?"
"Don't worry, this is good timing to try out something I have been working at for a couple of months now" Winry said as she puffed out her cheeks.
"This is no time for some stupid auto mail…" Edward mumbles.
"ITS NOT AUTO MAIL YOU ALCHEMY FREAK!"
"Then what is it?"
"Glad you ask" Winry said as she regain composure.
They were now in the garage of the house. Like the Rockbells don't have a car Winry usually uses the space as a storage room for all her gadgets, tools and anything else that she decides to throw in there.
"TADA!" Winry said with great enthusiasm as she unveiled the cloth that was over a large object.
" A motorcycle? Since when did you have this?" Al tilted his head.
"I found it laying around a couple of months ago, it was totaled but in my spare time I managed to fix it and make a few upgrades to it myself."
" Do you even know how to ride a motorcycle?" Edward questioned Winry's good resolve.
" Of course, I know how to ride most things: cars, motor boats, hot air balloon, a bike and so on."
Edward thought that riding a unicycle was impressive so he was easily amazed by this and could only praise Winry after telling him those things.
After a few minutes Winry as Mach speed installed the passenger seat and pushed the motorcycle outside. Alphonse sat in the passenger seat and Edward was sitting behind Winry.
"Are you guys ready?"She said as she put on her helmet."
Winry then turn on the motorcycle letting a huge roar from the engine out. Edwards starts to have second thoughts on this trip but as he's about to talk Winry accelerates and speeds off leaving only a trail of dust behind.
They were easily going at 300mph. The train in Resembool went up to speed of around 120 mph, considering this the Winry's motorcycle would make good time in reaching Central. Edward wasn't used to this kind of speed so all he could do was grip Winry waist tighter to hold on for dear life but this only made Winry blush so she responded with accelerating even more. After a few seconds they made it out of Resembool and where on a dirt road to central.
The traveled in silence for a few minutes along the road until Alphonse finally spoke.
"Hey Winry."
"Yes Al?"
"I was wondering beside now, have you ever gone to central on this motorcycle?"
"To be honest this is the first time in even riding a motorcycle."
Ed's and Al's faces suddenly let out a shocked expression as they both in unison let their worries out.
" EHH?"
"Don't worry, how different from riding a bike can this be? I mean we haven't fallen and died yet so I say this is going pretty good."
Edwards has so many doubts that he won't even live to make it in time for his re-evaluation. But with curiosity he ask Winry another question.
" I'm scared to ask but do you even know who to get to central in this death contraption?"
Winry without a worry in the world responds.
"Nope."
Alphonse at the speed of lightning turns his head to the driver "WAA? then where are we going!?"
" I don't know, I'm just looking for the next town along the way to ask for directions."
"Brother I think where not going to make it in time."
When Al diverts his attention to Ed that's sitting behind Winry he notices that Ed is already unconscious because of the recent events.
"BROTHER!" Alphonse cries out.
After fifth teen more minutes they finally spotted a small town at the horizon. Edward regained consciousness after entering the small town. This place had like a weird vibe to it. The town had a western style theme going through it. Most building where made from wood and the roads where just dirt trails like from the one they were traveling a few minutes ago.
The group makes their way into town and park their motorcycle in the nearest bike rack they could find that was next to a convenience store. One thing you would notice after entering this small town is that there barley anyone outside. The store also seems to be close.
Winry lowers her head and mutters out
"This seems as it going to be more difficult that I thought."
"WE MIGHT EVEN BE GOING IN THE OPPSITE DIRECTION FROM CENTRAL THANKS TO YOU!" Edward yells out as he points out towards Winry.
" Details, details…"
Alphonse walks forward to them.
"This place looks like a ghost town. I wonder what happened here."
" There's no time to be investigating this, lets split up and look for someone to get directions." Edward coldly responds to his brother.
Winry is next to them curling up her feet together as she moves up and down in the same position.
"Umm, I have to use the bathroom."
"Oh really?" Edward responds as he looks towards her.
"Oh really!? that's all? What are you trying to get at? You want to repeat that incident!?"
Alphonse tilts his head
"What incident?"
Edward and Winry freeze up and they both start to wave their hands in front of Al
"Oh nothing, nothing happened."
"Yeah, yeah" Edward says after her.
Winry then takes charge.
"I'll go alone to find a bathroom while you two look for someone and ask directions."
Edwards raises his hand and puts them behind his head "Well then be careful, I heard some strange things have happened in this town."
Winry diverts her full attention towards Edward as he continues.
" Just don't look at a mirror for more than ten seconds and whatever you do don't say bloody marry three times."
Winry has her arms in her cheeks and is trying to hide her trembling feet.
"W-What h-happens if I say it three times?"
" Oh I don't know but I heard that's how the disappearances started to happen in this town. OH and always look behind you anytime you can." The state alchemist then turns around "Ok let's move out Al!"
Suddenly Ed feels something holding down his left hand. When he looks he see's winry holding strongly with both her hand onto Ed.
"I-I- I think it would be best If you ca- came with me."
"Didn't you just say that you wanted to go alone?"
Winry quickly stands forward but with trembling feet's "NO! but what happens if a mean man happens to take a glance and me. He will surely not hesitate to take a piece of this." She says as she points at herself with both hands.
Winry could possible defend herself better with her wrench than Ed could with his alchemy but she still insisted for him to come along. After a few more moments of her inventing cruel and harsh things happening to her like alien abductions or zombie raid that would utilize her body to detonate the world Ed just caved in and agreed.
"You know those are worst case scenario's right?"
"Sh-Shut up!" She says waving her head to both sides quickly.
After that they finally separate and head on to complete their own objectives. Winry and Edwards both are walking around town looking for a place with human activities. The auto mail engineer is franticly clinging closely to Edward's left arm as she continuously looks to all directions.
As they walk they only hear the sound of the wind blowing and their footsteps. When they take a right turn in the road in front of them they reach a run downed motel when they finally take a breath of relieve. In the porch in front of the hotel there was an old man sitting in a rocking chair with a wooden stool that he used to place his drink on top of. The old man was bald and had glasses on.
They both make their way up to the old man.
"Finally we found someone in this town." Edward said with a sign of relief.
The old man stop rocking his chair "Ohhh looky who it is, visitors! We don't have much visitors as of late." He then looks around his surroundings "Well we don't have much of anything as of late to be honest, so do you need anything?". He said with a chirpy kind of high pitched voice.
"We were actually looking for a bathroom and to ask for some directions?" Winry answered.
"OHH I see, where are you wiper snappers going?"
"We are heading toward Central City but we don't know if where heading the right directions".
"It's your lucky day because this town is was actually a merchant town. Before the train connecting places like Central and Resembool together they used this town as a place of distribution. Before going to Resembool they made a stop here with the cargo to resupply and what not". He then takes picks up his drink.
"So what you're saying old man is that we are just next to central?" Edward wanted to clarify.
"Haha you can call me Ernesto and yes, if you follow this road out of town and follow it straight you should reach Central without any problem." He then takes a zip of his drink.
"So kids are you to a couple?"
Edward tilts his head "Why do you ask that?"
"Because that girl keeps clinging to your hand for dear life." He then puts his drink back down.
Winry face turns to a clear pink color as she lets go rapidly of Ed's arm.
" So why is this town abandoned?" She tried to change the subject.
" Ooooh after the train was complete they had no more use for this town. All the cargo and people just used the train to go to their places in a more direct and faster manor. Besides this town isn't meant for tourist and to be honest it's not the most pretty sight to see".
Edward leans against the wall of the hotel.
"So basically the town was abandoned because it already served its purpose."
Ernesto nods in agreement. After a moment of silence between them Winry speaks up.
"Oh and returning to topic, can you point me to the bathroom?"
"Of course, anything for a beautiful lady like yourself. Just enter through the door and to the hallway next to the counter to the seco-"
Suddenly gun shots rang out through the air.
Edward and Winry both look at the directions where it came from.
"Whats happening over there?" Edward questions.
Winry takes a gulp.
"Isn't that the place Al was walking off to!?
"Shit" Edward then turns around to Ernesto "Thanks for everything but we have to go now."
"Don't worry and good luck."
The door to Colonel Mustang's office opens. Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye makes her way inside the room, as she enters she notices that nobody is currently present inside the office beside a mountain of paper work in Colonel Mustangs desk. She Is carrying with her letter adressed to Mustang but like hes not present she walks up to his desk to leave the letter in his desk. Hawkeye finally makes it to his desk and leaves the letter on the side of the desk apart from the mountain of paper accumulated by the past five days. When the Lieutenant turns around to leave she notices that the pile of paper moves, out of pure instinct she draws her side arm pistol and points toward the mountain of paper. The paper mountain suddenly rises and a familiar face appears from underneath.
"Hmm, do you need something lieutenant? Im kind of busy at the moment" A recently awaken Mustang said.
Riza clams down and puts her pistol away " Colonen your not suppose to sleep on the job, your paper work is piling up."
" I'll get it done the usual way"
"Dump it on your subordinates?"
"Affirmative"
The continue to stare at each other for a moment but neither of them talks.
"Well... A letter arrived for you regarding Edward's Elric Re-evaluation, I was told to bring it to you."
Colonel Mustangs eye's completly changed from sleepy to completely focused eye's in an instant. Riza hands him the letter and Roy opens it and reads it. After a while Mustang speaks.
Mustang gives a smirk "So I get to choose who he will fight in the re-evalutation, Intresting".
Winry and Edward run past the window of the hotel and down the porch and head towards the place where they heard the gunshots. They didn't noticed but on the other side of the window the hotel was completely destroyed and was a huge mess inside like nobody has been there for over ten years.
When they are running through the street they quickly see a man that was lunged off the window of the building they were about to pass. When they enter they see a gang of about eight people surrounding Al.
"Oh hi brother!" Al makes a warm and happy greeting.
"What the hell did you do" Edwards shouts from outside the open door."
Suddenly a tall white man with red hair starts to shoot at Winry and Ed. They both instinctively jump to the side and behind the door where the wall protected them.
"A pocket watch with the Amestrian dragon? You must be a State Alchemist from Central sent here. In that case we will not give in! We will fight for what you did to us!" He yells out towards Edward from Inside the establisment.
He then whispers to Winry
"These guys are for real, we can't talk to them now let's just beat them first".
The blonde man then gives an order.
"The the metalic armored freak out, I'll personally deal with the girl and the Alchemist."
One of the gang responds with a determined mind set
"YES BOSS!"
The Red haired leader seemed to be tall and has quite a body.
Edward keeps whispering to the girl next to him
"Run off and get the motorcycle, we will hold them off till you return to make our escape."
As he finishes talking the wall next to them explodes outward as Winry falls to the ground and Edward takes a few steps back.
"Hmm seems I was off by a little." The gang leader said as he walk through the hole he created.
The man wasn't carrying any weapons with him and didn't seem to have any on him too. He was only wearing a red T-shirt under his brown leather jacket and blue jeans.
"I will show you the pain that Central have shown us by granting you your death".
Edward claps his hand and from his auto mail arm he spawns his short sword.
"Think you have a fighting chance? how cute boy." The unarmed man taunted.
Edwards decide he had enough and charges straight ahead towards his opponent. The red haired man decides to the same. Edward is caught of guard by the actions of an unarmed man taking a charge as well.
Edward doesn't care, he quickly closes the gap and swings his arm aiming for neck but the man counters the blade with only his arm.
"Tsk" Edward retracts his arm and takes a step back to regain his stance then throws a high kick with his auto mail leg to hit rib cage but his opponent takes the full hit yet he doesn't stop. A quick punch is thrown toward Edwards gut sending him flying to the ground.
Edwards start to cough out blood laying in the ground.
"WINRY RUN!"
(What the hell was that, his punch packed too much power for an ordinary fist. There's only one explanation for this) Edward thought to himself.
He then picks himself of the ground and faces his opponent which is walking closer to him.
"You are an alchemist, am I correct?"
"You already noticed just after one punch? You must really be a prodigy."
Edward wipes the blood from his lip.
"I already had a hunch when you blew through the wall with only one kick."
The jacked wearing man laughs " I use my alchemy in a way to reinforce my bone structure, skin and blood so it could be as hard as Iron".
Edward's brain quickly flashes an image of greed.
(No, his skin isn't dark colored so it has to be a weaker form of that technique and also he's not a homunculus, not that I know of anyways.)
Winry decides to make a dash now that the man is distracted with Edward but man quickly makes his way and catches up to her and grabs her by the hair.
"AHH" Winry yells out. "LET ME GO."
"You bastard…" Edwards says as he looked at him displeased.
Inside the establishment it seems it was a bar as it was filled with beer bottles everywhere. They were falling on the floor and been thrown around by Al as he fought off the other gang members. Al grabbed a table and used it as a type of shield for the bullets being shot off. He knows the table isn't working as the bullets keep breaking through.
He decides to through the table at one armed member at it crashes against him knocking him out. Al anyways doesn't even need a shield because his metallic armored body already protects him from the bullets.
"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT GUY!? That's not natural!" A gang member yelled out.
Another hooded member came from a back door.
"Let me handle this." He then takes out an RPG.
"AHHHH" everybody in the bar screamed out.
As he fired the shot Al clapped his hand and used alchemy to raise the ground beneath the bar to form a rock dome around him. The explosion ranged out through the entire bar as the explosion came out through the windows.
The red haired man looks in confusion towards the bar "What happened?"
When he took his eyes off the counter attack commenced. Edward with his outstanding speed lunged towards the red haired man. Before the man noticed Edward already closed more than half the distance that was around seven meters. The man tossed the girl towards Edward, he instinctively grabbed Winry but the red hair man was ran right behind her and was ready to strike.
Edward used a baseball slide so they can slide under their opponents feet.
"Tsk" The gang leader turned to face the state alchemist.
Edward quickly let go of WInry and performed a kick up and got on his feet. When the red hair leader charged forward Ed clapped his hand and rapidly tapped his opponents gut. Knowing the man was going to tank through his attack and hit him, the young blonde man did a cover role to escape the attack of the his opponent.
"What was that right now? To scared to know what to do? Doesn't surprise me from a dog of the military."
The leader of the group then charged forward one more time but this time Edward thrust his auto mail arm forward. This time the blade went through his gut. When Ed looked up the man's fist was right about to hit his head but stopped.
"What just happened?" The man then threw up blood as he remained standing up.
" I just reverted your carbon atoms back to normal."
The state alchemist claps his hands and retracts his swords making his hand normal again.
"I already fought someone in the past that had that same ability, I already knew what to do. You lost the moment you became my opponent."
The red hair man then collapses on the ground unconscious. Alphonse then makes his way out of the destroyed bar with one leg not present.
"Hey brother I need your help" he chuckles as he's carrying the fragments of his left leg with his arms.
When the red haired man finally regains consciousness he notices he's in a different building and is surrounded with his injured gang. They apparently have been bandaged up and most are in mats on the floor resting.
The voice of a certain state alchemist sounds out.
"Hey, what was the meaning of all that back there."
"…"
"My brother already told me that he just came into that bar asking for directions and you guys started to yell crap about central and attacked him".
The leader of the defeated gang sits his upper body up " We… We where a group that only sought out the rebirth of our beloved town. We used the bar as our HQ and we where sorting out our equipment that we acquired recently."
Edward walks towards him and sits beside him "You mean the equipment from the train you destroyed."
"So you figured it out?"
"Wasn't that hard to be honest. Did you know I'm going through hell and back because I couldn't use the train".
"…"
"You do know that their other ways of rebuilding your town other than destroying the train."
"But that was the reason we were forgotten about".
" Well then do something else! You should changed the town and made it a sight where people would want to come and see."
The red hair man lowers his head " With the train people didn't have a reason to come here anymore. I lived in this town since a baby and I always loved it. Seeing people leave continuously and everything going broke was a huge blow. I tried to make this town lively again but failed, I only had that train to blame. I had to eventually leave my precious town too but the pain was too great. After ten years I left my family and returned with nine others to reform this town with the destruction of the train as the start."
"There aren't any phone lines so I can't contact Central Headquarters so I let you guys off with a warning. Just return to family and continue your happy life. They are probably worried sick. You guys don't look like the criminal type anyways. I'll be going now."
As Edward stands up and begins to walk the man behind he speaks.
"Richard, my name is Richard."
"I hope we meet again under different circumstances Richard".
Edward, Winry and Alphonse are outside as the auto mail enthusiast get the motorcycle ready. In the time those people where sleeping Winry picked up her ride as Ed fixed Al.
When they finally are all seated in the motorcycle are ready to depart Winry decides to re-confirm her directions so she talks to a boy with brown short hair who's sitting outside the building where the other group members are resting.
"Hey kid, If I take the next right I can follow it out of town and go directly to Central right?"
The kid looks up to her "Yes, for a visitor you sure know your way around her."
Winry laughs a little in gratitude " Thanks but actually and old man Ernesto told me earlier."
The kid's eye's turn serious as he glares a spear through her "That's not funny lady, Ernesto was the mayor of this town ten years ago before he died."
Her face turns pale "I- Impossible, He was a old man with a bald hair and glasses."
"Exactly, you just described our dead mayor that's dead."
A female came out of the bar as she overheard to conversation and told Winry that the kid wasn't lying.
"Y-Y-Yo-You mean I talked to a gh-ghost?"
"Seems that way" Edwards confirmed.
Suddenly Winry fainted and fell back on Edward.
"AHHH WINRY!" Ed and Al yelled out.
They put Winry in the passenger seat and Ed had no option but to ride the motorcycle as Al sits behind him. After a few failures of trying to hold the bike straight they finally made their way out of the town and of to Central.