Gah, Shadow thought, walking through a large abandoned building, half-sunken in the ground. Why can't I ever get a day off? He glared at a piece of glass that just barely showed his reflection in the slight light of the moon. Don't think like that. It's pathetic... and Teacher will likely kill you just for thinking like that. His leg hurt quite a lot, forcing him to let out a slight cry of pain and limp over to an empty room at the end of a long hallway. I'll have to stick around here until this injury heals... too bad none of my medic friends are here.

Sitting down on the floor of the moonlit bathroom, he quickly grabbed one of his daggers and carefully started to nudge the bullet out of his leg. Occassionally crying out in frustration and pain, Shadow finally could breathe a breath of relief when the lead abomination was out of his leg. Need to stop the bleeding... He deconstructed a part of a nearby pipe and froze the water onto his leg, just trying to numb it and avoid bleeding too badly. Need something to keep the ice safe. This hurts like hell... He then reconstructed the pipe with alchemy and transmuted some of the floor around him to ensure the ice was sturdy enough. That would have to do for now.

His escape tunnel had led him back to his hideout, the abandoned section of Central. Old buildings, long since condemned, littered the area with almost no people hanging around. Only the homeless or gangs used to live there... now only the homeless remained, as the gangs had fled when Shadow took refuge there. He, himself, had chosen to sink a large laboratory, known by the nearby homeless as "The First Laboratory," and then had lived there since, leaving only to steal food, water, or items to transmute or read.

The building still had possibilities, dispite its location in the city. It somehow, still had water in the pipes and due to now being partially underground, had a fairly constant cool temperature which worked just well enough for the teenager. It had space enough to keep him occupied and had all the things expected from a lab: cages, beakers, metal equipment everywhere, however it was all rusted with time and neglect. A few of the windows were still above ground, allowing light to filter into some of the rooms. A nice thing to have, in any case. Even someone that preferred to work by night still enjoyed enough light to see what they were doing.

His lab was his fortress, safe and secure, in enough of an unlikely location for no one to notice or care. And thanks to his alchemy, the only ones that could even get to him would be mineral alchemists. Maybe those alchemic brothers that had been chasing after him could find him... maybe they couldn't. It all depended on how intelligent they were. Though, admittedly, showing Inferno's men his tunnel was likely to end his security in this place. Just another matter of how lucky I get.

He limped over to a nearby room and pushed the metal door open. A slight beam of moonlight came through a small portion of the mostly buried windown to the right, illuminating a portion of the room. Near the center of the room was a pile of blankets, some thick, some thin, altogether... they made a fairly thin and uncomfortable mattress of soft fabric. The same went for a make-shift pillow. To the far left of the room, multiple books on alchemy and scattered notes were placed, waiting for their owner to continue research at any time. There wasn't much to this room, but to Shadow, it was home sweet home.

The information he had been researching was of the nearby countries and on ways to vary his own alchemical abilities. Currently he was working on ice-variation alchemy, finding better ways to both use and power his water, vapor, and ice control of the compound. Alongside the notes were random transmutation circles, some complex, while others were facepalmingly simple. All of them had their own special purposes with him however.

He looked over at a calendar and noticed the date. Wonderful. It's coming up again... that day I despise. Thanks a lot... His expression contorted into something like a grimace, then he slowly limped to his 'bed' to watch the moon for some time. It was always better to know something else out there shared his insomnia. Though the moon was slightly better at staying up for longer periods of time than he.

He sighed, I'm tired of running... but I promised everyone I'd be okay. That I'd make it safely back home. I can't give up. Even if I have to run to the edge of the world and back... I'll make it back to Corixia. Going off on a mental tangent, he continued, I really do need a bath or something. Should I head back to the bathroom...? But my leg will ache... well... more anyways. Might as well.

Using alchemy to bring a thin layer of the floor up enough to grab in order to pull himself up, he got to his feet and limped back to the bathroom. Deconstruct the pipe, put his head in the spray of water, reconstruct the pipe... his usual routine. Afterwords, he alchemized himself dry and limped back to his room, watching the moon until his thoughts drifted off with him, I'm bored. There's not much to do here... and now that I think about it... I'm running low on supplies... wonderful. And dammit... what's with this feeling anymore? Like a pain in my heart... is it... loneliness?

Laying down on his 'bed' the teenager continued to watch the moon, thoughts having abandoned him as well as good company. His weapons were in order, cleaned, and ready for use any time. His bloodied clothes had been slightly cleaned thanks to his 'bath.' Truly, there wasn't anything left for him to do. The moon's light was watched and focused on until finally, gracefully, the teenager was able to sleep.


The younger Elric brother woke with a start. He'd had a strange dream... or was it that? It was so realistic that it felt more like watching someone else's life through their own eyes. Thinking what they thought and feeling what they felt... and why did his leg hurt? He quickly moved his leg out from under his blanket to check for something... an insect bite maybe? No... nothing.

Edward started to wake, apparently from either a dream or nightmare. He rolled off his bed and glared daggers at his bed. How dare it not be large enough for him to roll? A bit of silence passed before Edward asked, "Hey Al... you awake?"

"Yeah... I think I had a weird dream that woke me up," Alphonse replied, trying to think back to the dream but almost completely unable to recall it now.

Edward nodded, "Yeah, I had a weird dream too. But it didn't wake me up..." he resumed glaring at his bed. He was by no means a happy morning person... his younger brother assumed that also meant he wouldn't ever be happy waking up in the middle of the night either. "Nothing bad happened though... it's just the feeling I got from it that made it seem like a nightmare."

"Same here... I don't even remember it though. Maybe something to do with a person limping all alone, feeling lonely?"

"Hey...! That's the same dream I had!" Edward looked oddly at his younger brother. "Then I remember waking up with a sharp pain in my leg... and rolling off the bed..."

Both brothers looked oddly at each other in silence for a short time. What was going on with them? But... both were certain that whatever it was that was happening was important. Someone out there was in pain... pain strong enough to reach them... Well... maybe not. They were both exhausted after all.

"Damn... we need off this case as soon as we can get... now we're both having dreams about it all."

"Yeah. Let's try to get more sleep Brother. Maybe we can finally end everything tomorrow when we track 'Shadow' down."

"Alright. Sounds good to me. Night Al," the brothers settled down again and slowly drifted off to sleep.


Finally morning came. The Elrics prepared themselves and walked back to Colonel Mustang's office in Headquarters when they were ready. When they arrived, Hawkeye, Havoc, Mustang, and even Fuhrer King Bradley were already there, waiting on the others to arrive. What? The Fuhrer was there? The two quickly saluted and were put at-ease by said Fuhrer, then moved to join the group of adults. The bounty hunters had simply arrived and joined the group.

"Alright Sir, everyone is here," the raven-haired man informed his Fuhrer.

Bradley inspected those around him and said calmly to the hunters, "learn to respect your elders. It isn't smart to upset the ruler of the country you're a guest in after all."

"Of course Sir. Sorry, it won't happen again," Inferno said, though the tone of voice was anything but obedient.

"Our main objective will be capturing 'Death's Shadow' before he can cause any more havoc among the people of Amestris. For this, we shall split into groups. Two groups will search around the tunnel in order to ensure he either is or isn't above ground in the city. The last group, which I will lead, will travel underground in order to inspect his obode. Colonel Mustang, Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye and Lieutenant Jean Havoc will search above ground as well as our bounty hunter group. Elrics, you and I will travel through the tunnel to discover where 'Shadow' has been hiding. Understood?" Everyone nodded their agreement with a "yessir," before taking their leave.

"The hunt is on." He said as they left.


Just waking up from another night of nightmares, Shadow got ready for another day of boredom. He watched the sun get just out of sight from his window and got ready for the day. After putting on his gold chain necklace and placing a small sapphire in his pocket, he was ready for another boring day to go by. He wasn't planning on anything out-of-the-ordinary happening on his "day off". His stomach growled. Food was what he needed. There was none in the lab. Looks like I've really got to leave today. That's crap. I don't feel like running around on this leg...


Another rewritten chapter. Let me know if it's good or not.