Part four…
Obi-Wan had been keeping track of Ed's presence with the Force. He felt it waver, as if Ed had been knocked unconscious. He made his way through the crowd, wanting to find out what had happened. Once he made it to the front, he saw a bunch of people walking out of a building. They looked like they were the hostages. Obi-Wan was confused. It didn't seem like they would just let these people go that easily.
It took Obi-Wan a moment to understand what had happened. These people had set up a trap. The only thing they had wanted was to capture a State Alchemist, and now they had one.
Obi-Wan was about to go after Ed when a small boy pulled on his pant leg. "Excuse me…"
"What is it?"
"Those bad people wanted me to give this to you." The boy gave Obi-Wan a small package and ran off. Obi-Wan decided to wait to read the note attached, and walked back through the crowd to join Anakin. He led his padawan a distance away from the crowd, and opened the package.
Inside there was a silver watch. Obi-Wan recognized the watch as Ed's. He read the note, and walked very briskly towards the train station.
"We have to get back to Coruscant."
"Why?"
"Because that's where we'll find Ed."
"But what about the mission?"
"The mission was to find the Fullmetal Alchemist and protect him. And, guess who the Fullmetal Alchemist is."
"Wait, so that boy's the Fullmetal Alchemist?"
"Correct. And we just let him fall into enemy hands."
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Ed woke up with a searing headache. He was flat on his back, his hands and feet held down by something metal. Once his head didn't hurt so much, he tried to break loose, but it didn't work.
After a moment, a face came into view. It was a man, and he was smiling. "So, you're awake."
"Where the hell am I?" Ed asked.
The man didn't answer. Instead, he began talking about something else. "I'm sorry about all this, but we didn't want you to do anything drastic and accidentally destroy the ship."
"What are you talking about?"
"To put it simply, you are on a ship that's heading to Coruscant. If you try to escape and destroy one of the outer walls, you'll end up in space, and die. There's no air in space."
Ed could barely believe it. It was like when he was little, only he was actually in space now.
"So, will you behave if I let you go?"
Ed nodded. He didn't have any desire to test this man's words, and he didn't much care for being stuck in such an awkward position. The man disappeared from Ed's field of vision, and Ed felt the metal things come loose. He sat up and looked around.
"This is where you'll stay until we reach our destination. If you don't like it, then that's too bad, because I'm not being paid to make you comfortable."
Ed glared at the man. He didn't like the idea of being a prisoner, especially since he had a lot to do.
"Now, don't blame me for this. I was merely instructed to transport the Fullmetal Alchemist from his world to Coruscant. If you want to blame somebody, blame those two Jedi."
"What, you mean Obi-Wan and Anakin? Why would I blame them?"
"Because they were assigned to protect you."
Ed was dumbfounded. He had no idea what was going on, and he had no clue why Obi-Wan hadn't mentioned any of this to him. Then he realized, Obi-Wan probably hadn't known that he was the Fullmetal Alchemist. Ed groaned. He should have told them. He could have avoided this entire mess if he had.
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Before they got to the train station, Obi-Wan abruptly changed his mind. He thought about Alphonse for a moment. If nothing else, he at least deserved to know what had happened to his brother.
He found the hotel fairly quickly. Al was there, and he recognized Obi-Wan after a moment. He listened quietly to the story, and agreed to help them get back to Resembool.
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Once they had gotten into space, Obi-Wan made a report to Mace Windu, including some details about Ed's life in the past ten years. The Jedi Master was interested to know about Ed, probably because alchemy was unheard of in the rest of the galaxy, and it had the potential to be more useful than the force.
"I find it interesting that this boy is the first person you met on that planet. Strange that things turned out this way."
Ergh. I don't feel like writing this part right now, so… Mace Windu goes off to where the dudes took Ed and stuff…
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Ed sat in a corner of the room. He was tired, but he wouldn't let himself fall asleep. There were too many unanswered questions, the most important being why he had been kidnapped. It's not like his status mattered in some other world.
He looked up as a door opened. The guy from earlier came into the room, with two strange creatures behind him. It was at this point that Ed completely believed every word of what Qui-Gon had told him ten years before.
"Come on, it's time to go."
Ed stood up, his mind racing. Depending on the circumstances, he could find a way out on his own, but he'd have to wait for a while. He had no idea where he was, much less which way he should go to get out. Besides, even if he could get out, there wasn't a very good chance of getting back to his world.
Ed sighed as he followed the man. Things weren't looking too good. Ed was surprised that they hadn't bothered to take his arm out. Then again, it's not like having his arm would do much good. Ed looked at the crazy-looking gun the man had. Ed doubted that a metal blade would do much good against it.
As if he could read Ed's thoughts, the man put a hand on Ed's shoulder and smiled. "You have absolutely no chance of escaping. You should just give up any thoughts you have right now."
That pissed Ed off a great deal, but he held his silence. They had left the ship, and were heading down a long walkway. Ed looked around in amazement. This place was like nothing he'd ever seen before. Everywhere around him were tall buildings and ships flying around.
Before he entered the building, Ed saw something out of the corner of his eye. He stopped and looked again, but the man pulled on his braid and Ed continued walking.
Ed paid special attention to where he was being led, which was hard, since all of the hallways looked pretty much the same. Eventually he was pushed into a strangely comfortable room.
"Get some rest. You have to work hard tomorrow."
Before Ed could ask about the type of work, the door slammed behind him and he was alone.
Ed looked around the room. It was interesting that they were willing to make him feel comfortable, or as comfortable as he could be as a captive from a different world. What were they expecting from him?
After a while, Ed noticed something that seemed to follow his every move. He looked at it with some curiosity, and realized that it was a camera. He hadn't dealt with cameras much in his life, and this one was much more high-tech than the ones back home, but it was definitely a camera. Was there somebody watching his every move? The idea bothered him.
After a while, Ed started to get tired. He lay on the small bed and closed his eyes, his back to the camera. He didn't want to fall asleep, but he couldn't help it. He was tired.
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He woke up in the middle of the night. He could hear the sound of approaching footsteps, and he rolled onto his back, trying to act like he was still asleep. When he realized that it was still dark, Ed risked opening an eye. All he could see was an outline of a human reaching for his left arm. Something was in the person's other hand. Ed realized with some shock that it was a syringe (or something along those lines).
Ed panicked. He punched the guy in the face and ran for the door. Of course, there was no way for him to open it, so he transmuted it and ran through. The hallway was empty, so Ed took the time to re-transmute the door so that the guy couldn't follow him. He ran silently through the halls, trying to find his way out.
At one point in time, Ed spotted some people walking towards him. He ducked behind a wall and found himself in a small alcove. He waited silently for the people to pass by, realizing too late that there was somebody behind him (OMG GUESS WHO IT IS!!!).
Before he had time to react, Ed felt a hand cover his face. Ed tried to break free, but he didn't have a chance. Whoever it was happened to be a lot stronger than him. Once the people had passed, he heard a voice in his ear.
"Don't struggle. I'm here to help you."
It took a moment for this to sink in, but it did, and Ed relaxed. The mysterious stranger let go of him and Ed sank to the ground. Moments later an alarm went off.
"I'm surprised it took them this long to realize you'd gotten out."
"Me too, although people tend to underestimate me a lot. How do we get out?"
"I don't know. At this rate, all the exits will be sealed before we can get to one."
"That's not much of an issue."
"Because you're an alchemist?"
Ed ignored the surprise he felt because of this comment. "Yeah."
"Well, keeping that in mind, the best way to go from here is this way."
Ed followed the man, wondering all the while who this person was. Part of him hoped that he was a friend of Obi-Wan's, but he couldn't be sure.
Once they got close to one of the exits, the man stopped Ed before he ran into what looked like a transparent red wall. "You don't want to touch that."
"What is it?"
"Now's not the time for that. This is a dead end."
Ed looked at the places where the red wall met the walls of the corridor. There were small thingies that looked like they were responsible for keeping the wall in place.
"No, it's not."
"There's no way to disable it from here."
"What about this?" Ed clapped his hands together and placed one on the wall. He transmuted the small thingies into something else, and the red wall disappeared. The man looked at Ed with some surprise.
"Don't you need to draw a circle?"
"Don't we need to get out of here?"
"Right." They got to the door, which Ed transmuted to let them through, and disappeared into the night.
