Disclaimer: I don't own FMA

Author's Note: Many thanks to Kame-tan my first reviewer in what feels like forever, btw timeskip!! sorry

Two months later.

Scar breathed heavily, every intake of air rasping painfully in his half-crushed throat. He examined himself in the mirror, giving an uncharacteristic wince at the ugly red and purple stripe across his throat. He raised his hand to examine the injury more closely, and hissed in pain as some of his other injuries made themselves known. Scar reached towards his right pectoral and gritted his teeth as he pulled a six inch shard of steel out of his chest, the broken off blade of a combat knife. he examined the rest of his body and was not happy with what he saw, sprained wrist and ankle, broken ribs, dislocated shoulder, he had never been this outclassed before, and by a kid no less. He had been able to keep up with the kid's speed for about fifteen minutes, at which point the kids techniques began to move so rapidly they blurred to even his experienced eyes. And the kind of power he could put behind his punches, the only reason Scar hadn't died with the first attack was because it requires time to throw all your weight into one assault, the first punch the kid threw, if it had landed, could have cracked his skull open like an eggshell. As it is the kid's rapid fire onslaught would have killed him quickly if not for the oil slick the kid slipped on, the distraction gave Scar just enough time to destroy the concrete beneath his assailant's feet, he had been buried under several large chunks of concrete. Scar would have preferred to destroy his opponent's head to make sure, but, he wasn't sure he would have gotten there fast enough, Scar knew some of those concrete shards must have weighed a few hundred pounds but even so... A few of Scars punches had connected not many but enough that it should have made a difference, it had been like punching the human equivalent of a brick wall, and the frightening thing was that the kid hadn't been wearing body armor. Scar didn't know why he had been attacked, but he was sure he'd be seeing his attacker again, and to make matters worse it had been midnight in a slummy section of town so he didn't even know what his enemy looked like. He was supposed to be the hunter, and whoever he chose the prey, having the roles reversed was... disconcerting.

Sean Ryder lay on a hospital bed for once looking rather pathetic beneath the bandages and the oxygen mask. He would have no doubt been rather irritated over the way the nurses were fussing over 'the poor boy in room 67' however fortunately for the nurses in question he was unconscious and in no position to make sarcastic comments. Colonel Mustang however was very much awake and extremely irritated, though with his subordinate not the nurses,

"You know," he fumed to Hawkeye as they waited to be informed of Sean's condition, "I thought this kid was actually smart, or at the very least had the common sense not to end up in the hospital!"

Hawkeye almost smiled at her superior's obvious attempt to cover up his worry, "Well sir sometimes accidents happen."

Mustang snorted, "Accident my ass, if I ever express the thought that any teenager other than Alphonse has even an ounce of common sense, I give you full permission to shoot my idiot ass off!"

At that moment a girl in military uniform burst into the lobby. She was just about Hawkeye's height, with short brown hair, her bangs falling into her face. Roy had a feeling it would have been a very pretty face if it hadn't looked so distressed, however he noticed the patch on the left shoulder of her uniform and immediately suppressed any urge to stare, this girl was Special Ops which basically meant she could kill him in nine or ten different ways without even pulling a weapon.

"Where's Sean is he alright?!" she asked frantically.

Roy stared this time in surprise, "We're waiting for the doctors to tell us... how do you know him?"

"He was my partner in Special Ops training," she replied absently, "what happened? Nobody told me anything!"

Roy glanced at Hawkeye, Sean went through Special Ops? That was one week of some of the toughest training of your life, an hour of sleep per day, no food, and a maximum of a quarter liter of water every twelve hours. "He got buried under a few hundred pounds of concrete, other than that no one seems to know anything."

At that minute a doctor walked out, he was probably middle aged but his exhaustion made him look about sixty. "I'm Dr. Mason, the three of you are here for Sean Ryder?" He continued hardly waiting for the nods, "Well I have no idea how he's in such good shape after that, he had a collapsed lung, a sprained wrist and ankle, a cracked rib, and some internal bleeding. We're keeping him under observation for a few more days but we think we got all the internal injuries, his lung has been reinflated, and as long as he's careful his wrist and ankle should heal in a few weeks, his rib in about two months. Captain Ryder is a very lucky person, either that or his bones are made of rock."

Hawkeye spoke up, "Why? How bad should his injuries have been?"

Dr. Mason looked up looking utterly bewildered, "His skull should have been caved in... he doesn't even have a concussion!"