Oh noes, Junodog updates! Gaspness.

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He saw a figure before him. He stared at it, trying to figure out who it was. He stepped closer, trying to get a better view. As he walked closer, he saw familiar light brown eyes. He stopped. The figure's eyes were narrowed.

"Why do I have to be this way?"

"I-I'm sorry. I'm trying my best. I really am."

"Then why are you so far away? Please, I don't like being alone here. Please, brother, hurry up and come. I hate it here."

"I'm trying, but everything keeps going wrong. I'm sorry, Al, but this is the best I can do."

Ed heard a voice in the distance. It sounded like Indy was muttering to himself. Ed propped himself up on his elbows and rubbed his eyes. Indy was combing his hair in the bathroom.

Ed fell back on the bed with a groan. He was still exhausted, and he didn't want to leave the warmth of the bed. Indy seemed to sense that the alchemist was awake and walked up to him.

"I'm beginning to see a pattern in these events," he said as he sat on the bed next to Ed's.

"Yeah? And what's that?"

"You use alchemy to get out of a tricky situation, then something goes wrong, and I have to get you out of there on my own. Plus you're usually unconscious when that happens."

"That's not what happened after that castle incident."

"Good point. So, we're heading out tomorrow. That Envy guy's going to meet us over there. Hopefully he'll have figured out where your brother is by then, and then all we'll need to do is get him out."

Ed hid under the blankets as Indy walked away. "Where are my clothes?" he asked as he stared at the windows. He could see the sky just above the low-hanging curtains.

"They're drying in the bathroom. I figured it wouldn't be too good to leave 'em on, especially since your side's still healing."

"Right."

Indy looked at Ed for a moment. "Hey, do you know you talk in your sleep?"

Ed looked at Indy in confusion. "Really? That's weird, I usually don't…"

"Maybe it only happens when you're recovering from nearly drowning, or maybe just when you've hurt yourself in some way."

"Eh?"

"Like after you got shot, you kept apologizing to someone named Nina. Who's she?"

Ed curled into a ball and hid his face. "It happened fairly recently, but Nina was a little girl whose life was destroyed by her father. Then she was killed by someone who later tried to kill me."

Indy was quiet for a while. "Then why would you be apologizing to her? If it was her father that did it…"

"I couldn't do anything for her. There was no way to undo the damage that had been done, and we didn't even have a way to prevent it."

Indy was quiet. "And you were just apologizing to your brother. Ed, it isn't your fault that this happened."

"But it's my fault that Al's like that in the first place."

Indy tousled Ed's hair again before turning off the light in the room. Ed was grateful for the darkness. It made it easier to hide his face.

---------------

After another period of time in which the two made it to Germany via travel-by-line, Ed sat cautiously by the window of a small hotel room. He was watching to see if any soldiers were around. Indy was sitting by the door, waiting for Envy to show up. Several hours passed in this fashion, and Ed stood up and stretched, still looking out the window.

"Are you sure this is where we're supposed to meet?"

"Yeah, I'm positive. We're also pretty early; he's supposed to get here in an hour or so."

Ed shot Indy a death glare as he continued looking out the window. "You could have mentioned that earlier," he muttered as some people walked by.

After a while, there was a knock on the door. This startled Ed, who stood up a little too quickly, tripped and fell on his back. Indy sighed and opened the door. It was Envy. He looked over at Ed for a moment and shook his head.

"You're pathetic," he said as he sat down. Ed stopped trying to get up for a while and threw a conveniently placed rock at Envy's head. Envy caught the rock and dropped it on the ground. "You should be thanking me. Not only did I find your brother, but I secured a way into the building where they're keeping him."

"Does it involve me being captured again?" Ed asked from the floor. He had somehow managed to get his legs tangled in the chair.

"No, it doesn't."

"You sure?" Ed asked as he began kicking at the chair.

"Will you shut up so I can tell you what you have to do?" Ed stopped kicking and listened to Envy. The plan seemed simple enough at first, but then Ed realized that there was something that Envy wasn't telling them. Before he could ask about it, though, Envy had left.

Indy sat next to Ed and continued Ed's job. After a while, he looked down at Ed. "Why are you still down there?"

"I'm stuck, why do you think I'm down here?"

There was a knock on the door. Indy got up and walked over. Ed pushed himself halfway up to a sitting position and looked over at the door.

"Are you going to open it?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's probably Envy again."

"For some reason, I doubt it."

Indy looked through the little hole in the door and stepped back. "You're right. It isn't him."

"Who is it, then?"

"Ed, don't say anything, and stay down. I'll handle this."

Ed nodded and put his head down as Indy opened the door. He heard rough voices, all in German, and then the door slammed. After a while, Ed became curious and picked his head up. The room was empty, except for one German soldier; who had his back turned to Ed. Ed looked at his feet. He carefully took them out of the chair and maneuvered so that he was underneath the bed.

The soldier walked around leaned over. Ed could tell he was checking under the other bed. Ed quickly pulled himself out and pushed the blanket down just as the man checked the area where Ed had just been.

As the man stood up, Ed pulled himself under the bed again. He breathed a sigh of relief as the soldier went into the bathroom. Ed looked over at the bathroom and decided to risk being seen. He quickly crawled from the shelter of one bed to the other, just as the man came out of the bathroom. He could hear him muttering in German.

Ed lay under the bed for about an hour. Then, just as he was about to make a break for the door, he felt something on his foot. He looked back and saw a hand. Attached to the hand was the soldier, and he grinned menacingly as he pulled Ed out from under the bed.

Ed kicked out at the man and tried to stand up. Of course, he had forgotten that he was still partially underneath the bed, and he hit his head against the wooden siding. Ed clutched his head for a moment before regaining his senses. He brought his hands together and placed one on the wood of the bed. The soldier pulled his hand away just as a block of wood went flying out of the side of the bed. It hit the soldier square in the chest, and Ed used this opportunity to run for the door.

He looked through the peephole and saw that there were several soldiers coming down the hall. Ed risked a glance at the man, who was still on the ground. He opened and closed the window fairly loudly, and dove to the floor just as the door opened.

Once again, Ed found himself lying under the bed for a good half hour. He watched carefully as the soldiers inspected the room one more time and left the room. Ed slowly crawled out from under the bed. As he stood up, Ed felt something cold on his back. He looked back to see someone standing behind him. He had a gun in his hand.

"You're rather good at hiding, aren't you? It's a good thing I stayed behind to wait. Now then, why don't you take a little trip with me?"

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Ed stood quietly as Peterson paced around him. "So, we meet again. You're making life rather difficult for yourself, you know. If you had just stayed with me in the first place, you would have saved yourself a lot of grief. But, since you're here, I have good news."

"And what's that?" Ed asked with suspicion in his voice.

"Your brother. He's here as well, and since we can't put you to work quite yet, we'll be nice enough to let you stay with him."

"Wow, aren't you nice?" Ed asked sarcastically.

"Well, now, I thought you'd be happier. After all, I managed to convince these people to leave both of you alive, and now you'll even get to be reunited."

"Where's Indiana?" Ed asked.

"He's down there as well. I hope you realize, though, that just because we're doing this for you doesn't mean that we'll do anything else. You'll still be our prisoner, which means we aren't going to be taking any chances with you anymore." Peterson signaled to the two soldiers behind Ed, who each grabbed an arm and roughly pulled him through the building to a small prisonish area. They entered a cell and pushed Ed against a wall. Ed saw a suit of armor nearby.

Ed waited until the soldiers had left before turning to his brother. "Al?"

"Brother… you're here…" Al stood up and walked over to Ed, whose entire body had been immobilized. Ed looked at his brother with a weak smile.

"Yeah, I'm here. Al, are you oka- OW!" Al had just dealt Ed a heavy blow to the face. Ed stared open-mouthed at his brother. "What was that for?"

"Brother, why did you come? I could have easily gotten out on my own and found you, especially after Envy told me where you were."

"Oh, yeah? Then why didn't you?"

"Because by the time I was ready, someone came running down and said that they'd found you. For the fourth time."

"Wait, Envy told you where we were?"

"Yeah, he was here a couple of days ago. Why?"

"Well, when we met up with him yesterday, he made it sound like he was going to make us get you out. It didn't seem like he was expecting you to get out on your own."

"That's probably because he didn't think we'd end up coming here in the first place," Indy said from the next cell over. "Remember the plan? We were supposed to come later on."

"Yeah, but why would he tell us one thing when he's planning something different?"

"Probably because he didn't want to deal with you asking five billion questions on how he expected your brother to make it out on his own and why he dragged you all the way here if he wasn't planning on you actually doing anything to get your brother out," Indy said in an irritated voice.

"Oh," Ed said as he looked back at his brother. "So, what now?"

Al was about to respond when the door slammed open, and someone walked up to the brothers' cell. It was Envy.

"Hurry up and get out of there, pipsqueak. We need to get going."

Al was about to use alchemy on his brother's restraints, but he soon found he didn't need to. Ed had broken out of them himself, and by the time Al had figured that out, Ed had gotten to the other side of the cell and punched Envy through the bars. The homunculus flew back and hit the bars of Indy's cell. Everyone looked at Ed in surprise.

"Don't. Call. Me. Small."

Just then, they heard footsteps. Ed looked down the hall at the doorway. "Ah, shit," he muttered.

"Well? Are you going to get out of here or not?" Envy asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute to think," Ed replied.

"There's no time for that! Just make a hole in the ground or something."

"Right," Ed muttered. He clapped his hands and placed them on the ground. Immediately, the four of them fell through the ground and into an immense cavern. Ed clapped his hands and remade the floor above them before looking around.

"Where are we?" he asked, looking at the space before them.

"Probably a tomb or something," Indy replied. "I doubt they knew about this, though, from the way things look down here."

"But then why is it light down here?" Ed asked, walking through the cavern. "It's like there's a fire lit down here…"

"The light's coming from over there," Al said as he pointed to what looked like a tunnel. "Should we go over and see what it is?"

"Might as well," Envy replied as he made his way to the tunnel. "I don't see any other option for getting out."

The four of them walked into the tunnel and followed it to its end. Ed gasped as he saw what was on the other side. The tunnel ended abruptly and opened into a gigantic cavern. The tunnel the four were in was near the ceiling, so they could see down into the huge space. In the middle of it was a gigantic alchemy array. Several smaller circles surrounded it, but Ed could tell the focus was on the one in the middle.

Envy wasn't surprised at all by the circle. "This is what they were going to have you do. They were using some old books to figure out a way to create an immortal army."

"But wait, that doesn't look right," Ed muttered.

"No, they're way off, but they're fine with that since they have you now."

Ed looked past the circles at a group of people sitting against the wall. None of them seemed to be older than Ed, and several of them looked much younger. They all look

"Come on. I know how to get out from here," Envy said. Ed looked over at him and looked back down at the group of kids.

"What are they planning to do with them?" Ed asked, pointing at the group.

"Something they can only do if they catch you again. Come on, let's go."

Ed sighed and followed Envy to another tunnel. "You'd better be right about this."

"Is that a threat, pipsqueak?" Envy replied as he dodged another attack on Ed's part. "Calm down. We need to be quiet."

"Too late," Indy muttered as he looked at the dozens of soldiers now surrounding them. This time, neither Ed nor Indy could see a way out. Ed decided to ask Envy for help, but the homunculus had disappeared. They were alone.

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"Al," Ed muttered as he held his hands in the air. "Do you know how many people are here?"

Al looked around. "You mean in this entire place, or just right here?"

"In this place."

"About a hundred and fifty. Why?"

"I'm not in the mood to stay here any longer. I don't know about you, but I've had enough of this."

"What are you going to do?"

"You'll see." Before either Indy or Al could react, Ed had created several monstrous walls around them. He kicked out at one segment, and the resulting force caused all of them to topple over. Ed used the diversion to lead his brother and Indy over to one of the caves. This one seemed to lead to the surface, so they began walking down it.

After a while, Ed turned around. He waved for his companions to continue walking. "Go on ahead, I have an idea."

"Brother, what-"

"Al, trust me. I'll catch up with you, okay?"

Something told Indy that Ed was lying, but he didn't point this out. Right now they needed to get out of there. Ed could take care of himself.

They got away from the base and made their way to a small town nearby, where one of Indy's friends lived. He was startled to see the archaeologist at his door next to a suit of armor, but he didn't comment. He let them in and closed the curtains.

Al was unbearably quiet for a long time. After a while, Indy got tired of it and stood up. "Hey, I'm going to see if Ed made it out yet. You stay here, got it?"

"He's not going to come out," Al replied. "He's just going to stay there and hope that we get out of here."

Indy walked back over to Al. "Yeah, I know. And that's what we should do. You can't stay in this country."

"I know, but I don't want to leave him behind."

"You leave that to me. If they find you again and find out how Ed put you in that body, it'll be really bad for the rest of the world."

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Ed stood with his back to the wall, surrounded by at least twenty-five soldiers, each armed with a gun. They approached him carefully, pointing their weapons at his chest. Evidently they weren't trying to kill him.

Ed slowly and gently brought his hands together behind his back and took another step back. He was right up against the wall now. He placed his hands against the wall, and there was a flash. A wall began to grow around Ed, and someone decided to fire his gun. He got Ed right in the shoulder, where the automail was attached. Ed dropped his hands in surprise, and the wall stopped forming.

"Damn…" he muttered as one of the soldiers made it into Ed's little enclosed space. Ed kicked out at the man and managed to bring him to the ground before he realized it was pointless. Maybe he would only have to deal with one at a time in this space, but there were a lot of them, and he knew he'd run out of energy before they did, especially with an injured shoulder. Ed brought his hands together and closed off the space. He looked at his shoulder. The bullet had gone straight through.

"Well, I guess it could be worse," Ed muttered, just as a small explosion went off, blowing off part of Ed's wall and sending debris flying in Ed's direction. Ed managed to dodge most of it, but a big piece caught him on the side of the head and knocked him back. By the time he got back on his feet, several soldiers had made their way into the space. They all had guns.

"Damn…" Ed muttered again as he brought his hands together again. "This is getting to be a pain." He placed them on the ground and sent up another wall around him. He wasn't quite ready to give up yet.

He sat there for a while, listening to the voices outside. As he caught his breath, Ed began wrapping his shoulder. Then there was one voice that caught his attention.

"So he's resisting, eh? I don't think we'll ever get this boy on our side. Go ahead and kill him. It's not worth the effort anymore."

Ed panicked. He didn't want to be killed, especially since he hadn't accomplished what he wanted to accomplish. He brought his hands together and placed them on the walls. They disintegrated, leaving Ed to face Peterson and the soldiers whose guns were now pointed at Ed's head.

"I give up," Ed muttered. "You win."

"There, see?" Peterson said. "I told you it would work. Disarm him and bring him to my office."

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When Peterson had said 'disarmed,' he hadn't expected his men to literally take away Ed's arm. He was rather surprised to see the alchemist come into the room with his right arm missing. One of the soldiers accompanying him handed the automail to Peterson.

"He was proving to be quite difficult, sir. He wouldn't let us search him at all."

Peterson looked at Ed once again. "Why didn't you?"

"You already did when I came here. I don't see why you need to a second time."

Peterson stood up and walked around his desk. He stopped in front of Ed and grabbed the alchemist by the shirt. "That's not a very good reason, you know? If you know what's good for you, you'll let these people search you. Right now."

Ed didn't move.

"Well?"

"Give my arm back."

"Why should I?"

"I won't be able to do anything for you if I don't have it."

Peterson laughed. "Yeah, I guess you have a point there. Well then, let's put the boy's arm back where it belongs, eh?"

The soldier took Ed's arm off of the desk and pulled off Ed's shirt. There was a knock on the door. Peterson took the arm from the soldier and gestured for him to open the door. He gave Ed his shirt back, and the young alchemist pulled it on as the door opened, and Charlotte Anderson came inside.

"Sorry I'm late, I… Why is this boy here?"

Peterson dropped the automail behind the desk and pushed Ed out of his way as he went to meet Charlotte. "Oh, he's been a very troublesome child lately. We'll probably end up punishing him before he gets to work."

"I see. What of Doctor Jones? Has he been captured yet?"

"No, he got away, along with this brat's younger brother."

"You realize that he holds the key to this entire mission, don't you?"

"Of course, darling. It's just a matter of bringing him back here."

"You had better retrieve him soon. I don't want to waste any more time. As for this boy," she continued as she placed a hand under his chin. "I think I know exactly what to do with him. Would you mind leaving him in my care?"

"Of course not. You can do what you wish with him, as long as he is still able to work once we capture Jones."

"Oh, he will be. I promise I won't go overboard." She grabbed Ed's arm and pulled him along, only stopping at the door. "Oh, and give me his other arm. He'll be needing it."