Women and men alike screamed when the body hit the floor, though they didn't have time to compose themselves as more gun shots went off. Everybody was running around the room, hysterical, and looking for a place to hide.
Ed kicked over the long table that held the ball's food and people immediately ran to take cover behind it as well as Ed. His golden eyes scanned the room until he found the shooters. One of them just happened to be Colonel Branch, who seemed to be enjoying himself. 'Sick, traitorous bastard…' Ed thought. One thing that Ed noticed was that the shooters all seemed to look physically similar; dark hair, pale skin, pale eyes…
His eyes widened in recognition. Drachmans…of course… but why would they do this? The Drachman War had ended 8 months ago with a treaty of peace. Why would they sneak into Amestris and shoot up the Veteran's Ball? Also, how the heck did they even sneak into the country? It's impossible to get past Fort Briggs! Well, they certainly are sneaky…
Now that he knew his enemies, Ed immediately took action and grabbed his .45 from his uniform pocket. He left the safety of the table and pursued the party poopers.
Ahh…it felt like old times… Ed instantly went into soldier mode and only listened to instinct. A few other paranoid officers had brought guns as well, but most were trying not to get shot with stray bullets. Speaking of stray bullets, one had just managed to lodge itself in Ed's upper left arm. He merely clenched his teeth in pain and continued on. Once in his desired position, Ed held up his weapon, quickly aimed, and fired, hitting his target in the side of his head, killing him instantly. 'One down,' he thought, 'A bazillion more to go…' The shooting continued and more innocent attendees' and military officers' bodies piled up on the now bloody red marble floor. Just like old times…
Ed shot off his handgun more and more and one by one the shooters fell to the ground. Not wanting to use all of his bullets, Ed used a bit of alchemy to capture a few of them. They might be taken into questioning later.
The Drachmans soon saw that were quickly losing this battle and chose to retreat, but not without grabbing as many hostages as they could. Ed and other soldiers tried their best but the Drachmans managed to escape, and right out the front door! Ed sprinted outside to capture them and saw the foreigners loading their new prisoners into a large meat truck that had been sitting out there since Ed arrived at the party. 'Of course,' Ed thought, 'They used a large vehicle that wouldn't attract much attention.' When Ed had seen it the first time he had just figured it was the caterer's truck, not terrorists.
Ed cocked his gun and prepared to shoot when a Drachman held up a prisoner with a gun to her head. She was crying hysterically. His eyes widened in surprise.
Betheny. "Back up, Amestrian! Or else this little girl won't live to see tomorrow," Ed reluctantly lowered his gun and Betheny was thrown into the truck with all the other passengers. The whole exchange only took a few seconds and within the blink of an eye, the truck started up and sped down Main Street. 'Her eyes,' Ed thought, Betheny on his mind, 'were so full of terror…and I couldn't save her…' Ed felt ashamed of himself as he walked inside to check on everyone else.
The place was a mess, to say the least. The dead and wounded lay on the ground in bloody heaps while their family members surrounded them, crying. Tables were flipper over, the food was all over the floor, the curtains and nice tablecloths were ripped to shreds, the podium was tipped over, and the majority of people in the room were still panicking. Ed decided it was time to take charge. He walked onto the stage and stood the podium up. He tapped the built in microphone a few times to test it and proceeded to speak.
"Okay, okay, everybody calm down," slowly, the many faces in the room, frightened, tear-streaked, and panicked, turned to look up at him, "The situation has been contained. The threat is gone. Just calm down and help will arrive soon," without another word Edward stood down from the podium and walked off the stage to go help. He attempted to temporarily treat the wounded while they waited for the medics to arrive. His jacket was practically nonexistent now from ripping off so many strips of it to use as tourniquets for the wounded; he'd have to get a new one.
He found Roy, who was scratched up a little bit but otherwise alright, and Winry, who was also doing fine other than the mental trauma from what just happened.
When he found Gray, the man was worried sick, wondering where his daughter was during this crisis. Ed, reluctantly, told him she'd been taken with other hostages and that he didn't know their current whereabouts. Gray freaked out, to say the least. He launched into a whole loud speech about it was Ed's fault and he should have saved her; he even threw a few punches at Ed, who didn't even try to defend himself and instead just let his good friend get it out of his system. After a few punches, Gray came to his senses and stopped, vying instead to sit down with his head in his hands, fighting to hold back his tears. Ed sat down next to the man, silently offering a shoulder to cry on. Ed wasn't mad at Gray for hitting him and yelling at him; he would've done the same thing if it had been Winry or Al who were taken.
When the medics did finally arrive, they took the wounded to Central Hospital. Despite his protests, Ed was practically forced to go. With so many badly wounded citizens suddenly coming to the ER all at once, the waiting room was pretty backed up and Ed ended up having to wait 2 and a half hours before a doctor could stitch up his bullet wound. He was allowed to go back home that same night and couldn't wait to fall into bed.
It had certainly been a long night, and Ed was sure the next day would be even longer.
A/N: Haha sorry for the late update ^^; I was working on a writing entry for the "Central Olympics" on Faith Altoire's FMA forum. My entry was called Unreachable Paradise and I posted it here on Fanfiction and I'd really appreciate it if you read and reviewed it!