Chapter 38

Missing Students

"Not now, Pamona, everything is fine I just need to..." RING RING RING. Jean fumbled with the papers around in Edward's office as he got his numbers in order. The phone was either constantly ringing, dialed, or in use. Some of the teachers, who were quite disturbed by the series of events that unfolded themselves so quickly, were in the classroom completely flabbergasted by his pace of work. They were constantly bugging him if there was something they could do but they didn't know who to call or how, so Jean was on his own. He snatched the hook off of the line and whipped it up to his ear.

"Yes?"

"Shipment is all loaded. We got all of the frozen delites packed and ready to go," a female voice answered from the other side. It was Rebecca. Havoc smirked.

"Even the Chocobars?" he asked wondering if they were even able to get such powerful weapons. He had ordered a few shipments undercover of course of small portable missiles. He didn't really know why, bullets and grenades should have been pleanty for troops, but Havoc's General Store knew value when they saw it. The Chocobars sure would come in handy.

"Yes, should I make the delivery? I heard their nearly on their last popsicle," she said to him. Jean nodded his head.

"Yeah, make the delivery, but you got to make sure the buyer signs off on it before he recieves. I don't want him skimping payment this time," he scolded her. There was a quick yes sir before the line was cut off. Jean put the phone down and flipped through his papers. The General Store had also been delivering some building materials to the Armstrong mansion supposedly because Alex and Olivier nearly knocked the entire thing down. The workers had the basement redone first, then the phone lines with one specific extension. Havoc dialed it into the phone and waited for it to be picked up. After the thrd ring there was a click.

"Armstrong Construction Service, in the business for generations-"

"This is Havoc's General store, we sent your final shipments in a few weeks ago and we expect payment. Howe soon are you expecting to send the check through?" Jean questioned as he leaned back in his chair and twiddled with the phone cord a little bit. The coupled of teachers in the room looked at him with disbeleif as they wondered why he was doing business calls on an hour like this.

"We sent the first quarter of the payment out already, signed by Olivier herself. The next quarter was supposed to be signed off by Mustangs as a head of house gift. The bill got to him and we are sure he already signed it. We just sent the third quarter off to Alex," the person replied. It was a Briggs soldier that they hid in the fortified basement of the Armstrong house. Along with the reconstuction supplies, Havoc was slipping in a few crates of weaponry as well. Mustang and Olivier organised it, but he doubted his commanding officer knew it was the general store of all places who was fullfilling it. As it seemed some of the soldiers were already sent off to vairous places of Central; to Mustang, Olivier, and Armstrong. There was only one last group of Briggs soldiers left before the rest of the troops invaded from the North. Havoc scratched his beard lightly as he thought about it.

"I am thinking that Olivier might just need to pay for the rest of it herself unless her paycheck is already taken-"

"Will do. We will send the rest of the bill to her. It is now her house afterall," the man on the otherside replied. Jean grinned. The Central Command would be swarming with northern troops in a matter of minutes.

"Very well, as long as I get my money anything is right with me," he said. There was a short rest of farewells and the line closed again. That would be the last time the store called the Armstrong household. Jean searched through his numbers and picked up the Armstrong mansion and set it in one of Edward's drawers. He wheeled his chair over to the large map hanging on the side of the classroom and took a pencil from his pocket to draw out a few lines where the Briggs troops were sent. From the looks of it, they were all spread out through the captiol, but he knew that the battle wouldn't get too bloody until the time neared the promised day. Olivier made sure to keep the store in contact with what was going on for the past few months. Rebecca would relay the messages to him over the phone. Jean sighed as he tucked the pencil behind his ear and studied everything. He knew that when the battle started he would probably be cut off from the communication in the chaos. He needed another way to know what was going on.

"Minerva, do you know if there is a possible radio system around and if we can hook it up to accept the Amestrian stations?" he asked the woman behind him. The elderly lady looked a little confused. "The Central stations are undoubtedly getting news on the incidents. In emergencies like this they are required to keep the public informed through their broadcastings. Do you-"

"I am sure we can manage to find one," the short professor Sprout said beside her. The stout woman scuttled out of the room on her mission. Jean let out a breath of air as he managed to relax a bit. He wheeled back over to the desk to try and use his break to organise a few of the random notes he jotted down.

"I still think that we should send more people down to help," Minerva mumbled to herself. Jean shook his head.

"It is going to be insane down there in a few moments if it isn't already. You have your own crisis to take care of anyways with that Moody fellow," he told her. "How's all of the students taking the shock?"

"We sent them all back to their dormatories where some of the other teachers are trying to calm them down. The visiting parents however... are a bit more to handle. Dumbledore has got them."

"How about that Potter kid? Is he-" Jean started but someone interrupted him as they came barging through the door. He looked up to see a red head, most likely a Weasley. He looked tired as if he ran a mile to get here.

"They're gone!" the kid exclaimed. The two of them stared at him confused. "They're gone! My brothers! All three of them! Potter, Granger too. They're not there! They left!" Percy shouted.

"Mr. Weasley, exactly what happened?" Minerva asked, trying to calm the enraged boy down.

"Dumbledore allowed me to go check up on my brothers, I mean, I had a feeling that something was going to happen it always does, and they weren't there. Neville says that the twins left the dorms with a shoe! They followed him, they had to have," the boy, who is so usually calm, panicked. Jean had pictured the kid to be a snob, the way he strutted around with the ministery, but at least he had family values in crisises.

"Who did they follow, Mr. Weasley?" McGonagall tried to get him to spit out.

"Elric! They used a portkey!" Everyone in the room froze for a split moment. Jean cursed to himself as he sped over to the map in his chair. The two wizards followed closely behind him.

"Those idiots! They could be anywhere!" Jean raged. He had no way of contacting them if he didn't know where they were, even then he had limited resources. Suddenly Jean remembered that a few of their maps were missing from the office. Jean and Hohenheim were already prediciting what would happen and they had several maps already laid out but now that the Promised day had come they were short one. Jean looked down through the one hanging directly on the wall and saw a little X where the Elrics were supposed to meet. He took his pencil out from behind his ear and circled the slum area. "They're there," he told them. McGonagall nodded her head and quickly spun around on her heels.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Percy asked.

"To get my students, your brothers!" she huffed angrily.

"It's a battle down there!" Jean warned her but she turned around and shot him a glare.

"Mr. Havoc, I will have to tell you that I frankly don't care. I might not look like much, but I am the head of Gryffindor house. They don't give that position away so easily," she shot back. "I will take a portkey." Just as she reached the door however, a green robed student, a prefect, barged in blocking the exit.

"Malfoy's gone!"

...

"He's been standing there forever," George muttered as he and the rest of the wizards took to smothering the fires around the are. Water erupted from their wands like a jet hose and hit the flames with a sizzling crackle. Fred nodded his head and looked back over his shoulder to where their professor was pacing back and forth in font of the mound. Alphonse was stll in their and to the best of their knowledge Pride was too. Edward wasn't taking it too easily, none of them really were. Fred and George took to tending to the flames in order to ease their anxiety, working their way farther into the woods.

"If that little kid, Pride or whatever, can't use his shadows, I think Alphonse would be alright," Fred offered to lighten the conversation a bit. They quenched another flame.

"Yeah, but it was so easy for the thing to control him, being empty and all," George muttered. "And isn't he one of those human sacrifices too? He's right there." Fred didn't reply instead letting the air fill the response for them. It definitely wasn't a good situation at all. Both of the twins were actually amazed that Edward, their short and rather angry professor, could have gotten into so much trouble to be able to be called a human sacrifice. Those two words were enough to scare anyone away. Whatever this country was up to, the two of them wanted to help stop it. They wanted to keep their professor, an now friend, with them. And they also both had to admit that they wanted to see Alphonse get back to normal too. The two of them stole to their thoughts as they watered down a pile of flames. It was a little bit of this simple work that took them a bit too far from their group. George turned around for a moment to find that they had completely lost sight of the giant mound of dirt and all of their teachers and friends.

"Um, Fred-" George started but suddenly was a russle in the bushes. The twins froze.

"Come out of there!" Fred scolded as he quickly raised his wand from quenching the fire to drenching the bushes. There were many quick complaints as a group of hikers stumbled out to try and to get away from the stream. George had his wand ready for a different spell incase any one of them wanted to attack but they looked normal. Just like normal hikers. There were two in uniform, a man with weird red eyes, and another with a horribly mangled face.

"Who are you?" George asked cautiously as he and his twin took to defensive stances they had learned in the few short weeks of physical training Edward's teacher had their classes do in the beginning of the year.

"Travellers, who are you?" the red eyed man told them.

"We are the fire department obviously," Fred retorted at their soaking wet crowd. The group in front of them frowned grumpily at them but the red eyed man looked rather displeased.

"If you are just here taking care of the fires, then why do you look like you are about to attack?" he huffed. George and Fred glanced at eachother as he saw the groupd of strangers start to take up defensive positions for themselves. With a nod of their heads, the twins quickly spun around on their heels and raced back to where they came from. They didn't know what those people could have done and they were out numbered two to one each. They didn't even want to try battling without their friends or a better number incase one of them could have been a homunculus. That man with the red eyes just didn't look natural. As they sped back down through the soaking wet piles of ashe they heard footsteps chase them as they all stumbled through the woods. They weren't that far behind, maybe only a couple feet. Suddenly, Fred wasn't watching where he was going and he tripped on an outcropping root and fell to the ground.

"Fred!" George exclaimed as he came to a hault, wanting to turn back and help him but he froze as he saw one of the uniformed men behind him turn into a toad like creature. Just as Fred stumbled to get up a large wad of mucus shot out of the creature's mouth and smacked him right in the back coating his chest and gluing his arms tight like paste.

"Eurgh! Gross!" Fred cried as he tried to free himself but it was no use. George flicked his wand at the toad creature and a quick stunning spell was launched at it. The target was hit and the thing was flung back a few good yards. The red eyed man however, took the toad's place and picked Fred up by the neck of his robes and lifted the restrained boy into the air. George had his wand pointed dangerously at the man but he didn't flinch. Instead he pulled up his right sleeve and placed it on Fred's frightened face. George found himself unable to move. It was a transmutation circle of somekind made out of the tattoos on the man's skin. From where he was standing he couldn't read every bit of it, some of the symbols he didn't think were even alchemic but he could tell that it held some sort of destructive potential that wasn't good.

"Now, if you care for what I assume to be your brother's life, I would suggest you put your stick thing down," the man threatened. George stared at the man wide eyed and looked back and forth between him and his brother. Fred was terrified out of his mind, his eyes wide enough to be saucers and George could tell that they were watering a bit. His brother was about to die. George found his entire body frozen stiff and he was unable to move at all. He couldn't lower his wand like they asked nor could he even decide to send a spell. He was completely still aside from the terrible tremble that ran constantly through him.

"Fred-" he whispered.

"George-" his brother returned.

"SCAR!" Edward raged. George spun around to see the blond storm through the ash ridden land with an ugly scowl. He must have finally gotten away from the large mound of his brother's entrapment just to find them in time. The little alchemist stomped over to where the red eyed man was and simply yanked his student out of his arms. "What the hell do you think your doing?" Edward scolded the man. It was then that the twins realised that he knew them. "These are my students for god's sake!" Edward bent over Fred and clapped his hands easily drying the saliva that coated Fred's torso so that it crumbled away easy. George, seeing that they people weren't attacking them anymore, ran over to his brother and took him greedily into his arms, pulling him away from the crowd. It was obvious Fred was in shock. He was staring dazedly off into space as if still trying to register the situation, his eyes the same width as before.

"Fred are you alright?" George asked him. Fred jerked a bit, having snapped out of the little trance at the sound of his brother's voice.

"George, I saw my life flash before my eyes, and," he mumbled softly stuttering a bit as if not quite sure how to explain it, "we didn't nearly do enough pranking on Snape," he ended. George chuckled lightly and nodded his head.

"No we didn't," he laughed.

"What is the news from Central?" Edward's voice interrupted. He was asking the small group.

"We don't know much, just got here ourselves," the gnarled man said simply.

"There is smoke rising from some of the buildings in Central we saw as we were coming up the hill. It looks like somethings already begun but not much of it," the soldier with the glasses added. Edward nodded his head a bit.

"That must be Mustang. He really is hitting it big I guess," the alchemist mumbled. He turned to the red eyed man and scowled a bit.

"Don't touch my students again, Scar, or I will personally rip your stupid tattoed arm out of your shoulder and beat you with it. You could have killed them!" his voice growled out. The man now known to the twins as Scar huffed slightly and crossed his arms over his chest.

"If you are worried about them dying, I wouldn't have brought them into a war," he retorted.

"I didn't bring them they-"

"WEASLEYS!" a rather familiar voice rang out from the woods. The twins felt a growing pit in their stomachs as the wrinkled face of their Professor stormed out of the bushes to their left.

"How did she find us?" Fred whispered to George but Edward heard them and sent them a scowl.

"Maybe it is because you are somewhere you aren't supposed to be!" he hissed at them. Minerva marched on over to where they were sitting on the ground and grabbed them both by the tips of their ears dragging them to their feet. They both struggled as it hurt quite a bit but from years of experience they knew that when it came to the Transfigurations teacher there was no point in trying to escape.

"You lot could have gotten yourselves killed, your family is so worried. Didn't you think of any of the consequences that this would have brought upon everyone? Don't you ever mistake foolishness for bravery! It's no wonder why you didn't get placed in Ravenclaw!" she hounded them.

"But-but Professor-" George started, gripping his ear to try and releive some of the tension but she tugged it harder.

"You are coming back with me this second! And the rest of you too!"

"Elric, what's going on?" Scar asked them completely confused but Edward just shrugged. He motioned the group the direction of the encampment and they gladly took it. Once they were gone Edward turned around to face his peer.

"Minerva, what are you doing here?" he asked just to get a glare in return.

"I am taking our students back to Hogwarts where they would get the detention of their lifetimes! It is a wonder to me, Mr. Elric, why you or Severus didn't send them straight back when they got here!"

"We didn't really have a good oppourtunity yet, Minerva. We are in the middle of a chaotic mess at the moment," Edward groaned earning a frown from the professor. He let out a defeated sigh and turned towards where the rest of the group disappeared off to. "I am happy you came to take them back. Let's go get the others."

"What? Professor, no! We want to stay here!" Fred argued.

"We helped get Alphonse from the Pride monster! We are able to help!" George added but McGonagall just gave them a harsh tug on the ear to silence them. Edward shot them an absolutely furious glare that could have curdled dairy in only a matter of seconds.

"The fact that you almost got your head blown off by one of the people trying to help us isn't very reassuring," he scolded them. "It just proves that you aren't even careful enough or skilled enough to save your own skins. I don't want to have to worry about saving your asses in the middle of Central. The only reason why I happened to come upon you and get Scar off of you was because I was looking for Greed who apparently left on his own. If I didn't try and find him, you would have both been hurt." The twins frowned and turned their gazes down to their toes in shame. As much as they hated it, Edward was right.

"We just want to help you get Alphonse back," George muttered. Edward in the middle of a retort froze for a second, his features softening. Fred noticed him glance back to where the mound was supposed to be, though it was blocked by the canopy of trees. He let out a sigh and started heading back to the camp, McGonagall pulling them both along by the ears.

"Let's talk to Severus," Edward stated.

At the mound, everyone was gathered around talking to the new group of people and occasionally yelling. The chimera people, or at least those in uniform, were yelling at each other like they were afraid they were going to attack them, while the plain ordinary humans were casually discussing the next steps of the plan. Apparently the old Foo man left to follow Greed into the city leaving them even a few more people short. The twins found the rest of the students gathered around the mound talking to each other and probably Alphonse as well. When they caught sight of McGonagall though, they all blanched out. They were all in the same amount of touble as they were in. Edward motioned for the rest of the students to come over and they all obeyed but very hesitantly. Draco looked very sick as well, making the fear in the students even more obvious. Luckily though, McGonagall decided it was about time to release their ears for a few moments.

"You guys are going back to Hogwarts," Edward told them plainly.

"But Professor-" Draco started but Edward shot him a dirty look and he shut up imediately.

"Why are you lot so persistent anyways? We need you to go back to school. You have exams to study for, and lets not forget to mention that there is a crisis in Hogwarts as well after the entire Crouch insident. This isn't a place where you should be," Edward said.

"But you let us stay so far-" began Harry.

"No, I didn't. You guys just wouldn't go back rememeber? And then Pride showed up, so sending you back at that moment really just wasn't my top priority. Now, though, you are going back whether you want to or not. Even if I have to tie you up and ship you back in a crate on the next train, I will do so," Edward threatened. The students didn't seem to want to move, mostly because they were too afraid to. Edward sighed and rubbed the back of his neck before turning to McGonagall and Severus. "Alright, we are heading out in a few minutes to get into Central. Severus you will come with us and Minerva can you get all of them back to school?"

"Can't we at least stay with your brother, Professor?" Hermione asked. Edward froze for a moment and the twins held a glimmer of hope that they could stay, but it was shot down.

"No, the LionKing and a few from Marcoh's group are staying behind to make sure the locals are safe and out of the way. You are going back to school-"

"But-"

"No buts god damn it! Why do you want to stay so bad? Do you want to get killed? Just go back already! Meet up with your families," he yelled at them. The entire encampment was met with a rush of silence that followed his outburst. Edward shook his head in disbeleif and rubbed his temples agravatingly.

"We just don't want anything bad to happen to you," Ron muttered pathetically, practically reading the twin's minds. Edward let out a dry chuckle.

"It's a little late for that," he replied. "I will be fine. I promised Winry I would be back and I don't tend to break it."

"You make it sound easy," Fred scolded him but Edward rolled his eyes.

"Just go back to school already," he snipped back before turning to the crowd of battle ready adults. "Alright we are heading out," he announced.

...

Minerva carefully folded the cloth bandages back around Heinkel's wounds. She had healed them as best as she could for the time being but even then they were still pretty bad. It has been a good fortyfive minutes since Edward and his small group left for the city. The port key that she had was already preset to return to Hogwarts when the hour was over but until then all they could do was wait. Suring that time it was decided that the leftover group of Amestrians were going to go scout the slums in order to turn the power back on and make sure the civilians were safe. Now that Pride was taken care of and the sun was rising well into the sky there was no reason to keep the power shut off for much longer. Minerva was greatly confused when Hermione and Draco told them where the generator was. The students must have had a bigger part in Elric's recent endeavers than she first had realised. However, she still wasn't changing her mind. Once the portkey was set to go, she was taking them all back to school. There would be no reason for them to stay any longer than they needed to. All of her students were slumped against the mountain of dirt that abnormally rose out of the earth in defeat. She wasn't letting any of them out of her sight until they were back on the Hogwarts grounds. As she finished wrapping the bandages around Heinkel, she sat down tiredly on the earth beside the man.

"Wow, thanks," Heinkel smiled through his mustache as he examined his miraculously healed wounds. She had managed to shrink them from gaping wounds to large severed cuts but there still was a lot of healing to be done.

"They aren't fully healed so don't strain yourself. I am no Promfery I can tell you that. Even she couldn't do much with Edward's back," she told him like he would have known who the magical nurse was.

"Wait! What happened to Edward?" a voice sounded out through the rocky mound. Minerva was startled a bit as she wasn't expecting there to be anyone on the inside. The voice was kind of expecting this and it clarified. "It's me, Alphonse. You are the Professor right? Sorry I can't see you."

"Y-yes," she answered quickly. "What are you doing in there?"

"Oh, I um... I trapped Pride the homunculus in here with me. He can't use his shadows in the darkness and I didn't want everyone getting hurt before we even made it to Central," the kid told her.

"So you trapped yourself in there with it?" she questioned.

"Yes," he replied simply, not really wanting to go into detail. Minerva shook her head completely amazed at the extent Alphonse went through to keep their group moving on task.

"You definitely would be a Gryffindor by my book," she muffled under her breath. She looked over to see the Weasley twins exchange a random sickle as if they had made a bet. They were definitely going to get a detention.

"Professor, what happened to brother? Is he alright?" Alphonse asked. Minerva stumbled slightly as she tried to tell Alphonse the bad news of the final task. As a short silence fell, she heard a metallic tinking from the inside of the mound as if someone was banging a pot with a wooden spoon.

"There was an incident with the final task and... well... Your brother was actually pretty lucky to make it out the way he did," Minerva stated flatly. "I am sure Potter has the more detailed story, but your brother was sent to the infirmary after the tournament with a deep cut in his back. Poppy healed it best she could by what she told me, and I think your friend used muggle techniques to seal it up farther. But it is still rather deep. I think he was cursed-"

"Cursed?!" Alphonse exclaimed.

"Voldemort got him. He... killed Cedric..." Harry stuttered. Minerva looked over at the boy. It was all very drastic and traumatising, she was amazed that the kid could hold on the way he was. The entire school was in an uproar over Cedric's death, she was even upset to see one of her favourite pupil's go. "I think the curse only managed to kill the surrounding skin where it cut him. That's what I heard in the infirmary though," he finished. The entire woods was sent into a wave of silence and the tinking inside of the mountain seemed to be growing louder. The injured man next to her shifted slightly as they all listened to it. However, as the pattern repeated itself over and over again, it became quite clear that the man was horrified.

"Alphonse stop him now!" Heinkel ordered harshly, trying to stand up on his injured left.

"Wha-"

"That's morse code!" Hermione gasped as she suddenly realised what they were all listening to.

"STOP HIM! He is giving away our location!" the lion ordered but before they could do anything there was a loud explosion and the earth was rapidly tearing up right towards them. Minerva quickly grabbed a hold of the few students next to her and shoved them out of the way of the incoming storm. Dirt flew everywhere and huge dust clouds filled the air as the mound was suddenly destroyed right before them. The clouds stung their eyes and dried their throats as they were practically blinded in the entorage.

"Mr. Heinkel!" Minerva heard Alphonse's young voice scream as she realised that the man hadn't gotten out of the way in time. She spun around to see the bandages she had just placed over him coated with a new layer of crimson, now even too deep for basic magic to heal. Alphonse, was bent over him, now able to escape through the gaping hole in the mound. A disgusting cackle errupted out of the dust and a single figure emerged out of the clouds as another smaller one exited the mountain.

"There you are Pride, I was wondering when I would find you," the tall man in a white suit sighed as he dusted off his coat.

"Only you, Kimblee, would have trouble finding someone when they gave you the direct cordinates," the little kid, or homunculus, huffed at him.

"Well now who do we have here?" Kimblee asked as he turned to see Minerva standing infront of her students, each of which had their wands drawn. Pride scoffed as Minerva noticed dark shadows quickly wrapping themselves around Alphonse's armoured legs. The boy struggled against them but they held on tight.

"Some fools with sticks. We don't need them, only the armoured one," the little kid sneered. Minerva carefully pulled her wand out of her pocket in her sleeve as she saw the creepy Kimblee smile ferrally at her.

"Students, I don't think we are going to be catching that port key quite yet," she said as a bright blue light of alchemical energy flashed before their eyes, blinding them.