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Chapter Nine
Once Charles Hopkins had told Anthony to run, he had. He had run as fast as he could, hoping against hope to run into some sort of law enforcement officer. He hadn't seen his Mum for one-and-a-half weeks, but she would have to wait. Ed and Mr. Mustang were hurt badly. Mr. Hopkins may have said that telling the military wouldn't matter, but he was still going to try. He had to help them, they were hurt because they were protecting him, and it just wasn't right.
Unfortunately he didn't find any officers, and he had to slow down to a walk. He had a vague idea of where the local military office was, and he was going to find it even if he'd have to search the whole town! He owed Ed and Mr. Mustang that much.
The last week-and-half had been the most terrifying in his life, but Mr. Hopkins hadn't done anything to hurt him, he had merely used him to write the (frankly bad) poems and messages. The man had fed him well, even bought him clothes. He had basically acted as though Anthony was a doll, and had treated him very well actually.
And it creeped him out.
And then he had seen Ed and Mr. Mustang in the hospital, and it had been so bad to see how he was contributing in this. He felt sick and he felt guilty and he just wanted a long shower to try and sort of wash these last two weeks off of him somehow.
He must have walked for an hour when he finally lit up and began sprinting as he saw the military flag up ahead.
He ran into the building, stopping right in front of the reception desk, panting.
"Hello, young man, is there anything I can help you with?" a confused woman with brown hair asked him.
"I need to talk to someone who knows Colonel Mustang and Fullmetal Alchemist Edward Elric!"
"I'm sorry, but they don't belong to this office? Why would you make such a request?"
"Because they've been kidnapped! I need to talk to someone! Anyone! Please! They're hurt really bad!"
"Are you serious now, because it would be a serious offence to waste military time?"
"I am! Please! You have to believe me!"
"Okay, what's your name, young man?"
"It's Anthony Evans!"
"The one from all the "missing child" flyers?"
"Probably, yes! That sounds like Mum! Please, I need to talk to anyone involved with this case!"
"We don't have a particular officer here, but I'll find someone who's involved in the investigations department, okay? Please wait here."
She left him and returned five minutes later with a rather plump man with red hair and matching red moustache.
"Here, Anthony, this is Major Parker, he'll help you."
Anthony shook hands with the man and followed him into an office.
Anthony sat down in a couch and told Major Parker everything that had happened the last one-and-a-half weeks.
When he was done, the man stood up and went over to the desk, picking up the phone.
"Get me Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes."
Maes was worried as hell. The whole goddamned case was confusing. Maes had been curious nine days ago when nobody had answered when he called Roy's office. When nobody answered the next day either, he had taken the train to East City, leaving Major Armstrong in charge of the office. Maes had luckily had had quite a few hours of overtime during the years, and had taken a week long holiday to The East. Or so he had said.
He had reached East HQ two days later. There he had gone to Roy's office, to find it filled by Hawkeye, Alphonse, Breda, Falman, Havoc and Fuery.
"Why hasn't anyone answered my calls?" he had asked.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but we cannot tell you that," Alphonse had said.
"Where's Roy and your brother?"
"We can't tell you."
"What the hell is going on?"
"It's like Alphonse said, we cannot tell you," Hawkeye had said.
"Why are you all here?"
"We cannot leave this building."
Maes had kept asking questions, but had gained no solid information. When there was no sign of Ed and Roy, Maes had called the Fuhrer's office to report the two alchemists missing. It had turned into a gigantic search within the next twenty-four hours.
And then, suddenly, a woman had come into the office, claiming she had met a uniformed man matching Roy's description supporting a rather heavily injured blonde kid who the soldier had called "the Fullmetal Alchemist".
And so Maes had rang every hospital in the area, finding out that Edward Elric had been admitted to the hospital with a serious arrow injury, left within the next twenty-four hours, then been readmitted along with Colonel Roy Mustang who now had a heavily lacerated back. Then the pair of them had apparently been attacked, Ed had been found handcuffed to his bed with his wound reopened, then four days later, the two of them had left the hospital, going nobody knew where.
Maes had gone back to the woman who had seen the pair of them, and asked were it seemed they were going, and Maes had found that they were probably going to Roy's house.
So then he had realised that Roy's couch had been removed, and so he had talked to every garbage truck driver in town, finally finding said piece of furniture at a dump, to see that it was heavily stained with blood, and feeling his heart sink in his chest.
And after that, every lead had dried up.
He had been hopeful when they said that Roy's car had been found outside the graveyard where Ed and Roy had been found, but seeing as the car suddenly had vanished, the trail had gone cold.
And so Maes had been looking throughout the whole of East City, but found nothing.
Until suddenly someone at the front desk called to say that Major Parker from the Amsel office was on the line.
And after just a few minutes, he had ran into the car and driven much too fast to the town of Amsel, finding a small kid with brown hair being hugged tightly by his mother.
And as the kid spoke, things made much more sense.
And so they started a search over the city of Amsel instead.
"Dinner time!" Charles exclaimed in a sing-song voice half an hour after he had removed Ed's automail. He pushed a hamburger for each of them through the iron bars of the cell. They were served on napkins, not giving them anything sharp to use as a weapon. He then placed a pair of paper cups of water next to them. Ed watched as Mustang dragged himself over to the food with an arm, an elbow and one leg. Mustang had been the only one who sort of was in any shape to actually fetch the food, as Ed had only two limbs left, and both were quite heavily injured.
He hated this. He hurt all over and was basically being kept as a pet. A pet that Charles could do whatever he wanted to.
And he was helpless to stop it.
And he hurt so much.
Mustang ate his food quickly, then he slowly closed his bad hand around the other cup of water while taking the burger in the napkin in the other, painfully slowly dragging himself towards Ed with his good right leg.
Then came the most humiliating part of it all, because Ed had to be fed by Mustang.
At least he was able to sit up on his own now, though, as the drug was finally out of his system.
Small victories, huh?
"And now, you two, I am going to tell you a story…" Charles said, making Ed groan inwardly. "It all begins thirty-five years ago, when a pair of twins by the name of Grace and Charles were born. They were the happiest little siblings, because they had each other, and that was all they ever needed. Their father was never home, so they were being looked after by dear Mummy. And dear Mummy was not fond of misbehaving children. Dear Mummy beat them and hit them when they were bad, and one time, when the two twins had had enough, they grabbed a knife each and began to punish dear Mummy instead. And so dear Mummy was no more. The two twins were only ten and managed to convince the nice police officer that a stranger had broken into their house and killed dear Mummy. And so they were sent to the orphanage. They were adopted by a nice woman and a nice man and everything was nice for so long that they almost forgot about dear Mummy altogether. But then the nice woman and the nice man died in a car crash eight years later, but Grace and Charles had got a nice education by the nice woman and the nice man, and so they started training to work in the health system because they wanted to help nice people so that they didn't die in car crashes. And so everything was nice again, just like the nice woman and the nice man had wanted for them. But Grace and Charles also had their gifts, they were able to hear when children sang or recognise when they were truly beautiful beings. Charles acted on his talents quite early, but Grace only found out what her gift truly meant after a very long time. Which was when she started freeing the songs of the souls of some truly lucky children. But then a not nice man decided that Grace was evil and he burned her to death, right after she had found one very special boy and was helping him release the song of his soul. She was doing this Golden Boy a great favour, and she was burned for it. Does this sound familiar to you?"
Mustang nodded, and Charles opened the door, suddenly slashing a kitchen knife over Mustang's chest, making him grunt in pain. "It does, doesn't it? And when people burn the ones that you love, you hurt them back, don't you?" He slashed his knife again.
But when Mustang didn't nod quickly enough for his opinion, Charles slashed Ed across the chest too, making him tip backwards and slam to the ground. Ed groaned slightly.
"Right?!"
Another slash, another groan.
"Yes! Okay! Yes, you do!" Mustang said.
"My thoughts exactly!" And then Charles stomped down on Ed's hand, earning a yelp.
"Please stop! If you're going to hurt me, then hurt ME!" Mustang shouted.
"Oh, but I am hurting you, Roy, I am." He began digging his heel into Ed's hand, making it crunch and Ed yelled out in pain.
God, if you're out there, please get us out of this!
Oh, and Shadowblade Alchemist, I honestly hope you don't really think I'm a psychopath?