First and foremost!
Disclaimer: I don't now, nor have I ever owned any character in relation to the anime series Full Metal Alchemist....god knows I want to though...
'An Alchemist's Ransom'
Riza walked down the hallway with Black Hayete following at her ankles. Everyday it was the same thing, and for some reason she kept coming back for more. She had to admit that it was entertaining to watch her male counterpart attempt to keep his spotless image while surrounded by officers who seemed to like having fun more than they did performing their duties. A good part of her enjoyed it though, all in all, it was a good group to be a part of.
She opened the door and immediately all eyes shifted towards her, as normal, except this time something was different, the guys were looking at her more expectantly than usual, and this made Riza very uneasy.
"What?" she asked moving past them to her desk, all the while their gaze never shifting away from her. She noted them all look at each other as she placed her coat on the back of her char, then look back at her.
"Lieutenant...uh.." Havok began, but soon quieted down and went to looking at some papers that were laid out in front of him. Riza quirked an eyebrow at that and then made a once-over look around the room. That was when it struck her, and with this realization, her eyes widened slightly and quickly moved to the door that lead into Roy Mustang's office. She knocked one it a couple of times, but got no answer.
"Colonel?" she said knocking a couple more times, by now Black Hayete raised his head up and watched her. Hawkeye knocked again before finally checking the door knob to see if it was locked. She gave the others a sidelong glance and slowly pushed the door open. She moved one hand behind her to the gun she kept holstered there and slowly peaked her head inside the office. Seeing that it was dark, she made a swift move inside the office, pulling out the gun, and holding it in front of her, "Colonel Mustang!" she shouted and quickly looked around the room. To her dismay it was empty. Lowering the guy she moved around the office towards Roy's desk. As she got closer she noticed the window was open and a slight breeze was filling the room. She looked out the window and down to the grounds below, then looked back towards his desk; something wasn't sitting right with her and she then began to leaf through the small stack of papers that rested on the desk. 'Roy...' she though, then moved to pick up a piece of paper that dropped, looking at it she noticed that there were scribbles of writing on it:
"Dear Military Personnel,
Your beloved Colonel Mustang is now in my custody. If you, or anyone else want to see him again, and unharmed, bring exactly $279 to the fountain at noon today."
As soon as she finished reading the note, Riza ran out of the office, into the main room and slammed the paper into the middle of the large table the men were still sitting at. They all looked at her with bewildered eyes, it took a moment for them to see the urgency in Hawkeye's brown eyes.
"Colonel Mustang....has been kidnapped."
Roy gave a long sigh as he sat crouched against a large pile of books, looking up with one eye open he saw the black of the red coat of his captor. The snake that was part of the symbol on the jacket seemed to watch him expectantly, and slowly Roy moved his stare up along the captor's back until his eyes landed on the golden braid.
"Edward..." he said in a low voice, and as soon as he spoke, the Full Metal Alchemist turned around and gave Roy his large 'I'm innocent' smile.
"We'll get you to a more comfortable place in a bit. After they check Hughes' house, his wife agreed to let you hide out there until it's all over. Don't worry, this, will, work!" Edward explained, but even after hearing that much detail Roy wasn't filled with very much confidence. No matter how hard Edward tried, though he always seemed to get the job done, a lot of the time he had to improvise, and in this case, Roy wasn't too thrilled with that idea. He sighed again and slumped against the books and down to the floor, he knew, deep inside himself that he was going to get a well aimed bullet fired between his eyes.
Hawkeye stood at attention at the head of the large table, Black Hayete sat next to her and looked up towards the four men that sat around it. "I want to know the last place each of you saw the Colonel and when that was." Hawkeye explained, looking first to Havok.
"The last time I saw him was this morning; had to ask him about his hot date last night." Havok said smirking, then turned and looked around the table to the others.
"Lieutenant Havok, what time was that at?" Hawkeye said addressing him with a very, almost scary, serious look.
"It had to have been around 7:00 this morning." he said. Hawkeye sighed and looked towards the others, who only shrugged. Farman, Breda, and Fury each explained that they had all last seen Roy right before they all went home for the night. Hawkeye glanced up at the clock and saw that it was 9:15.
"I have a questions," Fury said, adjusting his glasses slightly, "Colonel Mustang's pretty important...I thought he would have been worth more than $279."
"You have a point...but I'm not willing to risk anything. We'll drop off the ransom, but, I will personally ask people in town if they've noticed any suspicious activity in the area. I want you all to do the same, we'll meet back here at 11:00. Dismissed!" and with that, the four men stood up, saluted and quickly filed out of the room. Hawkeye saluted back, but as soon as they were gone, lowered her arm and looked towards the table, "...I'm supposed to protect you..." she whispered, gritting her teeth together and clenching her fists at her sides. Black Hayete looked at her, then stood up on his back feet to lick her right hand. Riza jumped a little, then pet the black and white dog that had become hers.
She walked for a while, but was told nothing about the possible whereabouts of Roy Mustang. Her final stop was at Hughes' house. She knocked on the door and Gracia answered and smiled at her "Good Morning Lieutenant Hawkeye, it's nice to see you again." she said.
"Good morning...have you seen Colonel Mustang by any chance?" Hawkeye asked.
"Not since yesterday afternoon when he stopped by to check up on Elisia and myself like he normally does...why?" she asked.
"He just hasn't checked in with anyone at Head Quarters in awhile," Hawkeye explained, she hated lying to her, but at least it was at least a half-truth.
"That's odd, you two are normally joined at the hip...in fact, I think this is the first time I've seen you without him around." Gracia said smiling, she managed to hold back a slight chuckle as she saw Hawkeye suck up whatever emotional reaction she would have made.
"Thank you for you time." Hawkeye looked down towards Gracia's feet, "Hello Elisia."
"No problem, sorry that I couldn't help more." Gracia said, and with that, Hawkeye saluted, then went back towards her car. Once she got in and sat down, she looked towards the passenger sear, then remembered that no one was there. She then looked forwards and tightly gripped the steering wheel and tried to calm herself down, she needed to keep a level head and to stay focused. But when she looked over again, she found it even harder to keep her emotions contained, 'the seat's empty...' she though. Riza lowered her head between her arms and fought back a few tears that were gathering from the fear that was building inside of her. For as long as she could remember, Roy Mustang had always been there with her, for her to protect, but now, he had disappeared before she had even gotten in today and a welt of guilt was quickly starting to overwhelm her. She sat there for a few minutes before finally turning on the car and driving away.
Roy stood up and stretched after Havok left from asking Scieszka if she had seen Roy, or had heard anything about his possible whereabouts. She had performed beautifully and though it was probably eating away at her, Havok managed to see through her lies.
"All right!" Edward said turning to face Roy after watching Havok walk down the street, "It's almost 11:00, we need to get to Hughes', then once there, we'll disguise Al and he'll pick up the ransom money and leave the next note." Edward explained. When Roy heard the part about Edward's suit of armor little brother was going to be the one to pick up the money he felt his insides turn. Looking over, even Al seemed a little shocked to hear that part of the plan; which made Roy feel even worse.
"How do you expect me to get the money without anyone recognizing me?" Al asked pointing to himself.
"Don't worry Al, I have it all worked out, we just need to get to Gracia's and quickly if it's going to work right." Edward said giving a wink to his brother.
'I'm so sorry Riza...' Roy thought to himself as he pictured Edward's brother wearing a large pair of glasses and a fake mustache, sneaking up to get the ransom and the entire group of military personnel watching. Of course, the part of his vision that scared him more than anything was when Hawkeye's twitched and she pulled out her gun and fired at himself.
After taking a few moment to gather their things, and to also formulate a plan as to how they were going to even get to Hughes' house, the three of them left via the roof. They were careful to stay under the eaves, that way no one would at least see Roy (seeing Al would be kind of hard not to miss) Once they jumped over enough houses, businesses, and what-not, then made it into Hughes' and Gracia's back yard. Because she didn't expect to see 3 people, one a large suit of armor, little Elicia began to cry loudly for her mother, who came running.
"Oh...I thought you three would at least use the front do." Gracia slightly scolded as she picked up Elicia and tried to calm her down.
"We're sorry." Edward said scratching the back of his head, Al just bowed obsessively trying to beg for forgiveness. Roy simply stood there for a moment, then went quickly over to Elicia to try desperately to calm her down. It took a few minutes, but after she saw Roy her eyes widened and she gave a small, cautious smile.
"It's all right," Gracia said smiling to the boys, "Come in, everything's almost ready. It's good you waited as long as you did, you just missed Riza." She explained as she walked into the house, the guys followed her inside, Roy hesitating once he heard they had just missed Hawkeye.
Once they were in and somewhat settled into a small room upstairs, Gracia walked in holding what appeared to be a large piece of brown fabric. Roy quirked up his eyebrow at the item, then a wave of dread swept over him, 'what if Edward expects his brother to run up with a sheet over his head...yeah...that won't be obvious at all...' he thought.
"Alphonse, will you please come here for a moment?" Gracia asked, and the almost always compliant Al stood up and walked over to her, as he did she unfolded what appeared to be a huge brown trench coat. "Hold out your arms please." she said with a smile and she then began to put the jacket on Al. Both Edward and Roy seemed very impressed by what they were watching, the coat was baggy enough that many of the sharp pieces of metal couldn't be noticed, and it was long enough that only the bottom of Al's feet could be seen.
"Look! Look!" Al cheered turning around to see Edward, "I'm wearing a coat again!" he giggled a little and sort of played with the long sides of the jacket. Edward watched his brother and laughed a bit.
"Hey...what about his face?" Edward asked looking towards Gracia.
"Don't worry," she said pulling out a large brimmed hat, then turned to Al and placed it on his head, turning it downwards so that a shadow was cast over his face. "I took care of everything." she said smiling. "Have fun, I need to put Elicia down for her nap." Gracia said then turned and left the room.
Al seemed quite content to just keep wearing to coat, and Edward seemed quite entertained just to watch. Roy Mustang on the other hand moved to a chair and sat down, leaning it back against a wall and sighing deeply. He wasn't even sure what was making him do what he was doing, but he figured it would be a lot better than just coming out in front of everyone. Then he thought of something, and it was concluded in his mind that it was indeed something very important and he turned to Edward. "Hey," he said.
"What?" Edward asked turning to look at him, Al didn't even seem to care that there were other people in the room, he was wearing a coat, and a hat and he was happy.
"You said a second note...shouldn't you write that?" Roy asked and Edward stopped and blinked a couple times, then suddenly remembered that he did need to write another note before sending his brother on his merry way. Coming to that realization to seemed to pull a pen and a piece of paper out of no where and slam it down on a table in front of Roy, moving a chair over for himself.
"What do you want from them in this one?" Edward asked holding the pen, ready to write.
"Hmm..." it took Roy a moment to think of the right words in his head, "I want to know what her size is. And I need to know before 5:00." he said, Edward took the information in for a second then scribbled some words onto the paper and jumped up from his seat.
"All right!" he said, then turned to Al, "Here, your time is now, go my brother I--" he was going to continue but Al still seemed too happy to care. "Al...hey...AL!" he shouted, and with that his brother seemed snapped out of his dream. "Take the note and go...oh...wait...I know!" Edward snapped his fingers together and quickly turned around and in one fluid motion managed to snatch up the watch that all State Alchemists were given upon admission to the military from Roy's pocket.
"Hey!" Roy said in protest and tried to reach for it.
"You'll get it back and you know it." Edward said then tossed it over to Al, "paperweight." Al then nodded and moved out of the room, his steps down the stairs could almost shake the house and both Roy and Edward hoped it wouldn't wake up Elicia. They then both moved to the window and watched Al head out into the street, the coat did him well and both of them were rather impressed at just how good of a job Gracia had done. Roy sighed and moved back to his chair and leaned back again.
"What exactly did you put in that note?" He asked looking at Edward.
"I put in what you told me to, of course, I had to add a few words in order to make it more menacing, but other than that...yeah...what you told me to put." Edward said turning around and leaning against the windowsill. Now all they could do...was wait.
