An Alchemist's Ransom

-Chapter 5-

It took a few minutes for everything to come into focus and even longer for Roy to realize where he even was. The stabbing pain in his head only added to the difficult task of trying to bring everything into focus. He soon figured out that he was laying on his side against a wall. He tried to move, but a bolt of pain shot through his body. He went to grab his head, but discovered that his hands were bound behind his back. Wincing, trying to force away the pain, he looked around the area.

In a corner he finally saw Scar looking out the corner of a window. As soon as he saw the tall man, the memory of what happened washed over and hit him like a cold shower after a night of heavy drinking. After that he began to try and force himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the pain.

Scar turned and looked at him over the top of his sunglasses, simply watching. He wanted to mock the Flame Alchemist, but seeing him actually sit himself up showed Scar just how much determination and will power Roy Mustang really had.

"Scar!" Roy shouted, but quickly winces from the pain and once he sat up a thin dark red stain could be seen trailing from his head next to his left eye.

"What State Alchemist?" Scar asked glaring at him.

"Release me this instant!" Roy called back, "Or else--"

"Or else what? You'll burn me? Not likely, I look care of a couple problems before you came to." Scar said letting two pieces of fabric fall to the floor. Roy could only assume they were from his specially made gloves. Moving his fingers over his hands Roy could feel where fabric ended and the back of his hands began.

"If you hate State Alchemists so much why didn't you just kill me?" Roy asked through his now clenched teeth.

I was going to, but then I heard the Full Metal one come in downstairs. It was far too tempting, to lure out the Full Metal Alchemist by taking the Flame Alchemist. Don't kid yourself though, I did intent on killing you, and I still plan on doing so at the more opportune time. So make peace with whatever heretic god you might follow." Scar said, as he talked he clenched his right hand into a fist.

"You don't get away with his, there's probably an exceedingly large task force out there to capture you right now." Roy said

"I'm not afraid of the Military. You've seen what I can do, I'll do that to every single one of them...even...that little blonde you keep so close." Scar said and he watched as Roy struggled with his restraints, trying to get over to Scar, actually stumbling a little and eventually falling forward onto the floor.

"Don't touch her..." Roy said glaring up at Scar, once again talking through his teeth.

"Interesting reaction...State Alchemist." Scar said kneeling down to get a better look at Roy, "Now what happened last time makes a little more sense." It took Roy a moment to recall exactly what incident Scar was talking about, but those memories flooded back to him; they had once cornered Scar, shortly after he started to fight with the Elric brothers, Hawkeye had ran over and knocked Roy to the ground so that if Scar wanted to go after him, he'd had to go through her first.

Roy could only look away after he remembered that and moved to sit back up. "Don't you dare touch her..." he said in a low voice, Scar only smirked and moved back to the window. Roy wanted to get out of there, now more than ever, but, a large part of him no longer wanted to be rescued.

Riza Hawkeye stared blankly forward from the passenger's seat of the car. She knew she should be out there, giving orders, but she also wanted to be ready if they needed to leave quickly. She made it seem like she was looking through some papers, and she soon came out holding the ransom letters.

"Are we to assume they're connected?" Havok asked after looking over when he heard the car door shut.

"Why not?" Hawkeye asked once she make it up to him.

"Well...I can understand why they might be connected, but think about it, why would go you through all the trouble of keeping a man hidden, the right before you're to get the second ransom, make it more than obvious that you have someone, not just someone, Colonel Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist." Havok explained, then lowered his voice, "I know you want to make it easier by putting it all into one case, but...I'm sorry Lieutenant..." he said making sure only she could hear.

"...I know, but, I guess I'm just upset at whoever had him before. They didn't go so far as to protect him from other possible captors..." Hawkeye said looking away from Havok, "...I couldn't protect him..." she looked down then closed her eyes.

"Hawkeye!" Havok snapped, then grabbed onto both her shoulders, causing her to look up at him with widened brown eyes, "Listen to yourself, stop blaming yourself for what happened, it wasn't your fault, and I'm sure as hell that no one else blames you, especially not Colonel Mustang! If you had been there, whenever Scar took him, and you had been in Alphonse Elric's place, what do you think would have happened to your arm! You might have even been killed, and how do you think Colonel Mustang would have felt then if you had gotten hurt! Damnit Riza, he wants to protect you too!" Havok told her, never once letting go of her shoulders.

"...Roy..." she whispered, her hands losing their grip on the letters causing them to fall towards the ground. She gave in at that moment as she brought her hands to the middle of her chest and almost fell forward as the test she'd been trying to hold back for so long finally began to overflow.

"Lieutenant..." Havok said moving his hands from Hawkeye's shoulders to her back as he held her tightly, "I may not be the Colonel...but, I hope this'll do for now." he said letting her cry against him, "...we'll get him back...I swear it."

Edward moved the flashlight from left to right across the possible paths they had to take. While they were walking, the brothers came across a fork in the tunnel. The light went down, with no indication as to how far down either tunnel went.

"Great." Edward said looking up at Al.

"Which way should we go?" Al asked looking down both paths.

"I think we'll have to split up, it'll cover more ground that way." Edward explained.

"All right..." Al said turning slightly to the right, "Yell if you see anything."

"Right." and with that Edward ran down the right path.

Neither of them were sure how long they were going down the paths, but eventually the scenery began to repeat itself more and more for both of them. There was evidence of an explosion every 50 feet or so. Edward walked until he saw another blast area then stopped, 'How much time did he have...how fast was he?' he though moving the flashlight around the area. He scratched his head and took another look around.

"Edward!" came the echoing call of Al from off in the distance.

"Al!" Edward shouted back, and he almost dropped the flashlight as he turned around an ran.

Al was faced with a very big problem, while walking, practically in the dark, he hadn't seen a patch of mud, and unfortunately had gotten stuck. He hadn't realized just how much of a problem he had until he went to pull his leg out, and he started to sink and his hands also became stuck. He looked around until he thought he saw a bar above his head. He tried to reach up for it with his head, but only sank further.

"Edward!!" he cried out, "Edward hurry!!" Al cried out again.

"Al!" he heard from behind him, and Al managed to turn his head enough to see a bouncing light quickly coming down the tunnel. Edward gave him an odd look when he finally got to his brother, and if Al's eyes could water, or show any real emotion they would be light two waterfalls doing the sides of his face.

"Help..." Al whimpered. Edward then clapped his hands together and placed his hands on the mud, causing it to harden and raise up, then he did it again to heat the air around the newly formed stone to make it crack and expand enough so that Al could break it.

Al then stood up on top of the stone and hit his head on the pipe he had tried to reach. Edward blinked a couple times, then moved the light up to the bar and almost jumped on Al to get to it.

"It's a ladder!" Edward said and Al looked over his shoulder at it, they couldn't tell how high it went, but they both agreed there wasn't really anywhere else Scar could have gone. Al gave Edward a boost and they began to climb up.

Roy had managed to move next to a window, but even then it didn't help him figure out where we was. Outside the window was a large open warehouse, it looked like it had been left alone for a while, but there were also several of them in this city. While he figured Scar was distracted, Roy would work on the binding on his wrists, there were a couple points when they dug into his skin, but Roy wasn't about to show his captor those winces of pain. Though he'd watch out the window, Roy kept an eye on Scar's actions; he was still watching out the window, and Roy assumed that it faced outside.

"How long do you plan on holding up here?" Roy finally asked after watching Scar for a while

"As long as I need to." he said, he gave Roy a hard stare as he emphasized 'I'

Roy felt like he could simply give up, maybe if he did, Scar wouldn't see him as good enough pray, too weak even for him too kill. Then again, Roy thought about when he tried to bring a gun to his head in Ishbal, and how Maes Hughes had stopped him, then how Roy silently swore to protect Gracia and Elicia for Hughes after he had fallen. Then there was Hawkeye, he felt so bad for what happened this day, and now more than ever he was expected to be shot.

"I'd rather take a bullet from my own officers then bow down and let you kill me" Roy said glaring at Scar. He tried to move again, as Scar walked up to him, but Roy's back was already to the wall, so there wasn't much he could do when Scar grabbed him by the collar of his uniform.

"Don't tempt me State Alchemist," Scar said through his teeth as he clenched his jaw. Roy noticed that he was being held up by Scar's right arm and suddenly found himself fighting to keep a straight face. Not seeing Roy back down, Scar pushed him back to the floor so that Roy had to force himself back into a sitting position.

Roy then took his place back next to the window and looked out to the floor below. He thought for a moment that his eyes were playing tricks on him when he thought he saw a small hatch move in a far corner of the warehouse. He blinked hard a couple times to try and focus his eyes, but he was certain he wasn't hallucinating when streaks of bright blue shot up through the floor where he had seen the hatch and soon after they disappeared, Edward pulled himself up and was soon followed by Al.

"Oh cra--!" Roy whispered, but stopped himself, he glanced over his shoulder and saw that Scar didn't seem to notice, he then turned back to watch as Edward and Al surveyed the warehouse and began to walk around. He wanted to shout down to them to run away, but Roy figured that Scar would kill him if he made any indication there were others in the warehouse. Roy looked down and kept the brothers in the corner of his eye and went back to working on the bindings on his wrists.

Hawkeye picked up the papers she had stopped and stayed knelt down for a few minutes. She couldn't believe what she had done, but she had to admit that she felt at least somewhere better. Standing up and walking back towards the car, both her and Havok were frozen by surprise when the phone rang. They both looked at each other, then Hawkeye moved to pick up the receiver, "Hawkeye here." she said, then dropped the papers again and grabbed the phone with both hands, "Edward!" at that Havok and the others looked towards her, "A warehouse? All right, we're on our way." with that she hung up the phone and turned around, "Let's move people!" she shouted, and at that, she grabbed the ransom notes and dashed for the car.