LL A.K.: Hello! How's it going? Yeah, this is my first Full Metal Alchemist fic, don't hurt me or anything.

Ominous Disclaimer Voice That Comes From Nowhere: Long Live Asato Kido does not own Full Metal Alchemist, so if you try to sue her, your wasting your time, you idiots.

"Do we have to go?" Ed grumbled into the phone, lying down. He had the phone in one hand, his automail arm was in Winry's grasp, and wasn't going to be released anytime soon.

"Well, it's more of a 'you', than a 'we'." Hughes said on the other line. "Y'see, the occasion's more of a 'state alchemists only' ordeal. And Al isn't quite a state alchemist, or humanoid."

"Then no deal." Ed snorted. "If Al can't go, cross my name off of whatever that list is for."

"…You really don't know?" Hughes said in disbelief. "Ed, it's the state alchemy exams, and apparently, the guys higher up think you're important enough to come and watch, maybe even get a word in on who's joining."

"But Al can't come because his human body's not there, right?" Ed clenched his teeth for a moment. Winry just tightened a screw that went into what was left of his shoulder.

"That seems to be the case. But you know what happened yesterday?"

"What happened?" Ed said in concern.

"My sweet little Elacia dressed up as a princess!" Hughes' serious voice evaporated. "I mean, I know she's already my little princess, but it practically made it official! If she went out in public like that people would've really thought she was royalty! She sure had me fooled!"

"Bye, Lieutenant Colonel!" Ed slammed the phone down impatiently. Then, the nonexistent light-bulb over his head lit up. "Jeez, can't the guy be straightforward with anything!"

"With what?" Al asked, after being quiet while reading a book.

Ed didn't answer. "Hey, Winry?"

The blonde haired girl looked at him curiously. "What's up?"

"How would you like to see the alchemy exams?"

"I don't care about alchemy, Ed, you know that."

Ed grinned slyly. "Yeah, but the higher-ups say that my automail's really impressive, and they know a guy or two that could use some good automail. They want to meet my mechanic."

Al's armor made a 'clink' as he turned to see Winry's reaction.

"Really?" Winry said in surprise. "You recommended me? For state alchemists?"

"Yeah…"

"Do these guys have as much money as you?" She said as she inspected the elbow joint, moving it back and forth.

"Probably more, since they're higher-ups, every promotion gets you a raise." He craned his head so that Winry couldn't see his face, and took a quick glance at Al, who knew that gleam in his brother's eyes meant he was up to something. "So, Winry, you up for it?"

"Sure, I guess." She said reluctantly, mostly because of the fact possible customers were state alchemists, and she wasn't quite fond of them.

Ed saw the look on her face and smiled faintly. "Hey, you don't have to. It's just an idea. Even if you do, you won't have to give anything to one of the five thousand jerks there."

"I'll come." She said. "Somebody's got to keep an eye on you two."

Al looked at her with a nonexistent smile. "Thanks, Winry."

"What do you mean there's still no sign of him?" Colonel Roy Mustang yelled into the phone, nearly blowing Hawkeye out the door. "I don't care if there have been no signs of his M.O. anywhere for months, a killer like that doesn't just drop off the face of the earth!" He slammed the phone down. "Idiot!"

"Before you take out your anger on the Fuhrer's phone, maybe you should consider that Scar backed off." Lieutenant Hawkeye said professionally. She wasn't an actual state alchemist, but she was Mustang's right-hand woman, and sometimes the only person that kept him sane. "Knowing that the military only gets more upset every time he causes a problem may have forced him to leave the area, perhaps even go to an Ishbalan territory."

"And what kind of anti-violence area would accept him!" Mustang said angrily, pounding his hands onto the desk.

"Ishbalan's don't care about that, since he thinks he was told by their god to kill state alchemists." She noticed Mustang's slightly stunned look. "You think you're the only one with access to that branch of the library?"

"Wish I was." He knitted his fingers together as he looked at a map on the Fuhrer's desk. There were little red dots on areas where Scar had attacked, but there were also blue dots that seemed to be in random places, each dot was dated, and black ones that seemed to be a little bit ahead of the blue dots, like the blue dots were following the black dots. And the last marked black dot was in Central.

"What's the matter?" Hawkeye walked closer to the desk to look at the map. "What is it?"

Mustang didn't answer. He was busy following the dots with his fingers, going backwards on the blue dots, following them all the way to a little town far from the cities: Risembool.

He quickly opened the desk, pulling out blank paper, and attempted to draw a bad version of the map. He growled in frustration, noticing that it was impossible to see any likeness. "Lieutenant,"

"Sir?"

"Find Major Armstrong, I have a sketch job for him."

She nodded. "Right away, sir." She headed out the door.

"Hurry, we've got twenty minutes before Bradley gets back."

"Absolutely not!" Winry yelled. They were on the train, so, she turned a few heads.

"Brother, I don't know if that's a good idea…" Al said worriedly.

"Hey, it wasn't my idea, Hughes thought it up. You hide in Al, and you both get in, no problem." Ed grumbled, taking off his jacket and vest. "Jeez, I thought trains were air conditioned!"

"I don't see why you're complaining." A man's voice said from the next seat behind him. "I heard roaches were weatherproof."

"WHO'RE YOU CALLING A ROACH!" Ed shouted, trying to get free of Al's grip. He managed to see the top of the man's head, which was white-grey. He quit squirming immediately. "Scar." He said coldly. "How'd you get here?"

The man turned to face them. He was tall, wearing all black, with tan skin and red eyes. He had sunglasses on, but one thing was missing.

There was no scar on his face.

"I don't know who Scar is, but I can assure you, I'm not him." He said calmly.

Ed blinked for a moment, but Al beat him to speak. "You look just like him." He looked at the man's hand that was on the seat. There was a blue/black alchemic circle on the back of his hand. "You're an alchemist?" He asked, surprised that an Ishbalan would have anything to do with alchemy.

The man followed Al's red gaze. "Hopefully one of the state after today." He took a quick glimpse of Edward's automail. "So, you're Full Metal." He said with a smirk. "We kept getting fed stories about you, at least I did. The Fuhrer said an Ishbalan state alchemist would be even stranger than a short little kid alchemist."

Ed twitched at the sound of the word 'short' but managed to let it go for once. "I'm not a kid." He insisted.

The man ignored the comment, turning his attention to Al. "If he's Edward Elric, that would make you Alphonse." He looked at the giant suit of armor. "Do you ever take that thing off?"

"Uh… no, not really." Al said nervously, but Ed saved him.

"Ah, the guys paranoid, got hit a couple of times by random objects, and since then, can't get this off of him." Ed laughed forcefully.

"Hm." He muttered in understanding. "I could've sworn he was the younger brother."

"He is." Ed said grumpily, knowing where this was leading.

"Yet you're shorter."

"That's not exactly an uncommon thing; it happens a lot in siblings." Winry interfered, before Ed could lose his temper.

"And you are…"

"Winry Rockbell." She said defensively. "I'm an automail mechanic, the best."

"If you say so." He said with a bored tone, turning around, noticing there was now a man sitting across from him, with blue eyes and short red hair, along with a ragged brown leather jacket and pants and boots to match.

"Well, well, well." The man said with a smirk. "What business does a piece of Ishbalan dirt like you have going to Central?" He raised a reddish brow up in amusement. "You should know that your pacifist bunch doesn't belong around here, especially just one, all by yourself." He pulled a knife out of his pocket and quickly drew a transmutation circle on the table, put his hands to it, and the table was now a wooden sword, which was held in the man's hand.

"Now you might want to jump off of this train if you don't want to end up picking up your limbs, Ishbalan." He sneered, holding the tip barely an inch from the Ishbalan's face. He knocked the sunglasses off of his face, crushing them as soon as they hit the ground. He let out a 'heh' of superiority as he looked at the man's red eyes.

"Don't hurt me." The Scar look-alike said pleadingly. Ed started to get up, but Al put a hand on his shoulder, and shook his head. The others on the train were too scared to move.

"On your knees," The man commanded. "I always wanted one of you to bow down to an alchemist."

He obeyed, placing his hands on the ground, and his face close as well. Ed, Winry, and Al all saw the look on his face. It wasn't one of fear, it was a smirk. The other man saw the circles on the Ishbalan's hands, and laughed. "Ha! Trying to scare people into thinking you know alchemy? What idiot would fall for that!"

"Your kind of idiot." The Ishbalan sneered, and the floor glowed from under his hands, and spread until it was under the man's feet. Then, there was crackling noise as the floor froze and ice crept up the man's body, until only his head was uncovered by the ice.

"What the hell?" He said in surprise, eyes moving, since his neck couldn't. "How could you do that? The circles were on the wrong sides!"

The Ishbalan held up his hands, showing that his palms also had circles on them. Ed grinned. "A double array, clever. Or are the others fake?"

"They're real."

"Wow." Winry walked up to the now mostly frozen man and tapped on the ice. "It's like steel."

"That's the idea." The Ishbalan said casually, staring at his own work. "The ice is so think and cold, even in the desert it would take at least a week to melt."

"Are you saying I'll be stuck here for a full week?" The man yelled.

"No… I said it would take at least a week for the ice to melt in the desert. In a train with broken air conditioning, it might take two or three."

"I'll get you back, Ishbalan. And do you think your little 'Ishbala' will appreciate you using alchemy?"

Shhink.

"Mention Ishbala ever again and you will die a slow, cold, painful death." Scar's look-alike scowled. He had a sheet of ice around his arm, almost identical to the blade Ed made with his automail arm. He slammed his arm into the block of ice and the blade shattered, and the block of ice cracked slightly. "Got it?"

"Ah-heh, sure. No problem." The man said nervously.

"Good." He said as the train screeched to a halt. He kicked a chunk of the ice off, exposing his broken sunglasses. In a quick movement he picked up the pieces and walked off the train.

"Well, he's strange." Winry said, holding a bag full of tools.

Ed grabbed his jacket. "Yeah. An Ishbalan that uses alchemy because he feels like it, and he wants to be a state alchemist. It's fishy."

"But maybe he just wants to bring them together." Al said.

"Whatever it is, we should keep an eye on him." Ed looked around the station as he got off the train. "Where'd he go?"

It was a dark area, that part of the station hadn't been used for over a year, and not a bulb had been turned on since then. There was nothing to do, so he decided to amuse himself by occasionally looking at his reflection in a puddle of water, staring at the scar that looked like an 'x'. It better not had been a waste of his time, he thought as he watched the train unload, now with a scowl plastered on his face, looking for his 'brother'.

"So that's what Scar looks like."

He turned around. Heh, they could've been twins, the only difference was the scar. "You mean you've never seen him before?" He shrugged. "Wow, I knew you were dense, but come on. You've never seen a wanted poster of him?"

"No."

"You're real dense, Lies." Scar's body changed in a shimmer of light, revealing a smaller, catlike young-looking man. He had long green hair and wore a black shirt that was missing the bottom half, a skirt-like bottom, and gloves and black fabric around his feet, along with a black headband. The seal of Oroboros was on his leg. "Lust was wondering when you were going to show up, I told her that you'd be here, but of course, she goes and says," He mocked Lust's voice. "'Envy, do me a favor and make sure Lies gets off that train, it would be such a shame if he gets killed before he gets a chance to get into the state.'"

"Your concern is flattering."

"Bad lie number one." Envy held up a finger. "You might want to get that power of yours in check."

"I can use alchemy." Lies said as the seal of Oroboros appeared on his face where Scar's scar would have been. "I'd say it works well."

"Yeah, on humans." Envy smirked. "Too bad it doesn't work on other homunculi, right?"

"It doesn't bother me."

"Right. And it would probably help a lot if you could manage to fool the 'fuhrer' and his secretary, though, so you might want to start practicing."

"Practice… lying."

"Yeah, why not?" Envy jumped up onto a railing that held up the ceiling, grinning. "I'd help, as long as Lust doesn't go and bitch about how she needs more lipstick or more sacrifices, stuff like that."

Lies shook his head in amusement.

"Yeah, well you'll meet her later. Then you'll see what I mean."

"Am I supposed to look forward to that or cower?" Lies said, cracking his neck. He began to walk off.

"And where are you going now?" Envy asked from his perch.

"I've got an exam to take." He turned to look at Envy as the seal of Oroboros vanished off his face, then left, disappearing in the crowd.

LL A.K.: Yep, first try at Full Metal Alchemist fic, and don't hurt me if it sucks. As for anyone from the YYH section that read my other fics and read this one, I'M WORKIN' ON IT! Review, please!