Chapter 6: The Meeting

"What happened to him?" Alphonse looks at a sleeping Edward. No real grave wounds could be seen with the blanket covering him, though there were prominent bruises on his face. Inwardly, Alphonse cringes to see the bruises. 'What has happen Edward?'

"The boy mostly suffers from bruising of the wrist, face, and chest. Most of the damage is the lacerations to the anus and rectum", the doctor pauses seeing Alphonse look of inquiry.

"How did he get them?" The words were said carefully and slowly. Alphonse wasn't sure if he wants the truth of Edward's injuries.

"I'm sorry" the doctor stutters, "I thought you knew…" the man checks his clipboard waiting for Alphonse to prepare himself. All the while, the doctor is preparing the speech inside his head, because the facts of how Edward obtained the injuries were…. How do you say rape without it sounding drastic? As a doctor, these were the hated parts. "When the members of the assault team found the boy, one of the laboratory guards were…sexually assaulting the boy."

An awkward pause of silence follows the doctor's words. 'Rape', thought Alphonse, 'he meant rape.'

"The boy was unconscious when found." The doctor threw the statement in quickly, as though it would lessen the truth of facts. "As of yet, we don't know the exact full extent of damage. We're still waiting for the X-rays to be developed."

"Thank you. If there's anything new, please inform me." The doctor gives his salute to Alphonse before leaving Edward Elric's room.

x x x

Roy watches as the fourth commander on these cases walks in and takes his seat, his escort to this room leaving, closing the door behind him. The dark-cheery colour of the wooden table contrasts the clean white papers in front of ever commander. From the looks on most of their faces, they didn't know why this meeting was called. Screeches of chair legs against the floor brought Roy's attention to the Lead commander enter the room. They all gave their salutes to a large, burly man; the stern look on his face confirms Roy's thought of this meeting entailing some high important matter.

As everyone sits down, the meeting begins. "Today, at 21:16 the adopted parents of Ryan Collin gave a call that five men broke into their home, and took the Collin child away. There were six more calls of the same nature soon after. All seven children kidnapped were from the 7th lab."

Mentioning the 7th lab was enough to create a stir within the group of men. Roy frowns, patiently waiting for the Lead commander to continue. He could already make the assumption that his workload is going to increase, along with the security of for these kids. The papers in front of Roy, as he had idly flipped through them beforehand, contain the report for the 7th lab incident and correspondent between the spy and their commander.

On the night of the 7th lab incident, the spy that had infiltrated the labs sent out a call to their commander. The lab was under siege and research files and equipment were being commandeered, the status of the all the children unknown. Upon this news, the commander had swiftly assembled a retrieval team to take the children. At 23:46, the team had arrived at the 7th lab. Three-quarters of the children were already taken. The retrieval team (using necessary force) were able to keep the other organization from taking any more of the kids.

'And now some of them are kidnapped.'

"At this point and time, it is unknown on who kidnapped them", the lead commander continues. "In the meantime, all children from the 7th and 2nd lab will be place under the care of military. As of tomorrow, the children will be living within the dormitory or with military personnel in order to keep protect them."

In a moment of silence, the commanders ponder what type of child would be place under their care.