Transplantations, Story 5

Rating: PG-13, language

Disclaimer: Arthur Dent belongs to the highly skilled, inimitable Douglas Adams. Ed and Al don't, and aren't mine either. I'd lay claim to the local police officer if I hadn't totally stolen him from a show I miss very dearly... Same goes for his officers.

Series Summary: Stories wherein characters from other universes are integrated into the FMA universe.

Chapter Summary: Ed and Al experience what may be the strangest day of their lives when asked to babysit a mysterious man with a strange obsession with tea...

Notes: Probably sacrilege, but hey. Never stopped a fic writer before. (smile) It's difficult to remember now (I've been working on this one a while), but I believe this may have originated from a trick Arthur can do, and the thought that Edward was distractable enough to easily do it too...

Like I mentioned, Douglas Adams is inimitable, and I doubt I've done all that good a job of imitating him. This should be readable without prior knowledge of the Hitchhiker's Guide books, but it'll probably make a lot more sense if you've read them. And if you haven't read them, you should get them from the library or something, because they're wonderful!

Thank you to my reviewers, as well! I'd give replies, but that's illegal now, and I'm too scared to read 'em too closely anyways. sweatdrop I will say, for no partular reason, completely generally, that I would probably love to do requests, as I am rapidly running out of ideas... but, in a completely unrelated fact, I know almost nothing about Final Fantasy. Which may or may not stop me. Make of that last sentence fragment what you will. wink

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5. Arthur Dent

(-)

"Look, mister, I don't care where he came from, it's not my problem!"

"Oh yes it is."

"WHY!"

"I have been on the phone with your supervisor, and he agrees that it may be a matter of national security and we simply can't take that chance."

"Mustang, right?"

"The Flame Alchemist, I believe, yes."

"That son of a--"

"Look. Try it with scientific curiosity, okay? The guy appears in the middle of the street in a flash of strange light asking for a cup of tea. You've gotta be curious about why that's happened."

"Yeah, I WOULD be, if it weren't quite so damn obvious that you were just trying to get out of work."

"And why shouldn't we? Do you know how badly we get funded?"

"Ah, God, not this again."

"VERY badly! I can barely even afford to pay my men overtime! Sometimes I can't and I have to personally beg them, in the name of keeping the peace and saving lives, to come in anyway and risk their lives for no pay. And they do. I think for that you can take one cuckoo off our hands. Okay?"

"...That guy out there said you'd had dealings with Mustang before?"

"Yes, several years back, he was sent here to set up a trip for the Fuhrer. We were all promised he'd come. We spent quite a lot of time preparing for it. He backed out, of course, and we damn near had a riot on our hands. Why?"

"Yeah, you're right, you deserve it then. Fine."

Al backed away from the door as Ed yanked it open.

"You been listening?"

"It seemed prudent."

"Well, let's go talk to the guy then." Ed gestured irritably at the local officer, still annoyed at their handing off their work, but grudgingly willing to accept it as going toward equivalent exchange. "Someday I'm gonna stop making up for all of Mustang's sins."

Al blinked and thought about that, because it seemed at first like it shouldn't be true, couldn't be true, because Ed was just being bitter toward the Colonel, but-- when you thought about it, there was quite a bit of plausibility, of legitimacy there, not just a throwaway complaint like usual. Al wondered briefly how much time Ed had devoted to thinking about that.

The officer opened the door to the interrogation room, and was rewarded for his courtesy by Ed's sharp glare. Ed dropped down onto a chair and redirected his glare at the entirely normal-looking man drinking tea across the table.

"This actually is tea," the man said, in a state of astonished bliss.

"What, you thought they'd try to trick you with coffee?" Ed rolled his eyes. Al, judging that the seats were too small for him, stood in the corner, and the local officer stood beside him.

"I haven't had tea in a very long time, you see," the man said, taking another long sip. "I saw it on a menu once, and I ordered it, but it wasn't anything like tea. In fact, it was probably the second least tea-like drink I have ever tasted. But this is actually tea."

Ed stared at him. "Right. Been abroad for a while, have you?"

"Yes," the man said, too absorbed in his tea to be concerned about much of anything.

"What exactly are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for my home," the man said. "But I can never seem to find it. It was demolished, you see, to make way for a hyp-- a bypass. I keep looking for it, but all I can find are places that are-- just a little different. Like, the trees will be too green, or it'll be a rehab colony for Disaster Area roadies injured in on-the-job accidents. The worst was this plan-- place called NowWhat. There were these bloody little animals that--"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Ed interupted.

The man blinked. "Um, what exactly did I say?"

Ed gritted his teeth for a moment. "Okay. New tack. What's your name?"

"Dent," the man said, "Arthur Dent."

"And where're you from?"

"Er..." Arthur said. "Quite a long way from here actually. May I go now?"

"Where. Are. You. From."

"Islington."

Ed stared at him.

"What?"

"Look, I've been all around this damn country on that damn fool's errands, and I've never heard of any 'Islington'."

"Er..." Arthur said. "Would you believe London, then?"

"Or that."

"New York? Berlin? Paris?"

"Now you're just making stuff up."

"The way my life is going," Arthur said heavily, "I see very little need to make anything up."

"How did you get here."

"Er..." Arthur said. "It's quite a long story, really..."

"The flash in the middle of the street?"

"It was the middle of the street, was it? Oh dear."

"How did you get here?"

Arthur shrugged helplessly. "I don't really understand it myself, I--"

"Aw, hell with it." Ed stood up. "We'll just go on and take 'im to Central or wherever, let 'em sort it out for themselves."

"May I still have tea?" Arthur asked.

Ed stared at him. "...Sure, whatever."

"Because I don't mind so long as I can have tea. Do you have any idea how long it's been since--?"

"You got the paperwork?" Ed asked the local officer.

"Right here. He's all yours, sir."

"Wonderful," Ed muttered. "C'mon, Al, let's get going."

"Oh, and also there's a local gang of kidnappers that it would be wonderful if you could help us with."

"I dunno, we kinda have our hands full with this guy."

"He shuts up once you give him tea."

"...We'll think about it. C'mon."

"Please follow me, Mr. Dent," Al said awkwardly, aware that he was supposed to be the "muscle" and having no real idea how to pull off the role.

"May I keep my tea?"

"...Sure."

"All right then." Picking up the tea with his cuffed hands, Arthur followed peacably enough.

"...So you've been looking for your home for a long time, you said?" Al asked as they made their way down the corridors.

"Oh yes. It's quite a long story, you see, it was demolished to make way for a bypass."

"A what?"

"Er, I don't really know, exactly," Arthur said, trying to scratch his head in apologetic perplexity but unable to figure out how to do it without spilling his tea; "it's supposed to help people get from one place to another more quickly or something. Anyway, I was rescued from my plan-- home just before it was demolished by a friend of mine, who was, as it turned out, not actually an out-of-work actor from Guildford as he had previously claimed, but from another-- country, writing a-- traveler's guide. And it got very confusing from there."

"I see," Al lied.

"It was quite awful, really."

"Right. But if it's been demolished, how can you get back?"

"...I thought perhaps I understood it," Arthur said, "but I really don't. I haven't understood anything for-- I believe it may be almost a decade now."

"I'm sorry," Al said.

"Don't be. At least you have tea. This is the nicest place I've been in quite some time."

"It hasn't been at all... fun, or educational traveling to to many places?" Al asked.

"No. Well... There are two things I don't entirely regret. One," he said, "was my girlfriend Fenchurch."

"Fenchurch?"

"It's not because she was found abandoned in a bag in the Fenchurch railway station, if you were wondering."

"Uh..." Al said, not having been wondering.

"It's because she was conceived there."

"..."

"She said that her parents always told her that it was unbelievable just how bored you could get in the ticket queue at Fenchurch station."

"Right," Al said, a little unnerved. "Where is she now?"

"She disappeared," said Arthur.

"What, did she-- run away, was she kidnapped--?"

"No, she entirely disappeared. Erased. As if she'd never existed."

"...How?"

"I've no idea." Arthur paused. "I'm having a pretty bloody time of it, aren't I?"

"...Sure," Al said. "Brother?"

"I'm right here," Ed said, coming back from finishing up the paperwork. "C'mon, let's get out of this place. All this glass kinda freaks me out."

They walked out into the late afternoon sunshine, as Arthur reverently sipped his tea.

"I'm sort of afraid to ask," Al said.

"Hmm?"

"What was the second thing? That you didn't entirely regret?"

"Oh," Arthur said, "learning to fly."

The Elric brothers stared at him.

Arthur didn't notice. "I used to do it on Krikkit all the time... Probably I should've just stayed there, cut my losses..."

"... 'On' Krikkit?" Ed queried.

"In, of course, I mean, in," Arthur said hastily.

"And how exactly did you fly?" Al asked.

"See, it's quite simple if you don't know how to do it," Arthur said sagely. "The trick is falling, and forgetting to hit the ground."

"Forgetting to hit the ground," Ed repeated.

"Yes, I've found that if you distract yourself at just the right moment, you can miss the ground entirely. There's a knack to it. I learned entirely by accident, you see, there was this giant--"

"Right," Ed said, "we should get going. Five o'clock traffic already, damn..." Ed growled at the traffic.

"Where are we going?" Al called, trying to be heard above the noise of the passersby.

"Train station, where else? We've got to get this guy to Central, after all."

"But didn't that guy say something about a kidnapping ring?"

Ed was silent.

"I know you don't like them foisting off their work on you, but I really think they need our help. He seemed like a nice guy, and I don't think he'd just call us in if it wasn't necessary. He didn't seem dishonest or lazy or... brother?"

Al paused, peering through the crowd. "Why haven't you interrupted me yet? Brother?"

Al pushed through the crowd, looking around in every direction. "Brother!"

"Dear lord, he hasn't been kidnapped, has he? That would be so ironic, but I find that life seems to work in--"

Al grabbed him by the chain of his handcuffs and pulled him back toward the police station, ignoring Arthur's cries of protest as he tried to keep his tea from spilling. "Brother! Where are you? Dammit!"

Al burst back through the police starion doors. "Captain!"

The local officer looked up from a file. "Yes?"

"I think my brother was just kidnapped!"

"Dammit!" The captain put the folder down and hurried Al to his office. "This is getting out of hand! How long ago?"

"Just a minute! One second I was talking to him and the next, he was nowhere to be found!"

"You're sure he didn't just get lost in the crowd?"

"He would kill you if he heard you say that-- yes I'm sure! I looked! We've got to find him!"

The captain sat down at his desk and started pulling out files from drawers. "Their M.O. does tend recently to pulling people out of crowds. They incapaticate victims with chloroform and take them to their headquarters. Usually they're hired to do this. They never used to kill any of their victims, but our undercover agent in there says they're now offering the service for an exorbitant additional fee..."

"Where's their headquarters?" Al demanded.

"We don't know, our agent hasn't gotten that far yet. We think somewhere on the West side--"

"Why haven't you arrested these people or something yet!"

"We don't have enough evidence on them," the captain said patiently; "either the victims arranged their own kidnappings or are too traumatized by the experience to want to press charges. That's why we needed your help. We weren't entirely sure what we could do-- but, coincidentally, since there's a new underworld bounty on State Alchemists, we'd considered asking one of you if you'd be willing to go undercover, arrange a kidnapping or be kidnapped, so we could find the goddamn place."

"And now we have," Al realized. "You didn't actually plan this, did--!"

"No, we didn't have time! He'd just barely agreed to maybe help us someday, we didn't have time to figure out how. Even when! And we don't even know why he's been kidnapped."

"You said there was a bounty--"

"Yes, but it's possible it's entirely unrelated. They may have mistaken him for someone else, or had an order to pick up anyone who fit a given description-- in which case, they might not be prepared to have an alchemist on their hands, and we might finally get them--"

Al smiled a wavery, grim grin. "No one yet's ever been able to adaquately prepare for my brother..."

"I hope so." The captain threw on a long khaki coat. "Washington! LaRue! Let's see if we can find these guys!"

"Um... What should I...?" Arthur asked hesitantly.

"Just stay here," Al said, "we'll be back!"

Arthur paused, looking after them as they left.

"It's nice here... but it isn't home. It's nothing like it."

He looked around the hall, at the walls and ceilings.

"And I don't particularly want to be interrogated by the government. But they do have tea..."

Arthur looked to the right, at the tea urn next to the coffeemaker. He looked to the left, at the crowds of yelling people being escorted by officers to the front desk.

Two minutes later, he slipped out of the station carrying the tea urn, while two officers herded in two clowns and five prostitutes who had gotten into a fistfight over the upcoming election.

-

Ed woke to find he was being dragged up a flight of stairs.

"C'mon, we're supposed to nab that other guy by tomorrow! Let's get this shrimp into a cell already!"

Ed resisted the urge to growl and, instead, stealthily brought his other hand up to meet the one he was being dragged by.

"I'm tryin', but the damn midget's heavy! Like he's made of lead or somethin'!"

"Steel, actually," Ed said, and transmuted a blade out of his arm.

The one who wasn't dragging him paled. "Aw hell. Steve, hit the alarm!"

Steve did, dropping Ed, who cursed as he heard the bells ringing through the building. He hit Steve with the flat of the blade before hearing pursuers coming up and down the stairs.

"Hell," Ed hissed, looking around quickly. He saw a door to the right, swiped a keyring from Steve's pocket, and hurried in. He was about to close the door after him when, as an afterthought, he blew a large hole into the left wall as a diversion.

He closed the door behind him and hunted for a lightswitch.

"Is that-- Please, I want to go home!" a young girl's voice cried. "I miss my Mommy, why can't Daddy just see me there!"

"The kidnapping ring," Ed whispered, and cursed as his eyes adjusted to the darkness just enough to see a hallway filled with doors.

"Well. Guess I'll be helping out the captain anyway," he muttered to himself, and hunted furiously for the key to the door behind him as he heard a few of his pursuers begin to get suspicious. "Three A Three B where the hell is it-- oh good God. Edward! Are you an alchemist or not!"

Cursing furiously at himself, Ed clapped his hands and fused the lock. "Must be the goddamn chloroform," he muttered, and hurried to the first cell door.

The little girl inside blinked and stared at him as the door flew open with a spark. "Are you--?

"Come on! We're gonna get out of here," Ed explained, waving her outward.

"You're not--?"

"No! C'mon, we'll find a way out."

"I'm chained to the--"

"Oh. Right. Sorry." Edward hurried over and alchemically detached the chains. "Are there other people in here?"

"I think so, I've heard-- also I think someone upstairs--"

"Wonderful," Ed muttered, and blew open the next door.

"I'm not going to tell you--"

"I don't really care. I'm trying to get everybody out." Ed strode over to the opposite end of the cell and detached the chains as the man tried to squirm away. "There, you see? Come on, eventually they're gonna find a way to get through that door!"

"What-- but how're we going to get out!"

Ed glanced down to the opposite end of the hallway, and hurried to the window there.

"Fire codes," he said, breaking it open.

"There's actually a fire escape--!"

"Of course there is! You're doing something illegal, you can't afford to have some inspector making a surprise visit! Everything's gotta be in order, it's gotta look just like every other office building or apartment building or whatever. See? You guys go on and get out there while I break into the other cells and try to come up with some sort of plan."

"--Okay!" The man lifted the little girl up to the window. "Thank you!"

"Thank me later," Edward said. "Just get out there!" He growled as his pursuers realized the lock was fused and started pounding on the door. "Great, just great-- hurry up!"

There were four more doors left, and he started on the third.

-

"So this is where he disappeared."

"Yes!"

"So where could they have gone? Dammit..." The captain squinted in the dimming light.

"They coulda gone anywhere, Captain," said LaRue, "there's no way to tell."

"Half the city's come down this street just today, Cap'n," Washington agreed. "There aren't any footprints or scuff marks or anything dropped, or anything."

There was a faint sound of an explosion from somewhere to the west, and Al squinted that direction. "But there is a flare. Look!"

The cpatain squinted that direction and immediately spotted the jet of green flames. "Washington! Get some officers out there!"

"You think that's him?" LaRue asked.

"He does," the captain said, jerking his head at Al. "And it's got to be something! Let's go!"

Far south of there, Arthur Dent saw a far different light in the sky to the east. He watched it for a few moments-- then smiled dubiously, and headed east, his urn of tea in tow.

-

"Think that'll work!" the first man Ed had broken out yelled, shielding his eyes from the bright green flames.

"I hope someone's looking for me!" Ed yelled back, above the roar of the alchemical fire. "Should've noticed I'm gone by now! Either way, someone should notice--"

They were distracted by another bang at the rooftop door. "Dammit!" Ed yelled. "You guys should get downstairs, onto the street!"

"They're all down there!" the girl cried, pointing downward. Ed looked over the edge of the roof and saw several suspicious-looking men milling about.

"Dammit! Then why'd those other people go down there!"

"Maybe they weren't there then?" the girl suggested.

"I think some people pay to have this staged!" the man yelled. "I heard someone talking about it!"

"Why the HELL would you want to--"

There was another loud bang at the door. "Maybe the fire escape," Ed said.

"How's that better than here!"

"Uh-- hell--"

"BROTHER!"

Ed's head whipped around and he leaned over the railing, looking down. "AL! Careful, there're kidnappers down there!"

Al saw them a split second after Ed warned them, but being a suit of armor, he didn't particularly care. "Excuse me..." he said, disarming two who were too startled to fight back, and pushed them toward the Captain and his men, who, being more mortal, had ducked behind a car. More criminals followed Al, who ignored them for the moment and ran inside the building, headed for the roof.

At this point, two beat cops and a rickety police car arrived, the reinforcements Washington had called for.

"You're surrounded!" the captain lied. "Drop your weapons!"

Several of the kidnappers did. Two or three needed a little more persuasion, which the beat cops, pulling out their service revolvers, were happy to provide.

"YOU!"

The rooftop door finally burst open, revealing a very large, very angry man who strode over to Edward and grabbed both of his arms before the alchemist could stop him. "What the HELL are you, you little son of a bitch! Years I've been working to build up this thing, and in one afternoon you're gonna screw the whole thing up for me!"

"Let him go!" cried the girl.

"It's not going to do you any good! It's too late," yelled the man. "Surrender quietly and you might get some leniency!"

"Oh, yeah, sure! With all they're gonna have on me when they get to that office! I don't think so!"

The man picked Edward up and held him over the edge of the roof. With his arms held apart, Edward couldn't think of anything to do.

"Like the guy said, I'm goin' down anyway," the man said, a crazy gleam in his eyes. "So why shouldn't I have a little fun before I go!"

"Brother!" Al cried, struggling with two more henchmen to make his way through the door.

"Say goodnight, you goddamn little midget!" the man yelled, and let go.

"MIDGET?"

Edward suddenly remembered his legs were free, and took the opportunity to kick the man where it hurt. "WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT HE COULD WALK UNDER AN ONCOMING CAR! WHO ARE YOU CALLING AN INSIGNIFICANT SPECK OF A DWARF WHO COULD LIVE ON A DUST PARTICLE! WHO ARE YOU CALLING A--"

Each of his sentences was punctuated with kicks and punches, driving the man all the way back to the door. "--TINY BEAN WHO COULD--"

"Brother?" Al said.

Ed stopped kicking the guy and turned to look at his brother. "Hi. What took you so long?"

"Uh, brother, uh..."

Ed wondered why his brother seemed so freaked out. He hadn't beaten up the guy that badly, after all-- had he? He looked back down at the groaning leader of the kidnapping ring, and back at his brother, perplexed.

Suddenly he realized that he was looking into Al's 'eyes'. And more precicely, that his eyes were suddenly at Al's eye level.

"GAH!" he cried, falling a few feet down to the rooftop.

"What the..." whispered the girl.

Down on the streets, the captain and his officers were still staring up at the roof.

"...Was that guy holding that kid off the side of the roof?" an officer asked.

"Yes," said the captain, still staring.

"And did he then-- let go of that kid?" asked LaRue.

"Yes," said the captain.

"Upon which said kid kicked the hell out of him, without-- falling down?" asked Washington.

"It did appear that way, yes."

"Was that alchemy?" asked an officer.

"I don't think so," replied the captain.

"...So what the hell do we put in our reports?"

"...How about we... omit this part for now."

"Yes, sir," the officers heartily agreed, going back to their duties.

-

"It was like that strange guy said," Al said, wide-eyed, "the trick is falling and-- forgetting to hit the ground."

"There has got to be a better explanation," Ed said.

"Any suggestions?"

"...No, not really."

"It makes perfect sense. You were so angry when he called you a midget that you didn't realize he'd dropped you and you just... forgot to hit the ground."

"That can't be what happened."

"Do you have a better theory?"

"...Not yet, no."

"This changes everything. This changes-- the entire world. Our entire understanding of how the world works!"

"Like alchemy isn't magic."

"Shh, we pretend it's a science. But really, this is-- impossible. This means that the world works... completely differently than we thought it did. Brother-- what the hell do we do with this!"

"I have no idea," said Ed, and shushed him as they entered the police station with the captain, the kidnappers, and the several officers it had taken to subdue them all.

Letting his officers take care of the booking, the captain left the front desk and wandered left to talk to the Elric boys, yawning after the long day and longer afternoon.

"So what happened to that weird guy, anyway?" Ed asked.

"We had to leave him here," Al replied. "I'm sure someone had the presence of mind to lock him back up while we were gone."

The captain, knowing that his day wasn't going to end here, glanced at the coffee table. "Huh. That's strange. Somebody stole the..."

He trailed off, staring at the table. "Tea," he finished, and hurried back out the door. Ed and Al got the picture in an instant and hurried after him.

"Dammit!" yelled the captain. "Where would he have gone!"

"If I was a weird guy with a tea obsession, I..." Ed looked around furiously. "I'd... Go toward the strange blue light?"

"Get in the car," the captain said, pulling out some keys and opening the nearest car door.

-

"Hullo," said Arthur, squinting into the bright light that spilled from the doorway of the flying saucer. "Could you by any chance--?"

Two gray aliens in strange conical hats walked out of the saucer and started babbling in a strange language that the fish in his ear didn't translate. "Gabba gabba mook tar!"

"Uh, hello?"

A memory rose reluctantly from Arthur's past, a brief mention of "teasers"-- aliens who went to isolated planets, found poor yokels whom no one would ever believe, and paraded in front of them, making strange noises. All Arthur's memories were reluctant.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. "Look! I'm not from this planet. Could I possibly get a ride from you to the nearest spaceport?"

The aliens blinked rapidly. "You're a hitcher!" one asked, sounding rather tipsy.

"Yes. I'm afraid I've lost my towel; messy situation getting off my last ship, and then my belongings were confiscated by the locals, you see..."

"What's that thing you've got there?" asked the other alien, who sounded completely smashed, pointing at the metal urn.

"Tea," Arthur said brightly, reminded of his blissful good fortune. "A sort of beverage, you see. It's really very good. Would you like to try a little?"

"Not really," the first alien said. "Come on, we can take you as far as Beta Cygnus III."

"That's a spaceport, I take it?"

"Yeah, you can hitch another ride from there. Let's go."

Arthur had begun to follow them in when the captain's car screeched to a halt on the opposite side of the street.

"What the...?" Al, Ed, and the Captain spilled out of the car, and were too distracted by the blue flying saucer to try to apprehend Arthur Dent again.

"Gabba gabba mook tar!" said the aliens, with renewed enthusiasm.

"I'm sorry if this will cause any trouble for you," Arthur said, sounding sincerely apologetic, "but this isn't my home, and I don't belong here. My home probably doesn't even exist anymore, but I have to keep looking. It's-- all I have left. There's nothing else that I can do."

He looked down and walked a few steps up the ramp. "And thank you so much for the tea!"

"Ah, this is lame," said the first alien. "Let's just get outta here."

The second alien drunkenly agreed, and they were up the ramp and into the saucer before anyone could think to stop them. Three engines fired, and the saucer rose up into the sky, quickly becoming a persistent dot of blue among the stars.

"I..." said Al.

"WHAT in the..." said Ed.

They all stood there staring at the blue dot until it finally disappeared.

"...I know a lovely Italian restaraunt," said the captain shakily, "where we can have quite an excellent dinner while we figure out how to lie about this on our respective reports."

"...Perfect," Ed said, and got back into the car.

(-)