"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

author Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes)

Chapter Six:

A Theory and a Hunt

"A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body."

"Humankind cannot gain without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange."

A man in a blue military uniform sat at his desk that was filled with paperwork. He had jet black hair and black eyes. He was Colonel Roy Mustang the Flame Alchemist. Next to Roy was a woman with blond hair, her bangs fell in a wing pattern from right to left, the rest of her hair was fastened up in a way that that it resembled the tail of the animal her sir name is named after. That woman was First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye.

Riza always stood by Roy's side like a body guard and he didn't mind it, they were partners, they've worked with each other for many years and have been through two wars, they weren't letting that teamwork fail now, not now when his subordinate was missing. His subordinate was Edward Elric, a fellow State Alchemist who was now missing. Many people who knew of FullMetal had been spreading rumors and theories about him. Some said that Ed had went completely insane and killed Dante and hid the body only to kill again. Others say that he killed Dante, hid the body and committed suicide. There were even those who went as far as saying that he became a cannibal.

When Alphonse had heard the rumors, he began yelling at the officers, saying that his older brother would never do such things. He even said that if he were to ever hear them telling lies about his brother again he'd beat them down so badly that their own mothers wouldn't even be able to recognize them... at that moment everyone in the military realized just how much alike the brothers were.

Suddenly Roy's head shot up... something wasn't right. The air suddenly smelt like ozone...

Before for he could even ask the Lieutenant what's going on, the door flew off it's hinges and there stood the woman that could give homunculi nightmares, besides Major General Armstrong... It was the Elric's Teacher: Izumi Curtis...

"I should've expected this..." Mustang thought. Trying to regain his demeanor he said, "Miss Curtis, what brings you here?"

Izumi's stern eyes looked down at him as if he was no older than the Elric brothers, "You and I need to have a long talk..."

The house wife explained that she had a theory of what could've happened while Alphonse was unconscious the day Edward disappeared; Mustang listened carefully to each and every word that she spoke.

When Izumi was finished explaining, Mustang sighed, "If there is one thing I know about FullMetal, he would never take a life, but in a situation like the one he and Alphonse were in, he just might, after all it was a do or die situation. But from what Alphonse told me, I have a feeling that Ed didn't sacrifice Dante..."

"But it is probable." said Hawkeye.

Mustang's eyes went wide, "Wait... Alphonse said that he saw Ed and Dante get into a death lock..."

"Yeah..." Izumi realized where the Colonel was going, "Then that means the only way that either one could transmute would be if there was a transmutation circle underneath them..."

"We're going to have to go back to the scene of the crime..." Roy smiled.

It took a while to get back to the scene of the crime. The scene was a large mansion that was in the middle of a large forest. That was where the woman, Dante, had kept the Elric brothers... Well... actually underneath the building was a bunker with several rooms in it... Dante had held the Elrics there for two months... two brutal months...

Roy knew that what ever had gone on in the torture room of the bunker must have been agonizing, it was filled with chains, whips, and many more things that could make a grown man cringe at the sight. He and Riza had noticed that when ever Alphonse would hear a loud sound he would flinch, and he had been avoiding dark areas as if they were a plague. He now sleeps in candle light... well unless he falls asleep reading books on Alchemy...

Alphonse had been reading as much as Ed had done... it got to a point where, like Ed, he would skip eating just so he could continue reading which had earned him one heck of a slap from Second Lieutenant Maria Ross, who returned to Amestris after the war and proved her innocence. The slap was so hard, the whole library echoed. Roy witnessed it.

When Roy, Riza, and Izumi walked into the location where the fight had took place, they began to look for the suspected Transmutation Circle.

The scene where the fight had took place was a large room with two staircases on one side of the room. There were indoor balconies starting at the top of the staircases. There was a carpet on each stare case that would connect to a bigger carpet that spread about the entire room. There were several pillars around, along with chandeliers that shimmered light throughout the room.

The search was short because the first thing that Izumi did was overturning the carpet, only to find a ten foot long Transmutation Circle hidden beneath it... and it wasn't one made for making Philosopher's Stones...

Written around the exterior of the circle was:

"From this world to the next, our worlds become one, separated by Truth but all Death is one, connect our past to their future and create one present, alone we all live."

They all studied the circle carefully, concentrating on every single detail. It felt like hours had passed by.

"It looks a lot like a Human Transmutation Circle." Izumi commented.

Roy nodded, "That may be true but it has a lot of Alkahestry in it..."

"This means we're going to have to copy the circle and get Alphonse to have a look at it." Riza sighed, feeling sympathetically towards the FullMetal Alchemist's little brother. She watched as Roy copied the circle with each exact detail on to his note book.

Izumi just stared at the circle with scornful eyes, Riza knew that there was no way in hell was Curtis going to let her student be left to his own devises... wherever he is...

The three then made their way back to Central and to the Elrics' apartment. When they knocked on the door and waited a minuet... no one answered. They knocked again, still no answer. Again and again, worry grew. Then... finally, someone opened the door...

The person whom had opened the door to the apartment was a petite blond-haired, blue-eyed girl. Her hair was tied in a long, high ponytail, while leaving a loose certain on either side of her face and her bangs falling casually from right to left across her forehead. Her ears were pierced in an avant-garde style, with two identical pairs of hoop earrings on each earlobe and an additional two cuff studs worn vertically on her right ear, above the others. She wore a beige worker's jumpsuit with the top half open and tied around her waist to reveal her black tube top and bare midriff. She also had a black bandanna on her head, and she had light brown crafts-man gloves.

Mustang, Hawkeye, and Curtis then knew what was going on...

The girl before them was Winry Rockbell. She was Edward's Automailist... and if they all remembered correctly...Ed had skipped his Automail check up at least three times...

"Miss Rockbell..." Roy said hesitantly, "Did-...Did Alphonse tell you?..."

"Tell me what?" she asked.

A cold silence filled the air...

It took an hour and a half for them to explain what had happened, they also explained about their recent discovery of the strange transmutation circle.

Winry was shocked by the news but still gave Alphonse a hit on the head with her wrench, causing him to swiftly hide behind Izumi for she was his only mother figure besides Maria Ross, Hawkeye and his currently deceased mother. Winry was so mad at him but she held her rage back with the sorrow that she felt, she took a deep breath and then asked-

"Okay,... I know I might not be of much help, but what was this weird saying that you found on that Transmutation Circle?"

Roy raised an eyebrow, "Why do you want to know?"

"I want to help!" Winry said adamantly, "Ed is my friend too! I'm not going to budge, even if it means that I'll have to read every Alchemy book in Amestris, I'm going to help!"

"Even though she knows so little about Alchemy she is determined to help... She must've felt very useless during the war..." Roy thought.

Izumi caught on and recited the words that were written on the circle, "From this world to the next our worlds become one, separated by Truth but all Death is one, connect our past to their future and create one present, alone we all live."

While they were brainstorming on what the meaning could be, Alphonse was studying the circle, when suddenly the mechanic said-

"Wait a minuet..."

Everyone eyed the Automailist curiously.

"Now this may sound straight out of Science Fiction-..." Winry began, "...- but it's a reasonable theory from what little I know about Alchemy, The Truth, and Truth's Gate..." she let the words settle with them then said, "What if the saying 'From this world to the next' is literal?"

"What do you mean by that?" Riza asked.

Winry kicked the carpet beneath her feet, "Well...what I mean is... what if that Transmutation Circle sent Ed into a whole other world?..."

Purple lighting sparked wildly in the pitch black darkness of the room. A tall suit of armor was visible only for a moment.

In a strange language that was as familiar as the voice that was using it, screamed "BROTHER!"

The lightning faded and words that seemed to whisper but still were recognizable to be the same language but was a different voice said, "...-or will you stand up and seize the chance the military can give you?..."

The voice faded as did the darkness into white. The white was cold, then there was color... it was an all too familiar red cloak that blew in a nonexistent wind. The emblem was visible for only a moment.

Then...

FullMetal shot up breathing as if he had just been saved from drowning, he put his hands on his chest only to feel the cold metal of his-...what was it called?...Automail?...yes!... -his Automail hand causing him to flinch a little. He then realized that he was okay. He fell back onto his bed...

"It was just a nightmare..." he thought but for some reason it...resonated with him. It shook him to the core...He got back up and looked at his clock, "How long was I out?" he sighed, he still had two hours till he had to go to school. He felt wide awake so he began the morning routine.

After he had gotten ready he began to make his way to the DWMA in order to get to the library since he still had an hour and a half before class started. As he walked to the school he heard something that made him have a ping in his heart like the way he did the other day. What made him have that ping was the two kids that were talking whilst they were looking through a window at a toyshop.

"Big Brother, do you think mommy will buy us that toy if we ask?" asked the smaller kid.

"Maybe, but if she says 'no' we'll have to ask Santa!" the bigger kid said.

The two kids then ran off to look for their mother.

"Big Brother...brother..." FullMetal thought, reflecting on the dream that he had. "Did I have a brother?... maybe I did... it would explain the dream. But how old were they?... maybe they were my older brother... nah, if he was then he would've been yelling at me to get away or telling me what to do,... that doesn't explain the dream at all... maybe the voice was yelling for me... yeah... so if they were yelling for help, not to mention now that I think about it, the voice was a bit like that of a kid's, so that would mean that I have a younger brother... but what's their name?... and who was that other voice? Were they the one who-"

Suddenly the Gold-Scythe bumped into someone. He had been thinking so much that he hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings. The person whom he had bumped into was a fairly tall, thin, pale-skinned boy with black hair that had white stripes going horizontally across his head but ending right in the middle as if they were half halos. The boy dressed in a very refined manner. He wore a standard black suit with white rectangles that were in such a manner that they were perfectly symmetrical. There were several small rectangles going down the seam where the sleeves attached to the jacket, there were also four small rectangles that ran along the front of his jacket. His undershirt was a formal white dress-shirt and a metallic skull rested under his collar. He also had black dress shoes. His eyes were two shades of gold, lighter around darker that was around the pupil. Telling by the boy's eyes he paid close attention to detail.

Next to the boy were two girls that wore identical clothes which were cow-girl outfits: red turtleneck belly shirts with white ties, cowboy hats and black high-heel boots, unlike the smaller one, the taller girl wore long jeans and two silver bracelets on each wrist. The smaller girl however wore puffy shorts.

The smaller girl had chin length bright yellow hair with bangs, and light blue eyes. The taller girl however had dark blond hair that reached to her mid-back and dark blue eyes.

Strangely the taller girl reminded him of someone... but who?...

"S-sorry..." FullMetal said nervously, "I-I didn't see you there..."

"WOW! THAT HAT IS HUGE!" screamed the smaller girl. She whisked the hat off his head and began looking at it as if it was a new toy. FullMetal just stared in shock.

"Patty!" the taller girl looked down at the smaller one in annoyance, "You don't just take things that aren't yours like that! Give that guy his hat back!"

"Actually Liz,..." the refined boy said holing up one hand, the boy scanned the Gold-Scythe carefully, "...with and without that hat he is perfectly symmetrical, but I prefer him without the hat... wait..." the boy scanned him a second time. "You wouldn't happen to be the new student? The amnesiac?"

FullMetal kicked the ground beneath his feet and nodded, "Y-yes,...I'm FullMetal Alchemist Mizune..."

"Its nice to meet you," the refined boy smiled, "I'm Death the Kidd, and these are my Weapon Partners," he referred to the two girls, "Liz and Patty Thompson."

"So you're the one that we've heard about so much." Liz said but suddenly her eyes gazed down at him in a way that made the Mizune want to take a step back. "...wait...don't move..." Before he could ask why, Liz took out a cloth, licked it then rubbed his cheeks with it, erasing the drawn whiskers off of him. "There. That's-..."

Before Liz could finish her sentence, FullMetal swiftly took back his hat from Patty and put it on and pulled it down to hide his face that was turning a deep shade of red.

"...-better..." Liz finished. She looked at him curiously.

"Liz, you're embarrassing him," Kidd said in a bit of a small complaining tone, "you don't have to treat him like a child."

"I can't help it," Liz defended, "the whiskers were bothering me."

"Awww, but he looked cute with the whiskers!" Patty whined.

"NOT HELPING!" FullMetal thought as he hid face which was turning a deeper shade of red as he pulled his hat down further.

Kidd sighed, "Why don't the two of you get to class or something, I'm going where ever FullMetal is going, he looks like he needs to hang around someone of the same gender after having to go through that little motherly stunt you pulled, Liz."

"Whatever." Liz rolled her eyes, and she and her sister began to walk off.

After a moment of pure silence Kidd said, "Alright they're gone, you can stop hiding behind that hat and come out."

FullMetal slowly put the hat back to normal and looked at Kidd, "S-sorry, its...its just...I'm a little-"

"-Shy?" Kidd said finishing the Gold-Scythe's sentence. FullMetal nodded. Kidd just smiled, "Don't worry about it, I have a friend who doesn't know how to deal with anything, so there's no need to be like that."

FullMetal simply nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right..."

"So where are you headed?"

"The library..."

As the two walked to the library Kidd couldn't help but ask, "So... what is it like...you know... being an amnesiac?"

FullMetal slightly thought about it, "Horrible...but yet not..." he said, "Its... its hard to explain..." he stopped and tried to think of a way to explain the way he felt on the subject, he then thought about the dream he had. "Well... Its kind of hard to distinguish dreams and imagination from your possible old memories." Kidd raised an eye brow, "You see, I had a dream about a dark room and purple lightning, there was also a voice screaming for their brother, then when the lightning and screaming stop, I head another voice asking someone if they'll seize a chance that the military could give them, then everything faded to white and I saw my old red cloak blowing in the wind... so I can't really tell if it was just a dream or a memory..."

Kidd looked at him surprised, "Well do you have anything else that could connect you with that dream? Something relating to a military or a picture of you with someone?"

"Yes actually... but it gives me a bad feeling... all of my old things do actually..." FullMetal said, "I have a blue military uniform with enough badges for the rank of a Major."

Kidd was shocked, "Then if there are that many connections then it was probably a memory."

"That's what I was thinking..." FullMetal sighed. "But I have a feeling that there are just some memories that shouldn't be remembered..."

"Why do you say that?"

The weapon shrugged, "Its just a hunch..."

After a while of reading it was time for class, and Kidd noticed that FullMetal was feeling queasy, after all it was his second time in Stine's class. After class it was time for lunch and this time FullMetal was able to meet Crona Gorgon and Ragnarok.

Crona was rather thin boy with a bit of a monotone expression, he had pink hair and dark purple eyes. His hair was quite short, with several long, large clumps sticking out in several places. The bangs are straight cut and end above the eyebrows, but don't stay very uniform. Two long pieces of hair extend from the bangs and hang low over his face. He wore a long black old-style robe that was tight-fitting and ends at the mid-calf level on his legs. The robe was completed with white cufflinks at the ends of each sleeve and a tall white button up collar at the neck. Black slipper-like shoes with a tall white cuff protruding out the top with them.

Ragnarok was a little black mass of black blood, he was protruding out of Crona's back. The little mass had a large rounded white "X" on his face, large ping-pong ball-like eyes with black "X"s for pupils. His hands were small white circles.

When FullMetal met Crona, the pink haired boy immediately apologized for the death of the sixth Mizune. And FullMetal explained that the sisters didn't blame him, but Medusa for the death of the sixth sister. Which was a relief to the Gorgon child.

"So, FullMetal, how do like the DWMA so far?" Maka asked.

"Its pretty nice." FullMetal said, "Everything so far is really neat."

"Well that's good to hear." Tsubaki smiled.

Kidd nodded in agreement. "Trust me when I say that you'll find this place to be perfect when you adjust."

FullMetal gave a light smile. Then out of the blue, a man...wait a minuet... the man was no man! He was a zombie! A zombie walked up to the table that they were at!

The zombie had bluish skin and a flat, piggish nose, with pupil-less eyes and a mouth that persistently displayed his top and bottom teeth. His hair was in dreadlocks and he had a white band on his head that had a fairly large hole in it which showed another whole in the zombie's head. He wore blue jeans with a small chain hanging from one side and sneakers accompanied by a simple white basketball jersey embellished with a red number twenty-three on either side.

The zombie made FullMetal's hair stand on end. And to creep him out even more, Maka and the others didn't even seem fazed by the thing.

"Hey Sid!" Maka smiled at the zombie.

"Maka, Soul, FullMetal, Lord Death wants to speak with you in the Death Room." Sid said casually.

FullMetal was surprised to see that the undead man actually had mental consciousness, it was undead but still had a mentality, which was a relief. FullMetal fallowed Maka, Soul and Sid to the Death Room.

The Death Room was just how he remembered it when he first saw it through the use of the mirror that Mabaa had wrote the numbers on. Lord Death and his Death Scythe were in the room standing by a fairly large mirror with a skull on it. FullMetal noticed that when Maka had saw Death Scythe, she scrunched her nose and looked away, signifying that she knew him, but didn't like him in the slightest.

"Ah, Maka, Soul, FullMetal, how nice it is to see the three of you! How've you all been?" Lord Death said happily.

"Hey, Lord Death!" Maka smiled, "Why'd you call us here?"

"Ah, yes. Well,..." the deity looked over to FullMetal, "since FullMetal here is new, I thought that the two of you should show him the ropes to Keishin Egg hunting."

"Hm," Soul glanced at the fellow young scythe then over to Death, "He didn't seem to need to during his fight with Black Star yesterday."

"Oh?" Death tilted his head curiously and Death Scythe along with Sid raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, he won the fight with pure skill and timing, it almost wasn't even a fight at all, considering the fact that it was so short." Maka stated.

"Is that so?"

The three students nodded.

"That's surprising," Sid said, "Black Star has fought many students here and won almost every single one. For him to lose so easily to a new student is... well...surprising."

"He's kidding, right?" FullMetal thought, "He just has to be, sure the fight was short and simple, but still... he has to be kidding!...but... now that I think about it...I didn't have much control of myself during the fight at all... it was like I was lighter than air..." he then spoke up, "Well, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but that was my first fight ever…well from my knowledge. You need to remember I-...I have amnesia... so maybe in the past, I had gotten into several fights or something!"

"Hmm. He has a point." Sid nodded.

"No kidding." Death Scythe muttered.

"So its settled then, Maka, Soul, the two of you will take FullMetal with you on your next Keishin Hunting trip." Lord Death said cheerfully.

The three students agreed and were dismissed, Maka began telling the Alchemist key things so that way he could be prepared because she wanted to go hunting on the weekend, which was only in a few days. He made a mental checklist, be observant, be careful, be on time, be brave, be prepared.

Maka looked at FullMetal carefully, "Oh, FullMetal, you might want to wear something different than what you're wearing now."

"Huh? Why?" FullMetal asked.

"She's right, you need to wear something more comfortable and good for combat. Don't get me wrong, you were great in that fight with Black Star, but your clothes look to be a bit heavy, try wearing something a bit lighter, so you won't be too heavy and you'll be able to be faster than you already are." Soul said.

FullMetal thought about it, "Okay, I will."