Chapter Eight

It took the two alchemists precisely two seconds to race straight for their shared room after Morgan relayed the news about the most recently discovered body. Once in their room, both alchemists were ready to go in thirty seconds flat, however, Ed grabbed Mustang's arm to stop him from leaving. Ignoring Mustang's confused look, Ed picked up the marker he had borrowed the previous day from the hotel staff and uncapped it, turning back to face his commanding officer.

"Alright, show me some skin."

Mustang almost choked while Ed burst out laughing at the expression on his face. "Relax, Mustang. I'm going to draw the energy absorbing array I made yesterday on both of us. It needs to be drawn onto the skin directly for it to be effective. So you need to choose a spot you can easily access to activate the array, should we find ourselves in an alchemic fight with Harding," Ed explained, although not all the humour was quite out of his voice.

Mustang glared at Edward, but started to consider the best placement for the array. "You think Harding will attack us?" he asked as he finally decided on his abdomen. If he left his shirt loose instead of tucking it in the way he usually did, he could easily slip a hand up underneath it to activate it. He untucked his shirt and lifted it out of the way so Ed could draw the array. "He already attacked us once outside the hotel and you were able to repel it. He wouldn't make the same mistake again, would he?"

"I don't know. I've just got this…feeling. I can't explain it yet, but something's not adding up for me. I just think we should be prepared for anything," Ed replied as he bent over slightly so that he was eye level with Mustang's gut. (Which was something he never ever thought he'd have to do.) "Don't flinch. I'm about to start," he added as a warning.

Mustang nodded and stood as still as he could, which was hard considering he was slightly ticklish. But it was all over in a matter of seconds, much to Mustang's relief. He wasn't sure how long he could have tolerated the ticklish feel of the marker if the array had been more complex than it was.

Ed stared at his handiwork for a few extra seconds, double checking the symbols and line work. As with every array, every single part had to be perfect. A rebound would occur if it wasn't, and Edward wasn't willing to find out just how bad a rebound this particular array would be against the alchemist who activated it. He shuddered just thinking about it. Satisfied with the appearance of the array on Mustang's skin, he straightened up and pushed up the sleeves of his left arm to expose his forearm. Mustang was thinking about what Ed said as he finished loosely tucking in the tail of his shirt.

"Oi, make yourself useful, Colonel Bastard."

Mustang immediately noticed the kid's problem. His sleeves kept falling back to cover over the area Edward was trying to draw his array on, making it impossible for Ed to finish the array without any mistakes. He moved to stand to Edward's left and pulled the sleeves up, holding them in place. Edward glared at him, waiting for him to make a comment about his height or his jackets, but when none were forthcoming, went back to his task.

"What did you mean when you said nothing was adding up for you?" Mustang asked after a moment. He'd had a bad feeling ever since Agent Morgan had told them Harding had killed again. Harding knew they were here. He knew who he and Ed were and knew their reputations weren't exaggerated. So why did he kill someone and risk Ed and Roy catching his trail instead of staying out of sight. He noticed Ed had finished his array and let go of his sleeves. Ed recapped the marker before sighing.

"Come on, we need to get back to the agents. I'll explain on the way," he added the last part to quell any objection Mustang might've had as he moved towards the door. A little irked at Edward's not-quite-dismissal of his question, Mustang followed him out, shutting the door a little more firmly than necessary.

"Now, there are some limitations to the array. It probably won't stay active for more than ten minutes, fifteen if we're actually using the alchemic energy. I don't know about you, but it takes me nearly twelve hours to recover after a full alchemic fight in Amestris, one where I nearly drain all the energy immediately available to me. Here, we have maybe a quarter of the usual energy available to us, so it would take me nearly four times as long to completely refill my internal supply. With this array, we can absorb the energy at triple the rate we do now. If we activate it during any alchemic fight with Harding, we shouldn't lose much more energy than normal, as long as we wrap the fight up before the array deactivates. After that, our transmutations will drain us twice as fast as they would back home."

Mustang absorbed this information. He wasn't going to take anything Ed told him about alchemy lightly, especially not about an array the kid himself created. But he noticed a detail that Edward hadn't elaborated on. "There's nothing that would prevent us from immediately reactivating the array once it deactivates, is there?"

"Only the limits of available energy in our vicinity," Edward replied. "We'll absorb it three times as fast as we would without the array, which means we'll also deplete it from our surrounding area three times as fast – well, six times as fast if we're both using the array at the same time. I don't want to theorize about what a rebound might do to us if we tried activating the array when there wasn't enough alchemic energy available for the array to draw in."

"Got it. Now back to my original question. What about this isn't adding up for you?" Mustang noticed that they'd almost reached Agents Morgan and Jareau, the former looking a little irritated.

Edward sighed. He knew that Mustang wouldn't forget, but he'd hoped that his commander would at least let it go for a little while. He didn't particularly like to try to explain his thought processes with anyone except Alphonse, but Al knew him better than anyone else did, and bouncing ideas off of his brother usually yielded interesting avenues of exploration. With Mustang, he didn't really know what might happen. Mustang had a different way of looking at alchemy, since he had obviously been trained by a different teacher in his early years of being an alchemist, but his alchemic knowledge also wasn't as broad as Ed and Al's was, thanks to Teacher's training and their own variety of research over the years. Was it possible that Mustang might be able to help him out in the same way Al did, or would he only be setting himself up for more taunting?

"The Truth never told us exactly what happened, but I don't think that Harding came here the same way we did. Something else brought him here. If Truth had permitted him to pass, then it would be able to bring him back. Everyone who passes through Truth's Gate is linked to it, whether they want to be or not. If Harding got out of hand or started to go against the deal he and Truth made, Truth would simply force him back. Since Truth was forced to call in the favour I owed it, my guess is that Harding bypassed Truth somehow. I just don't know how. It goes completely against equivalent exchange." Once Ed had started, he couldn't stop, even after they reached the two agents. Neither JJ nor Morgan knew what Ed was talking about, but they didn't have time to ask.

"About time you two turned up. Come on; you can finish whatever the hell you're talking about in the car. We've got to go," Morgan ordered, already hurrying towards the entrance with JJ on his heels. The two alchemists wisely decided not to risk pissing the already irritated agent off even more and followed both of them to the car. Morgan didn't waste any time in pulling out onto the street, barely giving his passengers a chance to fasten their safety belts, and pressing a button to turn on a set of flashing red and blue lights. Whatever the lights meant, it seemed to help them make their way through traffic with more ease than Mustang would have expected considering that even this late at night the streets were still bustling and active. Mustang had a feeling that Morgan drove whenever he was able, much like Hawkeye. He could only hope that the man wasn't as trigger happy as his lieutenant. He had a feeling that the agent wasn't as likely to fire a warning shot as Hawkeye was.

But even as they drove, Mustang was mulling over what Ed had been telling him. He could see why the situation wasn't adding up for the teen. Equivalent exchange was the most important rule in alchemy – the foundation of all alchemic teachings, in fact. It was the first thing that ever single alchemy student was taught. So how did Harding manage to bypass Truth with a transmutation as massive as dimensional travel? It made no sense whatsoever. He glanced at Edward, but the kid was busy looking out the window. To a casual observer, the teen was absorbed in watching the scenery flash by, but Mustang was too used to the blond's habits to be fooled by the casual pose. Ed was trying to figure out an answer that made sense.

Suddenly, Edward sat up straight, as if he'd been electrocuted. "Mustang –" he started to say, but Morgan slammed on the brakes, interrupting his train of thought.

"We're here. Let's go find the others," the agent said, already half out of the car. Whatever Ed was about to say was quickly forgotten as they followed the two agents. Neither alchemist was a stranger to murder scenes, but this time they were in a completely foreign country where they didn't know the laws or procedures. With a shared, silent glance, they agreed to follow the agents' lead.

The new murder scene was back at the park, it seemed, and there were patrol cars parked all over the vicinity, their red and blue lights casting odd shadows against nearby trees and landscaping. Uniformed officers were everywhere, and wooden sawhorses had been set up to barricade the footpaths and roads that led toward the crime scene, each one manned by a pair of officers who were checking identification and protecting the scene from curious bystanders.

A large white van lettered Coroner was parked nearby and two attendants were waiting with a stretcher and a body bag to collect the newest victim for transport to the morgue once they were given the all clear to approach. Thanks to the crime novels he'd read earlier that night, Edward was able to recognise a great deal of what was going on, in a vague, detached way. Under other circumstances, he would have been asking dozens of questions, trying to figure out what everyone was doing and how it related to investigative work in this world.

"So, those FBI agents were here last year during those fake terrorist attacks?" one officer was saying as JJ showed her badge to two of the officers stationed at the beginning of the footpath before waving him and Mustang past the barricade.

"Yeah, it's the same team. They've been here a couple of times helping to catch all these serial killers that keep popping up. Personally, I wouldn't want to do what they do – crawling around inside the minds of those psychos, trying to think how they think?" a second officer shuddered as he replied, before Ed and Mustang were out of hearing range.

Terrorist attacks? Edward wondered. What exactly is a terrorist attack? He filed that away as another question to ask Dr. Reid when they got back to the station later.

"What's a kid like that doing here?" he heard from another officer they passed. "He can't possibly be a Fed, and he's definitely not NYPD, so what's going on?"

"Maybe he's a witness to this one?"

"Damn, I hope not. No kid should have to witness something like that."

The footpath was lined with streetlamps that cast golden pools of light at regular intervals, while the pathway wove its way between clusters of pine trees, carefully sculpted flowerbeds and neat hedgerows. Edward was beginning to get an uneasy feeling. The setting was too similar to the large park in Central where Hughes had been killed, and considering his nightmare earlier, the coincidences just felt too convenient.

The rest of the BAU, minus Garcia, were waiting near the second SUV and one of the barricades. Ed surmised that she was back at the police station working with her computers and the cameras she'd been called in to monitor. Ed's step faltered as he caught sight of the other agents' faces. He didn't know them very well, but he was certain that something had happened to disturb the agents. They didn't seem like the type to get queasy at a simple murder scene like what they'd been facing with Harding already. Granted, seeing a body that had been boiled alive from the inside wasn't pleasant, but Edward had seen other, far worse things caused by alchemy.

Maybe he changed his method to something more gruesome? Edward wondered.

Hotch nodded at them and led the way further down the path, in what Edward presumed was the actual crime scene. The further they went, the more people they passed – officers and evidence technicians searching the bushes and the grass on the sides of the path primarily. He also noticed that the officers they passed were looking oddly at him and Mustang. It was almost as if they'd seen a ghost. The uneasy feeling he'd been having was turning into an unpleasant knot in his gut. There was only one reason he could think of that would make the officers and the seasoned FBI agents look at them like that. So he stopped in the center of the path, causing the others to stop as well once they realised he was being left behind.

"Fullmetal? What's wrong?" Mustang asked.

Edward ignored him and focused on Hotch and Rossi, as the two senior agents and clear leaders of the team. He crossed his arms over his chest and glared at them pointedly, in the same way he did whenever he was challenging Mustang over an assignment. "Which one of our reflections did Harding kill?" The way he asked left absolutely no room for them to lie or evade the question.

The agents all glanced each other, their masks wavering like the expressions of children who'd been caught in a lie.

Mustang moved to stand just behind him, silently supporting him, but not saying anything. Ed assumed that he'd also realised what the shocked expressions meant.

"Ed-" Prentiss began, her voice adopting the tone she would use when telling someone about a loved one's death, but Ed interrupted her.

"Which one?" His voice was even more demanding this time, his expression not flickering a hair and leaving no room for argument. Silence followed his demand.

He was about to ask for a third time when Hotch finally chose to answer him.

"You, Edward. You were killed."

A/N - BOOM! Eighth chapter revised for you lovely people! Please let me know what you think to PhoenixQueen's lovely work!