Hehe, next chapter! To those that reviewed on the fourth chapter that didn't recieve a reply, it was not your computer, or your imagination, and you did not say something wrong. I just felt lazy and did not reply to you. RELIEVE YOURSELF OF YOUR WORRY FOR NOT RECIEVING A REPLY! Ahem... Sorry. So, here it is!

Moonlight-Arashi: I know it wasn't... DX But I had to write it to get to this chapter. And plus, I kind of wanted to show Riley had a serious side at times.

Thanks to everyone else who reviewed!
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The Sulfer Alchemist
Chapter Five:
The Power...Sucks.

I sat in my chair, staring at Mustang intensely. An arm rested on my knee with another on the arm rest, I continued to smack my gum loudly. This was my method of getting a job.

Annoy the shit out of your boss until he gives you something just to get you out of his hair.

And besides, I was wanting to get the hell out of this place. Who would want to spend more than a week in a big plain white building with a bunch of stiffs?

Roy sighed frustratingly, "Riley, I am this close to burning you alive." I smirk and smack louder. His clenched fists were shaking, as he glared at his paperwork. Riza didn't bother doing anything. She figured the noise made him concentrate on his paperwork harder.

And I was sure that Roy really would burn me alive, but did I care? Of course not!

I mean, after all who wouldn't be pissed off with someone that tried to paint the walls to the military HQ pink because it needed to be more fun? Or, someone that put itching powder in all the military uniforms so she could get people to dance?

Or my personal favorite, poured yellow food dye in the drinking water, and poured hot sauce in the bread mix?

Heh, fun times.

"Give me a job, and I will." I say simply.

Roy glares at me as he says, "Why don't you go to Rush Valley, then? Ed's going there. They could probably use your area of expertise."

Scowling, I stand. "Better than nothing, I guess." I mutter before leaving the office.

. . .

I walk into the hotel Hannah and I stayed in, and saw her sitting on one of the beds, reading a really good book. "I got a new job." I say as I plop down on the other bed.

Hannah looks up at me expectedly, "Where?"

Smirking at her, I show her a map of the world. I move my finger and once I figured it was on the right spot (the map wasn't facing me, but I knew where the location was), I stopped and pointed. "Rush Valley." Hannah sighs before grabbing my finger and moving it dramatically across the whole map.

"Rush Valley is on the completely other side, Riley." She remarks sarcastically.

I scoff, moving the map down so she could see the scoff. "Don't be picky." I retort. She rolls her eyes and I say, "Boss wanted me to snap some shots of the hills in Rush Valley. It's a coincidence, huh?"

Real coincidence. Sometimes it seemed as though my lies were too close to the truth for comfort. Like this for instance.

She nods, "Do you think maybe I could see my family while we're there? I don't have to if you want me to tag along, but it's just. . ."

Throwing her an understanding smile, I say, "Don't worry about it! I'm sure I can handle myself with you gone for just one day Hannah. I'm not that hopeless."

She gives me an accusing look. Shaking her head, she says, "You thought Rush Valley was in Antarctica."

My brows furrow as I hold the map up, turning it to me. "Really?" I ask as I examine the map. Hannah only rolls her eyes and walks into the bathroom. "Give me some credit Han, at least I got the right map!"

"That was one time! One time Riley!" She shouts through the door, causing me to snicker.

I stood as I grabbed my bag, packing all my things for the trip. "So are you just going to walk after we get to Rush Valley or should we call someone to pick you up?" I ask as I opened the bag. I picked up my clothes that lay scattered along the ground as I wait for an answer.

"Eh, I'll just walk. It's an hour walking." She says. I throw the clothes in my bag, and walk toward the other pile of my clothes. But, of course, something had to happen, to make this story a little bit funnier.

My foot got caught in the covers, which were laying on the bed, and on the floor. "Eeeh!" came flying out of my mouth as I began to fall. I was amazingly able to stumble out of the covers.

But, this is me we're talking about. Would I really be able to get out of such a situation?

If you said no, bingo! That's correct!

Yes, I did stumble out of the clothes. But then I tripped on the pile of clothes that I was going to pick up in the first place. Landing with a loud thud on my stomach, I groan in pain as I pick my face up from the floor.

I was probably going to have a red mark on my face.

At the sound of the door opening, I look up and see Hannah standing there. The worried look on her face changed to dull when she sees me on the ground. "Riley?" She asks.

"Hannah?" I ask with a happy look on my face.

She sighs, placing a hand on her hip. "Did you just trip over your clothes?" She asks accusingly.

My eyes go wide a moment, but I scowl. "Pssh, no! I was just. . .checking the floor!" I exclaim with a wide smile.

"For what?" Hannah asks shortly.

I raise my eyebrows at her question, "What? For what. . .I was looking! For. . .Ants." I then smash my finger down on the ground in front of me, crushing an invisible ant.

"And you were smashing them with your face?" Hannah asks sarcastically. I pause, before nodding, still smiling stupidly. I chuckled a bit, but she only groans and shuts the door with a roll of her eyes.

I thought it was funny.

I rush up to my feet as I collect the clothes, mumbling dark words at them venomously as I planned my revenge on them.

Heh, I've always wanted to see what would happen if I turned them into flaming cannonballs...And threw them at people.

. . .

I kicked my feet back and forth as I counted each tree we passed. Yes, tree. And man, was it hard! But I was doing a great job at it, as I was at number 5,678, and it was still increas-

5,679.

5,680.

5,681.

Ok, what was I saying?

'Oh no, I completely missed that tree!' I thought as I slammed my face against the window as if it would make the tree come closer. No, literally, I slammed my face against the window...

5,682.

Well, we were on the train to Rush Valley. From what Mustang told me, we shouldn't miss the Elrics. After a while, I had actually started to want to go to Rush Valley. It wouldn't be that bad to see that old man, Marcoh.

I continued to count, which quickly increased because we were passing a forest, when the worst of the worst for all counter people of the world around happened.

Hannah spoke.

"I wonder what my mom will say when she sees me standing on the porch!" She says with a wide smile. She glanced over to me, and her smile faded into confusion. Because, there I was sitting in my seat, staring out the window with wide eyes, my mouth open wide.

I began to tremble as I grabbed my head, falling to my knees. "NOOOOO!!" I scream, causing Hannah to fall out of her seat in shock, and everyone else to yelp in surprise. "I had counted so many too!" I whine.

"What?!" Hannah asks curiously, getting back in her seat as she tried to ignore all the stares.

But I only ignored my friend as I continued, "And we're so close to Rush Valley! There's no point in starting over. . ." Hannah blinked a few times, before making the decision to ignore me and my uncontrollable sobbing.

Hannah suddenly stood from her booth slowly, causing me to stop immediately and look to her. "Huh?" I mumble as I let my blue eyes follow her. "Riley. . .I don't remember what that man looked like. . .But is that. . .?" She asks lowly as she forced a smile and waved. I turn my neck to the direction she motioned to, and my jaws dropped. Sitting there, was of all people, Armstrong. He was waving at us with a huge smile on his face.

'Damn you Armstrong! You're going to uncover my secret to Hannah!'

"Uh. . .Just smile and wave, just smile and wave," I say, waving with a nervous smile. I stood and grabbed my bag as I slowly nudged Hannah out of the booth.

Hannah looked at me flabbergasted.

Hehe, that's a funny word...Flabbergasted.

"You're not making us go over there, are you?!" She asks in a rushed whisper, to which I only shake my head in response. I continued to nudge her backwards and, unnoticeably to Armstrong, reached the door. I slowly opened it and we inched our way to the bridge thing in between our train cart, and the next one.

Once we shut the door, Hannah and I dropped our hands and smiles, and fell to our knees huffing and puffing dramatically. "That was close! Why was he waving at us anyway?" Hannah wonders aloud as we stood back up. I shook my head, signaling I had no answer, and gripped the railing to pull myself up. Then, I thought about how Hannah and I must have looked, as we walked backwards, which huge stupid smiles on our faces, constantly waving our hands back and forth.

Giggling, I realized the neighbors in our train cart must have thought we were psychos ore something. First I scream out of the blue, and then we act like idiots in rewind. Hannah, of course, ignored my sudden giggling. She had gotten use to this a long time ago...

"But, I wonder why he's headed to Rush Valley... Did you see his pocket? He had a State's pocket watch. Maybe we should take a shortcut..." I trail off as I look over the railing to the ground beside us. Hannah looked at me curiously, so I add, "To warn Ed."

Hannah places a hand on her hip, "Why would we have to warn him? What's the big deal, maybe he's doing a routine inspection or something."

I shook my head. "No, from what I heard, he's too high in the ranks. He's a State Alchemist, why would they send him to do a routine inspection? I mean, if he was new and young or something, it'd make sense, but I heard he's been there for years. He was a part of the Ishbal Massacre, and that was seven years ago," I explain as I sit down, and let my legs fall in between the bars of the railing. Resting my elbows on them, I bite the inside of my cheek in thought.

Hannah let out a sigh as she sits down beside me. "So... What, you think he's going to keep an eye on Ed?" She asks, tucking her legs into a criss-cross postion.

I only shrug, "Maybe. Either that, or the military heard of what that Mustang guy did for Ed, and they're planning on bringing Marcoh in. Either way, I think we should warn Ed. Or at least distract Armstong long enough."

Hannah sighs, shaking her head. Turning her neck to look at me, she says, "Riley, you know I'm going to see my family. I can't help with this one." She sends me an apologetic look as she waited for a reply.

I nod, waving a hand at her dismissively before resting both hands behind my head. "I know, I know." Glancing from her to the ground before us again, I say, "Which means I'm going to have to warn Ed. And," I stop as I pull myself up by the railing. Smirking down at Hannah, I bring a leg over the railing before bringing my other leg with it. Standing right at the edge with a tight grip on the rail, I continue, "That means I have to take a shortcut."

Nodding slowly, Hannah grabs my bag. "Be careful," She says before holding the bag behind her. "One," She starts as she holds it back farther.

"Two," I add as I push myself against the railing, bending my knees a bit.

"Three!" We both shout as I push myself away from the rail. Landing with a loud "ow!" and a light thud, I push myself up from my side. Shortly after, my bag lands beside me, flopping a bit. I quickly look to the train and wave at Hannah as she got smaller and smaller.

Eventually, she got to the point where she looked like an ant. A pink, and black clothed ant, but an ant nonetheless.

I turn around to the trees and sigh, grabbing my bag. Slinging the bag over my shoulder, I walk toward the woods. After finding a good tree to use, I jump into the air, grabbing a hold of a branch. I pull myself up so my waist was on the branch, and continuously push down. I heard a crack, and smiled wide.

That's when the power of physics hit me.

"Eek!" Came flying out of my mouth as I, and the branch, went falling to the ground. Pain shoots up through my knees as I land on them. I yelp and fall to my side, grabbing my knees as I spewed random words...

"Deer! My God MAN! Seize the day! Dear Lord! Mangoose! Mangoose isn't even a word, verdammit, I just made it up! It's NOT a word, right?! Ah, who really gives a shit! Polyester SUCKS! Never go home alone unless your with somebody! Ugh...!"

...Ahem.

I slowly got to my feet, still rubbing my sore knees. Putting a hand around one of my bag's straps, I sling it over my shoulder. I pick the branch up and begin to walk to another tree.

Stupid physics, and your no good laws of gravity... You always caused me pain..

. . .

After I had all the branches I'd need, I threw them all in a pile. I clap my hands and place them on the branches quickly. I had to hurry to warn Ed. It was the tree's fault! If stupid gravity and physics didn't have to apply then, of all the other times it could have in my life, I wouldn't have had to take a break just because my knees were hurting!

What? No, I'm not over it! I'm one to hold a grudge.

The branches join together and turn to a wooden rectangle. I sit down on the rectangle, and put my bag down in front of me. Opening the bag, I look inside. There wasn't much. Just stuff I needed. Camera, notebook, pen, spare clothes, Alchemy equipment, a metal cylinder, and a straw.

Don't ask.

I grab the metal cylinder and place it behind me on the rectangle. After clapping my hands, I place them on the metal. It slowly, yet quickly, changes into an engine. Making sure it was at the end, I clap and grab the straw inside my bag. It turns into a string and I tightly tie the engine to the rectangle.

Smirking and cackling evilly, I flip the engine on. And as soon as I did, it shot the rectangle forward, bringing me with it.

Then the power of understanding how to DRIVE hit me.

I didn't know!

"Eek!" comes out of my mouth, for the second time that day, as the piece of wood carried me in zig-zag formation.

"How the hell do you steer this piece of junk?!"


Ramblings - Guess what phrase really rubs me the wrong way.

No, not "Are you pregnant?!"
Not, "OMG, your hair's purple!" I quite like that one.
Not, "Do you need some sort of...Help?"

This is the phrase that gets me, "Like Ed."

For those that don't understand, here are some examples:
"(Insert OC's Name Here) wears a coat Like Ed's."
"(Same Above) doesn't need a transmutation circle, Like Ed."
"(Same Above) is short, Like Ed."
And Etcetera.

People, if that doesn't spell 'Copycat', what does? Don't do it because it's Like Ed, do it because you can, and because it shapes your character's life and personality. Not because you want to make her a female version of Ed.

Ramblings, Done. Sorry if I offended. It's my opinion.

Don't Flame And Drive! Rawr.