Chapter 6: Conspiracy

Disclaimer: This goes without saying that I do not own Full Metal Alchemist.

Roy Mustang sat back in his chair as he listened to Edward Elric recall his story about his time on the other side of the gate and how he got back. The question about how he got back had been on Roy's mind lately, but he would wait for the Full Metal Alchemist to tell him himself. It had all started when Edward walked into Roy's office to inform the general about the order of the Philosophers and over a conversation with wine and old stories Roy had managed to get Edward talking about his adventure. The general listened to every word that came out of the young state alchemist's mouth with great interest and soon found himself blocked from everything else in the world. No longer did he pay attention to the roses that lay on Lieutenant Genral Riza Hawkeye's desk, the ones that had personally sent with an invitation to dinner for that very night, nor did he notice that his black gloves were rubbing together very dangerously. The glove factory started making his special ordered gloves in black with a red transmutation circle on the back so as to fit with the new uniforms for the military. The new Fuhrer had developed a thing for black clothes and seemed to grow even fonder of them after seeing General Roy model them once at a fitting.

"Uh general, your gloves are rubbing together," warned Ed, but it was too late as the sparks and flames shot out and burned one of the ends of Ed's ponytail as he jumped out of the way to avoid it. "Hey could you take it easy for once General, those nearly burned me."

"You seem more focused and agile than someone who was drunk a few minutes ago," said Roy as he looked at Ed seriously. "Were you fooling me by pretending to let your story slip so that you could give me only half of the truth?"

"General there are just some things I would like to omit," replied Ed a bit defensively, trying to cover up some bad decisions that he had made.

"I know you brought the Hughes from the other side of the gate here and that you brought another person," announced Roy as he held up a picture of Hughes and another man wearing a mask over his face with short blond hair. "I've already had Colonel Havoc and Colonel Breda look into it and I've ordered them to bring the two men back here."

"What gave you the right to invade my privacy like that, general," asked Ed as he rose from his chair, but he sat back down in it and looked at Roy. "We did immigrate to America and I did meet someone who helped me find another gate into this world. We were chased by NAZIs and that is how we ran into Hughes and his family, but his wife was killed by a stray bullet and the other person used the shooter to transmute us here."

"I want to know the name of this man who helped you," said Roy just before the door opened and Hughes was brought in with a smoking Guile right beside him. "Where is the other man, Full Metal?"

"There he is, General," replied Edward spitefully as he glared at the general. "The man who helped us here was an Irish-American named Sean Guile Stryker, that world's counterpart of Colonel Guile Stryker."

"Oh, I'm a colonel here then," said the other world's Guile in a strange and funny accent. "You know, I always thought I would be better here than just a mercenary who happened to meet the Elric brothers in a bar one day."

"so this is the one who was able to do alchemy on the other side of the gate," said Roy, almost in a manner of laughter, but he was simply musing over the possibilities, all of them meaning danger for Amestrais. "So then, I think I should be getting the full story now."

The monsters face was coming right for Colonel Guile Stryker, but right before it could hit, it reeled its head back while howling in pain. Needless to say, this was very odd for it to do since it had, moments before, been tolerant of all forms of pain, but now there was something, somewhere, doing such damage to the creature that it would have cause to scream. Guile burned the mass of flesh that his feet was caught in before jumping up to see Riza holding what looked like a piece of someone's hand and she was holding it to a lighter that she must have confiscated from Havoc sometime or another. The hand was from the remains of what the homunculus was being resurrected from, but how Riza had gotten the hand. That was nothing important right now because what was important was finishing it off and it could attack before she finished burning the hand of the corpse. Most of the hand was burnt, but Guile still snatched it up and put it over his sword so he could burn the rest of it. The smell of it was so putrid that he almost gagged over it, but right now he had a few questions for Riza.

"Where did you find this," asked the colonel as he looked back at the burning body of the homunculus and he picked out a cigarette to light and smoke, surprised that he could smoke it in front of her.

"It was just lying in the doorway and I knew that someone had left it there and I knew that one of them had brought it to control the monster," replied Riza quickly in one breath, so quick that Guile only stared at her blankly before blinking twice.

"Well I was just wondering where you got it, but it doesn't matter right now," said Guile before he saluted Riza. "Thank you for saving my life Lieutenant General Hawkeye, I owe you one. Hey, there is something on the ground?"

"It looks like a piece of military uniform, obviously one of our members of our military was involved in this," said Riza as she examined the torn blue cloth and noticed the insignia of rank on it. "It's a captain and there happen to be two captains that I know of who would have knowledge of it. One of them is Captain Vashov Ronoche and the other is a bit of an asshole, Captain Carl Grove."

"You're shirt is torn, what happened, lover," asked Lust as she gazed lovingly at the man who sat at the table, the fellow homunculus whom had always known how to make her happy. "You didn't get hurt did you?"

"No I just wanted to leave a clue for them, just so my surprise won't seem so cruel to them," replied the homunculus as he poured a glass of wine for her and himself and put it to his lips. "We must think of the future and we must gain enough allies to help us against my enemies the Philosophers and their empress. At first the agent of the Philosophers will try to convince Roy that I am working for the Philosophers and as such I must work to keep them from believing such things and soon I will be able to take the blinds from their eyes. That is why I need to keep Roy alive because he is the only one who could believe me and see through the web of deceit around him as well as help me to see all of my enemies and their grand plan. Even I am not without ignorance, annoying, yet at the same time amusing. I know not of how many Philosophers there are or the names of all of those in the military that work for them. In fact, all of the generals and brigadier generals could be working for the Philosophers, but I will believe that they couldn't have gotten that many people. Still, they do have someone with great power, but I know not who."

Edward Elric was just finishing his story when Riza and Guile had walked into the room, much to his immediate displeasure because now he would have to let Guile know of his other counterpart and any meeting of the two in the same place on the same plane could mean disaster for both. Roy figured this to be the reason why Ed had kept Sean's existence a secret and told Havoc to inform Colonel Guile that he would have to wait outside while he talked with Lieutenant General Riza Hawkeye. Guile was a bit annoyed by this, but he didn't feel like fighting with Roy at that moment. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone walking out of the room, someone who looked like him and he told Havoc he was going outside for a smoke, but really he was going to see who it was that he had seen.