Disclaimer: I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist. I only own the plot, a laptop, and a really dark mind.


It had been about two hours since they had removed Alphonse Elric from the large duffel bag. The first thing he remembered thinking was that they were in a pediatric hospital. The floors were tiled in a checkered pattern of blue and red, while the walls were a sickly shade of green. Crudely drawn pictures of various animals, and various posters of cartoon characters lined the walls. There was a small blue counter on the farthest side of the room with various disposable medical supplies, and a hazardous waste bin. Al guessed the room was larger than what it appeared, but there was a pale blue curtain preventing him from seeing the other side.

A small groan from the bed in front of the suit of armor alerted Al to another presence in the room. Since his legs had been almost completely obliterated, Al had a hard time seeing over the end of the bed to the person who inhabited it, but he could just make out two feet, one flesh and one metal, as well as the tips of golden bangs. "Brother?" the suit of armor asked. "Ed are you awake?"

"Alphonse? Oh my god, Alphonse are you okay?" Ed began frantically pulling on the metal restraints that were around his legs and arms. From his angle, Al could see the faint transmutation marks that revealed that those restraints wouldn't come off unless someone wanted them to.

"I'm right here Ed, I'm okay."

"I'm sorry Al, I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I should've made you come with me. I never should have let you go alone."

"It's okay brother, really. It didn't even hurt."

Ed gave a small laugh. "Yeah, but it'll be a hell of an effort to fix."

The opening of the door in the corner cut off the brother's conversation. A faintly familiar woman wearing hospital scrubs and a clipboard walked into their room. Her hair was still up in a bun of golden hair, but this time she was missing the glasses. "You!" Alphonse snarled.

"Alphonse, what are you talking- "

"Good, you're up." Elara glanced down at her clipboard and wrote something. "The doctor will be very pleased to hear that."

"Listen lady," Ed said. "I don't know who you are or what you want, but I've got places to be and if I'm not in those places there will be some very nasty paperwork for me to fill out. So, if you don't mind taking these things off we can both go our separate ways and pretend like none of this happened."

"I'm afraid I can't do that Mr. Elric." Elara slowly turned towards the door and started walking away. "You haven't even seen the doctor yet."

With that, Elara let the door fall shut behind her with a click, and the two brothers could faintly hear the sound of a lock sliding into place.

A slam of a door and the unsettling silence that followed was the only warning Colonel Mustang got before the Fuhrer of Amestris barged into his office.

Sounding quite annoyed, the Fuhrer said, "You have five minutes to convince me to let you go to East City. Go."

The Colonel smiled. He could always count on Havoc to annoy someone into submission. "Sir, as you know the Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric, was sent to East City today to complete a mine inspection."

"Four minutes Colonel."

"I have reasonable suspicion to believe that Major Elric may be in serious danger. As you know, there have been some recent threats against Major Elric in East City. He hasn't been seen by anyone at Eastern Command and the only witness was a waitress at a noodle restaurant that said that she saw Major Elric 'curse, slam down some money, and run down the street.'"

"So you want me to send your team all the way to Easy City on the word of one waitress?" The Fuhrer frowned.

"No, I want you to send my team and I all the way to East City on the threat that something might happen to the Fullmetal Alchemist." Mustang let his voice raise a little, not caring about any consequences that might occur from insubordination. "Imagine what kind of revolt there would be if it got out that something happened to the youngest State Alchemist in history and the Fuhrer of Amestris did nothing to stop it."

The Fuhrer was silent for a while, clearly trying to decide whether he should punish the Colonel for this blatant insubordination. It felt like hours before the Fuhrer finally said something. "Your team stays here. You can go with a person of my choosing. You leave tomorrow morning on the 8:35 train, and I hear no more of this from anyone."

"Sir!" The Colonel saluted, trying not to let a smile creep onto his face.

"Good day Colonel Mustang." With that the Fuhrer turned and left the Colonels office, and Mustang finally let that smile settle on his face.

I'm coming Fullmetal.


A/N: Hey...long time no see right? Yeah...I'm sorry about basically not updating for a year. School got really crazy and I just had a really full schedule. Hopefully I'll be able to update more often now that it's summer. This chapter isn't in perfect quality, but I just wanted to get something out since I hadn't updated in a long time. Well anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Until next week...

-ThePsychedelicBean