LtM: I told you guys we'd continue! This is just gonna keep getting better and better, and wouldn't dream of letting it die out with just one chapter! So, thanks to Andie and I having great ideas (mostly her with a HUGE one that will tie in nicely), EtherPad, and free time during our second period, we should be able to get chapters out a little bit faster now. This'll most likely be a story with many, MANY, chapters, so please bear with us.

G00ZER: Also, this is no longer a WIP :D

Back in Central Military Headquarters of Amestris, a young 20-something man tiredly huffed while reading and signing through stack-upon-stack of papers. Deciding that it had already been three hours and that he could use some coffee, he glanced up for an instant to see if he had a chance. He smirked, noticing that the young, blonde woman sitting in the chair in the corner - who had ordered herself to keep an eye on him to have him finish his homework - was reading the newspaper at the moment while sipping coffee herself, her gaze away from him.

The man, wearing a white button-up undershirt from having taken his full navy blue uniform off due to the debilitating heat of summer, cautiously rose from his seat behind his work papers and crept across the room for escape.

"Hold it right there, sir," announced the woman, not averting her eyes from her reading. The man cursed under his breath.

Time for excuses, he thought. "Lieutenant Hawkeye," the man sighed, "I can no longer feel my right hand. What if I become crippled with tendonitis? At least allow me a mere coffee break." His charcoal orbs pleading with his captor.

The Lieutenant looked up to meet his eyes without a sliver of sympathy in her expression. "Colonel, you've been procrastinating for the past week. This is your make-up time for all the work that has built up. If you want coffee, I'll have Sheska get you some. Now return to your desk."

The Colonel dejectedly began to turn back to his spinning chair in a slouch. How he could let someone who was a lower rank than himself order him around like this, he did not know.

Just as he was submitting back to the torture of a desk job, he was spared the bordom by the office door slamming open against the wall.

"Colonel Mustang, *huff, huff*, the Fullmetal Alchemist *huff* wishes to speak with you."

"Officer Fallman, what's with your state? Did you just run four miles or something?" Mustang chuckled at the officer's stature.

Disregarding the previous remark, Fallman continued: "*huff* He said it was urgent, sir! *huff* He came bashing through the front doors in a rage shouting something about weapo -"

Edward Elric stormed through the doorway and shoved the officer aside, Alphonse in tow. "Mustang! Do you have any idea what nonsense I just heard? Apparently, the Philosopher's Stone is in the hands of another dimension! Why haven't I heard about this 'Death City'?" The alchemist reached over the Colonel's desk and snagged him by the collar, his face flaming red. Hawkeye put down her coffee and paper hurriedly and stood, prepared. "You must've heard of this! You're always hiding something from me! What do you know that I don't?"

Colonel Mustang twitched irritatedly and tugged Ed's human hand off of his shirt. He rose once again from his seat. "Fullmetal, calm down. I do not understand what you are raving about, but lashing out like this at your superior is not going to help you."

"Al, what is he talking about?" Hawkeye asked, attempting to shift the focus back onto more important topics before a scuffle for authority began.

"We found some...well, it's kind of hard to explain," the armored boy's voice echoed shyly inside his chamber of a body. "You should probably come see for yourself."

"We might as well," Mustang said with a shrug. "If it's so important that you feel the need to pull me away from my work," his eyes twinkled with mischief. Hawkeye supressed a scoff.

While the superior, the subordiate, and the alchemist bantered with each other, the brother watched with silent happiness. The only exception was that he was not silent only from pure happiness, but also from utter confusion at something that had suddenly caught his attention.

Inside of his empty helmet of a head, Alphonse said nothing; yet he swore that he heard a voice. It was a incoherent and weak boyish voice, but he felt that he had heard it before.

"How...start, Sekai? ...what lead...betrayed...you banished?"

Al shook his head profusely with dismay. Hawkeye's concerned gaze bore into the glowing holes that he used for eyes. Al shrugged sheepishly in response to her worried features. The voice that had filled his essence returned, but it was not as broken in fluency as the first time:

"So you were a quiet and reserved individual, Sekai?"

Another stronger and more masculine voice, most likely this "Sekai" person, ricocheted off the metal walls within Alphonse's being:

"Yes, I preferred my peace. I spent most of my time alone and usually in the library. I hardly ever spoke to anyone, not even my own meister."

If Alphonse had a face, it would portray one with a complete lack of understanding for a situation. 'Meister?' He felt hopeless on struggling to decypher these strange words.

"It started when I called him to reveal the news." Sekai murmured. "Just as usual, he was extatic to see us; Moji and I had proven ourselves unstoppable in capturing souls, and we had just caught our hundredth."

As he listened intently with a new piked interest, Alphonse soon forgot his surroundings.

The small voice came back, "what did he say?"

"Well, While Moji was declaring that all we needed was a witch for him to turn me into a Death Scythe, a pestering redheaded pre-adolescent pipped in." Al could almost imagine the head of the low voice shaking with disgust.

Annoyance still lacing every syllable, Sekai did not halt the story yet, "He was shouting that it was not fair for me to be a death scythe; that he was going to be one. I basically called him an idiot when I snapped and said that Lord Death can have multiple scythes."

Al heard the other meek voice laugh hushedly.

"That was when Death ignored the young child and said that we were in luck because he knew of some witches that we could easily collect," Sekai drawled. "I answered with my devilish smirk and bellowed that I looked forward to being of service as his weapon."

Al shivered when he heard Sekai bitterly laugh at reciting his past. The daunting chortle eventually faded out from his hearing. When he looked back up to where Ed, Mustang, and Hawkeye once were, he discovered that he had been abandoned.

"...Brother?"

LtM: Oooooh, mystery! :D Yeah, so Sekai is an OC, just to point that out. No need to scan through the Soul Eater/FMA wikkis to look for him. XD

G00ZER: This chappie was UBER fun to write! xD Well anyway, on a random note, guess where Lizzie and I are headed next weekend? ANIMAZMENT, BABY! Whoohoo! She's going to be L, and I'm going to be Death the Kid (and another friend is going to be Roy Mustang). This is going to be soo fun! We'll tell you dudes/dudetts about it next chapter (which will be coming faster!) :D

- WRITERS OUT!