Wrote this chapter a long time ago, but didn't get around to editing it for a while. And then it just sat on my desktop. Still not satisfied with it, but I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer, so here you go.

As promised, this chapter has Ed and Al in it!

Thanks to S J Smith and Jiyoung for reviewing.

Hope you enjoy~

Pairings: Hawkeye/Mustang, Winry/Ed

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA…(or I would be rich! XD)

Warning: Spoilers up to chapter 90+…(I think)

Chapter 2

Escape

Amestris: Eastern HQ

Three quick knocks rapped smartly against the heavy oak door to the office.

Without delay in between, Hawkeye promptly rose from her chair, "I'll get that, sir."

Mustang mumbled an inaudible response, nodding his head absently as he marked away at his paperwork. Riza sighed, setting down her own sheaf of papers to open the door. Walking swiftly across the room, boots clicking against the hard tiled floor, she pulled open the heavy wood door to reveal a large, heavyset officer and a tall, lean one standing at attention in the hallway, each carrying a large manila envelope under an arm.

Riza gave them a quick salute; she could tell they were from Central by their uniforms, and kept her face expressionless as she stated curtly, "5th Chief Warrant Officer Riza Hawkeye, how may I help you, sirs?"

They gave a sharp nod in return, "Orders from Central City that Major Roy Mustang and 5th Chief Warrant Officer Riza Hawkeye have a change of post." They handed her the manila envelopes, stepped back with another curt nod, and walked away crisply.

"What a way to flaunt their military professionalism, hmm?" Mustang commented from his seat across the room. Apparently he had looked up just in time to watch the two soldiers take their leave. Riza was scanning the addresses on the envelopes, a crease forming between her brows. Even though she clearly knew that this was a completely different situation, she had the uneasy feeling that this was too similar to the last time she got a post change. Not when she had been demoted to a Chief Warrant Officer, but when she had been assigned to be Fuhrer King Bradley's assistant. That was definitely one experience she would rather forget. She sighed, and reprimanded herself on thinking about things that had happened and already past, and handed the envelope addressed to Major Mustang to said person, opening her own. She perused the papers inside quickly, and was relieved to find that the post change Mustang had filed for had been accepted. She had subconsciously thought that the scene that had unfolded four years ago would repeat itself in the present, though she knew that would be impossible with the homunculi already overthrown.

Mustang let out a low whistle, "I didn't think that they would have gone through all those reports and files that quickly. I only just filed my request last week…"

He leafed through the sheaf of papers quickly, but stopped when one caught his eye, "It seems that we didn't get transferred just out of favor though. The East front at Xing's border seems to have an 'infestation problem'. Sounds to me like they just ran out of faithful lackeys and had to call in some real veterans."

He sighed, "I guess the government nowadays is still corrupted. But what did I expect?" He carelessly tossed the envelope onto the only cleared area of his desk, and leaned back in his chair.

Hawkeye tried to cheer him up, "Look on the bright side, sir, at least you got your transfer, and battling on the East front also means less paperwork."

"Thank goodness," he said with a smirk, but inside he was still broiling. What had Amestris gotten itself into? From one corrupted government and war to another. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. He sighed, a hand resting above his brow, and gave thanks to the small gifts in life, like a transfer that could be one step to a brighter future for a man's country.

Drachma: UHWSeraphim Training HQ

The small, sterile cell was filled with the glare of bright white fluorescent light. The walls, floor, and ceiling were a bare white, and there were no other entrances to the room other than a smooth metal door at the far right of a wall identical to the three others of the cell, with one huge bolt and security lock. A single slot that was currently closed was outlined at the bottom of the door, so food trays could be slid through. The only furniture in the room was a simple steel cot, much like the kind they used in hospitals, with a thin mattress, bare linen sheet, and flat pillow, pushed up against the wall opposite the one with the door. At the edge of the bed sat a golden haired boy—just getting set into manhood at the age of twenty—dressed all in black, hunched, with hands clasped at his chin, and golden irises occasionally shifting towards a corner of the ceiling diagonal from the door. There a surveillance camera was bolted, a red light blinking next to its lens to signify that it was on, and trained on his figure. It was the motion-sensing kind; programmed to follow his every move. Hidden beneath the long golden bangs that reached down to his chin and framed the sides of his face; an earpiece was concealed, occasionally crackling with static in his ear. A miniscule, black microphone for communication was clipped to the collar of his shirt, camouflaging with the equally black fabric.

A voice made raspy by the weak connection of the channel being broadcasted on whispered in his ear, "E-1, get ready for the countdown. Get as many as you can in your section, and I'll meet you at the designated area. Over."

So quietly as to be inaudible to the surveillance camera, and lips barely moving, he replied, "Roger." A click told him that the message had been confirmed, and the line had been closed for now. His eyes slid as inconspicuously as possible towards the camera again, and then at the door.

He waited a few moments, and then the line suddenly clicked back on, spewing static into his ear for a moment before clearing, "Five… four… three… two… one." Even before the line clicked back off, he had leapt with inhuman speed towards the corner of the ceiling that the camera was tucked in and crushed it with a hand, metal against metal. The alarm, screeching throughout the small cell and outside in the corridors— turning all the lights scarlet— immediately began to wail, so he dashed towards the door diagonal and smashed the lock with a swift strike, and gripping the crumpled metal and wrenching it to the side, the door stood gaping out into the flashing corridor, ripped off its hinges. He gritted his teeth and squinted against the glare of the pulsing scarlet sirens, and sprinted down the hallway. He paused at each door that he passed and wrenched them open, shouting quickly into each to escape, but not pausing long enough to see if they followed. Just a few minutes had passed and behind him he already heard boots storming down the hall in his wake. He didn't look back, continuing to smash open the cell doors and running as fast as he could towards his exit, a slim, rectangular opening in the wall of the fortress at the end of the hall that served as a window, and was guarded by four armed guards. Right now they blocked the exit quite well, crowded in front of it, with their machine guns trained on his approaching figure.

When he heard the first gunshots smattering at his heels, he abandoned his job of wrenching open the others' cell doors and concentrated on getting down the hall in one piece. He kept his eyes trained on the sliver of light that was the only part still visible through the bulky suits of the soldiers blocking the window to the illuminated night outside, and repeated to himself to not look back, because if he did, he would probably get shot in a heartbeat. Dashing at full speed, he was a blur, and jumped about three meters before he reached the window, so that he was shooting head on towards the guards. He twisted his body so that his feet were angled toward them instead in midair, and within a few seconds he felt the impact through the soles of his feet, he smashed into their armored chests and knocked them back, where they stumbled upon each other and bashed their heads on the concrete wall behind them. They hadn't expected him to jump, so had not reacted fast enough before he was already crashing into them. He leapt onto the windowsill, hands gripping the top of the window momentarily as his eyes adjusted to the blinding white beams of light piercing through the darkness of the night that the search helicopters swept along the perimeter of the fortress.

Shouts that yelled at him to stop, followed by gunshots that muffled the storming of feet suddenly rose behind him. But by the time the bullets had reached their destination, he was already gone, free falling for a moment down towards the balcony five stories below him from his leap. He reached out with a black gloved hand to graze the smooth concrete wall parallel with his vertical form to slow down his rapid descent. He landed as lightly as he could on the balcony's hard stone floor, making no sound but still sending a jolt through his legs. He winced, but ignored the pain otherwise, and walked toward the railing of the balcony.

His eyes swept the wide snowy landscape illuminated before him by the bright searchlights that scanned its area and excessive floodlights that surrounded the whole of the panorama. The terrain in his field of vision was the front yard of the UHWSeraphim fortress, and was completely flat, covered in a heavy amount of snow, and the only way to get out of the facility, a deathbed for anyone who tried to escape. The flat and completely barren land made it easy to spot a moving target, and easier to shoot it down. The whole area was surrounded with snipers lined along the roof and at every window with their guns pointed and alert for any sign of movement on the ground, and the sky was filled with armed search helicopters that would shoot anyone they spotted down in a heartbeat. No one tried to escape this place. The ones that did try were an example to everyone else of what happened to you if you did. They were shot so swiftly, by every sniper consecutively, that they were but a bloody splatter on the snow, completely unrecognizable, before anyone had even realized that they had made it out to the front. The whole stark area stretched about two football fields long, but the perimeter was where the forest began, and where you would mostly be safe. Anyone who reached that place was one lucky man. But of course, no one ever reached it.

Suddenly, he heard soft footsteps approaching behind him, footsteps that would have been silent to the normal human ear.

"E-1, you made it safely," the male voice said, and 'E-1' could almost hear the smile in his voice. He turned away from the railing and towards a man dressed similarly in all black, with golden eyes and a spiky thatch of short golden hair the same color as his.

"Likewise to you, A-2," he replied without much amusement.

"Do you think the others will really come?" A-2 asked doubtfully, glancing behind him at the dark hallway where shouts could be heard, slowly getting closer. E-1 also glanced up towards the window he had jumped from, but saw no signs of movement. The shouts were getting closer now— they had already wasted enough time.

"I guess we'll leave those wimps to their own devices," E-1 said with a roll of his eyes.

"You can't blame them for not wanting to come," A-2 chastised, "We've all seen what happens to people who try to escape."

"Yeah, yeah," E-1 replied in exasperation, "But they could at least take the chance we gave them." He walked toward the railing again, swinging himself up onto it so that he crouched precariously over three stories of empty space, a direct drop to the flat landscape that was his escape route.

A-2 swung up beside him, and they took one last glance at the building they would hopefully never see again, and jumped.

Amestris: Central HQ

Winry Rockbell was working on a new order for an automail leg in her workshop, when three raps sounded at her door.

"Coming!" she set down her fine-tuning tools and wiped her oil-blackened hands on a stained cloth before heading to the door. She was surprised that they hadn't even bothered to use the doorbell, and suspicious, because none of her customers were supposed to come today… so she didn't know who could be outside. But the military wouldn't let any suspicious-looking personnel into Central… would they? She guessed she just had to trust the headquarters' receptionist.

With a sigh, she opened the door cautiously, out of habit saying, "Rockbell Automail, how may I help you?" But it seemed that the greeting wasn't needed, because she was met with two tall figures that seemed very much to have all their limbs intact. The first man was burly and quite large, the other slim and tall, the latter carrying a large manila envelope.

"Ma'am, you are to be transferred to the battlefield at the East front, Xing's border," the skinny one said curtly, handing her the envelope.

She took it hesitantly, startled at the news.

The two men had just turned away crisply when she suddenly called after them, "Excuse me, but why am I being transferred? I'm an automail mechanic, not a soldier." They turned around, surprised at being asked anything at all.

"A request made by Major Mustang, and the recommendation that you might be… useful at Xing's border from the Führer, from what I've heard," the burly one finally spoke. Winry looked at the envelope in her hand; she guessed that that was reasonable enough. The Xingese were known to be prone to blow things up… so there were bound to be casualties where people would lose more than a few limbs. And she would finally be able see Mustang, a familiar face. She vaguely remembered him as that man four years ago that had ranted to her about how any guy who saw her must fall all over themselves in her beauty, which had been quite annoying.

She shook her head, this wasn't the time and place to be reminiscing about old times, and said to the two officers that were still waiting patiently in the hall, "Thank you, gentlemen." And closed the door when they nodded in return and left.

She clutched the envelope in her hands as she stood with her back against the door. She stared at it; inwardly hoping it would bring her one step closer to Ed and Al. She sighed, and taking a deep breath, tore it open and pulled out the thick bundle of papers inside. She examined the contents quickly, read some about the situation at the battlefront, her assignment, and the usual rules and regulations, criteria, guidelines, safety procedures and whatnot. She assumed she had gotten more than the usual amount of procedures because she was not exactly a soldier, more of an office worker. She had been around enough danger in her lifetime while she had been with Ed and Al on their quest, so she had more than enough common sense about what to do in dangerous situations, though there were probably a few times where she had not done the best thing in that situation… But she still smiled at the thought of a change of scenery, and taking the papers and placing them in order again, laying the folder and leafs on her small wooden dining table, she went back to work.

I hope there was enough action in this chapter XD, though this chapter is shorter than the first one.

On a side note, after finishing reading FMA *spoiler* I was actually pretty disappointed with the ending; I would've liked one that left more of an impact. Oh well. But a lot of unexpected things happened (like Ed not getting his leg back in the end/no more alchemy, and Mustang was blind…but then not?) So technically, this fanfic is no longer accurate… ._. but that's what's to be expected…*spoiler end*

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, and as always, please review !

Thanks for reading~