Alright. So. I know I said this was just a oneshot, but apparently I lied? Whatever. I was bored, and this happened. I may just do this as a series of little drabbles, because I feel like the world is kind of fun, you know? Anyway, here we go.

Chapter 2

(sort of?)

There really was no point in resisting the urge to smirk, so Roy didn't. After months at sea, almost randomly patrolling the Eastern sector chasing leads, his fleet had finally spotted the Fullmetal crew. Or ship. Or captain. He shrugged mentally, they'd find out which soon enough.

The ship was just as odd as the descriptions Maes had sent him. It was more like a black metal box than any ship Roy had ever seen. With a small . . . shed of some sort made of the same metal pearched near the back of the 'deck'. The shed had windows all around it for a 3600 view. There were no masts or sails. Some token railing here and there, but not even fully surrounding the deck. There appeared to be just enough rope to tie the ship up, but no more. Two metal pipes extended up through the deck near the stern, letting out puffs of black smoke.

And, most importantly, it clearly had no reliance on wind or currents. The small ship could clearly move about wherever it wanted. Roy was intriqued.

"Move in, Captain." As a State Alchemist, Roy technically was of equal rank to a Captain. Sometimes a State Alchemist would actually be given permanent command of a ship and crew, if their alchemy was apprpriately focused. This wasn't the case for Roy, but he'd been put in charge of all three of the surrounding ships with the task of bringing in this odd pirate crew, so for now he was actually giving orders to all three of the Captains.

As his orders were relayed and the crews began to scramble about the deck and rigging, their target changed course. Right toward the small fleet of heavily armed Navy battle ships.

Roy cocked one eyebrow in surprise. Sure, these pirates had taken on quite a few trained Navy crews at this point, but never more than one at a time. Were they planning to ram them? He mentally scoffed as he adjusted his gloves. No matter. This would be over shortly.

Twenty minutes later, Roy scowled from his place directly in front of his crew. They were all, including Roy, kneeling on the deck with hands bound behind their backs. Well, most of them. He glanced to his right, where Havoc was somehow entangled in what used to be pristine rigging, almost completely inverted with only his left leg dangling free as his face turned slowly redder with the blood rushing down to it. Below him, Breda was leaning slightly sideways, hands encased within the metal of the canon he had been aiming at the pirates.

Said pirates were currently chatting calmly on the deck of their own, odd ship, which was currently pulled alongside Roy's. With a decisive nod, the small blonde one turned and made eye contact with Roy. A sharp, manic grin spread slowly across the boy's face before he jumped over onto the railing of the Navy ship, casually catching his gloved left hand in the lines there. Of course, he had to grab it with his left hand, since his right hand (which was apparently automail) had a foot long blade extending from it.

"Now, down to business," the boy declared.

Roy's reply was another eyebrow lift. He didn't seem to notice.

"You're in charge, right?" Roy gave the slightest nod, "Right. So then, I'm going to pick one sailor on each ship to help me gather up all the documents and whatnot, and then we're going to pass them over to Al." He gestured with his head to the man in the armor, still on their little metal ship, but continuously scanning all three Navy ships for trouble. "We don't normally conscript helpers, but we don't normally get three of you at once!"

Roy glared at the triumphant grin that accompanied that statement, but it was the muttered, "Brother!" from 'Al' that caught Roy's attention. Interesting.

The blonde continued to grin with just a glance over at his companion before continuing.

"If you order your men to be good little sailors, and sit nice and calmly where they are, we'll be out of your hair in no time and nobody has to get hurt. Right?"

Roy gave another sharp not in answer. He really had no choice. These two had swept in and taken charge of all three ships before Roy could even begin to fathom what was happening. He'd only gotten flames off twice (both of which bounced harmlessly off of the metal ship, and were dodged easily by the two pirates) before the blonde clapped his hands. Roy had thought that a little odd, but the crazy part was that when the kid slammed both palms to the deck of his own ship. Suddenly, a large pipe grew out of the deck and then doused Roy entirely from head to toe.

Which is why he was currrently kneeling on his own deck, dripping.

"Do as he says." It really was all he could do. The two pirates had already neutralized all of the fleet's canons, tossed most of the firearms his crew had previously been weilding into the ocean, and tied them all up. They were helpless. To try to rally now would most likely end up with a bunch of dead sailors.

"Right. We'll start here then." The blonde glanced up and down the line of sailors. Unsurprisingly, he pointed to Fuery. "How about you help me out?"

He said it with a grin, like asking a stranger to hold your coffee while you put on your jacket. Roy could hear Fuery's terrified gulp from here, followed a moment later by his shuffling to his feet.

"It's alright, Fuery. Just do as . . ." Roy glanced to the pirate, "uh, he says."

Ed rolled his eyes, "I guess you can call me Fullmetal. Everyone else does now."

The shortest pirate Roy had ever heard of stepped in front of Fuery and held one finger up, pointing it down to the deck. He twirled it in a circle, gesturing for the sailor to turn around. With a glance at Roy, Fuery stiffly turned his back to the pirate. When the boy slashed suddenly downward with the wicked blade attached to his arm, Fuery was not the only of Roy's men to wince.

However, the communications expert seemed entirely unharmed as the tattered remanents of rope fell to the deck. Fullmetal clapped Fuery on the shoulder, and gestured for the shoulder to lead the way below deck.

Now that they were out of sight, Roy turned his gaze back to the armored one.

"Al, was it?"

A soft sigh escaped the helmet, "Yeah. Sorry about this, but we had to. He means it though. We don't want to hurt anyone. Just do as brother says, and we'll be gone soon."

Roy studied the blank features of the helmet for a moment, then nodded.

"Sir." He tilted his head ever so slightly toward Rize in acknowledgement.

She took that as a go ahead and continueed, "Havoc may lose conciousness soon."

Roy glanced at the blonde, who did indeed look woozy from being upside down for so long.

"I'm fine, sir." Roy frowned at the unsteady waiver in his subordinate's voice.

Turning to the armored pirate, Roy asked, "Could you please let my man down? I will order him not to resist." He gave a pointed look at the upside down blonde, who sighed and grudgingly nodded.

Al glanced between Roy and Havoc, then gave a long stare at the hatch Fullmetal and Fuery had disappeared down into. With another glance across the decks of the other two fleet ships, he jumped across to Roy's ship with a surprising amount of ease for someone in a full set of plate armor.

Roy's eyes narrowed as the pirate approached Havoc, wondering if he would get another example of that odd, circle-free alchemy. But no, Al pulled out a piece of chalk and scratched a quick transmutation circle on the ship's railing. Placing his gloved hand on the circle, the ropes began to glow blue and shift.

With or without a circle, Roy was impressed. The ropes shifted in a way and order that gradually shifted Havoc to a more upright position, his feet eventually hitting the deck, and yet his hands never became unbound. Al took his hand from the circle and reached out to steady Havoc as the man scrambled to get his footing steady.

After a moment, Havoc shook his head to clear it and glanced at the armored alchemist, "Uh, thanks."

"No problem!"

Another glance at the line of sailors bound on the deck, and Al once again lightly jumped across the not-insubstantial distance between the two ships. Roy was fairly certain that most of his crew didn't realize what a delicate and impressive display of alchemy they had just seen. Totally improntu, no planning or studying. Just a glance at the ropes and the man entangled in them, and boom! Havoc was planted firmly and carefully on the deck once more.

Roy was still mulling that over when Fullmetal and Fuery came back above deck a few minutes later.

Ed followed the sailor down into the crew's quarters before he started explaining.

"Right. So. Anything written down, I want it. I don't care if it's a shopping list, love letters, children's books. If it has words, I want it. Or, you know, obviously anything with transmutation circles.

The sailor, Fuery, Ed though, nodded frantically. Ed frowned when he noticed the poor guy quivering.

"Hey, look. Don't try anything, and you're not gonna get hurt. Honest. I want out of here as much as you want me gone. The sooner we grab all this, the sooner we're out of here."

Fuery swallowed, and gave another nod. "Um, yes, sir."

Ed rolled his eyes and clapped his hands, resting them against the panels of the narrow hallway to create a crate. He snorted to himself. Create a crate. When the transmutation sparks faded, he handed the box over to the sailor.

"I ain't no officer. You don't need to call me 'sir'.

Fuery frowned, "But, you are the Captain of you ship and crew, right?"

Ed snorted aloud this time, "Not exactly." He clapped his hands again and made himself a crate this time. "My 'crew' is just my brother. And I don't really know much about ships and stuff. I'd barely set foot on anything bigger than a dinghy before . . . well, before this. Pretty sure I'm underqualified to be a Captain."

Ed waved toward a footlocker, then turned to one of his own. It had a simple bit of roap tying it shut, so he whipped that out of the way and started digging. A short novel, small stack of old letters, and some sort of official Navy form that was half completed. Ed dumped them all into his crate, and moved on. Fuery had a small stack of papers in his crate as well as Ed moved down the line of hammocks.

"Um, Fullmetal, sir?"

Ed sighed, but turned with a questioning look. Fuery was kneeling next to another footlocker, this one with a simple padlock. Ed frowned at the bit of metal, but stood and took the few paces toward it. He could probably slice through it with his automail blade, but Winry would kill him if he nicked it and came back with a little less metal on his limb. With a clap and a flash, the lock fell to the floor in two pieces.

Ed silently turned back to his own work as Fuery audibly gulped.

The two made quick work of crew quarters, and moved on to the cargo hold below. Fuery rattled on about how everything was sorted and stored, but Ed had been in enough of these military ships by now to know they were all the same. He made his way through, randomly checking a few crates and stacks just to be sure, but mostly heading to where the more interesting stuff would be.

Sure enough, a padlocked chest was in the back, high up on some crates in case they sprung a leak. Another clap and the chest was opened. A couple small bags of coins, most likely pay for the crew, and then pay dirt. A stack of papers, mostly forms and the sort of beurocratic crap he usually found, and a few slim bound volumes that were probably past manifests and ship's logs.

Ed dumped all but the coins into his crate. He turned to head back top, but paused when he saw Fuery looking at him in confusion. The sailor glanced down into Ed's crate, then at the bags of gold coins, and back to Ed.

With a glare, Ed shoved past the sailor and made his way to the ladder. He couldn't exactly explain, so the poor guy would just have to stay confused. If he told anyone why he and Al were going through all this, they'd just be adding more charges to the wanted posters that were starting to pop up in the bigger ports.

After a moment, he heard the sailor scrambling to catch up. When they were nearly to the deck, Ed finally said, "Officer's quarters next. Your boss, he's an alchemist, yeah?"

Fuery answered from right behind Ed, "Uh, yeah. Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist."

Ed screeched to a halt and looked over his shoulder with a raised eyebrow. Even Ed had heard of the Flame Alchemist. He was a 'hero' from the war on the island called Ishval a while back. The war that cost Winry her folks.

"Yeah. Him. Especially his room."

Ed stepped to the side, and Fuery nodded before sliding past him in the narrow passageway. As they stepped out onto the deck, Ed frowned as he immediately noticed that one of their 'captives' had clearly been repositioned. Ed glared at his brother, who just shrugged one shoulder.

Ed sighed and rolled his eyes before following Fuery. They cleared out the the officer's quarters as systematically as they had the rest of the ship, and headed back to the crowded deck. Ed walked over to Mustang seet his crate down by his feet.

Ed shrugged one shoulder and said, "Sorry bout this."

With brisk efficiency, Ed patted the other alchemist down, being sure to empty his pockets. Ed only paused when he moved to Mustang's back and saw the embroidered gloves. Mustang must have figured out what he was looking at, because both hands suddenly clenched into tight fists. After a moment though, the State Alchemist sighed and relaxed his hands.

Ed studied the back of the man's head for a moment, then peeled off one of the gloves. Studying the detailed circle, he stepped back around in front of the older man. He gave a slight whistle.

"Impresive work. Very adaptable."

Roy seemed startled for a moment. Probably that Ed could clearly follow the science in front of him. Of course, this Mustang character hadn't seen what Ed had.

"Thank you, I suppose. I-"

Ed looked back up from the glove as the man cut himself off and turned his eyes down to the deck. After a moment, Ed dropped the glove . . . to the deck next to his crate.

"Not exactly my style, and not what I'm looking for, but yeah. Neat concept, I guess. Too bad we can't chat about it, huh?"

Mustang stared at him as Ed leaned over and snatched up his crate, gesturing with a jerk of his chin for Fuery to follow him over to the railing where Al was waiting. With ease that came from lots of practice, they passed the two, now bulging crates over to their own ship. Just as Al accepted the second one, the two brothers whipped their head over to the area Winry called the 'bridge'. It was fully enclosed, but above the deck, and housed the steering and communications.

The communications set up that was currrently beeping because someone was trying to get ahold of the two brothers.

Ed and Al shared a long look before Ed sighed. He knew there weren't many people who could contact them. Someone they knew needed help, because everyone knew not to contact the Elrics for anything trivial.

He turned back to Mustang with a disappointed smile, "Well, looks like your lucky day. We need to skip out a little early, I guess. Thanks for the help, Fuery!"

The sailor gave a small, confused looking wave of acknowledgment.

Ed jumped over to his own ship as Al lowered the two crates below the deck to their small living area. Ed entered the bridge, and powered the engines up out of standby. Grinning out at Roy, he raised two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute before taking off at a shot.

It was only years of hard-won experience that kept Roy's face impassive as the pint-sized pirate and his armored brother rumbled off into the horizon.

"Uh, boss? Shouldn't we . . . follow? Or something?"

Roy leveled a patient look at Havov, "How, exactly? We're still restrained and they're heading into the wind."

Riza added, "Not to mention they slashed most of the main lines on all three ships. We're going to have to re-rig a lot of the sails before we can go anywhere."

Roy sighed and stood, "Fuery, think you can untie me?"

With a not, the smaller sailor moved behind Roy. After a moment though, he muttered, "Uh, no sir. These ropes aren't tied. They're . . . solid. I'll need to cut them off."

Roy closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was not going to be fun to explain to his superiors.