We had two major problems. One: We had no money. Two: No sane person wanted to take in six strange kids off the street. "Well," Ed said, after the fourth one of his friends denied us and all but slammed the door in our face, "I guess you guys are gonna have to stay with me." "What?" I said. "No, we couldn't, it's fine, we can find somewhere else." Ed crossed his arms and looked at me like I was hiding something. "It's no trouble," he said. "I have plenty of room." I sighed. This was clearly an argument I couldn't win, even if I wanted to.

Ed led us to a nearby train station and asked for seven tickets on the next train to a place called "Resembool." When I saw how much they would cost, I said, "You don't have to go broke for us, seriously, just buy one ticket, we can get there on our own!" Ed laughed. "Why are you assuming I can't pay for this? I'm a state alchemist, so I have a large research budget. Really, this is nothing." State alchemist? I tried not to let the confusion show on my face as we all sat down in the lobby to wait for the train. "So…" he said, looking at us. "What's your story?"

"It's a long one."

"We have two hours to wait."

"Trust me, it'll take more than two hours to explain. More like two days."

Ed sighed and said, "Fine, then I guess I'll start with my story." We all started listening, because maybe we could learn something about where we were. "I grew up in Resembool with my younger brother, Alphonse. Our dad walked out on us when were little, and then a few years later, our mom died." "I'm so sorry," I said. Ed shrugged. "It's ok. I was a while ago." He looked at us. "Can I trust you guys?" he asked. "Of course," Fang and I said in unison. "Well," Ed continued. "Al and I were so devastated, that we decided to try and bring her back to life."

"Human transmutation," Fang muttered. Ed nodded. "In the transmutation," he said, rolling up his left pants leg, "I lost my left leg." What should've been a normal leg was replaced with a metal prosthetic. "And Alphonse lost his body." "So, he died?" Gazzy said. I elbowed him in the side. "No," said Ed, "I used alchemy to attach his soul to a suit of armor, and that cost me my right arm." None of us spoke. "Well…did you at least get your mom back?" I asked. Ed shook his head. "Human transmutations always fail. Period. You need a soul to make a human, and nothing in the world can pay to create a soul. Besides, the thing we brought back…it wasn't even close to being our mom." I only now noticed that Ed's right hand wasn't metal like his leg.

"I thought you said you lost your right arm," I said. "I did," he stated, looking at his hand. "But Al was able to give it back to me by disconnecting his soul from the armor. When I went to get him back, I gave up my alchemy in the equivalent exchange." "Equivalent exchange?" asked Iggy. "What's that?" Ed looked at him. "It's basically the number one rule of alchemy," he said. "To obtain, something of equal value must be lost." It sounded like he'd been memorizing that line from the day he was born.

"Sorry to sound so ignorant," said Fang. "None of us are alchemists." Ed waved it off "I don't mind," he said. Then he looked at each of us. "We still have time," he continued. "Now it's your turn." I had been afraid of this. "OK, fine," I said. "Well, we're all adopted siblings, and I'm the oldest. Fang's my second-in-command. Angel and Gazzy are the only two who are actually related. We all lived together with our dad, Jeb, but after he died, we started to travel more."

"Is that all?" asked Ed. No, we're also genetically modified freaks with wings! Wanna see? "That's all. We're pretty boring." Ed laughed. "Three teenagers and three kids living together with no parents? Doesn't seem boring to me!" We all laughed at this. The speakers interrupted us, saying that the train to Resembool was early. As we went to get on it, Angel whispered to me, "When can we tell him everything?" I looked at her. "I was thinking sometime between never, and not happening," I said.

Me: Well..?

Ed: I usually don't tell people my story this soon.

Me: Whatever, shrimpy.

Ed: WHO'RE YOU CALLIN' A GUY SO SHORT HE CAN RIDE ON THE BACK OF A GRASSHOPPER?

Me: Hey, calm down, I never said that!

Ed: You were thinking it...