I don't own anything that you've seen or read before in FMA
Many thanks to all the awesome people of the Royai Forum who have helped my while I've been struggling with this.
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"Good, you're here too," Andrew said to Jean who was sitting next to Schiezka and Kin in his office. "Forgive me, but I can't seem to recall your name and rank, officer," Andrew said to the brunette.
"Non-commissioned officer Schiezka Davies," she announced.
"Officer Davies, I'll need to pull you into this case. Go down to the intelligence office and search for blueprints of Central's sewer system. When you've found them we'll be in conference room 2D. Do you know where that is?"
Schiezka nodded, saluted, and left. Her mind was processing everything Kain had told her while she looked through the filing system to find the blueprints.
Andrew turned to Kain and Jean. "First Lieutenant Hawkeye was taken from her apartment by Scar. We have a witness who claims to know their current location. Both of you need to suit up in special op's uniforms, go to the ammunition room where Lieutenant Jacobs will supply you with the proper equipment. We'll reconvene in conference room 2D at 2130 hours. You'll be briefed there.
Schiezka nearly died when she saw the redhead sitting in conference room 2D with the black suited Maria Ross and Denny Brosh. "Ken Pierce?" she asked, although she didn't need anyone to verify that it was him. Ken looked up at the mention of his name. "The writer, right? I adore your work. When is the second book for Military Affairs coming out?" she asked as she put the rolled up blueprints on the table.
"In a couple weeks," he said.
"Is what you told Maria true? Are they Roy and Riza?" she asked sitting down in the empty chair next to him. "Who's this?" she asked motioning towards the man sitting on the other side of Ken.
"Jeff meet Schiezka, Schiezka, Jeff," Maria introduced them. Schiezka looked back and forth between Maria and Jeff and then to Denny with bewilderment clear on her face. "He's Ken's friend," Maria explained, but Schiezka's confusion only grew. "Friend, f-r-i-e-n-d," Maria spelled it out for her. She didn't believe Schiezka could be so dense at times, but she'd been dragged along to more than one U.F.O. convention, so it wasn't too much of a stretch.
Schiezka laughed nervously and turned her attention back to Ken. "So am I right?" she asked.
Ken was about to answer, but Andrew made his appearance with Jean, Kain, and a few other soldiers outfitted the same way as Maria and Denny behind them.
"Are you right about what?" Andrew asked.
"Nothing, I just figured that he took her underground since you asked for the prints for the sewer system," Schiezka said, smoothing her skirt.
"Please, everyone take a seat. Mr. Pierce, please have a look at the blue prints and trace your steps," Andrew ordered. While Ken glanced over the sewer systems finding Riza's street on the prints Andrew explained about Roy's, Ed's, and Riza's current situations, only stopping when Kain cleared his throat and explained what he'd found in Riza's apartment.
"Mr. Pierce, where are we going?" Andrew asked looking over the section of the blue prints Ken held his finger on.
"This is where I came back up. If you follow this tunnel east, and then take the third on that goes south you'll find the underground city. He took her into the crooked lavender house that will be to your left. From what I could see no one else was there," he told everyone.
"We'll take four vehicles to that point and then go underground. Second Lieutenant Havoc, when you were guarding Roy Mustang approximately what time did he last go to sleep?" Andrew asked. He didn't want to take the chance of Roy waking up while they were gone, and have him try to be the hero when he found out what had happened.
"About 1700 hours, Sir," Jean said after a moment.
Andrew frowned, that would mean he could wake up within the next half hour, but he couldn't wait around. "Did he drink the milk?" one of the other men asked, making Andrew hope he did.
"No, I think it was tea," Jean informed them.
Andrew's frown deepened, if his memory was correct he'd been told the tea had the lowest concentration of the drug. "Second Lieutenant Ross, you'll be keeping an eye on Colonel Mustang. Sergeant Brosh, you'll be watching these two. Officer Davies, thank you for your help, you're dismissed. Everyone else, please follow me," Andrew administered the orders and left the room.
Schiezka told Jean not to get into any trouble and watched him walk away with a smile on her face. The tight black uniform he was wearing defined all his muscles splendidly for her to admire.
Her attention moved to Jeff as he spoke, "For an action writer you can be pretty stupid sometimes."
"You don't have to keep telling me, I know, I just didn't think they'd believe me," Ken groaned and buried his face in his arms folded on the table.
"You're right, some people wouldn't have believed you," Schiezka said, taking a seat at the table. "There are some people who have seen and believe strange things, while others completely refuse to believe anything out of the ordinary. If Hakuro were here he wouldn't have believed you, but Sierra is pretty open minded."
Maria sat in the infirmary glancing between the sleeping forms of Roy and Ed while trying to maintain a conversation with the distant Al.
"Lieutenant Ross?" Al began.
"You can call me Maria," she told him, looking up from the ludicrously decorated face of Roy to Al.
"Miss Maria, Brother will be okay, right?" Al asked.
Maria smiled at Al. "Of course he will. The drug he's been given is used to put people into a deep sleep. I won't lie to you, it's sometimes used to kill people, but that would happen in the first 15 minutes of ingestion. He'll be fine Alphonse," she said, walking over to where he sat next to his brother and placing a hand on the cool metal shoulder of the suit of armor.
Al couldn't feel the contact, but his soul was warmed by the gesture. If he could he would have smiled up at her, but for now he had to make due with using his voice to convey his gratitude, "Thank you." He returned his gaze to his brother, and Maria returned to her seat by Roy's bed.
Shelly ignored Julie's complaints about the smell of the sewer and led her through the passages until they were in the underground city. Some of the structures were still in tact while others had completely collapsed. There were places where houses rested over the trenches of the sewers while rubble blocked other gutters. When her people had first discovered it they decided it would have been a good place if the area wasn't prone to heavy rain that would have flooded the area where the trenches were blocked up.
Shelly found the crooked violet house and led Julie to the room on the second floor that Scar used as a bedroom. Her older brother stood watch outside the house.
Scar was waiting for them. "Wait until I finish talking to her, and then you can have your brother back," he said motioning for both Shelly and Julie to sit in the chairs in his room.
Roy opened his eyes, and pinched them shut again—the room was brighter than he normally kept it. He slowly opened them again, this time taking in his surroundings. His exclamations died into a cough before any coherent words left his mouth.
"Here, this will help," Maria said, handing the coughing Roy a glass of water.
Roy looked at Maria Ross in confusion for a second, but grabbed the cup when his coughing didn't subside. While he drained the cup of the cool water he looked around the room. After a couple second he recognized it as the infirmary. His eyes landed on Fullmetal, and he pulled the cup away from his lips. "What's he doing here?" Roy asked.
"Same thing you are," Maria replied. "You've both been drugged into sleep. Someone slipped Inhibitor into all the liquids in your fridge," she explained.
"Who did it?" he asked.
"We don't know. The list of suspects is pretty high. It could have been Havoc, Mrow, the locksmith, your neighbor, or even Scar. Scar, Mrow, and Havoc being the top three suspects, but Havoc's pretty much off the list since he hasn't been to headquarters for a whole week," she answered.
"Why isn't Hawkeye on the list? She was in contact with me. She was probably with me more than anyone," he said, but he knew it couldn't have been her.
"Sir, she's been ruled out since…" Maria trailed off, unsure if she wanted to tell him.
"Since what?" he asked, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer. "Continue, Second Lieutenant," he ordered.
"Sir, I've been given orders to keep you here, and if that means holding back information I will," she said, rising from her seat.
"And who gave you these orders?" he asked, throwing aside the blanket, and standing in front of her.
"Brigadier General Sierra, Sir," she replied, holding her ground. She'd been trained in hand to hand combat by Armstrong, she wasn't easily intimidated, and beside that he didn't even have his gloves on.
Roy took a step closer, digging in his pockets for his gloves, and smirked when she took a step back. Maria smirked back and dropped down to her knees, sending a leg to swipe his feet out from under him.
Al watched the whole thing happen in slow motion. It was just like the time everyone had cornered Scar and Roy was going to try and use his alchemy while it was raining.
Roy rubbed the back of his head, which had collided with the metal frame of the bed, and his eyes widened in surprise, a chunk of hair was missing from right behind his left ear.
"Sorry Sir, but I was given orders to make sure you stay here," she said. She was standing up again, and held her hand out to him.
He gave her a blank look and nodded. He'd forgotten who her combat partner was. He sat back down on the bed, still fingering the patch of extremely short hair behind his ear. He had to find out what had happened, and then get past her without using his gloves. "Fine, tell me what happened, and I won't try to leave," he negotiated, pulling the gloves out of his right pocket and placing them on the bedside table.
Maria looked at the gloves and moved them out of his reach. "She's been taken by Scar, Sir."
Al jumped in his seat from the volume of Roy's cussing. Maria gave him a second to calm down and explained the entire situation to him. "General Sierra has taken four units out to the place where he's taken her. They'll find her," Maria said, trying not only to reassure him, but herself.
Roy swung his legs back over the side of the bed and stood up again.
"You gave me your word," Maria reminded him.
"I'm just going to the bathroom," he said, and made his way to the room at the end of the infirmary. Maria followed him and remained outside the closed door. She counted out the second until Roy saw Ed's artwork on his face.
Roy turned on the sink and flipped the light switch on. When he looked up into the mirror above the sink he let out another string of profanities at the image he saw. Undoubtedly the work of Fullmetal, no one else would have done something so juvenile. He could barely recall Jean telling him the Elrics would be taking over to watch him during the night. While he scrubbed his face with soap and hot water he was trying to find a way to get out from under Maria's watch.
After a few minutes of scrubbing with no fading of the marks on his face he gave up, but kept the tap running. He pulled on his second pair of gloves, and used the piece of chalk to draw a transmutation circle on the wall. If not for the current situation he would have felt like a teenager sneaking out from being grounded. He closed the wall back up and hurried to his locker. He was already going to be a magnet for wandering eyes with the cat whiskers and word useless Ed had given him. He didn't need to draw more attention to himself with flannel pants and a t-shirt on as he walked down the halls to request a car.
The officer at the car port handed the Flame Alchemist a pair of car keys with the number 76 engraved on the key chain. He held back his laughter until the raven haired alchemist passed out of sight.
Maria found what she was looking for after speaking with one of the nurses, rubbing alcohol. It would be the only thing that would take off the permanent marker on Roy's face. "Colonel Mustang," she called as she knocked on the door. He didn't answer, maybe he hadn't heard her over the running water. She called his name again, a little louder, but he didn't answer. She called a third time, no answer. She twisted the door knob, but it was locked. "Alphonse, can you unlock this for me?" she asked.
Al pulled a piece of chalk from the bag he and his brother always carried around and did as Maria asked. Maria slammed her fist against the wall when she found the bathroom empty. "Thanks Al," she said through gritted teeth. She dropped the bottle at the nurses station and made or the car port. She knew she shouldn't have told him the location.
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A.N.-I'll have another chapter out tonight or tomorrow. I was going to post all of it at once, but I made some changes, and found a good place to break it up. Thanks for reading!
Thank you for reviewing: Lone-Whippoorwill, Momiji-k, DarkSamuraiPL, OTP, QTPie235, Dailenna, AnimeLuvr8, Jennlyn78, BlueRose.xoxo, MoonStarDutchess, Bizzy, Your Favorite Plushie, WinglessFairy25, Yun Min, Breion, UnheardGoodConscience, Perennial Rhinitis, Last.Alchemist,Standing, Dancing Nightmare, OneMoreBite, Riza Hawkeye 9, AAR, OblivionEclipse, Mirage992, Anne Packrat, Paca, and an anonymous reviewer.