Chapter Ten: Busted

"Hey, wait big guy," Jonston said. "We need to get some answers from this kid before you blow up his brains!" Scar took his hand off Ed's forehead, but didn't seem too happy about it.

"I'm not telling you anything until after you answer a few questions of my own! And first, I want to know what you two are up to," Ed said.

"You're in no position to make demands, kid," Jonston stated.

"Then you'll just have to kill me - but I guarantee that you won't find anything out that way."

"Don't push us!" Jonston sneered. After calming down, he said, "You want to know what we're doing? Fine. This guy wants revenge, and I'm after money."

"I'm not after revenge," Scar told Jonston without turning to look at him. "I'm ridding the world of evil by destroying those who perform ungodly acts."

"Where does Tucker and that dimensional portal come into this?!" Ed demanded.

"Simple. When I told the big guy here," Jonston said and pointed toward Scar with his thumb, "that there's thousands of dimensions full of State Alchemists, he decided that all of them deserve to die. But, I'm the only one who can make the portal work. And Tucker's the only one who knows how the portal works. Tucker needs the ingredients, which costs money, and in return for helping us, my buddy doesn't kill him. After Tucker buys his supplies, I get all the money that's left over. I also get to take money from other dimensions, as well as get the satisfaction of seeing those dogs destroyed. It's a win-win situation," Jonston said with a grin.

"Why do you need Tucker? Can't you make a portal whenever you want, already?" Ed asked.

"Yeah, these two transmutation circles allow me to open the portal," Jonston said and held up his tattooed palms for Ed to see. "But, I can't take my buddy with me into other dimensions, so Tucker's still needed in order to perfect the formula. Besides... I only have so much of that formula in my veins. Some gets used up every time I make a portal. - Now it's your turn, kid. See... I thought I was the only one who could go through those portals, so how did you do it?"

"How should I know? I didn't know a thing about any of this until you came along!" Ed shouted.

"Fine! I guess we'll just have to take you apart piece-by-piece until we can figure it out!" Jonston yelled at the teen.

"Oh no you won't!" Edward yelled as he jumped into the air and kicked Jonston, who fell onto Scar. He then took Ed by his remaining arm and ran. Soon after, they bumped into two officers.

"There you two are!" Ross said. "You weren't supposed to go after those men by yourselves! If anything happened to you, we could have lost our jobs!"

"Calm down. We're fine," Ed told her.

Ross widened her eyes. "You're arm..."

Ed glanced at the jacket sleeve hanging at his side. 'At least this time, Al wasn't hurt...' Ed thought as he remembered the encounter with Scar in his own dimension and how Al's side was destroyed, as well as his arm. "It was only automail - it can be fixed. Besides, we learned a few useful things."

After officers searched the area for the two men and found nothing, Ed and Edward returned to the alley where they had the confrontation. Edward drew a transmutation circle on the ground, around the metal shards, and fixed Ed's arm.

Ed grinned as he made a fist to test the arm. 'Even though the Rockbells may not have minded in this dimension, I'm glad I don't have to bother them so soon after just getting it replaced.'

"I guess we need to go back to Tucker's," Edward said as he stood. "At least we're already in Central, so we don't have to take another train."

"He may not be at home anymore..."

"Huh? What'd you do," Edward asked accusingly.

"Well... Last night, I kind'a found out that our dimensions aren't as different as you thought they were..." Ed said sheepishly. "And I had to alert the military..."

Edward punched Ed in the jaw and the alchemist fell onto the street. "That's for not telling me before now!" Edward said angrily. "Hmph. You're not so tough." He then went to find some ice for his aching hand.

"Wake up." Ed opened his eyes to see Edward standing over him. It looked like they were at Central Headquarters, based on the ceiling. "Tucker's under house arrest at the moment. Let's get over there and have a talk with him."

"You punched me!" Ed said in amazement. "Why in the world did you punch me?!"

"Because you didn't let me know about Tucker!" Edward said defensively. Ed glared at him for a few seconds. "Here," Edward said as he tossed his twin the bag of ice he had been using for his hand.

"Don't punch me ever again!" Ed shouted as he jumped to his feet. Edward dodged his double's metal arm with a grin, but then Ed successfully punched him with his other arm.

--End Chapter--

My original chapter notes:

Hee, hee... I made them punch each other. (--I'm so easily amused... Well, I did change the scenes a little bit at the end of this. There was originally a scene change right before "I guess we need to go back to Tucker's", but then I thought that it would make just as much sense if it happened right there. I originally wanted it to happen in the same place as the following scene, but awhile before it. Now, I have mentioned where they are in the last scene, and the preceding scene has already been established. So now they're not just standing in a blur, but are actually somewhere. I thought about mentioning that Ed's on a couch, too, but ended up not mentioning that. - He was originally on the floor, at the same place he was knocked out.)

(--I also added in that small paragraph beginning with "Ed grinned as he made a fist to test the arm." - Mostly to help establish the time - the thoughts thought after that sentence. I do wonder why no one could repair Ed's arm in the anime, though, and thought about changing it in this chapter, but thought it'd be stupid to, and instead even added that sentence.)

Well... I hope this chapter made sense. Say... Of all of my fanfictions, this one has the second highest amount of people on story alert. I have 41 story alerts for my first and largest Yu-Gi-Oh! Fanfic (which has 27 chapters), 12 for this story (--That number dropped by two after I posted this, making it equal to the story alerts for the sequel - which wasn't even thought of until the end of this story), and 9 for my Avatar story (which has 12 chapters).

(I couldn't think of a title for this chapter. I just picked one off the top of my head just now... hope it works.)