A/N: ATTENTION ALL FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST FANS:

Another FMA movie was released two days ago! (in the U.S.A., anyway) If you haven't heard about it, it's called the Scared Star of Milos and is set somewhere in the Brotherhood series. Since they never show anime movies here in Australia, I myself am waiting for it to be streamed to the internet, cause waiting for the DVD release takes far too long! (Though I'll probably save up and buy the DVD anyway when it comes out :) )

Ahem. Also, sorry about the three OC's, they're only in a couple of chapters, but I needed them to move along the plot. They are minor characters and the main focus of the story will stay on our favourite group of officers! (and Al and Winry as well). Remember to review!

Chapter 16-

"…nothing but that damn white stone!" cried a frustrated voice. Mustang groggily opened his eyes, instantly shutting them again, for even the dim light of the hallway they were in was too much for his traumatized head. The conversation that'd woken him continued on in the background, barely audible. He groaned, rolling over and hiding his face in the soft thing his head was laying on, attempting to block out both the light and sound.

"Uh, Colonel?" Mustang heard Hawkeye's voice ask him quietly. He grunted in response.

"Do you mind?" She sounded increasingly angry. Mustang wondered why, and carefully cracked an eye open. He immediately realized he was about to get shot for this by his favorite Lieutenant, but couldn't resist a small grin anyway.

Hawkeye had put Mustang's head on her lap, deciding since he was injured it was better to keep his head off the ground, and had been rewarded for her kind thought by Mustang accidentally putting her in a… awkward position, to say the least. She ruthlessly pushed him into a more suitable spot, causing Mustang to see stars while lances of pain drove through his skull. Hawkeye frowned- if even that small motion bothered the Colonel that badly, he needed to be in a hospital. The only problem with that was…

"Where are we?" Mustang eventually asked, working through the pain. "What happened?"

Hawkeye looked grave. "Sir… we're in the Clan's underground city."

"What?" Mustang yelled, starting into a sitting position- which he regretted it the instant he moved. The Colonel threw up his hands to clutch his head, collapsing back to the smooth, chilly floor in excruciating pain.

"Colonel!" several voices cried concernedly, only just realising he was awake. Mustang heard the voices of all five of his team-

No, not five. Four. He suddenly felt a pang of pain that had nothing to do with his head, and was ten times worse. Closing his eyes, Mustang could hear the voices of Al and Winry as well- but, oddly enough, no Ed. Huh.
"Colonel, you shouldn't be moving so fast!" Al chided in a manner that made everyone smile, despite the dire situation.

"The Clan's city? How?" Mustang opened his eyes cautiously, gazing up at Hawkeye with questioning eyes.

She quickly gave in to his heart-warming expression. "They… well, they kidnapped us, actually… we were ambushed in the car, do you remember?" At his nod, she continued on. "Well, Havoc, you and I were rushed to the hospital-"

"What about Fullmetal?" Mustang interrupted, attempting to will away the pounding in his brain. It didn't work. Apart from the god-awful pounding, he heard no sound- everyone fell silent. Mustang switched his gaze from Hawkeye to Al and Winry, noting their sad expressions.

"You mean… he's…" Mustang's mouth went suddenly dry, his heart rate doubling in panic.

"N-no, sir!" Fuery reported. "He's not dead; he was captured by the vampire hunters."

"Well that's a reli- wait, he's been kidnapped?" Mustang growled, realisation setting in. Everyone else grimaced, and Mustang just sighed. "Continue."

"The rest of us were at the hospital talking things over, but just a couple of hours before the end of shift we were all taken silently, one by one. Staring with the Lieutenant and ending with Alphonse," Falman continued.

"Wait, why were Winry and Al taken? And you and Fuery as well, Falman. Didn't they only want the Lieutenant, Havoc, and myself?" the Colonel asked. Now that his vision was no longer so blurred and narrow, he could see his team properly, and he abruptly inhaled.
They were battered and bruised, weary beyond belief. Some were injured, but it seemed no one was seriously wounded. No one apart from himself, that is. He couldn't even move without being blinded by pain.

"I guess the Clan's realised by now that we're all a team and that we know just as much about everything as you three do, sir," Fuery told him. Mustang barely even heard his subordinate's reply.

"And why are you all so injured?" he scowled in anger.

Hawkeye hesitated. "Well…"

A couple of hours earlier…

"We couldn't help that we were taken by the Clan. All we have to do is convince them to let us go. After all, they tried to summon us- there must be something they want! We just have to find them," Havoc said, and everyone else nodded grimly. Winry also seemed to be handling capture pretty well, thankfully. The group of seven were walking along the dim, shadowy, white hallways (except for Mustang, who was still unconscious and was being carried by Havoc and Fuery), and they were completely lost. It seemed if there were any vampires in the vicinity, they were avoiding the group of humans.

They soon found the reason for that. Falman was walking like everyone else when he stepped on a certain patch of floor, which vanished beneath him when a metal contraption locked around his right leg, digging into his skin and scratching painfully. He shouted in surprise- and warning. Everyone froze, except for Winry, whose reflexes were not quite on the same level as the rest. She also stepped on a booby-trapped piece of floor, but this time the device sprang from the wall she was leaning on, slicing to a halt around her left arm. She yelped in pain.

"It's a trap!" Falman warned as Al cautiously moved to aid him.

"I bet this entire hallway is a trap," muttered Havoc as Hawkeye did the same for Winry, who was trembling just slightly.

Abruptly, Hawkeye blinked in realisation. "They're testing us," she frowned. "To see if we're worthy of listening to what they have to say."

"That, and we just happened to have pissed them off because we didn't come here last night when they wanted!" Fuery was shaking as much as Winry.

Al managed to pry the imprisonment device open with a special catch, and Falman warily stepped out.

"Pull yourself together, Fuery. We didn't have a choice," Hawkeye reprimanded, also finding the special catch and shoving open the contraption around Winry. The teen gasped and cradled her arm gingerly. The team continued along the hallway much more carefully now, their guards up and mentally preparing themselves for anything they might encounter. As a precautionary measure, Hawkeye switched places with Winry so that she was up the front of the procession.

Their next test came in the form of projectiles, a bit like darts, which moved from one wall to the other with a speed almost too fast to see.

"Careful, they're poisonous!" Al yelled, seeing an unknown liquid drip off the tip of one and onto the floor, burning through the material in seconds, despite the fact the floor was like smooth concrete.

"What should we do? There's no way through!" Winry gulped. Thousands of the deadly darts barred the way from floor to ceiling, bouncing off the walls wildly. Then, it began to move forward, towards the group of comrades. Everyone stepped back carefully… then another, then another, retreating in order to keep their lives.

"If we keep this up, we'll be back at those capturing devices!" Havoc yelled.

"That's the point!" Hawkeye recognized the strategy to the traps. "You can't get free fast enough from those things- they hold you in place for the darts to hit!"

Fuery gulped nervously, but he thought he might have a plan. "What if we could capture the darts? I mean, have something on either side so they can't escape, then something underneath- if we can raise that it'll push the darts in a box practically against the ceiling and we can duck through in the space underneath!"

No one really understood what he meant, except for Al.

"Of course!" the teen realized, pulling a piece of chalk from his pocket. He dropped to the floor and drew a transmutation circle with the speed and expertise of an adept. He waited until the darts covered the opposite side of the circle before clapping his hands- a habit he'd picked up from his brother- and placing them on the side of the circle closest to him. The darts were perilously close when to walls sprang up, one on either side. The darts were trapped. Using the same circle Al broke off a piece of floor about four inches thick and, using the wall as a connection point, pushed the darts up until there was about a metre's space underneath.

Everyone ducked down and crawled over to the other side, although Havoc and Fuery struggled with pulling Mustang through. Al left the space there for an escape route, in case they needed it later. He felt good about himself for the first time in a long while- he hadn't been able to help with anything much since his brother vanished, and being kidnapped and causing trouble for everyone had only made him feel worse. But now, he'd successfully solved a life-threatening problem in time. He was helping his friends, and the thought made him smile.

The next test nearly killed four of them. The idea was that the floor moved first one way then the other, jerking the humans from side to side uncontrollably until they fell over. When Fuery, Havoc and Al fell over, consequently dropping Mustang as well, the floor melted and tried to swallow them, sucking them into the airless ground where they couldn't move until they suffocated in the dark, helpless.

However, Hawkeye, Winry and Falman all managed to keep their balance because they were together when it began- Hawkeye was helping the two newly injured along when the next trial suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They quickly knelt in order to pull up the others. The lack of air actually managed to make Al faint for a few seconds, but he woke after a few moments once the four were pulled out of the mess and could breathe again. Mustang was still unconscious, despite the trials his team were going through.

However, before the group could continue forward in the hopes of finding either the Clan members themselves or some sort of exit, two vampires appeared in front of them from out of nowhere- in the very same manner Edward favoured. The humans jumped wildly.

"Who are you? State your name and purpose!" Hawkeye pulled her gun (which was on her person at all times and had been brought with her from the hospital). She was getting exceedingly tired of all the bullshit, and ready to shoot the people responsible.

"Hold, human," said the oldest of the pair, not unkindly. "We are here to aid you."

Everyone's jaws dropped momentarily, and the group eyed the two vampires suspiciously.

"And why on Earth would you aid us?" Havoc ventured sternly.

This time, the younger of the two replied. "Because of Edward." He received several disbelieving stares in response.

"You see, my younger associate here and I are one of the many pairs of guards to this place," the older male continued. "Edward is the only one who ever comes and goes, since the scouts use the actual scout tunnels."

"So he's the only one who ever bothers to talk to us!" the younger one finished. "Things have been so much more exciting with him around to talk to and everything. The rest of the Clan thinks he's crazy, but he's a friend of mine. And you're a friend of his."

"It's not a done thing for a vampire to feel pain over a human's death… or over anything, really. But my partner and I think that if you were to come to harm, Edward would also be hurt. We came here as soon as we heard news of your… appearance… to guide you through the rest of traps," the older one said. He held his right hand out to Hawkeye, who was in the front and closest to the pair of guards.

"I am Heath. Well met, young humans," he said simply.

"And I'm Ricky," the younger guard put in.

The military officers gave each other meaningful looks. Even if this was another trap, they didn't really have any choice but to move forward and hope for some sort of break. If it wasn't a trap, then things would get a lot easier…

"Er… well met, Heath, Ricky," Hawkeye said eventually. The group of mortals were watching the two vampires like hawks- their guards were not down by any means. Heath formed a fist with his hand, and briefly touched it to his heart and forehead before opening it outwards to the group of humans in one smooth gesture. Ricky did the same, and Havoc guessed it was some king of greeting- like shaking hands.

The extremely odd group- five military officers (one unconscious), two teenagers and two vampires now made their way along the creepy corridor. The guards were true to their word- they lead them around every trap, both noticeable and otherwise, and there had been no more injuries for about an hour when the humans decided to stop and rest.

"We will go on ahead for a while and see if we can deactivate any more of the dangers," Heath told them, and vanished along with Ricky, exactly the same as Ed would.

"How the hell are they going to deactivate the traps? For as far as the eye can see, there's nothing but that damn white stone!" Havoc groaned in frustration.

"And then you woke up," Hawkeye finished, her raw voice grating horribly after the long talk. Mustang almost didn't believe her, despite the fact he knew she was serious.

"Huh," he said intelligently.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Colonel Roy Mustang," an authoritive voice spoke behind him. Mustang turned carefully, avoiding any fast manoeuvers, and noticed the speaker.

Heath was a proud-looking vampire with definitive features and sharp eyes, around Havoc's age. His muscles, frequent small scars and easiness with his weapon told Mustang that when Heath was alive, he had been a soldier. Ricky was young, in both human looks and the years he'd actually lived. Around Al's age, perhaps a little younger, Ricky had become a guard out of quick reflexes and a firm determination when training. To be honest, Ricky was a bit like Ed and Al all rolled into one, with Al's nice nature and Ed's energy and determination.

"Well met, Colonel Mustang," Ricky smiled, flashing his fangs in a friendly manner. It didn't matter how friendly he was being- a smile with fangs like that was still creepy.

"Uh… yes. Nice to meet you both," Mustang replied. After all, according to Hawkeye, the two hadn't betrayed them yet.

Mustang hoped it would stay that way.