"Abel Densen?" Mustang asked.

Ludwig nodded. "Which means the rest of them won't be far behind." Without warning, he jumped off the bed, wrote a quick note, and opened the window.

What appeared to be a carrier pigeon landed in front of the country. Ludwig tied the note around its leg and it flew off.

"Hopefully I'll get a reply by morning," Ludwig said, closing the window.

Edward stared at the now closed window, asking, "What was with the bird?"

"Carrier pigeon," Ludwig stated. "It'll carry my message to Antonio since we don't have phones to communicate that'll function properly. Hopefully he'll get me a reply by morning."

"Speaking of morning, we're going to need to wake early so we can start looking for Feliciano," Mustang said.

With that, Edward, Alphonse, and Mustang went into the next room.

"Are you sure we can trust him?" Edward asked, skeptical of the kid-military leader.

Alphonse replied, "It's not like we've got any other choice."

"I'd rather work alone," Edward stated. "For all we know, he's working for Francis and will take Feliciano the first chance he gets."

Mustang shook his head. "That's not likely. Roderich and Antonio both said Ludwig's on their side. We can trust him."

"Well, I'm keeping an eye on him," Edward growled. With that, he promptly fell asleep.

xxx

"Augh!"

Alphonse's scream brought Mustang and Edward back to consciousness. It took a moment, but they realized that Alphonse's cry came from Ludwig's room. They ran in, Edward thinking that he was right and Francis was in there, ready to take Alphonse hostage in a demand for Feliciano and Lovino.

The only resident was a male in his early twenties trying to calm Alphonse. Edward looked around, not finding Ludwig, before looking back at this man.

"What happened to Ludwig?" Edward growled, stepping in front of Alphonse and extending a sword from his automail.

"I am Ludwig," the other man replied. "I should've explained this last night, but with Gilbert showing up, I forgot."

Edward asked, "How can you be Ludwig. He's a little kid!"

"Ed," 'Ludwig' said, "I told you I wasn't human. I'm not sure what happens myself, but while I'm here, I'll switch between my body and an older version of myself."

"Then why isn't anyone else affected by it?" Edward asked. He wasn't sure he'd like waking up one morning and finding everyone was taller than him.

Ludwig shrugged. "I've thought of a number of possibilities, none of them ones I like to keep my thoughts on for very long," he said simply. There was a tapping on the window at this point, and Ludwig turned towards the window and opened it. The carrier pigeon from before entered, holding out its leg. There was a paper attached to the leg, which Ludwig removed and read.

"Danke," he told the bird, letting it fly out of the window and closing it. Ludwig turned to the rest of the group and said, "Gilbert's in an alliance with Francis," Ludwig said. "Not surprising, since Roderich and Antonio are enemies with Gilbert and Arthur's on our side right now."

"What?" Edward asked, confused by what Ludwig just said.

Ludwig shook his head. "Nothing. Point is Gilbert's most likely got his own agenda. One that likely involves Feliciano."

Mustang observed the whole thing in silence. Now, he spoke up, saying, "then we'll just have to find Feliciano first."

The group split up. Alphonse was going to check for any traces of Feliciano in the North side of Central, Edward the West, Mustang the South, and Ludwig the East side.

Alphonse went around asking people if they've seen the Italian, but with no success in his search. What he didn't realize was that Lust was watching from the shadows.

Edward wandered around calling out "Feliciano!" like there was no tomorrow. He was ignorant of the balding man watching his every move.

Mustang sent out patrols of one or two MPs to do his job for him while he hung around, not seeing the figure of Wrath following him.

Ludwig remained inconspicuous, trying to pick up any talk of Feliciano or any sign of his friend and crush. He was thankful that his body changed into that of Germany so people weren't asking him what a kid was doing by himself and where his parents were.

Ludwig was rewarded, for he heard Feliciano ask, "Where are we going, Selim?" and saw Feliciano a moment later.

The kid that must've been Selim was pulling Feliciano behind him. He said, "We're going to the library! Come on!"

Ludwig moved from his position and followed the two, not drawing attention.

He followed them right to the library. This appeared to be a public library, so there wouldn't be any problems in keeping an eye of them while he pretended to be doing other things. He waited a few minutes before entering the library, easily finding the white cap of his lover.

Ludwig walked over to one of the nearby bookshelves and started looking through the books, not really seeing them as he listened to Selim and Feliciano.

Selim looked around to make sure they weren't going to be overheard. The only one nearby pulled out a book and appeared to be too consumed in his book to hear the ramblings of two kids. "You've been a good kid so far," Selim said, his voice becoming slightly metallic.

Feliciano shuddered, trying to move away from Selim, but he pulled Feliciano closer, making it look like Selim was showing his 'friend' part of a book. Feliciano whimpered. "Are you scared?" Selim asked. "Do you want to go crying for the Elrics and their little friends?"

Feliciano still didn't reply, and Ludwig could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand on end at Selim's voice. He couldn't suppress the shudder that overcame him other. A little kid Selim may be, but he sounded like anything but one with that voice.

"Don't worry, we're almost ready, then you'll get to see your precious guardian again," Selim muttered, laughing before saying in his normal voice, "This is the one I'm going to get! Come on!" With that, Selim dragged Feliciano off again.

Ludwig's eyes watched them all the way. Poor Feliciano was still shuddering from the conversation, and it took everything Ludwig had to stay there for a little longer before putting the book back and leaving. There wasn't any sign of Selim and Feliciano, but he knew who he was looking for, so he returned to the hotel.

Edward, Alphonse, and Mustang reported that they had no luck. Then Ludwig explained what took place at the library.

"Selim," Edward muttered. "They didn't waste a moment in placing him into the hands of the most powerful Homunculus there."

"Is Feliciano all right?" Alphonse asked.

Ludwig stated, "Feliciano appeared to be fine, but was still scared when they left."

Mustang nodded. "We'll go into standby until we find out what the Homunculi's true goals are."

"Right," the other three replied, though Ludwig didn't look at all happy by this statement.

xxx

"Hey Abel," Gilbert greeted the Chibi Denmark.

Abel smiled, saying, "Francis wasn't happy about sending us all this way." Behind him, the figures of Berwald, Tino, Lukas, and Emil could be seen.

Gilbert waved to them, saying, "Don't worry, everything's going according to plan so far. We just need to keep them busy until we can grab Feliciano. Then we're home free."

Lukas pushed his way to the front, asking, "And if this doesn't work?"

"Then Ludwig gets Feliciano back and Francis is going to kill us," Gilbert said bluntly, before adding, "Except it's impossible to kill the awesome Prussia!"

He received many hisses from the Nordics at using his country name.

Gilbert rolled his eyes, saying, "It should be tomorrow or the next day when we can grab Feliciano. Then we're just have to worry about Lovino."

"You got a plan?" Abel asked.

Gilbert nodded, bringing all of them together. "This is how we're going to do it..."

/AN

Berwald: Sweden

Tino: Finland

Lukas: Norway

Emil: Iceland

Again, these names were looked up and were among the list of possibilities that Himaruya-san said might be used for their human ones.

R&R Please!

AN/