AN: hi,

this chap may seem pretty event-less, but trust me, the action is coming! this is more of a lead up to get all the info onto the playing feiled!

well every one enjoy now!

disclaimer: i dont own the neighborhood, i just rent the house.

Belledonner~

"Give me everything you have on this so called 'transmutation market' stat

"Give me everything you have on this so called 'transmutation market', stat." Roy barked out as he walked through the door to lieutenant Colonel Hughes office, startling Sheska so badly with his sudden entrance her hand slipped on the paper filled desk and sent her face to the wood and sending hundreds of flyers scattering into the air. He continued through the flurry, straight to the green-eyed man behind the large oak desk covered in too many photo frames.

"Well they always say you know how to make an entrance. So what's this call in for, hmm? Surly it can't be a social call, can it?" said Maes, his usually chirpy demeanor dampened by the slight seriousness in his usually flippant tone.

"Not now Maes, and you know exactly what this is about. So save the memo and get straight to the information. NOW." Mustang growled over the desk he had slammed his palms into, sending another avalanche of paperwork plummeting from the desk and littering the floor, (And why –why- wouldn't his desk do that? It would give him an excuse to waste hours while picking them up and re-ordering…must be Hawkeye conspiring against him...) Sheska gave a startled shriek and began to hurriedly gather the spilt papers and documents from the floor barely noticed by the furious General and the lieutenant Colonel.

"Well since you're in such a lovely mood." Maes said as Sheska pushed a file into his hands from the mess covering the floor, he passed a nondescript folder across the desk; brimming with loose fliers, paper ends sticking out from all the edges. It was quickly snatched out of his hands by the General, who calmly leaned against the desk and began to filter through the information; sifting the junk from the jewels in amidst the crap.

"This is all useless; inconsistent rumors and child folk lore, nothing of any substance, why would the military have any cause to attack an empty under ground city when all these reports show that this particular legend known as 'mutant market' disappeared off the written map rather suddenly over a century ago?" he mused, eyes scanning the page intently, and though his posture assumed otherwise, his mind was completely immersed in the information written across the page.

"Well, if you had given me a moment to explain," Hughes said with a long suffered sigh as he began to place the paper spilled back onto his desk, waving off Sheska, "you would see that all that's in that file is completely unreliable, the problem is all records, even passing mentions and mere stories, have been taken from all record books, not even a mention in any library since a certain date." His green eyes gleamed with the intelligence that had gotten them both into so much they shouldn't have even known about, the intelligence that promised that if there were something to be found, Maes would go to the ends of the earth to drag the secrets from their roots, all just to prove a point. For all his goofy exterior, he was in Intel for a reason after all, " But that doesn't mean that the market dose not exist," he continued after a dramatic pause that only added to the frustrated energy that lingered taught in the book crowded room, " its just puts more stock into the spoken word rather than written text. I mean, think about it, books can be burnt or torn up, even deteriorating and dissolving by time and water, but the spoken word? Well that can live for thousands of years without tiring, the only way to truly get rid of a legend or myth is to kill an entire race of people, but even then the stories leak through, told by the soldiers that were sent in to exterminate, the lucky people who managed to escape."

"If all this information is so reliant on rumors, how can we know there's any truth in it?"

"In the hart of all rumours there is always a grain of truth, some sort of spark to start the fire. And in any case, if this 'myth' hase been said to change with the stories, not the other way round. Say, first there might be a rumour about gruesome alchemy of some form, next thing you know all reliable sources are telling you this market is doing that. Its almost as if this 'Mutant Market' feeds on the fear of the stories and the awe and respect they insure."

"Interesting, like the market is evolving to match the rumours as they get wilder, but what's the point? To create a mystique around the forbidden market? But they've already achieved that…" he muttered half to himself, his deep, almost black eyes seeming to swim with perplexity in their inky liquid depths. His head suddenly snapped back to his friend, all emotion that had showed in those unique pools gone along with every trace that might mare his porcelain face. "Was there an extermination, another massacre? I suppose it was all very hush hush, no?"

"When was the first time you ever heard the story, Roy?"

"I was a kid, five, six maybe seven years old. My mother told me that story to try and prevent me from attempting alchemy, a good story for that peropus." he answered the unexpected question with a raised eyebrow as his eyes drifted once more to the text bled across the white page in a great smear of flowing black ink that formed the legible words of the information this mission was depending on. His dark bow, about the only emotion he would show to the surprise that was only evident in his voice if you concentrated deep into the barren tone nadir. "Now, are you going to tell me there was a reason for that question?"

"So this is how I figure it might have happened; your mother hears rumours about some supposedly hushed up alchemy market, hears it and twists it a little to suit her own purpose and tells it to you. So the whole purpose of you being told was in fact because your mother was frightened, but of what? Either way, it turns out that your whole family was verbally spreading a tale the military had killed to prevent. But why? What's worth such high costs?"

"But where do the military even come into this whole mess?" Roy murmured, his dark gaze shifting from the text to glare into Maes' own as his question answered Maes' and left them with nothing but yet more puzzles and no clues as to how to play the game appearing before them in the illusion of the forbidden and legendary fruit being found, something that is supposed to be fabricated by the very imaginations of those who would seek it was now established to be perhaps something even more real than life itself; because what is life but a state of consciousness your brain tells you is reality…

"From the missing records" Maes winked, "I have found out some rather intriguing evidence. It seems that there was a fairly large under ground village up near Xing, famous for it's underground tunnels and lively festivals. It was supposedly called Yalek, the people were reported to be 'lively and creative, but all too religious and prone to gossip'," Maes quoted from a sheet he held before his square framed glasses. "But ya see, the funny thing is, these people weren't religious to a god, in any shape or form. They were devoted to alchemy, but not the sort used today, but darker sort, the type that involves blood sacrifices and such. And even weirder still, they worshiped something called the 'Equivalent Shifting Gate' something that apparently was what gave them the energy to transmute."

"Ok, so now were hunting a ghost market filled with virgin sacrificing worshipers?"

"Well that's the thing, Roy, these people were rather social if my records count up, apparently they held festivals on massive proportions. Everyone came from across the land, and though thousands arrived, only hundreds came out, some carrying with them the strangest and most beautiful gifts, some bearing marks and unnatural speed, agility, strength or even mutations that were not theirs before. They came back rich beyond their wildest dreams, all claiming it was worth the risks, worth the exchange they made. These people were revered as gods. Even to this very day, in fact the prestigious Armstrong line is said to be one of the first households to be turned from poor farm house to a mansion on manicured lawns in barely a week after the heroic return of great, great, great, great grandfather Armstrong."

"So the military were sent in to exterminate a colony of alchemists that used humans in transmutations and culled thousands of people, right so far?" Maes gave a slight nod and Roy proceeded, "the people who survived the extermination fled to closer towns were they spread rumours and tales, even wrote books. Then a while back all books and records were suddenly missing. So my next logical question would be, when was the date of the last written text sighting?"

"Around four-hundred years ago, give or take. About, say, one-hundred-and-fifty or so years after alchemy was officially named a science and alchemists weren't killed on sight for preforming the 'atrocity'. It was also about two-hundred years after the disappearance of Yalek, in what is told as a terrible 'natural' collapsing of the tunnels, crushing everyone, no survivors."

"Anything else you would like to inform me of before I leave?"

"Just two little details you might care to know," Maes leaned back in his chair, feet on desk and hands intertwined and cushioning his head behind him, the complete posture of one comfortable and relaxed in his surroundings. " The first- alchemy only started appearing after the colony began to have their 'festivals', about eight-hundred years back, and all of those who have had the gift since seem to have at least some sort of blood relation to one of the people who came out of the underground fairs alive, alive and changed. The seconded and probably the most important is this- its Elysia's birthday soon, and I know she would just love a souvenir from the under-,"

Roy scowled as the door slammed back on its hinges. The bunch of papers curled in his loose fist were beginning to smoulder slightly, their edges browning and curling, tiny sparks, still not yet lit to flame speckling the crisp and crumbling edges. And still his other hand could not stop his middle finger and thumb from rubbing aggravated; causing sparks to dance up the edges of his glove, barely falling dark before hitting the ground.

"Brother?"

"Hush up, Al."

"Why are you packing? Where are we going?"

"I said hush up!"

"Brother- tell me!"

"Fine! I am going to some stupid underground city that's supposedly empty but the stupid Fuhrer is sending the whole stupid office down as well as specially trained alchemists! So it can't be empty! But what's down there?" He mused to himself as he absentmindedly kicked off his boots and slouched back into the lumpy bed, which groaned in protest of his weight. His half packed suitcase tumbled to the floor with the shift of weight, spilling his rumpled and creased cloths out onto the cold wooden floor. "So now I have to go and do their dirty work –again- all because of some stupid market that isn't even supposed to be real! I mean how can it? You've heard the stories, Al, ya know, the ones about a market under the earth that holds everything an alchemist could ever dream off…its total nonsense! Complete and utter bullshit. The Bastards senile if he's gonna let us be taken down there on the whim of the another senile old coot. But what can you do? Eh? I mean he is the Fuhrer, even if all he dose is order brainless soldiers to war and doesn't even try to avert from the massacre it creates; stupid stupid stupid, I think –think- that he could quite possibly be more idiotic than Mustang, is that even possible? I never thought I'd see the day…"

"Are you done?"

"Ugh, yes." Edward snapped to the ceiling, muttering half formed sentences under his breath about who should be running the state, and a whole heap of curses that his rather imaginative mind produced with its endless brilliance.

"So, when do we leave?"

"Three days! We need to go to library, cant tell if we're gonna get the chace for a while now," ed said swinging his legs over the side of the creaking bed and throwing a wad of papers at the same time, "those are my briefing stuffs." He said motioning to the scattered paper around the suit of armour that sat against the bed opposite him and made the bed sag to alarming lengths.

"And that would explain why you packing now…?" Alphonse muttered as his glowing orbs that served as eyes tracked the writing across the page, his youthful voice echoing in the hollow tin that was his body and held his life and sole.

"Because, if I don't do it now your gonna pack it for me when I forget. You mother hen." He said back, kicking some of the spilled cloth under the bed with the toe of his metal foot, trying to block out the way his brothers laugh sounded so empty as it spilled from the inanimate helmet that showed nothing of what his brothers personality should show. He deserved better, ed knew, and there was still that promise to keep, and with this new lead, however idiotic it may seem, he was one step closer to loosing everything and gaining something so important he would smile on his way out.

He was not stupid; he knew the price he would have to pay, even with the philosopher's stone.

"It seems that our informant gave away a little too much information."

"Ah, it will just make them all the more hungry for the 'truth', they will undoubtedly come, especially those Elric boys; they could not resist any of the other leads we have left out for them, this one shall be no different with the temptation of the philosophers stone."

"If you say so milady. They are due in two days time, on schedule"

"I trust every thing on our end is as I asked? And has the creator changed his mind on the form?"

"Everything is ready. Unfortunately the Creator seems unwilling to change their bodies to suite your needs and wishes. And regrettably we have also just come across a minor set back with your dolls."

"Well, he certainly is lucky for being so useful to our cause. Now, the problem, and just what would that be?"

"The creator has been delayed, the dolls are not stable enough yet and on the scale you wish them to be produced, there was bound to be mishaps."

"Well make sure this is the last problem we come across, wont you?"

"Y-yes milady."

"You are dismissed, and if I were you I would get to work, I would hate for all our plans to be ruined by a slight misunderstanding."