Again... disclaimers apply :)

Chapter 3: The Little Pill Strikes Again

Edward had had no trouble predicting Vodka's actions once he had engaged the other man in a fight. Gin, on the other hand, was a completely different animal. The taller blond man walked up with his hands in his coat pockets. In one swift motion, he took his gun out, cocked it, and put a bullet in Edward's left thigh.

The sound of the shot brought Heiji and Conan back to the urgency of what was going on. They peeked over the bushes. "Hattori! It's them – the exact pair that got me!"

"It looks like they're about to get somebody else, too…"

Conan motioned to Heiji to go around to the other side of the clearing so that they could attack from both sides.

"You're lucky," Edward gasped at Gin. "Any lower, and nothing would have happened."

Gin nodded, but Edward could tell that the gesture wasn't directed at him. Vodka came up behind him. "You know," he muttered in the alchemist's ear, "just because you sliced off the muzzle of my gun doesn't mean it's completely useless now." He brought the butt of the gun down hard on Edward's head before the smaller man could spin around and slash him with his blade.

'Man, these guys are vicious,' Heiji thought. Instead of doing what Conan asked, he walked away to try to find a less conspicuous place from which to call the police station. 'I know you'd probably say not to, Kudo, but there's no way we'll be able to handle this between the two of us.'

Conan was poised to attack the men who had unknowingly condemned him to such a miserable existence. He looked over to where he thought his partner was getting into position. However, he couldn't see anyone besides the stranger and the two men in black. 'Damn it, Hattori!' He turned his focus back to the middle of the clearing.

The other man's sudden absence turned out to be the least of his problems.

Gin took a metal box out of his pocket. "This is becoming excessive. Can't we just do our job and be done with it?" He took a red-and-white pill from the box and force-fed it to Edward.

"Aniki, why didn't you just shoot him again?"

"We've been here too long. Another gunshot would be too noisy. Let's just get out of here before anyone else shows up."

Vodka collected his hat, and the pair of Bad Guys left the clearing from the same direction that they had entered it.

Conan gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. When he was sure that the men in black were gone, he rushed over to the side of the strange man in the long red coat.

Edward was already sweating profusely.

"Onii-san, are you okay," Conan yelled.

Edward couldn't answer. He was delirious with pain from the impact of the gun butt with his head, the bullet in his thigh, and now also the effects of whatever was in that pill they'd given him. He clutched his right shoulder with his left hand and let out a blood-curdling scream.

Heiji was just about to place his phone call when he heard it. He slipped the device back into his pocket and ran back to where he was supposed to be.

"Damn it, Hattori! Where the hell have you been?"

Not wanting to get into an argument, the Osakan detective changed the subject. "No time for that. What happened?"

"They got him…" A small fist pounded the ground. "There weren't supposed to be any more victims!"

"What can I do," Heiji asked, not really knowing what else to say.

Conan shook his head. He'd always been the one experiencing the changes, so he wasn't quite sure what to do. "Let's at least try to make him comfortable. The process is painful, but I don't remember it ever hurting that much…"

"So there's really nothing else?" Heiji couldn't believe his ears.

"No… it's a bad idea to move him around until it's over."

They carefully eased Edward's coat out from under him so that they could fold it up and put it under his head. Lengths of exposed metal reflected light from the now-burning street lamps. Both Conan and Heiji noticed the blade attached to the back of Edward's right hand. "What the hell is that," the Detective of the West asked.

"It looks like some sort of advanced prosthesis. He already had the blade out when we got here, remember?"

Before Heiji could answer, Edward started screaming again and his left hand moved from his right shoulder down to his chest, and then back up to his shoulder. The two detectives looked at each other and nodded. This was the beginning of 'the end.' They backed off to wait impatiently for it to be over.

The first thing that told them that something had gone drastically wrong was the sound of metal grinding against some other, unidentifiable material. They winced at the sound.

That expression gave way to surprise, though, as they noticed puddles of blood forming around Edward's right shoulder and left knee.

Edward's mind was swimming. All he knew of what was going on outside his brain was that he was lying down and was in an immeasurable amount of pain. The last thing he remembered was the man with the blond hair shoving a pill down his throat. Was that what was causing all this? No… he had nearly forgotten about the bullet in his leg.

Images of Al and Winry involuntarily flashed in his mind. 'Am I really going to die here?'

He remembered the people he studied with in Munich – his father Hoenheim, and the other scientists. He remembered the people from his home – Roy Mustang and the other soldiers, the Tringham brothers, Tim Marcoh, and Shou Tucker. He remembered his adversaries, and the other people who had helped him discover the truth.

And he remembered the people he'd lost along the way. 'I'll be with you soon,' was his final thought before passing out of consciousness.

"Oi, Kudo, is this what happens to you every time your body changes?"

"Yeah… I guess it must be." He clammed up after that, staring ahead of him in a stunned silence as Ed's body underwent the changes imposed by the Apotoxin.

The detectives both sat there, helpless.

After a few more minutes, when it seemed like the worst of the ordeal was finally over and Edward laid still, Heiji reached over and opened the blond's bloody shirt. He searched his brain desperately for words to describe what he'd found. He looked over to where Conan was still sitting completely spaced-out.

"Oi! Earth to Kudo!" Heiji waved his hand in front of his companion's face. "Check his left knee, would ya?"

Conan blinked and turned his head. Realizing that he had been spoken to, he turned back to the task at hand.

Heiji looked up and down the length of Edward's body. The blond man who was now a child again was still bleeding profusely from both his shoulder and leg. In addition to that, though, the detective was horrified to notice that the skin and muscles were shredded at the edges. He looked at the chipped shoulder bone. "Well, at least we know what that awful grinding sound was. He must have been doing something real serious to have prosthetics like these…"

"Would you quit it, and help me try to clean him up a little bit? We need to get him to the hospital!" Conan had come to his senses, and was now covered in blood. He had set Edward's automail leg off to the side and was trying to control some of the damage by tying up the pant leg.

Heiji attempted to wrap the shoulder. "You seem to be back to normal…"

"It comes with the territory."

"Yeah, I guess it does."

Conan pulled the knot tight. "Okay, we're running low on time. Why don't you wrap him in his coat, call an ambulance, and get him over to the hospital."

"What are you gonna do?"

"It's too hard to take the arm and leg to the hospital, but we can't leave them sitting out here, either. I'll find a good place to hide them until we have him taken care of. Then, I think I'll go home and get cleaned up a little."

End Chapter 3