Chapter Seven:

Unexpected (yet appreciated) Sights

Two days after the Christmas party at Central, Annora was stuck home alone while Ed and Al were out after getting a call from Mustang about someone named 'Scar' being on the loose again. Ed had run out the door while giving Annora implicit instructions on not leaving the house until they came back. Needless to say, that left the teenager sitting at home bored out of her ever loving mind until the two brothers came back.

"This is so stupid," Annora muttered as she stared unseeingly at the text in the alchemy book that lay open in front of her. "Who the hell is the Scar guy anyway, and not to mention why is he running around using the name of an old Disney character as his own?"

The girl let out an aggravated groan as she shut the book and set it down on the table before she stood up and went upstairs to her room where she gathered up her laptop and MP3 player and went back downstairs. Annora grinned as she set up her computer and turned it on; it had been a while since she had gone online, not to mention answer her e-mails. Surprisingly, she found that she only had ten after she logged in to her account. Four of them were from other people at school, two were junk mail advertisements from other websites, and the rest were from Katie. Annora opened up the first one from Katie labeled 'LOL' and stared at the screen in shock for several seconds before she burst out laughing hysterically.

There on her screen in full color, complete with his official title and rank, was a picture of Colonel Roy Mustang, the legendary Flame Alchemist, wearing a miniskirt. Annora laughed so hard that she cried before she fell over and lay on the floor, holding her ribs and gasping for breath.

"Oh god," she gasped out as she sat up and wiped tears from the corners of her eyes. "That's just wrong. Funny, but wrong."

Below the picture was the caption 'thought that you'd think this was funny'. Annora shook her head and chuckled before an evil idea came to her. An unholy smirk played across the girl's face as she picked up her laptop and went out back, where a large fir tree had fallen down from the weight from the weight of the ice and snow that clung to it. It was right next to the fallen tree that Annora set her laptop down on the snow and busied herself with sketching two transmutation circles on the snow, one next to her computer and the other around the tree. Once she had finished, the teen placed her hands down on the circle and used alchemy to create a printer.

An evil laugh almost bubbled from her throat, but the sixteen-year old stopped herself before she could get herself going. Once she had calmed down, Annora transmuted the fallen tree into a massive stack of paper, some of which she took and inserted into the printer before she hooked up the printer to her computer. She then clicked on the picture on the e-mail and hit 'Print'. When the icon asking for how many copies she wanted popped up, she typed in '200'. It took a while, but Annora was able to print all 200 copies of the picture of Mustang without incident. After almost dying from holding back her laughter, Annora noticed that she still had several sheets of paper left. The girl looked at them thoughtfully for a few moments before an idea came to her. The first thing that she did was pull up a Word document and type up a dictionary entry. It consisted of making fun of Colonel Mustang, even more than the picture did. This is what it said.

Mustang: \mus-tang\

mustanged; mustanging (vb)

1: to procrastinate to the point of no return.

2: to shirk like there's no tomorrow.

3: to scream at your subordinates to stall for time. (Call in fake bomb threats, run amuck, ect.)

4: to have an insatiable urge to burn paperwork

Once Annora was satisfied with her work, she used alchemy to make the printer wider and fused the remaining sheets together into one big sheet, which she then fed into the printer and hit the 'print' button. After she had done this, she was left with a good-sized poster of Mustang wearing a miniskirt. Annora couldn't help it; she burst out laughing once again and didn't stop until she was on the verge of tears.

"This is going to be great! Although if I get caught, I'll be screwed on so many levels that it won't even be funny, but it'll be worth it." Annora grinned impishly as she gathered up the flyers and the poster that she had created and took them upstairs to her room. She then went out into the backyard and used alchemy to get rid of the printer before she picked up her laptop and brought it inside. The rest of the time waiting for Ed and Al to come back was spent making dinner and dinking around on her computer (aka watching part of Shrek).

By the time that the two brothers came home about three hours later, dinner was already made and sitting in the oven on 'warm', while Annora was sound asleep in her room. Ed, who was completely covered in blood, sewer muck, and some particularly foul-smelling crap that he had landed in when Scar had thrown him bodily into a dumpster behind a restaurant, was not happy.

"I'm going to go take a shower and change," he announced as he headed straight up to the bathroom without even bothering to grab a change of clean clothes. Al stared up at the stairs before he shook his head and followed his brother's very smelly path of destruction, which lead to the small putrid mound of filthy clothes piled up outside the bathroom door. Needless to say, Al was extremely glad that he couldn't smell anything at that point as he gathered up Ed's reeking clothing and took it downstairs, where he dumped it out on the back porch so it wouldn't stink up the house.

"Sheesh Ed, you're so sloppy," he muttered as he went to wash his hands to rid them of the foul-smelling sludge that clung to them, leaving his brother to get cleaned up.

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Annora sat up and blinked drowsily before she let out a jaw-cracking yawn and looked over at her alarm clock. She stared at it stupidly for a few moments before it dawned upon her that it was after six o'clock in the evening. The girl stood up and went out into the hallway, listening intently for anything that might indicate that Ed and Al were home. When she heard none of the usual sounds of chaos that announced the Elric brother's presence, Annora headed back into her room, grabbed a change of clean clothes, and went into the bathroom. She had just finished getting undressed and had wrapped a towel around herself when Ed pushed the shower curtain open and emerged from the tub dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his waist.

(AN: Alright all you fangirls, you can stop drooling. This isn't a peep show. -.-;)

Both teenagers froze when they caught sight of each other, their eyes widening to about the size of dinner plates as a bright scarlet blush flamed across their cheeks.

'Oh my GOD! This is NOT happening, this is a dream! It has to be!' Annora thought panickedly as she stared at the teenage boy in an almost terrified state of shock. Ed on the other hand, was fighting an uphill battle against his hormones, and then mentally smacking himself for even thinking something like that. It was at about that point that Annora noticed that had a prosthetic arm and leg, both of them made out of metal.

'Why haven't I ever noticed that before?' she wondered as she stared straight ahead at the boy, who also in a similar state of shock, although that didn't prevent him from unconsciously imagining what Annora's towel covered.

'What the hell?! Why am I even thinking like that?! That's how the bastard colonel's mind works, not mine!!' Ed mentally raged as he attempted to shove the thoughts out of his mind. Unfortunately for him, it didn't work.

Annora found herself desperately wishing that she could turn invisible, even though her gaze was still riveted to Ed. Despite his small stature, the teenage alchemist actually had a well-toned body that indicated that he worked out often. His golden hair was free of the braid that it was normally in, and clung to his back and face while water dripped from his bangs.

It was when Al came into the bathroom holding a fresh change of clothes for Edward that broke the stalemate. Annora dashed right past Ed and whipped the shower curtain shut, concealing herself from view, while Ed snatched his clothes from Al and ran into his room, slamming the door shut behind him. When Al tried to go into the room to ask Ed what had happened, he was rewarded for his pains by having a thick tome of alchemy thrown at his head.

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It took a while, but Annora was finally able to overcome her extreme embarrassment, and when she exited the bathroom fully dressed and her damp hair hanging limply behind her, she was silently repeating the phrase that had almost become a mantra for her in the shower.

'I didn't see anything, I didn't see anything, I did not see anything.'

She continued along this line of thought as she went downstairs and into the kitchen, where Ed and Al were already sitting in a very uncomfortable silence. The moment Annora set eyes on the Fullmetal Alchemist, who also looked like he was having problems thinking straight, her mind backfired.

'Oh God, I saw something.'

It was at that point that a small dribble of blood trickled out of her nostril. Annora's eyes widened as she clapped a hand over her nose and ran back up the stairs to the bathroom. Ed didn't have time to say anything to Annora, seeing as the moment he saw her race back up the stairs, one single thought ran through his mind and blood gushed from his nose like a miniature waterfall, sending the boy flying backwards out of his seat.

(AN: Think like in the Naruto manga.)

"Brother… are you alright?" Al asked timidly. Ed didn't respond, sending the possessed suit of armor into a full-blown panic.

"Brother, don't die!"

By the time that Annora came downstairs with a piece of tissue stuffed up her nose to stop the bleeding, Ed was sitting up in a chair and was lucid. The only sign of his earlier predicament were the bloody wads of tissue stuffed up both of his nostrils. Annora, whose nosebleed had already stopped, went over to the trashcan and disposed of the bloody tissue. She then washed her hands before pulling out the two plates of food that she had put in the oven earlier to keep warm and handed one to Ed. The boy looked surprised as he accepted the plate and watched Annora take hers and sit down across the table from him. He had half expected to have her try and kill him for what happened earlier, so it was a little surprising that the girl didn't yell at him. There was a heavy silence at the table as the two teens ate and Al polished his helmet. After a while, Annora glanced over at Ed and spoke.

"So, how long have you had prosthetic limbs?"

Ed looked surprised for a few moments as he stared the girl before he answered. Whatever questions he had been expecting, this wasn't one of them.

"Almost five years now," he muttered as he shoveled a forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. Annora's expression changed from neutral curiosity to a soft apologetic look.

"Is it connected to how Al lost his original body?" she asked quietly. Edward stopped dead for a few seconds, starring at the girl sitting across from him in a stunned silence that lasted for well over a minute.

Ed finally let out a sigh as he set his fork down and a pained look entered his eyes.

"How much do you know?"

"Well… Al told me that there was an accident when you guys were younger that resulted in him losing his body and that you bound his soul to the suit of armor," Annora admitted. Al, who had finished polishing his helmet, put it back on and nodded in agreement.

"It's true, Brother. I told her that not too long after she came here."

Ed nodded as he let out a sigh before he reached up and began to massage the bridge of his nose.

"When Al and I were kids, our father left our mother. I was barely even four the last time we saw him, when the bastard walked out on our mom, and we haven't seen him since then. But when I was ten and Al was nine, our mother died from some illness that she had apparently had for a long time. And that… that bastard didn't even bother to show up for her funeral!" Ed paused for a moment as he allowed Annora to digest what he had told her, as well as for him to regain control of his temper before he continued his narrative.

"Our mom was all we had, and we couldn't imagine life without her, so we decided to use alchemy to bring her back to life." Ed looked up and locked eyes with Annora. "Do you know why human transmutation is alchemy's biggest taboo?"

"No, not really," she admitted nervously. She wasn't sure that she liked where this conversation was going. "Although it's also an idea that I'm not even remotely attracted to either."

"Human transmutation, or the creating of human life using alchemy is absolutely forbidden because of the fact that it defies the laws of Equivalent Exchange, and it has disastrous results, not to mention that there is not even one example of there ever being a successful outcome. Needless to say, the transmutation of our mother was a failure. I lost my left leg, and Al lost his whole body in the rebound. After that, I sacrificed my right arm to get his soul back and bind it to the suit of armor."

A look of shocked disbelief flickered across Annora's face as she stared at the two boys in front of her before she gave a soft sigh.

"So that's why you're looking for the Philosopher's Stone, isn't it?" she asked quietly. Ed nodded as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"If you don't like the idea of what we're trying to do, you don't have to get involved. We'll try and-" he began, only to have Annora cut him off.

"Don't be stupid!" she shot back, her chocolate eyes flaring with a determined fire. "Of course I'll help you!"

Ed looked up and blinked in surprise. "What? But why?"

"That's what friends are for, stupid," Annora replied with a grin. "I'd have to be a cold-hearted hag not to help you. Besides, I totally understand why you'd risk your life for Al. I know that if something happened to Ethan, no matter how much I complain about him, I'd lose it completely."

Al didn't seem surprised at Annora's statement, while Ed almost fell over in shock. He definitely wasn't prepared to have someone, especially a girl that he had barely known for a month and had seen almost naked, to tell him that she had absolutely no problem in helping him look for the Stone.

Annora recognized the confused expression on Ed's face and gave a crooked grin as she chuckled.

"So, I guess that I surprised you yet again, huh?"

"No, you think?"

Al started to laugh at his brother's comment, while Ed looked over at him with a frustrated expression on his face.

"What's so funny?"

The words 'your face', 'shower', and 'didn't know you were that big of a pervert' were discernable as Al broke into yet another laughing fit. Annora and Ed both flushed an interesting beet color before they looked at each other and raised their eyebrows in question. Out of nowhere, an evil smirk crossed the girl's face.

"If you hold him down, I'll go get the duct tape," she pointed out. Ed looked puzzled for a moment before he got what the girl was hinting at. An evil smirk of his own crossed the alchemist's face

"Do you have enough?"

"That depends on what you want to do. If you want to truss him up and hang him upside down from a light pole, then yes, I have enough."

Ed began to snicker evilly while Annora disappeared upstairs, presumably to get the large roll of duct tape that she always carried around in her backpack. Al stopped laughing suddenly when he heard the unmistakable 'rip' sound echo ominously behind him, and turned around to see Annora removing a length of duct tape from the roll with a mischievous glint in her eyes while Ed stood next to her with a knowing smirk etched onto his face.

It took over an hour for the two teens to catch Al, and much to their dismay, he was far too heavy to hang from a light pole.

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Annora felt like she had slammed three Monsters in a row as she, Ed, and Al walked up to Central H.Q., she was so wired; although, it was the adrenaline, and not caffeine, surging through her veins that was making her twitchy. Ed looked over at her and raised an eyebrow.

"What's up with you?"

Annora gave a slightly nervous grin as she shifted one of the shoulder straps on her backpack into a more comfortable position.

"I was wondering if we're going to get in trouble for ditching the Christmas party early a few days ago. Somehow, I don't think that Colonel Fathead mentioned it to you yesterday due to the fact that he sounded really urgent over the phone."

Ed made a rude noise in the back of his throat as he looked back ahead. Before further words could be exchanged, a shout rang out.

"Edward and Alphonse Elric, I see that you have acquired a new traveling companion!"

All three teenagers turned around to see Major Armstrong running towards them with several eye-blindingly pink sparkles floating around his head. Annora was the first one to realize the immediate danger that they were all in.

"Aw jeez!" she yelped as she took off like the hounds of Hades were after her. "He's after us! Run for it!!"

Surprisingly, Al was the one who ran the fastest, with Ed following close behind. Annora unfortunately was not as fast as them, and soon fell several yards behind, although the mere thought of seeing Armstrong without his shirt on again was more than enough motivation for her to put on an extra burst of speed.

Ed and Al had already vanished into the military building and were probably all the way on the other side by the time that Annora burst through the heavy wooden doors, barely twenty yards ahead of Armstrong. The sixteen-year old let out a startled yelp as an armored hand suddenly shot out of a closet and yanked her inside before the door was slammed shut only moments before Major Armstrong entered the building.

"Mmmph!" Annora protested as she attempted to bite down on the hand that was covering her mouth.

"Shut up!" Ed hissed urgently from somewhere next to her, although Annora couldn't see him in the pitch-black interior of the closet. "He'll hear you, and then we'll really be in trouble!"

All three teens, who were cramped together inside the tiny hall closet, broke into a cold sweat when they heard Major Armstrong stop outside the door and begin talking to himself.

"Hmm… how odd, I could have sworn that they were in here. Perhaps they're hiding somewhere nearby."

Annora stared at the door in front of her in almost absolute terror before she whispered a single word hoarsely.

"Shit."

"Be quiet!" Ed growled, his eyes flashing angrily. "If you keep talking, he'll find us, and when that happens, we're screwed!"

"Then why don't you stop lecturing me, and try to get us out of here, dummy!" Annora hissed. Ed glared at her, not that he could see her or anything, but he had a pretty good idea where her face was, seeing as she was jammed right next to him in a corner.

"And how am I supposed to do that?" he responded sarcastically. "The door's the only way out of here, and the Major's standing right in front of it! I may be an alchemist, but I'm not a freaking magician!"

"Then why don't you try the back wall, stupid?"

Ed thought about that suggestion for a moment before mumbling something under his breath about how it couldn't work, to which Alphonse interjected.

"Brother, Annora, is this really the time for you two to be arguing?" he muttered under his breath. Ed shot his younger brother a scathing glare before he clapped his hands together and placed them on the back wall, forming a door into the room behind them. Without warning, the newly created door swung outward, spilling all three teenagers into the room in a giant dog-pile. Ed managed to just touch the corner of the door and transmute it back into a solid wall before Armstrong opened the closet door. It was only then that very familiar voice stated in a smug tone.

"Fullmetal, why is it that you can't just use the door like everyone else?"

Annora looked up from her spot at the bottom of the dog-pile and groaned when she saw Mustang sitting at his desk, looking at the tangled pile of teens with one dark eyebrow raised and the expression of barest curiosity flickering across his face.

"Crap. Out of all the rooms we could have fallen in to, it just had to be his office," she muttered. "I know that the irony gods are just laughing their asses off over this."

This statement caught the man's interest and he gave Annora a thoughtful look. Irony gods; perhaps he should look into those. After all, they might be behind the reason why his last date ended with the woman's brother running after him with a loaded shotgun.

(AN: Everyone looks over at the author, who just smiles innocently. Oh come on, can't I mess with the pervert's head once and a while? )

Annora squirmed feebly underneath the combined weight of Edward and Alphonse. Al, who was still a little stunned, tried to get off of Ed, who was pinned down underneath his armored bulk. A knowing smirk crossed Mustang's face as he decided to sit back in his chair and enjoy the show.

Ed let out a strangled yell as Al accidentally shifted his weight fully onto the older boy's back, to which much angry cursing ensued, not only from Ed, but Annora as well. After a few minutes, Mustang realized that the teens wouldn't be able to untangle themselves without help. As amusing as it was to watch Edward threaten Al with severe bodily harm, as well as burying him alive in the desert, it got a little old real quick. The man stood up and helped Alphonse to his feet, much to the relief of those underneath him. Ed began to squirm about as he tried to shift into a position that would allow him untangle himself, and Annora let out a pained gasp as his automail arm dug into her side.

"Ed…" she managed to grit out through clenched teeth, her brown eyes narrowed dangerously. "Get your elbow out of my ribs before I decide to break something."

"Sorry," the boy apologized as he scrambled to get off of her. Annora sat up and winced as she rubbed her bruised ribs.

"Oww…" she hissed. "That's not something that I want to repeat anytime soon."

Mustang looked between the two teens before his usual sardonic smirk crossed his face.

"Fullmetal, you do realize that it would be far more appropriate for you to get a room than to do something like that here."

It took a few moments before Ed caught the hidden meaning behind Mustang's comment, and when he did, he went ballistic.

"WHAT'RE YOU TALKING ABOUT, COLONEL BASTARD?! WHY WOULD I EVEN WANT TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?! DO US ALL A FAVOR AND PULL YOUR DAMN MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!!"

Annora, who had been gritting her teeth and silently vowing vengeance against the arrogant Flame Alchemist, looked over at the furious boy and sweatdropped.

"If you don't think about stuff like that, then why are you getting so upset?"

"…"

"Why do I not find your silence reassuring?"

"…"

Mustang rolled his eyes as he watched the conversation in front of him take place before he went over and made shooing motions with his hands.

"Alright you three, playtime's over," he stated as he started pushing Ed, Al, and Annora towards the office door. "I have work to do, and I don't have the time to play around with a stunted midget and his-"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A TINY BUG THAT ESCAPES THE WRATH OF A SHOE BECAUSE HE'S SO SMALL THAT HE FITS IN THE GROOVES AND CAN'T GET SQUASHED?!" Ed shrieked. Annora and Al were both forced to grab a hold of him and drag the furious alchemist out of Mustang's office before he could inflict serious bodily harm on the man.

Once they had exited the office and had managed to get a reasonable distance away from it, Annora looked over at Ed, who still had an expression of homicidal fury on his face.

"Can we let you go now, or do I have to run around and ask people for tranquilizer darts?" she asked seriously. Ed flinched at the mention of needles before he nodded hesitantly.

"Yeah, I'm not going to try to kill the bastard Colonel." 'At least not right now,' he mentally amended. Annora raised an eyebrow at his statement, and for one horrifying moment, Ed though that she had read his mind, before she shrugged.

"Okay, I'll meet you two back at the research room then."

"Why?"

Annora glanced back at Ed and gave him a skeptical look.

"I need to go use the facilities. Like I said, I'll meet you guys back at the research room."

Golden eyes grew wide with understanding as Ed watched Annora turn around and walk away. The teenage alchemist knew better than to press the girl for answers; he might have had the emotional sensitivity of a rock, and he may have been many things, but suicidal wasn't one of them.

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Annora smirked as she placed the last of the flyers in the mailbox of all the officers. In Mustang's however, she had placed the dictionary entry that she had typed up the night before instead of the color flyer featuring the Flame Alchemist wearing a miniskirt. The teenager then snuck down the hall into the main entrance before she pulled out a roll of duct tape and the poster out of her backpack. Glancing around her nervously to make sure that no one was nearby, Annora hurriedly taped up the color poster without wasting a single moment and ran like hell in the direction of the girl's restroom before someone came along and saw her. Once inside, she removed all of the remaining flyers from her backpack and flushed the incriminating evidence down the toilet.

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When Annora entered the research room and shut the door behind her, Ed only looked up from the book he was skimming through before he returned to his note-taking. The sixteen-year old let out a mental sigh of relief as she slid into her seat; she really didn't want to answer any questions that Ed or Al might have had if she had given any reason other than using the restroom to explain her disappearance to the brothers. She sat down in a free wooden chair and unzipped her backpack, pulling out her usual sketchbook and drawing pencil case when her fingers brushed up against the smooth side of an aluminum can.

Annora frowned thoughtfully as she set her drawing pad down on the table and reached into her bag once again and pulled out a can of Monster™. Ed glanced over at her and raised an eyebrow in question when he saw the can and the writing on it.

"What's that?"

"It's a Monster. They're a kind of energy drink, although they're supposed to be really bad for you with all the caffeine and sugar in them," Annora explained before her expression brightened. "I completely forgot that this was in there."

Ed looked at the clearly non-intimidating can and gave a disbelieving snort. "Oh please, it doesn't look that dangerous."

"You wanna try it then?" Annora asked as she arched her eyebrows skeptically before she handed the can over to Ed. "You can't say that I didn't warn you though."

Ed made another disbelieving noise as he popped the tab, releasing a small burst of pressurized air before he slammed the entire contents of the 16 oz. can. Annora and Al both stared at him as he set the empty aluminum can down on the table and made a face.

"How can you even drink that crap?" he asked as he wiped him mouth on the sleeve of his red jacket. "It tastes horrible!"

"It's an acquired taste. Besides, if I remember correctly, you asked me the same question about milk," Annora pointed out as she tried to suppress a grin. Ed looked over at her and made a face.

"Ho ho, very funny. Hah ha, it is to laugh," he muttered sarcastically. "Anyway, that shit tastes even worse than milk!"

"Well, that's a first," Annora quipped as she looked across the table at the boy. "I didn't think that it was possible for you to say that anything tasted worse than milk. Although, if you think that milk tastes bad, you should try soymilk. That stuff really tastes like shit."

Ed just rolled his eyes in response as he went back to his note taking, and all was silent for about five minutes before the teenage alchemist began to fidget in his seat. Annora looked up from the sketch that she was working on and gave her friend an odd look.

"Ed, what the heck are you doing?" she asked warily. The teenage boy looked up at her, and Annora felt a cold tingle of dread go down her spine as all rationality was replaced by the wild look that entered the alchemist's eyes. The sixteen-year old's gaze darted over to the now-empty Monster™ can that still lay on the table before her eyes widened in understanding.

"Oh shit," she whispered fearfully as the human volcano that is Edward Elric erupted.

"WHO'REYOUCALLINARUNTYLITTLEBEANSPROUTTHATNEEDSAFUCKINGSTEPLADDERTOREACHANYTHING?!"

(Translation: Who're you callin' a runty little bean sprout that needs a fucking stepladder to reach anything?!)

"Uh, Al?" Annora whispered as she stared at the spazzing blonde in front of her. "Run."

Both teens immediately bolted out of their seats and ran for the door, which Annora kicked open, before they skidded out into the hallway with the wall opposite to the door before their feet regained traction and they shot off away from Ed, who was after them.

"'Scuse us! Sorry, out of the way!" Annora yelped as she and Al dodged startled office workers. "Warning: Psychotic short blond creature on the loose!"

One person dropped a stack of papers in surprise, sending paperwork, ironically, most of it destined for Mustang's office, flying everywhere. It was in this cloud of floating papers that Annora practically ran smack-dab into Havoc, her momentum knocking them both down to the floor with a resounding 'thud'.

"I'm so sorry!" she apologized as she scrambled off the older man. "I wasn't-"

"I'm alright; no harm done," Havoc admitted as he stood up and brushed himself off. "So, where's the fire?"

It was at that moment that Ed caught up to them and lunged for Annora, who was still sitting on the floor. Fortunately for her, Al grabbed her by the back of her shirt and yanked her out of the way, and Ed crashed to the ground. Havoc stared at the fallen alchemist in astonishment while Al and Annora took advantage of Ed's temporarily stunned state.

"Al, sit on him, quick!" Annora ordered as she frantically fumbled to get the roll of duct tape out the pocket of her jeans. Fortunately, Al's armored bulk easily restrained Ed with his caffeine-induced strength, and the sixteen-year old was able to truss up the struggling teen without any injury.

"What's up with him?" Havoc asked uneasily. Annora looked up at him as she stepped back from the struggling alchemist, who was now spewing a long list of profanities.

"Try that he just consumed the caffeine equivalent of about twelve cups of coffee, add about a cup of sugar to that, and you'll be roughly in the ballpark as to what kind of thing he drank," she pointed out as she watched Al threaten to sit on Ed again. Havoc gave a low whistle of astonishment just as Ed stopped struggling and blinked owlishly.

"Okay, what the hell just happened?"

Annora, Alphonse, and Havoc all stared at him in absolute disbelief before Al ventured timidly.

"Brother, don't you remember?"

"Remember what? And why the hell am I all tied up?"

Annora sweatdropped as she knelt down by Ed and began to unwrap the duct tape from around his wrists and ankles.

"Alright then, no more caffeine for you again, ever," she muttered as she removed the last of the duct tape and allowed Ed to stand up. "Caffeine is now a banned substance with you."

The teenager rubbed his wrist in order to restore circulation as he glared at her.

"Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that you're behind this?"

"Because you're paranoid."

"I am not!"

Annora raised an eyebrow as she gave Ed a skeptical look before she turned around and started walking back towards the room where they had been doing research in, when she fired a final parting shot over her shoulder.

"That's what you say."

Both Al and Havoc scooted away from Ed, who looked like he was about ready to commit murder as he made a low growling noise in the back of his throat. The teenager gritted his teeth as he slowly clenched and unclenched both of his hands.

"I am going to kill her!" he snarled as he stomped off in the same direction that Annora had gone.

Surprisingly, Ed didn't have far to go before he found Annora, who was standing in the middle of the hallway as though she had been rooted to the spot, staring in abject horror at something in front of her. The alchemist paid no attention to this as he stormed up to the girl and spun her around to face him.

"What is your problem?" he growled, only to be stopped by the fear that he saw in her eyes, although there was a slight mixture of mirth in there as well. "What's the matter?"

"We need to find someplace to hide," Annora pointed out faintly as she tried to look behind her. "Mustang's coming this way, and he looks pissed."

Ed stared at her for a few seconds before he yanked open the door to a hall closet next to where they were standing and pulled her inside with him, closing the door only moments before Mustang stormed past them, wearing his ignition-cloth gloves and holding two pieces of paper clenched tightly in his left hand. Ed waited for about a minute, and was about to open the door when he heard an angry roar.

"WHO THE HELL IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS?!"

BOOM!!!

The sounds of people running for their lives, and finally, gunshots, came through the thin wooden door, and Ed couldn't help but wonder what the hell was going on. He didn't expect for Annora to suddenly start snickering quietly, and he turned around to face the girl.

"What are you laughing at?" he demanded. Annora covered her mouth as she tried to stop giggling, and failed miserably. Finally, she was able to get herself under control and she faced Edward as she wiped tears of mirth out of the corners of her eyes.

"I played a bit of a joke on the Colonel," she explained as she tried not to grin. "From the sounds of things, I don't think that he appreciated my sense of humor."

Ed raised his eyebrows skeptically as he opened the closet door and headed back in the direction of the research room.

"Oh, and what did you do?"

"I passed out about 200 color flyers with a picture of him wearing a miniskirt on them in all of the military mailboxes."

Ed bit back peals of laughter as he entered the room and sat down with his hand over his mouth, trying not to die laughing.

"Then what was that whole thing in the front entryway about?"

"Umm… that was probably the life-size poster with the same picture on it that I put up."

This time, Ed absolutely lost it as he almost fell of his chair laughing his head off. Annora watched him in interest as she allowed herself to giggle a bit as well. Once the young alchemist finally calmed down, he fixed her with an intense look.

"You do realize that when the Colonel Bastard finds out that it was you, you're dead, right?" he asked seriously. Annora gave him a crooked grin as she picked up her navy sweater from the back of her chair.

"Oh, but it will so be worth it," she pointed out as she gestured to the t-shirt that she was wearing, which bore the statement 'I tried being good, but I got bored' on it. Ed just shook his head and laughed.

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Mustang's left eye twitched violently as Hawkeye escorted him back to his office with her gun drawn. Whoever had written that stupid mock dictionary entry and left it in his mailbox was going to die a horrible, agonizing death, and the person who had created the poster and flyers mocking him was going to meet the same fate as well. Already there were whispers floating around that he was a cross-dresser, or that he had offended the printer's daughter. The twenty-nine-year old gritted his teeth and ground them together audibly as he fought the urge to kill someone right then and there. Just as he came up to his office door, he caught sight of a small, handwritten note that was taped to his door. The man reached out and ripped it off before he read it.

There were only two lines on the note, and they illuminated with crystal clarity who was behind his current humiliation.

Payback's a bitch, isn't it?

P.S. Consider this a belated Christmas gift from me, with interest.

Mustang's eye began to twitch even more violently, and several veins began to throb all over his head. He was going to incinerate that wench when he got his hands on her.

"FULLMETAL!!!"

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Annora and Ed both looked over towards the door, and the former flinched when she realized what had probably just happened.

"Looks like he found the note," she muttered. Ed looked at her and raised his eyebrows in question.

"What note?"

"The note that I left on the door to Mustang's office."

"You left a note?!" Ed yelped in disbelief as he stared at Annora, who nodded and hurriedly yanked on her jacket just as Al came into the room.

"Brother, what did you do?" he asked as he watched Ed stuff his notes into the pocket of his red trench coat and Annora shove her sketchbook and pencils into her backpack.

"I didn't do anything!" he protested as he slid the window open. All three of the teens jumped about a foot in the air when another shout echoed all throughout Central command, this one considerably louder than the first.

"FULLMETAL, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Annora and Ed both looked at each other and instantly came to an unspoken agreement; neither of them wanted to be there when the Colonel came into the room.

"Run," Annora stated simply, as though that was the answer to everything at the moment.

"After you," Edward muttered as he gestured almost mockingly in the direction of the window. Annora went out first, followed by Al, and Ed was the last one to leave the room, not even bothering to close the window as all three teens ran as though their lives depended upon it. They had just whipped around the first corner away from Central command when Mustang blew the door to the research room off its hinges with one snap of his fingers and walked in, the expression on his face thunderous. The dark-haired man looked around him before an almost unholy smirk made its way across his face. When he saw that girl the next time, she was going to regret the dangerous game that she had started.

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Four hours later

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Annora lay face-down on her bed with her head buried in her pillow, almost asleep, when her laptop began to vibrate on the wooden surface of her desk, instantly jerking her awake. The sixteen-year old stared stupidly at her computer for a few moments before it dawned upon her that someone was trying to reach her over her web cam.

"Alright already, I'm coming," she muttered as she picked up her laptop and flipped it open. She caught sight of the words 'Roy'sluvtoy wishes to log on', but her sleep-fogged mind didn't register the meaning behind them until Katie's face popped up on her computer screen.

"Annora, Annora, Annora!" Katie yammered excitedly, her voice rising up into an uncomfortably high pitch as she bounced up and down in her seat. "I finally got a hold of you!"

"Katie?" Annora asked incredulously, her eyes wide as she stared at her friend before she blinked several times to see if she was hallucinating. "How did you-?"

"I used my computer, silly," Katie responded with a knowing grin on her face, her yellow-green eyes glinting impishly. "Why did you block my cell phone number the other day?"

"What?" Annora's eyebrows shot up into her hairline as she stared at her friend. "Katie, I didn't block your cell phone… well, at least not yesterday."

"Yeah you did! I know because I tried to call you right after you hung up on me and some lady with a pre-recorded voice told me that my call was blocked. Explain that one to me!"

Annora sweatdropped as she stared at the computer screen before she covered her face with her hands and muttered something under her breath.

"Lord, give me strength."

Katie arched an eyebrow as she looked at the other girl skeptically before she made a remark.

"The image that your web cam is giving me is funny," she whined. Annora removed her hands from her face and looked at Katie.

"And how is that?"

"It looks almost like you're in an anime."

Annora made a choking noise as she almost fell off her bed in shock before she managed to regain control of herself.

"Wha-what? What the hell do you mean by that?"

Katie grinned roguishly at her as she nonchalantly ran a hand through her shoulder-length black hair.

"I'm just messing with ya," she teased as she took off her glasses and began to clean them on the bottom of her shirt. "I know that your cam's probably acting up or something and that's why I'm getting the image that I am."

"Yeah… right," Annora agreed weakly, silently thanking every divine being that she could possibly think of for their timely intervention. Before either of the two girls could say anything, the doorbell downstairs rang.

"I got it!" Annora yelled as she picked the computer up off her lap and headed downstairs, where she deposited it on the coffee table before she went to answer the door. When she saw who was standing there in front of her, she almost slammed the door in Mustang's face.

"Just who I was hoping to see," the Flame Alchemist began with a satanic smirk on his face. Annora didn't give him a chance to finish as she gave her 'traditional' greeting to unwelcome people that came to her door.

"Go away, I don't want to buy any Girl Scout cookies," she retorted as she swiftly shut the door on Mustang, who stood there with a bemused expression, completely flabbergasted.

"Who was that?" Katie asked as Annora knelt down in front of the coffee table and spun the computer around to face her.

"That was E… umm, Alex's boss. He's a real jackass, so I didn't even give him the chance to say anything."

"Wow, what'd he do to piss you off?" The other girl wondered. Annora let out an exasperated sigh as she massaged the bridge of her nose.

"It's a long story," she muttered just as an angry shout reverberated outside the apartment.

"FULLMETAL, IF YOU OR YOUR GIRLFRIEND DODN'T OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW, I WILL REVOKE-"

"That bastard!" Annora hissed as she shot to her feet and ran for the door, skidding slightly on the polished hardwood floor beneath her stocking-clad feet. The moment her fingers wrapped around the doorknob, the door flew inward under the force of one incredibly angry State Alchemist.

"Why did you slam the door on me?!" Mustang growled as he glared at her. Annora looked at him steadily before she arched an eyebrow skeptically.

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

The irate Colonel gave her a dirty look before he thrust a brown cardboard box into her hands.

"That's for you to open later," he muttered in response to the jaundiced look that she gave him. Annora rolled her eyes and was about to make a sarcastic comment when Katie asked from the living room.

"Annora, what's going on?"

The teen went an interesting shade of white as Mustang's gaze immediately went from her to the doorway into the room where her laptop was currently sitting.

"Who's that?" he demanded.

"My friend. I was talking to her before you came barging in here."

It was then that Edward called out from upstairs.

"What the hell is going on? Is the Colonel Bastard in here?!"

Annora looked up to see Ed staring down at her from the top of the stairs, and swore when Mustang headed for the living room.

"No!" she yelped as she managed to push her way in front of the man and cover up the camera lens with her hand before Mustang came into the room.

"What is that?" he growled as she placed herself between him and her laptop.

"Nothing that I'm going to let you touch!" she retorted hotly. Mustang assumed his best 'commanding officer' tone as he tried unsuccessfully to move the girl away from her computer.

"Let me see it!"

"Over my dead body, asshole!"

"After the stunt you pulled this afternoon, that can be arranged!"

"Annora, what's going on?" Katie asked in obvious confusion as she tried unsuccessfully to see what was going on at Annora's end. It was then that Ed came into the room and joined the scuffle between Annora and Mustang.

"What the hell are you trying to pull, Colonel Bastard?!"

"Nothing that concerns you, Fullmetal!"

"Both of you, get the hell off me!"

"Move, you bastard!"

"Why don't you show respect to your elders, you short brat!!"

With all the shouting and cursing going on, fortunately for Annora, Katie couldn't exactly understand what was going on because of it. Although that came to an end when both Ed and Mustang crashed into her and all three of them fell to the ground in a heap, with the Colonel on top.

There was a long silence after that, and Mustang found himself staring into the face of a teenage girl on the screen of Annora's laptop computer just in time to hear her squeal loudly.

"Roy-kun!!"

"What in the-?! Who the hell is that?!" the Flame Alchemist yelped as he scrambled off of Ed and Annora, who were both in various stages of agony. Annora looked over at Katie, who was doing some weird sort of happy dance in her seat on her end while hugging what looked suspiciously like a Mustang plushy, and winced. She had been hoping to avoid something like this.

"The Anti-Christ," she muttered dourly as she rubbed the back of her head where Ed had elbowed her. Ed stared at the computer screen and made a face.

"Why does she have pictures of the Colonel Bastard all over her wall?" he asked suspiciously, disgust evident in his voice. Annora shrugged in response.

"I don't know. Why don't you ask her?"

Ed didn't notice her comment as he peered closely at the screen before he jerked back in horror.

"There's a picture of Envy there as well!" he yelped. "And one of me!"

"Hey, don't look at me!" Annora protested as she held her hands up in front of her. "I had nothing to do with any of that crap on Katie's wall. She's the one that obsesses over the pyromaniac over there!"

On the other hand, while Annora and Ed were talking, Katie had now gotten up out of her computer chair and was dancing around, babbling something about her wishes being answered. It was only when she grabbed a life-sized plushy of Roy Mustang and began to drool all over it that Annora killed the connection to her web cam, seeing as she, Ed, and Mustang were now thoroughly disturbed.

"Let us never speak of this again," she muttered whole-heartedly as the shell-shocked Flame Alchemist left the apartment without a word. Ed looked at her and made a face.

"Who the hell was that?!" he finally asked. Annora, who closed her laptop and was about to stand up, looked over at him.

"That was my friend Katie. As you saw, she's a little disturbed."

Ed just nodded as he numbly watched Annora head up the stairs. He silently prayed that if there was such a thing as God, that he would make sure that he never saw this 'Katie' person ever again.

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Okay, there's the end of chapter seven, and I hope that you all liked it. Sorry that it took so long, but I had a bit of writer's block, as well as my school schedule was completely nuts. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed; it means so much to me and it keeps me going.

Announcements:

First of all, I want to announce to everyone and anyone who wants to draw fan art for this story that I will be accepting drawings and posting them for 'What One May Never See' in the section on my profile. There will be a prize for the top three drawings that I get, and that prize will be:

The appearance of a character that you create in the story at a later chapter.

The only rules are that you give me a detailed description of what they look like, their personality, what they wear, ect.

To send the pictures to me, here's my e-mail: theshinsengumisshadow(at)yahoo(dot)com.

Sorry about the format, but that's the only way I can put it on Fan Fiction without it showing up as a giant blank space.

Second thing:

Here's just a little bit of an explanation as to what's going on for any of you that might be confused.

Annora is in the 'Fullmetal Alchemist' anime, not the manga. So I will be sticking as close to the anime as possible with this story. If you have any questions, just send me a PM.

Last of all, I have a couple of one-shots involving Ed and Annora. The first one takes place sometime in the middle of 'What One May Never See', but it's not a part of the main story line. It's called 'In Another's Shoes' and it involves body swapping. If you want me to post it before I finish 'What One May Never See', let me know when you review, that way I can put it up.

Thank you all so much for reading my story and for your patience in waiting for me to update.