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Fullmetal Alchemist: Conspiracy

Fullmetal Alchemist quote:

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth."- Alphonse Elric

Chapter 3: Central

Al looked around the front car for his brother when the train came to a stop at the train station. His eyes swept over a window. They were about to continue pass it when Al saw his brother's gold hair out the window.

"Brother!" Al said, jumping out the train window.

Ed glanced over at him. "I thought you were the proper one."

Al stared at him. "What do you mean?"

"You just jumped out the train window. You always tell me to use a door when I jumped out the windows at Winry's." Ed explained, grinning at his brother's abashed look.

The younger brother shrugged. "Well, I wanted to make sure you were okay after your fight with him."

Ed ruffled Al's hair. "Never better. He didn't even touch me." Al raised a brow and motioned to his brother's shirt. "This? Bald had a knife and cut my shirt. He never made contact with my skin." He glanced over at the military soldiers rounding up the terrorists. "Let's go get our suitcases."

"Brother," Al said as they jumped off the train with their suitcases. "Do you think the passengers will tell the soldiers that we saved the train?"

Frowning, Ed looked over his shoulder at his brother as he led him the train station entrance/exit. "I don't think it will matter. I was fighting Bald on top of the train when it pulled into the station. They already saw me. Let's just get out of here before they come to talk to us."

They pushed their way through the crowd and walked quickly to the exit, wanting to get far away from the military and the eyes that they felt on them, watching their every step. As soon as they got out of the train station they ran off in a random direction.

After running for about half an hour, Edward slowed to a walk and looked behind him. "Stupid military." He mumbled annoyed.

"Brother, what do we do now?" Al asked, slowing to a walk to stay with his brother.

"Find a hotel." Edward replied. "I'd rather not sleep in the streets."

"How are we suppose to pay for this?" Al asked.

Edward smiled at his little brother. "As much as I hate him, that bastard left us a lot of money. So we still got some left even after the automail I got."

Al looked at his brother curious. "How much is some?"

"Enough for us to have a hotel room for a while." Edward replied. "Besides that, we inherited money from when mom died. Then some of the people in the village paid us when we helped fix stuff for them. So we should have enough money for a few months if we don't waste it on useless junk."

Al smiled. "Okay, brother. How long are we going to be staying in Central?"

Edward frowned. "I don't know. As long as it takes us to find a lead on finding that bastard."

Both boys made it to a nice hotel and rented a room on the top floor. It had two bedrooms, a small kitchen, a bathroom, and a small living room.

The carpet of the room was a very light brown and the walls were tan. In the living room there was a couch, a recliner chair, a coffee table, and a rug. The kitchen had a stove, refrigerator, and a table. Both the rooms had a bed, a dresser, and a wardrobe.

Edward and Al each picked a room and put their stuff away. "Hey Al!" Edward yelled out to his little brother. "We need to go find a bank. I don't want to carry this money with us everywhere we go. It could get stolen or we could lose it. Then we can explore Central, okay?"

Al walked into his brother's room. "Sure, brother. I'm all ready to go."

The older brother grabbed the money and turned to his little brother. "Let's go then, Al."

After getting an account set up at a bank, which took forever in Ed's opinion because the accountant kept badgering them about so young and wanting an account of their own, the boys started exploring the city.

"Brother!" Al exclaimed suddenly. He and Edward were in a book store looking at the most advance books they could find when Al looked out the bookstore window.

Edward looked up from the book he was looking at. "Wha…" Al grabbed his brother's arm and pulled him onto the ground before Edward could finish his question.

"I saw a military man outside. From the stars on his uniform, I say he is a Colonel. He had black hair and his gloves have transmutation circles on them, like mine, except I don't know what the transmutation circles are for. I've never see them before." Al explained to his older brother.

Edward rolled his eyes. "Great." The young alchemist sighed and grabbed the book he dropped. "Let's see if this place has a backdoor."

The two boys grabbed the books they wanted to buy and crawled towards the cashier lady, who was watching them strangely. "Uh…what are you two doing?" She asked.

"We would like to buy these books." Edward said as he and Al put their books and money on the counter.

"….Okay." The cashier said, still confused as to what they were doing. After putting the books in a bag for the boys, the cashier gave the bags to the kids. "Is there anything else you needed?"

Both boys turned to look out the window to see if the military man was still hanging around. He was on the other side of the street flirting with a woman. Rolling his eyes at the man, Edward turned back to face the cashier. "Does this place have a backdoor?"

"Yeah. Why?" The woman asked.

"We're just hiding from some people." Al answered.

The woman nodded her head and led the boys to the backdoor. After letting them out the backdoor, the cashier went back to the front of the store.

When she got to the front of the store, she saw the military man in the store that she saw outside the store a few minutes ago. "Hello sir, can I help you?" She asked.

"I'm looking for two kids. One with long golden-blond hair tied in a braid and gold eyes. He is wearing black leather pants, a black jacket, and a red coat. The other kid has short golden-blond hair and gold eyes. He is wearing tan shorts and a blue T-shirt." The man asked.

The cashier frowned. The description was of the two boys she just let out the backdoor of the store. Was this the man the kids were hiding from?

When the cashier was silent for a few minutes, the military man frowned. "Have you seen them?" He asked.

"Yes. They just left though." The cashier replied.

The military man frowned. "Is there a backdoor to this place? I was watching the front door and I didn't see them come out."

The cashier frowned. Military personal were too observant. She could lie and say there wasn't, but chances were that he would know and she could get in trouble for lying to the military officer and for helping the two kids run from him. "Yes." She said after a few minutes of thinking.

"Show me it." The man commanded.

The cashier's frown deepened as she led the officer to the back\door. "Thank you." He said as he left.

The alchemist brothers walked down the road talking happily as they continued exploring the city. Besides almost meeting the military officer at the book store, the brothers haven't met any other officers.

"Want to go somewhere for dinner or do you want to buy some food and cook something?" Edward asked.

"Let's eat out tonight then go shopping for food tomorrow. I'm too tired to do anything else." Al answered. He and Ed saved a train from terrorists, ran from the military at the train station, then walked around the city all day after that. It was an exhausting day.

Edward nodded his head and led his brother to the nearest restaurant that he found. A waitress took them to a table and took their orders. While they waited for their food, Edward and Al looked around the restaurant while they talked. They stopped talking when their food arrived.

As they were eating, they stopped paying attention to their surroundings because they were so absorbed into their delicious tasting food. So when a man sat down at the table and shoved a picture in each of their faces they were really surprised and jumped to their feet and grabbed their hearts.

"What the hell?" Edward exclaimed angrily. He looked at the man to see he was wearing a military uniform. He had black hair and square glasses with hazel eyes behind them.

"Maes, we aren't here to show off your wife." A man said as he placed his hand on Edward's shoulder.

"We also didn't come here to arrest two kids." A female voice joined them.

The man holding Edward's shoulder sighed. "We aren't going to arrest them. Just talk with them over dinner. That is what we came here for." The man pushed Edward back into his chair and sat next to him. The female pushed Al back into his seat and sat down to.

Edward and Al stared at each other then looked at the three other officers. The second man was the man that Edward and Al saw outside the book store. The female had blond hair and brown eyes.

"Who are you guys?" Edward growled, clearly annoyed about the three officers interrupting his and Al's dinner.

"Colonel Roy Mustang, The Flame Alchemist." The black haired man said.

The man with glasses and black hair answered next. "Major Maes Hughes."

"First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye." The female said.

"What are your names?" Hughes asked gently. They are just kids so he didn't want to be mean. The kids didn't need it.

Edward huffed and leaned back in his seat. "Edward Elric."

Al smiled at his brother. He was annoyed to that the military was there, but he wasn't going to be rude. He still remembered the manners that Master taught them, even if his brother didn't remember them. "Alphonse Elric."

"What do you want?" Edward growled.

"Firstly to thank you two for saving the train and the general earlier today. It was going to be a pain to figure out a plan to save the train without giving into the terrorists. You two being on that train was a miracle for us. It saved us time." Mustang said.

Edward scoffed. "Whatever."

"You're a grumpy little kid, aren't you?" Hughes asked.

In a blink of an eye, Edward jumped to his feet and pulled Hughes out of his seat by the collar of his jacket. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL THAT HE CAN'T BE SEEN UNLESS WITH A MAGNIFYING GLASS!" Edward yelled.

Hughes and Hawkeye just blinked in confusion. Al hit his forehead and Mustang laughed. "What was that about?" Hughes asked, blinking.

"That was brother yelling about being called short. He hates it more than anything." Al explained. "Be lucky that's all he did. He beat one of the terrorists on the train unconscious for calling him a pipsqueak."

Edward huffed, let go of Hughes and sat back down. "The bastard deserved it."

Mustang rolled his eyes. "You two are strange."

"Excuse me, sir, but is there something you need?" Al asked politely.

"The Fuhrer would like to meet you two so we want to take you two to Central Command." Mustang explained.

Edward's eyes narrowed and he looked at his brother. Silently they agreed that they weren't going. "No, we are not going." The older brother growled, slamming his hands on the table.

"Why?" Hawkeye asked.

The brothers locked eyes. Edward looked at his brother than moved just his eyes towards the restaurant door, hoping Al would get the message. Al smiled to show he understood. "We hate the military."

With that said Edward slid off of his seat and clapped his hands fast and slammed them on the ground, causing an earthquake in the restaurant. While the military officers were getting over the earthquake, Edward got out from under the table and he and his brother ran out of the restaurant.

"Was that alchemy?" Hughes said, dazed.

Mustang crawled under the table and looked at the ground where Edward was. "Hawkeye, did you see any transmutation circles on the kid's gloves?"

"No, sir." Hawkeye answered immediately. "Why, sir?"

"There's no circle down here. If I'm right in my guess then the kid did alchemy without a transmutation circle." Mustang replied. "Did either of you see where they went?"

"Just that they ran out of the restaurant. I didn't see the direction they ran." Hughes replied.

Mustang groaned in response. "That's just great. It took us all day to find them and when we do find them they outsmart us and escape."

Hughes pushed his glasses up on his face. "It's not all bad. We did find out their names. I can probably find some information about them now that we know their names."

"Get on it right away." Mustang replied.

A/N: Please Review!