Hello everyone! Here's another update for you all! Enjoy!

The Elric brothers and Winry frantically ran down the streets as they aimlessly searched for Sonic and his friends. "Where could they be!?" Ed shouted.

"Is there anything they like?" Winry asked, hoping to gain some kind of lead. "Maybe we could find them near one of the parks or local businesses!"

"Nothing from our world that we know of!" Ed shouted.

"Brother, calm down…" Al hushed him.

Ed turned as his head seemed to grow in size "I'M COMPLETELY CALM!" he screamed.

"He's right, mate." St. John lifted Al's helmet as he looked at him. "Panicking will get us nowhere. As you said, they could be anywhere. On top of that, Sonic and his mates can travel fast. Which means doing what we're doing now is getting us nowhere. We need to think about this if we're going to have a ghost of a chance to find them."

Ed growled, and sighed. "Okay. So, where do you think they are?"

St. John rubbed his chin. "I admit…Sonic and I are not exactly best mates. But I know he likes to explore…fast."

Ed lowered his head. "That really doesn't help matters…"

"Still, it's morning. Sonic can be an aggravating amateur, but even his foolishness has limits. He's probably heading back right now. If nothing else, the daylight means he has to be careful, and being careful…well, I'd imagine that just takes the fun out of everything for him" St John looked around. "I think we should split up and set up some observation points around different quadrants of the city. The chances of at least ONE of us finding them should be in our favor then."

Ed sighed. "Okay. Let's do that. Al, get in touch with the girls, and tell them to set up a post closest to where they are. We're going to check out all the other quadrants."

"Sounds good!" Winry said as she and Al parted their ways with Ed.

"Finally, they're using their heads." St. John thought. As he stabilized himself inside Al's armored body, he found a piece of paper stuck in his crevices. On instinct, he pulled it out, thinking he would throw it out later. However, he noticed something written, and looked at it. What he saw made his eyes widen.

"Let's get you to the day care, sweetie." Gracia said to Elicia.

"Can't I come with you?" she pouted.

"I'd like you to, but you'd be bored." Though her late husband had left them money and they were benefitting from his military insurance, it would only take them so far. She had recently started a part-time job to support themselves, and would take her daughter to day care on those days.

As she opened the door, she found two large men in suits blocking her way. Before she could react, one grabbed hold of her and pinned her against the adjoining wall. "MOMMY!" Elicia screamed as she was pried away from her mother.

The other man quickly stuffed her in a bag. "Got her! Let's go!" His partner then punched the mother across the face, knocking her down to the floor. As she desperately tried to get her bearings straight, they took off.

"Okay, which way did we go again?" Sonic asked as he leaped across the rooftops aimlessly. In their rush to get outside, they forgot to keep track of where they were heading, and didn't bother to get a good look at what Ed's building looked like.

"We were following you!" Tails said as he flew near him.

"Hey! YOU guys are supposed to be the responsible ones here!" the hedgehog protested.

"Why are you pinning this on us!?" Knuckles shouted as he glided a few feet behind.

"Tails is smart for his age, you guard an island…" Sonic began.

"SHUT UP!"

"Well, we'll find our way back…eventually." Sonic said. As he got ready to make another quick jump, he noticed something.

"Sonic!" Tails shouted, knowing he never stopped unless he had a good reason. "What's wrong?"

"Guys! Check it out!" Sonic pointed to the street below.

They observed the men in black hurry into a crummy-looking car (to Sonic, primitive WAS crummy). One of them was carrying a bag. Not only were they in a hurry, Sonic could have sworn that something was frantically moving inside. "Something's up with those people…" Sonic noted.

"We're following them, aren't we?" Knuckles asked apprehensively.

As the car sped off, Sonic smirked. "Well, shouldn't be too hard." Waving towards him, he followed them, his friends trailing close by.

As Ed scaled a building to observe the city, he quickly scanned the horizon. Just on the border of his vision, he spotted something blue, moving fast, with two others following by air. "That's gotta be them!" Seeing that they were not heading in his direction, Ed quickly slid down the fire escape and carefully made his way back down to the street. As he got to running a car suddenly pulled up in front of him. "Hey, watch it, you jerk!" Ed yelled.

The window rolled down, revealing a familiar and sparkling moustached face. "EDWARD ELRIC, THANK GOODNESS YOU'RE HERE!" the driver cried.

"M-Major Armstrong!?" Ed stuttered.

"Quickly, get in! We have an emergency on our hands, and your aid would greatly be appreciated!" he nodded.

Ed internally groaned. He was currently occupied, but what was he supposed to say!? "I'm sorry, Major! I'd love to help, but I'm currently chasing some sentient animals!" Best case scenario, Armstrong would drag him along to help and throw him in the psychiatric ward afterwards (how could you say no to Armstrong anyway!?) Ed nodded as he helped himself into the passenger seat.

It seemed that Armstrong wasn't exaggerating, as he put pedal to the metal soon as the young alchemist was in. "What's the situation?" Ed asked.

"You remember Brig-I mean, Lieutenant Hughes daughter, Elicia?" Armstrong asked. He couldn't keep the death of Hughes from him forever, but for now, he needed him focused. "I suppose he'll find out after the mission." He thought.

Ed blinked. "Yeah, of course. We helped deliver her." That was a rather trying and unexpected time of their lives.

"She's been kidnapped!"

"WHAT!?" Ed shouted. "Who the heck-!?"

"At this time, we don't know their identities. Two strangers ambushed Mrs. Hughes at her apartment and snatched her daughter right from their door!" He took a moment to breathe. "In the military, you have the potential to make all sorts of enemies. The Colonel is using whatever resources he has to look into the matter now, but it's going to take time!"

"And Hughes?" Ed asked. "He may be more of a desk guy, but given the way he dotes over his daughter, I'd imagine he would charge right in there! Besides, he can handle himself; those pocket knives of his are no joke!"

Armstrong concealed his gulp. "Unfortunately, the lieutenant is away on an assignment. We're trying to contact him, but he's at least a day's away from Central. For better or worse, he's not coming today!"

Ed growled. Maes Hughes was a pain in the ass, always bragging about his wife and daughter. Still, he was always helpful with whatever intelligence he could find, and while Ed didn't want to admit it, he would always make him smile later. "Well, let's get going!" Ed then just remembered something. When Ed spotted Sonic, he was heading off away from his apartment. Either he was really lost, or… "Major, where are we headed?"

"We're heading to the Hughes' residence, of course. We don't know where the kidnappers ran off to, but it is best to start there to pick up a trail!"

Ed then pointed somewhere else. "Major, head north!"

"What!?"

"I've got a hunch! Just do it!" Ed exclaimed.

Armstrong gave him a long look. Then, Armstrong made a sharp turn left. "I pray you are right about this, Elric!"

"I already am!"

Armstrong turned to look at him, as it looked like steam was blowing from his nostrils, and was emanating a fiery aura. "For if you're not, and something happens to Elicia, NO FORCE ON EARTH SHALL SAVE YOU!"

Ed nervously sweated as he backed up to the door. "Understood." He squeaked.

Under normal circumstances, following such a low-tech car would have been a cake-walk for all three of the mobians in question. But due to the need to keep themselves concealed, Sonic and his friends had to stay hidden, travelling much slower than usual. Even so, the car never left their sight, and eventually stopped. Looking down, they saw the men exit the car. They couldn't coherently hear what they were saying, but judging by the way the ringleader swung his arms, they were in a hurry to get out of sight. Opening the trunk, one of the men heaved a bag over his shoulder. "Something inside is struggling." Knuckles said as he looked.

"Something…or someone…" Sonic corrected him. They all went inside a big warehouse, and the driver quickly drove off. After making a brief scan, Sonic determined the streets were almost vacant; it seemed this was the bad part of town. Signaling for them to descend, Sonic jumped off as Tails caught him, the pair and Knuckles making a slow decent to the street.

Inside, one of the kidnappers unceremoniously dropped Elicia on the floor. The toddler, of course, cried. "Jeez, someone shut this kid up!" one of them yelled, cocking his open hand back.

"You will do no such thing!" The kidnappers turned to their boss, a brown-haired man with a goatee and a nasty scar across his dead eye. "Not yet." He growled dangerously. "Gag her!"

One stuffed a rag in her mouth as he tied a handkerchief behind her mouth as another tied her to a chair. "Let's not waste any more time. Hughes may be dead, but I can still take revenge on a dead man. Is the telephone ready?"

"Ready, sir." Another said as he handed him phone. Unlike the standard models, this one had a small, electronic box next to the wire.

"It can't be traced?" the leader asked.

"No sir. I made sure of it." His right hand assured him.

"Excellent." He said as he dialed.

Mustang stared at his blank desk. Of course, he was worried for the Hughes family. A part of him wanted to be out there with the police, but he was a soldier, not a detective. Given the nature of the kidnapping, it was someone Hughes knew, probably someone he wronged. This was obviously a revenge scheme. And since no one was killed as of yet, he predicted it would turn out to be a ransom of some kind. He had a feeling one of the kidnappers would contact him soon, so he elected to stay in his office. "I lost Maes…I will not allow his family to suffer the same fate!" What really worried Mustang was that once they got the money… or whatever it was they wanted…they would kill her. Still, Mustang knew he would have to play along, once he got the call. Finally, his phone rang. Picking it up as if nothing was wrong, he answered "Colonel Mustang."

"Ah, the Flame Alchemist. I believe you're an old friend of the late Maes Hughes, correct?" the voice on the other line taunted him.

"If you have my number, I believe you already know the answer to that question." Mustang replied. "I know you have the girl. Just tell me what you want."

"Straight to the point, aren't we? Well, I'll tell you what, I don't want money."

Mustang sneered. At least with cash, negotiation was easy. "That just makes things more complicated."

"I'll make it simple for you then, Mustang. I'll have to tell you why we're doing this before I tell you the deal. Do you remember April 10th, 1909?"

Mustang's brow furrowed; that was shortly after the Ishval war. During that time, Amestris was concerned about looking weak to its rivals, and many intelligence operations were assigned to its various borders. Of course, Hughes was at the front and center of most of them. Which meant…" I think I know what you're talking about. The mission in Crete, wasn't it?"

"Yes. Hughes was assigned to check up on the border, and discovered a slew of new weapons within our bases."

"I remember. He sabotaged them and stole the blueprints for us. Helped us drastically along the way." Mustang answered.

"I can imagine. Did he tell you about any…complications?"

"I think he mentioned something about getting caught." Mustang sighed, doing his best to stall. The tracers would need as much time as possible. "He complained vehemently about that to me personally for days. He wanted to stay with his fiancée, BADLY, and tried to take as many desk jobs since then."

"Did he tell you he killed people?" the voice on the line said.

Mustang sighed. "Listen, I don't really want to hear about whatever killings Hughes made were unjustified. We'll both be wasting each other's time. Is there anyone in particular that set you off?"

"Yes." The man on the other side breathed. "He took…my son." A moment of silence hung between them.

"You should know, nothing you do will bring him back. And your revenge came a bit late." Mustang said, sympathetic but still stern.

"It's not going to play out how I would have preferred, I'll admit that." The man on the other line said. "In all sincerity, I don't want to kill the girl. And I do not blame Hughes; he was a soldier, like the rest of us. In his line of work, what he did was understandable. In his position, I would have done the same."

Another pause on the phone occurred, but Mustang could feel the tension in the air. "However, I DO blame the Fuher!" the voice on the other line yelled. "After all, he was the one who ordered him there in the first place!"

"I suppose that's the appropriate place to put blame." Mustang reluctantly agreed. "So, what do you want from him?"

"I will release Hughes' daughter…in exchange for the Fuher's son." With that, he hung up.

"What!?" Mustang yelled. "Hello? Hello!?" Mustang slammed the receiver down.

Quickly, he made his way down the hall towards the operators. "Did anyone get the trace?"

"I'm sorry, sir! It didn't work!" one of the female technicians replied.

"What do you mean it didn't work!?" the colonel demanded angrily.

The head technician, Kain Fury, a man with short black hair and glasses, and one of Mustang's favored subordinates, approached him. "It's like the tracer couldn't connect!" Fury explained. "It must be some kind of new technology! I'm sorry sir; I'll do everything I can to work around it!"

Mustang grunted and sharply turned. As he stormed out, he muttered "Hughes, I swear. One way or another, I'm getting your daughter back."

On the other end, the man hung up the receiver. "So, we're not going to kill her?" one of the kidnappers asked. Sonic and his friends watched from above the support beams. Sonic would have been appalled by the idea of overlanders harming one of their own, but after the incident on the train, not much was surprising them at this point.

"Of course we are." The boss answered. He then held up a belt of what looked like packed explosives; Sonic had seen enough with Sally to recognize them, even if the mechanics were more primitive. "Attach this to her under her dress; once we meet with them to make the trade, we'll blow her up as soon as she's back with her mother, and we'll kill that little brat of the Fuher's for good measure."

One of the henchmen looked at him in horror. "B-but, they're just children-!"

"Everyone is a child at some point. But we all grow up, and therefore we carry the sins of our parents. One day, we all must pay…" He looked at Elicia, trembling at the sight of him. "…even if all too soon."

Sonic looked at his friends. They both nodded; they weren't going to allow this to happen. Without uttering a word, Sonic pointed to Tails, then to Elicia. He motioned Knuckles towards him as they prepared to attack. "You know that even if the Fuher agrees to this, he'll have a trick or two up his sleeve." One of the men added. "There's no way he's just going to trade his only son for the kid of one of his dead soldiers." One of the crooks warned the leader.

"Oh, I'm well aware of that." The ring leader said. He then looked to a desk where several high-powered firearms lay. "Trust me, I've come prepared for everything."

"Did you come prepared for me?" a stranger's voice suddenly asked.

The leader growled, not noticing the shocked look on his men's faces. "So, you followed us?" He asked without turning as he reached into his pocket for his handgun. "Well, we've got a solution for that too…" As he turned around, he froze with the rest of his gang.

Some blue creature just stood in the middle of them, smirking. "What's up?" he waved.

"KILL IT WITH FIRE!" The crooks shot their weapons, but Sonic saw them coming a mile away and ran out of the line of fire.

"What in the hell was that thing!?"

"At least it's just one!"

"Not quite!" One thug turned around to see something red fly into him and knock him down. Knuckles stayed in the center as he attacked the crooks; they had enough good sense not to shoot their guns when their target was right in the middle of them.

"KILL THEM BOTH!" the leader yelled furiously.

Sonic and Knuckles made sure to keep the attention on them. Elicia watched, her panic now turned into confusion. Still being a toddler, she was also rather curious about these creatures and forgot about her predicament. Tails then flew down in front of her, putting his finger up to his mouth. Understanding, Elicia nodded as Tails untied her. Then, picking her up by the wrists, he flew up back to the ceiling and took her with him.

Sonic, running and watching, saw Tails got the girl and exited through and open window. "Well, that's Phase one." Sonic then looked around for something to really mess this gang up, and noticed boxes labeled TNT. "Aren't those old school explosives?" He then smirked as he got an idea. "Knux, get out of there!" he yelled to the echidna

"About time!" Knuckles shouted as he popped someone's kneecap. Quickly he rolled out and took cover from the shooting.

Another crook shot at Sonic, and his bullet actually managed to shoot off a stray quill. "Oh, come on!" Sonic shouted. "That's it! You asked for it!" Sonic then planted himself in front of the TNT crates. "Hey, pinheads! Bet you can't hit this!" He bent over and smacked his rear end as he goaded them on.

As he expected, the gang was high on adrenaline and not quite over their freak out. They shot at him, without thinking. "YOU IDIOTS!" The leader yelled. "THAT'S-!" They pulled the triggers, and Sonic ran for cover.

"I hope you're right about this, Edward." Armstrong told Ed as he drove. "Because there are other leads we could be pursuing!"

"Just trust me on this, alright!" Ed protested. Deciding they had driven far enough in the direction he wanted, it seemed appropriate to get out and investigate. "Stop the car here!"

Armstrong did so, and they jumped out of the car. Ed looked around; this was definitely one of the more industrial areas of Central; mostly factories and warehouses, with very few civilians walking around. Perfect for hideouts. And Sonic was definitely heading this way. Sonic, in the time he had come to know him, was reckless, but never without reason. And he went right by the Hughes' residence. Surely they must have witnessed something. "They might be hiding out somewhere. Let's look around."

"And you're…" Armstrong stopped as they hear something. "Gunfire." Armstrong muttered. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out his gauntlets as he and Ed ran down the street towards the sound.

"It's from inside that warehouse!" Ed pointed to what seemed to be a vacant warehouse. As they approached, the building suddenly went up in flames! "Shit!" Ed cursed.

"Edward!" Armstrong yelled. "Call central! Inform them-!"

"You call Central!" Ed shouted. "I have someone to look for!"

"Edward!" Armstrong yelled as he reached out for him.

Tune in next chapter! Will Sonic survive!?
(Crickets chirping) Why do I bother with these questions?