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Clanking footsteps behind him reassured Ed that his brother was at his back. The thick brush and scrub of the overgrown forest was annoying to push through, and his lines of sight were trash. The ground was a combination of packed, dead vegetation and cracked shale and Edward had misjudged more than a few steps. Between his foot skidding just beyond his intended step, and the too deep piles of dead leaves that he always seemed to jolt into on his right foot, his right thigh burned at the port. Every branch that smacked him in the face earned a snarl.
“Brother,” Alphonse started, tentatively, “I could lead and …”
“No. It would just be worse if you pushed a bush out of the way and it wound up in my face,” Edward grumbled. At least if he was pushing the thorny, annoying scrub out of the way it only slapped back into Al’s steel husk. The natural thought sparked a seizure of pain in his heart even as his gut churned. He may not hurt his brother by letting branches hit him, but it tore his soul for exactly that reason. Nearly three years, now, since he damned his little brother to that armor. Three years, eight months, twenty-six days, but who was counting? They’d made some progress, learned things, gotten better at everything it was that they did, but returning Al to his flesh and blood body was still out of reach.
It was almost worse now that he’d actually seen Al’s body beyond the Gate. It was so fragile, so thin, and older – the years and months between then and now had allowed his body to age without him. Years they would never get back. His face twisted into a familiar scowl as he pressed forward through brush and trees. ‘Stupid Mustang, stupid forest, stupid renegade alchemists,’ he fumed silently.
** **
“Fullmetal, are you even listening?” Mustang snapped, irritated, as usual, with his subordinate’s attitude.
Said subordinate was lounging on the couch in his office, one foot on the low table, arm thrown across the back with his head tilted back, staring at the ceiling with all the ennui of a statesman. “Yeah, yeah,” he shot back. “Crazy ex-State Alchemist, stirring up trouble in the middle of fucking nowhere and you want me to go investigate. Why me? You said it yourself: he’s in the middle of fucking nowhere! Who cares what he’s doing? What’s he going to do? Blow himself up? Good riddance, then.”
Mustang pressed his fingers on the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and trying to forestall the headache that was springing forth from his forehead. He took one deep breath before raising his head. He glared at the sloppy, disrespectful posture of the teenager across the room. “If you’d been listening instead of interrupting then ignoring me, you’d’ve heard me tell you that he has certain books that went missing several years ago from the Central Library. And no, I’m not after his library card,” he snarled. “Those books are classified, highly dangerous alchemical texts.” He enunciated the words very distinctly, biting off the syllables.
Edward stilled, slowly lifting his head to match Mustang’s glare. “And what, exactly, are these texts?” In spite of himself, his attention had been piqued.
“That’s part of the problem. It’s classified, or so I was told. I was also told to ensure they are recovered. I was specifically, and explicitly, told to ensure I do not read them.” He smirked, finally catching Ed’s interest.
“You.”
“Me.”
The two stared at each other for a solid minute before Edward started to slowly grin. “I see. And you’re delegating this mission because …?”
Mustang rolled his eyes and huffed a very fake sigh. “Well, there are these inspections that absolutely must get done, and I haven’t the time, you see. So, I guess I have to delegate this oh so critical task to someone else. And, since none of the rest of my subordinates would know an alchemy text from an arithmetic text, it has to be you.”
The Fullmetal Alchemist’s eyes narrowed in calculation. He tried to find the trick, but it seemed that the only trick in this was on their side. His grim smirk shifted to an equally grim smile. “Well, then, give me that file and let me get on my way.”
The Colonel kept his expression long-suffering with difficulty. He handed over the file and Ed sat back down to go through it page by page. It was sometimes unreal watching Fullmetal read. His eyes darted like quicksilver, and the pages were flipped far too quickly to have been completely read and comprehended by anyone else, but this was Ed. Prodigy, genius, whatever people labeled him, the fact was, it was true. Sometimes Mustang wondered what Ed would be like when he was older, with tempering and a cooler head. His intellect was terrifying.
In what was likely a quarter of the time it had taken Mustang to read the file, Fullmetal folded it shut and sat back. He steepled his fingers in front of his face, elbows on knees, in what was likely an unconscious copy of Mustang’s posture when he was deep in thought. The golden eyes seemed unfocused as he reviewed the information he had just taken in. Abruptly, his gaze sharpened and captured the Colonel’s. “Alright. We’ll go. It’ll take about eighteen days,” he said, with unusual precision. Mustang’s eyebrow quirked. “Give or take. That allows about four days of leeway for unexpected events.” Mustang’s other eyebrow joined the first in his hairline. “What?” the kid demanded.
“That’s more of a timeline than you usually give me,” he supplied while keeping his voice as neutral as he could. ‘Why so precise? Did he see something in that file I missed?’ A cold finger of unease crept up his spine.
Fullmetal held his gaze for just long enough to make him uncomfortable before shaking his head in the negative. “You seemed to feel this was on a timeline – otherwise, why would you not have time to do it yourself?”
The level of insight should no longer have been surprising. Colonel Mustang had been in charge of Fullmetal for some time and he knew that the kid’s infuriatingly lackadaisical inattentiveness was fake and that he caught everything that went on around him. The older man was often hard pressed to not be envious of the youth’s ability. He never failed to remind himself that he was never sure he would have been willing to pay the price that this kid had.
Slowly, Colonel Mustang nodded. “You’re not wrong. There is an expectation that this mission be completed within the month. The travel alone takes up a chunk of your timeline, though.” Edward nodded, listening. “And the location doesn’t appear to be anywhere in the vicinity of normal, civilized people.” Another nod. “Eighteen days, huh?”
Edward nodded. “Give or take.” Abruptly he stood, swinging his red coat around, tugging the glove on his automail hand into place. “Have fun with the inspections, old man,” he tossed over his shoulder. With a carelessness that was entirely intentional he threw open the door to the Colonel’s office and let it slam both into the wall, then back into its frame.
Mustang couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief as the tornado that was Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist, left his office. He also couldn’t shake the faint unease he still felt. He went and picked up the file Edward had left behind, sat down at his desk and was about to read through it again when his door opened for Lieutenant Hawkeye who entered with a fresh stack of paperwork for him to process. The stern look on her face – and the rather prominent pistol holstered on her hip – kept him from sighing and rolling his eyes. Reluctantly he set aside the assignment folder.
“Ah, thank you, Hawkeye,” he said, managing to both sound pleasant and disappointed at the same time.
She smirked, dropped the pile on his desk, said, “Of course, sir,” and left, closing his door behind her.
Now Mustang rolled his eyes, but he diligently picked up the first set of work from the pile, his pen, and got to work.
** **
The forest did, in fact, thin out and then open up. Edward and Al had left the last bit of civilization the previous day to travel into the forest and find whatever place this ex-State Alchemist had holed up. The brothers had taken the train from East City to Pendleton in West Area. They’d had to switch trains in Rush Valley, but they hadn’t had time to catch up with Winry or Paninya. Al wanted to stop in and say hello, but Edward just shook his head. “Not this time, Al. We’ll see if we have time on the way back.” He refused to say anything else.
Al was concerned. Since Edward had come back from the office with word that they had a mission he’d been tense. He played it off, but Al was no fool. He watched his brother, and he knew that there was something he wasn’t saying. He knew that nothing he could do would pry it from his clenched teeth until he was ready. It wasn’t something that would endanger them, because no matter what his brother would always tell him about danger – well, if it was dangerous to Al, anyway. Though they had had the fight many times Al still despaired about his brother’s attitude towards self-preservation.
After almost two days of walking through overgrown forest they had come to an edge that opened into a wide, very obviously alchemically created clearing. The ground was too level, too clear, and the clearing itself was too round to have been natural. The Elric brothers stayed within the tree line while examining what they could see.
The clearing was possibly a kilometer in diameter. In the exact center was a large, quasi-fortified building that looked to be made of the local stone and wood. Even from their distance the marks of alchemy were clear to their trained eyes. It was possible that the clearing had been made when the building was drawn from the local terrain. Aside from the building, which looked about four stories tall, there were three other smaller buildings that they could see from their position. If there were more behind the small fortress, they were well hidden. What was eerie was the absolute and complete silence. No birds sang in the area, nothing flittered in the air, there was no buzz or hum of insects. Nothing. And it was creepy as hell.
Ed and Al looked at each other at the same time. Ed jerked his head back further into the trees. Al nodded. As quietly as they could they retreated from the circle of land in the middle of the forest.
“If that’s not it, I’ll eat the next textbook we find,” Ed said quietly.
“I’d rather you didn’t, Brother,” Al’s hollow voice replied just as softly. “But, yeah, that’s gotta be it.”
They both thought silently for a few minutes. Approaching directly did not seem to have a high potential for a positive outcome. However, that wide, open area precluded much else… unless they could find another route. Ed poked Al’s chest. “You go south. I’ll go north, we meet on the other side and compare notes. Let’s see what’s on the other side before we commit.”
Al nodded, agreeing with the caution. There looked to be at least another hour or so of daylight, and they figured they could both reach the far side of the circle before dark. With a silent fist to fist salute, the brothers separated to examine the lair of their quarry.
The forest was just as thick in every direction, but at least, for Al, it was negligible. Once and a while he would ghost his leather glove-hand over the bark of a particularly interesting tree, or rub a familiar leaf between his fingers. The pressure of his hand on the tree existed, but there was no sense of texture. The leaf … was nothing. He remembered Mother’s garden, and how he used to love helping her with the plants. He missed such simple things, and it hurt him that he could not remember the smell of the trees or the herbs in the garden.
He took a specific number of steps, then turned to examine the structure from the new angle. For the first while there was little else to see. Finally, as he reached the likely quarter-mark of the circle he could begin to see behind the fortress. He kept moving, looking, until he was sure. That was a small, fenced in backyard. With grass. And a tree. And … pets? There were some creatures moving around inside the fenced area. From the distance, the angle, and the fading light, he could not tell precisely. Maybe their rogue alchemist kept goats?
** **
Train tickets had been available from Hawkeye as Edward was leaving. He threw a brief scowl over his shoulder, muttering, “That Bastard.” He gave Hawkeye a polite smile, however, and thanked her for the tickets. He left and headed back to the dorms where he and Alphonse lived. Not quite a barracks, but not quite an apartment building, the building had been outfitted for traveling officers, or single lower ranked officers who didn’t have other accommodations. As a minor, with Colonel Mustang as his legal guardian, they’d rated rooms in the dorms until either he was old enough to get his own place or he left the military.
The rooms they shared were more than adequate for their needs. They weren’t fancy, but there was plenty of room for a pair of desks, bookshelves, a small kitchenette space where Ed could keep basic staples, a bathroom, and a bed. When Edward reached their room he found Alphonse pretty much where he’d left him, sitting quietly with a book on one side and a notepad on the other. Both were much further along than they had been when he’d left. Alphonse did not look up as Ed came in, but said, “Welcome back, Brother. What did the Colonel have for us this time? Anything interesting?”
Ed hummed, flicking the tickets against his automail hand. “You might say that.” Al looked up. “How about an ex-State Alchemist deserter who stole some library books that Colonel Bastard was given a direct order to retrieve and not read?”
Al tilted his head, one shoulder coming up in a pose of intrigue. He even ignored the insult at the Colonel, so Ed knew he was interested. “Not read? Why?”
Bright white teeth shined from a wide smile that had more in common with a feral cat than a teenager. “They’re alchemical texts that were taken from Central Library some time ago. And, I quote, ‘It’s classified,’ and he said he was, ‘told to ensure I do not read them.’” Ed could mimic Mustang’s voice rather well, so the inflection and tone sounded almost like the Colonel. “So, why would they higher-ups insist they be retrieved but specifically tell an alchemist not to read them?”
The armored shoulder came down, the head tilt shifted a bit more forward, twisting in a move Ed understood meant he was in serious contemplation. Slowly, the tinny voice said, “That is odd.” Sharply, he looked at his brother. “He is not supposed to read them…”
The maniacal grin widened. “Exactly. I read the file. Absolutely nothing in there mentioned them not being read. That was directly told to him and only him. We have free reign. And if they don’t want Mustang to read them, I really want to know what’s in them.”
Armor can’t grin. The expressionless helm never displayed emotions, yet Edward could tell Al was grinning. “You know, Brother? I think I do, too.” He giggled, mischievously.
** **
Edward followed the northern perimeter and he figured that he was nearly at the one eighty mark. From the vantage Ed claimed as he climbed a sturdy tree, he too could see the fenced yard. He considered, then dropped back down to examine the ground around the roots. The chipped shale of much of the ground was pushed aside near the giant roots and there he found what he was looking for: sand. Nice, fine sand. He examined it closely, even performed a small, experimental transmutation. The silica and quartz in the sand separated perfectly. He scooped up a handful of sand and transmuted a pair of lenses. ‘Winry would probably kill me for this…’
He pulled out his travel maintenance kit and carefully pulled one of the plates off his leg. He could have just used his arm, but if he needed to create a blade in a hurry, he didn’t want to lose the lenses. The screws went back in the holes, and he transmuted the plate into a cylinder around the lenses – and there it was, a functional telescope. Of course, in classic Ed fashion, it was anything but plain. There were marks and horns and tiny little imps dancing all over the piece, but it was also completely functional and that was the most important part. Quickly he scampered back up the tree.
He was able to climb up about ten feet before branches started complaining about his weight. Had he not had the automail he might have been able to go higher, but the extra twenty-five kilograms of steel was the defining factor. He quickly settled himself against the bole of the tree and peered through his telescope. A few adjustments and he was able to clearly see into the high walls around the back of the fortress.
Disgust and rage had him clenching his teeth as he saw that the creatures moving around within the yard were probably once human. Most of them walked on two legs, though there were a few that switched between two legs and all fours. They were each staked to the ground with a leash, a thick collar around each throat. Some were terribly misshapen, and they were all filthy, naked, and looked starved. He thought of Nina and his vision darkened, tunneling. He was hyperventilating. He pulled down the telescope and focused on breathing deeply before he fell out of the tree.
If this was what was in those alchemy books, they might not be recovered… Edward had just pulled the telescope back up to find out anything about the disgusting excuse for an alchemist when a brief glint caught his eye. Quickly, he focused the eyepiece and found Alphonse slowly creeping out of the tree line towards the fenced in area. Al’s armored body reflected, but it didn’t glint. What…? Ed scanned, looking, finally seeing, in the window at the top of the building, a long metal tube and a telescope. ‘Scope?’ he thought, then it hit him. That was a rifle, and it was pointing at Alphonse.
Intellectually he knew that bullets really couldn’t hurt his little brother. On more than one occasion some idiot had tried to shoot at Al and wound up catching the ricochet instead. But this was no handgun. Even still, he could fix holes in the armor. As long as none of them hit the blood seal. And really, what were the odds of that? Still, his heart rate ticked up a notch and his metal hand tightened its grip on the trunk of the tree, digging into the wood like it was clay.
Al had just reached the fence and was about to look over when a shot rang out and his helm went flying. Edward’s heart leapt into his throat even as Al’s body ducked from sight. Ed jumped down, tucking the telescope into a pocket and began to bolt across the open field, weaving to keep from being shot. He could hear the clanging footsteps of Al’s armor in the distance, so one worry was eased.
Edward dodged and ran in weaving non-patterns until he got to the nearest outer building. From there, he stopped to peer around the corner and try and discern what was going on. More distant clanging, then another piercing burst from the rifle in the window. ‘I bet Hawkeye could tell me what that rifle is just from the sound.’ The thought popped into his head from nowhere. He almost giggled as a spurt of adrenaline heightened his senses. He saw the muzzle of the weapon emerge from the open window again, the aim shifting as if the person wielding it were seeking a target.
From the yard behind the building, he could hear noises of panic and fear. They were abrupt, animalistic, and strange. Edward tried to tune them out, listening for his brother’s armor, but they were loud and only getting louder. He realized he likely wasn’t going to hear anything else from the other side of the yard for a while. He held his position, waiting, and finally the muzzle of the rifle withdrew. He looked for his next closest cover and bolted as quickly as he could. He slammed his back into the side of the shed or whatever it was, listening for the shot, but nothing came. He waited again. He was very close to the rear of the building. He could be next to it with his next short dash.
Since no further movement seemed to be coming from the upper window, he made his final dash, pressing himself against the wall where the fence met the building. From his angle he could not see inside the yard, but the strange combination of bleats, grunts, moans, and squeals were still being cast back and forth in confusion and fear. He eyed the fence warily, then shrugged. ‘What the hell…’
He jumped, using the extra force from his automail leg to push himself higher and grabbed the top of the eight-foot fence with his right arm. His ports shot pain through his nerves, but the strong automail held. Ignoring the pain was something Edward was very good at. With a strength that belied his size, he swung his leg up and over the top of the fence, rolled with it and landed on the other side. Even as he was standing up the door of the building was opening. Without thinking twice, Ed took two steps forward and landed a solid right hook to the side of the head of the person who stepped out the door.
The man dropped like a sack of stone. He’d seen just enough movement to have begun to turn his head and open his mouth to speak when the automail fist slammed into him. Some of the creatures in the yard started screaming, making Ed wince, but he studiously refused to look around. He did not want to see. He needed no more fuel for his nightmares. Instead, he looked down at the man he had just clocked and grinned. “Al! I got him! I think the gate’s on your side, but I’m going to get him restrained for when he comes around.”
Without waiting for a response, Ed ducked inside the building, looking for an appropriate material to either use or transmute for restraints. There wasn’t much inside, but he did find a metal folding table that he was able to create a nice set of bar shackles, complete with chains, for the guy. That done, he quickly slapped the guy’s hands into the block of metal, then cuffed and chained his legs. Finally, out of spite, he transmuted a hook into the wall and hung the chains just high enough that he would be hanging by his wrists until he woke up.
Satisfied, Edward looked around. “Al? Where you at?” ‘Maybe that shot flung the helm further than I thought,’ he considered, wondering what was taking Al so long. He crossed to the gate and kicked open the latch, shattering the flimsy hasp and lock with his left boot. “Al!” he called, starting to get worried.
He stepped out of the gate and froze, his blood going cold. There, not two meters from the fence, lay Alphonse, helm about another half meter further, no light, no soulfire brightness, in the eyes. Somehow, he stepped forward. Again. And again, and he found himself kneeling next to Alphonse, shaking him, calling to him, “Al! Alphonse! C’mon! Al?”
No response came. With a shaking hand he pulled the back plate of the armor up to allow the dying sun’s light to shine inside. His breath froze in his chest as the entire world stopped. There, in the middle of the blood seal, was a bent and blasted hole from a rifle bullet. The outlines of the seal were present, but the middle was … empty. Numb fingers dropped the lifeless armor.
** **
Colonel Roy Mustang stared at the phone on his desk as if it were a live snake. The Elric brothers had been gone for twenty-one days. Fullmetal had told him eighteen days, and though he was highly unpredictable in many ways, if he gave a time frame, he stuck to it. Which is why he almost never gave Colonel Mustang a time frame. On the other rare occasions he had done so, he had called if he were unable to meet his deadline. Even Lieutenant Hawkeye had stopped glaring at him and watched the phone as well. Master Sergeant Fuery was burning up the radios to verify that there were no disruptions on the railways, no natural disasters between East City and the middle-of-nowhere location of the mission.
The dark eyes held worry, emphasized by the dark circles under them. A hint of stubble dusted his cheeks, and his black hair was mussed from constantly running his hands through it. Anger and worry, and anger sparked by the worry, churned in his stomach. Finally, he stood, mouth drawn into a thin line. “Lieutenant Hawkeye,” he began as he picked up his gloves, his hat, and started for the door, “I’m going to find them and chew that boy a new hide.”
She stood as well, picked up her hat and a thin file from her desk. Havoc and Falman stood as well. Mustang stopped and narrowed his eyes. Smoothly, Hawkeye handed him the folder. “Tickets for up to four military personnel, with transfers, as well as the make of the vehicle that will be available at the final station; a map of the area; names of local contacts that should be best able to provide direction. Name your team, sir.”
Equal parts amused and annoyed, Mustang stifled a sigh. “Let’s go,” he said, shaking his head.
As she was leaving, she rested a hand on Fuery’s shoulder, said softly, “You have the contacts if they show before we call.” Fuery looked up, nodded, then back down. He focused on the headset he wore, listening, scanning channels, for any better news. The office door closed with a soft click.
Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc bolted ahead to pull around the car. The other three walked to the gates of the command compound, arriving at the street as he brought the car to a smooth stop. Warrant Officer Vato Falman got into the front seat while First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye and Colonel Roy Mustang settled in the back. Havoc was pulling back into traffic even as the doors closed.
In the back seat Mustang opened the file folder Hawkeye had prepared. There was little information beyond what he had previously given to Fullmetal, but there was the addition of a list of local contacts and a topographic map of the general area that it was guessed the rogue alchemist had gone to ground. There were a few good areas that looked defensible and difficult enough to be attractive to a fugitive. Unfortunately, they weren’t easily accessible any way other than by foot. He frowned as he studied the map. None of the options he could come up with were going to be easy to reach. He set the map aside and focused on the list of contacts that Hawkeye had compiled. None of the names jumped out at him, so at least he shouldn’t run into any war buddies – or war criminals.
As the car slid into a military parking spot, Mustang closed the file. He could pore over it more on the train. The four officers got out of the car and, in a loose formation, marched into the station to board the next train west. “Sir,” Hawkeye murmured to him as they walked forward, “you’re scowling.”
Her comment made him want to scowl more, but he noticed that people were already flinching aside. He gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement and made a conscious effort to smooth his features. It felt like a losing battle. They boarded the train and settled in for a long trip.
** **
Five days on a train was far too long in Mustang’s opinion. He had no idea how Fullmetal could stand it since he and his brother traveled constantly, it seemed. By the third day he was ready to start pitching people out the car windows, starting with either Havoc or Falman, though he was hard pressed to decide which. Havoc was constantly up and down the aisle, moving from the smoking car to the passenger car, to the dining car, and back. He fidgeted when he started to want to smoke, and Mustang could almost use him as a timer he was so consistent. Falman was exactly the opposite, but in the worst way. He picked up a book and read and was so still for so long that the Colonel almost forgot he was there, until he moved and made Mustang nearly jump out of his skin. Hawkeye was his constant, but she spent much of her time in the communications car, keeping in contact with Fuery at Eastern Command, checking in with local posts for news, and generally checking that they didn’t cross directions with the returning Elric brothers.
It felt like far longer than five days, but when they arrived in Pendleton in West Area, the train was, miraculously, precisely on time. As per their plan, Havoc went to recover the promised vehicle, Falman to arrange for their first three contacts via telephone, and Hawkeye and Mustang to inquire if any outbound tickets had been purchased for the missing brothers. The car was waiting at the curb, Falman had the times and locations for their contacts, and there had been no tickets purchased for the missing boys. With grim expressions, the team loaded into the car and Havoc wasted no time getting them to their first stop.
Pendleton was a decently sized city, surrounded on all sides by wilderness and untouched beauty. Well, except for the railway that headed east and north, and the logging that was prevalent to the south of the city, and the mining operations that were becoming increasingly lucrative to the north… But further west was still mostly untouched, or so they were told by the rather gregarious Gisil Stumpf, proprietor of the Western Trade Goods Outpost Store, and general busy body. The fantastically mustached man explained, in a very round about manner, that the two young men in question had, indeed, come through his store just three weeks ago. Absolutely fascinating, he had to admit, that such a pair were wanting to head west into the forest after some strange rumor or other, because who needs to follow rumors when everyone knows there’s something out that direction that kills people who get too curious.
The man’s rambling almost had Mustang miss it. “Wait,” he said. “Something in the forest that kills people, is that what you said?”
Stumpf, pleased to have caught his audience’s attention, smiled beneath the massive silver and grey brush that hid his lips from view. “That I did! I tell you, and I’ve been tellin’ folks for a while now, that there’s something out in that forest that’ll snatch a man up and you’ll never see hide nor hair of ‘em again, that I have. Anyone who heads west into that forest had been watch their step. I don’t know if it’s a bear, a cat, or a pack of something, but nothing ever seems to be found, and I know it can’t be the Cretans since there’s never sign of anything human – other than the poor sod who got himself picked up and carried off, of course, and usually not a lot of that –”
Mustang cut him off before he could continue his tirade. “Thank you,” he interjected quickly. “You’ve been a big help.” He spun on his heel and marched out the door, nearly leaping back into the waiting car. As soon as Hawkeye got in, Havoc started driving.
“Where to now, Sir?” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.
“Furthest west we can get in this city. Right to the edge of the forest and make sure it’s west and not south.” Mustang’s voice was clipped, his attention elsewhere, but his team knew it was not for lack of care. The opposite, in fact. They knew the Colonel cared quite a bit more than he would ever admit about a certain pair of brothers. Everyone on the team felt the same way, and Havoc couldn’t help but wish he’d picked up an extra pack of cigarettes before they left the station.
** **
It wasn’t hard to find the brother’s trail. Blonde teen in a red coat accompanied by a nearly seven-foot-tall suit of armor was a pretty easy description for most people to remember. Unfortunately, the sun was just setting, and Hawkeye insisted that they would wait until morning to leave. Mustang might have argued, but when Hawkeye insists, he is not entirely certain that she wouldn’t shoot him (just in the foot, probably) if he tried something stupid. And he finally admitted that haring off into the night, on foot, in a forest with ‘something’ that killed people and left no trace, was potentially stupid. So it was that he gritted his teeth, swallowed his worry, and agreed. The small inn at the edge of town had been the same one the boys had stayed at just twenty-two days before, or so the lovely young woman at the desk assured him, so they knew they were on the right track. Unfortunately, said boys had not made a return appearance.
It had been twenty-two days since the boys should have arrived. Allowing for the four that Fullmetal had suggested as leeway, they should have been back in the town thirteen days ago. Each stop, each point of travel, that Mustang reached without any sign the boys had come back the way they’d gone made the worry rolling around in his gut a heavier weight. He laid down to sleep that night because he told himself he had to. He failed, miserably. Ishval, the house on the hill, the horrors he had seen over the years, all decided to pounce on him at once, but instead of the usual cast of his nightmares it was the Elric brothers in all their various broken, tormented forms.
Dark circles gave his eyes a sunken appearance, but he accepted a cup of coffee from his Lieutenant with gratitude. Falman followed the Lieutenant with a cup of his own in one hand, a pad of notes in the other. He was frowning. Havoc, behind all of them, was yawning widely, a lit cigarette dangling from his lip while a mug of coffee was steaming in his hand. The furrow between Falman’s brows was one Mustang was familiar with; something had caught his attention, but he wasn’t sure what to do with the information. “Spill it, Falman. What do you have?”
The older man grimaced. Stalling, he took a sip from his cup, sighing as the warmth sank into his belly. “It could be nothing, Sir,” he started.
Mustang scoffed. “Falman, you never have that look on your face when it’s ‘nothing.’ Report.”
“I guess I should say, I hope it’s nothing…” he glowered at the notes he had collected. “I’ve been asking around, keeping in contact with Fuery and Breda, and collecting as much information as possible about this area and there is definitely something in this area. The pithy local word aside, the numbers of missing, presumed missing, and lost are staggering for the locale.”
They had gathered in Mustang’s inn room before leaving for the day into the forested area beyond. The last known sighting of the brothers had been directly west into the woods beyond and there was no road. They would be on foot from this point forward. Falman set down his mug, his notes, and pulled out the map from his light pack. He unfolded it, examined it, then laid it out on the table. He pointed to a large circle that had been drawn over the area they were heading into. “Over the last five years there have been over two hundred reports of missing persons last having been seen in this area.”
“What?” Havoc almost spit coffee.
“How could that have escaped notice for so long?” Mustang shot his subordinate a quelling look, then focused back on the map. “This is not so populated an area that there are two hundred to lose without notice.”
Falman nodded. “You would be correct, Sir, except they’re not all from this area. Investigators, locals, journalists, explorers, ghost hunters, goldminers, you name it, and somehow they all seem to wander into this area and never wander back out. Since there are no bodies, and they come from so far afield, no one has bothered putting it together before.” The Warrant Officer pulled out a separate sheet and laid it on the map. “This is the breakdown of all the missing persons and their origins.” He pulled out a separate page, setting it next to the first. “This is the breakdown of last known sightings for those missing persons.” He paused for a sip of coffee, said, “I’ve compiled this using both a graph method and map chart, for your convenience, Sir.”
There were times when Falman’s obsessive levels of detail annoyed Mustang. This was not one of those times. He carefully studied all the information that was spread out before him, looking for patterns. He realized that, without Falman’s meticulous mind there wouldn’t be a pattern. This was deliberate. “This is no animal,” he murmured.
“No, Sir,” Falman said. “This is definitely an intelligent mind. With more time I could likely pin down what, specifically, had been used for the lure, but in the end, this has been deliberate.”
Mustang looked at the map again, running his finger around the area, finally placing his index finger down close to the town they were in. “Here,” he said. “Just over a day’s walk, if you’re careful, less than a day if you’re not.”
Havoc, looking around Falman’s shoulder, nodded. “We can make that, easy, Sir.”
Falman looked curious. “Why there, Sir? Logically, it should be more equidistant from the sightings, and further from the town, not closer.”
Havoc grinned as he stubbed out the cigarette. “You never lived in the backwoods, did you, Falman? No one wants to walk more than they have to for those things you must buy when you live on a farm – or whatever the hell is going on there.”
The older man returned the grin with a half-hearted frown. “True. And I’m just as happy with being city bred, thank you.”
Mustang stood up as Falman started refolding the map and straightening his notes. “Let’s go.”
The four stepped into the woods just as the first light of dawn was cresting the eastern sky.
** **
The setting sun framed their goal with a foreboding red sky. The trees ended abruptly and in the center of a distinctly artificial clearing was a large, twisted-looking structure. It had Fullmetal written all over it, from the gargoyles on the tilted roof to the strange spikes that protruded at weird angles, but it was skewed. The strangeness of it sent a shiver down Mustang’s spine, though he couldn’t say why. They were all uneasy as the clearing, and the forest near it, were silent to an extreme.
“There are no insects,” Hawkeye pointed out.
The men stopped to look around, to listen, and realized she was correct. No buzz of insects, no bird calls, no scampering in the brush, either. It was eerie. It was going to be dark soon, Mustang realized. He frowned, signaled for the rest to follow, and started out across the empty field to the only door he could see to the massive structure. As he neared it, he could see that it, too, was strange, offset and not quite square. ‘What the hell?’ he couldn’t help but wonder.
His heart was beating a little too fast for comfort. Something was very, very wrong, but he could not yet place what it was. He schooled his features into impassivity and knocked, loudly. He waited, longer than he might have but the creeping discomfort held his fist. After a full minute of silence, he knocked again. After another full minute of no response, he tried the doorknob and found it turned easily. The door swung inward, and a strange odor met his nose. It was pungent, sweet, but wrong.
The interior was dark except for a distant glow ahead and to their left, possibly behind a door. Hawkeye quietly drew her service piece, holding it low and ready. Havoc, opposite her, did the same. Behind them was Falman, hand lightly on the grip of his without drawing. Mustang had pulled on his gloves, the white seeming to float ahead, hand poised to snap.
Mustang approached the door and found it ajar. He could hear muttering behind it, but could only make out bits here and there, “…gotta be here… stupid, stupid. … Yeah, I know…” It sounded like Fullmetal?
Cautiously, Mustang pressed the door open into the room, then shoved it open all the way when he saw that it was the Fullmetal Alchemist, red coat flung over a chair, blonde hair falling over his face as he studied the desk in front of him. “Fullmetal?” Mustang started to yell, but the words stuck as he absorbed the scene in front of him.
Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, spun as he heard his name. There were lanterns lit throughout the room, painting the scene in stark madness. Across one wall, behind the boy, was what appeared to be the remains of a human being. There were chains and spikes, and from those hung arms, legs, and what was probably a torso. The head was not immediately apparent, and Mustang was very afraid of where it might be. The boy was covered in dried blood, his hair was filthy and matted with it, his black shirt stiff in places, his leather pants flaking. His automail arm creaked and ground with movement as brown flakes fell from it. On the other side of the desk was Alphonse – well, most of him. There were pieces of Alphonse scattered around the room, and the back plate of the armor was nestled snugly in the seat itself, displaying for the four officers the gaping hole through the blood seal.
Hawkeye holstered her sidearm, her other hand coming to her mouth. “Alphonse…” she whispered, horrified.
Edward … he turned to her and smiled, like nothing was wrong at all. “Oh, hi, Lieutenant Hawkeye. Alphonse is sleeping at the moment. Guess he really needed to catch up, ya know?” He giggled, slightly high pitched. His eyes did not quite focus, and as he moved, they could see he was gaunt, with dark circles under his eyes. Abruptly, he turned back to the desk and the scattered papers and books that he had been examining before they entered. “I just have to find it, then we can go home. There’s an answer here, I know it.”
Several moments of silence slid by as Edward seemed to have completely forgotten they had arrived and none of the officers knew what to do. Mustang cleared his throat and took a step forward only to hesitate when Ed spun on him like a feral animal. Heart hammering against his ribs, Mustang waited. Finally, Ed’s head tilted, and the expression changed into a half-familiar snarl. “What do you want, Bastard?” he growled. “I got the books, they’re here … somewhere…” He spun back to the desk, then stalked to the nearest shelf. He pulled a book, looked at the spine, the cover, then carelessly tossed it over his shoulder in a way that none of them had ever seen Edward do with a book. He pulled another, then another, finally swiped the shelf clear and growled.
Again, he disregarded their presence completely and strode over to the wall with the body parts hanging from it. Casually, as if having a conversation, Edward leaned back on the edge of the desk, arms folded, and said, “C’mon, Braufman, all I want to know is where the damn books are and me and my brother will get out of your hair! I’ve got a deadline to keep, ya know…”
Falman carefully stepped backwards out of the room and ducked around the wall. He snaked a hand around the wall and grabbed Havoc’s shoulder, pulling him out as well. Confusion and concern warred with horror as the two men looked at each other. Falman whispered, “He’s … Edward’s …”
Havoc nodded. They both stood back, not sure what to do.
Hawkeye took a step forward. “Edward, why don’t we let the Colonel handle … Braufman, and see if there’s food in the house?”
Edward glanced over at her and the Colonel and smiled brightly. “Sure, why not? I’ve been trying to get anything sensible outta this guy for days, but he just won’t talk. Maybe the Colonel Bastard himself will have better luck.” He stood up straight, swayed, then recovered. As he walked toward the door he said to Mustang in an aside, “Like, just don’t kill him ‘cause he’s got information we need, right?” With another strangely pitched giggle the boy followed Hawkeye out of the study into the house.
Colonel Mustang stood frozen, shock making it hard to take a breath. He waited until he was sure they were far enough away and turned around. “Falman, Havoc,” he said in a low, wavering tone. Both men stepped back into the room from where they had pressed against the walls in a bid to go unnoticed. Mustang looked at them with wounded eyes. “What the hell happened here?” He wanted to scream.