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There was a thick cloud of nervousness suffocating the air in the car as they sped towards their destination. Mustang tapped his fingers on his knee, trying to keep himself calm. Or, at least, trying to keep himself calm externally. Internally, he was panicking. Approximately eight hours ago Alphonse Elric had burst into his office in hysterics. It seemed that Ed had been kidnapped by someone and the younger Elric couldn’t find him.
Thankfully, he hadn’t waited long to come to get help. Mustang was always thankful that at least one of the brothers knew how to ask for help when they were over their heads. Not so thankfully, though, there weren’t many leads to go off of. They were quick about it, nabbing Ed disguised as a taxi. He got in first. Al, being so massive, had to enter vehicles a certain way. And it took a while. According to him, as soon as he turned his back to slide into the back seat, the taxi sped off. He chased after them for as long as he could but in the end, they lost him and he lost his brother.
His descriptions of the men were vague. They had no distinguishing scars, tattoos, or marks. They had no distinguishing accents, hair color, or eye color. They looked like normal men. They acted like normal men. Maybe they were even legitimate taxi drivers. The only problem was that Ed had yet to show up and declare the whole thing one big misunderstanding.
Mustang and the team had scrambled to try and find him. They were given full support from the military as well. After all, Ed wasn’t just a state alchemist, he was the Fullmetal Alchemist, a well-known and well-liked public figure. His death would cause a riot that not even Bradley’s PR team could spin.
Still, with all the support or resources at their fingertips, they had nothing to go on. Nothing, except the fact that it didn’t appear to be a ransom. No one had called with instructions or demands for money. Which meant that it was a play to gather information.
That realization made the bottom of Mustang’s stomach fall. Plummet. Disappear entirely as he felt himself getting swallowed by a hole of despair. Ed was mouthy at the best of times. Ed annoyed people he didn’t like at the best of times. He couldn’t imagine what would happen when the boy went through an interrogation. And, depending on who these guys were working for, a brutal one at that. It was this knowledge that Ed might be getting his fingers cut off or electrocuted repeatedly or waterboarded or branded or… He was getting off-topic. It was the knowledge that Ed might be getting tortured that continued to push Mustang to try and find him before the sun went down. The rest of the team felt the same. They searched every lead. They retraced his steps. They walked the path the car went. They looked into taxi company employees.
They looked everywhere. Still no sign of Ed.
That is until about five o’clock in the evening.
He had just gotten off the phone with Hughes to discuss potential suspects from their terrorist registry. He had allowed himself a moment of weakness and buried his head in his hands, letting out a soft groan. Hawkeye didn’t scold him or tell him to get back to work. She let him feel the weight of his worry for a few minutes.
Then, the phone rang.
He pulled himself together, hoping someone on the other end of the line had good news.
“This is Colonel Roy Mustang,” he said in a calm voice that didn’t betray the gnawing terror in his stomach that he might be finding Edward Elric in pieces if they took much longer.
“Please, come get this child,” a voice on the other end begged. Literally, Mustang could hear the shaking in his voice and the pure desperation coming from the other end.
He sat up straight. “What? What child?” He snapped his fingers to get the attention of his staff who all stopped what they were doing.
Fuery leaped into action right away and started working to trace the call. Hawkeye picked up another receiver to listen in, pen and paper ready to take down any important details.
“The child! The Fullmetal Alchemist. Please… we tried to let him go hours ago but he won’t leave and we messed up. We didn’t think it’d have this effect!”
Al was right about one thing; the man didn’t have any particularly noticeable accent.
More to the point, what was going on? “I’m sorry, he’s not leaving? Who are you? What do you want with him?”
“Look, I swear we weren’t going to hurt him. We just wanted to know how he did transmutations without a circle, I swear!”
Shit. They were asking about human transmutation whether they knew it or not. Depending on who they were and their connections, Mustang might have bigger problems on his hands than a kidnapping.
“Who are you and what have you done with my subordinate,” he growled, not wanting to waste any more time. “If you’ve hurt him in any way—” Screw trying to keep his feeling about the Elric brothers hidden under fifteen masks and buried so deep even a mind-reader would have trouble finding out about it. He wanted to know if Ed was okay. He wanted to know what these people had done to him so he could figure out how long to draw out their deaths.
“We didn’t hurt him! I swear!” The man squeaked. “We just… we…”
“You are testing my patience. Spit it out!”
He let out another squeak. “We gave him a truth serum, okay! We just gave him a truth serum and then asked him about how he does his circleless transmutations. I swear. There isn’t a scratch on him!”
Well, if Mustang was worried before he was terrified now. If they asked about the circleless transmutations and if the truth serum was real (which he kind of doubted because that seemed more like fantasy than reality) then they were in huge trouble. Ed may have told them about him and his brother. They might know now that he committed the taboo. He still had no idea who these people were or what they could want. They could go public with this information. Any goodwill Ed and Al had gathered by helping people would be gone and the public might turn on them. Bradley would have no choice but to hold a public execution. Screw Bradley’s PR team not knowing how to deal with the kidnap and torture of Edward Elric. There was no way Mustang would be able to spin this to keep the boy alive. The thought alone was enough to eat him alive.
“Please, just, just come get him,” the man continued to beg.
Mustang swallowed tightly and once more forced his fears down. He could keep Ed and Al alive. Even if he had to fake their deaths and send them over to Xing with new identities, he could keep them alive. He had to keep them alive.
“Fine, tell me where you’re at.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief and told him. Which is how they ended up driving through the city, breaking every traffic law known to man (and a few laws of physics as well) to get to the warehouse these people were holding Ed in.
Mustang hoped the men were still there. If they were, he could kill them and keep what Ed and Al did a secret for just a little while longer.
“He’ll be okay,” Hawkeye said softly.
He clenched his teeth and nodded. “Of course. The man on the phone swore to me that he was fine. It’s not his state currently that I’m worried about.”
“Whatever happens, we can deal with it.” Bless this woman for keeping a level head throughout all of this. Mustang didn’t know where he’d be without her.
Finally, they got to the warehouse. He pulled on his gloves and walked up to it. Havoc was beside him, looking through the small window on the door to determine enemy placement, numbers, and weapons.
Mustang waited for him to give his assessment. Then, Havoc did something that baffled him.
He took a step back, brow furrowed and mouth pulled down into a frown. “What the fuck?”
Before Mustang could stop him or ask what was going on, the idiot decided to holster his weapon and stroll through the door like he was walking into his grandma’s house!
“Havoc, wait!” Breda snapped.
“Chief, what’s going on?” he asked, ignoring Breda’s command and Hawkeye’s attempts to pull him back.
“Oh, hi, Havoc!” Ed’s bright and cheery voice replied.
Wait a minute, bright and cheery? Since when was Ed ever bright and cheery?
Mustang looked back at his team who looked just as confused as he did. Well, nobody shot Havoc so they must be in the clear. Mustang sighed, tugged on his gloves, and then went through the door.
“What the fuck?” As soon as he laid eyes on the warehouse, he understood Havoc’s question and found himself repeating it.
The entire warehouse was covered in notes, circles, more notes, more circles. Honestly, it looked less like a warehouse and more like the mad ravings of a cult leader. But that wasn’t the only thing that was off about the place. Four men were seated on the back wall, their bodies strapped to alchemically produced chairs. They all looked on the verge of tears. And Ed… Ed was… He was free. The man was telling the truth. There wasn’t a scratch on him. The only thing that suggested he wasn’t here willingly was a missing leg. Other than that, he was sitting happily in the center of the room.
“Please,” one of the men said, “Please get us out of here. He hasn’t stopped talking about alchemy! It’s been nearly ten hours!” Tears sprang to his eyes and another man started openly weeping.
Havoc was by Ed’s side, kneeling next to him and checking him over for any injuries.
“Yeah! It’s been great!” Ed said with a huge smile on his face. “They injected me with something. You know how much I hate needles. It hurt too! I bit them because of it. This was after they managed to remove my legs. And then they asked me how I did transmutations without a circle. But you can’t just jump into that. You have to know the theory first. Then the basics. Then the intermediate stuff. Then the advanced stuff. Then the super-advanced stuff. And then you also need to know about physics, math, and chemistry. Oh! I also needed to help them with their anatomy because that’s super important as well—” Ed was talking a mile a minute, not pausing to take a breath.
“Do you see what happened?”
Mustang recognized his voice. He was the one who called him.
“He won’t shut up! He trapped us here and has been talking ever since! Please, let us go! We promise we won’t kidnap him or anyone else ever again!”
He narrowed his eyes. They seemed sincere. However, they still did kidnap a state alchemist and used up precious military resources in the ensuing hunt to get that alchemist back. Besides, he still didn’t know if Ed was okay or not. He had doubts about this whole ‘truth serum’ thing. But they did inject Ed with something. And he didn’t want to risk the kid keeling over because of some basement cocktail of chemicals.
“Havoc, take him to the hospital and have him checked over to make sure there are no side effects to this ‘truth serum’,” he sighed.
“Except for his need to tell the truth?” Havoc asked.
“Yes, besides that. As for you four,” he turned to them, loomed over them, let them cower in his shadow and feel fear at his rage. “If you think I’m going to let you go after all of this, you’re sorely mistaken.”
They let out whimpers and said nothing.
“Alright, chief, let’s get you on my back. Fuery, did you find his leg yet? Maybe we can put that on at the hospital.”
“Good,” Ed scoffed, no longer sounding cheery and happy.
It made him do a double-take.
“These idiots took it off me. And then they said I could go but didn’t offer to put it back on! I have no idea where I’m at and I’m not about to hop my way back to Eastern Command!”
Actually, now that he was looking at the kid, he didn’t seem to be drugged. His eyes weren’t glassy and his gaze was focused. He seemed to be in full control of his limbs as Havoc heaved him onto his back.
“Wait a minute, Havoc. Fullmetal, are you under the effects of a truth serum?”
Ed blinked at him a few times and then burst out laughing. “No, I’m not you idiot. Truth serums don’t exist!”
“Then why?” Falman asked, trailing off at the end. Why indeed.
“Because, like I said, these idiots took my leg as soon as I got here. I didn’t know who they were working for or if they would hunt me down as soon as I left or something. So I played along. I figured if I annoyed them enough they’d eventually let me call you so you could come pick me up.” The little shit had the audacity to grin at him. “And it worked. Though, it took longer than I thought it would. I thought they’d break around hour four. That’s when I started talking to them about thermonuclear dynamics. I thought Greg’s head was going to explode!”
“Greg?”
“The last one on the left.”
Mustang turned to Greg who gave a little wave.
"And the circles all over the floor and ceiling?" Hakweye asked, eyeing a particularly complicated array under her feet.
Ed shrugged. "I need visuals. You try explaining complex transmutations without visual aids."
“Wait a second,” another man said, “you mean to tell me that you weren’t under the effects of a truth serum?”
Ed shook his head.
“How do we know for sure?” Greg piped up. “After all, you could believe you’re not under the effects of a truth serum, thus saying that the truth serum isn’t real!”
Ed gave him a deadpan look. “Havoc has fantastic luck with women.”
Breda started howling with laughter.
“Watch it, kid. I’ll drop you,” Havoc growled.
Ed simply grinned and looked very pleased with himself.
Mustang groaned and pinched his brow. “Havoc, get him to a hospital and make sure whatever they injected him with isn’t going to kill him or cause kidney failure or anything. Fuery, call Al and tell him to meet them there and then call Eastern Command for some backup.”
He couldn’t believe that little shit had him running all over East City looking for him.
He looked up at the circles that had somehow made their way onto the ceiling and wrinkled his nose.
“Interested in learning more, sir?” Hawkeye asked. She sounded smug.
“Nope. I did my time as a student, thank you very much.”
As much as he wanted to strangle Ed for the stunt he had pulled, he was also grateful that the kid was quick on his feet (or lack thereof). Ed had a point. He wasn’t exactly in a position to leave and didn’t know much about the men. Besides, at least now when Mustang complained about being subjected to Ed and Al’s incessant ramblings about alchemy, he could point to the fact that they had literally successfully used said ramblings as a torture technique. And it had worked. Hawkeye could never again say he was overreacting. And that was just fine with him.