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“Why do I have to go alone?” Ed knew he was sounding petulant but he didn’t care. He was twelve; petulance was his primary function. He squinted. “It’s because I alchemized the melanin out of the Colonel Bastard’s hair, isn’t it?”
Breda and Havoc worked hard to stifle their sniggers.
“I can’t say it’s unrelated,” Hawkeye hummed, her own mouth twitching faintly in the corner, “but this inspection is one that the Colonel was meant to do but he has too many…fingers in too many pies, I suppose you could say.”
“Maybe he needs to go on a diet.”
Havoc choked on his laughter and Hawkeye tossed a deeply unimpressed glance his way before returning to Ed.
Sometimes it felt like she was looking right through him, like there was something about him that reminded her of someone else, who he couldn’t even begin to guess.
“Inspections will be incredibly common for you from here on out,” she told him, “until you and Alphonse are more settled, you might be asked to go on assignments alone. I imagine once you make enough of a name for yourself that it won’t be an issue, but, as it is, you are a new face to the military, and that’s what the Colonel is banking on.”
Ed tilted his head, perturbed. “Huh?” he said, utterly eloquent.
“He wants you to be underestimated because you’re a kid,” Falman supplied helpfully and Ed glowered.
“Well, he can go—!” Ed started angrily.
“Edward,” Hawkeye warned and his shoulders tightened up. He could just imagine Mom’s admonishing stare that made her eyes as hard as rubies. Ed would lament until his dying day about losing out on the color of her eyes. “If you have any trouble, you have the office phone number, don’t you?”
“…um…” Ed screwed up his face.
“That’s no,” Fuery laughed as Hawkeye pulled out a small card with a number carefully scrawled on it.
“Memorize it,” she said. “If you have any trouble, call and I’ll sort it out.”
“Right,” Ed muttered, shoving it into his pocket. “And what exactly am I looking for?”
“I’m not giving an alchemist a bias,” she said, clearly amused. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find out what’s off in Krelis.”
Ed groaned loudly.
Being alone made Ed twitchy.
“Always go with a buddy,” Mom used to say when Al wanted to run through the fields beyond their house in Resembool and Ed always complained about being forced to be dragged along, wanting to stay with Mom and the alchemy books, but he’d always had fun and Mom had always wanted them to enjoy being kids.
(She hadn’t been happy when she’d found him with Al and Winry, bruised with a bloody nose, because one of the other kids had jeered, calling Ed a Mama’s Boy for being so reluctant to leave her when they went to school.
But later she’d said “You were lucky you didn’t break your hand punching with your thumb inside your fist. Next time curl it outside your fist.”)
He knew that Al wasn’t a fan of it, either. He hadn’t liked it when he’d had to stay behind in Resembool while Ed was doing the State Alchemist test, but there wasn’t anything either of them could do about it.
In Resembool, amongst the countless Ishvalans, Ed’s looks weren’t too out of the normal, but in the city he got constant attention. Brown skin, golden hair and eyes, they definitely weren’t typical.
Getting a hotel was a nightmare and a half. Ed debated just looking for the slums to try and pitch a tent with alchemy, but he had no idea how long this inspection was going to take, so he kind of needed running water.
Ed flopped back onto the creaking bed with a low groan, staring up at the ceiling about him and hoping for a decent night of sleep.
Ed was not that lucky.
There was blood spilling over the transmutation circle, Ed could feel it wet under his fingers. His hair tie had snapped and there was blood in the strands now.
“Al?” he choked out, but all that was left of him was an empty shirt and pants where his brother had once stood.
“Nonononononono!”
Ed jerked awake, breathing hard.
He didn’t sleep the rest of the night.
The laughter when he’d said that he was a State Alchemist did make Ed ball his hand into a fist. It was taking all his restraint to keep from snapping on that Lieutenant Colonel.
“You?” the man laughed with his men. “Someone like you a State Alchemist? Yeah, right!”
Rage was burning in Ed’s veins in the stead of his blood. Someone like me? He nearly sneered. You mean someone not pale-faced and blue-eyed?
Aunt Sarah and Uncle Yuri had been like that and the war had still taken them from Winry.
There was no reasoning with a racist, Teacher had said once, so Ed didn’t bother with trying, shouldering past him to the receptionist’s desk to snag her telephone, much to her surprise.
Falman was the one to give him the script for what to say when he was dialing to the switchboard. Dialing the number that Hawkeye had given him would still take him to the switchboard because the only time the military clearly didn’t care to monitor where you were calling from was when you were in the same command center. “This is Major Elric, are you ready for my code?”
The military switchboard operator gave a confirmation and he rattled off his string of numbers, much to the stupefied soldiers around him. “Thank you, please wait a moment while I connect you,” the operator said and then a short few moments later there was a “You’re connected.”
“Lieutenant Hawkeye,” came the crisp voice on the other end.
“Lieutenant Hawkeye, if you wouldn’t mind informing the Lieutenant Colonel here that people like me can in fact be made State Alchemists, I’d appreciate it,” Ed said.
Her heavy sigh turned into static. “I see,” she said with a hard edge. “Let me speak with Lieutenant Colonel Brimburn.”
And Ed had held out the phone to the man in question with a sharp grin. “Colonel Mustang’s adjunct Lieutenant Hawkeye would like to speak with you.”
He hadn’t been happy but had taken the phone all the same as Ed toyed with silver pocket watch, which he knew looked nonchalant but was also incredibly purposeful because only State Alchemists ever received them so a kid like him wouldn’t be able to even touch one without it being granted to him or stolen.
Lieutenant Colonel Brimburn was clearly not happy about whatever Lieutenant Hawkeye said to him but then he put Ed to work.
“What was that about?” Colonel Mustang asked Lieutenant Hawkeye, seeing the stony expression on her face.
“Just Western Command not knowing how to deal with a State Alchemist that looks the way Edward does,” she said simply and the Colonel had tried not to sigh.
“Of course,” he said with far too much exhaustion and understanding.
If Mustang ever found out that Ed was actually decent at going through paperwork, he would only let Ed roam around half the time, just to laugh at Ed’s glower.
He tried to imagine himself at Mustang’s age, still in the military and forced to wear that outfit and nearly gagged.
The personnel at the outpost were a problem, though. There was always one person with Ed at all times, which made it hard for him to truly do any investigating. He tried not to let his annoyance show.
Things were off with the records, things that Ed couldn’t let it show that he had clocked, merely making a mental note and resolving to return when everyone was gone.
His first error was not being as overly cautious as he would soon learn to be.
Ed was very good at making his own doors.
The number one thing that Mustang complained around was how he seemed to damage the world around him without too much effort, which was pretty accurate.
He returned the wall to what it was before after entering the records room, searching for the documents he’d mentally bookmarked, pulling them out with fresh eyes without any eyes watching him.
Or so he thought.
“Ah,” Ed mumbled thirty minutes later, “that’s what it was, money laundering.”
“How astute you are, little mouse.”
Ed jerked, startled, whirling around in time to catch the fist that collided with his eye socket. He hit the ground hard and let out a shout as a boot came down hard on his ribs, enough that he could practically feel it when they broke underneath his skin.
Brimburn looked deranged in this light and the shadows flickered behind him. How many of his men, Ed couldn’t say.
Ed’s mouth twisted into a wild grin. “I’m gonna make you regret this,” he promised, bringing his hands together with a metallic ring before slamming his hands into the floor, the crackle of alchemy was the only warning that Brimburn got.
“Sir, there’s been a situation in Krelis.”
Ed’s whole body was aching fiercely where he was loaded up in the hospital. Bruised and bloody was nothing new to him, but he had to concede that the broken ribs were a right bitch.
He’d only just gotten the ice pack settled over the side that Brimburn’s boot had beat down on when the door to his hospital room opened. He’d hoped that it would be Al, only to be surprised that it was Mustang (dark-haired once more because, of course, any alchemist would’ve found a way to reverse the process of removing melanin from hair, any alchemist that wasn’t a total novice, at least).
His expression was hard and his stare fierce, cataloguing the black eye, cracked eye orbit, and broken ribs he was favoring.
Ed felt unbelievably exposed to that stare.
“I’ve got a smart mouth, don’t look so surprised,” he scoffed, only to stiffen when Mustang gave him a sharp look, which made his ribs protest and Ed had to wince.
“Next time you suspect someone in the military is on the take, you call me,” Mustang said and Ed tried not to stare.
He’d always operated with a guilty until proven innocent mentality, since that was what people seemed to think when they caught sight of him; he wasn’t stupid, he knew his looks were exotic. Ed was trouble to those sorts of people.
“Why?” Ed said, baffled. “I could be lying.”
“Or you could be telling the truth that no one else wants to hear,” Mustang countered and Ed looked away with a grumble. “I know you think you and Al can handle yourselves, but not every time; sometimes you’re going to need help.”
Ed was sure that he couldn’t have felt more doubtful.
“You know the number, use it,” Mustang pressed.
And two months later he’d use it for the first time to call him, choking on his fear and adrenaline, barely able to dodge Barry the Chopper.
“So, you’re Lieutenant Colonel Brimburn,” Mustang said, considering the man in the cell.
He looked quite the sight, nothing compared to the state Ed was in. Ed’s injuries were minor compared to Brimburn, face swollen and utterly covered in bruises, broken leg splinted.
Damn, kid, you are brutal, he couldn’t help but think to himself. He hoped Ed never turned his automail fist on him.
“You…you’re that brat’s CO, are you?” Brimburn sneered.
Mustang smirked. “That’s right, the major’s one of mine. Kind of pathetic, isn’t it? That a twelve-year-old could take out so many of you single-handedly."
“That kid isn’t human!”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Mustang said airily with a casual wave of his hand, “he’s a demon spawn from hell—”
“When I get out of here, that kid better know to run,” Brimburn snarled. “Because I’m going to—”
Snap!
A shriek of pain bubbled out as a small fireball scalded his hands where they were cuffed together.
“Try not to make threats to someone who outclasses you,” Mustang replied coolly.
Time would tell if he meant himself or Ed.