Stand by You

XXX

I sat in front of the car with our soldier driver and Edward and Alphonse sat in the back. Suddenly, the car door opened and a tool box came flying in as Winry stepped into the car with us. "Come on, move over Al!" She yelled as she crammed herself into the car as Edward was being crushed between him and Winry. "Make room for me!" She whined.

"What are you doing here, Winry?" Edward gasped for air.

The car door opened again and Kimblee leaned in. "I'm sorry Winry, please wait at the fort," Kimblee apologized. "We aren't going for the fun of it."

"I know!" She said."But I just switched Ed and Eve's automails, right? We don't want them to have any malfunctions, and if I don't come along to perform maintenance, it would tarnish the Rockbell name if anything were to happen."

Is this what she meant by an excuse? I decided to play along and keep silent. "You're as earnest about your work as ever, huh?" Edward sighed. "Workaholic!"

"You bet I am!" Winry snapped. "We've been a highly-trusted operation since my great-granddad!"

"I know you're a family of gearheads!" Edward yelled.

"'Gearheads' is fine!" She growled.

"All right, very well," Kimblee groaned, talking over their arguing. "I will permit you to accompany us."

The car door closed and we began to drive slowly through the snowy roads. "This could turn out badly for us all," Edward mumbled.

"Yeah..." Winry sighed, looking thoughtful.

*~*~*~*~*~

"Someone matching Scar's description was seen on a nearby mountain road," Miles informed. "He was probably headed here."

"An abandoned mine?" Kimblee asked.

"That's right. Nowadays, Baschool is a ghost town. It's a perfect place to hide."

"That will be problematic."

"Which is why we're splitting up to search. All squads, if you find Scar, contact us here at once."

"Yes, sir!" Soldiers saluted.

Edward, Alphonse, and I turned our heads to look at the accompanying soldiers with us, named Darius and Heinkel. Both were tall and extremely buff, but Darius had tan skin and dark hair while Heinkel had blonde hair and blonde mustache and wore glasses. "We will accompany the Elric brothers and their bodyguard," They stated.

"Yeah, yeah," Edward waved them off.

The soldiers, Kimblee, Alphonse, Edward and I began to trek through the thick snow of the abandoned town when suddenly Edward and Alphonse shrieked in unison, "I just saw someone!"

"What?" One of the soldiers asked.

"This way! This way!" Alphonse yelled as he yanked me along as he and Edward ran off into a building.

"Hey, hold on!" One of the soldiers shouted at us.

As we ran further into the building, I could here Heinkel shouting, "Wait for us!" Once we gained a large amount of ground, Edward stopped and quickly transmuted a wall to block the way so they would have to detour.

"They're gone?"

"They went this way!"

"They turned down this all, right?"

"They went inside that room, didn't they?"

"Damn, they're scampering away from us!"

We ran away from the wall and up the endless flights of stairs before reaching the top of the building. We leapt from one top of a building to another. "And that's that!" Edward cheered. "Looks like we managed to give them the slip."