-*-*- ( Chapter 1 - Roy Mustang POV. )

"Magic isn't real. It can't be. End of discussion, fuck this, I'm leaving." Edward Elric glares at the Colonel before him, and folds his arms. He makes no move to leave, though, and Roy Mustang decidedly counts this as progress.

"Fullmetal, this assignment was given from the Fuhrer. The president of our country." Roy argues for the fifth time, already feeling the headache coming on. He rubs at this temples at Ed mutters something about 'overthrowing' and 'president of our country'. Mustang ignores this. "Do the words 'court martial' mean anything to you, Fullmetal? You can't research your Philosopher's Stone from inside a military jail cell."

He waves the mission packet tauntingly in front of Edward's face. Ed takes it stiffly, still glaring. Roy counts this, too, as progress, and sits back in his chair mockingly; waiting until Fullmetal has read the whole packet.

( Timeskip - 010 minutes. Edward POV. )

"Thank you, Fullmetal. Was that so hard?" Roy gives one of his perfected shit-eating grins, specifically designed to make Edward twitch with the effort of not strangling him. It works.

"Now, your mission details were all inside that packet. Your goal is to cooperate with the magical government of England in hopes of securing an alliance with them. You will travel to the country of England, a country bordering Creta. And don't worry about the transportation," the Colonel adds as Ed opens his mouth. "Our associates in England apparently 'have that covered'. From there, you will meet with - and Fullmetal, do not tell me again that magic isn't real - the Minister of Magic, who will discuss with you further about your mission goals."

"Whatever," Ed snaps, irritated about being pulled away from Al and all of his research. Annoyed with standing, he sprawls down into the nearest chair, golden eyes blazing. "Is anyone going to actually tell me what this so-called 'mission' is, or should I just bullshit everything?"

This makes Mustang rub his temples and sigh, heavily. Whatever. Edward isn't in the business of making the Colonel happy. "Fullmetal, I first must stress the importance of this mission," his dark gaze is serious for once, which means they're in some serious shit, if Ed's translating that right.

Roy doesn't care whatever the blond is translating, though. He continues, still in serious mode, which Ed finds is fucking annoying. "This mission, if you actually do it correctly, which I'm skeptical of - " he ignores Edward's growl - "then we have a great amount to gain. First, our country will gain a powerful and magical - " another growl - "ally. There have also been talks, about four years ago, about the Philosopher's Stone."

That gains Edward's interest. He feels his head snap up, leaning in despite himself. "They have a Stone?!"

"Not anymore." Mustang's face is grim. "And Fullmetal, that's not all." And he begins to move away from the Philosopher's Stone topic, which, hell no.

"Go back to the Stone part," Ed insists. "How did they get one? This packet says they use...some fucked up 'magic' thing, not alchemy. Can magic make a stone without the deaths?"

Roy sighs, again. Ed figures this has got to be some sort of record for making the Colonel Bastard sigh, awesome. "Fullmetal, I'd like to get through this mission briefing today. But as far as I can tell, their version of the stone only offered immortal life and unlimited gold. However, their magic is quite interesting. Only certain individuals are born with magic, it's not an art everyone is capable of learning, like alchemy."

"What the fuck?"

Colonel Bastard ignores him, again. Ed doesn't get it, he's bringing up some really good points, here.

"Their magic allows these certain individuals, with the use of a wand, to perform acts much like alchemy, but there's... no price. It's almost like the addition of their stick completely removes equivalent exchange."

Here, Mustang begins to look slightly worried, and Ed can't blame him, thoughts running a mile per minute. The blond's face turns carefully blank, formulas and schemes racing through his brain as the Colonel continues to speak. "Because of this, the Fuhrer has some ulterior motives to this mission. The Ministry of Magic appears to want to send someone to infiltrate their school of magic, Hogwarts."

Edward chokes. Roy seems to share the sentiment.

"They seem to think certain people in this school are causing 'political unrest', and are... trying to to overthrow the government by claiming a dangerous mass-murderer is back from the dead. We recommended to the Minister that we send one of our own to infiltrate this school, to help form our alliance."

Ed starts to get a very bad feeling about this, aside from the whole mass-murderer thing, which isn't even his problem.

"They were understandably dubious we had anyone to fit the age requirements of the school, but as it turns out, we do. Isn't that great, Fullmetal?"

The alchemist in question stares at the Colonel in horror. "You... you can't send me to a school, you bastard! That shit goes on for ages, I can't be away from Al, a-and my research that long! And besides, it's...a school!"

"You're right, I can't. The Fuhrer can, though!" Mustang looks way too fucking smug for this situation, and Ed sits back, fuming. "Listen closely, Fullmetal, because here's where the 'ulterior motives' come in. We've decided that these magic-holders, 'witches' and 'wizards', hold too dangerous amounts of power. In case the alliance doesn't work out and another country gets to them first, we could be facing war with another country. Therefore, on top of infiltrating this school and helping the Ministry, research their magic. Find weaknesses, chinks in the armor, so to speak, for if we ever need to face them in battle."

Edward stares. Then he stares some more, just for the hell of it. "Wait. I thought they were our allies?" he says, dumbfounded. "You literally just said they were our allies. We're spying on them anyway?"

"No, actually."

He brightens.

"You're spying on them, Fullmetal."

Ed leans back, looking defeated, and lets out a noise of disgust. Along with several rude choice words about what the military does to its allies.

Colonel Mustang also leans back, raising an eyebrow. "You happen to be in the military, don't forget that. You should leave to pack, soon; the representatives from England's magical government will be arriving soon. Their government will probably be condescending and dubious at first that a child is in the military - do not mess up our relation with them just because of this. Suck up to them, bullshit, whatever you need to do, Fullmetal." he doesn't give Ed any time to argue this, which is a pity, because this whole 'suck up' and 'condescending' thing is a topic that Edward would really like to argue.

"Oh, and Fullmetal," the Colonel pauses, something that could almost pass for concern in his face, if the bastard felt human emotions like 'concern'. "Be careful. We don't know the extent of their abilities, yet."

Edward struggles with a response, for a moment. Just a moment, though. "Whatever, Colonel Bastard. You be careful too, I guess." With that heartfelt exchange done, he awkwardly flees the room before Mustang could drop anymore truth-bombs on him. Like, what, could wizards teleport around now? Ha. Right.

-*-*- ( Time-skip: 040 minutes. Edward Elric POV. )

Okay, so apparently wizards could teleport, now. Fucking great. It didn't help that Mustang, Havoc, and the rest of the office were all laughing at him. Hey, it was perfectly justified if he flipped out when two unknown wizards suddenly appeared in their office with no warning except a fucking loud cracking noise. Perfectly. Justified, no matter what Hawkeye said.

Ed is still fuming as the older of the two wizards, witches, whatever, step forward. Her voice is cool and collected, which he can kind of respect, okay.

"Colonel Mustang's office?" she asks, almost as if she were a secretary who had walked through the door like a normal fucking person instead of, say, very loudly teleporting.

The Colonel, to his credit, hasn't look remotely fazed the whole time, which Ed figures is completely unfair. "That would be us. I don't want to take up too much of your time." He's oozing charm by now, gross weaselly powers turned up to the maximum. And this wizard... witch? Whatever. She's actually not buying into it, so this is clearly a day of miracles.

Mustang clears his throat, gesturing to Ed. "This is one of our most-capable alchemists, Edward Elric, also known as the Fullmetal alchemist. He's the one who will be working closely with your Ministry and helping further our alliance." He shoots a look at Ed, probably mentally telling him to be 'polite' or 'courteous' or some shit that only weasel-bastards care about. Instead, the blond gives the two witches a grudging nod - it's the best they're going to get, at least.

The two magic-users seem taken aback by his rudeness, so they're clearly suckers. But the one who had first spoken recovers quickly, so that's all win.

The second witch, though, takes this rather poorly. "Wha - they're actually sending a kid? I thought that was a joke?"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SMALL THAT A DWARF - "

Mustang cuts of his rant smoothly. "Fullmetal, here, is the only one capable of infiltrating your school as a student, something I think you'll find will be quite useful," his tone suggests that these two representatives from England's Ministry should have obviously understood this to begin with. The second witch blushes and scowls a bit, so okay, the Colonel Bastard is sometimes useful.

"Still... we weren't under the impression you hired children," the second witch says, still trying to argue her point.

"They don't," Ed snaps before Mustang can do anymore greasy-weasel-talk. If he has to see anymore of that, he's going to scream. And possibly vomit. "The State Alchemist test is the only branch of our military that doesn't have an age limit. They assume the test is hard enough to keep any potential children from entering. Also I'm a child prodigy, genius, whatever. Are we going to leave?"

The first witch, thank god, looks only slightly dazed from this abrupt speech. "Yes - the Minister is expecting us soon, if you have everything?"

At Edward's irritated nod, she bows kind of awkwardly to Colonel Bastard, which is hilarious. Then she nods to her partner, who steps forward and holds out her arm. "We'll be Apparating to the Ministry - that's how we got here, actually."

Ed raises his eyebrows, taking a firm step back. "Uhm, no. Can we walk or take a train or do something a fucking normal person would do instead of, say, teleporting?" If he sounds desperate, it's understandable, okay.

"No, we can't," the second witch says, sighing. "We're on a clear time limit here - the Minister will be expecting us any time now."

With that, she steps forward, and snags Ed's arm before he can continue to argue, because he totally would've. She does something really weird with her heel, and then all three of them disappear with a loud crack, off to the magical Ministry.

Fucking joy.

-*-*- ( CHAPTER END - AUTHOR'S NOTE. )

Next chapter will be Ed off to the Ministry, so probably be prepared for lots of freakouts, fights, etc.

This chapter probably started off a bit choppy and weird, but I fixed whatever I could! Heads up, I haven't written anything like this in a long time, so it'll take me some time to get back in the swing of things wh oops. But I hope you guys like this! Please read and review!