A/N: All finished! I really don't have an excuse for why this took so long, other than that school started... yeah...

Thanks to urs-v, everdragon, KaimelarTheDreamer, Axenia, and Guest for reviewing!

Title: And Tempered in Truth

Author: liketolaugh

Rating: T

Pairings: None

Genre: Friendship/Drama

Warnings: Earth!AU for Fullmetal Alchemist (Amestris is an isolated country located somewhere south of Russia, on the border between Europe and Asia) and slight AU for Artemis Fowl - the events of The Arctic Incident are all shunted forward a year.

Summary: Foaly never actually pulled location surveillance on Artemis, and when he goes into the one area monitored by neither humans, nor fairies, he can't help but be suspicious. Holly just wants to know how they missed this.

Disclaimer: I own neither Artemis Fowl, nor the Fullmetal Alchemist. 'Tis but a dream.

Instantly, Butler, Ed, Holly, and Al jerked their heads up to look, Artemis reacting a little more slowly. While Ed and Al wasted a few minutes being confused, Holly hopped right up, hand going straight to her Neutrino, eyes narrowing. Artemis' eyes sharpened in recognition, and Butler went for his gun.

"Stop, Mud Men!" the first one growled, waving a small Softnose laser. "Or I'll shoot you all in your faces!"

"Stupid!" the second snapped. "If you shoot them all, we won't have any hostages, mud brain!"

"Both of you shut up!" snarled the third and last.

Ed and Al were jolted back to life as a beam shot out of thin air and hit a goblin, knocking it out instantly and causing chaos. Not that there was much chaos to be caused in an empty train car, but the goblins managed between the two remaining.

Al lurched to his feet, red eyes wide, and Ed followed a second later, gold eyes narrowed and focused on the goblins.

Holly cursed to herself and made to move, but, strangely, Ed addressed Artemis.

"You know what's going on?"

Artemis blinked and took a moment to process this. Holly shot the second goblin, which fell over. "Yes. I do," he said cautiously.

Ed nodded decisively. "Great. I'm gonna head up front and work my way back, and Al'll go find anyone behind us, alright?"

Without waiting for an answer, he opened a window and swung out, making Artemis cringe. There was a moment of silence and a thud as Ed landed on the roof, and then a series of thumps as he ran off. Al shrugged at Artemis and turned to clank toward the back of the train, leaving Artemis, Butler, and Holly alone in the train car with the third, slightly stunned goblin.

Holly shot the last goblin and let go of her shield. "You have strange friends, Artemis."

Artemis 'hm'ed noncommitally and made to speak. Butler spoke first.

"Artemis, stay here."

Artemis frowned at him. "Butler, I hardly think-"

Butler's expression was serious. "Artemis, you cannot fight, and we won't be doing much else. Stay here."

Artemis made to protest, but his eyes slid to Butler's gleaming automail hand – Butler never wore glove, unlike Ed – and nodded.

Someday Butler was going to break him of that, even if it did make his job easier. For now, he used it to his advantage, straightening up, all business.

"Holly and I will go meet Ed up front," Butler told Artemis.

"Says who?" Holly muttered, shielding again, but she followed Butler out the door anyway, throwing over her shoulder, "Stay put, Mud Boy."

Artemis was left alone in the train car, feeling slightly foolish. Artemis did not like feeling foolish, so he distracted himself by planning his next few actions.

After all, someone would have to clean up this whole mess with the Elrics and the fairies, and Artemis could easily use this to his advantage.

"Hey! Who shot at me?"

"They weren't shooting at you, mud brain!"

"AH! Big Mud Man!"

Silence signaled the clearing of the next car over, and Artemis smirked slightly, before the smirk fell into a thoughtful frown as he planned and discarded with equal speed.

Ed ducked a tree branch and smirked to himself. It had been a while since he'd done this, but the lessons Hughes had given him after that first misadventure had stuck.

He carefully made his way forward and, with a grunt of effort, threw himself onto the next car, narrowly avoiding sliding off. He squinted at the track in front of him, found the front car two cars ahead, and edged over the smooth train roof.

Two train cars later, he grinned triumphantly and ducked down to peek in through the window.

Four of those strange chimera-like creatures – lizard-human crosses, he would guess, if he hadn't seen the result of human chimera alchemy himself – were arguing over the unconscious body of the what appeared to be the train conductor.

"No, I got him!"

"I got him, stupid! You got him after I got him!"

"You're both stupid! The Mud Man knocked himself out on the floor!"

Ed snickered to himself at their squabbling and pulled himself back up, pausing to consider. Artemis had better be ready to give him an explanation, was all.

"Shut up!" That was the fourth one, Ed supposed. "It doesn't matter who got him, we only need this human machine to force the LEP to free our brothers!"

There were a few moments of silence, and then one of the others said sulkily, "You're just saying that 'cause you didn't get a shot in."

Another moment of silence, and then a strangled scream of rage and the sounds of those strange guns they had. Ed decided that this would be a good time to drop in and clapped his hands.

When he peeked into the hole, he found the four lizard-creatures firing beams in each others' general direction and not hitting a thing, except the wall. He smirked again and dropped down, yelling and firing covering his entrance.

When he hit the first one – hard over the head with his automail hand – it went down without a sound and another let out a whoop. The whoop died down almost instantly, and its voice rose over all the rest.

"Hey! When did that Mud Boy get here?"

Ed's smirk dropped slightly as they all turned to find him – apparently 'Mud Boy' meant him – and the guns turned from each other to him. He launched himself over the first shot and twisted to avoid another, sweeping one's legs from under them.

"Whoa! Don't tell me you don't look up?"

He used another moment of surprise to knock a gun free, and the creature snarled at him, pointing an open hand that he ignored for now.

"We're not stupid!" the remaining armed creature hissed, licking its eyeballs. Ed grimaced. "We know that Mud Men can't fly!"

Ed marvelled at their stupidity, then yelped and dodged another shot, noticing – too late – that the open palm he'd ignored before had both moved and filled with fire.

Ed bit back a scream and jerked away, lashing out with an automail leg to knock the thing out and, in the same moment, jerking off his now-flaming coat to throw it to the ground.

He was left with a bad burn on his left arm and one opponent. He clapped his hands, slammed them to the ground, and was faced with a stunned expression for the briefest of moments before a train-metal fist knocked it out, too.

Ed blinked once, twice, and then realized it was over and smirked slightly, eying the unconscious bodies. In the minutes before Holly and Butler caught up, he rescued his coat, put out the fire, and had started tearing strips off.

The door burst open and Butler entered, deadly as a desert snake, until he realized Ed was the only one both present and conscious. Ed looked up at him and smirked.

"Still too slow, big guy."

By the way, I made an edit to the end of the last chapter. It's not that significant, but basically I forgot that I meant for this to take place in the 2003 anime's timeline, so I had to go adjust for that. Thanks for reading and please review!