Now, wasn't the last chapter just brilliant:P Sorry it's been so long, I've been rather distracted by… stuff…

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Zuko:

I was wearing my blue mask once again. I had seen some Fire Nation soldiers passing by on rhinos, and one of them was holding a boy prisoner. Normally, I wouldn't have paid too much attention, but something caught my eye. This wasn't any boy. It was the strange one from earlier.

I decided to follow them, only running into trouble when two of the soldiers stayed on the path with the rhinos. It had been a pain to sneak past them. Once I had caught up to the boy I was after, they were making their way up a steep hill. I waited for them to get to the top and followed silently. After a while, I figured out where they were headed. I returned to the camp, waiting until nightfall to return to the fortress.

It hadn't been a problem at all to get into the fortress. Nobody was expecting the blue spirit to appear here. I found out exactly where the boy was, and dropped through the ceiling – and found myself staring at a suit of armor.

I recognized the armor from the night I had seen the Avatar. I figured he was here to help the boy, who was sleeping quietly on the mattress. Before he could say anything, I pulled out one of my swords and cut through the ropes on the boy's hands. I had pulled a stunt like this before, only I was helping the Avatar. That night hadn't gone as planned. I hoped this night would go better.

I signaled to the armor that I would help them get out. The armor nodded, and shook the boy awake. I looked at the boy's arm. I had never seen anything like it before. It took me a while to come back to reality. Luckily, the boy figured out what was going on by that time, and I started to lead them out.

Before I could get the door open, the armor put a hand on my shoulder. He spoke in a whisper, and I was surprised how young his voice sounded.

"Wouldn't it be easier to get out the way you came in?"

"What are you talking about, Al? You'll never be able to get out that way," I heard the boy say.

"Brother, as far as anybody knows, I'm just a soldier wearing strange armor. As long as I don't draw too much attention to myself, I can get out fine."

The boy looked conflicted for a moment, but he consented. I looked up at the ceiling, and realized a huge problem with going that way. It was way too high up.

The armor seemed to have a solution for this. He nodded at his brother, who came towards him at a run. He jumped onto the armor's waiting hands and was propelled up to the ceiling. The boy got a hold of the bars and pulled himself out. I saw him lower a rope, and I climbed out, leaving the armor to get out on his own.

There were a lot of guards around, which made it difficult to get out. We managed to sneak past them to a corner in the back of the fortress. We were hidden from sight by a huge pile of boxes. I was thinking about a way to get over the wall when the boy came up with an interesting solution. He clapped his hands together and placed them against the wall. There was a flash of light, and then a door appeared. We went through it.

I brought the boy to a point outside the main gates, and we waited. Eventually the armor appeared, and we made our way back to the main road, following a secret path that was used for bringing equipment to and from the fortress.

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Ed:

Once we were back on the road, I looked at the person who had helped us. He was wearing a mask still, but he took it off when he noticed me staring at him. It was Zuko.

I was immediately suspicious of his intentions, but before I could say anything, we were at a small campsite. I looked around and saw the old man from before. He looked at me with some surprise. It was at that point that I realized my arm was in plain sight.

I sat down next to Zuko. For a while, there was absolute silence. Finally, Al broke the tension by thanking Zuko. He nodded in reply, and glanced at my arm again.

"Why exactly…" he began.

"It's called automail. It's a replacement for the arm I lost."

"Oh. I've never seen anything like that before."

"I didn't think you would have. It's not really something you can easily find around here."

"So where did you get it from?"

I paused for a moment. "My best friend made it for me. She's an expert when it comes to these things."

"Where are you from?"

He just couldn't stop asking questions, could he? I left this one for my brother to explain and went off into the trees. I figured it would be good to turn my hair back to normal now, since people would be on the lookout for a black-haired boy. I was bringing my hands to my head when I noticed the old man watching me.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Changing my hair back to normal. I figure it'll be easier for me that way."

"How are you going to change it?" was the next question.

"With alchemy," I replied as I placed my hands on my head. Once it was back to normal, I stood up. "We haven't been properly introduced yet, have we? I'm Edward Elric."

The old man took my outstretched hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Edward. My name is Iroh, and my nephew's name is Zuko. What's the name of the person in the armor?"

"Oh, that's Alphonse, my brother, and he's actually a year younger than me."

"Really? Well, he does sound very young. Does he ever take off that armor?"

"Well, he can't, exactly, so no."

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Ed:

I spent the next morning trying to explain the situation we were in. It was hard, since the only thing I could use to prove myself was alchemy, which was almost like another form of bending. After a while, though, Zuko seemed to get it.

We didn't spend much time dwelling on the matter, since it wasn't safe staying where we were. Luckily, Al had found the rest of my outfit in the fortress, so I could easily hide my arm again.

We had been on the move for about an hour or so when I remembered the note I had gotten the night before. I pulled it out and took a look at it. It was from that one soldier.

They're expecting you to escape soon. They want to see how strong you are. Whatever you do, don't let them see what you're capable of, otherwise they'll label you as a threat to the Fire Nation and a bounty will be placed on your head.

I'm not telling you to stay here. I'm just giving you a warning. If you escape, you have to stay away from any Fire Nation soldiers at all costs; otherwise they will try to capture you and put you to work for the Fire Nation. Be careful.

I showed the note to Al. His reaction was about the same as mine. We now had a very good reason to be on the run from the fire nation. "Damn, I knew getting out of there was way too easy."

Zuko overheard me. "You're calling that easy?"

"Yeah, you heard me. There's no way we could have gotten out of there without them noticing. They let us out."

"Are you kidding? That wasn't easy at all."

"It was for me, at least compared with the training we had as kids."

Zuko looked at me incredulously. "What kind of training did you go through?"

"The kind of training that makes breaking out of a place like that a day at the beach." Ignoring Zuko for the moment, I continued walking. "We should be careful. There might be somebody trailing us."

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Zuko:

We didn't stop walking until late that night. Once we did, I watched as Ed collapsed on the ground. Part of me found it funny that he was so tired. Al didn't say anything about it, though. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

Once camp was set up, I sat next to Al, who was watching his brother thoughtfully. After a while, Al spoke.

"Aren't you avoiding the Fire Nation too?"

"Yeah."

"Can I ask why?"

"You know who I am, don't you? My father's the Fire Lord."

"Yeah, I knew that."

"Well, long story short, I dishonored him and was banished to find the Avatar. Now I've been labeled a full-on traitor."

Ed had woken up at this point. "So you actually bothered to look for the Avatar, just for the sake of honor?"

"What would you know about it?"

"Absolutely nothing, since there's no way in hell I'd ever try to please my bastard of a father." Ed walked off into the trees.

I was about to go after him when Al put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't let what he says bother you. He tends to be like that a lot."

I nodded, and sat down. "Why did he call your father a bastard?"

"Well, our dad left a while after I was born, so our mother had to take care of us by herself. He didn't keep in touch at all. It made life really hard for our mom, and she died soon after he left."

"Why did he leave?"

"Nobody knows, but if he had been around, we might not have turned out like this."

"Like what?"

"After our mom died, we thought we could use alchemy to bring her back. It didn't work, though. That's how brother lost his arm and leg, and also why I'm in this armor. My real body was taken away."

I stared at Al. It was hard for me to understand what he was saying. Al seemed to realize I was confused, because he went on.

"A huge part of alchemy is the law of equivalent exchange. You can't make something out of nothing, and you can't bring somebody back from the dead. We learned that the hard way."

"So, if your body was taken away, how are you in the armor?"

"Brother managed to connect my soul to it, at the cost of his arm."

I finally understood. These two had been through a lot, probably more than me. I didn't know what to say. After a while, I got up and went to find Ed. I wanted to apologize.

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Ed:

I walked through the trees aimlessly, not wanting to return to the campsite. Part of me was ashamed of what I had said. I wasn't entirely sure, but I had a pretty good idea where Zuko had gotten that scar on his face.

I looked around and realized I was lost. I berated myself for not paying attention and scaled one of the trees, hoping to get a glimpse of something familiar. There was nothing, nothing at all. Just trees and more trees. I sighed, and hopped down. As I landed, I saw something intriguing in the distance.

I obviously wasn't thinking straight when I decided to walk over there. As I stepped over a log, my foot got caught on something, and I landed in a pile of leaves. As I pushed myself up, the ground collapsed beneath me. I fell several feet and landed on my stomach. It was very painful, since there were a few sharp objects on the ground.

I sat up and checked for injuries. There was a shallow cut on my forearm, but that was it. The bruises would probably come later. I looked up, and tried to figure out how I would get out, since it was a very deep hole. After a minute, I realized something and smacked my forehead with my hand. How could I have forgotten about alchemy?

I clapped my hands and placed them against the ground. Immediately a small staircase appeared and I climbed out. I looked around, trying to figure out who had made the hole. The answer was obvious after a moment, and I walked away fairly quickly. Once I was away from there, I collapsed on a pile of leaves – and fell into another hole.

This time it took me a while to regain my senses, since my head had struck something hard. Finally, I looked up, and saw Zuko standing at the edge of the hole.

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Zuko:

After I got Ed out of the hole, I led the way back to the camp. We were both very quiet. After a while, I stopped walking.

"Al told me about what happened."

"Oh, really? That's nice."

"What are you doing now?"

"We've spent the past three years looking for a way to get our bodies back, but recently we've run into other problems."

"Other problems?"

"Yeah. The military in our country is very corrupt, and I can't get out of it without putting my friend's life in danger."

"Get out of it? You mean you work for the military?"

"Yeah, as a State Alchemist."

"Why are you working for the military if you hate it so much?"

"Well, as a State Alchemist, I have access to a lot of information and resources that normal people don't have. If I use those resources, I have a better chance of getting Al back to normal."

"But don't a lot of people hate you?"

"My reputation doesn't matter to me nearly as much as Al's happiness does. No matter what I go through, getting his body back comes first," Ed said as he started walking again. We continued towards the camp, each lost in our own thoughts.

As we walked, I thought about what my uncle had said, when he was trying to teach me how to use lightning: Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame. I looked at Ed again. He had definitely mastered humility, if his reputation didn't matter to him.

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Ugh… first-person sounds so cheesy sometimes…