Meanwhile, Mustang and Havoc had gone into town with Edward to look around. The townspeople seemed a bit in shock that the Fuhrer was walking around their town like a normal guy. They couldn’t help but to get out of his way as he and the group walked down the street. There were even a few mumbles and murmurs when they say Edward with the Fuhrer and acting so friendly with him. Most of them didn’t know the truth of everything that happened over the years so none of the group let the mutters bother them.
The reason that they were here today was that they had decided to retrace the path that the kids had taken that night. They spent about an hour going over every inch right down to the damage they had caused when they used their alchemy to try and stop Amy’s kidnapper. When they came up empty handed they decided to get a drink at the tavern.
Edward put his head down on the table exhausted. He hadn’t slept a wink since this had happened. Mustang and Havoc both could only imagine what he was feeling knowing how they would feel if they were in his shoes and it was either of their kids that was missing. When the server came over Mustang and Havoc both ordered a stein of beer from her but Edward waved her off.
“Come on Fullmetal, have a beer. If nothing else it’ll calm your nerves,” Mustang said.
“Yeah Ed, one won’t hurt anything. Besides, why come in here if you aren’t going to have a drink?”
Edward sighed. “You know you guys are a bad influence right? We’re supposed to be in here because we’re looking into the places they were that night, not to drink…”
“You sound like an old man Ed…” Havoc said as he made a motion to the server to indicate she should bring one more beer for Edward. The server took the hint with a smile and went off to get them their drinks.
“I can’t help it Havoc, I feel like an old man right now. What’s even sadder is the fact that I feel like this and I’m younger than you geezers,” Edward said with a laugh.
“Watch who you’re calling a geezer there Fullmetal,” Mustang said narrowing his eyes at Edward though there was no malice at all in the look. “But you really do need to relax a little before you give yourself a stroke or something. You won’t be any help to Amy or your family if that happens. You always were so high strung.”
“Whatever,” Edward said just as the server came back with a tray loaded with their drinks. “Hey I didn’t…”
Havoc just laughed. “You didn’t, but I did Ed. Now drink it and take a load off for a few minutes.”
“That’s an order Fullmetal,” Mustang chimed in.
Edward couldn’t help but to chuckle. “You know, you really did have a bad habit of throwing your weight around Mustang,” he said as he took a drink of the beer. It really was rare for Edward to drink like this, alcohol and Edward didn’t always go well together in the past. That was one thing that neither of the Elric brothers had inherited from their father, the ability to take alcohol with grace. Edward figured that as long as he kept to just the one he should be alright though. Besides, how much could they really drink? The glasses were huge; one should be more than enough.
As more and more of the sweet brew of Resembool’s finest brewery passed through their lips, the conversation turned to reminiscing and the old days before everything had changed for the better. One beer turned to two, then soon to three. Edward was feeling particularly loopy at this point and couldn’t help but to make a bit of an idiot of himself. He had actually started to pick on Mustang a bit more than he should have and finally Mustang got mad… especially when Edward pointed out just how useless he was on a rainy day.
“That’s it you cocky, big mouthed, hot headed, bastard, let’s take this outside, I’ll show you who’s useless!” Mustang said in this rare moment of losing his cool.
Edward just laughed at him. “Who do you think you’re calling hot headed Flamer Alchemist? If anyone’s a hot head it’s you. You are useless and I’ll prove it to you when I make you cry after I kick your ass.”
Mustang lunged after Edward for the ‘Flamer’ comment but Havoc stopped him. “Hey, hey, hey… if you guys want to fight it out that’s fine but come on, let’s go outside and out of the main part of town where you guys are less likely to hurt anyone or destroy anything OK? You guys can bash away on each other all you want out in the open fields.” Then under his breath, “And maybe finally work through that weird brother-like rivalry you guys seemed to have developed over the years.”
Havoc managed to lead the two of them out of town though half of the town’s people followed them to watch the Fuhrer battle it out with Edward. This was a once in a lifetime sort of thing and none of them wanted to miss it.
Setting up at opposite ends of a field, Edward and Mustang got ready for a one on one man on man battle. Havoc stood in between them, at least temporarily. “Alright you two, anything goes save seriously injuring or killing each other. The one left standing is the winner.”
Edward and Mustang both nodded looking at each other with alcohol fueled venom in their eyes. “Agreed,” they said in unison.
Havoc looked at both of them then took off running. “Go!!!!” he yelled as he ran as fast and far away as he could.
Without a moment of hesitation Mustang snapped his fingers and a wall of flame shot directly for Edward. Edward managed to dodge out of the way and clapped his hands together making a canon from the ground. Standing on top of the canon he grinned down at Mustang and clapped his hands together again to make the canon fire. As Edward did this, Mustang jumped out of the way of the canon ball and then shot Edward with another fire shot, knocking him backwards off the canon and hard onto the ground.
“Ready to give up yet, Fullmetal? You know you’re still clearly out matched against me,” Mustang said as he walked around the canon only to be greeted by a rain of spears that Edward had created from the canon. Mustang ran as a swarm of spears came at him.
“Only after you give up first Flame boy!’ Edward said as he came running out from behind the canon.
With the barrage of spears finally ending Mustang turned and launched another fire ball at Edward. Edward clapped his hands together and put them to the ground and created a wall at the very last moment though Mustang managed to singe the tip of the antenna of Edward’s hair.
“That was a bit too close,” Edward said to himself as he created a sword from the stone of the wall. He then jumped up on top of the wall and came at Mustang with the sword ready. Mustang snapped his fingers and another blast of flames hit the sword scorching it out of Edward’s hands.
“Come on Fullmetal, is that all you’ve got? You may have gotten taller but you’re still a slow little shrimp compared to me.”
Mustang’s words only served to piss off Edward more. He then clapped his hands and put them to the ground causing the ground to lift up under Mustang and launched him into the air. He landed just at Adrienne’s feet as he and Nina came out of the forest that was on the far end of the field.
“Dad! Fuhrer Mustang! What in the name of hell are you two doing?!” Nina yelled. “What were you thinking fighting like that?!”
Seeing Nina, Edward started to come to his senses. He walked over to where they were just as Adrienne was helping Mustang to his feet. Mustang chuckled a bit. “Don’t worry Nina, Edward and I were just having a friendly duel to settle a bit of an argument, that’s all.”
Nina looked around and narrowed her eyes at them. “Friendly? From the look of things you two were trying to kill each other! What the hell were you thinking? What sort of example are you two setting? Dad, you’re a teacher and Mustang, do I HAVE to remind you you’re the Fuhrer of Amestris? What would you have done if you’d hurt yourselves or someone else? This was just reckless! What would you have done if you had done something to yourselves and you weren’t able to help us find Amy?”
Nina’s expression turned just as sad as it was angry and disappointed. “You’re just acting like selfish children…” she said softly lowering her head. That’s when she caught her first whiff of the beer too. “And on top of that, you’ve been drinking. I can’t believe you…” she said as she walked away pretty much wiping her hands of the entire thing. Adrienne hurried to catch up to her. “Let’s go home…” she said to him once he finally had. “I can’t believe them… doing something like that at a time like this.”
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