Cardinal Sin (1) : Rebirth of the Fullmetal Alchemist

7 - Study of the shifting arsenal

Promptly at seven o'clock in the morning, Ed knocked on the door of Frederick and Phil's small house. It took several minutes of Ed peeking through their windows and knocking repeatedly til' the door was finally swung open by a grumpy, half-asleep Phil.

"You're here already?" he asked, yawning.

Ed answered, "Rise and shine or you're gonna die."

"I'm going to die? Are you a murderer?"

"Sorry. I hate mornings."

"Not a morning person either. Noted."

On that day, Ed was ready to throw himself in the study of the shifting powder. He was dressed comfortably in simple pants and a shirt whose sleeves were rolled up to work, but there were bags under his eyes for he had stayed up all night, troubled by the prospect of 'shifting arsenal' actually being a philosopher's stone.

Walking past Phil who went right back to bed after closing the door, Ed went down to the basement alone. He found Frederick already sitting on the floor, the safe door open, but blasting through a book on alchemy from Amestris.

"Morning," he said, lifting his hand in greeting. "We didn't expect you til' later."

"Well, I'm here bright and early to see this arsenal stuff in action." 

"It changed at 6:59, so you just missed it. It should change again at 29."

Fullmetal plopped down on the floor and turned an attentive eye toward the object of his studies. At that time, it had taken the form of a heavy, old-fashioned mace with a wooden handle and dull spikes. Unlike the knife of the previous day, it was not stained with blood.

Ed wrote that down at once; Mace (Not stained with blood or damaged) - 7:13 AM

Waiting for the mace to change forms, Ed interrogated Frederick on the shifting arsenal. 

"So you just call it the Shifting Arsenal?"

"Yeah, we don't know any official names and we're pretty uncreative to come up with our own name for it."

"Obviously," Ed muttered.

Frederick heard.

"How did you guys discover it?"

"It was about three months ago, I should say," Frederick recounted. "Phil and I received a letter from an anonymous source asking us if we were really serious about alchemy. At the time, we didn't think anything of it. We were only really excited to have a chance to really study alchemy and we said yes. Shortly thereafter, we received a parcel through the mail with the shifting arsenal inside—it was in the form of a fork at the time, which we thought then to be the sender mocking us. But when we saw it change forms, we got a little scared because of the weapons and stuff it was replaced by every half hour and we locked it this safe. It was an entire week before we had the courage to open it up again. As for the anonymous source, they never got back to us. He just dumped this damned thing on us and never returned any of our letters. He never even told us what it was."

"An anonymous source, huh? Who?"

"I don't know. They're anonymous."

"I know that, you dumbass, but how did you send each other letters?"

"Oh, we just left them in the mailbox of an abandoned farm and he sent us the letters through the mail. We tried seeing at the post office where the letters were coming from, but there was no address. No one knew anything. After three months, we still don't know a thing about it except for its replacement schedule. That's why we were so anxious to get your help, Fullmetal Alchemist."