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Ed took a step back, nearly stumbling as he stared at the lobby of the hotel he suddenly found himself in. He'd been hurrying full-tilt into the lab -- and well, this certainly wasn't the lab he'd been in before. There was no familiar pattern of alchemy on the walls either. Which meant this wasn't the lab.

It was only belatedly that he realized he was also by himself. Everyone he had been traveling with was gone. He spun around quickly, braid twisting momentarily into the air. Nope, he was by himself. He grabbed the door he had just run through, twisting it back open, but the familiar streets of Central didn't wait outside of it. The realization of what had happened sat coldly in his gut. But, it should have been impossible.

Hastily, he pressed both his gloved hands against up the wall next to the door. His alchemy crackled along the wall before a new door was called into being. Even as the energy poured through both his real and automail arm, he could feel that there was something off about it, as if his connection had been altered in some way. He hastily grabbed the knob of the new door, pulling that open as well. What was behind wasn't the same as the first door he had opened -- but still wasn't Central. He slammed it shut, moving automatically to create a second door, and then a third. Each one opened up to a new place, but none of them were the world Ed had just left behind.

"What the hell," he growled under his breath, unable to hide his rank irritation. He spun back around from the wall, facing the expanse of the hotel in front of him again. There was only one weapon he had left to him now.

"Alphonse!" he bellowed. And then, even though he didn't want to: "Hohenheim!"

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Ed stared at the stranger openly, taking no care to hide an expression that clearly displayed just how crazy he thought he was. Ed wasn't sure which sentence he was having more difficulty digesting.

He'd met a lot of strange people lately. Beings who were the embodiments of human sin. People who had been alchemically blended with animals. Hell, he was related to a lot of strange people. His brother's soul was bonded to a suit of armor, and his father was apparently a couple of millennium old. But he'd never met anyone who claimed to be a wizard.

"Like, a State Alchemist?" Ed asked, holding up his watch and letting it swing in front of James' face. He spoke the words slowly, as if it would help James understand. Because, well, who the hell hadn't heard of an alchemist.

"No, never heard of any alchemists, state or otherwise. Is that a Muggle thing?" As much as James liked some Muggle inventions (motorcycles, Sirius was onto something with that) he knew very little about how their world worked.

"Must be, since I've never heard of it."

"Muggle?" Ed echoed, face contorting in confusion. He didn't know who this guy was that he had never heard of a state alchemist -- even people from outside their country knew what they were, particularly because of how pivotal they had been in the last war.

But he felt like they weren't even speaking the same language, really. He'd thrown around wizard and Muggle as if they were common things, but Ed had no idea what he was going on about. He wished, once again, that Al was here. Ed was a little narrow in his studies -- if it wasn't alchemy, he didn't care, but there was a better chance that Alphonse would have been able to handle this situation well. Or at least with more patience.

"Someone who can't do magic? Well, not a squib...but someone who can't do magic and doesn't know anything about it," James clarified. Really, someone who didn't know who Muggles were but clearly did not seem to be a Muggle himself? Was alchemist just another name for wizard that he hadn't learned in history?

"Ever heard of people like that?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Ed responded, his exasperation abundantly obvious. Really, he considered himself quite restrained for not just giving up and starting to shout.

He had no idea what was happening, what this idiot was blathering about, but he did know that he didn't have time for it. He needed to go back to Central.

"Listen," he said, trying to get the other man to focus again. "Is there anybody else I can talk to around here?" This guy obviously wasn't going to be helpful.

James hooked his thumb back toward the general vicinity of the front desk. "They can tell you where your room is but other than that, you're just going to have to pull doors open and see where you end up. Nothing too helpful around here, I'm afraid."

Seriously, someone who hadn't heard of Muggles but clearly wasn't a Muggle himself? Weird.