A/N: ahhhhhhhhhh! This is my first fanfic ever and it's a homage to the greatest pairing of all time: ROYAI!

Any comments: praise, insults, advice, questions, all are welcome!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters or Fullmetal Alchemist.

Thoughts

Brigadier General Mustang was in danger.

Truth be told, he had always been in danger ever since he joined the military as the esteemed Flame Alchemist. The peril he was in increased substantially after the Ishavalan Massacre as vengeful Ishvalans and disgusted Amestrians tried to enact their revenge on Mustang in a futile attempt to right the wrongs of the Massacre. She and he both knew that these 'terrorists' were completely justified and in another world where there was no corrupt government, she would have let them have their way. However, they both had a mission and to ensure the completion of this mission they would have to stay alive, at least for the time being.

Yes, Mustang was always in danger and it was her job to protect him from it, make sure their mission was completed and to see to it that he did not stray from this path. Otherwise she would have to correct him or end him.

The danger he faced paralleled his quick ascension up the ranks, and the higher he rose the more threats that faced him. Now, as Brigadier General, he faced trouble in the form of a rebel group, the True Amestrians. These poorly misguided fools believed that Mustang had staged a coup on the Promised Day to steal power away from the true leader of Amestris, Fuehrer King Bradley, which was true, but their assumptions about his intentions were entirely false. These radicals believed that the government in place now, with her grandfather, General Grumman, now Fuehrer President Grumman in charge, was an authoritarian mandate and that the previous government was the democracy. Which, to put it lightly, was bullshit. It was obvious to most of the public, after the details of the Promised Day and the events that preceded it had been released, that the previous Amestris they had lived in had been a military controlled state and they were now thankfully enough in a democracy. However some idiotic citizens had put it into their thick, little skulls that this was not the case which was why Riza was currently situated in a small, dark room in the middle of the ruins of Ishval with a rifle in hand, a horrifyingly familiar position which she did not want to find herself in. Nevertheless, this was necessary to ensure the safety of the Brigadier General and the completion of their mission. There had been several attacks already, as the General had conducted inspections of Ishval, but these were amateur attacks, done by teens who barely had a few hairs on their chin and even fewer brains. However, word on the street was that these attacks had been decoys for a bigger assault planned on Mustang's last day of inspection.

It was beautifully planned, she had to admit. Most of the troops that weren't involved in the rebuilding had left already and they had no back-up as the news of the attack was only found out late last night.

"Well," she thought, "Better late than never."

As the sun began to set over the rugged rubble-ridden horizon of Ishval and the Brigadier General turned the corner moving into Lieutenant Catalina's jurisdiction, her mind wandered, unprofessionally, she thought, onto the events last night that had led her to be situated in her current position

Riza was about to retire to her room when she felt a slight wind pass her. An ordinary person would have shrugged it off as being a light evening wind, however Riza's years as a sniper had led her to the belief that assumptions were fatal. An evening breeze, although common in other areas of Amestris, was scarce in the sweltering wasteland that was Ishval. She quickly began a sweep of the area, paying special attention to the numerous shadows that covered the corridor in which her and the General's rooms were. Then she saw it. A dark figure lingering in the shadows at the other end of the corridor. Almost as soon as she had spotted it, the figure threw a knife at her and leapt out of its hiding place. The knife embedded itself firmly in the wall behind her, an inch or so away from her ear.

"A warning," she deemed.

This man was trained well, well enough to almost match her in combat.

"Almost, but not quite."

Riza almost instantly retaliated with a few shots from the gun she kept in her shoulder holster, but the man was too quick. He deftly moved through a crack in the window nearest to him, but Riza was already on his trail. She paused for a breadth of a second outside Mustang's door to decide whether to check up on him, but she decided against it. He had gone through military training too and was quite adept at hand to hand combat and besides, he had his flame alchemy to protect him.

"Yes, but this assassin is almost as good as me and it's dangerous to assume that the General's prepared for an attack, especially at this time of night." she considered as she vaulted through the window after the assailant. "It's fine, I'll quickly deal with this idiot and then check up on the General," she reasoned.

The would-be attacker had set off down the alleyway beside the building they were staying in. Although his training was evident from the way he had evaded her detection for so long and thrown the knife, she could see clearly that he was no expert in combat. He ran straight down the alleyway and not in a serpentine manner like she would.

"If he was as good as me, or Breda then he would have realised when I shot him that I had not used up all my bullets and I would shoot him again. And any man trained to throw knives like that would know that running in a serpentine technique would be the best way to avoid my bullets."

While she pondered this, she withdrew her gun from her thigh holster and began shooting with both guns as she sprinted down the alley after the man. It took only four bullets to ground the man and she jogged the rest of the distance to him. She pinned him to the floor, even though the wounds in the back of his left knee and thigh were sufficient enough to keep him from escaping. She had shot to injure, not kill. She had had enough of death and murder and was not going to kill again, especially in the city where all her murdering nightmares stemmed from. However, as the seconds ticked she realised that there was no way she could arrest him and take him all the way back to East City.

"You can think about that later, Riza. The General may be in danger right now or even dying. You need to find out information about this man and why he's here."

"Who are you and why are you here?"

The man gave her a thin smile behind which his pain was evident. "I think you know exactly why I'm here."

"Don't cheek me. Why were you outside the General's room?" Riza spat out with gritted teeth.

"Wasn't that obvious? I thought the General's bitch was more intelligent than this." He had stopped struggling and watched her with a cool gaze as she began to lose her shit.

"Answer me now! Who are you and why are you here?" her voice shook with anger and frustration at the man's infuriating responses. A bit of the tremor in her voice may have been due to the small corner of her brain that was gripped with fear as to the conditions of the General, but she cast those thoughts aside to focus on the matter at hand.

Then her hand felt wet.

"Shit." she thought.

While Riza had been amateurishly dwelling on her thoughts about the General, the man had managed to free a knife from his jacket and stab himself in the throat. Blood spurted from the wound and trickled down his neck to stain the hem of his shirt and her hands that were gripping it. Even in the dark moonlit alley they were in she could see the stark red of the man's life essence colouring her sheet-white knuckles, knuckles white from gripping his shirt in utter rage. She could see the blood slowly fill his mouth and turn his dead grin even more hideously gruesome. She left him there, blood leaking from his lips and staggered back down the alleyway to the building where she was staying. However the journey back was tougher than expected.

The dead man's image was too similar to the bodies she had nightmares about , the bodies she had made nearly 10 years ago in the same place. She stopped to throw up her dinner, the sight of the man and the many Ishvalans she had killed punching her again and again. Yet the death of this man felt worse. True, she had not killed him, but the fact that he had suffered a death worse than one her bullets could have given him made her feel guilty. If she had shot him in the head, then he wouldn't of had to kill himself. But then again, if he hadn't attacked the General then he wouldn-The General! She immediately began to hurry down the alleyway despite the ache she felt all over due to the onslaught of memories.

However, she had a painful inkling that the ache she felt was not due to her guilt over the man's suicide. It dawned on her that, while being a sniper she had never seen one of her victims up close. This was her first experience of watching a man die and to put it bluntly, it was horrific.

"Is this how all of my victims looked like? Is this the pain they had to endure?"

Despite her deliberations and pain she powered through. She had a General to check up on.

A/N: aahhh! so what do people think? anyone want me to continue this? Anon who requested this, do you like it? THANK YOU GUYS FOR READING IT!