A/N: Detailed A/N at the bottom.

Enjoy the first chapter of my second multi-chapter FMA:B fanfic.

"Oh, Elizabeth! It's been too long," Roy Mustang remarked playfully into the phone's voice-piece as he leaned back in his office chair, twirling the phone cord around his finger. "How have you been?"

"Me? Why, I've been fine, Roy," the woman on the other end of the line answered cheerfully. "The shop has been awfully busy as of late, so just playing catch up. We have a big event coming up in a couple of months."

Roy couldn't help but smile to himself. That "big event" was his inauguration ceremony. In just a few, short months, Fuhrer Grumman would hand over the reins and he will be the Fuhrer of Amestris. Sometimes he had to pinch himself to remind him that this was really happening. He had finally accomplished his dream. And he certainly couldn't have done it without her.

"Speaking of big events," he replied coolly as he ran the fingers of his free hand through his raven-black hair, "How about I take you out to dinner tonight? My treat, of course." Upon popping the question, Roy's stomach did a slight somersault and his heart fluttered. He couldn't help it. Things were finally coming together and he felt invincible. Invincible enough, even, to ask his Captain out to dinner.

There was a pause at the end of the line, followed by a regretful, "I'm sorry Roy, but I've got an appointment with my supplier tonight. Perhaps some other time?"

The corners of his lips turned downward in a slight frown as his high dissipated and his bulletproof notion shattered. "Supplier" was the code word for the gun range. She was going again?

Roy was grateful that Riza was taking her job as head of security seriously, but sometimes he thought that she was going a little overboard. Ever since he appointed her the position for the inauguration, she has done nothing but paperwork and training, from morning well into the latest hours of the night. And despite her protests when she'd claim to be fine, Roy could tell that the constant pressure she was putting on herself was taking its toll. The dark circles under her eyes and her slightly loose-fitting uniform were dead giveaways. She was overworking herself.

Tonight he would not give her the option of working. However, as he opened his mouth to respond, he was cut off by a deep cackle on the other end of the line.

"Bahahaha! Shot down," the newcomer exclaimed.

"Havoc," Roy leaned forward in his seat and covered his mouth and the phone receiver with his hand, "What the hell do you think you're doing," he hissed into the mouth piece. Was he trying to blow their cover?

It took Havoc a few moments to allow his laughter to die down and compose himself. Once he had, he cockily replied, "My line just opened up, sir. Had to let my presence be known somehow."

As Roy began to protest, the phone was snatched from his grip. Lieutenant Breda leaned against the General's desk and pressed the receiver to his ear. "Causing trouble again, Havoc," the Lieutenant smirked devilishly into the phone. "Well, you heard the man. You owe me 1000 cenz."

Roy jerked the phone out of the Lieutenant's grasp. "Sit down, Lieutenant Breda," he ordered as he covered the receiver piece with his hand.

The Lieutenant slowly lowered himself back into his seat next to the General and sighed gloomily, subconsciously forcing the General's feelings of annoyance to lighten. The General knew that not being out in the field was making Breda antsy. But after the Lieutenant had sprained his right ankle while out in the field just a few weeks prior, Roy was not comfortable sending the man back out until they had Dr. Knox's approval. "Yes, sir," the heavy-set man muttered as he elevated his leg and rested it on the stack of books piled in front of him. "Just remind Havoc again that he owes me money."

Roy scoffed and rolled his eyes as he pressed the phone against his ear. "Fuery," he demanded, "Are we really secured?"

"Yes, sir," a fourth voice responded chastely. "The line just went active a couple of seconds ago. Your line is officially disconnected from Central HQ and is directly connected to ours, so you can drop the act, sir."

Damn. So it was true. He'd have to finish his conversation with her once they got back. This time, however, he'd be more persuasive. This time, he'd-

"Don't forget to remind him," Breda whispered as he leaned in toward Roy.

"What is this even about," Roy growled as he glared at the man seated next to him.

The Lieutenant shrugged innocently. "Just a wager. I just don't want him to forget-"

"Fine," Roy briskly cut the other man off. "Havoc," he snapped into the phone.

"Yes, sir," the blond man answered over the line.

"Pay Lieutenant Breda when you see him next."

"But wait! Tell him that wasn't-"

"No," the General replied bluntly, letting his growing irritation become known. They needed to get back to the task at hand. The men were treating these last few missions with too much ease. He didn't want to have to remind them again about the importance of this mission. They should know better by now.

Playtime was over.

"Alright," he continued authoritatively, slipping back into the role as the commander of the operation. "Keep the line up and running, Sergeant. And Captain, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir," Hawkeye and Havoc replied simultaneously.

"Any movement?"

"No, sir," Hawkeye replied, her playful "Elizabeth" tone completely gone, instead replaced with her usual monotonous diction. "At least from my end, I have seen no signs of activity."

Roy's frown grew. No, this had to be right. They had worked so meticulously, so diligently to track these men down. It had taken them months, but they were finally able to pinpoint the location of the arms dealers that had been selling weapons illegally to Aerugo. All of their leads had led them there and only there; to that small, unassuming warehouse on the outskirts of southeastern Central. "Havoc? Fuery? Anything from your positions?"

"No, sir," the two replied in unison.

The Flame Alchemist sighed heavily and rubbed the bridge of his nose agitatedly. This was not how he was expecting his team's last mission to go. It should have been an easy stake-out operation. Just go in. Secure the suspects. Secure the weapons, and then report back.

Instead, a sweep of the building and its perimeter had proved fruitless.

They didn't have time to start back at square one. He should have "reassigned" them to his new staff weeks ago, but he had wanted to try and get one last mission in, for old time's sake. However, this was beginning to look like another dead end…

"So… we good to go," Havoc loudly asked over the connection's static. "'Cause I've got a date tonight with Rebecca..."

"And I'm supposed to meet Sheska in an hour," Fuery added timidly. "We're looking over the radio devices at HQ."

Even Fuery had a date tonight? "Fine," Roy growled into the phone as he rubbed his temple, trying to massage away the stress and defeat. "Grab the others and-"

The sound of gunfire cut him off, thundering through the phone's earpiece. Roy jumped up from his desk, nearly dropping the phone's earpiece in surprise. "What's going on?!" he cried into the mouthpiece. When there was no reply, he yelled it again, his pulse rising exponentially with every passing second. He strained to listen, trying to hear if the gunfire was being returned from his men. However, the task proved to be a difficult.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally heard the muffled noises that accompany the picking up a dropped receiver. Roy held his breath as Kain Fuery spoke, his voice barely discernible above the sound of the continual gunfire. "S-sir…"

"Fuery! What is your status?" Roy felt the desperation swelling inside him.

"It's… it's an ambush, sir. They knew…" Fuery responded, his voice sounding disconnected from the situation entirely. "I-I…" The Sergeant's voice ended abruptly, along with the gunfire.

"Kain!" Roy was screaming into the mouthpiece now. Any composure he had had slipped away. "KAIN!" Only the connection's static greeted him.

"Jean?" Nothing.

No… This wasn't happening. This can't be happening.

"Riza...?" Nothing.

"Riza, please…. Please answer," he begged softly.

Please… he just needed something, anything, to let him know she was okay.

After a few moments of silence, he heard a series of rhythmic, deep breaths on the other end of the line. He froze, his heart pounding in his chest. "Riza…?"

The breathing ceased. Roy could hear the receiver being picked up. His blood ran cold when he heard a snap, followed by the loud drone of a lost connection. The line was gone.

The phone receiver slipped from Roy's grasp and clattered onto his desk below.

"Chief," Breda stared up at the Flame Alchemist, his eyes widened with alarm. "What's going-?"

"We have to go," Roy responded with urgency as he stumbled around the desk and toward the door.

Breda leapt up from his chair and limped after the General. "Sir," the man desperately pleaded, "What's going on?"

Roy didn't respond. He didn't know how to respond.

All he knew was that his team needed him.

And nothing would stop him from getting to them.

Roy swayed absently as he tried to process everything they had discovered.

Eleven.

Eleven men were dead, their bodies sprinkled around the warehouse like leaves. Some of them were riddled with bullets, while others were torn to shreds, their mangled bodies barely recognizable.

Much to Roy's deep-seated, albeit selfish relief, Fuery, Havoc, and Hawkeye remained unaccounted for, along with a few other men. Their headsets and weapons were found scattered around the areas they had staked. But near Sergeant Fuery's radio hardware, they had made an additional discovery: a long, narrow trail of blood.

Roy tried desperately to not make any assumptions. It could be anyone's blood. It could be the assailant's… or… or…

He shoved the thoughts away when they tried to surface again. He didn't have the evidence. All he knew what that his team wasn't there amongst the massacre.

Roy passively crouched down next to one of the fallen soldiers and numbly plucked a small tuft of brown, blood-soaked hair from the man's jacket. Raising it to his face, he narrowed his eyes as he tried to make sense of it. The departed man in question was blond and, judging by his wounds; he had hardly put up a fight. Certainly not enough of one to rip out a clump of hair from his killer. So where did it come from…

He quietly slipped the evidence into a small plastic bag upon hearing the crunch of boots on gravel behind him. "Did you find anything," he asked without turning to look at the two men as they approached.

"Nothing…" Lieutenant Breda replied despondently. "Everything's gone… As if they were never here."

Except for the carnage they left behind, the General thought bitterly to himself as he stood. After pausing reflecting on the events for a few moments, he turned to face Breda and Armstrong. "Lieutenant Colonel," he addressed Armstrong quietly, "is there anything that you would suggest we do next?" Their other leads were all dead ends. He needed a fresh mind to muddle through the data, someone else to redirect him. Because honestly, he didn't know what to do…

The Lieutenant Colonel's moustache bristled slightly as he pursed his lips together in deep concentration. After collecting his thoughts, the Strongarm Alchemist shook his head slightly, his eyes softening. "I'm at a loss, General. I'm not quite sure-"

"What do you mean," Roy snapped, his onyx glare zeroed in on the Lieutenant Colonel. "You are the head of Investigations now. Do you mean to tell me that you don't know where to go from here?" His composure was slipping away. Time was precious; this was not the time to be sitting idly while half of his team was missing. They needed to act now.

"Please, General," the muscled-man raised his hands defensively; "We cannot become divided on this. I need for you to tell me what else you know."

"And what do you mean by that," the General snarled defensively.

"General, was there any indication they knew that you and your team were tracking them?"

Roy gaped at the other alchemist in disbelief. Armstrong knew his team and their strengths. He knew how precise and tactical his team was. There was no way they could make a mistake so large… especially this late in their careers. His accusatory question was absurd and outlandish.

No. There were no mistakes. There couldn't have been… right?

Feeling a heavy weight on his shoulder, Roy was pulled from his thoughts, noticing that the Lieutenant Colonel had placed his massive hand on it as a sign of comfort. Roy refused to raise his head to look at the massive man; he was too busy going over his own mistakes.

He shouldn't have let them talk him out of going. They were concerned for his safety, being so close to his inauguration, when in reality; he should have been the one looking out for them.

And now they were gone.

Lost.

Untraceable.

"Kain, you need to look at me. Focus," Hawkeye quietly commanded as she continued to apply pressure to his wound, attempting to stanch the constant flow of blood that poured from it. The young man had stopped responding to the title "Sergeant" just a few minutes prior. Hawkeye quickly switched tactics and began calling him by his first name, hoping to keep him with her. Now she had to pry in order to get him to even acknowledge her, whether it was with a flutter of his eyelids or a small nod. But his responses were becoming less frequent as he faded in and out of consciousness.

The fact that the bullet had failed to exit his body worried her deeply. With the jostling they had to endure, she feared that it may have migrated to a more critical part of his body.

Being tossed into a dark, musty cell certainly hadn't helped either. The air reeked with the scent of mold and filth and something else that was familiar, but yet she couldn't quite seem to place it. With only the light of a few torches, she had managed to crawl over to Fuery and find his wound, pressing on it firmly with her coat sleeves.

She and Havoc had been lucky. They had come out of the firefight with only a few surface wounds, where bullets had simply grazed them. But some of the others she could not account for. They had been separated from them, taken to some unknown location in this extensive maze of corridors and cement.

And then there were the ones that were left behind…

She knew they were dead. Before they had been blindfolded and taken, she saw their mutilated remains. Some of them twisted and disfigured to the point of unrecognition. They had been marred and mangled by what she could only describe as beasts.

Beasts that had evaded her detection and ambushed them. Beasts that had ripped good men apart without a second thought.

And now here they were, in their lair.

Hawkeye was quickly jolted from her thoughts when Fuery moaned in pain. She looked down at him, realizing that his jacket and her hands were completely stained a deep red.

So much blood… There was so much blood.

She tensed when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Havoc slowly stand and shuffle over toward them. Without lifting her gaze from Fuery, she softly scolded the other blond. "Lieutenant Havoc, please go and continue tending to Officer Henderson."

Havoc disobeyed and instead sank to his knees next to her. He pulled off his jacket and began compressing it into a ball, ignoring the glare of the Hawk's Eye. Without saying a word, he gently pushed her hands away from Fuery and began pressing the balled up jacket against the wound, soaking up the blood like a sponge.

"Lieutenant Havoc-"

"I can't," the First Lieutenant murmured distantly. "He's dead."

Hawkeye froze, stunned at the news. She had heard them talking just minutes ago. What happened? What changed?

"He," Havoc began again, desperately trying to keep his emotions in check, "He asked me to tell his wife he loved her…" He went to speak again, but stopped when Fuery groaned in pain. Looking down at the Sergeant, Havoc plastered a fake smile on his face. "Hey, buddy…" He quietly began, "How are you feeling?"

Hawkeye hastily moved to over to Fuery's head, maneuvering it gently onto her lap.

The young soldier slowly opened his eyes and tried to focus on his comrades. "It hurts…" he muttered weakly.

"I know it does," Havoc responded softly. "But you have to stay with us. If you fall asleep, you might miss your date with Sheska. You don't want to keep her waiting, right?"

Fuery nodded inactively and managed to mumble an unintelligible response.

Havoc let out a small sigh before turning his eyes toward Hawkeye. His eyes screamed of despair. Taking a shaky breath, he mouthed "What are we going to do?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by the sound of metal clashing against metal. Snapping her head around, she glared at the source of the noise.

From the shadows beyond the barred door emerged a wrinkled, short-statured man donning a white lab jacket. Upon seeing the two pairs of eyes watching him intently, his lips parted, revealing a toothy, devilish grin that spread from ear to ear.

Hawkeye felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. His presence was familiar to her… too familiar for comfort….

With the grin still etched onto his face, the man looked down the bridge of his crooked nose at them. His large, crazed eyes scanned them before coming to rest on Kain Fuery. His smile faltered, mixing a slight amount of concern into his expression. "Oh…" he finally spoke. "Is that one dead?"

Remaining true to her training, Hawkeye remained silent. Don't give them what they want. Don't speak unless crucial.

Unfortunately, Jean Havoc must have missed that day of training. The blond Lieutenant narrowed his eyes at the man and hissed, "Who the hell are you?"

"Me?" The man asked innocently. "Why, I'm the good Dr. Beller. And this," he raised his arms from his sides and gestured to the area around him, "Is my sanctuary."

Hawkeye shivered and instinctively reached up with a free hand and rubbed her neck absently, eyes widening upon realizing the man's slight semblance. His demeanor, his posture, his wicked smile…

They all brought her back to that day just over five years ago…

This man was just like the gold-toothed doctor.

This man was dangerous... and now they were at his mercy.

A/N: So, here's that new story I kind of outlined a few chapters ago in Pressure Point (in which Chapter 12 is about 25% done, if anyone cares XD).

To those that haven't read Pressure Point, here's my quick spiel:

Firstly, yes, this is a Chimera! story.

Secondly, I admit that I do not like Chimera! stories. However, I randomly remembered this prompt from a long time ago and decided to challenge myself to write something when I'm stuck on Pressure Point, or when I'm procrastinating from my studies (hence, the reason this story is now posted).

That being said, here is what the story will contain: Royai, Parental!RoyEd, EdWin, some AlMei, explanations of alchemy (or at least my understanding of), angst/romance/drama/adventure and maybe some light and dark humor occasionally. Plus, I want to explore Edward and Alphonse's thoughts of Nina at this stage of their lives. Will most likely contain graphic scenes and explicit language.

What this story won't contain: Fetish-y stuff (because that's not my style), a bunch of OCs, and non-canon pairings (since I pretty much listed a lot of the canon pairings as being part of the story anyways).

Finally, the story takes place about five years after the Promised Day. So, Edward and Winry are married and Roy and Riza are back from Ishval. And no, there is no connection to Pressure Point in this story.

So, we'll see where the story goes.

I definitely encourage anyone that wants to review to do so and let me know what they think as the story goes on.