dethroned kings and queens
Characters: Olivier Armstrong, Grumman, commanders of the southern and western areas
Summary: They are not stupid. They realise that something is going on.
The change in West City's head command is the first thing that made the commanders of the four provincial headquarters very, very suspicious because the officer-in-command of West City is Lieutenant General Llewellyn, a woman with a clean file and undeniable skill. She is someone no one has ever messed with before because she holds the loyalty of her troupes and the western tigers are tough, at least as tough as Briggs' bears.
That someone is openly interfering with Charlotte Llewellyn's plans – plans that have secured the western border for decades leaves a bad taste in the mouth of her closest co-workers.
Major General Armstrong, responsible for the fortress in the Briggs, wonders whether the fools in Central even know what kind of person they have just angered because she remembers the western general just too well because she has served for a few years under her command.
Lieutenant General Grumman, too, can only shake his head at this decision. Everyone with a small amount of common sense knows that the tigress of the west is the mother of every single soldier under her command and no mother will ever take it lightly when someone is taking her children. He has known Charlotte Llewellyn for decades, having been married to her for the longest part of his life and to him, the foolishness of messing with her is enormous.
Lieutenant General Hamilton who happens to be the one in charge of South City – a man who will never be promoted to general as long as Bradley is in power – watches the development with ever-growing worry. On the one hand, he is lucky because quite a few people who are transferred away from West City end up under his command and they are quite skilled so that he gains something from the transfer roulette but he – like many others – wonders how this development will continue and whether some of his most valued subordinates will suddenly end up on the other side of the country as well.
Lieutenant General Llewellyn can only shake her head at the entire situation and she curses Scar for giving Bradley an excuse to steal the jewels from her crown. She has invested years of work and tons of money into her state alchemists, she has formed them into reliable and emotional strong soldiers – and suddenly, he sweeps in and transfers them out of her command, ignoring her objection that she needs them to secure the western borders which is the truth.
But the mysterious transfer of three out of West City's infamous four state alchemists is not the last thing to happen – because suddenly, Peter Hamilton finds himself staring at an honourable discharge and people who seriously tell him to retire – at the age of fifty-one.
This is the final proof they need to see that something is utterly, completely wrong and for the next few months, no one among the quartet trusts his or her own shadow. Peter's forced retirement is bitter especially since his successor is some Central pedigree weakling to say it with Olivier's bitter words. They are lucky that three people who are still listening to Peter, their retired leader, are still in high-ranking positions down in the South but they all know how fast this can change. And yet, the trio of Peter's second-oldest daughter, the son of Leroy Grumman and Charlotte Llewellyn and Jadelina Tempest, one of the three state alchemists who have been originally from West City, does its very best to prevent the South to fall.
A new wave of worry for the safety of their country reaches them and Olivier tries very, very hard to prevent the North to fall into Drachma's greedy hands while Leroy and Charlotte invest more and more time and patience into their remaining state alchemists. They do not like the entire situation and their distrust towards the High Command in Central City grows.
And then, 1913, a year after the transfer roulette and half a year after Peter's retirement, Charlotte gets a superior and is no longer commander of the western army.
And this is when they realise that someone is truly playing against them, that someone tries very hard to undermine their efforts to keep the country and its people safe. They cannot understand at the beginning because only someone within the High Command has the influence to manipulate their lives like this. From this day on, they trust no one but themselves. Charlotte is the first to suspect General Raven – someone who has always had problems to accept women within the higher levels of the chain of command, someone sexist to the boot.
It does not save them.
They do know who acts against them, who sabotages them whenever they attempt to do something to increase the safety, who makes sure that Olivier does not come through with her attempts to raise her budget for more weapons when the situation with Drachma worsens and who is trying very hard to make their lives and their jobs as hard as possible.
They can give Olivier the money she needs to make her fortress stronger – the East does not need as much money for weaponry as Leroy gets after all because they have a desert and with Ishbal burned to the ground and Xing hundreds of miles away, they are safe – but they cannot get rid of Raven's efforts – and probably Hakuro's too – to get them into discredit. This is not about some rivalry within the ranks, especially not because they are generals, a rank none of them has achieved yet so there has to be more to it.
Peter, Charlotte and Leroy all have declined the idea of an immortal army years ago and maybe, just maybe, this is somehow connected to it, maybe that insane plan reached its final stage and the fools in Central are scared that they might get into the way.
1914 ends with a boom that might have Kimblee proud.
Olivier has to leave Briggs behind and god, they all know that this is something that should never have happened because for the first time after the humiliating defeat more than two years ago, Drachma attacks the fortress and only because of the bravery and courage of the Briggs' bears a worse fate is avoided.
In East and West City, husband and wife look nervously at the mountains, praying for the courage of the soldiers to stay strong, for their health and their will to never waver. They know the importance of the fortress and the last thing they need is an attack of Drachma because this could very well cause another Civil War and this is the last thing they want now.
In February, Charlotte is officially released from all her duties and even without the information about the Promised Day which they all have received by now, this at last would have shown them that things were about to get really messy.
In the end, they forever wondered whether their colleagues in Central City had believed them to be blind and stupid, whether they had simply assumed that no one would see the pattern that the four areas were weakened by the transfers and that reliable commanders had been replaced by weaker and less credible soldiers.
Peter manages to get his children and grandchildren out of the country along with Bendix Llewellyn and Jadelina Tempest. He stays back against his daughters pleading and their objections. Amestris is his duty, he has been married to the country for the better part of his life and no matter what will happen he will stay back and go down with his ship. On the other side of the country up in her estate in West City, Charlotte makes the same decision because she has served this country for her whole life and come hell or high water, she will stay back and set an example for her troupes which – technically – are not even her troupes anymore but who cares?
The four generals stay strong.
None of them can be with their most valued subordinates when the transmutation begins – Peter and Charlotte sit in their houses, praying to gods they never believed, Olivier is somewhere in the sewers and Leroy can only pray that their assassination attempt at least weakened the Fuhrer – but they all hope that as many people as possible make it out alive.
In the end, Charlotte and Peter watch smugly how the high command is arrested – well, if they have survived the Promised Day, that it is – and they nod at each other before they return to their respective headquarters to demand the full return of their authority and since their successors are weak, neither of them dares to risk a full-blown argument with the Western Tigress or the Element Alchemist respectively.
Later on, when history is written, their roles as respectable generals who have sacrifices their careers to protect the country and the innocent citizens is slightly exaggerated but they ignore this because if Mustang can be a hero, so can we as Olivier put it with a smug little smirk.
And judging from what they do to rebuild the country, no one can deny that they have truly had the best interest for everyone in mind.
The question whether they might have done more to protect their country is never answered in a satisfying manner but they all agree that they have done as much as they could.