DISCLAIMER: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi and all related characters, events, and settings are property of Hiromu Arakawa.

A/N: (Comparatively) lots of Royai in this chapter, as well as mentions of slight grownup-girl bonding time. Also in this and coming chapters, I'm going to attempt to work with Ed and Roy's (platonic) relationship, with attempt being the key word. I'm not a fan of how it was handled in 03 or the manga/Brotherhood, and since this follows the canon timeline, I'm going to put my own twists and turns into their dynamic. Hopefully I don't screw it up.

Roy donned his ignition gloves than he could blink, having just remembered to turn around and grab them before rushing off to aide the Elrics. Turning down the dank alleyway that ran alongside his apartment complex, Roy held his gloved hands out before him, brandishing them as weapons. So far none of the three had noticed him, giving him an advantage on the boys' attacker. Edward stood behind his towering brother, fiddling with his mostly detached automail arm. He'd stripped himself of his signature red jacket, and it appeared he was trying to finish the break so as to not have an unresponsive metal limb dangling at his side.

Alphonse was, at the moment, fending off their assailant, who was armored as well, and wielding a sickeningly large butcher's knife that he seemed to carry with ease. The man let out a somewhat psychotic screech each time a blow was thwarted; Alphonse was not, under any circumstances, about to let bodily harm come to his big brother.

Roy's body froze up involuntarily as he was abruptly reminded of Hughes, images of the man lying stone cold in a pool of his own blood searing his mind's eye.

He would not let that happen again.

The moment Alphonse shifted in a way that cleared an opening, Roy snapped.

Both armored men jumped out of the way, Alphonse grabbing Edward by the flesh arm and yanking him alongside him. The brothers - well, at least, Alphonse - seemed relieved upon seeing that it was Roy who had come to their rescue. If he wasn't mistaken, the look on Fullmetal's face was suspiciously close to 'pissed off.'

The armed man threw his body against the brick wall, a strange, hollow-sounding clank resulting from the collision. He immediately righted himself, swearing loudly. As he got a look at the Colonel, he cursed again.

"Dammit, not more military jackasses! I just lost them-" he began, stopping to let out a yell as Roy snapped at him once more. "And an alchemist, too, oh that's just great!" he shouted sarcastically, clearly frustrated. He held his weapon out to the side, shrieking once before charging Mustang.

Roy was halfway into a third snap when Alphonse caught the man from behind, yanking his arms behind him and pushing him to his knees, effectively restraining him. Roy frowned.

"Who the hell are you, and why were you attacking my subordinate and his brother?" he demanded, striding closer to the man with his hands still poised like a finger on a trigger. "And just what exactly did you mean about the military?"

"This is Barry the Chopper," Alphonse informed him, not giving the man a chance to explain for himself. His metal body rustled slightly as he contained Barry's attempts to wiggle out of his hold and free himself. "He's a serial killer who was supposed to have been executed months ago. He was at Laboratory Five as a guard."

"A guard, huh?" Roy repeated, thinking over it carefully. Who had given him that job? And what was he guarding? He focused his gaze on the skull mask covering Barry's face. "How'd you escape that fate? The military isn't quite that forgiving." Well, Roy amended silently, not towards those it considered to actually be criminals.

"Oh, really? As I recall it was the military who let me live. They handed me over to some whackjob scientist who ripped my soul out and shoved it in this tin can," he recounted. "The next thing I knew I was keeping people out of Laboratory Five."

The Colonel felt a chill sweep through him, and his gaze met Alphonse's, who was still pinning him down. The boy shrugged and said guiltily, "Oh yeah, and he doesn't have a body..." Edward, who stood beside him, simply sighed.

Roy fought the urge to make a scathing remark and turned his attention once again to the Chopper. "Who, exactly, ordered your release? Was it the Fuhrer?" Mustang demanded, recalling with a shudder the encounter he'd had with the man - or whatever the hell he was - only minutes ago. His suspicions about him were stronger now than they ever had been.

The man shook his head. "I don't know who ordered it, but it was some irritating busty chick without a uniform who carried it out. Long-ass hair and a freaky tattoo."

His description jogged an odd memory - Roy was suddenly reminded of the drawing Edward had made in the hospital; one he'd rightfully ridiculed. He looked to the young alchemist to watch the same look of recognition on his face. "So she is connected to the military," Ed muttered.

"You know her?" Barry asked, tilting his head up towards the boy.

Fullmetal rolled his eyes. "Yeah, kind of. She threatened to kill me," he said flatly.

"She's got freaky fingers, they grow and turn into knives," the Chopper said with a slight shudder.

Roy and the two boys registered this at the same time, their faces mirroring.

"You mean-"

"Is she human?" Roy blurted, his eyes boring into the serial killer. Suddenly he remembered himself, who had just been in his home, and shook his head. "Don't answer that." He turned to face the brothers. "Alphonse. Fullmetal. Is there somewhere safe we can take him right now?"

Edward blinked, sharing a look with his younger brother. After a silent exchange between the two, Alphonse said, "We can take him to the place we're staying at right now. But -"

Mustang didn't let him finish, impatient to get on the move. "That'll work."

Riza shivered.

She didn't know why they were so against holding with other prisoners, and while she might not have cared for the company, some additional body heat in such cramped quarters would have been greatly appreciated. She wore only a one-piece prison uniform, the one she'd worn to her trial; it didn't cover her arms and was hardly thick enough to keep the slightest chill out. If it had been hot in the room she was being detained in, Riza could deal. She'd spent nearly a year in Ishval, an arid desert which had whipped her with sandy wind and scorching sun. The sniper was used to the heat and knew how to handle it. At night, when the temperatures dropped, she would often find Rebecca sneaking into her tent to huddle for warmth, which had suited her just fine. Hawkeye had never really had to endure the cold, nor did she want to start.

The now former Lieutenant had been freezing her ass off in this cell for days. Well, no, it wasn't really a cell. She wasn't in prison. They had taken her to Laboratory Two and dumped her in a room about as big as a storage closet, tossing stale bread and a glass of water in every six hours or so to keep her alive.

She hadn't been told why they were keeping her alive. She'd been stripped of her rank, her death had been faked, and they'd dumped her here and practically forgotten about her existence, leaving her with no sort of explanation. All she knew was that they had somehow manipulated evidence to find her guilty of Brigadier General Hughes' murder. Private Sheska had firmly insisted she'd seen her at Central Headquarters minutes before his death, but that simply wasn't possible.

Her head spun.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and reviewing the methods she'd been taught in the military academy to resist mental breakdowns in situations such as these. Boredom was dangerous. Riza focused on recalling events, memories that spurred strong reactions.

Her earliest one was of her mother. From what she could recall, the woman had looked a lot like herself, though admittedly the memory might have been warped over the years to conform to a face Riza could easily generate in her mind's eye. However, she knew without a doubt that her mother's hair had been a shade reminiscent of her own.

After that were a few scattered pieces of that miserable time alone with her father, not abused but certainly not loved. She and Berthold Hawkeye had existed in a sort of strange limbo for several years, back and forth over an invisible line between strangers and enemies. That had been the loneliest time in her life.

And then he came.

No matter where they might end up, no matter where this serpentine road they traveled led them to, Riza would unfailingly claim that Roy Mustang entering her life was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

It wasn't entirely the man himself that had provided such an powerful change in her life, if she was being honest with herself. It was what he had inspired in her to do, what he had unwittingly encouraged her to be. They were on a path to change their country for the better, the two halves of their tight-knit team swaying together with each rustle of the wind, holding steadfast onto one another and proving their worth time and time again. It had been at great cost to both their peaces of mind, as well as their consciences, that they had made it this far, but their goal still shone bright at the end of the tunnel.

Following him into the military had led her to the only real family she'd ever known. Their team was far from perfect, but they were as loyal to one another as she and Mustang were to each other. Breda, Falman, Fuery and Havoc were like brothers to her, military comradeship running deeper than was probably ever intended. She was thankful every day of her life for them, and in a way she was glad that it was her sitting on this freezing cement floor instead of one of them.

In the end, though it was hard to deny the very personal effect Roy had had on her. The parameters of their relationship had always been slightly tricky to define, but then, definitions hardly mattered when such absolute trust existed between them. Roy Mustang held a place in her heart that no other man could hope to occupy, even if her heart was considerably low on her list of priorities.

Riza opened her eyes with a small sigh and stared at the wall, deciding it might be better not to think.

Thinking back on it, it might have been a wise idea to let Alphonse finish his statement.

"Just what in the hell are you doing here?" Ed yelled, his face bright red and his remaining arm flailing. The automail limb was currently on the ground - Fullmetal had dropped it at the sight of the long-haired boy sitting cross-legged at the table eating a rather thick chicken leg, a dark-haired girl swathed in black sitting across from him. She, at least, had the decency to look ashamed.

"We're eating dinner," the boy singsonged, proceeding to shove another mouthful in his face. Edward's rage seemed to be completely lost on him.

The short alchemist fumed. "Get your ass out of here before I-"

"Brother, enough!" Alphonse cut in. He and Roy were restraining the Chopper, who was being strangely apathetic about his predicament, though they weren't about to take their chances with him. "Ling, you can stay, but we need your help," he continued, clearly ready to take the reins from his older brother. "Lan Fan, you too. This man is extremely dangerous-"

"Why do you keep calling me a man? I'm no more of a person than you are, big guy," Barry interrupted.

Al pressed forward, pointedly ignoring him. "He's very dangerous, and we need all the help we can keeping him contained until we figure out what to do with him."

Ling stood, his friend rising to her feet the moment he did. "Why don't you hand him over to your military?" he asked, suddenly serious. "He'd be better off there than here."

Roy shook his head, speaking for the first time since they'd escorted Barry through Central, staying in the shadows as much as they could. "That's not an option right now," he stated, deciding not to give this stranger any more information than was necessary. As far as he knew they had no real reason to trust him. "Are you going to help us or not?"

The boy's narrowed eyes moved from him to Edward and finally to Alphonse, mulling it over. "You'll let me and Lan Fan stay here?" he asked carefully.

Edward gritted his teeth. "Yeah, fine," he announced defeatedly. "Just don't eat all our food or I'll kick your ass."

Ling grinned, all traces of seriousness suddenly out the window. "Nooo promises!"

The Chopper was tied to a chair, his restraints meticulously melted together and into the seat. Ling sat close by, a hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword; Lan Fan of course sat dutifully next to him. Edward and Alphonse stood beside Roy, who had seated himself directly in front of the serial killer, pelting him with questions the man couldn't be bothered to put much effort into answering. So far all they'd deduced was that the woman they had mentioned, the one from Fullmetal's drawings, was, in fact, not human; Barry had mentioned that he'd heard someone call her Lust, and that she had a sidekick she reffered to as Envy. Though he hadn't said so out loud, Roy confirmed to himself that Fuhrer Bradley was probably as Roy suspected - inhuman, as well, though whatever these creatures actually were was anyone's guess.

Realizing they weren't headed anywhere useful down this train of thought, he switched gears, reaching a hand into his coat pocket. He pulled out a thick brown wallet, sifting through it to find an old photograph Hu- an officer had taken a few months prior. Roy removed it and held it up in front of the armored man.

"Do you recognize this woman?" he asked. The photo had several people in it - himself, Havoc, Fuery, and Brosh, who had happened to stop in at an inopportune moment, but the sole woman in it was his Lieutenant, at his side like she always was.

Roy clenched his teeth at the past tense. Was. She'll be with me again, he promised himself. Hughes had already been taken from him. He wasn't about to give up Hawkeye, not for anything.

Suddenly Barry spoke, snapping him out of it. "Hey, now, there's a fine piece of meat," Barry said appreciatively, eyeing the photograph intently.

Without so much as a sound, in one fluid motion the Colonel drew his firearm and shot him in the face, one of the only places he could aim without risking getting hit by the ricochet. If he'd had a real, flesh body, Roy couldn't have promised he wouldn't shoot a place much further south.

Barry jumped out of his seat, the boys on either side of Roy flinching as well. "Hey! What the hell-"

"You will refrain from talking about Lieutenant Hawkeye in such a crass manner," Mustang growled, his expression dark. He hadn't lowered the gun. "Now answer the question."

The serial killer shook his head. "No, I haven't seen the dumb bitch, now will you let me-" he stopped, shouting again as Roy took another shot at him.

The Colonel managed to crack half a smile for a brief moment. "I could do this all day, Chopper," he remarked before his lips settled into a frown again. Suddenly he stood, motioning for the Elrics to follow him out the door. He spared a sideways glance at Ling, who kept his eyes trained on Barry, and at Lan Fan, who kept her eyes trained on Ling. A brief thought passed through his head that the girl might not want to display her affections quite so openly - he himself had done nearly everything he could to publicly distance himself from those he loved, and even still it hadn't done him any damn good.

He lingered outside the door, watching Edward use his remaining arm to close it behind him, his jacket fluttering uselessly around the hollow space where his automail ought to be. Alphonse watched him too, his metal face following his movements. When the door was shut, Fullmetal spoke.

"What are you planning, Colonel?" he asked, refusing to beat around the bush. He meant business.

"I'm going to find Hawkeye and get her to safety, wherever she is. Right now we don't know what these things are or how much of a threat they pose, but I have a hunch they're connected to Hughes and Hawkeye. If we can get her out she might be able to tell us something," he finished.

"We?" Edward fired back, not missing a beat. "You expect us to help you with a prison break?"

The Colonel bristled slightly, cursing his slip. "I don't expect you to - I know you're busy trying to find a way to get your bodies back, and I know what risk this puts you at - but I am asking for your help. I can't risk getting my core team involved because the Fuhrer has his eye on all of them." He paused, cursing the words, the plea, that was about to come out of his mouth. Slowly, he lifted his eyes to meed Ed's golden ones, seeing the way the boy's eyebrows pulled down. "I'm not going to order you as your superior, Edward. I am asking you as a man in need. I'm no longer concerned about my pride; if you want me to get down on my knees and beg for your help, I will," he begrudgingly admitted, trying to ignore the surge of doubt he felt at his own words. "I don't know what they're doing to her there, and I have no reason to believe they'll keep their word on keeping her alive. I'm out of options," Roy murmured, his voice breaking. His fists shook; he had to squeeze his eyes shut to keep the physical proof of his weakness from betraying him.

The brothers stared at him, mouths slightly agape. Their Colonel had never displayed such weakness, especially not in front of them. They had never seen him this beaten, this broken.

It was Alphonse who broke the silence.

"You love her, don't you Colonel?" he asked softly. He'd always been the more perceptive of the two; Roy had once favored him for that.

Mustang didn't look up at them for a long moment; when he did, his eyes were red. "Will you help me or not?" he demanded angrily.

Edward and Alphonse shared a brief look before nodding solidly in unison, both of them saluting despite the fact that Alphonse was not even in the military, let alone Mustang's subordinate, and Edward had to do so with the wrong arm. Nevertheless, the sight was enough to lift Roy's spirits, if only a little.

"Orders, sir?"

A/N: I'm sorry the chapters are slowgoing. I have no plans to abandon this, but finding the motivation to crank out the chapters in a timely fashion is difficult, especially with what feels like a small following.

Please leave some feedback, any comments or thoughts you have on this chapter. It'd make my day.