'Ello peoples! Doibz's back again! Lookie here, another chapter has been posted! And guess what? There's gonna be some serious shizznic that's about to happen the next few chapters! Oh I'm so excited! I was waiting for this moment for such a long time~! I'm so freakin' happy~!

So yeah, la-de-da, don't own FMA, yada-yada-yada, just my OCs blah-blah-blah insert funny comment here.

LET'S GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD!

~Doibz

The last time I was in Dublith was over a year and a half ago. I was sent alone to do an inspection assignment as Raelisa Sparrow by day and as Red by night. Nothing more, nothing less, just for three days. Simple, really…

That was what I originally thought it was at the time.

What I didn't expect was my simple three-day inspection assignment to turn out to be the most serious week I have ever done in my entire life…

When Ed, Al and I arrived in Dublith, we went straight to their teacher's home. Which I was surprised to find that she owns a butcher shop.

"Well… Here we are."

"Yeah…"

Ed let out a sigh as he dropped his head down. "I'd be nice if Teacher wasn't home…"

"Uh-huh!"

Throughout the time we were on the train when I didn't drift off, Ed and Al only briefly described their alchemy teacher to me. There were times when smiles came across their faces from their childhood moments before fear struck them and they both fell silent, shivering in their seats like tiny frightened puppies. Although I was curious to what kind of apprenticeship they had with this person, I couldn't help but to snicker at their frightened state, especially with Ed. From his 'look at me funny and I'll fuck you up' personality to a look that clearly says that he would worship the person who would be brave enough to look at this frightening beast in the eyes…

That might actually be a good idea…

I turned to the two brother's with a raised eyebrows. "C'mon, I doubt you teacher's that bad." The two of them turned their heads over to me with a 'oh really?' look on their faces, making me still doubt them.

If anyone's scary, it'd be my mother…

Definitely my mother.

She's the frightening beast all of mankind should fear.

"HI CAN I HELP YOU?" A voice called out from behind us, making Ed and Al jump up nearly out of their skins (er, Ed's skin and Al's soul out of his armor, I suppose) before plopping onto the ground. Me though, I just turned around and saw a young man, quite muscular carrying a heavy sac over his shoulder, kinda cute looking if I do say so myself…

"Please come in and…" The man began before he trailed off looking down to the startled Edward, and I swear I heard his little heart pounding in his chest. Poor little guy… "Edward? Is that you? Long time no see!"

"You're… Mason, right?" Ed began before he let out a tiny, nervous, little 'hi' to him.

The young man, Mason, started to laugh and pat his head commenting how much bigger Edward gotten, much to his displeasure from his facial expression. He turned his head over to me and Al. "And who's your cute, little girly friend and the guy in the armor?"

I couldn't help but to smile at this as Ed's cheeks turned red. "Aw, stop it! That's so embarrassing!" I held out my hand to him before he took mine and shook it. "Raelisa Sparrow. It's nice to meet you."

"And I'm Ed's younger brother, Alphonse." Al said quietly as Mason turned his head over to him with widen eyes.

"… You've really gotten big…" Mason said before he let my hand go.

Just then we heard some heavy footsteps come from the meat shop entrance way before the door opened up, revealing a bloody knife, making both Ed and Al hold their breath as a large and beefy man ducked his head under the doorframe and stepped outside.

"Uh… Hello, Sig…"

"Long time no see…"

As the Elric Brothers just stood there terrified of the large man, larger than Alphonse even, I just stood there with a cheery smile on my face as he reached over and patted Ed's head, nearly squishing him and his head with his large hand in the process. "Good to see you. You've grown up a little, huh?"

I had to hold in my snort from seeing Ed's face as he was being squished by this guy's massive hand while Al spoke up to him. "You probably don't recognize me, but it's Alphonse… Sorry we've been away so long…"

Ed and I turned to Sig with curious eyes wondering what he was thinking until he reached over and rubbed Al's helmet. "Looks like you've grown up more than a little." He said making Ed sigh of relief. After doing so, we turned to the building next door to the meat shop before Sig poked his head through the window. "Izumi, the Elric Shrimps have come for a visit. Do you think you can see them?"

"I'll be right there. I'm feeling a little better today." A woman's voice called out.

Ed and Al turned to each other with a questioning look on their faces. "Lying down? That's not a good sign…"

"I guess she hasn't gotten any better since the last time-"

Just then the door to the home busted open before a foot came and slammed into Ed's face, making him crash backwards across the lawn, off the property, and across the street before crashing into the building across from where we were. When the dust cleared, all you saw was Edward lying limp on the ground twitching.

Curious to see what cause his demise, I turned my head from the dying alchemist over to Alphonse and the door, seeing Alphonse grow terrified as a beautiful, although terrifying to Ed and Al, woman step out from her home and into her yard.

"Hello, my stupid pupil! I hear you've become one of the military's dogs! Even out here in Dublith!" She began before the door creaked away from Al revealing his big bulky armored body to her, causing the woman to turn her head over to him. Al began to panic.

"Teacher! It's uh…! It's because, uh…!" Al managed to say before her 'terrifying' look soften.

"Al? Look at you! You've gotten so big!" She said making Al calm down while the two of them stepped towards each other holding their hands out. I took a mental hint of Ed's encounter with this woman causing me to step from the walkway leading to the woman's house onto the lawn next to Sig leaning up against the windowsill.

I made a good judgement. Al was surprisingly tossed over her shoulder to where I once stood.

When Al commented that she has a lot of strength even though she's sick, the woman started to shout at them before she coughed up blood, making the Elric Brothers freak out about it. Her husband Sig offered her some medicine before the two of them started to get all lovey-dovey with each other.

Which on my part in the group, I felt very, very, very awkward.

After when I introduced myself to Ed and Al's teacher, Izumi Curtis (and she commented to me about my sunburn on my forehead), we were invited inside the Curtis' residence. Ed and Al asked her teacher about the Philosopher's Stone, in which she denied any information, claiming that it never interested her. Sig on the other hand reminded Izumi of an alchemist they met on their holiday when they were in Central who knew about it. This caused the brothers to get excited about this until Izumi said that the alchemist's name was 'Hohenheim'. Edward clearly grew angry at this before Alphonse mentioned that Hohenheim was actually their father. I was about to ask him why he hated his father so bad, he spoke up and said that it was his fault that their mother had died, and if it wasn't for him leaving when they were still children, she would've still been alive.

With this in mind, my memory brought me back to the family portrait back in the Rockbell residence to the man in the beard. It looks as if my suspicions were right about him being the brothers' father.

My thoughts were interrupted when Mrs. Izumi stood up and hit Ed over his head, declaring that we were going to eat. But before she went into the kitchen, she turned to me with a smile on her face. "Raelisa, would you mind helping me with dinner?"

I looked at her as if she was serious, but her smile showed otherwise. I stood up and turned to her. "Uh, okay, I guess… I don't know how helpful I'll be though…" I warned as I followed her into the kitchen.

Let me remind you, I'm a deadly, top-secret assassin who works under Bradley. I speak five different languages, I have a wide thought process, I can get anybody I talk to literally spill out their darkest secrets to me, I have an excellent aim when it comes to firearms, I have various forms of alchemy, and I can hold up a fight on my own…

I don't remember seeing 'culinary skills' as a requirement within the job description when I signed up for S.A.F.A..

I never had to learn how to cook for myself before, never mind for an entire household with guests. Firstly, I never had time to learn how to. I was just so busy on the road or on missions that I just practically bought my meals wherever I went. Secondly, I never had to. I always had my meals paid for or made for me, whether it was from my family's cooks or the military, but never have I ever made my dinner – excluding whatever I catch in between missions and then fry it up over a campfire, but that's it. I mentioned this to Mrs. Izumi as we were in the middle of preparing dinner. She was a little surprised at first, but she soon accepted it like it was no big deal with a kind smile on her face. Edward on the other hand made a smart-ass comment about it in the next room where the both of us heard it loud and clear, something along the lines of a 'spoiled brat' I believe, making Mrs. Izumi step out of the kitchen to give him another whack to the head.

"Mrs. Izumi, please…" I said stepping out after her to see Ed clenching his head. "I thank you for coming to my defence, but I am perfectly capable of handling myself…" I announced before I turned to Ed and gave him a punch to the head, making him whimper as if he was an abused puppy.

The more and more I spent around Mrs. Izumi, I noticed how much a mother figure he was for the brothers. It was like she was filling a small void that the two of them were missing when they lost theirs to her death in their childhood. And in a strange but familiar way, I also started to see my own mother in her… well, a gentler-motherly version of her anyways.

And for the first time in a long time, honestly, I started to think how my mother was doing. It's been so long since I last seen her or spoke with her. I wonder what she's up to these days…

A smile came to my face as we were all seated down for dinner. I was seated in between Sig and Alphonse, listening to Ed and Al tell their stories of the places they've been to. Some of them I recognized, like when they exposed the mine owner of Youswell was abusing his power, their time in Reole when they exposed the priest for being a fraud, as well as simpler stories when they were both on the road. I remember all of them as if I was right next to them, experiencing it for myself. It brought back memories. Some good, some bad, some funny, and some even funnier… It was really hard not to smile at it.

Al politely refused to eat, stating that he wasn't hungry. Obviously he was hiding the fact that he couldn't eat since he was hollow inside. I also noticed that Ed was wearing his white gloves to the table. It'd be typical that Mrs. Izumi would be upset to find out that Ed's limbs were taken due to them performing Human Transmutation. I'm sure she would take offense of that being the one who taught the two alchemy in the past, regretting ever doing so.

To avoid the topic of Al not eating, Ed suggested to Al to tell the Curtis' about the baby being born in Rush Valley. As they told this story to them, I couldn't help but to notice that Sig had his eyes turned to Mrs. Izumi with a worried or concerning look on his face. Mrs. Izumi just sat there with a smiling, politely listening to the brothers' tale, even when Al mentioned that it truly is a miracle when a baby's born.

"Yes, that's right. That same miracle brings us all into this world. Always take pride in the lives that were given to you."

As Ed and Al turned their heads over to each other with a smile on each of their faces I couldn't help but to distant off in my own thoughts. A miracle, huh? Mrs. Izumi mentioned that miracles bring us into the world, and yet I couldn't help but to see the sadness in her eyes…

Late that night, a few hours after dinner, I was told about Ed and Al's apprenticeship under Mrs. Izumi. During their first month, she forced them out to survive on an island called Yock Island, right in the middle of Kauroy Lake here in Dublith – without using alchemy. During that time, they both had to solve a little riddle she gave them, 'one is all, all is one'. At first, I didn't catch on it what she meant by it, but after a moment to think about it, she was talking about the circle of life.

Also while surviving the month on the deserted island, Ed and Al encountered a 'masked man' who attacked them periodically, which in the end turned out to be Mason who was just watching over them while toughening them up a little bit. In the end they've figured out Mrs. Izumi's riddle and was her apprentices for about six months before they returned home to Resembool. By my calculations, this must of happened not too long before they committed Human Transmutation.

I couldn't help but to laugh about it when I decided to retire for the night not too long after. I think by the time they were just starting their alchemy training, I was already out on the field training myself before being sent off for duty in S.A.F.A. about a year or so later.

It's funny how coincidental it all really is…

The next day as I was sitting at the table having a coffee when suddenly I heard the sounds of a transmutation being taken place outside of Mrs. Izumi's home. I turned over to the window to see her transmute a spear before she attacked Ed out on her lawn. Just when he was about to get stabbed, Ed transmuted his automail arm into a blade and cut the spear's head off.

"As I suspected, you can transmute without a matrix!" She began before pointing at the two brothers. "On top of which, Al is now a suit of armor and two of your limbs are made from automail!"

"Teacher, how did you know?"

"Please! I can tell from sparring with you!" Mrs. Izumi shouted at them. "You saw it, didn't you, Edward?" I raised an eyebrow to this. Ed saw what exactly?

Not too long after, Mrs. Izumi gathered us all up inside and told us that nearly twenty years ago, she too committed Human Transmutation in hopes of bringing her child back to life. Mrs. Izumi wasn't capable of having any children of her own, but when eventually she was, she grew very sick as well as the child, thus being stillborn. Since she committed Human Transmutation, parts of her insides were taken away.

She regretted not telling the brothers sooner in hopes that they wouldn't repeat what she done, but she understands what they felt about it. Ed quickly dismissed that and said that he did it to himself and that it hasn't been a big deal. I saw through his lie even as he had a look assuring that it was alright about it, but deep down inside, I could see that it nearly tore his whole world apart – both of the brother's worlds, even when Al pulled out a long list of food he wants to try once he has his body back.

Mrs. Izumi saw this as well and embraced them in a warm, comforting embrace, causing them to apologize to her gratefully repeatedly after she assured them that it's alright. I turned my head away from them, feeling a little out of place with what had all happened so far up to this point.

After when they had their little moment, Mrs. Izumi praised Ed about seeing 'it', whatever that is, and announced that Ed and Al are expelled as her students for performing Human Transmutation. Al tried to reason with her, but Ed stopped him and we all complied to her request to leave her home. We all packed up and headed to the train station waiting for the next train to Central to depart. Mr. Sig accompanied us and told us to come back again someday if we were ever around the area, even though Al tried to say otherwise.

"You idiots! You're so busy pouting you can't see what your expulsion means." Mr. Sig began. "You're not her students anymore so now you're finally free to speak to Izumi as equals. Unless you're too chicken to try it."

"Ah, damn! Al! We haven't done what we came here to do in the first place!" Ed turned to Al before they thanked Mr. Sig and started to hurry back to the Curtis' residence.

"Don't let her kill you." Mr. Sig called out.

I sighed as I raised my arms up and dropped them to my side before I started to follow the brothers in my own pace. "Great, great… Make your mind up now, huh? Sheesh…" I began before I turned my head to my left upon feeling a pair of eyes on me. I continued along my way, brushing that feeling off me upon reaching the Curtis' residence with Mr. Sig not too far behind me.

When I stepped inside the home, I found a butcher knife stuck in the wall near the doorframe and the brothers on their knees in front of Mrs. Izumi refusing to leave even when she demanded it. She eventually gave in and lead the three of us into a room upstairs. Ed and Al went over what they wanted to talk to Mrs. Izumi about what with Human Transmutation and all. Once that was done with, she turned to Alphonse.

"Al, you didn't see the 'Truth', didn't you?" She asked.

"No… I don't even know what that means…"

"You must have lost your memory from the shock…" Mrs. Izumi thought aloud for a moment before she turned back to the three of us. "We need to get Al's memory back. His entire body was taken from him. Just think what he must of seen…"

"Oh yeah… We only exchanged parts of our body for what we saw, but Al paid the cost with his entire physical being… He must have seen more of the 'Truth' than either of us did…"

"So… If I can remember what I saw, then we'll know how to get our bodies back?" Al pondered.

"But the memory of that thing…" Mrs. Izumi began.

"What thing?" I asked.

"That thing…" Ed added.

"What is it, something bad?!" Al nearly panicked.

"No it's more like awful!"

"Yeah! And horrifying!"

"It could drive you insane!"

"Or even leave you brain dead…" They both explained while waiving their arms around, while Al just turned to them nervously, I just sat there on the couch next to Mrs. Izumi with a questioning look plastered on my face, not a clue what they were talking about. Everything they've said about this 'thing' or 'Truth' or whatever it's called is really confusing…

"That doesn't matter!" Al spoke up after clearing away the creepy thoughts Ed and Mrs. Izumi expressed to him. "If there's a chance it can help us, then I want to do it!"

"Alright… I have an acquaintance who might have a way to retrieve your memory for you." She began making Ed and Al's hopes rise up. "BUT, let's eat dinner first. Gimme a hand."

"Okay!"

I smirked at this as they all stood up and started to turn out of the room. I stood up from the couch but I turned my head over to the window upon sensing that same feeling from before. I turned my head away from the window before my eyes narrowed.

"Don't tell me…" I began as I let out a low grumble before turning towards the door.

Throughout the entire time of being around the Elrics and the Curtises, smiling and laughing with them before, during and after dinner, my mind was elsewhere. After working in S.A.F.A. for over three years now, I learned that you should always trust your instincts no matter how silly it may be. I was foolish enough to ignore it the first time, but that moment in the room with the Elrics and Mrs. Izumi reminded me of it.

Later that night after when everybody went to sleep, I remained awake and I climbed out of my window into the streets of Dublith armed with my alchemy armguards hidden under my jacket. After wandering in the streets for a while, I was stopped by a noise shuffling from behind me. I turned around quickly and I caught my glance on a robbed person just looking around the corner from a nearby alleyway I've passed. Just before he was going to duck back inside the alley, I slapped my hand against the brick wall causing an alchemic reaction to spark up the dark alley towards my silent pursuer. The brick walls shifted and twisted before capturing and trapping him in a tight grasp, causing him to squeal in fright.

Confident that he wouldn't be able to get away or do anything shifty, I approached him calmly with my military pistol drawn from my holster underneath my jacket. I stepped around the corner and pointed my firearm towards a familiar teary-eyed face. The moment I saw his bald, spotted head, my arm dropped to my side as I slumped my shoulders.

"Ah shit…"

Since being in Dublith for the last two days now, all seemed to be normal and calm, the townspeople here seem to find it like that anyways. But for some reason, ever since the first night when I arrived here, there was something scratching at the back of my head, something telling me that there's something wrong, very wrong. Maybe I should call Fév about this…

It's like that no matter what time of day it is, though. To me it seems that it grows worse during the night time when I'm out inspecting in my S.A.F.A. disguise. Maybe because I don't feel safer without the bustling people around me, maybe that I know for a fact that there's something lurking in the shadows, following me wherever I might go. Who knows, it could be just paranoia, but being trained in the position that I am in, it's better to trust in my intuition, even if it'll turn into fear.

My route is fairly simple. By day, I prefer to keep close towards the public where the townspeople dwell, very rarely moving to secluded places. By night, I stake out the distant and shady places with all of my gear at hand. Even though I do have my equipment with me at this time, I still feel defenceless in a way.

Tonight I found myself searching an abandoned warehouse district within the southern area of town. When I started to head into that area, I found it rather odd to find a number of people in the area, drinking, smoking, committing adultery, and stuff like that. There's probably a couple of bars that none of the military police knew about somewhere around here.

With this hypothesis in mind, I started to carefully make my way through the shadows and I started to inspect the area thoroughly and carefully, making it my number one priority to keep from being seen by anybody in the streets. To me, it felt like hours had passed by and I was able to search and clear only three streets due to the amount of people coming and going so often. My patience was wearing thin quickly, but I was able to control it enough to make it through to another rooftop that was covered in shadows.

I wasn't sure of what the time was up to this point, but I caught my eye on a suspicious group of men down in an alleyway quite late in the night. There were three of them, all of them having irregular features on their bodies. One man was large, beefy in size as his bones seemed to protrude against his skin, his skull was irregularly shaped as well. The second man was averaged sized and had dark spots on his body as well as his big pale eyes. The last one, although seemingly normal looking enough was, dressed in black from head to toe as his back was facing me. The other two men seemed to be following this man in particular which made me think this guy's a gang boss or something like that…

Not only that, but that guy gave me the creeps.

Before long, the two other men left him, heading down the street away from him, causing this guy in black to turn away and head into a building nearby. Unsure of what to do next, I quickly looked down each direction of the alleyway – even behind me, seeing nobody in sight, I decided to jump down into the street and climb up a pipe leading to the rooftop of the building the man in black went inside. It was obvious enough that I decided to venture forward and see where this guy's going. I carefully treaded across the building's rooftop and made my way to a air vent opening and I pried the steel grate off before climbing into it.

I was thankful that I was able to fit in the air vent with all my gear on, as well as having enough room to keep myself from having any kind of metal on my body to drag across the steel to give my position away. I quietly manoeuvred my way through numerous amounts of air shafts, treading across carefully not to make any loud noises like making the metal flex from my weight or pushing down on a connecting tube.

Every now and then I'd pass over a grate that showed me inside the room below me. A lot of the rooms were similar in a way. Messy rooms with crates filled with junk, blood stained mattresses… of course there were some kind of attempt to make them somewhat clean. The majority of the rooms that I passed over were unoccupied, not including the few who were just leaving the room into a hallway nearby.

As I treaded further in the dusty air vent, I started to hear voices echoing down the vents, voices that simulated a large crowd was nearby. With curiosity overpowering me, I carefully made my way towards the source of the sound as best as I could. I started to notice that the closer I get to the source, the more the smell of cigarette smoke and alcohol started to get stronger. My nose cringed from the overpowering stench as my stomach turned, telling my head to turn back and get fresh air, but my brain told me to push forward instead.

I pulled my mask over my face as I peeked down another grate directly above the source of the sound, which I was surprised to find myself above to what seemed to be a dank and gloomy bar. There were a number of people coming and going from where I was above. In my opinion I suspected that I was overhead the central area of the large room. After watching and studying a few men's movement, seeing which way the traffic moved, I turned down the nearest vent over to see the complete layout of the bar that I was unknowingly inside.

I skimmed all around the room as carefully as possible, passing over the bar itself, the area where the rugged pool table was, the tables where the drunks drank and played poker. Just before I was going to leave the bar, seeing nothing out of the ordinary of a shady, back-alley bar, I stopped in my tracks once I glanced down a grate to see the same man in black from earlier, sitting down at a couch with a pair of women, possibly prostitutes, in each of his arms serving him drinks as he lounged back sponging all of the attention from the two of them. It came to me not too long later that this guy here, due to his relaxed behavior and all that, could be the owner of this glum bar and possibly the gang that was outside in the streets as well.

With this in mind, my curiosity wore down and I decided that it'd be best that I leave this place before anything gets too busy that I'd might get caught snooping around the area. I continued my way down the air vents very slowly, finding an exit that I could escape to and get out of the dusty and narrow vents…

Before I could get very far though, the vent around me shifted downwards before falling down into the room below me.

MUAH HA HA HA! I am such a B****! Oh the horrid cliff-hanger! How we all despise them! And especially when shit's getting serious too!

*Ahem* Just a little heads up, school is almost coming to a close for my first year and things are getting frickin' scary, real quick... Which is why I must put the laptop away (figuratively, I mean. Still need it literally for the cursive coding! Making websites sucks...) and try to study for my exams sometime around the next upload date, and it's kinda a big deal since they are actually certified exams for my program. I will upload the next chapter, which is almost complete as of right now, but it's most likely be a little late than what I promised my monthly schedule updates to be. Not to mention that I gotta pack all my stuff and move out of my dorm, resign from my job temporarily. (Adult life really sucks...)

So in conclusion, the next chapter's coming soon, within the next month I suppose. Then after that I probably won't be updating so very often as I'm pretty much going out to the wilderness (like the rest of Canada isn't...) with no constant access to internet (oh the horrors!), as well as I'm going to get a summer job and work on my portfolio for showcase next year. BUT that doesn't mean I'll stop writing for Black Widow or anything. Just think of it as a little writer's mini vacation from writing and stuff, but I'll try to post up future chapters as well as putting up more Black Widow artwork in my very sadly excuse of a gallery in deviantArt in the meantime of my absence. This coming September, I'll be going back to my regular scheduling updates.

So yes, that pretty much sums it up for right now. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some last minute goofing off to do before the beginning of the week happens.

I'll stop talking now.

~Doibz