CM: Hey all! Since the last chapter was such an intense one we decided to follow up with the next one so as to prevent you from going too crazy, because we value our reader's sanity. So here it is. Enjoy! :D

Chapter Twenty-One: To Serve and Protect

"Has anyone found him yet?" Roy Mustang asked Lt. Hawkeye as he sat in his office.

"No sir... however, they've found several other points of interest that were overlooked," Hawkeye replied handing him a folder.

Just when Roy was about to ask what she meant, the phone rang and he picked it up. "Roy Mustang speaking."

"Hello Roy, how's my baby sister doing?" Hughes gushed over the phone. "Is she doing well...are you two getting along?"

"I haven't spoken to her since yesterday," Roy told him with a hint of irritation. "We've been having some... mild irritations around Eastern, and for some reason she feels the need to involve herself."

"Oh Roy there's no need to try to hide anything from me," Hughes said his voice slowly turning serious. "Old Danzo's back and still causing trouble, huh? Any sign of him yet?"

"We're working on it," Roy said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. "Hughes, did your sister tell you about anything from the time when she went to visit the prisons?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary, why?" Hughes asked.

"She seemed so adamant about catching this guy," Roy said seriously. "I know she can be unreasonable at times but... I've noticed recently she's been acting differently from how she used to act. She's becoming more...."

"Emotional?" Hughes finished for him. "Yeah I've noticed it too, as well as some other things." Roy heard him sigh on the other side before continuing. "Roy.... you didn't actually order her to stay put, did you?" Hughes asked with a worried tone.

Roy paused only for a moment. "I simply ordered her to stand aside and let us handle this. She may be skilled as an alchemist but this is a man who was chosen to kill people."

"Roy you know how much she likes to prove people wrong," Hughes sighed. "If you haven't seen her since yesterday then you really can't tell me where she is right now...can you?"

Roy glanced up at Hawkeye. "Lieutenant, did Ice Cold and her partner come into work today?"

"I don't know sir," Hawkeye answered honestly. "But if you want I'll go and find out."

Just then a soldier opened the door into Roy's office somewhat out of breath. "Sir...General Grumman sent me to ask this. Has Lieutenant Ice Cold reported in to you yet? Because no one else here has seen her or her partner."

"Great, just great," Roy muttered rubbing his forehead. "Where did you go, Lieutenant?"

"Um sir, you may want to look at this," Hawkeye said suddenly having moved closer to the window.

Roy glanced where she was looking and jumped to his feet in anger as he saw what looked like two sandstorms colliding. "That moron!" he shouted slamming the phone down on it's support. "Sergeant, I want you to get a group of soldiers heading for area F-7. Lieutenant Hawkeye...get the car ready."

"Yes sir," Hawkeye and the Sergeant answered with a salute. Then the Sergeant took off and Hawkeye quickly headed for his car.

"Lieutenant, you had better be alive," Roy muttered darkly as he picked up his ignition gloves and headed out.

"I'm going to kill you myself," Elly declared her eyes filled with killer intent. Her sleeves started to glow as she activated her alchemy. Then the ground in front of her lifted up into a large tidal wave and and fell onto Danzo. "You won't be leaving here in one piece."

"You took the words right from my mouth, Ishbalen," Danzo said as he easily burst out of the sand. "I'll send you to join your family and your partner. Then I'll present Ice Cold's dead body on the steps of Central, once Eastern is buried, and you alone will be blamed for it."

"Problem with that plan is, I don't die that easily," Elly muttered darkly as she tried to block out what he said about Kat. Then she threw her hands to the ground and had the ground next to Danzo burst out in large spikes that attempted to skewer him.

Danzo reacted by hardening the sand into a shield, guarding himself from her attack. "You're skilled, I'll give you that. But I've been working with this element before you were even born. I'm in a whole other league from you." He laughed maniacally as he placed his hands to the ground while Elly launched another attack and all the structures around him turned to dust before forming a small twister around him throwing off all of her attacks like they were nothing.

Elly watched as his defense switched to offense in the blink of an eye and the twister moved towards her. Elly reacted by trying to shield herself inside a sand dome, but before it was fully formed, the twister plowed through it. Elly felt her skin being abraded as bit of her clothes were torn off of her.

Before it got too close, she leaped to the side and came up on her knees. "Whew...that was a little too close for comfort," she breathed.

"I see, so you've met with my partner face-to-face before," Danzo taunted after noticing the patch of skin that was now visible. "You must be very lucky to have walked away from his attack with only that little scar to show for it."

"Yeah I was pretty lucky," Elly agreed. "But you won't be." Then taking her stance again, she continued her attacking both from a distance and, though they usually failed, close combat. However, nothing she did got through and it was all she could do to keep from being blown away by his attacks.

Elly decided to try one last thing. It would be a large gamble, but it was one she had to take. She took a big breath and then dashed toward him one more time. This time she had her right arm out as if she was holding a weapon and the left sleeve was glowing. Danzo threw an attack her way and she threw it off with her left hand while moving in the same direction the attack was heading. She repeated this several times until she was only a few feet from him before diving in for the final attack.

Before she reached him, he put his arm back and covered it with solidified sand and slammed it into her gut sending her flying back several yards. She landed on the ground heavily and completely out of breath. "Ouch...I know I've broken something this time," she thought as she rolled several more feet in pain. "Dang it...that really hurt..."

"This is the end for you, Ishbalen," Danzo declared holding his hands out. "Any last words?"

Elly glanced over to the side before grinning and said, "Yeah, hope you like the cold."

Suddenly a large circle of light erupted around Danzo and ice began seeping up out of the ground freezing him in place. He tried to break out of the ice using his sand but the ice kept coming layer by layer, both from above and below.

"You couldn't have come up with a better snappy comeback?" an amused voice asked Elly as she felt herself being helped up.

"Gimme a break, I just got winded, so to speak," Elly muttered.

"How!? How can you still be alive?" Danzo demanded as the ice continued to trap him.

"Come now, surely you've heard of a little thing called acting," Kat said with a smile. "All I had to do was saw off the point of your weapon, freeze it to my skin and pop a blood tablet all over my clothing."

"Kat had already told me about you and your 'partnership'," Elly wheezed, though triumphantly. "But unlike yours, our partnership is real."

"You little..." he started but his voice faded as the ice engulfed the rest of him.

"Geeze...what took you so long anyway?" Elly groaned. "I was beginning to wonder if he'd actually hit you."

"Cut me a little slack. That was one of my more intricate alchemic designs. I had to pull up water up to fifty feet deep," Kat said simply, and Elly could tell that even though she was doing her best not to seem like it, Kat was fatigued. "And I thank you for the excellent cloud cover whilst I did my work."

"Well I had to do something good after that wonderful performance back there," Elly chuckled lightly holding tightly to her side. "The blood in the mouth was a nice touch by the way."

"Why thank you, I just so happened to have an extra blood tablet on me so I decided to put it to good use." Kat caught a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye and she looked up. "It seems that backup has arrived."

"Heh...just like in the movies," Elly sighed as she saw several cars pulling up, all filled with soldiers. "The cavalry doesn't show up until after the fireworks."

CRACK

"Tell me that was one of my ribs," Elly muttered.

Both girls turned to see that the frozen Danzo now had several cracks made in the ice. Then suddenly the ice blasted apart in a shower of shards and sand. "I'm going to kill you both!" he shouted as he shot a large cannonball of sand at the two of them. In their surprise and current states, Elly took a step back and slipped falling to the ground, while Kat stayed where she was unable to muster the strength to fight back.

Just as the cannonball almost smashed into them, a stream of red/orange hit it and it exploded into a million pieces. "What part of leave the Desert Alchemist to us did you not understand?" the voice of Roy Mustang said scathingly.

The girls looked up to see Roy looking livid with Hawkeye and Havoc right behind him.

Danzo didn't seem at all perturbed by Roy's appearance, whether because he was insane with rage or he didn't think it would make any difference, he charged.

This was a big mistake. With a snap of his fingers, Danzo was suddenly engulfed in flames. He screamed and collapsed onto the ground. "You're lucky I decided to hold back," Roy said harshly to Danzo as he was surrounded by military officers. "It only hurts a lot worse than it actually is. Get him to Central. I'm sure they'll have a nice cell in prison just for him."

As Danzo was carted off, Elly slowly got back on her feet with a little help from Kat. "Lieutenant Ice Cold are you alright?!" a soldier exclaimed running up to Kat and looking like he was about to keel over from worry. "We need to get you to the medical center right away."

"I'm fine, it's merely a flesh wound," Kat said politely. "I would very much appreciate it if you tended to my partner."

"Yeah... considering you're not even hurt," Elly muttered.

"Not yet she isn't," Roy's voice growled causing both girl's to wince.

"Uh...Colonel you might want go just a little bit easy on her," Elly said wincing with every movement. "She's a bit exhausted and she's got blood all over her and a trip to the medical center might just..."

"In the car, now," Roy ordered. "No, not you lieutenant. Havoc, see to it that Ice Cold's partner gets back to Eastern and goes straight to the infirmary."

"Sure thing, boss," Havoc said before helping Elly up and leading her to the car.

After Havoc and Elly were out of earshot Roy rounded on Kat. "What the hell do you think you were doing?" he demanded angrily. "I specifically ordered you to stay out of this but instead you disobey that order and you nearly got you and your partner killed."

"I... have no excuses," Kat said softly. "This was just... something I had to..."

"If you felt like you had to then why didn't you tell me about this?!" Roy demanded. "You should have said something about what you were doing here. If I hadn't gotten here when I did the two of you would no longer be breathing."

Kat closed her eyes. "It was my responsibility."

SMACK!

Kat felt the sting against her cheek and looked to see Riza standing before her, with her arm held out across her body and a stern expression on her face. Her hand was slowly turning red, and Kat realized immediately she had been the one to deal the blow. Kat was surprised,though not nearly as surprised as Roy who was momentarily at a loss for words.

"Please excuse me. I'll be in the car," she said in a voice of strained calm before walking off and leaving the two.

The two of them stood in silence for a few minutes after Hawkeye's departure, neither one of them able to say a word to each other. Finally it was Roy who broke the silence."Lieutenant, I just realized... you're covered in blood."

"A wonderful observation sir, but rest assured, it's fake," Kat told him quietly.

"In your current situation, Lieutenant, don't think patronizing me further is going to help your case," Roy warned.

"I'm not trying to help my case sir," Kat said softly. "I know that what I did was inexcusable. But as I said before, it was my responsibility."

"What do you mean your responsibility?" he asked. "Was it because you felt like it was your fault he escaped the first time?"

Kat said nothing but bowed her head. That alone said it all.

"Your responsibility is to follow orders, my orders," Roy said to her in a strained voice. "It's not your responsibility to play as a sacrifice just because you think it's noble. If it had been anyone else this would have been considered an act of insubordination for which you would have suffered a court martial. After this, how can I possibly trust you with anything?"

Kat's insides clenched as she felt the crack in her mask spread even further under the verbal blow. She continued to stare at the ground, shamefaced. "I'm sorry." Her voice came out a hoarse whisper. "I just... didn't want to see anyone else get hurt."

"So it's okay if you get hurt as long as everyone else is okay? How do you expect to continue helping if you get yourself injured or killed? Your safety is just as important," Roy pointed out.

"I'm sorry," Kat repeated, not knowing what more to say.

Roy watched her closely as she kept her face toward the floor. He couldn't help but take extreme notice of how her uniform stuck tightly to her body making it very form fitting. The dirt mingled with the blood formed a small patch of red mud that was strangely appealing on her. Last of all he noticed her dirty face that made him want to.... "No she's my subordinate and she's Hughes sister. There is no way that I can find her attractive," Roy thought mentally shaking himself.

After a few moments he finally said, "We're going back to Eastern. I'll need some time to think about your punishment. Let's go." He turned and headed back to the car where Hawkeye was manning the steering wheel and Kat followed him silently. No one spoke the entire drive back.

Elly stared out the window of the car, watching as the rolling sand dunes became fewer until they faded into a more rural land scape, indicating they were getting closer to the city. She tried to move as little as possible to avoid agitating her injuries. The slight bumps that the car made whenever it hit a rough spot were anything but pleasant, but she grit her teeth and ignored the pain it would cause. She didn't know why, but for some reason she felt that the atmosphere in the car was extraordinarily heavy, which was odd considering who the company consisted of. She chanced a glance over at Havoc who was staring straight ahead with a grave expression on his face.

"Huh...just go ahead and say it," Elly finally muttered. "I know you're mad at me for this."

"You're damn right I am," Havoc said not taking his eyes off the road. "Honestly. I know you both have a reputation for doing crazy things, but I didn't realize you guys were suicidal."

"There was a fugitive on the loose, what other choice did we have?" Elly demanded.

"You could choose life," Havoc replied smartly.

"Oh haha," Elly laughed mirthlessly. "Look the guy was running around causing trouble and Kat found him first. So we took action."

"I can understand Kat but why did you go along?" Havoc demanded. "And if you really had to why didn't you guys at least call for backup or something?"

"You think I'd really let her go alone?" Elly asked incredulously. "I couldn't very well stop her either, and if I did she'd just freeze me in place or something and do it anyway. We didn't have time to contact anyone else and if we did take any soldiers with us we'd have to worry about their lives as well as our own."

"Don't give me that," Havoc said, starting to get agitated. "The way you two acted its like you don't even care about your own lives."

"Well...I know Kat would probably be seriously missed but being an Ishbalan I doubt anyone besides Kat would care about me," Elly muttered.

Bam!

Elly jumped at the sound of Havoc's fist making hard contact with the steering wheel. "I don't ever want to hear you say something like that again."

"Why not?" Elly demanded in surprise. "Why shouldn't I say something like that?"

"Do you honestly think that your death wouldn't affect other people?" Havoc demanded angrily. "Don't be so selfish."

Elly sat there with her mouth hung open. She couldn't understand why he was so worked up about it."Were you seriously that worried?"

"With your body looking like it's own topography map, of course I'm worried," Havoc said glancing over at her exposed skin and noting the imperfections before quickly looking back to the road. "You know what? Forget it. It's none of my business."

"Sorry, I didn't realize you felt like that," Elly murmured flinching as the car jerked again. "Honestly I kind of forgot I had most of these. I just got so used to having them that I don't take notice anymore."

"That's not..." Havoc began before sighing in frustration. He looked as if he wanted to say something but was grappling with himself. "Whether you were aware of this or not, you and Kat are a part of the team. What you guys do and what happens to you affects all of us."

"Heh...part of a team huh," Elly chuckled. "Funny...I haven't been part of a team in a long time. Trust doesn't exactly come easy to me."

"Sorry to hear that," Havoc murmured.

After that, the two fell into an uncomfortable silence.

"You wanted to see me sir?" Roy asked as he once again stepped into General Grumman's office.

"Yes...have you managed to take care of our little problem?" Grumman asked happily.

"Yes sir, Danzo is being taken to Central's prison as we speak," Roy answered. "And both of the truants are being taken care of."

"Well, don't be too hard on them," Grumman told the younger officer.

"With all due to respect sir," Roy said. "They disobeyed direct orders and failed to tell anyone. Leniency can only go so far."

"True...but they did have their reasons," Grumman pointed out. "It's actually a very good thing that they decided to take this plunge."

"Sir?" Roy asked, not understanding what he meant.

"It turns out that our two young female alchemists saved all our hides," Grumman stated with a chuckle as he reached for a folder before handing it to Roy. "These are the results of our investigations. I'm sure you'd be able to make sense of it better than I."

Roy took the folder and flipped through it, his eyes growing wider as he went. When he reached the end of the report, he snapped it shut and dropped it on Grumman's desk in silence. After a few minutes he took a deep breath and said, "Despite the fact that they did save the city from being buried, they still disobeyed a direct order and almost died in the process."

"True, though I think that it was simply because they knew if they reported in, you would have taken matters into your own hands, and you as well as several other soldiers might have gotten hurt." Grumman gave another chuckle. "But don't quote me on that. I'm merely making an educated guess."

"I admit I would have taken over but that's because I know they would have no chance against him," Roy stated.

"Hoho...so they know you real well don't they," Grumman laughed. "They must have you whipped Mustang."

"Thank you for your time, General Grumman," Roy said standing up and saluting. "It was a pleasure speaking with you, as always."

"A pleasure indeed," Grumman agreed. "Oh Colonel, do make sure not to punish them too harshly. They are in the recovery stage after all."

"Don't worry, sir," Roy said as he left the room. "They'll be getting exactly what they deserve."

CM: As an aside, please don't be too angry with me about 'killing' Kat. We were just having some fun. Next time on Sisterhood, punishments are being handed out, and sinister things are going on in the shadows. Stay tuned! ^_^