The days with Fullmetal around flew by. Something inexplicable happened. Alee seemed to perk up with the boys running around, enough that everyone in the office had noticed. She was happy; keeping the boys occupied by day and then spending every evening with Jean. She began to sincerely look forward to the end of her shift when she would accompany Jean to pick up the Elrics. This part of her day meant playtime, which is what the Winter Alchemist loved best.
Shou Tucker owned a manor estate in the heart of East City with a rather spacious lawn that made a perfect playground. He'd gotten the place after becoming a State Alchemist, but the poor man's wife had left him just before and refused to make any contact with him. His had been the typical hard life of a struggling, nameless alchemist before he'd managed to pass the State Licensing exam with a sensational, talking chimera. Now, his renewal date approached, and every time Alee talked to him, he was confident about it. She couldn't wait to see what he would come up with because his chimeras meant something profound for her own research. Transmutation of living tissue was what kept her State License, and she was always eager to hear about when other alchemists dabbled in the same subject. Often, she had tried to talk with him about it. He would never say much, just a few details, but Alee found it fascinating.
Lately, Alee, Ed, Al, Tucker's daughter, Nina, and their giant, fluffy dog, Alexander, spent quite a bit of time out in the yard. Alee's favorite parts were the snowball fights; the look on Nina's face when she first saw a snowball was absolutely priceless! She had then dazzled the girl with flurries ever since. That was the kind of thing that made the steep price of her alchemy worth it. Using her alchemy to help others and to dazzle children was all she ever really wanted out of it.
Which made it all the more ironic that it was so often used as a weapon.
It was three days now since Ed and Al came, and Alee had enjoyed every second of it.
But today…today, she was edgy.
A sharp knock on her door startled her. "Uhh…" How long had she been sitting at her desk, staring into space? "Come in."
Jean poked his head into her office and smiled. "Ready, sir?"
Was it that time already? Alee glanced at the clock over the door. It was true. Four fifty already, their normal departure time.
Alee jumped up and grabbed her uniform jacket off the back of the chair. "You know, Jean, you don't have to call me 'sir,'" she teased, following him out of her office and down to the car garage.
"I do, sir," he replied cheekily, glancing at his watch, "for another four minutes."
They got in the car, playfully arguing about technicalities, and drove off to Tucker's house.
When they arrived, the children weren't outside waiting. Alee knew, in her heart, something was terribly wrong. They weren't outside, and the house was too still.
She motioned for Jean to be alert and drew her standard issue sidearm as she got out of the car. Alee crept forward and peeked in through the window. Seeing nobody, she tried the door. It swung open easily, eerily. As she was about to go in, Jean stopped her with his arm, indicating he was going on instead. Alee frowned, but didn't argue. His gun at the ready, Jean stepped in hesitantly, eyes darting over stretching shadows. There were no lights on inside, and they were losing the daylight fast.
Alee strained her ears, easing in after him. There seemed to be a sound far off that she couldn't quite place. It was muffled, but it seemed to float down from upstairs.
"Tucker?" Jean called suddenly, making Alee jump three feet into the air.
"Damnit, Jean!" she hissed, smacking him in the shoulder. Her heart hammered in her ears now and she struggled to force herself to be calm. Where were the boys?
"Havok? Is Alee there?" Al's squeaky voice called from upstairs.
Alee darted forward. "I'm here!" She sighed in relief when she came around the corner of the entryway and spotted the boy in armor at the top of the staircase, perfectly alright. Then for a moment, she panicked. "Where's Ed?"
"Here," he said glumly, appearing next to his brother.
He definitely looked the worse for wear, defeated and haggard. His right sleeve was splashed with dark splotches; she didn't have to be any kind of detective to know it was blood. He stared at her, crazed, desperate; the poor boy looked on the verge of tears.
Jean reacted faster than she did. "Are you hurt, Fullmetal? What happened?"
Edward choked on a sob and covered his face. ""It's Nina! He did it. He did it to them! Nina and Alexander…. That monster!"
Alee's heart plummeted, the blood draining from her face. A talking chimera, of course! She cursed herself for being so foolish. The only plausible way to get an animal to talk would be to infuse it with an animal that could: a human. She felt her stomach twist.
"We locked them in the basement," Al said quietly, holding his shaking, sobbing brother. "In his lab. We didn't know what else to do…"
Alee nodded and turned to Jean saying, "Call the Colonel. We're in for a long night. Get those kids out of here, will you?"
Jean nodded grimly and holstered his gun.
Alee didn't wait. She leveled her gun angrily and moved on to the basement door.
It was a crime—a heinous crime!—to fuse that little girl with their dog. He'd done it before though, hadn't he? The Sewing Life Alchemist had made another chimera, an artificially created animal, combined with alchemy. She remembered with disgust how much she had admired it. Two years ago, his talking chimera gave him his license. This chimera that happened to appear just after his unreachable wife left him. Too convenient to be coincidental. Alee ground her teeth furiously as she stared at the basement door. She was supposed to refrain judgment until his trial, but she already knew what the jury would say. Human transmutation was against the law; justice would be served, she knew. But his own daughter? Death wasn't enough for something so inexcusable. Alee tried to control her shaking before she went down there and beat him to death herself.
Finally steeled, she opened the door and descended down the dark passage to the dimly lit laboratory. Animals of all sorts stirred restlessly in their cages, but none made a sound. Books were strewn around the room, on the desk, across the floor. Alchemical symbols leered menacingly on the walls, all pointed accusingly at the figures sitting in the middle of a large transmutation circle on the floor. Tucker slouched dejectedly, Nina stared vacantly.
No. Alee couldn't afford to think of the creature before her as Nina. It was an animal now. A great, hunched white animal, with a black mane and deep, sad, black eyes. It was a chimera now.
Alee almost lost it. She struggled for control again as she looked down at Tucker's bloody, hollow face. Seeing that Ed had already taken the liberty of beating it to a near unrecognizable mess gave her a little satisfaction.
"Shou Tucker," Alee said authoritatively, surprising herself with how steady her voice was. Inside, she was a raging beast. "You have broken a basal law of alchemy and now, by order of military law, section eight, I am authorized to place you under arrest until a trial can be arranged. Though I'm sure they'll make quick work of a fiend like you…"
The man sighed. His vacant calm made her furious. "Why can't anyone understand?" Tucker said miserably, petting the chimera.
"I understand you just fine," Alee spat. "You had a taste of the high road and you couldn't stand to give it up. But there are some things you just don't do! You killed your daughter for your own personal gain."
"Killed her?" He turned wide, round eyes up at her. He looked utterly baffled. "I gave her a new life!" he reasoned pleadingly. "We cannot move forward without making some sacrifices. It is pure science!"
"No, IT'S GREED!" Alee cocked the gun in a flash of anger. It was all too tempting.
"Sacrifice is necessary. It was something you could never do. That's why your brother died in your care—"
Alee moved in a blur. She holstered her gun and clapped her hands together. The familiar feeling of power coursed through her, from the palms of her hands, surging though her body. It was raw power. It was alchemy.
Before he could finish his sentence, Alee had a hand clasped over his mouth. It would be too easy. She could feel the blood pounding through his veins, ready to obey any command she gave it. She could kill him fast, make it crystallize in spears and puncture every inch of his skin; she could kill him slowly, freeze him cell by cell, vein by vein. After all, the human body was seventy percent water, seventy percent her element.
She squeezed his cheeks in her hand. She made his furiously pounding blood slow, crystallize, freeze. Tucker struggled to breathe beneath her fingers. He was starting to turn blue.
It would be all. Too. Easy….
The chimera spoke. "Don't…hurt…Daddy…" It growled at her.
It only served to make Alee angrier.
"Lieutenant Colonel Justicar, stand down!"
She glanced back to find Colonel Mustang at the foot of the steps, flanked by Hawkeye and Havok.
"But, sir," Alee started through gritted teeth.
"I said, stand down, Winter Alchemist!"
Unwillingly, Alee relented, releasing Tucker and quickly distancing herself from him. Almost immediately, the color flooded back into his face, though he still shivered violently, shaking off the bitter cold that gripped his heart. She turned away from him before he made her sick.
"Sir, you should've let me—"
"And have you be persecuted for murder? Not a chance. He's not worth that," Roy said calmly. "Lieutenant, handcuff him. We'll take them both back to HQ. They'll figure out what to do with them. No doubt you'll swing for this, Tucker. Then you'll wish the Lieutenant Colonel had given you an icy grave."
Riza and Jean took care of Tucker roughly, pushing him up the stairs, the chimera trotting happily after them, large tail wagging.
"Go…play…?" it asked in its deep gravelly voice.
Alee gritted her teeth, her fists clenched. Had it really been only yesterday that she had played with the cheery, lively girl and her dog? How long had they been the chimera? It wasn't fair. It was painful. And just like so many others, there was nothing she could do to reverse what had been done. There was no way to untwine a chimera. Just as there was no way to bring dead people back. If only there were. When a person had such phenomenal power at their disposal the way Alee, or even Roy did, it was easy to go around, even to really believe that you were untouchable. Thinking that you were a god was not so far-fetched an idea. Then something like this happens. Something so irrevocable, something so impossibly beyond your scope of power, something humbling and terrible. It smacks you down, teaches you a harsh lesson in humility, makes you realize that you are nothing but a pitiful, useless, human being.
"I know what you're thinking," Roy said sadly. "It's awful isn't it? It's terrible to realize there's nothing to do."
"You should've let me kill him," Alee grumbled.
What would that accomplish? It wouldn't change anything."
"It would make me feel better."
Roy laughed humorlessly and placed his hand on Alee's shoulder. "Would it? You're no killer, Alee. Come on, now, let's go back to HQ to file the reports. We can take care of this mess later. I want to leave; it's freezing in here."
"Is it?" She shrugged. She couldn't feel anything, not for a long time.
"Yeah, you may not know this," Roy began, steering her out of the basement, "but when you use your alchemy, the temperature seriously drops."
She stopped dead as he closed the lab door behind her. Tears threatened the corners of her eyes. "Does it, Roy?" she whispered. "I wouldn't know. You know that…."
Roy frowned sadly and nodded. "I'm sorry, Alee."
Alee shook her head, she didn't trust herself to speak, and strode to the waiting car outside.
