Disclaimer: Still don't own FMA…however Liam DeVere is my OC and Role-Play character. If you want to borrow him please ask me! FMA belongs to its creators…who are not me.

Author's Note: Alright, this chapter mentions drinking and killing people. It focuses on my OC Liam DeVere who was a sniper in Ishbal. Read and Review if you like, I love feedback but Flames will be scoffed at…Thanks!

To Protect the Innocent

Liam DeVere looked into the empty glass and examined the last few drops of amber liquid in the bottom of it. The empty bottle sat on the ground next to him along with several other ones, all holding a few scant drops in the bottom of them. Hard to believe he'd only started drinking about two hours ago.

It had been two months to the day that he'd been sent to Ishbal, the first in a long line of soldiers who'd been sent to the killing grounds to deal with the Ishballan pests who were polluting the land.

That was all they had been called: Pests to be eradicated like rats. Their lives had no more value then one of the lizards that skirted across the hot desert ground during the day. That was what the people back home were told, the newspapers painted terrifying pictures of red eyed, dark skinned monsters who massacred whole groups of soldiers in the name of their cursed deity.

They always forgot to add the most terrifying images, the ones of cold eyed alchemists moving through a village or town, not caring who or what was in their way. The hard faced snipers, himself included, who hid behind whatever cover they could and picked off any Ishballans who, by some curse, made it past the alchemists. The soldiers who moved in after the alchemists and swept up the debris.

He sighed as he picked up the empty bottle and tipped the last few drops into his cup. He remembered the first time he had ever killed someone, it was two days after he'd arrived in this hellhole of a country.

Up to that point every time he had shot a gun he was aiming at a target on a wall, or maybe, once he got better, ones that moved somewhat. But never before at a real person. Never before at a real, flesh and blood, heart and soul person. Liam had never claimed to be religious and if anything this war had further driven him into his own disbelief.

If, like the Ishballans believed, there was a god then why would he ignore his people and let them get slaughtered like animals? Liam shook his head, he must have been drunk. He was getting philosophical.

Back to his first day at war. His orders where simple, kill anyone who made it through the alchemists' lines. The alchemists where good at what they did and the section he was watching had no trouble until an Ishballan, half dead already, somehow made it past a small alchemist with glasses who had hesitated for just a moment.

Liam's training kicked in and he had shot the Ishballan but somewhere between the time he had pulled the trigger and the time the bullet had killed the Ishballan he had realized that this wasn't some paper target on a wall or some clay bird that was being thrown through the air. He had killed a human and no matter what anyone would say to him, no matter how noble history books would call his actions in the line of duty, he had just become a murderer. He had lost his innocence.

Liam drained the last few drops in his cup and threw it to the side, where the tin cup clattered against the edge of his cot. The setting sun was shining into his eyes, heralding another night of blood and death.

Once the bullet had left his gun time seemed to slow and the moment burned into his mind. After the man had fallen, the death shock still burning in his eyes Liam found himself choking on bile.

The bile rose and for the first time in his life he lost control of his stomach. After the heaving was through and he could breath again he swallowed the burning acid in his throat and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. He slowly raised himself back to his knees, still shaking and gasping. One of the female snipers, a woman with dark brown eyes, cast him a small smile of support though he could read the message in her eyes, "Welcome to hell…it doesn't get any easier from here."

Not exactly supporting words but it was the truth. As he slowly picked up his gun again the words of his teacher, an old military man who was his family's neighbor when he was a teenager, rang in his head. "Liam, the gun is a tool to kill people with. If you want to learn how to shoot you are going to be learning how to kill a man. If you can't accept that then you'd better go home right now and learn how to be a farmer."

The words were ringing truer every single day, too bad he couldn't tell the old man that. One more regret to add to his ever growing pile, and he was only 24. Standing up he dusted off his pants and picked his military jacket off of his cot and shrugged it on, not bothering to button it.

He didn't waste time hiding the bottles, everyone knew he drank and someday he was sure it'd bite him but not today. Every man dealt with war in their own way. Some slept with whores, some closed themselves off, others let the problems get to them until they went crazy and he drank his problems away. As long as he drank he could make the voices in his head, the ones that repeated words like "murderer" and "killer", shut up, at least for a few precious hours.

He picked up his rifle and checked it, cursing the sand that had worked into every gear and joint of the gun, slowing the reaction time and freezing up the workings. However nothing had worked into the gears this time, lucky him.

He stepped out into the camp, slinging the rifle over his shoulder. So far, in the two months he'd been there he'd only found one truth. The war here was supposed to protect the people of Armestis. And the only way those people could be protected was by the blood of Ishballans and the destroyed ideals of soldiers.

To protect the innocent….the protector must lose his innocence. That was the only truth he lived by now and the only truth he would follow for the rest of his life.

Liam blinked, willing his mind to lose its drunken fogginess as he knew it could. He had a job to do and people to protect. He couldn't waste time on what was true or not. Still the words rang in his head and in the back of his mind he began to take some odd comfort in them.

They were something to hang onto in a world that had become hell.