run, i'm a natural disaster

05. Doorway

Breaking and entering is something none of them have problems with. Greed will take what he wants, it's in his very nature, and a door won't stop him. Ed seems to have no problems, easily alchemising her way through whatever's thrown at her (she once mentions that she'd broken into enough classified places, with barbed wire and immortal guards, so a puny door wouldn't stop her). Heinkel and Darius have been in war zones, they've forced doors open and run in shooting, screams and blood all around and pulses pounding in time with machine gun rattle.

Killing, on the other hand, is something that all of them have their own issues with. Heinkel and Darius are soldiers, killers on command, and beforehand, before they went A.W.O.L. they would have killed women, children, citizens, rebels; anyone if ordered to. Now they are waking up, starting to make their own decisions, prompted by the blond kid who saved them from being crushed to death, on the off-chance that they would help him. Greed has his own rules, like not fighting women or children, and the Ling guy inside him is apparently big on the idea of not killing anyone unless it is absolutely possible. And then there is Ed, who abhorrers killing anything, even if it's only alive in the loosest sense of the word. Maybe it's because she's got a brother that's a suit of armour, that doesn't breathe, sleep or eat.

Then again, maybe it's because she can kill with a clap of her hands (and isn't that terrifying? Other alchemists need to draw a circle, a specific array, but not Ed. Her hands touch, and you're gone.)

But they're going to have to work on her, using scientific and emotional arguments. They are criminals, people (barely people, really; half a girl, two animal experiments and a homunculus with identity issues) on the run, two with shoot-to-kill and the others with retrieve-with-as-few-injuries-as-possible warrants on their heads. They can't go back, not ever, and they're prepared to fight for it- and if killing is their only option, they need to be able to do it.

Darius looks at Ed, and then at Greed and Heinkel. They nod. It's a door that you can only walk through once, this loss of innocence, but Ed needs to walk past the threshold. She's military. She'll handle it. She has to.

A.N: Because even killing has rules attached to it, and sometimes leaving people alive really isn't merciful.

I am at camp for a week, so this'll be the last one for a while [D:], but hopefully you enjoyed it, even though it's pretty depressing.

But yay, because we are one-twentieth of the way through these! Yeah, I know you're impressed.

Any requests for characters, mini-plot lines; as well as any requests for AUs, fusions and cross-overs are taken and much appreciated.
{And damn, if Roy isn't really hard to do, because given the situation I'm struggling to make it funny... Dx Oh well, I'll put him in another one in a different situation and that'll hopefully make you rofl, 'k?}

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

-Tom

{Thanks to Shinigami Hollow, Fluehatraya, Hyper V and Mini Hayden for reviewing - they all make my day.}