(Age 16)
"Now missy, that's not very nice, barging in and taking down all of my men." Greed scolded playfully at the furious woman.
Her smoldering glare shifted from the man that had been clutching Elizabeth's throat to Greed, "You're the one responsible?" She asked rhetorically, with little emotion. She continued without hesitation, "You've been caring for my students?" She asked, slightly sarcastic this time, but still with that uneasy stillness that was rarely seen in Izumi, "I'm taking them home. Now." She declared, face to face with Greed and her hands firmly on her hips. Had it been an Elric, they would have complied within a second.
Greed, on the other hand, crossed his arms defiantly and smirked. With a laid back tone, he replied, "Nah, it's not even open for discussion."
Moving with speed not seen in training, Izumi snarled, "Is that so?" while whipping her fist around and plummeting it into the side of Greed's jaw. His eyes widened in shock as he dropped his hands to the side.
Izumi, instead of going for another hit, froze as blood started to seem from the cracks between her fingers. Her face betrayed nothing to the two siblings witnessing, but the drops of blood on the floor did.
Greed chuckled to himself, "You really do things without thinking, huh?" He remarked, pulling his jaw to the side to reveal his ultimate shield of carbon to Izumi. "Your fingers must be in so much pain." he added with a smirk.
His arm lashed out towards her, claws extended, making the teacher jump back to protect herself. "Give me a break," Greed reasoned, not pushing any farther forward, "I'm not interested in fighting a woman."
Izumi shook the loose blood off her hand slightly, not wanting to jolt the obviously broken knuckles too much. With a bit of awestruck wonder, she commented, "That's quite a unique body you've got there."
Greed just continued to smirk. His claws began to retract and he straightened out his fur-topped vest, "Yeah, and you're not gonna even scratch me with a weak attack like that."
Before Izumi could reply, Alphonse called out to her, after looking at the doorway for quite some time, "Teacher! Brother didn't come too?"
"Hm?" Izumi turned to face the boy, "No," She replied, still watching Greed out of the corner of her eye, "He hasn't returned yet."
"Wait, wait!" Greed interrupted, cutting between teacher and student. He turned to Al and pointed at him, "I thought you said your brother was dead."
Elizabeth rolled her eyes, finally able to breathe well enough, and stood up. She was right near where Greed moved to so she slapped him on the back of the head, just to get one hit in, even if she hadn't thought of a way to fight him seriously yet. "We said he was gone. Not dead. He's out of town." Her slap gained her a nasty glare from the homunculus, but nothing more. He seemed much more interested in the conversation at hand.
"Oh!" Al exclaimed again, "And Greed is a homunculus!"
"Hey, kid." Greed snapped. He wasn't very angry, probably more annoyed than anything, "Don't go spilling my secrets so carelessly."
"What?" Izumi asked, bewildered by the sudden piece of information. "What does that mean, Alphonse?"
Shifting in his place with his hands still bound, Al replied, "He has information on how to get our bodies back! I can't go home yet! Big brother has to come so we can tell him."
Confused a little, Greed asked, "Why would you want a flesh body? This one is so convenient and unbreakable."
"Please, Izumi." Elizabeth bit out. She wasn't happy about her inability to fight back, but she knew that they couldn't afford to pass up an opportunity like this. "Please get Edward to come back here. We can't let this chance go."
"Yeah." Greed added, "It'll be an equivalent exchange." He wrapped an arm around Al's helmet and the other around Elizabeth's waist, as if they were good friends, "I teach them to make a homunculus, and they teach me soul transmutation. How about it, teach?" he grinned greedily, awaiting her response.
Izumi cut her eyes at the two siblings. Alphonse didn't struggle from Greed's grip, but Elizabeth squirmed uncomfortably from being touched. Sighing, Izumi calmly came to her conclusion and began by saying, "I don't like to say something like this, considering we alchemists believe is creation, but..." She tore her eyes from the two teenagers that she considered her family and set her gaze on the man holding them captive. Her snarl was more frightening than that of a mother bear, and her eyes sharper and fiery than the pits of hell as she threatened in a low and terrifying voice, "If anything bad happens to these two, I won't hesitate to obliterate everything here." Without looking back, Izumi turned and left with a wake of crashes and voices behind her.
Greed chuckled and squeezed the two where he held his arms, "Your teacher is amazing."
After a while of waiting, Elizabeth grew restless. She hated just waiting for her brother. They had restrained her again, because she'd tried to burn Greed by his carbon shield. It had worked surprisingly well, but he regenerated quickly and ordered her to be tied up by the wrists.
Groaning of idleness, Elizabeth blurted to her captors, "I have to pee." A few expressionless faces turned to her, the dog-man being one of them. Roa grunted and shoved him forward, making him grumble, but take a hold of Elizabeth's cuffs nonetheless.
"Come on, stupid girl." He complained, tugging her along and out of the room.
"Damn it!" The sharp-faced man swore only moments after he'd locked the bathroom door from the outside. He had wanted to make sure she wouldn't try anything, but he heard a commotion in the main room, not too far away.
He rushed away from where Elizabeth was locked in, snapping at her, "Stay put, girl!"
"Excuse me?" The blonde shrieked, rushing to the locked door and banging on it to be let out, "Don't leave me here, you dog!" Her fists slowed down as she calmed herself down enough to remember her ability to use alchemy. As she clapped to transmute the lock, she muttered under her breath, "Damn it, what's going on down there?" The blue glow of a transmutation flooded the room as she made the lock into a weaker material
She kicked down the door with the weakened lock using her automail leg, and pushed onward before the dust even settled. Unfortunately, her return wouldn't be as fast as the dog's, as he was long gone. Regardless, she ran off in the direction she thought they'd come from.
Running past an open doorway, Elizabeth glanced to the side and skidded to a stop at the sight of Edward charging after Greed.
She turned in and clapped her hands to create the sparks for her flames. She directed them right at Greed's back, far enough away from her brother. When the carbon caught fire, greed paid little mind to the heat. Instead, he caught Edward's blade with a shielded hand and gripped the end tightly. His eyes locked with Edward's and he retorted to something he'd obviously said earlier, "Ignorant kids need to be punished," his gaze snapped up to the girl who had just set him on fire right as his regenerative powers smothered the flames, "Right?"
In one swift movement, Greed took a hold of Edward's automail and slung the whole boy towards his sister, knocking them both down like pins. Edward's blade barely missed Elizabeth, landing only centimeters from her eyes. "Get off." She huffed out, tired of not being able to breathe. She helped push him off, just in time for Greed's next attack. With the shielded claw, he slashed across the two twins, catching Elizabeth on the left forearm and Edward on his left cheek.
"Damn it." Elizabeth hissed out in pain, tearing off her military jacket's right sleeve to tie up the gash on her arm. She cradled it slightly, watching Edward put up alchemic obstacles in vain while Greed charged after him, clawing them down with his diamond-strength shield.
Trying a different tactic, Edward created pillars, each higher than the last, as a stepping stone to attack from above. As Greed shielded both arms to counteract the attack, Elizabeth realized how he created the shield.
"It's futile," Greed snarled, a totally different person from the cool, laid back man who she'd last seen. "That metal blade can't touch me!"
Bouncing back from his attack, Edward created spikes from the ground as Elizabeth shouted to him, "Carbon!" She stood up, ready to fight again. As she ran towards the two men, she reiterated, "His shield is made of carbon, Edward!"
Greed slashed down the spikes as soon as they were created and had time to bat Elizabeth's attacks with her own blade off. She didn't really intend to take Greed down, just distract him.
As soon as his attention was turned from the brother to the sister, Edward flipped forward towards his enemy and snapped his feet around his neck, pulling him down head-first into the concrete. "Then we hit him where there is no carbon." Edward replied to his sister, finally.
Greed lay still for a moment, and Elizabeth eyed him uneasily, "Uhm, Edward. He can-" A shielded hand shot out from under what Edward had thought to be a corpse. Thankfully his reflexes kept him mostly out of the reach, but Greed still managed to graze his side.
"You know," Greed scolded playfully, more like how he had been acting earlier, "that might have killed a normal person." He commented, rising from the cracked concrete with blood dripping down his forehead.
Elizabeth's shoulder's slumped slightly, but Edward actually chuckled, "But you're not normal, am I right?" It was times like these that she hated how she could never live up to her brother.
"Well," Greed replied, wiping the blood from his face, "I'm basically a person with a higher regeneration rate and my ultimate shield." He smirked and raised a clawed hand, "Don't you get it? You can't win. I'd go for the deal instead." Elizabeth was slightly lost, she hadn't heard about the deal, but she assumed that Edward had gotten pissed and declared he would kill all of them for kidnapping Alphonse and herself. Edward's defiant glare never backed down, making Greed sigh regretfully. "You're fine with blood, but not emotional pain, so you lose control. How childish. You'll risk your siblings' lives if you continue like this." Greed slipped off his vest and the shield started expanding outward, "I didn't want to do this, because it makes me look all scary, but now," The black carbon shield covered him completely, giving him a demonic look, "You really can't scratch me, kid."
Elizabeth glanced at her arm, the militaristic blue stained a dark red. Edward continued to fight, his automail breaking more, his clothing tearing and his wounds growing. His sister refused to let him fend alone, but couldn't speak long enough to tell him her idea about the carbon. She tried rearranging the molecules herself, but she wasn't quick enough to do another transmutation near Greed. After being set on fire a few times, he made a point not let her hands touch. It wasn't that difficult either, as her movements were getting sluggish as she lost more blood from her arm, her side, and now her shoulder.
Edward, with only the bare minimum of his automail remaining, was thrown against the concrete wall. He yelped in pain, blood coming out of the corner of his mouth. He slid down the wall and slumped for a few minutes. In that little time, Greed threw the weakened girl into a few wooden crates. She slumped as well, but managed to speak through the blood in her mouth, "E-Ed." she croaked. Coughing a fit and spitting out blood, she spoke much clearer, "His shield is carbon. Right now, the molecules are," She shifted on the splinters of the cracked crates, groaning in pain, "like diamonds. Make them softer. I tried, but I'm not fast enough." Forcing herself to stand, Elizabeth charged after Greed once more.
While he fended her off easily, the girl proved herself a great distraction as Edward came from the side and transmuted Greed's chest. Both were thrown off like paper dolls, but they came back just as soon as they had been discarded. This time with a fury, aiming in unison and directly where Edward had transmuted Greed's chest.
Pain shattered through the previously invincible man, unlike anything he had ever felt before. "Damn it." He swore, clutching his wounds, "What did you brats do to my shield?"
Elizabeth scoffed, "Your shield was flammable, and it didn't take long to figure out it was carbon." Greed was still regenerating, but was almost done, so she opted for a shorter explanation, though the educated alchemist in her wanted the longer one. "Hard carbon would be a diamond, like your shield. Soft carbon would be pencil lead, like after what Edward did to it."
Standing once again with a hardened chest, Greed was laughing again, "Good!" He charged Edward, "Then this will finally be a fair fight!"
Before a blow was even landed, Edward ducked under Greed's arm to reconstruct his side, and elbow him with his metallic arm, exclaiming, "Furthermore!" He followed the man who had been caught off guard once again, "It seems as if you can't regenerate and harden at the same time."
Healed and hardened once again, Greed smirked, "And here I thought you two were stupid kids. You're not someone I want to fight against again anytime soon." His tone seemed like he was saying a goodbye of sorts, or that he knew something the Elrics didn't.
This proved to be true as the door busted open and military men filed in, guns blazing between the siblings and Greed. Both sides jumped apart, the Elrics into military arms and Greed towards his escape via an air vent. "Later kid." He called, jumping once onto a high pillar that Edward had created. He jumped up into vent and disappeared, much to Edward's displeasure. Though he would have run after him, Elizabeth had already paled considerably from the blood loss and stress of the fight. In the back of his mind, he couldn't help but wonder if her weakened condition of late was also being influenced by his recent attempts to sever the blood transmutation from long ago.
In the hospital at central a few days later, Elizabeth's eyes were practically dead. She was feeling weaker than ever, and the doctors had even diagnosed her with things she'd never thought she could have. Anemia, Malnutrition, Dehydration, Infection, and Vitamin deficiencies. Though she looked no different, the doctors insisted the tests didn't lie. Though she only felt more tired, Edward still hadn't explained the side effects she was experiencing.
Finally on the fourth day in the hospital she began to feel better, regardless of the doctor's words. She stood up, despite their protests, and insisted that she go home. Edward arrived in time for her demand to be heard.
"Edward." She snapped at him, impatient with her lack of information regarding whatever he was keeping from her, "I'm going home tomorrow. You need to go to Rush Valley to get your arm fixed, I want to head home for a break. Just a week or two."
Edward, ready to refuse, rethought his stance. He was the reason she wasn't feeling well. He didn't even tell her why. The least he could do was go along with a trip home to Granny Pinako. "Alright." He replied, a smile forming at the bright response on his sister's face, "As long as someone escorts you."
Her face fell faster than it had risen, and Edward left to talk to the Fuhrer, who had stayed longer to confirm the Elric's well being.
He returned moments later with word of the response given, "King Bradley is alright with your leave of absence, and he agrees with your need of an escort. Scar still hasn't been found." He smiled at his sister, hoping to raise her spirits. "He's having Mustang pick one of his subordinates to go with you for a guard. Mustang will probably send Hawkeye, so don't worry."
Off plot, but I don't care:) who do you think Roy will send with Elizabeth to Resembool? I'll put the names of anyone who guesses right in the beginning of the next chapter(: