Ok, when I said a while i didn't really think I'd take almost 3 months to upload this thing. During then and now I went to Japan, so I thought I'd have it in maybe a month, but then I got lazy/distracted (I started reading One Piece and I've been completely absorbed in it.) Ah the wonderful life of a procrastinator.
Any way, now that it's here, Enjoy~!

Edward was willing to give his life to make sure Al and Deliylah weren't hurt, but Deliylah wasn't willing to let him.

Deliylah knew she had to do something. Anything that would help Edward. She glanced at Al and shot forward towards the man leaning over Edward, slamming into him with her full weight. Her feet slipped from under her and she collapsed between him and Edward.

"I wont let you hurt him. You'll have to go through me, first," Deliylah challenged him.

He raised an eyebrow. "I'll eliminate all those in my path who get in the way. You are not an exception, young girl. If you do not step aside, I will kill you," he warned.

"Then do it," she snarled back. His lip twitched, and he reached forward. His fingers stopped an inch from her face, and behind his dark glasses his eyes went wide. He had seen her now drenched skin, brown as his own. Alphonse was screaming.

A gunshot jumped her, causing her to let out a sharp yelp and Edward to flinch under her. It was only then did she realize that both ends of the street were completely blocked by military cars, and Mustang was standing in the rain, holding a smoking gun. "That's enough," he stated, his eyes staring intently at the scarred man. The warning was clearly meant for him. "That was pretty close you two," he glanced at Edward and Deliylah.

"Colonel, he's-!"

"That man is suspected in the serial killings of state alchemists, and judging on from what I'm seeing, that suspicion just came fact. The murder at the Tucker estate... let me guess, that was you too?"

Deliylah flinched, looking up at the scared man whose attention had been taken from the children on the ground in front of him. He was the one responsible for the slaughter of the Tuckers. She felt herself began to tremble, although she didn't know if it was with fear or hatred.

The murderer clenched his fist. "The world was made perfect by God. Alchemists change the natural into the unnatural, twisting things out of their true form. They sin by defacing God's creation. I am an instrument of divine judgement!" Something about his preachings was familiar to Deliylah, but she couldn't place exactly where she had heard it before.

Mustang nodded. "Makes sense, but why do you only target state alchemists when there are so many other alchemists you could kill?"

The man ignored the question. "If you insist on stopping me, I'll just eliminate you too."

Deliylah took her eyes from the conversation and instead focused on Edward, who was struggling to sit up. "Ed, are you ok?"

Edward looked up at her in disbelief. "What were you doing, throwing yourself in front of me like that? You could have been killed!"

She raised an eyebrow. "I don't want to hear that coming from you, you just did the same thing for Al and me! I'm not just going to sit back and watch, not again!"

Edward opened his mouth to argue, but gunshots interrupted him. The two turned around to see the man who had attacked them jumping around to avoid shots fired by Lieutenant Hawkeye, his feet just barely skimming the ground. Just then, Lieutenant Havoc reached them, placing his arms around Ed's and Deliylah's wet shoulders. Mustang was on the ground.

The man peeked out from the corner he had leapt behind. "State alchemists, sympathizers, and everyone who tries to stop me! I will destroy everyone here!"

Suddenly a large man, completely muscle, loomed over the murderer with a fist in the air, ready to strike. "Go ahead and try," he shouted, his deep voice booming throughout the wrecked street. He swung down, shattering the ground under his knuckles when the man jumped out of the path of his attack. "hmm, you dodged that... not bad." The newcomer stepped forward, his large mustache soaked with rain but still looking just as full as ever. "You brazen insurrectionary, I've had enough of you! You want to destroy everyone here? Don't make me laugh! Why don't you try to beat me first?! I'm the Strongarm Alchemist, Alex Louis Armstrong!"

As the two engaged in battle, Deliylah sat, wondering. "Something…," she muttered.

"Huh?" Ed looked up. "Whats wrong?"

"Something… something's…" she searched for the right word. "Something's… familiar… about him… his fighting style, and what he's saying… I know it from somewhere..." She thought hard, unable to grasp just where she knew these things from. She was brought out of her thoughts when Lieutenant Havoc started yelling, scolding him.

"Major! Don't tear up the whole street!"

The Major then went off on a tangent about the beauty of alchemy and the laws governing the world, in the process completely stripping his coat and shirt. Meanwhile, Deliylah continued racking her brain for where she knew him from. It wasn't him exactly, his face looked unfamiliar, but his fighting style, his preaching, even his skin color itself. She subconsciously reached up under her bangs, touching her own brown skin. And when shots rang out, it clicked.

"He's Ishvalan like me!" she gasped, clasping her hand to her mouth.

Edward looked up at her, but didn't have any time to question what she had just said, because the gasps of everybody else confirmed it. Lieutenant Hawkeye had been shooting at him, and while she barely grazed him with one shot, she had hit his glasses. His eyes were as red as Deliylah's own right iris.

She jumped up, pushing past one of the many soldiers who had surrounded the scarred man.

"Red-eyed brother, why are you doing this? Why are you disgracing the name of Ishvala with pointless slaughter?!" Deliylah flipped her wet bangs out of her face, fully revealing to him who she really was; an Ishvalan survivor, just like him.

He glanced at her, his ruby eyes widening when they confirmed his earlier suspicions. He had indeed seen the face of his people on this girl. "Let me ask you a question. Why do you, a child of Ishvala, travel with a state alchemist and side with the military, the very people who destroyed our home?" He questioned her.

"I don't travel with the Fullmetal Alchemist, I travel with my friends, Edward and Alphonse Elric. They're too young to have been in the war. Ed was a child when it ended. I've witnessed his kindness firsthand, and I know that, even though he's a dog of the military, he hasn't given his soul up to them quite yet," she replied.

"And what about the rest of them? These people around you whom you protect, they served in the war, they destroyed our people!"

"I know that! Don't think a day goes by I don't remember what Colonel Mustang did to my people, I met him personally! But I saw in his eyes long ago that he was sorry for what he did, and I forgave him, because that is what Ishvala would want!"

The mans lip twitched. "You think Ishvala would have wanted you to forget every-"

Deliylah cut him off. "No! Not forget! I'll never forget what I went through, but I won't let my anger out on those who don't deserve it, and I won't use our loving Ishvala as an excuse for wanton slaughter!" She screeched, tears running down her face, switching with the rain and washing away what makeup was left.

She gasped, a hand landing softly on her shoulder. She looked over to see Mustang, a hardened look on his face. His other hand was raised, and each rifle around them was pointed at the Ishvalan man at the center.

"Don't try to run for it, you're surr-" Mustang was unable to finish his statement. The man threw his hand to the ground, and Deliylah had to stumble backwards to avoid falling in the massive hole that yawned before them. The man was gone.

Deliylah sank to her knees, exhausted and shaking from leftover adrenaline that pumped through her body during her latest brush with death. Mustangs hand was no longer on her shoulder, but she could feel his eyes on her. She had told him that what he had thought was true, that she had indeed known him before their meeting at Central Station. Deliylah could hear Edward and Alphonse arguing, but she was too tired to hear what they were arguing about. Only when she heard Al's anger turn to desperation did she look up at the boys. They looked awful, falling apart at the seams.

She tugged on the pant leg of the closest soldier, who happened to be Lieutenant Hawkeye. "Can I borrow your jacket? Mine won't cover Ed's shoulders," she murmured.

Lieutnant Hawkeye smiled softly, slipping off her jacket and helping Deliylah slowly make her way to the brothers shattered forms. She placed a hand on Al's knee, fretting over the both of them.

"I'm sorry, Deliylah," Ed mumbled, still sitting on the ground.

"What for?"

"I made you put yourself in harms way to save me. I shouldn't have done that."

Deliylah chuckled quietly. "Edward, I'm always ready to put myself in harm's way for my friends. You brothers are important to me, I couldn't bear to see you killed and if I can prevent it, I will."

"... why?"

Deliylah paused at the question. "I'm sorry?"

"Why do you care? I'm a dog of the military, why should an Ishvalan like you care about me?"

She didn't answer right away. She thought for a moment, wondering herself why. She truly believed the answer she had given the man who attacked them, but why else? Why did she run after the boys back in Lior? Why has she been running with them ever since?

She sighed. "Because I owe you."

-

The three were brought back to hq and briefed about the man who attacked him. They were told that the military had no information about his identity, so they called him Scar. When Edward made a confused face after the Colonel mentioned the war, Colonel Mustang began to explain, and Deliylah realized that while Edward knew of the war, he didn't know anything about it.

Each sentence brought back harsh memories of her early childhood. She had been four years old when it started, and her skin had already begun to change. She remembered the endless nights of terror as her family ran for years from the fighting. Then, seven years ago, her entire village was taken out in one blow. She had idled behind to pick up a doll she had dropped. Suddenly her ears were ringing, and she was on the ground. She looked up, and-

She was pulled out of her memories when Colonel Mustang mentioned the state alchemists. "They were recruited as human weapons. It was an opportunity to test their suitability for war. I was one of those alchemists." Oh yes, she remembered him well. When she was taken in, she would often serve tea to thirsty, tired soldiers. She had seen at the time Major Mustang plenty of times to know his face, although he had grown less tired and more clean and handsome over time as the looks of war had buried themselves deep. "That's why there's a certain justice that one of the last surviving Ishvalans would seek revenge."

Edward piped up beside Deliylah. "It's still not justice. Whatever happened, he's still involving innocent people for the sake of his revenge. He's just candy-coating it by calling himself righteous and saying he's doing it for his 'God.'" This way he spat the last word made Deliylah uneasy.

Colonel Mustang made a speech to his men about not hesitating if they saw Scar again, while Deliylah brought one knee up to her chin, muttering just loud enough for Ed to hear. "You don't need to put so much hatred the words 'his God.'"

"And why not," Ed asked hot-headedly, unaware of how offensive his question was.

Deliylah stood up straight, towering over the younger and much shorter boy. "Because his God is my God. We are both children of Ishvala, and anything you say to insult his religion insults me, so please watch what you say in the future. I accept and respect that you don't believe in any God, but I have my own faith and you should return the favor by respecting mine." Edwards eyes were wide with guilty realization.

"I-I'm sorry..."

Her calm anger faded instantly. An apology was all she needed. "It's ok, Edward."

Colonel Mustang waited a few moments before taking his turn in conversation with her. "What you said to Scar, are you really little Deliylah, the girl from the encampment?"

She sighed. "If you mean the small Ishvan child who often made tea for the soldiers, yes, that would be me. I remember you too, Colonel. You were a Major at the time, and you looked much younger, both physically and mentally. I remember others too. I remember a young sniper who looked like she didn't want to be there, and a man with glasses who said that the tea I gave him was 'the best damn cuppa he'd had in a long while.' I don't remember their names, but I remember their hardened faces all the time," she said, glancing at First Lieutenant Hawkeye and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes, who had indeed been the ones she had mentioned. Both shifted uncomfortably.

Silence lingered. Nobody really thought about telling anyone higher up about her, especially since she was with the Fullmetal Alchemist. Besides, they had given her enough trouble as it was. Finally Lieutenant Colonel Hughes turned back to the brothers. "So, what are you going to do now, boys?"

After a bit of a row in which every one of Colonel Mustangs subordinates took their turns insulting them, Edward sighed angrily. "Fine, I have no choice. I have to go see my mechanic."

Deliylah perked up. "Your mechanic?" She had heard of his mechanic before; she had been the only to make Edwards prosthetic limbs. However he didn't really say much more than that, although he did speak very highly on the rare chances that he mentioned her.

"Yeah. Her name is Winry, she lives in Resembool back out East. Man, this is gonna be tough, she always freaks out whenever I break this thing," Ed mumbled.

Deliylah giggled, wincing at the pain in her head. The first aid nurse who had tended to her wound said that there was no permanent harm, but she did have a mild concussion. She softly placed her icebag back up to her head. "To Resembool it is, then."

Don't expect the next chapter any time soon. I've been sort of distanced from FMA for now, but I'll be back soon... I hope... although I may start a One Piece fanfic with my oc from that. Great. Another one.