Roy Mustang marched up the path to the yellow house on the hill, with its sign advertising the Rockbell Automail shop. He didn't stop to explain anything to Hawkeye or the old man who had brought them here. He didn't pause for the dog barking at their heels. He charged forward with only one thought in his mind.
That circle. The puddle of blood, enough for a grown man. The picture of the Elrics—not two men in their thirties like it said in the report, but two girls. Ten and eleven years old.
Children. And they'd committed the taboo. Human transmutation.
As Roy pounded on the front door, he heard a woman's voice on the other side. "All right, Den, quit your yappin'. We got visitors?"
A little old woman opened the door, looking up in surprise at the soldiers on her porch. "Pardon me, Ms. Rockbell," Roy said tersely, brushing past her and into the house.
"What the blazes is going on?" the old woman yelled. "Who are you people?"
Leaving Hawkeye behind to explain the situation, Roy cast his gaze around the main living area. There, in the corner beside a decorative suit of armor—a girl in a wheelchair. The same shoulder-length golden hair he'd seen in the photo in their house. Fresh bandages on her arm and leg.
Roy marched up to the girl, glaring down at her. To think that someone so small could do something so heinous, so twisted... She turned blank golden eyes up to meet his. No remorse. No emotion at all.
"I've been to your house," he snarled, grabbing her uninjured shoulder. "What the hell did you do? What did you create?"
The girl's chin trembled, tears building up in her eyes. She hung her head, and two damp spots appeared on the blanket draped over her lap.
"I'm sorry," said a small voice at Roy's side.
He looked up in surprise, only to see the huge suit of armor placing one gauntleted hand on his arm, gently but firmly pushing it back down by his side. It had been so still, Roy hadn't realized there was anyone in the armor.
"Please forgive us," the voice echoed around the inside of the helmet. "We're sorry... We're sorry..."
That wasn't the voice of a man, or even a woman, large enough to wear such a huge suit of armor. It was the voice of a ten-year-old girl.
Roy sat at the table in the back room, across from Pinako Rockbell with Addie standing behind El's wheelchair in between them. Resting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands together, Roy contemplated the two sisters for a moment, considering the full story he'd just heard.
If he hadn't seen the evidence with his own eyes, he never would have believed it. It was hard enough to imagine that two untested, inexperienced alchemists in a backwater town like this, who'd had no formal education whatsoever, would have been able to survive human transmutation. But neither of them were even twelve years old yet.
El still sat slumped in her wheelchair, staring with dead eyes at the floor, as if the weight of what she'd done bore down on her shoulders, ready to crush her into the ground. And Addie was the same, looming over them but awkwardly pinning her arms and legs close to her body, as if to make herself as small as possible. Even though she was nothing but a soul trapped in a suit of armor, Roy could read guilt in every line of her metal body.
"I came here to recruit State Alchemists," Roy said, turning his gaze from the two sisters to their guardian. "Though their situation is different than I was originally led to believe, I would still like to extend that offer."
Setting her pipe down in the ashtray, Pinako frowned up at him, unimpressed.
"Full funding for all of their work," Roy said, looking back at El and Addie and trying to catch their eyes. "Unlimited access to classified reference material. All of the government's best facilities and research staff at their disposal. Those are just some of the privileges those girls would be afforded as State Alchemists. Of course, in exchange they have to pledge loyalty and obey orders...but they'll have the ability to conduct research that would be impossible for a may even be able to find a way to regain their original bodies."
At this, El raised her head slightly, but she still didn't meet Roy's gaze.
Addie spoke up for the first time since she'd stopped Roy from shouting at her sister. "But I thought the alchemist's slogan was Alchemist, be thou for the people..."
"True," Roy said with a mirthless smirk. "State Alchemists aren't called 'dogs of the military' for nothing."
Echoes of screams. The faint hint of smoke—not the tobacco smoke from Pinako's pipe, but the smoke of flesh burning in an unnatural inferno. At least these two would never have to experience anything like that.
Pinako frowned up at him, her keen eyes assessing him as much as he was assessing the girls. "Do you think those girls have what it takes to pass the state license test?"
It was a question only a non-alchemist would ask in this situation. Any alchemist worth their salt would see the unbelievable potential he had seen. "The transmutation circle in the Elric house," he murmured, looking from one of the sisters to the other, "their knowledge of human transmutation...not to mention that they were able to transmute a soul...all of these things have convinced me beyond a doubt." He shook his head in wonder. "These two would make the greatest State Alchemists Amestris has ever seen."
"Lieutenant Colonel Mustang," Pinako said, quietly but firmly. "After this child came crawling in here covered in blood, do you know what I did? I went to their house...and I buried that thing in their backyard. Human transmutation, you call it?" Pinako looked like she wanted to spit. She clenched her hands together, unable to keep them from trembling. "That thing...that thing wasn't human!"
El flinched slightly at that, but Pinako didn't seem to notice.
"Alchemy created that monstrosity," she said, tears shimmering behind her small, round glasses. "Alchemy took away those girls' bodies! And you—you want them to do more of that? They're ten and eleven years old, and you want to put these girls in the military? You want to force them to work alongside grown men, to use them for whatever sick agenda you might have? Is that really what you want them to do with their lives?"
"Ms. Rockbell." Roy met her gaze unflinchingly. "I'm not forcing these girls to do anything. I am merely offering an opportunity."
He turned to face the Elric sisters, though one merely peered out at him through the bangs hanging over her face and he couldn't be sure where the other was looking through the gaping eyeholes of her visor. "I am speaking to you plainly now—not as children, not as little girls who didn't know any better, but as fellow alchemists fully responsible for the choices you've made. You can choose to live the rest of your days as a self-pitying cripple with a suit of armor for a sister...or you can make a real contribution to alchemy by allying yourself with the military, and find a way to change yourself back."
He paused for a moment, waiting to see how they would take his challenge. He knew his words were harsh, and judging from the outrage on Pinako's face, many would say he was out of line. But Addie's helmet was still turned towards him, and El raised her head slightly, her eyes meeting his between golden strands of hair. Somewhere, deep in their golden depths, the light of hope was kindled again.
"The choice is up to you," Roy said quietly. "Both of you."
Winston watched the lieutenant from the corner of his eye. She sat calmly on the bench next to the door of the back room where they did automail fittings, waiting patiently for her superior to finish what he had to say to El and Addie.
She certainly didn't look like a soldier. Winston hadn't ever seen a female soldier before, but he imagined them to look like the ones on the recruitment posters—broad-shouldered, tough-looking women, like a farmer's daughter who'd decided to move from hunting small game to shooting other people instead. But this woman...Hawkeye, Winston thought her name was...she certainly wasn't dainty, but there was a grace to her movements. She wore a skirt, and folded her coat neatly on her lap just like plenty of women he'd seen in town before. She could have been waiting for the train.
Winston turned back to the teapot on the kitchen counter, checking to see if it had steeped long enough. Granny hadn't let him go into the back room with the others, so there was little else to do but make refreshments. Even when they had automail customers, Granny let him do more than this.
With a sigh, Winston put two cups on a tray and poured the steaming amber liquid into them. Carrying the tray over to Hawkeye, he reluctantly held it out to her. "You want some tea?"
Hawkeye looked up in surprise and reached for one of the cups. "Oh, thank you."
Winston dropped down onto the bench beside her, glaring into the dregs of his own cup of tea. "It's...Lieutenant, right?"
"Just call me Riza," she said with a pleasant smile, holding out her hand to him. "Riza Hawkeye. Nice to meet you."
He stared at her, not shaking her hand. She looked and sounded so much like any other young woman Winston knew—back straight, not a hair out of place, pleasant smile... But there was a gun holstered at her hip.
"You've shot people before," he said bluntly. "Haven't you?"
The smile slipped off her face, and she stared down at her hand for a moment before letting it drop back into her lap. "I have," she said softly. "Many times."
Ripples appeared on the surface of Winston's tea as his hands trembled. He glared at them, tried to make them stop. But the fear was like ice in his bones, too deep for the warmth of the tea to penetrate. Fear of what was being said in the next room. Fear of the consequences.
Be strong, Winston, he told himself, like he'd been telling himself ever since the giant suit of armor with Addie's voice had shown up on the doorstep with El's broken body. You have to be the man of the house. You have to be strong for them.
So he set the teacup down on the tray beside him and turned to meet Hawkeye's gaze head on. "I don't like soldiers," he said, forcing his voice not to tremble. "My mom and dad got killed when soldiers took them to the battlefield. And now that guy named Mustang is trying to take El and Addie away. He wants to take my best friends away and make them soldiers just like the people who killed my parents. They're just kids, and he wants to turn them into killers!"
He bit his lip and made himself stop, fighting back the traitorous tears that pricked at the corners of his eyes. Breathing heavily, he clenched his fists on his knees and glared at the floor.
Hawkeye, on the other hand, remained completely calm. "We're not taking them with us by force. The choice is theirs to make." She lifted the teacup to her lips, sipping it thoughtfully. "To be honest, I don't like being a soldier. Knowing that if the situation calls for it, I have to be prepared to take a life."
Winston looked up in surprise. "So why are you in the military, then?" She had to have known what she was getting into, right? How could someone join the military and not expect to have to kill someone?
Hawkeye's gaze strayed to the closed door behind which her superior officer spoke to El and Addie. "Because there's someone I need to protect. It's not something I'm being forced to do. It's something that I decided for myself. I pull the trigger by my own free will...because I need to keep that person safe. Until the day that person reaches his goal...I will pull the trigger without hesitation."
She raised her hand slightly, moving her finger as if pulling a trigger as she stared into space. Looking at her, Winston found himself thinking of Addie's explanation of what they'd done, broken by tearless sobs of anguish. It had been an act of desperation, a mistake born from the pain of losing their mother. And El had sacrificed her entire arm to get Addie back.
"If those girls have a strong will," Hawkeye said with a hint of sadness in her eyes, "they'll know what the right place is for them. Although they may have to wade through a river of mud to get there."
With a sinking sensation, Winston realized he knew what their choice would be. Just like Hawkeye, just like his own parents, El and Addie wouldn't let something like the military get between them and their goals. And there was nothing Winston could do to stop them.
Several minutes of thoughtful silence fell between them. Then the door to the back room opened and Mustang strode out, shrugging into his coat. "That's all I have to say on the matter," he was saying over his shoulder. "If you decide to enlist, come to the East City Headquarters. My offer remains open."
Granny followed him out, with Addie close on their heels. She held an envelope in one big hand. Enlistment forms or a letter of recommendation or something.
"Let's go," Mustang said tersely, already heading for the door.
"Yes, sir." Hawkeye rose smoothly, pulling on her own coat. She turned back as Winston slowly got to his feet to watch them go. With a small smile, Hawkeye held her hand out to him. "I'll see you later, young man."
Winston stared at her hand for a moment—a hand stained with blood, with fingers that had pulled the trigger many times. Hesitantly, Winston reached out to grasp it. "Winston."
"I see." Hawkeye gave his hand a firm shake. He could feel the calluses on her fingers, the roughness of her skin and the strength of her grip. Would El's one remaining hand feel that way one day? "Okay, Winston. I hope to see you again."
Winston wasn't sure he could say the same, so he kept quiet.
The wagon rattled and bumped along the rough dirt road back to the train station. Roy settled back against the side, mind already running through the report he would need to write up, using just the right words to convince the right people that two prepubescent girls would be assets to the military—and that he would be the best choice of superior officer for them when they did. They couldn't let anyone else discover the girls' secret. And he wouldn't trust just anyone with their safety—
"Do you think those girls will come?" Hawkeye asked, breaking into his thoughts.
He nodded. "They'll come."
Hawkeye's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You're very confident. Judging by the look in that girl's eyes, I'd say she was beyond help."
Roy smirked, looking back at the yellow house fading into the distance. A house where a huge suit of armor pushed a little girl in a wheelchair. "You think so? I saw eyes that were burning like fire."