Edward was grinning. Sure, he had been shot, but damn, killing those officers had been fucking amazing. The feeling of his claws tearing through their skin, the exhilaration of watching the shock and fear flash through their eyes, the scent of blood...the pain from the gunshot wound was so mild, so dull, that he was more annoyed than anything.

He coasted along on a warm air current, feeling the wind sift through his wings rather pleasantly which caused an even wider grin to grace his face.

Somewhere, deep inside the subconscious of the monster that looked like Edward Elric, the boy's soul cried out to be freed.

The monster merely laughed. The boy would never be freed from it's grasp. Not now that it had finally broke the boy. The predator wanted nothing more than to devour the frail boy, but even now, when his own friends were against him and his hands were awash in blood, he still clung to hope desperately.

--

Three in the morning was when the phone rang, and Alphonse was torn out of a deep sleep that was by no means restful. With a glare at the ceiling--and damn was it weird to actually be able to glare, to feel the sheets of the bed against his skin, smell the slightly sweet scent of the flowers in the corner on the windowsill--he picked up the phone which had been moved into his room for him.

Picking up the phone, he groggily held the annoying contraption to his ear. "Hello?" He mumbled, voice raspy from sleep.

"Alphonse? Good, you're all right. Listen," It was Mustang. "Your brother just killed some MP's. He's dangerous, and he disappeared. He's a chimera?" Mustang said, getting directly to the point.

Alphonse was instantly alert.  "He did what?" His voice was alarmed. Of course, he couldn't really be surprised. His brother had tried to kill him, had killed a military friend of theirs, and a small child. But still...just what had happened to his brother to make him snap?

"Just answer the question!" Mustang barked, and Alphonse had to think frantically to remember what the question even was. But remember he did.

In a voice that was hardly more than a whisper, he breathed, "Yes, Sir."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Roy growled. God, this whole thing would be so much easier if the boy had just told him!

"I-I'm s-sorry...I didn't think to...He seemed so...normal." Al whimpered, and Roy immediately softened his stance, sighing into the phone. 

"Don't be sorry, Alphonse. There's nothing you could have done." Farewells were exchanged, and both hung up the phone simultaneously.

Al sighed, rubbing at his eyes. 

His eyes turned into a dull gray. 

He knew now. He would go after his brother.

--Three months later--

Three months passed, and the murders continued. Entire families killed in minutes, torn apart and inner organs scattered across the room or used as gruesome room decoration.

Ed was smirking. At last...revenge.

He stood above the sleeping form of Elysia Hughes, his claws outstretched to strike downwards, to cut through that tantalizingly soft and unmarred skin. 

The Hughes family were strangers to him.

He had to believe that.

Or else he would never be able to finish the job.

Gracia Hughes had already been dispatched, having hardly put up a fight when she saw him, only crying and saying that she forgave him.

Elysia was next.

The child seemed to have grown since the last time he had seen her, and her slightly lanky, less chubby form was sprawled across her bed.

His claws came down, and the child was dead before they could scream.

Maes Hughes came home an hour later, tired and ready to snuggle up to his wife in bed. He didn't register the scent of blood, thick in the air, the fact that the hallway light was already on, or the fact that the house was disturbingly quiet, no sounds of his darling Elysia's shifting during the night.

It took him stepping in a puddle of blood that had saturated his bedroom carpet to freeze. 

The metallic smell of blood was clear to him, and with a trembling hand, he flicked on the light.

He threw up his meagre lunch from earlier that day, before racing with lurching steps to his daughters room.

He collapsed, dry heaving, on the once pastel but now dark crimson carpet.

He could have passed out, for all he knew, because when he next became truly aware of his surroundings, there was a pair of golden, bird-like eyes staring into his own.

"Hughes, glad you're awake." Edward Eric said, far to fucking cheerfully. "It was kind of rude for you to have passed out after all my hard work." There was a pout on the blonds lips, and a deranged gleam in their eyes.

"Why..?" Hughes was numb. His two darling girls...gone.

"Because you wronged me, Hughes. It's that simple. I trusted you and you wronged me." Ed let a lazy smile cross his face. "So now I'm going to torture you until you die, until your blood has all been spilt and runs cold over the ground."

And Edward Elric was a man of his word, chimera or not.

Before he left, however, he wrote one thing on the wall.

Rache.

Revenge.

--

It was Roy who had found his friend and their family, and an indescribable hatred for the boy he had found at such a young age and introduced to the military filled his entire being. He took a moment to be sick, the scent of vomit joining the scent of blood before he calmly rang Riza Hawkeye's home number. She picked up on the first ring.

Without waiting for her to say anything, he spoke. "Edward killed again." 

Riza slipped into an air of professionalism in an instant. "Who?"

"The Hughes family."

The line clicked, going dead.

--

Riza and the rest of Roy's team arrived within fifteen minutes, each hiding their grief behind a solid wall of professional apathy.

It was Havoc who had found what Edward had written in the Hughes' blood.

Fuery who translated it.

Falman who called Alphonse.

Riza who called the mortuary.

Roy who looked for any traces of where Edward was now.

--1013 Words--

Why the heck did I do that? Because I'm sick and miserable. That's why. Anyone catch the flipping obvious Sherlock reference? Comment if you did! ~The_Sin_Pride