Wonderful fanart made by @TempermentalTeenager in Art Book Galore. Please check out the original image if you can! 

Beta: TaintedLetter

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

They did not stay at Briggs for more than another couple more hours. General Armstrong showed Papa and Elizabeth around the fort, answered questions, and gave Elizabeth an odd smile. It was abundantly clear that General Armstrong was pleased with Elizabeth's results with the Drachma soldiers. It showed both in her demeanor, and her respectful tone she used when addressing Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was downright happy to have earned the respect of such an intriguing woman, and she reciprocated the treatment with sweet smiles and cheerful conversation.

It was a shame that they couldn't stay for much longer, but Papa wanted to move down to inspect Dublith.

And off they went.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Like with the previous train ride, this one was a comfortable one. Since they were traveling at night, however, Elizabeth took the opportunity to get some sleep. She curled up beside her Papa, and he indulged her affection with patient tolerance until the morning rays of sun peeked through and showed off the city of Dublith.

Dublith was the second most southern city in Amestris, and was most known for its dark lake that attracted plenty of tourists itching to go camping. It was a decent enough time with a small military outpost—that likely had a panic attack when Papa radioed them less than an hour before the train would arrive that he was coming for a surprise inspection and he wanted a dozen guards prepared.

Since it was roughly still in the middle of Amestris—not too west, or east—it had a mild climate that would fluctuate during the seasons. This was also part of its appeal, as some of the other cities were too far stretched out and stuck in certain climates.

The train pulled in to Dublith and Elizabeth was the first to exit. She stepped off the train, relieved that snow was not greeting her this time around, and assessed the gathered soldiers who stood in salute for them.

Papa stepped off behind her, glancing at the soldiers. "At ease. Let's not waste much time. Is the car prepared?"

"Sir!" A soldier stepped forward. "The vehicle is prepared, sir. Please follow me."

Papa inclined his head in acknowledgement, and both he and Elizabeth followed behind the forgettable soldier into an awaiting car. The car took off the moment they were seated, and Elizabeth could see that they were closely followed by other cars filled with soldiers.

'A little odd for an inspection,' she thought.

"Papa, what are the soldiers for?" she inquired, glancing over at her Papa and surprised to find him taking off his coat and pulling out his rapiers from his suitcase.

"Hmm." Papa hooked his rapiers onto his outfit. "Officially, this is an inspection. In truth, this is an extermination. The soldiers here caught wind of some rats that need to be caught."

Elizabeth let out a soft oh at that, understanding what was going on. "What would you have me do, Papa?"

Papa didn't respond for several minutes. Not even when the car stopped and he got out—Elizabeth followed right behind him. He walked over to the entrance of a foul-smelling hole in the wall with an ugly sign that read Devil's nest.

'Ugh,' Elizabeth thought in distaste, staring up at the uncapitalized n.

As the soldiers began to reconvene beside the two, Papa leaned over and placed a hand on Elizabeth's back. He whispered, soft enough only to be heard by her.

"Wrath is hard to control. Your self discipline is remarkable for your age, but not perfect," Papa told her. "I am going to give to you what has worked for me in the past when I feel it's become too hard to hold back."

Elizabeth curiously looked up.

"A way to release what has been built up," he continued.

Elizabeth frowned at that, tilting her head.

"In this den are chimaeras," Papa said. "And they are led by a man who has betrayed Selim and me."

Hot white anger clouded Elizabeth's gaze and made her ear rings. Her stomach dropped as a furious, snarling wolf howled in her chest. Rage made her tremble, her breathing hitched, as murderous desire leaked out from her.

(The less experienced soldiers stepped back at the spike of bloodlust.)

Papa smiled at her, satisfied with her instantaneously reaction. He straightened up, and returned to his normal voice, "Their corpses are yours for your own experiments for Nina, but none must leave here alive."

Elizabeth did not hesitate.

She shot forward, ripping out her rapier and coating it with one of her poisons.

No soldiers followed behind her, because none were needed.

She ripped through the first one, not even hesitating at gouging out its throat. She spilled the guts of the second one, and sliced open an artery of the next. She moved with grace and skill taught to her by Wrath and his tutors.

She moved with experience given to her by her thousands of lives.

Those only grazed by her poison were soon on their knees, clutching at their throats as their windpipes' constricted shut and they became unable to breathe. Elizabeth's heels clicked hard on the pavement as she sprinted, and moved to stay out of the arterial spray.

She didn't want to get their filthy traitorous blood on her dress, after all.

'How dare,' she thought, unable to wrap her mind around the fact that anyone would even think about betraying Selim, or Papa. 'How dare?! You wretches! You arrogant scum! Know your place.'

Why would anyone do such a thing?

'Why do humans betray?'

'Why do they beat children?'

'Why do they have to be so cruel?'

She didn't understand. Her family had only ever been kind to her, had only ever welcomed her.

Her dearest companions weren't human and yet they were infinitely kinder.

Humans themselves seemed to be savage creatures, hellbent on destroying themselves. Good people were a rarity for the human race, not the expectation.

Good people like Maes Hughes, the Elric brothers, and Mumma.

Yes. They would never betray her or her family.

Her anger quelled for a moment thinking back on her friends and then—

"E-Edward?!" Elizabeth squeaked out in surprise, looking up into the next concrete room to find a banged up Edward staring at her in surprise. She had high kicked into one of the chimaeras, digging her rapier into its throat, and now she stood over its corpse, blinking in surprise upon seeing her friend.

"Lizzie?" Edward gawked. "You—What are you doing here?"

"Taking out the trash," she casually responded, giving her friend a worried look. "Edward, are you okay?"

"I'm—I'm fine," Edward coughed, forcing himself back up to stand. Elizabeth looked over at the tall woman who stood beside him, noting how the woman slightly shifted her posture as if to prepare to catch Edward at any moment.

"Papa and other soldiers are at the entrance," Elizabeth kindly told him. "Please go there and get looked at."

"I—" Edward winced. "They took Alphonse."

Oh.

Oh. No.

Elizabeth squeezed her rapier so tightly it almost hurt her fingers. With her free hand she decided to pull out the less kind toxin to use, and idly began to coat her rapier. With a forced reassuring smile she said, "Don't worry, Edward. I'll go bring him back."

Their eyes met. Elizabeth could plainly see the anxiety and concern Edward felt for his brother, just as Edward could plainly see the burning anger and unwavering determination Elizabeth had.

He gave a slow nod. "I know."

She curtsied before taking her leave.

Oh, she was furious. She was downright vengeful.

On top of betraying Selim and Papa they kidnapped and hurt her friends!

She double coated her rapier with more painful toxins, dissatisfied she couldn't take her time to truly make them regret the horrors they've done.

What if she hadn't arrived? Would they have killed Edward?

'Would they have tried to kill Selim?'

No, no, no, no, no, no.

She was not having that.

She was not having that at all.

Humans were despicable. Truly, and utterly, they were depraved beings. Savages dressed up and masquerading as humans.

Beasts without grace.

She hunted down what she could find, ending their lives without remorse or pity. None of them received kind deaths for their transgressions, and none of them could do much else but receive the inevitable punishment.

She followed the tracks, the sounds of whimpers and hurried footsteps, to a sewer. She threw poisoned daggers to those in her way, and she did not stop her hunt until she found Alphonse sitting on the dirty floor.

He looked up at her, and his suit made a noise that immediately told Elizabeth it was no longer hollow.

'Someone is inside of him?!'

How violating!

"Lizzie!" Alphonse exclaimed in both relief and surprise. He did not notice the way her rapier dripped with blood, nor the splatters of the chimaeras on her shoes. "What are you doing here?"

"Following orders," she answered, "and rescuing you."

She would be lying if she said she wasn't tempted to just ram her rapier inside of Alphonse and kill whoever was forced themselves inside. But that was risky and could damage the blood seal that kept his soul bound to the armor.

So she placed her rapier down and undid her hair bow. She flipped it inside out to reveal several tiny sewed in pockets. She pushed one of the pockets open and out popped a petite capsule that when crushed released a small burst of gas. She repeated the process until she had three capsules—enough to fill Alphonse's armor.

She approached her friend, noticing how he started to fidget—restraining the one inside, perhaps?

She said, "Edward is fine, if you're worried."

"Oh—" Alphonse said just as Elizabeth crushed the capsules and threw them inside of him under his helmet.

There was an immediate coughing sound, wet and raspy as the person accidentally inhaled the foul-smelling sleeping gas.

Then silence.

"Can you move?" Elizabeth asked him. "That was sleeping gas, so the person inside should be unconscious now."

"Oh! Yes, thank you," Alphonse said, slowly standing up.

"We'll have to have Edward pull them out. I don't think I have the body strength to do so," Elizabeth apologized.

"Yeah... okay," Alphonse said.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Elizabeth returned to the surface with Alphonse, surprised to find Papa not there. The soldiers told her he caught wind of an interesting scent and went to hunt it down. Elizabeth hoped that meant she had even more cadavers to work with.

Edward pulled the unconscious girl out of Alphonse, and Elizabeth ordered the soldiers to tie her up tightly. She was half tempted to break the kidnapper's legs and arms to ensure it wouldn't escape, but decided against such actions since it might accidentally kill the cretin if it died of shock.

It would be nice to have a live subject, after all. Even though Papa ordered for all of their deaths, Elizabeth wanted that one to live.

It violated her friend, forcing its way inside of him without his consent. Taking away his control, kidnapping him—

She could only return the favor.

With the soldiers taking away the last remaining chimaera, and the rest securing the area, Elizabeth approached her friends and asked them, "Are you both okay?"

"We're fine," Edward said, a perturbed expression flickering over his face. "Al... would you please take teacher back? I want to talk with Lizzie."

Alphonse nodded, giving a small bow to Elizabeth. "Thanks, Lizzie. I'll talk to you later."

"See you," she returned, watching him head off to the tall woman that was previously with Edward.

Edward patted the spot on the pavement beside him, and Elizabeth brushed back her dress before taking a seat. She had to squash her petticoat down—she used her petticoat to hide all of her big weapons such as grenades and extra daggers that were strapped to her front and outer thighs.

"Lizzie... I've been wanting to ask you something for a while," he said quietly, his face somber. "If you don't want to answer, you don't have to. I never want to make you uncomfortable."

"Ask, Edward," Elizabeth encouraged, tossing a warning glance at the soldiers who were about to approach the two. Both scurried off so Elizabeth and Edward could remain in relative privacy in that smelly alleyway. "I'll answer if I can."

"How can you do it?" he asked her softly. "How can you take a life so easily?"

Elizabeth blinked at that question, peering at the conflicting expression on his face and dark overcast on his golden eyes. She thought it was a strange question to ask, since the answer was obvious. "They don't matter to me."

His head snapped up at that, his eyes wide. "What?"

'He's so easy to read,' she thought fondly. Edward let all of his emotions play out on his face without any restraint. She could see he was bothered by her response, and genuinely surprised. As if that answer could never have occurred to him.

'Truly,' she thought, 'what a kind soul.'

Still. He was supposed to be a soldier, too, right?

She didn't understand why he was upset.

She unconsciously tilted her head in curiosity at his reaction. "They're strangers. Why should I care about them? I took their life because they broke the law, and Papa asked me to. I don't care, because why should I?"

"They're—they're people!" he exclaimed, eyes widening as he became bewildered and anxious at her response. He was shifting his posture around, and he had raised his voice, plainly showing his emotional distress from her response.

"And being human means you're entitled to life?" she retorted, her tone a tad harsher than necessary as a reaction from him raising his voice. She caught herself, though, and softened her tone. "It means they are excused from their punishment? From justice? Their betrayals were unforgivable, Edward."

"But that's—" Edward cut himself off, his face turning red from flustered frustration. He didn't have the words right away to explain to her why taking a life wasn't right. He was upset, and deeply bothered by Elizabeth's answers, but Elizabeth simply couldn't see why.

"I don't understand why you're so mad," she admitted, her big green eyes looking up at him in confusion.

"You—you don't?" he repeated back, his anger slipping out of him as he stared at her with a paling face. "You really don't, do you?"

She shook her head, perplexed. "Why should I not take their lives? That's what I've been trained for my whole life, Edward."

He was quiet for a minute, his brow furrowed as he considered how to respond. His entire body fell back against the brick wall they leaned against in that alleway and he sagged. He almost looked defeated by her response as he thought hard on how to answer her.

"Elizabeth, why do you save lives?" he asked softly, golden eyes slowly looking back down at her.

Elizabeth's eyes widened briefly, the question throwing her off.

Why did she save lives? Why did she devote her time and resources to saving humans instead of destroying them?

She recalled, at first, her motivations were earnest. She truly wanted to help people, she wanted to take care of them, wanted to improve medicine so more people could go home to their families. She, sincerely, wanted to help.

That sincerity dried up when her Grandfather and his servants tried to kill her.

And over the years, bit by bit, it became less important. She started working more with toxins, bombs, and ways to kill. More and more lethal ideas popped in her head, and she became more and more interested in trying them out over medicine.

She had to acknowledge, now, that she no longer had an interest in medicine for the sake of saving lives. The only way it kept her attention was her academic curiosity of the human body.

She didn't care about saving lives anymore.

The thought of doing so only left her with a hollow pang in her chest, and a bitter taste in her mouth.

She didn't like humans.

So many of them—too many of them—were awful. Awful to themselves, awful to each other—

'So painfully cruel.'

She, as a human, was no exception. She was once a sincere girl who wanted to help, but now?

She wasn't any better. She wasn't a kind soul like Mumma, or a noble one like Edward and Alphonse.

She was a soldier. She killed, she tortured, she maimed, she performed acts of cruelty.

She didn't even feel bad about what she had done. There was no guilt, nor regret, over her actions. She would do them all again, and again, and again, if asked of her. She was human, which meant she was a savage, but she was also something more.

She was a weapon for her family to use.

Weapons didn't feel. They didn't break. They weren't hurt by bad memories. They didn't get scared, or upset.

Being a thing was easier.

Being a thing was better than being human.

"I don't know," she answered honestly, softly. Her gaze, hollowed, glanced down and away. She finally admitted out loud what she had been trying to ignore for years. "I don't think... I don't think I care anymore, Edward."

"Oh, Lizzie," he said quietly, pain flickering into his eyes on her behalf.

She couldn't understand what she had lost, but he could.

He pulled her into a hug, gently patting her back. "Then I'll show you. I'll show you why human lives matter, why you shouldn't take them away so easily. Why... why you shouldn't give up on your humanity."

Elizabeth closed her eyes, accepting the warm hug.

She thought it was sweet of him.

But she also thought there was no point.

(óヮò)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

I think Edward would take a lot of issues to kids to killing more than he would adults, just given his own childish mentality.

Selim reunion next chapter!

Answer: Short term goal would be to one day buy a Nintendo Switch ahahah. ;-; Long term goal would be a best selling author.

Question: If you could be a celebrity, would you? What would you be famous for?

Reviews are love!