A/N: Hey guys! Long time, no update, huh? Sorry about that! I got a request from a friend over on tumblr, also known here on fanfiction as Melon Fuhrer, and she asked me to write another chapter so here you go!

Takes place at the end of episode 19.

Disclaimer: I, a lowly tater tot, do not own FMA

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Roy didn't like the feel of it at all, not the way his footsteps echoed under his boots or how the light bounced too brightly off Alphonse Elric's metal body. Barry the Chopper was too busy blabbering away at something but that sound of the explosion Roy had heard while he'd still been in the tunnels unnerved him.

Was the Colonel alright? He had to believe that she was. Who else could have made that noise but her?

The room they were in was large, and too white, too open, and a large set of doors loomed on the far side. He knew just by looking at them that they'd be too heavy to pry open, even with the help of the Elric boy. This was a dead end; they'd have to turn around and see if there was some other way. . .

The sound of footsteps interrupted his train of thought, short, staccato sounds that pierced the air and drew Roy's immediate attention as Barry turned around, a crazed grin in his voice.

"There you are, Lust."

Roy swiveled around to face the shapely form of a woman, a slightly exasperated look on her face and a red ouroboros tattoo at the center of her chest. He held his gun out in front of him, focused on her, ready to pull the trigger if he had to. If Barry knew who she was, chances were that she wasn't to be considered a friend.

Lust frowned at Barry the Chopper. "Number 66, why were you helping the Flame Colonel?"

"I thought it would be fun!" he crowed as he pointed his heavy butcher knife at her. "Besides. I want to chop you up!"

She didn't look impressed. Roy's foot shifted under him as he widened his stance, eyes narrowed, gun at the ready.

"And what about you, little armor boy?" Lust said, turning her eyes to Alphonse. She sighed and pouted seductively, looking up at the group of three through her long eyelashes. "This is a problem, isn't it? Such trouble. I was hoping I wouldn't have to kill two sacrifices."

"A sacrifice?" Alphonse asked. "Two?"

Roy only glared her down. Definitely an enemy. He wondered about the Colonel for a moment though he knew that he should keep his mind off his charge and more on the woman in front of him. It was hard, though, considering that Colonel Hawkeye wasn't there behind him where he could feel her presence and smell that faint scent of wood smoke that always seemed to cling to her uniform and her hair.

Lust grinned wickedly. "Yes. You and another."

Barry charged at her. "Enough! Time for me to chop you up!" He ran a few steps, his armored body clinking, before he leapt with his knife extending, laughing maniacally. Roy watched in abject horror as Lust's fingers grew to the length of swords before she sliced through the air in a movement so fast he almost missed it. Barry fell to pieces around her, the knife skidding away, silence falling over the room.

"I just hate overconfident men," Lust said in a drab voice before turning to smirk at Roy and Alphonse. "Now then, I suppose it's time for me to send the lieutenant to join his superior."

Roy drew in a sharp breath, trying very hard to think through the shock of her words. What about his Colonel? Where was she? What did this monster do to her? His mind raced as his hands began to tremble around the base of his gun and he remembered the explosion he'd heard in the tunnel.

Lust began to advance toward him with the smirk still in place, smug as ever, the clicks of her heeled shoes the only sound in the large room. He watched her with blank eyes as he began to understand, as the pieces fell into place and his hands grew even less steady. It wasn't possible, right? What this monster was implying wasn't possible. Colonel Riza Hawkeye was a fighter, a woman with more audacity than he thought humans should be capable of. For her to be.. . .

"You said two sacrifices," he said, his voice raw as he tried to deny, as he prayed to a god he didn't believe in that this wasn't happening, that none of this was real. "You don't mean. . .you don't mean. . ."

Lust's smirk widened into a crooked grin, cocked to one side of her face with a satisfied look on her face.

It was confirmation enough. He knew what that meant and something in him completely snapped in half. The pain came fast and hard, swallowing him as the anger burned in his eyes, burned in the tips of his fingers. His face hardened as his hands steadied and gripped tightly around the gun.

"You bitch!" he snarled, firing off. One round. Two rounds. The homunculus staggered backwards from the blows as he continued to empty the bullets into her body. It wasn't enough damn it! She was bleeding, but the bullets were ejected immediately from her body as she began to regenerate. His guns were helpless against her, the frustration and the absolute horror of the situation ripping through him as he discarded one gun for another in a holster at his shoulder. A wordless scream of outrage tore from his mouth as he squeezed the trigger.

Over and over. Bullet after bullet, she stayed on her feet. He could feel the anger subsiding as he screamed at her again, feel as the utter desperation began to claim his limbs and turn them to lead, as the realization that he would never see the colonel again with her corn silk hair and copper eyes, that he had failed in his mission to protect her.

He fired off every gun on his person, all reason lost in the heated blur of his anger, his facade dropped from his face. The last bullet pierced into Lust's forehead and he clicked the trigger a few more times, cursing when nothing else happened. His heart felt sick, clenching in his chest so violently he thought he could taste bile in the back of his throat. He felt his hands begin to tremble again and the anger was evaporated completely, disappeared into thin air. He was left with nothing but the unbearable knowledge that Hawkeye was gone; his eyes stared brokenly forward as the rigidity of his stances loosened.

Lust merely grinned. "You finished?"

He clutched at the empty gun, gasping as his empty gaze turned toward the floor, his mind slowing. How could this have happened? Havoc was perfectly capable of defending her but he should have been there, not Havoc. He never should have left her side; it was his job to protect her and he failed and now she was gone and he didn't know how that was possible, how that was something that actually happened. Because she was his tether, his reason, his goal. And for her to be gone? Snatched away in some distant place where he couldn't even watch the light leave her eyes?

His eyes traveled back to Lust as he gritted his teeth together. He would not cry, not in front of this monster, not in front of the being who had taken the Colonel's life. His clenched teeth, bit back the dry, broken sobs that caught in his throat and he dropped his arms to his sides. There was no point without the Colonel; she was the only thing left in this world that he was living for and now. . .and now she was. . .

He fell to his knees, his chest heaving, the gun sliding out of his hand. Bracing himself against the floor he swallowed the sobs and bowed his head, his shoulders shaking. There was nothing left for him on this earth, nothing to fight for, not without Riza Hawkeye. He didn't want to live without her. He. . .he couldn't live without her. It was unacceptable. It was impossible.

Lust scoffed at him. "You are weak and foolish. You poor, sniveling creature."

He was too empty to be bothered by her words. She was right, after all. He was weak.

Alphonse's armored body clanked as he came to take a stance in front of Roy, his hands clenched by his sides. "Lieutenant," he said, standing between the military officer and the homunculus. "Get up and run, Lieutenant." He clapped his hands together and pulled a weapon out of the ground, the blue sparks of alchemy blazing the white room with color. Lust's eyes widened.

"Oh, so you passed through the Gate," she drawled and then her hands sliced through his weapon and pierced the helmet of his head. "It's a shame I have to kill you. You really are the perfect sacrifice."

"Alphonse," Roy said, his voice cracking though subdued. He let the pain have its way; with any mercy he wouldn't be alive much longer to have to endure it. "Leave me here and run away."

"No!" Al said.

Roy gritted his teeth harder, his hands fisting against the tiles of the floor. "Run!"

"No!"

"Go!"

"I said no! I'm sick of watching people die right in front of me! I've had enough of it! I won't run away; I won't let anyone get killed anymore! I'm going to protect them!"

The words vaguely registered with Roy, another wave of despair pushing at him as he considered that the young boy would die if he didn't leave. That it would be Roy's fault if Alphonse was killed. Fullmetal would never forgive him for that, but then again, Roy didn't intend to be around long enough to have to face the alchemist. Roy wondered if he had the strength to at least make his escape and return the Elric boy to his brother, if he could live long enough to do that before putting a bullet in his head but he was leaden. Immobilized by the loss of her, of Riza. He wasn't going anywhere.

Lust racked her sharp fingers through Alphonse's armor, shattering pieces of his arm and cracking his helmet. The littered shards of metal fell around them and then there was another sound. A voice.

"I couldn't have said it better myself!"

Roy froze as the feeling his body began to return, as the pain began to transform into elation. He had just enough time to look up and peer between Al's legs to see the shape of her against the dark opening of the entryway and then a transmuted wall flew up and the snap of a finger lit the room in a hot volley of flames. Alphonse bent over him where he was crouched on the floor - this kid using his body to shield Roy, still protecting him - but though he was safe, that wasn't where he wanted to be.

He was sure that when he had looked up, that she was covered in blood. And even if she was alive, that was not okay by him.

A scream flew from Lust's mouth and another wave of heat was snapped into the room.

"So I finally got you on the ground," came Riza Hawkeye's voice, edged in steel. Her hand was clasped at a raw, ugly burn on her side as if she was holding herself together, her clothes absolutely soaked in her own blood, hair torn from its favorite clip. A transmutation circle was cut into the back of her hand, Havoc's spare lighter held tightly between two fingers. Her shirt lay open to expose the burn and her bra, her expression all fire and ferocity.

This was the second time today. The second time she only just made it before Lieutenant Mustang was murdered for simply being his aide.

The homunculus, looking worse for the wear, her regeneration throwing red sparks across her body, glared at Riza over her shoulder. "You carved a transmutation circle into your own hand," she gasped breathlessly and cruelly.

Riza said nothing, merely pointed another column of fire at the monster on the ground.

"How did you get here with that wound!" Lust screamed against the flames. "I know where I stabbed you!"

"I burned it shut," Riza said harshly, roughly, her voice full of ice in contrast to the deadly, fiery expression on her face. "I almost passed out, but I closed it." She unleashed another hot wave of flames, struggling to maintain enough control so that Mustang and Alphonse Elric wouldn't be charred by the blast. Her knees were shaking under her but she forced herself to remain upright, planted in place, as the homunculus screamed again, the sound full of undiluted agony.

"You said you weren't dead!" Riza shouted in fury. "So I guess that means I'll just have to kill you until you stay dead!" More fire. More screams. She felt lightheaded but no one was wiser. The last thing she was going to do now was pass out before she could kill that damned thing. Not after what it had done to Havoc; not after what it had tried to do to Mustang.

She kept the crumpled, unconscious Havoc in her thoughts, forced herself to see Mustang slumped on the ground to fuel the anger and the adrenaline in her system.

Another wall of fire. Another wordless screech of pain.

Through the din, Riza could hear the Lieutenant shouting for her, only adding to the fire in the most literal sense.

Over and over, Riza assaulted Lust with a torrent of flames, warding off the pain, standing her ground because she would make sure this monster disappeared off the face of the earth before she gave into anything. The homunculus lunged forward and attempted to pierce through Riza's head with a single finger, but the inhuman creature failed and, for the last time, was ravaged by the fire from the Colonel's hand.

There was a moment of stillness after the flames disappeared and then slowly, slowly, Lust began to disintegrate into ash.

"Well done, Miss Flame Colonel," she said in a smooth, dignified voice. "You've beaten me and proved yourself. There are worse ways to die than at the hands of a human like you."

Riza said nothing, whether her tongue was held by the pain or just the total disinterest in replying to the creature who had almost killed her and two of her subordinates was not discernable.

Lust smiled as she fell and floated away into thin air, becoming nothing. "Your eyes are unyielding. I look forward to the day they are filled with agony. It's coming. . ." Her voice turned into a hiss, an echo, and then the body and the ash was gone.

Riza cringed and her strength evaporated. She staggered and fell to the ground with a sharp gasp as Mustang pushed away from the transmuted wall and ran toward her.

"Colonel!" he shouted, his eyes wide and shaken, Alphonse trailing behind him. Something in her chest released and she could breathe when she saw just how safe and unharmed Mustang really was, that he had all four limbs and not a splatter of blood stained his clothing. He dropped to his knees beside her and she looked up into that face of his that she knew so well before she chanced a smile at Al.

"Thank you for protecting my lieutenant," she said, her voice weak and fragile now that the battle was over. "We'll need to get some doctors for Havoc. He's been hurt even worse than I have."

Mustang brushed her bangs back from her face with a tender hand and it was amazing how palpable his relief was. She would give him a stern talking to later, for having believed the homunculus and doing nothing to save his own ass, but for now she was too injured and too happy to see that he was alright.

"You aren't doing so hot yourself, Colonel," he said as Alphonse stood and ran to get help. "No pun intended." A lopsided grin pulled at his mouth; incredible that just minutes before he thought he'd never smile again.

She rolled her eyes.

"I'll go get help, Colonel!" Alphonse shouted as he left the room.

"Havoc first!" she called out.

Roy shook his head, his fingers touching her forehead again, a spasm of pain rippling across his face as she gritted her teeth against the agony in her body that was beginning to make her vision go dark.

"Colonel, I need you to worry about yourself for once," Mustang said somberly, bordering on desperation. "Please. Just for once."

She smiled tightly up at him, trying to hold onto consciousness. "I'll be fine, Mustang."

"You better be," he whispered. "Or I'll kick your ass."

"Insubordination," she breathed as her eyes slid shut. The last thing she remembered feeling before she would wake in a hospital bed was a pair of arms that lifted her and the sway of a step as she was carried away.