Title: Her Nemesis
Fandom: Full Metal Alchemist
Disclaimer: I do not own FMA
Pairing: Edward X Winry
Rating: Teen
Genre: Action/ Drama/ Angst
Editor: Tegilbor
Summary: Her childhood was abruptly taken away from her, leaving Winry, as a cold deadly assassin. Will her fate change, when she had to eliminate Edward, the military dog? EdWin.
A/N: My first fanfic ever! Please R&R

---------------------------------------Her Nemesis---------------------------------------

Chapter 1 – Amid Darkness

The air was silent still, and the tension was on once more. From distance, I could see him dressed in a black tuxedo, leaning against a white pillar of the empty park. He looked as if he were waiting for someone, but to be more precise, he was waiting for me. I came near him, and muttered a small greeting, asking him if I had made him waiting too long.

"Who are you? Were you the one who called me?" He asked, with confusion in his eyes.

"Yes," I replied quietly.

"Do I know you? Forgive me, I may have known you, but well, I just couldn't recall you, and your voice. Who are you?" He asked me again, frowning, as if he were still making the best effort to remember who I was.

"Relax. You don't know me," I smiled at him, making his face a little more relaxed. "Yet I do know who you are. And the reason that I called you tonight, is simply to say goodbye."

"I don't understand," He replied, with a hint of annoyance from his voice.

"I'm sorry. I don't have time to explain. I would love talking to you, but I'm afraid time is short. Don't worry, your confusion shall be over soon," I assured him.

"But-"

I smiled, and slowly raised my Nemesis, cutting off his word. "Surprise," I whispered to him.

His confusion turned into fear. He raised and pointed his trembled fingers at me. "You, what do you want? Put it down. Put that thing down. What do you want? Money? I can give you as much as you want. Just put that thing down. I'll give you anything, what-what do you want?"

"Your life," I replied quietly, walking forward, and still pointing my Nemesis at him. I pulled her trigger, and a loud bang was heard. The sound of explosion that I've heard too many times, became the bell of his requiem.

It took him a whole three seconds to be completely still on the ground. I stared at the motionless figure lying on the white cold marble floor, beautiful scarlet blood slowly leaking out of him. Another piece of life was gone in a second.

He was a tall man, in his mid thirties, decent looking, with well-built body. Thick neck, and perfectly tanned skin. His every step was full of confidence, and his aura consisted of strong and precise presence. Yet, at that moment, he was nothing more than a motionless figure, so lifeless, and so imperfect. The edges of his dark hair soaked into the stunning color of his blood, a scene that always scared me, yet fascinated me at the same time.

Watching him, I understood the unwritten fact: the fragility of human life. I lived up to that knowledge, I was aware of it, and I feared it. A bang and that is all it took for a life to be taken away. A bang and you are gone.

I walked away from the scarlet corpse, closing my eyes, inhaling the sour smell of the fresh blood. I made my way outside the building and closed the door of the now empty ballroom, whispering my late goodbye.

The sky was black, and the rain was pouring hard. Great, I thought in sarcasm. I did not bring an umbrella. It would take too long to wait for the rain to stop, so I started walking. There were no pedestrians on the road, only a few cars were passing by, none of them noticing me.

My black coat was heavy and soaked by the rain, and water in puddles was splashing on my boots. I hated the rain, yet I had to keep on walking. The only way for me to get over with this, was to continue moving forward, no matter how much I detested it.

I sighed and looked down at my hands. Another life was taken, another existence erased; another lost.

Fifteen minutes later, I arrived in the Para's base. It was a tall building, thirty storages high, dark windows, with white and grey walls. A sign "Prelude Insurance Company" was inscribed on the front entrance: a fake sign. It was not for a company that the building was used. It was the Para.

I entered the front gate, and a man in his fifties greeted me. We called him Jade. It was not his real name, and I did not know what his real name was. Yet he was there, everyday, guarding the front gate even before I arrived in Para. I noticed the empty chair besides Jade's. Usually, there was tall man with glasses sitting there, but not today.

"Hey Winry! A late job tonight?" He asked, sucking in his pipe.

"Yeah," I replied shortly. "You are alone tonight?"

"What, you don't trust me kid?" He said, laughing behind the tick grey smoke from his pipe. "I may not be as agile as I used to have been, but my aim is still one of the best here."

I laughed with him, before excusing myself. Jade was a nice guy, with good sense of humor. Yet I did not feel like talking to him tonight. A familiar thick cloud was hanging in my head, with the all too familiar feeling that I got after every time I finish my job.

Jade mumbled and pressed the passwords on the locked gate before letting me in.

"Meet you again soon, kid!" I heard him saying loudly. I waved to him before walking inside.

I walked slowly to my room, passed the empty and dull corridor. I sighed. This is going to be another of those long nights. I opened the door of my room. Nothing changed, still the same as the way I had left it earlier. It was a simple room with a small bed, a cupboard, an empty desk, a small round table with a vase of white plastic lilies on it, and a computer in the corner. Everything was white: the wall and the floor, the sheet and the cover, the blinds, the desk, and every piece of furniture. I never bothered to add anything with a different color; not because I hated another color, but simply because I had no good reason to have one. It might seem to be too simple of a room for a teenage girl, but its plainness attracts me.

The bathroom was located next to my bed. It was another one of the plain white room, with a shower and a tab. I removed my boots and my rain-soaked clothes in the bathroom, and took a long hot shower. I wanted to cry, and I wanted to scream, but for what? There is no reason for me to do so. I did not lose anything; nothing had been taken away from me. It was I, who took their lives away.

I did not lose anything. I tried to assure myself that simple statement. It did not work. It never worked. After those jobs, all I felt was emptiness. I felt like I was a big giant hole that was craving to do something, but without success. The water was pouring to my face, and I sighed again. I could no longer tell the difference between my own tears and the water from the shower. Perhaps I did not cry at all, or even if I did, it did not matter anyway.

After the shower, I lay down in the bed, and closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness that surrounded me. Being in the dark made me feel at ease. There were times when the darkness scared me, but in the times like this, it gave me a calm and peaceful feeling.

Third time of the month, and I was already feeling uneasy: the image of him lying on the cold marble floor, the way his right hand reached out for me right before he fell, the hopeless light shining in his brown eyes… I shook my head, trying to get the image away from me. I turned my body, burying my face against the soft pillow. By tomorrow morning, I thought. By tomorrow morning his dead body would be found. I tried picturing a janitor, or a gardener coming to work the next morning, whistling away with one hand carrying a broom – only to find a corpse lying down in the pool of crimson blood.

After what seemed to have been hours, or even ages, the image finally blurred away and I was in the darkness once more.

The next morning I woke up and found my pillow damped by the tears that I shed from a dream last night - a dream that I could not remember.

By afternoon, there was still no call from the Para, no new job for me to do, no life for me to take. Just for today, I sighed in relief, and walked outside. The snow was falling softly – the first snow of the year. I walked quietly, passing the busy Central Street. There were all kinds of people walking fast and passing me, not even casting a glance at me. For them, I thought, I was simply an invisible presence who strolled alone in my own world: alone and quiet, just the way I liked it to be.

I sat in a coffee shop, and looked at them, those high school girls in uniforms. They walked and they laughed. I wondered what life truly meant; is it the ordeal of survival, or is it the joy of life that truly counts. We, gunslingers of Para, pulled our triggers to continue life, even by the means of taking the lives of others. The more people we shot, the less hard it seemed to pull the triggers. We took lives in exchange of survival, yet I was not sure if each of us actually owned an individual life. In the outside, we seemed to control human lives, but in reality, deep within the Para itself, we were controlled, by a force greater than our imagination. Although in an outsider's eyes, the gunslingers of Para were in charge, but we were simply nothing more than a group of human beings, trying to justify the reason of life.

It wasn't fair. It didn't seem fair, but the world is not a fair place. Money controlled everything: life, goods, fame, and love. Yes, even love. I have known countless wealthy businessmen, and mafia bosses. They got what they wanted. They got the life they wanted: fame and women. We worked with them, all the time. I never liked them, yet I was used to it. It didn't matter how much we despised them; their money controlled us. It wasn't fair, yet I could do nothing but to follow the flow of the procedures and the deals. It sounded stupid, yet I could not deny it.

I paid for my coffee, and sat alone on the bench of the park. It seemed that there was nothing for me to do but to sit and watch. I did not want to go back to the Para base. I hated it… its tense atmosphere, its cold and bitter air, and the smell of death. I did not want to go back, although deep down I knew, that it was the only place to which I belonged: like a chained and trained dog… I would still have to go back inside it, regardless how much I hated it. Yet at that moment, all I did was to sit alone on the bench of the park, looking at the sky.

I loved watching the snow falling. Fragments of ice dancing their way down to the ground… a beauty that lasted but a moment. When morning comes, and the sun rises up in the sky, the snow would melt away, leaving nothing and remaining only in the memory of its adorer. Yet even those memories would not stay forever. There are times when the falling beauty would soon be forgotten, until the next winter, when it would fall once more, dancing all over again. The cycle would continue: dancing away to be forgotten until the next dance emerges. Nothing lasted forever. Not even the dance of the fallen beauty. Not even its memory. Nothing. I sat quietly under the snow, wondering how it would feel to be one.

"See these pictures?" a voice called out of the computer's speaker.

It had been days since my last walk in the Central.

"Observe them carefully, Winry," said the voice again. It was a cold, harsh voice.

"Yes sir," I replied. My heart throbbed in an unpleasant way. I was receiving my new job; a fourth one for this month. I looked at the picture: a teenage boy about my age, with braided blond hair, grinning like a child, standing, beside an empty metal suit of armor.

"You know what you're supposed to do, Winry. They are about your age, so we thought that you are the most suitable person for the job."

"Yes sir, I understand. I will not fail you," I replied coldly.

"I know you would not… you never did. You are one of the bests here, so I would be looking forward for it. Be conscious, they are quite a tough bunch… and a pretty famous one too."

"Yes sir."

"That is all," replied the voice for the last time. And the room was silent once more.

I looked at the picture in the screen for one more time.

Edward Elric and Alphonse Elric.

Their names were written next to the picture.

"The Elric brothers, huh?" I mumbled to myself, before turning off my computer screen. "Funny, I just had the feeling that tonight was going to be a little out of ordinary."

-end of chapter 1

A/N: I hope you all enjoy that. A big thank you for my editor: Tegilbor.
That is my first fanfiction ever. I will try my best to update it as soon as possible, so stay in tune! ...
Reviews are hoped for.
Tnx!

- FrozenAlchemy ✖