The Butterfly and Flame Alchemists: War (COMPLETE)

Part Five: The Truth

            “You know, I swear the chamber was this way…” Ed looked around the corridor, “or was it that way?”

            “Are you lost, Fullmetal?” Roy asked as he looked out of the corner of his eye.

            “THE ONLY REASON THIS IS HAPPENING IS BECAUSE I CAME BACK TO BAIL YOUR SUCKY BUTT OUTTA TROUBLE!” Ed yelled at him, glaring through the slits of his eyes.

            “I never asked you to come,” Roy shook his head.

            “Yea right! If Scar and I hadn’t been there to help you, you woulda gone over the edge!”

            “Don’t be so full of yourself. It was Ily and the Lieutenant who pulled me back to my senses,”

            “They’re too loud,” Scar said to Aileana and Hawkeye who were walking a bit behind Roy and Ed, “The enemy will find us,”

            “Scar,” Aileana said quietly as she looked down at her hands, “I wanted to thank you,”

Looking a bit surprised, Scar looked down at her as she looked up at Roy.

            “As an Ishbalan, I know you might resend this, but I want to thank you for making my husband see reason. Because of you he was finally about to get rid of his demons, something I’ve been trying to help him with for years; so thank you,”

            “I don’t’ need your gratitude,” Scar said quietly, but then stopped them when he noticed that Roy and Ed had stopped.

A few feet in front of them was an older looking man squatting in a clearing. Looking up, he smiled at them, revealing that one of his front teeth was made of gold.

            “Oh dear,” he spoke, “this place is getting rather packed, isn’t it? I’ve never been one for crowds. Well then… shall we begin?”

A heaviness seemed to have descended over them and the same shiver Aileana felt when they first came down the stairs of the laboratory washed over her once more.

            “Who are you?” Ed asked him as he created a blade from his automail.

            “Me? I guess you could call me the man who created King Bradley,”

Looking at the man, Roy remembered what the Fuhrer had told him when he had found out that Roy new he was a homunculus.

            They injected the philosopher’s stone into my body. Although my left eye rotted away in the process, I gained superhuman strength and reflexes.

            “Which means you’re on their side,” Roy said as he pulled on his gloves.

            “So it’s going to come down to that after all, eh?” the man made a motion with his arm, “then, you leave me no choice,”

From an opening in the ceiling, almost a dozen men with swords landed around the man and soon began to attack everyone.

            “What are these guys?!” Ed asked as he defended himself.

            “Are they doll soldiers?” Roy asked as he, Aileana, and Hawkeye kicked around a few other men.

            “No,” Scar said as he threw one off of him, “their movements are clearly different from those of the doll soldiers!”

            “They are the men who failed to become King Bradley,” the man answered their question, “they were brought here as infants. They endured all manner of training, hoping to become the future Fuhrer-president. But once we succeeded in creating Kind Bradley after twelve attempts, we had no further use for the other candidates. They were the ones who never tasted the philosopher’s stone. In other words, they are the left-overs,”