Stand by You

XXIV

The man began to feel around Edward's body as well and Edward flinched. "Hey...ow-w-w!" He cried.

"And some broken ribs, too," The man sighed as he released red sparks from his hands and Edward's ribs were all better.

Edward began to pat his body down in disbelief as Alphonse gawked at him and the man. "You both are precious resources to me," The man explained. "You have to look after yourselves."

Again with the being important sacrifices. Edward and Alphonse began to whisper to each other but I was out of the range where I would hear them. But, I could already guess what they were talking about; how did this man perform alchemy without a circle let alone a visible Philosopher Stone on him?

"Who are you?" Edward finally spoke aloud.

"This is impossible!" Ling shouted in disbelief, drawing his sword. "What have you got going on inside of you?"

"I'll ask the same thing," the man stared darkly at Ling. "Who are you and the young lady next to you?"

We chose not to respond, skeptical about the man after seeing his alchemy. Receiving no response at us, the man turned to Gluttony. "You can eat them both," he stated.

"Right!" Gluttony cheered, glad that he could eat the meal he was chasing.

"J-Just a minute!" Edward yelled as he ran up and stood in front of the two of us defensively. "They are friends of ours! Out of consideration for us being your sacrifices, can't you, you know..."

"It's not my affair," the man turned around and began walking away from us. "They are not anyone that I need."

"What?" Edward demanded.

"Brother," Alphonse muttered. "The Homunculi call him 'Father'. He's the one who created them."

"What?" Edward gulped.

"He did fix up our bodies though," Alphonse reminded.

"I don't like him...or his attitude," Ling limped forward with his injured and possibly broken shoulder. At that moment I remembered my injured shoulder and flinched, wondering if it was broken as well. "He's just like those who laugh at humans as being fools," Ling began to tremble and his sword began to shake.

Father turned around upon hearing the comment. "Do you think of bugs crawling along the ground as fools?" He contemplated. "When you see a worm struggling, you feel no association with it, because you levels are so vastly different, right? That's how I think about you humans."

Edward clapped his hands and slammed them on the ground and sent up a shock wave of rocks at Father but father didn't even move upon the rocks striking them and destroyed them with his alchemy, this time without even touching the rocks. "You may have healed my injuries,but we still have irreconcilable differences!" Edward grit his teeth as he clenched his automail fist at him. "You seem to be the root of all these events. I'm going to settle this, right now! I don't give a damn about the small fry."

"You're a fine one to talk about small fry, pipsqueak!" Envy shouted from his side of the room.

"Pipsqueak?!" Edward screamed for the billionth time at that insult.

Edward grasped the tubes on the floor and multiplied them, sending them at Envy and Gluttony to serve as a distraction while sending the rest at Father to wrap themselves around him, once more, Father didn't flinch, despite the situation he was in.  "I got you, boss man!" He grinned.

Father tore the pipes apart once more without even touching them. Envy attacked he lept into the air to stomp on us. We all separated as Envy landed and Edward constructed a pillar to stand on but Envy destroyed it by whipping his tail at it. Alphonse sent a pillar at Father but he created a invisible shield and when the pillar touched it broke apart. I attempted at sending explosive sparks at him but once they reached the shield they rebounded from blue sparks to red and they were sent back at him, causing me to go flying in the air and land on the ground. Ling tried to attack with his sword but Father created the same pillar Alphonse created and sent it at Ling.