Stand by You

XXXVI

We were walking through the endless halls of Third Laboratory. Edward was leading the way, but it seemed like he was lost. "Huh?" He muttered, searching the area, confused. "That's strange. I'm sure it was this way. No, that way?"

"Are you lost, Fullmetal?" Mustang taunted as he walked up beside Edward.

"Los-shut up! If I hadn't had to come back for a certain dumb nitwit fooling around, this wouldn't happen!"

"Nobody asked you to come back."

"Get out of here! If it weren't for Scar and I, you and Eve definitely would have lost your way!"

"Don't you patronize me. All you did was help your girlfriend, Clockwork. It was thanks to Lieutenant that I was able to regain control back there."

"What?!"

"Keep it down," Scar growled. "The enemy will find us."

"Scar..." Lieutenant Hawkeye started. "I want to offer my thanks now, while I can, for persuading the Colonel. I know that it probably upsets you Ishvalans to have someone like me say thank you, but you may have brought him back....to what he once was. Thank you."

"Your word of gratitude are not needed." Scar brushed off her thanks.

We walked on ahead without speaking to each other when all of the sudden, our entire group stopped walking. "We're close," Scar nodded.

"You think so too, huh?" Edward agreed.

"Can you guys sense his presence?" Lieutenant Hawkeye asked.

"I'm getting a bad feeling," Edward shook his head, trusting his gut instinct. "I guess you could say my uglier old wounds are aching."

Edward began taking the lead and along ahead into the unlit portion of the corridor until it opened up into a wide space that was a room. It was a dimly lit room, and the center of it, was a man wearing glasses squatting over a white transmutation circle. "Well, well, to think that I would have a gallery watching," he smirked, showing off his gold tooth. "You're making me nervous."

"Who are you?" Edward demanded as he turned his right arm into a half-foot long sword. We all prepared our weapons.

"Who am I?" He replied, placing a finger under his chin, his glasses gleaming so I couldn't see his eyes. "Well, I guess you could say...the man who created Führer Bradley..."

"The Führer?" Colonel sputtered, putting on his gloves. "That means that you're in their side!"

"Oh, it's you," the man's glasses stopped gleaming and I could see that his eyeballs were looking all over the place, indicating insanity. "I thought you were at the radio station, but you've came all the way down here for me. Thanks, that will save me some trouble, Mustang."

He lifted his hands up and several men all wearing white tank tops, khakis, and black military boots armed with swords came down from above and went after us. "Take these guys in for a bit," he smirked.

"Split up!" I yelled.

We all scrambled away into different groups. Edward dodged some of their sword attacks. "W-Who are these guys?" He asked.

"Mannequin soldiers?" Colonel Mustang suggested as he stood back-to-back with Lieutenant Hawkeye as the men circled them.

"No," Scar yelled, punching one of them in the face. "These guys move more decidedly then them!"

"These are the men that might have become Führer Bradley," the man explained, drawing something on the ground with chalk.

Colonel choked, "Men who are brought together when they are born, and given specialized education and training for the sole purpose of becoming Führer. And on the twelfth trial, Führer Bradley came into being. Then, these guys are..."