Chapter 4

"So, how are we getting in?" Asuka asked when she saw the barbed wire on top of the high, metal wall. The door was heavily locked and suspicious since there was a guard there too. Who would want to guard a building that is abandoned unless something suspicious is going on? "Magnetic fields are involved with electricity to a certain extent, so I can easily get up there, but they would notice the light. They'd notice the light from the transmutic reaction if you want to create your own entrance too."

"In that case..." Ed hopped on Al's hands and Al flung him up onto the wall. Ed grabbed the barbed wire with his automail hand, torn it, and made a gap in the fence of wire.

Al flung Asuka up next and she landed lightly next to Ed. He then threw the bundle of wire down so Al can grab it and climb up. They then jumped on the laboratory's lawn, and made their way across it towards the building.

"It's locked up here too?" Ed asked after looking at the patched up door, before realizing a small air vent hole. He climbed on Al and easily removed the dusty screen. "Sorry Al, it looks like only me and Asuka can fit through" Asuka climbed up too and entered after Ed.

"Awwww... I must look so uncool..." Asuka complained. The air vent brought back memories of the eighth angel, the day that Tokyo 3 stood still.

"Damn, it's even tighter in here than I thought..." Ed ignored her "I couldn't have gotten through here if I was regular-sized... Luckily, my body's smaller." Realization hit him with the force of a cement bus going down a steep hill at 60 miles an hour. "AH! I JUST CALLED MYSELF SMALL!"

"Get over it" Asuka responded

After another few minutes of crawling through the spider web filled vent, they finally reached another screen. Ed kicked it off and jumped down, landing on the floor of a small hallway. Asuka landed next to him.

"There are lights on..." Ed noticed "Not currently in use, my foot. Bingo"

They walked on. Following the lights until they came to a large room. The centre had some kind of transmutation circle on it with a regular polygon in the middle. At each edge, or where the edges were supposed to be, of the polygon, there was instead another 5 circles smeared with dried red liquid that Asuka assumed was blood.

"What is this? Is it possible that this is for transmuting a philosopher's stone?" Ed wondered out loud

"That is correct" Another voice rang out. Ed and Asuka's heads whipped to face the speaker, who entered the room from another entrance. He was holding a Japanese katana and was wearing armour, just like Al appeared to be. "I don't know who you kids are, but if you can tell that just from looking at the transmutation circle..."

"Who are you, pops?" Ed interrupted

"I'm the one charged with guarding this place. I'll go by the name 'Number 48' for now" The suit of armour answered, slowly making his way towards Ed and Asuka "And by the way, I'm not your pop. I have orders to dispose of any outsiders that come in here. Don't think ill of me, kids"

"I could say the same" Asuka answered as Ed clapped his hands together and ran his left hand over his automail one, which immediately turned into a blade. "Don't think ill of us when you're defeated by 'kids'"

"Hmph, so Blondie over here's an alchemist, are you?" 48 moved in a flash, appeared less than a foot away from Ed, sword at the ready "Let's look at what you've got..." He swung, but Ed ducked in time and parried his attack and leapt away "Your prosthetic arm just saved your life..." He swung at Asuka, as she was closer to him than Ed was now. She ducked too, but instead of jumping away, she grabbed him around the waist into what seemed like a hug, but irregular flashes of purple-white light appeared and electrified him so hard, that no normal human being would be conscious after that attack. But the suit of armour didn't appear, nor feel like a normal human being, and her woman's intuition was telling her create some distance between them, so she leapt away and joined Ed's side.

"Good perception. If you were one second late, your pretty head will be rolling on the floor right now"

"Damn, it doesn't seem like normal electricity can hurt him" Asuka noted "And railgun takes too long, and even if I did manage to use it, the building will be likely to collapse... So then..." Asuka stretched out her hand, palm facing down, and what appeared to be black sand rose from the ground and swarmed around her hand, and created a long, black, sword like object. She swung it around, and the black sand still stayed in the sword like shape, and she charged into 48 and swung. 48 ducked, but the black sword cut through one of his metal horns on his helmet.

"What? That's not fair! I thought your field of alchemy was only associated with electricity! So how can you control sand as well?" Ed asked, unable to believe it
"You should at least be able to guess why" Asuka replied, but after still seeing Ed's confused face, she sighed." Seriously, and you call yourself an alchemist... Think, dumbass! What makes up an atom?"
"What? That's easy. Protons, neutrons and..." he trailed off, comprehension washing over him
"I see..." 48 began "since electrons radiate electric energy, you take full advantage of that and can make any object, since everything is made of atoms, move. you make the sand around this place vibrate at extreme speeds and then force that into a shape of a sword. So your sword can cut through everything it touches."
"I prefer to use sand..." asuka said "The smaller the object, the less resistance it provides against the atmosphere, therefore, the faster it moves for me. Sand is easiest but is also unfortunately the only thing I can control so far with this technique..." she admitted. Ed broke the moment of stillness by charging into 48. He leapt away, the chains around his waist banged on his armour, and created a hollow sound.

"Let me guess, pops, you're hollow on the inside, aren't you? That's why electricity doesn't hurt you." Ed assumed

"I'm impressed that you realized that" the armour replied

"I spar against someone like you all the time, you see"

"Oh, so there are those on the outside like me too, aren't there?"

"Well, that's annoying. Imagine some other idiot out there who came up with the idea of bonding a soul to a suit of armour!"

"Let me introduce myself again." 48 began "'48' is my condemned prisoner number. In life... or should I say, back when I had a living body, I was known as Slicer, the mass murderer."

"So you are a condemned prisoner" Asuka confirmed her assumption "Tell me, they used condemned prisoners in this place as ingredients to make philosopher's stones, right?"

"It is difficult for me to answer" Slicer said "they recognized my skills, gave me this body, and made me the watchdog of this place."

"Which means that you have a seal that serves as the medium between soul and armour"

"Yes, that is correct" 48 opened his helmet. If it was any normal person, Asuka would have seen the face. But Slicer wasn't normal, so instead, they saw a circle at the back of the helmet that was similar to Al's seal. "This bloodseal. If you destroy this, you win."

"It's very kind of you to show us your week point" Ed pointed out

"I'm the type that seeks out a little tension during a fight, you see"

"As long as you're being kind, you think you might let us go?" Ed wondered "I figure I might as well ask"

"There's no way a mass murderer would do nothing, and let his pray escape, when it's right in front of him" 48 put it simply and tightened his grip on his sword "Here I go"

They charged into each other. Ed swung his blade/automail arm at 48, but he parried the blow with his katana. A sudden rush of pain shot through Ed's shoulder. 'What's this' he thought 'My arm feels out of sorts' 48 took the opportunity to ram his shoulder into Ed's body, and since 48 had more mass than Ed, even though he was hollow, that made Ed fly across the room. Asuka made a wide swing, and 48 tried to parry this one too, but when the two blades made contact, Asuka's chainsaw like characteristic went into effect and cut off 3 centimetres off the tip of Slicer's sword.

"Hmph, what an annoying ability... I'll have to kill you off first, then" the suit of armour decided, and jabbed his sword, aiming for Asuka's throat while Asuka's arm was still trying to revert to it's original position. "That's too bad... You had such talent, but you wasted it on the unnecessary movements and wide swings"

'Damn, she won't make it in time,' Ed thought, getting up and running towards her, 'I won't make it in time either?' The tip of Slicer's blade was 4 centimetres from Asuka's neck. 'I couldn't save her either?' 3 centimetres 'Why can't I be faster...?' 2 centimetres were left, but Ed was still a good 4 metres away. 1 centimetre...

Then, another piece of Slicer's sword flew into the air, not attached to the handle. 'Asuka was still alive?' Ed thought 'And how is she holding a black whip like thing now?'

"Oh, did you think that the sand was restricted only to form a shape of a sword?" Asuka asked, the her new whip floated in the air, which made it look alive. Ed caught up to them and attacked 48. His automail arm didn't have as much agility to it anymore and every move Ed made with it struck him with a rush of pain. Slicer counter-attacked and made a cut across Ed's left shoulder. 48 then went offensive and forced Ed to back up to a wall. Asuka waved her whip and it made it's way towards the back of 48's head. But he sensed it coming and leapt away.

"Ed, are you ok?" She ran to his side

"Yeah, I'm fine" He chose not to tell her about the arm. That would only make him seem weak.

"Given your wound and exhaustion, I can see the end of the battle. Meanwhile, my partner would be finishing off your buddy"

"Is that companion of yours strong?" Ed asked

"Yes, he's strong, but he's still weaker than I am though"

Ed relaxed and started to laugh. "In that case, I've got nothing to worry about. I've been fighting him for a long time now, and I've never beaten him!"

"Oh, he's good, is he? Then I have to hurry up and finish you two" He made his way towards Ed and Asuka.

Ed eyed his opponent carefully, then yelled "Al! Now!"

"What?"

Asuka took this opportunity to slash her whip like a sword, and it knocked off 48's helmet.

"That was dirty!" 48 complained

"All's fair in love and war" Asuka replied

48's body collapsed on the ground and Ed transmuted his blade back into an arm. Asuka made another slash with her weapon, and the black sand disappeared.

"What's the matter? You still haven't destroyed my bloodseal. Hurry up and destroy-"

Ed picked him up. Well, the helmet part anyway. "There's something we need to ask you about" Ed begun

"The philosopher's stone?"

"Why don't you tell us everything you know about it?" Ed offered

"I can't" 48 stated the obvious

"Hey now, beaten dogs don't get to show me up"

"I haven't been beaten yet" Asuka then noticed the headless body of armour, sword in it's hands and aimed it at her back. But she dodged too late and the sword grazed the side of her stomach, making a deep cut across her side. Her left hand flew to her wound and pressed against, trying to stop the bloodflow.

"Impossible!" Ed gaped, unable to believe it

"Forgot to mention, this mad murderer, Slicer... Was actually a pair of brothers"

"An independent head and body? That's cheating!" Asuka complained

"Who was it that said there is no such thing as dirty in a fight?" 48 made his come-back

"Now, lets begin the second round, supermodel and short stuff"

"I AM NOT SHORT!" Ed

But the second round didn't last very long. 48's torso left his legs and rolled on the ground, where black sand was swarming around. Ed looked at Asuka and saw that she was kneeled down, right palm on the ground.

"Did I mention, I can also do long distance, as long as the object is connected somewhat?" She asked. She now had to breath in deep breaths.

"I hate to admit it, but we lost" the head said

"You're not going to tell me you're actually three brothers, are you" Ed asked suspiciously. Asuka was losing a lot of blood, she was feeling dizzy and was losing her sense of balance.

"No, no. As a parting gift, I'll tell you everything. They'll kill us anyway, when they find out we lost" the helmet continued "The ones who made the philosopher's stone, and ordered us to protect this place-"

But he didn't get to finish his sentence. Two long spear-like substances pierced his bloodseal, instantly silencing him

"That was a close one..." a new voice rang out. The two spears retracted into the other side of the room, where there was a single woman, her middle and index stabbing through 48's head "Number 48, we can't have you speaking out of turn..."

"Oh my. What are the Fullmetal pipsqueak and a girl I haven't heard about doing here?" Another person, Asuka can't tell their gender, appeared beside the woman. "Such trying people. How did you find out about this place?"

The woman split the helmet in half. "Brother? Brother? BROTHER?" the torso called out in anguish, until he is silenced by the he-she stabbing 48's sword into his bloodseal. He-she then slowly made their way towards Ed and Asuka. The woman followed.

"Who are you people?" Ed questioned. But Asuka fainted then and there, from blood loss. "Asuka!"

"Oh my, the pipsqueak is raring to go"

"You shut up about the pipsqueak talk!"

"A pipsqueak is a pipsqueak, right, pipsqueak?" It quickly dodged Ed's kick aimed at his face. "Whoa, I don't like fighting. It's painful when you get hurt, you know?"

"You're the one who picked this fight" Ed was gonna have to fight alone now... "And I accept-"

But he was interrupted by a loud pop. His automail arm dropped to hang from his shoulder, now, nothing but a piece of dead weight.

"Looks like you have a malfunction" The woman pointed out

"Whoo-hoo, lucky me!" It cheered as it grabbed Ed's braid and kicked him in the gut. "You're fortunate your arm broke. You're getting off without being hurt too badly" It dropped him and he fell to the floor beside Asuka.

"Listen boy, don't forget that you and your girlfriend are being allowed to live" The woman stated "We can't have them showing up again. Let's burn this place down" she suggested to It.

That was all Ed heard until his vision faded to darker than black.