Chapter 10: Desire
"Do you think it's safe?" Sakura asked.
"Well, as long as we're quiet and we don't slip on the oil, we should be fine." I replied.
We entered the fortress, and once we did the door behind us rose again and closed off the exit. We turned to watch it close, Ed and I looked at each other and Ed said "Well, no turning back now."
We walked thru the sloped hallway, we soon came to a dark room. We stopped because we couldn't see anything.
"What's in here, I wonder." Al said.
"We'll I'd tell ya if I could see." Edward replied.
"I was rhetorically speaking." Al said.
Just then the lights flickered on to reveal rows upon rows of robots. We all froze in fear, we've never faced more than one robot before, even just two would probably own our asses! The robots didn't react to our presence though, they just sat there, their eye thing didn't even move.
"Uh, are they even in operation?" Sakura asked.
Ed walked right up to one and it didn't do anything, he turned to us and said, "I guess not, Heh, lucky for us."
"Lucky, indeed." I said.
We walked to the right of the robots and found another hallway, this one was normal sized though. After about two minutes of walking we came to a large room, also having no lights.
"More area for robot storage?" I mused.
The lights turned on, revealing only two robots. There was some sort of balcony up ahead, and on it someone stood. The person turned around, it was a man with glasses and short brown hair.
"So, you managed to follow my robots all the way here? I'd thought that you'd given up for sure." He said.
"Damn right we found you! Now what the hell do you think your doing having your robots rampaging all across Amestris killing people at random? Is it really all for the Stone?" Ed yelled.
"Hmm, the stone?" The man said.
"Don't play innocent with us, we know that those transmutation circles on your robots are for the Philosopher's Stone!" Ed yelled.
"Hmph, so you did your homework, I see. Yes, all of that was for the creation of the Philosopher's Stone. I really thought that I had made it away with all of that without anyone finding me, but I guess that would have been too easy." The man slid his glasses up on his nose. "You four shouldn't be much to take care of."
"Who are you, and what do you want with the stone!?" Ed demanded.
"Well, what do you want with the stone, boy? Aren't you looking for it as well?" The man asked.
Ed scowled at the man, "How do you know that?"
"Well how else would you know what the transmutation circles meant, you don't find any details about it in normal alchemy books. So tell me, what is it that you desire the stone for?" the man said.
"Quit avoiding my questions, I'm not answering any of yours until you answer mine!" Ed yelled back.
"Oh alright, I am Dr. Bareos, an alchemist like yourself." Bareos said.
"And? What do you want with the stone?" Ed said.
"A few years ago, the love of my life died from an unknown illness. Long story short, I heard about the Philosopher's Stone and decided to create it to bring my love back to life." Bareos explained.
"That's it?! All of these people's lives you took for just one?! Those people you killed were loved too you know, they had husbands and wives and children, whole families have been broken because of you, all just because you want to bring just one person back?!" Edward demanded, outraged.
"Pretty much, but what do you want it for?" Bareos asked.
"I looked into it in hopes to restore my little brother's body to normal, to correct the mistake we had made." Ed said mournfully as he pointed to Al. "But ever since I found that you have to use human lives I've been searching for another way." Ed continued.
"Hmm, so you want it for a similar reason as I. And yet you bellow at me as if I'm some horrible person. You were going to do the same weren't you?" Bareos asked.
Ed growled, hadn't Bareos heard what he just said?
"You and I are quite similar you know." Bareos said.
"Don't give me that crap! I told you I'm looking for another way to restore his body WITHOUT taking people's lives! You just don't care, you'd sacrifice all of those people just for your own selfish gain! Just because we're both alchemists and we both had sought after the stone does NOT mean that I am ANYTHING like you!!" Ed yelled.
Bareos shrugged and said, "Oh well, the four of you will make fine additions to the stone."
"Like hell we're gonna be!" I yelled at him.
Bareos looked at me and said, "Oh, you don't believe me? Well, you will soon."
Just then the two robots rose into the air, and aimed their cannons at us.
"Get ready for fight, guys." Ed said.
We all got into fighting stance, as the robots charged forward at us. The shot their cannons at us, we jumped out of the way quickly before getting blown up. I clapped my hands together and put them to the ground, moving the earth to come up and begin wrapping around one robot. The robot tried aiming at me with it's cannon, but I moved the earth over the barrel and squeezed it until it broke.
"Al, jump on this one, we'll get the next one held down!" I yelled to Al.
Alphonse came running over, I transmuted some earth to get him in the air quickly. As soon as he got to the robot, he punched thru it's eye.
Sakura snapped her fingers left and right, hitting the second robot in the eye to blind it the same way we had done before in Central. Ed put clapped his hands together and put them to the ground, doing a similar thing as I did with the first one, only he was pulling up steel out from the ground.
I transmuted several stone spikes and sent them flying into the underneath robot Al was on. This didn't seem to do much though, then a thought struck me.
"The metal underneath the robot, however is the strongest."
Duh, how could I have forgotten that! I thought.
The stone that I had the robot wrapped in was starting to crumble, Al was doing his best to beat thru the metal near the eye.
"The metal closest to the "eye" is the weakest."
"Alphonse! Get out of there!" I warned Al, seeing the robot getting free.
Sure enough, Al jumped off of the robot. As soon as he did the robot busted loose and proceeded to rampage around at random, swinging it's arms. I had jump out of it's path before it hit me.
Ed had broken the cannon on the second robot, and remembering what Winry had said, he transmuted one steel spike and sent it flying right into the robot's eye. The robot stopped moving and Ed smirked thinking that he stopped it. But then it started moving again, one of it's arms fell off, except for the base joint. That's when Ed realized it was a back up eye.
The second robot picked up it's arm and the arm became a large sword, almost as if it had used alchemy to create it. But assuming that Bareos is the one controlling him, he probably was the one that transmuted it. The robot began swing at them.
Meanwhile, Al and I are still dodging the first robot that's still rampaging around. I was getting tired. Like Ed said, for such big lugs they sure move fast. I turned around and the robot was right on me, and before I had a chance to even think, it hit me sending me flying thru the air. I slammed into the ground near Al, the robot was now coming towards us.
Al quickly drew out a transmutation circle, and moved the earth to penetrate right thru the hole he made in it's head. Spiking the earth out inside of the robot, Al made sure the thing was done. Sure enough it collapsed.
Ed and Sakura were barely dodging the sharp and huge blade of the second robot, narrowly escaping being sliced up many times. The robot swung right for Ed, and he managed to block it with his right arm. However, Ed was knocked backwards from the impact of the blade.
"Ed! Hang on!" Sakura yelled, as she charged forward to help.
Ed sat up slowly, then seeing the robot preparing to strike Sakura and that she was completely open for attack he yelled, "No, Sakura stay back!"
He yelled a moment to late. The robot hit her right in her stomach. Sakura let out a yelp as the sword struck her and sent her crashing to the ground.
Al and I saw what happened and immediately jumped into action. I used alchemy to transmute a stone hand that pulled the robot's one arm clean off. Ed and Al both combined power and sent spikes flying in thru the first and second eye, also spiking out the earth/steel inside of the robot to destroy anything inside. The robot collapsed, and as soon as it did, Al stood up and ran over to Sakura.
"Sakura! Are you okay?" Al said frantically, scooping her up into his arms, Sakura smiled weakly.
Just then we heard clapping from someone. We looked up to the balcony and saw Bareos clapping, a slightly insane smile on his face.
"Well done, to be honest I'm shocked. But no matter that I didn't kill you, I still have plenty of lives to make a complete stone. And with the stone I can bring my dead love back to life finally, and there's nothing you can do to stop me!" Bareos said, sounding more and more insane by the word.
"There's no way in hell we're gonna let you get away with that!" Ed yelled.
Bareos began backing into the darkness saying, "You can follow me if you'd like, but since I have full control over this fortress thru alchemy, you won't find me unless I want you to. Ta-Ta!"
Ed growled in irritation, I was angry myself, not just because of what he's trying to do…
I looked over to the now unconscious and bleeding Sakura lay limp in Alphonse's arms.
…But because of what he did do…
End Chapter 10