Chapter 10: Tragic Past

The muffled conversations stopped as Anderson walked into the tent. The general shot a stern look as he found his way to his seat. With raised eyebrows he spoke to the Sergeant, "Why Sergeant Anderson I see you have finally graced us with your presence."

Anderson smirked playing his cards just right, "Yes I decided it was time I find out why we have been ordered to halt the offensive lines."

With an irritated look the General decided to indulge him, " Obviously with King Bradley in his state we have decided that taking the offensive is a little too risky at this point." Annoyed he continued on, "But now onto more important matters, it would appear that the attempt on King Bradley's life just doesn't add up. To put it in rather simple language only the men in this room knew of his whereabouts, thus I can only conclude that we have a rat amongst us." His eyes flashed maliciously. A wave of shock spread around the table followed by frantic whispering. The General stood up and slammed his fists down on the table, "QUIET!" Slowly taking his seat once again he returned to his evil calm as he let his eyes wander around finding each mans face. "As you can see this cannot go on, the traitor amongst us has only one form of redemption. Expose yourself now and we will let you leave in disgrace, but unharmed."

The silence was deafening as each man craned their neck to look at each other in determination to find this so called mole.

Anderson kept his cool; he had been prepared for something like this. He had not left any traces back to him; he knew that he was safe.

With a swift move the general pulled out his gun and with one shot the man sitting next to Anderson let out a whimper before he slumped over in his own pool of blood. Anderson's eyes darted over to where the general sat his face hidden in shadow. "I will not tolerate traitors, and I certainly will not tolerate cowards." A smile played over his lips, "My apologies I did not wish to waste your time. Now as I was saying earlier before Sergeant Anderson decided to interrupt, our losses have been great. We are not prepared to keep our defense for a long period of time. Thus once King Bradley has given the go ahead we will precede to Rush Valley."

Anderson turned his head as Major Allen spoke up, "But General what do you hope to gain from taking over that city? It is nothing but civilians; there are no military compounds there."

The general glared at the Major, "Major you will do well to hold your tongue, and as I've said before it's the same as here in South City. We will destroy them on every level; in order to ensure victory we must demolish all of their suppliers. It has come to my knowledge that the many auto mail shops there have been equipping their soldiers and assisting in the production of weapons."

The major hung his head, "Please pardon my outburst General."

The general waved his hand with an heir of arrogance, "It is getting late, we will dispatch your orders tomorrow morning." The men saluted the General as he walked out of the tent.

'Shit.' Anderson walked back to his personal quarters he needed to rethink his strategy. They had played right into his trap by killing the captain he had framed. He felt his hands start to shake violently. He jammed them into his pockets afraid someone might see his weakness.

Winry awoke to find the Anderson man sitting but a few inches from her side. Catching her instant fear he quickly clamped a hand over her mouth. "Please don't scream I do not want to attract any unnecessary attention to you." She nodded her head in a silent agreement. He slowly took his hand away.

She stared at him her face filled with anger, "How can you live with yourself. How can you act so normal after killing all those innocent people?" her voice had been reduced to a whimper.

His face disgraced him as a tear trickled down his cheek, "I have asked myself that question ever since that day…."

Winry was taken aback by his sudden display of emotion, "What, what are you talking about?"

He looked sadly at her and let out a sigh, "I know I will never be forgiven for the sins I have committed, but I will not die until I have sought my revenge."

Confusion spread across her face as she tried to understand what he was talking about.

He slowly put his hand in his jacket pocket, Winry flinched in fear. He put a hand on her shoulder to calm her as he pulled out a picture with the other.

Winry stared at the picture, there was Anderson his arms wrapped around a beautiful young woman who was cradling a baby. Smiling up from the bottom of the picture were two beautiful twin girls. Winry felt her heart throb in her chest; she had pictures like this with Ed, Al, her mom and dad.

Anderson's face contorted as he turned away from her, "My family paid the ultimate price. I failed to protect them, the most important thing in the world to me and I couldn't save them."

Winry stared at this man sure that what he was saying was the truth; you couldn't fake the pain that resided behind his shadowed eyes. Curiosity overwhelmed her as she questioned him, "What happened to your family?"

He took a deep breath before continuing. "You see this army is a lot different that yours. This army if full of the most vile of human beings, after all it was created by Bradley. He managed to attract people who wanted power and whose greed willed them to get it by any means. In order to make his army a force to be reckoned with Bradley was able to manipulate his powers as Fuhrer to get the nations scientist to create deadly chemicals that would wipe out an entire city in seconds. It was by his orders that they decided to test it out in my town." Winry listened intently as his breathing started to come out in hard gasps. "I woke up one morning feeling a bit strange. When my wife didn't come down after a couple of hours I tried to wake her, but she was so cold…so cold." His voice chocked out a sob, "Our baby, she never had a chance. And our two little girls…it was wrong, they shouldn't be that pale." Winry watched as his body wretched with unshed tears and pain. After a few minutes he slowly started to calm down. Winry shivered as the feeling of pain was replaced by a wave of great anger, "I will make him pay for what he did to my family."

Winry shook her head, "I am sorry to hear about your family; however how is it that you survived? And since they did that to your family how could you ever join forces with them? None of it makes any sense."

Anderson looked at her sadness once again filling his eyes, "I was recruited by the Fuhrer a week before the incident, and it was then that he had slipped me the antidote. I was part of the test. I survived so the test was a success. However once the scientists found out that he had actually tested the poison gas they destroyed all of their work so that no one could ever replicate it. He had them killed right on the spot. I knew from that moment on that in order to seek my revenge I had to get close to him to not only prevent this from happening to anyone else, but to have the opportunity to kill him myself." He put his head in his hands, "However things have taken a turn for the worst. I did not anticipate the kind of support he would receive. As of right now if I were to just kill him someone would just take his place and continue right where he left off. In order to stop this from happening to someone else I must put my revenge aside and work to help take down his army first." His gaze settled itself on the girl's innocent blue eyes, "I'm sorry I dragged you into this, but I cannot do this alone. I never planned on using you, but right now you are the only one I can trust and therefore you are my strongest ally."

Winry stared blankly at him before finding her words, "I believe that you were a good man once; and for the sake of ending this war I will help you. However do not believe for a second that I have forgiven you for ordering that mans death back there or the hundreds of others you have killed."

Anderson nodded his head, "I expected as much."

"Yet there is still one thing I don't understand. Just how do you know so much about me?"

He silently stood up and turned his back to her, "Well the truth is I knew your parents very well."

A wave of shock fell over her as she stared at this man, "You're lying."

Turning slowly to face her he shook his head, "I am not lying, you know they spoke so highly of you. They also spoke of the two Elric brothers who were always playing for your heart." His smile fell short as he started to speak again, "I cut off all contact with them once my family was murdered. How could I face them and tell them that I had failed to protect my family? However once I found out about your parent's death I couldn't help but remember the little girl they had loved so dearly. I deeply regret not going to see them, your parents were the most honorable people I have ever met. About a year ago I head the stories of a Dr. Rockbell. I wasn't surprised to find out it was their daughter, that it was you. However I do not wish to speak of the tragedies of our pasts. What we need to focus on is the future. It has been brought up at our meeting that the next target is in fact Rush Valley." Winry stared at him fear etched in her face. "I realize the issue at hand and that is why I need you to be brave. You must sneak out of here and notify the army. If you can make it in time you can get the army to defend the city."

The atmosphere of the room was tense as the gravity of the situation slowly started to seep in.

"I'll do it, I will not fail."

I added characters of my own

haha its ok you can laugh at them

Hey thanks for the reviews

You all are very generous

Amy