The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 35) The Nazi Lab
by Howlin
(Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to this universe, places, or characters, and only claim the protagonist, Loki, Sloth, The Gunslinger Alchemist, The Swarm Alchemist, and his subordinates as my own creations. This is fan fiction, and I don't profit from it. Please don't sue me.)
. . .
Alphonse served as the primary storyteller for his and his brother's exploits. Edward filled in details, but Al kept the narrative on track. I'd pieced together some of their journey, but a lot of it, I was hearing for the first time. sloth and I held our tongues and let them get through the parts of their tale dealing with Liore and the Tucker family. Winry looked as though she was hearing much of this for the first time as well, and Al frequently paused and apologized to her for all the secrets kept for fear of worrying her.
I told my tale next, with Sloth slipping in her point of view as I went. The brothers were disturbed at what they learned about Shao's continued activity. Edward in particular, declared he should have taken a few minutes out to kick Shao's ass before confronting Dante. Sloth's ongoing identity crisis elicited empathy from Alphonse, who'd struggled with many of the same fears. Both brothers were pleased to learn that things had gone well for Russel and Fletcher Tringam. When I described my human transmutation attempt, their expressions became unreadable, but they were undeniably sympathetic about the repeated rejections that came after.
Noah didn't understand any more than I had why so many people rejected my offer of healing and potential immortality. Edward noted that while he'd have considered my offer a godsend for Al when he was still bound to the armor, he didn't think it was worth it for a simple limb restoration.
When I described my rescue of Sloth and our subsequent romantic involvement, Noah looked like she didn't know what to say, given the new context. Al, who'd been thoughtfully considering Sloth's point of view the entire time said he was happy for us.
Both brothers wept openly when I described Izumi's sacrifice and her reconciliation with Wrath. The story ended with our preparations to cross the Gate and return them home.
"We can't leave yet," said Edward. "The Uranium bomb is still out there, and the Nazis are making a philosopher's stone to add alchemic weapons to their arsenal."
"I agree, we need to stop them," I said. "We should also try to recover any red stones they've already made, since I'm not sure how many we'll need to open the Gate on this side, and we've been burning through what we brought."
"From what you've told me," interrupted Noah, "the Jews and Gypsies in that camp are being sacrificed to make these stones. I thought you didn't approve of that."
"They're already dead," I declared. "And I'm pretty sure the process isn't reversible."
"Tucker used the same argument to get me to go along with his plans," said Ed.
"The difference is, I'm not planning on hiding some living people in with the red water," I retorted.
"Do we even need their red stones?" asked Al. "I thought you said you were already making more."
"We're about a week away from our first handful," said Sloth. "We're using them up faster than we can make them."
"Besides," I added, "any stones we take, the Nazis can't use later."
"Alright," said Edward. "We're in. Noah?"
In response, she retrieved a notebook and started going over the information she'd gleaned from the soldiers' minds. Schedules, names of staff, guard patrols, numbers of guards at the camp, the locations of stops along the way. Everything we needed to sneak into Germany proper, reach the camp, and bypass the outer defenses.
"You're going to need to teach me how to do that mind reading trick," I said when she was finished.
"It's something I was born with," she replied. "I don't think it's something I can teach."
"That is really unfair," I pouted. Sloth smiled and patted me on the arm.
"There's one more thing," said Noah. "One of the guards knew about a shipment of Uranium."
"Where's it going?" asked Al.
"Here," said Noah, indicating a map.
"If either one of those projects succeeds," said Edward, "the Nazis win the war."
"We don't know which one's closer to being ready," pointed out Al.
"Then we'll need to split into two teams and take out both at once," declared Winry.
"Wait," said Ed. "You can't go with us."
Smiling sweetly, Winry said, "Oh, that's fine. You two go deal with the Stone, and I'll be on the team that goes after the bomb."
"Winry, I don't want you to get hurt," said Alphonse.
"Is this important? Stopping these Nazi projects?" asked Winry. "Because if it isn't, we can use the stones we have, open the Gate and go home now."
Neither brother had an answer to that.
"I should go with Winry," said Noah. "You have what you need to get into the camp, but once we get to where the Uranium's being shipped, we'll probably need more information."
"I'll go with them," offered Sloth. "Winry and Noah will need protection. Besides... you might find my father at the camp, and I'd rather not be there for that."
"Stay safe out there," I told Sloth, then retrieved Shao's severed arm. I broke off three fingers, handing one each to Ed and Al. "I presume you know what to do with these?"
Edward grimaced, but nodded, "Yeah."
"We're not going to kill him, are we?" asked Al in alarm.
"Only as a last resort," I said with a glance over to Sloth. "If we can capture and hold him, that'll be better."
"If we can't," said Edward grimly, "I'll do it."
"We might be wrong about who's behind this," I reminded everyone. "The remains are just in case."
. . .
Edward drove the car while Alphonse and I compared notes on alchemy. He walked me through the theory he;d used when burning out the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect Edward. It turned out his ability to imbue a portion of his soul into a suit of armor and effectively be in two places at once for a short time was an effect of his experiences having his soul attached to various things over the years, and wasn't something I could learn myself. At least without risking my soul becoming permanently detached from my homonculus body.
Ed talked about Thule's attempts to open the Gate, and showed me the array they'd used to send their people to Liore. It was more sophisticated than I'd imagined, which Ed attributed to Hohenheim helping them. Opening the Gate with that array wouldn't require a sacrifice, and no one but those passing through would be exposed to the Gate Children, or the omniscience effect that Ed and Al called the Truth. Ed also described the arrays Thule used on Envy to let them access the alchemic energy stored in the red stones inside his body. If things went particularly wrong, those arrays could be used to let Sloth and I power a transmutation here.
Noah's information let us bypass checkpoints and reach the camp itself without being detected or raising alarm. We parked the car well outside of view of the camp's watch towers, then proceeded on foot. Once we were in a position to see the camp without being seen ourselves, the three of us hunkered down, observed the patrol's, and waited for cover of darkness.
When the time came, I took point and carefully picked my way through the field surrounding the camp. I didn't want to get blown up by another landmine, but it'd be even worse if Ed or Al did. We reached a razor wire topped fence, and Al boosted Edward up o the top of it. He boosted me next. We both balanced on top of the fence and used our automail limbs to hold open a gap in the wire for Al to climb through before we dropped down ourselves.
Noah's information indicated the processing equipment was underground, to keep it from being detected by spy planes. In the pitch black, the yard had enough cover to let us reach the building that had the tunnel entrance undetected. The defenses for the camp were centered around keeping people in, not out.
Al and I stood watch while Edward picked the lock an got us inside the building. A half-asleep guard started to alertness as we entered, only to be knocked cold by my automail fist before he could raise the alarm. Al locked the door behind us and I recovered the guard's keys.
"It's weird," I said in a low voice, glancing at one of the security mirrors in the hallway. "Even at secure bases like this, I haven't seen a single security camera."
"It's like automail," said Edward. "It works fine on this side of the Gate, but they just never invented them."
"And like those airships work in our world, but we didn't invent them," added Al.
The three of us advanced deeper into the facility. Without warning, one of us must've triggered a trap, because a half dozen axe blades emerged from the walls. Edward went low, dodging under a swinging blade. Alphonse went high, hopping over one and dropping into a roll. I braced my automail forearm with my flesh and blood left hand and met one of the swinging blades straight on. It glanced off the metal plate, and a large chunk of material broke off the axe at the point of impact.
Al came down at the trigger for another trap, and a pitfall opened beneath him. Edward reached him in time and caught his brother's arm before he dropped down the pit.
"They probably know we're here now," I suggested when Al was back out of the pitfall.
"They wouldn't put traps like this in if they didn't expect them to do the job," noted Edward. "Just in case, though, keep an eye out for undead serial killers. This reminds me too much of Lab 5."
We moved more carefully from that point and avoided triggering more traps as we descended into the bowels of the facility. Eventually, we came to a high ceilinged room with columns.
"Way too much of Lab 5," muttered Ed as we carefully crossed the room toward a door at the opposite side.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Ed and Al looked like they'd seen something too. Suddenly, a group of six men dropped from above, surrounding us and aiming machine-guns in our direction. They wore Nazi uniforms and had short hair. There was something off about their features. Their arms were just a little too long. Their heads were a little too wide, and their brows slightly sloped.
Held at gunpoint, the three of us raised our hands. We backed up slowly into one another until we were in a circle, back to back.
"I guess now you'll want to take us to your leader," said Edward with a smirk.
They responded with silence. From their slightly misshapen throats, I wondered if they were capable of speech. Three hung back and covered their comrades as the other three approached us. Al casually touched his hands together over his head, and Ed and I followed suit. Once they were in range, we made our move.
I grabbed the barrel of the gun aimed at me, using the red stones in my pocket to fuel the transmutation of the weapon into a set of crude bindings holding my would-be captor. Edward slapped his guard in the chest, and inflated his uniform like a balloon, causing him to drop his weapon and providing additional cover against the others with his expanded profile. Alphonse dropped to the ground and slapped the floor, opening a pit under his opponent just large enough for him to fall into, and still tight enough to pin his arms to his sides.
The three soldiers who weren't trapped opened fire. Ed and Al went low, rolling toward the other two, and managed to get in close and knock the weapons out of the hands of their chosen opponents without being hit by gunfire. I grabbed the soldier I'd bound with alchemy and hurled him straight at the one shooting at me. He fell on top of his comrade and the gun skidded away across the floor. I'd been shot in the fleshy part of my left thigh, but not bad enough I would lose another limb.
The disarmed soldiers scrambled out of melee range with superhuman speed and agility, then they drew backup weapons. The weapons were peculiar, composed of a metal cylinder six inches long and about an inch in diameter, with engravings running its length. As they gripped them, the engravings glowed with the familiar red light of a red stone fueled transmutation circle. A beam of red light extended from one end of the cylinder about three feet.
"They're breaking down air molecules as they come into contact with that zone," said Edward as he sniffed the air.
"Looks like we were right about Nazi alchemic weaponry," I said grimly.
Edward clapped his hands and transmuted a panel on his automail forearm into a blade and rushed at the soldiers. Alphonse followed the charge unarmed. I mimicked Edward's transmutation and charged with them.
The soldiers swung their weapons like swords as we reached them. Edward ducked below the swing of his opponent, losing a lock of hair that was sticking up and managed to slash upward across his enemy's chest. It wasn't deep, but it made him leap backward again to try and escape Ed's attacks.
Al likewise went low, taking his opponent's legs out from under him with a sliding tackle. Both opponents regained their feet quickly. Al adopted a defensive martial arts stance and began circling his opponent. The enemy kept his blade up in a defensive pose of his own.
I didn't have the finesse or combat experience of the two brothers. What I did have was superior strength and speed, and a training focus on disruptive alchemy. I braced my automail arm with my organic left one, and charged my opponent. When he raised his blade, I put my own blade through a series of transmutations. Glowing with blue alchemic light, my sword clashed against his red beam of destruction alchemy, and I was able to push him backward.
Ed picked up on what I'd done instantly and clapped his hands, causing his own blade to glow blue for an instant as he blocked a blow and punched his opponent in the face. Al's opponent charged in, and the younger Elric brother stepped inside the swing and struck his enemy in the stomach hard enough to send him flying backward. My opponent headbutted me over our clashing blades. I smirked and headbutted him right back, causing him to stagger backward.
Seeing an opening, I rushed forward to finish the job, thrusting forward with the blade on my arm, only to be surprised when my opponent recovered faster than expected. He swung low before I could even try to block, and his red blade cut me in half at the waist. Viscera spilled out of my severed torso as my legs fell in the opposite direction.
My opponent joined Edward's and they began to double-team him. I clapped my hands and tried to block them off their feet, but my red stones were used up, and I could only watch as the fight unfolded.
Ed and Al moved together to support one another. Ed would block, Al would stagger, Al would dodge, Ed would slash. The Nazis were on the defensive even with me able to do no more than cheer them both on. Whenever Ed or Al would start a transmutation, they'd rush in to keep them from having time to finish it, but otherwise, they tried to stay out of range and wear the alchemists down. It was a winning strategy.
The soldiers, obviously chimeras of some type, fought harder and longer than the all too human Elrics could. And eventually, the red stones letting Ed keep blocking their alchemic weapons ran out as well. One of the chimeras neatly severed Ed's automail arm at the elbow as he tried to block with it. A moment later, glowing blades of red alchemic light were next to Ed and Al's necks. The fight was over. Ed and Al were restrained, and the half of me that was still moving was dragged along contemptuously by one of the chimeras. We were chained to a wall in a cell and left there to await our fate.
. . .
"Why do we keep getting tossed in jail, Al?" asked Edward.
"If it's any consolation," I offered, "this seems to happen to me an awful lot too."
"Hopefully not including getting cut in half," offered Al.
"No, that's a new one. Sloth's gonna be pissed." I looked down at the trail of organs dangling out of my torso that was suspended from the wall by wrist manacles. "Still, less painful than getting the replacement parts installed will be."
Edward laughed. "I'll bet you're regretting coming after us now."
"Actually, my only regret is I never got the chance to visit a library while I was here. There must be so much scientific knowledge we never even considered here."
"I sort of regret getting captured and chained up in a Philosopher's Stone lab," said Al.
"I don't think they're going to use us for raw material," said Ed. "They'll want to interrogate us first."
"Interrogate?" asked Al with a quiver in his voice. "I know the two of you have a ridiculous pain threshold, but I spent all those years with no sense of touch at all."
"Don't worry, Al. It won't come to that. We're getting out of here." Ed's features hardened.
"What's your plan?" I asked him.
"When the guard comes in here, we kick him in the face and break out!" he declared enthusiastically.
"Brother," noted Al, "they chained our legs to the wall too."
"Well I don't hear you coming up with anything better!" yelled Edward.
"Hello, Edward. Alphonse. Greed was it?" came a quiet voice that silenced Ed's shouts and sent a chill down what was left of my spine. Shao Tucker, formerly the Sewing Life Alchemist, stepped into view flanked by two of the humanoid chimeras that had captured us. Shao wore a Nazi uniform and a wide brimmed hat that covered the oroboros mark on his forehead.
Ed's expression changed in an instant. He stopped flailing and yelling, and instead gritted his teeth and stared at Shao. The show anger was gone, replaced by an expression of such utter contempt it nearly matched what I'd seen on Scar's face during the brief time I'd known him. Ed's voice came out ice cold with a hard edge. "Tucker. You're lucky I'm chained to this wall. After what you did to Al. And what you did to your own daughter. Both of them."
"What are you doing here, Mr. Tucker?" asked Alphonse. He wasn't any happier to see Shao than Edward was, but Alphonse wasn't going to let that get in the way of getting answers. I admired that, even if my own inclinations were closer to Edward's.
"I'm putting my life back together," said Shao.
"By murdering more people for the Stone?" I spat.
"The German government is funding my research," he replied. "They've been more loyal and understanding patrons than the military government back home. On top of that, my wife is still alive here."
"There are people here who look like people from our worked, but they aren't the same people," said Alphonse.
"He knows," I said with undisguised contempt. "People are replaceable and interchangeable to him."
"When you crossed the Gate after me," Shao asked, "did you bring Nina with you?"
"You can't hurt her anymore," I declared with a flash of anger that caused the two chimera guards to take a step back. It took me a moment to realize what they were reacting to. My skin had turned pale. Running my tongue over my teeth, I found them to be sharp and pointed. No doubt they'd also seen my hair turn black, and my contemptuous gaze was now staring out of violet, slitted eyes. The red stones on Shao and the guards must've made it possible.
Shao just smiled and said, "There's a point of scientific curiosity you boys can help me with. I have more of the stone material here than I did at Laboratory Five, but actually finishing a Philosopher Stone has been fatal for every alchemist I've ever heard of making the attempt."
"So rather than risk your own skin, you're going to try to make us do your dirty work for you," spat Edward contemptuously.
"I don't know the details of Hohenheim's original death, and Scar wasn't in the best condition before his death, was he Alphonse?"
"And if they die making the Stone," I said, "the next step is to see if I survive it with my regeneration."
"Actually, I wanted to test you first," said Shao. "If you don't survive the process, there'd be no point testing it on the boys. Besides, you're much easier to persuade to cooperate."
One of the chimera guards approached, ignited his glowing red alchemic blade, and deftly cut open my shirt, exposing the oroboros mark in the center of my chest. The guard then stepped back and Shao stepped forward, extending a hand toward me, and preparing to do to me what he'd done to Sloth.
My eyes widened in fear as he got closer than I was comfortable with to snuffing out my free will. Then, my expression twisted into a smirk. I regenerated my legs in an instant, burning through the stored power of the red stones Shao was carrying. I kicked Shao i the nose with my bare heel hard enough to take the head clean off a normal human. As it was, it broke his nose and caused him to stagger backward.
Shao's chimera guards ignited their glowing red blades and rushed at me. I kicked one of the chimeras toward Edward and managed to angle it so his energy blade cut through the chain binding Ed's wrist. Ed wasted no time in disarming his staggered opponent. when the hilt left the chimera's hand, it went dark. When Ed gripped it, the blade flashed back to life blazing blue, and he quickly cut the rest of his bindings.
The second chimera came in with a swing I was able to use to sever my left arm at the elbow. I regenerated the left arm, then popped a latch to disconnect my automail right arm from its shoulder socket, freeing me from the remaining chains. Not really comprehending what he was dealing with, the chimera hesitated, which left me an opening. I kicked him in the chest and sent him flying backward into Shao. I caught his dropped weapon as he flew back and cut Alphonse free with the glowing blue energy blade.
Shao recovered and made a move to flee, but Alphonse thought quick and grabbed the finger from Shao's chimera body out of his pocket and threw it at the homonculus. On contact, Shao was paralyzed and vulnerable. Al clapped his hands and turned the door to this holding cell into just another part of the wall, hopefully slowing down any reinforcements Shao had coming.
Edward feinted with his captured weapon towards his opponent, then shut down the blade of deconstruction alchemy mid swing, instead striking his opponent hard on the top of the head with the hilt. It wasn't hard enough and the chimera grabbed Edward's head in a vice-like grasp and lifted him off his feet. In a flash, Ed's blade glowed blue again and he'd severed the chimera's arm.
I made no pretense at mercy, and instead cut the other chimera in half at the waist as they'd done to me. Unlike me, he didn't get back up. While Al moved to assist Edward, I cut the chain still holding my detached automail right arm. I then switched off the weapon, dropped it into my waistband and picked up the mechanical limb.
Ed and Al had managed to beat the chimera unconscious. I tossed Edward the limb. "It might not be a perfect fit, but it's still Rockbell automail, and should get you through until we're back at base," I said.
"Aren't you gonna need this?" asked Ed.
"No," I said as I gripped the socket Winry had built into my shoulder and ripped it out along with a goodly amount of flesh and bone. It hurt like hell, but still less than reattaching the automail would have. Plus, now I could regenerate the arm.
Ed nodded, detached what remained of his own limb and forced mine into the socket with only a grunt to acknowledge the pain. We were all whole again.
Shao still laid on the floor, the severed finger of his original corpse keeping him paralyzed while in contact with his body. I patted him down and retrieved a few dozen red stones being kept in various pockets as well as ID papers. Voices on the other side of the wall told us time was running out and Shao's backup was here.
"We can't drag him out through those guards," said Alphonse urgently.
"We don't need to, Al," said Ed with a smirk. He clapped his hands and slapped them against the floor. Blue sparks flew off as the floor collapsed beneath us, dumping us into a utility tunnel of some sort. I barely had time to grab Shao and hold the remains to his flesh. I needn't have bothered.
The utility tunnel was filled with red water, and on contact, all four of us were flooded with alchemic energy even as new ideas for using that energy flooded into our minds almost as quickly. Shao used the flood of power to deconstruct the finger that held him paralyzed and to create a dozen insectoid chimeras from unseen creatures clinging to the ceiling of the tunnel. I blasted his chimeras out o existence as quickly as he made them. Stone spikes impaled Shao as elaborate chains bound him from what I assumed were the Elric brothers.
Somehow, this much exposure to the stone material was acting like a microcosm of the Gate. It was overwhelming, enlightening, and hard to turn away from even if it was killing you. I'd trained for this sort of situation specifically, so I was more aware than the other three. Particularly of the fact that all our heads were submerged in the red water. Ed and Al were going to drown.
I blasted a tunnel out of the wall of the pipe we were in using the enhanced alchemic power I currently enjoyed and manipulated the current to drag Ed, Al, and myself away from Shao. Ed and Al kept fighting Shao, countering his creations with their own alchemy, oblivious to my rescue attempt. I built the tunnel for half a mile with alchemy until it finally burst out the side of a hill and poured us out in a torrent of red water.
The Elrics calmed down as I dragged them out of the flow and started using the stone material clinging to my hair and clothes to deconstruct the material that might be poisoning Ed and Al's systems. Ed and Al coughed up the red water in their lungs as I continued to deconstruct it and mused on how much of the stuff I'd swallowed. Certainly more than enough to make up for what I used regenerating.
"I screwed up," admitted Ed. "We had that bastard, and now he's free because I had to show off."
"You had no way of knowing that's where he was keeping the red water," I said. "And we weren't going to win another fight outnumbered by those chimeras."
"At least we set back his operation," observed Al, indicating the diminishing trickle of red water dribbling out of our escape tunnel.
"All that means is that sick bastard is going to kill more people to replenish his stock," yelled Ed.
"So, what do we do now?" I asked.
"Why are you asking me?" Edward moped.
"Well, it was your plan that got us out of those chains back there," I observed wryly.
After a moment to process, that got a smile from Edward. "Okay, we've established we can't beat all his goons alone, so we get more people. There's already a grand alliance at war with Shao's backers. We just need to point them in the right direction."
"We know he won't have a stone by then," I added optimistically. "He's a coward. He won't risk trying to make one himself. Instead, he's likely to try and capture one of us to do it for him."
"Which means more resources thrown at us instead of fighting the allies," noted Al hopefully.
"We'll just have to stop being so subtle so Tucker'll know where to waste his forces," said Ed with a smirk.
"Once we've worn him down," I added, holding up Shao's papers, "we'll know where to find him."
. . .
The car pulled back in to the safehouse loaded down with red stones we'd salvaged. Winry, Noah, and Sloth had beaten us back home.
"How'd things go?" asked Winry as we got out.
"We confirmed Shao was the one responsible," I said.
"Is he...?" began Sloth.
"He's still alive," spat Edward.
"We were captured," said Al. "We managed to get out and bring back a lot of his red stones."
"How did your mission go?" asked Ed with a weak smile.
"Unlike some people," declared Winry dramatically, "we got the Uranium and Noah found out where the bomb's being made."
"Good job, Winry," replied Ed weakly rather than rising to her obvious bait.
"Are you guys okay?" asked Sloth with concern.
"He almost changed me when we were captured," I said putting my hand over my oroboros, "but we got out in time. Plus, I got to regenerate using his stones." I wiggled my fingers.
"We're just tired," said Al.
"Get some rest," suggested Winry. "We'll come up with a new plan tomorrow."
. . .
When Sloth and I were alone, I asked, "How are you?"
"We finished our mission," she started to joke. Turning more serious, she continued, "I was hoping he'd be dead. That you'd find it wasn't him, or that you'd find him and kill him before I got back here. That's awful, isn't it, Greed?"
"He hurt you as much as anyone. You've got a right to want this to be over," I answered, taking her in my arms and holding her tight.
"I'm the one who told you not to kill him," she choked out.
I shook my head. "By the time we had the chance to finish him off, it would've been in cold blood, and I don't know if I've got that in me. So don't even think you're to blame for what happened."
"I'm not. It's just... Now I'm going to have to face him. Last time..."
"Shh," I said, stroking her hair. "I won't let that happen. Not again. Not even if it means I have to blow up his whole base with that uranium bomb to stop him."
Sloth let herself be soothed and relaxed in my arms. After a while, she said, "I'm sorry, Greed. You were the one who's just been through something and you're the one comforting me when it should be the other way around."
"Don't worry about it," I said. "Just being here with you and knowing you're safe helps."
"But I do have something that'll cheer you up," she protested. "In all the stress and excitement, I think you've lost track of time. Tomorrow we can harvest our philosopher's flowers."
"I just brought back enough red stones to open the Gate, regenerate our whole bodies ten times over, and have plenty left for routine alchemy," I noted with a small smile.
"Yes," said Sloth with a smug tone, "but tomorrow we confirm if the Tringam method works here, something we don't know for sure now."
"Marcho's method works here," I argued, playfully trying to cover up the fact that I really was interested in the answer. I couldn't help myself and added, "but is that because the human lives are providing the energy in that case, and whether the plants work or not, what will that say about the nature of alchemy?"
Sloth smiled and nuzzled closer to me. "Told you I knew something that'd make you feel better."
"Have I told you I love you lately?"
"Have I?"" she retorted.
We snuggled together and waited until morning, drifting off to sleep in one another's arms at some point.
. . .
Author's comments:
Yes, that's Nazi Chimera Supersoldiers armed with Alchemy powered Light Sabers. You're welcome.
