lostmoonchild: Okay, another chapter ready for your viewing pleasure. It's a rainy day today so I'm thinking that's going to help set the mood for this story. If it doesn't well, I've got over six hundred songs to help me set the mood.

Disclaimer: I don't own FMA or anything else so don't sue me.

Chapter Twelve

Despite the bombs that were placed around the structures in the building, Ross couldn't help but feel the sense of safety that surrounded the place. Distantly he wondered if that was a sign that maybe he should probably turn in his gun and just consider himself no longer part of the military. "The game's up, Marcus. Everybody knows what you've been doing." Ross told the scientist. "It's just a matter of time before you're caught and arrested. I doubt that you'll get anything less than life in prison but that'd be better than death row."

Stephan smiled at the young man before answering, "My work will be immortalized."

"Yeah, as an experiment gone terribly wrong." Ed retorted. "You must have something against alchemists if you didn't want to destroy your work once you realized what was going on."

The scientist laughed a bit before nudging one of the bodies at his feet. "On the contrary, I'm looking to make the human race better," he laughed. "The virus that others had been infected with wasn't designed to kill. It was designed to make the human race better!"

The two men looked at each other, both agreeing that the scientist had completely lost it. "Is that why you used it to kill eleven or more innocent people?" Ed questioned cautiously. "The military's looking into every unexplained death and so far there's been more than a dozen connections in the past decade."

"They were all weak! Only those that are truly worthy or surviving will mutate the virus and make it become part of their genetic code. The ones that died are the weak ones. They could no adapt to the changes brought upon them."

The two men knew full well that they were dealing with a mad man before they had even stepped foot into the town. Now that they were actually face to face with him and listening to him ramble on about some supreme species… they fully realized the depth of his insanity. There was actually no reasoning with him when it came to this sort of thing. Either they humored him or they put the man out of his misery although they were fairly certain that he wasn't suffering from it. How many people actually claimed to suffer from insanity and chose to say that they enjoyed every minute of it? Surely those that lived with someone that was insane didn't enjoy every minute when they were trying their best to help their loved one.

Ross aimed his gun, watching the scientist with wary eyes. "You knew my father was getting close, didn't you?" Ross questioned carefully.

"Your father was a nosy fool!"

"So you got rid of him. You knew that he had more than enough information to lock you up. You even knew that if you got caught, they were going to lock you up and possibly put you on death row." Ross continued. "You knew what that meant. With the alchemists getting better and with the idea of putting souls into armor gaining momentum, you knew what would await you."

Ed watched as the scientist's demeanor changed rather quickly. Once confident, he now panicked at whatever thought had crossed his mind. The blonde could actually almost see the scientist's mind beginning to snap. Did the scientist actually fear having his soul stuck in a suit of armor? He'd be able to live on forever since the soul didn't die but maybe it was living forever that scared him. At least with a human body he could die and go wherever it was that he was supposed to go. "Come on, put the detonator down." Ed said carefully. "None of us want this to take a violent turn for the worse so let's all go peaceful."

Both men ducked when there was a sound of a gun going off, Ed glancing over at Ross and seeing that he hadn't pulled the trigger. They watched as Stephan sank to the ground with blood spreading across his chest. Spinning around, they saw somebody wearing a large trench coat standing with a gun raised. "Who are you?" Ed demanded as he and Ross looked at him.

The man was silent as he stared at them with seemingly empty eyes for a moment before pointing his gun at the two men. "Take cover!" Ross shouted.

Both men knocked over the surgical table that rested amongst the bodies and flinched as the bullets hit the table, the bullets barely grazing them. "Who the hell is that?" Ed shouted at the brunette.

"I don't know!" Ross flinched as another bullet shot through the table, missing his neck by an inch. "Son of a bitch!"

Their hearts raced against their chests as they flinched, trying to avoid getting hit by bullets. Ross turned so he was on his knees and began firing his gun at the shooter, ducking each time a bullet came close to hitting one of them. "Are you even hitting him?" Ed asked.

Ross fired again before ducking down and reloading his gun. "What was that general rule?" Ross asked himself. "If you need more than one clip then you're pretty much screwed?"

"Ross! Are you even hitting him?"

"We're playing Duck-Duck-Goose with each other and so far neither one of us wants to be the goose."

How in the hell could the brunette turn a simple kid's game into a metaphor for fighting for the simple right to live. If you were the duck, you still had a pulse. If you were the goose, then you were dead. Now he really was wondering about how he was going to talk to Ross about giving up his gun. The guy seemed to be attached to it just as freaking Riza was to hers!

On second thought, Ross was an automail mechanic just like Winry so anything that dealt with technology was of high importance. A gun was a form of technology and it was used to either protect or kill. With that simple logic, Ed knew full well that Ross wasn't getting rid of his gun without a fight.

Ross took a deep breath and began firing his gun again, falling backwards when a bullet hit him in the chest. "Don't move. You're going to make it worse." Ed said as he applied pressure to the bullet wound.

Ross shoved Ed's hands away and slowly got up again, blood dribbling from his mouth. "I'm going to die anyway, Ed," the brunette said calmly as he started firing again. "It doesn't matter to me if I die of a bullet."

A bullet whistled by Ed's ear, allowing him to feel the heat that came from the metal. Ross's eyes narrowed slightly as he concentrated before pulling the trigger. When the sound of a body hitting the floor reached his ears, he smiled faintly before sinking to the ground and into blissful unconsciousness.

lostmoonchild: Okay, another chapter done before the deadline so I'm happy. As long as there's a chapter done before the deadline comes around, I'm happy and all is right in the world. Well, fan fiction is probably going to be the main thing that helps keep me sane when my brother goes overseas. Read and review, flames are accepted!