Stand by You

XXXVII

"That's the last one, huh?" Darius asked as he threw one of the guys he'd beaten up to the side.

"Thanks for your help, everyone," Colonel Mustang helped Lieutenant Hawkeye to her feet and walked her over to regroup with us.

"Hey, no problem," Darius nodded.

Footsteps filled the room. There were more of these guys? But when we turned to the direction of the noise, whoever was walking had just bent down to picked up the dropped vial containing the Philosopher's Stone. When they stood up, we were shocked at who we saw. It was Führer Bradley. His eyepatch was off, revealing a scarred left eye and he was wearing the pants of his usual military uniform but his jacket was off, revealing his crisp white button-down shirt. His right shoulder was soaked with blood and the hand that cleaned the vial had fresh blood dripping down it.

"Long time no see, Mustang," Führer Bradley said.

"Long time so see, sir," Colonel stiffly replied, gripping Lieutenant Hawkeye closer to him. "It would be difficult for me to say that you're looking as good as ever."

"Knowing you, I thought that when someone dear to you fell before your eyes, you wouldn't hesitate to turn to human transmutation."

"I might have done so, a little while ago. However, right now, I have people who will stop me and show me the right path to take."

"Here I thought you were pathetic creatures who would never learn, but there are those like you who can learn in a short period of time. The thing about you humans is, it infuriates me when you don't act the easy I think you will."

May gasped. "What's wrong?" Scar glanced at her.

"He's under us...he's right under us," She muttered, glancing at the ground underneath her.

"Why, you...I won't let you interfere with the good gentlemen," struggled the gold-toothed man above us struggled.

"Give it up, old timer," Jerso rolled his eyes. "I'm not letting you--"

Suddenly, blood splattered all over the ground from above us and the gold-toothed man and Jerso fell from the ceiling, Jerso clinging onto his shoulder wound. "Jerso!" Zampano ran to his companion's side.

"Run!" Jerso warned.

There were noises of movement above us. "This is bad!" Darius gulped, backing away from where Jerso was hanging the gold-toothed man.

"Something's coming," May noted. "Something terrible."

Shadows slid through the cracks and crevices until it melted onto the ground before it melded into a human-shaped figure. The shadows opened their eyes at us before it melted off the figure, revealing Pride underneath as the shadows pooled at his feet. "Sorry, but look after the Lieutenant," Colonel nervously pushed Lieutenant Hawkeye towards Darius direction for protection.

Führer Bradley dashed towards us at the speed of light. Reacting quickly to protect my superior, I shoved Colonel out of the way and clapped my hands and slapped them quickly on the ground in to bring up the ground underneath the Führer but he jumped before the ground even broke underneath him and kicked me in the chest. As I slid across the floor, He stabbed his blade into my human hand, causing me to shriek in pain. "CLOCKWORK!" Colonel screamed and reached out to help but Pride swung his shadows at the group, separating me from them.

"Well done, Bradley," clapped the gold-toothed man. "That's the boy I brought up--" He was interrupted by Pride stabbing him through the chest with the shadows. He spat blood and protested as he was lifted up and wrapped in Pride's shadows.

"Oh god, that hurts!" I gritted my teeth as I grabbed the Führer's blade with my automail hand in order to rip it out but he had a vice-like grip on it and I couldn't even slid it out by a single millimeter.

Pride used his shadows to form a makeshift transmutation circle underneath the both of us and held the gold-toothed man wrapped in his shadows above us. "Clockwork Alchemist, you are our fifth," He smirked. "I didn't want to resort this, but we ran out of time. Although you weren't our first choice, you will do."

"We're going to force you to open the gateway, Clockwork Alchemist," the Führer explained.

"I won't perform human transmutation!" I protested.

"It doesn't matter if you don't want to," the Führer repeated. "An alchemist who had knowledge of human transmutation has been assimilated by Pride. He had the constructed formula."

Pride wrapped his shadows around my neck and my limbs, excluding my automail limb that was still gripping the sword. "She is pinned," Pride confirmed. "Move back, Wrath."

The Führer-or rather, Wrath, slid his sword out my hand and stepped out of the transmutation circle, which had begun to spark blue. "Well now, I wonder what you'll have taken from you," Wrath coughed.

The circle began to glow more intensely as I felt the tentacle hands slid up, causing me to scream. "Clockwork!" I heard Colonel scream.

"No!" May shrieked. "You'll get caught in it! Get back!"

"COLONEL!" Lieutenant Hawkeye shrieked.

I had no idea what was going on until I saw a shadow overhead me. The Colonel had left onto the transmutation circle and began to yank at my restraints. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I screamed. "GET BACK! THEY ALREADY GOT ME!"

"Protect the Lieutenant for me!" He ordered, yanking even harder at my restraints until the transmutation circle exploded underneath us, consuming the room in magenta light and smoke. I shut my eyes and prepared to be disintegrated along with the Colonel and taken away. But once nothing had happened, I opened my eyes to see that I was still in the room while everyone stared at shock at me. My restraints were gone. I sat up quickly and gripped my bleeding hand. I was still here, but the Colonel was not.

Something dropped next to me and I glanced over and shrieked, backing away while still on my bottom. A humongous blob of rotting flesh was next to me, what remained of the gold-toothed man. The only things that remained on him that told us it was him was the gold tooth in his open mouth and this glasses beside the flesh. "The human transmutation is complete," Wrath stated.

"The old guy with glasses?" Zampano asked.

"Where is the Colonel?" Lieutenant Hawkeye added.

"Relax," Wrath replied. "Right about now, Mustang is with our father. I can't vouch for his physical integrity though." He turned towards me. "I am surprised that they only took Colonel Mustang, but he was the first choice. They didn't want to take more than they needed." He turned back towards the group and began walking towards them, blood dripping onto the ground and he held his swords out. "Now, you see what sort of shape I'm in. Who will take down the Führer of Amestris and claim fame for themselves? A Chimera? The outsider? Mustang's dogs? Or perhaps...you'll all come at me at once?"

"Right there, beneath us," Jerso started as Zampano tended to his injured friend. "As soon as May said he was right below us, the old guy in glasses said he wouldn't let us interfere with the good gentlemen. Apparently, he didn't want us to go down there."

"Oh, so that's where the center is?" Scar said.

"That's right," May nodded. "There is an incredible mass of chi right below us."

"In that case..." Scar tensed his hand and slammed it into the ground as Wrath charged at us. But, he wasn't attacking Wrath., Scar blew the ground up underneath us, dropping us down to the pathway that May said that Father was located. Darius scooped Lieutenant Hawkeye up as we fell and we landed crouching. Wrath looked down below us. "You planning to interfere with Fate?" He sneered before jumping away and slashing at the dashing Scar.

The Chimeras and I ran away from the fight but I took one last glance and send my hopes to Scar as I ran off to locate Father and hopefully stall for time.