Father & Son (Part 6 - William Barns)

[Present day, Western Command – Amestris]

When Lieutenant Donovan, the military officer who was abducted and killed while returning from Ishval, did not show up at Western command, a search party was sent for him. But nobody knew, from where he disappeared, so they started searching from the Ishval train station. Lieutenant Colonel William J Barns was assigned the case of Lieutenant Donovan to investigate his disappearance. He was most famous for his detective skills in the Western region, and he mostly worked alone. He had quite a distinctive appearance because of the way he combed his dense black hairs backward and maintaining a handlebar mustache. His eyes were bluish, upon which he wore round glasses. But, unlike most of the military personnel who were fit and slim, he was slightly fat.

When he was assigned Donovan's case, he asked some soldiers to collect all the information about Donovan's travel from Ishval to Western City. After the soldiers collected information, they made a report and sent it to Western Command which was relayed to William. Besides that, he had already interviewed the direct superiors of Donovan, his family, and friends, but no one was able to provide him any leads. Most of the people only knew that he was leading a team for the reconstruction of Ishval city, but only a few of them knew that military was also in the process of restoring the old Ishval city as well. William found out this information after he talked to one of his superiors. While he was going through the report, he found one interesting thing. There was a statement from one of the railway staff, who said that Donovan ordered a sandwich and a coffee just after the train left Yeuc, which is a city closer to the border of Central Area and West Area. And when the train left the first Western station, Ayzchep, the staff came again to get the payment. But, Donovan was not in his compartment, even though his luggage was still there and even the half-eaten sandwich and the half-drunk coffee was still there.

William was reading the report at his desk, and after reading the statement, he said out of excitement, "Finally a lead. Looks like he disappeared at Ayzchep. Now, I just have to go through his luggage and pay a visit to Ayzchep."

William then went to the evidence room of the Western Command and looked for Donovan's belongings. He searched everything in his luggage, but nothing significant was found. Then he went through the report prepared by Donovan on the reconstruction of Ishval. While he was going through the report, he saw various images of destroyed Ishval city during the war, and then he found a separate section labeled as "Old Ishval". He went through the images in that section where he saw a photograph of ruins of a big temple which was partially covered with flora. There were various photographs of various sections of the temple. While he was browsing through the images, he saw one image where there was a tomb and a fresh flower on it. Because the images were black and white, it was difficult for him to identify the flower's color.

"What flower this could be? I have never seen any flower like this," He thought and resumed browsing through the images. After going through the report he concluded that there was nothing in the report that had any relation to Donovan's disappearance. So, he left the evidence room and proceeded toward his office.

While he was going toward his office, he saw a brunet lady officer was coming toward him. He quickly recognized her because she was the only state alchemist in West City, Cecilia Ingolfson, aka the Splinter Alchemist. He smiled and stopped to greet her, once she was close enough. "Hello Major Ingolfson," He said.

Cecilia stopped and looked at him with her usual blank face. "Hello Colonel Barns," She responded.

"So, how are you doing?" William asked.

"I am doing fine Colonel, thank you for asking," Cecilia replied.

"How was your trip to Wellesley?" William questioned.

Wellesley was the place where Cecilia took Donovan after abducting him and took him to Big John, the person who could show illusions. And everyone in the Western Command knew that she went there for some official work.

"It was good. Now if you please excuse me, I have to be somewhere," Cecilia answered.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry to trouble you," William smiled.

"It's fine," Cecilia said and walked away.

She then went straight to the military library where someone was waiting for her. Even though she knew the person, she had always difficulty in discovering the person unless they want to. She was looking here and there in the library and walked more deep into the library, and suddenly she heard a woman's voice calling her by her first name. She looked toward the woman military personnel who was in her twenties. She understood that it was the person she was looking for. She sighed and went to meet the woman. "Let's go there, we can talk there," The woman said and led Cecilia to one of the vacant areas of the library.

After they reached the place, both faced each other and then Cecilia asked anxiously in a low voice "Did you kill him?"

"I told you to stop, but you didn't," The woman grinned.

Cecilia sighed and informed, "There is someone put for investigating Donovan's disappearance."

"I know. I hope he will be fun," The woman frowned and continued, "However, I doubt if he can catch me, after all, how he can find someone who doesn't exist?" She giggled.

Cecilia was annoyed by his behavior and interrupted by informing, "I found out the real incident which happened at Central Command."

The woman instantly stopped laughing after listening to that and looked toward Cecilia seriously. "Everything that is being spread out in the public is lies constructed by Grumman, Armstrong, and Mustang," Cecilia informed and continued, "Bradley was never attacked by some terrorists. He was actually attacked by some of Grumman's men. But, I think you know that already…However, the news that you might be interested in is that Father is in fact dead. He somehow got killed during the final transmutation."

"I thought Father failed when I saw so many people alive after I returned from Creta. But, finding out that Father is dead, is quite unbelievable," The woman sighed and continued, "Well, it is good news in a way if you think."

"Why? Didn't you pledge him your life?" Cecilia asked.

"I did, but he never asked me to help him other than looking after the West Area, which I did. But, now that he is no more, I can do whatever I want, and you no more need to go to Lab 0 time to time," The woman replied with a smile.

"You were already doing whatever you wanted, but it's good to know that I don't have to look after Lab 0 anymore," Cecilia said and then questioned after a small pause, "If Father is dead then doesn't it mean that the other three pillars are also free?"

"Yes. And by now Coeus would have also known about Father's death," The woman giggled and continued with a grin on her face, "Girl, we can expect an attack from Drachma anytime now, and do you know what? This time Drachma is going to win by stomping Fort Briggs."

"Isn't the Brigg's wall impregnable?" Cecilia asked.

"Not anymore," The woman smirked.

Meanwhile, in Selonova, a village in Drachma, Maria, Danny, and Boris were able to catch the infamous creature of Selonova and they learned the truth about the chimera and found a link between the chimera and the mysterious Lab C. However, their adventure ended very tragically when they reminded the chimera of her past accidentally. Soon after that Louie (the chimera), decided to accept her fate and faced the angry mob waiting for her outside the cave. She was beaten down to death by the people as an act of pure revenge. The people even refused to bury her anywhere near the village even after knowing the truth.

So, the trio took the dead body 5-6 miles away from the village and buried her at a place where there were some wild colorful flowers. After some time, when they finished burying her, the sun rose and gave a splendid view while all three of them were standing in front of the grave. "Life is so unfair sometimes," Maria said.

"Yes, it is. That's how it keeps everything in balance," Boris responded.

"Let's go, we don't have time to shed tears on her grave…The more time I save, the more time I get to punish those people who commit such an inhuman act on children," Danny said.

Maria and Boris looked at Danny surprisingly and smiled. Then they paid their final respect to Louie before leaving for Othon.