Chapter 6: The secrets of the East

The Iron Sole Alchemist (Chapter 6) The secrets of the East

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.)

. . .

On the trip to Ishbal, I made some updates to the arrays on my shoes. I figured that since command was sending State Alchemists in to aid in the reconstruction, I should be ready to transmute buildings, roads, wells, and other necessities. It took me the entire trip to get it done, so I didn't have time to chat with the others on the way, but I was very satisfied with the results.

When I stepped outside, I felt very much at home. The sun was high in the sky, and the desert sands stretched endlessly in every direction. I could make out, just barely, the outlines of ruined buildings.

The Ishbalans themselves were operating out of a tent-city. The military's supply convoys had provided food and water. They were surviving, but it was to be our job to get them to the point of thriving.

The Swarm Alchemist led us over to a tallish man who had accessorized his blue military uniform with a wide brimmed hat, and wore a heavy looking revolver from a wide gunbelt in place of the standard sidearm. A silver chain was visible running from his belt to his pocket.

As we approached, the man's eyes flicked over us briefly before he spoke. "Great. Command's sent me more Alchemists. Are they even trying to pretend you're here to help with the Ishbalan reconstruction anymore?"

"Colonel," replied the Swarm Alchemist in his standard irritated formal tone, "command has made it clear that reconstruction is progressing too slowly. Additional resources have been allocated accordingly."

"Cut the crap. I've been requesting digging equipment for weeks, machined parts for generators, and additional masonry tools. Instead command sends me pallets of metal slugs and more soldiers. It took me a month before I got them to send dried food instead of bulk cellulose."

"But isn't what they've sent more efficient?" I asked. "Metal slugs and bulk cellulose can be packed tighter and shipped in greater quantities at a time, then be transmuted into food, parts, and tools at the site."

"That would work out just fine anywhere but Ishbal, kid."

"Why? Is there some sort of problem with Alchemy in this area?"

"It's not the area, kid. It's the people. The Ishbalans consider Alchemy to be a sin, and anything made using it is unclean. They won't eat transmuted food, drink from transmuted wells, wear transmuted clothes, or live in transmuted buildings."

"But that doesn't make any sense. If that's the case, why did command send State Alchemists to help with this?"

"Why indeed?" he responded meaningfully with a glance at my commanding officer.

"Whatever command's reasons," responded the Swarm Alchemist, "my men and I are here to assist in any way we can."

In response, the man drew his large revolver and fired five shots. Each bullet struck the ground in front of one of us, and the impact was accompanied by gold arcs of alchemic light. Five shovels had been transmuted out of the trace materials in the sand.

"Then grab a shovel and start digging. The Ishbalans won't use transmuted tools, but when we're done, the well itself won't be a product of alchemy." He started to walk away, before adding as an afterthought, "By the way. The name's Ryan Murdoch, Gunslinger Alchemist, for all that's worth around here. Welcome to Ishbal."

. . .

More used to the desert than the others, I was able to set a pace that would keep anyone from dropping from exhaustion or dehydration. It was still exhausting work. To his credit, the Swarm Alchemist was alongside us the whole way, despite this obviously not being his element.

The sun was beginning to set when the Gunslinger Alchemist approached us. "Leave your tools where they are. Time to head back to base, grab some chow,, and rest up for tomorrow."

I started walking toward the Ishbalan tent city, but was stopped by a firm hand on my shoulder.

"Military quarters are this way," said the Gunslinger Alchemist as he pointed his thumb east, farther into the desert.

Over the next dune, we made out a guard tower, then high stone walls topped with razor wire, then finally, sandbag lined trenches surrounding the base.

"Are we getting ready to fight another war with Ishbal?" asked Melvin as we approached the fortified base.

"Probably," noted Ken. "It would explain why command has been sending alchemists out here, knowing that the Ishbalans don't like them, then sending supplies the Ishbalans can't or won't use."

"Let me run an alternate theory by you," said the Gunslinger Alchemist. "Command doesn't give a shit about the Ishbalans one way or the other. This whole reconstruction effort is just an excuse to increase fortification along the eastern border."

"But why would they want to?" I asked. "The great desert provides a natural barrier to attack, so the only thing to defend against is rebellion. And if that's what they were worried about, why risk antagonizing the Ishbalans and provoking the very thing they're worried about?"

"Gunslinger, Iron Sole," said the Colonel, "tomorrow morning, report to my field office. Command has additional orders for you."

"And you didn't mention this until now, why?" asked the Gunslinger Alchemist.

"My orders were to discuss this at the command post, away from the Ishbalans. The rest of you are to continue with the reconstruction efforts from today until further notice."

The Colonel could have just asked to be shown to the command post right away. And he could have dragged us straight into this meeting instead of waiting until morning. For whatever reason, the Swarm Alchemist was delaying.

. . .

"What you are about to hear is highly classified," began the Swarm Alchemist.

"What isn't?" I mumbled under my breath.

"A review of Fuhrer Bradley's personal papers, following his death, revealed the existence and location of a ruined city beyond our eastern border."

"An archeology dig is 'highly classified'?" asked the Gunslinger Alchemist scornfully. "Is this why command's putting up this show of reconstructing Ishbal?"

"I have been ordered to oversee the reconstruction, and I intend to see that performed competently. Your orders regarding these ruins are an entirely separate issue."

"So, what's so important about this city anyway?" asked Gunslinger.

"Its defenses are still intact."

"Wait," I said, "I thought you said the city was in ruins."

"It is. According to reports, the city itself is in a state of extreme disrepair, and there are no signs of human activity wihtin. None of the men we sent inside to investigate, however, ever returned."

"So the suicide mission falls to us," finished the Gunslinger Alchemist.

Ignoring him, the Swarm Alchemist continued, "Your orders are to penetrate the city's defenses, ascertain any threat it may represent, and report back your findings."

. . .

Loki, Gunslinger, and I set out further east after gathering some supplies. The Fuhrer's map was surprisingly accurate and up to date, suggesting someone had been out here just prior to the Fuhrer's death.

"I don't think bringing the dog along was a good idea," said the Gunslinger Alchemist as he looked concerned at Loki. "If we meet opposition, he could get caught in the crossfire."

"Loki can take care of himself," I replied, patting the dog's flank. "He might well end up bailing us out."

The conversation ended as we crested a dune and looked down into an old city. It'd been partially reclaimed by the desert, but it was still in better shape than Ishbal. Like the Colonel had said, there were no signs of inhabitation visible from here.

The three of us crouched down to avoid being outlined by the dune as we took a moment to observe.

"I'll stay on the dune and cover your approach, Iron Sole. You move a lot faster than I do in this sand, and I'm a better shot. Once you're at the city's edge, you cover my approach."

"Got it."

Staying low, Loki and I quickly and quietly covered the distance. Once there, the chimera started sniffing the ground.

"What is it, boy?" I asked in a whisper, signaling for Gunslinger to hold his position.

Sniffing around a bit more, Loki pointed out several partially obscured footprints. We weren't alone in this city.

After confirming the immediate area was secure, I signaled for the other alchemist to join me.

"What've you got?" he asked in a low voice on arriving.

I pointed to the tracks.

"Can the dog track by scent?"

"Yep. Loki, which way'd they go?"

The chimera took a moment to blow the sand out of his nose, then took off at a brisk trot following the trail.

Loki led us deeper into the ruined city, and as he did so, I started to notice something familiar. There were straight lines of ruined buildings, and indentations in the ground that hadn't been fully obliterated by the sands and time.

"What do you know about the events in Liore?" I asked my partner.

"I heard the city was wiped out with alchemy. Why?"

"I think something similar happened, or is going to happen, here. That line there is part of a city-wide transmutation circle."

"So which is it? Are we in danger or not?"

I thought for a moment, then stomped the ground with my right foot. A building in the same architectural style as the others sprang out of the ground accompanied by a bright purple glow. Seamlessly integrated into the city, the new building cut off the line of the array we were on.

"Now if anyone tries to activate the array, they'll have to track down the break and remove the building. Should buy us some time if this thing is still a threat."

"Good thinking," acknowledged the Gunslinger Alchemist as we continued to follow Loki deeper into the city. "Nice building, by the way. Hotel?"

"Bed and breakfast," I corrected. "Before I found out the Ishbalans hated alchemy, I fixed up the arrays on my shoes to help with the reconstruction. Might as well get some use out of that."

. . .

Loki led us to a large central building. The structure had spires, steeples, and churchbells. Standing just outside the main door, perfectly still, were a pair of statues or armored figures. It was impossible to tell which. What was striking, however, was that the armor was identical to the suit Alphose Elric had worn when he came to Liore.

A bird knocked a pebble off one of the nearby buildings as it took flight. The helmet of one of the figures turned in that direction for a few seconds, then resumed its original position. That settled it. These were guards.

"Alright, Iron Sole. If there are guards outside, there are probably others inside. With the missing scouts Colonel Swarm told us about, we can safely assume these guys aren't friendly. So, how do we bypass or disable these two without alerting the ones inside?"

"Lure them away," I replied. "Give them something nonthreatening to do that'll still get them away from their posts. We can jump them once they're far enough away that no one inside will hear the racket."

"What're you thinking for a distraction?"

I looked over the guards and grinned. "Loki, fetch!"

Loki darted out at the guards, and before they'd realized what was happening, the dog had bit down on the loincloth of one of the suits of armor and ripped it away.

"Hey, you mutt, give that back!" the guard screamed and tried to snatch it away.

Loki playfully hopped out of reach each time the guard tried to retrieve his garment.

"Having trouble with the dog, Earl?"

"Shut up and help me!" shot back Earl in frustration.

"Fine," the other guard replied with laughter in his voice. "I'll circle around and you drive it towards me, then we can-"

At that point, Loki took off at a dead run, and both guards hastened after.

"Don't let it get away!" called out Ear.

"I'm coming!" replied the other.

Half a mile away, Loki stopped dead and turned to face his pursuers.

"Now we've got you, you mangy mutt!"

"Actually," replied the Gunslinger Alchemist from his rooftop vantage point.

"We've got you," I finished as I stepped out from behind a wall to block their retreat.

A shot rang out, and impacted a nearby building as I stomped the ground. Two gigantic hands, one glowing yellow, and the other glowing purble, formed themselves out of stone and grabbed the two guards by the waist, lifting them off the ground.

The pair flailed about helplessly in surprise, while the Gunslinger Alchemist hopped down and approached.

"State Alchemists," said Earl, calming down and ceasing his futile struggle against the stone grip.

"Looks like," replied his companion, far too calmly.

"Guess we'll have to get on our game, Lee."

With that, the two guards clapped their hands together in unison, and pressed them against the stone that held them. Arcs of blue alchemic light shot through our transmuted stone, and their bindings exploded off them, hurling sharp rocks in all directions.

On impulse, I transmuted a small wall between myself and the explosion, and managed to avoid anything more than a cut on the forehead. Gunslinger and Loki had dropped prone to avoid the shrapnel.

The two armored guards wasted no time charging at the State Alchemists, and Lee had hopped my makeshift barrier before the dust had fully cleared. A doubled-over pair of heavy metal fists descended toward my head, so I dropped and rolled out of the way.

A shot rang out, as the Gunslinger Alchemist transmuted a large stone fist from a nearby building, which slammed into Earl like a freight train.

Seeing an opening, I kicked Lee's leg as he came down, and deconstructed the armor on that spot as I went. Unarmored, it would be easy to buckle the knee with my automail leg. Only problem was, there was no leg inside the armor.

My leg passed right through the spot his should have been, my momentum unslowed due to deconstructing the armor as I went through. On the plus side, with his right leg now missing, Lee did lose his balance and topple. On the minus side, due to the unexpected way it happened, he toppled right on top of me.

Loki, in full Chimera form, launched himself at Lee. The Chimera knocked the guard off me, and the impact jarred loose his helmet. Toppling over like a broken puppet, I could see into the inside of the armor.

"They're empty suits of armor!" I screamed.

I needn't have bothered. The impact of the Gunslinger Alchemist's last attack had broken off Earl's breast plate.

"A little Help?" came a call from Lee's helmet.

"I'll be right there as soon as I finish these two off." replied Earl. Then, he clapped his hands and transmuted a massive cannon pointing at my companion.

"Never get in a shooting match with the Gunslinger Alchemist," he quipped before shooting the base of the transmuted cannon, reversing its orientation, and blowing Earl to bits with his own weapon.

"Earl!" called the disembodied voice from Lee's helmet.

"What are these things?" asked the Gunslinger Alchemist, picking up Lee's helmet by its ornamental feather.

I looked over the rest of the body as I replied, "Some sort of soul attachment, but I've never seen one this stable."

"Don't ignore me!" yelled Lee.

"Or what?" asked Gunslinger. "You'll stare us to death?"

I took the helmet from him and looked inside as Lee continued to protest his treatment. There, drawn on the underside of the helmet's top, was an alchemic seal drawn in what looked like blood. I turned the helmet so my partner could see.

"It looks like that's the anchoring point. I'll bet if we put the helmet back on, the rest of the armor will reanimate," I explained as I set the helmet on a nearby wall to put it at eye level.

"And if we break the seal, it dies," guessed Gunslinger. "We have some questions for you."

"You think you can threaten me, mortal?" demanded Lee.

"Your partner proved mortal enough by my reckoning," mused Gunslinger.

"Death doesn't frighten me, Alchemist."

"Alright then," I said. "No death threats." I gestured to Loki, who quickly dug a hole, then picked up the helmet.

"What are you doing?" demanded Lee.

"No death threats." And I dropped him in the hole.

"Wait!" exclaimed Lee as he realized what I was going to do. "You don't understand what she'd do to me if I talked!"

"The blood seal was pretty clever," I mused as Loki slowly burred Lee. "Using the iron in the blood to act as a bridge between the metal body of the armor and the human soul. I'll bet the attachment could last forever, or at least until the blood decayed away. On the other hand, if the armor rusted just right, the seal might outlast the actual blood."

"Alright! I'll talk! Just get me out of here!"

I signaled Loki to stop filling in the hole, but didn't immediately pull him out.

"How many more of you things are there inside?" asked Gunslinger.

"Four."

"You're guarding something," noted Gunslinger. "What is it?"

"Please, don't make me-"

I kicked a bit more sand into the hole.

"Alright! It's a laboratory."

"Who's laboratory?" I demanded.

"We just call her the Master! None of us know her real name!"

"Is this master the one who attached your soul to this armor?" I asked.

"Yes."

"Is she here?" asked Gunslinger.

"Not at the moment."

"That's all we need for now," said Gunslinger, before shooting the remains of Lee's body and deconstructing it.

I pulled the helmet out of the ground, kicked a wall to transmute a niche, and set Lee into it.

"We'll come pick you up on the way back," I said.

"Wait," said Lee. "You'll be killed by the others, and they won't know where I am."

"Guess you'd better hope we win, then." With that, I transmuted the niche closed. I then took a piece of chalk and drew an X on the spot.

"Leaving a clue in case we don't make it?" asked Gunslinger.

"It really wouldn't be right to leave him there forever."

. . .

The three of us silently crept into the building. There was a long, tiled hall, lit intermittently by small ceiling lights.

One of us must've tripped a catch, because without warning, the floor opened beneath us into a pit of spikes. Loki nimbly hopped to safety before the floor fully opened. Gunslinger shot the ceiling and transmuted a line to hang from and climb back up with. I angled my fall so my right foot would hit a high spike first, and transmuted the whole batch of spikes away, landing harmlessly on flat ground.

"So much for the quiet approach," mused Gunslinger. "If the trap going off didn't alert them, our alchemy would have."

I hopped out of the pit. "Agreed. No point trying to stick with subtlety." With that, I stomped my foot and fused the hallway's tiles together, making any other traps impossible to trigger.

When we approached the door at the other end, we heard sounds of a struggle.

"One of our guys might be alive in there!" exclaimed Gunslinger.

I kicked open the heavy metal security door, transmuting off its latch and hinges.

Inside, four more of the armored figures were trying to force a dark haired boy into a cell. The boy had an automail right arm and left leg, and was being held with one guard on each arm. He was kicking and screaming in a wild fury.

The only guard who noticed our entry was one positioned behind the cell door ready to quickly close it when they got the boy inside.

A shot rang out, and the head of one of the guards holding the boy disappeared, deconstructed by the Gunslinger Alchemist. Rather than drop to the ground as we'd expected, the figure turned our direction.

The distraction was enough to cost the guard his grip on the struggling boy. With his left arm free, he twisted in the grip of his remaining captor, and struck him hard with both feet.

Loki leapt past us and tacked one of the guards, but was quickly thrown off by a solid punch to the stomach.

The guard behind the cell door clapped and pressed his hands to the ground, and a solid wall sprang up behind Gunslinger and I, blocking our retreat.

No way back, I charged forward and kicked the Cell door, transmuting the bars and wrapping up his hands.

"I've seen this trick a few times now. If you can't clap, you can't transmute."

Gunslinger's headless opponent clapped and grabbed the security door, transmuting it into a shield held before him. Gunslinger countered by shooting the ceiling above his opponent, and transmuting a huge stone fist to shoot down at him. This took him by surprise, and he was slammed hard into the floor.

Loki was in trouble. These things were stronger, faster, and smarter than the zombies we'd fought before, and his armored scales and reinforced bones weren't enough to make up the difference. Each time Loki went for a leap, he was getting punched down out of midair.

The boy was doing remarkably well. His opponent was treating him with extreme caution, backing away and circling. The boy charged blindly in a berserk fury. The guard held up a forearm to block a punch from the boy's automail, and the armor's forearm cracked visibly.

Gunslinger and the boy holding their own, I stomped my foot, and transmuted a pillar under the feet of Loki's opponent. The guard hadn't moved since regaining his stance, and proved too solidly rooted to dodge my attack. The pillar crushed him against the ceiling, pinning him.

The one pinned to the floor managed to clap and touch the ground. Blue sparks raced towards where I'd wrapped up the first one in iron bars. The bars untwisted, releasing him, and he then transmuted one of them into a thick bladed short sword.

Ignoring the State Alchemists, he ran to aid his friend against the boy. The boy had been so focused keeping up his frantic attacks on his opponent that he didn't see the other guard coming up from behind. The blade came down with an incredible amount of force on the boy's left shoulder, cleaving his one human arm from his body.

"Kid gloves are off, Iron Sole," said the Gunslinger Alchemist. "No prisoners. Just take them out." With that, the guard who'd cleaved off the boy's arm exploded into tiny flakes of metal, still arcing with gold sparks from the Gunslinger Alchemist's shot.

Loki knocked the other guard who'd been attacking the boy down, when the two guards pinned by pillars transmuted themselves free.

For his part, the boy seemed to be more concerned that his punching bag had been tacked away than that his arm had been chopped off. Why that was soon became apparent. Blue arcs of lightning shot out of the stump, and bone assembled itself before my eyes. Another wave of blue light layered muscle overtop, and a final wave transmuted the skin and nails back onto the completely regenerated arm.

The object of my quest right in the room with me, I was blindsided by the headless guard. His metal fist struck me hard in the back, and I flew, face first, into a wall.

Gunslinger fared little better. The blue light from the arm's regeneration caused him to turn reflexively and aim his gun at the boy. The remaining guard clapped and punched part of the remains of the pillar which had held him. A hard stone ball accelerated like a cannon by the alchemy. It struck the Gunslinger Alchemist on his right arm, breaking it and causing him to lose his grip on the gun.

A birage of blow rained down on the boy's opponent, cracking open the breastplate as Loki's jaws managed to find purchase and began ripping limbs from their moorings. One final blow from the boy's automail arm must've broken the blood seal, because the armor fell limp and stopped moving.

Spitting blood, I turned to the headless guard just in time to see him clap and transmute a stone fist from the floor, which accelerated towards me on a snamking column of transmuted stone. I brought my right leg up to meet it, intending to deconstruct it. When the stone fist made contact, I activated the array on my shoe. I felt the energy circulating, but the guard was still transmuting it from his end. Matching raw power against raw power, my transmutation proved the weaker.

My automail buckled under the blow, the ankle joint failing first, and then the knee. But that slowed the blow more than my failed alchemy had, and I was able to drop and roll out of the way before the first broke open a section of the stone wall.

Gunslinger's opponent repeated his move, but even with a broken arm, the man was clearheaded enough to see it coming and easily dodged the cannonball.

"Your gun!" called out Gunslinger as he held out his left hand.

I tossed my sidearm to him before rolling under the horizontal column that had nearly crushed me.

Left handed, Gunslinger fired off a half-dozen shots at the guard's right shoulder. The bullets tore into the joint material of the armor, causing the arm to drop off.

"Now we're even," said Gunslinger.

The boy had frozen up, and was staring on horror through the huge hole in the wall. Loki slammed into the one-armed guard, knocking him off balance. The guard fell over, but appeared otherwise uninjured.

I took my left leg and pressed it against the column above me. With it no longer being transmuted, my alchemy went forward unopposed. Purple lightning crackled along the length of the column. A valve appeared on my opponent's end, directly above the hole where his helmet would have been. Sand blasted out of the valve at high pressure.

I didn't know where his blood seal was, but sandblasting the entire interior of his armor, I didn't have to. The headless guard dropped.

The one-armed guard kicked Loki off him, but the distraction had given Gunslinger time to retrieve his weapon. The guard tried to clap, remembered he only had one arm, and looked helplessly at the Gunslinger Alchemist before the shot rang out and his body was destroyed.

Loki, back in dog form, helped me stand without putting weight on my ruined automail leg. Gunslinger approached the boy we'd rescued.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"It can't be," whispered the boy without moving a muscle. "How can it be here?"

I turned and followed the boy's gaze through the hole in the wall. On the other side, I saw another chamber, much larger than this one. In the center, there was a massive freestanding stone door frame. A stylized eye was carved on its sealed double-doors, and humanoid statues decorated its border.

"What is that?" I asked no one in particular.

"The Gate," whispered the terrified boy.

"That explains everything," responded the Gunslinger Alchemist rolling his eyes. "Look, kid, we have to get you-"

"YOU WON'T TAKE ME BACK THERE!"

As Gunslinger reached out to the boy, he grabbed the offered arm with his automail grip and slammed the Gunslinger Alchemist to the floor. As soon as he was down, the boy straddled him and started pounding Gunslinger's face with his fists.

Gunslinger was probably unconscious after the first blow. Recalling what I'd seen this boy do to the armored guards, I quickly stomped with my one good foot. A stone hand gripped the boy by the waist and lifted him harmlessly into the air.

"No one's going to take you anywhere!" Calm down."

As the boy struggled, I hobbled over to Gunslinger as quickly as I could. He was out cold with a broken nose, but he'd be okay.

"I'm going to let you down now," I said. "When I do, you can go if you want to, but if you try to hurt anyone, I'll have to restrain you again." Without waiting for a response, I did just that, opening the stone fist with my alchemy and standing aside from the exit door.

No longer feeling trapped, the boy calmed considerably. He looked warily between me and the Gate.

"Are you okay now?" I asked in as soothing a voice as I could muster.

He nodded.

"Okay," I said, trying to keep the situation calm. "I'm Marcus Oren, the Iron Sole Alchemist. This is Loki. That guy you just knocked out is the Gunslinger Alchemist. What's your name?"

"Wrath," he replied tentatively.

"Wrath, like I said, we aren't going to try to take you anywhere you don't want to go. Do you understand?"

Wrath nodded.

"Now, what is that thing, and why does it have you so scarred?" I asked, pointing to the Gate.

"It's where I came from, but it shouldn't be here."

"Why not?"

"The Gate appears to alchemists who break the ultimate taboo and try to bring someone back to life. When it appears, it takes something from them, then it goes away again. She found another way to summon it, but not like this. Never permanently."

"Who?"

"Dante."

"Is she the one these guys call the Master?" I guessed.

"I think so. It's too dark."

"What's too dark?"

"The Gate. It's always bathed in light, but not now."

"I'll check it out," I said and started to climb through the hole.

"No! Stop!"

I froze. "What's wrong?"

"It always takes something. Sometimes it takes everything."

I swallowed. The boy's fear was infectious. "You don't know why it's here."

Wrath nodded.

"And something isn't right about it."

He nodded again.

"And it's dangerous."

"Yes."

"Then we have to get more information. I'm going to get closer. You wait here. It can't hurt you from this distance, right?"

"I don't know."

I carefully crawled through the hole, leaving Loki behind to keep an eye on Wrath and Gunslinger. As I slowly crawled toward the structure, it occurred to me that if I had to move quickly to flee something that came out of it, I wouldn't be able to.

I circled the Gate, and then approached after confirming there were no further surprises hiding on the other side. Placing my hand on it, the door was smooth stone on a well lubricated hinge. Seeing no other obvious test to perform, I pushed it open.

The other side of the room was visible through the now open door frame.

"It's a fake!" Wrath yelled, his fear turning to anger. He charged the structure and punched a hole in one of the thick stone doors with his mechanical fist.

I backed up before asking, "Why would this Dante make a copy of this 'Gate'?"

"Maybe to hide it," said Wrath as he continued to pound the stone replica.

"Hide what? The real Gate?"

"No. Her philosopher's stone."

"Philosopher's Stone?" I asked. "Why don't we go over this from the beginning. You obviously weren't working with those guards. What's your connection to this Dante?"

A dark smile spread over the boy's face. "I am one of the seven."

"What does that mean?"

"Dante created some of us. Found others. We were used as tools to guide and trick Alchemists into creating the Philosopher's Stone. She claimed that with the stone, she could make us human."

"'Created you'? 'Make you human'? You mean to say you aren't human?"

To emphasize his point, he took a piece of stone hi his non-mechanical arm, the one he'd regenerated during the battle, then broke it apart in his fist. "No. I am a homonculus."

"A homonculus?" I've read about those. An artificial human body with no soul of its own, created in the process of bringing a person back to life. Wouldn't that mean you are human, just a resurrected human?"

"No. You said it yourself. A homonculus has no soul of their own." He spat, like the words tasted bitter in his mouth.

"So you're looking for the Philosopher's Stone to become human."

"I don't want to be human anymore. I'm going to use the stone to bring Mommy back."

"You lost your mother. I'm sorry to hear that."

"We brought her the Stone, but she wouldn't use it to bring back Mommy, who died getting it."

"That's why you broke with Dante."

Wrath nodded.

"I have a thousand other questions, but we can talk while we search." I plopped down and planted my automail leg in the middle of a transmutation circle. I knew next to nothing about automail, so there was only so much I could do to fix it. I ended up fusing the broken joints. I could stand and limp on it, but it wasn't even as good as Dominik's loaner.

As I pulled myself to a standing position, I asked, "Hey, Wrath. How did you do that thing where you grew back your arm?"

He looked at his left hand and spoke. "All homonculi can do it. It uses up red stones, but it lets us heal ourselves from almost anything."

"I take it the other arm and leg fell into the 'almost' category."

"I don't know why I can't grow them back. Maybe it's because the Gate took them. Maybe it's because they were human limbs."

"Well, that explains why the Gate's so frightening. If it might be able to cripple even someone like you."

"That's not it. You wouldn't understand. You haven't seen it."

Letting the matter drop, we started searching the facility. When we entered a room, I leaned against a wall and wretched. There were corpses, dozens of them piled in a heap. All of them incomplete. Some were missing arms, some legs, others looked like they'd been gutted.

"They saw the Gate, didn't they?" I asked Wrath.

"Yes."

We moved on. At length, we found not the Philosopher's stone Wrath was looking for, but a library. Most of the texts were commonly available alchemy books, though a very good set. What drew my eye, however, was the pile of handwritten notebooks. The script was flowery and elegant, most importantly, easy to read despite the age and faded quality of the ink in some of the books.

"They're about the Gate," I reported. "She was doing experiments trying to learn more about it."

"What happened to the homonculi created in the experiments?"

"Apparently used in some sort of transmutation she was experimenting with to keep the Gate open longer. Looks like she abandoned that line of research. Something about needing coordinated effort on the other side."

I fathered up the research notes into a bag and continued exploring the facility with Wrath.

"When you said you had no soul, what did you mean by that? You can walk and talk and think and feel. What else is there to a soul?"

"Alchemy. Homonculi can't use alchemy."

"And that's a function of the soul? I suppose that makes sense, given that the souls bound in armor back there could use alchemy. Though I'd still like to know how they did it with no circle."

"They saw the Gate. Once an alchemist has seen the Gate, he can make an array with his body by clasping his hands and circulating the energy within."

"So those guards were part of Dante's Gate experiments," I concluded.

We'd circled around back to where we'd left Loki and Gunslinger right as the later was coming around.

"Ugh, how long was I out?"

"A couple hours," I replied, helping him into a sitting position without the use of his broken arm.

"You going to freak out on me again?" he asked Wrath, who flinched.

"You scared him," I explained. "He thought you were going to take him..."

"Where? Back to the base where there's food and water? Back to his family who probably miss him?"

"He was fighting those guards when we got here," I pointed out. "I'm not sure how rationally I'd acct after that either."

"Where are you from, kid?"

Wrath thought for a minute, then said, "Dublith."

"You got family there?"

"Kind of," replied Wrath noncommittally.

"Then once we get back to base, we're shipping you back there."

"But-" began Wrath before Gunslinger cut him off.

"Unless you'd prefer I didn't forget about that whole 'assaulting an officer of the State military' thing.

"Look, kid. Whatever problems you've got at home can't be as bad as being alone in the middle of the desert."

"I'll ask Colonel Swarm if I can escort him back. My automail's busted up, and I need to stop by Rush Valley for repairs anyway."

"Automail?" asked Gunslinger.

I pulled up my right pant leg revealing the somewhat twisted metal limb.

. . .

On the way back, I gave Wrath my right shoe. Ostensibly because he was barefoot and my leg was automail anyway. But really, I wanted to make sure no one back at base saw the oroboros tattoo on the bottom of his foot.

Gunslinger retrieved the head of the guard we'd disabled outside, and we returned to base. I reported to the Swarm Alchemist, and again he got most of the truth about what I'd found. Souls bound to suits of armor, a pile of rotting corpses that had obviously been experimented on, and a frightened boy being forced into one of the cells.

Neither Wrath, nor the helmet pointed out the gaps in my report. Dante's notes and Wrath's nature. As a result, my request to escort Wrath to Dublith with a stop at Rush Valley for repairs was granted. As before, I was ordered not to discuss what I'd seen.

. . .

Author's comments:

If anyone was in need of a real friend, it was Wrath. An understanding ear and compassionate advice is an equivalent exchange for the knowledge to accomplish Iron Sole's goal, right?