A/N: Happy 18th birthday, PinkieFish.
Envy and the Shorts Factory
Chapter 1
It was a cool, sunny and pleasant morning in Central City. Spring was in the air and the mood was merrier than usual, the whole city obviously welcoming the changing season. Salesmen were quite happy about the fact that snow and cold were no longer going to affect their goods. Children were enjoying the weather and absence of snow even more than the adults, very happy to be riding their bicycles again.
In the outskirts of the city, however, was a gloom-infected building. A factory, to be more precise. The factory stood lonesomely, with some distance separating it from the other buildings, as if the tall fences weren't separating them enough. To any passer-by, the building and the area would have seemed completely dead, apart from the occasional sounds of large machines or the occasional insane laugh from a certain green-haired lunatic.
This exact green-haired lunatic was actually the owner of the small factory. He was a strange creature, homunculus to be more precise, by the name Envy. Proportion-wise, he was quite average. However, his sanity was not. He was somehow sane enough (even though this was a highly debatable topic) to manage and own the factory. The reason for this could perhaps be the fact that this factory was in process of making replicas of his most beloved garment: his black, fitted, ridiculous, bizarre and last but not least literally butt-ugly pair of shorts. Even though previous description was a fact, Envy was under the impression that the shorts were fabulous. He wanted nothing more than to spread this "fabulousness" throughout Central City, which was proven to be quite the difficult task, hence the gloomy mood lingering over the factory since its very first day in business.
The only thing standing in the way of my dream is a group of loyal minions that I can order around... Envy thought, frowning and pursing his lips at his problem. He was sitting alone in a small office in the corner of the large area inside the factory, leaning over the table with his face resting in his right palm. He had to think long and hard before coming up with a reasonable (and doable) idea. He spent the rest of that day sitting in his office, pondering on his issue until finally, he fell asleep on the spot.
The next morning he had a rather uncomfortable awakening.
"You lazy moron, wake up!" A woman's voice yelled as she threw the office door open roughly. As if that wasn't enough, she rounded the table and slapped him on the back of his head.
"OW! … Hey Lust, what the fuck was that for!" He muttered angrily and rubbed the back of his neck just to make a point (it didn't really hurt after all).
"You're not making any progress what so ever with the factory, idiot." Lust stated with a smirk, her eyes glinting smugly with what seemed to be triumph.
"... Yeah well it's my factory so it's none of your business is it!" Envy responded childishly, crossing both arms and legs and looking away from the curvy woman-shaped creature.
"I would say that it is very much my business, considering the fact that you are a huge embarrassment to both me and Father. So just man up and do something about it."
"It's not that easy you know." Envy pouted.
"Like I care. Okay well, see ya later, gotta go!" She said as she left, just as suddenly as she had come.
Envy shook his head, determined to completely disregard what had just happened in order to keep focused on his current task. He was feeling a bit more on top of things at the moment, his well-rested mind very alert. It occurred to him that he might as well search the streets for employees. After all, there must have been someone looking for a job in this city, right?
His first and evidently the only approach needed was to put up fliers within, to start of with, a 2 mile radius. He might have over-exaggerated the job description, but he decided to deal with that later. It took nearly all day to complete, so he called it a day and returned to his small apartment near the factory, feeling very satisfied with himself.
The next day, he was literally bombarded by a large group of people who had come to assume the job positions. Little did they know of their dismal fate. Envy smirked to himself in his little office.
A/N: Sorry about the short chapter, it's just an introduction to the story. Will be updated soon!