Über dem Gatter hinaus
(title translates to "Beyond the gate" in German)
Description: REWRITTEN. A one-shot written about Envy and his "life."
(To answer some questions: Yes, Envy is a MALE. Why else would I refer to him as the SON of Hoho-papa, or call him a man? And I started the story out in the town to give it substance, so that you can imagine the setting in which Envy is placed in. Also, it gives it a sense of irony that Envy would be so disheartened on such a beautiful day. And, though this wasn't asked or anything of the such, I'd just like to say that, even though the homunculi aren't really the person they were brought back to be, but merely a copy, I will refer to Envy and Hohenheim's son as the same person.)
Disclaimer: I do not own FullMetal Alchemist (Hiromu Arakawa).
Note: This is a SPOILER warning. If you have not seen the ending of FullMetal Alchemist and don't want to ruin it for yourself, I'd read no farther, but if you have seen it, or don't care about that, then read on my friend.
"Now I see the times they change / Leaving doesn't seem so strange / I am hoping I can find / Where to leave my hurt behind / All the shit I seem to take / All alone I seem to break / I have lived the best I can / Does this make me not a man?"
-excerpt from "Alone I Break" (Korn)
It was a crisp, cool autumn day. The leaves had turned their usual array of reds and oranges and yellows. Sunlight filtered down from the flawless blue sky and through the stratum of leaves on the trees, creating a picturesque landscape. It was inconceivable that any being could be in a mood less than joyful.
Though the day was blissful, there was only a single individual about. Only a single man standing in the center of the small town. Only a single man was still living. Only a single man who had slaughtered many. Only a single man, whose hands were coated with blood. Only a single man…who was really nothing but a monster created in an unforgivable act of alchemy.
The homunculus known as Envy stood adjacent to a small, long desiccated fountain that sat in the center of a small farming town. He had arrived early, before dawn had even begun to break, to begin his task. Dante had, once again, ordered him to wipe out a town for the progression of her plans.
He hadn't used a deadly disease as he had before. No, this time he had murdered them all in cold blood with his own two hands. It didn't quite cohere with Dante's plan, but at the moment that mattered not to him. He had been trying to comprise a method to take out his aggravation, and this had been the perfect opportunity.
You see, something had been troubling Envy for a while now. It buzzed around inside his skull like an angry hornet. It wouldn't leave him be. It wouldn't die down. It persisted in driving him towards insanity. Sitting himself down on the rim of the old fountain with a goaded sigh, he began to muse on his ostensible "life."
He had been the son of Hohenheim Elric, an alchemist who had lived nearly four hundred years ago. His mother was a woman named Dante, who had been a fellow alchemist alongside Hohenheim, as well as his lover. They had been happy together. Life was perfect. It seemed as though nothing could go wrong, as if this life would last in an idyllic way for years to come.
Envy scowled at the corpse of a butchered man that lay several feet in front of him. He couldn't believe that he had been so very caught up in what was surely an illusion. How stupid he had been to think that anything could be perfect.
A tragedy had struck when he was still yet a young man. He had fell ill of a poisoning and died. Grief stricken and longing for their son, Dante and Hohenheim turned to the worst taboo act of alchemy. Human transmutation.
It failed, as was to be expected. All that remained of the futile attempt at bringing life was a quivering mass of inequitable human body parts heaped into one to form something truly gruesome. Those that saw it would have surely shrieked in terror and ran for their lives.
Envy's scowl deepened and he gripped the edge of the fountain so intensely that it seemed sure to crack. This was the part of his life that he loathed most. The part that made his stomach turn as he thought of it. The part that made him despise Hohenheim of Light.
Hohenheim had abandoned the mass of flesh that he saw as no longer being his son. Dante, on the other hand, did quite the opposite. She had cared for the ghastly creature. She had fed it the red stones that gave it form and limitless "life". She had given it a name. That name was Envy.
Centuries passed with Dante using the Philosopher's Stone, which she obtained by deceiving skilled alchemists into creating, to transfer her soul to a new body when her aged one began to decay. Envy stayed by her side, loyal to his mother and vengefully furious at his father.
Envy closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. Perhaps he should not have been so loyal. Perhaps he should have ventured out on his own. Perhaps he should have lived his life as his own, and no one else's. Perhaps if he had done these things, Hohenheim would have been dead by his hands a century ago. Too many missed chances, he thought grudgingly.
After some one hundred and thirty years, Envy had discovered that his father had a new family. A family of a beautiful wife and two sons. His anger had boiled to a breaking point. How could his father do such a thing? Had he forgotten his first and very best son?
Hohenheim's whereabouts were unknown to any one person at the time Envy found this out, however. It seemed that he had also abandoned his new family. Edward and Alphonse Elric were within reach, though, and he had wanted to kill them. Oh, how he had wanted to kill his darling half-brothers.
But Dante had made it perfectly clear that killing the Elric brothers was austerely out of the question. They were crucial in creating a stone so that she could gain a young new body and obtain "eternal life" once again.
Envy convulsed angrily at this thought. Again, if he had just went down his own path…
He had obeyed this rule thus far, but he never missed a chance to batter his younger half-brother, Edward. How sweet if felt to kick the son of that dog who had abandoned him.
Oh, yes. How very enjoyable it was to beat on the pipsqueak. Envy, with a slight smirk on his face, lifted his head slightly as a cool breeze drifted over him.
As the plot agonizingly twisted on and on, things began to complicate. The Elric brothers had partially discovered the plan of the homunculi and were no longer pulled by Dante's strings. It was shortly after this that Hohenheim appeared to Dante.
He had come to confront her, to persuade her to let his sons have peace. Dante had refused and instead began a battle of alchemy. A battle that Hohenheim could not win. His body was weak and could not last much longer
At length, the homunculus Sloth had appeared, putting Hohenheim into a stupor. His dearest wife Trisha. His sons had tried human alchemy, just as he, but to no avail. All that they had gained was a fiend that had their mother's face.
While Hohenheim stood in a dream-like trance with visions of his lost wife flashing through his head, Dante had opened the Gate. The Gate that led into the unknown. The Gate that would supposedly separate his mind, body, and spirit and set them eternally adrift in the depths of darkness.
As Hohenheim stood before the colossal doors that led to an unknown realm, with small black hands reaching out for him, he said these last words, "Tri. They'll be fine. They are your sons." Then the Gate consumed him.
Dante was quite pleased by her "victory." Envy, on the other hand, burst into the room all aflutter. "Where is he? I know that he was here! Where is he!"
Dante kept her calm demeanor and simply asked, "Who?"
Envy trembled in rage as he remembered how arrogant Dante had seemed. How she acted as if it were no big deal, even when he had unmistakably been angered.
He began to lose his temper. "Hohenheim of Light! I know he was here! I want to kill him!"
Dante merely smiled and answered, "He's gone. I sent him through the Gate."
That was what had been troubling Envy. Hohenheim had been sent through the gate. He had wanted to kill his father for so very long, but the one chance he had had been snatched out of his grasp.
He stood from his seat on the fountain and raised his head towards the blue sky, with one thing on his mind. Quietly he said aloud, "If I am to kill Hohenheim of Light…I must go through the Gate."
He turned and began to walk down the main street, giving no heed to the bodies that lay in the gutters, and headed towards the road leading off to Central City, with his intent written plainly on his face: He would find a way to break through the gate. He would find a way to kill Hohenheim of Light. He would. No matter what he had to do, he would.
So ends another time-wasting anecdote written by yours truly.
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