(A/N: First of all, I do not own FMA.
This takes place before the Ishbal War.
Zolf Kimblee/Solf Kimbly...there doesn't seem to be a general consensus on how to spell his name, so I made the choice I liked best.
Invidia is an archaic word for envy.)
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Zolf J. Kimblee would begin this story at the point where it becomes interesting: when Envy attempts to kill him. Luckily for all of us, this story is not narrated by him.
To put things in context, we must backtrack into what had been a painfully normal day, as were all his days when he was a human among other humans. It was Friday, which for military personnel meant a few scant hours to wade through paperwork before being cut free, blissfully free, to drink and fuck and generally pretend they are autonomous beings, before the daily grind began once again on Monday.
But Kimblee worked two jobs, the second being to convince everyone that he was just like the rest of them. That job had no end. No weekends, holidays, or sick leave. Indeed, it consisted of double-duty, for no matter how good an actor he was, how hard a worker, how skilled an alchemist, it would always be weighed against his black hair, his slanting, Xingian eyes. Amestris wasn't known for embracing diversity, and that went double where the military was concerned. For those of mixed blood, it would always be a thorn in their side. His difference from others was anything but skin-deep, and yet it was the external which proved the more troublesome.
It didn't help that the alchemy he practiced was an odd bastardization of practices Xingian and Amestrian. It worked well enough for him in that it was very destructive, but he tended to foul up tasks that involved more finesse. Things had a tendency to blow up when he got involved, whether or not they were supposed to. This was fine as far as he was concerned. He didn't care about rebuilding things or helping people, but of course the pretense was necessary. It was the strange role his country expected of him and those like him: to be a human weapon, and normal and well-adjusted to boot.
It grated on him. He had not become a State Alchemist to make friends. He had sought the power which the higher officers touted: the power to kill without question. Yes, everyone below the Fuhrer-President would always have someone keeping them in check, but there was still a world of difference between the liberties he might someday be granted through the military compared to living as a normal citizen. It was the secret hidden in plain sight: all State Alchemists chose to be such because they were hungry for power, but the first rule of sating that hunger was to pretend one did not have it. So he put on the act, and after a time it seemed almost natural. His days passed in a blur, and that one was no exception. At the time, it showed no signs of being auspicious.
As it grew late, he was hailed to get drinks after work. Although he had no desire to drag the tedious company of his fellow soldiers into his 'free' time, he acquiesced, with what he hoped was believable interest.
.
The bar scene might have been interesting were he in a different mood. Men in groups, talking about work and sports and women. Women in groups, talking about…whatever women talked about. They were all here for each other, the men for the women and the women for the men, but god forbid either side acknowledge that. Theoretically it should be as simple as saying: I am unattached, free of venereal diseases, and find you attractive. Assuming it's all the same for you, let's go get sexual gratification from each other.
He smirked, imagining the slap he'd get. People didn't want honesty, he knew. They wanted their games. The rules of the men-and-women game, as far as he understood it, were as follows: Men gave love to get sex, women gave sex to get love. Reputation, money, domestic service, marriage and reproduction were complicating factors which often came into play. It was a complex game, with high stakes and convoluted negotiations, loaded with facades and foibles. Each player generally tried to get the most while giving the least.
Where did it start, this men-and-women game? He wondered, as he watched the milling crowd through half-lidded eyes. And what do they see in it that I don't?
Not that it mattered to him at the moment. He wasn't there to get laid, he was there to kiss up and generally assert the image of himself as socially well-adjusted. And and opportunity to do exactly that soon presented itself. One of his superiors, a State Alchemist by the name of Lars Cramer, had become thoroughly and boisterously inebriated.
"Someone should really walk him home." Said a lieutenant by the name of Blake. "Keep him from passing out in an alley somewhere."
There was a moment of silence, as every soldier in the place was torn between being a dutiful subordinate and walking home with a drunken idiot, or just staying there, and getting a chance to go home with a woman.
"I will." Kimblee said, with carefully crafted resignation. He smirked at Blake, and then glanced at a group of women. "This once, you can have my share."
He left to a chorus of laughter, as good a way to end this as any. Taking Cramer by the shoulder, he steered the man outside.
"Come on, Sir. Let's get you home to your wife."
"My wife…she doesn't care…cheating whore…"
Kimblee rolled his eyes. He didn't know how far Cramer lived, but this was going to be a long walk.
.
Cramer was staggering on a few paces ahead of him, ranting more to God than to Kimblee: first about his 'cheating' wife, then about his ungrateful daughter, and, when he had really gotten steamed up, his mother.
"Kill me now." Kimblee muttered to himself.
He had not meant it literally, but apparently the world took it that way.
He heard it before he saw anything: the pitter-patter of bare feet on cobblestones. They were moving fast. Very fast. That was what set off alarm bells in his head.
He heard it, so he knew where to look for it; all the same, he was astonished at the speed. He registered nothing but a blur of motion in Cramer's direction, of dark hair and clothes and pale skin. The only split second of doubt he experienced was to wonder if perhaps he didn't prefer Cramer dead – yet on the other hand, saving the life of a superior was sure to earn a promotion.
Clap – BANG!
More importantly, his wish to blow something up had been granted, and for that he felt a profound sense of gratitude toward whoever's life he had just taken. He might even lay flowers on their grave as a token of appreciation, was there anything left to bury.
"What the hell was that?" Cramer shouted, his voice still slurred and heightened a few octaves in shock.
"I assume no one who meant you well, sir." Kimblee turned and walked approached the smoking pile of rubble and smoldering cinders he had just created. "I'll see if there's anything left to identify th –"
Something flew at him from the column of billowing smoke. He heard the footfalls, and yet the person may as well have been flying low to the ground for how quick they were. He clapped his hands together, detonating another explosion, at the same time he registered a searing pain in his right arm. They'd gotten him, whoever they were, but he'd gotten them even bett –
Another charge. Half-blinded by smoke, he still managed to combust whoever was charging at him before they could touch him a second time.
A wind rose. The smoke began to break, allowing him to see who he was facing. Who he had, unless he was much mistaken, just blown to pieces. Three times. He shivered with something very different from fear.
"How admirable. Protecting your senior officer, even though you're wounded." The voice was low and sly, unidentifiable as male or female. The owner of the voice was much the same: either a woman too athletic to possess any feminine curves, or a male who was incredibly slender in his musculature, perhaps too young yet to accumulate much bulk. The dark hair and pale skin made him wonder if he was dealing with a fellow half-breed Xingian.
"I'd advise you to give it up, however." The man-or-woman continued. "He's not worth your life."
Kimblee grinned. "You've got it all wrong. I just like to blow things up – also, I think Cramer ran away a while ago."
"Wha – shit!" The androgynous assassin did a double-take, looking to find that, just as Kimblee said, Cramer was gone. "Fucking coward!" The would-be killer turned as if to go, only to find a wall shoot up in its desired course. He or she turned to glare over its shoulder at Kimblee.
"What d'you want?"
"Why, you're the most interesting thing that's happened to me all night. You're not leaving."
"You should count yourself lucky to get out alive!"
"If it's a choice between the two, I'd rather be entertained!"
He knew he was smiling that smile that no one was supposed to see, the one that would reveal him for the monster he was. But the only one around to see was another monster, so who was there to judge him?
Without waiting for a response, he clapped his hands together, setting off another explosion. The androgyne dodged left –
– But its arm shot out to the right, elongating nightmarishly into a writhing, spitting serpent. With another clap of his hands, the snake was blown apart, but not before his opponent's other arm was wrapping around Kimblee's left wrist, preventing him from bring his hands together.
"Interesting." The androgyne commented, seizing Kimblee's remaining wrist with its regenerated (and once again human-looking) hand. Its hands were small compared to Kimblee's, and yet applied a vice-like grip. "Tattoos on your palms that form a transmutation circle when brought together. Clever human." It grinned. "But what are you going to do now, when you can't complete the circle?"
He made no response, save to take advantage of the fact that all of this creature's concentration was focused entirely on his hands, and brought his knee up as hard as he could into its stomach. Apparently it was like enough for the blow to bother it, for it loosened its hold on him enough for him to wrench his hands free. Wasting no time, he set off a chain of three explosions, one after the other. The thrill of it was more intoxicating than any liquor, more alluring than the most beautiful of women.
"You're good." The androgyne said as the smoke began to dissipate. "But you can't kill me."
"Who said I wanted to kill you?"
He dropped to his knees and laid his hands on the ground. And then, the ground was rising up, flowing up the androgyne's body like snakes, wrapping it tight in bands of solid rock.
Unbeknownst to Kimblee, his foe did in fact have the strength to shatter rock with a squarely placed blow; however, when it was almost fully bound in stone, it was impossible for it to bring its full strength to bear.
"Like I said, you're the most interesting thing that's happened to me in a long while. Perhaps ever. I prefer you alive." He stood before his prisoner, smiling amicably. "Do you have a name?"
"Course I have a name, I'm not an animal!"
"I'm Zol –"
"I don't want your shitty name and you're not getting mine!"
"Don't interrupt; that's rude."
He carefully caused both his prisoner's kneecaps to explode.
"OW OW! OKAY! STOP IT!"
"Let's try that again. I'm Zolf Kimblee, the Red Lotus Alchemist. And you are?"
"Envy."
"Nice to meet you, Envy."
"Fuck you!"
He took out half the creature Envy's head this time – and watched in rapt fascination as it grew right back.
"What manner of creature are you, to survive being blown apart – what is it, seven, eight times now?"
"I'll tell you if you let me out of this." Apparently the blow to its head had made it more diplomatic.
"You'd either attack me again or flee."
"The attack was just a test. You passed. And I'm not running away from some puny human."
"A test of what?"
"Let. Me. Go. And. I'll. Tell. You." It said, through gritted teeth.
"Tell me and I'll let you go."
If looks could kill, Kimblee, as well as all of his next-of-kin, would have been stone cold on the ground from the look that Envy gave.
"I could get out now if I wanted." It said. "I just…don't want to."
"Funny, but I'm not inclined to believe you." He brought up one hand, running two fingers up the part of Envy's stomach that was not covered in stone. Its flesh felt human enough. "I think I could do just about anything I wanted to you, and you couldn't do a thing about it." He smiled at the creature, whose eyes had gone wide in shock. "Well, Invidia? Am I wrong?"
He expected Envy to start begging at that point, but its eyes narrowed into angry slits. It smiled right back, or perhaps it was merely baring its teeth.
"Dead wrong."
Envy had not wanted to bring out its true form. It never did. But the shame and self-loathing it felt were a fair trade for the look on the human's face as its body began to twist and expand, and the stone restraints shattered.
"Well, human?" Envy thundered, as he looked down thereupon. "What's the matter? Don't you wanna tie me up and rape me anymore?"
And then – Envy almost didn't believe its eyes – the human smiled.
Not even that insane, murderous smile he had been wearing previously. No. The look on his face was one of wonder. He seemed for a moment almost…pure. Like a child witnessing the first snowflakes of winter.
"Incredible…"
What?
How far down the line of insanity did one have to be, to look at a monster like a miracle? Envy was caught off-guard, not knowing what to do or think anymore. It shifted back into its smaller, 'cuter' form, because if one must stand around looking awkward, it was better to be smaller and cuter while doing so.
There was a moment of silence as the two stood facing each other, not attacking anymore, simply waiting for what the other would do.
"You're a strange human." Envy said at length.
"I know." He knew too well.
"I came here to extend an offer to Cramer, assuming he survived my test. You survived, so I'll extend the offer to you: wanna work for us?"
"Depends. Doing what, and for what?"
"All of that is negotiable. You'll be talking to my Father."
"Your father? I haven't even proposed yet."
"Ha ha. The only thing is, we don't extend this offer unless we have something on the person we offer it to. Something on them to keep them from betraying us."
"You've seen what I really am – that I'm as much a monster as you are, simply one of the human variety. What else could you need?"
"I was hoping for something more along the lines of an incriminating picture or legal document, but I'll have to take what I can get. 'Specially considering how much I fucked this up."
It looked around at the street, now thoroughly demolished from their fight, as though noticing it for the first time. The look on its face was reminiscent of young soldiers late for muster.
"Father's gonna kill me…"
"Here." Kimblee knelt down, once again laying his hand against the rent cobblestones. At his touch, they seemed to ripple, like jello being shaken, and fell back into semi-recognizable order. There were flaws where the alchemy left its telltale rectangular cracks and crenelations, but it was a far cry from the crater-blasted, rubble-strewn war scene of moments before.
When finished, he raised his eyes to find Envy giving him an astonished look.
"I…um…well…thank you." Kimblee got the sense that it wasn't something the creature said often. "Anyway, we should go before they deploy troops to see what the hell happened."
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(A/N: I debated with myself as to whether Kimblee would be able to transmute stone using only his hand arrays. It would have been more complicated to write a fight scene in which he had to somehow stop and draw transmutation circles from scratch when he wanted to do something other than make something explode. But I didn't want to write a Gary Stu-ish character with more abilities than made sense. However, re-watching the fight scene between Roy and Lust, I noticed that Roy apparently transmuted water into hydrogen gas using what was on his glove. So, if the Flame Alchemist can make liquid H20 into gaseous hydrogen with his fire-creating transmutation circles, then it doesn't seem too far-fetched for the Red Lotus Alchemist to change the shape of stone with his exploding transmutation circles. So my reasoning goes. Really, any excuse not to have to write the whole scene over and have Kimblee fumbling around with a piece of chalk in the middle of it.
Further: There is a throw-away comment about rape, and I just want to specify that Kimblee as I write him is not rapacious. The implied threat was to provoke a reaction from Envy (and boy, did it), but he wouldn't have carried it farther than that. His motivation is not an ethical one, rather, he considers rape vulgar and beneath him. I mean come on, the guy wears all white and critiques his explosions on their artistic merit. If he wanted to torture someone he would come up with something more tasteful - and that wouldn't get his clothes dirty.
Thanks for reading!)