Forged in Ice: alternative scenes and extra chapters

Alternatives: Kick the Bloody Dog!

Author's notes: Here are snippets I wrote as alternative actions for some chapters of Forged in Ice. In these Envy basically acts as it should, but having it do this kind of stuff would have been pretty detrimental considering the story. Therefore, they're here as bonus material.

The reason why this is a separate story is because the rating for these is different than for the main story, mostly because of the violence. (If this is not okay and I should just include these as a bonus chapter in the main story, tell me!)

Included in this chapter:
– Alternative for chapter 6, Arrival: another fate for the spy.
– Alternative for chapter 13, Smooth: Envy antagonises Shrike. This is probably painful to read, since it was so already when I wrote it. (This also goes a little differently than in the actual story since I edited the story later, but I kept the scene here mostly unedited.)
– Alternative for chapter 15, In the ice: Envy gets aggravated with the patrol.

End of author's notes

Chapter 6: Arrival

When Envy parked a truck, it heard a discernible thump from behind the driver's compartment. The sound was that of a human body hitting a metal plate. Maybe the spy had killed someone and stuffed the corpse in there. Could it be another spy? That thought made Envy grin.

It left the driver's compartment and headed toward the truck's back. It opened the cargo doors and walked along the truck's fabric walls, pretending to inspect them. When it came to the spot where it had heard the thump, it suddenly took down the thin plating of the lower part of the wall, though it bent the holding clips out of shape when doing that. Much to its delight, it did indeed find another spy. It quickly grabbed the spy's hands.

"Ha ha! Got you!" It pulled her out of the support rack, almost breaking her leg which was stuck between some bars. It then dragged her right out of the truck and started yelling. "Hey! I got another spy! Somebody shoot her!"

The spy struggled in a panic and Envy let go of her, just so it could see her try to run. She scrambled and stumbled on her hurt leg. A couple of soldiers had taken out their guns and moved so they had a clear shot at her.

"Surrender!" yelled one of them.

The spy realised that she had nowhere to hide before they would take their shots, and they were too far away for her to throw her darts – her gun had slipped out of her hands when Envy had grabbed them. However, she had no other choice, so she quickly threw three knives at Envy and the two soldiers. Envy swatted the knife away and the two others missed their targets. The soldiers fired, hitting the spy in the legs. She fell down and shook in pain.

Envy walked bouncily over to her and poked her with its foot. She tried to cut it with her one remaining weapon, a dagger, but Envy evaded and then stepped on her arm, breaking it. The spy finally yelled and tears of agony flowed from her eyes.

Chapter 13: Smooth

"Besides, it isn't like I can't make love."

"Huh? Really?" Shrike sounded just slightly more enthusiastic. "But you said before that – – or you at least implied that you're not interested, didn't you?"

"Well, sure. Humans are so stupid, it's like they assume everyone wants it all the time! Especially men, but many women too, though they act weird about it. But I, why would I want to play around with that kind of moronic humans? I do just fine without having sex. I don't have any desire to have it. Then again, I have no desire not to have it either." Envy shrugged.

"So... does that mean you could have – – uh, that you could do it with me?"

"Do you want that?"

"...Y-yes, I do!"

Envy realised that it faced a definitive choice. It could either laugh right at Shrike's face or agree to have sex with him. Or turn him down more politely than laughing at him, but that would be boring. Of course its first choice would be to laugh at him and hurt his little emotions immensely. It would truly enjoy seeing his expression of deep mental agony. Maybe he would cry or even try to kick it? "HA HA HA! You pathetic little ant with your pitiful dick for a brain! AS IF!"

Shrike's changing expressions were truly a work of art in Envy's opinion. He was shocked all through it, but first started out confused, then angry, then confused again, then scared, and tears started flowing out of his eyes even before he had consciously gotten from helplessness and panic to terribly insulted. He pulled himself against the ladder and shook as he bawled, dropping his glasses all the way down to the floor.

Envy just snickered. After a few minutes, Shrike still continued crying and Envy started wondering whether he would ever stop. That made it laugh a little louder again.

By now, Shrike was sane enough to consciously move, but what he did was not very smart. He held onto the ladder step and swung his knee at Envy's face, though he was so close that he barely managed to bump its shoulder. He tried to kick it again but failed even more miserably and Envy caught his leg.

"Eh, eh, tiny useless monkey."

Shrike held onto the ladder step harder and tried to kick Envy with his other leg, but then Envy just moved to the same step with him and pressed him against the wall with its body. After Shrike had gotten his legs back on a step, he grabbed Envy's wrist with his hand and tried to sink his nails in, but even before he had really even tried to make any damage, he realised how futile it was. He let his hand drop and then grabbed the step again before starting to cry once more. Envy felt his body tremble nearly uncontrollably.

Shrike cried for quite some time, but eventually slowed down and only sniffled. Envy then checked that the pipe was fixed and concluded that it was.

"It's fixed." Having said that, it climbed down and left Shrike's bag of tools on the floor before walking out of the service hatch.

Shrike spent a few more minutes calming down. He then climbed down as well but could not leave right away; his muscles were hurting because he had stayed latching onto the ladder for so long. He curled up on the floor and could not help crying some more.

He decided to go tell about Envy's horrible behaviour right away. He looked for his glasses and picked up his bag. He untied his hair so he could hide his face with it.

Determined, Shrike walked right to Armstrong's office. Luckily she was also present, and Rodney let him go in without questions. Shrike dropped his bag on the floor and greeted Armstrong. "S-sir?"

Armstrong looked at him curiously. "Yes?"

"I-I– –" Then massive doubt crawled out of Shrike's mind. How could he explain what had happened? He had talked with Envy about sex. Envy had led him to think it might do it with him. He had indirectly suggested it. Envy had laughed at him, and he had bursted into tears. Was that what he should tell Armstrong? He turned his face down and sobbed as he choked. He failed at keeping his stance and brought his hands to cover his face.

Armstrong frowned. "Shrike, what?"

Shrike jerked his hands down and started picking up his bag. "No-nothing," he said weakly, lifted the bag and headed for the door. "'Scuse me..."

"Was it Envy?"

Shrike's shaking hand stopped right above the door handle. He had to sob and coughed to cover it up. He thought it was impossible for him to explain what had happened without sounding like a weak child who could not control himself or withstand anything.

"I-I'm s-s-sorry, s-sir," he mumbled quietly and scrambled out through the door.

He felt so horrible that he had to hurry to the nearest toilet and throw up. Having done that, he headed away again and found himself a quiet service hatch where he curled up and cried again. He had no idea what to do and there was no way he could perform his duties right now. Eventually he realised that he should just go to the hospital wing. He left the service hatch and walked to his destination.

He managed to explain that he had painful convulsions and had thrown up, after which the doctor gave him juice, some sedatives and a relaxant and had him lie down on a bed. The drink and medication definitely made him feel better, but that did not make him feel like not crying.

Chapter 15: In the Ice

Envy did not waste too much time eating. When it was done, it decided to get off the snowmobile to unpack its skis, but even before it had touched the ground, it knew it had made a mistake. It did not have time to withdraw or even think more than that before it sank right into the snow. At least it managed to spread its limbs so that they got caught and prevented it from sinking deeper.

"Stupid freaking snow!" it shouted angrily. Two of the others snickered a little. "DON'T LAUGH AT ME!" it screamed and split its arms into multiple appendages that grabbed all the other soldiers. They were completely taken by surprise and even though they tried to struggle, they could not damage Envy enough to make it let go. "You're going to suffer for that!" it shouted and proceeded to break their arms. Delicious screams of agony filled the air. Luckily For Envy, the snow was not as unstable as to start an avalanche.

Envy proceeded to mock, kick and berate the screaming soldiers. Three tried to escape, but then Envy just broke their legs too. Envy grew itself to its gigantic vaguely lizard-like form, stripped the loudest-screaming soldier and ate him. After that, even those who had not lost their consciousness due to pain fainted. Then Envy stripped and ate another soldier.

"Well, this was it," it thought to itself. "Can't go back to the Fort now. I suppose I'll just learn that darned patience here in the bloody wilderness. Eighty or so years and Mustang will be gone..." It took along with it all the equipment the soldiers had with them, as well as the still living soldiers. It could eat them later.

Envy adjusted its size and mass so that it could drag everything along and not sink into the snow. It headed northwest.