"The only way to pass is to climb over," The old man with golden eyes said, "For this is mount Purgatorio, where all come to purge their sins before ascension." And he scratched his bald head, wiping away the sweat which had gathered there during the spent coal hot day.
"Nonsense." Miles said with a tone of skepticism you would expect in a conversation about Roswell, "Purgatory is a religious concept, a part of the afterlife. Whether it exists or not, this mount it ain't."
"Oh, but it is! How else would the dead toil and climb, like ants on the new year's first morn, up the side?"
"Whether it's real or not doesn't matter- A Chinese knock off can be just as practical." Scar said as he put his hand on Miles' shoulder, before retracting it again as memories of the Grand Cleric sprang to mind. "What does matter is whether we can pass over it faster than going around."
The old man nodded, and Miles sighed, accepting that they'll just have to go up.
"Alright, let's go then. There's not much time before the clouds cover the moon, so we'll have to move quick as sound if we want to make any progress before setting up camp. I'd rather not scale in the dark." Scar nodded, and the two moved on.
As they moved up the stairs conveniently placed to climb the mountain, they noticed something odd. Everyone, it seemed, had tanned skin and golden eyes, like the old man they'd met, though here most had their hair, which was also blonde. All except for a small community off to the side, who appeared to be Amestrians.
"I think we've wandered into a cult." Miles whispered to Scar like empty bottles, and they both agreed it was creepy, but pushed on anyway. Motivated by the thought of leaving these peoples behind, they walked faster than usual, like children race-walking, and after passing an odd assortment of catapults soon reached a gate.
"Welcome to purgatory!" Said another bald man, this one with a mouth seemingly formed in size and shape for the exclusive purpose of containing a half loaf of bread. "Will you be visiting, passing through, or resting here like a lazy Mediterranean for the rest of your afterlife?"
"We need to get to the other side, to Ishval." Scar explained, resisting the temptation to knock a fist into the fat man's very punchable face. "By sunset tomorrow." He added.
"By sunset! Why, bless your heart, nones ever gotten to the peak so quickly as twenty hours!" He exclaimed, and laughed, but lost a tooth when Scar relented to his desire. After wailing like a baby for a few minutes, while Miles ate popcorn and M&Ms, he explained "You can't climb the mountain that fast, it's impossible! You'll have to wait for sunrise anyway- Only once you've heard the rooster's crow is it safe to go any further than nineteen steps from your camp!"
"And why exactly is it that this mountain takes so long to climb?" Scar demanded, and rubbed his hand after having using it to pop Miles' popcorn before.
"You can only climb in daylight, for ascension is only possible under the watchful eye of Leto himself!" The rolling man cried, looking for his tooth, "And you must purge yourself of sins at each gate before you can continue- A process that takes years for each sin!"
"No time, we'll have to bypass their system." Miles said, "But he's right about one thing. It'd be too dangerous to climb at night, so we'll have to wait like anxious readers of poorly written and serialized internet fiction."
They set up camp quickly, though they had no tent, so really it was just a backpack each for pillows. "Goodnight, Scar." "Goodnight, Miles." "Goodnight, you two." And they kicked the bald man out of their camp, and went to sleep.
The three got up at sunrise, and the two were platinum mad that the fat bald man was still there.
"Don't you have something better to be doing?" Miles complained when he accompanied them on the start of their trek.
"Of course not, I was just waiting around for someone driven like you two to show up. This way," He said with one of Koridai's faces of evil, "I don't need to purge anything, just by following in the wake of destruction you two are sure to cause- This duo you've formed is just a FastPass+ for me, Cornello, to meet the Holy Lord Leto!"
"You're worse than I thought." Scar said, and began coming up with a plan to get rid of him. Before he could settle between tossing him off a cliff or just deconstructing the very small amount of brain matter he contained, they reached the gate they'd seen the previous night.
"Welcome, brothers." An Ishvalan greeted as they strolled up like it was a Starbucks, "I presume you three are here to purge yourselves of sins and grow pure enough to meet the holy Ishvala?"
"Leto. The holy Leto, you surely mean." Cornello corrected, with an expression so smug that Donald Trump would cringe.
"Leto? The cult of Leto? Security! One got out of the Inferno again!" The Ishvalan cried, as Scar and Miles laughed, and Cornello tried to run away. The fat man tripped on his own coin purse and fell down the stairs, rolling to the out of view bottom.
"We're here to reach Ishval!" Scar declared, and not seeing anything particularly wrong with that, the guard nodded and ordered the gate open, while also handing the scarred man seven figs.
"For each sin you purge, hand one of these figs to the guard on that level, to move on." He instructed.
"Level? That sounds awkward in this situation- Wouldn't it make more sense to call it a terrace?" Scar asked him. "And why 'we gotta hand out figs, are we delivering water to guards as well?"
"It would, yes, but we don't want to use too much terminology from Wikipedia, now do we? As for your other question, this isn't the Pokemon world, but our guards do get hungry." The Ishvalan explained, and bowed to them as they passed through the hatch.
Inside the walled area was a mass of people, some of them wearing fancy and expensive clothes, others having no apparent possessions outside of a potato sack gown and a rag to wash themselves with, which disgusted the two more than Kimblee's past time. Painted on the entrance wall was a great mural, showing the expansion of Amestris, from it's foundation to the present, and even from the present to it's inevitable future demise. On the opposing wall, where an exit was located, was a mural depicting the fall of Xerxes, from a glorious and flourishing empire rivalling North Korea to an empty city of sands, which also came close to the aforementioned dictatorship.
The houses were constructed on one side of the level to be great mansions, condominiums, and suites, while the other half showcased small one level homes, simple apartments, and even a trailer park with a rusted water tower.
A Drachman dressed in a formal military suit approached the two, and greeted them with "Welcome to the proud town of Pride! Here we take pride in our heritage, our success, and most of all, our superiority over our low and humiliated neighbors."
"You could at least try not to sound evil, you know." Scar told him, "This place sounds like a poorly written allegory, and I'm not interested in hearing what the moral is. Let's go Miles, there's no reason to stick around."
"Wait! You haven't even tried our local cuisine, of which we're so proud!" The Drachman said, "Or seen our art, or feasted your eyes on our gardens! There's nothing here of which we're not proud of!"
"Are you proud of us, then?" Miles asked, and the man stared blankly for several minutes before responding.
"Of course not! I must rally the soldiers, you two must be evicted at once- To the town of Humility with you!"
Of course, once he left them they'd already started walking towards Humility anyway, as it laid in the half of the mountain level which had the exit, and both were eager to continue their trek upwards.
There, they were greeted by much of the town, a dozen of their nineteen inhabitants. The twelve prostrated themselves at the two's feet, and murmured such things as "We're unworthy of such visitors!" or "We apologize for the state of the town, it does not suit your presence!"
Of course, the two were plainly and visibly disturbed by this show of… something, and continued through the town before anyone noticed they'd gone. On the way to the exit, Scar stopped at a rotting tree trunk and wrote a scathing letter to the citizens of this town and of Pride, which went something to this tune-
"Your pride is overwhelming, for it's not pride, but hubris. Your humility is no better, for it isn't true humility, but excessive… something. You worship poverty over self improvement in Humility, while in Pride you see yourselves as the ultimate beings. May a plague ruin both your towns, and force you conjoin, for only then can I see either township improving. ~A Scarred Man"
He took this letter along with a nail and hammer, and posted it to the door of a church which stood at the border of the two towns, before continuing to the exit with Miles.
"Have you fully purged yourself of Pride, brothers?" The Ishvalan at the gate asked them, but Scar didn't answer, and just threw one of the figs at him before lifting the stone door himself.
"Odd. There's seven figs in my pocket." He noted to Miles, and they figured it must've been that the guard who gave them to him miscounted, like an officer who calls on an evolved Pokemon she doesn't have. This delay gave someone time to catch up with them, though, as they soon heard.
"Wait!" Yelled a voice behind them, and turning around Miles saw an Amestrian girl running towards them. "I saw your letter nailed to the church," She said, "and I agree completely, so please take me with you two!"
"What's your name, girl?" Scar growled at her.
"Rose. I'm from Liore, the same town as Father Cornello, but I must get out of these towns before it drives me mad!"
"Alright, if you'll promise to stop ending your statements with exclamation marks, I won't deny you our company." He said, and while Miles looked annoyed, he put up with it.
Now three, the group climbed the stairs laying feet from the gate, and began walking up to the second level of mount Purgatorio.
Now in the town of Jealousy, the trio was unable to find the next gate, as it eluded them like a pair of dry pants on a cold winter morning.
"This could be a bigger problem than Gojira if we can't continue." Miles said, and the other two agreed. "It can't be helped, we'll need to ask the locals for help."
Scar plucked a man from the street next to them, and demanded to know "Where's the exit, pleb?"
The man, at first holding a face of terror as he felt his skin burn under the glare of the Ishvalan's X shaped scar, soon began to feel terrible, and said "I wish I had the nerves to grab a stranger off the streets and make demands like they owe me something. The nerves!"
"Oi, d'ya want me to rock your guts, or are you gonna' tell us?" Scar again demanded, this time channeling his inner city.
"Easy there boy." Miles said, gently pulling the two apart, "We're passing through here, and just want to peacefully and quickly leave you to continue your regular day. Think you could help us out of this jam and into the peanut butter?" He respectfully asked the man.
"The nerves!" He marveled again, and this time Miles went at him, shouting profanities he learnt in boyhood, but hadn't used since. This time Rose pulled them apart.
"Please, I must get off this mountain before I lose my mind, please tell us where the exit is, I'm begging you!" She pleaded, and the man stopped thinking about 'the nerves' and began to wonder what he'd look like in a dress. Somehow Miles knew what he was thinking of, and shoved him onto the ground before calmly strolling away from the scene, his companions in tow.
"That was a waste of time," Scar sighed, "and we're no closer than before to advancing upwards!"
However, not all hope was quite lost, as they soon came across an old beggar sitting in the street, with a nearly empty hat on the ground in front of him. "You three seem distressed," He noted as they walked closer, "Would you like some tea?" And following this offer, he pulled out a tea kettle, as if to show it was more than small talk. Scar was cautious, worried that it may be Father back and in disguise, but the three graciously accepted, and sat down cross legged around him.
"Thank you, sir, this is very generous of you." Miles said as he sipped the hot tea, before plopping some coins and a piece of wrapped up bread into the hat, "We're lost, searching for the exit. Would you be kind enough to extend your generosity and give us directions?"
The old man chuckled, and ate some of the bread, leaving the rest in his pocket. He held up the hat with nearly nineteen coins in it, and asked of them "If you can deliver this to that run down old hospital down the street, I shall grant your wish."
Miles grabbed the hat and rose, then Rose rose, and the two left Scar alone with the beggar to keep company. The two discussed several things, most importantly though was the flavor of the week at Culver's, which was Rocky Road.
The two quickly returned, and the beggar did as promised, scooting to the side to reveal a small door hidden into the brickwork of the building he was leaning against. "This is the exit you seek, friends."
"There's one thing I don't get- Why did you have us deliver that money to the hospital?" Miles asked.
"That's why I have the hat, of course." He explained, "Generosity is the greatest thing in the world, so I spend my days sitting out here collecting donations for the clinic, and my nights in the same place."
"You need that money for food and water, old man." Scar said disapprovingly, and was about to continue, but Rose dragged him off of his soapbox and pushed him through the small door, thanking the old man again on her way out.
"We can't spend all of our time on your 'holier than thou' lectures, Scar." She said.
"What if this one led to another person joining us, like the one in Humility?" He asked.
"We can't spend all of our time picking up strangers, Scar. One is enough, and I'm that stranger." At this point Miles told them both to shut up and walk, so they did because he had the gun.
It wasn't long before they reached the gate, which was just around the corner after coming through the door. Scar was prepared to get through by force again and had already taken the fruit from his pocket, when to his surprise, the Ishvalan guarding the gate nodded with a smile, and accepted his fig before ordering the door opened. "To've come here, you must have donated to the beggar, and run his errand," He explained with a face of bliss, "and since we judge your generosity here, that test is all which is required, along with your fig."
The three had nothing to say to this, which is why this paragraph has no dialogue, and they walked through the opened gate with a day to day attitude of content. That attitude didn't last, as once they were near the next terrace, a peculiar and unexpected happening developed in Scar's pocket.
The cloth began to stretch and strew and skew, before bursting completely, and the three stepped to the sides of what had just come out. It was growing, changing rapidly like a blob of pudding, changing from purple to green to tan, sprouting hair and a leathery coating over some portions. Simply put, they found out that, after changing into a fig, Envy had stowed away with them.
Scar and Miles jumped into battle stances while Rose backed away into a nook in the wall, and fell backwards, stuck. Right before either attacked, though, Envy put up his hands yelling "Wait, wait! I'm not here to cause trouble, so don't tase me!"
"Then why are you here, homunculus?" Scar demanded, "You were helpful in the Inferno, I'll give you that, but there's a break in trust when you hide in someone's pocket for so long without telling them. And that's not the only thing that broke, either." He said, thinking in bittersweet remembrance of how useful that pocket was.
"Easy there! I realized when you were leaving the caverns that my time with you was the most exciting in ages, and couldn't go back to sitting around all day doing nothing!" He said, almost crying, then added "I also heard a rumour that the living world had season three of Spice & Wolf, is that true?"
"No, and we don't have Kizu or Despera yet either."
Envy cried a river, which became a small lake, though the wall around the second terrace protected it like a flood gate, and the lake was prevented from going down the mountain by boulders to either side, some hundred odd meters away.
"No, stop!" Miles shouted in vain, as the water swallowed up him and Scar. They floated to the surface, and began to laugh it off nervously, before remembering Rose.
"She's still stuck!" Scar cried out like his life was being written by Jun Maeda, and was about to dive down to rescue her, when Envy swam up from the bottom, gripping her arm.
"See? I'm on your side!" He exclaimed, hoping they'd believe him, and the shock of the situation, they did.
"Alright homunculus, you can come with us, so long as you don't lose your personality again." Scar said, "For now though, we need to continue working our way up the mountain- Terrace three is next. Is everyone prepared to continue?"
"No, I'm not." Miles said, "Why do you two seem to know each other, and what did I miss yesterday evening?"
"I'll write a book when we get to Ishval that explains it all." Scar said impatiently, "Is that all, or can we go?"
"You know how to read and write?" Rose asked, and surprisingly, no one bopped her noggin.
"You only need one of those to author a book, so it's irrelevant." Scar said stoically, like the Thinker, which is to say his tone was that of a person straining to release Thursday's supper on Sunday morn'. "It's time to go, anyone not ready can stay here."
"What if we can't swim?" Envy asked. "I mean, obviously I can, but what if someone else can't?"
"I'm leaving now." Scar said as he paddled to the edge.
"Wait! I can fly you to the top of the mountain, probably!" Envy declared, and Scar turned around, so he added "I think, maybe."
"There's no choice, it's nearly two hours past noon." Miles said with great reluctance, like one who procrastinates 'till the last minute before setting to work. "We'll just have to trust him, and fly up there like we're Ash bloody Ketchum."
"I feel like the rangers from Oblivia might be a more fitting reference in this situation." Rose said, before scrambling in the water to reach the shore, and got on dragon Envy's back along with the other two. Miles passed out goggles, before just passing out, and Rose and Scar tied him to Envy's giant neck. The great beast sprang off the ground with such force that an indentation comparable to a pallet of bread boxes was left where each of his four legs had been. Flapping his gargoyle like wings, he flew up, at an angle, circling the mountain three times, rising one level each time.
From all the crying earlier, his eyes remained blurry, preventing him from seeing a projectile shoot up from the mountain. The rock, for that's what it was, hit him in the wing, tearing a hole through it which regenerated quickly enough that he remained airborne, but slowly enough that altitude was lost. By the time he pulled out of his tailspin, the green dragon had descended to the second level. More rocks went at them. Scar searched the ground and spotted the catapults which were so unrelentingly targeting them, from the lowest levels of the mountain. The Xerxians had seen the homunculus, as well as had the knowledge that many of them had once fueled his existence with their souls.
In an attempt to make the onslaught end, Envy began shooting balls of flaming gas from his mouth, but while Rose worked to clear his watermelon sized eyes, his vision was still unclear, and the attacks, while they crippled the Xerxians and their catapults, also hit the first two terraces, setting the towns of Pride and Humility on fire, and breaching the walls of Jealousy and Generosity, leading to tsunami like flooding. Scar shook his head as he looked upon the destruction, and was reminded of the war in Ishval.
He had no time to gaze upon the carnage any longer, however, as Envy sucked his forelegs into his body's torso, and used the extra mass to strengthen and enlarge his wings, before flying upwards again, this time at a steeper angle. Seeing more catapults near the peak, however, led wyvern-Envy to land prematurely, and Rose had to catch Miles as the rope came undone, and Scar had to catch Rose. Envy returned to his regular form, whooping and yelling about how awesome he was, and watched as Scar, with expert aim, threw four figs at the guards below them, from the third level to the sixth.
"Is everyone alright?" Miles asked as he came to, and stumbled backwards when Envy used his arm, made into a knock off lightsaber, to chop the rope from around his neck.
"It seems like it," Scar replied, looking around, "and there's only one more level to pass through before we can reach Ishval."
"You're talking as though Ishval were at the top of a mountain," Rose said, "but won't we need to descend once we reach the top?"
"No. Ishval really, really dislikes the rest of Amestris, so they dug a giant moat surrounding their land, and planned to make it an island." Scar explained, "But they forgot this is a desert, so they couldn't fill the moat, so now it's just a mountain."
"That sound very… misguided." Rose said, and Envy had fallen over and was wriggling on the ground with laughter, hysterical at hearing of such stupidity.
"It's not important, let's just go." And they went.
The group entered the town of Lechery and Lust. It has two names, according to a sign at the entrance, because lechery sounds more manly than lust, and lust too feminine, so neither gender of the town's residents could agree on what to name it, and the compromise was the only thing preventing another schism like the one on the first level.
All around they saw men and women dressed in extremely modest clothing, which raised each traveler's brow, and Envy pulled one to the side to ask why they were so conservative.
"Why, perverts of course!" She cried, "You can never know where one might be hiding. In a trash can, or behind a building for orphans, you just never know! Why, why, you four must be perverts, dressed in such gaudy clothes!" And the woman ran away screaming, which led to the town square emptying faster than you can sing 'Undo'.
"Well, that couldn't have gone much worse." Rose said, before noticing a hand coming out of a window well nearby, and motioned to the others. The group walked over there, and found a young woman inside, Xingese.
"You've got to help me, I need to get out of here!" She whispered harshly, and the four nodded, used to it by now. "I'm returning to my homeland after a trip in Amestris," She explained, "But these nuts locked me up, and I've no way out!"
Sighing, Scar blew a hole in the ground, and she crawled out, thanking him. "Never mind all that," He said, "we need to continue, the same as you. Have you seen the exit?" She shook her head, but told them what she did know.
"I think the reason their fashion is so prudish is because they're projecting." She said, "Thinking what goes on in their mind is normal, and in this place it actually is. If we can get them to reveal their true nature, we might have a chance to figure out how to leave."
"So the people decrying us as perverts are themselves the freaks?" Envy asked, and after she nodded to him he rolled on the ground with laughter again, tickled by the irony like it were down
"I understand. We need to be as vulgar as possible, so much that they can't resist?" Scar asked, while also grabbed Envy and forcing him to calm down. "I've got this." He took Envy into the building the girl had just left, and after they spent several minutes listening to what sounded like machinery tinking, he came out with a box.
"What's in the box?" Miles asked him, and lifted a flap. Inside he saw fabric, sewn into dozens of dark blue miniskirts.
"We'll pass these out," Scar explained, "and with you two wearing them, it'll spread, and soon the town's entire female population will be wearing them, trying to attract the men. It'll work. The men will be forced to reveal their lust, and somehow this is going to convince them to show us the exit."
"How?" Envy asked him.
"I didn't get that far yet. Girl, it was your idea, what next?"
"Hmm, miniskirts, lechery, yes, yes! Now we just need to figure out the next step, then we can profit!" She exclaimed, and Scar showed incredible restraint in not slapping her, and Miles judged that this moment alone justified bypassing the previous guard and gate.
They had no more time to converse, as the people of the town slowly began to return to their regular routines, as if nothing had happened. In his irritation, Scar kicked the box of mini skirts like a soccer ball, high into the sky, and while somewhere Mustang sneezed, the skirts fell out of the box and rained slowly upon the crowd of passerby's. Recognizing it was now or never thanks to his lucky accident, Scar ripped off his shirt in an attempt to overwhelm the people. It worked.
The crowd collectively lost it's mind. Envy changed into a beautiful woman, but no one noticed because he was currently the size of a raisin. Miles climbed up onto a roof and noticed that the crowd was staying in one half of the town, along an unnaturally straight line. 'This must be like in the town of Pride.' He thought, and looked to the center of the back half, smiling as his eyes caught sight of the door. On ordinary inspection it would appear to go into an usual house, but the line didn't lie, and he slid down the drain pipe to the others. He waved for the the others to follow him as he ran through the cobble streets. The four reached the door before anyone noticed Envy was gone.
As it turns out, one person did see him on the ground, and put him in a jar. This, combined with recently seeing a girl from Xing, gave him bad memories of being beneath Central with May Chang, and he fell asleep and had nightmares of Greed taunting him like he had when Envy was still just a child. To him, they were terrifying, but all who've heard him describe it find it adorable, like a sad Chibitalia.
The four decided to leave him as he was, and though they nearly didn't get through due to Scar being shirtless, which is the eighth deadly sin, they learnt that a fig, when thrown hard enough, can easily incapacitate an Ishvalan.
Upwards they walked, finally ascending the final stairs which led to Ishval. Behind them a heavy mist rose from below, the result of water which had flooded the town of Envy spilling onto and extinguishing the fires of Pride and Humility. Figless, and with two more heads than they'd started with, Scar and Miles heaved a sigh heavier than the gravity of black holes, as their heads became level with the top steps, and went higher and higher 'till the solid ground of the mountain's peak rested below like a sleeping infant.
All around they saw tents and buildings, made of clay and mud and brick, forming communities within the community, and a market, and the hospital and school. Ishvalan children ran around playing and laughing as they pretended to be soldiers in the civil war, which gained them belts across the backside once they got home. Surrounding the town was a wall of brick, like the ones which guarded the terraces of the mountain, but this one had no gate, and instead an observation deck was built into the top, like the great wall of Xing some two hundred odd miles to the east.
"We finally made it." Miles said, as Rose and the Xingese girl celebrated their taste in guides.
Scar smiled, a small one, like Fullmetal, but smiled none the less. "And the sun hasn't set yet either. We managed to make it in time for Wishvala!"
The four shouted and waved as they entered the town, and the people recognized Scar and welcomed him earnestly. The annual play of Ishvala, the only theatre production allowed in Ishval, was currently being acted, and the group settled in to watch.
It told the story of Ishvala, and it ran very late. By the time ended and the curtain was drawn like a caricature sketch, the sky was orange and purple with the setting sun's Ray of Light. Scar was led to a tent of his own by the current Grand Cleric of Ishvala, Logue Lowe, who gave him this wise advice.
"When you're going camping, bring a fork!" Scar would never forget such holy advice, not even in the senility of old age.
In his tent, Scar was about to start writing the book he'd promised Miles, when he found a bottle of the holy drink colohal, which was only to be drunk during such holy days as these. He downed half of it, and fell asleep lying on the ground, staring up through a hole in the tent at a sky filled with technicolour stars.