OMG! Thanks so much to everyone! 10 reviews for 2 chappies is the world to me!
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When Dante opened the door to the basement, a faint noise reached her ears.
The sound of sobbing. Her nose twitched at the stench of blood that rose from the human transmutation array, which, still smoking, made a wave of hate shake her entire body. Her dress frilled against the stone steps.
Her keen eyes scanned the room, in search for a gross, inform, barely human-reminiscing pile of matter, bones, tissues, muscles. What she found didn't turn out to be what she expected. In the furthest, darkest corner, her eyes detected a very subtle movement.
"That thing is... crying..." She found herself thinking, and a pang of guilt made her chest feel suddenly too tight. Her grip tightened on the red stones. With firm pace, she walked towards the creature that was the result of the transmutation. She noticed with mild interest, even if remorse was gnawing at the back of her neck, that that thing was afraid of her. Could it really display emotions? Or was it only copying what he'd seen previously? The scientist in her was eager to grab her syringes and test tubes and start eliminating invalid hypothesis...
But she decided against it, the moment it started speaking. A wave of disgust, displeasure, and perhaps, some resentment, made her eyes narrow.
"M... mo...ther...?"
Dante's features hardened. She had been mother to her son. That... thing wasn't her son.
She was not that homunculus' mother.
"Master." She corrected calmly, if stoically. Even if she had seen the plague, she'd witnessed deaths, she'd caused deaths during those Red Stones' she was clutching research and creation, she'd never been shocked that much.
No. Shocked wasn't the word. She wasn't shocked, because she was subconsciously expecting Hohenheim to try something as foolish, and desperate, as human transmutation.
No, Dante was not shocked. She was sickened. Sickened by that creature that was only a living mess of organs and flesh put together and pulsating. A creature which had once been meant to be a human.
"M...mo...mas-ter...?"
She swallowed hard. Icily, she took the incomplete stones from her dress' pocket, and handed them to the homunculus. "Eat." She commanded.
Distrustfully, a languid hand, that looked like it was about to break, took a handful of those stones. The same hand that, uncoordinatedly, stuffed them into a twisted, deformed hole that was the creature's mouth.
Dante's eyes widened as strangled noises came from his throat. Sudden convulsions shook his body until it became totally rigid.
"Did I... kill it?"
The extra material that formed his body started to rearrange after a while that seemed eternal, and all the while Dante watched, without giving credit to her eyes. What on earth was happening...?
A choked sound of breathing surfaced gradually... a naked body was laying, limp, on the stone floor. She held her heart in her throat for a while that to her seemed eternal until, with feline movements, he sat up and flexed his fingers, looking at them with mild curiosity.
"My body... how can it be? It's... back..."
When he noticed he wasn't alone in that place, his immediate reaction was to crawl backwards, until his back made contact with the wall. He flinched.
It was a lapsus. Seeing her son's face in the creature that pressed itself against the humid stone corner made her react. Her arms circled the blood-dripping frame of the newly born homunculus.
She hugged it tightly to her, burying her face in his now perfectly crafted, if pale, shoulder.
"What are you doing?" She heard him say without any speech difficulty. She let go of him as if he were burning.
Even if it had his face... his voice... it wasn't... him.
She released him, as if he were burning.
Dipping the tip of her finger in a drying puddle of blood, her hand mechanically traced the lines of a transmutation circle. Placing her palm on it when she was done, the blood on the floor started rising in midair and circling the homunculus' body. His eyes followed hers, with a soft touch of indolence in them. When the blue light faded away into the room's dimness, the blood had recomposed into some sort of cloth, that covered his body up to his mid thighs.
At that point, Dante noted, the homunculus finally stood up. "He wasn't so wrong. This creature is... perfect." Even if she tried to smile, her lips didn't obey her. His body was finely toned, and golden hair fell over his strong-looking shoulders.
After that she noticed, a faintly glowing symbol, apparently tattooed, against his leg. Her fingers reached out and touched it... could it be... "The ouroboros..." She whispered.
His lips parted into a strange smile, and Dante felt how his arms circled her and pulled her towards him. The mother in her closed her eyes, and was left content with thinking that perhaps, and just perhaps, things were back to normal, and the one holding her was her dear, dearest son.
Until he spoke.
"I'm not research material...mother..."
She was let go, to see defiant copper eyes staring back into her own.
Eyes that flickered and became, gradually, artificially violet. She blinked.
And they were back to normal.
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Hmm.. I didn't steal any quotes in this chapter, I think. Oh, and gomen ne for the excessive ammount of hugs... but hey, all for the plot's sake! XD Long live Envy and Dante!
Note: Dante draws a transmutation circle because she hasn't seen the Gate yet. I believe she sees it for the fist time when she creates Greed, and he's posterior to Envy. So yeah... :P
