Disclaimer: I don't own FMA

The train had been headed to Rush Valley. It was unfortunate, because their hideout was twenty leagues in the opposite direction and they had to travel by foot. Pride carried the trunk they had found on the train and Envy carried the blond girl. Their walk was tedious but neither said anything. Once they reached the abandoned castle that was serving as their base, Envy left the girl with Lust and went with Pride to report to their master.

Hohenheim had been a mistake. The man was so enchanted with Alchemy that he was slowly losing his mind. His disregard of his dangerous servants, the Homunculi, and the false belief that he was a Homunculus himself, made him a deranged lunatic. Pride realized this as the old man went through the trunk they had stolen. Pulling out some ancient, random objects, he started to shake his head and frown in some sort of displeasure.

"This will not be enough." He stated. Envy, who had been a few meters away, stalked over impatiently and grabbed Hohenheim by his shirt – dragging him to his feet in the process. Envy hated Hohenheim. For some unknown reason, he had a personal vendetta against the man.

"What do you mean, 'that's not enough!' That's all there was, so you'll have to make do." He snapped.

"You don't understand." Hohenheim said, grabbing Envy's arm and pulling it off of his shirt.

"I'm still missing some key ingredients."

"What would you have us do?" Envy asked in an annoyed voice.

"You could start by going back to the train and capturing the owners of these relics. I'm sure at least one of them would know where to find more." He gestured to the treasures on the floor. Hohenheim's frown increased when he saw Envy bite his lip viciously in frustration and Pride thought for a moment
that he would resort to violence once more. But before Envy could reply, Pride cut in.

"That is not possible." His voice was unnerving and emotionless as usual.

"And why would that be?" Hohenheim asked Pride, though his gaze was still on Envy. Envy for his part, returned him with a glare of his own and answered venomously.

"Because we blew it up." Hohenheim sucked in a quick breath in anger and Envy continued, oblivious to the other's sudden mood swing.

"We blew it up and killed all the passengers on board. We made sure no one survived." His voice had gained more confidence, and he was practically yelling in smugness by the end of his small sentence. Pride stiffly nodded in agreement.

"I see. You had enough sense to kill everyone on board, save a little girl who's absolutely useless to me…. Why did you bring her?" Hohenheim demanded. Pride's eyes widened a fracture.

'Where is that girl?' He asked himself, slightly looking around the room for her. He managed to use as much discretion as possible, hoping no one noticed. Pride turned his attention back to Hohenheim as he finished speech.

"…beginning to think that you two are as useless as well." Pride looked over to Envy and saw what little patience he had slipping fast.

"No. You are useless. I'm tired of your games old man. In fact, I'm just tired of you." With that said, Envy leaped forward and savagely gripped Hohenheim's head with one hand on each side and literally pulled his master apart. Pride watched dispassionately as the remains fell onto the floor. The body had been ripped in two.

"You can no longer tell me what to do!" Envy shrieked at the corpse. Then he looked up and caught Pride's gaze.

"I'm in charge now." He told him, with a dangerous glint in his eyes. Pride was not surprised. The growing animosity between Envy and Hohenheim had been slowly increasing since before the time of Pride's birth. For a time, Hohenheim had been able to control the Homunculus. But as the man had aged and become senile, Envy had slowly broken free of his influence.

"Pride, set up the relics. With Hohenheim gone, we'll need you to prepare everything." Hohenheim's mistake had been in informing Envy of his plan and how to use the relics.

"Yes." Pride agreed, his face neutral. Inch by maddening inch, Envy turned his head to stare at Pride giving him the most uncomfortable glare. It was anyone's guess what went on in Envy's head. Pride stared right back, emotionless. After a few moments in silence, Envy turned away.

"Lust."

Seeing that he no longer required his presence, Pride retired to the back of the room, giving his full attention to the relics. A few moments later, Lust stalked into the room carrying Winry like a baby. The new comers turned the room deathly still and the only sound heard were Lust's shoes clicking against the stone floor. Envy watched as the Homunculus dumped Winry unceremoniously down in the only chair that occupied the dark room. Satisfied with Lust's work, Envy waved a hand dismissing her. She left without a word.

Walking over to the girl, Envy called to Pride, requesting his presence. When Pride was within a satisfied distance, Envy began.

"Do you know who this girl is?" Envy asked Pride, hoping to bait him.

"No" Pride's voice betrayed nothing, which made it easy for him to lie. Envy frowned; he didn't like having his plans foiled – even if they were insignificant. Changing his tactic, he started again.

"Don't you want to remember your humanity, your past?" He asked sweetly, knowing that he had Pride exactly where he wanted him and judging by his appearance, Pride looked anxious – if you could call it that. Circling around Winry's sleeping form, Envy rested his hands on her shoulders in a bit of a possessive manner.

"This girl here is Winry Rockbell." He gestured to the sleeping girl and almost laughed at Pride's expression. He was obviously agitated by Envy's choice of speech, and was waiting impatiently for
his point in the small demonstration.

"Do you recognize her name?"

"No" Though it was vague, Envy detected the small tremor in his voice – which was easily interpreted as a lie. It was a bit strange for Pride to carry any emotions in his voice, which Envy found very amusing.

Pride was thinking along the same lines of Envy. He had noticed his mistake, and was quite livid
with himself for giving into such human traits. Luckily, he was able to avoid any facial expressions and kept the mask of illusions in place.

"That's too bad. Despite your lack of memory, I believe she recognized you." Pride could tell that Envy was holding information back, but knew better than to question him.

"Surely you remember how she responded to your presence on the train?" Envy asked Pride, taking his detached appearance as one who was trying to recall the past memory.

"I'm sure she would be more than happy to help you recall your past memories." Pride knew that Envy's choice in wording was his way of suggesting that the girl be interrogated. He forced himself to remain still as Envy leaned down and rubbed his face crudely against Winry's shoulder. He didn't like that.

"If you would like brother, I would be more than happy to assist you with the girl in recovering such personal information." When he was finished speaking Envy leaned in closer to Winry and dragged out
his tongue, running it across Winry's left earlobe, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Pride, silently daring him to object.

Pride knew Envy was baiting him, and chose to ignore him. His insides were twisting with malice and jealousy but didn't understand why. Reacting to something he didn't understand seemed foolish. Using all the self-restraint he had, Pride stiffly answered,

"That would be most helpful." All the while he fought the urge to grind his teeth in distaste at his own words, knowing that Envy would somehow punish him in the future for offering an alternative. Envy snickered at his response and pulled away from Winry. Standing up, he turned his head once again to the doorway and called out to the small eavesdropper on the other side.

"Wrath," He waited a few moments for the smaller Homunculus to show himself before continuing. When it became apparent that the small boy-like creature wouldn't leave the doorpost, Envy prompted him to come over with an insult along the lines of,

"Get your pathetic filth in here before I bring you in myself." The loud voice was enough for Wrath to quickly comply and scamper over to the green haired Homunculus. Allowing him to take in his sights, Envy asked (or more like) demanded that he clean up the mess of the now deceased Hohenheim. Losing interest quickly, Envy turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

Walking back over to the occupied chair, Envy picked up Winry and turned to leave. Surprised by her lack of response, Envy wondered at how hard she hit her head when she fainted. Surely she should have awakened. He had almost completely forgotten about Pride, walking right passed him, only pausing when he heard his voice.

"Brother?" The simple word held a million thoughts about his intentions.

"You needn't worry about the girl." Looking over his shoulder he gave Pride a maddening smile.

"I'll take good care of her while she's in my charge." Neither one of them missed the underlined meaning in his voice. Recalling a past situation with another girl in Envy's care, Pride involuntarily shivered.

He hadn't meant to walk past Envy's room, really he hadn't. He knew better than anyone what would happen if Envy caught him wondering about in his personal wing of the castle. Noticing his mistake, Pride went to leave immediately. He paused once catching sight of a slightly opened door. Out of
pure curiosity, Pride looked in and at once pulled back horrified at the
spectacle before him.

Turning away in disgust, he headed for the quickest exit – attempting to lead his presence away from the wretched display behind him. All the while trying to drowned out the horrible screams of a poor girl screaming out in pain and fear.

"No! Please…Please stop! No!" Walking out, Pride failed to avoid his gaze as the terror behind him displayed itself as shadows on the wall of a broken girl being devoured by a monster. Blood was everywhere.

Closing his eyes against the memory, Pride chose to ignore the ache in his gut that told him that this was wrong. Three days, the poor girl had only managed three days in Envy's care before dying. His eyes remained tightly shut, already regretting his decision to speak and fearing for his health the consequences that would follow.

"I'll take her." Opening his eyes, Pride could tell that Envy was surprised by his outburst. But even more surprising was Envy's submissive attitude. He didn't say a word when Pride approached him or when he handed the girl over to him. Pride had expected some sort of violent punishment for contradicting Envy's plan. He was shocked when he received none and managed to keep the disbelief from showing on his face. Was it a trick or some sort of test? Pride didn't know.

Once again emotionless, he left the room carrying Winry's limp form in his arms. He avoided Wrath's shocked gaze at his boldness and chose to ignore Envy sneer. When he was gone Envy spoke up.

"Most interesting indeed..."

AN: Yay! Another Chapter done. Please read and review. I have plenty more chapters waiting to be added. This chapter was beta read by chelsea-chee who is very clever with grammar and incredibly patient with me. Thank you :)