Dude, We looked for so long for the draft of this chapter. Turned out it was hiding under a T-shirt on Our dresser... xP
Review Replies:
Momma Mustang: xD Does you like it? We'll have to do that for you a bit more, then, huh? 8D
xD Yeah! A big Maes-size hole. D: Everyone loves him, too! Ebil man! He has to stop doing that...
Aww! Dun criiies! xD It was cheesy though. Sorry about that. xD Was it?
Yesh! Claustrophobic! We thought it was a pretty good idea. :3
xD You act like he's an original.
xD We're doing that, sir:3 We don't actually know what the end is going to be... o-o; xDD You hog Us to yourself anyway.
GreedxEd: xD Maybe. We're not quite sure. They're not very romantic so far, and they tell Us We've made them kiss too much, not, of course, that they don't enjoy it, but a fic can't be a fic with only snogging, right?
Bar-Ohki: o-o;; We so... did not understand that.
ehxhfdl14: :3 Isn't it? Where We got it from, though, that character isn't even human, nor is it pretty. xD o-o; Nah, he's lame.
We meant that it's just... hard to type in. xD We had to paste it.
kingdomhearts222: Oh, of course We did, dear. Roy is a special boy, innee? So he gets special 'Tony'-like traits. And what Roy is will be explained later. He doesn't even know himself, really.
LoveChild Rosie: xDD Sorry, Rosie, We know how much you hate them, but We had to do it. o-o He'll try. xD Thanks.
silver candle: :3 Thanks! That's really nice to hear. xD PD isn't as good as this, We agree. When We began to write PD We told Ourself We wouldn't work on any other real fics till it was done, and then CoC started chewing on Our ankles.
keegan94820: xDD That's the only reason you like that chapter? Thanks for the review! xD Actually, We didn't know that. We're not very in touch with current events in the music world. We don't watch TV all that often.
msberry: :3 Thank you!
Kay, you guys, We are so sorry for the wait. D: Please don't hate Us!
Disclaimer: Don't own it! Theme is Let The Flames Begin by Paramore.CHILDREN OF CAIN
let the flames begin
Neither moved, man nor monster. Roy snarled, stepping forward. His gun clicked in what would have been an ominous manner had he been pointing it at anyone else. But Greed didn't particularly care, especially not as what seemed to be cobalt stone covered his fingers, turning them to blackened claws. This was the unique power of Greed's that he had been granted upon becoming a member of the elite vampire council, and he was eager to try it out. His offspring had it too, but only in an 'opposite Achilles heel' sort of way, only one controlled area could become shielded. However, Greed could cover his entire body in the stuff, which was much more effective. "Well?" said the violet-haired vampire with a smirk. "Going to kill me, or shall we have tea?"
"Tea?" snorted Roy, pressing the gun firmly against Escad's head. "You're kidding, right? I really don't see any scones around here, for one." He squeezed the trigger a single time and the gun went off obediently, but Greed wasn't fazed. Roy took this opportunity -- a foolish and stupid one, of course -- to drop his pistol and launch himself at the bespectacled vampire.
The next few moments were compacted into just a few seconds. Roy aimed a kick at Greed's face, and the vampire retaliated by catching the hunter's ankle and slamming him into the ground, knocking the wind out of the blackhaired man. Edward moved forward to retrieve Roy before the violethaired one did anything, but Greed blocked his way and the blonde swore. Without warning Roy found himself in Escad's grasp, beginning to struggle. Pride dove forward, but Greed kicked him in the face and Edward groaned, dropping back and clutching his nose. Broken. Even if it wouldn't take long to heal completely, it had still stunned him, and he watched, unable to do anything as Greed shoved his thumb into the soft tissue at the base of Roy's neck. The hunter went immediately limp.
Pride growled, and Greed gave him a venomous look. "Clear off, Irwin. You might have thought you were doing him a favor, but you're just messing with him, aren't you? Just bringing him here to be captured... Oh, well. Sloth will be pleased to have a new plaything, I think." He snapped his fingers, gazing at the door. Edward stood, cracking his now-healed nose back into place with a thumb. A pair of grunts stepped into the room and Greed tossed them the unconscious hunter's body. "There you are. Take him to the lab. Number five, got it?"
They nodded and left. Greed grinned over to Irwin, who snarled and stomped out after them. If he had no partner, he had no way to attack the rest of the leaders. And therefore he'd have to wait before trying to rescue Roy... And that meant doing nothing while they dragged the only human who had ever been sympathetic to him before away, even lower underground. Who knew what Sloth would do... It definitely wouldn't be anything good, at least. He sighed, then moved to the bed, gathering Rose's body into his arms. All he could do was bring her to the chamber were newborns were cared for, and not much else. One of Greed's would tend to her, at least.
/What a shame/
Lab Number Five was dim, illuminated only by a couple of bottom-lit test tubes and hundreds of computer monitors. She sat calmly, legs crossed, observing the scene from far above the work area in a small observational pavilion. Lips made to form small, happy smiles were twisted into a smug, I'm-just-that-much-better-than-you, Roy-esque smirk. Blue eyes watched her one experiment, curled in his tube peacefully, brown eyes closed, sandy brown hair brushing his forehead ever so lightly. "Ah, Sebastian," murmured Sloth to the man in the human-sized vial, "you'll have a friend soon. Greed's lackeys sent me a little present. Would you like to meet him?" Sebastian didn't speak, of course, and Sloth shrugged to herself, standing and brushing her long blonde hair back behind her shoulders. "I suppose I'll have to go visit him, then, hm? Can't have him not knowing me, after all, right, Sebby?" Yet again, the man did not answer, and Sloth straightened her skirt and stepped away, down the long flight of stairs to meet the man her Irwin was so infatuated with.
Roy Mustang watched her come. He'd been tossed into a small glass room and locked inside, and when he woke up, he'd been quite confused before he remembered the confrontation between himself and Greed. He supposed... this is what had become of him after he'd blacked out. And now he was watching a slim woman descend the stairs at the other side of the vast room, move easily past the human shape (at least, he thought it was a human-like shape) curled inside the large test tube, and approach him. Roy wasn't quite sure what to make of this, but when she opened the door of his transparent prison and simply seated herself, he was interested enough to sink to the floor and watch her from across the room. He'd seen this girl, of course. He remembered her quite well from earlier, when he'd jumped out the door of the Mustang, dodged traffic and then ran straight away from her, dragged by one very energetic vampire. But he'd never... "I didn't get your name earlier," he said then, speaking his mind, even though he was quite certain of her name. He'd heard Edward yelling over his shoulder at her, after all.
She just looked at him. Roy found himself feeling rather uncomfortable, which was rather odd considering he was the person who usually made others feel uncomfortable. He waited for her to speak. When she did, he was a little confused because her voice seemed to come from everywhere, but then again, he knew it had something to do with the fact that they were in a very strange room. "Winry," she reminded him gently, but he really did not trust that gentleness. "My name is Winry. But I didn't hear yours," she said suddenly, becoming thoughtful. "What are you called?"
Roy paused. He knew exactly what this girl was and he did not trust her at all, of course, but she'd extract the information from him anyway, so there wasn't much point in lying. "Roy."
"Oh, yeah," she replied with a bright smile. "I remember you now! But then again..." And she was moving, making her way toward him, and she knelt behind him, slipping her arms around his neck. "You're close to Irwin, aren't you, Roy? Then let it be known that he is mine. One like you won't have him, even as a friend. A human is not worth his time. Maybe..." And now she was nipping at his neck with sharp fangs, though she did not bite down. "Maybe you'd be better off being something other than human, wouldn't you say? Then maybe you'd have a chance... ne?"
The man tensed, trying not to move so as to keep himself from a very untimely death. He'd come this far, to be bitten at this point would have been a waste of his efforts, and then both Maes' and Rose's deaths would have been in vain. "Maybe," he replied, shifting slightly. He knew he could not get his gun in time to shoot her before she bit, but he could shift to a position where he could kick her or something... "But I think I like being human, thanks. It doesn't cost becoming a parasite to live."
She growled slightly, but composed herself, still hissing into his ear. "Is that so? You think you're so smart and witty, don't you? Well I'll tell you a secret, Mr High And Mighty: we're not parasites. We're a new generation of civilization who will one day triumph over that need for the blood of those pathetic humans and will live on our own. We are pioneers."
Roy turned his head, staring at her. "Pioneers, you say? What you're saying is like humans saying they won't need food and drink one of these days. Do you know how idiotic you sound?"
Her rage did not cease this time, and she slammed a fist against his back, once again knocking the wind out of him. Roy's breath hitched, and he clutched his chest, trying to regain it. He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "Shut up!" barked Sloth. "You don't know anything! We will! Unlike you, I've spent my entire life --" Roy gave a snort. Life? "-- researching!"
"That's... that's very good," replied Roy, still trying to regain his breath. "But unlike you, I have a life."
"Shut up!"
His last thought, before she shifted and slammed a foot into the side of his head was wonder at how someone who was supposed to be Sloth was so... Wrath-y.
/We all became such fragile, broken things/
She awoke in the dark.
It was dark here, and as she moved she found herself lying in a warm liquid. She wondered... where was she now? The girl sat up, the smell of blood heavy in the air. What was going on? She couldn't see anything. It was black, totally black, but at the same time, as she blinked, the hand she had tried to stretch out and gaze at was slowly swimming into her vision. And now it was lighter, and she blinked as she found a young woman kneeling beside her. "Hello," said the other softly, in a small voice. "You're Lucemia, aren't you?"
Her brow furrowed. "No, I'm Ro-- ..." She trailed off. "No, it's Lucemia, isn't it...?" she murmured.
The mousy one gave her a smile, nodding. "Yes, I think so," she replied, passing the redhead a bowl of warm liquid Lucemia recognized immediately as blood. "You'll want to drink it. I expect you're hungry, right...?"
"Mm." She found herself unable to stop, downing it immediately, lapping at the drizzle that simply dripped out once she'd finished the majority of the liquid. Putting the bowl down, where it floated in the six-inch-deep liquid they were sitting in, she looked over at her brownhaired companion. "And who are you?"
"Er... Schiezka," said the other, not expecting this. "I didn't sire you, though I was charged to nurse you... They don't do anything by themselves, those seven --" She immediately cut herself off. "Er... s-sorry..."
Lucemia paused, then shook her head. "It's fine."
Schiezka nodded slowly, collecting the bowl from the liquid which Lucemia finally recognized as what it was -- more blood. "All right. Greed-san sends his regards, by the way, and said he would be down to see you soon."
/A memory remains, just a tiny spark/
Pain.
White-hot, mind-numbing pain.
He was writhing in place, howling in agony, trying, with some animalistic instinct, to get away, even if there was nowhere to go.
Sloth seemed to tower above him, simply smiling as she flicked switches and turned dials, all concentration flowing into the helmet-like apparatus she had positioned on her head. She gave him the parody of a kind smile through the visor at him, but there was no kindness left for him as his body convulsed and curled into a small ball in the middle of the floor.
Roy Mustang was trapped, and he knew it.
He wasn't sure how it had happened. All he knew that for the second time in a night (more like the morning now, really) he had blacked out, and when he awoke once more, he was here. The male was unsure of anything, except that it was the same glass prison that had held him before, and Sloth had mounted a crane-like chair, able to descend, ascend and move back and forth at will. He wasn't sure how the prison itself worked, but it seemed to be able to transfer pain to him. At least, that was what it seemed to be -- he couldn't help feeling that in addition to the pain, there was something there.
And now, in his mind, he heard a whisper of things past, of lessons he should have heeded, of
(maybe you'd be better off becoming something other than human)
statements that he knew he should have damn well listened to.
He whined, whimpered, moaned. Gave any sound that would try its best to portray the agony he was experiencing now, but nothing seemed to work. And he could hear Sloth's gleeful crow from above him now: "Do you like this, human? I made it especially for bastards like you, you see. Your little prism there dishes out pain tenfold the amount I concentrate on. It's very nice, isn't it? State of the art, really. I'm proud of it, aren't you?"
Roy didn't answer, simply curled tighter into his small ball, willing his misery to stop.
Sloth simply laughed. Laughed, and let the pain commence.
Before his mind registered the pain and blanked out once again, he had one last thought -- what the hell was he a martyr for?!
/I give it all my oxygen/
Irwin scowled, rolling over and pressing his face into the pillow. He didn't really need to sleep, even more so than the others of his kind because of his constant insomnia, but it didn't matter. He was mentally exhausted, and he really wished for a simple break, and the many beds in their stronghold were quite good for that.
The blonde rolled over and sat up, wondering just what was the point of having mirrors in every room of this place. Someone had obviously thought it a great joke, because none of them could see their reflections anyway, having to rely on each other and their fragile bonds of 'trust' to make sure they looked half-decent. Irwin found it especially hard simply because he had long hair and did not always braid his hair properly, but that was fine.
He gave a sigh, sending the mirror a death glare and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, head in his hands. Why had he... brought Roy here?
Your own gain, peeped up a voice in his head with a smug tone. You needed him, so you lured him here, isn't that right?
No... That's not right, he argued with himself, shaking his head. It was equivalent exchange, like the alchemy I practiced as a child...!
The voice sounded amused. Equivalent exchange? Didn't your mother ever tell you, Edward, that equivalent exchange... il n'existe pas?
He scowled, smacking a fist on the duvet and standing. There was no time for arguments with himself, especially if he was losing his English. There was no time for this, definitely not. Simply because he had studied French didn't mean he had to slip into it all the time. It wasn't his mother tongue and he wouldn't fucking stand for losing his English.
But for now, language issues aside... all he could do was wait. Wait, and hope that Roy would be able to cope until the time came for him to find him once again.
/So let the flames begin/
