Woot! Finally!

Enjoy! XD

Sloth sat on the window seat of the "family" room in Dante's home, her eyes scanning over the pages of a book. She had decided to wake up early, anticipating Pride's return, but when he returned later in the afternoon, Envy took him for a conversation. That was well over an hour ago, and Sloth was still waiting.

One thing she could admit to loving was reading, learning about the humans. They were intuitive, loyal, intelligent, but so ignorant. Sometimes they got so caught up in the present that they ended up repeating the past. The book in her hands recalled the Ishbalan war. The recorded cause of it was wrong is memory served her right. Still, she enjoyed reading the handiwork of her siblings.

She sighed and put down the book. There was only so much she could read before it became boring. She looked out the window, 5 o'clock and the sun was already beginning to set. It was a mystery of winter. She was growing anxious, why were they taking so long?

A series of distinctive thuds made her turn to the stairs, where she watched Pride drop like a ragdoll. He rolled and stopped only when his back hit the front door hard. Sloth had stood up, watching as Pride stood up, shaking, and groped behind him for the door handle. Once he had it in his grip, he hesitated and waited for Envy to walk down the stairs and confront him.

"How could you be so useless? How could you fail?" Envy snarled, taking a few steps towards the boy.

Sloth watched as Pride flinched at the enunciations, but stood his ground, eyes narrowed even as he continued to shake slightly. The corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to say something, but couldn't bring himself to speak. Envy was seething. Sloth had seen him mad before, but there was something different in his eyes, something deeper than anger.

A few moments of silence passed between the three of them, save for Pride's nervous breathing. Pride's gaze flickered to Sloth, then back to Envy, and with a quick shake of his head, he turned the knob and was out the door. Envy ran to stop him, ending up with the door in his face. He was still seething, and to make things worse, Dante walked in. Apparently, she had seen the whole scene.

"You're such a fool." Dante whispered and Envy turned to face her. "You knew how important he is and you just let him walk away?" She stomped over to Envy and promptly slapped him across the face. He took it, of course, with submission, not choosing to look back at her once the stinging faded. Instead he stared at the floor, Sloth noticed a change in his expression, and he almost looked hurt.

Once Dante walked away, Envy pulled his gaze from the floor and walked away as well. Sloth noticed, they had both left as if she wasn't even there.

Pride ran. He wasn't quite sure where to, but he ran. The town of Dublith wasn't too far off and he knew his way around, sort of. It would do better than Dante's home any ways. Pride had remembered to follow the forest tunnel a certain distance, then there would be a hidden trail leading to a dirt road that led down the cliff in an arch. It was too narrow and steep for any vehicle to maneuver, but if he was careful, he could climb down it easily.

He shouldn't have to do this, run away… What was Envy's problem? Not even a week he's existed (as far as he knew) and already his eldest brother hated him. Well, that wasn't much of a problem now. Pride kept running, kept his mind on breathing, ran a map of Dublith through his thoughts, deciding where he could go.

He stopped wondering when he got to the trail: a line of large rocks that cut through the forest and was easily overlooked. It led him to the road, maybe a few feet in width, with thick bushes serving as handholds maybe half a mile down. Only half a mile to maneuver, then it would be dark, and walking through the town looking the way he did would be less nerve racking.

Pride put his right foot forward and onto the beginning of the path, going down the first several feet using the handholds. It felt odd not using alchemy, but he didn't want to draw attention to himself. He steadied himself with calming thoughts of how nice it would be to be away from the house. It worked, for the most part, before he lost his hold and slid several yards down the slope, small rocks and thorny bushes cutting into his skin. Pride clawed at the dirt until he managed to grab onto one of the thorn-less bushes and jolt to an abrupt stop. His wounds began healing.

Roy Mustang turned his chair around and sat down with a heavy sigh. All of HQ had been busy with work since the night before, and all day there had been officials in and out of his office. Armstrong came in early and fixed the hole in his wall quite easily. People were bustling around in his office; most of them were looking over the damage done to the door. Mustang would give anything for a moment alone to mull over the events of the night before.

With another heavy sigh, Mustang got up from his chair and made his way through the throng of personnel to the hallway outside his office. There he took a moment to look up at the shattered lights and doorknob. The kid's new alchemy was amazing, but destructive.

"Sir.", a familiar voice addressed him from behind. Mustang turned and looked to see Master Sergeant Fuery frozen in salute.

"At ease, soldier." Mustang groaned, but he was honestly relieved to see a friendly face. Fuery returned the Colonel with a smile.

Fuery looked around nervously, pulled out a small folder from under his coat and handed it to the Colonel, satisfied that everyone around them was too busy with their own business to notice the two of them. "I believe this is what you wanted." The Colonel took it gratefully and cracked it open, taking a quick glance inside. It was all the work Fuery had kept himself busy with, picking up where Hughes left off. When the Colonel found out Fuery was losing himself in the same trouble that his dearly departed friend had, well, Mustang was a little less than happy. But, nonetheless, it was useful, especially if it could save another one of their team.

Mustang frowned disapprovingly, but nodded appreciatively. "Thank you. These will… help. I hope." He said. Fuery saluted and walked off, leaving Mustang to fan himself casually with the folder as he stepped back through the crowd of people and into his office.

The air was knocked out of Pride's lungs as his back hit the wall. He clawed at the hands around his neck that kept him pinned to the wall.

"This is our turf, kid." His confronter's putrid breath rolled over him like a heat wave.

Pride cursed himself for being so careless. The darkest part of Dublith, at night, and he assumed he would get through it without trouble. Now, he had been accosted by three men, one had a tail… maybe leaving Dante's place wasn't such a great idea after all. And Pride still stood by his "no civilian casualties" rule, if these men could be considered civilians…

"Hey, what should we do with him?" One man at the side asked, grinning hungrily.

The man's thick reptilian tail fishtailed from side to side as his grip on Pride's throat tightened. "Gee, I dunno, we could kill 'im. Who would notice?" He said. Pride swallowed hard, approaching a conclusion. He could feel the static collecting at his fingertips…

Then he heard a metallic swipe, like a sword being unsheathed. All four of them looked over and saw a short man with a katana in his hands. He had small, canine eyes and greenish hair that was cut short.

"Let him go." He growled.

Pride was dropped to the ground as the three men backed away, and not so much from the intimidating weapon. "Yeah, yeah, we don't want no trouble." The one with the tail said, hands up and backing away. The others followed him until they disappeared into the night.

Pride steadied himself and stood his ground nervously as the short man walked over to him. "Who're you?" Pride asked.

"The name's Dorochet." He said, sheathing his sword and holding out his hand. Pride took it and nodded. Dorochet cocked his head quizzically. "I don't suppose you trust me enough to tell me your name?" When Pride didn't answer, Dorochet shrugged. "That's fine." He said and became distracted by the tattoo on Pride's shoulder. He narrowed his eyes, "I think I know someone that would like to meet you. Come on." He said and walked off without a second glance. Pride followed.

Dorochet took him to a staircase that led into the bottom half of a small building. The sign over the door had "Devil's Nest" painted sloppily on a square piece of wood. Inside it was quiet, but busy. Smoke hovered close to the ceiling and there were more people entwined with each other than Pride could count. One man in particular seemed the center of the commotion.

"Boss!" Dorochet called from the doorway. That man, who had his arm around one woman, saying things into her ear that made her blush and giggle flirtatiously, looked over, slightly annoyed. He tipped his sunglasses down to see Pride and grinned, revealing two rows of animalistic teeth.

"Well kid, it's about time you showed up!" The "boss" said and stood up with a laugh. He walked over and slapped a hand on Pride's shoulder that almost set the boy off balance. "My name's Greed… and I think we're going to become good friends."

Hope that was a good chapter.

Until next time! Bye!