Excessive Pride

by BridgitKiido

Disclaimer: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, known in America as Fullmetal Alchemist, is the creation of the Japanese manga-ka Hiromu Arakawa. I, meanwhile, am an American of European mutt descent. In short, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, nor do I claim to. (However, unless anything similar occurs in the manga, this story's plot is my idea.)


. XII .

The Elric brothers visited the Hughes household later that day for two reasons: firstly, because they had to pick up Winry, who, after hearing about Maes' death, had went there in order to confirm it; secondly, because they felt they needed to apologize for dragging the now-Brigadier General into this.

After hearing their story, however, Gracia merely smiled and said, "If he really died because he was trying to help others, that sounds just like what he would do. Even in the past, he kept poking his nose into other people's affairs, trying to help them, even at his own expense… but the disadvantages were heavily outweighed by the happiness he gained." Patting her sleepy daughter's head, she finished, "If you give up now, the death of my husband would have been in vain."

The Elrics appeared to be significantly affected by Gracia's little speech, but they could not find the words to say before they left. After the brothers had left, however, Gracia could no longer suppress the sadness that had been brought out once again, and she burst into tears.

Elysia, slightly more awake now, attempted to comfort her mother, saying, "Mommy, why are you crying? Daddy will come home. He will come home, and then we'll all be happy again." This, however, only proved to make Gracia's tears flow more freely.

In the corner, Mili cooed in a depressed manner.


Pride was not feeling very narcissistic. In fact, he felt more like a hypocritical coward than anything. After all, that night, he had told Gracia that he would rather live with her and Elysia his entire life than regain his memories, and now look at him. Sure, it hadn't exactly been his choice or anything, but still…

He tried to hide his lacking in his namesake by remaining invisible, even to the other homunculi; he didn't even let "Father" see his face. "Father" took it merely as his "son" feeling particularly prideful and let him be; he never guessed, even for a second, that the homunculus' abilities hid not narcissism, but shame and a growing depression.

This continued for several days: Pride remained invisible to the outside world, refusing to leave his designated area of home base except to check the headlines for a few brief minutes. One night, however, he felt the urge to just sit out in the open; thus, Pride left the base in preference of a seat on a building's rooftop. Randomly, he decided to use the exit that lead out of Laboratory 3; going through the padlocked gate was no issue for him, although he had to catch his breath for a minute after shifting his atoms.

And, of course, through said exit (although they were using it as an entrance) came an odd suit of armor he had not seen before, as well as the familiar forms of Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye, Alphonse Elric, and a man that he could only guess was Jean Havoc. Pride pondered this for a minute, wondering what the heck they could be doing, going in that direction, but he decided to worry about it later.


Several minutes later, Pride had found a fairly comfortable seat on the roof of one of Central's older buildings. Okay, the windows were broken below, and there was a slight creak in the shingles if one stepped on them just so, but Pride still found it fairly comfortable.

At least, until he noticed the battle down below.

It was your average battle: Envy and Gluttony against a pair of other people. Pride vaguely recognized the male of the pair as the illegal immigrant he had seen just a few days before; he could guess that the one in the mask was the boy's ally.

Now, usually Pride would have probably sat back and watched the fight without much of a care, or he would have left the area before anyone noticed (not that they really could), but he certainly would not usually have interfered. (Hence his hiding in the alley when Scar had been attacking the Elric brothers that time back then. The reasons behind might be lost, but old habits die hard.) However, this situation was different, as Envy looked as though he was about to reveal his true form. If allowed to proceed, he would have probably frightened any civilians that happened to be in the area, which would in turn compromise the secrecy of the homunculi, which unfortunately had to be kept… well, secret.

Therefore, Pride stood up from his seat and, far enough away to avoid any type of detection other than auditory, he called out, "What do you think you are doing?"

The fighting instantly stopped, and Envy shouted back, "Pride, is that you? Why are you here?" It was obvious that the palm tree was quite annoyed; Gluttony appeared to be merely intimidated.

Pride then called back in a slightly bored manner, "You failed to complete your mission, and you made a spectacle of yourself in public. Not only that, but you let someone trespass into our lair. What a shame." He let out a loud, partially fake, sigh.

Shocked, Envy yelled back, "Our lair… was intruded?!?"

In a manner that seemed to him to be more stern than usual, Pride called back, "Envy, you are being a bit too careless. I believe it is time you retreated for today."

"But…" Envy started to argue, but Pride became irritated that this had gone on so long. Envy, the guy who had shot him, was trying to argue with him and get his own way. Again.

"Silence, you scamp," Pride retorted, a tone of warning and slight anger in his voice. "Do you dare to literally make a public display of your disgraceful self even more than you already have?"

Envy could find no way to reply to this, instead settling to retreat.

Pride, seeing that there was nothing more to say, turned away to leave. Half of him was saying, Something tells me that kid is going to become important to us later. Although helping him was not exactly the intention, this might work out well.

The other half of him was thinking smugly, Take that, Envy.


Author's Note: Sorry about the shortness of this chapter. The next one may also be kind of short, as a warning. The one after that, however, should hopefully make up for that. I'm planning that one to be quite long. Until the next chapter, however, I don't suppose you could leave a small review? Please? -bunny eyes-