Pride gave Envy the location of four cars. This was initially a surprise to Envy, who had expected Greed to have more. What they lacked in number, however, the vehicles more than made up for in quality.
Cars were nothing to Envy, who used them only rarely and did not depend on them. However, Envy understood what cars meant to humans, and it could tell that these were the type a man might cream himself over. Which, considering Greed's weird link between sex and ownership…Envy slapped itself upside the head. Bad thoughts, bad.
They were carefully hidden; this was hardly the first time Envy had used Greed's material possessions against him, merely the first time it had had Pride's assistance in doing so.
Envy simply smashed the first car to pieces with its full monstrous weight, and drove the second one into oncoming traffic, relishing the casualties as well as the damage to Greed's stuff.
When it came to the third and fourth, however, Envy had a hard time thinking of something both different and equally destructive. It frowned, watching from a safe distance as the soldiers cleared away the remains of the wrecked second car. Envy had crawled out of its own body-bag a few moments before, giving one paramedic quite a fright.
What could it do to the last two? Envy imagined, with a smirk, driving up to some random bum on the street, then getting out and handing the guy the keys before walking away without a word. Oh, Greed would just loathe that. But the vehicles were too distinctive, too traceable. Maybe a bomb, or…
Envy grinned.
.
Ring.
Ring.
Click
"Hello, Zolf Kimblee speaking."
"Do you work on commission?" Envy asked, brushing off introductions.
"What do you need?" Envy could hear the grin in his voice. It was easy to picture him there, sitting at his desk like a good little soldier, perhaps getting a call from a girlfriend asking him to pick up groceries on the way home.
"To make a point to someone."
Greed had tried to use the human against it, now Envy would use the human against Greed.
.
After work, Kimblee drove a military-issue car to an address Envy gave him. It turned out to be a suburb on the fringe of Central, far enough out that the buildings became sparse, punctuated with green fields and belts of forest. Upon driving to the end of a dirt road, he discovered Envy sitting atop a pile of twisted metal. Broken glass lay sparkling on the ground around it.
"What's all this?" Kimblee asked, regarding the scrap heap.
"The point." Envy said shortly, jumping off to land beside him. Its bare feet must have gotten cut on the glass, but it seemed not to notice. "Make it into a giant hand giving the finger."
He did so, slightly puzzled by the request. It was an interesting addition to the scenic agrarian surroundings.
Never let it be said that Envy couldn't get its point across.
"Who is this for anyway?"
"Never you mind."
Kimblee frowned slightly. Usually Envy took questions better, even when it could not or would not answer.
"Good." Envy said, regarding the finished shape. "Now there's a building I need you to blow up. And no, I can't tell you why or who or what's inside it."
Kimblee was more or less on Greed's side, after all, so Envy figured it would be best if he didn't know exactly what he was doing. Nice little surprise for both of them that way.
.
The garage in which the last car lay made an impressive explosion, sending a cloud of dust and rubble many hundreds of feet in the air. The fiery colors blended into the hues of the crisp autumn sunset, and the column of black smoke it left was satisfyingly dramatic against the vivid sky.
Kimblee regarded it fondly, yet felt his elation diminish ever so slightly when he turned to look at Envy. The expression on its face was not happy in the slightest. He had hoped that this creature, if anyone, would share his joy in this.
"Is something wrong, Invidia?"
The pet-name was like a slap in the face, but Envy forced itself not to react.
"I'm…distracted is all." The best lies were ones with elements of truth in them. With a massive force of effort, it smiled. "It's pretty. I can see why you enjoy doing this."
"I'm glad you like it."
It was as though he were giving Envy flowers. More significant, because this was clearly something that mattered to him. Envy would have found it sweet had the intention behind it been genuine. As things stood, however, it felt as though it had a brick in its stomach, heavy and cold.
"Do you feel like coming over? I'll make you dinner."
Envy dug its nails into the palms of its hands.
"No. Father gave me a lot of work tonight." It wasn't ready for the second half of its revenge. Not when it felt on the verge of screaming. Another fake smile. "I'll come see you next chance I get."
.
Envy sent Kimblee back without it, claiming it had some business or other in this remote little area. After the sound of the engine died away, Envy stood for a moment, watching the trail of smoke dissipate. It hoped, profusely, that it would not think of Kimblee every time it looked at a sunset from now on, would not unwillingly remember the way he had colored the sky like a gift.
Sincerity in manipulation; fruit of a poisoned tree. Kimblee was become just like family.
Speaking of…
"Enjoy your date, you monstrous bitch?"
Whatever passed for a heart, in Envy, barely had time to accelerate before Greed shoved a crowbar through Envy's skull from behind. It emerged from Envy's mouth on the other side like a long, metallic tongue, shattering a few teeth as it went.
Even for their kind, it was difficult to deal with something lodged in their head. The brain more or less controlled the movement of their bodies, as it would in a human. Unlike a human, Envy's brain could recover from this, but not with the bar still in place, and it had difficulty making its arms obey enough to pull the invasive object out, with the neural passageways smashed and severed.
Envy would not have had time, even had its brain been functioning normally, to yank the metal bar out of its head before two more were added, one through each eye. That shut the lights out in Envy's mind pretty effectively.
.
The next thing Envy was aware of was darkness; the way only underground could be dark. But it could perceive the darkness, whereas before it could perceive no visual input at all, so the bars must have been taken out of its eyes.
A light flickered into being, and the blurred, disjointed image of Greed holding a torch came into focus, although Envy had trouble making sense of what it was seeing and hearing. Although the receptacles for sight and sound were intact, the sensory impulses they registered became jumbled and lost inside Envy's hemorrhaging skull.
"I wanted to…something through you for every dollar you cost me." Greed was saying, although the words cut out like a bad phone connection. Envy was on eye-level with him…upright, yet not standing…"You don't have enough…for that, even as your fat-ass self. Then…thought maybe one for every hundred dollars you cost me. Still impossible. One for every thousand you cost me…did the best I could."
He held the torch closer, so the flame illuminated Envy's body. What was left of it, anyway. Nearly every inch of its flesh had been pierced by nails, needles, bars, shards of rock, even an arrow here and there. Whatever Greed could get his hands on, by the looks of it.
He pulled the torch away.
"…be a good little monster and…about what you've done…I'll…check on you in…."
The light was extinguished, although it may have been the failing of Envy's consciousness.
.
(A/N: ...to the wall! *Is shot* A-anyway, I apologize for the long delay. This chapter is short, but expect the next one very soon. Thanks for reading!)
