Chapter 27:
Selim found himself with much more time to stay at home and think now that he had successfully eliminated the requirement of school - for a few more days. When the suspension was up he would have to devise a new plan. He had plenty of time to plan though.
"Selim," Mrs. Bradley appeared frustrated about something as she walked into the kitchen to root through the fridge. "Fuehrer Mustang has asked me to have Hansel over for dinner tonight."
"I can't oppose the Fuehrer anymore, so I suppose we have to treat him to dinner." Pride answered bluntly, observing his fingernails. He was seated at the kitchen table surrounded by history books. One of his favorite pastimes had become a sort of game called Spot-the-Error, for every mistake he found in the history books, the humans would pay him money for finding it. "Hansel doesn't have to be seen again afterwards, does he?" It was hard to tell if he was joking or not about the matter.
"Selim." There was a cautionary tone in her voice as her eyebrows drew together in frustration. "Why must you try so hard to deny it?" He wouldn't kill someone in front of her - and he knew that.
"Deny what?"
Mrs. Bradley ignored his question with a shake of her head. "I'm sure the Fuehrer has some motives behind these meetings."
"If a Xingese citizen kills a man, who deals with the trial?" Pride mused, fixing his eyes on the ceiling in thought as he rocked back in his chair. "Xing can't claim legal rights without making Amestris seem inferior to them. Amestris can't claim legal rights without a full review of Xingese law to check for all accidental and self-defense murder laws." His chair legs came down with a thud as he leaned forward. "It would be a legal nightmare over my death. Both countries would come to the conclusion that it wouldn't be worth it."
Mrs. Bradley frowned, "I'm sorry, dear, you know King always dealt with the legal matters. I'm afraid I never could quite get the hang of the legal system."
Selim sighed, shoving one book to the side as he reached for a new one. "I'm sure there's no ulterior motives for this, Mother."
Pride was glaring daggers at the door when a knock resounded from it. He quickly closed the history book that he had been pouring through for the past few hours and crossed his arms. "I'll get it."
Mrs. Bradley, sensing the potential fight, rushed to the door. "Don't worry, I'm already over here!" She opened the door cautiously, but the tall Xingese man was nowhere in sight. She released a sigh of relief and observed the shorter man standing on the doorstep. "Can I help you?"
Earth Dog ran a hand through his blond hair, "Did I get the wrong house? Stripe told me this was it, I'm sorry!" He squeaked, "I just need to find a- um..."
"Let him in," Pride drawled, his glare weakening. "I specifically told him not to seek me out though..."
"Is he one of your friends from school, Selim?" She asked, sounding unsure about her conclusion.
Earth Dog certainly wasn't old, but the badger had to be at least in his early twenties.
"Of course, Mother." He felt a flash of frustration simmer in him - he hated lying to his mother.
Mrs. Bradley slowly took a step to the side, giving the chimera room to walk in. "I'll go get you two some snacks."
"That sounds great!" Earth Dog perked up with a broad grin, he glanced around the room. "So where's Pri-"
"I'm right here, badger." Pride answered once his mother was out of the room. "I hope you have something to report and just aren't here on a visit. I distinctly recall telling you not to seek me out." His voice had taken on its eerie distorted tone.
Earth Dog gulped and sank into his chair, "I'm sorry, Mister Pride, I really am. We couldn't find your bird, and I had some information that you might want to know about that man-"
"You're here now, and Mother isn't going to be back for another five minutes." He crossed his arms, "Just tell me what you know and I'll decide whether or not to ignore your mistake."
Earth Dog gulped, "Right, sir. Well, I think it might be good to know that Hansel John- eh, Jian, is good friends with Ling Yao."
Pride scoffed, "I could have told you that, who else would know my weakness and be able to exploit it like he did?" He tried not to shudder as he remembered the pain from the flashlight still wrapped up and stored in his vest pocket.
Earth Dog shifted uncomfortably, his animal instincts were screaming at him like they always did whenever he was around the homunculus. "Weakness?"
"Do I look stupid enough to tell everyone?" Pride snapped, "We don't have much time, go on."
He released one shadow to peer into the kitchen, its red eye snapping into existence from the shadow under the cabinets. Mrs. Bradley was almost done arranging some crackers on a plate. A pang of regret hit him, but he still managed to topple the plate without revealing himself. A second shadow eased the plate to the floor, ensuring that it didn't break - that wouldn't be fair to his mother.
Earth Dog startled at the noise of the plate hitting the floor, but plunged back into his report. "Striped Head did some digging too, and we found out that Emperor Yao has been talking to Fuehrer Mustang a lot recently. The telephone line directly between Amestris and Xing has never been used this much."
"How reliable is that information?"
Earth Dog grinned widely at that, "Stripe and I have been working as repairmen for the phone lines, I even got a line tap onto it." He scratched his head, "I can't quite figure out how to get it to work though."
Pride waved his hand, "We can work on that later, I need to know everything that you've learned."
Earth Dog nodded, "I was getting to it! Anyways, the old man and his buddy were able to lift some of the incoming mail from Xing-"
"How did they manage to steal classified mail?" Pride's voice fell out of its distorted echo in his surprise. "That's impossible for a couple of harebrained-"
"It wasn't classified!" Earth Dog crowed, "We took our time getting back to you because the code was insanely hard to crack, but once we did, it became obvious what the letter was saying."
"Do you have this letter?"
Earth Dog handed him a decently sized stack of papers, "I've got the originals there, my annotations, and the translation key."
Pride glanced over the pages, "You translated these on your own?"
Earth Dog nodded, "For the most part, I mean, Stripe helped a bit."
Pride almost laughed, "I suppose you're still useful to me then." He stood up, ushering Earth Dog towards the door. "I expect you to use the bird next time to communicate a meeting place." He crossed his arms, "We can't have Mustang more suspicious of me than he already is."
"Wait!" Earth Dog yelped, stepping outside the door and turning to face Pride. "There's something that the letter mentions about Xing trying to amplify things like flashlights-"
Pride scowled, "I already know about that, keep searching for information."
He was almost shoving Earth Dog out of the door, but the chimera seemed discontent with the report that he had given. Pride wasn't worried about the extra embellishments and useless data that they had probably collected though - this decoded letter was more than enough.
"Keep searching for information." Pride slammed the door in Earth Dog's face.
"Was that the door?" Mrs. Bradley called from the kitchen.
"He was in a hurry to get home before it got too late." Pride answered swiftly, glancing at the papers in his hand then at the kitchen before rushing up to his room.
Once he had safely arrived in his room, he scanned over the original letter - an obscure thing talking about camels - before glancing at the translation notes and the annotations.
If he hadn't already guessed it, then the contents of the letter would have shocked him into silence. As it was though, he mustered an annoyed sigh as his suspicions were confirmed. It contained the details of a plan for Jian to infiltrate his life as thoroughly as possible, observing his every move and report back to Greed's vessel with all of his suspicious actions. The man was outfitted with flash bombs and several more flashlights like the one he kept under constant guard. The only hope he had left was that his identity still seemed to be under wraps as all that this letter had was a minimal description of him as he was in his container - pathetic data collection, really.
Based on Jian's knowledge of alkahestry and his connections to Mustang, he couldn't bet on Jian not knowing who he was - and he was beginning to suspect why Jian was here. This was all a check-up, like a probation officer checking on a parolee.
Pride could feel his lip curling in distain. He was doing nothing wrong - are these pathetic humans so insecure in their almost fifteen-year-old victory that they couldn't let him live in peace?
His shadows curled around his feet as he leaned out his window and whistled. Kage fluttered onto the windowsill with a caw, bobbing his head nervously at the shadows. No matter how many times he had tried reassuring the animal that the shadows were safe, they still inspired some instinctual fear in Kage.
"I need you to stay with me, I've got a plan."
The bird cawed again in confirmation and hopped onto the homunculus' outstretched arm, making his way to his shoulder. Pride glanced at the letter one more time, noting the fact that while the sender was obviously using a false name, the recipient was listed as Jian. Did the humans not realize that the letter could very easily be intercepted? Or was Greed's vessel really that arrogant?
Arrogance can be deadly.
At the moment though, he couldn't afford to entertain the possibility that the letter was false. It was better to keep his guard up and have the letter turn out to be false than to be caught off guard.
Kage cackled, his crackling caw filling the room as he leaned down to observe the letter. Pride moved it away before his sharp beak could reach it, "I still need this paper, Kage."
He leaned down, releasing a few shadows to pry at the floorboards.
Kage fluttered his wings nervously.
"You're fine, Kage." Pride huffed, running his hands along the wooden boards.
With a low groan, one board began to move upwards as his shadows wedged under it. He pulled it free with a grin as he placed the flashlight and the papers in the hole along with a variety of other odds and ends: a state alchemist pocket watch, an ancient-looking revolver, a map displaying Amestris after its birth among other treasures.
"Selim! Our guest is here!"
An involuntary grin spread across his face as he silently pushed the board back down, leaving no sign that he had ever tampered with it.
"I'll be right there, Mother!" He yelled back to her, barely able to contain his shadows.
He pulled them back with minimal effort though as he composed himself into the image of a perfect son. Jian has no reason to suspect him if he hasn't already figured out the truth. If he has, well, that's all the more unfortunate that it is for him. The truth can be a dangerous thing.
Author's Note: Things are happening. XD As always, I'd like to thank everyone for supporting this story! And a huge thank you to Shocotate for beta-ing! You all should check out her latest story to, it's based in a really neat AU-ish world, more alternate ending than really AU, but go read it!
Krazyfanfiction1: Thank you! And no, she cannot hear the souls. They're mostly just shouting at Pride and they tend to get louder if he loses any bit of his composure, but the flashlight is nasty, handy for fighting shadows though.
Undeadmonkey8: Thank you! Haha, the flashlight has caught everybody's attention, hasn't it? But it basically banishes his shadows, it's sort of like how the flashlights in Alan Wake work, in that, the flashlights banish the shadow that's protecting the enemies and then you can shoot them but the flashlight alone won't kill the enemy, just slow them down. So this flashlight can stun Pride, but not kill him. Hehe, his and Elysia's relationship is difficult. Especially confrontation wise, they're both too stubborn to say they were wrong so it's a deadlock almost.
Gamma Cavy: You haven't seen the last of the flashlight yet! Those are the souls in the stone, they really don't like Pride, so they take every opportunity to scream at him and give him a nice headache. Emm, both of them, he is the same person, just with two different melded personalities. So he was completely invested in the story by that point because that was a more Selim-like thing for him to be doing so the more human side of his mind found the story to be novel even though he had already read it before. I don't think this is making much sense, that was a good question and I hope I at least partially answered it. XD
The Keeper of Worlds: Haha, he's trying to call a truce but there's no way he'd give her that light. He needs to keep that flashlight out of sight so he can limit the amount of people who know about it.
Left-to-die: Exactly, it was a little hard to miss her sudden behavior change too, and he expected it, there's no way that he didn't. XD I love Kage too, I suppose I have to, I invented him, but he's still adorable. He's fun to write with too, I can't believe I left him in a corner for the whole first part now.
Tsukinopen: And that was only part one of negotiations between the two. XD
