Points of Authority
O.o Dude… It's been… Forever since I updated this…
n.n;;;;;;; Sorry… My friends and I have been writing a humor/parody fic, and I've been writing another Endvy yaoi… So…
Yeah, plus with my exams and such…
I'm not failing English! Or Math (I hope)! Or Chemistry! Or History, but that's a given. I'm a history fanatic, I practically inhale that stuff…
Anyway… Yeah, I should stop talking and get on with it…
Sorry for making you wait for Dante's death… n.n;;; I hope I don't get, like, stoned to death or something…
Disclaimer: If I haven't owned FMA in the first chapters of this story, what would make you think that I own it now?
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Lust smiled as the last of her abrasions was finally healed, and though she felt weak, she knew that Ed must be feeling weaker.
"Such a shame that your little boyfriend thinks so highly of you, Edward," she said, grinning widely.
"Why's that?" he growled, clapping and transmuting his automail into a blade, wincing at the jarring motion of his badly injured shoulder.
"Because you're closer to dead than you'll ever get me," she said fiercely, raising an arm and extending her nails. At that very moment, a gargantuan stone spike came flying out of the wall beside Ed and impaled her, the point hitting her Ouroboros as if it was a bullseye. It imbedded itself in a wall while the homunculus on it died. Ed whirled around.
"Al?"
"I couldn't just stand here and watch you die, brother…" he said. "Not only would Envy be angry with me, which, frankly, scares the life out of me, but then how would we get you your body back?" Ed knew that if the suit of armor could smile, Al's famous heart-wrenching, half-scolding, half-teasing smile would be there. As it were, he could imagine it just as well. He gave a relieved smile.
"Where would I be without you, Alphonse?"
"… Well, I guess you'd be dead right about now."
"Good point. Let's go find Envy."
"What about Lust?"
Both looked to the now obviously irate, not to mention steadily more frantic, Sin caught in a circle of life and death. Ed turned to Al.
"I think she can stand to wait."
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Envy sighed in frustration. Every time he got even remotely close to the woman, she threw up some stupid alchemic blockade that would waste precious seconds, giving her enough time to stay at least a few feet ahead of him.
"This is getting old…" he muttered. As he broke through yet another wall, he noticed less resistance in it than there was in the others. His eyes lit up. "Getting tired, are we, old hag?" he called tauntingly. "You may as well just give it up now, you're close to death as it is… Well, closer than you've ever been, at least. I'd tell you that it's no big deal, but thanks to you and that bastard of an excuse for a father, I wouldn't know." His grin melted, folded in on itself, turning in to a scowl, his usual mask of fury hiding his pain and betrayal. He couldn't let the mask that he'd so carefully built crack now, not when he was so close, so close to getting the second of three things he wanted.
As he rounded a corner, a dagger caught him across the throat. His hands flew to his neck as a torrent of crimson fluid spewed from the laceration. He fell to the floor, his blood pooling around him, soaking his hair and clothes. Then the alchemic light enveloped him and he sat up, grimacing at the wet feel of his clothes. He stood and continued on, his long hair leaving a trail of blood in his wake.
"God, this is getting old!" he fumed, picking up his pace and honing his ears in on any and every little sound. Among the faint sound of shouting and an even fainter sound of a repeated alchemic reaction of some kind, he heard scratching on the wall ahead of him coupled with labored breathing. He sped up, running silently down the long corridor until he saw a figure up ahead. An almost complete transmutation circle was on the wall in front of her. He stealthily snuck up behind her and peered over her shoulder. The circles were lopsided and the lines jagged. No wonder the walls were so weak… he thought, grinning.
"Whatcha doin?" he whispered. He laughed as she practically jumped out of her skin, the whirled around, pressing herself up against the wall. "What's wrong, mother dear? You look so frightened…" he cooed, reaching out and gently caressing her cheek. Her eyes widened and she flinched away from his touch. A flash of light later, his arm was a blade, and where there was before a gentle caress, a gash lay, revealing the bone of her jaw. She let out a pained cry, hand flying to the wound.
"Envy…" she whispered, "don't do this."
"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't," he hissed.
"I've taken nothing but care of you—"
"You've used me as a puppet! You tried to have me killed! You call that care!" he snarled, slapping her with the flat of the blade, drawing a line of blood from her ear to her nose, slicing through the delicate cartilage and smiling sadistically as a tear that had escaped her eye ran into the incision, causing Dante to wince. "Now," he whispered, "what to do with you, now that you're totally defenseless and left to the mercy of your eldest creation? Do you beg and whimper and plead for your pathetic excuse of a life, or do you try to use that sorry little transmutation circle behind you? And what shall I do? To torture or to kill?" Dante's eyes widened in fear and Envy chuckled. "Well, now, don't get me wrong, I'll kill you either way…"
A silence fell over the corridor, then was broken by a shout of, "Hey, Brother, I think they went this way!"
A response— "What makes you say that, Al?"
Then blatant sarcasm— "Well, besides the puddle of blood and bloody footprints leading down there? I dunno, call it a hunch."
"… You really need to stop hanging out with Envy, you know that?"
"You're with him more than I am."
Envy sighed. "Looks like I'm not going to get to put you through the torture that you've put me through, mommy dearest." He regarded his blade closely. "How to kill you, though? A cut to the throat? To the heart?"
Dante whimpered. Envy sneered.
"Look at you. Such a strong woman, now faced with the same damn thing that we see every day, and you whimper and whine like a frightened puppy. Is that why you never risked your ass out there trying to find the Stone? Because you feared for your wretched life?" His sneer turned sour, wrath and hatred mixed with malice and bloodlust, and his arm was pulled back. As he paused to allow Dante a final moment, the first of dawn's light shone through a window not ten feet away. "Shame, I could've just let you fall to your death…" he mused, then, as if on a second thought, swung his arm forward, lengthwise between the two of them, and he placed the blade against the fragile and pale flesh of his mother's neck.
"Goodbye, mother. Tell the Gate I said hello," he whispered, then slid his arm across her throat. Blood spewed out of the gash and soaked Envy's neck and chest. Dante crumpled, falling to the ground, eyes open and glassy, staring out at the vast expanses of nothingness with blank eyes and dilated pupils. Had one looked but a bit closer, they could have seen the faint outline of what looked like a gate slowly swinging open, glinting eyes and greedy hands sliding from between the slowly opening doors.
Envy stepped away from the pooling blood, taking in the scene, burning it forever in his memory as his moment of true freedom, the release from the bonds that had so long encompassed him. He looked up to where Ed and Al now stood, both looking at Dante's corpse. Ed raised his eyes to take in Envy's blood soaked appearance. The short blond shook his head.
"You need a shower."
"That's the understatement of the century…" Al murmured, unable to tear his gaze from the body on the floor.
Envy looked down, wrinkling his nose. "I'll agree with Alphonse on that one, Chibi-san."
Ed smiled. "Is your need for revenge sated, Envy?"
Envy looked once more upon the corpse of his "mother."
"Yes. I believe it is. Until I see that bastard, that is."
Ed shook his head again. "Then can we leave? This place really gives me the creeps. Plus that, I think I've lost too much blood from these holes in my stomach, I'm feeling kinda faint…"
Envy laughed softly, turning to Ed again and smiling an actual, heartfelt smile, his first ever to not be laced with sarcasm or malice or hatred or…
"Yes, Edo-koi… Let's go home."
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The End.
n.n I'm fairly happy with this. Yay!
Not so happy with Dante's death, however… I wish it could've been more gruesome, but… Meh. Whatever works.
I love you all, and I'm so happy that you actually rode out this story and took the time to read past my crappy first chapter. XD I hope I didn't disappoint you too badly…
Please don't forget to review… I may try to cook up an epilogue for you… Even if I don't, I'm in the process of another more… :cough: mature story right now, so… Well, I don't know if I'll post it here, but it'll definitely be on my LJ account.
Again, thank all of you for not only helping me break one-hundred with my first actual serious story, but for giving me the encouragement to continue with it till the end. You guys are what keep writers like me going! n.n
Until next time!
Envysloyalservant