Hello loyal readers. MAN have I been busy. I havn't forgotten about this piece, it's just that it's the bottom of my priority list. Just to let you know I'm still working on it from time to time, here's a little snippet of the final draft of my next chapter. I've written it in pieces and just have to connect it all. I have exams this week but on friday I'm driving back to Memphis, TN for the semester break and will have six weeks to do nothing but work on this. So enjoy my sneak peak:)

00000000000000000

Envy loafed around Chimera's keep, his thoughts fixated on a single recollection. Morrison. The memory of their first encounter was forever burned into his mind. How beautifully she went about her rampage, like watching poetry in motion. Disipointing in the end because she never actually killed anyone but still intrigueing. Fighting with her, he had felt absolutely electric. The flow of energy around her was possitively intoxicating. At last a worthy opponent, someone truely deserving of his full power and attention. How he longed to see those souless and tormented eyes of hers again, to unleash the beast that was clawing at her from within.

"One is All and All is One..." Like a poison Chimera's rich lilting voice spred through the room, infecting ever nook, every cranny, every crack. The poinient sound of his boots on the stone floors further defiled the sanctity of the silence. "So simple yet so misunderstood..." he mused, a sinister tone to his voice. "For who amung us has the patience to ponder the abstracts hidden within a universal concept." Envy smirked, a cat like glint to his eyes.

"Humans are such simple and sad creatures..." Chimera chuckled lightly to himself.

"Intelegence is rare, I humbly admit and wisdom escapes most of us." He flipped through a book abscently. "Alchemy is a curious thing. Neither science, nor art, nor magick. We alchemist sometimes forget this; too caught up in the concrete, the proven, our percieved structures of order and law and in doing so miss the subtleties and abstracts indicative to existance."

"The truth behind truths." Lust sighed longingly from her respective corner. "Your quite the philosopher Chimera."

"True knowledge comes from more then simple acedemia. A man can memorize a thousand books and know nothing..." He sighed, pouring passively over the contents a particular page. "You know, magick... true magick really isn't all that different from alchemy. Stemming from a common ancestry, they parallell and overlap in many ways save for a single fundemental difference."

"Equivalent exchange..."

"Precicely." Chimera praised. Lust smiled senuously.

"Those fools. They don't even realize what she really is."

"Or what she could become..." Envy purred, eyes glittering wildly like a hungry beast.

" 'In the great All, no truth but one be held infallible; that the universe in itself is boundless and infinate, a great circle who's circumference is everywhere and it's center nowhere. Concieved as the Great Serpent that devours it's tail, with neither ending nor beginning.' " The ageing alchemist recited. " 'In accordance to this Great Spiritual Integredy, in circular time are all things bound. To violate this Integrity is certain to cull forth disaster since each and every one of us is an inherent part of this very circle.' "

Experiments in their cages suddenly began to stir up a racket as Gluttony poked and prodded about like a curious child, stirring Envy from his thoughts as he listened to the Alchemist quote ancient doctrine. He watched with a bored expression as the rotund humunculi made a mess of things.

"Oops..." he whimpered as if being scolded.

"Hey Chimera, why'd a guy like you ever quit doing research for the military anyways? They not paying you enough?" Envy asked out of curiosity. The aging alchemist smiled at his deceptively youthful companion.

"I prefer a more hands on approach. And besides," he grinned. "I don't do it for the money. Human suffering is my reward and despair the pallet from which I create my masterpieces." Envy clapped his hands in delight at the insinuation.

"Aha! For a human you're downright souless! And with a shriveled heart to match!" he chuckled in amuzement at the homunculi's observation.

"I sold my soul some years ago..." Chimera stared listlessly out into the night sky, lost in private revelations. "Yes... Morrison shall be my most perfect creation..." His distinguished handsome face was contorted into a malicious and sinister grin, as if savoring a visualization of her suffering.

"But what about Fullmetal? The Elric brothers have been especially nosey lately, the pipsqueak in particular." Envy spat.

"The Flame Alchemist's connection to the Phantom Sage could also become a problem." Lust reminded, turning a disgusted look at Gluttony who had just bitten off the head of a shrieking bird-like creature. "I thought I told you not to touch that."

"Defective! Chimera says failures can be eaten!" The aging alchemist sighed with a roll of the eyes.

"Despite his reputation on the battlefield, Mustang is kind-hearted to a fault and his affection for his ward blinds his judgment. On the other hand Fullmetal's youth, ambition, and curiousity makes him easily manipulatable. It shouldn't be too difficult to exploit their faults and manipulate them to our needs. Why fight with three state alchemist when you can get them to fight eachother? After all, anger and hate are the keys to unleashing the wretched beast." He laughed. "Deciet shall spin her web around our prey and unleash upon them demons of their own creation..." Envy laughed softly to himself, a wicked smile visible from his shadowed stoop.

" 'May the Circle be unbroken...' "

0000000000000

There you go! Just a little something to let you know I havn't forgotten. Will have the next chapter up shortly after exams are over. :) Good luck to all you college students out there who have exams this week. And good luck to all you high schoolers who have exams coming up in the next week or two.