Lust jumped onto a nearby rooftop just after escaping from Sin's destructive grasp. She almost got me…
"Lust?" a cackle sounded from behind her. Lust rolled her eyes and turned around to see Gluttony behind her. The short, plump homunculus had been waiting for her, drooling over himself as always.
"Come, Gluttony," she instructed, jumping to another rooftop. "We must tell the others about our little friend." Gluttony followed her like a puppy-dog.
"Has Pride come back to us, Lust?" he asked.
"Not yet," she answered, her silky voice droning on. "But she will be…soon. Very soon, I might add."
"Good," he cackled. "I miss Pride…"
"Oh, yes…she is missed by everyone." Lust said, disgust filling her tone. "Now hurry up," she jumped from rooftop to rooftop, speeding on towards the homunculi hideout.
It was almost midnight by the time that Lust and Gluttony made it across the desert from Krayensburg to the other desert city of Lior. They slunk around in the streets until they came to the City Hall, where the doors opened without their command.
"Get inside," a hushed voice said from the darkness inside the doors. Lust entered the City Hall, Gluttony following behind her.
Inside the City Hall of Lior, Lust and Gluttony found themselves with two of the remaining homunculi. One was a small boy of only about ten or so. The other was a young woman. She wore her long hair pulled out of her face with a headband and also wore gloves with the fingers cut out. Her top only covered the top half of her torso, and her shorts were very short.
"Where have you been?" she asked, her tone full of impatience.
Lust rolled her eyes. "What does it matter? I'm here now, Envy. No need to get your shorts in a bundle." Lust took her seat on a large chair near the center of the vast hall. Gluttony soon followed her.
"You're late! You were only supposed to see King Bradley and come back to Lior! What were you doing that kept you two days?" the woman, Envy, continued ranting.
"I was visiting an old friend," she replied simply.
"Would you mind telling us who?" a girl of about fifteen or so stepped out of the shadows of a corner in the hall. Her violet eyes shone with power and control.
"D-Dante…" Lust quickly got up from the throne-like chair. The girl, apparently Dante, replaced Lust on the throne.
"I asked you a question, Lust," she snapped.
Lust turned away. "I visited Pride." Gasps sounded from each homunculi.
Dante frowned. "You shouldn't have bothered with that monster."
"She could be a powerful ally, Dante. If only you would consider—"
"Ally?" All of the homunculi cringed at the volume of their master's voice. "Ally…?" she repeated, much softer. Dante grinned sinisterly. "Very good, Lust. That is a very good idea."
"Pride knows that she can never escape the homunculi's grasp. She is forever bound to you, Dante."
Dante nodded. "Yes, she is, my Lust, yes, she is." Dante looked back up to all of her homunculi. "We need Pride back," She said simply. "And I know just how to get her back." She rose from her seat and went to a small table tucked away into a corner. She opened various drawers, as if to find something.
"Dante?" asked the boy. "What are you doing?"
Dante opened the final drawer and smirked as she took out a small vial of a clear liquid. "Looking for this, my Wrath." She headed back towards the homunculi. The boy, called Wrath, stood and met Dante halfway.
"What is it?" he asked.
"This, my Wrath, is what will bring Pride home, to us."
Wrath smiled. "Good. I want to meet this Pride."
"You would have loved her, kid," Envy told him. "She destroyed everything, always killing someone. I miss her a lot."
"I miss Pride, too," Gluttony chimed in.
"Wait," Lust called. She turned to Dante. "You wanted her dead. That was why you turned her human and cut off all of her limbs and left her for dead. So why do you want her back to the one place that you tried to get her out of?"
Dante smiled and walked over to Lust. "My dear Lust," she placed a hand on Lust's cheek. "It was you who suggested it. I agreed to it because Pride is much stronger than you or any of my other creations will be."
Lust could feel the anger billing up inside of her.
"What is this? Anger?" Dante slapped Lust across the face. "Did I feel something other than lust emitting from you? Now this is unacceptable, Lust." She grabbed Lust's chin and jerked it to face her. "I created you, and I can destroy you. Don't make me destroy my Lust. I can't do much without her." Dante released Lust's chin and turned back to the rest of the homunculi.
Dante held up the bottle of clear liquid. "This, my darlings, is what makes all of you connected to me."
Lust's eyes widened. So that means…!
"Now, Pride was my first, so, I didn't do my best job on her, like I should have. But this time, I won't mess up. One of you must place a drop of this onto her homunculus mark on the right side of her neck, just below her ear. Once the liquid touches the mark, Kraya 'Sin' Ami'ish will be no more, and our Pride will be back, but with one small difference:" Dante gazed at the vial. "She will be under my control."
Envy stepped forward. "I'll do it, Dante. The old Pride remembers me—"
"The old Pride isn't the one that you would have to overcome." Dante pointed out. "No, we need someone who can infiltrate easily and stay inside."
"I will do it," Lust suggested.
"Now, Lust," Dante droned. "She is bored of you, and will not listen to anything that you would have to say."
"What about someone that she has never met before?" asked a voice from the shadows. The speaker revealed itself to be a woman with long black hair and soft aqua-blue eyes.
"Sloth," Lust murmured distastefully.
Dante smiled. "Perfect. You're perfect, Sloth."
Sloth smirked ever so slightly and turned to Lust, as if to show off her triumph.
"Dante, Pride is working with the Elric Brothers," Lust revealed. "There is no way that a homunculus with such little experience could possibly—"
"Her working with the Elric Brothers is even more of a reason why I should go, Lust," Sloth pointed out. "I can get inside their emotions, cloud their judgment. It will be even easier to get to Pride with them around. I have no doubt that she knows of me and my connection with those two. Surely you see that, Lust?"
"I agree with Sloth," Dante cut in. She turned back to Sloth. "You will go to Pride and administer this," she handed the homunculus the vial of clear liquid. "How do you intend to get close to her, if I may ask?"
"Through her obsession with Greed," Sloth answered, taking the vial.
"But Greed is long past dead—" started Lust.
"And Pride's obsession with that newly-dead corpse is what will make her weak enough for me to slip this onto her mark." Sloth held up the vial to make her point. "It will be easy, enough."
"Yes," Envy chimed in. "Seeing as Greed was the one who killed her beloved…oh, what was his name? Hamley? No…Hans?"
"No, it was a Russian name," Gluttony commented.
"Hansel." Lust stated. "His name was Hansel."
"Oh, yeah. Hansel." Envy continued. "Greed killed her beloved Hansel, that was why she went on that rant about killing him brutally."
"Exactly," Sloth said, making her point. "If she were to find out that Greed was killed by Edward Elric—"
"She would be horribly sad," Wrath realized.
"And you will be there to comfort her," concluded Dante. "Go," she said to Sloth. "Try to make it back by tomorrow afternoon. It shouldn't be too hard for you. The potion will render her unconscious, and when she wakes up…she'll be under my control." Sloth nodded. She uncorked the vial and drank all of it.
"Just what do you think you're doing?" Lust demanded. "Now Pride doesn't have anything to drink—"
"You worry too much, Lust." Sloth laughed. "I am, quite literally, liquid. Because I drank that liquid, it is now apart of me. Therefore, if I but touch Pride's homunculus mark, it would be the same as if I touched the liquid itself to the mark." She turned back to Dante. "I will be back by tomorrow afternoon, Dante." And Sloth left the City Hall, and then left the desert city of Lior and headed to the other desert city of Krayensburg.