I thank you again for your reviews! Here's the next chapter!
Winry looked on in amazement. Everything was spotlessly clean and extremely fancy. The walls were covered in red wallpaper and there were several portraits on the wall, each with a year under it right up to the current Dante in the year 1922. A large canopy bed with red satin sheets was in the center of the room dark red velvet curtains hanging from the canopy. There was a vanity table against one wall with several bottles of expensive perfume. A potted plant, looking strangely out of place, was hung in a corner. Winry wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of perfume in the room.
"What is this woman's obsession with red?" she asked herself, fingering the drapes on the bed.
She opened the closet and found it to be nearly empty. All that was inside was a wear worn plain red dress, and an exotic frilly white dress with a feather headband above it. Winry made a face at the dresses.
"What terrible taste! No wonder she's alone…"
She moved over to the dresser and opened it. She exclaimed in disgust. Inside was a series of whips! Small ones, leather ones, rawhide middle sized ones, braided rope lassos, the list went on!
"I'm getting out of here! This is a house of freaks and weirdos!"
She was about to grasp the doorknob when it turned. Winry squeed in fright and looked to the left and right for a hiding place. As the door started to open, she dove under the bed. She peered out from under the bed and watched as Dante entered, several dresses piled in her arms.
Far out on the road to Dublith Ed and Al were still gamely trekking onward.
"This sucks!" Ed said angrily. "Damn that ticket collector!"
"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't lost the tickets brother." Al said quietly.
"I didn't lose those tickets!" Ed screamed back.
Al ignored his brother's outburst and peered into the distance.
"How much farther do you think it is?" he asked.
"I don't know." Ed said, rubbing the back of his neck. "We're still pretty far off. We should come to another train station eventually. Probably sometime tomorrow."
The brothers sighed and continued on their way.
Back in East City, Roy was scribbling his signature furiously onto a paper. Riza raised an eyebrow at him but chose to stay quiet. As he signed the papers Riza had given him, his eyes kept glancing at the phone.
"Here." He held up the stack of papers to Riza, who took them from him.
"Thank you Col." She said.
As she was about to leave the phone finally rang. She turned around and saw Roy staring at the phone dismally. Neither of them moved for a minute. Riza sighed and walked over to the phone. Before Roy could stop her she picked up the receiver and said, "Hello, Colonel Roy Mustang's office."
Riza nodded and said some words of affirmation before handing the phone to Roy.
"It's General Hakuro, sir." She said.
Roy groaned and put a hand over his eyes before saying into the receiver, "Hello?"
"Hello again Col. Mustang."
"General Hakuro! What a pleasant surprise! To what do I owe this call?"
"Don't get too excited Col." Hakuro said. "The reports coming from the South say that the Fullmetal Alchemist isn't going to help in the rebellion."
"That's correct sir. He had a sudden and pressing engagement elsewhere."
"Care to tell me what it was Col.?"
"I'm afraid it's personal leave sir."
"And how long will he be gone for?"
"I couldn't say."
"Well then." Hakuro said, his voice becoming brisk. "You'll have to go down there yourself. I'll tell Southern HQ to expect you."
And before Roy could say anything in protest, Hakuro hung up.
"Dammit!" Roy slammed his fist onto his desk in anger. "You'd better have a damn good excuse for running out like this Fullmetal!"
"Sir?" Riza questioned.
"General Hakuro just assigned me to take Ed's place in stopping the Southern Rebellion. I'm going to need to take a small contingent of soldiers with me. Are you coming?"
"Of course sir." Riza said calmly. "After all, someone has to keep you in line."
She turned to leave, hiding a rare smile from Roy. He sighed and ran a hand absently through his hair before getting up and preparing to leave.
Back in the Mansion.
"Alright you little brat!" Envy said, walking into the anteroom where Winry was being kept. "Sloth's almost finished making dinner so get read too—"
Envy abruptly stopped as he looked around the room. It was empty. He balled his hands into fists and let out a terrible howl of rage.
"What was that?" Gluttony said worriedly in the library.
Lust, who was standing on a ladder pulling down a book, said, "I expect something went wrong with Envy's "plan"."
Gluttony giggled and said, "Let's go see!"
Lust sighed and said, " I suppose we should."
Up in his room, Wrath stopped chasing a mouse around his room and listened. As he heard Envy howl in rage, he grinned and said, "Payback!"
He jumped up and ran to the anteroom.
Next door, Pride growled snapping a pencil in half in the middle of his paperwork.
"Honestly! How is anyone supposed to get any work done around here?"
He opened the door to his room and saw Wrath go running down the hall. He quickly followed him to see what the trouble was.
In the kitchen Sloth sighed as she shook pepper into a pot of soup.
"He's too loud."
She jumped as a loud crash came from the anteroom and dumped the entire can of pepper into the soup. She growled in frustration and knocked the soup off the stove. It splattered against the wall as she breathed deeply hair falling in front of her eyes. She suddenly stood up straight coughed into her hand and pushed the hair out of her eyes. She then set about cleaning up the soup.
"I almost lost it again." She said quietly.
Back in Dante's bedroom, Dante was just hanging up her new dresses, each more hideous and frilly then the last. She pulled out a particularly horrid one, the skirt was purple silk with white flowers strung about I and puffs on the shoulders the size of bowling balls, and set it out on her bed. She opened a box that was on the bottom of the closet and opened it. Inside was a headband with a pink feather. Dante hummed to herself as she fit it on her head, looking at the vanity mirror. Winry watched as Dante took off her dress and gasped. Luckily Dante didn't hear her. All over Dante's body were angry red, almost crystallized looking spots. She turned and Winry saw her chest was totally covered by the marks, making it look like she was wearing a leotard of some time. Dante raised her arm to her face and sniffed one of the rotten spots. She grimaced in distaste and picked up a purple bottle of perfume. She spritzed it all over her body and the room was flooded with the sickly smell of lilacs and rotting flesh. Winry started feeling light headed and dizzy. She shook her head and kept watching. Dante was just finishing putting her dress on. She tied a large bow in the back and looked at herself in the mirror.
"Oh! Hoenheim! I didn't see you over there! What? Oh this old thing? Why thank you, I do look ravishing don't I?"
Winry rolled her eyes.
"What a vain woman!" She thought disgustedly.
"Me? Dance with you? But what if your wife catches us? Hahahaha! You're so naughty my dear Hoenheim!"
Shortly after saying this, she held up her arms and began to twirl around her room as though dancing with someone. It was pitiful watching this charade, but luckily Winry didn't have to suffer for long. A loud crash was heard nearby and Dante nearly twisted her ankle as she was in the middle of twirling. She angrily hoisted up her skirts and stalked out of the room, ready to cause hell for whoever had interrupted her personal time.
Winry crawled out from under the bed and headed for the door. Just as she reached it, it blew open again. Winry squeed and dived under the bed as Dante walked back in, opened the dresser, pulled out a large leather whip and stalked out again. Winry peeped out from under the bed and made sure Dante was gone for good this time. She crawled out from under the bed and darted from Dante's room, towards the main entrance. She found it quickly and ran toward the large double doors.
"Finally! Now I can get out of…here?"
Winry tugged on the door to no avail. It was locked tight. Winry fell to the floor still gripping the door handle.
"No, no, no, no no! I was so close!"
Meanwhile, back in the anteroom.
"Alright where is she!" Envy yelled to the assembled homunculi.
"Where's who?" Wrath said innocently.
Envy grabbed him by the collar and shook him. "Don't play dumb with me! Tell me what you did with her!"
"Did to who?" Pride asked sternly.
Envy looked over at him and dropped Wrath, suddenly calm.
"No one. Nothing at all. Forget I said anything."
Lust rolled her eyes and Gluttony sniggered chewing on a chair leg.
"You're making a racket down here." Pride said. "I've got a job you know, and I'm very busy. I'd like to visit my family this weekend and that isn't going to happen if you keep me from my work!"
With that, Pride turned on his heel and left. As soon as he was out of earshot Envy grabbed Wrath again and shook him.
"Where is she?"
"I don't have any idea what you're talking about!" Wrath said, kicking Envy in the stomach.
Envy dropped him with a loud, "Ooof!"
Wrath scurried away to the kitchen as Lust approached Envy.
"All the doors are locked so she's probably somewhere in the mansion. Just don't let Pride, Sloth, or Dante find her."
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Envy said. "Why don't you help me for once?"
Lust smirked at him and said, "This whole fiasco was your idea. She's done nothing to me."
With that, Lust turned and left. Envy glared at Gluttony who was still staring at him with a wide grin on his face.
"What the hell are you staring at fat ass?" Envy kicked out at Gluttony who turned and ran away after laugh giggling madly. Envy growled in frustration and started searching for Winry. He opened the door and was shocked to see Dante standing there, holding a whip.
"What the hell do you want woman?" He said.
"You interrupted my personal time again Envy." Dante said, stretching the whip and snapping it back. "You know what that means."
Envy backed away in horror and Dante advanced raising the whip.
All throughout the mansion a terrible crack was heard followed by a loud profane curse.
"Music to my ears!" Wrath said happily in his room.
Winry had found her way upstairs, hoping to find a key of some sort when she stumbled into another bedroom. This one had normal pale blue wallpaper and a modest bed tucked away in the corner. The closet was closed and the dresser was full of folded black dresses. It seemed too…clean. To unalike the rest of the mansion. Winry opened the closet and was surprised to find it full of even more black dresses and a number of black high heels. She pushed aside the dresses and was even more shocked to see several pictures of Scar plastered on the wall.
"I wonder whose room this is." Winry whispered to herself.
She jumped as she saw the doorknob turning.
"Not again!"
Winry quickly jumped into the closet and closed the door as Lust entered.
Ending Note: And that is all for this part! Reviews please, no flames.