The 8th Sin
-2nd Chances-
Wow, the 6th chapter already... I never thought this story would get this far... Honest. :-) Thanks to all you readers out there inspiring me, I'm still here, so the credit goes to you guys. :-)
Special thanks to lightningstrxu and Rin-neechan because these two have brought the most inspirations for me, in more than one way that they can think of. ;)
Health Warning: Possible crappy chapter coming up. Depends on how you take it, but I think it's crappy. :(
Okay, enough with the sentimentalism... (Wipes eyes with tissue) Let's get on with the show, shall we?
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-Three days later...-
It was Melody's recertification exam day. She had passed the theory exam without breaking a sweat, and now the practical exam was making her get the jitters. Especially when teamed with the fact that she wasn't exactly going to create a chimera for this exam...
Marcus made a purring sound as he walked alongside her and Melody had to pat him several times on the head to reassure him nothing bad was going to happen. Her task on that day was to clear up the remaining chimeras in Shou Tucker's residence. Oddly enough, the house has been abandoned for quite a long time now and yet, those half-breed creatures were still alive and extremely hungry.
The few people who went in there didn't get out without having a trauma or in the worst-case scenario, never came out ever again, ending up as monster's feed. Marcus clung onto his sister's uniform and Melody simply walked on, down into the basement where she was accompanied by her examiner; Colonel Roy Mustang.
She saluted her superior, who returned the gesture and asked, "Are you ready to start the exam?"
The red-head looked down at her chimera sibling, thought for a minute and looked up at the raven-haired man, "Yes. Anytime."
Roy nodded in approval, "Very well. There are around five chimeras behind this door," roars erupted from behind the heavy door, as if to prove the colonel's point. Marcus hid behind his sister's legs with a yelp as the Colonel continued, "All you have to do is dispose of them."
Melody looked at her scared sibling, "And if I don't, Colonel?" The black-haired man raised an eyebrow quizzically, "If they're too much for me, I mean," she said with a weak smile.
Roy nodded, "We have people backing you in case you don't pass."
Melody giggled at that, "Thank you Colonel. That was 'reassuring'," she said jokingly and her senior merely shrugged,
"I try," he said lightly before Melody went off to finish her exam. She entered the small, dimly-lit room and looked around. She could only see two, and the two beasts have just been staring at her hungrily, trying to find ay trace of fear in her.
Melody looked down at them coldly, as if warning them to back off. She daren't make any sudden moves, but when one of the two leapt for her without giving her any time to draw and alchemic circles, she pulled two paper amulets from her pocket and stuck one on the chimera, the other one held in her hand. When she activated it, another alchemic circle, which was somehow drawn on Marcus' belly glowed with a pale blue light and in a matter of seconds, joined both chimeras into one, forming a much more powerful beast.
"Just give me a roar if you think you can't handle the alchemization," she called, drawing an alchemic circle on the floor and creating a pole arm for her own safety.
Marcus was now a six-foot tall beast with an almost human head, covered with coarse hair and large limbs. The upper body was that of a muscular man and from the waist down, it was a mixture of a lion's forelegs and a hose's hind legs. His clawed hands were the size of someone's torso and it looked like it could crush anything without fail.
Another chimera in the lab sprang to life, attempting to bite into Marcus' shoulder, but he was far more agile than the griffon-look-alike. With a single swipe, the griffon's body was shredded into several bloody pieces, where it landed on the floor with a dull 'thud'.
The remaining three seemed afraid of these two newcomers. All this time, they have always been the predator. Now, they were prey. A lynx-moose chimera let out a howl as the remaining creatures went all out for them, baring their fangs and claws in a desperate attempt to live. Melody almost felt sorry for them as Marcus literally butchered the hungry animals without a sense of sympathy.
Once she made sure no other beasts were left alive, Melody sighed. She took out the paper amulet she had earlier on and used it to reverse the alchemization, releasing her brother from being bonded to the ugly creature forever. The paper amulet on the chimera's head glowed a bright red before it literally burned the whole creatures beings slowly, painfully as ever howl of agony echoed through the room and Marcus once again clung onto his sister's leg. She sighed for this wasn't the first time she'd done this. She'd seen countless chimeras, and on occasions, people die this way, only because she was ordered to do so. She stepped up to the flaming mass of flesh, which was still screeching in pain and raised her pole arm.
"Marcus," she called, "Don't look," those were her final words of warning before her goblin-like sibling covered his eyes with his small hands and a sickening crunch followed closely after that.
The pole arm was brought down, and there was silence. The only sound in the room was the sound of the still burning carcass of the chimera Melody had just killed.
She raised a hand and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, "It's over..." she said, half-relieved that her exam was over, and quite easily at that. An odd, yet familiar sensation swept past her as she doubled over, dropping her weapon and covering her mouth with both hands. She started coughing again, and Marcus knew that it wasn't a good sign.
He ran to the door, crying out as loudly as he could and pounding on the door, calling for help. A fairly tall young man came into the room in a hurry, prying Marcus off of his legs so he could go over to Melody's side and when he did, she was already coughing up blood, for the umpteenth time.
She toppled sideways into his arms, trying to catch her breath as her coughing ceased, "Melody, come on, hang in there!" the young alchemist tried to keep her awake and in her condition, all she could see with her blurred vision was fairly tan skin and short, spiky black hair. The first person she had in mind was the Colonel, but the higher-pitched voice definitely wasn't the colonel.
Melody tried focusing and saw a pair of deep, sky-blue eyes. Smiling weakly as she continued to catch her breath, she said weakly, "Jonathan..."
"God, stop toppling over already will you? Maybe I ought to get myself a change in partner," said Jonathan in an annoyed tone, half-relieved that she was still alive.
The girl in his arms huffed, "I didn't choose to lose my lungs and my intestines doing something that was obviously wrong in the laws of alchemy..." she muttered, sitting up with a lot of effort. She pulled out a small bottle of pills and a small bottle of water from her pockets, swallowing two of the pills and taking a few gulps of much-needed water from her bottle.
She sighed as she felt slightly better, wiping the blood from both corners of her mouth and putting the two things in her hands away. Jonathan kindly helped her up and went out to be greeted by Major Armstrong, in all his sparkly glory. Marcus, who was quite fond of the big man (whom according to Melody, Marcus thought was a 'funny man'...) greeted the muscular, almost-bald man with a happy little purr and a hug to the leg.
The Major picked Marcus up, placing the little 'boy' on his shoulder as he did a one-armed flexing show, not even noticing or even caring that his two audiences were watching in disgust, what with the pink sparkles flying about him from God knows where.
"Marcus, come down from there! I have a lot of work to do and I think I'll need your help re-arranging my files alphabetically, again! Really, someone around here has been wrecking my filing system..." Melody muttered as Marcus shook his head no at his elder sibling, insisting that he wanted to play with the now shirtless Major.
Jonathan laughed when Melody looked devastated, "I'll help with the sorting. I haven't got anything else to do anyway."
"Thanks Jonathan... Major, if you'd kindly take care of Marcus for me," Melody said politely. The huge man's response was,
"Not a problem, young Melody! Taking care of just a little boy would be no problem for me, as the art of baby-sitting have been passed through the Armstrong family for generations!" a few more flexes, and it was already enough for both Melody and Jonathan to bolt out of sight. Nobody have ever stayed long enough to hear the Major say anything that made sense whenever it was his day off...
"I really appreciate your helping me, Jonathan. Are you sure you don't want me to repay you in any way?"
"I'm a gentleman. I don't need to," Jonathan replied with a cheeky grin.
Melody laughed. For someone who was three years younger than her, he was a charming young man, "Okay then, how's about a trip to the cake shop around the corner? Havoc did say they have good cakes."
"Hmm... Sounds tempting. Why not? Your treat," he said curtly, crossing his arms over his chest and smiling at her mischievously.
She raised an eyebrow at him, "Whatever happened to 'I'm a gentleman'?"
Jonathan wrinkled his nose cutely, "To hell with it."
They both laughed as they walked off towards her office.
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It was early evening at that time, the sun casting an orange glow over everything the light touches and Freesia was still living in Rin's place, and had just received some mail from her parents in Dublith. She had left suddenly, so she just wanted them to know that she was fine and that they didn't have to worry about her. They took it quite well. Too well, actually, but Freesia knew them long enough to know how they feel about her.
Through their letters, she felt much better to know that no matter what she was, to them she will always be their Freesia. She smiled serenely as she re-read the letter she had received from her mother and at the same time, thinking of what to say in her reply letter. She gave up after not coming up with anything shortly after that and looked at the wall. Rin had finished the picture of the black-winged angel, in spite of him saying that he was going to paint something over it and it looked beautiful.
In a sense, he did draw something over it. Before, the fallen angel was all alone, suffering but Rin had added something to the scene. A woman was there next to the poor soul, almost as if she was trying to relieve the man of his suffering, even if just a little. The painting made her smile. It reminded her of what she had asked him a few days ago.
-Flashback-
"Rin, what is 'love'?" she had asked. Rin had made a startled movement, accidentally smearing the wrong color in the wrong place in his almost perfect painting. It was a pity she couldn't see his face, otherwise she would have been able to see that his cheeks were as bright red as a tomato!
His heart was pounding as he wracked his brains for an answer, "Well... uh... love... is a strong feeling, I guess. I'm not really sure how it feels to be loved, since my mother left me at an orphanage and my father died when I was born, but I do know from other people that to love and to be loved is a wonderful thing," he said uncertainly, re-painting the smeared area with slightly shaky hands.
He didn't know how she did it, but without him noticing, Freesia was standing right behind him, one hand placed on his shoulder and the other on his hand, guiding his hands so they wouldn't shake as badly as he painted.
"My father always said that when you're painting, a steady hand is very important," she said softly as Rin finished re-painting. He didn't reply but looked at her over his shoulder,
"Freesia, sorry to change the subject, but this is important. While I'm off to work, I'd like you to stay indoors, until I come home. I don't want to catch you walking around outside without my permission, alright?" he said in his sternest voice, only earning an understanding smile from the dark-haired girl behind her.
She was just too adorable. He stood up and gave her a one-armed hug, whispering into her ear, "That's a good girl."
-End of flashback-
As she was reminiscing, a sigh escaped her lips, "This is taking too long... I just want to go back to Dublith! It's not like I want to tear this place up from one corner to the other!" she cried in frustration, slamming the letter she held in her hands down on the bed.
She buried her face in her blanket (well, Rin's, actually...) and thought, 'Dang it... I should've just strangled him a few days back... He'd probably kill me anyway once he knows I'm just toying with him so I can get what I want! But if I kill him, I won't get to see his completed paintings anymore... Argh! This is just too frustrating!' she started rolling around on the bed in frustration and fell off eventually. She'd been holding a grudge against Rin ever since she caused her to break her backbone back at home. Otherwise, she simply didn't like him.
Freesia DID try to escape before, even with him warning her not to. Unfortunately, during the two times she did that, through her two-day stay in his house, Rin was on the roof and asking her where she was headed off to. She'd lied that she was going to take a walk and on both events, Rin said that he'd accompany her. She just had to turn his offer down and get cooped up again. She wasn't taking any chances this time...
As she picked herself up, looking a complete mess, she thought something felt a bit 'wrong'. She looked outside the window and took in every bit of detail she could see. The place Rin chose to live in was quite an isolated area, where not many people would come by so it wasn't very hard for Freesia to notice an aged man with an eye patch dragging a very familiar man behind him by the collar, rendered unconscious. Four rapiers were driven into an equal number of what seemed to be pressure points on his body.
She gasped, "Greed!" without even thinking of what Rin would say to her or even if Rin was there to see her, she practically jumped out of the second floor window and approached the man, "Excuse me, but you have my friend there. He appears hurt. Where are you taking him?" she asked quickly, earning a confused look from the aged man. Another familiar feeling washed over her as she got a good look at the man. It was a similar feeling to that of when she was alongside Greed, but this was a menacing presence.
Backing away slowly, a name she never knew slipped from between her lips, "Pride..."
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Okay, its official; this chapter's crap! I was desperately trying to make Freesia and Melody meet and it's a disaster... oh well, at least I still managed to highlight a few events that were supposed to stick out. If anyone thinks I should rewrite this, do tell.
After all, that's what reviewers are for, right? I do hope you all think it's alright though because I am particularly tired as I'm typing this chapter... even now, while writing the author's note.
Mini-spoiler: Greed re-appears in the next chap. :P To lightningstrxu, I may need to twist that bit of information around some more. :3 You'll see why.
Oh well, enjoy it, people. I need a bit of shut-eye before I start chapter 7...
Please R and R!