The 8th Sin
-Black Butterfly-
Hi everyone!! I'M BACK!!! Without further ado, I'll just start coz I got nothing to ramble about.
Don't forget to read and review!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-DANTE'S MANSION, UNDERGROUND-
Lilith sat in the centre of her new room, her eyes fixed on the view outside of her window. The view was plain, but something about it drew her to it. Someone came into her room and she only needed to turn her head slightly to know who it was, "Envy, right?"
The palm tree look-alike nodded, "So, you're the one Dante told me about."
Lilith giggled, "Call me Lilith. You're here to baby-sit me, aren't you? Mother's always busy so I don't have anyone to play with her. Will you be my playmate?" she turned around and looked at Envy in the eyes, the Ouroboros in her left eye gleaming menacingly.
Envy sighed and sat down, "Sure. I haven't got anything better to do anyway. What do you want to do?" He raised an eyebrow when the pint-sized little girl pointed outside of her window.
"I want to play outside. Someone has something that belongs to me," she said, her tone as sweet and child-like as how she was before she became a homunculus. However, there was something about her current state of mind that made Envy think otherwise. She didn't appear to have remembered much about her homunculus self, but her actions spoke for her.
"Well? Are we going?" she asked. Envy looked at the window, which had been locked and before he entered the room, Dante had warned him not to let her out.
He chuckled and shook his head, "Sorry, kiddo. No can do. We'll just have to play indoors."
"Is it because the window is locked?" Lilith walked over to the window and placed her small hands on the wall under the windowsill. She placed her forehead on the cold concrete structure and closed her eyes while Envy went and picked up one of the neglected toys on the floor so he could start trying to entertain the little girl.
His head snapped up when she ran up to him and grabbed his hand. Her body felt cold, unlike the warmness of a living person. He looked down at her smiling face as she announced, "It's open now. Can we go?" she pointed to the window and when Envy shifted his gaze to where she was pointing, all he saw was a gaping hole in the wall, large enough to allow five Gluttonies of the same size and shape out of the very same hole walking side by side.
The most surprising thing was how she was able to make such a massive hole in almost a heartbeat and without a single sound. Not even a crack was heard! He looked at the small homunculus again, but all she did to serve as an explanation of her actions was smile.
"Let's go and play!" she said gleefully and without much effort, she had successfully dragged Envy out of the hole and towards the surface, moving as if she knew the place like the back of her hand. Somewhere out there she knows that someone she's currently looking for is not very far, but very elusive at the same time. She giggled to herself as she pictured the person in her mind, "An Ishvarite..."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-COLLINS' RESIDENCE, THE FOLLOWING DAY-
Eva felt like knocking her head on her table. From where she was sitting, Greed was acting as if he'd owned the place even though he'd only set foot in the house for about half an hour, Dorchette was picking a fight with her pet cat for no apparent reason (dog intuitions? Possible.) And Lolita was trying, but failing to keep them both out of trouble and this ended up stressing Eva out.
"WOULD YOU THREE KEEP IT DOWN? I CAN'T WORK LIKE THIS SO EITHER YOU SHUT UP AND BEHAVE YOURSELVES OR GO AND COUNT THE GRASS ON MY LAWN!" Eva had already dragged the trio out with somewhat superhuman strength and had slammed the door behind them, fuming all the way to her room.
Lolita exchanged looks with the two men beside her, "Something tells me we did something we shouldn't have..."
Dorchette pouted, "It wasn't my fault if the cat wouldn't quit staring at me!"
The only homunculus of the three sighed, scratching the back of his head and leaning against the closed door, "No kidding. So, who wants to go and apologize for making it look like you own this place?"
The dog chimera and the teenage girl narrowed their eyes at the tall artificial human and wondered why in the world they call him 'boss' in the first place. Greed noticed this and blinked in what could have been a cute manner if the situation wasn't so serious and said, "What?"
The trio spent the day outside, Eva still unwilling to allow them in due to the high risk of her house being turned completely upside-down. Lolita had gone looking for a four-leafed clover in the tall grass (they went up to her waist! What kind of a lawn is this?), Dorchette was reduced to counting how many people had passed by while Greed just made a record 100 turns around the house, driven simply by boredom. If he paced around the house more, there would be a pit deep enough to make a moat around the little two-storey house...
Lolita re-surfaced for the umpteenth time from the tall grass and held up what could have been a weed, but she kept on insisting on calling it a clover. Dorchette sighed and tore his gaze from the hundredth or so passerby to look at Lolita's so-called 'clover',
"No, Lolita. It's barely got any leaves," the chimera went back to counting and realized he'd just lost count, forcing him to start over from one.
The teenage girl pouted, "This is ridiculous! It's gotta be here somewhere!" Her arms pin-wheeled around in a comical manner and Greed, who was deep in thought and approaching the teenager from behind, got a pretty nasty bop on the chin. As the assault surprised him, the homunculus actually lost his balance and fell over. Lolita gasped, turning pale when she realized what she had done and 'dived' into the tall grass just to apologize.
Greed just lay down on the ground; finally able to rest his legs (can homunculi even feel tired?) and stared at the sky, which began taking on an orange tint while Lolita said something to him that he wasn't paying much attention to. Through all that pacing, he'd been thinking quite a lot. One of the items of his ponderings was whether or not the plan he had in mind to get Freesia back was going to work. Now that he thought about it, he HAS seen her before. And that was a long time ago. He closed his eyes for a moment, not realizing that his action made Lolita panic and shriek something about unintentionally killing him.
'...No wonder the hair and the black diamond claws looked familiar...' he said to himself, recalling one of the past events where he'd look out of the window and see a pair of blank, purplish-crimson eyes staring back at him, the owner of those pretty eyes merely sitting in a wheelchair like a rag doll. Her silver hair billowed around her in the breeze and parts of her claws showed from under the shawl that she donned.
However, back then, she didn't seem to be alive. It was almost as if she was dead. She just stared at anyone who looked at her blankly, reflecting anything she sees. When Greed thought about it a bit more and compared the two different Liliths, the Lilith in the past could almost do nothing. What caused her to change?
He sighed and folded his arms behind his head as Lolita's head popped up unexpectedly out of the tall grass,
"Ah, there you are!" she cried triumphantly, almost sounding as if he was a needle in a haystack.
Greed looked at her lazily, "Congratulations. Would you like a prize for being able to find me in someone's 'garden'?" he said a bit too bluntly for Lolita's tastes, thus sending her wailing and blubbering to Dorchette.
He sighed as he stood up and brushed the dirt and grass from his trousers. There has to be something he could do. Knowing Edward, he probably was marching around town and with his luck, would have found some info already. When he looked over at where Dorchette was, a familiar person was walking up to the door, eyes widened at the sight of the trio.
Greenish-blue eyes frowned at the homunculus as Greed stared on blankly. Yeah, sure, the newcomer was familiar, but... Where exactly have they met...? The black wings and the almost pasty skin were familiar, but the homunculus seemed to have forgotten already.
"Greed... What are you doing here?" the young man growled.
The aforementioned homunculus blinked a few times and looked away, scratching his cheek absent-mindedly. Then he looked at the newcomer again and frowned, deep in thought. Then his eyebrows shot up in sudden realization as he pointed a finger at the purple-haired youth and announced, "Who are you?"
Everyone around him fell over, anime-style. The young man in the military uniform stood back up, scowling and half-screeched, "I'm RIN! My name isn't THAT long, is it?"
Again, Greed looked at Rin with the stupid blank look he had earlier on, "...Rin who?"
The poor alchemist was next seen sulking in the long grass...
-LATER, IN EVA'S HOUSE… -
Eva sat across of Rin at the dining table, both with a cup of tea set in front of them and both looking equally serious. Eva sighed after knowing what Rin wanted from her,
"For the umpteenth time, Aizawa... I do NOT want to become a State Alchemist. I don't like being tied to a leash, in case you haven't noticed," she said tiredly, taking a sip out of her cup.
"Eva, you have to understand. We need your alchemy skills to stop whoever is trying, or IS creating homunculi and the Philosopher's Stone. From the looks of things, it's beginning to resemble the Ishvar War from before. Don't tell me you have forgotten how many people have suffered. How many lives were lost."
The woman's eyes narrowed, "I haven't forgotten..."
"Then what's stopping you from preventing further suffering through these lands? You'd rather let another calamity-"
The sound of Eva's ceramic cup against its dish shut the winged alchemist up. Her eyes burned into his angrily as she fought to control her tone, "Rin, I understand what you mean. Too well, in fact. Unfortunately, my hands are full just being here. I have my own plans and for now, I'm sorry to say I do not want to include you in it..."
Rin narrowed his eyes to the female alchemist. He then stood up from the table, his tea untouched, "Apparently, it was wrong for me to come here in the first place... "He looked down at her from his standing position, to which she returned his glare out of the corners of her eyes.
"Yes, I believe so... Perhaps you'll have better luck elsewhere," she said flatly, raising her cup again to drain its last drops. With a swish of the blue coat he donned, Aizawa Rin stormed out of the house. When the door was slammed shut, Eva's tense muscles relaxed as she slumped in her seat, feeling a bit tired and sighed without knowing that the three that she locked outside had snuck inside while she spoke to Rin.
"Pretty rough stuff you got around here," Greed said quite off-handedly, sitting in Rin's empty seat and looking at Eva. She rubbed her temples and didn't bother looking at him,
"Leave me alone, homunculus..."
He mock-cringed, "Ooh, touchy..."
Eva glared at him, "What else do you want from me? I've been nice enough to help you make those fake Philosopher's Stones," she stood up and picked up the neglected book she left at the counter and walked off to her room, looking a bit upset.
Greed looked at her leave and idly flicked a napkin off of the table. He sighed and leant back in his seat. Eva had to hurry up with the Stones... Who knows when Freesia would snap again? At the moment, she was the only thing that he had in mind. She was becoming a threat, but most importantly, Greed felt as if she was going to slip away from his grasp. He claimed her as his, and he didn't want her to disappear.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-ELSEWHERE-
Lilith skipped down the streets of Central almost happily, not even fearing any of her Ouroboros marks being exposed since the only ones that were visible was on the back of her left hand and in her left eye. And maybe the one on her tongue, if people bothered to look at her tongue at all. An unhappy Envy was with her as she turned around with her hands held behind her back innocently and looked up at him.
"...What?" Envy asked, looking down at the shorter, but more powerful homunculus with an eyebrow raised. She looked straight into his eyes a few moments longer and giggled,
"Your mind's wandering. Don't you like being with me?" she asked innocently. It was a pity she couldn't read minds because she was plenty curious and wanted to know what Envy was thinking about.
The green-haired homunculus huffed, "I haven't got any choice but come along, do I? Besides, you dragged me out here for no reason, what's up?"
Lilith pouted, "Oh, but I did tell you of my motives. That just comes to show that you weren't listening, " she skipped ahead a few paces and looked around, "Hmm... it's not here... It's somewhere else..." Lilith pondered, clasping her small hands in front of her and ambling along aimlessly.
Envy didn't quite like her. She was acting too smart for her own good and he couldn't shake the feeling that Dante purposely wanted him to look out for her. Again, Lilith stopped unexpectedly before him, "You're daydreaming," it was more of a statement than a question and the very Envy-like smirk she gave him made him frown,
"So what? I bet you daydream too. What do you want now?"
"...I want... the right hand of destruction..." she said mistily as they passed by a stall on the street, "The stones it has... I want it..." she giggled to herself, as if finding whatever she just said amusing. The gleam in her eyes were unnerving and Envy didn't like it. It was unlike him to be afraid of something way smaller than he was and being afraid of Lilith, to him, was ridiculous. And she mentioned 'the right hand of destruction'. Could it be that Ishvarite man who was the mass-murderer?
After thinking about it for a bit more and seeing Lilith 'play' with a bird that had perched on her shoulder, Envy couldn't help but pity whoever was to cross her path.
Lilith stopped, dropping the remains of the bird in her hands and stood very still.
"...What is it?" Envy asked, but Lilith didn't answer. She merely glared at him, as if daring him to make another sound. The green-haired homunculus shut up as soon as they made eye contact.
The smaller homunculus stayed in her statue-like position for a moment longer before looking around at the ground, "...It's moving... Somewhere quite far from us..." she paused for a moment and smirked, "But not so far that we can't find it..." she turned to a particular direction and ran to the nearest alley, where Envy was forced to follow, only to find that she had shape-shifted into a particularly fast domestic cat. There was no doubt that she knew where to find her 'food'. And the chase led her to a shanty town on the outskirts of Central.
"It's here..." Lilith said, almost dreamily as she shifted back into herself. Smoothing her skirt out, she clambered up a rock, only to realize that she had to shape-shift again to make her journey easier.
"Hey, wait!" Envy called, but Lilith had already disappeared. The sin of envy muttered a few curses under his breath as he was forced to follow her. However, he stopped when he heard a familiar voice calling out to him. Envy turned around and saw a familiar face coming over to him, "Melody..." he stared, wide-eyed at the alchemist.
The red-head stopped a few meters away from him, catching her breath, "Have you seen Marcus?? I lost him somewhere here," she said quickly, looking very flustered.
Envy raised an eyebrow at her, "What are you talking about?? I just lost the person I'm supposed to baby-sit myself!" he cried, almost ready to tear his hair out. Speaking of which, he whirled around and jumped up a pile of rubble to see if Lilith was anywhere in sight. There wasn't even a trace of the black dress that she donned. The sin of envy cursed under his breath again, "Melody, you said Marcus was somewhere here, right?" he asked, turning to look at the red-headed alchemist.
She nodded, "Yeah... I heard that some Ishvarite people live around here, so I'm kind of worried..."
"...Believe me, there are other things you ought to be more worried of than just them... Come on, I'll help you find your li'l brother if you'll help me with mine."
Melody looked dumbfounded, "You have a younger brother?"
Envy could kick himself for not making himself more specific, "Uhm... No, but let's just say I was supposed to keep an eye on her..."
"Oh, a younger sister! How nice!"
...This was going to be a long day...
Nearby
Marcus was lost. He was surrounded by people with red eyes and that meant only one thing; he was in the outskirts of town, with ISHVARITES. The little chimera walked around a little more, just about ready to burst into tears for losing his sister along the way. Just around the corner, Lilith seemed to have lost track of the scent she had caught earlier on and was just taking in the sights. Having Envy's ability to shape-shift, it wasn't much of a difficulty for her to just change her skin color to blend in the crowd.
Just as their luck would have wanted it, they bumped into each other and both their first impulses were to slice each other's throats open until... "...You're lost too, aren't you?" Lilith asked, raising an eyebrow at the close-to-tears chimera.
She may not appear to be the most assuring person to be with, but it didn't look like she was going to kill him anytime soon. As a matter of fact, to Marcus, she appeared to be like any other Ishvarite girl. Young, almost harmless and considerate. He nodded.
"Haha, that's a coincidence. I'm kind of lost myself," Lilith picked herself up from the ground and brushed some dust off of her skirt and helped Marcus up to his feet, "Don't most chimeras talk?" she suddenly asked.
Marcus looked taken aback at that. He didn't want to admit it, but though he appeared to be physically complete, internally, he had a few defects. Now he wasn't implying that Melody sucked at what she did with him, but he couldn't deny the fact that the incomplete transmutation robbed him of his ability to speak, replacing the vocabulary in his brain with mere grunts and whining sounds. Biting his lower lip and trying to appear pensive, he nodded again.
Lilith understood what he wanted to say, surprising herself when she got considerate enough to drop the subject, "Hey, let's go and try to find a way out. The person I got here with is probably really angry at me right now," she smiled, very much like she would as Freesia and took Marcus' hand as they walked off.
The little chimera didn't know how to respond to that, so he just followed the little girl whom he didn't know was a homunculus.
Meanwhile...
Melody tried as much as possible to shrug off the stares she was getting from the dark-skinned tribes people as both she and Envy whisked past a few more makeshift homes in the hopes of finding Lilith and Marcus.
The situation was kind of tense, so Melody decided to start a conversation, "So... is there any particular article of clothing I should look out for?"
Envy shrugged, "Something black," 'Provided she hadn't gone and shape-shifted...' he muttered inwardly as he continued to look around, "What about Marcus? Any easy way to find him?"
"Hmm..." Melody slowed down in her brisk walk, thinking, "Usually he'll come after me if I call him..."
Before Melody could continue to talk, Envy had already cupped his hands on either sides of his mouth and called the chimera's name. OUT LOUD. Melody jumped when he yelled for the chimera and turned as red as her hair even when she put her hands over the homunculus' mouth, "What do you think you're doing? You're embarrassing the both of us!"
The green-haired Edward Elric look-alike pried her hands off of his face and whirled around to look at her, "What does it look like? I'm helping out and you just had to go and try to cut off my air supply!"
"I did no such thing! I was sparing us the embarrassment!"
"Oh yeah? So it wouldn't bother you now that we're bickering like a pair of kids and those people just can't stop staring at how childish we are?" Envy countered with a smirk, motioning to the nearby Ishvarite, who were indeed staring at them.
Melody blushed scarlet again and walked off, dragging Envy with her by the ear and trying as much as possible to remain calm and collected despite Envy yelling at her to let go behind her. This was definitely going to be a long day...
However, somewhere behind the duo and out of sight, a pair of red eyes were watching them, the dim lighting illuminating the scar on the person's face ever so slightly...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Haha!!! I'm back! ...WITH A CRAPPY CHAP!
I have nothing to say. I'm just hoping you all still enjoy reading my work.