The car's suspension shook and creaked when Ling hit yet another bump and Greed's jaw clenched in frustration and anger. Usually he might have snapped at the kid, but the honest truth was that his mind was far too preoccupied to bother.
He tightened his grip on Envy's unconscious body instead. Their skin felt hot and feverish, faint red light flickering underneath the surface as their animus was trying to absorb the energy of the Philosopher's Stone and restore them after what those fuckers did.
His spine stiffened with impotent rage at the thought.
As if he had almost sensed his emotions, Ling's slanted eyes found his in the rear view mirror for a second before the princeling turned his attention back to the road that was slithering between the rolling hills in the outskirts of Central.
Ed, apparently, didn't believe in such courtesies, because he turned his body towards the back seat and stared at the Homunculi, his expression hard to read.
"Is it working?" he asked.
All Greed could do was shrug, looking back at Envy and reaching to stroke a lock of their long hair away from their ashen face.
Like he had nothing more important to do than answer the boy's questions...
Even if he lived to see a thousand years, he didn't think he would ever forget the sounds of Envy's agony, the screams and the explosions echoing in the woods as he and the two kids hurried desperately towards Kanama, or the sight of them covered in blood and looking as if they were half a step beyond death's door.
Kimblee had died far too fast, in Greed's opinion. A sick part of him was downright incensed that he hadn't gotten to spend weeks torturing that piece of garbage for daring to hurt Envy. He had never had a taste for true sadism, but this guy... Greed silently clenched his teeth, cursing Kimblee, Pride, Father, the Promised Day... Himself.
But no...
He had to focus on what was important. Otherwise he feared he might go insane.
Envy still lived. Barely, perhaps, but they were still here, with him.
And damn it all, if it didn't work and the Stone Ed had found on Kimblee's corpse and transmuted into their system wasn't enough, Greed was gonna tear his chest open and use his own core to heal Envy up.
A surge of red light crackled around Envy's body and then their skin didn't feel clammy and burning anymore.
When they opened their purple eyes and stared up at him, Greed's breath nearly hitched in his throat and his head felt almost dizzy with relief.
Why was his vision blurry all of a sudden? He blinked rapidly, drinking in the sight of Envy awake and looking pale but healed, not daring to let go of them. His hands were trembling slightly.
It was Ed's voice that broke the silence.
"Well, I guess that answers my question," Greed could hear the smile in the alchemist's voice, but he was neither capable nor willing to avert his eyes from his Envy.
Envy, however, was.
Their eyelids fluttered and they frowned in brief confusion before they gently shifted their body out of Greed's hold and moved to sit up, looking at their surroundings and finally focusing on Fullmetal.
"Pipsqueak?" They sighed and smiled half-heartedly to themselves when he immediately scowled at the nickname. "Didn't think I'd ever see you again. I was with your dad and your brother until just last night."
"You were?" Ed's eyes widened and his shoulders tensed visibly as he roughly twisted in his seat to look at the Homunculi in the back, somewhat to Ling's annoyance who was just making a long turn downhill. "Where are they? I didn't see them anywhere around the forest, is Al okay, did he say anything, where would he go, what would he do, does he know about the Promised Day, are..."
He would have probably continued to fire questions at Envy like a machine gun if Greed hadn't interrupted him with a quiet growl. "Holy shit, kid," he grumbled. "Give it a second. Envy just woke up. You don't just go off like this on someone who went through Hell, for fuck's sake." He forced himself to ignore the fact that he had all but went crazy on Ed's girl too back in Resembool when she told him Envy was alive.
He shut up when he felt a small, dainty hand touching his arm and looked back at Envy.
"It's okay," they said softly. "He has to know," they added before turning their attention back to Fullmetal and sighed, "Yes, your brother is fine... I think."
"What do you mean?" Ed frowned.
"Pride had somehow... gotten control of his suit of armor for a while. Your dad took care of it, though," they added when they saw the expression on the young alchemist's face. "Hohenheim has a plan about the Promised Day. He and the Tin Can must already be in Central."
Ed gulped and turned to Ling. "Let's just hope we're not too late," he told the Xingese prince who nodded solemnly. "The eclipse will begin in just a few hours."
"Is Pride still alive?" Envy asked, looking as if the thought had just occured to them.
"Yeah," Ling answered as he pushed on the gas. "He managed to slink off. I sensed his signature fleeing towards Central as Ed and Greed rushed to help you."
"Oh..." Envy fell silent at that and Greed wondered – not for the first time – what exactly had happened in Kanama.
By the time Ling stopped the car near the slope of a grassy hill that rose above the valley that Central had sprawled over Envy had all but retreated into themselves, offering pretty much nothing in terms of conversation and giving only concise, laconic answers to Ed's questions.
And they had barely said a couple of words to Greed since they woke up.
Before, he might have considered this unusual. When Envy was feeling down back in the old days they had tended to turn surly and cruel instead of silent and withdrawn. Nowadays Greed had become more or less used to all sorts of crazy crap mucking his life up, and he did remember that Envy had seemed way off even before they disappeared into the North, so he wasn't really… surprised at this change of patterns.
Which didn't mean that he wasn't worried.
But he knew Envy far too well. They wouldn't open up in front of humans, they would never show off their wounds just like that.
So when Ling turned the ignition off and slumped back in his seat, Greed leaned forward and said, "Hey, kids, why don't you two take a little stroll while we wait for the others, huh? Get a breath of fresh air and all that before we head off to kick the old man's ass?" His voice was nonchalant and his smile easy, flashing his white fangs at the princeling and the blonde alchemist.
Fullmetal stared at him like he was in a bit of a loss but Ling looked right into Greed's purple eyes and nodded.
"Come on, Ed," he said and clapped his friend on the shoulder before he opened the door and stepped out of the car. "Come on, get out," he repeated from the outside as Ed seemed to hesitate for a moment but he eventually followed Ling.
When Greed was satisfied that they weren't within an immediate earshot he turned to Envy. They were staring through the window with a blank face and Greed briefly wondered what they were really seeing. It wasn't the countryside, that was for sure.
He slowly reached a hand and caressed Envy's cheek. They turned to him and he nearly cringed at the hollow look in their big eyes.
"What's going on in that pretty head of yours, sweet cheeks?" He asked softly. "Talk to me," he implored them when they didn't say anything.
They just looked at him for a while. Just when he was about to say something, they spoke up. "I tried to save him," Envy said quietly. "Tried to convince him to leave Father."
"What are you talking about?" Greed frowned, feeling confused.
"Pride," Envy sighed heavily. "He wouldn't listen. He…" They hesiated for a second. "We ended up fighting," they shrugged.
Greed just blinked a few times, trying to digest what he just heard. He opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it up when he realized he was coming up with nothing.
"Why would you do something like that?" was what he finally settled on
The look in Envy's eyes was briefly clouded with hurt. "You wouldn't understand," they whispered and averted their gaze from him.
He lifted a hand to carefully cup their chin in his hand and turn their face back towards him. "Try me," Greed insisted, his tone soft but serious.
Envy took a deep breath and lightly pursed their lips.
"Humans," they simply said.
"What about them?" He frowned. Maybe Envy was right, because right now he truly didn't understand.
Envy stared at him unblinkingly for a moment before they gulped and said, "I want to be like them. I've always wanted to be like them. It's why I hated them so much." The expression on their face was haunting. "All we've ever done is trample them and make them hurt each other, and yet they keep caring, they keep struggling. They keep loving each other," they added finally, their voice almost inaudible.
And suddenly Greed understood and felt an entirely new wave of hatred for his father washing over his heart.
To think that he had considered his own nature a sick and perverse joke…
He had nothing on Envy.
And he had never stopped to even think about it before, had never given any serious consideration on what made Envy what they were. He had never wondered what they were envious of.
Everything made sense now. Every-fucking-thing.
"You were right, you know," Envy spoke again and Greed's attention returned to his lover, to his younger sibling who had been created to always feel hurt, whose pain was inescapable, woven into the very fabric of their being. They were looking away from him again, as if even maintaining eye contact was taxing. "When you told me he doesn't care about us. You didn't even know how right you were," they gave a small shrug, almost as if they were talking to themselves now. "And I thought… I thought, maybe I could try and turn it around. Maybe if I cared, it would be enough." They exhaled softly, "But it's not. We're not like that. We can't be. He saw to that when he made us."
Greed felt as if there was a painful lump stuck in his throat. "Envy, listen to me," he said purposefully and they turned to him, eyes vacant. "I care about you. I always have," he swallowed and forced himself to say the words that seemed stuck in his gullet, the words he had always kept hidden behind his swagger and his smirks. "You're the only reason why I agreed to work for him again."
Envy just gave him a small, heartbroken smile and reached to touch his face with the tips of their slender fingers. "You don't have to say things like that, Greed," they whispered. "I… I know it's not true. I know it can't be. It's okay. It's good enough that you're standing against him now."
For a moment he was so stunned that he couldn't fully process their words.
They thought he was lying to them…?
No. No! This was not acceptable!
But was it really surprising?
Had he ever given them a reason to believe him now?
All they had ever wanted from him was his affection and devotion, to experience what humans had. All he had ever done was turn that into a mockery of what those emotions truly meant. And all he had ever achieved was to bask in his own emptiness and stomp on their heart again and again, adding his own twisted contribution to their pain.
And here they were now, almost two centuries later.
He was about to speak, to unleash a torrent of words, to explain himself, to beg for forgiveness if need be... but then someone knocked on the window and he saw Ling bending over to look at them. Behind him Greed noticed a dark van driving up towards their location and pulling over. Ling's henchmen and the chimeras waved at Ed who was waiting for them at the bottom of the hill.
"Sorry for interrupting you, guys," he said, his tone earnest. "But the others are here. We have to move."
Envy just nodded at him and steeled their expression before they opened the door and stepped out of the car. They didn't look back at Greed.
When they managed to get into the capital they found it roiling with chaos and fear. Pillars of thick smoke were rising from the direction of Central High Command, the sounds of gunfire and cannons going off faint but audible for the ears of the Homunculi. Crowds of civilians were trying to evacuate on their own and leave the city but Central was being put on lockdown and the whole thing was unraveling in a very ugly manner. They quickly realized that moving on foot would actually be safer and faster than using the van.
Thankfully Greed and Envy knew the layout of all the best and hidden pathways, back alleys and secret entrances that riddled Central and were untraceable on any map or city plan.
They still had to be careful, though. It was one thing for a single person to use those routes; it was a bit different when you were herding a group consisting of two Homunculi, three Xingese warriors, two former soldiers who had been made into chimeras and a State Alchemist. At one point they had to hide in a tiny, dark alley behind an old dilapidated ale house as an armored truck roared across the boulevard just a few meters away, heading towards downtown Central and the civilians hurrying towards the outskirts huddled together in fright.
Leaning against the dirty wall of the ale house, Greed tried to listen in on them, figuring that it wouldn't hurt to know what was going down.
"Heard Mustang's turned traitor," a guy who sounded like a grumpy old fart said, "He wants to be Führer now that Bradley's dead." Greed heard him spit on the ground. "It was pro'lly his guys who did him in in the East, I tell you."
Wait, what?
That couldn't be right.
Wrath, dead? Not that Greed was going to mourn him – in fact he had been hoping to get a chance to finally gut his youngest brother personally, for Bido and the rest of the Devil's Nest gang – but he held no illusions. The one-eyed runt was not easy to kill. The old fool must have been mistaken somehow.
Greed edged closer to them, his back almost glued to the wall of the house.
"The Ice Queen'll stop him," a younger-sounding man with a slight lisp declared. "She's gonna chain Mustang up and cut his head off herself, State Alchemist or not. Tha's how they do things in Briggs," he added with an air of certainty, as if he was some sort of authority on military matters.
"Yer full o'shit," a third guy who talked - and smelled – like a drunkard scoffed. "My cuz lives near the headquarters and when he phoned us before he ran off, he said that Armstrong's men are fighting with our guys, too. She ain't gonna cut nobody's head off, she's gone rogue."
"I heard on the radio that Mustang's actually on our side," an old lady raised her voice, "He saved the Führer's wife from a band of rebels." Her words were cut short when another truck thundered by.
Son of a bitch. No wonder the city was a mess. Nobody seemed to know what was actually going on. And if the chaos and the panic kept it up like this the eclipse was going to roll over pretty much unnoticed and the old man was going to begin harvesting this country.
Greed swore under his breath and turned to look at the others.
"We're running out of time," he said. "We gotta get to the lair now."
"But there's a battle going on above it," Ed frowned. "It seems the Colonel has made his move," he added to himself.
"We may have to go into it," even Ling sounded as if he was hesitating.
Greed clenched his jaw in frustration, unsure what to do. Speed was of an essence here and jumping into a military free-for-all was not going to help.
"Wait!" Envy spoke suddenly, looking as if they had remembered something important. Everyone turned their eyes towards them and they managed to fake looking smug at the attention. It was probably convincing for everyone but Greed. "The Third Laboratory," they said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "There's a secret tunnel that leads to it just two blocks away," Envy nodded in the direction they wanted them to go, "And from there we can go down to the lair very quickly. We can be in Father's throne room in less than an hour if we hurry."
Greed thought it through for a few seconds, found no glaring flaws in the plan and nodded.
As it turned out, he had been slightly wrong.
Just a little bit, though, he thought irritably as his armored claws tore into the face of the screeching, pale-skinned abomination that lunged at him. The cyclopean monster started convulsing as foul-smelling ichor sprayed over the Ultimate Shield but it didn't die because of course it didn't.
"What the Hell are those things?!" Ling shouted as he slashed at the arm of another of the creatures with his sword. "I've never felt something like them before!" The thing ignored the injury and rushed at the prince with an ear-splitting scream but Lan Fan threw it off its balance with one of her kunai (just a fancy name for a throwing knife, in Greed's opinion, but hey, as long as it made the Xingese happy, who was he to object?) and brought it down it with a powerful sucker punch of her automail arm. The thing got up almost as quickly as it had fallen, the blade of the kunai sticking almost comically out of its misshapen skull.
"They were just a pet project for Wrath's scientists," Envy panted as they nimbly dodged the snapping jaw of yet another monster and transformed their arm into a wide, curved blade to hack its head off. "One of the doctors had an idea about an immortal army or something – I wasn't paying much attention at the time," they griped frustratedly when they saw that that didn't work out well either and the beheaded body rose up. "The generals above must have gotten desperate to unleash them." Their voice was almost silenced by the sound of Ed transmuting and the walls of the sewer were briefly bathed in an alchemical glow, and they shook and rumbled as rocky spikes erupted from the floor and impaled the creatures' feet and legs, pinning them down and giving them a brief respite.
"Well…" Darius groused and hissed in pain as he pressed an ape-like hand to the wound on his shoulder. "They certainly don't have the decency to die, so I guess the experiment was a success, huh?"
"Shit!" His buddy Heinkel cursed loudly, his cat vision allowing him to easily see into the dark of the underground tunnel beyond the currently trapped mass of writhing, screeching monsters. "More of them are coming!" the lion chimera roared. "A lot more," he added when countless screams echoed in the sewers.
"RUN FOR IT!" Ed shouted and Greed couldn't really argue with that.
Envy took the front as they knew the system of tunnels better than anyone. Greed, old Fu and Heinkel remained in the back, as they were the best equipped to serve as the first line of defense against pursuers.
Greed heard the monsters screeching and braying for blood as they chased after the group. He took a moment to take a brief look back as he ran and immediately regretted when he saw the sea of horrors rushing at their heels.
They ran and ran, Envy taking frantic and seemingly random turns in the labyrinthine web of tunnels. Once they were in danger of being cornered and overrun by the one-eyed monstrosities but Ed used his alchemy to collapse the wall of the sewer on top the advancing creatures. That won them a bit more time but it wasn't enough.
The bright walls of the Third Laboratory greeted them so suddenly that even Greed was caught unprepared and squinted for a brief second.
Envy had managed to lead them through the tunnels, he realized.
But none of them knew what to do about the horde of monsters that poured into the Laboratory after them. Now they got caught in the open.
"Form a circle!" Fu's gruff, heavily accented voice ordered. "Back to back!"
Everyone moved like one, knowing that they had to fight their way through in order to be able to get to Father's lair. Greed found himself with Ling on one side and Envy on the other. He flexed his armored claws, covered head to toe with the Ultimate Shield and his shoulders stiff. Next to him Envy crouched and tensed, and he knew they were getting ready to unleash their true form.
This all had the feeling of a last ditch effort and it left a sour taste in Greed's mouth.
He wasn't ready to go out like this.
Not when he just got Envy back.
Not when he had so much to prove to them.
And then he heard Fullmetal mutter "Oh fuck!" Hah. Funny. He had never heard the kid curse before. He wondered what had gotten his panties in a twist, but Ed wasn't in his immediate field of vision.
Before he could realize what exactly was happening, though, Ed triggered another transmutation and the floor of the Laboratory around them swiftly elevated itself, forming a circular wall around their group.
"What are you d…"
Greed's question was cut short by a thundering boom and suddenly a wave of intense heat washed over them. He could see the glow of the fires above the wall Ed had just made for them and he heard hundreds of monsters screeching in utter agony and fury.
It was as if the Laboratory itself shook and trembled as the inferno unleashed itself. It was over as soon as it had began and Ed swiftly deconstructed the charred stony barrier.
Greed turned to him, to ask him what the fuck had happened and then he saw a man he had forgotten all about.
Roy Mustang was standing at the entrance of the Third Laboratory one arm outstretched and his thumb and middle finger pressed together as if he was ready to make a snap. Hawkeye was next to him, her pose unmistakably that of an experienced marksman and a gun in her hands. The immortal army had been turned to ash and scorched remains in their feet.
"Hey there, Fullmetal," The Flame Alchemist said evenly and eyed their group. He immediately frowned when his dark eyes landed on Greed and Envy but he didn't offer anything more.
"Colonel?" Ed sounded bewildered and glad at the same time as he grinned at the tall black-haired man. "I think this is the first time I'm actually happy to see you."
"Cute," Mustang didn't sound amused at all, nor did he lower his arm. "Please tell me you're aware that those two with you are Homunculi."
Ed's amber-colored eyes turned to Greed and Envy for a second before he raised his hands, his face turning serious. "It's alright, Colonel," he said, "They're on our side."
"You'll forgive me if I find that hard to believe."
"Easy there, hotshot," Greed narrowed his eyes at Mustang and his claws flexed involuntary. "The kid's telling the truth. We're fighting the guy behind all of this, too, same as you."
"Is that so?" The Flame Alchemist looked at him, his expression derisive. "Then would you mind answering a question of mine?"
"Dammit!" Ed suddenly sounded… afraid? "We don't have time for this, Mustang! The solar eclipse will start soon, and once it does this whole country will die!"
Mustang simply ignored the kid, staring right at Greed.
"A friend of mine died some time ago. He was killed by one of your kind. I know it wasn't Lust, Gluttony or the one you call Wrath." Greed's anger rose when he heard Lust's name. This piece of shit had killed her instead of having the good manners to die and deprive Father of his last human sacrifice. "So which one did it? WHICH ONE OF YOU MURDERED MAES HUGHES?" Mustang roared, his features twisting in hatred. His shoulders were almost trembling with barely-suppressed rage.
Greed felt Envy freeze next to him.
And he suddenly was terrified.
Terrified that they would say something and bring this guy's fury down on them.
Yeah, right.
Like he was going to let that motherfucker burn them like he did Lust.
So he did the only thing that made sense, without even thinking about it.
Greed tossed his head back and laughed heartily.
"You really want to know?" He asked Mustang and gave him a grin full of shark fangs when he got only a silent snarl in response. "You sure?" He stepped forward. "You really sure?"
Hawkeye raised her pistol at him when he moved towards her man but Greed ignored her. Her little toy was useless against the Ultimate Shield, and she had nothing to do with this anyway.
"Greed?" He heard Ed's voice from behind. "Greed, what the Hell do you think you're doing?" He ignored him, too.
"You killed my sister, you dumb fuck," Greed allowed his anger to come out, to direct all of Mustang's attention towards him. "And you presume to ask me questions? Fine," he hissed. "I'll tell you who killed your best friend."
Mustang's eyes widened and his gloved fingers tensed.
Greed was just a few meters away from him.
And he uttered the first lie in his life.
"I DID!" He roared and lunged towards Roy Mustang who immediately snapped his fingers.
The last thing he heard before the torrent of fire washed over his armored body was Envy's screaming his name.
Greed putting himself in danger for the sake of the people he cares about was one of the big moments that marked his character development in the show. So ever since pretty much the beginning of this story I knew that having him take the blame for Hughes was something that I was gonna work towards. I guess we'll get to see which is stronger, fire alchemy or the Ultimate Shield?
Also, in my mind, this isn't letting Envy get away scot-free. In my story they might have changed for the better and they might have already suffered quite a bit, both physically and emotionally, but that doesn't and shouldn't erase their villainous deeds from before. But I suspect that for this version of Envy watching Greed take the blame for their crime would be almost as bad as getting burnt themselves.
See you next time, people!