Chapter Ten "Reoccurring Threat"
When they stood before the train people were staring at him, this time he was not so able to brush them off as their effect was different now that we was not human. Winry tried to lead him to stay out of sight but he was not having it, refusing to buckle down to what others thought of him; or at least that's what she'd like to think rather than he just detested them too much to care.
As soon as they turned a blind eye Pride jumped onto the same part of the Train he took to get there, changed drastically from his last trip. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the car several feet from the ground and she sat down uncomfortably.
She didn't remember being so quiet in her life but there simply was nothing left to say, she was not sure of what he even planned to do or that it was all a lie to get her to go with him. The whistle of the train sounded off an hour later in what seemed like a lifetime of silence. She did not look his way and he did not bother giving her any attention.
There was a big jolt when they started going, throwing her back a little to a pile of hay and what appeared to be… blood.
Winry held her hand to her mouth when she saw it and Pride immediately shoved her aside to take a look. Laying there in the hay to what would be a final resting place was remains of some person, torn in half and all around the back of the rail car.
"This looks like Gluttony." Pride bit his lip in annoyance.
Winry remembered something mentioned of Gluttony from something Al said once and she realized at once what this meant.
"But how did Gluttony get in here when he's larger than before." Pride thought out loud, seeing the doors could slide but being confused as to why an animalistic monster would even take the time.
"This is unsettling." Pride said, scouring the barrels of hay and throwing it back looking for any more clues as to what happened.
What he found… was more temptation. Laying there were a few stone-fragments like the ones he saw Gluttony spit out before, or what he took from the grave site.
"Wh-What are you looking at?" Winry got on her feet and came up close to see.
Before anything could be thought about this the train whistle started being blown over and over again, as if it was done in a blind panic screaming out for help. The speed of the train sped up at least twice as fast and to the tip of its capabilities and Winry found it hard to stand.
Pride grabbed the door of the car and hung his head out to see; there it was, on the side of the train biting into the surface like a mad dog. To add more shock was that he was not only there attempting to get inside the passenger car but he was being fought off by what looked to be-
"Miss Izumi!" Winry exclaimed.
Fighting through the window with a melting crowbar she kept him out of the inside as best she could, screaming angrily as the passengers panicked running all through the train trying to escape.
"We have to get to the passenger car!" Winry tugged at Pride's arm.
He scoffed, if they all died in that car it wouldn't matter but he disliked Gluttony more than he wanted to stand there. He took the stone fragment… the human lives incased in hard liquid and tucked it in the glove-like material around his arm.
Winry was having a difficult time moving across the car they were in let alone finding a way to an entirely different area of the train. As she tried to figure out a way to get there Pride was already on his way there, inching along the side of the walls of their car, glad to have the chance to take all his anger out on something at last. He should have killed Gluttony when he had the chance, now he was fully ready to rid him from their world for all time.
"I wonder if the other Ed would have the guts to do this." Pride snickered, pressing his heels into the hot metal sides of the screeching train.
Winry looked down and saw the tracks running through time so fast it was almost blurry; the conductor had to have had an accident of some kind. She looked Izumi's way and watched her coughing blood as she pushed Gluttony back from the window and gained the resolve to follow Pride's example.
Gluttony was in a frenzy now, chewing on the walls trying to wear them down, he had another head and was grotesque and making horrifying noises.
Pride was about three cars away now, grinning with excitement to sink his claws into something. "Hey! Gluttony! Come get a bite over here! Fresh meat!"
Gluttony turned his head recognizing his voice and snarling. Pride was glad to catch his attention, he was gaining speed as he ignored the scrapes to the soles of his feet, in a few moments he would be close enough to him. His arm changed physical substance as he touched both the wooden walls of the train to the metal casing that closed its doors and what kept the structure itself stable. The smoke was drifting from the top of the train to smack them in the face with ashy cloud.
Winry got to the end of their car but instead of leaping across each opening and between-car area she found the door to the beginning of the passenger car, where three cars away Izumi was seen fighting. She was ambushed by people trying to jump out or looking for some end of the train and she was almost pushed to the ground entirely.
"Miss Izumi? Are you here?" She knew she was a few more cars away but she couldn't help calling out.
Instead of Izumi's answer she got Wrath on the floor, knocked down by some of the people panicking. He starred up at her with a frustrated expression, trying to remember how she knew the person who brought him to life and where he'd seen her from.
Winry moved down to help him up but he batted her away, there was no time for this now yet he was filled with some misplaced annoyance for her. "I won't take your pity! I'll fight him with no leg if I have to."
He crawled to the nearest seat with a window and Winry saw the mark on his leg, the ouroboros tattoo but his other leg was gone entirely with dried blood still covering the stump. She wished now that she had her automail supplies with her if he was on their side, he was like Pride was but he had much more control over himself even with the bad attitude. She had no idea how all this was even happening, people were still yelling and trying to get off the train or huddling in a corner of a booth with their children right now.
The door to the next car smashed open and Izumi came out blaring and in search of something, when she saw Wrath she came to his aid and noticed Winry.
"My god, what are you doing here?" Izumi set her arm under Wrath's to help him up.
Wrath said nothing but his eyes told her that he wanted out there on the edge of the train, where Pride and Gluttony were inching closer to each other. She nodded and propped the window open.
Wrath was Izumi's creation and what embodied her sins. He was ready to go after Gluttony now too but whether it was for the same reasons as Pride or not was not certain.
"Get to the other side of the Train." Izumi said loud and firm to Winry, still somehow calm as chaos brewed. "You need to stop the train before any more people die."
End chapter
