Chapter Eleven "Loss OF Trust"

Pride nearly slammed into the metal bar hanging from the side of the train as Gluttony leapt onto his car, he had to get on top of it fast before its massive jaws hooked into him. The force of the wind and the extreme speed was pulling back on him so much that even his impressive strength was being tested.

Gluttony's drool was like acid on its mouth or at least that's how it appeared, its completely black eyes echoing a great white shark diving for the kill.

"Looks like you're just in time for the party." Pride scoffed confidently.

The odds did appear stacked against him but it was not going to dawn on him now, not when he had the chance to fight like he'd been wanting. This was a creature of pure desire, consumed in its own need, much like he was now only amplified. There was not much time now though they were heading for the next stop soon and it would most certainly meet its end at the last stop where the huge metal berries sat. Everyone inside the train was in danger of meeting a cruel fate and he was not sure how much of an impact was needed to kill him, although if he was a homunculus than he would need Ed's remains before he could truly die.

Gluttony was getting closer, dodging the trees that scraped by the side of the track overhead and this gave him his chance. Holding in laughing eagerly Pride dug his newly-formed metal hand into the side of the car and hoisted himself upwards to where he had the high ground now looking down on Gluttony.

Gluttony looked upwards and sneered just as a tree branch bashed one of his heads. There were no moments where the train stopped its inconsistent pace so there were jolts and bumps so much Pride nearly flew off. But now, he was in the worst pain he had ever experienced. Right as Pride looked away for a split second, distracted by the tree that slugged part of Gluttony, his other pair of jaws clamped right into his left arm, biting all the way to the bone.

He let out a ringing scream for it felt like his arm was being ripped out of the socket, and it was moments away from being a reality. He bit into his lip cutting it with his own teeth as he attempted to peer down at his arm, which he could now see right through to the marrow. Gluttony was reveling in his strong hold on him and was readying to make his way up to biting off his head. The wounds on Pride kept trying to regenerate making it even more painful, the slight glow coming up and across him like electricity.

He was unsure how to get out of this now but before he could think Gluttony succeeded in breaking it clean off. As it was going to enjoy it's pray an interrupted yelled his way.

"YOU'RE NOT BREAKING OFF THE ARM THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MINE!" Wrath was too late when he said this but the anger fueled him.

He crawled like a spider across the top of the train, pushed up there by Izumi who was in complete shock after seeing Pride, the one who looked like Edward. Wrath inched along quickly now, with an arm and leg missing not being human was what gave him an edge.

As soon as he made it to Gluttony he stuck his hand around one of his throats, chocking him violently. His neck itself was larger than his head now so it was not doing any good but it gave Pride enough time to get off the train's roof waiting for his arm to restore.

Wrath watched Gluttony's look of confusion turn into a desperate hate and lust for his blood, already soaked with Pride's after tearing off his left arm. Izumi was not able to climb onto the roof because it was simply not built to climb; the only thing seen was the indent Pride made with his arm to pull himself up. Wrath was getting nowhere fast.

"You monster! How can you be like me? IS THIS ALL THERE IS TO US?" Wrath could not stop taking out his misfortune on others, there was a truth to his given name as he was ready to call down the fire even if his anger was unrelated.

As Pride swung down through the window Winry ran right into him from the other door, running for the conductor's car. She gasped, seeing his arm was missing, a mirrored image flashing in her mind of the past only this was the wrong side.

Pride starred at her for a few seconds and then glanced out the window, his arm was glowing slowly and his body reforming but he needed to think of a way to stop this before he would ultimately loose to Gluttony.

And then, everything got quiet. The equations he had held on to from the other him was echoing in his mind, the things Edward dare not try after The Gate sent him information. There was a way to destroy Gluttony and the way he could do it was standing right in front of him.

"Winry, I need your arms." Pride said in haste.

Winry could not imagine he meant to take her hands right off so she asked. "What do you mean?"

He corrected himself. "I don't mean it like that; I mean I need you to try Alchemy for me."

This was absurd; she didn't know anything about Alchemy and even if she did there was nothing she could do in this situation. Still he grabbed her hands and looked her right in the eyes.

"Alchemy is preformed through knowledge and skill but even knowing how I don't have human hands, maybe if I think the right thoughts and hold on to you it will work as you press your hands together." What Pride wasn't telling her was that the only way for this to work was for him to defy the laws and use the stone fragment hidden under his glove. There was no logical way for this plan to work otherwise.

Winry was alarmed but he was speaking so fast and so urgently it was hard to react. "This sounds too complicated to work."

Pride blinked once and moved her down to the floor of the car with his hands firmly on hers. "I'm asking you to trust me."

It was difficult to say no to that, especially when he was fighting so hard before. She took a deep breath; let him hold her hands and they both clapped together. The stone under his glove started to shine and through some fluke alchemy did start to work, thanks to the fake philosopher's stone. Pride smiled with a disturbing look on his face and the bottom of the car broke under their feet.

Within seconds Pride and Winry were falling through the bottom of the car as he grabbed her and rolled until they stopped somewhere on the tracks, his scars taking time to heal as if it was any other normal person it would have killed both him and Winry. She had a big gash in her head thanks to a fallen piece of the train but now she was facing a greater terror.

As they slowed to a stop Gluttony came down through the top of the train and smashed into the inside, the entire thing was breaking apart and people called out from the different cars. Pride and Winry's cheated Alchemy. There was no way of knowing if Wrath and Izumi made it out alive but it was apparent that nobody inside did for now there was silence, Gluttony's heads were crushed over two huge parts of the train's metal sides and would take a long time before he could restore himself though immortal.

Winry was unable to fathom the damage they had done, that she herself created. All those people that ran by her, gone, crushed to death or worse and she didn't even think it through enough to see the lack of sympathy invested in Pride's heart. Worse still, he began laughing sarcastically.

"I KNEW IT! HA!" Pride loved the sheer horror all over Winry's being, having murdered dozens of people without knowing it. "I knew it!"

Dust rose into the air and the smoke from the top of the train scattered, everything was quiet and unmoving down in front of them, a pile of wreckage.

He got up close to Winry and grabbed the back of her hair, squeezing it so it hurt her a great deal as he needed her to listen very carefully. "You really did admire the real Edward, didn't you? So much so that you would risk the laws of nature and all you believed in a single moment where he told you to trust him? Well now you know what a FOOL you've been!"

He threw her back, feeling shattered by what she had done and his cruel, vile and loathsome words. "And now, we know there's a way around the laws! I just need a human's soul in a fake stone and we can cheat anything! Isn't that wonderful Winry! We can bring Al back after all."

This was insulting, that was not enough for human transmutation to work and he knew it. Winry was fiery and filled with unbreakable spirit, or at least that's how Pride knew Edward felt about her. That spirit was broken right now as she looked down with blood on her hands and it was what he had really been aiming for when he asked her to come with him, to feel like he beat the real Edward.

He continued to laugh at her, watching her slam her fist into the ground when again he saw Ed's shadow on the horizon. Ed did not pity him anymore, now he was clearly angry. Whether this was all in Pride's mind he did not know but it got his attention, he stopped laughing and was weighed down himself by Ed's image, what he could never be.
End Chapter