Chapter Fourteen "Rejection"
It was like Pride was now under a spell, he was even moving strangely. The visions of his brother and everything that helped to make him what he was were stripped away with the final offering of sin and evil.
Envy could guess what he was thinking now, this other version of Hoenheim's other son and the one he cared for and loved while tossing Envy aside as a failed creation. His eyes had now lost all of their light and were like two glass eyes dipped in gold, missing their life.
"Well aren't you interesting, but I have no time to play house." Envy dismissed him, stepping aside and ignoring the delusional Homunculus searching for a purpose.
It didn't work though; all it did was make Pride angry. With Ed's spirit came the aggression that a lot of the time helped him strive for greater things but in its root form it was a powerful anger untapped.
"After all that time I spent trying to find you?" Pride grabbed Envy's arm defiantly, mixed up with Al in his mind.
Envy grabbed him and dug his fingernails into his wrist squinting his eyes in annoyance. "Listen here Elric wannabe. There's only one person I'm looking to kill right now and you're getting in my way!"
Winry held onto the piece of glass tighter, holding in the small sting from squeezing to hard and hurting her hand. In a few seconds she was getting ready to intervene, knowing full well she'd probably only have one shot to do this and she would most likely be killed for it. The judgment side of her was losing to her emotional side seeing them there, mocking Ed and Al's name and pleasuring themselves in devouring human souls, it was enough to make anyone sick and tremble in fear but all she wanted was retribution.
The shard of glass with the wood was going to be how she would end things, she wasn't sure how to take out Envy as Edward never told her the secret to killing a Homunculus but she did know that it was possible, Greed had met his fate by Edward's hand. She remembered how jaded Ed became after it happened to him, he was still himself but there was something changed in taking a life and ending what was not his to end. It scared her to ever know that feeling in herself but right now there was nothing else she thought to do.
Right there, when Envy and Pride began arguing she found it in herself to swallow her fear and take matters into her own hands… when she hesitated, it was almost as if somebody had grabbed her shoulder just there and whispered something into her ears, some caution of some sort but it was not of this world but of something beyond that Winry found herself looking all around, still hidden by the pillar but nothing was there.
"Why did I sense… somebody…?" She thought, moving her own against her shoulder.
Crawling out from the shadows of one of the broken crosses came Wrath in a deep anger, he held a large shard of stone in his mouth that was particularly sharp and huge in the shape of a knife; a failed Philosopher's Stone. He was scarred so much the wounds were having trouble healing as fast and across his forehead was a large gash. His own hand pulled forward with all the weight of his body and the shard in between his teeth. Envy turned just as he leapt out blaring a scream. "YOU KILLED HER!"
Envy jerked back, relying on his reflexes to dodge the sudden attack but he was never the intended target. Wrath's impact brought Pride to the ground slamming against the broken glass already on the floor. Winry watched in pure surprise as did Envy.
Wrath started choking him in hysteria. "SHE WAS THE ONLY MOMMY I HAD LEFT!" All this time Wrath's true affections had not left him completely but they were lost now that Izumi had died.
This hit Winry really hard; she dropped the bit of glass to the floor as she struggled to proses the fact that she was responsible for the now confirmed death of Izumi.
Pride looked back up at Envy who was not interfering at all and almost amused by the two youngest squabbling over human sentiments he considered a waste of time. The few fights Ed and Al had never were cruel to one another in this way; it started to puzzle him greater still. Truth was never a fair master and that made Envy confusing to him.
The breath was leaving his already cold body as Wrath pushed his one hand into his neck continually screaming about Izumi.
Gluttony started to re-form again and that was by far what Envy was most interested in right now, Pride meant nothing to him so there should be no question over this and yet Pride saw their non-existent relationship as Ed and Al's were.
Pride got a hold of Wrath's neck now with his two free arms and tightened his grip far harder on them, until he now held him in the air struggling.
"You MONSTER!" Wrath said weakly but loudly.
Pride didn't think about what he said because words were not affecting him the same way anymore, he had become less human. Wrath was going to use the shard to stab through Pride's throat when he got a good hold of him but it ended up on the ground with the rest of the glass that had a moment ago carved up the back of Pride's head.
Envy's attention changed back to Pride again, amused a little. This was where Pride had found his new self, he watched Envy smirk but it was overlapped with Alphonse's kind smile that Edward had longed to bring back to him for so many years. This was the way to bring back Al's smile, by inflicting pain, that twisted logic ticked in his mind as he started to enjoy clutching Wrath's neck.
He threw Wrath to the ground, barely breathing and unable to heal. "You think that's something? Check this out."
He said this the same way Ed would to Al after learning a new skill in Alchemy, guiltless and proud. What he had seen was Winry finally, her knees on the ground as she was still shocked by Izumi's death and the blood on her hands.
Gluttony had almost formed completely and Envy watched as Pride asked more on a whim than any real curiosity. Winry's shoulder hurt this time, more like somebody had smacked her, another warning. She climbed to her feet and tried to think of something she could do, she despised this person but she was aware of all he could do to her.
Wrath was coughing in the background, mumbling something. Blood came up and out of his mouth from the tightened grip that would have killed anyone else. Izumi had called her "Son" with her last words and that was feeding to his rage.
Kneeling down as his arm changed form, Pride grabbed that piece of solid liquid human life that Wrath had intended for his weapon and readied to show off in front of his newly appointed Brother. Belief was a powerful thing and he had managed to set this in a fake reality; a delusion.
"STAY AWAY FROM ME!" Winry moved her hand to touch the glass she had a moment ago.
Pride continued to close in on her with the same look on his face he had when he laughed at her for having compassion, this was no longer anything resembling Edward or any human being at all. She backed up but was now against the end of the wall with nowhere to turn due to the wreckage from Envy's appearance. The light of the window shown down on his face in different colors making him appear with shadows and light mixed together in disharmony.
In a mistake on Winry's part, she didn't act fast enough and only managed a small bit of glass which she was keeping secret in her fisted hand. He was so near to her his breath was hot in her face.
"What's the matter Winry? Didn't you always want Edward to get this close to you?" He said in a mocking way as he smiled knowingly.
She snarled and bit her lip, starring into those empty irises. She tensed up trying to guess his next move, he was difficult to anticipate. He put his hand on her face holding her jaw affectionately until he shoved her back against the wall.
His right arm grasped the stone fragment and slowly pushed up to Winry's face. "This is made of human lives. They taste great, too." she was petrified as he had something like that up to her touching her cheek.
Wrath saw bits and pieces near him too; Pride's scraps, and now they were too distracted with Winry to see him take them.
Winry was being punished for making the same mistake Ed made, thinking she could bring humans back to life. The difference was Winry never used Alchemy to do it; nonetheless in believing Pride could do the same thing she amounted to that same fault.
The image was of Edward but only in Winry's nightmares could he start moving the stone to her face. She closed her mouth but he forced it open and pushed it into her throat, struggling she tried to stop it, this betrayal of anything decent. Instead Wrath was the one to come to her aid.
End chapter
