27. You want a battle?
AN at the end of the chapter
Lust casually leaned back against one of the many Greek-style pillars that surrounded the foyer as she waited for the others to gather. Gluttony, never far from her side, was seated on the ground near her feet, mumbling intelligibly and pushing some pebbles around with his stubby fingers, occasionally popping one into his mouth and crunching down with a pleased hum.
The soft swish of cloth alerted Lust to Sloth's entrance and she observed with not a little interest as the other woman took her place on the other side of the room. Something was… off, about her. The sin looked even more lethargic than usual and her skin, which had always been slightly paler than the norm, now possessed an almost see through quality while the bags under her eyes were darker than ever. Wrath's death had hit her harder than expected it seemed.
"Everyone ready?"
Our from behind another pillar stepped Dante, face as cool and smooth as the marble surrounding them and betraying just as little. If an innocent bystander were to wander onto the scene this very moment he would never guess this old woman was about to order the assassination of two innocent children and a boy she had once considered her own son.
Lust observed as Sloths face seemed to clear a bit, a vindictive expression flashing over her face as she clutched a small bundle in her hands. The carnal sin did not know what that bundle contained but her interest was most definitely piqued. She put the matter aside for the moment however, instead pushing of from her pillar and walking towards her master with a serene smile gracing her beautiful features.
Finally, it was time.
Ed's legs dangled over the edge of the carriage easily, feet tapping wood ever so lightly whenever the cart hit another bump in the road. They'd been traveling for 2 days now and even though he didn't really know where they'd be going, he assumed they were getting close. Bradly had mentioned they were heading to Aerugo, the semi-violent country to the South, but besides that had been surprisingly tight-lipped about their mission. Ed couldn't bring himself to care. Before they set out they'd gotten a series of relatively simple objectives, all boiling down to the same : Protect the Fuhrer at all costs. To this effect they were not allowed to speak of their mission with anyone else and they'd even had to dress down a bit. Well, Ed had to, there wasn't much that could be done about Al's unique appearance, so he was forced to stay inside the carriage with the Fuhrer for the duration of their travels. Bradley´s secretary, a mousy, blonde haired stand-in for his usual assistant, was forced to sit with Ed on the back of the carriage as a consequence and while he´d tried talking to her in an effort to distract himself she'd proven herself to be even more boring than the dirt-packed road passing by underneath. He wondered what had possessed Bradley to pick her as his secretary.
He tilted his head back with a sigh and noted absentmindedly that they likely had as much as ten hours travel still to go, depending on where along the border they were meeting the Aerugan convoy. Ten long hours filled with nothing but his own thoughts. Ten long hours for him to torture himself with thoughts of slightly chapped lips, of the desperate press of a lean body against his own and of strong arms holding him close. Some part of him longed to lose himself to those memories, to bask in the inexplicable feeling of warmth and safety that came with them, but then he inevitably remembered who the focus of those memories was and cursed himself for having them in the first place.
His head hit the wood behind him with a thunk and he groaned loudly, startling the bland secretary beside him.
Still nine hours and 57 minutes to go.
Colonel Roy Mustang stared down his enemy with the determination of a thousand burning suns. Fire flickered in his eyes as well as on his gloved fingertips. 'Just a small spark' he thought, 'that's all it'll take'. He poised his hand to strike. 'One spark and I'll be free to go'.
Just as he was about to give in to his temptation and burn the neatly stacked paperwork in front of him to a satisfying crisp the door to his office slammed open.
Startled he hid his lit glove behind his back and shoved himself away from his desk. "I WASN'T GOING TO DO ANYTHING!" he yelled.
Roy watched with big eyes as lieutenant Hawkeye approached his desk and looked at the forms he had scattered everywhere with his push, all of them completely blank.
"I can see that."
Roy gulped, Riza sounded surprisingly calm but he knew from experience that that usually did not bode well for him.
"Maybe you should go home Colonel. I'll sort out this mess." Hawkeye smiled pleasantly as she continued.
Roy felt stumped. Riza…was offering to do his paperwork for him? Could he really be that lucky? He pinched himself, hard.
"OW!" Definitely not dreaming then.
"Colonel?" Riza looked at him worriedly. "Are you alright? I think you really should go home now, you're obviously not feeling well." She looked at the Colonel with obvious concern in her eyes and leaned over slightly to put a hand on his arm, giving the Colonel a glimpse at the tops of her breasts as she did so – and since when did Riza unbutton her shirt that far? Or at all for that matter!
Suddenly Roy felt uneasy. This whole situation really was too good to be true.
Making a quick decision to play it cool he smiled up at his lieutenant and rose from his chair, doing his best to make it look natural. "Really? Thank you lieutenant! I'll be going then!" and, before she could change her mind or say another thing he hightailed it out of his office.
Unbeknownst to Riza, or as Roy suspected Envy he only turned the corner of the hallway before he stopped. Peeking around the corner carefully he saw Riza walk to the doorway and scan the hallway quickly before re-entering his office. Letting out a relieved sigh that he hadn't been spotted the Colonel took a moment to regain his breath and think.
The Riza in his office most likely wasn't the real Riza. He felt a pang of worry thinking about what could have happened to his lieutenant but quickly pushed it aside to focus on the matter at hand. If he wanted to help Riza he had to apprehend the homunculus, for Roy had no doubt as to who was masquerading as his lieutenant, and he had to do so fast, before the creature found what he was looking for. It was odd though, this Riza was almost too obviously a fake compared to earlier performances the homunculus had put on. Roy didn't have the time to ponder this oddity however, he had a lieutenant to save.
His mind made up Roy stealthily walked back to his office door, which the homunculus had left open just a crack. 'Sloppy' he thought. 'Sloppy, but convenient'.
He peered through the crack and spotted the homunculus bent over the papers on his desk, seemingly sorting through them. For a moment he hesitated, maybe it really was Riza attempting to help him with his paperwork? All his doubts were erased the next moment, however, when she let out an uncharacteristic growl and pushed a whole stack of papers of the desk. Roy watched as she, or he, he silently corrected himself rummaged through the mess some more before something finally seemed to have caught his attention. Deciding this was the perfect moment to strike he readied his gun and pushed the door open, making it hit the wall with a loud bang.
Envy looked up as the office door slammed against the wall. Seeing the returned Colonel aiming a gun at his face he let out a string of startled curses. He quickly crumpled the blue paper in his hand into a tiny ball and made sure to hold it out of the fuming Colonel's sight. Luckily for the homunculus the Colonel did not dare take his eyes of his adversary's face or he would have surely noticed the suspicious movement.
"Envy." The man stated, his voice surprisingly calm considering the situation.
"Colonel." The homunculus still in the guise of Riza Hawkeye crooned, batting the lieutenants eyelashes flirtatiously for good measure.
Mustang was distracted for just a split second, the dreamy if completely unrealistic scene short circuiting his brain for a brief moment. He recovered quickly however and disgust at the way the homunculus was abusing his lieutenants countenance replaced everything else he was feeling. He steadied his aim and glared at the homunculus.
"How dare you!"
Envy noticed the Colonel's distraction and disgust and inwardly smiled. If only he'd had more time to play around with the clearly irritable man. He could have so much fun pushing his buttons. He shook his head. As much fun as it would have been he was in a great hurry now and really couldn't stand to wait any longer.
Glancing at the colonel once more he decided upon a course of action. Thanking his lucky stars he'd thought to open the window just in case he concentrated upon transforming quickly.
Before the colonel could react a black cat had taken Riza Hawkeye's place. He struggled to adjust his aim but was too slow and the cat jumped through the window without so much as a backwards glance.
Shocked the colonel ran to the window and looked down, desperately trying to find any sign of the malicious homunculus but it was too late. The man was gone.
Letting out a loud groan Mustang walked back over to his desk and sank into his chair.
He looked around his office taking in the upturned trashcan and the mess of documents scattered everywhere, this would take ages to sort out. Unseeingly he stared at a blank form on the corner of his desk before suddenly shooting upright as he realized one very conspicuous piece of paper was missing from the mess.
Praying he was wrong he quickly rifled through the papers on his desk before falling to his knees to check underneath. Not finding the paper he was looking for his bad gut feeling from a few days ago returned a thousand fold. The memo detailing the Elric's mission was gone.
Roy took a moment to consider this. He had had a bad feeling about that misson from the beginning but now that Envy had taken an interest in it he couldn't help but feel increasingly worried. The homunculus had been acting weird too...
He only hesitated for a moment longer.
He sounded the alarm.
AN: Well this has certainly been a long time coming…
I could give you all a hundredthousand apologies and I think they still wouldn't be enough to compensate for my prolonged absence so instead I'll try and make up for it through my writing. All I can really do at this point is (once again) promise that I will indeed finish this and that I will strive to have the next chapters out A LOT faster than this one.
That aside a great big thank you to all of who you reviewed, faved and alerted even though for all intents and purposes this story looked dead. I can't express how much I appreciated them and you were certainly a big help in getting started again!
Now then I hope y´all enjoyed and see you in the next chapter!
xXx Mai1564