The homunculus cautiously picked up the sloshing bottle of water the Drachman officer had given them; the officer nodded at this, for some reason, just as a squad of shouting soldiers caught up with him, putting themselves between him and Envy as they leveled their weapons; the shape shifter decided that the hand held machine guns with their belts of ammunition and glaring operators were actually about as intimidating as the tanks, at least when they were staring down the guns' barrels from four feet away.
"Stand up! Slowly!" one of the troopers ordered.
Cautiously, Envy stood, here leg buckling slightly, that wound from the tank shell still paining them, even after it had mostly been healed by the stone.
The commander shoved past his guards and placed a steading hand on Envy's shoulder- the homunculus almost flinched at the contact, but glared back and hissed "I'm fine."
The officers' eyes widened as he caught some of Envy's weight as he tried to steady them; the changeling was far heavier than they looked in their slight, human form. He shrugged and let go, Envy staggered slightly but steadied themselves as the squad leader stepped forward and slung her rifle, before barking out more orders as another squad of soldiers pushed past them to secure the remnants of the stairwell,
"Hands behind your head!"
Envy complied, conditioned by the nightmare time they had been imprisoned under central, the soldier snatched the water-again Envy wondered why they were being so careful about it- and placed it in her equipment vest
The homunculus flinched as the soldiers stepped back up behind them and wrapped their wrists in a vice grip, pulling back to try and pull them off balance; Envy didn't budge.
The soldier ran a hand over Envy's back, pulling on the maroon-colored metal node array on the back of their crop top, ignoring it when it didn't budge, sliding her hands across the top and around the front of the homunculus' top, Envy gritting their teeth but not resisting. Apparently satisfied, the soldier seemed to pause in hesitation before doing a quick check of Envy's black skort.
Envy almost simply de-manifested her clothing to get this over with, but the wall of guns in front if them probably wouldn't have responded positively to that, and so they grit their teeth harder as the soldier let go of their wrists with a snarled,
"Don't move!" and then knelt down to check the half foot wraps that wrapped around Envy's ankles and the middle of their feet, with the homunculus wondering exactly what the soldier was worried they had concealed down there.
"Arms out! Palms facing me!" the searcher barked, with Envy slowly moving their arms to comply. The soldier stepped over just far enough that Envy could see her as she checked under the fingerless glove on their left palm and forearm.
Obviously, the soldier's uniform and equipment were the same as the troopers Envy had chased out from the laboratory but this was the first time Envy saw the materials up close; they seemed light and well made, but the patches on the arm of the soldier's uniform were what caught their eye; a Drachman flag in an oddly subdued shade of green and black rather it's normal garish colors, and a larger patch showing a huge, gaping sharks' maw around a Drachman numeral for five.
Ignoring the searcher as they checked their other glove and palm, Envy looked around and noticed the other soldiers had the exact same patch on their uniforms, and many of the armored vehicles had cartoonish shark teeth and mouths painted on their bows. Envy guessed it was some sort of theme amongst the Drachman's, but they had no idea why.
"He…she…their, clean!" the soldier announced, before stepping in front of Envy, handing the water back to them the and demanding "Where's the watch, Chain-Dog?"
It took Envy just a moment to realize what the soldier was probably asking,
"If you think I'm a State Alchemist," Envy answered, seeming to surprise the soldiers when she answered in Drachman, "I'm not, I never have been. I'm not an alchemist at all, actually."
The soldier narrowed her brown eyes- like the others, she wore a balaclava that covered the bottom half of her face but Envy could see the soldiers sneer under it anyway.
"Uh-huh." The soldier backed away, not turning their back to the homunculus as they pressed down on an odd black box on their gear, causing a burst of static before speaking into it;
"Get Brain-Drain up here, we've got an AAF for him." The soldier looked back at Envy, her eyes softening just an increment before she turned to one of the other soldiers and ordered,
"Get the prisoner something to sit on."
Envy relaxed a bit, slowly coming to the conclusion that the Drachman's weren't preparing to open fire on them as they quietly lowered their hands and rubbed their face.
"At least it's a nice day." Envy thought sarcastically, but found that it was true enough. They almost reveled in the feeling of sunlight on their skin after…how many years had it been?
"What year is it?" Envy asked out loud, looking over at the squad of soldiers that still guarded them.
She found that one of the troopers was already approaching them, carrying a sturdy looking wooden box with Amestrian writing across it that Envy didn't have time to read as they dropped it down next to them. Envy noticed this soldier had a white arm band with a red cross wrapped around one arm, seemingly marking him as a medic, but he carried a one of the black, short rifles with the long curving magazine and pistol grip jutting out of the bottom just like the other Drachmans.
"Here, have a seat." The medic said, dropping the box at Envy's feet. Evy almost declined on principle but her hip and leg were still throbbing so they sank down unto the bac- which creaked ominously but held up -and sighed in relief as they took the pressure off their side.
The medic had produced a small pen that shone electric light form one end and knelt down to shine it in envy's eyes.
"Follow the light, please."
Envy did, with the medic closely tracking their eyes- if they were the least put off by Envy's slit pupils and purples eyes, they didn't show it.
The homunculus was almost disappointed at that,
"You asked what year it was?" the medic asked, as he leaned forward to left up Envys's hair and look into their ear drums,
"Yeah…what are you doing?" Envy demanded,
"Checking for signs of concussion." The medic answered, matter-of-factly, "Have you been around any explosions besides the massive fuck off tank round you just ate?"
Envy was surprised at the medic's language but answered, "Your friends fired a rocket at me and dropped a half-dozen grenades on me in a stair-well.", trying to match their tone with the medics,
"Any heavy blows to the head in all that?"
"Not really."
"What else can you remember? Who is the leader of Amestria?"
Envy gave the medic a flat look before answering,
"Well, last time I knew that, it was my brother, but since he went and got himself killed, it was sort of in question at the time."
"Your brother?"
"Wrath. Probably better known to you as Fuhrer King Bradley."
"…what the fuck?"
Envy smiled; the human seemed to be grasping things.
"Now, real question, what year is it?"
The medic sighed before answering,
"2024"
Envy froze. It had been fifty-seven years since they had last been out of their containment chamber down below- not counting the short time it had taken the Amestrian scientists to drive the soul collecting spike into them.
It had been well over a hundred year since Mustang first trapped them.
"I heard Old Timer say they found you in some kind of stasis. How long?" the medic asked, sounding truly concerned.
Envy chuckled darkly, "All told? One hundred and ten years."
The medic's jaw tightened- he didn't wear a mask like most of his comrades, and Envy could see disgust twisting his gaunt features. Like many soldiers Envy had met during war, he seemed old before his time.
"Fucking Amestrians, man." He growled under his breath, before speaking louder "Look I'm just a medic. We have a field hospital I'm going to try and get you too, but if some fucked up alchemical shit is haywire in you, there won't be much we can do. I'm sorry."
Envy looked up I surprise at the human concern, before nodding, "Can I just sit for awhile?"
The medic shrugged,
"Yeah. Our intel guy is gonna want to talk to you, but I'll see if I can hold him off for a bit." He said, before turning away.
Envy found themselves almost alone- the two soldiers with machine guns remained, their weapons held level with the seated homunculus -and adrift in the sudden hustle and bustle of the Drachman soldiers. Most of the tanks moved out- two stayed nearby, their cannons pointed straight at Envy. Apparently, the Drachman commander wasn't taking any chances.
The commander himself was nearby, completely ignoring Envy as he looked at a map lain out on the hood of a particularly durable looking four wheeled vehicle, a small group of ither Drachman officers clustered around him. A few other soldiers picked through the rubble nearby. From somewhere outside of the rubble choked courtyard a loud shriek of animalistic rage rung out, before quickly being drowned out by a fulisade of gunfire.
No one besides Envy even glanced up at it.
Soon after, a particularly sour faced Drachman with black hair and stubble stalked over; Envy froze as they realized that besides the darker skin tone, the officer was almost a dead ringer for the long dead- by their hand- Mayes Hughes.
"You can call me Ospodek," the officer stated curtly, "And I have some questions to ask you."
Envy sat on the box, just to the left of the remnants of the stairwell they had pursued the Drachmans up, still with a pair of tank cannon levelled in their direction, but at least still in one piece, while the Drachman officer started to ask them questions which Envy mostly ignored as they fidgeted with the bottle of water the Drachman commander had given them
"What material is this thig made out of anyway?" Envy wondered, giving the strange clear shell of the battle, becoming oddly enamored with the crinkling noise it made.
"How many more like you down there, Amestrian?" the officer demanded in Amestrian, crossing his arm over his combat gear and lowered down at Envy,
*crunch* Envy pushed the water bottle tight in their hands,
"…what's your purpose, are you a command-and-control creature, is that why you can speak?"
*crunch*
"Dammit, chimera, stop that!"
Envy stopped and locked her slit irised, purple eyes on the Drachman,
"What did you just call me, you nasty little human?" the homunculus hissed, baring an almost saw toothed snarl at the soldier, "I'm not some dumb beast!"
"Oh, it speaks again!" the officer was not afraid. He should have been, "Now, either drink that water or put it down, and pay attention when…"
"Ospodek! Enough!" a commanding voice barked, as the commander returned, "The prisoner doesn't want to talk, but there's no reason to roll out the car batteries and rubber hoses, yes? I think this one has answered quite a bit already anyway."
The squad of soldiers that had freed Envy, and that the homunculus had almost killed for their troubles, trailed behind their commander, the younger ones looking almost dejected while ethe tall broad-shouldered trooper that Envy recognized as their leader stood ramrod straight at the commander's side. The soldiers were carrying climbing gear.
"Commander Kulstoneck, I thought the engineers said that it was too dangerous for us to head back down there?" the officer who had been trying to interrogate Envy asked.
"Yes, well command said we have to push on and clear this freak factory. And since Ranger Squad was so kind as to let this one loose and wreck the staircase, they get to climb down and finish the job."
Envy looked at the forlorn looking troops, not realizing until now that they might have been the ones to deliberately free them for the military lab. Until now, they had just thought of the soldiers as more humans that had been ready to hurt them.
"Did you really let me out?" the homunculus asked their sergeant, in Drachaman, much to the shock of the soldiers.
The sergeant looked at his commander, who waved him on, while studiously avoiding looking at either his soldier or his prisoner,
"Yes."
"Why?"
The sergeant lowered over at Envy, his face still half covered as he narrowed his blue eyes, not answering. The silence dragged on, until he simply said,
"You're welcome, kid."
Before waving his squad forward,
"Hey, hold on!" the officer name Ospodek yelled, "Look, what can you tell my guys about what's down there? Least you could do after they sprung you from the Chain-Dogs, yeah?"
Envy glared over at the officer, who looked steadily back with an utterly insincere smile,
"I don't know. I don't know where I am, I don't know what I'm doing here." Envy answered sharply.
The answer seemed to take the officer back, but Envy kept on speaking,
"I can tell you they did experiments and bred chimeras here. I can tell you that they haven't put any down lately, and they had a stable strain they were…manufacturing here. At least, I think it's been lately. It's been quiet here for a while."
The officer seemed to be carefully trying to remember those details while the commander narrowed his gaze,
"If you were in come kind of suspended animation, how do you know all that?" he quietly asked,
"It's hard to…" Envy started, "Can I just say that I wasn't as suspended as I…may have liked."
The commander held the homunculus in a stern glare for a moment before turning to the sergeant,
"Be careful, Old Timer."
The sergeant nodded,
"I'll be back soon, Warboss."
"See if you can find any paper work on this one down there." The intelligence officer Ospodek ordered,
The command locked those almost perpetually narrowed eyes of his on the interrogator,
"What? It's important…"
The reconnaissance squad quickly anchored their ropes off and started to repel down into the black maw that led back down into the lower levels of the Amestrian laboratory, with the largest member of the squad covering them with a bulky weapon with a box of belted ammunition fastened to it.
Envy clenched her left forearm involuntarily when she recognized the hand-held machine gun that had almost taken their arm off.
At length, a call came up from the bottom f the pit and the gunner slung the weapon before preparing to repel down,
"Later, sir's" the machine-gunner said, cheerfully, "Later, 682." The gunner continued, cheerfully waving at Envy before starting his descent.
Envy looked confused, glancing at the two other Drachman's for clarification.
"Fucking Hatred." The commander muttered, confusing the Homunculus even more as the commander walked away, yelling "Come back to us, that's an order!" back at his descending soldiers, before pressing a button on his vest that made the tiny speaker mounted to a cord on his shoulder hiss with static before speaking into it, Envy straining to hear but being interrupted by the officer,
"So, what else can you tell me about this place?"
*crunch*
"Fine. Just use that thing to wash some of the blood off and I'll have someone find a place for you to wash up."
"Wash up?"
"You look like you went swimming in a slaughterhouse."
Envy looked blankly back at the officer, who pulled a small, thin rectangular object out of one of the cargo pockets of his camouflage pattern pants and slid his finger across its screen a few times,
"Look." He said, holding up the objects glass screen to face Envy. The homunculus was taken aback; displayed on the screen was what they could only guess was tiny, mirrored image of themselves as they sat on the box- it took Envy a second to realize that the depth was all wrong, that somehow the little thing was showing a smaller image…the homunculus gave up trying to figure out how it worked and instead focused on themselves, as shown on the screen.
Their human form was the same as it always had been- maybe a bit older looking…but then, they had bene through a lot. Maybe they were unconsciously projecting some of that into their form? Envy shoved that thought down deep, doing her best t keep from remembering the torment they had faced that seemed to them to have bene mere weeks ago.
But they were covered in a fairly thick layer of dried blood and ichor
"That's funny, normally the blood washes off when I shift forms."
There was a quick, circling storm of red alchemical fire that briefly flared around the homunculus, after which they stood and carefully checked their gloves, hands, torso, skirt, legs, foot wraps, stomach, tank top and finally their long, spike like black hair.
"Did I get it all?" Envy asked the flabbergasted officer.
Soon after Envy found themselves standing up again as the officer used that strange rectangle shaped box to take their picture, with Envy wondering just when the hell someone had mad e a camera that small- was it even a camera? Before taking close up shots of the alchemical mark on their head band and the homunculus brand on their thigh.
If the intelligence officer noted or cared that the latter was glowing a dark crimson, he didn't say anything.
And after that…Envy was ignored. The two soldiers with machine guns had departed, leaving Envy's only guard to be the two tanks- which were probably considered to be more than enough. Envy's leg had stopped throbbing and they could probably make a break for it…but they still had no idea where they were, what was going on or any one of a dozen other crucial details, and so they stayed put.
After some time, the soldiers who had gone down into the pit returned, sweating an exhausted after their climb out, but carrying bags of material form the labs below.
The squad leader, the older sergeant Envy had first seen after being awoken, looked over at the homunculus before pressing down on that button that made his radio equipment hiss to life and saying,
"Get Warboss back to the stairs. We know who the prisoner is."
Somehow, the commander didn't seem surprised as the squad leader handed him a thick file and started to explain;
"The Amestrian dogs had this file attached to the side of chamber I released him from." The old squad leader explained, passing over a file to the commander. Envy was slightly insulted t wasn't thicker, as if the whole of their existence could be contained in a single manila folder.
The grim looking commander took the folder from the sergeant and looked through it- a little too quickly, the homunculus thought, like he already knew something about what would be in it; Envy stiffened, worried and usure about what that meant. They glanced over at the tanks; both were still unerringly pointed at them.
"Envy?" the commander suddenly asked; it wasn't a question, the Drachman had spoken directly to them; the Homunculus turned, slowly, to find that golden eyed glare boring through them again.
Envy sighed,
"Yeah."
"Homunculus, shape shifter, infiltration specialist and assassin for the entity known as Father to the Amestrians and a key component of the Promised Day plot?"
Envy shrugged,
"Yeah."
The commander shrugged, before handing the file back to the sergeant.
"Ok than." He keyed his mic, "Mermhat, advise command we have a live Class 7, compliant and non-hostile."
"Non-hostile?" one of the troopers demanded, before being silenced by a glare from the sergeant.
"Non-hostile." The commander repeated, shortly. Before locking eyes with Envy again, "Non-hostile, yes?"
"Non-hostile," Envy agreed, "Definitely."
The commander suddenly stopped and pressed his hand against his right ear, where there was an oddly shaped…thing hanging, with a wire dangling from it.
The officer sighed,
"Sergeant Alkochik, your squad is going to take charge of the prisoner."
"Sir?"
"We're holding in place. Kraken is taking lead in this sector and we're going to reserve and…" the commander stopped and looked over at Envy,
"I'll send details out when we get organized."
The sergeant nodded before turning to his own soldiers,
"I'm gonna get shifts organized, but Warboss has put us in charge of prisoner. We're seem to be holding at this factory for now."
The assembled soldiers seemed to be torn between being relieved to be getting a rest and seemingly angry to be out of whatever was going on; Envy was still wondering what had happened between Drachma and Amestris that had ended up with Drachman troops invading.
The homunculus watched form their seat on the box as the squad of soldiers under the sergeants command cautiously settled down around them- almost all of the troops seemed to deliberately be keeping their weapons trained in Envy's direction.
Envy chewed their lip before asking, quietly,
"So, what's going on?"
The soldiers stopped, the sergeant had been gathering the oddly made bags stuffed with files and papers his men had carried up from down below. He lit a sheaf of papers and tossed it on top of the pile, watching as the fire spread.
"Purification." He answered.
Envy furrowed here brow,
"What do you…"
The grim situation was shattered when a shrieking roar ,like nothing envy had ever heard ripped forth from the clear blue sky, and a roaring, low flying…thing shot over head, with Envy catching a quick glimpse of a dark green fuselage and jutting wings laden with strange pods and cylinders and trailing twin cones of blue fire just before the thing shot towards the horizon, moving faster than anything Envy had ever seen, quickly followed by another, and another and another until eight of the lighting fast flying machines had streaked overhead, with the scattered Drachman soldiers shouting up encouragement at them.
Envy had stood up without even realizing it, purple eyes transfixed; she looked down to find most of the gathered squad of troops had leveled their weapons at them. The homunculus grinned, trying to look harmless and abashed but failing miserably as they showed the troopers their overly large, saw-like canines and bicuspids.
"Er…just surprised is all?" Envy said, sitting slowly back down.
"Damn, you really have been on ice for a while, haven't you," a feminine voice that Envy recognized form down below in the laboratory asked. the soldier had pulled off their balaclava, letting reddish brown hair tumble unto their shoulders as they gazed at the homunculus with bright blue eyes and a half smile, "Never seen fast-movers before?"
"Huh?"
"Jets. Those were fighter jets." The big machine gunner clarified, pulling his own mask down to reveal a stubbled square jaw and an easy smile, "Going to fry the fuck out of some Amestrian assholes."
Envy looked over at the horizon where the planes had disappeared.
"What's going on?" the homunculus asked, looking back down at the female soldier and the big machine gunner, who were still sitting on the ground, as if eight lighting fast metal dragons blowing by were common place to them; which, after a moment, Envy realized, it probably was., "Who are all of you?" envy asked, piling on questions, "You're Drachman military right? What are you doing this deep in Amestris?"
"The man in Central got to big for his panties." Another of the soldiers answered, casually, this one a scar faced and hollowed eyed veteran who looked to be all of nineteen "And fired up the State Alchemist department again. Now we're here to give these Southern fairies a good Drachman dicking until these Amestrian pricks learn their lesson." The soldier grinned as he pulled off the end of a long wood and metal tube; the rocket launcher that had bedeviled them down below, Envy realized, and began scrubbing out the inside.
The full import of the foul-mouthed soldiers' words finally hit Envy,
"They decommissioned the State Alchemists? When?"
The machine gunner thought for a second,
"Must have been at the end of the first trade war? Think the tech was making them almost irrelevant, to be honest, with jets and better weapons coming up all the time."
The female soldier nodded, as she began to clean her own weapon- there seemed to be some kind of rotation, with some of the troopers breaking down their weapons, while the rest kept theirs trained on Envy. The casual repartee the Drachmans were having with them was almost disturbing as the soldiers stayed ready to attack them at any moment.
"I think they kept them up on their R&D and shit." She added to her comrade's statement, "But the roving warrior monk act got dropped."
To Envy's thinking, and indeed, partially in her design, the State Alchemists were more somewhat stable living weapons and bully boys rather than warrior monks.
Well, except for pipsqueak and the clanker.
Envy almost asked about the Elrics; by the female trooper's statement, Envy supposed that they might have become the poster children of the State Alchemists even a hundred years later, but that might lead to other awkward questions and mentioning their involvement in a demigods plan to end the world- even though the soldiers seemed to be at least aware of what The Promised Day had been meant to be-probably would make the a bit jumpy, and there were still currently a lot of guns pointed at them.
Envy went with a safer route, instead asking,
"Who are you? Drachman, of course, but what…"
The Sergeant turned to look down at the form his perch near the top of a pile of rubble, already finished cleaning his weapons,
"Don't worry about…" he started to say, but the big machine gunner and the rocket trooper both chimed in, loudly,
"Fifth Assault Battle Group, Azure Sea Marines!" they almost screamed, before letting out a guttural battle cry.
"Better known as 'Megalodon'." The female trooper added, smiling proudly as she slapped the gaping shark's maw patch on her arm.
A bit later on in the day, the Sergeant watched from under a jury-rigged canopy made out of a poncho while the female soldier, the rocket trooper and the machine gunner stood in a line jumping up and down from a prone to a kneeling to a standing position and chanting "Operational security!" whenever they got to their feet.
Envy watched from under their own shelter which the sergeant had ordered the three to build for them before commencing their punishment. These Drachmans seemed to be sticklers for humane treatment of prisoners.
The rocket trooper suddenly threw up and collapsed.
But not so much their own.
The sergeant called a halt while a medic- the same one who had earlier checked on Envy -ran over from the headquarters unit nearby and checked on the fallen soldier.
"I think you smoked the enough, Sarge." He told the old veteran, although out of earshot of his men. He then turned to Envy and smiled, "Doing ok?"
Envy could not honestly remember if anyone had ever asked them that question,
"Er, yeah…"
"Great!" the medic walked off, calling back over his shoulder, "Warboss says Viper-3 just found an intact dormitory complex for the workers and staff of this place nearby, I'm gonna recommend you guys get moved there for the night after it's secured."
Envy found themselves perched on the top deck of a four wheeled armored car- with its turret-mounted heavy machine gun pointed straight back at them.
The big machine gunner was manning the weapon, looking almost apologetically back at the homunculus from over the sights.
The big sergeant was driving, with the other four Drachmans on top with Envy- the homunculus had been curious enough to ask why they weren't inside behind the armor plating;
"'Cuz if we hit a mine or some Bluie busts us with an anti-tank missile there's a chance we might survive if we're out here." The rocket soldier had laconically answered.
The shifter passed the ride in silence, listening to the human soldiers talk amongst themselves as the homunculus got their first look at the world outside the ruined chimera laboratories courtyard and the darkened underground beneath it;
Firstly, and most obviously, were the scattered corpses of dozens of chimeras, presumably from the wrecked laboratory. Envy had always felt a slight kinship with the creatures, being an alchemical construct themselves, and they felt a slight pang of sympathy as they looked out on the scattered corpses dotting the open ground around the wrecked laboratory.
But, there was juts so much else to distract them, from the black asphalt paved road the Drachman vehicle was moving down, to the road signs, the design of the houses and buildings in the distance, the heavy wires hanging form the tall metal towers a t the sides of the road- carrying electricity Envy guessed.
Even with the whirlwind fury if the conflict that had swept this area, it was still so different form the last time Envy had been free of the clutches of the Amestrian scientists, that they would hardly know they we on the same world if the familiar language spoken by the Drachmans and the Amestrian writing on the road signs didn't give it away.
The homunculus stared as they passed a wrecked military vehicle- a taller, more angular construct than the Drachman machines she'd seen. They guessed it was Amestrian, but the wreck was too burnt out and blown to pieces for them to discern any markings. But it, and every other machine they passed were their own wonder to them; they had seen tanks at Central, they had seen the rise of the rattletrap automobile and the small trucks that had been edging out the horse and wagon, but the heavy machines that were either speeding down the road to the distant rumble of battle that echoed from the southern horizon, the small civilian cars dumped by the side of the road, these were the culmination of so much purges that if they had dwelt on it, it might have driven them insane.
Thankfully, the Drachman sergeant pulled f the road shortly, moving up a tree lined road to a complex of multi-story building made out of what Envy guessed was concrete and copious amounts of glass and steel.
They passed a knot of Drachman soldiers dragging bodies in blue uniforms that looked quite similar to those worn by the Drachmans, besides the color, out of a ruined guard post and burying in a hastily dug trench.
"Amestrian soldiers?" Envy asked, breaking their silence,
"Yeah." One of the soldiers answered, a tall woman with a stubby tube-like device mounted under her rifle and a grim set of brown eyes, "What did they look like last time you saw some?"
Envy shrugged, "Uniforms were a bit more ornate," Envy decided to play to their audience, "Just as dead though."
"Yeah, right. We busted you out a test tube, so you must have missed one or two, huh?"
Envy thought of Mustang and Hawkeye- in truth, they were the last true Amestrian soldiers they'd seen. Not quite as dead as they may have liked at the time, though,
"Well, there were a couple more, no that you mention it."
The rocket soldier grinned,
"Always the last couple that fucking get you, huh? Remember the golden rule, if you think you got the last one…"
"…there's five more." The woman finished,
"And those five probably called for reinforcements." Another of the Drachmans chimed in, as the armored car came to a stop in a small vehicle park in a wooded area that was once a heavily forested park near the Amestrian dormitories.
After a moment, the veteran sergeant called up to his men,
"Dismount! I'll go find out where we're supposed to bed down for the night, you guys fall out, but keep an eye on the prisoner."
The sergeant looked warily up at Envy,
"Actually, you stay put. Hatred, keep the gun on her."
Envy lowered back, but said nothing, instead stretching out on the warm metal of the armored car as the soldier cleared off it, leaving them alone with the machine gunner in the turret cupola- and the ridiculously oversized machine gun levelled at them.
Ignoring the weapon, Envy pushed her limbs out, soaking up the rays of sunlight that filtered through the trees and the feel of the wind on their body after so long underground and in Amestrian captivity; by comparison the Drachmans were treating them amazingly well, so they would indulge them.
For now.
"Keep an eye on her, Hatred." The last soldier almost whispered; he was a thing man with his fatigues hanging off him like sheets, and carried a rifle with long, can like object fastened to the front and had small scope mounted on the top as well; Envy idly compared it to the bulky scopes some Amestrian sharpshooters had been playing with before everything went to shit back in the 1910's, and filed the advancement of military weapons optics in the list of futuristic wonders that were basically irrelevant to them.
"Why do they call you Hatred?" Envy asked, curious but not bothering to look back at the gunner still happy to watch the clouds filtering by overhead,
"Well…you see…"
"He's fucking gorgeous, he's nice to everyone…" the female soldier cut in,
"His girlfriend is fucking hot as a porn star even though he's an utter fucking nerd." The rocket trooper added,
"He scores perfectly on every fitness eval which make the dickheads in charge work us twice us hard to get us to catch up."
"And if you get mad at him for any of it, he just smiles and talks you down."
"So, we all fucking hate him."
Envy looked up and over at the Drachmans, who were all glaring at Hatred, who was blushing under his balaclava and staring straight down the turret,
"You people are weird." Envy concluded, going back to their cloud gazing.
The sergeant had come to collect them shortly after that, leading them into one of the dormitories and up to the third floor, with Hatred and the big woman with the odd extra barrel under her rifle carefully walking behind the homunculus.
They stopped at the end of one of the hallways,
"I think these belonged to the researcher or some officers. Too nice for grunts or normal worker types." He pointed to a door at the end of the hallway, "That'll be yours…Envy?"
The homunculus nodded,
"Fucking badass name." the rocket trooper interjected, just loud enough to make Envy catch the remark and roll their eyes, although the jealous homunculus preened a bit on the inside despite themselves.
The sergeant ignored them and went inside; there was a small living room kitchen area, with a door leading to a bedroom just off it,
"That's you."
"Sarge, what about the window? There's no way this is high enough too…" the older female soldier complained,
"Orders from Warboss' HQ, Corporal. Warboss feels the Amestrians have fucked up out friend here for long enough and he deserves a window after a hundred years in frozen prison. We'll keep two troops posted at all times, but…" the sergeant shrugged.
"She's gonna bust out in like two hours."
Envy broke through the window and bolted in four hours, partially to wait for nightfall and partially just to spite the Drachman Corporal. They didn't bother to shift to bird or flying monster or anything fancy, they just waited until the ground bellow was clearly of Drachmans and threw themselves straight through the plate glass of the bedroom's window and hit the ground running, not caring for direction, or what their next move would be, but simply reveling in the feel of their legs eating up the distance and the rough ground beneath their feet, sucking in lungsful of cool, night air.
It seemed to be late spring out- not that it mattered but having a pleasant season to go on the run in was not to be underestimated.
The homunculus dodged a few more patrols of Drachmans in the woods, cutting past a few heavy vehicles in the standard green the northerners painted their vehicles- they were odd constructs, tracked, with no guns, but instead long, heavy metal tubes pointed skywards and spinning oval shaped disks on top.
The homunculus had skirted a Drachman encampment; more heavy trucks and tents, along with a forest of long metal constructs jutting into the sky, until they came to a quicky flowing creek in the woods and paused to sit on a rock and catch their bearings.
The homunculus had been doing their best to not think about it, but...they frankly hadn't the slightest clue what to do next.
Envy let loose a long, miserable sigh.
They could push down the agony of the last hundred odd year into a dark corner of their psyche, shove off the pain and the faces of the screaming humans the Amestrian alchemists had sacrificed to keep them alive enough for another round of torturous "experiments" but they could do that thanks to crashing sense of emptiness that almost overwhelmed them whenever they had a moment of introspection.
Envy, like Lust, like Pride, like that loopy prick Gluttony and all the others, had been created for a singular purpose; Father had insisted that they were vessels to hold his sin; hence the catchy naming trend, obviously, but Envy was clever enough to have guessed that the bastard needed minions to carry out his great plan of godhood.
But whether they were created as a infiltrator and assassin or a vessel to hold a petulant gods sin, right now they were absolutely nothing.
Envy felt, knew, that their course had been run. It should have ended on that day one hundred years ago. One way or another they should have died on the Promised Day, that someone; Father, Mustang, Fullmetal, ANYONE should have ended things for them. They had been created for a purpose, which thwarted or not, had long since come to pass.
And now, one hundred years later, long after even their worst enemies were nothing but bleached bone and the most extreme reaction they got from the mortals, who should be running in terror from their very presence, was a sort benign disinterest (aside from the point blank tank shells), Envy was adrift.
By the distant rumble of artillery in the night sky, Envy judge that not even the country they had helped build Father, awful as it was, would be around much longer.
Envy thought of the stone in their chest. One quick plunge and then a yank, a quick squeeze, and then that feeling of empty pointlessness would end.
Those distant sounds of battle were drowned out suddenly as another flight of those mortal flying machines- "Fighters" Hatred had called them -tore by overhead, violently shaking the treetops they were so low, Envy feeling the hot back blast of those blazing engines on their skin.
Amongst all their awful curses, the worst was they were a survivor.
Envy balled their hands into fists on top of their knees as they sat on the rock.
They were adrift, but on a sea of wonders. They vehicles the Drachmans used, their technology and even the furniture in that Amestrian dormitory building, spoke of a world that had shot forward since they had last since it, truly seen it, not a leashed walk in the woods for the pleasures of the Amestrian intelligence services.
What was oyt there, the changes, they might drive a mortal insane, but Envy was a homunculus, god dammit, and was made of sterner stuff. The world had been changing in leaps and bounds around them since they were born, and while the anchors that had let them weather that storm, their purpose, their siblings, their creepy fuck of a Father, were all lone gone, Envy could still drift along in the currents of time just fine on their own.
Saved by their own reckless arrogance Envy stood, stretching as they did. The world might have been their oyster in this moment, but they still needed to get a real sense for what was going on.
It might have bene wise to stick with the Drachmans awhile longer; the company of humans didn't disgust them as much as it would have before their captivity, and the strange soldiers were a bit fun to listen too, even.
"Oh well," Evy spoke to themselves, looking around the forest. It looked a but familiar…yes, this was the same woodland the Amestrians had brought the too when they were trying to win their loyalty to work against the Drachmans; which, judging by the invasion going on, was a lager situation that hadn't gone well.
Envy shrugged.
That quaint A-frame cabin they had stayed in was…this way. Blessings their superior memory, Envy struck out into the night, intent on checking to see of the place was still standing, and more importantly, if the showers still worked.
And if there was any food.
And possibly booze.
And chocolate would be nice too, now that they mentioned it.
Envy let out an involutory squeal of triumph- which they would never, ever admit to that being something they did -when they found the long cabin still standing. They had lost there bearing a bit, also something they would never admit to doing, but had stumbled across the place eventually.
Eve twisted the doorknob, and smiled triumphantly when they found it was unlocked, not that a locked door would slow them down, but they took as a general good sign.
And then they stepped inside and found themselves staring straight at the Drachman Commander as he stepped out of the bathroom door at the back of the first floor directly opposite the front, hair still wet from the shower, unform hanging half off as he carried his rifle in one hand the heavy armor and equipment vest slung over his shoulder.
The officer spotted the Homunculus and his shoulders slumped, breathing out an annoyed breath, he spoke;
"You were supposed to have escaped."