Ok gang, gather around. This is just an extra warning, on top of the tags, and the other warning, and the rating, but…this going to get very violent in the future. And currently features language that could blister paint off the space shuttle.
Some of you are going to be offended, but please keep in mind this language is coming out of the mouths of stressed, exhausted children in a war zone where other stressed, exhausted children are doing their best to kill them and they have to try and kill them right back.
And remember that this language has already been sanitized quite a bit from anything you will hear in a military barracks, most especially an American marine barrack, which is who the Drachman marines featured here are based on, just keep in mind this is all in character for them, and not for me. Ok. Story starts.
Also, for clarification I don't mean literal children.
Also also, Word had apparently added the word "enby" to its lexicon and I'm having to manually review every time I write Envy's name as irony, awful internet slang and reality itself are conspiring against me on this one.
I swear to God I'm going to run my computer through the dishwasher.
So, I'm not speaking Reddit if you read "Enby" anywhere, its just one that slipped past me.
Envy slunk quietly behind the fence, listening to the enraged cries of the undead horde as they closed in on the house with the wailing burglar alarm across the street.
The homunculus cursed under their breath as they glanced behind them and spotted a herd of closing zombies shambling towards them; abandoning stealth, they stood and dashed around a fence hoping to break line of sight with the rotting corpses- and wound up straight in the arms of reanimated police officer who grabbed them and bit down into their neck, Envy staggering the monster by shoving it away as they sprinted off down the street hurriedly checking the wound; bitten.
"I swear by the Gate I will END whoever made this goddamn game!" Envy roared, as their character collapsed dead on screen while the video game they'd been playing cheerfully informed them they had survived for four hours and killed zero zombies.
Envy slammed her fists down on either side of the "gaming laptop" that Sparks had left in the cabin after she and Hatred had been relieved shortly before; she had seemed remarkably hesitant about explaining why, but Envy got to to keep her new found distraction form the world and all its problems, so they didn't particularly care.
"Bro, if you break that thing Sparks is gonna fucking end you!"
Envy lowered up from the table at the two fresh Drachman "guards", although like Sparks and Hatred they seemed to be more interested in the small Amestrian house's amenities than in keeping a close eye on their homunculus prisoner, with both the loudmouthed rocket trooper who'd just shouted at them and his grimly quiet partner, the female Drachman corporal, who had looked exceptionally mean even before she had taken off her helmet and balaclava to reveal a scalp-locked head of black hair and thin, dark skinned face.
The rocket trooper had shed his head gear as well, but his hollow eyed stare had become distinctly less intimidating when hidden behind thick, black framed glasses he now wore.
Although envy didn't get the same sense from these two as they did from their previous minders, the two had still sat together on the couch and in front of the flat screened television tuned it to what they explained was an Amestrian news network- similar to a radio program, but in the form of a live broadcasted moving picture; Envy had given up trying to fully understand how any of this worked, her fruitless zombie killing efforts aside, which was good, as the rocket trooper- envy hadn't learnt his name yet -had used a small rectangular device to set up a scrolling text caption in Drachman under the broadcasted Amestrian news program.
At this point the Drachmans could just say it was alchemy, and Envy would pretty much roll with it.
"…the government is still urging all Amestrian citizens from the Northern and Western Provinces to evacuate to Central. Drachman forces have slowed their advance, but reports are that they will resume their attack soon…"
"See that, Corpser? The Blue-Bellies say we're going to attack soon! You want I should go to the front and tell the Hentai boys to get off their asses and go on the offensive before they make the Amestrian Central News look bad?"
"Rancid, shut up." The corporal growled in response to her comrades heckling, sending a quick glance over at Envy. She had so far been the most careful of their supposed guards in keeping an eye on them; Envy, for their part, did not wholly trust the Drachmans either. So far, the northerners had been remarkably kind to them to the point their cherished, antagonistic worldview was taking severe blows to its foundations; homunculi and humans were enemies, homunculi were far superior to the murderous chimps…humans would never accept Envy and Envy would never slake that burning, hateful jealousy of them, their families, their love, their care for each other. It was their name, after all.
But then the hammer blows that began with a cold-blooded Drachman Commander sparing their life after they'd tried to kill his men, after looking right at their true, monstrous body and holding his fire and ran through a bright-eyed girl teasing them like an old friend and happily sharing this new worlds technologies…
Envy had only been awake from their chemical slumber for two and half days, for god's sake.
There had to be a catch. There had to be a plan, a trap, the humans were up to something, they had to be. Envy had tried to end the world, Envy had killed, again and again, had laughed and mocked while doing so, taking pleasure in hurting and embarrassing their enemies with a sadistic zeal all but the most awful of humans would be disgusted with.
Envy knew no human could look the monster in the eye and not be afraid.
And yet…
What was the plan? What was the trap? Kulstonek seemingly had parked this squad with them to both punish his marines for letting them out against his orders and seemingly to goad Envy into wondering off and making themselves someone else's problem, not as actual guards to keep them in place.
"It could be a trick", Envy whispered in their mind, "the Drachmans could be feigning disinterest because they know they couldn't hold me prisoner "The humans couldn't hope to hold someone as powerful as me…"
Baseline reality shot that theory to hell, however. Ten minutes after waking up they'd been brought low by a single tank shell, and the skies buzzed day and night with both the shrieking wail of the humans new flying weapons, jets, they remembered, and a distant thumping beat of some other, as yet unseen by them flying war machines. Against all that, against whatever weapons they hadn't seen, Envy was not about to try their luck. If Kulstonek wanted to hold them, they would be staring down those weapons' day and night. They could take these six soldiers, not without a taking a beating, but they could take them.
And then the rest of the arsenal would come down on their heads.
No, thank you.
Envy wondered if that was the threat, there. The Drachmans would know Envy wouldn't make a move for fear of those weapons.
They threw that thought aside; such subtlety didn't seem like something the northerners could be bothered with.
So that left them here, setting back down in front of the small screen of Sparks' laptop, still with no real idea of how this new world worked, or their place in it.
And also clicking "New Character" from the game menu on screen, because they would be damned if they would let the pricks that made this game win so easily.
"And now we bring you a report live from the front line, with Marcus Hollemann, Marcus, can you hear me?" the woman on the television said
"I hear you, Cynthia." The image on the flat screen changed to a haggard looking man in a blue vest standing int front of a brick wall, "I'm Embedded with the Western Area Army just behind the far western section of the Drachman occupation zone, we've been talking to troops back to regroup after North City and the Briggs area were overrun, Cynthia…" the reporter swallowed, hard, the slight pause catching Envy's attention, "They've been telling stories about what they're calling the Wild Dogs of Drachma. That's what they've been calling the new troops who have been pushing out through the main occupation area, as I understand it these are special forces from the Western Coast of Drachma called 'Marines'…"
"Ohhhh, we've been promoted to SF! And also, holy fuck, we're on TV!"
"Rancid!"
"These new units have been sending out raiding parties deep into Amestris…"
"Wait, what?"
"Will you SHUT UP?!"
"Attacking critical infrastructure ahead of the main forces, targeting power plants, dams, water treatment facilities, local government centers…there are rumors of massacres of army deserters and civilians alike, but…" the tv went dead, and the two Drachmans were silent for a moment, before, characteristically, the one Envy guessed was called Rancid broke the silence,
"All bullshit. Dumbfuck civvies don't know what's up."
"Yeah."
The Drachman looked back down at the forgotten book in his lap, but spoke again,
"I hear the Feniks guys moved in through the side passes just before we punched out of North City. Moving fast on those technical's they like to use."
"Heard that too."
Rancid set the book down and looked nervously over at the Corporal;
"I heard things about Feniks. About what they get up to, terror tactics and…"
"Warboss was Feniks."
Rancid fell silent,
"Old Timer won't like it if he hears you. You know he and Warboss are tight after…after Ilyas."
"Warboss is one of us, now, Corpser…"
"Just be careful. We've all heard that shit about the Feniks guys." The corporal looked over at Envy, "And now so has the prisoner. Didn't you just get your bony ass smoked for shitty opsec, Rancid?"
Rancid fell silent, but then grinned and looked over at Envy,
"Ah shit, Corpser, she ain't no prisoner, she's free to go whenever she's had enough of our company and stimulating conversation!"
Envy huffed and went back to the game,
"Hey, hey Envy! What are you going to do with your great rebirth? You can shape shift, right? Bro, I would go out and get so fucking laid, if you want, I can give you a rundown of hot-ass actresses or whatever you like."
Envy paused the game and lowered,
"Actors? Celebrities? Whatever, just, like, shapeshift into whoever they're fucking, hit it quick, snap a selfie…"
"Rancid! I will let him eat you!"
"C'mon Corpser, use your imagination here! We are sitting in a house with a like, a machine for making non-stop celebrity sex tapes! We can corner the whole furry porn market, too! We just have to talk her into…"
"That sounds about as fun as watching monkeys fuck in the zoo, Drachman." Envy growled,
Rancid grinned, but the corporal; Corpser, Envy guessed, leaned forward a bit and drove her elbow straight back into his chest, with the heavy pad buckled around it thumping hollowly across the vile marine's chest armor hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. As he gasped for air, Corpser looked over at Envy and smiled thinly,
"I can only apologize on his behalf. I believe Hatred offered to feed you his soul earlier? Any interest?"
Rancids eyes widened as he choked in a lungful of air and coughed,
"I'm full, thanks."
"Oh, not at all." Corpser smacked Rancid on the back, hard, knocking that gasp of air straight back out of his lungs, before yanking him back up by his equipment vest and finally letting him gasp in a breath.
"…but seriously, what are you doing with the great rebirth, Envy?" the motor-mouth continued, seemingly not missing a beat, to the obvious annoyance of the corporal.
"You keep saying that, what do you mean?" Envy asked, hoping they wouldn't regret it,
"I mean you just tore your way out of a dark hole, screaming and covered in someone else's blood, so pretty much a rebirth, right?"
Yep. Yep, instant regret.
The corporal cuffed Rancid across the back of his head, knocking the camouflage patterned cap he was wearing unto the floor,
"What? I'm just curious if they have any plans for this second chance on life, like if she had any regrets or plans for revenge or…or whatever"
"Then fucking say it that way! Why the fuck do you have to act like a sex-crazed teenage goblin?"
"…I'm nineteen…"
Envy rolled their eyes and stood,
"I'm going to bed."
"Oh, come on Razor, I was just talking shit, you don't have to…" Rancid started, with the boyish Drachman marine looking honestly abashed
"Rancid, silence." The corporal ordered, "Hey, Envy, if you wanna take that laptop with you I can help you set it up upstairs. Pretty sure Sparks would understand why you wanted to move"
Envy hesitated for a half second,
"Yes." The thought of playing away as they lay in bed filled them with an almost euphoric wonder, "Yeah, I mean, thank you." Their honest gratitude surprised even themselves.
Corpser showed envy how the laptop drew power from a cable with a pronged plug that hooked into a wall and how to set the mouse (again they had no idea why it was called that) on a hard surface so they could keep using it on the soft surface of the bed.
The corporal went back downstairs, and promptly came back up with a handful of brightly packaged sweets,
"Apparently, Rancid cleaned these out of a vending machine back at that Amestrian laboratory. Somehow. When he was supposed to be watching our backs." Corpser dumped them on the bed, "And now he feels bad for showing his ass and wants you to have them, but is too scared to come up the steps his own damn self after running off at the mouth."
The Drachman corporal turned and went back down, saying out loud as they went,
"I've been sent to war with actual retarded children …"
Envy awoke the next morning, again with the rising sun; they had serious questions about the open design of this place.
Blinking bleary eyes at the sunlight streaming in through the massive front windows, they rolled over in bed, feeling the crinkling of empty candy and snack wrapped across their body as they did so.
Envy narrowed their eyes in confusion; had they really passed out in a sugar crash last night? They seemed to remember…Envy glanced over at the nightstand next to the bed, with Sparks' laptop folded neatly on top.
Had they done that? Envy hoped so, as the alternative was that one of the Drachmans did it.
Envy shivered and rubbed their eyes. After staring up at the ceiling for a few minutes, Envy grudgingly got to their feet, grabbing the crinkling material of the wrappers off the bed as they did so.
Moving slowly, they wondered down the steps, still bleary eyed, putting their long locks of green hair in place with a flash of red sparks as they did so.
Envy wondered who they would find on the ground floor, hoping that the grim corporal and her foul-mouthed partner were gone. Envy had had more than enough of human companionship to last them for a good long while, their confused thoughts on the last few days aside.
It really was about time for them to get the hell away from the Drachmans. As much as it might be fin to torment their leader just by sticking around and being mostly well behaved, the constant rumble of war from somewhere the south served as a constant reminder that there was a war going on outside of what seemed to be at nest a temporarily quiet area, and Envy was not at all eager to see what technological horrors Amestris would be throwing at the Drachmans gear they were already familiar with, especially if their toned derriere was going to be caught in the middle of the exchange.
Envy shook their head; being caught in the middle was a new and unpleasant concept to them, the one who had organized, enacted and started a dozen or so wars, uprisings and genocides, but there was no ither way to describe their current situation; on one side the Drachmans, who regarded them as vague annoyance, which, while insulting, was better than then the Amestrians, her former "countrymen" notionally, who had just spent one hundred odd years torturing them and stuffing them in a chemical filled tank in suspended animation.
As the foul mouth marines might say, that was the picture fucking perfect version of not having a fucking dog in this fight.
Envy scrunched up their face as they reached the bottom of the stairs; another reason to fuck right off and not look back was that the rather unique language of her "captors" seemed to be starting to rub off.
Envy came to a stop when they found the gray-haired sergeant, helmet tucked under one arm and standing at what was most likely a wholly unconscious parade rest as he spoke to the dour corporal. Rancid was sprawled on the carpet next to the couch, rhythmically snoring.
The two non-commissioned officers looked up and over at Envy as they came down the stairs, both looking up and over unsmilingly at the shapeshifter.
"Who pissed in your coffee?" Envy demanded, "You look like I just murdered your grandparents." Okay, that was morbid. But it was early, and they were nursing a massive sugar hangover.
"You did, fucker." The corporal snarled.
Envy froze,
"I bet a sick fuck like you probably couldn't even remember their faces, huh? Well, my mom fucking knew who did 'em, fucking Envy the goddamn psycho homunculus, and I've been looking forward to settling this since I was a little fucking girl…"
The homunculus took a step back, ready to strike out.
"You think I didn't know you were still alive?" the corporal laughed as she faced off with the changeling, "What the fuck do you think I'm doing he-"
"Knock it the fuck off, Corpser." The sergeant barked.
The corporal laughed as Envy's face contorted with confused anger,
"Oh shit, you believed that cartoon show bullshit?" the dark skinned corporal giggled, "Fuck, I didn't think…"
"As you, were, Corporal."
"Yes, sorry." The corporal muttered as she stifled a laugh before going back to the couch to wake up the other marine.
The big NCO stared silently back at Envy, as if wondering to see if they were going to make an issue out of the hare-brained joke, but they kept quiet.
"Does that type of thing happen to you often?" the sergeant asked Envy, who laughed mirthless and pinched their nose,
"I'd be lying if I said it was a first."
"Occupational hazards." The big Drachman said, sighing, "We all have to deal with them. Do you need anything?"
"…no." Envy answered after a moment.
"I heard you got a hang of Sparks' gaming laptop, not that that is a thing I'm aware of her having smuggled into action despite standing orders against personal electronic devices of that type."
Despite themself, Envy cracked a smile.
"Couldn't tell you." They answered.
The sergeant turned to check on the other two marines, finding that the corporal had hauled Rancid to his feet and they were both on the way out the door, but the corporal, Corpser seemed to be her nickname, paused,
"Hey, Envy, I read a couple of those books last night…"
"Hey, you speak Blue Belly, Corpser?"
"Shut up, Rancid." The corporal elbowed her companion, with a bit less force than she had the night before, "Anyway, so like, you guys didn't kill this Edward Elric kid or the others. Why?"
For fucks sake, how much was in those books?
Envy sighed, knowing this conversation- well, maybe not this one, the start was a bit odd -was coming sooner or later. Envy decided not to try and lie or down play, after all, what was the point?
"We needed them alive for Fathers' ritual, as sacrifices."
The corporal nodded,
"So, you couldn't just bump them off, huh?"
"Yeah. They needed to be alive for things to work on the Promised Day."
"Sucks. The higher ups having their head up their ass and one dumbass unworkable plan or another in motion is one of those universal rules of reality, yeah?"
"Corpser, you do recall they were trying to wipe out humanity and take over the world, right?" Rancid asked, as he scratched his nearly bare scalp before strapping his helmet back on,
"Nah, they were trying to wipe out Amestris, and then take over the world. So, once they tried it out with our great grandparents or whatever, we would have pushed their shit in once they cleared Briggs and just walk-overed the Blueberry Patch. Easy as fuck."
"You realize we would have had an army of immortal puppet soldiers, my brothers and sister and Father would have basically been God if the Plan had worked, right?" Envy asked, incredulously.
"Yes, but we'd have had artillery support." The woman answered, with a wink.
Envy snorted with laughter as the corporal turned and began to walk away again, but she stopped and turned to ask another question,
"So why didn't you guys just grab this Elric, Mustang and the others and just like, cut their arms and legs off and leave them all comatose with feeding tubes jammed in 'em until you needed to use them for your Promised Day thing?"
Envy gaped in horror at the Drachman,
"That…that honestly…didn't…" they stammered,
"Corporal, there are times when you worry me."
Left alone after the two others headed out the door, the sergeant, Old Timer, Envy recalled Aleksy using the older man's nickname, poured a of steaming black liquid from a ceramic urn sitting on the kitchen counter into a heavy metal cup.
Despite themselves, Envy was taking a bit of comfort in the simple one- or two-word names of the humans they were amongst; it caried with it a not unpleasant pang of nostalgic familiarity; Lust, Sloth, Wrath, Father…Hatred, Sparks, Corpser, Warboss.
It has a strangely homey feel to it, despite the names being spoken in Drachman.
"Coffee?" Old Timer- who looked to be more middle aged than what Envy thought of as old, but time had a quiet different meaning to one who was functionally immortal. How the humans judged aged seemed to change from generation to generation, anyway.
"No." Envy said shivering at the sugar fueled blackout they'd just gone through, "Thank you." They added after a moment.
The salt and pepper haired non-commissioned officer shrugged, clearly not bothered, but then asking;
"You getting enough to eat, kid?"
"I'm four hundred."
"Sure. Question remains."
"I don't even need to…yes. Yeah, I'm good. You can stop acting like you actually care. I'm just a monster you have chained up, after all."
"Chained up. Uh-huh. We both know you could kill us all in a few minutes."
Envy shrugged, "Yet I haven't."
"Well, thanks for that."
Envy rolled their eyes and then favored the non-com with a glare; like the other Drachmans, Old Timer was not the least put out by their inhuman eyes.
"What is with the constant concern about my eating habits anyway? The six of you have been acting like you're fattening me up for the slaughter."
Old Timer shrugged again; it seemed to be his default expression.
"Cultural tradition." He explained, in bad Amestrian, as if to illustrate his point, but he didn't elaborate further.
"What? Hey, explain." Envy shot back, in a mixture of Drachman and Amestrian, illustrating their own point.
Old Timer smiled, and started talking;
"When Warboss gave you water when you give up," he started, in that same dialect of terrible Amestrian; Envy guessed he was practicing the language as he went, although he had said "Warboss" in Drachman, "He said in action that you are worthy of resources to keep alive."
"Nope. Nope, fuck nope, even. Speak in Drachman. Your Amestrian is shit, Old Timer." Envy said, speaking in the profane, slang fueled dialect of Drachman favored by the marines.
The sergeant shook his head,
"Good to see we're a positive influence on easily corrupted youth," he said in Drachman.
"I'm…"
"Old as rotten grave dirt, I got it. Anyway," Old Timer steered the subject back to the topic a hand., "What it meant when Warboss gave you that goes back to…fuck past the Dark Ages. It means that you are worthy of expending resources on to keep alive even as a prisoner."
Envy raised an eyebrow,
"Look, I'd guess you are aware of just how hostile a place Drachma is. You were their scout and spy, you should know."
"I never got to far North. Father avoided your country, that's why he let the Amestrians build Briggs. I think Lust and Greed even helped them, somehow. But I do know Drachma has a reputation for being…wild."
"You could say that. Back a few thousand years ago, when we were just nomads wondering the plains and tundra and hill people huddled in caves, to keep a prisoner fed and alive was…anyway, on scarce resources, when keeping your own people alive was already impossible, if someone was captured in war it was a mark of honor to them, and to the tribe or whatever, if they were seen as being worthy of being kept alive. When Warboss took your surrender and gave you that bottle of water, he made it his duty to provide for you while we have you prisoner, and since he's in charge, that makes it our job to make sure we do as well. So, it's become a point of honor for us."
Envy wanted to make a nasty joke about the marines carrying on the primitive ways of their cave dwelling, live-stock stealing ancestors, but…well, they had something of sense of self-importance and being told they were given an honor of any kind was always lovely.
Also, Old Timer had grenades.
"Like I said, tradition. Old one, but still."
"What happens if someone doesn't get offered a candy bar when they throw in the towel?" Envy asked, stifling a smile. They had a feeling the old sergeant would be a bit less forthcoming with that answer…
"We leave them to their own devices, shove them to the rear and let the military police or rear echelon troops find them, or take them out to someplace quiet and shoot them in the back of the head."
Or he could just be brutally honest. They should have seen that coming, really.
It would have been easier for Envy to forget themself without those little reminders; "take them out and shoot them," spoken with casual ease, Aleksy off handedly describing the Drachman army waiting until the Amestrians were trying to evacuating civilians, shielding them from their own rampaging, out of control chimeras, to use as a distraction to launch an offensive and when they had first awoken from captivity, Alkochik himself had not hesitated for a second to use the unarmed, cowering scientists and alchemists in the lab as a way to distract them for long enough for the Drachman marines to start their escape.
Humans, despite their technological marvels and the easygoing way the Drachmans treated them, were still beasts, rolling in the muck and tearing chunks out of each other, and never more so then when they were having one of their pointless little wars.
Worms, Envy scoffed.
But to themselves, as the marines were worms that could bring hellfire down on them only slightly less quickly than the Flame Alchemist, and they'd had enough of that shit to last them a lifetime.
Envy winced, chiding themselves for letting the profane tone of the troopers rub off on them.
"Hey, Envy, you good?"
Envy looked back over their shoulder, finding Sparks looking back at them from the couch, a look of slight concern on her face.
Envy was silent, confused.
"You flinched like something was wrong. Need a hand with the game?'
"No, your little toy isn't confusing the elderly monster, Drachman. Sit back down."
Sparks' face twisted in confusion at the homunculus'' hostility.
"Fuck, who set you on bitch mode this morning? Want me to find you some orphans to torture or something? Lift your mood?"
"Are there any around you people haven't blown to pieces?"
Sparks laughed,
"Damn you are a mercurial one, huh?" She asked, getting up and stretching stifling a yawn as she did so. The marine muttered "I am sick of sleeping on the fuckin' ground." and then wandered over to Envy at the kitchen table.
They were sitting cross-legged on one of the wooden chairs, which had been given a little improvised padding by Hatred, the hulking marine machine gunner, in the form of his and Sparks' padder cloth poncho liners.
An unnecessary kindness that Envy was doing their best to ignore.
"And it's about my turn to get back on my freaking machine, by the way."
Envy froze.
Of course, Sparks wanted the laptop back. It was hers.
That was fine, of course the stupid little wonder machine was just a distraction, it wasn't like they were using it as an escape from the crushing reality of being completely alone in the world. Not at all.
They could stop whenever they wanted too.
Oh hell.
Thinking quickly, Envy blurted,
"How about a trade?"
"Uh...what?", that look of confusion was back on Sparks' face,
Envy tapped a key and paused the game,
"Yeah," they answered, doing their best to put on an honest, open expression in an attempt to appear trustworthy. As usual, they couldn't help but feel they were failing horribly at it. Judging by the half step back they took and the dubious look in her eyes, Sparks wasn't buying it, but they carried on "You said you wanted a break from sleeping in the dirt, right soldier girl?"
"Marine."
"Right, well sol-"
"Call me a soldier one more motherfucking time, hag. I dare you."
The amused light was gone form the Drachman woman's eyes. Cold calculation had frozen her features. It reminded Envy of their sister.
"Err…sorry?"
Sparks kept lowering,
"What drug deal were you trying to pull, anyway?"
"Drug deal?"
Sparks let out an annoyed sigh,
"The trade. The deal. Underhanded barter. Drug. Deal."
"By the Gate, I'm sorry I don't speak Drachman lunatic, girly! Calm down."
"Don't tell me…"
"Hey! Knock it off!" Hatred shouted from the front if the house, having stopped whatever blood-soaked horror film he'd been watching-the big machine-gunners taste in films was borderline disturbing, even to Envy, "Razor, what did you want to trade?"
It took Envy a bit to realize Hatred was talking to them,
"I was…well…how about I use your laptop thing for say, three more hours? And you go stretch out on that nice big feather-bed upstairs and sleep on something that isn't hard packed dirt."
"That sounds very reasonable, Envy. Private Sparks, what is your response?"
The Drachman girl's eyes locked with Envy's', but she shot a quick, involuntary glance at the stairs,
"Nice, soft, sheets…" Envy in a sing-song tone,
"You'll handle the Sarge, Hatred?" Sparks asked, and Envy had to bite back a triumphant smirk.
"He's away at H-Q talking to Wolfie and the Terror Drome guys. Won't be back until after we get relived by Corpser and Rancid."
Envy leaned forward, ignoring the bizarre series of nicknames they were being constantly subjected too.
Sparks sighed again, deflating form her blustery façade as she held her hand out.
Envy's face almost twitched I disgust but they held their hand up for the young marine to shake- except she quickly slammed her palm into Envy's instead, wrapping her slender fingers around Envy's black glove and the pale flesh around her thumb, with a loud clap and squeezing, with Envy involuntarily giving a quick squeeze back with some instinct they were unaware they had.
The gesture was warm, familiar, from someone who'd been ready to fight them moments ago.
"Alright, Razor. Don't break my shit." Sparks said, turning and almost skipping to the steps.
"Why do you all keep calling me Razor?"
"I dunno." Hatred said form the front room as Sparks pelted up the stairs, "Rancid was calling you that earlier."
"Well, why the fuck did HE call me that?"
"Probably because it sounds scary."
From upstairs came the sound of Sparks throwing her heavily armed and armored body unto the bed with a heavy thump.
"Humans…" Envy muttered, looking over at Hatred, who was looking back and smiling; he winked,
"I know, right?"
Three hours later, it was…well, three hours later, and time for Sparks to retake possession of the fun machine.
Envy hunched forward over the keyboard, well aware of the hour, but also well aware that they had almost figured out how to properly barricade a house and survive the zombie hordes for a whole day. This progress could not be interrupted. They would ward this machine like they had Edward Elric, they would studiously guard the privileged machine like they had shepherded a whole nation to the Promised Day, they would…
*crunch*
Get bitten by a zombie hiding in a broom closet.
Envy didn't even flinch, they didn't even show a sign of anger, simply clicking "new character".
"Wait. The trick to keep the machine." Envy thought…briefly. "Got it!"
Hatred had left the hose, briefly, most likely in defiance of his sergeant's orders, and they were about to show the big, overly cheerful Drachman why you never took your eyes off a shape-shifting homunculus.
Envy quickly leaned back from the machine before erupting in a briefly, crackling flare of red energy, leaving a carbon copy of Sparks sitting in the chair. They had sat well back away from the machine, reasoning that the energy of their display might have some erratic affect upon its workings, whatever those actual consisted of, Envy was still not sure nor did they really care; what mattered was, back to the game.
When Hatred wondered back in, Envy knew he'd see nothing but his partner back at her computer, and with a quick explanation that the annoying homunculus had gone upstairs for a nap, they would have free reign until the real Sparks woke up, and by then it would be to la-
Envy lurched forward as they felt cold metal dig into the center of the node array on their back.
"Where the fuck is Sparks?" a deep, angry voice rumbled from behind them, so full of malice and threat that it took Envy a moment to realize that it was Hatred. Which meant that cold weight was the belt fed light machine gun he carried. And it was pointed right between their shoulder blades. Where the rapidly fired heavy bullets had every chance of chewing through to their stone.
"She's fine! She's fine, Hatred!" envy desperately shouted, losing their concentration as they reverted to their normal body in crackling storm of red that thankfully didn't cause the angry marine to squeeze the trigger.
"Sparks!" the big gunner roared, loud enough Envy flinched, there was no answer.
Envy prayed the Drachman girl wasn't a heavy sleeper,
"Sparks!"
"Fuck, it's to early for school!" Sparks shouted back from upstairs, "Thirty more fucking minutes, mom!"
Certainly alive but just as certainly not lucid, Sparks fell silent again.
"Why?" Hatred growled,
"I just…wanted more time."
Hatred's eyes fell and his whole massive and tensed body seemed to deflate as he stepped back, pressing himself against a wall. He kept his eyes on Envy's as he lifted one hand off his weapon, holding it palm outwards, placatingly.
Envy nodded, and Hatred lowered the gun, letting the sling and strap across his chest take its weight.
"I almost…Envy, that was so fucking dumb." Hatred gasped, "You could have just got fucked up over a goddamn video game, man." The machine gunner was almost hyperventilating,
"How could you tell?" the changeling asked, finding themselves almost as panicked as the machine gunner. Had they missed something? Some detail the Drachman had seen through?
Hatred hesitated, but eventually reached for his weapon, lifting it up and at the ceiling after making sure the safety was back on. He quickly pulled a bulky object that Evy took as some sort of scope off the front before unslinging it and setting it on the ground.
"I've gotta get close to you. Is that cool?" Hatred asked. Envy shrugged, and he approached the table and set one his meaty hands down on the table top.
"Look through this," he said, handing the scope to Envy after flicking a switch on the side of it. Envy held the optic up to their eye looked through it at Hatreds hand, which glowed a ghostly, bright white on the table top.
"It's a thermal optic. It uses infrared light to create an image, so , like, hot tings show up like my hand, right?"
Envy nodded, cautiously, not liking where this was going.
"Well…use it to take a look at your hand."
Envy kept the scope pressed to their eye as they held a hand in front of their face; they were certain that it would be ice cold, barely showing up like the furniture or the table top, but instead…their hand danced with static fuzz, flared bright white, then dull gray and suddenly pulsed with a mass of half defined, screaming faces under the surface.
Envy yanked the scope back from their eye and covered their mouth with one hand.
"Yeah, we weren't gonna say anything for multiple reasons. We thought you'd want to see and, well, that seemed traumatic."
Envy didn't speak for almost a minute, and didn't resist in the slightest when Hatred took the scope out of their hand.
"Hatred?"
"Yeah?"
"How common are these scopes?"
"They're sort of standard issue."
"For Drachma?"
"No, the Blue-Berries, the Xingies, pretty much everyone…it's actually a pretty old idea, really."
So, a device that could see straight through their shifting was available to almost everyone now, Envy thought.
They almost screamed.
It went on like this for two more days; with the Drachmans rotating their doubled-up shifts between night and day; they didn't see the quiet, thin marine with the scoped on his rifle but on the first night after the unfortunate discovery of thermal imaging, instead of a delivery of terrible mess hall food, dinner was flame roasted venison seasoned with wild herbs and piled high with foraged vegetable's; the work of the unseen marksman, it was explained, whose name, they gathered, was Whisper.
Again, they found the nicknames reassuring; the family names of humans had, naturally enough, created a pang of jealousy in Envy's heart. In the absence of this, slight jealousy, they relaxed incrementally, just enough that they felt it, one less gnawing pain from a sea of resentment, but one less drop from that ocean was a blessing.
Finally, having run out of cloak and dagger games to play with Sparks to maintain control of the electronic distraction device, Envy walked out the front door. After picking through the rather sad library and resting up, there really was nothing left to keep them here and cabin fever was setting in.
But they found they not quite wanting to leave; Envy told themself that it was passing feeling, that this little house in the woods was simply the only place in the wilderness that felt familiar, a passing feeling that would slip just as soon as they plucked up the resolve to move on.
But they knew it was deeper than that. It had been just three days but just the ghost of familiarity with these humans was an ache they could almost physically feel. They had watched human bonds from afar their whole life; save for a cherished, secret handful of times, they had never felt it but for when they where playing those same bonds for the ends of The Plan. Like everything, the hidden, burning jealousy of humanity bonds with each other fueled Envys spiteful hatred of them. If their time in the research laboratories had shaken that hatred as Envy was forced to feed their stone on the tormented souls on the Promised Day plots human quislings and their families, washing the structure away on a tide of pain and suffering, what was happening now was a concentrated barrage on its foundations.
They knew they were as acerbic as ever, throwing out their jabs and barbs almost unconsciously, trying to get under the Drachmans skin, but instead of tears, instead of anger, the marines tended to laugh and at most they'd roll their eyes. Either humanity had become exceptionally more jaded, cynically and untrusting in the last hundred odd years or Envy had fallen way off their game. Or, as they observed, these marines could just act as insulting to each other as Envy did, and still be the best of friends; by the second day they had a clear appreciation of the word "motherfucker" as a term of utmost endearment, especially after Sparks' had found out about Envy's shapeshifting gambit and had gone on curse-laden tirade that had ended with her squeezing the homunclus' shoulder and telling them not to be a "dumbfuck" and get themselves killed for "stupid shit".
Envy had almost broken the marine's wrist, but then they realized what had just happened. A human, one they barely knew, had touched them. Not to strike out, not to grope, not to experiment.
That was the first time anyone- even Lust -had touched them in earnest concern. A quick, unthinking gesture like dozens of others over the last few days. A dangerous thought entered the homunculus' mind; they had been created to hold their Father's envy, but really, they had ended up holding his biggest secret.
His utter jealousy, resentment and fear of being alone. That was what drove Envy's anger. That's what drove their Father, even after he had had inflicted his "sin" unto his child. But what if not being alone had always been just a matter of allowing themselves to be carried into the arms of humanity?
No, no they told themselves, thinking of the humans' wars, their pogroms, their petty hatreds and bigotries; they would hate you if they knew you.
But the Drachman marines did know them.
And they didn't seem to care.
Envy had been hoping to find a direction to run, a sense of where the world had gone in their absence, and a sense of where they might find a place in it, but instead, all they had to show for these last days was more questions and insecurities then when they started.
Where that left them was in s ate of restless anxiety and burning with a desire to get away; but not to far. Something was here. Maybe. Just out of reach in the darkness of this unknown future they were still groping for a feel of. But their newfound purposelessness was a double-edged sword, now that they had taken some time to see clearly.
The Promised Day was a bust, Father was dead, they no mission to fulfill, no sacrifices to protect, no secret to keep. What of that was what had been keeping them apart, from forming bonds outside of their own fractitious siblings? Greed had done it, had found others that knew him, the real him, the homunculus.
He had found it just as soon as he escaped the secret war being waged by Father. A war Envy had never questioned, high on their on hatred and superiority. But now, the war was over, their hatred meant next to nothing to anyone but themselves and that superiority complex was about as intact as the bombed-out laboratory they had emerged from.
As Envy stepped out into the noon sun, having not caught a second glance from Rancid and Corpser, who had been far too busy arguing over what to watch on the "flat screen" to pay them any mind, they heard the distant rumble of artillery in the distance; their war might have been over, but the one the Drachmans were fighting was still raging.
One way another, this respite was going to come to an end soon.