Soldier Blues

XVII

Blood gushed as Envy glided his way through the insurgent base, joyfully killing anyone he came across. The grunts and subordinates received a quick death – if you could call bleeding out quick – while the officers and those in command were torn limb from limb. Envy took pride in his work, giggling like a madman as he swept through the base like a wildfire, slowly making his way toward the heart of the building where his true quarry lay. Bullets had stopped being a deterrent for him long ago and it struck fear into the hearts of the soldiers as they watched this monster creep forward, ready to kill them.

Envy supposed he would have to thank Hohenheim at some point for the gift of immortality. Maybe by cutting his heart out instead of tearing it out.

Envy had cruelty down to a science. He loved to experiment with his skills and measure out how long it took an individual to die. But he was impatient today, because they had broken the Rule. The Rule was simply this: The Elric brothers belonged to Envy. Only Envy was allowed to hurt them physically and mentally. Only Envy was allowed to be mean to them. They where his, by blood and because Envy said so.

So those who violated the Rule died.

He’d let the forced conscription pass because he knew where Ed would always be and he’d let certain other transgressions go simply because Ed and Alphonse hadn’t been scarred by them. This, however, would have a hefty debt. Envy glided easily down the hallways, humming Ode to Joy as he systematically checked every room and killed whomever was within. Word of his arrival had spread throughout the entire base and he caught many who were trying to flee.

They all died.

He made sure to search the entire base before he angled toward the command room where his real prey waited. They would be armed, expecting him to go through the door. Too many holes, and Envy would certainly need help. Black eyes drifted up to a grate on the wall.

Perfect.


“He’s going to come here!” Yoki squealed, sweating with panic. “We have to get out here!”

His commanders stared at him for a long while. Then one lifted a pistol and calmly shot him between the eyes. They began to whisper among themselves about the possibility of having an immortal soldier on their side, especially one as vicious as this. Envy listened with a snarl and quietly pried open the duct grate, slipping through to land behind a bulky man. Sighing in disappointment, Envy quickly snapped the man’s neck and propped him up even as he sagged. A plan was quietly forming in his head and once he had his first victim supported, he kept low and darted to the control console. Thin fingers pressed a sequence of keys as fast as he could, locking the door and blowing the lights so they flickered. He darted away from the console, cackling.

That was what drove the insurgent leaders into a panic.

And when they discovered one of their own dead, well that was just icing on the cake.

Envy watched in glee as they panicked, blaming one another until all had weapons drawn on each other. It would be a firing squad; Envy giggled softly. He crept forward and raised himself behind a woman in the dark, concealing himself with every flicker.


“They know it’s you,” he whispered. “They know you’re the one who unleashed the monster hunting you.”

She was trembling now, fingering the trigger of her firearm as she leveled it at the man across from her. “It wasn’t me.”

“But they know,” Envy crooned again. “They’re going to kill you.”

Envy ducked down and scurried for cover as the woman pulled the trigger; the gun spat out fire and lead and the man across from her dropped. His gun went off before he died, catching the woman’s jaw and blasting her brain out the back of her skull.

“Stop!” the second woman snarled shrilly. “Stop it. We can’t afford to distrust each other. We all know it wasn’t any of us.”

“How do you propose to escape then?” asked one of the remaining men. “We’re trapped in here! Three of us are dead!”

“But we four are alive and if we work together we can get out alive.”

This time Envy did cackle out loud.

“Escape?” he crooned as he rose from his shadowed hiding place. “What makes you think you’ll get out alive?”

A bullet blasted through his forehead; Envy dropped to the floor and did not move. When the remaining four breathed a collective sigh of relief, Envy began to laugh. He picked himself up, felt the bullet wedge itself out of the wound as it closed, and turned a smoldering, hateful gaze on the four, especially the woman that had shot him.

“Now that was just mean,” Envy said lightly. Before they could fire at him, he moved, darting toward his next victim: the woman that had put a bullet between his eyes. His nails pricked her jugular before she realized he was choking her. “Want to know why I’m going to kill you?”

The woman fumbled with her pistol. Envy tore out her throat, proudly holding her windpipe in his hand. “I guess not.” He hummed joyously. The three remaining men opened fire in a panic, but Envy was so incensed he barely felt the bite of bullets whether they actually struck him or grazed him. Windpipe in hand, he leapt upon the closest man and strangled him, using him as a meat shield as bullets flew at him. He felt the windpipe tear when he applied too much pressure and Envy bemoaned the loss of his gruesome weapon. But there were still two more to kill. He dropped the body he held to charge the two ahead of him, one firing blindly in the flickering light, the other trying desperately to reload.

Envy cackled with maniacal glee as he charged the one firing. Greed would call him an idiot for the move, but Envy knew those bullets would keep coming. At least the idiot who was reloading was too busy pissing his pants to function properly.

Envy leapt upon the man who was firing at him and did an upside-down pirouette to clamp his hands on either side of the man’s head. As he came down, Envy threw his body into a violent twist and felt hot spray against his back when he landed. A moment later, Envy realized he still had the man’s head grasped firmly in his hands. He blinked at his grisly prize for a moment, turning when he heard the click of a clip sliding into place. Before the last man could load a bullet into the chamber, Envy chucked the decapitated head at him and quickly followed.

The man shrieked and brought his arms up to deflect the head, and by the time he realized his mistake, Envy was already within his defenses. The green-haired man’s fist punched clean through the last man’s chest, breaking clean through the ribs, a lung, and out the other side. Envy grinned a little as he watched blood bubble from the man’s mouth.

“Want to know why?” Envy asked the dying man. He withdrew his hand – and the lung – and grinned down a the dead. “Because you fucked with what’s mine, get me?”

Envy wasn’t expecting a response and didn’t quite care. He simply moved to the control console and began pulling wires until sparks caught and the entire room began to catch fire. Envy left that place laughing, drenched in blood and gore.

When he returned to Central he found that Greed had already drawn a bath for him and set out fresh clothes. Whatever the Colonel was doing now was by the new Fuhrer’s order. Most of the civilians would never find out the change in government. That suited Envy just fine. He sank low in the hot water and decided to let the others handle the clean up. He just finished his fair share of the work after all.