garbagechild | 008. [Text / Action]

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Current Location: Anywhere in Goldenrod City

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008. [Text / Action]

[TEXT]

_{[GOOD MORNING, JOHTO!]

[THERE'S A PICTURE IN YOUR INBOX.]}

>>open file: gone.jpg

if u hav seen them mesg rath pls

thank

[ACTION]

_{[Are you in Goldenrod City or its surrounding territories?]

[Then YOU JUST MIGHT HAVE THE LUCK to be approached by a small child in increasingly-grubby conditions as the day goes on. You'd think he'd have learned his lesson about approaching strangers by this point, but if he has, it's not stopping him.]

[He will approach anyone and everyone who stops long enough to make eye contact, but instead of challenging you to a Pokemon battle, he will instead thrust the image above, finger-painted on a scrap of filthy paper rather than a crappy .jpg at you. He's still got paint on his fingers. Maybe his beseeching puppydog-blue eyes (the most pitiful ones he can MANAGE) will outweigh the unintentionally-horrifying nature of the three portraits.]

[8( WELL?]

[HAVE YOU SEEN THEM?]}

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[Envy almost sits on the bench instead, but with a sigh decides to sit on the grass next to Wrath. Will that help with this? Will anything help with the news he's about to give? He has no idea.]

Ah--I think it's big enough on the first one.

But Wrath...

[How does he do this? He's only ever explained this to adults before, who would get it right away.]

I don't think that missing posters'll help. They're...not here for anyone to find. Not anymore. Has anyone you've known here ever just not been around anymore?

_{[That makes Wrath look up from his new masterpiece, wearing a vaguely-annoyed frown.]

[Really? Envy too?]}

Well, they're not dead.

I already found out people can't die here. They come back just like we do back home.

_{[As for Envy's question, well yes, there's been a few, but no one Wrath... knew well enough to really pay attention to. Especially with the fact that he was barred from all contact with the outside world for a couple months there. That didn't exactly help when it came to keeping track of everybody.]}

So they have to be somewhere.

_{[C'mon Envy aren't you supposed to be the brains of this outfit?]}

[Envy just...shakes his head. It's all he can do.]

No, they're not dead. If they were, we'd have found them. And they're not lost somewhere in this world.

You know how you and all of us...we just show up one day, when we weren't here before?

Sometimes people go back the same way. The three of them were sent back to Amestris.

[Where two of them at least are dead, but he's been trying not to think about that too hard.]

It's nothing any of us can control, they didn't decide to vanish. They just...went.

_{[Fully distracted from his drawing now, Wrath continues to frown up at Envy.]

[The gears in his head are clicking away, but his reluctance to accept what the older Homunculus is saying shows plainly on his face. It's not the same violent hostility as what had been behind his screams and accusations back in that first month in the basement-- that hasn't been present since Envy had made that promise to be honest.]

[Instead it's milder, the frustration of talking to someone who clearly thinks they're right but can't possibly be. It's the same look that Wrath still sometimes wears when the others talk about Dante.]}

That can't be true.

Why would we be here if we were just going to go back?

_{[It sounds preposterous. But then again... showing up here in the FIRST place had always been inexplicable. No one had ever offered Wrath a real explanation for how he had somehow traveled through time and space to a completely different dimension.]

[His annoyance starts to take on an edge of "oh shit I can't think of a way to refute this".]}

I don't know.

[Envy's hands clench some as he says it. It's the truth. He doesn't know, nobody knows what makes people suddenly vanish away, and that's what makes it so damn difficult.]

But that's what happens. Sometimes people who vanish get brought back, but a lot of the time they don't.

You know when people are gone like that if you call their 'Gear and it says there's an error instead of them just not answering...I can show you.

[Maybe that will make it seem more solid, more real.]

_{[He'll watch as he's shown, but it's obvious that his mind is diligently tunneling its way to a conclusion with this new not-so-new but now CONFIRMED information.]}

--Does this mean I might go back?

Back to Amestris?

[Envy hesitates. But he can't lie, and he'd started this.]

[He just hadn't expected that Wrath didn't already know, and that he'd have to explain it to him for the first time. He's so used to it being a fact of life here that anyone could go home that he'd just assumed that it was something that people knew. But he's going to see this to the end.]

...it does. Anyone can go back.

But that doesn't mean you will. I've been here almost since people started showing up. And Heather, she's been here even longer, since the very beginning.

_{[Envy's doing the best anybody can, but unfortunately there's one nasty truth that no amount of gentle reasoning can waft away, and the fact that it's only a possibility doesn't matter to a child.]

[Wrath lifts his hands to clutch at the sides of his head, paint-fingers and all.]}

Back to Master.

I'll be going back to Master.

_{[All their words about their iron-fisted puppeteer having no power in this place may be true but they're meaningless if there was a possibility that they'd fall right back into her clutches on her own home turf.]}

Edited 2016-05-08 21:35 (UTC)

[Envy swallows hard, words sticking in his throat. He's never wanted to lie to Wrath more than in this very moment.]

[Because he knows exactly what the young homunculus is going back to. He knows that he himself is going to contribute just as much pain and cruelty as their master is, and that there's nothing he can do to stop it. He's past that point in the timeline, even if he was able to go back and remember and change things.]

[There's nothing he can say to take the truth away.]

[So he doesn't say anything. Instead, he reaches out and pulls Wrath into a tight hug, something he's never, ever done before, and holds onto him like he's trying to hold him into this world right now.]

_{[It's a testament to how far they've come that Wrath doesn't struggle when he's yanked into the embrace, even if it's nothing short of one of the most surprising things Envy has done to date. Physical contact with Envy back home was limited to punches and kicks, sometimes deserved but usually not.]

[Things are different here, that's for sure.]

[But the undeniable fact that all that difference could be meaningless in a heartbeat is paralyzing.]

[Wrath's bony little raccoon hands clamp down on the arms around him and cling so hard it's almost certainly painful.]}

[Envy winces at that grip because it's definitely painful, but he doesn't let go at all. Instead he only ducks his head, throat tightening and making his voice thick as he says the only words that he can think of.]

I know, I know, I know...

_{[As much as the three disappearances genuinely are a big deal, they pretty much vanish from Wrath's mind in the wake of this revelation.]

[He's silent for awhile. Which is better than having a complete meltdown, but at the same time, silence from Wrath is historically worrying.]

[Finally, he speaks.]}

If we don't come up with a plan, we're all going to die.

[Envy loosens his grip enough to actually look down at Wrath.]

[This is not at all where he'd expected this conversation to go. He's also really not sure how to explain why a plan wouldn't matter in the long run...except maybe for Wrath himself.]

[The mechanics of going home are vague and uncertain. Even if it probably wouldn't matter, the idea that it might is a tempting one. There's already two versions of Amestris. What if Wrath could make one more? One where he turned traitor at just the right moment, and he and Lust could both run?]

What...kind of plan?

[It's not a lie to hope, is it?]

_{[Wrath is staring right back, expression grim but determined. But he doesn't say anything right off the bat. He's clearly still thinking. And hey, he has shown some strategic promise in the past, so maybe he's got something!]}

... Well, I'm her only servant left except for Gluttony and Pride, and she knows how good I am because she trusted me to take care of the traitor Lust.

So if I tell her that you were all traitors and I destroyed you, she'll probably believe me.

And then you and Lust will just have to hide forever and never come out.

_{[THERE. A PERFECT PLAN.]

[... Oh, wait, but Pride might be a problem. He's always so nosy.]

[Wrath frowns again, before deciding--]}

I might have to kill Pride.

[...he's really not sure he should have expected much different.]

We'll...work on that. How about that?

I mean, it's a start. But we should plan it out a little better.

Okay.

It's true, there's always room for improvement.

_{[Maybe they can help him brainstorm ways to successfully kill Pride. Because hell if Wrath has one in mind, that guy is scary.]

[He puffs out a sigh, finally letting go of Envy's arms and frowning slightly at the ground.]}

Why didn't anybody tell me that we might go back to her sooner?

You all seemed so sure we'd never see her again.

_{[But he's still not accusing Envy of lying like he might have before. He just seems confused. And disappointed. HE REALLY DID THINK YOU GUYS WERE SMARTER THAN THIS. >8/]}

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