A/N: First chapter of 2015! :D I feel bad for taking this long... but you know, I'm still working on my own novel, and I feel guilty sometimes if I don't spend time working on it. But I just finished a big chapter in it, so I figured, 'hey, I can update something!' I was trying to work on a chapter for my Pandora Hearts pirate fic Friendly Foes, but I'm still a little stuck on that one, so I worked on this one instead. I could've worked on Beauty and the Homunculus too, I 'spose, but... I didn't, I guess. XD

Okay! So, reviews; got quite a few of 'em. *happy dance*

Kasani: Yaaaaay! It always makes me so happy to know I do my favorite characters justice. :D I think the one I still have trouble with is Lust/Lucia. I've written Lust before, and she seems less... difficult. Writing Lucia as a changed version of Lust gets hard; I feel like I'm just making her OOC... And I'm not sure what to do about it.

Ice Maiden Olivier: Heh. XD No kidding. Envy might be nearly 200 years old, but he acts like an emo teen most of the time.

MissiB: *sheepish chuckle* So... it ended up being almost two months... sorry. XP But I hope this chapter, though it's a filler, was worth it.

Digi-fanCatt: Let's see which one that is. *evil grin*

Pride the First Homunculus: I didn't make him go away! D: He went away all by himself!

An Arm and a Leg: So it wasn't soon, but... Thanks. XP

AiJay: I think Envy missed that memo, unfortunately. He's extremely bad with social etiquette, don't you know.

Quietly-Insane12: You tell him! XP Maybe he'll listen to you, 'cause he just ignores me.

BlueTeller: Hey, welcome to Meaning of Life! :D I'm so glad you like it so much! I adore Aslan, and I just really liked the idea of Him giving the homunculi another chance at life (which, yes, Ender completely botched up). I don't have it listed as a crossover because while Aslan plays a part, the gang never actually go to Narnia or any of the worlds in Lewis' works, so. That and, to be honest, crossovers don't get as much traffic, even though some of them should. It's sad. And I didn't want that fate to befall this fic. And I love how you summed up the arcs of the different characters! You got it spot on. Yes, Envy really is an ungrateful little wretch... but he never struck me as one to easy forget and forgive. He stayed loyal to Father to the end in Brotherhood; when you think about it, he could have seen it as a chance - a chance to get what he'd always wanted by changing sides. But he didn't. Instead he clung to whatever lies Father had told him all his life, and then ended it all. So seeing the rest of his siblings 'forsake' their 'real father' really set him off. And then, of course, there's a bit of jealousy there because they've accepted their new freedom and he just can't bring himself to do it. That, and he's also just spiteful. He's better than Gredian now, in his mind. Better than all of them, just like he wanted. For fourteen years, he was stuck as second best, and now that they're all choosing to be best friends and stay human, he gets his chance to stand out and 'shine'. He doesn't understand that in the end, the only shining he'll do is in a blaze of flames, and that his superiority is at the cost of his humanity and his soul.

But he'll catch on. Eventually. Hopefully. I think.

XP

That concludes review replies! I hope y'all enjoy this chapter, and if you have any suggestions for what to happen next, I welcome them! I have only a skeleton of what I want to happen here for a bit, so any ideas of what I can do to flesh it out or fun fillers I can add are appreciated. :)

Thanks so much for all the wonderful feedback, faves, and follows! You readers help keep me motivated! Love you guys; God bless you!

~Penelope

Chapter 4 - First Moves

Greed wasn't a swordsman. Back during his days in Amestris, both versions of himself relied solely on his Ultimate Shield for protection and offensive strikes. Swords had been Ling's thing. And boy, that kid was good. And he'd probably only gotten better as he got older. Which, you know, humans tended to do. It had been fourteen years since they parted ways; did time pass the same way in his old world as it did here? Or was there a difference? Did he age faster, or slower than his friends back in Amestris?

If he ever did get back, how different would things be?

There were no more drows. He turned, raising his sword to slaughter whatever foe next dared to show his face, but found none but those he'd already killed. The navy blood of the drows stained his blade and his hands; he felt the spatters on his neck, his face, weighing down his tunic. It was still warm.

Gredian was a swordsman. He'd been training in blade-to-blade combat since he turned 10 – as a human, anyway. He also had the help of what Ling had shown him during their time sharing the same body. He knew how to weild a sword. He knew how to swipe, block, parry, thrust.

But there was a great difference between practice and real battle. And in all his 200-plus years, he'd never been in a battle like that. Much less, in his current state of mind.

Back in the day, he killed because he could. And he felt little remorse, save with the death of his closest friends. Like when he unwittingly killed Bido, for which he still felt guilt.

But this time, he killed because he had to. He had no choice. And he didn't kill because he hated those he cut down with his sword, but because of what that sword was protecting.

His family.

His. Family.

Nobody threatened to take away or harm what Greed called his. But more than that, it was in the fear of losing his greatest treasure that that sappy thing called love hit him with such a reality it almost hurt.

He'd already lost one brother (for now, at least). There was no way he was going to let these crusading dark elves threaten the others. No way in Heaven or Earth or any other dimension out there.

The adrenaline pulsed through his veins even still as the silence fell over the castle. The shouts of the other royal guards sounded distant, muffled. Gredian could only stare at the elvin corpses at his feet, stained in dark blue blood. Right where he left them.

His hand cramped violently. With a hiss of pain, he dropped his sword. It clanged to the stone after bouncing off the wall of the parapet beside him. Blood flung in a stream of droplets from its edge. His hands shook. He clenched them, gritting his teeth, trying to stop them, but they kept right on trembling without his permission. A battle had never shaken him before. But then, he'd never done battle as a human before, either. Never felt so mindless, so distant from his own body even as he cut down opponents left and right…

"Gredian!"

He jumped, and jerked away from the hand that clamped down on his shoulder. As he looked into the haggard, sweaty face of King Matthus, the relief took its sweet time in coming. It took about three seconds before he actually could let loose the breath he'd sucked in.

"Are you all right?" his father asked.

Gredian nodded, unsteadily but with surety. "Yeah, I'm just… I'm getting there."

"You have seen your first battle; it is better to let it effect you than to pretend it hasn't. The shock lets you know you're still alive."

He nodded slowly. The king was right. The shock also let Gredian know he was human now. Surprisingly, it was a feeling he didn't mind.

"Are you injured?" Matthus asked next, to which Gredian shook his head.

"Don't think so… You?"

The king bent to retrieve Gredian's fallen sword as he answered. "A drow dealt me a fine laceration on my arm," he shrugged his left arm to indicate it, "but it's nothing of consequence."

Absently, Gredian took the sword his father offered him, and found himself entranced by the way the navy plasma thinned over the silver blade, almost to where it looked sapphire, glittering in the sun… He sheathed it, not bothering to clean it – he'd take care of that later.

"Do you know how many we lost?" he asked, voice dropping. He'd never imagined himself ever needing to ask that question.

The king just shook his head.

A moment of silence passed between them – reverent silence. Among the dead elves, they would find the bodies of human soldiers who will have lost their lives defending their king. Some would be pierced by elvin arrows, others would be drenched in blood, red and blue, and others still might be crushed beneath the rubble from the wall.

Imagine, Greed the Avaricious, mourning the loss of humans.

I'm not Greed anymore, pal.

That's what he'd told his brother. It was still true, it seemed. He felt a surprising amount of relief at that revelation.

"The king!" came a shout from below, a woman's voice. Distressed, hoarse. It didn't sound like Mother or Lucia; maybe it was one of the attendants. What would they be doing out here at a time like this? "The king, where is the king!?"

Matthus leaned over the wall. "Here! Is that you, Rosemary? What's the matter?"

"Oh, your majesty – it's the princess!"

Something in Gredian's chest clenched. Lucia.

"She's been taken!"

"Am'ranth!" Lucia struggled against the rope that chafed her wrists as the horse tugged her forward. Her feet stuck in the damp, spongy layer of mud and autumn leaves. Her pace alternated between lurching steps and staggering halts as she was dragged along behind her ragged captors. "Explain this to me!"

Just ahead of the drow rider who kept her securely behind him, her lover – or who she thought had been her lover – rode tall and rigid in his saddle. In the rising morning sun, the glow of his bizarre markings seemed dimmer than when he and his men had infiltrated the castle kitchens, where she and her brothers had been hiding.

Deodra had left them. Seaver had disappeared, and the worried mother had every right to go and search for her in the midst of a battle. Lucia had promised she'd watch over her mother and brothers. She couldn't even do that.

Am'ranth – or Moonshaft, as his men called him – would not answer. Her younger brother's longtime hero and the man she had trusted refused to say a word to her.

She ground her teeth. She had thought, had been told that heartbreak brought sadness. She could not be sure if this was heartbreak, for she was refraining from passing judgment until she heard his reasoning, but this did not feel like sorrow. She felt anger, and nothing but anger.

"D*** it, Am'ranth, why won't you speak!?" she spat. "Are you just afraid? Afraid of me? That perhaps I'll escape and tell my father of your plans? If you see some way for me to escape so easily, then you are wiser than I and have nothing to fear. But please, for the sake of the words you once spoke to me, tell me what's going on!"

"Hush, Lucia," was all he said, and she could scarcely hear him.

She scowled. "Why did you take me? Where are we going?"

"Hush!" He didn't even glance back, but his voice rose, sharper than he'd ever spoken to her before. She resisted the urge to flinch.

"You will learn all that you need to learn when we reach our destination, and it will not be much. Your knowledge of our activities is not necessary for your cooperation."

She barked a laugh. "Oh really? And what if I say it is?"

"It is not."

"It is, Am'ranth! I refuse to cooperate until you tell me everything!"

He actually scoffed, shaking his head. "You humans are so inanely stubborn."

The statement sounded so familiar. The contempt was gone, but the superior amusement was the same. Lucia couldn't help but think of Envy, the way he'd so elevated himself over them all in his mind, thinking himself to be somehow better than them all.

"Did my brother find you?" she said, a bit of bitterness to her words and a curl to her lips. "Hm? Before today?"

He started to glance back, but stopped himself. "Your brother?"

"Ender. I'm sure you know him by now. If you really are Moonshaft, then he's been looking for you for years. He admires you. You two seem to share the same views of the 'lower species'."

"I have not seen your brother," he stated simply.

She had to wonder. Or perhaps she only hoped that that was what sparked her brother's betrayal. A vain hope, even. She wished to fool herself, but her logical mind would not allow her.

First she lost her younger brother. Then she was whisked away from her home after watching Am'ranth and his followers dispatch the rest of her family. As she trudged on through the mire, she closed her eyes for a brief moment and prayed they were all right.

"And that's how we wound up here."

Envy hoped that he could inch his hand-turned-snake, hidden behind his back, over just enough to grab hold of the knet that pinned his other hand to the ground and yank it out. Then, if he got lucky, he could sling it up before the punk could react and hit her right between the eyes. Or he'd just settle for her neck or a lung.

Seaver, to her credit, hadn't said a word as he unfolded his tale of woe. There were even points when she looked like she wanted to ask a question, but she hadn't said a word. Now, as she sat cross-legged about five paces ahead of him, she stared at the ground between her knees, looking thoughtful.

The serpant's nose brushed the knife handle. Its jaws latched around it.

"So," the little girl started to say.

He jumped to his feet, ripping the knife from the ground and his flesh, shifting the snake head back into his hand even as he did so. With a deft spin, he slung the knet at her, and watched with glee as it whipped in a straight line toward her face.

But then she moved. Her eyes went wide, and she tucked and rolled out of its trajectory. This little pipsqueak was certainly faster than the last child he killed.

Her red eyes went wide as he raised the pistol to her forehead.

Snarling, he shook his head and slung an arm out at Seaver, shifting it into a long anachonda. "Hold still!"

Her expression reminded him of the Fullmetal Bean, and it infuriated him. In one fluid motion, even as she ducked under his arm, she dragged something out of her sachel and flung it in is direction. He saw no glint of a blade, only a small black sphere.

Then it hit him in the shoulder. And exploded.

"Keep your eyes on me, Envy. Our conversation is the only one that should concern you."

Snap.

He skids to the floor.

"MY EYES! MY EYES, THEY'RE GONE!"

A fireorb.

He could feel its force rip through his shoulder socket, tearing muscle, cartilage, and bone apart. Then his arm was gone. He felt the blood, the burning pain, the searing agony, watched his serpantine arm begin to dissintegrate, but then he could only see flames.

Bright, burning, orange flames.

They poured over him over, and over, and over, and OVER, and it hurt! Oh, it hurt… It hurt so much… It drove him to his knees; the brittle leaves and dead sticks dug into his skin. He curled in on himself, desperate to ward away the agony. Everything was catching fire.

Mustang was back.

His arm began to grow back, and even that hurt. Tears streaked his face. Even through the agony, he forced his shaking hand to visciously swipe them away.

He had to get up. He had to run. Had to run. Have to run!

"Ender?"

Seaver? He snapped his head up, and through the shadows and flames clawing at his vision, saw the little dark elf giving him a wary but casual stare. What was she doing? She would burn. The little brat should be running!

"What're you doing!?" he hoarsed. His voice shook. So weak. "Are you insane!? Get out! Get out of here while you can!"

Snap. Not just flames, but an explosion envelops him, rattling him to the bones.

He jerked. He screamed. He bent over his knees, instinctively shielding his head with his arms. It didn't help.

He was burning.

A hand tentatively touched his shoulder. "Ender?"

His violent flinch made her stagger, but then his hands shot out and latched onto her arms, shaking her.

"Do you want to burn!?" he shrieked in her face. "Do you know what it's like to burn!?"

"You're not burning, idiot!" she screamed back, cuffing him in the side of the head.

The flames flickered. The shadows began to recede. He wasn't burning?

But he felt them… he felt those flames again…

"No," the drow continued, jerking free of his grip and shoving him backward into a sitting position. He caught himself on his palms, breath ragged as he began to realize, slowly, that the flames he saw were not real. "You're not burning. That was just a fireorb. What the heck is wrong with you?"

His whole body quivered. Even his lungs were trembling with each breath he took, his stone sputtered in his neck, a strange ache stabbed at his chest. He took deep breaths, trying to stop it all. Deep breaths helped, right?

When did the flames disappear?

They'd never actually been there.

What was wrong with him?

Seaver's foot connected with his jaw, sending him skidding onto his back. She stomped her foot on the forest floor, fists clenched at her sides. "You tried to kill me!"

Static flickered over his face. Through a grimace, he watched the streaks of red electricity dance. They were alone. They weren't hot. No, this red stuff healed him. The fire was gone. He was in Corodelle, not the tunnels beneath Central. Mustang would never find him again.

He rubbed his jaw, and let out a sigh of relief. Though he'd never tell this pipsqueak that; he'd play it off as exasperation. She was too much like Elric.

"Yeah," he rasped. He rubbed his neck, hoping to get that back to normal, too. "I did."

"WHY!?"

"Because you're a nuisance."

"A NUI-"

A twig snapped to their right. Seaver spun, whipping out three knets. Envy jerked his gaze to the sound, and it fell on the gleaming point of an arrow about ten paces away, drawn and aimed between his eyes.

"Make no sudden movements," the drow behind it said. He looked battered, bruised, and weary. A dribble of navy blood streamed down from a blunt wound on his silver hairline.

Four others seemed to materialize from the shadows of the thick forest behind him, bowstrings drawn and ready as well. Envy sighed. Just what he needed. Leaning back on his palms, he observed them all with a casual glare. He liked to throw attacks off by not being concerned by their threats. After all, what was the worst they could do to him?

"It's the prince," one of the other dark elves muttered to the first, keeping his bowstring taut.

The first nodded. "I see that."

"What should we do?"

"We'll take them both to Moonshaft."

Envy guffawed. "Uh, yeah, that's not gonna happen."

The first drow frowned, and took a step closer, pulling his arrow further back. "You-"

"Careful!" Seaver blurted, holding a hand up to her fellow elves. "He shapeshifts! And he doesn't die. But he's scared of fireorbs!"

Envy, murmuring a curse, shot the imp a venomous glare. Oh, if only he'd been able to kill her…

"Shapeshifts?" The first drow lowered his bow carefully. The others kept theirs drawn until he'd returned the arrow to his quiver and drawn a fireorb from his ammunition belt instead. "Our spies in the palace never spoke of this."

"They never spoke of the skill of the royal guard, either," grumbled the second drow warrior as the rest of them replaced their bows with bombs.

The first ignored him.

Seaver jabbed a thumb at Envy. "He couldn't until today. He says he's some sort of other creature called a… a 'homunculi'."

Envy rolled his eyes. "Homunculus. Homunculi is plural."

"How do you trust his word?" the first drow asked his new best friend.

She shrugged. "It didn't seem like he was lying. I even threw a fireorb in his face. It tore his arm off, but there it is. He freaked out, but he healed."

The drow then turned a studious gaze to Envy, and Envy glared back. He couldn't go with them. But the little punk had told them his weakness. Or, at least, the one she knew of. If these drows used the fireorbs on him, it'd incapacitate him and they'd wind up taking him anyway. In resisting, he'd gain nothing but humiliation and pain. In cooperating, however…

They'd take him right to their leader. How funny was that?

Why did the heroes of stories never think of that? If they would only get themselves captured by the villain's henchmen, they'd get dragged straight to their nemesis and if they were smart, could then kill him. Easy as pie.

Humans were so stupid.

As apparently were drows.

He held up his hands. "Okay, okay, you got me."

The soldier glanced at his comrades, having looked ready to speak only to be cut off. They all returned his confused looks; one shrugged.

The first one looked to Envy again, and lowered his fireorb slightly. "Get up, then. We're taking both of you to Moonshaft."

Envy, smirking, complied. "So you said."

This would be interesting.