Abandoned

"Doritos," Riku replied, sounding like his mouth was full.
"...They're like, tortilla style chips, but I honestly have no idea what they're made of," Raiden admitted, rubbing his head.

Jaron and Kendrik turned around, blinking simultaneously.

"What's a tortilla?" said Kendrik, looking at Raiden.

"And what's a chip?" said Jaron, still focused on the speaker.

Envy watched this whole exchange with a look of disbelief on his face. While he may have been just as oblivious on what tortilla chips were, this was far from the topic he expected them to talk about. Even more so, it was far from something that could actually help the discussion.

He cleared his throat.

"You can talk about tortilla chips or whatever they are when we head back down," he said, pointing at the direction the stairs were in. "Because I think we might have a few more pressing questions than what that is."

Kendrik peered at the staircase. Or, rather, what was left of it, thanks to the many holes that now littered it. He sighed. Envy was right - there were more important things to talk about - but he couldn't look at those steps without imagining Jaron falling through them. "I dunno if it's safe," Kendrik said, still clinging onto Jaron. "And we've been up here the whole time."

"He looks strong," Jaron whispered, tilting his head in Envy's direction.

"Can't be sure," said Kendrik. "Haven't seen him do anything yet. I want somebody I can trust, like -"

He felt a large paw on his shoulder. Freezing, Kendrik gulped and stared up into the eyes of Lunis, now looming overhead.

"It's not a hallucination, isn't it," Lunis said.

Raiden didn't waste time. He took a small running start, ran and jumped down to where the stairs began again. He grabbed on to the edge and pulled himself up in one smooth movement as he undershot the jump by a little bit.
"Hey, y'all coming?" he asked as he dusted his hands and looked back at the others still at the top.

"It leaves us in an abandoned building," Clarice said. She gestured to the ramshackle room around them with a wave of her hand. "...surrounded by strangers who don't seem to know much about alchemy. Not the most ideal situation."

Greed shrugged. "Eh, I've been through worse. Waking up in an alternate reality, finding out all of my close friends were killed by my alternate reality brother, going on a hunt for all of my siblings - yeah, definitely not one of my worst moments here. This one's relatively tame compared to the others."


Envy had only heard the voice several times, but he recognized it almost immediately. Giving a very brief gulp, he turned to see Lunis standing behind him. He curled his hands up into fists in preparation for a fight, but didn't make a move against him.

Kendrik watched Raiden jump across the gap in the staircase and pull himself up. The hound gulped. "I'm not going down there!" he said. "Ya nearly fell off! And Jaron-"

The panther pushed past Kendrik and Jaron, reaching the edge of the platform that led to the stairs. He leaped off, easily landing on the other side. "We're not going to get out of here if we stay up here and do nothing," he said, pulling himself onto his feet with the railing and turning back. Lunis spread out his arms. "Who's going first?"

Kendrik looked down at Jaron, then back to Lunis. "Can't both of us?" the hound said, weakly.

"I'll go," Jaron whispered, slipping the speaker in his pocket. Before Kendrik could react, Jaron had pushed off his arms and taken a running leap across the gap. Lunis easily caught Jaron and set him down on the stairs.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, the hound followed. His claws caught at the platform's edge and he, for a terrifying instant, plunged head-first into the gap below. Fortunately, Lunis caught him by a foot and dragged him up.

"You coming?" Lunis said to Envy, stepping out of the way. Kendrik, panting raggedly, rested his hands on his knees. When Jaron kneeled down and pressed his forehead against Kendrik's, the hound smiled.

Spoiler

Yo yo yo random character intro
So Sallow is a wood nymph who has superiority problems, like most wood nymphs.
She's been relishing in this abandoned area for years now, working on slowly wiping out all traces of humanity to take back the rich soil underneath and grow more nymph territory. Since Sallow has been segregated from the other nymphs for a while now,
she's developed savage tendencies, especially toward other species. She is very wispy,
light-greened toned, and naked except for the willow-like hair that twists around her body and seems to sway with a mind of its own. Her facial features are delicately crafted, the most prominent being her huge, unsettling almond-shaped eyes.

Sallow slowly awakened from her long beauty-sleep, unconsciously sensing a disturbance. Shaking off her sleep, she un-melded with the oak she had been occupying (not her first choice) and narrowed her eyes, whispering to the trees to collect a progress report.
So there were several... beings hiding in one of the buildings. Disgusting. She'd just have to shoo them out.

Envy didn't particularly trust Lunis after their previous encounters, so he let his homunculus nature kick in as he made a running start towards the gap. When he put all of the energy he could into a jump, he easily cleared the gap and the people standing on the other side of it. Then he wasted no time in hurrying down the stairs, because he much more enjoyed the company of his brother than the other people present.



Greed had heard someone coming, but what threw him off was when he realized he heard people coming from two different directions. One was a direction he had expected. It was from the stairs, and his guess was confirmed when he saw Envy coming off of the last step and heading over to him. The other one was the one that he didn't get. Someone was definitely approaching the building from the outside, but who would be doing that?

Maybe it was someone they hadn't met yet. That made sense, though he didn't know who it could possibly be.

"Hey, Envy," Greed said when his brother was standing right beside him. "You hear that?"

It took his brother a moment, but, from the look on his face, it was clear that he heard it too. "There's someone about to enter the building."

Greed nodded. "Sounds like it to me. One person. I'd guess it was Sloth or Reyes, but both of their footsteps are heavier."

Envy was surprisingly fast. He disappeared from view a short ways ahead. However, Kendrik figured that he'd run into him soon enough. For the time being, Jaron led the way, followed by Kendrik and then Lunis. The fox leaped over little gaps and tested the less stable steps, while Lunis retracted the claws on his feet and used the walls to support his weight. Kendrik followed Jaron's lead, but couldn't stop the growing feeling of dread from seizing him as he saw door after door. What lay beneath all the trees he'd spotted on the roof? What creatures were lurking at the bottom, waiting for him to arrive?

As Kendrik walked past one door, he felt a large paw clamp over his mouth. Before he could react, Kendrik was pulled into a darkened, half-destroyed room. The mass of black fur spun Kendrik around and removed the hand over his mouth. The hound saw Lunis blocking the entrance, crossing his arms and scowling.

"I know you're scared of me," Lunis said.

Kendrik, too surprised to speak, tried to take a step back, but nearly fell into a hole opening into the floor below.

"But you shouldn't," Lunis went on, not reacting to Kendrik's move. "I was being an idiot, and you and Jaron fixed that. I owe you one, and I'll make sure we all get out of here."

"And why are ya telling me that like this?" Kendrik said after a moment's pause, snarling and gesturing to the rest of the room.

Lunis scowled. "Because I don't like apologizing to people. Don't make me take it back." He turned around and walked out the entrance.

The hound hesitated, but ran after Lunis.

Sallow stopped right in front of the building and pondered over the best way to get these creatures to leave her in peace. She decided that it would be best to inhabilitate them before making an entrance. The only problem was that her vegetation couldn't reach the second floor, where a few of the creatures she sensed were lurking.

Oh well. It would only make it more fun if she could bait the upper-floor creatures to come down where she could reach them.

Sallow knelled down and spread her hand on the ground. She grew vines just under the floorboards of the building to snake in and wrap around the wrists and ankles of the creatures downstairs.

Distantly, Sallow felt herself grow dizzy. She was making too much of an effort. However, she ignored the lightheadedness. She was having too much fun.

Something had suddenly grabbed onto his foot.

His immediate reaction was to turn to Greed with an accusing stare, but his brother's hands were nowhere near his feet. He looked down. Vines were snaking out of the floorboards, quickly beginning to wrap around his ankles. The vines rose from the ground and made a lunge for his wrists.

Greed noticed at the same time as he did. They both tried to break themselves free, but the grip was surprisingly tight. So they did what they respectively did best; the Ultimate Shield made quick work of the vines covering Greed, and Envy easily escaped the vines by taking on the form of a small, flying insect. He remained in the air and took on the form of a large bird.

Greed continued to fight back the vines, dicing them with his claws.

Sallow walked into the building, stroking the vines that had wrapped affectionately around her wrists.

"Ah. So I didn't catch weaklings." She observed the people, malice simmering behind her eyes.

"I don't suppose I can just ask you to leave." She raised her arm in an attempt to send more vines toward the ones who had escaped and found that the dizziness from earlier had caught up to her. She breathed hard and fought the clouding in her vision, but she was too far gone.

Sallow's eyes rolled back in her head and she crumpled to the floor. Responding to her unconsciousness, the vines fell limp and dropped to the floor.

Even before Envy had landed and took on his usual form, Greed was heading towards the woman who had apparently attempted to capture them. By the time that Envy caught up to him several seconds later, he had crouched down beside her and was poking her with one of the claws of his Ultimate Shield.

"She's out cold," he observed. He gave her another absentminded poke.

Envy looked down at the woman in question.

Then he immediately turned away, face red, because the only thing covering her bare skin was her hair. He nudged Greed with the heel of his shoe as he tried his hardest not to look in the direction of their captor. "She's naked."

"Envy, I know you've taken on female forms before," Greed replied, still remaining exactly where he was before. "You've seen what a woman looks like."

"That's not the problem!" he argued.

"Then what it is?"

He waved his hands wildly. "I-I don't know! I'd be uncomfortable if there was a naked man on the ground instead of her. It's just really too personal and this is bad situation and why can't I just end up somewhere that isn't horrible for once-"

"Hey, look at her skin."

He took a deep breath and spun around.

"Oh," Envy said. "Her skin's a strange color."

Greed lifted one of the vines and ran it through his fingers before looking up at his brother. "Whatever she is, I don't think she's human."