Chapter 24

A Chapter by Keevan

Let's see how this ends up.

"Boy! Wake up!"

I opened my eyes to see a very angry looking senior citizen poking me with his cane.

And he called me a boy. My hood was still up.

"I'm sorry, sir," I said as I stood up. It was a little lighter outside, and the train was just pulling into Central Station.

As soon as the train stopped, I got off. I kept the hood covering my face, just in case any military personal saw me.

As soon as I left the station I broke into a run, looking for the alley that I was in the last time I was at Central. I found it easy because I remembered the abandoned brick building that housed one side of the alley. I charged down it and slowed to a jog. I stopped when I entered the area I was when Lust found me.

And she was there again.

"Hello, Pain," she said, as if she was expecting me. "or do you prefer Lucille?"

"Lucy," I said. "Lust, I demand answers." I wasn't going to get sidetracked. I wanted to get straight to the point.

"Father is going to be the one providing what you seek," she said. "Come, Lucy, and follow me." She turned around and went the way she did last time. I jogged to catch up to her and pulled my hood down. I followed her through the twists and turns of the alley until we came upon a busted wall with a chain-link fence covering it. She moved aside the fence and told me to go in.

I did.

______________________________________________________________________________

"What is this place?" I asked, unsure of what I got myself into. The whole place was pitch dark until my eyes adjusted. It was a concrete passageway that seemed never ending.

"Just follow me, Pain," Lust said. I followed her down the passage, wondering how she was able to see so clearly as it got darker.

It felt like we had been walking in a straight line for twenty minutes before we finally turned a corner. And then another.

Soon, we were in front of two big metal doors, one slightly ajar. Lust pushed it open and walked into the next room.

I followed, not knowing what to expect.

"Father, I have brought Pain back home," Lust said, stopping in the middle of the room.

It was dark, with giant power tubes on the ground and big machines humming. At the back of the room appeared to what might've been a throne or something. And there was a man sitting there. I could'nt see his face.

"Hey, hey, hey, s'that Pain?" a boy said with a laugh. He dropped from a pipe on the ceiling and landed in front of me.

I took a step back, wishing that the colonel had let me bring my gun to Resembool.

"Relax, Pain," he said, smiling cockily. "We're all friends here. Except for Greed, anyway."

"Envy, leave the poor child alone," Lust said with a sigh. "There's still so much she has to learn, even though her memories have returned to her. Father, what shall we do?" Envy and Lust looked at the man on the throne. He stood up and casually made his way toward me.

As he got closer, I could see his features more. Blonde hair, blonde beard, glasses....

Glasses....

Him. He was the one who changed me in the first place.

"Can you be my pain?" he had asked. I froze and just stared at him. He was about to say something, when something shrieked, "LUST!" The fat man that was with Lust that night with Chiro ran to Lust.

"Hello, Gluttony," she said, patting his head. "How have you been?"

He pointed to me and said, "She smells human. Can I eat her?"

"She's not human, you idiot," Envy said, putting an arm roughly around my shoulders. I winced.

"Enough," the man--Father--said. "Which do you prefer? Pain, or Lucy?"

"Lucy," I replied, my eyes watering because of Envy's ungodly stench.

"So the runt thinks she's human still," Envy scoffed.

"I'm not human, even though I was changed in a lab," I said, a dark tone in my voice. I suddenly coughed, nearly slapping my mouth with my hand to cover it.

My throat screamed as I coughed. When I took my hand away when I finished, there was blood on it.

"She's human, she bleeds," Envy said, shrugging and walking away.

"She's just like Wrath," Lust said. "Lucy was changed when she was eight years old. Look at her now. Sixteen and still breathing."

"I think she needs a little boost to get rid of that blood," Envy held out a red stone to me. I looked at it in his palm.

"Not yet, Envy," Father said. "For now, she needs to rest. Lust, take her to her new home."

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