Cardinal sin (2) : A laugh in Vain

10 - Cardinal Sin

Cardinal Sin

Noun (In Christian tradition)
Any of the seven deadly sins.
HUMOROUS
A serious error of judgement.
"He committed the cardinal sin of criticizing his teammates"

Source : Google

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A foot was on Ed's face, the heel of the dirty boot forcing it's way into his mouth so he could taste all the dirt and whatever else was on Vain's boot. The man himself let out a wild laugh when Fullmetal chocked and woke up. Trashing around, the young alchemist let out muffled yells.

"Save us all the trouble and lie still," Vain said, twisting his boot so it pressed hard upon Edward's top row of front teeth. "If you'd look around, you'd see there's no escape for you."

Ed did so. He noticed with a start that he was in an odd environment; it was small and crowded, and tall cylindric walls of dirt rose up in a rough circle. Vain was there with him, but his goons stared down at them from the top, meaning that they found themselves in a pit dug into the earth.

Ed saw, though he hated to admit it, that Vain had a point. He couldn't get away because he was bound by secure chains and the enemy was there to stop any futile attempt at escape he made.

Glancing around, Ed thought, 'I'm trapped, surrounded by bad guys. I can get rid of these chains easily, but as soon as I perform a transmuttation, they'll stop me. What do I do? Ask them what they want from me? Why did I come alone? That was a real stupid—Rebecca.'

Fullmetal remembered them sitting together at the cafe before... before he'd been hit in the back of the head (only now did he acknowledge the throbbing in that particular spot). Had they gotten her too? And if that was the case, why wasen't she in the pit as well? He hoped that the Cardinal Sin had not gotten rid of her.

The boot in his mouth was getting quite disgusting. He tried to wrench his head away, but this angered Vain and he delivered a kick to Ed's jaw.

"Stay still, I said."

Again, he hit his captive so that the latter lay on his side, blood gathering in his mouth where he had accidentally bitten down hard on his tongue.

"Edward Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist. Do you have a problem with us? We've never done anything to harm you directly."

"That's a load of bullshit," Ed spat. "You sent those two to come attack us in the West."

"Ooooh. I suppose you did have that fight with Herman and Sophronia. Well, terribly sorry about that, but you weren't the intended target. I sent them to get the philosopher's stone back from those two alchemists in Hiven. Their orders were to beat down whoever tried to stop them. You just happenned to be in their way."

"That's great and all, but I still can't let you do whatever you want. You may not have a philosopher's stone anymore, but you're intentions are still bad."

Vain crouched besides Ed. He grabbed the latter harshly by the ponytail and pulled his head back far enough to hiss in his ear, "On the contrary! I've being seeing their horrific deaths for days now. Maybe not as long as you, but they're still there. Annoying, isin't it?"

How? How had the bastard acquired the power, too? The shifting arsenal—his philospher's stone—was one of a kind! Unless there was yet another kind of stone to commit the ultimate sacrifice with, Fullmetal was at a loss.

"You're confused, aren't you? Tought there was only one of Datres' philosopher's stones?"

"Datres?"

"The creator of our two philosopher's stones. Let me tell you a story from hundreds of years ago about a unpopular alchemist by the name of Datres.