Trained and Broken

Trained and Broken

It started as a pissing contest, two sons—I guess you could call us—vying for our “mother’s” attention. I was, am, the oldest. I was created in the image of her son by that bastard, Hohenheim. By all rights, I should have been treated as a son, but it didn’t take long before it was apparent that I was not the favorite.

Who cared if the son of a bitch could age? What the hell did our so-called “master” call what I am capable of? I can turn into anything, can maintain a form other than my true one for months at a time, maybe more—I’ve never really tried to hold any single form that long without changing something. And honestly, I haven’t willingly taken on my true form in years.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that her newest creation was her pet, her most treasured servant. And he, as a perfect embodiment of pride, hated that I behaved as though I was better than him and never really followed an order from anyone unless said order suited me.

I stand outside of the door, appearing as nothing more than a second lieutenant. I raise a hand and rap on the door, noticing the form I chose this morning is once again larger than the last. Why do I continue to do this? Do I really think it’s going to work?

Nothing ever dissuades him. I could come in as a grotesque-looking troll of three hundred years of age, and he wouldn’t care. The mask doesn’t matter.

We started by trying to find ways to please our “master” as best we could, to gain favoritism, but it didn’t take me long to realize that we were evenly matched in this area. And nothing I ever did for her ever felt genuine, to me or to her. Instead, I made it my personal goal to sabotage him. It was petty, it was stupid, but what the hell did I care. I’m Envy, damn it. Envy isn’t exactly a mature emotion, and I’m not precisely mature myself.

I sabotaged everything, but yet, I found that there was going to be a planned opening in the position of fuhrer, and of course the prized little creation was going to get it.

And my supposed mother wanted me to follow him, to obey orders like a good little slave.

I was never obedient. What the hell made anyone think I would be now?

“Ah, you are here.” There is a smug smile on the bastard’s face. “You know, you keep increasing your size like that, I think you’ll soon be taking on the appearance of Armstrong.”

“Male or Female?” I ask nonchalantly as I can. This is business, nothing more, nothing less.

“Oh, most definitely male,” he says, a glint in the uncovered eye that tells me the son of a bitch is up to something. “I think I want to actually have you.”

I hadn’t voluntarily let him defile me in my chosen form, not yet, but fighting him was pointless. I am not a person who resigns easily, but I’d surrendered a long time ago.

The fights started shortly after that little announcement. Over and over again, I tried to kick his sorry ass, but he anticipated each of my movements with that blasted eye. Usually, our fights ended with me in agony on the ground, and him looming over top of me, but apparently, even our master had grown tired of my rebellious nature. She wanted her newest pet to take me down, to show me humility.

Ha! Humility! I was not the one with the name Pride.

But all the same, it was obvious that the next time we fought, his orders had been to not only injure me as much as a homunculus could be injured, but to break me.

I stand before him, my green-black hair in long, pointed strands, my body definitely male, but androgynous enough that no one could exactly tell when they first looked at me. This is my refuge, the body I chose, and he now wants to ruin even this for me. Of course.

“Actually, I was thinking of something blonder,” he said. “Something with long, satiny blond hair.”

“You know the little twerp isn’t my natural form, much as I might imitate him.”

That gets a smack to the face. “I don’t know if you are trying to be a smart aleck or if you are really that stupid, but you deserve that.”

“Of course I do,” I said, eyes downcast. Violently, the man grabs my face. “I know you like this form, but this isn’t the one I was speaking of. After all, I’ve already had this form, if you recall.”

We were fighting again, but this time, he used a sword. He’d been practicing, obviously. Though I am no swordsman myself, I knew at that moment he was an impressive foe with those weapons while I continued to limit myself to my hands and feet. The man who would be fuhrer—he was rising through the ranks with alarming speed and was already a general—did the one thing I hadn’t expected, hadn’t expected because I didn’t know such a weakness existed. He ran his sword through the center of the oroborous on my thigh, making my entire world go black.

“No, I suppose you don’t remember, do you? But I know you remember how sore you were the next day.” The man removed his eyepatch, watching my every move with both eyes now. “Is your ability to achieve denial that good?”

I could only scowl at the man.

“Now, now,” he said, using that smile he’d used on my brat brother, the wanted child of Hohenheim, whenever he was manipulating him. It was warm and disarming, if you didn’t know the snake that hid behind the grinning face or you weren’t staring at an oroborous in place of a normal eye. “This isn’t the form I meant. Though, we will have to change the fact that you have no memories of us together while you appeared this way.”

I found my breath, that I didn’t really need, becoming labored and the heart that beat for god knows what reason quickening in my chest. Not that form. Please, not that form.

He was too close, and I cold feel a blade now scratching at the skin inside the oroborous.

“I don’t like being denied, Envy,” he said. “Your true form. Now.”

I didn’t remember anything from when I’d been unconscious, but I found that he repeated this process over and over again until he had bested me without needing to use the symbol on my leg to take me. He grew stronger with each year, and once he no longer needed to make me a comatose doll in order to win, in order to take me until I was damaged and bleeding, he offered me only one consolation: while I was aware, I was allowed just enough strength to transform into something different, someone else.

He was stronger than me, faster, and could anticipate everything I did. Dante had to be feeding him more of the red stones, doing something to ensure his power continued to increase.

But the why didn’t matter. It was the fact that he could, and would always find a way to control me as long as I came back to him to fight.

I hate my form, I despise it, but it is MINE. It isn’t something that someone can take, and it sure as hell isn’t something someone could “take” the way Pride intends to.
The blade at my leg breaks skin and I feel my resistance start to crumble. It was little wonder this man is in charge of the many dogs of the military. I realize that he has already trained me like a dog, broken me like a stallion, and used me like a whore.

I feel my hair fall more loosely around my shoulders. It’s softer in my true form, more like the brat’s and the bastard’s. My skin is now a more creamy peach than the pale white it has been before, and my face is taking on more masculine cheekbones, a face that save for the facial hair resembles my father.

I have no sooner taken on this form than I find myself slammed onto the fuhrer’s desk. I didn’t bother to shape any clothing in this change. It’s pointless anyway.

I started running, avoiding, but he’d find me, reminding me that he was the favorite, that he had been given the title of fuhrer, despite my age, my years of serving the woman. He was the one in charge, and I would be at his beck and call, regardless of the order or demand he placed upon me. I hated him, I still hate him, but it didn’t stop him, it didn’t change that just as he’d capture me, he’d bark out an order for this or that shape, such and such hair color.

I would change, he’d get his rocks off, and then he’d cast me aside.

It wasn’t as though I tried to engage in these encounters, but it seemed that nowhere was far enough, and after a while, when I stopped fighting, he started letting me have my own fun. Not with sex, I didn’t give a damn about sex even when it was supposed to be pleasurable. No, he let me have fun by mutilation, and giving me the latest whereabouts of my two little brothers.

He considered this his “reward” for what he put me through. The bastard.

He’s inside me now, and though it is painful, it has been worse. It doesn’t matter that he slams into me so hard that his entire desk shakes or that he is practically pulling my hair out by its roots as he holds my head to arch my back up toward him. I don’t care that I have blood running down my leg. It will heal.

He started calling for me at the office a few years ago. Because he had married and adopted a little boy, our little meetings at his home would not work any longer. He told me to assume the identity of nameless, faceless soldier and come to his office. After all, a slut doesn’t need a bed, a convenient hole for him to pound himself into didn’t need a room or romance—not that I’ve ever given a damn about that kind of stuff.

And he has trained me. Because I keep showing up, keep coming, but only in the sense of physically showing up at his door; he’d never give me the satisfaction of completion.

As he pulls out and I try to regain myself, I tell myself again that I don’t care.

But this time, he soiled my true form, hated or not, he soiled me finally after all this time.