SOUTHEAST OF CENTRAL
The wilds of Amestris were very familiar. Guts was getting to know them intimately, as going into towns was a risk all of its own.
“They’ll telegraph our descriptions to every military and constabulary post in the country, if they haven’t already.” The shapely monster walking next to him explained.
“Telegraph?” Puck asked.
“It’s… Complicated. There’s a way of talking back and forth across long distances. Through those wires, actually.” Lust indicated the mysterious poles that seemed to follow the train tracks, and the cables that ran between them.
Guts grunted, not slowing down. The forest was thin around here, and they would have trouble hiding if a train came through. While the tracks were handy for keeping them going in the right direction, they presented their own risks. Either way, he wanted to get to the hills in the distance before they called it a night.
“Wow… Sorta like magic, huh? We’ve got seers back at home, at least we had them, a lot of them got burned for witches. And there’s elf magic, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing…”
“Puck.” Guts warned.
Lust shrugged, sending a distracting motion through her ample chest. Guts slid his eyes back, doing his best to keep his mind on business. Been too damn long. Even the monsters are looking good now…
There was a hint of a smirk in her voice as she replied. “It’s all right. I have no plans to betray you, and I would love to hear about your home, wherever it is.”
Guts shook his head. “Nope.”
“Why not?”
“The other monster was interested in it, too. That’s all.”
Lust’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Our motivations are hardly similar. Not anymore, at least.”
“We’ll see.” Guts said.
“Train!” Puck yelled, and the discussion was momentarily forgotten as they found a hiding spot.
That night, around a small, smokeless fire, Guts and Puck ate their meager fare. One of his bolts had brought down a wild bird that Lust called a “Turkey”, and they were enjoying the sudden feast.
They’d offered Lust a share, as usual, and as usual she abstained. She seemed content to merely watch the meat disappear down their gullets, garnished with some herbs that Puck had found earlier.
She watched as the little sprite devoured a full drumstick, distorting his body to fit it in his suddenly-gaping maw, and pulled the drumstick free as a clean stick of bone. Her lips twitched.
“Whaff fo fummby?” Puck demanded.
“I know someone who eats like you do. That’s all.”
Her violet eyes shifted, watching the fire smolder away. “He’s probably lost right now. If the others haven’t killed him yet, that is.”
“He a monster too?” Lust glared up at Guts, who was watching her steadily from across the fire.
“As it happens, yes.”
There was no more conversation for a little while, as the three were left to their thoughts.
Afterwards, Guts nodded to Puck, then rolled back against one of the nearby trees. Pulling his cloak around himself, and with his sword by his hand, he closed his eye and relaxed into sleep.
They’d been doing this each night. Guts would sleep first, then Puck would wake him up when the night was half over. They’d take turns watching Lust. For her part, Lust faked sleep, most of the time. But no matter how much she protested, they maintained the vigil of watching her.
What do they think I’m going to do? We have the same goal. If I really wanted to kill them, I’d have done it long before now.
But each night was the same. She decided to break the mold a bit, and talk to Puck.
“He sleeps like a soldier, doesn’t waste any time in nodding off.”
“Hey, he WAS a soldier.”
She nodded. “Not an Amestris soldier, though. I’ve known enough of those…”
Puck fell silent, watching her and flitting his wings.
She let her eyes stray back to the fire, poking it with a stick.
“You don’t really sleep, do you?” Puck asked.
“What?” She put the stick down, looking back to the green sprite with a bland expression.
“I can tell. Stick around humans long enough, and you learn the signs. Yours are off, just a bit.”
She frowned. “And how many monsters have you seen asleep?”
“None. I think most of them don’t sleep, like you. But I wouldn’t call you a monster.”
“Why not? Your master does.”
“Pft. He’s not my master. And I don’t think you’re really a monster.”
“Why do you say that?” The conversation had veered in an unexpected direction, and Lust fought to keep her face blank.
“When you talked about your friend, the one who ate like I do, there was something in your eyes. You were worried about him.”
“Nonsense.”
“It was there.”
“I can’t be worried about him.” She felt her cheeks twitch, and looked away. “You need a soul for that. For real emotions.”
“So what’s wrong with yours?”
“I- We don’t have one. It’s not something that transfers over.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She looked down at him, and Puck shivered at the distance in her eyes. “Yes. I can feel its absence, every second of my unnatural life. That’s why I have no problem when he calls me a monster. It’s simply the truth.”
Puck was silent for a few long minutes. Figuring the conversation was over, Lust found a comfortable patch of ground, and sprawled across it, watching Guts and Puck with one elbow supporting her head.
Puck stirred again. “No, you don’t sleep. That means that you don’t dream either, do you?”
Lust sighed, tired of pretending. “No. I don’t.”
“That’s… sad. So very sad.” Puck whispered.
Lust didn’t reply. And in about an hour, Puck’s snores filled the night, while Guts slept silently, twitching at the occasional bad dream.
In three more hours she’d wake Puck, and pretend to sleep again, just like she always did. He’d wake Guts in turn, and the swordsman would watch her with his single eye. In the morning she’d get up, as she always did, and the three would continue on their way.
That was how it had been for the last week. And she didn’t expect this to change anytime soon.
This was why, when the fog rolled in and the ghostly figures spilled out from it, Lust was completely unprepared.
Guts woke to the wet rasp of a tongue on his face, and pain in his neck. Snapping his eye open, he saw a mouth descending again, filling his field of vision…
“NO!”
His hand cracked into her jaw with a snapping sound, as her neck broke, and she was sent staggering back, sprawling across the ground. With a wide eye he watched her rise, her head tilting back and crackling as her bones fixed themselves… And her wide, staring eyes fixed on his face, as she crawled forward again.
Something’s wrong here… Then the burning on his neck registered, and he cursed as he saw the mist around the camp, and the swirling forms within it.
I got careless!
Then she was in his face again, and he reached for his bandolier… Only to find it gone. “Why fight…?” She whispered, her voice low and throaty. “We have skin again, we feel again… Lie with me… Love me…”
He drew back his hand, aimed for her nose…
And choked in pain, as one of her fingers elongated and skewered his wrist! Keeping one of her hands tilted, she drew the other one down his chest, and a tracery of pain followed her fingers… He looked down to see blood, and his shirt peeling aside as she lightly cut into his skin. And then, her hand was at his groin, groping and caressing, the fingers no longer sharp but soft, so soft as they teased, and pulled…
He gritted his teeth, as he felt himself stiffen. His body was honest… And he felt the first whispers, as the ghosts touched him, and began to seep in…
“No!”
Her hand gripped and SQUEEZED, and he restrained a yell, as he got his metal arm up under her chin. She looked at him blankly, as he reached over with his teeth, ignored the tearing feeling in his wrist, and took ahold of the rope around his forearm.
Tug.
BOOM!
When the smoke cleared, the ghosts had backed off from him, and they poured from her twitching, bloodied remains like water from a fountain. At least twenty surged out from her like maggots from a corpse… Small wonder, since the only thing where her neck and head used to be was a few chunks of bloody gristle. He shook his hand as her sharp, spear-like finger retracted. No serious damage to his wrist…
Guts looked over, to find Puck twitching under the weight of a tiny nightmare creature. A wave of his hand dispelled it, and the elf sat bolt upright with a scream… Which faded to a sigh, as he looked around at the ghosts, crowding and whispering.
“Ah nuts! They’re back…”
“Back, and stronger than any others I’ve seen around here.”
“What happened to… gah! Her head’s gone! And your wrist?”
“They possessed her. Didn’t you see it happen?”
“Well, uh, I… Um, I think she’s healing.”
“Good.” Guts bound his wrist as the ghosts surged forward, and drew his sword from the ground. With grim resolution, he struck again and again, sending the shrieking form of the spirits into harmless vapor as they died a new death.
“Mhm.” Lust shook her head as she sat up, and looked at the ghosts around her, with an annoyed glance.
“I… Couldn’t stop. Believe me, I didn’t intend to…” She started.
“Don’t waste breath. Fight them!”
She frowned. Well, he’s already seen my main ability, thanks to these… whatever they are. Nothing to lose now.
“All right. But after this-“
“Look out!” Puck yelled. A swarm of spirits leaped into Lust, as she fell back a few steps… Her eyes went wide, and her mouth twisted into a broad smile.
Guts paused in his hacking, to stare. They swarmed her pretty easy, these weak spirits. Even with strong ghosts, it takes at least five seconds to possess someone… Is this her monster’s weakness?
And then he was spinning aside, as her fingers tore past him, punching holes in the tree behind him.
“Love me…” She hissed, as she turned a hand inward, slitting down the front of her dress with a swift motion. His eye twisted down as her bare, heaving breasts fell from their now sliced-open bodice, tipped with dark, hard nipples in the moonlight. For too long he watched them jiggle, as she cupped her breasts and walked toward him with a swaying, sultry walk, her bare flesh gleaming.
“These are for you… warm them…”
He was ready, and dodged to the side as her fingers flashed out again. And before she could retract them, he’d sliced her arms off. She fell back, the ghosts screaming out of her once again…
“Puck, keep them off her. This is gonna take all night.”
And that command issued, he turned back to the fight.
Dawn broke, and the spirits fled.
Guts leaned his sword against a tree, and let himself slump against the base of it, exhausted. Puck crawled onto a branch, and watched the sun rise, relaxing in the warmth.
Lust sat with her legs against the chest of her shredded dress in the center of the clearing, arms wrapped around her knees. She was NOT happy.
“I couldn’t do a thing to stop them from-”
“I know.” Said Guts.
“It was like I was watching from behind a stranger’s eyes. The things they made me do, and I couldn’t-“
“Yeah.” Said Guts.
“I couldn’t… They were going to make me rape you, and flay the skin from your bones as they possessed you, just so they could remember how to feel pain-“
“It’s done with, for now.” Guts shrugged.
“Why could they control me like that? They didn’t affect you, even though they grabbed you a few times.”
Puck shrugged. “Maybe there’s some weight to that not-having-a-soul thing you said. They’re nothing but souls, so I guess they could jump right in…”
“What were they?”
“Ghosts. Spirits.” Puck chimed in, propping his head up on his hands. “When the people of the land have suffered, they walk and come for Guts. It’s his br-“
“Puck.” Warned Guts. The tiny elf shut up.
Guts shifted his eye back. Lust had stiffened, her eyes staring into the trees. “Suffering…” She mused. “We’re not far from there.” Lust finally muttered.
“From where?” Guts asked, leaning back and bandaging his wrist again.
“I thought some of them looked familiar. I know how they died, and I was there to see some of it. This is what happens to them after they die in pain?” Though she didn’t know it, her face was a study of sorrow.
Guts kept his own face straight, as he watched her with calm intensity. “Yeah.”
Her mind made up, Lust rose to her feet. “Well, then. Come on.” A breast flopped free, and she tucked it back in absent-mindedly. Guts tried not to notice.
“Where to?”
“There’s a village near here. And more ghosts will be created there, if we pass on by. It’s about time for the disease to flare up again.”
“Disease?”
“No time. Come on, if you’re coming.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight, until we find Caska.”
“I know.”
And the three of them disappeared into the thin woods, heading for a tiny village to the south…