Roy Mustang, a potential sacrifice for Father’s Promise Day, was rising too fast in the ranks. To keep an eye on him, Father arranges for his first son Pride to be adopted by Maes Hughes, one of Mustang’s trusted companions. For Pride, it was meant to be a simple infiltration to a family of lowly humans
He underestimates just how much the love of the Hughes family can get into his heart and change both his destiny and those around him.
Where there is strife, there is Pride
is a Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction by juurensha. The story completed on July 30th, 2021.
Where there is strife, there is Pride contains the following tropes:
- Becoming the Mask: Pride initially got adopted by the Hughes so he can spy on Maes and keep him, acting as a sweet and loving son to Maes and Gracia as well as a big brother for Elicia when she’s born. Their genuine love for him causes Pride to care for them as well, leading him to save Maes despite Father’s orders and eventually turning on Father to protect his new family.
- Big Brother Worship: Elicia greatly looks up to her big brother Selim, who watches over her and entertains her with his shadows.
- Cassandra Truth: Selim doesn't belive Ed and Greed's claim that Gluttony has a Gate of Truth inside him, since Father told him that experiment failed. He starts to believe it when Gluttony tries to use it on him and Mustang as payback for the two killing Lust.
- Chekhov's Gun: Pride used some of his shadows to extend the life of a pet goldfish. The shadows in the fish help rejuvenate him after he gave up some of his life energy to cure Roy of his Truth-induced blindness.
- Depower: In exchange for Selim and Greed returning back to life, Truth takes away their Alchemy power, allowing Greed to continue to live in Ling’s body and Selim to grow up as a normal human boy.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: In chapter 4, Ed recalls the fight against Lust in Laboratory 5, and he brings up how she had an Oroboros tattoo over her chest. A rather peeved Winry asks why he was staring at Lust’s cleavage, and Ed argues that it (the tattoo) was just there and obvious. Hughes has to change the subject before Ed digs himself deeper.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: During Elicia’s birthday party, Ed and Al talk about how big an Alchemy Circle one needs to modify their own body, and how a larger circle has more risk of killing people and requires more power. Maes thinks about how strange it is that the Amestris government hasn’t yet weaponized such a technique despite their Lack of Empathy when it comes to conflicts like Ishval in the past and Reole in the present… then thinks about how those conflicts are like points of Alchemy circle around Amestris.
- Hidden Depths: Maes Hughes’s inner thoughts in Chapter 2 show that he has self-loathing for his part in the Ishvalan Massacre, thinking he doesn’t deserve a kind wife like Gracia or their two wonderful kids after the families he had torn apart. It’s implied that one of the reasons he’s a devoted husband and father is that he wants to make the most of his blessing.
- It's All My Fault: Greed solely places Bido’s death on himself, even though he only killed his colleague after Father suppressed his memories.
- Little Bit Beastly: Dr. Marco’s philosopher stones help turn Nina from a mangled half-human, half-dog hybrid into her normal self with the addition of dog-like claws, a tail, and some patches of fur on her back.
- Mythology Gag:
- In chapter 1, both Maes and Gracia leap in to protect Selim from an out-of-control automobile despite the risk to their lives, just as Mrs. Bradley did for Selim in canon.
- Maes pulls off Riza’s “he calls me Riza in private” on Envy when they disguise themself as Roy
- Spared by the Adaptation
- Nina doesn’t get a Mercy Kill by Scar thanks to Greed and his subordinates rescuing her and taking her with them to Dublin.
- Martel and Dolcetto survive Wrath’s assault on their base to capture Greed.
- Selim uses his Shadows to save Maes from being killed by Envy when he figures out Amestris’s plot, then take him to a hospital when Envy manages to wound him.
- Greed keeps Envy from killing himself after Ed points out his jealousy of humans, a mix between granting Ed’s desire to not have Envy die and screwing with Selim and Envy. In the epilogue, Ed helps Envy regain their humanoid form.
- Thanks to Gluttony’s Failed Gate of Truth, Selim keeps Greed from performing his Heroic Sacrifice on Father, and both of them survive as humans.
