twenty-one

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When Pride opened the doors to their living room, all of the sins quickly turned their heads to face their elder, eager to hear what this meeting was all about, and what had to be so incredibly important that they had to stop their leisure activities. Lust was a bit more annoyed than most since he had just recently turned his virtue, and had wanted to spend some fun time with her if not for the meeting that slipped him out of it.

Pride was not the oldest of the sins, they were actually all the exact same age. They were all created together so naturally, all of them had to stick together. Pride seemed the most dictator-like, so everyone did as he pleased. If they didn't follow him, everyone knew they would be faced with one of his gruesome punishments.

Though none of them had ever disobeyed, none of them wanted to find out what Pride had lurking in his bedroom. Envy claimed there was a Skin Eater in Pride's closet, a rare human-like creature with no face, that happened to eat skin like one would eat string cheese. In strips. So naturally, no one wanted to find out if that was true.

Pride threw down Sloth, who slid off his back and crashed to the ground, instantly annoyed. None of the sins noticed that Sloth was in distress. They were all too focused on Pride because they were apprehensive of what was happening, and why a meeting had to be called in such urgency.

Strange things had been happening the very second the last virtue was changed. All sins had a surge of power - but that was to be expected. They had just conquered their sworn enemy, their opposites, why wouldn't they?

However, that was the beginning of all the madness even if they didn't know it completely. That was the trigger that lashed forward and caused harm everywhere.

So here they were, about to speak of the fear that the sins had always had in the back of their minds, but never dared to speak to each other about, in fear of being downgraded by their peers.

Was their greatest strength their worst weakness?

"I'm glad we were all able to make it to this. However, it's not surprising. We all live here. We have no jobs. It'd be quite sad if one of us was absent."

No one laughed at Pride's failed attempt to make a comedy, so Pride laughed for them, an awkward windshield wipe laugh that shouldn't have come out of a beauty guru, but instead an acne-ridden preteen girl that was trying to make a chat with a crush. Pride did not have a crush.

Pride folded his arms together with a stern look, his laughter gone. He was a bit disappointed that no one liked his jokes. He surveyed the room with an authority he had held since the beginning of their existence and began to speak with no jokes intended.

"At the beginning, it was for revenge. To get our rights back. To have power." The audience of sins nodded their heads in agreement with sinister looks.

"Some of us might have even said it was to grow closer to the girls, only to smash what was left of their cutesy innocent souls, spread their insides all over the wall like a painting, rebuild them, and then provide as their one source of help." Pride clasped his hands together and smiled cheerfully. Some of the sins gave wary looks that replaced their foreboding expressions from earlier but nonetheless kept listening to Pride as he spoke on. They all felt the same way, one direction or another, blood or without.

"That is not the case now, as much as it was before we realized these girls carried much more weight than we expected, with them not even knowing." He pursed his lips. "As our plan went into effect, not much changed. We had enough knowledge after succeeding in taking them from their lives to know it wasn't best to change them all at once. But because of some very unprofessional acts by Gluttony and Envy-"

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