Pre-Chapter Notes:

For the sake of convenience, I think I'm going to start a trend of both notes at the beginning, and notes at the end. That way, it increases fluidity of the chapters. At first, this was just a fun little project, but I think I'll start writing it more professionally. It's an idea that has a lot of potential, so I think it could be fun to delve into much deeper. Just as a warning, I may re-do all the previous chapters. I'm making this chapter in particular stand as the standard of how the previous ones should be. I hope that the improvement isn't too much of an inconvenience, and that instead, it makes for a more enjoyable experience. I'm thinking about making the story Father-centric for the beginning arc, and moving towards the Homunculi in later chapters. I hope it's still worth a read, even if Father seems like a boring character sometimes...

Chapter IX: We Can Change

AntiFiction

10-17-2012

(9)

The clock struck midnight. One day passed away, and another day would arise in its place. There were secrets in every family, conspiracies brewing between siblings and truths withheld from children by their parents. There was strife in every lifetime, challenges that each individual went through alone, and other issues that reached out to embrace everyone. Humanity was like that: versatile, resilient, and interdependent. Everyone had connections to each other, with slight differences between parents, siblings, spouses, children, friends, and acquaintances. What must it be like to have none of that? What exactly is it like to be entirely alone?

Father was never bothered by his loneliness. He didn't care for these pitiful bonds that humans had for each other. Any one of them could rise up and attain power, glory, and reverence, even if it meant the sacrifice of others. Humanity would only benefit if they realized the faulty system of reliance on others. They had to destroy their weaknesses: chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility. They had to break free from this neediness to cling onto others. They had to actualize that they stood alone, responsible only for their own actions, and completely independent from others that they interacted with in their lives.

"Such weakness..." Father whispered to himself. The thought of humanity made him sick. He couldn't even perceive them to be anywhere near divine, or even worthy of existing - perhaps that's why they died. How wrong it was to allow these creatures to live, and how righteous it felt to bring them into the salvation of fulfilling his own purposes. They would become a part of something much greater. These judgmental, hypocritical, clueless animals would have no idea what hit them. On the Promised Day, their lives would be extinguished, drawn into the light of Father's glory. They would be assembled into him, they would become him, and together, they would become God.

Loneliness. It bothered Father that when his mind drifted, it always returned to the same core thought. A superior being couldn't afford to be hindered by the presence of others, whether it be of his own kind, or from lower lifeforms. He refused to give in to emotion, he wanted to cast it out altogether, and be freed from the bondages that delusioned humanity. Emotions were just chemical reactions, anyway, and there would be no point in listening to the aftermath of the clash between physical body and dissociated mind. "Rid me of it..." Father held out his pale hand, the fingertips glowing with red electricity, the very substance of life-force that could be molded into any living creature. He carried it in his immaculate body. A small trickle of red seeped out of his palm, which landed into a golden cup. He had spilled his own precious blood.

It was still there. Emotion pumped through his inky veins, the voices of millions clouding his mind and disturbing his thoughts. Only inferior creatures would retain the ability to feel anything. It was worrysome that no matter how much he extracted, the feelings remained, plagued, and overwhelmed. It was the disadvantage to adopting the vessel of a person, which was the result of destroying and absorbing only humans. His physical composition was entirely of humans. However, his true, surrealistic form was murky darkness that did not exist in the physical plane. He could easily assume that superior appearance. It looked dark to human eyes, because their eyes were designed to be blind. Human eyes cannot perceive actual light itself - they could only perceive reflections of light. In Father's true form, as distorted and maniacal as it appeared to them, was actually pure and incomprehensible knowledge.

"Remember your power..." Father kept reassuring himself. He meditated deeply and inwardly, reaching through the fragile flesh and cradeling the small black essence within, which curled up like an unborn fetus. It was difficult to maintain his ethereal superiority when he fulfilled a very humble, human role: Father. Right now, it was his only name. What could be more misleading than a nurturing, loving figure? He was wracked with an unfounded hatred for life and indifferent towards the chaotic influence he had upon this world. He reflected deeply on his unspoken past actions, the likes of which only the dead knew of. Oh, how many people died to build him into what he was today? How many people died to create the bodies of his children? Exactly how many people died for his cause?

He had no regrets. Everything he did was right. He knew that no matter what, he created loyal followers who would obey his every move, and encourage every swipe he made at humanity. They would always look up to him, praise him, and motivate him to his final goals. They used to be just little whispers inside his head... but now they were their own individuals, their physical existence reminding him of their reality. Back when they were still little voices, he was in a flask, in an alchemical laboratory hundreds of years ago. When he was set free, he devoured the country of Xerxes and became a Philosopher's Stone itself. He was filled with so much power and might that even though he waited some time to settle down and have kids, they were crafted perfectly as if they had been born from fresh sacrifice. He was very proud of them, the strange little creatures that seeped out of his body and became their own masters. The Homunculi were definitely an achievement to be proud of. They were definitely his life's work, and freedom from his own personal flaws. Without them, he wouldn't have plans.

Father thought about creating a seventh and final Homunculus for quite some time now. Some brilliant idea was jarring around the recesses of his imagination, but they were too abstract and disorganized for him to grasp it. It occurred to him that he had written down his thoughts on a lengthy scroll, which went meters across the room. He hadn't even noticed - he was so absorbed in his brilliant ideas. Surrounding him were the sounds of soft breathing. Father discovered an abandoned underground shed, once used for sandstorm protection, which he decided to use for himself and his children to spend the night. After all, the inn was expensive, and it was a wise idea to save money. He forgot how they eventually wandered over here, but no matter...

He was studying Gluttony before thoughts of his entire past flashed before him. Gluttony was lying on top of the table, fast asleep, and barely showing signs of life beyond the breathing. The child definitely wasn't as small as he used to be. He was half of his final size - about three feet tall, or about a meter. He was as big around as he was tall. His shape was perfectly spherical, and with time, he looked less like a child and more like an adult. Father had been trying to analyze a particular contraption built into the boy's stomach. To his annoyance, Father couldn't get it to work. The contraption was quite similar to the analogy of a monster-within-a-monster. It was just another body part of Gluttony, but it sometimes seemed to have a mind of its own. Father was poking the abdomen, trying to get it to wake up, but nothing happened.

Father was on the verge of giving up and trying something else. However, after much prodding, Gluttony was stirring awake. Father took a moment to review his most recent actions - he was treating his youngest child as a scientific experiment. To him, that seemed perfectly natural. To human beings, this would be absolutely horrific. You're using your own son to justify your theories. He could still hear the whispers of humanity, somewhere deep in his mind, where they resided as a constituent of his glorious vessel. "Daa... Daddy..." Gluttony rolled over and held his arms out towards him. "Bad dream..."

Parental instincts took over instantly. Father held out his arms lovingly, and took the child under his metaphorical wing. Gluttony lied in his father's lap, his arms wrapped around his waist tightly, in a fearful, loving embrace. "What did you dream about?" Father asked softly, his hand stroking Gluttony's head.

"An eye..." Gluttony's eyes teared up. "A really scary eye that was watching me..." He tried wiping away the tears, but they streamed down his face nonetheless.

"What scared you about the eye?" Father asked. "An eye is a very powerful symbol. It could mean a vision, a window, a portal... the Truth." He glanced down at Gluttony's belly again, which secretly contained his most fabled, treasured experiment: personal access to the Gate of Truth. Just to think it could be inside his son's belly. He was so close to it - in fact, he was all around it... but it was concealed in a realm within his child's precious vessel. In that sense, it was too far to reach.

Gluttony continued, "It... It wanted to eat me."

Father was surprised by the counter-intuitive logic. An eye was a tool for observation. A mouth could speak and devour. Why was the dream about an eye, rather than a mouth? "How could an eye eat you?" Father asked, trying to assume the discontinuity of Gluttony's child-like logic.

"It was staring at me..." Gluttony seemed traumatized, trembling and clutching desperately onto his father's silky white robes. "It wanted me... It wanted everything... It wanted me to be a part of it..."

"Where was this eye?" Father pressed, his eyes firmly locking into Gluttony's. "Tell me where you saw it." Gluttony's hands trailed down to his stomach, and they stopped directly on it. Finally. Finally, Gluttony was aware about the Truth inside him. From birth until now, he had never noticed it. In fact, he never knew it existed. For the first time, he dreamed about it, and maybe, Father could see how it functioned. An unfortunate interruption cut off his train of thought-

"Father." Lust stood behind him, a look of alarm in her eyes. "They've found us. They know we're here. They know... what we are."

"What?" Father snapped, his head turned, his sharp eyes boring deep into Lust's. "How did they find us? How do they know? WHO RATTED US OUT?" It was unusual for him to yell, and when he did, Gluttony's grip became painful. The child was clutching onto his father, his nails digging deep into his back. Lust gave a blank look of confusion - she didn't know anything, other than the fact there were humans gathered above them, ready to attack them with pitchforks and torches. It couldn't have been Envy. He was curled up under a blanket, still sick, in anticipation of an elixir. Greed fell asleep beside Envy, which was weird for him - usually he would claim the comfiest spot ever, but for once, he was lying flat on wood floor. Sloth was sleeping beside Greed and Envy, not for any particular reason other than he was lazy and that was where his body decided to crash. Father quickly did a head-count and remembered the one stray member. "Pride." He said instinctively.

"I don't know if it's okay to jump to conclusions." Lust said defensively. "We don't know if we were ratted out, or if the people found us on their own."

Father groaned and sifted his fingers through his long, pale hair. "It seems we have no choice. I really didn't want it to come down to this, but..." Father glanced down at Gluttony, his fearful eyes slowly lessening into trust. "We have to sacrifice the town in an emergency fashion. Blow it to bits, make it so that it never existed, and nobody never knows what happened."

Lust bit her lip. "Sacrifice the entire town? Even if it's just a couple dozen of souls, it seems that a disappearance of that many people would incite a national crisis." She folded her arms across her large breasts, her high-heels tapping the floor as she paced. "They would notice us... then all of Amestris would be after us, not just one small desert town."

"Make it so that nothing ever happened." Father sternly repeated himself. "As far as I care, human civilization never permanently thrived this far east."

Lust processed this information, suddenly getting the drift of where he was going with this plan. Her eyes lit up. "Father, you're brilliant."

"My loyal child..." Father held out his hand, and Lust approached carefully and cautiously to take it. Her gloved hand rested in his. "Take this Stone. Reap the souls and store them inside. Sacrifice everyone. Do not leave any survivors. Can I entrust you with this mission?"

Lust was flattered. In her entire life, she had never been asked to do a mass murdering spree. Usually, that job was given to Pride, since he had a lot of free time and lots of killing methods. He was the most skilled in murder - it was his expertise. This was her first chance to prove herself worthy of the Homunculus title. "Thank you so much, Father." Lust breathed - she was moved by his merciful kindness. "I will not disappoint you." She bowed in respect, and proceeded up the ladder.

"Where's Lust going?" Gluttony asked innocently. He frowned as he looked up at the chute she left through.

"She is going to kill a lot of humans." Father replied truthfully. "It is her duty. It is the reason she was born. It is her purpose." He emphasized the importance of human sacrifice. He couldn't elaborate the details of how a Philosopher's Stone was made without confusing the poor child, so he tried foreshadowing simplicity as his method of approach. It worked in a satisfactory way.

"Killing..." Gluttony said in pondersome thought. "Isn't that bad?"

"It isn't always bad, Gluttony." Father said. "Sometimes it's for the greater good. If it is done for me... then it is good."

"Is there anything I can do to help you?" Gluttony asked, staring up at his father with admiration and respect.

"You can eat them." Father persuaded. "That would help me immensely."

"No, I can't eat them..." Gluttony shook his head. "They taste horrible."

"Tonight, Lust is bloodthirsty." Father licked his lips. "I think you will find humans to be irresistable for the first time."

Gluttony stared blankly, with a troubled look. It seemed that he couldn't personally believe he would do that, but he trusted that Father's words were potentially propheti, regardless of whether they were in the near or far future.

That night was plagued with screams. While everyone slept, Lust went about her mission. She slayed everyone: men, women, children, and livestock. She burned the village to the ground, and the sandstorms buried the ashes. Golden flames illuminated across her pale, sensuous skin. She breathed in pleasure, inhaling the fumes of destruction, slathering herself in the blood of her recent victims. Her breath was taken away by such a beautiful sight - the fall of a city, although this one was small. Somehow, she ended up on the floor, her neck and chest decorated in crimson blood. She moaned in relief when her job was complete, her long black hair enveloping her. Nothing was left... Not even the inn they spent so much time at. Everything, and everyone, was dead. The last screams of persuasive mercy were: "Wait! Stop! We can change!"

"What a pitiful lie..." Lust thought. She didn't try to move. She didn't try to go anywhere. She stared up at the beautiful full moon in the star-speckled sky. She felt the cool sand rush beneath and all around her. She was enveloped in the ashes of people, the vermilion Stone in her hand larger than it was before. It smelled like incense, the recent snuffing out of flames. Lust wanted it to be like this forever, and she found her passion in the Philosopher's Stone, further understanding why Father adored the object so deeply.

-Author's Notes-

I had the biggest block while trying to write this chapter. I wanted to step up the descriptions without losing reader interest. I hope I did a good job. I'm not too sure if I did. I really like in-depth, hardcore character development, though sometimes I can focus too much on that. I made this chapter Gluttony and Lust-centric, because they're the easiest to write for me. I find it interesting that although Lust's name has romantic inclinations, it's very rare that anyone writes Lust as being a romantic character. I tried incorporating that in the last few paragraphs, and I hope I didn't push the T (teen) rating in any way. All I did was describe how much she likes to burn stuff down. Read and review, let me know if I'm getting too ridiculous. If this chapter is well-received, I'll probably upgrade the complexity on previous chapters. I don't know if I'll go as far as re-write all of them, but we'll see. Enjoy!