Chapter Text
Being Selim Bradley was something Pride despised, a silk suit far too narrow for the magnitude of his being. He found it frankly insulting that, being the first and most powerful of his brothers, even Gluttony— the most incompetent among them all— received more influential missions than his own;
‘Playing house,’ he thought bitterly.
His perfect memory returned a recollection he received with a stab of disgust: feigning a tantrum over a nightmare, shedding false tears and begging the human woman to get him a night lamp. Wrath had witnessed everything; even so, he had to admit it had been a necessary degradation. It was logical—without light there were no shadows, and without shadows he was a prisoner of his container.
“There’s nothing in the darkness, sweetheart,” the woman had said with that pathetic empathy only humans possessed.
His eyelids closed in the dimness of the early morning, and a second later a ray of sunlight struck him directly in the face. But something was wrong… there had been no transition, no dream. The clock on the wall showed an incorrect hour, and the energy in general felt different.
He set his eyes on the enormous room before him—courtesy of his younger brother. The silk sheets slid with a muted whisper as he sat up; his hands searched for the edge of the mattress, and as he dropped his feet onto the carpet his instincts warned him that his surroundings were foreign.
A prime example was his night lamp. Before, it had been a sober and functional design, meant solely to guarantee a source of shadows. Now it displayed a childish and colorful appearance. It was exactly the model Wrath’s wife had insisted on buying for him a few weeks ago, the one he had rejected under the excuse of looking for something more adult.
The design was not what bothered him most, but rather what the object represented: an error in his memory, ‘a piece that should not be there.’ He calculated with a prick of irritation at the back of his neck; he never forgot details, and his environment never changed without his permission. If the room was not the same, there could be a threat waiting for the slightest lapse in his vigilance.
It wasn’t that he feared an attack. Only a handful of humans and his homunculus brothers knew his true identity. Besides, to reach him any intruder would have to bypass the Führer’s elite guard.
And even if they managed to reach his bedroom in a pathetic kidnapping attempt, the result would be the same; Pride would simply dismember them on the spot, devouring their remains or blaming any guard unlucky enough to be patrolling the area at the time.
He continued to find small anomalies. There were more toys in the room, at least twice as many as he remembered—mostly trains of different sizes and colors.
The room also felt narrower. It wasn’t an abysmal difference, but enough to make him raise an eyebrow in displeasure. Pride did not lower himself to the foolish human standards regarding material possessions; even so, he understood hierarchy well. The size of one’s quarters was a direct symbol of one’s importance within the house.
That was the reason the Führer inhabited the mansion while citizens survived in small houses and apartments. It was also the reason Father lived in the depths of Central, the very heart of the nation. Therefore, that his space had been reduced was, in his mind, a direct insult to his status.
Beneath the surface of his skin, the homunculus’s appendages explored every inch of the walls. The morning light bounced against the paint, but where before the color blended into pastel blue, it was now interrupted by a slightly more saturated tone—an intense shade that sent waves of repulsion through him. ‘A hue I would never have chosen.’
This had to be some kind of deception. Perhaps an alchemical illusion? If someone possessed the ability to alter his surroundings without him—the most powerful of all the sins— noticing, then it was certainly a threat he would need to report to Father.
However, he was not like his brothers, who sought any excuse to beg for their creator’s attention. He would not rush. A useless, frivolous conversation without solid proof would be nothing more than a waste of time and a stain on his perfect record.
An idea that would have seemed absurd at any other moment crossed his mind: a flaw in his Philosopher’s Stone. ‘It is impossible that something is wrong with me.’ He dismissed it immediately. His stone possessed more than enough souls, and he had not participated in a direct confrontation in decades. He was perfection made shadow.
Even so, the mere possibility that someone was playing a joke on him—whether one of his mediocre brothers or some stupid human—was intolerable. His pride would not allow him to be the victim of such mockery. He reached a conclusion quickly: he needed answers, and he needed them immediately. But before acting, he would make sure his surroundings were secure. No one would catch him off guard.
His true form seeped from his feet into the darkest corners of the residence. His objective was clear: to inspect every inch in search of anything remotely suspicious. However, the only thing he managed to find was an alarming number of inconsistencies, objects that had changed places, and a strange silence that seemed to devour everything around him.
The rhythmic breathing of the guards betrayed their positions, as did the steady pulse of his human “mother.” As the last traces of dawn gave way to a clear sky, the woman settled into her morning reading. It was a habit Pride despised—he did not even bother hiding the way he rolled his eyes when he was alone—yet it kept her distracted enough to prevent her from becoming a constant nuisance.
The idea of a spontaneous renovation crossed his mind, but he dismissed it in a blink. She would have chattered like a parrot over the slightest change. After all, she was the same woman who made a scandal over a slightly crooked vase, or because of the fixed stare of any stray dog.
‘Just the thought of the time I’d waste dealing with those inconsistencies is exhausting,’ he scoffed to himself.
However, he decided it was foolish to worry about trivialities when the solution was obvious. He would confront Wrath. Reaching his office in Central Command would be easy, and truthfully the Führer was in no position to question him. In Father’s eyes, his rank was superior—he was the firstborn and the most powerful of the sins.
The idea of going directly to Father was still unappealing, especially considering the inconveniences delaying their plans. That Ishvalan would not stop wreaking havoc, massacring any State Alchemist unfortunate enough to cross his path—an imprudence that endangered the valuable sacrifices they were meant to preserve.
To make matters worse, the killer was still at large, and Lust had just perished at the hands of Roy Mustang. At a stage so close to the Promised Day, any anomaly had to be treated with extreme caution.
After giving one last glance to the disorder in the room—something he had never caused—he stepped out into the hallway. He still had to decide how he would approach Wrath. Sneaking out was out of the question; it would be a tedious task under the limitations of his childish container, and he had no intention of exhausting himself dodging guards.
Asking for permission was another alternative, though it was predictable that his request would end in a firm refusal. They would give him excuses, reminding him that his “father” was a very busy man.
….
….
….
A thud against the floor abruptly tore him from his thoughts. Through the structure of the mansion, Pride sensed an external presence: ragged breathing along with desperate footsteps echoing several meters away, approaching clumsily.
‘A thief?’ The idea was almost comical. Who would be foolish enough to break into the Führer’s residence? Yet something in the erratic rhythm of the presence made the shadows beneath his feet tense in anticipation, ready to devour the intruder before he even realized the mistake he had just made.
He dismissed the idea of notifying the guards. If that scum had managed to sneak in, then it was evident that the humans in charge of the mansion’s security were unqualified for their positions. He would not stoop so low as to flee.
He vaguely recognized those features: crimson eyes filled with hatred, dark skin weathered by the sun, and a dirty, disheveled head of albino hair. The man’s wide, bloodshot eyes revealed the absolute desperation he was under. His hands, though trembling, held a pistol aimed directly at Pride’s forehead.
Humans were lamentably easy to read. The death of a loved one brought them sadness, infidelity anger, losing money in an illegal casino to a child: rage. But this scum did not even bother hiding it. His aura reeked of terror mixed with fury. Under any other circumstances, the homunculus might have found it entertaining to observe.
‘He truly believes he can intimidate me,’ the homunculus thought, feeling a stab of annoyance at the man’s pathetic act. He had the impulse to erase his existence right then and there and behave as if nothing had happened. But for now, he would maintain the façade of Selim Bradley.
The Ishvalan took a step forward. Sweat drenched his hands so heavily that the weapon seemed ready to slip from his fingers at any moment. Pride observed him with contempt. It was both fascinating and repulsive what a human dominated by their survival instinct was capable of doing.
“You! Are you the Führer’s son?” the man growled.
Pride executed the maneuver he was already accustomed to. He opened the eyes of his container until it looked unnatural, forcing an expression of surprise and absolute panic while bringing his hands to his mouth.
“You shouldn’t be here, sir!” he exclaimed in a perfectly rehearsed childish voice. “This is private property.”
The intruder let out an irritated growl, and his expression darkened even further.
—Your father has done terrible things!— he shouted, the sound echoing throughout the mansion. —Because of him my people were massacred, our cities reduced to ashes and our kind annihilated, and… and when I saw one of you kill my daughter I swore I would take revenge.—
The homunculus barely reacted to the man’s outburst. ‘And what do you intend to do with that piece of scrap in your hands?’ he thought with icy calm. ‘Attack the poor, innocent son of the Führer? You are either very brave or a stupid insect that does not understand its own insignificance.’
He, along with his brothers, had been an architect of Ishval’s extermination. His role had not been as public as Wrath’s, who with a single signature had unleashed the circle of blood; nor as visceral as Envy’s, who delighted in massacring civilians and had been the one to pull the trigger that ended the life of that girl. His role had been that of the observer who ensured every piece fell into place.
He had never voiced the slightest complaint. If Father had planned it that way, then it was the only correct path. In any case, he preferred to limit contact with humans to the bare minimum necessary, though he had to admit that spending time with Wrath’s wife was not as tedious as most of his other interactions.
“Listen to me, you damned brat!”
That shout pulled him from his train of thought. He had stopped listening to that scum’s babbling some time ago. Not that he cared; after all, the last words of the condemned rarely had any value.
Time seemed to freeze for a second when the rhythmic echo of other footsteps approached. The man aimed the weapon at the container once again, determined to pull the trigger… but he did not. A trace of something in his eyes stopped him—perhaps regret, or the memory of his daughter. Whatever it was, any hesitation on the battlefield was the same as digging your own grave.
BANG
The crack of a bullet brought the man down. Only seconds earlier he had been shouting his grievances; now he lay motionless on the floor with a perfect hole in his forehead, blood pouring out in bursts. Almost immediately, the chaos of security arrived. The soldiers surrounded the corpse, lifting it to carry it to an incinerator. Some showed disgust, others a pitiful expression.
Meanwhile, warm arms wrapped around him with suffocating urgency. It was her—the human who did not seem willing to let him go for even a second.
Despite his irritation and general hatred toward humanity, Pride recognized that she was always an anomaly. The incident only a few months ago—when a car had nearly run him over and she had thrown herself forward to save him—was the clearest example of that animal instinct the homunculi lacked.
A mother capable of prioritizing the life of her offspring above her own was a fascinating weakness, though of course he was not her son. The entire family was nothing more than a façade.
His creator and the human woman were beings of opposite natures. Father was the closest thing to absolute perfection, a superior being who had freed himself from the chains that tormented living creatures—their sins—capable of gracefully bypassing the limitations of equivalent exchange to which humans were bound.
To Pride, Father was the absolute embodiment of power, a being who would soon transcend mortality to brush against the divine. And if everything went according to his plans, he would cease to be an aspirant and finally become what he should have been from the beginning: a god.
In contrast, Wrath’s wife was a simple emotional and fragile creature, someone he could shatter at any moment. She possessed that repulsive instinct of protection, a blind love that humans insisted on calling unconditional.
‘She is condemned by her own nature,’ the homunculus thought with disdain. ‘After all, she is incapable of glimpsing the monster she shares a bed with, or the darkness that surrounds the one she calls her son. She is nothing more than a foolish creature.’
Even so, that same blindness made her a useful tool. In part thanks to her, the Führer’s public image was impeccable in the eyes of the average citizen—the perfect portrait of an exemplary ruler blessed with a devoted wife and an adorable son, a lie crafted with years of precision.
…..
….
…
Those firm hands remained clasped around his back, pressing him against a human warmth he was not enjoying in the slightest.
Pride, however, continued his role exactly where he had left it. He allowed an expression of absolute fear to spread across his face and clung to her with feigned strength.
“What’s happening, Mom?” he asked, burying his head dramatically into the woman’s shoulder.
“Everything will be fine, Selim. The bad man can’t hurt you anymore.”
‘How little that woman knew,’ he mocked silently. Her limited understanding made her believe the danger had died with the intruder. She did not suspect that the real threat was the one she held in her arms. Pride simply rested against her shoulder, regulating his breathing until his chest imitated an almost normal rhythm, while an idea began to form in his mind.
———
“Mom, I want to visit Dad at Central… I’m scared… and I need to talk to him,” he whispered, spacing his words with carefully feigned fragility.
The bait had been set.
His “mother” still looked visibly shaken, though her body language betrayed a heroic attempt to remain calm. The request plunged her into indecision. Her eyes traveled along the hallway where a trail of fresh blood still stained the floor, weighing her options.
Pride had already decided he would make sure nothing like this ever happened again. His true objective was to question the Führer about the inexplicable changes in the mansion, and more importantly, about the progress in suppressing those alchemists who continued to be nothing more than a nuisance to Father’s plans.
Even so, as much as it displeased him, the decision rested entirely with the human. That was no obstacle; the homunculus knew her weak point, one he was more than willing to exploit.
“Please, Mom,” he insisted, allowing his eyes to begin to glisten. “I need Dad… I feel better when he’s near.”
After a few seconds of hesitation, the woman finally gave in.
“All right, son. We’ll go see your father—but only for a little while. He’ll know how to make you feel better.”
—-
The entire situation seemed almost too good to be true. The homunculus could not help but feel a trace of suspicion. The possibility that all of this was some sort of trap remained open. Whatever it was, the world was becoming stranger with every passing second.
A clear example was his personal escort. Originally, Wrath had threatened the guards and their families, ensuring that any abnormal behavior from Selim would never be reported. Pride had greatly enjoyed that particular game of power.
He had always been fascinated by the terror that seemed to invade them every time he entered a room, and by how they were forced to serve him while unsuccessfully trying to hide their trembling.
However, these new guards were different. One was blond and the other dark-skinned; for some reason they greeted him as if they were old friends, with expressions that revealed anything but the fear he was accustomed to. His real escorts had stopped speaking to him long ago, reduced to mere shells led by paranoia.
Pride ignored the greeting of the new escorts and climbed into the car. There had to be a logical explanation for all this. Perhaps the old ones had simply been replaced by these specimens attempting to appear friendly for their first encounter—stupid humans, always believing that a kind smile could bridge the gap between their species.
Pride ignored the greeting and stepped into the car. ‘They must have replaced the old ones with these specimens trying to be friendly,’ he thought with annoyance. ‘Stupid humans—always believing a smile can close the gap between our species.’
During the ride, his “mother” watched him discreetly. Pride could feel the weight of her gaze. Was it suspicion? As though she were searching for something that was no longer there. ‘Has she finally realized my nature?’ he wondered, but that made no sense. Why now? Nothing had changed: the same act, the same clothes, the same rehearsed expressions. He decided to dismiss it as instinctive paranoia caused by the Ishvalan incident.
When they arrived, he stepped out of the car and walked with firm steps toward the headquarters of Central Command.
——
The officers watched them as they walked through the corridors. It was not common to see the Führer’s family at headquarters without prior notice, and the woman’s still-disturbed demeanor did not help. Pride assumed his own face projected a similar fragility. In truth, he did not feel the slightest trace of fear. Over centuries of existence he had faced situations far more dangerous than a piece of scrap metal aimed at his forehead. Deep down, he even missed those days of unrestrained violence.
But circumstances had changed. The plan was advancing, and he was trapped playing happy family while his brothers kept all the fun for themselves. He stopped dwelling on it; he was about to get answers.
They knocked on the door, and after what felt like an eternity, his brother’s voice told them to enter. The moment he crossed the threshold, he knew something was wrong. Something about Wrath was different… a different presence. Less human? His brows tightened subtly as he tried to identify the source of that strangeness.
The desk was buried beneath a sea of papers without any apparent order. His mother began recounting what had happened in a trembling voice, though Pride was certain Wrath already knew every detail. Wrath did not seem angry; he rarely showed it. But the black-haired boy knew that serene expression was only a mask. The Führer was just as skilled as he was in the art of playing a role.
Pride decided to intervene, lacing his voice with authority hidden beneath a childish tone.
“Father, how did the guards allow that monster to get so close?
This is… this is unacceptable!”
Wrath raised his eyes from the documents and gave him a brief smile that did not reach them.
“We are investigating what happened, Selim,” he replied with icy calm. “But I assure you we are working to make sure something like that never happens again.”
Pride nodded, deciding to take advantage of the situation.
“I certainly hope so, Father. After all, we both know that absolute loyalty is the only thing that maintains order in this world,” he said with a cold smile that, to an outside observer, would pass for childish devotion.
Mrs. Bradley looked at them both with overflowing concern.
“Dear, could you speak with Selim alone? I think he might need a little comfort after everything that happened.”
Wrath nodded, making a slow gesture for him to come closer.
“Selim, come here. Let’s talk in private.”
The click of the door closing echoed through the silence of the office. Finally, they were alone. Pride expected the mask to fall, for Wrath’s murderous intent to return so they could speak as the homunculi they truly were. Instead, what happened left him unsettled: the man’s face remained kind, maintaining that calm expression as if he were truly standing before a child of flesh and blood.
“So, Selim, how are you feeling after everything that happened?” he asked in a gentle tone he usually reserved only for his wife.
‘Selim…,’ Pride repeated in his mind with disgust. ‘Who the hell does he think he’s talking to?’ He was not some damned human brat—he was his superior.
Neither the Wrath he knew nor the King Bradley who ruled Amestris would behave like this. Was his brother’s Stone failing? Or had the years finally begun to take a toll on his mind?
An uncomfortable silence filled the room.
“Don’t worry, that Ishvalan won’t threaten you again.”
Pride felt a stab of irritation mixed with genuine surprise. Homunculi did not dream, yet he was convinced that this entire day was the closest thing to a nightmare he had ever experienced.
“Come on, when we get home I’ll help you set up one of your trains. What do you think?”
The boy did not respond. Eye contact was inevitable; Pride examined every feature without finding any obvious anomaly. It was the same mustache, the same wrinkles carved by time, the same eyepatch concealing his secret. ‘Is he playing a joke on me? Or is that Envy pretending to be the Führer out of sheer boredom?’ he wondered.
The possibility struck directly at his ego. Did they think they were better than him? That they could deceive him with such a cheap trick? He was not going to tolerate this absurdity for even a second longer. He turned around with the intention of returning to the mansion and, from there, descending underground to seek out his Creator. His brothers had clearly lost their minds, and he had no intention of playing along.
As he walked toward the door, his mind raced. If this turned out to be a joke, he would make sure they received their punishment after reporting it to Father. Yet a suspicion had begun to settle in his chest—one he was avoiding even considering.
“Where are you going, Selim?”
Wrath’s voice stopped him in his tracks, and their eyes met again. Yet no matter how closely he searched, Pride could find nothing but a strange kindness that disgusted him.
He closed the door behind him carefully, making sure not to make any noise. He searched for Catherine—Wrath’s wife—to begin the return to the mansion. Given the gravity of the new circumstances, he seriously considered contacting his Creator using his real form; it would be easy, requiring nothing more than extending his shadows through the city’s conduits.
However, after a moment of reflection, he decided that maintaining the childish container was the most efficient course of action for now.
He let out a tired sigh. This was ridiculous. Had the Führer succumbed to senility overnight? ‘What kind of alchemy could accelerate mental decay with such vulgarity?’ he wondered. It had to be the work of a human.
While searching for his “mother” among the bustle of headquarters, he came across a woman he had never seen before. Under normal circumstances he would not waste even a minute observing something as banal as a human, but she emanated a peculiar presence—an almost imperceptible trace that reminded him of a homunculus. She was slender, with brown hair, dressed in formal attire, moving through Central Command with the elegance of someone who knew the place inside and out.
Pride was certain they had never crossed paths before. ‘They’re just hallucinations,’ he reprimanded himself internally.
The confusion of the last few hours was forcing him to find anomalies in every insignificant detail. He decided to ignore her; he was certain she was nothing more than an insignificant worm.
After a few minutes, he located Catherine speaking with an officer. Her face was still frozen in that anguished expression that seemed to have been burned into her features.
“Mom, can we go home?” Pride asked, forcing a vulnerable tone as he took the woman’s hand.
She looked at him with infinite tenderness, typical of her kind.
“Of course, sweetheart. Let’s go home.”
As they headed toward the exit, surrounded by a dozen newly assigned soldiers, Pride experienced a bittersweet mixture of sensations: disgust at being forced to feign helplessness like a human child, and on the other hand, a perverse satisfaction at how simple it was to manipulate those creatures, slaves to their instincts.
When they arrived at the mansion, the atmosphere had changed. As expected, security had tripled after the incident. Rigid soldiers watched every corner with palpable tension. Though logical, Pride did not appreciate the extra surveillance.
However, it was not an insurmountable obstacle. He planned to slip out during the night through a hidden access that connected to the underground tunnels.
It was the discreet route he used whenever he needed to employ his true form to reach Father’s hideout, thus avoiding crossing the most deplorable districts of Amestris.
Those night guards were nothing more than an additional nuisance; he could always devour them or knock them unconscious. But generating more paranoia in Wrath’s wife would be a tactical flaw. Maintaining his cover required an irritating level of discipline.
His feet carried him to his bedroom. Before he could enter, the woman intercepted him with suffocating concern, asking if he was all right. Pride, hiding his irritation behind a faint smile, answered with a simple “Yes” filled with sweetness.
He had urgent matters to attend to, and the comfort of a human was not on his list.
Once alone, he inspected the bedroom.
The place was infested with toys, distractions that inferior minds required. Without much care, he began picking things up from the floor, shoving them into drawers to maintain a decent level of order—one the negligent servants could not even sustain.
Under his command, chaos had no place. He even decided he would change the color of the room; that vibrant shade was mediocre and unworthy of his presence.
The next step in his purge was the most tedious: removing the trains. They were unnecessarily heavy, and moving them himself would be nothing but a waste of energy he had no intention of spending on such a vulgar task. He would leave that servile labor to any servant.
His eyes, black with faint purple glints, focused on the alchemy books he had acquired months earlier. He had never bothered to read a single word of that garbage; he possessed ancient knowledge that far surpassed anything a mediocre author could have imagined.
That was when he detected another anomaly. The volumes resting on the shelf were of a basic level.
He clearly remembered demanding advanced texts. He also remembered his mother’s reluctance and how she had tried to persuade him to choose something else—until he bent her will with a few brief words of pleading.
But now, those books had vanished. Another oddity added to the inventory in his mind. ‘Who has dared touch my things?’ he wondered with restrained fury.
An approaching presence pulled him from his thoughts: slow, confident footsteps. Seconds later, the door swung open. Wrath entered the room with insulting familiarity, not bothering to ask permission or announce himself.
“Selim, what are you doing?” The question echoed against the walls, leaving an uncomfortable silence behind it.
Pride maintained the façade, though he was certain there were no witnesses—no human eyes or indiscreet ears to justify the performance. Among monsters, masks were a waste of time.
“I was just tidying my room,” Pride replied without looking at him. “I wanted to make sure everything was in its proper place.”
Wrath nodded with a faint smile that the older homunculus found offensive.
“I just came to see how you were doing. I was a little worried when you left the office without saying goodbye, like you always do.”
Pride frowned. The dissonance between his brother and the specimen standing before him was becoming unbearable. He decided to throw out a direct hook to see if the structure of that pathetic lie would finally crack.
“Haven’t you grown tired of this already? It seems like a rather vulgar game,” Pride said.
The other man merely tilted his head with a confused expression, as if he truly had no idea what Pride meant.
“What are you talking about, Selim?”
So he intended to carry this farce to its bitter end. Fine. But Pride had no intention of lowering himself to participate in this circus any longer than necessary. Without another word, he turned his back and returned to his task, ignoring the man’s presence. After a tense silence, the Führer left the room.
A couple of hours passed, and under his mental supervision the room had reached an acceptable level of order. It was time for dinner, and Catherine personally asked him to come downstairs, but he had no desire to keep being Selim.
“I’m not hungry, Mom. But enjoy your meal.”
He expected the human to insist, as she always did, but to his surprise she stopped bothering him with unusual speed. ‘Wrath must have ordered her to leave me alone,’ he thought. At least that impostor served to keep unnecessary annoyances at bay. Just as she was about to close the door, he made one final request:
“By the way, do you think we could change the blue in my room to a different shade? I don’t like it anymore.”