The behemoth slowly opened his singular eye as he first came into existence. He had been born with a basic amount of intelligence, and instinctively would go to rub his hand over where his other eye logically would be, which had been covered over with a red ouroboros symbol. "My eye…" His first moment of being brought into this world was one of disappointment as he groaned.
Several other Homunculi had huddled around the makeshift operation table that had been constructed for the behemoth. They all looked far smaller than he did as he towered over them. His attention would first be drawn to a man wearing tacky sunglasses. "Sorry big guy, but our boss isn't the best designer." He turned away from the giant. "Why DID you cover up his eye? You made him a gigantic 10 foot tall freak with one functional eye who can never be seen in society. How is this a good idea?"
An elderly bearded man would respond. "Do not question your father, Greed. If you are so dense as to be incapable of figuring out why Sloth was designed in this way, there is no purpose in telling you."
Sloth would next hear a voice speak up that he could not find the source of. The voice was very obnoxious to Sloth and would annoy him from the second he heard it. "You say that like we need more homunculi roaming the streets. Our omniscient father did not make a mistake. Sloth was specifically designed to be hideous so that he can never betray us. Nobody but us will ever accept him."
Sloth would slowly prop up his upper torso to look at the speaker. He could not see him before because he was shorter than the operating table he had been laying on, a small child. Even for a child, however, he looked tiny to Sloth, like he was an infant baby. "Why are you all so small?" Sloth spoke.
Another scrawny looking male with countless strands of hair chuckled a bit. "You're a giant, buddy, over twice the size of a normal human. Regardless of how you were created, humans are your enemies for life now. They will never accept you and will try to have you killed on sight entirely for what you are. We are your only friends. I was created for the specific purpose of dealing with humans, and have to get up close and personal with them. You…You don't have to worry about any of that." The thin man turned to Father. "Am I right in that where he's going, he's not going to need to see much anyway?"
Father nodded. "You have correctly identified Sloth's role, Envy." Father then addressed his newest creation directly. "I am your Father and your creator. I am your master and you are only here because I will it. You are the embodiment of my slothfulness. Obey me, and you shall live an eternal life. Disobey me, and you shall perish."
Greed couldn't help but make a snide comment. "I suppose the fact he's so slothful means he's too lazy to rebel, right? I don't know why you keep putting the idea into his head. You've gotta be careful to not use reverse psychology." Greed was starting to wonder if the reason they had been so careful with Sloth was because of how volatile he personally had been acting recently. Greed was constantly questioning his value to this group as a whole, as he had not been made with any particularly thought out function. It seemed that Father had wised up after creating him, as Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth had all been made with extremely specific and thought out purposes.
The brat spoke up again. "Look at his functioning eye, it looks like Gluttony's. His mental ability is obviously very limited. I doubt the thought would ever occur to him."
Sloth grunted in annoyance. While he had not registered everything, this was far too direct of an insult for him to not acknowledge. "I am not dumb." He would glare at the child homunculus.
He was unsure how to respond and turned to Father. "Too S-M-A-R-T?" He spelled out the word like Sloth was a baby, assuming he did not understand the concept of letters.
Sloth identified what the boy had said, but did not fully grasp the meaning of why he had said it. "Smart…Yes, I am smart."
The child was getting seriously worried now. "Gluttony couldn't spell. Are you sure this is not a mistake?"
Father sighed. "Yes, Pride, it is not completely ideal. However, this is simple enough to fix."
Pride was getting excited. "Yes, Father, kill him and start over!"
Sloth scowled and turned to glare at Pride for a good couple of seconds. Suddenly and without any warning, he would go to swing his oversized arm towards Pride with breakneck speed, faster than anyone could even see what had happened. The child homunculus flew across the room and through a wall from the force of the punch. His body crackled with alchemic energy as his completely smashed in face would slowly regenerate.
Both Envy and Greed couldn't help but laugh at Pride's misfortune. Greed pat the gargantuan homunculus on the back. "Damn! You not only pack a wallop, but you're fast as hell too! It'd make sense you're the strongest homunculus when Father is so goddamn lazy."
Pride would quickly run back as fast as his tiny legs would carry him. "Our Father is NOT lazy! He has been speeding up homunculus production a lot in recent years! And how dare you attack me in such a way!"
Greed shrugged. "I mean, if taking 10 years to make a homunculus is fast, I'd hate to know what slow is. Oh wait, I do, because daddio took 100 years to make Lust." He cackled like a hyena.
Pride clenched his fists and raised up his shadows, ready to attack Greed and Sloth. Father put up a hand to tell Pride to stop. Despite what had happened and the direct insults from Greed, Father's expression remained neutral and uncaring, as always. "There is to be no fighting between us." He turned to Sloth. "If you attack your own in such a way again, I will have you boiled down into your stone essence and remake you into something entirely different, with no memories of this life." He turned to Pride. "Sloth is new and is not fully aware of our ways. It is foolish to threaten him like that in front of his face, especially after he has demonstrated basic cognitive abilities."
Pride was fuming at how uncaring Father was. He was usually Father's favorite child, and to see Father unmoving after he had been attacked angered him greatly. "What are we supposed to do to control him, exactly, might I ask?"
"He does not need to be controlled for the time being. His purpose does not come into play for another 20 to 30 years, at the very earliest." He turned to Sloth. "Your only command for the time being is to not leave this place unless given explicit permission. Understood?"
Sloth simply nodded in response. He was not exactly aware of the scope of the world in the first place, but there was no real reason to disobey him. If everyone else respected this elderly bearded man, he was probably powerful enough to make them respect him.
Greed did a beckoning gesture of his hand. "Oh come on, pops. 20 to 30 years with no task other than sitting around? What gives? With your slothfulness supposedly removed from your body now, can't we hurry your plan along a little? The philosopher's stones in our bodies are wasting away, and they don't grow on trees."
Pride would shake his fist at Greed. "Do not question our all knowing Father!"
Greed rolled his eyes before Envy decided to step in. "Look…I know Greed asks too many questions sometimes, but this is actually a pretty legitimate point. Father, why did you even make him so early if you're not using him for so long? That's 20 to 30 years of philosopher's stones used on NOTHING. What are you going to do, train him in combat?"
Father ignored his underlings for the time being. "There is no further purpose in talking about this." He turned back to Sloth. "Sloth, you are free to explore the sewer system and sleep as much as you see fit, but do not leave its outer limits, for any reason."
Envy chimed in. "Remember, if you do leave, the humans will kill you on sight."
Sloth groaned. "Yes, fine. No leaving." He would go to start walking through the sewage to familiarize himself with his new world.
Once Sloth had made some distance, Father would finally speak behind his back to the other homunculi. "You see, I want Sloth to live in this sewer with me for a considerable length of time. This will dull his senses and mean he has no concept of pleasure, recreation, or any other frivolous nonsense that will waste his time. By the time he gets to his true purpose, he will be little more than a machine to enact my will. He has a vital role to play in my plan."
Greed had finally begun to put one and two together from what he heard in the rest of the conversation. "Is he gonna dig that gigantic tunnel?"
Pride chuckled. "My, aren't you the observant one."
"This is an absolutely asinine idea. Entrusting a guy who is specifically lazy to build a gigantic tunnel around an entire nation? We'll have run out of souls long before then, he'll take so damn long! The guy is even burning more souls in the process! Can't you just use a bulldozer or something?!"
Father did not appreciate the amount of backtalk he was receiving. "We are not in any great rush to get this done, Greed. We will build the population of Amestris before all of its inhabitants are transmuted, to make a greater and fuller philosopher's stone. Everything is planned. The creation of the final homunculus will not take place for another 70 to 100 years. Until Wrath's creation, I would advise that you avoid invoking my own wrath." He said as sternly looking Greed in the eye.
Greed groaned. "Well, maybe losing your slothfulness will make you change your mind." He wasn't exactly hopeful. Talking to Father was like talking to a brick wall, his opinion would never change on anything.
Envy picked up from where Greed left off. "With all due respect Father, not all of us have enough stones to last that long. Are we really delaying the plan that far into the future?" He was also not a fan of this news, to say the least, but was considerably more respectful than his more rebellious brother.
"Obviously, other smaller scale operations can take place during this time. Ishval is the most direct candidate to use at some point. I have nearly a century to come up with a plan for it, there is no need to be concerned so deeply about the short term. Rest assured, I will not let any of my homunculi perish."
Greed chuckled nervously. "Just one last concern. You really think Sloth is never going to try to leave this place that smells of literal shit for that long? I know he's lazy, but he can't be THAT lazy, right?"
"Of course, yes, that is a part of his desensitization. Envy was on the right track with demonizing humans. We will allow Sloth to be captured at some point, then free him and bring him back to the sewer, while allowing the public to think that he has been euthanized. He needs to see how the humans will treat him firsthand, he cannot merely take our word for it forever."
Greed was definitely starting to feel sorry for Sloth, but it wasn't like he had much choice. Father would be outraged at him if he told Sloth any of this. More importantly for Greed's personal interests, it was apparently vital that this needlessly complex plan worked. Without Father, there was no way Greed could make enough philosopher's stones to live on his own. Begrudgingly, he decided to stick to the plan for the time being.
