XV. Revenant
-—He's only waiting for the right moment to strike...


It's interesting, he thinks, that the humans believe they got rid of him that easily.

He was weakened by Edward Elric's unexpected attack on his Stone, yes; he will admit that he did not expect the boy to understand that, to take advantage of one of his only weaknesses. But that doesn't make the human boy superior; on the contrary, it was foolish of him not to destroy his weak and helpless body while he had the chance.

He's aware—always, always aware—of what is going on around his container as it grows. He has no control over what happens to it, but he can feel himself growing stronger as the years go by; the boy controlling his movements (he truly believes his name is Selim Bradley) eats enough for two, and even if his original container never needed sustenance, it seems like this is something like the equivalent of a Stone to him, now.

(He still won't survive dying, though, which he cannot stand and swears to remedy at the nearest opportunity.)

Nobody seems to have any idea—"Selim" himself lives the life of a normal, happy, human child; his "mother" dotes on him just as she did Pride; the military checks up on them on occasion, but since Pride has no control over this container…

He's safe. For now.

He takes comfort in the fact that the Fullmetal Alchemist is long gone, back to whatever backwater town he originated from. He "learned" about the war in school…and even if much of the story is censored—the upper echelons of the military are labeled as the main culprits—he learns what happened in the aftermath. Fullmetal quit the military—went home with his brother (he feels frustrated and furious and useless when he sees a photo of the two of them several years later—Alphonse is strong and healthy in his body again while Pride is powerless in his)—which writes him out of the equation, if Pride ever must fight his way out of the city.

(Flame is steadily rising in the ranks, has recently become a general in Central, which is irritating but not impossible to get around. He is more annoyed at the fact that the man has regained his eyesight, rendering nearly useless Pride's sacrifice to get him to the Gate. Now, he is simply a more formidable alchemist without his need for arrays.)

But he's growing stronger and stronger and stronger and he knows that someday—someday soon—he will be powerful enough to take over this weakling's body. He has planned it for a decade and a half; the container is larger than he is used to but not unmanageable. He will eat people who will not be missed—the homeless and the poor and the lonely—and once he has amassed a sizeable Stone, he will strike.

Grumman—stupid man, far too old to be Fuhrer of such a prosperous country full of souls ripe for the taking—will be the first to fall. Flame will be next, as one of the most dangerous alchemists in the country…he knows how Lust and Envy both met their ends, and he would definitely prefer not to die in such a way.

(Of course, he doesn't prefer to die at all, and he won't, not when he's been planning for so long in the solitude of his own head. His Father's plans may have failed, but the country was ready to strike back; now, Van Hohenheim is dead, the Elrics are long gone, and everyone else expects Selim Bradley to be nothing more than a teenage boy with a curious birthmark on his forehead.)

But they're wrong. He is so much more.

He isn't strong enough yet but his power is growing, and it is only a matter of time before he can take control, can destroy this country for destroying his Father's carefully-laid plans. He failed in the past, but he won't make the same mistakes again; he will sit and wait and plot and grow, and soon he will be stronger than ever before.

Soon, Selim Bradley will be a name feared throughout the nations; it will be the name parents will whisper to their children at night, hoping and praying that he will not strike their lands next. But he is not merciful; he is a Homunculus, the last of his kind, and he will not rest until he has paid back the humans for all they have done in full.

He is Pride, the first and the deadliest of sins, and he will never be destroyed. The humans worship him, after all—take pride in their accomplishments, in their race and their fellows and their mere survival. Without pride, humans would be nothing.

But they will be nothing because of him as well.