A man covered in Burns approached the Lord's building in Kaledonia, He walked to the door, placed something in front of it and simply left.
The next morning Lord Gideon, found a small familiar pocket watch on his door step; upon picking it up and examining it he recognized it as the fathers, shortly after he opened it. There was a bright flash of light and the watch disappeared like it was never there.
It is said that evening, everyone for miles had the same dreams
A bald child played in a world of metal, a world where she didn't devour all she touched, a world where Prometheus could visit, and even the strange man who saved her "Barak" could visit... but why did Pa-Pa never visit... where was Pa-Pa?
* * * * *
The evening of the final battle with Icarus
Heimdell looked at what was once his map of probability, none of it made sense to him any more, the town had changed so much, broken the laws of probability so many times, Maybe it was truly possible for them to save everyone, maybe not and they would lose all of them. He smiled; they even swayed him, that impossible town.
There was a knock on the door, and Gilgamesh entered “Father it is time to leave soon we need to prepare the cannons”
Heimdell looked up from his papers. “Go on ahead… oh and Gil, Will you do me a favor? Stick close to Eden for the rest of the evening”
Gilgamesh looked at his Father confused, the nickname was a new development, and he was unsure why Eden of all people would need his protection, he nodded and closed the door behind him.
A door slams leaving Alexander Heimdell, “The Father,” sitting alone at his dining room table, designed to seat nine, now he sits at its head alone. He sets a small stone on the table, it sits absorbing the words he speaks, holding them for you to hear one day.
“Forgive me for what I have done, I have never been a man of faith, but if I believed the gods strong enough to stop her, I would pray to them with everything I have. She has become too strong, too smart, too ambitious for her own good, and too hungry to stop. I know this is my fault, I brought them into this world, I brought HER into this world, yet they were never meant to be part of this experiment… No, this war I started, my perfect children were designed to be my legacy, the one part of good I left behind, even her… I’ve known for months how to end this, how to save their lives, and my own, yet I couldn’t bring myself to do it, I can not kill my own daughter… I will give you the information, and the tools to destroy a homunculus of such power, what you do with it, what you do from there… it is entirely up to you, But if I could ask a favor of you… save them, save my children… Save my daughter”
Heimdell took the stone absorbing his voice and placed it in his pocket watch, in the slot that once held temporal energies of immeasurable power He placed his watch in his pocket and ran to his library, he hadn't much time. He quickly began stuffing notes and pages into old tomes and journals, quickly handing them off to flawed creations that would float below Edens radar, whispering times and dates to drop them off with Travance. “These scholars notes should help them in their encounters with Eden… or at least help them think of a plan”
Before leaving for the Battle he thought one last time of his memory of the future… He smiled “I tricked her”
* * * * *
Eden slipped into a bath in her new home. It would take a long time to wash the stink of the memory of humanity off of her.
It started the Friday before the fight with her little sister, Icarus. Grim came to her and assigned her a protection unit. The humiliation of having humans assigned to her wasn't the worst of it- it was that, in the end, she knew it wasn't completely superfluous. Just like any and all of the others, she was at risk of being absorbed by Icarus. She was, for the second time in her life, vulnerable, and in need of a mortal for protection. During their patrol, she ran into Gilgamesh, accompanied by Brigitta and the Blood Spirits. Brigitta kept insisting on feeding Eden chocolate. Not only was this still not food, but confections meant for children. She couldn't wrap her head around this town's obsession with getting her to eat sweets. She did however manage to find towns members who would happily teach her, after some convincing. Laughably the one who agreed to teach her healing started the lesson with “Empathy” This was obviously a ploy to bring her to “the light”, yet all it did was make it so she could feel the pain and emotions of others, she'd know if her manipulations were successful. What a practical tool indeed. Eventually the hour grew late, and so Eden found a place in which to rest. She knew what the next day would bring.
Eden was wrong about that assumption. It was sometime that day that Heimdell approached his first Perfect child. He sat her down, and told her that he would be surrendering to the town. Incredulous, Eden asked what this meant for her family. He told her he wanted her and Gilgamesh to go to the Homunculus city Valius formed; the one where he was king. It was the last straw. She needed them both alive and healthy to face the threat of Icarus, but the moment they were done, they would be DONE.
The battle with Icarus loomed. She would man the overheating machine with Valius that would prevent her sister from summoning astral spheres. She stood at the head of the town, and Heimdell turned to her. "I love you, my daughter," he said in a loud, clear, calm voice. Eden didn't turn to look at him. She'd made up her mind. Wistfully, she remembered her talks with Lois at the ball. Maybe if they had only actually put Heimdell away back then, she wouldn't be in this situation now. Still, there was no other option. She had to do it. After the fight, she'd make an example out of Valius, and then fix Heimdell, permanently.
The fight went as planned, but the aftermath did not. Godric saw the malicious intent in her heart, and he and several others, including Annora, protected Valius as Eden attempted to rip his heart from his chest. Defeated and humiliated, Heimdell dragged her off back to the Island, Gilgamesh following behind. She and Gilgamesh wouldn't stay there long. Interlopers came along with Heimdell, and he surrendered to those lords of Travance. He gave Eden the Island, and she told them all to leave. She and her brother followed close behind. The arrived at the steps to the Inn, and she forced her enemies to the ground with dark energy. Then, she attacked Heimdell, putting her hand through his skull and removing his power, his memories, everything that made him, him. He slumped to the ground, and she looked at him, full of malevolence. "Goodbye, 'FATHER!'" She bellowed as she and Gilgamesh recalled to her island, leaving Heimdell catatonic, leaving him just enough of his memories, to know how broken he truly was. A crowd of distraught onlookers formed to clean up her mess. She thought she could almost hear her sister Lilith scream as she faded back into her lab.
It wasn't long after she returned to her new island that Eden realized she'd been tricked, the old man had members of the town remove the knowledge of the creation of “Perfect homunculus” from his mind, and he had devoured something that poisoned him trapping him exactly where he was in the multiverse. Quiet fury boiled inside her when, suddenly, she began to laugh. It started as a chuckle, and burst into a thing of violence. She had to give it to the old man. It was a clever tactic. Hell, it was something she would do. Maybe, she thought, the apple doesn't fall that far after all.
* * * * *
Present day
A man sat in a chair in a dark lab, drool dripped from his mouth, his eyes unable to focus, a bouquet of black roses left at his feet, Just enough of his mind left to remember what he was, and recognize what he is now. Eden had not killed the smartest man in the world, she broke him. Yet even still the man began to giggle at that though laughing as a child would. In a simple voice the man spoke out to the darkness “I tricked you…”
