Selim Bradley smiled sweetly as he waved to a pair of passing officers.
His mother stood beside him, hand gently resting on his shoulder. "Such a good boy," she said fondly. "Always so polite."
Selim bowed his head, hiding his eyes.
In them, something dark flickered.
Pride watched the world through human eyes, but he was no child.
He had lived through empires. Seen kings rise and fall. Killed without moving. He had always understood himself as Father's first creation, the most complete. The shadow that kept the rest in line.
But lately, the air felt… wrong.
A presence had entered Amestris. It was soft, patient, dangerous in its restraint.
Pride could feel it moving beneath the stone and steam — not trying to dominate, but observe. It disgusted him.
Gods did not watch.
They ruled.
Aeon stood on a rooftop in Central, cloak damp with rain, eyes fixed on the building across the square.
Within it, the young boy — no, the thing posing as a boy — sat drawing with crayons. Lines curved in circular patterns. Eyes. Runes. Hunger hidden under wax.
Pride.
Aeon had felt his presence stir before, but now the weight of it pressed against the city like fog before a thunderstorm.
Pride was more than a creation.
He was a fragment.
Aeon's fragment.
Pride mirrored the cold ambition Aeon had once embraced. The certainty. The unshakable belief in superiority — not as vanity, but as destiny.
Aeon stared longer than he meant to.
Pride noticed.
Selim looked up, eyes glowing briefly violet as they narrowed.
Across the city, Aeon stepped back from the edge of the rooftop.
He wouldn't be able to hide much longer.
Alphonse Elric dreamed again.
This time, the tree was gone. In its place stood a door. White. Familiar. The Gate.
But behind it, he heard a voice. Not Truth. Not Aeon.
Pride.
"You were never meant to be real," it whispered. "You're just what he remembers. You're the spark he couldn't bury."
Alphonse reached for the door — but it didn't open.
Not yet.
The next day, Edward, Alphonse, and Mustang met privately.
They were assembling pieces — of military conspiracy, of Philosopher's Stones, of whispers in the dark.
Mustang looked tired, but focused.
He laid a report on the table. "There's someone watching us. Higher up. A child."
Alphonse stiffened. "You mean Selim?"
"He's not a child," Mustang said quietly. "Not in the way that matters."
Edward frowned. "You think he's connected to Father?"
"I think," Mustang said, "that if we wait any longer, he'll make the first move."
That night, Aeon walked along a narrow canal path in the outskirts of Central.
He passed a child standing beneath a flickering streetlamp.
Selim.
Only now, he didn't smile.
"You know what I am," he said, too softly for human ears.
"Yes," Aeon replied.
"Then why haven't you stopped me?"
Aeon's expression didn't change. "Because I haven't decided if you're worth saving."
For a heartbeat, the silence between them became heavy.
Then Selim laughed — an innocent, playful sound that curdled in the dark.
"You're just like I was," he said. "You haven't changed at all."
Aeon said nothing.
And Pride vanished into shadow.