Stand Up and Walk

A New Pawn

"Can't focus; my body is still puzzled about what to do. I'm trembling; I can't stop even if I try to control myself. Although neither sun nor moon are on my side, I've got no choice but to try... Those were the words I muttered to myself. The odds aren't on my side, but running away would be weakness. Even if I can't see the future, I'll just have to win it over with courage. I need to keep distance from the targets as I hold myself back. All that's needed for victory is pride to win! Will we celebrate with the wine of victory? Or will we end up kissing their feet in defeat? There are two outcomes to everything... I want to control destiny! I need to seize this golden opportunity with my hands! I'll finish it up with my best poker face, and drag them into a world of illusions. I'll find my way out of this endless pressure game, and leap over the borderline of honor. How many? What will I need to sacrifice to make it happen? What's the one thing I don't want to let go of?"

—Sukima Switch, Golden Time Lover

※※※

Al follows Gluttony down the secret tunnels that run below Central. His metal footsteps bounce around the metal tube, the sound reverberating unnervingly.

He'd been reluctant to follow the homunculus, of course, but the fat creature had said something about a "Father" who was supposed to be really smart and had promised to show Al the way, so here he was.

Xiao Mei clings to his helmet, the pint-sized panda quaking nervously in the damp dimness. Gluttony spreads his arms, speaking animatedly in short, staggered sentences. "Father can make anything!" he boasts proudly. "He made all of us, he did! He made me, and he made Lust, and he made Envy, too!"

Al remains silent, becoming more and more nervous the closer that he gets to the man known as "Father". He can feel a strange sort of heaviness in the air, and it makes him uneasy.

He imagines how powerful the man must be, to have created these homunculi, and he doesn't like the thought.

...But if anybody knows how to get Echo and his brother out of the blubbery boy before him, it's probably going to be the man that made him.

And so he presses on in the dank, musty tunnel, imagining his non-existent stomach churning.

※※※

Gluttony swings open the huge double-doors at the end of the long series of tunnels, and light swathes into the darkness inside. Al can only make out some of the shapes in the darkness; he sees a mass of pipes and wires spreading out across the floor like a virus, leading toward a massive throne in the center of the room. Along the far wall is a set of stairs, which leads to another level high above.

The metal walls and stark white marble floor let out an energy so cold that Al can practically feel himself shivering, even without a body. The rest of the room is largely undecorated, save for the pipes and wires everywhere. They run upward from the floor; some of them crawl up along the walls, others rise straight from floor to ceiling in odd, seemingly random locations.

Something about the room feels wrong, Al thinks to himself absently. It seems to warp and twist at the edges of his vision, a faint pulsing running through the air that he can feel in his bonded soul; the whole room seems to be a product of some sort of twisted alchemy.

As Gluttony walks confidently toward the empty throne in the darkness, Al follows behind him slowly, his sense of unease growing more and more with each step he takes. He glances around the room, trying to memorize this place so that he can tell Ed and Echo about it when he figures out how to get them back.

Suddenly, Gluttony raises both pudgy hands above his head, waving them through the air eagerly. "Hello, Father!" he shouts, and Al can hear hear footsteps on the stairs above him. "I brought you a human sacrifice!"