Schwartz, Aurelius Carston

[Aurelius Schwartz]

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CASE FILE: Chimera/Bearer/RIOTE Militant

It's a revolution I suppose.
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       FULL NAME:
       → Aurelius Carston Schwartz
       → A43L71

       AGE:
       → 24 25 26 27 » 24 25

      SEX:
       → Male

       BIRTH PLACE:
       → Central City, Amestris

       RACE/SPECIES:
       → Amestrian
       → Chupacabra

       GENERATION:
       → Five

       DATE OF BIRTH:
       → Friday December 13, 1985 » 1891

       ...........................................................................

       HEIGHT:
       → 6'3"

       WEIGHT:
       → 173 lbs.

       PICTURE:
       →

Spoiler:

      DESCRIPTION:
       → Black trench coats to leather windbreakers, Aurel always wears dark colors. He dresses sharply, typically inducing a regal aura. He doesn’t always dress up, but hovers in the center between casual and businesslike. Regardless of what he wears, he can pull it off and still be his menacing self. Aurel’s seriousness goes a long way, but his black tie is always loose around his neck. He owns too many suits and does partake in wearing them, yet he prefers a simply white dress shirt and leather pants. His style is minute, standoffish, and very quiet compared to most people since Aurel usually intends to avoid detection, vanishing into the crowd he despises so much. On his hands, he wears black gloves most of the time, and it’s not because he’s afraid of dirt. The gloves are a step away from physical contact, preventing him from truly feeling things and from touching skin when shaking hands. He isn’t frightened by shedding light to his hands, but rather Aurel doesn’t necessarily enjoy exposing himself to too many things. That is another reason why he loves hoods and long sleeves. In all actuality, he will rarely wear anything but long sleeves even in the hottest of temperatures. Shorts are completely out of the question.

The first thing one would notice about Aurelius is his mismatched eyes. While the left is blue, his right is red, contrasting constantly with one another. It’s hard to look at him sometimes without getting lost in his unbalanced gaze. His eyes are most always slanted into examination, hooded with internal thought that the onlooker cannot begin to fathom. Aurel is wreathed in mystery, his eyes no different, vicious if anything but all-knowing. Next, is his strange hair style. Having gone through a time when his hair was never cut to a time when it was cropped short, now, Aurel wears in somewhere stuck in between. In the front his hair is fairly short, falling down around his face inches below his chin. Though his hair is parted down the middle, an unruly coupling of strands hang shorter like a spike of bangs between his eyes. Toward the back, his hair reaches far down to his tailbone. His hair is a raven black, shining nothing but darkness even in sunlight.

When he speaks, it is a trill none can not listen to. Velvet smooth, he coos his manipulation straight into the souls of his listeners, breaching them directly. He does not hesitate and never stutters; Aurel is that which is never broken. But sometimes—rarely emotion will slither its way into his deep tones, coming out from behind the veil only around those he trusts. His speech is never halting, but moves just hastily enough to be comprehended. His word is law; his voice offering no other options.

He stands tall, walks briskly, never pauses long before an obstacle, and tends to spend long hours pouring over plans in the dark. His movements are hardly human, wasting not a twitch of a muscle on anything that doesn’t warrant his time. However, Aurel takes things slowly, never blindly rushing into anything. Everything is always a carefully constructed plan; breathing has a schedule to stick by. All for the purpose—the livelihood of his master plan.  

       ...........................................................................

       PERSONALITY:
       → Everything happens in light of Aurel’s master plan; however, that by all means does not imply he is either great or all-powerful. In fact, the man himself hardly ever dwells on the idea, too focused on just the results. How something is done does not concern him, but rather what comes at the end of the road and how it benefits the conclusion. To him, the conclusion is all that matters. Who cries, gets killed, sacrifices themself, etc. on the way is of no concern to him. In a way, he can come off completely heartless: the kind of man that most people want to steer clear off. But that is something Aurel wants; he doesn’t like the normalcy of everyday life—the mundane attributes of recurring people. Nor does he fancy society both as a generalization as well as the people that make it up. Walking outside jars his makeup, fiddles with the inner psyche of his thoughts, thrusting him out of his element. People call it ‘the real world’, but all Aurel sees when he looks outside is a fake construction—a façade of peace. Humans live in bubbles, protected by pieces of paper and uniforms—nothing of the sort holds any worth, yet are still able to be addendumed as gods. He hates it, and every day since he learned the true meaning of freedom, Aurelius has wanted to erase it, recreating the seams by way of destruction.

He grew up knowing nothing about the world, never thinking of himself as a separate entity from anyone else. His pet chupacabra, Carston, looked different than him, but it was as if the entire time he had already expected to be one with the animal—as if they had never lived apart. Aurel never expanded his thoughts on the woman that had raised him nor on the men that held him in a tank for six years, but what he gathered was that it all happened for a reason from the day that his birth mother abandoned him to the gunshot that killed Stephona. He felt no hatred towards the curiosity of humans since that was essentially what defined them and Aurel was very aware that templates were permanent.

Before his master plan was concocted or any inkling of an idea, his life was floundering around in unpresumed darkness. That first day he met with freedom, Aurel saw two people die: one who had rescued him from captivity (Stephona) and one who had tried to kill him. Death became something real as did sympathy towards someone in need. Evelyn killed that man—the man who somehow knew him—the man Aurel only later found out was actually a soldier sent back in time, surviving to the day of his release and finding him there in that barn. Before he even knew it, this man’s woeful words were his inspiration, ultimately leading to the dismantling of that soldier’s life. He gave him the idea.. It was an idea that not only prevented him from taking lives, but saved him…from himself. The man who tried to kill him essentially steered him from suicide.  

Aurel once hated himself, though it can be argued that he still does. In his childhood, he not only threw himself in front of a train, but stabbed out his own right eye. It was that lack of red that baffled the soldier from the future into raving about how different he had looked with two blue eyes. His suicidal tendencies came from his exposure to his own alchemy: the black hole which triggered amnesia. When he recovered those memories, found out he wasn’t human, and that he had been the one to send Father into that time, Aurel lost it. Recovering so much in such a short time overwhelmed him, changed his perception, and made him realize suddenly that cellphones didn’t have chords, that the streets weren’t cobblestone, that computers were the human hive mind. The bustling of life, the sounds of people walking, the shuffling of voices, the touch of another hand, the fake smiles, the averted eyes, the faraway resonance of the buried being trampled by rubber ignorance all came at once, his brain rewiring completely in seconds. That was why when the next train came, Aurel stood behind the yellow line to meet it—stepped outside the planted rules abided by the blind. And when the train hit him, he knew that was where he belonged—that only in death could he find peace.

However, he survived to live another day, learning an essential tool now frequently worshipped in his master plan; Aurel acquired the ability to mask his true emotions. He was able to lie, shedding a smile like a used tissue, casting it away into the trash for the feeble humans that dared care to riddle through. He could then step around their distracted minds, veiling the true meaning behind that smile. With this, he found himself in front of a mirror, staring into the void of himself that somehow transcended time. He questioned that reflection, lingering on the idea that that person too blinked when he did. Even when he shattered the mirror, it still looked the same. When he stabbed himself in the eye, it wasn’t with a fragment of who he was, but simply with the image of what everyone else observed. It wasn’t him. Blood oozed down his cheek the pain so great he could hardly think past the strangled laughter, but there was something in all of this. Stabbing himself wasn’t death, jumping in front of a train hadn’t killed him; this—this was only an experiment. How fragile was life—how quickly could it cease? Aurel hardly understood the shattered pieces of his own mind—had overlooked the cracks caused by losing so much time. When he saw Hild do the same to herself as he had done to his eye—when he observed, Aurel didn’t feel guilt; he felt relief. Finally, their eyes were open.

The pity wafting off of Hild was the same pity which set him free—prevalent in Stephona’s expression every time she saw him. He didn’t hate pity; he accepted it, for he knew that he deserved it. Instead of casting him into a freedom he had already maintained, Hild’s pity gave Aurel back his aspiration. In quiet words, she spoke of rising to the top of the Amestrian government, seeking peace. It wasn’t his own dream, but it would lead him back to the rusty Gate, where his work remained unfinished. In his position now, it wouldn’t be too long before Father was discovered to be the homunculus; it was only a matter of time before he sought to absorb God again. Aurel was sure he’d seek revenge. And when he did, they would try to kill him again. If they succeeded, the balance would fall to ruin, alchemy would cease to exist, wars would be wrought by boredom, and the human race would destroy itself. It wasn’t the right way. In the past when Aurel witnessed the near destruction of Father, he acted quickly—on a whim, without a plan. From that moment on, the master plan began to slowly formulate itself, growing further as he moved on.

Hild was his step-sister, a girl he had known for only a short time—a girl he had shared a dream with, whom he promised he’d grant. Aurel is a man of seemingly miracles, doing the impossible by just the power of his own strategic mind. A terrorist at heart, he bears not the title, but is given it by those who do not understand his intentions. Though people die—though many things are destroyed, from that destruction, comes the beginning. A new start to an old world. Not much had changed except technology like a cavity rotting teeth—something too sweet, turning out the lights on reality. Erase the yin-yang, rewrite the very act of rewriting, transform the chemical imbalance into something usable, adapt. From those thoughts, from the utilization of Father’s power existent in the future now, and from the transition of his eye blue to red, Aurel chose to live and RIOTE was thus borne.

Although Aurel doesn’t necessarily desire his own death, he still hates himself—still writhes upon thinking even remotely about himself in relation to anything else. His concept of family is skewed, his perceptions of certain intimate things are cloudy, and he veers away from contact with most people. He is monotone, analytical, and beyond conversation-able to a point at which talking to him will drive one into a corner. His mind is always on overdrive, his awareness always stretched, and Aurel will look someone in the eye yet see not the color, but their very thoughts. He cannot read people until they speak, his forte resilient in words. He is troubled by everyday behavior, but tries his best to blend into the flow when he must; however, Aurel will do everything in his power to avoid encountering society or going out into the fray of everyday life. At all costs he avoids it, but he himself is oblivious that he is doing so. That is why he also never hesitates.

There are a seldom few people in his life that Aurel is capable of conversing with normally, sounding somewhat human with them. He cherishes these people, yet struggles to hold them at arm’s length when around others he doesn’t trust. He even gives in occasionally to the basic human need of affection, admitting it openly and being extremely forward. When he falls low enough to do so, Aurel can be as open as a book, finding it hardly worth the effort to try and hide things when he already knows they’d find out simply from being around him. He is the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve, but Aurel’s emotions can hardly be called that. They are more like discreet shifts in stoic monotone. Aurel doesn’t get angry, he doesn’t feel sorrow, he doesn’t feel remorse; in fact, Aurel is so detached from himself that his life is something he feels he can easily throw away. That is why sometimes, when overwhelmed by too much emotion or commotion he cannot handle, he will slip and pull the trigger aimed at himself.                    

At the same time, Aurel holds life as something valuable—some irreplaceable miracle, a mistake without choice. Therefore, despite the path he has constructed, Aurel has never killed anyone. Some may say that he just doesn’t want to dirty his own hands, but that is hardly true. In fact, Aurel views himself as a vile beast—something so far from human that he is lost. But Aurel was already deprived of his humanity a long time ago.

Because Aurel was never fully human to begin with.

Aurel tries every day to look past the monster. As a chimera, he isn’t even combined with a normal animal; he's combined with a myth—a legend—a falsity that shouldn't be. It was an animal whose existence itself already seemed pained: a creature without fur that must break through fences to survive, running from the shadows of discovery. Sometimes Aurel wondered if that was the reason for this hatred of himself. For that, occasionally he found himself envious of humans, surrounded by immortals, stuck eternally in the stagnant purgatory of live and death. His thoughts are the transversal of a chess board, misinformed miscreants lingering about his method, speaking self-indulgently of him as if he were a black King without misanthropic ways. What folly, straying so avidly from the board that the pieces and players have become black and white chess. Have they forgotten about the grey? Have they ventured so far from the truth as to constrict themselves with the rules of a simple game? To manipulate and control pawns--to scavenge the board for another player's pieces was child's play. Why not raise one's eyes from scrounging the board and see what beholds the other player's gaze? Win—to simply win holds no meaning, but the process of it. This process determines a personality: offense, defense, sacrifice, gain, pawning, reigning is all the same strategy, leading to a single vantage point. Victory is for the selfish, a place where a King, Queenless or not, can swing a velvet robe over his shoulders and hold his hands out before an empty world filled with buried coffins. He then laughs throatily, boasting his skill to the sky because there is no longer anyone left to listen. That is chess: a useless vial creation, suggesting that two halves sit and talk silently over a conflict that cannot be solved.

Chess is limited to the board—limited to four points drawn together in what geometry calls a square. A square suggests a box; a box has boundaries, unbreachable by rules pulled taught for the precise purpose of making one think harder to overcome the other. It is a useless scheme used to over think, forcing one's hand to do what one would never do otherwise. Armies are disposal men, yes, but they are men all the same. Men are not wooden painted pieces—plastic sculpted symbols of royalty; they are flesh and blood, consciousness, and the ability...to play their own game of chess if they so chose. Real life and such a game—such a daring insensitively—is incomparable to reality. Those partaking in the comparison of such have lost touch with the weight of every action, every pinprick of decision—have fallen out of the grace of seeing every detail of the puppet, the string, the puppeteer, and the stage as just that: a stage. There comes a time when the game ends—when the audience leaves the hall and ventures back out into the world accomplished or unaccomplished. That—that is when the victor is truly determined.

       LOVE:
       → Peace, Indifference, Pawns, Blood, Destruction, War, Chaos, Death, Darkness, Quiet, Being alone, Sleeping, Dreaming, Plotting, Planning, The color black, Black holes, Expensive clothing, Cologne, Money, Buying things for people, Exploring, Soba noodles, Wine, Pineapple juice, Funnel Cake without the powdered sugar, Salt, Spaghetti, Meat, Cats, Chimerae, Movies, Candles, Being amused, Drachma, Philosopher's Stones, Bearers, Reading, Being asked questions, Asking questions in response to questions, Being mysterious, Contemplating things, Learning something new, Old things, Painkillers, Functioning normally, Vanity, Nyx, Texting, Locus',      

       HATE:
       → Chess, People who love chess, Cars, Disposable things, Wasting time, Idiots, Liars, Playing stupid, Society, Humans, Murderers/Killers, Alchemists, Alchemy, Alkahestrists, Alkahestry, Needless death, Old people, Light, Color, Sunlight, Being cold, Being hot, Family, Emotion, Showing emotion, Not being able to kill himself, Pain, Headaches, Making people cry, When plans go astray, The Gate, The World, Balance, Television, Sweet things, Soda, Cheap things, Music, Being laughed at, Being made fun of, Jokes, Technology, Escalators, Elevators, Computers, Counting, Clap-on lights, Police sirens, Alarms, Helicopters, Mechanical noises,    

       DEEPEST SECRET:
       → That he came from the past.

      IDOL:
       → Death. » No one.

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       HISTORY:
       →  How did the great Aurelius Carston Schwarz come to be, you ask? Well, such a thing is simple to explain. He came to be just as any other human came to be, only, his mother couldn’t raise him. In the hospital where she gave birth to him, Central City Hospital, she put him up for adoption without even a name. As a baby behind glass, he could only reach up to the ceiling and cry, having no idea that he would never see her again and no ability of recollection in order to remember even what she looked like. From an outside perspective, it is such a painful thing for a human to accept, but to Aurel, it was only his first day in existence.

Some time later, when he was grown enough to be sent off to a home, a woman came in. She toured around with scrutinizing eyes at all the babies behind glass. Abandoned, rejected souls that she yearned to squeeze into a mish-mash of human and monster—a pain so great that she felt her stomach flip just imagining it. Human transmutation using live bait. Bait though…was an understatement. She had to pick the right one and she had to fit the image of the ideal mother in order to do so. It was a process, a long, legal process that would only later lead to illegal experiments and the resentful looks of society. She stopped at the case of an unnamed baby who lay silent as the grave, reaching mindlessly up into its own void of non-memory. She chose that one, and that choice was the rebirth of a child she thus named Aurelius.

He grew up in a lab, all the while the woman knowing he would remember nothing until the age of three to five. It was an extended procedure, she knew, but what was left of her life was already dedicated to the pursuit of science just like her beloved Shou Tucker whom had, in more than one occasion, kept her company at night. In her own studies, it was key to perform the act of human transmutation when the child was still that: a child. If he were to grow up past a certain point, the creature would not assimilate well into his body. At this point in the rather short-lived history of chimerae, she was quite malformed with the many different generations of them. But that didn't matter, for it was such that she believed all of them to be…failures. With this experiment, she hoped to hit a turning point in the age of the chimera and create the generation to stand above all other previous generations! She would do it—she would hone it and laugh at the majesty that is her creation! All over Amestris secret laboratories like her own were springing up, people of all types thinking they could master what she was about to… But she would be victorious and stand alone with her self-made trophy only to send her boy—her boy out into the world to be discovered by those dogs—those dogs of the state. AHAHAHA and wouldn’t they be surprised!?

She raised him with knowledge, cramming everything she could into his developing mind that she fed chemicals to in order to become genius level. It weighed less than the typical human brain, but was much larger in size. She writhed with pleasure at the discovery and continued to mutilate his wishes with more and more information. By the time Aurel was four years old, she steeled herself for the act. He had no idea and she loved that childish ignorance and trust. Yes, honey all other children live like this too. All she had to do was turn on the radio and set up a chair to get him to stay still for hours and hours on end. His ‘pet’ whom he had named Carston wasn’t even what he thought it was. He called it a ‘doggy’, but it wasn’t that at all. Carston himself was a monster of natural selection—a species of animal that was mixed beyond repair and dying out among the slanting shadows of humans. He was a chupacabra—the ‘goat-sucker’, found in places like Creta, Drachma, and even Esparia. It resembled that of a coyote suffering from a severe case of mange, a rat, and a kangaroo. Strange species slammed into one, but not the result of alchemy. How she obtained one was not her jurisdiction, but an agent had told her they tracked it for years before catching a live one: skittish creatures, fearful and hateful of humans. It made her thirst to see it combined with one—Aurelius!

When the circle was complete, she alone prepared to do the transmutation. Hovering about the circle, her eyes were nearly glowing with inhumane energy. Carston was freed from his cage and he scurried towards the chair where Aurel turned to look at him and wave. That was the last thing the woman—the mother—the chimera junkie ever saw, for the room filled with vicious light and the force of her transmutation threw her back against the wall where equipment pierced her lungs and she died instantly, extorting but only a sickening gurgle. Motherless, alone, the human was pulled towards the chupacabra and was absorbed into him, thus being the first successful attempt at a generation five chimera. Nothing more, nothing less.

The next time he awoke, it was six years later. His name was A43L71 and he was suspended in a tank filled with a strange liquid he was breathing in. His immediate reaction was to believe he was drowning, coughing, flailing and pulling fervently at the thick, garish chains confining his wrists. Crisscrossed against his chest, the cold metal sent shivers throughout his entire being until he realized that he had no idea who this being was. A mask was over his face, which he barely recognized as a mask rather than an extension of his body. When he licked the inside with his tongue and didn’t feel it, he came to that conclusion. Vague memories swam to the surface, images of what humans looked like with faces, noses, eyes… his own shadowy, childlike reflection in the mirror—the brush of a look from a mother that birthed him… Tubes fed into this head, pricks of slight pain and fuzzy recollection. He saw wavy faces peering in at him through the glass and then frantic movements for papers. Muffled yells of names to call other people to him, and suddenly the liquid was draining. He heard a voice, speaking a language called Amestrian. How he knew such things—how he knew so much was one thing he did not know. The voice told him that it would hurt, but it confused him. It said his lungs had been filled with a special liquid for six years. ...Wait, six years? He didn’t understand this concept of time, but his memory banks concluded that it was certainly a long span of time. His head reached the surface—air—and he hopelessly threw himself into the act of inhaling, but nothing happened. His whole body hitched, his heart skipped beats, and he thought he was dying until the mask was detached and green water poured from his mouth and nose. He choked, sputtering much like a fish thrown onto the shore. He was rolling in sand, flipping from adaptation, and gasping for breath that was so sharp tears sprung into his eyes and also leaked down his face.

Men were about him now, suited and looking extremely serious. What could they expect from a monster child left behind by a chimera fanatic? The room was wobbly as they dried him off, speaking to him without words and only indications of things like a blow dryer. When the chains were removed for lack of aggression on his end, he felt his mouth forming the words his mind had chosen. “Who am I?” He knew it was a typical, pathetic, clichéd question, but what were clichés if not to be used? He was told that his name was Aurelius Carston as said on his birth certificate. His birth mother was alive somewhere, but had given him up for adoption. A woman then adopted him and crossed him with a chupacabra. The men all exchanged glances. Aurel’s mind grew clearer, catching onto that being a bad thing. He frowned. The men all shrugged, implying that they had no idea what it was. Aurel remembered, but chose to say nothing due to the current situation being a mystery to him.

They kept him in observed captivity for a year. During that time, he was not only constantly tested on, but not allowed to go outside. He found out later that what was done to him was a forbidden act—that he was a monster in the view of normal society. He could drink blood and it made him stronger. He had fangs and quick reflects that outwitted even the best athletes they brought in. ...He could tell the people there were afraid of him. At that rate, he was sure that he would live the rest of his life like that. But then what was the point of life at all?

He met a woman named Stephona one day. She was new, not attractive by standards he learned to recognize, but very kind. She told him stories and tried to entertain him when all the others left for the night. One time she asked him why he tried to break out all the time, but he countered with the question of why she bothered to stay behind when everyone else turned in. She said it was because she felt pity. …Pity? The word brought negative connotations, making him feel almost sick, and yet? Maybe that was what he had needed; someone to care. No, what he needed was to be freed from this cage. He wasn’t an animal! Aurel knew better—he knew! He told her this and she nodded solemnly.

A few months transpired with the same blank, murderous routine that slowly drove Aurel to insanity. He was becoming an animal, snapping at people, growling, refusing to eat. All this, of course, was recorded in a study by these heartless people that had no idea what it was like having freedom stripped away from day one. He didn't even know what it was like aside from the glimpses on the radio.

That night, Stephona came in when everyone had left once more. She whispered in his ear, which almost came as too loud for him. What she gave him was a plan—a perfect plan to escape together. She said she would take responsibility and take care of him—help him adjust to the real world outside. He agreed unconditionally, so thankful he could only stare at her in awe. She reached down to yank on his untamed hair, unlatching a bracelet from her wrist and clipping it on his own. Along the stainless steel chain was a small clock, ticking soundlessly though he could hear the gears turning. He winged around and blinked questionably. “To tell the time,” she replied. He never took it off.

The next three days in waiting he was as mellow and bright-minded as a kitten flopped over in sunshine. The observers had no idea what had brought on the sudden change in him until the day came. In broad daylight, Stephona snatched his birth certificate and handed it to him. Nonchalantly, they waltzed out of the room Aurel had spent 80% of his days in. When asked why, she simply stated that he didn’t feel well at all. In accordance to his behavior, they believed it completely. The rest was a breeze, navigating the hallways, going down stairs. Aurel was having so much fun that he barely noticed when they were being followed. Outside, they reached it!! Cool wind in his hair, the touch of a world he had never known. A loud bang suddenly pricked his eardrums, reverberating in his head again and again as he turned to see the first person die he had ever— Flashes of vague memories leaked into his consciousness: a woman thrown back into the wall—blood, blood, coming from him, flowing from her. A scream—his own—then blackness. The blackness crept at his vision now, dotting the corners as he looked on at the body of Stephona. ”Run,” she mouthed. Off, he took, running like he had never run before. And he was chased. Up until the sunset did he hear footsteps racing after him. Birth certificate gripped in his hands, he burst into a random building and collapsed in a heap. Aurelius was eleven years old.

Panting, terrified, the darkness was a heavy blanket, dust catching faded sunlight leaking through the rafters of an abandoned barn. Footsteps shuffled, nearer, nearer they became, beady black eyes piercing the silence. Scraggly long, black hair pooled over Aurel’s shoulders, innocent blue eyes peering from beneath the veil to meet the separate pair. Had they chased him all the way here? How? He crouched, preparing to bolt, calculating the faster route out and back to the crowded streets, milling with unfamiliar faces. The man approached, but instead of a sneer was a strange type of smile he had never before seen. ”I’ve found you,” he cooed with a shaking voice, “after all these years, I’ve finally found you…Aurelius.” The sound of his own name sent shivers throughout his entire being, the straw under his feet feeling suddenly slippery. Holding his breath, he knew the man was fast approaching, but found he could no longer break for it. The man wasn’t wearing a lab coat, no, this man was someone he had never seen before.

The collar of his clothing was clutched, a force so strong throwing him into the peeled array of sunshine. In a heap, the boy stared listlessly up into the fiery pits of hell, beaming through the man’s gaze. ”It would have been better if you had killed me,” he muttered, shaking his head, clasping at his grey hair in facets of insanity. ”What I’ve gone through here… you should have just killed me!!” The man began to shake, bending down to the child’s level and staring him straight in the face before drawing a hand under the boy’s right eye. ”You look so different—hardly recognized you. So young—you’re so young.” The man burst into violent laughter so loud that Aurel had to hold his ears, but his hands were thrown away with disgust. “Are you immortal, you vile beast? I-I don’t understand. TELL ME. How are you alive in this time too? HOW.” He shuddered, gripping his elbows with crazy eyes leveled at Aurel. ”I WANT TO KNOW. You owe me that much.”

“I don’t owe you anything,” the boy replied, his eyes feral, flickering towards the door to run.

”You don’t even know,” the man boomed, ”what I’ve been through…I’LL KILL YOU!!” He lunged for the boy’s throat, squeezing so hard his joints hurt. The kid tried to get away at first, scuttling backwards, but with a long stride it wasn’t hard to catch him. So easy—it was so easy it was unbelievable!! ”I’ll stop you—I’ll stop you from ruining lives!! I’ll save the future—yes AHAHA—the future!!!”

BANG. The man’s grip loosened, allowing air to breach Aurel’s lungs, searing into his mind words that weren’t understandable. His head lolled to the side like a doll, vision blurred and fading with the lack of oxygen. He saw a trail of blood edging closer to him from a hole in the lunatic’s chest, red—red—so red. He grabbed at straw, trying to cling relentlessly to consciousness, not knowing where he would wake up next—if—if maybe he would return again to being a prisoner. Faded eyes searched for answers in the clearing quiet, a teenager bent over him, cradling his head and whispering sweet nothings into the clearing air of a man’s wasted life. ”Are you a runaway?” She mouthed, eyes downcast, the smoking barrel of a rifle sliding off her lap to be replaced with him. He nodded, letting the straw go to ease the smarting pain in his neck.

“They’re chasing me.” His eyes filled with tears, looking to the side to avoid meeting any others. “I just want to be free.”

She carried his limp body in her arms across the vast field to her father’s house. Putting him on the couch for now, she ran to get a glass of water and a cold compress for his neck. When she returned, he was staring blankly at the wall like a drone. What’s wrong with him, she thought, handing the kid both items. Silently he took them, eyes wide like deep pools of water. Silently, she was drowning in them. The man who had tried to kill him was wearing a uniform Aurel recognized. No, it was a uniform he didn’t recognize, but the color and the shifting blurred words on his medals he saw while being strangled were something all too familiar. Marching on the streets, pinned to royal blue, dog tags, hardened eyes were all the qualities of an Amestrian soldier. And yet the uniform he was wearing…it-it was…not from this time.

He finished the water, the sound of sputtering vehicle coming from afar. The girl spun around with a bewildered expression, clutching a kitchen towel to her chest. ”He’s coming.” She grabbed Aurel by the collar and dragged him off the couch, shoving him towards the door with unfallen tears in her eyes. It was only then that he noticed the bruises lining her skin and the veteran trophies on the wall. He didn’t budge, giving her the stubborn look he had never before adorned. No. She panicked when the front door opened and a burly old man burst in, muttering something about her brother, Jean. Instantly, the man, Rufferd, noticed his rifle was missing from the shelf, his daughter shivering in the corner, and a little boy with forming bruises on his neck.

”What happened,” his scratchy voice demanded, meeting his daughters eyes. ”Evelyn…don’t tell me…”

”He’s a drunk,” she whispered inaudibly into Aurel’s ear, ”but he’s okay now.” Slowly, she walked over to her father with a slight smile on her face, touching his arm with wide eyes. ”A man tried to kill him in our barn.”    
 
”What’s his name?” Both of them looked at the boy, holding the cold compress to his neck with shaking fingers.

”Aurelius Carston.”

He was allowed to stay in Mr. Havoc’s house as long as he obeyed the basic rules. The man lying dead in their barn was taken away, written off as a fanatic who tried to copy the Amestrian uniform. They found strange devices in his pockets—unexplainable devices and a fake Amestrian ID. What happened to him after that wasn’t reported. Mr. Havoc was a veteran to the Amestrian military himself, boasting day in and day out about how he had conquered the Ishvallans to his own woe. The trophies on the wall, he said, were bathed in blood; he displayed them to remember what he had to do to earn them. He also mentioned that he liked booze, but didn’t touch it for the first few days Aurel stayed with them. In all actuality, Mr. Havac hadn’t a clue what he was going to do with the young boy, so he brought the kid to Central Head Quarters one day with his birth certificate in tow, introducing him to his son’s crew. Aurel was a quiet boy, but he seemed fascinated with the military, asking all sorts of questions. On that trip, Evelyn joined him, interested herself in what her brother did. Along with that, her father’s sober appearance was something she was not used to seeing and she wanted to see more of it. Eve concluded that the strange appearance of the boy had irked something within him, maybe opening his eyes? That day, Aurel signed a piece of paper officially becoming a soldier of Amestris, but she hesitated, remembering her dream of becoming a nurse.

On the day that Roy Mustang personally sent Aurelius a letter emitting him into the military, Eve’s father began drinking again. In a robust voice, he swore, throwing bottles against the wall, complaining about how he did it again. He cried and screamed at the ceiling, asking it why he always sent those he cared about off to war to die. Eve tried to comfort him while Aurel loomed in the background, clutching the bracelet Stephona gave him as if it would make the yelling stop. Nothing ever stopped. Mr. Havoc sent her flying across the room, murmuring about how useless females were and then throwing a kitchen chair in her direction too. A candle was knocked over in his frenzy, eyes crazy with madness caused by sweet poison. Flame sprung up, but he didn’t seem to notice, going for her again. But Aurel place his tiny body between him and the girl, baring his fangs like a wild animal, blue eyes glinting dangerously in the flickering light. If he moved, Mr. Havoc would die. He seemed to realize this in his drunken stupor, stumbling backwards with a callus laugh. He tripped over the overturned chair, basking into the roar of flames like an overstuffed recliner. Eve swayed to her feet, coughing whilst the flames overtook the house. ”Dad!” She screamed, flailing through the smoke to find his body engulfed. She turned to Aurel and tried pulling him towards the door, but he only stood there, staring into the fire as if it reflected his ravaged soul.

They made it outside into the damp grass, Eve sobbing hysterically as she watched her childhood burn down. Wordlessly, the boy with singed black hair, unhooked Stephona’s bracelet from his wrist, placing it around hers with a forced smile. “Now you have something,” he said. And they watched the house turn to ashes, flames like the sunrise.

[Aurelius Schwartz]

Evelyn Havoc went to live with her brother at the HQ dorms, promised by his paycheck to be able to study medicine. Aurel, with his own room and his own pay, copied official documents, made coffee, cleaned desks, and various other side jobs that an eleven-year-old could do. Doing this, he grew up, spending his off-time in the library reading about alchemy and learning various other things concerning the military. He became a fanatic—an encyclopedia about all to do with Amestris’ history, government, and alchemy. Fuhrer Bradly himself once paid a visit to the bright young lad behind the scenes.

On a snowy day in December, he turned twelve, climbing ranks in the military to achieve the job of organizing books in the library. He held access to the archive rooms, piecing puzzles together with snippets of information from documents that passed his hands. His eyes were hungry, his mind a sponge, and soon he found that he was concocting his own theories, creating his own ideas, clinging fervently to the dream that there was something more out there than just war. He met a boy relatively on the same spectrum of age as himself, but how he met him was something peculiar indeed. The white-haired boy had been exiting the shower at the same time Aurel yanked open the stuck door and waltzed in without realizing it had been locked. As he did so, the rickety old lock that had held it shut fell to the ground. The boy looked up, red eyes meeting blue. Silence ensued. Ishvallan. Aurel had never seen one in person, his stare so intense it could melt the paint off the steamy walls. The other said nothing, thus, the silence stretched longer until Aurel approached slowly, looking him over with a small smile. “Glad to see one made it out alive.”

”That makes two of us.” The Ishvallan, parked near the sink was smiling wryly at him, eyes so red Aurel couldn’t stop staring until he found himself laughing like a child, running a hand through his long hair and leaning against the wall. He liked him. That made two of them—what did that even mean? It was as if this man knew all he had been through—that he had faced similar hardships to reach this point in time. The Ishvallan, later revealed to him as Xanthus Icarus, was much older than him, being seventeen. They hit it off immediately, talking into the wee hours of the morning about various military secrets and the like. The next three years were spent in a similar way, except delving deeper into untrodden turf. Aurel began experimenting with alchemy, scrawling formulas all over the walls of his dorm room. When Xan saw it, he had to ask. Together, they talked about ways of creating a black hole using alchemy, essentially a means to create a wormhole that went back or forward in time. Headaches later, Aurel one night created a key formula with which to attempt. Drawing a circle on the floor of his apartment, he stepped back to observe, thrusting his hands against the chalk, and breathing in air filled with complex garble. Nothing happened. So it was true; chimerae couldn’t perform alchemy…

With their ideas failed and Xan unable to discern the formulas, months passed in relative depression, Aurel hearing about a crazed Ishvallan named Scar murdering alchemists on the radio. He needed something more, the mundane life as a young militant wasting away into an existence drenched in dust. When next he heard from Xan, the Ishvallan came bearing a red stone, saying he had spent the last few months working for Dr. Marcoh as an intern. He held it out to Aurel, saying it increased the level of alchemy’s productivity. “But what would happen if I swallowed it,” Aurel asked with a dark look. But before Xan could finish saying that it hadn’t been tested yet, the chupacabra chimera swallowed it. In the next few hours that he didn’t die, Xan watched him like a hawk until he was able to move again, heading straight for the circle over the floorboards. Thus, the first Bearer was borne. And a black hole created.

Xanthus Icarus at age twenty-one was in the military full-force, leaving often to the field. He brought back news to sixteen-year-old Aurelius about the Elric brothers, homunculi, and the like. War broke into Central Head Quarters, all available soldiers engaged in combating Fuhrer Bradly and the other homunculi. The basement below rumbled whilst Aurel continued to experiment with the black hole, testing his limits, but finding he could perform no other type of alchemy without exhausting himself. So what of human transmutation, he wondered. With that question in mind, he left his room to finally witness the end of an age.

Blood lined the staircases, fires, smoke, and screams echoing through corridors. A weight so heavy descended Central City that Aurel could barely continue standing. The sky turned red, Evelyn bursting outside beside him and pointing at black hands falling from nightmares. She screamed—they all screamed, but Aurel’s eyes were ablaze with an ethereal light, witnessing the very souls be sucked out of all around him. Why not his? Was his rejected? Citizens fell around him, eyes gaping wide in horrified stillness. They were dead. Everyone around him was dead. Like winter, the city basked only in the whispers of chilled wind. Every living thing gone in the hush of curling shadows of fingers, dragging out everything they are and everything they were. Terrified, Aurel looked on as they clung desperately to themselves, only to fade further into just a shell—a shell. Something opened, a figure exploding into the sky with only one eye to see, screaming at the eclipsed moon like a giant whose very existence was painful. ”God, respond to my soul!! Come! I will drag you down to earth and make you a part of me!” Aurel held his breath, his hands clenched useless as his sides, trying to breathe in large gasps. No, it wouldn’t work. In a moment, the world was bathed in light, Aurel leaving Eve’s body there, turning, and running back into the Head Quarters. But he couldn’t see, everything going blank for a moment until a variance of screams erupted from down below, souls bursting from the top of the building, and returning back whence they came. Without hesitating, he kept going, flying into Xanthus’ room and stealing a white military uniform, dark sunglasses, and a gun. He ran out, heading for the garden on the roof to find Xan, but just as he threw open the doors, a line of fire crashed through from below, a blond, shirtless man like a surfer atop them. The first four men he saw dropped when he flexed his fingers, familiar red energy collecting in his palm. Aurel’s eyes widened behind the shades, his stomach fluttering like ripped wings from a butterfly. Human sacrifices… Philosopher’s Stones were made…from human souls. Tremoring, Aurel remained hidden behind a shrub, witnessing as most of the other Briggs Brigade were felled by the twitch of this man’s hand until a massive blast of rock whizzed past his head delivered by another blond-haired man who looked beyond angry.

”I won’t let you go any further,” the man growled, others joining him like ants from the hole in the ground. Aurel inched after the Briggs soldiers, leaking to the sidelines.

”Humans should just accept their fate and become stones.” He wasn’t human.

”Why do you have to treat them like such base animals? Humans beget Philosopher’s Stones; Philosopher’s Stones beget homunculi; so then homunculi beget what?! From them, what can be born? Can something that brings about nothing but destruction be called a god?! Maybe you wanted to become a perfect being, but you’re just a dead end!!” He was a homunculus—the homunculus. Blue eyes peered at them over his shoulder, the stairs stretching out like long flimsy fingernails under his feet. He paused just long enough for a commander to stop and yell at him to keep moving. Aurel turned and continued, falling out of hearing range.

“Why?” He murmured aloud just in time for everything to be baked in vicious white light. The balance was being broken. Smoke cleared, Aurel turning around and running back up the stairs with a bunch of other men carrying large weapons. When they fired them, his ears rang, observing as the rockets and Gatling guns did nothing to effect the homunculus. He blinked and suddenly fire was everywhere, enveloping the scene, and making him sweat. Attack after attack was thrust upon the one who had tried to take everyone’s souls. A homunculus calling himself Greed raced into the fray, exchanging blow after blow. Aurel could barely remember to think, a laugh escaping his lips as amazing alchemists flew past his eyes until the man reached his limit, leaking breaths of black like those hands.

”He can no longer contain the so-called God within him!” A voice screamed. Aurel ducked down the stairs once more, coming up only after the smoke cleared to hear: ”He won!” More Briggs Brigade drew out from their hiding places to raise their arms up in cheer. Aurel’s eyes narrowed, scanning the premises for Xan, yet finding him nowhere. ”Go back to where you came from, dwarf inside the flask, ‘homunculus’!” Edward’s voice turned his head, seeing a hole now in the middle of the man. This was it—this was the beginning. Aurel thrust his hands onto the ground and vanished.

”Why? Why won’t you become mine? God, what weren’t you satisfied with?!”

”It’s because you didn’t believe in me. You took the strength of others for yourself even though you were born from humans themselves. You simply clung to the idea of godhood. You yourself haven’t matured at all. Did you think you could really surpass humanity just by ridding yourself of the seven sins? Don’t make me laugh!” Words, voices, meaning wafted into Aurel’s mind, his body left far behind beyond The Gate.

”I wanted to become perfect! I wanted to know everything in this world! What's wrong with wanting that? What’s wrong with wishing for that? What’s wrong with chasing your desires?! … Who-who are you? Who are you exactly? Who do you think you are!?”

”I am what you all call ‘The World’ or perhaps ‘The Universe’ or perhaps ‘God’ or perhaps ‘Truth’ or perhaps ‘Everything’ or perhaps ‘One’, and I am you. It is the duty of The Truth to deal you just despair so that you won’t become conceited. And so I shall also deal you despair.”

”I don’t want to go back in there…no! Stop, I don’t want to be shackled forever anymore!”

“You won’t have to be.” A void expelled from his very soul, enrapturing opening doors and more grabby hands that clutched nothing. Aurel’s form cackled through the darkness, listening to the black homunculus’ ignorance. Father.
”What can I do to make amends?”

”This is the end you desired.”

”What can I do to make amends?!”

“Live another day.” The doors slammed shut over a black hole.

”I think you’ve already seen the answer to that.”

Aurelius woke up, the fading aftereffects of his alchemy tapering off into the Elric Brothers scene. Busy day. He leaped to his feet, and resumed his frantic search for his Ishvallan counterpart, sprinting to a random man who was speaking into a radio phone. “Inform Sergeant Xanthus Icarus to meet General Aurelius Carston at the East wing in front of door 579 immediately.” The man, shocked, nodded frantically, pushing a few buttons and calling it in. Aurel, having frivolously lied about his rank didn’t bat an eye at how many codes of honor he had just broken. Turning tail, he headed straight for his designated meeting place, awaiting his friend.

“Xan,” he said the moment the Ishvallan arrived, looking suspicious, “the balance would have been broken.” Aurelius’ eyes were serious, his voice taking on an edged tone not frequent in his speech. “I had to…I had to send the homunculus into the future.” He paused, staring hard at his friend. “In a world without sin, there is nothing. Just as there is no peace without war.” Aurel held a hand out in front of his blue-eyed stare, feeling it quake. “We have to make sure he survives; without that balance the wor—no, chaos will descend. The fabric of our everyday desires will be ripped to shreds—cast to the wind having ceased blowing. Without that balance, Xanthus…”

”What do we do?” He queried in response.

“…Bring our own chaos.”

In a matter of another few minutes, Xanthus Icarus prepared himself for the future, stepping into a wreath of blackness no light could ever penetrate. Just before he was gone, Aurel said a few final words: “I’ll meet you there, 100 years from now…in October.” That was half a year after the Ishvallan would have landed in year 2010. April was the month—some short time after the homunculus would have arrived, clueless to his punishment. Now alone, Aurel stood there for a moment, hardly believing the space once occupied was now so empty. Then, as quickly as he had come, he walked away.

Back in his room, he changed into street clothes, collecting everything of value and shoving them into his pockets. There was no time to say goodbye—no time to seek Evelyn and wish her a good life. He was sure she would become a skilled nurse. Three times in one day? Why not. He flicked his wrist and watched the darkness eat him away, looking around his room one final time.

When Aurel next awoke it was in a hospital room, memories in a transparent haze, losing what was what. I have no memories? A man stooped over the bed, a little girl growling like an animal at him, yet looking on in wonder. Little did he know, but this man would become his adopted father, and that girl, his stepsister: Hild.

* * *

Humans are rotten. They go about their lives oblivious to others—strangled by their greed and own definitions of justice. We seek peace, but wage wars to accomplish it. Pathetic. If only…if only I had some sort of power to stop it. But no; I’m as powerless as everyone else who sits in front of their television. How sad. Life is extremely cruel in that regard. If God can create something as complex as a flower, why can’t he bestow on one of us the ability to stop all of this nonsense? I don’t believe in god, but sometimes I pray to him in hopes that something will actually happen. It never does.

The boy’s father sighed, minimizing the online blog with mixed feelings. Such deep thoughts coming from a seventeen-year-old boy… He maximized his daughter, Hild’s journal and smiled to himself. Such wide differences between his children! But he guessed that was to be expected. His son, Aurel, was older, engaging life head on. But Hild, who had just turned sixteen, was always being bullied at school. Well, she did come from the Schwarz family—one of the richest in Amestris. He didn’t understand why, but apparently that was grounds for abuse among children. With adults though, it was quite the opposite. He sighed again and pushed his chair out from the pristine desk.

Day in and day out Aurel fought to defend Hild from the jealous children in the halls. He revered his militant father and was determined to uphold justice with every step of his small body. In no time, everyone feared his wrath and the fighting ceased completely. As time went by without the need for his protection, Hild grew apart from Aurel and became a true individual. But this only succeeded in making him lonely. Even after years of adjusting to normal life by going to school with other children, Aurel still felt strange as if something was missing from his life aside from years of lost memory…

It was a cold day in March when Aurel began having flashbacks of his past. He recalled with terrifying clarity that he wasn't completely human (though brushing his teeth could tell him that much). He remembered that he grew up in a lab with a woman who made him into a chimera with Carston—his middle name, a chupacabra. Stephona and the observers who watched over him for six years in a tank until he woke up and yet kept him in captivity still for a year even after waking up. Escaping, Stephona getting shot…the bracelet she gave him and he gave to Evelyn. Aurel remembered that Amestris was a war-hungry, torment-thirsty country—that he had sent Xan to the future to remedy the balance.

“Chupacabra?” He said aloud, trying to block out the loud thumping of his heart. “Impossible.” But it was true. When he asked his father about it, he was faced with the facts—absolute facts which concealed nothing. How had his father known? …His birth certificate he had brought with him from the past. The past—where he came from too. It wasn’t simply a certificate, but a series of collected data on not who Aurel was, but what he was. He wasn’t his father’s son; he was a monster whose own birth mother cared not about him. He wasn’t an elite by blood, but by adoption—through abandonment. He wasn’t even from this time at all. The shock sent him into a spiral of depression and bewilderment. Hild didn’t understand his pain—no one understood how he felt. When he tried to talk about it, there wasn’t anyone who would listen seriously. This solitude began to weigh heavier and heavier on his young shoulders, warping his perception, and dragging him deeper and deeper into despair. His mind broke.

The idea of throwing himself out one of the large foyer windows began to grow appealing to him. He stopped writing in his journal every night, giving up his adopted father’s ideals he had come to abide by. Life began to dull, and its meaning was lost. The currents of time continued to wash over him, thrusting him under each wave. He would resurface only to realize he still couldn’t breathe just like the moments of reawakening in the tank alone. A43L71. When Aurel came to his senses, he was standing at the train station, facing the noise of everyday life. Slowly, his feet took him to the yellow line. The contours pressed into the bottoms of his shoes, upsetting the soles of his feet. No, he wasn’t going to turn around. This was it. This was the end. No more… He couldn’t take any more of this ravaged existence—this constant loss and gain of his memories—the forever failure of assimilation into everyday life. His simple existence just wasn’t worth all the effort—life wasn’t worth the meaningless struggle.

The train was approaching; he could hear it coming. The front wind blew harshly at his cropped hair, disheveling it into chaos. He took another step forward and then another, teetering on the edge. No one noticed. A flash of head lights broke from the tunnel and the silver monster flew towards him with horrifying speed. Aurel took a deep breath, his entire body brimming with anticipation, shaking, quivering. He felt it in each vein—each shuddering breath. And then he took one last step, his foot only meeting air. As he fell, he imagined what everyone would think after his death. Would they conclude that he couldn’t handle the truth, or would they understand the true reason of this death?

When the train hit him on the side, he fell into the alley between the tracks. The screeching wheels hissed as they came to a stop inches from his motionless body. A woman with three children glanced over and gasped, the sickening collision replaying itself in her mind. She rushed over, shouting for help that never came. She did not hesitate when she too, stepped beyond the yellow line. Feeling around in the darkness under the platform, she reached Aurel who was still alive. He had a pulse—a slow one—but a pulse. The lady was an alkahestrist doctor who now felt that she had studied all those years for this very moment. Saving a life…gave her own life meaning. This boy would have died without her… Bracing his spine and ribs, carefully, she lifted his limp body into her arms and back to the light of day.

When Aurel woke up in the hospital, he was surrounded by a stage of actors. Fake sympathy dripped from their cursed lips as if they were trying to cast a spell on him to continue living. Aurel’s first words were laughter, shocking many into silence, but Hild was already quiet to begin with. She…was always quiet. It was as if she didn’t know how to express her feelings to him or at all. Her feelings were silent lies, locked away in a folly of misconception. It only upset Aurel further, stealing his own voice. He said nothing, refusing to put sound to his reason for suicide. But when he was omitted after a month of bed rest, he was forced to prove himself sane enough to return to his old life. This did not correspond with his plan to die. That was when he birthed a miraculous façade that wielded the power to fool even his adoptive father. With a bright smile on his pale lips, he turned to them and promised to go on living.

As the days passed, he was very aware of the fact that Hild was watching him. With everything he did, she was there with her serene blue eyes boring into his soul. It was annoying and his façade was beginning to crack in her presence, adding to his desire for death. One morning before senior year began, he found himself staring at his reflection in a trance. There was something wrong. That wasn’t him…it was only a projected image of himself—a warped perception of the truth—a lie. Who was he really? His thoughts bounced against invisible walls in his head, churning in impossible circles. What was he doing here just living? Before he knew it, his fist was through the mirror and blood was dripping into the immaculate sink. It hurt. With a quaking hand, he gripped a large shard of the mirror and marveled at it. Was this a piece of himself? He raised it up to his right eye, closer and yet still closer until he could no longer focus on it. Smirking to himself, he plunged the sharp end into the socket of his right eye. It was a pain he had never felt before. Aurel fell to the elegant tile floor of the large bathroom, shaking and gasping for breath. He gripped a hand tightly over his gushing eye, writhing on the ground in agony. The broken piece of the mirror clattered to the ground beside him.

Suddenly Hild was there. Had she—had she been watching him this entire time? Aurel let out strangled laughter, completely aware of the fact that his façade was now lost in her eyes. She bent down to him and pried his hand from over his face. Black bangs soaked with blood stuck to his forehead, dripping down his neck to where long strands of hair sprawled out across the lavish bathroom rug. His reddened hand fell limply to the side, his knuckles staining the white tile in brush strokes of suffering. Aurel opened his eyes from where he lay on his back and gazed lifelessly into her sorrowful expression. …Pity? Was that pity? Pity like Stephona’s pity? He went to sit up in defiance, but all the force was sapped from his muscles, pouring out down his cheek to the floor under him.

Panting, he reached out to her, touching her cheek with a crooked smile. He hadn’t noticed that her slender fingers were wrapped around his broken mirror shard or that she raised it up to her own right eye; he simply gazed in wonder when she too stabbed herself with it.

“Shit,” He murmured, forcing himself to his knees when the dream fell apart at the seams. His equilibrium flipped, the room was spinning, and he felt like he was crawling on the ceiling, but he reached her before she fell. Holding her shaking form against his chest, Aurel stood, his eyes alight with a strange energy. And then despite his own pain, he ran.

By the time he reached his adopted father, darkness was eating at the crevices of his still-seeing eye. He felt so light headed he was sure he would float away into nothingness, but for once…he didn’t welcome it. Hild—he had to save her eye. She couldn’t…he wouldn’t let her suffer because of his own selfish wish. He almost collided with the man that paraded as his father, but stopped just in time to collapse at his feet. For some strange reason he couldn’t speak…it was like he had lost the motor function and was fading away. Before he completely lost consciousness, he gathered the words spoken from the man’s mouth. "Oh, my son…”

When Aurel awoke in the hospital for the second time in the same year, he was displeased that it was becoming a habit. Maybe it would have been better if he had bled to death. In the past, it was what he would have wanted, but now…why was he questioning it? It took some time before realization hit him, and he rose abruptly from the bed, trailing wires in his wake. It hurt…his entire head felt like it had been run over by a steam roller… But it didn’t matter, not with the knowledge of what Hild had done to herself because of him. He yanked the needles from his arms and pushed away the growing nausea, staggering out of his room and into the hallway. For the second time he ran into his father, but this time he wasn’t able to stop. He fell backwards onto the pristine flooring.

“Aurel!” His father fell to the ground next to him and placed a hand on either side of his head, lifting his face. Warm blue eyes studied his son’s pained features and he frowned. “I’m not going to ask you why…but…Hild, she—”

“She what?!” Aurel gasped, meeting the man’s eyes directly. “Tell me. She what?”

“She lost her eye. You…you will regain sight in your right eye, but she never will in her’s.” He looked down and then back up at him, taking a deep breath. “You lost the pigment though so I’m not sure, but they say that one of your eyes will stay blue and the other will be red…” It was clear the old man was distressed by the way he phrased each word, but despite everything, he was smiling. “I’m so glad your both safe…”

Aurel stared for hours into the mirror at his mismatched eyes, a voice stuck on repeat in his head. ”You look so different—hardly recognized you. You look so different—hardly recognized you. You look so different—hardly recognized you. You look so different—hardly recognized you.” So that’s what it was. A ghostly touch brushed under his right eye again and again, the aching getting worse—the voice growing stronger—the hands clenching around his throat until he could no longer breathe. STOP. The mirror shattered on the floor, Hild trudging in with a frightened expression. Over her right eye was an eye patch, but over her left was a dark pain Aurel never wanted to see again. He wouldn’t die.

Peace. He made peace first with himself, blinding his mind to the hateful neglect of society, pushing himself forward in the direction he initially intended towards the balance of the homunculus—Father with the world. Hild had a dream. Her dream was for peace—to ascend the ranks in the military and stand tall over the people with doves for hands. Soon, Aurel’s focus was on her dream as well, his aspirations shifting to compensate for a new level of planning that paralleled his own. He dropped out of high school, fed up with the mindless classes that only served to waste his time. Hild graduated in due time, but all the while, her step brother was concocting a plan—a master plan whose very essence only reeked of perfection.

Remove Intervene Overtake Terrorize Exterminate spelled the named RIOTE. Invented in a matter of moments, there came a man named Adolf: the zero alchemist. Of no concern to Aurel, he led the front group, announcing their intentions to eradicate alchemy. Just like Scar, they marched the streets in search for alchemists, killing them without hesitation on the spot. Hild continued to climb ranks, Aurelius pulling strings in the background while keeping a careful eye on RIOTE. He hired a money-hungering fool to perform human transmutation on South City as a whole, sending him under the ploy of creating two Philosopher’s Stones: one for himself and one for Aurel. However, once performed a second time, the man himself became a part of the stone, lost in the endless realm of a red orb. Immediately, Aurel arrived on scene with Adolf, taking one stone, but leaving the other. When Adolf opened his mouth to question it, he realized he was no longer in the same time, but sent backwards to a time before Xerxes was ruins. Consider it a favor.

A chimera of the same make as himself named Zaska led RIOTE on a suicide siege of South City, surprised upon finding that both Central command and the Briggs Brigade were there awaiting an attack. That was all a part of the plan. Aurel didn’t need RIOTE anymore; they were a cover—a means to place blame on the end of South City. He held the Philosopher’s Stone in his hand, very similar to that of Father’s when he looked on the humans as bait. The other stone remained in the dust of the crater to be discovered by the Amestrian military. It was a decoy, replacing the one he held that was to make Hild into a Bearer that same way he had done so to himself. But he would wait to give it to Hild—wait until the opportune moment.

However, there was a prospectful glitch in his plan upon the discovery that his long-lost friend, Xanthus Icarus was on scene. He was aware that this Ishvallan was in fact a part of RIOTE, but to show up to a slaughter was quite unlike the man’s foresight. Aurel grabbed at a phone, dialing a number located in the RIOTE archives. “Recognize my voice? Take lead of RIOTE and lead them into their deaths. Let yourself be taken into Fort Briggs and use them to kill Father. I'll meet you in the throne room.” The man spoke his name and hung up, doing just as instructed, which ultimately saved his life and the plot. Thus, RIOTE was no more…or so they all believed.

Xanthus gathered together a Briggs Brigade force in the future just as there had been in the past to combat Father. It was as if the homunculus landed into the position of Fuhrer from the future, making Aurel wonder just what had transpired with Father before they had arrived. Untouchable Father was as Fuhrer, but no longer. A man, Veil Awaikage was an…acquaintance easily persuaded into attacking South City so as to claim the land as Aerugo’s. As such, it was a distraction to keep Central Command busy enough so the Briggs Brigade could infiltrate Central Head Quarters and take out Father. Hild had already reached her place as second only to the Fuhrer, the blond-haired man and himself therefore on close enough terms.

Inside the lair, Aurelius Carston Schwarz sat across the room from Father, shrouded in darkness. They sat on previously expelled words, soaking in past conversation in silence. The moment that silence was breached by a door bursting open, Menoitos and Endavi created his planned chance. Perfect. Aurel caught the outline of Father's head turning to see who had broken in. This moment—this very moment would be his last. The figure simply crossed his legs, a cocky, look simmering into powerful, golden eyes. In that caress of surprise, darkness piled upon the darkness, a trident he invented to hold his alchemy unfolding from Aurel's hands, thrusting towards Father in an arc of endearment. No sound occurred, but the shrouding of a hole so vast...it was capable of breaking time itself. I saved you, his mind whispered, knowing all the while that there was only one man left alive who knew of this deed, sought after to ensure alchemy still remained—to control the balance of The World and of the very definition of a homunculus. Stretched out before Father now was nothing seen nor heard, but the deed ripped from him everything that he had ever counted on. Slithering from his consciousness was a power so heavy, Aurel's nails dug into the throne's armrest until they bled. His teeth clenched as raw power was sapped from his own transcended body and shot deviously into the void. In short, what Aurel accomplished in those few seconds was the separation of Father's consciousness and Father's power. The power was sent into his black hole whereas Father's consciousness remained, having no knowledge of what took place. Father was a shell of a person—a mortal thinking himself unbeatable.

When next he spoke, Father was already a shell, a consciousness who was unaware that the trident beside him had left Aurelius' hands—ignorant that his own definition had been sent to a time where there would be eight sins instead of seven. That was yet to be enacted, but faith was vested in Xanthus Icarus. "Menoitis, my son, is that you?" It was all Aurel could do to keep his laughter from leaving his throat, confident that the right amount of energy had sent Father's powers two years and some months into the future: April 2012. An exchange began between two Wraths and an illusion of the mortal body of their maker. He listened vaguely, focused intensely on the door. There wasn't much time. His own soul—being—consciousness was ripping from his body, darkness festering at his fingertips as the door to that time remained open. But sure enough, bombs threw another door inward, blasting through all locks. A sword glazed the rocky wall, lighting up a burst of sparks that then tunneled an array of flashlights from all her men. That figure there was Reila Tsukino, a woman that Hild had told him about. Aurel felt a coy smirk, knowing his Ishvallan was among them as the rumble of stone bodies came to a stop. The man stole away, coming up alongside where Aurel just barely hung on, red and blue eyes narrowed in pain.

"You must become Pride. April 20th" Aurel managed out in wisps of voice as he faded, "2012. We'll meet again there." Xan vanished as quick as he came, returning once more to his place among the throngs of Briggs Brigade. On his last threads of consciousness, Aurel let himself slip away, hearing Hild's voice for the last time yet hardly caring. He knew full well that her dreams would be answered. "F-Fuhrer?" He was mistaken for Father by Hild in his last moments, consciousness flushed down into the void of his own creation in time for the bursting on of the overhead lights. No longer himself, he was someone else entirely, holding only recollect of the master plan and the desire to obtain those essential to it.

In separating Father’s consciousness from his power, Aurel also broke himself, leaving behind a Shadow of himself in that time while his consciousness traveled with Father to the future. Now, Shadow-Aurel, despite being himself except in another dimension, was unable to keep any memories of his life before that time (2010). Stripped suddenly of where he came from, Shadow-Aurel was unable to even notice the change since that was all he had ever known.

[Aurelius Schwartz]

Shadow-Aurel (Basically, MDA’s History with Aurel up until the end of WWIII)

Through the now bright lighting, on the other side of the room, Father stood before the Briggs Brigade. They faced off, joining their alchemy and bullets together to wear down Father. Reila's ribs were destroyed by a large rock hand and she fell, getting back up only to be saved by Xan in the fray. Xan buried Father in a large hole of rock, giving him a taste of his own medicine. It looked as if it were finally over... But Father rose up again! Dai of the Briggs Brigade and the South City Philosopher's Stone he held were being drawn in by the floundering homunculus who just wouldn't die! Dai used his magnetism alchemy to blow up his arm, sending both of them flying in opposite directions. Reila in a frenzy of shock, barely made it to Father, killing him with a huge tornado of icicles she conjured. That was the end—that was the end of the consciousness that killed so many in Aurel’s time. The beast croaked, but his power—his meaning and everything that he could have been remained still on this earth, only now in the future.

Meanwhile on the other side of the room, Aurel was revealed to have set up a device containing a decoy of Father a few inches from where he sat, creating the illusion with a pre-recorded voice obtained by Hild. According to the Aurel slapped with a new consciousness, the reason for this was because "Homunculi cannot kill their creator. Fortunately for [Menoitos and Endavi], I was here to ensure you do not ruin the plan I constructed so dearly." He set up a gate separating the room in two. But once Father was dead, Hild Schwarz easily raised the gate once more. This frustrated Shadow-Aurel, but he followed her, leaving Endavi to pull out his homunculus eye to become human. Hild announced that she was now the new Fuhrer, while Shadow-Aurel took the credit for planning the entire ordeal. Mura fainted into a coma, Endavi passed out from blood loss, Hild left, the Briggs Brigade flew back to the North, and only Xan remained.

Xan. Xan was the first person that Aurel spoke too, announcing his sudden acceptance to Hild's plan for peace. However, it would be achieved by his means. Instead of following whom he thought to be his sister out of the throne room, he recruited Xan, planning but further to find a way in which to grant Hild's dream. Thus, RIOTE was reborn as a task force meant to destroy the world. From the ruins would rise true, everlasting peace. Aside from a few near-suicide experiences, Aurel turned back to his master plan. While Hild saved him time and time again, the knowledge of her being not his blood sister grew stronger and stronger in not just his mind, but hers as well. They grew closer with each of Aurel’s attempts and soon he found himself loving her. He stopped playing with guns and jumping off roofs if only for the sake of her smile. But it was hard; it was strangely hard and wore on him, but why?

…it began time to conquer the rest of the world. Instead of dying, he had decided he would focus on shaping this world into one worthy of his approval and Hild’s. It was the only way he was sure he would be able to survive. He had to do it. He had to suck it up and bide their time regardless of it being torture. As the Fuhrer, they were sitting ducks—no, something more refined than that; they could fly, but were choosing not to. According to Aurel's master plan, they could only act amidst a war because only war could warrant the pursuit of true peace. So they had to wait. And while they waited, Aurel just wanted to die. He couldn't stand hearing people bustling about—the sounds of cars and life buzzing by. It was hell. But during the wait, he made sure that all homunculi were spawned after Father's demise. To ensure this, he made Xanthus Icarus into Pride and Tanandra Collier into Lust. And the reason...well, RIOTE needed power; he and Hild needed to face entire armies on their own. There was only one way this was possible: to gain power similar to that of Father. Being a chimera, Aurel had recalled reading a file he wrote about himself choosing to eat a Philosopher's Stone in order to gain the ability to use alchemy. He recalled with strange clarity that he still had one in his possession for Hild. Apparently, he had hired a pathetic man who wanted money. He told him to make two philosopher's stones in South City, although little to the man’s knowledge the force of the alchemy took the alchemist too. Aurel and Hild were able to receive one of the stones, the second lost into the hands of Fort Briggs. But that had been part of the plan. Aurel had ordered for the other to be left so as to lead the pathetic military off RIOTE's trail whilst covering it with the assumed 'defeat' of RIOTE. With one of the precious red stones still in Aurel’s hands at this time, he had Hild eat it. Thus, was the birth of another Bearer.

Then...Creta attacked when they had been waiting for it. All of Hild's men were out of Central fighting battles according to plan. It was time. Together, they detonated bombs strewed about the country by Lyte and destroyed lives, buildings, and the government. It was only the beginning. Drachma fell to the finesse of Vanity whom Aurel was told was his blood sister—the girl had presumably also been abandoned in the hospital the same way he had. It…was funny, having siblings... He didn't exactly give it much thought and it really didn't surprise him much. They were very much alike—what with bluish-hued hair and unparalleled thinking. Still, he wasn't sure how to receive the intel, choosing instead to let it pass and officially look into it later. Either way, Drachma was theirs with Vanity as the center piece of which he could freely move. With Tanda guarding Rouen and Vanity in Drachma, RIOTE now controlled two countries. Amestris was destroyed and repairing itself, falling deeply into his plan without much of a way to escape its clutches. Soon, Aurel knew a new kind of government would be established. From there, the rest would unfold in time, for a true World War was coming…  

And it did, but not before the most striking thing happened. Aurel shot himself in the head, nearly succeeding in killing himself. The reason being that he had realized he never had a family, this spurred a chain reaction of realization. Wait...he had no memories of a family or his childhood. He had just spent that last two years simply looking forward, but forward towards what? While he lay dying, Hild transferred her stone as well as her soul unto Aurel, turning into dust. The shock was enough to break the remaining stability left in the fragment's mind. He resolved himself to finish Hild's dream, whether she was dead or not. By conquering most of the main countries with sheer force and number, RIOTE was victorious. Basking in the glory—the absolute peace for all but a moment, he displayed himself at the top of Central Head Quarters, poisoned from a kiss planted on Vanity’s lips. He knew that her being his sister was a lie, and he knew somewhere inside of himself that she was the key. Dying from poison, he then proceeded to the top of Central HQ where he shot himself and waited for this shell to be filled. The fragment of Shadow-Aurel turned into dust much like Hild and blew away as if nothing had ever happened—as if the last two years had merely been the passing of a shadow...

* * *

A lot had happened. It was a dark, dastardly time for any to walk the planet. Of all, the darkness itself. Aurelius was among the plagued. It was not his doing, no. Though, in effect, he was being blamed for the Deadlight-Virus. It was to be expected that the unknown would eventually fall into his lap as it always had, and people could be as ignorant as they liked, but pointing the finger at him while he stood watching his daughter die was entirely unacceptable. Entirely. Still, he did not deny it. Let the fools believe what they wanted; it was of no concern to him.

Around him, his empire fell like all the others, corroded and easily forsaken, overlooked. Good riddance, they said. People—people before him were coughing in the streets—losing what defined them solely as people. They were empty—devoid of all that he had once known them to have—what he had hated. Another world was opening its gates to them, letting free something all too familiar. Before he had left his own time, he had seen people just the same as these people, fall. Soulless, voided shells of untold stories were scattered about in Central's streets, baby carriages rolling away towards the sewers. Candles flickered for no one. Flags waved for no one. And time continued its course unabated. Gazing upon the ruin like a skeleton already, Aurel had seen a touch of tragedy—had witnessed what a quick end truly meant. And that was the day he first laid eyes on Father.      

The blurs of clocks ticked on by in faded colors and worn out lessons. He became someone entirely different that day in the far past, possessed by the need to create a perfect peace—a peace where Hild could be happy—a peace where Vanity could let go and Nyx could save her light—a balance among the chaos. That’s what all this was for—that’s what led the course of his life astray. Everything now was foreign to him; he was someone else. The man that everyone hated was only a shadow left behind—a shadow hardly existing without its counterpart before them now. Without the memories—without the seldom efforts exacted already in this time, this Aurel was at a loss. The people around him, he hadn't known them until just recently. He was a ghost haunting over a past life, pretending at a game already lost.

What did it mean to lose direction? Sitting in a Drachman throne, letting fall the crown at his feet, Aurel had spent the last three months simply catching up with himself. There was no need to cause anymore wars—there was no need to fall into the template he had already carefully constructed for himself. No, he was following his own plan, picking up the pieces of so many shredded lives while also shredding more. Hild had been sacrificed for this body. Vanity had been used as the picturesque model of a perfect leader. There was nothing here for him. He felt nothing, while knowing that the him everyone else knew should. Hild’s last words—his counterpart’s last message left to him was simply the word: ‘for,’ but for what?! For the end, for the start, for them, for himself, for the world, for this very moment, he continued breathing forever. And yet it was somewhat discouraging to witness. He wasn’t exactly what they expected anymore; he was the original: a changing, morphing entity with which so much power lied—so much power he did not necessarily deserve.

And this original still questioned his existence each night. Alone, he appeared. Alone, he had found Nyx in the bloodshed of his self-predecessor’s suicide. And only now had he settled down—only now had he finally realized what all this was for. After jumping times, he finally found a small sinew of pause. Tackled by migraines left over from shooting himself in the head, each day was a reminder not to go back to the trigger. He had to exist here. This was where he was meant to be. Xan was here, somewhere. They had something to accomplish. Now that Father was dead and his powers remained in this time, certainly the balance was set. No longer would the power shift into disaster. Instead, he had to build upon suffering so there may be no more suffering. Upon seeing so much destruction, there would be no more need for it—no more desire to cause it ever again. Such a deep misery would well up into the perfect ideals of serenity. Or so RIOTE was forged for. At the helm suddenly, Aurel had taken control with effortless finesse. Knowing no one, nor hardly how to utilize technology, he slowly built himself up, only now to face something completely and entirely unexpected.

A month and a half ago, an outbreak of a strange virus appeared in a Moscow hospital. The news was reported, but it was just another one of those things hardly worth his attention. As the victims grew and restraints were beginning to be used to hold patients down, that was when his attention was warranted. Immediately, he set about finding out more information on this virus and why more and more people were getting it. However, such a thing cannot be so readily contained. It burst forth all over the country, spreading across the tundra at a wild pace, excited, it seemed, by the cold conditions. It festered in people, driving them mad. Whole families destroyed each other before being able to seek help. Fires grew over the mountains, reaching Briggs, and finally the international media. Doors were sealed, people fled without being aware of them already carrying it. It was pleasantly classified as the adage: the beginning of the end.

While it was a bit foreboding, Aurel and the rest of RIOTE remained fairly calm, not exactly sure as to where to stand. These were indeed their citizens, so certainly they should be alarmed, and do something to assist. Therefore, Kit Estential (whom Aurel had previously turned into Gluttony) was instructed to send men out to help. Oddly eager, the usually murderous employed members of RIOTE did just that. But it spread. It spread to them—it spread to everyone. They did not know exactly how it spread; it just did. Most of RIOTE’s reserves were wiped out in a few weeks, reports spiraling all over the news about the fall of the evil Drachman empire. It was ignored. More important things were beginning to step up to the stake. Vanity took off, already distantly accepting of Aurel’s mirrored self and lack of memories, but not enough to consult him over it. She visited hospitals and victims to console their families, already aware of her immunity as a homunculus. It was all she could do. However, all good deeds do not go unpunished. She was found as a pile of mangled body parts, blood pooling in the corner of a grey room. Hazmat suits and machine guns made use of her killers who had already been given over completely to the Deadlight-Virus. (That was what they were calling it). Aurel found Vanity’s remains later, after the events. It seemed the afflicted were becoming more and more aggressive, turning on anything with a heartbeat. To die by the hands of her own citizens so late…was truly a shame. But that’s all it was.

Drachma had fallen. RIOTE was lost. Among the graves—the ailing—the afflicted, Aurelius rose to his feet. There was nothing to be done here any longer. Their research was collapsing under them, doctors falling prey to their very cause. It came time to leave—leave it all behind without looking back. There was much debate. To Aurel, it was as if he were abandoning all he had gained; except, he hadn’t been the one to gain it. Therefore, he only felt distantly towards it, acting as he believed he should for the greater good. …if there was any good still left in him, as many would dispute. Sometimes, he found, he was even beginning to believe he himself lacked it. He kept others away, hoping not to taint them with his own corruption.

Despite that, there were those that would have none of it: Nyx, Kit, Tatyana; they were all there for him regardless of his flaws and lack of humanity. His most trusted ally and his daughters. Well, there was a catch to that. Nyx, of course, had no actual blood relation to him, but had he remained in the time he was meant to have lived out his life, surely he would have married Evelyn. Instead, he left her there with her brother and the watch-bracelet he had given her when she had lost everything. Now, today, Nyx wore that same bracelet, passed down through the generations to her hands. It was a wonder in and of itself that of all the people in the world, she would be the one he was able to call a daughter.  However, of his two daughters, Tatyana was blood-related. You see, as he was able to gather, he had had a daughter in the future. This daughter had accidentally walked into his black hole and ended up in the current times for about three years. For some of that time, she had ironically found her way into RIOTE, presently informing him that RIOTE was not existent in her time, otherwise she would have recognized him. She assisted with the reopening of Rouen’s borders and establishing a new populace of immigrants among the broken. It became just the paradise—just the utopia that both he, Villetta, and Tatyana had imagined. However, that innocent spirit, which had assisted with the country’s rebirth, was stolen away by her very own hands. Tatyana killed Tatyana. Sent by himself in the distant future, this Tatyana’s mission was to kill her younger self so as to break the circle. Abruptly that life ended. A life is still a life. Was she different even though she was the same person? Had she felt death even though she was still alive holding the knife? Aurel couldn’t fathom it much less understand where his future self had been coming from, but in the time following, he grew to accept it; even though, to him, he was much too young to have any offspring, especially having never married.

His first encounter with this older Tatyana had been received through the mail. It seemed, after having been sent into this time, she had forgotten herself briefly only then to have finally recollected:  

Hello dearest Aurelius,
How fares you?  I must muse how odd you must feel receiving a letter from an unknown source, but I shall let you know, that you know me very well, or at least you WILL know soon enough.  You will meet me soon, then, again in a few years.  How much fun it will be that I will remember none of this then, but for now, I know all about you.  As people, we never fall far from home, do we?  Everything cycles and soon, you too will be consumed by the loops time holds for you.
Nevertheless, this is not why I have contacted you.  No, I am by no means attempting to taunt or anger you, but simply warn and motivate you.  Give me three days and I will show myself, until then, rest assured I could never think of wronging you.  
Godspeed to you until then.
                                   Sincerely,
                                                           T.S.

She was flawless. Whoever her mother was… it made him wonder if it really was possible to love someone so completely. He questioned it every time he set eyes on her since she appeared to him. That—that right there was the result of something far from him now. She kept her distance from him for obvious reasons, but… Was the future not already meant to be changed? After her deed of taking her young self’s life, Tatyana did not ask to be returned to her time. He did not know why. And he did not inquire. But Tatyana did come to him. How painful must it have been to have your father right there, but for him to not be your father. Nothing about them reflected this—not until the very end.

Tatyana was the first to be infected with the Deadlight-Virus. Almost immediately, she began coughing. That was the only way they were able to tell. It was like a cold—a normal sickness that time and vitamin C could easily wash away. But then…she began to lose her eyesight. In a matter of time, she was bedridden, already fading away before their very eyes. Nyx would bring her soup, chiming about how they would go to the amusement park when she was better. He remembers yelling then—being angry with his words, and saying “NYX SHE’S DYING.” As if the cold, hard truth would bring either of them any relief. He immediately regretted it. He regretted a lot. He didn’t know anymore.

Through it all, he was there. People were in an out, buzzing by, doctors, nurses, Nyx, Kit, people. He didn’t know—didn’t care; he was just there, through it all. Aurel became one with an uncomfortable sofa chair, sleeping sometimes, other times speaking to her in such a soft voice he hardly understood himself. He didn’t know he had it in him to care so much. He felt himself falling apart, the only thing keeping him together was her pale hand clutching him, squeezing, sinking further and further under the surface where he couldn’t reach. He couldn’t comfort her. He could do nothing, but witness the death of a daughter he hadn’t even had yet.

"Please..." she would say, ”please, don't make me go through this again." A rupturing voice, shaking, edgy, pieces already falling away around him. Her grip—that tight embrace of hands—dragging him back and back again.

“I won’t,” he had replied, knowing full well that when Tatyana was born, he would never allow her near his alchemy. There would be precautions—so many precautions. Because if he failed, he knew he would lose her forever. This very moment. This moment. Her fingers slipped from his, her consciousness zoning in and out with fatigue and spurts of aggression. He couldn’t.

"I don't want to let go." But she was already dying—dying like so many other before them all. Everything was falling apart—melding away into nothingness. His very soul dripped down into the carpet, seeping into it like the blood from her lips. "I stayed to tell you about it,” she managed out, “I didn't want you to catch it again.” All at once, he had understood. The reason for her staying in this time was for this. The words of warning she hadn’t gotten out in time were already wasted. A sad, bittersweet smile donned his face.

“It’s too late,” he had whispered. He was already with her—already part of it all. His country was simmering into ashes, not snow; her words, his words, their breath coming together. It was already too late. But he wouldn’t die, no. “It’s a small price to pay…for all of your suffering.” She was gone. So suddenly—so fluidly.  At least, in the end, she was home.

Not long afterwards, Aurel wandered out of the room in a haze. It took her weeks to succumb; he didn’t even know what day it was. He didn’t even know who he was anymore, but it was over. That in there was just a body. The halls outside were empty and plagued, dust gathering on shelves, suitcases awry in the alleyways, overturned. He fell away from himself, stumbling into things until he found his way back to where he usually spent his days. There, he found Nyx, and effortlessly collapsed.

Being there—where Tatyana was, experiencing that was entirely different than watching someone else go. While it was sad and prickling to witness death, it was a whole other beast to be at the gate again. That warty smile, creeping over a face that isn’t even a face. The blob of a body cackling and laughing away at the one and only human that had outsmarted a god. The Philosopher’s Stone inside him simmered, fizzed, bubbled through his bones and the very core of his being, eating him alive from the inside where the virus grew and festered. Whiteness, everywhere. He could hardly see this faded world—the fury of so many misshaped lives. Stone after stone after stone upon the graves of the young whose bodies had all gone lain before his path. Skeletons. Closets. Unspoken words. Regret. The whispers of that man before the trigger took him away. He had sent him there—he had sent them all there. He had caused Tatyana’s death just as he had caused her life. He was the scale with which balance choked him, tapering away everything—everything and nothing. Over and over it would happen until there was no energy left—until The World’s foolish smile was blotted out by his own hands. Until then…

“Shit,” he breathed.

      ...........................................................................

    TRIVIA:
→ Aurelius means golden in German and Schwartz means black.
→ He does not eat breakfast.
→ He was born in the time period of Fullmetal Alchemist.
→ He didn't know what technology was when he first entered the future in 2010, but even months later there is a lot he still doesn't know.
→ It was his intention for Dietrich to absorb Father's powers, but it was also a risk.
→ He tires easily around people.
→ He is antisocial.
→ He favorite pastime is manipulating people.
→ He has no family.
→ Xanthus Icarus is his best friend.
→ Nyx is the great great granddaughter of Evelyn Havoc.
→ He chose the Briggs Brigade to kill Father because of what he did to them in the past.
→ The city/crowds overwhelm him.
→ He has inclinations towards suicide sometimes though not nearly as often as he used to.
→ He stabbed out his own right eye.
→ He only does things for a carefully thought out reason.
→ He hates attention.
→ He has much money at his disposal.
→ If he says he'll kill you, you'll die.
→ He does not need to drink blood in order to survive, but he can, and by doing so, it heightens his alchemic ability.  
→ He gets allergies bad.
→ He has a metal plate installed in his skull due to Shadow-Aurel shooting himself in the head. Due to this, he gets headaches all the time. And yes, he sets off metal detectors.
→ He invented RIOTE.
→ He has never killed anyone.
→ [color=grey]After Tatyana's death, Aurel added a T to Schwarz, making his new surname Schwartz.
→ He is fluent in Amestrian, Ishvallan, Aerugese, Esparian, Xingese, Drachman, Cretan, Creig, Rouenian (Gelemortian Dialect), and Cerisian. » He is fluent in Amestrian (brown), Drachman (darkgoldenrod), Cretan (midnightblue), and Rouenian (Gelemortian Dialect) (darkmagenta).  

      ...........................................................................

      ALIAS:
      → Aki

      OTHER CHARACTERS:
      → Spade & Ela

    CREATOR'S COMMENTS:
      → Credit to Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood for some dialogue quotes.
      → 11,134 20,000 words: my longest history.  

      FACE CLAIM:

Code:

[b]KATEKYO HITMAN REBORN![/b]/[i]Rokudo Mukuro[/i]

    CUSTOM RANK:
      → BEND TO MY WILL
      → 010101010101
      → HELLO DEATH...
      → POINT AND PULL THE TRIGGER
      → THE BAFFLED KING
      → SWEAT MY RUST

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