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Greed is the first to leave, and Father does not go after him. Why would he? He has over a century to come to his senses, after all, and Father still has more pawns. Greed was never much use to him, anyways, too stubborn and self-indulgent. Father is better off being rid of him. So his plans continue, and the other six stay by his side.
Greed lives unobtrusively. He lives as something close to human, collecting others that don’t quite fit in. He calls them his possessions, calls keeping them safe protecting his hoard, but his people know he cares. After all, as they all know, you don’t have to be human to be a person.
Greed continues on, and does not challenge Father, because even with his people behind him he doesn’t have enough power. Not alone.
But Greed is the third of seven siblings, and he was made as part of a set.
Lust is not the second to leave, but she is the second to plan. She and Greed are a set; the Ultimate Spear and the Ultimate Shield. Life with Father isn’t quite the same without him. He was always speaking out, acting on his own whims and questioning what Father said. It got him in trouble constantly, of course, but when Lust could convince him to come to her first she found his ideas fascinating. Lust was perfectly capable, but she was nowhere near as creative as her brother. Often, she quietly thought that his ideas were improvements on Father’s plans, though she could never say that to him. She is older than Greed, though not by much, and she remembers how Father planned before the third sin was born. His plans for the Promised Day were all laid out before she was born, and when he explained them she saw a bit of the spark that later came through in her brother.
But Greed is gone now, and the underground is quiet. She spends time with Pride and Envy and Gluttony, though mostly the former, as he is much more interesting than her more one-dimensional siblings. Those two still seem so young to her, and though Envy has some personality they still aren’t much more than a copycat. Gluttony on the other hand has a rather one-track mind, and Lust finds herself keeping him in line more often than not. Sloth is never around, always off digging the tunnel. So, she spends time with Pride.
Pride is interesting. Out of all of them he thinks for himself the most, and though he is smart enough not to speak out Lust can tell he is constantly questioning Father’s decisions. Unlike Greed, he acts quietly and on his own, bending the truth here and there and doing as he sees fit. He’s smart about it, never letting it get back to Father, but he’s less uptight around Lust. She is the second oldest, after all, and while they aren’t as close as her and Greed, they have each other’s backs.
As the decades pass, Lust finds herself questioning Father more and more in the privacy of her own mind. The plan is solid right up until the end, every variable accounted for. The question then is, what happens after? If Father does gain the power of God, as the plan says, what will become of the homunculi? Will they be returned to Father, as Greed was once or twice before he ran? Greed always came back new, devoid of memories, but still the same soul underneath; he had the same voice, the same ideas, the same brashness that always got him into trouble. Lust is the only one who knows that his memory tended to return after a few months, though he was always careful to hide it. So they wouldn’t be gone entirely, would they?
But could she stand a life like that? She knows the agony of a philosopher’s stone; she can sense the one within her, if she focuses. She prefers not to, for obvious reasons, but it’s still there. When this is all over, can she agree to simply stop existing, or to exist forever in a void of pain?
There are other things, too. Father grows more stupid with each sin that is born; Lust thinks privately that he needs all of them, but now that they’re here he can’t simply take them back. He was a full person once, but now he is devoid of all emotion but Wrath, and she sees how the anger clouds his judgement. Things get sloppy, plans are moved back, and the homunculi are sent on more and more dangerous missions.
Lust starts to wonder whether her loyalty to Father is stronger than her loyalty to her siblings.
Lust is not the second to leave; Envy is. Envy is nearly as brash as Greed, though they are better at not getting in trouble. They play the part of the clown, and they do it well; it takes Lust embarrassingly long to understand Envy’s intelligence, their acting skills far greater than Lust’s or even Pride’s. She wouldn’t have pegged them as someone so rebellious, but she realises that Envy has spent more time among humans than the rest of them, that they understand their lives and their emotions far better. They seem jealous of humans, but Lust is coming to understand that jealousy isn’t too far off from admiration, and lust isn’t too far off from love.
She sees the signs in Envy, the same way she saw the signs in Greed, and instead of quietly turning the other way she offers a helping hand. It doesn’t take much for Envy to go on a mission and never return, and Pride helps her steer Father’s attention away from their sibling, convincing him that it won’t be worth their time to go searching. Envy promises to search for Greed, and Lust quietly hopes for someone seemingly human to whisper an address in her ear.
With two siblings gone, the rest of them cannot simply leave. Lust could sneak Gluttony out, probably, but Pride and herself are too useful. Father would hunt them down, and they would be reset the same way as Greed, and Lust doesn’t know whether they would be able to return from that. They’ve come to the point where if they wish to live, they must fight.
The thing is, Lust is tired. She has worked for Father for hundreds of years, and though she does have time to rest it still feels as though the work never ends. In the tunnels she must be careful of Father’s ears, and outside she has to conceal herself from the humans. It’s a fine line to walk either way, and Lust is tired. She is driven by many things; fear of her own death, frustration at Father’s failing plans, all sorts of things, but these days a part of her simply wants to live a proper life. To live like a human, almost, somewhere far away from Father’s eyes, where she can love her siblings and perhaps love a human and put aside the bloodlust that has kept her going when she cannot indulge in anything else. Where Pride can be boastful, and Greed can have his hoard, and Envy can be themselves for once, and Gluttony can eat all he likes. Even Sloth could join them, and sleep for as long as he likes. Lust would like a life like that.
But Father is still more powerful than all of them combined, and one of her siblings is about to be born.
Wrath is born into a human body, much like Greed, and Lust and Pride know that he will be the tipping point. With him, the seven are equal in strength to Father; they just need to get Wrath on their side, and they have a chance at succeeding. Still, even with all seven, Father has a distinct advantage over them in terms of skill and experience.
Lust meets with Envy at the edge of Amestris, and they discuss a plan to level the playing field. Envy’s already begun, though it’s tedious work, and so has Greed. Envy begrudgingly admits that Greed is better than them at Alchemy; Lust understands it perfectly. It was only a matter of time before he started hoarding knowledge, too. Still, Lust can see Envy’s admiration and drive, and knows they’ll catch up just fine. She receives several books to get started, and memorizes them on the train ride back to Central. Her progress will be slow compared to the others, but it doesn’t matter how fast she learns so long as she’s ready long before the Promised Day.
It’s in the last forty years or so that Lust and Pride step up the sabotage. They hunt down potential sacrifices before Father can get wind of them and do their best to drive them out of the country or, failing that, kill them so Father cannot use them. They drag their feet when it comes to carving the crests of blood, leaving Ishval and Liore and Briggs for the very last minute. But Father controls the Amestrian military directly, and so Ishval still descends into war despite their efforts. Still, they do what they can.
With Pride stuck in Central, Lust is the one who has to hunt down Sloth. Pride has been talking to him, since he can operate in the tunnels, but Lust has to be there to usher him away to somewhere safe. Envy has given her a location, and Greed planned out a safe route to get there. So Pride tells Sloth that she’s coming, and she finds him sleeping at the end of the tunnel, relieved that his work is over. This alone will ruin Father’s plan, not having the tunnel complete, but there is still more to do. Lust takes Sloth to the west side of Amestris, an area long gone ignored by Father since his plans there were long since completed, and leaves him in the safe house with Envy and Greed and Greed’s people.
It takes far too long to get Wrath on their side. He has a human lifespan, unlike Greed, and Lust wants to spend as much of it as they can together as a family. But Wrath is stubborn, determined to turn his anger towards the humans rather than their father. But eventually, after decades of Pride’s careful work, anger becomes protectiveness and Wrath turns against Father to stand with them.
It comes down to the last few years, and while two boys in the east are adjusting to new limbs, the Homunculi search for human allies.
This decision was a difficult one. They’ve all learned the value of humanity, the resourcefulness that comes with them by their nature. Envy, Wrath, and Pride have lived among them, Greed has a tendency to adopt collect them, and Lust has seen firsthand how powerful they can be. Lust and Pride have changed their strategy, since they retrieved Sloth. It’s the people who would have been sacrifices that they now try to recruit; Wrath approaches Roy Mustang, Greed travels south to recruit Izumi Curtis, and Lust follows the same stories that once would have led Mustang to the Elrics in order to ask for their help.
It’s pure luck that leads Envy to Hohenheim; they’re searching for Dr. Marcoh when they stumble upon him in the Liore library. It takes some convincing, but Hohenheim agrees to join them. Lust thinks he may see them as the lesser of two evils. Either way, it’s a game changer; Hohenheim may not be much of a fighter, but he has nearly twice the power of Father since he’s given away so much to the homunculi.
In the end, it’s rather anticlimactic. Sloth and Gluttony sit out the final battle, left to rest in their safe house. Izumi Curtis and Colonel Mustang join them; the Elrics were forbidden from coming by Izumi, and they aren’t short on power, so the homunculi agreed. Hohenheim leads the charge into the catacombs beneath Central, and Father is quickly overwhelmed.
And that’s that.
The homunculi move out to the safe house in the west, and they live happily. They let the alchemists clean up the mess in Central, which they do admirably. Lust goes back every once in a while, taking Gluttony to visit various restaurants in the area, and keeps her ears open. Grumman takes the spot of Fuhrer after Bradley’s disappearance, though Mustang is clearly gunning for the spot. The philosopher’s stones left in Central are long gone, as are the Immortal Legion. Lust runs into Mustang while she’s there, and he insists on visiting the homunculi once in a while.
He makes good on his promise, and suddenly they have alchemists visiting at least once a month. Mustang visits first, and brings along his team. From him Lust finds out more about what happened after they left; the alchemists used Dr. Marcoh’s array to release most of the philosopher’s stones, and used a few to return Al’s body and clean up the damage around Central.
The Elrics make an appearance along with Izumi after a year, Al back in his body and nearly fully recovered. Hohenheim is apparently off in Xerxes, working with the Ishvalans living there to restore the ancient city. Al tells an entertaining story about some Xingians they met in Rush Valley who were looking for a philosopher’s stone. Ed had pulled one out of the ground (they were still littered all over the country; cleaning that up would take decades) and handed it over, much to their delight. Somehow they encountered another Xingian on the train with a similar story, and repeated the trick.
The house is never quiet, but life settles down. Lust enjoys her eldest sister role, and loves the time she spends with her siblings. She joins Greed on adventures and makes friends with humans, and then Envy starts joining them as something of a guide, and then Gluttony comes along to sample the food at every restaurant they pass. Greed starts a casino, and drags them into working there, and somehow it works out. Lust works the front desk, Envy deals cards, and Gluttony proves to be apt at making drinks. Greed mostly handles the accounts, and does a bit of everything. Pride eventually joins them too, acting as security and taking great pleasure in kicking out anyone who cheats. Wrath never gets involved, nor does Sloth; Wrath is closer to human than any of them, after all, and spends quite a lot of time with his wife. Sloth is just too lazy to work, and they’re all inclined to let him rest.
So they continue, and Lust falls in love with humans one after another, though she mourns when they inevitably die. Greed loves his humans, too, even as they grow old and die, though he loves them in a different way from her. He takes them in as his close friends, sometimes as his children, but never as lovers. That’s her domain, after all, and they come as a set.
In the end, freedom is a house with her siblings and lovers who never live forever, and that’s enough. History continues around them, and they live their lives, and it’s enough. They may not be human, but they are family, and they are people, and it is enough.