Alternate Chapter One

In the midst of Paris, deep in the heart of the city which birthed and embellishes itself in Gothic arichtecture, laid a rather large Catholic Church that no-one exactly knew who it belonged to. No-one ever seemed to leave the Church, or no-one ever seemed to enter the church, and yet, the church was constantly clean, maintained, and at times, strange chants, almost akin to invocations could be heard erupting like mantras in the midst of the dark, temperate nights. In fact, even the construction of the building was a mystery, one day the land being bought in the name of the Great Church, dn the other the building seemed to abnormally appear from nothingness. It would just so happen that on February 21st, these noises, the chants, the screams, the shouts, they all raised dramatically in amplitude, almost as if the Church made a switch in denominations from Catholic to Pentecostal. The low tone and hum of men deep in focus permeated the atmosphere for miles from the source, chanting in a language seemingly beyond mortal comprehension, baflfing even the most advanced of linguists. These words continued to repeat loudly, shaking beginning to shake the Church visibly and reverberating from the hollow walls of the Church, as those who continued to boserve were paralyzed with fear and a loss of whatever investigative determination they might have had. As this volume increased, the words slowly became clearer, though yet again, any ordinary individual could not pick it up. This, of course, was magic, and any human lacking the mystical talent and the gift to control the ambient energies of the universe could never hope to understand the pinnacle of alchemical miracles that was currently taking place right in their very doorsteps.

If one were to go past the shattered glass panes that failed to keep out the light of the moon, the large brown door seemingly made of polished greenheart with an enormous golden cross within it, and the several barricades of benches behind said door, one would come across a sight one would not expect to see in a Church. Several men, clearly grown-adults fdrom the powerful depth and masculinity in their bvoices all draped in black hooded-leather garments, or, black robes in layman's terms, perhaps members of this peculiar church all gathering around and bowing before what seemed to be a magnified/glorified test tube with a lid at it's apex, putting all of their being into said test tube, containing quite a shapely young woman. Did I say several men? Sorry, I hope you would excuse me for such a grand mistake, I meant several hundred men covering the entirety of the church, and if several hundred was not enough, several thousand, as several hundred was perhaps only the number countable from immediately opening the door, the black robes outnumbering even the shadows of the night that fell within the cave. The aforementioned young woman appeared to be asleep, yet for unknown reasons was tossing and turning at each and every little word uttered by the church-people, who continued chanting with unweavering confidence, calmness, and determination. With only one individual standing out, a tall muscular middleaged man witha  distinct jawbone and neatly-shaved facial hair, who seemed to be spear-heading the entire "ceremony", one would wonder if this really was a Church, or if they were actually summoning the Devil. But the answer to that was somewhat better, and somewhat worse than both  possiblities. One could say that they were in fact the Church, but they weren't "summoning" a Devil, oh no, they were creating one for the "protection of all mankind." Such were the goals of the organization truly involved here, the organization  that would come to be named, Nilrem, in times to come. These, Christian sorcerers suddenly stopped their chant for a mere second, as the woman within the containment made a deep, sharp breath, unconscious, but breathing despite all air being locked out from her surroundings. Their pause did not last for long however, as they were told to continue the ritual at all costs by said spear-header as their splinter-faction would require the research put into her in order to continue with the next stage of their plans, ***whatever those were.***

Half of the people seemingly responsible for this ritual began to seemingly call this woman out by name, or were they naming her? Perhaps that was a mystery unknown even to these individuals, as the woman convulsed as if being electrocuted by the combined voltage of a million electric eels, almost as if she was under incredible pain unlike anything imaginable by the mere common man, yet being healed at a seemingly similar rate, as no physical injuries were on the smallest quark of her composition. In fact, one might say she was flawless, and in way (actually, in several) one would not be wrong. Her physical body showing all signs of life except irritablity, it was almost as if she was fully conscious yet at the same time just shut down completely in terms of sensory capabilties, something that no-one magician present seemed to be able to accept. The ultimate embodiment of sacrificing oneself for one's goals, what they did next is something that needs a bit of context for one to truly understand the magnitude of what was done beyond that of someone who merely listened to someone repeat the words. While science is convinced that conscious thought and sensory capabilities all originate from the centre of thought, or the brain, the mystical side of the world is convinced that thought comes from the concept known as the mind, which is a derivative of the soul. As a result, these magicians, instead of simply giving up, laid down their very lives and offered their souls up to the cause, forcing conscious thought into the woman they seemed to be working so incredibly hard to revive, or perhaps, bring to life? If one really thought about it, this entire process seemed much more like alchemy than actual healing magic, as to both sides of the glass cage that this prisoner was trapped within, one could find vast arrays of chemical compounds, what appeared to be reagents, vials containing strange blood that seemed to continuously change form once being taken out, and semeed to compeltely neutralize what appeared to be all other forms of blood during a "coincidental" spillage, this was in fact a room where alchemy was taking place. This was a room of human and humanoid experimentation, and this woman? Well, she was to be the resultant of their grandest experiment ever, the attainance of the alchemical legend known as the perfect artificial human, or Homunculus. The Church wasn't named the Church of the Transfiguration (in French of cours) for nothing anyways. Too far? Too far.

Slowly but surely, the vast numbers of persons meant to behold the beauty of the creation continued to drop at an ever-increasing rate. It was commonly known that most incredible feats of magic come at a great cost, and usually, if a group were the ones to start such a spell or invocation, it would usually result in the cost being greater, yet split equally among each member of the group in a manner they could actually repay it in. However, this was clearly not the case here, because of one, *harmless* reason: The desire to achieve utter perfection, to become noted as the cream of the crop in the fields of alchemy and produce what no-one has ever created before, the perfect Homunculus. A perfect transmutation also required perfect reagents, or a perfect sacrifice, and as perfect reagents simply cannot exist in the universe, it does not take much to see that each and every last one of the magician's casting the spell, reagarldess of they cahnneled magical energy into it in the first place were going to die. But they started it knowing therisks, so they would continue down to the very end. As the final magician collapsed to the ground, still channeling every last ember of power within his body, chanting the name, Karina, the woman's eyes shot open, and with his dying breath, he looked at his creation and  thought it was good, titling it LaBelle, or the Beauty. But it, was no longer an "it" but a "her", a person, or in fact an entity a bit grander than a regular person. As the last embers withered away into the dark nothingness of the night, the woman, still in the glass, looked around her, down the red-carpet and towards the last individual standiing, the project manager in curiosity. Several voices sounded simultaneously in cacophonous harmony, as the newly named Karina LaBelle pointed her finger forward, releasing a magical power that broke her containment, sent powerful winds flying througout the room, and the windows fluttering in and out on their hinges repeatedly.

"*Who are you?" she asked.*

Now, the common cliche for most beings now waking up from some sort of slumber is to ask, who am I. But you see now, Homunculi work differently. Homunculi have no concept of age, being fully matured at birth and attaining all necessary information and knowledge from the beginning to be considered matured, and a seemingly endless lifespan for as long as they are not killed in battle. This necessary information also includes a sense of identity and self brought to them inherently by merely existing, and as a result, their first question will be about their environment, not themselves.

Back to the scene however, the only man left in the area of the Church stood in a mixture of fear and awe at the Homunculus's power, as she passively cleaner her nails while waiting for a response.

"Well? I don't have all-night, I'm a busy gal." Karina, finishing up with her nails, ran her fingers through her long, thick auburn hair, awaiting a response from the seemingly helpless individual. "I can sense I'm not the only one you created. What is it that you call us again? Ho-, Homunculi, yeah, I got it, Homunculi. You are aware if I just decided to leave now there's not much you can do to stop me right? So, let me rephrase the question I asked you...earlier." The female humanoid steps forward with the utmost of grace almost paralyzing the captivated project manager. As Karina approached him, the poor man sweated enough bricks to build him a Minecraft house, and started shouting unintelligble blabber, not sure how to react, before finding himself hovering three arm-lengths above the ground, pinned to a wall. "Now, who are you, and tell me everything you know, for your own good", she says while stroking his chest playfully, "darling." Karina was well aware that the Church was overrun by perverted males, several of them deciding to pledge chastity in excahnge for divine blessings or favour and as a result kept these thoughts hidden, and had no problem capitalizing on it.

"I, know nothing." the fabulist spoke, his status as a teeler of unthruths clear as day to the woman who had absorbed the very souls of all of his lackeys. "Well, that's a real shame honey...hoped I didn't have to do this to ya, but you left me no choice." A near downright demonic grin appeared on Karina's face in that very instant, as a cane suddenly manifests in her hand. Throughout the night, people claimed to have seen lightning strike through the Church several times accompanied by a scream of absolute terror. The thought of the common man and woman was simply, "Such a weird church". And such a weird church indeed.

The next morning, a tall, slender young woman dressed in the very embodiment of a sexy witch's outfit emerged from the massive doors of the church, and from the sounds that occured the last night, garnered the attentio, and concern of several persons, who believed that those sounds within the perimeter of the Church and the emergence of a woman could only mean she was raped by the Clergy. Oh, if only they knew what had really happened. Of course, Karina being the type of manipulative woman she is, said yes, but not before taking literally all of their resources, documents, and research papers, leaving them empty-handed, and imprisoned. Yes, life was sweet for Karina, the Homunclus on her way to Japan. Borrowing the international clearance documents the geezer had told her about, Karina sat comfortably in the upper echelons of first class, due to being told of a link in Kuoh Town. Maybe she'd even find some good food, who knows?