If there had been another path, we would have taken it.
[He can't lie. And he wouldn't lie now -- not about this. This really had been the only way Mephisto knew how to prevent the terrible calamity Lucifer promised to bring.]
But even that venture was, in the end, a fruitless endeavor. No matter how close one may get to a perfect genetic clone, in the end, they were not the same soul. Your kind is far too complex, and even those raised in identical environments turned out too different from one another. They could not become proper host bodies.
And when that plan proved to be failure, one of the scientists from my laboratory suggested we shift our research towards elixirs instead -- a fabled cure-all potion capable of bestowing immortal life. In that, we found more success...
[Perhaps if he were back home, he'd be able to keep talking in the same casual tone. Perhaps if he hadn't grown so close to the likes of Mipha or Chuuya, or perhaps if he hadn't experienced first hand what it's like to be tortured in a medical facility-- maybe he'd be able to keep going without letting on exactly how he feels about all this.]
...but the closer we came to the answer, the more cruel and inhumane the experiments became. Using samples from the initial groups of clones and lesser demons bearing immortal vessels, we worked to create an elixir that could sustain Lucifer's deteriorating body.
But as the years went on, we faced more and more failure. My words could no longer reach Lucifer, his mind torn apart, driven into insanity from the pain he fought to endure with each failed experiment. I tried to convince him to give up his body and return to Gehenna until a new body could be prepared -- but he only spat in my face.
[He wasn't just trying to stop Lucifer. He was trying to save his brother.]
[And the fact that he couldn't is one of the few things he regrets to this day.]
We never did succeed, in the end.
[...]
But the price we paid for our hubris was a heavy one.
no subject
[He can't lie. And he wouldn't lie now -- not about this. This really had been the only way Mephisto knew how to prevent the terrible calamity Lucifer promised to bring.]
But even that venture was, in the end, a fruitless endeavor. No matter how close one may get to a perfect genetic clone, in the end, they were not the same soul. Your kind is far too complex, and even those raised in identical environments turned out too different from one another. They could not become proper host bodies.
And when that plan proved to be failure, one of the scientists from my laboratory suggested we shift our research towards elixirs instead -- a fabled cure-all potion capable of bestowing immortal life. In that, we found more success...
[Perhaps if he were back home, he'd be able to keep talking in the same casual tone. Perhaps if he hadn't grown so close to the likes of Mipha or Chuuya, or perhaps if he hadn't experienced first hand what it's like to be tortured in a medical facility-- maybe he'd be able to keep going without letting on exactly how he feels about all this.]
...but the closer we came to the answer, the more cruel and inhumane the experiments became. Using samples from the initial groups of clones and lesser demons bearing immortal vessels, we worked to create an elixir that could sustain Lucifer's deteriorating body.
But as the years went on, we faced more and more failure. My words could no longer reach Lucifer, his mind torn apart, driven into insanity from the pain he fought to endure with each failed experiment. I tried to convince him to give up his body and return to Gehenna until a new body could be prepared -- but he only spat in my face.
[He wasn't just trying to stop Lucifer. He was trying to save his brother.]
[And the fact that he couldn't is one of the few things he regrets to this day.]
We never did succeed, in the end.
[...]
But the price we paid for our hubris was a heavy one.