[WP] Lucifer is appointed lead researcher for the ‘Eden Project’, by God, and tasked with artificially recreating free will. The Garden is a controlled testing environment and Adam & Eve are the teams first, and last, success.
“Free will… What defines it? What is its essence? I cannot create that which I cannot understand…” Lucifer gripped the clay model of a human in his hand, crushing it beneath his fingers. His gaze passed slowly over the garden. His eyes paused over various spots, each marked with a unique plant. From the first grew an orange tree, from the next a pineapple plant, from another a grape vine, and from the final a blackberry bush. Each represented the graves of passed experiments. And to Lucifer, each represented failure.
An angel burst through the door, clipboard in hand. “Sir, the latest report!” The angel extended his arm, offering up the clipboard. Moments passed in silence as Lucifer continued to start intently out at the garden. Finally the angel spoke again, his tone now coated in a thick layer of awkward hesitation, “Um… sir?.. Y-you asked for the report to be delivered promptly.” Lucifer lifted his eyes from the point they'd been previously affixed to and focused them on the angel. The clipboard bearer shrunk against the steely gaze of the team lead, but he continued to keep his arm extended. With one quick movement, Lucifer snatched the clipboard and began thumbing through its pages. The now-empty-handed angel took this as his cue to leave, and promptly made his way to the door.
With each page, the grimace on Lucifer’s face deepened. “… the calculated chance of success is approximately 7.44% …” As soon as he finished reading the number, he let out an aggravated howl and chucked the clipboard at the wall. “This project was damned from the start! Why must I always be assigned the impossible tasks?!” He shouted at the ceiling, as if yelling to the heavens themselves. He quickly regained his composure, remembering who he was stationed under. “Best not upset the boss… I'm already on my second strike…”
Focusing his will on the newly sprouted fig tree in the garden, Lucifer’s body blinked out of existence from his place in the tower and reappeared next to the tree. As he stared at the tree, an idea formed in his mind. “No, I couldn’t possibly… But what if it worked?.. That would likely be my last strike… But maybe… Just maybe… It'd be worth it…” He focused for a moment, and a sketchbook appeared in his hand. Determined to get his idea onto paper, the angel drew out a scene: two humans, a fig tree, and a stretched, coiled creature with a long tongue and no legs. Above it he wrote out the short form of an equation he'd been trying to crack since the experiment began. He erased the question mark which denoted the key, missing part of the equation, and in its place simple wrote, “Deception.”
It took another seven years for the garden to reset and be ready for the next trial, but this time, it was a resounding success. Lucifer enacted his plan, creating a creature capable of tricking the humans into doing that which they would never dream of doing on their own. And as he suspected, God was not happy with his transgression. A hearing was called, and a jury unanimously voted to give Lucifer his last, and final, strike.
Lucifer tried to appeal it. He argued that he had accomplished the task given to him. The means may have bent the rules slightly, but had he not ultimately fulfilled his Lord’s wishes? Neither God nor the jury cared for the angel’s arguments. He was to be banished, and would have no hand in the education of the newly free-will driven humans of Eden. And since history is written by the victor, the few legacies the humans would be given in time would surely paint him as the villain. That is not what bothered Lucifer, though, as he sat in the banished lands. No, the now-demon’s only regret, is that none would ever know the sacrifice made by Lucifer Morningstar.