Seal 4.1

2010, November 18: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

"Good hustle, Kiley!" Coach Miller called as I ran by on my sixth of eight laps. Two miles was nothing to me at this point so I just grit my teeth and chalked it up as some extra cardio. Maybe it was small-minded of me, but I couldn't deny a pang of smug satisfaction as I blew past some of my classmates. My performance was mediocre compared to many athletic adults, but it was still tangible proof that my months of rigorous exercise were paying dividends.

Coach Miller had pulled us from our regularly scheduled game of flag football for a "surprise fitness drill." Apparently, last night, a handful of idiots had tagged the Arcadia gymnasium. Not with gang signs thankfully, but it pissed off the coach something fierce. As typical of teenagers, no one came forward, not that I knew anything myself. And since the coach was ex-army, he firmly believed in collective punishment. Two miles, thirty pushups, thirty situps, ten chinups, and ten burpees for all. Joy.

I heard him yelling at a trio of girls who'd slowed to a halfhearted jog. He threatened to extend our punishment to another two days. Whether it was the threat itself or the unanimous glares of everyone in class, they picked up the pace.

Once that mess was over, I grabbed a quick shower and headed back out to world issues with Mrs. Currie. It felt weird, going about my school day normally like this. There was so much going on in the background: Amy was an emotional minefield. Sabah desperately needed help. Coil was doing… something. There was a budding turf war between the ABB and E88. I needed to master the Crown Chimera, make Glyph's costume, stockpile materials for my ship, actually design my ship, and more.

And I was in school running laps because some chuckle-fucks tagged the walls. It felt remarkably petty? Sheltered, that was the word, like going to the "good school" meant we were by default isolated from the broader world.

Then again, maybe that was the point. Maybe that was what I needed? A dash of normalcy to balance out the craziness of being Creed and help me keep the knives I was juggling in the air just a little longer.

I was walking to class when I felt someone yank on my backpack by the handle, tugging me to the side of the corridor. I turned around to find a short, Japanese girl staring up at me with a cheeky grin. She'd dyed a hot-pink streak into her bangs and swept it to the side. "Yo," Grace said, "What's up, Bryce, buddy o' pal?"

I quirked an eyebrow. Grace Kanda. We shared math class and she was dating Eric Pelham. She also had an iguana named Lung and brought it to school a few years ago for show and tell, officially making her the ballsiest Asian kid I knew. We knew each other, but more by association than anything. I didn't think we were on casual speaking terms. "Hey, Grace. Nice bangs. Very anime."

"Thanks. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep it or not. I mean, Eric dyes his hair blue but it's a ton of work to maintain, especially since my hair's dark and I need to bleach it first to get the color."

I nodded agreeably. "Sounds like a pain. So what's up?"

"Oh, my iguana's sick. He's really hacking up a lung."

"You're really not as funny as you think you are."

"Bitch, please. I'm hilarious. No need to raise a skink."

"Puns are the shit-filled asscrack of comedy."

"Puns are the highest form of humor and you are an uncultured rube," she scoffed. "Anyway, iguana ask you for a favor."

I let out an exaggerated sigh. "God, fine. Anything to make you stop."

"You play music, right?"

"Yes…?"

"Something portable? Like a guitar? Or a uke?"

"Guitar. What's up?"

"Sadie Hawkins." I stared at her blankly. She stared back at me, realized I had no idea what she was talking about, and threw her hands in the air. "Ugh. This is why you're lonely, Bryce."

"Who's Sadie? And I'm not lonely." Really, I just spent most of my time talking to my duck… that I totally couldn't show anyone… If anything, I had far too many demands on my time.

"The dance. It's the dance where girls ask the guys."

"And you're… asking me…? Did something happen between you and Eric?"

"Ew! No!"

"Okay, yeah. That one kinda hurt."

"No, I mean, you're cool but Eric's one in a chameleon," she tried to diffuse with her terrible humor.

"If he thinks you're funny, he'd have to be."

"Anyway, everyone knows you're Amy's squeeze."

"Excuse me?" I squawked. Bryce Kiley wasn't anyone's squeeze!

"Yea. You went to Homecoming with Amy Dallon. You're like the only guy she hasn't threatened to castrate."

"We're not-never mind… What do you want, Grace?"

"I want you to play the guitar for me while I serenade my man. Gotta start things off right, right from the gecko, you know?"

"If I say yes, will you please stop making lizard puns?"

"Psh, I'm a gem. Come on, Bryce, help your favorite gal-pal out!"

"Favorite? Someone thinks highly of herself."

"Mama Kanda always said I should have more confidence. Just gotta scale up to greatness, eh? Eh?"

"Right…" I sighed but couldn't suppress a smile. Grace Kanda had a way about her that was equally infuriating and endearing. Besides, it wasn't as though it'd take any time out of my other projects. I could just bring dad's guitar to school and play for five minutes at lunch. "When?"

"Uhh… How long would it take you to learn the chords to a love song?"

"Depends on the love song."

"'All of Me' by John Legend?" I looked at her judgingly. "Hey, don't knock my song choices!"

"I said nothing."

"Your face speaks volumes, buster."

"Fine, whatever. It won't take me long."

"Monday at lunch?"

"Sure."

"Tegu so much!" she squealed, then promptly punched my shoulder.

I rubbed it with a wince. That was probably a type of lizard? "Shorty can throw hands."

"Second dan karate black belt, bitch," she said with a cheeky grin before skipping off. She called over her shoulder, "Thanks again, Bryce!"

I shook my head and walked to class. Hopefully, Amy wouldn't be going to Sadie's this year. I couldn't see her being the type anyway and, if I was being selfish, I wanted her in the hospital as often as possible so she'd treat Sabah's dad. I'd told Sierra that Amy "spontaneously decided" to do a few tours of the cardiology ward and she promised to pass it on to Sabah. I'd done what I could, hopefully, something would come of it.

X

2010, November 20: Brockton Bay, NH, USA

The rest of the school week passed with little else of note. The eighteenth was Dean's birthday, his actual birthday not his party, so Vicky led us in singing our best wishes for him at lunch. She'd also managed to procure a silly hat for him to wear, which he bore with good grace. The cloying sweetness of it all made me want to get checked for diabetes but I was too scared of Amy at the moment to ask. We did get to commiserate and practice synchronized eye-rolling so there was that.

Thursday and Friday nights were spent designing a ship and making Glyph's costume. There was a lot I could learn from the scale model of the Thousand Sunny I'd made, but I didn't actually want a Thousand Sunny of my own. For starters, I didn't think a seventeenth century pirate ship would fit in with the image I'd painted so far. Though maybe I could pretend to be a different tinker in "the organization?"

Aesthetics aside, there were plenty of reasons for me to forego a sailing vessel, even one as magnificently crafted as Franky's masterpiece. It did have a rear-facing cannon to launch itself, but that wasn't enough. I wanted something that could float and fly.

It'd take me much longer to build an airship that leaned more sci-fi than fantasy, and Air Gear wasn't the best specialization for it, but I could sketch out a few designs. All ships had some basic necessities after all, like a command center, engine room, lab, training hall, canteen, storage, lounge, lodgings, and of course, sanitation. I kind of felt like I was playing Kingdom Hearts and designing a gummy ship again, albeit with a bit more practicality in mind. No dildo-ships here, no sir.

In the end, I swallowed the pill and decided to give it to her for twenty grand. It was criminally low, I was practically robbing myself, but… but I could do the most good this way. Like with the rich man and the Black Rhino, I decided to make an advertisement deal with her.

The contract stipulated four additional conditions: First, the back of her new jacket would be embossed with my emblem, a stylized black "C" inside a cobalt-blue background and bordered by a sea-green hexagon. My name and Protect. Simple, clean, and more importantly, impossible to mistake as a Cauldron "C."

Second, the source of her costume must be a matter of public record. I didn't want the Guild to try to hide that she'd gotten the suit from a nominal villain.

Third, she was to recommend my services to additional heroes with good records. Her end of this bargain would be considered fulfilled when I completed three initial consultations even if I dropped them for whatever reason.

Lastly, she would have a month to test the suit's capabilities before she would be required to complete a video review of my product for the catalog as an additional way to prove I'd sold to a hero and done so in good faith.

I contacted her as The GOAT and made the transaction. It was all a bit more involved than I wanted initially, but I couldn't deny that this would be better for me in the long run. More customers, more legitimacy, and an implicit understanding between myself and the white-hats.

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When I wasn't doodling designs of my eventual ship or Glyph's new suit, I practiced the guitar for Grace, brainstormed potential Mirage Road tricks, and picked up some more capoeira techniques.

Then I woke up on Saturday morning and my world had completely changed again. There were certain immutable truths about life: Humans age and die. Earth-Bet is a shithole and Brockton Bay is the deepest part of that pit. Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, merely converted from one to the other.

Never had that final rule, the first law of physics, loomed over my life so ominously. Rather than a law, it was more like the edict of a tyrannical king, an unconditional, inescapable Truth.

Equivalent. Exchange.

And just like that, my head was filled with ideas. Fancy gloves with the most intricate designs embroidered into the cloth. Unique prosthetics that connected directly to a patient's nervous system. The manipulation of ley lines and "dragon veins" for use in healing and sympathetic "purification arts." The creation of new life at the sacrifice of countless others. The unspeakable horrors inflicted upon fellow man in the blind pursuit of knowledge. Fullmetal Alchemist was my specialization for the month and I truly had no idea how I should feel.

On one hand, it made material collection trivial. So long as I knew and could envision the chemical and physical properties of any material, I could make it. Wapometal? Sure, why not. Seastone? Trickier, but definitely doable. Gold? Hahahaha, what was wealth? Edward Elric turned several train cars full of coal into solid gold. By the same token, everything I'd done, including the catalogs, meant fuck-all. There was so much junk in the Boat Graveyard that I could easily transmute anything I wanted… with some study…

On the other hand, this single specialization had managed to trivialize anything resembling a material pipeline and a part of me hated it. It felt like I'd wasted a shitload of time when I could have spent that learning new techniques. I'd also have to push back my designs on an airship for another month at least; the best I could do was build stockpiles of materials.

'That's what I should do,' I figured. 'I should learn some general transmutation principles, figure out how to customize some circles, and then spend the month mastering the Pledge and Mirage Regalias. Take a month to become a better-rounded martial artist.'

Except… Was that really the best choice? The alchemy I knew of was far more versatile than that. Even if I never learned "combat alchemy" like Roy Mustang or Louis Armstrong, I could still do a great deal by picking up alkahestry, rentanjutsu. Xing's purification arts were nowhere near as comprehensive as Amy's healing, but with it, I could maybe take a load off her shoulders.

'I can fix Sabah's dad by myself.'

It'd be hard. There were a lot of steps between points A and B. Not to mention, alkahestry wasn't some one-size-fits-all solution to medicine. In fact, I could say with confidence as a former PA that much of what was in the manga was just plain wrong.

Ed's famous quote, "Water: 35 liters, Carbon: 20 kg, Ammonia: 4 liters, Lime:1.5 kg, Phosphorus: 800 g, Salt: 250g, Saltpeter:100g, Sulfur: 80g, Fluorine: 7.5 g, Iron: 5.6 g, Silicon: 3g, and 15 other elements in small quantities..." was wrong. Hilariously wrong. Never mind that he determined this amount for an adult of "average size" and not his mother specifically, the fucking midget added four liters of ammonia.

No fucking wonder the transmutation failed!

Then there was that time in Xing's history when they lost three generations of imperials because they all decided to drink mercury like gatorade. Someone told them that mercury was the key to longevity and that person was either the most idiotic doctor in history or the world's greatest assassin. And this was the parent country of alkahestry.

I bolted up and booted up my computer before opening several Word documents. On each, I typed the names of different alchemists: Shou Tucker. Mei Chang. Tim Marcoh. Hohenheim. "Okay. First things first. I'm going to transcribe everything Amestris and Xing knew about human transmutation. Then I should be able to go through them with a fine-toothed comb and edit out all the incorrect bullshit. Anything I don't remember from my time as a PA, I can probably look up online.

"After that… I'll have to find out just what's wrong with Sabah's dad. Run some scans? Do I need to kidnap him? No… The Pledge Regalia should be capable of getting me all the information I need. And then… Then I need to actually learn alkahestry beyond just book knowledge…"

SAINT materialized out of my computer to the tune of Pac-Man dying. Why he chose that SFX, I had no clue. He vibed with it so I let him be. "Pory?"

"I've got a lot of work to do, buddy."

"Gon. Pory-gon," he trilled, shaking his head. He dove back into my computer and my calendar popped into view with today's date circled.

"Oh, right. Dean's birthday party."

"Gon."

"Yeah, I'm going to go. I guess that means I've got a lot of work to do before that."

"Porygon. Pory… Porygon?" He tugged on our bond and I briefly saw the image of an hourglass.

"How long will it take until I'm good at human transmutation?"

"Gon."

"Ah, well… Tim Marcoh alone had enough notes to take up an entire cabinet and then some. Same with Shou Tucker. Mei Chang didn't have any notes as far as I know, but there's an entire nation's worth of literature to copy. The less said about Hohenheim's shit the better. Even if a lot of basic information is redundant, that's still way too much to type out. I'll have to try out some formulas and whatnot while I do that so… SAINT, wanna help me out?"

"Gon?"

"I need mice. Pests that no one will miss. Go to the Gullrest and have the fabricator build a cage. And then go hunting so I can jump right into experiments as soon as I'm ready. Think you can do that?"

"Gon. Pory." He vanished into the internet. No doubt he was already halfway there to the laptop in my lab. Just then, I heard mom call Sierra and I down for breakfast.

X

I worked from eight to three in the afternoon. I stopped briefly for a quick ham and cheese sandwich for lunch but otherwise forced myself to slog through. I felt a bit like a court scribe listening in on a gruesome murder case, except I wasn't getting paid for the mental trauma of recording this shit for posterity.

It was equal parts mind-numbingly boring and soul-crushingly horrifying. I began with Tim Marcoh's research as he was the one we saw working as an actual doctor after unsuccessfully retiring (fleeing) to the countryside. He was, by all accounts, a brilliant man who fixed many of the ills that came with a farmer's rough living. But typing it all out, I was given a grim reminder that every ailment he treated, every injury he mended, he did so on the backs of countless bloody experiments.

How long can a man live without a heart? Can you replace the heart with another material? What if you only collapse one chamber? What sorts of chemicals keep a body alive mid-vivisection the longest? Is there a way to chemically fool the nervous system into thinking all the right hormones are triggering? What quantity of blood can force a man to retain higher brain functions? What is a soul? Is there a variance between sexes? Age?

I now knew the answers to those questions as well as Dr. Marcoh ever did.

I knew of course that modern medicine was no different. There were some truly horrifying experiments conducted on people. Nazi wartime atrocities did advance science. By the end of the war, they likely knew more about brain anatomy than any other country. Milgram's Shock Experiment taught the world about humanity's willingness to blindly obey authority figures. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment gave us a chilling look at ingroup-outgroup psychology. I learned about them in graduate school as part of my studies, but I'd always been removed from the experience. Modern practitioners reaped the benefits of these inhumane experiments while never having sown the seeds.

Not so in Amestris. Tim Marcoh and others who worked to develop the philosopher's stone were at the forefront of scientific understanding. My knowledge of his research came directly from his journals, the same journals Ed read. Copying it all down felt as if I was translating an autobiography with nothing sugar-coated for the masses.

I couldn't even pass the buck to SAINT. He knew what my specialization was but he didn't actually have my power. He wasn't the tinker of fiction; he couldn't envision the research notes. And so I was stuck doing it all by hand.

I separated the material into three categories: The first was garbage. Things I knew for a fact wouldn't work, like introducing mercury into the bloodstream or simple daily observations Marcoh made regarding his lifestyle as a state alchemist. Some of those were interesting little anecdotes, but they were all useless for research purposes so I skimmed and didn't even bother typing them out.

The second was research that was questionable but could have outsized implications. Which hormone regulated a specific immune response? What amperage of electricity was best to stimulate the human heart? I didn't know those answers off the top of my head so I jotted down his observations and made notes to go back and cross-check them with modern medical journals later.

The third category contained information I either could not verify but had to accept as factual, or information I knew to be certain. Most of the former was in regards to alchemy. Which symbol meant what? Why? Why circles? Or triangles? Or some other polygon? How intricate did my writing need to be? Could I engrave it via laser? I was certain other alchemists had their own ideas, but all of this I considered to be valid for the most part; he was still an expert in his field after all.

I felt like I'd gone back to my final year of grad school, back when I wrote my thesis on the multicultural causal and preventative factors of suicide ideation with regards to patients recovering from major surgeries. That had been both a fruitful and thoroughly depressing year. By the time I stopped, Dean's birthday party seemed like a godsent distraction from the general shitshow that was alchemy.

The worst part of it all was, after seven hours of solid work, I still had half his shit to get through. Then several more alchemists. Then cross-referencing and validating their research, both with each other and with my understanding of modern medicine. And then of course came the practical application of it all. Maybe I'd then go about forging Mei Chang's little kunai so I could heal at a distance.

Through it all, I came to one critical realization: Amy Dallon must never read my journal. Even if I brought her to the Gullrest again, I'd have to be careful with my information.

Fortunately, Fullmetal Alchemist came with some interesting ciphers. Alchemical knowledge was a closely guarded secret, even among alchemists, and it wasn't unusual for alchemists to develop their own ways of disguising their research. Many of them were incredibly complex and nearly impossible to decode for anyone who lacked the same frame of reference.

Marcoh's was relatively simple, a series of recipe books for what seemed like innocuous cooking recipes. Even that had taken the Elric brothers working together a full ten days to decipher. Ed disguised his research as a series of travel logs that were so intricate that not even Al, who traveled with him, could read it.

Hell, Roy Mustang had an entire system that masked his research as names of women and dates he'd been on. It had made him infamous as the "playboy colonel," though Riza Hawkeye, his aide de camp and daughter of his alchemy instructor, was likewise fluent. It allowed him to chat in public about how pretty "Josephine's" eyes were or what flowers "Stacy" liked best, all while carrying out clandestine missions.

"Note to self," I muttered as I tucked Dean's present in my backpack. "Make a cipher that'll keep Amy from reading further out of sheer humiliation."

X

The Stansfields didn't live in the good part of town. It'd be more accurate to say they built the good part of town. As the largest real estate development, management, and holding company in the state and one of the largest in New England, they quite literally owned a sizable chunk of the city. Oh, it was covered up using proxy property management companies, investment groups, joint ventures, and the like, but the Stansfield Holding Company was one of the entities at the end of the paper trail if you followed it long enough.

Compared to that, Dean's house was fairly mundane. It was definitely on the pricey end of things, with five rooms, a deck, and a sprawling backyard with a pool, but nothing I'd expect of a multi-millionaire. He lived in a gated community near the southern end of the city, about ten minutes away from the downtown area by car and only a quick drive to Boston.

"Wow, and I thought we were well off," Sierra whistled as she waited for the gate guard to let us through.

"We are. There's a difference between upper-middle class and actually rich."

"True that. Hey Bryce?"

"Yo."

"Thanks," she said with a soft smile. "I know Panacea didn't just magically decide to visit the cardiology ward."

"Sabah's my friend too. Amy… She still doesn't do commissions or favors, not even for me. This was the best I could get from her, sorry."

"No, you did good. Sabah was super-stoked. They have a monthly check-in with a cardiologist. I think she's trying to get her dad's appointment expedited."

"Yeah… Hey, Sierra?"

"Yo."

"If you could do anything. If you had godlike power, what would you do with it?"

She snorted. "Pay off my college loans."

It was such a Sisi answer. Not "kill the endbringers." Not "world peace." Just something small. Flippant perhaps, but… but there was nothing wrong with small dreams, was there? Even post-Leviathan, Sierra had chosen to focus on the little things by taking in all the local orphans.

I knew that couldn't be me. I had access to so much potential now. If I studied and worked myself like a dog for just one month, I could render every material concern a thing of the past. I could set the foundation for absolutely anything I wanted to build in the future. Fullmetal Alchemist had the potential to be the source of my exponential growth as a tinker.

"That's fair," I told her with a smile. The reason I hadn't told her about my power yet, the reason that made being Creed worth it, wasn't it so Sisi could afford to have small dreams? My heart felt a little lighter. After recalling all the bullshit that came from Amestris, I really needed this.

Author's Note

I thought the past few chapters were getting too serious ergo, Grace. Grace might be my favorite side character in this fic. Yes, she shares the same last name as Aaron from Spoon. "Kanda" means "god valley" but the name has no significance. This isn't MHA where everyone's parents were precogs with their quirk predictions.

Have a biology fact in celebration of FMA: If you haven't guessed, you do not have four liters of ammonia in your body. You only have about five liters of blood. As little as 30 micromoles per liter of blood (assuming adult) will get you diagnosed with hyperammonemia and is indicative of liver disease.

It's revealed in the manga that Ed did not bring back Trisha, but that's probably a good thing. He'd just have given his mom a few brief moments of unspeakable agony.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.