Quickly following behind Edward as he chases up the hill yelling about how he’ll ‘rub in his new height in the old hag’s face’. When we reach the top of the hill though rather than Pinako it’s Wenry already outside and surrounded by a bunch of bags.
She turns around from fiddling with a bag with a bright smile. “Oh! Hey guys, I’m glad you were able to make it! I wasn’t sure if you’d get my message before I left! Honestly, I didn’t think you’d even make it here in tiiiiiiiimmmmmmmme… what did you do to my precious automail?!” She immediately chucks the backpack she was putting together away and rushes to look at Edwards mangled and destroyed arm slung over his shoulder.
Edward nervously chuckles. “I uh sort of broke it?” She turns on him with a vengeance her hand searching around her back for a moment before slowly walking over to her bag.
At this point, Edwards nervously looked around at us for support. Zig has already backed away and by association, Al was taken out of it too. I also take a half step away from him. “Come on Wenry! You can fix it up! You did such a good job on it… last time? I’m sure you could improve it again?” He lets out the last bit as a squeak as she wrestles out a wrench from the bag and turns to him with a glare.
“W-wenry! There’s really no need for violence or anything right?” When she doesn’t stop moving, he just turns and runs down the hill. Before he can get far though she chucks the wrench getting some surprising distance on it as Edward is clocked in the head, crumpling to the ground.
As she breathes heavily staring at Edwards prone form her gaze shifts to me then down to my also missing arm then back up to my face.
I just raise my remaining arm in surrender. “You’re not going to hit a blind man, are you?” Ending in a nervous chuckle. I mean I won’t let her hit me like that but I’d still rather she not be mad at me. Her angry gaze doesn’t shrink any so I change tactics. “I broke my arm helping defend him?” I point towards the unconscious Edward… “I should also probably check him for a concussion, going unconscious from blunt trauma like that can’t be good…” This makes her blink for a moment in surprise.
“What do you mean? I knock him upside the head with a good wrench or tool almost every time we meet?” A hint of concern at the edge of her voice.
That… explains a lot actually. “Well… maybe try not doing that for a bit? It might be impacting his mental development receiving so many concussions.” She looks over at Edward with a look of slight concern… but not enough to help him.
I walk over and check him out. When I get to him, I can see he’s still breathing when I go to check his eyes he flinches away from me slightly… So he was just playing possum so she would stop hitting him, well at least that means he’s not knocked unconscious repeatedly.
I turn and call to Wenry over my shoulder. “He’ll be fine, he just needs some rest. I’ll need to give him a concussion test but for now, I can just tell you what happened. Maybe we can work something out to get our automail all fixed up?”
She looks a bit conflicted down at her bag. “I… I have a ticket to the train. I was supposed to leave today. I’ve been prepping since the last time you guys were here.”
I start rifling through Edwards's pockets he tries to fight me a bit but can’t act too openly before I get his alchemist badge.
I toss it to her and smile. “I’m sure you can bill him extra for the inconvenience, make your time in rush valley a bit easier with the extra cash on hand?”
She smiles at that. “Oh of course! There’s the rush order fee, the last-minute fee, the pissed me off fee, that’s the biggest one. I guess I better go tally that all up and send for payment. I’m sure they will reimburse me for the ticket too.” She starts walking off back to the house while Edward groans on the ground.
Al finally speaks up after realizing he’s avoided her wrath. “Um, Ed’s going to be okay right?”
I just wave him off. “Yeah yeah, he’s faking being unconscious at least. He’s going to have a nasty lump, but it might not be serious. Best he still avoids hits to the head though and I want to do a quick concussions test just in case.”
Edward opens his eyes and peers towards the door that Wenry went through. Rubbing at the spot he was hit a bit. “Oww… at least she stopped after just one this time.” He lets out a long sigh. I give him a bit of a once over I don’t have a baseline for the concussion memory test so I can only really check his eye dilation and ask recent memories and name basic ones that if he got wrong would mean he really did have a bad concussion.
He takes it in stride at first but the more questions I ask the more annoyed he gets. Eventually, he’s had enough and just pushes his way past me. “Alright alright! I answered your questions now can we just go inside so I can get fixed up? I’ve been without an arm for a couple of days now and I don’t want to keep delaying that. We have to get too central to check out that library after all.”
He seemed well enough, so we hurry inside, Zig carrying Al in behind us.
Inside is an upset Pinako and Wenry staring at both of us before I slowly move to the side so both their glares settle on Edward.
He just growls in annoyance. “We got in a fight okay! Sheesh, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve shown up with a busted arm. I don’t intentionally smash up my arm or anything either.” Edward just flops around his severed arm in front of them a bit.
Wenry just sighs looking at him with a bit of pity before pinching the bridge of her nose. “What am I going to do with you Ed… you need to start taking care of yourself or I’m going to have to start making you pay out your nose so you try a little bit harder! I’m going off to Rushvalley soon… well I was going to go today but it looks like I’m going to have to save your arm again sigh. The next time you break it like that I might be too busy to drop everything and help you. You’re going to need to learn to call ahead at the very least, you know like a normal customer?” Edward looks a bit embarrassed by this.
“Y-you’re already going to charge me extra for the last-minute stuff right?… Sorry about this just… I also need it a bit rushed. I need to get to central as quickly as possible. There are some notes there that might help get our bodies back…”
He glances between Panako and Wenry. “Can you get it fixed within a week?” He winces a bit at the end. Likely expecting it to be too much.
Panako takes a long drag from a pipe before speaking up. “Give us some credit Ed… 2 days for your arm. Thankfully you didn’t bust up your leg too we just adjusted it recently. We’re going to have to completely remake most of the parts but thankfully some can be salvaged.” She turns her gaze to my arm.
I shrug. “Most of this isn’t that bad. I just need assistance with the internal components that were damaged. I understand the internal structure, but I’m not sure about the substitute nerve tissue or how to properly connect everything, or if there are specific tricks or order to it. I’d rather not guess and check with nerve tissue connection.” They both look at the pristine-looking metal arm except the perfect cut.
“I can transmute the metal parts back to the original shape, but the internals would require specific transmutation circles for each component which would just take way too much time to tweak until they work correctly. So, it shouldn’t take as long, right?”
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She takes it from me looking over it for a bit before shrugging. “It shouldn’t be that long. Most of the wiring should be salvageable the cut looks clean. The main part that needs to be replaced is the pressure muscle system and some of the more complicated parts. If you can help with the larger metal pieces, we can probably get both arms done within 3 days at a decent pace.”
After finishing her glance over my arm, she looks over at Edward. “Why don’t you ever repair the outside of your automail? It always comes back like you’d shoved it into a woodchipper just to see if it’d fit.” Edward just shrugs.
“I just assumed an automail freak like you wouldn’t want me touching your work beyond oiling it up.” He slowly walks over to Panako, he’s standing slightly straighter and giving her some expectant looks but she never mentions that he’s grown taller. She also doesn’t tease him about being as short, so I guess that’s her way of acknowledging it.
As they start discussing the process and planning a schedule for how they are going to build everything I can’t help but ask a question I’ve had since earlier. “You use a common Alloy of chromium and steel, right?” She looks at me confused.
“Yeah, it’s one of the best-known alloys for it. Less prone to rust so there is less maintenance and with the rainy season coming it’s less likely to lock up. It’s a little weaker than just steel but I feel like the tradeoff is worth it, why?”
I brush my glove along the severed arm a bit. “What are my options for a plating then? Transmutation requires you to comprehend the composition of what you’re deconstructing. I want something no one will guess from looks. I’m tempted to paint over that too with a substance even more complicated.”
She puts a finger to her chin a bit. “You’re probably better off with some sort of plastic-based paint. But that won’t help with a lot of the inner components. You need to oil it semi-frequently and that may cause some of it to run off. You might be able to use a bit of resin to keep it in place near those places to seal it in. Keep in mind though it could still be scratched off and won’t be resistant to heat so going out into the desert might melt it off.” Right… nonmodern Resin and paints.
I never did check what sort of resin they used for Al… “He Al, do you still have any of that Resin you used for your armor?”
He startles a bit from being ignored in Zig’s arms. “Hmm? Oh yeah, we’ve got most of the bottle still in our bags. Ed got a bunch because he wasn’t sure how much we’d need and freaked out when asked if we only needed a little.” Of course, he’s a ‘big’ shopper.
I rummage around in a bag at the bottom of the box Al is in until I pull out a container of white beads. I crack the seal and dip one finger into it before pressing one to my cheek.
After a moment of analyzing, I actually recognize the structure a bit though it’s been years. Polystyrene, it’s Styrofoam but just glassed and hardened instead of turned into a foam. Horrible for the environment and in its Styrofoam form it burns with a deep black smoke. I only remember it because it’s what most Petri dishes are made from. It was a cheap material and I remember Shimada having to replace them when they started melting too much during research…
Does the glassed state burn easily too? I’m not too sure… it may depend on the temperature I know they have low softening temp and it burned quickly when a high-intensity accelerant gains access to air through a small leak… If it burns it’s not like it would bother me or Al much, if anything it would be a nice way to level up my poison resistance and choke my opponents.
I look over at Edward… well he’s already a bit loopy I’m sure he’ll be fine. “Nice, we could coat the larger sections of our automail with that for now unless we find a good paint somewhere, it’ll be a bit fragile, but I seriously doubt anyone else has researched its structure.”
Edward looks a bit curious. “I guess that’d work. But I extend the metal to form a blade on my wrist to fight. I don’t know the structure of the resin either?”
I tap the back of his normal hand. “You could leave a part uncovered that only you know the location of or have under your glove be free of the resin, we aren’t putting it in the joints anyways. That way you are still in contact with the metal, but others would need to destroy your gloves first? Just stay out of fires this stuff burns toxic smoke and melts at boiling temperatures. I likely won’t be making another trip through the desert any time soon.”
He looks a little worriedly at Al. “Don’t worry it’ll still prevent moisture. It probably wouldn’t be my first choice in resins but it’s still pretty good for what you needed. Just don’t let him go running into any fires and he should be fine. Even then it wouldn’t be any worse than if he ran into them without the protection either. The blood would flake, and soot would coat the circle any cleaning would potentially kill him.”
Edward shivers a bit at that. “Y-yeah I guess you’re right. I just… we’ve been at this for so long and we always treated his body like it was pretty much invincible to most things like that…”
I pat him on the shoulder. “It’s part of getting stronger. Knowing your weaknesses and taking the steps needed to cover them.” I gesture to my arm. “I find Alkahestry and Alchemy fascinating. Every little detail is laid out before us and we only need to understand. But each time I find something new I can’t help but add something. Cleaning, water, stone, fire, air, destruction in a sort of roundabout way too. I’ll cover up each weakness until I can defend myself perfectly so I can just work on my projects in peace.” My hand goes over the transmutation circles slightly circling them.
His face cramps slightly. “I guess I need to start thinking about what sort of circles I want to be put on my own… I don’t want this sort of thing to happen to me again.” He looks down at his glove that I’d thrown together with Al’s circle for him.
“That’s good! Just learn from your mistakes instead of making them again and again.” With that, I assist Wenry with adjusting parts based on her schematics for her to skip a lot of the longer parts. I tried to convince her to try alchemy to speed it up, but she just wasn’t having any of it. To her, it takes away some of the magic of it all or something like that I didn’t understand why she would decline an easier method that gave her more control. The whole while it feels like I’m forgetting something again. Nothing important… at least I hope not, but I feel like if it was I’d know what it was. I search around my mental desk for a bit but it’s… a bit of a mess. So many half ideas written down that none are filled. I found an old model for an unscrewed ‘hand grenade’ that makes no sense.
After a couple of days and a lot of pestering from Edward, he got his new arm. He wanted it colored red but both Wenry and I shot that down fast. Instead, it’s still a dull gray. The idea is to make people assume it’s still metal and attempt to transmute with that image in mind. When under heavy strain it will crack but it shouldn’t fall off immediately and I can reapply it at a later time. Since it’s designed to break, we included stress points in specific places to make it break the way we want it to from heavy impacts.
The knuckles were a bit tricky. The Resin is a bit brittle and he’s going to probably punch a wall or something with his metal fist just because he can so with a bit of searching, we found a small amount of proper paint but not enough for three full arms so we only coat the areas that will receive most impacts.
By the end of the third day, we’d finished both arms. My other hand just received a paint job. Now that I have a bit of a better understanding of the designing process, I might tinker around with my own sort of design… I could probably incorporate a gun into the finger or something? That’d be a neat surprise… Maybe not practical though and I might accidentally shoot someone… Plans for later.
Rearmed and ready for what's next we all head to the train station together this time.
“Come visit me in rush valley sometime alright guys? I swear I’m going to learn everything I can and I’ll make an even better arm for you next time.” She smiles at Edward but mostly focuses on the arm.
He looks away somewhat embarrassed “Yeah yeah, thanks for the help… also… I believe in you okay… so do your best there.” He quickly moves off to our train.
Al laughs a little at that. “Thanks a lot… you know, for everything. I know he wanted to say the same he’s just…”
She watches Edwards back for a moment before shaking her head. “We know Al… he just has his own sort of way of saying it.”
Pinako smiles a bit at that too before blowing a bit of smoke at Al with a bit of a grumpy face. “Now… when I told you last time to come back sometime and have dinner with us, I didn’t mean for you two to go getting yourselves wrecked first. So next time try to come just to visit… without Wenry to do repairs I’m afraid you’ll forget all about me.”
Al flusters about for a moment. “G-granny! No! of course not! It’s just that everything’s been so busy lately… I’ll try to make sure to call in at least once a week to make sure you’re fine and to fill you in… how about that?” She smiles a bit wider at that. “Sounds good to me. You better not be lying to me now.” Al fidgets a bit at that before jogging off after Edward.
Pinako turns to me this time. “Thanks for taking care of them. I know they can be a bit of a handful. Edwards is stubborn as a mule and about the lick of sense of one too. He’s got heart though and he’s family.” She looks over at them getting loaded on the train before turning towards me and Zig. “Don’t be a stranger, come by if you’re in the area and share some old stories. I’ve got some from here and I’m sure you’ve got a few I haven’t heard from your country.” With that, she puffs her smoke and walks off with Wenry to her train. All the while that nagging feeling tugging at my head that I’m forgetting something but once I’m on the train with the others we have something much more important to focus on. Like the upcoming trip to a library! So much more knowledge! I wonder how much information on alchemy will be public knowledge. If doctor Marcoh has his notes there I’m sure others have hidden their notes there too.