“God stupid cheap piece of crap…” I can’t help but laugh at Edward… Since the meeting, he’s had to move around a bit more. After a look over from me, we had him discharged from the clinic. Since he lost his automail and he refuses to get one from anyone but Wenry on account of ‘that automail freak going crazy if someone else does it.’ he’s instead opted to have a basic rigid prosthetic. I glance back at him limping rapidly towards us struggling and glaring at us.

The problem is he’s also a bit prideful, so when Al offered to carry his stuff to the train he refused. Saying ‘I’m not useless, even without my leg I can at least carry my own weight!’ Leading to this sorry sight.

“G-guys! Stop moving so fast!” He huffs “Dammnit I said hold on!”. We walked at his pace near the start but then he started getting annoyed at us for ‘slowing him down.’ So We just decided to meet him at the station.

He grits his teeth and starts chasing after us even faster the prosthetic leg flopping on its heel side and not being used properly. “Grr god damn it!”

By the time he makes it to our train compartment he’s drenched in sweat and his prosthetic leg is shattered into pieces. What the hell did he do this time? Also, did he hop here?

He huffs in annoyance at all our looks he hops a bit more and sits next to Al. “Someone tried to rob me on my way here. Haah he probably -breath- thought I’d be an easy mark thanks to my limbs. -wheeze- Do you have any idea how hard it is to fight one-legged?” He gestures to his missing prosthetic leg.

He stops for a moment, he doesn’t say anything but I can tell his gaze carries along both my arms then he glances at my blindfold before coughing nervously. “Ahem… well nevermind…”

I just shake my head ruefully. “It’s fine, so what exactly happened to your leg anyways? Did they get the drop on you somehow?”

He snorts at that. “Ha! No, they were just a common thug. When I tried to kick them with it the whole thing just exploded. Then I had to waste even more time hopping around to find a doctor so they wouldn’t die. I didn’t realize these things were this fragile.”

Interesting, they shouldn’t be. While not made of solid metal like automail it should have been far sturdier than that. Did he already figure something out? I have a skill augmenting my ability and I still haven’t figured out channeling into objects properly. “Did you channel Chi while doing the kick?”

He looks surprised for a moment before smiling. “Yeah, was going to show it off in a spar but I think I’m getting a hang of it. I pushed off with my other leg but my prosthetic just couldn’t keep up and exploded.” The splintered bits of wood and metal just hang from the stump loosely.

So he managed to put in enough force to break it but it doesn’t normally have that much blowback… did he do something wrong? I pull down my bag and start searching through it.

There’s a loud growl from Edwards's stomach. “Hah uh oops. I might have burned off a bit more than I should have.” He rubs the back of his head nervously.

He at least has the decency to seem embarrassed. “Is there anything to eat? I’m starving, had to hop all the way here. Never realized how much of a workout that is.” Shifting a few things out of the way I grab a snack and toss it to him. His muscles twitch and the bag of trail mix hits him in the face.

He just stares at me for a moment before slowly looking down at the snacks he’d failed to grab with his missing arm. Finally, he takes a long breath before starting to try to open the bag one-handed. I’m kind of surprised he didn’t blow up on me for that.

“You know, you’ve come a long way. Normally you’d have blown up from that much.” He looks up from his struggle with the bag to frown at me.

“Look, I’m tired, I’m hungry and I can’t will myself to care enough… and this stupid fucking bag!” The side of the bag rips sending the nuts all over his lap. His face turns even redder with anger but he stops himself, breaths, and starts eating them slowly.

“Alright, just figured I’d let you know that I’m proud of you taking control.”

He smirks at this. “I noticed that Chi moves much more easily while I'm calm. When I get angry at everything… it was making things harder to progress and if I don't progress...” in almost a whisper I can hear. "I won't keep getting taller." He's still on about the height thing only? Not the amazing progress he's making in his physical ability or the ability to sense things through walls? He's just worried about his height? He’s advancing even quicker than I did and I cheated with a skill. It doesn’t make sense… Sure I paid more attention to Alchehestry than Chi manipulation but the only ones able to progress faster than I did were those that spent every single day dedicated to it like Zig. What’s so special about him?

Regardless of the curious circumstances, he’s still progressing fast and that deserves some praise. “Congratulations, we’ll have to see how you’ve improved when you’re able to move around a bit more.”

He breaks out into a tired smile. A bit too tired to act snooty. “I’ll be sure to kick your ass.” He turns to Al. “So what did the old hag say on the phone anyway?”

Al seems really nervous as he fiddles his fingers a bit. “W-well she was upset that I called her on the deadline of the week. When I asked about Wenry she was happy at first… then when I mentioned your automail being broken she yelled at me for a bit. Saying things like ‘you only talk to me when you need me’ and ‘you darn brats breaking their hard work every week’.” Edward at least blushes a bit at this.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“She asked to talk to you but you were busy meditating…” Edwards's eyes shoot open.

“Why didn’t you wake me? Next time I see her that old hag’s going to really give it to me.” Al just rubs the back of his head. “Hehe oops?” He’s not really convincing.

“Regardless she’s been in contact with Wenry. She’s set up with a small shop already with a nice owner. When she first arrived she just walked around all day talking shop with people and apparently, that caught the sight of a teacher there.”

Edward smiles at that. “Really? That’s great.” I wonder how long before he realizes how much he smiles when talking about her.

I should probably ask though. “Did you remember to ask her to give her a heads up that we are heading her way?”

Al chuckles at that. “Yeah, a matter of fact one of the first things she did was make a set for Edward. She figured that eventually he’d stop by and she was just being preemptive about it.” Edward just groans knowing that she’s going to prep an 'I told you so'.

“At least that means we won’t need to stick around there for too much.” Turning my attention towards Edward I can see the slight disappointment.

Al perks up. “Then we’ll go visit teacher! It’s been a long time since we’ve seen her.”

Edward smiles and looks towards him. “Yeah, we haven’t seen her since… we lost our bodies.”

Al seems to notice the problem and sinks slightly. “And joined the military…”

They hug each other. “I think I’m too scared brother… there’s no way she’s not going to kill us!” “Look don’t you go chickening out on me now! I’m scared too!”

Zig just snorts. “Drama queenssss.”

They both stop their mock crying and glare at him. “You don’t understand!” “Yeah, she dropped us on an island alone and told us to survive for a month! We had to hunt and kill wild animals to survive!”

Zig just shrugs and lifts a part of his shirt revealing where a scar used to be. He looks down and notices it’s missing replaced by a trail of scales where the scar once was. “My firsssst misssssion. Moth-Head guard had me kill a prissssoner through a death matcshhh in a pit. They were given a knife, I wassss not. I walked out of the pit, they did not. Did you have to fight animalssss? Or were there only ssssmall game?” He lowers his shirt with a huff. Edward and Al just stare and stop complaining about their training likely realizing they might have not had it as bad as they thought.

I didn’t know his early training was that serious. Su was a bit strict sure, but I never felt like I was in any real danger besides external threats. It makes sense now why he’s a bit ahead of me in his Chi sensing ability and he was really advanced at fighting for his age. His hand to hand has taken a bit of a hit since his mixture with the snake though. While he’s physically stronger and more durable now he loses himself in the fight and stops fighting with as much skill.

After a long ride to Rush valley, we finally arrive.

Al looks around like a kid exploring a new… right he is one. “Welcome to the holy land of automail! This place sure is bustling.” And he’s not wrong. People are moving around, automail shops are set up all along both sides of the road. How do all of them stay in business? Unless they each have their own specific qualities automail shouldn’t have that high of demand right? Unless they each have their own special model the successful ones should just outcompete anything the smaller shops can produce unless the entire valley does commissions to the army which would probably lose limbs frequently… Hmm, something to consider…

Edward looks around while hobbling along. “So this is where Wenry is staying huh?” Several people are giving him odd looks. It seems like almost everyone here has some form of Automail so seeing someone walking around on basic prosthetics probably looks a bit out of place here.

The place is interesting and all people with all shapes and sizes of different automail are walking around but… “Al, what was the name of the place we are looking for?” Al scratches his head for a moment before reaching under his helmet and pulling out a small booklet.

“Hmmm it’s called the Atelier Garfiel, Gran said she’d be working from noon to eight. Should we see her there or wait until she gets off work?”

Edward just scoffs at that. “Oh please, I’m sure she’d be excited to see us! Also walking around without automail is starting to drive me crazy. We won’t be bothering her since we’ll also be customers.” With a nose raised high, he starts hobbling off in a direction.

It takes him a few moments to realize. “Where is the shop anyways?”

I just shrug and go up to the closest person. They have automail that looks like well-defined muscles but the rest of their body looks out of shape. “Sorry to bother you but do you know where Atelier Garfiel is?”

The man quarks an eyebrow at me. “Yeah, just down the road on the right, it’s the big pink and yellow building hard to miss it.” After looking me up and down. “Yeah you’re his type, you can probably get the discount if you’re hard on cash.”

What does that mean? “What?” Is the owner some sort of weirdo?

The man starts chuckling. “Oh Ho! You don’t know, do you? Well, all the better reason to not tell you then. Don’t worry he doesn’t mean much by any of it. He’s one of the best automail engineers in the city especially after Old Dominic lost his daughter. So even if he’s a bit eccentric he’s well worth it.” The guy starts flexing his well-toned metallic arms… does he know how wrong it looks on his pudgy body?

“Alright… thanks for the info?” Heading back to the group I see a few more eccentric people walking around. That’s when it clicks, the people on the sides of the road flexing metal arms and showing off. This place is chock full of attention seekers that want to show off their metallic parts. Urgh, this place is going to get real old real fast.

Edward stops pacing around waiting for me. “So did you get directions?”

I just wave for them to follow. “Yeah, it’s just up ahead on the right. Supposedly the owner is a bit eccentric. If it comes to it how against are you being sold on loan for a discount?” I turn towards Edward who looks at me confused.

“Sold like what? To use some alchemy?

“Eh, something like that.” It was supposed to be a joke but I wonder if I said it wrong? I’m funny right?

As we close in on the shop I see a few particular pieces of automail that are interesting.

“Does that man have an eye automail?” Al points out a man walking by with what looks like metal all-around one eye with a lens.

“Maybe… I’ll need to see if I can’t get some of that while here. I never really considered trying to get something to fix my eyes…” I just figured I’d deal with it since unseen eye is getting to the point of being better anyways. But I guess I can add some gimmicks to the automail eyes like I plan for my arms.