The next morning I get up and do my normal morning stretches and a light warm-up. Izumi and her husband are slightly surprised when I came out of the guest room. I guess they aren’t really used to having anyone staying the night.

The real surprise was when Zig came out and looked at first embarrassed then fell to his knees before bowing to the floor looking miserable. “I have failed you, my lord.”

Did he do something last night? Did they elope or something extreme? Did he do something to my laundry? “What did you do?”

He pauses for a long moment before finally letting it all out a faint bit of shame in his voice. “I failed as your bodyguard… I left you to a new potential enemy for my own… dessssiressss.”

I reach down and pat him on the shoulder and start to pick him back up. “It’s fine! Everything worked out, didn’t it? Besides, how can I get in the way of your new relationship? It’s got to be rare to find another snake person.”

Zig coughs and looks away for a moment. “Yessss they told me about their time being exssssperimented on by the military. They were the only surviving ssssnake. They did it very different from you my lord… there were many failed attemptssss.”

So they were made by the military and Greed just… oh right, he’s Greed he takes what he wants. “Did she tell you anything about ‘Father’ or sacrifices or anything about the military?”

Zig scratches at the back of his head. “We were a little… preoccupied. Mar told me about how they were kidnapped assss kidssss by the military. They met various…” He struggles with the word scientists for a bit. “But no one important. Greed found them while raiding the lab for valuablessss to find immortality.” Interesting, so he’s racing against something and desperate.

“Anything else?” Zig looks like he thinks for a moment.

“Nothing relevant my lord.” A bit of a blush showing where the scales don’t cover.

“Any plans to meet with her again today? I need to place an order for a few things at the post office. Maybe beat up Edward then we can head on over to their bar if you’re up for joining me.” Smirking a bit at the end.

He nods happily. “Y-yesss my lord. That ssssoundssss fine.”

After some breakfast where Izumi pesters me with questions about the upcoming surgery with various concerns, I wave most of them off. While I don’t have personal experience with performing any surgeries I plan to let Shimada help out. He has the most experience with anatomy out of the three of us.

After finishing up there we head out and put in an order for some more materials needed to make the prosthetics. Funnily most of the wait time is because of the delivery not assembling the parts. I guess that’s one of the main advantages of Alkahestry, micro-adjustments to structures to fix any mistakes from alchemies broad spectrum manipulations.

When we get back to Izumi’s place Edward and Al are waiting there for us.

Edward smiles at us with a cocky grin. “You ready to get your butt kicked?”

I can’t help but smile myself. “This is going to be fun. Let’s go find somewhere a bit less populated first.” Edward nods and we head off to where Zig and I were training last night.

Edward stretches on the side looking at me. “So, what are we going to? Until the other person yields? Knockout or pin?”

I chuckle. “Let’s be honest, neither of us are going to yield. It’s going to need to be a pin or knockout.”

With a smile, Edward claps and extends the blade on his automail arm. I can’t help but quirk an eyebrow at that. “What do you plan on doing with that?”

He just looks down at the automail arm then back at me confused. “Beat you with it?”

This idiot. Does he not know what blades do to people? “No I mean why add a blade to your fist. That’s just needlessly risky for a spar. Are you going to try to non-lethally cut me if you do manage to land a hit? If anything that’ll just hamper you more than it would help.”

Edward starts getting flustered and shrinks the blade back in. “Shut up! I’m used to using it okay… I just hadn’t considered that before. I normally spar with Al and that’s not really a problem for him… Besides I’ve been using it for a while and never had a problem with it until now.”

Haaaah. “You know what? Whatever, I’ll just need to knock some sense into you.”

Without a word, we both know to start.

Edward moves first pushing some Chi into his legs and charging towards me with a Yell. I can tell because he rapidly closes the distance between us. “I’ll SMASH YOU!”

He’s still a bit new to doing it though so I just do the same hoping to the side. Tumbling into both my hands pressed on the floor. This is where the new parts of my training kick in. As my hands touch the stone floor I transmute the stone where Edward is charging into a pit and small wall.

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Edwards charging form goes through a bit of surprise as “RRAAAAHooooh SHIT!” The half-wall that’s formed was only high enough for him to snag his legs as he speeds forward too fast to control his movements. With a crash, the stone breaks but it’s done its job as he crashes into the slight pit that’s formed behind it.

Smirking as I continue to enlargen the pit Edward had crashed into “You’ve learned how to use Chi to be fast. But that doesn’t mean much when you lose control.”

Flashes of transmutation lightning spark out from the deepening pit as Edward jumps out of the pit. His automail arm seemed to have a climbing hook. His face looks a bit scuffed up. Looks like he hit the ground face first.

He glares are me while bruises on his face are already starting to swell. “You’re going to have it now!” He claps before pressing down on the floor only for nothing to happen.

“What the hell?” He attempts to clap again before looking at me with surprise.

“It’s a bit hard to visualize something changing when I’m already changing it isn’t it?” My hands still controlled the stone between me and the pit behind him. Just as he’s about to launch towards me again I switch from deepening the pit to creating a pillar that hits him in the gut launching him right back into the hole. “God damn it!”

I can’t help but chuckle as my attention is shifted to the others around me. Al is laughing while Zig is staring off into space deep in thought.

“Hey, Al? Do you want to join in and help him?” He seems to consider it for a moment before rushing towards me. His steps were a bit more deliberate than Edwards though not the uncontrolled Chi burst he did.

“Alright, let’s see what you’ve got.” As he closes the distance he attempts to make use of his further reach. The problem is he overextends trying to punch me a bit too early. I shift slightly grabbing his extended arm and rolling his momentum off my back sending him tumbling. Right into the pit.

A crash of metal and groans of pain come from the hole now. Quickly followed by an “Ugh… Al, what the hell are you doing?”

“Sorry, brother I uh… came to help?”

“Ge thanks now can you get the hell off me?”

I step over to the side of the now 20ft deep pit and peer down.

“So, are we going to fight or are you going to keep falling into the hole?” Edward groans for a moment before finally, they make their way out with Al’s help.

Edward just maintains a glare at me. “That wasn’t a fight and you know it.”

I could have just filled the bottom with spikes. But I suppose he wouldn’t consider that a fight either. “Okay, you want a brawl? Then come on, I won’t use any alchemy.” Edward smiles at that sprinting at me in a charge just like before. He probably thinks since I’m not going to use alchemy that I won’t be able to react.

I transfer Chi to my legs but rather than ducking away as he barrels towards me I leap over him. Normally this would be risky and stupid but I have confidence in Edward not taking advantage of the situation. As I go over his head my hand grips hard on his braided ponytail and I bring it with me. Now his momentum pivots with mine. Sending him twisting back as I land smashing his head into the ground.

Looking down at him I can see a bit of blood in his blond hair… Letting go of his hair I move to check in on him. His eyes are a bit out of focus and he’s groaning in pain. Okay, maybe that was a bit much. “Edward are you okay?” I start to delicately check the damage to his head. Luckily it looks like his skull didn’t fracture. Humans from this world are surprisingly durable.

I’m taking out of my fussing by him muttering something I can’t quite make it out so I get a bit closer. All I hear is “Eat… shit…” Before he punches me in the face with his metal arm.

As I’m knocked back by the blow I can’t help but laugh. “You got me… oof that was a good punch!” I sitting up he’s still down for the count but he managed to hit me at least so that’s sort of an improvement. He’s still a bit rash while fighting. Al had made his way out of the pit but doesn’t seem up for fighting anymore after seeing Edward getting smashed in.

Standing up I dust myself off a bit. “Well, I think that’s about it for today. We need Edward to be rested up for the meeting with Greed later. Al, do you mind taking him back to your guyses room? It doesn’t look like a serious injury if you can just put some ice on it. I likely gave him a concussion too so make sure he stays awake, don’t let him fall asleep or that could be bad.” I’d used analyze to determine that there was no swelling in the brain just a scrape and bruising. The main problem was his brain rattling around from the sudden impact.

Al looks down at Edward who’s glaring at me. “O-okay, we’ll see you later then… Uh, what time?”

Hmm don’t want to be too early or late this is still a bit of a trade deal and we don’t want him to think we are too desperate or he might ask for more. “How about in three hours or so? That should be enough time for Edward to rest up a bit.”

With that, I start planning what sort of information I’ll trade with him. Greed seems like the type that values luxury items over actual utility. So I draw up my icecream alkahestry transmutation Arrey and detailed notes on how to operate it I don’t explain how it works though. Then I write up a few papers on how to check for various injuries and descriptions of various diseases I’ve researched and how to treat them. Maybe not the most useful but he seems to have a lot of people there and since they were all experimented on as children I doubt any of them are doctors and I doubt many could be seen in the public.

Finally, I just transmute a chunk of gold and stone to make a gold-plated bust of his face around the size of my hand.

After three hours pass Zig is getting a bit antsy, having cleaned all of his clothes and even asking me to repair the few cracks on his mask that had accrued from fights recently.

As we head into the living room it’s strange seeing Izumi and Sig now. They still seem a bit nervous about the upcoming surgery but they do have something that they didn’t before. A bit of hope. Were before Izumi seemed to have accepted that she’d die and move on with it. Now she’s being careful not to move too much to lower the odds of complications.

Sig helps out too. He’s been watching her like a hawk to make sure she’s not doing anything risky. Taking time off the shop just to make sure she won’t do anything, much to her annoyance.

“We’re heading out for a bit. If you’re making dinner don’t wait on us!”

Sig lets out a grunt before going back to making a meal. “Nonsense, we’ll just set a plate aside. Come back safe.”

I just nod and wave bye to Izumi as well who’s drinking tea in a recliner looking out the window.

Let’s see what sort of information Greed has to offer.