Yo to All! Inuchron here.
I'm gonna count this as one of my weekendly updates since i feel ill and would probably drop dead if i had to wirte another fic.
This is a request fic done for Forget and Forgive, hope you like it!
There had been many unusual sights in Central headquarters, ranging from strange devices concealed under canvas sheets to felons disfigured by alchemic rebounds, but the most unusual sight was about to be discovered by the loyal team of Flame Alchemist, Roy Mustang.
"What's wrong with Havoc?" Asked the timid voice of Fuery.
"Another girl got stolen by the Colonel." Breada explained. He then put a brotherly hand on Havoc's shoulder. "Besides, you said yourself the girl wasn't much of a looker." Havoc gave a whiny moan.
"That's why I was going to go out with her! I thought she'd be safe from the Colonels clutches!"
"Tough break." Consoled Fuery.
"No one is safe from the Colonel." Added Falman. Rounding the last corner to Mustangs' offices, the small group of men were faced with the small but no less intimidating form of Riza Hawkeye. "If you gentlemen are finished, we have work to do."
There was an immediate wave of half-jokey salutes and just as they were about to open the office door, the sound of a pained scream and a clank of metal echoed through the door. "What d'you think that was!?" Asked a trembling Fuery. Another clank of metal, a small grunt. "Maybe the Colonel and the chief are fighting again?"
"They'd better not be." Was the ice cold reply from Hawkeye, though not even she made a move to open the door. There was a successive series of clangs now, followed by the sound of metal hitting flesh and a soft moan. "Oh no! Fullmetal beat the Colonel!" Fuery gasped and as one, the group crashed through the door, prepared to help their commanding officer.
What they weren't prepared for was the sight of Roy, perfectly unharmed watching as Edward Elric, topless, had his automail arm jiggled about by a small blonde girl they could only guess to be Winry Rockbell.
"Oh great, a bigger audience." Growled Edward. The mysterious sound of metal hitting flesh was then discovered to be Winry smacking Edward over the head with her wrench. "Be quiet Ed, you have no right to complain." She scolded. The boy rubbed his head with his flesh arm gingerly as he turned to face the Colonel.
"Mustang, get them out of here! This is embarrassing enough with YOU watching." Ed hissed.
"But Edward, I think everyone's interested in how that beautiful automail of yours works. Did you say you made it yourself Miss Rockbell?" Roy flashed a charming smile at the girl, who blushed and ducked under Ed's shoulder.
"Oi! Stop flirting with Winry!" Shouted Ed.
"The Colonels at it again." Sighed Breada.
"Don't worry Havoc, you aren't alone." Fuery turned to Havoc and saw he had a large grin on his face.
"Chief, now you know how I feel!"
"Oh shut it!" growled Ed.
The room was silent again as they watched Winry go about her work. Fuery looked slightly green when she removed the cover plate from Ed's forearm and began to remove the colourful wiring, but his curiosity of what she was going to do with it soon settled his stomach.
"There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the wiring in the arm itself." Winry mumbled. She replaced the plate and moved round behind Ed to get a closer look at his shoulder. Here, she prodded inside the gaps between the metal sheeting and every now and then Ed would gasp as she accidentally set off a nerve. "Can you move it at all?" She asked him.
"If I could, you wouldn't be here." Ed gave a small yelp as the screwdriver in his shoulder sent a jolt of pain through his system. "Hey! Watch where you poke that thing!"
"Sorry, it must've slipped." Winry replied innocently, but everyone in the office could see the slight malicious glare in her eyes. After a few more minutes of prodding and poking, Winry huffed and sat up. "There isn't anything wrong with it! All the wires are in perfect condition and your shoulder transistors are all functioning!" She 'hmmed' for a minute. "Maybe something went wrong with the docking?"
Without warning, Winry dug her fingers into Ed's shoulder and with a small hiss, the entire arm popped off. Falman and Fuery turned away, green in the face white Havoc, Breada and Hawkeye just gawked. Ed glared at them, a slight blush on his face. "So what? My arm came off, no big deal!" he shouted at them. Roy chuckled and ducked just in time to avoid a spanner thrown at him by Ed.
"Now now Edward, no need to be so testy." The man grinned.
"I wouldn't be testy if you all would go away!" As one, the military personal shook their heads. "This is cool, I've never personally known any one with automail before." Havoc said. Suddenly, Winry was staring up at them with a strange gleam in her eye. It was the same gleam Ed got when he explained his newest theory on alchemy, the gleam of pleasure at educating the ignorant. Adding the fact that she was currently holding a metal arm, that gleam did nothing to calm anyone. "So, you guys don't know a thing about automail?" She asked. A round of shaking heads followed by a girly squeal.
"Oh great, you've got her started." Ed groaned, hiding his face in his remaining hand.
"You see, automail is a complex piece of machinery. You saw all those wires right? Those replace nerves that were in the original flesh limb. They run all through the arm and into the hand and fingers. That's how an automail user can use their limbs like normal, though I guess there is a bit of a change, like it's harder to judge pressure and you can't feel anything, but anyway. The nerve signals from the brain are turned into electrical signals by the transistors in the shoulder," She turned Ed sideways so everyone could see the small nodules that surrounded the shoulder port.
"These are the transistors." She pointed to the large hole in the centre of the port and lifted up the arm to show the docking pillar. "The pillar goes in that hole and is held in place by catches, and this allows for the transistors to connect with the wires." She tuned Ed again so he was facing front. "You see the shoulder brace? And the slight bulge where his upper chest is covered? That's more wires so Ed can still rotate his shoulder, they're connected straight into Ed's body, so having anything done to the port is extremely painful, but then, so is the actual attachment of the arm because there's a sudden, large electrical jolt and because its connected into the nerves, that sends the pain through his body. Ooh! And this spring!"
Again, Ed was manhandled into position, his annoyed expression turned downright deadly. "This is what makes the automail slightly lighter than if it were just the docking pillar keeping things in place. When the spring is tight, there's less weight for the docking pillar to hold and it doesn't pull on the shoulder." More manhandling and Ed was once again facing them. "The bolt in his collar bone helps stabilise the shoulder port itself, and there are more bolts drilled into Ed's ribs to make sure the thing stays in place and nothing comes apart. Though, Ed has a habit of having it blown into a million little pieces!" Winry once again hit Ed with her wrench.
"OW! Winry! I never blew up the port! Just the arm!" He defended.
"HA! You admit it! You're in so much trouble Edward Elric!"
"I ADMIT NOTHING!"
The screaming match went on for a few minutes before Winry silenced Ed by hitting him with his own automail arm. "Serves you right." She claimed smugly.
"Just fix the damn thing already." He grumbled, holding his abused head. Winry huffed, then peered at the shoulder port with a small flashlight she kept in her tool kit for such an occasion. Without knowing it, Hawkeye, Breada, Havoc, Falman and Fuery had slowly inched closer and were now peering like children over Winry's shoulder.
They marvelled at the tiny transistor nodules and the mass of metal Edward had to lug around, even without the arm. "If the shoulder brace is attached to his ribs." Whispered Havoc. "Then doesn't that mean the Chief can't breathe properly? I mean, that metal must restrict how much his right lung can expand, right?" Winry and Ed stared at him and Havoc realised he must've been too loud.
"I breathe just fine thank you very much." The short blonde replied hotly, though Winry seemed to nod just slightly. Havoc realised Ed was just being prideful in his proclamation, and Winry wasn't going to knock that down by verbally disagreeing. The entire personnel group suddenly felt a small swell of pity for the boy. "Oi! I don't need pity alright!" Ed growled. He must've seen the look in their eyes. "This is just how things are-"
"Found it!" Squealed Winry. "There's a bunch of rust at the end of the docking port, so the pillar wasn't getting to the end and the nodules weren't touching the wires!"
She ducked back into her toolbox and came back up with a wicked looking stick, a cloth and some polish. She spread some polish over the cloth and attached the cloth to the stick. "Right then, brace yourself, I'll have to scrub pretty hard." Ed leant into her slightly and Winry inserted the cloth and began to scrub. It was slightly disturbing how much of the stick went inside the port, but after a minute of vigorous scrubbing and another flashlight check, Winry deemed the operation a success.
"Right, everything should be working now." She grabbed the arm from where it had been laying on the Colonels desk and set it in position. "Ready Ed?" Edward clenched his jaw and nodded. "Three…two…" Ed's entire body tensed. "One…" Ed threw his head back with a strangled cry as Winry clicked the arm into place. "Ow." Ed gasped as his breathing slowly came back to normal. He flexed his right arm and grinned when it moved properly.
"Thanks Win." He mumbled.
"Always a pleasure Ed."
Hehe, all my ending's are really crappy and rushed.
Anyways, I hope I managed to do justice to your idea F&F! And i apologise if i didn't, but this thing began to write itself! I originally had a more angsty one shot planned, but for some reason, that didn't happen and it turned into a more upbeat story.
Disclaimer/apology: I am not Arakawa-sensei, so i didn't invent FMA or automail. If what i've written here doesn't go with how you think automail works then to each their own, but don't flame me for it. I looked through both manga profiles and my manga collection for more info on automail, but there isn't much, so i basically blagged most of it based on my own opinion of how Automail works. So, sorry :)
REVIEW! FEED A PLOT BUNNY!
thanks for reading! Inuchron