Chapter 10: The Humble Alchemist, and the Tired Alchemist
It was now 10am the next morning and Ed has gotten up but because he can't leave without Winry he couldn't go get up and get things done, he looked around her room and couldn't find any defensive notes or anything in the room, where would she keep it. Where would he keep notes on Alchemy? In his study, but why would she go in there, he didn't know but that's where they'd be but knowing how smart Winry has been at guarding things, she'd have it protected so he wouldn't try, at least not now.
"Brother, Winry, time to eat." Al yelled from downstairs, and then walked up stairs to see Ed sitting on the edge of the bed and Winry still sleeping. "Brother why don't you carry Winry downstairs and then eat, that's sure to wake her up, all the nice foods Auntie and Sciezka made, it's small because no one knows how to use the stove that Winry made." Ed laughed and then shook his head.
"The faster she recovers Al, the better for her and us. Could you bring the food up here?" Al nodded and then got Ed breakfast, and then Al joined his brother for breakfast.
"Izumi is still sleeping too, I was until about 5 minutes ago, then they woke me up and told me to get up and get you. I feel bad for Winry that took a lot of alchemy to make all these alchemic bubbles."
"How she made them is the real question? Air, can you transmute air, it's a substance but I wouldn't have very much value in alchemy, would it Al?"
"Brother, as good as I am at alchemy you and Winry are on a whole different level, like Izumi said it's so more rare, strong and harder to master so she's ahead of us too."
"How she took our offensive alchemy and transferred our techniques to defensive is a whole other case but she can make her and array too, it's strange, and she was able to try out the bubbles but how."
"Daniel, she tried to protect herself from him, it wasn't just tonight, she's been trying to protect herself from him, wait, and he used two methods, what if?"
"You're no thinking?"
"Daniel is the same as that guy, that's why she's so scared and knew what to expect, why make it alchemic from the outside if he was only a normal person, she knew and didn't tell us."
"Food, strange smelling food, what is that? That's not food. That's Ed and Al." Winry sat up and opened her eyes and fell of the bed, they laughed.
"Good morning Winry, hope you had a good 12 hours of sleep, you needed it."
"Morning Ed, morning Al, so why is we here, and not downstairs?"
"Because brother didn't want to carry you downstairs and disturb you because he was hungry; so now that you both are ready, let's go down stairs and eat with the others." Winry jumped up and crashed into the edge of the bubble which didn't stretch if you ran into it. Ed and Al laughed at her, and she rubbed her head.
"Wait, am I in the bubble?" Winry asked.
"Yeah, don't you remember?" She nodded.
"I remember last night but not being in the bubble, just making them and all the events, I can't see the bubbles either, that's strange. Where is it?" Winry asked.
"Well we can't have you hurting yourself so let's go." Ed picked up Winry like in a marriage and carried her down to breakfast.
"Winry, do I smell bad?" Al asked. Everybody looked at him, very confused. "When you woke up Winry, you said that you could smell brother and me."
"No you and Ed don't smell bad Al, you have a very distinctive smell, that's how I know when you're around, but I don't know what they smell like, sort of like alchemy, I guess, that's how I can describe it. Remember the alchemic dust that you used when you were little and did your alchemy, that's what you smell like, it smelled nice like you guys, I wonder why you guys smell like the alchemic dust."
"Edward, did you use the dust during the human transmutation?" Ed nodded; Sciezka question didn't exactly fit. "It's probably because when you do the alchemy it uses your body to change and so some of it is absorbed in your skin, and Ed's leg and Al smell like it because during the human transmutation a lot of it was absorbed."
"Makes as much sense as anything else in alchemy." Auntie said, and Winry laughed.
"Did I understand alchemy when I was little guys?" Winry asked.
"No, it scared you half to death, you ran away the first few times we tried, then after we gave you the doll you realized it wouldn't hurt you, and then you enjoyed watching us." Ed said and laughed, and Winry playfully hit him.
"So guys, what else did you use your alchemy for when you were little; other than making Winry and yourselves stuff?" Sciezka asked, sitting at the table after finishing off all the table settings.
"The boys did a lot of alchemy to show everyone that they could, their mother and Winry were their favorite people to do alchemy for if I remember correctly. They did many things to help their mother and Winry and presented them with presents a lot, Winry still has all the things that they made."
"You do?" Al asked happily. Winry nodded.
"I have boxes and boxes of it upstairs, in my room." Winry said and walked over to the couch and pulled off a doll of the chair, here's the doll you two made for me." Winry handed it carefully to Al. "Be careful with it, it's pretty old and the alchemy was pretty weak in it, it was the first thing you made, and was really good for a first try." Ed started laughing.
"Edward what's so funny about Winry reminding you about the doll?" Sciezka asked.
"Winry has only been doing alchemy for a year and look at the things she can make we had studied alchemy time and time again before we could barely get anything to hold before it turned back. It's funny how much better she is then us."
"Brother's loosing his mind, help!" Al yelled jumping up and down and then Ed about to jump up and then Winry held up a wrench in the bubble. "Winry has a wrench, help!"
"Edward, Winry, Alphonse, calm down all of you!" Pinako yelled causing everyone to return to their sitting position. "Alphonse, you need to calm down, Ed is just well being delirious, Winry, drop the wrench, Edward, behave." Winry and Edward pouted and Alphonse kept talking with Pinako and Sciezka.
"I think you need a vacation Winry, you're stressed out and you keep threatening to hurt me with a wrench, it's abnormal, I think a psychiatrist visit would help you and your wrench problems." Ed suggested playfully.
"Fine, but you're coming with me."
"Do I have to?"
"One, you need it, two, I need it, three, we're connected, four, I don't know how to get out, five, I said so."
"What was that?"
"The part about don't know how to get out?"
"Yes."
"I don't know how to get out."
"What do you mean you don't know how to get out?" Ed asked while yelling.
"I just don't." Winry said yelling.
"You should know, since you transmuted it!" Ed yelled.
"I don't." Winry said yelling then calming down to where she was upset.
"Winry, Edward, calm down and take a walk. Winry explain to Edward why you don't know, if you're lucky he can help."
"Fine grandma, let's go." Auntie happily nodded and Winry and Ed left.
"Before you leave Winry, catch." Izumi appeared in the stairwell and tossed Winry a huge book.
"Thanks, this will help." Winry held the book close to her chest and slowly walked along side Ed and then he looked at her miserable and stopped and she stopped, she had to watch him because she couldn't see the bubble.
"I'm sorry but it's like me not knowing how…well…I can't think of anything that fits this situation. I just thought that with all the detailed thoughts you put into it you'd know how."
"I did, easy to undo it but the problem is I have to be outside of it, I can't leave because none of the situations to escape without me applies to me, I'm not in danger, or in love with myself, and so I can't leave, I'll be in here forever and ever, you can leave I think. You can yell any time now."
"Equivalent Exchange, huh?" She looked confused.
"What?"
"Izumi said that defensive alchemy is the hardest to master, the strongest and the rarest and I thought seeing how easily you go the hang of it I felt like it should have come much easier to me. I was the youngest alchemist yeah, but that doesn't go far in power and uses, just youngest. Now I see that it's fair because it's not as simple, it's just that since it's so stronger the stuff that looks hard for a normal alchemist is easy for you but then when you go to your full potential it makes it seem as though you should but you worked hard to get this good."
"I guess you're right, but slightly wrong. It was super easy for me, I just thought about all the things you and Al talked about when learning alchemy, and from Izumi, everything you did I already knew, I didn't have to learn, I knew because of you and Al. I took most of it from you because in defensive it's split second, reflexes all the way, so learning to create the array I learned from you. I owe a lot to you but it's very hard and some times I wish I would have just stayed normal."
"You're saving so many peoples lives, you should be proud, why is it you're never good enough for yourself. That's the reason I think I'm not good enough for you because you're always going beyond your expectations, what are you trying to become?"
"You, you are perfect Edward; you make mistakes but who doesn't? You care more for others than yourself, you're selfless and you have always been taking care of me as long as I can remember, when my parents left you told me they'd come back and they'd be okay. Though they weren't I felt safe and trusted you. Al was too shy to do the things that you'd do for someone, and that's what amazed me."
"I'm not that special Winry. I'm normal, anyone could do the same." Winry kissed Ed and they kissed for a long time. "What was that for?" Ed asked confused.
"Well if I can't hurt you then I'm going to kiss you."
"That's very deranged logic, so you kiss your enemies?" She smacked him.
"No, only you; I felt that I needed to do something to you, and that's the first thing that came to mind. You're so humble. Ed, no one I've ever met has been so nice to his brother as you are, you help me and do so much for everyone, you've risked your life for Al's so many times, you're amazing, no one would do that. That's why I kissed you." Ed was about to say one silly comment and she put her finger by his lips. "I'm telling you, if you doubt yourself I with hit you with the nearest object to me."
"So what is that book that you're holding so tight?" Ed dared to ask questionably.
"My life story, well at least up until two days ago, I have to put the others in, but yep, every day account of my thoughts, ideas and in the last 200 or so entries working with Mustang, Riza and becoming an alchemist."
"What do you mean; you mean you went for it after the first few days?"
"No, 3 months, but I was rounding, the details of my alchemy, transmutations I've done, my whole life, threw my eyes."
"Sounds dangerous to write it down where everyone can see it."
"It's very well hidden but Izumi can find anything, this diary is just something she can. Every event is in here, this one is just this year, and the others are hidden around the whole house, hard to find what isn't right here, so I hid them, alchemy was used to hide them. It was easy."
"So why did she think it would help?" Winry paged through her diary carefully to the back where it had plans of hand positions, transmutation circles, and stones on it, also emblems on metal objects, including the inscription on all of the state alchemists' pocket watches. "I see, all the faults and workings of the bubble are written in here." She nodded and pointed to a diagram, there was a line, with 5 arrows two on each side, and when at the top, the two arrows pointing to the side drew backwards, indicating that the force couldn't enter, or exit then the top arrow said 'Tate' which meant shield, a shield as designed like the bubble no matter what way you turn it, a good shield will not break, so that is how she designed it, like a shield. "Wow, you thought of everything."
"Except a default, I made it so there were no faults, yet you and Alphonse found them, yeah, that's exactly what I need you and Al being in danger because a fault." The simplest thing that came to anyone's mind was destroy it, easy, destroy it. No alchemist could destroy the bubble from within; it was designed from the outside. Winry needed to get on the outside.
"There must be a loop hole, something so simple someone wouldn't think to try." Ed thought no human in, no alchemist in, no human out, no alchemist out, on both sides, no weapons in had been tried, but two questions came to his mind. "Why can you destroy the bubbles, but no one else can."
"I can't, that's the point, when the evil that the bubble protects you from is gone, and then poof goes the bubble. In the bubble you can use alchemy, so any of those who I'm protecting us can't kill him, the flaw is, my heart is what controls the bubble, I go, the bubbles go, he can't hurt me in here, if I felt it was safe all the bubbles would go poof but they won't until he's gone." Winry sat down rested her head, she was almost in tears.
"Wait, could a normal tool get break it, just one bubble." Winry paged through her notes again.
"Ya Ed, but how would you get a tool that could break the barrier a tool that can get in can just as easily fall out of the bubble, like food."
"What if the tool was brought in, endangered someone in the bubble, it wouldn't be able to get out, correct?" She nodded, not understanding his sentiment, but still understanding his theory.
"What is your idea?"
"The Wrench, it's a tool that is allowed in the bubble but could take me apart, and hurt me; and has, how you got it in was a question but this seems too easy."
"Let's try." Winry takes a wrench out her pocket and bangs Ed on the head with it, and he grabs his head and then she takes all her power and smashes the bubble. Ed falls to the ground and Winry lands on top of her. "You're a genius, how did you think of that?" Winry asked him, turning on top of him, smiling.
"How that thing is my enemy and my friend is my first though and how you created anything related with human flesh and alchemic power to be stopped, but not human power, like a tool." She kissed him, and didn't move.
"I have to create a new bubble, see the bubble is human power resistant on the outside, because guns can't be used on it but not tools from the inside, stupid loop holes."
"Don't fix it, what are you thinking, if you're in danger I want to be able to leave and bring you back in and you have to be able to leave again." She nodded, she didn't like herself being in trouble but Ed wouldn't let her change it because it was a loop hole that could mean saving her life, and getting out of the bubble, and both were well needed, it wasn't a dangerous loop hole. Winry rolled over on her side and laid her head on Ed's chest. "Can I ask you a lot of questions?" Winry raised an eyebrow. "I want to get to know even more about you then I know, and questions are part of it." She nodded.
"For everyone you ask I get to ask you one, fair?" Ed nodded in amusement.
"If I left you here and ran off what would you do?"
"Throw a wrench at you for being strange, you move and I'm pulling you back down, as long as you're not in the bubble you're never leaving my eye sight."
"I say that's a fair arrangement, when Al and I were traveling what were you thinking?"
"Easy, I was thinking that you better come back in one piece one of these day, I wanted you safe, and I missed you." Ed nodded. "My turn, what were you thinking while you were traveling?"
"You know the answer to that." She nodded. "Well I was thinking that I needed to protect Al, I wanted to just find the stone and get our bodies back, and I wanted to go back to eating everyday and not being hated. I wanted Al and I both out of danger and back to normal, a lot of things. Next."
"That's not different then what I expected, the food part surprised me. You not eating would be dangerous at your metabolism but what can you do, people hated you, I thought they treasured you as a hero."
"Depending on who you're talking too, some people don't think anything I do makes up for joining the military others think I'm so great. I wish they'd all just think I'm a normal person, nothing special."
"Well you won't get that from me; I think you're the best thing that ever happened to me and anyone who you've met." Ed blushed and looked at the sky. "My turn; why did you want to learn alchemy?"
"I wanted to stop running away from what I feared, I wanted to be respected by you that was something big, and mostly I wanted to do something that had so much effect on your and Al's life, it played an important role, it was something that did bad, but did so much more good."
"I say those are all good purposes, why did you join the military, I might of respected you just for being an alchemist, first female alchemist I've met and only I'll ever probably." Winry shook her head; she had a smart look on her face. She grabbed her diary, scribbled something down and then closed it and locket it. "What tell me what you wrote? That's a question."
"You're 5th question, I wrote, "Ask Ed in 15 years if I'm the only female alchemist he knows." She laughed, that was what she wrote but he just shrugged, not thinking of a deeper purpose. "My turn, I get to ask three now. Why did you first decide to try alchemy?"
"Dad did, and it was something that amused me, like... seeing a painting then wanting to make one yourself, that's how it was. Curiosity, and wanting something that someone else had, I also saw things he made us and wanted to make things for myself. I wanted, I wondered, and I did; that's how I was when I was little."
"What are the three steps of Alchemy?"
"Determine the makeup, break it down, and build it to something else. You're heard Al and I say this a million times before and the law of equivalent exchange but we don't think all things revolve around that any more, there are so many laws and much more complex."
"That's how the bubble works, the makeup doesn't have to be something physical when I read it, I wondered how Mustang could create those sparks in the air, air is a substance but it's value isn't the same, so how?"
"I don't know Winry; you're the one who mastered it."
"Equivalent Exchange is something that applies to everything in life, a life is given and eventually the same life will be taken away, everything works on it, the stone was made from something and when it was used up the lives used to make were taken back, nothing ever given, always equivalent, air for the bubble, that bubble is air, that's why I can't see how you can, I don't know. That's how it is."
"I guess. Equivalent Exchange isn't the only law acting on an object during alchemy many are that was just the main rule we have to fear."
"Human Kind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return, to obtain something of equal value must be lost, that is alchemy's first law of equivalent exchange, but not the only law, there are so many, it's just something that we fear like you said, you have to know that, and you and Al had to learn it the hard way. If I would have been an alchemist then, I would have stopped you."
"Knowing me, and what it would take, I wouldn't let you stop me, and I wouldn't let you help, I wouldn't learn respect for another 2 years." Winry smiled at Ed, she realized he had to grow up and is still, little by little, not only physically but mentally.
"Alchemy, what does it really mean?" She asked.
"I have no clue, what do you mean by really."
"Isn't it just a huge loop hole we exploit, a break in the gate we use for our purposes."
"I guess, but it is like you said more good then evil. It has it's place and I guess those of us who use it are burdened with a curse, and a blessing."
"My alchemy is just a huge flaw, I don't actually create anything that already wasn't there, and I just form it. Defensive alchemy is having the fear of hurting someone so only using it to help not hurt, it doesn't have any potential to hurt, just defend, and sometimes being solid means someone gets hurt, it's a fact anything is a weapon, how you use it makes the difference."
"You're alchemy is amazing Winry, it has no limits, no blocks, to bend anything into anything you need, it's amazing, I am limited now to very little, my array is weak, and easily broken. Scar told me 'By clasping your hands you create an array and circulate the alchemic reaction with it, without this sinful arm you can't transmute quickly. It's your weakness.' It was and as he broke it, I couldn't do alchemy, that's why you need two hands even in a transmutation circle."
"What's your point? I don't get it."
"I want to you to just think about the bubble and your need to protect me, close your eyes and think it, okay?"
"I don't get it."
"Just try, for me, please." Winry nodded and closed her eyes and opened them. "No explain."
"It's here, the bubble. I'm surrounded in it, which proves it. You alchemy isn't alchemy at all, it's one of natures flaws, it may be a form alchemy because of the process but offensive alchemy requires an array, a circle, a life devoted to it. You used neither. You used will Winry, it's amazing."
"How did I?" Winry asked.
"Defense, you needed to defend me and you heart was the array an array can be as big or small, microscopic even, but is one non the less, the protection needed in exchange for protection, the love and need you have was what changed it, not alchemy."
"Why has no one ever figure that out before, I didn't do that, I just needed it and it happened."
"Need is something, the law of alchemy doesn't say the exchange had to be physical, Al's memories for his body back, was fair, not physical but fair. It was always there, and you proved it, you exchanged a need for reality, no other person can do that, but the gate keeper."
"Can I take the bubble down without touching it?" She closed her eyes and thought about it. "Apparently not."
"It's of value, not physical your need was so much that it could but you wanting something you can easily give isn't strong enough, will saved me so many times."
"The thing with scar, Al's need for you kept you with him."
"Not only that but I really do think that you played a part, because you wanted the same things we've wanted all along, I know my will has never done anything."
"No it has, you needed Al to stay with you, I couldn't have done anything, you attached his soul to that suit, never been successfully done before, will is what makes alchemy work, the exchange requires something, but that something doesn't have to be physical. You solved it."
"No Winry, you wrote the book, I just read it. You made all that possible, you trained me without knowing it, to respect Al, I didn't when we were little but then you wanted me too and then I needed. You taught me all along this way, and that was made it finally possible. You are the law; I just can read it to you."
A/N: I really didn't read any of this anywhere I just ponder and then write it in my story, I love this story idea and I'm sharing it so ask me before you use any of these ponderings in your story. I don't own FullMetal Alchemist, just these ponderings.