A/N: If you haven't noticed yet, Mr. Tommy, the one who is coming to do Ed's automail surgery, is from the manga. I forgot to mention this before, but since I can now, I will…
FYI: MANY OF THE CHARACTERS FROM THIS FAN FIC ARE FROM THE MANGA SERIES. THERE MAY BE SOME FUTURE OCCURRENCES OF CHARACTERS FROM THE ANIME, FOR YOUR INFORMATION.
BTW, I'll be adding A/N at the end, and maybe the beginning of each chapter. I'll start it with this chapter.
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CHAPTER FOUR: Full Steel Prosthetics
It was about a day or so since Al had called Mr. Tommy and Al was a bit panicky. Ed's temperature had gone up and Alphonse was afraid that Ed was slowly fading away. But then, Ed started panicking himself and he jerked all around. Is he having a bad dream? Al asked himself. He wasn't sure what was happening but he wanted it to stop, he knew that for sure. Then, Ed suddenly stopped moving. He was breathing, but his body had stopped tossing and turning.
"Ed?" Al said ever-so softly. He shook his head and turned back to the door way. Suddenly, he heard a familiar voice yell out his name, and Al smiled softly.
At the train station, a man stepped off of the train, and he held two bags: one with clothing folded neatly inside, and one with all of his automail tools. The man wore a frown on his face, and that frown never seemed to fade away. But the man turned to the station's exit and he began walking, shoving people out of his way so he could get to his next destination.
"Central…" The man began to say. Not long after he had left the station, he had found the largest building in the city. Though many of the buildings were large in size, this one was far bigger than the rest. Mr. Tommy waited to be allowed inside, through the iron gates of Central HQ, and they began to be opened. The man began walking, his expression slightly angry-looking.
Taking but two steps inside the building, the secretary looked up. "Sir? Can I help you?"
"Where's Alphonse Elric?" The man asked in an angry tone and he seemed to appeared to be shouting, so the secretary froze. Moments later, footsteps were heard from down the hall.
"I'm right here." A teen's voice came upon the man's ears. Mr. Tommy turned to Al and began walking to him.
"Take me to your brother…"
Al nodded and turned back around; he led the angry man upstairs and into the office of Colonel Roy Mustang. "Sir." Al motioned his hands towards the sweaty and screwed-up looking boy lying there, on the couch. A weeping noise was heard from the same spot. It was Ed. Was Ed…crying? Al turned to the weeping boy. Why was he crying? "Ed?" Ed's eyes were opened again. For two whole days had Ed slept. So many thoughts had entered his mind during that time period and Ed was now, severely depressed.
"Al…why? Why couldn't I save her? Why did she…why did she have to die? WHY DID WINRII HAVE TO DIE?" Ed said his voice very shaky. Mr. Tommy's eyes widened and he dropped his luggage.
"What? Win…Winrii's…DEAD?" My. Tommy shook his head and sighed. "How? How did she…die?" He said, his voice trembling as he spoke. Ed looked up at the man. Ed's eyes were glistening but he quickly noticed that, and with his good arm–his left one–he wiped the tears away.
"Yeah….and I was way too late to be able to save her." Ed said, looking away, his gaze was set upon the outside. He was looking through the window. Roy was just listening, but then he decided to speak.
"Ed…you did all you could. But there was no hope for her…it's alright. Everyone loses somebody…" Roy's voice was edgy and Ed was unsure of why. But for now, Ed thought it would be best to leave it alone. So he nodded and with that, a long sigh came and Al shook his head rapidly.
"Well, let's start on the automail, shall we?" Al said with a weak, yet very fake smile. Everyone, besides Ed, turned to Al and nodded.
Mr. Tommy unloaded his tool bag and pulled out a measuring tape. "Kid, let me see your left arm. We'll use the measurements of your left arm and right leg to make the automail. Ed nodded and sighed. Sitting up was the first thing to do, though. Lately, Alphonse had been doing and undoing, then redoing Ed's bandages, incase they got too bloody. All that mattered was that Ed was alive, and so, Al proceeded to watch them get Ed's automail ready. This one was going to be different than all the other automail limbs he had attached.
The nerves were going to be inserted first, so that way, the painful part would be over first. Ed was somewhat happy about this new automail. But Ed just stared out the window. A sudden memory played in his mind.
"Hmmm...Iron 17 percent, Steel 1 percent..." Mr. Tommy knocked on Ed's automail arm with a small hammer-like tool.
"I was thinking about increasing the hardness and making it lighter..." Winrii said with a face that read so peacefully.
"Correct, using his body as a comparison, the automail's too heavy." Mr. Tommy agreed with Winrii's idea of lightening it. "And because of that, it's weighing him down and is putting too much stress on the boy." Ed's eyes widened and he looked at Mr. Tommy with an semi-angry facial expression.
"Wait--SHORT?" Ed settled down and regained his composure and once again spoke. "So, what you're trying to tell me is that if my automail was lighter, I might grow taller?" Mr. Tommy nodded and Ed's face went from serious to a happy, sort of day-dreaming look.
"But I'm not doing any repairs on your automail, so why don't you just leave!" Mr. Tommy said harshly.
That broke Edward's happiness and he felt ever-so-sad. He was sort of angry at the man now. But he wouldn't give up. He'd beg him every few hours...err...minutes or so...
Ed was snapped back into reality when he heard the snap of someone's fingers. "Huh?" Ed whipped his head around to face the person who had snapped. He wanted to make sure it wasn't Roy, and so he looked to see Roy was gone from his office and it was Mr. Tommy just trying to get Ed's attention.
"Kid, you need to pay attention. We're about to start inserting the wired nerves." Mr. Tommy pointed out, his finger pointing at the un-connected connector. "It'll hurt for about a minute or so, so relax." His voice bellowed and Ed nodded slowly.
"Okay, sir..." Ed said, two golden orbs lazily looking upwards now. He was staring at the ceiling. For an awkward reason, Ed felt uneasy. He felt feverish, and sick. Mr. Tommy placed his hand on Ed's chest and shoved him downwards. "What the--?"
Ed was silenced as Mr. Tommy spoke. "You're gonna need to lie down. This is only for the leg though, so it'll hurt not as much as it would if I were to do this all at once. Now, shut up and relax." Mr. Tommy commanded the short, blonde alchemist. Ed obeyed. Ed really didn't care if he was being pushed around, he wanted to lie down anyways, so here was his chance. But Ed did know one thing: He was gonna regret ever obeying this man.
A few hours later, Ed woke up. His expression was clueless. Al was lying down beside him on the floor, while he rested upon the couch in Roy's office. He looked around, Mr. Tommy must have had boarded up in a hotel. Ed had automail again and was feeling pretty well for his present condition. But, Roy wasn't anywhere to be seen in his office. Was he letting the two brothers bunk there for the night? Why didn't they just put Ed and Al in Ed's dorm? Ed still had a dorm room, you know. Sure it hadn't been used in a long while, but it had two beds and it was just in the dormitory buildings. Oh well, Ed had to just deal with where he was.
Ed looked at his new automail. The design, as you could tell by just looking at it, was a completely different design. Ed sighed longingly. "I'm so tired..." Ed turned his head to Al who was sleeping so peacefully. "Al..."
Al MUST have been a light sleeper for that simple word, his name, woke him up. Al sat up with tired eyes looking at Ed. "You're...awake? Good...let's go to your dorm." Al said lazily, getting up. "You slept through the whole process of the automail being attached...ho you did it...I have not a clue, but I'm glad you're awake." Al said, a small smile creeping onto his features.
Ed sighed and stood up. Footsteps were suddenly heard and Ed froze. Why was Mr. Tommy still up? Hell if Ed knew. But Ed was about to leave when Mr. Tommy had taken a step into the room. Ed was quiet, but he was awake. But aparently Mr. Tommy didn't think so. So, Mr. Tommy used his strength to slam Ed into a wall. "You shouldn't be up yet! Now, sit down and STAY down!" He yelled at Ed who lay next to the couch on the left side. Ed was struggling to get up.
Not another one. He's just like her, just like Sensei... Ed thought as he struggled deeply to stand up. "What...the hell...was that...for?" Ed said in his usual, pissed off tone of voice.
Why, Al began to think, did he do that? He's acting like Izumi-Sensei... "Sir, did you have to throw my brother into a wall, just because he got up?" Al asked nervously. But he still stood, Al still stood up and tried his best to defend his elder sibling. Mr. Tommy sighed and looked up.
"HE CAN'T BE STANDING RIGHT AWAY!" Mr. Tommy shouted, his voice echoing with in the building.
"That still gives you NO RIGHT to be slamming me into a WALL!" Ed shouted back, also echoing.
"SIT DOWN...BETTER YET, LAY DOWN!" Mr. Tommy began stomping towards Ed, but Al jumped in front of the bulky man.
"NO!" Ed shouted as he finally stood completely.
But all the shouting stopped as the door flew open and First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye walked in, her hand to the holster of her gun.
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A/N: Well, I'm only doing the A/N thing to tell everyone what's going on. The Mr. Tommy from this fic is from the manga series, so most of his characteristics may be different from his equivalent. I may have made him a bit more like Izumi-sensei, just so there'd be more action in this fic.
Also, let everyone know, since I didn't do this on the very first, nor any of the other chapters, I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST CHARACTERS, NOR DO I OWN THE TITLE OF THE SHOW OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS BESIDES: OBSESSION, DENIAL, AND HATRED!
There, now you know, so I'll leave you to a cliff hanger...
-Insert maniacal laughter here-