Shifting my weight, a bit I get a little more comfortable. I’m clearly on the train already. I direct my attention down, I see that I’m neatly tucked in on one side of a train compartment while Edward, Al and Zig are all crammed on the other side. Edward looks like he’s being squished between the two of them. I can’t help but chuckle.

That’s apparently the final straw as Edward shoots a glare at me. “Hey! Move over so I can join your side. Zig and Al are hogging all the room over here.” Edward hardly waits for me to start sitting up before he squeezes his way out from between the other two and sits where my head was.

Rubbing my forehead… it feels odd. I have no sensation through my hands, but I can feel it on my skin. I also have a pulsing pain from around my shoulder. “So, what exactly happened? Where are we going?” Looking between Zig and Al since I figured Edward wouldn’t be a great source of information.

Al speaks up first. “Oh uh, Wenry said that they had the sensitivity turned up in order to help ease you into it. I guess normally it takes a really long time for even a little movement. So when you could move it normally it was a little too much… As for what’s going on now, we’re heading to the Hamburgang estate. They just live a little west of our little town. It actually works out since we can go through that towards East City where our appointment with Shou Tucker is in four days!” That makes sense at least… I just have to draw up a transmutation circle and heal some of the damage to my shoulders. I’m also on a deadline now for helping out the kid. Well, this time I’ve got the skills for it and the notes it should work out okay.

“Alright… well first of all, Zig can you get me my gloves. I’d like to practice some Alchemy and Alkahestry with them before going too far.” With a nod he pulls our bag off the rack and starts sorting through our things.

Al looks excited since he hasn’t seen me actually using Alkahestry yet and even with my lessons they aren’t using our method. I suppose I should try the visualize the outcome rather than the transition method I’m used to.

“Here, my lord.” Zig hands me both gloves. After sliding them on I pull out a single piece of metal from the bag. It seems simple enough, just imagine it bending into the shape of Edwards state alchemist locket…With a few much larger than I’m used to sparks of transmutation lightning I have an almost identical copy to his locket.

Edward immediately reacts recognizing the familiar locket. “Hey! I thought I asked you not to make a copy of it!” He reaches to snatch it from me before I pull away.

“Relax I’m just testing things, okay?” Looking it over, while the front looks fine the back has these rectangular shapes cut into it.

“Do you know why these are here? I’ve never had them appear in my work before and they look like the same marks as the patterns in the cancerous growths of the chimera I looked at before.” Wait… I just remembered I never really did anything to detain the chimera after knocking it out… well, not my problem.

Edward seems confused. “What do you mean? That’s just the marks that mean you didn’t have a clear picture of it all or didn’t spend enough time making it. You get it in a lot of rushed alchemy.” He claps his hands before touching his automail arm making the back turn into a blade. “But eventually if you’re making the same thing repeatedly you can do it without the marks.” He shows off the back that’s clean.

It’s just practice and visualization. That’s boring. “Interesting… also why do you use that clap method for everything anyways?” I wonder if my idea of using chi to make the matrix shape within the self-circle has any merit. If it is using the body as a medium, it’s less efficient and takes more time. But should allow for a lot more freedom.

He looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Because with that method I don’t need a circle? I just need to use myself as the matrix and it works for any material?” Doesn’t he realize the downsides?

“Yeah, but by taking twice as long and requiring both hands. Heck is it even efficient? I know my transmutation circles are designed specifically for manipulating specific things on a significantly small scale. Why not use many specialized circles but have the general method for if you don’t have access to one of those materials?” He looks a little embarrassed for a moment realizing that it was slower.

He sputters for a bit. “B-but you never know what you’re going to run into. Why have all those circles? They are also impossible to figure out without extensive research.” Did he not notice…

“Have you ever fought another alchemist before?” He shares a look with Al.

He puts his hands behind his head and raises his nose like he’s proud of himself. “Yeah, there was this water alchemist guy that tried to freeze central not long ago. We kicked his ass, why?”

“Well do you remember his transmutation circle? Judging by how you guys work it was probably somewhere obvious right?” His eyes go wide.

“Yeah… matter of fact I do.” He starts to smile at the thought of it.

Then he seems to realize something and frowns. “But that wouldn’t work… me and Al don’t know enough about water to really work it like him.” I can’t help but shake my head at the sheer stupidity of that.

“Do you mind showing me the transmutation circle?”

He pulls out a piece of paper and draws it out. The trains slight bumps making it slightly hard for him to draw perfectly. After his first drawing Al leans over.

“Brother it was a bit more like this…” He makes a few adjustments. Edward nodding along with them.

It looks like a curved circle that looks like waves. Interesting, a sort of ying yang feel. It only takes me a moment to transfer the symbol into the back of my new metal hand.

“There, now all I need to do is this…” I wave my hand through the air, I picture the water being ripped from the ambient moisture into water droplets. With a bit of transmutation lightning the air suddenly becomes really dry as my glove becomes damp. I receive a notification that I’ve copied another transmutation circle.

“There, see? -Cough- maybe that was a bad idea but still! It’s not hard. Heck even that Colonel we met was wearing his transmutation circle on his gloves out in the open.” Edward and Alphonse are staring at me in shock. I replicate his transmutation circle, It’s a series of pentagrams with a salamander within it. Once I’m finished with that, I confirm the notifications. This time the quest gives two points rather than one, the next quest requires learning 5 transmutation circles though. I immediately plug two points into endurance and one into speed.

“What?” I look between the two of them.

They look at each other. “It’s just… all the alchemists are wearing their transmutation circles out in the open. Why has no one else thought of this before?”

“How closely guarded are alchemist techniques and knowledge?” Edward shrugs.

“I’m not sure really, dad’s office was full of the stuff and there are lot of philosophical texts that discuss the purpose of different materials and their composition but most of them are different from dads’ stuff. We haven’t really been able to trade with anyone else since we burned all of dads notes. We only have what we remember.” Edward at least has the decency to look embarrassed when mentioning burning it all.

“haa burn down a great depository of knowledge… Oh well nothing that can come of it now. I don’t think many people have access to that sort of knowledge. To most it’s just drawings and they don’t understand their meaning. You also need to have contact between the substance and the circle so it needs to be in a readily available place so it’s not like alchemists can hide them.” I’ll make sure to copy as many as I can.

I start copying another transmutation circle this time on the palm of my left hand underneath the ink glove that I remove.

Al speaks up. “What’s that one do?” It’s a fairly basic Alkahestry circle with the five point star. In the middle though is a human.

“It’s just a basic human transmutation circle. I don’t have time to be meticulous about it and I know enough information to fix most of it myself mentally.” I press it against my shoulder and start fixing up some of the damage from the surgeries. It’s rough, I understand what things should look like but the energy needs to come from somewhere and my energy reserves are already low.

A bit woozy I falter slightly before Zig catches me. “Are you hungry my lord? I prepared food.” He produces some nicely wrapped meat buns and rice patties. Edward reaches for one before getting his hand smacked away by Zig.

“Thank you Zig. I’m starving!” I start digging in as Edward glares at me mouthwatering.

“So, anything I should know about this blind alchemist or anything?” I start working on the other shoulder.

Al speaks up first. “Um not really? He doesn’t know that he failed the human transmutation. They adopted an orphan girl that looks like the girl they lost. So he was never told the truth…”

“Great, so are we breaking the news to him before or after?” They both nervously twiddle their thumbs.

“We don’t know?” I’ll just file it away as another future problem.

“Right! Did Wenry come with us?” Edward looks confused. “No why would she be?”

“Oh, I was just curious. I remembered something I was meant to tell her but I didn’t get the chance before we left.”

“Eh don’t worry. You’re probably going to need to get those adjusted again before long. You can just tell her then.” That works out. I just nod.

It doesn’t take long before we get to the town that the Hamburgang’s family lives in. As soon as we get out of the train we are received by several well decorated cars. Annoyingly as we ride, I only manage to get the blueprints for the door and seat as my sense of blueprints was taking too long.

We pull up to a fancy front gate manned by guards. I can see the looks of interest and confusion among the people. They probably aren’t used to such last-minute guests.

The doors are opened by attendants and I’m politely ushered in. As we walk through the gates two people greet us. An old man with scars covering most of his face, they look like familiar gouge marks like my own scars likely leaving him eyeless like me. He wears a proper suit and holds a cane. Hearing us he turns to smile at the squel of joy from second person accompanying him. Besides him I see a short girl with long red hair. She looks like she's related to the Lady that came to visit us but I assume this is the orphan that they had hired the services of. She's running around until she spots me, Al and Edward approaching she let's out a happy screech before running right into Al.

“Yay! It’s the metal freak and his little brother!” She happily runs up to Al and starts using him like a jungle gym. MEanwhile Edward is trying his hardest not to attack the little girl for her small comment.

The older man walks up to me. “Hello, my name is Jude. I’m the alchemist that works for the Hamburgangs. I’m to understand you’re here to check up on rosaline?” He sticks out a hand.

Matching it with my own I can see the slight frown as he feels the metal. “Yes, I was told to make sure she’s healthy. I’m a medical expert from Xing. Our country specializes in medical Alkahestry so Edward and Al recommended me to check up on her when they met.” Seemingly satisfied Jude smiles and gestures towards the red haired girl that I assume is the orphan.

“As you can see she is quite healthy. But I will understand if you’d like some basic tests. Just nothing invasive and I’m sure either her mother or the head butler would like to be present.” He’s being nice and cordial about it at least. Even if I can tell he’s slightly displeased that someone else needs to check his work.

“Of course, I wouldn’t want anything out of their comfort zones. I’m going to go inside and start getting ready.” He gestures behind him and a servant moves up and guides him. He’s taken to the library while the head butler the man with the mustash that had traveled with lady Hamburgang guides me to the room I’d be working in.

As soon as I enter I see a large transmutation circle. It’s edges are marked with writing that’s a similar recipe for a person as Edward had spouted before… No wonder they had failed.

“Well, I’m going to need to clean all this.” Al starts drawing his circle with chalk but I stop him. I use the metal transmutation circle to adjust my human transmutation circle to one depicting earth on the 5 stars and including the formula for silicone.

I press it on the ground and channel the changes. Visualizing the final product… Not long after I see the effects, the general shape of the transmutation circle I’ll need is drawn out before me… That’s so much easier then segment by segment.

“Woah, impressive.” Edward and Al look at it.

Edward scraps his finger along the inside of the circles grooves “No sign of any transmutation marks either. You must be really familiar with this circle.”

“Alright, all that’s left is the precious metals, the ingredients and the girl.”

The head butler is looking on in shock. “A-all ready? I thought it would take days…”

“Oh it might take a couple hours for me to get the heart right but I already did that once before. I just need to follow the steps exactly.” The butler nervously dabs some sweat away. He scampers off quickly to go fetching the materials.

Now all we have to do is wait. Edward points out the door. “Do you want to go see her? She’s on the third floor.”

It’s a good idea to know what I’m getting into. “Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Perhaps I won’t even need this circle.”

Nodding I’m lead up to the room. We get there and Edward doesn’t even bother with a key. A quick clap and small transmutation and the handle turned into a small depiction of his head laughing and he opens the door without a problem.

“Just so you know… It was a bit of a shock for me when I first saw her.” He gently closes the door behind me as I enter. I’m a bit nervous now.

In front of me is a wall of curtains. Large flowery fillagry decorating everything. I walk up and part them only to see a wall of toys and flowers. It looks like someone placed every little thing that could make a child happy in here. But the most important thing is a small girls frame sitting in a chair. She looks like a severe burn victim. Her skin pulled tight to her bones, no teeth, eyesockets empty and nose missing but the nostrils are still there. Strangely her hair is perfectly silky and healthy though… perhaps the one thing he was able to properly visualize was her hair.

“Well, young Rosalie I’m not sure if you can hear me but I’ll do my best to fix you.” I move up to her and gently press my forehead to her. It feels… wrong. Her body is still alive… I can feel the Chi within her moving around. The issue is it’s like everything is wrong. She has a stomach but the digestive system is wrong, leading to it just barely sustaining the twig like body. The nerves are almost absent besides to essential systems. Her lungs are barely functional. It’s frankly a miracle she’s still alive… unless there’s something that’s keeping her in this state. Perhaps a ceil like Al just attatched to a human? I can’t sense anything with my first glance through.

Right as I was considering the possible treatment methods the door behind me slams open. Glancing through the flowery courtens I see the lady of the house standing there panting from likely running here.

“I’m… I-I understand you’ve checked on her? So… do you think there’s a chance?”

I mean… “How long has she been like this?” I gesture towards the body.

“Around a year and a half…” Not that long… but still longer than I’d expect this body to live.

“She might pass any day now. She’s on her last legs. I feel as if it’s a miracle she’s lasted this long. However, I should be able to fix things. It seems like there’s still life in there. Just be aware, she’s been trapped in her mind for a year and a half. If I fix everything she may still be a bit… reclusive for a while. I can fix the body not the mind.” She nervously nods. She looks at me for a moment longer almost not believing in what I had to say.

“W-we will have the materials delivered right away… I-I have most of the precious metals here in the estate… I sent out Jeeves for the grocery list to town. We should have everything by tonight… He’s also gone to pick up a snake just in case though I hope it’s not required.” I can’t help but smile at the efficiency.

“Great!” I clap, but rather than a clap sound it just sounds like a metallic thunk. “I’m going to go rest. I’ll likely be staying up late working on things. It would be best if you have the orphan girl rest too. I need her to touch the back of my head while I work on fixing Rosalines body.”

“O-of course! I’ll go talk to her right now!” She runs off again, the idea of fixing Rosaline extinguishing any previous exhaustion.

I’m left to awkwardly wander around alone. No one had told me where my resting area was so I just walked until I found a maid to show me the way. I guess most of the staff were really nervous around me. They were told that if any of them offend me in any way that they would be fired. Even if they were old family friends. I’m not sure how I feel about that…

I’m shown to a room that has nice expensive adorned sheets and a large bed even several vase decorations that look expensive. It almost looks like a small apartment rather than an individual room.

I just lay down for a moment. As soon as I do I almost jump when I realize Zig was in the room with me sitting on the couch. His presence somehow thin even when he’s that bulky. I just rub my shoulders a bit. It’s not as satisfying when my hands are cold metal. I just lay down for a nap.

It’s not long before I’m awakened by quick pounding on the door.

“S-sir we have everything!” Oh… What time is it?” I glance around me until settling on an old style clock. I’ve been down for a couple hours. Yawing I open the door. Outside are the lady of the house looking raggid alongside the head butler who’s soaked in sweat and looks unkept.

“Alright, bring the materials to the room. I’ll start laying everything out. I need you to keep the perishable materials cold though until I need them.” I’d forgotten that I’d made my own special fridge for the samples. Ah right… I’ll also need an egg from a female… how do I ask this without being awkward.

“So… To make the heart which is one of the materials for the process. I’m going to need an egg from a woman… It’s going to be awkward, but I promise to be as professional as possible. Or I can explain the procedure to a woman that can perform it instead.” The lady of the house blushes after I explain the process.

“I-If you don’t mind, I would prefer a woman…” I nod understanding.

“Just send whoever you have in mind to perform it to the room. I’ll start melting the gold and pocking the matrix into the floor now and I can explain the process to them.” She seems in a bit of a daze as the butler moves off to go find a female doctor at this time of night that’s willing to try something like that.

In the room I make the culture nutritional solution I’d made previously. Thankfully I can promote rapid growth using alchemy, so I don’t need to wait for it to grow slowly.

While adding the golden dots to the floor eventually a nervous woman makes her way in. She describes herself as a midwife that was paid a lot for her silence. It doesn’t take long to explain the process. She blushes a bit but understands. I end up being in the room anyways. I have a sheet between me and the procedure in case of any complication and to be there as a reference in case she needs a reminder on a step. Nothing went wrong and I was able to use the procured eggs to create stem cells by rapidly promoting growth within the solution.

“Well, moment of truth let’s see if a repeat trial works.” Setting it down in the middle I repeat everything exactly the same as last time… Edward and Al are watching from the side in anticipation. The lady also watches on concerned. Rosaline is sitting in a chair beside her, ready to be moved to the center of the circle once this is done. The Orphan girl, Amy apparently also nervous and needing to be comforted by the lady that she won’t be thrown out after Rosaline is fixed.

Shocks of lightning arc along the circle. Slowly picking up and carrying the resources into one thing. Eventually it settles and I see the familiar sight of my beating heart… It works… I can do it repeatedly.

“I did it…” I let out a breath of relief.

“He did it…” Edward and Al both stare on at the heart. Almost not believing what they just witnessed.

“He… he might actually be able to fix her!” The lady finally allowing more hope to weasel it’s way into her heart.

“Alright, move her to the center. Arrange the other materials around the circle. I’ll make any fine adjustments to them.

The butler and Zig slowly drag out the materials, being careful not to spill anything or not even allowing a single grain to spill outside their designated circles. Once everything was arranged I turn to the lady of the house and she gently places her daughter in the middle. Right next to the beating heart container. She then nervously picks it up and sets it on her daughter on her chest.

“Okay! I get to save my future s-sister.” Amy still nervous but putting on a brave face. She slowly reaches the back of my head as I finish my preparations. A large gout of lightning starts working along the edge of the circle… slowly moving towards the middle.