Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Hagane no Renkinjutsushi - Summarized ❯ Episode 4 - Ai no Rensei ( Chapter 4 )

Alphonse: Thankfully, the recap is short this time. We burned our house. Please roll the credits!

Edward: No credits yet. First I have to find out if you're okay with the whole house-burning thing.

Alphonse: Thanks for asking me BEFORE we burned it. Now let's each promise to ignore our own wounds and tend after the other one, because that's what people in lo... *coughcough* brothers do.

Edward: No Elricest hints here.


*back at the smoking ruin of the Elric house*


Pinako: They made the decision. They're boys after all, and their job is to make decisions while we wimminfolk keep the hearth warm for them.


*Opening credits*

*Title card : Transmutation of Love*


Alphonse: Nii-san, you know which train to transfer onto?

Edward: Sure. And I'll tell you exactly when it is, so that the cabbages in the audience know that we have plenty of time to loiter around here and wait for the plot to hit us.

Random woman: Stop! Thief!

Edward: Although that thief is running toward us at top speed, we have time to draw a large array on the ground where he'll be passing. Geez, and to think that in later episodes I'll be sure that I'm saving time by bypassing the array.

Alphonse: I'm pretty talented, disarming him with that rising bar. That wasn't pure luck or anything.

Edward: Observe while I demonstrate that I don't know which end of the gun is the dangerous end by pointing the barrel briefly at my own crotch.

Random guard guy: Pretty neat. In the spirit of equivalent trade, I'll throw the plot at you to reward you for catching that thief.


*in the coach*


Edward: You seem awfully happy.

Alphonse: Because everybody complimented us. It would be giving me a hard-on if I had a body.

Edward: You're weird.

Alphonse: You'll get it yourself in the next episode.


*outskirts of the village*


Klose: I'm a girl, but for unstated reasons I dress like a boy and act like a boy and hang out with boys at night ... wait a minute, that didn't sound quite right. Anyway, I haven't seen you around before, and that means we get to beat you with sticks!

Edward: No need, we'll beat ourselves up for you. And I intend to become a State Alchemist ...

Majhal: Look, I don't have to touch my array to stuff to transmute it.


*at Majhal's place*


Majhal: And of course I know what Alphonse is on sight, because I've been transmuting sou...*cough cough* I'm Just That Good.

Edward: Pay attention, I'm drinking the teacup with my RIGHT hand.

Majhal: Not only do I know what Alphonse is, I know who your father is, as if by psychic forecasting. Obviously, I read the script. Either that, or Edward inherited more than Hohenheim's great talent.

Edward: Tell me about human transmutation. Subtlety is not my forte.

*knock knock*

Lebi!Karen: I made you some rose jam. Wait a minute ... who the hell has ever heard of ROSE JAM!

Edward: Do I always eat like a wild animal? Yes. Be happy I'm still using utensils. This will be a running joke too, but not as big a one as the other two.

Alphonse: Give us some exposition about this festival you're having.

Majhal: No problem! We send the souls of the dead back into heaven with fireworks. Is this a goofy idea? No goofier than some of the customs of non-anime cultures.

Edward: I don't always talk with my mouth full and food flying everywhere, though. Someday I'll grow some manners and become sexy.

*knock knock*

Klose's dad: I brought Klose over to apologize to the boys who kindly beat themselves up for her.

Klose: They're weak!

Edward: Pardon me while I fly into the kind of rage I normally reserve for the word "chibi."

Majhal: I'll explain now that you're a girl, Klose, and that your sister just died. I am the Designated Exposition Dispenser of this episode.

Klose: I, on the other hand, am a closet flake. I'll illustrate this by running out of the house and down the levee for no discernable reason.

Edward: Come on, Al, let's follow her so I can once again demonstrate how deadly quick I am with a stick and some dirt! I can draw arrays faster than the speed of gravity! Why did I ever feel a need to start with the clapping business?

Klose: Are you two alchemists?

Edward: What gave you your first friggin' clue?

Klose: Well, that's all right then. I can confide in alchemists. They're like priests, only amoral, and they don't molest kids. I also seem to think that "alchemist" is a synonym for "masked avenger."

Edward: This time, at least, I have some "chibis" to justify my rage.


*commercial break*


Majhal: As the Designated Exposition Dispenser, I am more than happy to give you all the exposition you want on the topic of Karen.

Edward: A mysterious noise! I sense plot!


*in town*


Klose: Let's catch the zombie. By ourselves. Because zombies who suck the life out of people are easy for a pack of kids with no weapons to catch.

Lebi!Karen: I have nothing to contribute to this scene, but I'll drop some china just to draw attention to myself and remind you that I exist.


*in the graveyard*


Alphonse: Nii-san, what are we doing here anyway?

Edward: Looking for evidence of human transmutation.

Alphonse: What makes you think there's evidence in the graveyard?

Edward: ... it was in the script?

Klose's friends: We caught the zombie! Wait, are zombies supposed to look like that? No, there's the real zombie! Run away!

Majhal: I will prove that I have nothing to do with the zombie by conveniently being in the graveyard when there's an audience to watch me steal Roy Mustang's schtick to destroy it. There, that proves that!

Edward: There's that mysterious noise again! The plot ... just thinned out. This is a waste of my genius, the writers practically wrote this "clue" in bolded blue letters, a la "We should go check out the Temple of the Ancients next!"

Lust: Look, a gratuitous appearance! I won't be in the next few episodes, and I didn't want you to forget what I looked like.


*back in Majhal's place*


Edward: Just in case the cabbages missed it, I'll outline the bolded blue "clue" some more.

Lebi!Karen: Let me raise this candle at you.

Edward: For some unknown reason, this makes me freak out. It's as if I have a sudden phobia of fire that has never been addressed before, and never comes up again! Or maybe I'm having a sudden migraine, again a problem that has never come up before and never will again. I don't want to talk about what it was, or clear up why I suddenly felt a need to recoil through this doorway and pass out. It advanced the plot, that's all you need to know.

Majhal: Although I had no reason to believe that anything was amiss at my home, I'll show up just in time to capture you Elrics with alchemy. Just what I did to accomplish this is another of those things you don't need to know.


*later*


Majhal: Good, you've woken up. Now it's time to explain my evil plan. I've been transmuting souls, in a similar way to how you bound Al's soul to that armor. Why this hasn't cost me any limbs is something we won't bother to address.

Edward: Thank god, your exposition is wearing me out. But what's this? Am I chained up again?

Majhal: But I did it all for WUV! TWUE WUV!

Lebi!Karen: While I appreciate that Majhal trusts me enough to just hang out and listen to his evil plan for some reason, it makes no friggin' sense that he would care if a couple of stranger kids know, but he doesn't care if somebody who lives in his village knows.

Edward: You're sick. But I shouldn't act surprised, all alchemists appear to be screwy in some way.

Klose: Here I am, for no good reason except to advance the plot! I'll just stand here and let you whack me in the head.

Edward: Oh look, Lebi!Karen has a blue rose petal in her hair. What. A. Shock. *yawn*

Klose: Although this array is glowing, it doesn't appear to be doing anything yet. How unlike Edward's insta-effect arrays. How ... convenient.

Edward: It's my turn to take over the exposition.

Majhal: Damn you for horning in on my territory! Die!

Edward: ... you turned a chisel into a sword. What the hell happened to equivalent trade? This episode is so full of plot holes, it's like it's ALL plot hole. No matter, I will, once again, draw and use an array at lightning speed!

Majhal: ... What the hell are you going to do with a blue ribbon?

Edward: It was in the script! The ribbon is mightier than the sword! Somehow, the fact that I made your weapon spin up into the air and come down and impale you doesn't count as me being responsible for your death. My hands are still clean!


*next day*


Alphonse: We missed our train, you know.

Edward: But we spent a couple of days in a tangential, filler episode that served no purpose but to demonstrate that even HagaRen can have its awful drek. Oh well, we've done our damage, to both this town and the series' credibility, let's take the coach back to the train station.

Klose: Look, I'm wearing a dress!

Edward: That's just as random as everything else in this episode.