Fullmetal Alchemist Fan Fiction ❯ Veritas Hominum ❯ Power ( Chapter 10 )

Power

 

Ed stood in the doorway watching Winry try to teach Ben how to build a car. She'd recently taken up trying to expand her mechanical knowledge outside of automail (although it was her one true love).

 

“It'll be good for business,” she had said.

 

The day was sunny and warm, and Ed was glad to be outside. In the month or so since he'd come back, he'd slowly begun assimilating back into normal life again. Well, however “normal” life could be with the small, haphazard family he'd become a part of.

 

To Ben he had become the favorite uncle: they would wrestle and Ed would tell Ben stories of his quest to find the Philosopher's Stone and all of the people he'd met along the way. Rose treated him like a brother, except during meals where she would coddle him like an overprotective mother.

 

“You're getting too skinny! You need to eat!” she would say as she piled his plate with seconds and thirds and fourths.

 

Winry… Winry and he had an interesting relationship. It hadn't taken him long to recognize that his childhood friend had become a woman while he'd been gone, and that the tension that had existed between them when they were kids still existed and was only growing stronger every day.

 

He'd been able to ignore it for the sake of his brother when they were teenagers, but without Al around, it was getting harder. Especially once Winry realized Ed would allow her to touch him, she seemed to be coming up with any excuse to do so.

 

Al. Ed hadn't gone to see him. He had resolved not to. It had been too long and if Al was happy without him, then Ed had no reason to intrude on that. Winry wasn't terribly upset by this either. She was sure that Ed would have gone to Al and probably wouldn't have come back, and without Al around to take care of, Ed was finally focusing on someone that needed his attention very badly: himself.

 

“This is the power source for a car, Ben,” Winry instructed. “It's the same kind of power supply we use in automail, just bigger. The alchemic battery is inside here and it fits into the upper-left-hand corner of the engine block.”

 

“Alchemic battery?” Ed asked, incredulous. Automail and cars run on alchemy?

 

Winry shook her head. “You never listened to me when we were kids, did you?” she called.

 

Ed flushed. “No,” he mumbled.

 

“Figures.” She shrugged and tried to hide a smile. “Yes, all machinery needs a power supply to work properly. For example, in a human arm nerve impulses are simply electrochemical signals sent by your brain via neurons. The power converter sits in the socket of the automail arm and takes these signals and configures them into an electric signal. This allows the user complete control over the arm or leg as if it were a flesh and blood appendage.”

 

“And the converter has an alchemic battery in it?” Ben asked.

 

“Yes,” Winry replied. “The whole world runs on alchemy.”

 

“This world,” Ed mumbled.

 

Winry whipped around, a frown on her face. She regarded Ed for a long moment before speaking softly, “Is there a way to make machinery work without using alchemy?”

 

Ed furrowed his eyebrows in thought. He had worked as a research scientist for many years in the Other World, but he left the building process to the engineers. He did, however, remember bits and pieces of how engines worked. His brief stint in rocket science had taught him that much. Perhaps there was a way…

 

His eyes flashed open. I have an idea.

 

“How would you guys feel about building a machine that flew?”

 

“Flew?” Winry asked, flabbergasted.

 

“Yes,” he replied. “An airplane. It's kind of like a car, but it flies instead of running along the ground on wheels.”

 

“Could we fly in it?” Ben asked, getting excited.

 

“You bet. Only two at a time, though, a pilot and a passenger,” Ed answered. He glanced over at Winry, “And it wouldn't run on alchemy.”

 

Winry stared dumbly at Ed for a few moments before running over to him and flinging her arms around him.

 

“You just made me the happiest girl in the world!” she exclaimed.

 

Ed blushed and hugged her back. “If that's all it takes to make you happy, I'm sure I can come up with some more stuff to build,” he smirked.

 

She released him, positively glowing with happiness. “When can we get started?”

 

“How's tomorrow look?”

 

She smiled brightly at him. “Perfect,” she replied.