Categories > Anime/Manga > Full Metal Alchemist > Warped Mirrors

mirror Four

by renkinjutsushi 0 reviews

"So," Edward Elric asked, looking around those assembled. "Who wants to volunteer to explain this to Winry?" "Volunteer?" Alphonse snorted at him. "By raising the question, you just nominated yo...

Category: Full Metal Alchemist - Rating: PG-13 - Genres: Action/Adventure, Humor - Characters: Alphonse Elric, Edward Elric - Warnings: [?] - Published: 2005-06-26 - Updated: 2005-06-26 - 1855 words

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Warped Mirrors
mirror Four





Winry Rockbell was rewiring the kitchen.

Patients were few and far between in the small town of Resembool. They weren't exactly on the beaten path ... the only thing that made them marginally larger than any other given village was the train station on the edge of town. In fact, one of the few things that drew people to the town was Pinako Rockbell's automail practice. With this sudden dearth of activity, Winry had to keep herself occupied somehow. And her grandmother had banned her from the lab again.

The interior lights in the kitchen had started to act oddly about three days ago. Winry had decided that the best solution was to fiddle with them, and had promptly started playing with the light fixtures. About two hours later, the lights lay on the kitchen table, wires trailing from them and into the ceiling, and Winry had removed a section of the wall to get it other wires.

Her grandmother had already rolled her eyes at Winry, but she hadn't gotten upset. She knew how Winry got around things that needed to be fixed - if she knew how, she fixed it herself and if she didn't, then she'd spend five or six hours learning how by trial or error.

Den lay by the far wall, away from the chaos she was causing and fast asleep. Winry was seated on the floor, wires pulled out of the wall all around her. She leaned back to reach for some pliers when the dog abruptly woke up. Den raised his head, then stretched and barked. "Den?" Winry asked in confusion, when the dog got up, still barking but wagging his tail at the same time. Den bolted out the open kitchen door.

Winry stared after the dog, and then shook her head. She got to her feet, exasperated. Den was getting old now, and really wasn't that excitable. Rabbits and squirrels that he would have once chased without thought now could venture into his line of site without consequence. He'd still watch them attentively and most of the time bark at them, but he didn't seem interested in chasing them. Den only kicked up that much of a fuss when Ed and Al stopped by ... but they just left a few days ago for Central.

"Den!" she called after the dog, walking to the kitchen door and stopping. Den was racing up the path that led down the hill and towards the town, straight to Edward and Alphonse. Winry stood in the doorway, hands on her hips and an irritated expression on her face. If Edward had managed to bang up her top-notch automail already, she would have his head.

"Edward Elric, you better not have screwed up your automail already!" She shouted at him, waving a wrench threateningly in his direction. To her surprised, both of the Elrics stopped dead on the path. Oh, that was an admission of guilt if she'd ever seen one. She stomped out the door and straight toward them.

Den had already reached Edward and was barking joyfully, running around the boy and almost bouncing in his excitement. Edward rubbed the dog's head distractedly, glancing over his shoulder before watching Winry head straight for him. What, wasn't he going to run? He usually negotiated with Winry from a safe distance ... sometimes on top of Alphonse. That was the usual response. Maybe he hadn't actually banged up his automail ... which of course begged the question of what he was doing back in Resembool so soon.

As Winry stomped closer, she saw Alphonse come up behind Edward. Their Alphonse. In the flesh. Abruptly Winry slowed, staring in confusion at the suit of armor she had expected to be Alphonse, and the other Alphonse walking towards them.

That Alphonse was arguing animatedly with ... Edward? No, it wasn't Edward, it was a girl dressed almost identically to Edward. Now that she realized that, she also realized that Alphonse was dressed very close to matching Edward as well. And as if that wasn't bizarre enough, two more Alphonses ... well, suits of armor that she had been mentally associating with Alphonse for the past few years ... followed close behind them.

Winry stopped walking and waved he wrench distractedly at the ... copies? "What...? Al....?"

"I'm right here, Winry," the suit of armor said quietly, from beside Edward. That WAS Alphonse, his voice was unmistakable. So then, what was going on?

"But... what... I don't understand," Winry shook her head animatedly. She pointed at the others. "Who are they? Who is that?"

The unknown girl shrugged at her. "We don't really understand, either, but here we are. You're Winry, I take it."

Winry nodded, completely stunned. This girl even SOUDNED like Edward. What was going on? "'Neesan," the suit of armor from behind the girl spoke, and the tinny echoing voice was not male in the slightest. "Maybe you'd better let him explain," she gestured at Edward. "It seems to be HIS world, after all."

His world? Winry turned to Edward for help. "Ed... what is going ON?"

Edward shrugged at her. "It's kind of a long story, Winry, and we're not even sure how it happened."

Winry put her hands on her hips, a familiar fixed stance appearing. "I have the TIME," she told him, in an "I'm not taking no for an answer, nor am I going to believe any of the rubbish you like to feed me," tone.

"Yeah," The Alphonse-look-alike said, sounding exactly like him too. "But do you think we could either explain it indoors, or while being fed? Preferably both, because we're all a little hungry."

Winry turned on her heel and headed towards the house, and apprehensively the six Elric siblings followed her.



Winry couldn't believe it. She tried; several times to make sense of it, but her brain just told her not to bother with it. If Edward couldn't explain how they had ended up in this situation, then the explanation was probably a lot more complicated than she wanted to hear. All she knew for sure now was that there were six Elric siblings running around the place. As if two weren't bad enough.

She frowned at Edana, who was seated in the chair Winry usually had Edward sitting in when she did minor repairs on his automail. The female version of Ed had somehow managed to knock something loose in her automail, and Winry was truly tempted to take a wrench to her for it. However, she figured being stuck in close quarters with Edward was more than enough punishment. The repairs were minor at best, and didn't require removing the arm, so that helped cool Winry's temper on the matter as well.

However, when Edana had first asked Winry to take a look at it, she managed to traumatize all the other Elrics present. Edana had taken off her black inner jacket, of course, and then, without hesitation, started to strip off her tube top.

Winry had never seen a room clear faster of male presence. Alanza still stood there, waving her arms frantically and saying "'neesan, 'neesan!" on a loop as if she were a broken record. Winry simply face palmed.

It was really funny, now. Edana was genuinely puzzled. "Winnie always has to have me take off my top to work on the automail," she told Winry while Winry fiddled with the inside of her arm. "It covers half the socket, so he can't take the arm off with it on."

"Yes, that's true," Winry said patiently. "But you usually only strip in front of ... well ... you're home's version of me. Who is essentially a mechanic and a doctor rolled into one."

"And Alanza," Edana added helpfully.

Winry felt like she was trying to explain common sense to a small child, which was a sadly familiar feeling. "The POINT is that you don't just start to strip in front of a room full of guys," Winry said, putting the cover back on Edana's arm and tightening the screws. "I don't care if biologically you're identical to any of them, it's just bizarre and it freaks them ALL out." She patted the arm. "Done. How does that feel?"

Edana rotated her arm a few times, swinging it experimentally. "That's excellent," she said, standing up. "Thanks, Winry." She pulled her tube top back on, then picked up her white-trimmed inner jacket and folded it over one arm, amused. "I'll have to remember that it freaks them all out," she said, thoughtfully.

Alanza followed Edana out as Winry sanitized her tools and put them away. She rolled her eyes when she heard Alanza's voice rise. "NO, you can't flash them for fun and no, it is NOT a scientific experiment. Stop it, 'neesan."

"Al, you NEVER let me have any fun," she heard Edana complain.

While Edana was having her automail looked at, Edward, the flesh Alphonse and the other Edward were sparring on the front lawn. Her Alphonse was checking on Paw-paw, the cat that the brothers had brought Winry and her grandmother the last time they had returned from Central. Since they'd been gone, the cat had her kittens.

This entire day could be described as one word in Winry's mind. Madness. Madness, plain and simple.

None of the sets of Elrics had any sort of explanation for their sudden predicament. While their experiences were not all the same, the fact remained that their paths had all led them to that mine shaft. They had all nearly been buried alive, inside of that mountain. Idly, Winry wondered if the mountain itself was to blame for this mess.

"Hey, Winry!"

Winry moved to the window, glancing down at the rolling front lawn. Edward was waving up at her, down to his tank top and a pair of shorts that had better not have been his boxers. If he was running around in his underwear again ... she needed to have words with him about that, really.

"If you and Edana are done up there, you should come out here! Pinako-baachan made sandwiches!"

"Right," she called back down to him. He waved again, and then was tackled from the side by the other Alphonse. The pair went over sideways, grappling the whole way down.

The Elrics had taken next to no time at all to get used to the bizarre circumstances. If anything, it seemed like they were just treating each other like extended family that none of them ever got the chance to know. Of course, with all the sparring going on, they were probably taking out their worry and frustration physically. It would explain the fervor with which they were currently fighting. If it was Winry stuck in an altered version of her world and teamed with that alternate version of herself, she had no idea how she wouldn't go insane. It was ... incredible. Not something one usually thought about, never mind knew how to deal with.

Winry's stomach rumbled, reminding her exactly how long it had been since breakfast. She dropped her wrench on the workbench and went out to join them.




End mirror Four
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