Trouble with Muscles [Closed]

[seraaches]

"Heat at the connection site, some inflammation that comes and goes at varying strengths, but no hair loss other than the normal amount from the wearing." Owen announced all of this clinically, looking around the lab again in an absent-minded manner. This new ferret was easier to work with, the thought twitched at the back of his mind, though it wasn't fully formed. It was a vague idea that kind of floated around but quickly dissipated yet again. It was rather unnatural for the sparrow to think of things outside of himself, his experiments, and his interests for very long.

The ferret didn't immediately drug up the Ace this time, a note that the bird made mentally but had nothing to say about. When the feline whimpered, however, the avian Corvie snapped at her, "Hush up! This is for your own good. Stupid beast." The last, at least, was muttered under his breath.

[Travesty]

Ambrose nipped at his lower lip, listening to the symptoms. “It’s an infection.” He touched the area directly above the metal limb and sighed. Even that small amount of contact caused the Ace to visibly wince in pain. “During the connection metal probably fractured and buried right under the skin, and now it’s festering.”

He walked over to the nearby steel table, returning with an empty needle in paw and wiped down the fur with antiseptic, making the room smell like vinegar. Holding down the yowling feline with his spare hand, Ambrose injected the needle into the Ace, and when he brought it back up it was filled with a whitish-yellow substance. Pus. “Shallow inflammation, but no sign of deep tissue damage,” he noted and leaned against the table to face Owen.

“Not too serious. It’s not allergic to the alloy itself, it’s just reacting to the metal bedded down underneath its skin. I’ll remove the particles and give you some antibiotics and it should clear right up in two weeks,” he explained with a small smile and started to gather the supplies to make the incision and take out the foreign contaminants.

[seraaches]

"My alloy wouldn't fracture!" the sparrow argued immediately, insulted by the insinuation that he hadn't done his job well. Of course he hadn't been quite as careful with the Ace as he was with himself, but that was hardly the point. Surely he wasn't so careless! His black and golden feathers were ruffled out in agitation. "No, the alloy wouldn't give out."

Still, there was admittedly a small chance-- very slight-- that he hadn't been as cautious about his work space when he was installing the leg. Now that he thought about it, he'd had to do some last minute downsizing at the joint. The feline had smaller bones than he had first expected.

The sparrow cursed rather loudly. "There might be shavings in there, though." If possibly he looked even more annoyed, though this would be at himself and not at the ferret. This admission, however, would probably make things harder to clean since it would be less large fragments and instead the small metal filings.

[Travesty]

“Perhaps chipped is the better word,” Ambrose replied smoothly, a little smirk playing around his usually apathetic face. “It’s completely probable that when the metal met bone there was initially some friction.” He furrowed his brow. “Yes, this will make them harder to remove…” The sound of his footsteps filled the room as he padded over to the small anteroom of the lab where he kept his less-vital tools. He reemerged wearing a pair of surgeon’s magnifiers, feeling utterly ridiculous, but hey, they got the job done.

He pulled the Ace’s straps tighter. “How much exercise does it get?” The Spade questioned as he made a small ‘x’ in the feline’s limb with his scalpel. “I think if the residue are chippings, it was caused by shock absorption,” he murmured as he leaned close into the wound, his eyes magnified by the strange glasses, periodically wiping away the mixture of blood and pus that oozed out.

“Yeah, they’re about the size of sand particles, and they all seem to be collected directly above the connective line. Definitely a sign of very minor splintering.” With that, he began the ridiculous task of picking them out one by one with tweezers. “I’ll get the larger ones out using this incredibly effective method, and then dissolve the smaller particles with a saline-lactic acid mixture.” He chuckled at the latter step.

[seraaches]

Perhaps it should occur to the sparrow that Ambrose was beginning his surgery without giving the feline anything for the pain-- something the 'old' ferret wouldn't have hesitated to do-- but it didn't. When the feline began to make some sound that was a mixture of yowling and screaming, Owen quite carefully knocked her with just enough pressure to cause the knock-out button to come into effect. The feline's head snapped around and her eyes rolled back as, thankfully for them all, she went unconscious.

"Bloody felines," Owen complained to himself. They were so frakkin' loud. He would have to avoid them in the future. He settled his feathers down carefully and pushed the annoyance away. It did no good to be upset, after all.

"It's taken on walks at least once a day, sometimes twice. Moderate exercise then. The bird gave a sigh of annoyance about the splintering. He was going to have to get help the next time he did this sort of experiment.

[Travesty]

“Ah, thank you,” Ambrose said as the sparrow expertly knocked the screaming feline out. “It completely escaped my mind.” How surprising. Usually that terrible, piercing noise drove him straight up the wall. It probably had something to do with the fact he was bent over, peering into a disgusting, leaking wound picking out tiny metal particles with a pair of tweezers.

Slowly but surely a tiny collection of the shrapnel to form on the operating table, and after a few minutes the largest pieces had been removed from the limb. “That apparently is too much pressure on the artificial limb, or…” he trailed off thoughtfully. “It’s also possible this has been smoldering since it was connected, caused by stress immediately following the operation.”

“Either way, I’ll flush the wound and stitch it up,” the ferret picked up the bottle nearby, shook it, and tipped the nozzle over the injury, carefully controlling its outpouring. The saline washed the remaining pus away, while the miniscule amount of lactic acid dissolved whatever metal was still present.

“Actually, it’d probably heal faster if I just dress it,” he remarked to himself. The Spade took the gauze he kept in the drawer under the operating table and wrapped it around the Ace’s limb twice. “It’ll need to be cleaned twice a day for the first two days, and then only once a day for a week. You can just take it off after that. Oh, and let me get you those antibiotics,” he added, scurrying over to the shelf to fetch the pills.

[seraaches]

Owen stared at the feline in annoyance and some disgust. He couldn't work on the stupid Ace now, not until the open wound began to heal over. He was a cautious Corvie because he'd lost a few test subjects due to too many losses on that front. It was better to take some extra time and care to protect the long term interest.

Still, he had too much going on to babysit a broken experiment for two days. "Well, I'll leave it here then," he announced easily. "It will, of course, be more expensive, but at least then you can watch for complications."

He nodded his head thoughtfully. "Yes, I think that would be the best bet. I'll be back in three days to check on it and make sure you don't need anything else for it."

[Travesty]

Ambrose frowned. He didn’t like the idea of that, not at all. Since when was he expected to watch a patient – no, not a patient: an Ace – like this? He wasn’t a damn babysitter.

Then again…if the Ace was to stay here, and assuming it would only be here for a few days, he could have some fun. Nothing even close to fatal, of course, but just a few little experiments to pass the time. Yes, he was warming to this idea.

“If it’s just going to be here for few days, it won’t be a problem,” he replied smoothly. “It can stay down here, where I can keep watch on it.” He glanced around the room; there was enough space for a blanket for it to sleep on, though the ferret doubted it would be getting much sleep.

[seraaches]

If Owen was a bit more of a considerate Card, it likely would have occurred to him that not only was he probably infringing upon the ferret, he was making a rather judicious decision without any authority to do so.

Such a thing, however, would never occur to the rather arrogant Diamond.

With a quick nod of his head-- it wouldn't bother him in the least for Ambrose to do some experimentation upon the feline Ace as long as it didn't get in the way of his own experiment-- the sparrow 'sealed the deal', so to speak.

"Then I'll be back in a few days to check on it," he intoned gravely. He fluttered his wings once, twice, then quickly departed. He would go home and go over his notes about the alloys and system he had used on himself and hopefully return in three days with a better overview of what was going on.

[Travesty]

Ambrose sighed, torn between his desire to experiment and his annoyance at the mechanical Corvie in front of him. He enjoyed a new toy as much as the next Card, but he didn’t much enjoy or appreciate responsibility thrust upon him.

Oh well. At least he’d get to test a few of his muscle-deterioration solutions –anything to avoid testing it on himself. The ferret’s lower legs were still cramping up from his last foray into self-experimentation and he needed a break.

“Sure, sure,” he replied to the sparrow absentmindedly, already thinking about all the wonderful needles he would soon be injecting into the poor little Ace.

time skip!

The three days passed rather quickly: There hadn’t been many patients so he’d been able to poke and prod the feline to his heart’s content. There was no noticeable physical damage, he had been very careful about that – there was only small scar on its shoulder – though the creature was now rather terrified of needles, and for good reason. The Card had practically been used as a pincushion.

Now all the ferret had to do was wait for Owen to come pick it up.