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There were markets and shops everywhere. Everyone was happy and smiling while small children ran around playing. I couldn’t help but smile. If only Gaia were like this.

We came up to a fountain that was spraying cool water. I dipped the automail in it and watched the crystal clear drops drip off my fingertips. Some children saw me and did the same. I smiled at them when I heard “Winry, hello!”

I turned to see a girl with long brown hair that was pink in the front. She had dark skin, and was quite good looking. Her eyes spoke of pain, but also of happiness, as well as her smile.

“Oh, hello Rose.” Winry said as the girl ran up to us. “This is Mike.”

“Yes, hello Mike.” Rose said, she was obviously in a hurry. I looked over her shoulder to se a huge man talking to people who started to run inside. Was that Mustang? “Winry, you have to get inside, there’s a sandstorm coming.” I noticed everyone was gone around us except for a few people.

“Which way’s it coming from?” I said to her.

“From the West.” and I was gone. I took off past the man who started to run after me. After I got outside the city, I noticed the huge storm that was very close. The sand was flying everywhere, and I could see a huge twister of sand in the distance. The huge man was close behind me, so I clapped my hands and drove them into the sand, starting a reaction. The reaction went over to the twister, and I used the heat of the desert and the friction of the sand and wind to cause more heat, then bound the sand together to make a tall, twisted glass sculpture that was the twister, and thus destroying the storm.

As I clapped my hands and turned around, I saw the man standing there, just staring at me. “That was…alchemy.” he said quietly.

“I’m from another world, but not the one through the alchemic gate. Let’s catch up with Rose and Winry, then we’ll talk…um…who are you again?”

He smiled before tearing his shirt off an flexing his muscles. “I, am Alex Louis Armstrong, a man among men, a fine specimen!” I just stood there, amazed that there was actually someone weirder than the Nagakuras.

As everyone came out we went inside a restaurant. As I wolfed down more food, Winry told them my story and what I was planning on doing.

“How do you plan on getting through the gate unharmed?” Armstrong said.

I swallowed my food. “Easy. My keyblade won’t let anything harm me. I can just zip right through, grab the Elric brothers, and zip back with them.”

“But what if you get hurt? We can’t go through the gate, what will happen on the other side?” Rose asked. I had only known her for a few minutes, but I assumed she was also a fan of Edward’s.

“How should I know, but I’ll find out when I get there, that’s all that counts.”

“But why?” Rose said loudly, “Why risk your life for people you never met?”

I looked over at Winry. She had some tears in her eyes. “I’ve got my reasons.” I said, my face turning very serious. Rose didn’t argue, but Armstrong on the other hand started to bawl.

“Oh the compassion for someone else’s love! The beauty! The heart filled gesture! Oh it is truly moving!” He shouted loudly. I just jumped a little, as Rose and Winry did, and stared at him, worried he would hug me and break my arms and legs. Sure enough, he snatched me up in a hug, and my back cracked real loudly.

“A…Armstong…p-please…my back!”

We talked for a while more till I mention Mustang.

“Roy? He’s not around here now.” Armstrong said.

“Where’d he go?” I replied, wanting to find him.

“Last I heard he went to see Gracia.”

“Who’s that?” I asked. They all turned silent, looking depressed.

“Gracia is the wife of one of the State’s greatest, Brigadier General Hughes…” Armstrong managed to say.

“Well why didn’t you just say that?”

“Because,” Winry said quietly, “he was killed.”

I paused momentarily before slumping back into the chair, muttering “Oh…I see.” We sat in silence before I jumped up. “Well, no point in moping around.” I looked at Winry, who smiled and nodded.

“You’re leaving already?” Rose said.

“Yes, you should stay and rest for a while.” Armstrong said.

I sighed, “Alright, fine, but tomorrow morning we ship out.”

Rose led us to a hotel and we got a room. Naturally, it was free, as I had saved the town from the sandstorm. Night had already fallen, and Winry sat on her bed, staring out the window while I rested against the wall.

“You’re thinking of them, aren’t you.” I said quietly.

“Yeah.” she said. I could tell by her voice she was near crying. I walked over to her and put my arm on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get them back here soon enough, you’ll see.” She jumped up from the bed and hugged me tightly, saying “Thank you.” quietly.

I hugged her gently when I saw a Shadow Heartless outside. “Hold that thought!” I said, throwing the windows open and jumping to the ground. The Heartless seemed to laugh at me before it disappeared. I stood there, silent as Winry watched from above. The Heartless had just made it here, their invasion would begin…and I’d need all the help I could get. I jumped off of the building across the street and wall hopped back up to our room, going through the window.

“Hop on,” I said, turning my back to Winry and kneeling down, “we gotta go now.”

“Why? What was that thing?”

“Let’s just say if we don’t get more firepower, we’re gonna be toast.” She hopped on and I jumped out the window, landing perfectly and beginning to run towards East Headquarters. After about a half hour Winry was asleep, and I had just entered the desert outside Lior. There was a long run ahead, but at least the night was cool.

I ran through the whole night. It was quite exhausting, but when you gotta go you gotta go. I finally reached another town and collapsed to my hands and knees. Winry woke up.

“Mike, are you alright?”

“Peachy…just…peachy.” I panted out. My stomach growled, making Winry laugh.

“Let’s get you some food.” she said, smiling at me. I smiled back as we walked over to a nearby stand and got some fruit. As I devoured it, we boarded a train headed for East Headquarters again. We sat there, just doing nothing, watching the world fly past us outside. I kept noticing these three men in the seat not to far from us kept looking at us. I made sure to watch them.

We passed two stops. At each stop they watched us to see if we would get off. When we didn’t, they acted like they were stretching. Both of them were well built, and would be hard to take down if something happened. I was more worried about Winry though. If she would to get hurt, these men would die. I looked out the window as we approached our stop.

We got off and I put my left arm around Winry, whispering “Stay close, and act normal.” She looked at me confused, but nodded yes as the men came out of the door and followed us carefully. We walked a few blocks, and when no one was around, they ran after us quietly. The made one mistake though: I heard them.

I whipped around and kicked one in the chin, sending him into the air then onto his back. I jumped on him and put my arm to his throat. “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU GU-”

“AAAAAHHH!”

“WINRY!” I turned around to see the other guy running off with her, kicking and screaming. I went to chase him when the guy behind me twisted my right arm behind me and tried to break it at the elbow with his. This caused him extreme pain. “WRONG UP DUMBASS!” I said, bringing my arm up and the back of my fist to his forehead, knocking him out cold. I bolted after Winry.

I guessed wrong, and the guy was faster than I was. He didn’t take turns well, and I finally managed to get close to him when he whipped around and put a gun to the side of Winry’s head.

“One move and this girl decorates the wall with her brains.” he said.

“Uh…urr.” I quietly groaned. I couldn’t do anything. I saw a guy in a white shirt and brown pants walk around the corner quietly. He had short black hair, and a stern but friendly look on his face. There was an eye patch over his left eye. He walked up behind the guy and quickly kicked him in the back of the knee, causing him to stumble and drop Winry. The man grabbed the guy around the neck with his right arm while catching the gun in his left, and put it to the guy’s forehead.

“W-who the hell are you!” The guys said, shaking from fear.

“I was known as the Flame Alchemist…also General.” he said. His voice was cool and calm, but also struck fear into your heart at the same time.

“Roy Mustang…” Winry said quietly. This was Roy!? Hmm…things were about to get interesting. The guy knocked Roy back and put the gun near his head stopping Roy in his tracks. I placed my right hand on the wall and transmuted a fist that grabbed the guy’s arm and lifted him into the air. Roy looked at me, amazed that I could use alchemy. I walked up to him and shook his hand with my right.

“I’m Mike, an alchemist from another world.” I said pleasantly, “It’s nice to meet the famous Roy Mustang.”

“Heh, automail again…Winry, you still like your men short and metallic.”

“FOR THE LAST GOD DAMN TIME I’M NOT SHORT!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. They laughed.

We walked towards Gracia’s house, as I explained my whole story and what I was going to do to Roy. He stood there, soaking in every word. I told him about how I got my automail, the keyblade, the Heartless, and my world, explaining how I could use alchemy in the process. We got over to Gracia’s house and went inside.

There was a young girl who was drawing on the floor as we sat at the table. Gracia poured Roy and I some coffee, while Winry had some tea. We talked about how we’d bring the Elrics back, when the girl stood up and tugged on my coat.

“Are you going to bring Ed and Al back?” she said quietly.

“Yeah, I’m going to bring them back here.” She handed me a picture. I looked at it, and roughly made out a transmutation circle.

“You’ll need it.” she said, going back to her drawing supplies and drawing a new picture. I smiled.

“Well then, let’s go back to Central. There’s one thing that can open the gate, but you’ll need more alchemic power to do it.” Roy said. I could tell from his voice that this was a long shot…but this was the only way. We decided to leave, leaving Winry at Gracia’s so she wouldn’t get hurt. We left and boarded another train, headed towards Central. It took only a day to get there, and when we did, it was night.

“Perfect.” Roy said smiling. He looked around for a moment before continuing into Central. “Let’s go.” I followed him through central. He led me to a place that was all locked up with high security.

“How the hell do we get in?” I asked. Roy didn’t answer. He walked along a wall before stopping abruptly.

“Transmute the wall here.” he said. I did what he said, and broke down the wall. We walked towards a huge building. I looked on the other side of it and saw the building across from it had it’s windows barred up, so I assumed it was a prison. We walked into the building which was dark and musty. We walked through it. It looked like an ordinary lab. Roy stopped and tapped on the ground. “Transmute here too.” he said, pointing at a tile on the floor. I clapped my hands and did so, making the ground break away and falling through to the bottom. There was a gray hallway that was lit by some lights by the floors. I looked at the floor and it seemed something had run through here, leaving a large indentation in the floor.

Roy jumped down next to me and began to lead me down the hallway. We took a few turns and came to a long hallway where the tile disappeared into a long concrete wall. I looked at where it started and saw signs that it was transmuted to be like this. At the end of the hall was a door. We walked through it, the room being dark, lit only by a few windows at the very top of the tall room. I accidentally kicked something made a metal and picked it up. It was a helmet.

“Heh, check out the rusted can I kicked.” I said laughing.

“Watch what you say boy…you may regret it.” a voice said. It wasn’t Roy’s though, and he was the only one here. I turned back to the helmet. “BOO!”

“WHAAA!!” I shouted, throwing the helmet across the room.

“Oh that was fun, don’t you agree brother?” the helmet laughed. Suddenly a hand wrapped around my leg. I looked down to see the top half of a body of armor that was broken in the middle. I jumped away screaming again.

“Oh yes brother, that was most enjoyable!” the armor said. Holy hell, talking armor? What the…

I walked over and peered into the helmet. There was a seal written in blood. “A soul attachment eh?” I said, shaking the helmet, “Too bad I don’t have time for you!” I kicked the helmet into one of the pillars and walked away. Before I left the room, I heard “Just like that blonde kid with the automail.” He must have meant Ed.

We walked a little farther into this one room. Roy turned a valve on a container and this red goo poured out onto the floor.

“What is that?” I asked. It seeped into the center of the floor where there was some broken rubble.

“It’s an incomplete Philosopher’s Stone.” he said, “If you step on it, your alchemic abilities will boost.” I gasped.

“WHAT!? DOES IT LET YOU BYPASS THE LAWS OF EQUIVALENCE!?” I shouted. This could be what I need to bring both Calista AND my arm back!

“Yes…though it could backfire and take your whole life.” Roy said. I paused. Was it worth the risk? Would I be able to get the Elric’s back? And what about Calista? I pondered for a few moments before walking towards the red compound. I jumped into the center of it…and paused. Nothing was happening. Maybe if I clapped my hands together and placed them in it.

I clapped my hands, and the whole liquid turned bright blue as the power of it was absorbed into me. I cringed due to the sheer force of the power that was going into me. I felt like I did when I saw the gate, though it was as if memories were flooding into my mind, telling me all I needed to do alchemy better, and giving me more power after they shared their knowledge. The odd thing was, none of the liquid was absorbed, and the power kept going into me faster and faster. I fell to my knees. I had to stop this. It was too much power for me, and could kill me at any moment. I was becoming a god.

I fell to my knees and clapped my hands. The DarkFire seal on my hand glowed brightly, and started a transmutation, turning the liquid into a stone the size of materia. It fell to the ground with a ping, and I slumped onto my chest. The last thing I saw was Roy running to me.

I woke up in a hospital bed. Winry was next to me rubbing my hand (the automail one of coarse) and another blond haired woman was on the other side. She saw me stirring and called Roy in. He walked in and put his hand on my shoulder.

“You alright kid?” he asked.

“Yeah…peachy…but what the hell…was that stuff made out of anyways?”

“Winry, Riza…can you leave us for a few minutes?”

“Sure?” Winry said, confused. The other woman left immediately.

Roy sat down next to me. “The elements of the Philosopher’s Stone…it’s made out of living humans.” I jumped up from the bed.

“Repeat that one more time…” I said. If that was true, I had absorbed the memories of thousands of human souls…humans that had had happy lives…

“It is…but they had been killed long ago and were useless in that form…so it was better that you gained from what they had lost so abruptly.”

“I absorbed power from dead humans,” I said Roy angrily, “you have NO idea how I feel right now.” I felt like all that power, all of the immense force I had just gotten was tainted, like drinking bad water when you’re really thirsty.

Roy stood up. “There’s no point in worrying about it now. Don’t forget, the Elrics are still out there waiting.” He was right, I guess the power I gained would be needed to open up the gate. I sat there thinking for a few minutes after Roy had left. Right now, I had the power from hundreds of souls, maybe even thousands, and I was going to use it to bring two people back. Was it equivalent? Heh, that law lost a lot of meaning to me when I lost my arm. I left the hospital and found Roy.

“Have you decided to bring them back or not?” Roy asked me.

“I made a promise to Winry…the Elrics will be here soon.” I said, shooting Roy a cocky smile. He just smiled back.

Roy lead me to this underground city. Apparently it was destroyed long ago when a Philosopher’s Stone was being created. The city was huge, and I noticed that some of the buildings were destroyed and smashed down. How could someone have done that? There was a big open area ahead of us. There were some smash marks in the ground from something huge, though I didn’t want to know if it was still alive or not.

“If you make a gate here, no one can get hurt besides us if it goes wrong.” Roy said. I walked into the center of the clearing.

“Jeeze, you think I’m going to mess up already? Cut me some slack.” I said, rubbing my hands together. I needed to open up a door between this work and the other world. I needed to open a locked door…my keyblade! I summoned my blade forward and drove it into the ground. I clapped my hands.

“Open a portal!” I shouted, driving me hands into the ground in front of my keyblade. I started a transmutation on summoning the gate, and the keyblade shot a light up into the air. It flew up slowly, then flashed before coming back down. When it hit the ground, a huge altar came up through the floor. In the center of it, was the portal to the other side of this world. I walked up the steps and peered over. It was like looking down a really deep and bright yellow well.

“I’ll be back soon Roy.” I said to him, “Don’t even think of following me.” Just then a Neo Heartless jumped off a building at me. Roy had put a glove with a transmutation circle on and snapped, blowing the Neo Shadow up with alchemy.

“Roy, you can use alchemy!” I shouted. Roy smiled and pulled his glove on tighter. “Catch!” he shouted, throwing something at me. It was the Philosopher’s Stone.

“Kid, this world owes you a lot now.” he said, blowing up another Heartless, “I’ll keep these Heartless at bay. Just focus on getting Ed and Al back!”

“Yes sir!” I shouted, putting the stone in my pocket and jumping into the portal. I was falling through when these black arms came at me. I remembered when I opened the gate in my world that the arms had taken my arm. I swung at them, and my keyblade made a barrier that protected me. I looked back to see a Heartless get hit by the arms and start to seizure when they hit it. I didn’t see what happened, as I had fallen though the other side. I turned and saw a really long fall ahead of me towards the ground. There were some people down there, and I used my jacket to slow me down as they ran for cover. I didn’t lose enough speed, so I turned and smashed into the ground with my right shoulder.

Some people ran up to help me. I stood up and asked “Does anyone know Edward and Alphonse Elric?” Two people walked up to me. One had long blonde hair and the other had long brown hair.

“Why do you want to see them?” the blonde haired boy said.

“I’ve come to take them back home, to their side of the gate.”

The brown haired boy’s face lit up. “Brother! Did you hear that!?”

“Calm down Al…we don’t know who he is.”

I pulled my right sleeve up, revealing my automail. “Winry Rockbell made it. She misses Ed and Al very much.”

The blonde haired boy’s face became less stern. “I guess he’s telling the truth.” he said, shaking my right hand with his, “after all, he’s got automail like mine.” I could tell his right arm was automail.”

“Name’s Mike. And you must be…”

“Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist.” the blonde haired boy said.

“Alphonse Elric, Ed’s younger brother.” the brown haired boy replied.

“Well then, let’s get you guys home.” I looked up at the ceiling. The portal was extremely high up. “Um…how do we get up there?”

“Oh, we have a plan.” Al said smiling. We walked over to something that was covered up. Ed and all pulled the sheet off, and it was a type of plane. It was long enough for two people, and it’s wing designs were like that of Ed’s and mine automail arm. On the side, the word FULLMETAL was written it bright red letters. The whole thing was made entirely out of metal sheets.

“Sweet ride guys!” I said, “I didn’t think you could make something like this without alchemy!”

“Yeah, it was pretty hard,” Ed said, “but when you put your mind to it you can do anything!”

“Got the cargo?” Al asked. He was working below the plane.

“Check.” Ed replied. He held up a red sphere that had a wheel on the top of it.

“What the hell is that?” I asked curiously.

“It’s a bomb, and a big one at that.” Ed replied, “We’re taking it back to our world since that’s where it originally came from.”

“Smart idea.” I said, looking back up at the gate. I saw something black falling through it. “Ed, look!”

We all looked up and saw something falling out. It was getting bigger and bigger, and when it passed through the gate, it was quite large. It landed and I knew exactly what it was: A gigantic Neo Heartless. It was all bumpy and rigid, and there were black faces and hands sticking out of it. The gate must have attacked it, and it must have absorbed some of the power from it. It lifted it’s hands and roared, and I noticed two transmutation circles on it’s palms.

“Edward!” Al screamed. The beast took a swing at him. I snapped my right hand and shot out a blast of DarkFire, though the energy cost was a lot. Edward looked at me, shocked.

“H-how did you use alchemy!” he shouted at me.

“I’m from a different world!” I replied. I then remembered the Philosopher’s Stone. “Here, try alchemy with this!” I shouted, throwing it to him. He caught it and clapped his hands. He placed them on the ground and a huge fist came up and grabbed the Heartless’s left arm.

“This is the Philosopher’s Stone, isn’t it!” he shouted.

“Yeah, but don’t blame me, Roy gave me the material to make it, in lab five!” I dodged an attack from the Heartless. The plane started and locked into an upward position. I noticed a staircase that led up the circular room behind me.

“Ed, get in the plane! I’ll jump on later!” I shouted to him, running up the stairs. When I got to the second level, the platform I was on shook. I looked over the side and the Heartless popped up right in front of my face. It climbed up the pillars. I backed closer to the wall and transmuted my arm into a blade. It was time to party.

The pillars glowed and shot spikes out at me. I dodged them, knowing that the Heartless knew some alchemy. I clapped my hands and drove my blade into the bottom of one of the pillars, and a huge fist came out and punched the Heartless in the face. It lost balance, and I jumped off the pillar and slashed at it’s wrist. I knocked it’s arm off and it fell on it’s head. I ran up another staircase onto the third level. The Heartless followed not far behind. This time It jumped onto the ceiling.

It let it’s tongue hang out. The floor beneath me glowed, and as I slammed my blade through the wall and hung on, spikes shot up from the floor. The wall glowed, and I jumped off of it onto a pillar as spikes popped out of the wall. The pillar glowed, and I jumped onto the spikes on the floor carefully so they wouldn’t go through my shoes and climbed up the spikes on the wall. I jumped off and grabbed the Heartless’s tongue, then slashed my blade at it. It recoiled from pain and all the spikes went down. I landed and it began to do the same attacks again, only the second spike wall was on the pillar, then the wall. I kept climbing and hitting it’s tongue when it finally fell of and landed in front of me.

It got to a standing position and transmuted it’s arm into a long, black blade. This wasn’t going to end well. Just then I heard the Elrics shout my name. I looked over the edge of the platform and saw their plane coming up at me fast. I noticed a handrail on the wing. They were going to let me jump onto it…how courteous. I leaped off the platform just as the Heartless smashed it’s bladed arm though it, right where I would have been standing. I grabbed the rail with my right arm and hung on for dear life as we entered the gate again. The Heartless climbed in and followed us. I looked to the side and saw the black hands coming at us.

“Ed, what do we do!” Al cried. Ed couldn’t maneuver around them I pulled my left hand up and summoned my keyblade. It created a barrier around us that protected us.

“Alright Mike!” Ed shouted.

“Look!” Al said pointing ahead. The end of the gate was there. That’s when I noticed that Heartless were falling into it. We zoomed out past them and leveled out into the air.

“What the hell are those things?” Ed said.

“Heartless, creatures who steal people’s hearts.” I replied. “Only my blade and alchemy can destroy them.” We flew out through a hole in the ceiling.