Yah, theez eez ze secoond fanfeecteeoon that I wrote. Eet eez old und I haff somevhat geeveen oop on eet. Eet eez short as vell.

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The Elric brothers were lost. They had no idea where they were. All they knew is that they had ended up in this strange town, without a clue as to how or why they had arrived.

After walking around for a while, they entered a shop. Inside they found a man with a strange look on his face. He greeted the boys as they walked up to the counter. "Hi there. New to Traverse Town?"

"Traverse Town?" Ed asked, looking up at his brother.

"I'll take that look of confusion on your faces as a yes. Or, I guess just on your face, little boy. I can't see the… What's wrong with him?" the man asked, seeing the look of pure loathing on Ed's face, and backing away.

"I'm… not… little!!"

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean any offense there, kid."

"KID?!? I'M FREAKING FIFTEEN YEARS OLD, I'M NOT A KID!!!!"

"No way, you're fifteen?"

"YES I'M FIFTEEN!! HOW OLD DID YOU THINK I AM?"

"Jeez, I'm sorry, okay? Calm down, there, umm… what's your name?"

"I'm Edward Elric, and this is my younger brother Alphonse. Now what's your name and where the hell are we?"

" My name is Cid, and this place is called Traverse Town. It's a place where people go when their worlds have been taken by the heartless."

"Heartless?"

"Yeah. Before you ended up here, did you see any strange creatures wandering around that looked like this?" The man held up a picture of a little black thing, and Ed shook his head.

"No, we didn't see anything like that. We just were making our way through a tunnel, and then we came out into this place. We turned around to see the tunnel again, but there was nothing behind us but a wall."

"Weird. Well, I don't know what to tell you. If you look around, you might get to see more people from your world."

"Uh, okay…"

"Let me know if you need anything."

"Thank you," Al said as they walked outside.

Ed crossed his arms as he looked around. He didn't want to be there, but he decided that it would be a good idea to walk around, and see if they could find a clue as to how to get back to their world. He talked with his brother as they walked.

"I wonder if we really are in a different world," Al said.

"Could be. I don't really know, though. I'd like to know what that man meant by 'Heartless,' though."

"The way he said it, it didn't sound like they're very good creatures."

"Oh well, let's keep going. I'm sure…" Ed trailed off, and looked at something disturbing. A huge monster, vaguely resembling the one Ed and Al had seen a picture of in Cid's shop, was fighting against three people. One of them was a boy, about Ed's age, and the other two were so strange-looking that Ed wasn't quite sure they were really there. One was a duck, and Ed didn't bother to try and figure out what the other one was.

The three looked like they needed help. Signaling to his brother, Ed ran to fight against the monster. He clapped his hands together, and placed them on the ground, sending spikes into the monster and destroying it.

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Sora was very grateful. He had been fighting one of the Heartless with Donald and Goofy, and they were having a lot of trouble. Then, out of nowhere, spikes had flown out of the ground and killed the Heartless. He looked around, trying to figure out who was responsible for the spikes, and saw a small boy running towards them, followed by a suit of armor.

"Are you all right?" the boy asked, stopping when he got close enough.

"Yeah, thanks," Sora replied. "Who are you?"

"Oh, just a couple of alchemists."

"Alchemists?"

"Yeah."

"What's an alchemist?"

"What?"

"I said, what's an alchemist?"

"You mean, you don't know?"

"No, is it something from your world?"

"Yeah, it is."

The armor spoke up. Sora was surprised by the childish voice. "An alchemist is somebody who practices alchemy."

"And what's alchemy?"

"You just saw an example of it. You take the substances around you, deconstruct them, and reconstruct them into something else."

"Wow!" Sora exclaimed. "How do you learn it?"

"By studying. A lot. And it's really complicated."

"I wanna learn…" Sora whined.

Donald spoke up, startling the boy. "Come on, Sora, we have to go. There could be more Heartless around."

"Wait, you mean that thing is a Heartless?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, haven't you seen them before?" Goofy asked.

"No, we just got here. That's the first one we've seen."

"What about on your world?"

"No, there weren't any on our world either," the armor said.

"That's weird, cuz usually the Heartless appear before a world disappears," Sora said.

"What do you mean, disappear? What the hell is going on?" the boy said.

Donald looked around. "Come on, we should go someplace safe, since you don't have a clue about anything."

The five of them walked back to Cid's shop, with the armor trying to keep the boy from attacking Donald.

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Ed finally understood what was going on. Sora, Donald, and Goofy had explained it to them in great detail. They were sitting in Cid's shop, one of the safe places in the town. Now he wanted to know something else.

"So how exactly did we end up here?"

"Well, if your world wasn't destroyed, then I don't know," said Donald.

"But how are we supposed to get back?"

"Once again, I don't know. You're gonna have to find a way by yourselves."

"Hey, that's pretty harsh, Donald. Maybe we could keep an eye out for it next time we go out," Sora replied.

"Really? You can find it?" Ed asked, getting excited.

"Yeah, probably," Sora said.

"Hold on a minute. We have more important things to worry about than finding their world," Donald pointed out.

"But if there aren't Heartless on their world, we can seal the keyhole more easily. Besides, I'm really interested in alchemy now, aren't you?" Sora asked.

"Nope."

"But it saved our lives!"

"We could have beat it without their help."

"But it would have been a lot harder."

"It would have been good practice for you," Donald finished, but he reluctantly agreed to try to find it.

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Sora kept his eyes out for a new world. He really wanted to find Ed and Al's world, because he wanted to learn alchemy. They didn't have luck with it for a while. Then, after going to a few different worlds and sealing the keyholes on those worlds, they went to a world that was strangely empty of Heartless.

They had ended up in a sparsely populated valley. Sora went out on his own, since Donald and Goofy would draw a bit too much attention, like Ed had said. He wandered around, trying to find some sign that would confirm that this was their world.

He noticed a graveyard, and decided to look around. One grave caught his attention: one for Trisha Elric. Remembering that Ed's last name was Elric, he wondered who Trisha was in relation to Ed, or if she was even related.

He looked around at the other graves, and saw two more that caught his attention. Ed had mentioned a girl named Winry Rockbell. He didn't see Winry's name, but there were two graves with the name Rockbell on them. They seemed to have been married, and they had died on the same day.

Deciding that he had enough proof, Sora walked back along the road to where Donald and Goofy were. On the way, he saw a building with a sign on it. The sign had the name Rockbell on it, so that was definitely enough proof for him.

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Ed waited impatiently for Sora to get back. He wanted to get to his own world. After several days of waiting, they returned. When Ed saw Sora walking up, he went directly to him.

"So?"

"I'm pretty sure we found it."

"Pretty sure?"

"Yeah, we ended up in a not-very-populated area, and I looked in the graveyard."

"Why would you look in a graveyard?"

"I don't know, it was interesting…"

"So, anyways…"

"I found some familiar names."

"Like what?"

"Well, there was a grave for Trisha Elric, and two for a couple named 'Rockbell,' do those names mean anything to you?"

Ed stood silently for a while. He didn't really want to think about it.

"Well?"

"Trisha Elric… is our mother. And the Rockbells, they're the parents of our best friend."

"Oh," Sora replied, seeming to feel bad to bring it up. Donald walked up to Ed, who was still not feeling too good about being the bad reminders of his past, and pulled on his face.

"OW! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?"

"If you're going to come with us, then you can't be so sad."

"But now my face hurts!"

"Come on, it's time to go."

Ed walked behind Donald, fuming, as they made their way to the ship.

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Sora knew something was wrong by the way the ship was moving. He looked around at it, and saw that part of the wing was loose. They would have to land somewhere to fix it, but there was only one world nearby. They talked it over, and decided to land on the world, which happened to be Hercules's world. While the chipmunks got to work on the ship, Sora took Ed and Al over to meet Hercules and Phil.

Hercules wasn't present at the moment. Phil looked at the two brothers, not quite knowing what to say. Finally, he talked to Sora.

"So, do these two want to enter in the tournament?"

"Well, I told them about it, and they seemed interested."

"I'll have to see if it's worth letting them in. They don't look like much. I mean, the armor's intimidating and all, but the little one…"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO LITTLE HE DEFIES THE LAWS OF NATURE WITH BY SURVIVING THIS LONG?" Ed shouted, trying to attack the little whatever-it's-called-that-just-insulted-him, but being held back by Al.

"I'm calling you that. You probably can't even pass the simplest Hero test."

"And what's that?" Ed asked, breathing hard.

Phil walked him out into the arena. There was a strange-looking setup of barrels and walls. "If you can destroy all the barrels within the next minute-"

Ed clapped his hands together and made spikes fly through all the barrels. "Is that good?"

Phil stared in amazement. "What…"

"It's called alchemy," Ed said, unable to hide the smug look on his face.

"Well, let's see how you do without your alchemy. There's more to a Hero than just special abilities. You have to be well rounded. Hey, Sora, why don't you go up against this kid? One-on-one, no magic or alchemy."

"Why me?"

"Because you're the closest one to his size."

At this latest insult to his height, Ed went after the little creature, only to be stopped by Al once again. "DAMN IT! I'LL SHOW YOU, YOU SMUG LITTLE FREAK!" Once Ed calmed down a bit, he went to fight Sora.

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The fight between Ed and Sora didn't last very long. Ed proved himself to be very good at unarmed combat, and beat the Keyblade-less Sora easily.

"Want to make another comment about me depending on alchemy?" Ed asked Phil.

"You really have an attitude problem, you know that?"

"You started it."

"That's still no excuse. Being good-natured is a big part of being a hero."

"Who ever said I wanted to be a hero? I just want to find a way to get my brother back to normal."

"Why? What's wrong with him?"

Ed, having seen a lot of strange things in the past few days, decided that an empty suit of armor wouldn't be too shocking for anybody to see, so he went over to his brother and pulled off his head. "He's missing something."

Everybody looked at Al in shock. Phil pointed at the empty suit of armor and said, "Your brother doesn't have a head?"

Al got his head back from his brother and replied, "No, I don't have a body at all. This armor's empty." At that, a loud meow was heard, and Ed gave his brother a suspicious look.

"Except for when you're hiding a cat in there."

"Um, yeah, right. But anyway…"

"Where'd that cat come from?"

"Well, I found it a few days ago, back before we left East City…"

"How has it been able to LIVE?"

"I take care of it at night."

"If you two are finished arguing, would you mind telling us why your brother is an empty suit of armor?" Phil asked, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Oh, right," Ed said. "Well, a few years ago, we tried to bring our mother back to life with alchemy."

"But what does that have to do with your brother being a suit of armor?" Sora asked.

"Everything. When we transmuted her, Al lost his body," Ed said, taking off his coat, "and I lost my left leg and right arm."

"You mean, it didn't work? How can that be?" Sora asked.

"Alchemy has its limits, like just about everything else. It's impossible to bring somebody back to life."

"So, your mother…"

"What we made wasn't exactly human. It died right after we made it."

"But how are you going to get his body back?"

"That's the tricky part. We don't really know how yet."

"Sounds like you're stuck then."

"Yeah, I know," Ed said, then added "But that's why I became a dog of the military, so I could find a way. Right now getting Al's body back is more important than my pride."

"Spoken like a true hero," came a voice from behind them. Ed turned around, and saw a man who was very big, muscular, and stupid looking. Ed's first impression was that somebody had tried to draw a cartoon character handsomely, but had failed horribly.

"Oh, Herc, you're back," Phil said, walking over. "How was your trip?"

"It was fine. Who are these two?"

Ed walked up to the man. "I'm Edward Elric, and this is my younger brother Alphonse."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Hercules. Are you here for the tournament?"

"Yes," Sora said, before Ed could say anything.

"Oh, good, it'll be interesting to see that arm in action."

"What, you mean this arm? What's so interesting about it?" Ed asked.

"Well, it's made of metal. I haven't really seen that before," Hercules replied.

"Well, it's pretty common where I'm from to have metal replacement limbs."

"Replacement?"

"Yeah, I lost my arm and leg when I was eleven," Ed said.

"Eleven? That's pretty young," Hercules said, looking somewhat surprised. "But it's nice that you can just replace it with something strong."

"I didn't exactly 'just replace it.' The process of getting it installed and also getting to the point where I could move freely took a year."

"A year?"

"Yeah, and I went to the point of coughing up blood. Usually it takes three years to do it."

Everybody was looking at him, except for Al, who was playing with the cat. After a while, the quiet staring started to bother Ed. "What?"

"You spent a year coughing up blood just so you could get a working arm?" Sora asked.

"Arm and leg, and yes, automail surgery is very long and painful. I mean, it's attached to your nerves. It'll even make a grown man cry out."

"And you did all that as a kid?" asked Goofy.

"Yeah."

"Now that's what I call strong. I'm sorry I ever underestimated ya, kid," Phil said.

"I'm not a kid."

"Sure ya are. Isn't a good thing? I mean, you still have a few years to grow, so doesn't that make you happy?"

"Well, I'm gonna have to grow a lot in the next three years, then."

"Three years?"

"Yeah, I'm fifteen."

"Well, other than your height, you have the look of a hero," Hercules said, trying to change the subject.

"What do you mean?" Ed asked.

"Well, your face for one. You have a very determined look in your eyes."

"Yeah, and the color of your eyes, too, and your hair," Phil added.

"And the braid, too."

"And the outfit. Kid, you've got a good sense of style. All you need to do is grow like a foot and you'll look like a real hero."

"I'm not going for looks, and I'm not trying to be a hero! All I want is to get our bodies back to normal so I can get out of the military before I have to go fight in a war."

"Is there a chance of that happening?"

"Yeah, there's a very good chance. My country has been at war since before I was born."

"That's terrible," Sora said.

"And what country are you from?" Hercules asked.

Ed didn't know what to do. He had been warned by Donald not to say anything that would show that he was from another world. "I-it's one that's very far away from here. I don't really want to go into detail."

"Oh, okay."

Ed did very well in the tournament, and luckily he wasn't forbidden to use alchemy. He even came close to beating Hercules, but something happened during their match, and it was considered a tie after Hercules ran off to figure out what the problem was.

Once the tournament was over, they went back to the ship. It was completely repaired. They boarded it, and headed out towards Ed's world once more.