Chapter 1: The Gate to Amestris

A/N: Yo, people of the FanFiction world~ Some of you may know me while many of you probably won't, but my name is UltimateOtakuGirl100, and this is my first FMA fic! ^.^

I know that this kind of story is cliché, but deal with it. I'm human; I can have selfish desires.

I would say something else, but I don't wanna waste any more time. So, read on!

"SQUEEEEEEEEE! We're finally doing alchemy! We're finally doing alchemy! We're finally doing ALCHEMY!" I screamed, hearing my voice echo in the distance. I think I saw a flock of crows fly off the mountain in fear, but I ignored them. I felt my plain light blue T-shirt ripple against me in the wind, and I smoothed out my favorite comfortable baggy black pants, grinning as I went into hyper mode.

"Destiny, shut it! If someone hears you, it'll never happen!"

"Oh, right, right… sorry, Nadia. Hey, you're lagging! Keep up!"

Nadia huffed and picked up the pace, slowing when she was only a foot or so behind me. She wore a much-too-large green shirt that went down to her knees, and navy blue tights. Her dark brown chest-length hair blew crazily around her face as she ran, which she slid behind her ears, irritated. "Besides, it probably won't work, anyway. This world can't use alchemy; the show says it itself."

"Sheesh, don't be such a killjoy! We have to try."

Nadia sighed. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. But in the scenario it does work—a very unlikely scenario at that—what are you planning on? Seriously, if we just vanish, then what's going on in your head as to what everyone'll think? Please tell me you've gotten that far."

I stopped and turned around to face her, grinning. "Of course! People go missing all the time, y'know. I didn't choose a camping trip location to attempt alchemy for no reason. If we suddenly disappear, then, hey, a mountaintop camping location? What more likely location to get lost? Or kidnapped? And come to think of it, there are a lot of bears in the area…"

Nadia's eyes widened. She gaped at me. "SERIOUSLY?! Destiny, that's your plan?!"

I shrugged. "Yeah. So? What's wrong with it?"

"I don't want people to think I'm dead!"

Rolling my eyes, I replied, "Well, if it doesn't work, which you seem to be certain it won't, we can just go back to the campsite, and nothing will go wrong. If it does work, then, well, do you seriously think people will guess that we traveled through the Gate to another, parallel world of alchemy?!"

Nadia scowled. She was about to say something else, but I'd already turned around and began to walk away. "What'd I say about lagging? Hurry up, or I'm leaving you behind!"

She ran up next to me once more, panting—the reason why she was struggling to keep up was that I was much more fit than she was, because she was more of a "rational, intelligent, study hard" kind of girl. I, on the other hand, was a hyper, completely irrational fangirl of anime and video games. It's hard to convince me that I'm wrong about anything, because I'm stubborn, smart (or at least, smarter than the average person, but only when it comes to non-school-related stuff), and also have a temper. We're complete opposites in almost all cases; it's a wonder that we're still friends. One of the few things we both like is Fullmetal Alchemist. But even on that, we disagree on some IMPORTANT topics of interest.

After catching her breath, she finally said, "No way you're leaving me behind, Destiny. If there is even the slightest possibility of meeting Alphonse, I'm not missing it."

I scoffed. "Seriously, why do you like him so much?! For, like, 99% of the series, he's trapped in a suit of armor! Besides, Ed is SO much hotter."

I struck a nerve with that one, and I knew it. "So what?! It's not his fault he's in a suit of armor, it's Edward's! And besides, Al is ultra-cute. I don't understand how you aren't a fangirl over him; didn't you see how cute he looked at the end of the series?!"

Ho, yes, this was an ongoing argument between us: who was better, Edward or Alphonse. "Tch, yeah, well, derp. Edward saved his life. And he got his body back at the end thanks to, who again? Oh yeah, Ed."

She opened her mouth to retort in a rare display of open anger, but I cut her off with a wave of my hand. "If you want to do this, then we've got to do this right. I think we're far enough from the campsite now."

We stood in a small clearing, surrounded by trees and wilting grass. I turned around, but couldn't see the campsite anymore, which was good. If anyone saw what we were doing…

I crouched down to the ground, snagged a stick, and began to draw a large transmutation circle into the ground. Brushing my shoulder-length golden-brown hair out of my face, I set down my backpack that was filled with "camping" material (which we were really bringing with us so that we wouldn't die if we got to Amestris), exhausted from the weight, and shuffled through the various stuff.

Nadia craned her neck to look over my shoulder. "Um, Destiny… why are we bringing gold again?" she asked incredulously.

Rolling my eyes at her ignorance, I replied, "Because it's the only thing I have that I know for sure we can sell in exchange for their currency. What was it called again—oh yeah, it's called Cenz, right?"

She sighed as I continued to search through the various non-perishable food, water, clothing, and all the golden jewelry that I had but never used. "Only a true fangirl would care about useless information like that."

"It's not useless information!" I cried defensively before finally pulling out what I was looking for. I held the dagger that was several inches bigger than the size of my hand in its sheath, frowning. "It's not big enough to go up against an enemy in real combat, and probably pretty useless, but it'll do for now…" I added a few details I'd forgotten to the circle before wiping my forehead to get rid of the sweat that wasn't there to begin with and stood up, sheathed dagger still in one hand. "Phew. It's done." I squinted as I looked up through the trees, light trickling through. "Now all we need is something to transmute, then we'll be on our way."

If we were in an anime, I think that Nadia either would have sweatdropped or fallen over anime-style. "So, you took us all the way to the top of a mountain… lied to both of our parents… and yet you don't have anything to transmute?!" she demanded.

I frowned. "So?"

"SO?! Seriously, Destiny?! You can be so hopeless sometimes…" She continued to mutter to herself.

Crack.

I spun around. "What was that?!"

Crack.

Nadia looked at me, annoyed. "What's what?"

Crunch… crunch… CRACK.

Nadia's eyes widened. "Uh… wh-what was it you said about b-bears in the area?"

Crunch… CRACK, crack… crunch…

I swallowed.

All of the sudden, a giant black bear walked through the trees. It stopped when it saw us and eyed us with shining black eyes.

"Y-y'know, Nadia," I whispered quietly, shaking, "I r-really hate it w-when you're right."

Nadia stood perfectly still, maybe even paralyzed, terror clear on her face. "W-whatever you do… j-just don't… m-move."

The three of us were in a standstill. Oh, crap, what do I do?! I thought, horrified. What to do in a bear encounter… um… make eye contact… don't move… don't play dead… don't say anything… don't run away… or was it do run away? Or attack? Or…

The bear's muscles clenched.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, running as fast as I could in the opposite direction.

The bear sprang into motion.

"Destiny, if we live through this, I AM GOING TO FREAKING KILL YOUUUUU!" Nadia yelled, struggling to run alongside me.

The irony wasn't lost on me; nonetheless I gulped. "IT'S GAINING ON US!" I wailed, running even harder as I heard the bear's heavy pants get louder.

"SHUT UP AND RUUUUUUN!"

I screamed as I felt its claws snag onto the hem of my shirt's right sleeve. A part of its nails dug into my skin; not enough to cause any permanent harm, but enough to draw blood and really hurt.

Still screaming, I felt a kind of horror I'd never experienced before when the claw snagged to my shirt made me stumble and fall over.

I saw Nadia stop and spin around, eyes wide. "DESTINY!" she shrieked, mortified.

Shaking uncontrollably, I got onto my hands and knees and looked up at her. "WHAT'RE YOU DOING?!" I demanded. "NADIA, RUN!"

I yelped in pained fear when I heard a beastly growl coming from the bear. I rolled out of the way just as it thrust its claw at me. It lunged again, but I had already rolled out of the way and behind it. I ran as fast as I could as the bear turned around.

To my surprise, I saw Nadia running alongside me. "Why… aren't you… gone?!" I gasped out through panting.

Nadia looked frustrated. "I couldn't… just leave… you… to die!"

Suddenly, we burst into the same clearing as before. We both stumbled and skid to a halt in front of a fallen tree that was much too large to jump over. At the same time, we spun around to face the bear, terrified.

I brought my arms in front of me to brace myself for the likely life-ending assault, but then I saw something in my hand I'd forgotten about. The dagger…! I thought.

The bear roared and lunged, but at the same time, I not-so-gently pushed Nadia to the ground and leapt right at the bear and, using all of my strength, stabbed the giant bear right in the shoulder before it could bite me.

It roared in pain and recoiled.

I held up the blade with newfound admiration. "My dear Dagger, I take back every foul word I said about you before. You are the best knife ever."

I wrinkled my nose in disgust when a drop of the bear's blood dripped off the tip. "Ew…"

I snapped back to attention when I heard the bear roar in agony again. It stumbled backwards a bit, blood dripping to the ground, and into…

"THE TRANSMUTATION CIRCLE!" both me and Nadia (who had just barely stood up) yelled in unison, shocked.

The bear staggered into the center of the circle, looking dazed. It roared once more, before, quite suddenly, a blue transmutation circle identical to the one on the ground appeared where I'd stabbed it.

It thrashed wildly. It tried to escape the circle, but an electric-blue light erupted from the outer parts of the circle when it tried, blocking its escape.

Angered, the bear used its claws and swiped at us. I managed to jump away in time, but unfortunately, Nadia was unable to get out of the way in time, and it sliced at the upper section of her left leg, cutting the fabric in a line and drawing blood. She cried out in pain, now dashing out of the way, limping slightly.

As the bear continued to thrash, it suddenly occurred to me. "Nadia," I whispered. "I think I've just found our transportation to Amestris."

She gawked at me, shocked. "Please tell me you're joking."

I wiped a bit of blood off of my arm with my left hand. "I would if I could," I replied, rubbing the palms of my hands together and getting my own blood smeared on both. "Are you coming?" I asked her, gesturing to the circle as I sat on my legs, hands outstretched.

Nadia hesitated. Then she wiped some blood off of the cut on her leg and copied me.

We clapped our hands together at the same time. "Are you ready?"

Nadia nodded slowly, looking nervous.

"All right. On the count of three! One… two…" I gulped. "THREE!"

We slammed our hands against the rim of the circle.

The circle glowed even brighter, then all I could see was the light…

When I opened my eyes again, we were standing in front of the Gate, side-by-side.

"Whoa…" I breathed, fascinated by the size.

Nadia slapped me. "Destiny! Now you've done it! We're probably gonna lose our legs or something now!"

"Ow!" I cried, rubbing my cheek. "Hey, you're the one who wanted to see Alphonse so badly! Deal with it!"

All of the sudden, the door opened.

We both screamed our lungs out when a bunch of black hands reached out and grabbed us.

One creepy-looking face looked at me, grinning, and ripped off my right arm.

Another one ripped off Nadia's left leg.

We screamed even louder.

Then, suddenly, it was over.

We were dropped suddenly, face-first, onto grass. Rain poured down from above.

"It hurts," I whimpered, grabbing my stub of a right arm. "I…I'm bleeding…! Losing… too much blood!"

Nadia weakly wacked me on the head. "You… think I… have it… any better?! I… can't even… walk now…!" She clutched her stub of a leg tightly, trying to get the blood to stop flowing. "You… still have… both… your legs… pick me up… and… let's go…" she whispered. She cried out suddenly.

I shakily stood up, wobbling from the pain. I'd had my arm sprained before, but that was nowhere NEAR close to the complete and utter agony I was suffering, now that the arm wasn't there altogether; I couldn't quite see straight through the pain, but nonetheless I attempted to look at our surroundings. I whimpered again as my stub of an arm throbbed, but I finally managed to see where we were. "N…Nadia…" I gasped out weakly, "I think… we're… in the forest… by… Resembool…"

Nadia attempted to laugh, but ended up coughing up blood instead. "Well… congrats… we… made it… to Amestris… now… all we've gotta do… is get… to town…"

I shook unsteadily as I slowly crouched down next to her. "I only… have one arm… so this'll… be hard… just… use your arms… and hold on…" I scooped her up with my arm bridal-style and nearly fell over from her weight focused all on one arm, my non-dominant one at that, but quickly recovered when she wrapped her arms around my neck.

I ambled through the forest weakly, both of us dripping blood everywhere, and feeling extremely dizzy despite my attempts to ignore the pain. I somehow managed to stumble onto the muddy road just barely on the outskirts of Resembool before finally collapsing in an exhausted, bloody heap, dropping Nadia next to me. "I…I'm sorry, Nadia," I whispered, coughing. "I can't… go any… further… too… weak…"

She glared at me tiredly, frustrated. "What're… you… doing?! Leave… me here, save yourself…!"

I coughed some more. "Can't… do that… even if… I was willing… to abandon you… I've… lost too much… blood…" I moaned, losing feeling in my body as my vision grew blurred. I managed to see her eyes close as she passed out, unable to stay awake anymore. "S…sorry, Nadia…"

I closed my eyes, too.

Only a few moments had passed when I heard voices that my mind vaguely processed as familiar. "Tch, Winry is going to kill us! Can't believe the automail broke again. This is going to be bad."

I heard a childish-sounding sigh and a bunch of slow, loud clanking. "Brother, it is kind of your fault for abusing it so badly. I just hope that it doesn't fall apart altogether before we get to Pinako's."

A sigh from the other voice. "Well, it's stable enough where it won't break that soon. That automail junkie did do pretty well; it's holding together even in this busted state…"

The footsteps and clanking abruptly came to a halt. "What the…?!" the voice gasped. Then they ran, noises getting louder, and came to a halt. "Al, grab the one missing a leg. I'll grab this one. Quick, we've gotta get them to Winry's!" I felt something wrap around me—probably arms—and I was hoisted into the air. I shook as the owner of the voice sprinted as fast as he could.

I tried to fight off the darkness, and managed to open my eyes slightly. I was just barely able to process gold before my eyes forced themselves shut again.

But I knew what I saw.

"Y…you…" I whispered quietly, requiring too much effort to be normal. Sleep finally overtook me, but not before I realized who it was.

…Ed…ward…

A/N: Yeah, I know, not the most humorous chapter ever (and if I'm honest, it's a little dark, what with all the blood and stuff), but derp. -_- It'll be funnier in later chapters.

The bear attack is something personal, actually; one time I was on a camping trip with my friends, and we were all making this hideout and disguising it so it would blend in with the ground (it really did look pretty good). Long story short, we spotted a black bear that chased us into our hideout, we hid in there for almost an hour (a traumatizing hour at that; I kept laughing on the verge of insanity despite how scared I was), my friend Megan peeking out every so often to check on the bear, which was closer each time she looked out, and then after the longest hour of my life, the bear disappeared, leaving busted trees with sap from the inside of them coating everything around it in its wake.

Needless to say, that was quite the memorable experience.

We didn't actually get attacked, but it kept growling and it was terrifying. I swear I thought I was going to die, but obviously not, because I'm here. :3

So, yeah, that was kind of a tribute to that experience. Certainly made it interesting to write! *sweatdrop*

Anyways…

Review topics:

Was it too depressing/dark this chapter?

Anyone mad that I didn't put Truth in there? I tried, but… that guy was just too freakin' creepy. *shudder* I just couldn't, he scares me.

Are the OCs' names okay? It took me, like, forever to pick out names that had a meaning that would fit. Destiny, well, the meaning to that is obvious; and Nadia means Hope. So, I've just gotta know if it was a good choice.

R&R people!