Edward Elric blinked and looked around in slight panic. Where was he? This was not his house in Resenbol. This wasn't right. He was just talking to Winry and Al, both of which was now beside him, looking equally confused. One second he was standing in the living room of his house and the next, he was here. Did someone knock him out and take him here? No... he woke up standing. He would of been on the ground if he had been knocked out. He quickly studied the room he was in.
The room he was in was big, sectioned off into three different places. He was in the right most section, along with Al, Winry, and a lot of other people. He took his attention off of examinating the other people with him and turned it to the other two sections. He meant to look at the middle, and biggest, section but his gaze was drawn to the left section, or more specificly, the group of people in it. There were the some of the homunculi! Envy, Bradley, Lust, the first Greed, and Glutteny! Why were they here?! They are dead! And who were they with? A little pale boy with long black hair and an arm and leg with different skin tone then the rest of his body, and... Teacher?! What was she doing with them?! Edward's gaze was quickly moved to the teens standong beside Teacher. One that made him think of Al if he was older, as he was about 13, and if his dirty blond hair and hazel eyes were gold. The other... was him.
Ed's eyes widened. That was him. There was no mistaking that blond hair tied back and golden eyes. He was in different clothers, ones he had seen in Central, but that was him. He moved his eyesight down to a blue arm band on his double's arm, and for the first time, Ed noticed that he, too, had a yellow arm band that he didn't have a minute before.
He looked back up and scanned over the third area crowded. He saw that the people that also have the blue armband Teacher, the Homunculi except Greed, Mustang, Hawkeye and... Winry? But, she was right beside him. Ed glanced at the blond girl beside him just to make sure that, yes she was beside him.
"Brother..." Al said worriedly. Ed turned to his brother, who was pointing torward a group of people in his section.
He had to do a double take at the sight of the homunculi, with Pride standing in the middle with shadows all around him. Wait, so there were two sets of homunculi?! And why was Selim back to being Pride?! Ed had just seen Selim a few days ago, before he got back home, and the boy was fine! He also saw that most of them had a yellow armband like him and Winry.
"Why are they back?" Al asked. Ed didn't have an answer. He just looked at his brother before Al turned his head to the center of the room and paused. Ed blinked and was about to ask him what was wrong, but Al cut him off. "Ed, look! Its May, Ling, Lan Fan, and... Fu?! He's dead though!"
Ed jerked his head to the middle of the room. Sure enough, the Xingese were standing in the over to the side, in a booth by the north wall.
"Hello everybody!" He heard May say, though he couldn't quite see her from this far. "I'm sure you are all confused-"
She was cut off by multiple shouts from either side of the room. Ed could only vaguley hear May trying to get some order but no one who was shouting looked like they wanted to listen. Finally, he heard a loud screech coming from the booth. Once it stopped, he realized everyone had gone quiet.
"Thank you." Ling said. "Now, I want to see something... Edward Elric, you are short."
Ed felt his temper rise. He jumped up and started frailing around, like he always did when he got mad.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING SO SHORT YOU NEED A-" He stopped short when he realized his double was also yelling and frailing around. He stopped, as did his double, and stared across the room, as did his double. Before he could say anything else, Ling started laughing.
"Yep! You both are Edward Elric!" Ling said between laugther.
"Young Lord! Please finish explaining!" Lan Fan shouted. Ed could almost see Ling in his mind, waving his hand in a care free manner with those blasted eyes closed. How does he see with though things closed anyway?!
"Yes yes." Ling said. "We are here for a tournement!"
"A tournement?" The boy that looked like Al asked.
"What's the meaning of this?!" He heard Teacher yell but it wasn't the Teacher across the room from him. The voice came from behind him and when he looked, he saw Teacher, his teacher, behind him, to the right with a yellow armband like him.
"You see, there are two universes of us. Well, main universes anyway because, as the Edward with the blue arm band could tell you, there are multiple universes. In one such universe, both the Anime universe, which is the one on the left with the blue arm bands, and the Brotherhood universe, which is the one on the right with the yellow arm bands, are television(don't ask what that is) shows. Forms of entertainment. And a fan of the show thought you guys would find it fun if there was a tournement between the two shows." May explained. "Oh, and before we forget, we need to introduce ourselves for the ones who don't know us. I'm May Chang, a princess of Xing!"
"I'm Ling Yao. I'm the emperor of Xing!" Ling said.
"My name is Lan Fan and I am his Young Lord's body guard." Lan Fan said.
"And I'm Fu. I was the other bodyguard for the Young Lord before I died." Fu said without any hesitation, causing the people around Ed to still slightly. "And that will let us explain the next topic. For the ones that agreed, they could come here and participate, but only if their counterpart survived as well, or in the Homunculi's case, if one of the group survived. Since Pride had survived in Brotherhood, and Wrath in Anime, then the Homunculi are back as well. However, they also could say no to the offer, such as Brotherhood Sloth. That's why Sloth isn't here, from either universe. Once we are all done here, the dead shall go back to being dead. Any questions so far?"
"What about Hughes?" The Mustang from Ed's side of the room asked.
"Sadley, he died in both universes, so he couldn't come. I'm sorry." Lan Fan said.
"Since Xing isn't in the Anime universe, and in turn we weren't apart of the that universe's plot, we are the announcers." May explained. "The rules are simple. For the first day, we shall be doing what we like to call the counterpart battles. That is, the doubles will fight each other, for excample, Ed vs Ed or Greed vs Greed. Who ever wins the battle will move on to the next stage."
"We'll draw the names from this hat," Ling looked like he was holding something up, Ed guessed the hat, but he was sure no one could truely see it.
"Yo, Ling or what ever your name is!" The Anime(A)Ed yelled. "We can't see that!"
"Eh?" Ling asked. "Oh... That won't work! Do the notes say anything about that?" The last part was more directed to the other Xingese.
"Um..." May said and there was the sound of paper flipping. "Yes. It says to... press that butten."
"This one?" Fu asked.
"Ya." May answered.
There was a click before the wall behind the booth lit up. When the light faded a bit, there was a picture of the Xingese taking up the whole middle part of the wall.
But then it moved.
"Woah!" Ling said, and you could see him up on the wall looking up at the same wall. "That's cool! What's it called?"
"It says here its called a vid-ee-oh." Lan Fan said, squinting at a notebook.
"Back to the explaination, My Lord." Fu reminded.
"Oh right." Ling said as he turned back around and the wall changed to a close up of Ling smiling and holding a black hat with a white strip. "We'll draw names out of this hat to show which double are battling. If someone from the Brotherhood universe wins, we'll put a yellow B beside their name and put it in this white hat." He held up a white hat. He was interruppted before he could continue however.
"Is that my hat?" Ed looked into the crowd to see who had called out and saw someone he had wished never to see again. Kimblee.
Ling paused before slowly saying, "Nooooooo..." Kimblee just sighed and Ling continued. "If someone from the Animeverse wins, then we'll put a blue A beside their name and put it in the white hat, got it?" Everybody said yes in their own way and Ling continued. "Great! On the second day, we'll rest, so that you will be in top condition for your next fights. We'll explain how we'll pick the rest of the fights when we get there."
"Now on to inguries!" May said. "No one can die here, but pain is still a part of the battles. So even if you can't die from being stabbed in the chest, you will feel the pain and might even pass out. However, you can't go directly to the vital areas for an attack untill the 30 minute mark. If you do so before the mark, you will lose right then and there."
"However, not everybody here is going to fight." Lan Fan took over. "Such as Ms. Winry. She is just here for an Automail mecanic and the fan figured that she would be entertained by the fights. AWrath has his alchemy back, as does both Eds and AAl. Also, Brotherhood(B)Ed, I'm sorry but you have your briggs automail back for the tournement. As soon as you leave, your arm shall be back to normal."
"I think that explains everything." Fu said. "Now would be the time to say you don't want to stay and to send you back home. Anyone?"
"Our lives." BMustang said. "What about our lives and jobs?"
"While you are in this room, the world outside is frozen." Ling said. "Once you leave, you shall be back to where you were when you appeared here. Anyone is going to leave or what?"
There was mutterings all around the room but nobody called out that they wanted to leave.
"Since no one is going to leave, any more questions?"
So any questions? I'm pretty sure I covered everything but if you have any questions, ask away! Also, who do you want to see fight first? Just not Ed or Al. I don't want the main characters to go first.