A/N: An essay I wrote for school that's due tomorrow. It's a descriptive essay—I've never written one before, as I always opt for narrative. But I realized that it's impossible for me not to go 1000 words over the word limit with narrative, so I thought I'd try something new and hoped that I could not make the teacher go head/desk again when she sees my essay.

It's still 220 words over the limit, though. Oh well.

I changed just enough for the teacher to understand, but it's still fairly canon. Whatever you don't recognize—which should be few—is made up for my teacher's benefit. With that said, I hope you're somewhat amused by this :o)

Note: This is from Ed's automail arm, just so that you know. Some people where live didn't seem to catch from the title.

Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or Ed's automail arm :o)

The Amazing Adventures of Edward Elric! . . . through the eyes of his automail arm.

Alchemy, legendary shrines, artificial humans, talking chimeras—I've seen it all before. It makes my existence anything but ordinary, makes it hard and tiring and way too exciting than I would've liked it to be.

Not that I actually have a choice in the matter. As much as I'd like to, I can't really do anything about this lifestyle of mine.

Well, I can't really do anything at all—not on my own, at least. Not without Edward Elric, the human that I'm attached to. The human that I aid. The one that I'm acting as a substitute limb for, as he'd lost his arm goodness only knows how.

I'm not surprised, though. Ed's a reckless little runt; he seems to be a magnet for situations that you could lose a limb in if you're not careful enough. He goes on fantastic adventures, meets countless people, discovers all kinds of different alchemy and forgotten ruins . . .

. . . gets into ridiculous fights that leave him in a near-death state and me utterly destroyed.

Don't get me wrong, I've got an amazing mechanic. She made me very durable, even useful—isn't it clever how she found out how to connect a prosthetic to a person's nerves so that it can move just like any other limb? I think it is.

But any kind of mechanic can only be that good. I can still break, you know, despite my quality. It's a difficult feat to accomplish, but there are some things that I just can't live through.

Being crushed by a fifty-pound boulder that some inhumanely strong guy throws at me, for example. Do you have any idea how lucky Ed is that he dodged that? He'd probably be six feet under by now if he hadn't. Too bad I didn't come out as unscathed.

Thank whoever's up there that I can't feel physical pain.

It does hurt mentally, though. Don't ask me how a prosthetic can have any form of mental state, but it's there. My mechanic called it a 'phantom pain' when Ed asked about it; he seems to feel it too, but only when it rains.

I do find myself enjoying Ed's hectic life sometimes. I can't deny that my non-existent chest swells with pride every time someone recognizes him and tells other people stories about the guy with the 'awesome metal arm'. Goodness knows he shows me off enough for criminals to start fearing the mean punch my metal knuckles can land, and the frightened looks on people's faces when they make an enemy with Ed only feeds my already way too big ego.

These kinds of things make me think that living like this isn't all that bad.

Until Ed gets into another fight that somehow manages to turn me into scrap metal, that is—in which case I get immense satisfaction in watching my mechanic chastise Ed and whacking him over the head with a wrench in between putting me back together, making quick work of fixing me up so that Ed can hurry off to get into more trouble.

And break me again.

…

A/N: Awkward ending, but it does the trick. I hope you liked it! If you can review within the next twelve hours and tell me where I can do better, you might help me get a better mark! :o)