Rated T for mild Swearing, Violence, and just plain weirdness. You have been warned.

Fullmetal Alchemist belongs to Hiromu Arakawa. Fighting Panties!

All orignal characters belong to me. If someone in here sounds like someone you know, it wasn't on purpose.

Special Thanks to my allies in the pen. I write for my friends!


"I am Heavy Weapons Guy. And this is my weapon."

No, you're not reading the wrong story. That was the video I was watching. I would be playing the part of a Russian sailor later today, so I was trying to get my voice down.

Ah, sorry. You've got no clue who I am, do you?

My name's Matthew Jones. I'm a fantasticly awesome and handsome young actor with a ton of money.

Heh, I wish.

I'm a 17 year old High School student with an interest in acting and about thirteen dollars at his disposal. My name really is Matthew Jones though, so don't think I lied about everything.

Anyway, I was in my room, listening to the Heavy talk about Sasha while I got dressed. Today was Thursday, which meant that the Drama club was going to practice the play that they'd supposedly be doing next week. I say 'supposedly' because our club had never actually put on a play. Everything we tried, one of the leading cast members got sick or had to leave suddenly, and since we didn't have enough people for extras, the play would be canceled.

This time would be different, however. Our club now had enough people for understudies for the main cast, so short of a zombie apocalypse, the show would go on.

Not that you probably care about all that. Let's move on.

"Matthew!" My mom's voice filtered through the door. "Dallas' here for you!"

Crap. I'd forgotten he was coming early. "Hold him off for a second! I'm almost ready!" I pulled a black tee on, blowing the errant strands of black hair out of my face. Mom would be on me about getting it trimmed soon.

I sped down the stairs, stuffing my keys and wallet into my jean pockets. I lingered on my cell phone's wallpaper for a second—it was me and my friends in cosplay. I was Ling, what with my long hair and somewhat Asian appearance, Dallas was Ed, and Serra was Winry. You'll meet one of them soon, and the other later.

As I passed my mom, I gave her a fist bump. It was a tradition we'd started after I got too old to be kissed. "I'll grab a sub on the way," I said, pulling my hair back in to a ponytail.

Mom nodded, handing me my backpack. "There's a note in here for Serra. Tell her to give it to her mother. It's the name of the magazine she was looking for."

I gave her a thumb up, and walked neatly into a wall instead of around the corner like I should have. A slight clapping from behind me while I pocketed the paper, followed by slipping my feet into sandals. One last look back, a salute, and I was out the door.


"'Eeeey! Wazzup, short stuff?" Dallas was leaning against one of the posts holding our porch ceiling up. He was a pretty tall for 17—but then again, everyone looks tall when you're 5'5". Short blond hair, blue eyes, tanned skin… It sounds like I'm writing a fake profile for a dating site, but out of the three of us, he looked the most like an actor.

I gave him a fake jab to the stomach, complete with smile. "Good as always, you overgrown desert giant. Come on, Serra will have a fit if we keep her waiting."

Luckily, we lived close enough that we could walk. Dallas' car had been the victim of a drunk driver in the parking lot. No-one had been hurt, but the car would be in traction for another week at least. I, on the other hand, had no driver's license. I was happy to use the bus and my legs for transit, thank you very much.

We arrived at Serra's house without anything more dangerous than a couple of birds crossing our path. Mind you, those were some pretty mean-looking birds, but they were robins, and I doubt they had seen any Hitchcock movies recently.

I walked up to the door and knocked. A few seconds later, a 9 year old girl answered the door.

No, that's not Serra. This is Annie, her younger sister. Like her sister, she had sandy hair and brown eyes. "Oh, hi Matt!" She waved at Dallas, who was waiting at the sidewalk. "Big sis'll be down in a sec. Wanna wait inside?"

"No thanks. We'll just wait out here." I started to walk over to Dallas, but remembered what my mom had said earlier. I pulled my backpack off and searched through the pockets until I found the paper. "Actually, is your mom still home? I have a note for her here…"

"Ah! I'll take it to her when she's done. She's busy writin'." I shuddered, remembering the last time I'd interrupted Mrs. Gorski when she was creating.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting!" Serra slid down the banister, landing gracefully in front of me.

I gave her a thumb up. "See, if I tried to do that, I'd be getting a ride in an ambulance right about now."

"That's 'cause you've got all the grace of a drunk giraffe." She stuck her tongue out at me. I resisted the temptation to make a grab for it.

"Hey, that's an insult to giraffes everywhere."

"Whatever. Come on, let's not keep Dallas waiting."

I followed her out the door, pausing to wave at Annie. With that, our journey to school began.


However, school is usually boring, so we'll skip it. Instead, let's move forward to the play practice. Our director had made a change in the script, so I was entering earlier. Unfortunately, explanations were not his strong suite, so I was left in a bit of a daze.

I pinched the bridge of my nose—a habit I'd picked up whenever I was tired and confused. "Right, so I come in after Dallas finishes his line. After that, I-"

A high pitched screech blocked all entrances and exits from my brain. It was as if the very bones in my head were screaming for release from their muscle prisons. I clutched my skull, trying to keep it from flying apart. A dull pressure on my right side barely registered that I'd fallen before the screech tore it out. I squeezed my eyes tighter shut, hoping for something, anything to make it stop.

Black. Black everywhere. Then white. The noise was gone, replaced with a silence you could cut with a knife. Maybe a sharpened spoon, like one for grapefruit. I was standing, hands at my sides, and completely surrounded by pure, white, nothing.

I looked around, my brain slowly adjusting. My surroundings seemed familiar, but I couldn't quite place them yet. Nothing but white to the left, white to the right, a dark shadow over me…

Wait, what?

I spun around, expecting a giant monster or obsidian monolith and a bone. What I didn't expect was a giant stone slab floating a couple of feet above the ground. The surface was covered with, for lack of a better term, arcane symbols and otherworldly geography. A few minutes of staring were all I needed to come to a conclusion.

"Ah, that's it," I said out loud, "this is the Gate of Truth."

I smiled, glad I had figured that out so quickly. Suddenly, it accrued to me that, as a member of the real world, I probably shouldn't be standing in front of one of the largest plot devices in a popular, and fictional, manga. Of course, I proceeded to act as any intelligent and logical human being would in a similar situation.

"GAAAH! WHAT THE HELL?" Somehow , my words reverberated in the empty space; but I was more concerned with the fact that I had apparently had some sort of mental breakdown in the middle of practice, and was currently in about as much trouble as any one person could be in at the moment.

The Gate slowly started to open, and the many arms of the Gate creatures snaked their way toward me. I stood corrected— now I was in trouble.

Even though my human brain knew there was no escape, my lizard brain had other ideas. I turned around, and ran as fast as I could.

I ran.

And I ran.

And after about three seconds, the arms caught me.

In case you've never had this particular experience, allow me to say that being grabbed and lifted by all four of your limbs is among the most panic-inducing things that can happen to you. If the things doing the grabbing happen to be thousands of long, impossibly shaped arms that are controlled by shadow beings intent on doing unknown, but defiantly unwanted, things to you… That's just a bonus.

Within moments, I was mere inches from the Gate, with no sign of stopping. It was only when I felt one of the hands on the side of my mouth that I noticed that I had been screaming the entire time. By reflex, I bit down on the hand. Surprisingly, it drew back, and the others relaxed slightly. Just as I felt like I might have a chance, the hands redoubled their efforts, and brought reinforcements. I was dragged backwards into the Gate.

Oh, and it closed shortly afterwards, leaving me with only glowing red eyes for light. Yay.

Strangely, I didn't feel any pain. Maybe the Gate babies weren't going to take me apart piece by piece like a LEGO building. Maybe it'd be like in fan fiction, where the Gate is just a way of transport, and I'd come out the other side able to use alchemy.

Maybe they're just waiting for me to relax so they can force their way down my throat.

Who thought it would be that last one? If being picked up by your limbs blah-di-da was one of the most panic-inducing experiences, having shadow babies make a dramatic entrance through your pie hole is another. Since I didn't explain what it tasted like when I bit the hand before, I'll do you all a favor and not got into detail on this either. Suffice it to say I'll never eat oysters again, and let's move on.

There was no way I'd be coming back after that, so I decided to give the remaining Gate babies the fight of their life. I started flailing every part of myself that could move, trying to throw the creatures off. Amazingly, I managed to turn my head to the right before it was grabbed again, but it was enough to see something I never expected to see.

There was a girl—couldn't have been much older than myself—to my right, struggling against the same creatures. And she was looking right at me.

Our eyes met, the same surprised expression mirrored in our faces. I didn't know why, but I knew that there was a reason we were within eyesight of each other in a place without light. I started forcing my way toward her, and she did the same.

It felt like years pasted, although I'm willing to bet it took a couple of minutes instead. Either way, we managed to get almost within reach of each other. Literally, our hands were less than an inch away from each other.

The Gate babies had different ideas. My hand was being pulled back, and she was moving farther away again. Gritting my teeth, I redoubled my efforts. It felt like I was pulling against a giant rubber band: if I let up for a second, I'd be pulled back. However, I was making progress again. Drawing on strength I didn't know I had, I broke my arm free from the grasping hands, and my open palm made contact with hers. Reflexively, I clasped her hand, and she did the same.

What happened next was a bit… Odd, to say the least. The Gate babies let go, and for a second it was like we were floating. The next second, we were being pulled in opposite directions. It wasn't the kind of pull the Gate had used, though. This was more like a giant vacuum was pulling me in, and a similar one was pulling her. My arm felt like it was going to pop off, and my fingers were going numb from the stress. Our hands went from being clasped together to holding on with only our fingers, and that was rapidly slipping. I looking her eyes again and saw in her face the same thing that I was thinking.

We weren't going to make it.

I feebly tried to smile, my grin falling flat on its face as the pain overwhelmed my ability to hold on, and our grip was broken.

The last thing I saw was her being sucked into nothingness before I followed suit.


Heta~Kasha: *Hands on his hips* Yep, that's a good place to stop.

Matthew: You jerk! You can't stop there! What happens next? We don't even know #SPOILER!#'s name yet!

Heta~Kasha: Please read, review, and return for the next installment! Same bat-time, same bat-station!