Chapter 1

Alfred kept yelling, thrashing and wailing until the armor grabbed him by his arms, effectively stopping his actions. But the American was well-known for his rock head, and there was no way in hell that he was going to give up even if his opponent was a walking suit of armor. "Lemme down, you armor!"

"I don't know where'd Brother gone to," the armor tightened his lock on the wailing blond, and its helmet clanked as he glared down, "but I'm not going to let you off until you calm down. I need some explanations as to why you're here and not Brother. You can count on my words for that."

Eventually Alfred calmed down, even though it kind of hurt to give up a fight against a suit of armor. Looking down, he pouted and mumbled, "fine, but let me down."

The suit of armor stood still, its lock still not loosening even a bit. "Can you keep your words if I let you down?"

The American could felt the grip on his shoulders loosening a bit, and he dared a glance at the helmet behind his head. "Keep my words then."

Nodding, the suit of armor let the man down, and placed its hands on its hips. Fixing the American with what he supposed was a glare, it spoke, "now if you're not Brother, tell me your name."

Sighing, Alfred rubbed his face with his left hand. "I'm Alfred F. Jones, as I've said before. Now why don't you tell me your name before I start freaking out again? I don't want to be speaking to a suit of armor without a name."

"I'm Alphonse Elric, nice to meet you, Mr. Jones. Or should I call you Alfred?" Alphonse answered, his pose relaxing.

"Call me Alfred, that's fine." The American shrugged and then sat down cross-legged. Raising the steel hand, he clenched it into a fist. "As much as I want to know where the heck is this place, I'd prefer knowing what this steel hand's about."

"That's automail, Alfred, and this place is called Amestris." The suit of armor followed into a sitting position with his hands on his lap, "and the body you're currently in belongs to my older brother, Edward Elric."

The young nation hummed quietly, his frantic mind beginning to relax. Now at least he knew where he was and who this suit of armor was, so he could calm down and think about this more carefully.

"May I know where are you from, Alfred?" Alphonse inquired smoothly, his helmet tilting to the side a bit.

"I-uh…" Scratching the back of his head, the young nation pondered whether he should lie or not. But considering the nagging feeling in his gut that he could trust this Alphonse, he answered it truthfully. "I'm from the United States of America."

"A… merica?" The younger Elric asked, his tone curious. "I've never seen it on the map nor heard about it…"

The young blond gaped at the statement and waved both his hands. "Hello, America? You've never seen nor heard about me – I mean, the USA?"

The suit of armor stood up and walked over to the small cupboard located next to the door and opened its top drawer. Pulling what Alfred assumed as a map, Alphonse rolled it open and pointed to the center of the paper. "We are here; Amestris," and he dragged his big leather finger up, to a far bigger area, "and this is Drachma."

Alfred raised his hand, and had Alphonse been a human he would've raised his eyebrow. "Uh, permission to speak?"

Alphonse stayed quiet for moment, and the American wondered if he'd said anything wrong. He had already opened his mouth to ask, but the hollow sound of laughter cut him off. "Eh, what's so funny?"

"N-no," the younger Elric managed to say between his laughing, and shook his helmet. "It's just… you don't have to speak very formal, okay? You're in my brother's body, and even though I know that you're not the same person it's just weird to see him – or you – speak like that…"

"Oh." The young blond tried not to roll his eyes, because he thought that this suit of armor sitting across him was as strict as Iggy. "Ah, anyway… that area you called Drachma… it looked more like Russia to me."

"I wouldn't ask where that is, because I've never heard that name… again."

The American found no need to gape again, and so he just nodded, letting the younger Elric continue.

"This is Creta, the west of Amestris; and this is Aerugo, the south of Amestris." Alphonse moved his finger again to the east side, and jabbed the area. "This is the desert where a city called Xerxes used to be – they say – and next to the desert is a huge country called Xing."

"Okay…" Alfred drawled slowly, trying to grab all the information he was just given, although he had to admit he had never seen such places in the map. Well okay he kinda… failed… in geography, but for bigger landscape such as the continents he knew where they were. But this? He had never heard those names, he had never seen them in the map, and most of all Alphonse had admitted that he had never heard of America.

Where the heck was he?

"Uh, Al?" He called, something else came to his mind.

"Yeah?"

"Why are you wearing a suit of armor?"

For several seconds an intense silence stretched over them, and the younger Elric looked down. "If I show you, you wouldn't believe me, Alfred."

Now that caught his interest even more. "Come on, you can show me. I won't tell – I'll believe you anyway. There's nobody else that I know of in this place."

Alphonse eventually nodded and grabbed his helmet. Hesitating for a moment, he finally took it off and lowered his body for the American to see. "Now you know," the hollow sound emanated from the inside.

Alfred promptly fainted, not caring if that was a thing that a hero would never do.

Arthur did the only thing that came to his mind – even though he could feel his ears were buzzing – and tackled the taller blond. He didn't care if it was still morning and it was very ungentleman-like thing to do, the most important thing was that he needed to stop his ex-colony from screaming and did something crazier.

He braced himself when the younger nation fell above him, effectively knocking the air out of his lungs. "Oof!" He gasped.

"Hey, what was that for?" Edward yelped, immediately brought his body up again.

"To," the Briton coughed, "stop you from doing anything even stupider." Propping himself up on his elbows, he glared at the kneeling American in front of him. "Now you better give me a good reason why you had to yell at a time like this."

Ed pushed himself into a totally standing position, and put his hands on his hips. "Firstly, because I woke up with my right hand in place again. Secondly, I looked at a mirror and found out that I am not in my body."

The Englishman leveled a neutral look on the standing blond. "You are not in your body."

"Yep."

"Which means you are not Alfred, the young and obnoxious git."

"Yes." As soon as the word came out of his mouth, Ed could feel that he was being crushed to the concrete wall with someone's hand on his neck, making it harder for him to breathe. He looked down to find the blond glaring right at him – actually, he wouldn't be lying if he said that that glare was the scariest he'd ever seen. And the owner of it was pinning him to the wall by his forearm, within a position full of advantage to the shorter blond.

"Tell me where he is, or I promise you that you wouldn't live to see tomorrow." Arthur said calmly, even though the tone of his voice was all but deadly.

The older Elric was glad that he was inside someone's body with enough amount of strength to push back. He tried to shove the forearm that was really starting to choke him, but all he could do was to give himself enough air to speak. "I'll explain," he gasped, "b-but you're not allowing me to do so!"

"I'll stop doing so if you promise not to run away."

Feeling the pressure on his neck gradually lessening, Edward finally managed to shove his attacker away. One moment before they were looking at each other like an idiot and the next moment he was on the receiving end of the blond's wrath. Panting for breath, he looked up to see those piercing green eyes still glaring at him. "See? I didn't run away, okay?"

"Now tell me who are you and what the fuck are you doing in the git's body." The Briton stated.

Edward knew that his chance of escaping were down to zero with the blond across him in a predatory figure. Instead, he sat down on the cold floor and crossed his arms. "I'm Edward Elric, as I've said before. And before you ask anything else; no I didn't do anything to this man you called Alfred, I have no idea where he is and I absolutely have no idea where I am."

Arthur found it hard to believe what he'd just heard. But as it came from the twat's mouth – even though the soul inside was not his – as always, he couldn't really refuse the explanation, as absurd as it was. "…Fine." He finally said, following the taller blond to sit down. "I'm Arthur Kirkland."

"Well," Ed began, "can we just stay like this, not getting at each other's throat?"

The older nation stayed quiet for a few seconds, and spoke again in a calmer tone, "sorry, I got carried away… your yell pushed me too far, so I guess I can't really blame you either."

"That's fine," the older Elric shoved it away with a wave of his hand. "But anyway, can you tell me where I am? Or whatever you can tell me in general?"

The Englishman tilted his head to the side, thinking of what should he say to the man before him. "First off, you're in the USA. Second, you're in my friend – I mean, ally's body, Alfred F. Jones."

"Where exactly is this USA?" Ed asked, curious.

Confused, Arthur provided an answer that he swore was very unintelligent. "In the continent of America."

"To what side of Amestris?"

"…Artemis?" He frowned. This was certainly not going anywhere.

"Amestris, come on. Is this place nearer to Drachma, Creta, Aerugo or even Xing?"

In the name of the Queen and for the holy God's sake… Arthur drew a breath, and then said, "let me just say that Xing is China – or Japan. And Drachma is Russia." He shuddered, but continued nonetheless, "then Aerugo is around Italy, which means that Creta would be me." God, that just sounded very wrong. "I'll say that America is the left of Creta across a huge ocean." What the hell, the Earth is round anyway.

Edward processed the information inside his head. And when he came into a conclusion, he slapped his face and banged the back of his head to the wall. "Then that means I'm on the other fucking side of the Gate."

A/N: Good Lord, the last part was confusing ;A; But I guess… and anyway, thanks for those who reviewed~ What can I say, the plot itself – originally – isn't so thick… but… we'll see, hehe. Reviews please? :)