A/N: Maistyria the first Avatar State is coming up soon, a few chapters :-) Thanks for reading and reviewing

Disclaimer: I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or Legend of Korra

Ayana

Her level of consciousness varied. Sometimes she could only hear jumbled sounds, but other times she could just barely distinguish different voices and words. She could never seem to break through the wall to fully wake up, though. She'd reach for the voices, begging them to help pull her out, but they'd simply ignore her and she'd sink back down again.

Mostly she heard Edward's voice, but sometimes there were others, too. Al was there, and sometimes she thought she could pick out Winry, although she wasn't positive. There were a few other voices here and there, too, but she couldn't determine their owners.

She heard them talking nearby, and felt a warm hand squeeze her own. She could feel herself slipping down again and fought against it. Minutes passed, although how many was impossible to know, and she found herself aware enough to pick out voices. The hand was gone.

"These two people were the last ones we saw in there." Edward was saying. "They both had ouroboros tattoos, and they….. sacrifices and…"

She was having a hard time concentrating on the words again. She listened to the mumbled sounds, trying hard to pick out what he was saying. It sounded important.

Suddenly a new sensation took over her senses. Ed's voice was eclipsed by it, and she could feel it with her entire being. It was an unnatural presence, intimidating and strong. With a pang of realization, she knew it was the same vibe she'd gotten from the two strangers in the lab. The two strangers who'd tried to kill her.

The adrenaline rush finally pushed her over the brink to consciousness, and she jolted upright, breathing fast and hard. Her eyes flew open to see a weathered, tall man in a military uniform. He was wearing a patch on his left eye and stood at the foot of her bed staring at her. He had a sword on his belt. Was he here to finish the job that his friends had started?

She tried to move her hands up to protect herself, to blast him away with air, something., But she found her arms being strongly held down. Looking around, she realized that Ed and Al were on either side of her, each of them pinning an arm down to her bed. Ed was looking at her with frightened concern. The sight of people she knew relaxed her a little, but as she met the stranger's gaze, she still felt apprehension.

The man simply smiled at her. "It looks like your friend is awake. Take care of her, Fullmetal." He turned away and waved over his shoulder. "I must be going now! You see, I sneaked away to get a moment alone with you. Damn bodyguards…" And with that, he jumped out the window to the sidewalk outside and walked away.

The adrenaline dissipated and left her feeling drained of the little energy she had. She leaned back into the mattress and closed her eyes. She forced herself to take deep, steady breaths. The boys released their hold on her.

"Well, Edward, we'll get going now." Major Armstrong and Lieutenant Colonel Hughes saluted and showed themselves out, leaving her alone with the Elric brothers.

"You okay?" Al asked. His voice sounded nervous and small.

"Yeah. Must have been a bad dream or something." She rubbed her eyes with her fingers. "What happened? How long have I been out?"

"A day or two." Ed answered. "You lost a lot of blood, they had to do a transfusion."

The memories flooded back to her. Right, that woman's spears…

She sat up and pulled the hospital gown away from her body to look down underneath the fabric at the wounds. There were two patches on her shoulder. Judging by where they were at, she was extremely lucky the spears hadn't severed an artery completely.

Ed sank into a chair that he'd previously brought over by her bedside. Al remained standing on her left. "I'm sorry. You wouldn't have gotten hurt if we had done what we were supposed to and stayed out of that lab." He looked down at the floor with guilt.

She shook her head and waved an arm dismissively. "Don't be sorry. I wanted to go check it out as badly as you did. Have the police investigated it yet? What have they found?"

Ed looked up and met her eyes. "The building was destroyed. Those two bastards that showed up at the end blew it up."

"Oh." Damn.

"We think we have a plan of action, though. We're going to take a trip to Dublith, to visit our teacher. I'm sick of getting my ass kicked, so a little training from Teacher couldn't hurt. Plus, she might be able to tell us more about the Philosopher's Stone. There's not much we can do here in the city, anyway. Hughes and Armstrong have some leads they're going to follow, so we'll just have to wait on them."

Ayana perked up at that. More traveling meant more possibilities of finding a portal. Admittedly, though, she wasn't looking forward to the train ride. But she found she didn't care much for this city and was eager to leave. The countryside was definitely preferable to her.

"When can we leave?" She asked.

"As soon as the doctors clear you."

"Pff. I'm fine, let's go." She swung her legs around and stood up. She only swayed slightly before regaining her balance. Her shoulder ached, but it would heal on a train just as well as it would here.

Ed laughed at her attitude. "Hold your horses. The train doesn't leave for a while, anyway. We have plenty of time."

"Oh, and we have some good news!" Al piped up cheerily. "Colonel Mustang's lifted the guard on us."

"Finally! That's great." And she meant it. She was sick of being escorted and followed around everywhere.

Later that afternoon they boarded the train with Winry, who had convinced Ed to make a pit stop in Rush Valley for her on the way to Dublith. They passed the time with conversations and playing cards, but after learning that Ed had a habit of hiding cards up his sleeves, the game wasn't fun anymore and everyone's interest fizzled out. Ayana was itching to talk about what had happened at the lab, but she knew enough not to broach the topic in front of Winry.

Eventually her stomach started to rumble. Standing up to stretch and rub her sore back, she announced to no one in particular, "I'm going to the diner car, anyone else want to come?"

Al of course politely declined, as did Winry. But Ed took her up on the offer, and together they made their way through a few cars to the food one.

Having filled their plates, they found an empty table and sat. She tried to pick one that was secluded from other passengers, but the car was fairly empty, anyway.

"I wanted to talk about what happened, at the lab."

Ed stopped shoveling food into his mouth briefly and swallowed so he could answer. "I figured. Those people, who killed Slicer. Did you notice anything weird about them?"

"Besides their matching tattoos? Yeah. They both gave me a weird vibe. It's hard to describe… I can sense people's chi, but theirs felt… I dunno. Larger than normal. I don't know how else to say it. Almost like there was a multiplicity to it. And honestly? It was similar to what I felt at Marcoh's."

Ed pondered what she'd said. His fork was still in his hand but resting on his plate, unmoving. "What do you think that means?"

"No idea. This is your world, not mine. Got any theories?"

"Not at the moment, no." He looked thoughtful.

She leaned back in the chair, disappointed. "Hopefully Hughes and Armstrong find something, then." Edward nodded as he returned his attention to his plate.

Rush Valley, the automail capital of the country, was hot. They wandered the town, following Winry as she ran excitedly from shop to shop, staring in the windows with stars in her eyes. Ayana didn't understand how she could have so much energy in this heat. More power to her, she supposed.

This town was full of gearheads like Winry, and they even went so far as to strip poor Edward's clothes right in the middle of the street just to get a good look at his automail. She and Al stood back, laughing at his plight. Eventually he was able to fend them off. He grabbed his clothes and dressed quickly with an embarrassed blush on his cheeks. He walked back over to them and his face fell as he patted his pockets.

"My watch! My State Alchemist pocket watch is gone!"

A few nearby automail engineers turned at his words, "Sounds like you've had a run-in with Paninya. She's a pick-pocket that targets tourists like you."

"Where does she live?" Ed faced them with a threatening tone in his voice. They pointed off toward a mountain.

"She lives up there, with a man named Dominic."

They didn't waste any time starting after the thief. If Ayana thought it was hot in the city, the path to Dominic's house was brutal. The blazing sun reflected off Al's armor, which only added to the uncomfortable heat. Poor Ed had to be baking in his black long-sleeved jacket; he looked miserable as he walked behind Winry. Ayana grinned to herself as an idea came to her mind.

Moving her hand slightly, she whipped up a small wind and sent it around Ed. His step faltered a little as the air picked up his jacket and raced around his body, but he didn't stop walking. He glanced back at her over his shoulder. She couldn't see his expression, but his eyes held amusement.

Al pointed down the ravine. "Is that her?" They all turned to look and sure enough, there was a girl trotting across a wooden bridge. The pocket watch in her hand reflected the sunlight back at them.

"Get back here!" Ed shouted angrily as he clapped his hands and transmuted the ground, which created a quick, direct route to the girl. Al and Winry took off down the mountain path. Ayana pulled her glider off her back, extended the sails, and flew off after Ed.

She watched from above as the chase continued, finally ending with Paninya trapped in a cage Al transmuted around her. She spiraled down and landed lightly behind Al and Winry. She'd hoped Winry didn't notice her entrance; she really didn't feel like explaining her airbending to her right now.

She didn't seem to, since Paninya's automail leg cannon was pretty distracting. Upon using said cannon to blast the cage open, Paninya made the mistake of running towards Winry, who grabbed her hand and squeezed hard.

"Don't let go, Winry!" Ed cheered her capture.

Edward

They were invited into Dominic's house by his son Ridel. Poor Winry had tried to convince Dominic to take her as an apprentice, but he starkly refused. Dejected, she left the room, and Paninya and Ayana followed her. The weather outside seemed to reflect Winry's feelings as a storm blew in, bringing heavy rain and lighting up the sky with bouts of lightning. Ed trailed after his brother as he wandered the house, not really sure where he was going. He stopped when he noticed a very pregnant Satella, Ridel's wife. At Al's request, she allowed them both to touch her belly.

"It's amazing. You have a person inside you." Ed marveled. His smile disappeared as Satella winced suddenly, obviously in pain. "Hey, what's wrong? Are you ok?"

"I think the baby's ready. Please find Dominic." She winced again. Ed quickly turned and rushed out in search of Dominic, Al fast on his heels. They ran into Winry in the hallway, who was shocked when he told her the baby was coming. They ran around in a panic and eventually the entire house knew what was going on.

Dominic swept his raincoat from the rack. "We can't take her to the doctor in this storm. I'll bring him here." Without another word he turned and left.

Ridel led his wife into the bedroom and helped her into the bed. Everyone else milled around, not really sure what to do. The front door unexpectedly flew open again, and Dominic strode through, dripping water on the floor.

"The bridge is out!" He exclaimed. "I'm going to have to take the long way around the mountain."

Ed looked up at his brother. "C'mon, Al, we can transmute a bridge!"

"Right!" He responded. He was already running out the door. Ed followed him quickly, diving headlong into the rain towards the canyon. He heard footsteps behind him and knew the others were following.

Sure enough, the bridge was destroyed. Clapping his hands, Ed slammed them to the ground to transmute a land bridge to span the gap over the canyon. But it was a wide chasm, and his bridge collapsed under its own weight before it was even halfway across.

He sighed as he stood. This wasn't going to work, it was too far a distance. He turned to Ayana, who was standing behind him. "Can you earthbend a bridge?"

She shook her head, eyeing the canyon with a calculating gaze. "Same problem as you. I could hold a boulder and move it across like a ferry, but I doubt Dominic's horse would tolerate that." She met his eyes, giving him a fierce look, and announced to everyone in general. "We don't have time for this. I'll go." Without waiting for a response, she walked to the edge of the canyon and pulled her staff off her back. The sails opened with a small pop.

"Wait!" He ran after her and grabbed her hand. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at him. "You can't fly in this storm! You'll never make it. You'll get swept into the side of the mountain, or hit by lightning! Or…."

She gazed at him with a stony expression. "Edward. Let me go. I'll be fine."

He hesitated. The rain lashed at them, and the wind whipped their hair and clothes around so much he wasn't confident in her safely navigating through it. But he could tell by the look in her eyes that arguing was pointless. She was going to go whether he wanted her to or not.

So he sighed and let go of her hand. "Just be careful." She nodded, then silently turned and jumped off the cliff. He heard a few people gasp behind him, and they all watched together as the red glider rose into the storm. She disappeared from view as a flash of lightning crossed the sky.