"I'm going to ask a stupid question. Where are we?" Misao asked as she brushed herself off, getting to her feet.

"Dunno. It seems like these portals are randomly opening and transporting us. Envy actually kinda looked surprised when the portal first opened up, like that wasn't his original intent." Ed told her, getting to his feet as well.

"Envy?" Misao asked.

"The jerk that pushed us down a portal, landing us where you were," Ed grumbled.

Looking around, they noticed that they were standing on a large, mostly barren peninsula. In the distance was a green mountain. Hoping that way would lead to civilization, they headed in that direction. However, Kaoru stayed where she had been, staring at the sky, transfixed. Noticing that she hadn't moved, Sanosuke and Miroku asked her if something was wrong, drawing the attention of the others. Kaoru said nothing, but merely pointed her finger at the sky. Following her gaze and finger, they discovered the amazing and bizarre sight before them.

"Whoa!" Yahiko exclaimed.

"Is that a floating city?" Shippo asked.

"How can it be i floating /i , though?" Kagome wondered. Everyone else, except for Ed, said something along the lines of Yahiko, Shippo, and Kagome's thoughts.

Finally, Ed spoke, saying, "That's impossible."

"But it's right there," InuYasha told him.

"Yeah, I know. Alchemically, it should be impossible, assuming it's an actual city. But still, there it is…" he replied.

They were all so preoccupied that none of them noticed the black blobs surrounding them. It wasn't until it was too late that their presence penetrated Kenshin's wonder, so when he said "Look out! We're surrounded!", one of the black blobs had already met up with them.

Everything broke apart like the world was being shattered. After the shattering, the scene looked slightly different. Kagome, Ed, Misao, and Sango found themselves alone, the rest of the party out of sight. There was strange background music playing, and on the ground a little ways away was a strange array. There were four pictures: one each of Kagome, Ed, Sango, and Misao, and next to each picture were two meters. One was red with a white number, the other was blue, also with a white number. Above the four's picture was an empty meter. Next to the four pictures were four smaller pictures: two of a Mantis, labeled 1 and 2, and two of a Gold Beetle, labeled 1 and 2. Once they looked up from the array, they figured out why pretty quickly. Opposing them and approaching were the two Mantises and two Gold Beetles. Looking around, Kagome found a bow and a quiver full of arrows. Misao took out her kunai, Sango readied her boomerang, and Ed got ready to alchemically take their opponents out. They decided on a Scatter strategy, with each one fighting a different monster. Sango and Ed took a Mantis, and Misao and Kagome took a Gold Beetle. Although it all happened at once, it seemed that there were four separate battles going on.

Ed's Battle

"A stupid bug? I have to fight a stupid bug?" grumbled Ed, transmuting his right arm into his typical blade. "This'll be over in no time!" He clapped his hands together, and put them on the ground.

"How d'you like this Stalagmite thing?" he called to the Mantis, who made no real answer for pretty obvious reasons. The sign in the sky was Ed's head, simply drawn with a shrimp-style braid, and it said 'Stalagmite'. On the other side of the sign was a kendama. Ed paid no notice to this or the fact that his blue bar had decreased. He did the Stalagmite attack again, then, seeing that the Mantis still wasn't dead, he went in for the hand to hand combat attack. He slashed with his blade a while, making no apparent cuts for some reason.

"C'mon, you stupid thing! Die already! I have to find Alphonse!" he yelled, annoyed. He was actually pretty worried. Alphonse and the rest had gone somewhere, and they didn't know where. Being that Ed cared about Al more than pretty much anything else, this was a problem to him. If anything had happened to Al... i Okay, I should stop thinking about that. Right now I should be fighting. Fight now, worry more later. /i He resolved to do this and thus began the attack again. The Mantis made an unexpected attack while Ed mused, and thus he was thrown backwards a ways and onto the ground.

"Ow...Dammit!" he clapped his hands again. "Die! We have to find our friends, you jerk!" he yelled at the Mantis before he yelled "Spark Wave!" making a huge electrical ball shock the Mantis. After that attack, it finally died.

"Yeah! Take that you jerk!" he said triumphantly. He looked around to see Sango sitting, looking pretty sick. "Sango, you okay?" he asked.

"I've been...poisoned." she told him. Ed's eyes widened.

"Aw crap. Here, I found this." He gave her a Panacea Bottle, and she was fine. They looked to see Misao beating her Gold Beetle and running to help Kagome.

Misao's Battle

Misao looked at her opponent. The Gold Beetle was fast approaching, and so she got ready to throw her daggers. Suddenly, the beetle flew high up in the air and dove back down, straight at her!

"Ack!" she involuntarily grunted as the surprisingly hard impact came. She was almost knocked down, but not quite. She noticed that the number on her red bar had gone down a little, and the meter had decreased. i What the...? /i she wondered, but her musings had to be cut short as the Beetle went in for the attack again. This time, she dodged it, and retaliated.

" i Kansatsu Tobikunai /i !" she yelled, throwing her daggers at the target. Strangely enough, as she did this, she noticed that in the sky, a bar that had a weird picture of her on one side, the words Kansatsu Tobikunai in the middle, and a sword on the other side. In addition, she saw a few numbers appear near the Beetle, then float off. However, it was still alive.

"Dammit! One dagger should have killed it! What the hell is with this thing?" She kicked it a bit, then tried the Kansatsu Tobikunai again. This time, she noticed the blue bar went down whenever she used the Kansatsu Tobikunai, but when she successfully punched or kicked, the bar went back up. She thought the beetle would be long dead, but somehow it still lived.

An arrow whizzed by her head, followed by a "Sorry!" from Kagome, it seemed that she hadn't defeated her Gold Beetle either. In fact, her Beetle seemed to be winning. It went for her again, and so Misao intercepted with another Kansatsu Tobikunai attack.

"Thanks!" Kagome yelled.

"No problem!" Misao yelled back across the field. Out of curiosity, Misao quickly looked to see how Ed and Sango were doing. Seeing that they were still fighting as well, and very engrossed in their fight, she decided she should really pay attention to her opponent. With yet another Kansatsu Tobikunai attack, there was an explosion-like sound, and her opponent faded away.

"Finally," she grumbled, then went over to help Kagome with her problem.

Sango's Battle

i This should be fairly easy, considering the fact that this thing seems much weaker than most demons that I've fough /i t, thought Sango.

"Let's end this! Hiraikotsu!" she yelled, throwing said Hiraikotsu straight at the Mantis. It took a lot of damage, yet did not die.

"That's impossible! That blow should have killed it!" Sango said incredulously. The Mantis attacked her, and suddenly Sango didn't feel too good. Her picture had turned green, and there were greenish bubbles above her head. Furthermore, her red bar was steadily decreasing.

"Damn! I've been poisoned!" She clocked the Mantis on the head, then did another Hiraikotsu throw. The monster finally died. Sango looked around to see everyone else was still fighting, but she was too weak to help out, so she just sat down.

Kagome's Battle

Kagome looked at the Gold Beetle, wondering what she was going to do. She had a feeling that there probably wouldn't be any miraculous InuYasha-style rescues and saves in store for her, so she was pretty much on her own. Which she liked the idea of, it gave her a chance to prove herself. i I don't really /i need i InuYasha saving me. Just because I'm your mostly average teenage girl doesn't mean I can't fight well! /i With that, she whacked the Beetle with her bow in anger.

"Time to take care of this!" she said, seeing that Sango was already using her boomerang to clock the Mantis she was fighting on the head, and Ed was doing something with clapping his hands together and making things happen. "Purifying Arrow!" she yelled, and to her surprise she saw in the sky what she had just said, along with her face. A split second later, Misao's face came on with 'Kansatsu Tobikunai'. Kagome shrugged, getting back to the matter at hand. She performed several more 'Purifying Arrow' techs, but still the Beetle didn't die, event though it really should have died on the first arrow. She reached for another arrow, since the supply seemed endless, but was horrified to find out that there were none left!

"Oh no!" she exclaimed. She saw that her blue bar was almost completely depleted, with only 1 of whatever the bar represented left. Desperately, she attacked with her bow to fend off the enemy, and, seeing that doing this also replaced the blue stuff one by one, to replace her blue meter. In a last desperate flash of inspiration, she checked her quiver to find that it had once again replenished. i Thank goodness! /i she thought, relieved, then began the barrage of arrows.

The Beetle dodged the first one, and it almost hit Misao. "Sorry!" Kagome yelled quickly, before resuming with a vengeance. She finally cornered the darn thing, and saw Misao running over to give her backup just as she shot the final arrow, and thus the battle was won.

Kagome said "That should teach you to mess with us!" as the winning comment, and everything returned to the way it was before the world was shattered into battle mode.

"Al! You're here! Where have you been?" Ed said, relieved that his younger brother was safe.

"What do you mean, Niisan? We've been here all along. It's you we should be worried about, we saw the entire battle!"

"Wh-what? You mean you were there all along?" Ed asked, stunned. Al nodded.

"We should get moving," Kenshin said, "The enemies are coming back." They all looked and saw this to be true. Thus, the party moved towards the green mountains that they had seen earlier, hoping to find civilization, and so they entered the Gaoracchia Forest.

In the Gaoracchia Forest, the group got hopelessly lost, wandered around aimlessly, exited exactly where they came in, and entered once again. They continued in a different direction, and avoided most of the monsters, but at one point, Kenshin, InuYasha, Alphonse, and Sanosuke had to fight two Undertakers, a Boxing Iris, and two Ghouls. Due to the fact that it was five-on-four, they had to change strategies from the first battle. Sanosuke took on the Boxing Iris, as it seemed like the punching kind of monster, and actually he took a pretty long time defeating it. The Iris was tough, but then, so was he, and his punches won over. InuYasha and Kenshin each took an Undertaker, since they were the hardest. InuYasha took care of his first, even though he got taken into the coffin on the Undertaker's back. That proved that Kaze no Kizu was a powerful attack. Kenshin's various Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu techniques and speed meant that he only took about one hit, but since he kept dodging, it took him longer to take his opponent out. Al had to take on both Ghouls, and did a very good job of taking one out, but the other one had come up behind him when he was finishing off Ghoul number 1. Luckily, Sanosuke was nearby, and stopped momentarily his fight with the Boxing Iris to save Al from taking a Critical Hit.

Al took over from there, and he defeated the final enemy, meaning he said the victory quote: "Niisan! Look! I did it!"

After the battle, they continued to be hopelessly lost. Eventually, after walking on paths that repeated themselves as long as you continued forward, but put you back on the right path of you backtracked, running away from oncoming monsters, being lost, really being lost, and really really being lost, they found another exit. There was a road nearby, and this was a good omen to the lost and tired travelers, who stuck to the road like glue to paper, avoiding all blobs that came their way. The group stayed to the road so much, in fact, that they passed a small town on the water, Sybak, the University Town. Unknown to them, it just so happened that there was another group of travelers that were just coming from that town that saw the lost group, and decided to follow them. However, they remained unnoticed as everyone passed by Sybak and went on to the Grand Tethe'Alla Bridge.

"Man, this bridge is long!" InuYasha grumbled impatiently. For the past hour, the group of lost companions had trudged across the Grand Tethe'Alla Bridge, and in that hour it seemed to them like they hadn't gone any farther now than when they had started. The bridge seriously seemed to be endless, as though it continued on eternally like a line is supposed to do mathematically, only this was not a plane. None of them could think of a bridge that was half the length of this mammoth. Everyone thought that they would all be doomed to walk along this bridge forever. Their pace was lagging, and they seemed to be walking in their sleep. Suddenly, the exhausted group halted. The section of bridge in front of them was raised at an angle close to ninety degrees, obviously meaning that it was blocking their way. Kaoru, Kenshin, Yahiko, Sanosuke, Shippo, Sango, Miroku, InuYasha, and Misao were all dumbfounded by this, while Kagome, Ed, and Al all wondered why there had to be a drawbridge up now of all times. The only thing that they could thank the drawbridge for was they could get some much needed rest from walking forever. However surprised they were at finding a drawbridge, they were even more shocked at the ship that the drawbridge was permitting through. A ship that seemed as mammoth as the bridge itself, a huge cruise line ship that said 'Lezareno Co. Altamira Tourist Transport' on the side was passing through, and after five minutes, only the bow had gotten past. The ship's passing took so long that at the end, InuYasha, Kenshin, and Sanosuke had to wake everyone else up so that they could continue. Although the end of the bridge was not too far from where they were, it still seemed a ridiculously long time before they reached it. Walking again onto a road, the travelers thought they saw the outline of a city in the distance, but as they began to head that way to investigate, they were stopped as someone shouted "Stop!", and a group of people surrounded them.