AN: Late chapter is Late, and I apologize profusely for that... Longest chapter yet! We finally finish up Space Paranoids. This took forever to write 'cause I had no idea what I wanted to happen! XP Anyway, Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don't own 'em, just write ridiculous stories about 'em.

Al stared at the computer monitor. The screen had gone dark right after his brother, Sora and Riku had entered, and they'd lost contact immediately. Leon and the King had been trying to fix the problem for a while now, but at this point they seemed more like they were pressing buttons aimlessly, hoping for some sort of response.

Al looked around the room. Kairi was the only other person there, everyone else had left a little while ago. Mustang and Hawkeye were searching the office for a computer manual, not that they actually knew what that was. But Al couldn't leave until he knew his brother was okay, and apparently Kairi wasn't going to leave without her friends either.

"Dammit!" Leon swore in frustration and hit the keyboard hard.

"Careful Leon!" King Mickey said, "You don't want to break it."

Al sighed, he didn't know anything about computers, but he figured that losing access to one while your friends were inside was probably a really bad thing. He felt so useless, not being able to help, all he could do right now was help defend it if the heartless attacked.

Al suddenly heard footprints and turned towards the entrance to see the newcomer, "Where is he?" a young blond girl came storming into the computer room. She wore a black skirt and jacket with a white top and her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, she had a pair of goggles around her neck. Her blue eyes scanned the room, taking in its occupants and noting the absence of the one she was looking for.

Al half smiled, "Hey Winry, Ed's not here right now."

Winry turned towards the younger Elric, "Well, where is he? Cid came storming through the workshop mumbling about his busted ship and he said you guys were back so I came looking for you."

"Right…the ship…" Al scratched the back of his head and avoided eye contact. Winry had proved her worth working as Cid's assistant and helping him build and care for the ships; she was completely fascinated by the contraptions. And now she was probably going to have to work all night to help him fix it.

"Yeah, you trashed it, I know, I'll beat you all up later for that. Seriously though, where's your brother?" She asked.

"Well, um…" Al pointed at the computer, Leon and Mickey nodded in greeting, then went back to what they were doing.

Winry looked confused, understandably, she turned back to Al, "I was asking for Ed, not some machine."

Kairi took this chance to enter the conversation, "Um, he's inside."

Winry looked at her, "Inside?"

Kairi nodded, "There's a whole world in there, they went in to try and find some information, but, we lost contact." Kairi's words trailed off at the end.

Winry stared at the computer; Kairi couldn't tell how much she actually understood.

Winry turned back to Kairi and raised an eyebrow, "I'm sorry…who are you?"

"Oh, um, I'm Kairi." She shook Winry's hand as she said it.

"Oh, you're that boy's friend! Uh…what's his name…Sara?"

"Sora!" Corrected Kairi with a chuckle, "And don't let him hear you say that."

"Noted." Said Winry, Then she turned to the computer, "So, they're inside?"

Kairi nodded, "Yeah, both of them, and Riku too."

Winry looked at Leon, "Is there any way I can help?"

Leon shook his head, "Thanks for the offer, but I don't think so."

Winry looked like she was about to say something, but didn't get the chance. A loud crashing sound cut her off.

"What was that?" Asked Al.

"Oh no," Leon got up and charged out of the room. He arrived in Ansem's office in time to see Mustang snap his fingers and scorch a large heartless. It didn't die, but it staggered around the room as dark energy dissipated from its many wounds. Kairi and Al came in behind Leon, summoned their keyblades and finished it off.

"How did that get in here?" Asked a frantic Kairi.

Hawkeye went to check the hall outside the office, it was still pitch black, the power wasn't back on yet.

Leon observed the dark hallway, "The security system must be down." He said.

"Look out!" Al shouted, he ran towards Hawkeye and pushed her out of the way as a heartless leapt out of the shadows. He hit it in the side with his keyblade and sent it tumbling into the far wall.

"What do we do?" Asked Winry.

"We have to protect the computer until they get back." Responded Kairi.

"You can hide in the back if you want." Said Leon, pulling out his gunblade and preparing for battle.

"No!" Winry shouted loud enough to get everyone's attention, "I'm not hiding, I can help too!" To emphasize her statement, she pulled out an oversized wrench and swung it at a heartless that had jumped right over Al to get into the room. It didn't do much damage, but it did seem to confuse the thing. Kairi took the chance to hit it with her keyblade.

"All right then." Said Leon, "Welcome to the battle."

Ed had finally found one thing that he enjoyed about the computer world. He didn't know exactly what it was, but he found something very calming about the Solar Sailor Simulation, which was odd considering how many heartless were popping up on the deck. Ed swung his keyblade and sent one flying overboard. He sensed movement behind him and turned around to strike at another one, but almost hit Sora in the head instead.

"Hey! Watch it!" the keybearer shouted.

"Sorry," said Ed, "didn't see you there."

"Clearly," mumbled Sora as he dismissed his keyblade. "That looks like the last of them for now. Hey Tron! How much longer?" He shouted towards the front of the odd ship.

Tron was at the controls and he answered without turning around, "We are almost there."

"Okay." Said Sora as he slid into a sitting position. Ed sat down next to him, Riku was standing towards the back of the ship looking out at the odd view that the simulation provided.

Sora turned towards Ed, who hadn't dismissed his keyblade but was instead looking at it like it was something completely foreign.

"How'd you get that anyway?" Sora asked.

Ed looked at him, "Well, when the heartless attacked our world I didn't know what they were, I tried to defend my home, and I guess I just summoned it without intending to."

Sora chuckled, "Sounds about right." He remembered the time that he'd received his keyblade, he'd almost been pummeled by heartless, lost Kairi and his home, and watched Riku get swallowed by a cloud of darkness. It all seemed so long ago now. He'd gotten so used to fighting for the light, that he'd forgotten how foreign it had all seemed at first. "They only come to people with strong hearts, it's kind of like a compliment, I guess."

Ed nodded, "And Al got one too." He continued. "When we first saw those heartless, we thought they were chimeras or something."

"Chimeras?" Asked Sora.

"Uh, don't worry about it." Ed said. He dismissed his keyblade. And leaned back against the edge of the ship.

"What's the law of equivalent exchange?" asked Sora.

"Hm?" Ed stared at him confused.

"Um, you brought it up before, or maybe it was Al, when I asked about it, you called me dumb." Sora explained.

Ed stared upwards, trying to remember exactly what Sora was talking about. "Oh, right. It's a law that governs my world. It basically means that everything must be balanced. In order to gain something, something of equal value must be lost. It's the founding principle of alchemy."

"Weird…" said Sora, he was desperately trying to remember what he'd learned in chemistry class about balancing equations, he thought it might help him understand what Ed was talking about. But a different idea came to mind instead. "Kind of like how the darkness and the light can't exist without each other, and should always be balanced."

"Uh, yeah, I guess." Ed looked like he was having trouble making the connection.

Sora looked down at the deck of the ship. "I'm sorry about your world."

Ed looked at him surprised, and then turned away as his face sank into a solemn look. "Don't be. Leon told me about you, how you lost your world a few years ago, and had to go on a whole journey by yourself to get it back. And about your friends…" Ed was staring at Riku across the deck, wondering if he was listening at all.

"I wasn't alone." Corrected Sora, "I had Donald and Goofy with me."

"Right." Ed smiled, "But you still had to leave the girl you loved behind-"

"Ack What?" Sora interrupted, "L-love, what are you talking about?"

Ed blinked and stared at him with a confused look, "That Kairi girl, Leon said-"

"AH! Don't listen to Leon! What does he know! We're just friends, good childhood friends!"

Ed was smirking, he wasn't very convinced. If anything, Sora's little rant had only confirmed what Leon had said. I think he's protesting too much… he thought.

"Why doesn't Leon know anything?" Asked Riku, who had come over from the other side of the deck to see what all the yelling was about.

"Oh, Sora just thinks that Leon made up what he told me about him and Kairi." Said Ed with a smile.

"Well, he did!" shouted Sora, "There's nothing going on between me and Kairi."

Riku looked at Sora and then turned back to Ed, "No, Leon's got it right." He said with a smirk, "They even have this adorable drawing in the cave back-"

"GYAH! Riku stop talking!" Sora shouted, desperately trying to interrupt Riku before he had a chance to finish that story.

"If I may interrupt," Ventured Tron who had come over to where the boys were sitting. They'd been too wrapped up in their conversation to realize that the ship had stopped. "We have arrived."

Sora had expected the Central Computer Mesa and the Core to be overrun with Heartless imitations, so the fact that the place was completely and utterly barren, was not sitting well with the boy.

Luckily he wasn't the only one feeling uneasy, Ed stepped forward, keyblade in hand, and looked around, "Okay, where's the welcoming committee?" he asked.

"Perhaps the program is afraid that if it loses control of the imitations, they will damage the data," Tron explained, "so it is keeping them away from it…maybe…"

"Maybe?" Ed asked.

"I am afraid that I really do not have an answer for this." Tron looked concerned.

Sora looked forward, he could see the Computer Core; it wasn't that far. That's where we need to be… He looked around him one more time and gripped his keyblade tighter as he took a cautious step forward. When nothing happened he took another step and then began to walk up the path towards the core. The group followed him, looking warily in all directions, but nothing happened. When they reached the entrance to the core, Sora turned around and looked back.

"That was almost too easy…" observed Riku.

"Yeah…" agreed Sora, he turned towards the entrance to the core. "We're probably gonna have to fight, you guys ready?"

"I'm ready to get out of here!" shouted Ed. And he stormed into the computer core.

Sora and the others followed, expecting something to drop out of the sky and attack them, but nothing happened. The Computer Core, which had once been the home of the MCP, was a large round space with a hole in the center of the floor. Where the MCP had once sat, there was now a large glowing column of light and numbers, and at the center of it, was a glowing mass.

"That is the data." Said Tron, pointing to the glowing shape.

"Then what're we waiting for?" shouted Ed as he ran towards the glowing column. To no-one's surprise, there was a flash when he tried to touch the column and he was thrown across the room.

"And that is the security program…" explained Tron.

"Please enter the password." Came a robotic female voice.

The group stared at the column of light, Sora turned towards Tron, "What do we do?"

"I guess we need a password…" explained Tron.

"Um…" Sora thought, remembering the last password that they had collected for the computer. "Uh, Door To Darkness?"

"Incorrect Password."

"Uh, The Seven Princesses of heart?" Sora started to panic as an alarm began to sound.

"Incorrect Password, threat detected, terminating threat."

There was a crashing sound and a giant creature appeared out of a cloud of data. It resembled the Hostile Program that had been summoned by the MCP the last time Sora had been here. Could it really be another one?

"A Heartless?" Asked Ed, as he backed away from the creature.

"No! A computer Virus!" Explained Sora.

"Okay, that's bad right?" Asked Ed, he really didn't know anything about computers.

"Well, don't let it derezz you!" Sora shouted as he dodged an attack.

The program made some strange computerized noise and then suddenly released huge red lasers that slashed across the room.

"Dammit! What do we do?" Shouted Ed as he attempted to outrun a laser. He failed to be faster than it, but it just skimmed harmlessly over his head. He ducked into a roll to doge another attack and wound up cornered against a wall.

Riku leapt into the air while the program was focused on Ed, he struck it from behind, but the attack bounced off harmlessly. "What is it? Invincible?" he shouted in shock and frustration.

"Input Password." Came the computerized voice from before.

Sora looked up at the glowing column; maybe they could avoid this fight if they could think of the password, but what? "Um, Ansem the Wise?" Sora Ventured.

"Incorrect Password." The Hostile Program let out another barrage of lasers. Tron threw his disk in the air and it struck the creature across its face, but it did nothing.

"Uh…Ansem's really great?" Sora tried.

"Incorrect Password." More Lasers.

"Dammit Sora! Be serious!" Shouted Ed as he leapt into the Air and attempted to strike the program's torso, it swung around its huge arms and struck Ed right in the stomach, sending him flying across the room.

"C'mon, Think…" Sora said to himself. Maybe it has something to do with their world? Yeah, Ansem went there and all so maybe… "Uh…Alchemy?"

"Incorrect Password."

"Oh Come On!" Sora shouted as he dodged an attack and swung at the creature's arm with his keyblade. "Is there even a right password.?"

"Input Password."

"Ugh!" Sora thought it over, what else could it be, there were too many possibilities and not enough time. Ansem would have picked something hard, something nobody could think of…something nobody knew about… An idea suddenly entered Sora's head.

"Input Password." Demanded the program.

"Equivalent Exchange!" Shouted Sora.

The Hostile program stopped in its tracks and the room fell silent. Ed staggered to his feat, and Riku held his weapon warily, expecting the battle to begin again at any moment.

The Security Program broke the silence. "Password Accepted. Welcome Ansem."

The Hostile Program exploded into a cloud of numbers and faded away, and the column of light disappeared into the ground. Tron cautiously stepped forward and approached the glowing shape that remained, floating in the center of the room. He passed through the boundary where the program had been before with ease. He held out his disc towards the light which collapsed into a mass of pixels and flew into the disc. It glowed for a few seconds and then faded. Tron turned around with a smile. "I have your data."

"Finally!" Whined a frustrated Ed, "Can we go now?"

"Hello! Can you hear me!" Came a frantic voice from above them.

"Leon?" Asked Riku, looking up.

"It seems that Communications are working again." Explained Tron.

"Yeah Leon, We can hear you!" Said Sora, "Loud and Clear!"

AN: Ah, such a long chapter and a cheesy password XP. Winry makes her debut, Ed and Sora finally start to get along, and hey, a chapter with no short jokes! And Riku's been too serious lately…I gotta fix that…

Call me pathetic, but FMA is basically the only reason I didn't fail chemistry class, cut me some slack, I had a bad teacher, but I aced the unit on nuclear transmutation, still got a C though…

And apparently there was a bug in the game if you tried to play it on early PS3s, where the Hostile Program would become invincible…Scary. Anyway, hope you liked it!