"If the dream is a translation of waking life, waking life is also a translation of the dream." – Rene Magrite

Chapter Twenty-One:

Reality Crumbles

Annora couldn't help but attempt to repress a shudder as she looked around her warily, surveying the darkness filling the room around her. Somehow, she just knew that she was in the same place where the Gate haunted her.

"Bugger all," she grumbled as she rubbed her arms in an attempt to ward off the chill that crept over her, which ironically had absolutely nothing to do with the temperature of the room. This place gave her the worst case of the creeps ever, and it was all she could do to keep herself from running away yammering like a ninny.

"You seem a little weirded out there," a familiar voice remarked from somewhere behind her, a faint hint of humor touching his tone. "Are you gonna be okay, or are you gonna freak out on me?"

"Shut up, Ed," Annora growled automatically as she turned around to face the alchemist, fist at ready to wallop him a good one before she stopped. Shock flickered across her face as realization hit her, and she immediately took a step backwards to distance herself from the thing disguised as her friend.

"You're not him," she accused, chocolate eyes narrowed as she glared at the Gate creature that had the gall to assume her friend's form. 'Ed' sighed as he ran a hand through his golden bangs, a wry smile on his face.

"I should have known," he chuckled as he shook his head. "You've gotten a lot more paranoid since you first arrived here."

"Well gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I've had several encounters with someone who can change shape at will, and won't die?" the sixteen-year old asked sarcastically as she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the Gate child. He arched an eyebrow slightly at this and gave an odd little half-smile before he shrugged. Annora frowned at the thing's somewhat dismissive response as she glowered at him. She was more than fed up with all of the crap that she had been put through lately, and she was sick and tired of having all of these stupid nightmares about something that seemed to exist only in her dreams.

"Listen here you, I want to know why the hell I keep dreaming about this place," she growled, her patience for anything out of the normal dangerously low. "I want to know why I'm even here in Amestris, and why you keep talking about me not giving you any payment for something that I know absolutely nothing about!"

The fake 'Ed' just kind of looked at her for a little bit before he gave a slight disbelieving frown.

"Are you saying that you truly know none of this?" he asked quietly before he let out a short, sardonic laugh. "Oh little girl, you have no idea of the seriousness of the situation, do you?"

"I'm not little," Annora muttered rebelliously as she straightened up to her full height, making sure that the Gate spawn could see that she was obviously taller than him. He merely arched an eyebrow at her action before the corner of his mouth twitched up into a knowing smirk.

"I say that you are little because you have not even lived a fraction of one of my lifetimes, and your childish ignorance is somewhat amusing to me. Even your little alchemist friend knows more about the world as it really is than you do, although he himself still clings to several childish notions."

"Arrogant bastard."

"That depends merely on your perspective."

"I think I already gave you that."

The Gate creature looked at the girl for a few moments before he directed his gaze upwards towards the black vault of the ceiling that hung overhead. Almost immediately, the flat darkness changed into something that Annora recognized with crystal clarity, and she felt a thrill of fear run down her spine as she stared up at the starry night sky that had replaced the unending blackness from earlier.

"Can you tell me what is it we're looking for? Why do we feel tethered by our physical limits?" 'Ed' asked suddenly, startling the teenager as he kept his eyes locked on the miniscule points of light above him. "Why do we have dreams? Why do we look searchingly towards the stars…?"

"Because… there's got to be more… to what we're already seeing than what there is…" Annora answered hesitantly, chancing a glance up at the stars before she looked uneasily at the Gate being. "There's always something important that we don't notice until it's too late."

The creature wearing her friend's form chuckled suddenly as he turned around to face her, golden eyes twinkling slightly at her answer.

"Well there you go, there's your answer," he stated calmly with a faint smug look painted on his face. "Very good, Annora Thomas. I see that you've actually learned something during your time here."

"Wait, my answer to what?" the sixteen-year old demanded, a confused scowl crossing her features. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You wanted to know why you ended up here, and what you just said was your answer. There are things in this world, and in every other one as well, that people don't notice until their eyes have been opened to it. You are one of the few, and lucky ones, who have been selected by chance… or perhaps even fate, to experience something more than what the rest of your world can claim. As for how you were transported here… a mere hole in time and space, appearing and disappearing whenever it needs to, was what resulted in your arrival."

Annora went white at this, her brown eyes widening in disbelief as she reached up and clenched the object that hung around her neck on a silver chain desperately.

"Are you talking about… a wormhole?" she asked faintly, a faint tremor of fear in her voice.

"Precisely."

"So… I didn't come here through you?"

"No."

The teenager stared at him for several long moments, her face pale with fright at the implications of what the Gate creature had just told her.

"Then what… what about my payment?" she finally managed to ask. 'Ed' gave her a toothy smile that sent a chill down her spine, especially when she noticed that his teeth were pointy like Envy and Greed's were.

"Why that would be what you value most," he said, a slight sneer in his voice. "What you hold the most dear in your heart, whether it be a payment of flesh… or something else entirely. Like your memories of your family for instance… or any memory of your life from who you were before you entered Amestris."

Annora took several steps back at this statement, doing everything in her power to keep herself from running away screaming. The false alchemist noticed her unease and smirked, his golden eyes glinting dimly in the faint light.

"Or, you could never be able to see your friends again."

The teenager froze at this, even though her brain was currently shrieking 'danger' at her.

"Which friends?" she asked cautiously, suspicion flickering across her face as she stared seriously at what currently looked like the boy that she now saw as her friend. The Gate child arched a golden eyebrow before his lips curled upwards into a slow, mocking smile. Annora felt a thrill of panic surge into her system before she allowed herself to say anything else.

"What friends?" she demanded again, only to receive no answer. The teenager opened her mouth to repeat herself, only for the bleak landscape that she was currently trapped in start to break up.

"Just remember this," 'Ed' told her knowingly before he too disappeared along with the rest of the landscape. "Even your so-called reality crumbles."

It was at that point that Annora jerked awake in her bed, her chest heaving as she tried to suck in deep breaths of air to reassure herself that she was alright. Once she had calmed down, she spent quite some time staring uneasily into the surrounding darkness of her room before she was finally able to fall back asleep.

--

"Hey, Annora, are you alright?"

No response.

"Hello, is anyone home in there?"

Annora frowned slightly as she pushed her food about her plate, trying vainly to block out the overwhelming noise echoing in the mess hall. She hadn't slept very well after her last little dream involving the Gate and whatever the hell lived inside of it, and as a result she was dead tired.

"Earth to Annora Thomas. Is anyone alive in there?"

The teenager ignored Ed's sarcasm as she continued to methodically eat the hash browns soaked in gravy in front of her, her eyes held blearily at half-mast. She didn't even blink as the alchemist suddenly waved his automail hand in front of her face, but she did hold her fork up in a threatening manner.

"Ed, if you keep asking me stupid questions, I swear to God I'll stick this in some place that you really don't want me to put it," she growled before she let out a sigh and continued eating. "Just leave me alone right now, I'm really tired."

Ed blinked and stared at her with impossibly wide eyes before he noticeably crossed his legs and scooted several inches away from her with a strangled 'eep!'. Annora muttered an annoyed curse under her breath as she jabbed her fork into her food and left it standing there before running a hand through her bangs and giving her friend a warning glare out of the corner of her eye.

"I didn't mean there!" she snapped before she stabbed at her food mutinously, fixing her disgruntled glare on the unfortunate plate in front of her. "I meant like in the elbow joint of your automail or something."

"And how is that supposed to make me feel better?" Ed shot back. Annora just rolled her eyes upwards and groaned before she let her head fall down on the table with a dull 'thunk', silently wishing that she could just fall asleep right then and there.

Instead, she felt an unfamiliar liquid warmth seep into her underwear.

The sixteen-year old immediately jerked upright and looked down at her lap to see if she had spilled anything, only to find that there was nothing there.

'Oh no… you have got to be shitting me,' she realized in stunned horror, her eyes widening as she silently mouthed a curse. 'Not now. Of all times to happen, not now.'

Ignoring Ed and Al's questions at her odd expression, she shoved her plate at the older Elric as she got to her feet. She needed to find someplace private, and fast.

"Hey Annora, where are you going?" Ed queried. The girl barely even glanced over her shoulder as she headed towards the door leading out of the mess hall.

"Look, I'll just meet up with you guys later, okay?" she said as she quickened her pace and went out the door, and then outright bolted once she was in the hallway. Quickly the teenager made her way to the closest ladies room and ran into one of the stalls. With shaking hands she unbuttoned her jeans and slid them down, looking down at her underwear in the process.

There, right in the middle, was a large crimson stain.

"Son of a bitch!!" Annora hissed shakily as she sat down on the toilet, her hands trembling slightly as she used toilet paper to blot away the worst of the blood. Why the hell did she have to have her first period now?! Here she was stuck in another world with no idea what to use to sop up the blood, and no one to ask for help.

"Oh god, what am I gonna do?" the teenager muttered quietly. She couldn't remember a single word of the Sex Ed classes that her gym teachers had given every damn year in junior high, and asking her mom for help was impossible. Her mother may have only been in China, but she might as well be on the moon for all the help she could give.

Wait a second… maybe there was a woman she could ask for help.

Not even five minutes later, Annora found herself standing outside of the work area where Mustang's office was, silently wishing that she didn't have to be here. The wooden door to Mustang's office was closed, and she could hear someone ranting angrily before a rapid round of gunshots cut him off.

'Great, Hawkeye's busy babysitting the Colonel,' she realized as she winced inwardly. 'I'm so completely screwed now.'

"Hey Annora, what do you need?" Havoc asked as he came up behind the teenager, causing her to jump about a foot in the air before she spun around to face the Second Lieutenant.

"Oh! Umm… umm… ah," she stammered nervously before she forced herself to get a grip. "Well, I need to talk to the Lieutenant, but I noticed that she's kind of busy right now…"

"Is this something that you can tell someone else about, or do you need the Lieutenant specifically?" Havoc asked. Annora shuffled her feet as she grimaced slightly at the prospect, and smiled apologetically at the older man.

"Actually, it's something that I need to tell the Lieutenant."

"Can it wait?"

"Umm… not really."

Havoc let out a resigned sigh as he reached up and ran a hand through his sandy hair before he turned around and headed for Mustang's office, chewing on his ever-present cigarette pensively. Pausing momentarily in front of the large wooden door, the chain-smoker rapped his knuckles sharply on the surface before he opened it and stuck his head into the office. After speaking quietly for a few moments, he was motioned into the office by Hawkeye, who instructed him with something before heading towards Annora.

"Havoc said that you needed to talk to me," she stated matter-of-factly, fixing the sixteen-year old with a serious gaze. Annora fidgeted slightly as she looked up at the older woman, slightly hesitant about what she needed to ask.

"Well… umm, I kind of had something happen, and I need your help," she began nervously, and at Hawkeye's inquiring look she managed to summon up the courage to say what had happened. "I… I just had my period."

The sharpshooter looked at her oddly before an idea seemed to strike her. "Your first?"

Annora nodded as her cheeks flamed a brilliant red from humiliation. "Yeah."

"I can see why you didn't want to wait."

"Uh-huh. Normally I would have gone straight to my mom, but…"

"She's not here," Hawkeye finished kindly as she gave the teenager a sympathetic look. "I see your problem now. But aren't you a little old to be having your first one?"

"My mom told me that she didn't have her first one until she was almost sixteen, so she was pretty late too, but…" the sixteen-year old trailed off as she gave the older woman a pleading look. "If I still hadn't had one by the time she and my dad got back they were going to take me to the doctor to see if something's wrong."

Hawkeye nodded in understanding before she cast a considering glance over her shoulder at Mustang's office.

"I think that we should probably take this conversation elsewhere, seeing as the Colonel doesn't need to hear it," she stated before she gave a small sigh. "We should probably inform Fullmetal, as well as the Colonel, that I'll be taking you with me, and that we could be gone for quite a while."

"Thank you so much Miss Hawkeye."

"Don't worry about it. So, why don't you start off by telling me what you do know about having your period and I'll try to fill in the blanks."

"Why am I bleeding like this? And when will it go away?"

"Oh boy…"

--

Later that day

--

Annora muttered several incredibly foul curses under her breath as she stalked down the hallway towards the ladies room, having just gotten back from the emergency shopping trip that Hawkeye had taken her on, and now armed with several pairs of black underwear with very thick cotton padding sewn into the lining of the undergarment to soak up the blood that was currently leaking from her body. The older woman had also explained to her that this lovely experience would be repeated every month until she either got pregnant, or hit menopause. Not to mention the mood swings or crying fits that might come with said period.

Oh the joys of being a woman.

"Every month, I can't believe that this will happen to me every freaking month!" the sixteen-year old growled as she rounded a corner, only to freeze in her tracks as a familiar laconic voice called out behind her.

"Up to more devilry Miss Thomas?"

Annora spun around to see Mustang leaning up against the wall, his dark eyes watchful. The teenager fought the immense urge to roll her eyes as she shot the older man a dirty look.

"No, actually I'm going to use the bathroom," she drawled sarcastically as she arched an eyebrow, her expression slightly sour. "So unless you really want to study the personal hygiene of a sixteen-year old girl… and consequently have your subordinates think that you're a cradle-robber as well as a lecher, buzz off…" the teenager paused for a moment before her eyes widened and she looked at the Colonel in shock. "Holy crap, I just sounded like you!"

"Critical, deprecating, and witty? Yes I believe you did," Mustang commented wryly.

"Okay, now that's just plain creepy. I think hell's gonna freeze over now."

"You just ruined that moment by spouting your usual teenage idiocy."

Annora frowned slightly as a thoughtful look crossed her face before she responded, and as she did so a slight smile twitched about her lips.

"Critical and deprecating I agree with, but witty? Whoever said you were witty must have been denied true humor their whole life."

"Such as yourself?"

"Ha hah, so not funny," the sixteen-year old muttered with a roll of her eyes. "I don't think you would know a joke even if it danced in front of you naked."

"That would depend solely on whether or not this theoretical 'joke' had body parts that were aesthetically pleasing," the older man commented with a slight smirk, giving the teen cause to slap her forehead in annoyance.

"God you're disgusting," she groaned as she fixed Mustang with a revolted glare. "I'm going to pretend that you just didn't say that. Besides, I was thinking more along the lines of my older brother having been deprived of humor."

(Unbeknownst to them, Ethan suddenly sneezed violently out in the main office while at his desk before wiping at his nose and going back to his paperwork.)

The Colonel arched a dark eyebrow and crossed his arms in front of his chest, fixing the girl with a scrutinizing glower as he made a low noise in the back of his throat.

"I do believe that Satan himself would run pissing in terror from that viper temper of yours," he said finally. "It happens to be quite unbecoming for a young lady such as yourself."

"Then why are you still here?" Annora shot back. "Not to mention why are you talking about yourself in third person?"

Mustang's jaw dropped at her implications, and the teenager just decided that it was probably best to walk away and ignore him. She hadn't come here to get into a verbal spat with the Colonel, as fun as that may be. Although, it was still pretty funny to throw him for a loop every now and then.

"You know, if you want to get in a pissing match Colonel, you'd better bring an umbrella," she called out over her shoulder at the stunned man with a smirk on her face before she entered the women's bathroom. Just before the door swung closed she heard him start ranting about how he was not a wet match. Obviously he had caught the hidden barb in that particular comment.

'Screwing with Mustang's mind should be an Olympic sport,' Annora thought with a soft chuckle. 'Both Ed and I would be winning gold medals every day.'

--

"Hey, where were you today?" Ed asked as he and Al started picking up the books that they had been using. Annora looked up from where she was kneeling down on the floor, mopping up Twilight's newest 'accident', and frowned slightly.

"I was with Hawkeye," she stated simply, returning to the mess that she had been cleaning up. Ed arched an eyebrow as he looked over at the large brown paper bag that the sixteen-year old had brought back with her before he leaned over and picked it up off the table.

"If you were with the First Lieutenant, then why did you bring this with you?" he asked as he started to unfold the top. Annora's head immediately jerked up at the sound of crinkling paper, and her eyes widened in horror before she shot to her feet and snatched the bag from her friend's grasp.

"Don't open that!!" she snapped angrily as she held her hidden period supplies away from the teenage alchemist. Ed looked startled as he stared at the other teen as though she had just arrived from another planet.

"What the hell is up with you?" he finally asked, a faint scowl creeping across his mouth. "It's just a paper bag… unless you're hiding something from us."

"It's none of your business Ed!!" Annora growled as she hugged the paper bag close to her chest. "Geez, can't I have any privacy?!"

Ed opened his mouth to say something nasty, only to be interrupted by Al as the younger Elric stepped in between the two teens.

"Brother, if Annora has something that she doesn't want you to see, you should just leave her alone," the fifteen-year old chided. Ed's face slowly flushed an angry shade of red as he sputtered incoherently at his younger brother while Annora ignored him and stuffed her supplies in her backpack, where hopefully they would be safe from prying eyes. After waiting for the girl to clip on Twilight's leash, the three teens left Central HQ.

The walk back to the townhouse was quiet, with Ed trailing along slightly behind Annora and Al as he fumed silently under his breath. It was unfair in his opinion for Al, his own brother, to side with Annora on not letting him see what was in her bag. She was the one living with them, so she shouldn't be keeping secrets from them!

By the time they reached the townhouse, the Fullmetal Alchemist had made up his mind that he was going to see what the teenager was hiding from him, no matter what the cost.

His opportunity came when Annora took off her backpack and left it in the front hallway before going upstairs to use the bathroom and leave her jacket and sweater in her bedroom. Ed waited for a few moments to make sure that she wasn't coming back before he slowly unzipped the compartment that Annora had put the bag in, taking great pains not to be heard. He had just finished pulling the paper bag out and was preparing to open up the top when…

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!"

Ed involuntarily let out a yelp as he dropped the bag and looked up to see Annora standing on the landing halfway down the stairs, annoyance evident on her face. That annoyance was soon replaced by fear… and surprisingly, embarrassment, as the teenager turned a very nasty shade of white, her eyes riveted down on the contents of the bag that had spilled out when Ed had dropped it.

The teenage alchemist looked down at the several somewhat bulky pairs of black underwear that lay strewn about by his feet and felt an ashamed blush bloom across his face as Annora quickly went down the remaining stairs and wordlessly swept all of the undergarments back into the bag. She refused to look at Ed as she grabbed her backpack and threw it over her shoulder before she practically sprinted back up the stairs with the bag in hand, and the sound of her door slamming shut reverberated throughout the entire house.

Ed stood there for several seconds, feeling like a total ass, before Al came in from the backyard where he had been out playing with Twilight. The possessed suit of armor noticed that his sibling was standing by the stairs with a guilty look on his face, and immediately suspected that something was up.

"Brother, what happened?" he asked as he approached the young alchemist. Ed grimaced as he turned around to face Al, silently wishing that he hadn't been so impulsive.

"... Annora's going to kill me," he said quietly.

"Why?"

"You don't want to know."

--

Annora felt like screaming as she buried her head in her pillow, her hands shaking as what had happened downstairs kept replaying in her mind's eye like some perverse clip from a horror film.

What in the hell had possessed Ed to go through her backpack when she had specifically told him not to?!

The sixteen-year old let out a low moan of aggravation and humiliation as she pressed her pillow closer to her face, the thick stuffing of the pillow muffling the sound significantly. Right now all she wanted to do was just stay up here in her room and hide until the apocalypse came to town. Maybe by then she wouldn't feel like she was about to die from mortification.

It took a while, but the teenager slowly calmed down as she lay there on her bed, and after a while she fell asleep. She must have been out for at least an hour or so when she was suddenly jerked awake by someone knocking on her door.

"Hey Annora, dinner's ready," Al said quietly from the other side of the door. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said as she stretched out a bit, wiping the gunk out of her eyes as she sat up. "I'll be down in a minute."

The sixteen-year old waited until she heard the animated suit of armor's footsteps recede down the hall before she got out of her bed and grabbed her brush from the bedside table, running it swiftly through her sleep-tousled hair. She may have calmed down a bit after Ed's little escapade this afternoon, but she was still far from happy with the alchemist.

Annora let out a frustrated sigh as she set her brush down and left her room, padding down the stairs quietly in her stockinged feet before she entered the kitchen. Once she saw what was on the table she froze in her tracks, her eyes wide in disbelief. Seeing the look on her face, Ed let out a nervous chuckle as he rubbed the back of his head.

"You cooked?" she asked hesitantly as she took a seat, eyeing the plate of spaghetti and sliced up sausage in front of her dubiously.

"Well, you cook dinner pretty much every time that we're here, so it seems fair that I should take a turn every once in a while," Ed admitted sheepishly. "Besides, you were asleep. It seemed kind of rude to wake you up."

Annora arched an eyebrow as she looked at her friend suspiciously, and the teenage alchemist could tell that she was probably thinking something along the lines of 'and you're trying to do something nice to apologize for this afternoon' as she stared at him. The girl turned her gaze down to the plate of spaghetti in front of her, and the corner of her mouth quirked up into a small smile as she took a precautionary sniff.

"Well, it definitely smells good," she admitted. Ed grinned as he speared a chunk of sausage and wrapped some spaghetti around his fork before stuffing it in his mouth. Annora had done pretty much the same thing, and not noticing the odd look on her friend's face, put the food in her mouth.

Almost immediately she realized her mistake as a foul taste spread across her tongue, and the teenager had to force herself to swallow. Her eyes watering at the vile flavor that her mouth had just been forced to endure, she pushed her plate away from her before she looked across the table and found that Ed was having similar problems.

"What the hell did you put in this?" she finally sputtered as she reached for her water glass and drank as much as she could in an attempt to wash out her mouth.

"I followed the recipe on the back of the box!" Ed protested. Al looked in between the two teens before he silently decided that it was probably a good thing that he couldn't eat at the moment.

"Ed, that tasted like you put week-old roadkill in the sauce," Annora grumbled mutinously, her lips pursed together thinly as she eyed her plate suspiciously. "Okay, new rule. Ed, you are no longer allowed anywhere near the kitchen while I'm cooking."

"What?! Why?!" the alchemist protested as he glared at the girl, who merely arched an eyebrow challengingly as she stared levelly back at him.

"Because you'll probably poison us all," she stated matter-of-factly as she gave a slight roll of her eyes and stood up, pointedly ignoring her friend's loudly sputtered protests. "Anyways, nor are you to attempt to cook in the event that I cannot. Now excuse me while I go sacrifice this spaghetti to the garbage disposal before it jumps off my plate and tries to eat my face off."

Al chuckled softly at the older girl's statement as she left to go scrape off the contents of her plate into the sink, only to be silenced by a nasty glare that Ed shot in his direction before he too left to dispose of his evil concoction.

"Alright, who's up for pizza?" Annora asked after she and Ed made sure that they had killed the evil that the Fullmetal Alchemist had created in the kitchen, as well as prevented its return by thoroughly scrubbing the pots that he had used to make the mockery of food that they had mistakenly consumed.

Given the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that an hour later the three teens were seated at a nearby restaurant ordering dinner.

--

Ethan sat slumped over at his desk, eyeing the stack of documents that still needed to be signed before he could get rid of them with obvious abhorrence. He had never given it much thought before, but now he was absolutely positive that he hated, loathed, and despised paperwork in any way, shape, or form. Mumbling a few creative curses under his breath, the twenty-year old slowly resumed signing the dreaded files.

Havoc apparently heard some of his grumbled threats, because he started laughing as he looked over at the younger man from his desk.

"Is it that bad today?" the chain-smoker asked, and grinned as Ethan pulled a face at the little mound of paperwork before him.

"I just never thought that being in the military would mean that I'd have to be a desk jockey," he muttered sourly as he shoved the stack of papers away from him. "I thought that there would be more… y'know, action."

"Well when Scar was running amuck in Central and East City last year, things were plenty interesting," Havoc commented as he took a long drag on his cigarette, his expression pensive. "Between protecting the Colonel, and Fullmetal, all of us got to see some action. Not to mention the past three months have been a little more interesting too, ever since that girl Annora arrived."

Ethan blinked a couple of times in surprise before he forced himself to ask a question that probably wasn't too discrete. "Okay, who the hell is Sca-"

It was at that moment that the hallway door burst open, and a fairly large man came in while laughing a deep, booming laugh as he spoke, causing Havoc, Fuery, and Falman all to bolt up from their chairs and run screaming around the room like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.

"Gentlemen, I wish to welcome you to this wonderful establishment!!" the man boomed out loudly, and Ethan could clearly see an assortment of pink sparkles attached to wires on his uniform springing out around him, as well as a hideous blonde wig plastered to his head, along with an equally hideous mustache. "This method of welcoming new soldiers has been-!"

Havoc, at one point or another, had skidded to a stop as he noticed something off about the mustachioed man, and his blue eyes narrowed as he stalked up to the man and cut him off with one quick smack across the face.

SLAP!

"You know, you've got a real sick sense of humor Breda," the chain-smoker drawled as he leveled a dirty look at the usually red-haired soldier, who gave an unashamed grin as he started pulling off his costume.

"Hey, you've got to be prepared around here," Breda said, noticing Ethan's confused look as he stared at the older soldiers like they had all lost their minds. "You never know when the Major's going to strike. Today's Armstrong drill will now cost you about 100 sen each."

"Not likely," Falman said as he too came over and slapped Breda upside the head.

"Who the hell is Major Armstrong?" Ethan finally asked as he arched an eyebrow questioningly. "Not to mention why would you do a drill about him coming in here?"

"Well, you see… the Major's a bit… eccentric, I guess you could say," Havoc admitted as he rubbed a hand up against the back of his head. "He's a great commanding officer, but…"

"He's a little out there," Ethan finished bluntly as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"You got that one right. Kid, the best advice we can give you is that if you see the Major, run," Breda said seriously. The Private opened his mouth to say something just as a giant of a man entered the room from the hallway, and everyone in the room froze.

"Hello gentlemen, is the Colonel here?" the almost completely bald man boomed, and Ethan felt his heart drop straight down into the pit of his stomach as he saw pink sparkles dance around the man's head.

"He's not here right now, sir," Fuery stated hesitantly as he stared up at the gleaming behemoth, shifting nervously from foot to foot. Armstrong gave a tuneless grunt of ascent as he turned around to head back out the door, only for his eyes to land on Ethan's tousle-haired form as the young man suddenly became the very picture of efficiency.

"Ah, I see that you have a new addition here," the Major stated as he looked at Ethan, who started to sweat nervously as he kept his head down, scribbling his signature frantically down onto the paperwork before him.

"Yeah, Private Thomas just started here three weeks ago," Havoc stated calmly, even though he noticed that the younger man flinched slightly at the mention of his name and proceeded to hunker down even further in his seat.

Unfortunately this didn't save Ethan in the least as he found himself suddenly hauled out of his chair and held aloft by an impossibly muscular arm before he was pressed up against a set of bare pecs that could have doubled as a weapon of mass destruction… self-destruction that is.

'How the hell did he get his shirt off so fast?' the private wondered dazedly as Armstrong loudly burst into tears.

"AH, I FEEL SO HONORED TO WELCOME YOU INTO THIS FINE INSTITIUTE OF MILITARY LEARNING, YOUNG MASTER THOMAS!!" the giant man boomed, nearly deafening Ethan, and everyone else in the room, in the process. "I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT MY COLLEGUES AND MYSELF CAN GUIDE YOU IN THE PROPER WAY TO SERVE OUR STATE GRACEFULLY AND LOYALLY, SHAPING YOUR FINE CAREER AS A SOLDIER!! I FEEL SO MOVED TO BE REWARDED WITH THIS WONDERFUL OPPORTUNITY!!"

"Yeah, well I'd be incredibly moved if you stopped crushing me to death," the twenty-year old gasped weakly. Unfortunately for him, the Major seemed to be temporarily deaf to anything but his own proclamations.

"FEEL THESE MAGNIFICENT MUSCLES, HOW THEY PULSE WITH LOYALTY FOR OUR FINE COUNTRY!! THIS TRULY ELEGANT TECHNIQUE FOR INSPIRING LOYALTY IN OUR NEW RECRUITS HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY FOR GENERATIONS!!"

"Uh Major, I think Eric's turning a little blue there," Fuery pointed out tentatively, indicating to the younger man, who looked like his soul was currently trying to crawl out his mouth in an attempt to escape Armstrong. The massive man immediately dropped Ethan's limp form, and it took a few moments for the twenty-year old to stagger to his feet, looking decidedly green around the gills.

"ARE YOU ALRIGHT YOUNG MAN?!" the Strong Arm Alchemist asked as he looked at the downed man. Ethan cringed at the giant's booming voice, but forced a strained smile onto his face as he craned his neck to look up into Armstrong's face.

"Yeah, just peachy," he muttered as he reached out and started to rub ruefully at his horribly abused spine. Armstrong stayed behind a little bit to spout off some more junk about different things being passed down 'through the Armstrong family for generations' before he finally left, fortunately closing the door behind him.

Ethan stayed standing in the spot that Armstrong had dumped him in for a few more moments to make sure that the large man wasn't coming back before he whirled around and grabbed Breda, who was unfortunately the one closest to him, by the front of his uniform, pulling the Second Lieutenant up close to his face.

"Don't you ever do that to me again!!" he snarled furiously, a slightly less than sane look in his eyes as he glared menacingly at the stout redhead, his hand fisted tightly into the older man's uniform.

Havoc and Falman both started to snicker at the twenty-year old's obvious discomfort, only for the younger man to whip around and glower at them with a wild look in his hazel-green eyes.

"Shut up Havoc!!" he raged, baring his teeth in a purely animalistic gesture. "You too Falman!! I know where both of you sleep!!"

This only caused the two higher-ranking soldiers to laugh even harder, Havoc clutching his stomach as he tried not to wet his pants while howling with laughter, while Fuery just looked on uneasily as 'Eric' slowly turned an unhealthy shade of red. He had a rather bad feeling about this…

--

The next morning everybody was surprised to find that First Lieutenant Jean Havoc and Warrant Officer Vato Falman were both tied to a set of wooden poles standing out in the middle of the snowy parade ground in nothing but their underwear, and liberally covered in what appeared to be barbeque sauce and feathers.

Colonel Roy Mustang nearly wet himself laughing when he caught sight of his two shamefaced subordinates, and promptly went to fetch Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes and his ever-present camera in order to capture the event, as well as preserve its memory.

Not too long after this, Fuhrer Bradley came out of his office to see what all the fuss was about, and promptly feel over laughing. The two men were soon released once the MP's had elbowed their way through, and were rather unsuccessfully accused of trying to kill the Fuhrer by making him laugh himself to death, before they were finally released so they could put some actual clothes on.

--

Heh, now we all know where Annora's perverse sense of humor came from. Of course Ethan would deny all accusations…

Sorry this took so long to get out, but I've been kind of busy. And now with the evil that we all know as 'school' is just around the corner, well I'm slightly pressed for time. So I'm going to post the next chapter either tomorrow or the day after since I got it all typed up, and that way you guys get more than usual.

My thanks to HeeHeeHee01, FreeCream, anime.storm, richard9311, Cantata, Zilo Sugarpill, Lulu4ever, writingdreamer13, Shadowess 88, MyDarkSideHasAWayOfHerOwn, tiggeranddash, Mei Fire, agent000, DoIMakeMyselfClear, arbl, White Alchemist Taya, Phantom SunsSong, Pawz4thought, elena 21, and Awelsomes for all reviewing on the last chapter.

See you all the next chapter!

Addition: Whoops, I forgot to put a little mention here on Annora's comments to Mustang earlier. The 'Critical, deprecating, and witty?' part was a play on a scene from fabula-propono's truly excellent Harry Potter fanfic "Living A Legend", which is one of the few Harry Potter fanfics out there that is actually good. Sorry for forgetting that bit. I was kind of in a hurry last night typing this chapter up and trying to post it before it got too late, and I forgot to put this mention down. Thank you auPHE for ponting that out to me.