Hi, newcomers! At the point it's at now, Fullmetal Adventure is basically "finished," but there's likely to be a sequel in the works. However, it ends at a point (on chapter 40) where you could just stop reading if you want to, even if there are some holes I put in to fill later on. It shouldn't be too much of a hassle for you guys either way.

So... I touched up the first chapter a while ago, grammar-wise for a good first impression, but I haven't gone through...ALL of the 25 chapters that don't understand dialogue formatting, so I hope that doesn't drive anyone away. Oh, and there's some illogic here at first...because I didn't originally plan on taking this anywhere...but then I did... so uh...

Just um...be nice.

"There's no such thing as a painless lesson. They just don't exist. Sacrifices are necessary. You can't gain anything without losing something first. Although, if you can endure that pain, and walk away from it, you'll find that you now have a heart strong enough to overcome any obstacle. Yeah, a heart made full metal."

CLICK

"Well, that was the best thing I've ever seen in my life," I yawned, shutting the computer upon which I had watched. "...Again." It took me a fuzzy moment to remember real life existed. I'd been watching that anime for hours, so long that my mind wasn't comprehending anything before that ever happening. Which was awesome

'Sometimes,' I thought, even as I counted that being the third time I'd seen Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood all the way through, 'Obsessions are unhealthy. But so worth it!' I chuckled and blew some of my three-foot long, dark blonde hair away from my mouth. Then I yawned. Again. And with a MIGHTY sigh, I pulled my flowery comforter over me and flipped over to get comfortable for the night.

But... I couldn't sleep. Not yet anyway; I was too busy thinking about Fullmetal Alchemist. It was just so awesome. I hummed thoughtfully, wondering if I should find the manga online again; I'd lost my place before, but it couldn't be healthy to just watch the anime repeatedly, now could it?

Some part of me registered that I was using my un-clipped fingernails to scratch a transmutation circle in to the wallpaper next to me. I'd become quite proud of my ability to memorize them, but I couldn't remember which one this was, and I probably wasn't making it right anyway with how tired I was. 'Oh well, I guess I'll start dreaming now and deal with my mom's wrath in the morning...' My hand slid down the wall as I almost consciously...lost consciousness. As I did so I repeated my practiced—and yet to work—routine of wishing for what I wanted to dream about. 'I wish I could go to Amestris and be awesome like Ed...'

Yeah, my wishes are childish when I'm tired. Well...all the time, really. It's childish that I wish at all, now that I think about it.

Anyway, that's when I fell asleep. And as I did so, I thought I heard our beagle barking downstairs, but I couldn't be bothered to think of a reason for it...

Big flash of bright light...

Darkness...

Mother of all headaches...

More dog barking...

Is that...screaming?

'Ugh, I feel horrible. Did I drink coffee before I went to bed? No...I'm sure I didn't...what did I do again? Ugh, can't remember. Why do I hear gibberish?' These were my first thoughts when I came to—or I thought I was coming to. I might have still been asleep—or in a coma.

The gibberish my warbled mind was referring to slowly grew into a language, then I began to understand it. ('Geez, I must be tired...') It was coming from another room, but I could tell it was something like, "I know, Granny, I'm doing it! You don't have to remind me every time I check on her." I thought I heard a smile in the voice, which was weird, since no one I knew spoke with any sort of smile in their voice unless they were laughing at someone's expense. (Oh geez, I didn't think that would sound so bad.) And anyway, since when could you hear a smile?

I heard the distinctive sound of a door opening and closing, and then footsteps that seemed to get closer and closer. With that came the sound of a dog's un-clipped and uneven toenails hitting the wooden floor in the room: click click click click click click.

'Hold on a sec, my room's got carpet, not wood. And what's Lucy doing upstairs..?' I felt my muscles clench up in that super-paranoid-for-no-reason way that happens when I'm tired and something's amiss. It's kind of like a bunny rabbit when cornered by a dragon, and stuck in a bear trap, then waking up to find it's actually not a bunny, it's a fox, and it's not cornered by a dragon, it was just daydreaming last night, and it's not in a bear trap, it's in bed. (Metaphors. Yes.)

I tried to remind myself that that was always how it was, but my freakish paranoia wouldn't let me relax. So, deciding to ride it out, I just kept my eyes shut tight as the sound of footsteps and claw clicking stopped on either side of me. I heard some random noises to my right that I couldn't place with my mind still out of it, and I thought I felt...what was that? Was someone pushing my sleeve up? My right arm started aching and I grunted unwillingly, thinking I must be hurt in some way... Okay, that was obvious. Was I bandaged up? Was I in a hospital? What happened—did the house burn down while I was sleeping? Was my family okay? DID THE WORLD END ALL AROUND ME AND ZOMBIES HAD TAKEN OVER THE EARTH AND THIS PERSON WAS TREATING A BITE WOUND THAT WAS GOING TO TURN ME INTO AN UNDEAD MONSTER?!

'Whoa, Felicity, chill. Zombies don't exist, remember? You're in a nice, soft bed at home... This is just another dream like that time you heard the devil give you a phone call before you woke up. Yeah, that's what this is. I just gotta open my eyes...'

But before I could do that, and just about 0.3 seconds after I'd grunted, the person next to me gave a sort of squeally gasp and dropped something onto something metal; my arm hurt worse after that, regardless of the numb feeling I had all over, so I assumed what she'd dropped was my arm. Ow.

There was a shuffling noise, and I felt fabric moving on my arm again. I fought to keep my eyes shut then as I felt something like hair brush my cheeks gently. Whoever this person was, they were leaning over me... I fought even harder to keep a straight and relaxed sleeping face, evening out my breathing and waiting for her to get out of my personal space.

"Granny Pinako!" a voice shouted near me—but, I noticed, the owner of the voice had moved away from my face before doing so. Thank goodness. "I think she's awake!" I wasn't sure if I liked the excitement in the voice, but I felt my heart hammer in my chest at the fact that it wasn't one of my family's. Wait, had I heard..?

"I'm a little busy, Winry! Can you take care of her?" I did not like the sound of that. I'D BEEN KIDNAPPED!

I was sure this Winry person could see how fast I was breathing, I—wait.

Winry?

Oh, of course. My dream-wishing had worked for once, and I was having a really really really really really vivid dream.

I didn't really believe that.

There was a moment of silence as my brain mouth shut up to listen for any signs of a knife being drawn or something dangerous like that. But the only sound was that dog panting quietly. Then, "I know you're awake. Your face is all scrunched up."

Dang it, there went the pride in my ability to mask my emotions—not that that was the first thing that came to mind. Actually, the first thing that came to mind was 'Shit! I'm doomed,' but I preferred not to swear too much...or at all, usually.

I swallowed nervously and squinted open my eyes, catching a glimpse of light blonde hair and a white ceiling before shutting them against the brightness of the room. An unwilling groan from the headache that accompanied the brightness made me curse mentally again; an image popped up of an annoyed kidnapper taking out a long, sharp, pointy thing and aiming it at my neck...

My imagination is too graphic for my own good when I'm half-asleep.

"Hey, relax," the girl beside me soothed, her voice becoming more gentle. No way was that Winry, my dreams were never THAT vivid. But my over-active imagination told me it was. Stupid imagination, trying to get my hopes up. "Can you tell me your name?"

I tried to blink open my eyes again, failing three more times before my vision cleared and I was staring at that white ceiling. I rolled my eyes to the right to find a girl who looked way too familiar sitting on something I couldn't see—probably a stool—and looking at me with concern. My eyes widened when I realized the whole world looked...anime. No, not anime, just...clearer. Every color was more pronounced, each hair on the girl's head less distinguishable than normal, so it looked less messy than it probably should've. But not quite anime.

"Helloo?" the girl voiced out, cocking her head to the side like a curious child. I blinked and realized I'd been staring at her weird hair. I felt my face get all hot in that way it does when someone else is staring at me. What a tame reaction for such a situation.

I wasn't sure how to respond to her, but it didn't seem like she meant me any harm. Well, not immediate harm anyway. And I was beginning to calm down now that my eyes were open, so I croaked, "H-hello..." but found that my own voice sounded foreign in my ears.

The girl—let's call her Winry, since that's who she appeared to be, but I was trying not to believe something impossible—frowned as though I'd done something wrong or weird. I gulped again as she stood up and looked pointedly to the other side of what I assumed was a bed and spoke sternly. "Den, stay. Keep her company," 'Winry' commanded, then she smiled reassuringly at me and walked out a door just outside my vision.

I stared at the blank space I'd last seen her in, totally confused. What had I done? This was obviously some sort of freaky, vivid dream; maybe her acting like that was my brain realizing it. Was she going to get something painful to wake me up with? Maybe I should just pinch myself and get it over with (not that that had ever worked). But...

I wasn't sure I wanted to. If this was a dream, I could be awesome! Maybe I could use alchemy and save Nina and fly! I mean, I'd imagined saving Nina in a lot of my Fullmetal Alchemist related daydreams—which took up about forty percent of my daydreaming—but in a dream it would feel more real, right? Yeah, that's what I'd do. But what if I started to think it was real and got all depressed about it when I woke up? Or what if it was real and I died because I wasn't careful enough?!

'Shut up, brain mouth.'

"Aroof!"

I jumped violently when the dog to my left BARKED and leaned up onto the bed, its front paws sitting next to where I think my stomach was under the white covers. Said stomach turned frighteningly when I saw that the left paw was completely made of metal. I had to remind myself that I couldn't get my hopes u—I mean, that this was probably wasn't real and I SHOULDN'T WANT IT TO BE.

I took a deep, deliberately calming breath before looking closer at the metal limb the dog had. It looked so...real. Compared to the anime at least. Even if it looked more, uh, what's the word? Shiny? Colored? It's hard to explain.

"Den" shuffled closer to my face and sniffed at it; by the way his face was shaking I could tell he was waging his tail. I smiled awkwardly at the black and white dog face and tried to move my head away without making him move closer. It didn't work. "U-uh...Hi, boy," I tried, hoping he'd react in some way other than to lick my face; my voice still sounded kind of weird to me. Den cocked his head much like Winry had and made a sort of whining noise at my voice, so I tried again. "You wanna get out of my face? ...Please?"

Den growled at me suspiciously, as though my voice was threatening. I swallowed again and tried another tactic: speaking with an accent. (My mind + the current situation = really dumb ideas.) After a second of thinking it over, I decided to try sounding like Scooby Doo. It didn't really come out that way though; I blamed that I was on my back trying to look down. "You wanna get out of my face please?"

More surprises: He actually seemed to get it and moved his paws off the bed. 'Huh, I must've spoken an ancient doggy language for the anime breed.' That made me smile.

"So you do speak Amestrian."

"Huhwhat?" I gasped in shock when an old lady's voice reached my ears. I looked around the room frantically, but found nothing; then, low and behold, Old Granny Pinako came into view on the side of me Den was.

...I'd never really appreciated how small that woman was.

The old lady smiled in that way...that way...well you know how she smiles—and placed her hands behind her back. "I'm sorry if I startled you. Winry here told me you were speaking some foreign language, but I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to hear you speak good old fashioned Amestrian."

I blinked and rolled my eyes toward the door to see the girl who looked like Winry standing there with a faint smile on her face that made her look a tiny bit embarrassed. It took me a moment then to process that she'd just said I spoke a different language. 'What? Oh that would explain why the dog... But it sounded like English to me, didn't it?'

No... Now that I thought about it, it sounded more like "Vsnexkeshi nagite fergn hlthervz," or...something like that. (Uh, spelling Amestrian words with English letters is hard; not doing that again.) But I'd understood it as English. Weird.

I realized Winry had said something and stammered, "Wha-I mean, sorry, what was that?" Somehow I managed to switch languages at "sorry," but I still wasn't sure how—then again, in a dream you can do anything. But I wasn't going to rule anything out, like the possibility of this being real.

She smiled forgivingly (how do you smile forgivingly?) and repeated herself. "I said, can you tell us your name now? I hate to just refer to you as 'the unconscious girl in the bed.'"

I blinked. "Uh, y-yeah, sure. Um..." I tried to think of whether-or-not there was some Amestrian translation for my name, but nothing came to mind. "It's Felicity."

"No last name—?"

"Now, Winry," Granny Pinako chided in that weirdly soft voice that was always there—unless she was vocally sparring with Ed. "She doesn't have to tell us her full name if she doesn't want to. Can't you see she's distressed?"

I was? Dang it, my face was a book right now wasn't it? Well, I didn't want anyone to go looking up my full name and finding I didn't exist, so I kept quiet.

And, of course, my stomach picked right then to growl like an angry dragon cornering a rabbit in a bear trap.

Winry giggled a bit, and her grandmother smiled in that...way. "Sounds like you're hungry," Pinako guessed obviously. "Well, that's perfectly understandable considering you haven't eaten in four months." She somehow managed to say that nonchalantly, and now turned to walk out the door.

My mouth dropped and hung literally [literally like actually literally not literally like metaphorically literally] inches lower than it should have. (Maybe it was an effect of the almost-anime world?)

Pinako kept talking. "You're in luck though, I just made dinner. I'll have Winry bring some in to you; I can tell you'd rather not have too much company right now."

My brain mouth stayed mostly quiet as the two anime characters walked out of the room, Den following behind after an affectionate lick to where I guessed my hand was under the covers. (I realized I hadn't moved much more than my head the whole time, so the rest of me was kind of numb. Eh, I'd move later.) Once they were gone, I just repeated in my head over and over again—trying to convince myself—'This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real, this can't be real; I couldn't have survived that long without food or anything! This isn't real, this isn't real, this isn't real, this can't be real...'

To be honest, though, that started to annoy me. So I stopped and watched the door until Winry came in alone with a steaming hot bowl of something. My first thought was, "Mmm, Granny Pinako's famous Ed-approved stew." Then I realized I'd said it aloud and froze, watching as Winry carefully moved over to her former perch on the stool and set the bowl on a little table of tools next to me.

I stared at her as she gave me a Winry-like smile, waiting for her to ask how the hell I knew who Ed was and why I considered her grandmother's stew famous. But she just deepened her smile and said, "I don't suppose you want to give me a translation do you?"

'Oh,' I realized, 'I said that in English. She doesn't understand English.' This whole Amestris-has-a-different-language thing was confusing, but spontaneously learning an otherworldly language was better than them all speaking Japanese and me not understanding a word they said. "Um, I just said...that smells like some kind of stew." I smiled all too widely, then unnecessarily added, "Really good stew."

Winry smiled, but she gave me one of her Winry-like 'you-know-something-or-did-something-you're-not- telling-me-but-I'm-going-to-let-you-off-anyway-because -I-feel-sorry-for-you-and-besides-I-can-just-throw- a-wrench-at-you-later' looks. It was funny when it was directed at Edward, but I really didn't like it now. "Yeah, it is. Really good I mean—and stew."

Then she leaned over like she was going to help me up. Which, I realized half a second later, was what she was doing. She reached a hand behind me and started lifting me into a sitting position, pushing the pillow back as she did so. Then she grunted, "You know, you could use those arms to help me."

I blushed in embarrassment and pushed myself up to lean against the fluffiness behind me. "Thanks," I muttered before realizing I could speak two different languages now. (Okay, it didn't hit me until right then, but: So. Awesome.) "I mean, thanks," I corrected myself in her language.

Winry nodded in understanding then leaned back a bit on her stool. "Hey, how long have you been in Amestris anyway? You sound fluent in Amestrian but you keep forgetting to use it, so it can't be your native language, right?"

I swallowed, again, kind of wishing I was swallowing that wonderful smelling stew. "Uh-um, not long. I uh, I studied Amestrian before I came here; I guess I'm just good at catching on to languages."

And there was another I-can-tell-you're-lying-but-I'll-let-you-off-anyway- because-of-reasons-formerly-expressed look. I reeally didn't like it and found myself glancing around the room for any nearby wrenches. Unfortunately, there was one on that table next to the stew. Gulp.

"Would you mind telling me how you got so badly injured?" Winry finally asked after a long and obviously tense silence.

I started. "W-what?" 'English again.' "What?"

The mechanic slash part-time mini-doctor looked at me in confusion. "Granny and I found you laying practically dead in a nearby field four months ago. You were bleeding a river by the time Den brought us there. You don't remember what happened?"

I stared. And stared. Then I realized I needed to be answering her. "N-no, I don't. I-I mean, as far as I know, I was in my bed one moment and this one the next. ...Where was I hurt?" I didn't feel any thing hurting other than my aching limbs and head, but it had been four months, hadn't it?

'Or a few minutes, and I'm really asleep.' I didn't want to believe that though; I hated not knowing the difference between dream and reality. The concept terrified me ever since I'd watched Inception.

Winry frowned with sympathy, and suddenly I was really nervous—yet at the same time, kind of pride-hurt. ('Hey, I'm getting over my shock!') She glanced down at me slightly and sighed a bit. "Oh, you don't know. Felicity, I'm sorry to break it to you, but..uh..." She indicated downwards at...my...arm?

Bad indication: Sinking in.

I looked down carefully and swallowed a squeak. Of course you probably guessed by now why I felt so numb. One word: automail. Now some more words: automail...on both arms.

"What-wha..." I squeaked out in English. Then I swallowed hard and scowled to try and fight back some shocked tears. "Oh, of course. I go to sleep wishing I could be 'awesome like Ed' and wake up with two automail limbs—that's just great. I don't suppose I'm gonna go home and find my little sister stuck in an inanimate object as well?"

As you can see, I hate being shocked. But I was getting used to it already.

And thus, the lack of Fullmetal—or any—logic. I ask you to drag yourself through the first few chapters before judging the entire thing, though. ^-^''