I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist or Seven Deadly Sins. Please don't sue.

•••

Ed swallowed down his panic. It wasn't like the blond kid could smell fear. If he just kept calm, maybe this could end without anything bad happening.

"Are you feeling okay?" King asked, a tiny bit of worry in his voice.

"Take a look!" The blond pumped his fist around in circles. "Once I belted Ban, I felt as good as new!"

Diane looked doubtful. "Then how did he move like that before he beat Ban?"

She was thinking aloud, but it was cause for concern. Eds brow furrowed a little. Despite not wanting to stand out, he couldn't help but hiss; "You mean this isn't normal?"

Before Diane could answer him, though, Meliodas placed his face very close to hers. Her face flushed and she started stuttering as he asked what was wrong.

"Are you stressing out about your next opponent?" The short blond seemed not to notice her blatantly obvious feelings towards him as he continued. "Well, your opponent does look pretty tough..."

Her eyes widened as she turned around, panic in her next words. "Oh, no! I have to go! Here, Captain!"

She removed what Ed assumed was Elizabeth from her cleavage and plopped her in the blonds hands, wearing nothing but the frilly blue tie that had been neatly knotted around her neck. Ed looked away, then watched Diane enter the arena and missed Meliodas' pervy actions.

Elizabeth let out a loud shriek, but when the alchemist looked back, she was simply sitting on Meliodas' hands, bright red and clutching the blue fabric to her tightly.

"Meliodaf!" Diane shrieked suddenly from the arena.

•••

There was a lot of dither in the arena. After a whole kerfluffle about buttons and gentlemen, the two finally got down to buisness.

And Ed had to admit, he really was looking forwards to this fight. Despite being new to this world, very disoriented, and with a slight headache, he was enjoying this. The displays were so incredible; you'd never see anyone giving anyone else the beatdowns he had seen last fight, even with alchemy.

Yet, if these were the strongest, and their strength was physical...

How the Truth was he supposed to take that with him?

•••

Howzar (Ed gathered that that was his name from the comments of the anatomically incorrect announcer) let loose with a flurry of punches that somehow expanded into mini tornadoes. Diane avoided smoothly, with the grace of one who had years of experience tucked under her belt. Not a single hit touched her.

Then the kid right besides him said something that would have earned him a bullet from Hawkeye if she had heard him. The fighter fell onto his face in surprise, whether from shock that a kid had said it, or from his insinuations.

"It wasn't like that!" Howzer howled, his face red as Diane crossed her arms over her chest in a move that was definitely NOT a martial arts position. "I just don't like hurting women, that's all! No matter how tough they are!"

His face still red, he quickly kicked back into action, letting loose a few swings and tornadoes.

"Oh, Matrona is being kept on the defensive!" The announcer cheered.

Howzer grumbled something, then unleashed simultaneous wind blades that spiraled into twin windstorms on either side of the brunette. With her positioning at the edge of the ring, it was a very risky moment for her. If she tried to dodge to either side, the tornadoes would get her. Howzar was right in front of her, and if she left the ring, she'd loose.

Howzar shouted something along those lines as he ran closer. Diane let out a yelp.

"Checkmate!" He cried.

He raised his fist, charged up with more swirling wind, about to hit her and knock her out of the ring when-

Diane slammed her hand down on top of his fist, dispelling his winds and stopping him dead in his tracks.

Ed crouched down on the ground and drew alchemic array doodles with a tiny twig. "Stupid magicky MONSTERS and their ridiculous STRENGTH. Is EVERYONE as freakishly strong as these weird people who think it's PERFECTLY fine to BLOODY HIT PEOPLE OVER THE HEAD for NO REASON."

Meliodas and Elizabeth looked at his depressed figure, one with amusement on his face, the other, pity.

By the time he looked back up at the fight, Dianes' outfit was torn to shreds, exposing her smooth midriff and the bottoms of her- 

Ed nailed his eyes to Howzar, instead.

The man in question swiped the air, a very ominous warning coming from his lips. "If you don't want to die, start running.

"Air Shock!"

A flat, unnatural vortex of crazy winds sprang up between him and Diane. It slammed into her head-on instantly, leaving no time for escape or avoid it!

Diane screamed!

These people were going insanely all-out for a simple festival!

  "DIANE!" King yelled.

But she was fine. Totally and inexplicably fine. 

"That caught me off-guard," she said, in a slightly stunned manner.

Ed went back to drawing in the dirt with his stick.

He could hear the continued fighting behind him; Howzar, roaring his challenge, Diane, mostly just taking it head on unfazed, and a distinct call from the referee: "I'm out of here!"

Smart oddly made little man.

When he turned back around (the insane winds were blowing away his doodles) it was to a giant cyclone that reached up to the heavens, blowing and billowing and impossibly contained in the arena.

THAT SETTLED IT.

THIS WAS MAGIC.

"This is amazing!" Meliodas commented, using his hand to shield the tiny Elizabeth from the worst of the winds. The tone of his voice would not be amiss as a reaction to something intriguing at the park or a beach. "I can barely see what's going on inside!"

"Diane's in trouble!" King said from besides them, sounding a lot more worried then his companion.

A new, yet very familiar voice chimed in from further away. "The instant one of her feet leaves the ground, it's over."

Ed looked, and he saw the man in red that had been beaten so badly last round, completely whole and laying draped over a pig. Go figure. 

Then the pig spoke. "I bet I could withstand it!"

Ed was about to react, but then suddenly didn't see the point anymore. Magic winds and superstrength. Talking pigs. what was next? Human transmutation without consequence?

There was a few long seconds when Howzer had the upper hand, especially when Diane lost her footing and went airborn. She let out a long, feminine shriek that echoed through-out the stadium, then her violet eyes snapped open and she changed the composition of her skin and became entirely metal.  

Not even Greed could do that; his Ultimate Shield only covered the outside of his skin. Diane had gone completely metal. Her weight increased dramatically, and the winds lost their hold on her, allowing her to plummet back to the ground with the speed of Winrys' wrench.

Her knees slammed into Howzars' midriff. It drove all the air out of him (splitting the entire stupid rock as well) and probably should have killed him too, but these stupid magic people also apparently had immortal bodies and were more durable then Humunculi.

The referee, probably soon to be fired for not stopping this stupid mad house before someone died, clambered back into the arena. Then again, Ed couldn't blame him. This was totally insane.

"W-what happened?" The helmet body asked. Then the dust cleared, revealing Diane standing over a collapsed Howzar. "Howzar is down for the count! The victor of the Semipairing round is Matrona!"

Well, duh.

•••

Diane ran to the collapsed man lying flat on his back. She ignored the torn and destroyed shape of her borrowed outfit as she pulled him into a sitting position, apologising profusely. "I'm so sorry! I lost control and went all out, too!"

Instead of glaring at her or even showing a single ounce of anger, Howzar smiled at her, as well as he could, anyway. "I got one of the Seven Deadly Sins to go all out against me. It was my honor." 

She started. "I'm just a perfectly ordinary girl who just happened to be passing by-" Diane trailed off. She sounded unconvincing even to herself.

He laughed. "You're not fooling anyone."

•••

"DIANE!" King shouted, making Ed twitch. "Get away from that man this instant!"

This was waay too far over the alchemists head. Now that the fight was over, he was out. There was no point in sticking around any longer; he couldn't peel physical power off people, and he had no idea what to do about sapping any magical power, either. The tugging in his gut intensified with every step he took, but Ed ignored it.

"Hey," a sudden voice called. "Who are you?" 

Ed stopped and cast a glance over his shouler at the speaker. It was the scarred man on the back of the talking pig.

Truth, that sounded so wrong. How was a pig able to talk? Was it some kind of perfected chimera? If so, what, or who was it made out of? 

This train of thought was dredging up a past and memories he perferred not to think about.

Not forget, never forget, but simply to linger in the back of his mind, carving his loss deep into his heart and the rules of alchemy deeper into his head.

You could never get without giving.

And sometimes, the cost was far too high.

He jolted out of his head and back into this conversation in the here and now. He'd been silent for too long; there was an akwardness in the air that could have been avoided if he'd answered right away. What was the silver haired man asked? His name?

"I'm Edward Elric. Your brunette friend clubbed me over the head and brought me here." What else could he say? "Your fight was pretty cool."

The brunette just mentioned hopped down from the newly dish shaped arena and joined the conversation without missing a beat. "Not as cool as mine. And if you don't want to get hit, don't peep."

Eds eyebrow twitched. "I told you, I was NOT peeping. I heard a scream, I ran towards the scream with the intention of helping, I saw something I did not set out to see and would forget if I could, and have apologised multiple times for, anyway."

Bans face lit up. "You saw her naked?"

Ed flushed. his face felt hot enough to bake cookies on. "....Not intentionally."

He howled with laughter. "I pity him more then I pity you!"

Diane sulked, blowing up a cheek with air. "Ban, you jerk."

While they were talking, the next fight was about to start. An old man, his face red from alcohol, stumbleed drunkenly onto the arena almost as misshapen as the referee who announced his name. "Meliodaf verses Cain!"

Diane, who had gotten over her sulking enough to reclaim Elizabeth, brightened as she cheered for the kid. "Captain, you can do it!"

"You can count on me!" Meliodas returned, a smile on his dusty face.

The two fighters closed in, and Ed made to leave again, but Ban stopped him. "Are you really going to just skip this battle?"

"Why not?" Ed returned, irritatedly. 

"You should stay," Ban scrutinised him again. "You won't find what you're looking for anywhere else."

A burst of panic filled Eds' mind, and his mouth moved before his thoughts could catch up. "How do you know?"

Ban looked away. "Know what? That you're searching for something important?"

Eds jaw dropped.

"I suggest you stay until the end of this stupid festival." The mans voice was a lazy drawl, now. "Maybe I'll tell you later."

So Ed stayed.

•••

The next fight was a total bust. it involved a few fireballs, some shouting (all on the old mans part, Meliodas was curiously silent pretty much the whole time) and them some crying and a forefeit.

But finally, the referee announced the final round of the festival. Diane and Meliodas stood opposite each other in the almost totally destroyed fighting rimg, and waited for their cue to start. Neither looked very worried, instead, almost relaxed.

There were some catcalls from a female section of the audience, and then Diane jumped the gun and slammed Meliodas into the ground, her face an image of utter rage. 

The referee didn't call it at all.

He was a bad referee. Hughes was better, and that was saying something. Even if he did have an unholy obsession with his daughter, he would never have allowed the dirty tricks, preemtive strikes, and 'magic' that this scrawny dwarf did.

Elizabeth, newly clad in a cute dress tied out of the frilly blue necktie by the pig (how? Hooves did not work that way! And neither did mouths for that matter!) leaned forwards from her perch on top of the animal. "Go, Meliodas!"

She launched into a flurry of attacks that put the ones Howzar had used against her to shame.

"This might get ugly if I don't go all-out, too!" Meliodas began to hit back, shaking the stone structure they were gathered on, and splitting it even more.

They went into a sort of violent dance; punch, block, jab, knee. It was almost mesmerising, watching them with their sheer strength and forceful attacks.

Ban chucked deviously. 

In the arena, Diane wound up for another ferocious hit, her fist flashing forwards at speeds previously unknown to man, when she inexplicably froze, her knuckles planted firmly on the blonds hands; an amazing block pulled up in the nick of time.

There was silence in the arena. Neither made a single move to continue their fight, holding the positions of their last attack and block.

The tension in the air was thick.

"They haven't flexed so hard they wet themselves, right?" The pig asked.

Now the tension was thick.

Ban stepped forwards, slouching his way.... into the arena besides his two companions?

No, three now. The pillow kid had joined them, somehow grossly engorged.

"Ban? King?" Elizabeth whispered.

"I'm actually Captain of the Seven Deadly Sins, Dragon Sin Meliodas!" Meliodas announced. The warm, happy look on his face was suddenly gone, replaced with a strange sterness that looked out of place.

Everyone in the audience let out starrtled exclaimations, from simple gasps to mutters.

Everyone except Ed.

What? He thought.

"We're claiming the entire city of Vaisel for our own!" Meliodas continued.

"What?" The pig asked. "Why'd that idiot go and tell them who he really is? Tell me, Elizabeth, why?"

"You have one minute to leave Vaisel!" Meliodas raised his fist into the air, extending a single pointer finger. "If you don't, we'll kill you all!"

This did not seem to have any effect on the audience at first. "Who do you think you're fooling, you dumb kid?!!"

But then, as they recalled the total beatdown that had taken place less then an hour earlier, the people began to realise the gravity of their situation.

It was driven home when Meliodas cussed at them, telling them to get out, get away, run.

Run.

They began screaming and fleeing, pushing and shoving as they hustled away as fast as their legs could carry them. All went with the tide of paniking people.

All but a talking pig and a red coated alchemist.

And then it began to rain meteorites,