"Ok…so what were you going to tell us?" Jean Havoc eagerly questioned. Roy Mustang smiled, his eyes glowing with devious thoughts.
"Is it a girl?" Maes Hughes asked intently.
"No, Maes." Roy answered, sending a sharp glare at his best friend. "It's not."
"Then what…" Heymans Breda asked.
"My plan…" Roy began "for when I become president." The three boys around him leaned in to listen. "When I become class president," he began again, with a mischievous smile, "I will change the school dress code so that all the girls have to wear miniskirts!" He looked up triumphantly to see his friends' reactions, but his classmates were no longer looking at him. Rather, they were staring into space imagining their female counterparts in miniskirts with large grins on their faces.
"So?" Roy asked.
"I'm voting for you!" Havoc yelled, snapping back into reality.
"Not so loud," Roy snapped, "We're supposed to be doing a lab" he whispered across the table, as his other two friends, leaned in to hear the conversation. "Now, I've been thinking about how to convince the teachers to let the miniskirt policy go through…"
"Roy Mustang!" a sharp voice pierced through his scheming. The boy shot up in his chair, but didn't look away from his friends. "Roy…" it called again, as he turned to face the source, drumming his fingers rapidly on the table. The voice was coming from a girl, standing over him with her arms folded across her chest, and watching him intently.
"Why aren't you working on the lab?" Roy questioned her.
"My group already finished," she said, adjusting the clip that neatly held back her blond hair. Roy turned around to see Vato Falman and Kain Furey, holding up the finished product. "Where are you guys?" she asked with a tone of voice that let him know that she was fully aware they hadn't even started.
"Riza…"
"Roy, there are five minutes left in class, and the teacher is going to be back at any moment now." Riza stated slightly concerned. Roy watched her apprehensively, not sure how to, or weather to, respond.
Riza looked at Roy for a moment, then turned around and grabbed her chair. What is she doing? Roy wondered. Suddenly, she pushed the chair up to the lab table that Roy and his friends occupied, and sat down. "I figured you might need some help," she said, picking up an untouched beaker of water on Roy's table. "We have five minutes to somehow turn this water into hydrogen and oxygen," she sighed.
"Not to worry," Roy smiled, grabbing the beaker out of her hands. Riza looked questioningly at the boy next to her.
"But…" she began.
"I can take care of this," Roy said, standing up. He placed the beaker of water in the center of the table, along with two other test tubes, and placed the rest of the lab materials on the floor. "Please back away," Roy commanded his friends, pulling a stick of chalk out of his pocket.
"Roy?" Riza asked, unsure of what he was doing, but backing up none the less. He drew a sort of array around the objects on the table, and placed his hands on the completed drawing.
"Roy!" Riza snapped at him. "What are you thinking? You could end up in detention for…" suddenly, a spark of bright light filled the room. Riza shielded her eyes from the glow. When it was gone, she turned around, and looked at Roy. Everyone in the class had turned around to face him.
Roy laughed, noticing the faces of his fellow classmates. "I think we messed up, guys!" he said to his friends, trying to get his peers to stop staring. His plan seemed to work. Everyone could believe that the group, who up until a few minutes ago was talking during class, would have caused an explosion, accidentally or on purpose.
Roy picked up the beaker and held it upside-down. Not a drop of water remained in it. Roy's three friends watched him in awe, as he picked up the two seemingly empty test tubes filled with hydrogen and oxygen. Riza, however, wasn't so impressed.
"Roy!" Hughes gasped. "Was that really…can you really do…"
"Alchemy," Riza said, getting up and leaving the table.
"Yes," Roy whispered to his friend. He looked over at Riza, who was getting some towels to clean up the transmutation circle on the desk. "We'll talk about this later."