Author's Note: This was a prompt through Tumblr that I received asking if Dante from Fullmetal Alchemist would ever be a high school teacher. Obviously not. But this needed to happen regardless.
The task of watching over children, snivelling little brats with no regard for their own educations, was the last thing that Dante ever wanted to do. And yet here she was, situated behind a large, wooden desk with a classroom before her. She was told that it would be for only one day, that Dublith's secondary school was searching desperately for a new alchemy professor and that Dante would make the perfect replacement until the new professor could start work the following Monday. But even with only one Friday of teaching before her, Dante's insides were already writhing.
The classroom of teenagers was alive with the sounds of their shouting. Eager gossip, flying wads of paper, and the ever-present sound of shuffling books met her ears.
"Excuse me," she said, leaning up against the chalk board and folding her arms. There was no response from the classroom aside from a sneer from a boy in the first row as he went back to chatting with his friend.
"Excuse me," Dante repeated, only catching the attention of two more students who went back to ignoring her. Oh lovely.
With a quiet sigh, she clapped her hands together and calmly placed them against the chalk board. In a flash of light, the black board stretched together into a large, slate hand which went flying into the first row to pummel both of the sneering boys.
Dante suddenly had the intense attentions of every single student in the classroom as well as their dead silence.
"Excellent. And now that you are all aware of why I both qualify as your temporary alchemy teacher as well as why your school will, thank God, never hire me, let's get started. I plan to ruin the GPA of every student in this room over the course of the next hour, so we've no time to waste."
"Wait, but you can't do that!" a girl yelled from the back, a look of fearful anger wrapping onto her face.
Dante raised an eyebrow as she walked towards the girl, leaning on her desk. "Really now? And is that just because I'm a substitute teacher here for one day?"
"Well, yeah," she said. "You're more like our babysitter until the new teacher comes in on Monday."
A few of the other students nodded their heads in agreement as Dante made her way back to the front of the room. She patted the extended chalk board before transmuting it back into the wall so that she could press her back against the cool board once more. A babysitter…
"All right then. If I'm a babysitter, then appease me by answering a few questions before I set you free to do as you please." The students looked apprehensive but waited for her.
"Question one. I did not use a transmutation circle to perform. Why?"
There was silence for a few seconds before a boy raised his hand. "Because… you have… transmutation circles already on your person?"
"Wrong. It's because I've committed human transmutation, seen The Gate, and have thus gained the ability to perform transmutations without any such circle. Now, next qu—"
"No you haven't!" the same girl from before interrupted. "We're advanced alchemy students. We already know that that's impossible. Do you even know alchemy?"
Dante motioned towards the chalkboard behind her. "Well, obviously."
"Human transmutation is like the biggest sin. If you do that, you die. So, are you, like, trying to tell us that some, like, twenty five year-old went off, killed a human, and lived? And now has extra powers from it?"
Once again, the room was in dead silence. "Next question," Dante restated. "You have a patient suffering from pleurisy and pneumonia at the same time, but you're restricted to the use of only silver, sodium, and chlorine in your medicinal bag. What do you do?"
The silence was longer this time around until another girl raised her hand and quietly replied, "You'd create salt from the sodium and chlorine. And, then. Well, mix that with silver and some water so that you could create—"
Dante interrupted. "Actually, you'd toss the patient into the river because he would most likely not survive anyway."
"That is complete bullshit!" The girl in the back threw down her book and stood up, walking forwards towards Dante with her index finger pointing. "You are spewing disgusting, stupid lies, and—"
The girl never saw the swift clap nor how Dante could bend down in time to press her hands to the cheap tile floor, but an explosion of chipped tile was now hovering about the girl, swinging around in circles at eye level.
"The amount that I care about your statements is minimal," Dante replied calmly. "You may leave."
Slowly, the girl ducked under the orbit of shattered tile that still hung in the air and stepped from the classroom, slamming the door behind her as the tiles fell back down into place, sealing themselves as though nothing had ever happened. It was only a few minutes later, after Dante has asked another series of questions, that the girl walked back in, followed by a burly principal of the school.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask to see you in the hall." His low voice rumbled menacingly, but Dante merely shrugged her shoulders before following him out, the door still cracked open so that the students could hear the conversation.
"I was told that you physically assaulted several students as well as laid claims to having performed human transmutation." Dark hands met his forehead as he tried to massage his temples in frustration. "Now, I don't really want to believe that you would say this, but I need to know if these claims are accurate."
"Oh, they are. I did all of that," she confessed, enjoying the look of disbelief that was washing upon the principal's face. He stared down at her as though he were seeing double. Behind the slightly ajar door, she could hear the breathing of the students who were equally as astounded that she would admit her guilt.
"You… You can't do that! You'll have to come with me," the principal mumbled, holding tight to Dante's upper arm and walking her out of the building to the sounds of the cheers from the students. They kept walking, neither one willing to say anything, until they reached the outside steps of the school where the principal finally let go of Dante's arm.
"And you know," Dante said nonchalantly, stretching her arms forward while walking down the steps to Dublith's busy streets below. "They paid me beforehand, too."
Standing beside Dante was no longer the burly principal from before but the smiling form of Envy, holding onto an open envelope containing several large bills of money. "And I happened to take a cut as well from their safe."
"A job well done," she smiled, removing her own wad of bills from her skirt pocket.
It would be a while before the school made such a mistake again.