A/N: Please be aware, I am my own Beta. Any mistakes are going to be mine. I do the best I can.


2.

Most courses tested one's physical abilities to complete it. Others were constructed with an eye towards tactically training individuals or teams to quickly assess situations and act. To determine who was a victim and who was an enemy, or even both, like hostage situations. Such was the case with sharpshooters and firearms training for law enforcement. In the case of an Alchemist it was a combination of both, and in Mustang's case, he'd be facing actual soldiers and actors hidden through out the course.

From his vantage point, Mustang could not see over Armstrong's stone walls, but every spectator in the stadium could see down into it. The goal of the obstacle course being that you entered at one end and got out at the other. It was a test of endurance, quick thinking, and sheer wits...

Roy tugged at the gloves on his hands and approached the entrance, a fixed smile of determination on his face. Before even entering the course he'd activated the transmutation circle, feeling the build up of energy. He stood still a few moments, sensing the currents and air movement, then cautiously took a quick glance past the entry. This first part had been set up as a maze.

Stepping through the door way, Roy released the pent up transmutic energy and snapped. The orange bolt that flew from his hand grew in speed and size, literally bounced off the walls and sped down the hallway where he could not see. It zig-zagged its way ahead before exploding in a massive outburst of flame and smoke. If anyone had been in the maze of stone, he'd have heard them by now. With a smirk, Roy picked up momentum, simply following the scorch marks of the bolt as it sought escape from the maze. He made his way forward.

Murmuring and speculation was running rampant in the stadium and amongst the leadership in the box seating. No one could figure out just what this particular applicant was doing, it was all happening so fast. Was he manipulating gases? Changing the chemical make up of the air? Actually controlling the most difficult and unpredictable element of them all; fire?

Or was it all three at once?

His senses on full alert, Roy cautiously approached the exit to the maze. He poked his head quickly around the wall, and jerked back. One of the hidden soldiers instantly stitched a line of gunfire across the stone wall above Roy's head, sending chips and flakes of rock flying. Immediately a supposed 'hostage' began screaming for help.

He paused, visualizing the layout. There had been a mock 'house' set up to his left, three half buried culverts directly before him and to his right, stone 'ruins'. Peppered through out the course where small half walls of stone. Blinds used to hide a person. Mustang knew that each one would either be a combatant or a non-combatant and he'd have to react to either designation.

Mustang lifted his hand, focusing his attention on the ruins, pinpointing the location of the shooter. Stepping out into the open, he snapped his fingers and slashed the air in front of him, sending the crazy orange bolt flying towards the shooter's location. It erupted in a vertical sheet of fire driving the man backwards as Roy turned and stalked towards the house. Another 'shooter' holding the 'hostage' with a gun to the 'hostage's' head was holed up inside. Roy approached the house.

"Stay back!" The 'shooter' yelled as Roy advanced, "Stay back or I'll..." he never finished the sentence.

All he heard was the snap and the back of his jacket suddenly burst into flames. He screamed, dropping his gun, releasing the 'hostage'. A string of foul mouthed cursing burst from him as he stopped, dropped, and rolled, to extinguish the fire. In the meantime Roy had dashed through the doorway, grabbed the astonished 'hostage's' arm and roughly jerked her forward.

"Get the hell out, now!" He growled, shoving the 'hostage' towards the doorway he had just come through. He scooped up the dropped gun and stood over the 'shooter'.

"Concede," he snarled, aiming the gun between the man's eyes.

"Dammit, you could have killed me!" The 'shooter' yelled at him. He conceded, backing away until he hit the wall. Roy saw the man's eyes shift as he kept the 'shooter's' own weapon trained on him. In a less than a blink, Roy shifted the gun from his right to his left and and he flung his right hand back.

Another snap and the resulting bolt zipped through the open window bursting into a second wall of flames behind them. Roy turned, stuffing the pistol under the waistband at his back, hurrying out of the house. Before the ruins a swearing soldier was stumbling away from a sheet of flame roaring up in front of him. If there was any doubt that Mustang was manipulating air, gas, or flames it was banished when he literally stepped into the fire. It seemed to swirl around him and away from him, leaving him unscathed.

He promptly planted a fist into the gut of the soldier who was looking to the left and right trying to figure out where Mustang was going to appear from. The last thing he expected was Mustang appearing directly in front of him. Grabbing the doubled over soldier by his jacket, Roy kneed him hard. As the soldier began to fall, Roy added a third punch to his jaw and he was down for the count. Snorting at him in contempt, Roy reached down and grabbed the rifle out of his hands.

He ejected the bullets from it then savagely flung the weapon up and to the right. He was moving before he heard it hit the ground, outside of the obstacle course. One by one Roy began methodically making his way through the 'blinds', snapping one bolt of flame after another at those participants who were 'enemy's'. His alchemy causing the air above their heads to explode, forcing them to dive for cover. On encountering a 'friendly' he refrained from snapping his fingers, hastening on to get past them.

There was a sudden shift in the stadium. So many of them had come to see another failed attempt at the State Alchemy Exam, but now they were seeing something wholly unexpected. Many who had been jeering began seeing that this particular alchemist definitely had something in his favour. What was technically a defensive style of course had suddenly been turned into an offensive course by the applicant. He was stalking his way through the course, simply using his hands to clear his way through it, to spectacular effect.

Mustang rapidly approached the more physical portion of the course. He'd scorched a trail through the half buried culverts before scrambling his way through the middle one, approaching a large section where he'd have to belly crawl under barbed wire. He paused as he exited the culvert. There was no doubt in his mind that shooters were positioned in hidden pockets and blinds to begin shooting at him when he began the belly crawl under the barbed wire. Mustang rose to his feet and in a deceptively relaxed posture, he held both hands up in front of him.

The crowd began to wonder what was happening. Mustang simply stood there a moment in front of the culverts, not moving a muscle. Jeers began to ripple through the gathered audience that he was too chicken to complete the course. Catcalls and boo's began to gain momentum.

Roy smirked, his black eyed gaze shifting briefly over the assembled crowds. He shook his head and with simultaneous snaps, he unleashed hell.

He flew both hands out away from him. Twin bolts danced a wild jig mere feet above the ground before striking the walls where possible shooters would be lying. They'd be there waiting to force him to keep his head down as he crawled under the vicious metal wire. Dual explosions erupted above the heads of the shooters, forcing every one of them to dive for cover.

Roy threw himself under the barbed wire, ignoring the yells of outrage and swearing from the soldiers in the course with him. They were still scrambling to get away from the twin walls of flames. Roy smirked and rapidly belly crawled his way under the wire.

On the other side was a large pool of water with huge sturdy poles and rungs erected over it in a jungle gym style. It was a test of upper body strength, you had to swing your way through the course, falling in the water was instant disqualification. In his case it could be a whole lot worse. He eyed the poles.

Anything could be done to them, he could even see a few that had barbed wire wrapped around them. His lips twitched, and he snapped his fingers. The orange bolt whipped ahead in a crazy jumping path along the tops of the poles. Mustang knew some of them would have been greased, in an effort to make the poles too slippery to hang on to. He waited just long enough for the grease to burn off then dampened the flames making suddenly go out.

Pausing, he pulled the gloves off, stuffing them deep into his back pocket. With a short burst of speed, he leapt up, grabbed a hand hold on the first pole and began arduously swinging his way over the water. He was nearly two thirds of the way across when a soldier hidden behind a stone wall climb ahead of him, stepped out around it and began firing above his head.

Bullets chipped splinters off the poles as he was in mid swing, and with a gasp of surprise, Roy's right hand lost its grip. Splinters and wood chips struck his face, chest and arms. He instantly lost momentum, and without the ability to fight back alchemically, he was almost helpless, dangling by one hand above the water. With a snarl, he reached behind him and pulled the pistol he'd relieved from the earlier 'shooter'. He shot twice, causing the other soldier to duck.

Trying to capitalize on the distraction, Roy tossed the gun ahead of him, using the movement of his action to swing while he strained to do a one armed pull-up. With enormous effort, he swung out trying to grab the next rung ahead of him but his hand slipped as he grabbed for a hold. A startled cry escaped him and he swung again, everything in him straining to reach. He caught a glimpse of the soldier stepping back out from behind the wall.

Grunting with the effort, Roy swung forward, reaching out for the hold ahead of him. As he gained it, he put all his weight behind the next swing while bullets began to fly again. Having no choice, he flinched, and jerked his head as the splinters began raining around him. With the added 'incentive' he swarmed his way ahead, giving one last effort to hurl himself forward. On hitting the ground, he rolled, snagging the discarded firearm up again, and popped two more shots off at the shooter.

Mustang scrambled back to his feet, stuffing the gun behind him and pelted headlong for the wall. The tall vertical wall of stone had large ropes hanging down from it. He flung himself a good quarter of the way up, grabbing hold of the rope and hauling himself up the wall. Once at the top he straddled the top of the wall, gasping for breath, then very carefully, he stood up on top of it.

Panting, with sweat and drips of blood from the splinters running down his face, he braced his hands on his knees and looked down. A satisfied smirk stole across his face as he studied the last maze-like portion of the course. He began pulling the gloves back on his hands.

"Gentlemen," he announced to the few soldiers he had spotted waiting to ambush him. "I'd suggest taking cover!" From his vantage point on top of the wall, Roy began raining one fire bolt after another at the heads and at the feet of the soldiers, driving them out of the remaining maze of the course.

In the grandstand, Grumman was giggling with glee, while Maes was laughing alongside him. "I knew he'd figured something out when he came back from leave! Now the arrogant bastard's just showing off," he chortled to the General.

"Well he's putting on a good show," Grumman chuckled. "Look at him now, its like shooting at ducks in a pond!"

Neither men noticed a slight commotion going on amongst the personnel behind the chair of the Fuhrer. The stadium crowd was both loudly jubilant and jeering.

Before long, satisfied that he'd cleared out most of the soldiers ahead of him, Roy pulled the gloves off and rappelled his way down the wall. Once at the bottom, he pulled them back on and proceeded to clear himself a path out of the course, flinging one of the zigzagging bolts through the end of the maze. He emerged out the other side to a group of disgruntled soldiers, all who began voicing their complaints at him. Several of them bore obvious marks of being singed.

Roy just shook his head as he stuffed the gloves in his back pocket and began dusting off his shirt and pants.

"The object is to get through the course, correct?" He asked. "How one gets through it, especially for an Alchemist, is never clarified. Just because I chose to go on the offence to show the application on my alchemy, and drive you all out, doesn't negate the fact I got through the course."

He ran his hand through his black hair, further dishevelling it and he smirked at the assembled men. "You should all be glad I controlled those flames enough not to actually burn you all to a crisp."

With that, he turned and headed to the side of the arena, to an exit that led around the course and back to the box seats.

As he returned to the front, still dusting himself off, he noticed a strange hush over the crowd. He frowned, glancing towards where Grumman was sitting and saw Maes Hughes looking at him in alarm. He looked away, sensing something and immediately pulled the gloves out of his back pocket.

Fuhrer Bradley was sitting forward now, elbows on the table, fingers steepled and he was watching Roy approach through his one good eye, narrowed in thought.

Roy stopped, facing him, his hands with his fingers splayed, were snugging the gloves down tight against the base of his fingers.

"That was an interesting offensive display, Corporal," Bradley said. "Bent the rules quite a bit, but there is no doubt you went through course. The application of your particular Alchemy does leave a few questions. Just what exactly are you doing?"

"With respect, your excellency, as a master alchemist, I am allowed not to tell you what it is I am doing."

"Master Alchemist? At twenty? That's impossible!" The adjutant speaker exclaimed in disbelief.

"If you would have read my application file, you would see that I completed the journeyman apprenticeship program two years ago." Roy remarked. "I was eighteen," he added.

The reaction to his remarks wasn't unexpected. There was an bit of an uproar at his insubordination, his offence to the Fuhrer, the sheer arrogance of refusing to answer a direct question from his superior.

Bradley chuckled, waving everyone to silence.

"You are correct in that matter, Corporal. Master alchemists are protective of their research and strategies and are allowed to withhold that information. However, I am asking only out of curiosity. Fire is the most difficult element to attempt to control. You appear to have managed it. Who sighed off on your apprenticeship?"

"General Grumman, sir" Roy replied.

"And who was your teacher?"

"Master Berthold Hawkeye."

"Ah, I have heard of him. He was trying to crack the secret of flame alchemy. Had something of a grudge against the military as well..."

Roy nodded his head, eyes fixed on Bradley's. Bradley just smiled, decidedly cold.

"He must have learned something though, as evidenced by what you are showing us. Tell me, where is Berthold Hawkeye? His research could prove to be most beneficial to the country."

"With respect, your Excellency," Roy said carefully, "Master Hawkeye is dead."

Murmurs of astonishment burst up around the Fuhrer before he lifted a hand and silenced them.

"Dead, you say?"

"Cancer." Roy said flatly, then added, "He was jealously secretive of his research and it died with him. Considering the nature of his studies, he refused to write things down."

"Never wrote things down? Yet he passed that information on to you? I find that interesting. Do you also not write your notes down?"

Roy didn't reply. Bradley chuckled.

"All right, Corporal, you don't have to reveal it. However you still have one more section of this Exam to accomplish. One that is at my discretion. You have demonstrated a great proficiency at using this talent of yours in an offensive, attacking manner. Now I want to see how you defend yourself."

Roy felt the hairs in the back of his neck rise and instinctively he went stock still, concentrating hard and trying to listen past what Bradley was saying.

"One more test, Corporal," Bradley said as the crowds around Roy began to rustle, whispering in awe and dread. Bets were furiously being exchanged and several others were were looking down at him in anticipation of his defeat. From the back of the stadium cheering began spreading towards the front.

"Two rules," Bradley said, "No maiming and no killing. I choose one on one combat. Your opponent..."

The crowd noise suddenly changed to a combination of fear, dread and sheer bloodthirsty glee.

Someone was entering the stadium grounds.

"Your opponent, Corporal, is the Crimson Alchemist."