[EDIT] Added proper line breaks
Changed the rating to T, since I don't know how much swearing constitutes a K+ rating. I think that pointless vulgarity/aggression is a huge part of Envy's character. Of course, I could replace words ( for example, broad instead of bitch) but sometimes it's unnatural and obvious that I would much rather use a swear, and I didn't want to limit myself for such a dumb reason.
Fun fact! After I wrote a vague skeleton of what the chapter should have, I wrote this chapter entirely backwards, as in I wrote the last section first and the first section last, which is why the first few sections are so lazily written. I put all of my effort into writing the last two scenes and I pretty much dedicated the first sections to be connecting scenes to the previous chapter.
I also got pretty lazy and included a lot of short time skips instead of actually writing out some parts. It will probably be very jarring in some places, but I hope that you can bear through it.
"What the hell are you doing, you little midget?!"
"You said it, again! Stop calling me short!"
Team RWBY and JNPR watched with their mouths agape as Ed crouched over the body of the Beowolf and proceeded to beat it with his bare hands. That sight itself wasn't too rare of a sight in a Hunter academy, but the auditory accompaniment was something that none of them had ever experienced.
"Gah! Stop hitting me! You're gonna break something!"
"That's. The. Plan." Ed swung his fists to the give more meaning to each word.
Before Envy could reply with another insult or complaint, the door burst open violently, knocking Jaune off his feet. His unintentional movement seemed to trigger the rest of the students to react in their own way. Pyrrha rushed over to see if Jaune was alright, Ruby and Blake started to sprint towards the door to try and get help or their weapons, Weiss frantically reached for her scroll and tried to call for her rocket locker, Yang and Ren both sunk into fighting stances, and Nora tried to inch closer to the watch the fight, but Ren pulled her back easily.
"Students." Glynda spoke in a firm voice that didn't go above the volume of a shout, but demanded the attention of everybody in the room nevertheless. "Please, do not play with your food. You were trusted with access to the kitchens on the account that you would clean up after yourselves."
"Professor Goodwitch-"
"No, Ms. Schnee. You students should understand that you represent Beacon at all times, and your actions also represent Beacon Academy," she said sending a glare at the heiress. She was surprised to find that the girl hadn't turned to her so her glare was wasted. She followed her gaze to the far wall of the kitchen and frowned.
"Mr. Elric. And friend," she added as an afterthought. "Mr. Elric, please keep your anger in check, and you." She gave the Beowolf under Ed a hard look. "Mr. Lattan, I thought I told you that using your semblance to scare the younger students would result in a detention."
The Beowolf gave her a strangely human look of confusion and it turned to Ed. "And who's this bitch?"
Glynda's eye twitch at the sound of the forbidden word. Instinctively, she snapped her riding crop down and activated her semblance to levitate everything that she could touch.
Ed shouted in surprise as the Beowolf's body floated up from underneath him, causing him to slide off and hit his forehead against the ground.
"What the hell is this?!" The Beowolf screamed. Glynda almost dropped him in shock. Her semblance shouldn't have worked on any of the students.
"You're a real Beowolf?" she gasped. Feeling the gaze of the students around her, she quickly regained her composure. "Who's responsible for this?" she demanded.
Nobody responded verbally, but the way that their gazes shifted over to the groaning blonde boy on the floor of the kitchen was a sure indicator of who was to blame.
"Oh, it's back to this place, isn't it? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm feeling a little nostalgic." Ed looked around casually at the familiar interrogation room. "But the lighting always annoyed me, do you mind if I turn the lights on?" Ed didn't wait for a reply and clapped his hands twice and gave a satisfied grin as the rest of the room's lights flickered on.
Ironwood looked at the lights and then at Ozpin in annoyance before turning to Ed and giving him a hard look. "I'd appreciate it if you would take this a bit more seriously."
Ed started to glare at him instinctively, but quickly shook his head, "You know what, you're probably right. I'm not trying to fight you and to be honest, that would probably turn out pretty badly for me."
Ozpin opened his mouth as if to deny the claim, but quickly pursed his lips. "You are right, Mr. Elric." he admitted. "We have reason to believe that are you are in collusion with the enemy and it is my job to determine if that possibility is true. That being said, I do not believe that any of ours would be foolish enough to come under suspicion in the first place. Tell me Mr. Elric. would you mind telling me your story? I believe it has been long overdue."
"Enemy? You mean the Grimm?" Ed asked curiously. Ironwood and Ozpin glanced at each other briefly.
"Please answer the question, Mr. Elric. Will you or will you not prove your innocence?" Ed considered pressing Ozpin for more clues on his "enemy," but once he saw the serious look in his eyes, he faltered.
"How much do you want to know?"
"Everything." Ozpin's easy reply would have seemed like a joke if it were any other situation, but Ed could see that he truly meant it.
"It'll take a while, my story isn't a short one," he warned, but when neither Ozpin nor Ironwood made any motion to comment, he continued to speak. "Do you want any details about my world specifically, or do you just want my life's story?"
"Why don't you tell me about yourself first," Ozpin said casually, as if he were interviewing Ed for a job. "We'll iron out the details about your world afterwards if need be."
Ed nodded and took a moment to think about where he could start.
"You're meaning to tell me that you come from another world," Ironwood pinched at the bridge of his nose, releasing the question that he had been holding back from the start of Ed's story. "Where you tried to revive the dead, fought against an evil government ruled by synthetic humans, fought a being with the power of a god, and used a different god-like being in order to bring back your little brother's body and soul from the dead?"
"You got most of that right, but that last part was a bit off," he said casually, waving a hand from side to side. "I still haven't succeeded in bringing Al back, you know. That's the whole reason why I'm here."
"I have one more question," Ironwood announced. "You said that you were able to bind your little brother's soul to a piece of armor?"
"Yes," Ed confirmed.
Ironwood gave him a hard look and stood from his chair. "Excuse me for a moment," he said as he headed towards the door.
Ozpin stayed silent for a few more moments after Ironwood had let the door close behind him. Ed fidgeted a bit under his gaze, but Ozpin didn't make any indication of speaking.
It took almost a full minute for him to speak. "Is this all the truth, Mr. Elric?"
"It took you that long to think of asking that?" Ed asked incredulously.
"Please answer the question."
Ed stared into Ozpin's eyes and gave him a firm glare. "It's all the truth, not a hint of a lie."
The uncomfortable silence returned, but this time Ed refused to look away from Ozpin. Ozpin stared back into his own eyes, but Ed couldn't determine what the older man was thinking. The poker face that he wore didn't allow for any hint of emotion to peek through.
"I assume that General Ironwood has gone to see whether Professor Goodwitch's interrogation of your Grimm friend has yielded a similar story to yours," Ozpin finally said. "If your stories do not match, then we will know if you are lying."
Ed shrugged in response. "I don't know how useful that will be. Envy's not very cooperative. And even if he does decide to share his story, we were enemies and we didn't meet very often. I also think he's a few hundred years old, so his story might not even be close to done."
Ozpin nodded. "As you've said in your own story."
Ed killed the awkward silence before it returned. "So what now?"
"We wait for your friend to finish his own story. In the meantime, you should get back to your room and get a good night's rest."
Ed raised an eyebrow. "Not gonna throw me into a cell?"
Ozpin shook his head and gave him a small smile. "No matter how suspicious your story, you are still one of my students until you give me a reason to expel you. However, I will request that you stay in your room until your friend finishes his story."
"Do you mind if I borrow a few books from the library, then? I'll die of boredom if I don't have anything to do and I'm guessing that Envy won't be done for a few days."
Ozpin gave him an amused look. "Very well," he said as he pulled out his scroll and tapped away at the screen for a few seconds. "You should have temporary access to the library at this hour. Feel free to take as many books as you want, but make sure to note what books you take and send the head librarian the list through your scroll."
"Thank you, Professor," Ed said as he turned away, taking the familiar route to the elevators.
As Ed had predicted, Envy took a few days to tell his own story, though he hadn't expected him to take such a short time. As Ed had only been able to tell his story within half a day, he had expected Envy to take at least four days to complete his own story. With a few hundred years of life to cover and with his general uncooperativeness, the fact that Envy had only taken two full days to tell his story was a surprise.
But Ed wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth. When he received the message on his scroll, informing him that he was freed of any suspicion and was off of house arrest, he made a small sigh of relief and immediately picked up his borrowed books and brought them back to the library.
When he brought the books back, he received a dirty look from the overprotective librarian who would have normally never allowed any students to bring reference books outside, but was forced to accommodate him due to Ozpin's orders. Ed only shot back a smug grin at him as he plopped the books onto the counter and walked away.
After dropping off his books, the second thing that he did was send out a few messages on his scroll. Ruby and Jaune had both been in frantic contact with him on the behalf of their respective teams. After answering a few of their questions and convincing them he was neither evil or being tortured, they had both forced him to promise to tell them as soon as he was out of house arrest with an eerie synchrony.
Jaune had almost immediately replied, relaying the rest of JNPR's relief along with his own, but Ed didn't receive any message from Ruby. Judging from the fact that Ruby's flow of constant messages had stopped more than a day before, Ed wasn't too surprised by the lack of reply but was suddenly more curious about why Ruby had suddenly lost interest of her phone.
The third thing he did was to go back to his room, which was strange considering that he had been itching to get out for the past few days, but he found that he didn't have much to do otherwise. It was the weekend so there were no classes. Since Ruby hadn't contacted him yet, so he had no idea where the rest of team RWBY was, and team JNPR was down in Vale for the day. He considered going back to the library, but after three days of research, he felt that he needed a short break, which was why he was going back to his room.
He was surprised to see that two unfamiliar figures were standing at his door. He cringed a bit when he saw that they were hugging, and turned around to head out to the library or to the cafeteria, not wanting to have to interrupt their little display of affection to get to his room. Before he could escape, he saw one of the figures turn to his direction.
"Excuse me!" she yelled. "Are you the student who lives in this room?" She started to walk towards him, still keeping her partner in a hug. Upon closer inspection, Ed noticed that the person in her arms was struggling to escape from her grip.
"Yes?" Ed answered uncertainly.
He could see a huge smile form on her face, despite being a few dozen meters away. She started to run towards him. "It is very nice to meet you! General Ironwood has instructed me to take you and your transforming friend on a tour of Vale."
"Transforming friend?" Now that the girl was only a few meters away, he could see that the body in her arms was annoyingly familiar, but it was incredibly satisfying to see the normally smug face so devoid of life. "Having fun there, Envy?" he asked mockingly.
Envy groaned.
"As I have explored Vale on my own for the past few days, I am confident in my abilities as a tour guide," the girl said cheerfully, ignoring the protests of the dying person in her arms. "My name is Penny, it is a pleasure to meet you."
She shifted her body abruptly to give a stiff salute, though the formality of it was somewhat ruined by the happy smile on her face and the fact that her sudden release of Envy had flung him into a nearby wall.
"Oh, this is so exciting. I have never planned an excursion to the town with two of my friends before! I am shivering in anticipation!" Penny shook her hands up and down furiously. "Look friends!"
"This is stupid," Envy said. For once Ed could somewhat agree with him. "Why am I walking down the streets of some random town, pretending like I'm a nice guy?"
"Just deal with it for now, Envy," Ed said. "We both need to learn a bit more about how this world works if we ever want to be able to get back to Amestris."
Envy sighed. "What's even the point?" he asked in an uncharacteristically defeated tone. "It's the same here or there."
Ed raised an eyebrow at Envy's disinterested mood. "My friends and family are there, Envy," he said. He intended to give his voice a harder edge, but he couldn't bring himself to kick a man who seemed so down. "If we get back, you'd probably get along with them too. There's still that issue with the Xing group that you could help with, or maybe you could live a peaceful life if you wanted. I know you didn't really have that choice available to you, but now that the bearded bastard is dead you can do whatever you want, right?"
The glare that Envy gave him shocked him, but it wasn't because it intimidated him. Rather, Ed swore that he could see hints of humiliation and sadness mixed in with the anger in his eyes.
Envy spit at the ground in front of where Ed stood. "I'm going off alone for a while, pipsqueak. Don't follow me," he growled.
Ed motioned to stop him before he took off, but at that moment Penny caught his arm.
"Look! I am shivering with excitement!" she said as she happily shook Ed's arm up and down. Envy took the opportunity to slip into the nearest alleyway.
Ed sighed, but accepted that he would never be able to catch Envy by that point and even if he did, he probably wouldn't be able to recognize him.
"Penny, please let go of my arm," he said, annoyed. She let go of his arm. "And stop shaking!"
"Oh I am sorry," she said as she immediately froze in place. "I was under the impression that people tend to shiver whenever they are anticipating an event. I have been anticipating this trip for days and I found the action to be appropriate."
Ed gaped at her a bit, but he remembered the general strangeness that was common in this world and brushed it aside. "It's okay Penny," he sighed. "Let's just go."
"Go where?" she asked.
"I don't know, where did you want to go?" he asked in return.
"I wanted to go to Vale, and we have already arrived."
Ed stared at her for a second, trying to find any hint of sarcasm in her voice or expression. "Are you serious?" When he saw Penny nodding with a painfully honest enthusiasm, he felt a headache coming on. "Let's just go walk around then."
Penny gave him a wide grin. "What an excellent idea. Let us not waste any time, friend Pipsqueak!"
In a flash of anger Ed swung a fist at Penny's head, intended to give her a small bruise, but when his fist connected he felt a painful impact on his hand instead.
"Oh no, friend Pipsqueak," Penny said, bringing her hands to her face in an attempt to emulate a gasping motion. "Are you hurt? You really should not swing your arms around like that, you could get hurt!"
"Don't call me pipsqueak!" He shouted as he nursed his injured hand.
His angry glare didn't seem to incite any emotion other than emotion. She tilted her head in confusion. "Is your name not Pipsqueak, Pipsqueak?"
"No!" he shouted. "Why the hell would you think that?!"
She put her hands in front of her face again. "Oh no, I have made a mistake! I had assumed that your friend's way of referring to you was your formal name and not a friendly nickname." She bowed to him in apology. "I am sorry for assuming we were friends."
Ed took his own turn to look at her in confusion. "What are you talking about, Penny? It's fine if you think of me as a friend. Just don't call short."
"Oh are we friends?" she said, immediately discarding the formal bow and grabbing his hands. "That's sensational, friend Pipsqueak!"
"Penny," he said, gritting his teeth. "I told you to not call me short!" He swung at her again, forgetting the pain that had resulted from the last time that he tried.
"I did not call you short! You are taller than me!" she said cheerfully. "I am referring to you by your nickname!"
"Penny, just call me Ed, okay?" he said. "And what the hell are you even made of?"
"Affirmative, friend Ed! And I am mostly made of a metal alloy!" Penny said cheerfully as she gave a small salute.
Ed took a moment to try and process what she had just said. "What?"
"I am the first synthetic human being in Remnant. General Ironwood has instructed me to inform you of my existence. After learning of your abilities, he assumed that your expertise in creating and binding souls would be helpful in developing Remnant's Aura technology."
"What?" he still couldn't believe his years.
"I am the first synthetic-" She stopped her speech abruptly as she seemed to notice something down the street. "Excuse me, Ed. I think that those are my only other friends. If my sources are correct, it is important to interact with all of your friends on a regular basis. May I go speak with them?"
Ed closed his gaping mouth. "If I want to know more abut what General Ironwood wants, should I talk to you or him?"
"I believe that General Ironwood and my father have more information readily available for you," she said, allowing herself to adopt a serious expression. "And I am not certain about what I am authorized to tell you."
Ed nodded and sighed. "That's fine, I get it," he said. "Go play with your other friends." He waved a hand at her as if dismissing her.
She didn't move from her spot and only smiled at him. "What do you want?" he asked.
"General Ironwood has instructed the both of us to 'enjoy each other's company' and I do not wish to disobey him. Will you come with me to meet my other friend?"
Ed gave her an incredulous look before sighing in defeat
"I will assume that was an affirmative sigh," Penny said as she took Ed's hand and dragged him almost off of his feet. Stumbling to regain his footing, he looked up at where Penny was leading him and recognized the familiar trio.
"Now if my sources are correct, they say girls love compliments and gifts. Because I do not have anything on hand, I suppose a compliment will have to do," Penny said, more to herself than to Ed. "I think Weiss's hair looks wonderful as usual, and I will tell her such."
Following the group silently, Ed watched uncomfortably as Penny followed and waited for an opportune moment to insert herself into the conversation.
"I think Weiss's hair looks wonderful today!" she finally said.
"Yaah! Penny! Where did you come from?" Ruby yelped as she heard the unexpected voice. "And Ed?"
Ed scratched his cheek in embarrassment, but didn't say anything.
"Ed, you already knew team RWBY?" Penny asked him. Her eyes lit up with excitement. "Oh that's sensational. My sources say that introducing your old friends to your new boyfriend is an awkward experience, but this eliminates that entirely!"
"Boyfriend?!" Ed, Ruby, Weiss, and Yang screamed simultaneously.
Ed took a few moments to fully realize what had just been said. "Nonono, you're not my girlfriend! She's not my girlfriend, guys," Ed yelled hysterically as he tried to pry his hand from Penny's fingers.
"Am I not your girlfriend Ed?" Penny asked. "But you said it would be okay if I thought of you that way." Penny's voice was more curious than accusing or sad, but the trio in front of her didn't seem to catch her tone.
"Ed, that's a bit mean don't you think?" Ruby said softly.
"Nonono, this is all a misunderstanding!" Ed pleaded.
"Oh I see now!" Penny's eyes lit up in a flash of brilliance. "This must be the awkward situations that my sources informed me of. I must respond appropriately."
"Back off you hussies! He's mine!" Penny shouted as she pulled Ed into her arms and carried him bridal-style.
Ruby, Weiss, and Yang looked on in confusion, Ed started to cry, and Penny's face was as bright as the sun.
"Hey, kid! You okay up there?! Do you need any help getting down?"
Envy gritted his teeth in annoyance as he looked down at the owner of the voice. Some middle-aged shopkeeper was staring up at him from a nearby alleyway. With one look at his furrowed brow, Envy could see that the shopkeeper thought he was stuck there and would probably be willing to climb up there to "save" him. If he were to stay still, he didn't doubt that the man would try to climb up to his precarious ledge without a second thought in an attempt to save his life.
If he had clenched his teeth any harder, they would have shattered. Envy jumped up from his ledge and onto the roof above him with relative ease. He heard the man muttering something about Hunters and students, but he didn't care. He wanted to get away from those worried eyes.
How dare that man care for him, when he was just a worthless human? Didn't he realize that he would've been hurt if he had tried to climb the steep walls? Maybe he didn't. Maybe he was stupid enough to think that he could do it without risking any injury.
But deep inside, Envy knew the truth. He always did. That man had been willing to risk being hurt in order to help him.
The him from a few hundred years ago would have thought of it as being stupid. He had been so excited and proud to call himself the next step in evolution, but when he was younger he was almost ashamed of his claim when he had first seen humans. He didn't want to admit that such a stupid group of organisms could be directly inferior to him. They were at least a few hundred levels below him. A human and a homunculus were as different as an amoeba and a wolf, there was just no comparison. He couldn't even fathom how such a weak race had even survived for so long.
But they did survive. They survived by banding together, forming families, friends, trusted companions. It was stupid, but over time he was shocked to find that he wanted the only thing that he didn't have.
But he couldn't admit it. Not to himself. He was superior, he was the next step in evolution, he was perfect. There was no way that these humans could be better than him in any way. So he made it his personal mission to expose the evil within humans.
He had reveled in joy when he found out that it was so easy. More than sharing and loving, humans loved to kill each other. Now that was something that he could understand. Everybody wanted to survive, and the best way to ensure that was to make it so that you were always the last man standing.
But even in the darkest times, there were lights that he couldn't snuff out. Eventually, he conceded to the fact that humans had something that he didn't, but it was easy to forget when he watched humans killing each other on a daily basis. And so he did forget. He managed to push his feelings of envy into the back of his mind where they would rot and never surface again.
And then the humans beat him.
Deep inside, Envy wasn't too surprised that the humans had beaten him. He knew that they had killed other homunculi before him. He had accepted his fate to be crushed underneath a hard leather sole and have his body squashed against the cold pavement, but then the Full Metal pipsqueak had to do something that had set fear into Envy's heart for the very first time in his long life.
Envy punched the roof that he was sitting on in a poor attempt to shake off his anger as he remembered. Edward Elric had dug up his jealousy. He had exposed him for the miserable thing that he was, and he had humiliated him. Even worse, he had tried to spare his life and he had brought him back from the dead, into this peaceful world where the only threat against humanity was a literal force of evil, with healthy generations of heroes born and raised every year who would be more than willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater good.
Envy sighed his head, letting his aggression dissipate slowly from his body. Defeat was an entirely common thing for him within his recent history, but this hurt much more. Edward Elric had defeated him by reminding him of the fact that humans had the ability to support each other. This time, an entire world mocked him with its existence, with every piece of human hatred devoted to destroying the embodiment of said hatred. It was a symbolic middle finger to him.
He hopped off the rooftop and onto the street below. He startled a few passerbys, but nobody seemed to give him any real attention. He walked, trying not to acknowledge his own feelings, and trying not to remember the brat that had forced him to be this way.
A few moments later, he found himself by a small secluded café. He almost considered to stop and eat but he quickly shook the idea from his head. He didn't have any money. Of course, he didn't really care if the owner of the café tried to call the police on him once he figured out, but he was more afraid of the possibility of the owner letting him go freely. He didn't want the generosity of a human on his consciousness.
"Finally, she speaks!" He heard the loud voice coming from the balcony of the café he had just turned away from. Envy had the distinct impression that he probably wouldn't like the owner of the voice. "Nearly two days and you gave me nothing but small talk and weird looks! ... Yeah like that."
"Sun, are you familiar with the White Fang?" he heard a female voice ask. He turned around to just barely see a girl sitting near the edge of the balcony with her back turned away from him. It took him a second to recognize the girl as one of the students he had seen when the Full Metal pipsqueak had brought him into this world. He hastily changed his appearance slightly and started to walk away, not wanting to be seen in his most comfortable appearance.
"Of course! I don't think there's a Faunus on the planet who hasn't heard of them. Stupid, holier-than-thou creeps that use force to get whatever they want. Bunch of freaks, if you ask me!" Envy stopped dead in his tracks.
"I was once a member of the White Fang."
Envy heard a strange choking sound, but he barely noticed it. His heart was beating too hard. Holier-than-thou creeps? Forcefully taking what they wanted? The familiar words set a fire in his chest.
"Back then, things were different. The White Fang was meant to be a symbol of peace and unity between Humans and the Faunus. Of course, the world isn't that simple. Despite being promised equality, the Faunus were subject to discrimination and hate. The White Fang rose up as the voice of our people. I was with them at every rally, every boycott. I actually thought we were making a difference, but we were just a group of ignorant optimists. Then five years ago, our leader stepped down and a new one took his place. A new leader with a new way of thinking."
Envy didn't dare to hope. He had heard the story so many times before. Hell, he had created this sort of story so many times before, but there was always the cruel possibility of a surprise plot twist.
"Suddenly, our peaceful protests were being replaced with organized attacks. We were setting fire to shops that refused to serve us, hijacking cargo from companies that used Faunus labor. And the worst part was, it was working. We were being treated like equals. But not out of respect... out of fear."
Envy couldn't keep the maniacal grin off his face. He was right! Humans really were the worst, no matter what world you went to.
With a small gesture, he transformed himself to match the appearance of a random Faunus that he had passed by in the streets a few minutes prior and sat against the wall, eager to hear the rest of the story.
I can't believe I haven't bullied Ed until now. It's so much fun. I almost can't believe that I chose Penny to be the one bullying him, but after reading a bit of FMA again, Ed's weakest against people who can't understand his sarcasm or his genuine hatred for being called short. Usually it's kids, but in this case it's socially awkward robots!
A small part of this chapter relies on my little assumption about Glynda's semblance being true. Specifically, my theory is that Glynda can't use her semblance on anything that is affected by Aura, which is why she can't just grab Roman and Cinder out of their bullhead in episode one, despite showing an absurd amount of pinpoint control in other instances. She never uses her semblance on any living thing other than Grimm or the Atlesian robots, so I think it makes some sort of sense.
Glynda does use her semblance on Ed earlier in this fic, but that was when he didn't have his Aura unlocked and she assumed that he was completely depleted of Aura.
Probably my lowest quality chapter yet, writing wise. I blame the reverse writing.
I know I've been apologizing for bad writing in every chapter that I've written so far, but I really do feel like I've committed the most writing sins in this chapter by far. Honestly, I just got lazy. I really didn't want to write stuff like Glynda transporting Ed and Envy to the dungeons, Ironwood and Ozpin listening to Ed's story, and the bullhead ride from Beacon to Vale. Glynda transporting Ed and Envy could have had potential for writing, but I just wanted to get it over with as soon as possible so I just skipped it entirely. Skipping Ed's story retelling was justified imo, since it would be much easier to just copy and paste the FMA wikipedia article. I'll also admit that the reason why I had Envy's story telling take so long was not because he had more to say. It's because I had already written that Ed and Envy first arrive in Vale at the point where Blake was talking to Sun in canon, that takes at least a few days after Blake runs away from the rest of team RWY. I'll also admit that the bullhead ride from Beacon to Vale could have been really interesting to see the triple interactions between Ed, Envy, and Penny, but I was just lazy.
I briefly mentioned a "Mr. Lattan" in this chapter that goes largely unexplained. It's an OC of mine that will never appear in the story (no OCs in general) but I included because I thought it made sense that Glynda would assume a semblance suited for pranks to be more likely than an actual talking Beowolf. A semblance that lets you disguise yourself shouldn't be that unrealistic for the RWBY universe, right?
I will also shamelessly explain my OC, because I'm really proud of his origins and name. He's based on a character from an Italian fairy tale called Maestro Lattantio, who is a magician who can disguise and transform himself. Therefore, my character has similar powers and his name is Teal Lattan.
Lattantio. Lattan-Teal? Eh?
I'll see myself out.
