The air in the adjudication chamber was sticky with summer heat but also somehow stale, sealed in behind heavy stone walls of archaic design, the room becoming through its very shape and nature an oversized oven. The military banners strung up along the walls and the lines of armed guards gave an almost medieval impression; it was really very distasteful,this whole thing, as far as Envy was concerned. Did the trials really have to take place somewhere like this, with such excessive pomp, such intent to impress? There was no purpose to it, it was all stylistic only, and they complained about it to themself with bitter little thoughts like the poison in apple seeds.
But then, they were self-aware enough to acknowledge that their feelings were likely affected by their situation (usually, they could appreciate a sense of style); it was hugely annoying, being stuck in this stupid, sweltering room in the body of an ugly, fat old woman, dealing with the kinds of people that came to events like these. Alchemists were some of the trashiest human beings in the world, as far as they were concerned, and beginning alchemists were especially bad- so full of themselves, either with simple arrogance in their abilities or wild dreams of grandeur or (worst of all) tortured images of self-importance. And there was a particular number of them around today- after all, it was the State Alchemist exam.
And Wrath had bailed on it, the little shit. Apparently there had been some kind of military emergency at the southern border and he had taken off, leaving the judgment of the day's event up to the Federal Board of Alchemy; and that would have been fine, whatever, but Father said that someone who wasn't human had to be there, to oversee and report back directly, and when in a situation like that there was only one amongst the homunculi with a suitable set of skills.
Now they were stuck here for the whole day, pretending to be the chairwoman Agatha Kitsen (the real one, vacationing in the East, not that any of her colleagues cared enough about her to take note of it), sitting packed into rolls of flab on a large and overly imposing panel in the stupid stone room, pushing their spectacles up on their nose and taking notes that were becoming increasingly brief and snide as the day went on.
Most of the attempts were pathetic, not even worth mentioning, and the people who made them were so dreadfully predictable. Stellar scholars who had aced the written portion strutted in like fluffed up peacocks with sagging bellies and weak chins, confident that they would be leaving with a grand title and a shiny new pocket watch- only to flub the practical, make a block out of sand or a shitty paper mâché tower or some other piece of half-formed crap. All theory, no skill, what good was that? Then there were the ones that came to prove themselves, third sons usually, or daughters from conservative households, always rich and entitled and petty. No mental discipline in those ones, and no crown for them, either, thinking that life worked just by showing up and having people hand you things. There were the pseudoscientists, and the passion projects, and the desperately poor, and so many other types, all easily marked by their walk and the way they held themselves and the little numbers describing their test scores the adjudicators received when they walked in.
As the day went on Envy became increasingly exasperated- alchemists always liked to think that they were special, that they were some central point in the world, even when they weren't. Hell, especially when they weren't. Did these people not realize that the State Alchemist title only went to the best of the best? Silver watches weren't welfare candy. Pathetic, the lot of them, and so useless- how many had come through and made art, now, trying to form pretty sculptures from stone or weaving wood into baskets or changing the colours of flower petals? What did they think they were here for? Surely the tasteless decor would give them some sense of it. Were they living in some kind of bubble, not understanding that Amestris was a country of war?
Perhaps they would, soon. Father was planning something very nasty in the south, in that little annexed desert area where the locals were giving Wrath so much trouble. Oh, something very wicked was to be done there indeed, and the State Alchemists would no doubt be put to good use- but it wasn't for a while yet, at least another year. Things needed more time to brew.
There came a familiar rustling of paper as notes were handed across the panel, the last failed candidate exiting the room with a bowed head and the test score of the next being passed down. When Envy received their paper they gave it only a slight passover with their eyes- a 72 percent, that was pretty high, but it didn't matter in the slightest.
The name on the paper was 'Zolf J. Kimblee', and that didn't matter, either.
They tossed the paper to the corner of their desk and scribbled a slightly violent-looking spiral onto their page of notes. There was an almost-silence for a few moments as the cleaning crew removed the transmutation of the last contestant (a sagging and dysfunctional chair made from twigs) and then the great stone door on the far side of the room was opened again.
The man that entered was young, younger than his test would have suggested, tall and thin with pale skin and black hair that was slightly too long, tied back at the nape of his neck. He was the kind of man that was almost handsome, with strong features that were slightly too sharp to be traditionally attractive, a large nose, and eyebrows that gave his face an unusual expression- Envy couldn't decide if that expression was bored, or predatory, but they imagined in truth it was neither. He wore a cheap-looking, but also meticulously groomed grey suit, giving a mixed impression of both low and high class, though they were fairly certain he was the former (he was an alchemist, after all). At least, he was somewhat striking to look at.
The pager announced his name and had him confirm it, stating his current city of residence, age, and education. He claimed he was self-taught, an unapprenticed alchemist, and as soon as he did Envy had to refrain from scoffing. These types were usually the worst, they had no idea what they were doing and no one to tell them so, and as such they developed an extremely inflated sense of their abilities. When he was prompted to state his focus of study and the goal he aimed to achieve by becoming a State Alchemist, they were fully prepared to listen to some grandiose and long winded tirade about his skills and innovation and how he would go down in history-
"I believe I can be of service to this country. That is all." said the man, and the way he said it surprised Envy, there was something a little strange about the tone of his voice- too calm, too genial, like he was hiding something in it. Nervousness? It didn't seem so, something else, some little shadow or touch of darkness, mirrored in the slightly flat look of his eyes. The statement had been patriotic on the surface, but underneath there was a taste of a different honesty, of some other unstated desire.
Now, they looked at him more closely- yes, now that they were paying attention there was something off about him, everything was slightly shifted, like a familiar room with objects moved unwittingly. If one focused on those little twists- the way he held his head, the lack of wrinkles in his tie, the few unkempt hairs coming loose at the nape of his neck- he suddenly became almost inhuman to behold; yet when all the parts were considered as one he was nothing but ordinary. How unusual; how surprising.
They realized then that he had the kind of face one often saw on criminals- the grand kind, that was, the serial killers and rapists with hearts of ice that made suffering a kind of art, the ones that were only caught when they wanted to be. Those kinds of men (for they were almost invariably men, in Envy's experience) had very strange expressions indeed, faces like masks of humanity strapped to viper's heads, trying to portray emotions that were not truly felt in order to fit in with the crowd. Wolves in sheep's clothing. Yes, he looked very much like one of those kinds of men, didn't he?
Looking to the side, they didn't think any of the other judges had noticed- but then, they wouldn't, would they, that was the point. Envy had much more experience with reading the language of the human body than most.
Well, now he had their attention, at least. But still, they wouldn't let themself get their hopes up for anything good.
From his pack of brought supplies the man- Kimblee, his name stuck a little in their head- pulled out chalk for making a circle and a number of differing materials; a block of wood, a large flat stone, a pipe of steel and then, finally, a cage containing a living rabbit. Was he some kind of chimera specialist? He hadn't said.
With no words or particular flourishes Kimblee traced out four circles on the floor, all strangely identical, the meanings of which Envy could not decipher (they were no specialist in alchemy, though they pretended to be one now) and in the middle of each circle he placed one of the four objects; wood, in the first, then the stone, then the steel and finally the rabbit, which he removed from its cage, allowing it to sit docile and undisturbed (perhaps it had been drugged). Then he spoke-
"This is a demonstration," he said, and his voice still held that same strange undercurrent that it had before, "to show that, when prompted, materials of every kind can be made to do the same thing."
That triggered a few small murmurs from the rest of the panel, the sound of pens scratching faintly in the air, and Envy realized they had forgotten to pretend they were taking notes, so intent they were on his performance. What was he going to do?
With no further adieu Kimblee crossed his palms over the first circle, with the wood, and the lines lit up like any transmutation, and then in the same instant the light faded the block of wood exploded.
Several members of the panel started in their seats, and Envy's jaw dropped, the noise had been almost deafening. Now, this was starting to go somewhere!
Somehow, Kimblee was unmarked by the splinters of shattered wood, he had managed to direct the force away from himself- that showed both talent and power. And the entire block had been completely destroyed, he had taken only a second to rip the thing to fragments of its former self. He hadn't bothered to reshape it into anything- no, because that wasn't the point, he wasn't trying to make an object, what he had made instead was a marvellous expulsion of force, the weaponization of an otherwise harmless object. This was the best thing that had happened all day.
He moved next to the stone- a river rock, from the look of it- and did the same; similarly, it burst into a million pieces with a sound like a gunshot, and Envy could feel themself smiling. The steel pipe met the same fate, all in rapid succession, and this time an older man sitting to their left let out a little scream, perhaps thinking that the shards of metal (made white-hot from the force of the transmutation) would have harmed him. Oh, and that was the good part of it- they very well could have.
Kimblee stepped over to the last circle now, his face still that too-calm mask of geniality and good manners, and as he moved to cross his palms one of the women let out a little 'oh', not a protest quite, but a disturbed sound nonetheless- and then the rabbit blew up, the sound a loud and wet squelch, a fraction of a second turning the creature to a giant stain of red smeared across the floor in a splatter pattern. They noticed that he had not controlled this transmutation quite as perfectly- a splash of blood had struck him across the cheek, he reached to wipe it aside with one hand, and as he did so he looked up at them, somehow meeting their eyes with a kind of laserlike accuracy. For a second he stared, expressionless, and then his brows furrowed slightly- there was something like confusion in his eyes, why would that be? What did he see?
(And though Envy had no way of knowing this Kimblee had a very eerie sense of vertigo when he looked at the fat woman in the panel, and the thought that crossed his mind was wordless and involuntary, a prickling of the sixth sense translated best into terms as this: that-thing-is-not-a-woman-it-is-not-what-it-seems. He thought this again the next time he saw Envy, wearing the body of a young male private, and soon after that he started connecting the dots. He always knew who they were, no matter what they looked like.)
He looked away when the pager called the end of the demonstration, and stood for a moment while more notes were made, and then he was escorted from the room, like all the others before him, crew sweeping in to clean up the mess he had left. He didn't look at them again, but still...
Oh, they would be keeping their eye on this one. He was very exciting, yes, he would be going places.
To Father they wrote a glowing note, describing with genuine excitement what they had seen, what he had done, confident that their creator would see the possibilities here just as they did. They would get this one his silver watch, no matter what strings they had to pull. He had so much potential, and so much weaponizing force; they would have to get him something portable for his transmutations, to save time, gloves maybe, like the young man from last year with the borderline-Xingese features and the fire at his fingertips, but that might not be enough- his work was so violent after all, he might need something more permanent-
Were they getting ahead of themself, maybe? Were they a little bit too excited? Why? There was something about him that they liked, all of those strange traits combined were rather charming. Did their heart beat a little bit faster when they thought of him? Perhaps. He was different from most other humans.
Zolf J. Kimblee, huh.