Child's Play

- Part 2, Chapter 1-

The Military Academy in Central schools children from the ages of 8 to 17. Once students hit their basic military training is used in place of a fitness class, and tactics, engineering, and fire arms are added as areas of emphasis. The school mostly consists of children of current military personnel, but in a few cases students were brought in because of disciplinary problems. Roy was now 14 and on his 6th year at the academy, he met most of his friends in his first year, but he had known Maes for several years prior to starting school. When he was 12 he met Elizabeth Hawkeye for the first time and she had quickly become a regular amongst the friends.

With his book in a bag slung over his shoulder Roy made his way down the crowded hallway, he didn't know exactly who would be in his first class, but he knew he was looking forward to it. A few years earlier the military had formed a new faction of officers; the State Alchemists and Roy was more than determined to join them. When he walked into the classroom he saw a man sitting at a desk with light hair that was pulled back away from his eyes that were seeing through a pair of glasses.

"Name." the man said without looking up from a book.

"Mustang, Roy." he said, about to move the books away from his shoulder, but looked around and saw that no one else was in the room.

"Outside, main courtyard, 5 minutes." the man said, still not moving. With that Roy turned and walked back out into the hallway and entered a breezeway that looked out over a large portion of the campus.

"5 minutes?" Roy said realized how large the campus actually was, and how far away it made the courtyard seem. He then sighed and ran towards a flight of stairs, moving to make sure that he didn't run into anyone or anything for that matter, actually skipping several steps once he started down them. When he turned the corner he found himself in an empty hallway and the sound of a bell echoed throughout the building. Hearing this, Roy turned and ran down the hallway and soon found himself in front of a wall, "What?" he asked out loud, letting his books fall to the floor. He then started to look around for an alternate route, or a door, or a path, but eventually only found a piece of paper with the military insignia on it. Unfolding it Roy sat down next to his books and read:

"Your first test is to use Alchemy to make your own path."

Looking back at the wall Roy pulled out the chalk he now always carried with him, picked up his books and walked up to the wall. He then drew his array on the wall and touched his hand inside of it. Dust then filled the hallway and Roy had to squint to try and keep it away from his eyes as a hole formed in the wall and as soon as he could, he once again began to run.

Eventually he made it down to the ground level and even outside, but stopped seeing his path was suddenly covered by grass and a large sign with big red letters that was sticking up in front of him said. "DO NOT WALK ON THE GRASS!" he stood there for a moment and looked around, trying to find another way to the courtyard, but only saw a large fountain off to the side.

"I hate my life..." he mumbled then walked over to the fountain and once again drew out his array. This time once he placed his hands on the edge of it, the water seemed to dance a little, then shot up and moved like an arrow to the side. Roy watched it carefully and as he began to lose sight of the water's tip, it began to freeze resting just on top of the grass.

Once he figured the ice had reached the edge of the grass, he carefully stepped onto the ice and moved as quickly as he could to get to the courtyard. he didn't see the slight shift in the ice and suddenly felt his left leg slip out from underneath him. The challenge now was to simply stay on the ice and ride out his mistake, holding onto his books tightly in front of his chest, Roy tried to move his body and his now almost flailing legs in order to attempt to steer himself in the correct direction. It seemed like forever when Roy felt himself almost go flying off the ice and he started to roll in the soft grass, once he stopped moving he laid there, eyes closed and books still clenched against him, but his attention was grabbed by the sound of light laughing from around him.

"4 minutes, 59 seconds," a voice from above said, "not too bad." when Roy looked up he saw the same man from the classroom and quickly pushed himself up into a sitting position. "I'd like to welcome you all to the first alchemy class that is part of the military training problem at the academy. Here you will all be taught the fundamentals of alchemy and you will each pick an area of emphasis; creation, destruction, evocation, and general transmutation. There will be several tests throughout this class, ending in a tournament that will determine who will go on to the final exam." the man explained. The students each watched the professor intently. Looking over the other students, Roy figured he would have a lot of competition, but a part of him was sure he would die if every day started out the way this one did.

Maes yawned and pushed his glasses up a bit, he thought he should have been thrilled to be in a tacticians class, but since this was the 3rd time he'd take one, things were starting to wear on him a little.

"Something wrong Hughes?" his professor asked and Maes sat up straight in his seat.

"No sir, nothing at the moment." Maes said in his usual calm voice.

"Wonderful, then perhaps you can enlighten the rest of the class as to how you handle a situation on a train in which you and 2 other officers are against a band of gang members who have taken the train hostage." he teacher said. Maes, caught slightly off guard crossed his arms in front of his chest and began to work the situation through his head.

"excuse me sir, if I may ask, what is the motivation for both the officers and the gang member to be on the train in the first place? Is it something on the train that they're mutually wanting for themselves, is it someone on board, or the destination itself?" Maes asked breaking away from his thought process. The professor almost looked stunned at the sudden question and began to flip through the book. Watching that, Maes smirked and stretched his arms behind his head; sometimes it was nice knowing you only had a couple years left.

"Fire!" a man in a black uniform yelled, he looked as if he was glaring forward, and he also had on a pair of covers on his ears and the reason became apparent as a series of loud pops willing the air. "Fire!" he yelled again after about 2 second of letting the air echo of the gunfire. The firearms class was outside in the range today and the sunny weather made the targets difficult to aim at seeing as it was relatively early in the morning, and they were in the east side of the range. After a few more shots were figured, the officer removed his ear guards and looked to the students, "Hold you fire!" he shouted and all at once the line of students raised their gun to the sky, then sat on and looked forward at attention.

He walked past each target and commented on each students' marksmanship. The officer then stopped at one target and just starred at it; at first he thought the student had only made one shot, in the dead center of the target, but looking at it closer he could tell that the hole was actually wider than a single bullet. Looking at the line of students, he pointed to the one who had shot at the target.

"State your name." he said, his booking voice seemed to echo through the shooting range. Across the way, a student stood up, a few people around them broke attention to watch, some almost seemed to gasp.

"Hawkeye, Elizabeth Hawkeye." she said.

"Hawkeye...? This must be the General's daughter..." he mumbled, "Very Good!" he called to her, "Be seated." and at that, she sat back down, going back to attention and ignoring the other students.

John and Hymans sat next to each other and sighed, they were in a basic military education studied class. They were bored, but this class was a requirement before moving up into a general tactics glass. Their instructor was a woman with short black hair, and was wearing the usual blue officer's uniform.

"Havok, Breda," she said, and both of them looked to one another and sat up quickly, "You two should be sure to get enough sleep at night." she said, a few other student started to snicker off to the side.

"Oh no ma'am, you've got it all wrong." Hymans said grinning, the professor only looked at them skeptically.

"We're just so tire because of how incredibly fast this class moves." John said also grinning at her.

"Well those must have been an exhilarating 5 minutes, how about you tell the class about what was so exciting." the teacher said giving them a knowing smirk. John and Hymans looked at each other and felt very embarrassed when they realized that every eye in the classroom as suddenly on them.

"Being that it is the first day, you all did remarkable well," Roy's instructor said standing with his hands behind his back, "And before we all become too attached, I'd like to inform you that starting tomorrow you will have a better, more qualified instructor." hearing that, a couple stupid gasped while others started to mumble to one another.

"I'm so excited." a voice from behind Roy said and when he turned around he saw Alex sitting there, a small sparkle seemed to float to the side of the boy's face.

"Why?" Roy asked, then turned back to the teacher.

"As of tomorrow, your instructor will be General Major Richard Matthew Armstrong." the man said, and at that Roy spun around to look back at Alex.

"Finally a member of the Armstrong family has made it to teaching the art of alchemy to others." Alex said, and at that the floating sparkles seemed to explode in number. Roy wanted to run away and he gave a very worried look towards his friend.

"This should be interesting..." Roy mumbled, turning back around and lowering his head. He was starting to wonder just how long he was going to be able to take it in the class, and he was also hoping he'd be graded fairly, he knew he'd never take a class in which any member of his family was teaching.