Chapter 3

"You missed a spot over here, Mustang," Gran sneered. Roy gritted his teeth and sweeped the corner of the room angrily, wanting to swear at him viciously. He really didn't think this was worth going to the top, but when he stopped to think about it, which he was rarely able to do between sweeping and cleaning the toilets or the mess hall, he realized that it just might be. "Go clean the mess hall now, Mustang, the soldiers are done with it."

Roy hissed silently under his breath and shot Gran a hateful look, and Gran buried a bullet in the wall next to his head, causing Roy to jump in the air as the broom clattered to floor. "Heel Mustang." Roy turned slowly on the bathrooms with a sponge, a brush, a plunger, and a toilet brush he had gleaned from the supply closet. General Hughes sighed and watched his best friend's son plod over to the bathrooms and wondered vaguely what on earth he could do to help. General Havoc shook his head and put a hand on his shoulder. "Let him be, Hughes. He's got the same fire his old man had."

"Maybe that's why they're both Flame Alchemists, and we're not, eh Havoc?"

"Could be. Could be. Frankly, I'm worried about our own boys; if Mustang Junior is here, then where's our little rascals?"

"I don't think we need to worry too much about them, how much damage can they do?"

"If you say that, then you don't know my Jean... don't know him at all. There's a reason our family name is Havoc, you know..."

"That, or you tend to live up to it."

Roy grunted sourly as he plunged the mop into the bucket of water and slopped it over the tiles, wiping grimy water out of his eyes. Who the heck got these stupid jobs in the military anyway? That's what janitors were for, right? It's not like he was being a spoiled brat; his mother had made him clean many a bathroom in their mansion. It was just different; his mother and Basque Gran were two totally different people, but while he could have afforded to displease his mother, this was one area that he could not bear to slack in. For his own sake, and for her respectable name's sake.

He thought back to some of the earliest days he could remember to get his mind off the disgustingly unhygienic toilets and the mold and mildew growing on the walls. Some of that mold was as big as his pet cat! Hell, they can swallow Belcini alive... he thought, suppressing a laugh. If Gran heard him laughing in here, he'd be sent with nothing but some water and a pair of gloves to scrub the toilets upstairs with.

He remembered when he was about three years old, maybe younger. That was as far back as he could go, which, his father said, was an enormous feat in itself. His parents had been in college when he was born; sure it was inconveniant, but he remembered his mother toted him everywhere and to all her classes, unwilling to leave him alone and unprotected for the slightest instant. His father hadn't been indifferent, just unable to help because his mother was so overbearing. He always saw his father at night, in the room his parents shared together, or rather, Leroy's roomto which Ilia disappeared to every night. After finishing homework, Leroy would stay up as long as he could stand to play with him before he fell asleep on his feet, or as long as Roy could stay awake; whichever came first.

After crying and whining to his mother for hours on end, she finally relented to let him out of her sight and stay with Leroy for a few days out of the week. She was fiercely oppossed to it, being so overprotective, that she would laden Leroy down with everything Roy might need for the entire day, and always cried and begged for Leroy to leave Roy with her. Roy would then commence to whine and scream and refuse to let his fingers uncurl from Leroy's shirt until she gave up and had to leave before the bell to her first class rung.

It was eleven years ago when he first encountered Basque Gran.

His father was holding him by the hand and leading him down the winding hallways, when his father, too busy watching where Roy was about to go to watch where he himself was actually going, smacked right into Basque Gran. Rumors in the school said that Basque Gran and Leroy Mustang had once been close friends in grade school, but something, or someone, had caused a rift between them that only bred hatred from that moment on. Roy, who had not yet realized that his father had bumped into someone, ran unsuspectingly into Gran's foot, tripping and landing him right onto his face.

"Waaaah... Daddy..." Leroy gave him a quick split-second lookover to see if he was alright, then his eyes glued themselves onto Gran's. "Get up, Son, Daddy's busy." Roy nodded, scrubbing tears out of his eyes with his little fists and getting onto his knees, then making the slow effort to ascend to his feet.

"What's your problem this time, Mustang? Forget how to walk straight?" Gran shoved him roughly and Leroy shoved back, equally hard. "Back off Gran, I don't want to run into you any more than I have to," he said, giving a quick look to Roy again and jerking his head down in the direction of a classroom.

"Finally admitting I'm the better man now, are you?" Gran's famous sneer worked its way into his face and Leroy regarded him cooly.

"No Gran, it's no fun picking on weaklings; I have more important things to do." It was then that Roy first saw the characteristics of a leader that he would mimic in his older days, though he did not realize it at the time. "We have different objectives Gran, you take care of yours, I'll worry about mine. Roy, go!" His voice raised a notch in his urgency from his smooth tone and Roy contented himself to hiding in the folds of the crowd.

"So we'll part ways now." He walked away and took Roy by the hand, dragging him off to class.

He shook his head quickly, clearing the thoughts from his head. He hoped Gran didn't think he was daydreaming in here, or he would soon be in the upstairs bathroom scrubbing those godforsaken toilets with water and gloves. He didn't even want to think about those things; period. He slouched and plodded out of the bathrooms with his mop or, as he liked to put it, his new found friend the mop. He sighed and went back to Colonel Gran's office, elated to find him absent. He tossed the cleaning supplies down and leaned over his desk, unable to satiate his curiousity, and riffled through the papers on it.

"Hum... Flame Alchemist's research journals... Dad's journals?" He was about to open it when Gran flung open the door, and Roy froze.

"MUSTANG! FIRST DAY ON THE JOB AND YOU'RE ALREADY SNOOPING AROUND! HOW ABOUT THE NEXT MONTH IN LAVATORY DUTY? AND THE WEEK AFTER THAT, YOU CAN HAVE SOME MORE LAVATORY DUTY. THEN WE'LL SEE IF YOU CAN EXPLAIN YOUR NOSINESS TO THE FUHRER. YOU CAN SAY GOOD-BYE TO YOUR CAREER IN THE MILITARY!"

Roy shook in his shoes and paled to resemble a sheet. Was his military career over already?