Disclamier: No, I do not own Fullmetal Alchemist, don't sue!

Halfmetal Alchemist Chapter 4

Flame and Halfmetal

Ilia poked Ed in the arm urgently and narrowed her onyx eyes when he didn't respond. "Ed!" Ed brought himself out of his daydreaming and looked at her irritably. "What do you want, Ilia?"

Ilia stuck her tongue out at him and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine, if you want to be that way…" Ed cursed himself and forced a smile, catching hold of her arm before she could leave. "Okay, okay, what?"

"Mom said to go talk to her, right now." Ed turned towards the fight ensuing between Roy and Leroy, flame, flame, and more flame, along with the occasional explosion, just for kicks. He turned reluctantly to Ilia and a pained expression crossed his face that plainly said, "Now?"

Ilia grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the stands where Riza was waiting. "I got the Midget Alchemist, Mom!" Riza shook her head disapprovingly as Ed tried to wrench away so he could get a better vantage point for leaping at Ilia's neck.

Riza restrained Edward gently and watched as a small boy drew transmutation circles in the dirt with a stick, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth in deep concentration. He looked up at Riza and grinned, drawing a smiley face in the middle of it with a flourish and snapping the twig. "Mama said to lift me up so I can see Leroy and Papa fight!"

Ed groaned, and Ilia made a little note on a piece of paper. Ed looked over her shoulder and demanded, "What's that?" Ilia stuck her tongue out at him and said, "This? It's just a chart of how many times you've groaned so far today, you're so whiny, Ed!" The boy clambered up onto her lap and scanned the chart, looking at Ed happily. "It says you've whined 45 times today, and it's not even lunch time yet." Ed was tempted to groan again just to spite her, but opted to pick up the boy instead. "You take care of Maes, Edward. If you don't, I'm sure your father will have something to say about it, and you know what I'll do." she lifted up her pant leg and revealed the pistol in her leg holster. Ed gulped and bobbed his head, rushing off with little Maes. Maes situated himself on Ed's head and grabbed his bangs. "Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow ow! Don't grab those!"

"I'm steering the Ed-Monster!" he tugged in another direction and Ed went sullenly, massaging his forehead. It was better to let Maes have his fun now, so he'd plop right off to sleep later. "Look!" Maes screamed, "Papa's kicking Leroy's butt!" Ed winced as Maes gave an especially enthusiastic tug to his bangs and saw that on field, Leroy's butt kicking was indeed literal.

"Hey! What was that for?" Leroy yelled as his father kicked him. "That was for the time you set my hair on fire when you were 6..."

Roy grazed Leroy's cheek as he swung at him, then lashed out and kicked his son in the stomach, bowling him over. "That's for setting fire to your mom's best dress on our anniversary when you were 8..." "That was an accident!"

Leroy glared at Roy and snapped his fingers, but Roy didn't go up in flames. Roy stopped and crossed his flaming arms. "What the hell was that?" Leroy grinned and thumbed at the ground behind him. "You know I'm very innovative, Father. Can you take a guess at what's under the ground?" Leroy had burned a transmutation circle into the ground and he jumped towards it. "I daresay it might be a gasoline pipe, but you wouldn't do that, oh no. If I had to take a bet, I'm guessing it would be a water pipe."

Leroy put his hands on the transmutation circle and broke the ground underneath it, severing the pipe slightly. Roy smirked at him and turned his back on Leroy, casually walking a few feet away. "Hurry up, I'm getting bored." Leroy snapped again, burning a transmutation circle on the pipe. "That should do it..." He put his hands on it and the pipe mouth became larger, blasting a wave of water at the Flame Arm Alchemist, at the expense of wetting his own gloves.

Roy cocked his head at the impending wave and shrugged, smirking at Leroy. "This is a new one, I'm impressed." He scraped one gauntlet against the other, this time starting at his shoulder and striking downwards. A massive flame covered him and he barreled straight for the wave, much to Leroy's surprise. "W-what the hell are you doing, you idiot! You'll be crushed!" Leroy covered his face and the audience screamed; the backlash from this was going to be a gigantic one.

The wave crashed down and water flooded back to Leroy, swamping him almost immediately. He floundered around in the water for a while before regaining control of himself, and swam to the surface, gasping for breath. He searched frantically for his father and looked to see how much damage he had caused.

Maes clung to Ed's head as Ed straightened unsteadily and fell down into a chair. "Aaagh... that was... way too big a tranmutation for me to handle..." Maes climbed down and studied the hastily scratched transmutation circle on the ground. "Big wall transmutation, right?" Ed nodded, fatigued and leaned back to survey his handiwork. "Damn stupid brother, why did the wave have to be so big?" An enormous rock wall surrounder the spectators and protected them from the water, making the arena a giant swimming pool. He was just lucky he had realized Leroy's intent a second before he had actually done it, otherwise he couldn't have made the wall.

"Dad! Dad! Where are you?" Leroy swallowed water and spit it back out again, paddling helplessly in his wreckage. "That's a nice look for you Leroy, you should be more careful with your alchemy." Leroy spun around as well as he could in the water, and shook it out of his hair. "Up here!" He looked up to see Roy high and dry, his legs dangling over the edge of Ed's barricade. "H-how? You're not even wet!" Roy looked at the other end of the arena wall, a spectator-less field outside of it. He blew a hole into it and watched the water drain slowly as Leroy frantically tried to keep away from the suction. "It was simple really. I used a flame shield to keep myself dry just long enough to ride that wave and rebound onto this wall. Where do you think you got your innovation from, eh?"

Leroy finally sat down on the sodden grass, head bowed. "You win, Dad." Roy smirked and rolled his eye. "Not yet I don't, not until you and Ed tagteam, yes Ed, now." The crowd, well over its hysteria and terror, cheered again. Leroy shook the water off of himself as much as he could as Ed walked onto the field and tossed him a pair of dry gloves. "See? That's what happens when you rely on items like that. You're useless without them." "Just like you're useless without automail?" Leroy shot back. Ed shrugged.

"I didn't ask to be like this."

Roy took five steps back and smirked again at his sons; It had been so long since he had had something to smirk at, that it was becoming his default facial expression again. "Let's see if you do better together than apart." Ed and Leroy split suddenly, tearing off into completely different directions. Roy used his alchemy to make them run a little faster by blowing up the ground just behind their feet, laughing as Ed jumped unnecessarily high into the air. Leroy sighed and kept running, the water in his clothes weighing him down. He burned random parts of the ground beneath him as he ran, sweat beading on his face. Alchemy fatigue, Roy thought, he's sparking off alchemy to lessen the strain on his body. Ed held up his automail arm and Leroy snapped his fingers, burning a transmutation circle onto it. Ed clapped his hand to it and turned it into a spear, dragging it along the ground. Now Roy was mystified, what were they doing?

Maes and Riza had climbed up onto Ed's wall to get a better view of the arena. "Look Mama, a transmutation circle!" Riza sat Maes down in her lap and smiled. "My clever boys, I wonder if Roy has figured it out yet."

Leroy and Ed stopped their running and joined hands, putting two remaining hands on the giant transmutation circle surrounding Roy, and a look of realization dawned on his face. "Now, Ed!" Ed closed his eyes and channeled his alchemy into the circle, and a giant iron trap rose out of the ground and snapped down on Roy, locking him in. "Yes!" The two boys hugged each other tightly and broke apart, opting instead to shake hands.

The judges in the stands clapped appreciatively and sat back down while Ed and Leroy grinned from ear to ear. Ed sniffed the air hesitantly and turned around, tapping Leroy's shoulder. "What? We won!" He turned to see what Ed was bothering him about and stopped dead.

"OH MY GOD, CAN'T HE JUST STAY DOWN?"

Roy laughed at the two of them and surveyed his handiwork; the metal was melted on the ground. "I think that's enough for one day, boys. You passed!" Leroy and Ed stared at him intently and Roy stared back. "What?"

"Our names, Dad, you know! What are we going to be called now?" Roy paused and thought a moment. "Flame..." he murmured, pointing to his oldest son. "And Halfmetal. You two are now full-fledged State Alchemists. Congratulations boys." Roy turned on his heel and walked out of the arena to find Riza, leaving the two boys stunned. "We... made it. We're really State Alchemists." Ed grinned at Leroy and dragged him out. "Can you believe it? I sure can't!" Little Maes ran up to them and kicked them in the legs.

"Hurry up, I'm hungry! And Papa says the first thing you're supposed to do is give him a huuuge report on how you can improve your pathetic fighting manuvers the next time you fight him. At least 15 pages!"

"NOOOOOOOO!"

Replies to comments:

: 3 Yay, another review! I was never any good at summaries, but I yours was a good suggestion, so I'll change it! More chapters on the way soon, and the journey will be underway, mwahahahaha! Isn't little Maes evil tho' (I love Maes, he adorable and evil!): 3