The Way to a Man's Heart Isn't by Crushing His Ego Chapter 4: Huge Flames, Small Knives, Loaded Guns, and Lots of Trouble
"So you're the one who's called the great Flame Alchemist?" the man began with a cocky laugh. "Funny, I expected you to be a lot bigger. You're a scrawny little stick man. There's no muscle on you at all."
Roy smirked at the man's remark. "You know… the good thing about fire is that you don't need a ridiculous amount of muscle to make it useful. You don't need to train endlessly for hours, use illegal drugs, hell you don't even break a sweat, until the heat is streaming down your throat that is."
The man returned Roy smile with his own smirk. "Confident, aren't you?"
"I could say the same thing about you," Hughes interrupted.
"It's not confidence. It's just common knowledge. If you play with fire, you'll get burned," Roy replied in his usual state of mind. He wasn't afraid, excited, or full of rage. He stayed cool and collective like this was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Wonderful lecture, I really learned a lot. Now let me teach you something. If you underestimate people…YOU'LL DIE!" he yelled as he charged at Roy.
"Well then, you shouldn't underestimate me," the Lieutenant Colonel replied. Once the man was at point-blank range he pulled his other hand out of his pocket. The leader didn't know he had an alchemy circle on his left hand as well as his right. Just as Roy snapped his fingers and a giant flame emerged.
The leader quickly regained his senses and stopped on a dime. Just as fast as Roy made his flame the man did a move of his own. He ducked and rolled to the right, missing Roy's flame. Then as fast as he could, he jumped up at Roy, putting his right hand on his chest. Suddenly a bright yellow light appeared under the man's dark clothes. It was very bright and powerful. It shredded the thug's sleeve and left his skin visible. Roy's eyes widened when he saw a glowing alchemy circle tattooed on the man's upper arm.
The Lieutenant Colonel was fast to get out of the way, but not even his fast reflexes were enough. He was able to get away without injury, but the intense light burned a hole through his military jacket, leaving the white button up shirt he wore underneath it showing, clear as day, giving the man a perfect area to focus on.
Just as Roy got back to his feet the leader was about to hit him with another beam of light but…
"ACK!!" He bellowed out in pain as his body tensed. Before he could attack Roy again he felt a horrible pain in his left shoulder blade. His eyes widened at the sharp pain radiating throughout his backside. He turned slightly to see what had happened. Only a few feet behind him stood Hughes with a small knife in his hand. The man reached back and felt a handle sticking out of his back. That military mutt just stabbed me in the back…he growled and sneered as his eyes fixed on Hughes and the comical yet somewhat serious expression that his face possessed.
The Major just glanced back at the man with a smile. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did that hurt? You know, you should really take your own advice and not underestimate people. You forgot about me and look what happened to you."
The leader clenched his teeth together and growled angrily. He reached back and pulled the knife out of his back, blood gusting out along with it. He looked at the blood on his hand and the stained knife, he looked up at Hughes. A deep growl escaped the man's throat as he glared at him. Rage and hate boiled in his blood as Hughes' smile made him angrier.
"What's wrong? I said I was sorry. No hard feelings?" Hughes asked in his usual tone. A menacing smile sat on his face. Hughes was a strange one indeed. He could take things as seriously as Roy could, but he stayed laid-back and humorous, almost friendly as he did it.
"Why you…" the man was furious, "I WILL NOT LET YOU MAKE A FOOL OF ME!" he roared and threw the knife to the ground. It hit the floor hard with a clang. He threw it so hard when it made contact the handle broke off and flew in the opposite direction of the blade, landing a few feet away from one of the hostages.
Hughes' stared at his destroyed weapon. "Hey… you broke it… Oh well, don't worry about it. I have more!"
"Hughes…" Roy said with an annoyed look on his face. He was standing behind the two of them. He appreciated the fact that Hughes was trying to help him, but being ignored in a battle like this was not something he could tolerate.
"Yeah?" he asked looking at Roy with curiosity all over his face.
"STOP GOOFING AROUND!" It was amazing. Nothing ever seemed to get to Roy. He was always so calm. No one would ever think Roy Mustang; the Flame alchemist would lose his cool like that. There was just something about Hughes. Maybe it was his laid-back nature, endless supply of photos, or glasses that lit up when he had an evil idea. Roy couldn't put his finger on it, but for some reason just about everything Hughes did annoyed him to no end. But despite that fact, Roy did enjoy Hughes' company and was glad he was around, most of the time anyway.
"Why is everyone yelling at me? All I was trying to do was help," Hughes whined with a confused puppy-like face.
"Help silently," Roy grumbled as he regained his composer.
At this point the leader was more furious then ever. Roy and Hughes weren't taking him seriously at all. And on top of that, they were making a fool out of him. He had been stabbed in the back, and the members of his gang weren't even helping! They were just standing around doing nothing!
As Roy and Hughes bickered with each other over Hughes' behavior he clenched his teeth as well as his fists and began staring angrily at his men. The four men standing nearby looked shocked when they saw their leader's face. They almost looked scared. Like if they breathed he was going to come over and bite their heads off.
"Umm… Boss…?" one of the four men said nervously as he took a few steps toward their master. "Did you want something? We noticed you looked over at us rather fiercely."
"GET THESE TWO! KILL THEM BOTH! THAT IS WHAT YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME!"
All the men jumped up, alert and serious at his bear-like tone. They quickly gathered around the two military men and readied themselves for a fight. Hughes and Roy didn't seem to notice. They were still fighting, or 'discussing' as they liked to call it.
Even though the rather nervous robbers appeared to be incompetent and too scared to really know how to do anything, and do it right. They were all actually very skilled alchemists. They didn't have confidence in themselves or their abilities since guns came to town. I guess they figured it's easier to kill with a fast-moving bullet then an alchemy circle.
They all stood around Roy and Hughes, and something on or apart of their body began to glow. They either had their alchemy circle on a bracelet or necklace or tattooed somewhere on their upper body. The bright colors of red, blue, green, and white shown brightly. It went out the windows and spilled across the street like an overflowing river.
Of course, Roy being the State Alchemist that he was didn't get concerned about this at all. These were pushovers compared to his flames, and he'd take care of it after he got a few more lines out at Hughes.
Hughes wasn't distracted by them at all either. He knew full well that Roy knew exactly what he was doing, and if Roy wasn't doing anything to stop this, then he had nothing to worry about… yet.
The leader had a huge grin on his face. I thought these guys were strong. Well strength doesn't mean anything if you don't have a brain. They'll both get killed before they even realize what's going on.
"We've got them now. They aren't even trying to fight back," one of the men said as a smile appeared on his face.
"Are these guys idiots?" another one asked. Another few seconds and their alchemy would take affect and they'd both be blown away.
"Who cares? This makes it easy for us. I say let them fuss all they want."
"Umm… Roy…" Hughes began. Seeing the smiles on the alchemists' faces and the lights getting bigger and stronger was making him a little nervous, not by much, but enough.
"What?" Roy replied. He wasn't finished telling him all the things he did wrong in his daily life yet. In fact, he hadn't even made it through the breakfast insults.
"Don't you think you should do something... like… right now…. today... maybe..-" Hughes last statement was cut off by the sound of gunfire and police sirens. Just as fast as the sound of gunshots were heard, two of the men fell to the ground. The red and white lights disappeared immediately. The other men saw their comrades fall and they quickly stopped their alchemy to look and see what had happened. The military dogs looked as well.
Once the robbers saw what it was they quickly turned and tried to run. There were windows all around, quite easy to escape. Just as they reached one of the windows two more shots fired, getting both of the men. The leader tried to use his alchemy on the new attacker.
"I don't think so," Roy said snapping his fingers and burning the man before he could do any damage. He didn't use enough force to kill him. He wasn't that fond of killing people, not after what happened with the massacre in Ishbal.
Then he looked again to see who the newcomer was. Standing just inside the door was a woman with long blond hair that went down to about the middle of her back. It rested calmly on her stern shoulders as she held her position. Her eyes were a lovely shade of amber. But her looks aren't what caught the men's attention. It was the pistol in her steady hand.