Oh look! I still live! :O I would have posted this sooner, but Scaehime was taking a while to respond... *glares daggers*
This scene is EXACTLY how I had envisioned in my head. And it's much longer than most of my one-shots. It has two or three references to things, so I will mention what those were at the end.
On with the story!
"Alright, men. I know it has been a very stressful week for everyone, so we are going to be out of the stuffy office for a few hours. I was only allowed this if we spent the time doing something at least slightly useful." Colonel Mustang announced to his subordinates as he led them out to the courtyard.
"I like how he put 'slightly' in there." Breda chuckled with Havoc.
"I would like to see how well you handle interesting situations and think on the spot. I have some prompts in my hand, and we will do our best to act out all of them."
"Oh, like improv?" Al asked.
"Improv? What the heck is that?" Edward asked back, not having heard the shortened version of the term before.
"Improvisation. One of my friends told me about it."
"You have a friend?"
A heavy silence sat as the words and their disbelieving tone sunk in.
"That was so mean!" Alphonse yelled, his voice expressing his now-broken heart.
"I didn't mean it like that! I meant it's been a few years since we've talked with people our age!" He waved around his arms in defense.
"That is NOT what you were thinking when you said that! I could hear it clearly in your tone!"
"We're together almost all the time, so-"
"I don't always spend the entire day reading in our room while waiting for you, Brother." Al crossed his arms and glared down at his sibling. He was starting to direct the frustration he had from the failed attempts to find the Stone to the teenager. These frustrations had built up for a while now.
"Why are you so offended by this?! I'M the one that has more difficulty with making friends!"
"You know, maybe I should have been surprised by this too." The younger Elric attempted to put on a thoughtful look. "How could I have MANAGED to make a friend when I am related to such a hot-temptered little PRICK?"
"Easy there, kiddo!" Havoc stepped between Ed and Al, then starting pushing the armor away from his brother. "How about you stand over here? This is a nice place to stand."
Edward didn't react to the 'little' part like usual, he was too busy gaping at the other Elric in shock, who was now silently fuming from his new spot as Mustang continued to explain the exercise.
Turns out the prompts had blanks for all of the important information, and they were supposed to make a list of random words before Roy read the paragraph and filled in the blanks with those words. After a few minutes of him calling out for a certain kind of word and writing the suggestions down on a separate page, he cleared his throat and read the first prompt.
"(Name) Fuhrer Bradley, with the help of a/an (noun) cat, overthrows the (place) coffee shop and takes the throne as the "rightful" king of the (plural noun) platypi."
After everyone was done either giggling or staring dumbly, one of the lower-ranking officers stepped forward. "I am Fuhrer Bradley! Hear me roar!"
"Where did you put the manager of this coffee shop, sir?" Riza immediately went into action.
"He is being taken care of by my partner, Fluffy."
Another officer ran over to a tree and laid down, then started curling up into a ball and flinching a lot. "Please stop scratching me, Fluffy! I can't take it anymore!"
"I hear some yelling from that closet over there!" Fuery pointed towards the officer, and so he and a few other men ran towards the tree and pretended to try to get an invisible door open.
"Stand back!" Ed yelled (he had finally gotten over his shock and decided to help out in the exercise to keep his mind off his angry brother) as he stepped forward and 'kicked' the door down with his left leg.
"An angel in a red coat!" The 'manager' reached a hand up towards Edward with an awe-struck face.
"Ah, shaddup." He proceeded to drag the man out of the 'closet'.
"Why did you do this, sir?" Roy interrogated the 'Fuhrer'.
"My first name is King, so why shouldn't I be king of something?" He scoffed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Because we aren't a monarchy!"
"What malarkey!"
"Maybe we should bring the First Lady to talk some sense into him." Hawkeye suggested, and everyone nodded in agreement.
"King! What is the meaning of this?" A soldier cried out in a falsetto voice.
"I'm sorry, dear. I just know you love platypi so much."
"Yes, I do love platypi, but this is not how to go about giving me our anniversary present."
"You are right as always, dear."
"Hey, Al! Where should I put this violent cat?" Ed asked with his arm stretched out away from him, as if he had something dangerous in his grasp.
"Put it in a box until we can get it to the pound." Alphonse responded, although not really putting his heart into the act. 'I'd rather that it was on his face right now.'
"And scene." Mustang bowed to alert everyone to stop.
"Everyone is better at acting than I expected." Falman nodded in praise.
"What's the next one?" A few people yelled.
"(Proper noun) Colonel Mustang goes mad with power and uses (plural weapons) swords to terrorize the citizens. Due to the skills of Colonel Mustang's team, the threat is apprehended, but not before it is revealed that there is one more (noun) cactus up his/her/its sleeve."
"Bah, this one is too easy!" Edward complained. "All we have to do is throw buckets of water at him!"
"How can you be so sure that flame alchemy is the cactus up my sleeve?"
"Even if it turns out that it isn't, you'll be too embarrassed to do anything." Ed retorted.
While the two argued, Havoc looked over to the quiet Elric standing a few feet away from everyone else. 'I guess even Alphonse cracks under stress and disappointment at some point...'
"Fine! I'll move on to the next one!" Roy groaned. He quickly filled in the blanks and smirked.
"(Name) The Fullmetal Alchemist went missing for a few days. After some (plural noun) experiments, he/she returned, now totally (emotion) evil. The first thing he/she does is attack (proper noun) East Headquarters, claiming it was because (catchphrase/quote) "I'm an independent black woman who don't need no man!" Will he/she be turned back to normal?"
"Brother! I can't believe you!" Alphonse immediately jumped into the scene.
"Why are you so surprised, Al? You know this side of me has just been dying to come out!" Ed maniacally giggled, acting as if he was a crazy serial killer, giddy to get some more damage done.
"Watch out, Alphonse! He's got a chainsaw!" Fuery yelled, backing away. Edward took the cue, and pantomimed pulling the string of the 'chainsaw' in his hands and held it over his head dramatically.
"Move, men!" Mustang pretended to put on a glove and snapped towards his subordinate.
"Ow! Hey, Mustang! You know that really hurt?!" Ed acted out how much his pain he was in after being 'burned'. "I should pay you back for that." His voice suddenly became very serious and dark. He moved frighteningly quick towards his superior, almost just a blur as he ran forwards with his right hand up to punch.
"Stop, Brother!" Al ran in front of the Colonel and blocked the attack.
"Come on, Al! Let me at him!" Ed ordered with the same dark, menacing tone.
"I'm not going to let you hurt anyone else!" The Elric dropped down into stance to fight.
"Um, guys, help me out here." Edward stopped acting for a moment. "Would I try to kill my brother if I was totally evil?"
"If you were just evil, maybe not. But totally evil, with no hint of having any humanity left, then you would." Falman explained.
"Okay, got it." Ed took a deep breath and went back into character. "That is just rich. Sacrificing yourself for the safety of others. My hero!" His eye twitched with the very thick sarcastic response.
"I bet you would do it too if you were your old self."
"But I'm not, am I? That stupid old self was a wimp compared to the new me. I wish I had turned to the dark side a long time ago!" Ed giggled again. "I have found something so much better than suffering in silence with the good. No, this is my new career, and I am pretty dang good at it." He gave a very sinister smile.
"If that's the way you feel, Brother." Alphonse cracked his knuckles (or the clinking of his armor as he attempted made it sound like he did) and threw a fist directly at the blonde's head, who ducked just in time.
"What the-" Edward couldn't think of how to react to such a blunt move.
Al spoke so that it was obvious his words would've really been a whisper, but had to be louder for everyone acting so they would know what's going on. "Despite what everyone thought, I wasn't gone searching for you this whole time; I was kidnapped too, and put under some very horrible emotional torture, unlike what happened to you, which was having things forced down your throat. I guess you can say that I've turned a new leaf too. I went for the 'make everyone believe I'm still the same and plot in secret' route instead of going head-on, though. Now that I get the chance to get rid of you, however, I'm blowing my cover much sooner."
"SUCH A PLOT TWIST!" Someone shouted.
"Why are you targeting ME?"
"A few different reasons. The main one being that since we aren't partners, there's no point in me letting there be another threat to Amestris too."
"So we're both evil."
"No, you are insane. I'm the one that's evil." Alphonse suddenly sounded as intimidating as his sibling, or perhaps more.
"NOW I see the family resemblance." A random officer muttered to the person next to him.
"Bad guy vs. bad guy. Let's see who wins." Ed suddenly seemed not so sure.
Alphonse quickly drew a transmutation circle in the dirt and activated it. Large spikes came out of the ground, all pointed towards his opponent, stopping literally millimeters away from his head.
"I win." After he was done gloating in the easy victory, Al transmuted the ground back to normal, freeing the surprised teen from the deadly spikes. "Oh no, we never found out if he could be turned back to normal! Oh well."
Everyone stood, staring at the suit of armor with mixed expressions, not knowing how to react.
"Okay, I'm sorry. I just really needed to do something violent to feel better."
"Since when?..." Ed questioned, still a little out of it.
"Since I no longer had access to a river, and so I tried out punching walls like you." Al responded a little timidly.
"Punching walls?" Colonel asked.
"I believe it." Havoc shrugged.
"At least you're not mad at me anymore, right?" Edward asked nervously.
"Yup!" The younger sibling gave the older a giant bear hug, knocking the air out of the older's lungs.
"What's the next prompt?" He asked Mustang as he dropped his brother, who breathed in deeply the wonderful thing known as air.
...Was Alphonse too OOC? I tried to take that scene I envisioned and add to it in a way in which it wouldn't seem so strange for him to be so mad, but I'm still really worried. I mean, I've always gotten kinda ticked when Alphonse was portrayed in a way that I felt wasn't correct in OTHER fanfics... But, I mean, come on, even Al would have his angry moments. Even lilaclily00 has moments in which she gets so angry at someone she chases them around, trying to bite their arms. She's the girl that skips and giggles around the halls in high school. That should say something.
Okay, that friend that Al mentions in the beginning. That's me. XD Yeah, I somehow managed to self-insert myself in a story really indirectly. If I became with friends with Alphonse, I'm sure I would teach him a lot of slang and modern terms and stuff like that.
So, to completely clarify, the prompts were basically Mad Libs. That part about being "king of the platypi", I totally stole from Do A Barrel Roll. (Seriously, that author is just awesome.) The quote in the last prompt is from memes I saw a year or two ago. I will never forget them. XD So sassy! *snap*
K bai!
