Chapter Eighteen - Havoc's Revenge

Col. Havoc was once again sitting in his office, avoiding the growing stack of paperwork on his desk, when he heard a knock on the door. Havoc leaned back in his chair, glad for a diversion. "Enter."

The door opened and Hawkeye entered the office.

"Hello Riza," Havoc said, surprised to see Fuhrer Mustang's wife and equally surprised that she wasn't accompanied by the Fuhrer. This was a rare sight indeed and Havoc couldn't help but be curious as to the reason why. "To what do I owe this honor?"

"I had to get away," Hawkeye said, rolling her eyes. "Roy received a call from Edward and the two of them spent an hour and a half arguing about your subordinate over the phone. I swear I think he's the only thing the two of them can agree about and they still argue about him constantly. Even when they agree, they still fight. It's maddening. Neither of them really wants him to be in the military and yet at the same time neither of them really wants him to be kicked out of the military. Even though they both feel pretty much the same way about his involvement in the military neither of them will ever admit that fact to the other. In stead all they do is fight. It drives me crazy."

Col. Havoc nodded. "I completely understand."

Hawkeye sat down in the seat across from Col. Havoc's desk. "I wish I could do something about it."

An evil glint appeared in the colonel's eyes. "I don't know how to make the two of them stop fighting but I think there's a way we can get back at Mustang and get Ed in the process."

"What did you have in mind?" Hawkeye asked, her curiosity aroused by his words.

Mustang was sitting in his office, staring at a stack of paperwork but doing nothing, when his phone suddenly rang. Grateful for a legitimate excuse to avoid his paperwork he picked up the phone. "Mustang here."

"Hey sir," Havoc's voice came over the line.

Mustang was instantly irritated. Havoc's office was just down the hall and he could easily have walked the few feet if he had something important to say. And Mustang had a sneaking suspicion that Havoc had nothing worthwhile to say, since that would be way out of character for him. "What do you want Havoc?"

"Nothing really," Havoc said, his voice casual. "I just wanted to see what you were doing."

"Working." Mustang's voice was filled with impatience. "Something you should try every once in a while."

"I've tried it," Havoc said. "Didn't like it. But that's beside the point."

The pointless conversation between Mustang and Havoc was suddenly interrupted when the door to Mustang's office was unceremoniously thrust open and an angry figure stalked into the room. Ed clasped his hands together and transmuted a huge stone wall, which conveniently blocked the door. Then, once the only escape route had been blocked, the young man turned to face Mustang, an irritated expression on his face.

"Edward," Mustang exclaimed in surprise, dropping the receiver of the phone. "What are you doing here?"

"I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!!!" Ed burst out.

Mustang was instantly confused. He was used to angry outbursts from Ed but this one caught him totally off guard. He couldn't think of a single thing that he might have done to have caused this much animosity from Ed, at least not recently. "What can't you believe?"

"Don't you dare act like you don't know what I'm talking about," Ed said angrily, although he lowered his voice slightly.

"I'm not acting," Mustang said, a confused look on his face. "I honestly have no idea why you're so upset with me."

Ed growled low in his throat, unable to believe that Mustang was playing dumb. He pulled a folded up piece of paper from his back pocket and held it up. "I received this letter in the mail, written on military stationary, informing me that my son, Nicholas Edward Elric, the Fullmetal Alchemist, was being court-martialed."

"WHAT?!" Mustang exclaimed, his voice raising in volume enough to match Ed's earlier outburst. He snatched the piece of paper from Ed's hand and stared down at it. The Fuhrer's eyes widened in surprise. He lifted his gaze so that his eyes were once again focused on Ed and when he spoke his voice had returned to its normal volume, some of his initial shock having worn off. "Nick's not being court-martialed and I didn't send this to you."

"Liar," Ed spat out.

"I'm not lying," Mustang said, his voice steadily rising with each word he spoke. He was beginning to grow angry at this point. "Besides I thought you wanted Nick out of the military and out of my grasp?"

"I may want him out of the military," Ed said, giving Mustang a look of utmost contempt. "But I want him to leave of his own free will, not be kicked out by the likes of you. And you have absolutely no right to get rid of him considering you're the one who pulled the strings that got him into the military in the first place."

Mustang shook his head, once again scanning the letter that he'd snatched from Edward's hands. He had no idea who had sent the letter to Ed but he knew full well that it hadn't been him. Mustang racked his brains in an attempt to think of who might have a grudge against both him and Edward but after a few moments he gave up. The list was simply too long and there was no way to determine the culprit without some way to narrow the list.

"If you didn't send me the letter then how can you explain your signature at the bottom?"

Mustang's eyes darted to the bottom of the page and sure enough, there was his signature. His eyes widened. "How the hell did that happen?"

"See?" Ed said. "There's no way for you to explain this away."

"It's obviously a forgery," Mustang said although his tone held no trace of the certainty it had held earlier.

"That's lame," Ed said, rolling his eyes in the direction of his former superior. "I've seen your signature enough to know that this is it. Now tell me why you're court-martialing my son?"

"FOR THE LAST TIME I'M NOT COURT-MARTIALING HIM!!!" Mustang yelled.

Ed opened his mouth but he was halted mid scream by a strange noise. "What the hell is that?"

Mustang stopped and listened and then he, too, heard the strange noise. And his face turned bright red as he realized what the noise was. He walked back over to his desk and picked up the phone receiver, which he'd dropped when Ed suddenly burst into his office.

"HAVOC!!!"

The phone suddenly went dead.

"Come on Ed," Mustang said, heading toward the door. "If you'll kindly move your huge stone barricade, we'll get to the bottom of this."

Ed walked over to the stone that he'd placed in front of the door, clasped his hands together and returned it to its original form. And, after fixing the large hole in the floor, the young man turned back to Mustang. The Fuhrer yanked the door of the office open and stalked out into the hallway. Falling into step behind his former commander Ed followed Mustang out of the office, down the hall to Havoc's office.

Mustang thrust open the door and stormed into the office. There he found Havoc sitting at his desk, and Hawkeye sitting in front of the desk. "What exactly is going on?" Mustang asked with forced calm.

When Mustang and Ed had burst into his office Havoc had forced a serious expression onto his face but as soon as he saw the angry expression his superior wore he found himself unable to maintain his serious attitude. He burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

Hawkeye covered her mouth with her hand, in an attempt to hide her own laughter from her husband.

Mustang's gaze left Havoc and focused on his wife. "I expect this kind of thing from Havoc but I can't believe you were in on it."

"She's not the only one," a new voice said from the doorway.

Mustang and Ed turned to face the doorway and Winry smiled at them. "Hello boys. Now did you learn a lesson?"

"WHAT?!!" Mustang and Ed both exclaimed angrily.

Mustang whirled on Havoc. "You did this on purpose."

Havoc nodded. "Yep. It's all part of my evil plan."

"How could you do something like this?" Ed asked, his eyes burning with a barely controlled anger. He turned to his wife. "You knew about this didn't you?"

Winry nodded and Havoc gave Ed a 'duh' look. "Of course she knew about it. You may be surprised to learn this but contrary to popular belief I'm not stupid. We knew that there was no way we could get away with this unless we included Winry."

"Well," Mustang cleared his throat, his anger building upon finding out that Havoc had drug both his wife and Ed's into this. "I think I'll amuse myself with a real court-martial now."

Havoc's eyes widened and the grin left his face.

"No," Ed said suddenly, a smile appearing unexpectedly on his face. He walked over to Havoc (who shrank away in fear) and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Havoc got us fair and square and I have to admit it was the perfect practical joke. He managed to get us both with it."

Havoc was speechless. He hadn't expected such a reaction, especially not from Ed.

Mustang shrugged. "I guess you're right. And no harm was done, really. The nitwits left the boy out of it at least."

Ed nodded.

"There's just one thing I want to know," Mustang said, his questioning gaze sweeping around the room. "How exactly did my signature get on that document? I've thought of several possible scenarios and each is just as unlikely as the next."

"I'm curious about that as well," Ed said. "After all, that's what made me absolutely sure that the document was genuine."

Mustang glanced over at his subordinate. "So tell us Havoc. How did you do it? Enquiring minds want to know."

"It was all Hawkeye." As much as he'd like to, Havoc knew that he couldn't take credit for that particular aspect of the prank. He couldn't have pulled it off without Riza's help.

Mustang's eyes widened and he stared at his wife in disbelief. "You did it?"

Hawkeye smiled. "And it wasn't that difficult either. I just waited for one of those days when you were preoccupied and not paying attention to your paperwork and I slipped it into the stack. Then, once you'd placed your signature on it, I confiscated it and gave it to Col. Havoc. He mailed it to Edward and then all we had to do was wait."

Ed turned to face the Fuhrer. "Well, I hope at least you learned something from this whole ordeal. Stop doing your paperwork with that glazed, 'I wish I were anywhere other than here' look. "

"Shut up Edward," Mustang said.

A/N - I admit that this chapter is a filler and doesn't even include the main character however the idea came up and I couldn't resist writing it down. Hope you enjoyed.