• by Argent

    Chapter One- First Impressions

    A plague of stupidity had infiltrated Central. It seemed to affect everyone apparantly, exspecially his Imperial Dictatorness, the Fuhrer.

    "I just had a marvelous idea," The Fuhrer said one day to a group of his loyal subordinates. "Maybe I should take a nice long vacation, huh? Doesn't that sound nice?" And to think, everyone else had simply dropped a few IQ points. "And while I'm gone, I'll just let you all handle the well being of Amestris." He beamed at his horrified officers, oblivious to their pain.

    With all the extra paperwork, executions and genocide to be taken care of, the higher ranking military personnel were forced to hire more help. Lieutinant Hughes was the only one not worried.

    "I've got this relative, you see, and she's been wanting to make extra money," he explained to his friend and fellow officer, Colonel Roy Mustang. "She'll take a job as a secratary, I'm sure."

    "Relative? How so?" Mustang asked suspiciously.

    Immediatley Hughes pulled out a wallet stuffed with photographs. "SEE! IT'S MY RELATIVE! HERE SHE IS SITTING WITH MY ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE DAUGHTER ELYSIA! ISN'T SHE CUTE! SHE CAN SPELL 'CAT' NOW! I'M SURE SHE'LL GRADUATE TOP OF HER CLASS I'M SURE!"

    Several people in the vicinity turned to stare, then went back to their business when they realized it was just Hughes.

    Lieutinant Hawkeye arrived one morning to find a diminutive teenage girl with red-gold hair sitting at Colonel Mustang's desk. "Who are you?" she asked, confused. "Where's the Colonel?"

    The girl looked weary. "Maes told me to wait here, so I did. I don't know any 'Colonel'." She put her head in her hands and sighed. "I've been making phone calls for the last five hours, and its early."

    "Phone calls," Riza repeated dubiously. Then it clicked. "You're that kid that Hughes said was going to be his secratary, huh?"

    The girl opened her mouth to anaswer, but instead shreiked as the door burst open. "Aah! Hi, Maes--uh, Mr. Hugh...Major...Colonel...um, SIR!" She leapt to her feet and saluted the annoyed looking lieutinant colonel, knocking over her chair in the process.

    "Silver, I told you to wait in MY office!" he shouted. "Not Roy's office, you idiot!"

    "Takes one to know one," she mumbled.

    "What was that!"

    The girl scurried out of the room, and Riza blinked as Hughes began to laugh maniacally.

    "What's so funny?" she asked.

    Hughes was still in his fit of mirth, and his attempted response was inaudible. Mentally cursing the stupidity of a few select military officers, Riza left to find the Colonel.

    Silver had propped her feet on Hughes desk and was linking paper clips together in a chain. "Damn military. They all act like freaking Nazis. Genocidial bastards. Nazis. Yeah! They've even got Hitler with an eyepatch!" she ranted to herself.

    The paper clip chain was as long as she was tall. Unfortunately, that wasn't really saying much. Grumbling, Silver kept adding to the chain.

    "What is he, like a pirate Fuhrer? Dictator?" she wondered.

    The smell of something poisonously rank crept into the lieutinant's office. Coughing and covering her mouth and nose, Silver went to the door and looked out. A cloud of reeking cigarette smoke rose to meet her.

    "Disgusting!" she roared at a startled Havoc. "Smoking? That stinks! And do you know how bad that is for you?"

    She knocked the cigarette from his hands.

    "Hey! What was that for!" Havoc yelled.

    "Wern't you listening!" Silver punched him.

    Several people stopped in the hallway or looked out their doors to stare, and wonder why Havoc was being assaulted by a teenage girl. Most of them, revolted, darted quickly into nearby offices.

    Colonel Mustang got a headache upon sight of witnessing this odd event. Why, why did this stuff happen when he WASN'T on leave?

    "Take THAT!" Havoc shouted, shoving Silver off and pocketing his reclaimed cigarettes.

    She sat up on the floor, pouting. "Nyaa..."

    Meanwhile, the Violet Alchemist strolled casually through the grounds around Central, searching for her curiously absent friend Silver. "Where the hell is she?" Violet grumbled, kicking a helpless potted plant in her fury, smashing ceramic all over her boots.

    She glanced around guiltily, then darted off in the other direction, trying to get as far away from the crime as possible. A company of soldiers marched past, and she waved cheerfully, trying to act natural. "Sup, people."

    At first they ignored her, then one stared. He pointed at her, horrified, and shouted, "HOMOCULI!"

    Violet blinked. "Homo-WHAT?"

    "MISCONDUCT!" Colonel Mustang shouted at a cowering Silver . "You will treat ranking officers with RESPECT! Not attack them!"

    Glumly, Silver nodded. "Yeah, whatever."

    He glared. "You will refer to me as Colonel or SIR."

    "Pardon my language, that'll be whatever, SIR!" She said and leaned sulkily against the window, peering out at the sun directly overhead, then glancing down. Her eyes widened. "Hey, check this out!" Silver exclaimed.

    Mustang went to the window and pushed her aside. Outside, several of his officers had gathered into a mob around a young woman with blond hair, and were dragging her, kicking and screaming, into the building.

    Silver sighed and shook her head sadly, tsking."Oh, my Lord, that's Violet down there. I told her to meet me for lunch tomorrow, and she shows up on the wrong day." Realization dawned on her face, and she lunged at the extremely suprised colonel, shaking him. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!!"

    Angry, he shoved her away. "I could ask you the same thing!"

    "Your little cronies are assulting my friend! And she's one of your State Alchemists, too!"

    "I'm sure there's a good reason!"

    Silver slapped him across the face and bolted for the door, intent on finding her friend.

    Trying to resist the little voice in his head telling him to snap his fingers and set the room on fire, Mustang followed.

    "SILVER!" Violet screamed, face red with anger. "Where the hell have you been, you idiot!"

    "Workin' for a livin'," Silver drawled.

    Colonel mustang turned the glare of death upon his subordinates. "Why exactly were you attacking her?" He pointed at the livid Violet, who was stil being held roughly by the arms by two soldiers and sporting a bloody cut on her shoulder.

    An officer with a twitchy eye stepped forward. "She's a homoculous, sir!"

    Gasps chorused thorugh the hall where a majority of the base's population had gathered to watch supreme misconduct take place on the Colonel's watch.

    Silver smiled. "Homoculous. Rooted from 'homo', meaning man, and 'li', meaning a smaller form of. Derivitive of 'homoculi', meaning 'little man' or 'golem.' Common use defining the result of human transmutation, at the hands of an alchemist, essentially a deviant with no soul." She grinned at Violet.

    Violet glared. "Nerd." Then she wrestled her hand free from the weakest soldier holding her and whacked Silver over the head.

    "Ow. Nerde says head got an owie," Silver mumbled.

    Colonel Mustang ignored her pain, and took Violet by the arm, pointing to a symbol there. "Explain."

    "Heheheheh..."Violet said nervously.

    Silver nodded. "Oh. That."

    "I just got that tattooed a week ago," Violet said breezily, pulling free of all the people grabbing her. "I checked with the artist, it's not a gang symbol or anything. I guess he just didn't know about the Homoculi..." She grinned. "Totally slipped my mind too."

    "She's no homoculious. I would know," Silver added.

    "Yeah I just like the symbol," she finished nervously, avoiding the Colonel's stern and forboding eye.

    There was a long and dramatic silence. Here we cue the suspenseful synthesized music.

    "Take her to the infirmary,"Mustang ordered Silver. "Keep an eye on her. And you," he said, glaring at the gathered military personnel, "Don't you have something else you should be doing?"

    They scattered, half casting scared glances over their shoulders and the rest rolling their eyes and grumbling about promotions.


    Silver was beginning to develop a phobia of military infirmaries. On TV they wern't always much better, but at least on Stargate they had Carson Beckett for a short time. (A/N-May he rest in peace.)

    Nurses and shabby looking doctors rushed past, attending to gruesome injuries that left streaks of blood down their coats. Next to herViolet was getting impatient.

    "Where the hell's my icepack!?" she grumbled. "Or cold compress, or whatever. STAT! Don't they say that? I want my ice pack!"

    "Violet, you cut yourself," Silver said, puzzled. "Why would you need an ice pack?"

    A vein twitched dangerously on Violet's temple. "Because this place is giving me a headache!"

    The curtain surrounding the chair and hospital cot swished open, and Lietinant Colonel Hughes pushed a boquet in Silver's face. "OH MY GOODNESS!" He wept. "WHEN I HEARD MY RELATIVE WAS HOSPITALIZED I FELT SO GUILTY! CAUSE YOU WORK FOR ME AND ALL, AND ITS ALL MY FAULT!"

    "Uh...not me. Her." Silver pointed at Violet. "THis is my friend, the Violet Alchemist."

    "Oh." Hughes tossed the boquet over his shoulder, frowning. "Pleased to meet you."

    Violet waved impatiently. "Yeah, yeah, While you're at it get me an ice pack!!"

    "He doesn't take orders from you," Colonel Mustang grumbled, and both girls jumped, suprised. He of cousre had arrived with Hughes. "You're the Violet Alchemist?"

    "Sure," Violet said, nodding.

    Silver pouted and pointed at her. "Guilty, guilty!"

    Hughed glared at her, eyes narrowed, shoulders thrown back militantly as he straightened his glasses with a pompous air. "What do you think you're doing, scum!?" he demanded. "My office! Phone calls! Now!"

    Silver's eyes widened, and she nodded, leaping to her feet. "SIR YES SIR!" she exclaimed, saluting. Unfortunately the salute was left handed. "Er...oops, wrong hand. This ha--" She lifted her hand and knocked over an IV. Fluid splashed everywhere, and she was soaked. She smiled sheepishly, then promptly slipped and crashed to the floor, bringing Hughes down with her. She grinned at her relative slash superior officer. "Uh...oopsie?"

    "Oh, shoot," Violet grumbled. "That's not good."