Left Behind

Roy dropped his suitcase down on the doorstep of the mansion, scrutinizing it with contempt. With another bag in hand, he gritted his teeth and kicked the door with his foot. "Hey!Is anyone home? You better be home, because I took a really long train ride to get here, and I'm not about to go back!" He heard the door unlock and a woman poked out her head. She cocked her head at him for a few seconds, as if studying him, and closed the door.

"Hey! What the heck was that for? Hey!" He banged on the door with his fists, dropping his other bag besides his suitcase. He continued to harrass the door for another twenty minutes non-stop until someone came up behind him and tapped his shoulder. He turned his head to look over his shoulder. "Who are you?" he seethed, fist raised to bang on the door again.

"Are you Roy?" The man asked simply, keys in his hand. Roy looked at the keys and contemplated the consequences of simply snatching them from the man's hands, knocking him out, and finally getting himself into the house. He decided against it, thinking that it wouldn't benefit him very much in the long run, and picked up his bags again. "Yeah, what's it to you, old man?"

The man scrutinized him like the woman had, then said nothing. He swooped down quickly and knocked Roy's feet out from under him and slammed a palm into his chest with a freakish amount of force, causing Roy to collide with his back against the door. Winded and feeling bruised, he bared his teeth. Another fist came up to connect with his mouth and he flinched, but the hand stopped just short of breaking all of his teeth. Roy's baggage had been flung rather uncerimoniously off the doorstep after the man had attacked him, but while his mind was focusing on this it was being rather violently dragged back to the case at hand as the man lifted him by his collar with one hand and unlocked the door with the other. Roy gagged and spluttered as he began to feel himself choking and he was flung, once more, onto a couch. He got updizzily and could have sworn he saw a tiny cat bringing in his luggage on it's back, but he dismissed it as a delusion and quickly sank back down onto the couch shakily.

The man snorted. "Hmph. Must have given your mother hell for the time your worthless life was in existance."

"W-worthless!" Roy spat getting up on his elbows and just about ready to hock a defiant loogie. Before he could even finish his previous statement, however, there was a hand encircling his throat and he froze.

"Let me get one thing straight. If there's one thing I don't tolerate, it's little wannabe brats. So if I were you, I'd steer clear of that direction."

"Bite me and see if I give a damn, old man!"

This apparently wasn't a good answer, because soon he was scraping his face off of the brick fireplace. Roy wiped blood off of his chin and glared up at the man. "You think you can just toss me around, eh? Who do you think you are?"

"I know perfectly well who I am. The problem is whether you realize who you are. You see, being a member of the Mustang family brings the need for garnering a bit of respect and being respected. You, I see, have learned none of that."

"Yeah, I wonder why," Roy huffed. "and besides, you still haven't told me-"

"My name is Leroy Mustang. You, can call me Grandpa," Leroy grinned broadly as Roy's face whitened to resemble a bleached sheet: white and blotchy. "Dinner is at exactly six thirty. If you're not at the table by that time, you don't get dinner, and your bed time is seven thirty." Roy's jaw dropped. "I don't know how much your mother has been buttering you up; poor thing is doing all she can, I suppose. But you're in my house now, and I'm going to school you the same way I schooled my son. You're not going to like it. Now, in my house you either shape up," he gestured outside. "Or you sleep with Belcini Junior. Belcini Junior likes to caterwall at night. With an electric guitar." Roy stared rather numbly at Belcini Junior as the kitty grabbed a mini electric guitar and headed out for the night.

"You'll get earplugs, their on your bedside. You are expected to wake up at five thirty sharp and breakfast is served at six thirty. You have an hour in between to do whatever you want, but I would suggest that you wash up because I'm not giving you any time to between breakfast and lunch. You'll be coming to work with me."

"And... uh... where do you work...?"

"I'm a professor."

"Gee, that's lame."

"I'm the professor of the alchemy division of the boarding school you'll be attending. You piss me off and I'll send your grades straight to hell; I don't cut you any slack because you're my grandson, I'll just drill you harder."

"Shit. Does this school have a particular name?"

"Why, yes it does! It's Amestris's MustangAcademy of Alchemy. And you're the next generation in line for the meat grinder." Roy could have sworn his grandfather's grin had just broadened. This old man was literally damning him to hell. Academic hell.

Damn.


Short? Why yes, it is. For this story the chapters will probably be 1000 words tops. Nothing much new. BTW, if you want, you can check out episode/chapter one script for the manga we're writing. Just check out my profile and it'll have a link to our Xanga homepage, then maybe you guys can give me some feedback on it.

-TA