Roy Mustang

**Colonel Roy Mustang**, also known as the **Flame Alchemist**, is the tritagonist of the *Fullmetal Alchemist* series. He is a State Alchemist and high-ranking officer in the State Military. A hero of the Ishval Civil War and Edward Elric's superior officer, Col. Mustang is a remarkably capable commander who plans to become the next **Führer** of Amestris.

## Physical Appearance

Roy Mustang is the very picture of an attractive, sophisticated man in the prime of life. With his dark, piercing eyes and clean-shaven, baby-faced visage, the infamous colonel attracts a great deal of attention from admirers. Roy's dark hair - perhaps in keeping with his persona - is worn casually unkempt, falling over his eyes; in more formal or somber situations, however, he is known to wear it neatly slicked back. He also has a fairly tall, well-defined figure that is described as "*handsome*", supported by his dark hair and eyes.

A great fan of classy attire, Mustang is rarely seen out of the standard Amestrian State Military uniform with long coattails and the rank of Colonel (and even while in uniform will often don other impressive accouterments, such as a long, black overcoat and white formal-wear gloves), but when dressed in civilian clothes, he appears rather partial to the three-piece suit and black tie (frequently coupled with classic scarves, polished dress shoes and the aforementioned overcoat and gloves). It may be interesting to note that Roy tends toward dark or neutral colors in his dress, such as dark blue, brown and black tempered with minimal white.

After his fight with Lust, Roy carries a faint scar on the back of his right hand in the shape of the Flame Alchemy Transmutation Circle. He also carries a large burn wound on his left side, lower back and abdomen from the same event.

## Personality

On the surface, Roy seems to be a shallow, self-absorbed and bold man, infamous among many of his colleagues and subordinates alike for the selfish and narcissistic aura he gives off. Easily as arrogant and stubborn as his young protégé Edward, Colonel Mustang is a "won't to act" person in an ostentatious manner and appears to act mostly out of self-interest rather than any sort of philanthropy. He comes off to most as a sort of cocky layabout, shirking most of his duties and delegating his paperwork to subordinates while sitting idly at his desk with an amused smile on his face as he procrastinates, but quick to take action when it appears that there is glory and military notoriety to be gained. Roy is expertly manipulative and prone to think several steps ahead of those around him, giving him a remarkable talent for making subordinates act exactly as he wishes despite appearing not to have had a hand in their decisions - all traits which make the fact that he has managed to attain the lofty rank of colonel at such a young age a matter of public gossip.

Roy also has the reputation of being an incorrigible womanizer, and it's said he spends much of his time cavorting about town with various women and wooing several of the servicewomen with his abundant charm, good looks and charisma. This adds another facet to his unpopularity among the enlisted men, many of whom have had their sweethearts and crushes romanced away from them by his hand.

However, while these traits do have a place in his real personality, much of his outward persona can perhaps be considered an intentional façade perfectly designed to cause those unfamiliar with him to underestimate his remarkable intelligence and ability. Mustang is an exceptional tactician, well-versed in various strains of combat theory and particularly talented in the realms of surreptitious information-gathering, covert operations and enemy ensnarement.

At the core, he is a remarkably devoted commander whose primary focus and personal duty is to his friends and subordinates. Though he hides it well behind a veil of cynicism and self-importance, Mustang is a man who cares deeply about the people who trust and support him and goes to great lengths to ensure their safety and well-being, even at the risk of his own. As a man with considerable power, Mustang considers himself a protector to those without and acts accordingly, earning the staunch loyalty of his most trusted compatriots.

Unfortunately, his self-imposed position as protector has caused him to display a penchant toward stubbornness in regards to his pride on the field and a fiery temper, both of which have been shown to cloud his judgment and actions in certain situations.

## Abilities

**Leadership Skills**: As ranked colonel, Roy is a remarkable leader and field commander. He is able to lead his subordinates without endangering them and make precise battle tactics.

**Keen Strategist**: Underneath his hot-headed and cocky exterior is his cunning mind and tactical analysis, able to deduce even the basic mechanisms behind either his opponents or his surroundings. He can even make plans to locate the pieces of conspiracies alongside several of his most trusted allies, such as hunting down the killer who murdered Brigadier Gen. Maes Hughes, even hiding 2nd Lt. Maria Ross (who was framed for the murder) to draw out the conspirator easier. He is also very perceptive and suspicious, able to deduce that taking out the Führer's train would make the Military Senior Staff stage a coup d'état against the Führer's wife.

**Military Training**: Though he mainly used his Flame Alchemy, Mustang has a high degree of military training and is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, as evidenced when he managed to hold his own against the Führer dolls during the Promise Day, since his Flame Alchemy timing can't keep up with the doll's immense speed.

**Enhanced Strength**:

**Enhanced Speed & Reflexes**: Roy is incredible fast and quick on his feet, as well as very flexible in heated situations. He also has incredible hand timing, able to correctly time the attacks of his **Flame Alchemy**to confuse his opponents, as well as performing quick-timed snaps at a fast pace, even surprising the most powerful State Alchemists who'd ever seen him in a fight.

**Enhanced Durability**:

**Immense Chi Power**: As a State Alchemist, Roy boasts an immense amount of chi power. His chi is orange in color.

### Alchemy

**Flame Alchemy**: Even among the elite State Alchemists, Colonel Mustang is a particularly skilled alchemist adequately versed in standard physical transmutation, experimental theory and biological alchemy. However, the brilliant skill that has earned him his state license, national notoriety and the status of "hero" during the Ishval Civil War is his remarkably powerful fire-based combat style. Mustang's unique style of combat alchemy is made possible by his custom made gloves. Made of "pyrotex/ignition cloth" and embroidered with unique flame alchemy Transmutation Circles, these gloves create a spark when Roy rubs his fingers together and allow him to manipulate the concentration of oxygen in the air surrounding his target, raising its density to a level at which it becomes a volatile and flammable oxidizer, and creating narrow pathways of oxygen through which he can direct the ensuing flame that blossoms from the spark. The 'snap' sound is caused by the instantaneous speed at which the highly concentrated gases and sparks react together and pop (not his fingers actually 'snapping', to common belief.) While Mustang's Flame Alchemy cannot be used on rainy days because the humidity makes it impossible for his gloves to produce sparks, it becomes clear that water itself does not make the Colonel entirely as "*useless*" as his subordinates assume. Using the transmutation circles on his gloves, Roy is able to separate hydrogen atoms from the oxygen atoms in water molecules, isolating them into a highly combustible fuel and powerfully volatile oxidizer, respectively. Though this method can only be used when a large quantity of water is present in a relatively closed-off space (and not in the rain where the air is open and separating hydrogen and oxygen for the purpose of combustion would pose far too much danger to anyone in the vicinity), with an outside source of ignition such as a cigarette lighter or a match, Roy can produce extremely powerful, localized explosions. It has also been revealed that Roy is able to delegate each hand to a different flame effect, possibly due to a difference in hand dexterity. The right hand appears to allow the use of flame alchemy for large explosive attacks, while the left allows for smaller, but strong and very accurate pinpoint flame attacks, demonstrated when he used his left hand to evaporate the liquid in Envy's eyes causing excruciating pain, and the right to engulf Envy in a large explosion. Overall, because of his Flame Alchemy, Roy has been regarded as "*the most troublesome State Alchemist*" by the First Homunculus himself, Pride.

Flame Alchemy is the brainchild of the master alchemist Berthold Hawkeye, who had spent several years perfecting it before his death from illness in 1905. Believing it to be the greatest and most powerful form of alchemy possible, Hawkeye refused to pass on the knowledge to Roy, who was his apprentice at the time, and instead entrusted the secrets of his search for knowledge to his young daughter Riza - tattooing the perfected array onto her back as the only physical record of its existence. The full array appears to consist of a circle corralling an inverted hexagram made up of a large air triangle and a large earth triangle, both splitting into identical pairs as they intersect, with a fire triangle at the center, pointing upward toward a flame. Below the hexagram is an image of a salamander. Outside the circle is a pair of entwined basilisks and the text of the "*Libera Me*" responsory repeated multiple times. After Roy gains Riza's trust and takes the Flame Alchemy knowledge for himself, he modifies the symbol somewhat for his gloves (removing the text and the basilisks in favor of a simplified circle). At Riza's insistence, he reluctantly uses his new knowledge to burn parts of the image off of her back, erasing the important aspects of it from existence, and freeing her from the heavy responsibility of carrying it.

**Generic Transmutation**: When he is forced to perform human transmutation and see the Truth, Roy gains the ability to transmute without a circle, clapping his hands to compensate for the sigils on his gloves being shredded. While at first he is apprehensive of this mode of alchemy, he quickly realizes that because of the absence of the need for transmutation circles he is no longer limited to flame-based alchemy on the battlefield, as seen when he transmutes a stone wall to protect himself, Riza, and Major Alex Louis Armstrong from the Homunculus Father's attacks. This would serve as a subsitute in case of "rainy days".

## Equipment

**Ignition Cloth**: Mustang's special gloves made of "pyrotex/ignition cloth" and embroidered with unique flame alchemy Transmutation Circles to use his own signature alchemy.