Roy mustang

Roy mustang (roi masutangu?), also known as the flame alchemist (honō no renkinjutsushi?), is the tritagonist of the fullmetal alchemist series. He is a state alchemist and officer in the amestrian state military. A hero of the ishval civil war and edward elric's superior officer, colonel mustang is a remarkably capable commander who plans to become the next führer of amestris. 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," these gloves create a spark when roy rubs his fingers together, and embroidered with unique flame alchemy transmutation circles, they allow him to manipulate the concentration of oxygen in the air. When attacking, mustang raises the density of the oxygen surrounding his target to a level at which it becomes volatile and creates narrow pathways of oxygen between himself and his target through which he can direct the ensuing flash fire that blossoms from the spark of his gloves. As a result, he can incinerate any number of enemies in the field while deftly avoiding any adjacent allies. The 'snap' sound heard at the start of these transmutations is caused by the instantaneous speed at which the highly concentrated gases and sparks react together and pop (and not mustang's fingers actually 'snapping', to common belief.)

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 for large explosive attacks, while the left allows for smaller, but strong and very accurate pinpoint flame attacks. 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.

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. 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 father's attacks. In the book in figure red omake strip, roy reveals that he sometimes uses alchemy for the purpose of scoring a date. In his "Oxygen de gentleman strategy", he uses his gloves to raise the oxygen density around a specific woman to the point that she becomes dizzy. He then, rushes to her side to prevent her from falling, asks her if she is all right and follows up with other sweet words and an invitation for tea.