A/N: Sorry for it being so choppy. I'll try to update it sometime soon so it reads more smoothly. I also didn't add everything into it. Some stuff is pretty close to the original and no one needs really needs to read that again.
FYI from my own experience, in a small town like Risembool, EVERYONE knows who you are. So if you wonder how that person knows who Ed is...that's why.
Ed screamed as he regained consciousness. His leg was gone, he hurt all over, and all this vast new knowledge crammed into his head gave him a headache. The last flashes of alchemical light faded around him and he was plunged into darkness with only two light bulbs still functioning.
"Damnit! This wasn't support to happen!" He shouted, "Al? How bad are you?"
No answer.
"Al?"
Nothing.
"Al!" He craned his neck to face where Al was during the transmutation. All that could be seen of his little brother were the clothes that he had been wearing that evening.
"No, Al! No! Please! Someone help!" Ed sobbed into his bloody hands, not caring that blood was being smeared onto his face.
He only looked up out of his hands when he heard a rasping noise from the center of the room.
"Mom...?"
The thing he looked at was horribly deformed. Ed cried out in fear and pushed himself as far as he could go away from the monster he created. Bile rose in his throat and his dinner soon spread across the ground at his feet...foot.
Ed watched the thing die. It had reached out for him briefly, making incoherent noises before going limp. He dry heaved a few more times before hauling himself out of the room.
On the way out he grabbed a cloth from a chair and wrapped it around his stump of a leg.
"I'm sorry, Al. I'm so sorry. So sorry. So sorry! It's all my fault!"
As he dragged himself into the sitting room, he screamed as his stump collected dirt from the ground and stung his wound. He glanced behind him and saw the trail of blood leading from the room. He forced himself to look away and to focus on the telephone many feet above him.
Using the chair beside the phone as support, Ed pulled himself onto his remaining leg and grabbed the receiver with one hand while dialling the number with the other. He sunk back to the ground and rested his back on the wall and listened to the ringing in the phone. After the 3rd ring he heard a click.
"Hello, Rockbell residence."
Ed swallowed the lump in his throat.
"G-Granny?" He said, trying to not show that he was crying.
"Ed? What's wrong? Did something happen?"
Ed's breath hitched in his lungs. He couldn't say the words.
"Ed?" Pinako's voice rang in his ear, "Ed, what happend?"
Ed shivered. He was getting very cold all of a sudden.
"Al...we...Al's...I...I..." Ed couldn't hold back his tears anymore. "Granny! H-Help! We...Al's g-g-one...I n-n-n-eed..." He sobbed into the receiver, every shaky breath heard by Pinako on the other end.
"Ed, you need to calm down. You're going into shock. Are you injured?"
There was a pause at Ed's end.
"Yes." He squeaked.
Pinako had a very good idea on what the two brothers had done and once they had recovered they were going to get a major scolding.
"Ed," she said softly, "I'm going to go get a doctor. Winry's going to talk to you over the phone until I get to your house. But you need to stay calm, alright?"
Her response was a couple of shaky breaths attempting to smooth out.
"Winry," she said to the girl who had appeared beside her, "Keep him talking. Don't let him pass out. Try to keep him calm."
Winry nodded and took the phone from Pinako.
Pinako wasted no time as she grabbed her coat and rushed out into the night towards the house of where the town's doctor lived. She knocked on the door as soon as she reached the front door. Moments later the door opened and a dark haired man poked his head out.
"Pinako?" He said, "What brings you hear this late?"
"It's Ed. He's injured."
The doctor opened the door all the way.
"Ed? How bad is he?"
Pinako shook her head.
"I don't know. We need to get there as soon as possible. He was hyperventilating when he was talking to me on the phone."
"Let me get my bag." The doctor said and ducked back inside his house. Pinako heard him clatter around as he rummaged for his doctor's bag. He emerged minutes later. "Let's go."
"What about Al?" the doctor asked as he and Pinako started up the hill to the Elric house.
"Ed said something about him being 'gone' so I'm assuming the worst." She said solemnly.
They reached the front door and the doctor opened it without hesitation.
The first thing they saw the the red stain on the ground leading from one of the rooms in the hallway to the sitting room.
"Ed?" Pinako called out. She heard a sob in the sitting room and the doctor immediately rushed to the room. Pinako followed after him.
"Pinako! Get me some blankets!" The doctor said as she turned the corner. Seeing a blanket on the back of the sofa, she grabbed it and brought it over to where the blood trail ended and saw the state of Ed.
Ed was covered in blood from head to foot. He was shivering in the doctor's arms trying to say something coherent to him, but his sobs prevented anything from making sense. At first Pinako thought Ed's injuries weren't too serious...then she saw his leg...or lack of it.
She covered the shivering boy with the blanket and rubbed his arms to warm him up.
"Deep breaths, Ed," The doctor told him, "We're here now."
Ed stopped shivering, but he still cried.
"A-Al...Al...Al...I'm sorry, Al..."
The doctor looked at Pinako.
"What the Hell did those boys do?"
"It's best not to dwell on that. I don't think I want to know the truth too."
"TRUTH!" Ed's breathing got ragged again.
The doctor rubbed Ed's back.
"Calm down, Ed. Pinako's going to bandage your leg now. Is that the only injury you have?"
Ed nodded and winced as antiseptic was rubbed on the edges of the wound.
When his leg was completely disinfected and bandaged with plenty of gauze the doctor hoisted Ed up into his arms and held him close to his chest.
"I'm going to take you to Pinako's house now, ok? Then we can clean you up a bit."
Ed nodded again. He didn't want to speak anymore.
"Are you coming, Pinako?" the doctor asked the older woman.
"I'll be there in a little while. I'm going to see the state of-" she was afraid to mention the younger Elric's name, "...Al. I'll clear up any mess that needs it."
Ed flinched in the doctor's arms, but he didn't do or say anything else.
"I saw that room in your house! What did you boys do!"
"Lt. Colonel please! Ed's having a hard time coping as it is!" Pinako said to the black haired military officer who had intruded into her house.
Ed was crying again. His hands covered his face and muffled his sobs, but the tears rolled down the sides of his hands and dripping onto his lap in the wheelchair he sat in.
Lt. Colonel Mustang sighed at the 11 year old and sat down on the sofa beside the wheelchair.
"You're a pretty amazing alchemist to even try to do human transmutation. I came here because I heard that there was a talented alchemist living here; turns out it's you.
Though you will run into difficulties, if you were to become a state alchemist you would get the authority and the money to do extensive research that civilians can't access. You don't have to if you don't want to, but there may be some way of getting your brother back within all those books in the Central library and the different places around Amestris."
Mustang stood up and grabbed his coat from the rack and headed to the door.
"If you choose to become a state alchemist, come see me in Central. I'll wait for you."
The only sound for the longest time after Mustang left was the sound of the leaking faucet in the kitchen.
"So Ed," Pinako asked to break the silence, "What are you going to do?"
Ed looked up at her and she was surprised at how fierce his eyes looked.
"I'm going to become a state alchemist. So fit me up with some automail."
"Ed! What the Hell are you doing!"
Winry had come into the room to change the bandages around Ed's stump and had found him holding a blade to his neck. There was already a long bloody gash on his right arm from his wrist to almost at his shoulder and he made a move to do more damage on his neck.
"STOP IT, ED!" Winry cried as she ran to the bed and pulled away the blade, "What are you trying to do!"
Ed swallowed a few times before speaking.
"I-I c-can't take it. I don't want to be alone without Al!"
He started crying and winced as a jolt of pain came from his leg when he moved the wires connected to the nerves.
Winry started to tear up as well.
"You can't leave me and Granny here, Ed. Please. Please don't kill yourself!"
As Ed and Winry cried over themselves, Pinako came into the room and took the gauze from the side table where Winry had placed it.
"We need to bandage that arm up before it gets infected."
"I'm sorry there's no choice," the doctor told Pinako and Winry, "He'll die if we don't remove his arm."
They all glanced at Ed who was oblivious to his surroundings within his fever. The arm that he had mutilated 3 months earlier had gotten severely infected and had to be amputated at the shoulder.
Pinako made the final decision.
"Don't tell him. Just sedate him and do it. He probably can't even comprehend what's going on anyways."
"Do you still want to go on with this, Ed? You won't be in any condition to do anything for at least another year."
Pinako looked at the 12 year old Ed as he nodded.
"I will need a working arm if I want to become a state alchemist and get Al back. A leg's not going to be enough."
"You can almost walk unaided now. You'll be back at square one if you get the arm."
"I know. Just do it. One more year and I'll be ready."
"Will you come back, Ed?" Winry asked as the 13 year old Ed prepared to board the train to Central.
"Of course!" Ed said, "Once I become a state alchemist I'll come right back here to Risembool and tell everyone about it."
The conductor called out to the last minute stragglers to board the train and Ed waved to Winry and Pinako before climbing onto the train.
"Do you need some materials for your transmutation?" An official asked Ed at the state alchemist examination.
"Nah, I'm good." Ed replied.
He clapped his auto-mail and flesh hands together and placed them on the ground at his feet. Alchemical light flashed and Ed brought his hands up as a spear formed in-front of him.
Ed heard the other people in the room murmur at the fact he wasn't using transmutation circles and he used it to fuel his energy into his alchemy.
"WINRY! PINAKO!" Ed yelled before he was even at the front door of the Rockbell house.
"I did it! I'm a state alchemist! And I'm the youngest state alchemist ever, too!" He said when he was actually inside the house.
"Congrats, Ed!" The Rockbells said. Ed showed them his silver state issued pocket watch and the letter he received with his title of a state alchemist.
"They gave me a really cool name too! I'm called the 'Fullmetal Alchemist'!"
"So what are you going to do?" Winry asked Ed as he packed his trunk full of clothes and supplies.
"While I was rehabilitating, I read about this thing called the Philosopher's Stone. It bypasses Equivalent Exchange and if I can find it, then I can bring Al back."
"So you're not going to bring your mom back too?"
Ed shook his head.
"I don't know if there's enough power in the Stone to bring back two people. I'll just have to find out when the time comes."
"Come say 'bye' to us before you go Ed, ok?"
"Sure Winry."
He watched Winry leave his room and heard her leave his house with a bang of the front door. I should fix that door next time I'm here...
Ed glanced over at a picture on the bedside table of him and Al.
"I'll be back, Al. I'll bring you back and we'll be together again."
"Don't be a stranger, Ed." Pinako told Ed at the front door of the Rockbell home.
"Yeah. Send us a postcard or a letter sometimes." Winry said.
"I will." Ed said as he turned to the open doorway. He pulled his white gloves on a little tighter and grabbed the trunk at his feet. He waved once and smiled at them before stepping outside and starting his new life as a state alchemist.
Winry watched as Ed's long braided hair and bright red coat with that strange crest on it disappear into the valley.
15 year old Edward Elric sat on the stool with a bowl of soup in his hands. He hadn't eaten in days and at the first diner he found in the godforsaken town deep in the middle of nowhere he ran frantically inside and ordered something to eat.
"Hey, I've never seen you around here before," a man said to Ed as he sat down beside him, "Whatcha doing out here?"
"I'm looking for something." Ed replied from his bowl.
"Way out here?"
"Yup."
"By yourself."
"...yup."
"Isn't that a little dangerous?"
"Nope."
"If I may ask, why is that?"
Ed finished his soup and placed the bowl on the bar table and grabbed a fork to tackle the pasta in another bowl.
"It's because I'm a state alchemist and I can take care of myself."
"Really? You're a state alchemist?"
"Yup. I'm the Fullmetal alchemist. Heard of me?"
"I've heard of you! So you're really the Fullmetal Alchemist?"
Ed nodded.
"Wow. I seriously thought that with a name like that you'd be a lot more menacing... and taller."
The fork snapped in Ed's hand.
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A MOUSY LITTLE PIPSQUEAK?"
A/N: Somehow microsoft word makes the paragraphs look longer...