The Beginning
Five years before the Ishbal Annihilation Campaign in a town called Yuwain.
A body of a boy no older than twelve is lying on a basement floor… in a pool of blood. It has no limbs, and the blood pouring from the fleshy stumps will kill it in a few minutes. It regains consciousness not gradually, but in a single moment of sorrow, terror, and agony it howls in lament.
"GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUH! Hah……. hah…….. what……. went……. wrong? The……. formulas……. made……. sense……. was I……. just……. not…… skilled……. enough?"
"Young Master! Are you all right! Master Mason!" exclaimed a voice from above, ricocheting off of the walls of the stone encased stairwell. A clamoring of footsteps followed by a gasp of pure dismay preceded the silhouette that appeared at the foot of the stairs.
"Master Mason! My God! What happened here! Your arms, your legs, they're…gone! And… my God… dear God… what are those things!" said the frantic servant, as he pointed a corybantic finger at the writhing figures in the center of the room.
The movements were so distinctly biological, but they were so alien, so inhuman that the things looked more like corpses that had been taken apart atom by atom, but reassembled in the most incorrect way possible and still be able to live. But as well they should have looked, as that is exactly what they were.
The young man agonizingly looked up, and the emotion in his eyes turned from sorrow and misery to terrible shock.
"Oh dear god, what have I done?" he murmured with the last of his strength, and fell limp in the arms of his faithful companion. The servant looked down at his unconscious master, then back at the monstrosities. After hesitating a moment, he cradles the boy in his arms and sprints up the stairwell and into the living room of the Mason family Mansion.
He gently sets the boy down on a couch and dashed to the phone, his fingers fumbling for the correct number. "Hello? Doctor?" He cried frantically into the mouthpiece.
"Jackson? Is that you Peter Jackson?" replied the voice of an old man. "What seems to be the matter? Did young Richard injure himself again? That boy should really learn that he has limits."
"Sir, this is worse than anything of that sort! I don't know how, but the Master's arms and legs have been cut off!"
"Wha… What? Cut off! Damn that boy! I'll be straight over! Stop the blood flow as best as you can!" And at that, the old man slammed the phone down on the receiver.
When the boy woke up, he saw two familiar faces staring straight back at him.
"Doc… Doctor Higgins? What's going on? Am I… oh hell…" he mumbled as he noticed his inability to move his nonexistent limbs.
"Richard, I want you to be completely honest with me," said the Doctor, "What in heaven's name did you do?"
"I…I…" the boy stammered, "I tried to bring Emily and Janine back to life."
The two men looked at each other for a moment, and then the doctor sighed.
"I told you from the beginning that human transmutation was forbidden. I thought that you understood that! Things are always forbidden for a reason! Human transmutation is because one: it never succeeds and two: the price paid for trying is more than it will ever be worth. Just look at you! A young man about to enter his prime, and such an accomplished Alchemist as well, and now what do you have? Your arms are gone, so you can't transmute anything, your legs are gone, so you can't even walk, much less continue in your pursuit of the martial arts! All of that time you spent fencing, reading, exercising, was all for naught just because you wouldn't listen!" Having finished his lecture, he looked back at the boy, and was surprised to see the boy staring straight back at him with more determination in his eyes than he had ever seen in a human being.
"You're wrong." Said Richard.
"I'm sorry?"
"You're wrong. All of that wasn't for nothing. This is not the end-all be-all like you say, it is only a setback, and like any setback, I have learned a valuable lesson from this setback that I would have otherwise never known."
"But that doesn't change the fact that you transmuted your sisters."
"Yes… that's… true…" Richard whispered, "Undoubtedly those things were alive, albeit a short time, but they were alive, and I'm sorry that they had to live such a painful existence, but those things were not my sisters."
"But you said you transmuted your sisters! How can those not be them! Do you mean to tell me you lost your arms and legs to bring someone else back to life!"
"No. I have now seen that it is physically and scientifically impossible to bring someone back to life. But, as shown by any woman who has ever given birth, creation of life is possible. Before I fainted, I noticed one thing: that the hair of both of the things was black, and one of them had dark tan skin."
"But your sisters' hair was bright red like yours, and they were so light skinned that they couldn't go outside without getting sunburn unless they had parasols."
"Exactly, those things that I failed to bring to life were not Emily and Jan; they were new souls, ones that had never been alive before."
"But that doesn't change the fact that you have no limbs! What good is your "lesson learned" when you don't have arms or legs?"
"That's easy, I'll just get Automail. With the amount that my parents left, the cost should be no problem."
"You're not serious!" piped in the servant. "Cost may not be a problem, but do you know how hard and painful Automail recovery is? It takes years to even become accustomed to a single limb, much less four!"
"And they also have to do the surgery without anesthetic or else the nerve connections won't be precise enough for the limbs to function properly." Said the doctor, "Are you sure that you want to go through that kind of pain?"
"It's nothing," Richard uttered, "Compared to watching your limbs disintegrate atom by atom and feeling each and every one tear away from your body. Compared to the pain of losing these arms, any pain to gain new ones would be worth it." Stunned by Richard's declamation, the doctor hesitated for a moment, walked to the doorway, and gestured for the servant to follow suit. Around five minutes later, the two came back.
"Richard, we have reached a decision. You may recieve Automail surgery on one condition: you must do first become an expert on the subject."
"What? What do you mean by that?" Richard exclaimed.
"He means," interjected the servant, "that for you to get Automail, you must first know everything there is to know about Automail."
"But in my current state that will be impossible! How am I supposed to learn about automail if I can't even turn the pages of a book?"
"That, young master, is for you to decide."
Richard thought hard, was it worth it? To learn about Automail with arms or legs would be no small task, much less learning it without them.
"I'll do it! Whatever it takes, I will get Automail and I will show you what I can do! No matter what it takes!"
"Very well then." said the Doctor, handing the servant a slip of paper. "This is a list of the foremost experts on Automail. If anyone can teach a stubborn boy like you about automail, they can." He then walked out of the room, the servant tailing behind him. Richard knew that this was going to be a challenge, but he relished it, and unbeknownst to them, Richard was already thinking of the next part of his plan: to become a State Alchemist!