Excessive Pride

by BridgitKiido

Disclaimer: Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, known in America as Fullmetal Alchemist, is the creation of the Japanese manga-ka Hiromu Arakawa. I, meanwhile, am an American of European mutt descent, and am lucky to even be able to write a fanfiction. In short, I don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, nor do I claim to. (However, unless anything similar occurs in the manga, this story's plot is my idea.)

. I .

This particular story has no real beginning in recorded history. All that is known is that several hundred years ago, shortly after the founding of Amestris and Xing, a man called "Father" created the first Philosopher's Stone – and shortly after its creation, the first homunculus, Pride. Shortly after, the one named Lust was born, and subsequently, so were the ones called Greed, Envy, Sloth, and Gluttony. However, regardless of how many members in this "family", Pride always remained the most loyal to "Father", and thus was always "Father's" favorite. Even after Greed disassociated himself from "Father" and Wrath was created and given the title of Fuhrer, Pride remained all the more loyal.

That is, until a certain fateful day. Civilian records would merely mark this day as one of birth; the birth of Trisha Elric's first son, Edward Elric, in Risembool. However, another event occurred that day that not too many beings recall.

Pride, "Father's" favorite homunculus, disappeared.

No one knows exactly what occurred. When questioned on the matter, the one named Envy, who had been with him at the time, only recalled that the carriage they had been riding in towards the country of Ishbal lost control suddenly and fell off a cliff. Himself, Envy had been able to transform into a bird and escape without injury. Pride, however, had been unable to escape the falling vehicle and instead plummeted into the chasm below, not to be heard from again. "Father" became quite gloomy, mourning the loss of his favorite "son", and all of the other homunculi (save Greed, who at this point didn't really care anyway) attempted to go on with their lives without him, and the Ishbal Massacre occurred as originally scheduled. (Gluttony took the most time to get over Pride's "death", but he quickly managed thanks to Lust.)

However, what happened next was completely unexpected and hid itself right under the homunculi's own noses.

On the outskirts of Central, there ran a small brook. On usual days, this particular black-haired fifteen-year-old boy would avoid the river, as he strongly disliked water in general. And why not? After all, although made of highly inflammable gases, high concentrations of water made flame alchemy highly difficult to perform, and that was exactly what fifteen-year-old Roy Mustang was trying to specialize in. However, today was not a usual day for the young boy, as his childhood friend Gracia Stern had invited him down to the brook side for lunch – to celebrate him becoming the youngest State Alchemist on the record books to date – and he wasn't one to pass up his friend's cooking.

Spotting his friend with the blanket already spread out, Roy ran faster toward Gracia, waving at her happily from a distance. As he got closer, she smiled and waved back, and when he arrived, panting slightly, Gracia said, "Good morning, Roy. Congratulations on becoming a State Alchemist."

"Thanks, Gracia," Roy said, sitting down on the blanket. "I just want to do as much as I can for Amestris."

"Just don't get killed in the wars," his friend warned him as she unpacked a pair of sandwiches. "The military is quite dangerous, you know."

"With my skills?" Roy replied with a tone indicating that he was kidding around and would indeed be careful.

The two of them then each took a sandwich and poured themselves a glass of lemonade (Roy's mother had sent him with a homemade pitcher full of it). They were just about to begin eating when Roy spotted something out of the corner of his eye floating down the river.

It was a big something, shaped like a human upon a second glance.

Roy stared at the black-haired person floating down the river in shock, and when Gracia noticed and looked towards it as well, she let out a shriek.

The next few minutes were spent with Roy attempting to pull the mysterious person out of the water, all while Gracia was standing in one spot, completely freaked out as her friend pulled the black-haired man – who looked just a little bit older than Roy, although significantly taller – onto the beach.

Not knowing what else to do and in a slight state of panic, Roy checked to see if the unconscious person was breathing. To his relief, he found that yes, he was. He then turned towards Gracia. "Go back to my house and get my father. He'll know what to do. Hurry!"

"Of course," Gracia replied, significantly panicked, before running off.

Roy sat down by the unconscious stranger with one hand on their chest and one squeezing their hand. "You're going to be alright," Roy muttered. "You'll be alright, just hold on."

Where am I? the previously unconscious person thought as he attempted to wake up. I remember falling... but why can't I remember anything before a large fall?

Upon opening his eyes, he saw a few roughly humanoid, although quite blurry, shapes in his vision. On the left, a male voice said, "Good, you're awake. I was afraid you weren't going to make it."

"Where am I?" he asked weakly, screwing his eyes in an attempt to see clearer. "Who are you? Why are you so blurry? Come to think of it, I'm not even sure who I am, so if you know that, could you please tell me that too?"

A feminine voice on his right replied, "You're at Mustang-san's home, sir. I'm Gracia Stern, and the other boy over there is Roy Mustang."

"What am I doing here?" he asked, still attempting to fix his vision.

"We found you floating down a stream," the voice identified to be Roy stated.

Another, older-sounding male voice continued, "You seem to be suffering from amnesia, which could have easily been caused by a blow to the head of some sort. That would also explain why you're complaining about your eyesight being poor. I've already called a doctor to come check you out; I'm sure he can also set you up with some glasses."

"I'll go get some food ready for our guest," the voice known as Gracia said, and one of the blurry shapes started moving, then stopped. Gracia then said, "It's going to be difficult, calling you by the title of 'our guest' the entire time you're here. I know you don't know your real name, but how about you come up with a name that you like for us to call you by?"

He thought for a moment, and then lay back down on his bed. "How about Maes?" he replied. "Yeah. For some reason, the first name that comes to mind is Maes Hughes. Why don't you call me that?"

Author's Note: Please don't shoot me. As I said up above, it's a manga theory I'm working on. Manga, not anime - I'm fully aware that the anime is finished and goes in a completely separate direction. (If you haven't figured out the basics ofmy theoryyet, shame on you for not paying attention, and fifty lashes with a wet noodle!) Please review and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism would be nice, but please no "You are definitely wrong!" or other flame-type reviews without reasons to back up your arguments. If you want to know more about my full theory, ask nicely and if I feel it might not be explained later in the story, I might just answer. 'Kay? Good. So review nicely please!

EDIT March 27, 2006: Thanks to all my reviewers! Especially JadeiteZ, who was kind enough to point out the redundancy of the part where Maes wakes up. I guess I should look over my chapters more carefully when I upload them, huh... either way, that's fixed now. Thank you so much for pointing that out, and I'm sorry that chapter 2 isn't quite ready yet. I'll have it up as soon as I possibly can, though.