Episode 3: Mother (2003 series)

Ed and Al are in a library trying to find more leads, now that they discovered Cornello’s stone was a fake. Al then chances upon an ‘Introduction to Alchemy’ and the flashback occurs.

It shows the boys as kids trying to make a present for Winry Rockbell using alchemy. The process scares her and she cries. Trisha Elric (their mother) along with Winry’s parents and grandmother try to calm her down. On the way home, she asks her sons about Alchemy and gets surprised by how easily they understand it. She credits it to their father, hinting at him being a great alchemist and then says she is proud of their alchemy. The brothers then start competing with each other for her attention. Later, Ed is revealed to be angry at their father for leaving them, though he barely remembers him. At Winry’s house they learn both her parents (surgeons) have been killed in the Ishval war due to a surprise attack.

A while later where the boys are shown to be a little more grown up, they arrive home to find their mother unconscious and gravely ill. Believing that their fathers presence will make her feel better they write letters to all acquaintances hoping for a response. Their mothers dies, and her last words make them realize that alchemy made her smile only because it reminded her of their father. Unable to think of living without her, they decide to bring her back to life using human transmutation even though it is forbidden. They find themselves a teacher and learn alchemy seriously from page one.

Months pass, then the brothers are shown attempting to bring their mother back to life. The process goes horribly wrong, the thing they brought back to life was not human, Ed loses his left leg and Al disappears. In panic Ed sacrifices his right arm to bind his brothers’ soul to a suit of armor.

Al then takes his brother to the Rockbell’s house. Over there Lt. Col. Roy Mustang arrives in response to one of their letters and expresses a keen interest in Edward owing to the fact that he can perform human alchemy and survive. A seemingly unconscious Ed hears this and later decides to become a State Alchemist due to the amount of resources available, even though he would become a ‘dog of the military’ forced to do what the state commands. He considers it his responsibility to fix his brother and asks the Rockbells to fix him with automail. A year passes with the surgery and rehabilitation. They decide to leave to meet Roy Mustang and for Edward to try being a state alchemist. The brothers burn down the family home on the day they leave, deciding to leave no traces and this act forces them to move forward, unable to turn back.