"It's so weird, you know..."

"What's weird?"

"To know how your future will play out."

"But you don't. Not really! None of us do."

"...Huh?"

"It doesn't have to be like this, if you don't want it. Didn't Fullmetal of Xerxes prove that we can shape the future however we want?"

"But he..."

"Listen, who is the professional historian between of us? That's right, me! And I say, there is absolutely no proof that this is how things will go down. You know why? Because history is always biased."

"What does that have to do with...?"

"All it takes is one person to lie on paper! One person to create a fake account, and BAM! Hundred years down the line, you have false history. After all, history is written by the victors! And victors get to say whatever they want, no matter how outlandish."

Shou Tucker was carefully reading through the contract on the table, as a woman in mid-thirties watched him with a cold gaze.

"Everything seems to be in order," he said with a light smile, ready to sign.

"You don't mind the NDA?"

"Naturally, it is to be expected that this type of research requires… discretion."

Who wouldn't sign a non-disclosure agreement for this kind of money? Tucker was far from stupid. This was the perfect solution to all his current financial problems.

He never really planned on getting married. But then, things got out of hand when his girlfriend got pregnant. He knew she would never let him cut ties without providing child support – and between regular payments to support two people for the rest of his life chaining him down, and having a wife to help take care of business, Tucker knew which choice was more pragmatic.

So now he was married, had a child on the way, and was practically drowning in debt – all while unemployed. Certainly the least favorable position for a man to be in.

While this wasn't the first offer he received while job hunting, the others were not nearly as appealing as this one. While Tucker was an alchemist by trade, he knew he was mediocre at best. The only positions open to someone like him would be barely enough to sustain his family. He certainly did not wish to be worked to the bone on dull, uninspired research, just to receive scraps.

This offer however, was much, much better in comparison. Less work hours, more money – a lot more money. And while it might be… slightly illegal, it certainly suited his area of interests.

Shou Tucker signed the contract without hesitation.

The dark haired woman nodded, collected the papers and stood up. "Alright, then let's get started. Follow me."

He walked behind her into a room separated by one way glass. There was already another worker present, wearing a lab coat and a face mask, working on an elaborate alkahestric array on the desk. It was much too complex for Tucker to even begin to understand it.

He looked beyond the glass to see an unconscious man tied to a chair. He looked young, around his middle twenties.

This must be their subject.

"Today, you will be only taking notes," the woman informed Tucker in the same cool, unattached voice. How professional. "In the future, once you get a hang on things, you may be needed to perform some experiments we schedule."

Tucker nodded, gabbing his writing pad. Honestly, instead of discomfort, he felt quite excited at the prospect.

"Phase one. Wake up the subject." Immediately after she spoke, the scientist in the lab coat followed her lead and activated the array.

The alkahestric focal points stationed inside the isolated room lit up as they connected with the array. A bright blue pentagon flashed around the unconscious man with dark hair. A moment later, his head jerked up.

"Mph? Mphhh!" The subject attempted set himself free, but he was completely bound and gagged. His eyes showed confusion, quickly followed by a pained scream.

Tucker flinched slightly. It was louder than he expected. The way the lab was set up seemed like it would be sound-proofed as well. Then he realized they probably needed to hear the results of the experiments.

The woman raised one brow slightly. "Uncomfortable?"

"Not at all!" Tucker quickly denied, smiling. "It just surprised me, that's all."

"Hm. Very well. Initiate phase two."

The glow of the array changed slightly. Tucker observed how the subject started trashing around and wrote it down. Whatever the array was doing to him, it couldn't be pleasant.

"Phase three?"

"Not yet."

The subject got louder.

"Hm. He might die at this rate."

"Do we have another subject ready?"

"Yes, but the next one is underage. They might be even more sensitive to the output."

"Alright, then. Initiate phase three."

Within ten minutes, the subject stopped moving.

"Is it dead?" the woman asked.

"If not yet, then certainly soon."

"Shame. I was hoping it would last longer." She looked directly at Tucker. "What do you think?"

"Well, it was certainly interesting," Tucker replied, finishing his notes.

Something flashed across the woman's face. "Interesting," she repeated. "You aren't feeling at all sympathetic towards the subject? It is your first time here, after all. Some discomfort would be understandable. You can still back out, as stated in the contract."

"No, not at all! I don't mind the noise. It's easy to get used to."

She snorted slightly. "Right. You are quite something, Mister Tucker. I certainly... look forward to working with you in the future."

The woman provided him with a generous money check and lead him out.

Soon she returned to the room, only two people present, and their subject beyond the glass.

In that moment, the mask broke.

*BANG!*

The woman broke the desk in half with a single punch.

The alkahestrist raised his hands. "M-miss Emma, calm down…!"

"Calm down? CALM DOWN?!" Emma Elric shouted, kicking the broken desk across the room. Wood shards scattered across the floor. "Don't even – just, hurry up and untie him already!"

"Yes, ma'am!" He hurried into the room on the other side of the glass.

The subject, completely unharmed and awake, shook his arm as the restraints got removed. "Well, how was my acting?" he asked with a smirk, pulling out glasses from a pocket. "Not too shabby, right?"

"Excellent work, Officer Hughes. Would you like some tea for your throat? You gave quite the performance."

"That would be great, thanks Danveer."

The two man joined Emma in the lab. Maes Hughes whistled upon seeing the broken table.

"Remind me to never get on her bad side."

"Noted." Danveer carefully put a hand on Emma's shoulder. "Are you okay, General…?"

The nickname brought her back to her senses. Emma took a deep breath, then nodded. "Yeah. Sorry about the table."

"Never mind the table. I can fix it in a second. I haven't seen you like this since Solf J. Kimblee."

"Oh don't even remind me of Goddamn Kimblee," Emma said as she pinched her brow. "It's just… How the hell do people like this even exist, Danveer? It makes me sick. Tucker absolutely believed a man was being tortured to death in front of him. We implied we were going to torture children next. And he just…!" She clenched her hands so hard her knuckles made audible noises.

"I know, I know." Danveer patted her shoulder, then he extracted the recording device from his pocket. "The good news it, we have enough evidence to put him behind bars for good. I do feel terrible about the wife and the kid though."

"Not to worry!" Police Officer Hughes clapped his hands with a grin, pulling out a photo of two women, smiling. "My darling beloved Gracia already made contact with Olivia Tucker. They're getting along great! We'll make she and her daughter get all the support they need."

"That's good to hear."

Emma finally relaxed and even smiled a little, her earlier rage forgotten. "Make sure to send us some pictures once Nina is born, alright Officer Hughes?"

"No problem!" Maes Hughes replied with a dangerous sparkle in his eyes which promised much more than mere couple picture in the future. Danveer laughed with a nervous smile.

The three of them soon parted ways.

"It was an honor working with you, ma'am." Hughes saluted.

"Same here." Danveer shook her hand in goodbye. "It's truly a shame you are retiring soon. You will be missed."

"I am not retiring just yet, Danveer."

"Five years flies in a blink of an eye. Take it from me."

That was quite true.

The past five years certainly flew by in an instant for her as well.

Afterwards, Emma headed straight to a phone booth.

"Moonlight General, reporting in. Operation Chimera Lockdown is progressing smoothly. No complications so far. Awaiting evidence submission and trial. Officer Maes Hughes is handling it. I'll be returning to Persepolis tomorrow."

Emma returned to her hotel room, washed the dark dye from her blond hair, and made an entry in her journal. Naturally, everything was written down in code. The leader of the Moonlight Society would never dare leaving confidential information lying around for anyone to read.

And it was indeed extremely confidential. What greater secret could there be over time travel?

The Moonlight Society was an organization created roughly 200 years ago. Due to an uprising, followed by the Great Fire of Persepolis, a lot of documents left by Fullmetal of Xerxes were lost. However, some of his entries still remained in the possession of the Elric descendants, and many of them contained details regarding the events in the previous timeline, before the Solar Eclipse on April 15th of 1915.

The Elric family decided it was necessary to keep on how things would unfold in the next two centuries, all while keeping the world in the dark about the origins of the famous genius alchemist. They preserved the letters he wrote, records of the names he knew, and did their best to look out for the people who mattered to their precious heroic ancestor.

In the process, they discovered just how strange the flow of time was. While some things completely changed from the timeline where Fullmetal Alchemist originally came from, some things were impossible to change.

Such as the birth of Nina Tucker.

Emma kept a close eye on Shou Tucker ever since they got him on their radar. The person who, in another time, experimented on his own family. The bastard who traumatized her childhood hero.

She could not forgive such a thing.

Emma Elric became the leader of the Moonlight Society with one goal in mind. To make sure none of the tragedies witnessed by the Fullmetal Alchemist ever came to pass.

Ah, she was truly blessed to be born at the time she was. She was alive just in time to witness the birth of a lot of people from Fullmetal's generation. She was actually there when Roy Mustang was born. She was only seven years old at the time, but she remembered it vividly. She even got to hold baby Roy! It was one of her most precious memories.

Emma grew up on the stories left by Edward Elric. She knew every tale by heart. She remembered every character mentioned in his letters. And all of that knowledge ignited her passion for learning more about history, to know everything there was to know about both timelines.

It eventually allowed her to become the Time Travel Expert. An occupation no one outside the Moonlight Society knew about, mind you, but it was a prestigious title nonetheless. She was definitely proud of it.

The downside, however, was personally dealing with people like Shou Tucker.

The Moonlight Society could not simply arrest someone and say: "Hey listen, this person will commit terrible crimes in the future. And no, we can't explain how we know that." They needed actual evidence of wrong-doing. But how to prove someone was a criminal before they commit a crime? The whole point was to prevent it from happening in the first place.

Difficult of a goal as it might seem, the power of hindsight centuries in advance was something to behold.

They had long established themselves to multiple governments. They were officially known as a secret investigations unit, dedicated to prevent terrorism. They did not deal just with secret time travel stuff, either; they did a lot of work to prevent actual real terrorism, as well as potential civil and international conflicts. For that reason, they established criminal psychology studies. Founded several branches of mental health research, on top of other things. Ran social experiments. They became experts at placing people in situations where it could be proven, without a doubt, how a person would be willing to commit a serious crime if they believed they could safely get away with it. Such as human experimentation, for example.

It naturally meant that every single political entity aware of their existence was terrified of the Moonlight Society. No one wished to be their bad side. From their perspective, being their point of focus involved having psyche stripped bare like under a microscope, analyzed and exposed and potentially having your career ruined before it could even get started. (Shockingly enough, nations did not want to be lead by psychopaths in disguise for some reason.) Worst case scenario, they were able to put people in prison for life – even though that very rarely happened.

This was why Emma Elric was one of the most feared individuals in existence. The boogeyman of crime itself. She certainly put the fear of Truth into Solf J. Kimblee before she put him in jail.

Like she would ever go easy on the monster who nearly killed Fullmetal in another timeline. The psychopath had it coming.

Emma was very aware they, the Moonlight Society that is, were walking a thin like with this. Just because people chose to do terrible thing in the previous timeline, did not meant they would make the same choice in this one. (Just look at Roy Mustang, and try to remember how he participated in a genocide in another life… Just thinking about it made her nauseous.) Similar to how overdosing a medicine could make it toxic, they could not allow their secret knowledge take away their reason, or fuel arrogance, and make them the danger society fears. (The civil war 2 centuries ago spoke for itself.) That's why the Moonlight Society made absolutely sure that every case they investigated truly required intervention before they acted.

Take Barry, for instance. In the previous timeline, Barry the Chopper was a serial killer. But in this world? They put him through extensive therapy when he was young and he turned out fine. Sure, he was still… Barry. But at least he wasn't hurting anyone.

Shou Tucker was given every chance to find a decent job to support his child and wife. They made sure he had options when they approached him. Emma handled his case personally and tried to keep an open mind, because there was the future of an unborn child at stake. If there was any chance at all for him to be a decent father…

But Tucker was truly an awful person. The only reason he stayed with his partner at all was because he was afraid of being ordered child support by court, on top of his already considerable debt – which was entirely his fault. While he wasn't an alcoholic, Tucker turned out to be quite the gambler, and he was anything but willing to part with his addiction. On top of that, he wasn't a good worker nor a talented alchemist. His interest in bio alchemy was unethical, and he knew it. And yet, he refused to put in the effort for the sake of his daughter's future.

In the end, all his motives were self-serving and selfish. He did not have a spec of decency inside of him.

After reaching that conclusion about Tucker's character, Emma made sure to dangle an irresistible offer in front of him. A smarter man would have hesitated, but not him. He took it, hook, line and sinker, and signed his own sentence the moment he signed a contract stating he was perfectly comfortable with breaking the law and getting involved with human experimentation.

If that wasn't enough for the court, there were also audio recordings and witness testimony from a police officer.

Shou Tucker was done for. And good riddance to him. Olivia and Nina definitively deserved better than that scumbag.

And thanks to Edward Elric's records, they got it.

"Emmaaaa! Over hereeee!" Emma heard a faint voice from far away.

She scanned the crowd at the train station, trying to find a familiar face in sea of blond heads.

"Over here, doofus!" Another voice, this time male, joined in. Finally, she spotted two people waving at her. Emma was surprised.

"Andrew!" She ran towards her baby brother and lifted him up. "I didn't know you were back in the country!"

"Ugh! Emma- stop- choking- me-!" Andrew Elric stuttered, trying to get away.

"Let him breathe, sis," the other sibling said with amusement. "Babies are fragile, you know."

"What baby?!" Andrew exclaimed, finally getting away from his oldest sister's clutches. "I'm already twenty, Terra! An adult, by international standards!"

"A baaaaby," Terra Elric, a thirty-year-old, pressed his cheeks together as she spoke in an overly sweet tone. "The precious baby boy of the family~!" She was referring to the fact that Andrew wasn't just the youngest; he was the only boy born in the current Elric generation. Same case in the previous one. If it wasn't for the fact that the Elric family name was passed down by both paternal and maternal lines due to its prestige, the number of their members would have been much lower today.

"What are you doing here, Andrew?" Emma interrupted their typical bickering before they could get carried away and cause a public incident… again. "I thought you wouldn't be back until holiday break. Xingese Academy of Art not serving you well?"

"Are you joking? As if I ever wanted to miss the Dilation?" He rolled his eyes. "Especially one involving Roy Mustang? I had to come didn't I? Officially I'm on sick leave."

"I thought you and Roy didn't get along?"

"We get along fine!" Andrew crossed his arms with a pout.

"Really?" Terra seemed surprised as well. "I thought you hated his guts."

"Of course not! I- can we not talk about it here? We're in public."

"Right, right." Emma pick up her suitcase. "We should get going."

As they walked, Andrew seemed lost in thought. The sisters exchanged a look behind his back.

"So… What's your deal with Roy?" Emma asked in a casual tone. "I swear I've never heard you say as much as one polite word to him, much less about him."

The youngest Elric was silent for a moment.

"...You really don't know?"

"Should I?"

"Yes!" Andrew suddenly exclaimed. "Emma, you spent years training him! Five years! You…! You…"

"Hold on, are you… jealous?"

"That's not it!" He pointed at her with a glare. "Don't be ridiculous Emma. You know I always wanted to be an artist, not a fighter. I'm not jealous you trained him in martial arts."

"So then..?"

"I'm angry you spent so much time with him, instead of us!"

Terra gasped.

"Andrew…" Emma was speechless. "Is this about my… retirement?"

"What else would it be about, huh?!" He snapped. "Of course, I understand why – I understand! It's your dream! You're free to follow your dreams just as much as I am! That doesn't change the fact that- that…" Andrew hastily rubbed his eyes before any tears could form. "We're going to miss you, okay?! There's only five years left until the final Dilation, you're already so crazy busy with the Moonlight Society business, you were barely ever home, and then you took Roy under your wing! And- UGH!"

Emma once again trapped her baby brother in a deathly grip.

"Emma- Emma, breath- breathing- is- a thing-!"

"Oh Andrew..." She sighed, squeezing him one last time before letting go. "I had no idea…. I'm sorry."

"So you are jealous of Roy," Terra concluded.

"I just said I wasn't!"

"Nah, I'm pretty sure you just did."

"Teeeerra!"

Emma laughed, then decided a distraction was in order. "Hey, you guys want to hear what the Curtis family was up to?"

"You visited the Curtis family?! Spill!" Terra exclaimed with stars in her eyes. Izumi was her idol, after all.

Emma pulled out an envelope full of pictures.

"Is that Kenji? He's gotten so tall!"

"Wow, he really did get taller!" Andrew was surprised as well. "Tiny midget is finally starting to grow!"

"Don't call him a midget. He's just a baby."

"And here I thought I was the baby."

"You are. Except he is an actual six year old, and you just act like it."

"TERRA!"

Emma watched fondly as her siblings lost themselves in their bickering again. Ah, she missed it.

She abruptly wished her best friend was here.

She never even got to see Andrew's birth. Emma would never see the two of them in the same room.

The realization made Emma's heart ache. She understood how Andrew felt. Sometimes, you had to make difficult choices.

She missed her friend… so much.

"So what you're saying is... It doesn't matter? I get to choose anyway?"

"Exactly! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You should punch anyone who disagree with you in the face! In fact I can do it for you-!"

"Ha ha, no! No thank you! You always go overboard."

"Says who?"

"Says everyone! But still..."

"What are you thinking?"

"Emma... what if I want exactly this kind of future?"

"..."

"I mean, it seems like everything works out, so-"

"Nope, I don't want to hear it! No self-sacrificial nonsense from you! Geez, girl. Have some feministic self-respect!"

"I'm not, I...! Honestly. Honestly, Emma. Wouldn't you want this kind of future?"

"Hm... It depends? But you seem really convinced."

"I think I am."

"You still have time to change your mind."

"I won't."

"Then... then I'll follow you."

"Emma?!"

"I'll follow you! I'll make sure to come with you!"

"But, Emma... that's not possible, is it?"

"I am an Elric, girl! There is not such thing as impossible!"

Author's Note:

What is a "Dilation"? That shall be revealed in the future!

Emma Elric was born in 1878. This story takes place in 1910, when Emma 32 years old.

I know a lot of people would probably prefer another chapter of "My Master Ed" instead of such a confusing, OC-centric glimpse of an alternate future… however, I hope I got you guys intrigued at least a little bit for what is to come! It shall all come together eventually, don't worry! The chapter's already in the works, hopefully it won't be too long before it comes out! But we'll see.

Things I wanted to mention in this one-shot, but did not fit in the narrative so I decided to cut them out:

-the Armstrongs are involved in the Moonlight Society (...THE MEMBERSHIP HAS BEEN PASSED DOWN THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY FOR GENERATIONS!)

-Maria Ross is a detective who works with Officer Maes Hughes

-Emma Elric is the head of the Moonlight Society, but she is not the current head of the family, her maternal aunt is. Like I mentioned, everybody in the Elric family keeps the name and the people who marry in take on the name as well due to its prestige.

-Sheska is Emma's peronal assistant, although she does not travel with her for Moonlight Society investigation business. She usually stays at Persepolis.

-is Emma's ancestor Edward Elric? It's actually unknown. Due to the Great Fire of Persepolis, the Elric family lost their family tree records and consequently lost track of who got descended from whom (as not all the Elrics are Ed's kids, you know…;) so she could totally be his descendant, but… maybe not!

-After talking with her siblings, Emma would soon meet up with Roy and kick his butt at sparing, similarly how Ed kicks Van's butt in "My Master Ed", because Emma is a sweetheart but she and Izumi are definitely besties and equal monsters where it comes to sparring

-for this year's Dilation they have a royal guest from Xing, who is determined to become Emma's second pupil. Three guesses at who it is!

-technology in this world is a fusion between 21st century with alchemy and alkahestry thrown into the mix, and that due to Ed's interference of the past, a lot of scientific progress came faster as a result.