Chapter 15: The Center of Everything

Anya's next sight was nothing but white. Or rather, absence.

Because white didn't describe where she was, or what she was seeing. Everything was just...nothing. She looked around for a moment, into the sky, down to the ground, and there was nothing there. Even though, she was clearly standing on something.

"Hello!" she shouted.

No sound returned her call.

"Hello!" she called again, and again, there was no answer.

"What's going on!" she screamed, and began to fidget as the world around her seemed to stretch forever, she began to twirl around, and finally, she saw something.

That something, was a massive door. The door was taller than her. It was taller than Mama and Papa, even if they were stacked on each other's shoulders. It was probably taller than even the building where their apartment had been. On the door were a lot of squiggly lines, and they were made to look like a tree. But it was silly, because the roots of the plant were at the top, and the leaves were at the bottom, and their were giant circles all around the plant. And those circles along it couldn't be fruit, since they had weird words on them.

And was even more weird was that the door was split in two. In fact, as she stopped forward towards the door, she saw something strange about it. What at first seemed to be just one door was two doors. The tree was split in the middle, from top to bottom...

And any could see a small space between the doors. Only enough for a finger to slip through, but the doors were cracked open.

And once she could see that the doors were cracked open, she could see a dark mist coming out of the doors. She didn't know why she didn't notice it before, but the mist was all around her, and where all she had previously seen, besides the door, had been white nothingness, this fog...was a dark something. Something heavy, and she could feel it twist around her head, and then, almost seem to push into her ears. As she began to feel a bit sick from the miasma surrounding her, seeming to almost go up her ears, she looked back into the crack, and then saw a deep, grey eye looking out at her, watching her every movement.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHH!" she screamed, and fell backwards. She began to push herself back, away from the door, away from the miasma, away from whatever was staring at her from within that door. And then, as she slid across the nonexistent floor, she bumped into something, and stopped. She had run into somebody, a person from how her body felt, and then she heard a new...strange voice speak up to her. A girls voice, but with a lot of boy voices behind it too. And it sounded really familiar too.

"What do we have here?"

"Anya," Anya awoke with a start, before looking up, and seeing Papa staring down at her, concern over his face. Anya stared at Papa, and then coughed. She felt awful. Like she had fell down a hill and had a bad stomach ache at the same time, and her head felt like she had rammed it into a wall. She tried to push herself up, but felt a hand old her down. She moved her eyes upward, and saw Mama staring down at her, concern obvious over he face.

'I never had to deal with a sick child before,' Mama was panicking, her inner eye bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball, 'Yuri never got sick as a kid, and I never got sick as a kid. I don't think I've ever been sick at all. What am I going to do...,' she then looked down at Anya, 'Please be okay, please be ok-'

"I'm okay Mama," Anya said aloud, and then felt her eyes close again. the pain and the sickness making her woozy. Her mother's eyes widened, and then she began to get tears in her eyes. The three just sat there for a few minutes more, as they let the time and train continue to pass.

Every few minutes, Anya slowly but surely became more in control of herself, and the pain and ache began to recede. Soon, after about half an hour, Anya was able to sit up on her own again. As she did so, she looked down, and saw that her hands were really sweaty. Her throat was also really dry, so she turned to Papa, who was looking at her with great concern, his newspaper having been placed beneath his seat, and his heat sitting on the free chair to his side.

"Can I have some water?" she asked, and Twilight's eyes shot open.

"Of course Anya," he tried to smile, but inwardly thought, 'Of course, water. That will probably deal with any dehydration this sickness is bringing. How could I have not thought of that before,' he then got up from his seat, and walked to the small little counter at the end of the car. Less than a minute later, he was back, and handed the cup of water to Yor, "Here we go."

"Thank you," Mama then grabbed the cup, and placed the side near Anya's lips. She began to take down the cool drink from the water, she felt herself almost instantly start to get better. Perhaps it was the water quenching her thirst. Perhaps it was that her body's temperature was going down.

Or perhaps it was her finally realizing that Dark Lady Lust wasn't in the car anymore. Anya had made a quick mental sweep of the car as she took her first sip, and she couldn't feel any multi-mind presence. And if there wasn't a multi-mind presence, then she wasn't likely to die. For some reason, Lust had decided to leave her and her family alone.

'I wonder,' Twilight considered, as Anya continued to drink more and more water, slowly pushing herself to her seat, and resting against the back of the chair she was seated on, 'what could have caused this. This wasn't just motion sickness. Something must have gone terribly wrong for a moment to throw her equilibrium off so much in such an acute manner.'

'I hope I didn't bring a disease that got Anya sick,' Mama began to worry, glad that Anya was getting up, but worried about her place as a mother, 'I never get sick, so what if I am carrying a germ that spreads disease, but my constitution is too strong. I could be killing Anya just by being here. Maybe this is a bad idea, maybe Matthew was right, maybe...'

"Thank you Mama," Anya said again, placing her hand on Yor's leg. Yor almost let out a little gasp, before her eyes shined as she looked down at Anya, "For taking care of me."

Twilight stared at Anya and Yor for a minute, and then Anya could hear his thoughts, 'Perhaps this will go better than expected after all. If Anya is taking to Yor this well, then the chance of her pulling off being a caring mother go up. Any kind of social interaction with the Fuhrer's family will be far easier if we all come together as one unit.'

'Right,' Anya considered everything around her for a moment, 'we aren't interacting with Dark People,' she nodded to herself, causing a bit of water to spill out of the cup, though Mama was quick to clean it up with her handkerchief, 'We're not going to the dark place. We're going to the palace.'

'There's no way we'd run into more Dark People in the palace.'

It was two hours after Anya woke up when they disembarked from the train. It was two hours after that, all the while checking to make sure Anya was okay to move, and to make sure they had all their luggage, that they arrived at their new home. It was a two story tall town home, in a large row of town homes for the upper middle class. The bankers, the business owners, the military officers were the sorts of people who owned these sorts of places. A doctor like Lloyd Forger would just be the sort of man to buy one of these homes.

Afterall, not only were they larger than the usual apartments Central City, but they conveniently located. The hospital where he would be staying was only a fifteen minute walk from the front of the home, and it was only a ten minute walk from there to the Central palace. It would give Twilight further access to the comings and goings of the military in the hospital. And it would make it easy to take Anya to school in the fall once the plan got into motion.

'The perfect home,' Lloyd thought inwardly unloading the boxes and bas from the small van he had hired to take his "family" to this place. He had considered the map of Central that had been hidden inside his newspaper during the time on the train, and had planned out his walking route and schedule perfectly, as well as his other plans for the rest of the week, 'WISE never fails to consider anything in their planning.'

"Do you need any help Lloyd," Yor looked over. She was currently holding Anya's hand, making sure to keep her eyes on the small girl. Lloyd was thankful for how quickly the woman had taken to the girl, as it would make leaving them together a far easier request. Still, she was seeming to want to come towards the trunk and help him unload the boxes, which he had already half removed, "I can help get my things out, no need to carry any of them."

"It's no trouble, dear," he said aloud, as he noticed that several people were walking by. Better to build the impression of a loving couple as quickly as he could, "I have these," he looked down, reached into his pocket, and pulled out one of the pair of keys he had been given for their new home. He tossed it towards Yor, who snatched it out of the air with surprising speed, especially with one hand still firmly holding Anya's, "Why don't you all go inside. There should be furnishings for the three of us. I'll unload, and pay the nice driver for getting us here."

"Ri-right," Yor's seemed to be a bit off, and for a second, Lloyd saw that she had a tint of red on her cheeks, "Come on Anya, let's get in and get comfortable."

"Alright Mama," the little girl offered up groggily, her voice a bit stuffed up with sick and snot, "We can go pick out our rooms."

'Yor must have caught the same thing as Anya,' Lloyd mused as he considered the blush on Yor, 'Children can be vectors of highly contagious diseases, and being so close to her while ill could not have helped avoiding it.'

"Hey, bub, done flirting, and about to actually clear out my van?"

"In a minute," Lloyd grabbed the last of the boxes, and placed it on a the sidewalk in front of the townhome. He then closed the doors of the back of the van, hearing a satisfying shunk. As he did so, he heard the front door of the house unlock, and out of the corner of his eye, saw Yor and Anya push into their new abode.

"IT'S SO BIG!" he heard the little girl cry. Despite himself, he felt the edges of his lips tip up in a smile, shaking his head as he walked back to the front of the vehicle, and looked through the open passenger window, all the while pulling out his wallet. He looked at the older man sitting in the drivers seat, with the large bushy beard and sunglasses on.

"So, how much is this worth," he said aloud, pulling out the wallet.

'Any information on the meeting tonight,' was what his mouth said. The Wise technique of saying something outloud while speaking what you actually meant with your lips was a hard to practice thing, and was obvious to anyone who was actually looking at a face. But if you were both secluded, your voices would be enough to cast away suspicion on yourself. And that was all that would be needed for a private conversation.

"Fifty two, sisteen," the driver answered disinterestedly.

'Nothing concrete, but the Handler says she will be preparing you for the beginning of the main stage of the infiltration. She's looking forward to seeing you again. It'll be in about an hour.'

Twilight nodded at that. Sylvia Sherwood was currently seen only as the secretary for the Deputy Ambassador from Cresta. In reality, she was a legendary spy, who had spent the past five years controlling the operations of all of WISE inside Amestris. Getting to see her again and discuss how their new operations should move forward would be exciting. He'd have to find a way to sneak away from his family, but he could offer to go pick them up something to eat, make a quick meeting, and be back to feed them after they unpacked.

"Here you go," Lloyd said.

'Go ahead and tell her I'm looking forward to seeing her too,' the driver nodded, and took the bills.

"Hey," the driver said aloud, "This is sixty two straight."

'You sure everything is good here. Anything I can alert Handler about before you arrive?' Lloyd shook his head, and smiled at the older man, the fake beard and glasses likely hiding a man from the Crestan embassy.

"I must insist. You did such a good job, what with my sick daughter and everything, I must insist on you taking a ti-"

'Nothing to report, I'll give her my findings so far as soon as I arrive. Though, let her know WISE has outdone itself again. The house is absolutely perfe-'

"I don't believe it," a voice suddenly came out of the blue from behind him. A very familiar voice, "Is that Dr. Lloyd Forger I see?"

Lloyd pulled his head back, and suddenly, standing in a casual outfit, a black coat with grey pants and a deeply purple button down shirt in the middle, was Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes, waving his hand, a massive smile on his face. The older man walked up to Twilight, and slapped his hand on the spy's back, causing the spy to nearly fall forward in a mix of shock and force. Lloyd barely managed to regain his footing, before standing back up, and looking Maes directly in the eyes.

"Oh, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes," he said aloud, alerting the driver to who he was speaking to, "It's such a surprise to see you."

"Yeah, a surprise to me too," Maes laughed, rubbing the back of his head. The light seemed to reflect of his glasses, as Maes Hughes leaned his hand back, and slammed his palm into Twilight's back once more, again knocking him off balance. Almost as though he was doing it on purpose, "I didn't think I'd see you for a while. I knew you were coming to Central, but I'd have no idea we'd run into each other in only two days. Quite a coincidence, huh?"

"Ye-yeah," Twilight felt himself begin to sweat, desperately trying to figure out how to get away from this intelligence officer that already knew his face, "Why are you here," he stopped, trying to compose the question in a less accusatory way, "I mean, not in Central, I know you probably live in Central, but right," he pointed down to his feet, "Here."

"Well, I live right there," Maes pointed at the town home just one door down from the one they were standing at, towards the back of the van, while he had come from the front of the vaehicle.

...

"...wh-what?"

"Hey," Maes seemed to be rubbing his bearded chin just a bit, before pointing his thumb at the luggage sitting on the steps up to Lloyd's town home, "I'm guessing that's your luggage, and with all that there, I'm supposing that means you live here," he then threw his right hand out, "that means I'm your next door neighbor!"

...

Weakly, Lloyd Forger grabbed and shook Maes Hughes hand. It was a strong shake, and for a moment, he almost felt like he was being shaken by a jackhammer. Finally, after the moment passed, Twilight just stared at the smiling intelligence officer, who then looked over at the many bags on the ground.

"Hey, need some help getting your things in?" Maes offered, and then Lloyd looked over at the bags, "Gracie and Elicia won't be home for an hour, they had a play date at the park today, and I wanted to get home early to surprise them. Might as well use the time I got to help a new neighbor out, ya know. Also get a chance to finally meet your family."

"...Actually my daughter is sick. She had a bad fever on the train ride here, and got violently ill. I think my wife might have caught it too," Twilight never thought that a bad virus would save his ass so completely, but he was going to use it while he had it, "She might be contagious, and I don't think exposing you would be a good idea, especially, if it might spread to your daughter."

"Oh, that's...," Maes blinked, and for a second, Twilight realized he had just been knocked off guard. He hadn't expected the sick child, and was trying to process the change in the momentum of the conversation. That meant...

'He's been trying to get information out of me,' He thought, 'but he doesn't want to risk his daughter getting sick.'

"Why don't we do something tomorrow," Lloyd offered, and Maes blinked, before nodding, "Perhaps my family and I can come to your place and have dinner. That might be a good time for us to get to know each other, especially since Anya and Yor will hopefully be feeling better by then."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan," Maes nodded, before turning towards his door, "Good to see you pal. Glad to be your neighbor."

Lloyd forger then waved back, as Maes turned around completely, and then opened the door after fiddling with if for a few seconds. As Maes closed himself in his house, Twilight turned back to the driver, and said, "And now, I insist you take the sixty -two and have a good night."

'Tell Handler I might be a bit later, need to make sure that Maes isn't following me,' he returned to his mouth speaking skill. The shaking driver nodded, clearly not expecting to run into a real intelligence officer out on this drive.

"Thanks man," he said aloud, the voice still gruff, but a hint of fear in it, "I appreciate it."

'Anything I should say besides that?' The driver began to pull the drive into active, and let loose his foot from the brake.

"You have a good night sir," Lloyd laughed aloud, waving as the driver and van began to pull away from his new home.

'Tell her next time to check who the neighbors are for safe homes!"

"Well, well," a spindly little thing laughed, looking from the shadows directly at her, cackled, "Look who finally made it back to Central," the voice was cruel, and full of malice and jealous rage, "Finally get done stalking those two little boys for a couple of days?"

Lust was staring directly over central, from a roof top of one of the gates that lead to the Fuherer's residence. It was well guarded below them, but the angle allowed anyone up there to survey the whole of Central, without being able to be seen themselves. It was a common meeting spot for the homonculi, almost certainly where one could run into another whenever they returned to their home. Lust had specifically come up here, because she was fairly certain she would run into another of Father's children if she did so, and as the creature emerged from the shadow, long slick back hair, a strange set of tights around both the bottom and top, and a large headband covering most of the forehead, she knew that she had made the right choice.

"Hello Envy, I'm glad you are doing well," Lust felt a vein in her forehead twitch, but ignored it. Envy could be frustrating, but she'd heard his barbs for centuries. This was nothing really, "No, this does have to do with our human sacrifices," she thought back to her time on the train, and on the little stop in a small town in the East, "I got to meet someone very familiar while out following Edward and Alphonse."

"Oh," Envy giggled, contorting his back as he bent over and looked at Lust. He always moved like this, likely as an attempt to relieve some of the stress caused by going around in a body far smaller than his true form. Lust didn't begrudge Envy his usual appearance, though she did sometimes wish he would at least try and be less conspicuous, '"Who might that be?"

"Dr. Tim Marcoh."

"Tim Marcoh," Envy wasn't asking a question, he was laughing. Her fellow homunculus had always had a rancid sense of humor, "The coward. The little stool pigeon," he let loose several more cackles, "What was he doing out there?"

"He is currently a doctor for a town out in the East," she sighed, thinking back to the short man who had actually managed to take one of her lives. She had been careless, and had that little girl not come in when she had, she almost wondered if she would have been able to get the information on where Marcoh had kept his notes, "Trying to soothe his shattered conscience."

"Would be something like that," Envy spit. He was still outwardly laughing, but she could tell that whatever humor had been in him had disappeared, "Fucking coward. Thinks he has the right to a peaceful retirement. Doesn't he know his place?"

"As a Philosopher's stone?" Lust asked, remembering what they had just done to all of Marcoh's old assistants.

"Exactly!" Evny pointed directly at Lust, who just shook her head at the needless pettiness. She didn't like humans, she was their superior after, but there were times where she questioned if perhaps she was closer to them than to something like Envy. Especially when one took to account Envy's true form. She wasn't a monster.

...well, not in the same way.

"Well, the good news, is that I caught him giving information on the creation of the Philospoher's Stone to the Elric Brothers," Envy's eyes widened, and he twisted himself to look at Lust more closely.

"And?" he said, expectantly.

"The good news is he didn't tell them what goes into it, but rather where they can find the information," she leaned back, and then looked a little to the south, "The Amestrian Central Library, first branch."

"So, you're going to have to spend tomorrow looking for all his books and notes?"

"Nah," she puffed, resting herself against the wall of the tower, her back up against the bricks, "I think I'll just burn the whole building to the ground. Not like there is anything too valuable in there."

"Ha, that's great. Are you sure you shouldn't be named Sloth?"

Lust thought of the giant muscle creature tearing apart the tunnels beneath the country. He was constantly complaining about his part to play in the coming Promised Day, and had been an aggravation every time she had actually had to deal with him. She rubbed her temples, and then shot Enby her most withering glare.

"Oh, I'm way too good looking to be Sloth," she gave a little smirk, and heard another snicker from Envy. Lust knew she was beautiful, and was more than happy to be the object of human desire. Honestly, it was better in her mind to be defined by other's sins, not her own.

"Well, can't say I disagree with the plan," Envy joined her, leaning back against the wall, "Sometimes, better to just burn everything to the ground. Wipe it all from the face of the Earth."

And then the other thing clicked in Lust's mind.

"I did meet someone else today," she said aloud, catching Envy's attention once more. The monster to her right opened one eye to her, as she continued to explain, "Subject 007."

"...who?"

"A little girl experiment from Lab 5," Lust explained, inwardly groaning at the lack of awareness her sibling had. They were in charge of the single greatest conspiracy in the history of known thought, and yet besides Wrath and Pride, she was sure all her fellow homonculi had the emotional maturity and observation skills of children. And Pride was actually a literal child.

"Wait, you were supposed to wipe out everyone from Lab 5," Envy was looking at her with more interest, "Don't tell me you let some deeply dangerous experiment get out?"

"Hardly," Lust rubbed the back of her neck, "Subject 007 was from a completely line of failures. She was from the attempt to grow sacrifices from the embryo, but she was the only one to survive childbirth," she shook her head, "and after all that, she didn't seem to know any alchemy. With the Promised Day coming so soon, and with other sacrifices available, we had a better set of candidates from living breathing adults."

"Oh, huh," Envy stared out for a moment. Honestly, if they had just started the program later, there would be less points of failure to deal with, but sometimes time surpasses science, "So, you iced the brat, right?"

"No," Lust sighed, already knowing where this conversation was going to go, "She seems to have gotten herself adopted by a wealthy couple," she remembered the image of the doctor and his wife. For some reason, she had been more taken aback by the wife, as though she recognized her from somewhere, "Would have caused a scene, and maybe led to some issues moving forward."

"Are you kidding me!"

Envy was standing up, pointing its finger directly into Lust's face. There were plenty of times like this, where Envy would look at decisions that Lust made as the unofficial leader of the homonculi, and then rebel against them. That she had always been proven right was besides the point. Envy was always such a jealous thing.

"Have you gotten soft?"

"No, I just don't waste time on something that isn't worth it," she said aloud, "Like I said, Subject 007 was a failure, no reason to waste any more thought on an ordinary little girl, even if she did escape from our lab."

"Raggh!" Envy yelled, throwing its arms into the air in disgust, "Pathetic, what kind of homonculi would allow some failed human experiment to walk free when they know where they are."

"One with impulse control."

"Shove it," Envy then turned, and began to walk away. Lust didn't even need to ask, already sure Envy would declare, "I'm going to kill that brat by the end of tomorrow. Then we'll see who knows how to deal with humans!" the creature then jumped down the wall, and from the sound of lighting, Lust guessed he'd turned into some kind of little climbing creature, all to make the descent easier.

"Sometimes," Lust groaned, rubbing her temples, "I wonder if I'm the only one that ever got a brain with their sin."