07/27/08 - Rewritten chapter.

A/N 2: This is a rewritten prologue of the series. The original prologue was plain and didn’t really spark interest so I hope I was able to convey even a tiny bit of interest with this new one. It will suit well to the modified plot I had in mind and also introduce a future character.

By the way, the manga’s version of Lucy’s escape was not really the best I’ve seen. The anime version was better… and MUCH gorier. Hehehehe, XD. That’s why I’ll be situating things a little more to the anime than the manga. That also means that there may not (I’m still uncertain, the plot is still flexible) be anything about the Liebensborn project, Lucy’s brother or Mariko clones. As far as I can see, I’ll end this like the anime but very drastic changes. It’s safe to say, this fic won’t end like the anime’s vague ending. Now enough of my ramblings and let’s start the story!

NOTICE:

Thought dialogue. Italicized.

"Ordinary speech dialogue." Inside double quotation marks.

Past memory dialogue and narration. Both Bold and Italicized.

Disclaimer: I do not own Elfen Lied anime and/or manga.

-- PROLOGUE --

(Rewritten and Revised)

The sea was serene. Nothing was disturbed and everything was silent except for the familiar sound of the waves hitting the rocky shore. The night sky was illuminated by the presence of the full moon. Clouds formed around it like a veil.

In the calm presence of the night, a secret facility on an uncharted island was laying restless to what was about to transpire.

Two men walked along the lonely corridors inside the facility. The reason for this place and its secrecy was greatly known to the two. They already agreed into an oath of secrecy that they must not tell anyone about the projects and experiments the facility was working on. Still, it was unsettling for at least one of them until he worked for another two years here.

“What are you planning?” a man in his 20’s asked to the person beside him. He’d been eyeing his companion’s smirk ever since they entered the underground facilities. This area was restricted access to only scientists, bodyguards and a few engineers. Barely anyone else who works in the facility knows anything else other than confidential information.

At the threatening but subtle question, the other man couldn’t help but widen his smirk. “What makes you think that?”

“I know a plan when I see one,” he said nonchalantly. Truthfully, he thought that it may be interesting on what his friend had in store. “And your face basically tells it all.”

“Really?” he asked, straightening his black tie. “Then you should already know my intentions right, Mr. Cropes?”

Cropes, a man with unruly blond hair (Undoubtedly dyed), sighed. He reached into his pocket and handed the other man a keycard. “Here it is. Once you gain access into the security system, you’re on your own.”

“Aren’t you going to stick around and enjoy the show?” he questioned with raised eyebrows. Cropes already knew that he was faking that shocked expression. “I thought that you’d stay and have fun what with the best fight scenes you’ll ever come across in… never. I’ll supply the popcorn if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Cropes snarled at him and his lack of empathy towards other people’s lives. “This isn’t a game,” he said. “What you are doing might as well be a national disaster!”

Luckily for the both of them, there weren’t any people in the corridors to overhear their conversation. They’ve went further down into the more secluded areas of the facility where the security and server rooms were stationed so they won’t be expecting any passing employees along the way. Still, they liked to play it safe and keep the plan secret until after the massacre that was about to come.

They stopped in front of a large metal door with no doorknob. At the side there was a metal plate written in clear white paint: Security Room.

“After you,” the other man gestured for Cropes to enter first. He swiped the keycard and inputted the code on the keypad to the room. The door slid open and the security guards inside didn’t have time to react when Cropes entered the room, guns blazing.

Cropes armed himself with two M9 Berettas with extended magazines and silencers. He turned the safety off and pulled the trigger without hesitance. There were 4 guards on duty that night but it posed no problem for Cropes. He first aimed at the guard watching absently the monitors of the “target’s” cell, pulled the trigger and watched for a second as his pale pink brain matter scattered with the crimson gore. He then involuntarily aimed at the guard closest to him who was the first to snap out of shock and went for his weapon holster. He shot another bullet and the same scene played out: Blood and brains spread all over the wall.

“What the f--” the guard wasn’t able to finish the profanity. The bullet pierced through his right eye and exited from the back of his head. The exit hole was the size of a tennis ball which caused more than just the bullet leaving the guard’s head.

One last guard to take care of and he just sat at his chair unmoving and in shock. Cropes wanted to finish the poor guy quickly but that was not an option. He needed the guard alive… for now.

“Drop it,” Cropes ordered coldly at the shocked guard when he was going for his gun. “Drop the gun or I’ll drop you.”

He didn’t need to be told twice because he already threw away the gun before the blond finished his sentence. He also raised his hands in the air while slowly standing up from his seat. This, however, didn’t bring a positive reaction from the two room invaders.

“Sit down!” the blond shouted. The guard gave a low ‘eep’ and quickly sat back down. Cropes then turned to his friend, “The system’s all yours.”

“Perfect.”

The guard widened his eyes at the person. “P-Professor Kakuzawa?! W-w-what are you doing he—GWAAAAHHH!!”

When the guard realized who the other person was and inadvertently stood up, Cropes then intentionally shot him in a non-lethal area. The bullet burst through the barrel of the gun traveling in insurmountable speeds before grazing through the guard’s right ear. The cartilage was completely torn off leaving no trace of his outer ear left.

The guard screamed in pain, hot sensations burned around the right side of his head. It didn’t even bleed. The bullet was so hot it even acted as a sort of styptic, halting the blood flow just seconds after his ear was shredded.

“Sit! Down!” Cropes growled with utmost annoyance. His patience was running thin and they were nearly behind schedule. Any more delays and the opportunity to initiate the plan will be lost.

The guard complied and sat down again, whimpering at the pain. He was shaking furiously by now and it just got fiercer after looking at his attacker right in the eye. They were cold and calculating. The eyes of a merciless killer. He was about ready to crap his pants.

He pointed the gun at the guard while Kakuzawa went to work at the security terminals. “That’s some mighty piece of equipment you got there, pal,” Kakuzawa commented as he logged into the mainframe.

“Custom-made 9mm FMJ bullets with a trace of Vector Zero,” Cropes explained. Seeing the questioning gaze from Kakuzawa when he said ‘Vector Zero’, he quickly covered it up. “Classified information. Maybe you’ll know its purpose once we release Lucy.”

The guard gasped but didn’t say a word.

“Frankly, I just don’t care what it’s for,” Kakuzawa replied nonchalantly as he concentrated in breaching the security measures around his ‘target’. “Just as long as I get what I’m looking for. Hmm…” he stopped typing and nodded to Cropes. Apparently, they had another hurdle to jump over and he was glad his companion didn’t kill the last guard yet.

“What’s the password?” Cropes interrogated. The guard ‘eep-ed’ again before stuttering the password out of his mouth. He smiled and prod the guard’s forehead with his pistol’s nuzzle. “Bang,” he said before pulling the trigger and ending the life of another human. Blood smeared his face once the bullet plunged deep into the head of the guard resulting in a massive burst of crimson liquid, bone fragments and grey brain matter.

The head of the guard looked more like it was bludgeoned with a shotgun shell than a pistol bullet. The frontal lobe of the skull was split in half by the force of the projectile leaving the guard’s face unrecognizable. Blood painted the monitors, and dripping down like a leak. The guard’s right hand was twitching for a while before it also faded and remained stationary.

Kakuzawa snorted, not the least bit fazed by the sight of brains and gore. “And you berate me for my ignorance of human life? You’re just as bad as me, hypocrite.”

“We’re only talking about a handful of people than a whole nation… or even the world,” Cropes retorted. “Plus, it’s the sacrifice of a few to save millions. Which would you choose?”

Kakuzawa entered the password and looked at the monitors. “Either way, it still makes you a killer.”

“What exactly are you planning with Lucy, anyway?” he asked, not bothering to tell him that he did not actually answer his previous question. It wasn’t even rhetorical.

“I thought you already had it figured out.”

“It’s true that you’re intentions for this, uh… rare specimen puzzles me but the fact that you’re going as far as to let it loose into the world without any tracking devices to keep tabs on her is even more perplexing.”

Kakuzawa just smiled as he made some final adjustments into the security. The only thing left was the timing. “It’s all according to plan, Cropes. All according to plan. I’m giving the lady a bit of freedom before we start anything significant.”

“Is that a wise move? She might just escape our grasps at a moment’s notice. Aren’t you at least worried about the repercussions of your decision?”

“My friend, the repercussions do not bother me. As long as I can ensure the safety of our race, then I don’t care whether I die or live tomorrow.”

The monitor flashed green signaling that he had breached the central controls for the diclonius cells. Kakuzawa smirked in triumph while Cropes turned around to leave.

“If you don’t keep track of her, then I will,” Cropes stated, standing outside the security room. “You will be notified if there is any progress to her state.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved his hand without turning away from the screens. “Just keep your distance. From what I can tell… she’s full of surprises.”

“Three-of-a-kind!” Sena stated as he revealed his hand. A jack, a queen, and three 8’s.

“Mother--” Kou threw his cards onto the table furiously and subtly muttered every profanity he could think of. “Seven wins in a row?! You’re cheating, aren’t you?!”

“Poker is a game of the mind,” Sena said calmly. “Being impatient and unable to mask your emotions during the game will just guarantee defeat.”

“Fuckever,” he replied before reassembling the pile of cards on the table. “I’m through. What time is it?”

“Five minutes before 2 AM,” Kou announced, looking at his watch. “Our relief won’t be until 3:00 AM.”

“God…” Sena sighed. “Another fucking hour guarding this bitch,” he turned to the prisoner held up in straitjackets, a large helmet and surrounded by a circular gate two meters in radius. “I still don’t see why they couldn’t just kill her.”

“Classified information, they said. Still, is it really necessary to have that many restrictions on her? I mean what exactly did she do for everyone to lock her up like this?”

“Another one of those CI (Classified Information) shit. All this secrecy is putting me on edge. Just the other day, I had to substitute for one of the guards and did you know what I saw inside those other cells?”

“What?”

“Children,” Sena answered grimly. Kou widened his eyes a little as Sena continued, “But not just any children. They have… horns!”

“Horns?”

“Yes, horns! Like the Devil’s! But not only that, one of those younger ones killed a scientist in cold blood. Sliced into pieces in a matter of seconds…” he violently shuddered. “I can’t get the image out of my head no matter what I do.”

“Why didn’t you help the guy out before the child could kill him?”

“The guy is—was—a ‘she’, FYI. And I did help her, but the monstrosity only looked at her before she was sliced up like butter. The little kid was chained and imprisoned, Kou! Sh—she was just glaring at the scientist and in the next second… ugh,” he shook his head to remove the thoughts. “You know what I mean.”

“Then what is it?”

Sena shrugged. “I have no idea but the scientists were right in keeping those… those… freaks locked up. They’re dangerous to mess with.”

Their conversation ended there. No words were exchanged. Silence reigned over the room like a fog. The two guards didn’t have anything better to do than stay in the room and keep an eye on the ‘abomination’ until their shift ends. Too bad they didn’t live long enough to wait for their relief.

While both guards were just sitting around, minding their own business, one of them, Kou, suddenly heard a strange noise from the abomination’s cage. It was faint but distinct, and he didn’t like a note of it. He was about to shrug it off as his imagination when he suddenly heard it again, this time louder and stronger. Sena didn’t look like he heard it though.

Being curious as to what was going on—and with boredom prying out most of his reasonable judgments—Kou stood up and stalked the cage. The prisoner, who was named Lucy by the scientists, did not show any outside reaction to Kou’s trek. She either didn’t care… or she was up to something.

When Kou came to just a foot away from the cage, there was nothing out of the ordinary nor can he hear anything other than his breathing and heartbeat. He glanced at the abomination’s helmet-covered face and felt his spine tingle like it was signaling fear and death. There was just some kind of… aura surrounding the girl that leaves no one unaffected. He felt hatred, he felt rage. There was so much bottled up inside her that Kou actually forgot how to avert his stare.

“Kou, you okay?” Sena asked as he approached the stunned one.

Kou was then shaken out of his stupor by the presence of Sena’s voice. He looked at him over his shoulder and said, “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just…” he turned back to Lucy. “… there’s something about her… that gives me more than just the creeps. It’s like, like… like I want to die right here and now because of what happened in my life.”

“Dude, what happened in your life?”

“That’s just it! Nothing! Nothing happened.”

“Then why were you thinking of suicide?”

“I don’t know!” he then pointed at the strapped prisoner. “She must be sending me subliminal messages telepathically or something?!”

“Telepathically?” Sena repeated incredulously at first but after reliving the memory of one of the horned children killing a scientist with just eye contact, it began to dawn on him.

The ground then shook for a slight tremor came and passed. It would’ve been shrugged off as a part of the earth and nature but both men were inside a very secure underground facility with the most state-of-the-art seismic prevention technology. Earthquakes much less tremors can be a probable experience inside the facility. It wasn’t a natural tremor at all.

Sena regained his balance just in time but Kou didn’t. He stumbled nearer to Lucy’s cage and grasped the middle circular ring, not even realizing the danger he put himself into.

Lucy wore a helmet that shielded her control on her ‘hands’. It kept its presence constantly around her mind even when she sleeps. Even though her control was limited, she kept practicing using her ‘hands’ to get used to the restraints and also try to escape. That is if she can escape. She never thought of hope. Hope was a concept lost to her for a very long time and she only depended on what happens to her to figure out her next move. But recently, the shields in her mind were abruptly ‘turned off’, so to speak. There was nothing keeping her ‘hands’ at bay anymore. She can now do what she wanted with them. And the first thing she did was to get the guards’ attention. It went off without a problem and she then pushed her ‘hands’ to the floor causing another tremor that made one of the guards lose his balance. Lucy would’ve smiled if she still remembered how since the guard just stumbled into her ‘territory’.

Just a few seconds after Kou placed his hand on the ring was when he was unknowingly pulled into the prisoner’s cell by an unknown force. He could feel ‘hands’ grabbing his own hand, then his arm, with very strong grips.

“Kou, get your arm out NOW!!” Sena shouted.

“I—I can’t! Something’s pulling my arm i—GWWAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!”

Kou’s whole arm was squeezed like pulp. Even his bones were cracking and breaking down to the size of splinters. He screamed and screamed like there was no tomorrow while Sena just stood there in shock. Kou wanted to pull back his arm… or what’s left of it but something was pushing him towards Lucy.

Without warning, he collapsed from being unprepared by the burning pain in his arm and unintentionally entered the domain of the Devil incarnate. He staggered to his feet and grabbed his amputated arm on instinct. Blood dripped to the red pool on the floor as Kou tried to regain his bearings… and his breath, as he stared mindlessly at the covered face of his executioner.

He only inhaled four breaths. Only four breaths before Lucy turned to his direction and split his head off from his neck. Blood burst through his severed neck like a broken pipeline. His body collapsed to its knees before ending up lying on a pool of its own blood.

Sena just gaped in shock looking paler than a ghost. His hands were shaking and his face was sweating profusely. His legs were no longer under his control as Lucy found a way to escape. When Lucy used her ‘gift’ to lift up the keys to her restraints from Kou’s mutilated corpse, Sena stopped gaping and quickly took action. He took out his revolver, shouted “STOP!!” and emptied the gun of all its bullets.

There was a small bit of silence after Sena finished shooting but the constant CLICK!’s emanating from his now empty revolver broke most of the silence. Sena was gritting his teeth, but not out of anger but out of fear. They were even chattering for a while. Still, he was pulling the trigger over and over even though his mind comprehended that it was already out of bullets.

By then, Lucy had a hold of all six bullets. She had to drop the keys to concentrate on each projectile so she was a little annoyed by the futile attempts of a lowlife like the guard in front of her. He was shivering from fear, she noticed for a while now, but he was willing to prevent her escape even with how he felt and the danger he was currently getting himself into. Futile and stupid, but very brave.

She didn’t like it at all. So she did what she wanted to silence him for good. She concentrated her ‘hands’ on the six bullets in its grasps and launched it off towards the shivering guard. They hit him hard, even passing through his lungs and stomach before he realized what just happened.

Sena only saw red. Very dark red before his consciousness faded and his body slumping to the stone cold floor.

Retrieving the keys again, Lucy undid the straitjackets and the straps on her vertical bed. She stepped down on the cold floor, unfeeling when her pale feet touched it. It had been a long time since she had full control over her ‘hands’ again so she wanted to test them out. The two meter rings surrounding her looked as though they were made of very dense metal so they were perfect test subjects.

The metal rings screeched and bended to Lucy’s will as her ‘hands’ molded them in whatever way their master wanted them to be. Knowing that her gift hadn’t been diminished during her incarceration—quite the contrary, actually—she turned her head towards the exit.

Kakuzawa smiled contentedly as Lucy finished killing the second security guard in her cell. It won’t be long now, he thought admirably at the girl prisoner.

He was about to press the button that will open the doors that will lead her out of her cell, when his cellphone rang. He found this a little strange since the facility was deep underground so getting any kind of reception from a mobile phone inside there is utterly impossible. But he knew a man that can actually do the impossible. With a nonplussed look at the caller’s name on his phone, he answered the call.

“Kakuzawa speaking,” he forced out. There was just something about this call that he may not about to like.

“This is Cropes,” Cropes said on the other line, his voice raspy and static-like probably due to the method he used to reach Kakuzawa’s phone. “I’ve made my way outside of the facility and just wanted to let you know that I cleared out a path for your untraceable escape.”

“I don’t recall ever asking you to help me with my problems.”

“Problems? You don’t consider me helping you out with your bitch as a problem?”

“Don’t you dare disrespect her like that!”

“Alright, alright. I apologize,” though he didn’t mean it. “But anyway, just be grateful that I’m helping you even if it’s without your consent.”

Kakuzawa then noticed Lucy bending the rings of her cage. Instinctively, he pressed a button and the doors out of her cell were now slowly opening. He then turned back to the conversation.

“Lucy is making her way out as we speak. It will take maybe 30 minutes for her to reach the exit unless she’s met with strong resistance.”

“No doubt about that last one. Just get out when she gets out. There’s a boat with me standing by at the south border of the facility. Hmm… the moon is really full tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kakuzawa answered nonchalantly and ended the call. He didn’t understand what Cropes was referring to when he said about the moon being full tonight, but only when he exited the facility and entered his boat an hour later did he have his revelation.

As the doors opened while her ‘hands’ reverted back into her, Lucy stared at the light like it was an alien concept to her. She was close to freedom. Close to grasping the world of where all her hate and turmoil began. She may have had a better choice at all of this back then, but seeing the state of what she is now, she understood that this was the only path she can take now.

Singing a melancholic melody as she trekked the long way out, her memory replayed the times when she spent happy moments with the only boy she had ever loved.

Kohta…

TO BE CONTINUED…

A/N 2: Well that ends the rewritten prologue and I gotta say, I’m a little more content with this than the last. The last one was so ambiguous, it acted more like a useless interlude than an actual prologue but with this change, I’m sure it can spark more interest. Cropes won’t be reappearing until Chapter 8 so don’t expect him to be a major character until later on.

Please leave a review after reading. It helps to make me feel content that I’m getting some feedback from my readers. Don’t be a stranger. Read and then review of your opinion on this story.