Lithium

Disclaimer: I do not own Elfen Lied

Chapter 1: That night.

Lucy stood before Kakuzawa's men, their guns pointed at her. Dark scarlet flowed from the wound where her horn use to rest. At half her power, Lucy knew she wouldn't be able to escape so easily but she had to try. She launched all her vectors at the army just as they opened fire. One of the bullets shot right through her remaining horn and her vectors vanished. The gunfire continued and Lucy found herself shot off the bridge and into the cold waters below.

"If...only things were different." the diclonius queen thought as she sank into the darkness.

...

"Gahah!" Lucy woke up in the motel room drenched in her own sweat. She had that dream again. She seemed to have at least once a week. Lucy rubbed her eyes and climbed out of bed, her nude form losing the sweat to the blankets. She took a shower and got dressed in a black T-shirt and blue shorts. She put her on hat and walked outside to the balcony.

It had been a year since that night. How she manged to survive, Lucy had no idea. She had spent all these months in hiding, defenseless without her horns. That didn't matter now, of course, since both of her horns grew back stronger than ever. Lucy just wanted to live in peace. Of course she knew that the organization wouldn't see things her way.

The morning air felt good on her face. Lucy liked the smell of autumn which had started last week. Lucy wished she could stay longer but that was an impossibility. She never allowed herself to stay in one place for long. She didn't want to risk the organization catching up to her so she would have to check out soon.

She went back inside, packed what little belongings she had and checked out.

Lucy walked down the road for a few hours before deciding she had gotten far enough away from the motel and began to hitchhike. This was just one of many skills Lucy taught herself in order to blend in. After 15 minutes of waiting, a red car pulled up in front of Lucy. The window rolled down and a blonde man with sunglasses smiled at Lucy.

"Hey babe!" He said. "You need a ride?"

Lucy was reluctant to ride with this jerk but she realized every moment she wasted out in the open could be the moment the organization caught her. Besides, She could always kill him if he got too grabby.

"Sure. Into the nearest town please." Lucy put her bags into the man's backseat and then climbed into the car herself. As the car drove off, Lucy looked out the window and thought about the one thing from last year that she missed.

"Kouta."