AN: Here's an idea I took from one crossover, and applied it to another. FYI: This takes place at the end of episode 13 of the anime, and before the start of F.E.A.R. 2. Hopefully, this will actually go somewhere this time...

Disclaimers: Elfen Lied, and all characters, locations, and properties herein are strictly licensed by GENCO, Special thanks to Lynn Okamoto, whom created this diabolical and deliciously intoxicating realm where super-cute girls are the dominant race!

F.E.A.R. is the rightful property of Monolith and Warner Bros. Interactive


Fate.

It is an indescribable force, more powerful than the gods of myth or Mother Nature. It has the ability to change a person or an entire world. It can bring about great things, but it also brings death.

There is no key factor as to who or what or why it happens, wut when it does happen, there is no escaping it. Try as you might, no one, not even God can defy the laws of fate. Sooner or later, it finds you, plucked from the infinite of time and hurdled onward like the proverbial lamb to his shepard.

Many things can happen along the lines of fate; great things that are rewarded to those who have never done wrong; terrible events to the sinners who deserve nothing more than to rot in the bowels of Hell for all eternity.

However...

Fate is not man, nor machine, nor any form of being, therefore it does not have to care who it chooses. Even when we - as human beings - go through life, never to raise a hand against another, can still be victim to tragedy, to sadness...

...To evil...

There will always be those who seek to defy that which they cannot control, be that sorrow or pain, but in the end...

We are all...

Only human.

All her life, Lucy had just wanted to fit in, to be normal. But for someone like her, a person as cruel, as cold, and heartless, and sadistic as her, there was no place for a monster like her in the world.

Never again...

The beautiful cherry-haired girl lay sprawled on the pavement of the bridge, her bloodied form staining the asphalt beneath her. The dress that she had worn was now in tatters, rips and tears all over her figure, lifeblood pooling out of the open wounds.

How easy it could have been to just give up, then and there. To just say the hell with everything and die; a final wish that never came true.

She knew that this was the price to pay for Kouta's happiness, if it just... didn't hurt, so damn much. Thundering footsteps could be heard over the maelstrom of diesel engines, the sound alone sending a fresh burst of adrenaline into the slender Diclonius' system.

Lucy shakily propped herself up on her arms, glaring hellishly at the soldiers bearing down on her through her mane of cherry hair. Floodlights bathed her in iridescence, making her pale skin appear milky white.

More soldiers were converging on her position, she noticed, though it seemed they weren't in any sort of hurry. Their weapons were aimed idly at her from the hip, relaxed even. Apparently they must have thought Lucy had finally given up the ghost, being nothing more than a frail little girl whose ego far surpassed her own physical strength.

She would have to put them in their place.

"Fools…" she muttered, grinning darkly.

On a whim that was not quite her own, the Diclonius dispatched roughly a third of the armed men at the drop of a hat, their upper bodies pirouetting into the air as the invisible hands swept through them. A red mist exploded within the crowd from the sheer force of Lucy's vectors slamming into the S.A.T. team, strangled cries and sharp reports piercing through the chilly night as their weapons discharged feebly into their own ranks.

Lucy scoffed lightly, smiling sadistically at the carnage she had wrought. "Amateurs…"

In her folly, she'd failed to see the hailstorm of bullets winging past her head. Lucy's eyes widened in alarm.

In the time she realized this though, it was too late...

Snick!

The cherry-haired Diclonius screamed from the sudden euphoria of pain blossoming in her skull, the last of her ivory-white horns having been shattered by a stray bullet. Vision became strained to the point where she could swear she was bleeding tears, her aggrieved shrieking sounding almost alien to Lucy's own ears.

She fell to her knees, closing her eyes in anguish. "AHHHHHHH!!!".

Placing her hand over her wound, she cried out relentlessly, hopeful that it would somehow lessen her pain. Blood poured like a fountain from the gaping hole that was once the symbol of her existence, drenching the side of her dress, her leg, even the very ground in which she lay.

Spots of white and blue exploded behind her eyes, and suddenly she could hear whispering in her head, and a maelstrom of vignettes from her horrific life flashed through her mind...

One of which, she immediately recognized.

Kouta, her paramour, her friend... the one person who'd never judged her, not once, his childish features alight with astonishment at meeting her for the first time.

"Kouta......!"

Resolution flooded her being. No, this was not how it would end, not as long she she was breathing!

Lucy snapped her head up to her assailants with a look that could burn the olive drab paint right off the side of the armored-personnel-carriers, her face etched in sorrow.

"Just…-".

Innocence and bloodlust… all in one haunting, unforgettable image. With her tear-stained eyes burning a fierce demonic scarlet, the bloodied nightingale bared her teeth savagely into a snarl.

"-Die!!"

Lucy's vectors became a swirling vortex of death that launched fiercely at the carrier with frightening speed. Some of the soldiers were caught in the path of the Diclonius' assault, and were reduced to unidentifiable masses of gore and blood. The road itself was being carved straight down the middle, all the way to the steel beams of the bridge structure with large chunks of concrete and dust blasting everywhere.

The wide, terrified eyes of the APC's driver remained forever so, as his body was disintegrated by over fifty invisible hands tearing through his flesh…

The armored vehicle exploded into a roiling fireball of twisted, burning metal as the gas tank ignited, flipping the car over and over seven times in midair. What was left of the personal carrier came crashing to the ground as gravity reaffirmed its grip on the wayward vessel from whence it came. The smoldering flames licked around the battered hulk of the once pristine vehicle, its mottled green paint scarred black with sparks of metal dancing in the wind.

Lucy watched with morbid fascination as their blood arced violently upwards; crimson halos of sparkling flow against the starry night sky, streamers dancing upon the moon's pale surface.

'Beautiful…' she thought, the illusion of victory within her grasp…

The sharp crack of a .50 caliber rifle cut her down before she even knew what hit her…

A scream of despair broke through the rain.

Then... silence...

----

The summer downpour pelted Lucy's face endlessly, the blood from her numerous injuries running clear around her figure. Standing around her like some mockery of a funeral procession were the very bastards she'd been fighting tooth and nail to no end.

Everything was lost now. She had failed at retaining the one shred of happiness the Diclonius had ever been allowed.

Kouta... her family... she would miss them terribly so...

"Apprehension in progress," a soldier spoke into his wireless headset. "We've finally got her. Mission accomplished."

Desperately, the pink-haired girl tried to raise herself up, defiant in the face of her enemy, but the loss of blood had completely nullified her senses, her body wracked with spasms.

'Damn it.'Lucy gritted her teeth.'What is wrong with me? I should be able to do this!'

Lucy growled contemptuously as the soldier forced her back down, placing a boot to her head with enough violence to make the rough road grind into her face.

"It's all over bitch," he crudely remarked, pulling back the bolt on his single-shot weapon. Even at this range, Lucy would be unable to stop the round from killing her, no matter how strong her vectors were.

Lucy glared up at the shadowy figure with vengeful eyes, hoping that the bastard was shaking behind the balaclava helmet adorning his features. She'd lost so much blood though; it was a futile gesture at this point to even breathe.

...And that was when she noticed something, something that in her rage she completely missed.

The uniform he was wearing, it was... different.

No rank, no badges, not even a name etched into the breast of the armor. And there was this symbol emblazoned across the front: Three pale diamonds, arranged in a triangle against the human's torso, the top one hollowed out while the other two were filled in.

A voice that Lucy wasn't familiar with hissed through the soldier's radio, one that she would eventually come to hate more than anyone else."Excellent work," a woman's voice said, ecstatic but at the same time calculating, professional, her tone strictly business. "See to it that Lucy's… caregivers are taken care of by the time we get her stateside. No witnesses."

Lucy's eyes widened in horror. No… No!! They couldn't-

Kouta…!

"Understood," the unmarked man replied in his deep voice. He looked down into the frightened crimson jewels belonging to the rouge girl, her cherry hair obscuring her beautiful heartbroken countenance.

"This is how it ends…" he declared, no compassion, no emotion to his words.

Aiming the barrel in line with her shoulder, he squeezed the trigger, sending a feather-tipped projectile directly into Lucy's arm. She gave a momentary yelp of pain, and soon after, she could feel the effects of the fast acting drug…

Everything thereafter was a distorted, disjointed blur.

Cold, uncaring hands dragged her lifelessly down the street, the glare of bridge lights and harsh rain basking her vision in phosphoric white; the figures of two men pulling at her arms... heedless of whatever damage was done to Lucy's body, her state of awareness caught in a perpetual tug of war. The ceiling of a dimly lit APC interior flew over her, doubles of the same object strecthing themselves from one another. Soldiers sat silently in their wall-mounted chairs, eyeing her up in mixed awe and disgust... and some with more... salacious intentions, reserved for a much latter time when the young girl was finally ready.

And just as her consciousness begged for mercy, she noticed bold black lettering on one of the walls... marred by illusions of failing eyesight.

Armacham Technology Corporation

She muttered one last word, before succumbing to the darkness throbbing around the edges of her vision forever.

…"Kou-ta…--"