Genesis

Chapter 1

The eight year old boy refused to cry anymore, it had been a month since he had been forced to move into this hellish place and it was time to get over it. Crying wasn't going to bring them back, give him back his home, his room and all of his things so there wasn't any point to it anymore. Besides, he wasn't crying out of sadness at the loss of his family, now it was out of anger. Anger that it had happened to him in the first place, anger that there was no one who wanted him, anger that he was stuck in this hell hole.

He reached inside his shirt and wrapped his hand around the rosary, which hung around his neck; the only remnant of his family he had left. The fire had taken everything else; it only missed the rosary because he had been showing it to a friend next door. His mother had given it to him as a first communion present and he was proud of it. That was also why he was spared, because he hadn't been home. The fire started in the kitchen, something on the stove catching on fire and quickly spreading to the curtains and moving quickly along the walls. His father napping on the couch, his mother had gone into their garden in the back yard to pull fresh herbs to add to the dish she was cooking. She smelled and saw the smoke, running back into the house and directly into the fire in the kitchen. His father waking upon hearing her screams and running into the kitchen himself, only to be overcome by smoke.

By the time the fire was noticeable from the outside, it had completely engulfed the house, his friend's family calling the fire department and keeping him from running into the fire to find his parents.

He had hoped that they would have taken him in but they didn't, none of his parents friends wanted the responsibility of an extra child and neither did anyone else. So he was brought here, a small orphanage in Surrey, not far from where he had lived before. He had become the butt of many jokes, his Germanic name, Mihael Keehl, being a source of fun for the others. His family originated from Germany although he was born in England, and he was proud of his heritage and name. This meant that he was fighting the moment someone made fun of his name, or made fun of the rosary he always wore. In the month he'd been there he had been in almost constant trouble, but he had won all of the fights and he was beginning to be feared more than he was being teased. The only thing he had enjoyed in his time here was the visits from that old man who had come to see him several times. He had been kind and gentle, just the type he would imagine his grandfather would have been. He had given him and a couple of others some tests, and had sat and talked with them a while, asked them all kinds of questions. After the second visit, it had only been he and the old man who sat and talked. He had hoped at the time that the old man was going to take him away with him the next time he came to visit.

Now he sat in the middle of his bed, ignoring the various sounds of sleep from the other children sleeping near him, clutching his rosary to his chest as tears ran down his face. He had decided that these would be the last tears he would shed, no one would ever see him cry again and no one would ever hurt him again. He was smarter than all of these other idiots that were around him, they were no match for him in any way so he would not allow them to hurt him again. He wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand, then running his fingers through the blonde hair that hung down into his face. He now had to figure out how he was going to break out of the orphanage, but that would take some planning and maybe the old man would help him. He finally lay down under the covers and closed his eyes, falling asleep plotting how he would get away if the old man wouldn't help him.

The young man known only by a simple letter of the alphabet sighed again as he looked over the folders the older man standing next to him had handed him. He knew what they were and he didn't want to deal with them. The folders contained images and histories of several of the orphans that lived where he lived, The Whammy's House. He knew what he was supposed to do with them, but the fear and guilt over earlier circumstances haunted him and stayed his hand.

"L, you know what you have to do," the older man prodded gently while handing him a plate on which a large piece of strawberry cheesecake and a fork were laying. His statement was met with a heavy sigh as the young man took the plate from him.

"I know Watari and you also know why I am having difficulty with it. It has only been a year…"

"Yes, I understand," Watari said gently as he placed a hand on L's shoulder, "but if you don't deal with this now it will be even harder. You need to pick new heirs L, and you need to do it soon." L turned to look at him, a flare of anger and hurt reflected in the large, dark eyes.

"And what will happen this time, Watari? How can I be sure that the tragedy of A and B does not happen again?" he demanded and it was the older man's turn to sigh.

"We will learn from that experience and move forward. We have already changed the curriculum so that the amount of pressure on the new heirs will be less, and we won't single them out from the general population as was done before, they will still be with their fellow classmates and get the bulk of their other needed training from you and from me. You cannot blame yourself L, I have explained this to you before. You were only 16 when we began this program; you were in the midst of putting L on the international map with many burdens of your own. There was no time for you to deal with A and B as we have now discovered was necessary. The stresses of the program and trying to constantly get praise from you along with the fact that we now know B had serious problems that should have been addressed earlier, all of these things are what caused the tragedy that befell them. You have an extraordinary mind L, but you are not clairvoyant. None of us could have foreseen what happened, but now we must begin anew.

The first thing we need to do is carefully select who will be the candidates and this time we must be extremely thorough. I believe I have narrowed it down to the ones I have given you. I also believe we should start younger as well, not older than 9 or 10. It will work better this time, I guarantee it." L turned away and looked at the folders again with another sigh.

He opened the first one, saw the picture, and began to read the information. He had become L by age 10, but he began working cases by the time he was 8. He agreed with Watari that the new candidates for his heirs should begin younger this time. He couldn't deny that it did bother him a little that this was all working towards replacing him should something happen to him. The work and persona of L had become more important than he himself was; it didn't matter if he lived or died, just as long as L continued on. He had made his piece with this when the idea first came up several years ago, but there were times when it just didn't sit very well with him. He was only turning twenty years old this coming October, and the thought of his own death seemed so very far away that to worry about training someone else to be L at this point seemed ridiculous.

"Watari…would you miss me if I died?" he asked suddenly and the older man started visibly at the question.

"Why would you ask something like that?" he asked and L shrugged and placed his hands on his knees.

"I merely wondered. It seems that L is easily replaceable, I wondered if perhaps I was as well."

Watari grabbed the young man by his shoulders and turned him around to face him, and for the first time that L could remember in all the years he had been at Whammy's he saw anger on the older man's face.

"Don't you dare ever say anything like that to me again, young man. L is a creation, a gift to the people of the world that you have created. But Lawliet is a brilliant young man I have had the great joy of raising and watching grow and become what he is today from the scared little boy I brought here more than ten years ago. There can be many pretenders to L, but you are the only Lawliet there will ever be, and therefore the only Lawliet that is special to me!" He released L's shoulders and stood up straight, his face taking on its usual gentle expression.

"I trust that will put an end to any other ridiculous speculations that may cross your mind," he said and L answered by standing up and wrapping his arms around him. Watari smiled gently and returned the hug. L released him and sat back down, picking up his dish and beginning to eat it with a renewed fervor.

"I will make my decisions and have them ready for you by this evening, Watari," he said and the older man nodded.

"Very good. I would like to draw your attention to three in particular, those folders I marked. One of them is not a member of Whammy's yet but I will be going to pick him up as soon as we are done, the other two are here. There are four others for your perusal in case you do not agree with my assessments of the other three." L nodded and continued to read the opened folder in front of him. Watari gazed at him for a few moments before he left the room. He had stopped short of telling him how he loved him as a son, but he was certain he had gotten his point across. He smiled and left the room on his way to pick up young Mihael.

Mail Jeevas sat on the steps of Whammy's playing a hand held game and watching as the other kids ran around the grounds since classes were over for the day. He adjusted the strap on his goggles to tighten them against his face, his red hair sticking out from around the strap where he had moved it. Some of the kids asked him why he wore them most of the time and he either ignored them or he told them they helped keep the glare off the game. He'd never tell them that he started wearing them not long after he arrived here. He couldn't stop crying when he first got there, and he happened to find the goggles in a pile of toys and he put them on to cover the fact that he was crying. Then he got used to having them on and they just became a part of him. He stayed pretty much to himself, but he'd talk if someone talked to him. Before he had lost everything and ended up at Whammy's, he had been thought of as the class clown, he had a wicked sense of humor and there was a part of him that was dying to let it out. Before the car accident he had a brother and they had been inseparable and had spent most of their time playing pranks and driving their mother crazy when he wasn't working on his computer. He closed his eyes against the pain as their faces went through his mind again. His first weeks afterwards had been spent with him wishing he'd died in the accident as well, instead of being spared and ending up in an orphanage.

He looked around the grounds; it was much better than the first orphanage he had been sent to. At least this place looked more like a huge home, with a lake surrounded by trees, a playground with every kind of possible outside amusements. Inside the rooms were pretty roomy even though you had to share, and the common room that was filled with toys and a television. The best part was the food they served here. It was definitely much better, it actually tasted like food.

He had found the hand held video game in the same toy box he'd found the goggles in, and had spent a good part of the day finding games that would fit it. Since then it had never been out of his hands. It gave him something else to focus on.

He had been brought here by Mr. Whammy, a really nice old guy who told him he was being wasted at the other orphanage. He never explained what he meant, but he promised it would be clear to him soon. Once he was here, Mr. Whammy had provided him with a computer and a few games and computer puzzles to work on. He was never told why, but he didn't really care. He had decided that if he had to be in an orphanage this was the place to be.

Nate River sat in the corner of the common room as he always did, alone and surrounded by toys; the fingers of his right hand twirling in his shock of white hair. Unlike most of the children there, he had no recollection of his family, he had been brought here at the age of three so all he knew was The Whammy's House, it was home to him.

He carefully built a fort of playing cards, placing each card atop the other with a steady hand and perfect eye. He placed several of his robots around the fort, using the others as an attack force. Suddenly the cards began to flutter around and Near looked up at a rather cruel grin as another member of Whammy's stood before him, his hand still in position from where he'd knocked the cards down.

"Stupid card fort!" he teased as Near merely began to gather the fallen cards into a pile.

"That was a stupid thing to do," a voice called out and the other boy looked to see who was speaking and began to laugh at the red head who stood before him.

"What do you care goggle face?" he asked and Mail sighed, tucking his game into his back pocket before reaching out and pushing the offender to the floor. The boy swore at him but before he could jump up and try to land a punch, Mail and placed his foot on the boy's chest.

"If you just get up and go do something else I won't tell Roger that you've been bullying Nate again. I think he said getting locked in your room for a week was gonna be your punishment if he caught you again, right?"

"You jerk if you say anything I'll get you when I get out!" he boy said squirming under Mail's foot.

"That's pretty stupid, that would mean more punishment. Why don't you just stop and go away?" he suggested as he ground his foot into the boy's chest.

"Okay okay I'm going, just get the fuck off me!" he yelled and Mail moved his foot then offered a hand to help him up, which the boy immediately slapped away.

"Get away from me you freak!" he spat then turned and ran down the hall. Mail shrugged and looked down at Nate.

"You okay?" he asked and Nate nodded, his fingers once again twirling furiously in his hair.

"Thank you," he said quietly and went back to his cards and robots. Mail shrugged and began to walk back to his room.

"No problem," he said as he walked away and pulled his game out again. He wasn't sure he liked that white haired kid, but he didn't deserve to be picked on like he was, he never fought back and Mail thought it was because he was so tiny so he had taken it upon himself to keep an eye out for him. Not that he wasn't above teasing him once in a while, like calling him Snowball or Snow Queen, but Nate seemed to know it was just a joke. He got to his room and threw himself on the bed continuing to play with his game, and waited for dinner.