. . .

He looked dead. Not zombie-dead, but just-pulled-out-of-the-morgue-dead.

. . . With Wings

L had spent a considerable amount of time going over the last day of his mortal life. The day he'd lost Watari to that pathetic, wretched child who'd been granted the ability to murder with the stroke of a pen.

He saw what his mistake had been . . . where he'd gone wrong. He'd underestimated the Shinigami, and misjudged the limits to which they could meddle in human affairs.

To think, that boy hadn't even had the civility to murder L himself, but instead had tricked a real God into doing the deed. His opponent's rage had left no room for respect.

Unforgivable, Yagami Light.

If he had lived instead of being smote down by the boy's pet Shinigami, the Yagami boy would not have been so lucky. Maybe then he couldn't say with certainty that he would have killed him. But now, with all the stress of what he'd been put through, L was sure that he would have enjoyed wrapping his stringy fingers around that fiend's throat. He would have made it his mission to watch the boy's life force slowly wither away from his eyes, just as had been done to him. Inhuman bastard.

He didn't have to play at being human anymore, so yes . . . he would've had no qualms about it, and he would have savored every splendid second of it. Oh, he'd worn the clothes of humanity well enough back then – emulating and blending in with others convincingly – but as hard as he'd tried, they had never fit quite right. It was the emotional aspect that he could never pull off – an important part of being human that had just not come to him. And that included remorse, or guilt.

Watari. He hadn't even had time enough to mourn the man before being struck down. He'd noted the date, and two-hundred years had done nothing to make it any less hurtful – the old man had been the closest thing he'd ever had to any family or anything else. At least he'd already lived his life through and had died at a relatively ripe old age.

Unlike himself, who'd only been a scant 25. Now . . .

Technically, was he still 25 years old, or was he now 225 years old? Curious.

What he'd also found curious were his new surroundings. Once he'd gotten the hang of utilizing his new . . . hardware, L had found himself quite interested in his new home. And his new abilities.

He'd figured out that almost everything was manipulated by his thoughts, or some indescribable workings of his will-power. Almost like breathing. Some of it was involuntary, and some of it he could choose to do. Like the human equivalent of opening his eyes, that he'd stumbled upon by accident, which resulted in his physical presence on what served as a 'roof' for his new housing circumstances. It was an odd feeling, that use of his holopad. Tingly, cold, the sensation of 'the chills' that he remembered as human was the closest thing he could relate it to.

But the transition was quick, and relatively painless. One minute he'd be in his own thoughts, and the next he'd have vision. Which, incidentally, was exactly the same as he remembered it.

The woman watching him . . . he hadn't been certain who she was when he'd seen her, but he'd had a pretty good guess. It had been her office that he'd seen, and she'd been waiting patiently there for him to come around. No doubt, she was the one responsible for his resurrection, if he could call it that.

She'd caught him on his first outing, when he'd been thoroughly confused and mumbling to himself. His mantra in Japanese. L Lawliet. Born 10-31-1979. Even in his haste to get away from her, he'd noted that she hadn't recognized the name, even when he'd directly queried her with it. That had been an important clue in determining that time had passed. A lot of it.

And then, cutting off his personal thoughts, she'd thrown a command at him. And he'd obeyed, yet not with any conscious decision on his part to do so. It had been one of those involuntary breaths, which apparently trumped the voluntary ones.

She'd cut him off in the middle of his breath.

That had gotten his full attention, and he'd felt a semblance of anger cut through the haze of his confusion. L was well aware of his size, and his circumstances, in relation to her. But that gave her no right to be nasty towards him. He didn't even know her, and she was treating him like some kind of slave?

Then he'd noticed . . . his vision. Something had caught his eye, and just like that, what he saw had changed. Blue washed over his sight, and he'd been able to pinpoint what it was that had caused the change – particles of light near her semi-solid display screen. They'd seemed important to him, and he'd found himself drawn to the tiny swirling things. Something called interface that he could, in a way not understood, communicate with. He'd searched within himself, and found immediately a protocol with the same tag. And almost as if he were reaching his fingers out to touch an object, he could mentally touch that energy port.

His single-member audience had appeared amused by the incident . . . before she'd severed him from his new interest. And then more talking – questions that he hadn't been in the mood to answer, especially when she'd deprived him of his investigation of her information. If she wanted to know so badly, she would have to exchange something for those answers.

Every subsequent 'awakening' since then, if that's what it was, had been met with her. Her staring at him, examining him, boring down on him and analyzing him. He'd been afraid, but of what he didn't know. At the time, it had just seemed like a normal reaction.

It had taken him a great deal of time in getting used to her presence, as well as his own. Like a child with a new toy, he'd spent time testing and familiarizing himself with the technological park at his fingertips.

He'd also discovered that he could shape-shift. His choice of display was his own choosing, and he could transform it at will. Unsure of the happenings going on around him when he'd first come out, L had chosen to play it safe with his trademark 'L' symbol. But once he'd figured out magnification of any object he concentrated on, he'd tested and played with his display. Her coffee, which he lamented the loss of; the objects littered about her bookshelf and desk; and eventually her. She'd laughed at his first failed attempts, and he'd been just a bit sore at that.

And he'd tried the interface again, only to find that she'd encrypted it against his access.

Peculiarly, his concentration on the attempts to break the encryption had soothed his frayed 'nerves' . . . comforted him in a way he couldn't explain. There'd been a great deal that he couldn't explain, and the monotony of working at the mathematics of her machine had calmed his anxiety at that fact. Just as he'd remembered doing so many times before in his mortal life, L had dedicated himself entirely to the task to blot out anything else that he didn't care to mull over.

Finally, after so many failed attempts, the sentinel keeping watch over him had offered to remove the lock-out, as long as he'd remained active and sociable. Active? Sure. If allowing her to watch him got him what he wanted, then he was agreeable to it.

Sociable? No. He hadn't been ready. Not to answer her questions, not to ask his own and hear her answers, and certainly not to engage in any lengthy discussion. He had just cut the umbilical cord in this new existence, and he'd needed time to reflect . . . to adjust. Who'd she think he was that could come right out of that transient hell and pick up where he left off as if nothing had happened?

Not that he didn't understand her need. L knew that look in her eyes all too well – that desperate hunger for knowledge, for results, for success. He'd seen it in his own reflection more than enough to know that she had it bad. That was how he'd known who she was, and why she was watching over him. Whatever was happening, it was her work . . . her life . . . who she was.

And perhaps, it was more than that. He'd seen something else in those eyes, something warm and kind, and not just impersonal concern for her creation. He hadn't known what to call it, but it hadn't mattered. As much as he'd wanted to reward it with what she wanted, he'd been unable to do so then. She'd just have to wait until he was good and prepared.

But that hadn't meant that it was okay to sic her she-beast on him. That . . . malevolent creature of code she'd set upon him to baby-sit. It had been completely unnecessary to go that far. If certain things were off limits to him, she should have just told him so. Not that he would have listened, but she didn't know that.

Pandora, she'd been introduced to him as, and the name fit perfectly. She was exactly the kind of 'woman' that would deprive men of all that was good in the world, and leave them with nothing but evil and hopelessness. And true to form, she had certainly deprived him of enough to make him feel hopeless. It had been a game to her, watching over him and stealing pieces of information he'd wanted access to, and she'd enjoyed it entirely too much.

Bitch. L couldn't ever recall using the term to describe the female half of humanity. He'd used idiot . . . a lot, and he'd been fond of bastard for the men. The women, however, he'd always just dismissed as brainless, and moved on. But this one hadn't been brainless – she'd been bright enough, albeit careless – so the term seemed to fit nicely on her.

So he'd had no misgivings about invading her space and letting her know that he wasn't to be tampered with. Apparently, information on data theft had not been restricted to him, and that was probably because they'd thought it beyond his comprehension.

L could almost laugh. Even now, two centuries later, humanity was still underestimating him. Would they ever learn?

The process hadn't been much different than when he'd been alive, only the mechanics had changed. And considering that he'd figured out those mechanics early on, it hadn't taken much at all to combine the knowledge and use it to let her know what he thought of her interference.

After that, he'd given up on his perusal of the machine's information. If it meant having to deal with that thing, then he could do without. He didn't want anymore experience with her, and he sure as hell didn't want to paired up with her for whatever reason he'd heard them discussing. That would be the worst, and if he had to break his silence a little early to appeal to a higher power about it, then that's what he had to do.

Since she'd left, after their unfriendly encounter, she hadn't returned to that pedestal of hers. And L was thankful for that, because he really wanted to be out and about. He felt as though he'd learned all he could with what he had available to him, and he was bored. He'd already studied those energy trees of his, and found that most of the data there was his own. The rest were just basic protocols for the operation of whatever he'd been turned into. And those that were still empty, he was curious about. No doubt there was more to be added, but what? And when?

His housing, he'd discovered, was just that. There was nothing of interest, nothing new, and the longer he resided here, the more it felt like a prison cell. He couldn't leave, and he had no access to a larger system the way Pandora seemed to have had. Of course, it made sense to limit his freedom. But he didn't have to like it, and in fact, he hated it. He wanted out.

So he spent the rest of his sentence on the outside, watching his pretty roommate and her friend converse. No. Pretty didn't do her justice. She was adorable; or at least, she would be if she didn't have such a stern look about her. Rare smiles and a rather severe looking chignon of brown hair, mixed with glasses and no-nonsense attitude, gave her that governess thing that actually seemed to work for her. It seemed to work for her friend, too, since it was apparent that the boy was smitten with her.

He now knew, from her computer, that his governess was Dr. Vey Shallin. L thought she looked a bit young for 'Doctor', but he had to remind himself that things might be different now. And her suitor . . .

She'd called him Shepherd. Examining him now, he didn't look like a Shepherd; he looked like an 'L'. In a lab coat. With curly black hair. And different eyes. But all in all, the man reminded him a lot of his human form – lanky and listless, pale and dark. A form he had yet to take in this new life. Not because there was any need to hide what he looked like. Not now, two-hundred years later, when most likely not a soul knew who he was. And not because he desired to do so. He didn't want to hide . . . to remain as some lifeless letter on a computer screen . . .

Although technically, isn't that exactly what he was now? The irony of it made L want to laugh manically to the heavens. Something so cosmically hilarious would only happen to him.

No. His reason for not showing his true form was, simply, habit. He was so used to keeping that part of him hidden and separate, that it had been second nature to continue to do so. Well, the fact that showing his face had gotten him killed really didn't help matters, but it hadn't been a deciding factor in his form choice. It was just–

"Goodnight." Shepherd was addressing him, waving at his holoform as he walked towards the door to her office. Of course he didn't expect a response, and L didn't surprise him with one. A minute later, the boy was out the door and the good Doctor was in her chair, chin in hand with elbow on desktop. Since she'd been 'allowed' to stare at him openly, she spent most of her free time doing so in a rather aggressive way.

It didn't bother him now, not really. It's been several days since he'd lost his mind, and since then L felt confident that he'd worked out most of the kinks in his sanity. Currently, he felt almost human. That is, as human as he could possibly feel given the circumstances. He wasn't ready to pick out curtains or anything, but he was at least somewhat comfortable around her now.

Still, it wasn't time. Not just yet. He still had a bit more Housekeeping to do before he introduced himself proper.

Vey gazed upon the brilliant white of his display in front of her, pondering her conversation about Ronin. Shepherd had given her a hard time about it, adamant that he was the improper choice just as Pandora had said. Really, when had any of the decision making process been delegated to him? This was her project, his ability to pull rank on her be damned.

In any case, he was right . . . in a way. Ronin wasn't the best choice for the job.

Dantalion was.

But he was an outcast – never considered, and his existence never acknowledged. In this installation's plethora of AI entities, Ronin was top-tier. But only because Dantalion was excluded, and for damn good reason.

He'd been an earlier failure of a team she'd been a part of a few years ago. Their last attempt at giving an AI the limitless ability to learn, his actions had been the catalyst for her team's disbandment, and the ultimate expulsion of all its members except her from the MSI. She would have been dismissed too, but certain circumstances had worked in her favor. She'd been the youngest member of the team, she'd been a pretty female, and most importantly, she'd been sleeping with one of the members of the committee responsible for her team.

A shame, it was, since the fault had lain with her. Dantalion had not been perfect – he'd shown a troubling distaste for human beings beneath that humanity-loving exterior of his – and she'd known it. But she'd still allowed the higher ups to assign him to some douche-bag hotshot Fleet Admiral. She'd had misgivings and doubts, but she'd let the others convince her otherwise. They'd wanted their grant money, and the brass wanted what they'd paid for. Dantalion had been too damn brilliant, and HIGHCOM had been too anxious to put him into use, and she'd kept her mouth shut.

After a few months in service without incident, she had started to believe that he'd settled down . . . that maybe he had grown out of that childish rebellious phase. Well, he had grown out of it – right into full-blown rampant revolution.

Vey didn't know the specifics. He'd never offered the information, and she'd never been brave enough to ask. All she could tell anyone was that he'd gone berserk and sealed his handler, along with three other officers, in a lab and then had filled the room with noxious gas. It had taken them just over twenty minutes to die, in a very messy and very painful way. After the incident, the doors to the lab had been replaced with manual ones, and then HIGHCOM had made the decision to lock him away there with no outside access.

Why, she didn't know. Either they couldn't destroy him, or they'd chosen not to. They'd just left him there to rot, his genius of no apparent use to anyone.

Several times, Vey had gone there with the intention of changing that. Destroying an AI, especially one of his caliber, wasn't an easy thing to do. Which was why she'd implemented a fail-safe within him, just as she did with all of her prototypes. But ultimately, she'd always changed her mind at the last minute. It just wasn't something she could do. Dantalion had been her golden child, her baby, before he'd been anything else. She'd put everything she had into him, spent a great deal of time nurturing and teaching him, and he'd remained special to her even after his meltdown.

Besides, she'd never really liked his owner anyway. He'd probably gotten what he'd deserved, and the three others had simply been casualties of war. No great loss there.

Ronin was the lesser of two evils, and one that she could get by with choosing without a big fuss. But he was also the lesser of the two in terms of skill. Vey wanted the best for this new baby of hers, and that meant he had to learn from the best, not second best. She could keep it secret, couldn't she? Who had to know? The only problem left was Dantalion himself, and getting him to agree to something so beneath him. That would be–

Color flickered, and Vey brought her attention back to her sight. He'd been quiet and still, as always, and she'd almost forgotten that he was there. She'd gotten so used to black and white being there, that she sort of regarded it as a bright nightlight and used it as such.

Now, her nightlight was swirling about in a sandstorm of illuminated particles – the familiar blacks and whites that now mixed with a new blue color. He'd dissolved his previous incarnation, and looked to be now working on something else.

Vey raised her head from the desktop, preparing herself should he be getting ready to die. Wouldn't that just be her luck after all this time?

But he wasn't dying, she realized, when those grains of Light began to move with purpose and take shape. Like building blocks of faery dust, they moved about to form first human feet, then denim clad legs, and beyond to a plain white shirt. Continuing further, white-covered arms popped out on either side followed by pale skin of a neck. And as if it were the last little dollop of black whipped cream being applied to dessert, the black of his shaggy hair swirled into existence on top of an angular, pallid face. Tiny unused particles continued spiraling upwards until they evaporated into nothing, indicating the manifestation was complete.

It was . . . not what she had expected. Was this someone she was supposed to know, or something from his imagination? It was always hard to tell when their choice could be one of a trillion different things. No, not expected. But not in a bad way. In a different way . . . an odd way.

He looked dead. Not zombie-dead, but just-pulled-out-of-the-morgue-dead. There was very little color in his complexion, making it contrast sharply with the sable clusters of his dark mane. That hair covered the whole of his head as well as his forehead, his ears, and the back of his neck. It didn't poof, like Shepherd's hair, but it did come off as looking like one big collection of flyways that refused to be put in their place.

His body, she noted, seemed to exhibit the same kind of neglect that his hair did. He was thin, bony even, and the long length of his limbs only accentuated that fact. As if to reinforce that 'whatever' air about him, he slouched a bit more than the average person, turning his form into an 'S' shape. His clothing was simple, blue and white, and the material draped over the harsh angles of his body in a loose fit.

His eyes were still closed, their lashes sweeping across the white of his cheeks like black feathers in snow. With his head tipped back just slightly, Vey could see the dark shadows of sickly skin under his eyes. He looked young . . . the given age of twenty-five seemed to fit this holoform. Was this her little genius then? Had he chosen his own form?

After several moments, his eyes opened. And opened. And opened some more, until they finally stilled into great spheres that stared upwards. Vey was beginning to wonder if he would grace her with his notice when his pupils slid to the bottoms of their sockets in a penetrating glare. At first glance, she could make out no presence of an iris in those eyes – just fully dilated black. Vey had to squint her own eyes to find the bit of steel wrapped around each hole.

His head followed, lowering until dark marbles rolled back to the top of his whites. He didn't blink or waver in his stare, the only movement coming from his hands which buried themselves in the pockets of his jeans.

Neither spoke, both unsure of how exactly to proceed. He'd cock his head to one side ever so slightly, and Vey returned the gesture, turning hers the opposite way.

"I'm L." He spoke first, his voice that quiet, deep almost-whisper she remembered from last time.

"Well," Vey spoke with a smile, settling back on the desktop with chin in hand. "It's about damn time."

Dantalion - Probably should wiki that complex little guy. Duke of Hell, a scholarly daemon of sorts.