Pandora the Brave

Megami no Inazumi

D/C: to my dismay, the matrix, its characters, blahblahblah, you know the drill. Anyways not mine, just Pandora. But she's cool, so I like her, and you can't have her, because I made her up, and yeah. Whatever, I bet you'd like me to actually get TO the story, right?

Pandora the Brave

Chapter 1

The Merovingian sighed. Life was definitely getting boring. Time for a drive, he thought. Smirking, he told his one of his programmed waiters to get one of his cars ready.

"Which one?" stammered the man.

"Which one? Which one? Mon dieu ! I don't give a shit! Pick one! Vite ! Vite ! Maintenant !" cried the Merovingian, exasperated.

One of the Twins sniggered. "Andele," he said to the waiter as he rushed past.

The Merovingian continued muttering for several moments after the waiter left, his eyes nearly popping out of his head. The Twins imitated him, making faces at each other as they smoked their cigarettes.

When the waiter came back up, the Merovingian directed his posse down to the garage beneath the building across the street where a limousine was waiting. The waiter pulled open the door of the limousine, and a child's shriek echoed through the concrete garage, ricocheting across the walls, creating the utmost annoyance of the day for Mr. I-Have-A-Migraine-Because-You-Are-Breathing.

The group clamored into the sleek black limo amidst eerie sounds, footsteps, voices, and scuffles. That is, all except Persephone. She was getting in when the child screamed again. The footsteps came closer. They were on the upper level, just over their heads. Inside the car, the Twins looked up uneasily; they sensed an agent, or three.

A loud crash, clatter, and thud announced the arrival of the child, who had fallen through a metal grate. The kid scrambled to its feet, brushing its long blonde hair back, revealing its face to belong to a young, terrified girl.

"Help me!" she cried.

The Merovingian grabbed Persephone's wrist. "Get in the car," he hissed.

Persephone looked back at the girl. Her leg was twisted unnaturally, her dusty face was streaked in tears.

"Please!" she wailed. "Help me!"

Two shots came through the hole in the ceiling. The girl yelped and covered her head in her hands.

Persephone looked at her husband and back at the girl. 'She's so helpless," she murmured.

"Persephone, I forbid you to save the girl," the Merovingian declared. "Persephone, stop. No. No saving helpless children."

She wrenched her arm out of his grasp.

"Persephone, get back in the car. Stop. In the car. Now. No saving. Stop."

She crept up to the girl and snatched her from the dusty shaft of light just before a hailstorm of bullets rained down from the unseen agents. Persephone leapt into the car as it drove by. One of the lackeys slammed the door, and they sped off into the street.

One Twin looked at the bundle of fluffy clothes and said, "Is it laundry day?"

Persephone glared at him, the Merovingian shook his head, and the rest of the car sniggered.

Brushing the child's hair from her face, Persephone asked, "Are you alright?"

The girl nodded, but her eyes were glazing over.

"Why were they chasing you?" she asked.

"I have… a code," the girl murmured before drifting into unconsciousness.