A.N.- Hey guys! This is my first fanfiction, so please be kind! Rated M for future chapters. Reviews encouraged and appreciated, and Repo! the Genetic Opera forever!

3, Fleur

Chapter 1-By the Blood We Are Bound

I stepped out of the impressive double doors of the GeneCo main offices and into the light of the new day. After the near complete darkness of the bowels of GeneCo, the sudden brightness was near blinding, and I raised my arm to shield my stinging, watering eyes. The gathering dawn painted the surrounding landscape in hues of pink and orange and gold, and sparkling like diamonds on the new grass and flowers bursting into bloom after a long unforgiving winter. The air was warm with a pleasant breeze that played across my face, smelling of wet earth and new things. Filled with a sudden, inexplicable ecstasy, I took the steps down two at a time, but stopped short on the last step. My toes poked curiously over the edge of the concrete, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to step down. I tried again, but it was as if an invisible barrier was holding me back, anchoring me to these steps, to my childhood home. I rocked back on my heels, chewing on my bottom lip, when a voice on the horizon spared me any further indecision.

"Hey genius!"

My face broke into a wide smile, and I didn't just step down onto the grass, I leapt down and started running towards the voice at top speed. The ground was deliciously wet under my bare feet, and my hair came loose from its confines and streamed out behind me like a banner. There she was, just as I knew she would be, sitting on a low stone bench and watching the sun come out over the Sanitarium skyline.

"Show off." She sniffed at me as I collapsed on the grass next to her, but she was smiling, and she moved over so I could sit next to her.

"Prude." I giggled breathlessly and took the proffered seat.

We just sat there for a time, neither of us feeling a need to break the comfortable silence. Her pinky hooked itself through mine, and I leaned my head onto her shoulder.

"Nice day." I commented finally after I had caught my breath.

"No. It's going to rain." She replied in her usual blunt manner, never one to mince words. I was too used to her ominous pronunciations to be unduly surprised, and realized she'd explain herself in due course. "See? There's a storm on the horizon." My gaze followed her pointed finger and saw there was indeed a gathering of dark clouds, just over the tops of the furthest buildings.

"When do you figure it'll get here?" I asked.

"Soon. Too soon, I'm afraid. But first you need to wake up." Her brown, doe-like eyes bored into mine like a drill. I couldn't look away.

"Wake up?"

"Yes, Rissa, wake up. Wake up…wake up…"

~҉~

"Wake up! Ms. Largo, you have to wake up!" I awoke with a start, and the terrified GENtern scuttled back away from me as if I was going to strike her. The child was obviously new, the way she was wearing her uniform was enough to tell me that much, strait-from-the-box new, not yet slashed and altered to show as much of her body as possible. Rumors about my siblings' conduct obviously hadn't missed her; no wonder the girl was so frightened. I sat up and offered her a warm smile, which she tentatively returned. She was a pretty young thing, her blonde hair natural, still a little chubby, her body not yet been nipped and tucked and filled with plastic. It pained me to think that one day she would become one of those genetically perfect clones in their skimpy clothes, throwing themselves at my brothers to try to wheedle a couple of extra monies under the table to feed their surgical addictions. "I'm…sorry to wake you, Ms. Largo, but your father has sent for you. He wants you in his office immediately."

"Thank you, Miss…?"

"Williams. Melody Williams, Ms. Largo."

"Please, Melody, call me Rissa."

"Oh! Okay, Mi…Rissa." She stuttered, her knees trembling. I sat up on the loveseat and stretched, straitening my blood red gown and arranging my mink stole around my shoulders. I hated it when I fell asleep in the middle of the day like that, but I'd just been so damn tired lately! I stood up and crossed to the French doors, pulling open the velvet curtain that obscured them. The sky was as smoggy and dark as ever, the piles of dead bodies scattered haphazardly on the concrete. "Ummmm…Rissa…your father…?"

"I know, dear." I sighed, closing the curtains and walking brusquely out of the room, leaving Melody to hurry along in my wake.

~҉~

"You wanted to see me, Daddy?" I asked, poking my head into the door of my father's private office.

"Ah! Narissa!" My father, Rotti Largo, founder of the GeneCo empire, gestured for me to stand at his side, and I walked over next to his desk and planted myself where I had been bidden. My siblings Pavi Largo, Luigi Largo, and Amber Sweet were already seated in front of him, in various states of unease. Father looked down at the folder on his desk and Luigi offered me a covert wink before Rotti glanced up again and Luigi's face re-arranged itself into a mask of contrition.

Rotti took a picture out of the folder, and I had the good sense to gasp and cover my mouth as if in surprise. Luigi was standing shirtless in an alley next to the corpses of two women, brandishing a gun and scowling.

"You disgust me." Rotti spat at him, and Luigi hung his head.

The next was of Amber in a Zydrate haze, passed out somewhere, surgery scarred body glowing pale in the streetlights.

Amber didn't even bother looking at him, just shifted her position on the couch and fixed her hair.

The last was of Pavi, pilfering the face of a Gentern with a cruel-looking silver blade.

Pavi smiled at his father and gave him a thumbs up.

Rotti shoved the folder aside in blind rage. Luigi glared at his brother, who sat back in his seat and met his gaze challengingly, mirror clutched in his right hand as the left toyed with his enoby [A.N.- Anyone get this?] locks.

"You're disgraceful, all of you! Why can't you be more like your sister Narissa? She never…" Oh, there it was. 'Why can't you be more like Narissa?' How many times had I heard that one before! 'Be more like Rissa!' 'Rissa wouldn't do something stupid that!' 'Look at your little sister, she knows how to behave!' If he only knew, the poor man, it would break his heart… "Get out of my sight!"

I was stirred from my reverie by my father's dismissal, as my siblings filed out and a terrified-looking doctor in a white lab coat was brought in, but as I turned to leave Father caught my wrist.

"Not you, Narissa. You may stay."

The doctor looked at me questioningly as I resumed my post, albeit hesitantly.

"But sir, this is really a matter for adults to be discussing…" he said, looking expectantly at me.

"Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of my daughter." Rotti growled dangerously, and I knew it was as much about demonstrating his power as actually caring whether I was there or not. I smiled nastily at the doctor and placed a hand on my father's arm. I was 23 years old, damn it, hardly a child anymore, and I deeply resented being treated as anything less. The man was sweating bullets as he placed a clear clip board in front of my father, bearing the legend "Medical Report".

"I'm sorry, Mr. Largo, we're afraid it's terminal." He said as Rotti's eyes scanned the pages. "It's spreading rapidly. You don't have that much time left…"

Rotti slammed the clipboard down onto the desk, and one of the female guards standing behind Rotti loaded her gun and shot the man square in the forehead.

"Daddy? What's going on? What's wrong?" Too used to Rotti's treatment off his staff by now, I clung to his arm like a lifeline, as if somehow if I could leech the disease out of him if I squeezed him hard enough. I knew what was going on, but I refused to believe it. It simply couldn't be. Rotti sighed and patted my hand.

"It's cancer, Narissa."

"But, Daddy, you made GeneCo! You cured the whole world of the largest epidemic in history! Can't you have a surGEN fix you?" I whined like a petulant child, refusing to understand, refusing to acknowledge the truth at all costs.

"No, my dear. It's spreading too fast." He shook his head sadly.

"How long do you have?"

"We don't know. The doctors say if it keeps spreading at the rate it is now that…"

"How long?" I repeated.

"Not long." He yielded.

"Daddy, please don't die! I'm not ready for you to die yet!" My eyes filled with tears, and flung my arms around him in wild abandon. The guards behind him stepped forward, but he waved them off and returned the hug. I hadn't hugged my father in over thirteen years, and he stilled smelled just as I remembered, like cigar smoke and peppermint and home.

"Narissa." He held my shoulders at arm's length, "You have to be strong for me, okay? You have to be strong. You're a Largo. We have a reputation to uphold at all times. By the blood we are bound, bound to this soulless way of living with an invisible pact. Our forefathers made a pact with the devil, and now we must honor it."

"I understand, Daddy." I sniffled and wiped my nose on my arm, and he squeezed my shoulders one more time before letting go. Suddenly, the question that had been playing at the back of my mind for so long burst out of my mouth in a rush, "Daddy? Who will get GeneCo after…after you're gone?"

"I don't know, dear. I shudder to think about any of your siblings in a position of power."

"Daddy," I paused briefly, "What if…I took over GeneCo?" Rotti laughed openly.

"Narissa, don't be silly, child!"

"Daddy, I'm serious!"

"Narissa, no." He looked up at me with something akin to pity. "You have no idea what you're asking. Have I taught you nothing? This job changes a person. It chews you up and spits you out a different person. I've raised you to have a different life, a better life than this. Please, just put the thought out of your head."

"But Daddy!"

"Please."

"Yes, Daddy." I turned dejectedly and walked toward the door.

"Oh, and Narissa?" I turned back to look at him, "Don't tell your brothers any of what we've discussed here. They'd rip each other to shreds before I even felt ill, if they thought they could get their hands on the company."

"Yes Daddy."

"Run along then, and remember to close the door behind you." He started on some of the paperwork piled on him desk, and I had no choice but to exit the office, snapping the door shut the door behind me.