Guided By The Wind

A Wing Under Wind

Giro reentered the laboratory as Ciel looked over one of the two chambers with a clipboard in her hands. Giro observed as Ciel appeared to talk to the chamber as well as she recorded notes about the creature inside the chamber as it moved in response to her voice. Giro cleared his throat, to let Ciel know he had come back. The old woman turned to look at him.

"Girouette." she said as if she had forgotten something.

"I was told that you needed me." he said to her.

"Yes." Ciel agreed as she placed her clipboard on her desk. "Come over here to the chambers, I have something tell you."

Girouette did what he was told and walked over to the chambers to stand next to Ciel. He couldn't look at what was inside, he just couldn't, so he looked at Ciel instead. The woman sighed unhappily as she looked at the chambers.

"Science is interesting." she said dimly. "Who would have thought a hundred years ago that one day we would have creatures that are equally robotic and humanoid?"

In a motion that Girouette couldn't control, he quickly turned his body to look at the chambers. Is that what was in there? Hybrids...? What ever they were, were they... alive...?

"When I was younger," Ciel then said to Girouette, "There was a war that a heartbroken and lost man created to reclaim what he thought was his. He did not know it at first, but I was working on something that was to be the ultimate bridge between robotics and humanity- a job that was given to me from my adoptive mother in memorial of a legend and his lover. About fifteen years ago, those two children were nicknamed Crea and Prea, and they were the Mother Elf's children."

Giro flashed Ciel a wild look of fear. Ciel bowed her head and continued with her story.

"But the children proved to be as powerful as their mother and had to be cut down." Ciel turned her back to the chambers and started to walk away. "Crea and Prea were backups of the completed DNA, they weren't meant to be so powerful. Maybe it was Weil's influence once he found out about them, maybe I under estimated the power of the Mother Elf, maybe... maybe I was just... wrong to begin with. I was screwing around with nature, what did I expect to happen?"

Giro continued to stare at her. Behind him, the creatures in the chambers wiggled and moved as if they knew they were being talked about. Ciel turned to look at Giro again.

"Zero (the one whose parts you are made out of, if you've ever wanted his name), he was told to protect them. 'Protect the twins' she told him. We couldn't decipher what she meant until it was too late- the moment we found out was the moment when I found them."

Girouette's pupils became small as he looked at Ciel, then threw a look at the chambers.

"Encased in their own separate, artificial amniotic sac," Ciel then said as she too looked at the chambers. "The perfect combination of Reploid and human DNA in a single body; Zero was told to protect them, but Zero is no longer here. Girouette... it's your turn now."

Giro slowly started to shake his head.

"I can't." he told her. Ciel closed her eyes and made a sound of discomfort.

"I hate to say it," the old woman admitted, "Because it goes against everything I've wanted for over forty years. But you must, it was what you were built for."

"Because no one else wants to babysit a pair of genetic anomalies?" Girouette asked, slowly starting to lose his temper. "Because my entire existence is due to a fallen hero who didn't understand the promise he made?"

"Zero knew full and damn well what kind of promise he made!" Ciel shouted at him, she too losing her temper as well.

"Then why didn't you recreate him instead of making a new idiot to do the job?!" Giro hollered back at her.

"Because I couldn't!" Ciel screamed. "Do you think that if I could rebuild him, I would have by now?! I loved Zero, I wanted him back, because of his sacrifice I couldn't do it! It was like he didn't want to be revived! It was like he didn't care about us after all! It was like he didn't love us -love me- like he led us all to believe!"

"He never claimed to be a hero." Girouette told Ciel darkly, an odd mixture with his normally gentle tone that nearly scared Ciel. "I bet he didn't know he was a fighter until you taught him how."

Ciel glared at Girouette. But then she noticed the chambers behind him.

"Holy shit..." the old woman mumbled. "They're crying."

The odd statement made Giro look at Ciel quizzically before turning around to look at the chambers. Sure enough, the little creatures inside their individual chambers appeared to be crying as the violently thrashed about and their lower lips quivering as their mouth mimicked the motion of a silent scream. Giro's heart fell at the sight. Carefully, he walked up to the chambers and placed a hand on each of them. Surprised for a moment that the chambers did not have glass surrounding them, but a rather creepy skin-like texture, Giro rubbed the chambers calmly and slowly. The creatures inside their respective chamber slowly started to calm down and ceased to thrash about in a full tantrum. When they calmed down, Giro kept his hands on the chambers as he looked from one creature to the other.

"How old are they?" Girouette asked as he continued to stare at them.

"At that size, they'd be about 21 weeks." Ciel told him, her voice soft and almost unable to be heard. "But it's been much, much longer than that."

"How much longer?" Giro inquired.

"Like, forty-five years longer."

"How long has Zero been gone?"

"Counting the hours he's left only made the pain hurt more... Alou- Prairie would know. She really hoped I could bring him back some day."

Girouette nodded absentmindedly as he continued to look from one child to the other.

"I can't change the direction of the wind," he started to say as he looked to the small child on his right, "But I'll know what direction it travels in."

"And...?" Ciel asked, not to be rude but out of genuine curiosity.

"And..." Giro continued, looking to the child on the left, "Like a family of birds, they'll be protected under the wing of someone loving."

"Would that be you, then?"

Giro nodded as if he were in a trance.

"Yes... it will."