The Fawn | Death Note

1. And So It Begins

* * * December 11 * * *

It was a cool winter's afternoon in Washington DC. The sun was hidden behind a veil of clouds, though that didn't stop groups of eager tourists from exploring the streets below. The city was filled with important buildings, some familiar icons and others that simply blended in. One of those seemingly-invisible buildings contained two individuals who were hand-picked by L and Watari as potential successors to the great detective.

The main investigation room was lit by dozens of computer screens, silhouetting the two young prodigies. On the left sat a boy whose white clothes and pale complexion made him stand out in the dark room. At the young age of seventeen, he still hadn't hit his full adult height, and the way he slouched as he sat made him look even shorter than he already was. Being the anti-social person that he was, the teen comfortable sitting there in his pajamas. He wore socks to warm his cold toes, but didn't bother to wear shoes. He twirled his white hair around his finger as he stared intently at the screens before him.

To his right sat a young woman. The light from the screens made her skin appear almost as pale as her partner. As she leaned forward in her chair to rest her head on her hand, a lock of brown hair fell into her eyes. She furrowed her eyebrows and blew a puff of air to try to remove it, but the strands simply rose for a brief moment before returning to the same spot. The brunette huffed before reaching down the back of her shirt. She searched around for a few moments before finding the bobby pin on her bra and pulling out. After pinning her bangs to the side, she leaned back into the chair, causing the tips of her hair to brush against her shirt. The young woman folded her arms over her chest as a dull look came to her brown eyes. She crossed her jean-clad legs as she quietly groaned about how boring her current task was.

Both of them were seventeen years old, though she was several months his elder. The girl's name was Amelia Stein, and the boy was Nate River. Despite being partners for two years, the pair didn't know each other's names. Instead they knew each other by their aliases: Bambi and Near. Although this would be unusual in any other work environment, it was a custom for those who work under the world-famous detective, L.

Bambi glanced over to Near, recalling when she first found out about the nature of their partnership. After she was tested by Watari, the old man found her to be among the intelligence and skill levels of the top four students at the Wammy House Orphanage, an English orphanage dedicated to raising children as candidates to succeed L when he passes. No one knew who L was except for Watari, but the children of the orphanage worked hard to eventually gain the rights to the name. Watari had told Bambi that a plan was made for the top four students of the Wammy House to be split into two teams to work on cases that the great detective didn't have time to. This would work not only as an aid to L, but also as a final method to determine who his successor would be. 

As it turned out, she was paired with the student who was currently in the lead for this race – though she found out in her personal investigations of the orphanage that this was not the original plan. Apparently she was meant to be paired with someone called Matt, because their nearly identical skill sets would have boosted each other's to create a strong team, despite being ranked at the bottom of the top four. According to those digital records, Near was meant to work with someone called Mello with the intent of their extreme strengths covering each other's extreme weaknesses. While the files failed to specify what those were, the young woman deduced that this Mello was incredibly strong in the field, unlike her partner who never left the building.

Bored again of her contemplations, Bambi redirected her attention to the current case and focused on the screens. Pictured on the monitors were live video feeds of the top suspects to the case that Bambi and Near were working on. The case was a nationwide Ponzi Scheme that they had tracked to be much older than their partnership. This had been their most difficult case yet, but Bambi believed that her contributions had finally led Near to trust her and her skills.

The team had been working on the case for the past eight months, gathering evidence and uncovering the key players. Bambi did some undercover work to plant a virus in the company computers to allow herself and Near to have complete access to all files remotely. While there she also gathered other information on the key suspects.

The pair of detectives were winding the case down to a close. The video monitoring was the last phase of the plan; its purpose was to map out the daily routines of their suspects to plan how to arrest all of them at the exact same time. Bambi's attention landed on the leader of the Ponzi Scheme for a moment before all of the screens went blank.

Her eyes widened as doubt spawned in her mind. Did the suspects find out? I could have sworn that the virus was untraceable.

The brunette reached for the nearest keyboard when a familiar 'L' appeared on the blank screens. Bambi sighed in relief, though she found herself wondering why he contacted them. It was a rare occurrence, so it must have been important.

The scrambled voice of L rang out in the room as he addressed the team. "Good afternoon, Coil. Unfortunately for you two, this is not a leisure call." Bambi and Near exchanged glances as L continued. "Team Deneuve has been failing their mission in Los Angeles, and I need the both of you out there to clean up their mess."

Bambi picked up the microphone on the team's end and turned it on.  "L, we're not finished with our case just yet. We need a little more time."

"I am aware of that," L's mechanical voice replied. "Since your team is close to finishing your assignment, I will be sending B to Los Angeles while N stays here and completes the case."

Bambi wanted to argue, but she knew just how stubborn that damn detective was, so she decided to let it go. The brunette knew that she could trust her partner to finish the case. Besides, if an emergency were to come up and the team needed to do field work, Bambi was confident that their new hire, Gevanni, could handle it.

L continued as a map with a red star appeared on the screen. "You will meet your new partners here at 9:00pm precisely. Your flight leaves in two hours."

With that said, the 'L' disappeared, and the screens returned to the suspects.

Bambi groaned in mild frustration, before shaking it off. The young woman stretched her arms over her head and stood up.

"Well, I'm going to go pack my suitcase real quick. Good luck on the rest of the case, Near. I'll see you over there when you're done."

As the brunette began to walk out of the monitor room, Near called out to her.

She paused to see her partner twirling his hair as he continued. "I have known the people who work as Deneuve for a long time. Mello will not be very receptive of you if he knows that you work with me."

Bambi laughed a bit as she stuffed her hands in her pockets. "Thanks for the concern, Near. I'll keep an eye out, but I'm sure I'll be fine."

The young woman then turned around and continued to her room. She pulled out a small suitcase and quickly packed a few essentials, a few day's worth of clothes, and her laptop inside of its cushioned case. After zipping up the suitcase, Bambi put on her dark winter coat, topping it off with her hat and scarf. The brunette quickly grabbed her suitcase before leaving the building.