Code Geass: Chronicles of Tartarus
Side Story Nine:
Equilibrium
“It wasn’t that the world leaders felt the worst was behind us after the defeat of the Greeks in 2024 that led me to such extreme measures. No, it was because I believed that the world lacked the proper equilibrium we needed if mankind was going to survive. You must understand that most of the world thought the City of Tartarus destroyed and thus the need for a real spacenavy, complete with Geass warriors, unnecessary. It was that realization that drove me to join in what seemed like a mad scheme at first. Cloning C2, reviving the Irregulars, restarting Code R, it was sheer lunacy without the understanding of why it was so necessary. It’s a pity Nina didn’t see it that way in the end.” —Excerpt from a conversation between Count Amontillado and Lelouch vi Britannia, dated February 13th, 2026 a.t.b.
“Lelouch, do you read me?” Enoch called over his radio.
Where the hell could he be? Apsu wondered to himself as he flew his Type-21Z at high altitude over the endless cityscape of Nibiru.
A warning chime from his instrument panel caught his attention.
“What’s this?” he asked aloud sarcastically.
A Hadron beam nearly cut his fighter in half, but he dodged at the last moment.
“Guess I know what happened to Lelouch.” He rolled the fighter into a dive, knowing that he must close the distance between the attacker and himself before his enemy shot him down.
Enoch’s cybernetic eyes locked onto the glint of metal that was a KMF on the top of a nearby building. “You just cashed your chips in, friend.” He fired a long burst of Kaon blasts from his gunpod. The orange-red beams hit their mark and tore the Vincent-Advanced into metallic ribbons before the machine exploded in a fireball.
A volley of autocannon shells sprayed his Type-21Z from below.
“Son of a…” Enoch cursed as he transformed his machine and blocked the bulk of the shower of cannon rounds with the Meson shields in his mecha’s forearms. Apsu used the buildings to his advantage as he maneuvered through them towards the flashing muzzles of the autocannons that unloaded another hail of shells at him.
The Type-21 Cosmo-KnightMare flew up over the group of six Vincent-Advanced units that were positioned within what looked like a business district of the city. The large warehouse buildings provided ample places to hide, but this strike team was crouching in formation, which puzzled Apsu considering the circumstances.
“These guys must be amateurs,” he said aloud to himself as his machine landed in the center of the group. With one fluid motion, his KMF unsheathed both of its hip-mounted beam sabers and cut the six Vincent-Advanced units in half with a single twirl.
A Hadron beam flew at his machine from a concealed position. “Or a decoy,” he laughed nervously as he parried the blast with the beam sabers.
“That move was impressive,” Rai said over the radio. “You must be the one called Enoch.”
“That would be me,” Enoch snickered as he homed in on the source of the Hadron blast. “Never knew I was so popular.”
“Or infamous,” Rai teased. “You shouldn’t think that just because you’re popular that it’s necessarily a good thing.”
“Weren’t you the one that tried to sing Lelouch a lullaby?” Enoch asked sarcastically.
“I tried to give him peace,” Rai replied with disdain, “but that red-haired witch interfered and nearly got both of them killed.”
“Gee, jealous much?” Enoch taunted Rai as he unleashed a hail of Kaon bolts towards a white Vincent-Advanced with blue highlights.
The machine dodged behind a building out of the way of the barrage.
“I’m not so easily defeated,” Rai retorted as his machine raised its large, tubular gunpod and fired another Hadron beam.
“Really?” Enoch snickered as his Type-21Z closed the distance between them. “Kallen said you were a wuss.”
“You don’t seem so great yourself,” Rai replied as his machine unsheathed its pair of Hadron blades from the back of his Vincent-Advanced in anticipation of Apsu’s attack.
“That’s because I don’t think of myself as being great,” Enoch said smoothly, “unlike some people.” His Type-21Z crashed through the warehouse next to Rai and slammed into the Vincent-Advanced.
Rai recovered and parried the pair of beam sabers with the Hadron swords just as Enoch brought them down towards the Vincent-Advanced.
“Not bad, Enoch,” Rai exclaimed as he flew his KMF back away from the Type-21Z, “but not good enough.” The Vincent-Advanced fired a pair of MVS harkens from its hips. The unseen electromagnetic tethers gave the pair of deadly spades incredible speed and maneuverability.
“That’s what villains keep telling me,” Enoch chuckled as his Type-21Z used its pair of shoulder-mounted MVS harkens to deflect Rai’s pair, “but they just don’t seem to get it.” Enoch sighed, “I was built for only one reason…to fight.” His Type-21Z lunged at the Vincent-Advanced with its pair of beam sabers.
“How sad for you,” Rai remarked as he locked blades with the Type-21Z.
“Actually, it’s my opponents you should feel bad for,” Enoch tittered as the Type-21Z let go of the beam sabers while simultaneously grabbing its gunpod at lightning speed. “They’re the ones who need the sympathy.” In one move, the combination gunpod/Hadron blade flipped into sword position and cut off the forearms of the Vincent-Advanced.
“Damn you!” Rai raged at him over the comm. as the Hadron blades of the Vincent-Advanced fell to the ground, and Enoch brought the tip of his own Hadron blade to the chest of the Rai’s KMF.
“It’s too late for that,” Enoch said softly. “Now surrender.”
Rai smiled to himself. “Gladly,” he said as he opened up his cockpit and stood up. “However, should I remain in my machine or come out?”
“You will abandon your KMF and not try anything untoward,” Enoch told him as he opened his own cockpit canopy in the belly of the Type-21Z. Apsu grabbed a wooden quarterstaff before jumping over to Rai’s KMF.
Rai smiled at him, “You certainly are a trusting one.”
“Perhaps.” Enoch gave him a crooked smile. “Now step out of your machine.”
“Of course,” Rai said as a vicious smile crossed his face and he began to sing:
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, paper flowers
Rai outstretched his hands towards Enoch as he moved towards him and beckoned him to come closer.
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, paper flowers
Enoch walked towards Rai slowly with an emotionless expression as the white-haired man continued to sing with the voice of a vixen:
I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clock screaming
Monsters calling my name
Let me stay
Where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops, as they’re falling, tell a story
Rai waited for Enoch to come close to him and stop before he moved his hands behind his back in an artistic manner while his body swayed to the song.
In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby (flowers)
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me (flowers)
Rai felt for the grip of the pistol on his back as he gently removed the weapon from its holster. Enoch stared at the man as if in a trance.
Don’t say I’m out of touch
With this rampant chaos - your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
The nightmare I built my own world to escape
Enoch stared straight ahead and stood as still as a stone statue with his quarterstaff resting on his hip while the white-haired man brought his hands to his side, his left hand holding the pistol.
In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby (flowers)
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me (flowers)
Rai’s hand raised slowly upwards bringing the weapon up towards Enoch’s face.
Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights
Oh, how I long for the deep sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light
Rai leveled the pistol to Enoch’s forehead and gave him a sad smile.
In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby (flowers)
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me (flowers)
Rai began to squeeze the trigger of the handgun gently as he sang the final words of the song:
Paper flowers
A flash of steel cut the weapon from Rai’s hand as a wooden scabbard swept his legs out from underneath him.
“All too easy,” Enoch snickered as he brought the tip of his unsheathed katana to Rai’s Adam’s apple.
Rai gawked at him in shock. “What the…how?”
Enoch smirked mischievously, “I’m a cyborg who’s immune to Geass, that’s how, you singing sissy. Now tell me where you’ve stashed the Green Goddess of Gorgeous.”
“Who?” Rai asked, fearful of what the cybernetic man might do to him.
“C2,” Enoch glared at him.
“What makes you think I’d tell you,” Rai said as his initial fear evaporated with the knowledge that this man needed him alive.
Enoch was used to this line of resistance and moved the tip of the katana down to Rai’s crotch. “Because if you don’t tell me, I’ll prune your twig and giggleberries and have you singing soprano for real. Are we clear?”
“Crystal,” Rai said wide-eyed as he felt the metal tip gently press against his genitalia. “I’ll take you to her.”
Enoch smiled, “I knew you’d see it my way.”
* * *
“Too slow!” Alice taunted Euphemia over the radio as she used her Geass.
“Damn it, that thing is fast!” Euphie exclaimed as Alice’s Vincent-Advanced dodged the energy bolts of Uriel in a blink.
“It’s got to be Geass,” Suzaku cautioned his two female companions as his Gabriel did a spinning kick into the hip armor of Dalque’s KMF.
“Bastard!” Dalque spat at Suzaku over the channel as her cockpit monitor displayed the damage to the hip joint of her mecha.
Dalque used her Geass to enhance her mecha’s strength and pull the Gabriel’s leg from her machine. “How dare you.”
“Hey, you guys are the ones that picked a fight with us, remember,” Suzaku retorted as Gabriel unsheathed one of its beam sabers.
Dalque’s Vincent-Advanced drew its pair of Hadron blades. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Knight of Zero. You chose this battle as soon as you came here.”
“That’s no excuse for what you’ve done,” Kallen boomed over the radio as the Guren-Phoenix dodged salvos of Hadron Cannon fire from Lucretia’s and Sancia’s pair of KMFs.
“You wouldn’t say that, Captain Kozuki, if you knew what we were all about,” Lucretia scolded her as she homed in on the left wing of Guren with her sniper Hadron and fired.
The beam tore across the sky above the city and clipped the wing of Guren but did no measurable damage.
“I don’t care what you’re about, but thanks for giving me a bead on your position,” Kallen said as she lined up her Fukusha Hadou Kikou disc rifle gunpod.
“It’s not that easy!” Sancia fired a burst of autocannon rounds at Kallen that made her volley of energy discs miss Lucretia by a wide margin.
Euphemia blocked a salvo of autocannon rounds from Alice’s machine with the shield of Uriel. “Why are you doing this?” Euphie exclaimed. “You had no right to take Lelouch and C2, or anyone else for that matter.”
Alice laughed, “It’s not a matter of rights. It is a matter of survival.”
“Survival,” Suzaku gasped. “Do you mean you need them in order to survive?”
“No, you blockhead,” Dalque barked as her KMF slashed at Gabriel, “the human race needs us if it is to survive.”
“That’s not good enough!” Kallen raged as Guren flew towards Sancia with a quick burst of supersonic speed from Guren’s Hyper Float system and lashed out with the Mark-VI Fukusha Hadou Kikou right hand.
“Sancia, move!” Alice yelled at her over the comm., but Kallen was too fast.
The Guren grabbed the Vincent-Advanced by the head. “This is it for you.” Kallen pulled the trigger of the Supernova Wave.
A bright blue beam cut off the right hand of Guren just as the energy of the Fukusha Hadou Kikou weapon pulsed through it, and the appendage exploded.
“What the fu…” Kallen blurted out as a second beam from atop a nearby tower nearly cut her machine in two.
“It’s the Uther!” Lucretia exclaimed over the radio.
“Count Amontillado, you shouldn’t endanger yourself like this,” Alice cautioned him.
“Nonsense,” Count Amontillado said as his charcoal black machine flew via a pair of cone-shaped graviton-impellers that protruded from each side of the backpack of the machine.
Suzaku gave the machine a once over and knew it was trouble. “Kallen, be careful, that thing’s based on the Gawain!”
“How perceptive of you, Suzaku,” Amontillado tittered. “It should be no surprise that Britannia has been developing her own first-generation series of Cosmo-KnightMare Frames.”
“Britannia?” Euphie scoffed as the battle paused for a moment. “But Nunnally is empress, so how is that possible?”
“Anything is possible, Knight of Draconis,” Amontillado snickered. “Now would the three of you kindly surrender? I don’t see any need for further violence.”
“Like hell,” Kallen said as she flew the Guren-Phoenix at the Uther.
“Such anger,” the count said sadly. “You really should learn to control it.” He fired a brilliant blue blast from the large lance-gunpod his machine carried, which opened up like one of the shoulder cannons of the Gawain to eject its deadly energy.
Kallen used the ultimate-invincibility shield of Guren to deflect the beam and returned fire with her machine’s Zero Beam. “Two can play that game, Count!”
“This is no mere KnightMare, Captain Kozuki.” The Uther used its spade-shaped shield mounted to its left forearm to generate an omnidirectional force field of its own. Kallen’s Zero Beam harmlessly dissipated off Amontillado’s shield.
“It’s not the KMF that matters Amontillado,” Kallen said as she closed the distance between them, “it’s the pilot.” The Guren flew up and over the Uther then unleashed its pair of MVS harkens. The duo of spinning Maser Vibration Shurikens was intercepted by a pair of Hadron blade discs that flew from the shoulder armor of the Uther.
“I agree that an aggressive pilot with your level of skill is impressive,” Amontillado said as the Uther swung about, “but attacking without a strategy to use that level of excellence neutralizes your advantage.” A pincer claw shot out from under the shield of the Uther and grabbed onto the main body of the Guren.
Electrical energy shot through the cable of the large pincer into the Guren.
“Ahhhhhhh!” Kallen screamed as the electrical jolts sparked throughout her cockpit.
“Kallen!” Suzaku yelled for her as he and Euphie continued to dodge the hail of weapons fire from the Irregulars.
“She’s at my mercy now, Knight of Zero,” Count Amontillado stated confidently. “I suggest you surrender.”
“We don’t have a choice, Suzaku,” Euphie told him with a tinge of anger in her usually calm voice.
“I know,” Suzaku agreed as he sheathed the beam-sabers of Gabriel.
“That’s better,” the count said politely. “Alice, cease your attack on the Hakodeshim and kindly escort them to the surface. I think it’s time they knew the truth.”
“Are you sure about that, Count Amontillado?” Alice inquired, unsure of his orders.
“Completely,” he said pleasantly.
* * *
“Lelouch, where are you?” Shirley called out as she wound her way through the streets of the alien city.
She stopped in front of a building. “What’s that?” she thought aloud as she wandered into the vestibule.
“It sounds like a heartbeat.” Shirley looked up the grand staircase of the lobby of the building and saw the back side of a figure standing over someone.
Shirley rushed into the room as the female figure leaned down towards the person lying on the floor.
“I’m sorry I had to do that, Lelouch,” the woman said aloud as Shirley walked towards the staircase.
“Lelouch!” Shirley yelled at the woman but could tell that her voice was not heard, as the female did not register her presence in any physical manner.
“I still retain all of her memories, you know,” the woman caressed his face, “but I have knowledge she didn’t. You see, I know you can’t die.”
He can’t die! Shirley fumed as she scaled the stair.
The orange-haired woman lifted him up off the floor slowly and leaned in. “I had to neutralize you for Count Amontillado and Professor Einstein. You see, my dear, we need your Coded DNA, but I promise no further harm will come to you.”
Shirley saw only the back of the woman’s head as she kissed Lelouch on the lips.
“YOU LITTLE HUSSY!” Shirley yelled at the woman, but her words fell on ears that could not hear them.
The assassin put her hands between Lelouch’s legs knowing he would revive at any moment.
Shirley gnashed her teeth, “Take you hands off MY LULU!” She swung her clenched fist at the woman’s head.
As soon as she connected with the head of the woman, she felt herself sucked into the assassin’s body.
Shirley’s spirit was momentarily confounded as it gained control of its cloned form.
Lelouch’s eyes opened up with Shirley still kissing him and caressing his inner thigh. The passion within Euryale’s Code took hold of him and he kissed Shirley back.
“Eahhhh!” Shirley fell backwards as she turned multiple shades of red. “It wasn’t me…I mean…I didn’t…it was her.”
Lelouch looked at her befuddled. “First you kill me, and then you try to have your way with me, now you don’t want me?”
Shirley put her hands up in the air. “No…I mean…I do want you, but not like this! The woman raping you wasn’t me…I mean…it is me in this body now, but it wasn’t a moment ago.”
“Huh?” Lelouch asked, dumbfounded as Shirley noticed the bulge in his pants.
Shirley recoiled in disgust, pointing at his pants. “Oh, geez…Lulu, what the hell is that?”
“You did this,” Lelouch said as his senses came back to him fully, “right after you killed me apparently.”
“WHAT?!” Shirley protested. “It wasn’t me…it was that other me…that SLUT that was all over you.”
“How do I know you’re really Shirley and not just a clone?” Lelouch inquired as he felt around the floor behind him for his submachine gun. He wagered this clone might be immune to Geass and thus put his trust towards a more conventional weapon.
“HOW?!” Shirley yelled at him. “I’ll tell you HOW.”
Shirley came nose-to-nose with him and snarled, “After falling for you like a fool, I spent nearly two years putting up with you calling me, hanging up on me, standing me up, using your Geass on me, and lying to me until I finally found out what the heck your problem was…MR. ZERO!” Lelouch cringed back on the floor as she took a breath and continued, “Then your heterophobic little brother Rolo guts me, I end up in the afterlife, you came soon afterwards, and you PROMISED ME you’d stay there with me for eternity, LULU!” The sigil of Geass formed on her head. “REMEMBER?!”
“Okay, calm down,” Lelouch said defensively. “I believe you, you’re Shirley.”
Shirley sat back on the floor and folded her arms. “I can’t believe you came back to the world of the living. How could you?”
Lelouch saw the sigil fade and tears well up in her eyes as he tried to explain, “I had to, Shirley…”
“Why?” she pouted. “Because of Suzaku, or was it because of Kallen?”
“Well…yes and…uh, no,” he stammered, unsure of what she was driving at.
“YES!” Shirley blurted out as a knotted feeling filled her stomach. “Does that mean you came back here for Kallen?”
“NO!” he shot back, a bit irritated by the uncomfortable sensation of his lust subsiding and her nagging questions. “I came back here to help Suzaku stop Schneizel and the Olympians, and save the world.”
Shirley sighed as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh…well, that doesn’t explain why Suzaku couldn’t have done it on his own. Didn’t you leave him here to prevent this kind of thing from happening?”
“The Olympians were far beyond Suzaku’s ability. I had to come back, Shirley.” Lelouch reached over and took hold of her hand. “I’m sorry.”
She held onto his hand. “I accept your apology…although you’re still a jerk, and what’s with the silver hair?” Shirley gave him a narrow-eyed look despite the smile that forced its way onto her face. “It looks nice, but…I dunno, it’s definitely a different you. Anyway, you should have told me before you left that you were off to save Suzaku. I would have understood, you know.”
Lelouch did not know how, but he was sure this was no mere clone of Shirley. The assassin that had inhabited this body was gone now, of that he was sure. The smile on her face and the soft look in her eyes told him this was the woman that he once thought of as the girlfriend he wished he could have had.
“We’d better get moving,” Lelouch said as he heard the roar of battle outside. “It sounds like someone’s fighting out there.”
He and Shirley stood up together as Shirley asked, “So, where are we off to?”
“To save a dear friend of mine,” Lelouch said with a shy smile, “a green-haired woman named C2.”
“C2?” Shirley thought the name sounded familiar as she allowed Lelouch to lead her over to where his submachine gun and the assassin’s rifle laid on the floor. “Where have I heard that name before?”
She loaded her weapon and slung the rifle over her shoulder matter-of-factly, which surprised Lelouch. “Wow, I didn’t know you were so comfortable with guns.”
“Huh?” Shirley asked as C.C.’s name stewed in her psyche. “Oh, it just seems natural, did I do it right?”
“Looked professional to me,” Lelouch said, still a bit unnerved by this assassin that had somehow become the real Shirley, yet it did not bother him the way he thought it should.
Shirley snapped her fingers. “Ah-ha! I know where I’ve heard the name C2 before.” She sneered at Lelouch, “She was that witch Rolo told me was living with you at Ashford, wasn’t she?”
Lelouch turned beet red. “What? Oh, yeah, she was hiding out there with me while I was Zero. Our relationship was platonic…believe me.”
Shirley gave him an evil eye. “It had better be,” she said as she strolled down the stair in front of him.
Lelouch sighed before following after her. “Great, now how do I get myself out of this one?”
* * *
“Shirley has returned to her body as planned,” a young, dark-haired girl said as she sat Indian-style on a pillow with her eyes closed.
“What else do you see, Lysandra*?” Kannon asked from where he stood before her in a lavishly decorated Victorian-style room.
The adolescent girl lifted her head, revealing facial features that reminded Kannon of Lelouch. “I see the count. He has taken Kallen, Euphemia, and Suzaku captive and is bringing them to a place that Nina will not find them.”
Kannon shifted his position apprehensively. “What of Lelouch?”
“Lelouch and Shirley are moving towards the center of the city…soon they will be at the main shaft of Nibiru and the complex where Nina and the colonel are.” The girl swayed back and forth in her ornately embroidered, black dress. “Nina has found something…something she…she shouldn’t touch.”
“What do you mean?” Kannon inquired with concern in his voice.
“Something that we overlooked, or didn’t know, something not part of the plan.” The girl’s face contorted in anguish. “It is what the Babylonians want.”
“The who?” Kannon pressed her.
“Marduk has made contact with it.” Her voice was strained. “It has promised him the power of God, the power to create and to destroy limitlessly, but it is trapped. It needs a host, someone to bind with.”
“I don’t understand, Lysandra,” Kannon pleaded with her carefully, “what is this power?”
“The power of Sephirot.” Her hands clutched the pillow in agony. “The power of the Klipot. Order and Chaos…raw energy of the multiverse…the Alpha and the Omega.”
The girl screamed and passed out.
Kannon rushed over to her and checked her vital signs. He sighed in relief as he said aloud, “Good, she’s only unconscious.”
He walked over to a French phone on a nearby oak desk and picked it up. He dialed a number quickly then spoke into the receiver, “It’s me.”
Kannon paused while the person on the other end spoke before he said, “Everything is proceeding as you have planned except…Lysandra has had another vision. This time she’s seen something I’ve never heard her speak about before.” He waited a moment before continuing, “No, no, nothing like that. It would seem Nina has disturbed something she shouldn’t have and may have jeopardized your plan.”
There was a long silence then Kannon said, “Nina isn’t aware of what our plans are. If she knew that we were using her, there could be dire consequences.”
Another quick pause then, “You don’t understand how emotional she can get…it’s not that…she’s unstable and prone to violent outbursts. If Nina knew the real reason we were building a Geass army, she’d turn against us in a heartbeat.”
The person on the other end of the line spoke for a few minutes before Kannon began again, “I can’t explain everything over the phone. I think it would be best if you came here in person to help Lysandra cope with this. She’s out cold right now but could wake at any moment. I’d hate for whatever demons she saw to unsettle her already fragile mind.”
“Enoch? No, she said nothing of either Rai or Enoch.” Kannon contemplated the discrepancy for a moment as he listened on the phone. “Perhaps his immunity to Geass is the reason she can’t see him, or maybe it’s something about him we don’t know. However, you may be right; he might be the wild card we need to execute this plan successfully.”
Kannon waited with the receiver to his ear then said, “Yes, if that is your decision. I will inform Count Amontillado to take Nina into custody as soon as he is able. No, I’ll be sure to impress upon him that you don’t want her harmed if possible.”
“I will do as you command…your Highness.” Kannon hung up the phone.
______________________________________
*NOTE: The name Lysandra is Greek and means “liberator of mankind”. Also, this character looks similar (though much better-looking) than the fanfiction favorite “Luluko”.
SONG:
"Imaginary" performed by Evanescence (Lyrics written by Ben Moody, Amy Lee, and David Hodges)
