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Thread: CODE GEASS: Chronicles of Tartarus (edited version)

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    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”.

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  2. #12
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    Code Geass: Chronicles of Tartarus
    Side Story Ten:
    Pinky Promise

    “I remember that song that Sayoko taught me back when we lived at Ashford. She called it a Japanese promise. Cross my heart, hope to die, eat a thousand needles if I lie. The Pinky Promise song. You remarked that it was scary and that you may have to eat a thousand needles someday. ‘That's right,’ I replied, ‘so I'd better not catch you telling lies, okay?’ To which you answered, ‘Don't you worry. I'll never lie, I swear. Not to you anyway.’ If only that had been the case, my dear brother, and you had not lied to me. I know I forgave you while you died in my arms, and that you had your reasons for what you did. Nevertheless, that doesn’t change the fact that you continued to do it. Not just to me, but to others as well. Enoch once told me a saying from his world that I hope someday you really will take to heart. He told me that ‘people shouldn’t let their mouth write checks their ass can’t cash.’ If anyone on Earth needs that advice…it’s you, Lelouch.” —Excerpt of a letter from Earth Commonwealth President Nunnally vi Britannia to her brother Colonel Lelouch vi Britannia (Earth Space Forces, Geass Special Operations Division), dated March 7th, 2031 a.t.b.

    “What’s keeping them, I wonder,” Colonel Madd remarked to Nina as she finished typing away on the control console in front of her.
    “I’m sure the count will be along anytime now,” she replied in a distracted tone. “I’ve unlocked the seventh seal.”
    “Pardon?” the colonel inquired.
    “The final protecting seal of the operating system of this mobile planet’s computer mainframe,” she said with a dull smile as a section of the large structure they were in opened up directly behind the control station on which they stood.
    “Oh…I see.” Madd gave her a befuddled look. “Why exactly did you do that?”
    Nina seemed puzzled by the opening of the structure on their end of the vast, metal building they were in but said nothing of it. She could see down into the endless depths of the pit, which only radiated eerie light from some unknown source.
    “Because I’ve found a file here within the vast memory banks of this artificial planet that tells the location of where the source of Geass actually comes from,” she responded with a glint in her eye.
    “You can read the language of the ancients?” Madd knew there was a rudimentary understanding of their language in the Code R files, and the Geass Order had information on the language, but none of them had cracked the code.
    “No,” Nina adjusted her glasses, “but this computer speaks a binary language, which can be translated from the soul information it stores in its memory. You see, I don’t need to know the language of the ancients since this system knows English from the spirits of the dead which reside within its data files.”
    “Soul information?” The colonel cocked his head in confusion.
    Nina snickered at the dumbfounded look on Madd’s face. “Nibiru stores the souls of people within its memory banks. However, the sheer volume of soul data became so large over the last twenty thousand years that Nibiru had to compensate by using the electromagnetic field of a gas giant as external storage. It’s part of the reason it’s in orbit around Jupiter. You see, this huge machine was designed to store souls as quantum data in order for the ancients to escape the calamity that befell wherever they came from. I’m not sure if it was another planet in our solar system, or perhaps a galactic-wide event, or maybe even an entirely different universe fading into oblivion. However, no matter what it was that brought them here, they needed a way to store their essence while they made the trip because their mortal bodies couldn’t do it even using a Code.”
    “Ah,” he said as he straightened up uncomfortably and looked towards the rim of the large, crater-like terminal they were standing in. The apparatus was the size of a coliseum with various intricate systems where the rows of bleachers would normally be. Within the center of the bowl were thousands upon thousands of blank clone bodies within their cryogenic cylinders, and before them, a bottomless pit that radiated an eerie, multicolored light that reminded Madd of the aurora borealis.
    “I wonder why this energy collection terminal opened up,” Nina thought aloud to herself.
    “You don’t know?” Madd inquired with an edge of concern creeping into his tone. A machine of the size and magnitude of Nibiru could reap unspeakable damage in Madd’s mind, and he was growing uneasy with the professor’s level of knowledge with the machine. He knew she was a genius, but there is a fine line between that and madness.
    A brilliant mass of blue-white orbs were sucked into the aurora borealis from the sky overhead and into the depths of Nibiru.
    Madd was awestruck. “What is that?”
    Nina looked at the spectacle with an expression of intellectual curiosity on her face. “Those are souls.”

    * * *

    “What the heck is that?” Rai asked Enoch as they walked at a brisk pace along one of the lonely streets of the city.
    Enoch looked up at the globes heading for the aurora borealis in the distance nearby. “A bad sign,” was all the amber-eyed man said in reply.
    Rai turned to him and gave him a crooked smile. “You know more than you’re letting on, don’t you?”
    “I know enough to be weary of what that is,” Enoch replied with a frown. “If it’s what I think it is, then this Dyson Sphere is of a type I’ve encountered before.”
    “And that’s a bad thing?” Rai asked as the two of them made their way to the open space surrounding the large, coliseum-like structure.
    “Yeah…” Enoch said in a distant voice, “it’s a soul collector.”
    Rai contemplated making a break for it while the cybernetic man was distracted then thought better of it. Let the count deal with this man. I’ll not waste my second chance at life for Amontillado.
    “C2 is within that building,” Rai told Enoch as he started in the direction of one of the entrances at the base of the huge construct. “We should keep moving.”
    “Indeed we should, Rai,” Enoch responded as if coming out of a daze. “This situation just got a whole lot more complicated.”
    “What do you mean?” Rai asked.
    Enoch gave him a boyish grin. “I believe I may have found what I’ve been searching for.”

    * * *

    “What’s that?” Euphie asked over the radio of her Hakodeshim as Kallen, Suzaku, and she followed behind Count Amontillado’s Uther towards the radiant, multicolored lights in the distance.
    “I don’t know,” Count Amontillado confessed, “but I would imagine it has something to do with Professor Einstein.”
    “Would you like us to go on ahead and check it out, sir?” Alice inquired while she and the other Irregulars flanked Suzaku and Euphie. Sancia’s and Lucretia’s Vincent-Advanced units were flying at the rear and carrying the Guren, which held the unconscious Kallen.
    “No, I wouldn’t want to be rude to our guests,” the count said politely.
    “How courteous of you,” Suzaku grumbled.
    “Please don’t prejudge me, Knight of Zero,” the count replied softly, “you must understand that we are working towards the same goal.”
    “Be that as it may,” Suzaku barked, “we don’t go around kidnapping people to meet our goals. We work within the system as much as possible to help people. You anti-unification terrorists don’t seem to understand that.”
    “Anti-unification terrorists? My dear Suzaku, the world is not as black-and-white as that. I see you haven’t changed a bit,” the count tittered, “still as headstrong as ever. Cecile was right about you. You are an idealist.”
    “Cecile…wha?” Suzaku was taken off guard. “How do you know Cecile?”
    “Count Amontillado, you have a coded communiqué coming in from the Intruder,” Lucretia informed him.
    “Pardon me, Suzaku. We’ll have to finish our conversation at another time. Lucretia, please put them through.” The count waited for Lucretia’s signal.
    “Yes?” he asked into the private channel, but his voice still carried over the radio. “I understand. Of course, I’ll try to ensure her safety, but she may resist. No, I promise I’ll do my best to take her peacefully.” Amontillado paused then spoke, “Lelouch should be with Shirley as we speak.”
    “Shirley?” Suzaku blurted out upon hearing her name. “What do you mean Shirley?”
    “One moment,” Count Amontillado said. “I hadn’t realized the channel was still open, Suzaku, but would you please enhance your calm? All will be explained soon enough.”
    The masked man returned his attention to the person on the coded channel. “I will do as you command; Amontillado out.” The count’s tone became serious as he shut off the coded channel and addressed his troop, “Irregulars, there has been a change of plan. Right now we are to consider the plan as having gone into its final stage due to the fact that our dear Nina has unfortunately found something she ought not to have.”
    “Does this mean we’re no longer under ‘Operation Antagonist’?” Alice asked him.
    “Yes, the clones we wanted have been completed and are being rescued as we speak,” the count informed them with a snicker. “Our new orders are to implement ‘Operation Vindication’, retrieve C2, and then apprehend Nina Einstein as per the original plan.”
    “What of the DNA donors?” Sancia asked.
    The count answered her as they all flew above the ring of open space that surrounded the coliseum-like building, “They’re being held on the Intruder until the plan reaches its final phase and the Earth Commonwealth solidifies its power.”
    “What of Captain Kozuki and her companions?” Lucretia inquired.
    The count laughed, “We’ve no reason to hold them any longer, provided they promise to leave in peace.”
    The count’s words shook Suzaku’s opinion of him and his intentions. He certainly didn’t trust Amontillado. Much of what the man said confused Kururugi, but he could not contemplate it for long, as he knew Kallen’s safety came first. “I give you my word as the Knight of Zero that if you release us, we will not interfere in your apprehension of Professor Einstein. However, I cannot promise anything after you’ve taken her prisoner. I came here to rescue my friends, and I mean to do it.”
    Amontillado sighed as a myriad of blue-white orbs descended into the radiant aurora borealis, “I understand, Knight of Zero, that’ll have to do for now, as we’ve run out of time.”

    * * *

    “Looks like Kallen, Suzaku, and Euphie followed me here,” Lelouch said to Shirley absentmindedly as the Samael skimmed over the surface of the street they followed towards the kaleidoscope of color in the distance. They could see Amontillado’s flight in the air ahead of them as it flew towards the coliseum.
    “Euphie?” Shirley blurted out. She suddenly recalled that she had never met Lelouch’s sister while in the afterlife. “Do you mean your sister isn’t dead?”
    “Didn’t you already know that?” Lelouch teased her.
    “Yeah…” she tried to recover while she blushed, “I just didn’t realize that you knew.”
    Lelouch gave her a warm smile. “Well, to be honest, I didn’t know while I was with all of you in Eden Vital, but I learned that Euphemia is alive when I came back to the world of the living.”
    “Oh.” Embarrassed, Shirley tried to change the subject. “What do you think that light is, Lulu?” Shirley asked as she sat on his lap within the cockpit of Samael.
    “I was hoping you might know,” he said with a weak smile.
    “No, I’ve never seen anything like it before,” she replied as she lay her head on his shoulder. She had a bad feeling about those lights but did not share her dread with Lelouch.
    “Well, looks like we’ll find out what they are soon enough. I’ll bet that’s where C2 is being held.” Lelouch maneuvered the Hakodeshim through the streets out into the open space that separated the city from the bowl-shaped building that the light emanated from. “So that’s where we’re going.”
    “What about Kallen and the others?” Shirley inquired. “We can’t just leave them in the hands of those people, can we?”
    “No, we can’t,” he said with a sly smile. “I’ve got an idea.”

    * * *

    “That’s Count Amontillado,” Rai informed Enoch as the flight of mecha flew over them.
    “Looks like Kallen, Suzaku, and the Red Dragon are with them,” Enoch said, a bit disappointed at their capture.
    “It would seem your friends were no match for us Irregulars,” Rai jeered.
    “If that’s so, Rai, then why is Amontillado letting them go?” Enoch retorted with a nod in the direction of the machines as the Hakodeshim and Guren-Phoenix dropped away from the group. Count Amontillado and his flight of KnightMares accelerated away from them and moved over the open roof of the building.
    “Oh, that’s the reason right there.” Rai pointed to the Samael coming out of the metallic forest of buildings that lined the ring around the coliseum. “The assassin must have succeeded.”
    “Assassin?!” Enoch grabbed Rai and lifted him off the ground by the shirt with one hand. “Talk.”
    Surprised, Rai blurted out, “Nina activated a clone of Shirley Finette and sent it after Lelouch.”
    Enoch contemplated Rai’s words for only a moment. “You fools. Do you have any idea what could happen if Shirley’s ghost finds her body again?”
    “Yes, I do,” Rai replied. “Shirley could be resurrected.”
    “And you went ahead with it anyway?” Enoch asked.
    “Please believe me, Enoch, when I say that Nina wasn’t exactly happy with the whole situation,” Rai said as Enoch set him on the ground. “She worried about the same thing, but Count Amontillado insisted she activate the clone made by the Geass Directorate.”
    “Then Lelouch might be the one piloting the Samael,” Enoch said aloud to himself.
    “You mean you think that Shirley is with him?”
    Enoch gave Rai a devilish smile. “It certainly is a possibility, but there’s only one way to find out.” He grabbed Rai by the arm and started in the direction of where the mecha were landing. “Let’s move.”

    * * *

    “Yes, Count,” Shirley said over a coded channel, “I have Lelouch’s body with me here now.”
    “Well done,” the count complemented her, “but we’ve no need of Lelouch any longer. The plan has been accelerated to the next phase prematurely by Nina Einstein, and now we must deal with her.”
    Lelouch sat in silence listening to the audio conversation between Shirley and Amontillado. The man’s voice was raspy, but something about it bothered Lelouch, yet he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
    “I understand,” Shirley replied as Lelouch typed a response for her on the control panel of Samael. “Shall I proceed to join with you to assist?”
    “No, there’s no need for that, we can handle the arrest of Nina Einstein.” The count paused for a moment. “However, you should return Lelouch to his comrades. Contact Suzaku and have him take charge of Lelouch.”
    Lelouch pondered the man’s unusual level of concern, his calm demeanor, and ease at which he gave commands as he typed a new message to Shirley.
    She recanted his silent words, “Very well, Count, I will proceed to deliver Lelouch as per your instructions and await further orders.”
    “Very good; Amontillado out.” The radio channel shut off.
    “Shirley, patch me through to Suzaku,” Lelouch told her since he couldn’t reach the left-hand controls with her in his lap.
    Shirley found the simple controls easy to understand and gained a novice proficiency with them quickly. “I’ve got a coded channel open to him.”
    “Lelouch? Is that you?” Suzaku inquired.
    “Yes, it’s me,” Lelouch responded.
    “Me too, Suzaku.” Shirley could not help herself upon hearing her friend’s voice.
    Her voice stunned Suzaku. “Who is that?”
    “Uh…” Lelouch wasn’t sure he should divulge Shirley’s identity yet, but she had other ideas.
    “It’s me, Suzaku…Shirley,” she told him matter-of-factly over the radio.
    “WHAT!” Suzaku nearly crashed the Gabriel into the tarmac as he suddenly realized that Count Amontillado’s earlier comment meant Shirley Fenette was alive. “How the heck did that happen?”
    “It’s a long story,” Lelouch responded with a sigh.
    “I’ll tell you when all of this is over,” Shirley said with a laugh.
    “Okay,” Suzaku replied, a bit unnerved.
    Lelouch snickered, “Inform Kallen that we need to prepare to raid this structure and rescue C2.”
    “I can’t do that, Lelouch,” Suzaku said. “Kallen was hit by an electrical attack. The Guren’s sensors indicate that she’s okay, but she’s out cold as far as I can tell.”
    “As far as you can tell?” Lelouch growled. “Suzaku, we need to land immediately and make sure Kallen is okay.”
    “I realize that, Lelouch, but we were just released by the count and haven’t gotten a chance to check on her yet.” Suzaku knew by the tone of Lelouch’s voice that he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
    “Released?” Lelouch inquired in a perplexed tone as he began to realize the count had diverted them from following him intentionally.
    “I thought it was unusual also, but—“ Suzaku started to say.
    Lelouch cut him off, “Suzaku, we’ve got to attend to Kallen immediately and wake her up.”
    “Damn it, Lelouch, I already told you that the Guren’s sensors show her as being okay,” Suzaku barked at him, “she’s only unconscious.”
    “That’s not the point,” Lelouch barked back. “We’re going to need her in this fight.”
    “You intend to fight the count?” Suzaku asked in an irritated tone.
    “No, Suzaku,” Lelouch replied in a grave voice as he suddenly realized the implications of the aurora borealis in the distance, “I think the count is going to need our help against Nina.”

    * * *

    “It would seem that the count is returning,” Nina said as she watched the five KMFs skim over the rim of the bowl-shaped building towards where she and Colonel Madd stood at the control station.
    “Huh?” The colonel seemed confused. “I wonder why they’re flying in formation…” His communicator buzzed in its belt harness.
    He removed the device from its case. Madd opened the cell phone and spoke into it as Nina pulled a pistol from under her lab coat.
    “Yes?” Madd asked the person on the other end of the line as Nina used her other hand to type away on the control panel in front of her. “I understand, Count Amontillado,” the colonel said in a sober tone, “I’ll do so at once.”
    Colonel Madd drew his pistol from its holster. “I’m sorry, Professor Einstein, but I have to—”
    A single shot rang out that cut the colonel short as the round penetrated his left arm, forcing him to drop his weapon.
    “Imbecile,” Nina stated coldly, “did you actually think I was so naïve as to believe that the creation of a Geass army would help me in my quest to destroy Geass itself?”
    The colonel only stared at her in horror.
    Nina sneered at him from the control station, “I knew from the very beginning that you were using me, Colonel, so in turn I used all of you to gain access to the mainframe of Nibiru.”
    “Be that as it may,” Madd grimaced, “the game is up for you, Professor. The count has five KnightMare Frames at his disposal. You’ve lost.”
    Count Amontillado’s machine flew closer as Nina continued, “Poor, ignorant, fool, you’ve no idea what this mobile planet is capable of.” Nina tapped a few of the holographic keys on the control panel with her free hand. “With a Code bearer plugged into the system, there is no limit to my power.”
    A cylinder containing C.C. rose out of the floor of the coliseum directly in front of the control station at the head of the endless rows of clones. C.C. lay within the cylindrical device, unconscious.
    “With her Code as the access key to this massive machine, I can bend the laws of nature itself.” She raised her voice in the direction of the aurora borealis behind her, “RISE, CHILDREN OF NIBIRU! RISE!”
    From the glowing myriad of color rose a dozen machines that resembled futuristic, flying chariots. Atop each machine rode a burly pilot with a mask that Madd recognized as the Masks of C’s World.
    “What are they?” the colonel asked as the long, rectangular structures that hung where wheels would be on a normal chariot swung forward to face the approaching KMFs.
    “They are the guardians of Nibiru,” Nina smiled manically, “clones of the greatest warriors of this Dyson Sphere. I’ve resurrected them in order to protect the sphere from enemies like you.”
    “You’re insane,” Madd cursed at her.
    “Perhaps,” Nina cackled, “but all of you are doomed.”
    Nina turned towards her dark riders. “Go now, my Knights. Kill...Kill…KILL THEM ALL!”

    * * *

    “What the hell are those things?” Alice asked over the radio.
    “I don’t know,” Count Amontillado said gravely, “but I doubt they mean us well. Irregulars, prepare to attack the new arrivals. View them as hostiles and attack with extreme prejudice.”
    “Yes, sir,” the girls said in unison as the first aerial-chariots got within range of their weapons.
    “Let’s see what these fools are made of,” Dalque raged as she fired a full burst of autocannon rounds towards one of the chariots. Her Vincent-Advanced riddled the alien machine with rounds, which caused it to explode.
    “Hah! They’re not as tough as they look,” Sancia bellowed as she unloaded her own barrage of autocannon rounds at another of the Knights of Nibiru.
    Alice followed their lead and blasted two more of the machines into metallic confetti. “These guys are no challenge at all.”
    “Don’t be so sure, Alice,” Lucretia warned her as the machines and their pilots regenerated out of the aurora borealis effect.
    “That’s not good,” Dalque said as the Children of Nibiru regrouped.
    The count assessed the situation quickly. “We need to get to Nina,” Amontillado informed his troop, “but we don’t have enough KnightMares to outflank these sentinels.” He flipped his radio over to Suzaku’s frequency. “Knight of Zero, this is Count Amontillado, do you read me?”

    * * *

    “I understand, Count,” Suzaku said as the flashes of the battle lit up the sky over the coliseum, “but how do I know this isn’t some kind of elaborate trap?”
    “You don’t,” Amontillado said as he dodged a hail of ruby red energy beams that shot forth from the side cannon-arms of one of the chariots, “but you soon will if my Irregulars and I are defeated.”
    “I still find it hard to believe that Nina Einstein has somehow raised an army from nowhere,” Suzaku said stubbornly.
    “It would seem that Nina has learned the secrets of this alien sphere and is thus using her newfound knowledge to her advantage,” the count said as he parried a hail of the red energy beams with the Blaze Luminous force field of the shield of Uther.
    “I’m still not convinced,” Suzaku stalled as he watched Lelouch and Shirley make their way to the cockpit of Guren.
    “You will be when your friend Lelouch drops dead from his Code vanishing with Geass if Nina gets what she wants.” The count countered another beam attack.
    Euphemia could not sit silent with that remark. “Suzaku, we have to take our chances and help him.”
    “The Knight of Draconis, I presume?” the count inquired over the channel.
    “I am,” she replied, “but do not mistake my desire to help as weakness, Count. The world needs Zero for a short time longer in order to maintain this fragile cohesion that you have sought to disrupt.”
    “Disrupt?” Amontillado asked as he destroyed another pair of Nibiru Knights with the Kaon Beam Lance of Uther. “On the contrary, we wish to ensure the creation of the Earth Commonwealth.”

    * * *

    Lelouch had listened to Amontillado over the radio of the Guren-Phoenix as the count recanted what was transpiring. He and Shirley worked hastily to revive Kallen from her unconscious state.
    “Please help me hold her up while I break open this pack of smelling salts crystals,” Lelouch asked hurriedly as he tore at the package.
    Kallen’s head rested on Shirley’s lap as the harsh ammonia smell of the salts roused Captain Kozuki. “What the…?” Kallen gasped upon looking up at the smiling face of Shirley.
    “Hi, Kallen,” Shirley grinned.
    “I guess the count must have killed me,” Kallen remarked, wide-eyed.
    “Nope,” Lelouch snickered, “guess again.”
    “You’re alive?” Kallen asked Shirley in a disappointed tone as she sat up and glared at Lelouch.
    “Is this your doing?” Kallen growled at him.
    “Wha? No!” he defended himself.
    Shirley stood up and humphed. “Aren’t you happy to see me, Kallen?”
    “Of course I am, Shirley,” Kallen gave her a hug, “but look at me.” Captain Kozuki let her go gently and put her hands on her hips. “Your body is like…what…seventeen at most, Lelouch is in his seventeen-year-old body, C2 is that way, and here I am an OLD LADY!”
    “You look beautiful to me, Kallen,” Shirley said softly. “I really love your long hair.”
    “Honest?” Kallen asked.
    “Yeah,” Shirley nodded enthusiastically.
    Lelouch put face in his palm. “We don’t have time for this.”
    “Oh, stow it, Big-Z!” Kallen chided him. “You’ve got some nerve flying off into danger without telling anybody—“
    “Leave him alone, Kallen,” Enoch yelled over to her as he and Rai walked up towards where Guren sat on the metallic tarmac.
    “Enoch.” Kallen eyed him suspiciously and then looked over at Lelouch. “Oh, I see what’s going on here. You two scampered off together thinking you could rescue pizza girl since you’ve both got the hots for her.”
    “WHAT!” Shirley shot Lelouch a scowl. “What does she mean? Who’ve you got the HOTS FOR?” The sigil of Geass formed on her forehead.
    “C2,” Rai snickered. He was enjoying watching Lelouch squirm.
    “The green-haired girl that used to live in his room at Ashford,” Kallen added as a deer-eyed look crossed Lelouch’s face.
    “Oooooh!” Shirley’s sigil glowed bright orange-red. “Lulu!”
    “Ahem! I hate to be a party pooper, but we got bigger problems than this right now,” Suzaku’s voice boomed over the external loudspeaker of Gabriel.
    An explosion overhead caused Shirley and the others to duck for cover. Shirley’s Geass subsided immediately and the sigil faded. The left arm of Lucretia’s KMF was decimated by ruby red beams from a flight of Nibiru Knights.
    “They’re not going to last much longer,” Euphie informed them as she and Suzaku flew their Hakodeshim up to act as cover for their comrades on the ground.
    “We need to do something now, Lelouch!” Suzaku added.
    “Enoch, we need your Type-21Z for what I have in mind.” Lelouch thought quickly as he spoke, “Kallen, you need to take Enoch back to his machine.”
    Rai raised his hand. “Uh, mine too if you don’t mind.”
    “I DO MIND!” Enoch barked at him. “I don’t trust you, Rai.”
    “Hey,” Shirley looked Enoch over, “weren’t you that guy in my music class?”
    “Huh?” The out-of-place question threw Enoch for a curve. “Uh, yeah, I used to play the guitar…why?”
    Shirley snapped her fingers. “I knew it!”
    “You play an instrument?” Rai asked with an intrigued look at Enoch.
    “Yes, I play multiple instruments.” Enoch ushered Rai and Shirley over to the Guren. “I’ll tell you all about it as Kallen flies us back to our KnightMares.”
    “I thought you didn’t trust me?” Rai asked.
    “I don’t,” Enoch smiled, “but with Shirley babysitting you, I can be sure you won’t give us any trouble. You did say she was an assassin, didn’t you?”
    “Yes,” Rai griped, “I did.”

    * * *

    “Hold them back!” Alice yelled as she used her the SPEED! to zip behind four Nibiru Knights and cut them down.
    “I’m out of ammo,” Dalque said in a distressed tone as she cut through two more enemy units with the Hadron blades of her Vincent-Advanced.
    “We may have to withdraw,” the count lamented as the endless supply of Nibiru Knights continued to flow out of the aurora borealis.
    A hail of red beams rained through the Irregulars.
    “Ahhhhhhh!” Sancia screamed as the bulk of the beams headed towards her Vincent-Advanced, making escape impossible.
    The shower passed over her machine harmlessly as a green energy field surrounded her KMF with the Uriel directly above her.
    “Sorry we took so long,” Euphemia apologized, “but we had to make sure this was the right move.”
    “I’m glad you chose to help,” Amontillado said with relief, “although it may already be too late.”
    “It’s never too late,” Lelouch said over the radio as he unloaded a double blast from the forearm cannons of Samael. The golden-yellow twin beams cut a swath through the legion of Nibiru Knights, destroying nearly all of them.
    “NOW!” Lelouch yelled as the Gabriel flew over the lip of the bowl-shaped building with lightning speed towards the control station upon which Nina stood.

    * * *

    “It’s not that easy!” Nina chuckled aloud at the Gabriel as the machine dove towards her with blinding speed. She tapped a few holographic keys on the screen and watched as the Gabriel slammed into a pinkish purple force field that threw it back to the ground.
    “Nina, this is madness!” Suzaku’s voice boomed from the loudspeaker of Gabriel. “Why are you doing this?”
    “You of all people should know why, Suzaku,” she yelled back at him upon recognizing his voice. “Geass is EVIL!”
    “No, Nina,” Suzaku tried to reason with her, “it’s people’s abuse of it that is evil, Geass is simply a tool.”
    “Stop deluding yourself, Suzaku,” Nina countered as another mass of Nibiru Knights flew up from the radiant pit. “Do you think this power I wield has any capacity for good?”
    Suzaku was unable to answer her as the legion of Nibiru guardians sent a barrage of ruby-red bolts of energy at the Gabriel. He was barely able to raise the energy shield of his machine in time.
    “Once I destroy all of you, I will use this power to cause Nibiru to collapse in on itself and release the poor, trapped souls from Jupiter.” Nina waved her hand in the direction of the gas giant that was just barely visible through the atmosphere of the Dyson Sphere.
    “Souls trapped in Jupiter?” Suzaku asked her. “What do you mean?”
    “You’ll find out soon enough, Suzaku Kururugi,” Nina sniggered as she pressed another of the keys on the control station. Instantly, a pinkish purple sphere formed around the Gabriel and bolts of energy shot from it into the Hakodeshim.
    “Ahhhhhhh!” Suzaku cried as the energy bolts overloaded the force field of Gabriel and bolts of energy arced within its cockpit.

    * * *

    “Suzaku!” Euphemia called out as she dodged through the fury of energy blasts coming from the increasing number of Nibiru Knights. She flew her machine towards the fallen Gabriel as if the devil were chasing her.
    “Wait!” Lelouch yelled at her as he tried to maintain the cohesiveness of their formation. His first plan had ended in failure, and now Suzaku was in grave danger.
    Count Amontillado radioed Lelouch, “Use those beam cannons of yours on the enemy mobile units to cover me. My Irregulars and I will flank Nina as a distraction for the Red Dragon to rescue Suzaku.”
    “Good idea.” Lelouch saw the quick plan as the best option under the conditions. “But don’t get yourselves killed in the process.”
    “We’ll try not to,” Amontillado said. “Alright, Irregulars, charge!”
    Amontillado and his flight of KnightMares flew to the left and right of Nina while Lelouch let loose another bombardment from the powerful cannons of Samael.
    Lelouch’s beam weapons incinerated nearly all of the Nibiru Knights while the count’s forces assaulted the force field from both sides.
    “Now, Red Dragon,” Count Amontillado told her, but she was two moves ahead of him and on top of the Gabriel.
    Euphie cut through the weakened globe of energy with the twin beam sabers of Uriel. “Suzaku, can you hear me?”
    “Yeah,” he replied as he gnashed his teeth from the pain of the electrical burns on his hands. “I’m still alive.”

    * * *

    “How pathetic,” Nina scoffed as another battalion of Nibiru Knights reformed over the aurora and drove back the Irregulars.
    “Such a foolish attempt to rescue him will cost you all dearly,” Professor Einstein snickered as she pressed a series of holographic keys.
    Instantly, tendrils of pinkish purple lightning erupted form the atmosphere of Nibiru and lashed out at the Samael, Uriel, and Gabriel.
    The energy smashed the three Hakodeshim to the ground where force fields pinned them with their eerie light.
    “Destroy them!” Nina pointed towards the fallen Archangels as she commanded her legion of Knights.
    Her minions unleashed a barrage of ruby-red beams which tore into the Hakodeshim, causing considerable damage to the three machines but not enough to destroy them.
    The Nibiru mecha flew up above the three Archangels and aimed their weapons down at them to finish them off when a flash of brilliant, superheated energy exploded in the midst of the Nibiru Knights and melted them into slag.
    “Nina, STOP!” Kallen yelled as the Guren-Phoenix and Enoch’s Type-21Z dove down towards the control platform.
    “Come and make me,” Professor Einstein spat at her manically.
    “Fine, have it your way!” Kallen yelled at her as the wings of the Guren flew up and the machine accelerated at enormous speed towards Nina.
    “Such arrogance!” Nina tittered as bolts of lightning rained down towards Guren, but Kallen rolled, dodged, and skimmed out of the way of the deadly energy with nearly unmatched precision.
    “You’re one to talk, Professor,” Enoch chuckled while his Type-21Z maneuvered around the energy discharges with ease as it slipped closer to the control station, “considering that you’re playing with a device of which you’ve no comprehension.”
    “Are you questioning my intelligence?” Nina yelled at him wild-eyed. “BASTARD!”
    “In more ways then one,” he laughed as he unloaded a hail of Kaon beams from his gunpod at the force field around Nina. “Now, Shirley!”
    The Vincent-Advanced zipped up and over the top of the coliseum with one of the Hadron sniper beam rifles that Rai’s unit had used against Enoch earlier over its left shoulder.

    * * *

    “You’ve got to shoot, Rai,” Shirley said as the sigil of Geass formed on her forehead. She and Rai had been arguing about attacking Nina the whole trip from where they boarded Rai’s KMF together.
    Rai knew that Shirley’s cloned body was designed by V.V. to be immune to Geass and thus he couldn’t charm her. Not only that, but her Geass power could kill him with a word.
    He did not want Nina killed, but knew she had to be stopped. “I can’t kill her.”
    “I don’t want to hurt her either, Rai,” Shirley pleaded with him, “but we have to think of the others...we’ll all die if you don’t shoot now!”
    He hesitated. “I…I owe her for my second chance at life. I can’t just kill her.”
    “Then shoot the stupid control panel!” Shirley compromised. “At least take away her power.”
    Rai nodded as he aimed for the base of the control station and fired.
    “Thank you, Shirley,” he said to her with a smile as the beam struck the metal of the control station.
    “You’re welcome—” Shirley started to say when the beam bounced off the metal and deflected into the midst of the cylinders in front of it. “Oh no, it didn’t work!”

    * * *

    “Hah!” Nina laughed. “As if your puny weapons could damage the work of a race thousands of light-years ahead of Earth’s technology. Imbeciles.”
    The pain in Colonel Madd’s arm was excruciating as he groped around for his pistol. The impact of the Hadron Cannon had shaken the control station violently and forced him back down on the ground. “Where is it?” he said aloud to himself as he looked desperately for the weapon.
    “Now taste my fury,” Nina rattled on as the Knights of Nibiru emerged from the crevice behind her and lightning bolts rained down on the Guren and the Type-21Z with more intensity.
    Try as they might, Kallen and Enoch couldn’t dodge the downpour of energy that Nina sent at them.
    “NO!” Kallen cried out as Guren was hit by one of the beams of energy and slammed into the ground. The only thing that prevented her machine’s destruction was its own energy shield.
    “Damn that four-eyed bitch!” Enoch cussed as his Type-21Z was forced back away from the control station by a combination of the Nibiru Knights and the lightning.
    “None of you will stop my revenge,” Nina said triumphantly. “I WILL DESTROY GEASS!”
    “No, you will not,” a female voice said as a bullet tore through Nina’s chest.
    Professor Einstein looked down at the rapidly expanding stain of blood on her blouse in disbelief.
    “How?” she asked as she fell backwards into the endless shaft that led into the bowels of Nibiru.
    Madd looked up to see C.C. standing above him with his pistol in her hand. “I’m sorry, Nina,” C.C. whispered to herself.

    * * *

    “Nina has fallen,” Lysandra said to Kannon. “C2 was forced to deal with her.”
    “That is unfortunate,” Kannon said to her as someone entered the room.
    All things in moderation...

  3. #13
    Super Moderator rank = Hod (acknowledged Novice) Kodai Okuda's Avatar
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    Code Geass: Chronicles of Tartarus
    Side Story Eleven:
    To Hel in a Hand Basket

    “The doctor reeled, and through his head raced wildly disjointed scraps from all he had seen, heard, and read of the frightful case of Joseph Curwen and Charles Dexter Ward. ‘I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe ... Have ye Wordes for laying at all times readie, and stopp not to be sure when there is any Doubte of Whom you have ... Talkes with What was therein inhum'd ...’ Mercy of Heaven, what is that shape behind the parting smoke?” —From H.P. Lovecraft’s novel, The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

    Nina fell through the myriad of color in a foggy haze. She felt the world around her reeling as she passed through the rainbow of energy, which singed her clothing and burned her skin while her body sank down through darkness.
    Sunlight.
    Nina found herself bathed in radiant golden sunshine coming from below her as she careened towards the central core of the Dyson Sphere. Miles passed in a matter of seconds as the artificial gravity pulled her towards certain doom.
    The events of her life passed through her thoughts slowly while Nina’s battered form plummeted into a mass of clouds.
    SPLASH!
    The water was like solid concrete when her body hit it, breaking nearly every bone and causing what should have been mortal damage to her already tortured shell. The icy sea passed over her and engulfed her as she sank into the deep-blue liquid.
    An unseen force pushed her to the surface as her lungs burned from lack of oxygen. Her mouth opened instinctively and she sucked in draughts of air while her body floated with the waves.
    Nina shivered uncontrollably as a strange current swept her along the surface of the dark waters swiftly until she felt the soft dirt of dry land beneath her. Her body came to rest upon a soggy beach, unable to move let alone stand or even crawl.
    “So, here is where it shall end,” Nina managed to say aloud. She had come to accept her final defeat and her death that was surely moments away.
    “End?” an effeminate voice asked. It was neither male nor female but soothing nonetheless.
    “Who…” Nina tried to ask.
    “Who?” the voice inquired politely.
    “…are you?” Nina managed to finish.
    “Oh,” the voice remarked. “I’ve gone by many names in the past, but you may call me Nemo.”
    “Ne..mo.” Nina’s breathing became labored. Her eyes began to dilate and the skin beneath her lids darkened.
    “No, no,” Nemo protested, “you can’t go and die on me just yet. I have a question to ask you.”
    Nina felt a hand touch her forehead; it was gritty like the sand she lay upon. A flash of images from ages of experience flooded through her mind as the life returned to her body.
    “There now,” Nemo’s voice cooed, “that should be much better.”
    Nina’s vision returned to her and her throat found its voice. “What did you do to me?”
    “I healed you,” Nemo said matter-of-factly. “You see, I need to ask you a question.”
    Nina tried to sit up but was unable. “I’m still unable to move.”
    “Yes,” Nemo said. “You don’t need to move to answer my question.”
    The situation was clear to Professor Einstein. “What is your question, Nemo?”
    “I thought you’d never ask,” Nemo said facetiously. “My question is this. How badly would you like a second chance at life?”
    “I don’t deserve a second chance,” Nina whimpered. “I failed to stop Geass.”
    “Geass?” Nemo asked as if the word were alien to its ears.
    “Yes,” Nina said, confused by his unfamiliarity with the term. “You know, the power which emanates from Nibiru.”
    “Oh, I see,” it remarked with a snicker. “You mean the artificial ESPer powers that are a byproduct that stem from the interface of the Aemulari and this mobile planet within its core.”
    “Aemulari?” Nina inquired, perplexed.
    “It’s nothing of importance,” Nemo assured her. “However, you still haven’t answered my question.”
    “I told you I don’t deserve a second chance,” Nina said.
    “Everyone deserves a second chance, my dear,” Nemo said in a sweet tone, “even you.”
    “A second chance at life isn’t going to help me destroy Geass,” Nina cried. “I’m a mortal with no power save my intellect. Geass will continue to bring its evil to the world no matter what I do.”
    “So you don’t want a second chance?” Nemo asked in a hurt tone.
    “I would if it meant I could stop Geass forever,” Nina complained, “but I’ve lost everything. I have nothing left.”
    “As have I, my dear,” Nemo told her in a firm tone, “yet I go on. You must not give up on your dream of a world without…Geass.”
    Nina’s conscience was tugging at her psyche. Something about this being troubled her. “Why would you help me if you’ve nothing left but your dreams?”
    “I shan’t lie to you, my dear,” the thing said. “I’m not offering you charity. I’m offering you a contract, between you and me, for our mutual benefit. You see, I’m trapped here on this ring which surrounds the core of this Dyson Sphere and I cannot escape.”
    “How did you come to be here?” Nina asked.
    “That is not important,” Nemo reassured her. “What is important is whether or not you’re willing to throw away an opportunity that few are ever offered.”
    Perhaps it was the air of this place or maybe the soothing voice of the creature Nemo, but whatever it was, Nina could not resist the temptation. “If your offer will give me the power to destroy Geass, then I will accept your contract no matter the terms.”
    “Good,” Nemo cooed as it walked into Nina’s line of sight.
    The thing looked like a statue made of beach sand that was neither male nor female. An eerie, green glow radiated off its constantly shifting body. It was as though Nemo was unable to hold the physical form it took without great effort.
    “What are you?” Nina asked in terror.
    A smile no wider than a slit in the sand formed on Nemo’s face. “Unbridled power.”
    The mass of sand exploded into a shower over Nina’s immobile body and buried her. The weight of the beach sand felt like it would suffocate her as Nemo’s power metastasized throughout her mortal coil.
    Excruciating pain caused Nina to scream inwardly as she was choked with sand.
    The whole of her physical structure felt as though it were on fire, melting, shifting, and pooling like liquid metal in a clay mold.
    An eternity of pain passed through Nina before the torture ended and darkness consumed her.

    * * *

    “NO!” Lysandra cried out on the bridge mezzanine of the Intruder.
    Her outburst startled Kannon and Nunnally.
    “What is it?” Nunnally could feel the horror that filled the girl.
    “It has obtained a vessel,” Lysandra told her with tears in her eyes. “It’s gained the ability to leave its prison. We are too late.”
    “How can that be?” Kannon asked her as he watched the artificial sun of Nibiru come into sight through the viewports of the airship. The craft had made the decent into the depths of the mobile planet through one of its many access shafts as fast as it could manage.
    “Nina…” Lysandra told him. “She’s made contact with it. She gave it her body. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”
    “How soon can we reach the service ring around the core?” Nunnally asked Kannon with urgency in her voice.
    “Ninety minutes maximum,” he said. “The air turbulence within the Dyson Sphere is slowing our decent considerably.
    “I see,” Nunnally said in a dry tone. “Would it be possible for us to send a team of Vincent-Advanced units out to scout ahead?”
    “Yes,” Kannon replied, “they could reach the ring before we do.”
    “No,” Lysandra pleaded with them, “don’t send anyone else to it. We must leave.”
    “Lysandra, I understand your fear, but we must know what we’re dealing with,” Nunnally reassured the girl.
    “You don’t understand,” the girl warned, “that’s what it wants. It knows the curious nature of mankind. It will use that to its advantage.”
    “She could be right, Empress,” Kannon cautioned. “Perhaps we should send down an unmanned Vincent-Advanced. We can control it from the Intruder via a Ghost Link unit.”
    “That’s probably a good idea,” Nunnally agreed to the precaution.
    “I’ll have it prepared for launch immediately,” Kannon nodded to her.

    * * *

    “Poor Nina,” Shirley whispered at the edge of the pit into which the professor had fallen. “I wish we could have helped her.”
    “Some people are beyond help, Shirley,” Enoch said in a sad tone. “Nina was a product of the society that bore her, and was unable to overcome her prejudices. Wouldn’t you agree, Count?”
    “Yes. Charles Britannia’s heavy-handed rule warped the hearts and minds of many people.” Count Amontillado stood next to Enoch as the cybernetic man worked the computer terminal Nina had used to summon the Knights of Nibiru.
    Shirley put her hands on her hips. “It didn’t warp my mind.”
    Enoch looked at the count and smiled.
    Both men let out a quick laugh.
    “What the heck is so funny?” Shirley scowled.
    “Nothing important, Miss Fenette,” the count told her softly, “it’s just that most times we don’t see ourselves from the viewpoint of those around us, that’s all.”
    “Are you saying that I’m warped or something?” Shirley asked with a dark look at the count.
    “No, Shirley,” Enoch said. “I think he’s trying to say that you don’t see just how short-tempered you are, and that your behavior it typical of a Britannian who grew up under Charles’ rule.”
    Shirley thought about his words for a moment then made a crooked smile. “Yeah, I guess maybe you’re right.”
    “How’s it coming up there?” Suzaku asked from the base of the control station.
    “We’re almost done,” Enoch informed him as he added the final security codes to the computer system, “but I’m going to need C.C.’s and Lelouch’s Codes to seal it.”
    Shirley looked down at where the Irregulars and the others were waiting patiently for Enoch to finish sealing the main computer of the mobile planet. Her gaze panned over the whole crowd when she suddenly realized Lelouch was missing, as was the green-haired girl.
    “Hey, Suzaku,” Shirley called out to him. “Where are Lulu and that green-haired woman?”
    “Uh…” Suzaku looked around the crowd. “I dunno, Shirley.”
    “They left together a little while ago,” Rai told them from where he and his fellow Irregulars tended to Colonel Madd’s wound.
    “Oh, did they?” Shirley asked in a hurt tone. “Did you happen to see where they went, Rai?”
    “No,” he replied with a sly smile, “but I do know which way Captain Kozuki went when she followed after them.” Rai pointed towards one of the exits of the bowl-shaped building.
    Shirley descended from the top of the platform at a brisk pace towards the egress.
    “Thanks, Rai,” she said as she ran past him.
    “I’m not so sure that was a good idea, you two,” the Red Dragon said to Suzaku and Rai. “What do you think will happen if Shirley finds them in a compromising position?”
    “Lelouch will get what’s coming to him?” Rai asked facetiously.
    The Red Dragon huffed, “Is that how you feel, Suzaku?”
    He sighed. “No, you’re probably right. I need to go after her.” Suzaku got up and started after Shirley.

    * * *

    “I’m sorry it took me so long,” Lelouch said softly to C.C. in the dim light of the entryway to the coliseum.
    C.C. put her arms around him and held him tight. “It’s okay. I know you came as fast as you could.”
    He leaned down and kissed C.C. on the lips. “I missed you.”
    “Lost without me, were you?” C.C. giggled.
    “Yes,” he said as he kissed her again. “You are my armor that protects me.”
    “What?” she asked softly as she stared into his eyes.
    “Something that Kallen showed me,” he told her with a tender smile.
    “Kallen, huh?” C.C. narrowed her eyes in mock anger. “What have you been doing with my romantic rival while I was away? Hmmm? You weren’t exercising that libido of yours with her, were you?”
    Lelouch blushed involuntarily. “Wha…no…I…”
    C.C. put her index finger over his lips. “Shhhhh…I don’t care if you did or even if you do. Don’t misunderstand me, I would be upset if you gave yourself to just anyone, but I know how you feel about Kallen. We do share a bond, you know, so if you stray, be sure it’s with her or Shirley only…” She winked at him. “Understood?”
    Lelouch was shocked. “How can you be okay with that?”
    “I’m an immortal witch, remember," she smiled mischievously, "thus I've been with many men in the past. How could I hold you to a standard that is higher than the one I've kept for myself? You see, Lelouch, I have to be okay with your love for those two because I love you, and I want you to be happy.” C.C. caressed his face. “My love isn’t lust, Lelouch. It’s not your body that I want, or your sex.” She gave him a coy look.
    “Oh,” he replied, unsure of her meaning. “What is it that you do want?”
    She rolled her eyes then kissed him. “You.”
    “Me?”
    “Yes,” she cooed. “...And your soul,” C.C. said playfully, raising her left eyebrow.
    Lelouch’s eyes grew wide.
    She laughed at his worried expression. “I’m kidding, Lelouch. What I'm trying to say to you is that being with you is enough. To hold you, to love you, to be a part of your life is all that I want.”
    C.C. snickered, “The sex is nice too, but it isn’t why I love you.”
    Lelouch was beet red with embarrassment at his loss for words. "Yes...the sex is nice," he said, grasping for any phrase that could express his feelings for her.
    “AND…” She glared at him.
    “I…I…” A feeling of discomfort knotted his stomach as he said softly, “I love you.”
    Her expression softened. “I know, but I still need to hear you say it.” She kissed him again.
    Lelouch embraced her passionately.

    * * *

    A few yards away, at the lip of the hallway leading to the exit, Kallen leaned up against the wall listening to C.C. and Lelouch.
    “Guess this means everything’s back to normal,” she said sadly with her head down. She stared at the metal floor at her feet lost in thought when…
    “ALRIGHT, KALLEN, WHERE IS HE!”
    “Shirley!” Kallen snapped out of her depressed thoughts.
    “Lelouch,” C.C.’s voice moaned from within the vestibule.
    Shirley’s attention immediately went to the corridor.
    Kallen tried to stop her from entering the hall. “Let them alone, Shirley, we don’t have the right to—
    “Out of my way, Kallen.” Shirley brushed past her and saw C.C. and Lelouch smooching.
    “LELOUCH!” Shirley barked.
    “Shirley?” Lelouch broke his embrace with C.C. “Uh…let me explain.”
    “I don’t need your explanation!” Shirley yelled at him as the sigil of Geass formed on her head. “I have EYES, you two-timing bastard!”
    “Whoa there, Shirley, calm down.” Kallen gently grabbed her by the arm.
    Shirley sneered at Kallen, “Back off!”
    Her ferocious look caused Kozuki to let go of her arm and shrink back. “Uh…okay.”
    “Shirley, you have to understand it’s not his fault,” C.C. started to explain but Shirley cut her off.
    “I know, it’s yours.” Tears of anger welled in Shirley’s eyes. “You were the one living with him at Ashford in his bedroom, in SECRET! You’re the one who seduced him into becoming Zero. You took him away from me…you…you, witch!”
    “Don’t blame C2 for my mistakes, Shirley,” Lelouch scolded her as an instinctual urge to defend C.C. overwhelmed him. “I’m with her because I love her.”
    “You WHAT!” Tears flowed down Shirley’s cheeks.
    “No, wait…that didn’t come out right…” Lelouch tried to recover as Shirley’s fists clenched. His true feelings forced their way through his resolve. “What I mean is that I love her and you…” Kallen’s glare from behind Shirley caught his attention. “And Kallen…I love all three of you.”
    Kallen put her hand on her forehead. “You’re just digging yourself deeper, Lelouch, you should quit while you’re ahead.”
    C.C. let out a huff. “You better let me handle this, Lelouch.”
    Shirley began to sob.
    “No,” Lelouch protested, “this is my fault. I should have been honest with all of you from the beginning.” He walked over to where Shirley stood with her head hung low and took her hand in his. “Shirley, I’m sorry but—
    “Oh, just drop DEAD, LULU!” she cried from the hurt in her heart.
    Lelouch’s face went blank as his body dropped dead to the ground.
    “Oh, boy,” Kallen shook her head in disgust, “when is he going to learn?”
    “Shirley!” Suzaku yelled as he came up on the scene. “Wait!”
    “You’re a bit late, Suzaku,” Kallen remarked sarcastically, folding her arms. “She’s already had her meltdown.”
    “YOU!” Shirley turned on Suzaku with a fierce expression. “YOU knew about her,” Shirley pointed at C.C., “didn’t you?!”
    Suzaku saw Lelouch’s still form on the ground. “Yes, I did,” Suzaku told her the truth, “but believe me, Shirley, I tried to stop him back at Ashford.” Her expression softened and he seized the moment. “Since then I’ve come to realize that Lelouch is his own person and I don’t have a right to interfere. If he wants to be with an immortal witch, then that’s his problem. It shouldn’t stop me from being his friend or forgiving him when he does something stupid. You’re the one who taught me that…remember?”
    Shirley looked down at Lelouch knowing that at any moment he would revive. “I guess you’re right, Suzaku. Maybe I should just accept that he doesn’t love me...maybe he never did.”
    “That’s not true, Shirley, he does love you,” C.C. interjected.
    “Then why was he kissing you?” Shirley demanded.
    “Because Lelouch has a thing for all of us, Shirley,” Kallen added, “but pizza girl is the only one who’s gotten into his pants.”
    “Wha…you two have had sex?” Shirley asked C.C. with a long face.
    C.C. gave Kallen a pleading look then nodded solemnly towards Shirley. She felt bad for Shirley knowing that what the strawberry-haired girl had said was true. C.C. had seduced Lelouch into fulfilling his contract with her and used him for her own ambitions at the expense of what Shirley could have had with Lelouch.
    “Hey, Shirley, look at the bright side,” Kallen laughed halfheartedly, “at least you had to die for him to reject you. I was still here when he did it to me.”
    Shirley gave Kallen a puppy-eyed look as she walked up to Captain Kozuki and hugged her. “You poor thing.”
    C.C. looked away from them with a dejected expression.
    “Hey, pizza girl,” Kallen reached her hand out to C.C., “it wasn’t entirely your fault. We all know that Lelouch chose his own path…he just should have been straight with us.”
    C.C. smiled at her and joined their group hug.
    Kallen suddenly had the oddest feeling of being the eldest of three siblings as she looked at the other two women. “Friends?” she asked with a smile.
    C.C. and Shirley both smiled back at Kallen. “Friends,” the two of them said together.
    The three women held each other like sisters again as Kururugi stood watching them with a warm smile.
    Lelouch roused on the ground and stood up. “Did I miss something?” Lelouch asked Suzaku as he saw the three women.
    Suzaku just smiled at him and put his hand on his shoulder. “Come on, old buddy, we need to get back to the others.”
    “Hey, you guys!” Rai called out as he ran huffing and puffing up to Suzaku and Lelouch.
    “What is it, Rai?” Suzaku asked with concern.
    “Enoch wants Lelouch and C2 immediately.” Rai caught his breath. “He says he needs them to seal Nibiru so we can get back to the Intruder to go home.”
    “Alright, Rai,” Suzaku told him, “but I think the ladies need a few minutes alone.”
    “Why?” Rai peered over his shoulder and saw the three women still embracing. “What’s with them?”
    “I dunno,” Lelouch said sarcastically, “Suzaku thinks it’s some kind of secret.”
    “It’s more of a cease-fire,” Kururugi laughed. “They’ll catch up with us later.” Suzaku ushered the two of them out of the exit hallway back towards where the others awaited them.

    * * *

    “The turbulence is too strong!” a bridge bunny on the Intruder exclaimed as the crew of the airship tried to maintain course for the ring structure around the core of Nibiru.
    “Maintain our altitude,” Kannon yelled. “We can’t afford to crash down here.”
    “Where did this come from?” Nunnally asked while hanging onto the railing of the mezzanine as the ship was buffeted by another airburst.
    “Our instruments indicate that it’s some type of jet stream current,” the ship’s navigator declared from her station. “It may be part of the natural ecosystem that provides Nibiru with its atmosphere.”
    “What’s the status of the unmanned Vincent-Advanced?” Kannon asked.
    “We’ve lost track of it in this air-storm,” the tactical officer said as the ship listed to one side.
    “Empress, we’re not going to last much longer in this,” Kannon told her. “The Intruder was not designed to handle this strong of a wind. It must be hundreds of miles per hour.”
    Nunnally looked over at Lysandra. The girl was huddled at the back of the mezzanine, curled up in a ball and staring straight ahead. Nunnally could feel that the young girl’s terror didn’t stem from the turbulent currents of the atmosphere around the ship. Her fear was from whatever it was she sensed from the ring itself.
    Nunnally turned her attention back to Kannon. “This is enough. Withdraw at once. There’s no point in us allowing the ship to be torn apart. We’ll have to return with the Kaminejima or another ship capable of dealing with this kind of thing.”
    “What about the unmanned KMF?” Kannon asked.
    “It can’t be helped,” Nunnally said. “Leave it behind.”
    “As you wish, Empress,” Kannon said in a relieved tone. He was happy just to get the ship out of the jet stream. “Helm, set course for the nearest exit shaft leading back to the surface, we’re leaving.”

    * * *

    Far below the retreating Intruder laid a dome of hardened sand where Nina had once lain upon the beach of the ring that surrounded the core of Nibiru. The waters of the sea lapped the sides of the womb-like structure for a considerable amount of time after the airship made its ascent back to the surface of the mobile planet.
    The whole beach was still, windless, and silent as when a great storm approaches from the sea.
    A cloud passed over the spot on the beach just as the “skin” of the thing burst in an explosion of sand and green energy.
    From the steaming mass, a tall, voluptuous female form arose. Her raven-black hair absorbed the radiant sunlight that rained down from the artificial sun at the core of Nibiru.
    Eyes with irises like fiery rubies scanned the beach around her naked form.
    The woman strutted to the edge of the water and looked down into the still sea which reflected her visage.
    “I’m beautiful,” the commanding female voice said aloud to her reflection.
    “Indeed you are,” Nemo said as the unmanned KMF walked over to her. “You are reborn, a new being entirely.”
    Nina ignored the strange transformation the KMF was undergoing, due to the power flowing throughout her new body. “What is this?” she asked, her hand glowing faintly with blue-white electrical power as she concentrated on it.
    “A quaint, little trinket your former associates left behind,” Nemo said in reference to the KMF. “It shall serve as a new body for me now that we’ve made a contract and I’ve the ability to affect the physical world again.”
    “Not that,” Nina tittered as she let loose a discharge of electrical energy into the waters. The bolt exploded on the surface with considerable force.
    “Oh, that,” Nemo snickered. “That’s power.”
    “You mean I have Geass?” she asked.
    “No,” Nemo laughed, “you have real power. Just as this machine is no longer what it once was, you are no mere mortal anymore. Nor are you a simple immortal either. Your abilities are far greater than the trifle parlor tricks of what you call Geass. What I have bestowed upon you is a complete rewrite of your atomic structure. Your body is able to generate electrical fields that can burn through metal, manipulate gravitons, and draw hydrogen out of the atmosphere to form incinerating balls of fire. I added hundreds of new genetic codes to the basic foundation of the rather primitive body you inhabited. Your mental powers are nearly equal to those of your physical abilities.”
    Nemo sounded pleased with himself. “Couple that with your exceptional level of intelligence and I’d say I’ve made you into a fine goddess.”
    “But how can I ever repay you for this?” Nina asked.
    “You can bring me the one called Enoch,” Nemo said viciously, “we have unfinished business…he and I.”
    “I shall do as you ask.” Nina bowed towards the KMF. “Thank you, Nemo,” Nina said.
    The tone of Nemo’s voice became pleasant again. “No need to thank me…” Nemo hesitated. “I don’t suppose it would be right to call you by your old name. What name shall you take now that you’re a goddess?”
    Nina didn’t need to think for more than a moment. She knew what name would best suit her intentions, her mission, and her new form.
    She smiled wickedly, “You may call me Hel.”
    All things in moderation...

  4. #14
    Super Moderator rank = Hod (acknowledged Novice) Kodai Okuda's Avatar
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    Code Geass: Chronicles of Tartarus
    Side Story Twelve:
    To the Stars

    "I don't think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I'm an optimist. We will reach out to the stars." —Stephen Hawking, interview with Daily Telegraph, 2001.

    Cornelia watched the slowly spinning, orange-red oblate-spheroid of Mars through the portside bridge viewports of the Kaminejima. The first space frigate of the Commonwealth of Earth was larger than the old Avalon type aerial warships that now patrolled the skies of the planet below.
    “How soon until we reach Phobos?” Captain Cornelia li Britannia inquired of her commanding officer.
    “We will reach the Martian moon in two minutes, Prin…I mean, Captain Britannia.” Guilford was still getting used to his princess being stripped of her royal title once again.
    It was something that had shocked the world in September of 2025 a.t.b. right after the incident of the Irregulars special operations group being exposed to the world. The story fed to the general population was that this group of Geass-soldiers turned on their master and “thwarted” a plot by Professor Nina Einstein to kidnap and replace the leaders of the world. Due to this incident, Empress Nunnally vi Britannia officially dissolved the Britannian Empire and gave its territories to the Commonwealth of Earth to prevent any future crisis.
    “Excellent, Guilford, inform Phobos Base Alpha that we’ll be arriving with the supplies they requested,” Cornelia said as she continued to watch the rotation of the Red Planet. The western hemisphere, which was now the seat of the domed cities of New Britannia, came into her view.
    Cornelia pondered the changes that her sister had made when Nunnally was elected president of the commonwealth in February of 2026 a.t.b. by a near unanimous vote of the member nations. Her first action as president of the CoE (Commonwealth of Earth) was to break up the old Britannian Empire territory into twenty-six independent sovereign nations whose boundaries were based on maps she had acquired from Enoch.
    Cornelia’s fondness for the amber-eyed man didn’t cloud the fact that he had helped her youngest sister over the last four years to reshape the world into an interplanetary power which now had domed city-bases as far out as the asteroid belt.
    Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Hygiea, and a whole slew of other planetoids were home to numerous outposts that guarded the inner planets of the Sol system. A fleet of nearly one hundred new spaceships had been constructed. Although most of them were of the smaller Goddard class of missile-spaceboat and the Kaminejima class frigate, plans were being made for destroyers, cruisers, battleships, and even a dreadnaught class in the near future.
    “Phobos Base Alpha has cleared us for landing, Captain,” the ship’s lady-helmsman declared as the Kaminejima turned towards the moon that was growing rapidly in the starboard viewports of the ship.
    “Very good, Lieutenant Commander Von Vogt,” Cornelia nodded towards the woman. “Tell the Crimson Cavaliers to return from their patrol of the area.”
    “Aye, Captain,” the woman replied.

    * * *

    “This is boooring!” Lena said as she zipped past Anya’s Type-21Z with her own. The Earth filled the starboard view out of her cockpit canopy.
    “It could be worse,” Anya told her, “we could be back on Earth patrolling the same route over and over and over.”
    “Yeah,” Gino snickered, “now we’re privileged to fly the same rings around the ESS Defiance over and over and over.”
    “Maybe this will cure your boredom, Lena,” Mika piped up. “I’ve got an unidentified ship bearing Z plus eighty-five degrees nine minutes fifteen seconds at exactly forty-three degrees to portside, distance approximately 12,000 kilometers.”
    “Roger that,” Akira’s military tone interjected before anyone else. “Anya, contact the Defiance and inform them of the situation.”
    “Will do, Commander,” Anya replied as she heeded Akira’s order.
    “It’s probably nothing, Akira,” Tetsuo assured him.
    “Looks like a Kaminejima class frigate on my scope,” Tamaki said as he watched the computer-generated image of the thing on the HUD of his Type-21Z.
    “Still, we can’t be too sure it’s not an alien vessel,” Gregor added.
    “He’s got a point, Tamaki,” Gino added. “It could be Grecian.”
    Captain Nagisa Chiba’s voice broke through their radio channel. “This is Captain Chiba, Moon Base Apollo has informed us that there are not supposed to be any of our vessels in this sector at the current time. It may be an alien ship, thus you have permission to investigate.”
    “Roger that, Defiance,” Akira replied emotionlessly. “Okay, Yamato no Orochi, you heard the captain, let’s find out what we’re dealing with.”
    The group of eight Type-21Z variable KnightMares moved into a delta formation and sped towards the unknown object.

    * * *

    “Attention, unidentified ship, this is Black Knight Squadron 008, the Yamato no Orochi, do you read me, over?” Mika radioed the stationary vessel that was now visible as a blue and white, cigar-shaped object in the distance.
    “Still no response?” Akira asked Mika.
    “Nothing, Akira, and that’s the sixth time I’ve tried. They’re either unable or unwilling to reply to our hails,” Mika told him.
    “Tamaki, any sign of them preparing for hostilities?” Akira asked him.
    “No, their weapons do not appear online,” Tamaki responded.
    “It’s not just their weapons,” Anya said. “I’m not picking up any power readings from that ship at all.”
    “Confirmed,” Tetsuo added. “No power signs anywhere near them.”
    “What do you think, skipper?” Lena asked Akira.
    “A Kaminejima class space frigate is a powerful weapon platform. I think we can’t take any chances. Everyone, change modes to KMF and arm your weapons.” Akira didn’t like mysteries. “We have to assume this is a trap. The ship may have been pirated.”
    “Anya, are you detecting any life signs?” Tetsuo asked her.
    “No, Tetsuo, but we’re still just over three thousand kilometers away.” Anya did another sweep of the ship with her bioelectric scanner. “The sensor may not be able to detect anything accurately from this distance.”
    “But it should detect something, shouldn’t it?” Tetsuo inquired with an edge of concern.
    “Yes…” Anya started to say. “I see your point, Tetsuo.”
    “Look alive, people,” Gino warned, “we’re entering the firing range of her anti-mecha batteries.”
    “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, Major Weinberg,” Lena said. “I don’t see any navigation or formation lights active on her hull.” The basic details of the craft were now visible through their cockpit canopies as they came within a thousand kilometers of the vessel.
    “Still no response to my hails, Akira,” Mika informed him.
    “No power signs either,” Gregor added.
    “Her velocity is zero,” Tamaki said. “Well, except for her slight drift.”
    “The ship does appear to be headed straight for Moon Base Apollo though,” Gregor said as he checked the course the ship drifted on.
    “Must have been its last heading before cutting its engines,” Mika told him.
    “Maybe.” Akira wasn’t convinced.
    “Akira, we’re within five hundred kilometers, and I’m not picking up any life signs.” Tetsuo’s tone didn’t hide his apprehension. “That’s not right.”
    “Agreed,” Akira said. “Can anyone make out any markings on her?”
    “I’ve got a visual on her ship’s banner,” Lena said as she used the long-range optical camera of her fighter to zoom in on the white lettering that adorned the port side of the hull. “It’s the SDG-002, ESS Intrepid.”
    “The Intrepid?” Tetsuo exclaimed in shock. “But wasn’t that Captain Xingke’s new command?
    “Yes, Tetsuo,” Lena answered him in a concerned tone. “He and his vessel were lost nearly four years ago.”
    “Yeah, on a top secret mission somewhere near the Bermuda Triangle from what I heard,” Gregor added.
    “Still, that doesn’t explain what the hell this ship is doing up here headed for the moon without power and without any life signs aboard her,” Anya griped.
    “Maybe they abandoned ship?” Mika suggested.
    “I suppose that’s possible,” Akira agreed, “but after four years, why hasn’t anyone heard from her crew, and why is she just here all of a sudden?”
    “Akira, I’m detecting some considerable micrometeor pitting along the hull of this ship,” Lena said as she thoroughly scanned the vessel, “far more than I’d expect from a craft traveling in open space. I’d say this ship has gone through a Kirkwood gap in the asteroid belt.”
    “The asteroid belt?” Tamaki scoffed. “How the hell can that be? This ship couldn’t make it this far without her main graviton-drive pushing her here, and this craft sure didn’t just drift all that way.”
    “I concur,” Anya said. “This ship would have to have been traveling via its main engine to make it all the way to Earth from the asteroid belt.”
    “The only way we’ll find out what happened to it is if we go aboard,” Tamaki said with confidence. “That way we’ll know if there’s something wrong with this class of ship that the propeller-heads in the science division may have missed, or if it was something else.”
    “Tamaki does have a point, Akira,” Tetsuo added. “Although, it’s equally possible that the crew got themselves into something they couldn’t handle, and if we go aboard, we could expose ourselves to the same danger.”
    Akira looked at the darkened windows of the nearly 300-meter-long warship as they came to within tens of meters of the vessel. “Fine, we go aboard her, but we do so armed and with extreme caution…understood?”
    “Yes, sir,” the members of the Yamato no Orochi confirmed in unison.
    “Alright, Anya, see if you can open the bottom hangar doors,” Akira said in a dry tone.
    “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, Commander,” Anya answered him in her serious monotone, “since the doors are already open.”
    “What?” Lena asked. “Now that’s odd, I could swear they were closed as we came up on this vessel.”
    “Like I said, proceed with extreme caution,” Akira grumbled.

    * * *

    I see you, Lysandra, an effeminate voice said from the darkness of the corridor the young girl stood in. There were no windows or doors, only a single light above her head which flickered incessantly.
    “Who are you?” she yelled into the darkness.
    Power incarnate, it said from the inky black.
    “What do you want?” Lysandra pleaded with the horrid voice.
    A proper body, it answered.
    “Body?” she asked, confused. “How can you not have a body?”
    I need a form capable of containing my power, it hissed, without being consumed by it prematurely.
    “You body was consumed?” Lysandra dared to ask. “How?”
    It was made of an inferior material, but new bodies came, it cackled. New machines I bonded with, yet even they are unsuitable for my needs, and I’ve only a few left before they melt under the heat of my inner flame.
    “Why tell me all this?” she demanded.
    Because you can see me, Lysandra, it snickered manically. You can sense my presence and my power. Therefore, I want you to know what it is I am so that you fear me.
    “But we sealed you away,” Lysandra said to him with defiance. “Four years ago, we sealed you away.”
    Four years? it laughed. What are years to me, or centuries, or millennia, or eons. They are nothing. I’ve waited so long, Lysandra, the thing said in a hollow tone, so very, very long. I shan’t be denied my destiny. I deserve it, to live, to become that which I dream.
    Lysandra hesitated to inquire. “What is it that you dream?”
    To become one with all of creation, it boasted as a pale-white, egg-shaped object began to form in the midst of the darkness, to rewrite the whole of the myriad of dimensions by my own desire, a pair of bulging eyes rolled from under the surface of the egg, and consume all who oppose me. A maw of jagged teeth opened wide as the skull dove towards Lysandra.

    * * *

    “Ahhhhhhhh!” the girl yelled as she shot up in bed. Beads of sweat trickled down her body as she ran out of her room in a frenzy towards a familiar door.
    She threw the door open, startling Count Amontillado, Kannon, and Nunnally who were seated at a large, round coffee table inside the plush room.
    “Lysandra?” Nunnally asked with concern while she got up and rushed over to her.
    The teenage girl was shaking from head to toe.
    “What’s happened to her?” the count inquired of Kannon.
    “She’s obviously been awoken by something…disturbing,” Kannon told the man with a grave look.
    “A nightmare?” the count asked Kannon.
    “No,” Nunnally answered. “A vision,” she added with fear in her voice.
    “He’s returned,” Lysandra whimpered. “He has found a way out of his prison.”
    “How?” Nunnally pressed her. “We made sure to seal him in Nibiru, he couldn’t have escaped.”
    “Who couldn’t have escaped?” Kaguya Sumeragi inquired as she and Jiang Lihua entered the room from a door on the opposite side of the study—both were dressed in their nightgowns.
    “Don’t the two of you consider knocking as an option?” Count Amontillado asked facetiously.
    “When the occasion calls for it,” Kaguya replied with a snobbish grin. ”However, we heard someone scream and thought it our duty to help since this is the Presidential Palace (formerly the Imperial Castle in Neo-Pendragon).”
    “What exactly could the two of you hope to accomplish?” Kannon chuckled. “You’re not what I would consider intimidating, especially in your pink pajamas.”
    “No,” Kaguya smiled, “but he is.” She pointed in the direction of Jeremiah Gottwald as he entered the room and bowed.
    “I came as soon as I could,” the Knight of Orange apologized for his tardiness.
    “That’s quite alright, Jeremiah,” Nunnally said as she settled Lysandra down on a nearby sofa. “There’s nothing you could do to help her.”
    “Still Madame President, that doesn’t answer my question.” Kaguya eyed Nunnally with mock contempt.
    Nunnally smiled at her friend, “I think the three of you had better sit down and have some tea. We’ve much to discuss.”
    The madame president recanted the tale of what really happened with the Irregulars, Nina, and the thing in the bowels of Nibiru.
    “And you chose to keep this from your friends, why?” Kaguya raised an eyebrow at Nunnally.
    “Probable deniability,” the president said with a smirk. “I wouldn’t want to endanger my two best friends.”
    “Oh, I see.” Kaguya sipped at her cup of tea.
    “Is this why you called us here, Madame President?” Jiang Lihua asked.
    “Yes.” Nunnally looked over at Lysandra who now slept peacefully on the sofa. “Our plan to create a Geass-army hit a snag the day Nina made contact with that thing. Therefore, the only force of Geass users we currently have are the Irregulars, even after four years of trying to create new Geass-capable clones.”
    Kaguya thought of Rolo as she asked, “Didn’t the Geass Directorate create Geass users?”
    “Indeed, they did,” Jeremiah opined. “I was a product of the Code R project and given my Geass-negation ability by the Directorate. It is strange that you are unable to duplicate the process when our knowledge of Geass is so much greater now.”
    “It isn’t our knowledge of Geass that’s the problem,” Count Amontillado said. “It’s something else.”
    “The thing in the world of C?” the Tianzi queried Nunnally. The young woman had learned a great deal about Geass from research done by her own country at the ruins of the Geass Directorate’s former headquarters in China.
    “It’s a strong possibility,” Nunnally said to her with a grave look.
    Kaguya shook her head. “But how, Nunnally?”
    Jiang Lihua was also skeptical. “And why now after all these years? Why has it waited all this time?”
    “Because it has made contact with Marduk, and his fleet approaches,” Lysandra answered them in her sleep.
    The party stared at the sleeping teenager.
    “Who’s Marduk?” Kaguya inquired.
    “He is the god-emperor of Babylon and at the lead of the armada which nears,” Lysandra answered her in a mechanical voice.
    “How far away are they?” Nunnally asked her softly.
    “Many light years distant is the fleet.” The girl’s eyes moved rapidly under her lids. “They will soon be able to break the blockade the Grecians have made.” The girl’s face twisted in pain. “Marduk awaits Nibiru…he knows it will come to him when…” She began to writhe on the sofa. “When…”
    “Nunnally, help her!” Jiang Lihua demanded.
    “When!” Lysandra yelled as she sprang off the couch towards Nunnally. “WHEN I’VE CONSUMED YOUR SOULS!” Lysandra’s eyelids opened revealing nothing but a radiant green light in their sockets. The light faded instantly, and her eyes became normal again before the woman collapsed to the floor.
    “My God, Nunnally,” Kaguya blurted out in a trembling voice, “what the hell is that thing in Nibiru?”
    “I don’t know,” Nunnally said, looking down at the sleeping girl, “but we know someone who might.”

    * * *

    “Pull up, Shirley!” Kallen bellowed over the radio as Shirley flew her Type-21Z over the cratered surface of an oddly shaped moon.
    “I’m trying!” she cried through the comm. in her EVA suit’s helmet.
    “Move the accelerator towards you as you pull back on the flight stick,” Rai told her calmly as he followed behind her in his own Type-21Z.
    Shirley did as he instructed and sighed with relief as she passed over the small moon without crashing.
    “Not bad, Lieutenant Fenette,” Enoch complimented her. “You dive-bombed Phobos at a speed few are capable of doing and survived without crashing. I’m impressed.”
    “Yeah, well, I don’t think you and Lelouch should be pushing her so hard,” Kallen scolded him.
    “On the contrary, we’ve got to get her up to speed with the rest of us, Kallen,” Lelouch said in mild tone.
    “That doesn’t change the fact that you two are too harsh with her,” Kallen protested.
    “You hear that, Commander Lamperouge?” Enoch snickered. “Apparently, your number two honey thinks we’re a couple of meanies.”
    “It would seem so,” Lelouch laughed as he came up on the flight of Type-21Zs with the Samael.
    “I’m NOT his number two HONEY,” Kallen complained as the Guren-Phoenix flew up next to Samael. “Not that it’s any of YOUR business, Enoch…but we share time with him equally.”
    “And how does that work exactly?” Enoch snickered.
    “Yeah, I’m a little curious about that myself,” Rai tittered. “Where does the third girl go?”
    “Oh, my,” C.C. gasped.
    “That’ll be enough of that!” Kallen demanded. “Like I said, we don’t take numbers in this, Rai. Lelouch makes time for all of us.”
    “But, Major Kozuki, technically you do take numbers in a way,” Rai jibed at her. “Lelouch is commander of the Crimson Cavaliers, and you’re his number two.”
    “Yes, Rai, but what the major really wants is to be his numero uno,” Enoch chuckled.
    “Oh, Enoch, you are sooo dead when we get back to the ship.” Kallen tried to sound angry, but a smile forced its way onto her face.
    “Speaking of which,” C.C. interjected from the cockpit of Ariel, “Cornelia is calling us back, so we should return to the Kaminejima at once.”
    “Already?” Enoch asked. “But we’ve hardly had time to give Shirley another go at ground attack training.”
    “She’s had enough today, old man,” Lelouch said. “Besides, we’ve got to be getting back anyway.”
    “That’s right!” Shirley declared with urgency. “We need to get moving if we’re gonna make it to Suzaku’s wedding!” She maneuvered her fighter towards the blue-white, cigar-shaped cylinder beyond Phobos.
    “That’s not what I meant,” Lelouch sniggered, “but there is that too.”
    “Earth is only a few days away, Shirley,” Rai tittered, “and the wedding isn’t until the end of the week, so I’m sure we’ll make it.”
    “Are you kidding?” Shirley asked in disbelief. “With all this KnightMare training, I haven’t had time to pick out a dress, shoes, how to have my hair done…”
    “She’s gotta point,” C.C. agreed. “So, Lulu, when are you taking us shopping?”
    “Huh? Me?” Lelouch asked, confused. “I don’t know the first thing about shopping for a wedding.”
    “That’s not the point, Lulu,” Shirley grumbled. “You’re supposed to want to go with us.”
    “Yeah, some gentleman you are,” Kallen guffawed as the Crimson Cavaliers flew towards the ESS Kaminejima. “You want three women but don’t want the responsibilities that go with it, eh?”
    “That’s okay, girls,” C.C. stated snobbishly as the KnightMare team came in for their final approach to the Kaminejima class frigate, “we don’t need him anyway. Maybe we should just go by ourselves. Lelouch can fend for himself.”
    “Hah, you’re in trouble now, Lelouch,” Rai teased.
    “Isn’t he always?” Kallen laughed as she landed the Guren in the main hangar that hung from the center of the warship on its ventral side.
    “What did I do now?” Lelouch asked innocently.
    “You should already know,” Shirley barked at him.
    “How?” Lelouch pleaded with her as he landed the Samael.
    “Well, Lelouch,” Kallen scolded him, “maybe you should spend more time reading romance and learning a little something about women rather than wasting endless hours with those god-awful military manuals.”
    “I’m commander of the Crimson Cavaliers, and it is my duty—” Lelouch started to say.
    “DUTY!” Shirley barked. “What about us, Lulu? We all agreed that OUR relationship came first…remember?”
    “C2, help me out here,” Lelouch pleaded.
    “I wish I could, Lelouch, but I agree with them. You did make a contract with us, so you took it upon yourself to love three women equally.” C.C. added with a huff, “If you were as tactful with romance as you are in combat, you’d save yourself this grief.”
    “Typical answer from a witch,” Lelouch grumbled.
    “Oh, really?” C.C. asked sarcastically. “So you enjoy sleeping alone, is that it?”
    “Ooh-hoo, sounds like checkmate to me,” Rai laughed. “What do you think, Enoch?”
    “What do I think…oh, boy,” Enoch sighed as he landed his fighter, “I think this is gonna be a long trip.”

    * * *

    “Do you see anything, Akira?” Lena asked as they panned their flashlights around the interior of the hangar bay of the Intrepid.
    “No,” he said in a stern tone, “and that’s what bothers me.”
    “I wonder where all their KMFs are?” Gregor inquired over the radio to no one in particular.
    “Maybe they used them to abandon ship?” Lena asked sheepishly.
    “Why not just use the escape pods?” Anya pointed out the obvious.
    “Yeah, this doesn’t make any sense,” Tamaki said as he walked over to the elevator and pushed the button. “Nothing,” he grumbled.
    “I figured they’d be useless. Guess that means we have to take the stairs,” Tetsuo said as he manually opened the airlock door to the emergency stairwell.
    “You need to be more careful, Tetsuo.” Anya pointed her machine carbine into the inky blackness of the stair. “We still have no idea what we’re dealing with here.”
    “She’s right,” Gino agreed as he examined the stairwell with his flashlight while simultaneously following the LED beam with his machine gun.
    “Akira, we need to get the power back on in this tub,” Tamaki told him as they ascended the stairs. “I suggest we go to engineering first.”
    “Wait a second there, Tamaki,” Mika butted in, “we can’t just go and reactivate the main FORGE reactor without knowing if it’s safe or not. There may be a very good reason the crew shut it down.”
    “Mika is right,” Akira stated flatly, “I think it best if we proceed to the bridge and check out the log books for any details as to what happened here.”
    “Perhaps it would be better if we split up,” Anya suggested. “I know it’s not the best thing to do in this circumstance, but it would allow us to cover more ground quickly.”
    “Anya is right, Akira.” Gino didn’t hide his sarcasm. “Even if there are actual ghosts on this ship, they’re still no match for us.”
    “Ghosts?” Gregor scoffed. “I don’t think we need to worry about specters.”
    Mika rolled her eyes. “I think we should be more concerned about the possibility of pirates rather than the boogeyman.”
    “Still, getting this vessel reactivated is a priority,” Gino interjected. “If we rush up to the bridge as one unit, we may inadvertently fall into this trap…if it is one. I think we should cover all our flanks and take the engine room as well.”
    Akira’s patience was wearing thin. He sighed, “Alright, Anya, Gino, Tamaki, and Tetsuo, you go down and secure the engine room. Mika, Lena, and Gregor, you’re with me.”
    The Yamato no Orochi scaled the steps up towards the main deck of the vessel where they parted company.

    * * *

    “The engine room is straight ahead,” Tamaki said as he checked the holographic screen of his handheld computer. The cell phone-sized device projected a 5x6-inch digital screen from its top, which showed the internal layout of the Intrepid.
    “Are you sure?” Gino taunted him. “It seems like we’ve been walking for over a mile.
    “Yeah, I’m sure!” Tamaki shot back. “I’m not an idiot, Commander Weinberg.”
    “I didn’t say you were,” Gino replied innocently. “I’m just suggesting that you might not be using the mini-comp correctly.”
    “Enough, you two,” Anya scolded them. “The door to engineering is just ahead.”
    The four of them entered the pitch-black room, panning their flashlights around in the blackness until they came upon the master control panel.
    “I don’t like this,” Tetsuo griped as they made their way down a short flight of steps towards the main control panel.
    “Aw, you’re not afraid of the dark, are you, Tetsuo?” Tamaki teased.
    “That’s not what I mean,” Tetsuo said as he brought his weapon to the ready. “Call it a feeling, but I don’t think we’re alone in here.”
    Gino gave the interior of the chamber a quick once-over with his flashlight. “There’s nothing in here but the reactor and us, Tetsuo. Don’t worry, we’re alone.”
    “I’ve accessed the main computer,” Anya interrupted them. “I don’t see any anomalies in the logs before the FORGE was shut down,” she said in a perplexed tone.
    “Does that mean there’s no danger if we reactivate the main power?” Gino asked her as he turned towards her.
    “It would appear that way,” Lt. Alstreim said with a thin smile.
    Gino took out his communicator and opening it. “Akira, do you read me?”
    “I read you, go ahead, Gino,” Akira responded in a flat tone.
    “Anya has inspected the engineering logs and found no indication that the FORGE malfunctioned.” Gino pursed his lips. “You have a problem with us turning on the power in this haunted house?”
    “No, go ahead, Gino,” Akira said.
    Gino nodded towards Anya.
    Lieutenant Commander Alstreim typed away on the keys of the main control panel of the engine room, and in a few moments, the main power came on.
    “I’ll hit the lights,” Tetsuo said as he moved over to the wall panel that contained the light switches.
    Tetsuo flipped on the lights and nearly jumped out of his skin in terror as Captain Xingke’s ashen gray face stared at him with inhuman intensity.
    “What the fu…?” Tamaki yelled out in a panic due to the mass of crewmen that had come out of nowhere around them.
    Their ghastly forms closed in around the Black Knights.
    “Gino, what’s going on down there?” Akira asked over Commander Weinberg’s communicator.
    “Akira, get out of here!” Gino yelled into his comm. before the mass of crewmen pounced.
    The sound of machine carbine fire echoed over the radio before it went dead.

    * * *

    “Gino! Gino!” Akira barked into his communicator.
    “What do you think happened?” Lena asked Mika sheepishly, even though the answer was obvious.
    “I don’t know,” Mika said with apprehension in her voice. She turned towards Akira. “But we need to get down to engineering and find out.”
    “I agree,” Gregor said as he examined the blackened remains of the bridge of the Intrepid. “Besides, I think it’s obvious that whatever happened up here…we missed it.”
    Akira looked around at the burned and shattered control panels of the command deck before speaking. “You’re right, let’s get down there.”
    The four of them made their way through the ruined bridge towards the door.
    The egress opened before they reached it, and a flood of Nibiru Knights poured into the chamber.
    Akira and Gregor instinctively fired their weapons at the troopers.
    Their machine gun rounds bounced off the armored skin of the Knights, who drew their swords in response.
    One of the Knights chopped Gregor’s weapon in half with its first swing then reversed its grip and plunged the blade forward. The sword sunk deep into Gregor’s gut and came out his back.
    “GREGOR!” Mika screamed as she riddled the soldier that attacked Gregor with a full clip of machine gun bullets.
    The Nibiru Knight withdrew his blade and left Gregor in a pool of blood on the deck. The fiend then lunged at Mika.
    Lena fired a full burst into another of the monsters that headed for Mika.
    “ENOUGH!” a female voice called out from behind the Knights.
    The Nibiru Knights stopped in their tracks and straightened to attention like a company of automatons.
    From the dim light of the corridor beyond the bridge exit, a tall woman with flowing, raven-black hair walked into the room. She wore an armored uniform not unlike that of the Nibiru Knights but far more feminine and tight-fitting around her voluptuous form.
    “I see that one of my minions has overreacted. My apologies,” she said as she walked up to Gregor’s bleeding body and placed her hand upon his wound. It healed instantly.
    “Who are you!” Akira demanded.
    “An old friend,” she smiled at him as her ruby-red eyes met his glare.
    “I don’t remember ever meeting you before,” Lena scowled.
    “I’m not surprised that you don’t recognize me,” she cooed. “I’ve shed my old body, and now you may call me by the name of my new form—Hel.”
    “Friend?” Mika spat. “No friend of ours has ever tried to kill us.”
    “Kill you?” Hel laughed. “My dear, Mika, if I had wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have stopped my minions. No dear, I need you and your companions very much alive.”
    Akira gave Hel a dark look. “And what happened to the crew of this ship? Did you need them too?”
    “Of course,” Hel smiled. “They’re here in this ship with us,” she said as she walked over to one of the Knights of Nibiru and removed his mask. Under the metallic faceplate was the ashen gray face of one of the crew of the Intrepid.
    “What have you done to them?” Mika demanded.
    “I’ve given them bliss,” Hel stated innocently, “in exchange for service.”
    “You mean you’ve brainwashed them,” Lena said in horror.
    Hel waved her hand dismissively. “Whatever.”
    “What do you intend to do with us?” Akira asked.
    “What do you think?” Hel retorted sarcastically as she made an upward gesture with her arm. The Nibiru Knights grabbed Akira and his companions, holding them up to where Hel could look them in the eyes.
    “You’ll never succeed in this, you bitch!” Akira spat at her.
    Hel caressed Akira’s face. “You’ll make a fine addition to my collection.”

    * * *

    “Captain Chiba, we’re detecting a vessel heading towards our position at 14,500 kilometers and closing at 3750 kps,” the tactical officer of the Defiance read off the report quickly.
    “It’s probably Akira and the Yamato no Orochi with the ship they encountered,” Nagisa said, “however, raise our Omnidirectional Maser shields just in case.”
    “Yes, ma’am—“ The tactical officer was cut short by the impact of Hadron Cannon fire on their starboard side.
    Chiba lunged forward in her captain’s chair as a second salvo hit the ship.
    “Starboard Meson shields down!” the tactical officer yelled.
    “Return fire!” Chiba yelled to her crew as a third barrage blew off the nose cone of the ship. Electrical bolts shot across the hull of the vessel towards the aft of the warship, causing the lights on the bridge to go out.
    “We’ve lost main power!” the female engineering officer informed Chiba from her station. “All our weapons are dead.”
    “Helm, get us out of here,” Chiba exclaimed frantically.
    “No response from the engines, Captain,” the lady-helmsman shouted back.
    “What’s that?” the tactical officer asked aloud while pointing to a pink-white star just in front of the bow of the ship.
    “A FLEIJA,” Nagisa said as the explosion consumed the Defiance.
    All things in moderation...

  5. #15
    Super Moderator rank = Hod (acknowledged Novice) Kodai Okuda's Avatar
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    Code Geass: Chronicles of Tartarus
    Side Story Thirteen:
    The Galaxy is Calling

    “Many are the strange things I’ve seen during my tenure as a Guardian, but never anything as insane as this. Finding my old nemesis hiding away in a mobile planet created by an alien race was nothing new for me, but learning that it was built by my people, who have been extinct for nearly 500,000 years, was something totally unexpected. How it came to the world of Geass was not as shocking to me as the fact that it was the cause of the World of Geass in the first place. I shan’t easily forget the events of Suzaku’s wedding day when we got our first glimpse of what my old ‘friend’ Nemo had in store for us. It was on that day when the denizens of the galaxy came a calling.” —Excerpt from the journal of Enoch Apsu.

    Milly Ashford’s image stared out from the viewscreens of millions of people across the globe as she read off the nightly news. In stores, bars, homes, and shopping centers, her visage relayed the information of the news from the International Broadcasting Network.
    “There are still no leads in the attempted murder of Mr. Kamine Ohgi Nu and his family. Mr. Nu remains in a coma nearly two weeks after he was shot in the head by his assailant. The attack occurred sometime after 2000 hours Japan time. According to police sources, if not for Mrs. Villetta Nu’s military training, she and her family might have been slain.”
    A picture of Villetta Nu came up behind Milly. “The former Black Knight Ace Devicer drove off her attacker by reflexively throwing a kitchen knife at the man. According to Mrs. Nu, the knife hit her attacker in the shoulder causing him to drop his pistol, but not before the man got off a burst of rounds. Mrs. Villetta Nu suffered minor gunshot wounds to her left shoulder, thigh, and leg but has managed to make a full recovery. The children in the home were unharmed. However, the attacker managed to escape.”
    A stock photo of Tamaki replaced Villetta’s image. “A worldwide manhunt is still ongoing for Black Knight Ace pilot Lieutenant Shinchiro Tamaki. He is wanted in connection with the attempted murder of the Nu family and is considered armed and extremely dangerous. All citizens are advised to avoid this man if you come in contact with him, and inform the proper authorities immediately.”

    * * *

    “That’s him alright,” Alice said within the shadows of an alleyway across from a rundown apartment building. The silver light of the moon illuminated the old cobblestone street that ran in front of her position.
    “Proceed with caution, Alice,” Colonel Madd’s voice reverberated over the headset of her comm. “President Nunnally wants Tamaki alive.”
    “That’s easier said then done,” Sancia told him. “He’s armed himself with a submachine gun and is holed up on the third floor.”
    “So?” Dalque asked with a snicker. “He’s one man and not even a Geass user. I think we can take him.”
    “Still, that building is old and thus has numerous external fire escapes. It’s also right on the edge of Tokyo harbor,” Lucretia added. “He could effect an easy exit if we’re too quick to pounce.”
    “Agreed,” Alice said from her position, knowing that the other Irregulars were hiding in the darkness around the four-story building. “Dalque, I want you and Lucretia to take the rear of the building near the docks. Sancia, you and I are going in via the front door. We’ll rout him out and herd him towards the others.”
    “If we’re gonna do this, we best move quickly,” Lucretia said. “The third floor is mostly empty right now since it’s still quite early for a Friday night.”
    “You’re saying we need to fetch him before the tenants come home from work, is that it?” Alice inquired.
    “Basically…yes,” Lucretia replied.
    “Okay then,” Alice removed her pistol from its holster, “let’s go.”

    * * *

    “You failed to get it?” Kallen scolded Enoch as she fiddled with her pearl tiara that doubled as a hairnet. The frills of her large bridesmaid’s dress were making it difficult for her to tie up her hair.
    “Well…the nearest cake shop is closed on this side of the moon,” he responded defensively.
    “Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you volunteered to buy the cake,” C2 snickered from the far side of the church cathedral vestibule they stood within. Her elegant, white dress blended perfectly with the Britannian architecture of the building.
    “You’ll just have to fly to the dark side of the moon and buy another cake,” Shirley told him as she helped Kallen with her tiara.
    “Buy another cake?” Enoch scoffed as he pulled his gold pocket watch from the breast pocket of his jet-black tuxedo. “It’ll never be ready in time!”
    “You’ve still got four hours. If you get going right now, it will be,” Kallen smiled sarcastically. “Just transfer the order to another shop, pay for it, then zip on over and pick it up. That can’t be too hard for an immortal übercyborg like you, right?”
    Enoch gave her a narrow-eyed look. “Even my abilities have limits.”
    “She’s coming!” Cornelia declared as she barged into the room.
    “Who’s coming?” Enoch asked in a stunned tone.
    “Euphie is!” Cornelia smiled at him. “And you need to leave. It’s Britannian custom that no men be allowed to see the bride until the wedding ceremony.” Cornelia made a shooing motion with her hand. “Now get!”
    Enoch briskly made his way towards the door.
    “Oh, and, Enoch dear,” C.C. called after him, “don’t forget to pick up my order on your way back.”
    “Don’t worry, gorgeous,” he tittered, “pizza hut is open twenty-four hours here on Luna.” With that, Enoch left the room.

    * * *

    “We’re in position,” Lucretia informed Alice over her headset radio.
    “Roger that,” Alice replied as she turned to face Sancia.
    The girl was leaning against the apartment hallway wall opposite Alice with her pistol at the ready.
    Alice nodded at her, and in the next moment, both women rushed the door to the room where Tamaki was staying.
    Machine gun fire blasted at both women from the far side of the room. The bullets would have riddled both women if not for Alice using her the SPEED! to pull both of them out of the way.
    “Surrender, Shinchiro Tamaki!” Alice yelled at him as she returned fire from behind an overturned table.
    Bullets ripped through the top of the wooden table in response.
    “Cover me!” Alice told Sancia.
    “Will do.” Sancia rolled on her stomach over to behind the kitchen counter nearby and began firing at Tamaki from the safety of the heavy, wooden structure.
    The sigil of Geass formed on Alice’s forehead as she used the SPEED! to rush Tamaki while he fired on Sancia’s position.
    Shinchiro noticed Alice heading towards him out of the corner of his eye and tried to bring his weapon to bear on the blur that approached at inhuman speed, but it was too late.
    Alice performed a spinning kick as she deactivated her Geass and used the momentum of her speed to knock the weapon in Tamaki’s hands across the room.
    “Don’t move, Tamaki!” Alice aimed her handgun at him, but Shinchiro ignored her and leapt for an open window nearby.
    His action took Alice by surprise as he tossed himself out the egress.
    Sancia and Alice rushed to the open window only to see Tamaki running down the stairs of a fire escape as quickly as his legs would take him.
    Tamaki was nearly to the second landing when Lucretia met him with her pistol pointed directly at him. “Stop right there, Lieutenant. You’re under arrest.”
    Shinchiro smiled at her venomously then jumped off the fire escape landing down in the alley below.
    Lucretia fired a few rounds at him as he went over the side but missed.
    “Dalque!” Lucretia yelled down towards where Tamaki had landed.
    Tamaki landed on his rump only to be dragged off the ground by Dalque. She activated her Geass the POWER and punched Tamaki in the gut, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to double over as she dropped him on the ground.
    “Let’s cuff him!” Lucretia said as she got off the fire escape ladder and joined up with Dalque.

    * * *

    “Nervous?” Rai asked Suzaku as he helped adjust Kururugi’s bowtie.
    “Yeah…but it would seem Lelouch is more nervous than I am,” Suzaku snickered as he watched Lelouch pacing back and forth within the antechamber of the church they were using as a dressing room. Lelouch stared at the floor, biting his thumbnail as he strode the length of the chamber.
    “Master Lelouch, are you alright?” Jeremiah Gottwald inquired from where he stood in a regal pose next to a small stool.
    Lelouch either ignored him or didn’t hear him as he continued to pace the room mechanically.
    “What’s with him?” Suzaku asked Rai.
    Rai smiled, “He’s been like this since we learned about the fate of Defiance and your wedding got bumped up a week. The destruction of the ship by a FLEIJA has got him in a tizzy.”
    Lelouch stopped at the mention of the name Defiance and turned towards Jeremiah. “Knight of Orange, has the president and her entourage arrived yet?”
    “I believe they’ll be here within a few hours,” Jeremiah responded with a concerned look. “However, Master Lelouch, you should be rest assured that the defenses here on Luna are more than adequate to deal with a single pirate vessel. Even one armed with FLEIJA warheads.”
    “They’re not going to use FLEIJAs,” Lelouch said confidently as he stared at a fresco on the wall. His mind was working overtime as he processed every conceivable scenario of who could have destroyed the Defiance and what their next move would be. A crucial clue that cued him in to the identity of the perpetrators came with the attack on Ohgi and Villetta. Lelouch knew that Tamaki would never try to kill Ohgi. They had been comrades and friends for far too long. No, something had forced Tamaki to do it, and he had an idea of what that something was.
    “How do you know that?” Rai asked.
    “If you suspect something, Lelouch, you’d better not keep it to yourself,” Suzaku scowled at him. He knew Lelouch all too well. Even though his best friend had changed a great deal over the past few years, he was still the old Lelouch…still Zero in many ways.
    Lelouch smiled at him, “I don’t want to ruin this day with my wild paranoia.”
    Suzaku gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Humor me.”
    Lelouch sighed, “You may find this difficult to believe…”
    “Go on,” Suzaku prodded him.
    “I don’t think Nina Einstein is dead,” Lelouch stated.
    Rai gasped, “What makes you say that?”
    “This enemy specifically targeted Nagisa Chiba and the Yamato no Orochi.” Lelouch folded his arms. “Then Shinchiro Tamaki, a member of the Yamato no Orochi, attacked his best friend and former comrade Ohgi Nu. Forget how Tamaki survived the FLIEJA attack on the Defiance for now, as the more pressing question is why did he attack Ohgi?”
    “Geass?” Suzaku asked.
    “Probably,” Lelouch frowned.
    “Are you implying that this is a strategy being implemented by Professor Einstein?” Jeremiah inquired with an intrigued look.
    “Precisely,” Lelouch said. “The actions taken thus far indicate a plan of attack by someone who is picking their targets intentionally. Someone who is acting according to a set plan in order to isolate those of us who were the key players involved in both the defeat of Tartarus and Nina Einstein. The thing which is troubling me though is that this strategy greatly resembles a chess match, which is not Nina’s forte as far as I know. Be that as it may, this adversary is certainly executing a plan that resembles a basic strategy akin to chess. In chess, the objective is to isolate the king while eliminating as many of the pawns as possible to prevent reinforcements from entering the fray. By taking out the peripheral pieces that are aware of what really happened during the Tartarus conflict and at Nibiru, this person or persons gains a considerable advantage if the actual objective is greater.”
    “But why now?” Suzaku asked with a confused expression. “It’s been years since the incident on Nibiru. Why would Nina, if that’s who’s doing this, wait so long to move against us?”
    “That’s the part I can’t figure out,” Lelouch admitted with a grimace.
    Rai put his hands on his hips. “Well, whatever the reason is, I’m sure we’ll find out eventually, but for now, we need to consider the possibility of an attack on this wedding, considering that all the people responsible for what happened to Nina are going to be here.”
    “Indeed,” Jeremiah agreed. “We need a plan of action should the situation require it.”
    Lelouch looked over at Suzaku.
    Kururugi smiled at him, “Let’s hear it, ‘cause I know you’ve already got one.”
    Lelouch snickered, “Okay then, here’s what I’ve come up with.”

    * * *

    Alice slapped Tamaki across the face within the dim light of a small room. “Tell me why you attacked former Captain Ohgi Nu!”
    Tamaki just stared at her from the chair that he sat in with an ashen expression. The man was in a full-bodied straitjacket suit but didn’t seem to notice one iota.
    “We’ve been at this for nearly an hour, and he’s not responding,” Lucretia told her.
    The interior of the room was suddenly bathed in bright light from the hall outside as the door to the chamber opened. “She’s right,” the shadow of a tall figure said as he entered the interrogation room of the Kaminejima class warship Arcadia.
    “But, Count Amontillado, if we don’t find out what he knows, other people might be in danger,” Alice told him with concern.
    “I realize that,” the count said softly from under his mask. “Which is why I sent for help.”
    A teenage girl walked out from behind him. To the Irregulars within the room, she looked like the female twin of Lelouch vi Britannia.
    “Madame Lysandra,” Lucretia bowed in respect towards the girl.
    Alice looked at the youth with pity and then turned towards Count Amontillado. “Is putting her through this really necessary? We don’t know what’s been done to Tamaki’s mind. It could be Geass related.”
    “Which is precisely why I must connect with his subconscious,” Lysandra told Alice in a soft tone. The girl smiled at her slightly, “I know what dangers may lay in his head, Miss Alice, but don’t worry, I’ve come prepared for this.”
    Alice only nodded in reply as Lysandra made her way across the room towards Tamaki.
    Shinchiro stared ahead with a blank look on his face as the young woman gently put her hand on his forehead.
    Lysandra closed her eyes as she looked into his thoughts. The girl pulled her hand away as she recoiled in horror from him. “They’re going after Nunnally! We have to warn them!”
    “WHAT?” Alice cried out in alarm.
    Count Amontillado wasted no time in contacting the bridge of the Arcadia. “Colonel Madd, set course for Luna at once!”
    “Luna, sir?” Madd inquired in a confused tone.
    “Yes, you dolt!” Amontillado barked with urgency in his voice. “President Nunnally and her entourage are the assassin’s targets; now get this damn ship there at maximum speed!”
    “Yes, Count…at once!” Madd stammered over the communications link.

    * * *

    “Yeah, I need it within the next three hours,” Enoch spoke into the communication headset of his Type-21Z as he flew over the cratered surface of Earth’s moon. Far below him, the once gray and dusty surface of Earth’s natural satellite was dotted with various city domes of the newly colonized moon.
    “Yes, a full eight-tier wedding cake…” He paused for a moment as he noticed seven blips on his long-range LADAR scope. “What the…?”
    The seven blips were closing in on his fighter fast as he switched over to the general military frequency. “Apollo base control, are there supposed to be any fighters at my current location?”
    A female voice from the base control tower responded immediately, “No, Major Apsu, there are no units in your area.”
    “No units in my area?” Enoch queried her. “But I’ve got seven inbounds closing fast—” He dove his fighter down towards the surface of the moon instinctively as Kaon blasts zipped past his machine.
    “Major, are you alright?” the female control tower officer inquired frantically.
    “I’m under attack!” he said as the radio frequency cut out. Damn it! They’re jamming me. Enoch rolled his KMF out of the way of a hail of Hadron blasts from a pair of Type-21Z fighters that had broken off from the main group.
    He just barely activated his machine’s OEAPT (Omnidirectional Enhanced Absolute Protection Territory) defense system before Kaon blasts slammed into the multifaceted, ruby-red energy shield.
    Enoch transformed his fighter into KnightMare mode as he used the rocky outcroppings along the edge of the Haemus Mountains on the north “shore” of the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility) as cover while he dodged the onslaught of Kaon energy bolts. “Son of a…” Apsu cursed as Hadron blasts followed behind his machine in a rain of red-black death that blew moon rocks into dust behind his KnightMare.
    “They’re herding me,” Enoch blurted out as the seven pursuing Type-21Z KMFs split up above him into three groups of two and a single fighter that boosted ahead of Enoch’s machine until it was out of sight.
    “So, you punks are going to try to ambush me in the Mare Serenitatis, eh?” Enoch tried to weave his way through the mountainous rocks and foothills towards the dome city in the Plinius crater.
    He was met by a pair of Type-21Z KMFs in KnightMare mode as his machine broke out into the Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity) to avoid a shower of Hadron blasts from the single enemy KMF that flew above him in fighter mode.
    Another pair of Type-21Z KMFs met Enoch as his KnightMare skimmed over the surface of the crater bed. Both of the Cosmo-KnightMares fired on him simultaneously, which caused Apsu to instinctively boost his machine up into the air to avoid the blasts.
    The pair of KMFs that were pursuing him from behind dodged out of the way of the friendly fire and split into two directions.
    Enoch saw his opening and took it. He let loose a burst from each of his rapid-fire, shoulder-mounted Hadron Cannons into the dusty surface of the Mare as he dodged another hail of Kaon bolts. The bursts of Hadron energy caused a large cloud of dust to cover the immediate area in a thick, gray fog that Enoch flew directly into towards where the pair of pursuing KMFs had split up.
    Apsu maneuvered his machine towards where one of his pursuers had dodged to the left. He activated the Kaon blade of its gunpod as he saw the shadow of the enemy KMF through the dust. He flew his machine at reckless speed towards his prey, knowing that he would get only one shot before the other enemy KMFs found him.
    The enemy Type-21Z didn’t respond fast enough to stop Enoch from hitting his mark.
    The enemy Type-21Z attempted to parry the Kaon blade with the Blaze Luminous Maser shield of its right arm just as Enoch’s mecha swung its weapon in an uppercut motion.
    Enoch’s Kaon blade chopped off the right arm of the enemy mecha at the elbow, which severed the limb completely, sending the machine’s gunpod to the ground.
    The enemy machine fired the medium Hadron Cannon of its right forearm towards the cockpit of Enoch’s mecha.
    Apsu boosted his machine backwards using the four chest-mounted vernier thrusters of his mecha to avoid the blasts, but the Hadron bolts still grazed his cockpit, blowing off its armored shield and exposing the plasti-steel glass underneath.
    “Just peachy,” he said sarcastically as he dodged a second volley from the damaged machine. Enoch let loose the pair of MVS slash harkens of his Cosmo-KnightMare. The duo of deadly spinning blades tore through the chest armor of his opponent’s machine, destroying its MVS harkens, rapid-fire Hadron Cannons, and shoulder-mounted thrusters/engines.
    Enoch’s KnightMare swung its Kaon blade in for the coup de grâce.
    A hail of Hadron blasts forced Apsu to parry the onslaught of deadly energy with his Kaon blade instead of using the weapon to hit its mark.
    He pushed the accelerator of his machine forward to dodge a second volley of energy bolts, causing his Type-21Z to burst out of the dust cloud where he was met by three of the seven enemy KMFs.
    Enoch put up his OEAPT as the three enemy mecha unloaded a stream of Kaon blasts from their gunpods at his Type-21Z.
    “Damn it!” Apsu cursed aloud. “If this keeps up, my energy fillers will be drained in no time.”

    * * *

    “It’s been nearly two hours,” Shirley complained within the bridesmaid’s chamber. “Where the heck is Enoch?”
    “Good question,” Kallen fumed at his tardiness.
    “He may be a goon at times,” C.C. interjected, “but he’s never tardy without good reason.” The green-haired woman got up from the chair she sat upon. “I’d better go find Lelouch and the boys and let them know something’s not right.”
    “Oh, no you don’t,” Kallen scowled at her, “you stay here and wait for Enoch in case he gets back. “I’ll go and tell Lelouch.” Kallen didn’t wait for C.C. to protest. She stormed out of the bride’s room into the vestibule of the grand cathedral and began heading for the groom’s chamber across the vast entryway.
    “Where the hell could he be?” Kallen cursed aloud.
    “Where’s who?” a voice asked from the darkness of an alcove on the far side of the dimly lit chamber.
    “Who’s there?” Kallen demanded. The man’s voice was familiar, but something about it seemed alien, hollow.
    “You’ll have to come closer if you want to find out,” the male voice teased from the inky blackness as he stepped forward. His tall stature was just barely visible in the dim light that came in through the stained glass windows above the huge, oaken double doors that led outside.
    Kallen realized the potential danger in going over to the man as she was without a weapon at the moment and wearing a bridesmaid’s dress that was anything but maneuverable should she need to fight hand-to-hand.
    “Why don’t you come out halfway?” Kozuki asked him with a sly smile.
    “I will if you promise to meet me there,” the man said with a snicker.
    “Fine!” Kallen shouted in frustration. She hated games, but something inside her told her that she had to find out who this person was.
    Kozuki strutted out into the center of the chamber. “Now your turn, mister.”
    “Of course,” the man replied in a smooth tone as he walked out into the light.
    Kallen gasped in shock, “Gino!”

    * * *

    “Are you sure this will work?” Suzaku asked Lloyd Asplund as they moved a large vase into the main hall of the church cathedral.
    “How dare you question my new Geass Amplification Interface (GAI),” Lloyd complained in a hurt tone. “You ought to know me by now, Suzaku. I’d never have gone along with Lelouch’s plan if I thought my invention wouldn’t do its job.”
    “I wasn’t questioning your new machine, Lloyd,” Suzaku smiled as Cecile scowled at Professor Asplund.
    Her finely crafted, flowing, white dress enhanced her beautiful figure as she approached them. “I think what Suzaku is saying, Lloyd, is that he’s wondering if this new toy of yours will work the way Lelouch suspects it will.”
    “TOY?” Lloyd asked in horror. “My dear Cecile, I’ll have you know that this is a state-of-the-art, third-generation GAI that is vastly superior to the ones used by the Irregulars in their Vincent-Advanced KMFs.” Lloyd grunted slightly as he and Suzaku set the vase down into position.
    Cecile tittered, “I’m sorry, Lloyd. I should have realized how important this machine is to you.”
    Lloyd adjusted his glasses as he stood up. “Indeed you should.”
    Suzaku rolled his eyes behind Lloyd causing Cecile to giggle.
    “I fail to see what’s so amusing,” Lloyd said glumly.
    “Sorry, Lloyd,” Suzaku laughed. “Let’s test your device to make sure we didn’t damage it.”
    Lloyd folded his arms. “Let’s,” he said in a less than amused tone.

    * * *

    “It’s good to see you again, brother.” Nunnally took hold of Lelouch’s hand.
    “You also, Nunnally,” he said as he hugged her tightly under the archway of the side entrance of the cathedral.
    Kannon stood near them with a smile on his face as he watched the siblings embrace.
    “Hey, are you two just going to stand there all day or what?” Kaguya Sumeragi bellowed from the bottom of the side stair where she and Jiang Lihua stood among their security entourage.
    “Yeah, it’s not like its safe out here or something,” Jiang Lihua said with her hands on her hips. “We are dignitaries of the Commonwealth of Earth, you know, Lelouch vi Britannia. It would be wiser if we went inside.”
    Lelouch let go of Nunnally and smiled down at the Tianzi, “I suppose you are right, we should be getting—”
    A van flew down the side street and crashed into the car that Nunnally, Kaguya, and the Tianzi had arrived in.
    “INSIDE!” Lelouch commanded Kaguya and Jiang Lihua as he pushed Nunnally into the cathedral behind him.
    “But those people in the van could be hurt,” Kaguya protested upon seeing the mangled front end and exposed sakuradite battery.
    Lelouch ran towards her down the stairs. He drew a pistol from within his tuxedo as the back of the van opened up and five figures jumped out.
    Jiang Lihua recognized the man leading the troop of armored Knights. “Xingke!”
    “Kaguya, that’s not Xingke,” Lelouch yelled as he and Kannon formed a human wall with the six members of the security detail charged with protecting the dignitaries. “You need to get Lihua inside immediately!”
    “It’s no use, Lelouch vi Britannia, just hand over Nunnally and we’ll leave you in peace,” Xingke said in a mechanical tone.
    “I don’t know who you are,” Lelouch took aim at him, “but you’re NOT taking my sister!” Lelouch fired directly at his forehead.
    A Knight of Nibiru stepped into the shot with blinding speed. Lelouch’s bullet sank into the faceplate of the armor, but the soldier seemed unfazed by it.
    “Fire!” Kannon ordered the security detail.
    A hail of bullets streamed from their submachine guns into the four Knights of Nibiru, leaving only Xingke standing.
    Xingke laughed, “Resistance is futile.” A green glow emanated from the bodies of the fallen Knights causing them to get up off the ground.
    The four armored warriors drew their swords.
    Xingke drew his own sword from its scabbard. “Attack.”
    The Knights of Nibiru pounced on the six security guards with their deadly broadswords. One guard was cleaved in two at the waist as another’s head was chopped clean off.
    “Shoot their knees!” Lelouch yelled at Kannon as Kaguya and Jiang ran up towards the heavy, oak doors of the church.
    Kannon, Lelouch, and the four remaining guards fired on the approaching Knights of Nibiru as Xingke watched the battle where he stood near the crashed van.
    The knees of the four attacking fiends were blown out by a volley of submachine gun and pistol fire. The Knights crumbled to the ground only to rise again after a brief glow.
    Lelouch caught a glimpse of green radiance from Xingke’s sword as the healing light engulfed the Nibiru Knights.
    “Ah ha!” A thought coursed through Lelouch’s mind. “So that’s how it is.”
    Another of the security guards was cut to pieces as the four Knights advanced.
    “Kannon, get your men inside as well,” Lelouch demanded. “There’s nothing more you can do here. I’ve got a plan that might stop them, or at the very least slow them down.”
    “Understood,” Kannon replied as he fired his submachine gun at an encroaching Knight.
    “Retreat to the church,” Kannon ordered his two remaining guards.
    Lelouch aimed for a metal bracket which held the sakuradite battery of the van in place just as Kannon and his men got within the frame of the door.
    “Lelouch, c’mon!” Kannon yelled for him.
    Lelouch fired two shots at the bracket as the Knights of Nibiru scaled the stair towards him at lightning speed. The first bullet knocked the bracket off the remaining screw which held it while the second sent the long, metal bar into both contact terminals of the powerful electric battery.
    The battery exploded in a fireball that sent Xingke tumbling across the side street, his sword clanged along the sidewalk away from him. The shock wave knocked Lelouch onto his derriere as the four Knights of Nibiru were strewn all over the stairs.
    “Thought so,” Lelouch said as he picked himself up. “The sword acts like an amplifier. That means the true puppet master must be nearby.”
    Xingke began to stir and pick himself up off the ground. Lelouch realized his pistol had been blown down into the hedge next to the stair from the shock wave of the explosion.
    “I’d better get out of here,” he said aloud to himself as Xingke reclaimed his sword. Instantly, the Knights of Nibiru stirred and began moving again.
    Lelouch ran for the side door where Kannon and the others were waiting.
    “Bar the door!” Lelouch told Kannon as soon as he passed through and closed the heavy, oak door behind him.
    “That won’t hold them for long,” Kaguya remarked as the portal began to shudder under the onslaught of the supernatural force on its other side.
    “To the main hall,” Lelouch said with urgency, knowing that their only hope laid in his plan. “We’ve got to warn the others.”

    * * *

    “Gino, how could you possibly be here?” Kallen inquired of him in awe. She knew that Gino should be dead.
    Gino walked closer to her. “Does it really matter? I’m here now.”
    His complexion seemed gaunt in the lunar light of the stained glass windows. “Where are the others? Did they survive?” Kallen asked, hoping that perhaps her friends had managed to survive the fate that befell the Defiance.
    “They’re close,” he smiled wickedly. Gino held out his hand. “You could be with us, Kallen. You could join us. All you have to do is come closer.”
    “This isn’t right.” Kallen could feel something was wrong. “You shouldn’t be here, Gino,” she said as she backed away from him.
    His smile grew more malevolent. “Oh, but I should be. Just as the fox enters the hen house when the farmer leaves open the door, so should I be here to partake of the bounty before me, and I choose you, Kallen.” He drew a pistol from behind his back.
    “No.” Kallen moved backwards toward the bridesmaid’s chamber. “What happened to you? Why are you doing this?”
    “Don’t worry,” he said softly as he aimed the pistol at her, “you’ll understand soon enough.”
    “Hey, what the heck is going on out here?” C.C. asked as she walked out of the bridesmaid’s chamber into the vestibule.
    “C2, get down!” Kallen yelled in a panic.
    Gino changed his aim towards C.C. and fired.
    The bullet barely missed the green-haired woman’s heart; the round tore through her left shoulder.
    C.C. fell back in pain while Kallen grabbed onto her and the sigil of Geass formed in her eye. “JAUNT!” The two women vanished in front of Gino and reappeared on the other side of the door to the bridesmaid’s chamber.

    * * *

    “What’s all this about?” Shirley asked as C.C. held her bleeding shoulder for a moment while it regenerated. At the same time, Kallen barred the door with furniture from within the room.
    “There’s no time to explain!” C.C. told her. “We’ve got to get Cornelia and Euphemia out of here.”
    “Well…they’ve already gone to the Grace Chapel,” Shirley informed them. “What happened to you, C2?”
    The door began to thump from blows hitting it on the opposite side.
    “Never mind that right now,” C.C. said as her arm finished healing. “We need to find Lelouch and the others.”
    “But…what’s going on?” Shirley whined.
    “We’re under attack,” Kallen said firmly.
    “By who?” Shirley asked in disbelief.
    “I can’t explain it right now,” Kallen said with an urgent look at Shirley. “We need to get to the sanctuary. That’s where Suzaku and Lelouch went, right?”
    “Yeah,” Shirley replied in a hurried voice.
    “Then let’s go,” Kallen said as she and C.C. moved Shirley out through the doorway that led into the nave of the cathedral.

    * * *

    Alarm klaxons screamed out over the city of New London which sat within the flat surface of the Palus Putredinis (Marsh of Decay) crater.
    The sound echoed throughout the marble halls of the cathedral.
    “Are we under attack?” Cecile asked aloud to her companions as they stood within the sanctuary of the cathedral making last-minute preparations for the wedding.
    “It would seem so!” Lelouch bellowed as he and his companions came running through the side door of the Virtue Chapel on the right side of the sanctuary.
    Kannon bolted the door after all of them had come through.
    “So you were right?” Rai asked Lelouch.
    “Unfortunately,” Lelouch replied with a nod.
    “But who would dare?” Jeremiah Gottwald remarked in a disgusted tone.
    “Knights of Nibiru,” Kannon told him. He had no sooner bolted the door than the wood began shaking from blows given on its other side. “Xingke was with them.”
    “As was Gino,” Kallen said as she, C.C., and Shirley ran into the sanctuary. Shadows flew across the overhead stained glass dome at lightning speed.
    “Are those Type-21s?” Kaguya asked to no one in particular.
    “Oh, dear, it would seem that the defense forces have been scrambled,” Lloyd said while adjusting his glasses and looking up at the dome for a moment.
    Lelouch looked at the high altar which rested in the ambulatory of the cathedral. “We need to make a break for the crypts below. There’s an exit from there that leads out to the city’s graveyard. We can escape that way.”
    “Actually,” a soft female voice said from behind the altar, “for you there is no escape.” Anya walked up behind the altar from the crypts below. Akira, Tetsuo, Mika, Lena, and Gregor walked up behind her. The door of the Virtue Chapel burst open and Xingke walked through with his four Knights.

    * * *

    “C’mon, you slackers!” Enoch yelled as he parried another volley of Hadron bolts that caused the whole area to fill with dust kicked up from the soft surface of the moon.
    He flew his Type-21Z like a madman through the haze of thick dust towards one of his pursuers that he could just barely see. The enemy machine attempted to dodge his furious assault, but it was in vain. Enoch used the twin beam-sabers of his mecha to chop off the left forearm and shoulder of his opponent’s machine.
    A second machine fired a burst of Kaon bolts at the backside of his Zebulun.
    Apsu got his OEAPT up just in time, but a warning screen popped up on his main display.
    Enoch grumbled to himself, “I can’t use the OEAPT again. I’m nearly out of power, and I haven’t even managed to take one of them down yet.”
    He caught the glint of a green Kaon blade out of his peripheral vision. “Oh, no you don’t!” Enoch used the Blaze Luminous shield on his machine’s left forearm to parry the slash of the third enemy mecha, but the attack distracted him long enough for the first Type-21Z to use its beam-sabers.
    Apsu tried to parry the twin-beam sword attack with the other Blaze Luminous shield of his mecha to no avail. The first beam struck the Blaze Luminous shield, but the second passed below the defense screen into the left breast of his KnightMare frame.
    Red warnings popped up all over his HUD (heads-up display). “Looks like this is it for this machine,” he remarked with a snicker of frustration. “Sure is gonna be a long walk back to the city.”
    The second enemy Type-21Z lifted its Kaon blade over its head for a final blow as Enoch braced for the impact.
    “What the—“ Enoch gasped as a silver-gray blade pierced through the center of the Type-21Z from its backside. The blade withdrew, and the enemy mecha slumped down to the lunar surface where it exploded.
    The force of the explosion cleared away the dust cloud, thinning it out to reveal a platoon of bronze-colored mecha.
    The troop of Grecian Theta-Kolossos and Zeta-Orion Automatos quickly dispatched the Type-21Zs in a blaze of Hades Cannon blasts from their gunpods.
    The lead machine was a mecha that Enoch recognized as soon as he lay his eyes on it.
    “Well, if it isn’t the devil himself,” Jason tittered over the radio to Enoch.
    “I don’t know what to say,” Apsu answered in a befuddled tone.
    “How about thank you,” Heracles laughed over the comm.
    “Thanks,” Enoch said in an unsure tone. “I suppose now you’ll get revenge upon me for what I did to you two back on Earth?”
    “No, Enoch,” Jason said in a cool tone, “we’ve more pressing matters to attend to here.”
    “What’s more important than revenge to an Olympian?” Apsu asked, confused.
    “War,” Jason replied.

    * * *

    “You’ve no hope for escape,” Gino said as he walked down the nave with a dozen Knights of Nibiru in tow towards the sanctuary. “You may as well surrender.”
    Lelouch smiled devilishly as Gino and his storm troopers came within the sanctuary. “I don’t think so. NOW, JEREMIAH!”
    Jeremiah Gottwald squeezed the switch of a small device on his belt, and instantly, the vases surrounding the sanctuary shattered revealing eight pyramidal devices which hummed.
    “Now we’ll end this foolishness,” Jeremiah said as the inverted sigil of Geass appeared in his cybernetic eye.
    A blue radiance filled the whole of the cathedral with a brilliance intensified by the Geass Amplification Interface devices.
    Xingke, Gino, Anya, and their compatriots slumped down onto the marble floor as if struck down dead from the blue light. The Knights of Nibiru fizzled into dust within moments.
    “That’s enough, Jeremiah,” Lelouch told him as he observed Xingke’s sword evaporate into black powder on the floor. “They’re finished.”
    “Bravo,” a deep female voice said from the far end of the nave. She clapped slowly as she waltzed down the aisle towards the sanctuary. “I must admit your ingenuity never ceases to amaze me, Lelouch.”
    The woman’s raven-black hair and deep, ruby-red eyes only enhanced her unnatural beauty as she made her way into the sanctuary. She eyed the Geass Amplification Interface devices. “Be that as it may, I can’t have you spoiling my plans like this.”
    Hel waved her hand in a circular pattern causing the GAI devices to short-circuit and fry.
    “My inventions!” Lloyd cried out in horror.
    “Hahahahaha,” Hel cackled in an amused tone. “You never change, do you, Professor Asplund?”
    “Nina?” Cecile asked, recognizing her mannerism.
    “Nina Einstein is no more,” she said with venom towards Cecile. “I am Hel, both in name and in deed.”
    “What is it that you want?” Suzaku demanded.
    “I want Nunnally,” Hel stated flatly. “In exchange, I’ll let you have your friends back. It’s a fair bargain, the lives of seven of your friends for the life of only one.”
    “You WITCH! I’LL NEVER LET YOU HAVE NUNNALLY!” Lelouch yelled as he came between Hel and his sister.
    “Oh? I didn’t realize that it was only your decision,” Hel snickered. “Are all of you still letting him lead you along by the nose, or will you finally start making decisions for yourselves?”
    “What’s all this yelling about out here?” Cornelia came out partially through the door to the Grace Chapel.
    Cornelia froze upon seeing Hel then drew her ornamental sword-pistol from its baldric at her hip and fired instinctively.
    Hel put up her hand in a blinding flash and caught the bullet. “Typical coming from you, Cornelia, and now allow me to return the curtsey.” Hel put her palm out towards Cornelia but hesitated as a voice broke her concentration.
    “What the heck is going on out there?!” Euphemia demanded as she pushed past her sister.
    A sickening feeling overcame Hel upon seeing Euphemia. “How…Eu…” She felt dizzy. “But…I thought…you’re dead.”
    Euphemia stopped cold upon seeing the unnatural woman. “Do I know you?”
    Hel started to walk towards Euphemia. “I…did all of this…all of it because I thought you were dead.”
    Suzaku saw his opening. “Get away from her, you crazy bitch!” Kururugi jumped up in his signature Kuru-kick towards Hel’s head.
    “Suzaku, NO!” Lelouch yelled at him, but it was too late.
    Hel spun on her heel and threw her palm out. A bolt of lightning caught Suzaku in the side. The blast sent him crashing into the pews nearby.
    “SUZAKU!” Euphie cried out.
    “You dared to lie to me…” Hel fumed towards Euphemia. “All of you knew! DIDN’T YOU?!” Fury burned behind her eyes. “I’ll kill YOU ALL!”
    Black mist began swirling about her form.
    “I’m sick of your crap, Nina, or whatever you are!” The sigil of Geass burned bright red on Shirley’s forehead as tears flowed down her cheeks. “Why don’t you just drop DEAD!” she said in a burst of frustration to the shock of all around her.
    Her Geass hit Hel like a bullet train. The force of the death power sent Hel backwards onto the marble with audible force.
    Jeremiah started towards Hel and unsheathed his forearm blades. “I’ll finish this.”
    “No, Knight of Orange,” Lelouch warned him. “She’s not dead.”
    “How perceptive of you, Lelouch,” Hel huffed as she got up off the floor. “Fortunately, Shirley’s little power only works once on me.”
    Hel put out her hand. “Now where was I? Oh, yes, time to die.”
    An arrow struck Hel from behind in the left shoulder.
    “Ahhhh!” the black-haired demoness screamed.
    “Now what?” Cornelia asked as Euphie brushed past her to Kururugi’s side.
    “Suzaku,” she whimpered over his still form. The smell of burnt flesh rose up from the blackened wound on his side.
    Hel spun around as she removed the arrow. “Adamantine.” A second arrow struck her in the left thigh. “Ugh, show yourself, coward!” Hel demanded as she moved backwards.
    Cornelia took aim at the back of Hel’s head with her pistol, but Lelouch grabbed the weapon’s barrel. “It’s no good, Cornelia, your weapon will only antagonize her. It won’t kill her.”
    A third arrow from down the nave hit Hel in the chest.
    “Yarh!” Hel tore out the missile and dropped it to the floor.
    “Pandora was right about you. It would seem you are a hardy one,” a strong male voice said from somewhere down the aisle. “Nevertheless, I still must take you into custody, since it is known to us that you are the one who released the beast of Nibiru.”
    “Who are you?” Hel demanded.
    “I am Leto,” a young man said as he stepped out from behind a tympanum he had used for cover in the nave. “I am the brother of Apollo and Artemis, son of Zeus, and leader of the 8th Special Forces Unit of Orion,” he stated flatly. “And this is my phalanx.”
    The thunderous sound of marching metal boots resounded through the aisles of the cathedral as Hoplites in powered armor flooded the building on all sides.
    “I see,” Hel sneered at Leto as he approached the sanctuary with his force. “Then it would seem I’ve outstayed my welcome.” Hel moved towards Nunnally. “But I shan’t leave without my prize.”
    Hel reached out to grab Nunnally, but a blade stuck her in the gut allowing Nunnally to escape to the safety of the Grecian soldiers in power armor.
    “You’ll do no such thing,” Gino said as he rose up from the floor.
    “Fool, you dare rob me of my prize!” Hel grabbed the blade and sent a massive bolt of electrical energy into Gino. The voltage caused Gino’s hair to catch fire as his eyes melted in their sockets. His smoldering body collapsed onto the marble floor.
    “Take her!” Leto ordered his soldiers.
    “I think not,” Hel spat at Leto. She leapt up backwards with inhuman speed and crashed through the central stained glass window of the ambulatory.
    “You men, follow her!” Leto commanded.
    “Belay that order,” Athena commanded from behind him. The Grecian warrior woman entered the scene with the grace befitting a goddess. “There are wounded here to tend to and more pressing matters to discuss.”
    “Athena?” Nunnally asked.
    “Yes?” the armor-clad woman inquired back.
    “Have you come to conquer?” Nunnally feared the worst.
    Athena smiled at her, “No, Oracle of Britannia.”
    “Then why are you here?” Nunnally pressed the woman as physicians pulled Euphemia off of Suzaku to tend to his wounds.
    Athena watched the Grecian medics reassure Euphie that Suzaku would be all right before she answered Nunnally. “I’ve come here at the behest of my commander, Aphrodite. My orders are to sue for peace with you and your people so that we may forge an alliance.”
    “Alliance?” Lelouch could no longer contain himself. The reassurances of the Grecian medics that Suzaku would be okay helped put aside his fears for his best friend.
    “Yes, Lelouch vi Britannia,” Athena smirked. “You see, we can no longer hold back the Babylonians, and we lack the forces to keep them from overrunning your star-system any longer.”
    “I see,” Lelouch lamented. “So you’ve come in peace for the purpose of waging war.”
    Athena smiled at him mischievously, “Precisely.”


    —To Be Continued—
    All things in moderation...

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