'v'

The year was 2022 atb. Four years had passed since the dreaded Demon Emperor had managed the dream of all of history's greatest conquerors, with the successful subjugation of the entire world under his sole rule. Four years since the tyrant's rule had squashed all hopes of freedom and cast a terrible shadow of dread over the whole of mankind – until the masked knight Zero reappeared and took him down, at the height of the Demon Emperor's triumphal victory parade in Tokyo. Four years since the death of Lelouch vi Britannia, opening the way to an unprecedented era of peace in a world that would never again accept to pay a toll of two hundred million dead in two years of war.

… four years, since L.L. had been forced into hiding away from the rest of the world, lest humanity discovered the Demon Emperor's apparent death had been a sham and the result of the Demon's own ploys, a disastrous occurrence the immortal man refused to let come to pass, at least as long as there would be a living soul other than himself and his accomplice to remember the wars and Zero Requiem.

…

Four years of living as a recluse, with the immortal woman C.C. as the only living human whose company L.L. could be allowed.

Four years after which the raven-haired, purple-eyed young man was reminded, like every so often, that his accomplice would always find new ways of surprising him, like with her current present of a virtual reality helmet.

"This is…"

"The machine is called Nerve Gear" C.C. had indicated. "Once properly configured, the Nerve Gear takes over all sensory input and allows you to enter the virtual world of the games it supports."

L.L. had been unable to help a little laugh at that sentence. "And you were the one who kept telling me I spend far too much of my time sitting in front of a computer."

C.C. had returned a thin smile. "To be honest, I don't think I'll ever understand how modern humans can spend so many hours of the day looking at a screen. The forms of entertainment it serves for just did not exist for most of my lifetime. The leisure activities I enjoyed as a simple Geass bearer basically only exist in the world of C, now, and I know you don't like spending too much of your time there, even if it was the only way to leave this hiding place that was open to you. So I've found you this – Sword Art Online, a persistent virtual reality universe. Once the game launches, there will be a whole new world you can enter and explore at any time you wish. And since you can customize your appearance in these games, no one will ever know Lelouch vi Britannia is the player behind your avatar."

It was a wonderful present for a man who had until then been condemned to a lifetime of being his own prisoner, and his fellow immortal didn't begrudge him anxiously waiting up for 1PM Japanese time on November 5th, when SAO would be launched.

"Who knows, if it's that interesting, maybe I'll get my own set of Nerve Gear and join you in this world", C.C. said as L.L. put the helmet on. "If only because facing the same limitations as everybody else would be a refreshing change."

"It's ironic, isn't it, how we have to leave our human bodies behind if we want to enjoy life as humans." Lelouch smiled at her as he made himself comfortable on his couch. "Still, this is going to be my first real taste of freedom in years. Thanks a lot, C.C."

"You can thank me by finding the best pizza offered in your virtual world" the immortal woman replied in a falsely bored tone, eliciting a chuckle from her accomplice.

"I suppose I should have expected that." Lelouch smiled again. "I'll be back to tell you about how this feels in a few hours."

"If this thing doesn't malfunction and fry your brain before then, like you said it could if mishandled" C.C. said bluntly. "Not that such a stupid death can stick on you, but it'd take weeks to rid this place of the smell, and you're the one stuck in here."

"Your concern is appreciated" L.L. replied with a smirk. "Well then, 1PM on the dot. Time to dive."

"I'll see you later, Lelouch."

"And you, Carla."

The man formerly known as the Demon Emperor took a deep breath, and uttered the words which would release him from his prison of four years.

"Link start."

'v'

SWORD ART ONLINE: LELOUCH OF THE REBELLION

'v'

Turn 01 – The Day the Demon was Trapped

'v'

On a whim, and with no intention to stick around using his first avatar beyond a trial run, Lelouch decided to check whether the character name "Zero" was available. It was, and to stick with his ironical theme, the young man configured his avatar to closely resemble the appearance of Suzaku Kururugi in addition to wearing the Masked Knight's time. A quick look at the skills available from the start resulted in the selection of One-handed swords and Acrobatics as Zero's two initial skills – again, to fit his theme more than out of any concerns with regards to efficient gameplay. One validation step later, Lelouch found himself immersed for the first time in the virtual world of Sword Art Online, greeted there by a "Welcome to Aincrad" message flashing briefly in his vision, followed by a brief display of "City of Beginnings – The Central Plaza" announcing his location.

Said central plaza was of colossal dimensions. A quick, circular glance led Lelouch to estimate that it could easily hold a hundred thousand people – a hundred thousand avatars, the young man corrected himself – and despite beams of blue light flashing everywhere and leaving behind newly materialized avatars by the dozens every second, the plaza was nowhere near filling up. The noise levels, however, were very high: a lot of the players entering Sword Art Online shouted, cried and laughed upon discovering how real this virtual world felt, and Lelouch felt the corners of his virtual lips lifting up in a smile that belied how much he enjoyed seeing and hearing so many people enjoying the simple sensations of waking up in their new world in such carefree dispositions warmed the young man's heart.

And all around the plaza, groups of people were beginning to form, notably groups of friends eager to get started together in SAO, but also groups made of complete strangers joining up for all kinds of reasons, including telling one another just how awesome diving inside the VRMMO felt. Exactly one hundred thousand copies of the game had been sold for its initial release, Lelouch had found out – with promises to extend the servers and make new copies available as soon as possible from the game's developer and server host, Argus.

It was very tempting for Lelouch to just join one of the groups and start up a conversation with someone not named C.C. for the first time in years, but there were a lot more things to savor, and the first one the young man intended to enjoy was a good wander of the virtual streets of the Town of Beginnings, with no urgent preoccupation or goal outside of the simple pleasure of taking a good, long stroll.

Lelouch wandered perhaps for an hour that way, until he felt the presence of C.C. on the edge of his consciousness, a form of communication both had known would still work despite Lelouch being cut off from the real world by his Nerve Gear.

With a bit of annoyance, Lelouch walked his avatar to a quiet corner where he could stay unnoticed, and willed passage for himself into the World of C, where he was surprised to meet with a furious C.C., pacing back and forth in the middle of an alley of paintings Lelouch knew led to many of her memory lanes.

"What's wrong, C.C.?" the young man asked soberly.

The green-haired woman interrupted her pacing to glare at him. "The Nerve Gear components being capable of frying a human brain is no accident, that's what's wrong."

Lelouch's eyes opened widely. "What? You mean Akihiko Kayaba-"

"Deliberately designed the Nerve Gear so it could serve to imprison players inside his virtual world" C.C. said harshly. "He just issued a public statement informing the general public here that any attempt to remove the Nerve Gear forcibly from a player's head would result in their death – and you know how that kind of things go."

It was now Lelouch's turn to grow severely annoyed. "Some people tried anyway, and ended up killing the persons they tried to rescue because the Nerve Gear has an inbuilt battery and failsafe mechanisms to ensure it cannot be removed" he deduced, and C.C. nodded.

"Exactly. And to make matters worse, Sword Art Online created such high expectations that nearly ninety nine thousand among the hundred thousand buyers have already logged in."

"I see" Lelouch said grimly. "Did Kayaba announce anything about how long he'd keep the players trapped inside his virtual world?"

"He did. About a day from now, he'll issue another statement announcing time windows to move players into hospitals so they can be hooked up to hospitals – with the warning any attempt at keeping a player disconnected would result in the termination of their life the moment the Nerve Gear's battery started to run low."

"So he intends to keep us trapped inside here for the very long haul, and I'm the only person in the game who can escape safely or communicate with the outside world" Lelouch deduced.

"The Code you won from Charles saves you from dying, and we are permanent presences in the world of C" C.C. corroborated. She looked down at the gallery's "floor", and her accomplice could see she was shaking – and he could guess why.

"Don't blame yourself, Carla" the young immortal said, and C.C. looked at him with surprise. "You were looking for a way for me to escape my current prison, and you've still succeeded. And now I'm in the perfect position to learn more and interfere with the plans of the first person who dared and stood against the Zero Requiem. I'm going to be living in a game world where I don't look like myself and thus can move freely, and our presence in this dimension can serve as a link between the game and the outside world."

"There's obviously going to be a concerted effort at hacking into the game and releasing the players from the outside" C.C. said, looking composed again. "They'll be going up against one of the most talented programmers of the decade, so it will take time, but there will be someone finding a way around Akihiko Kayaba's failsafe measures."

"Not too many people can go up against the whole world and have a chance of winning" Lelouch replied quietly, his voice thoughtful. "C.C., can you try and look up whether there are any trapped players with a standing sufficient that their deaths could threaten world peace?"

The green-haired woman nodded. "The Black Knights aren't going to be too happy to see me, but I'll get them to spill the beans once a list of players has been established."

"Thank you. I'll try and find them inside the game once I know who I should be looking for. I have a feeling there's more to this plan of Kayaba's than to just keep people locked into his virtual world. A setup that can kill a player at any time can be used as more than chains to keep them prisoner."

'v'

Lelouch returned to consciousness in SAO with a grim sense of purpose.

I must find out from inside the game whether there is more than one way of being killed by the Nerve Gear the immortal young man thought. But I can't afford to test that hypothesis personally. If there's a permanent death mechanism linked to an activation of the lethal components in the gear, it might not be possible for me to stay logged into the game, and if avatar death does result in player death, it's all the more important that I stay inside the game, where I can prevent avatar deaths from occurring.

The green orbs borrowed from Suzaku Kururugi glared at the sky – or rather, as Lelouch realized, at the underside of another floor.

Akihiko Kayaba. No matter your reasons were for setting ninety nine thousand people up for a death trap, threatening the peace borne out of the Zero Requiem is inexcusable. The young man caught the display of his name under his health bar at the top left corner of his field of vision. I've even given you a warning without intending to. You're going up against Zero, the man who destroyed the world and created it anew, and like against Charles and Schneizel, I have no intentions of losing to you – and I doubt you are an opponent of their caliber, programming genius though you might be.

The young avatar looking like Suzaku resumed his walk inside the streets of the Town of Beginnings with visible purpose. For starters, he was going to find out whether there existed a place inside the town which would give indications as to what fate awaited people whose avatars died in the game.

'v'

By early evening, Lelouch had managed to get a pretty good handle on what was going on inside Sword Art Online. As a result, he was probably the only one on the plaza who wasn't surprised by Kayaba's announcements regarding how death in SAO would mean death in the real world, or how the only way out for the players (as far as Kayaba thought) would be to defeat the final boss of the game upon reaching the top of its hundredth floor.

There was, however, one last announcement which came as a nasty surprise to Lelouch – the existence of a mirror in each player's inventory that was really a piece of programming designed to erase every avatar's personalized appearance data and make every avatar look like the player controlling them.

Which was very bad news when you were a player named Lelouch vi Britannia.

There was nothing for it but run and hope that nobody in the assemblage of distraught players would take notice of the Demon Emperor having made his appearance inside Sword Art Online – and running couldn't stop at the exit of the plaza or of the town either.

I have to leave the vicinity of the starting area entirely, and stay away from other players until I can find a way to hide my face Lelouch told himself, not failing to notice the irony of having to become the masked man Zero again. Fortunately, only a select few people alive know who was the man behind the mask of Zero, and the odds one of them ended up trapped inside this game are extremely low. Once I've hidden my face, I should be able to operate without arising an unbearable amount of suspicion. But unfortunately, I don't know that I can serve as a symbol of hope in this world either – there are bound to be people who will level faster and more efficiently than me, notably former beta testers.

There was some comfort in finding that Zero's physical capabilities in SAO were unconnected with Lelouch's very limited ones in the real world. Here he could keep running as long as his avatar had enough reserves of stamina, and perform physical feats he was entirely incapable of in his real body, with and without the system's assistance.

I wonder if Kayaba will end up realizing just exactly who it is that he's pitted himself against. And if he does, he'd better remember that Zero is the name of the man who makes miracles…

'v'

A/N: I can't seem to find the crossover story someone else started a few years back with a similar premise of a Code-bearing Lelouch being trapped inside the Death Game, and writing a SAO/Code Geass crossover had bugged me for a while as well, so here goes, resist temptation roll failed :p A fair warning, though – my knowledge of both universes is essentially restricted to both universes' main anime series and the SAO light novels; events and characters from other source material are going to be missing, and I'm not above making a couple other changes, like how there are nearly a hundred thousand players trapped inside this story's Aincrad.

See you later, and if you enjoyed this, please leave a review!