April 22th 2026 ATB
As the sun peeked over the raging grey wall surrounding Kaminejima its rays filtered down to illuminate two forms, one with ebony hair that consumed the light and the other with verdant green flaring in the light as they stood at the mouth of a cave overlooking the ramshackle village of Haven on the slopes below them. The former Black Knight soldiers mixing freely with the stranded soldiers of Britannia as the Eye wall of the Maelstrom howled mere miles from shore. It wasn't much but in the face of adversity the surviving soldiers had made peace with one another had had built a small village, a small microcosm that epitomized Nunnally's dream. With the help of C.C.'s centuries of knowledge, the people of Haven had started farms on the island and had even begun to build families in the seven years since the Maelstrom had left them trapped on the island.
"C.C. Where are the other pots?" Lelouch groused as he spied only one of his usual three pots of alcohol already half a week late.
"Lelouch, you should spend less time in C's world and that cave of yours and more time down in the village, they need you just as much as they need Suzaku or I." C.C. commented as she passed the pot of Island Moonshine to the shaggy and disheveled twenty five year old.
"Hardly, because of the two of you, the villagers have managed to both grow their own crops and hunt to get their meat, I haven't done anything for them since I stopped them from going at each-others throats seven years ago, besides, as long as I have my privacy and my booze I don't give a damn what they think of me. Speaking of..."
"They think you're a man of God."
"What!?"
"The kids call you the 'Creepy Cave Wizard'" C.C. smiled as she drew a reaction different from his usual morose self pity. It had been too long since he had expressed anything other than that or raging anger.
"Regardless, Why are you late with my alcohol and why is there only one?"
"I need you sober so you can preside over Larry and Aiko's wedding this weekend." C.C. said as she stepped back and observed Lelouch's reaction.
"Oh." Lelouch responded as he let his vision drift off toward the farms to the south before the meaning registered and he quickly re-initiated eye contact "What!"
"I promised Larry and Aiko you would perform the ceremony, they were very adamant about it." C.C. commented
"And why did you make a promise on my behalf? Never mind, I know why Aiko figured out how to make a Pizza." said as understanding dawned on his face.
"I'll have you know Aiko can't cook to save her life."
"Then why?"
"Larry did." C.C. responded "It's true what they say, Absence does make the heart grow fonder, each bite was a taste of heaven."
Pinching the bridge of his nose Lelouch resisted the urge to tear into C.C. for that, "Why, might I ask, do they want me to marry them?"
"Like I said, to them you are a man of the cloth, and Aiko wants to be married by the closest thing she has to a priest."
Lelouch looked at the pot he held in his hand before heading back to the cave and commenting "It's a shame, this should have lasted me another three days."
April 25 2025 ATB
"Captain Ohgi, I order you to take the the Ikaruga into the storm." Tohdoh roared at him as he and the few remaining KMFs of the Black Knights fought to defend the damaged stealth battleship.
"But it's almost certain death!" Ohgi responded hesitant to throw the ship into one of the eight deadly storms. The past seven years since they had turned on Lelouch had been nothing but a series of disasters, as Schneizel broke his word and placed the world under a reign of terror. So many people had died from each of his decisions, that three years ago he resigned his position as the leader of the Black Knights as the pressure got to him.
"Damn it Ohgi just do as Tohdoh says!" Kallen screamed at him over the comm "I'll take almost certain death over certain death any day!"
"I can't believe I'm doing this." Ohgi muttered under his breath before shouting orders to head for the Kaminejima Maelstrom.
"Sir? Why aren't we following them?" Navigator Jones asked of his commander, as they ad the rest of the bridge crew of the BAS Caerleon observed the Black Knight KMFs retreat to the wounded Ikaruga as it neared the whirling vortex ahead of them.
"Tell me Jones, would you jump off a bridge if your enemies were?" Commodore Aloysius (self-styled "the Vicious") Fitzroy asked of his subordinate continuing without letting the man speak "No Ensign, you wouldn't, you toss a grenade after them and then take cover. Now with that in mind Lieutenant Briggs, If I were you I would continue our barrage unless I wished to become a part of said barrage." he phlegmatically spat at his cowering Fire Control Officer.
"Yessir your Viscousness!" Lieutenant Briggs muttered as he scrambled to get to work before smiling at his small slight against his commander.
Commodore Fitzroy reclined into his chair as he watched the lance of hadron energy fire at the fleeing ship, though the blast broke through the shields and hit the vessel with a glancing blow the commodore smiled, surely Emperor Schneizel would reward him for finally wiping out these irksome Black Knights.
Rakshata Chawla was sitting down in the hangar with her subordinates in engineering the noise of Knightmare Maintenance drowning out nearly every sound in the room; but for all she cared she could have been in a sound proof room. She was enraptured by the data she was getting from the ship's sensor array, so many vessels and aircraft had been lost without a trace trying to investigate the Eight Great Storms and here she was actually getting readings from Zero's Wrath! The windspeed and rainfall readings weren't what had her attention though, no it was the energy readings; the electromagnetic spectrum was fluctuating chaotically just within the storm.
Acting on a hunch she quickly brought up a program on her computer and performed a real time Fourier on the data she was receiving and there it was, despite all the other frequencies on the graph shifting rapidly, hidden amongst all the noise was a frequency signature almost identical to the Gefjun disturber at an amplitude far greater than she had ever seen before.
Her mind reeling with the implications Rakshata reclined on her lounge only to be knocked to the floor as the Ikaruga shook from a hit, Ohgi's voice soon came over the intercom in the suddenly quietened room "Rakshata can you divert power from the disturbers to the shield?"
"Not if you want to survive this storm." Chawla drawled
"Why not?" the question followed soon after.
"Because sending all the power in the world to the shields wouldn't make any difference."
Dressed in cleaner clothes than he usually wore Lelouch was delighted that the ceremony and the reception were finally over and he could get back to his cave; though having C.C. and Suzaku tag along didn't leave him in the best of moods.
"I thought the ceremony was beautiful Lelouch." C.C. started.
"You could have been a priest instead of a revolutionary." a drunken Suzaku agreed with the witch as he lugged the gift the newlywed couple gave Lelouch as thanks for his services: a small cart load of pots and barrels full of island whiskey and three pizzas that C.C. was casually partaking of as the trio made their way up the slope.
"I do get the feeling you were making it up as you went along," C.C. Commented
"What could have ever given you that impression?" Lelouch replied sarcastically as he looked over his shoulder at the green haired witch.
C.C. began to rattle off her list, "Where to begin? Tying their wrists together, Celtic, reciting seven blessings, Judaic though I should note you didn't get any of them right, Poor Joshua Jellenik flinched his way through that part, and I don't even know where you got that mirror part from..."
"Does it really matter?" Lelouch said as he turned around "At any rate why are you eating my food..." he trailed off as he saw the sigil adorned prow of a very familiar ship break through the eyewall of the storm.
"Hardly, this pizza is clearly my commission for my brokerage services." C.C. said before noticing she had walked past the man she was addressing. "What's got your... Oh my."
Hearing this Suzaku turned around and quickly sobered up at the sight. The Ikaruga had come through, it was damaged but it was in Kaminejima's airspace. "Run Lelouch, get to the cave and if anyone comes in escape into C's world. Stay safe." with that Suzaku shot back down to haven at top speeds followed by C.C. lagging a short distance behind with one of the pizzas.
Standing there next to the cart for a moment Lelouch could only stare before he made up his mind. "Like hell am I leaving this here for just anyone to take." With that Lelouch began the arduous process of pushing the cart up the hill to his cave.
Viletta sat in her living room reading her six year old daughter Chigusa a story, when a breaking news bulletin blasted out of the television, smashing her heart to pieces.
"This just in: In a battle just outside of the Kaminejima Typhoon, Commodore Aloysius Fitzroy sank the Ikaruga; this victory marks the final destruction of the Black Knights which seven years ago under the command of the mysterious terrorist Zero nearly pushed Britannia out of Japan. Stay tuned for more details as they come in."
It was all Viletta could do to keep from crumpling to the ground in a fetal position as she began sobbing both for Ohgi and for her daughter who would grow up without her father.
"What's wrong Mommy? Why are you crying? Mommy?"
A/N: so a few things... Yes a few years have passed (7 to be precise), and I haven't exactly explained what is happening. And yes in the absence of having a chance to take over Britannia Lelouch has largely receded into himself and has become a drunkard, he really doesn't have much to live for.
A/N2: fot those of you who don't already know how, and were upset when you couldn't translate stories with Google or anything, just change the part of the URL to , Google can still translate that.