Well this is it! My first foray into the world of online Fan-Fiction. The boat has left the harbor and it's plain sailing (and eventual sinking) from here on out. Unfortunately my first story bears the mark of being unoriginal (see: copied) in the fact that it is someone elses story. Awhile back I was just skimming through the Lelouch/C.C. aisle when I spotted "Code Geass R3: The Empresses Wish". I've always loved Fan Fiction R3s and this one was just brilliant. However by the end of the prologue I realised something. It was only ten chapters (actually nine) and there was no way a story of this magnitude and scale could finish in that time. So I continued on, reading about the brilliant characters and stunning new universe...
And then FireIceWindEarth left a message about a failing laptop, writers block and the fading love for this brilliant anime.
So here it is, an unofficial continuation of an unofficial continuation, and my first story which I can only hope you will like and pray to myself that I will finish it. If you have read FIWE's story than you are of course welcome to make up your own ending to his spectacular work instead of mine, oh and of course reviews will be more than welcome as well as any mistakes I make will be pointed out. I only hope FIWE will like this as well.
(P.S. I would highly advise reading FIWE's story first as you won't have any idea as to what is going on or who is who).
Chapter 10: My Heart is Heavy
The air sizzled with more than just the wafting smells of cooked meat and rotten garbage. The smell of anticipation hung in the atmosphere. The thrill and nervousness before a fight, a raid, a battle. It hummed around them, turned the night breeze into a humid miasma. But they kept their cool. They had done this dozens of times. Nearly all had been successful. Rarely had R.R.'s White Knights had to retreat. When they had to, all the reinforcements found were spent bullets, terrified soldiers and Britannian corpses.
As the rebels slipped through shadows down the dimly-lit streets the men at the sidewalk kebab stalls packed up and wheel-barrowed their way through alleys. Shops that were open 24/7 closed their shutters. As rats scurried down gutters an ancient church bell rang out against the silent dark. 12 tolls of the bell. And still the White Knights kept their backs to the wall and stayed to the shadows.
They finally arrived at the warehouse. It was a bleak and uninspired structure surrounded by the foul, ankle-high waters that swamped it. Half of the Kanagawa district was underwater following a tsunami 15 years before. No one in that time had bothered to clear it up. Half of the Tokyo settlement had been turned into a ghetto.
Hidden by overflowing skips and no moon the 8-man (and 4 women) team huddled together in the moist air hiding themselves as one big, looming shadow.
Barely two minutes had passed before a voice whispered;
"Where the fuck are they?"
The tension in the shadowy mass rose.
"Shut the fuck up Minato!" Roy whispered angrily, "Lucia and Raven know what they're doing."
"I can understand why Raven is taking out the sentries, but Lucia has no combat skills and not much training. She can barely attach a silencer, let alone shoot a gun!" said an angry Minato.
"Lucia has other skills," came the cold, calculating voice of R.R., "that she prefers to keep anonymous."
"If you mean slutting her way past every fuckin' soldier in the Empire than it isn't that anonymous!"
R.R.s head whipped around and his mauve eyes provided the only light in the pitch-black street. He stared at Minato until the young fool had to look away. R.R. almost wished he was emperor again just to get rid of idiots like him. Almost. But the pain of what he did…
Never again, he thought. Never should I have to lie or hurt Nunnally again. And C.C…. R.R. closed his eyes. Never again.
The last sentry fell dead, his throat slit by a silent katana. Raven surveyed his work. Three dead and not a single cry out or action of resistance. Quick, silent and deadly. Just how he liked it. He turned to see Lucia finishing off the last one. He wasn't wearing night-vision goggles (he didn't need them with his eyesight) but he still couldn't see what she was doing to the sentry.
The man was gazing up at her with awe. No, fear. He was spellbound with absolute terror. Just looking at the man filled Raven with a feeling of undeniable dread. Something… not human was happening to the man, something so horrifying that it could not be anything any normal human could do. Raven almost pitied him. He then turned his gaze towards the cold skin of Lucia. He looked at the woman he loved. And trembled.
"Go to sleep," Lucia said with as much sympathy she could put into her voice.
"Mother…"
"Go to sleep," Lucia said more firmly.
"I'm… sorry… mother…"
"Go rest with her. You are redeemed of your duties in life."
The man's heart finally gave out and he slumped to the floor, an empty shell of flesh. Lucia didn't like to have to do this work but if it meant sticking close to Raven then she would have taken out the entire Tokyo garrison to be by his side. She looked down at the dead sentry. She almost pitied him. Her Geass was so powerful that no human could resist the illusion of fear. Seeing all your demons and past mistakes come back to haunt you to your grave would be the worst feeling imaginable, she reasoned. But it was a potent and deadly weapon and it was her only protection against the vast and powerful Holy Britannian Empire. Well, Raven was protection as well.
She strolled across the roof of the warehouse with as much swagger and confidence as she could muster. Raven took in a sharp breath. She was so beautiful. He would protect her no matter the danger, no matter the cost. He would follow her to the ends of the Earth and across the stars. He would gladly die-
And then he saw something on another roof. He recognised a figure. And felt his dreams and hopes come crashing down around him.
"Hey there."
He looked down at Lucia. A ray of sunshine in this blackest of nights. She looked at him curiously.
"You look spooked," she said, "Like you've seen a ghost."
"Uh…" he said with some hesitation, "Well… um, it's nothing. Flash the all clear; I'm going to investigate the other rooftops."
She looked at him strangely before going off to collect the torch. With her back turned, Raven leaped to the next rooftop and the next. He shrank into the shadows.
"Who's there?" he asked the darkness.
"Oh come now Raven," came the darkness, "Don't you recognise your old friend Lycris?"
Two flashes. Pause. Two flashes.
"That's the signal," said R.R. from the other end of the street, "Let's move!"
They moved as one and silently ran down the street. But then as one, they stopped.
"Why have we stopped?" asked an angry Minato.
Roy tapped on R.R.s shoulder, "Why have we stopped sir?" he asked.
But R.R. didn't respond. He was frozen. Staring right at the middle of the street.
"Sir?" asked Roy.
R.R. was sweating. Cold sweat. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
For standing in the middle of the fully lit street, with strait-jacket and mischievous smile on her face, was C.C..
"What are they doing?" Lucia whispered angrily to herself.
They were just crouching there on the bloody sidewalk! If it wasn't for the balaclavas that they wore then she would be able to recognise every individual person with a gun. She momentarily forgot about where Raven might be as she studied the street, trying to find the reason for the sudden halt in operations.
There was nothing there.
"Running around with rats, my how you've ascended in life," said Lycris with a shark's smile.
"Why are you here?"
"I thought ravens were tougher than rats."
"Why are you here?" asked Raven again, more firmly.
Lycris looked at Raven down the end of his nose. "You should know why I'm here. Why have you not revealed the location of the rebel hideout yet?" he asked with some force.
"I never knew you took orders from Colonel Shimada…"
"I don't take orders from anyone!" seethed Lycris. He tried to relax his face. "Don't you remember? We've been best friends since the orphanage. So I believed that as a friend, you'd help us bring these rebels down!"
"I…" Raven tried to give a good explanation, "We… change locations every once in a while. They have safe houses all over the Tokyo region. By the time I get a good report about all their operations, we move to a new HQ."
Lycris stared at him, trying to work out whether it was a lie.
"Is it because of her?"
Raven looked up at Lycris. "What?" he said, trying to hide the fear.
"That green-haired bitch you've got, bringing in your rebel friends with a stupid torch."
Raven gulped, "No," he stated with cold steel in his voice, "None of them mean anything to me."
Lycris walked up to Raven's side and placed his hand on his shoulder.
"You're a bad liar. If we don't have the rebels in two weeks than I'll interrogate her myself," Lycris smiled with teeth to bright for the night. Secretly, he placed a small tracking device in Raven's pocket. "We'll see whose side you're really on," he added with a wink.
But as Lycris walked away, Raven called him back.
"What?"
Raven held up the tracking device.
"I am loyal," he said as he threw the tracker to the floor and ground it underfoot. And like the wind, Raven turned and left for the warehouse.
Lycris smiled, knowing he had placed a much smaller and unnoticeable tracker on Raven's shoulder. He put his finger to the small microphone at his ear.
"Shimada, we have him."
"Sir?"
R.R. turned his head around. Roy was looking at him strangely.
"Sir, why have we stopped?" he asked.
R.R. looked at him like he was mad. "Don't you see her?"
"See who?"
R.R. turned to look back at C.C., "C…"
But she was gone.
What? Did she teleport? No, the street would have been lit up. Did she run off? Why didn't the others see her…?
R.R. looked at his hands.
Am I going mad?
"Madder than you already are?" said C.C..
R.R. spun around.
But only the White Knights were there. Staring back at him.
"Uh…Sir…we should get off the street," Roy said, staring hard at R.R..
"What?" said R.R., "Oh…oh yes."
His amethyst eyes became cold and concentrated once again.
"Let's go."
The last worker fell to his knees. Blood was pouring out his chest onto his hands. His blood.
He couldn't hear anything. Not the echoes of final gunfire. Not the dying breathes of his friends. Not the last pumping beats of his heart.
Lucia saw the last enemy fall dead and let out a sigh of relief. You never knew when the tables turned in the middle of a battle. One minute control would be established and the next, gunshots and fire would scorch the barren walls and the screams of her comrades would echo through the night.
But everything was fine. She smiled. They had won.
And now, she thought, to the victor, the spoils.
Already Green, Red, Shinto, Minato and Roy were opening up a rather large crate with the words DO NOT OPEN written in big, bold letters. A massive metal panel was removed and the contents of the crate were revealed; Hundreds of much smaller metal boxes topped with foil laminate. Red tore one open and hundreds of basic assault ammunition clattered to the floor.
"Holy cow!" he said, "Check the other crates"
But Green was already ahead of him, breaking open another crate.
"This one is filled with ammo too," Green proclaimed, "There are another eleven crates like this, all three meters by three meters…there's enough ammunition here for the entire resistance and more!"
"Excellent!" said Lucia, turning around to see R.R. and Raven.
But, she noted uncomfortably, the two people she liked the most seemed to be the most troubled.
Raven was looking down at the ground, looking very troubled and kept looking away whenever someone made eye contact. It looked like he had a terrible secret that he couldn't share with anybody. I'll just ask him later, Lucia thought. R.R. however was different matter.
He looked mental. His eyes darted around, seeing things in shadows and starting at sudden sounds. His dusky hair was tangled and snarled together and his face was the palest she had ever seen him. She worried for him. He was the closest person she had ever had to a father, a friend. All her life she had lived on the streets. Fighting for food and shelter. Discovering chess. Bending her mind with strategy and tactics to raise her standing and wealth. Then she became known as the Black Queen. And then… he had arrived.
And now she was here.
Fighting a war against an empire she had no love for.
With two men she had nothing but love for.
But first she had to find out what was troubling them.
R.R. saw Lucia coming towards him and almost did a double-take. No, it was Lucia.
Calm down, he thought to himself, calm the fuck down, we're on mission and we need to wrap this up as quickly as possible.
But he couldn't. He kept picturing her in his head. He remembered her still body in the capsule on Damocles.
And he remembered her very alive body when she first exited one.
"What's wrong?" Lucia asked with sudden firmness, "And don't give me any bullcrap about being fine. Everyone can see you're not."
R.R. looked at her. She was so similar to C.C.. He knew he would protect her from any threat or danger. Just because she reminded him of her…
She stared at him, genuinely concerned.
"I… don't worry about it," he said, "It won't affect the mission or the revolution."
"I worry that it will affect you," she replied, her cold, violet eyes trying to see into his head and read what was troubling him so much. He relented.
My heart is heavy, he thought. "It's because-" but he was cut off.
"THE ARMY'S HERE!" Shinto cried, "Along with Tactical Response Police!" Already VTOL craft could be heard in the distance, jet engines droning with impending doom.
"Fiona's coming with the Speeders!" shouted Roy, "Everyone, get outside!"
R.R. joined the mob of rebels as they charged towards the front entrance, a frantic panic as rats left a sinking ship. And all the while he could have sworn that yellow eyes watched him from the rafters.
Phew! That's a wrap gentlemen! Now, how to figure out how to use ...
Oh yes and I will invent anything that wasn't made clear in FIWE's story. For example; Havocs and Speeders next chapter...
I don't have a clue when the next chapter will be up. All depends on whether or not I'm allowed to keep this laptop. Bloody teachers...