Hello, and welcome to my first fanfiction, Code DRRR!

This isn't going to be a single continuous plotline, just a discrete series of oneshots, switching various characters between the Code Geass and DRRR universes.

I haven't got a lot else to say about this fanfiction that the summary hasn't already. So without further ado...

Chapter 1: Fairy in a Bottle

Lelouch "Lamperouge" vi Britannia was having a very bad day.

It had started out fine, of course. He'd beaten some uptight noble in a game of Chess 2 (After the Britannians had solidified their empire, the rules of the royal game had been extensively revised to account for the princes' peculiar personal philosophies), and gotten paid for his troubles. But then Rivalz had decided to interfere with a terrorist plot, and now Lelouch had been trapped in a truck with a strange, black-clad girl in a helmet; seen his childhood friend casually gunned down in front of him; and, thanks to an inopportune phone call, was now quite likely about to experience the same fate. And the girl wouldn't say anything about what had gotten her there.

"Okay, shoot her!"

The girl cocked her head, looking as puzzled as anyone with a helmet hiding their features can manage. Lelouch wanted to say something, to shout at her to get down, didn't she know what was about to happen? But the words wouldn't come. A volley of shots rang out, and the girl dropped to the ground, her helmet clattering away to reveal a severed stump of a neck, dark blood spilling onto the pavement. Lelouch stifled a cry, as thoughts rose up in his mind. He'd never see Nunnally again. He'd never achieve his dreams. He'd just end up like the girl in the canister, bleeding out in some anonymous little Shinjuku parking lot.

But was that blood? Lelouch had never paid a great deal of attention in his biology classes, focusing more on geography, history, and physics, but he was reasonably certain that blood was a liquid, not a gas. And furthermore that it flowed down, instead of gathering into large clumps in midair. And he was definitely sure that people didn't just get back up after being shot multiple times, even if they were Cornelia li Britannia. And he was definitely, absolutely, positively, entirely certain that they didn't stand up when they were missing a head.

The girl prodded Lelouch in the side, making a gesture for his phone. Somewhat apprehensively, he handed it over. Ignoring the soldiers entirely, she began to type.

[Are you with these men?]

Lelouch, still somewhat in shock from the day's events, could only shake his head.

"Enough of this!" The leader of the Royal Guard seemed to have regained his nerve after the unquestionably unnerving sight of a headless woman with smoke pouring from her neck stump. "Shoot the boy first, and we can take her back into custody afterwards!"

And the silence was shattered once again by gunfire. Lelouch closed his eyes, awaiting the pain, but it never came. He opened his eyes again, and saw only blackness.

Is this being dead?

He stretched his hands out, and encountered a solid barrier. Try as he might, he was unable to break through. True, his best attempts were at best pitiful, but Lelouch considered it an impressive test of the barrier's faculties.

He was distracted from his thoughts by the sound of screaming, muffled somewhat, as though from far away.

Am I in Hell? Is this the way there?

And then the barrier faded away. Lelouch, braced for fire, brimstone, and the screams of the damned, was slightly unprepared to find himself in the same Shinjuku parking lot with only a single minor discrepancy.

The Royal Guard had been defeated.

There didn't seem to be any marks on them, but they were unquestionably out cold, or possibly dead. Lelouch turned to the headless girl.

"Did you do this?"

The girl turned her body towards the dead men. Lelouch couldn't tell, of course, but he could have sworn he somehow detected regret in her as she typed into his phone.

[My name is Celty Sturlusson. Have you seen my head?]

XXXXXXX

It was a bad day to be a terrorist.

Lelouch couldn't believe he'd been so blind. How could he have believed that a handful of Sutherlands would have made a difference against the Britannian army? He might as well have served his allies and himself up to Cornelia on a silver platter. As Sutherland after Sutherland disappeared from Lelouch's radar, his despair grew. Bad enough that he had lost, but to have had hope of realizing his world, and then to have that hope shattered?

One of the Gloucesters that had headed the ambush rounded the corner, lance held high. Lelouch thought about raising his rifle and firing at the oncoming Knightmare, but he couldn't bring himself to pull the lever. He'd lost. He'd taken matters into his own hands, and he'd failed decisively. Trying to die honorably now was about as useful as plugging a dam with a wine cork.

"I've got you now, Eleven!"

The Gloucester lowered its lance, and charged Lelouch. Lelouch closed his eyes.

As his death approached, he thought he heard a loud whinny cut through the sounds of battle.

How appropriate…the pale horse, come to take me away.

And then a slightly louder crash.

Lelouch's eyes snapped open, more out of a reflex than anything else, and saw a dark shape interposing itself between him and the Gloucester. Upon closer inspection, it looked as though someone had decided to paint one of the Sutherlands black. But could a Sutherland move like that? Twisting its legs to deliver kicks? Bending in an almost organic way to avoid the Gloucester's prongs?

The fight took less than a minute, the Gloucester shattered beyond repair and the cockpit punched harmlessly out of the Knightmare Frame. Lelouch looked on in awe as the black Sutherland turned to him, and was shocked when a somewhat mechanized, but clearly feminine voice sounded from within it.

[It took Shooter and me a while to work out all the mechanical parts, but I think we've got it!]

Celty had created a Knightmare Frame? Lelouch had seen her horse transform into a motorcycle, and even a car, but he hadn't believed that it could form a fully-functioning Knightmare Frame. Particularly not one so effective. Immediately, he punched in to his radio channel.

"Attention all units! Reinforcements have arrived! Do your best to avoid direct confrontation until my say-so!"

He turned his attention back to Celty.

"R-16, advance and attack!"

[There is no R in chess. I don't think there's a 16 either.]

"…Advance and attack!"

She did, and beautifully so, cutting down enemy Sutherlands and Gloucesters alike. Maybe the Lancelot was faster or more powerful, but Lelouch didn't think even the White Reaper of Britannia could match the uncanny flexibility and grace possessed by Celty's creature.

As the odds evened, the terrorists seemed to refresh, striking back at the Britannian forces. Before long, the ambush had become a rout, and the Ambush of Saitama had earned its place in the history of Britannia's worst tactical maneuvers against Zero and the Black Knights.

As certain as Lelouch was that Celty's Knightmare (or perhaps, given its true nature, her Night Mare) outclassed anything Britannia could bring to bear against it, he was just as certain that relying on it would unquestionably prove fatal. He would learn just as much from this battle as Britannia did, and the next time he confronted his siblings, he'd be a force to be reckoned with.