Euphemia of the Personas

by Francis456

Full summery inside. After having a strange dream, Euphemia is whisked away to the quiet town of Inaba in another world where she must help in solving a mystery and discover her part in said mystery. However, even if the mystery is solved, it just may spell Euphemia's untimely end.

1. A Strange and Seemingly Pointless Dream

Euphemia of the Personas

A Strange and Seemingly Pointless Dream

Disclaimer – I do not own either Code Geass or the Shin Megami Tensei Persona franchise. Code Geass is the property of Sunrise, Gorō Taniguchi and Ichirō Ōkouchi and the Shin Megami Tensei Persona franchise is the property of Atlus.

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Summery – After the knighting of Suzaku Kururugi (or Kururugi Suzaku), Princess Euphemia li Britannia suddenly starts having strange dreams, and on top of that, after the incident at Shikine-jima, instead of ending up on Kamine-jima like Lelouch, Kallen and Suzaku, instead, she's whisked to another world, where she finds herself a guest of the place known as, the Velvet Room, in which a man called Igor informs her that she has a role to play in preventing an imminent catastrophe set to befall the country town known as Inaba. Afterwards, Euphemia finds herself in Inaba, where she meets up with Narukami Yū, who's staying with his uncle and cousin for a whole year while his parents work overseas. Strangely, though, Dōjima Ryōtarō, after seeing an Alien Registration Card with Euphemia's name on it comes to believe that she's a foreign-exchange student that he agreed to take on, much to everyone else's shock. Nonetheless, Euphemia resides herself to her fate and goes with Dōjima, Nanako and Yū. Unfortunately, it isn't long before trouble raise's its ugly head, despite making friends, Euphemia's strange dreams continue, and the pink-haired Princess and her new friends find themselves in the grips of an unusual murder case, where they come to realise that a world in which they can enter through television sets may be involved. Developing the power of Persona, Euphemia and her new friends vow to solve the case and bring the killer to justice. However, unfortunately, if that wasn't enough, the group eventually learn that there's more at stake than just catching the killer. Can they catch the killer and solve the mystery behind the mysterious fog, or is Inaba doomed to become enshrouded in fog forever, and just what part does Euphemia have in all this? Between the mystery and her strange, seemingly unrelated dreams, Euphemia comes to realise that she was brought to Inaba for a reason, a reason that just may spell her end.

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It was dark; that was the first thing that Euphemia li Britannia, Third Princess of the Holy Britannian Empire, could rationalise. However, she had no idea where she was, or even how she had gotten there. All she knew was that she was surrounded by nothing but pitch-blackness. For a moment, the pink-haired Princess started to panic, as she wondered just where she was and how she got there, but after just a few brief seconds, she then started to calm down as her memories up until that point came flowing back into her mind.

"Of course, silly me," she thought to herself reassuringly as she regained her composure, "This must be a dream."

Yes, that had to be it. The last thing she remembered was turning in for the night back in the Tōkyō Settlement's Government Bureau Building. It had been a really tiring day for her. First of all, she had chosen her Knight of Honour, Suzaku Kururugi… or Kururugi Suzaku, since Eastern Asian customs seemed to prefer a person's family name coming before their given name. Anyway, she had gone ahead with the Knighting Ceremony, and suffice to say, Suzaku had not been well received and he had definitely not been met with the approval of the nobility, and all because of his ethnicity.

Suzaku was Japanese, and since Japan had been conquered by Britannia, it had been reclassified as "Area Eleven" and its people reclassified as "Elevens", therefore in the eyes of many Britannians, he was considered ineligible for knighthood. That was something that Euphemia just could not and would not accept. Sure, she knew the rhetoric that her father, the Emperor, Charles zi Britannia, reiterated at every given opportunity he had; on how the strong survive and the weak perish, how all men were not equal and how equality was an unpardonable evil. His speech at her half-brother, Clovis's State Funeral said as much. Unfortunately, this led to the majority of Britannians thinking that they were superior to all other races in the world due to their nation's power, and that they had free reign to do whatever they pleased.

That was something that Euphemia found herself at odds with. It just was not fair. Suzaku was a phenomenal soldier and his loyalty to Britannia was unquestionable, and yet, because he was a mere "Number" and not a Britannian, none of that mattered to the majority of Britannians. He was an "Eleven", therefore his track record and services to the Empire did not count, and she would not have been surprised if he was also under constant scrutiny from those unwilling to accept that his loyalty was completely genuine. Honestly, it frustrated Euphemia to no end just how many Britannians were so closed-minded that they were willing to overlook the work of "Numbers", no matter how hard they worked in favour of the work of a pure Britannian, who may be rather lazy in comparison. It seemed that in today's world in Britannia, an incompetent lazy Britannian would always be chosen over a hard-working "Number" no matter what the situation was; especially if said Britannian happened to be part of the nobility.

It certainly did not help that her older sister, Cornelia li Britannia, actually seemed to agree with that line of thinking. As she put it, "Discrimination against the Numbers was Britannia's National Policy", and when Euphemia voiced her desire to change said policy, Cornelia had rudely brushed her off, and had angrily claimed that she could feel free to do so when she became Britannia's Empress.

Nonetheless, it was only because of Earl Lloyd Asplund and General Andreas Darlton that the nobles present for the Knighting Ceremony had all eventually started clapping. However, Euphemia knew how they really felt. In their eyes, Suzaku was an "Eleven", and therefore, he had no right to be there. He could have actually saved their skins several times over, and yet, because he was an "Eleven", they would still probably treat him with disdain and revulsion, refusing to acknowledge his services to them, and in fact would probably just hate him even more due to the damage that being saved by an "Eleven" would do to their egos.

"They could have at least pretended that they were okay with it," Euphemia mused to herself, as she remembered that the experience had left her feeling rather awkward, "But I suppose I can admire their honesty, though I have to wonder, if I had chosen a Britannian who was either a commoner or a noble that had fallen into disgrace, would they have felt more inclined to hide their disapproval?"

That was right, Euphemia continued to muse. A Britannian would have undoubtedly received a lot less hostility. She knew how the nobility were. They viewed themselves as superior to all, including the common masses of Britannia, but the difference between commoners and "Numbers" were that commoners were their own people. She knew that had she chosen someone, who was a commoner and, in the eyes of the nobility, was also a nameless nobody or a disgraced noble, like say, the former Margrave, Jeremiah Gottwald, had he not met his untimely demise during the battle at Narita, the nobles would have probably have still had the same contempt and derision that they had for Suzaku due to how he fell into disgrace after seemingly allowing, and even assisting the terrorist, Zero, to escape during Suzaku's Court Martial for the murder of Prince Clovis, but because her chosen candidate would have been a Britannian, and therefore, one of their own, they would have probably felt more inclined to keep their true feelings and any hostilities as a result of said feelings beneath the surface.

"Initial boot successful," a voice that Euphemia did not recognise seemed to echo through the darkness, startling her, as it had come out of nowhere without warning.

"Huh, what the… who's there?" Euphemia called out in confusion, since she believed that she had been alone in the darkness.

"Timestamped, Tuesday, 20th April, 1999, time, 10:16:39," the voice went on, either having not heard the pink-haired Princess or choosing to ignore her.

"I'm sorry, just what's going on?" Euphemia asked in confusion.

The voice, though sounding female, sounded like it was giving a pre-recorded message or like it was phrasing a diary entry, though; Euphemia had to admit that something about the voice's speech sounded a bit off somehow. She could not place her finger on it, but there was definitely an… irregularity, for lack of a better term, in the woman's speech pattern, at least, Euphemia assumed that it was a woman speaking.

However, one thing the pink-haired Princess did note, was that the date the voice had said sounded wrong. Even though she had not been born back in 1999, she had learned through history classes in school that 20th April 1999 a.t.b. had not fallen on a Tuesday, but a Thursday, and the a.t.b. at the end of the year had been absent. This only served to confuse her even further.

Unfortunately, before she could ponder on this dating inaccuracy, a bright light suddenly flashed before her eyes, causing her to clench her eyelids shut for a brief moment, and when she opened them again, after it had taken a short while for her eyes to adjust to the light, she was no longer alone in darkness. Instead she found herself standing in a room behind two men, one with neatly combed hair and the other with rather messy untidy looking hair, and both were dressed in white lab coats and they both appeared to be staring down at someone sitting in some sort of hi-tech looking chair, though, from her vantage point, Euphemia could not see clearly just who was sitting in the chair, she could tell from catching brief glimpses that it appeared to be a teenaged girl with long white hair.

"The boot process was successful," the man… or scientist as Euphemia could make out, with the neatly combed hair spoke in a somewhat soothingly calm tone, "This happens every time, but I'm never sure what to say to them first."

"You mean like a greeting?" the scientist with the messy untidy looking hair replied with a small chuckle, "There's no need for that. They're just machines."

"Machines?" Euphemia thought, as she struggled to get a better view of the girl in the chair.

The two scientists did not seem like they had noticed her and Euphemia found it strange that they seemed to ignore her, as if they were not aware of her presence in the room.

"Um…" Euphemia struggled to say aloud.

"Two humans wi'in visual range," a voice echoed in Euphemia's head, interrupting her before she could announce her presence to the two scientists.

"What was that?" Euphemia said aloud, sounding slightly panicked, as she looked around, trying to determine where the voice had come from.

"Both male," the voice continued to speak, clearly unaware of the pink-haired Princess's plight, "Soiching foah voiceprint an' visual matches…"

"Soiching, don't you mean searching?" Euphemia thought, as she listened to the voice's statement, "What a funny way of talking."

It was then that Euphemia suddenly realised just where the voice was coming from and who it belonged to. Not only that, but she also recognised the voice as belonging to the woman who she believed had spoken right before she exited the darkness and ended up in this lab with the two scientists. The voice definitely had the same speech irregularity as before, and not only that, but Euphemia also realised that she was hearing the voice in her own head and given that the chair's occupant was female, the pink-haired Princess guessed that it must have been her thoughts that she had just heard, though she was at a loss to explain just how or why she could hear this robot girl's thoughts.

"So, the girl they're milling over, I'm guessing is some sort of machine," she hypothesised to herself, as she took in what the two scientists had said earlier.

The girl's thoughts definitely sounded somewhat robotic despite the speech irregularity, and she did sound like she was making an analysis and only stating facts.

"Poisonnel iden'ified as resoich staff," the robot girl concluded in her analysis.

"Gee, I never thought such a feat was possible," Euphemia thought to herself, as she went over the fact that the girl sitting in the chair was a robot.

However, that left the question as to which of the three superpowers this robot girl was afflicted with. She had no idea that it had been possible to build a robot in the exact likeness of a human being. As far as she was aware, the technology necessary to achieve such a feat had not come to fruition yet… at least as far as she knew. However, it could be that someone did have the technology at their disposal and had not gone public with it… in which case; whatever it was she was seeing was a top-secret project that no one in the public domain knew about.

"But then again, this is just a dream," Euphemia reminded herself with a small laugh, "Albeit a really strange one, but a dream nonetheless."

This was indeed strange to her. She knew that she was dreaming, and yet, something about this whole situation did not add up. Euphemia could not put her finger on it, but she could definitely feel that something about her current situation was off. Something about all this felt a bit too… real, for lack of a better term, to her. The fact that the two scientists had not turned their attention towards her despite the fact that she had spoken aloud, though as confusing as that was, it also relaxed the pink-haired Princess, since she now knew that they could neither see nor hear her.

"Not hostile tahgets," the girl's voice came, bringing Euphemia back to reality, which indicated that she had not concluded her analysis.

"But things like that might affect the performance of these models," the neatly combed-haired scientist, as Euphemia had dubbed him, said in the same soothingly calm tone as before.

"Because they have a mind?" the messy-haired scientist, as Euphemia dubbed him, scoffed uncaringly in a dismissive tone, "Their "emotions" and things are completely faked… it's no different from an AI. It can't possibly be that sensitive."

This comment caused Euphemia to glare at the scientist's back as she heard the uncaring dismissiveness in his tone in regards to the girl.

"I'd watch that if I were you," she warned, even though she was now fully aware that they could not hear or see her, though, the messy-haired scientist's comment had angered her to the point where she ceased to care, "If something can think for itself, then comments like that could come back to haunt you later."

She definitely remembered watching a few movies and TV shows surrounding machines that were capable of thinking for themselves, and the premise of those stories were that they went on to rebel against their creators, and the main reason for that, in most cases, was human abuse; in other words, the humans viewed the machines as just that, machines, and treated them like dirt, with little to no regard for the machines' feelings, and it eventually got to the point where the machines had simply had enough and were not putting up with it anymore. In a way, it was very much like the "Numbers" of Britannia's conquered "Areas", with the Britannians constantly antagonising them, and then, eventually, the "Numbers" would go on to say something along the lines of "We're not putting up with this anymore", and it inevitably led to several rebellions that Britannia had to contend with almost on a daily basis.

"Scannin' foah key woids in convoisation," the girl's voice came again, as if letting the pink-haired Princess know that she was also listening to the two scientists' conversation.

"Don't you mean "Scanning for key words in conversation"?" Euphemia thought, though she could not help but let out a small giggle, finding the girl's speech pattern somewhat funny and, kind of cute.

"Runnin' logi'al analysis," the girl continued to analyse, seemingly ignorant to everything else around her, including Euphemia, "Cross-refoiencing wi' rela'ed da'ah. Current convoisation topic is not oidahs."

"Oidahs, orders," Euphemia noted, making a correction for the girl.

"Well, until we can rule it out completely, we should at least be kind to them," the neatly combed-haired scientist said in response to his colleague's dismissiveness.

"…So you say," the messy-haired scientist replied with an uncaring shrug, deciding to just play along for now, and then, he turned to focus his attention on the girl and started speaking to her, "All right, from this moment on, you will be registered as Candidate Unit #031. Please repeat your number back to me."

Euphemia could not help but glare at the scientist yet again. She supposed that since the girl was really a machine, then it made sense that she was given a number rather than a name, but the fact that she looked human seemed to dictate, at least in Euphemia's mind, that she be given a name rather than a mere number. It was worse than the Britannians stripping away the nationalities of those they conquered. The "Numbers" had their nationalities taken away and replaced with a number, but at least, as individuals, they had been allowed to keep their own unique individual names, i.e. Suzaku Kururugi was still Suzaku Kururugi despite being reclassified as an "Eleven". To give an individual a number rather than a name was something that Euphemia found just outright infuriating, even if the girl they were milling over was just a machine. As if someone could not be stripped of their dignity even further. Even Britannia did not sink that low, at least not yet as far as she was aware.

"Confoiming foist oidah," the girl's voice came, once again bringing the pink-haired Princess out of her thoughts, "Initialisin' unit numbah. Output via voice reques'ed. Activatin' voice syn'esis module. Acceptin' output."

"Gee, just short and to-the-point statements," Euphemia said with a sigh, "I suppose that's just to be expected of a robot, no matter how human they look."

"Unit Numbah, Zero-Three-One," the girl said, speaking aloud for the first time, and causing Euphemia to back away slightly, startled as hearing the girl's voice aloud.

It was then that Euphemia finally was able to get a good look at the room she was in. The walls were made up of pinkish brown square titles with small quarter-squares at each corner. Part of the floor also shared this pattern, at least to the left of where everyone was standing. There was a small step that elevated this portion of the floor slightly. The part of the floor they were all standing on was made up of light greyish white horizontal metal slabs with a long narrow greyish back pipe running vertically along the centre and running underneath the centre of the chair. A little to the right was a thick brown borderline that separated the chair portion of the floor with, yet another portion of the floor, which was the same as the walls. Each title, at where the corners met appeared to be small dark reddish brown diamond shapes with larger transparent squares. At both the step off to the left and the borderline to the right, where the metal slabs met one another were small black half-squares.

Looking up, Euphemia noted that the ceiling appeared to be grey with two rows of long vertically positioned yellowish green lights. Also, on the left wall was a window and looking through it, Euphemia seemed convinced that it was the window to a room full of computer servers. Also to the left was a contraption that was hanging down a screen that displayed four different computer-style windows, each one blue in colour, but displaying different sorts of data.

To the right was some kind of machine, the same colour as the walls with a small console at it. Euphemia could not understand what this machine was, but she noticed that to the right, there was a pole or pipe of some sort attached to it and running up towards the ceiling and to the left there was a huge thick cable-like pipe attach to the top of the machine and it run downwards behind the chair where the robot girl was currently sitting. She also noticed that behind the chair was a huge grey segmented monolith like structure that ran up into the greenish yellow light that shone in a huge circular device above the chair that was attached to two poles on either side of it and the poles ran the entire height of the room. Euphemia also noticed various wired attached to the back of the chair that ran up into the circular device, as well as a small screen in front of the robot girl, which only further obscured her view.

"Hm…?" the neatly combed-haired scientist said, raising a curious eyebrow upon hearing the girl's speech irregularity, "Did its pronunciation sound a little odd to you?"

"It, I realise that you're talking about a machine, but since "it" looks like a human girl, I'd feel more comfortable referring to "her" as if "she" was a human girl," Euphemia said, feeling rather miffed, and was not pleased with the two scientists' dismissive and uncaring attitudes towards the girl, despite the fact she knew that they could not hear her.

Those two were really starting to annoy her with their lack of sensitivity. Sure, she knew that because the girl was a machine that their insensitive attitudes was probably understandable. However, it still angered her regardless. It was a machine, yes, but it looked human, and therefore, as far as Euphemia was concerned, it should be addressed and referred to as if it were a human being. After all, if it could think for itself, then the scientists' insensitivity would undoubtedly cause problems further down the line. After all, AI or not, the girl could still think for herself, and therefore, she had feelings, feelings that, fake or not, could drive her to potentially rebel when she inevitably became tired of the scientists' mistreatment of her and started to question them on why she had to take orders. Oh yes, Euphemia could definitely see that coming, even though she had no idea just what was going on yet.

"You're worrying too much," the messy-haired scientist said, as his tone started to sound just a bit annoyed and impatient, "Let's hurry up and haul it out."

"Receivin' action plan through consoile," the girl's voice echoed in Euphemia's head, reminding the pink-haired Princess that, despite her silence, she was still functioning, "Combat test against udahs of same unit. Test commencin' immedia'ely aftah en'erin' shock-resis'ant chambah wi'in de lab."

"What, combat, so she's supposed to be some kind of weapon then?" Euphemia said in stunned shock and disbelief, before she calmed down with a sigh, "Good thing this is a dream though, I'd hate to think that this was real and some anti-Britannian plot."

"Frame stoahed wi'in cage for transpoit," the girl's analysis went on in Euphemia's mind, "Beginnin' transpoit."

All of a sudden, everything around Euphemia started to fade to blackness, startling her.

"Hey, what's going on?" she said, feeling a wave of panic flood her mind, having not expecting everything to suddenly return to darkness.

"Ah, so this is the one," a new, female voice came, echoing through the darkness, which, for some reason, seemed to calm the panicking Princess, since it let her know that she was safe and had nothing to fear, "I've been waiting to see it in action."

"Transpoit complete," the robot girl's voice came in Euphemia's mind, as if further reassuring her that she was safe despite the darkness, "Cage reoa'ened. New human found. Soichin' for voiceprint and visual matches… Poisonnel also iden'ified as resoich staff. Female."

"Thank you for stating the obvious," Euphemia could not help but snark with a giggle.

"Cuttin' connection ta outside da'ah supply," the girl went on, ignoring Euphemia's comment, "Connection offline. Commencin' cable disconnection."

Following that inner monologue, Euphemia suddenly heard a noise that sounded like a mix between a cable being unplugged, like the girl had stated in her inner monologue and a whir sound.

"Now, try getting up," the female voice, that Euphemia assumed must have belonged to a female scientist, stated.

"Oidah confoimed," the girl thought to herself, seemingly unaware of the pink-haired Princess's ability to hear her, or even that Euphemia was even there.

---

The next thing Euphemia knew when she was no longer surrounded by darkness, she was standing in a huge circular room. The walls and floor were all a metallic dark pink colour with a cylindrical structure in the centre that ran up the entire height of the room. There were also purple borderlines running vertically down the walls along with two catwalks running around the entire room. The cylindrical structure in the centre of the room also had a catwalk running around it near the top.

Continuing to take in her surroundings, Euphemia also noticed that there was a small gap between the wall and the floor as well as another small gap between the floor and the central cylinder, as Euphemia dubbed it, and also, she noticed the walls and the central cylinder were peppered with longer rectangular shaped glowing lights of various lengths. There was also a circle of those lights running around the central cylinder as well. However, looking up at the ceiling, the pink-haired princess noticed glass panels at forty-five-degree diagonal angles running around the central cylinder and behind them with a dark bluish white glow.

"That must be where the scientists are," she said to herself with a nod, as she finished analysing where she was.

She suddenly heard what sounded like robotic noises coming from behind her, causing her to spin around and then she saw that part of the wall behind her had risen and for the first time, Euphemia was able to get a good look at the robot girl that the scientists had been milling over, since she stood with her back to the entrance that she had just entered from, even as the wall slid back into place.

"Wow," Euphemia could not help but say, as she examined every part of the robot girl.

To be honest, Euphemia could not help but stare as she felt as if her breath had been taken away. Despite her clearly mechanical appearance, Euphemia could not deny that this girl, robot or not, looked stunningly beautiful. Her face alone, despite the stone-cold blank and emotionless look was absolutely breath-taking. She even had a bulge in the chest area, giving the appearance of breasts, despite the fact that she was a machine, and therefore, the addition of breasts should not be necessary. Euphemia believed that it was simply just to make her look more human, probably so the scientists would probably feel a lot more comfortable around her, at least that's what the pink-haired Princess reasoned. Anyway just looking at her, Euphemia felt that despite her being a machine, she could just stare into the girl's almost-hypnotically beautiful face all day.

"She's really beautiful," the pink-haired Princess whispered to herself, and for some weird reason, she could also feel her heart start to race.

Her stunning beauty was definitely captivating. If not for her obviously mechanical body, then just staring into her face alone, one would not believe that she was actually a machine.

The girl, herself, had long white hair tied into a ponytail and she had a fringe at the front that was brushed over to the left, revealing her surprisingly stunning crimson red eyes. The bottoms of her legs were painted red, as if to give the appearance that she was wearing shoes and her legs were a metallic grey colour with visible knee joints, and knees taking the shape of ovular knee guards with metallic grey bands running around the back. At the sides of her upper thighs were two circles, one on each side, split into quarters with the upper left quarter black, the lower left quarter yellow, the upper right quarter yellow and the lower right quarter black. At the tops of her legs were vertical rectangular gaps with rounded corners and at the sides, rising up to the top of the hips were two rounded ends with a black circle that resembled a giant screw.

The front of the robot girl's upper torso was covered by a white striped sheet that looked a bit like a sweeter that ran up the length of her neck to the underside of her chin. Her back and sides were metallic with clips, three of either side, holding the front sheet in place. Her arms were also obviously mechanical, as her shoulders were made up of just the joints that connected her arms to her body. The tops of her arms were very much like the tops of her legs and her upper arms had a small area of white in between the shoulders and elbow with the grey only acting as the borderline. Her forearms were red and the red ran from her elbows to her hands, though her fingers were clearly a greyish white colour. There was a small gap between the bottom of her forearms and her hands that nearly exposed the wrist joints. Also near the top of her forearms where small rectangular haps with rounded corners and above that, her forearms seemed to fan out slightly before coming back in towards the centre where the elbow joints were situated.

If that was not enough, Euphemia noticed that mounted on the girl's back was what appeared to be a part of grey metallic miniature butterfly wings, though the edges looked more like curved guillotine blades. Each "wing" had three gaps on the inside, closest to the girl and filling edge gap was what looked like a rocket thruster of some kind, each with a blue piped cable attached to the top… well, it was just one piped cable actually. On her back was with appeared to be a cylindrical metallic container with a red coned bottom. At the top of this "container", the blue piped was attached, branching out in either direction, curving upwards and also branching off at where it was near one of the rocket thrusters.

Euphemia also noticed that the girl also had a grey metallic hairband over the top of her head with rounded cornered rectangular gap, much like the visor of a medieval knight's helmet, and instead of ears, were red disc-like attached with the tops covered by the sides of the hairband and each side had a blue cable running off behind the girl to a strange metallic guard-like attached that covered part of her ponytail. It had the same rounded-cornered rectangular pattern as her hairband and two wing-like appendixes angled downwards.

"I wonder what that's for," Euphemia wondered, taking note of the strange metallic guard over the girl's ponytail.

"Get up," the girl's voice came in Euphemia's head, and Euphemia just had to, once again, wonder just why she was hearing the girl's inner monologues, "Initiatin' motion syn'ronisation engines foah moa'ah functions. Acceptin' output. Safety limi'ahs active. Balance control gyros functional. Overall movement sys'ems functional."

Euphemia could not help but roll her eyes at hearing more of the girl's short-and-to-the-point statements.

"Gee, this is getting really boring, but then again, what can one expect from a robot?" Euphemia mused with a chuckle at the last part.

"This model's loaded with a nearly pure form of that crystal…" the voice of the female scientist boomed through hidden speakers from somewhere within the room, sounding rather excited, "I can't wait to see what kind of results it gets."

"Pure form, crystal… what's that about?" Euphemia wondered, feeling her curiosity peek at overhearing the scientist's statement, "I suppose, provided I don't wake up, I'll find out eventually."

"Unit #031, can you hear me?" the voice of the messy-haired scientist came from the hidden speakers, "Confirm your surroundings. Tell us any abnormalities you're feeling in your sensors or any other functions."

"Oidah confoimed," the girl, Unit #031, as the scientists addressed her, thought, with only Euphemia hearing her, "Beginnin' simple self-diagnostic."

There was a brief silence as Euphemia heard a whirring scanning sound.

"Temperachah, humid," Euphemia heard Unit #031 reporting to herself.

"Really, I wouldn't know because, apparently I'm transparent," Euphemia commented as she looked down at herself to see that she was indeed, transparent, and therefore could not feel the temperature.

"…Presshah, aiah composition, lumens, sound all wi'in noimal levels," Unit #031 went on, even as Euphemia made her joking comment, "Visual da'ah wi'in expec'ed culah spec'rum. All systems functional."

"The readouts seem fine," the female scientist said, with Euphemia assuming that she was answering for Unit #031, "Monitoring system is fully operational."

"Okay, we're going to be testing your performance inside the battle chamber now," the voice of the messy-haired scientist came, clearly speaking to Unit #031.

"So this is the battle chamber?" Euphemia said, as she had another look around, remembering what Unit #031 had said before ending up here, about how she was going to be fighting against other robots of the same make and model.

She could not help but be fascinated with the height of the room and how futuristic and hi-tech it looked.

"When you hear the buzzer, consider everything that moves an enemy and eliminate them," the messy-haired scientist went on, oblivious to the intruder within the battle chamber.

"Oidah confoimed," Euphemia heard Unit #031 acknowledge.

She then heard the sound of metal coming into contact with metal and turned to see that Unit #031 was walking further towards the central cylinder.

"Awaitin' da sign ta begin da test," Unit #031 continued to monologue, also doing a brief scan of her surroundings as she did so, at least, that's what Euphemia believed she was doing, "Exit confoimed ta be sealed. Room shape: approximately cylindri'al. Height: approximately eleven mee'ahs. Area: approximately seven me'ahs-squaiah."

"Yes, well, I could've done without a thorough measurement of the room," Euphemia mused, knowing full-well that no one could see or hear her, but she supposed it was just a means to amuse herself.

"High-enahgy light soices found on outah wall," Unit #031 went on, seemingly ignorant of her fellow occupant's thoughts, "Assumed ta be fiah-resistant and bulletproof."

"Sorry to do this just after you've woken up, but it'll put you through your paces," the messy-haired scientist said, seemingly in apology, but from Euphemia's perspective, he sounded rather bored and was not sorry at all, and this caused her to glare up at the glass panels, where she believed the scientists were.

However, just then, a whirring sound was heard and several parts of the wall started moving upwards, revealing that in addition to making up the chamber's walls, they also doubled as doors. Seven wall panels rose in total and behind each one was, yet another robot girl. Each individual was different in their own unique way, having different colour schemes and different hairstyles, but the one thing Euphemia did notice was that all seven had the same colour of hair and eyes, the same colours as Unit #031, and all seven were built to resemble human girls.

"Release o' facin' hatch detected," Unit #031 observed as the seven other robot girls all started to spread out and assume battle stances, "Mobile objects intrudin' inta chambah."

She then paused as she performed a brief rescan of the area, taking in each new robot girl that she now identified as her opponents.

"Seven objects in to'al," she went on, resuming her analysis, "Scannin' foah visual matches. Analysis: nonhuman. Confoimed as same-model units of humanoid weapons."

"I wonder if this is the idea of some sick and twisted perverted moron desperate to fulfil some sort of sick fantasy," Euphemia wondered in obvious disgust, as she also took in the other robot girls.

"Hostile mahkahs confoimed," Unit #031 stated, indicating that she knew what was expected of her from the scientists, "Classifyin' as hostile units. Releasin' safety limi'ahs. Ba'le limit now set at seventy poicent."

After this, the seven wall panels that had opened up suddenly all came down, as if slamming shut behind each of the other robot girls.

"Exits confoimed resealed," Unit #031 stated in her monologue after confirming that the doors had indeed been locked.

Just then, a buzzer started sounding and Euphemia knew that that was the signal for the battle to begin.

"Gee, I hope my transparency here holds out," she thought nervously.

Even though she knew that she was in a dream and that there was no chance of her being hurt, she still could not help but be a little fearful that she would unintentionally get caught in the crossfire and end up dead. She supposed that it was just natural human behaviour. Despite her apparent transparency and invisibility here, due to how real everything seemed, she was still a bit scared and knew that her instincts might start kicking in despite that.

"Not to worry," she said aloud, trying to reassure herself, "If anything happens I suppose, I'll just wake up like I had a nightmare or something."

She could not help but follow up with a nervous laugh.

"Test commencement signal received," Unit #031's voice echoed in her mind, letting Euphemia know that she also understood the buzzer's meaning, but unbeknownst to Euphemia, Unit #031 turned her head briefly and stared right at her, but almost immediately turned her attention back to her opponents and refocused on the task at hand, "Tahgets: hostile humanoid weapons. Commencin' ba'le."

Euphemia ran towards the wall panel where Unit #031 had entered the battle chamber, intent on staying as far away from her as possible while she fought off her seven opponents. She heard the sound of Unit #031's rocket thrusters powering up and could not help but turn to see what was going on.

"I wonder if this is seven on one or a battle royale," Euphemia could not help but wonder, as she saw the thrusters on Unit #031's back fire up and launch her into the air.

What happened next, Euphemia would not have believed if she had not witnessed it for herself. Once in the air, before Euphemia could accurately pinpoint her position, Unit #031 had swooped down on one of her opponents, causing an explosion, and the next thing Euphemia knew, she was seeing the remains of the hostile unit, which mostly consisted of her head flying out from a cloud of smoke. The head itself was cracked, broken and missing an eye, very much like the head of a broken plastic doll.

Looking through the smoke, Euphemia could see Unit #031 standing with a completely blank look on her face that held absolutely no emotion whatsoever. What happened next was that the "container" on her back, attached to the "wings" detached from her back and extended in length, revealing that it was also a staff and looking at it, Euphemia released that it also doubled as a weapon, a double-headed battle axe to be precise. Unit #031 grabbed the staff of her axe and ran right towards another of her opponents, one armed with a naginata, a Japanese style bladed spear weapon, and who proceeded to thrust it towards her, but Unit #031 veered off to the left, so easily, it was as if her opponent had been moving at a snail's pace, and before her opponent could contemplate on this, Unit #031 swung her axe, bringing the blade right into contact with the side of the hostile unit's neck, causing it to explode.

Euphemia's eyes widened in a mixture of awe and disbelief as the remains of the hostile unit fell to the floor. However, she then noticed another hostile unit up in the air that appeared to dive bomb Unit #031 while swinging her weapon towards her, but Unit #031, using the thrusters on her axe was able to hop out of the way like a grasshopper, and then, she spun around and, with just one swing from her axe, she disarmed her opponent while they were both still in mid-air. However, the hostile unit quickly recovered and landed on her feet and turned to face Unit #031, who was already moving rapidly towards her in a dive-bomb fashion.

Aiming her right arm at Unit #031 and clenching her hand into a fist, her forearm shot off, revealing that it was attached to a chain, but Unit #031 swung her axe in front of herself, causing the chain to wrap round it, and then she brought her axe back with a rather violent jerk, bringing her opponent flying upwards towards her, and then, aiming her own fist at her opponent, she performed the same technique her opponent had, punching her hard in the side of her face with enough force to cause her eyes and teeth to explode out of her head, effectively killing the hostile unit, and all the while, she still maintained her stone-cold hard-rock lack-of-emotion look on her face, as if the fates of her opponents meant nothing to her.

The hostile unit's body exploded as Unit #031 landed on her feet and retracted her arm. Her back was to Euphemia, and the pink-haired Princess also noticed a camera was also watching her, focusing on her back. Looking at Unit#031 from this angle without her axe mounted on her back, Euphemia noticed a red orb that appeared to be embedded in her lower back and also in the area that separated her upper and lower torso, she had a metallic grey skirt-like structure with the same rounded cornered rectangular spaces at the tops of her legs, the tops of her arms, her hairband and that guard-like attaching near the top of her ponytail. It did indeed look as if Unit #031 was wearing a skirt.

Everything seemed to go quiet as low beeping noises were heard. Up in the observation room, one of the scientists looked on with the screen reflecting off his glassed as more beeping sounds were heard and seemed to increase in frequency, as if leading up to something.

Back down in the battle chamber, the red disks situated where Unit #031's ears were supposed to be started to spin at a rapid rate, as the thrusters on her axe blasted her into the air, and taking her axe in one hand, bringing it behind her, she let loose one almighty swing towards the rest of her opponents, causing explosion after explosion, as surviving body parts all landed on the floor and the entire chamber became littered with robotic bodies and parts of bodies and the entire chamber suddenly became flooded in a huge cloud of smoke, with Euphemia, though not coughing from inhalation, was struggling to see what was going on. She noticed a battered and broken unit standing a few feet away, just outside the smoke cloud, but then, a hand suddenly burst out from the smoke cloud and grabbing the unit by the neck, hoisted her up into the air.

The smoke soon cleared, revealing Unit #031 as the only unit still standing with the disks on the sides of her head still rotating and whirring away. Euphemia could only watch, not really sure what to feel as she heard cracking noises from the unit that Unit #031 had hoisted into the air and also, the unit was shaking uncontrollably, indicating that Unit #031 was still applying pressure to her neck. However, looking between the faces of the two units, Euphemia noticed a major difference between them. Whereas Unit #031's expression was the same as usual, dead, cold, blank and devoid of any emotion, what shocked Euphemia the most was that the expression of the defeated unit, in stark contrast to that of Unit #031's, held an expression of pure and utter fear and looking into her eyes, Euphemia could see a terrified and pleading look in them, even now, it was as if the unit was begging for mercy, but unfortunately, Euphemia could tell just by looking at Unit #031 that she had none.

The sound of clapping echoed over the speakers, causing Euphemia to glare up at the glass panels where the observation room was. This was monstrous and barbaric. Pitting people against one another in fights to the death. It was like a Roman Coliseum where gladiators fought against one another. Of course, they were not pitting humans against one another, but machines. However, that did not matter to Euphemia. Maybe it was because the machines in question looked human and could think for themselves that she felt this way. Perhaps the scientists were just sadists that really got off on pain and suffering, but had to resort to using machines fitted with AIs in order to get around human rights laws, since with them being machines, human rights technically did not apply to them.

"How cruel and barbaric," she said to no one in particular, "It's bad enough that Britannians do this with their fellow humans because of their ethnicity."

That was true, Euphemia had to admit. Some Britannians did this sort of thing in the criminal underworld all the time. Despite her naïve and outgoing nature, Euphemia was a heck of a lot smarter than many people, her own sister included, gave her credit for. Technically in Britannia, pitting humans against one another, even "Numbers" was considered illegal, since many Britannians considered even that as going too far. However, that did not stop it from going on, and the sad part was that the majority of Britannian law enforcement were quite prepared to accept bribes from the ringleaders of such activities and intentionally look the other way, not wanting to waste their time with "disgusting, rotten Numbers" and another sad fact was that many of the ringleaders were either of the nobility, and abused their power, or had connections to the nobility in some way or other. It absolutely sickened Euphemia to no end.

Of course, being Sub-Viceroy of "Area Eleven", she technically had the power to do something about it.. at least within the confines of "Area Eleven" itself, but unfortunately, Cornelia had stepped in and had overridden her authority, telling her to leave the nobles alone, claiming that it was for her own safety, since many would probably seek to assassinate her if they felt she was breathing down their necks and was becoming too much of a threat to them. That and the fact that Cornelia really hated and despised all "Numbers" and considered anything to do with helping them as counterproductive and a waste of time.

However, before she could continue on her train of thought, a loud crack brought her back to reality and she looked to see that Unit #031 had snapped the defeated unit's neck, and yet, despite the brutality and lack of compassion from Unit #031, Euphemia, for some bizarre reason that she could not explain, just could not fault the robot girl for what she had done, despite the pleading look on the defeated unit's face. No, it was not Unit #031's fault. She was just a machine following her orders and saw no reason why she should disobey. She was very much like a child that did not know any better. The fault, as far as Euphemia was concerned, lay with the scientists.

"All tahgets elimina'ed," Unit #031's voice echoed in Euphemia's mind, letting the pink-haired Princess know that she was back to making most of her statements in her inner thoughts, "Hostile units no longah ca'able o' motion."

Following the robot girl's inner monologue, a buzzer sounded and Euphemia guessed that must be the signal that the battle was over, though from what Euphemia could see it was not much of a battle, since Unit #031 had easily defeated all seven of her opponents as if she had gone for a walk in the park.

"Test toimination signal received," Unit #031 noted after hearing the buzzer, indicating that she also knew what it meant, "Ba'le complete."

Euphemia sighed in relief and placed her hands on her knees, glad to still be alive. However, what she failed to notice was Unit #031 staring at her… well she was staring in Euphemia's general direction, but from the look she was giving, it was as if she was staring straight at Euphemia.

"That was better than we could've hoped for…" the female scientist said with awe and admiration in her voice.

The sound of a door opening could be heard over the speakers, piquing the pink-haired Princess's curiosity.

"O-oi, what's with all the bodies?" a voice that Euphemia recognised as belonging to the neatly combed-haired scientist said, sounding somewhat panicked, "You made it fight this many on its first time?"

"So, what's the problem?" Euphemia mocked with a humourless laugh, "From what I saw, that was a cake-walk."

"Don't worry, it did great," the messy-haired scientist said dismissively, trying to reassure his somewhat frantic colleague, "This is a new high score for the first battle results."

"Well done, Unit #031," the female scientist said, speaking directly to Unit #031, congratulating her on her victory, as she ignored the argument her two colleagues were having, "Stand by for further instruction."

"Oidah confoimed," Unit #031 acknowledged to herself, as the wall panel behind her slid open and she then turned and started to walk towards the exit, even as for Euphemia, everything once again faded to blackness, "Exi'in' test chambah."

"Not again," Euphemia groaned, not too happy that everything was fading to black once again, though she did have to wonder when she would wake up.

This did seem strange to her. She knew she was dreaming. She had to be, and yet, something about this entire situation felt a bit too real to her. She was familiar with dreams. Most of the time, when she dreamed, she was not aware of it and in the past, whenever she did dream, she would always seem to wake up when her dream got to a really good part. However, this seemed different somehow. She was aware that she was dreaming and yet, she had not yet woken up. Usually whenever she became aware that she was dreaming in the past, it was enough to wake up her, but this did not seem the case this time.

"Is this really a dream?" she started to wonder.

"Beginnin' transpoit ta main'enance room,," Unit #031's voice came, causing her to come out of her thoughts once again.

---

The next thing Euphemia was aware of, she was standing back in the lab where she had been before Unit #031's combat test. Unit #031 was back sitting in the chair, though this time, none of the scientists were milling around her and she could get a good look at her.

"Rese'in' safety limi'ahs," Unit #031 announced to herself, still unaware that Euphemia could hear her, "Tay'in' seat in main'enance chaiah."

Euphemia could not help but, once again, giggle as Unit #031's strange speech pattern.

"I think it makes you all the more cute," she said to the robot girl, despite knowing that she could not hear her, "It helps add to your appeal."

However, this only caused Unit #031 to stare directly at Euphemia in confusion, the first emotion that crossed her otherwise blank face since her initial activation.

"We're done testing, but there's still one thing left to do today," the female scientist's voice came from behind Euphemia, causing the pink-haired Princess to turn and get a good look at her.

Euphemia had to say that she was surprised, considering that she had not been in the lab before. She had short dark brown hair that was tied at the back into a bun and she wore rectangular glasses with rounded corners. The light shining off her glasses made determining her eye colour impossible, but to Euphemia's shock, the woman looked as if she was Japanese. She wore black high-heeled shoes and a pink one-piece dress under her lab coat. She also had a clipboard in her right arm and a nametag pinned to the left side of her lab coat and Euphemia's eyes widened in shock, since despite not learned kanji, hiragana or katakana, she found that she could read the kanji symbols on the nametag perfectly as if they had been written in the roman alphabet and the name on the nametag read, Isobe Reiko, or Reiko Isobe, since Euphemia knew that the Japanese prioritised their family names before their given names when introducing themselves.

"So her name is Reiko," Euphemia noted with a nod, though she was curious as to why the female scientist was Japanese.

"I'm going to temporarily shut down your optics," Reiko went on, speaking to Unit #031, unaware of the pink-haired intruder standing in front of her, "Can you close your eyes?"

"Oidah confoimed," Euphemia heard Unit #031 acknowledge, as suddenly, everything went black once again as Unit #031 closed her eyes.

"Oh no, this is really starting to annoy me," the pink-haired Princess thought with a groan of frustration, "Just what's going on?"

"Shu'erin' optic inputs," Unit #031 went on, and Euphemia somehow knew that she was still in the lab, though why she was seeing nothing but blackness despite this was beyond her.

"Connec'in' cables," Unit #031 said as Euphemia heard the sound of a cable being plugged into somewhere, "Online confoimed. Switchin' a poition o' da'ah supply ta outside soice."

"We're going to transfer the data from the destroyed units into your memory," the voice of the messy-haired scientist said, further reassuring Euphemia that she was still in the lab.

"Transfer the data into her memory…" she said, parroting the scientist's comment curiously, "Why?"

"Run a diagnostic check while we're doing it and report any malfunctions, understood?" the messy-haired scientist went on, unaware of Euphemia's question.

"Oidah confoimed," Unit #031 acknowledged to herself, "Readyin' self-diagnostic."

A loud, what Euphemia could only identify as a beeping sound was heard and then, afterwards there was nothing but silence.

"Initiatin' da'ah transfoi," Unit #031 said, as she seemed to be explaining the process she was going through to herself.

"I suppose it just comes with being a machine," Euphemia commented to herself, giving her own opinion of Unit #031's monologue, "Though I have to say that the way she talks keeps it from being dull and boring."

"Initiatin' Poisonality Module link," Unit #031 continued, and Euphemia could not help but let out a small giggle at listening to her.

However, all of a sudden, there was a brief flash of white light, startling Euphemia.

"Eep!" she yelped, feeling herself jump, but as soon as the flash appeared, it had vanished and everything was black once again.

"Initiatin' diagnostic o' transfoied da'ah and sor'in' preceduahs," Unit #031's voice came, calming the pink-haired Princess and Euphemia soon realised that the brief flash was just part of the procedure that Unit #031 was going through, "Sectah 001: Close combat control da'ah. Will investigate improvement o' tactical pa'erns through syn'esis an' acquisition of da'ah."

"Upload the data into her memory," Euphemia said, repeating the messy-haired scientist's comment, "I wonder; could it be that she's to go over their attack patterns, find out where they went wrong in order to prevent herself from making the same mistakes in future?"

"Dividin' inta ca'egories foah soi'in'," Unit #031 went on, seemingly obliviously to the pink-haired girl unintentionally intruding on her inner monologue.

"I guess that must be it," Euphemia mused to herself, as she went over her own hypothesis.

"Sectah 002: Evasive action control da'ah," Unit #031 went on, continuing with her own self-diagnosis, "Will investigate improvement o' tactical pa'erns through syn'esis an' acquisition of da'ah. Dividin' inta ca'egories for soi'in'."

"Yes, you said that already," Euphemia said in a total deadpan tone, pointing out on how the robot girl had reused her earlier phrase, "But I suppose being a machine, it's part of your programming."

"Sectah 003: Non-ba'le da'ah," Unit #031 went on, though Euphemia could have sworn she heard what sounded like a hint of frustration in her tone, though it was so brief that she guessed that she must have imagined it, "Errah. Excludin'. Sectah 004: non-ba'le da'ah. Errah. Excludin'. Sectah 005: Ba'le-related da'ah. What could dese be?"

"Huh?" Euphemia said, being taking be surprise at hearing the robot girl's question.

It was the first statement that Euphemia heard from Unit #031 that she could honestly say did not sound like she was reciting all her activities like she had been doing before. In fact, it sounded like she was rather curious and her tone while asking herself that question did not sound like it was devoid of emotion like it usually was. In fact, Unit #031's tone sounded genuinely curious. It did come as a surprise to Euphemia, since she had long since gotten used to the robot girl's flat emotionless voice.

Another brief flash of white light caused Euphemia to jump again, but unlike before, she managed to calm herself down, realising that it was all part of the procedure.

"Momentary disruption o' da'ah from visual infoimation stream," Unit #031 went on, her voice back to its usual emotionless self, "A room dat is not dis place. Outdoah scenery thought ta be at night. Also scenes o' multiple units of de same type gaddering outside o' de ba'le chambah. Could dese be memories?"

Once again, Euphemia found herself surprised at the unexpected question, which was laced with as much curiosity as the last one.

"Visual memories?" Unit #031 went on to ask herself, still curious, but then her tone shifted back to its emotionless state, as it took on a dismissive demeanour, "Dey ah obviously unrela'ed ta da mission. Why 'ave apparen'ly purposeless memories 'ave been presoived dis long? Twenty to foity poicent o' de infoimational da'ah extrac'ed from all seven units are confoimed ta be such infoimation. Incomprehensible. What is dis?"

This time, her tone sounded rather confused. It was clear to Euphemia that the information that was not related to the prior battle confused her.

"I suppose that's to be expected considering that she's a been built as a weapon," the pink-haired Princess hypothesised, as she mulled over the robot girl's sudden confusion and curiosity, "Being programmed to fight is probably like a human growing up as a soldier learning nothing other than military-related topics, therefore, when confronted with a situation not related to the military means that they don't know how to handle it."

She could cite her older sister, Cornelia, as a prime example of that. Sure, Cornelia may not have been training for the military since she learned to walk, but Euphemia could tell that after training for the military and being surrounded by the military for so long, Cornelia only knew how to fight, that coupled the fact that she had developed a near-pathological hatred of all non-Britannians since their half-siblings, Lelouch and Nunnally, had been lost in the war with Japan seven years ago only amplified the problem. Due to her becoming so accustomed to her military training, Cornelia had developed the misguided notion that all her problems, no matter what they were, could be solved with bullets. A problem arises, put a bullet in its source and that was that, problem solved. That's how Cornelia saw things, and unfortunately, this mind-set had left her ill-equipped in dealing with issues outside of the military.

"Anything to report?" the voice of the messy-haired scientist came through the darkness, bringing Euphemia out of her thoughts.

This was followed by the sound of cables being unplugged.

"Cables disconnected," Unit #031 reported, her tone back to its emotionless state once again "Time elapsed durin' da'ah transfoi: approxime'ly five minutes."

"That's funny, it seemed to take a lot longer than that," Euphemia commented with a laugh, "Gee, I know that no one can hear me, and yet, I find myself talking away anyway. I guess I'm just trying to prevent myself from feeling lonely and going insane."

Afterwards, the interior of the lab started to fade back into existence, much to Euphemia's immense relief, since she honestly hated being surrounded by darkness.

"Reopenin' optic inputs," Unit #031 reported to herself, opening her eyes as her earlier bout of curiosity and confusion seemed to have apparently been forgotten about, "Calibratin' servos."

"Alright then, Unit #031," the voice of the messy-haired scientist came from behind Euphemia, causing her to spin around and for the first time, she got a good look at him, "Give us a simple report of today's battle results."

He definitely looked untidy in Euphemia's opinion with short messy and greasy dark greyish brown hair and he also looked Japanese. He also wore brown-rimmed rectangular glasses with rounded corners over his eyes and the glasses had a thick bridge running over his nose and like with Reiko, the light shining on his glasses made determining his eye colour impossible. Aside from his lab coat, the rest of his clothes looked crumpled and dishevelled, like they had not been properly ironed or even washed in a long time. He wore black tattered shoes that looked really old with the skin peeling off in places and also had smudges of grey on them. He also wore grey trousers that were obviously creased and looked as if they had been clearly crumpled, a black leather belt that was in the same state as his shoes and a dark grey shirt underneath his lab coat with the top two buttons undone. Not only did he look absolutely abysmal and off-putting, but just by looking at him, Euphemia found that she would not be surprised if it turned out that he had not bathed in at least a week at best. Like Reiko, he also had a nametag pinned to the left side of his lab coat and the name printed on it read, Edogawa Senichi.

"Oidah confoimed," Euphemia heard Unit #031 acknowledge to herself, "Deliverin' oral repoit of test result."

"Dis was de foist test ba'le against udahs o' ma model," Unit #031 reported, and Euphemia had to say that it felt strange hearing her speaking aloud, since she had long since grown used to just hearing her inner thoughts, "Seven units destroyed. Below fifteen-poicent damage sustained. Don't seem ta be any problems."

"Hm, was that…?" Edogawa started to say in surprise and also a hint of curiosity after hearing Unit #031's strange speech pattern and gave the robot girl a rather surprised and inquiring stare.

"Unusual expression detected from resoich staff," Unit #031 noted, as she observed Edogawa's expression, "Facial recognition library indicates surprise."

"Way to state the obvious yet again," Euphemia replied sarcastically with a laugh.

"Hm, did I say some'in' funny?" Unit #031 asked curiously, which, once again, surprised Euphemia since expected that the robot girl would not speak unless she was spoken to, and only if she was required to provide an answer.

"Does it… have an accent?" Reiko spoke up, adding in her own two cents at inquiring about the robot girl's speech pattern.

"Ac…cent?" Unit #031 repeated, sounding rather confused, "Do ya not undahstand de woids comin' outta ma mouth?"

"No, we do, but…" Reiko started to say, sounding somewhat apologetic.

"See, I wasn't hearing things," the voice of the neatly combed-haired scientist came, his tone sounding like someone saying, "I told you so", which caused Euphemia to look towards her left, where she got a good look at the last of the three scientists, "This unit's speech really is peculiar!"

Unlike Edogawa, this man looked a whole lot cleaner. He had neatly combed dark greyish brown hair, and like his two colleagues, he also wore glasses. His glasses looked to be the same make and model as Edogawa's only the rims were black, like his two colleagues, he also looked Japanese. He wore nicely polished black shoes that seemed to shine whenever the light shone down on them. He also wore neatly ironed grey trousers, a black leather belt that was in the same state as his shoes, and underneath his lab coat, he wore a completely spotless white shirt along with a dark blue tie. Like his two colleagues, he also had a nametag pinned to the left side of his lab coat, which read the name, Ishida Yūma.

However, upon looking at him, Euphemia could not help but shudder as a feeling of pure dread that seemed to come out of nowhere started to wash over her. She could not tell what it was, but something about this man caused a chill to wash over her. She could not place her finger on it. He looked remarkably calm and collected, and definitely did not look as if he was dangerous, but despite that, he just seemed to give off this menacing aura that unnerved the pink-haired Princess. Euphemia knew that she would definitely have her guard up whenever he was around, despite the fact that none of them could see her.

"Yūma Ishida," Euphemia whispered, repeating the man's name, "I don't know why, but he scares me."

She found that she had to fight in order to regain her composure and it took an effort to stop herself from trembling, but she still fearfully kept a sharp eye on Ishida, as if expecting him to transform into some sort of nightmarishly frightening monster at any given second.

"Ow… you don't need to yell," Edogawa scolded, sounding slightly frustrated, since Ishida had practically yelled his last statement.

Perhaps that was why Euphemia was on edge. She decided that that had to be it. It had to be because Ishida had been yelling. However, even as she told herself this, she still did not feel reassured. Looking at Ishida, she could not help but get this feeling that there was something off about him. He had this air of eerily deceptive calmness around him, and Euphemia could not help but wonder if that was just a front, a front that hid something far more sinister.

"Is the language interface not set to default?" Ishida said, thinking aloud, completely unaware of the pink-haired intruder's weariness of him, "Fun… if we'd known this, we would've reset it in advance…"

"The base's personality might be coming out," Edogawa hypothesised, and that comment got Euphemia's attention, "I wouldn't be surprised in some of the volunteers came from regions that spoke with different dialects."

"But it just woke up," Reiko piqued in, letting her two colleagues know that she was also curious about the robot girl's unusual speech pattern, "Would it be exhibiting such distinct mannerisms this early…?"

"It may be the effect of an enlarged Plume of Dusk, the basis of their "mind"," Ishida theorised, which also caught Euphemia's attention, "Perhaps it's accelerating their personality development."

"Personality development?" Euphemia said to herself, as she started to ponder on Ishida's comment, "Plume of Dusk… this just keeps getting more and more confusing."

However, she could not help but recall Reiko's earlier statement back in the battle chamber before Unit #031 had battled those seven other units, on how she had been loaded with a nearly pure form of some kind of crystal, and wondered if perhaps this "Plume of Dusk" was what she had meant.

"Exchange o' opinions ta'in' place on unexpected aboirance in speech pa'ern," Unit #031 reported to herself, going back to giving herself a step-by-step analysis of what was happening around about her, as well as bringing the pink-haired Princess back to reality, "Hypothesis offahed dat language in'erface se'in's fall outside expected result. Review o' recent convoisation reveals cer'ain discrepancies. Intoinal monologue also seems ta be affected along wi' oral output in inducing anomalies, da cause o' which is currently unknown. Anomalies not affectin' meanin'. No impediments to communication predicted."

"But I don't want to waste this feedback data," Reiko said with a pout, as she gave the robot girl a somewhat sad look, "Those are the best results we've ever seen!"

"Leave it, it'll be fine," Edogawa said to Ishida in a reassuring tone, in an attempt to calm down whatever fears he may have over Unit #031's speech pattern, "It can understand us, anyway. This is just one of things that makes science interesting."

"There you go again," Ishida with a sigh, though Euphemia did manage to detect an underlying hint of fierce frustration, which only caused the alarm bells in her head to start ringing, "This unit is going to be communicating with the others. What if this effect spreads…? Not only that, but because this is an anomaly, we have no idea just how much of an accurate accent it actually has."

"But if it has a personality, that might speed up the development of its mind," Reiko said in an attempt to defuse the situation.

"She's right," Edogawa said in agreement, giving his colleague a look that basically commanded him to drop the subject.

For a moment, it looked like Ishida was going to protest even further, but then, he just groaned and looked down towards the floor, indicating that he was relenting to his colleagues.

"You're outvoted, Ishida-san," Euphemia said mockingly with a laugh, attempting to shake off her increasing sense of panic over Ishida, and then, she realised what she had just said, "Hold on, did I just add a Japanese honorific?"

"De three resoichahs ah standin' around de main'enance chaiah," Unit #031 told herself, bringing Euphemia out of her thoughts, even as the three scientists walked towards and huddled around the maintenance chair where the robot girl was sitting as each held a tablet and examined the chair's display, "Each holds a tablet and examines de display on de chaiah."

"All right, Unit #031, we'll explain things from the top," Edogawa said, as he started to give an explanation.

"Voice pa'ern consistent with resoich staff," Unit #031 reported, which Euphemia found strange, considering that she should already know just who was talking to her.

"You are a weapon designed to fight against unique enemies," Edogawa went on to explain, and Euphemia was starting to realise that of the three, it was him who was the one in charge, "Therefore your combat performance is prioritised over all else. But in order for you to use a particular ability, you've been given a certain amount of "awareness"."

He then paused briefly to clear his throat, and needless to say, his explanation had gotten the pink-haired Princess's full attention as she was also listening very carefully.

"That makes your performance difficult to quantify," Edogawa went on, after collecting himself, "So we've been pitting test units against each other as a selective growth process."

"The strong survive and the weak perish," Euphemia said to herself in disapproval after listening to the untidy scientist's speech, "So it even applies to machines as well. The strong go on to become useful whereas the weak are sent to the scrapyard. That's nothing new. You guys should would make great scientists working for Britannia if not for the fact that in their eyes, your nothing more than "Elevens"."

The sheer amount of bile and venom in her voice as she said the word, "Elevens" was clearly obvious. She hated that aspect of Britannia and just playing along with it, to her, it felt like it left a bad taste in her mouth.

"It's all in the service of achieving higher performance," Edogawa went on, completely ignorant of the pink-haired intruder's statement, "We don't want to waste any Plumes of Dusk."

"Accessin' ahchives," Unit #031 thought to herself, as she attempted to access archive information that had been uploaded to her databanks "Soich toim: Plume o' Dusk. One match found. A crystalline substance at de coah o' poisonality modules. Its name derives from its t'in plate-like shape, resemblin' a shed boid's feadah. In addition ta its circuit-like structuah, it has an unnatural vi'al reaction in response ta external stimulus. Similar ta a living thing, yet different. It is t'ought ta exist in a state between mind 'n' ma'ah, mass 'n' infoimation. De details ah unknown."

"So that's it, huh?" Euphemia said, as she processed this information, "So basically, this Plume of Dusk is what makes it possible for her to be able to think for herself?"

She paused and then nodded as she went over the information one more time, deciding that that was basically what the robot girl meant.

"Given that explanation, I'd have to say that this Plume of Dusk thingy must possess supernatural properties," she went on explaining to herself, "And if that's the case, though Unit #031's emotions… they can't be faked like that Edogawa guy said."

A shocking realisation soon washed over her as the truth of what she had discovered so far hit her, causing her eyes to widen in shock.

"She's not an AI, if the information on that Plume of Dusk thing is true, then she's just a sentient consciousness taking up residence in a machine's body," she went on with an overwhelming feeling of dread, "And based on what they were discussing earlier, it seems as if they're working towards developing a personality for her. Oh my, if they continue to take feelings for granted, then I feel that it'll bite them in the rear end later."

Remembering her earlier thoughts on machines rebelling against their master, after what she had just learned, she could easily predict that that scenario was more likely than any of those three could have ever predicted.

She now also understood why the defeated unit that Unit #031 had hoisted into the air near the end of her battle test had a pleading look on her face. It was now obvious to the pink-haired Princess that unit's personality must have developed to a more advanced state that that of Unit #031's. Unit #031 had just been activated and so, her lack of emotions had been understandable. However, by contrast, the defeated unit must have been around far longer than Unit #031 and through the development of its personality; it had obviously learned how to experience emotions and what they were. Since Unit #031 had just been activated, she was not aware of those emotions and did not know how to display them. It was not out of cruelty that Unit #031 had ignored her fellow unit's silent plea, but rather out of ignorance of emotions. Heck, Euphemia would not be surprised if Unit #031 had not realised what the defeated unit had been wanting from her.

"Deah ah twelve udah subheadin's classified undah level-seven clearance," Unit #031 went on, indicating that her inner monologue was not finished, "Access denied. Ma'ah interpre'ed as de coah o' poisonality modules."

"In other words, your brain," Euphemia piqued in, "You're not just a machine. You're a living consciousness in a machine's body."

"But regardless of your ego, there is one rule you must abide by," Edogawa went on, indicating that he was not done with his explanation either, "You might as well think of it as an order."

"One rule ta abide by," Unit #031 parroted to herself, "Awaitin' oidah."

Just then, both Ishida and Reiko moved away from the maintenance chair and Edogawa moved his position a bit, giving Euphemia a better view of Unit #031.

"The only order is to destroy everything we identify as enemies and to emerge victorious," Edogawa went on, causing Euphemia to groan.

"Please shut up now," she said, getting tired of hearing his voice, "Oh well, at least it's not Ishida-san talking, though I wonder how a scruff like you managed to get the top job over him, but thank goodness for that."

"Though your ego will give you some flexibility when planning tactics, there's no need to think about extraneous side issues," Edogawa continued to explain, "Use everything you can you win a fight. That's all you need to concentrate on."

"Oidah confoimed," Unit #031 acknowledged to herself.

"Undahstood," she said, speaking aloud, in order to acknowledge to the three scientists that she had heard the explanation and understood what was expected of her.

"Destroy iden'ified enemies and emoige victorious," she went on to relay in her mind, "A cleah oidah. It is consistent wi' de role o' a weapon. No abnoimalities. Everythin' is cleah."

"That's only because you see no reason to question otherwise yet," Euphemia said, and just then, to her immense shock, Unit #031 turned her head in Euphemia's direction.

"New human found," the robot girl's inner thoughts echoed in Euphemia's head, causing her eyes to widen in shock, as she looked towards Unit #031 and saw that she was staring directly at her, "Iden'ified as female."

"Wait, you can see me?" the shocked Euphemia said to the robot girl.

"Soichin' foah voiceprint an' visual matches," the robot girl reported to herself, ignoring Euphemia's comment, even as Euphemia gulped, since she knew that she was not part of the research team, "No match found. Human female is not iden'ified as resoich staff. Hypothesis, she may be an intrudah."

"Thank you for stating the obvious, but I'm not here because I want to be," Euphemia said, not happy that she was the topic of Unit #031's observations and was been addressed as if she was a specimen in a science experiment.

At this, Unit #031's eyes widened in shock, perhaps the first emotion that she had displayed on her face since her activation.

"Intrudah indicates dat she can heah ma innah monologue," the robot girl hypothesised, though listening to her, Euphemia noticed that there was an uneasiness, weariness and perhaps a little fear in her tone.

"Yes I can hear your inner thoughts, though, I don't understand why," Euphemia tried to explain, "I don't even know why I'm here. I thought that I was dreaming."

However, Unit #031 remained silent and continued to stare, only saving her words for her inner monologue.

"Study of intrudah indicates dat I can see right through 'er," Unit #031 continued to monologue, ignoring Euphemia's explanation and she seemed to have recovered from her momentary shock as her tone returned to its usual emotionless state, "Phenomenon known as transparency."

"Well, thanks for stating the obvious yet again," Euphemia said as she rolled her eyes, clearly not happy about being ignored.

"Nē, what's wrong Unit #031?" Reiko's voice came, causing Euphemia to jump, and she spun around to see the female scientist along with Edogawa and Ishida staring at the robot girl with confused looks on their faces.

However, upon studying the three scientists and realising that they had not paid her any attention to her, Euphemia felt herself relax somewhat, as she came to realise that they still could not see her.

"Do ya not see da goil standin' ovah deah?" Unit #031 said, as she lifted her arm and pointed directly at Euphemia.

"Huh, what're you talking about?" Edogawa asked, even as he was staring right at Euphemia, but judging from his posture, Euphemia guessed that all he could see was empty space.

Both Reiko and Ishida followed suit, and like Edogawa, they also made no indications that they had seen the pink-haired Princess.

"It seems like only you can see me," she said to the robot girl, who continued to stare, though, a look of confusion managed to creep its way onto her face.

"Do ya not see de goil standin' deah?" Unit #031 said to the three scientists.

"No, I'm afraid we don't," Ishida said with a sigh, though, listening carefully to his voice, Euphemia could not help but detect a hint of uneasiness in his tone, which immediately put her on guard.

Ishida also looked like he was fighting the urge not to sweat.

"There's no one there," he said simply.

"Yeah, I don't see anyone either," Reiko said, agreeing with her colleague.

"Gee, I wonder what brought this on," Edogawa said with a mixture of curiosity and frustration in his tone, as he looked between Unit #031 and the "empty space" she was focusing on, "I suppose there must be some sort of a malfunction with its optics."

"That's her!" Euphemia yelled angrily, as she glared at the untidy scientist, clearly sick and tired of them addressing the robot girl as an it instead of a she, "She's a consciousness in a machine's body."

However, before she could collect herself after her outburst, a noticed a small bluish white butterfly that appeared to fly into her field of vision. Of course, she probably would have dismissed it as an occurrence of an insect having aimlessly wondered into the lab, but what made this butterfly stand out was that it appeared to be glowing, and not only that, but as it flew, it seemed to be leaving a trail of little bluish white specs of light behind it that quickly disappeared before they fell to the ground.

"Huh, what the…?" she started to say before her entire vision burst into a bright sea of nothing but white.

---

Euphemia li Britannia suddenly found herself lurching herself into a sitting position after lying down and she then started to frantically look around, unsure as to where she was. However, she very quickly calmed herself down as she realised that she was safely back in the confines of her own bedroom of the Tōkyō Settlement's Government Bureau Building.

"Wow, what a strange dream," she said, sighing in relief, just glad to be back in the land of reality.

However, as memories of her dream came back to her, she could not help but wonder. Usually when she had dreams, they very quickly faded from her mind and she would pay them no mind. Whenever she awoke from a dream, she would normally forget about it in the space of roughly five minutes or sometimes a bit more. There were very few dreams, she could say that she recalled, but something about this dream seemed unique. Not only did she remember it, but she remembered it in fairly great detail.

"Now that's just weird," she said to herself, as she recalled that she dreamed she had been in some Japanese research facility where they had been making robot girls and pitting them against one another as a "selective growth process", as that scientist, Edogawa, had put it.

"Which means, weeding out the weak," Euphemia thought bitterly, as she recalled how one robot girl, Unit #031, had fought and completely decimated seven other robot girls in the space of under five minutes.

Not only that, but she even remembered the names of the scientists; that she had been able to read their nametags despite not understanding any of the three alphabets that the Japanese people use, and she could also recall in great detail the explanations she had heard, including the Plumes of Dusk and how she hypothesised that its supernatural properties meant that Unit #031 and the other units were not mere AIs, but actually conscious beings inhabiting mechanic bodies, though the scientists seemed to dismiss the emotional factor as like that of an AI, something that Euphemia just knew was going to cost them later.

"Why am I thinking about this, anyway?" she asked herself, as she shook her head dismissively, "It was just a silly dream, it's not like it actually happened or anything. However, I think it would've been nice to know what those "unique enemies" and that "particular ability" that Edogawa-san mentioned were. Oh well, it's not like I'll ever find out."

Shaking her head, she pushed off the covers and swung her legs out to the side of the bed as she got up. Even though it was still dark outside with the sun only just starting to rise over the horizon, Euphemia felt the need to use the bathroom. However, as she stood up, she noticed that resting on the bottom right hand corner of her room curtain was a familiar bluish white butterfly, like the one she had seen at the end of her dream before her world had exploded into a sea white.

"Huh?" she said in shocked surprise, clenching her eyes shut and shaking her head, but upon recovering from her shock, and doing a double-take, when she looked at the spot where she had seen the butterfly, it was gone, causing her to calm down, "Gee, I must still be half-asleep."

She then made her way to the bathroom that was connected to her bedroom. With this arrangement, whenever she woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the bathroom, she did not have to leave the room in order to find a bathroom. However, what she failed to notice was that the butterfly she had seen resting on her curtain was now resting on the front of her bed and seemed to be watching her, but when she came back from the bathroom, the butterfly had vanished.

"And so, it begins," the pink-haired Princess heard a low voice whisper from somewhere, as she climbed back into bed, but the voice was so quiet, not even above a whisper that Euphemia passed it off as her being tired.

---

Author's Note – Well this is my new project. I know I put a poll up in my profile to determine what my next Code Geass fic would be, but ever since I got into Persona, this idea's been nagging at me ever since. As for Persona, I'm only familiar with Persona 3 and 4 (though I have read into the first two games). Also, I know that I have exaggerated Labrys's accent and even carried it over to her inner monologue. That was intentional and most of the misspellings whenever Labrys speaks or is engaged in her inner monologue are intentional, and also, I gave the three scientists' names to identify them easier. I was originally intending to end this chapter at the part where Euphemia is transported to the Persona World, but then it probably would've been too long. Also to explain the dating inacurracy. Basically, the divergence in the Code Geass World from the real world happened fifty-five years earlier than the AD calendar. So 2017 a.t.b. is really 1962 AD and so, 1999 a.t.b. is 1944 AD, and since looking up on 1944's calendar, it states that 20th April fell on a Thursday and I feel that the 1999 a.t.b. calendar would have the dates of the 1944 AD calendar.