If any of you think that you can win without me, then go ahead and shoot me.
- Zero, addressing the Black Knights on the eve of the Battle of Narita.
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1.) The Black Knights realize it is too late to cut ties with Zero as they stand assembled atop the central mountain. Around them is the Strike Army of the legendary Britannian princess Cornelia. More than a hundred Knightmare Frames - an incredible force - surround the mountain range, intent on slaughtering to the last man the Japanese Liberation Front hidden within the elaborate underground bunker system. As the Black Knights - barely twoscore in number - look upon the forces assembled by one enemy against another enemy, for indeed, there is little love between the JLF and the Black Knights, they finally realize that this might well be the day they all die. Tamaki is the first one to lash out against Zero in a panic. It comes to nothing: Quashed by the incredible force of personality and the unyielding presence their enigmatic leader exudes, they find themselves unable to betray the man who has led them into an impossible situation. Taking deep, shuddering breaths, they holster their weapons and listen to their new lord and master.
Zero smiles under his mask: Now they are past the point of no return. They will follow him, for they know that it is either that or assured death
2.) The members of the Japanese Liberation Front realize it is too late to do anything but fight and die valiantly. Their sensors scream at them as Cornelia's army tightens the noose around the Narita mountain range. Cut off from reinforcements by the cunning Britannian princess, outgunned by the vastly superior Knightmare Frames of their enemy and just as brutally outnumbered by the finest Britannian strike force, their situation is beyond grim: No retreat, no surrender, no escape. Within minutes, the first Burai units exit the massive mountain-fortress complex, engaging the Princess herself head-on. The members of the JLF Mission Control team can only wince as the ID-signs of the Knightmare units in battle with Cornelia switch from [ACTIVE] to [LOST] within moments. The units engaging General Darlton's units fare little better. The jaws of the enemy are closing around the neck of the biggest resistance movement in Area Eleven, and their only hope of victory, Miracle Todoh, is still an hour away with his new Burai units.
All JLF members make sure they have at least a pistol on hand: None of them will go without a fight, and none of them, they swear, will be caught alive by the Britannian Empire.
3.) Everyone realizes far too late the full ramifications of the man-made avalanche that sweeps down the mountain like the Divine Wind of legend. Within minutes, eighty percent of the princess' Strike Army is gone, as is a third of Narita - and with it, hundreds of Britannian infantry. With every moment, casualties mount. Men and women are crushed to pulp in their armored shells or reduced to fine smears in the city. Unseen and unheard by anyone, Zero laughs at the success of the first trap. The heart that burns with vengeance beats faster with every enemy soldier killed, and the mind that makes it all possible delights in the realization that it was the racist, xenophobe Nina that helped him perfect his trap. As the Black Knights, once more firmly under his control, race down the mountain to trap the princess, the Britannian forces pay once more for the arrogant presumption of safety: Too late do the commanders of the Second Armored Company's tanks scream for infantry and air support as the Black Knights ambush tactics reduce one of the finest Britannian tank formations to twisted and bent heaps of scrap metal.
Now only forty kilometers away, Kyoushiro Todoh hopes he will not be too late to save his compatrions in the JLF from the Britannian onslaught.
4.) Jeremiah Gottwald never realizes the folly of his actions. The first thing that leads him to his doom is his pride: Bloodied, beaten, bruised by the unearthly compulsion Zero laid on him. He disobeys an express order to stand put as a rearguard for Princess Cornelia in his mad desire for a duel with the man who ruined his career, rushing forward heedless of the consequences. The second thing that leads him to his doom is embarrassment, the hated nickname of a youth spent on his family's orange plantation in the Floridas driving sanity from him. Orange, Orange. Nearly foaming at the mouth with rage, he throws all strategy and tactics into the fuel of hate and madness. Then it is too late for him as the Black Knight Ace-In-The-Hole drops out of the sky to protect Zero. The Guren is an ugly thing in Jeremiah's eyes, but it is also monstrous: Faster, stronger, and, to his sorrow, with an extending right arm. As the Radiation Wave begins to cook first his Knightmare and then himself, Jeremiah's tears mingle with the blood flowing from his orifices. And then he knows no more: His ejection system activates and his brutalized body gives out under the sudden, massive g-forces.
Ten meters back, Villeta Nu tries to wrap her mind around the fact that she was, once more, too late to save her superior from both his own nature and the predations of the foe.
5.) Even as they are decimated by one of the most brutal ambushes in recent memory, the Britannian forces begin to pull themselves together. As they begin to strike out at the Black Knights surging down the mountaintop, they are too late and too slow to react to the newest thread: Miracle Todoh has arrived, and with him the Four Holy Swords. The five finest Knightmare pilots amongst the Japanese Liberation Front in the finest Knightmare Frames the Kyoto Foundation can provide surge out of their armored trucks, their chainsaw-katanas literally tearing through the bodyguard unit surrounding the Second Imperial Princess. Seven years ago, they defeated the invincible military juggernaut under the command of Kyoushiro Todoh with nothing more than conventional armour and guts. Now, at long last, they are on equal footing with their hated foe: Knightmare against Knightmare, chainsaw-katana against lance and rifle. Zero, on the other hand, finds himself pinned down by Britannian forces: Will I be too late to capture my sister, he wonders? A half-mile away, Princess Euphemia li Britannia struggles with herself. For her, exposing civilians to war is unthinkable, even though the remains of the rearguard are desperately needed to reinforce Governor-General Cornelia. Delayed by fixing a quake-induced instability in the Lancelot's finely-calibrated sakuradite engine, Lloyd misses the crucial moment to inform the gentle princess of the Lancelot's availability.
When she finally gives the order for Kururugi Suzaku and his white steed to be unleashed, it will be too late.
6.) General Guilford's warning arrives too late to save his beloved princess: In front of her, the intimidating crimson Knightmare, clawed hand twitching and eager to grasp her. Behind her, on both sides of the canyon she sought to escape through, the Knightmare Frames of the Black Knights, their guns trained on her Sutherland. At the same time, the Lancelot moves at unimaginable speed for a Knightmare Frame, but even so Suzaku realizes he will be too late. The princess fights valiantly: All Britannian soldiers can hear her proclamations to the arch-rebel Zero, that she will never surrender to one such as him. But the princess fights alone, because all reinforcements are delayed and the one boy who could have saved her is too late by dint of fate. Her Sutherland loses its weapons to the combined attacks of Kozuki Kallen and Zero of the Rebellion. On her knees, bruised from being tossed around in her cockpit, she rises for one last desperate charge against the crimson Knightmare before her, never once contemplating activating her frame's ejection system. Sneering at her pride under his helmet, Lelouch Lamperouge's assault rifle makes short work of his sister's charge. The legs of her Sutherland are reduced to ragged stumps in moments, and the last thing Cornelia sees before blacking out is her limbless Knightmare sliding forward into arm's reach of the crimson enemy. She does not even hear the wrenching sound of her cockpit being crudely torn out of her Sutherland, her body no longer able to stand up to the abuses of combat. As her IFF tracker switches from [ACTIVE] to [LOST], the entire Britannian task force screams in disbelief, shame and grief at once: They have doubly failed both Empire and Duty today. The attack on the JLF is in shambles and, much worse, their beloved Priness is gone.
In the Command Leviathan, both Lloyd Apslund and Euphemia li Britannia are paralyzed with shock and self-doubt. For the former, it is a novel experience, and not one he is eager to ever experience again.
7.) For all its vaunted speed, the Lancelot is too late to do anything: When Suzaku arrives at Exfil Point Nine, he sinks even further into the desolate self-doubt that has always plagued him. Again he was too late to do anything. Again again again again! Held back by fools too proud to ask for the firepower of Britannia's most powerful prototype Knightmare simply because it is piloted by a Honorary Britannian. Too late too late TOO GODDAMN LATE! His mind clouded by a haze of rage and guilt, he does not realize he never turned off his radio unit. He does not aknowledge the repeated orders from both Mission Control and Generals Guilford and Darlton to shut up and stand down. For long minutes, every pent-up piece of anger and guilt floods the Britannian vox-net. It takes the intervention of the Gentle Princess, the Lady Euphemia herself, to calm down the raging young man. Several nobles call for his immediate court-martial for disobeying orders and insulting superior officers, but their attempts to cover their shame are squashed as quickly as they appear... to their great surprise, not merely by the Third Princess, but also Generals Guilford and Darlton. They, the two most loyal followers of Princess Cornelia, torn with grief from their own failure, cannot help but accept the truth behind Kururugi Suzaku's words.
On that day, spirits riven by their abject failure to save their Princess-General, they let slide any accusations of insubordination against Kururugi Suzaku, and after that, such accusations come too late for anyone to care.
8.) Two weeks later, Cornelia li Britannia awakens from her healing coma. Groggily sitting up from a surprisingly comfortable bed, she unthinkingly accepts a glass of water from a... black-gloved hand? That quickly shakes her from her haze. She gets one good look at the man sitting beside her bed, and a horrible realization dawns on her: Of all the people in the world, this is one of the few who has the skills to back up a legitimate grudge against not just the Britannian Empire, but the Imperial Family. "Hello, Sister. There is so much for us to talk about."
And then it is too late for Cornelia li Britannia to do anything but obey Zero of the Rebellion.
-fin-
Author's Notes: Just one time, Deus Ex Machina is on the side of Lelouch instead of his enemies. And so the Black Prince wins.
The title, Mundus Ardebit, means 'The World Will Burn'. Fitting, I think.