Clovis stared at the trembling messenger that stood before him. "Stolen?" the prince inquired. "You're telling me that my prototype Knightmare was stolen by a group of terrorists?"
The messenger visibly gulped before slowly nodding. Clovis leaned back in his throne as he stared up at the intricately painted ceiling of the royal palace. It had cost a fortune, as had the rest of the extravagant room he was in. It was made entirely of marble and furnished with the finest rugs that money could buy, as befitting for a member of the Royal Family. Finally shifting his gaze downward he glared at the messenger.
"I see. You are dismissed."
The man's trembling suddenly stopped and he smiled weakly before turning and fleeing the hall. As he left Clovis frowned. 'So, they have the immortal. They must have stolen the container under the assumption that it actually contains parts for a prototype Knightmare like I had the project labeled. If the truth is exposed it could be a problem, if word were to get out it would be bad indeed. What to do?'
Reaching down he leisurely removed his cell phone from his pocked before he flipped it open and hit a number on speed dial. Bringing it up to his ear he quickly composed himself.
"Bartley? Prepare the G-1 Mobile Command Center, we're taking a trip to Shinjuku."
Clovis stated down at the mess of bustling men on the lower floor of the Command Center of the G-1 base. Bartley and a few of his lower officials were clustered around a table that displayed the locations of their troops.
"Situation," Clovis asked shortly.
"They terrorists have the Prototype Knightmare in their possession and they are somewhere in the ghetto. They also have a Glasgow, but Margrave Jerimiah damaged it when they fought before entrance into the ghetto. The terrorists are currently in a truck somewhere in the subway tunnels, the location of the rouge Glasgow is unknown. The Royal Guard are also sweeping the tunnels looking for both as you requested."
Clovis folded his hands in front of him as he leaned forward. "Do the Royal Guard understand that they are only to act as scouts?"
"Yes, your Highness," Bartley replied.
"Well then," Clovis said as he relaxed, "I suppose now we simply wait."
They didn't have to wait long however, in less than ten minutes the received a transmission from one Private Kururugi that he had found the truck.
"Tell him to wait for backup and send a transmission to the nearest group of the Royal Guard with his location," Clovis commanded.
"Of course, your Highness," on of the transmission operators replied. As they waited for the reinforcements to arrive at the Private's location they received another transmission, this one from Margrave Jeremiah.
"Your Highness, I have located and am currently perusing the red Glasgow," the Margrave reported.
"Good, continue your pursuit," Clovis ordered, the grin on his face becoming even more predatory. The grin slowly faded, however, as the reply from his Royal Guard was not forthcoming.
"What's taking them?" he demanded. "Radio them at once! I want a report now!"
The technicians at the communications board were in a frenzy, but they were still unable to contact either the missing group of the Royal Guard or Private Kururugi. Clovis, smile now a thing of the past, stared down at the table which displayed the position of his units.
"Tell Gordan's group to advance, same with Lazlo's. They are to search the ghetto for the terrorists, and chase them should they encounter them. They also have permission to take aggressive action, but inform them that I wish to keep Eleven casualties to a minimum. Have them blow up empty buildings or something, I just want to flush the terrorists out."
Clovis continued to stare at the screen as his orders were carried out. Now instead of the three dots that compromised Jerimiah's group the ghetto seemed to be swarming with Britannian forces. After several minutes the red Glasgow appeared on the screen.
"Enemy spotted at Point F-31," one of the men on the bridge reported.
"A feint? How pedestrian," Clovis chuckled.
"Have Lazlo's squad go strait in, have Yugan and Vallary strike from the rear," Bartley commanded. Moments after he had given the order both IFF's were replaced with a 'lost' icon.
"Sir Yugan and Sir Vallary both lost," another one of the men on the bridge reported.
"An ambush?" Clovis asked incredulously.
"I don't know what it was, your Highness," man operating the IFF monitor replied tersely. Mere seconds later another Knightmare was lost and a minute after that Gordan's entire group ejected. "They seem to be intercepting our codes!"
"Even so," Clovis mused, "The wouldn't be able to take down Sutherlands with their inferior weaponry. Did they somehow get ahold of our military weaponry!?"
"Change the codes!" Bartley ordered, hoping to end the quickly escalating crisis.
"We already have!" the IFF operator replied. "Five times!"
"Silence!" Clovis roared. The entire room went silent just as the last unit is Lazlo's group was reported as 'lost.'
"They aren't intercepting our signals, they have one of our Sutherlands. The terrorists don't have the equipment to deal with how quickly our codes have been changing. If that's the case then. . ." Clovis' grin was slowly but surely returning.
"You there," he said, pointing to the IFF operator, "Create a fake map of the area and place IFF markers on it that match our current troop locations. Once you're done with that start broadcasting the false map instead of our actual troop locations. After that await my orders."
Three minutes passed in silence before the operator reported that he was done. "Now we wait," Clovis sighed. "It shouldn't be long."
Exactly as he had predicted, moments later the screen lit up displaying the distinctive face of Earl Lloyd Asplund.
"What is it Lloyd?" Clovis asked in a bored tone. "We're in the middle of an operation, you'd better not be interrupting us for no reason."
"No, your Highness," Lloyd replied. "I just wanted to know if we could deploy the Lancelot to get some combat data?"
Clovis seemed to consider it for a minute before slowly nodding. "I shall allow you to deploy your little toy as long as it stays with an escort consisting of Sutherlands-"
"Noooo!" Lloyd wailed. "That would completely mess up the test results! The Lancelot doesn't need to be escorted! The Lancelot-"
"Calm down Lloyd!" Cecile commanded as she barged into the video frame. "You're talking to the Viceroy!"
"But he said that the Lancelot would need to have an escort," Lloyd pouted.
"Did you try asking him nicely?" Cecile asked. Lloyd huffed before turning around to face the screen again.
"Would you please allow the Lancelot to go on its own, your Highness?" he asked, honestly sounding like an upset five year old.
'You know, sometimes he's just too easy to read,' Clovis thought.
"Very well," he conceded. "But you owe me."
"You won't regret this, your Highness!" the suddenly happy Earl of Pudding replied as he whirled around, shutting the camera off in doing so.
The entire bridge was staring at Clovis by the time the screen went dark, so he decided to explain. "Just sending the terrorists false information wouldn't do any good, and I don't want to sacrifice any more of my Sutherlands. Of course, I didn't want to be in debt to my brother and his ASEECs either so I waited for them to contact me. Since I did they're now the ones in debt to me because they made the request. It worked out rather nicely, no?"
His monologue done, Clovis redirected his attention to the operator of the IFF system. "Keep in contact with Lloyd, when he deploys that toy of his move the IFF signals on the fake map you've made to mirror the Lancelot's advance. Understood?"
"Yes, your Highness!" the slightly fidgety IFF operator replied. He had been talking to the prince more in the last twenty minutes than he had even dreamed he would in his entire life and god was he nervous. Everyone knew what happened to those who disappointed the Royal Family.
'Now then, lets see how my opponent responds.'
Clovis tilted his head as one of the doors to the G-1 Command Center's main deck opened. Looking down he saw Margrave Jeramiah entering and behind him was one of his subordinated. Any attention he had spared here was redirected a moment later, however, when he saw who Jeramiah's female subordinate was carrying.
"Who is she?" Clovis asked, thoughts racing. 'I didn't command them to retrieve C.C. I didn't give them a description or anything else, they would have had no way of identifying her. So why do they have her?'
"Your Highness, I was investigating a warehouse when I suddenly found myself outside my Knightmare. I have no idea what happened, but somehow my Knightmare just up and disappeared," the dark skinned woman replied, seemingly nervous about her unbelievable tale.
"When I looked around I was surrounded by dead members of your Royal Guard and this woman. She is dead too, but I thought she might provide some clue as to what happened."
"I see," Clovis replied after a moment. 'So a coincidence. No, wait, not that. I think I understand. C.C. somehow managed to escape the container, probably about the same time I lost contact with that division of my Royal Guard. Then she fled and my Guards perused her, ignoring my transmissions, most likely intending to report in when they captured her. But then they died. In that case, there must have been another person with C.C. and. . . she must have given that person a code. In that case. . .'
"Was it Herald's squadron?" The woman's eyes seemed to widen.
"Y-yes, it was. How did you know your Highness?"
"I lost contact with his squadron a short while ago," Clovis responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'It all fits. But there's still something missing. The code that C.C. gave the unknown person allowed him or her to kill the Royal Guard, but they then left C.C. behind. That means they thought she was dead and that means they don't understand the Code. The obviously know how to work their own Geass though.'
'So then, who is this person, what is their power, and how are they connected to the terrorists? There's no way this all a coincidence. Actually, come to think of it-'
Clovis was startled out of him musing as the Lancelot suddenly reached it's destination, the center of the ghetto where the terrorists seemed to be camping out. Up until that point it had encountered no resistance, the terrorists had seemed to disappear from the face of the planet.
"There's nothing there!" on of the men on the bridge exclaimed. He was sitting at a monitor that was receiving a live feed from the Lancelot's factspheres so he was in a prime seat to witness what happened next. "The ground! It's collapsing!" he gasped.
Clovis tightened his grip on the arms of his chair as he watched the expanding red circle on the map. 'You're kidding. If those had been real Sutherlands I would have just lost dozens of units and the terrorists wouldn't have taken a single casualty. Just who the hell is in command of this group?'
Glancing down at C.C. he smiled. 'They have home field advantage and our military weaponry as well as a commander as good if not better that Tohdoh. Even if I have the superior weaponry I can't hope to win without leveling the entire ghetto. Plus, I have C.C. No, there is no need to continue any further. I have already accomplished my objective.'
'Still, something seems vaguely familiar about the combat style of whomever I'm facing. I've faced them before, but who are they? Damn it all. This is getting me nowhere. I need to locate the mystery person, but how?' By this point he was glaring at C.C. and that was inspiration hit him.
"Attention all forces," he called, activating the transmission that allowed him to contact everyone under his command at once. "Cease fire at once. I Clovis, Third Prince of Britannia and Royal Viceroy of Area 11 hereby command you, all forces are ordered to cease fire at once! You will also cease destruction of any buildings or property. All casualties, whether Britannian or Eleven will be treated equally without prejudice. In the name of Clovis La Britannia you are hereby ordered cease fire at once, I shall allow no further fighting."
Every person on the bridge was starting at him but he couldn't care less. Shutting off the transmission he turned to his men.
"With the exclusion of General Bartley, I order you all to leave the bridge at once. Oh, and leave the body, I wish to inspect it."
Slowly the men stood before filing out of the room. Once Clovis was alone with Bartley he stood and descended to the main floor of the bridge.
"Bartley, have the researchers on the Geass Project report here immediately. Once they have arrived I want two trackers installed in C.C. Our research on her is going nowhere and since she now has a contractor she will certainly try to contact them. If my hunch is right the person who just beat me is that contractor, and if I can get him without his terrorist friends then he's as good as mine. After they are done give the body back to that woman and have her place it back where she found it. Make some sort of excuse about her being unimportant and, oh I don't know, disturbing the dead? You handle it."
"Yes, your Highness!" Bartley barked. 'It's been awhile since I've seen this side of him,' the portly man reflected. 'He's usually so light-hearted and frivolous, obsessed with parties and his public image. That all changes when he's faced with a problem though. He can go from kindhearted prince to ruthless tactician in the space of a moment. And I still don't know why. . .'
"Good. By the time she wakes up her regenerative abilities will have healed the scars from the insertion of the trackers. I want you to monitor her movement from there, and report in immediately if she stays in any one place for more than an hour. I also want a daily list of all the places she has visited. Now then, I must oversee our withdrawal," Clovis said, his normal persona becoming more an more prevalent. By the time he was done delivering his orders he was entirely his normal self; the cold, calculating look and pessimistic in his eyes had disappeared entirely.
Clovis stared down at the missive sitting on his desk. It had been a full day since the event of Shinjuku which he had managed to cover up through rerouting traffic, and he was currently seated in his airy office in the rear of the royal palace.
"Ashford Academy, huh?" he asked himself as he stared down at the report before him. "She spent the entire night there, so odds are that's where our mystery man is."
Reaching over on his desk he picked up the phone, requested a complete list of the facility staff and student body present at Ashford Academy, and then leaned back in his chair. Closing his eyes he allowed himself a short rest.
He was awakened what he presumed to be a half-hour later by a light knock on his door. Calling for the servant to enter he accepted the depressingly large stack of files before sitting down to get to work. Each file resided in a manila folder which bore both the name and a picture of the person who's data it contained. Deciding to flip through the files to start, Clovis quickly went through all of the A's. The B's were quickly dispatched as well and the alphabetically ordered file pile diminished in size.
Admittedly, he was just scanning the names and giving the faces a once over, but there was always the chance he would find something. No one in the A's B's or C's was particular interesting. As he continued he set aside several files that looked promising, but nothing really jumped out at him until he reached the L's.
His breath hitched as he stared down at the file before him. His eyes widened marginally before he frantically threw aside the file to look at the one under it. When he saw the name and picture it bore he grew even more shocked. Allowing himself to fall back into his chair he stared up at the ceiling for the second time in two days.
"I think I've found our mystery terrorist," he whispered.
(A/N: So, how is it? This was an idea that came to me while reading a Code Geass fic where Clovis was a blithering idiot. It really made me think, how would Code Geass be different if Clovis was almost as smart as his younger brother? Oh, and never fear, I have an actual reason for Clovis' intelligence that I will probably expand on next chapter. Anyways, this is going to be Clovis-centric but there will be plenty of Lelouch too. Finally, most Code Geass fics are expertly written, how does mine measure up? What did you like, what should I change? Reviews of all sorts [even flames, I suppose] are welcomed, so don't forget to leave your own! The more I get the quicker the next update will be!)