Sutherland vs Lancelot

A blue Sutherland KnightMare appeared in front of Lelouch. A long silver haired young pilot was in her 8th battle, although this was more of a cleanup than a battle. Villetta Nu looked around the wrecked building. Pure visual (naked eye-like or camera-like) inspection would take too long so she activated her fact-sphere. Infantry units laid around in corpses. She quickly found an insignia on what appeared to be the commissioned officer.

"Why? His highness's personal unit?" she said. Terrorists should not have been able to overpower Clovis's personal unit. A lone civilian had gone from a devilish grin he had before her appearance, followed by examining her once he noticed her. Villetta did the same. He was dark haired, handsome looking and appeared to be a Britannian student by his uniform, obviously not part of the "purge" order. The order form Clovis was to purge for potential guerillas hiding in the civilians, not kill witnesses. The civilian now appeared indifferent, having assessed her. She activated the speakers and interrogated the student. Villetta followed up with a few good shots into the building wall.

"Get down from here right now' said Lelouch Lemporage activating his left eye.

"Who do you think you are?" said Villetta, curious.

"I see… it's useless without eye contact" thought Lelouch. He needed to gain the trust of the soldier. "I am Alan Spacer. My father is a duke" he said, spreading his arms wide. "I have an ID card in my pocket. I would like to request protection after you check it."

Villetta was somewhat nervous. Not only had a Britannian ended up in the Shinjuku Ghetto, but child of a duke was in a place infested with terrorists. When would these youngsters learn to stay away from dangerous places? It was up to her to keep him safe. She put her KnightMare on standby mode. Weapons and seasons went into a low power mode, active data processes were moved to RAM and went quinccent. Only three major device drew larger power including the engine. Villetta opened up and stepped down with a handgun. "Keep your hands up. I will check the ID myself"

"Give me your KnightMare" said Lelouch as his left eye hid behind a red orange glow dominated by a bird like icon.

"All right. The access number is XG21G2D4." The soldier replied as her eyes covered in an orange glow. She threw over the keys and held her gun out for Lelouch to take.

"All right" said Lelouch. He climbed into the KnightMare and started it. Lelouch considered killing the girl soldier. He could step on her, shoot her, throw some rubble, or the slash harkens. Then again, his power would have been absolutely worthless if the hapless pilot didn't give him the benefit of bout. Lelouch would be dead if not for her goodwill. It's not like a subordinate or someone important to Lelouch could possibly mess something up for him by thinking this girl had a pretty face. She could be left alive. Lelouch left the ruin.

"What am I doing?" asked Villetta three minutes later. Her memories were vague. The last clear memory was half an hour ago. The most recent was a haze, an echo. There was a high school student related to a nobleman she needed to bring to safety. How she was going to do that with no KnightMare… or the student was a mystery. Did she just space out and the student went away? What about the KnightMare? Those don't get impatient and walk away by themselves!

Suzuku woke up to see a lavender-silver haired man in glasses and a young blue haired woman standing over him. He was in some kind of a hospital bed. The man poked fun at him as both gave him exposition. His flak jacket was punctured by a bullet, but his pocket watch he wore around his neck at that time protected him.

"The poison gas has begun to spread out. Looks like ti caused a lot of damage among the Elevens" said the man. "Private Kururugi, do you have any experience piloting a KnightMare frame?"

"No way. A person born Eleven can't become a knight" said Suzuku. And if you can't be a knight or hereditary noble, you can't pilot one of those.

"And what if you could" said the lavender haired man smiling.

Meanwhile, a battle raged on. A broken Glasgow shot a slash harken into an old Britannian tank, piercing it and rupturing the ammunition storage. Two other tanks were pushed aside by red KnightMare.

The KnightMare's internal communication spoke up. "Kallen, is your Glasgow operational?"

"I'm fine. Get the people out of here. It's better if only the resistance gets caught" said the pink haired pilot.

"I understand, but we're surrounded right now" said a brown man wearing some kind of bandana and coat. He had a large backpack serving as a transmission relay. His men were using many weapons to try to fight off the soldiers.

AK-47s, RPG-7s, Molotov cocktails, and revolvers dominated their arsenal. Most of the soldiers and vehicles could be dealt with. They only needed to buy time after all. The problem was the KightMares. Though small in number relative to the perimeter, they were closing the noose. The small arms had to be aimed at an exhaust port to have any effect on an intact KnightMare. Even then, it would take over half an hour for KnightMare with a shot up exhaust system before the cooling system was no longer able to send heat into the gas to be expelled due to temperature equalization. The shot up ports would not release streams of hot air, but the air would diffuse if the ports were not blocked. A KnightMare armor was thinner than the old tank armor and offered just as much protection. Since grenades were not shaped charges and the RPG-7 (a launcher not a missile type) shot rocket propelled grenades, it would take three hits in the same place to cause a penetration, except in certain weak spots that made less than 10% of the target, most of which would never be exposed to the front. Hitting a KightMare's leg armor 3 times should cause a penetration. Alternately, one hit should weaken it enough to allow a few thousand bullets to continue denting and thinning until a penetration could be done. The problem was that while not more durable than the old tanks, a KnightMare had more firepower, was tactically faster, and really difficult to hit with anything slower than a bullet beyond ten meters. The noose was closing.

At Ashford academy an orange haired girl in the locker room picked up a cell call. "Lelou, what are you doing? Where are you"

"Is there a TV there? Is there anything on Shinjuku?" said Lelouch.

"Nothing but some traffic control" said Shirley. She was getting worried about Lelouch's string of absences. "Hey, you're doing some kind of weird gambling right now aren't you?" said Shirley. "It's dangerous"

"Yeah I know. Oh tell my little sister I'm going to be late for dinner" said Lelouch, hanging up the phone. Lelouch entered in the access number into the system. Now it wouldn't lock him out of using the gun, the key alone only allowed basic movement. In addition, he was able to pick up the most recent friend or foe code.

The Sutherland was the first KnightMare made with the possibility of fighting… other Kightmares. Yeah, if you curbstomp with these weapons apparently other people want them, something older generations did not take into consideration. The new IFF system allowed each pilot to pick a common code before deployment. This had the IFF system send encrypted signals to HQ and each other. Units would be displayed on a stylized map, allowing the commander to know tactical disposition. Local units also know that any active KnightMare not sending the signal is either damaged or not one of their own. Earlier generations used simple encrypted transmissions, allowing talk but not explicitly displaying position. Older models used a signal to notify each other's position at short range only; unencrypted since any KnightMare had to be their own.

Lelouch saw a chessboard and left the vehicle to pick it up. He thought the tactical map was similar to a chess game. Reinforcements had already arrived, so all the pieces were likely on the board. Getting through this many enemies alone will be difficult. It would be even more dangerous to request for protection. The direction solution would be to go through and hope that no one thinks to shoot one of their own. After all, Lelouch could just use the most recent IFF code and make an excuse like maintenance was missed. Yes… that is the simplest solution to get out alive, something he didn't think was possible half an hour ago. Alternately, he could do something complicated and make the terrorists who put him into this mess pay him back for the trouble they caused with a complicated plan.

A cocky turquoise-silver haired Sutherland pilot saw the target in sights, the red one-armed Glasgow. Margrave/Marquis Jeremiah Gottwald was ready for a good fight. He personally preferred this. It was not the best for a soldier to be in a losing battle. But in this case, he had the advantage, having a better machine, a partner, and several friendly units nearby, while the enemy was still a thread. The slash harken on the obsolete KnightMare could hit with more energy than an RPG, and it was more accurate against a moving KightMare to boot. Jerimiah knew he had to not let his guard down completely and watch for a trap whenever it was out of his sight. Still, as long as a friendly unit sighted the enemy, he knew what to do.

Kallen looked at her energy levels. Things were not looking good. Most of the energy used in a moving KnightMare was either moving or passive, so she could use all her weapons or features and still not significantly drain the battery. The bad news about hat was that her energy would be gone in half an hour and there wasn't anything she could do about it other than not move in the first place.

The radio cracked to life. "Use the railroad and move toward the west exit" said the voice.

"Who are you? How do you know this code?" said Kallen, worried.

"It doesn't matter who I am. If you want to win, believe in me" said Lelouch on the other side of the radio.

Kallen complied and started on the railroad. A supply train was on its way. Jerimiah was in hot pursuit.

"Since you believed in me, I'll let you win" said Lelouch. "Jump on this train"

Jerimiah Gottwald pushed back against the train. He ordered his subordinate to continue perusing the enemy. The subordinate was in the emotion of jumping. Suddenly a pair of slash harkens ripped apart the midair Sutherland. "Attacking one of our own?" said Jerimiah. "You bastard, what squadron are you from? The enemy has one arm!" The Sutherland in the building retracted its slash harken and started firing its gun. The firing wasn't well aimed, only 30% of them hit Jerimiah's KnightMare, despite being still. Jerimiah released the train, letting the Eleven continue to use it to cover his/her escape while Jerimiah took evasive action.

Lelouch was still getting used to the controls. Almost of them like the joystick for movement were similar to the Ganymede he piloted thrice the year before. In fact some were the same. Unfortunately, the modern Sutherland had new features. The IFF controls were fairly simple. But the slash harken was new to him. It also had the ability to roll not just on flat surfaces, but on rails too to move faster. The Sutherland's feet were md mobile. Oh, and being a decommissioned Ganymede, they took away the gun too. His options were to either use the arm manual controls or the specialized program with preset certain movements in the arm to aim the gun in each direction. Lelouch could not hit a moving target with the gun very well at all. The enemy pilot was fairly good at fighting and landed three hits on Lelouch, despite the ruined building giving Lelouch a hitbox 32% the size of what he was shooting at and that his target was shooting and dodging at the same time while Lelouch only worried about shooting. The target took a pause in firing to get its bearings. Lelouch used this opportunity to try to spray and pray. Lelouch hit the left leg once, destroying he armor and damaging some inner mechanisms. However the target's leg was still in one piece. It was standing and not damaged enough to interfere with walker type motion.

Jerimiah was horrified. He was starting to lose the fight, but that was OK with him except for pride issues. The problem was that the enemy had a Sutherland when the Intel was that they only had one KnightMare. What's worse, it was displaying on the tactical map as releasing a friendly IFF signal. If the terrorists gotten some Sutherlands and set their own code, only 32 codes out of millions would display on his screen, and only one would be displayed as friendly, most would simply not be detectable with his settings. "Don't tell me the terrorists stole…!" said Jerimiah. He reaimed his gun at the Sutherland in the ruin. "Bastard!"

Jerimiah was standing on the old rail. It was a short opening Kallen would not let pass. She went to full speed and punched Jeremiah's Sutherland. Taking severe damage, Jerimiah ejected.

"I'm saved! But where did you get a Sutherland?" said Kallen. There was nobody in the building.

Ogi arrived with some of his resistance cell. He was relieved Kallen was safe, but the enemy was still closing in

"Are you the leader?" asked Lelouch over the radio.

"Yes?" answered Ogi.

"I'll give you the stuff inside the train as a present. If you want to win, use the and follow my command!" said Lelouch. The train cars opened, revealing military supplies and blue Sutherlands. The terrorists were suitably impressed.

"This is amazing! Maybe we should listen to him for a bit" said blond terrorist.

"The girl in the Glasgow. Stay there, that machine is good for confusion tactics" said Lelouch. The one armed KnightMare was what the enemy would be looking for. "How is your energy filler?'

"About fifteen minutes"

"Then get a new pack. In ten minutes, I'll give you new orders" said Lelouch. He deactivated his radio. "This is more tiring that I thought" The Sutherland itself was not as easy to pilot as he thought. But he knew that this game the stakes were lives.

Lelouch started giving his new subordinates codenames. He didn't know the by name, and didn't really care. They got him into this mess and he wasn't going to get attracted to any one of them until he was out of it. Or maybe he'll never see them again and not get attached anyways.

The terrorists started to get into the KnightMares. The controls were similar to the Glasgow they had practiced with, but they never had any field experience. 70 KnightMares and only 15 bad pilots to use them. Ogi ordered those guarding the civilians and his rearguard to come to his location.

A trio of Britannian KightMares continued to go along their previous path. They would help the purge while another squad took care of the Glasgow that had already been spotted. Suddenly bullets started piercing the nearby ruin and their machines. "What?" said one pilot before he ejected and his partners were killed.

"P1, P4, P7, move 100 meters to the right and fire slash harkens in the three o'clock direction" said Lelouch

"All right, listen to that voice" called out Ogi, their leader.

Far away in his personal land ship/HQ, Clovis and some officers were watching signals of their own units go down. Three separate ambushes had come and they still didn't know what was going on. "Impossible. Out machines are being outmaneuvered by terrorists" said Clovis.

Kallen used her slash harken to scale a building. A Britannian was engaging three of her allies in Sutherlands and some of her allies on foot. She punched it as he opened his fact sphere to watch for an ambush, like what she just did.

"Lord Glaube has ejected! The machine signal is lost" said general Bartley.

"Change the signal! Our transmissions are being monitored" said a blond haired man named Cornelius. He was a general three ranks below, but still allowed HQ clearance and had come back from a bathroom break. General Cornelius had three Marquis Titles, was earl of a place in the Virginia area, and had a barony inside that county. Despite this, he was a veteran of the invasion of Japan and now he felt deserving of his rank. "I think the enemy has a few KnightMares they mobilized from some hidden reserve.

"We already did" said one officer who was present the whole time. "And we haven't gotten a single report about who we are facing"

"R2 Louch anchor" said Lelouch. A helicopter pilot went down. "B7, a UN round" said Lelouch. He started playing chess against his KnightMare's computer. One terrorist shot the designating round into an APC. "Group N, move forward" said Lelouch. Seven KightMares advanced on three Britannian KnightMares and a tank. The Britannians fired back and retreated, but to their left, three more Sutherlands attacked them with slash harkens and another one appeared in the back with a gun. "I7, flush out that spotter behind you" he said. A group of terrorists descended on a lone Britannian KnightMare. It had been shot and it couldn't sue its guns, but it was trying to keep an eye for ambushes against its allies. Small arms fire punctured the twisted damage armor. "P3, P13, P31, stop the group on the streets" said Lelouch. The three noob pilots each took his KnightMare and started pinning a group of ten Britannian Sutherlands in place. They could not land decisive blows. "I1, get them now" a rebel commander ordered his guys to shoot at the Britannians. Now they were within 3 meters of their targets who were taking over and closed off their fact-spheres against rebel Sutherlands they were blind to man sized targets to their right. RPG-7s were used against those weak points. One took a hit to the hip joint and two others took hits to the exhaust ports, disabling he machines. One person under I1 strapped a shaped charge to a KnightMare, killing the leg instantly. "I32, kill the backup column" said Lelouch. A group blew up 3 tanks and started putting small arms fire into an armored car's tires, disabling it, and then its fact-sphere, rendering it blind. "Q1, get the Sutherland." Kallen charged in and shot a slash harken at the Sutherland who no longer had any sense of what was going on.

"Lazarus squadron signals have disappeared" said General Bartley. He restricted communications so that HQ would only listen to its immediate subordinates using a KnightMare's native communication instead of headsets, plus three infantry officers previously selected. There was so much chatter that listening to every officer, including downed ones cursing over their headset coms, were drowning out battlefield reports.

"See? Some of our guys had spotted enemy Sutherlands. They had no IFF signal and shot our own on sight. If you had listened to me, our causalities before knowing what we were up against would be a third of what they were. We took many losses just o figure that out" said Cornelius

"Now! Deploy the Quincy Squadron" said Clovis.

Lelouch was glad the IFF could be used against the enemy. Not only did he know where they were, but three separate times he made an ambush work against smarter than average forces because they thought an ally who was separated from his squad. While he didn't join their formations or communicate with them, it appeared to them that an ally was watching that flank and therefore no need to watch that area. Now the enemy had five options. Lelouch was worried about the adequacy of his own forces. Due to so many things happening, one KnightMare engaged Britannian one on one head on and lost. During his ambushes, the casualty ratio was in Lelouch's favor, but he had some losses and the terrorists were clueless on how to spot Britannian infantry, often letting them walk straight up to the KnightMare legs to make point blank rocket shots. The fact spheres only highlighted identified vehicles by default and none of the terrorists knew how to even interpret data from a highlighted object, much less change the settings. In addition, some enemies were able to use a KnightMare effectively enough to inflict some damage. Some of the terrorist didn't know they could move at triple speed by using their rollers on flat surfaces, or move even faster on a train rail, so they went to walker mode, greatly reducing the dodging power. Others kept crashing and resorting to defaulting to walker mode. While having the ability to move across rubble and rugged terrain that even tracks can't cross is an advantage to walker mode locomotion, it wasn't the fastest when there were plenty of (unmaintained) roads to sue.

Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald saw a tank destroyer, three APCs, and three Sutherlands pass him. He recognized one of them as the Quincy squadron. "Are they going to break formation?" he asked. That would only work if they knew where the bulk of the enemy forces were, they outnumbered the enemy three to one in troops, KnightMares, and penetrating weapons (a KnightMare, an artillery piece, an RPG, or the Britannian anti-tank rocket launcher counts), and if they knew friend from foe. "This is Jeremiah Gottwald. The enemy doesn't just have multiple KnightMares. They stole one of our machines. I repeat, they stole one of our machines. Do not trust your IFF displays unless you are in communication with them or line of sight" said Jeremiah into his microphone/earpiece combo on his right ear. Alas, no one but Villetta was listening.

Lelouch needed to prepare the major ambush, but not all of his units were in position. Three groups of three KnightMares were closing from separate directions and would make things difficult. He couldn't figure out how to ambush them in such a short time before they spotted what he was planning. Lelouch only needed 12 of his surviving KnightMares to pull this off. He ordered some of his ground units to intercept the incoming patrol, in cover if possible, but they must not get too close to their gather ambush.

The first KnightMare group was attacked head on my Lelouch's intercepting force. The ten terrorists shot lots of bullets, but failed to make much contact on the advancing group which was dodging most shots. Once the distance was closed, the Britannians destroyed seven of them in KnightMare melee. One of them was partially damaged by a panicked terrorist who shot into the melee indiscriminately. The last of Lelouch's terrorist allies in a KnightMare in that group shot a slash harken into one of them, disabling it before he himself was shot. Another Britannian KnightMare had three gaping holes from being shot at, but was still operational. Terrorists on the group shot into the holes with small arms, killing key electronics. A Britannian solider ordered a bayonet charge into the terrorists scattering 3/4 and killing the rest. KnightMare casualties: 10 to 23

The second KnightMare group was several blocks away. Lelouch tried to organize an ambush, but when he ordered the group to roll, one of them collided into the others. About to get hit in the flank, they formed up a Napoleonic-era line to meet the enemy head on. "Q1, get on the building so the south of the engagement" Shots were fired, but the enemy had better aim against moving targets. One terrorist Sutherland was destroyed by slash harkens while another was simply shot. Once the distance was closed, a melee started and the terrorists were losing badly. Kallen fell from the sky and punched one of the Britannians. It wasn't a disabling blow and the two of them fought. They traded blows. Kallen got two more punches in, but was losing due to the whole "one arm" thing. Her KnightMare was forced to knees. The enemy had forgotten his original target who managed to melee his machine to death. The second enemy machine went down to RPG fire into a place already weakened by fighting the terrorist KnightMare. The third one was ganged up on. KnightMare casualties: 7 to 3.

The third KnightMare group communicated with Britannian infantry units. They knew where 9machines were in place to ambush them. Rather than counter ambush, they attacked head on, knowing where to aim. Both sides shot at each other and dodged, but three of the terrorist machines went down to slash harkens. Those take time before they can redeploy, but the Britannians closed the distance. Suddenly, it was revealed there were10 (or s7 now) they were fighting, not 9. Having disabled one KnightMare, the Britannians thought that that side of the building was safe, but another was behind it. A rocket infantryman shot that one, freeing his KnightMare comrades from the surprise. The Britannians got in melee range, butchering the enemy machines. KnightMare Casualties: 10 to 0!

Elizabeth Smith was a blue haired fourteen year old pilot. Her father was a Marquis and an earl. Elizabeth followed her older brother into the army. The larger title would be her brother's on the account of being a guy, but she hoped to prove to her father she could inherit and be a countess. She had proven herself to be a much better manager than her older sister and slightly better than her bother. Elizabeth had connections that would make minor nobles within the county more likely to respect her. The blue haired girl knew she only needed to serve in the army to get the respect to her father. She didn't need to be a better pilot than her brother, already a commissioned officer, or even a good pilot, just a loyal one.

Three enemy Sutherlands tried to ambush her from the right, but Elizabeth saw them ahead of time. It seemed they were settling in, but didn't have enough time to stop showing up on the movement sensor mode of the fact sphere. She should have regrouped to HQ after her unit was killed, but this was her first taste in combat. She started moving evsivastly and shot up one of them. A slash harken disabled one. The shot one was still moving, but she got in melee range and disabled it fast. Soon she was one on one in melee with the last terrorist, who didn't seem to know what he was doing once the KnightMare had its armed pinned and couldn't aim the gun, even if it was mounted INTO the arm it would not have been effective. He went down fast. KnightMare casualties: 3 to 0.

Elizabeth felt a little shaken. Leg armor was damaged and exposing her machine to small arms fire. She didn't expect that a lone KnightMare would be this exposed without support. Despite her training, she felt that if she had waited 15 seconds, it would have ended quite differently. She noticed something strange about the battle reports. Anti-tank rockets were used effectively against the enemy. The armor on a Glasgow didn't offer more protection than tanks of its era, but they were hard to hit. The man portable rockets had little chance to get any KnightMare on a road, even in a side ambush situation, or in forests. In a ruin or ghetto, the Sutherland was more maneuverable that its predecessors in addition to more firepower, meaning that an alert pilot is more or less invulnerable to those.

Lelouch bought the necessary time for his plan. "What's this? They took the most foolish options" His main group was now in range of the desired position. He realized he only needed to block one of the groups he tried to delay. With 10 to 3 odds, his own forces should have prevailed, but they died doing nothing but buying the necessary time. The terrorists showed deficiencies in piloting. They didn't roll across the group properly, colliding often when they did. They were nearly hopeless should the enemy close the distance, even with infantry. Third, in a head on fight the terrorists kept losing advantageous battles. They were subpar shots, their most accurate weapon being the slash harken, where they were almost as good as fresh military graduates. Real pilots were better shots with the guns than the slow moving and somewhat dodgeable (if the target is a Kightmare) slash harken. It was almost as if they practiced using their stolen KnightMare in a garage. It doesn't matter, he was ready. "Q1, is this map accurate?" said Lelouch, referring to a map he took from the terrorist truck.

"Yes, the one for the old city" said Kallen.

"Good enough" said Lelouch.

"Enclose them! Concentrate your firepower" said Clovis, in the HQ. He could 8 KnightMare spotters as well as infantry one to look for an ambush.

"The enemy stole a machine. One or more of the IFF signals is bogus" said Jeremiah

In case you're wondering, Lelouch is the only one against Clovis using the IFF with that deployment's code. The rest of them don't because it would be suspicious to have a group of "friendlies" in ambush position against all the guys who you lose.

"Mission number three" said Lelouch.

"The main terrorist force is in the middle. Crush them" said Clovis.

The Britannians closed in to what appeared to be large ruin, with clearing unusually high for the ground floor. An artillery piece and the convention vehicles Jeremiah saw went in. APCs unloaded the infantry, who took positions outside the kill zone.

Lelouch's units were in an underground tunnel. Three Sutherlands and the Glasgow fused their slash harkens on the weakened foundation. Suddenly, the ground caved in. 24 Sutherlands and some tanks fell into the group. 30 more were outside the new hole, but got hit by slash harkens and RPGs. Since the part of the unit in front of them where annihilated, they were in no positon to effectively fight back. One of them realized they had the high ground and ordered a mass firing into the hole just as what was previously planned for the building. Unfortunately, seven more enemy KnightMares were at ground level to their side.

"I can do it. Britannia can be defeated!" laughed Lelouch.

"Who am I fighting against? Don't tell me this person is better than Todo…" thought Clovis. "Lloyd! Can we win if we use your toy?"

"Your Highness, please call it the Lancelot" said the special envoy.

Meanwhile, Lloyd and his assistant Cecile were already preparing Suzuku. It's not like he had anything better to do if the request never came, after all his commanding officer shot him on purpose if he was telling the truth. Suzuku got high scores on the KnightMare simulators in training, but he never sat in a real one. Cecile reminded him that one thing the manual was missing was that they didn't have time to figure out how to fit in an ejection system.

The Yggdrasil drive was annoying picky about potential pilots. Only 1/3000 pilots would be "accepted." One Jeremiah Gottwald was picked after a long search since he should be accepted, but he was a no show. The Suzuku probably would be rejected since he was randomly chosen, but either Lloyd gets his data or he gets laughs. It's not like rejection causes damage after all. The last cables disconnected from the prototype KnightMare.

"Lancelot, ME boost" said Suzuku. The new white with some gold KnightMare launched successfully.

"Ah ha ha ha. Going full throttle so suddenly" said Lloyd as he and Cecile were blasted by the air current from the Lancelot moving so fast.

"Huh? What's that? For a Sutherland…" said one of Lelouch's units. An enemy had appeared and was moving rather erratically. Suddenly it punched the Sutherland destroying it as efficiently as a slash harken.

"P2 down"

"This is group B! Enemy sighted!" said a voice on the radio.

Lelouch was somewhat annoyed. Victory was so close. There were only 4 formations to deal with. One of them was Clovis and the others could be bypassed. He guessed that a real battlefield was different than the games. Not only did he start with less pieces, there was imperfect information, his units were inferior by skill, but the enemy could bring more pieces to the "board" which was not possible in chess. "Number of enemies?"

"One just one! Looks like a new machine"

Suzuku activated the right arm shielding. There were three high use energy storages for it and each took 10 seconds of lag before the shield could be activated from dry. Standby was not possible if the shield was activated. The main power source was incompatible with the shields except through a converter which would take hours to use to activate storage. Similar to how a 1990s camera's battery can't power the flash, but it can charge a capacitor which release all its energy rapidly to the flash.

"What? It can block bullets?" said Lelouch. His pawns were not on the map, but he knew he had 34 machines left at his disposal plus some ground terrorists. He had to not only memorize their locations, but update them mentally.

A Sutherland went down in a single slash harken blow. Lelouch was grumbling. These terrorists were useless. It's only one machine and they can't handle it properly. "N4, N5, P32 try to contain it where you are. When the high maneuverability squad gets there, surround I" said Lelouch.

"Understood!" The three Sutherlands shot at the Lancelot, forcing it to move in a straight line. Ground units fired 7 RPG rounds into the shield. The Sutherlands retreated behind a ruin. Terrorists used small arms fire and disabled the first shield. Suzuku was worried. After only engaging 4 KnightMares and some obsolete weapons, the shield was weak enough to fall to small arms. He activated the second shield storage. The Sutherlands got some shots into the left hip, leg, and chest, but failed to disable critical systems, merely killing a conduit from one of the shield energy storages.

One minute later when the RPGs fired, Suzuku dodged all the shots. This time he understood he could not No Sell them, as doing so would leave him vulnerable. If a competent Sutherland pilot makes RPG-7 too slow to hit, then in the faster Lancelot, they might as well have brought revolvers.

"Well, it looks like I owe Odysseus another one. After all, he gave me the special envoy. Oh well, it worked and my involvement in that thing is concealed" said Clovis.

The new squad arrived to deal with the Lancelot would have been able to shoot around the shield if their companions had survived to contain it. One of them fired slash harken. One grapple hit and damaged the Lancelot on the front, but the slash harken itself cracked, preventing future use even if he had enough time to retract and wait for the long attack cooldown.

Lelouch quickly moved though the files. The KnightMare he stole must have been from someone important or an immediate subordinate since there was a lot of information stored locally. He saw a dossier. Earl Harry Pastry, missing in action for three years. Relative recluse and lacks an active social life. Family hasn't seen him for years before his disappearance. Was declared missing in action three separate times by error, at one point serving a whole year before the records to be corrected. Obviously, some of the Britannians staffing Area 11 were not very competent. There was a shortage of people of the right birth to fill mid and high level bureaucracy positions in Area 11 due to not enough of them wanting to come her in the first place.

"I'm going to have to remove some of you for my own survival. You owe me that much. P2, P5, P6, prepare for ejection. I'm aiming for the legs." Lelouch thought false flag operations were distasteful, but there was more than victory at stake here, his own life was in danger. He shot at his pawns. Well, again they got him in this situation in the first place.

"I need to destroy the KnightMares. No matter what, I need to save Lelouch and that green haired girl" thought Suzuku. A Sutherland was firing on more Sutherlands. He used his slash harken to get up to the same level and prepared for a punch.

In hand to hand combat the Lancelot was quite clerkly larger than the Sutherland. "So this is him, the one who's been messing with my plan!" Suddenly both machines fell through three floors of the damaged building not designed to have a KnightMare on it while damaged. Lelouch's machine was prone on the ground. As he tried to get up, the Lancelot moved in for the kill.

Kallen punched the Lancelot. The machine was quickly overpowered forcing her to eject. Lelouch was making his getaway, well over 70 meters away and leaving at full speed. Suddenly the pursuit alarm went off. He started shooting at the Lancelot, disabling the shield for the third and final time. No more bullet stopping.

Suzuku knew he had made a few mistakes. He had plowed through 35 Sutherlands, but at least three times he took unnecessary damage In addition to taking hits while the right arm shield worked, Suzuku realized if he wasn't so cavalier about the rockets, he would have his third shielding. After all, a Sutherland pilot straight out of the simulator dodged those slow moving projectiles trivially. Still, his right slash harken was active, his top speed was unaffected, the right Lancelot fact sphere was intact functional despite the older Sutherland version put in on the other side as a cost saving method was damaged, and all of these functions outclassed the last enemy. He could do it.

Lelouch couldn't keep a steady aim on the moving target. He shot a few building to delay the monster with some debris, which Suzuku easily jumped over. Unknown to Lelouch, a woman and child fell from one of the buildings he shot. After some more fleeing, he noticed the pursuer putting the pair down. For whatever reason they were in danger (his, not that he saw it when he made the shot), the pilot saved them. Lelouch finished his escape.

"Huh? Saving people" said Lloyd looking at a monitor display.

"Yes, it seems so" said a temporary assistant given by Clovis to Lloyd.

"Hm, how weird" said Lloyd.

"Suzuku? You're tired aren't you? Should we end it now?" said Cecile.

Lloyd reminded the others about the limited operational time the machine had. The Sutherlands could operate for weeks, but the Lancelot would be less than an hour until he made some upgrades.

Author's Note: I got tired of the "No Sell" thing the Lancelot does in cannon. Here I demonstrate Lacelot's power while not getting overbaord. Also, this fanfic doesn't demonstrate anti-tank rockets (like the one uou see a backgrounterrorist carrying when Ogi gets his frist screentime) are good agaisnt a KnightMare. They will do nice damage, but they need to HIT which isn't going to be done unless the target is pinned to one spot or learned how to pilot one in a garage.