Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass, if I did…damn do these get hard to come up with something clever after a while
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The next day, Lelouch was exploring the refuge camp, listening in on the various conversations while he let Kallen rest at their temporary lodging. Lelouch had managed to formulate the beginnings of his plan, but to begin it he would need to get a foster parent for the two of them. A noble would be required, someone with access to a decent amount of money, preferably someone who was currently single. "Hey did you hear? Duke Cassius was amongst those who was in Japan during the invasion," a solder was gossiping with another, "They say he lost his family in the attack and was lucky to survive himself."
"Duke Cassius?" the solder's buddy asked, Lelouch smirking as he took up a position nearby to listen in.
"You don't know? He's the foremost weapon developer in Britannia, he's responsible for the creation of the Chaos Grenade Knightmare Equipment, one of the weapons that utterly destroyed the opposition here," the first solder said, "He's a legend now because of that."
"Really? I heard about that, my bro's one of the pilots for those Glasgow things, he said that grenade saved his life more than a few times during the attack. I oughta go thank that guy, where is he?" the second solder asked, Lelouch barely containing his urge to say 'bingo.'
"I heard he was down by the mess tent," and that was all Lelouch had to hear before he walked off towards his destination.
"Duke, weapons developer, I swear, this couldn't be more perfect if this was a story and I was writing it," Lelouch mused to himself, and then rubbed his left eye, the eyepatch got rather itchy after a while, "I'll just have to get used to it."
It didn't take him long to reach the mess tent and see the person in question, a middle-aged man dressed in fine attire. And as luck would have it he was playing chess against a green haired man, "Well Gottwald, looks like you've lost this round quite well," he said as he moved a bishop into place, "Checkmate."
"Bwahahaha! That's Cassius for you, always showing us commanders up!" an old balding and rather rotund officer, who by his stripes and stars was a brigadier general, laughed out, "Gottwald a rookie commander like you didn't stand a chance."
"Now Bartley, don't sound too confident, he did about as well as you do," the duke said, setting the pieces back to their original position while the man known as Gottwald got up, "So any other challengers? I've got plenty of time and a lot I'd rather not think about." Lelouch waited a bit to see if anybody else would step forward, "Come now, no one else?"
Lelouch then walked forward and sat down in front of the duke, "I'll play you mister," Lelouch said, putting on a show of being an innocent little kid.
When he spoke up, he surprised everybody in the room, "Oh, a kid? You sure you want to?" Cassius asked with a smile as more than a few solders started chuckling, "I won't go easy on you."
"I wouldn't want you to," Lelouch said taking the white side and moving his pawn in a-2 forward two spaces.
"Heh, okay kid," Cassius replied moving his king's pawn forward one space, Lelouch responding by doing the same, which Cassius responded to by moving his queen to where his king's pawn was. Lelouch only smiled at Cassius' move, then moved his pawn in c-2 up one. "Not bad, you're pretty good," Cassius responded analyzing Lelouch's moves, "The first move, moving your rook pawn up like that, something amateurs do a lot, but you did it to control that side of the board, I can't take that pawn now, and I can't just casually move a piece in that general area now." Cassius then moved his pawn in b-7 up two spaces.
"Sacrificing a piece?" Lelouch asked casually, "Letting me get my rook free?" Lelouch then moved his bishop to take the pawn, "No thanks, my rook and pawn will stay where they are for now." The game continued for quite sometime, until it came down to the end of the game, "Chechmate," Lelouch declared as he moved his king out from in front of his rook, allowing it a direct line of attack against Cassius' king.
"He actually beat him, I've never seen Cassius lose before," Bartley said, adjusting the pair of glasses he had on.
Cassius clapped his hands, "Splendid, absolutely splendid," Cassius said looking at Lelouch with curiosity now, "I must know, where are you parents? I've got to commend them for raising such a splendid son."
"They're dead," Lelouch said, somewhat sadly, "Died in the invasion."
"…Oh dear, I didn't mean to…" Cassius stuttered at that, and taking note of Lelouch's eyepatch, "Say, what's your name?"
"Lelouch," Lelouch began to say, getting Gottwald's attention, and then he finished, "Lamperouge."
"Well then, Lelouch Lamperouge, I lost my son and wife in the invasion as well. What do you say if I adopt you?" Cassius suggested, surprising Lelouch.
In the back of his mind Lelouch was dancing for joy, he didn't even have to use his Geass to get this far. This was too perfect, play the part of the downtrodden little boy genius in front of the noble to provide an excuse as to why he would adopt you, only now it was the reason he was being adopted. Lelouch composed himself and asked, "Would you adopt my little sister too?"
"Of course, the more the merrier," Cassius said, "So would you like that?"
"Can I go talk to her about it? She's still…pretty traumatized by everything that's happened, I don't want to drop this on her out of the blue," Lelouch said, playing the part of the concerned brother now.
"Of course, I'll be here," Cassius said with a nod of his head, "A bright boy like you Lelouch deserves the best."
Lelouch ran out of the mess tent and then out of view, and then listened to see if he could hear anything of interest, "Duke Cassius, are you certain, I mean he could be nothing more than the child of a commoner," he heard Bartley object.
"A boy that intelligent and cunning? Of course, with my son dead I need a suitable heir," Cassius responded.
"Cunning?" Gottwald asked.
"Yes, you could tell he was acting if you were paying attention, except about that part about him being an orphan and his sister most likely. His loyalty is clear, he wants to provide his sister with the best, a good big brother. And that is what will make him easy to control. Normally someone that cunning would likely be dangerous. But with that Achilles Heel I'll have the perfect heir and the perfect vice-president for my company," Cassius said, while Lelouch walked off, smiling, the plan was working, he knew there would be an added benefit to adopt Kallen as his sister.
Lelouch returned to their room where Kallen was sitting in bed, hugging her knees to her chest, "I'm back," he said in Japanese once he closed the door, a smile on his face, "Good news too depending on how you look at it."
"Good news?" Kallen asked, looking at Lelouch curiously, "You were out doing something?"
"Indeed, I was securing a foster parent," Lelouch said with a cunning smirk, "It was surprisingly easy."
"But…I don't…"
"Listen, Kallen, we need to survive, that's all we need to do for now," he walked closer to her and continued, "It'll only be for a few years. I can promise you that."
"What do you mean?" Kallen asked, looking up at Lelouch, who was only smirking, a plan glimmering in his eyes.
"Oh don't you worry about it. Just leave it all to me," Lelouch said, "Oh by the way, I should have mentioned, he's a Duke."
"Eh?" Kallen said in surprise, Lelouch's sudden little reveal astonishing her.
Lelouch plopping down right next to her and said, "I don't settle for second best. I go for the best."
Four years and many months later, "Thank you for coming," Lelouch said solemnly to an elderly couple. He was wearing a tuxedo, standing beside a grave in the noble's graveyard. In the past four years he had grown quite a bit bigger, having gotten a new eyepatch for himself that looked far more dignified. His hair had been bleached white and he was now sporting a scar that went up and down from under his eyepatch. It genuinely looked like his eye had been cut out by something now. But underneath the eyepatch, his demonic Geass eye was still glowing brightly, brighter than before in fact. The only reason it could not be seen was due to the heavy black eyepatch he was wearing.
"Your highness," someone said further down the line, Lelouch's attention being brought to a blonde-haired man in royal dress walking up, ignoring the rather lengthy line, and stopping before Lelouch, "I'm Clovis La Britannia, I'm sorry for your loss," the man said grasping Lelouch's hand, "Your father, was a good friend of mine."
"Thank you, your highness, it's an honor for you to be here, my father, would have been happy to have you here," Lelouch said, bowing in respect, and smiled inwardly, Clovis didn't recognize him, his disguise worked perfectly, he no longer looked like Lelouch Vi Britannia.
"No need for that…Duke Lamperouge," Clovis said with a smile, "It's funny, I always wondered why he never changed your last name to his. Well I suppose I'll never know now."
The funeral went on without much out of the ordinary, Kallen standing there besides Lelouch the entire time, looking suitably depressed throughout. While Lelouch on the other hand looked like he was trying not to cry. After the funeral service, Lelouch could hear random gossip, some of the other nobles thought he had something to do with Cassius' death. While others defended him, citing that no trace of him or anybody else could be found anywhere near the site of Cassius' suicide, the suicide note he left leaving nothing to the imagination for his reasoning, the depression and loneliness of losing his first family never having healed even with his adopted second family. Lelouch only gave a weak smile when asked if such talk was depressing him, responding that it was fine and to let them talk, to truth had been revealed already and the talk of untrusting nobles meant nothing to him. After everything was said and done, Lelouch and Kallen began the drive home, being driven home in a limousine, "Nii-san," Kallen began, "This all really happened didn't it?"
"Yes, it did," Lelouch responded, looking out the windows of the car at the still being constructed Britannina Settlement over old Tokyo.
"It's funny, four years, we went from being orphans to nobles in that time, and you went from being an orphan to a duke," Kallen mused, looking out the window as well, "I would never have imagined, imagined any of this was possible back then, crying over my mother and brother."
"I did, I saw that it would happen one day, but I didn't think this soon," Lelouch responded, then with a chuckle he added, "Its funny, I've lost a lot. But gained a lot as well."
"Nii-san, you didn't have anything to do with it did you? Cassius' death," Kallen asked.
"Only if I could somehow order him to commit suicide," Lelouch answered truthfully, "I could have had no other hand in it."
"I suppose you're right, it would have been impossible for you," Kallen replied, feeling a little better now, "Say, nii-san, don't you think Japan is in a sad state?"
"I would say so," Lelouch responded, "The Honorary Britannian system, the Number system, the ghettos and settlement. Everything could be so much better."
"If you could do something about it, would you?" Kallen continued, like she was asking him for some profound answer.
"I suppose I would. But it's impossible to do such a thing with mere money, even violence would only get you so far, it would require someone to successfully change Britannia somehow. Either from the outside or from the inside," Lelouch answered, not really paying attention to Kallen, whose eyes were gleaming with conviction now.
"Thanks nii-san," she said happily.
"You're welcome…just promise me you won't do anything dangerous," Lelouch said.
And that's where I'll end this chapter. It's no secret what happened with Cassius so I won't even bother asking. This Lelouch is certainly a good deal nastier than the canon one, I was surprised when I figured out what he'd do. Overall, this chapter was pretty hard to write, I was drawing a blank for ideas so this wasn't my best chapter ever. Well then, next chapter we'll be skipping to the start of the normal Code Geass timeline. Now onto the questions…
1) In case you can't tell, this Geass is a bit more evolved than the current canon one. So what do you think I've added? (No, not multiple uses. That's just cheap)
2) What do you think of this Lelouch's changed look? To those who know a bit about the history behind Code Geass you'd recognize that I went with Lelouch's original hair color for now (Yep, originally he was going to have white hair).
3) Why do you think Kallen was asking those questions at the end there?
And that's all, now press that review button before I do a DBZ ripoff in the next chess game.
Ciao for now
Tis has been a chapter from your unfriendly neighborhood LunaticChaos