The Power of Queens
Chapter 2
"Um, yes," Liana spoke into the reciever, twiddling the phone's cord with the fingers of her other hand, "I'd like to order five large pizzas. Italien base. Two margarita, one pepperoni and two..."
She paused, racking her memory.
"Meat feast!" came C.C.'s voice from the next room.
"...meat feast," she finished with a relieved sigh. Pizza was practically a religion in the household - C.C. would eat nothing else, thus, as a child, Liana had eaten nothing else. Luckily for her at least, C.C. had been responsible enough to feed her a healthy variety of toppings and only let her eat what added up to one whole large pizza a day (usually that meant she got C.C.'s leftovers, but she didn't mind, in fact, she was somewhat grateful) and not to mention that crazy exercise program; Liana didn't even want to think about that.
"Uh," came the man's voice on the other end, bringing the fifteen-year-old back to earth, "anything else for ya, miss?"
Hm, she considered, maybe some garlic bread... nah.
"No, that'll be all, thank you."
"Okay, that'll be a total of..."
"You're obviously new," she interrupted, "or you would've recognised me," dude, I have to make this phone call practically every freaking day, "just charge charge it to the Lamperouge account."
"Oh... okay."
"And make it snappy," she added, almost as an afterthought, "my sisterdoesn't like cold pizza."
With that she hung up and rejoined C.C. in the living room.
"So, did you order all the right stuff? Right size?" the green-haired immortal asked from her spot on the sofa. Liana plonked down beside her and reached for the TV remote.
"Yes, I did," she sighed, flicking her dyed blonde hair out of her eyes and turning on the TV. After a moment of watching the weather forecast (it was going to be sunny all week) she turned to her guardian. "Hey, C.C.?"
The code-bearer glanced at her her with one lime green eyebrow raised as if she had already anticipated the question.
"Can we go to Britannia this weekend? You know, just to visit..."
"Your father's grave?" C.C. finished. "I suppose so. It is the anniversery of his death tomorrow, after all. Just don't do anything foolish like barging into the throne room in the imperial palace in Pendragon announcing that you have a more direct claim to the throne than Nunally or something."
"Why would I do that? My aunt is a great empress: the people adore her. And she has Zero to back her up."
"Suzaku isn't nearly as competent as Lelouch," the immortal pointed out. Liana shrugged.
"He hasn't messed up yet and his motives are clear; he isn't hard to read. My father chose him as his successor and I don't question his decision."
"Neither do I," C.C. responded calmly, "I was just stating a fact."
"I know," Liana replied, "it just sounded like you were implying something."
C.C. rolled her eyes. "You really did inherit your parents' worst qualities."
"You're so incredibly kind to me," Liana muttered sarcastically. C.C. opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.
"I'll get it," Liana declared, getting to her feet and stretching, "it's probably just the pizza."
Turned out it was the pizza and it was being delivered by a rather strapping young Japanese man who could only have been about a year or two older than Liana herself, sixteen or seventeen at most, and he was obviously horomonal as when she appeared at the doorframe he smirked and eyed the secret princess appraisingly. Unfortunatly for him, however, Liana had inherited her mother's opinions on these things and was not one bit impressed by the boy's oggling and was tempted to slam the door in his all-too-happy face. Good thing for him that he was a pizza man - C.C. wouldn't appreciate not getting her supper. She glared at him and he quickly adverted his gaze from her chest to the piece of paper in his hand.
"Miss Lamp... Lamper... udge...? Oodge...?"
"Lamperouge," Liana corrected, her patience already wearing thin, "are those my pizzas?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, these," he passed the pizzas over to her - good, they were still hot - and stepped back before taking a very dangerous dive into very dangerous waters. "So, would you, uh, like to out for lunch sometime?"
She simply gave him the are you a total retard or something? look before replying, "you can't even say my name properly, why would I go on a date with you?"
"Well, I, I," he stuttered, desperately searching for some sort of pick up line, which was hard to do when the girl he was trying to flirt with was glaring at him as if he was something that had just come out of a dog's backside. "Can I at least get your number?"
Her glare just intensified.
"It's in the phonebook."
Well, actually it's a private number and even if it was in the phonebook it wouldn't be under Lamperouge, but he doesn't need to know that.
"How about your name?" he tried again.
"That's in the phonebook too."
The next thing the youthful pizza man realised was that a door had been slammed in his face. He hadn't even gotten a tip. Damn.
"God," Liana muttered as she headed back towards the living room. C.C. instantly came up at the doorway and took the pizzas from her and began happily munching away whilst Liana curled up on the sofa, occasionally nibbling at a cheesy slice, cuddling the massive Cheese-kun plushie that she had recieved from C.C. as an infant.
"Let me guess," C.C. was the one to break the silence, "the pizza guy was new and was trying to chat you up?"
"And failing. Miserably," Liana confirmed with a sigh, "but you would know all about that wouldn't you? After all, your Geass was the ability to make people love you, wasn't it?"
C.C. didn't respond and merely continued to eat her pizza; she didn't like talking about her past. All she wanted, all she had wanted for years now, was to be able to move on and finally rest in peace, and Liana had sworn to do just that. She had sworn to complete her father's contract.
Knowing that she wouldn't be honoured with a response, Liana turned her attention to the TV; a favourite program of hers was on, something about advanced, high-tech Knightmare Frames, with tonight's episode focusing on the Britannian Kinghts of the Round. Liana herself had never had the oppurtunity to pilot a Knightmare but she guessed that her interest in them stemmed from her blood relation to some of the greatest and most famous Knightmare pilots of all time, most notably her mother, the so-called Red Lotus, and paternal grandmother, Marianne the Flash.
She watched with a laid-back interest as, in numerical order, each of the esteemed Knightmares were shown and discussed along with their pilots. Liana felt her interest peak as the program finally reached the frame that could be directly blamed for her premature birth: the Guren MK-11. It was shortly after the Zero Requiem that Kallen Kouzuki left the Black Knights - though she only completely resigned after her accident - and returned to Ashford Academy to complete her education and four years ago she joined the ranks of the Knights of the Round, as the Knight of Seven to be exact, the former post of the 'deceased' Suzaku Kururugi. Liana couldn't help but find the whole situation more than a little ironic considering the passionate hatred that her mother had held for Britannia and now she was amongst the empire's pride and joy - well, she was one of the best after all and thus deserved to be ranked with the best. At least now, thanks to her father, that hatred was forgotten and the world was at peace.
It was with a terrified kind of awe that Liana watched the Guren and its pilot through the window that was the TV screen, a rush of emotions coursing through her: shock, fear, worry, concern, the desire to protect, terror...
C.C. turned to watch her, a sigh emitting from her lips. This happened every time Liana so much as glimpsed at the Guren. Liana was a smart kid, no doubt about it, a real bright spark and even what could be described as a child genius - much like Lelouch - and her memory was one of the best C.C. had ever seen, subconciously she could even remember her time inside the womb. There was just one problem with that. The accident. Being unborn and nothing but a foetus at the time meant that, apart from pain, all she had experienced at the time were emotions - both Kallen's and her own. And it seemed that the sight of the Guren seemed to trigger something within her mind that forced her to relive the trauma of the accident by making her relive the entire incident through the emotions she had experienced at the time.
Just as Liana's body began to curl into itself, forming the fetal position that she'd no doubt been in at the time of the accident, C.C. decided to put a stop to it before the girl ended up having a full-blown panic attack and promptly proceeded to flick her on the temple, successfully snapping the fifteen-year-old out of her trance.
The fake blonde turned to face her with wide eyes and a thundering heart.
"It happened again, didn't it?" she asked, "I was completely out of it, wasn't I?"
And it also happened that she had a habit of not recalling her emotional flashbacks. Maybe she really did get brain damage from that accident.
"You were strangling Cheese-kun," the witch remarked simply.
Liana rolled her eyes and got up, announcing that she was going to get a glass of water, and exited in the room, taking Cheese-kun with her and leaving C.C. alone in the living room with only the TV and four and a half large Pizza Hut pizzas for company. Shrugging, the immortal picked up another slice and brought it to her lips and locked her golden gaze on the screen which was now advertising something that looked very interesting.
A summer camp running for one year only - more importantly a Black Knight summer camp where twelve to seventeen-year-olds would be taught about the Black Knights and their history and workings by the Black Knight veterans themselves, learning all about the Black Rebellion and other great feats. Four weeks of living and learning with the Black Knights themselves. This was just too perfect.
Upon hearing that there wer eonly limited spots remaining, C.C. got up and headed in a bee-line for the telephone and dialled in the number that had been shown on the television, smirking widely as she brought the reciever up to her ear.
Liana, she thought, you wanted to know what your father had to put up with as Zero and you wanted to meet your mother in person; well, here you go.
