Chapter 7

Hey everyone! I just got a new chapter up for Kallen of the Recurrence. I hope that you have a nice Christmas.

Please put ideas in the Chapter 14 Forum on the Website. I will use those as an idea builder.

"We must get rid of this 'Orange' character before Princess Cornelia assumes her new post!"

Lord Kewell Sorsei stood in front of half a dozen Pureblood officers. They weren't much but they were all he could scrape together. He currently was discussing his plan to remove Jeremiah Gottwald from power as head of the Purebloods. Officially it was because he allowed Zero and Private Suzaku Kururugi to escape. Unofficially, Kewell felt that it was time new leadership assumed command.

"Right now, thanks to Lord Jeremiah, the loyalty of us Purebloods is being called into question." said Kewell's right-hand man.

"I don't know…" one of the other officers stated. "Lord Jeremiah gave a pretty good excuse for letting the terrorists go. And I heard rumors that you're to face a court martial Lord Kewell."

"Those are rumors only, there isn't any basis in that. And if you're referring to that 'Project Orange' Jeremiah mentioned, don't believe it. Me and Villetta weren't let in on it, and we all know how close Villetta and Jeremiah are. Besides, Bartley never mentioned it, neither did any of the other generals that served under Prince Clovis."

"But, isn't that the point of a secret project."

"Oh please, those idiots could never keep their mouths shut. I'm sure everyone here heard all about their 'secret Code-R' gas project. And if you haven't, I'm sure Shinjuku can ring a few bells for you. No, Jeremiah is definitely hiding something and whatever it is isn't for the good of Britannia, I can feel it."

"Make your decision now because we don't have much time remaining. Princess Cornelia arrives tonight and we'll lose our only chance. You can either side against us and risk demotion and/or a court martial for failing to side with us, or you can join us and get promoted once Lord Kewell assumes command. I'm sure the Princess would reward you as well for removing the stain that allowed Zero to escape."

"I, uh, I…"

"Tick-tock, the offer expires in five minutes."

"O.K., O.K., I'll join you guys."

"Good thinking. We're already prepared an ambush sight in Shinjuku, here are the coordinates. Make sure Jeremiah gets there alone and we'll take care of the rest."

"Yes, Lord Kewell."

With that, Kewell and his other officers left the briefing room. Kewell smirked. For too long had he served under that fool Jeremiah Gottwald. This coup had been in the works for months now but Zero had given him the perfect excuse. Convincing some of the other officers had been harder than he thought, but most were now on his side. Some of them might say that he was doing this to get back the respect he lost due to Zero showing up, but never to his face. In Kewell's mind, Jeremiah Gottwald was the sole reason the Purebloods were starting their downfall and it was his job to try and fix it.

"Right, understood. I'll set everything up for then. Please be careful Jeremiah, you're too useful to Lelouch to die on us now."

Kallen closed her phone and continued her walk across the Ashford campus. Jeremiah had just called to inform her that the previous Pureblood revolution would be taking place. While he said, it was unfortunate that many of his old friends and comrades had to lose everything, it was necessary to further Lelouch's goals. With the Purebloods gone, Jeremiah would be able to act more freely and accomplish the missions he had planned.

As she walked, Kallen reflected on some of the changes to this time. Jeremiah's cover story had saved his reputation, and he was still a valuable member of the Britannian military. Now he could gain access to some of their plans and use advanced Knightmares to complete their special missions for Orange.

Unfortunately, Jeremiah's cover had also saved the Purists from the majority of the shame they had last time. Jeremiah had still stepped down and Vice-Minister Cornwell had assumed control of Area Eleven. Thankfully, Cornwell had ties to the NAC, or Kyoto. In exchange for a little extra wealth from the sakuradite mining, Cornwell allowed Kyoto quite a bit of room. This allowed Kyoto to fund the resistance movements without the Britannians finding out. For once, Kallen was actually thankful for the corruption in the Britannian government.

Right now, Jeremiah was headed for the ambush that would determine how the rest of the game went. If he succeeded, he would join her and Sayoko at the meeting C.C. had called for dealing with their hidden enemies. If he failed, Jeremiah would most likely be dead. It was a dangerous risk, but a necessary one for Orange and the Zero Requiem.

Right now, Kallen had her own mission to accomplish. Granted it wasn't as important to the Zero Requiem as Jeremiah's mission was, but to her, it was very important. Of course, finding Lelouch was easier said than done as he knew how to hide himself quite well, but eventually, she found him.

"Lelouch," she said, adopting her sickly Kallen Stadtfeld persona, "do you have a minute?"

C.C. had asked her to do this personally, though why she didn't know.

"Yeah, what is it?"

"About that phone call the other day…"

"Phone call?"

"Yeah. When you and I were in the bathroom" She said with a light blush, remembering the incident. "Could you please not mention it to Milly or the others. I heard about what the President is like and I'd rather keep my private life, well, you know, private."

"Right, well I guess I can do that, but you should know that Milly has a real nose for such things. She's going to find out one way or another and drag it out into the op-"

Lelouch froze in mid-sentence, his eyes wide as he stared at something behind her in horror.

"Huh?"

Kallen turned around to see what he was looking at. All she got was a quick look of C.C. dressed in Lelouch's clothes giving her a wave before Lelouch grabbed her and pulled her face around so that she couldn't move.

While their faces were just inches apart, to anyone else, it looked as if Lelouch was kissing her. The effect was not lost on Kallen and she struggled greatly to keep the giant blush that was threatening to show down. Inside Kallen, a three-way battle was waging. The Kallen Kōzuki side of her wanted to punch, slap, knee, or stab Lelouch, or all at once. The Kallen Stadtfeld side of her wanted to let the blush out like a schoolgirl having her first crush. The Q-1 side of her wanted to close the gap between their lips and kiss him like she did before the UFN meeting.

Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you viewed it, none of those things happened. It took a few seconds but Kallen finally managed to get the words out.

"Excuse me, Lelouch, could you let go of my face please."

As if suddenly realizing what it might have looked like to anyone else, Lelouch let go so fast it was like he was electrocuted. It almost broke Kallen's heart.

"What was that about?"

"Ah, what indeed." Lelouch said, a small hint of a blush on his own face. The question seemed more posed to himself than Kallen and before she could say anything else, he ran off, following a hint of green hair behind a building. Kallen just stared after him and raised a hand to her lips.

She had nearly kissed him! Actually, he had nearly kissed her but that didn't matter. They had nearly kissed! Kallen didn't know how much more she could take it, just being back around him was hard enough, but now add this. She desperately wished she could use her Geass on him to make him remember, then should wouldn't have to torture herself so much.

Hidden from Kallen's view, a blonde haired president nearly laughed out loud at what a glorious photo she had just gotten. Earlier, Nunnally had asked to follow Lelouch around the campus, hidden, and take pictures of him and Kallen as the wheelchair using girl thought that there was something going on between them. Now she had proof, and just maybe some excellent blackmail material too.

Shinjuku was a wasteland. It reminded Suzaku of the village he, Lelouch, and Nunnally passed through not long after the invasion began. The only difference was the lack of countless numbers of bodies. But right now, that village held more life then than Shinjuku did now.

After a few minutes of arguing and Euphie's stubborn statement that she would go with or without Suzaku, the pair had finally arrived. He didn't know why Euphie wanted to see this place but looking at it now, Suzaku realized that he needed to see it for himself.

"The Shinjuku Ghetto, ruined again. The residences were just starting to return too." Suzaku said, referring to the Britannian invasion.

Posters asking about missing loved ones covered a crumbling wall a few feet away. Graves made of stone, stick, anything the Elevens could use, stood in a field. Many were unmarked, showing that the owners weren't identified. Either their families' were dead as well, or were unable to identify them. A few were personalized, which meant that at least some people had managed to survive and were remembering the fallen.

The whole thing made Suzaku sick. All that unnecessary death, just because a few people didn't want to try and make the system work. No, they had to resort to terrorism and this was the result. The wind picked up and carried with it the voice of two Britannians.

"Man, they didn't use RG on the Elevens. I figured they wouldn't."

"Hey, those are marks from hummer rounds! Get a clear shot of it."

While Suzaku didn't approve of Elevens fighting Britannia, neither did he like to see his peoples' suffering as the amusement for a bunch of stuck-up Britannians. However, he knew that he was an Honorary Britannian and that he could do nothing to stop them. It all just made his resolve stronger. Beside him, Euphie was having similar thoughts. Unfortunately, not everyone shared their thoughts.

A trio of Elevens decided that they had to punish the students for their tourism into the ghettos. One of them, a loud-mouthed man with reddish-brown hair ran right up to them and knocked a camera out of one of the student's hands.

"Get out of here you Britannian bastards!"

The students seemed too scared to do anything and Suzaku knew how this would end. Not willing to let more unnecessary blood be shed, Suzaku dropped his bags and spoke clearly to Euphie.

"Stay here!" He then ran up to where the fighting was about to begin.

"How dare a lowly Eleven speak to us like…"

"Don't call me an Eleven!" the loud-mouth shouted. "I'm Japanese!"

"Wrong," said the other student, "you seem to forget you people lost. You're nothing but a beaten dog."

"You racist pig!" the man shouted back, ignoring his own hypocrisy.

"Stop, please, no violence!" Suzaku ran up the hill and tried to grab the loud-mouth.

"Stay out of this!" he shouted back, taking a swipe. He only succeeded in knocking Suzaku's sunglasses off, exposing his face. "You…are you, Suzaku Kururugi?"

"The guy who killed Clovis?"

"No you idiot, Zero's the one who killed him."

Suzaku look away, even his own people didn't trust him. But the loud-mouth wasn't finished.

"Tsk, this guy's nothing more than a slave. Big deal, you're an Honorary Britannian. Nobody cares. You sold your pride, your people, your soul, and yet you call yourself Japanese!"

"No, you're wrong…"

"I am NOT wrong you stinking Britannian lap dog!"

The man moved to punch Suzaku but he was ready. Using the training given to him by Tohdoh and the Britannian military, Suzaku planted his feet, grabbed the man's outstretched wrist, and gripped the collar of his shirt. Using the man's own forward momentum, Suzaku flipped him over and onto his back in half a second, shocking the other Elevens and the Britannians. However, that single move wasn't enough for the man as he quickly stood up and got ready to fight again.

"Stop please. I warn you, I've been trained in military combat, don't make me fight my own people."

"Like Hell we're you're people!"

"Come on Tamaki," one of the other Elevens said, "just let it go."

He and the third Eleven began walking away. The loud-mouth grunted, but without the backup of his buddies, reluctantly left, but not before muttering 'lousy traitor' just loud enough for Suzaku to hear.

"Suzaku?" Euphie asked, appearing with hi bad, "Are you O.K.?"

"Yeah."

"Well I'm not O.K." the student with the camera wined. "Just look at my Prime G, and my LX4."

"Why did you wait?" his friend shouted. "Damn it, some Honorary citizen you are."

"Why'd you let them go, you should've killed them. What's a few dead Elevens to a guy like you? Who do you think that takes care of you all these years anyway?"

Euphie, having enough, marched right up to the student and did something that surprised Suzaku and both the students, she slapped him. Stunned, the student dropped his camera, breaking it further.

"I will not allow you to insult this man any further you oaf!" Euphie shouted back, using her 'princess' voice. She didn't care what anyone thought or if Suzaku fought out who she was, no one would insult him while she was around. She was starting to grow fond of him.

The three boys stared at her for several seconds. The one with the camera looked like he wanted to confront her about his now useless camera, but a sudden explosion nearby caught all four of their attentions.

Jeremiah Gottwald growled within the cockpit of his Knightmare. He had prepared for this fight for a while now. He had reviewed Kewell's and his men's fighting strategies, make sure his Knightmare was in peak condition, packed an extra energy filler, ammunition around, and even a Knightmare Lance. Yet with all of his preparations, the fact was he was still losing. Sometimes not even the best laid plans survive first contact with the enemy, much less four.

However, at least if he went down, he went down fighting. Kewell's ambush hadn't caught him by surprise like the man had been expecting. Now one of Kewell's Knightmares was down and a second was heavily damaged, but the other two were still fully working while his had sustained heavy damage.

"Jeremiah, you're going to pay for letting Prince Clovis's murder go free!"

"Kewell you bastard, stand down! You know why I did what I did." Jeremiah called out, knowing that his former comrade wouldn't listen.

"Silence, 'Orange'! We serve the Imperial Family, why else would we be here? Your lies will not stand."

"Idiot! They aren't lies, I truly serve the Royal Family. I have since I graduated from the Imperial Colchester Institute."

"More lies. We know who you truly serve, I've known since the beginning. You cling to the false Empress Marianne, a common dog who wormed her way into the Imperial Court. But don't fret Jeremiah, you'll soon join you precious Marianne in the afterlife. All hail Britannia!"

With those last words, Kewell and his remaining two men rushed forward in a Y-formation, their lances ready to skewer him. Jeremiah was a man who could brush off comments and insults, especially since he had to deal with the name 'Orange' in the previous timeline. But there was no way he would tolerate insults to his Empress Marianne, even if he no longer followed her because of what she did.

Timing his moves carefully, Jeremiah reminded Kewell just why he was an elite pilot. With some quick maneuvering, Jeremiah avoided two of the lances and struck the already damaged Knightmare with his left Stun Tonfa. The hit further damaged the Knightmare enough that the pilot was forced to eject, but it cost Jeremiah. The third lance struck his right arm and he had to detach it or risk exploding along with it. This left him completely defenseless.

"Don't worry Jeremiah, your family's name won't be disgraced by this. We'll just tell the Princess that you were lost in battle. Now die."

Before Kewell's lance could pierce his Knightmare, a Slash Harken suddenly appeared and cut him off. The three pilots turned to see the white Knightmare Lancelot retract the Harken. 'At last, I thought he'd never get here.'

"Stop please, you're all Britannian soldiers! There's no need for this senseless fighting!"

"The Special Corp should stay out of this!" Kewell shouted back at Kururugi. "Interlopers will die along with Orange!"

"No! I won't allow this!"

The Lancelot drew its Maser Vibration Swords in a show of force, but Kewell would not back down. He fired his own Slash Harkens at the Knightmare but they were quickly beaten down by the advanced swords. He then tried to use his lance but that too was cut by the swords, leaving Kewell without a weapon.

"Private Kururugi" Jeremiah called through his radio, "Lord Kewell has started a mutiny against me. I ask for your help in putting it down."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Asking help from an Eleven, and I thought you could stoop no lower Jeremiah. The Lancelot won't save you. Oliver, finish Jeremiah off!"

The last Knightmare rushed into, lance ready. Jeremiah saw that Kururugi couldn't protect him and he knew that he couldn't avoid this attack. He was going to die right here, without ever truly serving his prince. 'Prince Lelouch, please forgive me!'

However, before the lance struck, another Pureblood Knightmare appeared and crashed into the attacking one. The pilot was forced to eject and the new Knightmare took up a defensive position in front of Jeremiah.

"Jeremiah, I got your message. I'm sorry I was late but it took longer to get the transport than I thought. They'll be here any minute."

"Villetta, you have my thanks. You see Kewell; I anticipated your mutiny and made arrangements. A transport of loyal Purebloods will be here soon to arrest you and your conspirators."

Kewell knew he was beaten. His entire squad been taken out, and Jeremiah was now backed up by not only Villetta Nu, but the advance weapon Lancelot. There was no way he could take them all on, especially since he had only one weapon left, but he had to try.

"Jeremiah, this isn't the end." A hatch opened on the side of Kewell's Knightmare and a cylinder popped out. "I'm using a Chaos Mine!"

The three other pilots were shocked that the rebellious lord was still fighting and that he would use such a weapon.

"No! Stop now!"

"What?"

Suzaku recognized that voice, it was Euphie's. Turning, he saw the pink hair girl running out into the arena where the battle was taking place, right in the danger zone of the mine.

"Princess Euphemia!"

Jeremiah recognized his prince's younger sister right away. He knew that much rested on the young princess and that he couldn't allow her to be harmed. As quickly as he could, he rushed his Knightmare to protect the princess, but he knew that he wouldn't make it in time; his Knightmare was too badly damaged.

Suzaku didn't even think. He crossed the Lancelot's arms and quickly activated the Blaze Luminous shielding, not even knowing if it would protect them from the shrapnel or not. The shield easily deflected the fire away, but Suzaku had to struggle to keep the shields in place as the force the mine was giving off threatened to knock them away.

A quick look at his energy readings showed that the Blaze Luminous was eating through his available power. If the attack kept up, he wouldn't be able to keep the shields on for more than a few seconds. If that happened, they would all die

While Kururugi was blocking the shrapnel, Jeremiah reached the princess and grabbed her with his only working arm and turned his Knightmare to better protect her until the mine finished.

"Lord Jeremiah!"

"I'm alright Villetta." Checking behind him, Jeremiah saw that the mine was spent and that the Lancelot's shields were down. Looking back at the princess, he saw that she was unharmed and smiling up at him.

"Please, Sir Knight, put me down. The rest of you, lower your weapons!" As soon as she was down on the ground, she walked straight to the center of the arena so that they all could see her. "I am Euphemia li Britannia of the Empire and the Third Princess of the Royal Family! I am taking charge here, so all forces fall back!"

"Euphie?" Suzaku was shocked. Euphie was a princess of Britannia? That explained why she was so familiar, she was Lelouch's sister. Why didn't he see it before, she had the same eye color! He had spent the whole day with a princess of the Empire and didn't even know it. How much trouble was he in now?