Chapter 8
Code Geass is the intellectual property of Sunrise Studios. No financial profit is made from this story.
The Tokyo Decimation of 2023 demonstrated to the world that WMDs weren't the only threat. At the end of the day, weapons such as FLEIJA, nuclear warheads, positron N2 bombs and other such instruments of destruction remain just that – instruments. What matters more is the hand that wields them. As the late Chairman Mao Zedong of the High Eunuch Council of the ChinFed was fond of saying; 'political power grows out from the barrel of a gun'.
A man with a gun has immense negotiating power for he wields an instrument that can awe and terrify, taking life and keeping people at bay. What matters is the mind behind the gun. With the advent of psychic warfare and the proliferation of psychic's worldwide, that mind could be controlled. With the revelation of the powers involved with the Code of Immortality, the Geass of Kings and the other hidden powers that are yet to be revealed, this changed the way in which warfare was approached.
You weren't dealing with weapons of mass destruction anymore. You were dealing with people of mass destruction. And that is when the entire paradigm of war as we knew it changed.
Lectures on Military History by Lieutenant-Colonel Zaki Kozuki-Shan and Professor [Lieutenant-General (Ret)] Tycho Stadtfeld, Black Knight Military University of Hong Kong
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Suzaku slammed the blade of his Lancelot down on the opposing Akatsuki's blade before skewering it through the arm and leg actuators, disabling it without killing the pilot. Beside him Kyoshiro Tohdoh moved about swiftly in his Zangetsu, rapidly parrying blows from the berserk if ineffective strikes of a Japanese Knight Police Glasgow.
Cornelia brutally tore her way through several of the attacking Knightmares within her Gloucester Baskerville. A standard Gloucester with additional armour, she'd modified it with the addition of a thick Kevlar/Dyneema cape on her back that billowed backwards as she grabbed another Knightmare and threw it into a building facade.
She had two Maser Vibration Blades added to the forearms while adding a thermal lance as her main weapon. Heated to temperatures in excess of five thousand degrees Celsius, the ceramic drill was able to cut through all but the thickest armour. All of this was courtesy of a certain Pudding Earl.
The three of them - Suzaku, Kyoshiro and Cornelia - had become separated from the main contingent and been forced to fight their way out of the Chiba district. "Cornelia. Watch out on your right. Thermal imaging's picked up several soldiers in the buildings down the next road. Anti-tank missiles from what I'm reading" Kyoshiro spoke over the tac/com, his eyes coolly assessing the readout.
He minimised his attention towards Suzaku, knowing he could hold his own. While he hadn't seen combat in years, Tohdoh was still one of the acknowledged aces of Japan and one of the best within the UFN bar Kallen Kozuki the Red Queen, the Fhajad Sahar the Black Tiger and several of the Kshatriya's.
"私はあなたの英国の私の耳を乱用することをあなたは必要としない日本語を十分に話してもいい " Cornelia replied with a slight smile. Whatever was happening out there, it wasn't lost on her that she was fighting in Japan once again, under very different circumstances. The irony wasn't lost on her that she was fighting with Kyoshiro Tohdoh rather than against him. Kyoshiro looked at her.
"あなたの文法はひどいものだ !" he commented flatly before turning his attention back towards their enemies. In the heat of combat, all Cornelia could do was laugh. Just because she was Britannian didn't mean she couldn't appreciatie and understand the cultures of foreigners. She spoke fluent Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese and French. Enough to lecture people about it at military college if that counted for anything.
At the moment they detected a group of Burai Kai's and Gekka's approaching them. IFF tags identified them as members of the Black Knights 2nd Tokyo National Battalion, a regular armour battalion of the Black Knights that had been held in reserve.
Any hopes of friendly assistance were dashed as they raised their riles and opened fire, cries of "De Dios!" and "Nippon Banzai!" filling the net as the three of them were forced to circle back, dodging into side roads and alleys for cover as Chaos Mines exploded all around them. Though their Knightmares may have been superior, the sheer numbers of Knightmares they'd encountered had sapped their power reserves. Where they'd been contending with sheer mobs of Knightmares before, they were now confronted with a disciplined foe.
Kyoshiro's Zangetsu suddenly shook as heavy calibre gunfire raked across it, tungsten carbide tipped rounds ripping through armour and severing the actuators and hydraulic cables in the knees of his Zangetsu. It collapsed to the floor before Suzaku interposed himself between it and the incoming fire as a viscous liquid began to leak from beneath the Zangetsu's armour, sealing the cracks in it.
The nanopaste was a suspension of activated nanoparticles consisting of a slurry that formed a cement sealing the fracture beneath it. An innovation by UFN engineers, it was in the process of being fitted to elite Knightmares. At the same time micromachines, another recent innovation, all slightly larger than ants swarmed over the wound on the Knightmare, their micron size mandibles working frantically to seal the wound as they worked within, sealing cables and creating actuators and motors from the nanopaste.
The gunfire quickly changed to a hail of rockets that exploded against his Blaze Luminous before several misiles streaked out of nowhere and exploded in a shower of chaffsmoke that obscured their vision and blocked their sensors. Short-range electromagnetic pulses scrambled their electronic systems, dissipating his shield before a surge from a Gefjun disrupter slowed his Knightmare to a crawl.
A sudden movement in the smoke was all the warning he had before three Gekka's came flying through the air and slammed into an apartment building, pierced through by the thrown lance of Cornelia's Gloucester, the only kind in existence.
They were followed by a yell over the general combat net Cornelia barrelled through the smoke screen, Slash Harken's firing into a Gekka before she tore off it's arm and rammed it through the cockpit, pulping the pilot in a visible display of gore as gibbets of flesh erupted from the cockpit pod.
She turned and bisected another that came leaping out of the smoke, sword held above its hand. She ducked her Knightmare and grabbed another Burai by the legs, twisting as she swung it into a leaping Zangetsu painted in black and red, sending both slamming into a shopping arcade. The Zangetsu's arm bent at an odd angle, the Burai's head smashed into the body core of the Zangetsu.
Suzaku sidestepped another Gekka that bull rushed him, grabbing it by the head and diverting it into a wall at a hundred kilometres an hour. Enough to leave the pilot shaken and concussed thought not really stirred. And very much non-responsive.
A sudden shift by him to evade a gold and blue commander's Gekka Daken (essentially the same as as Kyoshiro Tohdoh's personalised Knightmare but a production model) that came out of nowhere caused him to fall to the ground. The man blasted the arms of his Lancelot, the sluggish servomotors and actuators refusing to respond to Suzaku's desperate input from within the cockpit.
He rolled to the left and leapt, using the extra space gained and the momentum he'd built to back thrust his Lancelot's leg into a penetrating kick that tore into the torso of the Knightmare and hit something, sending it stumbling to the ground. The arms smoked from the shells that had dented the armour, flattening as they impacted against the tiles arrayed across the surface.
The Gekka shoved him over as it bore down with it's thermic blade, the cutting edge glowing red with excess heat as the air shimmered around it. He used the Lancelot's legs to block it, the superior strength of the leg winning out as he pushed it away and rammed the other leg into its hip juncture, destroying the hip actuators and shattering the endoskeleton beneath. Hopping up and spinning back he rammed a Spinzaku into it, nailing it on the side and sending it crashing to the ground.
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Since the defeat of the Lancelot Albion, Camelot engineers had redesigned and improved the basic model, replacing the traditional armour with diamasteel alloy which had been designed with extreme mechanical strength, the hardness of diamond and heightened thermal resistance in mind,designed to counter the Guren's RWS in part. This had been further reinforced with boron nitride fibres to enhance the survivability of both Knightmare and pilot.
Aside from a reactor output boosted by 150%, there was the addition of an extra close combat weapon tucked into the torso of the Lancelot Trentor in the form of a dual LBX autocannon that was run by a backup electromechanical ignition system. The LBX could rip a standard Sutherland or Burai to shreds in a few shots when fired at point blank range, the spread of armour-piercing fragments, each equal to 50 grams of TNT equivalents, able to shred through all but the thickest armour or energy shields. It was in essence a scaled up shotgun for Knightmares.
The final addition had been of a 32 megajoule railgun pod housed in the torso. Firing hypersonic projectiles at well over Mach 8, the only known systems able to survive it were energy shields, the projectile easily able to tear through even six feet of solid steel-encased depleted uranium.
Drawing a bead on the Gekka, Suzaku opened fire, watching the large holes that tore open the Gekka as the physical impact of the shotgun caused his own Lancelot to recoil. In a spray of hydraulic fluid he hit a vital component of the Gekka and watched as the pilot ejected.
He shifted his feet as his acoustic sensors picked up a veritable click-clack of assault rifle breeches being loaded echoing through the air. He looked up, the factsphere spinning into activation as Suzaku looked down the barrels of several Guren Nishiki radiation surgers and Gekka assault rifles. Cornelia ground to a halt as several Burai's simultaneously dogpiled her, locking the limbs of her Knightmare into submission as motors screamed in protest.
He found several assault rifles levelled at his cockpit, the fingers of the KMF's twitching near th trigger. Tohdoh's Zangetsu rose slowly from its prone position as a masked face appeared on his screen. A man in a Zero mask. An imposter A modulated voice, mechanical and cold, spoke out even as laser dots played across their Knightmares. "Suzaku Kururugi, traitor of Japan. General Kyoshiro Tohdoh. Imperial Princess Cornelia. A pleasure to meet you. We're need of hostages. And you're just -"
A sudden chorus of screams cut across entire frequencies at once as a sable-silver Knightmare with gold filligree and 'eyes' that glowed a baleful red crashed through a wall. In a horrendous orchestra of brutality it rammed itself into the middle of the Gekka's and lashed out, horrific screams of agony and thunder filling the tac/com, suppressing all other sounds.
In seconds it was over, the seven Knightmares dismembered as the nightmarish-looking saviour of the three stomped on the cockpits, grinding the pilots under heel. It began to echo a harsh but low laughter that caused Suzaku's hairs to rise. Cornelia backed away, getting her lance back from the rubble of the buildings as she kept it pointed at the new combatant.
She activated her Factsphere and zoomed in, noticing the flag of the Black Knights on it as the name of the pilot scrolled onto her screen.
Lt. Navin Chirac. The Demon Thunder.
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The Iruel Knightmare Frame, a derivative of the Israeli Vashiel Knightmare, was a marvel of Bangladeshi-Israeli engineering. In the past century, when Britannia had ceded India to the rule of the Chinese Eunuchs in exchange for military aid in the pacification of the South American and African territories, the Sahar family had invested heavily in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, setting up scientific free zones, free of academic and tax restrictions, attracting the best and brightest of Europe and Asia to set up shop there.
As such, in a radically different revision of history, Indian engineering derived its reputation of ruggedness and precision from early influence of Swiss and German engineers who'd set up polytechnics and universities in those areas. Much like Hong Kong remained a Britannian city-state, Germany, Switzerland, France and Sweden had been granted concession territories in certain zones of India as a way of attracting investment and solidifying their reputation as centres of excellent in education, business and engineering.
The presence of such engineering and scientific talent, with the vast amounts of money invested in the production of the Knightmare Frames by Israel and the Indian Commonwealth, along with an inflow of Japanese talent, had left Rakshata Chawla overwhelmed with a mob of highly educated and motivated engineers whom she'd put to good use.
The Iruel had nearly been thrown to the wayside until Fhajad Sahar had earmarked it as a pet project and requested a rugged, durable Knightmare Frame that could take out as much damage as it dished out. Simple, rugged and reliable. The starting point had been the Vashiel which had evolved to the Iruel, a standard Knightmare used amongst the Taipei Axis nations of which Israel was a part of. Ultimately it had become the Ganishka, an Iruel variant used only by the Kshatriya's of the Sahar family.
The Ganishka was amongst the heaviest Knightmare Frames, arguably second only to the Britannian Galahad piloted by the late Bismarck Waldstein in weight. A compact, rugged Knightmare with a low centre of gravity, it's durability was best described as insane and its firepower as monstrous. Not a match for the Guren Toukijin, Lancelot, Gawain or Indra in firepower but who needed firepower when you could tank through multiple plasma bursts and an explosion that was the TNT equivalent of 20 tons of TNT without shields?
Lacking all the agility of the Guren or the streamlined sophistication of the Lancelot and the energy shielding of both, it overcompensated by having what was essentially several layers of Titanium-A in between which was sandwiched slabs of depleted uranium with boron nitride and plates of synthetic diamond plate constructed by nanomachines lacing the entire superstructure, superconductive cables lacing the entire surface to dissipate radiation-based attacks.
In between all of this was a magnetorheological fluid consisting of carbonyl iron particles in a carrier liquid with proprietary additives. When magnetised by a release of magnetic charges upon kinetic impact it hardened and added another layer of armour in between all the other armour.
Its arsenal consisted of the new PPC (Particle Projection Cannon), a particle-beam weapon which projected plasma in either searing bolts of blue or streams of blue-white plasma that inflicted tremendous thermal, kinetic and electrical damage to the physical structure of an object.
Furthered by the fact that it wielded a 'Gallilean Non-Linear Directed Energy Weapon', essentially a potential-to-kinetic chemical laser that could penetrate three metres of depleted uranium sandwiched between two layers of half-metre thick Titanium-A and one had an extremely good idea of the fact that stealth was rather pointless from the basis of a Ganishka looking like Godzilla's anus on a bad case of diarrhoea when one applied thermal imaging to view it.
The technology that drove it was simple. Unlike so many others, it ran on a hybrid of a powerful diesel engine and nuclear fusion reactor, therefore allowing it to generate a noxious smoke screen but destroying any and all forms of stealth, simply because there wasn't any space to install additional stealth technology amongst all the armour, guns and actuators.
The final distinction about it was that unlike the basic Lancelot or Guren which could overhead lift a maximum of twice their own payload, the Ganishka could lift six times its own weight, compared to the Guren Tokijin which could lift only five times its own mass. The sheer strength suited the design requirements for what Fhajad required of it - close quarters battle.
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Navin thundered through the assembled squad of six, ripping their limbs apart as their joints gave way to the brute strength of his charge, tossing them to the side. He expertly slid to the left and bashed a Burai into the ground, smashing its elbows before grabbing another and twisting melted the torso as the pilot ejected, slagging the Knightmare with his PPC.
Unsurprisingly, martial arts principles applied very much to close combat involving Knightmare Frames when engaged in close combat. With heavily armoured multi-ton machines, unsurprisingly the arts of grappling were applied on a larger scale, as were weapon arts, the axe and sword finally making a comeback after centuries of neglect, though on a much larger scale. Kyoshiro Tohdoh had been the one who'd originated the idea of chainsaw katana's after all.
He parried a blow from a maser blade on his shoulder armour, the blade cutting thick gouges into the armour before he slammed into the enemy Knightmare and broke it. The sudden shock of his entrance had tossed them into disarray even as the recorded screams of agony, thunder and gunfire rang out from his loudspeakers, over radio frequencies and the open air.
He threw the last Gekka full on into a Burai just as another Guren came out of nowhere and slammed into him, grabbing his arm. It clamped down and activated the radiation wave surger, sending a blast of heat through his Knightmare. The armour on his left arm slagged and bubbled away but the endoskeleton held firm.
"Shit. Another shot and my Ganishka could loose it" Navin thought. He failed to consider the fact that had it been any other Knightmare he'd have been dead. He ripped his arm free as the molten titanium and uranium ran down in streams from his Knightmare, dripping like blood as it glowed with heat.
Cornelia, Suzaku and Kyoshiro rapidly joined their saviour and saved him in turn as they dispatched the rest of them with ridiculous ease, the Ganishka absorbing the firepower thrown at it while Cornelia's Gloucester deftly evaded them and speared through the cockpits with its lance. They finally turned to pay attention to the new arrival.
"Ah. You. You're Ben Nair's son" Kyoshiro commented. Navin stifled an exasperated sigh. Legacies were something he hated. He'd never asked for this shit. All he wasnted to do was to live for himself, not being compared to his father or brother all the time.s
"Yes sir.I know of you General Tohdoh. My father spoke of you highly. May I suggest heading to Guards HQ over in Suginami sir?"
Tohdoh grimaced. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police had been reduced to chaos as bombs had gutted the main police headquarters while several departments and prefectural divisions ran rampant. Out of nowhere the rioters had become a violent mob that turned on their fellow Japanese. The only way to explain it was either some sort of mass hallucination or Geass. Nunnally had spoken of psychic compulsion during the briefings on the special projects each major power currently had hidden away.
Waiters who had no reason or motivation to even act violently had suddenly attacked them, throttling each other to death and setting fire to the hotels they worked in. The armoured police and riot squads had suddenly taken to firing on rioters and passers-by alike.
But confusing this even more was the fact that several Japanese purists factions had arisen at the same time, aiming to kill off the Britannians present in Japan as well as the other foreigners. Several of his own trusted sub-commanders had turned against the governement, motivated not by Geass or money but by their own beliefs. A vision of Japan that the system as it was did not share.
In many ways the power of logic and rational thought was less than when compared to the short-term power of zealous faith and fanaticism. He and all his senior staff kept Geass neutralisers on hand and they certainly served to disrupt psychic intrusions. But from what little he'd gathered, this was something even worse. A sort of psychic virus.
Thoughts flashed through Kyoshiro's mind as he assessed the situation. Isolated from most allied forces in territory with an unknown number of hostile and allied agents, he had to make a decision. Head for higher ground to observe, analyse and evaluate the situation. From there he could act. The Guards HQ in Suginami was the logical first choice. Knowing their reputation they'd have held out and rallied their forces to act.
"Ok. All of you form up in a diamond pattern. Chirac, you take point. Cornelia on the left. Zero. You take the rear. Now all we need to do is -" Tohdoh was cut off by the sudden burst of static on the radio as a brilliant light bloomed in the distance.
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Kallen soared like the wind above the district, reports finally reaching her from the scattered elements of her battalion. Several platoons of K-frames and infantry who'd been marked as friendly had suddenly reverted to firing on them ineffectually before a sudden change had overcome them and to Kallen's horror had immolated themselves alive. Reports spoke of individuals possessing the same power as Lelouch circulating amongst the mobs while images of Kyoshiro Tohdoh exhorting the purists to greater violence filled the screens, his thunderous voice cutting across the city as they blared from loudspeakers.
Dhamsig flew beside her, keeping to her side like a remora to a shark. He closed his eyes momentarily, trying to cut through the immense static that pervaded the psychic frequencies, seeking his Shah. His fellow Kshatriya were still unable to pierce the static that enveloped them.
He was blind in a way humans could never understand, robbed of the intimacy of the psychic communion that bound him to his brethren. Yet through it all he could sense the immense power of the Shah-Emperor and his brother, Altair Sahar, Altair ibn La-Ahad, he who was the 'Son of None' flaring like a beacon, the immense strain they endured as he sought to fight off the psychic shadow.
For the Kshatriya, all of them high level Tier 3 or Tier 4 psychics, it took all of their might to simply shield themselves and those around them. Fhajad was in turn shielding all of them and fighting the psychic virus, fighting off something that disrupted the power of psi, holding aloft the skyscraper, communicating with his brother and at the same time attempting to ward off the scrambling. It was like a sapient awareness, focusing all its efforts on the most powerful psychic present.
He felt the death echoes throughout the city, several brilliant lights snuffed from existence, a fire that burnt no longer. For his Shah it would be worse. Kallen's sharp command cut through the tac/com as she barked orders at him.
"Dhamsig. Are you listening? Relay to 2nd Guards HQ at Suginami that I need reinforcements on the edge of the perimeter. We need to keep the rioters contained in Chiba. Also try and find updates on the VIPs. We've cleared the ECM beacons that were jamming communications. Now punch through and find out what we can do."
A missile suddenly streaked out from a nearby skyscraper. Dhamsig reflexively interposed himself between Kallen and the missile, letting his shield bear the brunt of it before he replied with a massive burst from his baryon cannon, annihilating the rooftop in a flash of light and explosion of rubble.
Abruptly a new burst of static scramble the tactical communication nets before a UAV entered the local airspace, its coded laser bursts reaching Dhamsig and Kallen and feeding them information that flowed into their computers.
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Kallen's eyes widened as she read the reports. The situation wasn't as bad as she'd thought it was. It was worse. When she'd first gained the information feed it had been like entering a tunnel and seeing the light ahead, only for the light to be an express train barrelling towards you.
She read the reports as they streamed in. Throughout Tokyo and Kyoto, members of the former Japan Liberation Front in collusion with Japanese commanders of the Black Knights had orchestrated a shutdown of the airport. A mob of Japanese supremacists had entered the airport, only for an Islamic terror group to come out of nowhere and set off car bombs throughout the airport.
Narita International Airport was a smoking ruin, columns of smoke rising from it in the distance. Throughout the city a pall of smoke hung over as columns rose from burning barricades made of vehicles and abandoned Knightmare Frames.
Throughout the world stories came in of several hundreds of thousands dead across several major cities with numbers approaching the millions. Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem no longer existed, simply vast craters of fused glass that could only be the work of FLEIJA bombs. And only one country possessed the technology – Britannia.
Similarly the Sinai Peninsula was a wasteland, rocked by multiple detonations of N2 bombs or p-bombs, positron-based antimatter weapons whose origins arose from none other than Japanese superweapon projects. Cairo was a smoking waste, the result of launches from Indian nuclear submarines that patrolled the Indian Ocean. Mumbai and Kolkatta were ruins, reduced to concrete skeletons with more than fifty million dead in between them.
Srinagar in Kashmir was no longer amongst the cities of the living, its concrete skeleton wiped clean by the 200 megaton nuclear warhead whose detonation had scoured much of the surrounding countryside.
"What the hell?" Kallen whispered to herself as the remnants of the Black Knigh regular forces or at least what remained of it began to report in, confusion reigning as people awakened from the psychic cloud that lifted off them. She placed a rally point at an auxiliary base in Urayasu, the waypoint marked in a vibrant blue. In an instant a flow of blue arrows began to move towards it. She then turned her attention to the intelligence feed from the Black Knights DIVCOM in Ichigaya.
"Dhamsig....are you getting this?" she whispered, attempting to control her horror as she read the news that reached her. The scale of what had occurred, the multiple attacks that were there spoke of enormous coordination and conspiracy amongst greater powers. There could be no other way for something like this to happen. Not without people high up cooperating. That and all the implications of the attacks rushed through her mind before she breathed out.
It was not a problem yet. Not her problem. Breathe and focus on the current problem. She was in command. Her CO was dead which left her in charge. Evaluate. Decide. Act. She breathed out and relaxed, concentrating on the exhalations through her mouth as Naoto had taught her, as Kaname Ohgi had drilled into her since young. Breathe. Relax. Focus.
A spike of relief reached her as she read the report of Kyoshiro Tohdoh enroute to Suginami accompanied by Cornelia, Zero and Navin. Once Kyoshiro took command things would fall into place. Kiseki no Tohdoh. She wouldn't have to worry about Navin a well. He was an elite pilot. Nowhere near as good as her. Not even close. But good enough to match an Imperial Knight judging from his combat record. Her handphone beeped as she received a message from her mother and read it, relief flooding her mind. She'd been evacuated from their home though details were sparse.
Kallen calmed down finally and gave a devil-may-care smile. She could do this. Everything would be alright.
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Dhamsig wordlessly nodded as news from his homeland of the Tibetan Amalgamated Territories reached him, a protectorate of the Indian Commonwealth. He scrolled down and paused as he read the message that all links with Lhassa had been cut, seismic monitors indicating multiple explosions as news streamed in from the military intelligence feeds of the Black Knights. At the back of his mind worry for his family and friends seeped into his mind.
He blanked it out and buried it somewhere within him, a half-smile on his face. They were not an immediate concern. If they were dead....then they were dead. He was Kshatriya. If they were dead ,which he could find out later, he would avenge them in his own. If not, then all was would be well.
Not many people would have understood a Rahai mindset. They were a practical people, a race of psychics forged from the outcasts that had survived multiple purges throughout history. Their loyalty lay with the Sahar family for they had given them purpose and protected them. And the Sahar were one of them. Blood bound them.
Kallen rapidly voiced out messages to her subalterns, the speech-text software of her computer noting it down inflections and all. She attempted to cobble a working battalion command structure together, unable to use her audiovisual comm suite due to the congested frequencies.
Dhamsig suddenly cried out in alarm as the psychic haze that scrambled his abilities lifted and the voices of a thousand chattering minds filled his own, overwhelming him as they rushed into it like ice water drowning a man. Abruptly it halted as he felt the presence of his cousins halt it, Fhajad and Altair exerting themselves as they finally broke through the psychic haze that obscured the area, ripping through the vicious psychic virus that bound people to a malicious will.
Kallen and Dhamsig were suddenly blinded by the bright light that filled the sky as the sakuradite mines of Mount Fuji detonated. They only had a few seconds before the shockwave slammed into them, sending their Knightmares flying into oblivion.
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Anwar clamped his teeth down on the man's throat and tore it open, his trachea coming loose in a spray of blood, the severed carotid artery pumping the lifeblood of the man into a pool of red that surrounded Anwar. Taking the riot shield he'd requisitioned from a policeman who now lay dead, he rammed it into the face of a woman and shoved her backwards, using his machete to hack at her arms, cleaving her limbs. She dropped and screamed in pain before he kicked her backwards.
He twirled and hammered an elbow into the clavicle of the man who tried to sneak up on him from behind, grabbing and throwing him over his shoulder before breaking another man's neck with a single chop. He slammed another man in the sternum with a powerful knee thrust before breaking another man's back with a swift kick.
Behind him one of his soldiers took their last grenade and threw it through the blast doors. He and his five soldiers immediately dropped to the floor, their riot shields raised and slanted at an angle. The blast and the spray of fragments that peppered them was their signal to rise, machetes at the ready.
The entire corridor was gutted, hot steam filling it as it escaped from the pipes. Even that hadn't stopped these people from attacking him. Another wave of madmen, for that was the only word Anwar could use to describe them, surged from the steam, the second degree scalds from the steam nothing but an inconvenience. Flaps of pink skin hung from their reddened flesh, their fingernails tatters as they clutched whatever weapons they could.
Anwar and his men met their charge with the trained ferocity typical of Guardsmen, repelling them with the same brutality they'd met all their predecessors with. An individual Guardsman was trained to a level beyond what most conventional military organisations saw a need to train their men to. Training emphasised physical endurance-strength just like any other elite military unit but an inordinate amount of time was often spent on fieldcraft and unarmed combat. The first three battalions of the Guards Formation were labelled the Guards Ultras for a damn good reason.
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After they'd burnt through the blast door with an industrial laser, Anwar had covered the withdrawal of Padukone and his platoon while he remained. Unlike what most media portrayed of soldiers, Anwar was a realist and above all was pragmatic to the core.
He was a professional soldier of 17 years, having enlisted at 16, with a family of 5 children, 4 sisters, 3 brothers and parents to care for. In short there was no way in hell he was making a suicidal last stand and furthermore, he saw absolutely no need for either himself or any of his men, who all had families, to die. The enemy were doing that exceptionally well for them at the moment.
They were not cowards. Far from it. They were normal men trained to a superlative degree above what most soldiers could even hope to attain, taught by cadres of superbly trained men, equipped with the instruments needed to achieve their mission goals. More importantly, they had the psychological tools, resilience and endurance to ensure they could and would survive.
But the situation they faced was pushing them to the limits. Without regard to their safety, an endless stream of civilians and paramilitary personnel threw themselves upon them, exhausting them as they barely held on. The ROE (Rules of Engagement) had to be ignored. Short of ammunition and reduced to their bare essentials they'd done all they could. Each and every one of them felt fear and controlled it. If anyone had admitted to being fearless if couldn't have been further from the truth.
The men with Anwar were all Guards Ultras like him, all trained in LQCC (Letal Close Quarters Combat), a Southeast Asian variant of various military combatives. They were either Level 4 or 5 in rank, easily instructor or expert grade and able to take on most opposition with ease. Anwar was one of the few dozen who ranked at Level 6 and that spelt trouble.
They ducked to the sides as several Zero imposters began to approach their place, using fire movement as they moved amongst the piles of bodies, shielding themselves from view. A bullet flew past Anwar's ear, clipping his armour, another stopped short by the ceramic tiles of his survival suit. The nanofabrics shifted as they adjusted themselves to further conceal him against the background, their colours a mixture of pixelation and puzzle camouflage against the grey concrete walls and steel pipes.
He ducked to the side and waited for the inevitable. He heard a 'clack' as a grenade, its pin removed, rolled into the room, bouncing off the ruins of the blast door. Without thinking, Sergeant Nair bounded out and threw it just as it exploded in a flash, the ball bearings shredding his hand and leaving a stump.
Anwar barely had time to tackle Nair to the floor as a final grenade tumbled through the air, rolling end over end as it finally landed and the shouts of the Zero's calling for their compatriots to fall back reached his ears. Lieutenant Lian yelled in panic as he picked up the grenade and threw it into a corner of the room. Unknown to any of them was the fact that it was a nuclear grenade.
Stressed Techium in this miniature thermonuclear device's casing dampened blast products, keeping the chain reaction within a tightly contained area. A custom isotope core ensured radiation levels dropped to within tolerance levels moments after the explosion.
In a burst of light that blinded them and bit an enormous chunk out of the foundation pillar, Anwar's last vision was that of the walls collapsing down on top of them even as Ren fell, pierced through the torso by several hypervelocity spikes that hammered home into the sconcrete behind him, impaling him to the wall. He tried to scream in pain only for blood to escape in a froth, his lungs punctured by the spikes.
Then the entire building shook as the lighting failed and the world was reduced to inky blackness.
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Schneizel strode into the command centre, his stride closely matched by his subalterns and adjutants as they multi-tasked between throwing on their uniforms, drinking coffee and attending to the constant flow of messages addressed to Schneizel.
Schneizel glanced to the left as he saw the Defence Minister, Ferdinand Brokehill, eyes rimmed red and bloodshot nodding off even as he read the screen at his terminal. Due to time zone differences it was early morning for them but late afternoon in Tokyo.
On a holographic display red dots marked multiple points across Asia where the attacks had struck. North and South America were mostly free except for red points on the Western Seaboard that marked the now non-existent ports of San Diego and San Francisco.
Britannia had 20 CBGs (Carried Battle Groups) in total along with several naval flotillas, its naval tonnage the greatest amongst the world powers. Of these 20, 8 were in reserve at any one time while the others were deployed to the South Atlantic and the Pacific where they operated from bases in the Philippines and Hawaii.
The reserves had ceased to exist as of 0230 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), as had their personnel, the bases supporting them and the cities around them, the FLEIJA warhead stockpiled there detonating in rapid sequence. Of the 12 active CBG's, 6 were gone, the reactors within the carriers gone critical, resulting in explosions that had decimated their escort groups.
Similarly reports came in that the four aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom and the two belonging to France had been destroyed by nuclear cruise missiles fired from German submarines which had consequently self-destructed.
Chinese Federation aircraft carriers had similarly been subjected to a sudden bombardment by their own forces that had destroyed a full quarter of China's naval capability while the Indians themselves had suffered attacks on their nuclear stockpiles from within. At the present moment more than half the Indian submarine fleet had been destroyed while only four of their twelve CBGs remained in existence.
At the same time Durban and Cape Town had ceased to exist, a result of FLEIJA warheads detonated in their city centres. The only place seemingly free from attack was Europe. But even as his mind attempted to grapple with the immensity of the attacks, reports of a group called De Dios streaming into the conference centre distracted him.
"Ferdinand, organise a war room. Immediately. Prepare a media briefing. Ensure that the cyber warfare departments on standby. And deploy aerial cover to aid the Black Knights from the Conquistador."
Ferdinand tried to grapple with his orders before zooming in on the last part. "Prince Schneizel, milord, I....Empress Nunnally strictly stated that no Britannian military forces were to be deployed within Japan itself. It was hard enough having our intelligence people there. Lord Zero -"
"Who is the Chancellor? Do it. Forget about the orders Zero or Nunnally gave. They aren't here. I am. I'll deal with them when they return safe and sound" Schneizel said, his own worry for Hera rising within before he suppressed it. He couldn't let concern for his wife taint his judgement. He owed it to his people. One life for the many. He'd been willing to sacrifice Cornelia and Nunnally before falling under the power of Geass. He could sacrifice his wife as well. She'd understand. More than anybody else she understood his vision, the dream that drove him. The dream she shared with him.
He picked up the phone and called Llyod Asplund, his mind already racing with options he evaluated and discarded. Now was the right time. The Indians and Chinese had their psychics and robots, the Taipei Axis had their personal armour systems and nanotechnology projects. He had Camelot Section Zero.
He heard the scratchy voice of Lloyd Asplund as he answered up the phone. A brilliant man whose intellectual capacity was rivalled by Cecile Croomy and Nina Einstein, his greatest failing was perhaps in human relationships. But that made him a lonely man. And lonely men when gifted with a few choice companions could be easily manipulated as Schneizel had managed to do.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gino Weinberg stride into the room. A man known for his honesty and sincerity, he was also renowned for his more...esoteric or rather erotic abilities with women. He was a natural charmer, friendly and easygoing, having been through a succession of girlfriends and lovers that had ultimately ended with him marrying Cecile Croomy. He was a lover of women whose days of flirtation had ended with him married to a woman seven years his senior. A capable man to be trusted.
"Lloyd. Are they ready?" Schneizel asked. A special project even his own father had been unaware of, Schneizel had spent the better part of his adolescence pursuing the research in conjunction with researchers he'd poached from Amshel's biological research company.
Cunningly hidden in the depths of Alaska, his own cadre of super-soldiers stood ready, a culmination of two decades of research using information gained from Amshel's own data networks. Now was the perfect opportunity to test them. The Gaheris Templars.
But then the entire command centre paused as Lelouch's face appeared on the screen.
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Altair Sahar, Prime Minister of the Indian Commonwealth and half-brother to the Shah Emperor felt the light of hundreds of thousands and then millions of minds slowly extinguish before he withdrew. His brother was pushing himself to his limits. He recoiled with the force of the shock as the thing they'd broken snapped at them, an astral presence that dissipated into the void of non-existence.
With a groan he fell to his knees, blood streaming from his ears, eyes, nose and mouth, blood vessels bursting. He barely held on as he felt several of the Kshatriya intervene, preventing his cerebral arteries from bursting and clotting his brain.
"Altair, what happened?" his wife asked from the side where she waited with their retinue of secretarial staff and bodyguards. Kyoko Sumeragi, she was Kaguya's cousin as well as related to the infamous traitor, Suzaku Kururugi. Altair fixed her with bloodshot eyes, capillaries leaking blood into their soft tissues.
"Kyoko. Get out of here. Head to Colombo. Srinagar is destroyed. It's a wasteland. The Khyber Pass DIVCOM at Landi Kotal is reporting several seismic disturbances along the entire range of the Safed Koh. Our nuclear silos. I'll join you later" he said hoarsely, struggling to stand up, gesturing for his bodyguards to stay away as they closed to help him. The pain was good. It kept him conscious and allowed him to focus.
Kyoko nodded. She understood the necessity of his commands. With them secured in a safe location with forces loyal to him and his brother he didn't have to worry about an attack from within. The Kshatriya's surrounding her began to move, picking up the suitcases and luggage that contained their clothes and essential documents. Kyoko checked her pistol before holstering it. A full charge on the electromagnetic barrel with 3 extra clips.
He glanced at her bionic arm, the scar tissue of her shoulder intersecting near-seamlessly with the plasteel-diamasteel composite arm. She'd lost it protecting their infant son from a bomb. Like the children of the pregnant Sophia yu Britannia and his brother, they remained in the lines of succession to the Indian Raj.
Threats from within and threats from without. He'd reached out to his brother and barely held the powerful shadow back at the same time as several of his own rogue cousins had launched an immense psychic assault upon him. Something this coordinated spoke of a vast conspiracy. Similarly, a psychic assault that powerful meant something insidiously powerful. Only the En Sabah Nur could have ever managed something on that scale and even then....
"Imran. Malik. Take your squadrons and deploy to Landi Kotal. Take command of DIVCOM and report back to me. Marcus, send a message to Musharraf up in Kabul to mobilise the reserves and for Xingke' Black Guard in Shanghai to prepare for the arrival of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Divisions. We're deploying to Japan. Mobilise the reserves across the Commonwealth and place them on standby. All ICSMF (Indian Commonwealth Strategic Military Forces) and Black Knights are under my command as of now under the UFN CMC (Central Military Commission) Protocols."
With no small amount of will he got up and forced himself to move, marching towards the hangar where his Guren SEITEN waited for him. He silently reached out for his Kyoko, seeking the intimate bond between them.
"Kyoko. Once you reach Colombo get out of the country and head to Dubai. From there make your way to Oslo. I've got contacts there. Seek out Rania Sabri. My men will handle it. Take ten of my Kshatriya with you. I..."
"You love me. I know. Now go. I'll protect the children. You stay safe. Your cousins will protect me. We're Sahar after all. Besides, Sumeragi Concern has a penthouse there I can use. Never thought my family ties would actually come in useful."
Altair kept on moving forward as he focused on the mission at hand. His family was...would be safe. His friends and extended family would take care of them. Now he could deal with whatever was happening. But before everything else he turned to address one of his adjutants. "Jayse-open the hotline to Britannian Imperial Command now. Get me Schneizel at once. And open a line to Alamgir right away."
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In an unmarked cargo vessel Nunnally felt the shockwave out at sea as the overpressure wave slammed into the freighter. In the distance the Ikaruga, the flagship and command carrier of the Black Knights, took the full brunt of the wave as it dipped, its gravitational float system struggling for control as polarity was shifted and waves of gravity directed away and downwards, generated manipulated by the immense forces exerted by the hundreds of gyroscopes in its engine systems as they twisted the Earth's magnetic pull.
The sakuradite-g, the isotope responsible for the viability of the flight system through its unique generation of gravitational force upon reaction burned away, the fuel rods nearly overheating as the engines drew more power from their sakuradite reactors.
Superheated columns of air screamed from the jets as they fought to right the entire Ikaruga, nuclear fusion-powered jets in combination with hydrocarbon-fueled turbojets screaming in unison as the entire superstructure of the Ikaruga and the ships surrounding it fought the powerful hurricane-force winds.
She stumbled but was stopped from falling by Hera taking her hand. Around them stood Miguel's guards, suited up and ready for action. They were supposed to leave Japanese waters in an unmarked freighter and link up with the battleship HMS Geleris. Aboard were several Vincents, custom fitted with stealth films and other camouflage technologies newly out of Camelot.
Miguel was unkempt, sweat pouring down his neck as he read and reread the constant stream of data flowing out of Tokyo. Apparently the sakuradite mines had been set off in a spectacular fashion that decimated most of Tokyo and levelled Mount Fuji which was now a crater in the ground.
Conservative estimates placed the number of dead at the lower bound of 15 million, five million more than the Second Battle of Tokyo when the FLEIJA warhead was first used. Zero, Kyoshiro, Xingke, Fhajad and several others of the senior leadership had been trapped in Tokyo, unable to escape Chiba due to the riots and sudden mutinies of their crews.
A sudden stir as he arose and the shuffling of his staff gained her attention as he ducked down beside her, whispering into her ear. "Empress Nunnally. Durban and Cape Town were struck by FLEIJA warheads. They're gone. Casualties are listed in excess of forty million conservatively. Cairo, Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina are no more. Apparently destroyed by some secret Japanese weapon. No one can say for sure. No survivors known. And...." he hesitated before proceeding.
"Apparently an imposter of Lelouche who bears a striking resemblance has been seen at various points directing the attack. These are from credible sources I'd vouch my life on. But -" before he was interrupted by a sudden clack as pistols were suddenly levelled at him.
Several of his bodyguards had their pistols pointed at him and the others, Carlos and his own men aiming theirs back, unsure of what to do. Taken utterly by surprise, they remained stock still, unsure how to react before an individual in a Zero mask came out of the shadows, lifting the mask of his face to reveal the face that so many present knew.
The purple-blue eyes. That aristocratic gaze. The aquiline nose that carved its way onto a face with lips that spoke of a hidden sensuality and danger. The desire of many women and even some men with the thick, unruly hair that framed his regal face. The 99th Emperor of the Holy Empire Britania. The orchestrator of the Zero Requiem. Lelouch vi Britannia II, son of Emperor Charles XIII and Empress Marianne Lamperouge. The Tyrant Emperor of Britannia.
"Amazing what one can do. You were always a hard man to kill Miguel. I remember how you managed to hide away and escape my purges. Always a step ahead of me. And ever so humble about it" Lelouche spoke before fixing his gaze upon Nunnally.
She trembled as he approached, as he lifted her chin up with his fingers. "Hello little sister. I gave you everything. I died for you." His face took on a dangerous smirk as his eyes blazed with vengeance and anger.
"I gave the world for you and look what you did with it. You squandered the strength of my legacy. You negotiated with the filth that was the aristocracy and restored them partially. The Zero Requiem I created has its foundations all but undermind by you. You didn't even realise Schneizel no longer is under the power of my Geass. Poor, pathetic, weak little Nunnally" the voice echoed in their minds.
"Lulu...you're dead. No. I..." Nunnally stuttered, unable to speak or even voice the flood of emotions that came to her. She reached up to him, her fingers shivering before Lelouch stepped back. His eyes began to glow, the birdlike sigil forming as he stared at her, as the men whom he'd Geassed into submission raised them in unison.
"I Lelouch vi Britannia command you to kill -" before his voice caught in his throat as he choked. Miguel ramming a knife hand into it before several of his Geassed bodyguards attacked him. Flinging them off him Miguel tackled Nunnally while Carlos reacted instantly, throwing Hera over his shoulder as the bodyguards threw themselves at them.
Miguel desperately lashed out with his own psi, finally unleashing himself as he felt the conflict in the wills of all present. He screwed his eyes down before collapsing with a scream of pain as something ripped away at him, assaulting him with visions of nightmares that threatened to overpower him. Another enemy present. Not just Lelouch here. Not just this. Something else.
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Euphemia in a coffin. His greatest failure. Her accusing stare as she looked at him, glassy eyes forever fixed in that empty gaze that would never show warmth or comfort or love ever again. The girl he'd loved like a daughter, only to see her fall. The girl whose name was forever tarnished by her acts under her Geass. Cornelia'a dead eyes. The scent of rotten meat as her corpse decayed in front of him. They voices began to speak.
"WHY? You said you'd protect me Miggy" whined Euphemia as she rose from her coffin, blood seeping from her wounds. Her heart bled through, staining the ground red with her blood. Images of her as he'd played with her in the gardens. Visions of her as he silently sat in a corner of her bedroom, waiting for her to go to sleep as 'Uncle Miggy' scared away the bogeyman.
Cornelia's face writhed and melted, the flesh liquefying as it gave way to writhing maggots and bleached bone. "I could have died in the sands of Arabia. You abandoned me. You -"
Miguel roared and kept on running, staggering forward as he flung Nunnally through the door, vaguely noticing that the crystal Hera kept around her neck was glowing faintly. Gunfire echoed further down the corridor as Carlos struggled to keep a hatch leading from the chamber closed. Miguel rammed his shoulder into it, slamming it closed on the groping fingers that attempted to keep it open.
"CARLOS! Take them and get away. Escape with the Empress and Hera. I'll delay them. I'll buy you time. Now GO!" Miguel yelled. Carlos obeyed without hesitation, grabbing both Nunnally and Hera by the hand as he raced down the corridor.
Miguel tried to tap into his psi once more before the blanket of pain descended upon him, forcing him to his knees. The hatch popped open and his Geassed men poured through, their pistols aimed down the corridor. Miguel flung himself into the group and lashed out, elbows and knees striking bone and tearing flesh before he forced them back and closed the hatch, sealing it shut.
Adrenaline rushing through his body, he turned and raced down the corridor even as the hatch gave way at the hinges, the weight of the men behind it forcing it open by brute force. All the while, blood streamed from the bullet wounds that had slowly begun to close up. On his left hand the Code's mark began to glow.
As he reached the halfway point up the corridor the hatch was blasted open, the explosions sending a gust of air whipping past him as the sound rolled through the narrow confines of the ship. Suddenly Miguel fell to the ground as several steel rebars pierced his body, impaling him to the floor and spinning his body so that he landed on his back.
He heard a clang of boots as his Geassed men rushed to his location. They surrounded his immobile form, their faces passive and staring. Familiar faces who'd served him for years. His staff. They made a path as Lelouch strode through the crowd.
"You're a tough bastard. And a fast one at that Miguel. I'll give you that" Lelouch said as he panted, recovering his breath. "But now its time to die. Any last words? I'd rather have had you as my ally but there's no way I can have you as an enemy. You're simply too dangerous. Any last words?"
Miguel spat out blood as he spoke, smiling smugly at the man as blood frothed from his mouth. "You're nothing but a clone. An imperfect copy of the original whom you'll never match up to. Simply someone's toy. That's all you'll ever be. A disposable tool that'll be thrown away once they have no use for you."
Lelouch shook his head. "That wouldn't happen. De Dios will always need me. I'm Lelouch after all. The magnificent bastard who faked his own death and started the Zero Requiem. I cloned a new body around my brain with the help of Amshel Goldsmith. Time to join your ancestors old man. To think that people think I'm just a pathetic clone....."
"Amshel?" whispered Miguel, just before his heart exploded as Lelouch fired several rounds into his chest and head.
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Hera marvelled at the success of her plans. All her aims would be achieved without so much as a drop of sweat on her part. With so many factions willing to cooperate she'd been more than willing to work from behind the scenes. She'd simply facilitated them, especially De Dios. She'd done very little work aside from releasing the few clones who hadn't been corrupted by the taint that En Sabah Nur had planted in the cloning system and indoctrinating them.
Naturally she'd psi-programmed the clones using the power of Tlaloc's Legacy, the part of En Sabah Nur's power that had been crafted and stored in a single crystal. She'd yet to tap its full potential but already she'd achieved so much with it. The current Lelouch clone was the only surviving one. Fitted with a powerful Geass, this one was special. Twisted in subtle ways, he thought himself the original. An easy enough deception to perform with the power at her disposal.
Nunnally sat beside her in the cramped confines of the Vincent. Unresponsive, she catatonically stared straight ahead. Carlos piloted the Vincent, setting course for the nearby Britannian battleship three hours away. Carlos stared straight ahead, keeping his emotions masked beneath the grim expression of his face. The man whom he'd served under for close to two decades was dead.
Numbness and shock was all he could feel. Right now he let his logic take control, projecting the consequences of the events around him as he accelerated the Vincent. He turned back to look at Hera, herself calm and collected despite the chaos around her.
"Lady Hera. Where do we go from here?" he asked, unsure of what to do himself as his thoughts roiled in turmoil.
Hera simply gave a half-smile. "What Britannia should have done long ago. We prepare to go to war."
