Suzaku knows for a fact that he's the target of this attack. The order knew who he was, and they were attacking a mall quite publicly, to keep Suzaku from using any of his regular tricks. He activates his Geass, and waits in place.
Kallen starts dragging Nunnally away, looking out of the corners of her eyes to catch any movement in the almost total darkness. Her only though was to get Nunnally away from the only target she knew of. Kallen refuses to let go of the only piece of normality in her life at the moment.
Nunnally wished Kallen would let her go. She was convinced that the two she had seen at Tokyo tower, the two with the obscured Geass, we're behind this. She wasn't sure why, but she was hiding her new powers from Kallen.
Kallen leans in and whispers to Nunnally. "We're going to get out as quickly as possible. There's a emergency exit three hundred feet to our left, so we will use that."
Nunnally grudgingly goes along towards the stairwell.
There, the exit is being blocked by a crowd trying to get out and two people trying to get in. The two groups are also intent on not letting the other through.
A woman's voice rises above the rest. "If you go out there, you will be shot! They have gunmen at the bottom of the stairs!"
"You know what? Suit yourselves! If you die, I don't want to hear it." a man's voice, and one of the figures on the stairwell steps aside, letting a now slightly hesitant group push past.
After the last of them had gone, the woman turns to the man. Kallen marvels at how calm they both are, and that her eyes had adjusted enough to pick up on the fact that one of them had turned.
"You know, that would have gone better if we had brought our guns."
The male gets an annoyed tone. "And you could have brought the night vision goggles. But both would have identified us immediately to the thrice damned order."
"Yeah, yeah, I- hey, who's there?"
Kallen clamps a hand over her mouth. To her chagrin, Nunnally walks up to the two and grabs each by the collar.
Just loud enough to carry to Kallen, Nunnally speaks calmly to the frozen figures. "I saw you two on top of Tokyo tower. Why are you following Suzaku? What do you want?"
The two could probably have shaken Nunnally off with a twist, but neither moves a muscle, possibly out of sheer surprise.
The man speaks first. "We aren't following Suzaku."
The woman cuts in. "We're following the Geass order. Suzaku has been brought to their attention, and they want to use him to cause anarchy."
"It's our job to make sure the order never gets its way."
Nunnally says nothing. Kallen suddenly recognizes the voice. "Hey, are you the guy who contacted me about Zero's murder?"
There is a silence.
"Great. Kallen's here too. I told you we needed voice modulators."
The woman just groans in assent.
o-o-o-o
Suzaku waited until Kallen had guided Nunnally around a corner to start looking for a hiding place. Somewhere nobody would think to look.
The problem with this line of thinking is this: if you are thinking of the spot, someone else might too. If you think, "Hey, the generator might mask any noise I make, so I can hide in there" you can guarantee that elite troops hunting you will have the same idea.
Suzaku also had people with Geass hunting him, so that limited the viable hiding spots down to an extra-dimensional cubby that only he could access. Wouldn't that be convenient.
Instead, he flattens against a wall and prepares for a sudden attack. There is no way he'd get ambushed easily with his Geass active, so he should be relatively safe.
Suzaku recalls the last time he had visited a mall, 12 years ago. Lelouch had lost Shirley, and he had almost gone off the deep end. Well, actually, he had. A plot that demands you kill yourself for its completion was insane.
Suzaku slowly creeps along the wall, resolving to tear down every mall in Tokyo after this incident was over.
o-o-o-o
Lady Kaguya clutches at her purse. The emergency lighting had come on in the section of the mall she was in, but the lighting didn't reach her. She could see a good deal of her surroundings though, and what she saw scared her. A hundred or so people start searching every nook and cranny of every shop in a very methodical manner. She'd be spotted soon if she didn't move.
She tries to move slowly, sticking to the shadows, but she wasn't a ninja. She did remain unnoticed through sheer luck, a pot someone leaned against had shattered, distracting several guards while he fled from that wing of the mall.
She finds herself in the center of the mall, a rough pentagon that had five wings attached to it. The south wing she had just come from. That left the north, west, north east and southeast wings.
As she tries to pick a direction, several more people Witt the same garb pour out of the northeast and north wings, cutting her choices down to two.
South east? Or west?
"Got you."
A bag is slipped over her head, and she loses her consciousness due to a rag pushed into her face.
o-o-o-o
"How did you recognize us?" the woman asks Nunnally. "We pretty thoroughly disguised ourselves last time, since we had been planning on meeting in a public place."
"I, well, I-"
The man smacks his forehead. "Did the order make you take a Geass power? Geass users can sense one another."
Nunnally shakes her head. The red emergency lights choose that moment to turn on.
Kallen wasn't sure, but did these two just admit to having Geass powers?
"Ah, it was a long shot anyway." the man settles down into a corner.
Kallen moves to stand in front of him. "So, Elliot. Where is he?"
The man stays silent for just a little too long. "We got rid of him. He had escaped, and was going to alert the Order."
Kallen smashes her fist into the wall next to his head. The man observes the dent, his calm expression wavering.
"Tell me about who killed Zero. Before you share Elliot's fate."
The man flickers a smile across his face. He opens his mouth to respond, but Nunnally cuts in.
"Zero isn't de-" the woman clamps a hand over Nunnally's mouth, but the damage had been done.
"Well, there goes that plan." the man shifts in place. "Congratulations! Zero's alive!"
She responds by smashing his face in with her fist.
Blood dripping from her knuckles she turns to the woman, who still has Nunnally by the mouth.
"So. Where is Zero?"
The response comes from behind her. "He's here, in this building. Hiding as a civilian." The man, who she had sworn she had just killed, was standing up, his face reconstructing as she watched.
Nunnally pulls the woman's hand off of her mouth. "Kallen, they are Geass users! I can't see their Geass powers because they've become immortal!"
The woman clamps her hand down even harder than before.
The man sighs. "Shall we all just tell each other all our secrets now? Might as well, since Nunnally has suddenly turned into a detective. I'll start."
He gestures for them to sit down. The woman lets go of Nunnally.
"She and I used to be a part of the order. We were very valuable to them, with our individual Geass powers. We both became immortal at roughly the same time, and since we were no longer useful, they tried to kill us and take our codes. The higher ups wanted them so they could rule forever. We ran off, realized just what kind of organization we were working with, and dedicated out lives to thwarting them."
Kallen turns to the woman. "Anything to add?"
"I guess. We're harboring Suzaku for the time being. He needed a place, and we have the room."
Kallen stares at the pair. "You are both insane."
The man just smiles.
The woman nods at Nunnally. "So? How about you hold up your end of the bargain?"
Nunnally nods. "Suzaku came after me in the Order's compound under Tokyo tower. When he tried to rescue me, he got caught as well. We managed to escape together, but we both got Geass powers in the meantime. I can read people's Geass powers and copy them, though it didn't seem to work with yours. Probably because you advanced to immortal stage. Suzaku can see into the future."
The man starts. "Ok, first off, he can see the future? How far?"
"Um, he said he can see people's hostile intentions or something. The Geass was called reactionary enhancement or something."
The man nods. "How about you try to copy my Geass?"
Nunnally shrugs and activates her own. After a moment, she had something.
"...How was this valuable to the Order?" Kallen watches in fascination as Nunnally turns a flower into a pool of honey.
"Oh, um. That wasn't my Geass. It must be because it's obscured to her." he relaxes visibly.
The woman suddenly turns her head around.
"Here they come!"
The man grins. "Here's the plan..."
o-o-o-o
Inside the Order HQ, a burly man stands before a giant tv screen. On it is a display of the mall his forces are attacking. Three of five wings had been secured, no signs of any of the targets. The map keeps updating as more and more reports come in.
"Sir, we've caught a runner."
"Another? Let them go with a warning." His gruff voice cuts through the quite chatter pervading the operations room.
"Well sir," the technician was almost literally shaking in his boots. "We've caught Lady Kaguya. Sir."
The commander of the Geass army slowly grins.
"This is an Excellent turn of events."
o-o-o-o
Suzaku instinctively looks up as the loudspeaker right above him squeaks to life. The voice that had announced the mall's "quarantine" starts talking again.
"Attention! To whom it may concern: My men have captured one Lady Kaguya. If you wish to see her unarmed, turn yourselves in immediately."
And on that note, more sneak peeks for my Soul Eater Story, coming in the end of July!
"Let's do this!"
Soul slams his hands down onto the keys of his piano. Instantly, everyone tenses. They burst out the door as a group, Maka in the lead. Each meister and witch finds their target and starts after them.
Maka immediately attempts to slice the abomination in half, but it deflects the strike with a small dagger it had been carrying. It's eyes stray around, watching all of the battles, not just its own. Two eyes remain fixed on Maka.
Meanwhile, Blair and Eruka tackle their foe with attacks timed to utterly disorient the poor target. For its part, the creature managed to stay upright, but only because it had a lot more feet than normal.
Blair seems to be enjoying herself, Eruka thinks to herself. She had always been a weaker witch, but she'll be eaten if she is worse than a cat. Eruka calls upon her tadpole bombs, and litters them around. It's only a matter of time before the lumbering quadruped steps on one, blowing its leg clean off. The creature screams in pain, flailing wildly. One of its arms smacks Blair against a wall, and she falls unconscious, turning back into a cat.
Free had quickly dispatched his foe. He literally grabbed the giant's head and smooshed it like a grape. He then went over to help a struggling Kim, who looks like she's about to fall over.
Jackie was having a hard time maneuvering with her rider only half conscious. It didn't help that the four arms of their particular foe had really long reach, and kept groping for and snagging the shaft of metal that Kim held on to. All it would take was one small miscalculation on Jackie's part to send her rider to her peril.
Such a miscalculation occurs right before Free can reach them. Jackie swerves just a little to hard, Kim loses consciousness and topples overboard.
Fortunately, Free caught her. Maka could have sworn she heard him mutter "This is why we shouldn't bring in strays."
Soul taps fully into the black blood. The stuff starts pooling around his feet. He keeps one eye watching it and the other on his playing. "Maka, tell everyone that I'm going to have to stop sooner rather than later."
"Why's that?"
"Let's just say my piano sprung a leak."
"Huh?"
"Just tell them, Okay?"
