Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass or any of its canon characters.
A silver car pulled up behind a red truck in an upscale section of eastern Tokyo. The same car parked in the same place every day just as the sun was about to set. This was the fourth day that the car was in a perfect position to see into the large house across the street.
Inside the car sat a woman in a Britannian military uniform, going over a wealth of information stored in a plain yellow envelope. Within was everything there was to know about John Whitehall, the current president and CEO of the family owned Whitehall Armories.
Whitehall was a legendary figure in the Britannian defense industry, always ahead of the curve with the latest in military technology. The man had a talent for predicting the future. He successfully anticipated the rise of the Knightmare Frame almost a year before the Glasgow was officially adopted for frontline service. Being the first major producer of knightmares and their related weapon systems, he made billions of pounds practically over night as Whitehall Armories was the only company with the infrastructure in place for producing knightmares and everything you need to operate them.
Fast forward eight years and Whitehall is still Britannia's largest producer of advanced weapons, with a market share in excess of 67%. The information in the folder showed that John Whitehall was personally dissatisfied with the performance of his company's Area 11 operations. He came to personally oversee the branch's restructuring operation. He was staying at a nice house in eastern Tokyo with his wife Carla.
The uniformed figure in the car had observed that he left home at around 6:00 AM, and always returned no earlier than 7:00 PM. The car door opened, and the occupant exited the vehicle with a briefcase, the time was 6:21 PM. She crossed the street and knocked on the door. As expected, Carla answered the door.
"Is Mr Whitehall here? I need to speak with him about the army's latest order of modular knightmare weapons." The officer asked.
"I'm sorry, he's still at work. Come in, he should be back in about a half hour." Carla opened the door and invited her guest inside. The Britannian Army woman stepped inside and unzipped the briefcase. As Carla turned to shut the door she received a powerful blow to the back of her head. She was pushed to the ground as blood began to discolor her blonde hair. A ball gag was thrust into her mouth and secured behind her head, removing her ability to scream.
Carla desperately tried to crawl away from her attacker, but her motion was cut short as hot metal pierced both of her knees from behind. Two hot casings from the silenced pistol in the woman's right hand clanged as they fell to the hardwood floor. She went and grabbed a chair from the dining room and placed it about five meters from the front door, facing it. Carla was dragged up to the chair, unable to mount even a token resistance due to the extreme pain of being shot in both knees. Tears flowed down her face as she felt tape being applied to her wrists, binding them to the chair's arm rests. Her waist and ankles came next, firmly securing the suffering woman to the fine wooden chair.
As blood began to pool at the base of the chair, the woman in the army uniform opened her briefcase and produced four bricks of C4 plastic explosive, complete with detonators and adhesive backings. Through her tears Carla watched in shock as the explosives were adhered to the bottom of her chair, one by one. A pin was pulled from the receiver sticking out of one of the blocks, arming the weapon for remote detonation. She then moved over to a nearby table and positioned a camera to face product of her last five minutes of work.
Just then a distinctive smell began to circulate into the room. The woman in the army uniform rushed to the kitchen and opened to oven to find a freshly baked pizza, just barely finished. She quickly fished around the shelves and found the largest plate there was, piling most of the pizza onto it. She walked past the gagged, bleeding woman by the door as she left with the steaming hot pizza in hand.
The time was 6:58 when CC had finished devouring the entire pizza. She saw another car pull up to the house she had just invaded. The man she was waiting for exited his vehicle and walked in the front door. CC saw on the monitor linked to the remote camera that he did exactly as expected.
John Whitehall rushed over to his dying wife, kneeling into the pool of her blood as he desperately tried to free her. She was shaking her head at him and making as much noise as she could through the gag, but it was of no use, he kept trying to remove the duct tape. Carla knew exactly what was about to happen, but was unable to warn her husband, who was the real target. She exhaled and closed her eyes, accepting that she had no way out of this inevitable fate. Five seconds later, CC pressed a button as she drove away, and the camera feed died.
The explosion destroyed the bottom floor of the house, killing John, Carla, and their neighbor's pet dog. The shockwave shattered the windows of the nearby buildings and set off dozens of car alarms.
Britannian police and fire department units rushed to the scene but found nothing but a burning house and a lot of shattered glass. There were no identifiable remains inside the building, and no other casualties for them to attend to.
In the days since the Battle of Narita, the Black Knights were not remaining idle. Their primary base was an unmarked warehouse on the docks, formerly an area controlled by warring mafia factions. The warehouse provided many benefits as a headquarters and staging area. The surrounding area was effectively a series of choke points between warehouses, shipping crates, and other buildings, making it an excellent defensive position if Britannia ever decided to strike. It also sat directly above an old Japanese subway tunnel. The Black Knights had built an elevator in their warehouse that descends into the tunnels, allowing their forces to conduct operations without drawing attention.
The fourteen raids on various Britannian bases and facilities created an illusion that the Black Knights were far larger than they actually were. The subway network provided knightmares an unrivaled level of stealthy mobility. Squads of five or six knightmares attacked smaller Britannian military facilities, convoys, trains, and even a flight of low flying gunships with laser guided missiles. Zero had determined that continuous hit and run strikes would be the most effective way to keeping the pressure on without sustaining significant casualties.
Although the Black Knights had completely demolished the Britannian forces at Narita, fighting in the open was still risky. The victory cost quite a few knightmares and many lives. While Britannia could replenish their lost forces in a matter of days, the Black Knights simply did not have the infrastructure in place to trade blow for blow.
But Zero always had a plan, and he was about to execute the next step as he walked through the warehouse base, flanked on both sides by his strongest warrior and his newest hand picked recruit. Zero opened the door as they reached the large mobile home that functioned as their mobile commander center.
He stepped inside, followed closely by Kallen and a nervous looking Nina. Kallen immediately went to the second floor room, leaving Zero and Nina with the unit's remaining occupants. Jeremiah and Ougi were looking over combat data from the latest raid, a strike against an enemy supply train. Viletta was laid out on a straight section of the semi circular couch, lost in a deep sleep. Directly across from her sat Euphemia in a Black Knights uniform. On her lap sat a big bowl of steaming hot noodles together with a pair of red chopsticks. Euphemia turned to look at them with a mouth full of noodles. Zero spoke first as she hurried to gulp down the noodles.
"How's the transition from princess to revolutionary going?"
"It's not half as hard as I had imagined. Everyone seems to like me for who I am once they get past what I am." Euphemia reported.
"That's certainly true." Ougi cut in. "Euphemia has a real talent for making everyone smile. It's like she just radiates happiness."
"So what have you been doing for the past few days?" Zero asked as he sat down.
"Besides getting to know everyone, I went with Jeremiah on two raids. We blew up a train and shot down some gunships in Shinjuku." Euphemia answered as she readied another clump of teriyaki noodles.
Zero turned to Jeremiah "How well did she do?"
"Quite good, actually. Her highness had no trouble following our plan and engaging the designated targets. Overall I would say she's a fairly average pilot. She did all that was asked of her, no more and no less." Jeremiah replied as he got up to hand his computer to Zero. "Here's the combat data from her Gloucester for both engagements."
"I'll review the data later." Zero turned back to Euphemia. "But right now I have a job for you, Euphie. She's shy, nervous, and easily frightened. Do what you can to make her feel more at home here." Zero motioned to Nina who was standing silently off to the side. She stepped forward and sat down between them.
"I'm Nina...It's nice to meet you again, Princess Euphemia."
Euphemia perked up as she recognized who was talking to her. "You were at the Lake Kawaguchi hotel right?"
"The way you stood up to those men...it was magical, like an angel had come to save me."
"Do you know why I did it, Nina?"
"No, your highness."
"That smile you're wearing. What I really want is to make people smile again." Nina smiled for her. "You see, it worked! I'm doing the same thing I did for you, only this time I'm doing it for the whole world."
While Nina and Euphemia continued talking about all manner of things, Zero went upstairs to join Kallen in the largest of the upper rooms. As he closed the door behind him he saw Kallen spread out on the bed, laying face up as her gaze bore into the ceiling. Zero removed his mask as came to sit down next to her.
"Is something wrong Kallen?"
"I've been thinking, Lelouch. What exactly are we going to do with Euphemia? As much as she doesn't want to hear it, being a pretty figurehead is all that she really knows how to do." Kallen shifted her eyes over to her favorite prince.
"Even though she's such a gentle soul, she has so much hidden potential. Euphie has also proven to be quite resilient, even after killing several people, she is still the same little sister I've always adored. But she truly wants to be something more, and that's where you come in. In four days you are going to take a real camping trip to Narita. After the battle the JLF pulled their remaining forces out of the area, and the Britannian military left when they finished their recovery operations. It's really a wonderful spot to conduct an advanced knightmare training course."
"You want me to teach Euphemia how to fight?" Kallen asked as she sat up.
"Not only Euphemia, but CC and a few others. Despite your absolutely divine skill on the battlefield, we have a serious lack of first rate pilots. While we can avoid it for now, another head on confrontation with the Britannian military is inevitable."
"But we fought so well at Narita!"
"That we did, against regular Britannian units. If Cornelia was to call in her Glaston Knights for example, we would have no answer to that many excellent pilots on the field. As it stands at the moment, none of the Black Knights would last even a minute in direct combat against you, and Britannia has quite a lot of pilots that aren't that much worse." Lelouch explained.
"Alright, I get it Lelouch, but four days is a little short to come up with a comprehensive training program." Lelouch reached into a pocket in his cape and produced a folder. He handed it to Kallen, who was absolutely amazed at what was inside.
"Don't I have a reputation for planning everything ahead to the finest detail?" Kallen smiled as she shifted to rest her head on his right leg.
"What are we going to do about us?" Kallen spoke as she leaned her neck back to look up into Lelouch's amethyst eyes.
"Zero and Kallen Kouzuki are to remain nothing more than close allies for the moment. Kallen Stadtfeld and Lelouch Lamperouge however..."
Suzaku Kururugi calmly ascended the last flight of stairs to reach a white stone walkway. As he made the first step onto the spotless white ground, glowing in the midday sun, and set eyes upon the great double doors before him, time slowed down. It was a feeling he had first felt on a battlefield, a moment of calm serenity before the wave of chaos. He looked up and saw a bright blue sky dotted with small, puffy white clouds.
This was the culmination of a dream. Suzaku had for years dreamed of the day that he would become a knight. To achieve his goal of a peaceful transformation for Britannia, he would have to climb to the top, to become the Knight of One. It felt like a fairytale the first time he had envisioned it. The reality of climbing the ladder of Britannian society was almost sickening to him. He had only made it this far quite literally over Andreas Darlton's dead body. Suzaku tried his best to clear his mind as he finally reached the fine wooden doors, lined with gold.
Kururugi took a deep breath before pushing the doors open, one with each arm. Before him stood twin seas of faces, suspicion, hostility, and just plain dislike written all over their expressions. He kept his eyes facing forward as he slowly walked down the red carpet between the guests and attendants. At the end of the tunnel, on an elevated platform, sat Cornelia li Britannia, a very large Britannian flag adorned the wall behind her throne. As he got closer to the six steps leading up to the throne, he could see her neutral expression.
Suzaku and Cornelia locked eyes as he took the first step, and another, and another. As he set foot upon the area before the throne, Cornelia's expression ever so slightly shifted to a faint smile. Suzaku came to a stop before Cornelia and fell to one knee. Suzaku drew the longsword from his side as Cornelia stood, holding it out to her, hilt first. The weight of so many hostile eyes upon him made a part of him wish she would just thrust the blade, the tip already against his heart. Cornelia spoke as her fingers reached the pommel.
"Suzaku Kururugi, will thou upon this day pledge thy fealty to Britannia, and stand as a knight of the crown?" The princess began the ceremony.
"Yes, your highness." Suzaku felt empowered as he, the first man of non Britannian origin, said those three words on a live international broadcast.
"Does thou wish to abandon thy self, and become sword and shield of the greater good?" Cornelia's voice rang out with absolute authority through the hall.
"Yes, your highness."
Cornelia took the longsword and raised it before Suzaku. She gently touched the cold steel point against each of his shoulders.
"I, Cornelia li Britannia, Second Princess of the Empire, dub thee Sir Suzaku Kururugi." Suzaku returned the blade to the scabbard. "Rise, my knight."
Suzaku stood and turned. The room was cloaked in dead silence. Earl Lloyd, who was standing in the front row, was the first to break the silence with a clap. Nobody else made a sound. Then another sound came from Suzaku's right. He glanced over to see Lord Guilford clapping for him, a sturdy smile on his face.
Behind him, Cornelia was almost to the boiling point, feeling her legendary rage well up as the audience refused to clap. She left her throne to stand at Suzaku's side, before glancing over at him and beginning to clap herself. The people assembled in the room began a thunderous applause, their distaste for Sir Kururugi overpowered by the thought of provoking Cornelia's wrath. Suzaku looked to his left and saw a real smile on her face for the first time since Narita.
Miles away from the grand palace in the center of the city, The Black Knights were among the hundreds of millions of people to watch Suzaku's knighting ceremony live. In their mobile command center, they sat around the U shaped couch watching the event on the unit's wall mounted plasma screen. Surprisingly, they had mixed feelings about watching Suzaku Kururugi be knighted on a live broadcast.
"I think Suzaku's earned it." Euphemia commented as she poured another cup of tea.
"Well of course you would think that." Tamaki shot back from the other side of the U.
"I'm with Euphie. Being the pain in the ass he is with that Lancelot frame, Suzaku certainly deserves to be a knight. If I were Cornelia, I would knight him out of the pure embarrassment that a second class citizen single handedly rescued the so called Goddess of Victory." Kallen said as she picked up her own cup of exquisitely made tea.
"What do you think, Zero?" Ougi said to the masked man sitting at the center of the U couch.
"Pulling him down off of that high throne is going to feel so much more satisfying now." Zero's artificial voice replied in an almost prophetic fashion.
"Are we going to kill him then?" Tamaki asked.
"No. That would ruin it, he would be portrayed as a martyr. I would much rather have him captured, so that he can bear witness to just how wrong he is."
The day after being knighted before the eyes of hundreds of millions of people around the world, Suzaku returned to the Ashford Academy expecting to have the first normal day in a week. Milly Ashford had other plans. Milly pulled a lot of strings to have the entire school shut down for the day. Instead of scheduled classes, there was to be a gigantic party in the Academy's ballroom. Like her grandfather before her, Milly was well known for her ability to create parties of legendary proportions practically out of thin air.
Suzaku entered the ballroom through the front doors to find the room buzzing with activity. He looked around and saw several hundred people in attendance, mostly students. On the right side of the room stood three large tables, covered in a wide assortment of food and drinks. Everything from pizza to cookies to cheesecake, all in large quantities. Just next to it were several water dispensers and a huge vat of cherry koolaid.
Without warning, Suzaku felt a tugging force on his left arm. Before he knew it, Rivalz was pulling him through the crowd to the center of the room. As Rivalz poured him a glass of what appeared to be orange soda and called a toast, Suzaku's mind was elsewhere. He was carefully looking around the room, scanning the crowd for a certain prince with an uncanny ability to hide in plain sight. Sir Kururugi finally looked behind him and saw that Lelouch had been watching him the whole time. He was sitting on one of the many couches that lined the perimeter of the room, sipping something red from a glass. He was somewhat surprised to see Kallen laying across his lap, her head resting on the couch's arm.
As Suzaku approached them, Kallen sat up, freeing space on the couch. Lelouch opened the conversation as he sat down.
"I'm not sure whether to be congratulating you, or feeling sorry for you Suzaku. Being under Cornelia's personal command is going to make your life quite a bit harder."
"You know I'm always up for a challenge." Suzaku replied, sounding optimistic about his future.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lelouch spotted the man he had been waiting to see ever since he got word of Milly's party. Earl Lloyd Asplund, with his assistant Cecile, were walking toward the other side of the room.
"Excuse me Suzaku, I'll be back in a few minutes." Lelouch said as he stood up, winking his left eye at Kallen, who was now internally trying to figure out what exactly Lelouch was going to Geass the earl into doing. Suzaku looked over at Kallen and mistakenly identified her staring off into space as staring at Lelouch.
"You two have been spending a lot of time together over the last few weeks, is there something you're not telling me?" Suzaku asked in an almost playful tone. Although Kallen had seriously fallen in love with the Black Prince about a week ago, she had not considered what people would think about them constantly disappearing together on Black Knights business for over a month. She thought for a second, before remembering that Lelouch had quietly hinted to her that she could let out their secret if she wanted.
"What can I say Suzaku, love changes people." Kallen replied with a smirk on her face as she saw her words derail his train of thought. From the look on his face he was not expecting to hear anything remotely close to them being in love. Before Suzaku could say anything, a wave of collective gasps washed over the party. People all around them immediately began whispering amongst themselves about Milly's engagement to Lloyd Asplund.
As the initial shock of the news began to die down and people went back to their business, Lelouch approached Lloyd as Milly went to help Shirley with a stack of pizza boxes.
"Earl Asplund, if you could spare a moment of your time I need to have a word with you."
"That you are making a request suggests to me that you wish to speak in private." Lloyd observed.
"Indeed. As Milly's vice president, I know a thing or two about surviving in her presence. She has had over thirty previous suitors, none of which were able to sustain their engagements for longer than a week. Perhaps you could use some of my insider information?" Lelouch offered the Earl.
"Oh why not, I'm always hungry for more information." Lloyd replied as he followed Lelouch through the sliding doors into the next room.
"So is Milly." Lelouch's last words before the door shut behind them and Lloyd found himself alone with the Black Prince.
"So tell me, what exactly are these tidbits of insider information?" Lloyd inquired in his generally cheerful tone.
"We'll get to that in a few minutes, but first you have to do something for me." Lelouch turned to Earl Asplund, crimson light glowing from his left eye. Lelouch pulled a bulky envelope from inside his uniform. "Within this envelope is a hard drive. You will transfer all of your research, past and present, to this, then you will follow the instructions within to the letter. You will also do everything in your power to conceal what you are doing from anyone and everyone." He ordered.
"Oh I understand perfectly, your highness." Lloyd said as the Geass command took control of his mind. Several seconds passed before the order's effect receded for the time being, and the red rings faded from Lloyd's eyes. Lloyd stood with a puzzled look on his face.
"Are you alright, Earl Asplund? You looked like you were going to pass out." Lelouch asked as he moved to steady Lloyd.
"Curse the limits of this human body. Sometimes I wish I could just build myself a better one. Now what was it that you wanted to tell me?"
As Kallen sat back down with two more slices of hot pizza, she asked Suzaku the one question he had been expecting all day.
"Something's been bugging me Suzaku." He looked over at Kallen as she continued. "Last time we asked you said you worked in an engineering division. Knighthood isn't something handed out lightly, especially not by Viceroy Cornelia. You must have done something pretty damn good to impress her."
Of course, Kallen already knew exactly what Suzaku had been up to. She was trying to replicate something Lelouch did on a daily basis. He told her that you can learn a whole lot about a person not by trying to find out the truth, but by examining how they choose to lie.
"Truth is Kallen, I do work in an engineering division, but it's not what it sounds like. Earl Asplund over there is actually my boss. He's a high ranking member of the Camelot program, Prime Minister Schneizel's personal research and development organization. I can't say much since almost all of it is highly classified, but Lloyd is the head of the Special Envoy Engineering Corps, Camelot's Area 11 branch. He's here to field test experimental technologies including the first seventh generation knightmare." Suzaku answered with a surprising degree of truth.
"And you happen to be the lucky test pilot?"
"More like unlucky guinea pig." Suzaku replied.
"So what, you kicked some serious ass with that experimental knightmare frame?" Kallen tried her best to sound as if she didn't remember every second of their brutal engagement at the base of the mountain.
"I wish. I defied a direct order to save the Viceroy's life during the Battle of Narita. Her highness personally commended me for bravery, skill, and initiative." Suzaku explained as Kallen gulped down a slice of pizza at a speed that would have made CC jealous.
"I remember now! You were that white knightmare that fought the red one, right?"
"Yeah. My Lancelot could barely keep up with that red monster." Suzaku admitted, making Kallen feel a sudden boost of extra confidence.
"What do you know about the red one?" Internally Kallen felt a little strange indirectly asking about herself.
"Not much. It's very fast and has some kind of hellish thermal weapon mounted on that big silver claw. Whoever the pilot is, she's got some serious talent." Suzaku commented.
"She? What makes you think it's a woman?" Kallen fished for some real secrets.
"We intercepted a number of Black Knights transmissions during the battle. They kept referring to the red knightmare as Q1, and they always indicated that she was female." Suzaku said, not realizing that he had just informed a high ranking Black Knight that their codes needed some work.
"The Queen."
"Huh?" Suzaku asked in a puzzled tone.
"You said they call her Q1. That's a chess reference. Q1 is the queen, the most powerful piece on the board." Kallen enlightened him.
"So Zero plays chess? Not surprising with his strategic mind. I wonder who's better, Lelouch or Zero." Suzaky wondered aloud.
"Lelouch would probably crush him just as bad as everyone else. Practically half of Area 11's nobility owes him something."
"Yeah, I heard that he likes to gamble a lot. You really should try to talk him out of it, it can be dangerous." Suzaku suggested.
"Not a chance. My Lelouch forgot how to lose a long time ago. While we're talking about gambling, why don't you come over and try out his latest acquisition"
"What is it?"
"A pair of military grade knightmare simulators, Gloucesters to be exact."
"You do realize just how illegal that is, right?" Suzaku's voice became more serious.
"So did the noblemen that were so eager to gamble away their fortunes." Kallen said with a happier tone.
"Alright, Kallen, best of three?"
"Loser buys us dinner." Kallen motioned for Suzaku to follow as they moved through the party toward one of the ballroom's back doors. Before they made it, their movements attracted the attention of Lloyd, Lelouch, and Cecile, who proceeded to follow them out the back.
They caught up to Kallen and Suzaku at the elevator down to the lower levels.
"My my Suzaku. Not even a knight for two days and your ability to attract the opposite sex has increased dramatically." Lloyd said as Lelouch blocked the door, letting them into the elevator.
"It's not what it looks like Lloyd." Suzaku tried to explain.
"Then what else could you two be doing sneaking into a rather off the trail elevator down to who knows where?"
"My friends Kallen and Lelouch have some knightmare simulators. Loser buys us all dinner." Suzaku informed the elevator's three unaware occupants.
"Ooo I'm glad I caught up to you two then, this certainly sounds like more fun than the party."
"Indeed. I think I'm going to enjoy watching this." Lelouch said as he winked his left eye at Kallen. The gesture had become less of an indication that he was going to use Geass, and more of shared secrets. Lelouch was certainly eager to see a rematch from Narita, even if Suzaku, Lloyd, and Cecile hadn't the faintest idea of who Sir Kururugi was really about to duel.
The elevator dinged open and revealed the Ashfords' underground warehouse. After the family got out of the business of research and development, the underground facility became little more than a storage area. Nobody noticed or cared that Lelouch frequently used the space to store all manner of things acquired in his gambling career. As the group of five walked over to the two face to face Gloucester simulators, Lelouch connected the power and booted up the systems. Two screens activated, allowing observers to view the duel from both perspectives from outside the simulators.
Kallen and Suzaku strapped themselves into their cockpits. The units were a complete replica of the Gloucester's cockpit design, down to the seatbelts and ejection switch. Although the simulators did in fact move on a set of sixteen hydraulic pistons, eight for vertical motion and eight for horizontal, the movement was rarely enough to knock you out of your seat. When the ejection system was activated, the whole unit slammed back with a significant amount of force to simulate the effect of a real cockpit block's rocket ejection. Movement, weapons, and damage models were all created using real data from real combat, achieving a high degree of realism.
The simulators were loaded out with standard issue weapons. Both Kallen and Suzaku chose the same loadout, Each of their Gloucesters was equipped with a large golden lance with deployable wing blades, and a newer KAR 25 G model assault rifle equipped with an overbarrel 70mm grenade launcher. The weapon's new 70mm capability could fire a variety of ammunition types such as high explosive, smoke, teargas shells, and even wide area adhesive nets for riot suppression. Both Kallen and Suzaku were also equipped with two Chaos Mines. To call it a mine would be misleading. The Chaos Mine was in effect a thrown directional stacked projectile weapon that showered a rectangular area with high velocity metal slugs. Kallen had been on the receiving end of these weapons in the past and was excited to use them, even if they were only simulations.
As both pilots readied themselves, and their audience took their seats, a countdown timer started from ten on their screens. Kallen activated a channel to Suzaku.
"Don't worry, I'll try not to hurt your reputation too badly." Kallen launched the first move, a mental strike. She knew that Suzaku would likely wave it off as some friendly trash talk, and become slightly more overconfident as he would likely assume the outwardly fragile Kallen Stadtfeld to have no real chance against a battle proven knight. The countdown timer hit zero, the number flashed green and disappeared, revealing the battlefield.
Kallen almost gasped as she realized the setting, a very accurate recreation of the Shinjuku Ghetto created from satellite imagery and combat data from their very real engagement there. 'Wish I could have had a Gloucester back then.' Kallen thought to herself as she recalled the layout of the area.
Because the battle was only one on one, the designated combat zone was limited, the boundaries visibly marked by walls of red light. It did not take Kallen and Suzaku long to find each other.
Unsure of his opponent's skill level, but assuming it to be low, Suzaku opened his attack with a burst of rifle fire against the purple Gloucester coming at him down the street. As the very first muzzle flash registered in Kallen's brain, she maxxed the Gloucester's acceleration. Her knightmare simultaneously jumped up and to the left, landspinners making contact with the wall while firing her slash harkens into a building on the other side of the road. The retracting harkens pulled the Gloucester across the street in mid air, well over Suzaku's fire. Kallen's battle tested instincts instantly remembered that the Lancelot always raised a Blaze Luminous shield, or jumped back when under rifle fire.
Lacking an energy shield, Suzaku did exactly as predicted as Kallen opened fire on him before she even landed. Suzaku did not anticipate that she would fire behind him, however, and multiple high explosive rounds detonated against his Gloucester, ripping into the purple armor, but not causing any severe damage.
Suzaku performed a similar move to reach the rooftops, but found no trace of Kallen's Gloucester. He activated the factsphere eye and scanned for heat sources. Kallen again correctly anticipated his moves, betting on the fact that he would not expect her to be hiding motionless in an alleyway directly beneath him. As she saw him turn his back to the interbuilding space that she was hiding in, Kallen immediately sprang to action, using her landspinners to climb the walls.
Sir Kururugi had barely a second to react as his enemy came rocketing out of the dark alley next to him and into the air, her lance positioned for a direct thrust to the cockpit. Suzaku had no time to move his cockpit out of the way, instead opting to thrust his lance over the unit's head, directly behind him. Kallen's lance impacted Suzaku's and was deflected from it's deadly path. Suzaku moved to counter, but was forced back on the defensive by Kallen's powerful aggression. She had placed her rifle on the cockpit's magnetic clamp before initiating her ambush, freeing up the left arm for melee combat.
Suzaku once again deflected her lance thrust with his own, but found himself under attack by the left arm's tonfa. The blunt melee weapon slammed into his assault rifle as he was bringing it up, destroying the weapon. Kallen followed up by firing both of her slash harkens at point blank range. Suzaku was just too fast however, he fired his own harkens just in time to intercept perfectly. The Knight delivered a powerful kick, knocking Kallen's Gloucester on its side.
Kallen quickly redlined the acceleration, generating a soul piercing screech as the landspinners moved the downed knightmare into a counter kick. Both of her legs slammed into Suzaku's before he had a chance to evade, knocking his frame into a similar position. Kallen seized the opportunity to get up and drive toward the adjacent building, which was almost nine meters taller than their rooftop arena. Suzaku, having had his rifle destroyed, gave chase.
As Suzaku was following directly behind her, Kallen jumped toward the next rooftop. Suzaku prepared to do the same as he closed the distance. Just as Suzaku jumped, Kallen's landspinners, which were spinning as fast as they could possibly go, contacted the edge at the top of the wall, sending her Gloucester into a backflip. Time slowed down for both of them as Suzaku saw her position her lance for another kill shot. Being in mid air, there was no way for him to possibly dodge the downward thrust. The golden lance penetrated the top of Suzaku's cockpit block, and exited the bottom. Both knightmares crashed down to the rooftop under them, and only one stood up, its right hand still gripped around the now vertical lance shaft.
Everyone but Lelouch and Kallen sat in a state of absolute shock at what they had just witnessed. Suzaku's brain was simply struggling to connect the image of of the cute, frail, innocent Kallen to the complete mauling he had just received. If he didn't know his opponent he probably would have thought her to be a Knight of Rounds. Lelouch sat with a smile on his face, full of admiration for Kallen's incredible talent for knightmare combat. Lloyd's eyes were hurting him, as he had forgotten to blink during the battle.
"Where in the hells was this girl when we were doing pilot evaluation for the Lancelot? She's incredible!" Lloyd yelled as he jumped up from his seat.
"Hey Suzaku!" Kallen yelled over the comms. "Wake up, it's a best of three remember?"
Suzaku took a deep breath before hitting the green ready button to begin the countdown for the next round.
"Alright Kallen, I'm just going to pretend that you're Cornelia in disguise. That should make your skill level a bit more believable."
A half hour later the match was over. Kallen won two to one, taking the best of three. As agreed upon, Suzaku ended up paying for dinner, for all five of them.
In the week after Suzaku's knighting, the state of Area 11 remained static. The Black Knights continued their string of precision hit and run strikes against all manner of Britannian targets. The government also had the latest assassinations to worry about.
"How's it going up there, Kallen?" Lelouch spoke into his phone as he walked down the busy street.
"Great. It's just as dead up here as you said it would be, we haven't seen anyone else in days. This course you wrote up is really great, maybe you should be a teacher after this war is over." Kallen replied back to him.
"Are they progressing smoothly?"
"Everyone's getting better, especially Euphie. She really is Cornelia's sister, talent for knightmare combat is just in her blood." Kallen reported.
"How good is she now?" Lelouch inquired.
"Well, she made Jeremiah look like a novice this morning."
"That's good. It's nice to hear that she will finally be able to do what she always wanted."
"Hey Lelouch, it sounds pretty crowded where ever you are. What are you doing?"
"Something bold, risky, and incredibly dangerous." Lelouch hung up his phone as he walked in the front door of the Britannian Government Building in central Tokyo.
Thirty floors up, Cornelia was sitting behind her desk trying to put the pieces together. There had been seven high profile assassinations and over 30 Black Knights raids since the Battle of Narita. To top it off, smaller terrorist cells were emboldened by the Black Knights' success, and were launching attacks of their own. The phone on the desk rang, breaking the Viceroy's trance like deep thought. Cornelia hit the speaker button.
"Your highness, there is a man down here that claims to have critical information about the Elevens' resistance movements." The voice on the other end of the line reported.
"Oh does he now? Who is he?" Cornelia asked the man on the ground floor.
"His name is Alan Spacer, your highness. His record is so clean it would shine, and it appears that this is not the first time he has come forward with actionable intel. Just about a year ago he provided the key locations of several Elevens' weapon smuggling routes."
"Get what you can out of him." Cornelia ordered.
"That's the problem, your highness. Mr Spacer here claims that we have been thoroughly infiltrated by the Black Knights, and he refuses to divulge his information to anyone but yourself. Given their recent attacks, I believe he may be right about there being a number of moles in the government."
"Bring him up here after you check him for weapons." The Viceroy instructed.
"Understood, your highness." The soldier's faintly glowing eyes turned back to Alan Spacer as he hung up the phone. "Follow me, her highness has agreed to speak with you."
An elevator ride and a short walk later, and the doors to Cornelia's main office opened, revealing to the Viceroy a well dressed young man with blonde hair and green eyes. He walked forward as the soldier left the room, shutting the door behind him.
"This had better be worth my time, now start talking." Cornelia's voice carried commanding authority.
"Indeed it will be, your highness." The voice sounded so familiar to Cornelia, yet she was not given enough time to place it. "I know exactly where Kyoshiro Todou happens to be staying." Alan Spacer's left eye flared to reveal a bright crimson light. "And this is what you are going to do about it..."
