Chapter 10: The Ghetto Raid
Infinite walked over to Bai, who had just finished making the upgrades on the KnightCrawlers he would take to raid the Ghetto's. He put his Geass control lenses on his eyes and turned to him.
"Everything is in order for your departure." Bai said as Infinite approached.
"Excellent work Bai. C.C., go announce that we will leave for the raid in an hour, I want everyone who's units were upgraded to come in as soon as possible to prepare." Infinite said.
"Right away," C.C. replied and walked away to do so.
"One more thing," Infinite began. "The four of us shall not participate in the raid, C.C. has already been told this."
"Won't participate, why not Lord Infinite?" Jeremiah asked.
"We won't go because we have the higher grade models. If a platoon of the Night Rider KnightCrawlers can match the army of Zero without many casualties if any at all, everyone will fear the Reverse Rebellion more than ever." Infinite explained. And Suzaku will...
"Understood, Lord Infinite." Bai said.
"Excellent, now go get some rest Bai, you need as much as you can get."
"Right," Bai agreed yawning and left.
When Bai had turned a corner and was out of earshot, Jeremiah spoke. "He is a helpful tool indeed Lord Lelouch."
"Yes, which is why we must keep him alive for as long as possible, We can't have him ending up like Rolo."
Suzaku sighed as he finished his lunch and looked over to his chess board. "I can't very well make the next move right now Lelouch. It's your turn, when are you making your move?" And as if to answer his question, just as he had put his mask back on, his T.V. screen flickered on and Infinite's mask appeared.
"Zero," He said.
"Infinite," Zero replied, with an appalled tone.
"I will make my next move at two fronts." Infinite declared.
"What, two fronts?"
"Shinjuku and Saitama Ghetto's are my targets."
"Uh, the Ghetto's?"
"Yes, prepare yourself, you have just under an hour." Infinite taunted then turned his communication off.
As soon as this happened Zero stormed out of his room and took an elevator down to the Knightmare hanger, then called up everyone he needed. Lloyd and Rakshata were there already, and with their combined efforts, along with the Chinese Federation's and Britannia's added resources, they had been able to mass produce the Energy Wings with quite a bit more ease and efficiency. All together, since Rakshata arrived and they obtained these resources, Zero's army now had a total of 250 Knightmares with the Energy Wings added to the four of them and the other.
"We will split evenly into two teams, Kallen, Cornelia, Xingke, you three will come with me in the first group, and the Knight Of Rounds will lead the second."
Other people going had already been assigned to one of the groups, and were now getting into their Knightmare Cockpits. While the rest got into their Knightmares, Zero conversed with Lloyd about the new equipment.
"You've completed all our upgrades correct?"
"Yes, but remember they are still experimental, so try not to over use them." Lloyd warned him.
"Of course," Zero assured him then went to get into his Lancelot.
"Everyone ready, then launch begins in three... two... one!" Lloyd announced and on that note the Knightmares charged up and flew out to the Ghetto's.
Zero's group was heading toward the Shinjuku Ghetto, the Knight of Rounds group were assigned to Saitama. The two groups there appropriate destinations in 15 minute, and were a good ten minutes ahead of Infinite's troop. Zero wanted the troops to take this time to spread out and cloak themselves, so when Infinite and his army did arrive, they would have the upper hand to start with.
To help with the power difference between the Knightmares and the KnightCrawlers, Zero had everyone only separate into 4 or 5 cell squads, rather than act completely independent. He, Kallen, Cornelia, and Xingke were together, and as such were the strongest squad on the field. after about 5 minutes, Infinite's troops came into view, and at once Zero and everyone could tell they were heavily outnumbered in manpower.
"Don't like what our odds are here Zero." Cornelia said.
"we're almost 2:1 in units." Kallen said, watching them on her radar.
"Do you really expect us to fight off all of them?" Xingke asked.
"I was hoping a smaller number," Zero replied. "But if this works well, we should at least make a good shortage of KnightCrawlers on their side."
"Not that we even know where their getting all the equipment for them in the first place." Kallen argued.
"let's just give it our all." Zero said as the opposing troops got closer.
Suzaku examined the incoming troops, looking to try and find Infinite, trying to find Lelouch. But he didn't see the Gawain, he didn't see any of the copy KnightCrawlers in this approaching army at all actually. Not one of the black replica's were in this army approaching them.
It was strange, if not the Gawain, he at least expected to see one of the black replica's leading this force to take over the Ghetto, could they all really have gone to the other Ghetto?
"Here they come." Zero whispered as the enemy troops began to loom overhead.
"Hey, where is Zero's troops?" someone in one of the KnightCrawlers asked. "Do you think they were to scared to show up?"
"Don't be stupid, their probably using their cloaking, so keep you eyes pealed." Another responded."
"Begin operation in 3... 2... 1... Now!" Zero said, and pulled one of his vibration swords out and threw it at the opposing forces, striking through 5 before hitting the ground somewhere in the distance.
This was everyone's signal, practically all the Knightmares dropped their cloaking and began to swarm the enemy, making sure to stay in their groups. One of the KnightCrawlers fired a Hydron cannon in the direction the sword came from. But before it got to Zero, Xingke stepped between them and used the HyBreD to stop the beam, and the four of them also dropped their cloaking and the other three jumped into the air.
"Get behind me!" Kallen shouted and Zero and Cornelia did so without hesitation as she held up Guren's right arm. Kallen starts the energy pulsar then activates her new feature, creating a shockwave that threw the energy pulsar into a long range field and 10 KnightCrawlers were caught in it, along with the one that shot the Hydron cannon, and in seconds they were all destroyed.
Once the energy pulsar stopped, Cornelia swung around in front of Kallen as a platoon more KnightCrawlers came charging at them. "My turn." She said and her many Slash Harkens shot out and at the enemy, how they were still a ways away most of them were able to dodge, only 4 KnightCrawlers got struck by the attack, but they didn't expect what happened next, behind them the Slash Harken twisted around and turned back at them, striking through another 8 and catching the rest completely off guard. Almost as soon as they hit the other KnightCrawlers, they twisted in other directions, how this was a difficult procedure, Cornelia was working it well enough.
Xingke leaped up and fired his Slash Harkens and got them around a couple KnightCrawlers, then activated the Hydron charge, which completely destroyed them. "Yo, take a bite of this!" The four looked behind them and saw one of the KnightCrawlers holding a large gun, he shoot a spread of what look like electricity at the four of them. Xingke swung in front of them and span his Slash Harkens in circles and activated the Hydron charge to create a shield of the Hydron cannon, so when the electric spread hit it, it was easily beat back, but suddenly there was a drop in Xingke's energy pack power. Zero jumped above Xingke holding his second blade, swinging at the air, toward the Crawler, and a vibration slash came from it, cutting it in half.
"What was that? My power practically halved itself." Xingke wondered.
"I don't know what that was, but lets all be careful about it from now on." Zero told them, then something came up on his radio, Gino was calling him through a sound only radio chat.
"Zero," He said.
"Gino, what is it?" Zero asked.
"Things aren't looking too good over here, we're losing manpower too quickly. They have a new weapon that's making us drop like flies."
"What?" Zero yelled.
"It's some sort of electric shoot that zaps our energy packs, we take a few of those things our Knightmares are done for." As Gino told him this Zero and the others looked around and realized just how much their numbers had dropped compared to Infinite's.
They were almost outnumbered 3:1 now, although they were able to decently hold Infinite's troop off, the enemy had done more damage to them. And with each troop Infinite's side defeated, it just gave more trouble to their side. Zero wasn't going to let Infinite take all the cards here.
"Gino, order all troops to the Shinjuku Ghetto, at this rate, we can't save both Ghetto's, but we can at least hold him off at one."
It took a moment, but Gino finally responded, "Alright," and the radio connection cut off, Suzaku could only hope he was making the right choice.
"As for us," Zero said. "We are going to split up and warn the others to avoid the electric zappers then help them out."
"Got it," The other three agreed and they all scattered.