Author note: Since I was completely unimpressed with my work in the last chapter I kind of threw my all into this one...and mildly depressed myself writing Nunnally's lines. Also folks, PLEASE review, I need to know people actually care about this to get the gumption to keep writing plus I need the constructive criticism and or praise...what I'm allowed to be shallow
Tokyo Settlement Safehouse April 24 2017 A.T.B
The leaders of Lelouch's various cells had met to confer on a course of action following Carine's insane declaration of burning down the Saitama ghetto, the consensus being evacuation and fortification. Luluko had vehemently insisted they drop the hammer on the extermination force, an all out purge with the entire secret might of the Black Knights, and while everyone agreed hitting them with 700 Knightmares would be hilarious it would also expose them as a legitimate threat and may call down the powers that be. She conceded the point when Suzaku proposed they use the Guran Mk. II, Lancelot, and the newly finished Valkyrie prototype to flaunt several messages on live television.
Suzaku coughed lightly and expanded on his plan, "See the way I look at it is exposing the Guran shows we're fully capable of designing and building our own seventh generation Knightmares, and when the public sees how Kallen can dance in the thing it will improve morale in the populace." This was met with several murmurs of agreement, feeling emboldened he continued, "Letting me field the Lancelot, an obviously Britannian machine will send the message that we can take their most advanced equipment and field it against them." Smirking over at Nunnally he finished with "And sending out the Valkyrie which is an obvious hybrid of the two designs is a massive 'fuck you', we stole your toy, and made it better." That got several laughs.
Inoue, the leader of the cell Ohgi had commandeered to hijack the Honor Guard Sutherland's interjected next, "I gotta admit as much as I want to pay those bastards back, Suzaku-sama, Kallen-sama, and Nunnally-san annihilated Clovis's forces single handidly, " she sighed and continued. "All they know we have are three frames and they never even saw Nunnally-sans, so my opinion is let them keep thinking our three aces are all we have until its too late for them to do anything about it." This led to some thoughtful side conversations before Tamaki interjected.
"Look, guys I know everyone thinks I'm a hothead but we can't just go rushing in there, this, the hell is her name again Lelouch?" Their boss smiled and replied
"Carine ni Britannia, pain in the ass extraordinaire." Tamaki nodded in thanks then continued,
"This Carine is obviously setting a trap, a bad one yeah, but even with the three hot rod prototypes we need to at least deploy those piece of crap Burai's the Kyoto group gave us, the ones with the SAM launchers? If nothing else we can deal with the gunships so the big guns can focus on killing another royal." Grunting in approval Minami looked towards Lelouch and added,
"Yeah we have umm...I believe 20 of those Glasgow knockoffs still, all of them set up for flyswatting, if Inoue and Sugiama's group can give us a bit of cover with their Sutherlands we can just circle around the exterior of the Ghetto and hit them before they even become a threat." Jeremiah smiled and said,
"We'll do you one better, Rakshata just finished the first pair of Gekka prototypes and cleared them for immediate field testing, apparently cracking open the Lancelot sped up the development process, so I propose that my wife and I run interference for anyone going after the SAM group." Luluko grinned wickedly while Nunnally exclaimed,
"Yay! I haven't gotten to see you and Sayoko-sama blow anything up in ages!" Sugiama raised his hand for attention and Lelouch gestured for him to proceed,
"Dunno if you remember Lelouch but our group still has a dozen VTOL Knightmare transports we ganked from Clovis six months ago, we could have Ohgi's group loaded up and hide below radar level, if we need it to rain men," he glanced to the ladies of the group "and women, they'll be a radio call away." Lelouch's grin was wide and enthusiastic,
"See this is why I have these meetings, all your plans are acceptable to degrees...except you Luluka, sorry but I promise you when we do expose our true numbers I'll let you scream 'Charge' on unencrypted channels," the group busted out laughing and Luluka just smiled and replied
"Damn well better." Lelouch pointed at Inoue and continued his thought,
"You're right in that we should limit our exposure, we'll do our best to keep the three beasts on the front of everyones mind and we'll only deploy the others if necessary. Honestly they already know we stole a couple dozen Sutherlands and every freedom fighter cell has a Burai or six so the numbers will add up well enough." She smiled at the recognition when Kallen finally spoke up,
"Ok, we do some good news on the battlefront, I own several clinics in that ghetto and they all have emergency entrances to the subway tunnels, Lord Ashford set them up like that on purpose, so if anyone has to eject from or abandon your frame look for any 'Kozuki Emergency Care' center and go through the orange doors, they'll lead the way." That little tidbit Lelouch hadn't expected but honestly his future wife was if nothing else full of wonderful surprises.
"Excellent love, glad someone in this relationship thinks ahead," blush from her, laugh from group, success he thought to himself. "Moving on Caleras will be leading this foray in a G1 and honestly their is only one place he can deploy it, so I'll be ordering a few surprised to be left under the street." He glanced at the map and shrugged, "As much as I dislike dismissing an opponent out of turn I know exactly where to plant the explosives to ruin his day, I'll draft formal orders but until then you all know what to do, dismissed."
Ashford Academy Lamprouge Wing April 24 2017 A.T.B
'Marianne?' C.C. thought out, there was a long pause then a bubbly,
'C.C. you're back! Where the hell have you been its so boring having to sit in a teenage girls head!' C.C. smirked at this and replied
'Your husbands idiot son Clovis had me locked up to figure out my immortality, moron' She felt anger from her former contractor at this,
'Oh that freaking hair spray addicted fool...so how did you get out?' Grinning wider then even she thought possible she dropped the bomb,
'It was all fairly dramatic, see Lelouch and Luluka sprung me by accident since they are leading a rebellion against Britannia after the OSI tried to have them killed to start the war in Japan, they aren't happy about that by the way.' Marianne just stuttered
'Wha...wha...wh?!' Enjoying herself thoroughly C.C. pressed on,
'So anyway they heard Clovis's cover story and decided that the idiot should not have WMD's, they stole it, got surrounded, and needed to make a contract with me to survive, you would be so proud of them.' She said this bit with complete honesty, they were strong and...violent young people, before she could continue though Marianne asked,
'My...my babies are alive? What about Nunnally how is she?!' That diminished C.C.'s smile some,
'She's...hurt, bad in the head, whatever V.V. did to her on top of experiencing the war first hand has made her a bit sociopathic, the twins do their best to coddle her but she's...shes been killing people since the war, 10 soldiers in total with a goddamn spear when she was eight and she's an even better pilot then you were.'
'My poor girl' the long dead mother sobbed, she let her carry on for a bit before she continued
'Don't worry too hard dear, she's surrounded by people that love her including Luluka's unrequited love interest and Lelouch's fiance' she dangled that last bit like meat on a hook.
'FIANCE!? My little boy is engaged?! Who is this skank!?' C.C. was glad there was no one in the clubhouse to hear her cackling,
'Apparently he saved her from marauding Britannian soldiers who just got finished executing her family when they were ten, shot her would be executor in the throat.' More silence then she asked,
'Have any of my kids not killed?' C.C. snorted at that and didn't bother to answer,
'Anyway she's a gorgeous girl with massive...assets...shes a Duchess if that makes you feel any better and a very well respected one at that.' Fuck does she need to squeal like that...
'My boy knows how to pick 'em!, so wait...you said they're in a rebellion?' Sighing C.C. corrected her,
'No dear they started a rebellion and honestly its a well organized one, he reminds me alot of Washington just with a snarky sister and helluva lot of ordnance, apparently V.V. has been sending assassins after him and his adoptive family for years under Charles name so pretty much they want to burn the nobility to the ground and use your hubby as a sacrifice to unite the world in peace.' C.C. winced as the screaming started,
'That cocksucking, motherfucking, jumped up hobgoblin bastard of a leprechaun! I knew it I fucking KNEW IT!' C.C. tuned her out as Marianne went on like this for 20 minutes, finally spent she received one last message from her old friend,
'I'm glad my kids were able to spring you algae head...I need to go have a word with my husband' and with that, she was gone.
Saitama Ghetto April 25 2017 A.T.B. 1 hour before operation
Nunnally stared at her midnight blue, black trimmed knightmare, never losing her eery grin, this was hers, design aesthetics from her natural heritage melded to her adopted culture. The outer armor resembling that of a dark knight, the horizontal slit across the face hiding the pair of glowing sanguine eyes, the fanned back bat like wings cresting the helm jutting outwards. It was smooth, angular, demonic, yet elegant, the slightly elongated arms hiding integrated VARIS cannons rather then radiation surgers, the MVS Naginata held in its clawed grasp as its snow white cloak billowed in the wind. This was hers. This WAS her, and she would show the world what happened to any fool who dared touch those she cared for or vowed to protect, still grinning she grabbed the ascension line and situated herself in the cockpit, booting up the Yggdrasil drive she settled into the unfamiliar motorbike seat and waited,
"Today...today the world will know what happens when they make a child murder her own innocence," still grinning she chose to ignore the tears that slide down her cheeks unbidden. "Yes...today...today the world will suffer as I have."
Saitama Ghetto April 25 2017 A.T.B. Operation commencing
To say that the invading Britannians were completely clueless as to what they were getting themselves into would more then likely be considered the understatement of the century, while they had prepared dozens of hovercams, newsmen, and other necessary propaganda devices one thing they forgot to consider was that the Japanese had televisions and they watched them. Soldiers slammed door after door open trying to find someone, ANYONE to murder for the camera but it would appear that Clovis's retribution wasn't to be, the announced slaughter having let the attentive viewers know to run. As thousands of infantry and hundreds of Knightmares spread through the abandoned neighborhood Carine was getting more agitated. She spun on Caleras and screeched,
"We're supposed to be murdering some fucking Elevens! Where are they!? I swear if I went to the trouble of getting that sixth gen frame and I don't get to use it I'm executing someone myself!" The uneasy bridge crew of the G1 tried their best to ignore the outburst knowing full well she was serious, before things got anymore tense they got a ping.
"Your highness we have located one target, he is...standing on the remains of that skyscraper," The soldier zoomed in on the target and Carine ordered the news guy...the fuck was his name...right Dietard Reed to send the hover cams in to record the first death. The masked man faced the camera and made a sweeping gesture with his hand,
"I, am ZERO! And it is I who killed Clovis for his meaningless murder of hundreds of Japanese, and it is for your similiar desires whore of the court that I will end your life tonight. Witness Japan my miracle, I will end this entire blasphemous army with only three units, watch, and regain your hope!" Carine was looking around slightly confused then spoke to Dietard,
"The hell was he saying, he was speaking in that Eleven gibberish wasn't he?" The blond man wasn't listening, he was watching enraptured as Zero pointed at the G1 base and in Britannian said,
"Bang!" Then the whole world shook.
Saitama Ghetto, a roof top
Tamaki had brought up a good point at the meeting and Le...pardon, 'Zero' had acknowledged this, but as Jeremiah pointed out later 20 SAM platforms were pointless for a woman who didn't recognize the benefits of air support, her constant losses in Korea had proven that. So with this in mind half the Burai's had been equipped with heavy duty HEAT rounds and had their firing solutions linked to a painting laser, which Tamaki currently had aimed at the G1. Holding his breath and barely restraining the urge to pull the trigger he had to calm himself waiting for the signal,
"Can't mess this up man" he muttered to himself, "If you screw this up one of your closest friends may stop hanging out with you, hell Lelouch was the only one in the entire group who liked going to baseball games so if I fuck this up for him..." and there was the signal, at the word 'Whore' he mashed down the trigger and let the missiles fly. The timing couldn't be more perfect, as Zero said,
"Bang" the missiles slammed in from above and the mines in the sewers detonated from below dropped the G1 and its escort frames 10 meters into the pavement on fire. Tossing the painter aside Tamaki ran to the ladder and slid down into the tunnel leading back into the Tokyo settlement making sure the special laser painter Zero prepared for him was secured, Tamaki took off on his motorcycle laughing like a mad man.
Saitama Ghetto Awaiting Retribution
It was time, as the explosions occurred the flood lamps they had set up prior to the operation turned on exposing the kneeling forms of the Guren, Lancelot, and Valkyrie, dozens of cam-bots watched as these three machines stood up brandishing their weapons. The startled Sutherland's only looked on at first confused at the appearance of the white, red, and blue Knightmares, then the Guren projected a radiation wave killing 5 frames, the Lancelot snapped off 4 shots killing an equal number of Britannians and the Valkyrie charged forward slicing through three with its naginata and blasting 2 others with its left arms VARIS cannon. Chaos followed, Nunnally didn't know why but this felt different then before, hell it was easier then ever, she'd been involved with a dozen minor operations and no one could touch her before but now, it was like she was playing one of Suzu's hack and slash games. These weren't people, they were monsters who wanted to hurt her and her family, but it felt like she was stomping on mice, grabbing one frames forearm she swing it over her head slamming it into a pair of its friends and before they could even attempt to get back up she sprayed them with VARIS rounds. It took 16 more points for her to realize she was crying, she was crying because she had become the enemies monster, she was the thing that mothers told their children would bite them if they didn't go to bed on time. She was...
"I'm...I'm a demon...I'm...evil" She said softly while sobbing, she was startled when she heard Nii-Chan's voice on her private channel
"No little one...you're not a demon...your the end result of the demons my lovely little sister, they hurt you so much trying to break you, break your resolve, ruin who you were, and the only thing they broke was your pity for them." She heard her older sister sigh then continue "You're a force of nature now, even sobbing, lamenting what these bastards made you into you're still able to scythe through them like wheat, you're not evil, you're not a demon my little crane...you're strong, you're a protector, and you'll keep on protecting...and if ya don't I'll kick your ass" Sobbing a laugh Nunnally sliced through a charging Knight Police and replied
"Yes ma'am...and thankyou Nee-chan...for not giving up on me" A chuckle was her only reply
"Ditto to you kiddo, ditto."
To those curious about the design aesthetics of the Valkyrie think the Ebony armor from Skyrim with slightly longer thicker forearms to house the VARIS cannons, which fire from the palm, it has a Gloucester style cape but its pure white with the Black Knights crest sewn in the center, main armament is an MVS Naginata and a pair of MVS short swords stored on the hips.