Author's Note: A quick recap chapter of sorts this time. Do not skip it though, else you might miss things.
Disclaimer: Code Geass is not mine. I claim nothing but the characters and Knightmares that I have created.
"Kallen"-Speech
'Lelouch'-Thought/mental communication
"{Die}"-Geass Command
"Halt!"-Loudspeaker
"Roger."-Radio/Walkie-Talkie
Chapter 10: The Goddess of Victory Descends.
The Next Day, 08:00am
Dining Room, Lelouch and Nunnally's Suite, Ashford Academy
"Big Brother!" Nunnally said excitedly when Lelouch walked into the dining room for breakfast. Lelouch wished he knew how Nunnally could always tell when it was him walking into the room. It was not the way he walked or breathed, it wasn't the scent of his shampoo or deodorant. He was honestly boggled by his younger sister's ability.
Whenever he asked her, she just said, "But it's you, brother. How wouldn't I know it was you?"
Lelouch shook his head and smiled at his sister. "Morning Nunnally. You seem to be in a good mood today."
Nunnally nodded enthusiastically. "I am! Because the real culprit came forward, Suzaku is likely to be found innocent on all charges. It said so on the radio."
"That's good." Lelouch said warmly, more for Nunnally's benefit than for Suzaku's benefit. He was still privately shocked at how little Suzaku had changed over the years. He was still the same naïve, impulsive and innocent person he had been when he had been ten.
Just about the only thing that had changed about Suzaku was the defeatist attitude that he possessed. When had that happened? When his father had been assassinated? When Lelouch and Nunnally had snuck off by themselves after the surrender?
"Brother…" Nunnally said, hesitantly. Lelouch could tell she was worried he would be upset by what she wanted to say, so was debating about whether or not to speak about it to him.
"You want to see him, don't you?" he asked gently. Nunnally started in surprise, and then nodded shyly.
"It's been so long since we've seen him." Nunnally whispered, "Please, brother?"
Lelouch winced internally at the cute face Nunnally turned on him, but hardened his heart.
"No, Nunnally." he said gently, "We have to keep our heads low. Britannians do not seek out Japanese. Britannians don't make friends with the Japanese, especially Japanese who were accused of murdering a Prince, even if he was acquitted."
"But-!" Nunnally tried to protest, but Lelouch silenced her with a finger to her lips. "Nunnally, I'm not saying this to be cruel. I want to see Suzaku as well. Nevertheless, this is the way thing are. Besides, a contact of mine in the Area 11 Government has told me the name of the next Viceroy."
Nunnally looked curious. "Who is it?"
"Cornelia." Lelouch replied.
"Big Sister Cornelia?" Nunnally gasped, "She's going to be the Viceroy?"
"Yup. Cornelia's famous for taming unruly Areas like Japan, so Father must finally be tired of the constant pinprick attacks of the JLF, on top of Clovis' death." Lelouch said sourly.
"What about the Sub-Viceroy?" asked Nunnally?
"Even more news for you." Lelouch said with a small smile, "The new Sub-Viceroy…is Euphy."
"Euphy? Big Sister Euphemia?" Nunnally gasped happily, "It's been so long…she hasn't been reported on the radio much at all in the last seven years. I wonder how she is."
"Knowing Cornelia, she's been dragging Euphy around with her to keep her away from court -and the men there." Lelouch said with a chuckle, remembering the furious look in Cornelia's eyes when she saw him dancing with Euphemia that first time. She had nearly strangled him before his mother had intervened. "You know how overprotective of Euphy Cornelia is."
Nunnally giggled slightly. "Yes, but you would know that better than me."
Lelouch looked at his blind sister sourly. "How did I know you would bring that up? Anyway, the point is that both Cornelia and Euphy know us very well and would recognise us on sight. My contacts will give me a heads up whenever they come near the school and we'll disappear until they're gone."
"Do we have to? I miss them both." Nunnally said with a pout.
"Nunnally, we've been through this before. If our father ever caught wind of our survival, we would be reduced to pawn on his chessboard again. He'd threaten you to get to me and vice versa." Lelouch said softly, "We wouldn't be able to live together and our lives would never be our own."
Nunnally slumped slightly in defeat. Lelouch reached over and stroked her hair until she recovered herself.
'Damn it. Suzaku, you owe me one for this.' Lelouch thought as he ate his breakfast, 'I almost made Nunnally cry because of you!'
A sudden thought struck him once he had finished and made him smile evilly. Sayoko, who was clearing the plates away, flinched when she saw the smile.
'I feel sorry for anyone who Goshujin-sama is plotting against with that smile on his face.' she thought soberly and said a small prayer for his or her soul.
Elsewhere, Suzaku Kururugi shivered outside the courthouse after being released as a bad premonition came upon him.
LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL
Timeskip- The Evening
Military Aerodrome, Britannian Tokyo Settlement
Cornelia li Britannia, Second Princess of Britannia and Chief General of the Imperial Army, strode off the plane and looked at the neatly ordered ranks of soldiers before her. They disgusted her. Why were they here, at the aerodrome, when they should be out hunting for her younger brother's murderer?
"Sis- I mean, Viceroy, glaring at the soldiers will get you no closer to our brother's killer." a voice said from behind her. Cornelia relaxed somewhat and turned to view the concerned face of her younger sister, Euphemia li Britannia looking up at her.
Cornelia had to restrain her self from smiling. Euphy and she really were two physical opposites. Where Cornelia was regal, Euphy was elegant. Where Cornelia was imposing, Euphy was delicate. Where Cornelia was coldly beautiful, Euphy was adorably cute.
Their hair was a point of similarity, yet even there the difference was obvious. Cornelia's was dark pink and was shoulder length, whereas Euphy's hair was a lighter, brighter pink that cascaded down to the small of her back.
Personality wise, they were different as well. Euphy was kind-hearted, naïve and innocent, while her older sister maintained a cool, distance façade with everyone except those closest to her and was ruthless as they come.
Despite their many and varied differences, the li Britannia sisters were very close, even more so since their two favourite siblings' deaths united them in grief. Lelouch and Nunnally had been sent to Japan as hostages and their father had sacrificed them like pawns, as if they had not even existed, during the Second Pacific War seven and a half years ago.
Frightened by the possibility of their father using Euphy in such a way, Cornelia had taken Euphy with her to every posting after that, rarely letting her out of her sight.
Unfortunately, for Cornelia, Euphy was getting claustrophobic under her sister's aegis and attempted multiple times to sneak away and explore. She had tried to depart for Area 11 early 'to explore without a battalion of guards taking the fun out of it' as she had put it. Fortunately, Guilford had been on the lookout for her and had caught her just before she boarded the plane, which Cornelia knew she was still irked about.
"Yes, I suppose you're right, Euphy. " Cornelia replied to her sister's remark, "But it's just irritating to see all these soldiers here rather than flushing out that bastard Zero."
"The bureaucrats wanted to throw a banquet to celebrate your arrival." said a dark-skinned woman with silver hair as she walked over to the talking princesses and saluted, "Lord Jeremiah slapped them down and sent them scurrying. Welcome to Area 11, Your Highnesses."
"Sounds like Jeremiah Gottwald still remembers my dislike of pomp then." Cornelia remarked dryly, "And you are?"
"Villetta Nu, Your Highness, the Temporary Sub-Viceroy." Villetta replied, "Lord Jeremiah sent me to escort you to him. He wants to update you on the progress on the hunt for Zero."
"Excellent!" Cornelia said with a nod of approval. "It's good to see being in such a provincial Area hasn't dulled Gottwald much. Lead on."
"Of course. This way, Your Highness." Villetta said as she led them to an armoured limousine and held the door for the two princesses. Once she had gotten in after them, the limo drove off.
Seeing a questioning look on Cornelia's face, Villetta said, "Lord Jeremiah ordered me not to let the two of you out of my sight until I had you both safely inside the Viceroy's Section of the Administrative Building. Paranoia is the word of the day after Zero somehow got past an entire battalion of Knightmares, guards and security cameras to assassinate Prince Clovis."
"Naturally." Cornelia nodded, "What has Gottwald done to improve security thus far?"
"He has reinstated the normal security measures and is currently reviewing them for holes." Villetta said.
"'Reinstated'?" Euphy parroted, confused by the word. "What do you mean?"
Villetta looked slightly uncomfortable at the question. "His Highness didn't appreciate all of the intrusive measures in place to safeguard him. On his second night here after assuming his post as Viceroy, he used his Royal Privilege to have a great number of them either dismantled or greatly toned down in scale. Or so the records say."
"Idiot!" Cornelia fumed, "He was a Prince! He should have been used to such things! He grew up with them!"
"Lord Jeremiah said much the same thing. He told me that most of those measures were in place to prevent a…well….repeat of the Aries Villa Assassination." Villetta said uncomfortably.
A wan smile crossed Cornelia's face. "Yes, we certainly wouldn't want that." She muttered bitterly, "The fact that a lot of those measures were simple common sense and weren't put in place until after Lady Marianne was murdered does not sit well with me."
Euphy laid a hand on her sister's shoulder and sent a fleeting look at Villetta that screamed 'change the subject!' at her.
"Oh yes." Villetta opened the briefcase on the seat next to her and pulled out a clipboard with a single sheet of paper on it. "Princess Euphemia, would you relieve me of my post as Sub-Viceroy?"
"Ah….certainly." Euphy said, taken off guard by the bizarre topic change. "How?"
Villetta handed her the clipboard and a pen. "Sign here…and here." She pointed out the relevant sections. Euphy signed in the relevant areas and handed the form back to Villetta, who signed her relevant sections as well.
"Congratulations Your Highness. You are now the official Sub-Viceroy of Area 11, with all the power, authority and mind-numbing paperwork that the position entails." Villetta said seriously.
Cornelia almost giggled when she saw the appalled look on Euphy's face. Her little sister hated paperwork as much as she did. A horrible thought struck her then.
"Why do you say that like you've been buried in it?" she asked.
"Because I have." Villetta replied frankly. "Prince Clovis had a month's worth of backlogged paperwork. I have been helping Lord Jeremiah deal with it. That was after I filled out a hundred forms in triplicate to become the Temporary Sub-Viceroy's position."
"A hundred? In triplicate?" Euphy and Cornelia almost looked green at the thought.
"Don't worry, Your Highnesses. That was only because I am not a member of the high nobility, or an Imperial General, nor a member of the Imperial Family." Villetta told Euphy, "You just took my job with two signatures. Much to my relief, I assure you."
"I assume that you will be returning to the Purebloods now then?" Cornelia asked relief at not having to fill out endless swathes of paperwork showing in her voice.
"That...isn't for me to decide, Your Highness." Villetta said, now looking distinctly uncomfortable.
"Oh?" Cornelia asked.
"It's one of the things that Lord Jeremiah wishes to discuss with you, Your Highness. I can't say anything else other than I will go where ordered." Villetta replied.
Cornelia was curious now, but then the limo just pulled into the secure garage of the Area 11 Administrative Building, so she put her questions off until she met Gottwald.
As Villetta led them towards the Viceroy's Section of the building, Cornelia eyed the overly opulent interior with scant favour. Some opulence was to be expected, but this was just over the top. Persian rugs, expensive vases, carved busts of past emperors; rare paintings…the list went on. Cornelia made a mental note to have most of the overpriced odds and sods placed into storage as soon as was reasonably possible…meaning right away.
The Viceroy's Section, Cornelia was pleased to note, was also opulent, but tastefully so. The way the occasional item was placed so you could not help but notice them was how such things were supposed to be, and reminded her of the Aries Villa.
The Viceroy's Office, once Villetta had bowed them in and closed the doors behind the sisters, was slightly too large for Cornelia's taste, but she could work in it. What really drew her attention was a large family portrait on the right hand wall. It had a black haired woman in a blue dress, a black haired boy in neat clothes and a brown haired girl in a pretty dress smiling out of it.
"Lady Marianne…Lelouch…Nunnally…" Cornelia whispered at the faces that had been stolen from her seven years ago. Euphy looked sad as well.
"His Highness Prince Clovis painted that piece himself and purely from memory." Jeremiah said as he walked into the room from a side door, "I had it placed here to remind me of my greatest failure so I never repeat it. Greetings. Princess Cornelia. Princess Euphemia. It is good to see you both again."
"Margrave Gottwald." Cornelia nodded in greeting, "Clovis painted this? He was better than I remember him being."
"That's what the man in charge of His Highness' personal art gallery said." Jeremiah confirmed, "You must admit, the likeness is uncanny."
"Such gentle colours…" Euphy muttered as she walked up to the painting for a closer look.
Cornelia reluctantly turned away from the painting to look at Jeremiah. "I believe I have you to thank for not being buried under bureaucrats and their attempts to fawn over me as soon as I stepped off the plane?" She asked.
"I merely recalled my time as a Royal Guard under your command, Your Highness." Jeremiah replied, a hint of a smile on his face, "Your dislike of pomp was almost legendary amongst the Guard."
"I'm glad to have left an impression." Cornelia replied dryly, "As pleasant as this trip down memory lane is, I believe you wished to brief me on the progress in the hunt for Zero?"
Jeremiah became serious at once. "Of course. Do you wish to wait for your knights to arrive or shall we start now?"
"Dalton and Guilford are ensuring that our Gloucesters are stowed correctly and will be some time." Cornelia replied, "So brief me now and I'll be able to brief my knights as well. Euphy, you pay attention as well."
Her sister moved over to a chair and sat down with a sigh. Cornelia also took a seat and gestured for Jeremiah to begin.
"Yes…Let's see…." Jeremiah mused, "Well, to start with, there have been no indications of Zero in the last seven years. It's almost as if he appeared overnight, four days ago in Shinjuku."
"He just appeared? No secret gatherings? No unrest among the Numbers?" Cornelia asked in disbelief.
"The Elevens are always in a state of unrest." Jeremiah said frankly, "From what I gathered, Prince Clovis blamed them for the deaths of Prince Lelouch and Princess Nunnally, so the requirements for becoming an Honorary Britannian are far more stringent and demanding than almost every other Area. In addition, there has been almost no urban renewal, other than what was necessary to build the Settlement, in the seven years since the conquest, thus the creation of the Ghettos.
As to secret meetings, there are countless resistance groups meeting in secret nearly every day, more than in almost any other Area. Mostly, we bribe a member to feed us information on what they do, which mostly amounts to them complaining how awful Britannians are, or minor acts of vandalism. Even so, we only have ears in about a hundred groups Area-wide and none in the Japanese Liberation Front.
Simply put, we were overwhelmed by what was demanded of us and were spread too thin to detect Zero's arrival, creation or movements."
Cornelia and Euphy stared at Jeremiah. Part of them was amazed he had recalled that load of information without notes and part of them was appalled by how bad things were in Area 11.
"That is ridiculous!" Cornelia spat out, "Those groups should have been eliminated, not just tracked!"
"Prince Clovis was of the opinion that they were of no threat to the forces he had in place, although I think the real reason was that he was worried about being recalled to the Homeland if his Area was constantly a hive of military activity." Jeremiah said bluntly.
"That…does sound like Clovis." Euphemia said hesitantly.
"Yes, unfortunately it does." sighed Cornelia, "And we have to reap what he has sown. Continue, Margrave."
"Yes your Highness. Four days ago, The Purebloods received orders to mobilise in pursuit of an unregistered group of Eleven Terrorists who had stolen a weapon of horrific abilities." Jeremiah said.
"What was it?" Asked Cornelia.
"Deadly poison gas." Jeremiah replied in a small whisper.
"WHAT?!" the princesses shrieked in tandem, shock etched across their faces.
"That was pretty much my reaction." Jeremiah said humourlessly. "I did wonder why only the Purebloods were mobilised. The Third Mobile Battalion has been slightly short of Knightmares for some time. May I ask if you brought any reinforcements with you, Your Highness?"
"A full Knightmare Battalion." Cornelia replied, mind still reeling in shock from the knowledge that terrorists had stolen something that was against international convention. 'Wait a minute…'
"Stole it? Where from?" she asked suspiciously.
Jeremiah sighed. "From Prince Clovis." The aqua haired Margrave said finally. "Once I became Temporary Viceroy, I searched through Prince Clovis' files trying to find notes on the gas and any possible counteragent there might be, just in case. All I found was a reference to a project called 'Code R' and nothing else. No notes, no description on the project, nothing at all."
"My brother broke the international ban on chemical weapons?" Euphy whispered in disbelief.
"That is if General Bartley's orders and mission briefing can be believed." Jeremiah said softly.
"Jeremiah, tell me everything that happened from the start of the pursuit to the cessation of hostilities." Cornelia commanded harshly.
Jeremiah straightened slightly to almost attention at the command. "Yes Your Highness. I arrived on the scene just as the terrorists deployed their hidden weapon, a crimson Glasgow, which then proceeded to destroy one VTOL and damage another. I immediately launched a counter attack, but the terrorist got away and none of the soldiers could tell me where the truck carrying the gas had gone, except 'into the tunnels'. We later received orders to enter the Shinjuku Ghetto from General Bartley." Jeremiah reported.
Cornelia raised an eyebrow at him. "An Eleven got away from you? When you were in the superior Frame?"
"The pilot of the Glasgow was highly skilled, Your Highness. I badly damaged the left arm with my Slash Harken and closed for the kill. The damage must have extended to the Slash Harken connected to the arm, because the pilot tried to fire it and it stuck. Despite being taken off guard by that happening, the pilot ejected the remains of her arm into the path of my Stun Tonfa and used the explosion as cover to fall back into the Ghetto." Jeremiah replied stiffly.
"The terrorist used the Marlinspike Manoeuvre?" Euphy asked, interested. Jeremiah raised an eyebrow at her.
"That is indeed what the technique is called, Your Highness. I must confess, I thought your sister was the only one who knew combat manoeuvres in a Knightmare."
"When you are surrounded by warriors all the time, you pick things up here and there." Euphy replied somewhat defensively, "And sis has dragged me all over the world's hottest combat zones for the last seven years."
"You were perfectly safe!" Cornelia defended herself.
Euphy raised an eyebrow. "True, but I was also cut off, by and large, from anything remotely resembling a normal adolescence, even by the standards of an Imperial Princess of Britannia."
As Cornelia spluttered a rebuttal, Jeremiah decided to continue with his report before thee sibling squabble got out of hand.
"Ahem." Jeremiah coughed and drew the attention of the li Britannia sisters. "Should I continue?"
"Ah…yes, of course." Euphy said, embarrassed that Jeremiah had seen the start of one of their sibling squabbles.
"Well then…at length, we received orders to level the Shinjuku Ghetto and put the inhabitants to the sword." Jeremiah said, bracing himself for the expected outburst.
"No…please, no…" Euphy whispered brokenly, "Please tell me Clovis did not order that." Cornelia looked stunned at the order as well.
"I'm sorry to say that he did." Jeremiah replied, "According to the bridge logs, which I have placed under a need-to-know-only seal, he said that he'd have it reported to the Homeland as 'overdue urban renewal'."
"And he didn't have the bridge logs erased?" asked Cornelia, astonished, "He surely didn't believe they wouldn't be reviewed?"
"In all likelihood he intended to have them erased post-battle." Jeremiah replied, "He was just killed before he could do so."
"He always did have a lack of foresight." Cornelia sighed. Euphy looked at Cornelia in disbelief.
"Sister! Clovis ordered innocent people massacred for no reason other than they 'might' be aiding a small group of terrorists, and all you can say is that he should have covered it up better?!" she asked in appalled horror.
"Euphy, if this were to be made public, Clovis' reputation and, by relation, the Imperial Family's reputation would be worth less than mud internationally." Cornelia snapped back, "I don't approve of killing for no reason, but in this case Clovis had no way of separating the terrorists from the civilians! What else was he supposed to do?"
"Not murder innocent people!"
"Euphy, we'll talk about this later." Cornelia said impatiently, "Right now, we have to hear Jeremiah's report. Continue, Jeremiah."
"Of course. The massacre had the effect of forcing the Terrorist Glasgow into the open. The pilot destroyed several tanks and VTOLs before I came across it. It was just after this that I believe I encountered Zero."
"Really? Why do you say that?" Cornelia asked, intrigued.
"A report filed by Private Suzaku Kururugi states that Zero admitted to being in command of the Terrorists during the Battle of Shinjuku.' Jeremiah replied, "As the terrorists only had access to a single out-of-date Glasgow before the battle, yet piloted Sutherlands from about halfway through the battle, it is logical to assume that Zero provided them to the terrorists. He ambushed my wingman and myself while we chased the Glasgow. He was in a Pureblood-marked Sutherland."
"A Pureblood Sutherland? How did he get one?" Euphy asked, confused.
"It was Villetta's." Jeremiah replied, "Prince Clovis had sent his Royal Guard to retrieve the gas, but Villetta stumbled across them in a warehouse, dead to the last man. She dismounted from her Knightmare to check if any were still alive and was knocked out from behind. When she awoke, her Sutherland and sidearm was gone."
"That was foolish of her." Cornelia said disapprovingly, "She should have called for backup before dismounting in a potentially hostile area."
"It was foolish and she has been punished by helping me with the backlog of paperwork ever since becoming the Temporary Sub-Viceroy." Jeremiah assured Cornelia before continuing.
"After I ejected from my Sutherland, I was forced to make my way back on foot. From the records, it is clear that by using the captured Sutherland's IFF and the Glasgow as bait, Zero led Prince Clovis' troops into carefully planned ambushes, which baffled Bartley and enraged His Highness."
"Clovis always did hate it when things didn't go his way." Cornelia said, remembering Clovis' first chess match against Lelouch. Marianne's son had taken less than five minutes to defeat Clovis, who had then stomped out in a rage.
"Quite." Jeremiah agreed, "Prince Clovis then took personal command of his troops from General Bartley. He then made a critical error: he broke the encirclement and diverted half of the troops assigned to guard him to plug the gap."
"…I'm sorry, did you just say that my brother made himself more vulnerable and weakened the encirclement at a critical juncture of the battle?" Cornelia said blankly.
"Essentially, that is what I said Your Highness." Jeremiah replied. Cornelia shook her head in disgust and gestured for Jeremiah to continue.
"Ahem. Prince Clovis directed his forces to encircle the location where the enemy was believed to be and charge forward and destroy them. When his forces did reach the target location, there was no enemy there." The Margrave said.
"They vanished?" Euphy said with a small frown.
"To put it more accurately, they evacuated." Jeremiah replied, "A casual look over pre-invasion maps of the area show numerous tunnels and passages in that precise spot. They snuck away and, as they went, sprang the trap they had set. The tunnels, weakened by age and lack of maintenance, were easily collapsed via Slash Harken, destroying most of Prince Clovis' ground forces in a single stroke."
"My God." Cornelia swore. "Clovis was led by the nose into a trap."
"Just so." Jeremiah said with a small frown, "What concerns me is that it was done flawlessly. I couldn't have done it, Prince Clovis couldn't have done it and, meaning no disrespect Your Highness, I don't think you could have either."
"None taken." Cornelia said absently, "And was that it?"
"No. After the total defeat of his forces, Prince Clovis ordered the deployment of the Camelot special weapon." Jeremiah replied.
"Camelot?" Euphy asked.
"Prince Schneizel's Knightmare R&D Think-tank." Jeremiah explained to her, "They pioneer Knightmare technology development and frequently field test them in Area's with internal troubles, such as Area 11. The unit here is led by Earl Lloyd Asplund, who created the Z-O1 Lancelot."
"I have heard of Camelot before." Cornelia said, "Once, they made such a high-spec frame that no-one could move it, correct?"
"The Bedivere." Jeremiah said with a nod.
Euphy raised an elegant eyebrow. "The knight who returned Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake by throwing it into the lake at Arthur's request as he lay dying?"
"You know your Arthurian legends, Princess." Jeremiah nodded approvingly, "Anyway, the Lancelot was deployed, with Private Kururugi as the pilot-"
"Wait a moment! A Number piloted a Knightmare?!" Cornelia hissed angrily.
"With respect your highness, Private Kururugi has shown himself to be loyal to the Empire on several occasions, including returning to his court-martial after being 'rescued' by Zero, and has freely revealed information about his conversation with Zero during his 'rescue'." Jeremiah placated her. Then, almost as an afterthought, said, "Besides, he's now technically no-longer under the authority of the Area 11 Viceroy."
"WHAT!? Why?!" shouted Cornelia.
"As soon as I cleared him of all charges, Camelot…err…appropriated him." Jeremiah said, shifting nervously as he awaited the Princesses reactions.
Light dawned on Euphemia first. "Because Camelot is under the direct authority of our elder brother Schneizel, local Area Viceroys and Governors have no authority over the personnel they employ. This means…"
Cornelia sighed in defeat. "Which means that if Camelot want to use him as the pilot of their damned prototype, I have no ability to stop them essentially. Have they said why?"
"Earl Asplund mentioned that Private Kururugi was 'an integral, vital and irreplaceable component of the Lancelot' and that he was 'quite ticked at me' for 'almost wasting a rare and precious resource'." Jeremiah quoted wryly.
Despite herself, Cornelia found herself grinning slightly. She had heard of the many and varied eccentricities of Lloyd Asplund and was amused to see that some of them were patently not exaggerations.
"Back to Shinjuku then. Kururugi was ambushed by a squad of Knightmares shooting at him from the top of a building, had five Chaos Mines thrown at him and was lured into a trap which involved having half of Old Tokyo City Hall dropped on him. He only very narrowly escaped by jumping into the old subway system." Jeremiah summarised.
"Half a building? How tall are we talking here?" asked Euphy.
"797 feet in total, so quite high." Replied Jeremiah, "It took Kururugi about three-quarters of an hour to escape the tunnels and make his way back to the Command G-1 where the Camelot trailer was situated. By which time, Prince Clovis had been dead for a good fifteen minutes."
"So how did Kururugi get charged?" Euphy asked, a slightly outraged tone in her voice.
"I'll get to it, your highness, so please be patient." Jeremiah said before continuing, "Now, this is where things get…baffling. None of the guards recalls allowing any unauthorised personnel access to the G-1, none of them was found dead, the bridge staff don't remember anything and neither did General Bartley. The only explainable thing would be the cameras, which had their footage erased and the backups were destroyed physically."
"Most perturbing." Said Cornelia with a frown. "The bridge crew remember nothing?"
"They remember the door opening and then they were suddenly in the G-1's brig." replied Jeremiah, "I have, of course, imprisoned them in the cells here as well on suspicion of assisting a regicide. I had Bartley there as well until a rather…odd incident happened."
"Odd?" asked Cornelia wearily. There seemed to be oddities, strangeness and downright weird things happening all the time in Area 11.
"An officer of OSI appeared and ordered me, in the name of the Emperor, to have Bartley released into his custody." Jeremiah said with a frown, "I tried to protest, citing that he was under suspicion of assisting a regicide, but he just repeated his order. I had no choice but to release him. They drove off in an unmarked car and I haven't heard of either since."
Both of the princesses frowned slightly. The Office of Secret Intelligence was a 'Off The Books' agency that very few people knew even existed. They reported directly to the Britannian Emperor and took on missions that one would politely call black ops and, when not being polite, one would refer to the missions as cold murder, assassination, bribery and other distasteful jobs. That an agent had merely been acting as a glorified message boy and cabbie was…disturbing, as well as highly irregular.
"That is odd." Cornelia admitted, "But not something I can do anything about. What I can do is to tell you to set up interviews with the bridge staff for me. I need to look them in the eye as they tell me they don't remember my brother's killer."
"Yes, Your Highness." Jeremiah said as he scribbled a note on a notepad.
"Now, kindly answer my sister's previous question. If it was physically impossible for Kururugi to have killed Clovis, why was he arrested?" Cornelia asked briskly.
"Ah, that." Jeremiah said with a sour look on his face, "That little debacle was the brainchild of one Kewell Soresi, a devoted Pureblood. He proposed it as a way to dismantle the Honorary Britannian System in Area 11. What better way to accomplish this than with the son of the previous leader of Area 11 who had been so kind as to be on the same battlefield. Ignoring, of course, the impossibility of the situation, but then the Purebloods were in control of Area 11, weren't we?"
Jeremiah shook his head in disgust. "I initially turned the idea down, but had to reconsider it when Kewell threatened to overthrow me as the leader of the Purebloods. He claimed that any true Pureblood would jump at the chance to put the Numbers in their place, so I almost had to approve it. I had a bad feeling about the whole idea, however, so managed to make Kewell the man in charge of the entire thing and started an investigation of my own to find the real culprit."
"Sensible." commented Cornelia.
"Given what happened, I'm glad I did. Although I'm wondering exactly what this 'Orange Initiative' is that Zero spoke of, and why Kewell knew about it." Jeremiah said thoughtfully.
"Where is Kewell right now?" Asked Euphy.
"Dead." replied Jeremiah grimly, "Along with a large number of the Purebloods."
"WHAT!?" Cornelia shouted in shock, "What happened to them? Don't tell me it was Zero again?"
"No, it was Kewell's own fault." sighed Jeremiah wearily, "I placed him in protective custody, intending to interrogate him and find out what he knew. Unfortunately, his supporters found out, broke him out of the stockade, and fled with their Knightmares to the Shinjuku Ghetto. The rest of the Purebloods made chase and engaged them in battle. I asked Camelot to deploy the Lancelot in support of the Loyal Purebloods as they were the closest unit. He quibbled about me not being a member of the Royal Family, but Private Kururugi persuaded him to allow the deployment, thankfully."
"How did the battle go?" asked Cornelia, knowing it couldn't be good.
"It was a disaster." Jeremiah replied, "Friendly fire, switching loyalties…just about the only unit who's loyalty could be counted upon was the Lancelot, which eliminated a good few members of Kewell's faction. In the end, Kewell chose to die in a futile gesture against the Lancelot, which now wields MVS (Maser Vibration Swords) blades."
"Really? Asplund completed them?" Cornelia asked in fascination, "They weren't supposed to be feasible for another five years, or so I heard."
"Earl Asplund has evidently been creative with his budget and worked on them whenever he wasn't working on the Lancelot." replied Jeremiah. "Kewell was a stubborn fool, and paid the price for underestimating his foe."
"So the Purebloods are essentially defunct?" Cornelia asked for clarification.
"Regrettably, yes. Between the casualties taken in Shinjuku and this latest debacle, we are barely at platoon-strength." Jeremiah said solemnly.
"I see." Cornelia sat in silence for a moment before speaking again, "Is that everything we know about Zero?"
"The main highlights, certainly." Jeremiah replied as he walked over to the desk and pulled out three thick folders from the stack that was atop it and passed them to her, "These contain after action reports from every Knight involved with the three incidents, as well as detailed casualty reports, damaged equipment manifests and imagery of the battlefields."
"Excellent." Cornelia said, approvingly. She could have Dalton go over these with her and Guilford so they could build a picture of what kind of strategist and tactician they were dealing with. Now, what to do with Jeremiah….?
"Well Jeremiah, you have certainly done your best with a bad hand." Cornelia said slowly, "As such I do not hold you responsible for the Pureblood Incident, nor for Kewell's part in it."
Jeremiah looked relieved.
"However, the 3rd Mobile Battalion, AKA 'The Purebloods', is officially disbanded as of today. All soldiers still active will be transferred to other units. I assume all the current active duty soldiers are one who put down Kewell's faction?"
"Err…yes your highness. Kewell's men were most fanatical. Not a single one survived." Jeremiah said. He was still reeling from having his command stripped from him.
"Good. I believe that Euphy and myself should get some sleep soon so unless there is anything else, I would like to take the position of Viceroy now." Cornelia said firmly.
"Well…there is just one thing…" Jeremiah said, somewhat nervously.
"Which is?" sighed Cornelia.
"Lelouch vi Britannia and Nunnally vi Britannia." Jeremiah said softly, "I believe them to still be alive."
The silence in the room was deafening.
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Next Chapter: Consolidating Positions
Authors Note: Next two chapters will be an Interlude and a -5 chapter.