In a high security prison just outside of the new capital of Brittania, a once headless corpse comes to consciousness.
"Bleh. That's nasty." Gregor looks around at his bleak surroundings. "At least it's better than the high pressure chamber."
He spots a bag on the floor. He opens the drawstrings and almost throws up. His own severed head is inside.
"Ah shit. I don't have another Gregor mask, and this one is grafted on."
Internally, he starts to think of situations. First of all, the others might not know that there's a problem. Second, even if they manage to locate him, only C2 will recognize him. Third, if C2 does recognize him, how will he explain his appearance?
Outside his cell, "Gregor" can hear footsteps nearing.
He stands up and faces the door, hands clasped behind his back.
The door opens. "Hello again!" Lelouch steps into the room. "I thought I would visit my favorite prisoner. It is a disappointment that you are an immortal, it makes your suicide deceleration much less potent."
The boy circles around the stock still figure in the center of the room. "Have anything to say for yourself?"
"I have nothing to say."
"That won't do. I need to know what kind of rescue you expect."
"None. I chose to stay behind to buy the others time. It's working."
Lelouch laughs. "Right. You may have my tied up with you, but I still have my elite guard out there looking for your errant team."
Lelouch sits down on the bare cot. "You realize that what you are doing is completely counterproductive? I'm just trying to rule the world here. Every nation is currently joined together, under me. The world is still united, just under a new master. You, or rather Zero, were its old master whether or not you want to think of it that way or not."
The man still stands in the center of the room facing the door. "I know. I didn't want to be Zero, but my compatriots thought it would be best for me to take the role."
"Aw, they didn't give you a choice? How sad."
Lelouch stands up and walks to the door. "I hope your friends come soon. I want to see the looks on their faces when they see their beloved Lelouch is in fact alive and has ascended the throne once again."
o-o-o-o
Flying over the pacific, six Knightmare units keep formation in what is now the fifteenth hour of their journey. They had had to stop twice so far to replace energy fillers.
While most of the pilots hit the autopilot buttons and sat back in their seats to chat, Nunnally keeps dancing around the sky. She's become proficient with her Shinobi, and is now attempting to learn the weapons system.
C2 had installed a training program onto the Knightmare that made it seem like there are enemy units surrounding her. All weapon fires are simulated so as not to drain the battery too quickly, as well as keeping the expendable ordinance topped off.
Kallen and Lady Kaguya have an open channel, conversing about the role of a tactician.
Suzaku and Nunnaly talk while she does her combat maneuvers.
Jeremiah and Anya remain silent, but when C2 checks the channel, both of them are connected to each other.
"Nunnally, watch your six."
"Got it." The Shinobi twists and "fires" a beam of energy at an approaching Knightmare. Suzaku can see the nonexistent Knightmares since he linked up with Nunnally. "Now cut to the right."
Back in the Dai Shōri, Lady Kaguya reviews battle data of several large scale battles, some of which she had been in, albeit as a prisoner. C2 and Kallen talk aimlessly while this happens, and Andrew questions when they are posed.
In between the questions, Kallen fills in the gaps in her knowledge of Lelouch's plans.
"And when he was unmasked by Schniezel? Why didn't he want me to come along?"
"As far as I can tell, he wasn't expecting Rolo to save him. The rest of the Black Knights' core staff was going to shoot him, right? So he didn't want you to die, and the best way to do that was to get you away from him." C2 snickers a bit. "I'm pretty sure that you are his most loyal comrade. Everyone else abandoned him once they found out, but you stuck with him."
"I thought you were his most loyal?"
"Well, I have betrayed him, while he was alive even. I went after an old friend and abandoned him to his own devices."
"Really?"
"Yes. In fact, it turned out to be a bad decision, and he ended up saving me. On a completely unrelated note, he was always dramatic, not just when performing for a crowd. As long as someone is there to witness it, he's a giant ham."
Kallen laughs. "So tell me, C2. What was your relationship with Lelouch?"
C2 tenses, but Kallen doesn't notice from her Knightmare. "I started out as a partner in crime, but after that incident I grew affections for him. At first I thought it was love, true love that I had never felt before. I felt that way until we rescued him from his amnesia. Then, with all his persistence and single minded drive, I came to feel he was like a brother. That was solidified when I lost my memory and then got it back. I... I think he felt the same way, but it's kind of embarrassing to admit that even I can't read him. As far as I know, he wasn't even interested in girls."
Kallen blushes profusely. "Hey! I'm sure he was interested in girls! You're getting him confused with Lloyd!"
C2 puts on a teasing tone. "Oh really? Prove it."
"He deeply cared about Shirley, for one. He kind of went off the deep end right after she died."
C2 concedes. "I guess you're right. It's too bad we can't ask- what?"
The Dai Shōri's scanners light up. "Multiple incoming Knightmares! Battle formation!"
Kallen and Suzaku fly off to the left and right to flank the incoming wave. Nunnally disengages the training program and flies to the Dai Shōri's side.
Jeremiah sets up in front of of the Dai, with the Mordred right behind his left shoulder.
"Look! These are the Geass Knightmares!" Kallen calls out over the radio.
Suzaku readies his Varis. "Don't let them get through!"
The Dai Shōri fires all four hadron cannons, the gefjun modifiers angling the beams in slightly different directions destroying large swaths of the Knightmares.
Kallen reaches the left flank and activates a widespread wave surge. The leading Knightmares start to bubble before they disappear in a cloud of smoke.
"Gah! I forgot these things blow up!"
Suzaku's Varis fires, smashing three of the Knightmares. "Hey Kallen, you think these things launch from underwater? This is our second encounter over a large stretch of water."
Kallen kicks one of the mechs away, denting the cockpit enough to cause the self destruct. "Maybe. We need to find some way of tracking them. "
A pink blur passes in front of Suzaku trailing exploding Knightmares.
Suzaku watchs as Nunnally combines the Guren Ascension's speed with the Lancelot's sword, slicing a large portion of them.
"Nunnally, stay out of my line of fire." Suzaku admonishes.
"Right! Sorry."
The Mordred fires it's little missiles at the oncoming attackers, causing a ring of explosions.
Jeremiah fires twin radiant blasts and punches another sizable hole in the enemy forces. "I'm getting the feeling that these Knightmare units are expendable."
C2 replies back. "They are. The Geass order isn't a very nice place."
"Aren't they the people who attacked the mall?"
"And the people who revealed who Zero was?"
C2 gives a confirmation.
Lady Kaguya, silent up until this point, taps a button on her screen. "Shinobi, fly 30 degrees upwards and fire straight down."
Nunnally follows orders and hits her target.
The other Knightmares instantly stop and start to float down towards the sea.
C2 almost screams over her mic. "Catch one! We need to examine the unit!"
Kallen swoops down and snags one of the Geass labeled units.
"Carrying this thing I'm only going to get two more hours." She reports.
C2 looks over her options. "It looks like the nearest landing spot is Kamine island.
Kallen and Suzaku both start complaining at once.
"Unless you'd rather set down in the ocean?"
That quiets them down.
o-o-o-o
"In twenty four hours, I will reveal to the world the face of this new Zero!"
Emperor Lelouch sits on his throne. He gestures vaguely to the prison transport, where Zero is locked up in standing position. "That is, unless the 'Black Assassins' decide to show up." Lelouch chuckles to himself. "If they walk in the front doors of the palace and turn themselves in I will free Zero."
The light beside the camera turns off, indicating the broadcast is over.
"That was excellent, my lord."
The meek man Lelouch had decided to use as a manservant smiles ingratiatingly up at the throne.
Lelouch looks over and down. "Of course it was. I wrote it."
The man wilts but continues smiling. "Of course, of course."
The new emperor shakes his head. Does every regime need a suck-up?
"Simon, get me some makeup. I need to modify our guest's appearance for his big reveal tomorrow."
The manservant nods and retreats into a door at the throne's base.
The man smiles. Soon, his grip on the world will be absolute.
o-o-o-o
Kamine island.
Kallen HATES Kamine island.
It really didn't help that Suzaku insisted on visiting the places that he remembered, including a certain waterfall.
Nunnally watches the redhead and the brown haired Japanese man argue.
"Come on! It'll be fun!"
Her cheeks almost as red as her hair, "I am not reenacting that! You're just a pervert, like Milly and Lelouch and C2!"
C2 butts in. "Oh, I'm a pervert now? You're the one who decided to barge into a meeting naked."
Kallen's hate filled glare redirects towards the snarky green girl. "Right. Because you had me dressing up as a bunny girl!"
Nunnally puts a hand on the older girl's shoulder. "It seems that you seem to have bad luck when it comes to clothes, huh."
Kallen narrows her eyes but says nothing.
C2 twirls around lightly, glad to finally be free of the cockpit of her Knightmare. "It's actually her true Geass: any time she thinks too hard, her clothes get revealing or sullied past the point of decency."
Kallen briefly considers murdering C2 before remembering it wouldn't work. Instead, she turns on her heel and climbs back into her Knightmare.
Jeremiah comes back from the enemy Knightmare unit.
"It's fully automated."
"Hmm?" C2 turns to the man with one eye.
"The Knightmares. They're autonomous. No pilot." Jeremiah grimaces. "These units are expendable because they are just parts, nothing more."
"But, control systems like that are too advanced-"
"Want to see for yourself?" Jeremiah sweeps his arm around behind him.
C2 pinches the bridge of her nose. "I believe you."
Nunnally almost knocks C2 over to get to Jeremiah. "Wait, so I wasn't killing anyone?" her eyes are full of weird desperation.
Jeremiah tilts his head away from the girl, but responds. "I suppose so."
Nunnally sinks down to the ground.
C2 watches the girl, wary for an unusual response. Nunnally seems to be somewhere between relief and screaming nonsensically.
Suddenly, Nunnally heaves and her lunch comes back up.
C2 wraps a hand around the younger girl's shoulder. "Come on. I'll help you feel better."
Nunnally lets herself be guided away.
Jeremiah briefly thinks back to his own first kill, and acknowledges that Nunnally had handled the seeming massacre well.