"If you ditch one more Student Council meeting like you ditch your classes I'll storm the very gates of Hell to drag you back and string you up by your testicles!"
-Millie, some time in R1
Before an auditorium filled with murmuring students, and below the stage, Rivalz stood sentinel, as the last member of the student council left. Really, there should have been another election. It should have been Lelouch there in his stead. But Lelouch, like Shirley and Suzaku, was dead.
Rivalz clicked his heels. "School stand for the official party!" Without a microphone, he was forced to project his voice from his chest. It resulted in "school" being elongated into a long "o" sound that seemed to echo and reverberate throughout the auditorium.
A veil of silence fell over Ashford Acadamy's auditorium. Heads jerked to the empty stage and the empty chairs. The girls' hands were busy buttoning up their blazers, while their male counterparts clasped their hands behind their backs. White blazers and black jackets mixed to make the entire auditorium a motley sea of flotsam and jetsam.
Out of the silence came the prayer of drones, as pipers filled their pipes with air. The students' faces were united in mute conformity, each of them rigid, and each of them serious. This assembly had been the product of an afternoon spent blacking boots and brushing lint off of jackets, and it showed. Like knights of old that prepared for knighthood by washing in cold baths, these students had prepared for this occasion through frantic and purposeful washing of clothes.
It was time for their final mental preparations.
The pipers began to play their sombre march, while the drums began their rat-tat-clack in answer. The school stood transfixed by the music, which slowly got louder. They were rigid of body, and more than a little rigid of mind.
Rivalz could see tears in some of their eyes. It was cruel to keep them waiting in silence, standing, as the procession slowly advanced. Why add one more minute of reflection when they could reflect on the dead their entire lives?
The doors to the auditorium were flung open with a crash. It was a wonder the hinges didn't give way. Two students wearing white gloves came through from the other side, and held the doors open. Behind them came the drummers, two abreast, with locked steps.
Opening the doors doubled the volume of the pipes. Eight pipers was surplusage for the auditorium, but nothing could be overkill for this occasion. Not when there were empty rows where three months ago they couldn't fit the school in the auditorium.
Next came the procession of standards with standard bearers. As they cleared the lintel of the auditorium door, they hoisted their standards up, and braced them firmly in their slings. A splash of colour, something bright to centre the school on, their esoteric designs and latin nonsense spots of bright familiarity in a world that was changing beyond them. Rivalz felt a swell of pavlovian pride.
Where the standard bearers ended materialised a procession of administrative staff, grey worn faces; board members in bright court dress; and Millie. Millie with her wry smile with corners tight. Millie with her eyes that looked as if they had blinked at the face of hell. Millie-that indefatigable woman who's spirits had never once dipped, and now stood next to the Earl Asplund.
Rivalz resisted the urge to bite his cheek, and forced his eyes to the masters who were following. They were clad in the black robes of academics, over their equally black suits. First there was the dark blue of doctors, then the green with fur trim of english majors. Legend said that they had needed the trim due to being left out in the cold: English hardly being a prestigious degree.
Once the drummers and pipers arrived at the front of the aisle, they split, parting like a beam of wood under the influence of a wedge. They parted perfectly, keeping their feet in time, and their heads followed their every movement. Students who were being worked in the impossible carpenter's shop of the invisible Gods of Ashford Academy. Gods with names like "prudence" and "justice;" "duty" and "honour."
As each standard bearer took their place holding their banner before the stage, Rivalz felt another nail fall into place. The scaffold of formality was being created to hang in effigy the demons of the people.
Rivalz kept his gaze long and unfocussed over the students as the board members-and Millie (together with her fiance)-passed him by, and began climbing the steps to the stage. Even the creaks of the stairway seemed slow and purposeful: the auditorium may well be trapped in resin for all the time that was passing.
The masters-clean shaven and bearded, male and female-slowly took their places, and the headmaster stood at the lectern. The pipes and drums fell silent, the long prayer ended.
As the doors finally shut, the headmaster commanded, "School at ease." The students took their seats, Rivalz included.
"We have lived through dark times and black hours. We have suffered what no school has suffered before, or God forbid will ever suffer again…" Rivalz tuned out of the long speech. It was irrelevant, using mindless rhetoric of Brittania, adapted for school use. It had no effect on the death weary and soul bloody students of Ashford.
All students knew dead men. Classmates who would never speak again from the silence of the grave, relatives that would never call again. It was the rhetoric of empire, the meaningless words of Brittania that had emptied the school, and everyone knew it. Tuning out a speech was much better than spitting vitriol back at it.
He tried not to look at Millie, and instead focussed on the headmaster's wife, who looked as disinterested as he himself was. Maybe she was one of the lucky ones that had lost no-one to the FLEIJA. Or she had been born without a soul.
He stepped down from the lectern, and Millie rose. Millie, who he had loved with all his heart, until his time had run out. The girl who was so beautiful that he couldn't bear to look at her. If he could only carve his heart into the shape he needed, nail it and sand it to prevent it from splintering, he would not feel the pain. But the love sickness was there. Despite it being love-the most lauded emotion-it was still an ache.
She wore a simple blue dress. For the moment it seemed the backdrop of the entire world, a sky from which everything could be set against. Like the clear air that had been stripped of its impurities by rain, the very idea of her was purified by the misery in his heart.
"By the powers invested in me as acting head of the Ashford Family, I call upon the ancient ones of the underworld!" She raised her arms to the air.
A psychic shockwave emanated from her words, and it sent a thread of energy into the minds of the students. Her actions hung on the edge of a bad joke and something more sinister, and before his eyes she transformed from an object of beauty to a herald of terror.
Behind her, Earl Asplund half rose, while the Headmaster shared a look with his wife.
"I summon the only man that can help this school in this black hour. From the fires of hell I call him! Lelouch Lamperouge, Lelouch vi Britannia, Zero, The Messiah, The Prince of Blood, That Mad Son-of-a-Bitch," If she was using the Roman convention of naming every possible name so that Lelouch had to answer… they were going to be there for a while. He had to hand it to her. She was doing what no speechmaker had ever done for him before: keep him awake.
It was all a bad joke… until electricity began to arc between her fingertips. "I summon you to the mortal realm to rule us once more… and make a damn speech because I can't write them for shit."
Rivalz forced himself to tear his eyes away from Millie. That was when he saw one of the pipers tearing out their own entrails to create what he assumed was a summoning circle. Rivalz had read enough fantasy books to know.
Rivalz began to speak. "Dear God the almighty, protect me from the heathen powers. God knows I'm not your ideal follower… I drink, I smoke, I masterbated to Millie presenting the weather two weeks ago… I've never set foot in a church… but help me! I'm going to become cultist-fodder!"
"HAIL THE GREAT SATAN LELOUCH!"
"God Save the Empress!" Maybe God wasn't listening to Rivalz, so he tried to pray to that great institution; Britannia.
Britannia didn't answer either. Instead he got a glimpse into something other. A terrifying nothingness that made him want to scratch all of his skin off and eat his heart. For the first time in his life, Rivalz felt hideous.
The lights went out. He heard bulbs blow and a trail of sparks lit the auditorium briefly.
"Please accept this sacrifice of students. I pledge myself and this army of students to your cause. Our souls are yours."
Rivalz felt dread. Then he perked up because he remembered that he had sold his soul on ebay. Hopefully whoever had bought it was more forgiving than the demon emperor himself.
A flash, a bang. Somehow, he knew Lelouch had arrived.
"Speech?" Millie asked with a voice like a child that had been given the greatest toy on the planet.
Rivalz thanked God for at least helping him dodge the bullet that was cultist-millie the batshit insane cultist as a girlfriend. He then cursed God for not freeing him from this situation.
"The purpose of suicide is to die." Lelouch's voice. "Fuck you and I hope you join me in hell." That was… unexpectedly uncouth of him. Obviously he had learned a thing or two from his inmates. "What the hell did you want me to do? You have CC, Zero, and Nunally-"
"We needed a student council member to give a speech, and you hadn't been released," replied Millie.
Rivalz stared at the Earl Asplund. The Earl stared back. Though they had never spoken to each other, Rivalz felt in his chest a connection growing. He wasn't looking at a rival, he was looking at a man that was just like himself.
Except the Earl hadn't dodged Millie.
A/N
I found the first half of this fic in my "Dead Works" folder. While I found the writing interesting, the subject matter-a school assembly-was boring. So, I decided to listen to heavy metal and you know what? I like this. Hopefully it'll make someone in the peanut gallery laugh.
If you enjoyed this, feel free to drop a comment!