Hey Everyone! It's nice to be back with a new chapter this quickly.

This chapter would've been out a day or two earlier, but I was on travel these past few days. (Quick side note to anyone who works at JetBlue: If you're going to cancel a flight, please try to do it before 3 in the goddamn morning after delaying a flight 5 times during the course of six hours. I do not want to have to sleep on a cot in the baggage claim area of the Boston Airport ever again.)

In any case, enough about me. On with the story!

Chapter 17 - Fire & Blood

A man's character is his fate - Heraclitus

They came quietly in the night, the motors in their cars having been modified so that they could move through the forest without being heard. Once in the camp, the soldiers moved as silently as snakes in the grass, creeping into their assigned positions. The sleeping gypsies had no clue what had descended upon them until they were loudly awakened by large men in combat gear pointing flashlights and machine guns in their faces.

The inhabitants were quickly rounded up and made to stand in a line outside their tents. Their minds where reeling with confusion as they tried to figure out what had just happened. Any thoughts that this was a raid by the local E.U forces quickly died when their leader emerged from one of the SUVs. He was at least six feet tall, wore black robes, and had a large curved blade strapped to his back. But the most distinctive thing about him was the stag skull mask that he wore, making him look like a Druid priest from ancient times. He didn't bother to talk to any of his men or to look at the people that they were holding at gunpoint but instead went straight to the largest tent in the camp that was reserved for the elderly leader. The Great Granny, as she was colloquially known, was the only person who wasn't outside, instead sitting patiently while two guards stood inside. When the horned man entered, he dismissed them with a simple gesture.

"O gracious Stag King," the Great Granny said with over-deference, "It is but a noble honor for you to visit our humble encampment."

"Be silent woman" the Stag King growled in a harsh baritone. "I have not traveled out here to the middle of nowhere to listen to false supplications. I'm am here for the Emerald. Where is it?"

"Which emerald to you mean? We have many emeralds amongst us. Such as this one here, which was worn by three of the queens of -"

"I have not come for your worthless trinkets!" the Stag King snarled, slapping away the necklaces that the Great Granny had proffered, before moving his hand to her throat with lighting speed, lifting her off the ground. "You know of what I seek. If you believe that you can deny it to me, then senility has destroyed whatever was left of what you call a brain."

The old woman began to laugh weakly through the choke, dropping all pretense. "You won't find it here. He beat you to it... a week ago. And he knows… you're coming."

The stag king looked into the Great Granny's eyes and saw that she was speaking the truth. "Very well," he said. "In that case, I need you to send a message, though I'm afraid that you'll have to do it without your tongue."

With that, he tore out her throat, letting the elderly corpse fall to the ground. He slammed the organs left in his hand on the ground and left the tent, cleaning his hands of the corpse. As he walked out, The Stag King waved his hand in a signal of dismissal, at which the soldiers proceeded to unload their guns into the gypsies. They left the bodies littered across the forest floor, melting into the night as silently as they had arrived.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"What's the situation on everyone's end?" Lelouch spoke into his mike as he maneuvered his Knightmare around the hilly forests of Hokkaido. He got back a chorus of "clears" and "All goods." Which concerned him. His scouts had told him that the E.U was moving towards here and that they were moving towards here. So where they?

"Do you see anything, Sentinel?" Lelouch said. "Sentinel" had become the codename for the moving base that served as the command center during the missions. Ordinarily, Nunnally would be running things there, but Lelouch had left her back in Tokyo to oversee operations in the rest of the country. As such, it was Nina's voice which came over the radio, saying "I'm getting some odd readings on the scanners, but nothing that says Knight-"

Suddenly, a burst of gunfire rang out from somewhere. Within seconds, Lelouch heard Dani shout over the radio that she was taking fire. Soon enough, others were reporting that they too were under attack, and Lelouch himself had to maneuver his Knightmare so that he could avoid a stream of bullets that came his way. "Everyone move to the rally positions!"

As he moved his Knightmare towards the location, Lelouch got a stream of information about what was happening around him. From the sounds of it, it seemed that the E.U had seen Zero's troops moving towards the evacuated Brittanian base and sent their knightmares to intercept him, while a group of infantrymen moved towards the unoccupied base to capture it.

Lelouch couldn't help but grin. He loved it when things went according to plan.

Moving through the forest, Lelouch got his first look at one of the odd Alexanders that the E.U used. Initially upright like most Knightmares, it had proceeded to pursue the Black Knights after shifting into a four-legged mode that gave the impression of being chased by a giant white insect. It certainly made for a unique image.

Soon, a call came through the radio saying that they had disabled one of the Alexanders. The pilot (Lelouch tried to associate a name with the voice, which belonged to one of the regular officers) was moving in for the kill when suddenly the enemy Knightmare exploded. Lelouch barely had time to react when he saw another Alexander barrelling at him. Thinking quickly, Lelouch activated his flight mechanism and was able to lift himself over the oncoming knightmare. But just as it was almost directly underneath him, the Alexander exploded. The resulting force knocked him out of the sky and sent him sprawling. His systems out of whack, Lelouch moved his Knightmare behind the nearest tree. A worried voice came through the speaker, asking worriedly, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine Q-1," Lelouch said tersely, trying to hide how rattled he was. "E-Everyone get into position and detonate the charges Q-1!"

Lelouch wasn't above using the same trick twice, so he had charges planted around the hilly forest like at Narita. However, he knew that the E.U and everyone else would've heard about Narita and expect something similar. That's why when Kallen detonated the bombs this time, they didn't cause a landslide like last time. This time, they unleashed an avalanche of white smoke, flooding the woods with an eerie mist.

While the Alexanders flew around the foggy forest confusedly, the Zero Squad and the rest of the Black Knights took position behind trees and began firing. Their sensors had been adapted to deal with the smoke, so they were able to be more accurate than the Europeans. All the meanwhile, Lelouch sat in his Knightmare and waited for his systems to realign themselves. All the while, he could hear the sounds of gunfire and increasing explosions. They began to happen with such frequency that Lelouch commented on it over the radio.

"We're not doing that much damage" Dani replied over the radio. "All we're doing is hit with a couple of bullets, and they charge in some direction and explode."

"Zero" Nina chimed in, "I keep picking up a strange signal right before any of the explosions. Do you want to block it?"

"Block it," Lelouch answered. "Let's see what happens."

What happened was that the explosions ceased. There was still the odd shots of gunfire, but there no more exploding knightmares. It didn't take a superior intelligence like Lelouch's to work out the cause and effect relationship.

"Nina," he said as he reached for his mask, cold anger dripping through his voice, "can you trace the signal?"

"Yeah. Anything else you want?"

"A missile. And a word."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

As far as Leila was concerned, this had been a complete disaster from the start.

The plan had been simple: get the base as quickly as possible using light infantry. They knew that the Brits were trying to evacuate with as little loss as possible, so they expected minimum casualties. From there, they would be able to hold the fort while the knightmares secured the fort. In terms of execution, it couldn't be simpler.

The problem was that Zero had been much quicker than they had. When they arrived, it transpired that not only had Zero managed to capture the base and managed to reinforce it with troops to repel them, but he had also managed to stuff a bunch of charges into the surrounding forest. Leila at the very least had the knightmares outfitted so that they could withstand a landslide like in Narita. Only this time, it was a bunch of mist that screwed up the sensors in both the knightmares and in the mobile HQ. And now, it appeared that Zero had one more trick up his sleeve.

"What do you mean the signal has been blocked?" Anou shouted towards the control panel.

"I'm saying that the signal has been blocked," Olivia said, scrambling at her computer.

"Maybe we should focus less on why we can't blow up our soldiers and more on trying to get them back" Leila suggested, her temper threatening with every word.

"When we throw grenades, they're not supposed to come back," Anou said dismissively. "Besides, who wants those filthy Elevens to come back anyway?"

At this point, Leila's anger boiled over, and she was about to say something when Sarah shouted, "Sir! Incoming message!"

"From whom?"

"It says...It says it's from...Zero"

This caused everyone in the room to pause. It was only broken by Anou saying "Well then. Patch him through."

Within seconds, the large screen showed Zero, sitting in a Knightmare cockpit. "Good afternoon," he said in a cool commanding tone, "may I ask who's in charge here?"

Anou responded in his usual mix of bravado and bluster. "Lt. Colonel Pierre Anou, at your service!"

"So, Lt. Colonel, there seems to be a problem. My knights and I took some fire from your troops, which we returned. The thing is, your men seem to explode after taking little fire. Now, I doubt that you're knightmares are that bad. And while my friends are very good, they're not that good. So either you're blowing them up, or they're blowing themselves up. And since I haven't heard any explosions since we started blocking that signal…"

"What of it?" Anou shot back defensively.

"Nothing. It's just that most leaders try to keep as many of their troops alive as possible."

At this point, Anou lost it. "So what? Who cares if fucking Elevens live or not? They love to die! They glorify death! They're the ones who invented seppuku and kamikaze! They- "

Whatever else Anou was going to say was cut off by Zero bursting into laughter. This in of itself floored Leila; there was nothing in her research that he even could laugh. She was getting past that when Zero began to speak again. Panting, he said with a mixture of amusement, astonishment, and something that sounded like outrage, "Wow. I don't believe I've met anyone as willfully ignorant as you. At least with Britannian nobles, they at least have the admit their apathy. You just took some random stuff and used it to justify your idiotic insanity!"

Zero then leaned into the camera, his voice taking on a more serious and angry. "At least those died via kamikaze at least believed that their death would help their side achieve victory. I can't provide you with the same reassurance."

With that, the camera cut out, leaving nothing but static. Leila was about to ask what that meant to no one in particular when Olivia yelled that there was a missile incoming. Leila only had a second to throw herself to the ground and cover herself before it, bursting through with a propulsion of fire, debris, and noise. Leila couldn't tell long she was on the floor; all she knew was that she managed to pick herself up to find that she was covered in dust and ash with her ears ringing. Seeing Anou on the floor with a head wound that looked fatal, she dragged to the command center (which was somehow still working) and typed an order for all troops to return to base. She then pulled her gun and moved for cover, waiting for the Black Knights to come through the hole in the wall to the outside. But somehow, Leila doubted that they would come. They had been far from the main action, and Zero had made his point quite clearly.

Next chapter is in the works. Looking forward to seeing you soon!