"-llen!" she heard a voice shout out. It was vague and she couldn't quite identify the speaker. "Are you okay?!" A sharp sting of pain on the back of her head followed soon after the voice spoke again. She was going to have words with whoever thought it was a good idea to scream so loudly for no reason.

Wait, where was she exactly? The moment that thought appeared she felt something wet trickle down the back of her neck. Kallen opened her eyes while lifting her hand and touching the spot the weird feeling came from.

When she inspected her hand again in the weirdly dark room, she noticed it had a metallic scent to it. She didn't need to see to realize it was blood. Her blood.

"Kallen! Goddammit where is the emergency thingy on this thing?!" she heard the voice, which she could now identify as Tamaki's, speak in distress.

It was then that she realized she was in her Guren, she could recognize the unique seat she was sitting in from anywhere. Simply going by memory she reached for her emergency exit button, which immediately did what it was designed for.

The sunlight soon hit her eyes, making her shield them due to the extreme brightness. "Kallen! Good you're okay. I think Tohdoh seriously would've killed me if-" Tamaki started talking right next to her the moment he saw her, making her head pound again.

"Please shut up for a moment Tamaki…" she said weakly as she tried to climb out of her knightmare, which lied horizontally on the concrete floor. She was only half successful in her attempt though, as she felt extremely disoriented by the lack of proper sight and pain in her head.

"Oh man you're bleeding," her supposed 'rescuer' said, making her wince once again, after which he turned around and sprinted towards his own knightmare in search of medical supplies. Stumbling more than anything else, she sat down on the cool concrete, leaning against her Guren for support.

Tamaki soon returned and tried his best to patch her up, which mostly consisted of pouring some disinfectant over her wound and bandaging it up in a way a doctor would've visibly cringed. It would have to do for now though as she had other things on her mind.

"What happened? Did we fi-" she began asking about their mission on the island. Yet she didn't finish her question as the realization about recent events hit her harder than the shockwave ever could have.

'The explosion. It came from the north didn't it? Oh no…'

"We got to go back to the Ikaruga, Kallen, the docks exploded or something. I couldn't see it but there was a giant mushroom cloud when I got out of the hangar and everyone in the control room was panicking." Tamaki tried to explain what he knew as he wiped away the remaining blood the best he could.

Kallen stood up and climbed in her knightmare again, getting some protests from Tamaki which she ignored. As she started her Guren and put it back on its feet, she enabled the speakers, "I'm going to the docks." she declared as she flew away without waiting for a response.

When she gained enough altitude she finally saw the state of their forces. The Avalon and most of the Britannian troops were gone, although she could still spot some searching the island, most likely for survivors. Whether it was for concern for their own or just to make sure all rebels were dead, she did not know.

The Ikaruga was floating near a giant crater which was being filled with ocean water at a rapid pace. There were only a few Akatsukis flying around with the same purpose as their Britannian allies.

She landed at the edge of the crater, opening the hatch and exiting her knightmare. Her boots landed on the newly uncovered soil, the earth scorched black by the extreme heat. Rocky debris lay around the site, which gave the newly created landscape a more uneven appearance than the Tokyo bombing site.

Fires were still roaring on the edges where there used to be forests. Most trees were either obliterated or turned to charcoal, giving temporary life to the flames. Smoke was still faintly present, a reminder of the mushroom cloud that had recently dominated the horizon.

In short, it looked like hell.

There weren't any bodies to be seen. In fact she couldn't even see evidence of there ever having been manmade structures. Was her squad dead? No, perhaps they were on the Ikaruga. Surely they wouldn't be killed by a simple explosion. Right?

"Kallen." she heard someone speak through her communicator. She wanted to answer but found that she couldn't keep her eyes off of the hellish landscape in front of her.

"Kallen, do you read me? Are you alright?" it was Ohgi's voice. He seemed anxious, so she slowly grabbed the small device without looking and pushed the button to speak.

"Ohgi… please tell me they're with you." she asked in a small yet desperate voice. Her squad couldn't be dead, she had already lost so many friends, she couldn't and wouldn't accept them to be lost too.

"…" Ohgi remained silent for a few seconds, considering his words carefully. "Are- Are you at the crater?" he responded with a soft tone, one filled with sadness and worry.

"Yeah." Her reply was barely a whisper.

"I'm sorry, Kallen. They're gone." he said over the communication link. "That bastard blew them up." he added, this time with hate clear to hear.

Kallen tried to deny it within her mind. No, Ohgi must be lying, they couldn't be dead. She had just recruited new members to the squad. They were such good people, she knew their names by heart. Only two days ago they had been playing cards in the lounge area of the Ikaruga, how could they be dead all of a sudden?

Before she knew it, anger filled her mind as she thought of who was responsible for her squad's death. It must have been Schneizel, why else would he have asked for their assistance. It must have been a trap after all.

"Schneizel?" she asked him for clarification, already plotting her revenge with a murderous look on her face.

"Lelouch." was his cold reply, filled with venom directed at their former leader.

"…"

Wide-eyed, she lowered her communicator, no longer aware of her surroundings or the grim sight before her. She dropped to her knees, ignoring Ohgi's concerned voice.

'It can't be… He wouldn't…' Her gaze lowered to the blackened soil beneath her. She kept repeating the same thought, refusing to accept the dark reality.

And before she herself even realized it, tears touched the scorched earth.

…

Goodwin Valdez was a Britannian knight of the private forces loyal to Prince Schneizel el Britannia. He was tasked with searching the island for any survivors due to him being one of the few whose knightmare's flight system remained undamaged after the explosion.

Normally he wouldn't be annoyed by the orders he was given, especially those that came directly from the prince himself, yet this time was different. He had already been fighting for 3 hours without rest before he was tasked with this futile search mission, so it was safe to say he was beyond exhausted.

Not to mention that he and his unlucky companions had not found anyone still alive after two hours of mindless searching. Every crashed knightmare they found that still had an intact cockpit was either abandoned or had become a tomb for the rebels that chose death over defeat.

Although he hated the despicable men that had dared to rebel against their homeland, he respected their willingness to face death for their misguided cause. It was truly a waste of such fine soldiers. Alas, for whatever reason, they chose to be Britannia's enemy, which would've earned them execution anyway. However…

"Valdez, report." His radio crackled to life, giving voice to his commanding officer. He too was given the unfortunate and almost degrading order to be a part of the search team. If not for their respect for military command, they surely would have complained by now.

"Nothing, sir. It seems they all shot themselves when their knightmares became immobilized. But uhm…" he wanted to report something else as he observed another rebel that lay dead in his seat with a hole in the side of his head, pistol still in hand. The abnormality he wanted to alert his superior of however was way too strange to properly describe in a way that didn't seem like a poor joke.

"What is it, knight? I don't have the patience to play fucking Guess What with you."

"They are- they are smiling, sir. All of them are smiling."

"Are you pulling my leg, Valdez? If you are, I swear by the Emperor I will have you-"

"No, sir! They are really smiling, like they felt genuine joy when they shot themselves." he shivered at the thought. What was wrong with them to be so happy about their deaths?

"…For fucks sake. Alright, I'll include it in the report later. Be sure to take some pictures as evidence and resume your search." the officer finally said after a few moments of silence. He was obviously not happy with the extra paperwork, but also seemed to use his annoyance to hide his own shock at the strange revelation.

"Yes sir!" Goodwin replied as he began to do as he was ordered. After recording the necessary evidence he returned to search his surroundings. Each of them had been designated their own region to search so there was no overlap and resulting decrease in efficiency. The last thing they wanted was to stay on this damned island for any longer than necessary.

Luckily, his own region was almost completely searched, he only had some part of the mountains left to do, which put him at ease, feeling assured he would be lying on his bed with as much food as he could stomach in no time.

His daydream about his comfortable bed he longed for was cut short however, as he soon came upon an open space free from any overgrowth which was abundant in the forests he just came from. He could also spot a cave in the mountainside. Equipment was set up in front of it with some disabled lights and a generator.

'Strange, there is no mention of this on the local maps.' He wasn't sure if he should report it, but he was afraid to anger his commanding officer over something that might just be lazy cartography, so he decided to investigate it himself.

Because the entrance to the cave was too small for a knightmare to comfortably enter and maneuver, he proceeded to enter on foot. It went against his training, but he didn't want to delay his return to HQ and possibly get in trouble with his superior for requesting back-up over nothing.

And yet, when he walked into the cave and reached the end, he couldn't help but be stunned by the sight. The walls were carved with intricate symbols he couldn't even begin to guess the function of. At the opposite side of the entrance stood a large stone 'wall' with even more of these symbols. It had a giant hole in it though, most likely due to some sort of explosives.

The patterns were strange but they weren't the main reason he was so stunned, it was the room's occupants. The Knight of Seven, Suzaku Kururugi and the Knight of Six, Anya Alstreim lay unconscious on the stone floor of the cave. One worse for wear than the other.

Although he should be worried about the unconscious Rounds and protocol dictated he should be hurrying to their aid the second he saw them, his exhausted mind which was already kissing his foolishly naïve dreams of rest goodbye, couldn't help but think in lament,

'This is going to be a lot of paperwork, isn't it?'

…

"Lelouch vi Britannia commands you, give me your complete loyalty."

The Britannian border guards didn't stand a chance, not that they ever had any. Their eyes turned from bored and slightly suspicious to fanatical within an instant. Soon after they started smiling like it was the happiest day of their lives and saluted their new master.

"By your will, your highness!" they said as one. It was truly a vile power, one which should have stayed in the likes of horror stories. Unfortunately for the ones Lelouch had used it upon, it was much more than just something to scare children. It was his greatest tool.

"Allow us passage and destroy all records of us having been here. After we leave you will resume your lives as normal until further notice by me only." he ordered his newly acquired pawns.

As expected they obeyed immediately, a few moving away the obstacles so their car could pass, while the others went to their computers to fulfill their master's wish.

Lelouch didn't bother waiting until they were done and got back in the passenger seat of the car. C.C. still acted as the driver, much to her irritation.

When they had arrived at the place where the Shinkiro and Mordred had been hidden on Kamine Island, they simply left their original car and flew off with his personal knightmare, unseen by the then shocked troops that were supposed to be searching for them.

The Mordred was left behind as its flight system had been damaged, but not before they took every scrap of information that was to be found on the machine, which helped them choose their next target.

Now they were back in Japan itself. More specifically, they were currently entering the Nagasaki Settlement, a port city which after the invasion of Japan became an important strategic point of interest for Britannia. This was due to the large amount of trade that could be done with the nearby Chinese Federation and the possible use of stationing Britannian warships in the harbor, giving extra security to the already salivating businessmen who all had wanted to invest in the settlement.

As a result, it was even more expanded upon than originally foreseen, making it stand out from other Britannian outposts in Area Eleven, attracting almost as much nobles and wealthy families as the Tokyo Settlement itself.

Of course, the luxury and prosperity resulting from these investments hadn't been accessible to the original inhabitants of Nagasaki. Quite the contrary, because there needed to be made more space to expand the Settlement, some 'urban renewals' were done in the ghettos.

Although a nice wording for the media to spout to keep the Britannian populace nice and innocent, Lelouch liked to call it for what it actually was: Systematic slaughter. Or more commonly known as genocide. Less than ten thousand 'elevens' remained in the region, all put in the only remaining ghetto of Nagasaki.

Now that the Black Knights had taken the stage once again and had almost conquered Tokyo, those same economic opportunists were running for their lives back to the mainland, taking whatever assets they could with them.

It was rather chaotic in the upper circles of the Nagasaki Settlement, making his plan all the easier.

"Drive to that location." he said to C.C. as he added a marker to their map that was shown on the inbuilt screen of the car. It was close to midnight right now, so the amount of cars on the road was low, which allowed them to get to their destination quickly.

Soon, they drove into an empty warehouse. The only lighting came from the moon and the faraway streetlights, making it rather hard to see.

As they exited their vehicle he could hear C.C. sarcastically reproach him for his choice of destination, "Yes, this is the best place to find support to stage a coup d'état against the largest empire the world has ever seen. An old, abandoned, slowly falling apart warehouse…"

He decided to ignore her remark however, even though it made him chuckle a little, as he soon heard calm and coordinated footsteps from behind him. He didn't need to see its origins to know who was walking towards them though. "Glad you could make it," Lelouch said as he turned around to face the new arrival with a smirk adorning his features, "Jeremiah."

There stood the loyal cyborg only a few feet away with an equally grinning expression. "I wouldn't dare fail the simple task of being present at your side, my lord." the Knight of Orange replied with conviction.

"Good, because I'll be needing your help." Lelouch said as he began explaining the current state of affairs to his loyal knight. He left out the details such as the whole 'Marianne still being alive but then I murdered her' part of the events. Lelouch wasn't certain how Jeremiah would react to such a thing, so he did some 'selective' storytelling, making sure the cyborg was up to date without sharing the petty little details of matricide and time-travel.

"And so, I'll be taking the throne. Of course, I'll need to find some support before I do so, otherwise rebellion will be widespread." he finished his explanation with his current goal in mind.

Jeremiah took a moment to process all of this new information, it wasn't every day the Britannian emperor got murdered by his own son. Nor was the fact that that same son planned to conquer the world through taking his father's now vacant throne.

After a minute of silence however, the man that had once leaded the purist faction kneeled with a stoic expression, "I will do whatever it takes to make your goals a reality, my lord. I, Jeremiah Gottwald, hereby repledge my eternal loyalty to you, the rightful Emperor of Britannia."

"And I, Lelouch vi Britannia, son of Marianne vi Britannia, accept your loyalty. Now rise Knight of Orange, we have work to do."

As Jeremiah rose from his kneeling position he looked into Lelouch's eyes, giving him a knowing look. "And I take it that this 'work' will primarily be persuading certain people to our cause?" he asked, getting a nod in return.

"Indeed, I hope to make as many soldiers, and preferably nobles 'loyal'. Geassing them will make them easier to control and will reduce the risk of us being found out too early." Lelouch answered.

C.C., who had been watching the conversation develop from the sidelines until now decided to speak as well, "And that's nice and all, but most nobles that lived here seem to all be racing for who can get back to Britannia the fastest. The only ones who will remain are those with not enough recourses to make the trip, meaning they're useless even if they would rebel later on." she said as she casually sat down on the hood of the car.

"True, but I aim to first geass a few of them that are still useful here, then arrange for some transport under their name, back to the mainland. We don't need all their assets, just their identities for cover and transport for the Shinkiro." he replied his reluctant chauffeur's doubts, "After that we can go after the more useful ones in Britannia itself.

"We'll have to keep under the radar of course, so we should select only those that will be necessary or could become a problem after I take the throne." He took out a list full of names he had written beforehand, giving them a final glance before handing it to Jeremiah.

"These are some of the nobles and military personnel I want. Do you know any of them?"

"A few, my lord. But most of these people aren't easily accessible." the cyborg said with concern. The list contained some powerful figures that Lelouch knew wouldn't be present for his usurpation, meaning they would wreak havoc when he takes the throne, much like the previous time.

To make it a little easier, he wanted to have at least half of these people under his thumb before he took the throne. And he had only a single month to do so.

"Also," Lelouch continued, "I want these people either dead, or as my puppets." He gave another piece of paper to Jeremiah, this one with only a few names.

Although they were few, they left a much deeper impression on their reader than the previous ones. "The Knights of the Round?" Jeremiah asked incredulously. Only the names of Suzaku, Anya and those that were already dead were missing from the list.

"Yes. They'll be an even larger problem if they aren't eliminated before all hell breaks loose. They would never accept me as the emperor, so the chance is high they would try to depose me. And since I currently lack powerful fighters…" he trailed off, letting them imagine what would happen if the Knights of the Round tried to attack Pendragon with their personal forces in unison.

It wouldn't be pretty. Or perhaps it would, depending on if you were a bloodthirsty psychopath.

"While that may be prudent of you, my lord, they are still the Knights of the Round. One does not simply capture a Round." Jeremiah said with concern. It would be suicide to even try and approach one of these knights, let alone come close enough to geass them into submission.

"True, but some are less difficult to acquire than others." Lelouch said as he pointed towards one name in particular.

"Dorothea Ernst?" Jeremiah frowned, not having expected to start with the Knight of Four of all people.

C.C.'s eyes went from the pieces of paper with the most powerful people in Britannian society, barring the royal family, written on it, to Lelouch with a questioning look. "Last I heard she should have returned to the Britannian mainland after she finished her deployment mission." she said, confused why Dorothea was his first target among the Rounds.

Lelouch didn't directly address their silent skepticism though and began explaining his reasoning as if making a sales pitch, "She is the Knight of Four, quite a high rank among the Rounds. If we have her as a chess piece, we can use her to gather those lower ranked than her through her authority and identity as a cover. It will be difficult to get close to her at first, but she is currently the only Knight of the Round in Britannia. Her isolation from the others is the perfect opportunity to geass her without the other Rounds finding out."

"We'll need some serious influence to get an audience with a Round, never mind the Knight of Four..." Jeremiah said as he started contemplating what would be the requirements to accomplish his master's goal.

They would need an individual that had enough sway in Britannian high society to request Dorothea's attendance, which thinned the possible candidates to only a select few, all of them as difficult to enslave as the next.

"And that is why I need you, Jeremiah." Lelouch interrupted the knight's contemplative state of mind, "I want you to find me the best people to geass. The first few will be more difficult as we don't have someone else's identity to hide behind yet, but I trust that you can find a way?"

For a few seconds the cyborg remained silent as he thought over the success rate of the mission he was given. Coming to the conclusion that it was possible, yet risky, he answered, "Yes, there are multiple possibilities, but as my name has already been associated with the Black Knights and Zero it will be significantly harder to put them into practice, my lord."

"I'll arrange for some pawns to help you, just make sure you don't blow your own cover, or Schneizel will be on our heels before we know it." Lelouch replied, turning back to the car and walking towards the passenger's side.

"Oh, so Jeremiah gets some foot soldiers to help him, but it's too much to geass a driver for us?" he heard C.C. complain before he reached the car.

Turning around, he gave her an innocent smile everybody present knew was as false as an honest politician, as he said, "Why would I need another driver? I have you don't I?"

When Jeremiah saw the deadly look C.C. gave his master he slowly began backing away, making a tactical retreat while muttering a light prayer for him. He was sure not even a million geassed soldiers could save Lelouch now.

…

AN:

Welcome to Lelouch's road trip adventu- hold on, what was this story about again?

Reviews:

Qrow454: Not really. Like was mentioned, the catch to its ability to transport a soul in time is that it doesn't control the 'place' or rather place in time the soul is transported to. It was only able to give an estimate because it tried to guess the power of Lelouch's soul in comparison to the amount of power that was available.

The moment the Collective Unconsious initiated the transportation, its reality fractured, so it was kind of like all or nothing in the amount of power used.

Try to imagine opening a dam at the bottom without a mechanism to close it off again, an explosion if you will. The pressure would keep the water flowing out until there's nothing left. I would've elaborated in the first chapter but it would've been an info dump so I decided to skip it. Hope that answers your question!

Thanks for reading :)