Author's Note: Looking at the Story Page of Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion V2 makes me want to cry in frustration. Before the Admins took down this story, it had over 333,000 views. Now it has fewer than 30,000.
Well, no use crying over spilt milk. Hopefully the views will start going up soon.
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Disclaimer: Code Geass isn't mine.
"Kallen"-Speech
'Lelouch'-Thought/mental communication
"{Die}"-Geass Command
"Halt!"-Loudspeaker
"Roger."-Radio/Walkie-Talkie
Chapter 15: The Wages of Sin: Hubris
15 Minutes since Commencement of Operation Snake Pit
Outskirts of Saitama Ghetto
Sir Harrison Oland moved his Sutherland Knightmare Frame forward at an easy walk rather than charging forwards like most young idiots who dared to call themselves Knights these days did, carefully scoping out every crossroad he came to before advancing.
The ruined city was far too quiet and there had been next to no contact with any of the Eleven populace. Oland's combat senses, honed in over a decade of service to Britannia and Princess Cornelia, were screaming at him that something was not right here.
[PING]
His OS put a small window up, indicating they had just been hit with a laser flash. He activated the Factsphere Sensor and scanned the surrounding area, eventually finding a lone soldier waving at him from the top of the building.
"Why isn't he contacting me using his radio?" Oland muttered as he used his Slash Harkens to climb the building and expertly land a metre away from the soldier.
"Soldier! Why aren't you communicating using your helmet radio?" Oland asked via his Knightmare's loudspeaker.
The soldier reached up and tapped his helmet where the radio was located, using the universal sign for 'broken radio'.
"Another one? Damn Clovis and his penny pinching." Oland grumbled. The former Viceroy had done something that every soldier throughout history has hated their commanders and civilian officials doing: hired the lowest bidder to make the various small, but vital, things that are absolutely necessary for soldiers on campaign. From field rations to shovels, from radios to emergency flares, the chosen manufacturer produced them all at a bargain price…and to absolutely pathetic standards.
Thankfully, Princess Euphemia had not only broken the contract with the manufacturer, she was also suing them for breach of contract in failing to produce products that were up to the standard specified in the contract. Still, the inventories were full of the damn defective things and superficially, they looked exactly the same as the non-defective items. It would take quite some time to replace them, so they were stuck with them for the moment.
"What is the reason you signalled me?" Oland asked. The soldier held up a sealed dispatch case and pointed at it, then Oland's Knightmare.
"Sealed orders for me? At the start of a battle?" Oland frowned, "Princess Cornelia must have a special mission in mind for me."
He disengaged his Activation Key from the control interface and emerged from his Knightmare, using the boarding line to descend to the ground.
"Well, give me the orders then soldier!" he ordered imperiously.
"Certainly, sir." the soldier replied, before removing his helmet and fixing him with a look with his violet eyes, one of which had a red bird-like symbol in it.
"{Serve me}!" was the last thing Harrison Oland heard.
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Lelouch's Perspective
The soldier knelt before him and said, "Yes, Your Highness. Command me as you like."
"First, give me your Knightmare." Lelouch instructed. He had stashed his own Knightmare elsewhere after changing into his Britannian Footsoldier disguise. The first part of his plan started with showing Cornelia what she expected to see, so any suspicions she might have at the lack of activity in Saitama were assuaged.
"Of course." the soldier stood up and threw over his key, "The code is RX54R9F4. Please take good care of it."
"I will." Lelouch told him with a grin, "Now, what orders has Cornelia issued to you that are out of the ordinary?"
"None." the man replied, "We have merely been told to eliminate the terrorist group known as the Yamato Alliance by any means necessary, as well as eliminating any collaborators among the Eleven populace."
Lelouch frowned. As expected, Cornelia was keeping operational security tight, not even telling the higher-ranking Knights in her Mobile Battalion, like this one, about the actual plan.
"Have there been any unusual deployments?" Lelouch pressed, "Any odd stationing of Knightmares?"
"I was ordered to escort a trainload of twenty Sutherlands to the opposite side of the Saitama Ghetto. They have been left lightly guarded." the man replied.
"Was anything done to them to render them useless?" Lelouch asked intently.
"I observed explosives being placed in them, located in a hidden panel underneath the cockpit, right next to the IFF beacons. The engineer in charge told me they are set to remotely detonate upon receiving a signal from Princess Cornelia's Command G-1." the Knight replied.
"Very sneaky, Cornelia." Lelouch muttered. Had he not come across this information, he would have been completely blindsided by this at a crucial point in the battle, crippling his forces and forcing a retreat. "Are there any other nasty surprises hidden in the Knightmares? Viruses in the OS? Faulty joints?"
"Not to the best of my knowledge." the soldier replied.
"So there may be some." Lelouch mused, "Very well. Walk off the building."
As the man walked to his impending death, Lelouch mounted the man's Knightmare. Ignoring the sickening thud of the soldier's body striking the ground four stories down, the exiled prince altered the radio frequency to the one used by Kallen.
"K-1 to Q-1, over." Lelouch called after he put an auto voice synthesiser over the mic.
"This is Q-1. Over." Kallen responded at once.
"Q-1, send Mamoru-san and groups P-5 and P-6 to the other side of Saitama. There, they will find a trainload of Sutherlands. They are a trap from Cornelia, with explosives installed beneath the cockpit, right next to the IFF beacons. Mamoru's orders are to subdue or kill the guards, remove the bombs and sweep them for any other nastiness before deploying the Sutherlands against Cornelia's forces." Lelouch ordered.
"Right." Kallen replied, "Oh! P-1 and R-1 are in position and awaiting your orders."
"Excellent. I will need a moment to grasp the movements of the enemy, but send word to the Yamato Alliance to prepare for imminent battle." Lelouch directed his subordinate.
"Right!" Kallen replied enthusiastically, making Lelouch chuckle to himself as he switched his attention to the Knightmare, deciding to move it to a location out of sight while he pondered his next move.
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Ten Minutes Later
Cornelia's Command G-1
"Status report." Cornelia demanded.
"The Ghetto is apparently deserted, Your Highness." Dalton reported with a frown, "Aside from a couple of holdout incidents, there seems to be no sign of either residents or terrorists."
"Paladin team, change course to five-one-six." one operator ordered, almost bored by the lack of action.
"Yes, My Lord. Moving to five-one-six." the senior Knight on Paladin Team replied and on the screen, the two blue dots representing the two Knightmares swerved around to the left and started weaving between the rubble that remained of a line of old houses in the centre of the Ghetto.
"No response at all." the Knight reported with a snort, "Cowardly damn Numbers must have fled with their tails between their legs. No sign of that Zero character either. I'll bet he turns out to be a no-show."
"Guess he's just another run-of-the-mill terror-AAAGGGHHH!" his partner started to say, before shrieking in pain and anguish and the transmission cutting off at the exact same moment the two blue dots designating Paladin Team shifted to indicate their status as [LOST].
"Paladin Team, Lost!" the operator cried in alarm. Cornelia and Dalton whirled around in surprise. Two Sutherlands down in an instant? In an ambush?
"Looks like Zero has finally shown himself." Cornelia muttered.
'The reason for the large delay in attacking was to lull my soldiers into a false-sense of security.' Cornelia thought angrily, 'And I sat back and let it happen!'
"You!" she pointed at the spokesperson of Clovis' bridge staff, "Correct me if I am wrong, but did not Zero's intervention in Shinjuku begin with the ambush of two Knightmares?"
"That is correct, your Highness." the man confirmed grimly, "The only difference is that a red Glasgow was spotted making what Prince Clovis assumed was a feint beforehand, when it was merely the lure for the trap."
"Enemy Knightmare spotted!" another operator called out, "Image on screen."
A window popped up on the main screen of a crimson Sutherland with a rifle in one hand and a flagpole in the other, the proud symbol of Japan streaming behind the speeding frame.
"Looks like Zero has decided to taunt you, Captain." Cornelia remarked.
"Viceroy? I'm only a 2nd Lieutenant." the man replied in surprise.
"Not any more." Cornelia said, "Now, show me your best efforts in battling Zero!"
"Yes, Your Highness!" the man saluted her and set about extolling the rest of the bridge crew into moving their forces.
"This is very suspicious, Your Highness." Dalton said to her in an undertone, "The lack of the Eleven populous, the sudden ambush, the taunting Sutherland…Zero is playing with us."
Cornelia agreed with her Knight mentor's assessment as it jibbed very much with her own. Zero was making her soldier's dance to his own tune, conducting this battle as if it was a theatrical performance. She had no evidence of this yet, but she was a very experienced soldier and knew a set-up when she saw one.
"He must have evacuated the Elevens before we arrived." she muttered, her eyes narrowed in thought, "Aside from those few idiots that refused to move because they let their pride rule themselves. Humph. Such fools deserve the fate they bring on themselves. More to the point, he has likely taken the reins from the leadership of the Yamato Alliance as well, if he has any common sense. A war fought by committee is a war already lost."
"Just so." Dalton nodded, "So do we wait and see what kind of strategist he is?"
"For now, yes." Cornelia said, her eyes locked onto the screen, while her right hand caressed a black detonator with a blinking red light on it.
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At the Ambush site…
"I don't believe it!" Tetsuya said in disbelief. He had been placed in charge of squad 'B-7' and ordered to wait for Zero to count down to, well, zero, and fire a pair of Anti-Knightmare Bazookas at the pair of Knightmares that would emerge and present their flanks to them at that time.
"They came! They really came!" one of his troops said excitedly.
"Just as Zero said they would!" added another.
Tetsuya frowned as he glared at the blazing wrecks that used to be Sutherlands. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. Zero wasn't supposed to show up with that redheaded half-blood bitch in tow and steal his glory!
"B-7, move to area T-H-5 and await targets." the voice of Zero came over the radio, making Tetsuya's scowl deepen. T-H-5 was a set of old office buildings not far from where they were right now, on the edge of what had once been the centre of Urawa City, which had merged with two other towns to form Saitama City a short decade before the Britannian Invasion.
"Alright, ya heard th' masked creep, let's move!" Tetsuya barked irritably.
"Tetsuya, you really shouldn't insult Zero." one of his guerrilla fighters said reprovingly, "If he hadn't offered us help, we'd be getting slaughtered right now."
"Shut up, ya slack-jawed idiot!" the angry man snarled, "C'mon. We can't let Kōzuki's group show us up in our own turf!"
The men under his command exchanged glances, mostly exasperated ones, at Tetsuya's childishness and spitefulness. The man was a meaner, stupider and altogether less pleasant version of Tamaki, who had beat the crap out of Tetsuya for running a Refrain racket in Naoto's Resistance Cell's area and then told Naoto about it.
Naoto had then proceeded to further kick Tetsuya's ass before throwing the man out of the group and warning him not to come back or they would shoot him. Tetsuya, full of bitterness and hatred, had joined the Yamato Alliance but had never risen high because even the Yamato Alliance, full of scum and the dregs of the former Japanese society, had drawn the line at supplying their own people with the addictive narcotic Refrain and Naoto had told the Alliance Council exactly why he had thrown the man out.
'So what if I sold a few idiots Refrain? The country's gone to hell and there's no point imagining that resisting is gonna do anything other than get people killed.' Tetsuya thought angrily as he led his squad to their next location, 'The best thing to do is enjoy yourself to the fullest and do what you want. Japan's dead and hoping that it can change for the better is a fool's errand.'
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With Lelouch
"Hmmm…Tetsuya seems to be behaving himself…for now." Lelouch mused as he watched the dots indicating the various Knightmares, tanks and VTOL's move around.
Kallen had given him a condensed version of Tetsuya's history with her group and this had not impressed Lelouch any further than the overheard conversation between Kallen and Tetsuya had. The man was an opportunistic scumbag that wasted every breath of air he breathed.
Lelouch only reluctantly allowed him to lead group B-7 because it was a fairly expendable squad that he would be using as Anti-Knightmare/tank/VTOL support fire. Not a vital role at all and, more importantly, one that the idiot would be hard-pressed to cock up at.
"Ohgi, status report?" Lelouch asked.
"All civilians willing to leave Saitama have gotten away via the underground tunnels." Ohgi reported, "I sent some of the guys to act as escorts just in case something happened. Was that OK?"
"That was a very wise decision, Ohgi." Lelouch replied, "One I should have made an order in the first place, so thank you for covering my miss."
"Th-thanks…" the man sounded embarrassed for some reason.
"Moving on," Lelouch said, deciding to put the unusual embarrassment of his second in command to one side for the moment, "Move your remaining troops back to the extraction point and have the truck ready to head out at a moment's notice. I don't want to take any chances with Cornelia as our opponent."
"Right, heading out now." Ohgi replied, determination in his voice.
Lelouch smiled. Ohgi might not be a natural leader, but he was learning the ropes at a decent pace. A good leader can make an on-the-spot judgement similar to what Ohgi had just done and follow through with it. Most importantly, in order to give orders, a good leader has to first learn how to take orders, and Ohgi was very good on that front. A few more months and he'd make a very decent field commander.
"Mamoru-san, status update." Lelouch moved to his next priority, his armoured reinforcements. The light guard had been clubbed into unconsciousness, stripped naked and tossed into the river a while back, with C.C. standing guard over the proceedings.
"Eh, these Brits have really packed the space under the cockpits with some pretty nice plastic explosives, along with Sakuradite explosion enhancers and some detonators." Mamoru replied casually, as if he were discussing a new car, "We have five Sutherlands defused, with four more approaching that state. What do you want done with the explosives?"
Lelouch considered that for a moment. "How much is there per Knightmare?" he asked.
"'Bout a foot square per Knightmare." Mamoru replied, "There are some with a little less, some with a little more, but the amount is fairly consistent otherwise."
Rapidly making calculations, Lelouch smiled an evil smirk as he came up with a plan for the useful gift his sister had given him. He outlined his plan to Mamoru, making the old martial artist whistle in admiration.
"Remind me not ta get on your bad side, Zero." he said before heading off to follow his new orders.
"Q-1, there are a pair of Knightmares laying an ambush for you around the next corner. Go over the building and educate them." Lelouch told his fiery subordinate, earning himself a snarl of anticipation from Kallen.
'Now then, to predict where Cornelia will attack from with her Gloucesters…' Lelouch pondered as he examined the map in front of him.
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With Kallen
"I'm coming for you, you Britannian bastards!" Kallen snarled as she fired her new Sutherland's Slash Harkens at the top of the building, using them to rapidly rappel up the building.
She was still exulting over her new Knightmare. Zero had kept his word and given her a replacement for her old Glasgow. While not factory new, it was obviously well maintained and the fresh crimson paintjob had made her fall in love with the Frame as soon as she saw it.
'No chances that thisone will seize up on me at a critical moment.' Kallen thought darkly, recalling her disastrous first encounter with Jeremiah Gottwald. She was lucky to have read about the Marlinspike Manoeuvre in an old training journal she had stolen from one of her stepmother's lovers.
Kallen put it from her mind as her Sutherland crested the top of the building and she swiftly retracted the Slash Harkens before leaping off of the building, straight towards the unsuspecting pair of Sutherlands trundling along at a slow, even pace.
"Idiots!" Kallen snarled as her Battle Rifle barked three times, shredding the furthest one to pieces, the cockpit flying out as the Ejection System automatically activated.
The other Sutherland whirled around and started to bring up its own rifle, but Kallen sent out both of her Slash Harkens, one destroying the Rifle while the other took off a leg.
The Knight must have decided that discretion was the better part of valour, as he ejected his cockpit at the exact same moment that Kallen's Sutherland slammed down onto solid concrete again.
"Coward." she muttered.
"Q-1, VTOL at one o'clock. Take it down." Zero commanded, giving Kallen a thrill. She whirled around to one o'clock, raised her Battle Rifle one-handed again and snapped out two shots that sent the helicopter careening to the ground as a fireball.
"Very well done, Q-1." Zero complemented her, "Now, continue your circuit of the encirclement and take down any and all VTOL's you see."
"With pleasure!" Kallen grinned. She was so glad that Zero was her commander.
"Hmm? A Battle Tank? Get real!"
BANG!
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Cornelia's Command G-1
"Logan Team, Lost!"
"Hawkeye Twelve, shot down!"
"Stopblock One isn't responding!"
Cornelia lounged on her Command Throne, calmly taking in the fast and furious casualty reports with the ease of an experienced commander.
"So, two Knightmares, a VTOL and a tank in less than a minute?" she asked Dalton casually.
"Yes Your Highness." Dalton replied.
"That pilot isn't too bad…for a mere Number." Cornelia conceded, "Once I decide to intervene, we will crush that Knightmare first."
"Just so, Your Highness." Dalton nodded in agreement.
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Fifteen Minutes Later…
With Lelouch
"R-1, R-2, fall back and lead them to N-2's position."
A flurry of dots indicating enemy forces moving in pursuit of the two light tanks that the Yamato Alliance had somehow scraped together.
"B-7, fire at two o'clock."
[Lost] Scratch one APC.
"P-5 Team, open fire straight ahead."
[Lost} Two Knights removed from the board.
Lelouch worked like a machine, targeting enemies for his troops to fire at while repositioning others to take advantage of the holes in the enemy's lines to set up new ambushes.
'What is taking Cornelia?' Lelouch wondered idly while he set up an ambush for three enemy Sutherlands, 'She should have moved out long ago…'
"N-2, fire Slash Harken to your upper right."
[Lost] one helicopter, wings clipped.
"R-4, fire at will."
[Lost] another APC in the scrap pile.
"N-1, eliminate the targets starting from the left."
[Lost] One Knightmare squadron, dismissed from play.
"Time for the climax. P-3, destroy the bridge and cut off their reinforcements."
[Lost] one column of twelve Knightmares, tanks and APC's taking a swim.
'If that doesn't draw her out, I don't know what will.' Lelouch thought as he twirled a black king chess piece in one hand, 'Just to be safe…'
"Q-1, move to the top of the building to your left and plant the flag."
"Roger." Kallen replied, confusion evident in her voice, but she still obeyed.
"Your move, Cornelia." Lelouch muttered.
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Cornelia's Command G-1
"Why that-!" the newly promoted captain was glaring at the image being beamed to the bridge by one of their few remaining VTOL's. The crimson Sutherland had climbed to the top of the building it now stood upon, an old broadcasting studio, and planted the flag it had held in it's hand into the roof.
'Here we are and here we'll stay' the gesture seemed to declare, the Elevens deliberately thumbing their noses at the Britannians.
"That's enough." Cornelia opened her eyes at last and motioned at the bridge crew, "Order all troops to fall back. Sustaining further casualties is pointless."
"But…Yes, Your Highness." the captain sighed in defeat and began issuing the orders, certain he was going to be reduced to private at the end of the day.
"You might want to assure him that he performed as well as could be expected to, Princess." Dalton spoke to Cornelia in an undertone, "He is likely certain he will be punished for his failure."
Cornelia shook her head in amusement. The captain had performed well, far beyond what she would have expected a former subordinate of her foppish younger brother to perform. He had remained calm during the entire thing and issued orders that had reduced the overall casualties somewhat. Had this been a typical battle against terrorists or even troops from the Euro Universe, he would have commanded the force to victory in all likelihood.
Instead, she had used him as a stalking horse, to lure Zero into a false sense of security and make him try to get close to her. She did feel -ever so slightly- bad about that, but all was fair in love and war, especially against terrorists.
"I'll tell him he's confirmed at his current rank after we apprehend Zero." Cornelia said quietly.
"And if he isn't ensnared by your net?" Dalton pressed.
"Then I will inform him of the same thing before I go out and crush that upstart Eleven Knightmare pilot." Cornelia replied testily.
"As you wish, Your Highness." Dalton bowed.
"All Knightmares, tanks, APC's and VTOL's are en-route, Your Highness." the captain reported, "ETA for all forces to fully extract themselves from the inner Ghetto is five minutes."
"Very good. What is your name, Captain?" Cornelia said.
"James Mackenzie, Your Highness." the man replied nervously.
"I see…" Cornelia leaned back and closed her eyes again, "Inform me when all forces are fully withdrawn, Captain Mackenzie."
"Yes, Your Highness."
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With Jeremiah, Villetta and Euphemia
En-Route to Saitama
"What is our estimate time of arrival at Saitama, Margrave Gottwald?" Euphemia asked. She was ensconced in the heavily armoured APC that bore the emblem of the Area 11 Sub-Viceroy, as well as the Imperial Flag of Britannia.
Arrayed around it were an escort of ten Sutherlands that still bore the markings of the now-defunct Pureblood Faction, the guard unit that had 'conveniently' been scrapped together by Jeremiah when the Princess had stormed into her office with a look of fury in her eyes and demanded their help.
"Approximately seven minutes, Your Highness." Jeremiah replied over the radio, "The reports I am receiving via the mil-net are…astounding. It seems Zero has dealt some serious damage to the Mobile Battalion under your sister's command, to the point she has ordered a withdrawal of all forces."
"A withdrawal?! " Euphy gaped, "Was Sister commanding the troops personally or not?!"
"Apparently, she was content to sit on her G-1's Bridge and leave it entirely in the hands of the Bridge Crew that were formerly stationed on Prince Clovis' Command G-1 during the Shinjuku Debacle." Jeremiah reported.
"That doesn't sound like Cornelia." Euphy frowned, "She usually revels in the chance to charge forwards in her Knightmare, annihilating the enemy herself. Why would she be…?"
"Was there anything in the briefing about what the Viceroy's plan was?" Villetta asked from her Knightmare.
"No, nothing. Just the re-enactment of a massacre." Euphy shuddered at the thought, before something in Villetta's words struck her, "Lord Jeremiah, how is it suspected that Zero infiltrated my brother's Command G-1?"
"He apparently took advantage of the disorganised perimeter and broken encirclement to infiltrate the temporary base in Shinjuku. That, combined with the lax security Prince Clovis tolerated, seemingly allowed him entry." replied Jeremiah, "You don't think…?"
"I do indeed." Euphy replied unhappily, "Zero was right. She is trying to trap him, but it won't work. He knows better than to confuse Sister with Clovis, so her trap will fall flat, and when it does…Sister will try to root him out herself…"
"…which is probably his goal the entire time, to turn the hunter into the hunted?" Villetta finished for her, an odd note in her voice. A mixture of awe…and respect.
"Should I radio ahead and warn Her Highness?" Jeremiah asked Euphy.
After a moment of consideration, Euphy said, "No. If we do that, Sister will order you to return me to the Administration Building. We will simply have to trust that Cornelia's arrogance and conceit doesn't end up with her captured or worse."
Euphy looked sick as she spoke, but that was the truth of the matter. In her conceit, Cornelia had arrogantly assumed that she was Zero's next target, simply because she was the Viceroy and an Imperial Princess. Zero was instead only engaging her because she threatened the lives of innocent people and had even stated explicitly in his letter to her that he would not walk into Cornelia's trap.
'Sister probably doesn't even consider it likely that Zero set a counter trap for her, she doesn't even consider it a possibility.' Euphy though in concern for her blood-sister, 'When she goes charging out to flush out Zero…she'll be walking right where he wants her!'
"Lord Jeremiah, expedite!" Euphy ordered, "We have to get to Saitama as soon as possible!"
"Yes, Your Highness!" Jeremiah responded instantly, "Kindly fasten your seatbelt if you have not already done so, Your Highness, as this will be a bit rough and tumble."
"Ready." Euphy replied after following his instructions.
"Very well. FOREWARDS! AT THE DOUBLE!" Jeremiah roared the last part to all units under his command, who responded by accelerating their Knightmares from 'cruising' speed to 'double-time' speed instantly, the APC driver accelerating in pace with them.
"New ETA calculated at four minutes, Your Highness." Jeremiah informed her a little apologetically, "I am afraid that is as fast as we can move."
"Very well." Euphy nodded and sat back in her seat, her thoughts on her sister and the people of the Saitama Ghetto.
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Three Minutes Later
With Lelouch
"Simple, but clever." Lelouch mused as he used his captured Sutherland's optical magnification option on the Factsphere Sensor System to examine the Britannian forces from his perch on one of the few remaining high buildings in the Ghetto.
Every Knight had dismounted from their Knightmare, every tank crew had emerged from their vehicle and every VTOL had landed and disembarked. Officers from the G-1's were examining all the soldier's faces with their ID cards and then comparing them to the Slate of Organisation and Equipment to double check their identity.
All in all, a very thorough process to trap anyone who tried to infiltrate the Command G-1's perimeter like he had infiltrated the perimeter in Shinjuku.
'A very good thing I was not stupid or arrogant enough to equate Clovis with Cornelia, despite the similarity in their lack of concern for innocent lives.' Lelouch thought darkly.
"Hey Zero!" Tetsuya's loud voice blared over the radio, "Why ain't we attackin' 'em? They're helpless!"
"No, B-7, that is merely what Cornelia wants us to think." Lelouch replied firmly, "She has yet to deploy her personal force of Gloucesters into battle, which leads me to believe they are currently on overwatch, ready to sweep down and counterattack anyone stupid enough to attack the G-1's, which are also armed with heavy cannon, or had you forgotten that little fact?"
"Yer a bloody coward!" Tetsuya sneered, "I say we attack 'em and wipe the lot of them out!"
"I am sure your comrades will place a fitting memorial on your grave, B-7." Lelouch replied dryly, "What say the rest of you? Do you all agree with B-7?"
"N-1 Commander here. I agree with Zero." Mamoru said firmly, "Our goal here is to hold off the Brits so the people of Saitama can safely escape, not throw ourselves uselessly at the guns of the G-1's."
"P-3, concurs with N-1"
"R-1 also concurs with Zero."
"R-2 as well."
"N-2 here, I concur with the majority."
As all the rest of the leaders of the various units chimed in, Lelouch sat back and smirked. Making promises and keeping them is the best way to win the loyalty of people.
"Yer all a bunch of cowards!" Tetsuya spat before the radio went silent.
"This is B-7... Or, rather, the new B-7." a new voice spoke up a moment later, "Tetsuya has stormed off, yelling that he quits. Requesting orders."
"That idiot!" Kallen snarled, "K-1, Q-1 requests permission to bring the idiot in."
"Denied, Q-1." Lelouch replied instantly, "You are a necessary part of the next stage of the plan. All units, anyone who catches sight of Tetsuya Ichigyōmon is to immediately take him into protective custody, as his loyalties are uncertain at this point."
A chorus of affirmatives came back at him, and then his gaze sharpened as he examined the scene on the screen.
"All forces prepare for a renewal of hostilities. The Viceroy herself is gracing us with her presence, so let us give her a warm welcome." he said with a feral grin.
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Five Minutes Earlier
Cornelia's Command G-1
"Hmm…." Cornelia looked at the screen that told her that her entire plan had just been a waste of time and resources. It listed every single soldier under her command and his or her status, Present, MIA or KIA.
"Zero has taken out only fifteen percent of our Knightmare forces." Dalton remarked, "Whereas he seems to have a grudge against our VTOL wings, only ten percent are still intact."
"He's clipping their wings because they are our eyes in the sky." Cornelia replied, "Our ability to overwatch the battlefield has been severely curtailed, meaning any conventional advance will have to be slow by necessity, as we will have to lay down suppressing fire to ensure what little airpower we have left is preserved."
"I believe, Princess, it is time you show Zero why you are called the Goddess of Victory." Dalton stated with a small smile, which Cornelia returned with a feral grin of her own.
"I leave command of the regular forces to you, Dalton, as well as the little surprise package I have in store for Zero." She said as she stood, placed the detonator in Dalton's hand and turned to leave before she paused.
"Captain Mackenzie." she said, making the poor man freeze before turning to her with the air of a man approaching the gallows.
"Y-yes, your Highness?" he asked hesitantly.
"Consider your position as Captain…confirmed." Cornelia said, "Dalton, make a note of it please."
"Consider it done, Princess." Dalton nodded at her as she strode from the Bridge and tried not to laugh at the poleaxed expression on Mackenzie's face.
"Easy now son." Dalton patted the man on the shoulder, "You impressed Her Highness, which is hard to do. Straighten up now, Captain. That's the ticket."
"B-but…I was…beaten by Zero…again!" Mackenzie protested.
"True, but you didn't just react on purely defensive knee-jerk instinct to every move that Zero made." Dalton told him, "Nor did you rant, rave and berate your subordinates like some people would have. You maintained your calm and thought before you acted. Had you not, the casualties might have been even higher than they currently are. That is what impressed the Princess and earned you your rank permanently."
"R…Right." Captain Mackenzie shook his head to clear it, "Should we wait until Her Highness deploys her troops, or should we create a plan now?"
"We wait until her Highness has deployed, then work a plan around where her first target is." Dalton told him, "Taking due care to ensure that there is adequate spacing between the regular Sutherlands and the Princess' Royal Guards' Gloucesters. They move so fast that shots fired at them tend to miss and hit any Knightmare behind them."
"Are Gloucesters that fast?" Mackenzie asked in bemusement.
"No, they're that agile." Dalton explained, "Gloucesters are heavily remodelled Sutherlands that focus on close combat. In addition to the Knightmare Jousting Lances, they include several upgrades, including far more powerful servomotors in the legs and arms. Despite the armour being thicker than on a Sutherland, their ability to jump and dodge far surpasses the Sutherland by at least as much as the Sutherland outclasses the Glasgow."
"I almost feel sorry for the terrorists." Mackenzie remarked, "Almost, but not quite."
"A very frequent sentiment among soldiers under the Princess' command, lad." Dalton snorted in amusement.
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With Cornelia
Command G-1 Knightmare Hanger
The Britannian Goddess of Victory strode into the Hanger, where the members of her Royal Guard, minus Dalton, stood arrayed and ready for deployment beside their Knightmares.
Cornelia smiled fondly at her Guard, all of whom had been handpicked by her over the past seven years. The only ones who were not here were the Glaston Knights, Dalton's adopted sons, who were finishing the resistance in Area 18.
"Alright men." Cornelia began without preamble, "It's time to show Zero what happens when you make the Witch of Britannia angry at you!"
"Yes, Your Highness!" her men roared and scrambled to their mechanical steeds.
Cornelia looked almost lovingly at her own Knightmare, a custom-built variant of the Gloucester designed with her skills and abilities in mind, replacing her custom Sutherland last year. The pure white cape was a lovely contrast with the vibrant purple of the Knightmare's body. The last sight of many enemies of Britannia had been this Knightmare impaling them with a golden Knightmare Jousting Lance.
'Time to treat Zero to that last sight.' Cornelia smiled cruelly.
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At the Same Time
Tetsuya's Perspective
"Fuckin' bastardised sons of bitches whore's bastards!" Tetsuya cursed under his breath as he dodged another one of his former allies' patrols. He hadn't counted on everyone deciding to hunt him down after he ditched their cowardly asses.
'Fuckin' Zero. You'll get yours.' he thought bitterly.
To Tetsuya, this most recent upset in his personal and semi-professional life could be laid firmly at the feet of one masked vigilante. To him, if Zero hadn't turned up, he would have commanded the Yamato Alliance to a glorious victory over the Brits.
"Stealing my glory…ruining my name…masked coward…" Tetsuya muttered as he flitted from hiding place to hiding place. He had no clear destination in mind, except from 'away from the Britannians and his backstabbing allies'.
He slipped into a building and came across a disabled Sutherland that had been flung back through a couple of buildings and was lying on its side among the rubble. It actually looked to be in reasonable condition. There were no bullet holes in the chassis, the cockpit hadn't been ejected and it still had all four limbs. Hell, the Battle Rifle was lying not far away.
Tetsuya cautiously approached it and crept around to the cockpit. He reached out and touched a panel, which popped open to reveal the Emergency Cockpit Opening system that all Knightmares were equipped with.
"Hmm. The Yggdrasil Drive must be down if I can get at this." Tetsuya mused. He pressed the button, making the cockpit creak open, disgorging the unconscious figure of the pilot, who had a trickle of blood running down one side of his face from a large lump on his head.
"Great, how am I gonna use this damn thing without the access code?" the former resistance fighter groused. He dragged the man out, searched him from head to foot for any hint of the code, only to come up empty-handed.
"Fine, it's got to be the hard way then." Tetsuya grumbled before drawing back his fist and punching the Knight into consciousness.
"Wha…? Urgh…Wh-who…?" the man groaned as he came to.
"Potentially your worst nightmare, bucko, so unless you want me to definitely become your worst nightmare, give me the access code to your Knightmare!" Tetsuya hissed menacingly waving a butterfly knife under the man's eyes.
"E-Eleven…scum!" the Knight hissed, "OW!"
Tetsuya had swiped the knife across the man's cheek, leaving a thin cut that started to bleed slightly.
"That was your only warning, Brit." Tetsuya said meaningfully, "Next time, I'll cut something off…and it will be something you will dearly miss. Get it?"
The knife strayed down to point at the Knight's groin. The man paled, having clearly received the message.
"If…If I tell you the code, you won't kill me or maim me?" he checked.
"No profit in killing ya, Brit." Tetsuya said contemptfully, "I'm plannin' ta bag me a masked bastard. Now spill. The code. Right now."
"RX44R1G13." the Knight said reluctantly.
"See, now was that hard?" Tetsuya said as he folded his knife and put it away, "Now scram."
The Knight staggered to his feet and tottered out of sight, muttering curses the entire time. Tetsuya ignored him and took his seat, the automatic closing hydraulics sealing the cockpit shut.
"The Brit was so dazed, he didn't take the key!" Tetsuya cackled as he input the code. The screen lit up with the damn Britannian flag and ran through the auto-checks, with the Landspinners coming up as inoperable.
"Must have broken in the crash." Tetsuya mused before he grinned evilly, a fanatical glint coming to his eyes.
"I'm coming to get you…Zero!" he snarled.
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With Euphemia
Rear Perimeter of Saitama Encirclement
"What part of 'Get out of the way' are you finding hard to understand, you simpleton!" Jeremiah snarled. He was standing on the ground glaring at a Knight who had stopped the small convoy.
"Viceroy Cornelia has ordered that no one is to enter the encirclement." the man repeated what he had been saying to Jeremiah in a bored monotone.
The aqua haired Margrave ground his teeth in frustration. This low-level Knight was being deliberately obstructive because the Purebloods were a defunct unit. Had they still been a recognised unit, the idiot wouldn't have dared stand in his way.
"Look, the Sub-Viceroy is in that APC there." Jeremiah said, calming his temper with a massive exercise of his self-control, "Princess Euphemia is in there, sitting in the middle of a war zone. Do you want to be the one to explain to the Viceroy why an Eleven terrorist got lucky and killed her blood sister?!"
The rapidly paling face of the Knight indicated that this thought had not occurred to him until Jeremiah had told him it.
'Idiot.' the Margrave thought in contempt.
"F-Fine. Her Highness and her escort may enter the encirclement." the Knight blustered as he backed off towards his own Knightmare, "M-Make sure she goes straight towards the Command G-1, no diversions!"
A vein pulsed on Jeremiah's head as he replied icily, "Where do you think she was going to go? Across the battlefield to have a chat with Zero? Don't be such a fool."
With that, he turned around, strode away from the spluttering fool of a Knight and remounted his Sutherland. After re-sealing the cockpit, he radioed Euphemia and said, "Princess, the idiot blocking our way ought to be moving in a moment. My apologies for the delay."
"There is no need to apologise, Lord Jeremiah." Euphemia replied sincerely, "This was entirely outside of your control. We should inform my sister of his actions though. He had no right to block the way of an Area Sub-Viceroy."
"I'll put in the report Princess Cornelia will no doubt demand of me after this." Jeremiah replied dryly, wincing slightly. Cornelia was going to try to flay him alive with her words alone after this, followed up by her sending him to bureaucratic hell soon afterwards.
"Lord Jeremiah, the imbecile and his two stooges have moved their Knightmares to one side." Villetta put in.
"Right, all units move out and keep a lookout." Jeremiah ordered, "Remember, this is a war zone, so if you see something moving that isn't squawking a friendly IFF, shoot first and ask questions later."
"Yes, My Lord!" came back at him over the radio as the small convoy advanced. As they moved, Jeremiah carefully keyed his radio to another frequency and clicked it three times, as his true liege had requested he do.
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With Lelouch
The radio clicked three times, right about when he estimated they would, making Lelouch grin as he reached for his radio and clicked back three times in acknowledgement.
"K-1 to all units, be very careful." he said once that interruption was over with, "Gloucesters are very agile and are easily able to dodge a couple of random shots from anti-Knightmare Bazookas, so all B-units are to avoid them. Concentrate on the Sutherlands, tanks and APC's. The same goes for all R-units."
A chorus of affirmatives came back at him. The exiled prince frowned when he noticed a lone dot steadily making its way towards him, slowly but determinedly.
"R-1, do you have eyes on the unit moving towards Point RB-4?" Lelouch queried.
"Negative, K-1. Buildings are in the way. I have no eyes on that unit." R-1 replied.
"Q-1, what about you?" Lelouch questioned.
"Wait one…it's a Sutherland." Kallen replied, "It seems to be walking rather than using its Landspinners."
"Odd." Lelouch frowned, then dismissed the lone Knightmare from his mind, "P-5 group, move to point RF-6 and commence bombardment at two o'clock for thirty seconds. After that, fall back to point RB-7."
"Roger, K-1." the commander of group P-5 replied.
"Now, let's see how Cornelia handles an enemy who refuses to meet her on her preferred terms." Lelouch muttered to himself.
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With Cornelia
As she led her Royal Guard through the Ghetto, Cornelia was revelling in the sense of freedom she felt on the battlefield. No bureaucratic brownnosers trying to flatter her, no weakling nobility looking down their nose at her for being a soldier rather than a 'proper young lady' like Euphy was.
Here, none of that happened, or even mattered. On the battlefield, she was the Goddess of Victory, the Witch of Britannia, whom none had ever defeated, who mercilessly crushed all opposition beneath her heel without a second glance.
"Still no sign of the enemy, Princess." her second Knight, Guilford, reported from his own Gloucester next to her own.
"Humph." she grunted. She hated it when the enemy played hide-and-seek with her. It was very boring having to root them out of strongholds and underground bases like clams from a shell. So…disappointing.
"Princess, incoming fire from the right and above!" Guilford shouted.
On pure instinct, she slowed down to almost a full stop before making her Gloucester leap to the side, narrowly avoiding a hail of bullets. Two of her Guard were not so lucky, one being hit with a Knightmare Bazooka round and the other shredded with Battle Rifle fire, forcing their auto-eject systems to activate and sending them to safety.
In her monitor, she caught sight of a group of four Knightmares retreating from the roof of the building in front of her and to her right. Growling at the sneak attack, she raised her rifle and was about to fire when another deluge of bullets rained down, this time from the left.
As she dodged this latest ambush, her quick and able mind cottoned on to the tactic that Zero was using. He knew very well that regular Sutherlands were no match for Gloucesters in a close urban setting, where the focus of the Gloucester on close combat worked to her advantage.
Instead, he was opting for a hit-and-run approach, slowly bleeding her Royal Guard down from a distance that worked to the advantage of the general purpose Knightmare.
"We'll see about that!" she hissed as she sped ahead, the cape of her Gloucester snapping in the wind behind her, followed by her Guard.
"Dalton, this Cornelia." she snapped into her radio, "Push the button and remind Zero that I am not one to be played with!"
"At once, Your Highness." he replied.
A few seconds later, a series of loud explosions echoed across the city as her Knight detonated the hidden explosives in the Knightmares she had purposely left lightly guarded in the hopes Zero would find out about them and utilise them, just so she could scupper his forces like this.
Oddly enough, all of the explosions were coming from behind Cornelia, which was odd.
"Princess! Are you alright?!" Dalton yelled anxiously, a rarely heard note of panic in his voice.
"Of course I am! What is the matter?" Cornelia barked.
"Two blocks of the Ghetto has fallen into the ground!" Dalton replied, "The Command G-1 now has a large moat of sorts in front of it. We also lost about thirty tanks and Sutherlands who were in the area when the blast levelled the area."
Cornelia cursed. "He must have discovered the hidden explosives and had some of his terrorist allies relocate them during the previous battle!"
She had wanted to block off the tunnels beneath Saitama to prevent Zero or any of the Yamato Alliance from retreating, but all of the official entrances had been blocked off by rubble and debris from buildings and the like, meaning that the other entrances were either large holes in the ground or hidden entrances made by the Ghetto dwellers, so that attempting to do that would have been like King Canute trying to command the tides to stop; utterly futile and pointless.
"But there wasn't nearly enough explosives to create this kind of destruction by themselves…" Dalton mused thoughtfully, "The terrorists must have pinpointed the weakest points of the underground support structure and then placed our explosives there, padded with accelerants and munitions of their own."
"Most likely." Guilford agreed, "Princess, we are dangerously exposed here. The Sutherlands and tanks that were supposed to provide covering fire for us have been mostly eliminated and if we remain here while the Sutherlands from the flanks come to reinforce us, we'll be picked off."
"Then the choice is obvious." Cornelia snorted angrily, "We advance at best speed and take down Zero. That'll send the Number scum running."
"In which case, it is a good thing that I think I have pinpointed Zero, Your Highness." Dalton told her, "One IFF signal has been continually broadcasting from the same position for almost the entire battle."
"Zero!" Cornelia snarled, "He will watch as I take down his champion in the red Sutherland, then panic as I come for him!"
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With Lelouch
"Ah, she's giving in to her anger, just as I expected." Lelouch chuckled as the dots indicating Cornelia and her remaining Royal Guard shot forwards, straight towards Kallen's position.
'Big Sister Cornelia always did have a low tolerance for being tricked." the exiled prince mused. One time in the Aries Villa, he and Nunnally had tricked her into thinking there was an intruder in the palace. After a thorough search of the entire vi Britannia section of the palace, Cornelia had been in such a rage that the vi Britannia siblings had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and hidden from their half sister's wrath until she cooled down.
"Q-1, you have a royal guest approaching you." Lelouch spoke lightly into his radio, but he was entirely serious. Cornelia was one of the best Knightmare pilots in the entire Britannian Empire. Any slip on Kallen's part would result in her death at the hands of his sister. "Are you ready to give her an appropriately warm welcome?"
"Damn right!" Kallen replied determinedly. Only Lelouch's skill at reading people's voices allowed him, even through the bad connection of the radio, to hear the slight nervousness in her voice.
"Follow the plan I laid out for you and you have nothing to worry about, Q-1." he assured her, "B-7, B-5, B-6, are the preparations complete?"
"B-7 here, all finished."
"B-5, all done."
"B-6, evacuating now, all orders completed."
"Excellent." Lelouch said with a smirk, "Now-"
Lelouch was interrupted by a flurry of bullets that only barely missed his Knightmare. He instinctively looked at the monitor, seeing a single Sutherland pointing its Battle Rifle at him from the next building over.
"K-1 to all units, a single Sutherland is attacking me. I will take care of it, but in the meantime operational command is passed to N-1." Lelouch said calmly.
Then, a familiar voice crackled over the radio.
"Hey there, you masked bastard! I'm here for your head!" Tetsuya Ichigyōmon cackled at him.
"Tetsuya, you traitorous bastard!" Kallen yelled over the radio.
"I ain't no traitor, you halfblooded bitch!" Tetsuya snarled back, "Thanks ta Zero stealing my glory, I ain't got any standing worth shit in the Alliance now and I aim to pay him back in spades for that!"
"Kallen, ignore him and follow the plan I outlined to you earlier." Lelouch ordered as he made his Sutherland draw its Battle Rifle, "N-1, keep everyone on task and withdraw the Alliance after the implementation of the plan. K-1, out."
"Roger, K-1. Best of luck." Mamoru replied, "Tetsuya…if K-1 doesn't kill you, the rest of the resistance will show you how we deal with traitors."
After the radio fell silent, the two captured Sutherlands just looked at each other for a moment, their pilots waiting for the other to make the first move.
"Well then, Tetsuya." Lelouch said with a frown, "Let's dance, shall we?"
"Bastard!" the former Resistance fighter roared and sent another burst of badly aimed rifle fire at him, which was easily dodged.
Lelouch settled in to play for time. He had piloted Knightmares, in simulations and in real life, but he had only fought in combat twice, both times in Shinjuku and you could not really call either of them proper combat.
The first had been an ambush on Jeremiah while he was concentrating on Kallen's Glasgow, while the second was taunting, and then running away from, the Lancelot.
'I really hope Mamoru paid attention to my plan.' Lelouch thought, 'Everything is in his hands now. I have my own problem to deal with."
With a burst of Battle Rifle fire, Lelouch vi Britannia entered battle with a snarl oh his face that his sister Cornelia would have been proud of.
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With Kallen
"Damn that traitorous bastard!" Kallen cursed.
How dare he proclaim himself not a traitor after he abandoned his team and now assaulted Zero? The man must be touched in the head to think he might get out of this in one piece.
"Now, now Kallen-chan, focus on the here and now." Mamoru chided her over the radio, "Zero sounded like he had things under control."
"I know, but I still can't believe even Tetsuya could be as stupid as he is being right now!" Kallen hissed back, "He was always like an evil version of Tamaki, but this is a bit much, even for him!"
"From what I've gathered, he's been on the verge of being kicked out of the Yamato Alliance for a while now, Kallen-chan." Mamoru replied sombrely, "He's been insubordinate, frequently drunk or high on narcotics and has brawled with his fellow resistance members. There have even been rumours that he has been playing around with a batch of Refrain, trying to improve the potency. He seems to have sampled his wares and it must be twisting his perceptions enough to blame Zero for all the wrongs in his life."
"Tch. Damn pathetic bastard." Kallen growled in disgust.
"I would tend to agree, but you have Cornelia approaching you from twelve o'clock. We can rehash how pathetic Tetsuya is as a human being once you have royally spanked Her Royal Highness." Mamoru said pointedly.
"Roger that." Kallen said, before a thought occurred to her, "Q-1 to Aegis."
"Aegis here." the synthesised voice of Zero's bodyguard chimed in at once.
"Aegis, have you been keeping up to date with what has been happening on the battlefield?" Kallen asked while her eyes never wavered from the screen that showed Cornelia's rapidly incoming Knightmare.
"Yes I have. Do you have orders for me?" Aegis asked.
"Am I allowed to?" Kallen asked.
"Goshujin-sama has named you as his third in command. You may order me to do as you like, so long as none contradict Zero-sama's orders." the masked woman replied.
"Fine. Zero is under attack right now. Take his Knightmare and go help him!" Kallen ordered.
"As you wish…my lady Red Queen." Aegis replied, before going silent.
Kallen found herself blushing at the way the masked female had called her 'Red Queen'. She seemed to be insinuating something. The redhead put it from her mind as Cornelia began her final approach on the building, flanked by her Royal Guard.
She noticed that the Knightmare to Cornelia's immediate right was painted a more vibrant purple than the regular Gloucesters, outdone only by Cornelia's own Knightmare in terms of vibrancy, so she guessed that that one was one of her two personal Knights that she had been seen with.
The half blood girl smiled coldly. It was time to knock these royals off their pedestals.
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Three Minutes Previously
With Cornelia
"Princess, there is movement from the Knightmare we suspect to belong to Zero." Dalton reported, "He seems to be in ranged combat with a lone Sutherland."
"One of the Knights that was knocked out during the last clash managed to locate Zero?" Cornelia asked with a raised eyebrow. She was closing on the last stretch to the old broadcasting building, but she could spare the attention, as there seemed to be no ambushes after the first couple.
"Negative, all we got when we tried to contact the pilot was an earful of verbal abuse before the channel was changed." Dalton replied, "I think an Eleven is trying to kill Zero for reasons of his own."
"Elevens. No loyalty at all." Cornelia sneered, conveniently forgetting Suzaku Kururugi's loyalty to Britannia, not to mention that this was one person attacking him, out of every soldier on the masked man's side of the battlefield.
"I believe that we can safely say that Zero will be too busy to form any plans or strategies against us until he deals with his opponent." Dalton said. Cornelia agreed. It was the next best thing to impossible to engage in Knightmare combat whilst simultaneously directing the flow of battle, so most generals had to chose between being strategic generals or combat generals.
Cornelia was lucky to have Dalton to serve as her strategist while she took to the field; otherwise, she would not have seen the outside of a Command G-1. The number of Britannian officers that had a decent grasp of strategy and tactics was actually truly abysmal; certainly, those who had been assigned to her after she went on campaign had been idiots of the lowest order.
"Good. We can crush his forces then move on to him." Cornelia said decisively, "How are the reinforcements coming?"
"I have dispatched three teams of Sutherlands to assist you, Your Highness." Dalton replied, "As they are forced to take a circuitous route around the new 'moat' that has been made in front of the Headquarters, it will be at least five minutes before they are able to aid you. Please be careful in the interim."
"The Elevens are the ones who need to be careful around me!" Cornelia replied with relish as the small band of Knightmares she led rounded a corner and had a clean run up to the building, "Let's see how this red Knightmare handles a Gloucester as an opponent!"
A crackling on the radio made her frown. Someone was aligning his or her radio to her frequency, which was odd. Her frown deepened as a female voice spoke up, a mocking lilt clear in her voice.
"Cornelia li Britannia. Withdraw your forces from Saitama. You have lost." The woman was blunt and to the point, something Cornelia appreciated as it allowed a clear rebuttal.
"Listen, Eleven scum, I have not lost." she shot back even as her Knightmare closed on the tower, "In fact, I have barely even begun to show you peons what I am capable of!"
"The louder you bark, the weaker you appear." the woman mocked, "The residents of Saitama have fled, the Yamato Alliance has barely been scratched and you and your toy soldiers are completely isolated from your main body of troops for the next five minutes at least. Face facts, you have lost. Withdraw with some shreds of your dignity intact or we will send you scurrying with your tail between your legs. This is your last chance."
Fury was coursing through Cornelia's veins as the woman spoke, disbelief warring with rage in her mind. An Eleven, a lowly Number was daring to mock her? She was daring to speak to an Imperial Princess of the Holy Britannian Empire as if she was an equal?
"I shall make you regret daring to have the temerity to speak to me in such a fashion!" she growled into the radio.
"You refuse then? Oh good, I thought you might." the voice sounded positively gleeful, "Red Queen, that's your cue. Checkmate her."
"'Red Queen'? What the devil…?" Cornelia muttered, "That red Sutherland's pilot has such a fanciful code name?"
She zoomed in on the top of the building where the Sutherland stood and examined it minutely. It stood ready to either dodge or charge at a moments notice, the Battle Rifle held in one hand, while the other…the other hand held a Chaos Mine that it had probably just drawn from the hip compartment.
'So that's her plan. Wait until we get close, and then throw the Chaos Mine at us.' Cornelia thought with contempt, 'Well unfortunately for you 'Red Queen', my Knights are all easily able to avoid such a weapon. The Chaos Mine was developed to rip apart slow moving or immobile targets, like standard Battle Tanks or crippled Glasgows, not nimble targets like Knightmares, especially Gloucesters!'
"Guilford, you take half of the Royal Guard and give me covering fire while I take the other half and assault this pretentious fool on her ivory tower." Cornelia ordered briskly.
"…Yes, Your Highness." Guilford agreed reluctantly. He knew better than to try to argue with her when she got that tone in her voice.
"Move out!" the Princess ordered. Her Guard smoothly split into two columns, three moving behind Guilford towards the nearby buildings so they could scale them with their Slash Harken, and the remaining two flanking Cornelia as she closed on the old building where the red Knightmare stood and fired her own Slash Harken as high as she could aim them.
As the rocket propelled anchors sank into the building and the auto-retracting system pulled her and her Knights up the building, Guilford and the other three members of the Royal Guard reached the top of the neighbouring building and raised their rifles at the Sutherland that was still a few stories higher than they were, only to see it replace the Chaos Mine in the hip compartment and leap to another building, making Guilford's danger sense start to scream at him that something was amiss.
"Princess! It is a trap! Retreat!" he said forcefully.
Cornelia was headstrong, but not foolish. When her usually calm and composed Knight was that insistent, something was worrying him severely. She was about to order the two Knights with her to retreat when…
[B-B-BOOM!], [B-B-BOOM!], [B-B-BOOM!]
What she at first thought was merely three explosions -she later looked back at the footage from the Guilford's Knightmare and recognised them as actually being a great many explosions occurring simultaneously- rocked the interior superstructure of the building she was climbing and, with an almighty groan, it began to collapse, tumbling down towards the side she was ascending.
"PRINCESS!" Guilford yelled.
"SISTER!" a familiar voice shrieked over the radio.
"Euphy?!" Cornelia was agape with astonishment at the unexpected presence of her sister nearby.
"Your Highness!" cried her two Royal Guards as they grabbed her Knightmare and, with a mighty heave, threw it high into the air, where Cornelia hastily retracted her Slash Harkens and fired them at the closest building, taking her safely out of the shadow of the collapsing building.
She turned just in time to see her faithful and loyal Guardsmen's Knightmares being smashed to pieces by the falling rubble. In saving her, they had doomed themselves.
Cornelia li Britannia let loose a howl of angered frustration as two of her Guard perished in her place.
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With Euphemia
Bridge of the Command G-1
Euphemia li Britannia breathed a sigh of relief as her sister made it out of the trap that had been laid for her, albeit at the cost of the lives of two of her Royal Guard.
"Sir Dalton, please have the men who just saved the Viceroy's lives put in for posthumous commendations." She said quietly.
Dalton nodded, his eyes questioning why she was here as he replied, "As you command, Your Highness."
That taken care of, Euphemia, sat at a seat hastily vacated by a bridge staff officer, breathed in and out slowly before she spoke into the radio again.
"Viceroy Cornelia, you are ordered to return to base immediately." she said firmly, a hint of previously unheard steel in her voice.
"Wha- Ordered to return? By what authority do you command me, Euphemia?" her sister asked in a quiet, dangerous tone, "Two of my Guard are dead and you want me to pull back?!"
"Sister, I received a note from Zero. In the Viceroy's section of the Area 11 Administration Building." Euphy said calmly, emphasising the fact that their previously impenetrable citadel had been breached, "He knew of what you were planning here today. He even told me why you were doing it. From the instant that you set foot in Saitama, you were dancing to his tune, and look at what you have wrought! It will take a month of production to replace the Knightmares we lost, never mind the VTOLs."
"…he breached the Administration Building?!" Cornelia sounded appalled, "That should be impossible!"
"For a person, perhaps. Not for a small letter devoid of any explosives or any other foul play." Euphy said simply, "More importantly, you have been deceived by Zero this entire time, Sister. Face facts; Britannia has lost today. By now, Zero and the Yamato Alliance will have withdrawn. There is nothing more to be gained here today. Pull back and I will give you a full briefing on what transpired and the letter that was sent to me."
Before Cornelia could reply, a transmission came up on the bridge's man screen. A woman wearing slivery armour like a knight, with a one-eyed white mask, stood imperiously before an equally silver Sutherland.
"Hear me Britannians." the woman spoke, her voice blurred by a voice changer, "I am… Augur."
"Augur?" Euphemia said in confusion. An Augur was someone in ancient times who supposedly divined the will of the Gods by taking auguries. She was yanked from her thoughts by Augur's next words.
"You all who foolishly charged here to cause mass murder, you all who showed such disdain for life, hear this and be ashamed: Lord Zero was not upon the battlefield this day."
"Impossible!" Dalton breathed in shock.
"My Lord did not deem you worth his time, Cornelia li Britannia." Augur continued disdainfully, "He easily caught word of your plan and saw your true intention within seconds of being told of it. He dispatched me to aid the Yamato Alliance and, as you can tell, I defeated you utterly. Weep in rage and frustration, Witch of Britannia, for you have lost on this day. You never even stood a chance."
"Find her! Now!" Cornelia roared through the radio, "I will kill her!"
"I now bid you farewell, Britannians." Augur said dismissively, "I feel no need to bully the weak…unlike yourselves, it would seem. In victory, one must be gracious, after all."
With those words, the image blinked into darkness. The bridge was silent, broken only by the muttered curses of the bridge staff, who were working to try to find the source of the signal.
"Sir Dalton, the signal's been lost." one staff officer reported, "It was heavily encrypted and bounced via at least twenty routers all over the surrounding area before being beamed here. We did our best, but it was just resilient enough to delay us in tracing and triangulating the source for…Augur…to end the broadcast."
Dalton nodded tersely. "Noted. Log the encryption set up so we can more easily break through it when we run across Zero -and Augur- again."
The officer nodded and began to follow his orders as Dalton leaned forward and contacted Cornelia again.
"Princess…we lost the signal." he reported, "It appears there is someone of moderate skill in signal encryption on the enemy's side. It delayed our staff just long enough for Augur to get the last word in and end the broadcast."
"…I see." Cornelia replied almost resignedly, "Is there any sign of the Knightmare we thought was Zero's?"
"No." Dalton replied after consulting the battle screen, "According to the battle recorder, both Zero's Knightmare and the one he was fighting vanished almost simultaneously just before Augur began her broadcast."
"Very well." Cornelia paused before sighing and said, "Call all troops back and begin recovery operations. Have the wounded sent to the med-bays and send…send the field mortician to where my Guard fell in my service. I have my remaining men unearthing their Knightmares as we speak. Euphy, you are in charge of the G-1 until I return, then we will have words about you coming into a combat zone without my permission."
"Indeed sister." Euphy replied sweetly, "We will also have words about your blatant neglect of your duties as Viceroy of Area 11 and purposefully attempting to deceive me about what you were trying to do here, again in violation of your duties as Viceroy."
The silence in the bridge was so thick it could be cut. Every eye was on Euphemia in shock, horror and disbelief as the pinkette practically laid the grounds for removing her sister as Viceroy if she so wished. Dalton looked like he was choking on something, his eyes bulging at the Princess in an approximation of terror.
"…Euphy…" Cornelia sounded surprised and hurt by her blood-sister's words; Euphemia had never spoken to her elder sister like that, with such accusatory and harsh words. "It seems we will have a lot to talk about. Cornelia, out."
Euphemia li Britannia shuddered as the connection went dead. She had just taken the first step to at least tempering Cornelia and her running roughshod over her and the Eleven populace. The confrontation in person would be even tougher for her as Cornelia would fall back on her tried and tested defence that 'it was for her own good' that she didn't know about Operation Snake Pit.
Cornelia had always held the morale high ground in every previous confrontation before this due to her position as Euphemia's legal guardian and rank of general. This time, however, it was not the mere matter of her sister violating her privacy. She had wilfully conspired to keep Euphemia, the Sub-Viceroy, unaware and uninformed about a military action within the boundaries of the Area, a clear violation of not only protocol, but of Imperial Law as well.
Euphy straightened up. This time, it would be different. She would not bow before her sister in this matter. Not when innocent lives could be affected by the outcome of the confrontation.
Quickly and efficiently, she began to organise the recovery effort, dispatching work crews to find and drag back the shattered remnants of Sutherlands, other Sutherlands to aid in moving rubble, and reorganising the first aid tents, which were set up for very, very light casualties only at the moment.
Andreas Dalton observed his Lady's younger sister closely. Compared with the young girl who he had first met years ago, he knew that she had matured both physically and mentally. It had only been a matter of time before she rebelled against Princess Cornelia's stifling protection. It was a sad coincidence that it had been over such a distasteful subject that, as much as he hated to admit it, Euphemia had every right to tear a strip off Cornelia for.
"Sir Dalton, kindly take charge of the first aid section." Euphemia said, breaking him out of his thoughts, "I have directed additional supplies and manpower directed there but they seem to be confused as to what to do and when. They need strong leadership down there."
"Understood, Your Highness." Dalton nodded. He knew that this was likely make-work designed to get him off the bridge. If she couldn't trust her own sister, that logically meant she couldn't trust her sister's Knight either. A sad, but understandable, state of affairs.
As he turned to leave, he noticed the two Knights who had escorted Euphemia onto the bridge, Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald and Dame Villetta Nu.
He headed towards the entrance they flanked and spoke in an undertone to them, "Why did you bring her here?"
"Would you rather we let her charge off on her own?" Jeremiah responded, "Her Highness would have left with or without us. At least this way, she wasn't shot by an Eleven terrorist on route."
"True." Dalton admitted begrudgingly, "I doubt that the Viceroy will see it quite like that, however."
"True, but in the short term, Princess Cornelia will have bigger things to concern herself with than us." Villetta pointed out with a slight smirk, "And, by the time Her Highness turns her attention to us, she'll hopefully have cooled off."
"Fairly likely." Dalton conceded. Although Cornelia could hold one hell of a grudge, in this case the two Knights were caught in a difficult situation. Ether they helped Euphemia to the battlefield and guarded her as they did so or they let her go off on her own, with the full possibility that something terrible might happen to her as she traversed a war zone. They had chosen the lesser of two evils and Cornelia would be forced to recognise that. Still…
"You will still be punished." he warned them.
"As long as Their Highnesses are safe, Princess Cornelia may punish me as she likes." Jeremiah said diffidently.
Dalton nodded again and walked out of the room, heading for the onboard medical centre. He knew that Jeremiah still felt guilty and responsible for the death of Lady Marianne, still wished he could have done something, anything, to alter her fate. When Euphemia had declared her intent to come to Saitama, with or without him, his own sense of honour had forced him to take the only option that it saw as right.
It was with heavy heart that Sir Andreas Dalton, Personal Knight to Second Princess Cornelia li Britannia, stepped into the medical centre. Every bed was full of wounded soldiers and Knights, with medical personnel running between them as they attempted to triage the patients in order of serious to mild injuries.
Dalton sighed. Without a doubt, the Goddess of Victory had finally been defeated on this day.
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Next Chapter: A Tale of Two Sisters
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Author's Note: Don't worry, I'll be putting Lelouch vs. Tetsuya in an Interlude, so you'll see what happened.