Cornelia walked down a hall in the viceroy's villa, which was situated atop the government bureau. Every wall was decorated by paintings, all of them painted by her brother, of course. All those gentle colours...they suited him. Clovis...he was a good brother, a little to womanising for her tastes, but still a good one. But now he was dead. Zero killed him.

Normally she would be all ready calling for the man's head, but...what if it was him? What if Seriyus was zero? Could she fight him? The previous night she was waring with herself. So much so she couldn't sleep. It was hell. For eight hours straight, her mind was filled with images of her friend in zero's mask, killing her brother.

With all those troubling thoughs she made her way to the villa's office. It was an opulent room. Colored in bright colours too. A full wall length window on her left was overlooking the settlement below.

She hadn't even made a few steps inside when there was a knock on the door. "Enter." She called out standing in front of the glass window.

In stepped a soldier in orange uniform with green accents. After closing the door he saluted sharply. "Your highness, you wished to see me."

Cornelia chuckled good naturedly. "Come now, Suzaku. Drop the salute." After he did so she continued. "I heard that you are piloting a knightmare frame."

"Yes, my lady." At that the Princess frowned. "Suzaku, drop the honorifics, will you." The soldier was speechless, so he just noded.

Noding herself the Princess went on. "I read your record, expect a promotion soon, a title of a Knight as well."

"I...I don't believe I earned it, and I don't want a promotion just because we know each other."

At that she pulled out an envelope from her uniform and started reading. "29 confirmed kmf destructions, 7 unconfirmed and a spotless record. Oh, and all that without killing a single person. Belive me, you should have been promoted a long time ago, lieutenant."

He stared at her, mouth agape. "M-Me an officer?"

Cornelia smiled. "Yes, you deserve it." She frowned. "Now, let's talk about your brother.

Holding the phone to my ear I listened closely." That concludes my report, commander. " I sighed a sigh of relief.

" It's good to hear that you and your friends will be fine. I was afraid that Cornelia would try getting rid of you." A chuckle answered me.

"I am glad we are useful to you." I gave a chuckle of my own in response.

"Don't work to hard, if everything goes according to plan I will see you soon. Good night."

"Good night, my lord."

...

I am glad they are all right. It would be a shame to lose such important spys and... good friends.

With a smirk I looked over the list of equipment we were able to steal. To be honest, if I ordered Sawasaki to attack I might be able to free Japan.

Then again, what then? I doubt the empire would take that lying down. If we were to attack now we would exhaust all our resources, and when the re-colonial force comes we would be slaughtered.

No, we have to wait. It would be good to observe the Zero situation as well. I am sure that Cornelia will start eradicating the 'civilian' resistance cells. If Zero shows himself and does another miracle I just might consider making an alliance with him, since it is quite easy to see that the man would not accept being my subordinate.

And if the one under that mask is who I think it is, I am sure that Cornelia will be fine. Then again, there is a risk of him underestimating the Princess. Well, I guess we will have to wait and see.

Sound of heavy Canon fire could be heard for miles in every direction. Britannian tanks were trying to scale a mountain. The key word being trying.

Railway mounted heavy turrets were turning them into piles of scrap metal. With the mountains slopes to slope for knightmares only normal armor could get to the top. Well, without the turrets stopping them that is.

Usually, Gloucesters could scale the mountain. But unfortunately, for the Britannians, the blood of the samurai had anti-spinner mines. Basically remotely activated mines shooting hardened wire. And with the land spiners destroyed the knightmares were easy pickings for the canons.

The attempts to drop from the air only resulted in the cannons shooting the aircraft too.

Inside the base all soldiers were evacuating through the underground tunnels, which were connected to the old metro so the Britannians could not chase them.

"Lieutenant, five minutes to the end of evacuation." A soldier shouted to the commanding officer.

"Good, have the base explode fifteen minutes after we are gone. The remote turrets should keep the brits for that long." He received a sharp salute in return.

Cornelia sat in the command center of the G-1. Usually she would lead herself, but in this instance it would be a suicide.

She had to congratulate the rebels, they were defending themselves better then a lot of independent countries.

Suddenly, the mountain exploded like a vulcano.

Flaming debris struck most of the advancing tanks, cooking the crews inside.

In milliseconds Cornelia was by the window, looking at their objective. Her eyes were wide as saucers. Slowly turning her eyes to her side, she looked at Darlton. "What...just happened?" The princess asked, disbelief in her voice.

"I belive they just killed themselves." The general was in disbelief as well.

"Not quite." Came a voice from her other side. A green haired officer made his way to her other side. "What do you mean, Jeremiah?" Asked the puzzled princess.

"All through out the country runs a system of metro tunnels . The numbers are using them to move quickly from one place to the other. Unfortunately, covering them up is an exercise in futility. We always had better things to spent the money on. Also, they are digging them right back faster then we can fill them, so we just abandoned the notion."

The orange eyed Margrave was wearing a look of discomfort, it was obvious for everyone that he was not thrilled with the current situation.

" Couldn't we just have the exits guarded?" Asked the princess with a confused voice.

Jeremiah grimaced in discomfort." We did try that, your highness. In a span of a month, all the men we sent were delivered to us in very small boxes, their knightmares, tanks armor and other weapons stolen."

She fully turned to him." How meny did you send? " Cornelia asked, dreading the answer.

He hesitated for a moment. "... A regiment... "

A look of horror grazed the princesses face. "Twenty thousand men? "

"... Yes..."

Well...this was a way bigger threat then she imagined.