I am Marrybell's psychotic deep-dive

Oldrin Zevon, Glinda Knights Vice-Commander

Glinda Knights fleet, somewhere over Asia

Five hours into Operation Dorothy

"—Oreo 2-1, you're cleared for landing at hangar bay seven, vector one-zero-niner, altitude eight thousand. Be wary of turbulence, apply caution on your approach."

"—Roger, Tower. Slow approaching." The warning from the Grandberry sounded offhanded at first, but Oldrin seriously needed that alert to stop her conciseness from switching to autopilot as she maneuvered her VTOL inside of the airship.

Oldrin gave a short salute to the technicians running up to her aircraft as its engine gradually hushed. They had their duty to attend to, and she had hers, which was what brought her back to the Glinda Knights' flagship.

In the familiar corridor of the Grandberry, Oldrin passed by many members of her legion, a sea of familiar and foreign faces. Marrybell had quadrupled her recruiting effort in the duration of the younger Zevon's absence from the knight order, expanding what used to be a specialized team of elites to a massive army at her behest.

Why did she only enlist girls though? Even for the vice-commander, there were still mysteries left in the air.

After enjoying a mundane daydream, Oldrin's purposeful stroll ended at the Caerleon-class battleship's bridge. She mentally prepared herself for the onslaught of something unpleasant, that something was entirely dependent on the mood of their temporary captain.

"—Yeah- okay, buddy. ~Ooookay! You wanna hear my response? Leon? Well, here it is! This's your CDO Sherpa pulling her rank and telling you to ~geeeeet ~fuuuuucked! You think this baby girl is braindead? You think I was born yesterday!? Think I was born in the year of our lord 2020—!"

"-It's 2018."

"—ؙMinus TWO!" Sokkia screamed her correction at the on-screen projection as she flailed wildly in Marrybell's throne. "—I swear on your ancestor's gravestone, Leon you pencil-dicked cuck that I shall—"

Whatever epic roast Sokkia planned on spewing all over to her opponent, the euphoric delivery was prematurely terminated when Oldrin smacked her across the head with the broadside of her scabbard. "Shut your trap already, you're making a fool outta yourself."

"Wait- wait a minute… does that- does that mean… am I cringe?" Oldrin thought she had shed enough blood for one day, but apparently not.

"Yes."

And then our lovely CDO stuffed the barrel of her Beretta into her mouth and plastered her brain matter all over the back wall. If only.

The utter destruction of her persona by Oldrin left Sokkia nowhere to go except for cocking her finger pistol and committing imaginary suicide. She slumped back onto the chair and lay dead for a good half a minute before getting bored, quite an impressive display of the girl's patience.

"Congratulations, fucking… uhmm… you're like the- the Edward Norton to my Tyler Durden, right? And now I'm fucking dead, you happy?" Oldrin tightened a pinch on her wrist behind her back, masking her flinch before the eyes of her energetic friend.

References to movies, that was an unconventional trauma she dreaded, her mind unintentionally associated them to something more sinister.

"Marginally."

"Anyway…" Sokkia dramatically cleared her throat, flipping the switch to tap herself into the airship's PA system. "—Ayyye! CDO Sherpa to all stations! Our gal Ozzy RTB-ed safely from phase one of Operation Dorothy! Let me just remind you that yes- She'll be attending the 'mission success' celebration party tomorrow night starting at 1800 hours! Make sure to bring whatever it is you want our preciously adorable and deadly Ozzy to sign!"

"Jesus, Sokkia… I'm not a celebrity." In hindsight, that might not be the perspective held by many of the newer Glinda Knights.

"—Ticket is thirty Pounds per person and additional fees may apply." Leaving a distinctive muffled announcement for the crew, Sokkia hopped off the comms, most definitely having already forgotten her previous call with Leonhardt Steiner. The commander of the Airborne Cavalry Division sure was laughing his ass off behind the monitor.

"For the love of… a bunch of bloody brats is what you are." Oldrin shook her head in distaste, Sokkia was the embodiment of too much energy. Despite that, a smile surfaced over the XO's lips, it was so easy to be enveloped in Sokkia's positive vibes, especially when she wanted to forget everything repugnant during her day.

"—Anyway Leon, why was this dumbass screaming at you earlier?" Slapping Sokkia away as she tried to kiss her cheek, Oldrin fulfilled her role as the Glinda Knights' executive officer.

"—Nothing worth mentioning, she's blaming me for scratching the Bradford during phase one. -I don't know what you expected, Sokkia. Should I have thrown down my guns and let them blast me away?"

"—Yes." Zero indecision.

"—…Good talking to you." The only possible conclusion to their disagreement was hanging up the phone, which was precisely what Leon did.

"Lmaooo~ look at this pussy, can't even put up a fight against me, a femoid. He's just letting me mog him for actually free." Sokkia guilefully laughed at her fellow Devicer.

"Well, up against you he's playing with his life, this ain't no truth or dare." Oldrin didn't know exactly what compelled her to word her sentence in such a way, and the eye-rolling Sokkia shared her bemusement.

"Wow, a Marry reference of her always referencing songs? How original."

"Yes, yes. Anyway- holy, this's the third 'anyway' in this conversation, by the way. …Anyway! I need to talk to you about something, this is real work."

"Roger-roger, your quarters or mine?" After one last joke, Sokkia shifted her mood to adapt to Oldrin's serious demeanour.

"You good to go right now?"

"Yeah, the fleet is functioning at optimal capacity, I can afford to be away for a bit." Oldrin demonstrated her applause via a playful wink. It was unquestionably remarkable that Sokkia nailed the complexity behind fleet management in the short time since she was promoted to command-duty officer.

"Alright, follow."

"You always know how to get me excited."

Marrybell mel Britannia, the Witch of Britannia

Aerial Battleship Great Britannia, somewhere over Asia

The stomping footsteps of one chafed princess marching down the passageway of her hijacked airship had grown to become the new norm for its makeshift crew. If it was totally up to her, Marrybell didn't want to openly air her grievances all day long, it was detrimental to her soldier's morale not to mention her deteriorating mental health.

However, no matter what she tried, anger and frustration just kept seeping out of her like a cracked hourglass. She was so tired, so weary, so sick of the looming uncertainty. Lelouch had outsmarted her at every turn so far, who's to say he hadn't pulled another trick out of the ether to wipe the floor with her.

She desperately needed to know whether he was still drawing breath in the darkest corner outside her scope, but that was looking like an impossible task in the airship a couple hundred kilometres away from ground zero.

I won't sleep with one eye open, I won't check under my bed every night. The flashback of herself ten minutes ago jolting awake from her nap in a fit of cold sweat and panic, darting her frenzied gaze around the room searching for an imaginary danger was an unpleasant memory to the absolute extreme. A nightmare scenario where her life was snuffed out by a vengeful Lelouch was the last thing she needed in bed.

"-Oreo 2-2 at your door, buzz us in, Starburst." Orpheus quietly said into his comms, the crackle of an electric lock unbolting itself soon followed.

Before she noticed, Marrybell and her escorts reached the destination she had in mind, the detention cell where Lelouch's immortal was held captive. The witch was someone the princess must confront, she convinced herself. It was the only method of mending her consternation, of conquering her fear. It might end up being inhumane or cruel, but Marrybell was beyond caring about it.

A squadron of Glinda Knights infantry acted as the watchful warden by iron gates of the brig. Behind the security room were rows of glass-pane covered prisons. They were all pristine, tightly, and most importantly; empty. All except for one.

"How is the subject?" Marrybell asked the standing guard.

"She remained inactive after we relocated her from the interrogation room. Sometimes it seems like she's muttering, but the mics didn't pick up anything."

"Anything special at 1420 hours today?" That was the exact moment the Shinkirō was shot down.

"Nothing ma'am." The royalty mused over what her pilot reported. It could either mean a whole lot of things, or none at all.

"You going in?" Orpheus grabbed Marrybell's attention with a single sentence, his well-kept appearance concealed his well-hidden countenance.

"There're questions I want answering. Unless of course, you can provide a bit of clairvoyance using a crystal ball?"

"She's a Code, just like V.V. We don't know everything there is to know about them." Per usual, Orpheus ignored her sarcastic jabs. Marrybell assumed being a fun-killer was in the boy's bones.

"Is there a one-year course on the history of Code and Geass for me to enroll, Mr. Professor?" Marrybell snickered at her own joke, disinclined to let the solemn atmosphere govern her mood. Despite the lukewarm reception from her audience, she only felt more inclined to humour herself.

Orpheus remained impersonal all the way up until he inputted the passcode unlocking the witch's cubicle. To that, Marrybell sent him a confused gaze with a slice of camaraderie laced in, the impartial knight only replied by placing a hand on the princess' shoulder.

"Slap her around a bit and make her tell you what you need, don't get too crazy." Marrybell's escort gestured at the door with an outstretched arm, encouraging his princess to apply caution to her every step.

"Am I ever." Thus, onwards Marrybell trod, towards the undying witch of secrecies.

Like when Marrybell last visited her in a cage not too dissimilar from this one, the green-haired woman was in the same restraint that limited her movement to only a tilt of the head. Albeit, a patronizing glare beaming from her golden orbs encountered no hindrances treating the princess to her haughty contempt without a spoken word.

"I hope you enjoy the hospitality. I don't often find myself the host on someone else's ship." Marrybell jested in an imperious tone, two could play at the arrogant game.

Surprisingly, and extraordinarily, C.C. kept her quietude completely intact. Exposing only boredom and derision on the surface to irritate the impatient Viceroy far from home.

"Well, I suppose this airship is mine now, seeing as nobody around can contend my acquisition. I do wonder how easy it is to replicate the same outcome once we reach our destination." Marrybell continued her aimless taunting, feeling more foolish every second the witch refused to cooperate.

"You're quite the hard customer to please. What do I have to do to get a rise out of you, Miss C.C.?" Giving up on her provocation, the princess fluttered her arms in a playful surrender and lightly tapped her victim over the cheeks. "C'mon, don't make me do this all by myself. How am I to gloat over your humiliating defeat if you won't at least seethe in my general direction?"

"Like how you're seething right now without knowing whether if Lelouch survived? Like that?"

Brusquely taken aback by the witch's unwarranted insight, Marrybell convulsed away from C.C. in an instant. Her teasing spirit swapped out for a distasteful frown over her front.

"…Hmm, aren't you perceptive." Annoyed, Marrybell clicked her tongue. "That's right, I am frustrated. Now, am I frustrated enough to take it out on you? That is the question."

"I have told you everything you should know." Which was precisely nothing, the woman made that apparent. Absolutely nothing was divulged from her.

"I will hear from you the truth of Lelouch's survival, that's what will happen. Be it voluntarily or not, that is up to you."

"It's almost cute how you try to threaten me."

"Oh… is that so? Then laugh it up, Miss." The tips of Marrybell's lips curled up to a sadistic smirk. Her opinion on interrogation and torture was neutral by default, but it definitely wouldn't hurt knocking the immortal down a few pegs. "I want to see how long you can keep it up."

"You seriously talk like a two-bit villain, that's just unreal." C.C. jeered at the younger girl, shaking her head as she hung a smug snigger over her mouth. "It takes talent to be this oblivious, consider me impressed."

Impulsively, Marrybell opted to answer physically to C.C.'s insult. Like before, she backhanded the bounded immortal across the face, echoing a loud slap in the prison cell. When that smack only worsened the green-haired woman's conceited behaviour, Marrybell cupped her cheeks in an iron-tight clamp between her fingers and squeezed.

"You think this is so funny, don't you, you stupid bitch…"

"You have no idea…"

Looking down at her with the usual punchable grin, C.C. did something that Marrybell could never forget.

A small touch, a slim connection of the skin was all it took. That was when Marrybell was reminded of the vast uncharted fantasies which still shrouded their supernatural powers in mystery, and just maybe, she had underestimated what a Code bearer could be capable of.

The symbol of Geass on the witch's forehead flared alive in a brilliant crimson, emitting a shimmering emptiness that consumed Marrybell in the fastest split-second she ever felt. She recoiled her fingers back, pulling away on the instinctual reaction of fright. However, once the link was established, breaking it down was looking to take more effort than simply disconnecting their flesh.

Mirroring the sigil of the Immortal, Marrybell's very own left eye housing her power flickered ablaze to resonate the Code's summon. For her, the experience of springing the witch's trap was entirely ineffable. Yet somehow, she knew exactly what was happening to her soul at every following second after losing her hold over her senses.

— —

Intangible forces pulled her from the fracturing reality aboard the Great Britannia to somewhere away from time and space. The distorted princess was swallowed whole by the tidal wave of C's World, drifting along in the great ocean of consciousness until she washed up on the shore of her tormented past, a shore burning with the crumple of a fallen castle.

"N-no! M-mum! Sis…! Noooo…! Please- God! NO!" A child barely ten years of age collapsed by her lonesome in the scorching ruins of a destroyed home, an endless flow of tears and blood escaping from her scalded body. Dozens of dead littered the smouldered lawns, many more wounded stumbled away from the fire.

"Marry- Marry! Go! Get up, GO! Get outta here, it's not safe!" Another girl of similar age dragged her best friend away from danger, away from her torched dwelling and shattered life.

V.V. took them from me… for his own shrewd sense of guaranty, he robbed me of them, my mother and my sister. Marrybell thought she could forge her grief and sorrow into a blade of sheer focus, to one day drive it through the heart of whoever brought her happiness to extinction. That was her first serious scheme out of many to never see its fruition.

Scrambling to her feet with the help of her trusted friend over the next few weeks, the young child honed her determination to reach for a sword and tightened her grip around the handle. She readied herself for confrontation, tuning every fibre of herself to steady her fragile stance in the grand hall of the Imperial Palace. The tip of her weapon aimed at the Emperor's neck.

"I lay the blame bear upon you, father! You should've been there! You could've saved them!" The child charged forth in the empty hallway, where she was easily tripped over by her father's knight.

"Such insolence… such lunacy. Only the weak can clamour at the strong for a fault born from their own feebleness." A firm hand grabbed the powerless girl from overhead, pushing her to the ground. "However, that look in your eye, that ferocity… I do not dislike it. Hatred is a good quality in a guard dog."

Is this what I deserve? To be treated like a tool, to be used as a dumb bitch? Having committed the blunder of being ill-prepared for a confrontation against her father, Marrybell would lose eight years of her life barking up the wrong tree.

"Charles zi Britannia engraves into you. A set of falsified records, memories made of fabrication."

Just like that, the princess was deprived of everything she grew up with. Her status, her prestige, her luxury, but most important of all, her family, her genuine family.

My siblings, those on my father's side… they, the incompetent fakers and witless jesters of our time. Only once I fell out of the emperor's grace was their true selves exposed. They were content to live in blissful ignorance and be the bystanders to tragedy. They shall pay for their inaction, their negligence.

The years passed one after another, enabling the child to grow up under the corrupted pretenses, laying all her blame over her family's death at the indistinct entity of 'terrorists'. She and her best friend, now a Knight of Honour under her command formed the Glinda Knights together. Their goal to eradicate those 'terrorists' who sought the deposition of her dictatorial father, the same goal she used to share.

Over time, the princess' heart desensitized to the violence, her loathing gradually corroded her childhood gentleness. She became less recognizable to her knight who upheld righteousness and justice at every opportunity, despite her attempt to grow closer to her liege.

The alignment of stars granted her a new frontier during her trip to Area Eleven, where she met her best friend's lost twin brother by pure coincidence. Destiny had seen fit to put him on a path of rebellion and defiance, but this one time, the princess managed to see past his perceived flaws for who he really was.

"Euliya…! Are you… is that you…?"

"No… I'm sorry. My name is Marrybell…"

"Right, of course. My mistake. You look like someone I used to know."

"And that is the name of someone I used to know…"

Burning questions were set ablaze in Marrybell's heart when she heard the name of a sister she loved in life and mourned in death uttered by the acquainted stranger. However, they weren't in the right place or the right time for answers and dissemination. Instead, they found themselves amidst another calamity on the verge of sentencing the princess to misery.

Why couldn't that just be it? Why must everything I obtain come with its demerit? Must I lose someone to be introduced to someone new? Like the strike of deafening thunder, a gunshot rang out scattering the fateful encounter. One of the princess' operators gave her life protecting the frenzied girl from an assassination attempt.

Toto… you're the only one of your kind, my pretty. You were too good for us. At the time, Marrybell wasn't aware that V.V. was the true culprit behind her AWACS' demise, her clueless self back then simply chalked it up to the 'terrorists' again.

The royalty's vision was clouded by ignorance and greed after the devastating loss of her staff and friend. In her blindness, she took a poisonous gift from her mother's killer and accepted the power of kings in one hand, just as she lost touch of her knight's favour in the other.

Oz abandoned me… citing our differences in methods as the reason. God… was I depressed back then, what would I have done if Orpheus didn't offer to take her place? Orpheus probably wanted an opening to kill her himself, but they both soon learned it wasn't meant to be.

Living her hectic days as the Viceroy of Area Twenty-four, the princess continued to rule with a bright smile and an iron fist. Assisted by her new aide, she demolished the Star of Madrid, a resistance group her best friend allied herself with. When the dust settled over the school ground that was their base, the only remaining member alive was her once dignified knight.

"Ma-Marry, wait- jus- just- hold on! Please!" In the darkness where no sane person dwelled, the whopping of a leather whip echoed a mean crack against a row of iron bars.

"You remember that scene in Reservoir Dogs where Michael Madsen's character tortures the cop while dancing to… crap, what's that song again? That old 70's shite that no person listens to."

"Y-you wouldn't- please! Listen to me, Marrybell! T-this isn't you! Please don't…!" The knight's plea for mercy fell upon deaf ears, the chains lifting her body off the floor rattled a terrifying jiggle.

"Can you please, shut your dirty mouth when I'm talking? Curses, now I gotta search it up, hold on a sec… ah, here it is, Stuck in the Middle by Stealers Wheel. Anyway, nobody cares about that boomer trash. So… I'll sing you a song I'm sure you'd like, or maybe you're in the mood to sing for me instead?" Indeed, a song was sung, although its lyrics were far from intelligible.

Oz… Oz, I… That was Marrybell's lowest point, her bottomless abyss. She didn't think she had ever swooped as far down as she did in her desperation that one night. Only when the first ray of the sun shined through the basement window did the princess realize the error of her ways, the beginning of her downward spiral. Even after hundreds of days and millions of apologies, she couldn't be sure if Oldrin had really forgiven her on the inside like she so claimed.

Nevertheless, the days kept trucking along and the princess continued her reign with her new captain by her side. She never shared the same degree of intimacy with the masked boy as she did her previous knight. It was common knowledge to both that they plotted behind each other's backs, but a bond deeper than developed beneath the surface.

"Marry, there's something- …we should talk."

"Then let us." Cuddling the princess in his sturdy embrace, Orpheus wasn't sure how to put his revelation into words.

"I need to tell you about your sister… about Euliya." That was the chronicle of loss she waited for ages to be told. All this time she was waiting for him to ready himself to disclose a romance from the past.

"She survived the bombing of your castle, that she did… but she was taken in by V.V. to his Geass cult… where we first met." The knight faltered. Glints of wetness glistered behind his visor.

Marrybell's adored younger sister, Euliya. A sister whose appearance was slipping from the fragile grip of her memories as she aged alone. Except that wasn't the truth. The Viceroy's sibling had survived the destruction of her home only to be enslaved by the murderer of their mother. Trapped under the thumb of an unnamed tyrant her sister strived for a future, for happiness in her own ways.

And briefly, she found it, together with the young man before her. However, nothing lasts forever, especially something so unreal like prosperity.

"I… we tried to get away from that life, and we did… for a while at least. They tracked us down eventually, of course. My uncle's people, they… our village was burned to the ground, none were spared. I didn't think either of us was making it out of it alive, but I did… only because Euliya saved me." Maybe Marrybell heard a sniff from Orpheus as his arms snuggling her strained, but she swore to never mention it.

"The last thing… the last thing she told me before- before passing was… it was…"

"-That she's a Britannian royalty." The princess finished the sentence for her knight where he couldn't.

"…She wanted me to be happy, and to one day share that happiness with someone." A period of silence dawned upon them, but not uncomfortably so.

Marrybell in the past could've said something, anything, one of the millions of thoughts rummaging through her head. Yet nothing spoken would've sounded proper. Rather, the only words of comfort she could offer were via a different medium, one that her sister used to love and one day promised she would become an expert at strumming.

The body of Euliya's guitar was grubby coming out of the case, so she dusted it. Its strings were worn and loose, so she replaced and tuned them. When she finally played the instrument that used to belong to another, she was cordially reminded of the wonders of songs.

"~Summer has come and passed~ the innocent can never last ~wake me up, when September ends~" As she performed, Orpheus listened. And together they enjoyed the melody.

Euliya… guess you won't be touring as our guitarist, huh. Marrybell didn't know what else to think of it, the tale of her sister. In the end, nothing had changed, dead was dead. If she was the one who could still retain her purpose in a world of depravity, perhaps she was the one more deserving of a future than the Viceroy.

Against all odds, the two unlikely companions found solitude within each other to replace what was lost. Eventually, their wobbly friendship was brought to the forefront by an event most unanticipated, when one day her father's oppressive Geass suddenly dissipated and returned her memories of verity.

Even now, I still don't know how it happened. And maybe I'm not even that curious anymore. Who was she to seek the truth of the otherworldly magic when she too wielded her power without reserve? Marrybell considered the erasure of the veil covering her sight to be a blessing of fortune, one she urgently needed and duly earned after so long.

With her memories restored, the second massacre princess finally understood the truth of that crucial day. And along with it the collapse of her entire being. She chased after a conceptual foe and fought to achieve a fictional peace for all of her teenage life, motivated only by a baseless lie.

And even then… I couldn't take my revenge on that midget. Wherever he was and whatever he was doing, V.V. was killed by something else beyond her control out of the blue.

Despite all that, she couldn't allow her years of suffering and struggle against fate to be wasted for nothing, she couldn't let the thousands she condemned to death be lost in vain. So the princess gathered every might under her influence for one last plot, one she sincerely hoped could redeem her someday, somewhere.

"Marry, you should just kill me. I'll never forgive you for everything you've done." Her best friend muttered, filled with validated resentment and righteous fury. "I hate you. I really do."

"Enough to see me dead?"

"…Yes." In the past, the princess couldn't sense the hesitation in her old knight's voice.

"That's… good. Because I'm starting to think I need to pay off my tabs, and you fit a role in my path down this Yellow-Brick road."

"What do you have in mind?"

"You'll get to drive a blade through my heart, Oz. You or your brother, you two can fight it out. But first, you have to make me the Empress."

— —

Vehemently, Marrybell snapped herself out of the realm of nightmares. Like sitting in a roller-coaster at the apex of the first drop, she felt her senses smacked by the whiplash of reunifying with real life. Carrying only the lingering residue of her unforgettable past along with her, she was greeted by an almost unrecognizable expression looming over the witch's face.

It was an emotion she never thought in a thousand years would overshadow C.C.'s smugness. Surprise.

"-If that's your plan all along, you could've worked with Le—!"

Before the next syllable in her unavailing appeal could be voiced, a 9mm Parabellum round discharged from the smoking muzzle of Marrybell's USP and ripped a hole right through the immortal's forehead.

As the hammer slammed down and the slide sprung back, the second bullet fired by Marrybell's sidearm found its target at point-blank range; followed by another, and seventeen more on the way. Only once the gun clicked empty and no more shots were to be sent, did the echoing of detonation in the small prison cell begin to fade. Leaving the princess by her lonesome with a temporary corpse and conflicting sentiments.

Which lasted all of three seconds after Marrybell imprudently decided to eject her spent magazine and insert a new one for the sole purpose of filling the witch with one more batch of lead, although she only got as far as pressing the mag release due to her defunct left hand.

"-Alright, alright! Don't be so excessive, Marry, Jesus." Had Orpheus not interrupted his liege's rampaging spree by force, Marrybell would've gladly wasted all of her ammunition on testing the limits of C.C.'s inextinguishable spark. "Steady now, did something happen when you touched her?"

Refusing Orpheus's hold on her shoulder, the princess swallowed her temper in a painful gulp as she holstered her weapon and departed from the messy cage.

"Where's- where's Sayako!? The maid! Bring me the maid! It doesn't take half a year to spill her beans, somebody grab her!" Noticing the lunacy in the princess' tone, the captain of fireteam Starburst radioed in her request pronto.

"Your asset is en route, give it ten minutes max, ma'am."

"Ok-okay… seal the- seal the cell, I don't wanna hear a peep outta that woman." Sending one last frivolous wave of the arm to guide her pilots, Marrybell leaned on Orpheus as he escorted her away from the depths of the prison.

"Still with me, Marry? Should I check your vitals?" Her considerate knight asked, probing around his princess for any exterior injuries that she was oblivious to in her blind scramble.

However, Marrybell wasn't in the mood to properly appreciate Orpheus's gentleness, her thoughts still too clouded by the detested flashback C.C. impelled her to experience. "That Code bitch, how dare she… how dare she peer into me like that… like some fucking mind probe- that whore!"

The witch had laid her eyes on them, Marrybell's shameful days of yore. The revolting immortal danced a gleeful waltz as she trampled over the precious memories Marrybell sealed away in the deepest parts of her heart, never meant to be revisited in her life. Those were her most harrowing trauma, her most heinous regrets, and her most mournful acceptances.

Orpheus earnestly embraced the royalty as she settled into his chest, wordlessly lending his warmth for Marrybell to comfort herself. Once again, the young commander was reminded of her surplus amount of weakness, and why she chose to always surround herself with those who can be her pillar of support.

Eventually, the princess recovered. She had to, for that was the duty of a leader. Luckily, her timing was rather on point, as that was when Sayoko arrived at the detention cell.

The maid presented herself before Marrybell, silent and robotic. Normally, the Viceroy hated how uncomfortable it was to interact with a victim of her Geass, but her irritation over C.C. trumped her irritation over the awkwardness.

"Being a Japanese ninja, I'm assuming you're well-versed in those torture techniques or whatever, is that true? Confirm."

"I can suffice." Suffice was good enough for what Marrybell wanted out of Sayoko.

"…That's all I need. I want you to mess up that green-haired woman. Do anything you can to make her suffer; kill her over a thousand times, I don't care. Make sure she doesn't ever live to say a word of what she saw from me. Only contact me if she speaks of Lelouch. Acknowledge."

"Yes, Your Highness."

"Get to it." Leaving behind not even a salute, the ninja-maid walked past Marrybell and was allowed entry into C.C.'s cell by the prison guards. She too quickly made way to leave the compartment now that her business here was finished.

Well, finished as in I'm too shaken to pursue it.

A dubious Orpheus glanced at the aspiring usurper in unspoken concern, no doubt not a hundred percent on-board with what he must deem as a disproportionate response. However, Marrybell had no intention of consulting her confidant in regards to what the Code bearer deserved. She elected herself to be the judge, jury and executioner of C.C. for her crime.

"-Oh, one last thing." Just before walking out the sliding doors, Marrybell called for the Starburst leader to heed her instructions. "If the Japanese ninja looks like she's not focused anymore, flood the cell with sleeping gas and kill her."

"Understood, ma'am." And that was all she wanted out of C.C. at that moment, her suffering.

Oldrin Zevon, Glinda Knights Vice-Commander

Aerial Battleship Grandberry, somewhere over Asia

"See, right here." Oldrin jabbed a spare finger at the computer monitor possessing the attention of the duo, on-screen was the recorded footage of the Great Britannia's CIC when the emperor last set foot into it. "0-5 hears something coming from the shaft, she draws her sidearm and goes to check it out…"

"But it's one of us, so she naturally goes to help." Sokkia continued Oldrin's train of thought, shifting her posture for a cleaner view into the bygone events as she fiddled with a short lock of her emerald hair. "Who is that again?"

"Smarties 4-3, she should be on patrol duty around the port side lower decks."

"This crap sickens me…" Oldrin too. She found it despicable to pillage others of their mind, of their free-will. There was no honour in that, no cause virtuous enough to justify treating lives as puppets.

Oldrin hated that, she hated Geass.

"…Who are we to judge." And Oldrin hated herself, hated the practices she detested but still supported nevertheless.

"C'mon, Marrybell is a piece of shit, but she's our piece of shit. We know she can still pull off this heist even without her spooky eye." Coming to the princess' defense was Sokkia, a good friend and a trusted fighter of the ambitious royalty.

"I won't disagree, but it's no excuse…"

"Yeah, whatever… anyway, like I was—"

"-Four." Oldrin spontaneously deferred the CDO's sentence to utter one word, a single number.

"What?"

"The fourth 'anyway' in this conversation."

"Are you-" Sokkia shot her an indefinable look of bewilderment while Oldrin played her gag straight with the stoicism of Zeno himself. "Shut the- shut the fuck up, you stupid brain-let retard! That's literally stupid, do you even see me laughing? Like- what the fuck, girly." The green-haired pilot blasting a flow of profanity at her was one thing, contradicting her own statement with a stream of giggles was another.

"Please, continue." Yet, there were still no cracks in Oldrin's demonstration of fortitude and equanimity.

Sokkia jittered her head annoyingly, swallowing the rest of her rant and chuckles. "…As I was saying… I fucking forgot, man." Finally, that was what stirred a guffaw out of Oldrin.

"Kill confirmed then." She swivelled out of Sokkia's eyesight to conceal her immature giggle as she relished the enjoyment of provoking the Glinda Knight's wiseacre. Sometimes switching around their dynamic was just what it took to remember her humanity.

"This's why Marrybell doesn't fucking love you."

"Okay, okay. Apologies, CDO Sherpa. Now, let us refocus." Oldrin invited her good buddy to revert back to the professional soldiers they were seconds prior.

"Man, I dunno. I'm not in the mood to see our gals get fucked raw, I prefer not to watch the rest if that's okay." An understandable mentality, Oldrin would like to avoid seeing her team taking casualties too if she could.

"Then I'll give you the CliffsNotes version." Cognizant of Sokkia's disinclination, the vice-commander fast-forwarded through the rest of the clip as she commentated over the affair. "Smarties 4-3 grabbed 0-5 at gunpoint and forced the rest of the CIC to take off their visors. There's not much to explain after that."

"Goddamn him… using our girls like dogs."

Cowards are those who employ others to fight their battles, and leaders are those who inspire others to do the same. To Oldrin, which of those aspects was more prominent in the emperor was a factor she had yet to deduce. Although she didn't need to muse over which one was a trait of her princess.

"There is one thing, right here." Oldrin rewound the video, drawing Sokkia's attention back. "Look, he got 4-3 to angle a mirror so that he can get a view into the CIC without setting a foot out of the tunnels. He was never caught on tape."

"It's like you're trying to get me to hate him more." Sokkia huffed an angry sigh following the recording's resolution, she swirled away from Oldrin's office desk and threw herself onto her well-made bed.

"Hey, off there with you! No animals on my bed!" Unhappy with how far her friend was taking her spontaneity, Oldrin raised a hand to give Sokkia a well-deserved wrack on the forehead.

Except she wasn't used to it yet, the weight of her left hand.

"OW! Watch it! That fucking hurt!" The severe temper in Sokkia's reproach to Oldrin's practical joke made it painfully obvious how stiffly she had crossed the line.

"Oh-! I-I'm sorry! So sorry, I'm still not used to it…"

"Jesus! You don't see Tink going out popping people's eyeballs outta their sockets, now do you!?"

"I'm really sorry! It's just-! I don't know how to get used to it…"

Her dispirited confession of guilt waned away Sokkia's exploding frustration from getting a bump on her temple. "Girl…" The green-haired officer moaned regretfully, her gaze for her captain contained an unsavoury blend of compassion and grievance. "Let's just move on, I don't wanna pity you."

"Agreed." Oldrin had cried enough tears over her loss, she couldn't let an injury that couldn't kill her slow her down. "What were we talking about?"

"Just shitting on Marry's big bro." And those were the tracks she wanted to stay on.

"Look, I dislike Emperor Lelouch's tactics as well, effective as they are and hypocritical as I am. I really want to specify how dangerous he is, our usual doctrine doesn't really do anything to counter him."

"What you're saying is…?"

"We don't know if he still lives or not, but… to be honest, I don't believe we got rid of him so easily. Once we move this operation into phase three and beyond, we need to realize anyone compromised is already dead, it's better to put them down than let them be his pawn." It was the painful truth, the harsh reality Oldrin was imposing onto the Glinda Knights, her comrades.

"So there's no way to reverse it? Like Marry's?"

"Not that we know of, and even if there is a way, we won't be knowing it anytime soon."

"Shit… girl, is there no dignity left in war?" Sokkia moaned face down into Oldrin's pillow, kicking her legs as she invoked the High-Grail's Devicer to ponder over the romanticism behind their bloodshed.

"There's only what we make of it, save whoever needs saving and kill whoever must be killed. Now, am I understood?" Pushing off her pristine desk, Oldrin let the spinney chair beneath her deliver her wherever it fancied within the confines of her room.

"Solid copy. Cap bitches for their own good, isn't that our motto?" It wasn't, and Sokkia knew that.

"I'll go in-depth into it during the briefing, we need to be prepared to rid of those that fall to his power." Spinning around aimlessly, Oldrin was halted when she rolled up beside her bed and was snared by Sokkia's feet.

"Can you bear to put me down if it comes to it?"

"You know I'll put you down anytime."

The energetic pilot let slide the witty affront and began an invasion into Oldrin's personal space using her slim legs, her nimble toes pushed the frontline forward as the vice-commander retreated into her seat. When did the socks come off?

Oldrin endured the annexation of her breathing room from Sokkia's toes until she was forced to squat on the summit of her chair's backrest. A rather dangerous position under the constant risk of toppling over, if she were to judge her own hasty withdrawal. What am I even doing?

"Why don't you… jump down- jump down and say some gay shit…?" An intriguing suggestion, Oldrin couldn't see the reason to refuse.

Applying the gymnastic classes she took as a child, Oldrin beautifully leaped off the top of the chair and safely landed on her bed, cushioning her descent with Sokkia's slender yet athletic body. "I'm gaaaay~"

A lively and stirring smile manifested over Sokkia's countenance accompanied by a fit of hearty laughter. Oldrin was delightfully reminded of the type of humour her CDO enjoyed the most as she laid on top of her mate and comrade.

"You wanna… wanna do some gay shit?" Sokkia recommended through a whisper into Oldrin's ear.

"I…" Wasting no opportunity to influence the knight's decision, Sokkia had already slipped her delicate fingers under Oldrin's belt while she was busy contemplating.

"This deal expires at a whim, grab it before it's gone."

Persuasive not via mere words, Sokkia's buried fingers were crawling closer to their target. At the same time, she opened up a second theatre of conquest by planting a deep kiss on Oldrin's lips. Her desire for indulgence was starting to creep over her sensible reasoning, reminding her she had lost count of the last time she was physically fulfilled.

~Pour my life into a paper cup~ the ashtray's-full and I'm spillin' my guts…

'Yes' was the answer she thought she wanted to provide when Sokkia eventually released her from their kiss, but something else fluttered out of Oldrin's mouth.

"~She wants to know am I still a slut~ I've got to take it on… the other side~"

In the fleeting second when Sokkia was surprised by Oldrin's unusual reply, she seized that chance to disengage her partner, just like how she seized the offensive arm from digging any further between her legs. The XO shifted her weight away from pressing down on the officer, putting a premature stop to their moment of intimacy.

"Well… am I not good enough for a pimp like you now?" Sokkia said, still managing to keep an unclouded smile over her face.

"Sokkia, you mean a lot to me… and you've done so much for me, despite the shape I was in after Marry brought me back." Laying side by side, Oldrin reached over to give her good friend a squeeze on the cheek. "I think… I used you in my desperation after what Marrybell did to me."

"Ozzy…"

"I'm sorry for making you take me… I know you're not actually gay. It wasn't right… just because I'm lonely without Marry, I made you…" Oldrin should've been mortified by herself far earlier than when the realization struck her, she basically did to Sokkia what Marrybell did to her.

If only we are so different. Like her princess before her, it turned out she wasn't above indulging in the vicious cycle of abuse.

"No, wait, hol'up! You're jumping to conclusions here, c'mon! I love raping children and stoning women as much as you guys!" The way she said it, Oldrin couldn't help but find it absolutely absurd, yet still hysterical in a manner only Sokkia the 'Crasher' could manage.

"Sokkia, darling. You might be a fag, but you ain't no lesbian. I'm sorry to break it to you."

"Dude, you can't just talk like Marry and pretend what you're saying is true!" Oldrin peacefully responded with another chuckle, the mood for anything other than relaxing had been completely blown away by then.

"Then hear me rephrasing it so you can understand: As a brainless slut with an acute case of Stockholm, I decided I only wanna munch on Marry's carpet. So your autistic whore-ass is getting dumped, biiiitch~!" Sokkia's reaction to her rejection was to echo her infectious laughter loudly in the room, sparing no chance for Oldrin to avoid getting caught up in the joyous atmosphere she created.

"You're just such a fucking simp, Oldrin Zevon! I hope you lose your livelihood burning money on her OnlyFans!"

Oldrin racked her brain to conspire a comeback only to be retorted by a one-liner from Sokkia. The two girls enjoyed each other's earnest company, lying comfortably in bed as they shared a moment of bonding. Preparing themselves to face the upcoming gruelling mission with smiles and pleasantries.

"Alright, I might not be DTF, but I'm all for blowing loads. Wanna head down to the firing range?" Ultimately, Oldrin suggested a plan for self-improvement as she kicked her lazy bone to the curb.

"Well, if I can't turn you on, I can still turn off my safety and blast a hole in my temple."

Oldrin booted Sokkia on the butt for her gloomiest sense of humour, but that was what she was used to from the Glinda Knights' hyperactive CDO.

"~Turn me on, take me for a-hard-ride! ~Burn me out, leave me on the other side~!" Singing used to remind her of Marrybell and the worst of her tenacities, but maybe it was time to break out of her princess' shadow and blossom on her own.

— —

Author's note

What? A Marrybell chapter? Fuck, there goes my audience retention.

I was, and still am very conflicted over the flashback part of this chapter. I don't think it's inclusion is absolutely necessary, but explaining Marrybell's background for people who rightfully don't want to read the wiki to know her isn't a bad thing, though I made some changes so it's not all canon. (In canon the two Ozs lose their memories, it's kinda wacky.)

I don't think it's too far a stretch to say C.C. can see into the memories of other Geass users, so hopefully, we're all cool with having a bit of fiction in fanfic.

The story does feel like its slowly chugging along, maybe too slowly, sorry about that. I enjoy taking my time with the more introspective senses, even if everything is badly written and nothing is good. But then I guess it isn't all bad if you guys are still around. Increase my numbers by one if you feel inclined, bigger numbers are bigger than smaller numbers.

I haven't mentioned this in a bit, but please let me know if you spot a mistake somewhere, I'd be really grateful for it.

The word count for this chapter is 7786- 7787- 7788…