Turn 9: The Wrath of The Red Baron

Nanking

Two Black Knight Soldiers are shooting from behind boxes; suddenly a strange darkness engulfs one and he disappears; the other doesn't notice.

Black Knight Soldier: Quick, toss me another clip! (looks beside him) Huh!

The darkness suddenly swallows him

A Team Black Knight Soldiers are going through a building; darkness suddenly sweeps over one in the back and he disappears.

Black Knight Soldier: Where did everyone go?

A noise is heard above and the Black Knights Members look up. A a man with medium, silver-white hair with five long bangs hanging over his face. Wearing black and purple headphones, two golden earrings and purple sunglasses that cover his eyes.

Black Knight Soldier: Who the hell are you!?

Mao: Mao. Mao The Hallucinatory.

Black Knight Soldier: Goliath Knights!

His weapon opens up. Instantly he appears behind the Black Knights members and in one broad move slashes them in their necks. They fall down.

Mao: Huh. The mighty Black Knights. They wouldn't last a day in Xylvania.

A141F5 Ikaruga

Ohgi, Tohdoh, Chiba and Suzaku are on the Ikaruga, traveling from Okinawa to Horai Island.

Suzaku: Ohgi. Who were those men?

Ohgi: Xylvanian soldiers.

Suzaku: Xylvania of Germany?

Tohdoh: The former country of the E.U.?

Chiba: It appears to look like them.

Tohdoh: And those other men at attack Ashford Acedemy?

Ohgi: The men we identified were mercenaries of these so called 'Einsatz'.

Suzaku: Einsatz?

Ohgi: Yes. The shadow remnants of Euro Britannia's elite knights and soldiers, a subject and tributary-empire of the Holy Britannian Empire, constructed by the Archduke of Verance, Augusta Henry Velaines, and completely hidden from the rest of the world.

Tohdoh: Constructed?

Ohgi: During the Euro-Britannian war in europe and after the First Black Rebellion one year ago, the four chivalric orders of Euro Britannia were the Knights of St. Michael, Knights of St. Raphael, Knights of St. Gabriel, and Knights of St. Uriel.

Suzaku: I remember those names.

Tohdoh: What do you know of Euro Britannia?

Suzaku: A year ago I was sent to the battlefield in europe by the emperor. I was to take command under Julius Kingsley's command who is considered as a de facto leader, and the rest is all that matter.

Chiba: And this link between Xylvania and Dr. Victor Frankenstein IX?

Ohgi: His goal was to create an army of superhuman warriors— not once letting morality interfere. The two men you met earlier, the first one called Ubel, the commander of the Xylvanian invasion forces. And the other man, Shinn is also a member of Xylvania. But he belongs to an elite unit known as the Goliath Knights. The whole organization was kept a secret. That's why there's so little information on them. However it's nothing like I expected.

Tohdoh: Not even a person in your position was informed?

Ohgi: No. Other than the Archduke himself the only people who knew of Xylvania's existence was most likely Michele Manfredi , Gaudefroy de Villon, Andrea Farnese, Raymond de Saint-Gilles, Members of the Kyoto House, and the head of Biochemical Research for the Code R Research Team, Dr. Frankenstein himself . After Clovis la Britannia's death the transfer of power to his half-sister Cornelia was carried out so quickly I doubt Princess Cornelia and her sister Euphemia was ever briefed on the project. As for me while I was in Europe I was told the information was a need to know basis and as Prime Misiter in charge of United States of Japan I guess I wasn't on their 'list'. All the currant intel we have on Xylvania was only discovered recently. We came across some of the E.U.'s old files.

Ohgi: In Japan, we come up with some other strange cases.

Ohgi passes suzaku a picture of Shirley's empty coffin.

Ohgi: Do you recognize this?

Suzaku: That's... Shirley's.

Chiba: You know a dead girl?

Suzaku: She was my classmate, and Lelouch's friend.

Ohgi: In the past few weeks, several graves were dug up in Narita.

Suzaku: Huh?

Ohgi: Suzaku… have you heard of the mass disappearance that occurred recently in Oslo, Norway from Miss Ashford?

Suzaku: Master. Maybe you can ask?

Tohdoh: Hmm. I remember her report saying that 40 or 50 people suddenly vanished.

Ohgi: That's what the report would like you to believe. It was determined internally that if the truth was leaked they wouldn't be able to contain the inevitable panic. The actual number of people that went missing that day… was 2,900.

Tohdoh: Huh?

Ohgi: Twelve hundred people simply vanished that day without a single trace. The UFN and the Black Knights conducted a private investigation, but we came up empty-handed… except for the rumors. Since the Oslo disappearances people of Paris have been… on edge. They say night after night you can hear screams coming from the direction of Germany. Could it be the wind? Let me ask you; does the wind sound a thousand wailing souls?

Awkward pause in the conversation and Ohgi plays a recording.

Ohgi: Listen… can you hear them? The cries?

Some scattered voices can be heard in the distant background.

Minami: Ohgi! A rogue transmission is being broadcasted on all wavelengths!

Ohgi leaps up. Ohgi, Tohdoh, Suzaku, and Chiba are watching screen of on old man with a white mustache and wearing a dark blue cape:

"Endlich ... die Zeit ist gekommen, diese Welt zu reinigen. Das reine wird für die Sache verschont werden, während die Tainted wird gejagt und ausgerottet. Zerschlagen, erwürgt und geschlachtet Geschlagen, gestochen und zerdrückt Ausgestoßen und aufgespießt, erschossen und ohne Gnade ausgeführt Die Zeit ist gekommen, diese Welt zu reinigen."

("At last… the time has come to cleanse this world. The pure will be spared for the cause, while the tainted will be hunted down and exterminated. Slashed, strangled and slaughtered. Beaten, stabbed and crushed. Gutted and impaled, shot and executed without mercy. The time has come to cleanse this world.")

Starts laughing maniacally as Ohgi, Tohdoh, Suzaku, and Chiba look on in horror and disgust; the message terminates.

Ohgi: Where could… that signal have…

The ship they are in jolts; Ohgi leaps out of his seat in alarm.

Ohgi: What was that?!

The alarms rangs out.

Minami: Ohgi! We're under attack! Unknown Kightmare Frames appearing on radar, sir!

Ohgi: Suzaku! What do you say to help us!?

Suzaku walks up into the hanger. There, was his new Knightmare Frame, Lancelot Albion. Suzaku jumps in and flies into the sky.

A Red Knightmare Frame flashes through the skies, destroying Gekka's and Akatsuki's.

Richter: Was für eine gute Schafherde (What a good flock of sheep.)

Xylvanian Pliot 1: Oberst! Die Ikaruga ist das Ziel mit Zero Onboard. (Group Captain! The Ikaruga is the target with Zero onboard.)

Ricther: Hülle die linke Flanke, Müller. Schulz, die rechte Flanke. (Cover the left flank, Müller. Schulz, the right flank.)

Then he notices a white Knightmare Frame flashing through the sky.

Schulz shoots at the left engine. The Ikaruga tilts to the left over a forest, crash landing through the trees.

Suzaku opens fire on Ricther, but dodges them. Schulz attacks the bridge, but Tohdoh in his new Zangetsu, impales him through the cockpit.

Ricther: Allow me to introduce myself, I am Baron Richter Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. Otherwise, known to the fear of men as the 'Red Baron'. Descendant of the First Red Baron, Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. And this, is the Fighter Wing 1 Squadron. And you Zero, are my sworn ememy! Farewell!

After escaping the The Red Baron.

Suzaku: Are you alright?

Ohgi: I'll be fine, but that's more than I can say for the engine. Zero… if possible, I want you to continue on to Nanking. That transmission we just saw troubles me. Once I have repaired the Ikaruga , I'll need to return to headquarters. A Black Knight squad has already been dispatched to Nanking. Join them, and help liberate the city. Also... there's been a report that Britannia has dispatched an anti-terrorism search-and-destroy armor unit called the Glinda Knights.

Suzaku: [exhales] I guess I have no choice.

Suzaku sets off in the Lancelot Albion.

Suzaku makes his way through the wasteland. A little later, Xylvanian Ubelmeisters attack him, and they get easily dispatched by Tohdoh's
Zangetsu and Chiba's Akatsuki Command Model Zikisan.

Tohdoh: Were you going off somewhere?

Suzaku: I don't need help.

Chiba: It's too dangerous out there!

Suzaku: It will be when I get to Nanking.

A/N: In the next Turn, Nanking is so quiet as if was a rather grey and depressing town, currently in the midst of a rainstorm. It was here that Mao slaughtered the Black Knight squad. I had writer block.