Chapter 5: Of Kings and Queens

As Nunnally woke up from that dream she could feel the power in her left eye. It beat and pulsed against her skull like it had a heart of its own. The tingly red filter that hovered in front of her left side vision fittingly matched the effect of blood pooling in front of her her right. That is not to say that she could see the evidence of the cut on her forehead so much as smell it. The crimson substance smelled of copper so much that it was as if Nunnally held an old oxidized penny to her nose. It was a smell Nunnally wished she could forget. The vital fluid wasn't an effective smelling salt, however, it was enough to alert the dazed girl of her dangerous surroundings.

Suddenly the rest of her senses returned and she could now feel the terrorist feeling her up.

His slightly calloused hands stroked her hair, seemingly uncaring if the tangles pulled at her scalp. She bit her tongue and played dead once more, allowing her body to remain limp on the ground. Her bite became painful from the effort it took took to ignore the reflex to punch the offender in the face. As the assaulting hands moved to more lewd locations, a voice flooded her mind; a temporary distraction from the physical world.

The contract is complete, your Geass is now available to use.

What does this Geass thing do? She thought to herself. It was only her intuition, but whatever that doll was probably communicated to her through her-

You should know, Nunnally. It takes the form of your deepest desire, your truest of wishes for those around you. Well that and a little caveat, but revealing that right now would be a waste.

Nunnally's face remained impassive as her frown was only communicated telepathically. It wouldn't be of much help. However, as the terrorist moved his hands up her calves, coming alarmingly close to the hem of her skirt, the answer came to her. Truest of wishes, huh?

"Stop." Nunnally commanded.

Although her vocal chords did indeed move, she couldn't even recognize the voice that said that syllable. In that moment than she felt in her more power in that word than in entire life. How many times had she uttered those words while other students teased her with no avail? And yet the terrorist suddenly lept away. His ram mask threaten to move from its firmly fashioned position on his head from the force of his start. Subtle shakes trembled from his hands that she was far too familiar with as the men seemingly clashed with a desire to wrap his digits up in the material of his jacket, over his undoubtedly stammering heart.

"What are you doing?" She continued.

"What am I doing? What are you doing?" He retorted, voice not only steady but containing a vengeful calm. He grabbed her by her collar and hauled her upwards; his second hand cupped her chin. "You see, girly, I have the gun." His satisfied smirk could be denoted by the tone of his voice. It jumped up an octave, and not only that, his stance puffed up with pride. Nunnally's heart skipped a beat when the hand holding her collar moved to press the chilly metal of his firearm to her temple.

She couldn't afford to be helpless, not here, and not now. Her inability is what caused this whole mess, and she'd be damned if that continued on any longer. With her newfound power, she wasn't helpless anymore. She swallowed the lump in her throat, which tracked down and blocked the pit from forming in her stomach, and searched for something, anything that she could latch onto with her geass.

His grip moved from her chin to her neck when she refused to answer his next question, mind too occupied to care for such trivialities. "Stupid bitch," he grumbled, and pressed her into the ground. She gasped for air. As her windpipe struggled to expand under the terrorist's grip she found it. Engraved gold poked into the side of her neck, the pain it caused penetrated her oxygen starved brain, calling the ceremonial jewelry to her attention.

"What would… your… wife… think?" She gasped for air and activated her geass again. The environment became hazy, and out of focus, and she filled his mind with guilt and shame with her power. She could almost visualize the energy invading his heart as a toxic black gas, going directly into his body, originating from her lips. Still, she was surprised when he released her.

"Wha- how did you?"

Nunnally cut him off before he could continue, "What would she say if she saw you doing this, assaulting a crippled girl?" She almost accidentally added in the word blind in there as well. That gambit was going to work only once. She added in anger and helplessness, colored a burgundy and deep blue to the mix. She tore her mind's eye from the illusion in hopes of finding more details to feed to the fire.

"You never knew her!" His voice cracked. "You never knew anything! You weren't there when those, those SAVAGES came for us. We were supposed to be on the last plane out of Area 11 before the bombers came."

The man dropped to his knees. His gun fell into the thick manicured lawn, but still within reach. Light reflected off the polished horns of his mask as he lowered his face, and watched his knuckles dirty from the dirt clenched in his hands.

"You don't understand what we do, what we fight against! There was rioting and attacks for days after war was declared, and-and-and th-then, they found us."

His head fell, revealing a slight tan line at the nape of his neck, as Nunnally added more sorrow to him. Her stomach twisted and turned as the man spilled his memories. Her assailant appeared much more human the more he divulged, and deeper he sank into a bowed position. Not to mention that she was previously less apt than other members of her family at hatred.

"W-we were hiding in an old factory. The airport was still under lockdown. A-and then they found us. Took and killed the men, a-and then they-" He was cut off by another wave of sobbing. Nunnally didn't need him to finish for the picture to form in her head. "I hid in a corner, away from everyone else. I s-saw everything. That's why I fight. they-they're beasts! They'll turn on you at the slightest opportunity. They rebelled against us for years and now you all are giving them land back! I want them under control. So things like what happened never happen again. I want them to suffer. The same way I did for years because of them."

The sound of his wails fell to the background. Her focus stayed on her own breath, which threatened to hitch from sob story. She couldn't afford to pity him if she wanted to get out of this alive. Besides, he had just tried same thing to me, she thought. KILL HIM. She heard from a dark corner of her mind. HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO LIVE. Nunnally stayed her shaking voice. The mist, blood red and furiously glowing, stopped in its tracks, and retreated to her mouth. She couldn't kill him. It wasn't in her to do it. Even if she searched the depths of heart there wasn't any part of her that was willing to send him down the path to death. However the presence refused to back down. KILL HIM. KILL HIM. KILL HIM. As she struggled with the voice a third option came to her. She switched out some of his sadness and regret for the feeling of an epiphany. The feeling a bright-white yellow, tinged with black.

"But would she want you to take revenge for her?" Nunnally saw his glassy and bloodshot eyes widen. Good. "Shouldn't you have saved her right then and there?" As her voice grew in intensity she slowly began to stand up. Adrenaline, courage, and strength of will flowing into her in a red-hued stream of light from that came from her mouth as she spoke. "Would that have led to you doing this, the same thing that HAPPENED TO HER?!" She now stood tall above the knelt form of the terrorist, wide-eyed in fear and revelation.

He suddenly collapsed in a storm of tears, forehead touching the ground in a classic kowtow. "I'm sorry Mira! I'M SORRY~!" though his wretched sobbing he picked his pistol up from the ground and cocked it. His hands shook violently as he spoke again. "I-I'm going to make up for it. I'm g-going to pay for w-what I've done, and w-what I-I haven't."

"No-" Nunnally didn't even have time to stop him as his hands forged within themselves a steely calmness and the trigger was pulled.

The moment the body hit the ground Nunnally collapsed as well, and threw up the contents of the banquet and a large quantity of blood. She steadied herself by her hands as her knees gave way as well. A river of blood flowed down her chin, fueled by the crimson tributaries that emerged from her mouth and nose, pooling around her hands as her vision blurred. It took a moment for her to process what had just happened. D-did I just… KILL someone?

"What just happened?" She could barely hear the voice from far away, compounded by the ringing in her ears and her consciousness slowly fading. They had heard the gunshot.

My my, I didn't think you'd be brought down so quickly. Ah well. I was hoping for some fun as well.

"It's too quiet out there." A terrorist knightmare pilot called out over his radio. "Normally there'd be police swarming the place, especially since there's so many rich bigwigs in one place." He stopped scanning the skies with his sniper rifle and leaned back against the brick chimney that he made his little sniper hole. Shingles broke and fell as he moved the massive machine.

"Dunno, maybe they're planning something?" He heard from one of the knightmares stationed at the front gate, attempting to cover the profile of the Sutherland with a large ornate fountain. Others hid behind metal barriers about half their height.

"I doubt it. there's no chatter on the police signals, and there's no way someone can see us outside of radar range with the forest around the property, so they'll be mobilizing the grunts first."

"Maybe someone got access to their phone and leaked pictures of us?" A third pilot added

"No way, not with the jammer setup." The sniper replied. The cellars of the estate now housed several high-tech jamming devices. From where they were the couldn't hear the humming that now reverberated

"Cut the chatter Wraith team." A gruff voice broke through their discussion. Their commander, an old veteran from the invasion of Area 11, had been forcibly discharged after attempting to sabotage the second SAZ opening ceremony, held just weeks after the end of the Black Rebellion.

"Yes Sir." The sniper checked through the IFFs that blipped on his radar screen. Wraith 1, their commander, along with Wraiths 3, 6, and 7 were all at the front of the main house, along with two dozen grunts to hold off anybody that tried to come through the front gate. Himself, Wraith 5, was on the roof along with Wraith 4, filling the role of snipers and fire support. He glanced over at Wraith 4 loading her rocket launcher, loaded with what amounted to a shotgun shell filled with small little missiles, each with lock-on function. She was one of the newer ones, only recently brought in. In the backyard there were Wraiths 2, 8, and 9, along with another dozen soldiers dealing with the hostages.

A new blip flashed onto the radar screen, an unknown designation hanging over it like a badge of honor. He looked at the light blue designation, taking a short moment to orient himself with the north-facing radar screen. It was coming from the backyard.

A cursory scan from his factsphere confirmed what his eyes could see through the monitor. There wasn't anything there. He looked back to the radar screen. Now the unidentified unit was moving. With one eye on his radar and the other on his screens Wraith 5 looked around, seeing if he could get a glance of the enemy unit. There was nothing.

"Hey guys, I think my radar is broken. Is there something popping up on your screens?"

"Yeah, I can see it too." Wraith 2 answered.

"Same here." Said Wraith 6.

"Guess it's not me then." Wraith 5. "Might be the jammer. It's probably messing up this equipment."

"Could be the stuff itself." Wraith 4 added to the conversation. "We stole this shipment from a factory, and it wasn't an order or anything. These were probably being sent to be torn apart and reassembled."

"I guess we just ignore it for n-" Wraith 5 suddenly fell back in his chair, his stomach climbing all the way to his throat as the feeling of falling filled his body. The shock of impacting the roof shook his body multiple times as his Sutherland tumbled end over end, sending shingles and wood dust flying as his external cameras cracked from the impacts. He came to a stop, now leaning backwards quite a bit. He shook off the dizziness and blinked away the fog from his vision, taking a look at his bios screens once more.

"Ah, I'm missing my legs." He thought calmly. The concussion muffled the warning and emergency alarms as well as the voices frantically searching for their new enemy over the radio. His knightmare's arms were also trapped, one twisted at a peculiar angle backwards from the elbow joint, the other completely missing.

"WHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCKWHATTHEFUCK?!" Wraith 5 singled out Wraith 4's frenzied screaming over the jumble of voices. Even through his cracked and glitching monitors he could see the action that took place in front of him even as it distorted and his vision faded. He tried to stay awake, and his breathing and heartbeat soon overtook the vast majority of his hearing. His attention was solely focused on the screen, trying to stay awake with what he saw outside.

Wraith 4 raised her rocket launcher, aiming and firing directly in front of her, at the shimmering, distorted space that stood over his disabled frame. However, as the trigger was pulled an invisible talon snatched the launcher's barrel, forcing it upwards and sending the rockets upwards towards the sky. In the same fluid motion, the shimmering space separated the shoulder joint from the rest of Wraith 4's Sutherland, sending it crashing onto the roof, where it slid almost off the edge. Wraith 5 could imagine her terrified screams as something punctured through the top (or front, as it were) of the cockpit. His senses returned for just a few moments as an even louder alarm than the ones before sounded through his disabled cockpit—The "Missiles Approaching" warning.

"HA HA HA HA HA! AAHHH HA HA HA HA!" Nemo cackled madly as the tip katana tore through the cockpit of downed sutherland. "It's breathtaking, human emotions!" it pulled its right hand away from the joystick. More refined and exquisite than any of the twisted, warped appendages that came from itself. The porcelain white skin and its smooth, supple texture unlike anything Nemo had possessed firsthand.

"No longer am I stuck in that lonely box, that bleak, facsimile of existence. for now I am FREE!" The sharpness of the sensations that filled its mind outmatched anything that Nemo had felt in the numb, unfeeling state it had been its whole life. Adrenaline filled Nemo's mind with haste and clarity, and without prior experience with the rush it gave, Nemo cackled louder and louder. The shaking feeling in its limbs excited it, and the dopamine rushes that came with a kill filled Nemo with a sense of fulfillment and happiness it never could have imagined existed.

Nemo moved the Mark Nemo over to the discarded arm of the Sutherland it just stabbed. Wrenching away the fingers, now locked in a death grip from the sudden lack of commands. A rush of glee ran through Nemo's inexperienced mind as the launcher was held in the Mark Nemo's hands and shimmered out of sight. The active camouflage is so useful. Nemo thought.

A glancing shot to the shoulder of the Mark Nemo brought Nemo back to reality, somewhat. One of the Sutherlands in the backyard had fired on where it stood. Nemo watched in slight annoyance at the bullets that started whizzing by it. It wasn't long until bullets from the others began to join the fray.

It twisted around towards the knightmares in the front yard, allowing the bulky launcher to lock on before firing. The Mark Nemo was jerked by the sudden recoil, and Nemo quickly regained footing on the shingled roof. With the sudden blaze that formed in the front yard and numerous LOST signals flashing on the radar another rush of dopamine hit Nemo, momentarily sending it into a dazed state. It could almost feel the smell of ammonia slashing at its nostrils, the sensation of disgust and pain beyond anything it could have imagined. The motorcycle style seat was now slick with sweat and drool (among other things.) and Nemo could feel the slick, leather-like texture through its bare skin.

It took a deep hit to the Mark Nemo's shoulder to spring Nemo back into action. It dropped the launcher onto the roof, which then proceeded to slide down and smashed straight through the deck below. It then jumped off the roof, and buried the katana into the closest sutherland, breaching the sakuradite core through the cockpit.. "WRAITH 2!" came over the loudspeakers of the other knightmares, and Nemo kicked away the volatile wreck after wrenching the rifle from its hands. The other two and the soldiers began firing at where Nemo seemed to be.

"HA HA HA HA HA HAA!" Nemo started to cackle again. Being in this close range firefight made its heart begin to pump even faster. Its muscles shook with every control. It didn't take long before the first one was gunned down. several KMF bullets struck the head of the Sutherland, forcing the auto eject, sending the cockpit flying away. It didn't go far, however, as Nemo shot at it in mid air, causing a detonation.

it continued to lead the others away from the hostages, moving towards the massive stone tower in the north wing of the mansion. It swerved as it shot, taking down most of the infantry that the terrorists had. The knightmare, on the other hand, was a different problem. The rushes of hormone-induced rage caused Nemo to act brashly, randomly firing at it without leading, causing most of the shots to completely miss. Several more bullets pinged against the Mark Nemo, the last of which finally dropped the camouflage. The lone Sutherland's fire began to tighten up, glancing shots against the rifle. Nemo threw it away as the magazine was breached and it exploded in front of it. "Grrr…" Nemo growled. There had to be a way to finish this now.

A crazy plan began to form in its head, and it brandished the katana again, running straight at the sutherland. It began to backpedal and swerve away from the blade-wielding knightmare. Suddenly Nemo reversed the grip with the flick of control stick and threw it at the enemy like a throwing javelin, embedding itself into the core of the knightmare. Nemo left the Katana there, too late to retrieve it now.

With all the emotions and the whirlwind of battle over, Nemo suddenly felt fatigue for quite possibly the first time. Every muscle began to ache, and as the adrenaline began to leave its system, its vision began to cloud over. Even the Mark Nemo moved sluggishly. Nemo could see the hostages in sight now, the glowing flames from the areas of the mansion damaged in the battle casting long, dark shadows on the ground. It wasn't until it almost reached them when it saw it. One of the terrorists' Sutherlands with the hostages.

"You think that little set of fireworks could stop me, you disappearing freak? Keep an eye on your surroundings, first rule of combat. I can totally see you now. God you look worse than I thought. Who the fuck made your frame, a goddamn monkey?" The last terrorist taunted Nemo. Too tired to do anything Nemo seethed at him. From what it could gather from the radio chatter, this was the commander of the bunch.

"Take one more step and I put holes into all of these bleeding-heart pigs!" He declared, and yelps from the group of hostages reached even Nemo, as far away as it was, as the Terrorist shook the KMF rifle at them. "You're gonna come out of that machine, and show me your face, you got that, you fucking freak?! Come out here!"

Nemo seethed with anger. It wouldn't comply. It looked around, trying to find a way to get to them before the terrorist opened fire. It zoomed in on the group. It seemed smaller than it last remembered. Nemo only hoped that it was that they got away, and not something worse.

"You're the strong, silent type, huh?" The terrorist cocked the gun again. "I'll give you to the count of four to come out, or I start unloading!" Nemo's heart suddenly fell into its stomach.

"ONE!" Nemo frantically racked its brain together, trying to find an answer.

"TWO!" pinpricks of tears began to form at its eyes. There wasn't anything else it could do.

"THREE!" Nemo pulled away from the control sticks, thumbing the release hatch. It was about to release it when-

"FO-," The terrorist was cut off by a green lance from the sky, and Nemo looked to where it came from. Several zoom calibrations later and it found it in the far distance. A white angel on red wings floated there, as if it were the one designated to pass judgement on the world. A relieved Nemo began to move the Mark Nemo away, to return the body back, something that it loathed to do but was necessary.

"YIPPEE, YIPPEE, YIPPEE!" Suzaku saw Lloyd doing his happy dance over the monitor he had permanently connected to a feed of the CAMELOT team. "IT WORKED! IT WOORKED! MY BABY WORKED!"

Suzaku couldn't help but crack a smile at the eccentric scientist. He lowered the contraption, a larger, more accurate version of the VARIS rifle. The stock went all the way back to the Lancelot's upper arm, where it then connected to a battery pack on the back of the Lancelot's Flight Pack. He took one last look at the ruins of the mansion. skulking away from area was a large black knightmare, completely foreign in design. A sense of trepidation made Suzaku shiver. What was to come from seeing that machine again? The last time he felt this way was meeting Lelouch after their decade of separation. He fumed again. Even thinking about her made his head ache and his heart beat like a drum. But recently it was less out of anger and more of something else. Something he couldn't quite put a finger on.

"Oh Suzaku, there's someone here for you, a Sophia Patton. She says that she's your strategist."

A/N: You know what, berate me all you want. I'll take it. I won't even say I'm sorry. Publishing this this late has just no excuse. Also thanks to Ayaheartright for helping me with some of the writing. I appreciate it.

Next Chapter: Rebel, Rebel