Disclaimer: Code Geass is the property of Sunrise, Bandai et al. No money is being made from this fanfic and it will be removed if the above parties so request. All your base are belong to us.
Code Geass: Children of the Revolution
Chapter 3: Increase Ratings Week
Butterfly wings beat in Nunnally's stomach as she sat at the dining room table in front of Lelouch's laptop, looking at a map of the warehouse the Black Knights were about to raid. Dots showed the approximate locations of Lelouch and his subordinates via radio ID tags, and an earpiece connected her to their communications. A window in the corner of the screen displayed the feed from a small camera inside his helmet. He had set all of this up to give her as direct an insight as possible into the workings of the operation; she might have absorbed all he knew about tactics and command, but that was not the same as experiencing battle even at a remove, nor could her Geass make her mind work as quickly under stress as his.
Sayoko finished closing the curtains and stationed herself by the door as an additional line of defence to ensure no-one learned what Nunnally was doing. The Japanese maid had taken the revelation of her master and mistress's extra-curricular activities with remarkable equanimity, which made Nunnally suspect that she had known all along. She had placed all her talents as a ninja (something else only learned of through her Geass) at their disposal for the liberation of Japan.
Nunnally listened to the voices of the smugglers inside the warehouse through the bugs Lelouch had planted earlier, as they discussed payment for the crates of food and medical supplies that had been intended for the un-assimilated Japanese underclass in the ghettos. It made her queasy to think that most or all of the men she was listening to were about to die. Intellectually, she knew it would probably be necessary for the Black Knights to shoot first and ask questions later - the smugglers outnumbered them, and were definitely armed - but that knowledge didn't make the guilt go away.
"I know it's welfare, but it seems a shame to waste it on the Elevens."
"Which is why I'm selling it to you, right?"
"Yeah, the Eleven population needs thinning down a little. Breeding like rats in their ghettos."
"I'll transfer your payment to your wife's account as usual?"
"Sure. There's no need to get too paranoid about secrecy; Princess Cornelia's a soldier. This sort of thing's beneath her notice."
Nunnally suddenly felt a good deal less sorry for what was about to happen to the speakers.
The conversation was abruptly halted as the lights in the warehouse were switched off, making her shift her attention back to the grainy low-light feed from Lelouch's camera. Low thumps sounded as the Black Knights on point fired their silenced guns in synchronization, and the two sentries she could see fell to the ground. She gulped. Lelouch led the main group to the warehouse's fire escape at a run, making the image jerk up and down. They hustled up the stairs and onto the gantry above the warehouse floor.
The lights came back on, and she could finally see the two lead smugglers who had been gloating earlier, now staring up in shock and growing horror into the masked face of Zero. One stood by the light switch, the other in the centre of the floor. It disturbed her how normal they looked - just ordinary businessmen in moderately expensive suits, currently scared out of their wits.
"We are the Order of the Black Knights!" Zero boomed, drowning out the smugglers' panicked shouts. "Your despicable thieving from the poor, hungry and vulnerable has gone on long enough! Surrender yourselves and face justice!"
Frightened and cornered, the smugglers lost any semblance of organization. One of the leaders bellowed "Shoot them!" to his subordinates as he dived for cover, while the other simply ran for the exit - where he would find the secondary squads waiting for him. Some of the others followed suit, others obeyed the order to fire and were promptly cut down by the Black Knights from their superior position, while a few simply threw up their hands in defeat.
As the Black Knights checked the room for surviving armed enemy or fugitives hiding among the crates and shelves, Lelouch's gaze lingered on three dead smugglers lying behind a desk. One in particular drew Nunnally's eye. The man lay on his side, his eyes still open and staring into the camera. The head wound that had killed him was leaking glistening fluid onto the floor, and jagged chips of bone and mangled brain matter were visible inside. Nunnally turned away from the screen in revulsion, her hand going to her mouth as she fought the urge to throw up. Sayoko was beside her in a flash.
"I can't do this," Nunnally whimpered, the nausea receding as Sayoko stroked her brow with a cool hand. "I'm too weak..."
"No!" Sayoko said sharply. "It's not weak to be shocked at the sight of death, Nunnally-sama. It takes a cold heart or long experience to make that feeling go away."
She recalled a vivid memory of Lelouch's, of him vomiting and shaking under the shower after the reality of his killing Clovis set in. "Have...have you ever had to kill anyone, Sayoko?"
"Once. During the invasion." Sayoko's eyes looked far away. "To protect the Ashfords from looters. My father always said that one should see only the mission, set aside compassion and human feeling for the enemy...but," she added hastily at Nunnally's frown, "I'm not sure I ever really agreed with him. I would do it again, though, if it was a choice between the life of an attacker and yours, or Lelouch-sama's, or Milly-sama's."
Nunnally nodded, understanding. The same principle could be applied to the smugglers, she knew; the supplies they stole from the ghettos could well mean the difference between life and death for hundreds of people.
"Are you holding up all right there, Nunnally?" Lelouch asked quietly over his helmet microphone. "I shouldn't have looked at that body, I'm sorry."
"I'm fine, Oniisama," she replied, hastily turning back to the computer. "I just got a shock, that's all. Is everyone all right?"
"Yes, it went off without a hitch. We're collecting the supplies for distribution later."
"That's good. Ah...could you film the supplies being handed out? I'd like to see them going to the people that need them. Actually, you could broadcast it to show what the Black Knights can do besides fighting," she added with a flash of inspiration.
"That's an excellent idea - I was considering the same thing."
/**/
"These are very good," Nunnally said, leafing through the sketchbook. The neat, lifelike pencil drawings that crowded each page varied seemingly at random between landscapes, the occasional portrait, crowd scenes and dozens of interesting still-lifes of all kinds of objects. "Oh, I like this one." She pointed to an image of a street scene reflected in what looked like a car headlamp, the distortions created by the curved surface meticulously reproduced. "You use so many different subjects."
Will shrugged. "I just draw whatever's interesting. Ordinary things can be unusual or beautiful if you take a fresh look at them. Ah, like you were saying the other day, I guess." She nodded. "Well, that and it's easier to get objects to keep still than people," he admitted.
Nunnally laughed. "Well, I think I can fit sitting still for an hour or two so you can do the sketches for my portrait into my schedule. I'm doing a bunch of extra work at the moment, my brother's tutoring me," she explained at his quizzical look.
"Great! Oh, one other thing - do you need people for the human chess game at the Eyes Festival? I think I can mobilize some of the Drama Club."
Nunnally had almost forgotten Milly's most recent idea for the celebration, which she had seized on on hearing that Nunnally had beaten Lelouch at chess (something no-one else in the school, or unknown to most, the country, had been able to do). "Yes! That would be great. My brother already has a queue a mile long of girls wanting to be on his side - it would be good to have a middle school team to show them what for."
"OK, I'll-"
They were interrupted by Mr. Arnstein clearing his throat from the doorway, though the bell hadn't rung yet.
"I'd better get going. See you tomorrow, then?" Will smiled brightly at her nod, and hurried to his seat just ahead of the teacher. Nunnally retreated into her thoughts, running over in her mind the list of nobles and important officials Lelouch expected to show up to tomorrow's Clovisland opening, trying to recall all their faces from the photographs he had found. Then her ears caught her name being spoken near the front of the room. Looking over, she identified a thin boy with an unpleasant smirk on his face, whose name she didn't know, as the speaker. He was sitting on Will's left, leaning into his personal space. A broad-shouldered boy was looming in on Will's right, trapping him between the two of them.
"You a pervert, Willy? You like to do it with cripples?" the first boy sneered.
"Maybe he thinks she'll be easy," said the second. "'Course, what he's forgetting is that her brother probably got there ages ago." His voice turned high and mocking. "'Oh, oh...big brother, give it to me harder-'"
"Shut up!" Will hissed. "Don't say things like that, or I'll-"
"You'll what?"
"I can hear everything you're saying about me, you know," Nunnally called across the room, not even thinking to keep her voice low. The words came out low and harsh, and people around the room turned to stare at her. The larger of the two boys paled and looked away as he met her angry gaze, while the thin boy jumped, then snorted and gave her an insolent, defiant grin. Between them, Will's eyes had gone very wide.
"Mr. White! Mr. Krupp! See me after class, if you please. Now, if we could kindly have quiet..."
Nunnally took a deep breath to calm herself, ignoring the shocked stares she was getting. Did people really think things like that about her and her brother? She shrugged it off with some effort; bullies and idiots would think what they wanted. More importantly, she had used the tone and inflections of Lelouch's intimidating Zero voice without thinking, much as she used his chess strategies. She would have to watch herself to avoid making people suspicious. And what would happen once she started using her Geass on other people as well? She swallowed; no point in worrying about it now.
/**/
"The parade of fine specimens of both sexes here today will be quite the feast for Nunnally's eager young eyes," Milly said, putting her arms behind her head and stretching to model her bikini. She winked at Shirley.
"P-President! You shouldn't say such perverted things about Nunnally!"
"Why? A whole new world of beauty has been opened to our friend; you should be happy for her." Shirley could only stammer in response, while Kallen and Nina coughed embarrassedly.
"Well...I think you all look very nice," Nunnally smiled as Sayoko wheeled her out of the changing area and up to the rest of the group. Her curiosity piqued by Milly's teasing, she examined the differences between her friends. Shirley and Kallen's sleek athleticism was obvious to see, rather belying Kallen's sickly front. Milly was markedly plumper and rounder, with highly emphatic curves that were drawing the attention of passing young - and not so young - men, something she was clearly aware of. By contrast, Nina was hanging back, obviously feeling like the ugly duckling and displaying herself rather less in her more modest one-piece, but Nunnally thought she looked pretty too, just less obviously so.
"And here's someone else who looks very nice," Milly said. "We may have to form a bodyguard to keep the ravening hordes away from your brother, Nunnally."
"That's very kind of you to offer, Madam President." Lelouch smiled, while at his side Rivalz looked put out at not being included in the teasing compliment. Nunnally felt a quiet sense of pride at how handsome - pretty, really - her brother was, though his ribs were sticking out under the open shirt he wore to keep the sun off his pale skin. She made a mental note to ensure he was eating properly from now on.
"Isn't that Suzaku?" Shirley asked, pointing, as they made their way towards the poolside through the crowd waiting for the ceremony to begin.
"It is! Hi, Suzaku!" Milly called. Suzaku, who was sitting on a lounger talking to a woman with purple hair, looked up.
"President? What are you doing here?"
"My father's a local dignitary, so I managed to get tickets for everyone," Milly explained.
"Everyone? Oh - Lelouch! Nunnally!"
Nunnally waved to their childhood friend. She had known Suzaku was strong and fit - borrowed memories showed him performing impossible-looking aerial maneuvers and effortlessly pulling Lelouch onto the school roof with one hand - but she hadn't expected him to be quite so muscular. He was so lean that he showed clear definition all over his body, quite different from Lelouch or Rivalz. Nunnally had never seen anything quite like it, and found the play of light across the ripples on his pale golden-brown skin oddly fascinating. Her mouth went dry as she recalled all the times he had touched her and realized how careful and gentle he must have been.
"See something relevant to your interests, Nunnally?" Milly murmured in her ear, startling her. Realizing she had been staring, she blushed and stammered wordlessly, at which Milly laughed, though not unkindly. "Don't worry, it just means you're a healthy, growing girl. Suzaku's making most of the other men and boys here look out of shape."
"I guess so..." Still embarrassed, Nunnally looked around at the multitude of different body shapes in view, ranging from obese older men to undernourished-looking women even thinner than Lelouch.
"You two should be safe over here, but don't draw attention," Suzaku was saying quietly.
"What do you mean?" Lelouch asked.
"You'll see; I think this is them now..."
The public address system blared the opening bars of the Britannian national anthem. "And now, to open the Clovisland resort, we are pleased to present Her Imperial Highness, Viceroy and Second Princess..."
"Princess Cornelia?" The hubbub drowned out the announcement as the crowd reacted to the Witch of Britannia's appearance, chattering eagerly at the surprise of her showing up to an unimportant PR event like this...as well as her rather unusual attire. Cameras clicked and flashed, capturing the rare sight of an imperial princess in a bikini. The black fabric set off her pale skin and violet hair, but Nunnally thought that all the extra straps must make it rather uncomfortable and hard to put on. She was flanked by a tall, thin bespectacled man and a massive, scarred older one. From Lelouch's memories, she recognized them as Gilbert Guilford, Cornelia's personal knight, and Andreas Darlton, her chief military advisor.
"Princess Euphemia!" she heard Nina gasp excitedly from the back of the group. Euphie was wearing what seemed like not so much a swimsuit as half a dress held together with ribbons, in shades of pale pink that complemented her hair. She looked beautiful, and grown-up, and happy. Nunnally sighed, wishing she could call her half-sister's name and tell her that she and Lelouch were alive and well. That would be madness, though.
"Today," Cornelia began in strident tones more suited to a battlefield than the current surroundings. "I am pleased to announce the successful completion of the Clovisland pool, one of the public works projects left behind by my late brother."
Nunnally suddenly realized what a golden opportunity lay in front of her. She activated her Geass with the familiar sparking sensation and turned it on Cornelia, then on the two men at her side for good measure. She coughed to cover up her reaction to the information dump, watching to see if any of them had noticed the effect. Cornelia stopped speaking for a moment, which brought Nunnally's heart into her mouth, but then she resumed as if she had simply paused to remember the next part of her speech.
"President, look how intently Lulu is staring at the Princess!" Nunnally heard Shirley whisper behind her. "He looks like he could spring on her at any moment!"
"He's not the only one," Milly replied drily. "It seems the siblings share some similar tastes."
"What?"
"Princess Cornelia is really impressive, isn't she, Oniisama? What could her secret be, I wonder?" Nunnally said quickly with feigned innocence. Lelouch gave her an odd look, and she winked at him with her Geass eye. He nodded, understanding.
"I imagine the Princess trains in all sorts of ways with her male subjects, Nunnally," Milly put in. "No doubt that's why she draws the eye so."
Nunnally considered this obvious innuendo, which Milly had probably not expected her to understand. Not surprisingly, it was completely untrue; as far as she could tell, Cornelia had no lovers, though her two subordinates did seem to be rather fond of her (and her current outfit). Impulsively, she played along with Milly's statement.
"I don't have any male subjects, though...Oniisama, perhaps we could ask Suzaku to help train me in all sorts of ways?" Nunnally carefully avoided looking in Suzaku's direction to keep herself from going red again or bursting out laughing.
"I'm sure he'd be happy to."
"Who wouldn't be? It would be an honour for anyone," Milly agreed. "But who else? Perhaps you should back Suzaku up, Lelouch; surely you don't want to leave your dear sister's training entirely to others?"
Nunnally said nothing to avoid revealing that she understood what was being discussed, but was unable to keep her face from turning warm. She knew Milly was just teasing, but it reminded her uncomfortably of those boys in her class taunting Will.
"Actually, I've already taught Nunnally everything I know," Lelouch said with a commendably straight face.
"What?" Shirley wailed. "Lulu! You're joking, right?"
"I guess this is what they call a beautiful but dangerous sibling love," Milly mused.
"Do I want to know what you guys are talking about?" Suzaku asked.
Nunnally turned to reply, but no sound came out of her mouth. The instant she saw him, it triggered a memory that must have come from Cornelia or one of her subordinates. Milly was laughing as she teased a shocked Suzaku, while Shirley spluttered behind her, but Nunnally barely heard.
"Oniisama," she said quietly, tugging Lelouch's arm, "Can we go back for a moment? I need to tell you something important."
"Of course. I'll say you're not feeling well." Lelouch turned back to the others, while Nunnally headed back towards the changing areas with Sayoko's help. When they were well away from the crowd, they stopped and waited for Lelouch to catch up.
"It's about Suzaku," Nunnally said, switching to Ancient Greek for extra safety, as they often did now when they discussed something confidential. "He's the pilot of the Lancelot."
"The Lancelot?"
"The white Knightmare that attacked you at Shinjuku, and showed up at Lake Kawaguchi."
/**/
"What?" Lelouch clenched his fists. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, it was definitely in Cornelia's memories. She doesn't like having a Knightmare piloted by a Japanese person, but apparently he's the only one who can make it work, and it's being developed by Schneizel, so she can't do anything about it except avoid making use of him. It was her idea to send him into the tunnel at the hoteljacking as a distraction...she thought he'd be killed."
Suzaku was placing himself in terrible danger operating the experimental weapon, and Lelouch couldn't understand why. He remembered what he had said when he opted to go and face his court-martial - did he really believe that Britannia would change just because he tried to set a noble example? The Empire's rulers and institutions only accepted change imposed on them from a position of strength, history made that abundantly clear.
"Damn it," he spat. "We'll have to decide what to do about this later. Are you OK to continue?" he asked in a gentler tone, seeing Nunnally's expression.
"Yes." She visibly steeled herself. "We can't let this opportunity go to waste. I should use my Geass on that woman who was sitting next to Suzaku as well as the people on the list. She's one of the Lancelot's designers - maybe we can figure out a way to disable it or sabotage it so we won't have to fight him."
"Nunnally, you're a genius." She flushed at the compliment. He smiled, then something else important occurred to him. "Did you get anything from Cornelia about Mother's death?"
Nunnally nodded. "She had nothing to do with it. Mother...Cornelia really admired her; she spent months investigating the murder, but didn't find anything."
"Really?" Lelouch said, thinking out loud rather than questioning Nunnally's word. If Cornelia was not only innocent but knew nothing, then his only remaining lead was Schneizel, who was far out of reach.
"There is one thing. The reason that there were so few guards on the grounds when Mother was killed was that...she asked Cornelia to send them away."
"What? Did she say why?"
"No."
He considered this. "Then...Mother must have been expecting a visitor, or more than one, who she trusted but whose identity – or just the fact that they were there – had to be kept secret. Occam's Razor; this mysterious guest must be the assassin, or at least involved in the murder in some way."
Nunnally nodded. "Because if they had been killed too, their body would have been found, and if they survived but disappeared, it's probably because they're guilty."
"Exactly. But who?" As always, there was too little information to go on. If the list of suspects no longer had to be limited to those with the authority to subvert the security, then it became very long. It could even be someone he had no knowledge of, some enemy from their mother's past before she joined the Emperor's harem or even the Knights of the Round. However…there still remained the issue of the pathetic excuse for an official investigation. Someone – whether the assassin or someone with an interest in protecting him or her – had engineered that, someone with enough authority to hide the truth even from Cornelia, and that brought him back to the senior members of the Imperial Family. Nothing had changed, he thought grimly.
/**/
Nunnally sat up in bed, furiously scribbling on a notepad. Lelouch had sensibly suggested she rest rather than following the evening's mission - reading the minds of several dozen people in a short space of time had proved mentally exhausting. She had tried to sleep, but worry and the muddle of new information in her mind made it difficult.
"Nunnally?" Lelouch stood in the door, holding the case he kept his Zero costume in. "You're still awake? It's after one."
"I couldn't sleep - I'm writing down some of what I learned today, in case I forget it. The mission went all right?"
"Like clockwork. We grabbed all the Refrain distributors, and I got the names of the people further up the supply chain." He yawned. "Don't stay up too much longer."
"I won't - you should go to sleep too, Oniisama, you look exhausted."
"I will. Good night."
The door closed behind Lelouch, and Nunnally peered back down at her notes. The guest list for a conference on labour allocation was jotted next to a jumble of numbers which she thought were the Lancelot's shield emitter settings, which in turn overlapped a very bad sketch map of the maximum-security prison attached to the Tokyo Settlement. She groaned and rubbed her temples - untangling and collating all the information was going to be a nightmare. The sound of the door made her look up again, seeing a familiar white-clad figure leaning against the frame.
"Lelouch has stolen his bed back and passed out," C.C. said. "Very rude of him, considering how I had to run around after him through the ghettos while he interrogated Refrain dealers."
"Thank you for looking after him, C.C." Nunnally knew their enigmatic 'contractor' followed Lelouch when he went out as Zero, even if neither of them acknowledged it. "There's plenty of room if you want to sleep here, if you don't mind helping shift me over. There's spare pillows in the closet." It would be nice to have company for a change, like when she used to stay with Euphie. She and Lelouch had slept together sometimes for warmth and comfort when they came to Japan, but not since they moved into the Academy.
"I hear you've been putting your new power to good use."
"I figured out how to make it less stressful; if I only hold eye contact for a second by blinking, I get the information but not the more powerful memories. It gives me a less complete picture of the person, but...well, I'm not sure I'd want to get too far into the minds of some of the people I read." Cornelia and her advisors' severe mindset of martial honour and unthinking superiority was at least consistent, but the sheer hypocritical smugness of some of the other nobles filled her with uncharacteristic disgust. To believe themselves part of some destined master race while relying on 'commoner' subordinates and Number slaves to exercise and maintain their unearned power and privilege...it would be laughable if it was less destructive.
"No-one is a saint in the privacy of their own head. That can be as hard to accept as the demons."
"Did you give someone else a Geass like this?" Nunnally asked, not really expecting an answer. She was proven right when C.C. turned away.
"I'm going to change."
When she returned, C.C. was very gentle as she lifted Nunnally's legs to move her to the left side of the bed, and tucked her half of the covers back around her carefully. She curled up on her side facing away from her, hair spread out in a wide fan. Nunnally watched her curiously for a while, listening to her steady breathing.
"C.C.?" No reply. "Are you...all right?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well...you were imprisoned by the military, and it sounds like they were experimenting on you or something. That must be hard to deal with."
"I'm fine. I was drugged most of the time."
"OK..." Nunnally, who was experienced at putting on a brave face to not worry other people, didn't believe a word of it. "But...if you do want to talk about it, or just don't want to be alone, I'm here."
"Right. I doubt you'd understand."
Nunnally quashed a piqued retort. "I couldn't bear to be by myself for months after I was injured. If Lelouch left me alone for more than a few minutes, I would get scared or frustrated...I couldn't move, I couldn't see, I didn't know what was going on or where he was. I used to scream until I went hoarse, break things; I threw myself out of my wheelchair or out of bed dozens of times and usually hurt myself. Lelouch never got angry with me, but I could tell how frustrated he was, and that made it worse. Sometimes I wished I had died along with our mother..." She trailed off, not wanting to relive that bleak and miserable period of her life.
"You obviously got over it."
"Yes. I don't know if I would have if we hadn't met Suzaku, though."
"Your troublesome Japanese friend?" C.C.'s voice remained flat, but Nunnally detected a note of interest.
"The first time we met him, he and Lelouch got into a fight-"
"I don't suppose I need to ask who won."
"I suppose not." Nunnally's instinct was to defend her brother, but there was no denying that he was no good at all at fighting with his fists. "Suzaku only stopped hitting him when I begged him to - he hadn't noticed me at first - then he ran away."
"So you rescued Lelouch?"
"Well, probably it was more that Suzaku was embarrassed. I think he was a little scared of girls, though that might have had something to do with his cousin Kaguya." C.C. snorted. "We became friends after that, though, once he stopped seeing us as just a couple of Britannian invaders. Just having another person around did me good, forced me to stop feeling sorry for myself and think about something else. Lelouch took a bit longer to trust him...but then Suzaku saved me after I fell down a hole into a bomb shelter."
"So he's your knight in shining armour?"
"Wh-what do you mean?" Nunnally caught C.C.'s drift, and felt a frisson of something unfamiliar go through her.
"What a shy, blushing little maiden you are."
"Well, yes. What did you expect?" Nunnally retorted, surprising herself a little. C.C. turned her head and gave her an amused, almost impressed look. She took the opportunity to return to the original subject. "So anyway, I do understand something of what you might be going through. I only want to help, and be your friend if you'll let me."
For a moment she thought C.C. was going to say something, but she simply looked away again. "Goodnight, Nunnally. Hurry up and turn the light off, there's a good girl."
Sighing, Nunnally set aside her notes, clapped twice to switch off the new lamp on her bedside table, straightened her pillow, lay back and closed her eyes. C.C. had either gone to sleep instantly or was doing a very good imitation thereof with her even, regular breathing. Her unusual scent was unmistakable here in close proximity - Nunnally's nose was as sensitive as her ears, though she usually kept the fact that she could identify people by smell to herself, since some found it unsettling. C.C. smelled faintly of pizza, and also of Lelouch, since she was wearing one of his shirts again, but her own scent was strong and sweet, vaguely reminiscent of expensive liqueur or perfume. It was quite different to anyone else Nunnally knew, but not unpleasant - just odd, much like C.C. herself.
She fell asleep, finally tired out but with her mind still churning with data and pondering the problem of Suzaku. Her dreams were odd, but she forgot them as soon as she woke up.
TO BE CONTINUED
Omake (with apologies to Michael Poe, author of Exploitation Now)
"Well, the figures are in," Lelouch said as the student council (minus their glorious leader) sat around the table, still in their swimwear. "Our review levels are healthy, but we only got a 10% boost from the extra blood, partial nudity and sexual innuendo in this chapter."
The council room door was abruptly kicked open by Milly...carrying an enormous machine gun, Rambo-style. "That's right!" the President announced bouncily (in more ways than one). "And that's why, instead of a punchline for this omake, I'm just going to be stripping off and blowing Rivalz' head off with a very large gun!"
"Wh...what the *()&%?" Rivalz gasped as the others scattered out of the line of fire.
"Nice one Rivalz, we need more bad language too. Now hold still and try to bleed cinematically..." Milly removed her bikini top and took aim.
(For anyone/everyone who doesn't get the by now very obscure reference, many years ago the author of the webcomic Exploitation Now deliberately did a strip much like the above sketch in order to increase his rating on the List Of Potentially Offensive Webcomics. It worked.)
Notes: For the curious, the idea for C.C.'s outrageous flavour ((C) Cleolinda Jones of Movies In Fifteen Minutes and her parodies of Twilight) arose from the fact that Nunnally mistakes V.V. for her when he pops up behind her at the end of R1. Since I doubt their footsteps sound anything alike, I figure they both have an unusual smell due to their metabolism being different to an ordinary human's.
Notes For Reviewers: I've been surprised and pleased by the number of responses to this fic, which I believe is now my most reviewed story ever (even including ones which have been taken down). At the risk of sounding like a fusspot/netiquette nazi, here are a few requests for future reviewers:
1) Please, if you liked the story, say what you particularly liked and why if possible. It's much more gratifying when reviewers are specific, and it allows me to keep doing whatever it is I'm doing right!
2) Similarly, if you didn't like something, please say what and (more importantly) why.
3) Please try to write reviews I can understand. I'm going to be charitable and assume that the multiple anonymous reviewers who wrote things like "kallen put as a couple of lelouch" were translating from another language using Babelfish or something...
4) On that note, if you want me to include something in the story or take it in a particular direction, please ask nicely and give a reason.