Chinese Federation border outpost, command room, July 1st, 2018 a.t.b.
Oldrin Zevon was aware that her clothes were in tatters right now as she looked around the devastated command room. Her shirt and jacket had holes in them while both of her skirts had a large tear on the right side. Of course, Marrybell knew that her clothes were damaged as well as her dress had been torn in several places and there was a bullet hole in her jacket. There were also a few dead Chinese soldiers in the room and one of them was dressed like an officer.
"These damn Chinese didn't know where the Black Knights took Princess Nunnally! Even the outpost's commander didn't know and I even used my ability on him just to make sure!" Marrybell stated.
"The computers were scrubbed of any information that would have been valuable to us. It seems that the data purge happened two days before we arrived and it wasn't because they expected our arrival either. The Chinese seem to make it so that their border outposts always have outdated information about their own military bases. We'll have to continue our search elsewhere since it's now obvious that this place is a bust." Oldrin Zevon replied.
Meanwhile at the Damocles construction site, an engine test was about to begin. "Green light for testing. Team Tamarov, you're clear to start." The PA system announced. Team Tamarov immediately activated the propulsion system and the Damocles began to lift off into the air. Once it was in the air for about ten seconds it began to descend back onto the testing platform. "That's good, Team Tamarov. The test is a complete success."
Schneizel was notified that the engine test was successful and he knew that it was only a matter of time until Damocles was ready for deployment. The Second Prince sighed as he remembered how he convinced Nina Einstein to remain with his research team when Euphemia declared herself as a Black Knight. Schneizel remembered holding Nina and telling her that Zero had brainwashed Euphemia into turning against the Holy Britannian Empire. Upon hearing that, Nina reaffirmed her vow that she would make Zero pay for what he had done.
When Nina heard of Zero's agreement wtih Cornelia to leave Area Eleven in exchange for not commiting genocide against any Japanese that stayed after the SAZ Massacre, she was furious and vowed to kill Zero to avenge Princess Euphemia. She had gone as far as to steal the Ashford Family's Ganymede and rig it with a nuclear bomb enhanced with Sakuradite with the intent of following Zero and then blowing herself up to not only neutralize Zero, but join Euphemia in death and avenging her. Unfortuantely for her, the Knightpolice had been notified by Milly about the stolen Ganymede and they immobilized the frame before calling in Prince Schneizel's Camelot research team to disarm the bomb. Nina had been imprisoned and charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction after the bomb had been disarmed. Schneizel approached her while she was in prison and managed to convince her to join Camelot in exchange for having the charge dismissed.
At the Vermillion Forbidden City, Kaguya, Naoto, Tianzi, Kallen, Ivan, and Xingke were at a table that was inside a meeting room.
"The Britannian anti-terrorist sons of bitches known as the Glinda Knights are being led on a wild goose chase through the entire Federation right now. I can trust that any and all Chinese bases have absolutely no data on the locations of Black Knight facilities?" Ivan stated.
"The Chinese Federation's military and civilian databases have both been scrubbed of all knowledge about all military bases, including Black Knight base locations, as specified for the Autumn Contingency. As my personal database has special encryption that cannot be cracked, only that specific database still has important information. A bit of bad news for us is that Rei was killed during our successful defense of Hokkaido from a Britannian attempt to reconquer the island two days ago. He sacrificed himself to destroy General Upson's Logres-class Floating Battleship from within and cripple the attacker's air fleet." Xingke replied.
"Even so, the Britannians are still attempting to seize back both Hokkaido and Kyushu from the forces that we've deployed there. They haven't had any success yet, but we can't slack off either." Kaguya warned.
"We're well aware of that, Lady Kaguya. The problem is that the E.U. have been at a stalemate with Britannia along the entire Mediterranean Sea. Yesterday, the E.U. retook Malta from the Britannian force that seized the island four days ago. Euro Britannia is almost gone as a threat to the E.U., something that is kinda refreshing since if the E.U. falls, Britannia can focus all of its efforts on defeating the Federation." Naoto said.
"As far as I know, Britannia is launching yet another attack on the Italian Peninsula. They've suffered three failures already and even when Suzaku was part of the third invasion force, the Britannians were still pushed off the peninsula. I guess that this make it Britannia's fourth attempt to conquer Italy." Kallen added.
A Chinese soldier burst in and said, "Lady Tianzi, General Xingke, I regret to inform you that I have bad news regarding the E.U."
"What happened to it?" Tianzi asked with a frightened expression on her face.
"I would also like to know what is going on with the E.U. that is disastrous." Xingke remarked.
"Well, the E.U.'s W-0 special unit's Headquarters was overrun by Britannian forces. I found out about this information from intelligence team Theta a couple of hours ago." the soldier explained.
Another soldier, this one being a Black Knight, came in and said, "An E.U. Knightmare is approaching. It will arrive here in approximately five minutes. Britannian forces tried to pursue it once it entered our territory, but we held them back long enough for the European soldier to escape."
"Have you identified the pilot?" Xingke asked.
"Negative, sir. The pilot of the European Knightmare wouldn't respond to any hailing attempts. We need to be ready to greet the European solider when he or she arrives." the Black Knight member stated.
Naoto, Kallen, Xingke, Tianzi, Kaguya, and Ivan left the room while following the Black Knight soldier to the Vermillion Forbidden City's entrance. Once there, they waited for the European Knightmare Frame to arrive and sure enough an Alexander that was severely damaged arrived. It knelt down and the cockpit block on its back opened to allow a light blond-haired young woman dressed in a purple skintight pilot suit to exit her frame and drop onto the ground. As she landed, she rolled forward to avoid injuring herself and then stood up for a brief moment before collapsing onto her back. The Black Knight soldier and the Chinese soldier immediately rushed to her and picked her up before carrying her inside a building.
While the woman was carried inside, the Alexander's Core Luminous began to go critical as the machine's chest began to glow a bright purple and Kallen noticed that and said, "Everyone, keep your distance from the European Knightmare! It's about to explode!"
Xingke, who was about to approach the Alexander, immediately backed off and moved to at least fifty meters away from the machine. Everyone else was also about fifty meters away from the Alexander and they witnessed the machine continue to glow purple for a few seconds before it exploded. The Alexander's arms went flying and eventually one of them crashed outside of the Vermillion Forbidden City while the other arm crashed into a wall.
-Two Days Later-
Inside a guest room of the main building of the Vermillion Forbidden City, the young woman awoke and found herself completely naked. She was thankful that the bedsheets were protecting her modesty at the moment even though Kallen was also in the room.
"Oh, you're awake now. Welcome to the Vermillion Forbidden City. My name is Kallen Kozuki, member of the Black Knights. What's your name?" Kallen said to the woman.
"Leila Malcal, commander of the European Union's W-0 special unit. How long have I been out for?" the light-blond replied.
"Two whole days. Shortly after you passed out, your Knightmare's Core Luminous went critical and the frame exploded. You mentioned that you're the leader of W-0, right?"
"I believe I did make that clear."
"Well, two people who claim to be from W-0 arrived here a couple of hours ago and they brought some stuff that belongs to you. I'll go ahead and leave so that you can change in private."
"That won't be necessary." Leila said before opening one of the drawers of a dresser and finding a light blue bra that accentuated her already large breasts and a matching pair of panties before closing it. She opened another drawer and found a couple of spare pilot suits that were meant for her and closed it before opening another drawer, this one having several pairs of shorts. She chose a light green pair of short shorts that hugged her hips before closing the drawer and opened the last drawer to find several long-sleeved shirts, where she found a red one that had a modest neckline.
"You're probably wondering why I'm not going for my spare pilot suits, but there's an explanation for that Kallen." Leila said once she was fully dressed in the clothes she picked out of her dresser.
"You don't need to say it, Leila. Those pilot suits are skintight. I myself have worn one when piloting my personal machine, the Guren Mk-II." Kallen remarked.
"I'm glad to see that you know about how flattering those suits are on us considering that we're both women. However, I happen to be a full-blooded Britannian who disagrees with the outdated way the Empire was handled. My parents were the same way before they died. How is your background, Kallen?"
"I hate to say this, but. . . I'm a half-blood along with my brother as my mother is Japanese and my father is Britannian. They're both still alive, but my father hasn't tried to contact me ever since I went with the Black Knights here almost one year ago and my mother is part of the civilian sector of the Black Knights. She's on a research team that's trying to develop medication that can counteract Refrain. Last I heard from them, they were getting ready to test their product on captured Refrain addicts for side effects. My mother was once one of these addicts herself, but thanks to Zero she was able to get over it and vowed to never take Refrain again."
"You take pride in your Japanese heritage instead of your Britannian one. That alone is proof that most of Britannia is corrupt if half-blooded Britannians prefer their foreign heritage. Although my parents were killed by terrorists, I suspect that Britannia may have had a hand in their deaths."
Leila followed Kallen to a meeting room where Tianzi was waiting along with Xingke and Naoto.
"Leila, the black-haired man is Li Xingke while the white-haired girl is the Tianzi, the current Empress of China. My older brother Naoto has red hair, but if the lighting is poor enough it can easily be mistaken for brown. You'll need to answer some questions that will be asked." Kallen whispered.
"Understood, Kallen." Leila whispered back before reaching a chair and sitting down in it.
"Okay then, now that you're here, we want to ask you some questions. First off, who are you?" Xingke stated.
"I am Leila Malcal, commander of the E.U.'s W-0 special unit. I must thank you for sheltering me here for two whole days. I take it that you know what happened to W-0's Headquarters?" Leila replied.
"One of my soldiers notified me about how the Britannians overran it. What can you describe from when it happened?"
"When the Britannians attacked, it. . . it was almost a disaster. Most of my fellow officers died during the attack and worse, Julius Kingsley was the Britannian leader during the assault on W-0 Headquarters. He personally used a Command variant of the Vincent and tried to kill me no less than three times. Two of those attempts were thwarted by my own subordinates intervening and as for the third and final attempt, Oscar Hamel shoved me out of the way while he was in a Gardmare and took an attack that was meant for me. Before Julius realized what was going on, I was escaping along with my fellow subordinates Ryo Sayama, Ayano Kosaka, Yukiya Naruse, and Akito Hyuga. After we escaped, E.U. forces bombed the hell out of the Headquarters and killed most of the attackers, but some of them went after us and we split off to lose them. I was unlucky enough to be pursued by our attackers all the way here to the Chinese Federation while most of W-0 were able to evade them after we split up. Our scientists managed to evacuate with all of our data and non-essentials to Chinese territory before the attack began."
"As it so happens Leila, Ryo and Akito arrived a couple of hours ago and are awaiting your instructions for them. By the way, I'm Naoto Kozuki." Naoto said.
"Tell them that I intend to join the Black Knights and that they have the option of doing so as well."
In Pendragon, Guinevere was stunned at what she had done earlier as Carine laid dead in a pool of her own blood in the entrance hall. Half an hour ago, Carine was once again badmouthing Marianne when Guinevere slapped the Fifth Princess. For some reason, something in Carine snapped and she immediately went off and stole a rifle from one of the guards before taking a shot at the Crown Princess. Guinevere was thankful that Carine was a poor shot with firearms and killed a servant instead. Seeing that she wouldn't get any results from shooting, Carine whipped out a pair of knives and began to cut down both guards and servants that tried to stop her from trying to kill the older Princess, who was no longer willing to listen or even talk to other people. Unfortunately for the Fifth Princess, Guinevere herself had the luxury of having been taught how to defend herself using various spears such as naginata and pikes during her teenage years and she stabbed Carine multiple times with a Halberd.
'I. . . I. . . I just killed Carine with my own hands! If father finds out, he'll. . . no! I won't let him do anything to me! I need to get away, far away from my comfortable life here!' Guinevere thought as she packed her things and left the Belial Palace in a limousine. At the same time that the Crown Princess left, Odysseus walked into the entrance hall and discovered the dead body.
"Can somebody here explain why one of my younger half-siblings is dead?" the Crown Prince asked.
A guard came up and said, "My lord, Lady Carine was slapped by Lady Guinevere earlier for badmouthing the deceased Empress Marianne vi Britannia and for some reason, Lady Carine snapped and tried to kill Lady Guinevere. Many of our number and several servants are dead as we tried to solve things diplomatically, but Lady Carine was unwilling to even so much as talk to us. Ultimately, Lady Guinevere had no choice but to kill Lady Carine in self-defense. I was present and witnessed the entire situation when it happened."
Odysseus let out a long groan and said, "I need a freaking drink."
"You're not the only one, my lord. Shall I have a team remove the body?"
"Do it. We'll also need to get a lot of new servants and new guards to fill in the holes left by Carine's rampage. As for Carine herself, have her buried amongst the criminals."
"It will be done, my lord."