I don't own Code Geass

Act I: Peace Time

Part 1: Rookie

Kallen's room, Tokyo, Japan

Friday night

Kallen was packing several changes of clothes. She made sure that all of her clothes were comfortable and durable. The one she was wearing now was her old terrorist outfit.

Kallen put her Guren key around her neck and grabbed a tooth brush out of her bathroom before heading downstairs and bidding her mother goodbye before heading out the door.

She ran to the Academy where she was supposed to meet up with Alice Saika, the 19 year old Rogue of the Guardians and Adam's girlfriend, on the grounds. Kallen saw a yellow and black Vincent waiting on the Academy grounds. She then met up with it's pilot in the cockpit.

"How ya been?" Alice asked the newbie Guardian. Alice had mid-length straight black hair with white highlights, blue-green eyes, and a build similar to Kallen's only more flexible. She wore a yellow shirt with black short sleeves that exposed her , black knuckle gloves, black shorts, long thigh high yellow socks and black shoes.

"Okay," Kallen replied as she hopped into the passenger space in the cockpit. As they took off Kallen just had to ask. "Is the training really that bad?"

"It's not bad," Kallen breathed a mental sigh of relief, "It's much much worse. Imagine your regular training regimen, then imagine it being fifty times more strenuous and at the end of the first day you literally are in too much pain to move."

Kallen gulped. 'I hope it doesn't hurt really that much,' she wished.

*************

Kallen bunked with CC and Alice in the Guardian's barracks under the stadium. There were some more people living on the Ark ever since the tournament. It provided homes and jobs to those who needed it. Also since it was a new sect in the Black Knights and had more advances in Knightmare technology, Llyod and Rakshata with their team began working there. Noa would not let them look at the Skeith and Aether though.

"So, worried about tomorrow?" CC inquired.

"No," Kallen answered unsure.

"You should be," Alice warned.

"Then I should turn in, huh?" Kallen asked as she made her way to the bathroom.

The bathtub and the shower were separate but both were huge in the pearly white clean bathroom. Kallen undressed and stepped into the shower, pulling the curtain behind her. She turned the knob and let the many drops of water pound and wash over her and the steam open her pores.

As Kallen was washing her hair, she thought she heard someone enter the room. "Is anyone there?" she asked as she peeked around the curtain. When no answer came the Guren pilot passed it off as her imagination and returned to her bathing.

When she was done, Kallen turned the knob and let the water drip off. She then loosely wrapped her towel around herself and stepped out of the shower. As soon as she did a flash went off, surprising her. Kallen was horrified at what this meant...Someone had taken a picture of her almost completely exposed.

The culprit was out the door before Kallen could identify them. She ran after them, forgetting she was in only a towel. She followed the perpetrator down the hall. The red-head turned a corner and tripped over a wire.

The red-head got up with a groan just to have another flash of a camera surprised her. There stood the culprit, grinning with a pleased look. A tan 17 year old New Zealander with green eye and bleach blonde hair. He wore a yellow sleeveless shirt with an ocean wave print, navy blue shorts, and yellow and black shoes. The rookie of the Guardians before Lelouch and Kallen, William Gage Beeler. Kallen was about to say something until Gage interrupted her.

"Before you say anything Kallen," he chuckled, "I think you should cover yourself up first." He pointed down at her towel on the floor.

Kallen turned red from head to toe and shrieked, quickly covering herself. "PERVERT!" she yelled.

Gage just laughed as he tossed the camera up and down in his hand. "Welcome to your first training weekend Kallen. There will be more pranks like this to come. What do you think Lelouch will think of this when he gets back?" A devilish grin appeared on his face. "Lets ask CC," he said as he ran to Kallen's room.

Kallen went wide eyed with fear and quickly grabbed her towel. She chased after Gage, wrapping the towel around herself as she went. Gage turned a corner and Kallen followed suit. She found him just leaning against a wall grinning, without the camera. Seeing the look of confusion on the half-naked Red Lotus he pointed to another person on the opposite side of the hall, turning left. Kallen gave Gage her most threatening death glare before running after the other person. The glare really didn't bother Gage, he was too busy staring at her well developed cleavage to worry.

The new comer had long straight brown hair and a short compact muscular build. He wore an orange shirt and blue jeans. The strongest hand-to-hand fighter, or maybe even man, Kallen had ever met, Shinji Meada.

Shinji was stronger but Kallen was much faster, but she was surprised when he just stopped in the middle of the hall, looking like he was ready for the beating she was about to give him. Kallen leaped to tackle him. He calmly side stepped away and let her snatch the camra in mid-air with her arms outstretched.

Again, the chase made her forget that she was only clad in a towel....was. The towel had slipped off in mid-leap before she landed on her front. Apparently, Shinji and Gage greased up the floor with oil, so Kallen Kozuki, Ace of the Black Knights, Red Lotus of Japan, and rookie Guardian, slid down the rest of the way to her room at the end of the hall, naked. "NOOOOOOOOO," she yelled before she stopped, slamming against the door.

To her horror, CC opened the door and looked down. She saw a naked, oil slicked, Kallen getting up on all fours. CC picked up the camra under Kallen as she groaned for her head pain. The Guren pilot looked up with dread to see the green haired witch with a big smile as she prepared to take a photo of the humiliated girl. The flash went off in Kallen's eyes.

CC handed the camra to someone else behind the door, most likely Alice to hide it, before looking back at Kallen with the biggest amused smile the red-head had ever seen on the witch. "I'm sure Lelouch will enjoy that when he gets back," she said, holding back a laugh.

Kallen only moaned in response while her body turned red once again. 'This is going to be a loooooong weekend,' she thought. Gage and Shinji's laughter could be heard all throughout the halls of the barracks.

**************

5:30 A.M.

The next morning, back in her terrorist clothes, Kallen stood outside the entrance to the stadium. She was waiting for Lance so they could start their warm-ups, or 'pain starters' as Gage called them. "They must be exaggerating," she told herself, "Trying to scare the rookie. Ha! Rookie, it's not like they'll be able to do anything that I haven't handled before." She heard rumbling. "What's that sound?" The sound was coming from behind her, inside the stadium.

Kallen walked through the entrance to the arena that was used for training. What she saw along the track were a bunch of dangerous traps. Pit falls, stone pillars that rose up from the ground without warning, blades that swung back and forth overhead, arrows shooting out of the walls of the track, and flame throwers.

Kallen quivered. "Are they trying to kill me?"

The Guren pilot let out a yelp of surprise when someone poke her shoulder from behind. Kallen turned around to see Lance Coler standing behind her. Lance was a tall 47 year old Britannian with gelled back jet black hair with distinguishing gray sides and brown eyes hidden behind black rectangular silver rimmed sunglasses. He wore a red trench coat that was designed after a samurai kimono and had a collar that covered the lower half of his face, a black undershirt, baggy black pants tucked into brown boots, and dark brown gloves.

"Don't worry," he told her in a deep calm voice, "You won't be running that today, only when I think you are ready. Instead you are going on a run to the City Sector for your first day."

Kallen heaved a deep sigh that she didn't even notice she had prepared. "That's it?" she asked relieved.

To her despair, Lance shook his head. "No, you will be wearing these." He held out a pair of gray and green striped bracelets and a matching pair of anklets. Kallen took them and put them on her wrists and ankles.

"Okay, what are they for," she dared to ask. Lance didn't answer, but pulled out a controller from his coat pocket and pressed a few buttons on it. The green stripes of the bracelets and anklets lit up.

Kallen tried to lift her arm to observe it, but she struggled and hunched over. "What are these things?!" she questioned her instructor. "My arms and legs feel like they're carrying a hundred pounds each and fifty more on my back!"

"Those are gravity binders," Lance explained, "They increase gravity around you, making it heavier on you." He pointed to the trail leading through the Forest Sector to the City Sector. "Start running, it takes about 3 hours to get through the forest on a regular jog. You better get moving and finish in less than 3 hours." He began to walk away.

"Wait!" Kallen called after him, he didn't stop, "It's impossible-"

Lance stopped and told her something in tone that hinted her to never forget. "You are a Guardian now, Kallen Kozuki. That means the moment you accepted to become one, you accepted to take on any impossible feat to protect this world. So do not whine, do not say it is impossible for you, because it's not. From now on you are one of us and the price for becoming one of us is that you must always become stronger to protect the world." With that said he left her.

Kallen sighed and started walking the path. She grunted with the first step. "First step is always the hardest, Kallen," she told herself and continued walking.

*************

An hour had past and Kallen still hasn't made it to the first quarter of the way. Her muscles were beyond aching and her arms and legs never felt heavier.

"Dammit!" she cursed, "It's like I'm dragging a fucking boulder with me." She was sweating furiously and couldn't even wipe the sweat off her brow. She smiled in amazement. "Heh, no wonder Lelouch got so much stronger...I wonder what his first day was like. Oh well, I doubt he'll ever tell me."

**************

A half hour past and Kallen finally collapsed face forward on the ground on the halfway point to the halfway point. "I can't take it anymore," she complained, exhausted. The Guren pilot turned her head to the side and started to breath heavily, blowing dust out of the dirt away. "There was never any way that I could make it to the city in just three hours."

"That's right," said a voice in front of her. Zero's Ace was too tired to look up at the person, but knew who it was. "The whole point is to see how far you could go on your first try and to test your determination. You beat the person that everyone else beat...Lelouch...but he did try though. Anyway, you also beat me and Gage."

"What are you doing here, Alice?" Kallen asked bitterly.

"I just came to see if you've given up yet."

"Never!" Kallen exclaimed as she tried to move her arms to push herself up.

Alice shook her head, seeing Kallen's efforts in vain. "Just stay there and use this time to rest," the thief advised as she made to remove the gravity binds on Kallen's wrists and ankles. Despite being lighter than ever, Kallen still fell back to her original position on the ground. "You will need it for when the 3 hours are up." With that Alice left the Ace, now beginning to sleep on the soft dirt.

At the halfway point, Alice almost fell into one of the pit falls that Lance set. "Good thing I made Kallen stop," the master thief mused as she peered into the hole, seeing a bottom full of hard rocks, "Otherwise, that would hurt...a lot."

**************

Gage and Shinji walked up to the sleeping Kallen with a bunch of colored markers. They flipped her over on her back and Gage started snapping his fingers in her face.

He blew a low whisper and faked a worried look. "Wow. She is really out of it," his lips widened with a gleeful smile, "I call dibs on green and blue!"

Shinji chuckled as he handed Gage the colors he asked for. Shinji looked over Kallen's old terrorist outfit. "This will be so much fun," he said, "There are so many spots where we can draw."

They began drawing on every exposed part of Kallen's skin. In about an hour, they drew the classic curly mustache and goatee combo on her face along with drawing sunglasses on her. On her exposed shoulders they drew a tree on the right arm and fire on the left. They drew a face on her stomach and flowers on her thighs. When the two pranksters were done they took a picture with their cell phones and forwarded it to all the Black Knights on the island, titling the picture with the comment 'Kallen sleeping on the job.' When they were satisfied with their work, done in about an hour, Shinji and Gage ran off before Lance could show up and punish them.

*************

When her 3 hours were up, Lance searched for Kallen and found her lying on the ground.

"Get up," Lance commanded, nudging her with his foot. Kallen just groaned from being disturbed during her nap. She sat up, yawned, and blinked a few times before looking at Lance's irritated face.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked, curious while stretching her arms.

Lance sighed. "You should get a shower before we continue," he advised the Guren pilot.

"Why?" she asked confused.

"Just do it," he ordered, shaking his head. "Then meet me in the training ring for sword practice when you are done."

"Um...Okaaaay." Kallen had some trouble getting up, her muscles were still sore. The Guren pilot then began to walk back to the Guardian's barracks in the stadium.

When she was out of earshot Lance spoke. "Shinji and Gage were lucky," he said, thinking aloud. "She must have been really exhausted or she's a heavy sleeper."

************

Kallen was pissed when she found the ink marks on herself during her shower. She had to scrub extra hard to get the ink out of her skin. She was red from embarrassment, frustration, rage, and from the hard scrubs that scratched her.

"Damn those two," she growled to herself. "First humiliating me in front of CC and now drawing on me while I was too exhausted to wake up! They are acting like damn CHILDREN!" She crushed the bar of soap in her hand. She sighed and relaxed as she allowed the hot water droplets pound on her aching muscles. "At least they gave me a legitimate reason to take a relaxing shower. I really need it since those gravity binders were such a hassle on me." She thought about the walk back to the showers and moved around her arms. "I'm still aching all over, but I feel light as a feather now," the Guren pilot observed, then she remembered that obstacle course on the track. "Though, despite the workout...that obstacle course could still get me."

Kallen turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. She locked the door this time so the same thing from last night didn't happen. So now Kallen could safely towel off and change back to her terrorist clothes. Then she left for the next portion of her training for the day.

*************

Lance looked at his watch while he waiting alone in the sword room. It was now 10:40 A.M. and Kallen just arrived in the sword training room. He could tell that the long shower helped her relax her muscles some, but she was still sore...Not that it mattered.

Lance didn't utter a word when she walked up to him. He just took of his coat, revealing his sleeveless undershirt and muscular arms, and went over to the practice sword rack, which held an assortment of different types of wooden swords. He grabbed himself a wooden katana for himself. Kallen went over to the rack and reached for a wood katana like Lance did, but stopped herself. Lance saw her hesitating in her selection.

"What's the matter?" he asked his new pupil. Kallen didn't answer but her hand reached for a wood slim sword and grabbed it with her left hand instead. Then she jogged up to meet him in the center of the ring. "What made you hesitate in choosing?" Lance asked.

"N-nothing," Kallen lied. 'Nadie,' she thought.

"Very well," Lance took a few steps back and held his wood katana in his right hand, readying his stance as if he held it with two. "Get ready," he instructed.

Kallen spread her feet out and bent a little low. She held her practice weapon's point away from herself, behind her in her left hand. The rookie Guardian then closed her eyes and took a deep breath for a moment of mental preparation. She reopened her eyes with a look that told Lance that she was ready for him.

Kallen started to circle Lance as he remained motionless, waiting for her first move. After three minutes of circling, Kallen leaped toward his side and stabbed. Lance moved his katana to parry the stab, letting Kallen's wood sword slide across his. With his free hand, Lance grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a knee blow to her gut. Kallen clenched her teeth, holding back her grunt. Lance then pushed her several steps back.

It didn't take Kallen but a second to begin her attack again, swinging her practice sword in various motions directions and following with kicks and punches with her free right hand. The Black Knight Ace was not a quitter, no matter how much more skilled with the sword Lance was.

During the fight, Kallen notice that the speed of her attacks increased dramatically, thanks to Lance's so called 'warm-up.' Despite that though, Lance was able to block her attacks with ease.

When Kallen stopped and backed off, Lance began his assault. His swings, unlike Kallen's, were slower but packed so much more power that Kallen was pushed back with each block. Lance broke Kallen's guard with an upward slash that lifted her into the air. He then grabbed her ankle and pulled her down to the mat of the ring, slamming her on her back.

Lance swung his sword down at her but Kallen rolled out of the way. While getting up, Kallen slashed her practice sword at his legs. When he blocked it she tried to punch him in the face. Lance caught her fist and twisted her arm making her face away from him and drop her practice sword.

"You need to come up with something different," he told her, releasing her arm. "You are too predictable. I want you to stay here and continue practicing your moves. Practice for about the next 3 hours alone, then you have the rest of the day to yourself." With that Lance took his leave.

"Hai sensei," Kallen said with a bow. For the next 3 hours Kallen worked alone to work on her swordsmanship. Unbeknownst to her, Lance was watching her through a one way window.

*************

Kallen actually spent the whole day in that one room until it was 8:00 P.M. She practiced her own hand-to-hand and her swordsmanship, coming up with a way to utilize her new lightness due to the warm-up with the gravity binders. Now though, she is lying in her bed, asleep. CC and Alice watched her sleep as they dug into their pizza.

"She really pushed herself nonstop, huh?" Alice inquired.

CC swallowed a bite of her pizza. "It's only so she can continue to protect him," she answered in her monotonous voice, but something about her eyes showed actual caring in the immortal's eyes. "But he is strong enough to take care of himself now."

"Lelouch has become stronger," Alice agreed, "I think he did it because he no longer is allowed to just command anyone, but also he did it so he could fight on the front lines, to protect them all."

CC gave a small smile. "If the king doesn't lead personally, then how are the subordinates supposed to follow?"

"What?"

"It's something Lelouch always said."

"I see."

"The people serve the king but the king must be the knight of the people that serve him."

"Noa?"

"Correct."

Alice looked at Kallen in silence. "So what is she to do now?"

"Kallen will defend him while in turn Lelouch will defend her as the knight he is becoming," CC answered before they returned to just eating the pizza.

**************

The next day worked out pretty much the same way, warm up followed by sword practice. At the end of the day Kallen prepared to leave but found the clothes, including her undergarments, she packed gone. All that was in her case was a note from Gage and Shinji telling her they stole them and will give them back tomorrow, along with something else. Kallen told Alice to make sure they do nothing funny.

When she got home, Kallen ate dinner with her mom and went straight to bed. Tomorrow the exchange students will be arriving.

**************

"What are you drawing, Kaylin?" Roland asked from beside her seat on the plane.

Kaylin closed her sketch pad. "Nothing," she lied, looking at him.

Her face was flushed. "Are you feeling okay?" Roland asked, putting his hand on her head.

She grasped his arms with her delicate hands and pulled them down. Roland looked at her with a questioning look. With a smile she said, "I'm fine, I just need to rest."

Roland smiled back and let her use him as a pillow. "Sleep tight Kaylin," he told her, wrapping his arm around her. "I'll will be here for you...always."

**************

Back on the Ark....

"So Gage, what did you put in Kallen's bag," Shinji asked just before they opened the door to their room.

Gage reached for the door knob and turned it. "I put in a-" he opened the door and...BOOM!...an explosion of paint covered the two pranksters. "Paint bomb," he said, spitting out the pink paint that went into his mouth.

Throughout the halls of the barracks, they heard Alice laughing her ass off.

There's the first part of Act I. There will be more training days for Kallen and more pranks if you wish and suggest.

Anyway...Please Review and tell me what you think.