Whoo, new chapter time.
But yeah, the fanfiction's glitching up, so yeah.
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A few days later, Zero had prepared a surprise for Sableye.
"What's wrong?"Zero asked the members of Sableye as Ohgi opened the door to their new base, a luxury mobile transport. Similar to a bus, it was the type of vehicle only available to the rich and influential- naturally, the Japanese rebels felt alien to the idea that once such vehicle was at their disposal. Zero almost found himself chuckling at their expressions. "Come in, this is our hideout from now on."
"Can I assume this means that you intend to join us?" Ohgi asked tentatively, walking into the room.
"Yes." Zero told them. "We are companions."
"Wow, this is amazing…" Tamaki whistled. "What is this?"
"Where did you get something like this?" Ohgi asked their new benefactor with caution.
"A dilettante noble gave it to me when I asked him." Zero answered truthfully.
"When you asked him?" Tamaki asked suspiciously.
"That easily?" Sugiyama asked with awe.
"Don't worry." Zero comforted them. "It can't be traced."
"Hey, it's got a second floor!" Yoshida shouted. Sableye had recruited some of the remnants of another rebel faction after the recent battle.
"Isn't this getting a little too big?"
"But it's also possible that they won't check something like this." Kallen pointed out.
"Hey, it's even got a TV." Minami noted, sitting down on the couch and picking up the remote as he turned on the TV.
_\_ "What's going on at the scene!?" _\_ the announcer bellowed.
_\_ "Yes, I'm standing here in front of the Kawaguchi Lake convention centre." _\_ reported the female reporter. _\_ "The hotel-jackers have identified themselves as members of Team Rocket. Members of the Moonstone Distribution Council, including Chairman James, as well as tourists who happened to be staying there, along with several hotel staff, have been taken hostage." _\_
_\_ "This is a video sent by one of the criminals." _\_ she continued as the screen switched to show shaky footage of Britannians kneeling with their hands behind their heads as the black-clad rebels pointed their guns at them while raticate, golbat, arbok, hypno and other pokémon lurked around the room. _\_ "In addition to Chairman James, you can see students in here." _\_ The screen panned around the room and showed Nina, Shirley and Milly kneeling amongst them.
"The student council…" Kallen breathed.
"Hm?" Zero hm'ed as the reporter continued her report.
_\_ "The leader of hotel-jackers has identified himself as Rocket Executive Petrel, from the former Japanese army." _\_ she said. _\_ "Moonstone is a critical component in the manufacture of other evolutionary stones, as well as TM's, HM's, pokéballs and other items we use in our daily lives, making it a strategic resource with world-wide security implications. Area 11 is the world's largest supplier of Moonstone, supplying over seventy percent of the supply on the world market. The yearly Moonstone Producing Nations conference held here decides the international distribution rate of moonstone. It's fair to say that the results of this discussion decide the power balance between we Britannians and the rest of the world. It's thought that Team Rocket chose this time to take action because the entire world's attention is focused here." _\_
"They've taken action?" Sugiyama asked.
"They're the largest anti-Britannian faction there is." Ohgi explained. "They've got their pride."
"Towards us?" Minami asked.
"Might be." Ohgi shrugged.
"I don't know whether to be happy or sad." Tamaki shrugged. "All it's gonna get them is an honourable death."
Lelouch looked down at his phone. 'Rivalz…'
He rejected the call. 'I know'. He thought, imagining Rivalz throw down his phone in rage, 'But…'
"There are boxes that we need to unpack." Lelouch told everyone, walking up the stairs. "Please excuse me."
"Hey, we're not your servants! You think you're so above us?" Tamaki asked angrily.
"Our next mission will bring us into contact with Team Rocket.This will be a very delicate operation."Zero told them, booting up a computer and sitting down. "I need to think of a plan quickly."
That shut him up. "Alright, let's leave the strategist to it." Ohgi said, opening the cupboard and getting to work.
'I need an organisation to fight Britannia.' Lelouch thought as he watched Shirley's father beg for his daughters life. 'But it's too soon… But I can't leave it alone. I know Cornelia; if it comes to it, she'll ignore the hostages and-'
'Then why doesn't she move?' Lelouch asked himself. 'She can't… something is holding her back. But the only thing that could would be…' Turning to his laptop, Lelouch made a quick search and confirmed his suspicions- his sister Euphemia was in Area 11, preparing to adopt a role in the government as Deputy Vicerine to Cornelia. He looked back up at the television as the pieces to his new plan fell into place.
"Zero." Kallen asked him. "What's going to happen to the hostages?"
Lelouch paused the news report. "Either way, they have no reason to leave the Britannians alive." He told her honestly.
"I see…" Kallen nodded as Ohgi came through the door. "You're right, aren't you?"
"Hey, Zero!" Ohgi asked, showing the box to the masked man. "Should I give these to everybody? I think they're pretty cool, but we're a resistance called Sableye-"
"No." Zero corrected, swivelling to face him. "We are not a resistance. We are not Sableye."
"Then… what are we?" Ohgi asked.
Zero stood up. "What we are to be are…" He raised his arm to show his snag machine. "Heroes of justice."
He strode out of the room. "Distribute the uniforms and start the engine." He ordered. "I know what to do now."
Once they reached the lake, Lelouch geassed a reporter to make him hand over his news van, and he stood atop it as Kallen drove into the middle of the army.
He could almost hear his men in the van below him murmur against him as Cornelia rode her tyranitar to block the bridge with two of her underlings, each riding rhyperiors.
'Cornelia.' Lelouch thought to himself. 'I'd love to give you the chance to repay your debt, but you'll be more useful later on. If I'm reading this right, I don't need to use the Geass here.'
"We meet again, Zero." Cornelia declared atop her pokémon, which was holding a large black staff with a huge golden spike at one end. "Are you a member of Team Rocket?" She asked. "Or are you going to cooperate with us?"
"Not that it matters. I've got more important priorities here." She said, not giving him chance to answer. "I'll take my revenge for Clovis right here!" She shouted, drawing a long barrelled gun and pointing it at Zero.
"Cornelia, which will you choose?" Zero asked her, looking down the barrel without so much as a twitch. "The dead Clovis, or the living Euphemia?"
'Good, I was right.' Lelouch smirked to himself at the sight of Cornelia's face. 'The first condition is clear. You're the same as always, my dear sister. You've always loved her.' He remembered. 'So you can't move. Your emotions are interfering.'
"I will save Euphemia." Zero declared.
…
"I don't know what you're talking about, Zero!" Cornelia shouted once she recovered from the shock.
"I will save her." Lelouch repeated. "I can do it!"
Cornelia glared, then lowered her weapon. "Let them through." She decided, glaring straight ahead as the van carrying Zero passed by her.
'Will Team Rocket welcome me as a comrade, or treat me as an enemy?' Lelouch pondered. 'Either way, they won't be able to resist the temptation to talk to Zero. Which means…'
The gates opened before him, just as planned. 'All the requirements for this operation are clear.' Lelouch grinned to himself. 'This battle is won.'
"Why don't you join me?" Zero asked Executive Petrel.
"Then show yourself." Petrel demanded. "It's rude of you to remain masked!"
"Understood." Zero nodded. "But before then, let me ask you something. What do you seek to gain from this?"
"Like I care." Petrel grunted. "I just want the world to know that Team Rocket, no, Japan, is still alive!"
"Obsolete…"
Petrel leant forward in confusion.
"You are all obsolete."Zero sighed, disappointed. "It's too late for you to be saved."
"Why you!" one grunt shouted.
"What do you mean, Zero?" Petrel asked.
"Your world is no more." He told them. "It is a dead place and you no longer belong among the living."
"Then there's nothing more to talk about!" Petrel shouted, sending out his weezing and charging with a katana.
"Die."
Moments later, the door was barged down and the Rocket grunt doing it got his shoulder sliced open by a Scyther. "Calm down." Zero told him. "Petrel and the others committed suicide." Their pokémon began to realise that they were now free and began to look for an escape. "They realised the futility of what they were trying to achieve."
"Euphemia." Lelouch said, looking at the pink-haired princess. "You revealed yourself to help the masses? That's like you." He told her.
He then turned to the other Rocket Grunts. "Leave her with me and wait outside." He ordered.
Once they were alone, he returned his pokémon as the wild ones broke out the window. "I heard you were given the title of Deputy Vicereine, Princess Euphemia." Lelouch told her.
"It's not something to be happy about." Euphemia told him defiantly.
"Yes, because Clovis is dead." Zero told her. "I killed him." Euphemia half-gasped. "He begged for his life until the very end." He told her as her face slowly grew into a glare. "With the same mouth he used to order the deaths of Elevens."
"Is that why you killed him?" Euphemia demanded softly, refusing to cry.
"No."
"Then why!?"
"Because he was the child of that man, the Emperor of Britannia."
The princess gasped properly this time. "Now that I think about it…" Zero told her, raising a sword at her. "So are you…"
Sword leveled to his sister, Zero stared at her, testing her. Euphemia's face was filled with terror, but she refused to beg or scream, glaring back at him with defiance in her expression that Lelouch found almost… nostalgic. "But then again…"
_\_ "ZERO!!" _\_ Kallen shouted in his ear. _\_ "WE NEED YOUR HELP DOWN HERE!" _\_
He lowered his blade and activated his communicator. "What is it Q-1?"
_\_ "There's these two… monsters fighting down here!" _\_ She reported. _\_ "One of them's that thing from Shinjuku, but the one Team Rocket had suddenly went berserk! We're all whiped out!" _\_
"Is everything else in place?" Lelouch asked her.
_\_ "Yes!" _\_
"I'm on my way." Zero told her, pulling out a ball and releasing his sandslash. "Please, make your way down to the others quickly." he told Euphemia as the sandslash began to glow with a dark brown energy. "We shall meet again."
With that, he disappeared into the ground.
Zero landed in the under-water tunnel and stood up in the dim red lighting to examine the scene.
Suzaku's mewtwo was fighting a yellow tiger with a purple mane and an electric blue tail. A figure in white armour, presumable Suzaku, was helping, barely, but Zero's subordinates were unable to do anything.
"Go help the others above." Zero ordered Kallen and Minami. "I will sort this out."
"ZERO!" Suzaku shouted as the black armoured figure rushed forward to help the situation.
It only made sense that Petrel would have something like this. A Legendary pokémon.
Japan was naturally in abundance of pokémon such as these, in compared to the rest of the world, but they were still unbelievably rare.
And since Lelouch ordered Petrel to kill himself, it's only natural that the pokémon would go wild and attack indiscriminately in its outrage at being captured.
That said, Lancelot the mewtwo was doing a good job at keeping it under control, but barely. Mewtwo had power-dampening armour to keep it under control, and this pokémon was getting a power boost from it's new freedom. The beast rushed around the room with frightening speed, making it diffucult for Lancelot to get a single hit on it.
Lightning crackled across the room. "What do we know about this thing?" Zero asked Lelouch as his sandslash charged in to fight.
"They called it raikou, and it seems to be an electric type." Suzaku reported, nursing his ribs, but then he remembered himself. "Wait-"
"My current objective is to subdue this pokémon and save the hostages." Lelouch told him. "I believe we can at least work together to achieve that."
Suzaku as shocked, but nodded. "LANCELOT!" He shouted. "Zero's helping now!"
Mewtwo gave Suzaku a look that seemed to ask if Zero was ever not helping in this situation, but returned to the task at hand and launched raikou back with a Mega Punch.
The raikou twisted and recovered from the blow, but it's hind leg stuck into a pitfall created by Zero's sandslash, causing the beast to stumble.
Spotting his chance, Zero ran forward and sent out crobat to increase his speed as raikou burst forward, knocking crobat out with a bolt of electricity.
Lelouch jumped from the bat, his suit having protected him from the discharge of energy, and grabbed a fast ball, ramming it into raikou's face with his snag arm. The pokémon was turned into energy and the ball began shaking madly. Landing, Lelouch slammed his fist down and held the ball against the concrete floor with all his might, but the pokémon was steadily overpowering him. He gritted his teeth as he felt his arm become numb from the vibrations, and he knew it was only a matter of time until-
Lelouch felt a large three-fingered hand push down on his own, and looked up to see mewtwo helping subdue raikou.
PING
Mewtwo stepped back as Lelouch inspected the new member to his party, before turning to Suzaku. "You should leave here before the explosives go off." He warned, turning to mewtwo and patting it on the shoulder. "Thank you."
Mewtwo tilted its head at Zero, then turned to float to Suzaku as Lelouch returned his fainted pokémon and sent out raikou, riding atop it down the tunnel.
It obeyed him now.
The tower exploded, and as the smoke cleared, Lelouch activated the camera pointed at his masked face. "Britannians!" He declared, turning the camera to face the life boats in the water. "Fear not. I have saved all the hostages in the hotel. I will return them to you now."
Lights then flared to life behind him, revealing the former members of Sableye in their new black coats, face-covering visors, snag-arms and caps. "People Of The World!" Zero declared. "Fear us, and seek us out! We are the Order of the Black Knights!"
He paused for effect. "We of the Black Knights stand with all those who have no power to defend themselves… regardless of whether they be Elevens or Britannians!" He declared. "Team Rocket cowardly took innocent Britannian civilians hostage, and they mercilessly executed them! It was a wanton and meaningless act; therefore, they have been punished… The former Viceroy Clovis was the same. He ordered the slaughter of countless unarmed Elevens!"
"I cannot ignore such atrocities, thus I punished him." Zero declared. "We cannot stand by and allow such cruelty to be carried out, and so we made him pay for his actions." Zero continued. "I will not refuse to fight; rather, a battle is such a thing of honour and pride! But will I tolerate a one-sided massacre of the weak by the strong? NO!"
"The only ones who should kill are those who are prepared to be killed!" Zero preached. "When those with power attack the powerless, we shall appear again, no matter how mighty or formidable our foe may be!"
"You with power." Zero warned, flicking his left hand out from his cloak. "FEAR US! Those without power…" He flicked his right arm with the snag machine out. "JOIN US! WE! THE BLACK KNIGHTS! SHALL JUDGE!"
"THIS!!"
"WORLD!!"
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That's a nice place to leave it.
But hey, who care's if it's short? I have an epic update rate.
Besides, the next episode takes place two weeks after this one. It's kinda jarring to have a timeskip in the middle of a chapter.