hmhm... fun, fun, fun.

Also, Anon, I know magikarp don't evolve from moonstones. They do, however, have mystical powers as the series's magic rocks, so it all depends on how they're used as to what effect they'll have. It was mostly the radio wave that evolved them really, the moonstone just sped up the process far too fast.

And my buffer is seven chapters long, and counting. O_o

-}+{-

"Oi." C.C. said, shaking Lelouch. "Wake up."

"Ugh… huh?"

"You're lucky to be alive, let alone undiscovered." C.C. told him as she lifted him from the floor into a sitting position. "Hold still."

POP

"Ngh!" Lelouch forced down a scream as C.C. popped his shoulder back in. "Wh-where's my mask?"

"Here." C.C. told him, handing the black helmet over. "Now, you have a battle to win."

Lelouch looked at his situation and at the mask in his hands. "C.C., contact Ohgi and tell him to give the order to retreat." He said, handing her his pokénav. "We've lost this one."

"It's rather unlike you to be so distressed that you can't give out orders yourself." C.C. pointed out as she hung up the phone. "Cornelia would-"

"My sword's gone." Lelouch told her. "So's raikou. Someone took them while I was unconscious."

"Then… someone saw your face?" C.C. realised.

"At least two people." Lelouch corrected, pointing at the puddles of blood on the floor. "One who stabbed, the other who got stabbed. There were two."

"We can assume that one of them wished to defend you." C.C. pointed out. "However, we do not know if that was the one who got stabbed or not." C.C. looked at Lelouch. "Who knows you as Lelouch but does not know you as Zero?"

"My main suspicions are the girls in student council, but it could just as easily be Suzaku, Cornelia at a stretch." Lelouch sighed, replacing his helmet. "Of course, it could also have been someone who supports Zero and doesn't know me personally. Either way, we need to find shelter away from them until we know for sure." He said. "Let's go."

Lelouch waited until the next morning before calling the Student Council room. _\_ "Hello?" _\_ Suzaku answered.

"Suzaku." Lelouch asked urgently. "Is there anything odd going on there?"

_\_ "Yeah, there's something very out of place." _\_ Suzaku said. _\_ "You." _\_

Lelouch furrowed his brow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

_\_ "That your place is here with Nunnally instead of pokémon battling wherever on earth you are." _\_ Suzaku laughed.

Lelouch sighed with relief. "Not that." He said. "Is there anything else amiss?"

_\_ "Well, Rivalz is still in hospital, but Shirley isn't here either." _\_ Suzaku told him. _\_ "But, she's been absent a lot lately. She should take her studies more seriously." _\_

Lelouch chuckled. "You are your grades…" He sighed. "You're alone with four beautiful women and you're talking about schoolwork?"

_\_ "Eh, wai, wah!?" _\_

Lelouch snickered. "Tell Nunnally I'll be home late tonight." He said.

_\_ "Again?" _\_ Suzaku sighed. _\_ "What's the point of being in the same school if we never see each other?" _\_

'We see each other a lot more than you think.' Lelouch sighed, rubbing his shoulder unconsciously as Suzaku yelped. "What's wrong?"

_\_ "Nothing!" _\_ Suzaku shouted. _\_ "Hey, clear off! YAGH!" _\_

The line went dead. "What's he doing over there?" Lelouch wondered as C.C. sat up.

"Judging from your conversation-" She started.

"Yeah, he doesn't appear to know." Lelouch finished. "Now we can almost rule out the possibility that the military saw me."

"I don't think anyone would be there other than the military and the Black Knights." C.C. pointed out.

"It could have been a survivor from Team Rocket." Lelouch suggested.

"And he just took your pokémon and your sword?" C.C. asked sardonically.

"I'll have Ohgi look for them on the black market." Lelouch decided, moving over to sit beside her and picking up one of the four pokéballs on the table. "Until then, we have the three Regis and suicune that Giovanni gave me."

"What about the blood?" C.C. sighed, flopping back down onto the settee, using Jiro as a pillow.

"It'll take time to analyse, but we still won't be able to track the owner without a previously identified sample." Lelouch sighed. "Also… I think that I saw Shirley on the battlefield."

"AH, that girl who kissed you?" C.C. remembered.

"Will you let that go?" Lelouch snapped.

"I was just asking, lover boy." C.C. pointed out teasingly, before sobering up. "If you're right, though, then we need to look into it right away."

Lelouch glared, then stood up and tugged his flak shirt off, walking into the bathroom. "First off is to search her room." He decided, closing the door behind him. "I'll just get changed first and then we can be off!"

After geassing Shirley's roommate to stand guard, Lelouch and C.C. got to work ransacking the room. "Why must I look through a stranger's underwear?" C.C. asked, stretching a pair of panties. "This is going to cost you."

"I know." Lelouch answered, rummaging through drawers.

"It would have been faster if you'd done it yourself." C.C. suggested. "Surely that girl wouldn't mind the man she loved showed such interest in-"

"That's none of your business."

"You've got some weird qualms." C.C. noted, sitting onto a bed and opening Shirley's diary. "Still, I don't see your sword or raikou anywhere, and her diary only goes up to the fourteenth."

"The fourteenth?" Lelouch asked, looking inside his pocket and pulling out the outdated tickets.

"Yeah." C.C. nodded.

"That's the day she found out about her father's condition." Lelouch told C.C., looking at the tickets, dropping the shoebox he was holding.

It banged on the floor, spilling out to show loads of photographs of Lelouch.

"What're these?" Lelouch asked as C.C. bent down ant picked up a handful.

"Pictures of you." She said. "Not just photos though, there's also clippings from some magazines about your exploits as a trainer."

"Me?" Lelouch asked, bending down to pick some up himself.

"You're acting awfully innocent for a guilty man." C.C. pointed out as Lelouch looked at a photo of Shirley's piplup hatching from an egg.

'I gave her that egg when she joined student council…' Lelouch remembered, glancing aside and noticing her train schedule had a bookmark in it.

He opened it up and glanced down the page. It was today's schedule, and one time was slightly smudged at the end, as if Shirley had been rubbing that time with her thumb.

'Narita…' Lelouch read, before realising what Shirley was doing. "Let's go." He announced, sending out his alakazam and grabbing C.C. as they teleported for the train station.

"Do you like this Shirley girl?" C.C. asked him once they were on the train.

"Dunno." Lelouch replied absently.

"Do you hate her?" C.C. asked, rephrasing her original question.

"Dunno."

"Then why are you going to Narita?" C.C. challenged, getting somewhat frustrated with her accomplice.

"Because there's a chance that she knows who I am." Lelouch told her.

"And what will you do if she does?" C.C. asked. "Will you kill her?"

Lelouch's eyes widened in shock at the idea. "You should stay away from those you don't want to lose." C.C. advised him.

Lelouch looked into C.C.'s eyes. ""Do you speak from personal experience?" he asked, trying to figure her out.

"No." C.C. replied, turning to face the window. "It's just my policy."

Lelouch, of all people, knew a lie when he heard one.

"I thought this was it." Lelouch announced, running towards the memorial built to those killed in his avalanche.

"Do you want us to split up and look for her?" C.C. asked him.

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"Now you ask me?" C.C. sighed. "And yes, I do. Long ginger hair, skinny, well endowed and always shouting 'Lulu'?"

"A rather cynical description, but yes, that's her." Lelouch sighed, setting off in the opposite direction.

'The possibility is remote.' Lelouch thought to himself as he searched. 'There's no guarantee that she's here.'

'Wait, what about the second person?' He realised. 'Where did he go, and what happened between him and Shirley?'

He grunted in frustration. 'I need to calm down, start over from the beginning.'

Then his pokénav started ringing.

It was Shirley.

"It's me." Lelouch said quickly as he answered it. "Where are you!?"

_\_ "Oh, I wonder." _\_ asked a man's voice.

The voice was also behind him.

Lelouch span round. "Who are you!?" He demanded, looking at the white-cloaked man holding Shirley's pokégear in front of him.

The man had thick, purple headphones covering his ears and a strip of purple fibreglass covering his eyes under his white hair. He pressed a button on the device and tossed it onto the ground at Lelouch's feet. "Bastard…" Lelouch growled. "What have you done with Shirley!?"

"Oh, how nice~!" the strange man sang, clapping his hands flimsily. "What a scary face! The face that says that your woman's been stolen and you're out for blood!"

"WHERE'S SHIRLEY!?" Lelouch roared.

"You want to know?" The man sneered, lowering his hands. "Well, let's have a battle over it. I hear you're good." He suggested, holding a shrunken dark ball between his fingers.

Lelouch reached for a ball on his belt. "Oh, not here~!" The man tutted, pocketing his pocket ball. "Somewhere no-one can disturb us." He giggled, sending out a xatu and using Teleport. The totem bird transported them both to the gondola that ran up to the top of the mountain as it set off from the station, otherwise empty. "Three pokémon each?"

'Is this man the other witness?' Lelouch thought as he reached for his weavile for the type advantage. 'I suppose that the battle is merely a trap, so he can take me to a secluded area, but if that was the case, why not just teleport us there directly?'

"Weavile!" He shouted, sending the pokémon out as it charged with a Night Slash as the cart began to move.

'Did he call me on Shirley's phone to intimidate me?' He thought as xatu dodged the attack, launching a Heat Wave at weavile. 'No, it was because he didn't know what I looked like…' "Icy wind!" 'That means that he didn't have time to get a picture of me…'

Cold air rushed through the cabin, colliding with the heat from the other man's side, creating sparks of lighting that struck xatu down, but wasn't enough to stop the heat from scortching weavile. "Ooh, not bad~!" the man giggled, clapping as his xatu got back to its feet and used Wish.

'This was no meticulously planned encounter.' Lelouch deducted, ordering his weavile to finish the xatu with an Ice Punch before its wish was granted. 'If that's the case…'

"Thought you could take advantage of me?" The man asked as he returned his fainted xatu. "You should focus on the battle, don't you think?" A blaziken shot out of the pokeball and ploughed a powerful Blaze Kick right into weavile's ribs, knocking it out and sending it flying to the other side of the gondola. The man grinned wider. "At this rate, you're going to lose."

Lelouch gritted his teeth, cursing the fact that he couldn't use the red gyarados he had captured for the perfect type advantage since Lancelot had killed it last night. "Charizard!" Lelouch shouted, sending out his dragon. "AIR SLASH!"

The dragon roared, tearing through the gondola only to be elbowed in the throat by a massive stone elbow from blaziken as it tore the bird's shoulder open, knocking the dragon out instantly. 'Stone edge…' Lelouch realised, deciding that it was time to get serious. "SUICUNE!"

The legendary dog surged from its pokéball, its keen eyes locked onto Mao's blaziken. The temperature of the gondola cabin suddenly dropped and the windows began to condensate from the aura the beast of the north winds emited.

Lelouch's jaw clenched. He knew this legendary would obey him as it had never escaped and gone wild like raikou had at the hotel. "Suicine, Hydro-!"

"Thunderbolt~!" The other man giggled as tossed out a fast ball. Raikou burst out of the pokéball and growled, confused but obedient. Lelouch gaped as the beast of water was struck down by a bolt of lightning from the beast of storms- never before had Lelouch regretted having trained a pokemon so well.

The man laughed as, beside him, his blaziken's shoulder healed. "Does this mean I win?" He asked, applauding himself.

The gondola lurched to a stop.

'He saw through me completely?' Lelouch thought in shock. 'Just who is this guy!?'

The man grinned at Lelouch happily, recalling the legendary pokémon before it realized who it was fighting and rebelled. "What?" he asked. "Didn't C.C. tell you~?"

That got Lelouch's brain back in gear.

"Well done." The man in white applauded. "You managed to think of sixteen possibilities and then narrow them down to four in an instant! And one of them is right, too!" he added, lowering his purple visor.

'A Geass user!?' Lelouch realised, his single Geass flaring up in response to the man's double barrelled Geass.

"Whoops~!" The man laughed, lifting his visor to cover his eyes again. "You can't use your Geass unless you look directly into the target's eyes, can you?" He asked. "I know all these little rules, you see." He shrugged.

'You read my mind?' Lelouch thought loudly.

"It's the power of my Geass." The man answered.

"Did you hurt Shirley!?" Lelouch shouted, taking a step towards the man. "Did you… DID YOU KILL HER!?"

"Of course not, she's right behind you~!" The man laughed as Shirley knocked on the window closest to Lelouch. "Well then, let's start the penalty game, shall we?" He applauded as Shirley drew Zero's blade from her sports bag.

"Shirley…" Lelouch gasped as the doors opened and the blaziken pushed Lelouch out onto the steps. "That blade…"

"Yes." She nodded, holding the sword out. "It's Zero's sword. Yours, Lulu."

"Use your Geass." The man suggested, walking out behind Lelouch. "You haven't used it on her yet, have you?" Lelouch glanced behind him to see the blaziken's claw hovering behind his head. "Of course, that brilliant mind of yours will get barbecued if you do~."

The man in white applauded at his own deviousness.

'Is it only my consciousness he can read?' Lelouch thought desperately. 'Are there any limits to its use, like mine? What's its time lag, and how long can he keep it up? What does he want anyway? If he wanted to kill me, then…'

"Yes, think about it!" the man in control taunted. "Use that brilliant strategic mind of yours! Let those cogs spin and spin and spin like a crazed hitmontop!"

"SHUT UP!" Lelouch shouted, turning to face him.

"It's a fitting end to a thief like you." The man chuckled.

"Lulu." Lelouch turned to see Shirley. "Please, just die. Let's repent our sins. We'll die together." She pleaded.

"What sins?" Lelouch asked. "YOU'VE DONE NOTHING WRONG!"

"She stabbed the other witness to protect your secret." The man behind Lelouch explained with a giggle.

'Then… that bloodstain…'

"Let's just end it, Lulu." Shirley pleaded.

"Yes, yes, penance for your sins~!"

The penny dropped in Lelouch's brain. "You bastard." He snarled, turning back to the man. "What did you do to her!?"

Then the pound dropped. 'If he can read people's minds, it would be easy to manipulate them! Exposing their weakness's, twisting their thoughts, it's easy if you do it right, even without a Geass…'

"Yes, yes!" the man laughed, applauding. "That's exactly it!"

"DON'T LET HIM FOOL YOU SHIRLEY!!" Lelouch screamed at her. "HE'S-"

"No, you were the one who fooled her." The man in white corrected, wagging a finger. "It was all you."

"STOP IT!" Shirley screeched, closing her eyes and stabbing forward.

"GARGH!" Lelouch screamed, grunting as he felt the sword embedded into the side of his chest. "Shirley, if murder is a sin, then how will more sins achieve redemption?" Lelouch asked her as he reached for her hands, doing some manipulating of his own despite the pain.

"Oooh, you're good!" the man laughed. "You've really got a way with words."

"Did you really kill someone?" Lelouch continued, ignoring his opponent except to point at him. "Or did he just say that the wound you inflicted killed someone?"

"She realised all by herself that there was no need to keep hiding it." The man in white gloated.

"If that was the truth, then I killed Rivalz."

"EH?!" Shirley gasped, opening her eyes in shock.

"No, no, because Rivalz is still alive." The man behind him corrected.

"For all we know, so is the other witness, LIKE ME!" Lelouch snapped, before looking back into Shirley's eyes. "Shirley, Rivalz came to me after cutting his own arm off after it got crushed under the landslide I MADE!!" He shouted. "And do you know what he told me?"

"Wh-what..?" Shirley asked, shaking all over as the man behind Lelouch said something that neither she nor Lelouch paid attention to.

"He told me that he forgave me." Lelouch told her. "Even though that nothing I can ever do will ever make what I did to him right, he forgave me, because he's a better person than I am. None of us are perfect." He told her. "Everyone has things that they're ashamed of. He's just twisting the parts of you that you don't like to make you do something you know that you don't want to do."

"Lulu…"

"And I'm sorry." Lelouch told her. "I don't expect you to forgive me, because what I did to your father was unforgivable." He carefully pried the blade from Shirley's fingers. "But don't do this…" He begged her. "Please…"

"Maaaan~, how boring." The man yawned. "Burn 'em."

A common twist in old western movies is that in a pokémon battle, the trainer who orders his attack second is more likely to survive.

This is because to act, the brain must make a decision, send the message to the body, and then carry it out.

However, to react, the body bypasses the brain entirely and makes the decision without the mind knowing about it.

This was why the mind reader couldn't predict Lelouch spinning around, tearing the sword out of his own chest and slicing the blaziken's burning hand off as it prepared to launch a Flamethrower, then lunge and stab the pokémon in the chest, by which point it was too late to stop Lelouch from bringing his sword up through the blaziken's body, slicing its heart, lung and throat open, killing it with a spray of blood.

The pokémon fell down the steps as Lelouch unleashed his battle cry, charging at the mind-reader with his blade, ready to spill blood for Arceus.

"Whoa there!" the mind reader shouted, dodging back into the gondola, grabbing a rifle from the seat. "Looks like I'll have to kill you both-"

The doors closed on Lelouch's blade, stopping it as it pierced the man's visor, cracking it as he fell back in fear. 'That's right…' Lelouch realised. 'Mind-reading isn't much help if the only thought in my head is KILL!!'

Lelouch pulled the blade back as the gondola began descending down the rail, dropping it on the concrete and running up the steps to catch the collapsing Shirley. "It's alright." He whispered into her ear, helping her to her knees. "It's okay…"

"Lulu…" She said weakly. "I stabbed someone… so…"

He embraced her tightly. "It's alright." He whispered. "It was my fault. It was not your fault, Shirley!"

"But… I stabbed you too…"

"But I'm alive." Lelouch told her. "It wasn't your fault, and I forgive you…"

"But…"

"But… I stabbed you too…" she said, nearly hysterical with grief and fear.

"But I'm alive." Lelouch told her. "It wasn't your fault, and I forgive you…"

"But…"

"Lay your sins on me!" Lelouch told her, holding her tightly, staining her coat with his blood. She buried her head in his chest, but did not return the embrace.

"I… I wanted you to comfort me…" Shirley sobbed. "Because… daddy… never would…"

"What's wrong with that?" Lelouch asked.

"But… daddy…" She choked up into another jagged sob.

"Just forget it." Lelouch told her, pulling back and looking into her eyes. "Just forget all the bad stuff."

"I CAN'T!" Shirley shouted, pulling away from him and looking down at the floor with tears pouring from her eyes.

"YOU CAN!"

Shirley looked up at Lelouch. "I can make you forget." He told her.

"No…"

"Shirley, I'm sorry about your dad." He told her as she gazed into his eyes. "If I had to do it all over again, I'd…"

"Lulu?" Shirley asked in fear as Lelouch's Geass flared up. "NO!!"

That evening, Lelouch walked up to the memorial to see Shirley. "Did you lose a family member too?" She asked him.

"No, not a family member." Lelouch told her sadly. "A very, very close friend."

"I see…" Shirley sighed.

"Loss makes you realise a lot of things." Lelouch said as he gripped his bandaged chest under his shirt. "Doesn't it? How much you loved her smile? How you'll never laugh or fight together again?"

"You loved her, didn't you?" Shirley asked him with a sad smile.

Lelouch turned away and looked at the stone floor. "I don't know anymore…" He admitted.

"A new day will come." Shirley told him with a smile. "I didn't even know why I came here until a moment ago. I just needed to see this place one last time. My father's forgotten a lot of things, but I'm sure that we can build a new relationship together, so a new day will come." She smiled. "So there's no need to hold it all in."

Lelouch looked back at the floor with a sad smile. "You're right." He admitted. "I think so too." He turned away from her. "Thank you for everything."

"Huh?" Shirley asked as Lelouch walked away from her, alone in the dark.

She couldn't help but think how lonely his back looked.

"How do you feel?" C.C. asked him on the train back.

"Awful." Lelouch told her. "But thank you for treating me."

"I need you alive." She told him. "I can't have you committing suicide."

"Well then, if you don't want me dead…" He glared at C.C. "Tell me all about that Geass user, because he sure as hell knows about you."

C.C. looked away. "Can it wait?" She asked. "I need some time to think."

Lelouch leaned forward and grabbed her wrist, hard.

"No C.C." He growled. "Tell. Me. Now."

"Your Geass won't work on me, remember?" She pointed out, then sighed. "Alright then." She decided. "His name is Mao."

As she explained Mao's story, Lelouch got to work on a plan.

Revenge was in order.

-}+{-

Yes. I am happy with this.

No actually, I'm not happy. Happy is the opposite of what I'm feeling right now.

Satisfied, that's the word.