Alrighty then. Last chapter was a bit of a brain melter, but it's a major plot point that will start to make no sense at all next chapter.

For now, all I'll say is that the Geass Order worked different in this story than it did before.

Pokémon change a lot of things.

Also, I appear to have scared a lot of people by declaring that I intend to out-do Fairly English Story. I stand by that statement.

Also, Deviant Fish, Hypnosis puts the pokémon to sleep. Doesn't control them.

Another important announcement, this is where the story stops being set in indiscriminate Japan, and now in specific places in the Pokémon universe. The school exists in Cerulean city.

-}+{-

'A few months ago, Sableye were lucky to capture one motorcycle.' Lelouch smirked to himself. 'Now, we're using a friggin submarine as our mobile base! It's official; love Rakshad.'

"And now I'd like to announce the results of the restructuring of our organisation!" Zero declared aboard said submarine. "Supreme Commander of Military Forces shall be Toudou Kyoshiro!" This was met with murmuring agreement. "Chief Intelligence Commissioner, in charge of intelligence gathering and public relations shall be Diethard Ried!"

Now for the murmuring disagreement. "Zero." Nagisa of the Heavenly Blades shouted. "I do not mean to sound like a racist, but what is your reasoning for placing a Britannian in such a sensitive position?"

"My reasoning?" Zero asked, waving his arm out. "What of me then? As you all know, I am not Japanese either. All I need is the ability to produce results. That is the sole reason you all follow me. Matters of race, past experience or tactics mean nothing to me."

"Alright, alright." Tamaki groaned.

"Silver Laguada shall be the head of the internal police and Black-Op's corp," Zero continued, "and Ohgi Kaname shall be my second-in-command and head of staff."

"Me?" Ohgi asked.

"Disappointed?" Tamaki jeered.

"N-no." he answered, shaking his head.

"Well, you were our original leader." Sugiyama reminded him.

"And it's not like he's gonna pick a newcomer." Minami added.

"Rakshad, you are in charge on Research and Development." Zero added.

"Of course." She sighed, puffing at her pipe.

"Kallen Kozuki, you are in charge of Squad Zero."

"Squad Zero?" Kallen asked.

"Squad Zero is the unit directly under my command." Lelouch explained. "Think of it as my honour guard."

A chard appeared on the screen behind Zero. "Asahina Shougo will command Squad One." He continued. "Senba Ryouga will command Squad Two. Kagesaki Kizuna will command Squad Three…"

"Finally, Tamaki Shinichiro will command the third Special Operations unit." Zero finished. "That is all."

"Alright!" Tamaki cheered, oblivious to how low in the chain of command his new position actually was.

'Nothing for C.C.?'Kallen thought to herself, glancing at the green-haired woman. The witch caught her look and made a point of stoking her hair in a bored manner, clearly showing she saw such matters as beneath her.

"Zero, I would like to discuss something with you later on." Diethard announced.

Like everyone else, Lelouch had been shocked to discover Suzaku had been chosen for knighthood, not in the least because it had been his own actions that had catapulted his friend into the position. He hadn't known the woman his friend had occasionally mentioned had been his sister Euphemia, but in hindsight he supposed the hints were there. Still, it was with mixed feelings that he watched the ceremony, and so was rather curious when Diethard brought up a projection of the scene to underline whatever point he was trying to make.

Diethard stopped the video of Suzaku Kururugi's knighthood ceremony close-up of the young man's face . "Suzaku Kururugi." He told Zero. "He may become a rallying point for Britannian sympathisers in the Eleven population. I suggest assassinating him."

"Assassinate him?" Ohgi asked.

"I see." Rakshad nodded. "Those against Britannia see Zero as their figurehead, but the collaborators haven't taken a liking to anyone at all."

"People cannot be made to act on principle alone." Diethard explained. "Now that the Britannians have a symbol on their side, the most effective tactic would be assassination."

"I disagree!" Toudou told him sharply. "Such backhanded tactics will lose us the support of the Japanese population."

"That's right." Ohgi nodded. "The Order of the Black Knights are allies of justice; we do not kill unarmed people. Assassination implies that we target him personally, when he can't fight back."

"I merely suggested the most effective and least risky plan." Diethard explained. "Zero will decide."

Lelouch had already discussed the possibility of this with C.C., and reached both his decision and how he would go about explaining it some time ago. "We do not attack unarmed people." Zero told them. "If he falls in battle, that is a different matter entirely, but for now he does not meet the criteria to be targeted personally by the Black Knights. There is, however, the issue of his 'Dragon Rush' to consider.
"I want to learn how he does such a thing and how we can use it." Zero told his officers. "The best way to do that is if he is alive."

Back at the Ashford Academy, Rivalz juggled a bottle of champagne, pouring some into the new knight's glass. "I DECLARE THIS PARTY TO CELEBRATE SUZAKU KURURUGI'S PROMOTION TO KNIGHTHOOD OPEN!!"

Lelouch rushed into the party room, tugging on his school blazer, before backtracking, seeing Nina looking at a computer screen in the adjacent room. "Not coming to the party Nina?" he asked her.

"I-I'm fine." Nina hurriedly replied. "I'll just do this work…"

"What is it?" Lelouch asked, looking over her shoulder. The computer screen was an indescribable mess of figures and coloured lines hastily scurrying up the screen.

"Erm… I'm just analysing some DNA I found on a comet that landed in the school grounds…" Nina murmured, seemingly at ease with the pandemonium on screen.

"Probably one of the few things I don't get." Lelouch sighed, standing up straight. "Well, at least come and have a drink with everyone, if not for Suzaku, then for Princess Euphemia's sake."

"Eh?" Nina asked, looking up at him in surprise, before blushing slightly and looking back at the computer. "Um… I'll… think about it…"

Lelouch shook his head absently and slunk into the party to see Kallen approaching Suzaku with murder in her eyes and her hidden purse-knife in her hand.

"Hey! Kallen!" Shirley shouted. "Can you give me a hand with these?"

Kallen ignored her, focused only on her target.

Lelouch reached out and grabbed her wrist. "Shirley needs your help."

"I'll be there in a minute…" Kallen said, trying to tug her hand free.

"Help out Shirley. That's the only thing that needs to be done right now." He told her pointedly, before turning to Suzaku. "Hey, Sir Prancalot!" he shouted over the crowd.

Suzaku turned to his friend and smiled. "Very funny." He laughed, walking over to him. Kallen glanced between them and slinked off into the crowd.

"So, so sorry!" shouted a man in a labcoat from the door, standing there with Nina. "We've got work to do, Suzaku!"

"Uh, right…" Suzaku sighed.

"Who's that?" Lelouch asked.

"My boss." Suzaku chuckled as Milly walked up to the scientist.

"Lloyd!" Milly asked him, surprised to see the strange man . "Do you need something?"

"Oh? Do you know him Milly?" Nina asked.

"We're engaged." Lloyd told her in his outdoor voice, much to the shock of everyone in the room. "Aren't we?" Lloyd asked Milly after the swarm of gasps.

"Ah, there it is." Suzaku nodded.

"You knew?" Lelouch asked.

"Yep." Suzaku grinned sheepishly.

"I'll kill 'im." Rivalz snarled, slipping the blades out of his arm. "Whoever this guy is, I'll tear his guts out."

"He's a Count." Suzaku warned.

"A Count!?" Rivalz slipped the blades back surreptitiously. "Well, alright, but what exactly is their relationship?" he asked Suzaku.

"They're engaged." Lelouch pointed out.

"NOOOOOO!!!" Rivalz screamed, clutching his shaven head. "IT'S!! NOT!! POSSIBLE!!" He turned tail and ran out of the room, knocking several students onto the floor in his retreat.

"So, um, have we been mobilised?" Suzaku asked Lloyd as they stepped out of the busy room, trailed by Lelouch.

"Yup." Lloyd nodded. "There's a VIP coming by ship in Evergrande city, and we need to greet him." He explained. "Of course, Lancelot and Princess Euphemia are to come too.

Lelouch took in all this information, and began to formulate a plan.

Evergrande.

The pokémon league head office in Hoenn, and Britannia's second biggest palace in Area Eleven, after the Indigo Plateau.

Euphemia was going to that island to greet a nobleman from Britannia. Suzaku Kururugi, as her knight, must therefore be there too.

Because of the size of the small island, while it will be filled with many, many powerful trainers, their maneuverability will be limited, especially considering their space would be cut in half by Victory Road.

"The goal of this mission is to capture Suzaku Kururugi and the Lancelot." Zero told his knights as they travelled to Hoenn by submarine. "We will win this battle and capture them, fair and square."

"What shall we do once we've captured them?" Tamaki asked.

"I would like to deal with them personally." Zero told his knights.

"Diethard." Zero said as he approached the man later. "What did you tell Kallen to do?"

"I merely asked her to do a little information gathering on Suzaku Kururugi." The Britannian reporter lied. "Please stop jumping to conclusions."

Zero turned him around and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, slamming the Britannian man into the wall. "Don't Screw With Me." Lelouch snarled. "I made an explicit decision and you went behind my back and attempted to circumvent MY authority to do what only you thought was best."

Zero dropped the man. "You've been demoted." He told Ried. "You are now Blue Izayoi's personal assistant. She's now got your job. I want results, not good intentions. Why did you even join the Black Knights in the first place, if you cannot grasp even that?"

"When I first saw you, when you rescued Suzaku Kururugi, you sent shivers down my spine." Diethard told Zero, getting to his feet. "It was as though a new age had taken human form, and was standing in front of me." He grinned. "I want to record you as you build your organisation, overthrow a nation, and eventually rule over the entire world! I will record your history from as close as I can get!" he declared. "Nothing is more exiting for me."

"Record?" Zero asked. "If you change events yourself, you'll be making history, not recording it."

"There is no such thing as objective information, Zero!" Diethard told his master. "Journalism is, after all, a human creation."

"You are not to involve yourself with military affairs. No exceptions. No loopholes." Lelouch ordered him.

"Understood." Diethard answered with a bow.

Within half an hour, the Black Knights were attacking Evergrande.

Now that the chain-of-command was in place and made clear, maneuvering the troops was so much easier than it was before.

Toudou was doing very well himself. Regigigas was still warming up, so while its power built up it served as a focal point for the enemy, luring them into attacking it. Chiba and Asahina would then sweep in with their suicune and regice, freezing and trapping the enemy and making them easy pickings for the registeel and regirock of Senba and Urabe. It was clear now how he managed to hold off Britannian's without a pokémon centre to heal his pokémon. Frankly, Lelouch was looking forward to seeing them in action once regigigas moved beyond its slow start.

Things were going exactly to plan, even as Suzaku entered the battle with his Lancelot.

"Now… Suzaku…" Lelouch said to himself atop raikou. "Come to me."

The mewtwo warped to inches in front of Zero before the raikou leapt back and began running. Suzaku gave chase, and Lelouch began leading him into the trap that he'd set.

There weren't any problems until the raikou landed into the pit of sand, and Suzaku hesitated for the faintest second before plunging headfirst into the crater and launching a psywave at raikou and Lelouch.

He took the damage, getting launched off his mount as Rakshad pressed a button on her controller. Thirteen wobbuffet burst from the sand in a circle around them and used their Shadow Tag ability at the same time, trapping them within.

Mewtwo fell to his knees, completely overpowered. "W-what..?" Suzaku managed, struggling to walk.

"I wish to talk to you, Suzaku Kururugi." Zero told him, returning his raikou and limping to the edge and placing his pokéballs outside the circle. "This circle tends to damage pokéballs, so I would suggest handing them over for the time being."

Tamaki slid down into the sand and confiscated them from the soldier before legging it outside the circle.

'These wobbuffet are Rakshad's pride and joy:' Lelouch thought to himself. 'The only ones in the world capable of learning moves other than Mirror Coat, Safeguard, Counter, Encore and Destiny Bond.
'Punishment: a move that gets stronger with its target. These wobbuffet should not be able to learn this technique in a thousand generations of breeding, but because they have, I can move somewhat freely while Suzaku is paralysed; and mewtwo is completely overwhelmed.'

"We will treat you as a prisoner of war in accordance with international laws." Zero continued. "If you refuse, you will be attacked from all sides."

Suzaku grunted. "What do you want?"

"I'll be frank." Lelouch told him. "I want you to join my ranks."

"Is that a threat?" Suzaku asked. "Even so, I refuse. As I told you before, I do not believe in change wrought from improper methods."

"Then let me ask you this." Zero replied. "Is the current peace meaningless too? Seven years ago, if Japan had resisted to the bitter end, what would have happened to it? The Chinese and European unions would have intervened, and Japan would have been split into three. They would still be fighting over it." He explained. "So, the current peace only exists because of Japan's hurriedly made unconditional surrender."

"Yes." Suzaku replied in shame. "I fight to protect the peace my father died to protect."

"No, you're wrong." Zero replied, and Lelouch was disgusted with himself for what he was about to do. This was the kind of thing Mao did to Shirley.

Regardless, Lelouch pressed on. "Prime Minister Kururugi, the lawful elected leader of Japan, did not decide to surrender." He said, using the information Silver had taken from Team Rocket's database. "That decision was made when his murderer forced that decision onto the people." Suzaku gasped in shock and fear. "Chaos ran through the government, and they had no choice but to surrender. Do you understand?" Lelouch asked Suzaku. "Your people were robbed of their right to decide. A single, selfish criminal overruled the will of an entire nation!"

"How…" Suzaku whispered. "How do you know this..?"

"There is a way you can atone." Lelouch told him in an almost silent voice, sick to the stomach with himself, but accepting that this was better than Geassing him. He wouldn't do that to his friend. "Make the choice that the people of Japan were denied their right to make. Walk the path from which they strayed seven years ago; Rise Up Against Britannia!"

"Rise up?" Suzaku growled with a glare. "That again!?"

"That is one path you can take." Zero told him, stepping back slightly. "Or would you continue to force your will onto the entire nation for the rest of eternity? Is that truly peace?"

_\_ "Can you hear me -^- Suzaku!?" _\_ came the voice on Suzaku's military communicator. _\_ "Please respond!" _\_

"May I?" Suzaku asked.

"Do as you wish."

Lelouch stepped back and listened into the orders, pretending to ignore until he realised what was going on. "HE'S ORDERING ONE OF HIS OWN MEN TO DIE!?" Lelouch shouted.

Suzaku reached forward, getting Zero into a gearbox and slamming him against the ground, pulling the blade from Zero's waist and bringing it to his throat. "Suzaku… how dare you?" Lelouch asked him.

"I cannot accept your methods." Suzaku snarled, dragging Zero deeper into the circle. "All I can do is…"

Kallen burst into the circle on her Gurren, which froze and collapsed, flipping her further into the circle and knocking Suzaku and Zero over into the sand.

"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE HERE!!" Lelouch shouted as Suzaku recovered and kneeled atop him. "DO YOU REALLY WANT THIS!?"

Lelouch looked up as a swarm of dragons flew from above, and the Black Knights focused all their attacks into stopping their assault.

"SUZAKU!!" Kallen shouted, running towards them. "IT'S ME! KALLEN STADTFIELD! FROM THE STUDENT COUNCIL! LET HIM GO!!"

"A soldier follows his orders until the very end." Suzaku stated, his attention entirely on Zero as he knocked Kallen out with an elbow to her face.

"It's nice and easy, isn't it?"Lelouch asked Suzaku. "Having someone else give the orders? WHAT ABOUT YOUR WILL!?"

"SHUT UP!!" Suzaku shouted, pressing the blade against Zero's throat in the gap under the helmet. "I decided this FOR MYSELF!!"

Then the sky above them grew dark.

Kallen groggily pushed herself up from the sand, then looked up into the air, realizing what was about to occur with a face of pure panic.

Princess Euphemia rode past the distracted Black Knights and into the circle on her cresselia, which collapsed under the wobbuffet's dominion, leaving her tumbling into the ground.

Suzaku looked up and saw the draconic behemoth floating high above, the legendary king of the sky come to judge them. "R-rayquaza…" he gasped.

"SUZAKU!!" Lelouch screeched as the legendary serpent began to charge its Hyper Beam. "YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!!"

"IT'S BETTER THAN DISOBEYING ORDERS!!" Suzaku bellowed.

"YOU IDIOT!!" Lelouch roared, opening the slot in his helmet to reveal a blazing Geass. His eye met Suzaku's. The dragon above them released it's attack with a screech like grinding metal, bathing them in a furious flare of gold.

"LIVE!! ON!!"

And the world was consumed with golden flames.

-}+{-

Next chapter, things get epic. I might even manage to outdo Fairly English Story with this one.