Technically, that was last chapter, but in this story, the title is much more appropriate here, as you'll find out.
Man, don't you wish I could spoiler tag author notes?
-}+{-
"C.C." Lelouch told her after giving everyone their orders and recollecting his memories.
"I wasn't me who gave that man his Geass." C.C. explained, referring to the emperor.
"What of Nunnally?" he asked.
"I could have searched for your sister," C.C. admitted. "But the Black Knights were all but destroyed shortly after you were captured."
"And what happened to Sayako?"
"She escaped to the Chinese Federation with Diethard and many of the Black Knights." C.C. replied, walking towards him. "That woman does not know Zero's identity, so she would not have known of Nunnally's importance. There was nothing she could have done about it, right?"
"I will find out who gave the Emperor his Geass and search for Nunnally." Lelouch decided, before realising something. "I had a sister, but I never had a brother…"
"Yes, you did." C.C. sighed.
Lelouch twisted to face her. "What!"
"When he was eight years old, in the weeks before your mother's murder, he stole a Geass from me." C.C. explained in a flat tone, not giving Lelouch any chance to interrupt. "Using it, he ordered the Emperor to erase his existence and place him in a foster home so he could earn power on his own. I never saw him again until last year, at the school festival."
Lelouch glared. "How does one steal a Geass?" he asked.
"The same way one gives them- with a kiss." C.C. told him.
Lelouch frowned at her reply. "So, is Ashford my-"
"Yes." C.C. nodded. "The child Marianne had between you and Nunnally."
"How do you know this?"
"I was somewhat close with your mother." C.C. told Lelouch. "However, I felt it… inappropriate to bring up before now. And before you shout, perhaps I should have told you sooner." She added, cutting him off before he could retaliate. "However, I am telling you now, and you understand my need for secrets, do you not?"
Lelouch sighed. "I tolerate them for a reason, you immortal witch." He answered, walking over to his lugia and patting its face. The beast cooed oddly, happy for the reunion with its master, earning an amused smirk from Lelouch despite himself. "Keeping secrets to maintain the life you lead. I know what it's like, and I don't want to have to hear justifications from you."
C.C. smiled. "Good to have you back, Lelouch."
Rivalz smashed down a wall, grabbing the Britannian soldier who was gunning down fleeing trainers by the face with his mechanical arm. "Die." He growled, launching a wave of radiation to completely melt his face.
"This corridor is clear," Rivalz reported, dropping the corpse and watching the solder's pokémon flee upon their master's death.
_\_ "Well done, R-1." _\_ Lelouch's voice from the radio told him. _\_ "Head to the 21st floor now." _\_
"Come on, garchomp!" Rivalz ordered, beckoning the shark-dragon to follow him as he charged. He put his fears about Lelouch to the back of his mind- they had already agreed Kallen would be the one to confront him.
And eliminate him, if what they feared was true.
"P-4, seal off the staircase." Lelouch ordered. "R-5, aim your attacks 30 degrees to your left. N-1, advance 50 metres and launch a hydro pump at the ceiling."
Lelouch chuckled at the computer screen displaying the battle's progress. The broken remnants of his old force were rejuvenated by his leadership, and were now no longer surviving, but winning.
"Governor Calares should be coming out soon." Lelouch told his lugia. Lugia, however, was staring at the entrance of the makeshift command room. Lelouch spun in the swivel chair he was in to face his visitor.
"Things appear to be going smoothly." Kallen said coolly, standing at the doorway with a neutral expression.
"Didn't I tell you to go to the 22nd floor?" Lelouch asked her.
"I wanted to be near you." She told him, slinking towards him as a small explosion was heard below them. "We're finally alone now…"
Her Kingler then appeared on the table between them and held its massive pincer to Lelouch's throat, ready to obliterate his head.
Lelouch chuckled darkly, removing his pokénav. "You, who before obeyed me and abandoned Zero in Mirage Island, have something to say to me?" he asked her, urging his lugia to be calm. Only his mental assurances and the beast's long-time respect for Ho-oh's trainer prevented Kallen from becoming a bloody smear on the wall.
Of course, she knew this, but it didn't matter. She needed answers. "Lelouch… you were lying to me all this time…" she told him.
"I revealed my identity to you near the beginning, so I assume that you are referring to the Geass." Lelouch deducted.
"Did you use the Geass on me as well?" Kallen demanded with a glare.
Lelouch smirked and turned to face the screen, watching the battle unfold. "My Geass allows me to force any person obey any order I give them once." He explained to her. "So, I can only give someone one order. I found that out when I tried to Geass you a second time."
"What…" she hissed, fist shaking.
Lelouch's smirk never faded as he turned his gaze to her kingler. "I'm curious. Why kingler? Surely Gurren would be just as good a choice to hold me hostage like this."
"Gurren was… she was yours, before," Kallen said, swallowing a lump in her throat at the memory of the trade. Damn him and damn his emotional manipulation. He knew what Gurren meant to her. "She would never threaten you, never follow the order to harm you. She's still loyal to you."
"And you're not?" asked Lelouch, returning his gaze to her. "As far as I see it, you are quite similar to Gurren in that respect. Strong, fierce, loyal…"
"AM I?" Kallen yelled. "Am I loyal? Is Rivalz loyal? Or are we just- STOP SMILING!"
"Kallen. Remember, back in the academy, on that day we first met face to face? When I asked you not to tell anyone about Shinjuku?" Lelouch asked her. There was a jolt of realization in her eyes that told him she did recall it. "I used the Geass on you earlier to make you answer my questions about Sableye. That was when I found out about the limitations of the Geass. I then used it on Rivalz to perform some small thing in order to test this. Star jumps, if I remember it right."
He looked at her in the eyes, and she found her gaze drawn into his burning right eye. "Both of you are completely safe from my power. Your heart belongs to you. You followed Zero out of your own will, be it through loyalty, admiration," he took a step forward. "Everything…"
"Don't Move!" Kallen shouted, her kingler's smaller claw snapping menacingly.
"Kallen, be proud of yourself." Lelouch told her. "By confronting me, by questioning yourself, you have given yourself all the proof you need.You have made your decision. You have chosen… me." He said. "Don't believe it?"
"I want to believe…" Kallen said, withdrawing her Kingler with a sigh and looking away. "That's why… even if it means becoming your slave…"
"I see." Lelouch told her.
"But, I believe in Zero." Kallen snapped. "Not some sly, mind-controlling freak like you, Lelouch."
"Oh, that's fine." Lelouch told her. "Besides, I promised myself never to force unending obedience onto someone." Lelouch added. "That'd be just wrong. Like the fact that you're still in that buneary costume." He added, turning back to face the monitor. "Not that I'm complaining. It looks good on you."
"D-DON'T LOOK AT ME YOU PERVERT!" she shrieked, turning away and tugging the tattered jacket over her chest.
"That's not the kind of language you use towards Lord Zero-"
"I'm talking to Lelouch right now!" Kallen shouted.
"Right, okay." Lelouch smirked. "Honestly, you're acting like you just found out I was Lelouch too." He picked up his beeping pokénav. "What's happening?"
_\_ "Britannia has reinforcements." _\_ C.C. reported. _\_ "A lot of reinforcements." _\_
Lelouch twisted around to see a huge mass of enemy ships approaching the tower on the radar. "Thanks Kallen." He told her. "I could have been planning a way around this instead of talking with you, but nooo."
"Lelouch, stop whining and do something Zero would do." Kallen snapped, running over to the monitors. "Damn… they're coming on from above too…"
He sighed, removing the half-incinerated jacket from her shoulders and replacing it with his own. "It's a good thing I think three moves ahead." Lelouch told her. "Because now escape is next to impossible." He grinned. "So I win."
"Eh?" Kallen asked.
"Our enemy believes that his victory is inevitable now." Lelouch explained, undoing the top button of his shirt and swinging onto lugia's back. "All the conditions for victory are being cleared one at a time. All that's left is your floor, right C.C.?"
_\_ "It'll be ready in ten minutes." _\_ C.C. explained.
"Good." Lelouch told her. "Then we will be able to hold our positions."
"Hold on!" Kallen shouted at him. "What orders!"
"I told C.C. my plan about twenty minutes ago." Lelouch told the redhead. "I told you, I predicted this to happen, and I planned accordingly. I even managed to make enough time for this chat, it appears."
Kallen stared at him in surprise. "Y-you knew I would come here?"
"I figured you would. Rather, I was hoping so. You deserved the truth, after all." Lelouch said with a small, sincere smile. They were both silent for a moment, but the moment was interrupted as he got a call from another line. _\_ "This is B-2, and some scary shit is going down up here." _\_
"What is it?" Lelouch asked as the soldier began to scream. "B-2! Respond!"
_\_ "Zero! This is P-6!" _\_ another unit shouted. _\_ "They've got some kinda monster-AARGGH!" _\_
"P-6!"
_\_ "THIS IS R-5! R-1 IS DOWN! WE NEE-AARGGH!" _\_
'Not good…' Lelouch thought angrily. 'At this rate, whatever it is will reach here…'
"Did you predict this..?" Kallen asked, looking at the Black Knights die on the monitors.
"Stop being clever and get down there." Lelouch ordered, as Kallen sent out her Gurren and rode out of there.
'Damn… the corridors are too narrow for lugia…' Lelouch thought angrily, jumping off and returning her to the masterball.
Fortunately, the path seemed quiet- Lelouch didn't want to be pulled into a battle. Most of his pokémon had taken heavy damage while fighting Crasher Wake. Truth be told, Lelouch's pokémon had been weaker, but the boy was smarter, and won through strategy.
Lelouch walked over to the broken corner and grabbed the splintered shaft of a steel pipe. It'd have to do until he reached some open space.
_\_ "Zero, you get out of here." _\_ Urabe said into the speakers. _\_ "As long as you're safe, there's hope. We're just a distraction for your escape while C.C. restored your memories, so we'll create an opening and-" _\_
"That's wrong, Urabe." Lelouch said into his radio as he moved through the corridors cautiously. "The concept of 'cutting off' isn't enough to destroy Britannia. I cannot topple their rule alone. Besides…" Lelouch smirked bitterly. "It appears to have found me first."
Lelouch saw the red and green tentacles slither around the corner towards him. It oozed evil, but he could also see its flesh begin to break apart, as if the eldritch abomination was suffering from leprosy.
"DeeEEeooxxXXxxYYSSsss…" it hissed, spotting him. Shooting its tentacles forward, it dragged its slithering mass towards him, its blue face a mask of sheer hate and bloodlust.
He heard rapid footsteps behind him, and Rivalz leapt past Lelouch, steel arm outstretched and pressing through the mass of tentacles to grab the abomination by the face.
"Didn't momma tell you not to hurt your uncles Lulu or Rivalz?" he spat, before launching a wave of crimson energy into the pokémon.
It screamed and melted into a pile of goop. "Deoxys." Rivalz told Lelouch with a wink and a grinning thumb-up. "Nina's babies."
"Nina?" Lelouch asked in shock.
"Yeah, she made the first one a year ago, then got hired by Milly's fiancée." Rivalz spat. "Now they're mass-producing these bitches- they kill like nothing you've ever seen before but their DNA's so unstable they all die minutes after leaving their pokéballs."
"That's just wrong…" Lelouch gasped. "Nothing should have to exist like that…"
"The nuke arm Rakshad built for me speeds up their half-life or something, which is lucky." Rivalz joked. "And yeah, I know half-life is used in physics, but it's damned appropriate for these things."
"When did you become so well versed in physics?" Lelouch asked.
"Didn't, just repeating what other people have told me." Rivalz laughed. "But yeah, shouldn't we be going to help everyone else?"
"Good plan." Lelouch told him, stepping back and pointing at the floor under his feet. "If you would?"
Rivalz grinned and jumped into the air, punching down where Lelouch suggested and breaking through.
"C.C." Lelouch said into the pokénav as he landed on the floor behind Urabe on his regirock and Kallen on her ho-oh. "Are we ready to go yet?"
_\_ "Why so nervous?" _\_ she replied as Lelouch summoned his lugia and Rivalz summoned his garchomp. _\_ "You have those three with you, don't you?" _\_
Then the door burst open, and a horde of deoxys, all twitching red and green tentacles and dissolving flesh, poured from the entrance.
"DEeeooOOxxxyyYYyySSsss…"they hissed as one, crawling into the room and launching psychic attack after psychic attack, tentacles lashing the ground in anticipation of a bloodbath.
"We don't need long." Lelouch ordered the three others. "GO!"
Regirock charged first, Urabe screaming a furious war cry with his sword held high as Kallen's ho-oh purged the mass of monster flesh with a wave of Sacred Fire. Garchomp rushed in, ripping and slicing flesh with its jaws and blades as Rivalz reached for heads, nuking them individually as he went on.
Lugia flapped upwards, launching an aeroblast through the wall and obliterating the monsters at the back. So far, things were going well.
Then they got Urabe.
Tentacles glowing with psychic energy wrapped around his leg, crushing the bone. Urabe roared in pain and swung his katana through the mutated limb, severing it, but a dozen more sprang to take it's place, dragging him from his pokémon. "TAKE IT!" he shouted, returning his regirock and tossing it to Rivalz as he was devoured. "KEEP FIGHTING! FOR OUR DREAM!" he roared as the drones ripped him apart, skewering one last monster through it's skull and reaching for his explosives. "LONG LIVE JAPAN!" he shouted, ramming two grenades down one deoxys' face.
He died with four of the monsters, consumed by the fiery explosion that rocked the room. Because the drones had swarmed around him, so desperate for blood, they took the worse of the damage while Kallen and Rivalz were merely blown back a few metres.
_\_ "Alright, it's ready." _\_ C.C. told Lelouch, snapping him out of his shock.
"FALL BACK!" he ordered the dazed Kallen and Rivalz. "WE'RE READY TO GO!"
'We will keep fighting, Urabe. It will not be a dream for much longer...' Lelouch swore in his heart. Little did he know the same oath was being made by his friends as they rushed to his side.
He pulled the trigger.
They didn't have time to prepare electrode.
They didn't have a mountain of diglett.
They didn't have a boat of magikarp eggs.
But you know what they did have?
Good old C-4, just like momma used to make.
And lots of it.
Not only that, but they also had the blueprints to the tower.
And Lelouch's brain.
So the section of the tower the knights just so happened to be in was safe, while the section above it fell forwards, onto the entrance-way where the rest of the army was positioned to capture any escapee's, with the added bonus of taking the deoxys-drones with it.
'Calares, you rank amateur. You made a mistake by eliminating our escape routes.' Lelouch grinned to himself. 'It's almost as if you were telling us where you were situated.'
Lelouch laughed at the brilliance of it all. "Farewell, Governor Calares!" he declared, holding his hand out as C.C. handed him his mask and cloak. "Now, let me greet the world…"
Rivals ran around as Lelouch tossed him a pokénav from a dead soldier, punching in the number for the head office. "Rolling!" he hissed once Lelouch had the cloak and mask on.
"MY NAME IS... ZERO!" Lelouch shouted from amongst the flames as one Knight hacked into all the broadcasting networks, making sure everyone in the country saw this. "To all Japanese… No, to all in the world!" Lelouch swished the cape wide, unwittingly allowing his white shirt to be seen. "I HAVE RETURNED FROM HELL ITSELF!"
"HEAR ME BRITANNIA!" Zero declared. "To all those who hold power… I am saddened." He said, curling his cape tight around him and touching his helmet. "All this war and discrimination… did I not return Japan to its rightful people? The evil intentions of those who brandish their power… the tragedy and comedy allowed to continue in error… this world has not changed in the slightest." He declared. "THEREFORE! I HAD to return! As long as the strong continue to torment the weak… I SHALL RISE FROM THE GRAVE AND DEFY THIS BROKEN WORLD!"
"Just now, I have provided divine retribution upon the foolish Governor Calares." Zero announced. "I WILL FIGHT! AGAINST ALL THOSE WHO MISUSE THEIR POWER! THEREFORE! I SHALL ONCE AGAIN DECLARE THE FORMATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF JAPAN!" he shouted. "My friends in the Chinese Embassy! RAISE! OUR! FLAG!"
The camera span to show the Chinese Embassy raise a third flag, in addition to its own flag and the Britannian flag.
This flag was white, with a red circle in the centre. A black line with a smaller black ring in the middle ran through the red circle, which had a large, black wing on either side. "From this moment on!" Zero declared. "Our nation shall be formed within the Chinese Embassy until we reclaim this land for ourselves! There are no restrictions on race, doctrines, or religion! There is only one requirement to become a member of our country! TO CARRY OUT JUSTICE!"
"So, how the hell did you get that to work?" Rivalz asked Lelouch as they flew on lugia to the Chinese Embassy, flanked by the smaller flying pokémon of the other surviving Black Knights.
'That's what I want to know.' Lelouch asked himself. 'The letter in my pocket said that this would happen, and to trust it, but I have no idea how it got there.'
He got his answer, however, when he landed in the embassy.
"Hey." the teenager in the deep hat grinned as Zero landed. "Good to see you back in action, Lellow."
'Ashford!' Lelouch thought in shock. 'But… isn't he..?'
"Hey, aren't you the Knight of One!" Rivalz shouted.
"Auntie C.C. asked me to give my big brother Zero a hand." Red chuckled, giving Lelouch a wink of his flaring Geass eyes. "Why would I refuse?"
-}+{-
GASP!
Yeah, see, this is why my R2 is different from Sunrise's R2.
Varanus: You all thought he was going to be an enemy, didn't you? And yes, that's what he meant by the Vincent replacements. I take no responsibility for the horror that is about to ensue.
…Well, okay, maybe a little. Oh, who cares, it's gonna be epic.
Hell, everything I've done in this story up until now was just a warm up. As of now, canon will be very loose in relation to this.