Well. Today marks a new day in this story.
Why? Because last chapter was the last one to follow the Anime canon.
Starting from today, it's all new stuff, though I'll be using a few scenes from the anime to help me out. However, this is the point where the canon is now a mere guide.
And to prove my point, Chapters 33-35 will be written completely out of the canon.
Heraklinos, I don't intend to put Minatos into this story. However, by the time this chapter ends, you won't care.
Poggg, trust me when I say that that was the last time.
Karasu, I suppose that I'm not all that original then. And no, the Darkrai wasn't Cynthia's. And I've forgotten too.
-}+{-
Long long ago, there was a monster without a heart.
It looked with jealousy at the other monsters, and envied their hearts, and the love the humans had for those monsters with hearts.
"If only I had a heart." the monster thought, "Then I too would be loved like the others."
So the monster came down from the sky, and it set out on a journey to take a heart.
It split into two, in search for a heart.
One half of the monster went far away, to strange lands in order to search for a heart.
But the other half of the monster found a beautiful young lady, who took the monster lovingly and gave it a name.
She raised the monster like her own child- giving it support, cherishing it, disciplining it when it did wrong, helping it make friends.
The monster was happy.
One day, the monster saw some strange men. They wanted to hurt the young lady.
The monster didn't like that. These men had hearts, and they refused to love the lady like the lady loved the monster.
The monster grew angry, and it took the hearts from the evil men.
The lady screamed.
She screamed in terror at the monster she had raised, beating it with sticks and ordering the monster to leave.
The monster took her heart too.
The monster went out into the village, and its friends turned against it too.
The monster took their hearts too.
Soon, the monster had many hearts, but it was all alone.
One day, it met with the other half of the monster. "Did you find your heart?" the monster that stayed asked. "I found many hearts. Look at all the hearts that I have."
"I did not find a heart." The monster that left said. "But I found something better. I found that I was happy without a heart."
"But you need a heart to be happy." The monster that stayed said. "Happiness comes from the heart."
"Love comes from the heart, but Happiness is in the mind." The monster that left told it. "I realised that I could be happy as a heartless monster, and that's what I became. I am happy with what I am; I do not need a heart."
The monster that stayed grew angry, and took the brain from the monster that left.
Then the monster that stayed realised.
A heart that is all alone is nothing but a heart of pain.
In fact, life as a heartless monster was happier, much happier, than that of a monster with many hearts.
Euphemia tore the page from the book she was writing and scrunched it under her fist. "Suzaku…" she sobbed, tears bouncing off the oak desk.
"Tell me, Suzaku." Lelouch asked him, rising to his feet after comforting Shirley. "What is the deal with those blue flames of yours?"
"What's the deal with your Geass?" Suzaku growled.
"Fair play." Lelouch sighed, trying to formulate a plot. 'Wait, if Jeremiah can nullify Suzaku's 'Live On' command, then I can use my Geass on him again…'
"DeeEEeeoooOOOooxxXxyyYYyyssss…"
'No, I'm going to need that to make sure we don't all die.'
"To think you'd sink this low…" Lelouch snarled, reaching for Ryujin's masterball-
It was gone.
'It fell when I was saving Shirley…' Lelouch realised. 'Perfect.'
"Looking for this?" Suzaku asked, tossing two masterballs in his hands as he glanced towards the elevator shaft behind him. 'I didn't order for the deoxys.' He thought to himself. 'But I can't let Lelouch- no, Zero know that.'
FZOOM
"Your majesty!" Jeremiah shouted, warping to Suzaku and slamming his arm down. "Please leave!" he begged, planting Suzaku into a pin. "I will hold the line for you!"
Lelouch rushed to Suzaku and grabbed one of the masterballs. "Lancelot…" he said, returning it to the roaring Suzaku before taking Ryujin. "You're going to need that. Jeremiah, don't die." He added.
"Yes." Jeremiah said with a smile. "Your majesty."
Lelouch grabbed Shirley's wrist and ran towards the tunnels that would lead into the underground, locking the door behind him as Suzaku roared his name.
"Calm yourself." Jeremiah told the soldier, releasing him from the hold and standing up. "We've got some monsters to exterminate. Before they feast upon the civilians."
Suzaku snarled, then roared in anger, surrounding himself in blue flame as Jeremiah exploded into orange and cyan lightning.
"LANCELOT!" Suzaku shouted, throwing the ball behind him. "AFTER THEM!"
Before Jeremiah could stop it, the first deoxys broke through.
Lelouch dragged Shirley through the labyrinth of tunnels that Team Rocket had made all those years ago. "It's alright." He told Shirley. "We're safe."
Voices echoed down the tunnels behind them. "DeeeeEEOOOooxxyyYYyysss…"
"You just had to jinx it, didn't you?" Shirley joked lamely. "Wh-what are those things?"
"Deoxys." Lelouch told her. "Britannia's perfect weapon, made by Nina herself."
"Wait… that thing!" she shouted.
"I heard about the monster from Rivalz." Lelouch explained. "And I've fought them before. Their strength in unimaginable for a short period of time, twenty minutes at most, and then they begin to decay. However, if they take a human brain and voice box, then they become intelligent, and they can last longer."
"Lulu…" Shirley gasped as Lelouch handed her a gun.
"We sealed the only way in from the department store, so if deoxys is in here, then that means the enemy knew we'd try to escape this way, and sent some down here." Lelouch explained, his brow furrowing. "They are unimaginably difficult to kill, but Suzaku and Jeremiah should be fine. I, however, can't use Ryujin in a space this small, and none of my other pokémon have enough room to defeat them through speed. Because of that…" he loaded his own gun. "Make every shot count."
As soon as those words left his mouth, the wall beside Shirley screeched with the sound of metal tearing. Shirley shrieked in pain, clutching her shoulder.
"SHIRLEY!" Lelouch shouted, firing at the red spike that just burst through a gap in the wall of steel crates. It exploded, and he immediately began treating the wound on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, you're gonna be okay, alright?"
"Y-yeah…" she gasped as Lelouch tore his jacket to bandage the gash. "Yeah… Lulu…"
Lelouch stopped for a second to launch a bullet through the crack, and the Deoxys on the other side screeched. "Come on, we need to keep moving." He told her.
A tentacle stabbed through Jeremiah, but passed through him like he wasn't there.
The ex-purist grabbed the tentacle, sending a wave of thunder down it to fry its owner. Three more monsters rose to replace it, but an Ominous Wind blew through them, causing the monsters to flinch and hesitate long enough for the ghostly cyborg to split their blue skulls open with swift blows of his electrified blades. "How're you holding up?" he asked Suzaku, launching a thunderbolt into another deoxys.
Suzaku's burning hand clenched down onto a deoxys face, crushing it before he tossed its burning corpse back into the shaft. "I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO GO AFTER THEM?" he shouted at the Lancelot, who was slicing through deoxys with his psycho cut attack.
"Your pokémon is wiser than you, it seems." Jeremiah told him.
Lelouch stopped to let Shirley breathe, and fired three shots into the pursuing deoxys as she vomited onto the floor.
"Come on." He told her. "We need to keep moving."
"I… know… Lulu…"
He flung her arm over his shoulders, fired two more shots to finish it, and they got moving again.
"Just… one more… Lulu…" Shirley gasped. "Round… this corner… Lulu…"
"How can you be sure?" Lelouch asked, looking around the corner cautiously.
There was one more tentacled abomination.
Lelouch stepped out and took aim before it noticed him and he emptied the clip into the monster's skull and core. "How did you know?" he asked Shirley.
"It's… inside… Lulu…"
"What?" Lelouch asked her in confusion, kneeling down next to her and gasping as the blue and red veins began spreading up her neck.
"The deoxys… are in me… Lulu…" Shirley choked, shedding a tear. "Lulu… I'm sorry Lulu…"
"The scoundrels are retreating!" Jeremiah laughed, firing more electricity up through the shaft.
"That's… wrong." Suzaku realised. "Deoxys don't retreat; they have nowhere to retreat to. Once they leave their pokéball, they kill until they die."
Jeremiah scowled. "Suggesting that they have reached a strategic objective..." he muttered, before realising what was happening. "His Majesty!"
He fell down as Suzaku planted a fireball in the small of his back. "Not you." He stated, handcuffing the unconscious Jeremiah to a pole and recalling Lancelot. "I'll get him."
"No…" Lelouch gasped as Shirley's hand grew limp- as if all the flesh and bone inside the skin had vanished. "No, no NO! SHIRLEY!"
"It's too late Lulu…" she sobbed as her legs began to deflate. "They've got me Lulu…"
"NO!" he begged, tears beginning to stream in his eyes. "SHIRLEY!"
"AAGH!" she screamed, and Lelouch felt a tentacle slither around his ankle. "So… this must be what birth is like Lulu…"
Lelouch stepped back from the tendril and realised where it was coming from. "The bastards…" he snarled. "Are they really that twisted? TO MIMIC HUMAN BIRTH?"
"I was hoping… I'd mother your children one day Lulu…" Shirley told him happily, delirious from the pain as the tentacles began to saw upwards. "I guess AAGGH! That isn't going to happen anymore Lulu…"
"Just, just stay clam…" Lelouch begged her as her skull began to cave in. "Just please, don't LEAVE ME!"
"Good…bye Lulu…" she managed before her jaw and throat flattened.
Lelouch took a step back from her corpse in horror. "Shirley… SHIRLEY!"
C.C. held her jirachi close. "I know…" she whispered, her brow tightening. "I know…"
Lelouch stepped back from the monster crawling out of Shirley's shredded remains, shucking her empty corpse off its body like a wet rag. "No…" he gasped
"It's not so bad Lulu." Shirley's voice replied. "I know I don't look the same, and I'm just a voice in deoxys, but I still love you Lulu."
'Come on…' Lelouch thought desperately. 'Come on, Shirley's STILL IN THERE!'
"Shirley's still in there…" Lelouch realised, having an epiphany.
"Shirley." He said, locking eyes with the deoxys and removing his contact lens. "I need you to listen to me very carefully."
The deoxys stopped moving, entranced by his double Geass. "I'm listening Lulu. The deoxys wants us to talk for one last time Lulu."
Lelouch held his tongue, controlling his rage as he tried to work out how to word this command. "You are still Shirley." He said. "Your free will is being controlled by Deoxys, but you are still you."
"That's right Lulu." Shirley's voice replied. "I'm still me Lulu."
'I can give as many orders I like as long as I maintain eye contact.' Lelouch thought. 'Once I break eye contact once, then I don't get a second chance.'
"You are Shirley Fenette." Lelouch ordered. "You are Shirley. Deoxys may have taken your body and your mind, but your soul is still yours. You can fight it."
"No, you MUST fight it!" he demanded. "Shirley Fenette, I am commanding you to take control of Deoxys- make it your host. Take control of all its abilities and knowledge, use it to forge for yourself a new body, and don't let it control you. CONTROL DEOXYS!"
Click
"I won't let you enslave her again." Suzaku told Lelouch, who instinctively turned to the gun pointed at his head, breaking the Geass. "Especially not to sacrifice her to one of those monsters. It's over, Lelouch." He snarled, completely unaware of what had happened to Shirley around the corner.
"SUZAKU YOU IDIOT!" Lelouch roared, slamming the gun aside and lunging for his friend's throat. "I COULD HAVE SAVED HER! IF YOU HAD JUST SHUT YOUR FACE I COULD HAVE SAVED HER!"
Suzaku launched Lelouch back with a wave of blue flames, but was slammed into the ground by three powerful tentacles.
"I… I… Lulu…"
Deoxys screamed.
It stood upright, its uppermost tentacles clutching at its head as a crack began to form across its expressionless blue mask of a face.
Then it shuddered.
Its flesh began to ripple and bubble, its tentacles curling in on themselves, flattening as if they were being sucked dry.
It curled over, shaking with violent spasms, and turned to Lelouch, as if it was begging for mercy.
Two dark, slender hands reached out from the mouth-like crack in the deoxys' face.
They grabbed either side of its maw.
And pushed.
Deoxys was torn apart- splitting in two down to the waist.
Blood and bodily fluids flew around the room, caking the walls, Lelouch and the unconscious Suzaku in the juices.
And Shirley Fenette stepped out of the gore, naked as the day she was born. "Lulu…" she gasped, stumbling into the arms of the boy who saved her. "Thank you…"
C.C. exhaled deeply, clutching her left eye. "That's… good." She whispered. "That's good…"
"Suzaku's out cold." Lelouch explained to Shirley as she stripped the clothes from her corpse and dressed.
"Hey, Lulu…" Shirley managed. "I… died, didn't I?"
Lelouch hesitated for a moment.
"Would you like me to comfort you, or to tell you the truth?"
"So I died…" Shirley nodded. "And… I'm a monster now… aren't I..?"
Lelouch turned around to see her slip into her dress. Her hair was a deeper shade of orange than it once was, with a cyan streak down the back. Her skin was dark, almost grey, and the whites of her eyes were black, her iris's white and the pupils black.
A red tear ran down her cheek as a tentacle began to mutate out of her shoulder. "No, you're not."
The tentacle fizzled away as Shirley turned to him. "What?"
Lelouch stood to face her. "You're Shirley Fenette." He explained. "Beautiful, kind, smart, funny, and you're absolutely wonderful." He smiled and pulled her into a hug. "I've caused you far more pain than you deserve, because you are one of the nicest people on this corrupt planet and you just keep on giving, no matter how much pain you go through… and I'm sorry…"
"L-Lulu…"
"Listen to me." he told her, grabbing her face gently and looking into her eyes. "I am about to go down a path that will only bring pain to those around me. You can still walk away, be happy, meet someone new, someone who can appreciate you as much as you deserve, and I'll be happy knowing that you're happy. Please…" he begged her. "Don't follow me this time."
She reached up and touched his wrist. "I'm coming with you, Lulu." She said with a smile, another bloody tear running down her face.
"Please Shirley." Lelouch told her. "I won't ask you again."
"Good." She smiled, reaching her other hand to stroke his chin. "Because I want to stay with you."
Lelouch smiled. "Alright then." He told her, bringing a hand up against her shoulders and breathing against her cheeks. "I'm sorry, but trust me."
He pressed the cherish ball against her bare shoulders.
"LULU!" she shouted as she was turned to energy and dragged inside the capsule.
"I'm sorry Shirley." He explained. "But right now, Britannia is out to kill me and it'll be safer if I move alone. Suzaku sealed my lugia's masterball so I can't just fly out of here- I'm going to be fighting tooth and nail to escape this city alive, and I don't want to risk them hurting you."
Then he noticed the clothes on the floor.
He lifted up the capsule to see Shirley curled up into a very, very angry ball holding her pokétch.
"You can only take one item in with you…" Lelouch realised. "Whoops?"
Shirley fumed, giving Lelouch an expressive hand gesture- her hand growing to triple its normal size to make sure Lelouch got the message.
Lelouch laughed and pocketed her dress as Suzaku groaned, beginning to wake up.
"Shall I kill him your majesty?" Jeremiah asked. "I would have asked sooner, but…"
"Thank you, Jeremiah, and no." Lelouch told him, walking away. "It's obvious now that he didn't call for the deoxys. And besides,I gave him the command to 'Live On' for a reason. Now, I need you to unlock this for Me." he commanded, handing Jeremiah the ball for Ryujin.
"It will take me a while your majesty." He replied as Britannian soldiers began to storm the basement. "And that is time that you do not have."
Lelouch nodded. "Meet me north of the city and wait for Me." he ordered. "And please, stop referring to me as royalty."
Jeremiah smiled. "As you wish, sir."
"That will suffice." Lelouch smirked as Jeremiah faded into the ground.
He then opened a crate and took a new firearm, as well as a box of ammunition. "Sandslash." Lelouch sent out. "Help me to get out of here."
Lelouch had pocketed the contact lens, as it was worthless now that his second eye had experience Geass Runaway- he could no longer control either of them.
He was like Mao was before he was killed.
'I'll have to ask Ashford how he managed to learn to control his double Geass.' Lelouch thought. 'I really don't feel like wearing two contact lenses.'
Lelouch peeked through a gap in the wall of crates that sandslash indicated, seeing the soldiers on the other side. 'Goggles…' Lelouch scowled. 'They came prepared to fight someone with a Geass…'
He took a silent breath, and then slunk through the labyrinth. 'If I fire once, my location will be discovered.' Lelouch thought as he moved silently. 'So I need to take out the strongest first, then fight my way out with my pokémon…'
Sandslash seemed to realise this, and turned a corner quickly. Lelouch followed it, and he was led to a set of shelves, behind which was the Dome Superstar Tucker, with two of his dawnstone blades at the ready and mirrored sunglasses.
Lelouch checked the ammo of his shotgun, and nodded to his sandslash.
The spined pokémon nodded, and charged, knocking the shelving down with Strength before leaping back as Tucker slashed through the steel, charging at Lelouch.
BLAM
The Knight of Ten was launched backwards through the warehouse, slamming against the steel crates behind him, his body riddled with bullets as Lelouch pumped the shotgun and fired again.
Lelouch then ran towards his remains and reached for the blades- only to find one at his throat.
"Heh, I know what you're thinking~!" Tucker wheezed, sunglasses hanging off his ear, grinning despite the blood pouring from his face and mouth. "You didn't think this fantastic outfit of mine would withstand a shot like that. Well, let me tell you something~!"
"Shut up and answer me." Lelouch snarled, looking the Knight dead in the eye with his double-barreled Geass.
Tucker froze, lowering his dawnstone blade. "Sure thing handsome~."
"Deoxys couldn't have been deployed without military consent." Lelouch growled. "Was it the doing of the Knights of the Round?"
"Yep, my orders, all to catch you~," grinned Tucker. "Pity it didn't work, but in the end I've got you in my clutches, so that's fine~!"
"A civilian died." Lelouch growled. "A student. Why the hell did you release those monsters in an urban area?"
"Who cares~? It's just collateral damage in the end~." Tucker confessed with a shrug. "Catching Zero is far more important than little details like that~."
Lelouch felt sickened just speaking to the man. "I see. In that case, die."
Tucker smiled pleasantly and pressed the razor sharp edge of his sword firmly against his neck, slicing through his jugular like a carrot. A slight look of shock overtook him as the Geass command faded, and he gurgled in surprise before slumping over, dead.
Lelouch barely gave him a second glance as he confiscated the six blades; strapping the network of scabbards onto his own back. Dawnstone was rare, and these weapons were not to be ignored.
Lelouch then rolled to the side as flames and gunfire occupied the space he was previously in. 'Found me already…' he scowled, reloading the shotgun. 'Why did I leave my alakazam behind?'
'Because I had Ryujin.' He remembered, mentally kicking himself. 'Of course that's why I did it.'
He waited for the enemy to cease fire, and he jumped out into the corridor, firing a wild shot and sending out lucario to take them down from behind. It worked surprisingly well.
Lelouch then recalled his pokémon, and got to work escaping the city.
C.C. sighed, holding Jiro out in her arms. "It's almost time, isn't it?" she asked.
Once he reached the surface, it was a simple manner of Geassing a careless soldier and taking his uniform, then leaving the city under the cover of darkness to meet up with Jeremiah.
He was able to break the seal easily, and Ryujin was glad to be with his master again.
Lelouch released Shirley from her pokéball in the forest, looking away as he handed her the clothes he took. "If you come with me, then there's no turning back." Lelouch told her as she dressed.
"Hey, Lulu…" she asked him. "How… many people have you killed?"
"Today, on a whole, by my hands, by my plans, or as a result of my actions?" Lelouch asked. "Either way, the answer will be 'Not as many as I will end up killing'."
SNAP
Lelouch glanced back to see Shirley toss her broken pokétch into the trees. "Alright then." Shirley replied with a quivering smile. "I'll have to take some of that blood onto my own hands then…"
They both looked up as a white burst of light coursed across the sky. "Oh yeah…" Shirley remembered. "It said on the news that the millennium comet was going to appear in the sky tonight…"
Lelouch looked up at the light in the night sky morosely. "Yeah…" he replied half-heartedly.
And the world turned into light.
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Dun dun dun. Cliffhanger.
Varanus: I'm looking forward to this next bit.
With good reason.
So, who's seen Monster lately?