Chapter 12

Everything had gone right straight to hell.

That was what Gino Weinberg thought as he sat on one of the chairs in the palace waiting room looking at the sun setting in the sky. Frustrated and bored he hated waiting around with nothing to do but there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.

It was just starting out as a regular day at the training school where he now worked as a Knightmare instructor to all the newbie's. It was boring but the job kept him in a Knightmare frame so he didn't complain, he was just finishing up a class when it was interrupted by two suits who landed there helicopter just outside the building. On the way to the imperial palace they only told him that there was a crisis situation in Britannia and Japan and that his skills would soon be needed.

"You're here too Gino?" asked a male voice.

Gino turned around in his chair and noticed Anya Alstreim and Jeremiah Gottwald standing in the doorway.

"Anya, Orange." Gino said as he stood up. After the events two years ago Anya went to live with Jeremiah on his orange farm in the Britannian countryside but they still kept in touch with each other through email.

"You got the invite as well then?" Jeremiah asked.

"Hey I'm the best Knightmare pilot in Britannia; they'll be crazy not to recruit me."

"Still big headed as always." Anya said she leaned against the door and started typing into diary.

Before Gino could think of something else to say the door opened again and Zero walked in and looked around the room.

"It's been a long time Zero." Jeremiah said as he extended his hand to Zero.

"Two years," Zero replied as he shook Jeremiah's hand, "Anya, Gino good to see you too."

"Yep, so are you finally going to let us know what's going on?" Gino asked wanting to get straight to business.

"Be sited then, this could take awhile." Zero walked around to the front of the long table as everyone else took their seat.

"You've all already been told but some time ago our Pendragon Facility was destroyed by an unidentified group who stole the F.L.E.I.J.A. warheads we where storing there." Zero started.

"How many warheads where stolen?" Gino asked.

"Twelve."

"Damn." Jeremiah exclaimed, Gino looked at Anya and saw that even was pretty shocked.

"I fought with the enemy but their Knightmares where far superior to mine, almost similar to the Lancelot model," Zero continued, "Their leader's Knightmare was something I've never seen before and I barely managed to escape, in the end only I and pilot Sarah Soresi managed to survive."

Zero then grasped his hands own the back of the chair in front of him as though try to calm himself.

"After we returned the palace was infiltrated by someone who looked exactly like Lelouch vi Britannia but you where all told that earlier. His objective it seems was to capture Schneizel el Britannia which he succeeded in doing."

"So why where we called in?" Gino asked though he already suspected the answer.

"You've also been told earlier that Japan has been under attack by an unknown force for over an hour now. It's still going on but they seem to have no hope beating this enemy, we are going to launch an attack on this force and we need all the experienced pilots we can get."

"Even if we wanted to help," Anya suddenly said while barely looking up from her video diary, "Where not going to beat them if the only models you have are Sunderland and Gloucester's."

"I thought about that so I already took the liberty of inviting Rakshata to begin production on our new Knightmares." Zero replied.

"Cool!" Gino exclaimed standing up, "Did Kallen here as well?"

After the battle of Mt. Fuji he and Kallen became pretty good friends but he hasn't since her in months since she went off testing the new Guren.

"Yes let's go to the hanger now where I introduce you to your new Knightmares."

XXX

As Suzaku led Gino, Jeremiah and Anya his mind wandered through the past few days's events but the all ended with him think about the Lelouch copy he had faced.

How is it even possible, Cloning? Plastic surgery? He didn't know but technology for cloning didn't even exist anyway. He also knew it couldn't possibly be Lelouch; Suzaku killed him himself and he was never coming back.

But how the he get Geass, I thought Lelouch had completely destroyed the Order? The fake Lelouch's Geass was close to the real one but its victims seemed to still be aware of their action so it wasn't absolute obedience but it also raised another problem; were there other people out there who can use a Geass?

As Suzaku turned another corner that leads to the hanger he decided he can just worry about it later; Japan needed saving once again and he'll die first before he'll allow the Japanese to be enslaved ever again. As for the Lelouch copy he had a feeling that the one way or another he will see him again.