Welcome back to another issue of Armed Resistance: Side Stories! It's been a little while since we updated- two weeks, I think? Still, this chapter should be interesting to a lot of people.

This chapter contains a lot of narration, which is a little annoying, but a necessary evil- we're seeing this chapter through the eyes of some people that know a lot that Gaspar does not, and thus there is a lot to explain. One of the side effects of this is you will learn some very important details as to how exactly Codes and Geasses work in AR's universe. Some of this stuff will come up in AR, only a lot later on... and like all Side Stories, some of it never will. Regardless, when/if it does come up, it will be treated as though you'd never read it, because I don't assume readership of the Side Stories.

This chapter was tough to write, because I had finalize a lot of things- how exactly Codes work, how you sealed them, the nature of the Code hunters, and so forth. If I could have just written it, it would have been easy, but there had to be a lot of thought about structure and implications, and such. Not, like, looking for sympathy or anything, I just thought it was an interesting fact. More work than you'd expect.

Review time! We got quite a few reviews for Chapter 3, which makes me happy, I thought it was a good one. I want to thank the couple of people that pointed out to me a plot hole I had to fix- I had forgotten that Britannia didn't actually own the British Isles anymore, heheh. I'm grateful to people for catching that one. A couple of people also asked about the inspiration for the color coded uniforms- asking where I got them from, essentially. I mean, cross your fingers, because it's possible I saw it somewhere and picked it up subconsciously (that's always possible), but I'm pretty sure I just thought of it myself. Honestly, I was trying to find a way to incorporate Jeremiah's nickname, "Orange"... and I started thinking about it. An incident involving an orange in the cafeteria? Stupid. Maybe a reference to the color of his jumpsuit- maybe he's got an orange one and no one else does? From that idea I developed the color-coded jumpsuits. Which turned out pretty decently, I think- it might actually be useful in a penal system.

Teucrian noted that Schneizel felt a little off... and honestly, I completely agree. I had a lot of trouble getting a feel for his character. Some characters- C.C., Karen, Sayoko- I feel like I can just write, and really capture the way they talk and act. I just know how they are, I just kind of feel it. Some characters, though, I have a fair bit of trouble getting into their heads. Suzaku, Schneizel, Nina. They are difficult for me. I've upgraded this story to M, so I feel comfortable mentioning this here... but I was watching episode 12 of Season One again for reference, because I was just starting to write Chapter 23... and at like 10:03 we see Nina in the dark, and... well, okay. Kiddies, move alone, but speaking frankly... she's pretty obviously fingering herself to a picture of Euphemia. ...Tell me you don't find that mega creepy. Ewwww. I have trouble getting into the head of a girl doin' that. (If you wanna reply to this observation, please keep it to a PM- I don't want talk about masturbation in my reviews, that would look pretty messed up.)

Kids, you can start reading again. Deathzealot wondered if Schneizel perhaps would have gotten a better match from Zero's DNA... but no, they don't have Lelouch's DNA on record. I'm using the USA's DNA record regulations, which is that they only have DNA records of people who were suspects in a criminal investigation. That's been my assumption, because we have no information on Britannia's DNA database. Kyuubi no kami mentions the possibility of a Side Story from Nunnally's perspective... my god that would be depressing. I don't plan to do it, but I'll keep that idea in my pocket just in case. Maybe I'll just decide that you guys need to be more sad, and hit you with that =P He also asks who the four prisoners were that escaped from the Towers in the past. Uhm... I don't know? It was just a flavor detail, it was all like a hundred years ago anyway.

Alright, that's it for now! Enjoy the chapter!

N.N. - Around Chapter 11

It had been a mistake. A stupid mistake. That was obvious now, of course, as most mistakes are in retrospect. Come to Area Eleven, ask C.C. for help. Smart. Because she's always liked you so much, and has always been so willing to help her fellow Codes. Oh wait, no she hasn't. She never has. She's always hated you, in fact. N.N. gritted his teeth, and ducked down another side alley. He hadn't survived for over two hundred years by being this stupid. He'd picked a wonderful time to start acting like a moron, though.

It wasn't that he was brilliant. He'd never been brilliant. But he'd usually been smart enough to stay away from people who would be happy to see him dead. It was, of course, the fear getting to him. Britannia had been around for as long as he had, but only this new Emperor really scared him. This new Emperor, and his Code hunters. He shuddered as he thought of them. He'd had a decent number of Geass Knights over the years... but it was only when the Code hunters came into being did any of them get sealed.

The process of sealing a Code was a little unintuitive, but once you learned how, it wasn't really that hard. The source of a Code's power, and of their Geasses, was the Codestone. There were twenty-six Codestones in various places across the world... one for each of the Codes. There was a C.C. stone, and an N.N. stone... and there used to be a lot of other stones as well, but most of them were destroyed now.

The way you sealed a Code was, you took their Geass Knights to that Code's particular Codestone, wherever it was, put the Knight on the Stone, and then killed them. As they died, their lifeblood spilling over the stone, the blood would stain the Codestone, and the power from that Knight's Geass would be lost. Kill all three Knights- doesn't have to be the same time, in fact that had only ever happened twice- over the otherwise unbreakable Codestone, and the stone would crumble to pieces... and the Code's body would just stop.

They would still be alive in a twisted way- their mind would still work, they would still be able to think, but their bodies wouldn't respond to their commands anymore, and would slowly, over the course of centuries, crumble to dust, and only then would the Code be finally dead. It was it was torture, it was inhumane, but it was the only way to get rid of a Code.

In the scant few decades that Charles zi Britannia had been Emperor, and established the Code hunters (their proper name being the Evolutionary Purity Directorate), he had done what no other ever could. He'd sealed more Codes in his lifetime than all the rest of history put together.

Fifteen. Fifteen of the original twenty-six Codes had been sealed by the Code hunters. A.A., B.B., E.E., G.G., I.I., J.J., K.K., M.M., P.P., R.R., T.T., U.U., W.W., X.X., Z.Z. Add to those poor souls the seven Codes that were sealed by one person or another in the centuries (maybe even millennia? N.N. wasn't sure) before, and you had four surviving Codes.

First was C.C, the green-haired bitch, who'd been a Code for... well, longer than anyone else still alive, and still had all three of her Geasses. She was careful, she was smart, and she was just so experienced- once you've been alive for a millennium (at least- she was seriously ancient, even by Code standards), you get really good at just about everything.

She was good with a sword, a gun, with martial arts, or even a Knightmare. She knew medicine, she knew chemistry, she could build an assault rifle from a box of scraps. And this was just stuff she'd picked up- she hadn't even been trying. And for some reason, she almost never helped out her Geass Knights in any way. Never told them what they were up against... but she'd kept them from getting sealed. She did a lot of work in the background without telling them- fighting off the hunters, and leading them off the trail.

Second was S.S., a shy girl who'd been made a Code about a hundred and fifty years ago. Last he'd heard, she was being held by the Code hunters, with two of her Geass Knights sealed, and the third on the run. She could be completely sealed by this point, he just didn't know. N.N. had actually been there when she became the new S.S.- at the time, she was just a Geass Knight, and her Code patron passed his Code to her. That was the ultimate goal of every Code- to raise a powerful enough Geass Knight to pass along the mantle. By rights, C.C. should have had a successor long ago, but she just seemed to have terrible luck.

Then there was V.V., the newest Code, and brother of Charles. You'd think the fact that it was his brother would mean the Emperor would go easy on him, but judging by the fact that he too was locked up, with two of his three Geasses sealed (he had never appointed a third one, so they couldn't completely seal him until he did), Charles had no sympathy for his older brother. V.V.'s Geass had grown at a staggering rate, and he'd actually taken up his predecessor's Code at the age of ten. Truth be told, it was kind of creepy, seeing an immortal little kid.

And last, of course, there was N.N.- two of his three Geass Knights sealed by the Code hunters, and currently running like hell with them in hot pursuit. N.N. had done a good twenty years as a Geass Knight before his patron passed the Code along to him. His Geass had been quite powerful, but of course, once he became a Code, he lost that ability. He didn't have C.C.'s overwhelming experience, S.S.'s extreme likeability, or V.V.'s sharp intellect. No, his asset was that he was the fastest goddamn runner you'd ever meet. Everyone has something, right?

He vaulted over a fence, and realized too late that the other side was a forty foot drop. His heart thudded in terror as he flailed in the air, and then landed with a sickening crunch on the pavement below. He pulled his legs straight with his arms, wincing, and they healed instantly, and then he jumped to his feet, and kept running. "God, immortality is painful sometimes," he grunted, dashing across a street.

N.N. ducked into a run-down shed, slammed the door behind him, and took a deep breath. Safe. For the moment. He took a deep breath. How the hell did I think I would ever be able to fight the Code hunters, huh? Just two of 'em on my trail, and I'm running for my life! I should have never come to Britannian territory...

"I hope Damian is doing better than me..." he muttered quietly.

Damian Montague

For the moment, Damian Montague was indeed doing better than his Code patron, though he was in no less danger. Standing in the middle of the Code hunters headquarters with only his Geass to keep him from being discovered was... less than ideal. One of the hunters turned to stare at him a moment, and Damian's hand slid slowly toward his pistol... "Benjamin! I thought you were off in Area Three!" declared the man cheerfully.

Damian relaxed his tense muscles, and sighed. "Got called back rather suddenly. Heard you'd caught the trail of one of them in Area Eleven, right?" he said, his Geass glowing brightly.

Damian's Geass was Absolute Mimicry. He had the power to, by staring into your eyes, take on your identity, covering all five senses- to other people you look just like them, your voice sounds just like them, you feel just like them, smell just like them... even taste like them, though that had only been necessary once, and that was a very, very odd encounter. While Damian held another's identity, they were forced unconscious. When he stopped using it, they awoke again.

Or, at least, that's how it used to be. That was before his Geass Runaway kicked in. Now, any identities he took, he had for as long as he liked- he had some dozen identities cataloged in his mind. The side effect, though... was that he didn't just knock them out when he took their identities. He killed them. Stripped the life right out of them.

It was a thing that kept him awake at night, the first time it happened. But killing, like most things, gets easier every time you do it. By now, it didn't bother him at all. He didn't even think of it as killing- really, he was just taking them into himself. He was moving them from their weak human bodies to the congregation of identities within himself, through the power of Geass.

So clearly, like most long term Geass Knights, his power had driven him somewhat crazy. For the moment, though, it was the only thing keeping the people around him from realizing that he was one of the people they'd dedicated their lives to eliminating. Current, his Geass was convincing everyone who gazed upon him that he was Benjamin Mulready, a member of the Code and Geass Knight hunting organization the Evolutionary Purity Directorate, or EPD for short. The only folks in the world who didn't just know how to permanently seal a Code... but had done so, repeatedly.

Damian didn't like them too much, predictably. The man who had spoken to him paused, and then reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. "It's me. ...You what? Oh come on, it's not even the smart one!" he complained. He glanced at Damian, and put his hand over the receiver. "It's that Chinese guy... but they lost track of him," he sighed. "This is gonna take a while. See you later, Ben." Then he uncovered the phone. "No, I don't think his Geass Knight is there. Because this guy, while he's not super bright, is not such a retard that he would drop his last Geass right on our doorstep. ...Put Mike on the phone," he sighed.

Damian shuffled past the hunter carefully. It sounds like N.N. got spotted again... honestly, his carelessness will be the death of me one of these days. That, or he would become N.N. He was getting close- he was almost powerful enough now to assume the mantle. Certainly, life as a Code wasn't great right now, but it was immortality. All he would have to do would be to wait for the current Emperor to die, or otherwise be dethroned, and his Directorate would fall with him. But for that to happen, he had to survive. He had to keep from getting sealed. And even with his Geass, at the rate things were going it was only a matter of time.

The problem with his Geass, like all of them, was that it only affected people. Sure, to everyone he met, he was exactly like whoever's identity he had taken. But to a camera... or more to the point, a security camera, he just looked like himself. That was why he was glad he was wearing a hood, but even so, being here was an incredible risk.

A necessary one, though. Without any change in the situation, it would only be a matter of time before he got caught, and he wasn't okay with that. Neither was N.N. So they'd set up a two-pronged plan to get the other Codes involved- N.N. would go see C.C., and try to get her to help them out, while Damian went to the EPD's headquarters, and tried to break out either S.S. or V.V., who were imprisoned there. N.N.'s plan had run into the complication of C.C. thinking he was irritating and worthless. And Damian's...

The plan had always been to spring S.S. She was quiet and shy, but she liked other Codes and Geass Knights. She thought they were all family in this, in some messed up way, and wanted to help out. Wanted everyone to work together. So if you could really convince her it was important, she would help you out. Trouble was, it hadn't taken long after getting inside for Damian to learn that S.S. had been sealed. They'd finally caught up with her last Geass Knight- in Area Six, go figure- and taken care of him. So she was dead. Well, worse than dead, really. And all that left was V.V.

Everyone hated V.V. Everyone hated V.V. He was arrogant, he was superior, he was smart but not nearly as smart as he thought. Despite being the newest Code, he acted like he was the senior, and it pissed all the Codes and Knights off. But Damian didn't really have an option, so V.V. it would be.

He took a deep breath, and moved as quickly and casually as he could through the halls of the Directorate's headquarters. There were very few people actually roaming the halls- as Damian understood it, the place had a very binary life. At any given time either everyone was out in the field, or everyone was in the office, and there was very little in between. Damian had timed his visit for when there wouldn't be many people there, but he hadn't realized just how empty the place would be.

It wasn't, of course, completely empty. There were office workers handling and filing paperwork, there were scientists doing research on the nature of Codes and Geasses- research which, as Damian understood it, had made essentially zero progress since its inception. It made sense to him that they were having so much trouble- they were trying to study through scientific method something that was so beyond the scope of science that it was indistinguishable from magic.

That was just the story of their research as to how Geasses and Codes worked- the logic behind it all. The practical side of their research- ways to stop Geass Knights- had actually produced some significant results. They'd figured out that a Geass showed itself in the eyes- that it manifests in the user's eyes when active, and that it leaves a slight red ring around the iris of those currently being affected by it- but that was something that the field operatives had discovered for themselves already.

It was amusing to Damian that they hadn't figured out the really obvious one yet, though- that a Geass couldn't affect the environment, only living beings. Perhaps even only people, he wasn't sure. He'd never tried messing with his Geass on a dog or something.

There were also a few agents around, though, questioning people that had been brought in. All of them were there because the agents thought they'd come into contact with a Geass of some sort... and while he didn't like to make blanket statements, Damian was pretty sure that all of them would turn out to be bogus. The EPD brought in a staggering number of people on suspicion of Geass contact, and of course, very few of them had ever actually come in contact with any Geass Knights.

Damian had gotten unlucky- they had, in the past, gotten some of his victims, and from them, figured out what Damian's Geass was. Specifically, they'd determined that he could steal people's identities by staring into their eyes... and also confirmed that the process now left people dead. That was, in fact, the majority of the EPD's work- investigation to determine the nature of a Geass Knight's identity and powers. And their thoroughness was a testament to their zeal.

You would expect, then since they knew what Damian's power was, they would have some extra security protocols in place to keep him from slipping in... but so far, things were going pretty smoothly. No one had raised any calls of alarm, and he realized that it was actually possible that the people in charge of security just couldn't conceive that a Geass Knight would come here willingly, and just assumed that, since no one was making a fuss when they met him, that he was okay.

It was something of a paradox- the only way to catch Damian was to use a security camera, but the people staffing them were too lazy to pay the necessary attention unless someone else had already caught him. And now he had reached the holding cells without anyone bothering him. Holy shit, he thought. I might actually pull this off.

He moved quickly, passing dozens of cells, including one where S.S.'s sealed body was slowly decaying, before he finally reached V.V. He stared at the Code in astonishment. He had... changed.

As former royalty, V.V. had always prided himself on his appearance. His flowing blond hair was longer than he was tall, golden and stylized, and though Damian hated to admit it, it had just looked beautiful. He'd worn the fanciest clothes in the style of Britannian nobility, and held himself with pride and grace.

The V.V. lying in a heap on the ground showed none of this. He was garbed in what looked like some sort of full-body straight jacket, white with black leather straps and buckles holding back his arms. His hair had been cut short, as though hacked off rather than cut, and it was dirty and disheveled. And his eyes... they were mad. Not as in angry, as in completely insane. Damian had heard that not having any Geass Knights caused a Code intense mental agony, but he hadn't ever seen it firsthand. Now he was seeing what happened when a Code was kept from having any Geass Knights for two decades.

He stared at the unresponsive boy for a few moments, his plans suddenly uncertain. He hadn't expected to get this far... how would he get V.V. out? And even if he did, and V.V. was able to appoint a new Geass Knight- his last Geass Knight- would he regain his sanity? The wild look in the boy's eye left Damian uncertain if he was even capable of speech anymore, so far gone was his mind. What can I possibly do? ...This was a bad idea. I should never have come here, and I should get out of here as fast as I can, he thought.

Suddenly, a siren went off in the building. "A Knight has infiltrated the building! Repeat, a Knight has infiltrated the building! Hunter squads, head to the holding cells! Level three lockdown activated!" boomed a loudspeaker.

Before the announcement had finished, Damian was already off and running, dashing back the way he came. He reached the automatic door... and slammed into it with a gasp when it did not automatically open. He scrambled to his feet, and pounded on it... but it didn't open. Locked, of course. He turned around, and saw the hunters at the other end of the hall.

This was it. He'd failed. They were going to grab him, haul him off to N.N.'s Codestone, and kill him... and in so doing, they would seal N.N. as well. No, he thought, controlling his panic. No, this isn't over yet. Stay cool, and play your part. "He went this way!" he exclaimed. "I don't have the most recent keycodes- someone open this door before he gets away!"

Damian did still appear as one of their comrades thanks to his Geass, and the hunters that had been marching toward him hesitated. "...Who is it?" asked one of them, fingering his assault rifle.

"There's no time for this shit, come on! It's me, Benjamin Mulready! Don't tell me you don't recognize me!" he snapped. "Come on, open the door!"

The hunters relaxed. "Sorry, Ben," said the one who'd questioned him, rushing forward to open the door. "I did recognize you, of course, but I had to be sure you were really you. That damn Knight can steal faces, after all." He punched in the correct keycode, and the door slid open .

"Is that the one that's in here? Shit," swore Damian. "I suppose it's better than that mind reader, though. Come on, let's get after him. He can't get out with the place like this." If I pull this off I deserve a goddamn award, he thought, his heart racing.

"Oh!" exclaimed the one who had opened the door, remembering something. "Sorry, Ben, I know it's a pain in the ass, but I gotta ask for your safety phrase. Rules, you know how it is."

Damian froze. "Do we really have time for this?" he asked.

"Rules are rules, man. Just say it and we can get moving."

There was a long pause, and then Damian shouted, "Fuck!" and began to run for it. He wasn't nearly as fast as his patron N.N., however, and he only got a few yards before one of the hunters shot him in the leg, and he fell to the ground.

The hunters rushed to the fallen Geass Knight, pulling on eye protection to guard against his Geass, and held him down. "You killed Ben!" roared one. "You son of a bitch!" He lashed out with a booted foot, kicking Damian viciously in the stomach. Then he bent down, and grabbed him by the hair, pulling out a knife. "Do you know what this is, asshole?" he snarled, holding up the blade.

Damian did know what it was. He'd heard stories from other Geass Knights, from N.N. When a Code was killed, and their Codestone crumbled, the stone didn't hold the power of a Code anymore. But even so, it was something more than ordinary stone. The EPD's scientists had discovered that if you make a knife out of the stuff, and slash a Geass Knight's eyes with it, you could keep them from being able to activate their Geass. And also blind them, which was another plus, as the hunters saw it.

It was the perfect way to keep a Knight from Geassing anyone while they were being transported to be sealed... or should they escape, from being able to use their powers again.

And having your eyes slashed hurt even more than it sounded like it would, as Damian learned.

N.N. - Two Days Later

N.N. frowned. He'd called Damian several times without any answer. It had been two days since he'd gone to the EPD's headquarters to try to rescue the other Codes... and no word. N.N. had since managed to evade the hunters, and escape back to China... but that he hadn't heard back from Damian probably meant that he was having to lay low and run from the hunters himself.

Damian's Geass really was just the perfect one for escaping the EPD. His other Geass Knights had tried to out-and-out fight the EPD, which was a fool's errand. Damian had avoided them many times, and N.N. was confident that he would avoid them again many more.

He'd hoped, with this little effort, to be able to turn the table on the hunters- maybe to not be always on the run. To have the power to fight when necessary. But it was looking unlikely that Damian had succeeded. Ah well. In a year or so, he'll be powerful enough to take my Code, I think. We just have to last until-

The feeling came suddenly, like a reverberating tightness in his chest, like an echoing in his head. His eyes widened in horror. He knew this feeling. Oh god, oh no, oh god they're sealing Damian, he realized in horror. He felt like he was on fire, a flame burning inside his chest. It was torture, it was agony, and he collapsed to the ground from the pain.

And then as quickly as it came, it subsided. Oh, thank god... it stopped. Did Damian get away in the middle of the ceremony, or something? he thought, a little baffled. It doesn't matter how. The important thing is, I'm okay. I will miss Damian, though... even if he got away, he'll just bleed to death somewhere else. ...He was a good friend.

He pushed himself to his feet... or tried to, but his body didn't move. He blinked in surprise... but again, his body didn't obey the signals from his brain. His eyelids didn't move. In horror, N.N. realized that he wasn't breathing, either. Oh god, Damian didn't get away... they succeeded. I've been sealed.

And with that, he tried to fight his rising panic... but there was no way for him to calm down. He couldn't close his motionless body's eyes to try to calm himself. He couldn't pace, as he often did, to cool his thoughts. He was trapped, inside his own head, unable to escape, and knowing that nothing would change for several hundred years, at which point he would finally be granted release.

This is the way a Code ends- not with a bang, but with a centuries-long whimper.

I worry that the chapter has just too much exposition, but it was unavoidable, I think. It's definitely the most informative Side Story yet... but also probably the worst written. =( I don't think it's bad, just not as good as I would like. Well, the next one will be better. Onward and upward!

So V.V. is alive, kind of, but he has no Geass Knights, and other than him, it's just C.C. and her three Knights now. The last of the Codes. Fortunately, as mentioned, she is just really good at dealing with the EPD, so it's not a forgone conclusion. Plus, Mao and Gaspar are likely some of the most formidable Geass Knights ever, or at least in several hundred years. A long time ago, nearly every Geass Knight had an army, that was just the thing to do. Obviously that's much harder to pull off in the age of the Directorate.

The next Side Story will either be Nina or Villetta. I'll give Nina a shot, write some... but I'm not confident that I'll succeed. Like I said, I have a lot of trouble with Nina. Cause she's creepy.

Review, comment, question, and I'll see you again on Tuesday with Chapter 23! Unless, for some strange reason, I were to post something else between now and then, but what are the chances of that happening?

=3