The Innocence Breaker, having finished typing his progress reports for the week, settled into his brown leather chair (made to fit) and took a swig of Bartley's from a large flask. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he stretched his sore arm muscles and settled, exulting in another successful week.

It was months after Portland had fooled the Lamperouges so masterfully into becoming his pawns, and the Project was proceeding exactly according to the comprehensive plan he'd drawn up at the project's infancy.

It had been a simple but effective tactic he had used, to compel even the prideful, intelligent young Lelouch into subservience, and he gloated at his own cunning and skill in bringing it about. He took in the familiar, heady feeling of control that he had felt in every project he had participated in. Yet Portland was quick to suppress this prideful emotion, storing it away in his mind to be perused in a later, less hectic time. He knew the dangers of overstepping his pride.

For in spite of his sloppy exterior and manners, inside, Charles Augustus was a methodical man, allowing objectives to be met concretely and completely. To that end of achieving the Project's aims, he would do anything to ensure that children would be sufficiently broken - drawing upon centuries of time-honed methods in order to do so. Cruelty was his calling card, and that was how he came to be known as the "Innocence Breaker". In the depths of this twisted self, he believed that innocence is a farce, a crude phase which could, in the wrong hands, prove fatal to an individual's future. Able hands must shape and mold these young souls, to serve society as they should.

His abilities earned him both grudging respect and rampant fear in the world's underbelly: respect on the part of those who would use his skills, and fear in those who feared the results of his talents. He would forge assassins, spies, sleeper agents, masterminds and other brutal and skilled operatives of the underworld. His end-products were even now scattered all over the Britannian expanse and their Areas, the European Union, the Chinese Federation and other minor countries. All would not know the name of the towering figure they would always recall in their sleep, preferring instead to seal the memories deep in their changed minds.

A beep alerted the man to a new message in his private terminal, it was the report from Dr. Valdez, as late as ever. That man was proving to be a general hindrance to his plan, deviating it by a slight percent each passing week. Portland was resolved to give one final ultimatum to the head of the Weapons Research Division of this project, a threat to dispose the errant scientist. Once again, Portland wondered idly at this strange assignment he'd taken up, being the head of a such a vast-reaching project.

Portland had instantly jumped at the chance of a new project, having suffered a dry spell of some years because of the backlash that occured from his last project. He was initially struck by the nature of the assignment, heading a so-called Project to transform two children into skilled operatives with the support of Knightmares, thus meaning he would also have to work with a Knightmare research division. He had initially balked at the role he had to play - babysitting engineers and scientists in addition to his main duties, but the idea was so novel to the man that he had accepted in the end.

Bringing up some information on his terminal with a few clicks, he regarded the tidbit about the grand victory parade in Pendragon, Britannia celebrating the creation of Area 11, proving Britannia's strength on one hand, and introducing the new face of warfare on the other, coming in the form of the humanoid machines, the Knightmares. At this stage, the technology pertaining to Knightmares belonged solely to the Britannians, but he had no doubt that it would soon be readily duplicated by the rest of the world.

Humans cherish survival after all.

Coughing, Portland took another swig of liquor, and continued to reflect. His team was tasked with not only training those imperial brats three levels down, but also in the design and manufacture of a Knightmare frame which was supposed to be some sort of secret weapon that would revolutionize the face of the world. To that end, frequent reports would come in regarding R&D efforts by Britannia and the other countries regarding Knightmares, in order that the project's aim to produce a high-quality Knightmare would be fulfilled.

The Innocence Breaker had never molded pilots before, as they fell far in the opposite spectrum of where he operated, but the clandestine nature of this project fit him quite well. He would leave the technological blabber to the engineers who worked for him, his mind finding it hard to grasp at all the jargons which left him dizzy near the end - thus leaving him to do what he did best: break.

Dr. Rouche Aiyme, head of the Knightmare Frame Research and Development Division in the secret Lamperouge Project, stormed into the vast shop which housed the vast array of experimental weapons which Dr. Roderick Valdez had developed since the project had begun.

Which would have been "praiseworthy" and "awe-inspiring" to the fuming engineer, except for the fact that most of the armaments here on display were things that Valdez had created and casually tossed aside after manufacture, touted "failures" by the creator.

Aiyme found the man in question, crouching as was his manner over a vast new blueprint which was sprawled on the floor below him. The man seemed to be uttering unintelligible noises as she approached. She stopped behind the man and glared, hands on hips.

At that moment, the man suddenly stood up, hitting the poor woman's face, which caused her to fall backwards with an audible thud. The glasses she had been wearing clattered away, nearly crushed by Valdez's frenzied dash around the shop.

"I have it! I have it! The schematics were deceptively vague! All it needed was a slight adjustment in the feedback mechanism! Brilliant! You there," the prancing scientist pointed at one of the exasperated assistants. "Bring me the old beam-thingy-launcher," the man gestured strangely, "You know, the one I thought up from the 35th episode of Robot Seeders! Chop chop, get to it!"

The man resumed pacing around muttering "Neither will nor strength alone! I shall conquer!!" He paused to regard the trembling frame of Dr. Aiyme, who had finally recovered her glasses, as she slowly rose to her feet. "What is it, you? Have you come to bring news of more sakuradite?"

"YOU TROGGLODITE!", Aiyme slammed her datapad on top of the other's head with powerful force, knocking Valdez facedown on top of the blueprint.

Aiyme panted heavily as she regarded the other, who had recovered into a sitting position. "What's your problem woman?", he said as he tenderly fingered his head.

"What's my problem? Why else would I storm into this god-awful shop except to vent my frustrations on your weird behind!" Aiyme pressed something her datapad, bringing up something on the screen, then thrusted it at Valdez's face.

"The schedule! Our model's initial unveiling is coming up tomorrow, and you have the gall to request more sakuradite again!? What's the matter? How is it so hard to simply pick a conventional weapon and run with it? Why does it have to shoot noisy lights or provide a more aesthetic method of killing?"

"Because then it'd be boring," replied Valdez, as he plucked the datapad from his colleague. He input a few strings and handed it back, having ostentatiously changed the date for the presentation to six months in the future. "Now you go and tell Big Boss how important it is for our subjects to have the best killing tools at his disposal. You should know: he likes to have the best weapons for his 'products'."

"And you also know full well how he's intractable with that plan of his, and how he doesn't tolerate failures," she retorted, grabbing the front of the other's lab coat and lifting the man up. She brought her face close to the man's, "And you also know how we who are involved in the project are easily expendable. If you don't straighten up, you might not be able to create your little toys anymore."

After dumping the man on the floor, Aieyms exited the shop hurriedly, fiddling with her datapad as she went. Dr. Valdez was left sitting cross-legged on top of the blueprint, staring pensively after her. After some time, as his assistants transported the prototype he had requested, he proceeded to tinker with it, a childish grin lighting up his mature face as he did so - muttering incomprehensibly as he worked.

Lelouch fell back on his bed, feeling exhausted as he had become prone to over the past few months (as he reckoned). Today was another nerve-racking strategic exercise against a supercomputer, and he had extracted another satisfying win from the ordeal. The boy could not afford to fail, as he had learned over the months, for doing so would have subjected Nunnally to that man's sadistic torture.

Yes, Lelouch tiredly mused, this was the sad truth which he faced every day of every week over the past month now. Each morning he would unerringly wake without the aid of an alarm device and report to his door, where he would be transported by an armed troop to his "daily challenge". The challenges would range from day-long lessons on various university-level topics to strategic wartime simulations played against a powerful supercomputer. In every lesson or every game, the voice would exhort perfection, and express its intolerance for failures.

For the first few times that he had started to work as a pawn under the man's direction, he had faced his "challenges" with a distracted air, his thoughts always turning to his sister. After he failed to achieve a perfect score in a Linguistics test however, he would be prodded to work harder as he helplessly watched his sister being prodded by tazers. It took many minutes of humiliating groveling before the torture ended, and Lelouch, with tears welling up, promised perfection in future endeavors.

And so the months continued, with the boy being put through a rigid regime which put his frail body and his sharp intellect to their very limits. There were times when he was cast out into a simulacrum of ahostile environment, where he was forced to survive for 24 hours. (He had barely passed that, he would suffer Nunnally's torture afterwards for his near failure)

Other times, he was presented a "murder case" in which he was to resolve the underlying problem which lurked beneath the homicide. (Many times, it was always a government conspiracy, though there had been a trick session where he'd overthought the "simple" case and had once again suffered Nunnally's pain)

Lelouch would always be driven in his daily challenges with the burning thought of keeping his sister safe, no matter the cost. At times, a stray thought of rebellion against that man would enter unbidden, but he would quickly suppress it, fearing that the man would discover his intentions and act accordingly. For the burdened lad, his sister was his only salvation; in the darkness of this place, Nunnally was his only light.

The next day, Lelouch would be greatly surprised by his new challenge: he was given a manual on Knightmare operations and was informed that he would have to master basic and advanced maneuvers by noon. The boy panicked, the information threatening to overwhelm him as he frantically absorbed them from the thick manual. It was with a desperate heart that he faced the simulation machine, which was supposed to mimic a standard Britannian Glasgow cockpit. His brain seemed to work in hyperdrive as he settled in the seat, sweat dripping in great amounts from his body. He took a deep breath, praying to whatever merciful God there was to get him through this ordeal, for Nunnally to be safe-

Of course he would fail. He had foreseen it from the start, right when he had been given the ridiculous challenge. As he miserably stared at the bright red symbol on the screen which was evidence of his failure, he began to compose a long, earnest entreaty, this time repeating an earlier offer to be the torture victim.

"No. You know full well the price of failure. Even a generous man such as myself has limits, boy. I am beginning to think you don't care enough for your dear little sister. And that is why I shall take the punishment to a new level. Watch closely, boy. This is the sign of your failure."

The boy's screams echoed in the dim room, his sobs likewise echoing down the corridor as he was carried-and shoved back into his room. Lelouch's anguished screams would echo well into the night, but the horrific memory would last a lifetime.

Nunnally, in turn, spent the last few months in no less stressful circumstances. Faced with the threat of physical harm which might befall her brother, she would seem to do her very best to overcome the challenges that were placed before her.

The week following her acquiescence came as a surprise: she was made to receive experimental cybernetic impants which she was told would breathe life once more into her crippled legs. After the painful, hours-long operation (in which she desperately fought the urge to cry), she was given two weeks for rehabilitation - anymore and the voice promised something dire for her brother.

She recovered in record time, permanently regaining the use of her legs, though she was still deprived of her sight. Daily life with the renewed ability to walk would was vastly superior from before, yet Nunnally knew that it had come with an exorbitant price. She would be reminded of the awful truth of their condition every time she would bend her knees to stand or sit.

All throughout the days she spent afterwards were receiving academic lessons, broaching every subject in the known world. Her 'tests' at the end of every lesson were the terms by which her brother would be judged for the day, the voice had said, and so Nunnally spent each lesson eagerly listening to what the voice in the computer would dictate, desperately retaining as much information as she could.

Slowly, Nunnally began to notice a subtle shift in her lessons. Even her young mind could comprehend the fact that she was made to memorize more technical information, encompassing topics from computerizing systems to mechanized vehicles. She paid little heed to this development for now, as she pushed to excel regardless.

She had suffered only one failure: and that incident would always bring pain to her heart as she recalled the heartbreaking sounds of her brother being tortured. In a trembling, genuflected position, she promised to redouble her efforts, as the voice chided, to prevent such a thing from happening again. The sounds would haunt her nightmares for some time afterward.

Today seemed to be something entirely different for the girl. She sensed that she had been taken to a room with humming sounds, different from what was usual for her. There, a higher voice, different from the one she had been accustomed to hearing, greeted her. What he said next shocked her to the core. She waited in confused silence as she listened to the man's explanations, this time not even caring to absorb the information. Could this be a dream?

As she felt something being put on her head, she dimly recalled the earlier years playing at the palace gardens with a painful tinge. As she heard the humming of the machines near her increase in volume, she became gradually aware of something which she assumed to have lost, all this time.

She could see! Dimly, she was able to make out the room around her, with all the wires interconnecting together. Again, she remembered the bright colors in the garden, and was slightly disappointed to see that everything was in a pale black-and-white glow, even the man's face which she found was smiling straight at her. She did not know if she herself was wearing one.

"How...?"

"...The system is still in the process of fine-tuning, there are a few perks which should be worked out, naturally a way must be found to ensure constant usage..."

Nunnally could no longer hear the words being uttered by the man, so engrossed was she in this renewed sight that she was only able to nod uncertainly when the man asked her a question.

I can see again, I've regained the usage of my legs! But why would they do this? And what was the cost of this blessing? Nunnally's mind wavered. Nii-sama...

Entry Log:
(cough) So I was, uh, visited by that woman from Knightmare design just now, and I can barely suppress my rare emotion of, um, hatred towards that fool. (spit) Because of her antics, I very nearly lost the thread of my ingenious plan: to enhance the uh, Breaker Harkens with a specialized surger device that will spell instant death to the unfortunate pilot caught within the harken's grasp. (panting) However, such a technology seems to be far from gaining its use in reality, and I have not the time nor the resources to pursue research down that field. (random mutterings) The prototype harkens will have to do: I grudgingly accept that the woman had an valid point. I shall also mention the proposal of increasing our sakuradite supplies - almost a week from the latest delivery, and we're already running out. (grunt) I also seem to recall that Duran's own invention would also be given its test run tomorrow. I am mildly excited to hear the results of the man's vision, (laughter) "vision", oh I crack myself up....
R. Valdez