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Cakes, Mushrooms and Lolis

Lelouch high-tailed it down the beach and away from the melee that was taking place behind him. He seemed to be upsetting quite a few people today... If this was a hallucination that reflected his subconscious, then he must view himself as a very irritating person. Deciding to forgo the psychoanalysis in favor of concentrating on his escape, Lelouch was shocked to see the bunny girl from earlier sprinting towards him at a pace that was certainly breaking all world records. As she neared, he could hear her muttering to herself, "Oh no, where could I have dropped it? I borrowed it from Ms. Viletta! If she finds out that I lost it here, she'll know who I am and have me executed for sure!"

Lelouch's brilliant mind helpfully supplied that the girl was looking for her headband, and decided to look around for it as well. Since he had offended many people, he figured that he might as well get on the good side of at least one inhabitant in his hallucination.

"Excuse me miss, would you like me to help you search?" Lelouch beamed politely.

The bunny girl barely gave him a glance and nodded curtly before walking down a road that suddenly appeared. Lelouch doggedly followed, having nothing else better to do. The road led to a small cottage of the fairytale bunny girl came to a stop and turned around to glare at Lelouch. "Go search in there!"

Lelouch bristled at being ordered to do something, but caught himself. "Don't offend another person...don't be offensive," he told himself, before nodding and walking into the cottage.

Inside, he found a headband, the same size and color as the one he remembered her wearing, and was about to bring it out to the demanding young lady, but he noticed a bottle of clear liquid in the room. Feeling rather thirsty from the swim in the pool of tears, and seeing as the cap was still unbroken, Lelouch deemed it safe to drink and drank half the bottle in one gulp.

Instantly, he felt his bones elongate. Lelouch wondered why he was having multiple growth spurts and what this hallucination was telling him about his subconscious size complex. Larger and larger he grew, until he couldn't be contained by the cottage and his limbs were sticking out of the thin walls. He bent his neck to avoid breaking through the roof. Thankfully, he stopped growing before the whole cottage fell apart. That would slightly lessen the property damages he would have to pay... Which reminded him that he probably has gotten onto the bunny girl's bad side as well. Lelouch sighed. Oh well, he thought. I'll just be more careful next time.

From outside, he hears the bunny girl yell, "Hurry up and come out with the headband! I'm late already!" When there was no response, as Lelouch couldn't obey, he heard her yell, "Sir Jeremy! Go inside to get the headband! ...Ms. Viletta's headband!"

After a few minutes, Lelouch heard a thump on the roof, and realized that Sir Jeremy is going to come down from the chimney. Lelouch panicked as much as he was capable of panicking. The cottage was cramped enough as it was, without the addition of another person. From the sounds of it, this Sir Jeremy was no anorexic girl either. From the noise outside, Lelouch deduced that quite a crowd had gathered. Gritting his teeth in embarrassment, he was in no good temper to deal with the ash covered man that had crawled into a tiny space in front of the fireplace.

This "Sir Jeremy" coughed politely before screaming "It wasn't me! I don't know what 'orange' is!" Lelouch wondered if everyone was insane in this world.

Lelouch took a deep breath before inquiring, "Pardon me, but do you know how I can get smaller again? I'd rather not be stuck in a cottage forever."

Sir Jeremy paid him no heed. "It was all a conspiracy against me! I had no relations to Zero at all! He framed me! I lost everything!"

Lelouch gave up on trying to talk to this madman and turned his attention to the people outside. Unsurprisingly, the cottage suddenly sprouting limbs has attracted quit a crowd. Unfortunately, they didn't simply look curious, they were also whispering to each other and casting dark looks at it. Lelouch tried to contain his fear. Angry mobs are rather unpredictable and he just hoped they didn't have the strength to tear him limb from limb. Wait, he was big enough to step on them. Perhaps tearing him limb from limb wasn't an option after all. Feeling slightly reassured, all of Lelouch's fears gushed back in an instant as the crowd came closer holding what looked like rocks. Lelouch tried desperately to retract his arms, but the walls of the cottage shook dangerously. The front of the crowd started throwing the "rocks" and Lelouch cringed, bracing himself for the impact. Instead, he felt a very soft splat on his leg. Bringing his eyes to a window, he saw the remains of a small cake smushed onto his uniform pant leg.

Lelouch's relief at not getting hurt was quickly replaced by disgust as he realized that this pair of pants would be in dire need of a washing after this encounter. Feeling something sticky and wet on his hand, Lelouch realized that the crowd has starting throwing rocks/cakes at his arms as well. Catching one, Lelouch decided he might as well eat it and not let food go to waste, carefully bringing his mouth to the (broken) window. The cake tasted like pure sugar, much like the confections girls at school were fond of giving him. Luckily, as Lelouch had hoped, the cake turned him smaller with each bite he took. Soon he was back to (relatively) normal size. Sir Jeremy did not even turn to look at his magical transformation, so Lelouch took this time to make his get away.

Deciding to avoid the angry mob now that he was a size where he could be ripped to itty bitty pieces by the mob, Lelouch headed out the back door. He sprinted for the forest, hoping that with a head start, he could outrun them. For some reason, Lelouch felt that he was getting slower and slower. The trees seemed much darker and taller than when he had started. His legs just weren't covering much distance, and suddenly, Lelouch realized the grass was getting closer and closer. Crap! That meant the cake's effect was simply delayed. He was still shrinking! Lelouch stopped and waited in horrified silence for the shrinking to stop. If he shrank down to nothing... but thankfully, stop it did, with the blades of grass just above his head. Deducing that injecting food or liquid from this strange world would change his size, Lelouch wandered around the forest, looking for something edible. There were blades of grass, some stones and dirt readily available, but they were all rather unappetizing. Finally spotting a blue mushroom, Lelouch headed over to see if it was edible and not poisonous as blue mushrooms have a tendency of being.

A strange cloud of smoke was rising from the mushroom, but Lelouch paid it no heed, as he was getting used to the strange sights of this world. There was a shadow on the mushroom, and as he came closer he realized it was an blonde haired Indian woman sitting on the mushroom smoking what Lelouch assumed to be hookah. Spotting Lelouch, the woman blew smoke rings toward him. Lelouch wondered if he was going to get lung cancer from all this secondhand smoke. The woman gave him a brief glance and said, "Who are you?"

Lelouch proudly answered, "I am Lelouch."

"And what is a Lelouch?" The woman lazily drawled.

"Lelouch is Lelouch," replied Lelouch, slightly exasperated. "I am a Britannian student currently living in Area 11."

"That defines you?" The woman looked bored.

"No. That is a part of my identity," Lelouch replied slowly before trailing off, "I am..." Lelouch furrowed his brows. There was more to this. He was more than a mere student. It was tugging at the edge of his memory yet barely out of reach. What is he really?

While he struggled to answer, the woman gave him an almost contemptuous look. "Remember who you are soon."

Angered by the woman's condescending tone and command, Lelouch asked angrily, "Well who are you? All you've been asking is who I am, but who are you? Why should I tell you? What if you're one of those people who steal other people's identities?"

The strange blonde hair brown skinned woman did not look impressed. "Keep your temper."

In a flash, Lelouch regained his usual composure. "Is that all?"

The woman stared off into space again. "I suppose you want to be normal size again?"

Lelouch looked at her skeptically. Could he really trust what this person says?

The woman's voice cut into his musings, "The right-side will make you bigger, and the left will make you smaller," as she gestured to the mushroom on which she was currently sitting.

Presently, she left, smoking as she went. Lelouch sat there in thought. He had no idea if the mushroom was safe to eat, and doubted the reliability of the woman's words. On the other hand, a gut feeling told him that the woman was on his side. For now. Deciding to risk it anyways, he took a bit of mushroom from the right side, then decided to take some from the left side, just in case. Taking a small nibble from the right side of the mushroom and found that he grew a few feet. After a few more nibbles from both sides, Lelouch restored himself to his normal height of five feet and ten inches.

Walking along now at his normal height, Lelouch soon came to the end of the path and arrived at a stately mansion that could only belong to a Britannian noble. Stopping in the shadow of a tree like a stalker, he watched a messenger pass along a fancy invitation. After the messenger left, Lelouch stealthily crept closer to the house and checked the door. It was unlocked. Grateful that he had one less obstacle, he let himself in and decided to search for clues to escape from this hallucination when he heard loud noises coming from the kitchen.

Cautiously entering the kitchen, Lelouch started sneezing continuously and realized that the billowing black clouds from the kitchen was actually a cloud of pepper. A man with long black hair was busy stirring a cauldron on the far side of the kitchen, wearing Chinese clothing and...was that a sword hanging from his belt? Somehow, this wasn't even surprising anymore. Looking at the cauldron, Lelouch realized it was Hot and Sour soup. The last time he had any was at the local Panda Express. He wrinkled his nose. This cook seemed intent on emphasizing the "hot" as he was continued pouring in the pepper. A woman entered carrying a baby. Lelouch started in surprise. It was Ms. Viletta dressed in the uniform of an officer in the Britannian army! The baby had white hair, a strange color for any child. Ms. Viletta yelled, "What are you making, Li Xingke? All that pepper can't be good for little Tianzi here!"

A sudden bout of sneezing cut Ms. Viletta's rant short. In fact, the baby, Tianzi, had started sneezing and howling loudly, making Lelouch wince and hope his eardrums wouldn't be permanently damaged. Covering his nose and mouth, Lelouch turned to leave, noticing a strange green haired girl sitting in the corner. She was grinning from ear to ear and seemed to be immune to the large amount of pepper in the air.

The nagging sensation that he was forgetting something very important returned again full force. The girl was staring at him intently. When she noticed him returning her look, her grin got wider. "I am C.C.," She purred, "The Cheshire Cat."

Lelouch felt pressure building up behind his temple. Who was this girl? She nodded at him then without a sound vanished from the room. Lelouch blinked, the strange nostalgic feeling receding. Hallucination within hallucination? Ms. Viletta suddenly noticed him and snapped, "Don't just stand there, hold Tianzi for a moment."

Deciding that fresh air was very high on his priorities list right now, Lelouch took the baby out of the kitchen. While he contemplated how he could look for clues while caring for a baby, the baby was getting steadily heavier. Soon Lelouch's frail arms could not support the baby's weight and he hastily put the baby down on a his surprise, the baby had grown into a young girl with long black hair and green eyes. Strange, perhaps he was still seeing things after C.C, the Chesire-Cat. As Lelouch gaped in shock, mostly at the hair color change, the girl bowed politely. Then she promptly glomped him. "I switched places with Tianzi, but aren't I lucky? You saved me from the pepper! Thank you! You're my husband from now on!"

Lelouch crumpled like newspaper under her weight and fell to the ground. Thankfully, the girl immediately got up. "I have to go now. I'll see you later okay?" And vanished.

What was with all these people vanishing? Lelouch decided to high tail it out of here before Ms Viletta found out the baby was gone.

End Chapter 2

Authors' Notes: I get to go first again! Err, I see myself steadily running out of steam, but hurray for randomly chucking Li Xingke and Chinese food in there! I've been eating too much Chinese food lately, but I actually haven't had Hot and Sour soup in awhile. I think I have inspiration for tonight's dinner... Anyhow, here's to (hopefully) finishing this fic before summer hell (classes all day) hits. Cheers! *chugs orange juice* -Y

OMG, i want orange juice~~~*steals Y's oj* hehehehe. This chappie felt kinda slow...Lelouch is just slowly meeting people and finally feels like something's missing. Yay! :D next chappie'll be more interesting...I hope as Lulu's OTL finally appears. :D -H