Ranger24: Thank you for your patience. Here is your reward.
Chapter 2: Reunion's a bitch.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Lelouch drank gratefully from the canteen the red haired man had given him. The cool liquid sating his dry throat. Suzaku leaned back in his seat, his rifle lying against his leg. They'd traded out their hammer burst's for a pair of MA55's and a pair of Chain swords that went with them. The red haired man wore the markers of a Colonel.
"My name is Colonel Calares, welcome to Saxon team soldier." He said pulling up his MA55.
Lelouch raised an eyebrow. "A Colonel leading a group the size of a fire team?"
"This is speacil forces kid; you'd better prove yourself worth something, Zero." Calares replied.
"Where we going?" Lelouch asked ignoring the last remark.
"Nagasaki, Princess Cornelia is waiting for us there." Calares answered a slight smile coloring his mustached face.
Lelouch inwardly groaned. His half sister, Cornelia, was the last person he wanted to see after getting out of prison. Seven years before, on the very day Euphemia had been about to open the Speacil Zone of Japan. That day had turned into a nightmare, a nightmare called E-Day. On that day the world had fallen apart as the locust began the brutal assault across the world. In a matter of days the Imperial capital of Britannia, Pendragon, had been destroyed and the Emperor Charels Zi Britannia had been killed.
After that Cornelia and Schnizel had done their best to stabalize the empire passing the Fortification act. All major cities controled by the Empire were over night turned into fortresses. Anyone outside these fortresses either had to live somewhere safe from the locust or had to live near a military faciluty to survive. Then the draft act had come, requiring all males Seventeen and older to enlist for military service. Lelouch had been caught up in it all.
The locust had overwhelmed most of the world now. Japan for a time had been spared the worst of the locusts blows because of the sakuradite and the massive geothermic activity beneath. Still raids by the locust had been common. The Black knights had signed a deal with the Britannian's. The Black Knights would fight the locust as long as they had sovereignty over the special zone.
Then at the height of it all the Locust had launched a raid in the general area of Ashford acemdemy. Lelouch, fearing for his sister Nunally had come running. He'd arrived to late, Sayako his maid was dead and Nunnaly was gone. He was promptly court marshalled for his "Cowardice", during the trail out of his near insanity after Nunnaly's disappearance revealed himself as Zero.
Less than a year later however all the remaining poltical and Military powers in the world had come together under a single command structure to fight the Locust. The United States Command, or USC had basically disolved all existing militray's and reorganized it into what its top brass had felt was a more steamlined fighting force. Many forces still kept they're old uniforms and most soldiers had retianed their rank.
But even the USC was incapable of stopping the Locust. Most, if not all, of main land Japan was under the Locust control and the majority of the USC's forces had pulled out to Okinawa which was untouched by the Locust. But the loss of most of japa had meet a loss of nearly seventy percent of all of the worlds Sakuradite. Without Sakuradite it became difficult to field knightmare frames, power the few remaining cities, and Produce more Sakuradite grenades.
Central to the defense of what was left were heavily trained strike groups known as Argent Knights. These soldiers inserted into hot areas to strike at the heart of the locust. Lelouch bemusedly realized he was now in one such unit.
"This'll be fun," Suzaku muttered.
"Yeah," Lelouch added. "A barrel of fucking laughs."
Lelouch glanced out the window to see the city of Nagasaki, last he'd hear the city had been overwhelmed by the locust. Now it looked like a bomber out ruin. But in the middle of the city wasa large collection of USC military Hardware. At least a dozen knightmare frames, several Dragon-fires, several hundred soldiers, tanks, and, in the middle of it all, one woman in a red out fit with purple hair. Lelouch muttered a curse as they landed and he stepped out of the Dragon-fire.
Cornelia had grown her hair out to some degree making her resemble her younger sister Euphemia even more than usual. The moment she saw him, Cornelia seemed to start boiling over with anger.
"What the hell are you doing here?" She growled. "We don't need a terrorist out here, Zero."
"It's a pleasure to see you as well my dear half sister." Lelouch replied.
Cornelia's personal Knight Guliford frowned at Lelouch. "Who pardoned you? You're supposed to be serving a forty year sentence with no chance for appeal for twenty?"
"I did." A gentler voice said.
Everyone turned about to see a young woman with long pink hair with a striking resemblance to Cornelia.
"Euphemia," Cornelia muttered.
Suzaku bowed to his leige lady. "Your highness." He said calmly.
Euphemia smiled softly. "I take it you were sucessful Suzaku." She then turned to Lelouch. "It's good to see you Lelouch."
"Euphemia, we need to talk about you and pardoning Terrorists." Cornelia said calmly.
"Lelouch is our brother and all the other prisoners at his prison were pardoned sister, Lelouch appeared to have been over looked." Euphemia replied.
Suddenly a soldier came running over. "Princess Cornelia we've got contact with the Strike team that was sent in ahead of us."
Cornelia nodded. "Very well."
Everyone hurried over to a communications tent. Another soldier sat at a table fusting with a radio unit. Over it Lelouch could hear another familar voice.
"May day! This is Captian Kozuki, we are pinned down near the Nagasaki memorial requesting back up! Repeat we need back up!" Gun fire could be heard in the background along with screams.
Cornelia snatched up a head set. "Captian Kozuki, we hear loud in clear. Do you have the package?"
"We've got it," Kallen's voice replied. "But we won't last long enough without back up!"
"Understood, sit tight reinforcements are on the way." Cornelia replied.
"Rodger that we're falling ba..." Suddenly static cut in across the channel.
"What happened to the signal?" Cornelia asked.
"We're getting interfernce my lady." The soldier replied.
"IN COMING!!!" Someone outside screamed!
Everyone ran outside to find several black orbs crashing into the ground and exploding! One of the Dragon fires was struck and exploded! A Knightmare lost a leg to a second. A clump of soldier's screams were drowned out as a third blew them apart!
"MORTARS!" Cornelia shouted. Everyone scrambled for cover as gun fire came in from the surrounding buildings!
Lelouch and Suzaku took cover behind a destroyed car with Cornelia, Euphemia, Colonel Calares, and Guliford finding cover beside a tank.
Lelouch glanced up to see Locust in the surrounding buildings. Many Soldier's were opening fire on Locust. Lelouch fired off a three round burst before ducking back down into cover.
Cornelia pulled up a rifle of her own and fired off a burst before ducking back down to be replaced in the shooting by Guliford.
"Calares! Take you squad and get to the captian's postion! They have a sonic resonator that can map out the Locust tunnels. With the WMD's we've managed to get our hands on we can wipe out these inbred monster's where they live!" Cornelia shouted over the gunfire.
"Will we have air support?" Calares asked before sending a spray of rifle fire over the tanks side.
Cornelia laughed. "Air support? You are the support soldier!"
A sniper round nearly struck Euphie's head. Suzaku rolled from his cover and pulled her further under the cover of the tank and unleashing a brutal spray of bullets, downing a drone. Cornelia scowled.
"The Beasts have Reaver's and Nemycasts all over the place, we can't risk any knightmare's." Cornelia said before nodding to Euphemia. "But my Sister will be providing Logistic and Tactical support We'll also have two DF's soon from Okinawa that will hold position on the outskirts of the city and will remain there for thirty minutes. If you haven't completed your mission within that time frame you will be presumed KIA."
A mortar crashed into the ground near the tank.
"NOW I'M PISSED!!" Lelouch shouted rising up and opening fire nonstop on a near by building killing at least four Locust.
After about half a minute the guns all fell silent. Everyone rose up eyes trained on the sky for more mortars.
"We're pulling out of here." Cornelia stated reloading her rifle. "You're going to have move out on foot Colonel."
"Understood my lord." Calares stated bowing before heading off to round up the rest of his unit. Cornelia glared at Lelouch who frowned back.
"I expect one hundred and ten percent from you Lieutenant Lamperouge." Cornelia stated coldly.
"I'm not doing this for you." Lelouch replied.
At the same time Suzaku helped Euphemia to her feet.
"I'm sorry about my lady." Suzaku said bowing.
Euphemia smiled. "Next time I think I'll duck down a little better Sir Kuurugi."
"Euphemia, we're leaving." Cornelia said sharply.
Euphemia smiled and then hurried off to join her sister in boarding a Dragon-fire.
Suzaku sighed whistfully and set his rifle down on the side of the tank.
"You kissed her yet?" Lelouch asked catching Suzaku off guard.
"What?" He said trying to hide his light blush. Lelouch sighed
"Suzaku, your my freind and you in an obvious relationship with my half sister." Lelouch said reloading his rifle.
Suzaku sighed. "Yes."
"When?" Lelouch asked slapping in a fresh clip to his rifle.
"Seven years ago." Suzaku muttered.
That made Lelouch drop his rifle.
"Right after you got convicted." Suzaku added.
Lelouch put on a smile. "So you got any plans for your little relationship?"
"Seems a little inappropriate for a knight to be in a relationship with his lady." Suzaku replied embarrassed.
"Lamperouge, Kuurugi! Get your lazy asses in gear!" Calares shouted standing by the exit of the encirclement with the other five members of the squad.
Lelouch and Suzaku grabbed their rifles and hurried to join the rest of the unit, falling in at the rear as the knightmare frames, tanks, and gunships Cornelia had with her pulled out of the city square.
"Fall back!" Kallen shouted as one of the abandoned cars in the street exploded! The group of just over a half dozen Argent knights firing in retreat. Locust were moving up the street and firing down on them from the court house across the street. One of the warriors next to her screamed as a trokia Machine gun blasted his arm off! Kallen grabbed the wounded soldier and dragged him to the top of the stairs to the local Mausoleum.
The other Argent Knights also began to fall back, firing in retreat. One however turned and fled up the steps only to have his head blown off by a Locust sniper. Once they cleared the stairs everyone took cover, bullets chipping away at the marble pillars and flower boxes they were hiding behind. Kallen glanced at the wounded man. He looked barely eighteen but he clutched at his bloody stump, tears streaming from his eyes as he bit back an agonized scream.
"Medic!" Kallen shouted but then realized the one who had lost his head was the squad medic. Cursing she opened fire over the flower box downing a locust warrior. At the same time mortar's began crashing down at the steps to the mausoleum, sending bits of rubble flying at the pinned Argent knights.
"Anyone got some clear channels?" Kallen shouted as a baseball sized chunk of marble flew over her head.
"Negative sir!" One of the Argent knights shouted.
"Where the hell are those assholes?" Another shouted standing up and unleashing a whole clip of rifle fire.
"We only just got the message through this jamming Hideki," Kallen snapped. "What's more important is where Tamaki and Goki are."
"Seeing how many grubs there are around here they're probably de..." The Argent knight's voice died in his throat as a grenade landed at his feet.
"Oh SHIT!" He screamed trying run but was to late. There was a bang, a gout of flames, and all that was left of the Hideki was a charred corpse.
Kallen swore violently and unleashed a torrent of bullets, if back up didn't get here soon they were all corpses.
"Move up." Calares ordered lowering his smoking rifle. The street block they'd just secured was strewn with the bodies of dead locust. Lelouch reloaded his rifle, glancing at the other soldiers in the unit. Out of the entire squad, apart from Suzaku, there was only one honorary Britannian Pvt Hoji Yoshido. The other four were all Britannain, born and raised. Sergeant Howard Young, Pvt. Jacob Gage, Pvt. Jack Smith (a ridiculously common name), and Pvt. Johnathan Baker. Out of all of them Yoshido practically worshipped Lelouch for being Zero. Lelouch couldn't get far enough away from the guy.
"Hey how did you pull of that win at Narita?" Yoshido asked excitedly as they crossed the street.
Lelouch groaned. "Look kid, I'm focused on the mission right now. We can talk history later."
Yoshido nodded egarly. "Right stay focused on the missi..."
Suddenly a sniper round slammed into the back of Yoshido's helmet and he fell forward!
"Sniper! Find cover!" Calares shouted as they all ran into the nearest building, the city Library. Lelouch kicked the doors closed.
As he did bullets flew through the windows ripping apart books and book shelves. Baker and Gage fired their rifles out the windows.
"Wouldn't you know it! The damn honorary britannian conks out first!" Baker shouted reloading his rifle.
"Stow it soldier!" Suzaku shouted spraying out a flurry of rifle fire.
"Why should I? Damn eleven couldn't shut his trap, he deserved to get sh..." Baker was cut off as bullets ripped through wall and tore him apart!
"Grinder!!" Gage shouted falling back.
"Everyone head deeper in!" Calares shouted and they all ran into the maze of book shelves. Calares hit his boom mike.
"Command this is Saxon 1, we're in the city library and we've lost Baker and Yoshido. How much further to Alpha's last known postion?"
All he got was static.
"Command this Saxon 1, do you read?" Calares asked.
"We must have some interference," Lelouch muttered.
"Seeders," Calares growled.
Ranger24: Okay seems like a good place to stop for the day. IF you want me to put in a tech reel say so. Other wise we'll just keep rolling.