Disclaimer: I own nothing of Code Geass, nor of Guilty Gear, nor to a lesser extent, BlazBlue. I do own this story, and all the inspirations along with it. And of course, the brain where the ideas came from.
"Captain Gottwald, an Order Knight is here to see you." Blinking, the Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald's chiseled face rose from the simulations report (now that was embarrassing, losing to Viletta) to peer at his subordinate, another Knight in the 7th Overseas Brigade.
"The Order? Thank you, Knight," Gottwald saluted, rising to adjust his clothes into a presentable manner. The Knight excused himself out of the office. He looked at the watch in his pocket – it was almost time for rounds into the Dead Zone. And no time to enjoy a little shot.
The Order representative was garbed in the white, ornate armor of its group, with the red highlights in its cape signifying rank, which Gottwald realized in surprise. Legion Master? He thought. It was roughly the same rank as Jeremiah's, though the Order treated rank differently. Judging from its height, it seemed to be a woman, but appearances could be deceiving.
"We bid you greetings, Sir Knight. I am the Captain Jeremiah Gottwald whom you sought. What can this son of Britannia do for you?" Jeremiah saluted the representative standing in the receiving hall, who did not give a salute in reply. Figures. Order members only saluted to each other, even if they were technically Britannians. Whoever the other one was, he could also be a son or daughter of Britannia.
"A pleasant day to you, Captain Gottwald. I am come from the Order with information. May we talk in private?" The Knight's voice was muffled behind its helmet, making it sound robotic and bass. Gottwald wondered what kind of information was sensitive enough to require an Order Legion Master to pass it personally, especially after their base had received their customary report last night.
"Of course. We shall have privacy in our office." he gestured down the hall. "Will you be requiring Britannia's best?" He was referring to tea, but alcohol was acceptable, in minute amounts. There were regulations in place after that study that it led to easier ars casting.
"No, I shall not have the time to enjoy it," replied the Knight. Its metallic boots clunked heavily on the floor.
After re-entering his office, Gottwald prepared a batch of alcohol anyway, pouring a single shot and placing it on a side-table. He turned to see the Knight had remained standing, even after he'd urged it to a seat.
"Well then," he began, after a short, confusing silence. "Shall we begin?" He seated himself behind his table, looking at the Knight expectantly.
"My apologies, Margrave Gottwald." The Knight made to remove its helm, making Gottwald quirk an eyebrow up in response. In the next moment, he had risen from his seat, blood rushing to his face as he gave a hasty salute. "Your Grace!"
"Sit, please, Captain," replied Anya Alstreim, one of the Emperor's finest, a Knight of the Round. Instantly, Jeremiah's thoughts were in a whirl: what could the Knight of Six want with me here, is there some plot afoot in the Preserve? For that matter, why is Her Grace wearing an Order uniform? Maybe there is a secret operation at work here! Why didn't she use the normal channels? Is it intrigue? But from who?
"Sit, Captain," repeated the Knight, in a slightly louder, commanding tone. Her light, pink hair was doubled up behind her head in a knot, owing to the helm's constriction. Her face betrayed no emotion as she continued, "Deception was necessary for my mission, that is, to gather information for His Majesty from the Order branch in Area Eleven."
"Y-y-yes!" Gottwald immediately sat back down. To be in the presence of such royalty, a royalty on par with that of the Imperial heirs and heiresses – what did Dame Luck want with him? He checked to make sure the privacy ars on his room was still intact. "What can this humble servant do for the Empire, Your Grace?"
"Intelligence had come to His Majesty that there are certain elements growing in this Area that have the potential to become threats. Great threats. It was necessary to infiltrate the Order here to gather information," with that, Anya conjured a datapad without a sound of a chant nor of a wave of a hand. Jeremiah received it with trembling fingers.
"Who is this...Eleven, Your Grace?" he looked down to skim a list of names, with one prominently displayed on the screen. There seemed to be nothing special about the brown-haired young man, a current student of Ashford Academy.
"The subject has been credited with a number of Gear kills despite being untrained and inexperienced in ars-casting and combat. To the credit of the Order, it was recorded that he had auxiliary aid, but nonetheless he has been witnessed to have faced down a low-level Gear all by himself." There was something about a Knight of the Round's presence that made one unable to look away, as Anya affixed her gaze onto Jeremiah's face. "His Majesty is...concerned that certain incidents of the past shall repeat itself."
"Isn't it because he's an Eleven?" asked Jeremiah, knowing what exactly the Knight was referring to. He leaned back slightly in his chair, brows furrowing ever so subtly.
"The capabilities of Ki are a different subject, and is under the purview of His Majesty's circle - and are not your present concern, Captain," enunciated Anya, as if reading from an unseen script. "I am here, as per the last objective in my mission, to give you a task of your own. Whatever has been and will be revealed here should never be traced back to His Majesty, or there will be dire consequences. Is His Will understood?"
"Yes." Jeremiah nodded fervently, his hand on his breast. "What would His Majesty ask of me?"
"You are to bring this Eleven under the fold of Britannia. Regardless of his potential power and threat, he would be a welcome addition to the service of the Throne. Do it discreetly, using reasons and methods that make it seem that only you, as leader of the 7th Overseas Brigade, have an interest in him." The Knight paused, using the time to put her helmet back on. Anya's voice was once more muffled behind a layer of metal. "Intelligence is aware of your connection to the Purists. However, you must not now scorn the path of having him become an Honorary Britannian to bring him into the fold."
Jeremiah made a violent jolt, surprise etched on his face after that last statement. He was stunned speechless, however, while the Knight of Six continued, "If you are able to succeed, His Majesty will be most appreciative. We cannot afford to lose this one's allegiance to the Union, or the Federation. Are the instructions clear?"
Gottwald stood up to salute, noticing the pinkish glow of a teleportation ars fill his office. "Yes, Your Grace! I shall not fail the Throne!"
The Knight saluted in turn, saying nothing more as the circular seals bathed her form, until a sound akin to bursts of static filled the room. "Yes, you cannot afford to fail him again." In a whirl of air and a flash of light, the Knight disappeared, scattering the loose papers in the Captain's office as he stood frozen in a salute, his expression thunderstruck from the Knight's last words.
Lady Marianne...
He let his hand fall uselessly to his side, momentarily disregarding the ringing bell from the base outside that demanded the Brigade send out its customary Rounds. The shot-glass lay untouched on the table.
)()()()()()()()(
On a cliff somewhere on the southern coast of Japan, overlooking the South Chinese, stood a Knightmare, mahogany and black in color. It was not as lean and streamlined as a Sutherland, but was not as squat and blocky as a Glasgow. It was, for a practiced eye to see, a custom model.
The Knight of Six's teleportation ars brought her here, a spot on the ground close to her Knightmare bound as her destination point. Along the way from the Margrave's office she had discarded the Order armor she had used, and was now wearing a more modest suit of light armor, prismatically designed to protect the wearer from the dangers of radiation and seithr clouds.
She walked up to her Knightmare, where on cue a communication ars appeared in the form of a greenish screen, and she stood in front like an unyielding statue in the rigorous winds of that place.
"Agent the Sixth," she stated, "Have returned from mission. Uploading relevant data. Will await for resolution of last objective. End."
"Greetings, sixth," chirped a cheerful voice over the screen, which was distorted by the unstable signal connection. "Three acknowledges your data. Praise the Emperor."
"The indomitable Throne protects the land," came the flat reply.
"You wanna go home?", said the voice, astounded. "What's the matter? You still have an objective to complete."
"I've been too long away from the Palace."
"She's gonna be fine, six. What brought this on? Do you miss her that much?"
The Knight's figure seemed to blur in the wake of a stronger breeze, but remained intact after its passing. "The thirst of loyalty is strong in the Knight."
"Oi, oi, you can't use an emergency code just for a request like that!"
"Too bad," and the one behind the voice wondered if the Knight of Six was being her usual self or was really affected by the refusal.
"If the Margrave does his work quickly, you may not have to wait until next spring to come back. I don't know the exact details, but there should be a time limit if what you say about the Order tapping him for an apprenticeship is true." A pause. "Well, I'll be finding out more details soon enough, anyway. I-"
"Enemy."
"Huh?"
In a burst of purple, the Knightmare activated, Anya already inside the machine, as its metallic arms drew its sword. Inside, the systems display showed for the Knight the large, crab-like monster that thought to make an easy meal.
"Target confirmed. Threat level minimal." The Knightmare stooped, its landspinners deployed and slid on the uneven ground, sword poised to strike.
The two combatants met on the field in battle, with a clear winner from the very start. Anya stared at the two pieces that was the beast cut in twain, fingering a golden brooch of a swan taking flight near her throat. "Not yet?" The Knight seemed to sigh, although whether that was just the discharge of a deactivating Knightmare or not, only she could say.
)()()()()()()()(
From the logs of Earl Lloyd Asplund
Edited by Dr. Cecile Croomy
Engineering Corps
-line deleted-
Subject: excerpt from feasibility study on the Z-01
The capabilities of the current generation of Knightmare Frames are well-adapted to the uses the Holy Empire employs it for. As detailed above, the Sutherland model designed by the Ashford Family and mass-produced for use in the military wields a significant array of capabilities, not the least of which is a resistance-simulating coating and a Blaze conductor core with a specially designed sakuradite halo. (Ashford, 2210) The former is required for Britannia's campaigns into the Dead Zones while the latter assists in enhancing the sometimes limited capacity of most soldiers in the army with the use of combat ars.
In comparison to the European Union's Mobile Units and the Chinese Federation's Flow (whose capabilites are listed in index xi), the Britannian Sutherland ranks first in combat capabilities, second in logistical mobility, and third in general utility. The next section deals with a detailed evaluation of each current-gen machine in relation to the criteria. The data was lifted from the results of the McGinty Survey on 2211. (McGinty, 2211)
Unlike the Mobile Units, which the Union armies use to great effect, the Sutherland cannot be transported on small- to medium- scale trucks, requiring a vast amount of logistical effort and a certain degree of human resources to field any assault or defense. Britannian Research and Development has been rigidly strict whenever the question of adopting the Union's unique method of melding ars summoning and Frame combat is raised. It is hoped that the recent Britannian repulsion at Gibraltar and the Malta Incident (Reid, 2211) will lead to a rethinking of the current paradigm of Knightmare Frame design. However, this does not mean that the traditions of three centuries' worth of research should be dismissed, rather...
...
...The Z-01 will exhibit none of those flaws. But its features will necessitate that certain elements of previous and rival Frame design will be adopted, not the least of which are the Pod transformation protocol that will possibly reflect the Mobile Units', the Yggdrasil Drive which will have slight echoes of the Flow system, and lastly, the patented Variable Packs which will hopefully save millions of pounds in the manufacture of specialized Sutherlands...
...
...development of the design will not be delayed...when it is necessary to require a skilled test Devicer...more sakuradite...
AN: Thanks for reading!
Edit: Too sleepy, forgot to add in last, technical part of the chapter.
Merlin Out.