Code Geass: The Demon and the Dragon
Disclaimer: I do not own Code Geass. If I did, then what you see below would be the show, instead of a fanfiction on the Internet.
Stage 8: The Tempest's Fight
- The Demon -
As Learme was meeting with Antonio and Mischa, Lelouch was on the elevator up, just about ready to fall into his bed. Some would say that he had the 'easy' job between him and Learme.
Those people had never had to stay up composing a Table of Organization and Equipment, planning meetings, hack into the Britannian military network, set up dozens of black market sales, devise strategies for the fledgling revolutionary force under his command, and predict future Britannian, European and Chinese force deployments like the damn Oracle of Delphi!
Lelouch climbed out of the shower/elevator, pushed open the bathroom door, and trod over to his bedroom. Opening the door, he stepped in, walked the three steps to his bed, and fell onto it, landing his head on a soft pillow.
Hmmm.....Judging by my angle of descent, and the fact that my legs are hanging over the edge of the bed, my head is too low to be on the pillow. Lelouch looked up. And saw the face of the woman from Shinjuku, immediately realizing that his head was resting on her breasts.
The teen jumped up with a muffled gasp, biting his lip before any large sound could be made.
"Pretty frisky, aren't you?" She asked, rising from the bed.
"Aren't you dead?" Lelouch asked, backing warily from her. She was still dressed in the prisoner's uniform from when she was in the device, although Lelouch was fairly certain the high-legged boots she was wearing were actually from a pricey shoe store. Women and their clothing.....
"I can't die." The woman stated simply. She walked around the room, examining it. "That was quite a debut last night. The entrance, the confrontation.....the exit of you and your twin. I assume he was the one in the dragon-masked armor? You don't seem quite fit enough for it....."
"How do you know that was us?" Lelouch demanded, reversing the direction of his travel to march up to the....immortal.
"Quite simple. I gave you and your twin Geass, and formed a contract. Don't you remember?"
"Geass?"
"Yes. Yours, Absolute Obedience, and your twin's, Absolute-"
"Deception, correct?" Lelouch interrupted, relaxed somewhat but still cautious.
"Hm. You catch on quick." She nodded.
"What's your name?"
"I have no use for such things. But you can call me C.C. Then she started taking off her clothes.
"Hey! Don't just start undressing in front of me!" Lelouch practically gasped, clapping his hand over his eyes.
"Oh? Shy type, are you?" C.C teased, laying back down on the bed and pulling the covers up to her neck.
"You're going to devastate Learme." Lelouch muttered, walking over and sitting down at his desk.
- The Dragon -
Learme strode into the complex with a grin on his face, and his helmet in the crook of his arm.
Finally, I'll see the Bors in action! Whistling a somewhat jolly tune, he walked over to his locker and started depositing his equipment inside, changing out of the padded suit he wore under his armor into his Ashford Academy uniform. As he strapped his watch on, Learme noted the time. Just as breakfast is starting. The teenage revolutionary strode into the elevator, and waited patiently as it rose up to the bathroom, where he clambered out of the shower, reset the security, and walked out the door, into the hallway and towards the dining room.
He took a slight breath, ready to announce his arrival. Then he opened the door, and-
Stopped, at the sight of the lime-green haired woman in Lelouch's T-shirt and pants, sitting next to Nunnally and across from a somewhat annoyed Lelouch.
- The Witch -
On C.C's part, it was quite amusing to see the boy standing there, eyes bugged out and mouth twitching like a fish's out of water as one of the binding concepts of his reality fell apart and cast doubt on all the others. She could just see the gears that turned his mind stutter to a halt and the endless algorithms that dictated his thought process suddenly turn out to be '2+2= sauerkraut'.
For Learme, judging by what she learned of him from Lelouch, was a person whose reality sat upon a bedrock of universal laws, one of which being that a person shot in the head does not show up later in your home, breathing and alive.
And then the boy impressed her by shifting his gaping expression into a friendly smile as the maid walked into the room, carrying his breakfast.
My, he adapts quick.
"Good morning Nunnally, Lelouch, Sayoko." Learme said pleasantly, walking over to sit next to his twin. "Who's this?" He asked, gesturing at C.C.
"C.C" Lelouch replied. "You remember her, right?"
"Yep. You don't forget someone you meet like that." Learme answered.
"So, is it true that C.C is engaged to Lelouch?" Nunnally asked, just as Learme took a sip of orange juice. The teen inhaled it accidentally, and proceeded to gasp, and cough, and sputter as one would.
"What?" He finally wheezed out, staring wide-eyed at the two in question.
"I'm afraid I didn't explain it properly to Nunnally." Lelouch interjected smoothly, leaning forward in his chair. "You remember when we met C.C and discussed that..... mutual business arrangement?" The witch watched as Learme mentally ran through his initial encounter with her when his right eye flared red as he looked at her, the Geass Sigil lighting up his face as he looked questioningly at her.
"I see." He muttered when C.C nodded slightly. The centuries-aged witch was quite entertained by the subterfuge both twins did right in front of their own sister. It was like Washington's Rebellion all over again.
Later
A short time after breakfast ended, the three elder persons (one more so than the other two) gathered in Lelouch's room, undoubtedly the better place to meet. At least, when taking into consideration that Sayoko regularly patrolled the rooms immediately adjacent to the complex entrance and Learme's room was occupied with various deadly instruments of war.
"So....you're immortal?" Learme asked, a rather ruthless cast to his face.
"Yes." C.C answered. "And before you ask, I'm not going to allow you to experiment on me. Enough of that happened with Clovis." Learme affected a hurt look, as false as his 'normal teenager' expressions.
"Anyway, we need to go to class Learme." Lelouch said. "We have to keep our cover up." His twin nodded at this, and left the room quickly. Before he left, Lelouch turned back to glare at C.C. "Stay in my room. If you go wandering about and anyone sees you...." He left, with the implication hanging. C.C rolled her eyes.
"Leaders. Always so melodramatic." Then she pulled out Lelouch's credit card, which she had 'found' during her picking about his room. "Now....what's the number for Pizza Hut?" Instead of calling however, C.C quickly rediscovered the wonders of the digital age, placing an order for a large pepperoni pizza online, paying with Lelouch's credit card number.
- The Demon, the Dragon and the Knight -
During their wait for the tardy bell to ring and class to begin, the Lamperouge twins fidgeted, incessantly worrying about the green-haired, golden-eyed immortal in Lelouch's room. Not that they were concerned about her, considering that she was immortal, but should she be discovered, their fortunes were far less optimal.
Then Learme sat up in his seat and nudged Lelouch, drawing his twins attention to the front of the class.
"Class, this is Suzaku Kururugi, an Honorary Britannian enlisted in the Army. Please, make him feel welcome." The teacher said, droning as per usual. "Suzaku, why don't you take a seat next to Rivalz, in the back, behind Lelouch and Learme?" The twins saw Suzaku start at the names, his gaze locking in on them like a missile onto a heat source. After that though, he ignored them, walking swiftly to sit next to Rivalz. After class, the twins got up, and walked passed Suzaku. Lelouch, however, tugged at his collar nonchalantly.
Suzaku's eyes widened a bit at the ages-old signal.
Not five minutes later, Suzaku met the twins on the rooftop.
"Heh, I didn't think I'd ever see that signal again." Suzaku chuckled, leaning on the railing next to Learme. Standing in the middle, Lelouch tugged at his collar again.
" 'Lets talk on the roof', Why change a good signal?" The twins asked rhetorically.
"How's it been? The last time we saw you was in....." Learme trailed off as he remembered that the last time they'd seen Suzaku, he'd been shot.
"Yeah, I'm glad you guys are safe." Suzaku said, sounding relieved.
"It would have been different if you hadn't taken that bullet for us." Lelouch said. At this, Learme pasted a stricken look on his face, and turned to stare at his brother.
"Well, it might have." Suzaku amended, chuckling to himself. It made him feel good that the twins had changed so little over the years. "And anyway, I was just returning the favor from seven years ago." All three remembered the escape from the Kururugi estate, the war-torn city. "Oh yeah, what about that girl? The one in the capsule?"
"We got separated from her in the confusion." Lelouch replied. In a sense, it was the truth, as they had just left her body where it was shot. And there had been a lot of internal confusion over the strange abilities both twins had exhibited. "Don't you know anything about her?"
"No." Was the sad-sounding reply. "It looks like only group CA, the royal guards, knew anything about it. I guess it had something to do with Clovis....Oh, I'm sorry." Suzaku looked at the twins to find them with somewhat bereaved expressions.
"It's no problem." Learme said, slowly repositioning his facial muscles into a configuration that more suited his feelings towards their 'brother'. "Judging from what we saw, it looked like he deserved it." He added coldly, remembering the slaughtered Japanese in the warehouse where they had confronted the soldiers. Suzaku hesitated, looking at Learme before switching topics.
"Hey, I still call you guys Lelouch and Learme right? I mean, judging by what the teacher said...."
"Yes, but we use our mother's maiden name these days, instead of....well, you know." Lelouch replied. All three shivered at the thought of what might have happened if the twins had stupidly used their original surnames to enroll in the school.
"By the way, how did your court-martial go?" Learme asked, somewhat curious. "And what the heck are you doing here anyway?"
"I was surprised too! I didn't expect to see you guys here! Someone ensured that the investigation was conducted properly. She said a seventeen-year-old should be in school."
"Jeez, what did you do, sleep with her?" Learme asked. Suzaku's expression was by far worth the embarrassment the comment elicited in him.
- The Orange -
Jeremiah Gottwald, once Margrave, now Lieutenant, had felt a slight thrill when Lloyd Asplund had given him the Bors' activation key. And now....
"Lieutenant Gottwald." The familiar voice sent 'Orange' as he was now jokingly referred to, into a reflexive attention stance, back straight, feet together, hands along the seams of his uniform pants and gazing straight ahead.
"At ease." The commanding voice chuckled, something that most who knew the owner would have said was impossible. Jeremiah turned and faced his former commanding officer, Cornelia Li Britannia, the Second Princess of the Holy Empire of Britannia and current Viceroy of Area Eleven. "It's good to see you again, after so many years."
"I feel the same way Your Highness." Jeremiah answered, bowing.
"What was that horrid event on the highway!?" Cornelia's voice leaped into its normal steely tone, her previous expression of amiable familiarity dissolving into a glare of suspicion.
"I.....I cannot say at this moment." Jeremiah said, glancing at the mechanics and engineers that currently populated the A.S.E.E.C trailer with them. Cornelia nodded.
"After the battle then." The Witch of Britannia strode away and out of the trailer, heading towards the G-1 that held her personal Knightmare and those of her team's. Jeremiah waited a bit, just to make sure she was gone, before exhaling a great long sigh, slumping down in relief.
"Quite intimidating isn't she?" The Warrant Officer jumped up when Lloyd apparently popped out of nowhere. "Ready to see your new Knightmare?" Jeremiah smoothed down the front of his uniform and patted his hair back down, removing any trace of his startle before straightening and replying.
"Yes, My Lord."
"Oh none of that Lord stuff, just call me Lloyd." Jeremiah smiled slightly, before moving towards the tarp-covered Knightmare Frame in its berth. Lloyd pressed a button, and the lines securing the tarp to the Frame fell off, the tarp billowing off to reveal what appeared to be the Lancelot, only far more bulky and heavy-set. The Bors was almost half-again the Lancelot's width in torso, and was a fifth thicker in the limbs, presumably due to the armor. Instead of the 'tusks' that the Lancelot had on its face, the Bors had two backwards-bent horns.
The most noticeable difference, however, was the color scheme. Instead of a yellow-gold on white, the Bors was painted an orange-tinged copper on a matte gray. Lloyd's response to Jeremiah's accusatory glare was a shrug, before the Knightmare engineer spun off to begin the Bors' start-up procedures.
Shrugging to himself, Jeremiah climbed into the open cockpit and strapped himself in before closing it. He inserted the activation key, punched in the ID code, and laid his hands on the control yokes. Jeremiah felt the slight thrum of the Yggdrasil Drive, the heart of the Knightmare Frame, and was comforted. At the cue from Ms. Cecile, he revved the Bors forward, at a speed not so fast as the Lancelot, but respectable enough considering the Bors weight of over 8 metric tons.
The current objective was a terrorist complex disguised as a small mountain or large hill. Judging by what information they'd gotten from signals intelligence and interrogating prisoners, the complex was primarily a staging area for JLF forces incorporating mercenaries into their ranks.
Maybe one of those two will be there.... Jeremiah thought, eyes narrowing. If so, then he'd clear things up with Her Highness Cornelia very quickly indeed.
- The Tempest -
Alex Yamato woke up to the sound of shouting in Japanese as all around him, JLF troops and mercenaries like himself ran around like headless chickens, carrying weapons, ammo, maps, and anything and everything else imaginable. With his Caucasian features and amethyst eyes, Alex drew a few second glances from the troops less familiar with him when he rolled out of his bunk and dropped the floor, landing on his feet like a cat. They quickly averted their eyes when he stared at them for a second before kicking open his footlocker, grabbing his pilot uniform and katana and sprinting out of the door.
Upon reaching the Knightmare hanger, he dressed quickly, pulling on his pilot suit, a mostly black one-piece like affair with chest and shoulder areas padded with anti-shrapnel material. He hooked his katana onto a belt loop and lowered the wraparound sunglasses over his eyes as he climbed into his Sutherland.
The Knightmare was colored exactly like his pilot suit, and was armed similarly as Alex, with a large Knightmare-scale Katana sheathed at its side. Alex hurriedly flicked through the start-up procedure and gunned his Sutherland for the opening hanger exit as soon as possible, with a few of the quicker pilots already there. Then, out of nowhere, what looked like wrecking ball the size of a Knightmare's fist smashed through one of the leading frames, a brand-new Burai. The Burai was smashed through the air and into the ceiling of the hanger, its cockpit block crushed by the force of the impact. A second later, the other leading Knightmares fell back, as a copper and gray Frame burst through them. Both of its hands held good-sized axes, with glowing red edges that cut through the hast parries of the JLF Frames with ease.
Alex, or, 'The Tempest', as he was called in these circles, felt his pulse race and adrenaline pump. This is what he lived for. Fighting the Britannians.
- The Orange -
Jeremiah scanned the group before him. Mostly it was a horde of those Glasgow-remakes that the Japanese called Burai, armed with a variety of standard Knightmare weapons. There was, however, a single black Sutherland in the front, with a strange curved sword sheathed on its left side. The Sutherland dashed towards the Bors, not even drawing its weapon. Jeremiah made to hack through it, thinking the Maser Vibration Axes would just slice through it.
However, the Sutherland ducked under the first MVA hack, a horizontal swipe, before its right hand reached down and drew the Katana with a speed Jeremiah didn't think a Sutherland usually had. The Katana sliced away at the Bors, and all that prevented the Seventh-Generation Knightmare from losing one of its horns was Jeremiah leaning the Frame back so the blade just whistled past.
Jeremiah raised both of the Bors' arms and pointed the forearms at the Sutherlands, charging the weapons on their undersides. The Black Sutherland dodged to the side just as the Magnetic Pulse Launchers fired, sending two copper-coated lead cannonballs smashing into and through a column of Burai.
At that moment, the side of the hanger blew in, Gloucesters racing in through the resulting hole and slaughtering the JLF Frames at hand. On one monitor, Jeremiah saw the profile of Cornelia's custom Gloucester, a vibrant purple Frame with two horn-like antennae protruding from the sides of its head.
Then the Black Sutherland came up and charged the Bors, its shoulder slamming into the torso and rocking Jeremiah a bit in the cockpit. The Bors, however, only shivered a bit with the force of the impact. Jeremiah brought up the right arm and slammed the MVA down on the Black Sutherland's shoulder, severing its arm. Then he fired one of the Smash Harkens, the wrecking-ball-like Harken crushing the Sutherland's knee into a misshapen wreck.
Amazingly, the pilot managed to tilt the Knightmare just right, so that the cockpit block flew (upside down) over the Bors head. Before he ejected however, the Sutherland's pilot had jammed its Katana into one of the Chobham armor plates on the Bors chest.
Jeremiah twisted the Bors around just in time to see the block fly out of view, before waving the MVA in a respectful salute. Then he turned the Bors back to finish the job.
- The Author -
And thus, we have two firsts: The first showing of the Experimental Heavy Assault Knightmare Bors, and the first showing of Alex Yamato's OC.
Oh yeah, I remembered the really good news. I got a new computer! No more files being eaten, blue screens or freezes thank you very much!
On the other hand, I had to reformat my old computer so my sister could use it.
Replies:
Jaksio: Thanks
Kojiro Kun: Hmmm.... how about a Guide on Sabotaging Britannians?
Infinite Freedom: Just to provide a sense of scale, two grams of anti-matter is enough to vaporize Rome.
Siloverscale: OK. Except for the bare hands part.
sakurahanaalice: Thank You Very Much (TYVM)
Rickrolled: I really want to show it, but I want to show it in an awesome battle more.
SharinganUserX: Militaries are just chock-full of funny, if you know where to look.
00virtuezero: happens all the time.
Still needs time to develop.
Twice The Jawa Punting!