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 23: Like a Fairy Tale
- The Dragon -
The sheer irony of this situation forced another low chortle out of Learme, the numerous voice modulation systems in his armor and in the Ryūō twisting it until it came out sounding like an actual enormous reptilian beast was laughing at the assembly before it.
He, the one who had picked the pseudonym/sobriquet of Draco, latin for dragon, was standing in front of a literal princess, effectively holding her hostage from the group of Knights surrounding him.
Behind him, the Lancelot darted away from the Guren, MVS slicing in to behead the Ryūō and rob it of its two most devastating weapons. Learme ducked the Ryūō under the sweeping swords and shouldered the stubborn Knightmare up and over him.
Then the Lancelot infuriatingly landed on its feet, turning to face the Ryūō next to its comrade Bors.
"Kallen, take care of the Lancelot." Learme ordered, only barely hearing her 'yes sir!' before moving the Ryūō forward at the two Seventh-Generation Frames. The Lancelot darted aside, and the Bors charged forward to smash Axes against Sabers. Were the Ryūō any normal frame, the sheer strength of the clash would have broken its arms and the Bors would have bull-rushed it.
However, Learme had designed the Ryūō not with the Sakuradite-Enhanced Frame that pretty much all Seventh-Generation Knightmares, including the Guren, used, but a much larger version of his Draconian Armor's Sakuradite-Laced Electroactive Polymer Pseudo-Musculature. While this sacrificed reaction time and speed, it more than made up for it in brute strength and defensive kinetic shock padding. Learme forced the Ryūō's limbs to either side, parting the Bors' arms and exposing its torso.
The Ryūō's mouth opened.
Before Learme could activate either the Radiation Beam Emitter, or the 'Honoo no Ryu' Flamethrower, one of the two surviving Sutherlands blindsided him, wrapping its arms around the Ryūō's torso and smashing it into the ravine wall.
When am I finally going to learn to not underestimate the standard forces?
Still, it proved to be little more than a few seconds hindrance. The shoulder-mounted Gatling guns opened fire on the Sutherland's shoulders, carving through armor and frame to cut off its arms and free the Ryūō. Then Learme drew the Ryūō's foot back and kicked the Sutherland square in the chest. The Knightmare flew back a good three meters before slamming into its comrade and bringing it to the ground.
Only to see the Bors aiming its large energy cannon at him.
Now, Learme didn't exactly know how the VARIS and VARIC were constructed, or exactly what they fired, the data Shifter had obtained for them having comparatively little on those subjects, despite having a wealth of info on other ones. Still, Learme was pretty sure it wasn't anything that would react nicely to being shot with a 30 millimeter-wide bullet.
So he shot it.
The barrel of the VARIC was as wide as the Ganymede's arm, and thus an insultingly easy target for a marksman of Learme's caliber. And thus, blasted into the firing chamber of the VARIC, cracking it and releasing all the gathered energy.
The VARIC exploded.
The bullet was a costly monstrosity that had absolutely no chance of being mass-produced. It was a simple hollow aluminum-iron alloy shell with an underlying copper layer and a depleted uranium penetrator built into the tip. In the center of the round was a vial made of moderately-strong polymers containing certain chemicals that, when mixed via the compression of the vial and simultaneous rupture of the internal separating walls caused by the impact of the bullet, exploded with a moderate degree of force. Initially, this was meant to merely drive the depleted uranium penetrator through heavy armor, but Learme also included some secondary explosive in the hollowed out shell around the vial, with some bits of steel in it. This resulted in a anti-armor/fragmenting explosive round that was as ruinous as it was expensive.
Unfortunately, it was not enough to severely damage the Bors. Sure, a bit of its shoulder was scarred, and a piece of the barrel had hit one of the sensor horns hard enough to bend it, but otherwise the heavy-set Knightmare was battle-ready.
"You will get no further here, Draco!" Jeremiah declared, setting the Bors into a stable stance. "In the name of Princess Cornelia, I will kill you like the beast you are!"
"Heh. Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAAHA!" Learme burst out into laughter. "What, you think this is some fairy tale where you think you can ride in like a knight in shining armor and rescue the princess? HA! Unfortunately for you, dear Orange-kun, this is reality. And this Dragon will tear off your head, burn your corpse to ashes, and use your skull to decorate it's lair!" The Ryūō lunged forward, sabers slicing in from either side like the closing jaws of a Dragon.
- The Queen -
This declaration did not go unheard by Kallen, and the duel between the Lancelot and the Guren increased in its speed and furor. Unlike the combat of the Bors and Ryūō, which resembled the clashes of heavily-armored knights in the medieval times, the flurries of the Lancelot and Guren were more like the dueling strikes of the Renaissance, reliant less on power and more on speed.
A MVS blade sliced by the Guren's head as Kallen ducked the red Knightmare down, barely avoiding getting the apparently decorative fin hacked off, before she aimed and fired the hand-cannon built into the Guren's left forearm at the White-head's face. Of course, the arm whipped up with energy shield flickering to life to block the shell, but that had been anticipated. Taking a leaf out of Draco's book, Kallen ducked the Guren down and spun on one landspinner, the other one and the leg it was attached to outstretched to trip up the Lancelot. The Lancelot quite simply hopped up to avoid the sweeping limb, took aim with the blue energy rifle, and fired.
Kallen prayed Draco had been right about the side-effects of the Radiation Surge Emitter, pulled up the Guren's silver claw-arm in front of it, and activated the mechanism.
While inherently deadly only within a certain range of an object, due to the fact that all of the radiation, microwaves, and thermal energy was transmitted by the red circular emitter on the palm of the claw, the ions generated by said energy when vented directly into the atmosphere produced an intense, if short-lived, electromagnetic field that was strong enough to block high-velocity armor-piercing rounds.
The VARIS projectile looked like something that was highly interactive with magnetic fields, so it was stopped in its tracks like a guy hitting a brick wall face-first while it bled its momentum off against the magnetic field before dissipating.
Kallen enjoyed the moment that the Lancelot stared at the scene before apparently glaring at its rifle like one betrayed.
Then she accelerated the Guren towards it with claw outstretched to grab it about the face.
- The Orange -
Jeremiah had always wondered how he would die. A heroic last stand against Euro Universe and/or Chinese Federation Knightmare frames was likely, although a nice, peaceful death in his sleep of old age after achieving a high station in life was preferable. More likely than either was him falling to a terrorist attack while still serving in Area Eleven.
Playing the part of the pansy knight in a tale where the nigh-omnipotent dragon killed him? Nope.
The Bors was still engaged in a minimal contest of strength, MVA pitted against the superheated sabers closing in on either side. Judging by the fact that slight warnings on some of the secondary screens showed that the MVA were rapidly reaching the upper ranges of their stress tolerance, Jeremiah was willing to admit the technological equality of his and Draco's Knightmares rather easily. Especially given those rumors about the Lancelot having lost an MVS in the Battle of Shinjuku...
What was slightly less believable was how the Dragon Knightmare was surely overpowering the Bors, which had been lauded as the most physically robust Knightmare devised. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was as strong as its Sakuradite-Infused actuators.
Well, apparently, dragons were.
He ducked the Bors down just as the sabers closed, backed it off, and sheathed the MVA. He then drew the MV Halberd, pretty much a Knightmare-sized polearm tipped simultaneously with axe and spear heads, with heating masers and oscillators built into the blades, but with a special weapon attached to the back in lieu of the standard spike.
Clutching both of the Bors' hands around its shaft, Jeremiah aimed the MV Halberd tip-first at the Dragon and initiated the firing sequence. A Sakuradite-based capacitor unleashed a moderate amount of electricity into an electrode that generated an electromagnetic pulse of equivalent power. Just enough to launch the grenade in the barrel at a speed just short of sonic.
The Magnetic Pulse Grenade Launcher actually launched Chaos Grenades a bit too fast for them to properly detonate, so the grenade was instead one of the new Scramble Grenades that Lloyd had developed. The projectile detonated right in the Dragon Knightmare's face, a combination of blinding light and horrendously powerful electromagnetic pulse that was sure to blind anything looking at it.
During the flash, Jeremiah sliced out with the Halberd, only for it to stop suddenly. Looking, he saw that the Dragon was apparently completely unaffected.
Jeremiah was not surprised.
In retrospect, it was rather naive of him to expect an opponent that had the capability to design and build not only one, but two Frames of equivalent technology to the Lancelot and Bors to ignore EMP shielding. Actually, now that he seriously thought of it, given the exposure of Draco's to high-charge magnetic fields in the use of his experimental magnetic weaponry, it probably made more sense for the Dragon Knightmare to have appropriate EMP shielding, just in case something went wrong.
This, of course, was going through his head as the Bors was flying backward through the air.
SLAM!CRUNCH!CRASH!
The Bors hit the ground cockpit-first, flipped over, bounced off of the ravine wall somehow, and skidded the rest of the way on its chest until it crashed into a Gloucester that came out of nowhere.
"Must remember to thank Lloyd for the padded restraints." Jeremiah grunted, as despite the padding, they still felt like they had broken his ribs. He reached out and took back the controls in his hands, finagling the Bors back into a somewhat upright posture, an involving process as Knightmares weren't quite as adroit as humans, despite the impossible stunts the Lancelot pulled once in a while. After getting the Bors onto its feet and Landtracks, Jeremiah checked the damage displa.y
Not quite as bad as I'd feared. The central Chobham chest plates had been smashed to bits by the Dragon Knightmare's kick, and Jeremiah reasoned that if the Bors head could incline far enough, and there wasn't a piece of armor blocking the view, he'd be able to clearly discern an enormous spider-web of cracks that were somewhat in the shape of the Dragon's foot.
And then Jeremiah looked up and saw the Dragon, retrieving a rifle or other such weapon from a holster on the right side of its cockpit.
He did the only thing plausible under the situation.
He turned the Bors sideways and braced himself, presenting the Bors's left shoulder.
- The Knight -
It took a lot to get Suzaku pissed. The Japanese man was, compared to his fellows, remarkably tolerant and forgiving, which made sense considering that Japanese society as a whole had grown remarkably less pleasant in their antipathy to foreigners, termed gaijin, ever since the war seven years ago.
Still, Zero and Draco had managed to drive Suzaku to the edge. Actually, most of Suzaku's new-found antipathy was directed right at the latter and his horrid, inhumane ways of war, although Zero's brutally ruthless strategies earned the terrorist some of Suzaku's anger.
To get to either of them however, Suzaku first had to deal with their red toadie.
Who was actually proving to be a worthy opponent in his or her own right, the Red Knightmare reacting just as fast as Suzaku himself did, and Learme had noted in their duels that Suzaku had a reaction speed that was actually faster than his physical movement speed.
Throwing the Lancelot aside to avoid a sweep of silver limb, Suzaku fired off the Slash Harken on his sword-arm, only for the Red Knightmare to intercept the bladed anchor with its strange knife, trap and secure it, and yank back to draw the Lancelot closer, the silver claw open like the maw of an oversized, painted Venus Flytrap, dart forward on the elbow extension, and close on the VARIS that Suzaku used as a block while he yanked back on his Harken. Releasing the rifle and interposing the Blaze Luminous shield on the now-free forearm to keep away any potentially damaging fragments, Suzaku withdrew a small distance before disengaging the shield and drawing the other MVS.
The duel continued with Suzaku pushing the Lancelot into a full-speed charge at the Red Knightmare, dodged the single Slash Harken it sported, and sliced away with the left-hand MVS. Which was caught by the silver claw, radiation emission from its palm creating another distorted field/shield that blocked the blade while at the same time pushing the heat beyond what the material could tolerate and igniting the small amount of liquid Sakuradite that powered the mechanisms. The MVS exploded.
During this, however, Suzaku brought the other MVS down on the silver arm, and was only prevented from hacking it in two by a last-minuted intercept from the forked knife, which slightly deflected the super-heated vibrating sword so that it carved halfway into the forearm instead.
- The Demon -
"Kallen, status report." Lelouch barked over the Zero Squadron link. The Guren was important to their plan. If Kallen could not destroy, or at least hold off, the Lancelot, then Learme would be left to face both Seventh-Generation Knightmare Frames simultaneously. And while Lelouch had no doubt that the Ryūō was immensely powerful, in both physical and energy matters, the Lancelot and Bors together would divide that power up, as well as Learme's attention.
"The Radiation Surge Emitter is damaged. It's operational, but if I activate it..." Kallen reported angrily, slowly backing the Kallen away from the Lancelot.
Damn it. "Sakanade Team, get in there and get the Guren out! Draco, deal with the Bors and exfiltrate!" Lelouch stared at the view of Cornelia's Gloucester, even as elements of her personal guard began to appear and fight the Burai of the Black Knights. Tohdoh was to be lauded for being able to hold off over twenty of such elite soldiers with only five modified Burai.
Internally though, Lelouch was cursing the bastard for not pulling off a new and better Miracle. Not that he'd been counting on it, but it would've been helpful.
"Zero Squadron, clear out an exit route. Mechanized Infantry...wait, what?" Lelouch frowned. He listened to the infantry leader report, and obtained a small, self-satisfied grin. "You did very well. Knock them out and transport them in the back of the APCs. Draco will be very happy with you."
As he ordered his forces about, the Akuma's sensors noted the Lancelot going to Cornelia's Gloucester, before turning to look at him.
Lelouch checked the Akuma's other sensors and noted the Ryūō off further down the ravine fighting the Bors.
Then he turned his attention back to the Lancelot and noted that it was now speeding up the ravine wall through use of Landspinners and Slash Harkens.
He sighed.
- The Dragon -
At this point, Learme was getting irritated. He had built the Ryūō with the most advanced technologies he had, using the information the mercenary called Shifter to ensure that it would be especially useful against Britannia's Sixth and Seventh Generation Knightmares, and here was one of the targets actually managed to hold him off.
The overall project had been called 'Onigami', which Learme was given to understand meant either Demon God or Cruel God, with the development of the Ryūō and its attendant weapons systems under that title, along with the Guren's planned modifications.
Now, the Ryūō shouldered what was perhaps the most advanced non-energy weapon in Learme's arsenal, a product of research and testing of the Sukur and Sukur Railguns, the former one of the Io's armaments, the latter a modified variant designed for use with the Sakanade; and reverse-engineering of the Raikou Gauss Cannon.
The Raikou Kai was the approximate size of a standard Knightmare Assault Carbine in its current state, and incorporated both rails and coils in its electromagnetic accelerators built into the barrel. It's primary ammunition was a larger variant of the same rounds fired by the Tsukiken, clip-fed by a twenty-round box magazine. It was thick-barreled, part of it extending out from the trigger guard and had a thick stock.
Learme shot four rounds at the Bors.
Apparently though, Jeremiah had anticipated this and ramped up the shoulder-mounted Blaze Luminous shield up to full power, defeating both the 1200 meter per second speed of the rounds and the explosions, although the depleted uranium tip of the fourth one broke through the shield and past the Bors' head.
With the shield defeated thus, Learme was merciless in his attentions, blasting the Bors in both knees, the rounds cutting the heavy Knightmare down to size before planting two rounds in the face, shattering the head and spreading fragments all over the area, before blasting each of the shoulders to boot.
"You bastard...you'll never get away with this!" Jeremiah shouted at him, bringing back memories of Aries Villa.
Almost as if on his order, assault rifle rounds pounded into the Ryūō's shoulder, Gloucesters speeding down the ravine with rifles held in left arms while their right arms brandished their trademark lances.
Learme scoffed, the sound transmitting as a reptilian snort, and flipped a switch that started the Raikou Kai over to its primary firing mode. The lower half of the 'barrel separated from the rest, moving on a hinge to connect to the upper half and extending the previously 2-meter barrel to a 4-meter monster. In this form, the Raikou Kai looked almost exactly like an enlarge M95 Anti-Material Rifle.
Seeming surprisingly human, the Ryūō extracted what looked like a shotgun shell from a container mounted on the left side of its cockpit, while holding the Raikou Kai by the barrel and resting it stock-first on the ground.
With great care, Learme had the Ryūō drop the projectile straight down the Raikou Kai's barrel before picking the linear weapon back up, kneeling the large, imposing Knightmare down and taking aim at the Gloucester in the center of the five-Knightmare formation. Wisely, the Gloucesters started moving, hoping to prevent him from getting a kill shot.
They hadn't learned from the Hotel-Jacking, apparently.
Learme fired, the Raikou Kai in its 'Sniper' mode activating an internal electrode that produced a small EMP to start the round off at a slow five hundred meters per second, before the gauss coils kicked in and pulled it up to a higher kilometer per second Then the rails activated, pushing the Discarding-Sabot Spread Shot round to an ungodly five thousand meters per second.
The DS3 round acted true to its name, the shotgun-like shell breaking apart almost immediately upon exiting the barrel, allowing the titanium-carbide ball bearings inside to spread out exactly like the ordnance of the Raikou Kai's namesake. At the higher velocity though, the DS3 ball bearings had longer range and smaller spread, meaning the cloud of armor-piercing projectiles missed the two on the outer walls of the ravine.
The three Gloucesters in the center were practically disintegrated by the impacts, the bearings tearing through the Knightmares' entire bodies with the kinetic energy shattering them into fine particles and fragments.
The two survivors ground to a halt, their Landspinners kicking up dirt as they twisted their Gloucesters' heads around to use their Factspheres and desperately scanned for their comrades. About all they found was a twenty-meter long streak of dirt, debris, and some broken parts that had survived the horrendously violent barrage.
Behind them, Learme muttered to himself as the Raikou Kai's stock ejected what looked like an Energy Filler the size of a man's forearm, while the Ryūō drew another one from a compartment built into the Tsukiken holster.
"Note to self: two sniper shots and ten battle rifle shots equivalent to three sniper rifle shots."
- The Author -
I love writing this part. It's fun to describe just how much damage is being inflicted. It's funny how much this situation turned out to be like a classical fairy tale, shining knights going against a big bad dragon to save the princess...granted, there were modifications in the inclusion of the Guren, but still.
I think I may have taken the fairy tale comparison a bit far...
I think the Raikou Kai is one of the best weapons designs I've had so far. It's just so useful. And terrifying.
Combined with the Sakanade and the Reikoku, Brits are gonna need diapers to endure the fear of the Black Knights.
In other news, WOOHOO! SCHOOL'S OUT!
Silverscale:...how did you type that?
Infinite Freedom: Does myself count?
It's never gonna get a float pack. It will, however, fly...in an admittedly loose interpretation of the word.
Alex Yamato: Fun for one side, sheer indescribable horror for another.
I don't think the Ryūō quite outclasses the Reikoku to that extent...and both have their own uses. For instance, the Reikoku can be modified for a many different situations.
Sure.
Fun stuff, in my opinion.
Yep.
Not quite. The Reikoku are specifically designed to be capable of dealing with other Six-Gen frames and lower Generation ones. While they could probably delay either Lancelot or Bors, fact of the matter is that both still have superheated blades and energy shields/weapons.
Kinda short...but I can't wait for the next!
Try Learme, that'll be interesting. Maybe a Death Knight?
Kojiro Kun: Part of my philosophical view on life is that, no matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. Case in point, this chapter.
I think that's my favorite English song...
Tohdoh has his own contributions to the Black Knights...especially when the Black Knights' Burai pick up a few of the more interesting parts of the surviving Burai Kai.
...joke?
heh, maybe when I'm done with this story.
Jman12394 (collective): As Velshard's OC...yeah, he's nuts.
I guess Milly really can't be OOC in this story then.
The coffee is actually going to get a plot now.
See: Velshard's other designs.
That it is. I've taken to listening to the song while just imagining that scene.
If you need to kill something...
Well, the OCs are actually mainly just background, despite my writing entire scenes around their viewpoints. They're mainly there because I wanted to avoid a feature-less companion unit.
I actually have a picture of the Ryūō drawn (unskillfully), but I can't upload it because I can't figure out my scanner.
Heh.
prodigisk: No they can't.
d-master: It is a good song.
sakurahanaalice: I spent way too much time cackling writing that chapter..
Omegadramon2: Thank you
not well.
thank you.
Keith Fraser: It actually branched out from one of my musings about what would happen if Lelouch was tougher, and more militaristic.
I know, but I'm trying to buff up the Brit's tech. Probably mess around with some of their latter advanced tech designs.
Like I said to Jman, the OCs are mainly there for background. As for the techical part...well, mainly I'm writing the story based on what I'd like to see in a story.
I try...but what would be the problems of making a katana out of titanium? I ask out of curiosity.
- I'm not exactly a connoisseur of alcohol, and it was red. Honest mistake.
- But can it be sharpened so that the collection of atoms at the edge are equivalent in width to a molecule by, say, a high-intensity laser?
- They now rule the Middle East, and they have control over the biggest source of Sakuradite, which seems to be ridiculously valuable in the CG world.
- ...Damn it, I knew I missed something.
Robby Cartwright: Thank you.
Knightmare Gundam of Ni