"How many?"
"Too many."
Zero and Lady Kaguya stand looking at the remains of a remote command center. it had been hit by a missle carrieing a conventional payload. Lady Kaguya shuddered when she thought of what would have happened if it had been a F.L.E.I.J.A.
"Kallens in intensive care, half my most trusted guard dead. And to top it off, It's snowing."
It's true. The flakes fall lazily into the smoke filled canyon, occasionally landing on Zero's mask.
"So what are we going to do? We still need to find Nunnally, right?"
"Unfortunately, I don't think we can. Any time we get together to discuss this problem we get attacked."
"But we still need to rescue Nunnally!"
"I know that! I just don't have a plan yet!"
Lady Kaguya's comm set beep with an incoming signal.
"Yes?"
"Tell Zero that Elliot wishes to speak with him."
o-o-o-o
Nunnally Had been left alone for the past few days, except for a meal pushed to her every few hours. Occasionally, she could feel Jennifer reach out and give her a pain spike, but nothing as horrible as that first night.
Nunnally had decided on a plan: she would kill herself.
She sees no other way, as she's not strong enough to overpower the guards, and can't go through that torture again. If she did, she thinks she'll break.
Soon, another serving of chicken mush is pushed under her door, and a small feeling of pain spikes up in a small section of her brain.
o-o-o-o
"You did WHAT?!"
Through the wall, Lady kaguya heard Zero's voice. She was sitting next to Kallen's stretcher, watching her friends face twitch.
Kallen had not suffered as badly as had been feared at first. She would be up within a matter of hours. ZEro on the other hand. seemed to be degrading into madness as his conversation wears on.
She had never gotten remarried after she had officially divorced Zero. She had grown up to be a beautiful woman, with suitors asking for her hand whenever they had a chance to. She had decided not to marry anyone since both of her loves had died within 2 months of each other.
Zero climbs out of the ruined building with a broken comm clenched in his fist. "Lady Kaguya, I will have to leave here immediately. A man has decided on a course of action for me."
Kaguya blinks. "Come back safely."
Zero gives a low chuckle. "I'll be lucky if that's the case."
That was the last time anyone saw zero for a long time.
o-o-o-o
"You think that your plan will work?"
"Yes. I wouldn't have given it to him if I didn't think it would work."
"Yes you would."
"Not with what's at stake. You should know that I don't like it when-"
"Yes, yes. Human lives are ALL precious."
"Except for a certain group. They will die sooner rather then later if I have anything to say about it."
o-o-o-o
"Good morning, Nunnally."
The man with the Geass has breakfast in his hands.
"I've got good news for you. You'll be getting a cell mate today. Jennifer managed to capture zero. He was making a rather lame attempt to rescue
you."
At this he breaks out into maniacal laughter, drops the tray, and turns to leave.
Before he makes it out the door, Nunnally hears gunshots outside the corridor. She sees the man duck, then he tries to close the door. A bullet pings
off the handle, and the man takes better cover on the outside of the room. Nunnally realizes that this is her best chance to escape. She twists her
wrists around in her cuffs to no avail. She manages to slip the cuffs around to be in front of her, then she holds the keyhole up to her eye. The
mechanism looked simple enough to trip, she just needs a long pin.
"So that's why Kallen always has hair clips on her." Nunnally murmured to herself.
Suddenly, Suzaku, in zero garb minus the helmet, bursts in and slams the door shut. His face is entirely pale, paler than it was the last time she had
seen him.
"Hi, Nunnally. Glad to see you're alright."
"Suzaku? How did you get here?"
"Nunnally, this building is an old military base in Japan. Right in the middle of Tokyo, in fact. Once I knew where you were, getting here wasn't a
problem."
Nunnally nods and holds her hands forward. "I'm glad. Can you do something about these cuffs please?"
"Sure. Ah, I'm going to have to barricade the doors first, alright?"
Nunnally just shrugs.
Suzaku proceeds to move crates against the door, hopefully restricting access to the cell.
As soon as Suzaku finished with the crates, he pulls out a key and unlocks one of he cuffs. Interestingly, the left cuff has a different type of keyhole, so
the cuff can't be unlocked with the key.
Nunnally rubs at her wrist as Suzaku moves around the room, examining the walls.
Remembering her time as Zero's commander, she decides to give Suzaku a status report. "Um, so far, I've been interrogated by two different people
with Geass. One of them can detect lies, the other, Jennifer, can inflict pain through thought. There's about ten guards that take shifts guarding me. Um, they wanted to know your identity."
"Well, they know it now. I think I met the woman who can inflict pain."
"Oh yeah, the guy said that she captured you. How did that happen, anyway?"
Suzaku sighs. "There's someone pulling all the strings here. He calls himself Elliot, and he knew my real identity. He set up a plan to rescue you, told me your location, and even set the plan in motion so that it would be impossible for me to refuse. Once I got to where we were supposed to meet, I found two thugs and this Jennifer woman. Once they saw zero, two of them drew weapons and Jennifer's eye lit up. My legs were put into so much pain that I immediately fell to the ground. I pretty much figured that Elliot had betrayed me at that point. When Jennifer went off to inform her friend, I overpowered the guards and set out to find you, and well, here I am."
"Thank you for trying to rescue me. I know I'm not really all that important-"
"Believe me, Nunnaly, you are one of the reasons I still fight for peace."
He didn't add was that the other reason was a Geass order.
By the way, the Geass on Suzaku just activated.
He runs towards Nunnally and tackles her to the ground just as the heavy door to the cell explodes inwards. In come both Jennifer and the man with the Geass.
"I've had just about enough of both of you." he says, leveling a pistol at Suzaku.
o-o-o-o
Kallen wakes from her deep sleep with a start. Lady Kaguya sits next to her bed, looking happy to see her awake.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Kallen."
Kallen winces as she opens her mouth to speak. Her head hurt like... Well, like she had been blown into a wall.
"How long was I out? Did Zero making out alright?"
"Zero's fine. At least, he was when I last saw him."
"Which was?"
"About five hours ago. He got a phone call on my phone, and then left."
"Do you know where he went?" Kallen was having a hard time getting the words out, and she feared that Lady Kaguya could see the worry plain on her face.
"No, he had an argument with the caller, and he got all flustered, then left."
Kallen slumps back onto her pillow and looks up at the ceiling. "How much longer until I can pilot the Guren?"
Lady Kaguya stayed silent for a full minute, the said in a small voice "The missles destroyed the Guren, Kallen. It seems the it was the main target,
according to my head of security."
Kallen closes her eyes. "Can you get ahold of Lloyd and Rakshata and ask if they have anything for me?"
Lady Kaguya nods, then notice Kallen's eyes are closed. "Yes, I will. Meanwhile, you must rest. I have a bad feeling about Zero."
o-o-o-o
"So, now Elliot shows his true colors."
"Yes. He's a traitor."
"How are we going to get rid of him? He's our spokesperson."
"Easy. He'll commit suicide on camera."
"Ha. And you think he'll go along with this?"
"Absolutly certain."
o-o-o-o
Suzaku stares down the barrel of a pistol. He had been standing there for a good five minutes, with almost no movement or sound to mark the
passage of couldn't quite recall the details, but didn't Lelouch say that he got his Geass under similar conditions? Really, the universe is no fair at all.
Suzaku waits for the brute to pull the trigger. He seems to be hesitating for some unknown reason.
"Well? No cries for mercy from you?"
Suzaku put as much defiance as possible into his voice. "I won't beg. It's beneath me."
The man starts laughing, his crazy laugh that seems to go on just a little to long to be able to sound sane. He abruptly stops and smoothly holsters the gun. "Jennifer, you can take care of them. I have to go and tell him the good news." he stalks out of the room.
Jennifer licks her lips. "So, who's first? I think I prefer the handsome man who calls himself Zero, but I know I love Nunnally's pain so much, I just can't decide!"
In her moment of gloating, she failed to notice that a certain ex-soldier had slipped behind her.
"GAHK! Hey! Get. Away. From. Me!" Showing surprising agility for her size (Nunnally mentally recalled her initial impression as looking like Cornelia) she flips Suzaku over her back and slammed him into the floor. "Alright, you asked for it. You get the pain first."
Suzaku had literally only felt pain this bad twice: the first time was when Euphie died. The second was when Kallen stabbed him inside his Knightmare aboard the Damocles. He writhed in agony as the pain affected all parts of him, and then he feels his Geass activate, and now his eyes feel like they're going to burst-
And suddenly the pain stops. Jennifer reaches up to her face, and Nunnally noticed that the Geass had spread to her other eye.
Suzaku gets up from the ground and stands in front of Jennifer. "Well, it seems that the playing field has been leveled."
Jennifer's eyes widen, then she tries to dodge Suzaku's lunge, but Suzaku manages to predict her movements and catch her off guard, and he puts her in a sleeper hold Neil she passes out.
Suzaku gestures to Nunnally to get out of there, and she could have sworn she had seen a flash of red and purple in his left eye.