"...Police are informing citizens to stay away from the mall. It has apparently been seized by a hostile force of unknown origin."
Milly holds a microphone, staring at camera. When she had become a reporter, they had given her a three year contract. Each time it had expired, they had practically begged her to renew it. Even at thirty, Milly is a knockout, and a large portion of the station's viewers watched the program just to see her.
"If you have any loved ones who had been planning to be in or near the mall, please contact them to see if they are alright. We have receive reports they the terrorists have a jamming device, so do not panic if you cannot contact them."
A light on the side of the camera turns off. Milly wipes her brow and sets her papers down on a small table out of the cameras sight.
"You did well." her producer beams at her. "I'm so glad of how well you are handling this crisis, especially since you're daughter was supposed to be there."
Milly checks her cell phone. No missed calls.
"I'm sure she's alright," He puts an arm around her shoulders. "She's a smart girl, she won't do anything to get herself hurt."
Milly nods slowly.
A small man walks up and wordlessly hands the producer some papers.
"Huh. Well Milly, it seems that they did get somebody important. And their willing to announce it publically. We'll be on in thirty seconds, so scan these reports quickly, would you?"
He backs off and gives her a thumbs up.
Milly searches through the papers which had been made by the terrorists looking for the prisoners name.
"Lady Kaguya Sumeragi: captured."
Milly stares down at the paper. Why was Lady Kaguya, the most sought after woman on earth, in a common shopping mall?
She quickly composes herself as the timer on the wall hits zero.
"We have a distressing update. According to the terrorists they have captured Lady Kaguya Sumeragi. We have yet to confirm this as fact. Also according to the terrorists, they want someone else in exchange. They want..."
In the first time in her over twelve year career, she was at a loss for words. She stares at the camera, her mouth ever so slightly open.
Behind the camera, a man gestures to the cameraman to cut it off, but his jerking movements snap Milly out of it.
"Please excuse me," Milly apologizes to the camera with a small bow. "The terrorists say they would like for Suzaku Kururugi to take her place."
o-o-o-o
Suzaku himself was completely oblivious that the terrorists had just revealed their goal to the world. He slips through shadows, heading for the center of the mall. He had already scouted the entirety of the wing he was in just to be sure he hadn't missed her. The lights were beginning to become troublesome, as they kept alternating between on, off, and the eerie red emergency lighting. Luckly for Suzaku, the members of the order seemed just as annoyed by the ever changing lighting as he was.
Currently, he hangs off the side of a balcony, waiting for a frustrated guard to pass by.
"I can't believe we're supposed to search this whole damn mall." he smashes his fist through the nearest pane of glass, triggering an alarm. The guard ignores the alarm and continues on, unaware that his actions had almost caused his prey to fall a good fifty feet.
Suzaku in his prime would have handled a fall like that easily. Now, he wasn't so sure. He carefully swings himself up over the railing. The man had continued past and was looking towards the end of the mall. Suzaku creeps up behind him.
Suddenly the alarm stops, freeing smaller sounds to be heard.
Crunch.
The glass the terrorist had shattered had coated this section of floor. He spins around and his eyes widen as Suzaku's visage turns from surprise to anger. The last though the guard had for a while was about the strike that had been so fast he hadn't seen it coming.
o-o-o-o
The man and the woman seemed to know what they were doing, but Kallen still had her reservations. It seemed just a little too convenient that the pair had showed up at just the right time, with an excellent plan. When she had asked them, the woman had just said they had a plan for everything.
Kallen slinks two paces behind the pair eyeing them. They had no problem knocking people out to stop them from crying out. They are clearly dangerous, but they had yet to seriously harm anyone innocent.
The man gestures to halt.
"Do you see her?" for the first time since she'd met them, he sounded scared.
"Who? Lady Kaguya?"
"No." he leans right next to the woman so he can point her out to the woman.
Kallen follows the direction he was pointing. There stands a girl, about seventeen, with long green hair and two katana strapped to her back. She stands at the exit to the maintenance corridor which the impromptu group had slipped into to avoid detection.
The man turns to the woman fully. "Please tell me that that isn't C2."
The woman nods. "It's her."
The man starts breathing heavily. "If she sees us, we're both dead." He looks up at Kallen. "You were friends with her, right? Maybe you can convince her to-"
Kallen interjects. "Why is she working for the order? Wasn't she always one of ze- well, Lelouch's supporters?"
"How would I know?" The man looks at her skeptically. "I thought you were Zero's left hand woman. You should know far better than I."
Kallen puts a hand on her hip. "In the past week, Zero got captured, Suzaku shows up not dead and Nunnally got a Geass power. I'm starting to question my sanity, along with every new development that occurs."
The man hesitates. "Fair Enough." he turns back to the woman. "We need to get out of here, now."
She nods. "We can escort you two out with us, but we cant risk an encounter with her."
Kallen blinks at the two people who had seemed unshakable only moments before. "Aren't you immortal?"
They look at each other. "Not if she doesn't want us to be." The woman grimaces as she peers around the planter she had ducked behind.
"Alright, we are out of here." The man grabs the woman's hand.
"Wait!" Kallen hisses at him with enough force to get him to stop in place. "What are your names?"
The woman looks back. "I'm Tenshi Nanashi. He's Akuma Nanashi."
They disappear before Kallen can question them about two thing about their names. First off, why had the obviously Britannian pair given her Jaanese names? And secondly, why had the names been Angel and Demon NoName?
o-o-o-o
"Now we bring you an exclusive interview with the man who claims to be the leader of the terrorists now occupying the mall." Milly shift in her seat to get a better view of the screen next to the camera.
A man's silhouette appears on the screen. From what she could see of his features, he looked almost perfectly normal.
"Welcome to the show, Mr...?"
"You may call me Refusal." his voice is contorted by some sort of vocal modifier, causing it to be lower than most human's.
"Ok, well, Mr. Refusal. You claim to be the leader of the terrorists now occupying the mall?"
"Terrorists? Well, we prefer to be called idealists. We never had a goal of installing terror, but we do intend to bring peace."
"Not to sound contrary, but aren't we already in a time of peace?"
"Yes, but it is regrettably the product of many lies." The man shifts back in his seat. "We, my associates and I, all wish to found a new order, one built entirely upon the truth."
"And to do this, you will take one of our beloved figureheads prisoner?"
The man chuckles. "She is innocent, and as long as we can, we will avoid hurting her. She is just bait in our trap, an unfortunate necessity for our goal." His hand moves, barely visible in the shadows. He sets the hand against his heart. "I give my word that if Suzaku Kururugi gives himself up peacefully, she will be returned unharmed. I know my word means nothing to you, but I never make promises I don't keep."
"And this brings me to another point. Kururugi has been dead over twelve years. How do you expect us to give him to you?"
The man chuckles again. With the voice filter, it is a low grating sound. "He isn't dead. He's been alive the whole time. Of course, not a single soul had seen his face until about two weeks ago. When we learned he was alive, we knew he had to be captured."
"Nobody had seem his face? How is that possible?"
"Because," The man leans into the light enough the reveal a wide grin. "He's been under Zero's mask for the past twelve years."
o-o-o-o
Suzaku, now forever unmasked as Zero, manages to claw his way around on the ceiling as he approaches the center of the building. He had spotted the place where they had Lady Kaguya tied up.
Tied up really isn't that accurate, actually. They have a single rope wrapped around her torso in such a fashion that if she had been awake, she probably could have shrugged it off easily. Her hands weren't even bound.
Not that Suzaku knew it, but Refusal had planned to let Nunnally escape, then claim they had let her go free, even if Suzaku hadn't shown up. If Lady Kaguya insisted he had escaped, he would make the case that she was to big a supporter of Suzaku's to tell the truth.
Suzaku cautiously hooks his fingers into the groove between to light panels. He has to get her out before any harm can to her, if only for Lelouch's sake.
o-o-o-o
Nunnally, who had been distracted by two terrorists they had knocked out, finally catches up to Kallen.
"Where are they?" She looks around.
Kallen whispers to her. "C2's up ahead. They're both deathly scared of her."
Nunnally frowns and looks around the cover Kallen had ducked behind. Indeed there was a seventeen-ish, green haired girl standing in the center of the hallway blocking the path. What Nunnally found interesting was the fact that there was a word floating above the girl's head, completely unobscured. From what she had gathered, C2 was supposed to be immortal, so her Geass shouldn't be visible.
Nunnally was mildly distracted by the fact that she couldn't read the Geass power from her hiding spot. It seemes that the Geass name was fixed at a certain size above a user's head. There wasn't any significant cover between the two of them either, so she couldn't approach close enough to make it out.
Taking a deep breath, she motions Kallen to silently follow her.
They creep up behind C2 in the darkness careful not to make any noise. Nunnally focuses on the text hovering above the girl's head.
"Disguise?"
Kallen frowns. "C2 never did anything like that while I knew her."
C2 had heard them. She turns around, an evil smile on her features.
"Aw, are you lost?" She draws both her katana. "That's too bad. You were warned to keep still. Don't you know that in the dark, people can get hurt?"