Today is your lucky day! I made an error, posted this instead of my Soul Eater fic, and I decided F*** my schedule, you guys get an extra update!
Milly hugs Kallen as she steps off of the Mordred, now parked in the small yard behind Milly's house.
"Kallen, I'm so glad you're okay! I was so worried, what with Zero being unmasked, and the Emperor- Er, fake Emperor Lelouch trying to reclaim the throne."
"I'm fine, Milly. Thankfully, nobody in our little resistance has gotten seriously injured."
Milly spots Suzaku and runs over to him. "Suzaku!"
Se tackles him to the ground.
C2 and Gregor watch amusedly. "Milly's exactly the same as she always had been, at least from the accounts Lelouch gave me of her character."
Once Milly gets up, she picks her next victim, Nunnally.
"I'm not really surprised that she's a newscaster, with that chirpy demeanor and her assets."
C2 whacks the back of his head. Gregor grins. "If you think about it, we never really monitored the news that closely, but we probably should have."
"Eh, we monitored the incoming signals. That was enough." C2 leans against the Mordred as Anya clambers down and gets bear hugged by Milly. Anya's eyes widen and she looks like she's about to go into shock.
Jeremiah sighs and heads off to rescue the young girl.
"So when are we implementing the final stage of plan omega?" C2 looks over.
Gregor crosses his arms. "I was hoping we could postpone it. I had a new step I think we can add in, actually. We can dress me up as Zero, however temporarily, and use Milly's contacts to get us a TV spot. Then the rest of you, yeah even you, would be with me. That way, nobody can say that any one of you is Zero. Anytime we are in public, Nunnally, Kallen, Suzaku and you can be there behind Zero. Lady Kaguya will have to resume her diplomatic functions, so she will have an alibi. Jeremiah and Anya I would like to keep out of the public eyes, and since they don't hang around Zero, they won't be suspicious."
C2 slowly nods. "I agree with most of that, but why me? Very few people have seen me, I can still go back into hiding."
"But would you want to? Until someone replaces me, you would have to go into hiding without me, and I might have to take a long shift as Zero. Not to mention that I will have a hard time locating you."
C2 sighs. "And if I don't go into hiding while still hanging around, people will notice me eventually and conclude that I'm Zero. I can never win an argument with you."
"Not since when we first met." Gregor smiles slightly.
"And at was a hell of an argument, worthy of Kallen during one of her tantrums."
Gregor hastily covers up a snort.
Meanwhile, Kallen and the other work on filling Milly in with anything they deemed important, which resulted in an extremely haphazard and partial recollection.
Milly gives each of them room and tells them that since they are her guests, they should rest up and she'll have dinner ready in a few hours.
Kallen sits down on the edge of the bed. Something pokes her leg. Oh, right, the USB drive. Conveniently, there is a computer in the small room, and she hooks the tiny device onto it. Now that it's on a normal system, the files actually have directories that allow Kallen to search through the named ones in short order.
"Let's see. Masks, masks, masks... How many faces do these people need?"
She scrolls along in silence. Finally, after half an hour, she comes to a halt. "These files aren't named. She click the files, but the computer can't figure out what program to run them.
Kallen grumbles under her breath and looks online for a program that can view the files. Once she finds a free one that looks like it would do the job, she downloads it.
"Twelve hours?! What kind of lame internet connection does she have?"
She flops down on the bed and closes her eyes. Maybe she'll just rest for a few minutes...
o-o-o-o
Kallen is woken up by an insisting knocking on her door. "Hold on a sec!" she calls groggily before she stumble to her feet and unlatches the door. "What's up?"
Milly smiles at her. "Dinner's ready!"
Kallen perks up. "Oh. Let me clean myself up real quick and I'll be right down."
Everyone else is already seated by the time she arrives downstairs. "Sorry, sorry. I fell asleep."
Milly just waves her have dismissively.
Kallen sits down at the table just as the doorbell rings.
Milly gets out of her chair and heads for the door. Gregor and Suzaku nod to each other and follow, each drawing guns from their waistbands.
Milly doesn't show whether or not she knows the duo is behind her, but she does exercise enough cation to not fling the door open.
"Oh, Hi!" Mily says to the newcomer.
"Hello. I brought some wine. I'm sorry to drop in unannounced, but... well, you know."
Milly sighs. "I'm so sorry Rivalz. I have company over."
Kallen pokes her head around the corner. "Rivalz? Hey Rivalz!"
Rivalz looks inside. "Kallen? Hey Prez, what's going on?"
Milly sigh again and opens the door further to let him in. "Hold on a minute, and I'll get another place setting.
She turns around to find two people pointing guns at Rivalz.
Suzaku blinks, finally remembers who the name Rivalz belongs to, and motions for Gregor to lower his weapons.
"Suzaku? I thought you guys were killed or stranded or something!" he shakes hands with Suzaku, then with Gregor. "My names Rivalz. What's your?"
"Gregor. Nice to meet you Rivalz."
All four of them head back to the dining area where Lady Kaguya had already made another place at the table. Rivalz blinks at the table full of people that he might find in a comic book, from royalty to missing persons to a guy with a giant metal thing over his left eye.
He sits down at his spot warily.
Kallen, Suzaku and Milly do most of the talking, filling Rivalz in on the situation. Everyone interjects here and there, but the three dominated the conversation. The rest of them were too busy enjoying the food anyway.
Once everyone is done eating, Anya, Lady Kaguya and Milly head to the kitchen to do the dishes.
Kallen looks over at Rivalz. "So what's new with you? We haven't talked much since I became a full time Black Knight."
Rivalz grimaces. "Well, once Prez got her job at the studio, I was left to take care of the school council with only Kallen to help for the last year." He nods at the others as they realize he said this for their benefit. "Once we graduated, I got a job as a chauffeur. Not real high paying, but I manage. I'm now a senior driver which means I get picked for celebrities, which is cool."
Kallen pours herself some more of the wine Rivalz had brought. "Did you ever get over your crush on Milly?"
Rivalz glances towards the kitchen and lowers his voice. "Actually, no. I technically have a girlfriend right now, but she's horrible. I think she's cheating on me, actually. Too many weird things, sometimes odd clothes show up." his expression turns sour. "I would have broken up with her, but she decided to get a job at the same chauffeur service. If I did break up with her she'll probably try to get me fired, and for some reason she has the boss' ear so it wouldn't end very well."
Kallen moans in sympathy. "Wow. I'm sorry to hear that."
"Yeah well," he forces a smile onto his face. "I try not to dwell on it."
As the three girls return from dish washing, the conversation drifts to other subjects, leading late in the night.
o-o-o-o
Kallen walks up the stairs right behind Gregor, staggering slightly from a combination of booze and tiredness.
She says goodnight to the man before he closes the door to the room next to her and she steps in and flops on the bed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a light turn on. She turns her head and sees the program she had started at two thirty in the afternoon had finally finished downloading. She groans and shuffles over to the computer, intending to shut it off, but curiosity gets the better of her. She installs the program, making sure not to accept the dumb toolbars bundled with the software and runs it once it finishes.
"Let's open those last few files."
She finds the files, labeled 00004112 through 00004217, and starts opening them one by one.
"Hey, look! It's my mask!" she calls to empty air.
She was quite loud, but even holding deathly still she doesn't hear anyone else moving around. She goes back to looking through the files.
o-o-o-o
In the next room over, C2 and Gregor are holding conference.
"I can't believe you have a Zero suit handy." Gregor stares down at the black cloth, as well as the helmet that rests upon it.
"Your improvised step is all the easier because of it. That's why I carry stuff like that around."
"What else do you tote around in that bag?"
"Just various things. A small pistol, Geass blocking contacts, a screwdriver set-"
"Wait, Geass canceling contacts?"
"What if we encounter a Geass user that has advanced to a stage where they can no longer turn it off, like Lelouch?"
Gregor nods. "Good point."
There is a silence.
"I think we should find a way to compensate Milly. She became a target when she agreed to help us."
Gregor nods in agreement. "Most of our cash flow is gone due to the raid, but still, how much can we aff-"
From Kallen's room, aloud and heavily slurred exclamation can be heard. It sounds vaguely like "Ay book it's my man!"
"Sounds like Kallen's enjoying her sleep." C2 grins.
Gregor stops staring at the wall and holsters his pistol, a reflex having brought it out. "Where was I? Oh, how much can we afford to give to Milly?"
C2 frowns. "Not much. Like you said, no money in. We need to set up some more dummy companies to get our cash flow back."
Gregor taps his chin thoughtfully.
"Maybe we could offer her a reasonable favor? Like, if she has competition, or-"
"I'm pretty sure Milly wouldn't want you to kill someone." C2 interrupts.
"Or maybe he would want us to help somebody. I don't now. I can't think right now." He grumbles and flops down on the only bed in the room. "let's finish this in the morning, alright?"
C2 agrees and leaves Gregor to his beauty rest.
In the next room over, Kallen clicks open file 00004185. "Hey, I think I know his guy. Let's save this file to the desktop."
She finds nothing of interest in the rest of the latex designs, so she closes the program down, uninstalls it, and unplugs the USB. She puts the small thumb drive into her backpack and turns off the computer. Tomorrow, she would look at that file and figure out who it is.
o-o-o-o
Morning rolls around with Milly and Gregor talking over breakfast. "...and we thought we could do you a favor, since we are causing such a large disturbance to your life." Gregor concludes.
Milly sips her coffee thoughtfully. "I actually have two small favors I'd like. The first is that I get to interview you and the rest of your little resistance."
Gregor shrugs. "You would be doing us a favor as well, so, gladly."
Milly frowns. "You know Rivalz, from last night? He's been a good friend to me for years. He has this girlfriend that is cheating on him with the owner of the company he works for. He doesn't know that I keep tabs on him, and I'd like to keep it that way. Anyway, I think that the couple should be exposed so he quits going out with the whore."
Gregor raises an eyebrow. "Strong language."
Milly shrugs blushing ever so slightly. "It's just not fair that a nice guy like Rivalz is stuck with some girl that doesn't even care about him."
Her eyes get a faraway look. "He used to have a huge crush on me, you know. When I left school I told him that I wasn't interested in his affections. It wasn't entirely true, but I thought I had both his and my own best intentions at the time. Then he goes and hooks up with that- that-"
"I get the gist of it." Gregor leans back in his chair. "So you want this girl fired?"
Milly nods.
"I'm going to need a picture."
"I'll get one. In the meantime, let's set up a room to be a staging area. I think it would be great if we could get this interview done today, but it needs to look like you are nowhere near here."
Gregor follows the perky woman through the doors into the living area, listening to the steady stream of ideas that come from her mouth.
o-o-o-o
Kallen wakes with a pounding headache. She really shouldn't have drunk all that wine.
She vaguely recalls having something to do, but she couldn't remember exactly what.
She looks around and notices the computer. "Tha's right." she slurs out loud. "I need to check the... thing."
She boots the computer, clicks on the file, and the program opens with the oddly familiar face. She stares at the facial construct on the screen, rotating it around to see it from all angles. Frustrated after five minute of this, she looks through the rest of the information contained within the file.
One line suddenly makes her sober up very quickly, all trace of sleep erased. If she had been a dog, her hackles would have been raised as high as they could go.
In the name field of the mask, there is a small, single word.
"Gregor."