Everyone (including C2, for some reason. In a weird detached sense, Lady Kaguya figured C2 would know about this stuff.) look stunned at the clone Lelouch's statement. In fact the only sound that can be heard is the sound of some pneumatic mechanism hissing.
Then a meaty thunk as something or someone hits the floor.
C2 starts and jumps to her feet, followed by Kallen and Suzaku. Nunnally sits in a daze murmuring under her breath. "But... Huh? But then where's Gregor?"
Aside from Nunnally, Gregor seemed to totally forgotten.
Well, one person was recalling him, but he was far away, recovering from a gunshot wound.
o-o-o-o
Milly stares at nothing in particular. Rivalz had been unconscious for the last two days due to heavy medication the doctors had used, and she had been by his side since the incident. The question running through her mind?
"Why?"
She could find no rhyme or reason. The was absolutely no cause for them to start shooting each other. Gregor seemed reasonable, and had covered for Rivalz, which led Milly to conclude that Gregor wasn't trying to harm Rivalz, and probably hadn't shot first. But that meant that Rivalz had shot first, which was bordering on insane. There had been absolutely no reason!
Rivalz groans a bit.
Milly jump to her feet and asks hopefully, "Rivalz? Are you awake?"
Rivalz opens one eye. "Yeah." he reaches down and prods his wound. "Jeez. Next time you have somebody mysterious over, remind me not to pry, okay?"
Milly blinks. "Did Gregor shoot first? If he did I'll-"
"No, it was entirely my fault. See, I was just hanging out with the guy, working on the Knightmare unit, when he said something. Let's see..."
Rivalz trails off as he frowns at the floor in concentration. "He said something about how we should go gambling under his breath. Since the only person I've ever done that with was Lelouch... Well... I wasn't supposed to have heard it, I don't think, but his voice was amplified by the Knightmare's speakers. So, I grew suspicious. I found a gun - think it was Anya's - and tucked it into my pocket. Once I was finished, I headed back down and confronted him."
Rivalz hangs his head. "I pointed the gun at him and demanded... Uh, I'm kinda fuzzy about it, but it was really important. Gregor didn't react the way I expected him to. He just kinda smiled. He said that he used to have a friend in the military who looked like me, and they used to go gambling together. He said that I acted so much like him it was nostalgic."
Milly squints. "Kallen did say something along the lines of him having his own squad before he had become immortal."
Rivalz groans. "He's immortal? No wonder he didn't care about my gun! Anyway, after that he pointed out that my safety was still on. I tried to casually flip it off, but pulled the trigger and shot him. I think he shot me by reflex, honestly. I'm just glad I'm alive."
Milly smiles down at him, he eyes brimming with tears. "Me too. If you had gotten killed, of all the members of the student council who haven't when actually fighting a war, I think I'd be a little messed up."
Rivalz sighs and sinks down into his pillow. "I don't remember much after that."
Milly thinks for a bit. "Well, that guy is odd. I'm glad to hear that it was an accident, but I hope you'll be more careful in the future."
Rivalz grimaces. "Not like I'm planning on ever touching a gun again, Prez. I'm kinda traumatized by the whole thing."
Milly looks surprised. "Aren't you going to work for Zero? I mean, he did say he needed a mechanic."
"After shooting him? I'm not sure many people would hire me after that."
"Like I said, he's immortal. He covered for you before he left. I'm sure I could convince Kallen or Nunnally to force him to let you at a minimum."
Rivalz smirks. "Right."
o-o-o-o
Kallen throws open the door and finds the pod thing open. A guy just lays on the floor face down. She quickly races over and rolls him to see his face.
The rest of the Black Assassins crowd around to see...
Well, it kinda looked like Lelouch. Facial structure is the same, but the horrible red scar over his right eyelid and lower forehead threw her recollections a bit. Kallen smudges aside some of the painted on bruises, but when she touches his scar, he flinches.
Slowly, he opens his eyes.
He glances around at the people around him.
"Oh, Shi-"
o-o-o-o
In the deep recesses of a hidden lair that had been constructed purely for the reason of the "cool factor," a man and his aide stand, looking at a sweating messenger.
"Yes, I think that the latest orders may have cause L-4 to change allegiances."
The man behind his huge desk (also really large because of the "cool factor") speaks up. "So our mental conditioning exercises have failed."
The nervous man pushes his glasses up on his nose. "W-With all due respect, it wasn't the conditioning's fault, it was the fact he still had feelings for his younger sibling."
The man in charge strokes his goatee. "But each time we get rid of that, the clones no longer obey our commands at all. It seems that the man lives for his little sister."
The nervous man (probably a scientist, by the look of his clothes) relaxed ever so slightly. "We could always recondition that part of him, give him a new sibling to focus on."
"But that still presents us with the problem of getting rid of the current clone."
The aide, who had been silent up until this point, speaks up. "I will take him out." without waiting for conformation, he starts walking towards the door. The scientist gets his first good glimpse of the man and wished he hadn't.
The aide is missing half of his lower face, the left half of his teeth no longer having enough skin to cover them. His right eye glows faintly red in the darkness. Strapped to both sides of his hips are huge pistols that look like they could give assault rifles a lesson in dealing pain. And to top it off-
Did he seriously have a headband on? It looked like it was ancient! It quite ruined the bad-assery of it all. Then the silent aide disappeared back into the shadows.
o-o-o-o
Hauled to his feet, Lelouch (the real one) gets to his feet, brushes himself off and looks around. "Well, he gang's all here. C2, sitrep?"
C2 stares at him for a minute. "Uh, your clone just released you from this prison pod. You look pretty messed up."
"Well, yeah. My clone had put makeup on me to make it look like I'd been tortured, or something."
"Where's your mask?"
Lelouch flinches a bit. "You really don't want to know. Let's suffice it to say that it's with my contacts."
Kallen suddenly interrupts. "Wait, so you were wearing a mask?"
Everyone looks at her like she's insane.
"Duh!" more than four voices exclaim at once.
o-o-o-o
Schniezel sits next to his sister Cornelia, looking at the array of monitors that had just lit up.C
ornelia is the first to break the silence.
"So. The tyrant is back?"
Schniezel shakes his head. "This doesn't seem like him. There's something missing from his demeanor, both from my observations of him as younger brother, as Zero, and as Prince Lelouch. If I had to put it to words, it's like he wasn't whole. The Lelouch I know never seemed so fake when giving a speech. Also, don't you find it odd that he didn't age a day in ten years?"
Cornelia might wonder, if there had been anyone else in the room, why Cornelia was wondering about this now. That reason would be because she had just gotten back from a vacation which she had almost been forced into taking by her fiancé.
She kind of wished he would be here to provide his unbiased opinion."So if it's not Lelouch, who is it?"
Schniezel sighs. "It appears to be one of our siblings that the real Lelouch missed. A certain Drexel ri Britannia, to be precise."
Cornelia frowns. "I don't recall the name."
"You wouldn't. He was kept away from all of us for much the same reason Lelouch and Nunnally were shipped to Japan. He was being protected."
Cornelia raises her eyebrow. "Nunnally was sent here to protect her? Somehow, I find that really hard to believe."
Schniezel nods. "I confirmed it with a trusted source."
Cornelia snorts. "He really didn't do a good job of protecting them when the war came, did they? Our father, I mean?"
Schniezel just shrugs. "Who can fathom the mind of a man who considers his entire planet trivial?"
o-o-o-o
Nunnally steps up to Lelouch. "It's really you?"
Lelouch does his best not to smile, but a one corn of his mouth curls up. "Yes, it's really me."
Nunnally slaps him. Hard.
Kallen gasps.
"That's for making me think you were dead all these years."
She slaps him again.
"That's for using your Geass on me."
And a third time.
"That's for taking over the world without my permission."
Lelouch rubs his jaw. "Okay! I got it. I'm sorry I upset you. It was necessary- why are you giggling?"
Nunnally, C2, and Lady Kaguya had all been giggling. "Oh, it's just that you still look eighteen. And sound eighteen. I look older than you." Nunnally manages to say.
Lelouch facepalms. "Let's not get distracted here? We need to figure out what to do."
C2 crumples to the floor, laughing. "Oh my, I forgot how funny you sound!" she says with tears in her eyes.
"Look, we kind of have a situation here-"
Kallen tries to to pull herself together. Honestly, she tries. But then the absurdity of the situation hits her again, and her options are to laugh or cry. And she wasn't really in the crying mood.
Kallen had gone through many confused phases around Lelouch. She always thought Lelouch was stuck up, but she had admired Zero. When she learn that they were one and the same, she had had a small mental breakdown. Almost used refrain a couple of times during the half a year Lelouch had been reprogrammed. Then she was wary of the man who could so easily mislead her, trying to find a place where she could find out what he truly thinks, and so reassess him. That hadn't gone so well, but she eventually fell for him, culminating in her kissing him after he became emperor, just in time for him be lost to her forever.
Well, twelve years, but since he was supposed to be dead...
Lelouch suddenly raises his voice, and he becomes a lot scarier. "Silence!" The talking dies down very quickly."Okay, yes, we need to get out of here. But first, there is something that needs to be done." he takes a deep breath, and lowers his voice back to normal. "Now, we need to spring Gregor out of this hellhole before he starts to rot-"
Lady Kaguya raises her hand, but begins talking before anyone can acknowledge her. "I thought you were Gregor?"
Lelouch shakes his head. "He's a real person. I just borrowed his face a few times. He was actually at home base while you were there before we had to blow it up, but he escaped through a different route. C2 knew that we were switching, but we intentionally kept her in the dark about which was which in case she got captured." Lelouch grimaces.
C2 nods in affirmation. "I thought it was the real Gregor that got captured, actually."
Lelouch smiles.
The clone steps out of the door. "Good! So now that that is out of the way, let me show you to hi-"
The clone never finished his sentence. A red hole straight through his skull had appeared in his forehead. The now lifeless corpse slowly falls to the floor.
C2, Lady Kaguya, Kallen and Lelouch all immediately recognize the killer, despite his mangled jaw and obviously cybernetic eye.
"T-Tamaki?"
Yep. Tamaki. As in, that annoying asshole who don't get no respect. Now he's a badass (pardoning his headband).
If you've read Darths and Droids (Excelent, by the way), I want to to do to Tamaki what they did to Jar-Jar. Make the character better.
Of course, blundering!Tamaki is pretty fun...