L2 and Suzaku had gone quietly. While both were sure that they could have taken him, neither was willing to take the risk. At least that was until he arrived in the sub dock.
The sub dock was their sub's entry point. It had been planned that way because it was the most practical solution. Now, the Black Assassin's sub was docked there. Suzaku looks at his captor's face, but he shows no sign of surprise.
That couldn't mean anything good for those still in the sub.
Tamaki shoves both of them onto a platform that starts to rise as soon as they stumble onto it. Suzaku watches as they ascend up to what appears to be a recording studio. They both look around the dark room without moving.
"Good evening, gentlemen." A very familiar voice calls through some invisible speakers.
"So, Gregor. You finally decided to make a move." L2 smiles slightly. "It was about time, I was starting to get bored with all of your pawns."
"What...? No, there is no way even you could have predicted this!" Gregor, wherever he was, already was sounding flustered. "I was working with you for twelve years! I know how your mind works!"
L2's slight smile grows into a smirk. "No, you know how I wanted you to think my mind works."
"For twelve years."
L2 nods. Judging by the exasperated sigh, there are more cameras in this room than the one that looks like its a setup for a movie studio.
"Alright, look. I have your entire crew captive. You are going to go on a broadcast after Tamaki hits you with his weapon- where is he, by the way?"
L2 shrugs. "He decided to shove us onto this and abandon us."
There is silence for a minute or two. Suzaku starts to get a bit jittery.
"Okay, now that we have that sorted out, back to our prisoners." Gregor coughs twice.
"I'm going to zap you with this gun, and then I'm going to open up a connection to your comrades. You will then be given the choice. I'll let you find it out."
L2 looks back at the recording setup. "It looks like I don't have much choice. Suzaku, I want you to find a way out of here."
Suzaku nods and vaults over the railing.
L2 faces back towards the camera and stares at the lens. As he watches, it starts to whir and a little red light comes on. Behind the camera, a giant tv turns on. L2 watches as his own face, amplified to fill an entire wall, looks back and forth. He grins slightly to himself.
Gregor's voice pours through the speakers again. "So, L2. Time for you make a choice."
A mechanical whine comes from above. L2 looks up to see a much larger version of the gun Tamaki was using.
The screen on the wall splits and a second picture is shown. The crew of the submersible is tied up and staring at the camera. Several of the new members were glancing around frantically.
The whine of the gun gets louder. L2 glances up just in time to watch as it fires and envelopes him in light. He is blinded by the light for a few seconds.
When he recovered his sight, his eyes track back to the screen.
Every one of his crew members were standing in the stock stillness that only a successful Geass connection can instill. In the crowd, he can see such people as Nunnally, Anya, and Milly.
"L2. Now that you've made the connection, the only way to break it is to give them a command. Now, you have my guards in that chamber under your thrall as well. I would be careful of your wording."
L2 looks at the ceiling. "And that's supposed to stop me?"
He looks down at the camera lens. "I, Lelouch Vi Brittania, command you, all of you, die!"
o-o-o-o
Suzaku had escaped the room before the monitors had come on. He had found- of all things- an open duct that was wide enough for him to crawl through. It had led to a room with crates stacked all around. After crawling out of the low vent, he had checked some of the crates and found nothing of any use. It's all canned food, of which he had no need right now.
He snuck oh the door and started walking through the hallway cautiously. Not that there was any cover, but he made his footsteps quick and light.
Right now, he was really missing his Geass. He hadn't used it a s such, but he had recognized the use of something that can effectively read movements through walls. Now that it was gone, and wouldn't be back for a week.
He comes across a door with light pouring out from a crack. He approaches it-
Something collides with the side of his head. He gets shoved Into the room and the door slams behind him.
He tucks into a roll as he contacts the ground. When he pops to his feet and spins around, Tamaki is back. This time, he doesn't have his anti-Geass gun. Instead, he has something much simpler. A pistol.
Suzaku remains frozen in place. "Tamaki."
"Suzaku."
"I don't suppose I can convince you to lower your gun."
"Sorry, but you had your chance. I've already made my point clear." Tamaki pulls the trigger slightly, preparing the gun to fire.
"That's a shame." Suzaku rolls his neck.
Tamaki squeezes the trigger. The bullet cuts through the sleeve of Suzaku's jacket as he ducks. A spray of blood seems to float as time slows down for both combatants. Suzaku pulls a gun out of the back of his waistband and fires two shots right at Tamaki, but with his augments, he easily dodges the projectiles.
Suzaku takes a leap upwards and fires his gun, the bullet whipping right past Tamaki and hitting an fire extinguisher. An explosion of white smoke blinds Tamaki for a crucial second before his augmented vision kicks in and the smoke disappears from his sight. Suzaku is gone before Tamaki can see again.
Tamaki spins around twice before running out the door, cursing. Behind him, Suzaku let's go of the roof and drops down to the floor silently. Tamaki runs around the corner before Suzaku is able to do anything.
"Well, time to locate some prisoners." He mutters.
o-o-o-o
Kallen moves around the base of the tower. After she had escaped, everyone had retreated towards this tower faster than she could follow on foot, and she had been too late to see how they had entered.
"Damn it! How come I can't get in there and fight?"
She bangs her hands onto the exterior of the tower. To her surprise, the sheet metal shudders and breaks, letting her access the interior of the tower... Which is entirely hollow.
She look upward to see an impossible mess of cables strung between her and the roof of the tower high above. A Knightmare unit is strung up there. It looks like Suzaku's.
On the ground, cracked concrete floor with tufts of grass bursting through at intermittent points is all she can see. Along the walls, the lowest point that isn't featureless corrugated is 30 feet in the air.
"So... Since I made the only entrance... nobody ever comes down here." She sighs and turns back to the hole she had made, looking up at the mesh of wires as she goes. Almost absentmindedly, she activates her Geass.
Brilliant lights shine off each wire, and a pattern shows itself. There is a path that the wires follow, allowing access to a lot of areas within the upper levels of the tower. She ducks outside and looks up with her Geass still active. A path carves itself into her mind and she traces it all the way down to her level. Now that she could see it, it was way to obvious.
Somehow these thing always are.
She quickly climbs up the path disguised as a pole that had fallen over. She climbed out over the wires, which bend as she steps onto them. She carefully makes her way out over the wires, to where her Geass tells her is the only path that leads anywhere interesting.
She finds her way to a suspended box about twenty feet above the stranded Knightmare, which she needed to pass by to get to said machine due to the complexity of the cables. She decides to open up the block suspended in the air.
Inside is a plethora of buttons that are all unlabeled, which had in Kallen's experience never gone well when it was time for repairs. Thankfully, she did find something useful on the counter, a small USB device. In other words, the key to Suzaku's Knightmare.
She climbs right back out of the box and heads for the Knightmare.
She climbs up into the Knightmare and plugs in the key. It goes through the boot up sequence and it's sakuradite core starts to lazily swirl through its coolant.
"Good, I have something to use, at least." She mutters. "Now I just need to find out where everyone is, so I can use it."
She unplugs the key and hops out of the back, forgetting that she has only a cable platform to land on. Two of the cables bend in a way she doesn't expect, and her hand barely snaps out in time to catch it and keep herself from falling 100 feet or so.
"Okay... I'm getting out of this cable mess as soon as I can."
She heads back up to the box to see if she can find anything else.
After her initial relief of getting solid metal under her feet, she looks around again. Still, she finds nothing of value except, possibly, an array of buttons. Maybe one of them is useful, maybe it's a decoy.
She decides that while it might be waste of time, she might as well find out, since it was the best clue she had, and it really didn't seem like there was anything else to try that made much sense.
"So, should I just start pressing buttons randomly, or...?" She lowers her finger towards a button. Then she stops.
"That is a horrible idea."
She crouches down and locates an access panel. Ripping it off (no time for screws) she finds...
That's a lot of C4. And with it, a lot of wires tucked into it. Kallen freezes for a moment as she contemplates hitting the button. Her Geass automatically starts making paths from each button to its prod into the thick white block. Only two didn't end in the block of C4. One leads to a big door up on the top of the roof. The other... It leads down the suspension cables and to the floor of the tower. Kallen carefully stands up and presses the button that corresponds with the ground. Below her, something starts grinding.
She peeks out the side of the box and watches as a concrete slab rotates out of the way... Revealing a path large enough for a Knightmare to fall down.
Kallen grins. Looks like she had found her way in.