Well, readers, this is the second pilot posted for fate/zero Eos on Fate/Nightmare Apatheia. Of course, a chapter of new content has been posted along with this one. I hope new readers enjoy, and old readers continue reading on! -Mr. Sparkles
Note: A sketch of the characters can be found at (remove spaces) ht tp : / / thejimmierustler . deviantart . co m / art / F-ZE-Geass-Order-Immortals-296051895
-The Code Geass-
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day"
-William Shakespeare, Macbeth
2009 A.T.B.
Alamut, Kingdom of Persia
Middle Eastern Federation
Alamut Fortress.
Farsi for "The Eagle's Nest."
Over a millennia ago, an order of warriors had set up base on this mountain.
For two centuries the Asasiyan and their leader, Hassan-i Sabbah watched over Persia from this mountain fortress, hidden in plain sight.
In all its existence, Alamut had never been taken by force of arms.
The Hashashin, as they were called by their enemies, had long since vanished, and the fortress itself had largely crumbled.
But the fortress remained, as unchallenged as it had always been.
That impregnability would be challenged tonight.
The UH-80 Athena sliced soundlessly through the night with its four silenced blades. Unlike the standard model used by the Britannian Air Force, this variant had been built for enhanced stealth.
Completely wrapped in body armor and opaque visors, the occupants of the helicopter were as silent and unmoving as the pagan statues of a bygone era.
Two generations ahead of the ceramic armor of the Britannian Army and Marines, the futuristic armor worn by each of the helicopter's occupants was jet-black, save for a dark crimson figure sewn on the left shoulder.
The Queen of Hearts.
The symbol of the Queen's Rangers.
The elite of the elites of the Britannian Military.
The copilot turned around from the pilots seat as each of the UH-80's stopped. Motioning with his or her hands, each squad's leader led the way as they rappelled down into the moonless night.
"'…the Assassination of Empress Marianne vi Britannia is seen by many as an act precipitated by the Britannian Nobility, which has always resented the induction of non-nobles into the royal family. This comes as a major blow to the Empress's backers within the Imperial Senate, many of which secured major production contracts thanks to the Empress' influence. This is Abdi Mousa of Al-Jazeera, reporting from Pendragon.'
'Thank you, Mousa. In other news today, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Cheng Anping accused the Britannian Military of aiding rebels in war-torn Annam (Author's Note: The Imperial Chinese name for Vietnam, meaning the Peaceful South. Contrary to its name, Annam has always been characterized by war while under chinese rule.)…'"
The LCD TV flickered for a moment before returning to normal. To be honest, C.C. was surprised that it was working so well at all. That satellite signals could be transmitted half a kilometer underground was a wonder in itself. Of course, the news did not surprise C.C.—whatever reached Al-Jazeera had long since reached the ears of the Geass Directorate.
With a sigh, C.C. turned the TV off with the flick of her hand.
"Is it not to your interest?" The girl behind C.C. looked a little disappointed.
"When Nine Hundred Years you reach, be quite as interested you will not," C.C. quoted wryly.
"Blechh. You're really an old lady inside," Soraya remarked glumly. C.C. smiled thinly. Somebody like Soraya who had only had her Geass for a year had a type of innocence that only an Apprentice Geassholder would have.
Like many of the Geassholders who had been raised from childhood in the vast underground city that was the Geass Directorate, Soraya was fascinated by society outside of the Directorate. The wavy-haired, petite Persian girl had been thrilled when C.C. had chosen her out of the hundreds of geass candidates as an Apprentice Geassholder.
C.C. didn't mind Soraya—an orphan picked up from the many religious battlegrounds of the MEF, Soraya reminded C.C. of herself when she was younger. It was who she was replacing that was the problem.
Of all the many men and women with whom C.C. had cursed with Geass, the power of Kings, none had understood her as Marianne Lamperouge had.
And now, with Marianne killed, the whole plan was in jeopardy.
C.C. stood up as she adjusted her robe.
"Come on, Soraya, we have a meeting to attend."
Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Rollo opened his eyes wearily to the sound of an IV drip.
The same sterile medical lights shone down him. He didn't need to move his arms to feel the usual shackles securing his arms and legs.
He knew exactly what happened—he had blacked out, once again.
It wasn't as if it was unusual—when he had first used his Geass, he had been knocked out for two days.
He had been under the study of the Geass directorate since that day.
For the Directorate, a geass that could completely halt the sense of time without any sensory stimulus was far too rare, far too dangerous to be allowed outside into the world. The fact that it stopped his heart in the process was not of major concern for the directorate.
The priority was to categorize record and analyze the ability for when it would emerge again. Even if it meant sealing the subject away for the rest of his life.
"…You don't want that, do you?"
Rollo remembered that question. The Immortal had thrown it out almost haughtily—casually, like a billionaire carelessly throwing a coin at the feet of a scrabbling beggar.
In a way, it was true.
The Immortals—the Eight Lords that presided over the vast structure of the Geass Directorate.
To the countless nameless orphans who stood at the bottom of the directorate, they may as well have been billionaires.
But Rollo did not mind scrabbling on the ground for that coin. On that day, that he had sold his life to that blonde-haired Immortal for a name and his freedom.
The Blonde-Haired Immortal who now daintily stepped over the dead bodies of the Directorate researchers.
With a careless keystroke, the immortal known as V.V. unlocked the shackles that bound Rollo to the chair he had sat on. Several other shapes walked into the room—men in black uniforms that whispered and muttered into their helmets.
"500 ng/L diluted Epinephrine, prep for injection," one of them ordered to two others, who immediately began rummaging through their bags. Rollo stared blankly. Somehow, he already knew that the drugs would be for him.
V.V., meanwhile, smiled a serene smile at Rollo, as if both of them were on a leisurely picnic.
"Rollo, you remember what you have to do, right?"
"…yes, milord."
The guards that stood watch on the battlements of Alamut were not underequipped. Outfitted with night-vision goggles and dressed in military BDUs under their Bakhtiari nomadic garb, they could probably hold their own in a firefight against even the well-equipped Britannian Army.
The Queen's Rangers had been briefed beforehand on the nature of the enemy. These were genetically modified soldiers, many of which held any number of abilities, from telekinesis to UV vision. If any one of them fell, it was likely that one of the others would notice. If any of them sensed an enemy, the others would likely find out.
They all needed to be defeated at once, a feat that would be nearly impossible, even for the Queen's Rangers.
And so they awaited for the promised sign.
C.C. walked with a brisk stride across the bridge as Soraya struggled to keep up. Over the railings, the vast subterranean complex of the Alamut Thought Elevator. Streetlights illuminated the streets and buildings that jutted out of each nook and cranny.
The Geass Directorate had been around since the birth of man. From the Geass directorate had risen Kings, Philosophers, Warriors and assassins, all dedicated to protecting Humanity from the shadows. It was a Geassholder of the directorate that had assassinated Chancellor Adolf Hitler on the verge of world war; a geassholder who had delayed the French Fleet during Washington's Rebellion; a geassholder who had rescued the Last Empress of China from Japanese Forces during the first Pacific War.
This was the organization that C.C. led, for better or for worse.
"Whose idea was it to install the purple lighting?"
C.C. paused midstep at the young dark-haired boy who leaned against a streetlight.
"U.U., it was your idea. You said it reminded you of home."
"Ah, did I really?" The little boy laughed. "My memory fails me sometimes."
C.C wasn't about to blame him. U.U. (უ.უ. in his native Georgian), was at least four centuries older than C.C., easily the oldest surviving Immortal in the directorate. For all his youthful appearances, the boy was C.C.'s elder.
Behind U.U., the tall blonde Nordic woman that was U.U.'s Apprentice, Siri, nodded politely as se casually slipped an eyepatch back on top of her purple-hued eye. "Nobody's following you, milady."
"What am I, a light pole?" Soraya grumbled—to herself. As a geassholder whose geass had already become rampant in one eye, Siri was much farther down the path of a Geassholder, and Soraya, whose geass was still dormant, owed her respect.
"Well let's go, Yunyun and the others are waiting." U.U. led the way towards the glowing pillar at the center of the city—one of the eight portals to the gods—Dakhma, the Thought Elevator of Persia.
Stretching from the bottom of the cavern to the very ceiling, the Thought Elevator bathed the whole city with a soft, purple glow.
C.C. felt an involuntary twitch as she watched the massive structure—for all her time in the geass directorate, she could never quite shake off the unease she felt around a thought elevator.
All of the eight Immortals had a connection with the Thought Elevators, though each Immortal was particularly attuned to one. This thought elevator was protected by U.U., who had been chosen by the previous immortal guardian for the role.
Yet if U.U. was perturbed, he gave no sign of it as he and Siri led the way towards the old stone structure that stood among the concrete and steel of the modernized Geass Directorate.
Two guards saluted through keffiyas and what looked like night vision goggles. With so many geassholders within the city, the Directorate's guards wore modified night vision goggles and earphones that were built to filter out Geass transmitted through sight and sound. There had been rebellions in the past.
The lighting inside the Temple of Akasha was provided solely by the purple light of the thought elevator. At this distance, it glowed far brighter than any LED, bathing each carved stone pillar in its ambience.
Silhouetted in the purple light were several figures.
"…Charles' plan will be stopped because of this, won't it?" Sen, the Immortal of the Khagan Thought Elevator, was not known for being indirect. The bearded, mongoloid man looked to be in his mid-40s. Even in a western Business suit, he emitted the air of wild independence from the days that he had rode with the Golden Horde.
"As rushed as always, Sen." An old man laughed cheerfully as he perched on a nearby bench. For all his senile appearances, Mai Mai, the immortal of the African Thought Elevator, was one of the youngest of the eight immortals, having only been inducted Ten years ago. He had yet to even select an apprentice geassholder.
"Those that move with haste move all the slower, Sen." A young Asiatic woman laughed lightly from where she had waited behind a pillar.
Sen didn't seem unperturbed. "…Isn't it a saying in your home country that you ought to 'strike while the iron is hot,' Yunyun?"
Yunyun smiled. "Chinese people have too many proverbs for one person to remember." Around C.C.'s age in appearance, the guardian of the Kaminejima Thought Elevator had only recently obtained her code from her mentor, Nene. Yunyun's apprentice, Soo Jin, waited silently nearby, her tense expression the opposite of her Master's carefreeness. As Soraya approached, her hand strayed ever so slightly on the archaic sword by her side.
U.U. glanced around. "Is this everyone?"
"V.V. declined the invitation. I couldn't contact R.R., or Sasa," Sen replied. "Then again, Sasa's out of touch half the time, and R.R. rarely leaves his cave anyway." R.R., a Sufi hermit and the guardian of the Atlantean Thought Elevator in Bermuda, had a tendency to seclude himself in the Syrian mountains. C.C. suspected that the hermit had left the Solar-powered phone the Directorate had given him in his cave for too long.
"V.V. wouldn't come anyway," Mai Mai remarked. "That boy may as well be on Charles' side."
Yunyun twisted a lock of her long jet-black hair with a hand daintily. "'That boy' is older than we are, Mai."
"He IS on Charles' side," Sen corrected without humor, consigning Yunyun's comment to nothingness. "He is abrogating the duty of us Immortals as the protectors of humanity. By all means, one of our apprentices should replace him and his ridiculous plan."
U.U. shrugged. "The more important question here is what effect the Empress' death has on Charles' plan."
C.C. hid her slight annoyance. As someone who had been living for almost two millennia, U.U. was probably older and wiser than any of the other Immortals. Yet, those two millennia had shrank the value of each human life to his eyes.
When you've lived over a thousand years, the 80 years of a man's life is simply the blink of an eye. Each name was no longer a name, simply a label for 1/7 billionth of humanity's total net worth.
It was ironic, honestly.
In their devotion to their goal of protecting humanity, the Immortals had forgotten the worth of each human.
Only Marianne had managed to remind C.C. of that. Marianne Lamperouge had been the first friend C.C. had made in a long time. When Marianne had told her that they were taking their first steps towards achieving a perfect world, C.C. had believed that.
She had tried her hardest to believe that.
It was with C.C.'s help as the head of the Geass directorate that Marianne and Charles had hunted down the rogue Immortal who had held the code to the Vinland Thought Elevator and inducted V.V. as the eight Immortal.
It was Marianne who took C.C.'s side when she had her second thoughts about Charles' plan.
And now she was dead.
"Marianne and I were the only ones who still had objections about Ragnarok. If anything, Charles and V.V. are more likely than ever to go ahead with Ragnarok."
Ragnarok. The death of the gods. The compete unification of Alaya, the collective consciousness of the human race, into one being, one place, one moment. The primal recombination of the souls of all humans into Brahma, the soul of the world. Theoretically, an end to all war, all hardship, all hate.
"Tch." Sen spat on the floor. "They won't, as long as we can help it."
C.C. nodded, slowly. Charles and his representative (U.U. preferred to say "hound") V.V. needed the divine construct that the Immortals guarded, the Sword of Akasha, to initiate Ragnarok. And the Sword would require all eight Codes of the Geass, the oaths that bound each of the Immortals to their thought elevators. To do that, he would require the consent of the other seven immortals.
V.V. had presented the idea to the other seven Immortal Lords, all of whom had proceeded to flatly reject it. As long as the other immortals stood firm, the Emperor and V.V. could do nothing.
Yunyun unconsciously twisted her hair into little ropes, a sign of agitation. "V.V….I don't trust him. Somebody whose whole plan has been derailed doesn't ignore the meeting that follows."
Sen nodded. "I've sent my Celio and the Directorate guards to bring him here to explain himself." Celio, Sen's apprentice, was close to reaching permanent Geass—a skilled fighter and a quick thinker, Celio was already regarded by much of the Directorate as an immortal.
"…Then I guess all that remains is to wait."
The geassholders and scientists stood aside as Apprentice Celio Bolivar stepped off the monorail. In a cavern with a limited atmospheric system, the emission-free monorail was the only mass transportation available, and the train was often clogged. Today, though, cleared by Directorate Guards, the monorail car held only Celio and four guards.
"No response from the compound," the directorate soldier reported. Unconsciously, Celio felt the mental tug that told him that the soldier was telling the truth.
His geass of lie detection was always active, seeking out the smallest nugget of untruth.
"We have a warrant from four of the six immortals present. We're authorized to go in anyway."
With a scan of a card, the entrance to the Guardian of the Vinland Thought Elevator's laboratory compound opened up. The lobby was strangely empty.
Celio sighed. "Where is Lord V.V.'s office?"
"Twelfth Floor, sir."
"Well, let's go."
The elevator doors silently opened, and Celio and his four Directorate guards stepped into the elevator, paying no attention to the bland jazz that played over the elevator. As if mocking them, the elevator slowly winked up from the ground floor.
Celio shook his head. Immortals could be quite whimsical—in fact, save for Sen, none of them could truly be considered serious. It wasn't necessary to send he and four guards to summon one of the Lords. In fact, it was a little rude.
With a grudging Ding, the elevator reached the twelfth floor, opening up to reveal a long hallway lit by sterile, fluorescent light.
And, in the middle of the hallway, was Immortal Lord V.V..
And, huge in his childlike hands, was an assault rifle.
"Milor—"
Trapped in a narrow hallway, the Directorate Guards and the apprentice had nowhere to run as the assault rifle sheared through them. V.V. smiled as he dropped the machine gun. Modern technology made aggressive negotiations a hell of a lot easier.
"We could have done that for you, your Majesty," a soldier in combat armor said. Dressed head to toe in armor and protected from sound and sight-based-geass through visors and earphones, these soldiers had been armed and raised by V.V. himself. All over the Directorate, more of these soldiers were preparing for action. All they needed was V.V.'s signal.
"Sometimes you have to do things with your own two hands," V.V. said with a smile. A Directorate doctor, dressed in a bulletproof vest, walked up to him. "The subject is ready. He should be able to survive with 15 seconds of geass operation."
V.V. nodded. "Then we're ready." He turned back towards the boy sitting on the chair. The boy stared docilely at him. "Rollo, are you ready?"
"…yes, milord."
V.V. smiled. Not that he expected Rollo to say no. He nodded to the soldier behind him, who muttered into his intercom.
"Then Rollo, activate when in 5."
"4."
"3."
"2."
"1."
In the darkness of the Persian desert, the expanding sphere of purple light suddenly seemed to bloom out of the ground, completely encircling the fortress that was Alamut.
The Queen's rangers had been waiting for this signal from a distance.
The commanding officer had told the troops that the orb would guarantee them a mere 15 seconds to eliminate the guards on the battlement.
For the Queen's Rangers, 15 seconds was more than enough.
Countless sniper rifles coughed into the night, and the frozen figures of the fort guards crumpled.
"Go! Gogo!"
With a haste that approached panic, Rangers charged onto the battlements, finishing whatever guards remained with silenced pistol shots.
The rangers ran through the fort effortlessly, navigating the corridors as if they had lived there for all their lives.
After all, they had trained for weeks in a replica of the fort.
They knew exactly where to find the cold-war era blast doors, and each had memorized the entrance code.
For a moment after they stepped into the subterranean city, the Queen's Rangers could only stare. Most of them were grizzled veterans who had assassinated Britannia's enemies all over the world.
None had seen something quite like this subterranean cave.
But their fascination only lasted a moment.
With businesslike efficiency, they began pulling out weapons.
Pistols. Shotguns. Claymore Mines. C4. Grenades of all types. Assault Rifles. SMGs. LMGs. RPGs. SAMs. Missile Launchers, even a few flamethrowers.
They had a job to do.
The purple wall washed over C.C. like a wave, sending a shiver through her spine. Though Immortals were immune to Geass, they reacted to its effects.
"…A geass activation," Sen said slowly. C.C. immediately turned at Soraya.
"Soraya?"
There was no response. C.C. put a hand to her apprentice's palm—Soraya remained warm, and there was a pulse—but there was simply no response.
"…an Area of Effect Geass."
U.U. stood up, all humor gone from his face. "Some kind of time-stopping geass?" Reaching into his pocket, U.U. drew a handgun and disengaged the safety.
"—oring," Soraya finished out of nowhere. She blinked, as if somebody had just doused water on her. "Erm…I think I dozed off," she said apologetically, an apology that wilted away as she saw the expression on each of the immortal's faces.
Yunyun, who seemed unperturbed, turned to her apprentice. "Soo Jin, honey, please identify all Geassholders with a time-based ability with an area of effect."
"Roger." Soo Jin's left eye suddenly clouded, to be replaced by the glowing purple iris of a geass as she looked through her perfectly archived memory.
"Subject DE32-45A, named Liao Tailiang, the ability to stop the involuntary nervous system of the target for as long as the user's can be stopped. Former Apprentice of Nene. Currently in Chongqing. Subject BD55-29C, named Rollo, the ability to impede the sense of time, though it stops the heart of the user. Apprentice to V.V. Currently in the custody of the Directorat—"
And then a thunderous tore through the silence of the temple. Dust rained down from the old stone structure as C.C. struggled to regain her balance.
"V.V.," Sen muttered.
A distant rattle of gunfire tore through the night, instantly answered by another burst of gunfire, and then a distant explosion.
"Contact the Directorate Guards. Order them out to the streets," U.U. ordered to Siri, who shook her head.
"I'm just getting static. Nobody's responding."
"Signal Jamming," Soo Jin explained. "Common tactic by even conventional military forces these days."
Mai Mai laughed, a hacking, bitter laugh. "Technology advances fast, doesn't it?"
C.C. glanced at U.U.'s face. For all his tranquility, the sweat on his brow showed that he had not expected this. Honestly, she was partly to blame as well. Modern militaries upgraded their equipment every few years. Separated from the flow of time, the Geass Directorate updated about once every half a century. The current Directorate Guards were well-trained, but their equipment hadn't been updated since the 1990's ATB. Against an equivalent military force, they would be hard-pressed.
"V.V.'s after us," C.C. explained as she drew her own sidearm, a britannian air force handgun. "We need to get out. We can retreat to the Khagan Directorate for the time being."
Sen didn't waste anymore words as he stepped forwards. "Let's go."
"…wait."
Sen turned as Siri walked forwards, her eyepatch removed. "We have company." She drew out her own handgun—just as something the size of a fist bounced off the pillar with a metallic clang, landing at her feet with a hiss.
A smoke grenade.
With a hiss, a burst of grey smoke obscured the hallways as three shots rang out.
Siri calmly reloaded her handgun as she walked over to the two soldiers who now lay on the ground, One of them scrabbled for his sidearm. Without a second glance, Siri shot the man twice in the skull. Leaning over, she picked up the assault rifle on the ground and looked into the sights.
"XM29 OICW, Thermal Scope. They were planning on taking us down in the smoke."
Of course, the two men wouldn't have counted on a Geassholder with the Geass of thermal vision.
C.C. turned the corpse over.
"…This is Charles' doing. These are the Queen's Rangers. A unit of these guys took apart a whole Chinese battalion in Annam."
C.C. didn't tell the other immortals that she had been with them when it had happened.
"Charles has brought out the big guns. Right now, our priority is our protection," C.C. barked as she picked up the deceased Special Forces member's Assault Rifle. "We need to move."
Rollo slowly opened his eyes. There was a tingling feeling in his chest, and his vision wavered slightly—but it seemed he had survived. One of the black-uniformed men, seeing this, threw away the Defibrillator in his hands.
Next to him, V.V. smiled. "You did well, Rollo. We would have given up if you hadn't woken up then."
V.V. decided that it was best that Rollo didn't know how close he had been to death. Even with epinephrine, steroids and a cocktail of drugs, the maintenance of a geass field the size of the Geass Directorate for fifteen seconds could well have killed him. As it was, this boy would retain his use.
"…Rollo, are you ready for your next mission?"
Rollo nodded blankly, but obediently. "Of course, milord."
"—"
With a grunt of pain, U.U. stepped back, dropping his handgun to the ground as he stumbled and fell to the ground.
"U.U.!"
Yunyun ran over with C.C. as Siri threw a scavenged hand grenade in the direction of U.U.'s assailant.
U.U. grinned painfully as he put a hand on his bleeding chest. "A punctured lung…I've had worse," he wheezed.
C.C. curled her lip. It was bad news regardless. Each of the immortals were, as their names implied, immortal. With enough time, they could survive any kind of damage. Yet, that time was hardly short. It would take almost half a day for an immortal to recover a fatal wound—a mortal wound such as U.U.'s would take half an hour.
When C.C. had been with the Queen's Rangers, she had witness them clearing a Sons of Liberty Terrorist Base in the Rockies in twenty minutes.
If she hung back, it was possible they wouldn't make it.
"…Go," U.U. rasped. "He'll need all of us to win, and Siri will protect me."
Siri bowed slightly, a task that he somehow squeezed within bursts from his LMG.
"I'll keep Lord U.U. safe until he has recovered."
C.C. stared into U.U.'s eyes. The little boy's eyes, filled with centuries of experience, said two things.
The first that he was likely lying, and he and Siri would not make it out.
The second was determination. A determination that C.C. had forgotten she had not seen since the pacific war—the eyes of someone who was already prepared to fight to the end.
U.U. was her senior, and he had mentored her as the leader of the Geass Directorate. He had been around as long as she could remember, even as immortals died and were replaced.
He wasn't a father figure, but he was definitely close.
"Priorities, C.C.," U.U. said simply, and C.C. straightened up.
"Catch up with us at Khagan."
U.U. smiled as he picked up his gun again. "Of course."
The other Immortals stared—and then nodded.
"Let's go."
"Siri, put me against that pole," U.U. rasped. Dutifully, Siri propped the child against a pole.
"How long do you think we can give them?"
"Oh, a good hour."
"…Sounds good to me." With a loud snap, U.U. slid a new magazine into his pistol.
"Breaching in 3! 2! 1! Gogogo!"
With practiced precision, Sgt. Gregory Pierce, codenamed Yeti, charged through the burst of chaff and dust. As if in slow motion, he carefully squeezed off a burst at each of the shocked guards inside the residential building. For all of their archaic-looking uniforms and steampunk goggles, these terrorists were well-trained and well-armed.
They just weren't a match for the Queen's Rangers.
One of the turbaned terrorists, seemingly unharmed by the bullet in his shoulder, charged forwards, swinging his rifle like a bludgeon. Sidestepping the man, Pierce drew the combat knife on his arm. With trained precision, he drove the blade into the man's neck. The keffiya provided scarce protection as the knife buried itself into the man's neck. With a practiced twist, Pierce drove the knife up diagonally to ensure the serration of the carotid artery.
The corpse fell to the ground, a few last gasps of air slipping out of his throat like a punctured balloon.
That was all that Sergeant Pierce had done.
Dispose of a corpse.
When you were a soldier, you couldn't think of your enemies as humans. They were just bags of moving meat that had to be stopped.
There was no patriotism, no nationalism, none of the superficial emotions that those who had never truly fought imbibed into their war stories.
There was simply you and the enemy, as the first two enemies had done untold millennia ago.
It was kill, or be killed.
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
"Room Clear!"
"Nice Finisher there, Yeti."
Pierce hid his annoyance. The names given to each soldier were supposed to be random. But for the last few battles, Pierce had noticed a certain theme in his names. Gorilla, Shaggy, Yeti…
He did consider himself a little hairy, but…
As the dust cleared, Pierce looked around the room. Huddled in the corner were a group of children—and Pierce suddenly blinked.
These were noncombatants. Civilians.
His soldier's mindset was instantly shattered.
He remembered his children, waiting at his hag of an ex-wife's home in Trenton.
He walked towards the children, sheating his bloody knife and opening his palms to show that he meant no harm.
The children shrank away from him, staring with crazed fear.
And Pierce remembered his mask.
The thing, with built-in gas filters and viewscreens, looked like the face of something that lived in pools of crude oil and strangled puppies.
Pierce disengaged the mask as he walked forwards, trying his best to smile.
"…Are you alright?"
The children stared at him—and then Pierce noticed something strange. Each of the children seemed to have heterochromia—and at least one of each of their eyes seemed to glow with a strange, purple color—
One of the children fell down, limp, and Yeti straightened up. His squadmates turned.
Dallas, one of his squadmates, walked forwards. "Yeti, you look kinda stoned—"
Yeti turned slowly, his assault rifle aimed from the hip.
Dallas blinked. "Y-Yeti, what are you—"
With a roar of gunfire, Dallas collapsed. The other squadmates stared.
"…You fuck!" With practiced precision, the assault rifles turned their muzzles towards their former comrade and opened fire.
The limp body of Sgt. Gregory Pierce fell to the ground.
The other members of Yeti's squad stopped at they glanced at the bodies of their squadmates.
"What the hell…"
"Did we…"
And then, abruptly, one of the squadmates pointed his rifle at the children and pulled the trigger.
Unarmed, unarmored and skinny, the children crumpled soundlessly.
"It was these little shits. They made Yeti go crazy."
The other squadmates stared—and then nodded. "we better tell the others. We've got a bunch of X-men or some shit down here."
"More like magneto."
"Roger that."
With a bang, the building door fell open.
A group of V.V.'s personal Directorate Soldiers cautiously stepped into the building their rifles ready.
The room was dark, and they cautiously switched on their night vision goggles as they rolled in.
The interior seemed empty. An apartment complex, the building had long since been vacated, and the remnants of a half-finished meal lay on the table.
Suddenly, they heard a sound. Spinning around, the soldiers aimed their rifles at a boy—who grinned wickedly through closed eyes as he flipped on the lights. Instantly, the night vision goggles were bathed in white light as the fluorescent lights flooded into the hypersensitive goggles, effectively blinding them.
U.U. smiled as he opened his eyes. With a steady hand, he shot each of the guards with his handgun.
"Not as smart as those Britannian ones," Siri said as she stood up from behind the sofa. "They would have breached and cleared."
U.U. grinned painfully. "All the better. This plan is actually going quite well."
With Siri's support, the two limped out of the building, back onto a deserted street. The sounds of battle were now everywhere.
U.U. smiled. It reminded him of a time, a long time ago, when fewer souls walked the earth.
Suddenly, he stopped as he felt a prickling on his arm. The Code on his forehead was reacting to another code.
"Siri, stop."
Siri looked surprised, but obeyed as U.U. managed to get to his feet. His Lungs were still damaged, but repair was underway. He would still be able to fight.
"V.V., you can stop skulking around and come out now."
U.U. did his best to keep his smile tranquil as the blonde boy walked forwards, escorted by a man in Queen's Ranger uniform.
"You look happy to see me," V.V. grinned a childish smile as he walked forwards.
In a way, it was kind of ridiculous.
Two children, smiling at each other with the hatred of two adults, guarded by their two charges.
U.U. was confident. Siri had outfought the other Special Forces officers before—and onces he had laid down a smoke grenade, her Thermal Vision would give her a definite advantage against that soldier.
"…What are you planning to do, V.V.?"
V.V. responded to U.U.'s challenge with a cryptic smile. "…you shall see…or rather, you won't."
U.U. grinned. "None of us will willingly open the Sword of Akasha for you—you gain nothing from taking one of the thought elevators, even if this one happens to be mine."
V.V. shrugged. "Well, there's no point in telling you."
"So you have no intention of surrendering?"
"…as if you are in any position to say that."
U.U. closed his eyes. "Well then, it can't be helped. Siri?"
Siri drew her combat knife as he stepped forwards, throwing her pistol to the ground in a contemptuous salute.
For a moment, the two guardians stared at each other—the Queen's Ranger expressionless behind his helmet, Siri so emotionless that she may as well have been wearing a mask.
And then the Ranger dropped his assault rifle.
Instead, he drew an elaborate knife from his vest—not like the modern combat knife in Siri's hand, but a long knife—a Dirk with an elaborate handle and hilt.
Siri turned towards U.U. with a grin. "…is it alright if I kill him?"
"Go right ahead."
For what felt like an eternity, the four figures stared at each other. The sounds of conflict faded into silence as the tension tightened, like a rubber band stretching to its breaking point.
And then it snapped. With a flick, Siri hurled a smoke grenade into the air, filling the space between them with smoke.
It was dishonorable, certainly—but Siri would do what it needed to win.
She could clearly see two shapes on the other side—the shape of the child and the soldier, still in a combat stance.
With the grace of a distance runner, Siri charged forwards, her knife clenched tightly in her palm. The soldier, aware of the danger, drew back, out of the smoke.
It was a wise move, but Siri still held the element of surprise.
The soldier put his left hand to his helmet as he held his knife ready with the right hand.
Knife fights are not like swordfights.
There are no fancy parries, no ripostes and backs and forths.
The one who strikes flesh would win.
And Siri knew she would strike first.
She shot out of the smoke, knife at the ready—and noticed two things.
The first was that the soldier had removed his helmet, revealing not a man, but the long hair of a woman underneath the helmet.
The second was the Geass in each of the soldier's eyes.
And then she felt her body freeze.
It wasn't that she had lost them or she felt pain. It was simply nothingness—an electric buzzing on her torso where an arm, a leg, a neck had once been attached.
The only thing left was numbness.
Somewhere, Siri realized that this was probably Geass that shuts down the peripheral nervous system's messages to the pain.
A geass that could disable even the hardiest warriors.
A geass that was simply a geass of unfeeling.
Siri could only watch as the other woman closed in—
U.U.'s handgun clattered to the floor. Siri, the apprentice who had never once failed him, flopped like a sack of fruit as V.V.'s guardian yanked the dirk out of her bloodied back.
"…W-watch…out…" Siri rasped as she fell to the ground.
"She's…she's got a full geass—"
With a single movement, the woman drew her sidearm and shot Siri in the head.
Instantly, Siri stopped moving.
U.U. could only stare as the woman charged forwards.
He didn't even respond as the hot poker stab through his chest.
He lay limp even as he felt the code on his arm fade away, absorbed into the arm of that woman.
Everything suddenly felt so cold, every breath felt like a battle no longer worth fighting.
He was dying.
He would disappear from this world forever.
After 1400 years of life, he would finally vanish away.
A few years ago, he had tried to return to his home with Siri.
He had gone back to his old hometown in Phasis, Georgia, the town where he had been raised.
All he found was the lake. His hometown had sunk under Lake Paliastomi. Everyone he knew, his parents, his friends, had all disappeared, without a trace.
All their worries, all their hatred, all their quarrels, all their joy, all of it had simply been blown away, like chaff.
And somehow, U.U…no, Ushisha Tsiravili, did not feel fear.
An eternity of nothingness, an eternal rest…
Isn't it a relief?
The young woman watched the little boy's life fade away.
Once he had lost the code, the person once known as an immortal lord was simply a child once again.
She wished she could numb that child's pain, as she had numbed the pain of so many lives she had extinguished.
But she would never use that Geass again.
She looked at the spread-winged symbol of her arm blankly.
The Code of the Geass.
"Congratulations, Nalika. You are now an immortal."
Nalika nodded quietly to V.V.'s praise.
"Now your job here is complete. Get rid of any witnesses."
"…Yes, Your Highness."
"All citizens, please remain calm and prepare for evacuation."
The announcement couldn't have been any less unnecessary. Raised to be obedient, the Directorate's scientists, geassholders and civilians stood in tense but orderly lines at the monorail station, protected by Directorate Guard.
With an ingrained discipline, they slowly stepped onboard the monorail line that would take them down one of the many escape tunnels of the directorate.
The unit of directorate guards beckoned some latecomers to hurry up. The train needed to go.
A small boy walked forwards, no different from one of the many young geassholders.
The guards walked forwards—he was dressed in a geassholder's uniform, a loose utilitarian tunic.
"Come on, we're about to launch! Hurry it up!"
The boy walked forwards—and then a sphere of reddish-purple light shot through them, filling the monorail.
With a tug, the boy yanked the pin of a hand grenade and threw it amid the frozen faces.
The Directorate Guards blinked. The kid was walking away.
"Kid, what are you—"
And then the hand grenade exploded.
Rollo walked on, towards the next monorail station.
"Red Eagle, this is Overlord. There's an enemy pocket of resistance about 300 meters to your north. Remove them."
"Roger."
Lieutenant General Bartley Asprius mopped his brow as he stuffed another fry into his mouth. The thirty-year old Britannian Army Officer ate to relieve stress—and after his time in Indochina, the slightly short but well-built man had put on quite a bit of weight to compensate for the loss of his hairline.
The command of the full force of such an elite branch of the Britannian force was an honor rarely given to a Lieutenant General. He knew his career relied on this, and the stress made his voice quiver slightly as he observed the battle.
And what a battle.
From the Britannian Armored Trailer inside Alamut, he observed a battle he had never seen before.
A battle underground. A battle fought only by infantry. The structure of this vast facility had never been intended for motor vehicles, and so the Queen's Rangers were being forced to fight without the advantage of Britannia's M-33's and artillery.
Not that they were doing badly.
Assisted by local troops, the Queen's Rangers were cutting deep gashes into the sides of the local terrorists, clearing the subterranean complex block by block.
Still, what kind of advanced terrorist cell could possibly develop a complex city like this?
The Monorail control station was deserted when C.C. and the others arrived.
Through this station, the Directorate could direct the monorails anywhere—from anywhere inside the directorate to the many escape points.
The many empty monorail bays told C.C. that the station's guards and operators had long since fled.
"I suppose we'll have to do it ourselves," Mai Mai chuckled.
The monorail control system was state-of-the-art. Only installed a year ago, the electric system used a system of complex routing computers to activate and deactivate routes, to routing and rerouting trains.
As such, C.C. had no idea how to use it.
Soraya sighed. "Sorry, I don't know much about computers."
"Of all the jobs I once took," Mai Mai remarked with a laugh, "the one job I never took was as a PC support worker."
Sen said nothing, but the fact that he didn't snap at Mai Mai implied that the former Mangudai also had no clue how to run the system.
Yunyun sighed as she turned to Soo Jin.
"Soo, any chance you have files on computer support?"
Soo paused for a moment as she activated her geass. A moment later, she nodded. "I have a copy of the old manual for this train. With this, I can probably activate the monorail and send all of you to any of the escape points."
C.C. nodded. "Get to it."
Sen, though, frowned at Soo Jin and said what everybody else was thinking.
"…Are you prepared for this?"
The monorail could not be activated from the monorail trains themselves, to prevent hijacking. The only control present was the emergency break.
If somebody activated a manual shutdown on the monorail computer, all the monorails could theoretically be stopped.
Meaning that somebody would have to stay behind to keep the monorail running and protect it from V.V..
Yunyun blinked. "No," she interjected bluntly, "You're coming with us, Soo."
Soo Jin nodded, expressionless. "It is my duty to guarantee your safety."
Even Mai Mai stopped smiling. "Lee Soo Jin. You have a life ahead of you. I'm an old man, near the end of my days. If you tell me how, I can run the monorail system.
Soo Jin shook her head. "There can be a thousand apprentices, but there are only eight Immortals. Your safety is prioritized over mine."
Yunyun stamped her feet petulantly. The former Chinese Noble could be childish at times, and this was one of those times. "That's an order, Soo!"
Yet Soo Jin remained steadfast.
C.C. said nothing. Soo Jin was clearly speaking the truth—having been Yunyun's bodyguard before she became an immortal, Soo Jin was known to obey no order but Yunyun's. If she would not even follow Yunyun's orders, she was likely already set in her decision.
"Yunyun. Soo Jin is doing this for you," C.C. said slowly as Yunyun looked to her for support. Yunyun glared at C.C., as if C.C. had just stabbed her in the back. She looked to Sen, who simply closed his eyes. "A Man has to do what a Man Has to do."
"Soo Jin is a Woman, Sen!"
Sen shuffled uncomfortably. "You know what I mean."
C.C. sighed. "Yunyun, you've only just become an immortal. Over your life, you'll see many people you know die. Of Old Age. Of disease. Of Murder. But you must remember of your duty. To protect 7 billion people. You have to let them go."
Even in her mind, it sounded like bullshit.
"As if you let go of Marianne's Death!"
C.C. froze.
The other immortals, too, fell silent. Even Yunyun stopped, aware that she had struck a blow too low.
"Soo Jin is staying behind, and we are going on that monorail," C.C. finally managed.
Nobody said anything until Soo Jin announced the activation of the monorail.
Soundlessly, Mai Mai and Sen stepped into the monorail. C.C. turned as she boarded the monorail.
Yunyun stood at the edge of the platform, looking back and forth from where C.C. stood to where Soo Jin waited.
Finally, she turned to C.C., expressionless.
"C.C., I'm staying."
"…No, you're not."
"Soo Jin won't be able to hold them off for long. I'm Immortal."
"Hence why you should be on board."
C.C. looked Yunyun in the eyes. There was no childish twinkle in her eyes—simply eyes that stared back unashamed. For perhaps a second, or a minute, or an hour, they stared at each other—and finally, C.C. looked away.
"Do as you will."
Yunyun broke into a rash grin as she rolled her robe sleeves back, clenching her fists. "Awesome. I'll kick V.V.'s ass for you."
C.C. said nothing as the Monorail door closed in front of her.
The other Immortals said nothing as they watched C.C. sit down.
They all sat silently as the monorail hissed through the darkness.
Yunyun turned around to Soo Jin.
"C'mon, Soo. Let's kick their asses."
Soo Jin said nothing.
"Why?"
Yunyun stared off into the receding lights of the monorail. "Remember back when we first met?"
Soo Jin nodded. Back in the day on that yacht when Yunyun was still Lady Sun Lei Yun.
"Remember what you promised me?"
On that day, Yunyun had fallen off the yacht, and Soo Jin had rescued her from drowning.
"Yes. I promised never to leave your side."
Yunyun grinned.
"I wanted to make sure you kept that promise."
"…Milady."
"Yes?"
"You are an idiot."
Yunyun laughed with embarrassment as she scratched her head.
"Heh…maybe you're right."
And, as Yunyun laughed, the faintest trace of a smile tugged at Soo Jin's lips.
"Ey, Lantern."
The Queen's Ranger glanced at his comrade as they moved cautiously through the directorate complex.
"Eh?" Lantern did not enjoy striking up conversations midbattle.
"Don't you think there's something wrong with these masks?"
"Yeah, they're stuffy as fuck."
"No…it's more like they make us so…anonymous."
"You shouldn't be looking for fame if you join the Rangers, Nimbus."
Nimbus shrugged.
"No, I feel it makes us kind of disposable. Like some kind of disposable gook, you know what I mean?"
"We're highly skilled disposable gooks."
"Yeah, but since when do elite guards work against superman? And with these masks, we don't even have the distinction of a face. It's like we're disposable plot characters to make the main characters look good."
"Like the Immortals."
"The Immortals?" Nimbus blinked inside his helmet, not that anyone outside would have noticed.
"The Persians deployed them as Cavalry. The idea was that no matter how many died, the King would replace the exact amount, regardless of cost, with exactly the same equipment."
"Gotta suck to be one of those Immortals."
"I read ya."
The facility they had entered seemed to be the control center of this massive terrorist complex's monorail system. It would be the job of Lantern, Nimbus and their cohorts to secure the monorail system and cut off all escape routes.
The atrium's lights were on, and the Rangers fanned out. Nimbus immediately made a quick estimate of the hall. On the other side, a group of steps led up into the second floor, where the atrium control booths were. The area seemed to be deserted, though it didn't bear any signs of combat.
Nimbus sighed with relief.
"Room seems clear…"
It was the wrong thing to say. A moment later, a single shape dropped right next to Nimbus. Before he or the other Rangers could react, a flash of silver separated his head from his shoulders.
The other Rangers instinctively raised their guns—and hesitated. Nimbus' assailant, some woman with an archaic-looking sword, was effectively standing in the middle of the rangers. If anyone missed in this environment, there would be a risk of friendly fire.
And Friendly Fire…isn't.
That moment of hesitation was a mistake. With the agility and efficiency borne of years of training, Soo Jin's Jian cleaved through the gaps between armor plates as she leapt deftly between the confused Rangers. Some of the smarter ones abandoned their guns, drawing their combat knives and ballistic knives in preparation for close quarters combat.
Yet, unlike the Rangers, who were trained to use knives as a last resort in the world of firearms, Soo Jin's sword was her primary weapon.
If Soo Jin were to match them in firearms or barehanded combat, she would probably be the loser.
But if it came to bladed weapons, she was definitely superior.
With a gurgle, the last Ranger fell to the ground, clutching his throat as Soo Jin straightened up.
Gingerly, she wiped her sword on the body of that last Ranger. Unlike the civilized, censored deaths that came from firearms, death by a bladed weapon was far more primal—dismembered limbs oozed blood, and Soo Jin was aware of the blood that was on her face.
The bodies of eight Rangers lay around her in various pieces.
"Well done, Soo Jin," a voice called cheerfully from the entrance.
Soo Jin, who had been about to sheath her sword, immediately drew it again warily.
"Lord V.V.," she said, like a curse.
"Your skills are quite…exceptional," V.V. remarked, clapping his hands like a child who had just watched a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. "Have you considered employing those skills as an immortal?"
Soo Jin said nothing. Behind V.V. stood a man in a red suit.
No, Soo Jin realized, the suit was not red—the suit was initially black.
It was simply that the suit had been completely stained with blood.
The man's mouth showed a quaint smile, his eyes concealed by a pair of sunglasses. And, in his hands was what looked like—and, indeed was, a chainsaw that dripped what was clearly blood.
Somehow, Soo Jin knew that this man would not allow her to kill the Immortal Lord.
"Well, Soo Jin? I could allow you to keep your old Lord's Code."
"…Please stop trying to seduce my Apprentice, V.V."
Soo Jin and V.V. both turned in surprise.
Didn't she agree to allow me to do the fighting?
Yunyun, Immortal of the Kaminejima Thought Elevator, leapt down from the second floor, landing gracefully next to Soo Jin with a dangerous-looking smile.
"I'm sorry, I was just suggesting some better business opportunities," V.V. replied pleasantly, "but it seems like we have more guests."
Yunyun shrugged. "Aren't you the one intruding?"
"Perhaps. But I'm curious, Sun Lei Yun…did you stay behind for your apprentice? Why did you not flee like the rest of them?"
Yunyun smiled a bright smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I stayed for you."
V.V. laughed pleasantly. "Well, I'm a little flattered…but what would you want from me? I hardly think you're here to join me in my plan."
Yunyun's smile didn't alter for a moment. "That's right." Widening her stance, she raised her open palms in front of her. "Whatever your plan is, I'm going to end it right now!"
V.V.'s eyes narrowed. "Chinese Martial Arts, huh? How…quaint." He turned to the man behind him as he pulled out a light machine gun. "Uryu, take care of the apprentice. Don't worry about me."
"With pleasure," the red-suited man replied as, with a roar, the chainsaw revved itself into life as, with the same tranquil smile, he leapt at Soo Jin.
V.V. raised the assault rifle to his shoulder as he aimed at Yunyun.
The only problem was that she was no longer there. Backing away, he lowered the rifle as he looked up—just in time to see a heel descending towards him.
"Wha—"
He turned to the side—just in time. With a rush of air, the heel buried itself where his head would have been a moment ago. The impact of the kick was enough to knock V.V. off balance. Unfazed, Yunyun circled around V.V.
"Not bad for a kid," Yunyun grinned brashly. There were no more pleasantries in that smile anymore—simply sheer murderous intent.
V.V. shrugged, ignoring the frantic beat of his heart. "Don't say that about your elders. I'm about thirty years older than you, y'know."
"Heh, grow some facial hair before you lecture me about elders!" Seemingly without a windup, Yunyun lashed out with her left leg with a horizontal kick. Instinctively, V.V. raised the assault rifle—and was swept off his feet anyway by the force of the kick. The little boy flew a few feet before crashing against a pillar. The assault rifle, bent nearly ninety degrees, clattered uselessly by his side.
Yunyun twisted a braid of her hair contemptuously. "Fifty years, and you didn't even take a self-defense class?"
V.V. smiled. "My country isn't so plebian that I need to physically defend myself on a daily basis."
"Well aren't you a pampered little princeling."
"You're one to talk."
Yunyun sighed with the patience of a doting parent as she patted dust off her robe. "You don't get it, do you? Your mouth isn't going to do any good here. I'm done playing around. I'm going to end your plan right here and right now!"
And then she was right in front of him.
V.V. didn't even see her move.
She was just playing before—?
Even earlier, he had been defeated in two strikes. Now—
And then he felt a sledgehammer slam into his right shoulder. With a snap, he felt his rotator cuff tear—
—Before he could even move his left arm, another sledgehammer slammed into his arm. With a crack, and a gasp of pain the bone shattered, the bottom half of his humerus stabbing through the skin.
Like a machine, Yunyun methodically struck at his legs, sweeping them from under him and then shattering his hip bone with a crack like a gunshot.
Before he could take in a breath to scream, another hammer blow slammed into his chest, a jackhammer that drove the breath out of his body and impacted into his spleen, rupturing it instantly as he was thrown back against the pillar.
All martial arts are, at their roots a means for self-defense. Half of a martial art is the mindset, the discipline of controlling oneself. Someone who has been trained in martial arts has the discipline to never strike out with lethal force against an enemy.
But this was something else.
This was no longer the art of self-defense, but the art of killing.
Attacks intended not to defend oneself, but to kill, to maim, to injure.
This was martial arts in its most primal stage—one man making sure that another man will never, can never harm him, ever again.
Before V.V. could take another breath, a foot slammed into his windpipe, crushing the tube of cartilage with the ease of a car crumpling a garbage can.
Yunyun slipped out of her stance as she shook her numbed fists.
"Maybe I overdid it a little."
Each of those strikes had shattered bones—each and every one could have disabled a trained soldier, nevermind a little boy.
V.V.'s code would allow him to recover—but at this rate, it would take him at least half an hour before he would be able to move again.
With a contemptuous fist, she picked V.V. up by the throat. The kid was really light. His limbs flopped uselessly, disconnected by the force of her blows.
"Any last words you want to tell me before I break the rest of your bones?" It was honestly a rhetorical question—with his windpipe shattered and his lungs ruptured, V.V. wasn't capable of talking.
And so she could not have been more surprised when V.V. rasped, "Surprise."
And then she realized that there was no weight on the holster on her leg.
She felt something metallic jab against her chest—
And then, dropping V.V., she staggered back as, with a muffled bang, her own handgun fired once, twice, three times into her chest.
"Why—"
It should have taken a full half an hour for an immortal to recover from a mortal wound, at least ten minutes before V.V. could have had the ability to talk.
So why was he staggering up, wounded but clearly fit enough to stand?
And then, with a muffled mental impact, she saw the Code on V.V.'s palm.
The Codes of the Geass usually glowed a soft pink when it was trying to restore an Immortal's body. Strong ones, such as C.C's, glowed a little stronger.
V.V.'s was a dark, burning red.
And then, she suddenly realized what had happened to R.R. and Sasa.
"You—you took their codes?"
V.V. smiled. "Bingo. I don't need all of you to open the Sword of Akasha…all I need are your Codes."
It made perfect sense, honestly. If a Geass Code as compatible with a host, it was likely that it would be likely that any other code would be compatible with the host. After all, Yunyun had gotten her geass from Sen, and her Code from her predecessor, Nene.
And it seemed the combined codes enhanced V.V.'s Healing abilities as well.
She managed a painful smile as she stumbled backwards.
"Cute, cute…but can you find all of us? C.C. and the others are long gone by now."
V.V. laughed. "Well, keep thinking that…C.C. and the others aren't getting away. And look, neither is your apprentice."
Lee Soo Jin neatly side-stepped another strike from the man with the chainsaw as she continued closing in.
While her sword was well-made with the best modern materials, there was no way it would be able to block a chainsaw.
As such, she would have to make use of the unwieldy nature of the chainsaw to her advantage.
A weapon with such an irregular center of gravity would be powerful in swings and slashes, but it would have no merit as a stabbing weapon. As such, the stab, the most potent attack in sword-to-sword combat, was completely negated, and the man's long swings telegraphed his strikes.
But the man was hardly normal either. Despite all his misses, he maintained his happy smile, swinging the chainsaw with one hand.
Not that the misses weren't close—for all his leanness, the man clearly had great strength, using the chainsaw to readily block Soo Jin's feints with the lighter Jian.
Yet Soo Jin made up for her lack of physical strength with skill, honed over years and years of endless practice.
With each dodge, she inched closer and closer to the man, negating the range of his chainsaw and making it difficult for him to fight.
Closing in, she waited for that fatal opening that would end the fight—
—and then the opening showed itself. Swinging too hard, the man's chainsaw barely missed her head as the man struggled to bring it back under control—and then she heard a bang.
She turned—and saw Yunyun stagger, holding her chest.
"Milady—"
She caught the premonition just in time. Out of reflex, she raised her Jian—just as the chainsaw slammed onto it. The impact tore at her arm—just as she locked eyes with the man.
His smile was no longer angelic—instead, his mouth had been contorted into some imitation of a grin.
And his sunglasses were gone.
In his eyes were two Geass.
And then Soo Jin felt every single muscle in her body explode.
Geass are based within the mind and consciousness.
They cannot affect physical phenomena.
It is a physical impossibility that her limbs had exploded.
And yet Soo Jin could not deny the feeling—the pain that shot through every nerve imaginable told her that it was true.
Lee Soo Jin had been trained from childhood to resist torture; to fight everything from a random bandit to a special forces officer; to resist truth serums; to close her mind to interrogations and mind readings.
But to this Geass, she was helpless.
This Geass was surely one of absolute pain.
She screamed, shrieked as each of her million nerve cells exploded into flames.
The pain was so great that even her screams died away into a painful wheeze
The pain was so great, she barely felt anything when the chainsaw sheared through the Jian, and right through her arm.
Most researchers in the directorate believe that each Geass is a materialization of a wish.
A Geass that causes absolute pain—what twisted person would have made a wish like that?
Yet the man was not done. With a laugh, he swung the chainsaw across her legs, cutting those off too.
She felt herself fall to the ground—just as the chainsaw slashed through her eyes
It must have been a deliberately and carefully shallow cut, for anything deeper would have cut through her skull and put her out of her misery. As it was, she could merely writhe in the complete darkness.
She scrabbled on the ground with her remaining hand.
She had to protect the girl she had sworn to never leave—the girl she had sworn to always protect.
She felt her hand touch another hand. After so many years with her, it was impossible for her not to recognize it as the warm, beating hand of her charge, Lady Sun Lei Yun.
The last thing she heard was the sound of her Lady calling her.
The last thought she had before the darkness claimed her was relief that Lady Yunyun was safe.
Yunyun stared blankly at the cold hand in her hands, carelessly separated by a slash of the chainsaw.
Soo Jin's body twitched like a puppet that had lost its strings before finally laying still.
"…That was a little overdone, Uryu" V.V. managed. Even the immortal could only stare with shock at the remnants of a woman he had known for several years.
Looking up, Uryu smiled another angelic smile. "My bad, Milord. I'll finish the job now."
Yunyun barely heard the words as she stared at Soo Jin's body, mangled and cold.
"Soo Jin…get up."
The body made no response.
"…Can't you hear me? "
The body lay still, doing the only thing it could.
"I-I'm ordering you…"
"She can't hear you anymore," a pleasant voice said above her. She looked up at the red-suited man who smiled gently down at her.
"Don't worry. You'll see her again soon."
And then the chainsaw sheared through her neck.
In 1789, Dr. Joseph-Igance Guillotin proposed decapitation by beheading as the most humane and least painful methods of execution. Not long after, Surgeon Antoine Louis invented the eponymous device that bears Guillotin's name.
However, scientist today agree that a person's head will remain fully conscious for about 40 seconds, even after the head is removed from the body.
During this whole time, the brain is hyperconscious, deprived of the hormones that numb the pain of the loss of a limb—those are still in the body.
The average person only needed to suffer 40 seconds of this.
As an Immortal, Yunyun couldn't even take comfort in that.
"A…ahhh…"
Without even a diaphragm to blow air through her vocal cords, Yunyun could only manage a wheeze with what air remained.
"H…help me, Soo…"
Leaning down, Uryu picked the decapitated head up by the hair.
"Awww…she's kind of cute too."
Yunyun's head could only stare back, her mouth screaming a scream that could no longer be heard.
Uryu sighed and turned back to V.V., who was looking away.
"Milord!"
"Y-yes?"
"I kind of like my Geass, you know…it'd be a shame to give it away, and I don't really want to kill her either. Can I keep her like this?"
V.V. closed his eyes. "Just take the code."
Uryu sighed with a look of slight disappointment. "Fine, fine…"
The look that Yunyun gave her killer as he absorbed the code on her forehead was almost one of gratitude as the light vanished from her eyes.
From the control booth, a Queen's Ranger glanced at V.V..
"Milord, it seems like the terrorists managed to luck down the computers. We can no longer stop the monorail system."
V.V. smiled. "That's fine…there'll be a surprise waiting for them on the other end."
The escape monorail tunnel ended in an old bunker. A few stacked boxes of cup noodles lay around, untouched, along with a few emergency supplies. C.C. looked at the survivors who left the monorail—Sen, Mai Mai, and Soraya.
All that was left of the Geass Directorate.
Sen seemed to understand. "We've had worse before."
Mai Mai nodded. "People die, directorates rise and fall—but we Immortals will live on—must live on. We can rebuild in Khagan."
"We can still do it," Soraya added helpfully.
And they were right. V.V. and Charles had to be stopped.
"Fair enough. Let's move."
The bunker door to the outside was propped open, and sand was blowing in from the outside.
"Looks like we're not the first ones to escape," Sen noted.
Mai Mai laughed dryly. "The monorail operators fled, after all."
Night had long since given way to day outside. Walking up to the bunker door, Sen grabbed it and pushed it wide, and sunlight flooded in. For a moment, all of them winced, blinded by the morning sun—and then, as their eyes acclimated, they gaped.
The ground outside was filled with bodies—some directorate apprentices; scientists; a few Directorate Guards—and, most ominously, the monorail operators. A few vehicles, presumably intended for the escape, lay smoldering around them.
"What—"
And then C.C. yanked Soraya out of the way as something whizzed past, striking the bunker door with a loud clang.
Cursing, Sen raised his rifle and fired a few shots. "Snipers! Get back in!"
But it was more than just snipers. A moment later, something shot through the air with a whine, colliding with the bunker interior. A millisecond later, the bunker exploded into flames as a Britannian Helicopter pointed its nose at the immortals.
"Get Down!" With a quick yank, Sen pushed Mai Mai behind one of the destroyed vehicles, an old Jeep as C.C. and Soraya did the same behind an old truck. Machine gun bullets whined past them or struck the vehicles with metallic clangs.
"Fuck," Sen muttered.
"The kid got us," Mai Mai noted cheerfully.
It was clear that V.V.'s plan had been well planned out. To have left military units at the ends of all the escape tunnels would be a costly procedure. The Immortals only had light weapons and almost no ammunition.
If there was a bright side, it was that these troops were not Queens' Rangers, but regular Britannian Army forces.
But with tanks and a helicopter, the Army would be more than enough for four people with light weapons.
C.C. glanced around—a tank shell exploded near the downed jeep, showering Sen and Mai Mai with earth. She glanced at Sen and Mai Mai. "Alright, I'm going to make a distraction while you two run for it!"
Sen looked at her levelly. "There's no way you'll recover before those guys take you down. You're going to be captured. Are you prepared for that?"
C.C. nodded. "Better two Immortals stay free then all three of us get captured. Plus I know Charles. I might be able to work something out."
The chances of escaping still weren't very high. But it was better than nothing.
"Milords."
C.C., Sen and Mai Mai turned, in spite of the bullets whizzing around them at Soraya.
"I might have a way for us to get away."
C.C. instantly knew.
"…You're going to use your geass?"
Soraya smiled a strained smile. "It's about time I did."
"You're going to die."
"I know."
C.C. felt herself hesitate once more. Despite the fact that they had only met a month ago, Soraya was still C.C.'s apprentice.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better," Soraya said slowly, "I'm about to die anyway."
And it was then that she removed her hand from her stomach, revealing the bloody stain on her directorate uniform.
It was not a fatal wound, but it was a mortal one.
"I'm not going to be able to follow you guys the whole time anyway," Soraya continued.
Mai Mai frowned. "…we could slow down for you."
"…It's better than dying in that c-cave." Soraya's face was looking decidedly white.
"Please, C2…I don't have a lot of time."
And, finally, C.C. nodded.
Once more, I'm condemning another friend to her death.
She felt like she should have said something else—some kind of last blessing, or some kind of apology—but nothing came out.
With an effort, Soyara propped herself up as she prepared to activate her Geass. She felt the wind rush past her as bullet after bullet whizzed by.
She closed her eyes.
She remembered that day when C.C. had found her.
The Middle Eastern Federation is an uncomfortable mix of Persian, Turkic and Arab Cultures. Each of the Khanates, Sultanates and Emirates that are the basis of the Federation are separated by an intricate web of loyalties over Religion, ethnicity, clan and region—and though they showed a united face to outsiders, wars between nations and ethnic groups were quite common.
Her village had been Persian and Shi'ite, in a region dominated by Sunni Arabs. It was a wonder they had survived so long peacefully. When the Shah handed over parts of the Arabia to the Emirates, the village lost its own protector.
It was C.C. who found her, in the ruins of her destroyed home.
It was C.C. who had given her a new name, a new identity.
C.C. gave her a Geass, a reason to live.
In a way, this was a better way to die than any.
"Heh," Soraya chuckled as her geass activated.
Instantly, a sphere of purplish-red light expanded—past C.C. or Sen or Mai Mai, past the tanks and snipers, even though the helicopter that waited in the skies—just as a sniper's bullet impacted into her head.
"Heh…"
And instantly, every man and woman in the reach of the Geass died of a headshot.
A Geass of enforced Empathy—a geass that synchronizes the nervous system of the subject with the original.
A geass that makes everyone feel what the user feels.
And what Soraya's nervous system perceived at that moment was death.
Of course, no bullet penetrated their foreheads.
But it didn't matter that there was no actual bullet.
Each tank commander, each sniper, each pilot's nervous systems realized that they were dying.
And, as such, each of their nervous systems shut down.
Each of them, in their own minds, "died."
And when their minds died, their bodies died with them.
Without a pilot, the Helicopter simply hovered in the air aimlessly.
Tanks hummed on, unmoving.
And the last of the soldiers slumped to the ground, physically unharmed but clearly dead.
"C'mon, C.C., we may be able to get one of these jeeps working again."
C.C. ignored Mai Mai as she walked over to the dead body of her apprentice for a month.
"Thank you," she murmured, as the morning sun shone brightly down.
Like a rainstorm slowly ending, the sound of gunfire slackened, and then petered out as the last few defenders were flushed out, and an eerie silence filled the cave.
Exhausted Rangers wandered through the streets like the dying among the dead.
And, as the haze of bloodlust or the blankness of efficiency gave way, each of them could simply stare at the bodies around them.
Men, women children, the elderly.
Many of the Queen's Rangers had fought against ridiculous odds in ridiculous places, from the top of the Himalayas to the caves of Afghanistan.
They were Soldiers, Veterans, Warriors, Patriots.
But, when many of them looked back as they lay dying on some distant battlefield or died surrounded by friends and family, many of them would remember the day that they had come to become. Murderers.
4 Days Later
Tehran, Kingdom of Persia, Middle Eastern Federation
"The Coffee here is disgusting," C.C. muttered.
"Could be worse," Sen replied.
"Heheh, you guys don't know bad-tasting coffee," Mai Mai giggled.
The three Immortals said nothing as they finished their cups of coffee. Each of them had changed their appearances. With dyed-black hair, an urban jacket and a pair of sunglasses for anonymity, C.C. could well have passed as one of the many tourists or the city's urban elite, enjoying the night life. Sen, had shaved his long hair and unkempt beard, while Mai mai was now dressed like one of the many Somali traders and merchants who frequented Tehran.
"I just got word from my contacts in Britannia," Sen reported. "It seems like the Atlantis Directorate in Bermuda is occupied now by V.V.'s forces. Same goes with my directorate in Khagan."
Mai Mai sighed. "So it seems like we are wanderers without a home."
Once again, all three sipped at their coffee, three young people who had outlived all the chess-playing old men around them.
Mai Mai looked up from his newspaper. "So…what do we do?"
Sen, as well, looked to C.C., who blinked.
"Me? Why do I decide?"
"Because you're the leader of the Geass Directorate," Sen replied.
"A Geass Directorate of Three People," C.C. pointed out.
Sen shrugged. "Rules are rules."
"Well, then, we split up. V.V. and Charles will be searching for us now—it'd be bad to put all our eggs in one basket, right?"
Sen sipped from his cup of coffee. "We'll remain in hiding until V.V. is defeated. As long as he can't get all of us, he can't open up the sword."
Mai Mai nodded. "A solid plan. I suppose I could visit my great-grandchildren in Johannesburg…it'll be a little awkward after I faked my death to them, though."
Sen thought about it. "I'll return to Mongolia. The Chinese Federation isn't very fond of Britannia, after all."
C.C. considered returning to her old Thought Elevator in the English Republic, and decided against it. "I suppose I'll just wander a bit…"
For a moment, they each sipped their cups of coffee once again.
"So…this will probably be the last time we will see each other for a long while."
"Yep."
"Well…then I suppose it's farewell."
And, with that, each of them stood up out of their chairs, strangers once more.
C.C. looked up at the clear sky.
Everything had changed so fast. Marianne had died, and V.V. had turned against the Directorate.
she sighed as she looked back at the empty table. She hadn't told Sen and Mai Mai, but she would go back to Britannia.
To visit Marianne's grave.
Perhaps she would find her guidance there.
Over this week, she had lost everything.
She had lost her apprentice, her allies, her base, and her only friend.
She had went back to zero.
In a way, though, it was a new start.
C.C. smiled as she melted into the Persian Crowd.
Something told her that perhaps, just perhaps, it wouldn't be quite so bad.