"Show me what you're after; just a little faster." A little faster – There for Tomorrow

Zero walked with Lelouch and the others around town. They were still enjoying the fact that they had a day off. They all decided to head down to the park to have a nice relaxing walk. Zero didn't mind it too much. Lelouch on the other hand did. He was not in the best physical condition compared to anyone. And they had already walked for the last three hours.

"You can't be serious." Zero said as they walked into the entrance of the park. "Walking this small distance is wearing you out?"

"Bite me." Lelouch said.

The park was a usual park. Green hills, growing trees, fountains, flowers growing the bloom of summer. The kind of area a person would go to just find themselves.

As they we're walking, a group of camera men and woman started to crowd around them. They all pushed back Zero and Lelouch and put a microphone in front of Shirley and the others.

"You were one of the hostages from the hotel jacking incident." One of them said. "What do you have to say about the incident?"

"Uhh…" Shirley said. "I kind of don't want to talk about it."

"What do you think of Zero's actions back the hotel?" Another asked, ignoring Shirley and the others.

"Do you think that Britannian and Eleven relations will disintegrate even further now?" Another shouted.

"This is channel 9 news and we want your opinion." Another reported shouted.

Zero recovered quickly from in a sense being thrown out of the way. Lelouch looked at them angrily as they began to crowd around their friends.

This was a traumatic experience in their lives. Can these idiots not see that they are unwilling to talk about it?! They're just going to use their responses as propaganda anyway.

Lelouch continued to stare at the reporters with a small bit of rage. Zero however decided to take action instead of lying down like Lelouch was doing. He walked in front of the reporters that we're trying to get more shots of Shirley.

"Excuse me sir; we need this for the news…"

Zero put his hand into a fist and punched the camera. The camera broke into pieces almost upon contact. The reporter jumped back in fear along with the others. Zero looked at them with a small bit of anger, but mostly held his stoic expression in place.

"Leave." He said. "These people are obviously not willing to talk about it. Stop pressuring them and get."

"Sir, we need to get this for the afternoon news and do you realize how expensive…"

"I'll break you next if you don't leave now." Zero shouted.

The camera men and news reporters looked at each other as Zero got into a fighting pose. It was obvious that he didn't want the camera men around the people anymore. Shirley and the others had already been plagued by news reporters from the day before the incident took place. One by one the camera men left. Zero stood there with his fighting pose, until everyone had left the area. He then got back into a civilized position and turned to look at the others.

"Sorry." Zero said. "It didn't look like you wanted to speak."

"I didn't." Shirley said. "Those guys have been following us for the past sixteen hours. They didn't stop chasing me until I got home last night."

"I know how you feel." Zero said. "I hate the news anyway. Besides I couldn't leave you hanging like that anyway. C'mon; we still have some time left. Let's just try to relax."

Lelouch looked at them and smiled as Zero and the others walked away from the area. Lelouch got up and attempted to catch up with them. The fresh summer breeze echoed from the air as the students continued to walk down the path.

"Cerveau!" Ciel shouted as she dove on top of him.

"Whoa!" He said as he fell down, holding Ciel. "Yes; it is good to see you too Miss Ciel. It would even be nicer if you decided to get it off me.

Ciel didn't listen as she was too happy to really care. Leviathan stood there and giggled as Cerveau struggled to get out of Ciel's grip. It was like that for about a minute or two before Leviathan got up and shook Ciel a bit.

"Alright then cry baby; give the guy some room." Leviathan said.

"Oh!" She said as she came to her senses. "I'm sorry about that. It's just…it's just…I thought all of you were dead. Wait…are you the only one?"

"Of course not!" He said. "All of us are here. The resistance and everyone! Their all there with us. We have a base network under ground the Britannian city. We have been researching this place and what exactly happened with Zero and that flash of light."

"Have you been able to find anything?" She asked. "How many are there?"

"Nothing to go on that is for sure." Cerveau said. "Everyone is there and accounted for; expect for one. That mustache scientist has been missing the incident; so we're out one of our smartest men. That left me with most of the work."

"Where exactly is the base?" She asked.

"It's under the earth; exactly thirty miles southwest of the settlement." Cerveau said. "And it's scheduled to be attacked."

"Oh no!" Ciel shouted. "What happened!?"

"What'd you do?" Leviathan asked.

"Is…is…is that Leviathan?" He asked.

"No time to explain what is going on; just tell us what happened?" Leviathan asked.

Zero and the others laid down the grass. Most of the time, they had just talked about what happened and began to talk about themselves a bit. Whatever came to mind. It was a day off and a joyous occasion at that. Zero had the most difficult time talking because he had to make stuff up when they asked about his past. He didn't care. He didn't know a lot about his real past anyway. Even his past as a Maverick hunter was still vague to him because of when he sealed himself in the capsule for a hundred years before Ciel found him. Talking to them about this false past gave him a feeling of…humanity.

"Got any family?" Millay asked.

"Not anymore." Zero said as he sat there. "Orphaned when I was very young. Parents probably died or something."

"Surely you must remember something?" Shirley asked.

"Nope." Zero said. "All I knew about myself was my last name is Ishkowa. Nothing more. Nothing less. Did some research at one point and found my parents had noble blood. I was able to get a small inheritance from it so I go to school here. Nothing else."

"How was childhood?" Nina asked.

"Don't remember." Zero said. "What about you Lelouch? How was your childhood like?"

Lelouch was currently reading a book while Zero was speaking. Lelouch moved his hand out toward the crowd and waved it around a bit, indicating so-so.

"So what we're you guys doing before the whole hotel jacking incident?" Zero asked.

"I think we're going to one of the lakes from what I remember." Suzaku said.

"Yep." Millay said. "We were kidnapped on the train. After that, the JLF took us to the hotel and then captured the whole place. And then if you saw the news, you know the rest."

"And here we are now." Nina said.

"I guess everything in the end worked out nicely." Zero said. "A lot of stuff has been happening around here lately."

"I'm not surprised at all." Lelouch said.

Everyone turned towards Lelouch's direction when he said that.

"What?" Leval asked.

"Well, lately Britannia has been pressuring the Elevens." Lelouch said. "Far more than inhumanely should be allowed. I know they won the war, but their pressuring is starting to make less and less sense...not to mention building up aggression that has been building for years. Shinjuku ghetto incident was almost a massacre than a punishment. Guess I'm not surprised things are happening the way they are."

"But they said that the Elevens we're harboring poisonous gas." Nina said.

"Funny thing how they never mentioned it again the rest of the day." Lelouch said. "I think they were lying and something else was going on. Anyway, point is someone was bound to rise up sooner or later and cause damage. Zero was just the result."

"You know Lelouch your right." Zero said. "They never said anything else after that. I mean, if someone was harboring poison gas, I'd like to know if they secured it or not."

"Exactly." Lelouch said.

"But…but…"Nina said.

"Nina not all Elevens are scary; look at Suzaku here." Zero said.

"Hey!" Suzaku said.

"What?" Zero said. "Your the most calm, content guy I've ever seen."

Zero's cell phone rang. Zero took his phone out of his pocket to see that it was from Ciel. Zero curiosity was perked because he told Ciel to only call him if an emergency came up.

"I got to take this guys; hold on." Zero said as he got a went behind one of the restroom complexes around the park. The party continued to talk among themselves while Zero took his call. Zero stayed behind there for more than five minutes. After that, Zero went back to the party and began to pack up his stuff. He sent a text message to Lelouch that "There's been an incident. Stand by for more information."

"Sorry guys." He said as began to pack up his stuff. "I got somewhere to go to."

"Leaving us already?" Nina asked.

"Sorry." Zero said. "I got a lot of work; and little time to do it."

"Well, can you at least play us a song?" Millay said, eyeing his guitar.

"Huh?" Zero said.

"C'mon Zion, I heard you had a couple girls in your dorm a few days ago and you we're playing your guitar to them."

Zero froze up a bit, but kept his cool. He hoped in his mind that Leval knew just that much and didn't know that Ciel and Leviathan lived in his dorm. More or less, he hoped no one else knew that the girls were not part of the school.

"I got some skill with both talents." Zero said, looking at his arm and moving fingers around a bit.

"C'mon Zion." Shirley said. "PPPLLLLLEEEAAASSSEEE!?"

"Do I have to?" Zero asked.

"You don't want me to make you Zion." Millay said.

Zero looked at Millay intently. Zero knew that Millay had a special ability to make someone do what she wanted. If Zero didn't play, she would attempt to find out all of his secrets. And knowing her techniques, she would succeed.

"All right; you talked me into it." Zero said. "Last thing I need is Millay looking for all my deep secrets."

Wouldn't be a good thing either for Lelouch and his plans anyway.

Zero opened his case for his guitar. Inside on the nice yellow covering to protect the material held the guitar, the amplifier, the amp cord, and pick. Secretly under the thing in a covering itself was Zero's Z-Saber and Z-Pistol, in case something happened while Zero was out and about. Zero looked around the restroom building and eventually found an outlet for the amp. He plugged in the amplifier into the outlet and connected his guitar into the amp. Zero then got his guitar into position.

"Alright…" he said. "It's something I learned out of boredom."

Zero lowered his head as he began to think. He stayed there for a few minutes as he began to think of what to play. After about thirty more seconds, Zero began to play the intro to a song. The intro lasted about seven-teen seconds before Zero began to sing.

"You keep calling it crash and burn." Zero sang. "Waiting your turn, while I have time to speak. But barely was a lesson learned, cause in return no paid respect to me."

Zero's friends watched as he played. They never heard Zero play before them yet so they had no idea what to expect. Zero was an excellent performer and captivated them instantly. Lelouch observed the fact that all of his friends seem to lose interest in the world around them. Lelouch himself was not impressed because he knew Zero had the ability to learn anything by simple contact. He still wished to know the science behind Zero's creation. More or less, he knew that something was going on because Zero barely answered his cell phone.

Still, he was quite impressed with his performance.

"You wanted to take it way too far, cause here we are, waiting once again. You said you always keep your word. Show me what you're after; just a little faster!"

Ciel, Leviathan, and Cerveau waited for about five more minutes before Zero showed up in full armor. Lelouch showed up the persona of Zero shortly behind him. When Zero teleported away from his friends, he texted Lelouch the location of where he was, and the rest of the information of the incident. Lelouch knew that Reploid technology would come in handy in dealing with Britannia. All Zero knew is that the Reploids had a base that they were using to hide from Britannia and something screwed up. Big time. Lelouch was very interested for he was looking for an oppertunity to expand his forces.

"Cerveau!" Zero said as he ran up to the ladies. "You're alive."

"Zero!" Cerveau said as he went up to shake Zero's hand. "Good to see you. Is this…"

"Zero." Zero said. "The rebel of Britannia."

Cerveau looked very surprised.

"Greetings Cerveau!" Lelouch said. "You seem to know my associate Zero."

"Zero's been a good friend of mine for ages now." Cerveau said. "He's also the reason I keep working because he keeps breaking everything I make."

"I told you…incident in the desert…not my fault." Zero said. "I got ambushed by a Scorpion tank."

"You still broke the Shield Boomerang and the Triple Rod!" Cerveau shouted.

"Cerveau!" Lelouch shouted. "Please focus and tell us what happened."

"Huh…oh sorry." Cerveau said. "Geez Zero...how many other famous people do you know?"

"If almost crossing blades with the princess counts as meeting a famous person," Zero began. "Then sure, I met the princess."

Zero and Lelouch moved Cerveau from where they were to the underground facility where the Black Knights were. So Cerveau began to sit down with the rest of the people and began to explain with them what was going on. When Cerveau got to the subject of Reploids, they were very confused as such an idea seemed impossible.

"So wait…" Tamaki said. "You guys are machines?"

"Quite so." Cerveau said.

"But you like a human." Kinoue said.

"We're Reploids." Zero said. "We're machines meant to look like humans. We live to help humanity and help it towards peace."

"I've never heard of technology like that before." Kallen said as she looked at Cerveau.

"We're not supposed to be here." Cerveau said. "Something happened where we were and we ended up here."

"What happened?" Ohgi asked.

"We were trying to bring Zero back to life." Cerveau said. "Me and Ciel."

"Wait…" Tamaki said. "ZERO'S A MACHINE!?"

"They are not talking about me Tamaki." Lelouch said. "The coincidence of my persona is that my associate the Red Knight is also named Zero. But I assure you there is no correlation between the two names. It is simply a twist of irony."

There were some gasps. But the room mostly remained quiet. With all that they have seen Zero do, they were not surprised.

"My name is not the important thing here." Zero said. "The point of Zero's existence is that you have a leader who is willing to help you leave the clutches of Britannia. And I'm here to help. I got hurt in one of the battles in 2010 when Japan and Britannia fought."

"Wait…" Cerveau began.

Zero turned to him and gave him a small wink. Ciel then put her arm on Cerveau. After a few minutes of thinking, Cerveau knew he had to stay quiet.

"Reploids have been a Britannian secret project for awhile now." Zero said. "They look and feel exactly like human beings. Some of them have the armor like me to show their the military grade. But most are hard to distinguish from humans. We're meant to help and serve and make long consturction and military based projects increase in speed."

"Are Reploids ever going to go public?" Lelouch said.

"Probably when the military develops civilized versions." Zero said. "But could take awhile. You have no idea how long it takes to program a Reploid. You have enter lines of code and script for every possible action and or otherwise. Emotions, feelings, etc etc. It's not an easy process. Not to mention the fact that Reploids are an excellent war weapon because of their equipment and or otherwise. Doctor Thomas Light founded the ideal over ten years ago and it was finished by another scientist named Doctor Cain."

All of them looked at Zero. Zero was hoping they would buy that. It was an exaggerated version as he didn't want them to know he was from another demension. Only he and the other Reploids knew that. And Lelouch of course. He didn't want to reveal it.

Not yet at least.

"Cerveau…what's the situation?" Zero asked.

"Well…" He said. "You see, our underground base is deep under the surface of the planet. We kind of want to keep ourselves hidden from Britannia. It's for the safety of everyone. Lately, the power supply to our whole base was going out. In order to keep the power running to our base, some of us went out in teams to power generators in the settlement. We were going to hook these up."

Cerveau pulled out a device in his hand. It looked like a black box with a port in it and a receiver on top.

"What does it do?" Ohgi asked.

"It's a Power Receiver." He said. "It siphons power from any source you attach it to, and sends it to a transmitter. Our Transmitter is in our base. We would receive the power and then be able keep our base running."

"That's impressive." Ohgi said. "So you guys know how to make alot of science based stuff?"

"Some of the stuff we design and create uses maniuplated science." Cerveau said. "You might look at our stuff as it being not possible to make. But we've done it!"

Lelouch looked at the Reploid with great interest.

With technology like that, this war could become so much easier than I anticipated. I need to win their allegiance.

"How many watts are you using?" Leviathan asked.

"1,200,500,200.3453." Cerveau said.

"What the fuck!?" Leviathan shouted.

"What are you using that much power for!?" Zero said.

"We're keeping something contained." Cerveau said. "Something bad. Something that if it gets out, we're all in danger. Britannia has been raiding capsules to get their hands on any Reploid they can find. They want to expand their military since the discovery of Mega Man X."

"What are you keeping contained?" Zero asked.

"Anyway," Cerveau said, ignoring Zero. Zero looked at him. He was trying to avoid talking about it. "One of our teams were compromised by Mega Man X last night. He was walking back from the ghetto patrol and found our team. He questioned them and they got scared and ran off. He found the transmitter and tracked it to our base. Britannia has a whole military brigade on the way to our base. I managed to get out and sneak around their forces. I knew from the reports that Zero was alive still. Zero was always someone we could count on because he's always helped us before. I mean…he is one of us."

"You're a Reploid?" Tamaki asked.

"Yep." Zero said.

"Well that explains a lot about you three." Yoshidia said looking at the three; Zero, Ciel, and Leviathan.

"What are trying to keep contained?!" Zero said in a louder tone.

"We knew that Britannia was coming." Cerveau said, ignoring Zero. "We're preparing defenses right now. Phantom and Fefnir are there as well."

"Really!?" Leviathan said with interest. "Fefnir is there! And Phantom!?"

Cerveau nodded his head. Leviathan began to squeal like a little girl.

"He's alive!" Leviathan said. She went over to Zero and hugged him, one leg high in the air.

"No more hard feelings about you killing him." She said.

Zero got his hand out of her grip and pushed her away.

"Cerveau!" He shouted. "What are you protecting!? WHAT IS SO BAD YOUR GOING TO THESE INCREDIABLE LENGTHS TO KEEP BRITANNIA'S NOSE OUT OF!?"

Cerveau looked up at Zero all worried. He stared at him for a few minutes, before lowering his head. From his silence uttered one word.

"Sigma." He said.

Everyone looked around in confusion. Ciel gasped, Leviathan shot back, and Zero stared coldly into Cerveau.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" He asked.