"A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle." George William Curtis

It was midafternoon when Gate's plane took off to the Mainland of Britannia. He could not help but absorb a sense of honor and pride as the plane came out from underground and departed towards the skies. Gate went ever as far as to refurbish his lab coat for the occasion. Of course, he was limited to formal wear, as being a Reploid, he could not expect to wear anything formal.

The plane itself was something Gate expected. It was small and fast, already moving over the Atlantic Ocean towards the Mainland. The seats were made of red velvet, and the Plane's exterior and interior were made of a white plastic. Gate of course had already taken note of every distinguishable feature that the plane had before he even went on it. After taking his seat, Gate placed his head on the back of the seat, and began to relax.

Next to Gate was a personal emissary of V2, Rolo. Gate had seen him and spoke to him before on several occasions, but had never really got a chance to fully talk to one another. The last time he had the chance; Doctor Weil had launched his attack on the Geass Order. Gate was damaged during the fight, and he had no idea what Rolo was doing. Still, Gate now had his mission, and it was one he would not forsake.

"V2 is suspicious of you." Rolo said, breaking the literal hour of silence Gate had with the man. Gate was moderately disturbed at the comment.

"Suspicious of me?" Gate asked.

"The machines that are attacked are similar to you." Rolo continued. "They match you in style and construction. And this also happened to occur sometime after we plucked you from that capsule. There is no factual evidence to prove that you instrumented this attack, but there is circumstantial evidence."

"Rolo…I can assure you that I'm not a turncoat." Gate said.

"You should not be complaining to me about this theory." Rolo said. "I am merely just a servant; a weapon in better terms. You are also a servant…and now a weapon due to prior events. Don't give us any more motives to believe that you did do this."

As he said that, Rolo drew a knife, spinning it in his hands.

"Otherwise…I will have no choice." He said.

Gate couldn't help himself but to laugh at this. Rolo to him was no true threat, and the knife was practically a useless tool. To demonstrate this, Gate easily took the knife out of his hands. Rolo got up, changing his eyes to the Geass symbol. Gate then jabbed the knife into his chest. The knife bent and broke off at the mere contact of his body.

"This weapon is useless Rolo." He said. "The weapons of this era are considered archaic in the era of Reploids. The alloy my skin and body is constructed with cannot be damaged by such…tools."

Gate returned the broken knife to Rolo, to which Rolo gave him a very annoyed look. Gate then handed him a smaller cylinder like object. Rolo grabbed it and pressed the button on the side of it, igniting the purple beam saber Gate had. Gate then looked at Rolo.

"Now…" He said. "If you possessed that weapon, I would fear you more. A beam saber can slice through three hundred millimeters, to nine hundred millimeters of metal per half second instantly. In our era, everything in the world was robotized, as Reploids were things of the day if you must know. Through Reploids, humans gained technology that advanced their civilizations to tiers still far above this one. "

"And you tell me this why?" Rolo said.

Gate turned his gaze away from him and closed his eyes.

"I am correcting you on your idle threats against me, and showing you what is actually needed to harm someone such as myself." Gate said. "And showing that we machines carry more potential than I'm sure your master realizes. Make no mistake; I am no traitor. The mere gesture of letting you hold onto my beam saber should be more than enough proof to show than I am sincere in this. If you don't trust me, feel free to plunge the beam saber into my heart while I sleep and skewer me right then and there."

Rolo stared at Gate. At this point, he didn't know what to make of this Reploid ally. His loyalty existed to V2, and only V2. He would not take Gate at his word, since there was no proof. He returned Gate's beam saber, to Gate's surprise. He then took his seat in the seat behind Gate.

"This changes nothing Gate." He said. "Until V2 gives me clearance, I won't believe it."

"Don't worry." He said. "I'm no traitor. I have desire to betray anyone."

Never again.

Gate did not know how much time had passed before his systems unexpectedly entered Sleep mode. He must have been idle way too long as Gate didn't see it coming until his eyes closed and his system shut down.

He began to dream…dreams that he wanted to push away from his life.

His past life.

He began to dream of when he met Zero in his fortress during the Nightmare incident.

He remembered the dark lab when he brought Zero up on the holo-cam. Zero was already infuriated with the fact that Gate had managed to blame incident on him, and that Gate had been using his DNA to create his programs.

Where am I?

Gate looked around the area to see that Zero had just appeared on the holo cam. Gate realized then and there that he had limited control of his own dream body.

Wait…this is my lab. My lab back on my world. I remember the computers, the data, the energy of the virus all around me. This must be a fragmented data…I'm more than positive I deleted these…unpleasant memories.

His vision was focused directly on the holo cam. No matter how much he beckoned his body to turn away, it stood there.

Zero…in his all his greatness. I should have let that debris there where I found it.

"Finally you made it." Gate in his dream said. "You're truly great Zero."

Oh this…I remember this…I think this was the second time I had actually conversed with him. To believe in a matter of a few hours after I had spoken to him, I was defeated.

"It's simple." Zero said in his dream. "Evil must be defeated."

"I wanted to keep silence on this." Gate continued. "But I will reveal the secret to you. To be honest, I didn't get here on my ability alone... I got something. It was a blessing. Guess what I got? I thought it was junk at first. ... It was a piece of your body. Zero. I obtained your DNA data! It couldn't be analyzed! I tried using the latest technology."

No…drop it…we're not meant to cross that threshold.

"What!" Zero shouted. "You used my DNA!"

"Your DNA was just fabulous." Gate said.

Did I really sound that gay?

"It made High Max and the Nightmare easy. I couldn't contain my excitement... I could now create perfect and the strongest Reploids... But... It couldn't match the original after all. I couldn't analyze it completely."

"How dare you!" Zero shouted. "Delete the Nightmare virus now! It's too dangerous! It will be your undoing!"

"Ha ha ha." Gate shouted manically. "How strange... You're usually so calm... Don't worry. I had enough experiments using low Reploids. And that yielded a virus from your DNA. What I should do now is... to destroy the disgusting original body!"

"I'll destroy your evil ambitions!" Zero shouted.

Gate then turned to his side, using a piece of Zero found at the colony incident. There was a button that Gate had placed onto the side.

Don't…

It was useless for Gate to think that. These memories had already passed…no matter what was said and done now…there was no way to change what had happened. Gate pressed the button and allowed the redish evil energy to seep from the piece into his body. It coursed through him, making him stronger, knowledge passing into him as if it was water.

Stop.

Gate woke up then a second later. He was back on the plane, the sun beginning to set. Gate stood there, wondering what the dream was. He placed his hand on the crystal.

"Just a dream." Gate said. "I could have sworn that such data I had was removed. My hard drive must be fragmented."

Gate, within the HUD on his eyes, went to his control panel and activated a system defrag. But before he could click okay, he slipped out of consciousness again. This time, he began to dream of Alia. He was at the research center where his Reploids impervious to canalization we're being made.

I remember this…it's been so long from those days that I can hardly recall these memories.

He remembered all the times he and Alia spent together. In those days, her body structure was thinner, and her hair was longer. Gate could say it was those times that he may have found a possible potential interest in females. However, Gate was not the kind of person who would indulge in such pleasures. His work seemed more important.

He remembered all the times he and Alia worked, sometimes to insane hours in the night. Of course for Reploids, this was normal. In fact, Gate enjoyed the night. There were very little distractions and very little people to keep him from work. He remembered all the times he and Alia worked with smooth jazz in the background. It really seemed to lighten the mood a lot.

He most especially remembered the playful flirting that he laid on Alia. Alia was very receptive to the ideas, and Gate knew deep within his heart that had he had the necessary orifices that humans had, he could deny that he and she could have made love on many occasions of their research.

But that all changed when he heard that his creations were all destroyed. Any feelings he had for the girl were gone. He watched himself becoming angry and bitter, throwing chairs and computers in the room. He remembered how he gripped Alia by the throat, and almost crushed her in.

No…Don't!

And as luck would have it, he didn't. This was not a nightmare, but a flashback. He watched himself drop Alia to the ground, and then walk away.

"I'll get revenge on all low Reploids who couldn't appreciate my ability! Building an ideal nation with high-end Reploids only!" He shouted, leaving the door. Behind him, he could hear the ridicules and laughter.

He woke up again to see that several more hours had passed. Night had already fallen over the ocean. Gate stayed on his chair, gripping his head. That was a particular memory that he wanted to forget. He knew that it was that day that was the premonition of what he would eventually turn into. Already he could feel old feelings of jealously and hatred returning.

"Why are these dreams coming to me?" he asked. "Why now?...all of that I tried to bottle up for years now. Now…it's all back."

Gate felt himself become furious with what had happened. Before expressing his outrage, he turned to see where Rolo was.

The young lad was asleep on the chair. Good! Gate didn't want him to hear this. Gate activated his teleport and attached himself magnetically on top the plane where he landed. Here no one would hear him.

And then…he began to scream.

"WHY!" He shouted. "Why did you do this to me friends! Of what purpose did you hope to achieve by doing so! We were a team! We put our sweat and blood into making those Reploids. Everything that was there was achieved by all of us! So why me! Why did you destroy all my creations! I did nothing to you…in fact…I had aided all of you!"

He continued to rant to the clouds, his words drowned out by the plane's engines. Gate stood over the ocean, looking out. The anger still bubbled within him. He gripped his head, trying to keep himself under control.

"Because of all of you…" He said. "All of you...I was carried off onto a road which lead to my death…tell me…why?"

Gate stood on there for a few minutes. After that, he teleported back into the plane. He walked and sat back down where he was before. He then collapsed onto his chair, before passing out again against his will.

He dreamed again of the incident earlier. All of his colleagues confronting him about what had happened. One of his Reploids was dead at his feet.

This again?

But as he dreamed, he saw something that he didn't notice earlier. There was something on the Reploid. A binary code on the eyes.

What's this?

Being a machine, he began to translate the bytes as the numbers poured out through the eyes. 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0. Translating the binary, he found the words KILL, repeat on it, over and over. Gate had not noticed this earlier.

How did I miss this…I did not program my Reploids to think in such a manner. Oh God…I have seen this before. This looks like a Maverick code…I…I must have unwillingly made Mavericks in the process. I must have triggered an algorithm by accident. Dismantling my Reploids actually may have saved lives.

Gate could not believe how much he had blundered. However, he then could not help but laugh uncontrollably. This gesture done to him by his colleagues had saved the lives of people.

And then he woke up.

Daylight shone in.

It took their plane two hours to land in front of the palace. Gate was actually surprised by the large scale defense that surrounded Charles castle. He could easily dismantle it, but humans and their weapons in this day would find themselves outmatched. The plane landed on the landing strip, and Gate promptly left his seat. Rolo followed him. As he walked down the stairwell, he looked to the sky.

I won't make the mistakes I did now. I have my second chance; and I'll be damned if I screw it up. A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.

So it's obvious I have some splaning to do with the tardiness of this chapter.

First of all, I have finally as of August of last year acquired a reliable source of income. I work as a librarian up to 24 hours of week. Pay's low and hours are crazy...but the job security is amazing. I have a new GF...one who WON'T CHEAT ON ME (bad experience, don't ask), and I have taken a keen interest in PC troubleshooting. I am going for my A+ certification very soon...given that I feel I am ready for the CompTIA test.

I also have decided to write my own fantasy novel. My own completely custom universe. It's a unique fusion of Medieval fiction (LOTR, Narnia, Game of Thrones type fantasy) with Japanese pop culture (Images in the story look like something in a manga, all the characters are anime styled, and many anime cliches! ALL THE CLICHES!). The book is currently 250+ pages in...and I am anticipating there to be about 600-700 when its finished. As much as people assumed I like fanfiction, I have placed far more priority into finishing it, and my A+ cert. Hell, I have already located a publisher...and up until recently a manga artist.

However...my devotion to entertaining you for the few minutes you choose to read this story is still there as of now...although I am afraid chapters will be updated at a far significantly slower rate. I must admit that had a certain spark over the last few days not kicked in, I would have probably let my account to rot in the vast abyss that is known as the Internet.

So I will try to add a couple chapters a week, giving that my life and circumstances allow it. If not...I am sorry. If at a time I think I cannot positively finish the story, I will hand it off to someone who feels that they can do it...seeing as this has become very popular.