I do not own Code Geass.

…

Faisal Inn and Restaurant, Kingdom of Zilkhstan, March 21st, 2020, Kowa Period

"Lady C-Two," Sayoko called down. "Her Majesty will see you now."

C-Two handed the rest of the liquor to Kallen and stood. She stretched lazily, yawned. "No rest for the wicked," she said.

Kallen chuckled. "We'll talk later," she promised.

C-Two acknowledged her with a nod. She crossed the room and climbed the stairs gracefully, eminently conscious of the Japanese and Britannian eyes that followed.

Sayoko bowed. "This way, My Lady," she said. She gestured down a short stone hallway unadorned with ornamentation of any kind. Ten rooms faced parallel across from each other, a long red carpet leading to the wooden door at the far end.

"Thanks. I might have gotten lost on my own," C-Two said with a smile.

Sayoko returned it with good cheer. She settled in behind C-Two as they strode down the hall. Cornelia exited the bedroom, her gait heavy, countenance no longer thunderous. She appeared very weary.

Good. The amount of misery you caused should follow you for the rest of your days.

C-Two passed the woman without a word. She set her hand to the iron handle and twisted it open. The room was only slightly larger than the others, the bed a worn out mattress garbed in thin wool sheets. A misshapen mirror distorted C-Two's reflection. A single window protected by iron bars on the outside was the only glimpse to the real world.

Nunnally sat in her wheelchair inside. In close proximity, C-Two could now see that the girl's eyes were swollen, red, and that her skin was sallow.

"You look like Hell," C-Two said.

Nunnally giggled. "Tactful as ever, C-Two," she said. "Please, sit." She indicated a plain wooden chair across from her.

"I'm always careful about how I use my tongue," C-Two replied with a smile. She sat down, giving the chair a hard eye. "This thing is a splinter factory."

"Positively medieval," Nunnally agreed. "Sayoko, could you bring us some drinks?"

Sayoko bowed. "At once, Your Majesty." She departed smoothly from the room.

"Thank you for saving me," Nunnally said. "I truly do not believe I would have made it out of there alive if not for you."

"Just don't make it a habit," C-Two said. "I'm a busy woman, you know. I can't come to your rescue all the time."

Nunnally gave her a polite laugh. "Certainly not," she agreed.

Sayoko returned a moment later with an elaborate tea set.

C-Two looked at her curiously.

"Princess Cornelia arrived with them," Sayoko responded to her unspoken question.

C-Two rolled her eyes. "Of course she did."

Nunnally's laugh sounded a little more genuine. Once the tea was distributed to both women, she sobered. "Cornelia is preparing a strike force to rescue Sir Zero. Did Queen Shamna give you any indication as to where he might be?"

C-Two shook her head. "None whatsoever. If I had to guess, the most likely place is the Palace. They would not have wanted to keep the two of you in the same location."

"I agree," Nunnally said. "Cornelia feels the same. We've scheduled a rescue operation for tomorrow morning."

"You realize that will spark a war, yes?"

Nunnally's countenance hardened. "That is unavoidable at this point. Zilkhstan has gone too far. We have assurances from the UFN that they stand ready to assist."

C-Two whistled. "The UFN's first unified police keeping action." She took a sip of tea. "Not bad, Your Majesty."

"I want you to be a part of the strike team, preferably inserting with Major Kozuki," Nunnally continued. "You might be able to suss out where they're keeping Zero better than the rest of us."

"Because of the Geass command that Lelouch placed on him?"

Nunnally's mouth tensed. The tea cup and saucer, untouched in her hand, trembled. She nodded, clearly not trusting herself to speak.

C-Two sipped her tea. "This I will not do," she said.

"Why not?" Nunnally asked, startled.

"Two reasons. First, the impracticality. Geass doesn't work like that. I cannot sense the presence of who my contractors have used their Geass on. Wish I could. Would have made a lot of things a lot easier." She sipped lazily from her tea.

"And the second reason?" Nunnally asked through clenched teeth.

C-Two was about to respond when the door was thrown open. Sayoko drew her daggers, not relaxing even when Kallen was revealed. She was red in the face, panic stricken.

"Nunnally!" She cried out. "Nunnally, they have Zero on live TV!"

"What?" Nunnally demanded.

"They have him on TV!" Kallen repeated. "They say they're going to unmask him!"

"Sayoko!" Nunnally barked. "Downstairs, quickly!"

"At once, My Lady!"

Unconcerned, C-Two swallowed the last of her tea.

And so it begins.

…

Above Shanghai, Chinese Federation, February 2018

The Gawain ascended, its frame black against the night sky. Urabe's squadron rose in tandem behind him. Over the last week of intense fighting, fifteen Akatsuki's had been lost, but all of the pilots had been safely recovered. Whether that was a testament to their skill, or to the superiority of the Knightmare Frame was a question for another day. Below, Xingke's command unit, an Akatsuki offered as replacement for the Shen-Hu's loss, was positioned as the vanguard of the assault. He was leading a detachment of Black Knight Akatsuki's that would establish air superiority in the aftermath of the coming FLEIJA bombing.

Lelouch double checked his instruments as he waited. Beneath him, thousands of friendly IFF tags sat in position, awaiting the moment of truth. The timer on his computer ticked down.

"When Shirley wakes up," Lelouch said, causing Kallen's shoulders to jolt, "let's take her to that skewer stand we visited on our first date. Think she'll like it?"

"I'm sure she would," Kallen said. "Although, wouldn't it be kind of awkward? Shirley had the major hots for you when we were back in school. Third wheel dates are kind of a drag."

"Well, it wouldn't be a date," Lelouch retorted. "We'd be heading out as friends. Sort of an Ashford Student Council reunion."

Kallen turned to him. She looked exhausted, but hopeful. "Well, when you put it that way-"

The timer beeped. They both snapped to attention.

Units along the line began to move. On the exterior camera, Lelouch could see red and blue tracer fire stitching back and forth between the fronts. The night sky lit up with the flashes of conventional artillery.

"Lelouch!" Kallen shouted. "Look!"

"I see it."

Against the black field, Lelouch could see the glare from the rocket thrusters. A moment later, three balls of pink light expanded above the target cities. The light seared itself into Lelouch's mind, its cleansing fire no doubt vaporizing everything in its path. A hard wind first blew outward, then sucked in, and even the Gawain was momentarily thrown into the turbulence before Kallen righted the Frame.

A wicked grin stitched itself across Lelouch's face. He howled with mad laughter.

I destroy the world, and create it anew!

The light faded away. It took with it all the combined artillery fire the rebels had concentrated in the cities.

The enemy line buckled and broke. Allied units flooded through the sudden gaps. Mass envelopments were already beginning to develop all along the front.

Lelouch hit his comm button. "Alright," he announced, "they're doing their job, now let's do ours. Target coordinates are set. Rajasthan shall be avenged!"

"YES, MY LORD!"

….

Beijing Command Center, The Forbidden City, Beijing, Free Republic of China (Claimant)

"What-What was that?" High Eunuch Wang Tan stammered.

"I've never seen anything like it!" High Eunuch Tong Lu added.

All activity in the command center had ceased. All anyone could do was look at the resulting devastation.

Where the three great strongholds of the south had once stood, now there remained only smoking craters. All of the strength they had collected for the operation was gone, vanished into ether.

High Eunuch Xia Wang got a hold of himself. The bespectacled Eunuch shrieked, "Don't just sit there goggling, you fools! Move our reserve units into position!"

"What reserve units?" General Cheng shot back. "Whatever that was, the Royalists just used it to kill them! There-" he choked. He brought a shaking hand to his mouth. "There is nothing left to stop them."

…

Above Taizho

"All units advance at speed," Urabe ordered.

He had gotten over the shock of the devastation quickly. The formation of Akatsuki's around him leapt into action, machine guns flashing as they tore through the aerial defenses. Shredded steel rained down on the earth below.

"It looks like the blast took out a good number of their planes," Urabe observed over the radio. "B Group, C Group, focus on ground support. We'll maintain air superiority while you assist the infantry. Let's roll them up."

"Copy."

"Copy."

As part of his flight veered away, Urabe continued to scan the skies for any indication of resistance. He found none.

"It's a straight shot to Beijing."

…

Headquarters of the Geass Order, Xinjiang, People's Republic of China (Claimant)

"Deploy our airborne units!" V-Two ordered, shrill. "There's not a moment to waste!"

The Immortal wore a simple white habit, freshly pressed, and his blonde hair fell unadorned to his knees. A manic thrill ran through him as he scrambled to and fro, desperation adding a jerky energy to his movement.

All around him, the Geass Order's headquarters were in a chaotic uproar. Scientists and soldiers smacked into one another in their mad rush to assume their stations, the soldiers to their firing positions, the scientists to their evac points. In the midst of the panic, V-Two couldn't even be sure he'd been heard, let alone that his orders were being carried out.

"Goddammit! Would you all quit panicking!" he shrieked.

V-Two had inherited the Geass Order in the aftermath of Marianne's demise and C-Two's departure. C-Two had organized the Order as being a series of semi-autonomous subgroups within the collective. Each group had its own specific task to accomplish with very limited oversight. So long as mission goals were executed on time, and within budget, C-Two had little reason to micromanage each team lead.

It was a ridiculous way to run an outfit. Once V-Two took control of the Order, he immediately purged the leadership of the teams and installed his own chosen experts into each subunit. These new handpicked leaders, in turn, selected entirely new personnel to man each unit; the old teams were liquidated almost to the last man. Nearly daily meetups were scheduled with each unit head. If results were not forthcoming within the promised time, they were liquidated and replaced. Subunit leaders were pitted head to head for funding and resources, both to inspire the competitive edge that would produce results, and to ensure they weren't trying to usurp V-Two's position.

Each unit lead was dependent on V-Two; they had neither their position nor their resources without him. So long as V-Two, or one of his chosen representatives, was among them, the machine ran like clockwork.

The only problem, a niggling oversight really, was that V-Two hadn't set down a proper succession doctrine in the event that he was indisposed for any length of time. Charles was a natural choice, of course, but he had a war effort to run and, more importantly, an Empire to maintain. Absolute ruler he may be, but he did not have nearly the lockstep control that he carefully projected over the Court. Keeping hundreds of noble lineages from tearing him limb from limb was daunting enough without the added complication of the Imperial Harem, which practiced its own version of cutthroat politics (oftentimes literally). He simply could not manage the Geass Order according to V-Two's own finely tuned system.

Why should he have? V-Two was immortal. What could possibly happen to him?

This, naturally, meant that the dozen or so unit heads spent four days clashing with one another over who was in charge of the Order in V-Two's absence rather than, well, organizing the Orders' defenses, or beating a hasty retreat. Two department heads were already dead for showing "insufficient loyalty to His Excellency, the Director," a case of political jockeying that was mind blowing in its stupidity. With three of the deciding votes of that particular bit of lunacy now nothing more than bloody smears on the floor, that left seven directors to coordinate the evacuation of the entire research staff and subjects of the Order.

An evacuation that also had no plan in place. Why would there have been? Who would dare to presume to attack His Majesty's Geass Directorate? For that matter, how would they even know that it existed?

GODDAMN YOU MARIANNE!

Marianne had to have told the brat. Some final will, or perhaps a letter to be released in the event of her death. She had to have known that leaving anything for Charles would have been a futile endeavor; she was watched 24/7, and she damn well knew it.

HARLOT! YOU SET ALL OF THIS UP! YOU SET ME UP! YOU'LL NEVER HAVE HIM MARIANNE! YOU'LL NEVER HAVE MY CHARLES!

"Lord V-Two!"

V-Two snarled. "You again?" he demanded.

Fennette stood before him again, his hands held out plaintively. "Please, My Lord, I beg you! You must rescue my daughter!" he pleaded for what had to have been the thousandth time.

V-Two ground his teeth. "I have no idea where she is, you idiot! How many times must I tell you? Should I spell it out for you? Consult a Ouija board for all I care, I do not know where she is!"

Fennette fell to his knees, tried to grab the hem of V-Two's robe. "My Lord, have I not been loyal? Have I not been devoted? Is my loyalty worth nothing?"

V-Two smacked his hand away. "You were rewarded handsomely, Fennette! We brought your daughter back from the dead!" V-Two shoved his index finger into Fennette's face. "And in return you had one job! One. JOB! AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN ACCOMPLISH THAT!"

"MY LORD-"

V-Two backhanded him. "Get this slime out of my sight!" he ordered. "I will deal with him later!"

Soldiers hauled the still screaming man to his feet and dragged him away.

Sumeragi approached V-Two from the maelstrom. His skin was badly burned from the desert sun, and his normally insolent expression was grim.

"My Lord, we've loaded the subjects onboard the shuttle. Do we have your permission to depart?"

"Of course you don't!" V-Two scowled. "Why the Hell would you think you had permission? I'm trying to scramble our fighter response, and everyone else is trying to flee!"

Sumeragi bowed his head. "My Lord, if His Highness is indeed on his way-"

"THE TRAITOR!" V-Two shouted at him. "HOW DARE YOU CONFER TITLES UPON HIM HE IS NOT DUE? HE'S A TRAITOR!"

"Yes, My Lord, of course, my apologies," Sumeragi simpered. "I meant only that Zero is on his way, and we have next to nothing to hold him back. Evacuation is prudent."

"I will not evacuate," V-Two said. "And I have authorized no evacuation!" He was nearly bowled over by a mad scientist dashing toward one of the shuttle ports with a full chemistry set in hand.

"Damn it all!" V-Two turned to another guard. "Track that man down and kill him! No one makes a fool of me!"

The guard snapped a salute. "It will be done, My Lord!" He dashed off in pursuit.

"Sumeragi!" V-Two ordered. "Get your men assembled for battle! I am not losing this base to that damned brat!"

"But-But, My Lord-"

"NOW!"

Before Sumeragi could respond, the ground suddenly shuddered. He was shoved aside by a soldier in a grayp kepi hat. "My Lord! They're here! The Black Knights have arrived!"

…

Above the Geass Order's Headquarters

"I would have thought they'd have a stronger defense," Lelouch commented.

The monotonous dunes of the Taklamakan Desert extended north, south, east, and west for hundreds of miles. As the sun began to rise, it scorched the desert sands a golden hue. In the midst of these great rolling plains was a verdant oasis, crowned by a tall mountain peak that commanded the landscape around it.

Black smoke rose in great, billowing puffs into the morning light. Akatsuki's and Federation fighter-bombers were strafing the the diameter, dropping their munitions on prearranged targets that Lelouch had mapped out with C-Two's assistance, so very long ago. They had both been drawing on their memories at that point, since C-Two had defected from the Order before they set up shop here.

It seems little changed, Lelouch mused. You'd think V-Two would have prepared a welcome reception. There's no way he didn't know we were coming.

"Maybe we caught them off guard when we took out the Siegfried?" Kallen suggested. "If Shirley was connected by remote to some kind of terminal, maybe whoever was piloting through her is dead?"

Lelouch rubbed his chin. "Perhaps…" he allowed. "But…no. They're probably trying to lure us into the base. They likely have reinforcements on the way, so maybe they think they can bog us down in street-to-street fighting, then trap us between them and their allies."

"Street-to-street?"

"Yes. The Order's headquarters is basically an underground city. It has skyscrapers, a rail station, the works. An impressive bit of engineering, all things considered. The perfect place to set a trap."

"So what do we do?"

Lelouch smirked. "Spring the trap."

….

Suzhou, Anhui Province

Xingke shifted his machine pistol. His targeting computer blinked with a lock-on. He fired. An enemy jet was torn in half in a spray of machine gun fire. The pilot had the bad misfortune of ejecting upside down, and quickly got caught up in his own parachute. Xingke thought about catching the man out of the sky and delivering him to friendly forces on the ground, only to have to ditch the thought, and the doomed man in question, when he had to dodge around a strafing run from an enemy fighter.

He weaved in and out of the flak and missiles and tracer fire, gun blazing as he went. Six red-orange flowers bloomed in the sky. He called up an incoming bogie on his camera, only to grunt in surprise.

"Is that a…Mustang?" he wondered aloud.

The L-52 Mustang was a Britannian invention. At the height of the First Pacific War, when Japanese Imperial forces were neck deep in Manchuria, the Holy Britannian Empire had sold the floundering Chinese Federation thousands of their air fleet stockpiles. They had seen far less of that stock when Taisho foolishly ordered the bombing of the HMS Panay during the Rape of Nanjing, but that loss had been far outweighed by the sudden entry of the Britannian Empire into the war on China's side. Most of the equipment that had survived that era was put on display in the Imperial War Museum in Beijing.

Xingke smirked. "Is this what you've been reduced to, traitors?"

With barely a second thought, he perforated the hull of the relic, and watched with satisfaction as the flames touched off the fuel line. He pulled the flaming wreck up on his camera, frowned.

The pilot was ablaze along with his plane, beating his hands madly against the console, desperately trying to untangle himself the restraints that kept him from jumping clear of the plane.

The sense of elation that Xingke felt fled. With a sad sigh, he unleashed a barrage of gunfire on the cockpit, ripping the pilot to shreds and detaching the cockpit from the rest of the plane. It fell in pieces to the ground below.

…

Above the Geass Order's Headquarters, Xinjiang

The dome of the mountain melted beneath the heat of the Hadron Cannons. Fractures spread across the summit as the structural integrity of the great beast began to fail. After another moment, the ceiling collapsed in on itself. An eerie purple light shown from the darkness of the newly formed gap.

"Alright, it's go time!" Lelouch barked. "Hard on my flank!"

"Yes, My Lord!"

Kallen angled the Gawain into the lead. Around them, the aerial forces of the Black Knights formed a tight, smooth chevron that spoke highly of the weeks of round the clock training they'd all gone through back in Japan.

Lelouch wasn't kidding in how he described the secret base. Skyscrapers loomed over the cityscape. She could see the rail lines that he'd mentioned that networked around the place. What weirded her out, though, was the towering beam of light that cast a violet hue over the underground city.

What is that?

She fired her Slash Harkens almost as soon as she was in. The blades gored a pair of Flight Enabled Sutherlands through their Factspheres as they rushed forward, and she used the grappling cables to smash the two machines together. They melded around each other like Siamese twins. Their FLOAT Systems failed, and both machines descended rapidly to the earth, where they exploded on contact.

Kallen barely paid them any mind. The beams from the Hadron Cannons touched the streets of the metropolis before them, tracked up and over the enemy APC's and ground born Knightmare Frames. Kallen pulled up the camera feed, frowned.

"Lelouch," she reported, "I'm seeing a lot of civilians on the ground."

"Geass Order researchers," he explained. "They all have ranks, dog tags, serial numbers. But why the Hell are they all out in the street? I would have guessed that V-Two would have them on the first shuttles out of here."

"We may have caught them mid evacuation," Kallen suggested. "It would help explain the haphazard formations of the units on the ground and air. Not to mention the lack of resistance we faced outside."

"There's no way that could be true," Lelouch retorted.

"Why not?"

"I'm not that lucky."

Kallen snorted. A small smile warbled onto her lips that she quickly extinguished. "How do you want to do this? We might end up lazing someone who could help us with Shirely."

Lelouch clicked his tongue. "Yes, I'm aware." He hit the comm switch. "All wings, listen up! We have civilians on the ground, I repeat, we have civilians on the ground. You are to do all in your power to limit civilian casualties to the bare minimum. I do not want a massacre here."

"Yes, My Lord!"

"Not this time, anyway," Lelouch mumbled.

Kallen raised an eyebrow. "This time? What do you mean?"

Lelouch coughed. "It's nothing, don't worry about it."

Kallen rolled her eyes. "You know, Lelouch, you're going to have to let me in on your secrets someday."

"I thought I had," he said suggestively.

Kallen flushed. "You! You jerk!"

Lelouch laughed. She could almost see his triumphant smirk.

She shook her head. "Keep it up, and you're sleeping on the couch."

"Have I told you how much I love you?"

Kallen dodged a rocket.

"Q-1," Lelouch said, all business, "CQC."

"Right!"

She swooped down and kicked in the cockpit pod of an ascending Sutherland, then whipped around and gored another through the chassis with the Gawain's steel hand. She crushed the Sakuradite core in her grip, then tugged her hand free as the Sutherland exploded. Her Slash Harken found its home in the magazine of an APC, and she swiped her hand through a machine gun post in one of the skyscrapers that towered over the strange purple landscape. Glass and concrete showered the streets below.

She grimaced when she saw a cement block crush a cordon of white-coated men and women beneath.

"Sorry," she murmured.

…

On the Street

"Move faster, damn you!" V-Two yelled.

He was piggybacking on one of the guards, his dignity be damned. He had to escape quickly, and his short legs just weren't going to cut it. Sumeragi had disappeared, he knew not where, and he'd taken a squad of soldiers with him. Since any path to the evac shuttles had to go through a massive crowd gripped in pandemonium, and with Black Knights overhead rapidly crushing their security forces, V-Two was left with only one alternative: the Thought Elevator. If he could escape into the World of C, he might be able to navigate its labyrinthine depths back to friendly territory.

Assuming he could reach it.

"My Lord, there are too many people!" the guard replied. "We are moving as fast as able!"

"Then disperse them, you fool!" V-Two ordered.

"But, how?"

"Fire into the crowd, idiot!" he shouted.

"But-But My Lord-"

"These people are inconsequential!" V-Two reminded him. "I alone am integral to the survival of the Geass Order! If I am captured here, then all hope is lost!"

"I…yes, My Lord!" The guard shifted his attention to his men. "OPEN FIRE!"

All around V-Two, the cadre unleashed automatic weapons fire. Live ammo tore through the crowd, spraying blood in a fine red mist like fog on a summer morning. Screams erupted from those not slaughtered in the initial volley, and the area around V-Two cleared instantly.

"GO GO GO!" the guardsman shouted, and they took off, legs pumping, V-Two bouncing haphazardly on the man's back.

A Sutherland Flight Enabled tumbled to the street just a block ahead, exploding in a ball of orange light on impact. Its steel rain showered both the evacuees and V-Two's unit. A guard to V-Two's right tumbled gurgling to the ground, a piece of steel the size of a fist embedded in his throat. In front of him, survivors of the blast staggered through the smoke and flame.

"Keep going! Do not stop!" the lead guard shouted. "Fire!"

Their guns opened up again, and the dazed crowd forming before them danced till they hit the ground.

…

The Throne Room, The Winter Palace, Shanghai, Chinese Federation

Diethard stood at stiff attention before the Tianzi. With the enemy offensive having collapsed, the Empress had decided to observe the battle from the throne room. To that end, a massive screen had been installed near the end of the hall. All the Court were in attendance, and soldiers moved to and fro issuing orders through radios and communicating information to the Tianzi. The nobility stared at the screen, following every movement of allied forces with great intensity. When Linyi in Shandong Province was taken, a great cheer erupted. Diethard rolled his eyes.

Maybe I should have set up popcorn and a concession stand.

"Your Majesty," he reported, "my team and I have finished editing the footage from the bombing attacks into a presentable package. We stand ready to distribute at your leisure."

"Very good, Mister Reid," Her Majesty said. "You may begin."

Diethard bowed. He approached the comms officer and gave him the nod.

The footage was broadcasted over an open channel through the Omega Frequency, a broadcast frequency that Diethard devised that would allow them to cut through any comms traffic.

The officer hit the button, and in an instant the testimony of the dauntless power of the FLEIJA was being shared across the information superhighway.

Diethard turned back to the Empress. "It's done, Your Majesty," he reported.

"And you are certain that all of the rebels will receive the broadcast?" she asked.

"I am," he confirmed. "We used the frequency during the Liberation to demoralize the Tokyo defenders. I am certain it played no small part in their hasty withdrawal. All of our enemies will soon know the price of defiance."

"The Eunuchs are selfish cowards," Lady Kaguya added. "I have no doubt that they will be tripping over themselves to work out some form of surrender."

"They may speak till they are blue in the face," the Empress said. "It matters not. This war is on their heads, and they will pay the price for it."

Lady Kaguya bowed. "As you say, Your Majesty."

…

Beijing Command Center, The Forbidden City, Free Republic of China (Claimant)

"General Bei's forces are in full retreat!"

"General Wei has been reported killed! His command was in the direct epicenter of the blast!"

"Colonel Lu Ten has surrendered his full complement! The Royalists are advancing against Linyi!"

"I want Lu Ten's head!" High Eunuch Cai Lishi shrieked. "Any man caught surrendering is to be executed!"

"What does it matter if we execute them?" Wang demanded. He gestured to the digital map, and to the red units representing the Royalists that were advancing at a shocking speed. "The entire front has collapsed! We need to pull back and regroup! We must call up the reserves!"

"What reserves?" General Cheng asked. The leader of the Nationalists fiddled with his thin mustache. "We threw everything we had into the final assault. There is nothing left to throw against them." He rubbed his chin. "The only upside is that Tong is dead."

General Tse Tong had been reported to be among those killed during the Battle of New Delhi, the details of which they still couldn't work out.

"All that is left," Cheng continued, "is to negotiate while we still have something to bargain with."

"Talk peace terms with that trollop?" High Eunuch Tong Lun demanded. "I will not submit myself to that Jap whore again!"

"The only alternative is to fight to the last," Cheng retorted. He gestured over the map. "The question then becomes, 'With what?' The army is collapsing in the field. We can put some of our guard units forward-"

"Absolutely not!" High Eunuch Zhao Hao rejected. "I must insist against that! If they are demolished, then we shall have no recourse but to flee!"

"Perhaps fleeing is preferable," Wang suggested. "I am certain the Britannians would be willing to establish a government in exile with us."

"What Britannians?" Cheng scoffed. "The only Britannian I have seen is that little brat who has so conveniently disappeared in our hour of crisis. The Imperials will not save us. Now is-"

"HAIL COMING ON AN OPEN CHANNEL!" a comms officer interrupted them. "IT'S COMING FROM SHANGHAI!"

"From her!" Lun cursed. "I won't listen to that bitch's driv-"

The screen before them clicked on, revealing the Japanese slut that had turned their Empress against them.

"Greetings and salutations," Sumeragi said, "I am Lady Kaguya Sumeragi, Chairman and CEO of the Sumeragi Consortium, Ambassador to the Chinese Federation, and advisor to First Consul Zero, of the United States of Japan. It is my honor and privilege to present Her Divine Majesty, the Empress of All China, the Holy Tianzi."

Sumeragi backed out of the screen, revealing their nemesis. She looked every inch the queen, from her immaculate white-red-gold robes, the golden crown centered with a massive ruby on her head, the twin golden dragons of her throne framing her snow white face.

"Less than an hour ago," the albino began, "the cities of Yangchen, Hefei, and Bengbu ceased to exist." As she spoke, footage began appearing on the screen depicting the tracking lights of three missiles soaring across the black sky, before bright flashes of pink light. "These rebel strongholds that once resisted the might of the rightful government of the Chinese race," the Tianzi continued, "are now nothing more than smoking craters." Giant holes surrounded by skeletal buildings replaced the explosions on the screen. Wang's bowels loosed. A puddle formed beneath his feet.

"This was no accident," the Tianzi assured them. "It was by design. Scientists from Our friends and allies have provided to Us the means of utterly annihilating those who oppose Us."

The Tianzi placed a hand to her chest. "This brings Us no pleasure, Our Children. We, your Tianzi, represent the divine will of China. We are the living embodiment of the Mandate of Heaven. It grieves Heaven for even one of Our Children to suffer, and so it must grieve Us." She raised her hands as if offering embrace. "Let this be the end of this war, dear Children. Lay down your arms. Surrender, and be accepted once more into the gentle bosom of the Chinese Federation." She lowered her arms, concealing her hands in her sleeves. "To all who submit, no further harm shall come to you. Farmers may return to their fields, craftsmen to their workshops, traders to their stores. There will be no reprisals.

"However." She lowered her head, and the gentle facade vanished, revealing the countenance of a predator stalking her prey. "Should any continue to resist, know that you will know the same fate as has befallen your rebel kin. There will be no battles. No final stands. You will not even have the glory of a heroic death. We will wipe you from the face of the earth, and all your issue with you. You have one hour to comply."

Her eyes burned with hate. "And to you Eunuchs who started this tragic bloodletting, let this be known: We hereby offer the price of fifty million Yuan per head of every Eunuch, or lands of plenty with hearty harvests should that prove preferable."

The feed cut out.

"This-This is preposterous!"Lun spluttered. "An outrage! A travesty!"

As Lun continued to rage, Wang cast his discerning gaze around the room.

Every man there looked hungry.

…

Jinan, Shandong Province

Urabe banked to starboard, easily avoiding a string of missiles that were fired from an archaic SAM unit. He lit up with machine gun fire, and the SAM exploded in a ball of fire. He strung the strike together with a series of bursts along the ground that split a column of tanks in half, each vehicle becoming a roaring inferno.

Urabe frowned.

"Those tanks weren't moving," he said aloud. He pulled up the frequency for one of the ground units, a Burai squadron that was making its way down Shunhe Viad. "Captain Yamashita, status?"

"General, have crossed the Xingji River with minimal resistance. Enemy appears to not be contesting strategic hardpoints."

"Yes, I noticed that too," Urabe confirmed. He rubbed his chin, glanced through the camera at the battlefield.

He could see enemy troopers fleeing down the streets, many unarmed. Rebel aircraft were becoming black dots on the horizon as they fled north. Entire mobs of rebel soldiers were approaching friendly lines with white flags.

"They've totally collapsed," Urabe realized.

He looked over at the government building. It was swarming with soldiers, its square roof ablaze with small arms fire. Smoke rose above its roof, obscuring the area behind it with great black clouds that climbed into the gray sky.

Jinan was a river town, split in half by the Xingjie that Urabe's forces had just crossed. It was an interesting mix of modern metropolitan skyscrapers and traditional Chinese architecture. A giant gold Buddha sat smiling on a mountaintop, its face now blackened with gunsmoke and rocket fire.

A rocket arched out of the window of the main government building, striking a Burai dead center and igniting its magazine.

"Not everywhere, it seems," he observed. "Let's fix that."

He hit the thrusters, sighted the rooftop, and opened fire. Machine gun bullets sent concrete and wooden shivers up in the air. Men and women split apart at the seams as the antiarmor ammo he hadn't changed out whipped through them. Body parts scattered across the rooftop, the bloody spray showering their surviving comrades in viscera and gore.

A massive orange-red explosion ripped out the back of the building, sending debris and bodies airborne to drop down in a fine red rain.

Urabe quirked his lips, embarrassed. "Oops," he said. "Must have hit an ammo dump. Or maybe a Sakuradite station? No, there would have been pink light."

….

Evac Port, Headquarters of the Geass Order, Xinjiang

"Where is he?" Lelouch demanded, his finger itchy on the Hadron Cannon's trigger. "Where is V-Two?"

They had near total control over the city, and had just taken control of the evac area. Three of the V-TOL's carrying Order personnel had been forced to land, and a fourth had been shot down as it tried to flee. It's orange flames clashed with the purple light emanating front the Thought Elevator.

"Please, My Lord Zero, I don't know, no one knows!" the commander of the evac shuttle blubbered. "Lord V-Two hasn't been seen since before the fighting began!"

Lelouch snarled. "Round up every shuttle," he ordered. "Tear these ships apart piece by piece until you've found that mongrel! Shoot on sight!"

"Yes, My Lord!"

One of the shuttles launched haphazardly into the air, its hull scraping off the wing of one of the parked ships in a roar of steel. As it shuddered toward the hole in the mountaintop, Lelouch rolled his thumb across the trigger and sighted his target.

"I see you, V-Two," Lelouch crowed.

"V-Two isn't aboard, Your Highness!"

"Sumeragi!" Kallen spat. "TRAITOR!"

"Land that plane, Sumeragi," Lelouch warned, "or I'll burn you out of the sky."

"Your Highness, V-Two isn't onboard!" Sumeragi repeated. "He's fleeing through the Thought Elevator!"

"Thought Elevator?" Kallen questioned.

"If you hurry, you can reach him!" Sumeragi added.

"Maybe that's true, maybe that isn't," Lelouch allowed, "but it'll be so much easier to check the wreckage, now won't it?"

"Your Highness, I beg you, there are children aboard!"

Lelouch ground his teeth. Dammit!

"Bullshit!" Kallen declared. "You're just trying to save your sorry hide!"

"Kallen," Lelouch said quietly. "The children are test subjects."

Kallen whipped around to him. "What?" she said breathlessly.

"V-Two uses children as his test subjects for geass experiments," Lelouch explained. He clenched his fist. "I thought they all would have been evacuated by this point."

"No, Your Highness, they're onboard!" Sumeragi called out. "There are two hundred in all, and they're very scared!"

Kallen turned back to the comms blister. "You're full of it!" she said. "How do we know you have anyone on there?"

"Miss Kozuki?" an impossibly young voice carried over the radio. Kallen choked. "Miss Kozuki, please don't kill us."

Lelouch's stomach twisted. He could see Kallen gaping.

"Mister Prince," another voice said, a little girl's, "you won't hurt us will you?"

"Please don't hurt us, Mister Zero," what sounded like a little boy said.

"Yes, Your Highness," Sumeragi said, "please don't hurt them."

"YOU COWARD!" Kallen screamed. "YOU'RE HIDING BEHIND CHILDREN?"

"Call me what you like," Sumeragi retorted, "but I'm getting these kids out of here! Shoot me down, you kill them too!"

Kallen whipped around. "Lelouch, if we get close enough, I can use the Slash Harkens to-"

"He'll just crash it into the ground out of spite, Kallen," Lelouch cut her off.

"But-"

He raised a hand and she fell silent. He looked back up at the ship as it ascended towards freedom.

"He's a clever man, isn't he?" Lelouch said aloud. "He broadcasted that on an open channel for every Black Knight to hear. They don't understand how dangerous he is. I shoot him down, I lose my legitimacy among the rank and file in an instant. No one wants dead kids on their conscience." He laughed grimly. "Least of all me." He scowled. "Sumeragi!"

"Yes?"

Lelouch fired the Hadron Cannons. The beams shot wide, just enough to miss the ship, close enough for Sumeragi and his passengers to see it.

"I'll be seeing you again," Lelouch promised.

"Y-Yes, Your Highness-"

Lelouch cut the line. He opened up his frequency to the Black Knights. "Take out the engine one every one of these planes. I'm not having a repeat performance."

"Yes, Lord Zero!"

"Let's go, Kallen. We can at least pay V-Two a visit."

"Right!"

….

Throne Room, The Winter Palace, Shanghai

"Your Majesty," Hong Gu said, bowing, "General Urabe has just accepted Jinan's surrender. The Shandong province has been brought to heel."

A cheer swept up among the courtiers and soldiers that had gathered in the throne room. The Tianzi accepted the news stoically, but on the inside she was jumping for joy.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

"Very good," she said aloud. "Once control has been reestablished over the north, I want that footage sent to the rebel territories in the south and west. Let all those who would rebel against Heaven be apprised of its wrath."

"It shall be done, Your Majesty," Hong Gu said.

"Your Majesty!" Xiu Mei called. "We're receiving a hailing call from Beijing!"

The Tianzi's heart thrummed. "Put it up onscreen!"

The map on the screen was replaced by the narrow face of General Cheng.

"Your Imperial Highness," he began, "are the terms you established still valid?"

The Tianzi made a show of contemplating the question; she raised a finger to her lips and tilted her head to the ceiling. "We should think you still have ten minutes," she replied.

If the General felt relieved, he didn't show it. "Then I offer the surrender of all Republican forces yet standing in China, and those forces under the command of the High Eunuchs."

The Empress did not let the triumphant grin that threatened to break free do so. "We accept your surrender." She raised a pointed eyebrow. "And the Eunuchs?"

Cheng lifted both his hands, revealing the skulls of every one of the Eunuchs hanging by their hair. The Tianzi's stomach shifted mutinously. "Will this suffice?" He asked.

She nodded, keeping the quaver from her voice. "It shall. Coordinate with General Xingke to work out the logistics of your surrender. You are dismissed."

Cheng bowed and the feed cut out. As soon as it did, the courtiers and soldiers bowed before the Empress.

"HAIL THE TIANZI!" They shouted. "HAIL HER MAJESTY! ALL UNDER HEAVEN! ALL UNDER HEAVEN!"

…

Streets of the Geass Headquarters, Xinjiang

"WHERE DID THEY COME FROM?" V-Two shrieked.

Black Knights were suddenly everywhere, their oversized machine guns ripping the area around him to shreds. His guardsmen were falling left and right, their bodies torn to shreds by antipersonnel rounds.

WE WERE SO CLOSE! SO CLOSE! WHY?

The entrance to the Thought Elevator loomed above them, its purple light casting wicked shadows across the ground.

"WE CAN STILL MAKE IT!" V-Two shouted. "WE-"

The head of his guard disappeared. Arterial blood sprayed across V-Two's face. The headless man's legs continued pumping a few more steps before it tumbled to the ground, sending V-Two careening with it. He smashed his forehead off the ground, scattered his teeth across the pavement. He sat up slowly, blood oozing down into his eyes.

V-Two felt a wave of sickening dizziness. He vomited all over his robe. His head hurt fiercely. Exhaustion pervaded his every breath.

"Well well, V-Two," a cold, robotic voice scratched nails across his skull. It was a voice that V-Two had burned into his memory. V-Two clutched his aching head with a mixture of pain and terror. "Where are you going, my friend?"

The Gawain swam red into V-Two's vision in all its terrible glory.

"The party's just beginning!"

High, loud, cold laughter rained down from above.