My blood pumped, the limbs obeyed and I was propelled further away from the Lancelot and towards the front of the carrier the knight-like mech had emerged from.
My heart beats thundered in my ears. I ran, spreading swarm clones inside the cloud screeching around me. Good thing I did too as I felt and heard one of the clones get absolutely obliterated by a shell from Lancelot's rifle. A loose, jagged rock flew from the point of impact and smashed into me right in my left shoulder blade. The impact almost made me lose my balance but I bit back my scream of pain and continued on. A spider silk costume was the best idea I had ever had.
Now thoroughly motivated to seek shelter I dashed around the armoured carrier and sat down briefly to the left of its door. Firstly I opened small 'windows' in my bugs for my men to fire through at the Lancelot and began individually directing them to spread out and delay Suzaku as much as possible. I sat there trying to come up with some way to buy more time to either hold out until Kallen gets here or until I cloud shove enough bugs into the Lancelot's protected servos to clog them up. I could think of a few things.
Option one: Keep doing what we were doing right now and divert his attention by attacking from multiple directions dangerous for us, very much so as Suzaku seemed to be wisening up to my tricks. Option two simply toss every high explosive grenade we had and hope the shockwave would knock him over then pummel him with everything we had. Less dangerous for us but might get Suzaku killed… I really don't want to kill one of my own damn students and I didn't trust Suzaku to eject if the stakes become dire enough.
As I thought to the background noise of screeching insects and exploding munitions my attention was attracted to a now extremely obvious bait for Suzaku. The command centre of the G-1. I doubted our weapons could actually pierce through the G-1's bridge regardless of how fragile its glass viewing port looked.
But even if we couldn't pierce through with infantry held weapons we could force Suzaku to defend the G-1 by constantly shooting at it from different angles. That energy shield has to be a pretty heavy drain on the Lancelot, so we'll also be softening him up for Kallen. I'll go with this, try and see if it works. I pitched in to our squad com's.
"Change of tactics, everyone stay spread out but take potshots at the landcruiser from where the Lancelot can spot your shots, we'll force him to defend the G-1 and simply hit and run until he either runs out of energy or the Guren Mk-II arrives."
I heard a series of acknowledgements shortly after. So I took a calming breath and stood up. But I felt shivers run down my spine as I felt the door of the carrier to my right start opening. I made to throw the Kunai in my prosthetic but the almost deafening sound of a large calibre supersonic projectile interrupted me and threw my aim away along with pieces of my now thoroughly ruined prosthetic off. I still moved and hooked my leg around my assailants before the shards of my prosthetic could even land. My eyes landed on a familiar purplish blue mop of hair. I got a good look at her and barely held myself back from facepalming.
Of course… Just my luck that Cecile would be inside the carrier and would try to be a hero. She opened her eyes back and despite the fear on her face I watched calmly as her eyes landed on my prosthetic then on my hair. Back to the ruins of the prosthetic then back on my hair. And finally she asked with bewilderment in her voice.
"T-Taylor!?" I couldn't stop my hiss of frustration but I checked the enclosed compartment she had emerged from with my bugs. A figure was making his way towards here, knowing my luck it's Lloyd. I sent a few harmless bugs to sting him to buy some time. And returned to the matter at hand. I'm not killing Cecile.
I'm an asshole but not one to murder friends. True she could destroy my life entirely if she told the wrong person about this but I'll… I'll trust her, it's all I could do for her after I suddenly left the academy without saying a word other than 'I'm going to Japan.' then barely did anything to establish contact, I had left her to think I was dead for almost a decade. As I was debating what to do inside my head I heard the Ghost chime in from the glass on the Carriers door.
"May I recommend talking? I know it's a foreign solution to you Taylor, but if you aren't going to kill her, I approve by the way, you should probably explain some things to her. You know, go for coffee, talk somethings out, maybe apologise?" I grimaced at the Shadows taunting but good-natured voice. Talking with Cecile about this… that sounds real rough and god knows what she'll do once she knows why I do all of this. But fuck, I don't see a proper way out of this dilemma.
I breathed out a sigh. "Look Cecile, I would love to talk this out with you right now, but I'm trying to not get killed by Suzaku and make sure he doesn't get killed right now. So, after all this, call me. We'll meet up in a coffee shop or something and I'll explain everything. But for now I really don't have time!" I rapidly fired my words at her hoping against hope she wouldn't debate me.
"Bu-but! What!? How? How the hell?" I saw her confused reaction and decided begging for forgiveness would be easier.
"Okay got to make this convincing so sorry in advance, we'll talk later." I didn't even listen to her words before placing her in a choke hold and safely choking her out with my one arm. She struggled a bit and I worried about my possibly destroyed friendship but she went limp soon after. Seconds later I stepped into the Carrier decked Lloyd who was still struggling with the bugs in the face and left without a word. I hope those friendships are still salvageable.
The shadow appeared to reassure me. "Don't worry from what I know the Goth gal will forgive you and Lloyd is more likely to ask you about your powers than make a fuss about a punch." The mention of a talk about my powers threatened to send me down a spiral of doubt but I focused my 'main' line of thought back into the fight and took over manipulating my bugs and ordering my men with the swarm voice.
I know I had noted it before but Lancelot's speed and Suzaku's reactions surprised me still, none of the munitions we had thrown had reached the G-1's bridge and although the Lancelot was scratched up and covered in scorch marks it was still moving at full speed. I had to commend the resilience, we were going to run out of ammunition at this rate. I changed tact, we still had at least twenty seconds until the Guren Mk-II could relieve us. I aimed the Hame Yume and waited until another rocket emerged on the way to the G-1.
I watched as The Lancelot turned towards it and took off to block it and revealed it's back to me.
I could have taken the easy kill shot, but I didn't. My aim shifted downwards and my launcher sent the bolt on its way, towards the back of the Lancelot's right knee. I saw Suzaku see the projectile and try to move to avoid it but it was already too late. He shifted enough to take the superheated jet of copper from the side rather than the back and have the leg totally destroyed. Though the servo seems to have jammed, he could still move but his reaction speed and max speed were way down.
I directed my men to start shooting at the Lancelot to essentially force him to use those shields on his arms to block. I glanced at the ruined mess of my prosthetic and gave up on reloading my weapon. Instead I opted out to observing Suzaku throw his mech around desperately avoiding hits where he could and blocking where he couldn't. Something was wrong…
The minute was up and Kallen still wasn't here and we were rapidly running low on Ammunition. If Suzaku used his rifle right now he could probably kill us all since our wave of munitions was slowly dying down. So why didn't he use it? Morals? Well he was firing initially, and he seemed pretty intent on killing me. So that can't be it…
A closer look at his rifle solved that mystery for me, besides having a regular magazine it also had an energy filler strapped into its stock. He was using his ammo as back up batteries. Buying himself time, for what exactly? Almost all Knightmares of Britannia are either buried or engaged by the JLF and Zero…
The sounds of jets made me direct my attention towards the horizon, I made a viewing port for myself through the swarm and finally spotted them.
A fleet of Knightmare carrier VTOL-craft. Reinforcements, time limits for us. I couldn't count how many there were but definitely more than we could afford to fight. I radioed Zero.
"Zero, we need to accelerate our time-table. Enemy reinforcements approaching, at least two dozen Knightmares." I raised my voice to be heard over the droning of my Swarm and spoke into the radio carefully tracking the Lancelot as I did so.
A soft curse came over the speakers and Lelouch began speaking shortly there after. "Kallen has been delayed and we're having trouble making the Viceroy stay down, don't worry about the command structure just neutralise the Lancelot and get out of there." I wonder if he knows it's Suzaku in there. He probably doesn't, if he did he'd realise how tall of an order that is.
We've almost entirely run out of ammo, so much so that my men are using grenades to keep up the pressure on the Lancelot, the quantity of munitions heading the Lancelot's way had petered out. The damn thing took an entire platoon's worth of anti-Knightmare weapons and still only took minimal damage other than its armour being scraped away and my hit on its leg.
Without Kallen we could only hope to retreat. So I replied in the only way I could. "We can buy at most twenty more seconds and that's risking it, the only heavy weapons we have left are on the IFV and if we lose that we're stuck here."
I heard a grunt of exertion on the other side. "Ten seconds will be enough. The Guren is almost there." With that Zero cut comms. I couldn't blame him, he seemed to have his hands full. Ten seconds, I needed a mere ten seconds more. My swarm picked up in volume, skittering and screeching louder and louder. I massed them around the Lancelot compressing the entire cloud around us to only encase the G-1 and Suzaku.
With the visibility restored my battered and weakened men looked towards me. After a moment I was sure that Suzaku wouldn't be making any sudden movements. I began ordering.
"Group up around the APC we're leaving soon, enemy reinforcements are on the way and I want you all to protect our way out. Zero ordered us to deal with the Lancelot and pull back towards him. I'll deal with the Lancelot and retreat later." I expected their usual immediate obedience but the men didn't move, instead they were staring at the mangled remains of my prosthetic from the limb down.
Many of them began arguing against me at the same time, suddenly worried about me now that they had seen my crippled arm and currently destroyed prosthetic. Pleading, reasoning and trying everything they could as nineteen men to try to convince me. I had none of it.
"Shut up already! I've been dismembered three times now, I'm used to it! And if you'd paid attention you'd realise, I won't exactly be alone." I pointed my intact arm towards the treeline obscuring the northwest of our position and with sufficient dramatic timing the Guren Mk-II barreled through a line of trees sending trunks flying and crushing smaller plants under its Landspinners.
The red painted mech had some chipped paint and a few bullets seemed to have been deflected off of it, Kallen must have dealt with the Knightmares that left as we came in on the way here. She made the Knightmare stop with a drift barely five metres from us. The Guren rose from her crouch but remained silent, I got the impression she was staring at me. There was no way she hadn't figured out who I was, but this masquerade needs to keep going for a while yet.
"Pilot of the Guren Mk-II, The Lancelot is inside the cloud along with the G-1 landcruiser, its pilot seems reluctant to leave the base alone. Thankfully Zero changed our orders to only deal with the Lancelot then we are leaving. Hopefully before reinforcements come." I kept my voice even hoping she'd do the same and we wouldn't have to deal with the other Black Knights getting curious.
"S-sure, alright just clear the cloud and I'll deal with the Lancelot. You all can embark and get away." I allowed myself to cringe at her acting performance but my men didn't mention it, so it should be fine.
"I'll be staying with you as emergency backup. Worst case scenario, you'll grab me and I'll cover our escape." I replied flatly.
The mech leaned its oddly expressive head to the side. "That's insane, you've half an arm missing, covered in dirt and been fighting for a while. Just leave, I'll take care of this." Kallen fired back, being oddly stubborn despite her previous shocked state. I was slightly irritated at her implication that I couldn't take care of myself. I hope I hid that emotion as I spoke.
"I'll be hiding, you won't have to worry about me." She made to argue further but I cut in. "Look, just deal with the Lancelot and we'll leave, every second we argue dozens of Knightmares are closing in on us." I hurried my speech and pointed in the direction of the VTOLs coming over the horizon.
Kallen looked at them then at me and finally nodded. "Fine, let's end this." I regarded her resigned acceptance and noted that I would give her extra homework next week.
I turned to my men and sent them on their very reluctant way with a "Well? get going!" I didn't bother watching the drained and injured men stumble their way to the APC, I still had work to do.
After a moment I asked. "Ready?" And Kallen replied by revving her Landspinners. "Of course!" I heard her claim and parted the black cloud obscuring Lancelot and the lower threads of the G-1. Kallen was upon Suzaku like a woman possessed, her mech ripped through the ground as she threw herself towards Suzaku Radiant Wave Surger first. I would've been worried about Suzaku's life had I not seen the way he could move even with a jammed leg.
The fact that I had rigged the environment to make sure the reinforcements would arrive earlier than expected certainly also helped. Even now I could feel straggler Knightmares from the perimeter close in towards the south from behind the G-1. Only two of them, but that would be enough to excuse just mission killing the Lancelot and leaving.
Dangerous? Oh absolutely, but it would also make sure Suzaku remained alive, Kallen got out unharmed and I could live without their lives weighing on my consciousness a while longer.
I retreated into my swarm as I watched the Lancelot and Guren trade jabs from afar. Kallen simply rushed in intent on finishing the Lancelot with a single grapple, but Suzaku's instincts were well honed. He ducked low and grabbed at the silver claw keeping it stuck above his own frame with a hand and made to swipe at the Guren.
Kallen answered back by first stabbing the forked knife in her left arm at Suzaku's Knightmares chest, which was predictably blocked by the Lancelot's other hand. Kallen wasn't done just yet though, she started unloading the wrist mounted coil gun into the Lancelot trying to carve a way through the armour. To little effect, the Lancelot was made by Lloyd and Cecile. They didn't do 'low quality'.
Realising that it was useless Kallen did something radical, she spun her Landspinners backwards and tossed the Lancelot with centrifugal force towards the side. Suzaku landed as well as he could, that is to say… badly.
The mech rolled and crashed with a tremendous screeching sound but still got up before Kallen could get to it. Suzaku pulled his rifle from behind and began firing. Shot after shot covered with a bright green glow impacted only the dirt until the Guren was only a mere ten metres ahead of the Lancelot. At that final moment Suzaku's rifle screamed and a shell headed directly towards Kallen's cockpit block. I felt myself panic as I realised what was about to happen and tried to find a way to intervene.
I needn't have worried, I had merely underestimated Kallen's apparently superhuman reaction speed. She threw the silver claw in front of the incoming shell and stopped it with a wave of red lightning from it. The projectile smashed into the barrier and levitated there as it grinded against the barrier made of pure energy, it produced an ungodly ringing noise and made me grit my teeth. As if that wasn't enough Suzaku fired another shot. The shot slammed into the disk of red lightning and the sound doubled.Thankfully for my ears and sanity the sound petered out as the shells lost energy.
Kallen retreated for a second, she kneeled with the Guren almost as if she was going to tackle Suzaku. Whereas Suzaku himself was immobile, he had tossed away the supposedly spent rifle and was also observing his opponent. Neither moved.
As they were trying to approach each other I felt the CWIS turrets and the Bridge mounted cannon shift to fire at the Guren. I had already jammed the CWIS turrets' mechanical components but the main gun was built much simpler and tougher, the spiderwebs and bugs I had inside the barrel wouldn't be enough.
I had to break the tense standoff by shouting at Kallen. "Kallen! The main gun of the G-1 is turning towards you! Dodge to the right and enter its blind spot!" I bit back a curse at using Kallen's name, hope no one is listening to this channel. As Kallen moved rapidly towards the back of the G-1 barely avoiding a high explosive shell on the way there I charged through my swarm at the Landcruiser and pulled the pin on a large, thick and heavy high explosive grenade.
Giving it a second to cook I tossed it at the targeting fly I had placed on the main cannon. The grenade flew with unerring accuracy guided by the calculations of my brain and my passenger' assistance alike. It flew true and exploded right next to the base of the G-1's weapon, ruining its barrel.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Kallen did too and immediately set her focus back on the Lancelot, who had drawn a sword, a vibrating sword. Oh Lloyd, you mad fucking nerd you actually made that? The top of the line war machine was using a weapon I had discussed and talked about with a friend over a few beers. I felt like face palming and whooping with joy at the sight of one of Lloyd's most fantasised inventions.
Regardless of what I felt Kallen wasn't letting Suzaku simply sit back and relax. After an initial burst of speed Kallen jumped above Suzaku and landed with a kick towards his faceplate, which was deflected. Still the Guren didn't lose its balance and retaliated with a leg sweep immediately after landing. Suzaku tried to avoid that attack too but his jammed right leg couldn't finish the movement and he tumbled down.
I watched as he warded off Kallen's intended finishing move with the Radiant Wave Surger with his Slash harkens but those were destroyed in the attempt. Their metal bulged, deformed and exploded due to the extreme heat upon touching the active Radiant Wave Surger.
Suzaku was out of time. I would've been more worried had I not expected this. In fact, I deliberately turned towards the G-1. I warned Kallen, telling her to dodge backwards. She obeyed without question and leaped. Dodging a salvo of 30mm shells. I watched as two purple Sutherland frames emerged weapons at the ready and already firing towards the Guren.
Kallen naturally dodged the 30mm coil gun shells moving way faster than sound as if they were nerf darts. With one last resounding kick towards the Lancelot she retreated into my swarm and I covered her with the cloud.
"So, what do we do now?" Asked Kallen. I stared at the five metre tall death machine piloted by my student and also looked at the reinforcement Knightmares who had come to a standstill next to the Lancelot.
"The two of them have stopped next to the Lancelot, I'm going to delay or simply destroy the one closer to the G-1, you take care of the one next to the Lancelot. Since the Lancelot stopped moving, or rather stopped trying to move we can just take care of those two and leave." I explained my plan and got a grunt of approval from Kallen.
"Okay, then. We take care of these clowns, get back to Zero and leave." I thought she would finish with that cheerful tone of voice but she continued. "Oh and Weaver? Umm…I'm going to want to talk to you after this." She actually finished with a somewhat serious and oddly shy tone.
I'm going to be having a lot of very awkward conversations because of today aren't I? I heard the Phantom snicker from somewhere. "You reap what you sow!" The replica of Lisa told me barely stopping her smug snickering.
I sighed and replied to Kallen. "You know my counselling hours, Monday and Thursday between three and five. At my office." I deadpanned. I heard Kallen's spit take but chose to ignore it.
I took a deep breath and sicked a tidal wave of bugs upon my chosen opponent. I pulled most of the Bugs still blinding the G-1 from around it and bunched them up to conceal myself. My opponent predictably panicked as the black swarm descended upon his knightmare, they blocked his vision, clogged up servos and simply didn't let up even as the pilot fired their knightmare assault rifle all over the place. But I knew that clogging the servos wouldn't be enough by itself, though built much inferior to the Lancelot the Sutherland frames still had reliable and durable Servos, clogging them up would take a long time.
As I didn't want to wait for an eternity, because of the tidal wave of ultranationalists approaching us I began running towards the four metre tall deathmachine. Reminds me of that time with Dragon inside the PRT base, hopefully I won't be getting threatened/offered to switch sides by an AI this time.
Kallen, of course, didn't stand idle as I was running forth. She charged ahead deftly avoiding all shots coming her way other than a few glancing hits. I doubted my human eyes could have seen anything but a blur, thankfully I had something much better. So I tracked her movement, the way she fired back, the way she resonated. Something in me recorded very carefully.
But another part of me was observing her opponent, who did something that made my blood boil. He picked Suzaku up and used his Knightmare as a shield. I saw so much red that even my swarm couldn't absorb it all fast enough. I made to change course but before I could even begin shifting Kallen reacted.
The Guren suddenly gained a burst of speed and I heard a scream echo out from the Guren's speakers. "You Britannian pig! Don't you have a shred of decency? Have you not a little your so valued Honour?" Oi that last bit is from the rewritten version of "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart" we covered that last week! So she was listening. Regardless of my observation that Kallen actually paid attention in class I didn't let up tracking Kallen and her opponents movements, mine had run out of ammo and wasn't doing anything that could require my intervention. So I was free to observe and but in if necessary.
I felt Kallen make a sudden leap just as she was about to reach the captive Lancelot. The red machine flew like nothing its size should ever be capable of, somersaulting mid-air as if it was an olympic athlete rather than the multi-ton machine of war it was. The Sutherland tried to track her with its rifle but the speed she had picked up carried her over safely. She landed with a kick to the head that surprisingly wasn't enough to make the Britannian let Suzaku go.
Nevertheless Kallen landed with a roll and turned around swiftly, already reaching out with her silver claw at the opposing Knightmare. By the time the Sutherland had dropped the Lancelot and was turning around the fight was already over, the Radiant Wave Surger had latched onto its cockpit block. Red lightning erupted and immense heat flowed, the shockwaves it produced killed all the bugs around forcing me to use my eyes to observe further and observe I did.
The purple armour of the Sutherland bulged around the cockpit, and it didn't stop just there. The deformation spread around the frame like some sort of cancer spreading tumours around and once it finally covered every single inch there was a moment of silence as the Radiant Wave Surger stopped roaring. And then the entire frame detonated showering shrapnel everywhere. The entire ground around the Guren was torn up, devoid of life. And the Lancelot…
Was thankfully mostly fine, other than an indentation to the front left of its cockpit it was mostly just chipped by the explosion. I sighed with relief then absent mindedly threw a HE grenade at the Knightmare I had clogged up. I threw another after the first one exploded to make sure the pilot was dead.
I called out to the Guren seconds later, who was standing still. I could hear her heavy pants through the comms.
"Hey, Pilot. Let's go home, I'm not feeling like dealing with another hundred of these fuckers today." I chimed into her comms with an exhausted voice. I was drained. I guess I'm not as young as I used to be.
"Yes, miss H-. S-sorry, Weaver." Kallen replied curtly. Thankfully she stopped herself from using my name, never know who might be listening. She turned towards me and approached. I let her pick me up and place me on her frame's shoulders. I covered our entire southern flank with a wall of insects and we were off.
Now to deal with the consequences of my actions. "It'll be fine, it's just a few very awkward conversations. It's not like you tend to use incredible violence first every single time you have to solve something." Said the shade. I choose to ignore her.
Suzaku Kururugi The White Knight
Things came into focus slowly, blurred lines became sharper; clearer and eventually the pain hit me. Everywhere was hurting as if I had been beaten all over my body with a hundred baseball bats. My ears rang, my hands burned, a splitting headache hammered into my skull, my chest ached each time it rose and my right leg felt like it was mush. Everywhere hurt other than one place, my left leg. Specifically the part down my left thigh. I simply couldn't feel anything there.
Panic set in and I tried to rise and throw off the covers on top of me to get a good look at my leg. But I couldn't, no muscle of mine could heave my body up and the moment I tried the pain intensified. I couldn't help it and let loose a scream. I heard movement from far away and that prompted me to finally pay attention to my surroundings.
I stared at the grey ceiling above me and the myriad of medical monitors, iv drips and other medical equipment around me. A hospital room then and judging by the fact that it is private and some of the equipment around me looks fairly high end it's a high class one. I didn't have much time to think before a ragged Cecile and a nurse burst into the room. Upon seeing me Miss Cecile let loose a relieved sigh and sat next to me as the nurse began doing the check ups. I took a closer look at Miss Cecile as she did so.
She looked haunted and angry but more than anything she looked tired. Bags beneath unseeing almost foggy eyes, a pale complexion even paler than usual, hair matted with sweat. I had never seen her like this.
We simply stood silent as the nurse went about her work with me cooperating to the best of my ability. As the nurse left after saying that she would inform Lloyd and Euphemia Cecile finally spoke.
"Suzaku, do you remember what happened?" She spoke softly and I was very thankful she did so, my headache was absolutely terrible. I felt like bashing my head in just to stop it.
"Mostly, I fought the Black Knights, got blinded, couldn't do anything but defend and when they finally did stop hammering me the other seventh generation Knightmare appeared… Then that b-... that other pilot tried to use me as a shield. The red knightmare made him explode and I blacked out." I summarised.
Cecile winced but quickly continued on. "That's right, we recovered you and you were transferred to Princess Nunnally Memorial Hospital, upon Acting Viceroy Euphemia's orders. You've been unconscious for about a day, you're bruised heavily in well… pretty much everywhere. You were thrown around the cockpit so much that you have a fracture in your left arm and a concussion. Had it not been for your suit it would have been much worse." She went silent for a few seconds and her frown deepened. "Of course all of that isn't your most severe injury. That would be your left leg…"
She took a deep breath but I had already guessed what she was going to say. "Your left leg was pulped, the doctors had to amputate it simply to stop the bleeding." I felt tears coming but I pushed them back.
"That means… I won't be able to pilot any more will I? I'll be discharged." Though I tried I couldn't hide the despair in my voice. I would be powerless, unable to do anything. I wouldn't be able to build a brighter future for the Japanese. Not like I ever could like that anyways, that pilot using me as a shield was just proof that I would never be able to progress from where I was. I was already at a dead end, this just finalised it.
Just as I felt the tears returning I heard a voice from the doorway. "Oh… I wouldn't be… so sure of THAT!" I flicked my eyes towards the panting, no less ragged than Cecile form of Lloyd. Yet despite his condition the usual mad glint in his eyes wasn't gone, in fact it was back two fold. "I found it!" He practically screamed as he held up two folders, one of them had a bold red stamp on it that read 'CLASSIFIED' beneath it the words 'Code R'. The other one was much less intimidating. It only read a single title: 'The Potential applications of Cybernetics and Their Viability' Then I read the authors 'Taylor Hebert and Rakshata Chawla'. I felt my brain grind to a halt.
Lloyd went on speaking. "I knew I still had it somewhere! It's not totally complete and some of the code was written by Rakshata so we'll have to rework that but along with the nerve integration ports those Code R folk developed we'll be able to make you a new and better leg!" I was speechless. Cecile tried to warn Lloyd to be more silent but he continued on.
"You'll get a new leg, I'll get to keep a vital component of the Lancelot and one up Rakshata by completing her work with Taylor! Everyone wins!" I felt the hint of a smile cross my face as I saw Cecile reaction to the 'vital component bit' but before she could move across the room to discipline her superior a soft, elegant voice interrupted.
"Earl Asplund, while I do agree that it's wonderful that you can get Suzaku back on his feet as you might say you should remember that this is a hospital. Please use your indoors voice." Said Euphemia as she deftly sidestepped Lloyd and entered my hospital room.
Though she looked no worse for wear than usual I could still see the tiredness in her eyes. "Ah, yes Acting Viceroy. Hee hee… I might have gotten a little carried away. Well I'm sure many others would've also felt the same." Though Lloyd apologised I could sense no regret in his tone. Well I don't think he can even feel regret, still he apologised at least. It's an improvement. Wait, 'Acting Viceroy'?
Cecile quickly stood up and walked over to Lloyd before turning towards Euphemia and quickly bowing. "We'll be leaving you alone, your Highness. It's better that we get to work quickly." Saying that she grabbed Lloyd by the arm and flew off with Lloyd in tow. The auto-door closed quickly after them.
I heard Euphemia stifle a giggle at their usual antics. "Good to see they are still the same as always." She said and I had to agree. "Well other than that…" She began and sat in Cecile's chair. She scooted a bit closer to my bed.
With a heavy sigh she began. "I've had a lot of work suddenly foisted on me, Suzaku!" She complained though she didn't really seem all that saddened by it. "Well, as you might have guessed my Sister is currently busy being kidnapped by the Black Knights, so I have to pick up the slack." She said with clearly fake worry and sadness.
"Oh, poor me. What will I do with all this power I suddenly got handed?" I felt my mouth agape, was she not worried at all about Princess Cornelia?
"Euphemi-" I changed my address to her upon seeing a pouting look on her face. "Euphy, aren't you the least bit… you know, worried about your sister?" I asked, her fit of giggles upon my question only confused me more.
She threw her arms behind her and stretched like a cat. "Fufu, I would be worried if Zero was some common terrorist, but no. He styles himself a freedom fighter. If he was going to kill Nelly, he'd simply shoot her cockpit block instead of taking her away." I saw a genuine, if somewhat mad smile cross her face.
"But now, since the Homeland is in chaos because Father is having some sort of paranoid episode and hauling resources to somewhere to do God knows what and brother Schneizel is occupied dealing with that I can do whatever I want with Japan!" I exclaimed. My eyes widened, did she mean…
"Yes Suzaku, absolutely yes! I only have to stomp out a few idiots and so long as the Black Knights play right I'll be able to transform Area 11 into something proper. Well eventually I'll encounter pushback from the other territories but If I can solidify my hold on Area 11 I'll just make them dance to my tune with Sakuradite." I felt myself smile… right, I didn't have to be one to change things… I just had to get the ear of the right people.
But it wouldn't be enough would it? Eventually the chaos back in the Britannian Homeland would settle and the Emperor wouldn't be pleased with Euphy, he'd harm her. He'd harm Euphy…
That couldn't stand. So he'd have to go, but conventional means wouldn't allow us to get rid of him. Japan could only muster up so much power by itself. My thoughts wandered back to something Miss Hebert had said… "Get the right person on the throne."
Of course… I knew only one person with the means, ambition and dedication to do something like that. Lelouch… If we could work to get Lelouch to the throne, maybe with a rebellion or an assasination he could easily rule Britannia and turn it into whatever he saw fit!
I turned to Euphy but the words wouldn't leave my mouth and I thought I heard my Fathers voice somewhere. "Are you going to betray him too?" I felt my heartbeat spike and the monitor beeped in alerting Euphy. She looked at my face and partially open mouth with clear worry.
I steeled my resolve. This would be for both Lelouch and everyone else's good.
"Euphy…" I began but took a deep breath before continuing. "...I have something I need to tell you. Lelouch and Nunnaly are alive." I saw a smile split her face, she suddenly shone in my eyes and said a single sentence. "I had guessed!"
I choked on thin air.
"Seriously?!" I exclaimed. I looked at her with incredulity.
"Yep, you acted way too suspiciously when I mentioned visiting Ashford before!" That… makes sense.
"Oh… well I'll keep going since I have an idea." I recovered. I felt Euphy cup my cheeks with her hands. She leaned in extremely close to my face, so much so I could feel her breaths. She stared right into my eyes, an unusual madness in her eyes. The heartbeat monitor started beeping more regularly.
"I'm listening, go on." She purred. I went on.
An: Hey sorry this is a day late, I wanted to make sure it was good since this chapter determined how a lot of future events would go. Anyways, hope you enjoyed it and please do review.