A/N: The more I look at the wiki, the more I realize just how contradictory some of the lore is. Clearly the maps were not well defined, given how Areas 10 (Laos, Vietnam), 13 (Cambodia), 16 (Korea) and 17 (Indonesia) are apparently listed as Britannian Areas in the Light Novels, while looking at in-universe maps, they appear to be Chinese territory in the show. From what I know, this is because the LNs that gave these maps were written at the same time as R2, without any communication between writers, leading to major contradictions. These then weren't helped by the lack of any real official maps outside of tiny bits and pieces, often unlabeled, appearing in various episodes, with some having their own unique borders, and others looking more like a map of the real world that someone took a bucket fill tool to. After much thought, and the realization that I've already been fiddling quite a bit, I've decided to just make my own map based on a combination of the in-universe maps wherever possible and my own interpolations. I'll post it somewhere once it is completed, but suffice to say it draws on both real world history and my best attempt at creating a model for logical expansion.

Chapter 4:

The Palace Command Center's atmosphere is tense as the image of the truck and the surrounding ghetto is displayed on the central monitor. That damn truck... Something about this whole situation seemed horribly wrong. The events of the tunnel shootout from earlier in the day were still playing through her mind. Her own men had turned on each other. The men she'd sent into the tunnel as part of the response team weren't Honorary Britannians, who might have turned out to be terrorist sleeper agents. Nor were they Clovis' old guard, who might have been corrupt enough to have contacts in the local criminal cartels. No, they were her own men. Soldiers who'd followed her on her lighting-fast campaign across North Africa and Arabia, brushing aside all forces that had stood in their way be they EU Regulars, their Colonial troops, or forces of the Middle Eastern Federation. In that campaign alone, she had brought four new Areas into the Empire, from Algeria to Arabia, earning herself the title of the Goddess of Victory from her allies, and the Witch of Britannia from her foes.

Men like that didn't turn traitor on a whim, especially not for some lowly human traffickers. Something was amiss, and Cornelia intended to tear it out of them one way or another.

The door behind her slides open, and she turns to see her sister walk inside.

"Sub-Viceroy." She greets her.

"Cornelia." Euphemia replied, with that same smile on her face that made Cornelia want to simultaneously hug her and chastise her for acting so informally in a public setting.

"What brings you here?" Cornelia asks.

"You've been busy in here all day, and I have just about finished my work. I figured I would bring up some provisions from the kitchens to help you work." Euphemia replies, as several maids walk in behind her and quickly place down some food on the table.

In spite of herself, Cornelia can't help but smile at Euphie being her usual self, doing her best to take care of the people around her, a fact that had made her almost as popular with the troops as Cornelia was. Her sister was rapidly developing a reputation as the peoples' princess in all the right ways, and while Cornelia had forbidden her from being anywhere near a combat zone on her past campaigns, she had nevertheless worked hard as everything from an assistant cook in field kitchens, to a nurse in field hospitals, not once refusing work that practically all other royals, Cornelia included, would have turned down as being beneath them... Though Cornelia knew that soon, things would be different for her. As a Viceroy, Euphie would have far, far greater tasks, and would need to prove herself as more than just a friend of the common folk.

Having let all the officers in the room, Cornelia included, know how hungry they were, Euphie continues speaking.

"... That and I wanted to get an update on the situation. I would have thought it would have been over by now." Euphemia says, her tone genuinely inquisitive rather than condescending.

Cornelia sighs at that.

"Unfortunately, our target has been more of a nuisance than we thought. We were able to locate it in the tunnels, but the response team we sent in was... Killed." Cornelia replies.

"It is now attempting to escape the city. I am tracking it in the hopes of launching a second capture attempt at night, once everything is in place."

"I see." Euphemia replies.

"Do we know who they are, at least?" She asks

"Yes. The Honorary Britannian who found them believed that they were some sort of human trafficking ring. I believe they may have kidnapped someone the Black Knights consider important, given how doggedly they attempted to pursue them last night."

"Aah..." Euphemia frowns.

"... On a related note, I have a task for you." Cornelia says, her sister looking up curiously at that.

"Yes? What is it?"

"One of the Honorary Britannians, the one who found the truck, was killed in the line of duty. I believe that her conduct during the operation deserves recognition, but I cannot think of any medals or commendations for which Honorary Britannians are eligible. I wish for you to do some digging. If there is one, then award it. If not, then design your own and award that instead." Cornelia orders. Better her sister than her. Euphemia had her own public persona to build as a Viceroy, and it would likely do her good if she could start working her magic on the Elevens as well.

"I... Yes, Cornelia. I will." Euphemia nods solemnly.

Suddenly, the VTOL pilot reports in.

"Your highness! I'm seeing multiple suspicious vehicles moving onto the highway! They're... Your Highness! It's the Black Knights!"

The camera shifted to see a line of vehicles, accelerating down the highway in convoy. In the lead is a Knightpolice frame, its sirens and lights active, clearing traffic out of the path of the convoy. Behind it drive a pair of trucks, followed by a bus, and then two smaller trucks, both of which are jury-rigged with weapons, including what appeared to be several MANPADS tubes that looked like they could pose a threat to low-flying aircraft.

Cornelia says nothing at first, scrutinizing the convoy. For something of that size, and with at least one Knightmare involved... Zero had to be present in person for this operation. For them to be operating out in the open like this though... There was definitely something very important in that truck.

Still, if Zero wanted to reveal himself to her so eagerly, perhaps she should take him up on the offer. After all, she'd originally wanted the truck for its usefulness in drawing out Zero. If Zero was already out in the open though...

"Colonel Bradford!" She says.

"Yes, your highness?" The Air Force officer in question snaps to attention. Colonel John Bradford was the commander of the 18th Air Wing stationed within the Settlement. A prestigious position, he had held the post for three years. The unit in question was supposed to have been a fighter wing, meant to defend the Tokyo Settlement from air attack. However, during initial inspections, Cornelia had nearly dismissed him on the spot when she'd found that, instead of fighters lined up on the runway, she instead beheld what appeared to be a glorified transport unit, equipped with a mix of attack VTOLs and heavy airlifters. Fortunately for his career, the man had been quick to explain the matter to her.

Apparently Clovis had fallen quite firmly into the grip of the Knightmare Mafia, with the army and its Knightmare units in particular holding a lot of sway over who got funding, which units got expanded, and which ones got downsized in order to balance the budget. Two years prior, Bradford had seen the writing on the wall and had proactively managed to keep his unit's financial backing intact by proposing that it be restructured into a KMF Airlift Wing, which it officially was. Afterwards, through a mix of creative accounting, politicking and occasionally dipping into his own family fortune, Bradford had just barely managed to maintain both the official transport wing and an off the books fighter wing, all under the same umbrella.

Under any other circumstances, Cornelia would have court-martialed the man on the spot. However, given how he was the only reason Tokyo wasn't completely helpless against air attack, she had instead promoted him to brigadier general for his ingenuity, and then promptly given him a punitive demotion back to colonel for financial mismanagement, something that the man took in good humor. He retained responsibility for both the VTOL wing and the Fighter wing, but now he had a proper budget.

That day, Cornelia was thankful that at least the Navy forces stationed in the Area had proactively sidestepped the whole affair by transferring their headquarters to Guam, which fell under the broad administrative umbrella of Area 7, at the first opportunity.

"How quickly can you put together an airstrike on that convoy?" She asks.

"We've got a squadron of eight Jaguars sitting ready on the tarmac, and another eight that can be scrambled in five to ten minutes. If you give me half an hour or so, we can get a pair of Spitfires up with air to ground payloads." Bradford replies.

"I'll take the second option. Get all sixteen Jaguars up and strike everything on that bridge. The Black Knights have been kind enough to show themselves, and given the size of the force and the apparent importance of the truck, Zero is undoubtedly among them. Take everyone out. I want no surviv-"

"Wait!" Euphemia interjects, causing Cornelia to freeze.

Of all the times for her sister to try and dispute her orders...

"Sub-Viceroy?" Cornelia turns to her sister, letting a bit of her displeasure seep into her voice.

Euphemia meets her gaze and continues.

"I do not believe that we should be carrying out an airstrike like this." She says.

Cornelia is quiet for a few moments, before gently grabbing her sister's hand and pulling her out of the room.

Once they are in private, Cornelia turns to her.

"... Euphie, I hope you have a very good reason for this. I am willing to forgive many things, but directly countermanding my orders in front of my men is-"

"I know. But I sincerely think that launching a strike like this now is a mistake." Euphemia replies.

"Explain." Cornelia orders.

"You are asking Britannian helicopters to attack a target that has anti-air weapons and Knightmares, while they are passing through a densely populated ghetto. Every stray rocket and cannon shell is going to hit someone's home, or someone's car, or someone."

"In exchange, we will kill the single most dangerous terrorist in the Area, as well as avenge our dead brother. Some collateral damage is acceptable-" Cornelia begins.

"No it's not!" Euphemia raises her voice.

"Euphie-"

"No! I thought I already told you this after Saitama! Indiscriminate attacks like this are what got us into this mess in the first place! For every single person we kill, for every single home we destroy, for every single life we ruin, a hundred more people will turn and pick up guns to fight us! This isn't North Africa or the Middle East, where your army is going up against theirs, head to head in the middle of the empty desert! This is a city full of people! Our people! My people!" Euphemia exclaims.

"We should be rebuilding this place, not leveling it, bit by bit!"

"We can rebuild it once the area is pacified." Cornelia replies.

"But it will never BE pacified so long as we keep dropping bombs on their heads! Don't you see? I don't want to become the viceroy of a graveyard, but at this rate that is exactly what will happen!"

Cornelia is quiet for a few moments.

"... And... That's not the only reason." Euphemia continues.

"Go on." Cornelia sighs.

"Right now, as I see it, Zero is on the same side as us. I've looked into this incident on my own. I know almost as much as you do about what happened last night. They aren't ordinary human traffickers. They've done too much to just be simple criminals. Am I correct?" Euphemia asks.

"... Yes. You are." Cornelia replies.

"Then if we know it, Zero clearly knows it too. He probably knows even more than us, given how many risks he is taking just to chase them down. My guess is that he is either going to try and capture the truck and get information out of the people onboard, or he is going to follow the truck all the way to wherever it is based, and then try to deal with the crime network at its source. In doing so, he helps us by getting rid of a crime ring that may have been too powerful or difficult for us to punish easily. It also will likely keep him moving and distracted long enough to not be able to interfere with your operation against the JLF in Narita in two days' time." Euphemia replies.

Cornelia sighs.

Her sister did have some good points. Bombing Elevens would only turn more Elevens against them, though it seemed that not bombing them also turned them against Britannia. However, it was true that the traffickers were particularly suspicious, and that Zero was going all in on chasing them down... Perhaps it was worthwhile, to let her enemies kill each other while she strikes at the JLF. Then, once that battle was done, she would be able to turn her full force on Zero. He had been able to hide amidst a sea of terrorists before, when his group was small, but once the JLF was defeated he would be the largest and most dangerous fish left in the sea... And she would be free to go after him with overwhelming force.

"Fine. We'll do this your way." She finally agrees.

"Thank you, Cornelia." Euphemia smiles up at her.

"But promise me that you will not question me like this in front of my men again." Cornelia narrows her eyes.

"I... I can't promise you that." Euphemia replies.

"Euphie..."

"Cornelia, I... I know you don't like it when I do that, but... Please. I will be the viceroy of Area 11 soon, but right now, I'm still just your sister. People respect my royal title, and they respect me because I am your sister, but they don't yet respect Euphemia li Britannia. Once you're done pacifying this area, the Emperor will likely order you to another war zone. Maybe South Africa, or Russia, or perhaps the Chinese Federation, but... You will be half a world away, and I will be here, alone. I need to start standing on my own now, so that when the time comes, the people will see me not as just your little sister, but as their Viceroy, Princess Euphemia li Britannia. I... I promise I won't do it unless there is a real need, but... I will have to sometimes question you, push back against you, and do so without hesitation or fear. You... You understand, right?" Euphemia asks.

Cornelia looks at her sister for a few moments, before smiling.

"... I do." She says quietly, before pulling her sister into a hug.

"I suppose this means my little sister is finally all grown up."

"H-Hey, I'm not Viceroy yet!" Euphemia protests, returning the hug.

"But you will be soon." Cornelia replies, holding her sister for a long moment before letting go.

"Just stay safe, alright? It's one thing to push back against me. It's another to pick a fight you can't win out of a desire to prove yourself. Just because you push back doesn't mean I cannot override you if I think there is a need. Understand?" She says.

"Of course, Cornelia." Euphemia replies.

"Good. Now then... Let's go. I have an airstrike to call back, and a situation to monitor."

With that, the two princesses returned to the command center, with a fresh set of orders to give.

While Zero would still be shadowed, there would no longer be an attack. Instead, from here on out, all focus would be on the rapidly approaching Narita operation.

"Skies are still clear. Just one bird in the air, but it's hanging back. They definitely know we're here, but they aren't sending anything else in."

Zero breathes a small sigh of relief from within his Knightmare as Minami's report comes in. His own Factsphere confirms this. The swarm of VTOLs he'd been concerned about had not materialized. With two Knightmares and an ample amount of MANPADS, he was confident enough in his ability to take down a fair amount of VTOLs, but there was always the risk that one would get through and strafe his convoy.

To move so much in broad daylight was a risk to be sure, but his enemy had forced his hand. It was either this, or lose both C.C. and Kallen for good.

He was thankful, at least, that Clovis' incompetence had resulted in the dismantling of the Tokyo Settlement's interceptor wing, and as far as he was aware Cornelia had not seen fit to undo the change. Knightmares and Type-81 MANPADS were perfectly suited to shooting down low-flying VTOLs, but there was nothing he could do against a pair of supersonic fighters at high altitude. Fortunately, Clovis' insistence on converting the local interceptor wing into a KMF ferry service had resulted in the nearest Britannian fighter-bombers being stationed three hundred kilometers away at Komatsu Airbase, meaning that by the time the planes could be rearmed for air to ground, ordered into the air, and then flown over to the Tokyo area, at least an hour would have passed. By that point in time, he'd have already heard the comms chatter on captured Britannian radios, and thus would be long gone.

His phone buzzes again. C.C. was giving him another positional update. The target had just exited the Tokyo City limits, still on Route 20. Lelouch sent a quick response confirming his receipt, and then stayed the course. He could, if he wanted to, increase speed and catch the truck. He could likely rescue the hostages then, and Zero would thus save the day. However, that would also leave him without any concrete leads. That truck had to be going somewhere, likely to its alien masters. Much like with Refrain dealers, hitting the low level lackeys did little to stop the business as a whole. No, he would have to strike higher up the chain, aiming for the masters.

Though... It soon became apparent that those masters were quite some distance away. Soon, the city of Tokyo was behind them. As darkness began to fall, they passed through Uenohara, and then through Otsuki.

Finally, a beep from his energy gauge alerted him to the practical limits of his Knightmare.

"Zero here. My energy filler is starting to run low. I'm heading back in." He reports.

"Roger, Zero. R1, R2, slow down a bit and make some room for the boss to head in. We'll be dropping the ramp once you're clear." Sugiyama reports, and the last two trucks in the convoy begin to drop back, leaving room for Lelouch to fall back and drive in between them and the last truck in the convoy.

Once he is in position, he sees the back of the truck open up, unfolding into a large, jury-rigged ramp with wheels at the far edge. A moment later, once the ramp was down, a pair of small drogue chutes were released, pulling a trapeze out With his headlights on, he can see Kallen's Glasgow securely stored in the depths of the hangar. More importantly, he also sees Sugiyama standing at the truck's entryway, radio in one hand and a signal baton in the other.

"Alright! A bit to the left... There. You're on target, Zero." The man reports.

"Roger, I'm moving in." Lelouch replies, concealing his nervousness with practiced ease.

Stunt driving experience was never listed as something terrorists were expected to do, but it was either this or stop for a few minutes and lose valuable time, and so Lelouch bit down his trepidation and begin to ease the Knightpolice frame forward towards the truck. Soon, he was close enough to reach up and grab the trapeze, which he did without issue.

"Right! You've got it! Now ease off the throttle."

Lelouch complied, slowly reducing his Knightmare's throttle down to zero, until the Knightmare was only being pulled along by the truck.

"Good, you're clear to pull yourself aboard, Zero. Easy does it."

Lelouch complies, his Knightmare using the trapeze to pull itself off the road and onto the ramp. His heart lurched as suddenly his Landspinner wheels left the road and the Knightpolice frame pitched back. For a single instant he felt like he was about to fall back onto the road, causing a pileup with the trucks behind him... But the trapeze held taut, and the mech pulled itself completely onto the trailer ramp. The rest was simple. Lelouch drew the Knightpolice unit down into a crouch, allowing it to fit properly inside the trailer, before letting pulling himself inside the rest of the way. Once he was fully inside the truck, the ramp began to close, and he waited for Tamaki and Sugiyama to tie his Knightmare down before opening the hatch and stepping out.

"Thank you." He nodded to Sugiyama.

"You seem quite experienced in Knightmare stunt driving."

"Oh please." Sugiyama laughs.

"Naoto had us all drill in stuff like this. When your primary means of getting the Glasgow around is a truck, well... Some unusual skills quickly become necessary. Kallen was the best at it, of course. Got it right on her first try, but the rest of us had to be able to do the same if we ever wanted to drive the Glasgow ourselves."

"Makes sense." Lelouch nods.

"Zero-sama!" At that, Lelouch turns to see Kaguya standing at the back of a trailer, where a small cabin had been set up to allow for the Knightmare pilots and their support crew to stay.

"Ah, Kaguya. I have not yet forgotten about your briefing." Lelouch nods, before turning to Sugiyama.

"Sugiyama, replace the energy filler. Once that's done, you take the next traffic clearing shift." He orders.

"Understood, Zero-sama." Sugiyama replies, turning away and getting to work while Lelouch headed back to the cabin and took a seat. Looking around, he didn't see Kallen inside. The girl was most likely in the drivers' cabin.

Kaguya followed him inside, and sat down beside him.

"This is starting to look like a rather long drive." She says.

"It'll be as long as it has to be. I do not intend to let them get away." Lelouch replies.

"As expected of Zero." Kaguya says quietly, giving him a small smile.

"Not only Zero." Lelouch replies, and Kaguya nods.

They sit in silence for a while, before Kaguya speaks again.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any to convey the rest of my message to you. Even if I'd have preferred it to be in more comfortable circumstances, time waits for nobody." She says.

"I agree." Lelouch replies, turning to face her, interested in what she had to say. From what she'd said as they were leaving, Kyoto was aware of the alien threat, and had apparently intended to recruit the Black Knights as their primary means of combatting them... And that in turn implied that something had happened to cut the ties between them and the JLF.

"Very well then." Kaguya leans back in her seat.

"That said, you already know most of it. Half of the briefing was just us attempting to convince you as best as we can that aliens were real without any proof other than Toudoh's testimony. That's all been thrown out the window, of course, given how I walked in on you coordinating an anti-alien combat operation, with several of their corpses locked in a freezer in your basement and various other pieces of technology in storage." She laughs.

"Start from the beginning. How long has Kyoto known about the alien threat?" Lelouch asks.

"Not long at all. It all started around... Hmm... About three days ago, when Toudoh and the Four Holy Swords came to us with an urgent request for a meeting. We granted it, and he gave us some rather troubling news."

"That aliens were real?"

"That they were real, that they had managed to infiltrate the JLF, and were busy turning it into an organization of puppets, through a combination of charisma, bribery and mind control. General Katase, according to Toudoh, was believed to have been completely compromised, along with several other members of his staff. He then said that he believed the Lake Kawaguchi hostage crisis was, in effect, the aliens cleaning house. Covertly convincing the majority of their vocal opposition to band together and go on a suicidal mission against Britannia, and then ensuring that every last one of them died in the process." Kaguya says.

"What made him so sure?" Lelouch asks. Did Toudoh mistake his own actions as the actions of alien mind control? That could prove problematic... Or advantageous, if he played his cards right.

"Several factors. First, that Kusakabe was able to make off with a prototype Raikou electromagnetic artillery piece, and unlike a rifle or a bomb, you can't just walk one out of the armory under your shirt. Second, that the members involved in the crisis were from different units, all of whom had in some way voiced doubs and opposition to collaboration with the Emissary, who was apparently the aliens' ambassador to the JLF. Third, testimony from a member of the hotel staff, who reported that the JLF members there were... Slow, and seemed like they were acting in some sort of half-awake haze, rather than being of fully sound mind. Fourth, the fact that as soon as you confronted him, Kusakabe and his entire staff killed themselves for no apparent reason."

"Correction. Only Kusakabe and two of the JLF members in the room killed themselves. I shot the third." Lelouch corrected. It was true. He had gotten Kusakabe and two others with his Geass, but the third was standing off to the side, and so he had to shoot him himself. Still, apparently only one of the three reasons was actually his fault, which was good news. Less potential complications to the story.

"Semantics. The fact remains that they did, in fact, kill themselves for seemingly no reason." Kaguya replies.

"Indeed. I can also corroborate the fact that the JLF in the hotel were acting oddly. At the time Kusakabe killed himself, there was another group of JLF soldiers right outside the door, bringing a hostage up to him. When they heard the gunshots, one of them opened the door and I shot him reflexively. There were three others behind him. By all accounts, I should have been dead, or at the very least engaged in a firefight, but they just... Stood there. My men were able to take them out with negligible resistance. All the plans I made to storm the place successfully turned out to be completely unnecessary because they just let us walk right in." Lelouch answers. Of course, he would have been able to geass his way out of the problem if the Black Knights hadn't shown up in time, but he wasn't about to tell Kaguya that.

"I see. That just confirms it then." Kaguya sighs.

"The question I have now though, is what the plan of action is going forward? I assume that you have cut ties with the JLF and that Toudoh in turn has defected?"

"Yes. Toudoh and the Four Holy Swords are no longer associated with the JLF. They have been quite busy ever since. I believe right now they are, with one exception, in the mountains to the east of Tokyo, searching for an ideal location to begin construction of a new base of operations. Before you ask, the one exception was my escort into Tokyo. He should still be there, near your headquarters."

"I see." Lelouch nods.

"Once the location is selected, Kyoto shall begin construction, and upon completion hand the base over to you."

"It won't be easy to relocate our entire operation over to a location outside of Tokyo." Lelouch points out.

"It won't be, but it will be necessary. While I admire what you were able to do underneath Shinjuku Station, you are already beginning to outgrow that location, and once our supply shipments start coming in, you will quickly start running out of space there. More importantly though, this war against the alien threat will not just be won by bullets. If we are to win, we will need to match and potentially even exceed the aliens technologically. In order to do that we will need laboratories and factories, plus the scientists and engineers to fill them. We will need living space for them all as well. We will need facilities for storage and maintenance of equipment. All this requires space, and space is at a premium out in the Tokyo Settlement. There has already been so much digging in and around the Tokyo area that there isn't enough room for us to build something new there without potentially undermining an entire Ghetto. That and it is too close to carry out some of the operations we believe to be crucial to combatting the alien threat, specifically anything concerning aviation." Kaguya explains.

"I see. You make a fair point. How long until this base can be made ready?" Lelouch asks.

"Hopefully no more than a few months, at least until we can get some bare-bones structures done. It will likely take far longer to complete, but we can probably dig out something serviceable much sooner."

"I see."

"Furthermore, as of this week, you are now the only resistance group in Japan in line to receive significant military aid from Kyoto. The first shipment is slated to arrive tomorrow, and, as you saw, is to consist of Japan's first seventh-generation Knightmare Frame, the Guren Mark-II, designed and built entirely in Japan. In addition to that particular unit, the remainder of the Burai-Kai limited production run, originally reserved for our personal security forces, are to be instead distributed to you. Five such units were given to Toudoh and the Four Holy Swords, and the remaining seven are currently en-route to you. These units are to the Burai what the Gloucester is to the Sutherland. A faster, all-around improved design, particularly when it comes to close quarters combat. More importantly though, these units utilize considerably more indigenously designed components, compared to the standard Burai that, at its core, is still just a reverse-engineered Glasgow. Finally, the rest of our planned Burai production run shall be shipped to you in increments as they are completed. In time, however, we hope to transfer production over to you as we establish new lines at your future headquarters."

"I see. So I will have no shortage of Knightmares going forward." Lelouch concludes.

"Provided you use them well, yes."

"I see." Lelouch nods, and then changes the subject.

"What of the JLF? At this point in time, I am assuming that they are to be considered an enemy?"

"Sadly, yes. Toudoh-san still wishes to try and get some people out, but I do not have high hopes for his chances. Kyoto now considers the JLF and its masters to be a threat equal, if not greater than, Britannia itself." Kaguya replies.

"An interesting way to phrase it." Lelouch muses.

"Britannia can, with effort, be resisted and outlasted through conventional means. As you are likely quite aware, their royal family is a powder keg and the fuse is slowly burning down. The Emperor is sixty two years old, and I do not believe he is likely to live out the decade. So long as we can outlast him, either as guerillas or as a liberated and free nation, our odds of victory against Britannia are looking quite good. Conversely, we know little about the aliens or any similar circumstances on their end, save for their apparent intention of covert manipulation towards what is likely total subjugation. With this in mind, Kyoto considers the unknown and potentially permanent threat a greater priority than one that is sure to collapse in on itself within a decade."

"I see. Then we are of like mind." Lelouch answers.

"Of course we would be. You understand the problem better than most."

Lelouch doesn't respond directly, choosing to change the subject instead.

"Circling back to the JLF, do we know what, if anything, the aliens are attempting to order them to do? Do you know?" He asks.

"Very little, unfortunately. Toudoh got out as soon as he saw the writing on the wall, presumably not wanting to risk getting mind controlled into charging the Viceroy's Palace while naked and armed with nothing but a toothpick. What we do know, however, is that the aliens are engaging in some form of technological transfer. Probably not their best equipment, but still enough to make the JLF far more formidable than it would otherwise be." Kaguya replies.

"I see..." Lelouch frowns.

"Perhaps a raid on the JLF is warranted sooner rather than later. If they are giving lower grade versions of their own equipment to the JLF, it may be easier to capture and reverse engineer that." Lelouch says.

"Perhaps..." Kaguya sighs, looking down.

"It is a shame that it's come to this. The Black Knights and the JLF should have been allies."

"Indeed." Lelouch says, though in truth he knew that in time the JLF and Black Knights would have come into conflict one way or another. The JLF were focused on the liberation of Japan, the restoration of the old government, and a regression back to the old status quo. He wished for a new nation, one that could be honed into the perfect tool to destroy Britannia. The two were ultimately not compatible.

"... You should get some sleep. I'll wake you when we arrive." Lelouch says as behind him, he hears the truck doors opening as Sugiyama eases the Knightpolice frame out of the trailer, ready to run interference once again.

"Yeah. It's been a long day." Kaguya nods, leaning back and closing her eyes, doing her best to get some sleep. Soon, she falls over to the side, leaning against Lelouch as the long truck ride continues.

C.C. felt the truck's speed change, and looked out just in time to see another sign pass on by. This time though, rather than stay on the highway, the truck turned off. Opening her phone, she immediately relayed the information to her contractor.

"It's dark outside..." The woman next to her says quietly. This was Kallen's mother. C.C. wasn't sure what to think of the woman. She knew nothing of her, outside of the drama that Kallen had voiced during their brief encounter in the Refrain den. At a glance she would not have thought that the trembling, beaten-down woman curled up against her could have possibly given birth to someone like her contractor's Q1, but then again, perhaps the woman had been different once.

"... w-will the Black Knights really come?" One of the other prisoners asks quietly.

"Yes. They are right behind us. Soon they will arrive." C.C. replies.

Whether or not it would be fast enough for any of them was another thing entirely, but the hope had kept them quiet during the long, stinking car ride. Between the smell, the darkness and the omnipresent migraine, the ride was bad enough without hundreds of prisoners crowding her to try and get access to her phone for stupid things like calling friends or families. Her phone's battery life was limited, and already it was starting to run down to zero.

This entire venture had turned out to be a bust. She had, at least briefly, allowed herself to hope that perhaps these beings, with their more advanced knowledge of Geass, could have granted her wish. As always though, it had proven to be a false hope. When the not-quite-people driving the truck had first cast their spells, she felt that something was wrong immediately. As a code-bearer she had a constant connection to C's world, and through it the Collective Unconsciousness. She could even, to an extent, see and feel the links of others, that bound them to that other place beyond life and death. The not-quite-people in the Truck still had those links, but they were off. Torn, twisted and mutilated... And when they cast their spells, she felt C's world echo with agonized screams. They echoed still in her mind. A constant, omnipresent headache that just wouldn't go away. It was a sensation of wrongness. Like something foreign was present, invisible but still there, hanging over everyone, doing nothing but causing her to occasionally glance behind her in paranoid reflex.

For the first time, she'd wished V.V. was here with her. She still hated the tiny troglodyte with a burning passion, something she didn't even know she could feel until the prepubescent little rat had shot up her contractor and ruined all her plans. However, Charles' eternal little choir boy possessed a more modern, scientific approach to Geass that she herself had generally eschewed on principle. What was the point of poking and prodding at Geass? It was a wish. It was beyond the mortal world. To try and dissect and classify it like a student would dissect a frog was the height of hubris and arrogance. Still, perhaps the eternally insecure ten year old might have learned something more useful here. At the very least, the little hobgoblin would have suffered the migraine alongside her, which would have made the trip infinitely more entertaining for her.

Time continued to tick on by, minutes passing by one by one on her clock whenever she checks, a desire to know fighting the need to conserve battery power.

The truck is moving over rough ground now. Likely a barely maintained country trail. She relays the information to Lelouch once, more, and recieves a response that the Black Knights had arrived at the trail head, fifteen or twenty minutes behind them on foot if reckoning served, and were now unloading and preparing for combat. A quick look at the phone's clock reveals it to be two in the morning.

"O-Oh god... What is that thing?" One of the prisoners gasps, staring out from one of the holes left in the truck by Kallen's Slash Harken days earlier.

C.C. moves over and stands up just as the truck comes to a halt, nearly sending her back to the floor again. Just barely catching herself, she stares out the window, and sees... Something. It is a huge, round tower. Three stories tall, around fifteen meters across, looking as though someone had stacked three large discs on top of one another. In the light from the truck's headlights, the whole thing shone with an eerie silvery grey sheen, showing three rows of recessed square windows along its sides, one for each floor. A strange, unearthly hum could be heard emanating from it, just barely audible.

More importantly though, the light from the truck's headlights also illuminated something else entirely. A tall, inhuman creature, wearing a red cape and not much else, revealing a gruesome body that seemed to have been grown around a large mechanical device. It had no legs, but it floated through the air, suspended likely by the device in question, that seemed to go from where its feet should have been, all the way up along its spine through an open abdominal cavity and into its upper chest. The creature had human-like hands, albeit with four fingers instead of five, on two muscular arms. Looking up further, the creature's head was completely bald, its skin pitted and stretched tight against its cranium. A deep furrow could be seen, from the top of its head all the way down to its nose, which merged directly with a huge, split mouth that seemed unable to close properly. From the rearmost corner of its jawbone, right below where the ears would be on a human, a pair of huge tusks protruded out, curving forward and ending in sharp points.

It was nothing like the small grey aliens that she had seen earlier in the warehouse. She heard the truck doors open as the men inside stepped out to meet with the creature, and as they did so she pulled out her phone, took a picture, and sent it to the Black Knights. However, a moment after she hit the send button, the door to the truck was flung open and one of their captors is there, gesturing with a gun.

"Alright, all of you! Out, now-" The man's shout cuts off as he sees the light from her phone.

"Shit!" He curses, and C.C. barely has a moment to react before he raises his gun and shoots her. Three bullets strike her in the heart, the neck and the head, and she falls down, dead on the spot.

Even before the trucks come to a halt, Zero is already leaping out of his chair. Kaguya, asleep beside him, is shaken awake.

"Is it time?" She asks.

"It is. Stay with the trucks. I will call you when it is safe to come out and document things for your report to Kyoto." Lelouch replies as Kallen rushes past behind him, throwing open the door to the truck trailer and sprinting for her Glasgow.

"Roger. Stay safe out there, Zero." Kaguya replies solemnly.

"I will."

With that, Lelouch turns away and rushes off, sprinting past Kallen's Glasgow as the redheaded ace starts to run through startup checks. Further down the line, Sugiyama drops the unloading ramp, leaving the path clear for Lelouch and Kallen to disembark.

Quickly rushing through the startup sequence, Lelouch eases the Knightpolice frame out of the trailer and stands up, moving clear so that Kallen can do the same. As she exits though, his phone buzzes, and he glances down to see a simple message, clearly written in haste.

'We stopred come n ow'

Attached was a single image. Poor quality, but clearly visible was a large, alien structure... As well as an alien creature he didn't recognize, hovering several feet off the ground.

With no time to lose, he grabs his radio.

"Attention all units! Our targets have stopped just uphill! They are currently in the process of transferring the abductees to an alien structure of some sort, potentially a ship." He says, hearing Kallen gasp over the radio.

"There is no time to lose. All units, form up and move out, now! Stay in pairs and remember what I told you! If one of you shows signs of mind control, hit him with a taser immediately!" Lelouch says.

"Furthermore, my agent identified a new species of alien. This one appears capable of flight, but outside of this their capabilities are unknown. Be careful out there. Now, move out! Follow the trail uphill, our target should be there." He orders, before opening his Knightmare's Factsphere and beginning to scan the surrounding area.

The Black Knights move out less than a minute later. Kallen's Glasgow, callsign Q1 as usual, leads the way. Behind her are R1 and R2, a pair of trucks equipped with heavy machine guns and MANPADs tubes, which had previously served as the Black Knights' convoy's air defenses. Zero follows behind them, scanning the skies for enemies while Kallen in turn checks the forest ahead. Behind him are several groups of infantry, P1 through P4,

Suddenly, his Factsphere picks up a contact. A second one appears a moment later.

"Incoming! Two contacts, moving high, bearing-" He begins calling out, but one of the trucks interrupts him.

"I have a lock! Firing!" A moment later, a streak of fire rushes up from the truck ahead of him, the surface to air missile racing towards one of the two dots on his scope. A moment later there is a flash of light, a loud bang, and the alien tumbles out of the sky in pieces.

"Good hit! Floater down!" The truck's gunner shouts as Lelouch lines up his guns on the second target, only for a burst of machine gun fire to cut it down as Kallen, quicker on the draw, takes her shot. The alien creature goes down a moment later.

"Got the Floater. Now let's move!" Kallen shouts.

"They know we're here! Move up, faster! P1, P2, P3, P4, take a shortcut uphill, don't bother staying on the road!" Lelouch shouts.

The trucks continue moving up the road, which zig-zags its way up the steep hillside, while the infantry begin to clamber up the steep slopes, taking a more direct route. Kallen moves ahead of the trucks for a few moments, but quickly decides on a different approach. Her Glasgow stops suddenly, before firing its slash harkens up into the hillside, before pulling herself up. Lelouch follows suit, the two Knightmares now moving up with the infantry, leaving the trucks behind as they navigated up the steep, winding road.

One jump, then a pause to let the infantry catch up, fire the harkens again, and then the two Knightmares ascended the final slope.

"I see it!" Kallen shouts.

A moment later Lelouch crests the hill, and he too spots the target... And then he suddenly lets out slack in his slash harkens, letting himself slide back as alien gunfire blasts at the ground before him, blowing chunks out of the hillside.

From down below, a missile is fired, this one tracking a target firing down from the sky above, only to suddenly turn mid-flight, slamming into one of the incoming plasma bolts. A second missile fares better, and a third alien goes down.

Tracers light up the night as Kallen fires up, her sensors allowing her Knightmare to track targets that were all but invisible to the naked eye, lit up by their muzzle flashes against a black, cloudy sky.

Lelouch's sensors ping as well as more contacts make themselves known.

"More contacts! Three of them coming on our left!" He shouts over the radio, raising one arm and firing off a long burst of high caliber rounds in their general direction, more to alert the others of their positions. To their credit, the men on foot immediately dive for cover, moments before a barrage of green bolts slam into the dirt around them as the three aliens begin to strafe the area. Tracers lit up the night as the truck gunners returned fire. A missile follows suit a moment later, though once more it slams into one of the alien energy bolts and explodes harmlessly.

Kallen opens fire beside him, knocking one of the aliens out of the sky with a single hit, while another is cut down by a burst of heavy machine gun fire from one of the trucks. The third holds in place, confused for a moment, and that gives Lelouch the opportunity he needs. He squeezes the trigger, and the last alien falls out of the sky, dead.

"Keep moving! Over the top, now! Q1, the two of us will clear a path for the infantry! Take care of the surroundings, and then breach the structure!" He orders.

"Roger!" Kallen shouts, and the two of them once again pull themselves up over the hilltop. They are greeted by a barrage of green bolts coming from the structure's windows. Kallen immediately throws her Glasgow into an evasive sprint, avoiding the worst of the incoming fire. Lelouch, on the other hand, is not so fast. Alarms blare in his cockpit as one of the bolts slams home, tearing a chunk out of the Knightpolice unit's shoulder, destroying the siren light and rendering the entire limb useless.

"Zero! Are you alright?!" Kallen shouts, firing a long burst of machine gun fire across the structure, aiming for muzzle flashes.

"I'm still operational." Lelouch replies, heart pounding in his chest as he fires off the Knightpolice unit's smoke grenades. Five grenades burst from their tubes, detonating in the air around him and obscuring him from view as he moves out of the immediate line of fire. The resulting smoke also provides cover for the infantry, as P1 and P2 are now pulling themselves up over the top of the hill and sprinting for cover.

"I see the truck!" He hears Tamaki call out.

"Good. P2, move up to take it. If we're lucky, the hostages are still inside. I will provide cover." Lelouch orders.

"Roger that! Come on!" Tamaki shouts.

"P1, P3, start moving up towards the structure! Kallen, P4, put suppressing fire on those windows! Keep their heads down! R1, R2, what's your status?" Lelouch demands as he fires several bursts of machine gun fire at the truck, careful not to actually hit the vehicle.

"Skies are clear! We're moving up!" R1 reports.

"Yeah, we'll be there soon!" R2 adds.

"Someone's there! It's a person!" Tamaki shouts. Lelouch sees them too, raising a hand to point at one of the incoming Black Knights, while the other holds a submachine gun.

"They're armed- ARRGGHH! T-THEY'RE IN M-MY HEA-"

The shout over the radio is cut off by an audible buzz as someone is quick on the draw with a taser.

"S-Shimura's down!"

"You BASTARD!" Tamaki roars, and Lelouch sees the man sprint out of cover, raising his new arm, aiming the concealed weapon within at his target. The unknown man seems momentarily confused, and in that instant he is cut down by a burst of weapons fire. Another figure moves in the shadows as Lelouch approaches, trying to move around the truck in order to get a better angle.

"DIE!" Tamaki shouts, and Lelouch sees him grab hold of the figure's throat and squeeze, killing the abductor in an instant.

"DIE!" Tamaki roars again, vanishing from view as he attacks some other unseen assailant behind the truck.

By the time Lelouch drives around the front of the truck, the fight is already over, with Tamaki standing in the middle of four dead bodies, all of them human, wearing black suits.

"I... Sorry Zero. They just... They tried to..." Tamaki pants.

Then he pauses.

"... What the...?" He mutters, bending down to look at the body.

"What is it?" Lelouch asks, keeping his eyes open for more threats.

"Their eyes... They're pitch black! These things aren't human!" Tamaki points to one of the suited corpses.

"I see..." Lelouch frowns.

"... We can figure out what that means later. For now, check the truck." Lelouch orders. Research would come later, once the bullets stopped flying.

"The back's open. It's empty." Tamaki replies.

"Damn... Right! P1, P3, what's your status?" Lelouch moves back and surveys the battlefield.

"P1 here! We've at the target!" Ohgi reported in, and Lelouch looked and confirmed that one of his units had indeed reached the alien structure.

"P3 here! We're pinned down behind a boulder! There's a door up ahead of us, but we can't get to it!" Minami reports. Lelouch looks, and sees the group pinned down behind a large boulder, green fire blasting out chunks of rock with each hit, the men behind it taking an occasional pot-shot but unable to hit much. Rather than run straight for the target from Kallen's position, the unit seemed to have moved off to the right, running for cover in an attempt to get to safety first, and then move in later. Unfortunately, this also put them at an angle where Kallen's machine gun could not effectively suppress the aliens inside their ship. More importantly, Lelouch could not make out any sort of door ahead of them. It seemed to just be smooth, featureless metal, but perhaps they were onto something...

"P2, start moving up towards the structure. I'll provide covering fire. P3, stay back, you're on suppression duty now. Kallen, move over and help take some of the heat off P3. P1, move up to your left along the wall, see if you can find that door P3 mentioned. R1, R2, stay back and watch the skies, I don't want you taking any hits and going up!" Lelouch orders.

"Roger!"

One of his suit's arms was gone, but he had a second still ready to go. With that, he raised his machine pistol and moved out, firing a long burst of heavy machine gun fire at a row of windows overlooking P2's path.

"Come on! Let's go!" Tamaki shouts, beginning to run towards the structure, the rest of P2 following close behind. A burst of alien weapons fire comes back at them, but Lelouch quickly fires at the source, keeping the aliens' heads down, ensuring that they are able to sprint across the gap in the trees safely.

"Zero! We've found the door! Looks like it opens automatically." Ohgi reports.

"Good. Stay outside for now until I give the order. P2's moving in to reinforce you now." Lelouch says.

Suddenly, movement near the side of the structure catches his eye, and he sees a second door on the side of the ship open. Three figures glide out, immediately taking flight.

"Contacts!" He shouts, turning his gun on them, P2 opening fire as well. Lelouch sees one fall to his shots, and someone in P2 claims a second as a kill, but the third alien is quickly ascending, and as Lelouch takes aim, he fires a quick burst... Only for his gun to run dry on ammo. He quickly attempts to reload, but all he gets is a warning, and he realizes that without a second working arm, he isn't able to reload his gun. Cursing, he throws the Knightpolice unit into an evasive turn, but he isn't fast enough. A burst of alien gunfire slams into his Knightmare's knee, blowing out the joint and causing the right leg to snap in half.

"Zero's hit!" He hears Tamaki shout as his Knightmare pitches forward and slams into the dirt. Alarms blare in the cockpit, and Lelouch realizes to his horror that he is caught out in the open, completely immobilized as the aliens, no longer suppressed by his Knightmare, open fire at him from the windows above.

CRACK!

One bolt slams into the rear of his cockpit block, burning clean through the armor just behind him. He feels hot metal spray against the top of his helmet, and suddenly the noise of the battlefield can be heard clearly through the hole.

"This is P4! We'll cover you, Zero!" He hears Sugiyama shout, and he sees tracers flying overhead as one of the units he left in the rear begins to lay down suppressive fire. However, there is still one more alien up above, moving erratically, firing down at P2 as they try to shoot back.

"Someone take out that flying bastard!" He hears Tamaki shout over the radio.

A moment later he hears a missile being fired from one of the trucks behind him, but suddenly the missile veers off course, its infrared seeker locking onto one of the plasma bolts flying across the battlefield, causing it to arc back down. It detonates only a few meters above his Knightmare, and Lelouch hears fragments ricochet off his armor.

"Shit! Zero, are you alright?!" R1 calls out.

"I'm fine!" Lelouch shouts back into the radio, just as Kallen takes aim with her own rifle. A quick burst of gunfire, and the flying alien is knocked out of the air.

As he watches it fall, Lelouch reaches for the controls again. He can't exit the Knightmare frame. A single shot from the aliens could be his end, and even with the suppressive fire the aliens are still taking occasional shots. Instead, he takes aim with his Slash Harkens, firing them at the windows on the second storie of the alien structure. One of them misses, but the second slams home, punching through the window and anchoring in place. With that done, he engages the winch, and his Knightmare is dragged forward through the dirt until it comes to rest beside the smooth, silvery walls of the alien structure. Once he comes to a stop, he pulls the automatic door release lever, only for nothing to happen. Of course the mechanism had to be fried... Fortunately, reaching back and opening the hatch manually produced better results.

Drawing his pistol, he pulls himself out of the wrecked Knightmare and descends to the ground. Tamaki is there, waving to him.

"We've moved up to the side door, and we're ready to go in. Just give the order!" The man grins.

"Well done. P1, how do you open that door, do you know?" He asks.

"It's automatic. Just put your hand on it and it should slide open." Ohgi replies.

"Good. On my mark, open the door, toss in flashbangs, and then move in. Watch your fire in there, the abductees could be anywhere inside!" Lelouch orders, taking up a position near the entrance.

"Three... Two... One... Go!" He slams his hand on the door, and it slides open almost immediately.

As soon as it's open, two flashbangs fly in, one from Tamaki and the other from a man beside him. They look away, just as the grenades go off.

"Move in, now!" Lelouch shouts, and Tamaki takes the lead.

The interior of the structure is dark, dimly lit by small lights in the walls and ceiling. Tamaki spots something and opens fire, the creature letting out a long, low groan as it dies.

"Clear!" He calls out as the group files inside.

The first thing that hits Lelouch is the stench. The entire craft seems to be filled with the scent of blood and rotting meat, and the source is clear to see. Just to the right of where he entered are several large tanks, clear-sided, and filled with a dark red sludge. Bones and occasional body parts can be seen breaking through the surface, the gruesome mixture bubbling slowly.

"What the fuck...?" Tamaki whispers, just before he hears a scream from further inside the ship.

"That wasn't an alien!" One of the Black Knights nearby exclaims.

"Move up. Keep a flashbang ready." Lelouch says softly.

The group moves deeper into the ship, weapons drawn as they pass through the narrow gaps between the strange, macabre storage tanks...

Suddenly, they round a corner, and the sight that greets Lelouch is even more horrifying.

The cramped passageways of the alien craft open up into a large room, in the center of which is a large table, illuminated by bright lights. On the table is a man, naked, his chest cut open but clearly still alive, screaming as an alien works over him, cutting and slicing at his internal organs. This alien is no different from the floating ones they'd fought outside, save for its cape being white instead of red. Nearby, several other abductees are chained to the wall, staring in wide-eyed horror at the scene unfolding before them, while a pair of red-caped aliens stand guard.

On the other side of the room are more tanks, and inside one of them... Lelouch's eyes widen. He sees C.C. trapped inside, pounding on the walls, her screams of pain almost entirely muffled by the thick glass as acid floods the chamber.

"GO! NOW!" He shouts, drawing his pistol and opening fire on one of the red-caped guards. His first bullet misses, passing through the creature's open chest cavity. The second strikes the metal float device within, damaging and causing the creature to drop, its return shot hitting the ceiling and leaving a black scorch mark. His third shot hits the creature in the head, and two more finish it. Around him, the Black Knights open fire as well, cutting down the other two aliens in a matter of seconds.

Lelouch pays them no mind though, instead sprinting across the room.

"C.C.!" He shouts, reaching the tank, seeing the green-haired girl inside staring back at him, still screaming as he frantically searches for some sort of release mechanism.

"The door's on the left side!" One of the prisoners shouts, and he runs around the side to see a release mechanism. He pulls on it, and the door cracks open, opening halfway, just barely above the level of the bloody acid within. C.C. reaches out and he takes her hand, pulling her out of the deathtrap he had found her in.

"Up above! Behind you!" He hears someone shout, and he looks up to see another alien floating down from above the operating table. It seems as though the ceiling above the table extends into the second storie, where

It fires, and one of the Black Knights, the one who'd moments before been throwing a flashbang in to help breach the ship, was gone. By the time he's brought his pistol up, Tamaki has already opened fire, killing the creature.

Up above, more sounds of gunfire can be heard. Clearly Ohgi's group had made it up there already. Lelouch, however, is focused on the trembling girl in his arms, who is desperately trying to bite back screams of pain, her whole body shaking.

"Water! Someone get me water, now!" He shouts. One of the Black Knights runs forward, grabbing a canteen. Lelouch immediately opens it and dumps it out over C.C.

The girl's entire lower body is a mangled mess. Her prisoners' straitjacket has been completely destroyed below the waist, and blood was pouring freely from the many open wounds all over her legs. Still, she breathes a small sigh of relief as the cool water begins to wash the acid out of her wounds.

"N-Nhhh... t-thank... y-you..." She says quietly, reaching up, one hand gently touching the side of his mask, before her body goes limp, and Lelouch feels her heartbeat fade as she bleeds out.

"Oh... Oh no..." He hears one of the Black Knights whisper behind him.

"We were too late... I... I'm sorry, Zero." Tamaki says quietly, walking up to him.

"... Your pistol, Tamaki?" Lelouch holds out his hand.

"Huh?" Tamaki blinks.

"She will need something to protect herself with when she wakes up." Lelouch answers.

"What? But-"

"She will make it. I know it." Lelouch says firmly as he pulls C.C's limp body up off the floor and leans it against the wall near the other prisoners.

"I... Alright, if you say so..." Tamaki says, reaching back and unholstering his sidearm. Lelouch takes it and presses it into C.C's lifeless hands.

"Right..." He pauses.

"Ohgi, what's your status?" He asks.

"Zero-sama! We've cleared the second floor. Looks like there's ah... Three more weird elevators around here. Two look like they lead up, and the third goes down. We're also uh... We're seeing some weird tanks up here... They look like they're full of... Melted people..." Ohgi says nervously.

"There are more of them down here. I... Shudder to think of what happened here." Lelouch says quietly.

"P-Please..." The prisoner on the table gasps, interrupting them. Lelouch looks over, and suddenly recognizes the man.

Just a few days earlier, he and Kallen had seen him being beaten by Britannian delinquents. He remembered using his Geass to make them stop, ordering hot dogs, and discussing the benefits of the Honorary Britannian system with Kallen... Of course, he spoke as Lelouch Lamperouge, not as Zero, and she had slapped him for it.

It seemed that he had ended up inside the Refrain den and was abducted with the rest... And now...

"Z-Zero...?" One of the other Black knights says nervously as they eye the man, cut open, his ribcage exposed, blood everywhere, hooked up to a bunch of strange machines to keep him alive and in agony as the aliens did who knows what to him...

"P-Please... I-I..." The man cries.

"... Is... Is there anything we can..." One of the Black Knights in the room voices the question, though everyone already knows the answer.

Nobody seems willing to answer. Tamaki is staring down at the floor, fists clenched. Others are looking at each other, wondering which one would be the one to say the horrible truth.

"... k-kill... me..." The man on the operating table groans weakly.

Lelouch steels himself.

He was the leader here.

This was his responsibility.

"... There is nothing we can do for him but end his suffering." He finally says quietly as he walks forward. It was true. The man was being kept alive by the machinery he was plugged into. Any attempt to move him would likely kill him on the spot, and he had no idea what the aliens had done to him.

The other Black Knights stand back solemnly.

Lelouch reaches the man, staring down at him... And then a panel in his helmet pops open, revealing the red glow of his Geass beneath.

"You will no longer suffer. Your last moments will be painless."

He sees the man close his eyes, his lungs visible shifting as he breathes a shuddering sigh of relief.

Lelouch reaches down and covers the man's eyes with one hand, while the other brings up his pistol, holding it against the side of the man's head and-

BLAM!

Lelouch stands back, turning away from the gruesome sight before him, doing his best to fight back the urge to vomit.

"... Secure the floor." He orders quietly.

"Yes, Zero-sama." The rest of the men comply.

"Ohgi." He picks up his radio.

"Yes, Zero-sama?"

"Keep an eye on the elevators that lead upstairs, just in case something comes down. We will be up to join you shortly." He says.

"Yes, Zero-sama." Ohgi replies.

"Kallen. What is the situation outside?" He turns to her.

"It's quiet, Zero-sama. Is..." Kallen trails off.

Lelouch looks around, and recognizes a tall brown-haired woman in a maid's dress curled up against the wall with the rest of the prisoners.

"Your mother is here. She looks to be alive. Once the area is secure, we'll get them out. For now though, it is safer for them to remain here." Lelouch orders.

"..." Kallen doesn't reply immediately, but he can hear her let out a long-held breath over the radio.

"... Good." She finally says.

"The rest of this area is clear, Zero. It looks like there's a large section in the middle of this structure that can't be accessed from this floor., but everything here is clear." Tamaki reports.

"Right. In that case, we're leaving to join up with Ohgi. We-"

Lelouch is cut off by a sudden burst of weapons fire from above.

"Dammit! Nozomi is down! They're coming from the other side!" He hears Ohgi shout.

"Come on! Move!" Lelouch orders in turn, sprinting for the exit.

He rushes out the side of the structure, before running around the side to the entrance Ohgi used, the rest of the Black Knights following close by. Opening the door, he pauses for a quick breather as the Black Knights file in ahead of him.

They find themselves in a small room, with a small column of light in its middle, just large enough for a man to walk through.

The sound of weapons had ceased, but the Black Knights moved fast anyway. Tamaki is the first to step into the beam, and it immediately lifted him up to the second floor. Seeing this, the rest of the Black Knights followed suit.

They find themselves in another, larger room with three doors. The one on the left is open, with an alien corpse keeping the door from closing. This one is wearing a green cape rather than the standard red... Another higher rank, perhaps? Or some sort of specialist?

"Zero-sama!" He sees Ohgi waving him over.

"Ohgi. What happened?"

"Some alien came out of that lift to the lower level over there." The man points to the door on Zero's right.

"There are two more lifts to the upper floor on the opposite side, in the two rooms over there."

"I see." Lelouch nods.

"In that case, you will go down to the lower level where that thing came from and clear it. We will move to the upper level and deal with the enemies there. It looks like this is almost the end." He says.

"Yes, Zero-sama." Ohgi nods, gathering his men and moving out, as Lelouch did the same, passing by several dead alien corpses, as well as two more dead Black Knights.

They move up to one of the elevator rooms, and Lelouch pauses.

"Throw some grenades up the elevator shaft first, then move. This is almost the end." He says.

His men nod as they reach the door. Opening it, they begin to move in... Only for a small object to tumble down the beam ahead.

"GRENADE!" Lelouch shouts, diving back and out to the side, clearing a path for the others. Tamaki dives on top of him a moment later, both of them tumbling to the metal floor as more Black Knightls leap back out of the room... But not all make it. Two seconds later the grenade explodes, green fire flashing through the room, the whole structure shaking.

"Zero!" He hears Ohgi shout.

"I... I am alright." Lelouch replies as Tamaki scrambles off of him, before taking a look around the room.

Two more of his men were gone.

A look inside the room told him the worst. The elevator was gone.

That left one more.

"Come on. We... We are almost done here." He says to the rest, leading them onwards, towards the last lift, wishing with every fiber of his being for this nightmare to end already.

This time, upon opening the door, his men don't rush in. Instead, Lelouch grabs his radio.

"Kallen! Move around to the northeast side of the structure and put some shots through the windows." He orders.

"Roger, Zero-sama." Kallen replies.

A few seconds pass, and then they hear the rattle of high-caliber gunfire working its way through the floor above.

Then his group moves into the elevator room.

"Kallen, cease fire." Lelouch orders, and as soon as the fire stops his men begin to step into the elevator, reaching the top floor. An alien corpse is lying on the ground, mangled beyond recognition, but clutching a thankfully unprimed grenade in its hand as well.

"Flashbangs." He orders again as his mean stack up on the final door.

"Now!"

With that the door is opened, revealing a large, open room filled with tables and computer consoles. Several aliens, including one wearing a bright blue cape, look over at them as they throw flashbang grenades into the room. Then, as soon as they go off they rush in. Blind plasma fire greets them, too inaccurate to hit them as they spread out, returning fire, cutting the last aliens down without mercy. In a matter of seconds, the top floor is clear.

"Ohgi, report." Lelouch orders once the bullets have stopped flying.

"We've cleared the bottom floor. It... It looks like this is an... Engine room of some sort." Ohgi replies.

"Up here it looks like a bridge and crew quarters." Lelouch replies.

"I think this might be a ship." Ohgi says.

"I think so too. It would be much easier to simply land such a structure here one day rather than build it. How long it has been here though..." Lelouch trails off.

"Right. No sense speculating, we can do that later. For now, R2, drive down and find Kaguya-hime and bring her up here. We need to figure out what to do with this thing. In the meantime, start gathering up the alien corpses and any loose artifacts for transport. Ohgi, Kallen, help take care of the prisoners. We'll transport them back to Tokyo once we've figured out what to do with the alien craft." He orders, turning and heading back down the strange alien elevator.

With that, the Black Knights went to work. The battle was over, but the job was hardly over.

Hours later, the work is still ongoing. The Black Knights have by now largely gone to sleep, with Kaguya having called in a unit from Kyoto to take over from them. The decision had been made to attempt to disassemble the craft on site and transport as much of it back to Kyoto for analysis as possible. Said task was proving to be surprisingly simple, with apparently much of the craft being completely modular, with large components ranging from the strange acid tanks to the computer cores to even the power systems and engines all being designed to be quickly removed and reconfigured, though the men inside were slowly going about the task in heavy EOD equipment to avoid any sudden surprises.

Lelouch himself had only had a short, fitful sleep since the battle ended. He had now risen and stepped out, watching the sun rise over the mountains as the chilly morning breeze washed over him.

"Zero-sama."

He turns at the voice, and sees Kaguya approaching him.

"Kaguya. I trust you are doing fine after seeing the inside of that ship?" Lelouch asked.

"I should be asking you that, L-Zero-sama. You were the one inside there when the bullets were flying, and..." Kaguya replies.

"Yes." Lelouch replies simply, turning back to look at the sunrise.

"I will still be able to act as Zero. If anything, that has only made me more certain. We must all do our duty, or we will likely end up in tanks just like those." He sighs.

"That much I know, Zero, but what about you? Not the revolutionary leader, but the man beneath the mask. Are you alright?" Kaguya presses.

"I am fine." Lelouch lies.

Kaguya shakes her head, walking closer and reaching up to put a hand on his shoulder.

"... How could anyone be so callously cruel?" She finally asks.

"Hm?" Lelouch turns to her.

"You saw what they were doing in there... The tanks full of blood and bones, the man they cut open..." Lelouch flinches slightly at that second mention.

"How could any thinking species advanced enough to travel the stars act like this? Wouldn't they need at least some level of empathy in order to make such things together?" Kaguya asks.

Lelouch is silent for a long while before he replies.

"The creatures we fought were not natural. Something like that, with a biology built around that strange flight device... It could not come about as a product of natural evolution. Moreover, the aliens we fought, today and earlier... None of them ever made any attempt to flee or surrender. Some of them even remained at their posts, doing... Their work right up until we broke in and started shooting. Perhaps these creatures are simply slaves, conquered in some bygone age by a master that we have yet to see. Cogs in some great, unfathomable machine that spans the stars, consuming civilizations to fuel itself." He says.

"But... Why? How could...?" Kaguya trails off.

"There are many reasons." Lelouch shrugs.

"Perhaps they might sustain themselves on plunder and slavery. Perhaps they simply see it as their duty to conquer all other life. Perhaps they see all other life as a threat and seek to eliminate it before it grows to become a problem for them. Many possibilities, and none of them are good." He pauses.

"How is Kallen?" He asks, changing the subject.

"She is with her mother. I think she's still asleep." Kaguya replies.

"At least something good came out of all this, then." Lelouch sighs.

The two of them are quiet for a while as the sun slowly rises up over the horizon, its rays slowly beginning to warm them.

"Do you think we can win?" Kaguya asks.

Lelouch ponders the simple question for a long moment.

"Yes." He replies.

"I do not know how yet, but I do know that if they had the power to simply crush us with impunity, like Britannia did to Japan, they would have done so. We would have had no warning before their ships suddenly showed up above our cities and demanded our surrender. The fact that they are carrying out operations like this instead is a sign that they need to weaken us first if they want to succeed in conquering us first. This means we have some breathing room. I do not know how much, or for how long, but at the very least we have some time in which to shore up our defenses and chart our course to victory."

"I see." Kaguya nods.

"Then I shall be at your side until the end. For better or for worse." The small girl replies, giving him a smile and taking his hand.

Lelouch does not respond. The memories of the battle are still fresh in his mind. The tanks full of gore, the man on the table, cut open and yet still alive, the strange creatures and their unnatural bodies, seemingly grown around a piece of alien technology...

There was no doubt in his mind now of the fate that awaited mankind under an alien thumb, but was he really the best one to lead the battle against them? He had prepared to fight Britannia. He knew Britannia. He could obliterate Britannia, that much he was certain of... But this alien threat? What did he know about them?

He takes a deep breath and shoves these treacherous thoughts aside. They do him no good, not when he was already set on his course. Instead, he gives Kaguya's hand a small squeeze. There was no turning back from this, and even if this fight was futile, he would much rather die standing his ground than retreat and live a life of happy pretend-ignorance before the end comes and he ends up on such a table himself.

"After considerable searching of the area, we have narrowed down the location of the JLF Headquarters to this formation here, in the Narita Mountain Range." Cornelia begins her briefing, gesturing to a large map on display at the front of the briefing room. Her staff was present in full force, either directly in the form of the Guilford, who sat at the front of the room, or remotely in the form of Generals Darlton and Alexander, who were both listening in remotely from a rail car just north of Narita and a hotel in Osaka respectively. Her sister was also in the crowd, sitting beside Guilford, along with many other unit leaders, from the many knights who had accompanied her on campaign, all the way to the now-disgraced Purists, who sat in the back, the others giving them a generous berth.

"The terrain here is unusual, composed of so-called Sakuradite Rises. These are veins of metallic ore that have been pushed up by Sakuradite veins running deep below the ground, forming relatively loose, porous mounds of rock and rubble, filled with natural caves and grottos. The Elevens call them something along the lines of the Shifting Mountains, because of their natural instability causing them to change shape during local earthquakes. It is believed that the JLF found one such cave network and reinforced it, turning it into their primary base of operations, as well as occupying various buildings in the wilderness surrounding the city of Narita." Cornelia says.

"The mountain in question is all but impossible to assault from the north due to steep cliff faces overlooking a river. Thus, we shall encircle the mountain from the south with our main force, and station blocking units in the north to prevent any attempt at retreat." As Cornelia speaks, unit markers appear on the map.

"There shall be three forces involved in this operation. General Darlton shall be command of the East Force, which shall be covertly delivered to the area of operations by rail tomorrow morning. Center Force shall be under the command of General Alexander, and shall be airlifted into position upon the commencement of the operation. Finally, Left Force shall be under my personal leadership, and shall be composed of the forces currently present in Tokyo, which shall set out tomorrow morning. With these units, we shall swiftly encircle the JLF base in its entirety, cutting off all lines of escape. We shall then storm up the mountain, destroy any enemy external defenses, and then open up entrances into subterranean facilities for our infantry to enter through. Our objective is the total annihilation of all JLF forces in the area." Cornelia concludes.

"Your Highness!" Cornelia searches the crowd until she finds the speaker.

"Yes, Colonel Bradford?"

"What would the air forces be doing during this time? I would like to suggest that we open with a carpet bombing attack to level their surface defenses, and we possess ground penetrating bombs capable of destroying their subterranean facilities. I humbly request that you allow us the chance to destroy the JLF from the air first." The man says.

"That will not be necessary, Colonel." Cornelia replies.

"But-" The man begins before catching himself.

"While your alternative would certainly be effective, it runs a considerable risk of destroying JLF records that concern their collaborators. The group clearly has powerful backers and financiers who provide it with everything from counterfeit cash to Knightmares. If their records are lost, then we lose our best chance at finding those backers and striking at them as well." Cornelia explains.

"Then may we at least provide close air support to your forces as you advance?" Bradford presses.

"No. Our rate of advance will likely take us into close quarters with the enemy. Close air support runs too high a friendly fire risk. Your air forces will remain on the ground at their base unless I give the order." Cornelia says, her tone booking no argument.

Bradford looks like he wants to argue, but wisely says nothing. Instead, he nods and sits back down.

"Yes, your highness."

Another raised hand, this time from a Major Alexis Rhodes.

"What sort of opposition can we expect?" She asks.

"The JLF is confirmed to have access to an Eleven-manufactured knockoff of the Glasgow Knightmare Frame, which is believed to be in mass production somewhere in Area 11. It is unknown if it is produced directly at the JLF Headquarters or elsewhere, but regardless they are no match for our Sutherlands. Our best estimates place them as having between sixty and one hundred and fifty such units available. We shall thus have a three to one advantage in Knightmares. Moreover, the JLF has never engaged in any proper combat operation against our forces. Their pilots are inexperienced and likely poorly trained. The JLF is also believed to have converted several Burai into electromagnetic artillery pieces, one of which was encountered during the Lake Kawaguchi Hotel Crisis. These units are large and cumbersome, and in terms of capability are roughly on par with MEF Bamides. We may either destroy them with our own artillery if found, or flank and eliminate them in close quarters with our Knightmares." She pauses.

"Finally, the JLF possesses a considerable stockpile of pre-war Eleven weaponry. Old tanks, artillery pieces, IFVs, and APCs. These old relics may pose a threat to us if employed properly, but we have trained extensively in countering dug-in positions such as those we encountered at Itsukishima seven years ago. We have already demonstrated our ability to destroy Itsukishima-style defenses many times already, most recently against the Blood of the Samurai faction up north. Follow all orders to the letter, and the enemy shall be swept aside like the relics they are."

Another hand is raised, and Cornelia's eyes narrow at the man in question. Jeremiah Gottwald... How far the man had fallen. Once a respectable and loyal member of Lady Marianne's house guard, the man had apparently joined the Purists since the unit's disbandment, and was now a disgraced man, under suspicion of treason, his Purist faction falling apart around him.

"What role shall the Purist Faction play in the coming battle?" The man asked.

"You shall stay in the rear as a mobile reserve. If I call on you, you will be expected to follow all orders to the letter. Failing that, you are to remain in the rear." Cornelia replies simply.

The Margrave looked like he wanted to protest, but the woman sitting beside him pulled him back down.

"Yes, your highness." The woman in question bows.

Cornelia ignores her, as now Euphemia raised her hand.

"Yes, Sub-Viceroy?" Cornelia asks.

"What of the civilians in the nearby city? Will they be evacuated?" Euphemia asks.

"No. An evacuation order issued beforehand will give the JLF advance warning of our operation, and if issued during the battle would lead to a flood of civilians running around in an active combat zone, increasing risks. A shelter in place order will be given as soon as our forces deploy for battle, but the JLF does not have any presence in the city itself. Instead, with our rapid rate of advance the fighting is expected to take place north of the city, in an area where civilian casualties are not expected to be a problem." Cornelia replies.

"Very well." Euphemia nods and sits back down.

More questions came, concerning minutiae as the time ticked down towards the operation's start. It would be a few hours before the meeting ended. Then, with the clock slowly ticking down to zero, the Britannian Army began to prepare to annihilate the last vestiges of old Japan.

The day passed by slowly and thankfully uneventfully. Lelouch's biggest fear, namely that the aliens would attempt an attack to reclaim their lost ship, did not materialize. During this time C.C. had recovered from her previous death, though the green-haried girl had spent the day alone, away from the others. For his part, Lelouch had been thinking of the black-eyed humans Tamaki had killed earlier. They had red blood, not the yellow-green fluid of the aliens they killed, and though they wielded human-built weapons, they also seemed to have the power of mind control. It was just another concerning revelation in a day full of them. The possibility that the aliens had been making pseudo-humans to act as infiltrators, or worse, that the aliens were turning captured humans into infiltrators, was yet another complication to his planning that he would have to account for.

However, that was a problem for later. Thus, as the sun set he had retired to his truck to get some sleep. Unfortunately, he had not been able to get much. The uncomfortable cot inside the truck, his equally uncomfortable choice of sleeping attire, coupled with the events of the battle playing through his head, meant that on several occasions Lelouch would fall asleep, only to wake up some time later, gasping for breath as some nightmare faded away.

Eventually he gave up on sleep entirely, and stepped away to open his laptop. He had not had much time to check his messages, and outside of a single call from Inoue to confirm that the Kyoto shipment had come in, he'd had next to no contact with the outside world.

The first few messages he finds are applications to the Black Knights, and he begins filtering through them one by one.

One of them, however, is particularly unusual.

Diethard Reid. A Britannian, and a rather wealthy one no less. Though a commoner by birth, his skill at media manipulation had made him a recognizable face as a producer and reporter on Hi-TV. If the report was true, the man had grown disillusioned with having to constantly cover the vapid nobility, spin lies into the truth, and cover up Britannia's failures. An interesting motivation, Lelouch concluded. He would probably also be fed up if he were in Reid's position.

However, it was what followed later in that message that caused his eyes to widen in shock.

Ried was claiming that a Britannian attack on the JLF Headquarters in Narita was to take place the following day, with Cornelia departing in the morning...

Lelouch checks the time, and his breath hitches.

This was not good. Maybe, if he rushed now, he might just be able to make it, but...

He took a deep breath and considered what he knew.

The JLF were receiving technological aid from the Aliens.

The JLF was, at this point, an alien puppet.

Cornelia was, to the best of his knowledge, unaware of this fact.

The aliens, however, may very well know that the attack was coming in advance.

Therefore, Cornelia was likely walking straight into a trap.

If Cornelia and her forces were destroyed in an alien trap, that would leave next to nothing to stop the JLF from conquering Japan for the Aliens and establishing a puppet government.

If the JLF did so, then their first moves would be to stamp out the Black Knights and Kyoto, killing their largest remaining opponent before the war had even begun.

Therefore, the JLF had to be prevented from destroying Cornelia at any cost.

With that in mind he stands up and grabs his radio.

"Attention! I need everyone up and ready, now! We need to leave early!" He shouts.

He had planned to drive back to Tokyo tomorrow anyway, and thus the Black Knights already had their equipment loaded, but this required the timetable to be stepped up a few hours.

"W-What? What's going on?" He hears Kallen exclaim from the trailer behind him.

"We need to get to Narita as soon as possible! Cornelia is about to begin her attack on the JLF, and she is walking right into an alien trap. If she falls, Japan will be lost to the aliens. We need to get to Narita, immediately!" He shouts.

"Wha-? R-Right! Alright!" Kallen shouts, still clearly half asleep herself as she stands and begins carrying out his orders.

"What's going on?" Kaguya emerges from the compartment beside him.

"Kaguya, get in contact with the Kyoto team here. Tell them we are leaving due to an urgent matter that has just cropped up. I trust they will handle the rest of the transport themselves?"

"Yes, Zero-sama." Kaguya replies, pulling out her phone.

All around him, the Black Knights slowly woke up, drivers dashing to their posts, engines starting up as they prepared to carry out his orders.

"And get a message out to Toudoh as well. Tell him that Cornella is about to attack the JLF, and that we shall rendezvous with him near... Shiroi. I'll tell him the exact location later, but we need to get moving ASAP!" Lelouch tells Kaguya after a few seconds' thought, pausing to look at a map only briefly.

"Roger!" Kaguya salutes, before beginning to relay his orders to the Kyoto team over the radio.

With that done, Lelouch pulls out his phone and dials Inoue, praying that the woman is still awake at this odd hour.

Fortunately, she picks up after an agonizingly long dial tone.

"Zero-sama? What... What is it?" The woman yawns.

"I want the entire shipment from Kyoto transfered over to Shiroi, northeast of Kamagaya, along with all our combat-ready personnel. We will rendezvous with you there in six hours or so. An emergency has come up near Narita, and we are deploying in full. I will brief you in full later. For now, get everything moving! Time is of the essence!"

"What the... R-Roger, Zero-sama!" Inoue says.

To her credit she doesn't ask any further questions, and the line goes silent a few moments later.

Soon, the trucks' engines rumble to life, and the Black Knights move out once more, rushing off to yet another battle.

A/N: Alright, and there we have it! Next stop, Narita and all it entails. But first, as usual, time for the after-action report.

Before I get into the chapter itself, I will say that I will try to update this story with a link to the Chessmen-verse (as I am calling it) world map sometime in the next few days. It will be largely identical to the world maps of the show, but the Area names will be completely different from those shown in the Light Novel, since those in the Novel made no sense in many cases. For instance, the entirety of South America was supposed to be Area 6, but somehow the Falkland Islands, a tiny collection of rocks with a native population of a few birds, and half the original settlers of the place being Britannians back in the 1700s, is supposed to be Area 8? That didn't make much sense to me, and the way the LN assigned Area names made it really feel like someone just took a bucket fill tool to modern-day borders without consideration for the history behind them. The biggest example of this is Canada, which in the LN was listed as Area 2, but in reality would have already been under Britannian control at the same time as the Thirteen American Colonies when the Humiliation of Edinburgh happened.

With this in mind, I have decided on the following history for Britannian expansion: All areas in the Americas controlled by Britain in our timeline as of the Napoleonic Wars are considered part of the Britannian Metropole, not a colonial Area. Similarly, as Pendragon is located near Baja, California and the Britannian Capital would logically not be located in an Area, that means all territory acquired from the French and Mexicans by the United States during the Louisiana Purchase and Mexican-American War would also be annexed into the Britannian Metropole, and not considered Areas. This allowed me to set the borders of Metropolitan Britannia as being roughly equal to Canada and the Continental United States, minus Alaska which would have remained Russian, and plus a few bits of Mexican territory.

This sets the stage for the lead-in to the 20th Century. In our timeline, the European powers had their scramble for Africa, wherein they conquered and divided up the entire continent into colonial spheres of influence. I saw no reason to change this in the Chessmen-verse timeline, with the proto-EU having its own Scramble for Africa. The justification, of course, is up for debate in-universe. It can be seen by many, particularly the Africans, as naked, hypocritical imperialism. Europeans might see it as them spreading the light of revolutionary republicanism to the savage Africans. Realists might see it as them trying to secure African resources in order to deny them to Britannia. However, the point is that Africa was still conquered and divided up by the proto-EU as it was in our timeline. The exception would be the Ottoman Empire, which at the time was still a major power in its own right, albeit one in severe decline and largely dependent on German loans for survival.

At the time of the Scramble for Africa, the Britannians would have fought this timeline's equivalent of the Spanish-American war, ending with the annexation of Mexico and the Carribbean Islands from the proto-EU/Spain. These would have become the first proper Areas under a new paradigm of colonial administration, and the expansion would have spiraled out from there.

Now, at the turn of the 20th Century, there are several major powers in the world.

These are:

The Holy Britannian Empire, currently controlling the entirety of North America, as well as other colonial possessions, most notably India.

The proto-EU, at this point less a single nation and more a loose confederation of European republics formed in the wake of Napoleon's conquests, controlling all of Western Europe, the British Islands, Africa, Indochina, most of South America, and various other colonial possessions. Currently the world's foremost power.

The Chinese Empire, a nation in severe decline with a massive Opium problem.

The Russian Empire, a powerful nation controlling more or less what the actual Russian Empire controlled at the time IRL, as well as Alaska.

The Empire of Japan, a rising power that has recently industrialized and is now looking to establish itself and secure its borders against European imperialism, and it would soon thrash the Russians quite soundly in the Russo-Japanese War.

The Ottoman Empire, a declining power that is on the verge of collapse, almost entirely dependent on loans from proto-EU member states for its continued survival.

As well as various other minor nations.

Then this world's equivalent of the First World War breaks out. In this timeline, it was a war between Russia and the proto-EU, which naturally started by a Russian desire to intevene and expand into the Balkans and invade the weakened Ottomans. This would pull the proto-EU in, and ignite a global conflict. During this time, Britannia ends up playing the role of an opportunistic outsider, attacking both Russia to take Alaska, and the proto-EU colonies in South America, taking advantage of both areas being low-priority backwaters for their respective owners. The First World War would end with the collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires into civil war. This would lead to Turkey, now under Mustafa Khemal Attaturk, reorganizing itself into a European-style republic and joining the EU, which has now consolidated itself into a more coherent entity rather than a loose coalition of largely independent powers. The Russian Empire, by contrast, would fight a civil war between the Whites and Reds, but in this timeline the Whites would win and the Tsar would be restored, although the government would now be a constitutional monarchy with the Tsar as a figurehead. The Bolsheviks in turn would flee to China, where they would ignite a Communist revolution. This revolution would succeed, at least partially due to the young Emperor (Puyi, perhaps?) seeing the writing on the wall and declaring himself a communist. The revolution would thus spread further, into India and other adjacent European colonies, which would band together in a short-lived Communist federation. However, economic and agricultural mismanagement by the Bolsheviks would lead to a counter-revolution led by the Emperor, ending in the purge of the Old Bolsheviks and the establishment of the Chinese Federation.

What would follow are several decades of peace and inconclusive regional conflicts. Britannia would finish its wars in South America, start expanding into the Pacific, and fight a bit with the EU, although without major border changes. Perhaps they might have made an attempt at retaking the British Islands, though it would have ended in failure. The borders of the world would solidify into where they are at the start of the show, when Britannia starts aggressively expanding into Africa and the Far East.

Throughout all this, of course, Australia is just chilling down under. They care not for world politics, they just want to grill.

Alright, now that this history summary is done, now for the actual story.

The first scene served several purposes. First, to inform the state of the Britannian Air Force in Area 11 (and to explain why nobody ever called an air strike in the show). Second, to introduce Bradford, who in this universe is a Britannian Air Force Colonel. Though a commoner by birth, he was able to rise through the ranks through a combination of competence, a keen nose for politics, and a willingness to occasionally bend or even break the rules to get the job done, hence his creative accounting regarding Tokyo's air defenses. He's also got a bit of a grudge against the Knightmare forces.

Finally, it let Euphie stand up to her sister again. One problem with where I started the story was that I didn't have a chance to write out the confrontation between Euphemia and Cornelia over what happened at Saitama in full. This was a chance to showcase something similar, namely the more pacifistic Euphemia noticing what the thoroughly military Cornelia did not and pushing back against her, saving Zero's life in the process.

This leads into the second scene, where I took a chance to show that Lelouch is not omniscient. Bradford's air force shell game had also fooled him and, had it not been for Euphie's intervention he would have been caught entirely off guard by Britannian airstrikes and likely destroyed. He was expecting, and had the ability to protect against, a VTOL attack. He would have been entirely helpless against fixed-wing aviation.

What follows is Kaguya delivering her briefing to Zero, ensuring that now, all major Japanese resistance members (Toudoh, the Six Houses and the Black Knights) are now, or will soon be, roughly on the same page. It also gave me a chance to nerd out a bit over Knightmare production logistics and design. The Burai-Kai is a favorite of mine and it is a real shame that it only ever showed up once.

A quick C.C. interlude to set the stage for the coming battle follows, and then there is the main affair.

It should be noted that out of all the aliens in the original game, the Floaters are probably the easiest to fight, both in the game and here. They lack the mind control capabilities of Sectoids, and more importantly unlike Sectoids, their intelligence is much lower. In the game this is reflected by the different stats of their various ranks, while here it is shown by how they are relatively basic in their defensive tactics, with the Black Knights able to take them down fairly easily and with many of them remaining at their stations even after the battle started when they should have been fighting. Of course, this does not mean the battle was a cakewalk. They're still aliens with plasma guns, and people are going to die.

The battle also let me formally introduce the Hybrids. These were largely inspired by the Men in Black faction from the X-Com Files mod, as well as the Hybrids found in the same. In the game, this is a faction of humans that supports the Aliens, working with them to try and take over Earth, with their own secret backers. As I understand it, something similar was also cut content from the original X-Com UFO Defense game, and this is my take on it. Human-alien hybrids, infiltrating Human society with the goal of doing the dirty work that the Aliens cannot yet do themselves.

Afterwards, a quick scene with Kaguya and Lelouch to show the effects of combat stress on Lelouch. Both in the show and in here, though Lelouch projects the facade of an unshakeable revolutionary leader to the world, he is affected personally by a lot of the things he sees, and already the things he's seeing are much worse than what he saw in the original show. Of course, on the flipside he does have one person he can confide in, in the form of Kaguya, which is something he lacked in the original show (C.C. not exactly being good confidante material and Kallen not being available for the role until R2).

Finally, we have the preparations for Narita, and Lelouch's subsequent Oh Shit moment, setting up for the next chapter. The big difference, of course, is obvious. In the original timeline, Lelouch was close enough to Narita that a few hours of warning was enough for him to mobilize his troops and send them there to lay an ambush for Cornelia. Here though, Lelouch is six to seven hours away by truck, and so Zero will not make it to the battle until after it started... And of course, there is the elephant in the room of the JLF having alien technology.

I am looking forward to writing this, as it was one of the big moments that inspired me to start working on this story in the first place.

Until then though, I hope you all enjoyed. Until next time.