Chapter 38
Upon the Anvil
When Lelouch returned to his office, he found a guest awaiting him. Sprawled out in a somewhat lazy, and certainly unladylike, fashion upon one of the sofas was the grandmaster. Upon noticing his entrance, C.C. rose to at least be properly seated, but remained otherwise on the sofa.
"Grandmo-"
The glint of her eye hardened into diamonds and Lelouch very quickly adjusted the ending of the word he was uttering.
"-aster."
It was almost naturally done, enough so that only those with sharp ears would have heard the word being insinuated. C.C. almost certainly had, but within certain bounds of juvenile disrespect, she could be quite tolerant. She had seen plenty of generations through their adolescent stages after all.
"Is there something you require of me?" Lelouch continued.
Strange as it may sound, Lelouch had actually had little interaction with C.C. since her arrival. Aside from officially welcoming the grandmaster, the cardinal's own duties had seen him far too busy to entertain his surrogate mother during her stay. C.C. was similarly busy with her own affairs, but one might still have expected the two to carve out some downtime to spend together, perhaps during meals and the like. That the two made no effort whatsoever to effect such rendezvouses either spoke of a certain distance in their relations, or a supreme confidence in its immutability.
"I will be leaving Tokyo for a short trip in a few days' time," C.C. announced. "Leila will be accompanying me."
Lelouch's eyes narrowed. "Will anyone else be accompanying you, Grandmaster?"
"Umm, no, I don't think so," C.C. said nonchalantly.
That or perhaps Lelouch simply did not want more unreasonable demands piled atop him.
The cardinal gave an exasperated sigh. "And have you made arrangements to inform the Holy See's representatives of this?"
"I'm informing you, aren't I?" C.C. said with a smirk.
Granted Lelouch was certainly going to tell the Gralsritter brother of this, and he expected a slightly more dynamic reaction than his own weary exasperation.
"The Grandmaster is aware that a good portion of Japan remains unsecured territory?" Lelouch asked somewhat rhetorically.
"Yes?" C.C. said, tilting her head.
Lelouch pinched his brow. "While I am certain you would escape unscathed from an entire horde of insurgents, Ms. Malcal is still merely mortal. Do you actually believe you could secure her person during this trip of yours?"
"Her lineage may have parted from Eden Vital, but from our families did they branch," C.C. said. "I would treat her as such."
The headache was not diminishing, though it looked as if Lelouch would need to arrange for alternate security measures himself if he did not feel sufficiently reassured about C.C.'s capabilities to protect Leila. The cardinal made a mental note to do just that, and to also increase the overall security watching both the grandmaster and the Holy See's contractor candidate, just on the off chance, no, inevitability really, C.C. would try to slip away discretely.
"Would the Grandmaster at least deign to inform me where her trip will take her?" Lelouch asked.
"Kyoto," C.C. said. "Shouldn't take more than a few days to reach there by car, I think."
Lelouch looked at C.C. in dead silence for a few moments, and then uttered in a very, very flat tone.
"Absolutely not. You are either taking rail or getting flown to Kyoto via military transport. You are not taking a road trip through Japan right now, and if I have to, I'll have Kallen sit on you to make sure of that."
The reference to the Japanese-Britannian girl was intentional, seeing as of Lelouch's attendants she was the least likely to let deference to the grandmaster override any order the cardinal himself might issue, what with her overall lack of familiarity with the older woman and C.C.'s responsibility for Japan's invasion. From the petulant look C.C. gave Lelouch, the grandmaster herself was well aware of that. Still, she was a wise enough woman to recognize when her ward was being genuinely adamant with cause and to relent.
"If you so insist," she thus said. "Though I would prefer rail. The point of traveling with just myself and Leila is to avoid imposing an entire entourage upon my hosts, after all."
Of course she was not above a bit of horse-trading even when making concessions. C.C. had played the political game for too long to just give in like that. The eyebrow that Lelouch raised indicated the cardinal knew this, though his point of concern lay slightly elsewhere.
"Who would your hosts exactly be, then?" he asked.
"Why, the original Ise," the grandmaster said with a wide smile.
Before Lelouch could ask just what exactly that meant, Sancia hurriedly entered the room with an apologetic bow.
"Your pardon, Grandmaster, Your Eminence, but there has been an incident at the Stadtfeld residence."
"Report," Lelouch said briskly.
"Sister Kallen was visiting her father when the viscountess intruded upon the two of them and attempted to attack her. The Lady Yvette was incapacitated, but his lordship was injured in the process. Both Lord Albrecht and Lady Yvette have been transported to an Eden Vital hospital, with Lady Yvette under guard."
"And Kallen herself?"
"Unharmed, and presently awaiting her father to come out of surgery at the hospital."
Lelouch let out a slight sigh of relief at that. Not that Kallen was particularly easy to hurt now thanks to her geass, but confirmation that she was unscathed was nonetheless welcome.
"Grandmaster, I am afraid we will need to continue our conversation another time," Lelouch said.
"Indeed, it does look as if you have your hands full," C.C. said, rising now and giving a slight nod to the two. "I shan't trouble you any further until the matter is resolved."
With the clear insinuation that once said matter was indeed dealt with, C.C. would go right back to being an active headache for the cardinal. But Lelouch would not look a gift horse in the mouth and take what he could get at moments like this, so his attention shifted back to Sancia the moment the door closed.
"Do we have any reason to believe the attack was anything more than a purely marital dispute?" he asked as he moved to his desk.
Albeit a rather extreme one, what with two of the involved parties in the hospital.
"Only one," Sancia answered. "Lady Yvette's bloodwork shows traces of Refrain."
Lelouch's eyes flickered as he sat down.
"The Stadtfeld household staff are already being interviewed," Sancia continued, "and Sister Kallen has lent her own word to order their cooperation, though she is not sure how much weight that will carry."
"Hopefully enough," Lelouch said. "Determine where Lady Yvette was exposed to Refrain as quickly as possible. And contact Colonel Welkins. Once we have the location, I want a raid conducted posthaste."
"At once, Your Eminence."
According to the doctor that Kallen spoke with, the knife had not managed to cut too deeply into her father's side. Its removal was mostly straightforward, with the wound itself stitched up quickly afterward. Albrecht would be spending a while recuperating, but her father was at least not in any immediate mortal peril. As for her stepmother, the doctors were still keeping her sedated while they flushed her system. The revelation that she had partaken in Refrain had come as a shock to Kallen, even more so with what she now knew about the drug. As far as evidence went, this single data point was little more than circumstantial, but if the heretics really had intentionally targeted her family, Kallen was not about to let that slide.
Fortunately, it looked as if the cardinal shared at least some of her sentiment, as a security detail had been installed around her father and stepmother at the hospital. They were likely to be as safe as they could be for the interim, and after exchanging a few words with her father, Kallen obeyed the summons to the viceroy's palace to help account for things. When she entered the conference room she was directed towards, Kallen found Lelouch and several others already waiting.
"My apologies for making you wait, Your Eminence," Kallen said with a slight bow.
"Take your seat, Sister Kallen," Lelouch instructed, in the process signaling that she was expected to be a participant in this meeting instead of a mere observer. Once she had done so, introductions were conducted. "Colonel Welkins, this is Sister Kallen, or rather Lady Stadtfeld. She is Viscount Stadtfeld's daughter and heir."
"Milady," the gendarmerie colonel nodded respectfully.
"Colonel," Kallen did likewise.
"Now, Sancia, if you would?"
"Yes, Your Eminence," Sancia said from where she stood at the head of the table. "Earlier today, Viscount Stadtfeld was assaulted by is wife, the Lady Yvette. The viscountess was described as hysterical in the assault, and her bloodwork revealed the presence of Refrain. The Stadtfeld household staff were interviewed by the Gendarmerie and Eden Vital alike, and we believe we have ascertained where Lady Yvette may have been exposed to the drug." The screen behind Sancia flickered to show a large tower building. "Babel Resort."
Kallen's brow furrowed at hearing that name. Babel was a large casino and luxury resort built on the outskirts of the Tokyo metropolitan area as a playground for the rich and powerful shortly after the Empire consolidated its hold over the region. Its more sordid reputation came from just what sort of goods and services were available to those of sufficient wealth and power, and some even offered quite openly. Prostitution, for one, was not illegal within the Empire, though it was a heavily regulated trade. Those that violated the provisions on consent, age, health, and taxes, could get into a lot of trouble, up to and including death if the transgressions were especially egregious. That Babel remained in operation even after Lelouch's appointment as viceroy was a testament of how well the business' owners and managers managed to keep their more ethically and legally dubious activities under wraps. There was also no shortage of muckrakery to be done, and the cardinal had needed to prioritize his resources to clamping down those that represented genuine security threats first. Now though, with his attention drawn, Lelouch was prepared to cast a withering light upon Babel's dark innards. No doubt the result would be as illuminating as it was liable to be appalling.
"According to the Stadtfeld household's servants, Lady Yvette frequently partakes in social gatherings hosted at Babel," Sancia continued, "and indeed her visits had grown in frequency since the viscount's return to Japan. The servants collectively also cannot recall any other venues that the viscountess might have visited that would have allowed her to procure, or otherwise be exposed to, Refrain, nor did any of them suspect her of possessing the habit. If Lady Yvette does partake in the drug, it would be a recent development."
"Has her medical diagnosis been able to confirm that?" Lelouch asked.
"The doctors are still running tests and will need more time before drawing any such conclusions," Sancia stated.
"Fair enough," Lelouch said, then looked over at Kallen. "What of your own recollections?"
Kallen pursed her lips. "My stepmother and I did not get along particularly well, but for the most part she simply avoided me instead of actively trying to antagonize me. This assault of hers was highly uncharacteristic, and if she was suffering from a Refrain crash, that might explain her irrationality."
As with many drugs, Refrain provided a euphoric high that came with a pretty deep crash afterward as endorphin levels plummeted. Schizophrenia, paranoia, and general irrationality were commonly observed effects in persons suffering from such a crash, so Kallen's hypothesis did have some grounding.
"An additional datapoint, Your Eminence," Sancia said. "Since the initial tip-off we received from the Tokyo resistance movement, we've been working to trace the Refrain production chain in Japan."
Kallen frowned at that. She had not heard a peep about any such effort, though the girl recognized she was not necessarily going to be aware of everything the viceroyalty got up to, even on those matters that directly impacted her people. Though that the viceroyalty was seriously looking into finding the source of the Refrain being distributed throughout Japan and putting a stop to it was no bad thing.
"That tip-off pointed us to certain Britannian interests that serve as downstream refiners of the raw sakuradite that the Sumeragi Group produces."
That saw the frown on Kallen's face turn to one of mild befuddlement.
"Some of the precursors for making Refrain comes from processed sakuradite waste products," Sancia elucidated before continuing, seemingly noticing Kallen's confusion. "While the hard evidence is still scanty, enough circumstantial evidence has been collected to strongly suggest this man has some sort of involvement with the Refrain trade."
The photo that appeared was of a heavy-set Britannian with tanned skin and clearly dyed blond hair. That or he dyed his eyebrows and beard brown for some odd reason. The expression he wore was one of typical noble smugness, one that made Kallen want to reflexively punch him, and that was before she took into consideration his potential involvement with the drug trade.
"Adam McDougal," Sancia said, "is both the founder and majority shareholder of McDougal Chemicals, and the owner of Babel Resorts."
Viscount Adam McDougal was considered to be a particularly business savvy noble, able to read the shifting winds of the market to always land his interests in the right spot. Publicly, he was no more bigoted than the average Britannian, and any haughtiness with which he carried himself was usually attributed to his noble pedigree. Already obscenely wealthy from his involvement in the sakuradite trade, Babel could be thought of as something of a hobby project for him, not that McDougal didn't pour his all into making it a success. And if certain less than moral transactions occurred in this playground he had crafted, well the players were all adults, and it was not his responsibility to mind them as if they were children. And thanks to all the plausible deniability McDougal had built into his operation, he had managed to escape official scrutiny during Lelouch's first sweep of Administrative Area 11's dark underbelly.
The cardinal frowned. "Why would McDougal bother with Refrain trafficking? He's already obscenely rich, and dealing in a schedule 1 drug like that puts him at immense risk of losing it all, including his life."
By and large, the Britannian Empire tended towards regulation and legislation than criminalization for a wide range of psychotropic drugs. Cannabises, for one, had an age restriction and a decent amount of taxes on them, but their usage was entirely legal. That being said, certain drugs were outright barred due to the deleterious psychological effects they had on their users. Cocaine was one, due to its highly addictive nature and the tendency of people who took the drug to develop heightened aggression and paranoia. Refrain was another, and one the Empire came down even harder on for some reason. Still, while mere possession could get you fined or forced to attend rehab, the Empire saw little point in tossing the users in jail since that just ended up costing the government more money in the long run, participation in the distribution, or especially manufacture, of the drug could draw an outright death sentence. Lucrative as the drug trade might be, it was still, as the cardinal noted, rather odd for someone already as rich as McDougal to take such a risk.
"One possibility is that the drug was not originally intended for distribution within Japan," Sancia suggested. "There are non-domestic parties that would be interested in access to Refrain."
The way Lelouch pursed his lips, the cardinal clearly picked up some subtext that eluded Kallen and the gendarmerie colonel. He did not deign to fill them in however.
"Very well," Lelouch said instead, looking over at the Gendarmerie officer. "Colonel Welkins, I am hereby authorizing a raid upon the Babel Resort. Your orders are to lock down the resort and take into custody all management personnel, seize any and all business records on site. Simultaneous to this, I want raids conducted on McDougal's residence and his company's offices. Bring the man in."
"Understood, Your Eminence," Welkins said with a dip of his head.
"Sisters Lucretia and Sancia will accompany your forces to the site proper and provide you with reconnaissance telemetry," the cardinal continued. "While they will likely not be able to completely tap into Babel's internal security network and produce a tactical map of the caliber used at Lake Kawaguchi, they should still be able to get access to enough cameras to provide your teams with a good amount of field intel."
"That would still be immensely useful," Welkins said.
"I'm glad you think so," Lelouch said with a slight smile, then looked at Kallen once more. "Sister Kallen, you will command the tactical detachment that will accompany Sisters Lucretia and Sancia. Their immediate physical security will be your responsibility."
"Understood, Your Eminence," Kallen said, nodding as well.
Lelouch returned the motion, and then more loudly. "Good luck, and good hunting."
The sirens blaring on the gendarmerie vehicles was just one sign of the movement of bodies converging upon Babel. The Imperial Gendarmerie had stationed within Japan approximately three thousand officers, with the largest concentration naturally in and around Tokyo. For the operation today, and due to the sheer size of the Babel premises, well over three hundred officers were being deployed. On top of that, a significant number of regular police were being deployed to set up a perimeter to keep persons of interest from slipping away unnoticed. For how quickly the operation was thrown together, it was overall coming together remarkably smoothly. Of course, the gendarmes had yet to make actual contact, so there was still plenty of room for things to go awry.
"So all we gotta do is raid a casino, how hard can it be?"
Riding on the passenger seat of a gendarmerie van was one of the squadron leaders. With the sirens going it was actually easier for him to converse with the other squadron leaders over the tactical radio than with his subordinates riding in the back.
"Well it's gotta be easier than busting down the doors of a cult," another squad leader remarked.
"Cult? What cult?" a third chimed in.
"Oh, you weren't with us for that op. Some whackos had sealed themselves up in a tenement, real nutjobs. Called themselves Children of the-whatever. Fuck, that was one messed up op."
"Yeah, downed a couple of bottles after that one," the squad leader in the van remarked.
"Could have done with some before we went into that hellhole," another chimed in.
"Right," a snort sounded. "That's exactly the sort of thing you want to hear your squad leader say before a raid."
A few chuckles could be heard as the vehicle screeched to a halt.
"Right, out we go boys," the squad leader said, then into his radio. "TOC, this is TAC 1-1. We've arrived at the target location."
"TAC 1-1," a surprisingly youthful female voice responded, "you are assigned point for the hotel building. Enter via the casino and conduct a sweep, floor by floor. TAC 1-2 and 1-3 will be supporting you."
"Roger that," the squad leader said, "TAC 1-1 moving out."
"Holy shit," one of the other gendarmes exclaimed. "Those knightmares?"
Looking over, the squad leader saw that, indeed, there were two knightmares in the colors of Eden Vital positioned along the road leading up to the casino entrance. A squadron of soldiers was also standing watch around them, ostensibly led by a fierce looking redhead. She looked a bit on the young side for such a duty, but then again the same could arguably be said of the Cardinal Lamperouge.
"C'mon team," the squad leader said. "We've got a job to do."
By now a steady stream of people were trying to exit the casino, but they were all being funneled through checkpoints wherein the gendarmerie and Eden Vital could check their identities before releasing them. More than one person of interest was nabbed this way, and a few more daring individuals even tried to make a break for it. What they quickly learned was that in addition to being one of the most heavily kitted out of Britannia's law enforcement agencies, the Imperial Gendarmerie also had a wide complement of less than lethal mechanisms by which to bring to heel any runners. And that less than lethal did not equate painless, as anyone hit with beanbags, stingers, or pepper balls could attest to firsthand.
That however was all happening outside, TAC 1-1's attention was focused in front of them as they proceeded into the casino. Even in their rush to hurry out, the customers still gave the heavily armed gendarmes a wide berth. Once inside, the crowds gradually thinned out more and more.
"Right, 1-2, 1-3, anyone want to volunteer for the basement, or should we take it?"
"Trying to get out of climbing up the stairs, 1-1?" came the response.
"Well you know me and my old man knees."
"Right. 1-2'll head up to the top floor and work our way down. 1-3, you guys go up?"
"Sounds good to me. See you in the middle."
With the division of labor settled, the squads headed for the stairwells.
"TOC, what do we have in the way of eyes inside?" the squad leader asked.
"We have partial control over the interior cameras, but there are several different closed-circuit networks that need to be individually compromised," the same woman responded. "Presently however we believe there may be a number of individuals sequestered in the hotel basement where you are headed that may need rescue."
"Fuck," the squad leader murmured, then over the radio. "Understood, 1-1 moving down now. Hope you've got paramedics standing by just in case."
Unhappy possibilities ran through the squad leader's head as to why these people might be in the basement of all places. Considering the reaction Babel had drawn from the government, there was no way such things were innocuous.
"Paramedics are prepared to move in the moment civilians are identified for evacuation," TOC assured them.
The initial descent went unchallenged, the squad moving at a brisk but methodical pace. Taking point was a gendarme in full body armor and a pepper ball gun, the combination of heavy protection and less than lethal hopefully giving him a chance to bring down a culprit alive to arrest and interrogate. Of course if there was even a hint of hostiles down here well-prepared enough to have gas masks or the like, all of the squad members carried fully lethal options to fall back to. The squad leader himself had a shotgun, while two others had assault carbines. No one presently had armor piercing loaded, those rounds had a tendency to bounce when they hit a hard enough surface and thus risk injuring someone with a ricochet, but if the need genuinely arose, the squad did carry a magazine or two.
"Locked door," the point man announced after testing it.
"I'll wand it," the squad leader said.
Taking out the camera-on-a-stick, the gendarme wedged it underneath the door.
"Okay, we've got another hallway, though there are a lot more doors along it. Might be some sort of private suites or something."
"Private, for what?"
"I think we can all imagine."
"Quiet," the squad leader chided. "No sign of contacts, but we probably will need to move in and secure the corridor up to the corner as quickly as possible." Retracting the wand, he took out his shotgun. "Breach and clear, move fast."
The others took a step back, giving their leader the space he needed. A very loud bang sounded and the door creaked open as the shotgun blast smashed through the lock. With a swift kick, the point man was through with the rest of the squad piling on after. This time no one got stuck in the doorway. The squad leader was last through, and not because of any tendency to lead from the rear. His own gun was sweeping the hallway as the others took up positions along the various doors, while the point man hugged the corner, peeking around it quickly.
"No contacts," he said.
"Alright, I'll wand the doors," the squad leader said.
Though somewhat time consuming, the methodical manner in which the squad advanced should at least ensure no surprises were sprung upon them. And the fewer surprises, the more likely all of them would be able to go home tonight.
"Room appears clear, quiet entry, you two."
While the squad leader moved onto the next door, two of the gendarmes proceeded to open and peek inside the previously examined room. The process was repeated until all of the rooms were cleared, after which it came time to head around the corner. Just as they were doing so however, the point man called out.
"Contact!"
A panicked cry sounded, along with a door getting slammed.
"What do we have?"
"One contact, woman, looked like a civvie. She peeked out from the third door on the left, then ducked back in the moment she saw me."
"Alright, let's handle this calmly," the squad leader said. "Keep a lookout for anyone else."
Taking out the wand again, he peeked into the room, but there was no sign of the woman, indicating she was likely hiding somewhere.
"Silent entry," he ordered, "you first, I'll be right behind. If she tries anything, hit her with the pepper ball, but if she's really just a scared civvie, let's not make her day any worse."
"Roger that sir," the other gendarme said.
The door, when tested, turned out to be locked. That was a problem quickly solved with a multitool. Of course, being the upstanding citizens they were, the gendarme officers would never use such a skill for any untoward ends. Pushing the door open, the lead officer entered, and quickly found the woman huddling behind a bed.
"Police, hands up!" he shouted, pointing the pepper gun at her.
The woman gave another panicked cry, but immediately obeyed. That at least spared her the sting of the pepper spray.
"Clear," another officer reported. "No one else in here."
The squad leader stepped forward, shouldering his gun. "Ma'am, it's alright. We're the police, we're here to help."
The woman, a Japanese woman, looked disbelievingly at them. Now that they could get a clearer look at her, despite the disheveled brownish hair, the woman was quite attractive. Another hint as to what this place was, and why she might have been down here.
"Police? They don't come here. They never come here."
"Well, we're here now," the squad leader said. "Are there others down here?"
"Yes," the woman said, and actually started sobbing. "Please, help us."
"Oh hell, I don't like the sound of this," one of the other officers said nervously.
"Me neither," the squad leader agreed. "TOC, this is TAC 1-1. We've got potential civilians in need of assistance down here, requesting paramedics now."
"Understood, paramedics deploying to your location now."
"It's going to be alright," the squad leader tried to assure the woman. "How many others are down here?"
"A lot," the woman said. "They wouldn't let us go. They locked us down here." She winced, pressing a hand against her temple.
"Are you okay?"
"I-I don't know," she said. "I-I can't remember. Where is she? Where's my daughter!?"
"Oh shit," another gendarme murmured.
The squad leader took measured breaths to moderate his temper. Like his fellows, he had joined the gendarmerie to protect people. The times he had seen truly horrific things were more than he liked, and he could never bring himself to ever become inured to them. That just seemed so wrong, somehow, to treat the suffering of these victims with such nonchalance. So far he had managed to keep from snapping and just gunning down some of the real monsters he had encountered, though that cultist one he and his squad had come real close after finding what was buried in the basement of the tenement. This was really starting to look like it might be a repeat.
"TOC," he spoke into the radio again. "We need more bodies to help with the sweep, civilian has indicated that there could be quite a few people being kept down here."
"Understood, routing additional squads to your position now," came the prompt response.
The woman on the other end did not even bother asking for proof, and the squad leader felt at least a slight easing of the pressure in his chest at being so readily believed.
"You two, stay put until the paramedics get here," he ordered. "Rest of us, let's go find these people as quick as we can."
"Roger that sir."
Letting the other gendarme work on comforting the woman, the squad leader rose and stepped forth with a determined stride. No way was he going to let any of these people down, not today.
"Damnation," Mao murmured.
Today had actually been the last day he intended to hang about Babel, cleaning up any final loose ends that might have allowed the authorities to trace the upcoming massacre to him. Unfortunately something had tipped the viceroy off to precipitate such a large raid by the gendarmerie. Could it have been his priming of the Stadtfeld viscountess? It hardly mattered. The important thing was him slipping the net the authorities had cast, which was easier said than done with the presence of Eden Vital's forces. Those two knightmares had to be manned by the contractors responsible for coordinating the Lake Kawaguchi ambush, and even if they were not able to zero in on him with pinpoint accuracy, they might still get lucky. Time to put his contingency into action then.
Mao was presently mixed in with the crowd yet to pass through the perimeter checkpoint. The authorities were not bothering to individually inspect everyone trying to leave, but the cameras positioned there made clear they were recording all that passed. In addition, several people had been grabbed when they tried to pass, indicating some means of identifying suspects at the gendarmerie's disposal, probably an Eden Vital special. Then again, image recognition technology had made leaps and bounds even in what was publicly available commercially. Being able to automatically pick out a single person in a large crowd was no longer in the realm of science fiction. As such, before he was too close to the checkpoint, Mao issued the signal from his radio transmitter.
The grounds of the Babel resort were quite large, seeing as it hosted a large casino complex, luxury hotel suites, theater halls, and even a small water park. That meant there were plenty of little hidey-holes to tuck away those things better kept out of the public's sight. Some of those holes could be quite large too, enough to span several floors. That was space enough to house many of the, entertainers, that were employed under less than ethical circumstances. Or hide away a small army ready and willing to engage in some dubious ethicality themselves.
The original plan had been to enact a terrorist attack upon the hotel grounds, taking the guests and staff hostage and forcing the authorities to mount a costly raid to try to rescue them. It would have been a futile attempt as well, seeing as the mercenaries had standing orders to shoot the hostages the moment the authorities moved in. And with their psyches sufficiently spiked, they would show no hesitation to do so. With so many of the customers already having been evacuated, the resulting massacre would not be as much of a bloodbath, but there were still plenty of prospective victims like those entertainers locked away in the basements, or the gendarmerie teams themselves. And of course not all of the civilians had made it through the gendarmerie cordon just yet either. There was still a chance that events here would cascade into such carnage as to impact the cardinal's standing. That would be a nice bonus on top of providing Mao the cover he needed to escape.
Upon Babel's grounds was, perhaps not surprisingly, a tower tall enough to be considered a skyscraper. For this reason the actual number of gendarmerie teams sent to sweep it was not just the mere three squads that were part of 1st platoon, they had simply been assigned one segment. Even with the additional manpower however, searching a skyscraper still took time. Furthermore, the additional volume of space a high-density structure like this represented resulted in much greater surface area for Lucretia to scan through and Sancia to parse through. Furthermore, they needed to watch the immediate vicinities of the gendarmerie squads to warn them of potential threats and the like in their path. As such, while the mercenaries Mao had seeded were detected before contact was made by the gendarmerie, the true extent of their numbers still came as a highly unpleasant surprise.
"Contact!" Lucretia suddenly cried out over the radio. "TAC 2-1, fall back now!"
The gendarmes responded quickly to the call, hurrying back the direction they came.
"FASTER!" Lucretia now screamed into the radio.
Picking up the panic in her tone, the officers broke out into a sprint.
"Take cover!" Sancia cried into her own radio, but this warning was to a different group.
Kallen and the Eden Vital soldiers immediately hunkered down behind the various vehicles or really whatever other bits of cover they could find, and just in time too as the sound of gunfire erupted. The bullets that rained down however were well wide of the Eden Vital detachment however, and the screams that sounded now were much louder.
"Shit!" Kallen cursed. "They're going after the civilians!"
Just as those words left her mouth, the rifle hefted by Sancia's knightmare rose and opened fire, blasting apart the windows on a floor a third of the way up the skyscraper. While Kallen could not quite make out what the other woman was aiming at, she did not doubt Sancia had managed to get whoever was shooting down at the panicking crowd. Despite the trueness of her aim however, the damage was already done, as the remaining civilians erupted in panic and surged towards the perimeter. There was no way the checkpoint guards could stem the tide, and if they tried they were likely to be trampled underfoot instead. And with how dense the crowds were, even if a suspect was detected, there was no way to apprehend or otherwise stop him without potentially getting a lot of the surrounding civilians hurt or killed. If that suspect was a contractor, under the right conditions, such an exchange might still be considered worthwhile. This time however, the scales were not so tilted. This time.
"TAC 2-2, rendezvous with TAC 2-3 two floors down," Lucretia issued orders at a rapid pace. "TAC 3-1, TAC 3-3, hold position for five minutes and remain out of sight before retreating down stairwell A, do not attempt to engage!"
"Total hostile count confirmed to be three hundred plus," Sancia said over another channel. "Scans indicate they have body armor as well. Gendarmerie teams are not equipped for this, requesting immediate reinforcements!"
On that point Sancia was entirely correct. While the gendarmerie was quite well equipped, the mission today had been primarily envisioned as a search and rescue operation, with only light resistance from the resort's on-site security staff, if even that. As a consequence, while all of the squads had brought with them assault carbines, they were loaded with hollow point instead of armor piercing rounds to reduce the chance of ricochets injuring bystanders. This did not mean the gendarmes were entirely helpless against enemies in body armor, getting hit by even hollow point would hurt like a bitch regardless, and some of the other weapons they brought along could incapacitate targets even so protected, but the officers were undoubtedly at a distinct disadvantage. That disadvantage became rather significantly more pronounced due to the sheer number of heavily armed and armored hostiles that were now making their presence known.
Lelouch and his subordinates had certainly not been expecting this level of resistance, otherwise the gendarmerie would not have been the first wave sent in. But neither had they completely discounted the possibility of some unexpected spanner in the works. As such, preparations had been made to ensure a large body of troops would be ready to back the gendarmerie up, even if it took a bit longer to get them fully mobilized.
"This is Colonel Gottwald," the margrave's firm voice responded over the radio. "Alpha and Bravo Companies are en route now, ETA three minutes."
End of Chapter 38
I feel like Lelouch's car was just saved from a potential road accident.
Apologies for the delay in the update, that was a combination of this chapter being a bit more difficult to craft than I expected and the fact that I had to spend most of May in that rather nerve-wracking task known as job hunting. The final decision for which place to go to was actually, genuinely hard, since I received multiple offers, all from companies doing very interesting work. Now that I have secured employment once more, I should have a bit more bandwidth to continue with my creative works.
Why does Monica constitute any sort of threat? She's a Britannian citizen, just like Lelouch himself is, and C.C. for that matter under her public alias. Eden Vital isn't its own country, it's registered as an NGO under Britannian law.
While I have no desire to squash reader enthusiasm, Leila's presence in the story is not intended to serve some grand role, I just needed a Euro-centric character as part of the negotiations with the Holy See and the EU. Leila is also not part of Eden Vital. Her grandmother was, but she herself is not. Any loyalty she might have to Eden Vital would therefore be mostly vestigial, and C.C. is not so taken with sentiment that she would let the Holy See play her like that. Leila herself will be returning to Europe after the contract negotiations are sorted out. As for her last name, because Leila is much more of a background/supporting character, I'm rearranging things as needed to accommodate my overall story, so a lot more of her "canonical" background can be outright ignored until it's codified in my story.
Nunnally and Euphemia expressing a romantic attraction to Lelouch in the canon anime is a consequence of certain cultural lenses that exist in Japanese society. Narratively speaking, it's one of the major sources of dissonance when the setting is supposed to be a western society, and it's one of the first things I chuck out whenever I do any sort of fanwork in such settings.
I've also been very intentional in drawing a strong delineation between how Lelouch is viewed by those that more or less grew up with him versus those that did not. The former treat Lelouch as fairly mundane, because to them they are so familiar with Lelouch nothing about him particularly stands out anymore. While they might intellectually acknowledge Lelouch to possess some outstanding qualities, they've seen him exhibit those qualities so many times that witnessing such displays is the norm. Any emotions that they might have towards him are fully settled and there's not any particular surprises lurking around that might cause some perceptual shift. The latter more openly are in awe of some quality or other of Lelouch because of that lack of relative familiarity. This lack of familiarity is why Lelouch can still surprise them from time to time, further shifting how they emotionally perceive him.