1 month later
Lelouch POV
One month ago Katase and Todoh ordered them to stand down, the last operations were a success, but this attracted a lot of unwanted attention, and with Cornelia and a good portion of her army in Japan, this was not the moment to take action, so he waited, but not without doing nothing, right now a good portion of Britannia underworld was under his influence, and most of the other part was at least partially allied to Naoto (He used the few interactions he still had whit the members of his group while gambling to take information), his recent successes were noticed, so Katase gave them more man and Knightmares, their ranks almost tripled, Lelouch didn't bother too much on knowing them, or creating a bond, Kallen was already doing that, He was the genial mind meanwhile Kallen, whit his crimson red Knightmare was the symbol, the one to follow in the battlefield.
Rivalz brought him back to reality "Lelouch come and see".
Lelouch was at least curious and followed him, they reached a TV "After the failure of diplomacy, in just a few hours our princess Cornelia li Britannia started a naval invasion and captured Vladivostok..." So it started.
Rivalz was visibly anxious "Do you think They could counterattack? We would be in danger if..." Lelouch interrupted him.
"Don't worry Rivalz, Europia has no chance against Britannia, they are too decentralized, before their main army arrives Cornelia will be in Kazan if not at the gate of Moscow" This last part is probably pretty optimistic, but the rest is pretty much true, twenty years ago in the Marocco incident, many nations in the Europia sphere hoped to reach a diplomatic solution, that made Europia lose the war almost without fighting, they could have gathered enough force to crush the invasion, but only a few nations actually sent help, and in all those years nothing changed and corruption continued to grow.
Lelouch "Sorry Rivalz, I have something to go".
Right now there were 3 things keeping Clovis on his throne: Cornelia, Britannia Army under Bartley, and the purist Faction, the first one is gone; To replace losses recently Bartley started a program to recruit new Knightmare frame pilots, even accepting Honorary Britannian, this was a little surprising, maybe his position is even weaker than Lelouch expected, but even after dealing whit him, he would have to face the Purist, they have the support of the Britannia nobility, even after Bartley defeat they could be able to stabilize the situation waiting for reinforcements trasforming the rebellion in a attrional war, even managing to holding a part of the country would cost thousands of life every day, it was not an acceptable outcome; and he was still unsure on what to do after a total victory he would still be under the new government created by the JLF, Lelouch has yet to decide how to proced, his original plan was to gain power, eliminate Todoh, Katase, Kusakabe and take the leadership, but Todoh was one of the best general of this century, Katase was a simple man, competent, but not a genius, he reminded him of an older version of Oghi, an organization can't live without those type of man, and than there was Kusakabe... Okay maybe a part of the JLF is sacrificable, he was a fool, bonded to his personal code of honor, maybe he could be useful as a soldier, but giving him command was one of the worst errors of Genbu Kururugi.
It would be nice to have the first two with him in the future, but his plan comes first, they will be sacrificed if required.
He then received a call, it was from Kallen, even today she wasn't at Ashford, probably training in her Knightmare, he made sure there was no one around before answering, "Zero, one of our contacts told us about the displacement of a new chemical weapon, the three great leaders agreed that we can't permit them to keep it".
Lelouch sighed, every time he does something for Katase things get tricky for some random reason "When?".
"Tomorrow".
Perfect, he will have to say goodbye to his bed for tonight, he then warned Sayoko he would not be home and started the preparation.