"A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten."
- Isoroku Yamamoto
Chapter XIV: Operation Tsunami
His Majesty's Naval Base, Pearl
County of Crusoe, Area 7 (Sandwich Islands), Britannian Empire
April 10, 2025
The inferno burned without relent. It had been active for no more than several minutes, but that had been more than enough time for it to gain power and spread across the compound as the Black Knights sewed destruction into the very soil of the island. On nearly all quarters of the island basin, Gekkas sped across the ground at a myriad of targets, their black armor making them nearly invisible when cast against the darkness; only their vibrant orange mono-eyes, the heated glow of their katen yaibatous and the muzzle flashes of their firearms made them distinguishable from the rest of the emptiness. The Britannians, meanwhile, retained their superior numbers as they had in the majority of the past battles, yet were still easily overwhelmed by the sudden strike, their chain of command cut off and their individual units unable to formulate an effective counteroffensive. One after another, Britannian knightmares, tanks, VTOLs, ships and installations were being destroyed in rapid succession.
And yet, compared to the fires around him, the one that raged inside Benio's soul felt far more powerful, almost overwhelmingly. With otherwise uncharacteristic viciousness, she prowled for his next prey like a bloodthirsty hawk, the piercing orange glow of his knightmare's golden eyes almost reflecting his own gaze. She had already killed five Sutherlands since this battle had begun, but that was far from enough for her. She would continue until there were literally hundreds if not thousands of kills to her name, until her vengeance of eight years before was at last sated. At least for the time being.
Kicking her Guren Isshiki into a high speed dash alongside Captain Finlay's unit, she thrust out with his surger at a nearby group of Sutherlands and let loose a beam, forcing the Britannian knightmares to scatter like a flock of birds avoiding a thrown rock. Three of the enemy knightmares attempted to gun down the two Black Knight units in the process, but Charmelle easily banked away from the line of fire while Benio threw up her radiant wave shield as she charged. A side effect of this course of action was that none of the Britannians were expecting it, and so Benio managed to close the gap between her unit and one of the Sutherlands in a near instant, where she proceeded to slash the enemy knightmare through the middle. It exploded into a fireball not long after, but by that point Benio was already looking for her next victim among the herd.
To think I used to be terrified of these things, Benio thought with a vehement sneer, remembering for a moment how she, like many other Japanese, had looked upon the Sutherland with pure terror, its articulated Van Dyke faceplate having been a common image in her nightmares. That had been a long time ago, and back then she had been weak and powerless. Now she was a Black Knight, and that faceplate looked far less intimidating.
In a flash, she cut into two more Sutherlands with her knife, none of them having been quick enough to deflect her slashes. Her next target however, remained distant and tried to hit her with a rifle launched grenade, but Benio had been quick enough to raise her radiant wave shield. No more than a millisecond after she dropped her shield did she raise her surger once more and blast that Sutherland with a rapid fire burst, riddling it across the front. By some miracle the cockpit section managed to eject before the frame finally exploded. Benio barely paid it any mind as she moved on with her wingmate and superior; as bloodthirsty as she was, it would not do her nor her cause anything to pray upon the helpless. Such was a Britannian mentality anyway.
Eventually she and Charmelle moved upon their next battleground, which looked to contain several burning ruins. It was obviously one of the areas the Izumo had bombarded Benio surmised. What was more important, however, was that a number of enemy knightmares were moving about the area, attacking or defending against the advancing Black Knights around said burning ruins. Several of the former had noticed the two Gurens' approach and began to move against them, taking aim with their guns.
"Scatter!" Charmelle commanded, immediately putting her Guren into a left bank. Benio imitated the maneuver in the opposite direction, just as a pair of missile launcher equipped Sutherlands began launching missiles at them, two missiles each. Switching over to her surger again, Benio unleashed a stream over the oncoming projectiles, managing to detonate them one after the other, but by that point the Britannian knightmares had closed the distance and were continuing to attack with their machine guns.
At that, Benio immediately threw her radiant wave shield back up to deflect more of the incoming bullets, then maneuvering to the left and fired back, ripping two Sutherlands across the side in the process. Another Sutherland attempted to swing around and avenge its comrades with a grenade shot, but Benio easily evaded that attack. From there, in one of the most daring maneuvers she had ever done, she brandished her fork knife and charged, only to leap up at the last possible second and perform a midair somersault. Once inverted over the Sutherland's cockpit block, she extended his knife and cut into it as it passed. From there, the enemy knightmare fell out of control and crashed in another part of the base, while Benio went on to look for more targets, speeding between the buildings without hesitance.
A trio Sutherlands saw her moving in, with two attempting to level its assault rifle at her, but Benio simply speared the machines with a lance of scarlet energy each, well before either could launch an attack. At that, the third abandoned its cover and, much to Benio's surprise, extended its tonfas and charged at her, with the Guren reversing to evade the initial swipe. The Sutherland then spun and parried Benio's responding knife thrust, as well as swatted her surger out of the way as she was about to reach out with it. However, it wasn't fast enough to dodge her slash harken, which smashed into its head and disabled its main cameras and factsphere. Once that was accomplished, Benio moved in and promptly impaled her knife into the cockpit block.
It was then that her sensors bleeped out another warning that she was being targeted, and Benio was just able to turn to his left flank and throw up her shield back up to absorb a grenade shot from a Gloucester, the first she had seen since the battle began. While the electromagnetically accelerated explosive failed to pierce her shield, it caused the Guren to recoil greatly as well as violently shake its devicer from her feet upward, but she managed to maintain control all the same. Feeling rather annoyed at the attack, she put his Guren into a charge and moved to grasp the Gloucester, but only grasped the rifle, which she instantly boiled and detonated. At that, she watched as the Gloucester drew an MVS and charge at her much like the Sutherland did earlier, forcing Benio to parry its sword with her knife.
"Goddamn antique!" Benio roared with furthered annoyance. She twisted her left arm up and fired a grenade at point blank, but the enemy devicer saw it coming and evaded. The Gloucester then attempted to move around her and slash her cockpit pod, but the Black Knight was more than capable of keeping up, turning around to parry the blow with her knife. She then thrust his surger out again, moving to ensnare the Britannian unit's torso, but the enemy knightmare reversed and evaded the surger's reach, before charging forward again to re-slam its blade against the Isshiki's, narrowly dodging a radiant wave stream in the process.
Benio sneered as her monitor became filled with the enemy knightmare's articulated T-visored faceplate. She remembered how she used to fear that as well, perhaps even more so than the Sutherland's. After all, it almost always belonged to an ace level devicer, such as Cornelia's minions. But not here. Not now.
Breaking the clash, Benio then smashed her Guren's left leg into the Gloucester's torso, sending it skidding back several meters. In spite of the hardened blow, the enemy devicer was able to keep his knightmare standing, but it hardly mattered. The Black Knight was immediately over it, where she proceed to slash off the sword wielding arm and then grasp his surger onto the enemy knightmare's head. A second later, radiation streamed through the claw and into the Britannian frame, completely bubbling it before the devicer could eject. With that, Benio let go of his doomed foe and reversed into the distance, allowing her doomed foe's Yggdrasil drive to detonate, adding another kill to her allotment that night.
Mere moments after the glow died down did Captain Finaly's voice reenter the radio, her Guren coming into view.
"Rei Three to all units. Sector Gamma Six is clear of enemy forces," Charmelle said as she began moving away from the area, Benio turning her own unit to follow. "Moving onto next objective set."
The neon red bolts launched over the Sutherland force in a great hailstorm, ripping into their frames and causing them to detonate one after the other. Through the smoke and fire, the Mordred emerged like a demon, its obsidian armor illuminated from its surroundings, ruby colored eyes aglow with vehemence. More knightmares and VTOLs opened fire against it, but the black and gold knightmare was in motion long before they had pulled their respective triggers, and in a near instant later, it charged through the formation, blasting each enemy frame as it passed. The last one attempted to evade, but the Mordred was much faster, and that unit soon joined its comrades in oblivion.
All the while he fought with the rest of his army and lived up to his proverbial title as King, Lelouch's gaze did not shift away from the images that were being transmitted through his knightmare's Druid System directly into his mask. For most humans, it would have been impossible to divide attention equally between personal combat and tactical analysis of the battlefield, but through his own intellect Lelouch had long adjusted to doing both at the same time. He also had to admit that the HMDS in his mask helped greatly; as it synchronized its own Druid System with the Mordred's, Lelouch was able to "see" directly through his knightmare's optics as if they were his own eyes, as well as get direct readouts from its other sensors without having to shift his gaze from one display panel to the other. Not only that, but he could also get data streams directly from the Izumo's own Druid System as he had during the ambush over the Pacific, thus increasing Lelouch's awareness over the battlefield even further. The only issue he had with the entire system was Lelouch was unable see the surrounding cockpit and thus had to operate the instruments through touch and physical memory alone; while it didn't hinder his capabilities in the slightest as he had long memorized the Mordred's control setup, it was still something he had yet to get entirely used to.
However, even without the aid of his mask and the advanced sensory units tied into it, Lelouch could clearly see that the battle was going his side's way. Much of the basin was on fire now, as the Black Knights had been thorough in their blitzkrieg, wiping out the primary command centers and built-in defensive systems upon their initial attack; now they were setting to work on the airfields, shipyards, dry docks and other areas that were essential to maintaining the Britannian Pacific Fleet. The remaining defenders, who still held an impressive arsenal of knightmares, armor, aircraft and capital ships at their disposal, were doing all they could to hold the line and repel the invaders, but without a central commander to organize them they were little more than severed nerves acting without input from the brain, flopping around helpless and without direction. At the current rate, Lelouch estimated that the main phase would end well within an hour or two, assuming that reinforcements did not arrive from the mainland or the original force Kimmel had sent to intercept the Black Knights were able to escape the trap Lelouch had prepared for them and return to support their home basin. Overall things were going well, but Lelouch knew better than to believe Murphy's Law had been entirely evaded, especially after his experiences in Japan and Africa.
At the present time, Lelouch found himself coming near the famous Battleship Row, the stretch of water that divided Ford Island from the eastern edge of the harbor. The area had been so named when some Admiral, whose own name Lelouch could not remember, had arranged a small fleet of battleships to be moored there in a double line formation to conserve docking space; since then the Britannians had made it something of a tradition to moor ships in that same area and arrangement, even when the retirement of the last Britannian naval battleship was long past. And so it was now, with two full lines of Defiant-class destroyers and an Emperor-class carrier at the head of the line. Once more Lelouch had to silently thank Admiral Kimmel, whether he was still alive or not, for being a staunch holder of naval traditions even when it was strategically unsound; had Lelouch been in command of Pearl, he would never have arranged his anchored fleet in such a vulnerable and isolated area, nor would he have grouped them together so tightly that they would make such easy targets.
Immediately another squad of knightmares, this time being a combined unit of Sutherlands and Gloucesters, the latter being the first Lelouch had seen since the battle had begun, emerged to stop him. Lelouch sneered from behind his mask as he was forced to evade the machine gun fire as well as the lance units' charges, two of the latter he deflected with his Blaze Luminous. He then switched back to his VARIS and fired additional shots, wiping away the majority of the enemy knightmares attacking him, while the rest were still damaged in some way such as limbs being blown off. Nonetheless, those remaining continued their attack runs, forcing Lelouch to finish them off by switching to his MVS, where he charged and cut them down. One after another his blades met the Britannian units, slicing into their internals as he passed, either causing them to detonate or collapse to the ground as their cockpit blocks ejected. But even as Lelouch destroyed them, his sensors were already picking up more enemy knightmares heading at his direction; as such, he had to work quickly in sinking the enemy warships.
The ships responded in kind as he drew closer, firing anti-unit missiles from their VLS at the black and gold knightmare. With a practiced hand, Lelouch stormed forward while deftly evading the bullets and missiles as they surged at him from the eight destroyers and single carrier, utilizing more than a few maneuvers he had learned from Bismarck and/or in Africa in the process. Unfortunately, this kept him from getting a direct target lock, even though he was well within range to use his VARIS, and needless to say he couldn't get close enough to use his MVS or slash harkens either. In spite of all that, Lelouch couldn't help but smirk a little at the Britannian crews' diligent defense. They're well aware of what this machine is capable of and are basing their firing pattern around it. Very skillful, more than I would have expected of the Pacific Fleet. It's too bad they're not Black Knights...
With that, Lelouch had the Mordred leap up and over another group of missiles, where he launched a slash harken into the bridge tower of a nearby destroyer. From there, he drew himself up and onto the bridge, landing directly in front of the radar tower, where he redrew his VARIS. Knowing he only had a few seconds before the Britannians somehow figured out a way to shoot him down, Lelouch took aim with his rifle and fired, sending a single red bolt down into the hull of the destroyer, namely in the VLS segment. The resultant explosion instantly obliterated the blow of the destroyer, causing her to list forward. At that, Lelouch leaped off and put three more shots into her while in midair, causing additional explosions thoughout the hull.
He then landed onto the VTOL pad of the next destroyer, where a pair of Sutherlands, having apparently moved onto the ship the same time as he did, were waiting for him. Having no wish to waste time, Lelouch moved up to one and smashed the butt of his VARIS into its head, crushing it, before kicking it over the side. He then raised his right arm Blaze Luminous to deflect the tonfa attack of the second, before launching one of his hip slash harkens into it, forcing the cockpit pod to eject. From there, leaped up and over the VTOL hangar and the mounted radar assembly there, landing toward the middle of the destroyer. Seconds after that, he fired several more VARIS shots into the hull, causing a chain reaction that eventually caused the destroyer to list to its port side, at which Lelouch moved onto the next destroyer to repeat the process.
In a matter of minutes, the two rows of destroyers were on fire and sinking into the cold Pacific water. All while, like a firebird, the Mordred rose from its final kill, the flames once more illuminating its black visage and its pigeon blood eyes for all to behold and despair. Another group of missiles shot after it, which Lelouch immediately raised his Blaze Luminous to deflect, before launching a slash harken and latching onto the origin: the lone carrier, which had been at the head of the line and somehow spared the destruction that had consumed its brethren. As he landed on the carrier, several of more knightmares, a mixture of Sutherlands and Gloucesters, quickly charged across the flight deck to intercept him. While overhead, at least two Vipers targeted him with their cannons.
Almost daringly, Lelouch charged through the barrage, either evading or deflecting the fire with his shields while systematically cutting down any knightmare that tried attacking him up close with his redrawn MVS, akin in form to a mounted knight running through enemy lines. Once he found an opening, he redrew his VARIS and took a shot at the nearest Viper, the red tinted round piercing through its nose and obliterating the VTOL in one shot. Its wingman attempted to avenge its death by moving in for a missile lock, but Lelouch had no issue evading its targeting system in the traditional manner of a knightmare frame, to which he fired a slash harken into the cockpit, killing the pilot and causing the aircraft to spin out of control, crashing onto nearby Ford Island. From there, Lelouch returned to dispatching the remaining knightmares.
Once the last Sutherland was cleaved into two, Lelouch switched out his MVS for his VARIS again, holding the rifle overhead, barrel aimed directly upward, as he switched it over to its burst mode. From there, he launched his opposite arm slash harken into the deck, propelling into the air, where he took quick aim and fired a single, supercharged shot. Immediately the shot blasted right through the deck and down into the hangar areas below, just before detonating and causing a dome shaped energy blast to erupt from inside the carrier, breaking the once mighty carrier into three portions from the sheer power. Secondary explosions soon followed across the segments as power systems and ammunition stores detonated from shock and/or heat, with the bow section being consumed entirely from its bridge tower to its keel, ensuring that there would be no survivors and little debris remaining.
Seconds later, the Mordred landed back on the deck, where it turned to gaze at the great inferno it had just wrought. Once more like an artist judging his own work, Lelouch looked on quite proudly. It was another reminder that he was no longer the frail student turned revolutionary he once was; now he could truly pilot a knightmare frame. Perhaps not at the same level as his mother, and definitely not at the same level as his teacher, but he could definitely hold his own in battle now. The weakling that was Lelouch Lamperouge, who could barely manage to move a Burai without tripping over its own landspinners, was all but a distant memory.
Eight years ago, I was the standard King; one that could only move one space at a time. Lelouch thought as he reached his hand up to the side of his mask. Specifically over his scarred left eye. Now, I remain a King, but I also hold the powers of a Knight.
With that in mind, Lelouch took final look at the ruined, sinking ships. After that, he turned the Mordred around and sped away toward his next set of targets, cape billowing as he went.
Imperial Air Force Hickam
County of Crusoe, Area 7 (Sandwich Islands), Britannian Empire
So far so good. C.C. thought as she stole a glance at the display window in the corner of her monitor, which showed the whole layout of Hickam air base, as well as the current positions of Hannya Squadron within. Thanks to the Izumo's initial cruise missile attack, the command center and much of the in-built enemy defenses had been neutralized, allowing C.C. and her squadron to slip onto the base without much hindrance, save for the continued presence of enemy knightmares and VTOL gunships. Between the aforementioned bombardments and Hannya's attacks, much of the base was now a great inferno, with several key building and installations alight in flame, while the ruins of various aircraft and ground vehicles lined the broken runways and hangars. That being said however, there was still an enemy presence in Hickam, and C.C. and her all female squadron, as she gathered from her display, were still in the process of weeding them out and obliterating them.
As she caught sight of what looked like a Britannian soldier aiming an anti-tank missile at her, to which she was equally quick to gun him down before he could launch the warhead, C.C. sighed. Unlike the majority of the Black Knights, knightmare devicers or otherwise, she found no thrill in battle, not even the current one. Having lived through many wars and conflicts throughout history, going all the way back to the days of horse cavalry and the bow and arrow being the dominant weapons of war, she could safely say that she had long lost her taste for killing mortals in overly glorified bouts of carnage and destruction. And that included Britannians, who had been her enemies in several of those wars. Who, much like the present day men and women she was fighting beside, she had grievously hated once upon a time.
Regardless however, C.C. was where she was now, and through her contribution in this battle she was supporting both of her partners and overall rightful vengeance against Britannia. Thus, she put more power into her machine's landspinners, propelling her neon pink steed past the flaming buildings and knightmare and aircraft remnants, its orange mono-eye ever searching for new prey to slaughter. In the meantime, she fired her hand gun into any untouched and/or non-burning building she came across, adding additional flames and destruction to Hickam's ever growing pyre.
Naturally it didn't take long before the enemy caught up with her. Through the inferno, a trio of lance armed Sutherlands charged at her as one, intent on impaling her simultaneously. Reacting as fast as she always did against enemies, C.C. instantly banked around the first two charges, and then deflected the third with her katen yaibatou, right before reversing and bringing her knightmare to the right, allowing her to gun down the Sutherland in its left side. The enemy knightmare immediately crumpled and joined the rest of the ruin, but its squadmates remained undeterred, pulling out their assault rifles and firing twin bursts at her. At that, she banked to the left and returned fire, managing to take out one of the two in the process.
At that, the third launched a grenade at her, but C.C. easily evaded the shot while making a beeline for the Sutherland, which raised its lance to deflect her initial sword slash. It then brought its assault rifle back up to fire point blank, to which C.C. raised her hand gun and fired a short burst, effectively beating the Britannian pilot to the draw. At that, the Sutherland reversed, throwing aside its ruined assault rifle and its lance before extending its tonfas.
"Fine by me," C.C. commented as she raised her katen yaibatou and charged, deciding to meet the Sutherland pilot at his own game. Said devicer was likely average – otherwise he would have been in a Gloucester – but it would still be a potentially entertaining bout.
Initially feigning a forward slash, she then leaped over the Britannian knightmare as it surged forward, landing directly behind it. Predictably, the Sutherland twisted around to strike her before she slashed the cockpit block, to which C.C. parried the initial attack, evaded the following three and then parried the fifth, where she knocked the tonfas fully aside. The Sutherland pilot then made two more attaacks, to which the immortal simply side-stepped the first and then deflected the second by planting the pummel of her katen yaibatou against the Sutheland's forearm, immobilizing the attack. That seemed to aggravate the Sutherland devicer that much further – to be beaten around by a pink knightmare - as his next swing, supported by a full on landspinner charge, came quicker.
Again C.C. sighed, this time rather disappointedly, as she watched the attack come. Indeed the swing was ill-aimed, such that the immortal easily raised her left hand and blocked the tonfas mid-swing, then did the same with the second. She then promptly crouched and spun, cutting off both legs with her chainsword before planting the whirling blade into the cockpit block just as the stricken frame touched ground again. The devicer was dead instantly, his last image that of the neon pink knightmare finishing him off.
But the "witch" didn't have time to gloat, even if she were wanted to, as her threat indicators went off once more. Appearing out of nowhere, a Viper swooped from overhead, launching the payload of its rocket pods. Inwardly cursing, C.C. brought her Gekka to full speed, narrowly dodging each of the rockets as she made her way toward the ruined air field, all the while the Viper pursued, adding its chain gun to the assault. It was only when she reached an open space from the rockets that C.C. at last turned her knightmare around and let loose with her hand gun, knocking the VTOL gunship out of the air and adding further fire to the blaze around her. Naturally, that was far from the end of it, as her sensors picked up additional enemy contacts moving toward her position. As well as one of her own.
"Hannya Lead!" a young female voice shouted as another black knightmare frame moved up to her position, firing its hand gun into the distance. "They seem to be coming from everywhere, don't they?"
C.C. smirked at her subordinate's comment as she returned fire with her own hand gun. "Well, we are storming their base Two," she commented, before rebrandishing her chainsword and charging forward, the Gekka mirrored her move and following her a moment later.
As the two knightmares weaved around the Sutherlands' fire, C.C. launched her slash harken, seeming missing her target until she rushed passed it, where the cable cut into the fifth generation knightmare's waist and bifurcated it. Hannya Two, meanwhile, also launched her harken, which smashed into her target's head and snapped it off, allowing her to close in and finish it with a single katen yaibatou slash. Several more Sutherlands, and at least two Gloucesters, then moved in against the pair, but between the Gekkas' superior mobility and the skills of the devicers, neither C.C. nor her wingwoman had too much difficulty evading their fire, all the while continuing to close the distance.
Then, C.C.'s sensors again beeped in warning. "Hannya Two, your left."
At that, the Gekka turned around to parry the lance thrust of a third Gloucester, to which she then knocked away. The Britannian knightmare then attempted to bring its assault rifle up in its place, but by the time it fired a burst Hannya Two was at its right, where she proceeded to slash the cockpit block as she moved past, causing the now deadened knightmare to topple to the tarmac. All within a few seconds' timespan.
As she cut down her own Gloucester, C.C. gave off a proud smirk as her subordinate rejoined the melee. Perhaps they were not as good as Lelouch and Kallen's prized Zero Squadron, but her Hannyas were skilled enough just the same. After all, she had personally trained them in the ways of war, both in and out of a knightmare frame. That being said, she was no slouch either, as she demonstrated when she charged at a pair of Sutherlands, slashing one across the front, then crouching under the second's tonfa attack and skating around it so she could cut into the back of its waist, causing the upper torso to fall clean off as the legs and lower body remained standing. She herself had had eight years to learn the proper usage of a knightmare, and her own instructor had been the Red Dragoness herself.
Soon enough, between the two Hannyas, the bulk of the Britannian units present on the airfield were dwindled down. All that remained was the last Gloucester, which seemed to back away in obvious hesitation, its head shifting two and from the two Black Knights as they approached it, their katen yaibatou's still aglow along the edges. Then, in a rather anti-climatic fashion, the cockpit pod suddenly ejected, leaving the frame itself to collapse with the rest.
"Well, that was utterly pathetic," Hannya Two dryly commented as she planted a bullet into the frame, causing it to detonate. There was no need to leave anything for the Britannians to recover after all.
C.C. simply shrugged as she looked over her sensors, monitoring the rest of her squadron's status. From there, she switched her comm. to Lelouch's frequency. "Hannya One to Gyoku One, objective three complete. IAF Hickam is now clear of enemy forces."
"Acknowledged Hannya One," Lelouch replied from the other end, apparently in battle himself. "Have your squadron move onto next objective. Out."
The immortal "witch" snorted as the comline cut out. You so owe me a pizza when this is over Lelouch. she thought as she and Hannya Two moved off the airfield to rejoin the rest of the squadron, which C.C. had already signaled to gather at the appropriate coordinates.
Belial Palace
Pendragon, Grand Duchy of Pennsylvania, Area 1 (North America), Britannian Empire
"Suzaku..."
"Yes... Euphie?"
"The Ceremony... Did it go alright...? Is Japan okay?"
"Euphie... don't you remember?"
"How was the ceremony? Did you think I did... okay?"
"Euphie, the Special Zone is..."
"..."
"...a great success! The Japanese people were given back their home, and you did it!"
"...Oh, thank God...!"
"Euphie..."
"...How strange...I can't see...your face anymore..."
"...!"
"...Keep going...to school...I had to stop...before I...before I had the chance to finish..."
"Euphie, you can still go yourself! I know, why don't we go to Ashford Academy together? The Student Council is so much fun! Euphie...!"
"You have to do it... for me... 'kay?"
"Please Euphie! No, don't go!"
"Oh, Suzaku... I'm so happy...to have...met...you..."
"EUPHIE!"
Crying out her name almost in a howl, Suzaku bolted up from his slumber. His breathing rapid and sweat pouring from his forehead, it took him more than a few moments to calm down, even after he had realized it was only a dream. But even that knowledge bore no comfort to him.
Eyes adjusting to the darkness quite easily, he managed to bring himself into a sitting position on the side of the bed, looking out at the interior of the master bedroom. He knew at this point it would be impossible to fall asleep again; he was still tired from the day, but the dream, the very nightmare that had haunted him for eight years, was quite effective in keeping him from his slumber after running its course. This was coupled with Suzaku's fear that, should he fall asleep again, he would likely have another dream just like it, another nightmare that forced him to relive the most horrific moments of his past. After all, he had so many of them.
Slowly, he got up from his bed, allowing himself to relax a little once he felt cool air touch his bare chest. He relaxed even further at the sound of rain hitting the palace roof and the accompanying reverberations of thunder, both products of a storm that had been dwelling above Pendragon over the past few days. But even those things failed to completely erase the images in Suzaku's mind; the image of the pale and weakening Princess Euphemia in the Avalon's sickbay was especially prominent, and even now Suzaku could still see the light dimming from her eyes and eyelids drifting downward as she murmured her last few words. Suddenly feeling as though the image threatened overtake him at the memory, Suzaku threw himself to his feet, intent on finding some way to drown it out.
After putting on a robe, he marched to the bathroom, this time actually turning the light on. Straining his eyes to adjust to the unnatural brightness, he turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face in an effort to force himself more fully awake and feel refreshed at the same time. Once he had splashed himself a few times, he finally allowed his eyes to look into the mirror and draw in what was reflected on its surface, an act that he silently had dreaded.
Soon enough, he saw his image in the mirror; brown hair of a lighter shade than most Japanese, dark green eyes, slightly tanned skin from spending three years in Africa, and a well-structured face that would have constituted bishounen status back in his homeland, as in his youth some had compared him to a famous manga character in terms of handsomeness and beauty. No sign of scarring through some miraculous miracle, even after all those times in which one of the Lancelot's cockpit instruments exploded and rained shards all over his face and body. And there was certainly no sign of excessive age in his features, which he had expected somewhat; he was still twenty-five after all. For all intents and purposes Suzaku should have been pleased with what he saw, yet as he continued to stare hard into the mirror, he only felt himself grow cold as he realized just how much he had changed over the short amount of time.
No more than eight years ago the face in front of him had been completely different, just as he had been a completely different person. Eight years ago, his features would have been soft and warm to behold, representing an individual that was pleasant and friendly to those around him. Yes he had felt the darkness of the world at that time, as his father's murder had happened no more than seven years prior, just as he had been forced to endure the status of a traitor among his people, but during his time at Ashford Academy or even when he had only been test piloting the Lancelot, none of that had reached him, and that fact showed prominently in his expression to others. It was that soft, friendly and partially awkward gaze that had reconnected him with Lelouch and Nunnally, had gained him friendships with Milly and the other Student Council members and had earned him the interest of Lloyd and Cecile as colleagues. It had been his hopeful smile and charm that had established him as an icon to both Britannia and his own people, being the lone Eleven that had worked his way up through sheer determination and made something of himself, becoming both an example of what could be gained through working for Britannia and a hero for all Honorary Britannians to endeavor toward. And above all else, it had been his kindness and gentleness, even amongst the darkness he felt within, that had caused Euphie to fall in love with him and attempt to save him in her own way.
But that was all gone now. Instead of that soft expression, his face was hardened from experience and constant bloodshed, giving off the image of a man that knew not peace. His eyes, once bright and filled with hope, were now darkened from reality and gave off a seemingly eternal glare, something that was dreadful for others to behold and could not possibly have been consistent with the elements that made a human being; yes, his eyes alone were entirely unrecognizable from what he remembered of them. As for his other features, such as his nose, hair and cheekbones, they had all been altered over time, having grown more prominently through his passage to adulthood, yet still enhancing the dark image that Suzaku now projected, a grim visage that grew and encompassed his being like an aura. And no matter how much he may have wished it, Suzaku knew that it would forever remain as that; that it was impossible for him to revert back into the person he once was. That Suzaku Kururugi was long dead; all that remained was the man looking back from the mirror.
Suddenly feeling rage overtake him at the sight of his reflection, Suzaku cringed with anger, drew a fist and in one lightning fast effort slammed it into the mirror. Through his sheer strength the mirror cracked in a spider web, fragmenting his reflection into a million pieces as well, Suzaku's knuckles now partially bleeding from the impact. But even so, he did not feel the pain in his hand, nor his own hyperventilated breathing and quickened heartbeat. Instead, his concentration remained on the mirror, as amidst the cracked reflective glass, he could still see his eyes look back at him; the same dead, hardened eyes that beheld no hope nor light, gaze back from the abyss. And along with that reflection, he once beheld the image of his late father, as if he were standing right beside him and looking into the mirror to meet his son's gaze, looking back with the very same eyes. All as if to emphasize on how much Suzaku had become just like him, the very same man that would have sacrificed his entire nation as well as shed innocent blood for the sake of spiting his enemies.
In that moment, Suzaku remembered Bismarck's warning to him, that he was falling into madness, and that if left unchecked, it would only bring harm to him and those around him. Suzaku had been aware of it for a long time, his father's frequent appearances to him being evident enough of it, but now he had progressed to the point that others had taken notice. Not that it mattered anymore; no matter how well-meaning his superior had been in offering his wisdom, Suzaku knew all too well that it was too late save him from his rightful damnation...
Then at long last something snapped him back to reality: the sound of a call coming in through his video monitor. Finding himself wondering who would be calling him at this time of the morning, Suzaku turned away from the shattered mirror and looked at the screen, before tapping the "answer" button. The next thing he saw was the face of Prince Schneizel. "What can I do for you, Your Highness?" Suzaku asked as the face appeared.
"I'm sorry if I have awakened you Suzaku, but I am afraid the situation is most dire," Schneizel said, speaking in his usual tone of voice, yet Suzaku could detect certain urgency coming from underneath it. "I have just received word that Area 7 has come under attack."
If there was any lingering exhaustion within Suzaku at that time, then Schneizel's words had brushed it away, causing the Knight of the Round to come to full attention. "Is it...?"
Schneizel nodded grimly. "Yes, it is the same force that attacked Pendragon not long ago. The data we've received before communications were cut indicates the Black Battleship and the same knightmare type are being used for the attack. And also..."
"...Yes?" Suzaku asked with great hesitation. Even before Schneizel spoke the next few words, he could already feel what he was about to tell him, yet prayed to Kami that it wasn't what he thought.
"...One of the enemy knightmares has been identified as the Mordred," Schneizel replied.
Suzaku didn't know what had kept him standing at that point, but he knew it hadn't been his own strength. Yes, Schneizel had not specified who exactly was piloting the Mordred, and he didn't have to. In that exact moment, Suzaku realized who was leading the attack, as there was only one man who had both the daring and the genius to attack the most heavily guarded fortress in the Pacific and successfully pull it off. The very event that he had been dreading for the past eight years, the very thing that he had proclaimed had been impossible no more than a few days ago, had finally happened, no matter how much the Knight of Seven wished it not to be true.
In that instant, he once more saw Genbu's image in the shattered mirror, as if he were still standing right beside him and looking into the mirror to meet Suzaku's eyes. Instead of speaking any taunting words about Suzaku's past and present foolishness, his long list of crimes or how far he had fallen, the specter only gazed down at him, as if he were standing on a high pedestal overlooking his son, while his lips slowly folded into a domineering smile. That single action was all Suzaku needed to understand; Genbu's prophecy had come true in spite of Suzaku's own claims to the contrary, and now he was driving the point home. That just as when he had been a child, Suzaku was powerless to defy him.
After forcing himself to cringe to drive the image of his late father away, Suzaku quickly snapped to military readiness and stated to the Prince. "I will head out in the Lancelot as soon as I am ready!"
"Good," Schneizel acknowledged in turn. "Unfortunately, I have only been able to call upon a small naval taskforce, as well as a few units of knightmares, for our initial counterattack as most of our home guard forces remain spread across the continent. However, I believe they are enough to at least hold the enemy for the time being."
"Have you been able to call upon other Knights of the Round?" Suzaku inquired.
"Only Gino and Anya. I have yet been able to contact the others," Schneizel answered.
Suzaku didn't like the way the Prince sounded. "Will you be there as well Your Highness?"
Schneizel closed his eyes. "I'm afraid not, as I will be needed here to organize a more formal response force," he replied. "Dame Sapphire will be in command in my stead."
His eyes then opened again and narrowed as they detected the unease in Suzaku's form. "Yes I know you would rather I lead this directly Suzaku, but for the time being you and the others will have to hold the line without my command. I have faith that you will be able to accomplish this."
In spite of the reinforcing nature of the Prince's words, Suzaku only felt his internals clench further; it was bad enough that his worst nightmare was returning to restart where things left off eight years ago, but now the best man to lead the Britannian forces against him would not be present. But even so, he fought back against the despair, which only fed upon his knowledge of the current events and seemingly grew tenfold, before accepting Schneizel's words with a nod. "I will not fail you, my liege."
Schneizel nodded in turn. "You never have, Suzaku. I do not expect you to now."
The Prince then signed off, leaving the Knight of Seven to hurriedly slip out of his robe and into his pilot suit before running to Belial Palace's hangar wing where the Lancelot was kept. All throughout, Suzaku could not keep the dread out of his heart, as he stepped forward to challenge the Legion of his past, now seemingly led by his most hated enemy once again.
The shattered mirror only continued to hold his broken reflection until he left.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Pearl
County of Crusoe, Area 7 (Sandwich Islands), Britannian Empire
With spectacular finesse the Guren Nishiki and its accompanying Guren Isshiki sibling dashed around the incoming fire of the enemy Sutherland unit, utilizing their landspinners at full capacity to flit across the sky in crisscrossing crimson lines. The Britannian knightmares, now seeing quite clearly that their firepower was not hindering their targets in the least, soon scattered from the whole as the two Black Knights charged through, taking a few down with their respective melee and projectile based weapons along the way. The rift was only punctuated further when the Nishiki reached out and ensnared one of the fleeing Sutherlands before letting loose its radiant wave surger, boiling the enemy knightmare until its armor bubbled, its internal mechanics melted and its power systems destabilized, causing the entire frame to explode in a matter of seconds.
Kallen could only let off a predatory growl of hate in the glare of the explosion, just as she saw the Sutherlands regroup to try and surround her and Alfred; as much as she hated to compliment the Britannians on anything, she admitted they had guts for fighting back when it was apparent that they couldn't win. Granted they were more than likely buying time until reinforcements from the mainland arrived, but the fact they were still willing to fight when their base had long been decimated and their numbers only thinning was only a testament to the bravery and diligence of the Britannian soldiers. And yet it was the same bravery and diligence that annoyed Kallen into outright bitterness, as the battle would have been long over had those same soldiers simply turned and ran back to their homeland or, even better, surrendered. Only more reasons to hate Britannians.
"Rei Leader, your right!" she heard Alfred call out over the radio. Upon that warning, Kallen twisted her Guren around and let loose a radiant wave stream toward the specified direction, where a pair of Sutherlands had been attempting to attack her flank. One boiled under the stream like its comrade before, while the other lost its right arm and machine gun but managed to escape certain death. At least momentarily, as it was soon caught in a surger blast from Alfred's Isshiki. From there, Alfred drew back his main weapon and charged forward, destroying several more knightmares along the way, while Kallen joined him from the rear with her own fork knife. Before they could proceed further however, both knightmares' sensors alerted their respective pilots to the presence of missile locks, forcing both to evade as a barrage of missiles emerged from nearby emplacements, all the while more knightmares moved into meet them.
Kallen only seethed further at the presence of additional knightmares standing in the way of her objective, that being the submarine docks at the foot of the harbor. In fact, they were both close enough to their targets that Kallen could visually depict several black shapes in the distance, all "safely" docked in their respective pens like housed animals. Her computer identified the ones closest to her position as newer model Avenger-class attack submarines, but it wouldn't have been surprising if there were other classes there as well. All were inactive and vulnerable, with their only protection being the nearby knightmares and defensive emplacements.
Though she had been only ten years old at the time, Kallen remembered how Britannian submarines had played a pivotal role in the invasion of Japan, to suppress the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and to transport Imperial Marines for amphibious landings. In fact, she had mused earlier that these may very well be the same ships from that conflict and perhaps even the Devastation, as she remembered several of the Britannian ships garrisoned in Japan had managed to put out to sea just before the final order was carried out; that very possibility caused her teeth to grind in anger, as it meant these ships were responsible for her homeland's subjugation, yet managed to escape its destruction when several million innocents perished with it. Whether that was true or not, she would not allow them to escape her, but first she had to break through the barrier.
"Bank left Rei Two," she ordered Alfred before setting her radiant wave surger to its spray setting. When the Isshiki did just as she had commanded, she let loose a widened funnel of blood red energy onto the Britannians to her front, causing their knightmares to freeze in place while any of the missiles that had been shot at her prematurely detonated. With nothing standing between them now, the Gurens launched forward toward their targets.
Kallen attacked first by firing another radiant wave stream along the bow of a submarine, burning a bright red line across the black hull and causing massive secondary explosions to break from the rift, eventually overtaking the entire boat. She followed this firing pattern up with several others, while Alfred used his own surger to damage to even more, causing additional fires to overtake the docks and nearby buildings. Whatever knightmares that attempted to intervene as either Zero Squadron knightmare went on the spree was quickly and efficiently dealt with.
Suddenly, Alfred's sensors beeped in warning. His eyes widened as he read over the data. You've got to be kidding! "Rei Leader, evade!"
At that, Kallen snapped her Guren into an evasive pattern alongside her wingman, just as a line of explosive shells rained upon where she had been before. Once she was in the momentary clear, she twisted the Nishiki's head to face the direction of the oncoming fire, where she saw a peculiar sight: another knightmare group, mixed between additional Sutherlands and a model that Kallen had never seen before. Or at least, she assumed the latter was a knightmare type; from her perspective, they appeared more like tank turrets mounted on a pair of legs, with the turret itself equipped with the standard large cannon, a supplementary machine gun on its left and two flanking missile batteries. Even stranger, her computer actually identified the type: Liverpool.
"Seriously!?" Alfred let out in amazement as he put his Isshiki into a charge as the Sutherlands advanced forward, with Kallen quick to mimic him. "They really brought out Second Generation leftovers to fight us!?"
Kallen merely smirked at the notion. "Just shows how desperate they are Two," she exclaimed as she put her sights on the nearest Sutherland, all the while she and Alfred zig-zagged around the Liverpools' fire. "Wipe them out!"
At that, she brandished her fork knife and slashed her target up the middle before it had a chance to properly aim its weapon, to which she then kicked it aside where it skidded into the water, its cockpit ejecting moments later. Its wingman then moved on her as well, extending its tonfas to strike, only for Kallen to reverse aside from its attack and then fire a radiant wave stream into its back, causing it to detonate. Beside her, Alfred banked to the right as another Sutherland shot a grenade at him, to which he returned the favor by firing a grenade of his own into the Sutherland's torso, obliterating the upper portion of the body. He then twisted around and fired a radiant wave stream into another Sutherland, one that had been tracking him with a bazooka, before charging up to another and slashing its cockpit across the side with his knife.
The Liverpools were quick to notice the pair's approach, in spite of their comrades' valiant opposition. When the two Gurens, after finishing the remaining Sutherlands, entered too close for their cannons to be of use, they switched to their machine guns and missile launchers, spraying bullets and projectiles at the fast approaching Black Knight units. However, this did just as little to hinder either Kallen or Alfred, with the former even firing a radiant wave stream at the closest Liverpool, obliterating it in one shot. This caused the others to disperse, moving as fast as their own early type landspinners could allow them. However, this only bought them a few seconds before both Gurens fell upon them, as signified when Alfred launched a grenade into the right side of another Liverpool as he past, destroying the turret part in one shot.
For her part, Kallen almost felt sorry for the Liverpool devicers. There was no way that they could win against her or Alfred, yet they were fighting just as hard to stand against them. That being said however, they were still Britannians, and Kallen was not about to show them any more mercy than she had the others she had destroyed to this point. Thus she closed in on the nearest Liverpool, neatly evading its machine gun while bringing her knife about, where she proceeded to slash at the unit's legs, causing it to topple over. Finishing it off with a grenade shot, she then leaped away as another unit targeted her with its right missile launcher, sending six projectiles screaming at where she had been before. There, borrowing Charmelle's trick, she leaped up onto the enemy knightmare's – as hard as it was to consider them knightmares – turret, to which she grasped her surger and let loose a small burst of radiation, bubbling the chassis and causing it to explode just after she jumped away.
As she landed, she noticed Alfred maneuvering around the machine fire of two Liverpools, who had apparently decided to converge their fire as they retreated. At first she moved to aid him, but then realized it wouldn't have mattered; speeding up to one unit, Alfred wasted no time in cutting off the machine gun, and then the cannon barrel for no apparent reason than because. From there, the former Glaston Knight circled around the unit and shoulder barged it, sending it directly into its partner, who had been haplessly firing its machine gun in defense. A single rapid burst of radiant wave fire promptly finished both off.
"And then there was one," Alfred said as he and Kallen both cornered the remaining Liverpool, which was reversing away as fast as it could move while the pair zig-zagged toward it, easily evading its firepower. The pair then broke formation and circled, forcing the turret to twist to and fro between them, helplessly firing whatever ammunition it had left at the two frames yet failing to score even a glancing hit. And then, without raising any sort of signal, both simultaneously raised their surgers and fired a single beam each, catching the second generation type in their crossfire. Only then, with its hull bubbled and its former blue armor now aglow in red, did the Liverpool stop firing. It exploded not long after.
Looking over the remains of their latest kills, Alfred noticed a pair of devicers crawling out of the Liverpool whose legs Kallen had cut off. Though he didn't know how, Alfred could tell that they were rookies; the sheer terror across their faces as they ran away was enough evidence. "You're right Lead, they are desperate," he said, as he looked over to the Nishiki. "Either their skilled devicers and worthwhile knightmares are in the Far East or China…"
"Or we've already killed them all," Kallen finished, having surmised the same conclusion as she watched the pair of Britannian pilots run for cover. She then stole one last glance at the still burning remnants of the submarines. "Regardless, we're finished here. Move to next sector."
With that, both Gurens turned and sped away.
With a sudden burst from his landspinners, Rai closed the gap between his unique cobalt colored Guren Isshiki - better known throughout the Black Knights as the Aoren - and the opposing Gloucester, driving his fork knife directly through its chest with little hindrance. A moment later he withdrew the knife and reversed his knightmare, allowing himself some safe distance just as the Gloucester exploded. With that threat removed, Rai switched over to his surger and let loose a full stream into the line of buildings that the special-issue knightmare and others like it had been protecting, destroying them and any contents that they had contained in a collective blaze that made the Gloucester's destruction seem inconsequential.
The destroyed buildings were only the latest addition to what remained of the sector Rai and his unit had been deployed into. Ruins of various vehicles, knightmares and aircraft were littered across the ground, as were burning buildings and defensive emplacements. A good portion of them had been the result of the Izumo's initial bombardment at the beginning of the battle as well as follow up attacks by other Black Knight squadrons, but there had still been enough left for Rai and his 5th Knightmare Squadron "Raiden" to demolish when they had all been directed to the basin for mop up operation. In that sense, Rai had to admit that they had been thorough in the destruction, and even though there was still some remaining opposition and targets of opportunity here, it would not be long before the whole of their sector was obliterated. Not that its complete destruction would stand out from the rest of the military installations on the island in any way.
As he began another run, Rai looked back to see two of the Gekkas of his unit having a high speed cat and mouse chase with a number of Sutherlands and several supporting Vipers. To anyone watching on the outside, it would have appeared that Raiden Squadron units were quickly being overwhelmed, but Rai knew that it was his pilots who were leading the merry chase, all the while having their way with the Britannian pilots without the enemy realizing it. This further emphasized when two other Gekkas moved in and made sweeping runs on the pursuers, destroying several in one pass, and allowing the first two to twist around and return fire. One at a time they picked off her antagonists, their shots landing perfectly on target in stark contrast to their adversaries' lacking accuracy, resulting in several trailing explosions.
Heh, I'm leading a squadron of grandstanders. Rai thought as he watched it all play out. He wasn't so concentrated however that he didn't notice a Viper swoop down from the sky and make a strafing run against him, firing both its cannon and two missiles at his direction. In a split second Rai pushed the Aoren to full power, avoiding streaking missiles and then the Viper itself as it dove past. Before it could get enough distance away from him however, he twisted the Aoren around and once more let loose his surger into the VTOL, effectively boiling the craft's chassis and sending it crashing into the ground.
At that, his sensors picked up several more enemy units making their way into the sector, which turned out to be, much to Rai's surprise, a number of Glasgows. The Black Knight ace arched an eyebrow at that; apparently the defenders were really throwing everything they had at them. At the moment the enemy knightmares were moving toward the closest Gekkas, which were still having their brutal way with the already present Sutherlands and VTOLs; it was obvious that the enemy commander was hoping to catch at least one enemy unit on the unguarded flank before he, she or they either saw them coming, though the chances of that happening were about the same as someone managing to shoot the Emperor and live to tell about it.
Sure enough, one of the Gekkas, the unit belonging to Raiden Six, finished dispatching the last Viper and then turned its attention to raining death on the newcomers, going on a full charge and weaving around the newcomers' fire before letting loose his own guns from their flanks; an obvious reenactment of the tactic popularized by Glasgow pilots against the JGSDF during the Second Pacific War. Rai let out a "heh" at the irony in that, but then his sensors spouted out a warning of a new enemy unit entering the combat zone, moving at a speed comparable to a Gloucester. As his onboard computer was unable to identify the newcomer, he quickly magnified the visual feed, and upon doing so, felt his eyes widen.
That's...! was all his mind was able to process before his body moved on its own and keyed into his wingman's channel. "Raiden Six, behind you!"
Unfortunately the warning came too late as the unit, quick as a shot, moved upon Raiden Six and slashed its blade across his Gekka's cockpit block, with the pilot barely being able to utter a "What...?". Two other Gekkas were dispatched in a similar fashion, while a fourth at least attempt to intercept with its katen yaibatou, only for it to end up impaled by a sword thrust that reached into the cockpit.
Once more reacting before his mind could process thought, Rai pushed the Aoren to its limit, moving straight down upon the newcomer knightmare as it withdrew its bloodied sword, what appeared to be a rapier, from the Gekka, allowing the unit to fall dead to the ground. The newcomer then twisted around to parry Rai's own knife slash, then reversed back to escape the reach of his radiant wave surger. Swearing loudly, Rai switch to Raiden Squadron's "push" frequency. "Raiden Leader to all units, withdraw immediately!"
"Say again Raiden Leader?" one of the pilots, likely Raiden Two, asked.
"You heard me, get out of here! I'll handle this Britannian personally!" Rai ordered once more. As had been demonstrated on the previous four Gekkas, the enemy devicer was an ace and not so easily handled. But then, he or she would have to be in order to control that particular knightmare frame.
With the command established, the Gekka pilots followed orders and withdrew, taking only a few moments to pick up the remains of their fallen comrades' knightmares. Nothing was to be left for the Britannians after all. With that, Rai went on the offensive and charged after his opponent, who began shooting at him with an assault rifle in its left hand. Throwing up a radiant wave shield as he charged, Rai moved upon the enemy knightmare again, only for it to evade his surger's grasp once more.
Of all the things I knew I would end up fighting here, I never thought you would be among their number. Rai thought as he pushed his feet back against the cockpit foot pedals, sending his Aoren into an even greater velocity. A necessary move, as the knightmare he was facing was clearly as nimble as he had heard it to be.
Needless to say, the enemy knightmare was a lot different from the standard types he and the rest of his squadron had been slaughtering throughout the night. At first glance, it appeared to be a heavily modified Sutherland, one that was equipped with stylized silver armor of a thinner, equine-styled design and two high-heeled feet to support a pair of oversized landspinners. Its head, rather than the usual blockish design, was smoothened and streamlined, its camera sensors taking the form of two red lines at the top and bottom of the faceplate, while a pair of Sutherland style "ear fins" extended from the back. For weapons, the enemy knightmare was equipped with a rapier sword in its right hand as well as a standard assault rifle, while two slash harkens were placed on its chest.
"Knightmare Frame Carlisle," Rai spoke with familiarity to the still retreating knightmare, which he was easily overtaking. "I was right, they are throwing everything at us."
As if physically responding to Rai, the Carlisle redrew its assault rifle and began firing in rapid succession. The Black Knight engaged in evasive maneuvers as he pursued, easily evading the bullets and grenades by reflex alone. From there, he gunned his landspinners again and once more came upon his opponent, right before he grasped the rifle with his surger and shot a burst of radiation into it, forcing the enemy knightmare to abandon it before it exploded. Before he could do anything to the Carlisle itself however, the Britannian knightmare reached out with its leg and kicked against the Aoren's chest, sending him back some distance.
In response to the challenge, Rai swung his knife back and charged again. Despite his Guren's superior speed, the enemy pilot was quick enough to deflect his initial slash with its rapier, then swing the other around in an attempt to counter. At that, Rai was forced to reverse, with the Carlisle surging forward into a power thrust that the Black Knight was forced to deflect. It followed this up with another thrust a second later, which Rai attempted to ensnare upon evading, only for it to withdraw too quickly, only to attempt a third that Rai was forced to duck under. From there, Rai fired a stream from his surger to dissuade it from further attack, to which he used the opportunity to close in and make a downward chop that would have split the Carlisle's head in two, only for the Carlisle to raised its blade and deflect the attack. It then retaliated with a dual slash, which Rai deflected once more in kind.
This kept up for some time, as in spite of the technologically superior Aoren, the Britannian pilot was still able to bring out the full power of the Carlisle into the fight, thus hindering Rai's efforts. Eventually however, Rai managed to score first blood by slashing into the Carlisle's right shoulder, nearly cutting off the entire arm in the process. In seemingly angered response, the Carlisle leapt back and fired off its slash harkens in a surprise attack. However, Rai was well prepared for it, from which he not only avoided the harkens with precision but slash them away with his knife before they could be withdrawn.
At that point the mood of the battle changed as the enemy pilot suddenly realized his or her only remaining weapons was the rapier. In the face of being overwhelmed, the adversary chose a more aggressive course of action, launching into a full offensive that, in full reversal of their earlier positions, forced Rai back. And though Rai deflected the extended rapier attacks from even touching his Aoren, he was unable to land a killing strike of his own, as the Carlisle was keeping him on the defense. As a result, Rai was only able to chip away at the Carlisle's chassis with his knife, taking off chunks of its armor with quick slashes and cuts, but was unable to harm its internal systems and mechanics.
Damn it, I don't have time for this...! Rai thought. Reengaging his landspinners, he broke away from the Carlisle, speeding away into the distance in the hope that the enemy pilot would take the bait. Sure enough the Carlisle gave chase, charging after the "fleeing" Guren with clear intent to finish it off. In a straight race, Rai knew his knightmare could outrun its opponent; as fast as the Carlisle was, it was not as fast as the more up to date Guren Isshiki. However, he didn't intend on outrunning his opponent so much as leading him or her on, much like his subordinates had been doing before with their own pursuers.
Making banks and turns around the airfield and burning wreckages to keep the Carlisle's devicer further concentrated on him, Rai continued his "retreat" as convincingly as he could. All throughout the Carlisle followed, and even took the opportunity to pick up a leftover machine gun from one of the Sutherland remains, soon firing upon him once more. Despite the rain of projectiles as an additional challenge, Rai continued to remain a step ahead of the Carlisle, weaving around the bullets and grenades with a practiced hand as well as utilizing the surrounding wrecked structures as additional cover.
Just a little bit more... Rai thought as he weaved around the burning stump that had once been a communications tower, long reduced to ruins by the Izumo's initial barrage. The Carlisle continued to keep pace, firing another grenade meant for Rai that ended up landing into the broken tower, taking off a massive chunk of the remaining base structure as the Aoren sped on.
Now! Rai heard a voice in his head cry out. Without warning he twisted the Aoren around and charged back, moving directly at his pursuer like a rocket. Suddenly understanding what his or her target was about to do, the Carlisle raised its rapier to impale as it continued to move. However, by then it was too late.
Moving faster than the enemy pilot could keep track, the Aoren sped by its Britannian adversary, directly passing the Carlisle executed its thrust. Knowing he had only one chance of getting it right, Rai, upon passing the Carlisle's exposed cockpit section, slashed his fork knife out and cleaved the block, and the pilot with it, right down the side. Despite the speed he was moving at, Rai did not miss the spray of blood that followed after him after he made the slash, signifying that he was the victor.
Without a pilot to control it, and for the fact that Rai's attack had also destroyed the cockpit control systems, the Carlisle suddenly halted in its movement and fell, skittering across the ground before coming to a complete stop. There, Rai moved over it, observing the now disabled knightmare for a brief moment before raising the Aoren's left arm.
"My compliments. You were quite skilled," he solemnly spoke as he targeted, imagining the pilot in the cockpit pod before he or she was cut down. "Unfortunately however, the one I learned from is considered the best of the best…"
He then smirked mysteriously. "In fact, she would have ended you…" he continued. "In a flash."
With that, he fired a grenade and obliterated the Carlisle entirely, once more leaving nothing for the Britannians. The Aoren then turned and sped away, ready to fight the next stage of the battle.
"That's right, eat my shit!" Tamaki bellowed at the latest explosion, which had once been a Sutherland, before banking away on his landspinners to evade the return fire. He was quick enough to fire on several more Sutherlands as he passed, but he only ended up causing minor damage to them. That would soon change however, as the other members of Tamaki's 3rd Knightmare Squadron "Hebi" moved in to finish where he left off.
As he advanced toward newer targets, Tamaki only felt a giddy feeling come over himself and his seemingly unbreakable stride. We're beating the total shit out of them! We're actually pulling this off!
Even now in the middle of the action, the ambitious Black Knight squadron commander could still hardly believe what was happening around him. Not only was his side winning, but it was kicking Britannian ass on one of the most heavily defended basins on the planet; in fact even with all that the Black Knights had gained throughout the years, Tamaki would never have believed in his wildest dreams that this could have been possible. The sight of so many destroyed buildings, ships and knightmares only made Tamaki overrun with delight, in a way that not even the attack on Pendragon had made him. Indeed, after having endured years of hit-and-run attacks that had only hampered the Brits rather than halted them, followed by even more years of exile, a direct attack on one of their installations was almost a dream come true as far as the commander of Hebi Squadron was concerned. And it was all made possible by his number one buddy, who Tamaki had already proclaimed as "THE MAN" sometime into the battle.
Behind him he felt an explosion's shockwave pass as one of the bazooka equipped Gekkas blew away another building, while others began setting to work on the nearby hangars. The rest of his squadron only continued to go after the knightmares, as did Tamaki himself, which was signified upon his brandishing his knightmare's katen yaibatou. Once more showing off the new skills he had gained from training at Ginowan on and off for eight years, he led the charge and weaved around the Britannian knightmares, cutting them up as he passed by either slashing them across the legs, the torso or the cockpit itself. The knightmares behind him either finished them off or took out the ones he missed.
"Come on! Is this all you bastards got!? Huh!?" Tamaki hollered over his knightmare's loudspeaker as he weaved through the horde, cutting down one Sutherland after another. A direct response soon came when a rifle launched grenade exploded just a meter away from his position, rocking his knightmare with its shockwave.
"Gah!" Tamaki yelped as he felt his teeth rattle from inside his skull. After he regained his composure, as well as felt his bloodlust increase by a fair margin, Tamaki turned around and found the Sutherland that had taken that shot at him, which was now backing away on its landspinners. Letting out a battle cry, he launched at maximum speed. "I'm going to gut you!"
The Sutherland went into full reverse while firing its machine gun, but there was no way it could outrun Tamaki's knightmare. As a result, Tamaki slashed off one of the Sutherland's legs, causing it to fall over. From that point, the enraged Japanese pilot let out a roar and rapidly stabbed his chainsword through the enlarged knightmare's torso in random places, before his sensors warned him that he was targeted by another knightmare, forcing him off as one of his squadmates shot down that particular unit with a hand gun burst.
The sound of his beeping sensors signaled him to the arrival of more Sutherlands. Tamaki responded by firing off his hand gun, but unfortunately these newcomers were perceptive enough to split off before Tamaki could hit a single one of them, and they responded in kind by firing back with their own machine guns.
"That all you Brits got!? I'm disappointed! You gave a helluva lot more effort eight years ago!" Tamaki bellowed again as he locked onto one of the newly arrived Sutherlands and fired off his slash harken, which buried itself directly into the knightmare's chest and allowed Tamaki to draw in close to slash it up with his katen yaibatou. He then let loose his last radiant wave rocket at another Sutherland, which impacted on the amphibious knightmare's left arm.
Unfortunately, the Britannian pilot managed to narrowly avoid the killing blow by jettisoning that arm, which bubbled and exploded soon after, leaving the knightmare without one appendage but still functioning. Far from letting up, Tamaki throttled his Gekka to full power and barged into the damaged Sutherland, knocking it off its feet and causing it to fall backward, landing on the back of its cockpit block. In a swift motion Tamaki brought up his hand gun and fired a quick point blank burst into his incapacitated target's center before jetting away, not bothering to wait for the explosion.
"Yeah, bitches! This is the new and improved Shinichiro Tamaki, Black Knight ace!" Tamaki hollered out over the loudspeaker once more. "You're all a hundred years too early to take me o..."
A response to his jaunting came in the form of a bazooka shell slamming close to his left side. Though the shell hadn't struck the frame itself – much to Tamaki's fortune – the shockwave was enough to knock the knightmare off balance. As a result of this, Tamaki's Gekka fell like a weight and slammed into the ground just as hard. Tamaki ended up doing the same, sprawling out across his control panel.
"Owww! That fucking smarts...!" Tamaki sounded off from the shock and pain, before trying to reorient himself. Just as he moved to get his Gekka back on its feet however, his sensors beeped out a warning. Immediately Tamaki took a look at his sensor board, and upon reading it suddenly feeling his face turn as white as a ghost's. Oh shit...!
Apparently somewhere between his getting shot down from the sky and following less than graceful landing, a large number of Sutherlands had converged together and were moving against him. The fact that none of his subordinates were close by only made the situation worse. Tamaki wasn't sure how many there were gunning for him, but it was safe to say it was more than a squadron's worth, and as good a pilot as Tamaki had become, even he had to admit that only "battle freaks" like those in Zero Squadron could take on a squadron's worth of knightmares at one time. Suddenly a sinking feeling was beginning to get a hold of the self-proclaimed Black Knight ace.
Soon enough, almost as if they were collectively responding to Tamaki's jeers in one unified retort, the Sutherlands open fired in a full barrage with their machine guns and cannons, forcing Tamaki to move backwards and attempt to evade their attacks. By that point, Tamaki managed to get his Gekka back to its feet and, knowing he was boxed in and unable to escape, charged with his sword in hand, doing his best to evade their barrage while returning fire from his hand gun. Unfortunately while he managed to evade a good portion of the blitzkrieg, many of the bullets still got through and slowly but surely parts of his knightmare got blown away, starting with his left arm, handgun and shoulder.
"Goddammit!" he cursed again as more portions of his knightmare were blown away. Soon enough he lost his main camera as well, his main screen suddenly filled with static, flashing in and out as the secondary camera attempted to take over. Most of the systems within the knightmare were offline as well, only half of his monitors were operational. And the damage only continued to stack on.
But even so, Tamaki didn't abandon his charge. As badly as he was being shot up, he still managed to get right up to one of the offending Sutherlands and use his katen yaibatou to deliver a fatal slash wound before it could back away. He then attempted to draw in close to another one, but by now the other knightmares had withdrawn a considerable distance while retaining their encirclement. As such, when Tamaki attempted to make another charging slash at one of his aggressors, his upraised right arm got cleaved off at the elbow by a slash harken, the hand still clutching the chainsword. From there, the Britannian knightmares closed ranks and the crossfire soon enveloped Tamaki's knightmare, who only screamed out as he realized he was about to die a very fiery death.
Amidst his screaming, Tamaki didn't remember when or whether he pulled the handle or not, but at some point his cockpit ejection system activated and sent his cockpit flying to a safe distance away from the encirclement, just as his knightmare's chassis exploded. Tamaki's cry only continued as the circular grey block flung through the air like a rocket assisted baseball, before once more crashing. But even when it touched ground it still kept moving, going into a bit of a backward tumble before skidding across the ground, all the while causing Tamaki to jar back and forth between his control panel and the back cushions that ran along the hatch. And just like when the system first activated, Tamaki didn't remember at what point did the cockpit stop, as he was too concentrated on the throbbing of his head and body.
"...I now claim this mobile suit in the name of Zeon...!" Tamaki spoke out in a nonsensical daze, the world continuing to spin around his eyes while his ears rung. One could almost see the proverbial cuckoo birds flying around his head.
A nearby explosion and a few shakes of his head were enough to knock him out of his daze and back to his senses, as well as cause him to remember what had just happened to him.
"Dammit to hell, why does this shit keep happening to me!?" Tamaki hollered, slamming his fist against his control panel. Unfortunately his body was still quite bruised up from both the battle and his escape, which combined with the reverse force applied from his fist's impact onto the control panel caused him to jump back from the sudden surge in pain. "Owwwwww...! Goddammit...!"
However, as concentrated as he was on his now violently throbbing fist, Tamaki did not fail to remember that he was a sitting duck, nor did he fail to remember that Britannians had a thing for shooting up helpless cockpits. As such, using his other hand, he opened the cockpit release and had the hatch flip open. From there he climbed off his motorcycle seat and attempted to stand up right, although that took a bit of effort to accomplish as he was still woozy; fortunately the sounds of the explosions and surrounding gunfire enabled him to regain himself. Once the world was straight again, he began looking around for some cover to run toward and hide himself until one of his allies found him and took him back to the Izumo.
Man, everything's on fire... Tamaki thought with no small amount of helplessness, all of a sudden feeling naked without an eight ton metal body to shroud himself with. Indeed, his squadron had been quite thorough in torching the surrounding buildings. ...Maybe I should try to flag down one of my guys...
Such an action was quickly prevented by the sight of a Sutherland suddenly moving right in front of Tamaki. The self-proclaimed Black Knight ace could feel his bladder drain itself as he watched the blue knightmare raise itself up to its full height and then bring its machine gun to bare on the helpless flesh and blood human below.
"Oh God...!" Tamaki let out before turning away and cowering, knowing what was about to come next.
However, while he wasn't sure that had been a prayer he had just uttered, it seemed God had answered his call anyway. Before Tamaki knew it had happened, an explosion sounded from behind him, the shock of which promptly knocked him face first into his own cockpit hatch. Immediately upon feeling pain shoot through his nose and face, he realized he was still quite alive, and that someone had got to his would be executioner before the deed could be done.
Slowly and unsurely, Tamaki pulled his head back and turned it around to see what had just happened. What he beheld was a burning wreck that had once been the Sutherland, and the unmistakable black visage of another Gekka move up to his position and coming to a complete stop. As that action was accomplished, the black unit's head shifted until its orange mono-eye was looking right down at Tamaki, while a voice spoke out from the knightmare's outward speaker system. "I should have known I would find you like this."
Suddenly, Tamaki felt his gut clench as he recognized the clearly feminine voice of his rescuer. "Shut up Chigusa! I don't want to hear it from you!"
The only verbal response was a disappointed sigh, as Chigusa, still looking over Tamaki's annoyed expression upon her main monitor screen, wondered why her husband kept such a useless man in the Black Knights. At that, she turned her knightmare around and began to roll away.
"Hey wait a minute! You can't just leave me like this! You have to take me back to the Izumo!" Tamaki called after her.
Suddenly his vision was momentarily filled with the black visage of yet another Gekka, a standard one with a Hayabusa attached, which dropped from the air and landed on the ground with a metallic "bang". And once again, Tamaki found himself falling onto his face, the sudden vibrations causing him to lose his balance.
"Kyosha Three will take you back to the Izumo." Chigusa sounded, stopping momentarily and turning her knightmare's head around to regard Tamaki one last time. "At least if you are cooperative. If not, then he is to drop you into the ocean and rejoin the fight."
Tamaki growled as he got back up again and dusted himself. As he did so, the Gekka kneeled and placed its open hand next to him, awaiting the downed Black Knight's next course of action. Seeing himself without any other choice, Tamaki swallowed his pride and climbed on, all the while giving off a dirty glare back towards the mono-eye of Chigusa's knightmare.
"Good." Chigusa spoke simply, before turning around. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a battle to wage. Have a pleasant flight."
Before Tamaki could so much as flash his middle finger back at his "comrade" and superior, his apparent transport spread its wings and took off again, the sudden upward climb and feeling of his head slamming back against the thumb of the knightmare's right hand causing him to cry out much like a kid on a rollercoaster. The last thing his mind processed before he blacked out, both from his acquired exhaustion and the g-forces, was the same question he had verbally uttered moments earlier.
Why does this shit keep happening to me!?
As he watched the swarm of Sutherlands and Gloucesters moving to head him and the Four Holy Swords off before they reached the navy yard facilities in the distance, Tohdoh realized a certain key fact from his enemies' movement pattern: they were afraid. The Black Knight general did not find this surprising; as far as the Britannians were concerned, they were fighting against a force that they knew virtually nothing about beyond it being the same one that sieged their capital and were now sieging their own basin. They did not know the name or make of their knightmares or their capabilities, only that they were all painted in a singular black scheme that added onto their demonic visages. They knew nothing of the pilots that manned these machines, only that they were skilled in fighting and knew how to operate their machines far better than most Britannians knew how to operate theirs. And above all else, they knew not where their enemies came from or why these apparent adversaries were fighting against Britannia to begin with, only that they were out to slay anything that bore the Imperial crest on its person. With so many unknowns, it was only natural for the Britannian pilots to fear him and the Black Knights as a whole.
Yet when the time came and the Black Knights revealed themselves to Britannia and the world, the Britannians would fear them far more than they did now, when they knew nothing. The irony alone made that prospect appetizing in Tohdoh's mind, but that was for another time.
"Move in, kusarigama formation." Tohdoh broadcasted orders to the Four Holy Swords, who all unanimously replied with confirmation, their Gekkas shifting in position on the approach. Immediately he brandished his seidotou and put forth more power into the Zangetsu's landspinners, sending the mighty knightmare into a speed that no Gekka could hope to match, all the while dodging the Britannian machine gun attacks in a series of maneuvers. Before the Britannians knew it, he was already within their grouping, in which he managed to slash down three Sutherlands with three rocket powered slashes before the enemy commander finally gave the order to break formation.
"Too slow!" Urube called out as he let out a burst from his hand gun, spraying down two Sutherlands and a Gloucester with hot shrapnel before being forced to dodge enemy counterattacks. Another Sutherland attempted to move at him from behind, intent on getting a clear shot into the Gekka's cockpit block, but Chiba struck first, slashing the Sutherland in half with her katen yaibatou. Senba and Asahina were also setting to work on the enemy knightmares, cutting a nice swathe through their number like a katana through cardboard.
In their confusion, Tohdoh noticed that the Britannians' movement patterns became that much sloppier; apparently they were reeling from the shocking realization that their superior numbers meant nothing to the five higher end knightmares. He took advantage of that further by intercepting a Gloucester, knocking its lance aside with the seidotou mounted slash harken, and then twisted the blade end around to make a rocket assisted bifurcation at the violet knightmare's waist. The cockpit then ejected as both pieces fell to the sea below.
Soon enough, the navy yard came into direct view, such that Tohdoh could see it without having to magnify his main camera. His sensors were already picking up additional knightmares to the ones that he and his four wingmen were already fighting. His sensors soon alerted him to a target lock warning, causing him to evade as a bazooka toting Gloucester fired off a shell at him. He sped across the ground, avoiding another shell, before coming upon the Gloucester and knocking it out with his chest mounted slash harken. At that point, he detected several more enemy knightmares moving toward him and the Four Holy Swords, likely attempting to herd the five toward the navy yard so that they would be caught between their fire and the ground units'. As such, Tohdoh decided to play along somewhat. "Shoguns Two and Three, begin your attack on the navy yard. Four and Five, continue to destroy the enemy knightmare units."
"What about you Shogun One?" Chiba asked, some concern evident in her voice.
Tohdoh only smirked in response. "I'll deal with the foot soldiers guarding the fortress."
With that, the Zangetsu broke away from its comrades and took off for the yard. More enemy knightmares opened fire upon him as he passed, but nothing they shot at him ever touched his unit's black armor. That nearly changed however when a gutsier-than-average Sutherland pilot attempted to charge directly at him with a silver lance in hand, only for Tohdoh to bank left at the last possible second to avoid the weapon, then slam the hilt of the seidotou into the Sutherland's exposed factsphere sensor, crushing it. Now effectively blinded, it was easy prey for Chiba, who fired a burst from her hand gun into the incapacitated knightmare, turning it into a collection of raining blue metal shavings, one of many that she and Asahina slew to cover the General's advance, as well as their own.
As he got closer to his objective, the attacks on Tohdoh began to shift from behind him to in front of him. While Tohdoh wasn't sure whether they were brave or were simply encouraged by the fact he was "only" armed with a sword, the Sutherlands and Gloucesters in front of him were now shooting up at him with every king of gunnery weapon imaginable, from the usual machine guns and bazookas to more exotic weapons like sniper rifles. In the face of their increasing firing rate, Tohdoh threw the Zangetsu into a series of continuous banks, taking advantage of his knightmare's superior mobility in order to keep the Britannians from getting a steady bead on him.
"I must compliment you," Tohdoh spoke under his breath as he watched the Britannian frames get closer and closer on his main screen. "You are all well-disciplined and coordinated in your attacks, far moreso than your other countrymen. Had I been any weaker man, I would not have been able to survive your counterassault."
His smirked deepened as he brandished his sword. "Unfortunately for you however, I am Kyoshiro Tohdoh, and I am anything but a weak man!"
With that, the Zangetsu took off toward its Britannian adversaries, seidotou held out in its right hand much like a mounted samurai would hold his katana upon a charge. Despite his approach, the enemy formation continued their fire at him, hoping to at least score one direct blow onto the black and apparently red haired knightmare frame. Naturally the enemy fire didn't faze him as he continued to bank and weave around the bullets and shells while drawing in closer to the formation. It was only when he was on top of them did the knightmares scatter away, but not before he divided a Gloucester, the one he had suspected to be the unit commander, into halves.
From that point, the formation split into two groups: one that was retreating away from the Zangetsu, and one that was advancing toward it with less than peaceful intentions. Tohdoh dealt with the ones coming at him first, driving his knightmare through their ranks and simultaneously cutting them down, one after the other, with the seidotou as he passed. Long realizing the futility of attacking him with their gunnery weapons, the enemy knightmares chose to attack him with their stun tonfas, lances and slash harkens, obviously believing that they could overwhelm him with their combined attacks, and if not then hold him back long enough for reinforcements to arrive. Unfortunately for them, Tohdoh was far more adept at close quarters combat than they were, and he had no problems evading their attacks and delivering his own with lethal accuracy. For each of their single attacks, he would jump, bank, dodge, parry or simply speed by before employing his seidotou, or off and on his hand gun, to dispatch his opponents before moving on. All throughout these lightning quick attacks, the Britannian pilots were only able to see one thing before being struck: the Zangetsu's billowing red hair waving as if caught in a wind as the frame moved in for the kill.
In the middle of his one sided slaughter, Tohdoh managed to catch a glimpse of Chiba and Asahina's knightmares begin their attack run on the yard. Both knightmares immediately fired into the nearby buildings and dry docks, causing a series of explosions to overtake the area, each one symbolizing a regression in Pearl Harbor's naval support capabilities. And despite the carnage that their attacks were generating, there were visibly no enemy knightmares moving to intercept them, as they focused on Tohdoh while their comrades were held up by Senba and Urabe. Seeing that from the corner of his eye while dispatching a Gloucester, Tohdoh allowed himself to flash a smile; it may not have been a miracle, but it still got the job done.
Unfortunately that slight pause was enough for a daring enemy to take advantage of. Tohdoh cursed under his breath as he felt a Gloucester smash into him with a landspinner propelled shoulder tackle, sending him back a few meters before disengaging and touching down on the ground itself. Complicating the matter further was the fact this one was armed with a pair of MVS, which were both in hand and armed. "I don't know who you are!" Tohdoh heard a raspy sounding voice blurt out from his comm. "But I won't let you bastards have your way any longer!"
At first, Tohdoh was confused by the voice. Whoever it belonged to, the owner was obviously far too old to have been a proper Britannian devicer; in fact, he sounded far too old to even consider piloting a knightmare. And then there was the fact the remaining Sutherlands had apparently moved away a considerable distance to give the Gloucester a wide berth, all the while keeping their guns trained on the Zangetsu; this meant that the Gloucester's pilot was a commander of some kind. Putting the two together, Tohdoh came up with a likely candidate, and so only needed to confirm. "Identify yourself," he spoke over broadband.
Sure enough, as the Gloucester backed away some distance, a video window opened on his main screen. The window displayed a corpse-like man dressed in a white uniform, one with Admiral markings and a fair collection of metals on the left breast, as well as having a face smudged in dust and a bloodied cloth wrapped around the forehead. "This is Admiral Sir Henry Kimmel of the Imperial Pacific Fleet! I demand that you identify yourself before I send you to hell!"
Tohdoh smirked back at the screen. How interesting. I never thought I would end up confronting the commandant of this base directly, and in a knightmare frame no less. His smirk grew bigger as he continued. "General Kyoshiro Tohdoh, Order of the Black Knights."
It didn't seem physically possible, but Kimmel's already deathly pale face suddenly turned and even lighter shade as he, at long last, finally realized just who he had been fighting. Along with him, one could swear the surrounding Sutherlands were also hesitant. "The Black Knights?" he murmured as if speaking the name of the devil. "That's impossible, you're supposed to be...!"
"Dead?" Tohdoh finished for him, smirk still present. "Unfortunately for you and the rest of Britannia, Admiral, that was never the truth. You may have destroyed Japan, but many of its people still live on, as do we their protectors."
"I don't believe you!" Kimmel barked with rising anger. "I saw the Devastation as it was carried out. It would have been impossible for anyone to have survived that destruction! You... you and your ilk are just pretenders, using their infamy for your own ends!"
Tohdoh only sighed in slight annoyance. "Believe what you wish to, but the truth still remains: we have broken your defenses and routed your forces all throughout the island. With your military power and resources as they are now, you are incapable of turning this battle to your favor, as well as incapable of recalling your main fleet from the Pacific. Your only hope at survival lies with the coming reinforcements from your homeland, which we both know will not arrive in time if we were to proceed in our operation."
Even from his position, Tohdoh could see the aged Admiral's left eye twitch with each sentence, which caused him some inward bemusement. "Therefore, in the interest of avoiding further bloodshed, I offer you a chance to surrender, immediately and unconditionally."
"Not on your life Eleven!" Kimmel hollered in raspy defiance, while pointing a maser vibration sword blade at the Zangetsu. "I don't know if you are the real Tohdoh of Miracles or not, but I'll gladly kill you all the same. All units open fire!"
Before the order could be carried out however, Urabe and Senba's Gekkas sped out of nowhere and unleashed their back handguns into several of the Sutherlands, causing them to erupt in a collective fiery death. As the remaining units turned their attention from the Zangetsu toward defending themselves, Tohdoh used the opportunity to send his knightmare forward at full speed, intent on driving his seidotou right through the offending Gloucester. Much to his surprise however, Kimmel was not only quick enough to defend himself from his strike, but at the same reverse his landspinners to evade. At that, Tohdoh took off after him, easily overtaking the fifth generation knightmare and once more engaging the Admiral in a melee.
From the beginning it was apparent that the Admiral was not a professional pilot by any stretch of the imagination; whether it was because of his age or just that he may not have known what he was doing, it was all too easy for a master-class pilot like Tohdoh to deflect his wayward strikes, not even having to put forth effort in dodging them. He drove the point of Kimmel's inferiority home when he had the Zangetsu bank right and cut off the Gloucester's right shoulder pauldron, moving and striking too fast for Kimmel to defend. And as the Admiral realized that he didn't stand a chance of survival, his voice began to cry hurriedly out over Tohdoh's comm. system.
"It's impossible!" Kimmel blurted as he swung his swords wildly, eyes wide with defiance to the end even as the Zangetsu continued to fluidly evade his attacks. "We purged you! Eradicated you! The Devastation drove you damned monkeys to extinction!"
"And you were arrogant fools to believe that!" Tohdoh shouted back, this time slicing into the Gloucester's head, destroying the factsphere sensor. "Yes, many Japanese died that day, as did many Britannians. But enough remained, and now...!" he cut off the left arm, sending it and the maser vibration sword it clutched falling away. "...we have returned to exact our long overdue vengeance!"
Kimmel let out one last deep throated roar as attempted to hold his own against the Black Knight General, if only for a moment longer. "You should have remained in hiding scum!" the Admiral stated. "I may die here, but others will rise up to finish where the Devastation left off! The day of reckoning will come Eleven!"
Tohdoh only regained his smirk at that proclamation. "I'm looking forward to it Britannian," And with that, Tohdoh performed an upward slash that severed the Gloucester's remaining arm and sword, sending it down with the other limbs. But even after performing the slash, Tohdoh did not disengage the rocket boosters on the seidotou; instead, he redirected the sword's velocity so that it would force the Zangetsu into a split second two hundred and seventy degree spin. As such, when the black knightmare returned to facing the Gloucester, its forward momentum was augmented even further, sending the Black Knight machine into a forward charge passed its Britannian opponent.
All Kimmel was able to see from this maneuver was the golden flash of the seidotou blade, before nothing at all. Had he been able to keep track of the movement, he would have seen the blade passing through the Gloucester's torso at a downward angle, continuing into the cockpit block and out the other end, where the rocket sword propelled the Zangetsu several more meters before Tohdoh disengaged the rockets. Simultaneously as the Zangetsu ceased in its movement, the upper half of the Gloucester slid down along the angle Tohdoh had cut, revealing the smoothly severed insides of the Britannian knightmare for all the world to see. At least momentarily, before the residual energy of the superconductor drive destabilized and exploded, taking both halves of the knightmare with it.
In the flash of the explosion, Tohdoh swung the seidotou outward, as if he were signaling his victory to the universe. After taking a moment to catch his breath again, the General switched over to the Four Holy Swords' comm. frequency. "Shogun One to Seiken Team, sitrep."
"Seiken One to Shogun One, we've pretty much taken care of the navy yard," Senba replied from the other end. "Looks like the last of the enemy knightmares were dispatched to. Score one more for the good guys boss."
Tohdoh returned a smile in spite of the unprofessionalism of Asahina's last sentence. "Acknowledged Seiken One." Offhandedly he took a glance toward his onboard clock, and found it was seven minutes to midnight. His smile turned into a frown in response. Our secondary force should be engaging the combined Britannian fleet right about now...
Britannian Emperor-class sea carrier Emperor Alec
Pacific Ocean
The air was thick with tension as the approaching cloud grew closer and closer in the bridge viewports; even though it was night, one could still see it against the backdrop, almost as if it were darker than the sky it existed in. At the present time it had long been established that the cloud was not a natural phenomenon, but that did not stop many of the crew from dreading the worst possibilities; namely, what the cloud was really hiding underneath. The majority believed it was the Black Battleship that had been encountered weeks ago, some of the more superstitious even going so far as to claim that the vessel had been a ghost ship that could slip between the netherworld and the land of the living at will. While that may not have been entirely accurate, most of the crew remained at the edge all the same, and the idea that there may be more than one Black Battleship to contend with this time around did not help matters.
The same could not be said for Vice Admiral Gregor Upson, and it was evident from the glaring expression he gave from his command chair at the back of the Emperor Alec's bridge. Obviously he did not buy into ghost stories, and even if he did it would not have mattered to him anyway; whether the ship came from hell or not, he had a score to settle and he would see it through.
Things had not ended well after the last encounter with the mysterious warship with the equally mysterious silver crest on its bow. Though Prince Schneizel had spoken in his defense, thus saving him from being demoted or losing his command, many in the Britannian military command structure as well as in the noble court had come to question Upson's competency over the botched attack. This resulted in many things, such as several of Upson's political allies suddenly forgetting that he existed, as well as a collection of rumors being spread in his regard; the most common of which claimed that Upson had received his rank by performing "favors" for one of the more unattractive Princesses. Needless to say this did not play well with Upson, who like any other aspiring noble was utterly dependent on his reputation and good name. He knew that if he ever wanted to move beyond his current position he would have to restore valor to his name, and what better way of doing that than hunting down the very same ghost that had eluded him before?
"Distance to target?" Upson demanded, both his lacking patience and his annoyance showing through. As much as he tried to retain his calm, the anxiety was eating away at him too; the only difference was instead of being fueled by fear of that distant cloud and what monsters it was hiding in its shadow, the anxiety that existed in Upson fed upon his desire for a quick victory. After all, with a fair bulk of the Britannian Pacific Fleet's assets at his disposal, what did he have to fear from an enemy that cowered behind an artificial weather phenomenon?
"Twenty kilometers," one of the operators answered. "We're within firing range Admiral, but are unable to read or lock onto targets due to jamming."
Upson sneered at that. "Order the fleet to arm weapons anyway, and begin launching knightmares and fighters." he ordered, which the bridge operators immediately carried out. "Standby to fire."
"With respect sir, what good will our shots be if we cannot target?" the Emperor Alec's captain, who was right next to Upson, inquired.
"We do not need precise aim here Captain," Upson replied while resting his head against his right arm. "With the amount of firepower we have at our disposal, we only need fire into the cloud at random; our enemies will then have the choice of being obliterated within their own jamming field or come out into the open and be obliterated anyway."
"What if they try escaping again?" the captain inquired once more.
"They're not going to attempt an escape, not when they've come this far," Upson replied. He then raised his left hand and signaled with his index and middle fingers. "First salvo on my mark..."
"Admiral, I'm receiving a signal!" the comm. operator reported as he reached up to his headset.
At that, Upson's expression turned from one of impatience to peculiarity. Could the enemy commander be contacting them to surrender? As much as he wanted to believe that, something in his gut told him otherwise. "What is it?"
"It's sounds like…" the operator listened, trying to sound out the words. "…a song," he said, before switching to the overhead.
"I'm singin' in the rain… Just singin' in the rain… What a glorious feelin'… I'm happy again. I'm laughing at clouds. So dark up above…The sun's in my heart… And I'm ready for love…"
"What in the...?" Upson let out with an arched eyebrow.
Something flashed red from the sensor console, and the surprised voice of the operator quickly cut the Admiral's muttering. "Heat source detected! One missile launch from the cloud, headed toward our position!"
"One missile?" Upson asked to no one in particular, wearing an ever more confused expression that was matched by everyone on the bridge. "That's not much of a…"
"Now ten missiles!" the operator shouted.
Upson was still not convinced of the threat. "Redirect all interceptors to…"
"Twenty…Thirty…Fifty…Eighty…" the operator counted down, with dread filling his voice. "Over a hundred and seventy and still counting!"
At that, Upson's blood at last suddenly ran cold. Especially as he watched how close the missiles were appearing over the main monitor; they were already on top of his forces!
Seconds later, the missiles, having originally been shrouded by the enemy's stealth systems, rained down upon the Britannian fleet, who were unable to bring their defense systems about to intercept in time. The Emperor Alec was the first to be struck, as the first missiles had been specifically aimed toward its position; as a result, the last thing Upson and many other Britannians saw was the whole world fading into a white flash, before becoming nothing at all.
Soon the last of the missiles fell, leaving the world as it had existed before, minus several Britannian capital ships, support craft and their respective crews. The attack itself had not wiped out the entirety of the Britannian forces, but then that was unnecessary as far as the attackers were concerned; the Britannian forces were now broken, with massive holes in their formation and completely demoralized and frantic crews manning the remaining ships and knightmares. Many of the lesser disciplined crews broke out into full panic, taking on evasive maneuvers out of training or fear or both, which in turn resulted at best in ships breaking out of attack formation and at worst in uncoordinated vessels going into collisions with each other. It was much the same with the remaining knightmares and fighters, as their pilots suddenly realized that they were up against something even their machines would not be able to make a difference against. The more experienced and determined commanders attempted to bring order to the chaos, sending out to commands for all ships to remain in formation and lay down fire into the cloud as the late Admiral Upson had previously ordered, but their words were only lost in the radio traffic. All of this cumulated to the Britannians being helpless and vulnerable, completely open to a follow up attack of any kind.
And it was at that point the Black Knights chose to strike. Finally abandoning their shroud, the black trimaran hulls of the Black Knight mobile cruisers Mikasa and Hiei pressed forward, while under the sea the submarines Ryujin and Isonade disengaged and shed their radiant wave generators, all moving against the disparaged Britannians like sharks. Before anyone on the opposite sides realized what was happening, the cruisers and submarines fired their respective allotments of hyper-velocity cannons, missiles and/or torpedoes at their respective targets, all the while Suigetsus surged forth against the enemy Bristols. Soon after, more Britannian ships and support craft were shot down or sunk, their demises each symbolized by a sudden burst of light and flame erupting from one area after another, all while individual units attempted to mount counterattacks against their still unknown aggressors, but to no great avail.
Sometime later, elements of the Seventh Fleet would hold search and rescue operations over the area, picking up the survivors of the ruined expedition. Each survivor would be debriefed upon the battle by the Ministry of Defense, and in turn each survivor would have a different account of the battle. However, among each debriefing, there would be one commonality linked between the cold, shell shaken survivors.
They all recalled the enemy's emblem, a silver winged sword.
Bering Palace
Saint George Island, Grand Duchy of Sunderland, Area 2 (Canada), Britannian Empire
The cold wind was picking up now, as if putting out a more vehement warning of a coming storm when all others had been ignored. The sounds of crashing waves against the coast in the distance also marked this development, with each one sounding more akin to a thunderclap than water being sprayed against rock and sand. Combined with the surrounding darkness, one could almost claim that the storm was already upon the island, the little known island that sat in the northern Pacific, nestled comfortably between the Far East and Sunderland. As such, those that inhabited the island, of which there were very few in number, had all sought proper lodgings for the rest of the evening, where they would all remain until the storm had come to pass like those before it. That is, all except for her.
Despite the cries of her servants for her safety and health, she had chosen to remain outside, if only for a little while longer, as she wanted to face this coming storm head on. Unlike those around her, she was not afraid of the darkness; in fact, she had spent a good portion of her life living in total darkness, enough that no black storm nor "everlasting" night could ever frighten her again. The cold, on the other hand, was a different matter, as she had spent a good portion of her life living in warmer climates; as such, the cold wind and presently minute rainfall posed a greater challenge to her than the dark, and the temptation of returning to her own lodgings for an open fire, a warm cup of tea and an equally warm bed grew with each moment. However, her inner strength kept her firm, and so she remained where she was, even in the face of the growing abyss.
It was moments like these that she believed her perception of the world around her became clearer to her, as if the hindrances to her physical senses allowed her more innate ones to awaken and grow. While she had always been skeptical of the idea of extrasensory perception, or as it was more formally referred as "telepathy", she had to admit that in the face of this storm she could "see" things much differently than she would have on a warm summer's day. It was almost as though she didn't just feel the storm moving in front of her and the wind around her, but she could also feel beyond the storm and into the place that would have been blotted out by its shroud. That, in its barest essence, was part of the reason that she remained where she was, as it wasn't the storm in front of her that frightened her, but rather the storm far beyond what she felt here and now which instilled her with fear.
Yes, there was another storm out there, far more violent and overpowering than the one that was moving over the island that she dwelled upon. She felt that storm coming for some time, eight years to be exact, and throughout that time period she had attempted to mentally prepare herself for its approach. Yes, she had been told that she would be safe in her current lodgings, that she would be out of reach for what was to come, but even if that were true, it didn't keep her from fearing, both for herself and for all others. In truth, her haven only made her feel that much more helpless, in a much different manner than her disabilities did, as she would have rather aided those who had to face the storm in whatever way she could than be cocooned in her safe and comfortable fortress. Naturally, she had repeatedly volunteered her service to those that gave her this haven, but each time they had politely refused her, as they deemed her safety and survival above all else.
But perhaps the most damning thing about this storm wasn't its hellish ferocity or its great size, nor even the destruction that it threatened to unleash, but rather the simple fact that she, indirectly, had been the cause of it all. Yes, as if Fate itself had taken everything she had desired and twisted it to its own evil ends, she had been the one that had inspired the storm's creation from the beginning. Back then she had held no idea of what her words had wrought, what the utterance of her greatest wish had brought forth into existence. And even as the storm raged around her in its imperfect form, she had remained, for lack of better description, in the dark throughout it all, totally unaffected and untouched by its malice and unknowing of her part in its drive. But now she knew, just as she also knew that she was powerless to stop it from occurring again after eight years. Like it or not, the words had been spoken, and she could no more take them back than she could right the wrongs of history itself.
And now she could feel that other storm begin to move. For the longest time it had remained dormant, but now, as she gazed toward the south, she knew it was alive again, its fury now in full and its path of destruction laid out. As of now, it was only beginning where it had left off, but it would only grow with time and power, and much like the terrors described in the Book of Revelations, it would move over the entire earth like a shadow, destroying everything in its path until it reached the very purpose of its creation. And worse yet, even with that knowledge, she could not shake the feeling that it would all end with that one storm.
That, as impossible as it sounded, there was an even darker abyss that lay upon the horizon, waiting for its own time of awakening...
Suddenly she felt her seat vibrate as someone had reached out and grabbed the handles to her wheelchair. "I'm sorry Your Highness, but I must insist now," she heard her head servant tell her. "The storm is almost upon us, and it would not do you well to remain outside."
At that, she felt herself chuckle on the inside, both at the irony of the first part of her servant's proclamation, and to the futility of the second part. In spite of her wish to remain out a little longer, she decided to finally resign herself to the warm comforts of her new home. "Yes, I believe you are correct. I'm sorry to have worried you."
Even though she could not see it, she knew that the head servant only smiled down at her. "Your Highness need not apologize, as she bears no fault," she stated, continuing on. "I've already rekindled the fire and prepared a new pot of Earl Grey. However, if you wish it, I can have your bed ready for you in only a moment's time."
She considered that. "I think I would sleep better after some tea, perhaps with scones."
Once more even without seeing it, she could tell her servant had nodded at her request. "As you wish Your Highness."
From that point, the head servant said no more throughout the trip back to the palace, thus allowing her to be alone with her thoughts once more. Yet even as she felt herself move closer and closer to home and farther and farther from the cold, the wind and the occurring chaos, she could still feel the storm to the south continuing to brew and grow. And within the storm's eye, she could see the images of men and women fighting each other under the watch of one man, the very man that was at the center of it all and had been from the beginning. The very same man that had, for the longest time, looked after her and aspired to grant her greatest wish, just as any loving older brother would do for his little sister. Even if it meant drowning himself in darkness to accomplish it.
For that and many other things, Nunnally vi Britannia, Princess of the Britannian Empire, found herself fearing for the future.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Pearl
County of Crusoe, Area 7 (Sandwich Islands), Britannian Empire
With a single slash, the Sutherland fell, either halves laying across the ground but not detonating. With that latest threat against him vanquished, Lelouch slashed his MVS about and moved away, ready to track down another target.
And then out of nowhere, something inside him struck, causing him to halt the Mordred in its movement. He wasn't sure what that something was; he had felt it several times before in previous battles, where it would intervene just as he was about to give a certain order or perform a certain action, only to direct him to a different course of outcome that he had not considered. If he were to come up with a designation for it, he probably would have called it his gut or instinct or even sixth sense, but even with all those terms he still did not have a full grasp of what this force inside of him was. But that wasn't important right; what was important was that it was now telling him that he had accomplished what he had set out to do and that now was the best time to declare victory.
Still, ever known for being thorough, Lelouch wanted to confirm with his sense of sight whether this was indeed true victory. Pulling back on his controls, he had the Mordred move toward the south, until it was at the estimated point it had been when Lelouch had declared the enemy gate fallen and ordered the Black Knights to advance. And just like that moment, he turned back and looked over the enemy fortress around him, only this time it was far different than what he had seen earlier.
Compared to the "minute" destruction that he had seen at the beginning, what lay before him now could only be described by one word: Hell. Where there had once been a Britannian naval base, now stood an ocean of flames, the result of what he estimated to being over ninety percent of Pearl Harbor being neutralized or outright destroyed. Everything from the warship docks to the navy yard to even the power centers were now in flaming ruin, their individual pyres coming together to form the vastness of the inferno, which shown as brightly and as terrifyingly as the death of a star. Just as well, there were very few warships and support units remaining now; even from his position, Lelouch could see and detect only a select number of active enemy combatants on the field, and those that remained were actively being hunted down and slain in rapid succession, just like their brethren. This was only made evident further when Lelouch's sensors detected a pair of Sutherlands attempting to flee toward the east, only to be intercepted and cut down by a group of Gekkas before either knightmare could fire a shot. The grimness of the scene was quite evident.
As he continued to gaze at the end result of his grand scheme, Lelouch couldn't for the life of him determine how felt about it. At the beginning, he had only felt pride for the success of his work, having breached the enemy defenses and led his army to invade their fortress, all while suffering little if any losses in doing so. Now, the fortress had been sacked, its defenders wiped out and its treasures looted, and still Lelouch's army had suffered little if any losses in doing so. And yet, Lelouch was not sure whether he should have felt proud of his accomplishments here, or whether he should have despaired at the destruction he and his cohorts had caused in the name of their noble cause.
That all said, there was one thing that had not changed for Lelouch, from the beginning of the battle up to now: his course was now set and his war was now in full swing. No matter how he felt about it within, this was only the beginning play, the first movements of the pawns in the great match he was holding against his former homeland and his father. There would be more like this in the near future as more and more pieces were exchanged, perhaps some even more destructive and hellish than what he beheld now. And through all of that destruction and chaos, Lelouch would only push forward, as it was the only way for the world he envisioned, the same world that others had come to envision as well, to be born for all.
I will remember this. Lelouch thought, as he gazed into the flames. I must remember this, so that I may never forget what must be done. Just as Pandora opened her box and released, among the great evils, the gift of Hope.
The sudden beeping of his comm. system forced him out of his thoughts. "Izumo to Gyoku One! Come in!"
Lelouch arched an eyebrow; Mutsuki sounded far too panicked for everything that was happening. "Go ahead Izumo."
"Gyoku One, we've just detected an incoming contact from the east! It looks to be an enemy VTOL transport!" Mutsuki called out. "And it looks to be carrying a knightmare!"
Lelouch's felt his brow furrowed. Just one? Upon his processing that line of thought, he suddenly felt his blood run cold in its veins and sweat begin to form on his forehead. It couldn't be...!
"Gyoku One, it's me," Ohgi suddenly intervened over the radio. "We've just confirmed the incoming unit. It's the Lancelot!"
And all at once, the world darkened around Lelouch as he felt the light go out of his eyes and his mouth release a despaired, horrified gasp. The one scenario he had considered and hoped for the life of him would never occur, the one outcome of this entire battle that he feared so much that he had hoped to God it would not come to be, had just came into being. Without even thinking about it further, he began barking orders once more. "Order all units to scrub remaining mission objectives and move to Combat Zone Beta! Now! I want them on standby for incoming!"
"Shouldn't we retreat Gyoku One?" Ohgi asked. One could hear the panic in his own voice, even though he did a good job of keeping it from dominating his mentality.
"Negative, there isn't any time!" Lelouch stated with finality. "If the Lancelot is here, then there will be additional forces behind it! We must neutralize them before deploying the Hayabusas!"
There was a pause on the other end, before Ohgi answered. "Acknowledged."
The transmission was soon cut off, leaving Lelouch alone against the backdrop of the flames. Only this time, he was not staring at the fire around him, but rather the horizon to the east, where the one man he had most dreaded encountering on this very night, the one man that had for the longest time been his true friend, was coming for him from.
Suzaku...
