For her part, Leila liked the waiting. There was something calming about the quiet moment before the beginning of a battle.

Leila did not like violence as a general rule, that did not mean that she was unwilling to engage in it; of course, she was no pacifist, and she was perfectly willing to take lives when the situation called for it. But Leila did not relish in it by any means; to the contrary, she hated killing people.

Even now, it sickened her to a degree to know that she had taken lives, but she had learned to stomach it nonetheless.

Of course, that was not to say that Leile begrudged those of her comrades who took a perverse joy in violence, such as Akito, aside from the concerns it raised for his mental health, she supposed. Still, if she could find a diplomatic solution, she would prefer to take that course instead of engaging in wanton killing.

There were times, not often but sometimes, when Leila wondered if the European Union was any better than Britannia. It wasn't as if the European Union was a stranger to engaging in Imperialism itself; just look at the "free" Republic of Africa, which just so happened to be politically, economically, militarily, and diplomatically dependent on the European Union.

And Leila had been feeling these doubts more often lately, ever since she had found herself fighting alongside a literal terrorist organization.

Now was most certainly not one of those times.

Admittedly, Leila did not know much about the legendary Tohdoh Kyoshiro, aside from his victories over Britannia, but even if the man were a bloodthirsty brute, she would still remain utterly certain in the righteousness of her imminent battle.

Tohdoh Kyoshiro had been captured by OSI agents while he had been visiting the grave of the deceased Prime Minister of Japan, Kururugi Genbu; in this, Leila could not fault the Britannians. Tohdoh Kyoshiro was a known terrorist; capturing him was perfectly justifiable from their perspective.

What Leila could fault them for was deciding to execute the man without trial, something that all people should be entitled to, no matter their crimes.

As such, Leila considered the rescue operation that Zero had been ordered to be truly just, a rare thing for her to admit.

Of course, Leila and her unit would not be taking part in the actual rescue operation of Tohdoh Kyoshiro. Instead, Zero had assigned them the task of eliminating the high-ranking official that the Viceroy, Princess Cornelia li Britannia, had no doubt assigned to carry out the task of personally executing Tohdoh Kyoshiro for the sake of propaganda.

While Zero was hoping that it was either Cornelia's Knight of Honour, Gilbert G.P. Guilford, or her second in command, General Andreas Darlton, Zero had made it clear to Leila that any high-ranking Britannian personnel that she and her unit could eliminate would be well worth the effort.

While it certainly wasn't as romantic a task as rescuing a war hero from an unjust execution, it suited Leila and her unit well enough; Wyvern Squadron had carried out many officer-hunting operations.

Leila was interrupted by the truck they were in coming to an abrupt stop.

Leila opened the comm channel with her squad. "Ready yourselves for battle, Wyvern Squadron. Remember, we're here to kill one of the Viceroy's key subordinates. We've carried out operations like this before. Get in, eliminate the enemy, get out, don't get bogged down in anything else."

A chorus of "understoods" and "Got its" graced Leila in reply.

Soon enough, the truck's doors rolled open, and Zero's voice blared out of the comm channel. "Black Knights! Commence operation!"

Leila wasted no time. "You heard the man, Wyvern Squadron, roll out!"

With that, Leila and her unit charged out of the truck with lightning speed, making their way through the Prison Complex while their Knightmares were in their quadrupedal modes.

The Britannian prison was divided into three sections: processing, the glorified hotel, and the holding cells.

Their quarry would be within the Warden's palace, or the glorified hotel, as Zero had dubbed it, so Leila and her unit were to assault the place.

The first notable resistance they encountered in their assault on the Warden's palace was a twelve-man squad of simple Sutherlands.

Wyvern Squadron wasted no time in decimating the vastly inferior squad of Knightmares.

For Leila's part, she eliminated two of the Sutherlands. The first she eliminated with her Knightmare assault rifle, disabling it with a few simple shots.

The second Sutherland was eliminated when Leila impaled it with her Knightmare's wrist blade, eliminating the enemy pilot with a wet splash of blood, before removing the blade from the newly made wreck and surmising the aftermath of their first engagement.

Of course, Akito had eliminated the lion's share of the Britannians; for all Akito made for an admittedly poor conversationalist, violence was undeniably one of her second-in-command's beat skills.

It was also his greatest joy in life, but thankfully, he hadn't shown any signs of going berserk and chanting "die" during this operation as of yet.

She should really have Akito get a proper psych examination one of these days.

It was probably too late for that, but Leila supposed that it was the thought that counted.

After the fight, Leila and her unit moved out without another word, making their way to the Warden's palace. They eliminated any resistance they encountered, barely pausing as they did so.

Eventually, they arrived at the Warden's Palace.

Leila took a moment to appreciate the opulence, ornate architecture, and layout of the building.

Taking a deep breath, Leila opened her and her squadron's comm channel. "Wyvern Squadron, begin the assault!"

Without wasting any time, they did just that.

As they assaulted the Warden's Palace, they came upon an observatory tower and were confronted by a strange Knightmare. It looked like a standard Sutherland, but the colour scheme was all wrong—it was orange and white, whereas a normal Sutherland would be Purple and Black. And more than that, it seemed to have additional features, like the Blaze Luminous System of the infamous Lancelot, which had been foiling the plans of Zero and the Black Knights since the beginning, according to Tamaki.

A woman's voice blared out over an open comm channel. "I won't let you harm Lloyd!"

Leila had no idea who this Lloyd was, but she guessed he was their target. Not bothering to respond to the custom Sutherland pilot's declaration, she opened the Wyvern Squadron's comm channel. "Wyvern Squadron, eliminate the pilot and destroy that tower!"

A chorus of affirmatives was their reply.

The Britannian woman was a decent pilot; Leila would give her that, but all the skill in the world could not compensate for the sheer disparity between their numbers.

Akito, Ayano, Yukiya, Liam, Zora, Friedrich and Ryo were making short work of the pilot, having already inflicted significant damage upon the Britannian pilot's Knightmare.

The nine of them were able to capture the pilot's attention so completely that Leila could pass by her without the Britannian Pilot being able to intercept her.

Eventually, Leila came within the ideal range of the observatory tower, which appeared to still be occupied based on the distant silhouettes of unknown people that she could see in the observation room far above.

Wasting no time, Leila aimed her rifle at the tower and fired, obliterating the first floor of the observatory tower and everyone who was within it. The tower collapsed, falling onto the Warden's Palace, heavily damaging the building.

The Britannian Pilot screamed out in despair. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! LLOYD!"

Leila did not have time to react before the Britannian Pilot attacked her, having apparently bypassed the rest of the squadron by some insane miracle brought on only by despair, grabbed her rifle and pulled it down before grabbing her Knightmare's fatosphere and began trying to crush it. "I'LL KILL YOU!"

Refusing to allow the Britannian Pilot to disable her Knightmare, Leila let go of her rifle. She activated her Knightmare's wrist blade and stabbed the Britannian Pilot's cockpit, killing the Britannian pilot instantly.

As she stood amidst the burning wreckage, Leila reflected on what she had done.

Leila had just slaughtered at least twenty people, if not more, and she hadn't even batted an eye at it.

It astounded her how abrupt it had been too, Leila had merely shot a few rounds and stabbed a Knightmare in its cockpit.

Leila was disrupted by her musings by a communique from Zero. "Stop it!"

She looked at her communication channel, confused, wondering why Zero sounded so panicked.

Zero continued from there. "We've done enough fighting for now. We've achieved our objective here. Use escape route three! Withdraw immediately."

Lelouch kicked the door to his makeshift office open, not caring if the door would end up damaged; he could handle it later.

In a rage, he threw off his helmet, flinging it towards a cabinet. "Damnit!"

The helmet crashed into the cabinet, creating a very loud, extremely unpleasant sound. Luckily, the helmet didn't break. Lelouch had Geassed Lord Crawford to make it as durable as possible for a reason, but it was probably not a good idea to treat it so roughly. It was practically the emblem of Zero, after all.

Lelouch slammed his fist on his desk, overcome by another sudden burst of fury. "Fucking Suzaku!"

It wasn't meant to be this way; Suzaku was meant to be Nunnally's Knight, his best friend was meant to keep Nunnally safe when the time came that Lelouch would need to leave Ashford for the foreseeable future, to dedicate his full-time to being Zero, as well as to protect Nunnally and Suzaku from potential reprisals should the OSI or other such ilk learn of his identity somehow.

Truthfully, Lelouch had even considered giving Suzaku permission to court Nunnally, after all, there was no one that he would rather entrust Nunnally's future to.

But now those plans, dreams, and hopes for the future were gone, burned to ash.

Desperate to calm himself down, he picked up his helmet, sat at his desk, placed the helmet upon his desk, and pulled out the remote, turning on the television set in his office.

Distracting himself by watching the news could help get his mind off of tonight's revelation. He often liked to watch the news to get an early hint at the effects Zero's actions had on the Britannian government in Area 11.

Of course, there was a chance that they may mention Suzaku in their reports, which would only serve to irritate him again, but Lelouch thought it was unlikely that the Britannians would call attention to a "mere number" snatching victory from the jaws of defeat for them.

Sighing, Lelouch turned on the television, cycling through the channels until he found the coverage he sought.

Most of the coverage was what he had been expecting of the state-sponsored media. Britannia did not even bother to keep up the illusion of having freedom of the press like the EU did, as their own Diethard Reid could attest, so he wasn't exactly expecting accurate reporting on the events that had transpired tonight.

What interested him was that Wyvern Squadron apparently assassinated two rather important scientists. That was good. He had no idea what their significance to the Britannian Military's procurement was, but anything that inconvenienced the Britannians was surely a good thing.

"In other shocking news, the sub viceroy, Princess Euphemia li Britannia, has chosen Warrant officer Kurrugi Suzaku to be her Knight of Honour-"

The broadcast didn't get a chance to finish as he flung his helmet at the television in a blind rage, knocking it off its stand and breaking the television almost instantly. "FUCK!"

Lelouch was interrupted from his… Ruminations by an unwelcome visitor. "Are you done with your tantrum?"

He glared at C.C., "I don't want to talk to you right now, witch, go away."

C.C. had the sheer audacity to actually roll her eyes at him. "No, I won't, especially when you're in a state like this, boy, what are you thinking? Throwing things around and screaming bloody murder in the middle of your own headquarters? Everyone can hear you, you know; it was bad enough that Oghi and Kallen overheard you laughing like a maniac in your Knightmare cockpit earlier."

The witch had something of a point, Lelouch had to admit. It wouldn't do for the Black Knights to see him like this. Knowing his luck, this had probably reignited Kallen's suspicions about Zero, the absolute last thing that he wanted to deal with at this stage.

Still, no rationalization could change the fact that he was livid with Suzaku right now.

Lelouch clenched his fist. "You have a point, but Suzaku is a problem."

C.C. raised an eyebrow at him. "Is he? As far as I can tell, nothing has really changed. Well, aside from you achieving a major victory, that is."

Lelouch glared at her; he couldn't believe what he was hearing right now. "What the hell do you mean, 'nothing has really changed?' Suzaku is the fucking pilot of the Lancelot, the damned White Helmet, who has been harrying me since the beginning. And now he's Euphemia's Knight of Honor! Euphemia's! He's meant to be Nunnally's Knight!"

To his shock, C.C. laughed at him. "And? The Lancelot was a problem anyway, it doesn't matter if it's your friend or your father himself piloting it. And 'Nunnally's Knight?' Have you actually bothered to ask your friend or your beloved sister what they thought of that whole plan? Face it, it was a pipe dream that would never come to fruition."

Overcome with rage, Lelouch got up from his desk and walked towards C.C., backing her into the wall, and grabbing her shoulders, glaring at her. "Take that back, now."

C.C. rolled her eyes at the display. "And if I don't, you'll what, shoot me? I'll just come back after an hour or two. And what do you think will happen when your Black Knights hear a gunshot and come running into your office to find you above my corpse without your mask on?"

Sighing, Lelouch let go of C.C., stepping back and sitting back down at his desk, cradling his face in his hands.

C.C. placed a hand on his shoulder. "Lelouch, this is pitiful. I understand that he is your friend, but this is your rebellion. You can't let this revelation end your mission. You still have so much left to do."

Lelouch gritted his teeth at that. He knew she was right, but that didn't make him any happier about the state of affairs. "I know, I know…"

C.C. sighed at that. "Perhaps we should try to take your mind off of your friend's betrayal? After all, Tohdoh joining the Black Knights has some rather large implications."

Lelouch let go of his face and turned to face C.C., smiling at her. "Yes, let's; Tohdoh shall make a great asset going forward."

C.C. raised an eyebrow at that. "Will he? Don't get me wrong, I understand perfectly well that he's a good commander, but I doubt he's better than you, so won't be just be sort of redundant?"

Lelouch had to resist the urge to laugh; it was almost touching that C.C. was pretending to be slow on the uptake just to distract him from his troubles with Suzaku. "Obviously, he won't change much when it comes to the larger scale strategies we use, but Zero can't be everywhere at once, so he'll make for a good subordinate commander, far better than Oghi, that's for certain."

To be fair, he did like Oghi, but it certainly wasn't because Lelouch thought the man was some sort of secret mastermind. Oghi's real value to him was the man's seemingly unshakeable moral fibre.

C.C. hummed in apparent agreement at his argument. "A subordinate commander, huh? So, he'll be commanding the rank and file, I assume. Though, couldn't Malcal do that job just as well?"

Lelouch shook his head at that. "I won't deny that she would be competent enough for the role, but she's a foreigner, and even Tamaki can tell that she and her European masters have an agenda here. No, I'll keep Malcal in her current role as the leader of the European attachment. Tohdoh is a war hero, the Miracle Worker himself. None of my Black Knights would refuse to follow him into battle."

C.C. nodded at that, seemingly agreeing with his reasoning. "And what of Tohdoh and his Four Holy Swords? Are you not concerned about them?"

Lelouch raised a questioning eyebrow. "Why should I be? Tohdoh is hardly the type to leverage his reputation as a war hero to ferment a coup against me, especially when he owes Zero a debt for rescuing him from an ignoble death."

C.C. shook her head. "That's certainly true, but he could be influenced by the people around him. His Four Holy Swords clearly have misgivings about you, and Malcal and her volunteers could make common cause with them. That could be rather dangerous."

Lelouch scoffed at that. "Oh, I'm sure even Tohdoh has his own misgivings about me, but he and his Four Holy Swords are hardly going to act upon it, especially not in an alliance with the Europeans, who they still resent for abandoning them during the invasion."

C.C. looked at the broken Television Set. "Right, well, you should pick up your poor helmet and go and address your Black Knights; they're concerned about you."

Right, he should see to that.

Author's Note: I'm weirdly both disappointed with and proud of how this chapter came out.

So, for context, this chapter was not originally outlined with killing Lloyd and Cecile off in mind, originally, the Prison Break was going to play out more or less the same as it did in the show, just with W-0 being shoved in there.

That was lazy, and I knew it was lazy, and this bothered me, that, and the anxiety about my fic becoming one of those fics that insert whole new characters into a storyline and then stick religiously to canon rails.

Then, one day, as I was writing this chapter, I ended up having a random shower thought during a shower break about killing Lloyd and Cecile off, and I realized that would be the perfect solution to my problems.

It was feasible, since the Prison seemed bizarrely not well guarded in canon, it would have big ramifications down the line, especially in regards to Knightmare related stuff, and I didn't actually need Cecile and Lloyd for anything major.

As for why I'm disappointed, I just feel like Lloyd and Cecile's death scene was sort of underwhelming, it's very abrupt and anti-climatic, and sure that's realistic to how war actually is but it's still kind of falls flat for me.