Oh damn, is it hot! I knew that global warming would naturally lead to hotter summers. Still, it seems like each year is trying to outdo the last as I was born in this climate; I thought I was used to it, yet I'm writing this by a window, with the fan on full blast. I still feel like I'm seconds from sweating. That's part of why some families pulled out of the annual holiday gathering, as many people in a single house would be miserable.

That does mean I had more time to work on stories, which, if you're in the appropriate tier, you would have heard yesterday. I plan to upload stuff just for my Code Geass stuff throughout December. It would give me more time and less worry about younger cousins wrecking my laptop if I need to leave it unattended to use the bathroom or handle some tasks for the older folks.

But before that, I did want to say that while some things happened last chapter that must have been quite a surprise to read, they will be explained or explored in the story, but not all at once; I have plenty of odd things planned to happen that could happen in one chapter, and then be explained several chapters down the line since in verse, more often than not, those around might already know the why, or not care to ask as example, C.C. has no idea how Lelouch could 'command' rodents but didn't push him for details when he clearly left stuff out of his answer.

Chapter 04: Tin Men Bleed

Deep within the ghetto that had once been one of Japan's commercial and administrative centers, an area of the capital where most of Japan's regional and international companies had located their headquarters, if one had visited the place before the war, they would have been amazed by the sights of the modern city, its business, and all the things one could do both in the day and when the sun set and the nightlife kicked in.

But it had been years since, and much like every other major city in Japan, Britannia had seen to it that in the short war, it had been destroyed, leaving its shattered remains as the homes for the newly conquered elevens, denying them essential dignities like basic water security, plumbing, and electricity. It was a place where most suffered in one way or another daily. Still, in the years since the occupation became solidified, it had been living through peace, however unjust and cruel.

But today, that peace was shattered as Prince Clovis ordered the entire ghetto destroyed and all who called it home to be slaughtered like diseased livestock. It was an order that the Britannian forces had no qualms about carrying out against the sub-human Elevens and something that boiled Kallen's blood as she spotted an IFV targeting a fleeing group of Japanese, and with her one functional slash harken, she fired it into the space between the armor and the barrel, not destroying the unit as she would have desired, but jamming its primary weapon, buying time for her people to flee.

"Those damned Britannians!" Kallen yelled, crying in grief and rage at the massacre happening all around her, and she was powerless to stop it; she could only stem the bleeding, but more wounds kept appearing, and she was only one person in a damaged, outdated unit.

"Kallen, can the Glasgow still move?" The same person she had spoken with before contacted her, sounding just as frantic as she was.

"Don't worry about me, Ohgi! I'll decoy them. Just get the people out of here! They'll only want to capture those of us in the resistance!" Ohgi had crouched behind cover, same with the rest, as the sounds of explosions and gunfire continued to ring around them. It was so loud that he had to yell over the radio to ensure she heard him.

"We can't; they have us trapped!" One of his fellow resistance fighters aimed his RPG at a low-flying VTOL, but the cheap rocket failed, forcing them to run for another stretch of cover. Not even a second later, the spot they had just been in was targeted by that same VTOL, which sprayed it with its machine gun, tearing through concrete like a rock through paper.

No matter what Milly said, Shirley was not upset. Why would she be? Lulu missed morning classes; Lulu cut their call when she wanted to find out where he was. She was fine—totally fine—as she focused on changing for swim practice before meeting Milly and Nina for a student council meeting. Maybe by then, Lulu would finally decide to show up after, as Rivalz put it when he finally showed up, he ditched him to do his own thing.

Her fellow swim club members were relaxing as they watched something on the miniature TV, one of those silly game shows Rivalz liked, as she finished putting on her costume and started trying her hair up so it could fit under her swimming cap when she got a phone call.

When she opened it, she was surprised to see it was Lelouch, and she was quick to answer. "Lulu, where the heck are you?" she asked him as she put her phone onto her ear like an oversized earpiece to continue putting her hair into a bun. "Wait, no, this is more than that. I thought you would break this bad habit when we become third years, and if you don't, they end up being held back or expelled."

"Are you near a TV or radio?" Lelouch didn't respond to her legitimate criticism, but that was a strange request even then. Lulu was never interested in following shows or radio programs. Outside the news and weather, he hardly touched either.

"Wait, why are you asking that?" She asked.

"Sorry, but it's important." Again, he didn't answer her questions as she rumbled in annoyance

"Fine," But she ultimately decided to humor him as she turned to the other girls who had turned to her when they heard who she was talking to. "Hey, can I change the channel real quirk?"

"To what?" One of them, a junior on the team, asked.

"The news. Is there anything about Shinjuku?" Lelouch replied. He could hear what was happening around her, and the same was true for her, but she couldn't make out much background noise other than what sounded like planes and thuds. Was he near a construction site?

"Shinjuku? Let's see…" She turned the small TV dial to the local news and found something about Shinjuku, but it was more about what was happening around the place. "There's nothing on, just something about traffic restrictions."

"Any reason for that?" Lelouch asked, which was odd as to why they would care about the area. It was on the other side of the settlement.

"No, sorry, Lulu."

Unknown to Shirley, Lelouch had a vested interest in Shinjuku as he was still deep in the ghetto as it was being put to the torch. Before he had made the call, he had turned off his stolen unit's IFF and found a building to hide in where he could open the cockpit, giving C.C. and himself space for the mysterious woman to tend to his injuries but without bandages, they had to improvise by using his white shirt, tearing it into pieces and using those to crudely wrap up his injuries, including the one on his face.

He hardly flinched as C.C. silently worked, leaving him to converse with his apparent friend like he wasn't getting his wounds treated. She might have praised him for not acting like a baby if she had been more open, but his ego didn't need to grow any bigger. For Lelouch, he looked at the screen of his stolen unit, seeing the progress that had been made by the Britannians as they've already pierced halfway into the ghetto, which, having heard them talk about the nature of their orders, he knew that it meant that they had mowed through the bulk of residents in the areas they've passed through.

'As expected, they'll keep a lid on things till after the fact, then release news that favors the military and ensures that Clovis's hands remain unsullied,' Lelouch thought to himself, the maelstrom in his head ignored as he thought about how the bastard Clovis planned to cover this up. If poison gas was the explanation, then they'd most likely blame the mass death on the gas being leaked, or if they wished to vilify the terrorists, intentionally released onto their own people who didn't take up arms with them, they might even imply if nor outright accuse them of manufacturing it to wash Clovis of it.

If they couldn't use the gas, then they'll probably blame the deaths on a fight between two terrorist groups that got out of hand and how they had only been stopped when Clovis decisively ordered his troops to end the fighting out of compassion for his eleven subjects. It was a smart move, incredibly so if one didn't consider the truth. But he did, and such outcomes only made his blood boil all the more and his desire to see Clovis's pummelled and broken head on a platter all the more potent.

'Clovis, you damned royal fool. If you think you can hide your sins, I'll drag them into the light and make sure you suffer.'

His blood-filled fantasies were interrupted when Shirley spoke up, characteristically angry with him for his recklessness. "Wait a minute, you're not getting off the hook that easy, mister! Where the heck are you? Rivalz said you got into some random truck and went off, leaving him to push the bike to the nearest station!"

So Rivalz made it back and told them what he saw. He had hoped it would be a while before he found a way back to school with a bike out of commission, but he could work with this. "Is that what he said? I didn't 'get into the truck' I fell on. It nearly ran us over, swerved off the road to avoid us, and crashed."

With that truth, Shirley's exasperation and anger instantly turned to anxious concern. "What? You were nearly run over?! Are you okay?" Lelouch, despite the fact he was stuck in a ghetto slanted to be cleansed of human life and was figuring out a means to relieve Clovis of his head, smiled at her words as her worry was genuine and, if he's honest, sweet to hear.

Lelouch chuckled. "Relax, I didn't get a scratch from the little near miss. I went down to check on them, and they didn't notice I was there; I climbed on top to try and reach them, and they pulled out, leading to me falling into the truck." That wasn't a lie, as he wasn't injured in the accident. Still, he was wounded in the firefight he got into afterward as a direct result of falling into that truck and Shirley's earlier call.

Even C.C. could hear the girl groan through the phone. "That sounds insane, but knowing you, I hate that I can believe it."

"It's not my fault that a good deed ended with me being a store away. Anyway, I was able to get their attention, and they dropped me close to the Shinjuku ghetto, but I couldn't find a bus that would take me back. They all said the same thing you did, traffic restrictions." He explained, giving a suitable cover story to cover up the truth, though he did have to tell a lie about where he was.

"That's why you wanted to know what the news said." With Lelouch being happy to let her think, Shirley assumed that when people were told things, they had the chance to question them. Still, when they were led to believe that they were the ones to figure it out, they would be more willing to not look further out of a subconscious desire to preserve the sense of them being correct.

"And it seems that I still don't have any answers, so could you do me a favor and tell my little sister I'll be getting home late tonight as I don't see the buses moving anytime soon," Lelouch asked her.

"You know she'll be upset about that, especially Matilda, Pedro, Henry, and the rest." Shirley reminded him, which he hadn't forgotten, as their little group could get worried when such things happened. "All right, I'll do that just…be safe. It's not a good idea to stay out late so close to a ghetto."

Oh, Lelouch found it so funny that she assumed he was in danger from the Japanese when he would sooner be gunned down by his fellow Britannians. "Who do you think you're talking to? See you tomorrow." Ending the call, he turned his phone off to prevent mishaps. As he did so, he looked the thing over. He wondered how Shirley could show such genuine kindness and compassion and how those same positive attributes nearly got him and C.C. killed.

'There is a poetic sense of humor in that, but I neither have the time nor interest.' He thought to himself as C.C. finished tending to his wounds. She didn't have a means to close or adequately clean them, but this would have to do. Lelouch pulled his jacket once more, C.C. having made no comment about the fact his torso wasn't as unblemished as she would have assumed it would be.

"So Clovis doesn't want his little cleaning house mission to get out. That would make it troublesome to try and break through the encirclement, even in a knightmare." C.C. stated, seemingly bored with the entire idea as Lelouch spied something among the abandoned belongings of whoever had lived here.

"Troublesome, but not unfeasible. Besides, it gives us a point in our favor." Lelouch got up and climbed down the cockpit, collecting the chess board, which had all its pieces chipped and worn, but they were recognizable.

"Oh, and why is that, boyo?" C.C. asked him, smirking as he picked up the game board and returned to the cockpit, the woman needing to sit on his lap to keep them both comfortable.

Lelouch didn't react to the presence of a beautiful mystery woman, both because he was more than just a hormonal response and because he knew she was trying to get a rise out of him with how she was shifting about. "If Clovis is truly acting like this is a poison gas-related incident, then we can't call in reinforcements without raising questions of why he would need them. No, it's that he won't. He's panicking; this senseless slaughter is little more than a brat fighting to keep their parents from finding out they broke something."

"So, he has a fixed number of troops, but they still out-number us nearly 100 to one. I hope you don't think you're some prodigal diamond in the rough that can take on such numbers and come out victorious." She looked at him, her eyes giving nothing away. No matter how hard he looked into them, he shook his head. Even if he exploited the fact he had their Britannia's codes and up-to-date data on their locations, they'd crush him through sheer numbers, numbers that were all soldiers who had training and possible battle experience.

"I told you, confidence and arrogance are two different things." She snorted at his words but took some victory in his arrogance not being out of control. "However, I have no intention of running, not when people need to be protected and a prince needs to be punished." There it was again, the darkness in his voice, the depths of protective wrath in his eyes. C.C. was intrigued by that, as his righteous and hellish fury seemed to co-exist without impeding the other. Nothing like her other contractors.

Their conversation was interrupted when they heard an explosion; looking in the direction, they saw a fiery ball falling to earth, a VTOL having been taken out by a slash harken that was quickly retracted by the only rebel unit in the ghetto. "Besides, who said we'll have to fight Clovis alone. These terrorists got us involved in this mess. It's only right they help clean it up." Lelouch smiled, as he already had some plans brewing in his head to achieve all his goals and still make it back to dinner with his sister.

For her troubles, Kallen had managed to retract her slash harken, her sole ranged weapon, but her luck ran out. Two Sunderlands appeared behind her, their red shoulders only meaning more trouble. "Crap!"

"It's our Glasgow friend." Its pilot, Jeremiah, smirked as it seemed he would get the chance to defeat this pest after they managed to give him a slip earlier on the road. Kallen didn't just let him kill her, as before he could bring his gun to bear, she was already moving, dodging the gunfire. As she took the first turn, she could break their line of sight, forcing the two Sunderlands to give chase.

Her lousy luck turned rotten when she heard an alert that only made her feel dread. She looked at the screens, hoping it was false, but her hopes proved fruitless when she saw the power she still had. "Just 30 minutes left." Kallen started to tear up, as even that was generous as if she tried to fight with such a minuscule amount of power; even if she managed to take out those bastards chasing her, she'd be lucky to have enough left to take out the 2nd and still escape.

But what could she do? They were in better units; they would catch her sooner or later, hell she was painfully aware that they weren't shooting at her because they wanted her to run; they were treating her like a sick hunt, and she was the wounded deer trying to escape them.

"West entrance, use the tracks to move to the west entrance." Kallen snapped out of her loop of fury and despair at that radio transmission, as she didn't recognize that voice.

"The hell are you? How do you know this code?" She snapped at them.

The voice had the stones to chuckle at her demand. "Does that really matter? You want to win, don't you? Then follow my instructions."

"To win?" Were they insane? Winning in these conditions would be impossible. They had known that they had focused on limiting losses and getting out alive from the jump. But despite how cocky the voice sounded, a part of her wanted to believe; she wanted a real victory over these Britannian bastards.

Making a snap decision, she turned her knightmare. She jumped into the tracks to her right, her landspinners linking with the rails and helping to push her down them faster than she would otherwise move. "Okay, I'm on the tracks. Now what?" She asked, hiding the part of her that was resigned to death and just saw this as a chance to take some of her enemies with her.

Behind her, her pursuers were hot on her tail. Still, despite having a clear shot, neither attempted to gun her down, much to her anger, as they couldn't even give her the treatment of a real threat. "You pathetic eleven, if you simply run away, then this hunt has nothing to offer in the way of entertainment." Jeremiah mocked her, though she couldn't hear it. Instead, she focused on the ear-piercing whistle before her, its source being a train speeding towards them.

"And now your trust in me has been rewarded with victory. Jump onto that train and continue down its length." Kallen didn't question the voice; she merely followed as she jumped over the main engine onto the second car, which crumbled slightly under the weight of her unit before making another leap down its body.

Jeremiah had to stop the train with his unit, though it took time for the train to halt, even with its breaks and his units fighting against its momentum. "You think you can get through that way?" He asked, as it wasn't a bad play, it bought them time, but they could make up for it using the speed advantage their Sunderlands afforded over an outdated Sunderland.

"You, go after the enemy." He ordered the unit next to him.

"Yes, my lord!" The Sunderland jumped over him but never touched the train as gunfire from the adjacent building tore into it, several well-placed shots hitting its chest, head, and cockpit block before it could eject, piercing through it and instantly killing the pilot inside. Kallen and Jeremiah were shocked by the turnoff events as the now defeated Sunderland, without a pilot, crashed off the rails into the below-mentioned road.

The tear-haired man turned his unit's head to the source of the fire, and his shock only grew when he recognized that it wasn't just a Sunderland but one bearing their mark. "Shot by friendly fire? What's your name and unit! We're after-"

Lelouch didn't answer his questions; he aimed for him and fired again. The teal-haired man saw the gun move and quickly pulled back, saving himself from what was sure to be a fate similar to his comrade. "That's not one of ours-a terrorist?" Jeremiah asked, astonished that one of their units could fall into terrorist hands, but how? He didn't hear anything about a unit being defeated or captured.

Lelouch, even with C.C. seated on his lap, didn't waste a second as he calmly adjusted his aim and fired once more, taking out Jeremiah's left leg and dropping his Sunderland to its knees. "You son of-!" Jeremiah pulled out his rifle to fire back, but Lelouch snapped his aim for it and fired, blasting the weapon out of his hands before blowing off his right arm.

Now immobile and without his best-ranged weapon, the teal-haired man went to fire his slash harkens, hoping to take out this threat, only for him to see the Glasgow rushing back; it might not be armed, but he couldn't take chances as he had to bite back the shame of defeat.

"No choice." He removed his hands from the controls, pulled the double-level ejection system, disconnected his cockpit from the frame, and blasted it away from the fight. Once it had burned through its launch jets, it deployed a parachute and inflatable shock pillows, which would see him land safely, though that was cold comfort to the margrave.

Kallen couldn't believe that she had seen two Sunderland being taken out. She could hardly believe she was part of that scheme, as despite herself, she laughed in relieved joy at their victory.

"Thanks for that, but where did you…where did he go?" She turned her Glasgow to face the opening in the building, only to find the Sunderland that could only belong to her mysterious backup gone. There was not even a trace of where it could have gone in the seconds her attention was elsewhere.

"Kallen!" She didn't have time to ponder that as she heard Ohgi rushing over, 3 of the other members of their group with him. "What the hell was that radio message earlier?"

"What? He contacted you, too?" She asked, to which Ohgi nodded his head.

"Sure did, and Yoshida's group should be here soon." He explained, but then his radio crackled to life.

"Are you the leader?" Through it, the same nameless voice came through, one that none of them recognized.

"What?" Ohgi asked.

"I'm asking if you're the leader of this merry band of terrorists?" The voice asked again, which got Tamaki to blow up at being insulted.

"We're not terrorists! We're resistance fighters!" he yelled at the radio as if the voice were standing there.

Ohgi stopped him before he could say more. "I am."

The voice huffed, amused by his response or Tamaki's outburst—they couldn't tell, and frankly, it was irritating. "Good, then I present to you the cargo of that train. It contains the tools for your victory, but only if you follow my orders to the letter." The voice informed them, and the group looked at one another before Kallen went to the first car and pried it open, only for her jaw to fall wide open as she saw its contents.

Brand no Sunderlands. The others saw this and were just as flabbergasted by it as she was. Sunderlands were the backbone of Britannia's knightmare forces worldwide and one of the hardest units to acquire on the black market, even though Japan alone produced dozens for the local garrison forces, and the empire produced thousands of them.

Moving down the train, they saw that it wasn't just a one-time thing; it was like the entire train had been loaded with knightmares and their supplies from weapons, munitions, and energy fillers.

"There's more in here!"

"Here too!"

"Amazing, maybe we should give this guy a chance!"

Kallen heard it all from her fellow resistance fighters, but while they were left stunned and eager to use their newly acquired arms, she couldn't help but ponder. "Just who is this guy? How could he have got his hands on so many of them." Even the most prominent resistance groups in Japan didn't have this many Sunderlands, or if they did, they never used them. How deeply connected was the voice that he could give them at least a dozen factory-fresh Sunderlands with weapons and fuel like it was nothing?

"Woman in the Glasgow, as much as I'm sure you want to, you will remain in that unit. You'll be running decoy, understood?" The voice contacted her right as she was about to leave her old, one-armed Glasgow for an upgrade.

"Y-yes," Kallen replied, upset that she would be forced to use an inferior model. However, the voice had delivered more than she had hoped, so she could at least follow his lead.

"Energy filler status?"

"Around 15 minutes' worth." She looked at her screens and winced when she saw that even that escape had burned through half her dwindling power reserves.

"Then replace it. In 10 minutes, I'll contact you with your next instructions." The voice cut off the call. Unknown to her and everyone else, Lelouch had moved to another location altogether, that being the remains of the Shinjuku Center Building, once one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo and currently the tallest standing in the entire ghetto. From it, Lelouch had a commanding view of the whole area, his Sunderland's factsphere openly and scanning every 10 seconds to ensure he had as up-to-date information as possible.

Having ended his chat with the rebels, Lelouch took a breath and relaxed into his seat, letting the chaotic symphony within his head soothe him with its madness. "And with that, the easy part is over."

"Oh yes, you are given the tools, but we're still horribly out-numbered, and I doubt that any of those terrorists can match the skills of our enemies." C.C.'s words were blunt and brutal but not incorrect. Outside maybe the redhead pilot of the Glasgow, Lelouch wouldn't be surprised if most could last 20 seconds against the Britannians in a straight fight.

"They don't need to, not if they follow my orders." That was why he wouldn't engage them in such a manner.

"Like pieces on your board?" C.C. asked him.

"Like soldiers obeying their general." He corrected, as something was in her voice; it wasn't judgemental or pleased, but hearing her phrase unnerved him. Reminded him how…he must have viewed those under him as little more than tools to his ambition.

"Well, either way, you can do whatever you please." C.C. lounged back into his lap, hearing Lelouch's heartbeat as he let out a deep chuckle that sounded closer to a laughing dog.

"Well, why don't you sit back and enjoy the hunt I'm about to put on. one that will see many metal men and a certain prince lose their heads." Looking up, she saw an excitement to his madness, a joyous anticipation to his violent, destructive desires.

"Well," C.C. smirked at him, leaning closer into him in what could be called a rather romantic position, her lips close to his neck. "I do owe Clovis for the wonderful hospitality, and you promised me revenge. Don't disappoint me, boyo. It's not a good look to promise a maiden something and fail to deliver."

Lelouch returned her smirk with a smile of his own, promising nothing but despair and death for those who had the misfortune of earning his fury or being unlucky enough to be in the way. "Oh, believe me, C.C. When a hound is given a task, it will be done."

Lelouch was sure that before the sun had set, the rats and crows that called Shinjuku home would be spoiled for choice when it came to how many Britannian bodies they'd be to devour.

"The terrorists are mixed among the Eleven populace and are mounting a minor resistance against us, but they're proving no match for our vastly superior forces." Bartley gave Clovis an update on the situation, as their forces had largely managed to overrun the ghetto and should be soon finished moping up any Elevens they could find.

"That was a given, moving on to more important matters, Bartley?" Clovis didn't care for any of that, as while he seemed poised, he was on edge. They had gotten word from the Royal guard that they had found her, only for them to get a distress signal.

As if the situation couldn't get messier, the unit they sent to aide them, Viletta, had been blindsided and lost both the target and her knightmare. The only news she could give was that the royal guards were dead, but she couldn't do anything from before she entered the warehouse and found the bodies. Her report of the scene didn't paint a pretty picture, as it was clear that whoever they had been fighting had been merciless, with just about every one of his royal guards killed with 1 or 2 bullets.

At least, those were the lucky ones, as Clovis still found it hard to believe that vermin-like rats had managed to eat as much of them as she claimed or that some of his men had seemingly been killed by rats biting major arteries and leaving them to bleed out. All of it sounded fantastical.

However, when it came to that woman, he had learned that what seemed fanatical could be reality. So, at least, they knew she had to have been involved in his royal guard's grisly demise. It would be his only clue that she was free and somewhere in the ghetto because Viletta couldn't recall if she saw her present or not or even if she had been the one to steal her unit and gun.

"Forgive me, your Highness, the gas capsule has been." Bartley bowed to him in apology, but he cut the man off again.

"What the public thinks," Clovis emphasized that.

"We haven't located it, but our search efforts have not stopped. more importantly, we can assume that the terrorists have if they managed to kill the entire royal guard." Bartley replied, though both were shaken by that knowledge, as how in the hell did some uneducated monkeys manage to get the drop on his royal guard? And to kill them so quickly, they only send one silent distress signal.

"I don't care about that. No matter its condition, it needs to be found and recaptured. Turn over every bloody brick in this God-forsaken pig pen if you must." Clovis felt the headache forming already. But he would trust in his forces to see his orders carried out; they had performed that well enough.

"Hey, are you sure about this? They all had their IFFs removed; what if this is a trap?" Tamaki asked, as even for him, the idea that someone they didn't know would contact them when they needed it most and just…give them Sunderlands felt like a dream.

"The other side has a total advantage in this war; they don't need any traps," Ohgi replied, as it would just be a waste of resources when Britannia was already winning. Inside his cockpit, he familiarised himself with the layout, happy that it was nearly identical to the Glasgow. "All right people, let's move. Get to your assigned points-"

As he did that, his radio crackled to life once more. "B-1, can you move? The controls should match up to a Glasgow, which I assume you're experienced with."

"Can't you tell us who you are, at least your name?" Ohgi asked him, as promised or not, whether following orders from a nameless voice was hard to stomach.

"That I can't do over an unsecure line. Onto more important things, if Q1 is on time, 2 enemy units will be chasing her. They will reach your position in 23 seconds," Lelouch shot that down without hesitation, his attention on watching Kallen race out into the woman, right given one of the Britannian attack VTOLs. "Shoot them through the wall."

Hearing that was a step too far for Tamaki. "This guy is insane!"

"Everyone, check your guns and ammo." Ohgi, on the other hand, lowered his radio, got to work, and got ready.

"What, are you serious?" Tamaki's incredulousness didn't stop him from following along like the others did.

As that happened, the VTOL reported what he saw to the G1. "Enemy spotted at point F31."

"A feint, eh? How pedestrian." Clovis smirked, as it seemed like the enemy was trying to lure him into a trap, but when they had just one machine, there wasn't much they could do.

"Have Laszlo squad go straight in, and Eugen and Valerie strike from the rear," Bartley ordered as Kallen vanished back out of view of the VTOL, but two Sunderlands gave chase. Clovis had been right to assume that Kallen was leading them into a trap, but he had no idea of its nature.

"3…2…1, fire!" Ohgi called out as the 7 Sunderlands present fired blindly into the wall, their shots easily tearing through the concrete and brick, revealing 2 Sunderlands on the other side getting peppered by it. They didn't let their surprise at the voice being spot on with his timing get to them. Instead, they fired until both units had been torn to pieces. Their pilots had never even seen them coming; never mind, get a shot out.

"Sir Eugen and Sir Valeria both lost. No ejections reported." Clovis looked up at the news, surprised that his men had been defeated.

"An ambush." Were the enemy using RPGs?

Lelouch was amused that his ploy had been successful, as Clovis no doubt still believed that the rebels had only one frame. That train had been a blessing in disguise, a happy coincidence that it had been traveling through the ghetto with Clovis and his command staff, no doubt unaware it was ever there.

"An IFF signal can be a double-edged sword, my foolish Prince. Add in that I control what you can see of my forces, and I might as well have a tasty steak that you and your mongrels will follow all the way off the cliff." Lelouch smirk turned beastly, C.C. amused at how eager for murder her contractor seemed to be, though she wasn't against it. It would be nice to see that pompous fool get his just desserts for how he treated her when she refused to give him what he wanted.

Lelouch got back into the heat of things not even a moment longer. He would celebrate when the battle was over. "P1, P4, P7, move 100ms to the right and fire your slash harkens towards your 3 o'clock."

"You heard the man; do as he says!" Now convinced, Ohgi was the first to act and urged the others to do the same.

"Damn, what else does he want us to do?" Tamaki asked, even if he was just as impressed with their faceless leader.

"P5, don't waste time," Lelouch told him.

"Stop calling me that!" Tamaki yelled back but followed orders all the same, climbing into his Sunderland as their forces started to carry out Lelouch's orders, the first of which being 3 of them firing their Slash Harkens, taking out another Sunderland before they shifted focus. Lelouch kept them on the move, striking fast and hard before moving again, even if that meant a retreat without explanation.

The changing tide didn't go unnoticed by Clovis and his men. Bartley started to sweat as more units across the board fell off the board, destroyed before they could even report they were under attack. There was no pattern, no reason why he could see, as one group would be attacked, then three groups to their right would be hit, then one five groups to the left. "The enemy is moving towards G28."

"Send Lazlo squad-I mean Glaude squad!" Bartley corrected himself mid-sentence; while he struggled against this galvanized opponent, Clovis realized this couldn't be Elevens with RPGs.

"This mean…terrorists have our military weaponry?" Clovis uttered, but that was impossible; they would need many frames for that, and aside from Viletta's stolen unit, the enemy only had the one Glasgow. At that exact moment, Kallen shot her slash harken into the roof of a building and quickly ascended it, landing behind a Sunderland that had been trying to take out her comrades, the unit turning just in time for her to land a punch to its factsphere shattering the sensory unit and blinding it, forcing the pilot to bail before she could finish the job.

"Sir Glaude as ejected! His unit's been lost!" Bartley continued to sweat as more bad news came in, unable to understand how an enemy so thoroughly beaten could resurge like this.

"Change our communication codes. They're intercepting our transmissions!" Bartley ordered.

"We already have, sir, for times."

"Well, then do it again!" Bartley was right to assume that Lelouch was intercepting his transmissions, but he didn't know that the first change had been enough. Lelouch couldn't hear what orders were being given. Still, he didn't need to, as the IFFS signals and his crow nest gave him plenty of opportunities to see where everything was and plan accordingly.

"This failure is unacceptable!" Clovis got up from his throne, furious at how things had devolved.

"F-forgive me, your higness-!" Bartley turned to quickly apologize to him, only for the main screen to shift to the face of someone he would sooner have arrested than be happy to see.

"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Lloyd called in, happy as usual.

"What is it now? We're in the middle of an operation!" Bartley yelled at him.

"Well, I just wanted to remind you that we're ready to lend you some help with that pesky problem," Bartley growled at how blasé the scientist was being.

"We have no time for this right now!" Clovis was the one that turned the scientist's offer down, glaring at him as he cut the feed to get back to the battle, a battle that was going poorly for them as an armored unit was hit in its side, the force causing it to jump in the air as a hole the size of a football appeared in its armor before it blew up.

"R-2, fire anchor." Lelouch shifted a rook piece on the board while one of his forces downed a VTOL. "B-7, use HEDP ordnance." He removed a white piece of the board as another of his Sunderlands fired a high-explosive dual-purpose into the front of an IFV, the vehicle armor being no match as the shot pierced through and detonated within, militating the crew.

"R1-group, you're continuing your advance." 3 Sunderlands charged some Britannian units out of nowhere, the imperials being caught by surprise, and while they cursed them, all would fall without a single ejection. "P-3, P-8, fall back 80m. N2-Group, you'll swing around and wipe out the 6 units chasing down P-3 and P-8 in 17 seconds." A large group of infantry gave chase, only to be turned to chunky meat when his Sunderlands, remembering how these same soldiers cut them their people without reason or mercy, returned the courtesy.

"Lazlo squad and Pieper Squads have been lost!" Clovis and Bartley were overwhelmed by the reports of lost forces, as whoever they were facing was like a ghost, unseen until they struck and vanished just as quickly, leaving wrecks and bodies in their wake.

"Send reinforcements!" Bartley ordered.

"But sir, to where? The enemy attacking us in 5 separate locations?" Bartley bit his tongue, wanting to yell at them to just do it, but he couldn't afford to look incompetent. He needed to find a means to win, but how? The enemy was fighting in a way that their numbers weren't a factor but a hindrance as they struck at every point, isolating units but, even then, rarely wiping them out in short order as they could just as easily switch to another target.

For Lelouch, while his foe was being overwhelmed, he was as calm as possible, his eyes shifting to and from all his forces. He took in more data via his factsphere and additional info his forces reported back to him. Constantly moving the board to account for the changing tide of the battle.

Ohgi had already asked if they could also rely on Clovis not knowing about them having Sunderlands. Still, Lelouch had calmed his worries through his tactics for the fight, as if it didn't matter if Clovis knew, not when they kept up the pressure on him and struck at every possible spot.

Despite their lacking skills, the rebels were proving to be good at following orders, and their knowledge of the area proving to be a boon in of itself as they could inform him if changes to the maps and other details he and his fellow Britannians just didn't know about, allowing them use lure them into routes that were ill-suited for them, or attacking them after moving through routes that the Britannians hadn't even known were there before vanishing down them just as quick.

Even the VTOLS in the sky were flapping their wings to his whistle as they reported what he wanted them to see, went where he wanted them to go, and paid the price when he had run out of use. 'And yes, that redhead woman…she's proving superior to all of them.' Lelouch thought that even though she was in an inferior, damaged unit, this Kallen woman could keep up with things, even leading the charge when his orders gave her a chance, ranking up more knightmare kills than 2nd and 3rd place combined.

Clovis heard that another VTOL was taken out, leaving them with just half their starting number and without eyes in the sky of the situation, leaving them growing increasingly unaware of the terrorist movements.

The terrorists took full advantage of this, constantly shifting their focus, attacking at one place and retreating from another while luring their enemies into traps and ambushes. This made it impossible to tell when, where, and how they would strike. This sowed chaos into their forces as units started to panic, not knowing where and how they could be hit.

He could already tell that if this was left unaddressed, it could be moved to end things. "Bring up Quincy squad."

"But, your Highness, that will break the encirclement," Bartley warned him.

Lelouch twirled the black king piece in his hands, as things had gone relatively smoothly thus far, but he wasn't about to lower his guard. "Now then, you have 5 moves to make Clovis. Which will it be?"

"Reinforce the breech with some of the units guarding me. All we know is that this seems to be the enemy's main strike force. We take them out, and we cripple them." Clovis ordered as he pointed towards the red dot on their map that represented the Glasgow, the unit responsible for the most losses; it had to be a small enemy strike force.

Having been forced to walk back the entire way, Jeremiah had nearly reached the G1 when he saw, to his confusion, the units around it started to move into the ghetto. "Who ordered them to break formation?" Jeremiah asked, as that just seemed like an idiotic move. Why decrease the protection around the Prince?

Lelouch agreed with the Purist. He frowned when he first saw the change in the field, believing it to be a false flag meant to deceive him, but it was far too risky for such a small gain. No, this wasn't an intelligent play but a desperate one made by someone who knew as much about warfare as a mouse knew about cooking. "Clovis, I misjudged you. I thought you had five moves, but you go and find a sixth."

"Has he outsmarted you?" C.C. asked, to which he laughed.

"Is the emperor a kind and just ruler? No, he did something that any commander could tell was a fool's move. It's pitiful; this just makes it clear he should have stuck to the paintbrush, not the battlefield, but if the peacock is presenting its neck, I would be remiss not to get for it." C.C. shared his confusion at such a move, but he moved on to see if he couldn't break the wings of this peacock before he killed it. "Q1, do you have a map of the area?"

"I do, but it has no current landmarks," Kallen replied.

"It'll do. I have a commanding position of things and can direct you using it. Here's the plan." He stated that Kallen wondered about that before she turned her attention to the tallest building in the ghetto and realized where he had been hiding this entire time. It's a good spot for spotting stuff; it probably was why he seemed to know where everyone was.

As Lelouch had his plan prepped, Clovis did the same on his side. His hope rose when his forces started to gather for a massive push and met no opposition. The enemy was no doubt scared by their numbers. "All right, send in Burts and the others, too."

"Have the charges been set?" Lelouch inquired, keeping track of the Britannian units, who appeared more like a swarm of angry bees chasing after a threat.

"Concentrate all forces on them; it won't matter if they have our equipment in such an open area; we'll crush them!" Clovis was eager to see this humiliation end and make the terrorists pay for it.

"Head down route 7 and wait 50 seconds," Lelouch ordered as the preparations were completed and his knightmares retreated. Moments later, Clovis's forces reached the point in mass but found that the only other knightmares present were friendlies.

Back at the G1, the dot that had been the Glasgow faded off the map once the area it had been boxed into had been surrounded and charged. "Wait, where's the enemy?" Clovis asked, flabbergasted; he had missed a critical detail about the ghetto. In that, it was littered with tunnels and old subway lines, one of which happened to travel beneath the feet of his forces.

"With this, I call check." Lelouch shifted his queen piece to check the white king as Kallen, traveling at the rear of the column, turned and fired her slash harken into the ceiling, retracting it as she fled, the old, poorly maintained ceiling gave way, crumbling the very ground that the Britannian units were standing on.

As if that wasn't enough, the explosive charges set went off, causing the collapse to become larger, pulling in more and more Britannian units who screamed in confusion and fear as their armored vehicles and knightmares were swallowed by the collapsing earth, many being crushed by debris or each other. At the same time, those who weren't were buried alive, their screams unheard by anyone but Clovis and his command, who were forced to listen to the agonizing dying moments of almost 100 men before silence as dozens of signals went dead-replaced with the dreaded 'lost.'

Having heard the explosions and feeling the building he was watching shake, Lelouch couldn't help himself as he barked in laughter. "My plan worked, didn't it? All those soldiers, all those machines- all those dogs, and none of it mattered; they're all dead! Oh, I wish I could see the fear on your arrogant, cruel, and vain face, Clovis!" He could already picture it; it was a sweet sight.

"My, you sure do have an unhinged side to you, don't you?" C.C. interrupted his jubilation, which only returned when he saw that she was just as pleased as him.

"And yet, you're smiling as well." He called her out on it.

"And yet, which of us is acting like a dog that has finally got the peacock?" C.C. asked him, as she was pleased, but she couldn't deny that the idea that Clovis was close to passing out from terror was pleasing. Still, she wasn't the one who was so lost in their joy he looked like he wanted to dance on the literal corpses of his fallen foes.

"It's something to be pleased with, yes," Lelouch sighed before his brow twitched and his joy faded. The storm in his head grounded him. "But this wasn't a victory, just a win."

"What's the difference?" C.C. asked as Lelouch directed her gaze to the battlefield, which had fallen silent as both sides had to take a moment to process what they had just seen.

"Clovis was out of his depth from the jump. All he had going was superior equipment and numbers; once I neutralized that advantage, it was like playing a game of chess with a child. Sure, you win, but can you call that a victory?" Lelouch explained, for as grand as this was, what could be one of the worst defeats Britannia has suffered in years were men led not by a military man but by a fool who believed he could lead men into war. They weren't even front-line troops but garrison forces, which, historically, were never the best because they rarely, if ever, saw combat.

C.C. mused over it, though she knew more about such things than he did and was more impressed that her contractor could realize that. "True, in terms of commanders I've seen in action, he was by far the worst of them. But will you make a move against him now?"

"No, I need to whittle down his defenses a little more as he might have lost half his forces, and his remaining troops still out-number us 3 to one, and the G-1 itself is a moving fortress; our weapons can harass it, but can't penetrate its thick armor. It would be best to keep the pressure up and retreat; we can sneak in with Clovis's withdrawing forces and cover for it with a renewed assault." Lelouch stated as he ordered his forces into position just for that.

Meanwhile, Clovis backed away from the tactical screen, pale as snow as the reports. The replies, even the requests for orders from his forces, just became white noise. 'Who…who in the hell am I up against? They're even better than Tohdoh!' No, this couldn't be real! It had to be a dream. No, a nightmare! "Lloyd!"

"Yes, Your Highness?" Lloyd asked, having never stopped the call, even if they had killed the feed.

Clovis didn't care anymore; all he wanted was a victory here. "Can it do it? Can your little toy win this?"

The feed came back online, showing the scientist with that insufferable smirk. "Your highest, please be so kind as to call it Lancelot."

Once again, I'm running late with uploads, but with my other 3 stories on break for the holidays, I shouldn't have this issue next week.

The next chapter will be out on December 20th.

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