Lelouch stared, his eyes unseen behind the reflective purple glass of his helmet. It helped maintain the mystique of his entrance. If they could see through that obscuring surface they would see the myriad emotions written across his face. Joy, confusion, disquiet, none of which were fit for a devil arriving to offer a deal. He took a step toward Kallen. Two.

He stopped short three steps away from her, allowing a bullet to pass in front of his mask. Slowly, his head turned to regard a man bearing the insignia of a Corporal. "Tha's far enough, dickhead! The fuck are you?!"

"Corporal, for as dire straits as you find yourself, warning shots are wasted ammunition." A section of the reflective mask opened, revealing a violet eye. "Don't you think it would be best to focus on defending the perimeter?"

The Corporal blinked, his rifle lowered slightly. He almost turned on the spot to do exactly as he had been told, only to stop and look to the wounded officer sat against the wall.

"Go," Kallen ordered. Only then did the young man nod and turn to focus on defending the walls of their makeshift stronghold.

Meanwhile Lelouch closed the gap between himself and his... And the redheaded officer. He knelt, his cape sweeping up dust and sand behind him. "You look like you're in a difficult situation," he glanced at her insignia, "Lieutenant."

"Guess you could say that." Her voice was the same, though she spoke with an unfamiliar accent. Not one that was unpleasant to the ear by any measure. "Lelouch."

His heart all but skipped a beat. Could it be possible? He had arrived here, why not anyone else? "Kallen?"

"How'd you know my name?"

And as suddenly as the warmth of hope arrived it swiftly dissipated into the cold of disappointment. "Devils know many things. But I'm more surprised by how you came to know my name."

"You chased me once, weirdest day of my life. Until today, I guess. Heard someone say your name, then found this," she held up the flyer, her other hand holding her gut wound. "So a devil, huh?" she asked, grunting in pain as she adjusted herself to sit with a little more dignity. A mistake by her agonised grimace, though she didn't let the pain seep into her words. "You gonna take my soul?"

"We don't trade in souls anymore," Lelouch answered without actually answering her question. He wanted her as part of his peerage. Even if she had a value of only a single Pawn it was a piece he would gladly give up. Overly sentimental? Certainly. But he was a devil. If he wanted something, truly wanted it, it would be a lifelong regret if he denied himself. And devils lived a long time.

However, that was if she were only worth a single Pawn. She was not. Far from it. He hadn't the slightest idea why her value was so high but he could make an educated guess. A sacred gear of some sort. It seemed that Kallen couldn't help but be someone special.

"Yeah? Well I'm not fucking dying here so what do you want?"

Voices could be heard outside the building. Muffled shouts of plans perfectly audible and understandable to the devil in the room. "They're flanking around the south wall," he informed the commanding officer. She glared at him but knew all too well it was in both of their interest to keep the enemy at bay, giving orders to repel the assault and force the enemy to regroup. "The price for saving your men would be high. But saving your life, there is only one payment I would accept for that. I will give you your life, and you will give me your life." A realisation struck him. A parallel from his first life with him in the opposite role. And with that realisation, he couldn't help but borrow. "The Power of the Queen will condemn you to a life of hardship and sin. Are you prepared for this?"

"Kuh-Queen?" she asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the implication of that word. But there were more pressing concerns. She felt... Cold. A bad sign. As was the puddle of blood beneath her. Without the devil's help, she was done. Dead before reinforcements would arrive. And in a choice between her end or whatever the devil was offering... It was a raw deal, but what else could she expect from a devil? "Heaven's not my kind of place anyway." She reached out her bloody hand, the contract seal dropping from her fingers to drift away on a hot breeze passing through the building.

"Well then," Lelouch smiled, removing his helmet to reveal his face to his soon-to-be Queen, "Looks like it's up to me to uphold my end of the bargain." He took her hand, shook it, turned it downward to kiss her blood-covered knuckles as she watched in entirely dazed bemusement. "I'll ensure you don't regret this. Now, what sort of forces am I dealing with?"

"Just the eleven of us," she answered, taking her hand back, sagging just a little more. "As for the enemy... I don't know. A couple dozen at least? They had... Magic guy or something. Dead. Killed him. They..." Her eyes were beginning to grow vacant, her breathing uneven. "You... You said you'd... You promised...!"

"Shh, shh, shh," he soothed as she grew confused and scared, doubtless feeling the end coming. Going into shock most likely. "I did. I promised. Don't worry, everything will be fine." It hurt him deeply to see her like this. She wasn't his Kallen but seeing the fear in her eyes, that same blue he remembered, the difference meant nothing at all. Pulling out his Queen piece, he laid it on her chest. "Just rest for now and I'll take care of everything. A King must tend to his Queen, right?"

Her hazy eyes followed the chess piece as she let out a dazed giggle. "Other way round..."

If only reincarnating humans into devils didn't leave them comatose for a time. He could have spared her that experience. Sadly, the information she gave him was necessary. Well, he would have millennia to make it up to her. A chance to give at least one Kallen the chance at a happy life she desired, whatever form that life might take.

Leaving his helmet with her, he stood and headed up the stairs, ignoring the agitated shouts of the British soldiers he passed, hypnotising each of them to focus exclusively on his orders and the enemy. After all, he was an ally, wasn't he? If the Lieutenant was trusting him there was no problem.

Basic devil hypnosis magic was an interesting contrast to using his Geass. With his Geass he could get anyone to follow any order. Hypnosis required a touch more subtlety though not too much. If the target wanted to believe it, or could be given even a flimsy reason to do so, they would believe it. Well, at least humans would. It wasn't so effective on creatures more magically robust. Geass had yet to show such restrictions if they existed at all. He left the soldiers with parting words, telling them to be ready to take advantage of opportunities before continuing onward, taking his place at a hole in one wall to survey the battlefield.

"God is great!"

Only to wince. The desert sun was one thing but did these people really need to use that as their battlecry? He looked out, his head jerking to the side briefly as a hail of bullets sought him out. Seeing where they had hit the ceiling behind him, he raised a shield of destruction and returned to looking out, the shield intercepting the fire of whoever had taken the shot. He only had the opportunity of a few seconds of observation with impunity. But of course for him a few seconds was more than enough to map out the general vicinity, the structural landmarks, the potential choke points and tactical avenues available to the enemy combatants. They had a lot of possibilities but which they would take advantage of would depend on the skill of the enemy tactician. Given the flanking manoeuvre they had attempted a moment ago, he felt comfortable assuming they were passable. The least convenient level of competence. Capable of moments of dull-wittedness or sudden bouts of brilliance.

This one... Well, he seemed to have a touch of both. Positioned his forces well in preparation for an assault on a defended position. But at the same time assaulting a defended position was a terrible decision to make in these circumstances. He must have known the surviving soldiers of the company would call in the situation, request reinforcements. Lelouch didn't know the ins and outs of this particular ongoing conflict but he knew well enough it was a war already won. These forces were a guerrilla resistance or something close to it. Absurdly successful ones but guerrillas all the same. They couldn't afford to hold a position like this. But... Lelouch could relate. He too had once felt the prideful swell of overcoming a superior force that led to overconfidence and rash action. A victory that left him feeling so smugly superior that he overestimated himself and underestimated the enemy. Took foolish risks with nothing to show for it in the end.

Sadly for whomever the enemy was, he wouldn't live to learn from this mistake like Lelouch had. As much as he preferred to have complete information before entering battle, he didn't have that luxury here. And yet it wouldn't matter in the slightest. "Who has the best throwing arm here?" Lelouch asked the soldiers on this floor, more than one of them pointing at the same person. "Building to the right across the way, top floor, right corner window, can you put a grenade through it?"

"Err... Yeah," the soldier answered, not sounding entirely convinced himself despite the affirmative answer.

"You can and you will." Hypnosis couldn't make the man a professional baseball pitcher but if he felt confident enough in the moment to say he could do it, hypnosis would give him that little extra edge of focus. "The rest of you, covering fire."

"Yes sir!"

Rifles came up over the window ledge, taking shots at known enemy positions as the designated thrower tossed his primed grenade. It was a good throw as the soldier had promised. Not perfect. The grenade bounced off of the window's edge before going in but the explosion two seconds later was all the evidence needed of it doing its job. The alarmed shouts suddenly silenced, only to be met with shouts from others in the enemy forces as they realised their commander was likely dead.

Close enough to keep an eye on the battle and give orders, non-obvious as a command position, in a defensible location just in case the British soldiers went on the offensive. The most effective position to command from by all standard metrics. There was another building on the opposite side that also fit those parameters but with how the enemy forces were positioned making the right building a harder target... Well, sometimes one needed to make educated guesses when running on incomplete information.

"And next comes..." Lelouch trailed off as he took another look outside. "Mm-hm. Confusion and panic." Their commander was dead or incapacitated and so the enemy soldiers were acting on their own recognizance. A handful were running. Whether out of fear for their commander falling so suddenly or for knowing their mission was already done there was no knowing. Only the positive outcome. And another positive outcome. "Enemy combatants coming around the north corner in three, two..." A quick burst of gunfire, then another. "Grenade, ground floor window dead ahead." Another explosion of shrapnel. And suddenly the guerrillas who had held their nerve before were starting to lose grip on it. More were running.

Enough were running. He swept his way down to the ground floor again. "You, you and you. Take the north street. Chase them down. No survivors. The rest of you, south street. Go." Crouched low, the two groups split up following the paths assigned to them. Once again Lelouch returned to the upstairs of the building. "You, radio. You," he pointed to another soldier as the first handed over his radio, "Downstairs. Guard the Lieutenant with your life."

"Yes sir!"

He didn't bother to acknowledge the soldier retreating downstairs. Instead he leapt out of the window and released his wings, taking a proper aerial view of the battlefield, making sure the enemy didn't have any last unpleasant surprises.

It was interesting commanding a battle again. Nostalgic. Though the new perspective of his new life took a little of the shine off of it. The restrictions he was under were frustrating. The cease-fire between the three biblical factions was maintained only so long as everyone stayed out of each other's business. Killing a couple of dozen humans, even in a warzone and even as part of a legitimate contract, would be stomping on that agreement. Everything he did here had to be in an advisory capacity only, using the humans as tools to secure his objective. Even in his first life that would have been irritating. He hadn't been a fighter then. Not on his own. Not in a knightmare. But it was important to him that he be willing to step in. The King was a piece on the board the same as the rest of them. Lived and died with them. To be shackled, denied the chance to participate would have been frustrating.

And in this life, it was worse. Not only did he want the option of leading from the front as a King should, this entire conflict would have been far more easily solved if he had! Even now he could see soldiers carefully flanking enemy combatants as they ran for the abandoned British vehicles. Carefully taking up positions to put them down. While from up here, Lelouch could simply have lifted a single finger and done it himself instantly.

Though some of that feeling must have been Sairaorg's influence, he was sure. He'd always been willing to pitch in as appropriate but doing everything himself, not so much. Though with the task being so effortless...

Perhaps that was the problem. Human wars were beneath him now. What a strange and oddly disappointing conclusion to make. It was as though he were playing chess when all he had were Queens and his opponent only had Pawns. It was such an absurdly uneven contest as to be utterly pointless.

He directed the southern squad to ambush the last remaining forces that had, ironically, holed up in a building much like the British had at Lelouch's entrance into the conflict. No chances taken.

It was over.

He missed knightmares. They were fun.

And so all that was left was figuring out how to deal with the Kallen situation. There were probably protocols for this sort of thing, right? Maybe? Ugh, this had the potential to get complicated.

-(-)-

Lieutenant Kallen Stadtfeld woke slowly, the sun even more of an annoying bastard than it usually was. And as a natural redhead it was usually pretty bad. It almost felt painful, like it was pushing her to just go back to sleep and wake up at a more civilised hour, like midnight. Still, even if her eternal enemy was being more vindictive than usual, she wasn't the type of girl to just lay about doing nothing. With visible weariness, she slowly sat up in... A bedroom? She could tell by the look of the room she was still in the middle east. At her best guess, probably brought back to base.

So she survived. Had all of it, all of that strangeness, been a dream?

She looked to her left and got her answer. That same weirdly pretty teenage boy. Or at least what looked like a teenage boy. He wasn't wearing the helmet, or the cape. Just a well-tailored suit in black with a sunshine yellow trim and a red cravat. "Not a dream then," she murmured.

"No, not a dream," he confirmed with a solemnity she didn't expect. "To answer your most important questions first. The men who had been with you all survived. All the enemy combatants were killed. The official story, the one all of those men believe with all of their hearts, is that you valiantly led such a successful defense that you turned the battle around, routing and defeating the enemy."

"Not sure I can be happy about that," the redhead grumbled. She didn't want credit for things she didn't do.

"A shame about the medal they want to give you then." The devil shrugged as if in apology. "There were two options. Either you snatched victory from the jaws of defeat to save your men, or you were killed in action and they fought on without you. The latter would have been easier for me, but," his expression turned more genuinely sympathetic, "I assumed you'd rather not have your family receive terrible news today."

"Oh." She didn't know what to say to that. If he hadn't intervened that would be exactly what was happening. "You're... You're weirdly nice for a devil."

"My species' reputation for unchecked malevolence is exaggerated." She looked at him with narrowed eyes. She felt like that wasn't true. Or at least not entirely true. "Or I should say, our species."

"Our?" The correction, the declaration was confusing for half a moment. Until she realised it shouldn't have been. "I give you my life. You meant you'd turn me into a devil like you."

"A devil in my service, yes."

"Did you have to be all cryptic about it?" she felt the need to grouse, narrowing her eyes at him. "Talking in riddles with a dying woman," she scoffed. "Bellend."

"Sorry about that. I enjoy showmanship. It can get away from me sometimes."

"Tch." And yet he didn't look at all sorry. Though even if he had been explicit about what he meant, it wouldn't have changed her answer. "So... What happens now?"

"Well, officially what's happening is you're being taken to a military hospital to have your injuries treated. You will be awarded the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross and be honourably discharged from the military due to lasting impairment from your injuries. Arranging all of that was why just letting you 'die' would have been easier. I've done a lot of legwork over the past day arranging all of this." Despite how what he was saying sounded like a complaint, he didn't sound the least bit annoyed by it. "As for what will actually happen... You and I will be leaving for the underworld in a few moments. I thought you might like some time to prepare before then."

"And I don't have a choice?"

"You made an agreement. I held up my end and so today marks the beginning of your life as a devil, as my Queen."

She became very still as she saw that last word form on his lips. She had forgotten that part. When dying was the alternative, anything would've seemed preferable but, "When you say 'Queen', uh, what do you mean by that?" she asked, begging him not to say what she thought he would say.

"Chess," he answered, smirking at the conclusion he knew she had drawn. "The Queen to my King. The most powerful piece on my board, so to speak. The game is a bit of a theme for devils as you will learn. But in symbolic terms, you will be my right hand. The one person I will rely on more than any other."

"That sounds like a lot of trust and responsibility to put on someone you just met."

"And yet the moment I saw you I knew you would be able to handle it." His smirk never left, though she felt like she saw an amount of... Fondness, in his eyes. "Are you ready to go or would you like some more time?"

"Mum said I'd be diving into hell coming here," the supposed Queen reminisced. "She probably didn't mean it literally. But if that's what I'm doing, might as well do it. I'm ready."

He extended a hand and she took it, letting him pull her off of the bed. Below them, a glow appeared. An intricate pattern of yellow light similar to the emblem on that flyer she had held on to for years. The glow consumed them.

And then they were somewhere else. A beautiful room despite how bare it was of furniture.

"Master Lelouch!" The redhead turned at the voice to see an incredibly pale young woman with white hair in heavy regal clothing. "Welcome home! And you must be Kallen. It's a pleasure to meet you," the pale girl said with a curtsey. "My name is Ana, Master Lelouch's first Bishop."

Bishop. Right. Chess. "Yeah, err, likewise."

"Welcome home, young master," a giant of a man said as he entered the room, bowing at the waist. "And his Queen. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Stadtfeld. My name is Rudolf, the Queen of Lord Bael's peerage. As such, the responsibility of teaching you the proper fulfilment of your responsibilities has fallen to me. Your education in these matters will begin tomorrow. I expect you to attend promptly and learn dutifully. In the meantime," the large man stepped out of the room again, only to come back in with... A girl with cat ears in his arms? She was purring loudly as she raked her claws through what looked like a piece of curtain. "This is Shirone. She is your problem now. I wish you the best of luck." With that, he put the girl down, bowed again and turned on his heel, leaving just a touch more hurriedly than he arrived.

The white catgirl looked up at her with wide, unblinking eyes. Timidly, she held up the mangled curtain as though it were an offering.

... What?