Streets of Shinjuku ghetto, several minutes earlier...
"So Kallen, what do you think of this guy? Since you're apparently the one who interacted with him the most."
That... really is a hell of a question. Kallen mused as a hijacked train rolled into the station, the Traitor Sutherland standing atop the engine car and projecting an atmosphere of utter confidence in doing so.
"To conduct our counterattack, we're going to make use of these! Each of you, find and claim a unit quickly - we haven't much time to rally if we're going to turn this around!"
Even amidst the ruins of the city, the sounds of battle - distant gunfire, explosions, and collapsing buildings - could still clearly be heard. With each passing moment, the resistance forces knew that more Japanese civilians were being slaughtered by the hundreds, and the survivors left with fewer and fewer places to hide.
"The controls should be nearly identical to the Glasgows you're more likely familiar with, though their output and performance will be an order of magnitude higher."
To the surprise of her fellow resistance fighters, several freight cars opened up... revealing no less than three dozen state-of-the-art Britannian Sutherlands, all armed and ready to go.
"Honestly, Ohgi?" Muttering softly, Kallen mused, "He's got to be either insane, some kind of genius... or maybe just ignorant to act like we can still turn this disaster around. But, seeing that he's already managed to get this kind of equipment for us-"
"Rules out the possibility that he's ignorant," Ohgi concluded with narrowed eyes.
"HEY!"
Drawing everyone's attention, a disgruntled redheaded guy with stubble and a bandanna was standing in the cockpit of a Sutherland with some complaints to air.
"There ain't no IFF on this thing!"
Throwing a pointer finger at the Traitor Sutherland, he asked, "How do we know these haven't been tinkered with in other ways - that they're not booby-trapped or some shit, huh?! You got an answer for that, Mister Shady Britannian?!"
"...you don't know?" the Traitor Sutherland's pilot asks back in faint amusement, his voice carrying easily through his KMF's external speaker system. "Modern KMFs have safety locks integrated with their IFF systems as a buffer against the risk of friendly fire, which in the event of an unexpected change of status are circumvented by mission control re-designating units accordingly in real time."
"Because we aren't running off of a synchronized network," Ohgi concluded from within his own Sutherland as he powered it up, "disabling the IFF and hotwiring these would've been a lot faster and easier than having to manually reprogram each unit individually. The fact of having it turned off will also make it harder for the Britannians to get a read on us, at least until they ignore it and re-prioritize thermal or other imaging."
The Traitor Sutherland lightly clapped, then, clearly approving of Ohgi's explanation. "That was excellently put, B-1."
A buxom bluenette, standing on the ground, called out, "There aren't enough Knightmares for everyone who wants one!"
The Traitor Sutherland's reply was instantaneous, suggesting that he'd at the very least prepared for this possibility... if not outright planning it.
"Q-1 will remain in her Glasgow to act as a decoy. Anyone else who doesn't get a machine will be sorted into an anti-infantry unit for combating the demolition teams and for search and rescue!"
As the resistance fighters hurried to their roles, a grumbling Tamaki got into his Sutherland, anxious to avoid staying on the ground. "Tch, we been fighting against Britannians this whole time and now we're taking orders from one? Man, this is just bullshit…"
Villetta Nu had her ambitions: dreams of earning a noble title through dedication and valor that she could pass down to children she'd eventually have after the fact... and after years of toil and networking, her efforts so far had brought her to the Purist Faction in Area Eleven.
And here she was, commanding one of several Knightmare teams on an obvious genocide-as-coverup mission that left a foul taste in her mouth, in charge of idealistic greenhorns with good hearts but little or no live combat experience.
"Even if the terrorists stole some poison gas," the nearest rookie muttered on his external speaker, "this kind of cruelty is just obscene-"
Oh for God's sake-
"We're under direct orders from His Highness the Viceroy," she snapped. "Statements like that are grounds for investigation into possible sedition."
The rookie's entire Sutherland practically jumped in alarm, reflecting how badly the pilot must've recoiled from her tone and her words. "Ma-ma'am! It was just a slip, I swear on my honor it won't happen again!"
"See that it doesn't, and erase the conversation we just had from your audio records."
Heaving a sigh as the rookie went through the routine to follow her orders, Villetta took a moment to thank whatever force might've been looking out for her that no one else above her in the chain of command had been around to hear that outburst. The last thing she needed was for some zealot to go purging their own subordinates in the middle of a combat operation. Why did she ever join the Purist Faction again?! ...oh, right. Because her superior, Margrave Gottwald intended to use their connections and influence to continue the long-abandoned investigation of Marriane vi Britannia's assassination at the hands of Eleven terrorists.
"Our only objectives right now are to -" ugh, this whole operation really was obscene "- get the Elevens off the streets, and to assist the demolition teams in reducing the number of holes for the terrorists to hide in."
And if His Highness thinks he needs a smokescreen this big, and this bloody, she thought privately, then just what the hell is he trying to hide with it?
The rookie's answering salute was immediate, clearly trying to make up for their prior 'lapse' with sheer motivation. "Understood, continuing mission!"
As she and the rookie moved further into an alleyway to rendezvous with another team, Villetta suddenly got a bad feeling. "...all of you, pull back!"
Her subordinates weren't experienced enough to comply on reflex, and the street was narrow enough to force them to move in single file. So when a hail of gunfire tore through the wall from inside an adjacent building, Villetta was the only one to retreat with her life.
She survived long enough, at least, to see her subordinate get perforated into swiss cheese.
For Suzaku Kururugi, racing through the collapsing wasteland that had been Shinjuku Ghetto mere hours before… nothing in life was the same anymore. A neurotic, perverted manchild from another universe was sharing a mind with him - and because of that, thoughts and memories had been periodically flitting across the connection between them.
Memories of a life completely unlike what Suzaku knew… and of the past and future of his own world and perhaps a dozen similar to it.
No, Suzaku recalled, this world isn't exactly any of those that One has seen. I can already tell, just from the glimpses of the "worldbuilding" of those versions he knows, that mine is a different world altogether.
Tightening his grip on the Lancelot's controls as it sped through the safety perimeters, Suzaku's heart burned with a small flame of hope. Of hope… and for the first time in a long time, defiance. That means my future isn't set in stone! There's every chance that we can prevent all those tragedies from ever taking place!
"Miss Cecile," he asked over the radio, "could you give me a summary of the battle conditions so far?"
Back at Camelot, Cecile's fingers deftly raced across her keyboard as she pulled up IFF telemetry and satellite surveillance on the battle. "The available intelligence says that… resistance forces are operating out of a square-kilometer area where you were recovered while unconscious. To hinder their escape until they can be flushed out into the open, Britannian forces are conducting a demolition operation to destroy any possible cover in an expanding radius around the resistance base area."
What the - but that's not what happened in the show?! Clovis had MIBs go through all the buildings one floor at a time looking for C.C. while clearing out possible witnesses, it would've taken forever-
If they know she was spotted at my location when that Royal Guardsman shot me, then they don't need to bother searching the entire ghetto - they can isolate that general area to search at their leisure. And if you've got a building full of hundreds or thousands of possible witnesses, collapsing the building with everyone in it would make it go faster. Taking what we're hearing and combining it with what you know of those other worlds, it's probably safe to guess there are snipers or infantry to watch out for any survivors...
"While our forces were securing the area," Cecile continued calmly, "the resistance forces abruptly began using IFF-disabled Sutherlands, and started forcing back our troops with advanced environmental tactics. This development suggests the resistance forces have been subsumed by new leadership or sponsorship, with sufficient effectiveness that his highness the Viceroy has ordered our involvement in the battle."
Just as Lancelot entered the ghetto proper, however, its pilot was met with a scene of urban carnage.
"This is…!"
From the back of his mind, Suzaku felt a deep, instinctive revulsion and horror, which turned quickly into grief.
What the god damned actual fuck… there's so many bodies, a machine like Lancelot can't even tiptoe without stepping on some of them!
Huge swathes of asphalt were stained red, as human bodies in varying states of destruction littered the streets with a density that sickened both souls… although one was more able to cope than the other.
Even as bad as this is, the invasion seven years ago was still worse. In a lot of cities, you could find the shot-up bodies of Elevens piled on top of each other, like garbage in a landfill...
As Suzaku subconsciously called up those memories, One was subjected to them for the first time - and would have thrown up if he had any kind of physical body to do it with.
Fucking people… how can they do this to each other?!
...you say that almost like you aren't one yourself, Suzaku noted.
One was… for once, curiously silent in response to that.
Looking at the situation so far, it's probably safe to say that everything we've seen lines up with Clovis ordering a purge of the ghetto to eliminate any witnesses to that girl's existence. He ordered all this carnage just to protect himself...
Again, One remained silent, though Suzaku could feel a sense of burgeoning curiosity from him as he started paying closer attention.
Holding the Lancelot's controls tighter as he revved up the landspinners, Suzaku growled, "It's despicable."
Moments later, the Lancelot rapidly scaled the side of a shattered office building so that Suzaku could travel among the rooftops and avoid defiling the mass of remains below.
Suzaku then kept going inside his head, to prevent a wider audience from eavesdropping. But even so, it never had to be like this. If these terrorists and insurgents wouldn't have poked their nose into Code-R in the first place, Clovis would never have been put in the position of feeling that he needed to order this cover-up - no one would've had to die today!
As the Lancelot soared through the skies and into the combat zone proper, Suzaku could feel a bitter, toxic resentment starting to form on the other side of his heart. Whatever their differences, he knew that on this matter, at least, they were achieving a mutual understanding.
...if they'd have just stayed home instead of trying to take justice into their own hands, then yeah, you're right. Nobody had to die today, and all of this carnage could've been avoided!
Meanwhile, at Camelot…
As Cecile continued assisting Suzaku at the tactical level and working with him to draw ever more performance out of the Lancelot, her boss and colleague were hard at work processing the battle data he'd had generated so far.
"This is incredible," Lloyd cried out between peals of delighted laughter. "I had scarcely dared to imagine that a rookie devicer with only the most basic of simulator training could operate my Lancelot with an efficiency rating of over 90 percent on his first sortie, and yet here we are!"
Elle paused for a moment in her calculations as she registered what he'd said. "...does that mean you had Suzaku in mind as its pilot for some special reason all along?"
Lloyd paused, allowing the room's lights to reflect from his glasses with proper dramatic emphasis, before his smile grew just a little bit wider. "Oh come now, you wouldn't accuse a family friend of having ulterior motives! ...would you~?"
So either there is something special about Suzaku that Lloyd's keeping from us and makes him a unique fit for the Lancelot, she deduced… or he's just running me in mental circles for a laugh. Ugh, with Lloyd it's almost impossible to tell.
Dragging her mind back to the job, she read off the systems' current performance ratings. "Blaze Luminous remains untested so far. Armor also remains untested because the pilot hasn't endured any hits yet. Landspinners are operating at variable but expected output levels, average speed and agility from second to second in combat are surpassing expected baselines by a metric…"
Shaking her head to double-check the figures, Elle let out a whistle. "...surpassing expected baseline values by 40%."
"That's absolutely delightful!"
Lloyd clapped the redhead on her shoulder as he peered over, eyes greedily poring over her data even as she went over it.
"Slash Harken accuracy at 99.99%, launch and retraction speed recorded at optimum parameters. Sensor performance is-"
"So when reliable and accurate factsphere data pulls my bacon out of the fire, I'll have you to thank for it? It's good to know that ahead of time."
Elle's cheeks tinged a light pink at the recent memory. Suzaku… I want to think he was coming on to me, but. From the way he was acting, it's more likely he was just trying to be friendly. Anyone who wants to get somewhere with that man is probably going to need to be the aggressor...
"Hmm~?"
Elle snapped out of her daze to realize that Lloyd was staring at her from entirely too close, and almost jumped out of her seat in alarm. "SENSOR PERFORMANCE IS WITHIN EXPECTED OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS!"
Lloyd chuckled and stepped back, patting Elle on the head and ruffling her hair - Who does he think he is, my dad?! - before standing aside and giving the young woman her personal space back.
"Good work, Elle. I'm sure that old Leonard will be proud of your contributions to what we've built here."
Elle dragged her focus to her work for a second time, and her spirits fell as she noticed something odd about the data displayed. "Um, Earl Asplund? I'm already keying up a full systems diagnostic, and I can immediately do the same for the Lancelot's onboard sensors upon its return, but… I don't know how much of this combat data is still reliable."
Lloyd stopped immediately, but didn't immediately rush back to survey her findings. "What makes you say that?"
"Well," the redhead admitted, "if all the readings I'm getting are correct, then it would have to mean that Suzaku is piloting the Lancelot at an operational efficiency ratio of…"
She swallowed. "103% and climbing, with a margin of error that's less than one thousandth of a percent. If this data were accurate, it'd have to mean that Lancelot is either somehow generating power to partially offset what it consumes in the course of operation, or else its performance output is actually exceeding what the specifications show it's supposed to be capable of without any additional drain on its power systems. And I know you know this, but neither of those should be physically possible based on what we know."
Lloyd didn't turn to face the distressed assistant, but his smile grew tenfold. "...compare your findings against Cecile's data later, but keep recording with everything as it is now."
"...I'm sorry, I don't get it?"
"You know that numbers don't lie," Lloyd explained with a fabulous twirl to face her. "The odds of our equipment malfunctioning are slight, negligible in comparison to the chance that you've discovered some unknown factor and we're recording it. As scientists, our responsibility is to pursue every avenue of investigation."
Elle felt anything but at ease with the instructions given, but obediently followed her instructions nonetheless. Lloyd, this doesn't have anything to do with the other side of my father's work... does it?
"I can't believe it," Kallen muttered as her IFF showed another Britannian death squad being kicked off the mortal coil. "We're actually doing it! We're pushing these bastards back!"
Eagerly following their new benefactor's orders to set up the next trap, she howled in excitement, "WE CAN TAKE BACK SHINJUKU!"
And then, almost immediately, she heard her comrades' panicked cries over the radio interspersed with angry shouting she couldn't make out.
"What the hell is-"
"Shit, they got Inoue! Repeat, Inoue's down!"
"-some kind of prototype-"
"SON OF A BIIIIIIIIIII-!"
Before Kallen could even start to react, a building wall in front of her exploded as Tamaki's Sutherland flew through it, propelled by a white Knightmare riding on it foot-first.
Mid-air, the new arrival kicked off of the Sutherland and backflipped to a crouching position on the ground with a startling agility and smoothness of motion.
What the hell?! With wide eyes, Kallen instinctively moved back, unable to register that her new commander was calling for information on the new development. That thing moves more like a human than it does a machine!
No sooner had she finished that thought, then the White Knightmare was already in her face, ready to punch her Glasgow apart!
"-a bunch of self-trained amateurs thinking you can fight with a juggernaut like Britannia, only to scurry like rats into your holes when you realize you've bitten off more than you can chew!"
Kallen desperately fired her sole remaining Slash Harken to parry the coming fist, and succeeded in opening up some distance by a hair's breadth.
Then she realized the pilot was addressing her.
"Terrorists like you destroy the citizens' peace of mind, and then hide behind your anonymity free to lead any life they want with their identities and privacy protected - while innocent people are left to suffer for it!"
So many flames of her fellow Japanese snuffed out, and this Britannian jackass had the sheer gall to blame the resistance?! "We do what we have to in order to fight against Britannia's oppression!"
"Kallen, get ba-"
The enemy Knightmare whirled on her incoming reinforcements like it'd seen them coming, and dismantled the Sutherlands with contemptuous ease as its hip-mounted Slash Harkens lashed out!
Kallen felt something cold settle into her stomach. This monster… this thing's as far advanced compared to a Sutherland, as a Sutherland is to a Glasgow! It's so powerful that piloting skill doesn't even matter without a machine good enough to keep up with it!
"Oh, so the ends justify the means, huh?! As long as it's against Britannia and gets you closer to your goals, then you guys can do whatever you want, is that it?! If that's really true, then tell me: what the hell did all this bloodshed achieve?!"
He's playing with me, Kallen realized as she kept defending against the Knightmare's relentless assault. I'm positive I could beat him if I had a good enough machine, but he's just taking out his frustrations on me instead of actually taking me out of the fight. In that case, she thought with a grin, I can keep him distracted with this stupid chit-chat while Command enacts the real plan!
"OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND," the enemy pilot roared as he grappled with her Glasgow, "AND YOUR NOBLE INTENTIONS MAKE ALL THIS CARNAGE ACCEPTABLE?! THAT JUST OPPOSING BRITANNIA NULLIFIES ANY CONSEQUENCES THAT COME OF IT?!"
Kallen scoffed at her opponent's preachiness, rolling her eyes even as she severed her Glasgow's remaining arm to break free again. "Oh please, I don't have to answer questions from some Britannian!"
If I can keep him pissed off and focused on arguing with me, everyone else will have a chance to rally and continue the operation…! "You're just upset that Britannia's finally starting to get the punishment it deserves! The Japanese Resistance won't be discouraged by high-handed words from the enemy of all people!"
The White Knightmare paused for a second, and Kallen almost thought she'd managed to shut him up.
Then its landspinners revved up, and her eyes widened in fear. ...oh shit, he just got new orders, or he's conferring with his command.
"Your short-sighted attempt at heroism just got tens of thousands of innocent Japanese slaughtered like animals," the enemy pilot spat.
Wait, he called us Japanese and not Elevens?!
She then discovered, to her horror, that when this enemy got serious, her Glasgow's sensors couldn't keep up with the White Knightmare's speed, when it suddenly appeared in front of her like an ivory flash.
"GET DISCOURAGED!"
Kallen barely triggered the eject mechanism before her battered Glasgow shattered into so much flying scrap metal, before watching with dismay as the White Knightmare sped off back towards the Viceroy's command center.
Biting back her frustration, Kallen took hold of her walkie-talkie. "Q-1 to Command, I held the enemy prototype for as long as I could, but in the end he got my Glasgow and started hauling ass back to the target... that machine's too powerful to be stopped by anything short of a building falling on it."
"It's fine, Q-1. Rendezvous with the others and get to safety. While this is an unpleasant surprise, I've accounted for it."
His next words sent a thrill of excitement racing through her.
"Your efforts have made our operational success inevitable."
[-to be continued...]