August 31st, 2018. Area Eleven. Lake Kawaguchi resort hotel, evening.
Ohgi and Kallen shared a glance, each took a steadying breath, and then kicked the pantry doors open.
One second passed as they noted four JLF personnel guarding the hostages, which had been reduced in number to about a dozen women in varying types of office wear and three schoolgirls that Kallen recognized.
The next second after, the pair opened fire with their submachine guns on the JLF during their moment of confusion, gunning them down without hesitation.
But not without remorse for the freshly-slain countrymen they were stepping over.
This was to show the world a truer form of justice, right? To gather the strength to oppose Britannia? To give the hearts of the Japanese something worthwhile they could aspire to?
This was right, wasn't it?
C1, dispatched by a rifle butt to the back of the head and already stowed under guard with the remaining rescue boats, was no longer in a position to argue.
"We've prepared an evacuation route for you to escape via rowboats," Ohgi declares with the public-facing serenity and focus that kept him qualified to be Zero's unofficial number two. "If you'll please come with us calmly, we can get you to back to your families as soon as possible."
"You don't look like standard Britannian military," a woman in the back said, standing up. "How do we know we're not just being passed around in some kind of power struggle between the Japanese? Or worse, some kind of depraved trick? They said the Viceroy was coming to negotiate with the terrorists, what's happened to her?!"
Kallen screwed her jaw shut rather than react to the particularly pointed first question, instead putting her attention on looking over the hostages for any injuries that may have needed treatment. Her fist clenched when she saw the orange-haired student had some kind of head wound that had been treated, and the rebel bitterly hoped that one of the guards she helped gun down had been the one to inflict it.
Ohgi, somehow, appeared to suffer no similar limitations. "We're not with the Britannian military, but we are cooperating with the government on a limited basis to secure your safe evacuation. Our leader has gone to ensure the Viceroy remains unharmed, and is planning to rendezvous with us at the docks. I understand that you have your concerns, but please realize that the longer this takes, the more we risk the JLF realizing they've been played and your safety is put in danger. The Black Knights are prepared to protect you, but that becomes harder if we have to take unnecessary chances."
The man's calm, patient delivery visibly helped soothe some of the hostages' worries, even as the name Black Knights rippled across their lips in confusion.
Even though the Eleven terrorists had threatened her, had assaulted and demeaned her friends, Nina Einstein still cowered on the floor in a fetal coil.
Yes, the JLF were dead.
But the sound of the gunshots echoed through her brain long after having died out in the actual room.
The blood spray painted itself onto her vision, a few small flecks that landed on her face standing out like a hot metal brand.
They admit they're not Britannian military, the voice mused. But they still refuse to explain who they are outside of a name that can vaguely mean whatever they want it to.
I can't deal with this I can't deal with this I can't deal with this I can't deal with this
Next to her, Milly stood up. "I may not fully understand what's going on here, but anything has to be better than staying here and waiting for more of those JLF creeps to show up; at least for myself, I'm ready to take my chances with these Black Knights!"
"Y-yeah," Shirley agreed, trying to stand herself but having a moment's difficulty in doing so and needing to lean on Milly for support. "I'm with my friend!"
Milly stayed put at first, helping the other hostages to stand and then nudging or funneling them towards the Black Knights while Shirley rested against the wall to regain her balance.
Eventually, Nina was the last one to move, with Shirley and Milly trying to gently get her back to her feet.
"Come on," Shirley whispered, "let's get out of here. It's time to go back home where it's safe."
"The sooner we start walking," Milly agreed, "the sooner we're snuggled up in our beds."
"O… okay…"
In the hallway, the woman from earlier spoke up again. "And you're certain that the Viceroy is safe as well?!"
A Black Knight male with short blue hair, holding the door open for the Ashford Academy girls, turned in her direction with the kind of badly forced patience that Nina and her friends had heard from mall employees that had suffered bullshit after bullshit the entire day and were doing their best not to make it anyone else's problem. "Rest assured, everything is well in hand."
A well-endowed Black Knight with short red hair flaring out to the sides, standing opposite him, nodded with what she must have intended to be a reassuring smile. "That's right. If there's anyone in Japan right now who can guarantee her safety, it's Zero."
Milly had convinced Nina to sleep before it happened that night.
But later on, the bespectacled girl had still accidentally let a classmate show her the footage of the street-wrecking conflict between Zero and her acquaintance Suzaku.
She'd seen what kind of violence that masked man was capable of, and these Black Knights – they were following him?! That terrifying, ruthless menace who brutalized even another Eleven that was just awkward around girls and trying to help the people around him?!
"No… no, I won't go!" she cried. "This isn't safe at all!"
Shirley saw it live, didn't she? What's with that surprised look she's giving me? For that matter, why is Milly so shocked?! Don't they understand what kind of danger we're all in?!
As Nina's heart pounded in her ears, racing faster and faster, the voice she'd been hearing came in again.
We can stop Zero and save your friends, together. All I need is for you to let me give you the power to make that wish a reality.
The echoing gunshots, the blood spray, all the triggers reminding Nina of her childhood trauma grayed out in her awareness as time slowed to a crawl.
Do we have a contract?
"…yes."
Hundreds of feet below the hotel, beneath the waters of the lake's surface… below even the bottom, lay a misshapen bone-white doll that had been lost since time immemorial.
Lost once, but no longer.
As the sigil on its head of a bird in flight suddenly gave a bright crimson glow, Nina's shadow rapidly expanded into a vast oval around her, through which giant red-clad fingers emerged around her.
"What the hell?!"
"NINA, GET OUT OF THERE!"
"I'm sorry miss, but there's no time! I can't leave you in this situation!"
"NINA!"
The same fiery emblem of Geass emblazoned itself upon Nina's forehead as the Black Knights whisked Shirley and Milly away to safety from the unknown phenomenon, before the hand grasping around the girl in glasses abruptly clenched into a fist around her.
Blinding light flashed from between clenched fingers the size of a Knightmare Frame's, before it suddenly rose through the ceiling and the next floors above it, rapidly bringing a purple-armored forearm behind it – with the remainder of its body soon on the way.
The blue-haired Black Knight grabbed Nina's friends and tossed them into the hallway for Ohgi and Kallen to run away with them, only for the ceiling to collapse on him and crush him as the unexplained monster continued emerging into the building through its warp.
"SUGIYAMA!"
"Zero," one of the other Black Knights called in. "We have a situation! One of the hostages turned into–!"
"Do you have the rest of them?!"
"Y-yes, but–!"
"Just focus on getting them to safety!"
Two voices in one rang out from the mysterious mechanical monstrosity, united in wrath born from terror.
"I won't let you Elevens keep treating my friends' lives as bargaining chips! LET THEM GO!"
Outside, Euphemia grit her teeth and shivered. Her once-elegant, now badly-torn dress had been intended for showcasing her status and power as an Imperial Princess, not for keeping her warm against the chill night air above the lake.
Fortunately, the motors, actuators, and other mechanisms of the Knightmare Frame holding her aloft were producing enough heat even through its armor to help ward off the cold.
"My apologies, Your Highness," a girl's voice called from the KMF's external speaker, "for handling you so roughly."
The princess attempted to climb up using the KMF's fingers as a brace, and stumbled. "Nonsense, you've nothing to apologize for and I'll have strict words with anyone who says otherwise. It was my own decision to jump out of a building like that; I'm merely thankful that you were able to catch me at all."
"I can see that you're bleeding; I'll evacuate you back to shore for medical attention ASAP. Begging pardon, but are there any specific injuries I should report?"
Euphemia took a moment to check herself over, frowning in annoyance when she patted the side of her head and saw her hand come away stained red. "Just a few cuts, I think, and perhaps some bruises forming that may prove unsightly tomorrow. General Cornelia will try to insist I stay bedridden for a week, but I don't feel anything more serious than that… more importantly, what can you tell me of the situation?"
No sooner had the princess asked her question than a round of explosions went off, some causing the remainder of the multistory hotel to collapse in on itself while others could be heard from the underwater access tunnel, quickly drowned out by the sound of flooding water.
"It sounds like we're stranded until an airlift can be arranged," the pilot groused. "The evacuation team were supposed to deploy after I freed up the tunnel, so if they were in the tunnel after that collapse…"
If not for being held directly in the Sutherland Custom's palm, Euphie might not have heard the pilot speaking over the deafening roar of the hotel crumbling in on itself. Seconds later, she shrieked as a massive arm so purple that it bordered on black burst through the hotel as its collapse reached fruition, obscuring view of whatever it had been attached to.
"Is… is that a Knightmare?! How did it get inside the hotel?! What about the hostages?!"
"Records I have access to don't show anything on file that would correlate with what we just saw," the pilot replied, sounding nearly as alarmed herself. "The dust cloud from the collapse is too thick for my factsphere to get any more detailed readings."
The obfuscating cloud of debris didn't last long, as the creature leapt out with a cry that sounded as much that of an animal as it did human.
Landing on the once-beautiful plaza with the grace of a cat and the violence of a bull, it was every bit a match for the Sutherland Custom in size. But where most Knightmare Frames enjoyed relatively even armor layouts and colors, this appeared to have a stark red and lightly-armored base chassis with form-fighting heavy dark plates bolted onto its limbs and vital areas.
The head, too, was of uncommon design – taking less inspiration from the elegant compaction of a classical knight's helmet, and more flaring out to the sides like many depictions of a dragon's head. A dull red sigil of a crane in flight rested beneath its shiny black dome of a forehead between the first and second of its three pairs of eyes.
…eyes that were variously glowing either red or blue, with what Euphie instinctively understood as ill intent.
If the sleek and slender machine hadn't already looked alien enough, the two pairs of bright yellow tendril-like cables jutting out from either side of its head and undulating through the air like seaweed sealed the deal.
"Not so brave when your gun's pointed at someone who isn't helpless, are you?! Terrorists?!"
The words emanating from the machine lacked the tin-toned quality normally expected of a broadcast through external speakers, and indeed the Viceroy wondered if they were even carried by sound at all.
It felt like it was screaming right into my brain, Euphie thought with a grimace. The voice, if I can even call it that, sounded like it might have been a girl… but it was so distorted that I'm impressed with myself for even making out the words properly. Still, the fact I can understand it at all means I might be able to communicate!
Conflict esolution through dialogue, rather than through domination. A beautiful ideal with the potential to protect lives and forestall disasters that may otherwise have been the result of completely avoidable and unnecessary violence…
The strange machine abruptly staggered and reeled as a thundercrack split the air, the Sutherland Custom wheeling back on its landspinners while protectively covering Euphemia with its free hand.
"Wha, what just happened?!"
The princess struggled to look through a gap between in the blue KMF's fingers, and saw a metal slug dropping to the ground from where it had impacted the red-and-dark machine.
"Your Highness, my receiver just came back online! Princess Cornelia's ordered General Darlton to snipe the unknown unit to ensure it can't endanger you!"
The Unknown Unit turned its fall into a backflip and landed with unnatural grace, a dent in the side of its cranial armor slowly but visibly filling back into its original shape.
Another "sound" rang out that sent Euphie to her knees with a yelp in the Sutherland Custom's hand, coming as much across as a furious roar as anxious hyperventilation. It suddenly jumped, then, placing the Britannian KMF between itself and the shore mere instants before the crack of another shell split the night sky.
"Sutherland pilot, tell her to stop firing! The Unknown isn't an enemy, it's afraid and confused!"
"I can't, my transmitter's still down!"
Conflict resolution through dialogue. An ideal as beautiful as it is fragile.
Zero could easily feel C1 glaring a hole in his back through her helmet, but knew she wouldn't be able to act on it. Even if she lacked any kind of self-preservation, threatening the fiction of his temporary collaboration with Britannia would only serve to frighten the civilians who, pushed to the edge in a situation with no escape – such as being ferried along the surface of a cold lake and too far from shore to swim – might be capable of anything.
Perhaps more literally so than expected, he mused while watching Britannia's blue custom duck and weave between the Unknown's hair-like tendrils, each attacking with the deliberate intent of a fully-controlled limb.
Were he paying any less attention, he might have missed the agile machine finding a spare moment to deposit Euphemia on the ground as gently as haste would permit, before masking the action as the windup for a mule kick that pushed the Unknown back.
The very instant that any distance at all had been created between the Princess and the Unknown, the Sutherland pilot went on the offensive… not with its own weapons, its powerful rifle being nowhere in sight, but with open-handed thrusts and slaps that seemed more intended to misdirect and disorient the mysterious combatant than to damage it.
Euphemia must have noticed something worth giving a command to subdue the threat with as little violence as possible. Precisely the sort of just and noble sentiment I'd have expected…
"This can't be real," a girl whispered at his back. "It's all got to be some kind of horrible nightmare…!"
Turning to his fellow canoe passengers while Ohgi and Tamaki handled the rowing, Zero regarded a certain pair of young ladies. "Forgive my asking so brusquely, but weren't the two of you present when the strange Knightmare first began to appear? Anything at all you can tell us may prove helpful in stopping it and bringing this nightmare to an end."
Shirley seemed to flinch at the realization she'd said her thought aloud, shrinking in on herself as the Black Knights' attention focused in on her. It didn't take any kind of special powers or insight to feel the hostility coming off of the irritiable red-haired one with facial stubble in particular… "I, I was – it was an accident–"
A reassuring hand fell over Shirley's quivering one, causing her to fall silent as Milly looked up at Zero with a strict glare she seldom used on anyone at school. "Our friend became terrified when one of your subordinates mentioned you," she explained. "She thought going with you would just put us all in greater danger, probably because someone showed her your first stunt on TV."
Zero slightly inclined his head, seeming to understand the point without deigning to address it. "And the machine?"
"I don't know where that machine came from, but it reached up from the floor and grabbed our friend when she freaked out… unfortunately," Milly muttered while breaking eye contact in shame, "one of your men lost his life helping to get us out of there."
Tamaki opened his mouth in anger, only for Zero to respond first.
"That you acknowledge his sacrifice is more respect than many Britannians would have offered in your place, but there will be time to grieve later… for now, Nemo's rampage must be stopped before it can cause any further loss of life."
"Nemo, sir?"
Rather than face Ohgi directly, Zero instead swept his arm in the direction he wanted the rowboat to be positioned. "Latin for 'nobody', in reference to our lack of information on the Unknown."
Ten thousand years ago, humans were just starting to figure out the most basic of basic fundamentals to agrarian farming.
Just learning to use their shiny rocks and pointy sticks for making the land their own rather than a slightly smarter animal than the rest all around them.
They wouldn't start to create writing for another five thousand after that.
For all those centuries, the white doll had been lost, and eventually buried by time.
Originally beneath soil and stone, then beneath the lake that gradually formed on top of it.
But now, for the first time, it could move.
Its psychic field, fully exposed in depth to an abundance of sufficiently advanced minds, could breathe.
If it could cry, it would have.
And if all those gifts hadn't been enough, someone from the shore had tried to attack it in spite of the frenzied local girl it adorned like a suit.
The lingering relic of a bygone age had been gifted with an opponent.
The weapon could fight!
What a miraculous birthday!
That the girl's rage had suddenly turned to panic when she understood that her own tribe's army had attacked her was… of mild inconvenience, but far from unmanageable.
All the weapon had to do was occasionally keep prodding at her fear for her friends, and she readily allowed it to protect them.
An obligation by Contract that the weapon would meet with enthusiasm, through the destruction of all nearby threats.
Starting with the blue Knightmare standing before it, and then the leader-girl under its protection.
Maya grit her teeth in frustration, racking her brain for a win condition that would meet the standards imposed on her by the Viceroy.
"It seems organic and responds as much like a living being as a machine," she muttered, "so she told me to subdue it without really hurting it…!"
Given that Britannia was an empire founded on mass murder, it went without saying that its premier instruments of war weren't exactly awash with nonlethal weapons.
Trying to study and fend off an opponent so far outside of the norm it may as well have been alien certainly didn't make the task any easier, either…
But at the same time, I can't honestly say that I've got no options–
The Unknown interrupted her thought with a pounce, and Maya had to blink away the sweat running into her eyes as she directed her Knightmare to scramble away from grasping hands and stabbing hair-harkens.
"Whoever heard of fighting off a Knightmare with six arms instead of just two?!"
The speed and dexterity of the tendril-like harkens were unquestionably an advantage for the Unknown in terms of reach, already having repeatedly grazed or cut into her machine's armor–
A heavy shunk punctuated the observation as a harken ripped a chunk out of the Sutherland Custom's torso,
Powertrain damage detected. Safety locks will commence automated shutdown in T-minus 60 seconds.
Blood pounding in her ears, Maya's eyes grew wide at the OS's warning, before abruptly locking in on the target and shutting out all other concerns but the enemy.
No time left to stall and study.
"You damn monster, now it's do or die!"
She'd gained, more or less, a rough sense for the harkens' reach.
Not only their range of attack, but also their speed.
The Sutherland Custom raced to one side, its landspinners screaming – before they abruptly cut out, the prototype machine left stumbling for balance across what had once been the resort's beautiful front plaza.
Seeing a golden opportunity, the Unknown launched all four of its harkens with lethal intent… only for the blue machine's landspinners to re-engage as it darted into the attack, using one of its own harkens as a lasso to bind the Unknown's together!
Astonishingly, the Unknown flinched.
Whatever it was, Maya had proven able to surprise it.
Shutdown in 40 seconds.
"THIS IS MY CHANCE!"
Redlining what was left of her failing engines, Maya fired her other slash harken to the Unknown's left while she darted to its right, still holding the captured hair-harkens as she used the schrotter steel cables to bind her opponent up, hoping against hope that she could immobilize it as a threat.
Shutdown in 30 seconds.
Coming to a rest next to the Unknown after several circuits of looping her cable tightly enough to self-reinforce the bind, Maya took a half-second to wipe the frantic sweat from her face. "Give up, give up…!"
As if directly answering her plea, the Unknown turned its head and stared directly into her main camera.
Unbidden, the voiceless 'voice' slithered into her brain again, for the first time since they'd started fighting. "…you're out of time."
This thing, it's… it's smirking at me!
As Maya heard the smug and self-satisfied androgynous 'tone' issuing the declaration, layered over a girl's terrified whimpering, she began to realize what Euphemia had sensed earlier. "It's got a hostage inside it… she sounds like–!"
Shutdown in 25 seconds.
Somehow, some way, the Unknown knew Maya's machine was about to terminate operations, and it wasn't treating her bind on it seriously. If its implication of being able to easily break free came true, then the only means of stopping it would be for Cornelia to gather an artillery strike – and if it realized it could take Viceroy Euphemia as a hostage, then even that might be out of the question…
Out of time.
Out of options.
Out of hope.
The only way to stop this giant mess from escalating into an utter calamity would take a mi–
A commanding voice shattered through the scene like a cannonball.
"Pilot of the black Knightmare! You awakened this power in love for your friends, did you not?! Then look now, and see for yourself that they have suffered no further harm as we ferry them back to the safety of their homes – as is true for the other hostages as well!"
Maya and the Unknown both turned their attention out to the water… and saw Zero proudly standing at the head of a rowboat, his cape flared as he presented a pair of familiar schoolgirls.
"You don't have to keep fighting anymore!"
"Please stop this, and we can all go home like normal!"
Shutdown in 15 seconds.
"…Shir…ley? Ma… Madame President…?"
The Unknown's smug demeanor abruptly broke apart into anger as it shuddered and writhed in its bindings at the girl's voice coming through clearly, which Maya could only respond to by tackling it to the ground and laying her machine on top of it.
"No, not like this! Any way but this! You can't just stop, don't you see he's using them as hostages himself?!"
"Just, just shut up!" the girl sobbed from inside the Unknown. "I don't care anymore! I can't fight the whole world, I don't want to die for no reason!"
With a last groan of frustration, the Unknown stilled… and then began dissolving into particles of light.
Shutdown in 5 seconds.
"...wait," Maya breathed, "if the girl's inside of that then–!"
4.
The Sutherland's overtaxed motors and hydraulics screamed in protest as Maya yanked on her control sticks… only for her own harken cables to jam and hold the machine in place.
3.
The Unknown had already faded to less than half its original mass, allowing a small and vulnerable human form to be seen suspended in an evaporating semi-liquid.
2.
With a furious yell from its pilot, the Sutherland Custom ripped its cables loose from its chest and flung itself to the side before it could fall and crush the hostage that had been inside the Unknown.
Automated shutdown. Triggering emergency pilot ejection.
"Wait, wha- aaaahhhh?!"
Rockets flared as the cockpit block disengaged and flew from the back of the depowered Knightmare Frame, roughly skidding across the ground until it rammed into a series of lakeside trees and stopped.
Euphemia coughed and frantically waved her arms as she ran into the settling dust cloud kicked up by the fallen Knightmares, calling "Young lady, are you hurt?! Young lady!"
It wasn't long until the princess heard another cough besides her own, which she quickly homed in on to find a girl her own age with dark green hair.
"Oh, you poor thing," Euphemia whispered on seeing that the girl had been stripped down to just her large glasses, before stepping out of her high heels and using one to finish tearing off the lion's share of her own battle-damaged skirt to offer some small sense of modesty. "You've had the most horrible night, haven't you? My name's Euphemia. Euphemia li Britannia. May I ask yours?"
The shivering girl accepted the makeshift cover with a grateful nod, staring up at her like . "It's Nina… Nina Einstein," she sheepishly replied. "That thing, it… it burned off my clothing when I was wearing it. Thank you, Your High-ness?!"
Euphie took a knee and hugged Nina even tighter in response to the adorable squeak she'd just let out. "There's no need for that now. I'm just thankful you don't seem to be more seriously hurt."
Before Nina could ask why that would be, more footsteps on rough concrete broke the uneasy silence.
"Nina?! Nina, where are you?!"
"We'll be there in a second!"
With a soft smile, Euphemia stood up and turned in the sound the voices were coming from before gently waving a hand. "Your friend's over here, it sounds as though she's unharmed."
Nina barely hadn't had two seconds to register the absence of Euphemia's warming touch before Milly and Shirley dashed out of the dust and glommed onto her.
"Nina, thank God you're not hurt!"
"We were so worried about you!"
"You two… you're really okay…!"
While the embracing friends had themselves a cathartic shared sob, Zero emerged at Euphemia's back with no warning whatsoever.
"The two of you are welcome to a ride across the lake, if you wish, as is your pilot."
Euphemia couldn't stop the full-body flinch in alarm at suddenly hearing him, and winced in annoyance to find that her sunglasses had a lens broken to the point of uselessness. Nevertheless, she put them on and turned to face Zero with as much dignity as she could manage with one eye tightly screwed shut.
Zero's outward tone and posture were perfectly kind, far beyond any reasonable reproach… to most.
I went to Kusakabe the way I did because I banked on Lelouch saving me if for no other reason than as an opportunity to make himself look good, and even if I got suckered into talking at his pace instead of mine, it still went better than I feared… but then I needed him to show up just in the nick of time to stop the Unknown, and here I am relying on him a third time to get off this island without leaving myself stranded like a stubborn fool.
If she hadn't known for certain it was Lelouch under that mask, Euphemia wouldn't have understood to look for his personal tells.
The slight angle of his masked head.
The practiced stillness of his extended hand to suppress any trembling.
Even if it was true that Lelouch had no intention to kill her, or had abandoned any notions of using his power on her, Euphemia nevertheless saw from a moment's study just how much he was privately mocking her.
He didn't need to point out that she and her subordinates had proven an utter failure at everything but buying enough time for him to save the day, or that his own interference with her plans to rescue the hostages wasn't an excuse for their incompetence.
He didn't need to call her a worthless bystander, and may not have even thought it himself; even so, it remained plainly evident.
Instead of showing weakness so near to her citizens, Euphemia smiled. "It would be appreciated, Zero, although I must ask… wouldn't a proper gentleman would offer his cape to a young lady in need?"
The half-second awkward pause Zero needed to realize she was referring to Nina, before unhooking his big cape and offering it to her, was the pettiest imaginable victory over him Euphemia could have gained… but it was a victory nonetheless, and for a moment served to soothe the sting of her otherwise complete and utter failure.
Once the Sutherland Custom's pilot volunteered to stay behind and look after her machine until the army could retrieve it, Euphemia joined Zero and the hostages on their boat back to the mainland, where Cornelia's relief and barely-suppressed indignation at Zero only emphasized the night's calamity.
If I allow things play out like this again, then it's over. I'll have proven I'm unfit to lead, Cornelia or someone like her will happily feed Lelouch the war his ego demands… I'll have let Suzaku down.
Her fist slowly clenched, hard enough to draw blood.
I have to be better than this.
