"Let me finish my story, Lelouch." You frowned at your older brother, who quickly shut up as you kept talking. "One day, I had decided that I was going to... steal some important files from Britannia and then flee the country with them. That was the day that I disappeared as far as the rest of the world was concerned. I had plotted out my escape perfectly, I would flee from the country with a stolen file... that stolen file being a heavily corrupted video file that had the time signature that perfectly matched up with when Marianne was shot dead and Nunally was injured." Lelouch's eyes widened. "While it can't currently be watched, I was hoping that with a powerful enough algorithm and enough computing power, it would be possible to unscramble the data into a usable format. Which is why I stole a few more files from Britannia to help with that too, but... it's pretty difficult to organize anything when you're just a school aged teenager." You crossed your arms. You were of course planning to form a tech company when you were old enough with a loan from the Ashfords so that you could have the computing power that was needed for MERLIN to function.

"So you were plotting on uncovering the truth this entire time? Do you not think that Clovis might have any idea as to who the true culprit is?" Lelouch asked you a question that you couldn't help but laugh at. The idea of the rest of the imperial family knowing anything about Marianne's murder was just hilarious. Even with Clovis having engaged in whatever he was planning on doing to CC, he definitely wouldn't have been informed about anything to do with Marianne's death. In fact, the only member of the royal family who you believed would have any knowledge on such matters was your father himself, and if he was keeping it a secret... well, if he was keeping it a secret, then whatever the truth was, it was... bigger than the throne.

"Pffthahaha!" You laughed regardless. You couldn't help yourself from just bursting out laughing at your brother's ridiculous question, and you wiped a tear from your eye as you responded. "Clovis? You really think that Clovis of all people would be embroiled in this conspiracy? You've got to be kidding me! Clovis is such a buffoon that his top secret pet project got stolen by a bunch of under-equipped, barely trained terrorists!" You stopped laughing. "No, I don't believe any of the princes or princesses have any information to do with the murder of your mother. The only person I can possibly see knowing anything about her death is Schneizel." You answered truthfully, and Lelouch frowned. He'd probably come to that conclusion already... or at least he would have if he wasn't allowing himself to be driven by his own emotions. "Besides, the murder needs a motive, and what possible motive could you possibly ascribe somebody like Clovis for such an act? Of course, there were some nobles that resented your mother privately about Charles' favoritism towards her and her non-noble origins... but... I already exhausted that pathway of investigation. It wasn't a crime done of envy... it was something that...I genuinely believe goes beyond the throne. There's a great conspiracy that embroils Britannia, and that is the true reason that I fled." You locked eyes with Lelouch with your one unopened eye, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Great conspiracy... what are you talking about, Bastian?" Lelouch didn't seem to have really given all that much thought to the death of his mother, had he really considered it to have just been an act carried out as a result of jealousy?

"Come on, Lelouch. You don't need to pretend you don't understand what I'm getting at. Between the existence of CC and Clovis' frenzied attempt to get her back, do you really believe that there isn't something that goes beyond the scope of simple royal affairs currently occurring?" You kept looking into Lelouch's eye. "I hadn't finished my story yet anyway. The reason I'm so confident in my beliefs, is that... I survived an assassination too."

"You... what?" Lelouch seemed stunned at that, of course, he would be. "But... who...?"

"I don't know. I assume that it was the same person who had Marianne killed was a little more observant than I had accounted for at the time, because on the day of my escape, though everything seemed to be going exactly as planned when I managed to start my escape on a cargo plane." You took a deep breath as you recalled the day that you got your Geass, and the day that you came impossibly close to dying had it not been for... for CC. Of course, you weren't going to tell Lelouch that part of the story though, at least not yet, anyway. "While I was stashed away in the plane bound for Britannia, assuming that I was safe as I had taken multiple precautions to ensure that nobody would see me slipping away, I... found that I was wrong. A bomb had been planted on the plane. I was fortunate that the bomb didn't end up making the plane completely inoperable so I could land it somewhat safely, but..."

"Wait! You... flew a plane?! How old were you?" Lelouch seemed to be surprised at the fact that you could fly a plane at a young age of all things, though of course, you had the theoretical knowledge in your head from reading the manual back then, you had no practical experience, and it was really only thanks to your Geass that you didn't actually end up dying.

"I was ten at the time. Don't tell me you think that's far-fetched." You said with a completely straight face. "Every member of the imperial family is taught the basics behind the operation of Knightmare Frames from the moment they can read. Hell, even Euphie can pilot one." Euphie really wasn't the sort of person that you'd expect would be trained in the operation of a highly lethal military vehicle, but... well, it's not like Cornelia gave either of you a choice in the matter when it came to using the simulators. You decided that you'd told Lelouch enough, and decided that now was the time to press him for information. "Now, I've told you my story. I think that it's only fair if you told me yours, Lelouch."

"There's... really no time." Lelouch clicked his tongue as he looked out at the street behind you. He suddenly started to grow impatient.

"What?"

"I need to infiltrate Clovis' headquarters and force him to call off the attack on the Shinjuku Ghetto... We... have the same goal, roughly. You don't want the Japanese people to get killed because of Clovis' idiocy either, right?" Lelouch asked a question he already knew the answer of when he was apparently already low on time.

"Well, of course I don't want these people to have to go through this ridiculous purge as a result of Clovis' incompetence, but... how exactly do you plan on getting inside?" You crossed your arms. You really wanted to know just what Lelouch had planned that would allow him to do such a thing. To tell the truth, you were going to need your Geass to break into the place, so unless Lelouch has some great plan that was beyond even you, it didn't make any sense how he was so confident that he had the ability to break in.

"I got myself a disguise, didn't I? Here's the plan, I'm going to act as a Britannian Soldier, and you'll play the role of a Duke's son called Frederick Drake. The story is that I'm escorting you to safety aboard Clovis' Personal Land-cruiser, and you need urgent medical attention." You nodded as you tore some more fabric off of one of your ruined sleeves and tied it around your eye so you didn't need to keep it closed any longer.

"Well, I suppose that it's better than nothing." Honestly, you didn't really know what Lelouch had in mind or how he intended to convince Clovis to call off the attack, but... well, maybe he had something impressive planned.

>Go along with Lelouch's plan.
>"Actually, I've got a better plan, Lelouch..." (Write-in...)
>"I need to tell you about something else... about Geass."
>Something else...

>>5013410
>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

>>5013410
>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

>>5013410
>>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

Mention that we have lost one of your contact lens, so that we need to think of something for that. Simply closing an eye might be not enough. Perhaps we can make it part of the excuse for the medical attention, with a piece of cloth around our head for cover the eye and with some blood left on it.
Arriving to Clovis might be difficult though even as a soldier and a noble, but we can force the cruiser in to a blackout if we can access to one of the panels of it on board. This should create chaos and an opportunity for reach the imperial prince. Clovis will still have personals guards due to being an imperial prince, and those aren't likely to be incompetent as him if they protect him, the blackout might not be enough for scare them off.

>>5013410
>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

>>5013410
>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

>>5013410
>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

>>5013410
>Go along with Lelouch's plan.

"Alright, Lelouch. We'll go with your plan." While you didn't really know if Lelouch's plan would work all that well at all, it would be easier than trying to find another soldier all on his lonesome that you could steal the outfit of. Honestly, it was really confusing you as to just how the hell Lelouch managed such a feat. He clearly couldn't have overpowered a soldier, and there are no obvious signs of violence like gunshots or stab wounds on the clothing that he was wearing... so how on earth did Lelouch get himself one of the uniforms? Had he just gotten lucky? It was clearly a genuine uniform too, and not some fancy dress outfit that he had managed to find somewhere either. You decided just not to think too hard about it, too many variables, not enough time to determine which might've been the correct series of events, and at the end of the day...? It really didn't matter that much right now how Lelouch got the uniform, what mattered was breaking into the Land Cruiser and somehow convincing Clovis to call off his ridiculous purge. Innocent people were dying and... because of him, you had to personally end the lives of a group of soldiers.

You once held true pacifist ideals, and thanks to Clovis, you had been forced to finally break them. You knew that the day would eventually come when you would be forced to break your ideals, and you were genuinely lucky that the Ashfords had agreed to shelter you, otherwise you may have already been forced to choose violence over peace, but... you were the sort of person who enjoyed being the one in control of your own choices. Against those soldiers, your hands were very much tied. You could've either spared their lives and assuredly been captured by Britannians at some point in the future, which was obviously something you couldn't do, or you could've killed them. You had to pick the single logical choice, and not allow yourself to be burdened by your emotions at the time, but... you still think you're going to get nightmares about this day.

"Excellent. Follow me." Lelouch walked out of the alleyway and started to walk directly towards the Land-Cruiser, he was in something of a hurry, so it was more like a half-jog than it was a walk, but you were fine with that. Lelouch clearly wanted to infiltrate the Land-Cruiser as quickly as he possibly could in order to have the purge called off. Though how he was planning on forcing Clovis to do absolutely anything when the man would be surrounded by people was... questionable, at best. You could probably use your Geass to hack the Land-Cruiser's systems and threaten Clovis in his command room with making the entire vehicle detonate if he didn't acquiesce to your demands though, so that was at least a good plan that you could fall back on in order to put a stop to this madness.

You followed Lelouch all the way to the cruiser, occasionally being intercepted by soldiers who were quickly seen off by Lelouch's words... perhaps too quickly, almost every single soldier that approached out of curiosity was convinced to leave Lelouch and you alone with just a single sentence from your elder brother. You'd call it strange, but... perhaps the Britannians simply weren't expecting themselves to be infiltrated? It did of course help that both you and Lelouch were Britannians yourselves, so whatever racial biases that they might've held against the people of Japan weren't in affect for you two. It still didn't feel quite right though, not a single soldier had asked Lelouch for his name and rank, or any sort of identification.

Soon, you made it to an entrance to the Land-Cruiser, a side door that would allow you and Lelouch to access the maintenance section of the vehicle, tight twisting tunnels that allowed access to nearly any part of the ship... however, the door was electronically locked, and... Lelouch didn't seem to have the access card for the door, the card he already had didn't have enough clearance to open the door, and Lelouch couldn't possibly have known the key-code to bypass the card check.

>Offer to hack the door open, but don't tell Lelouch about your Geass.
>Tell Lelouch about your Geass and hack the door open with it.
>Try to break the access panel open so that you can physically hack your way in, it'll take longer, but you won't have to use your Geass.
>Take another route through the Land-Cruiser.
>Something else...

>>5016116
>Tell Lelouch about your Geass and hack the door open with it.

>>5016116
>>Tell Lelouch about your Geass and hack the door open with it.

>>5016116
>Tell Lelouch about your Geass and hack the door open with it.

File: 1455572244150.png (610 KB, 817x720)

610 KB PNG

>>5016116
>>Offer to hack the door open, but don't tell Lelouch about your Geass.

I know the guy's our half brother and all, but why do we need to spill about our Geass completely unprompted? Just say we're top tier hackerman and be done with it.
Seriously, between suddenly showing our secret lab, Data stick and Knightmare to Milly because she told us a secret we'd immediately find out by just going to school that day to "show trust" and now this, is running his mouth about his secrets going to be a running theme for Bastian? Doesn't seem like the kind of thing an introverted tech autist with massive state secrets that would get him killed would do.

>>5016192
supporting this

>>5016192
+Support

>>5016192
+1

>>5016116
Backing this >>5016192

>>5016192
+1

>>5016192
+1

>>5016192
+1

>>5016116
>Offer to hack the door open, but don't tell Lelouch about your Geass.

>>5016192
Milly was because he's only been in contact with her for years but ya Lelouch hasn't told us first so we don't tell him.

This was something that you could take care of, if Lelouch didn't have access to the Land-Cruiser, then you didn't want to waste any time looking for an alternative route and risking getting caught by any overly attentive soldiers that might happen to pass you. You'd been lucky so far in that most soldiers were easily able to be misdirected by Lelouch, but... you couldn't count on that being the case forever. "Hold on Lelouch, I think I can deal with this. I'm something of an expert with computers, remember?" You doubted that Lelouch would expect that you'd have been able to hack something like an electrically locked door, but... as it had an access panel right next to the door, you actually would've been able to break in even without relying on your Geass... but... you didn't exactly have a lot of time to spare to do something like that, so popping open the access panel and just using your Geass would have to do, you felt.

"Alright, but... don't take too long. If you get caught trying to hack that door, even I don't think that I'd be able to talk my way out of that for us." Lelouch might've had a beguiling silver tongue that could easily trick Britannian soldiers and get them to leave you alone, but being caught hacking a door would put the entire base on high alert immediately and get the two of you arrested to boot. Lelouch might've been carrying a side-arm, but it didn't look like he'd kept the rifle for the uniform for... whatever reason. It didn't really help his disguise look any more convincing, lacking a rifle, but... well, he might've had a reason for not keeping it, you supposed. It's not like he'd been asked any questions about missing it, so it might've just been the case that soldiers around the Land-Cruiser weren't required to wield their rifles?

"Don't worry, Lelouch...a door like this...? It shouldn't take more than... oh, about twenty seconds or so for me to crack into." You could actually do it with a single touch as soon as you used your Geass, but... that would really open up more questions than you wanted to answer right now.

"You're serious? How can you be so sure about that?" Lelouch seemed to be surprised by your confidence in your skills, but he didn't sound like was doubting your ability. Just that he was curious about your skill with electronics, which was... fair. While he might've been familiar with your skill with computers back from your youth, at the time you were still much too young for him to have been able to realize just how naturally skilled you were with computers.

"I've pretty much dedicated my life to learning all that I can about machinery and computers, Lelouch. Do you really think that I'd be beaten by a basic Britannian electric lock? Hell, this thing isn't even that secure compared to ones commercially available." You weren't kidding either, it would've taken a little longer to reroute the internal systems to provide you with access, but it was easily something that you could've done... though you would've needed to take care not to get yourself electrocuted on any live wires, which would've slowed you down just a little too much. "I'm gonna need both eyes for this, so..." You lift the improvised eye-patch made out of a scrap of one of your sleeves up in order to look at the access panel with both eyes. "Keep an eye out." You tell Lelouch to make sure that nobody is around in order to prevent him from looking at you actually breaking your way in. Even for somebody who was less technologically knowledgeable than you like Lelouch, anybody would get suspicious if they saw you open a door by seemingly doing nothing.

"Alright. Don't take too long." Lelouch turned around to make sure that there weren't any patrolling Britannian soldiers anywhere, and... it looked like there weren't. In fact, the actual amount of patrolling soldiers this close to Clovis' headquarters was actually pretty pathetic. It was very much a skeleton crew. Had... Clovis really been stupid enough to send out almost all of his personal guard to try to find CC? Just how much did he have riding on that enigmatic girl? How entwined was the power of Geass to whatever the hell was going on in Britannia? You always thought that Geass had a part to play, especially given your circumstances of gaining it, but... just what was the purpose of it? Did it allow everyone to manipulate machinery such as you? No... CC told you in that strange mental state you found yourself in that Geass is a power that is meant to control humans, and that your manifestation of Geass was an improper one. You weren't sure if that made you a failure or just a unique example of a Geass User, but... you probably wouldn't find that out until you managed to finally have a lengthy conversation with the woman about things. You had a lot that you wanted to know the answer to, but a creeping suspicion that whatever answers you ended up getting would simply give you more questions.

You activated your Geass after opening up the access panel and grabbing one of the wires, and after about ten seconds of waiting, you decided that was about enough time, and you mentally willed the door to open immediately. As well as adding a new pass-code to the security system of the Land-Cruiser to ensure that no more doors would block your passage. The code you added was a simple one that could be typed into an access panel rapidly. 'AA0000'. This way, if you did get found out, you could simply use the override code you had now installed into the vehicles security systems for an easy escape. You didn't get to survive without being detected for as long as you had without planning ahead... though you suppose that you really had the Ashford family to thank for their help as well. Especially know that you knew that all of your paranoia and precautions were effectively for naught considering how little care had gone into Lelouch's own attempt to disguise his identity.

"Alright. It's open Lelouch. Let's get a move on." You called to your brother, who quickly turned to you as you slipped your makeshift eye-patch back over your eye. You really miss having your contact already, but at least this way, using your Geass wasn't a complete hassle. You didn't exactly enjoy having to rely on your Geass to such a degree, but... in a life or death situation, you weren't going to refuse the power out of some sense of stubborn pride. Geass was incredibly effective and powerful, and you would be a complete and total fool to not use it when the situation actually called for it like here. You firmly believed yourself to be capable of doing absolutely anything that your Geass was capable of doing if you had the time and equipment with you, unfortunately, you were really running low on both of those things in a situation like this one. You briefly wondered if it would be possible to create a contact lens that became completely translucent upon the power of your Geass working upon it. You needed direct eye contact with something in order to use Geass on it, after all. Oddly enough, reflected light seemed to be capable of transmitting Geass Signals, but... it seemed that for whatever reason, the power of Geass could be blocked by even the thinnest colored barriers, so while a set of normal glasses wouldn't block the effect, nor would a normal pair of contact lenses, a set of sunglasses or contact lenses like your own very much do block the power of Geass.

Lelouch didn't say a word as he slipped inside, and you had the maintenance access door seal shut behind the two of you. The hall was incredibly tight, and you actually had some difficulty avoiding all the pipes transporting boiling hot liquids through the ship. Conversely, Lelouch, as thin and skinny as he was, had no difficulty traversing the maintenance halls. Looks like a life of zero physical exertion had actually managed to come in useful for your elder brother. How annoying.

You crept through the halls until eventually you came across a door with a conveniently informative sign above it. 'Command Room Maint. Access Door'. "Alright, here's the deal. I'm going to head inside the command room and try to convince everyone within to leave but Clovis. Then when I've got Clovis alone, I'll give you the signal."

>"How the hell do you propose that you're going to do that?"
>"Lelouch, you can't just do something like that."
>"Alright, sounds fine by me."
>"Wait a minute... you were alone with CC... and all those soldiers believed you... then...!"
>Something else...

>>5019179
>"Alright, sounds fine by me."
>cOnnect the D.O.T.S

>>5019179
>>5019192
+1 for silent revelation

>>5019179
>"How the hell do you propose that you're going to do that?"

>>5019179
>"How the hell do you propose that you're going to do that ? What about instead creating a malfunction or a small fire in the cruiser ? That could distract them with something that needs to be deal with immediately, regardless of their positions in the cruiser."
>Put in our mind the plausible theory, that Lelouch has receive a geass today from C.C. . Still look concern and consider he might just be crazy. For now it might be best he doesn't think of us making any theory on him or his geass power, if he has one that is. Having such luck today would still be unrealistic for him even in the best of cases, if Lelouch doesn't have a geass.

>>5019179
>>5019192
Support

>>5019179
>>5019192
+1 for having a brain blast while Lelouch does his thing.

>>5019179
>>5019192
+1

>>5019192
+1

"Alright, sounds fine by me." You had no idea just how Lelouch seemed to think he was going to get away with doing what he suggested, but... he seemed terribly confident about it. As if it were a certainty that he would succeed. Where was that confidence stemming from? Lelouch was always a good talker, and he was almost as good at manipulating people as you were at manipulating computers, but... getting an entire room of people to leave him alone with the prince in control of the entire country? While acting as a simple member of the rank and file Britannian infantry? Whatever he was planning on doing, it must've been something special.

"Alright. I'll throw something out of the door when it's safe for you to come in. We'll be able to get more answers from Clovis if we confront him together, I bet." Lelouch was reaching a point of overconfidence stemming on suicidal at this point, and you were baffled by just what exactly he was expecting he'd be able to do.

You nodded as Lelouch left, opening up the maintenance door and stepping out into the corridor, conveniently right in front of the main access door to the command deck of the Land-Cruiser. You were sure that it was some sort of intentional design feature to have one of the maintenance halls entrances so close to the command deck, potentially for rapid evacuation for important personnel without having to go through the rest of the ridiculously large vehicle in the event of an emergency.

You waited for a moment as you contemplated just what Lelouch could be attempting to do. There was a very small gap in the door that you could peer through to look at the outside, and you started to think. Lelouch... Lelouch was excellent at convincing people, but even for somebody as charismatic as he was, it still struck you as odd that he was so easily able to get all those soldiers to leave you alone, not to mention get his hands on a Britannian Soldier's uniform... and... CC... that woman has the power to grant other people Geass...

You covered your face with your right palm in embarrassment. Nobody else was around to see you, but you couldn't help yourself from doing it. You had overlooked something so clearly obvious, so blatantly visible that you could almost kick yourself for the oversight. Lelouch wasn't simply using his charismatic abilities to convince those soldiers to leave you both alone! He... he must've been a Geass user himself! CC told you that the power of Geass was something that was meant to be used to control humans, and the girl definitely had the opportunity to grant Lelouch the power of Geass when they were alone! A cold sweat broke out on the back of your neck, there was no telling just what sort of power that Geass would have manifested if he had the power to control humans as you had the power to control machinery. Though... you could likely make a few guesses as to how his power worked. If you took each time he politely requested to be allowed to go on his way of the Britannian Soldiers as your example, then... his Geass could have something to do with his voice. Unlike your power, which was activated through sight and contact with machinery, it was possible that Lelouch's power was activated through sight and his voice... or perhaps it was activated instead through eye-contact? Did it have the same limitations as your own Geass? Would it prove incapable of activating through a set of colored lenses...?

The thought leads way to another thought. If his Geass requires unbroken eye contact to take effect on somebody... then wouldn't that mean that you were immune to the effects of his power so long as you were wearing your colored contacts? They were enough to block your own Geass, after all. You couldn't dismiss the idea that Lelouch had already used his Geass on you to make you fall under his control, but... at the same time that didn't make any sense whatsoever. Lelouch wasn't stupid, if his power was the ability to make somebody loyally follow him without question, then... well, you wouldn't be able to question things as you were right now. Of course, that was about all you could surmise from Lelouch's powers in conjunction with your own abilities, assuming that they at least shared some similar mechanics, anyway. Lelouch's Geass was something that was related to either Eye-Contact or Line-of-Sight with his target, and they likely needed to hear him command them in order for his ability to work on them. That was all that you could take away from this right now. Regardless of whatever limitations that Lelouch might have on his power though, it was by your reckoning a far more terrifying ability than your own. For while your power allowed you to command things that had no will to resist, Lelouch's power was something that potentially even suppressed the will of whoever it was used upon entirely. That alone was a terrifying prospect, you'd need to be on your guard around Lelouch from now on, that much was certain.

You waited for a few minutes as you saw all sorts of people wander out of the command room as if in a daze. You were still annoyed with yourself that you didn't immediately see things as they really were, you supposed that you simply had something of a bad habit of overlooking the obvious sometimes. The idea that Lelouch may have been given a Geass by CC as you had been didn't even register in your mind until you gave it some deep consideration.

Eventually, after almost three dozen people had walked out of the room with faces that lacked any sort of expressions, a wine glass was lobbed out of the room. The glass shattered on the floor quite loudly, and you supposed that was meant to be your signal to go.

You didn't wait around as you opened the security door, slipping into the corridor and then into the command room, the lights were already off, and you locked the door behind you with your access override code. Nobody would intrude on you and Lelouch's confrontation now. It was remarkable how dangerous that this confrontation was, but despite that, it had still happened without a hitch. Somehow, you and Lelouch by yourselves had managed to infiltrate a location that should've been the most heavily guarded place in the entire country... could this be what Geass was truly capable of?

You entered into the room properly, spotting Clovis sitting upon a throne with a single bulb above him illuminating him. He was giving some sort of stand-down order to his troops, but you didn't care to listen to the wording more precisely than that. It was basic stuff anyway. A full retreat and a cessation of the purge.

"There. I've called off my troops." Clovis reclined in his throne, projecting confidence despite his situation. You could see Lelouch's vague outline pointing a gun at him, and it was clear why Clovis was so happy to acquiesce to his demands. "Now what do you want? Money? A conversation? Perhaps you'd like to challenge wits against me in a game of chess?" It was amazing how confident Clovis was acting despite the terrible danger he was in. He never struck you as the sort of person to react bravely to being cornered like this, though he was definitely the sort of person who would attempt to cover his vulnerabilities with a veil of false bravado. You wondered if you should intervene in the conversation.

>"Actually, me and my associate want to know about that girl. The one in the capsule."
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."
>"Tell me everything you know about Geass and about CC, or my associate here blows you away."
>"You didn't really think that you could keep this a secret, could you, Clovis? We found out what you did. You'd better spill everything you know, or we'll go after Laila, and you wouldn't want your sister getting in trouble, would you?"
>Let Lelouch take care of this.
>Something else...

>>5021635
>Something else...
Make sure Clovis is disarmed, then beat the ever loving shit out of the most retarded of our siblings. Afterwards we can begin the interrogations.

>>5021635
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."

>>5021635
>"You didn't really think that you could keep this a secret, could you, Clovis? We found out what you did. You'd better spill everything you know, or we'll go after Laila, and you wouldn't want your sister getting in trouble, would you?"

>>5021635
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."
>"You didn't really think that you could keep this a secret, could you, Clovis? We found out what you did. You'd better spill everything you know, or we'll go after Laila, and you wouldn't want your sister getting in trouble, would you?"

>>5021635
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."

>>5021635
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."

>>5021635
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."

>>5021635
>"A game of chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you never beat Lelouch either. Now you'd better spill what you know about the girl."

>>5021728
>>5021901
>>5022066
>>5022178
>>5022210
>>5022213
Why chess? Are we going to tell him who we are, then kill him once he figures out we're his brothers?

>>5022343
I guess Bastian had enough of Clovis' shit that he's willing to see him dead now.

>>5022343
We dont need to kill him, just beat some sense in to him.

>>5022363
We just killed an entire group of soldiers to stop our identity from getting out, and are about to reveal it and lelouch's to clovis himself.
He's gonna have to die.

>>5022363
Hes still going to recognize us once he connects all the dots together.

>>5022368
We could work with him, he is not the enemy, VV and Charles is

>>5022343
Also want to bring up Bastion being adamant to killing family members or something.

>>5022384
>not the enemy
>kills hundreds of people in a day to search for CC
>so much property damage and death
Whatever drugs you're on let me have some of that. Clovis either dies, or we take him alive as a bargaining chip.

>>5022393
He's also held C.C. prisoner for years, making Bastian feel his first true hatred against Britannia, so I'm not sure he's that opposed to killing him regardless of this vote.

Honestly I'd rather not kill him because I want to not start Lelouch going full retard indiscriminately killing and fucking up the entire setting, mooks are mooks are mooks, but kinslaying is what got everything screwed all to hell in the Canon timeline at the end of the day.

>>5022473
Lets all agree to take him as a POW then

>>5023166
And keep him where? For how long?
With what as a goal? He'll never be released since he'll know who we are, and we'll just get more Britannian attention the longer he's held.

Clovis is not iredeemable, just stupid. If i remember correctly the reason he treats the japanese so poorly is because he thinks they killed Lelouch, we can probably convince him to stop, now that he knows they did not.

"A game of Chess? Against you? You never beat me in the past, and you could never beat Lelouch either." You decided that you may as well reveal your identity as well as Lelouch's, it would have more impact if you did, and it might just shake Clovis enough to make him more compliant with your demands. "Now, you're going to tell us everything you know about the girl." You wanted to know everything that the Britannians had figured out about CC, and Clovis was currently your best bet for that.

Clovis' eyes widened a great deal when he saw you step into the light, pulling off your makeshift eye-patch for a moment to reveal your true eye color to your brother, and at that time, Lelouch stepped out of the shadows as well, revealing to the eldest sibling in the room that two of his presumed dead siblings were alive all along. "S-Sebastian...? Lelouch...? You... you're both still alive? This is... this is wonderful news! Euphemia and Cornelia will be so happy to know this, and Lelouch! Do you know how much budget that I've had spent searching for you or what happened to you?" You refrained from laughing at Clovis' comment, how he'd never managed to actually find Lelouch despite having actually looked is beyond you, it's not like Lelouch was trying that hard to hide himself really. This must be the power of the Britannian Secret Service...

"We're not here for a reunion, Clovis." Lelouch kept his gun aimed squarely at the elder sibling. "Sebastian and I... we won't be going back to Britannia. How could either of us do that? After my mother was assassinated and my sister was horribly injured, I could never go back to that pit of snakes, and hearing what happened to Sebastian confirmed that I was right to feel that way."

"W-what happened to you, Sebastian? Were you kidnapped? How... how did this happen?" Clovis was no longer projecting the same bravado he had moments ago. The sudden appearance of two people he had assumed to be dead was such a shock to his system that the only emotions that he could show was... well, fear.

"I didn't get kidnapped, Clovis." You sighed. "I tried to flee. I found something that I wasn't supposed to find, and I tried to escape from the capital with it. But... during my escape, they tried to kill me. The plane I was escaping on was sabotaged. I can only assume that it was the same people who killed Lady Marianne, still active, and still killing members of the Imperial Family." There was something terrible at play, and Britannia could never be trusted until those who were responsible for this had been slain.

"S-so you're saying... that there's some sort of conspiracy?" Clovis sounded as if he'd never even considered the possibility. "I know that both Schneizel and Cornelia had been looking into both Sebastian's disappearance and Lady Marianne's murder, but... are you saying that the two events are connected?" Oh good, despite being a pampered fool, Clovis was actually capable of being taught things after all.

"That's right. I've come to believe that as well." Lelouch joined into the conversation. "Now, are you going to tell us about the girl in the capsule or what?" Looks like Lelouch wanted to know more about CC than he wanted to talk with Clovis about the conspiracy, he must've already realized that Clovis is much too stupid to ever be a part in such a grand conspiracy, he simply wasn't competent enough to be let in on such scheming, the events currently unfolding were proof enough of that.

Clovis' eyes shifted around nervously, and he was sweating profusely as he realized that he had no choice but to tell you. "Fine. If you're not going to give me a choice, I'll tell you everything that I've uncovered about that girl." Clovis was once again trying to project confidence, but was kind of failing. "As far as my scientists could tell, she is immortal, recovering from all damage inflicted upon her in minutes if not seconds. Asides from that, appearance-wise, she matches up to a figure spoken of in folktale as the 'Witch of Britannia'. A mysterious girl with green hair who sometimes appears at instrumental moments in the history of the country." He leveled a gaze at you as you digested the idea that the girl you had rescued was actually an immortal. "I believe that your ancestor, Claire li Britannia, even spoke of such a woman in her personal memoirs, did you never read them?" You did, but... you hadn't quite made the connection, how could you have? Without knowing that CC was actually immortal as you did now, it was simply too great a leap in logic.

"So, you decided to capture her and experiment on her?" You asked, wanting to know what Clovis' aim was here, and what exactly he was doing. If CC was this so called figure, then that meant that she was a long-time ally of Britannia... but having lived for so long... even you couldn't see the appeal in that. In seeing everything that you might've ever cared about fade away. Claire li Britannia, your ancestor, did indeed write of a woman matching CC's appearance, but what she wrote about her was brief. There was a fondness to her writing, but there was a certain melancholy to the words as well. But Claire died hundreds of years ago, how could anybody bear that loneliness?

"I... I did." Clovis confirmed that he was the one who had her captured, and that he was the one who made the decision to experiment on her. You frowned deeply at your brother, and he did genuinely seem to regret his actions... or at least it appeared that way. Clovis was likely the sort of person who had a great deal of respect for CC, considering how heavily that she was linked with the history of Britannia itself.

"Why?" That was all you needed to know now. Just what Clovis imagined that he had to gain from capturing and experimenting on CC.

"I did so for the sake of Britannia. If I could have my scientists uncover the secret of the immortality she wields, then... then I could be known as the man who cured death!" Clovis revealed that he had a noble goal behind his actions after all. Utterly idiotic and childish, but noble all the same. You were starting to think of Clovis as more a pampered manchild than you could imagine him as the Third Prince of the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

"You're delusional." Lelouch took a step closer to Clovis, who backed up further into his throne. Lelouch was clearly growing tired of Clovis now. Lelouch could really project a terrifying aura when he wanted to, especially when he had a gun to back up his complete and total lack of physical ability.

"Wait! Wait! Wait! I... I don't know who... but...! But there was somebody else after her too!" Clovis started sputtering something like an idiot, as if he'd suddenly remembered something of great importance that could just save his life.

"Somebody... else?" Lelouch looked at Clovis curiously, looks like Clovis may have just extended his life, considering that Lelouch didn't seem to be bluffing at all. You didn't even know if you should stop Lelouch.

"T-that's right!" He took a deep breath. "There was actually a brief skirmish when we captured the girl. My strike team clashed against a group of unknown combatants that were targeting the girl just like we were! They were fended off, but we never found out just who they were." Your eyes widened at Clovis' revelation, he might just have more use than you first thought. "Y-you're not going to kill me, are you? I told you everything that you wanted to know, didn't I?"

>"Lelouch, it's up to you. You're the one with a gun."
>"Actually, we're going to take you prisoner. You'll be a great bargaining chip."
>"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."
>"Lelouch, you can make him forget everything about this conversation, can't you?"
>Something else...

>>5023573
>>"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."
Let's not kill him, fratricide is bad m'kay. plus an in with the government could cretainly help us with dealing with VV, charles and their "Let's kill all of mankind" plot

>>5023573
>"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."

>>5023573
>"Actually, we're going to take you prisoner. You'll be a great bargaining chip."
That idiot will fuck it up if we leave him in charge and try to work with him behind the scenes.

>>5023573
>"Lelouch, you can make him forget everything about this conversation, can't you?"
Since he'll just screw up if we work with him, I think the best way to use him is to just have him continue going about being governor of Area 11.

>>5023573
>"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."

>>5023573
>"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."

>>5023573
>"Actually, we're going to take you prisoner. You'll be a great bargaining chip."

Cornelia and Euphemia will be much better as ins with the government. They won't be sent here if Clovis is still in charge and Orange won't go through his redemption arc.

>>5024337
we could get him to contact them for us.

How exactly is taking him prisoner going to work? We keep him in ashford basement while the new viceroy gets vindictive on the general populace? Like what is even the benefit there

looks like the code geass plot is getting derailed really hard

>>5023573
>>"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."
The smart choice.

>>5023573
"You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."

>>5024588
Yeah but it will hopefully save us from losing our MC's sisters, since Cordelia won't go on a shithead rampage and give Lelouch ammo to kill her. Also we need to at some point IC call Lelouch out on his geass before he accidentally's Euphemia.

>>5023573
>>"Lelouch, it's up to you. You're the one with a gun."

>>5023961
+1

It was a risky move, but... you didn't want to kill Clovis, even if he was a complete and total idiot who was obviously in over his head with what he was getting himself involved in, he was still your brother. Though he'd mistreated the Japanese people as the viceroy of the country, he was just an idiot who didn't really understand how to run a country. The only malicious intent that he likely held towards the people of Japan would probably stem from the assumption that the country was responsible for the death of Lelouch and Nunally, who Clovis now had confirmation were still alive. "You're going to work with us behind the scenes. You've put Laila in great danger, so you'd do well to assist us."

"Wait... really?" Clovis sounded confused at your decision to grant him mercy, as if he'd been expecting his death sentence or something. "How can you trust me? I... I don't want you to change your minds or anything, of course, but..."

"You're an idiot, Clovis..." You sighed as you looked away from your pathetic elder brother. "You've managed to get yourself involved in something and you have absolutely no idea how deep it goes. Hell, I don't know how far this conspiracy goes myself." You frowned. "All I know is that you're going to need to be real careful from now on. If word gets out that you were the one who organized CC's capture, then I doubt it's going to end well for you."

"Do you really think that they would strike out at me, at the seat of my power?" Clovis asked, seemingly not understanding the irony of his own statement, and you almost covered your face with your hand in exasperation at the man's idiotic question.

"Clovis... you're in the seat of your power right now, and two high-schoolers managed to evade every guard you had and corner you, alone." You spoke in a deadpan voice, Lelouch was clearly still processing the situation, having trouble with deciding whether or not he wanted to go along with your solution, probably. Of course, sparing Clovis would mean you'd undoubtedly run into a lot of potential problems in the future, especially thanks to his incompetence... but on the flip-side, having somebody in the upper echelons of government as your puppet was a benefit that far outweighed the risks. "All I know is that whoever these people are, the people who struck out against Marianne... there is no amount of protection that will stop them. They murdered Marianne in the heart of Britannia itself, surrounded by a contingent of some of the most elite guards in the entire empire. Do you really think that you wouldn't suffer the same fate if targeted?"

"No... no I suppose not." Clovis frowned, before he turned towards Lelouch. "What do you think, Lelouch? You've been awfully quiet." His frown deepened as he looked at the gun that was still pointed squarely at him. "Aren't you going to put that thing away now? We've come to an agreement here. None of us are enemies, and I'm as invested in finding out about these mysterious figures behind your mother's assassination as you are." Lelouch made an annoyed noise as he holstered his weapon, and Clovis kept talking. "After all, Laila is still at the capital, and she's in a great deal of danger because of what I've done... how could I have been so short-sighted?" Very easily, Clovis. You were always a man who failed at planning ahead entirely. That was one of the reasons he was so simple to defeat in chess. He was impossibly easy to bait into taking pieces without realizing how bad his position would be after taking a piece.

"Clovis. There's one thing I want to make sure of before we agree on anything." Lelouch crossed his arms as he stared directly at Clovis, a certain menace in his gaze as he stared at his elder brother,

"What's that, Lelouch?" Clovis seemed to be confused by the tone Lelouch seemed to have decided to take, if you had to guess, you'd say that Lelouch really wasn't happy about your decision to work with Clovis, probably for the same reasons that you believed that it was possible for it to backfire. However, it did seem to at least provide more positives than potential drawbacks. It was one thing to want to dismantle or change Britannia by playing by their rules, but by turning their own leaders against them from the inside? That was how you could achieve true change. Clovis, despite everything, did have quite a powerful faction at his beck and call.

"You're never going to betray me or Sebastian." He spoke, his words more an order than a request, and you raised an eyebrow at Lelouch making such an odd request, but what was more odd was Clovis' response, eyes glossing over for a moment as if he wasn't listening to Lelouch, but at the same time clearly listening intently to the words of his brother. Curious. Could Lelouch have used his Geass?

"Oh. Uh... of course not, Lelouch." Clovis sounded uncertain of his own words, but Lelouch nodded.

"Alright. Good." Lelouch seemed satisfied with that. "If I ever need anything, I'll contact you with the name of... Zero." Zero? That was the code-name he chose for himself? He could've gone with anything, and he chose Zero of all names? He probably thought that it sounded cool, but it just sounded silly. At least he was actually going to use a codename this time, instead of simply using his own name as you might've expected him to do. "Sebastian. I think we're done here."

>"Right, let's go."
>"Hold on, Clovis. If I need anything, I'll send a message and my codename is... Bastion."
>"Wait a second, Clovis, I want you to send as much military hardware as you can to a place of my choosing."
>"How can you be so sure he won't betray us?"
>Something else...

>>5026850
>"Wait a second, Clovis, I want you to send as much military hardware as you can to a place of my choosing."
>Something else...
We'll give him a list of things to leave at the dead drop, enough but not too much where people would grow suspicions.
Give our dumb elder brother a hug before leaving. He wont contact us, we'll contact him, since we can be very discrete.

>>5026850
>"Hold on, Clovis. If I need anything, I'll send a message and my codename is... Bastion."
title drop

>>5027032
Backing who?

>>5027033
lmao I'm tempted to support this, but isnt this a little too close to our alias?

>>5026850
While we're at it we should probably erase all video footage of us being here, and possibly figure out where CC went. LELOUCH should know.

>>5026850
Myself here >>5027032 meant to say "backing this guy here >>5026996

>>5026850
>"Wait a second, Clovis, I want you to send as much military hardware as you can to a place of my choosing."
Let's make some good shit.
I'm wanting to get started on those leg braces for Nunnally asap, but should we start re-assembling the video file when we return to the academy?

>>5026850
>>5026996
+1

>>5026996
>>5027111
+1 on these.
Also pretty ironic for Sebastian to make fun of Lelouch's alias when he wants to go by Bastion. That also sounds silly, especially when his name is Sebastian.

our codename could be Wizard, since the AI we have is called Merlin

>>5026996
support

>>5027603
wizard or warlock

>>5027603
>>5027823
I kind of want to name our Knightmare Frame "Morgana" just to go against all the Round Table naming theme of the canon Frames.

"Wait a second Clovis..." Before leaving, there was something that you wanted to take care of... it was a pretty selfish request, sure, but you really didn't want to have to keep scrounging through scrapyards to find decent tech, and there was really no reason not to make the request. "I want you to have some military hardware delivered to a warehouse that you will leave completely unguarded and unmonitored." It was the easiest and perhaps only way for you to get your hands on stuff like this, outside of maybe making nice with the terrorists that Kallen had turned out to be a part of. The girl could easily still be useful to you though, as could her terrorist cell. The chance was slim, but you might be able to play both sides to expose your true enemy!

"Really? Whatever for?" Clovis was once again highlighting his ignorance, but you didn't mind.

"Tinkering, mostly. I've had enough of having to work with second-hand parts and reclaimed scrap." You crossed your arms as you thought about Lloyd, no doubt working on some state-of-the-art Knightmare Frame or whatever the hell he was up to nowadays. With the proper resources, you'd be able to build a Knightmare Frame that surpassed any currently produced by the Britannians for your personal use. You were certain of that. Even the state of the art Gloucesters that were seeing active combat in the Middle East weren't that much greater in terms of combat potential than the Sutherlands that were used mostly to 'keep the peace' in Area Eleven. "Here, let me write you out a list of what I want."

You spent about two minutes rapidly scribbling down all sorts of things that you might need, for you, it was stuff difficult to get your hands on, like military grade Sakuradite Reactors and weaponry, as well both a Sutherland and a Gloucester, but for somebody like Clovis, it was child's play. The man had built a god damn amusement park named after himself on a whim, nobody was going to raise an eyebrow if he started stockpiling weaponry. He was an eccentric leader that was really only liked thanks to his charisma... well, liked by the Britannians at least, the people of Japan loathed him, and they'd loathe him even more after the events of today. But he'd just have to deal with it. Honestly, you'd be surprised if this didn't spark an investigation that led to him being demoted from Viceroy of Area 11... but you at least had some time with Clovis still in charge of the country before such measures would be taken, you felt. You doubted that Schneizel would allow Clovis' failure here to stand. Even if he was unaware of the reason for the purge, it's not like Viceroys are just allowed to purge the population without any real reason, and you highly doubted that Clovis was going to leak what he was doing with CC to anybody, even Schneizel.

"Here, just get me everything on this list." You thrust the list at Clovis, contemplating hugging your brother for a moment before you decided against it and walked towards the door, it would just make things weird if you tried to treat this like a happy reunion at this point, maybe some time in the future you could, but... not now. "Come on Lelouch, let's get out of here, and Clovis? Don't try to contact me, if I want anything, I'll get a message to you." You spoke to the viceroy one final time before you unlocked the door and left the room, the hallway outside was still thankfully abandoned, and escaping the mobile headquarters was a simple task for you and Lelouch. Not only had you managed to survive getting involved in a military purge, but you'd managed to reconnect with two of your brothers as well! Well, you'd managed to somewhat reconnect with Lelouch, and you were pretty much just using Clovis for his connections and ability to make things happen. Though he might've been an idiot, he was useful to you, and he did have a good heart, despite having ordered the killing of so many Japanese people. His hatred for the country was something that was likely fostered thanks to the relatively recent war, and the fact that he had assumed the Japanese had been responsible for the deaths of two of his siblings. Clovis was kind of simple like that, and childish enough to foster a grudge against an entire population for a perceived slight.

"Honestly, that went a lot better than I thought it was going to." Lelouch admitted to you as you walked through the access tunnels of the vehicle. "I think that if you weren't with me, I... would've ended up doing something I might've ended up regretting. Clovis is an idiot, but... he didn't deserve to die." Lelouch shook his head. "He's just at risk of the people who killed my mother as anybody else..." Lelouch didn't sound as if he'd forgiven Clovis for his senseless actions against the people of Japan regardless, but he didn't seem to hold that much bad will towards his elder half-brother. "Now I think about it clearly, Clovis is far too incompetent to ever have been involved in the assassination of my mother. The murder was too perfect. No evidence at all remained despite what you've told me you might have. Even Nunally... even Nunally can't remember a damn thing about what the attacker looked like." You could hear the clenching of fists as Lelouch recalled a particularly painful memory.

"Don't worry, Lelouch. We'll get to the bottom of this. Hell, we might even be able to save Britannia from itself as a whole if we find out just what the hell is going on." You tried to reassure your brother. "I don't hold a grudge against Britannia for what has happened, and I don't think that you should either. Against Charles... that's who you should hold a grudge against. Not the people of Britannia, and not your siblings, but against Charles." The man who sanctioned the invasion on a country that had two of his children as political hostages, seemingly without even bothering to try to send an extraction team to get them out of harm's way first. You knew that Britannia had access to Special Forces who could've at least attempted to extract the two children before Charles' made the declaration of war.

"You think I don't hate our father, Sebastian?" Lelouch sounded irritated that you'd even suggest that he didn't hate Charles, but you shook your head.

"Of course not, I'm just saying that you shouldn't allow your hatred for our father spread towards targets that don't deserve it. Britannia is diseased, a sick society. A toxin runs through it, and that toxin... it's the people who work in the shadows... those are the people that need to be destroyed." The world would always find a reason to go to war with one another, and nothing would be able to change that, and even an attempt to form a global hegemonic power with absolute control over the planet in an attempt to bring an end to conflict wouldn't last forever. Conflict was a crucial human factor of the world. So long as humans were humans, there would be conflict. It was a simple fact of life. Though Britannia's expansionism was harsh and terrible to behold, the wars of the current era are less horrific than the nightmares of the wars that have unleashed chaos upon the world in the past.

"You're too trusting, Sebastian." Lelouch sighed as you saw the exit to the vehicle ahead of you. "If you think that Britannia can be saved simply by... what? Deposing Charles? Dragging the people who killed my mother into the light?" He stopped, behind you, and you turned to look at him. "That's naive, Sebastian. I don't hate Britannia for what it has become... I hate Britannia for what it stands for." Lelouch looked you in the eye and kept talking. "Britannia's current existence, all it shows the world is that militaristic conquest and the oppression of other countries is something that they could easily profit off of. At this point, my hatred of Britannia, I can't say it has anything to do with the country itself, but my hatred of what the world will look like if Britannia truly does succeed. The message that will be sent to the world." Lelouch kept talking. "The message that tyranny will not only go unpunished, but also rewarded. That those who start conflict are those who will be looked upon favorably by the world. I can't abide a world where this is allowed to happen." Looks like Lelouch was really serious about all this.

"So what? You're going to destroy Britannia at any cost?" You wanted to know just how far Lelouch was willing to go. You of course knew that the only way for the world to ever know true peace was for some ultimately benevolent intelligence to preside over them, unbiased in its judgments and doing only what was best for humanity... but you didn't feel like now was the best time to bring that up. Lelouch's ideas held at least some merit, but he should understand that the lessons of the past were not ones carried into the future. Britannia could fall in the most terrible of manners, and that wouldn't stop expansionism or wars at all!

"I don't want to destroy Britannia, but the current Empire cannot be allowed to win, Sebastian. But my meeting with Clovis has... given me a lot to think about. I might've ended up killing him to achieve my goals of undoing Britannia if I hadn't had you with me to help me think more clearly." What the hell sort of idiot logic is that anyway? Killing Clovis to help destroy Britannia? What an idiot. Clovis is incompetent enough in ruling Japan that if he wanted to destroy Britannia, then leaving him in charge would always be a better move. "I want to ask you though, Sebastian. Are you with me? Will you help me build a new world, even if it takes destroying Britannia to ensure it?" Lelouch had some weird theories on how the world worked, but... could it hurt to become his ally? Together the two of you were a pretty great team, but you simply didn't have faith in his ideology.

>Yes
>No

>>5029296
>Yes

Could this be our VV and Charles moment?

>>5029296
>>Yes

"What's the worst that could happen?"

>>5029296
>No
We should make our own faction, not ride on Lelouch's coattails.

>>5029296
>Yes
But only if you keep your Geass bullshit to the minimum. He better not be trying to use it on us right now.
I'm with you to keep you out of trouble you doofus. God damn man put the dramatics to a minimum. We should do some debating with him when we find the time.

>>5029442
I agree with this anon in sentiment, but not exactly. I saw we work with him, not "for" him. We'll work as equals, and he will heed our advice. It's a good way to keep an eye on him as well so he does kill a bunch of people again.

>>5029523
I sorta agree with you here, I was thinking we can work with him and try to influence him to our way of thinking, and see how far we can go as a team until our compatibility fails.

>>5029296
>Yes

>>5029296
>yes

"Yes." You sighed as you responded to Lelouch. "This world is flawed, Lelouch, we both know that, and though it might not be strictly necessary to destroy the current order to change things, I'm not going to argue that a complete upheaval would not allow for change to come, and if Britannia needs to be destroyed, then that is the price that must be paid." You understood that Britannia was flawed enough that attempting to fix it from within was effectively an impossible prospect. Even if it wasn't the main problem that plagued Britannia, there was no denying that the system of government it operated with allowed for corruption to effortlessly spread, while the common man suffered as a result.

"I agree completely. Britannia is the enemy of the world, and though the people of the country are mostly innocent of the sin of their rulers, their lack of objection to the actions of their own country still implicates them in their crimes." Well, that was sort of backwards logic there, Lelouch, considering that you've personally done nothing about Britannia for years, and the average Britannian citizen couldn't exactly oppose their tyrannical regime. That was what made them a tyranny. But... at the same time, the majority of Britannians were perfectly fine with the status quo, so long as their own lives went mostly uninterrupted. Funny how people were so willing to look past atrocities so long as their own lives went unchanged.

"Well then, I suppose that our alliance will continue then, Lelouch." You weren't entirely certain about Lelouch's reliability, but it couldn't hurt to have somebody assisting you when it came to uncovering the Britannian conspiracy. You might not have the same ultimate goals in mind, but it's not like your goals really conflicted too much. While you wanted to find the the truth that had been obscured from even the highest echelons of Britannian government, Lelouch wanted to change Britannia as a whole. Likely with some sort of dream of creating a utopian society from the ashes of the previous one. A well intentioned goal, but really not one that you had any real faith in him being able to pull off. What came after the fall of a society was always a power vacuum that was swiftly filled with chaos, should Britannia fall, then in its place would rise dozens of warring states led by warlords and remnants from the government. "I suppose that the first thing we're going to need to do... is to plan just what we're going to do in regards to... well, some sort of organization. Clovis will only be useful to us for a short while, I feel."

"Yes, I can't see Clovis being useful for long either. After what he pulled off today, even if it's never publicized as the reason, he's going to be taken back to Pendragon for questioning and be suspended as the Viceroy of Area 11, either temporarily or permanently, depending on how Schneizel's investigation into all this goes... which means that we're going to need to be on our guard for the single one of our siblings that could pose a threat to us." Seems that Lelouch held Schneizel in high regard, not that you could blame him. Schneizel was incredibly dangerous as far as intelligence goes, the only one of your siblings with a wit that could match yourself and Lelouch. "But you needn't worry about manpower, I've got a plan."

"You intend to use the terrorist cell, don't you?" You asked as you neared the exit to the vehicle. "I can't blame you, what with Kallen being a part of their group, she's the perfect in."

"I'm... sorry, but... Kallen?"

"The girl we saw earlier today, Kallen Stadtfeld... or rather Kallen Kozuki, as she'd likely prefer to be referred to as. She's a half-Britannian student at our school, her father was influential enough to have her sent to Ashford Academy despite her mixed heritage, and... well, she's that girl we saw earlier, back in the truck." Lelouch's eyes widened as he remembered the girl.

"The Knightmare Frame pilot?" Lelouch seemed astonished at the coincidence, before he nodded. "I had intended on using that girl, but I was unaware she was a student at our school. This simplifies things a great deal." With access to the girl's terrorist cell, you could likely slowly use her to usurp control over the Japanese resistance to Britannia. With Clovis' faction under your thumb for the moment, then if you could take control of the resistance as well, you and Lelouch would be the de-facto rulers of Japan! If you were playing both sides, then trying to lure out the snakes in the grass would be a far simpler task, you felt. Though despite Clovis' faction being under control somewhat, it's not like it was a reliable control, you couldn't really use their troops for your own operations, not freely, you could just have things organized through using Clovis as a medium.

"Well, she's always missing out on lessons thanks to being 'sick' and she skips out on classes a lot even when she is in school." Really, Kallen was treading on thin ice, and it was a miracle that her subversive activities had never been uncovered. Then again, the Britannian Surveillance State was thankfully less than adequate when it came to what could be accomplished with modern technology. They could have cameras on every corner being monitored at every time to prevent movements being made against their regime, but it met with heavy push-back from the general population. A lot of the time, security cameras in public places ended up being smashed to pieces by the disgruntled public.

"A cover for her terrorist activities, then?" Lelouch stopped as the door to the outside was opened. "Come on, we'll talk some more when we've reached relative safety." You and Lelouch exited the Britannian Mobile Headquarters and slipped away, avoiding the still pretty unimpressive amount of guards that had been stationed around as you entered a abandoned building, finding that it wasn't quite as abandoned as it had first appeared.

"There you are, Lelouch. Sebastian." A girl's voice greeted you as you entered the building, and you looked to see CC sitting on a table, clearly bored. "I'm happy that the two of you managed to survive." CC did actually sound happy, but you weren't entirely certain if she could be trusted. This immortal woman who held so many secrets. "I'm sure the two of you have a lot of questions for me."

"Yeah, but I somehow doubt that you're going to answer half of them." You crossed your arms as you looked at the girl, who winked at you, and you took a step backwards in surprise at her oddly mischievous action. You couldn't get a read on this woman at all! Then again, you didn't know what you were expecting from a girl who was at least centuries old. When it came to social interactions, neither you nor Lelouch had a chance against this girl.

"Well, that depends on just what you want to ask me..."

>"What are we to you?"
>"What do you want from us?"
>"What's your name? CC is clearly an alias."
>"Tell me about Geass, how does it work? Why does it work?"
>"Did you... plan for this meeting?"
>Something else...

>>5030985
>"What's your name? CC is clearly an alias."

>>5030985
>>"What are we to you?"
>>"What do you want from us?"
>"Tell me about Geass, how does it work? Why does it work?"
these are important for our protags to learn IC.

>>5030985
>"What do you want from us?"
>"What's your name? CC is clearly an alias."
>"Tell me about Geass, how does it work? Why does it work?"
>"Did you... plan for this meeting?"

>>5030985
>>>"What are we to you?"
>>>"What do you want from us?"
>>"Tell me about Geass, how does it work? Why does it work?"

>>5030985
Supporting this set. >>5031061
Seems like a good round of questions.

>>5030985
Support >>5031061

"Fine, the first question I think Lelouch and I are both wondering... is what exactly you want from us, CC." You really didn't know just what this girl was playing at, if Clovis was right, and you had no reason to believe he wasn't, and that this girl really was an ancient immortal witch, then her motives were a complete and total mystery. Whatever she has in mind, it probably goes a little beyond your wish to uncover the truth, and Lelouch's wish to bring those who killed his mother to justice.

"What I want with you two?" CC rested her chin on her hand, pretending to think on the subject for a moment. "Well, that's obvious, I want you two to get along! I have a lot of faith that one of you will be able to grant my wish, after all." A wish... what could an immortal being possibly have to wish for? The most likely option, as morbid as it was, was death. Though you didn't want to suggest it, an eternal life of solitude would lead to even the most mentally fortitudinous people breaking down. But you refused to believe that CC's ambition was something so heart-breakingly sad. Even for somebody like yourself, who was... less than empathetic towards the majority of people when it came to stuff like emotions, it was impossible not to imagine the sorrow that eternal life could bring somebody... of course, at the same time, it was more than possible that she was completely content with her immortality, and that her wish was something far simpler, like world domination or something.

"Your wish being...?" You tried to get some more clarity, but CC simply shook her head, closing that particular avenue of questioning, as annoying as it was. Though through what she did tell you, she did seem to want you and Lelouch to remain working together, or... if not working together, at least on good terms with one another. Whatever she wanted, it was clear that she needed you or Lelouch for it though... or at least that was your theory.

"I don't think either of you are ready to know yet." There's the nail in the coffin for that question then. You had already known she wouldn't answer it, but it looked like she was making sure that the two of you got the message.

"Alright, how about your name then? CC is very clearly an alias." Your second question was one that you felt was a 50/50 as to whether it was going to get an honest answer. Especially considering how evasive she was already being.

"Do you want a reward for figuring that out?" The girl gave you a wry smirk, and you could tell that this was almost certainly going to be the sort of question she wasn't going to be truthful with. "Sorry boys, but... I'm afraid that I don't think either of you are ready to learn that just yet." You couldn't think of any reason to keep her true name hidden from you except for maybe sentimental reasons, unless she was secretly a Britannian or something, she should be old enough that whatever her name possibly was didn't matter at all.

"Alright, fine. No more questions about you and what you want, why don't you tell us both how Geass works, CC? Or why it works, even." Lelouch took over the questioning for now, and though you were just about to ask a similar question, it looks like Lelouch had beaten you to the punch. Though CC had already somewhat explained your power to you in that vision, Lelouch still obviously needed the explanation, and considering that your power is clearly a non-standard power when it came to Geass, it's not like you could really give a typical Geass User a tutorial on the ability. Nor did you have any real idea just how the mechanics of Geass worked still, as frustrating as that was.

"That's something I can answer, actually!" CC sprung up from her perch on the table and looked at Lelouch's eyes. "Geass is something that people like myself can give to those that we consider worthy to receive the power." She kept looking at Lelouch for a moment before she looked at you. "I gave you your Geass to allow you to find victory in this battlefield, while a few years ago, I gave Sebastian his Geass in order to save his life from a plane crash." That made Lelouch look at you with wide eyes, and you shrugged.

"I was planning on telling you the moment you told me about yours, elder brother." The fact that Lelouch had kept his Geass a secret from you still wasn't exactly something you considered to be conducive to a trusting relationship as equals, but... you hadn't told him the truth about your Geass either. So it was really a sin that both of you could carry together. "Besides, we all have our secrets, right?" You'd tell Lelouch what you were capable of doing if he told you the same, it was only fair. Especially when you'd already deduced that Lelouch's power one that could control other people.

"Now's not the time for a brotherly quarrel." CC crossed her arms. "I haven't finished speaking yet." She finished her sentence, reminding you that there was still more to reveal. "The reason that Geass works is because it... hmm... it draws upon the power of the collective unconsciousness of humanity. Through that comes the power of Geass, and thus the ones who wield the power are in a sense chosen to rule over other people... with a few... exceptions." Her eyes briefly flicked towards you for a moment before she looked at Lelouch. "You shall both understand more in time. There is still much that I cannot yet tell you." Nice. Very cryptic.

"Right, I have one last question for you, CC." You crossed your arms, there was something... off, about this whole situation, so you knew just what to ask. CC seemed to be prepared for your final question, but she wasn't prepared for your slight grin as you asked the final question. "Did you... plan this entire meeting? Did you expect things to end up like this, with Lelouch and myself working together?"

"Plan? No." CC shook her head, denying your suspicions. "I hadn't the capacity to plan anything with how I was before we met." Looks like you could bury that suspicion. "Hope for?" She continued. "Of course. This meeting, with both you and Lelouch working with one another was the greatest outcome I could've hoped for from the events of today." Well, it looks like you couldn't totally erase your suspicions, but it seemed that CC had both you and Lelouch's best interests at heart... or at least you hoped that she did, after having saved your life and giving you Geass.

"Well... that leaves one last question." Lelouch turned to you, and then looked at CC. "What exactly are we going to do about her? We obviously can't just leave her to be captured again, even with Clovis seemingly on our side for now."

>"She can stay in my dorm, I don't think Rai will mind."
>"I'll book her a hotel room to stay at."
>"Don't you have what is effectively a house to yourself, Lelouch? Can't you take her in?"
>"That depends on how she feels about sleeping in my workshop."
>Something else...

>>5032327
Give them the option between the house Lelouch and Nunnally use and this idea, i want to know what they would prefer.

>"Don't you have what is effectively a house to yourself, Lelouch? Can't you take her in?"
>Something else...
"It depends. The more she is near us, the more we can see her and keep an eye in case someone search for her. It allow us to react faster as well to any problem. She looks the same age of an academy student too, perhaps with dyed hair, contacts and a few modifications to the face it could look like a new student or a personal servant. Still, having her here could attract attention to us too, if the ones that are in search for C.C. come to the academy.
"And with us being two Brittanian princes, and Nunnally, is a great risk."
"So let me suggest this idea, what about asking our benefactors the Ashford for a small private house near a forest, out of the city ? It wouldn't risk to attract as much attention, as an hotel room or the school, since it wouldn't be in the city where plenty of brittanians troops move everyday or control roads with cameras, checkpoints and collaborators. And for the two of us is a simple excuse to go get some fresh air out of the city and see C.C.. We can say is for horse riding or hunting, we are sons of nobility after all."
"Of course even if this could be a cover far away from prying eyes, C.C. would be .... lonely. Not to mention our time of reaction in case anything happened, would be compromised by the distance. And we would need to repay another favor with the Ashford, while they had already keep us safe all this years."
"I would like to hear what both of you think too though."

>>5032327
>"She can stay in my dorm, I don't think Rai will mind."
>"I'll book her a hotel room to stay at."
>"Don't you have what is effectively a house to yourself, Lelouch? Can't you take her in?"
>"That depends on how she feels about sleeping in my workshop."
Present all these suggestions to C.C. and our brother. Let's brainstorm a safe enough place for her. Also does C.C. think she needs a weapon? Because we can provide that, maybe some discrete body armor.

>>5032327
>"That depends on how she feels about sleeping in my workshop."
Set her up a corner with a bed and some comfort stuffs like a kitchenette.

If that's not to her standards.

>"Don't you have what is effectively a house to yourself, Lelouch? Can't you take her in?"

Gotta keep her away from public eye, but i'd prefer if she was in our hands and not lelouches. and its not purely because i really like CC and want to see more of her you baka

>>5032734
+1, I personally don't like or hate her, so she can go where ever......IF she's really good with tech I think it would be nice to have her around to help bastion build things. Maybe she could teach him a thing or two about CQC and how not to suck in a fight.

>>5032327
Support presenting her with the options.
whose place is closer to pizza hut?

>>5032327
Support >>5032544

>>5032327
>>5032734
+1

"Well... I suppose that depends on just how you feel about sleeping in my workshop... it's probably the most secure area on the Ashford campus." That wasn't exactly a bluff or an exaggeration either, and you'd work to make sure that the workshop would only grow more secure as you gained power and resources. If you had your way, you'd turn the warehouse into a fortress that could survive a sustained siege from a squad of Knightmare Frames, but... you feel like Milly might start having problems if you started building a military fortress on the grounds of her family's academy.

"Your... workshop?" Lelouch sounded intrigued, and you smirked. Being Milly's official cousin had a few perks after all, even if you lived in the dorms, you could have stuff like a warehouse on the outskirts of the Academy's grounds be designated to you and you alone. Hooray for nepotism!

"Right, I had Milly set it up for me, I've had one of the disused warehouses at the academy retrofitted into a workshop for me to work on my... projects." With the new workshop in addition to the stuff you'll be getting off of Clovis, you'd be able to create a Knightmare Frame that was... nightmarishly strong on the battlefield! You were glad you didn't say that out loud.

"About those projects of yours... what exactly are you working on, anyway?" Lelouch sounded interested, so you decided to give him at least a little bit of information.

"Oh, a few things, really... a suit of high quality personal armor... experimental stun weaponry... a Knightmare Frame I pieced together from scrap. I've always been something of a tinker, you should remember from our youth."

"That's right, I remember that you made an alarm system for your room out of broken alarm clocks and a power outlet that you stripped from a wall." Annoyingly, the only reason that Lelouch was aware of your makeshift alarm system was because you had been caught. You hadn't covered your tracks well enough, and you were found out and scolded for damaging the palace.

"Yes, but let's... not talk about that." Being made to apologize to the staff for terrifying them when they triggered your alarm system was something you were still embarrassed about, a memory that you couldn't truly suppress no matter how much you wanted to. At least Euphie wasn't mean to you about it, and at least had the decency to show an interest in your hobby, though back then, you could tell that half of what you told your sister went right over her head. Not that you minded, it was nice to have somebody take an interest in what you liked doing now and then... as illogical as that might be, and as pointless as explaining concepts to people who would likely never truly get them was, you just liked the company of your older sisters. Of course that included Cornelia too, when she wasn't dragging you out into the world beyond your room, she was quite affable, and you could tell that she just found it difficult to balance her feelings towards her full-blooded siblings between her responsibilities as the Second Princess.

"I've slept in worse than a workshop before, Sebastian, I will be fine." CC accepted the idea of sleeping in your workshop without much of a fuss. You supposed that when you were immortal, you probably ended up developing the ability to sleep practically anywhere anyway. It's not like she'd be able to die of exposure if she slept in the freezing cold of night, but... at the same time, you doubted that she didn't have a preference for comfort. Just because you could do something, it didn't mean that you had to enjoy doing that thing, after all.

"Excellent, then in that case, I'll have a bed set up for you, ah... and try not to touch anything in the workshop that looks like it could be dangerous, I've got a few projects that might be a little bit... dangerous." You didn't know why you were warning an immortal, but you figured that you might as well. You didn't like the idea of her getting hurt, even if you knew that such worries were completely pointless. The human fear of pain came from the brain's response to being injured, maimed or killed. For somebody who was actually immortal, it was clear that none of those things were a threat... but that didn't properly register in your own head. CC was a person that you felt was important to you, she had saved your life after all. So even if you knew that it was a completely ridiculous notion to be worried about somebody who was impossible to actually hurt being harmed, you couldn't help yourself.

"Well... with that out of the way, that brings us to our last problem... how exactly are we going to get back to Ashford?" Lelouch reminded you that you were still in what was an active war zone about ten minutes ago, and escaping back to the academy unseen might be... difficult.

>"I'll hijack a car and drive us there, shouldn't be hard."
>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."
>"How do you two feel about wading through sewers?"
>"With the purge over, it should be as easy as finding us all something else to wear and walking back, right?"
>Write-in...

>>5034772
>>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

>>5034772
>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."
I get C.C. likes pizza, but come on. She should try something marginally different like a calzone. It's like folding two pizza slices together, or the love child of a pizza and a burrito.

>>5034772
>>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

>>5034772
>>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

>>5034772
>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

>>5034772
>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

>>5034772
>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

>>5034772
>>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."
It's hilarious that Sebastian almost figured out C.C.'s wish when Lelouch didn't have an idea until the clash with Charles.

>>5034772
>"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there."

"We should take the sub-levels back, the old subway lines might be able to get us there without running into anybody." They managed to get you into the Shinjuku Ghetto in the first place, after all, so retracing your steps shouldn't be too hard, even if you spent most of the journey in the back of a truck, you felt like you had a good enough sense of direction to lead yourself and your two new allies back to safety. Lelouch was intelligent enough to do the same, but for today, you kind of believed that you'd taken some sort of de-facto leader role, at least for now. CC didn't seem to have much of an interest in such a role, and while Lelouch was around about your intellectual equal, you simply knew more about what was afoot than Lelouch did.

"Right. That's probably our best bet to avoid being seen by anybody." Lelouch agreed with you. "There should be an access point somewhere around here. I saw an abandoned subway station not too far from this building, so that should let us escape with ease." It wouldn't be a glamorous escape, but you didn't care. The less people who saw you, the better. You were sick of having to wear a ridiculous eye-patch in order to hide your natural eye color, so the sooner that you got back to either your workshop or your dorm room to pick up some spares, the better. "But before we escape... I think a quick detour is in order..."

Seeing as Lelouch was the one who saw the building, you decided that it would be best for him to lead the way this time, with you and CC following close behind him. Considering that he was still wearing the uniform of a soldier, your clothes were absolutely tattered, and CC was wearing some sort of unfastened prisoner straight jacket. You were all pretty much guaranteed to draw a great deal of attention from... well pretty much anybody, and right now you all needed to specifically avoid drawing attention. Especially with CC, even though you had an unsteady alliance with Clovis right now, you couldn't be certain that he wouldn't backtrack on his own words.

After a quick detour to a clothing store that had been smashed during the panic and confusion of the now canceled purge, you and Lelouch were both wearing tee-shirts and jeans, while CC had taken to wearing a short summer skirt and a colorful jacket, as well as a tiny hat that was much too small for her head. You didn't even know how she managed to find half of the stuff that she was wearing in a budget clothing store that had already been half-looted, it was something beyond even you, but then again you weren't exactly looking through the women's selection of clothing.

After everyone had changed their clothing, you continued on your way towards the abandoned subway station that had been spotted by Lelouch, and the three of you made quick progress in making your way through the defunct tunnels that once housed the Japanese rail system, now forcibly taken offline by the Britannians in order to implement their own system through the layered constructions that they preferred for their cities. The designs were horribly impractical when it came to the resource cost of building them, but through the advanced technology of the Britannians, it didn't take them nearly as long as it should to build such ridiculously planned parts of their cities.

The journey back was mostly made in silence, nobody really wanted to take the chance of accidentally alerting a stray Britannian soldier that might've made his way down to the tunnels in order to block any attempts to escape. Of course that shouldn't be a problem thanks to the purge being called off, but there was still the chance that Clovis was going to attempt to track down the terrorists in order to capture them... as unlikely as it might be if he made the incorrect assumption that they were working with you and Lelouch.

Finally, the three of you came back to the area that you and Lelouch originally fell into the truck from, the building site had a few hazard cones up thanks to what happened earlier, but there was no police presence around. Not like there was any reason for there to be in the first place anyway, all that was here now was some damaged debris from the actions that the driver of the truck took. You wondered for a moment if the driver survived or if he died as well, and of what became of Suzaku, you were a little too focused on getting everyone else out alive to see whether the wound he took was a fatal one or not. Though it's not really like you had much of a connection to Suzaku Kururugi... well, you didn't have a connection to him at all, though it seemed to have affected Lelouch quite badly at the time.

Finally free of the danger, you looked at CC and Lelouch, before you stretched. You were in good physical condition, but you'd been walking for an awfully long time now, and though CC was apparently completely unfazed by the length of the walk, Lelouch looked like he could use a break... hmm, did CC have an unlimited amount of stamina on account of her immortality? Did she even require sleep at all? Or was it simply a psychological need that she had yet to conquer? If she was truly immortal, then why would she even need to sleep anyway? Did she need to eat? Drink? Or was anything she did merely out of preference? You... you'd probably be better off if you didn't try to comprehend the mechanics behind somebody who's fundamental existence defied the most defined limitation of humanity, you'd just go mad trying to figure it out, especially as you weren't even close to being deranged enough to consider what Clovis had sanctioned. CC's immortality would remain a mystery to you unless she chose to tell you more about it herself, and you had no issue with that. There were much more important things for you to devote your mind to than idiotically pursuing immortality.

With the three of you in the clear, you pulled out your phone and dialed a cab, quickly asking it to come to your location so you wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the academy.

"Really? Are you sure that it's safe for us to rely on something like that?" Lelouch sounded skeptical of you just calling a cab to take you home.

"What are you talking about? The danger has passed, and the rest of the country doesn't even know that all this happened yet! It'll be covered up for weeks if not months on official media... and that's if they decide to reveal they did anything in the first place." You knew how things like this worked with Clovis, total media blackout. His vanity was predictable at this point. He'd suppress all information of riots and rebellions in his country because he thought it made him look bad. He wasn't wrong, he did look bad, but he just looked like an even bigger idiot trying to cover up something like a purge.

"I suppose you're probably right. I'm probably just being overly cautious. You've given me a lot to think about with this talk of a conspiracy, after all." Lelouch sounded like he was uncertain of his next move, of the idea that Britannia wasn't his true enemy, but that he was actually fighting against an organization that had both unclear motives as well as being made up of unknown persons.

"Well, the good news is that I don't think that they're aware of me, at least." Other than Clovis, who you didn't think would reveal that you were alive, nobody in Britannia could possibly have been able to keep tabs on your location, not unless the Ashfords had totally sold you out, anyway.

"You don't think they're aware of you, Bastian? You say that like you think they know where I am." Lelouch sounded perplexed by your phrasing, and you shook your head.

"I'm not the one who had my alias be my actual real name. Nor am I the one with a crippled blind sister called Nunally, Lelouch." You spoke plainly, and Lelouch was clearly stunned by your words, though they were spoken with no condescension.

A long silence passed between the two of you before CC decided to interrupt the silence. "Would you look at that! The taxi has arrived, Lelouch, Bastian shouldn't you flag them?"

"Right." You were glad that CC had given you a means to escape the awkward silence with Lelouch, so you stepped forwards to alert the taxi driver, who came to a stop to allow the three of you to get in. After telling the man where you wanted to go, you got to thinking. You had a lot you needed to do when you got back home, but nothing was more important than...

>Working on your inventions.
>Planning with Lelouch.
>Tracking down Kallen.
>Trying to find out more from CC.
>Finding Milly to tell her about today.
>Other (Write-in...)

>>5037074
>Tracking down Kallen.

>>5037074
>Finding Milly to tell her about today.

>>5037074
>Tracking down Kallen.

>>5037074
>Tracking down Kallen.

>>5037074
>Working on your inventions.

Leave Kallen to Lelouch he had the charisma.

>>5037074
>Working on your inventions.

>>5037074
>Planning with Lelouch.

>>5037074
>Planning with Lelouch.
As much as I want to work on something, I think it would be a good idea to figure out what our brother is gonna do. You know spitting ideas back and forth.

>>5037074
>Planning with Lelouch.

>>5037074
>Planning with Lelouch.

Nothing was more important than planning your next steps with Lelouch. You were partners in crime with your elder brother now, in a way, and knowing what exactly each other were planning to do was a very important step in determining how you should both act going forwards. Sure, talking to CC or finding Kallen were important, but this relationship with Lelouch needed to be built on trust. If there was no trust in the relationship, then how could you possibly hope to get to the bottom of the conspiracy that plagued your homeland? No, you needed to trust Lelouch, and he needed to trust you. Otherwise things would rapidly fall apart the moment the two of you had your first disagreement over how to handle something, which was bound to happen eventually.

After the two of you had returned to the academy, and especially after you'd gotten CC to your workshop and picked up a spare set of contact lenses as well as another set of school clothes, you went to pay Lelouch a visit. You had told the enigmatic immortal girl to stay put in your workshop, because you couldn't afford her being seen by the wrong person and getting captured again, and that you'd return at some point later in the day with some bedding for her to sleep on. She did show some interest in the Knightmare Frame that you were putting together, but you didn't really have time to talk to her about it. Not when you'd chosen to speak about your plans with Lelouch.

A part of you felt as if CC should be included in your plans too, but... you'd be stupid to include somebody with unknown mysterious motives in your planning, at least until you were absolutely certain that she didn't have some sort of ulterior motive. You would be eternally grateful to CC for saving your life and you liked her a great deal because of that, but you couldn't afford your human emotion to get in the way when it came to this. CC was an unknown quantity, you knew that she would likely never work with the Britannians considering what they likely did to her during their experiments, but that didn't mean you would freely trust her. The enemy of my enemy is not always my friend, after all, and only a naive fool would be inclined to believe that was true. For now, until you were more sure about what CC actually wanted, you'd keep your plans to yourself and Lelouch.

You left CC in your workshop, where she was curiously poking at half of the stuff you had made for yourself, you considered giving her a warning about the danger, but decided that you'd just sound silly if you warned somebody who was immortal about the potential dangers of an active workshop. It's not like anything within could possibly do anything to her, not that she apparently wouldn't just shrug off with ease anyway.

You then proceeded to walk all the way to Lelouch's section of the school, a building that was mostly for himself and Nunally that had been prepared for him by the Ashfords, mostly to accommodate Nunally's crippled condition. You still needed to devise a way to get her walking again, it was ridiculous that hydraulic systems were so advanced and powered frames could be made on the scale of Knightmare Frames that nobody had even considered powered braces that were programmed to pick up on firing nerve impulses to allow the crippled to walk again. It wouldn't be easy, but it was worth it to see Nunally happy. Outside of your full-blooded sisters, Nunally was still probably your favorite sibling. Even if you didn't interact with your family all too much during your youth unless you had been forced to do so.

As you opened the door to one of the rooms in Lelouch's wing of the building, you were greeted by the sight of Nunally sitting at the table, and she tilted her head to the side, having heard the noise of you entering. "Ah, hello there Nunally, is Lelouch in?" You asked her with a smile, and Nunally smiled too, though she was unaware that you were smiling at her, she likely must've picked up your gesture from the tone in your voice.

"Mhm, he's just in his room right now, he said that he'd be out after he'd finished changing his clothing, so if you're waiting for him, it shouldn't be long." Oh, that was some good news, it wouldn't hurt to wait then, but Nunally seemed to have something else on her mind. "Bastian... could you... hold my hand for a second?"

"Huh? Why?" Seemed strange to ask something like that, especially of somebody who was basically a stranger... at least to her perspective.

"I want to ask you something, and... I'll feel more confident in your answer if you hold my hand when I ask you." An odd request, but... you didn't mind fulfilling it for Nunally, you were already planning on making a medical miracle happen for the girl, so the least that you could do was oblige her here.

"Alright, fine. I don't mind." You sat next to Nunally and held her hand, and she squeezed your hand softly. "Bastian... are you... my missing brother, Sebastian?" Oh man, did she figure it out herself? Or did Lelouch tell her? What was going on here?

>"Yes, I am, Nunally."
>"Pardon?"
>Something Else...

>>5039345
>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

>>5039345
>>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

>>5039345

>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

>>5039345
>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

>>5039345

>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

>>5039345
>>Something Else...
Kidnap Nunally.

>>5039556
no, bad.

>>5039345
>"Yes, I am, Nunally."
Boop

>>5039345
>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

>>5039556
based

>>5039556
kek

>>5039345
>"Yes, I am, Nunally."

"Yes, I am, Nunally." You answered your younger half-sister truthfully, unable to bring yourself to lie to the girl, nobody could be heartless enough to deny a question like that from their blind sibling. "It's... been a while, hasn't it?"

"I was told that... you were dead." Nunally sounded confused as you held her hand, but you just squeezed her hand a little tighter, trying to comfort her a little so that she wouldn't take the surprise badly, not that you thought there was a chance of that happening, it's just... well, you didn't want to see her sad. You did care for Nunally quite a bit, her being maimed as she was in the assassination of her mother had been a major motivating factor for your uncovering of the Britannian conspiracy, after all.

"Yeah, I... had to hide from everyone. I needed everyone to think that I died, I'm sorry if you were upset by the idea of me dying, Nunally." She wouldn't have actually have been informed of your apparent death by any source other than what was officially revealed on Britannian media, after all, so all that Lelouch and Nunally would've been told is that you had died of some illness or whatever the story was. The Imperial Family couldn't afford to let the rest of the world know that they had somehow managed to lose one of their own princes, and they couldn't keep your disappearance hidden from the world indefinitely, after all.

"Of course I was upset, Seba-" Nunally went to say your real name again, but you interrupted her by speaking.

"Just Bastian, Nunally, nobody else other than Lelouch knows that I'm alive, after all... well, Milly knows too." You do still need to keep your identity under wraps, so as much as you'd like to be able to properly go by your given name when you were dealing with your siblings, it simply wouldn't be a possibility for you. Not unless you wanted to attract attention you could really do without.

"Hmm, I thought that she might..." Damn, as ironic as it sounded, Nunally was extremely observant of the people around her. She was very clearly Lelouch's sister, and though she appeared fragile and innocent, there was clearly a great cunning to the girl. Lelouch might not be aware of it, but Nunally was an incredibly sharp girl. You were completely unprepared to deal with somebody like her!

"Well... just don't let it out who I really am, alright? I'm happy that you recognized me, but... I might be a target for the Britannians... just like you and Lelouch." You needed to make sure that Nunally wasn't going to accidentally get you into danger, though you doubted that she would, she seemed to be far too intelligent for that, even if she did seem to be the idealistic sort of only wished for peace and prosperity, that didn't mean she was an idiot, as you had just found out.

As you held Nunally's hand, Lelouch emerged from his bedroom, acting as if he hadn't been at the site of a deadly purge not even an hour before-hand. "Ah, Bastian. What brings you to me and Nunally's dormitory? Do you have business with us, or did Milly send you here to get to know me and my sister better?"

"It's OK, Lelouch. I know that Bastian is our half-brother... I figured it out. You don't have to keep his secret from me." Lelouch seized up as he heard Nunally say that, and an expression of incredible guilt crossed his features as he looked at his sister with sad eyes.

"I... didn't want to burden you with the knowledge that Sebastian had survived, Nunally... he is... even more of a fugitive to the Britannians than we are right now." Lelouch clearly cared a great deal for his sister, an incredible deal, even. In fact, you didn't expect you'd ever see such an expression of guilt on his face, it was quite surprising that Lelouch felt this bad about the deception.

"He only found out about me himself very recently anyway, I'm sure that he was planning on telling you." You reassured Nunally of Lelouch's honesty when dealing with her. He obviously wasn't the sort of person who enjoyed keeping secrets from Nunally, even if some of them were for her own good.

"We interupt this broadcast to bring you an urgent message from the Viceroy of Area 11, Prince Clovis la Britannia!" The TV suddenly blared out, interrupting the normal news broadcast that had been left running in the background, and you and Lelouch turned to look at the TV screen.

"Good afternoon, my beloved citizens!" Clovis opened up by being about as over the top as usual. "As you may have heard, today, there was a wide-scale terrorist attack by the remnant rebel forces in the capital, and in doing so, caused untold casualties on all sides, not limited to active combatants." Yeah, asshole, that's because you ordered a purge. You crossed your arms, waiting to see where exactly he was going. "However, the terrorist attack was resolved thanks to the efforts of an extraordinary Knightmare Frame pilot!" The camera panned over to a white Knightmare Frame that looked more advanced than anything you'd ever laid eyes on, and you couldn't help but notice Lelouch clenching his fists at the sight. Could he have run into this Knightmare Frame? "Private Kururugi, if you would!" Wait...

"What?!" Lelouch took a step back in surprise as Suzaku appeared on screen, and it caused Nunally to try to look in his direction.

"Thank you, your highness." Suzaku kneeled respectfully to Clovis, and then the prince started to talk again.

"Yes, thanks to Private Kururugi, the terrorist forces were broken up and thrown into disarray!" Clovis seemed to be trying to take some of the credit for himself, as if putting Suzaku in that white Knightmare Frame was somehow his idea. "With the help of the Lancelot, the first Seventh Generation Knightmare Frame, we will finally put an end to the instability of this Area, and be able to enjoy peace and prosperity together! Thank you." The broadcast ended, and Lelouch was shaking in surprise at the revelation of Suzaku's survival.

"Excuse us for a minute, Nunally." You led Lelouch back into his bedroom and closed the door after you, leaving the two of you standing there, silent. "Lelouch... about that broadcast..."

>"I think we should try getting in touch with Suzaku."
>"I think we should try to kidnap Suzaku."
>"I want to steal that Knightmare Frame."
>"You've fought that Knightmare Frame before, haven't you?"
>Something else...

>>5040664
>"I want to steal that Knightmare Frame."
my inner jew is tingling

>>5040664
>"I want to steal that Knightmare Frame."
>"You've fought that Knightmare Frame before, haven't you?"

>>5040664
>>"I think we should try getting in touch with Suzaku."
>>"You've fought that Knightmare Frame before, haven't you?"
I can't believe people want the Lancelot. Just ask Nunally to design a Knightmare frame, it'll be a thousand times better.

>>5040664
>>5040841
+1

>>5040664
>>"I think we should try getting in touch with Suzaku."
>>"You've fought that Knightmare Frame before, haven't you?"

>>5040841
supporting this

>>5040664

Voting for:>>5040841

>>5040664
>>5040841
+1

>>5040841
But shes blind and has no prior experience with Nightframs.

>>5040664
>"I want to steal that Knightmare Frame."
>"You've fought that Knightmare Frame before, haven't you?"

>>5040841
+1
I'd rather make something of our own than crib notes off of Loyd's Jobalot.

>>5040841
+1
Chad

"I think that we should try getting in touch with Suzaku, Lelouch. His survival was... something I didn't expect, but... if he's the current pilot of Britannia's current best Knightmare Frame, then getting him on our side is imperative to success." You won't be able to rely on Clovis' support for all that long, even if he didn't have any intention at all to betray you for his own goals, he almost certainly wouldn't be remaining the Viceroy for very long. In fact, you imagined that he'd be getting replaced the moment that Schneizel managed to find a suitable replacement.

"Yes, I agree... but..." Lelouch trailed off, and you immediately knew the reason behind his hesitation. If Suzaku had resolved the event on the Britannians side and was the reason that Lelouch had decided to go after Clovis directly in order to call off the purge rather than defeating the Britannian forces in a clash of military, then that meant that whatever he came across was something that he had no chance at defeating. Something like the Lancelot, with Suzaku as its pilot...

"You've fought that Knightmare Frame before, haven't you? I don't know what you got up to when I was separated from you, but... it's obvious that you've already got a history with that thing." You crossed your arms as you stared at Lelouch, and he sighed deeply.

"Yes, that's right. Earlier today, that was the Knightmare Frame that single-handedly dismantled the Terrorist Forces even after I got them access to the current generation of Knightmare Frame. As a Knightmare Frame, that Lancelot is unmatched with Suzaku as the pilot... there was nothing that I could've done with the resources I had available that would've let me overcome it.

"A single Knightmare Frame turned the tide of the battle?" It was a preposterous notion... "Has Knightmare Frame technology really come so far?" It was rare for a new development in science allowing for weapons that changed how war was waged nowadays. Of course, it didn't always use to be that way, but gone are the days where a new innovation completely changed how battles were planned... or so you thought.

"Looks like it, hell... I'm not exactly an accomplished pilot myself, but I can tell you from the brief period of time that I found myself staring down Suzaku while I was in an inferior Knightmare Frame... I knew from just how he operated the damn thing that I stood no chance at beating him." The more Lelouch informed you about this Knightmare Frame, the more you wanted to build something to surpass it. You hadn't even seen any footage of it, but... you'd been working with scraps and low quality materials and tools for too long! Now you had access to the best resources that not even money could buy! That is if Clovis kept his word, of course.

You clicked your tongue. If you couldn't get Suzaku on your side and he actually remained a lackey of whatever Britannian would come to take Clovis' place, you'd be in some pretty serious trouble. An elite unit like the Lancelot that could easily seek out and destroy small groups like the terrorists that Lelouch should have the ability to contact. It wasn't even really a matter of skill, even if you didn't doubt that Suzaku was exceptionally skilled to be piloting some experimental new generation of Knightmare Frame, it was simply a matter of being outgunned on all aspects by a far superior frame than what you might have available if you continued to support the terrorists... hell, even if you worked day and night for weeks with the best equipment possible, you might be able to put together what... maybe one thing on the level of that thing? You hadn't seen any of the actual footage of the machine, but you were certain that you could create a Knightmare Frame that was capable of sweeping through lower generations with the utmost ease... given enough resources and time, of course. You'd also really appreciate a team to direct, but... that was unlikely to happen, at least for now.

"What are you thinking, Bastian?"

"There's no doubt about it, we need to contact Suzaku and let him know what's really going on. We need him to know that this... that this isn't just about how he feels about Britannia, but about something that goes far beyond just that." Suzaku had obviously somehow made his peace with the Empire considering that he seemingly willingly joined their army, and then after almost getting murdered by his own commanding officer, happily stood next to the prince that had ordered a purge on his people without a single moment of hesitation... for as talented a Knightmare Frame pilot as he was, it might just be the case that Suzaku was as dumb as a brick in other aspects of life... like critical thinking, and analytical observations, and common sense. How the hell could somebody be dumb enough to continue to side with the side that murdered your countrymen for a vague and ill-defined reason! What the hell was going through Suzaku's head?!

"I don't know either." Lelouch crossed his arms as he looked you in the eye, and you looked at him for a moment and blinked a few times.

"Wha-?"

"It's clear to me that you're wondering what Suzaku is thinking just from that perplexed look on your face, you're wondering how he thinks sticking with the Britannians after everything that happened is a good idea." Lelouch shook his head. "He never really was all that good at seeing the bigger picture, so... convincing him might be a little harder than you think. In fact, he probably thinks that it's possible to change the Britannian Empire from the inside out by joining them and... loyally following whatever orders he is given... to an extent, at least." He'd shown he had some lines he wasn't willing to cross when he refused to kill innocent people, so that was something admirable about him, at least.

"So... there's a chance that he won't believe us if we say that there's something deeper to Britannia than just the Imperial Family?" It sounded unbelievable that he wouldn't accept something like that, considering that would make Suzaku even more dense than Clovis. Then you thought back to earlier today, when you had first met Suzaku... yeah, he was definitely that dense, wasn't he?

"It's... possible. I doubt he's some sort of Pro-Britannia Zealot at this point, but... the fact that he's remained on their side after today instead of defecting with their fancy new Knightmare Frame is enough information to tell me that relying on him to join us is... well, I wouldn't say it's hopeless... but unless we come with actual proof, it's likely that he'll not think we're telling the truth." Damn, so he was one of those types of people then, huh? "He already knows that I hate Britannia, so even if I came to him without disguising my identity, there's a high chance that he'll end up assuming that whatever I say to him is just some sort of ruse to make him denounce the empire." Lelouch then looked at you and shrugged. "Honestly, there's pretty much nobody around who could convince Suzaku, I think... well, except Nunally, but..." It was interesting to note that Lelouch thought that Nunally would have the ability to convince Suzaku when he himself didn't, but the three of them likely shared quite deep bonds from their youths.

"But we're not including Nunally on our plans to disassemble this conspiracy, I had already decided myself." Of course, even if it would be helpful to the two of you, including Nunally in on this would just be madness, you didn't want Nunally to have to worry about anything right now, and the knowledge that she or her siblings are involved in a plot to cause Britannia to come undo would be a crushing blow to her that you just couldn't allow.

"I'm glad that we agree on that one." Lelouch just nodded solemnly before moving on. "So we can't afford to directly try to convince him, it's too risky. Not to mention that we obviously can't... well, kill him." Well, you could, but he was Lelouch's friend, so you wouldn't, even if he did turn out to be some colossal pain in the ass in the future, which he was certain to do. "So that leaves us with a few options. The first is that we kidnap him by figuring a way to dismantle the Lancelot and using the Terrorist Cells of this country to flee with him... the second is that we contact with him and lure him to a specific location so that we can kidnap him... and the third is slowly attempting to make him come to terms with the corruption of Britannia, mostly by sending him messages from unknown numbers that reveal the corruption of Britannia... and when we uncover it, the truth behind the empire." Lelouch gave you three options on how to deal with Suzaku, and out of the three, you preferred...

>Kidnap him during a battle.
>Lure Suzaku somewhere and kidnap him.
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.
>Something else...

>>5043786
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.

Although, the choice of kidnapping him and having Lelouch use his geass on him could work too.

>>5043786
>>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.
Seeing his fighting abilities even just as a normal soldier, it s difficult to capture him. Not to mention there might be people around him that controls that one of the new best pilots, isn t killed.
Some light conversations with him could be ok, for see how difficult it will be.
Our objective is to gain techinical and military informations about this Knightmare, but even everything related to it would be good to know. How it s made, which man design it, who has build it and where, what are the main materials for make it and so on.

>>5044025
*technical

File: lancelotclub.jpg (45 KB, 403x500)

45 KB JPG

>>5043786
>>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.
You know, since we have Rai running around, there's a chance the Lancelot Club exists too.

>>5043786
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.
The safest bet.

>>5043786
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia

>>5043786
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.

>>5043786
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.

>>5043786
>Try to make Suzaku slowly turn on Britannia.
Month long instructional course with pictures and coloring books.

>>5044757
kek

>>5044757
Have crayons and glue ,and we got a deal.
Gotta appeal to his marine instincts.

I-I'm scared

"OK, it's unlikely that directly trying to recruit Suzaku is going to do anything, he's almost certainly pretty damn entrenched in whatever he thinks he's going to accomplish by remaining a part of Britannia. Being shot by your superior officer and surviving is about the best possible reason you could have for deserting... well, not actually as good a reason as the side you're working for carrying out purges on your countrymen... but..." You really struggled with thinking what Suzaku's thought process could possibly be in continuing to serve Britannia even after having been witness to the purge.

"Right, Suzaku must think that he can do more good than harm by working for Britannia, which is a ridiculous prospect, considering just who he's working for, but... I know Suzaku, when he thinks something, he's not going to change his mind unless he's explicitly proven wrong without a doubt." What a troublesome kind of person that Suzaku was, loyal to a dangerous degree... and for what? To fight for a country that loathed him? How stupid was he?! You avoided speaking your true thoughts on Suzaku in front of Lelouch, lest you offend your brother for talking about his friend in such a way. Of course, it was baffling in the first place that Lelouch had even befriended Suzaku in the first place, because as far as you could tell, the two of them had completely opposite personalities. The sort of personalities that should clash horribly, but... for whatever reason, it seems that Lelouch really did think of him as a friend.

"Then that means that our best option is... well, we need to slowly subvert him." It wasn't exactly an idea that you took a lot of enjoyment out of suggesting, but against somebody like Suzaku, the best option really was to subtly manipulate him in a way he didn't notice. If he genuinely thought that he could change Britannia through his own effort by working for Britannia, all you needed to do was prove to him the impossibility of his goal.

"How so?" Lelouch raised an eyebrow, clearly curious as to just what you had in mind when it came to manipulating his friend.

"You're the one who's better at manipulating people, Lelouch." You shrugged. "I'm sure there are plenty of ways we can cause his faith in what he's doing to crumble. For example, we can try anonymously sending him evidence of Britannia's wrongdoings, I'm sure I can find some footage from the purge of the sort of violence that Suzaku is allowing and even tacitly endorsing through working for the Britannians directly."

"That... might be our best bet. If we can make Suzaku believe that working against Britannia is the best way to save as many people as possible, we might have a chance at convincing him of our story. Alternatively, if we can find some actual evidence of this conspiracy of yours beyond just our speculation and anecdotal stories, our chances at persuading him shoot way up too." It's amazing that Lelouch seemed to believe that convincing Suzaku to join your side would be so hard, the two were meant to be good friends, yet... well, Lelouch was the one who knew Suzaku, so if he believed that his friend was both stupid enough and stubborn enough to work against his own interests, you'd need to work under that belief.

"Then it's settled then, I'll hack the Britannian Military Pager Database tonight and I'll use that to get a connection to Suzaku's personal communication device, that way we can send him whatever we feel like whenever we feel like, or get in contact with him in an emergency." It was about the best way you could contact Suzaku reliably without relying on too many favorable variables, even if hacking into the database would take a few hours.

"Wait... you can do that? Isn't that a highly protected military database?" Lelouch sounded rightfully confused by your casual decision to hack Britannia.

"Clovis doesn't exactly give his cybersecurity team much of a budget... but then again, it's not like there are really all that many people willing to actually hack Britannia in the first place when the punishment is on the spot execution... course they need to catch people first." You smirked. "Given enough time, so long as there is a connection, there's nothing I can't break my way into." It was a grand claim, but not untrue either, even if some things would take you incredibly long to manage, at least without MERLIN active... which you should probably focus on sooner rather than later now that you actually had the resources to do so.

"Excellent." Lelouch seemed quite happy about your revelation that you could even hack stuff like the Britannian Military. "Could you also hack into their suspected terrorist database? I imagine that being able to read, modify or delete entries in it will be quite a bargaining chip when dealing with the Terrorists." Lelouch showed himself to be quite a thoughtful manipulator, bringing up something that you had yet to consider yourself.

"Well, I can try, but... no promises, if their internal servers containing that file aren't connected to the internet, it means that I can't access them." It would no doubt be more difficult than simply hacking the pagers, but you had faith in your own abilities.

"If you can, it will be incredibly useful to us." Lelouch looked at the closed door that led back towards Nunally. "Now... I think that about concludes things. Until we're a little more... settled in, there's not much point in continuing to talk about things, I'll swing by your workshop tomorrow when I'm free to talk more."

"Fine by me, now..."

>"Let's go watch TV with Nunally, the news might still be running."
>"I must be going. I need to get started hacking."
>"I'm going to go and see if I can find that girl, Kallen."
>"I'm going to try finding Milly. I think she should know."
>Something else...

>>5047503
>"I'm going to go and see if I can find that girl, Kallen."

>>5047503
>"I'm going to try finding Milly. I think she should know."

>>5047503
>"I must be going. I need to get started hacking."
>Something else...
secure Clovis's loot drop off.

>>5047503
>"Let's go watch TV with Nunally, the news might still be running."

>>5047503
>"I'm going to go and see if I can find that girl, Kallen."

>>5047503
>>"I must be going. I need to get started hacking."


>>5047811
support this too

>>5047503
>"I'm going to try finding Milly. I think she should know."

>>5047503
>>"Let's go watch TV with Nunally, the news might still be running."
Watching TV with Nunally would be the best. We could talk about all the interesting things we see.

Quad Tie, guys.

>>5048763
Then I'll change my vote to this:
>>5047811

>>5047503
>"Let's go watch TV with Nunally, the news might still be running."
Best gal time

>>5047503
>"I'm going to try finding Milly. I think she should know."
Yeah, best girl time

>>5048765
Anon, you should change back to Milly

>>5047503
>>"I'm going to try finding Milly. I think she should know."

>>5049039
>>5048128
>>5047812

>watch tv with our blind sister
>watch
>Nunally
>she not blind

Should I just flip a coin or something?
We're still tied.

>>5049735
Or try to somehow compromise between the two.
Like dragging Milly to watch TV with us and Nunnaly, but missing out on some tv info.

>>5049735
I agree with just compromising. Do something like >>5049812 or have us sit down to watch TV and then we get a message for the drop or something.
Like half the benefits of each instead of full benefit.

>>5049812
i can also agree with this idea. Sounds fun

I still find it strange how in the canon Lelouch opts for path of open confrontation with the regime even though he was in quite a good position to infiltrate it, especially after he got his powers, while Kururugi obdurately pursues the path of a loyal soldier to the point where from a position of exclusive power his mecha yields him he actively helps tighten empire's grasp of the world.

"Alright, let's... go watch TV with Nunally... oh, wait. I'll also see if I can find Milly too." You dropped your voice to a whisper. "It might be a good idea to let her in on what we're planning, the Ashfords would have a pretty big reason to help us uncover the truth considering that Marianne was their major benefactor, remember."

"Right, though I don't want to burden Milly with something like this, I suppose that it's unavoidable. We need a solid power base that we can trust, and the Ashfords have a great deal of unused resources at their disposal, while they won't be able to provide us with a great deal of military strength unless they form a secretive paramilitary somehow. If we can get their factories up and running again, we should have an effectively unlimited supply of Knightmare Frames. Though considering just when they stopped trying to compete with other companies, their Knightmare Frames won't be a match for the current generation..."

"Don't worry, I can design them something to compete with Sutherlands and Gloucester, easily. They won't even need to hire a development team, and it'll also allow us to enter the negotiations with something that will help them start to reclaim their power-base properly." The Ashfords were a fallen noble family, but they still retained an immense amount of property and wealth despite that, even if their factories that were still open mostly geared towards the production of small arms and other military equipment and not Knightmare Frames and other vehicles, it's not like they didn't have the old factories still. While they could've just sold them off to make some money, they never needed to, so they didn't.

"Good idea, having something like that to bring to the table will certainly help in convincing the Ashfords to commit high treason." It wouldn't really take that long to develop a new design for a Knightmare Frame designed to be both cheap to create and superior enough to the currently mass produced models in usage.

"They've already been committing at least three counts of it, by my reckoning. Between you, Nunally and myself, it's public executions all around." You weren't exaggerating, the Ashfords had kept three missing members of the royal family hidden from Britannia for years, and if the Britannians wanted to do so, they could easily make an example out of the entire Ashford family for being complicit in this. "Regardless, Clovis won't be a useful ally for long considering I doubt that he's going to last as the Viceroy now, and the terrorists... well, while they could make for useful manpower, the problem with working with extremists is that they're extremists. They'll do whatever it takes to get what they want, so all Britannia would have to do to ensure their cooperation would be to promise them an independent Japan." Not that it was actually likely to occur unless a dramatic turnabout occurred in their favor, but you couldn't ignore the possibility. What you and Lelouch were after was different to what the terrorists wanted, at the end of the day, even a shared enemy couldn't easily smooth over such ideological differences, after all.

"Well, I'd rather not resort to blackmailing the people who've kept myself and Nunally safe for so long, but... we might not have a choice." Lelouch seemed to be a little hesitant to drag the Ashfords into this, but it was better than keeping Milly uninformed and putting her in danger just by association without letting her know about things. While you didn't plan to ever become known as the ones pulling the strings, even the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.

"Right. You can tell too, can't you? The world is about to turn upside down, and it's better for us to make sure we're at the forefront of whatever is going to happen. After all, it's only a matter of time before the world's three superpowers find a reason to properly wage full-scale war with one another." Of course, what with Geass being involved, there was a chance that the war to end all wars could actually be the least of your concerns. CC was at the center of all of this, that much was certain... but whether or not she'd actually open up about what was being planned by whoever was truly pulling the strings remained to be seen.

"Mhm." Lelouch opened the door and stepped back into the living room, sitting down near Nunally as she listened to the TV, the news was just playing the weather right now, so you doubted that you'd miss much if you went to get Milly now.

"I'm just gonna go see if Milly wants to come and watch with us, Lelouch and I... we need to apologize for missing out on the Student Council meeting today." It was a good excuse as to why you'd go looking for her, you thought. Partially truthful too.

"Mmm, I was wondering why you two weren't at the meeting." Nunally looked in your direction, she was intelligent, but there was no way that she'd have been able to figure out what actually happened at the Shinjuku Ghetto today, not with the level of information suppression that the Britannians had likely undergone to prevent widespread rebellion, that was probably the only reason that Clovis hadn't immediately been forced to step down... but he was still almost certainly going to lose his position, the amount of bad will that his actions had caused among the people he is supposed to be pacifying today would provide an immense amount of fuel for the terrorists. Sometimes it was hard to believe that you and Clovis were related at all, but you supposed that at least some of your siblings had to inherit your father's arrogance without inheriting any of his intelligence, wit or ruthlessness. Clovis' actions today weren't even ruthless, he was just blindly thrashing about in an attempt to cover his tracks.

"We got separated from Rivalz, but... I'll let Lelouch tell you about it. I need to go find Milly." Lelouch could almost certainly come up with a more convincing thing to tell Nunally about your absence than you could, for as bright as you were, you still had trouble when it came to being put on the spot like that.

"OK then, Bastian! Come back soon, OK?" Nunally smiled at you and you smiled back at your younger half sister, even if she couldn't see it. She really was an innocent girl that deserved none of what had been done to her, it only made you want to set things right more... but you already found yourself with a great deal on your plate. Constructing an ace Knightmare Frame, designing a new mass production model to out-compete the Sutherland, finishing your personal projects and finalizing your inventions, getting MERLIN up and running... the list went on.

You left your two half-siblings watching the news broadcast as you started looking for Milly, you briefly considered wandering around blindly until you found her until you realized that was stupid, so you just dialed her instead, thank goodness for the existence of mobile phones.

"Hello? Is that you, Bastian?" Milly sounded slightly annoyed as she picked up the phone, probably because of you and Lelouch's truancy.

"That's right, Milly. Would you mind coming to Lelouch's room? I need to talk to you about a few things... it's... about..." You sighed into the receiver. "Vi and Li." In the end, you decided to use both Lelouch's nobiliary particle as well as your own.

"...understood." Immediately, Milly knew that things were serious, so she promptly decided to forget about the fact that you and Lelouch were shirking your duties as students and as members of the council. It's not like you really had a choice in the matter anyway. "I'll be right there, I'm only a few minutes away anyway."

"Alright, then..."

>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."
>"I'll meet you in Lelouch's room. See you."
>Something else...

>>5050890
>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."

>>5050890
>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."

>>5050890
>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."

>>5050890
>>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."

>>5050890
>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."

>>5050890
>"I'll meet you half way. I want to talk in private while we walk back."

"I'll meet you half way, Milly. I want to talk in private for a moment before we get to Lelouch." You want to get a few things clear with Milly, and this section of Ashford Academy had very little in the way of surveillance cameras within it, not to mention that it was effectively off limits to the majority of the people in the Academy, and there wasn't much of a reason for most of the teachers to show up in this part of the Academy, even if they weren't explicitly restricted from accessing it, so... it should be relatively safe to discuss things with Milly without potentially being overheard by anybody.

"Alright, I'll see you in just a second, Bastian." You hung up the call after that, there wasn't much point in keeping the phonecall going or saying goodbye when you were realistically only a few minutes walk away from each other.

You thought about things as you walked down the hallway towards the entrance to the building, you didn't know where she currently was, but it made sense that she'd come in from the main entrance of the building... though that did ignore the possibility that she was already in the building, but if she was, she would've said that instead of mentioning that she was only a few minutes away from you.

Soon after reaching the main entrance and exit of the building, you saw Milly strolling down the path outside towards you. Looks like she really wasn't that far away after all, she was probably doing some sort of student council work, the council room is about that far away from here anyway.

Milly quickly entered the room, just a little bit out of breath. She'd either ran here or walked quick enough that it managed to wind her just a little. You were glad that she hurried, even if there wasn't really that much of a reason for her to do so, it's not like it was crucial that she hurried... well, you supposed that time was of the essence, so maybe it was good that she didn't waste any time getting to you after all.

"Good afternoon Milly, please follow me." You quickly greeted your 'cousin' and walked away from the entrance and deeper into the building, already heading back to Lelouch and Nunally. "As you might've already figured out... Lelouch figured me out." Well, he probably never would have if you didn't interact with each other, but... you couldn't help yourself.

"I... gathered that much. But... why call me over? He's not angry, is he?" You frowned as you heard that, and measured your response carefully.

>"Milly... Lelouch and I are plotting something, and we need the full support of the Ashfords."
>"He's not angry... I think. But we've decided that it's time to act."
>"You'll have to ask him, as for myself, I want to ask whether or not the Ashfords want to start making Knightmare Frames again."
>"Milly... I'm going to show you something unbelievable, and then I'm going to need you to trust me on what I say... it's about this power called Geass."
>Something Else...

>>5053398
>"He's not angry... I think. But we've decided that it's time to act."
>"Milly... I'm going to show you something unbelievable, and then I'm going to need you to trust me on what I say... it's about this power called Geass."
>"Milly... Lelouch and I are plotting something, and we need the full support of the Ashfords."

>>5053398
>"He's not angry... I think. But we've decided that it's time to act."
>"You'll have to ask him, as for myself, I want to ask whether or not the Ashfords want to start making Knightmare Frames again."

>>5053398
>>"He's not angry... I think. But we've decided that it's time to act."
>>"You'll have to ask him, as for myself, I want to ask whether or not the Ashfords want to start making Knightmare Frames again."

>>5053398
>"He's not angry... I think. But we've decided that it's time to act."
>"You'll have to ask him, as for myself, I want to ask whether or not the Ashfords want to start making Knightmare Frames again."

>>5053398
>"He's not angry... I think. But we've decided that it's time to act."
>"You'll have to ask him, as for myself, I want to ask whether or not the Ashfords want to start making Knightmare Frames again."

"Lelouch... well, he's not angry... I think, but you'll have to ask him that yourself. However, I called you tell you that Lelouch and I have... well, we've decided that it's time for the two of us to act."

"To... act?" Milly repeated after you, and you knew that you'd need to clarify.

"That's right, Milly. I wanted to ask you whether or not the Ashfords want to go back into the production of Knightmare Frames. I know that your family still has the factories to do such a thing, and all it would take is one decent design to get your family's status as the premier Knightmare Frame production group back." The Ashfords had a pretty fantastic reputation for the part they played in the early era of Knightmare Frames, even now.

"Well... I can't speak for my parents... or my grandfather, but... what did you have in mind?" Milly didn't have that much control over the Ashford Family of course, but her reaction to this will give you a good idea what to expect from them.

"Lelouch and I intend to run a shadow war against the Britannians, of a sort." The Britannian Imperial Family weren't the real enemy, but they were the unwitting puppets of the real enemy... but the good part about unwitting puppets is that they can be used to attack the puppeteers.

"So... like terrorism?" Milly frowned deeply when she realized just what you were talking about, it was a somewhat disapproving frown, though you knew that you'd need to convince her.

"In a sense, I suppose. But we're not doing it to spread terror, not at all." That was the absolute truth, to spread terror was the opposite of your goal. You and Lelouch in truth wanted to make the world aware of just what the Britannians were planning. Even if you didn't know too much about it yourselves, the existence of Geass was too powerful to not be deeply involved with the Britannian's current plans, but as to what the Britannians were actually planning to do with it, you couldn't say. "Lelouch, Nunally and myself... all three of us have been put in great danger due to the actions of those who operate in the shadows of the Britannian Regime. Lelouch lost his mother to their machinations, and I almost lost my life."

"So... you're saying that you want to fight this shadow organization by..."

"Fighting from the shadows, yes. But... this organization is incredibly well supplied, and I have no doubt that whatever they have in reserve is something that will make the Lancelot look like a child's toy in comparison." The Lancelot might've been dangerous, but there was a terrifying possibility of a Knightmare Frame that utilized Geass as a weapon, and considering just how powerful Geass was, something like a Knightmare Frame Pilot who could knock the enemy pilot unconscious from a distance of hundreds of meters would be nigh-impossible to deal with.

"So... what do you think you'll be able to do if you have the Ashfords start producing again?"

>"I want you to sell them to the Britannians, for I intend to upload a subroutine that can be activated on command to all the Knightmare Frames that will shut them down on my command."
>"I want them to be supplied to the Britannians, I'm going to leave a hidden receiver in the design that is programmed to receive commands from a certain source."
>"I want you to sell them, but also to keep a good deal of them in reserve. Eventually, a break-in will occur, and a good deal will go missing."
>"I want the Ashfords to start their own Paramilitary Company."
>Something else...

>>5054729
>"I want the Ashfords to start their own Paramilitary Company."

Embedding software or hardware to control them remotely will be useless after we use it once or twice.

>>5054729
>"I want you to sell them, but also to keep a good deal of them in reserve. Eventually, a break-in will occur, and a good deal will go missing."
>"I want the Ashfords to start their own Paramilitary Company."

>>5054729
>>"I want you to sell them, but also to keep a good deal of them in reserve. Eventually, a break-in will occur, and a good deal will go missing."
>>"I want the Ashfords to start their own Paramilitary Company."

How about modular civilian frames that can be used in construction, hazardous environments or for rescue and recovery operations?

Military modifications can be prepared in clandestine manner, but a stock of frames could be a significant boon.

>>5054858
+support

>>5054990
The idea in >>5054973 about civilian frames is great , It would be cool to add backdoors to these machines and use them as access points to local networks, remote control them and use them as spy cameras(equip them with a bunch of useful sensors that can pass as apropriate for civilian frames). As they are sold to more people around cities and the countyside, these will help establish control over the region.
This is added to my previous vote.

>>5055034
However, including back doors by design puts Ashfords at horrible risk. There could be justifiable amount of telemetry, though, ostensibly for maintenance and theft prevention. But they must be subtle enough to not cast suspicions that the manufacturer is in fact in league with the insurgents.

>>5054973
I like this, a line concurrent to the millitary line maybe?
If so then voting

>Civilian Modular Model
>"I want the Ashfords to start their own Paramilitary Company."

This should also make sense for disgraced nobles to try to get back into higher echelons.

>>5054729
>Civilian Modular Model
>"I want the Ashfords to start their own Paramilitary Company."

>>5054973
+1

"What I think you ought to do... is create a Modular Model of Knightmare Frame for civilian usage. That way, the Ashfords could stand to earn a great deal of money from selling them to all sorts of companies and groups, in addition to having a good base system to use as a weapons platform... should it be needed." A purely modular Knightmare Frame likely wouldn't be able to compete against a military Knightmare Frame that was designed with a single purpose even if it was repurposed as a military unit, but at the same time, Knightmare Frames are currently treated as an expensive unit that is difficult to field in large numbers. With that in mind, working on a design that is a fraction of the cost to produce and upkeep, it would be possible to simply overwhelm a specially created squadron of Military Grade Knightmare Frames by crushing them with superior numbers.

"Civilian Grade Knightmare Frames...? But... isn't training to use a Knightmare Frame expensive? How are you going to convince people to buy into using them for civilian purposes?"

"I'll see if I can't write a dumb AI for them that makes it so that they can be used with ease by just about anybody. You don't need training if most of the operating difficulty is taking care of by programs and subroutines, right?" It wouldn't be impossible to make a user-friendly Knightmare Frame, and if one was cheap enough and advertised as the next advancement in labor that can't be entirely automated, it would surely be incredibly popular. Not to mention the amount of people who would end up buying them simply for the sake of using them as a weapon, it wouldn't be difficult to repurpose a modular model as a weapon like that, even for people without a great deal of resources. If you weren't stopped, you'd be able to slowly build up the power of the people of the country without the Britannians ever being any the wiser. Giving thousands upon thousands of civilians weapons platforms that could easily wield and fire weapons on the level of the Britannian Military was an excellent way to build up power among the people of Japan. It was an excellent idea!

"Well... if you can make a proof-of-concept, I'll be happy to bring the idea up to my parents." Milly smiled, looks like she didn't know what to think of the idea herself, but the fact that she was considering the idea in the first place means that at least she thought there was potential in it. "Now... what was it you were saying about what you and Lelouch were planning to do?" You were outside Lelouch's room again now, so you just knocked in order to get him away from Nunally. She didn't need to overhear your treasonous plots about dismantling Britannia's current regime... well that wasn't the right terminology, you didn't really care too much about the Imperial Family personally, but your enemy was the one manipulating them, Charles was without a doubt involved, but... you couldn't help but feel as if there was somebody else involved too. You wondered if Schneizel had ever been made aware of it, or if he was just another unwitting pawn as well.

It only took a few seconds for Lelouch to come to the door and leave his room, joining you and Milly in the hallway of the building, he was clearly fairly nervous about all of this, though you shared similar feelings. You believed that you could trust Milly, but if you were overheard by pretty much anybody, you'd be in deep trouble. "Hey, Lelouch. We need to talk about this in private, I think." You really hoped that your judgment of the girl wasn't wrong. You didn't think Milly would betray either of you, but at the same time, you were practically asking her to endorse terrorism, even if you had explained it as something else... it was still essentially terrorism, just not the official definition of it.

"Bastian, Milly. Shall we talk about this in the room opposite? It's a spare room that nobody should ever visit except the staff... who come about once a month to keep it in good condition." Lelouch offered an alternative to talking in the middle of the hallway where just about anybody could end up overhearing you if you were unlucky, you'd really been taking a big enough risk by speaking with Milly about the theoretical construction of a new Knightmare Frame already.

"Good idea, we don't want anybody else overhearing this. Come on, Milly." You quickly hurried into the spare room, it wasn't locked, and everyone was soon standing around a table, Milly had her arms crossed, and Lelouch was looking at her with a frown on his face.

"So, what are you up to? Bastian's been asking me if I can get the Ashfords to start producing Knightmare Frames again too! Just... what are you two planning?" She looked at you and Lelouch with a serious expression.

>Let Lelouch handle the talking.
>"We're building up our power-base to expose the people manipulating Britannia from the shadows."
>"We've decided to work together in order to find the truth about Marianne... but we're going to need power."
>"We're planning to find out what the world has had hidden from them for who knows how long... we're planning on finding out just what Geass is."
>Something else...

>>5057262
>Let Lelouch handle the talking.

>>5057262

>Let Lelouch handle the talking.

>>5057262
>Let Lelouch handle the talking.

>>5057262
>>Let Lelouch handle the talking.

>>5057262
>>Let Lelouch handle the talking.

>>5057262
>Let Lelouch handle the talking.

You keep quiet, it's probably better for Lelouch to handle this one, you both knew Milly quite well, but if you were going to be honest, Lelouch was far better at manipulating other people than you were. Not to mention that the idea of manipulating Milly left something of a foul taste in your mouth, even if it was less manipulating her and more getting her to agree to something that would definitely end up being mutually beneficial for all parties involved. If the Ashfords can return to power, then you and Lelouch would be in a far greater position. They still had a fairly enormous fortune, even if it wasn't even close to what they once had in their prime.

"You see, Milly... earlier today, Bastian and I... we got caught up in... a pretty big mess, courtesy of Clovis and his incompetence." Lelouch was clearly having more difficulty than you first imagined he'd have when talking, though you supposed that his lengthy relationship with Milly as his benefactor made it more difficult for him too.

"What... are you talking about, Lelouch? Does this have something to do with those headlines about the terrorist attack?" Ah, so it looks like Milly already had the official story that the media had released already... that would make this marginally less difficult, you thought.

Lelouch shook his head. "It... wasn't exactly what you'd call a terrorist attack, not unless you wish to brand the state with the label of 'Terrorist', anyway. No, what Bastian and I got caught up and almost killed in... was a state-sanctioned purge of innocent citizens. Thousands... if not tens of thousands of people were killed for the crime of being in the vicinity of one of Clovis' embarrassing displays of extreme incompetence." Lelouch slammed a hand on a table as he looked Milly straight in the eyes.

"That's... awful!" Milly seemed to stop, deep in thought and with a slight hope in her eyes as she started to speak, her voice unsteady. "You're... you're not just making all this up as a joke on me for keeping the two of you unaware of each other, right?!"

"No. Lelouch is telling you the absolute truth. You should already know that the Britannian government does shady stuff, right?" You got involved now, it wasn't nice to see Milly desperately trying to cling to the idea that Britannia might not be as bad as she thought... of course, the burden of this sin lied squarely on Clovis, idiot that he was. He'd certainly be punished for his failures, of that you had no doubt... but at the same time you were glad that neither you nor Lelouch had taken matters into your own hands when it came to doling out such a punishment. Regardless of everything else, Clovis' hatred of Japan stemmed from a belief that he blamed them for the deaths of two of his siblings, so in a way, he thought his ridiculously vengeful actions were honoring the memory of Nunally and Lelouch. What a dumbass.

"I... of course, but... to organize something like that? What are they going to do if word gets out of what happened?" Milly was of course thinking of joining the media herself, so hearing that the media account was so off the mark would obviously shake her more than it would the average person.

"It's not a matter of if. Word will get out, and... I imagine that what is going to happen is that the terrorists will get to go on a recruitment drive from disgruntled Japanese citizens." Lelouch showed no hesitation in calling the Japanese citizens by their actual nationality rather than the the title that had been forced upon them by the Britannian occupation. "The media of course can't be trusted not to tow the official Britannian line whenever they are required. In a world like this, truth is a premium that not many are allowed to deal with." He crossed his arms now and looked Milly in the eyes. "I know you're planning on going into the media, Milly, but... do you know how many independent journalists and researchers have ended up dying under strange circumstances when they start looking into things that they shouldn't?"

"Uh... what?" Milly sounded confused, but Lelouch was more than happy to continue.

"Of course you haven't, it's illegal to even look up the information. Though from what I gather, the number is somewhere between a hundred to two hundred in the past three years." How did Lelouch know this anyway? It's not the sort of information that you'd think to go looking for by yourself, but for Lelouch... wait, he must've looked up this information in the past just in case he ever found himself in a situation in which he needed to persuade Milly against Britannia! Devilish and ingenious... as expected of Lelouch vi Britannia, maintaining a perfect method to convince somebody like this.

"That's... that's dreadful..." Milly slumped into her chair as she looked up at the ceiling of the room, clearly whatever faith she might've had in Britannia that was remaining had been crushed now. "How could they do something like this?" She asked Lelouch an honest question, and your elder brother just shrugged and the corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly, almost a smirk... you don't think that Milly could've picked up on something so subtle, but you always had a knack for observation.

"It's just the reality of building and maintaining an empire such as Britannia, to keep secrets, to obscure the truth, to lie to the public." Lelouch clenched his fist. "For my whole life, the truth behind my mother's death has been kept from me... not because they don't know who killed my mother... but because the truth being known to anybody could potentially be damaging to Britannia, even her own children were never told the truth behind her death... and I know that they know who killed her. Why else would they have tried so hard to destroy all the footage of it otherwise?" Lelouch was right on the money there, if there was nothing suspicious about Marianne's death, why would they go to such efforts?

"I... understand."

"So will you help Bastian and I to destroy the current world order, and topple the corruption that runs our world?" He held out a hand for Milly to take, and the girl only hesitated for a moment before she reached up and took his hand.

"Alright. You've convinced me, I know when you're lying Lelouch, I've spent enough time around you to know that much... and none of that was a lie." She shook her head sadly, before looking at you and Lelouch with newfound determination in her eyes. "I don't think that... Britannia can last in its current state, if nothing is done... the terrorism is going to get worse, and the countermeasures are only... just going to get more brutal. I don't want to see that happening, to anybody." Milly was showing a great deal of care for others, the same care that she usually hid behind an overbearing attitude was on full display now. "But... what are we going to do first?"

Lelouch looked at you, it was still mostly your plan that the two of you were working off right now.

>"First off, we're going to tell you about this power called... 'Geass'."
>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design."
>"We're going to go and find a girl called Kallen Stadtfeld, you might be aware of her. She's a terrorist."
>"It's time for you to be introduced to CC. She's immortal."
>Something else...

>>5059424
>"We're going to go and find a girl called Kallen Stadtfeld, you might be aware of her. She's a terrorist."
After this, it would be ideal to start up the draft idea. Wouldn't want to get mogged up in work before we get the chance to talk to the lass.

>>5059424
>>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design.

It s better if we talk with her in another location, it might cause a panic with Kallen

>>5059424
>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design."

>>5059424
>"It's time for you to be introduced to CC. She's immortal."
>"She was what Clovis called the purge for."

Introducing her to best girl first makes sense IMO, have all of our inner circle know eachother. Also we can discuss shop about Knightmares in our workshop better.

>>5059424
>"It's time for you to be introduced to CC. She's immortal."

>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design."

We've been making all these promises. Time to start in some of them.

Also no need to talk about Grass when we have no way of keeping Milky safe and unaffected by Geas users. Same with the info on CC. She's a potential security leak.

>>5059424
>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design."

>>5059424
>"It's time for you to be introduced to CC. She's immortal."
We can trust Milly

>>5059424
>>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design."

>>5059424
>"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first. Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design."
>"We're going to go and find a girl called Kallen Stadtfeld, you might be aware of her. She's a terrorist."

"We're going to try to start up Knightmare Frame production first, Milly, can you organize a meeting? I'll draft up a design in my workshop... it shouldn't take me more than a few hours to get some basic design blueprints down, especially seeing as it doesn't have to be something truly state of the art, I'll be able to reuse standard design patterns for the majority of the..." You were starting to trail off into the design principles of the new Knightmare Frame you were going to be creating.

"Bastian, don't get carried away now. Milly, can you organize a meeting for later on today? If Bastian thinks he can manage it that quickly, of course." Lelouch stopped you from going too deeply into talking too much about something that nobody else in the room would even really understand... well, Lelouch would probably get it a little bit, even if the technological side of warfare wasn't what he specialized in.

"I can, obviously." You nod at Lelouch, not appreciating him doubting your abilities for a single moment, he might not really understand just what sort of workload you could get done if you were properly motivated, but something like a design this simple would be complete child's play.

"I can... of course, my parents and grandfather will be... a little more difficult to persuade, but I'm sure that they'll hear whatever the two of you have to say. Even if... I don't know if you should trust them entirely, they... I don't think they'll see things about Britannia in the same way as the three of us do. They aren't... bad people, but..." Milly trailed off, as if she was ashamed about what she was saying about her own family.

"Don't worry about it too much, the Britannian propaganda that they've been exposed to their entire lives is... hard to break, I'm sure. But you and your entire family already have good reason to turn on Britannia, do you not?" You reassured Milly. "After all, after the death of Lady Marianne, you were left with no allies and your status as a family crumbled. The Ashfords can attribute their downfall to the shadows running Britannia, because of this."

"But... convincing them that these shadows exist... if it weren't the two of you telling me this, I don't think I'd ever be able to believe such a conspiracy." It said a lot about how much Milly trusted both you and Lelouch that she so easily believed in your information about the puppeteers hiding away from the public eye.

"That's a fair point." Lelouch shrugged. "But... I must be getting back to Nunally, I wouldn't want her getting suspicious about my absence, after all." Lelouch made his excuses, and you nodded.

"Right, I need to get to work on the design anyway. Milly, swing by my workshop in a few hours, and I'll show you what I've got ready." You smiled at the girl who was still technically posing as your cousin as you left the room, and immediately got to thinking about just what sort of a design you wanted to create for the basic modular Knightmare Frame...

>You have 10 Tech Points to spend.
>Basic Frame has Steel Plate armor, is slow and has low mobility as well as low weight capacity.

>>Reinforced Frame (3 Tech Points)
>A hardened frame for the Modular Knightmare frame that incorporates titanium and tungsten in the armor composition, increasing both durability and weight capacity.
>>Enhanced Motors (2 Tech Points)
>Overclocked motors for the Knightmare Frame increase the mobility and movement speed of the Knightmare Frame.
>>Heavy Armor (3 Tech Points)
>Additional Armor Plates for increased resistance to attack, granting resistance equivelant to a lower-grade Military Model
>>Enhanced Sensors (2 Tech Points)
>Superior sensory devices that allow for the scanning and analysis of an area, uses a sonar pulse in addition to advanced onboard computers to create a 3D image of the battlefield and opponents.
>>No Landspinners (1 Tech Points)
>Removal of Landspinners from a Knightmare Frame and instead only using the natural mobility brought about through being built on having proper functioning legs.
>>Onboard Computer Systems (3 Tech Points)
>Advanced computer systems and auto-pilot that allow just about anybody to pilot the Knightmare Frame, turning most functions of the machine into simple button presses.
>>Mining Module (2 Tech Points)
>Modular equipment that can be equipped to the Knightmare Frame to allow for mining, including a reinforced cockpit as well as a mining drill.
>>Hauling Module (2 Tech Points)
>Modular equipment that can be equipped to the Knightmare Frame to allow for hauling work, includes an additional set of modular arms that are designed for lifting power.
>>Firefighting Module(2 Tech Points)
>Modular equipment that can be equipped to the Knightmare Frame to allow for firefighting and rescue, includes a flameproof design as well as a large supply of firefighting foam.
>>Security Module (4 Tech Points)
>Modular equipment that can be equipped to the Knightmare Frame to allow for light combat work for security, includes a military grade Knightmare Frame rifle as well as crowd control attachments.
>>Mystery Box (5 Tech Points)
>It's a Mystery.
>Other (Ask QM)

>>5061950
>>Enhanced Motors (2 Tech Points)
>Overclocked motors for the Knightmare Frame increase the mobility and movement speed of the Knightmare Frame.
>>Onboard Computer Systems (3 Tech Points)
>Advanced computer systems and auto-pilot that allow just about anybody to pilot the Knightmare Frame, turning most functions of the machine into simple button presses.
>>Mystery Box (5 Tech Points)
>It's a Mystery.
Mystery box!

>>5061950
For the introductory civilian model I'd go with
>Reinforced Frame (3 points, 7 left)
to allow for workhorse functionality
>Onboard computer systems (3 points, 4 left)
to allow ease of use and justify telemetry gathering
>Enhanced sensors (2 points, 2 left)
To provide improved performance for the suit's designated function as well as more refined telemetry

The final 2 points would be reserved for the customer's choice of role (hauling, mining, firefighting)

I don't know what to think about mystery box. It's tempting, because mystery box, but I fear of opening mystery box for the commercial baseline...