The visual display was showing chaos erupting outside as his mecha continued travelling along his assigned route. Explosions, gunfire from Knightmare Frames and debris everywhere. "I'm not seeing any survivors along J route," muttered Rai to himself as he continued on. Setsuna continued to observe as a 'ghost', seeing how well Rai controlled his Frame even with the strange cockpit setup.
A sudden burst of gunfire from above interrupted his thoughts and forced him to take evasive maneuvers and fly closer to the ground. 'His reaction time is quite fast,' noted the Meister.
"Although there are plenty of Britannian enemy forces around... let's see what we got here." A few clicks later and his visual monitors were showing a small group of three Britannian units, each with distinct red shoulder armour which stood out from the rest of the purple and black build. One was armed with a lance while the other two had long ranged weapons consisting of assault rifles. "Sutherlands, belonging to the Purist Faction no doubt. And all equipped with float packs too? Geez..."
Without wasting a moment, Rai began his attack by firing a few rounds with the handgun, causing his enemies to scatter in three separate directions. The one with the lance fired a pair of miniature harpoons from its chest, hoping to immobilize the other Knightmare Frame but Rai immediately had his unit draw its sword with its right arm and cut the harpoons as they approached him. "Die, you filthy Eleven!" screamed one of the pilots as his Sutherland fired several rounds from the assault rifle.
"Man, I don't have time for this!" He flew back to dodge the gunfire from both machines that carried rifles before seeing the one with the lance charge at him. With the proper shift of his frame, he easily dodged the lance and thrust the left hand of his unit directly in the face of the Sutherland. "Game over for you." One flick of the switch later and the left arm immediately started emitting powerful microwaves, which caused some serious damage to the Sutherland and forced the cockpit to fly off as the ejection system kicked in to save the pilot seconds before the unit was destroyed.
"James!!" One of the Sutherlands broke off to catch the cockpit while the other laid down cover fire. It wasn't long until they decided to retreat.
Rai let out a small sigh of relief before putting his weapons away and resuming his course. As for Setsuna, he was quite intrigued at that weapon that Rai had used earlier with the unit's left arm as well as impressed at how he handled himself against the enemies that tried to ambush him. 'That attack he used back there... is a Burning Finger?'
"So the swimming club will be doing a hot swim club cafe?" asked Milly while she reviewed the various club material request lists for the upcoming festival.
"That's right, Madam President! I managed to get Ms. Viletta to participate too. She would be able to appeal to the students who prefer the mature women. That reminds me..." Shirley bent down to rummage around in her bag and took out the wine bottle. "Lulu?"
"Hm?" Lelouch was puzzled the minute she placed the bottle in front of him. "Is that your present for Ms. Viletta? Shouldn't you be the one presenting it to her?"
The orange haired girl smiled sheepishly. "I'm probably going to be too busy serving at the cafe so can you give it to her when you have a chance at the festival?"
"Sure." He placed the wine bottle into his own bag before resuming his work.
"Rivalz, you'll be doing commentary for our main event."
A "Yes, madam!" was heard from Rivalz followed by a clumsy military salute.
The blonde finished stamping an approval on another form and put it aside. "As for you, Rolo... you'll probably want to work under your brother, correct?"
"Er... yes..."
A crafty smile appeared on Milly's face. "Hm... I think I have just the task for the two of you..."
As Rai reached the end of his route, he spotted several other Knightmare Frames ahead that resembled his own directing Japanese civilians into larger trailers to be driven away to safety. One of them was a distinct red colour while the others sported a light blue-green look, all equipped with similar float packs. "Kallen! Guys!! Is everyone okay?!" shouted Rai over the radio.
"We're fine, sir! We're just getting this last vehicle out of the danger zone and then we're falling back as Zero ordered!" replied one of the squad pilots.
"Good! Kallen, let's provide cover for them. We're using the defensive positions based on Plan Theta." He took position but noticed the red mecha had not moved at all. "Kallen?"
"It all happened so fast...... everything we built, destroyed in the blink of an eye..." Her voice sounded so haunted and weary. "I...... I wanted to believe..."
Rai took a heavy breath before responding. "Zero wanted to believe it too but I'm sure you're aware of the painfulness of today's reality in that this type of project would never have survived in the long run. The Britannians would see it as something that goes against the Social Darwinism doctrine that built their empire. And really, how many Japanese would accept living in a puppet state?" He paused to let that settle in. "Honestly, the whole thing was one dangerous powder keg waiting for someone to set it off."
"It must have been those damn Britannians!!" growled Kallen before she moved her unit into defensive position while their other comrades begun departing the area with the last trailer. "Zero wanted to see this through and everyone in the Black Knights chose to follow him and work with the SAZ even though they were divided on this concept! Nobody from our side would have tried sabotaging the area!"
"Well-" A beep on his console alerted him to incoming enemy units approaching them. "We better get outta here now! I don't know about you but I'm not feeling lucky enough to take on a full Knightmare Frame squadron of the Viceroy's forces by myself!"
"She didn't waste any time, did she?"
"Of course not. As far as Cornelia's concerned, we're the ones who destroyed her sister's life project." The two of them didn't linger around much longer and fled the scene to rejoin their comrades.
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(Posted Mon, 11 Jan 2010 04:35)
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