The door to the darkened store house slowly creaked open and a small source of light, coming from a flashlight, swept through the interior. "Rolo, remind me to tell Milly that she needs to either get on the electrician's case to fix the overhead lights for the store house or hire a new one. This is extremely annoying navigating this large storage area with just flashlights."
Switching on his own flashlight, Rolo entered the room with his brother and started checking the various stacked boxes in the room to try and find what the Student Council President had sent them to recover. "Given all her eccentric excesses, she might simply classify this as an 'low priority' task or something along those lines."
Lelouch allowed himself to chuckle softly. "Too true. Milly really loves her little events so much that she often ends up drawing funds that were clearly set aside for other matters. It's no wonder she left the store house in this condition."
The younger boy looked up and aimed his flashlight towards the nonfunctional lights. "It can’t be that much to repair them."
"There's another reason why she doesn't fix them," replied Lelouch with that all-knowing smirk on his face. "Keeping the store house this way makes this a popular campus make out spot and she gets requests under the table all the time to leave this as is."
Rolo couldn't help but sigh in irritation. "Some responsible Student Council President she is. But I’m surprised she would agree to keep the lights dim for something she can’t benefit from."
"That’s Milly for you. On the surface, she can be quite invasive but she is also a very good-hearted person at her core." Lelouch then muttered something else under his breath. "Although, I'm sure she’s gotten her kicks out of this situation."
"Hm?"
"Oh, nothing."
Rolo was a bit suspicious about what the other boy said but decided to let it go for now. "Big Brother, what are we going to do about Suzaku? If either one of us slips up, it will be game over. Should I just kill him so he’s out of the way?"
Stopping in mid-step, Lelouch turned to Rolo with a disapproving look. "Killing Suzaku will only cause more suspicion. And you shouldn’t consider killing as the only means of a viable solution, Rolo."
"But-"
"But nothing, Rolo. You can’t properly disguise yourself as a student if you keep falling back to old habits to settle every problem," explained the older youth as he placed a hand on his younger brother's shoulder. "For one thing, Suzaku is now one of the Knights of the Round. If something should happen to him here, his death will be thoroughly investigated and the first place that will be examined inside and out is this school where not only am I under surveillance and listed as a sleeper threat but you must also consider those who know my true identity. I may have the rest of the OSI fooled right now, Rolo but as you just said... one slip up and we’re done."
It took Rolo some time to let his brother's words sink in before he finally nodded his head, his own violet eyes reflecting his shame for not considering this in the first place. "I'm sorry, Big Brother. I didn’t consider what would have happened if I went through with that idea."
Lelouch's expression softened considerably. "It’s alright Rolo. If anything this is why we must stick together. We can only rely on each other if we are to survive and create the future we want together."
Upon seeing his brother's gentle smile, the spark of hope returned to Rolo's eyes instantly. "Y-yeah... you’re right Big Brother. So what are our plans for the next move?"
"I left instructions for the others so they can have everything ready before we proceed to the next stage. As of right now, you and I need to set things into motion so we can keep our activities under wraps." Lelouch released his brother and went back to searching the store house. "But for the time being, let's just live our lives as normal students and brothers. I want to cherish the time we have before we must take up our roles."
The younger boy smiled happily. "I'm happy to hear that, Big Brother."
It took Lelouch another minute until he found the boxes that Milly asked him and Rolo to fetch. "Ah, there it is! Would you give me a hand, Rolo? Given the contents it’ll require two people to carry safely."
"The supply raid in Tokushima went well, as did the operations in Iwate, and Wakayama. They’re small operations, but they ought to give a firm reminder to the local Britannian forces that the Black Knights are back in business," announced Ougi as he reviewed some post operation reports from his spot at the conference room table.
Tamaki chuckled as he leaned back in his chair while putting his feet up on to the table. "Man, once Zero kicked the floor from underneath them, the Britannian’s lost a lot of their bark!"
"Given that the Britannians are now facing not just us, but also the ones behind that Gundam Knightmare, a division of their attention is to be expected," stated Todoh as he looked over a map with marked out locations for possible raids against Britannian targets, as well as marked locations of local Black Knight cell groups that had set up secret bases to regroup after avoiding capture during the Black Rebellion. He then spotted something odd on the notepad which broke down who controls which cell and their outlined purpose. "Kallen, cell groups 4A, 4B and 4C don’t have a particular outline of orders. What is their purpose?"
"Those last three cells were responsible for taking in refugees, deploying volunteers to round up fellow comrades and helped organize underground recruitment operations. As you know the last Viceroy was all too happy to make examples of 'dissidents, usurpers, and lowly Elevens who are a stain on the Earth itself'. His penchant for Ghetto purges also increased the number of orphans, assuming they were lucky enough to escape," replied Kallen from her spot in the room with several newspapers scattered near the floor as she went over local news coverage of the Gundam. "The last year hasn’t been easy on us and we've lost a lot of good friends to get back to this point."
"This time, we will prevail. For the ones who gave their lives to keep the dream alive. We have Zero back. We still have soldiers willing to fight and more allies waiting for the chance to rise up against Britannia," said Ougi in a quiet and determined tone before he turned to Todoh. "Do you remember when Rakshata is supposed to get here with the sub?"
Todoh took a moment to stretch his arms just to enjoy the feeling of having them free again after they had been bound for the past year the moment he got captured. "Within the week, and even then she’s only bringing the Guren upgrade parts at most. Everything else, including the new Knightmare Frame models for our regular forces, is still being kept safe in India until an opportunity to safely transport them to us arises."
"Too bad we can’t use the new models now. The Gekkas are fine against Sutherlands and such but I'm concerned that they might not be sufficient enough against the Britannian custom units reported by our intelligence division. Not to mention that we don’t have any float-capable Knightmares since we lost the Gawain,” said Ougi before he got back to work. "We'll have to make do with what we have. After all we started out with little more than Glasgows before we started getting additional support and weapons."
"Ugh... don't remind me, man! Those Glasgow cockpits were the worst!" groaned Tamaki.
On board the transport heading back to the Tokyo Settlement, the atmosphere was so thick that one could cut it with a butter knife. Suzaku would have even settled for any sort of juvenile antic from Gino just to lighten the mood but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. His fellow Knights were eerily quiet with the loss and defeat weighing heavily on their minds. With the exception of the ground teams and a handful of airborne units lucky enough to avoid being shot down, they lost just about their entire fighting force. Even with some data collected from the one Gundam, it wasn't even a substantial amount and didn't seem very valuable at all. To Suzaku, this made the defeat even more bitter with all those resources and lives wasted.
"My Lords!" All four Knights looked up as MacTavish made his way to the passenger area. "I just received a priority call directed at all of you. Shall I forward it to your console here?"
"Please do," replied Nonette as she prepped the wall-mounted monitor to receive the call. Once MacTavish headed back up to forward the message, the monitor came to life and an image of a white haired man with glasses showed up.
"Greetings, my dear Knights of the Round. Word just reached my ear you ran into a spot of trouble."
While Suzaku, Gino and Anya did not recognize the man, a look of pure surprise was on the Knight of Nine's face. "P-Professor Steamhein? How in the world... no, where in the world have you been for the past four years?" To say she was shocked was an understatement. The disappearance of the world’s most leading authority on Knightmare Frames and robotics in general had a major impact not just across Britannia but the international scientific community as a whole. In fact the day he disappeared, he was supposed to unveil the first true Sixth Generation Knightmare that was to be test piloted by herself and Princess Cornelia.
The scientist gave what could be considered an awkward smile to the Knight of Nine. "Ah, my dear Lady Enneagram. It is so good to see you’re alive and well. As for my disappearing act, I was recruited for a secret project for the Empire. One that has recently been given top priority funding and resources."
The Knight of Three merely blinked several times before turning to Nonette with a puzzled expression. "A secret project? Nonette, who is this guy?"
She could understand Suzaku not knowing about the man speaking to them right now. But Gino? How exactly could he not know the name of one of the greatest scientific minds in the entire Britannian Empire? Nonette was about to scold Gino when Anya's dull tone replied instead, having looked up the name with her small camera phone connected to the Internet. "Professor Mikhail Steamhein, known to the scientific community as the 'Meister of Mecha', the 'Father of the Modern Knightmare' and the 'Insane Genius who makes the Impossible Possible.' His work in the field of Knightmare Frame technology is considered second to none, and he’s famous for his theories with quantum mechanics and space travel."
Steamhein laughed heartily before bowing in front of the gathered Knights. "I see that my infamy is still alive and well. It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Lady Alstreim, Sir Weinberg and Sir Kururugi. And it is always a pleasure, Lady Enneagram."
"I think I recall Lloyd and Cécile mentioning your name a few times. I just can’t recall when," murmured Suzaku.
The white haired scientist adjusted his glasses. "That would probably be because Earl Asplund and Miss Croomy were once students of mine at the Imperial Colchester Institute as well as Rakshata Chawla. Very brilliant scientists the whole lot of them, I was happy as a clam that between Lloyd’s Lancelot and even Rakshata’s Guren Mk-II, the new technologies that debuted in their Seventh Generation Knightmare Frames made up for the lack of true innovation in the lost Sixth Generation. But enough of that... I had just heard that you all had a run in with a third Gundam unit?"
Gino gave a sour look on being reminded of their defeat. "We got our butts kicked so badly, we’ll be the most disgraced Knights of the Round for generations! Even two Eighth Generation machines and a prototype Gareth couldn’t take down one Gundam and the poor saps in the Sutherlands, Glouchesters and Vincent Wards didn’t have a chance."
"Even if I had the Lancelot available at the time, I doubt it would have made any difference," added Suzaku glumly.
"Then that means my project should interest you all the more. What I am about to transmit to you is top secret for the moment."
The moment he finished that statement, the image of Steamhein vanished and was replaced with a rotating set of images, causing the Knights to crowd around the screen in pure surprise. The images were of giant exo-skeletons, all the same size as those Gundams in various stages of completion. "Professor... are these...?" Nonette couldn't even finish her question.
"The first ten prototypes of my Neo-Knightmare project. While it is a bit early, I am in need of pilots to handle these high performance machines. And what better pilots than members of the Knights of the Round... especially those who have fought a Gundam and lived." The image of Steamhein reappeared before he leaned forward towards the camera with a small, eerie grin that made Suzaku uncomfortable. "So, do I have any volunteers?"
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