Chapter 37 - A New Hope
By Kohikki
"So this is what you dragged me out of bed at five o'clock in the morning for?" Keith grumbled as he surveyed the area.
Rubble. A few walls still stood here and there but mostly the whole scene just looked like it was waiting for a garbage crew to take care of it. Even aside from the wreckage of what probably wasn't a marvelous beauty of a manor, the whole area looked like it probably hadn't seen a good day in over fifty years. The fact that the sun was just beginning to rise and had begun to illuminate the area just made it worse - shining garbage, great.
He shook his head. "Isn't this the place that got the crap blown out of it by a zeppelin a while ago?"
Allen nodded. "Yep, I can definitely reme-"
"We're looking for hints, clues, leads, anything," Chief Q interrupted, seemingly having been ignoring the comments of her subordinates.
I'm sick of being kept in the dark, Q thought. If I can find anything... just one ounce of information about what's really going on with those groups... the Orders, the Syndicate...
"Huh?" Keith pulled a cigarette from his pocket and grumbled some more, trying to find his lighter. "You really expect us to be able to find an actual clue in this mess?"
Q shot him a glare from over her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, have I overestimated your abilities?"
He sighed and shook his hands in a surrendering fashion. "Fine, fine, whatever you say, Chief."
"But still, do you really expect the three of us to be able to find anything worthwhile here any time soon? I mean, there's a lot of ground to cover here when you consider that the top of this garbage used to be three stories high or so," Allen complained. "And then who knows how long it'll take us to check through the other bits... Can't we just ask the trash collectors to save anything interesting for us?"
"Trouble with that is defining exactly what counts as 'interesting'?" an accented voice questioned from nearby. It was Hill, shockingly standing and out working again so soon after being injured, even if he was mostly being supported by a thin black cane.
"If you actually want to find any information that's worth something, I'd suggest you do as the lady says and assist her." He smiled at Q.
"No offense, England, but an independent investigation like this thing she's come up with here doesn't really concern your organization, does it?" Keith remarked.
"That's where you're wrong." Hill strode closer to the wreckage, his footsteps accompanied by a faint metal clanking. "The presence of this third group concerns the world at large."
"Ha? Is that so?" Keith laughed. "Do you really believe that? Think of yourself as some kind of hero, is that it?"
"The fellow with the cane has a point," another voice interjected as a man with white hair stepped forward toward them. It was Sadar.
"And who are you?" Allen looked up, still comfortably seated in the car.
"Just think of me as a well informed citizen," the man answered.
"Well informed, huh..." Q finally spoke up again. "How about you start by telling us your name?"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Chief." Sadar smiled slightly.
"Then there's no reason for us to listen to what you have to say, is there?" she retorted.
"Of course there is," he responded. "Because I happen to know why you're here and what you're looking for."
Q stared at the man, confused, intrigued and slightly angered. Just who is this man? she wondered. And what does he know?
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"Where the hell is that guy?" Samson grumbled to himself as he waited outside the front of Café de l'Argeno. He'd been pacing in front of the door for over an hour now, occasionally pounding on the windows and calling out for someone to answer the door.
Just then, a figure moving around inside caught his eye.
"Tres!" Samson called. "Tres!"
Tres turned for a moment to look at Samson and then started back to the kitchen where he had been washing dishes.
"TRES! ANSWER THE DOOR!"
Leaving so soon without saying anything, and when there's going to be a full-scale invasion in less than one month... Honestly, what kind of leader... Samson thought. "TRES, GODAMNIT, OPEN THE DOOR!" Samson hollered as he pounded some more on the windows.
"I am sorry," Tres stated. "I am under strict orders to allow no one to enter the café while Hikki is out."
"What the hell? Where is he?" Samson was becoming furious. He was just about ready to bash in the door and wreck up the place.
"Would you like to leave a message?" Tres offered, much in the same way an answering machine does.
"NO! I would not like to leav- WHY DO YOU HAVE VOICEMAIL?!" Samson was at wit's end with this nonsense when a bus pulled up at the corner.
From the bus a familiar voice called, "Oh! Samson! What are you doing here so early een ze day, mm?"
Samson stomped again.
By now, there was a clear trail of Samson's presence in front of the café. He'd been stomping and pacing for so long, cracks had even begun to appear in the sidewalk. "HIKKI, WHERE IN GOD'S NAME HAVE YOU BEEN ALL WEEKEND?!"
"Huh?" Hikki looked up from getting his bags off the bus and turned to Lloyd for an answer. "Deedn't you say zat ze rest of ze Syndicate would be filling een for me?"
Lloyd shrugged.
"I was taking a brief vacation, Chu!" Hikki shouted back to Samson. "I had a lovely time!" He grinned.
A look of grief crawled over Samson's face and he began to stomp again without stopping.
"Lloyd, can you help me get zese?" Hikki mumbled in the distance.
"Eh? What makes you think I can lift that? You shouldn't have bought so much!" Lloyd laughed.
"But I couldn't reseest! Ze man at ze geeft shop was just so cute," Hikki joked back.
"Say! Why don't you get that android to carry them? I'm sure he could manage."
"He's usually washing deeshes at zees time, zough... so I seenk eef I gave heem anozzer order he'd first need to complete ze one at hand... SAMSON! Samson! Be a dear and help me weez my bags, would you?" Hikki started over towards the café.
"Hmm? Are you upset?" Hikki noticed Samson's expression as he came closer.
Samson stopped.
"This isn't a game! What the hell are you thinking?! Taking a vacation when the country is going to be invaded soon?! Are you insane?!" Samson was clearly more seriously upset than his behaviour had led Hikki to believe he was. "Take your job more seriously, people are counting on you, damnit!"
"Samson..." Hikki didn't know what to say. He had thought it was a bad idea to go on the trip in the first place... but he didn't expect his absence to be so much of a hindrance to the planning for the day of the invasion that it would make Samson so upset. After all, he never saw himself as such a great leader in the first place. Sure, he figured he was good enough with words and could, on occasion, inspire people to do their best with missions, but was it really that big a deal that he was gone for such a short period of time?
"I'm sorry," he finished.
"You better damn well be," Samson responded. "I'm going back to the base. I hope when you arrive you'll be ready to act like a leader again." With that, Samson started away.
"What was all that?" Lloyd mused, still gradually trying to drag their bags towards the café.
Hikki shook his head. "Deedn't you say we had permission from ze rest of ze Syndicate to go on zat leetle outing?"
"Huh? Didn't that Kamina tell you to 'get out of here'?" Lloyd tilted his head to the side in the same manner a confused cat would. "You were bothering him about something and that's what he said."
"So zen..." the Frenchman let out a heavy sigh. "A meesunderstanding," he muttered.
"Hmm?"
"Nossing, we'd better get ready to head to ze base as well... I suppose."
--------------------------
Tucked in the middle of the woods, away from the city, the future base of the Syndicate and their newly found comrades was still being finished. Though the outside was as unimpressive and bleak as ever, inside it had become brighter and was actually quite full of life. While the living area had been successfully converted into bedrooms for the people residing at the base, there remained much work to be done if the still somewhat barren bunker was even to begin to resemble a functional base of operations for a serious rebel group.
However, the amount of activity going on inside would make one think that they could possibly have everything finished by sunset that day. Kaia and Kirara were hard at work deciding on a colour palette for the kitchen, Bruce and his friends were working to repair walls and set up doors, while Proof and Cid helped move furniture into the rooms.
Everyone was seemingly occupied with getting the place in working order.
Everyone, except for Emiri.
Emiri was sprawled out on her bed in her newly acquired room, in a setting reminiscent of back when she was still living at the Estate.
She couldn't help thinking that she'd been doing less and less ever since she came to the Syndicate. Her mind was more relaxed in many ways, and in these times she began to recall memories of things she had done while still working for Ozzal.
Faces, smells... though it hadn't been long since she had encountered them, it was beginning to feel like she was watching glimpses from the memory of someone else. In a way, it was for the best, she thought. She didn't want to be tied to the gruesome scenes she recalled.
But in another way, she couldn't help but feel she had lost her sense of purpose.
"Wait... What purpose is that again?" she muttered to herself. "Urgh... This kind of crap... This is why I hate being bored," she whined to no one in particular. "I start thinking all this depressing shit..." she continued to lay motionless on her bed.
"KIRA," Emiri groaned as loud as she could manage.
She expected a sigh or a "What's the matter, Emiri?" from her ever-faithful servant, but instead was answered with silence.
"...So that's how it is..." she brought her arm over her eyes slowly as an unfamiliar smile formed on her face.
"Emiri!" An audibly out-of-breath Kira was running to her room not long after she'd called his name.
He gasped a little. "I'm sorry, did you call me? I was helpi- Are you..." He looked at Emiri and noticed her expression.
"What's wrong?" He put his hand on her shoulder gently in an attempt to console her.
Emiri moved her arm from its place over her eyes slightly to see him.
"You're crying," Kira noticed, shocked. It wasn't often he saw this sight. He couldn't even recall if he'd seen it before... if so, then not too recently.
"AM NOT!" she shouted back, wiping her face. "There's something in my eye, you idiot! Why would I be crying?! Who the hell do you think I am?!"
"Are too," he responded.
She stared at him, frustrated at being caught.
"So what if I am?" she sniffed. "I'm allowed to cry once in a while just like anyone else, aren't I?"
Kira wasn't amused by her act. "What's wrong?"
"Leave me alone." She turned on her side.
"You're the one who called me here, remember?" he remarked.
She sighed and silence once again filled the air in her room.
After a few minutes, she gave in. "Have I changed?" Emiri forced herself to ask.
Kira was unsure what response she wanted to hear from him. After a few seconds of figuring it in his head he decided he'd go with a vague reply that could go either way, in hopes of getting more of a hint of what was bothering her.
"Maybe..." he replied.
"Hmm," she muttered, her back still turned. "Do..." She stopped herself for a moment. "Do you still like me? Do you... still stand by what you said that one time? That you'd follow me to the ends of the earth? I'm not the same anymore, right? I don't do the same things I used to... and... Does that mean I'm not the same Emiri? Is the Emiri who worked for Ozzal different than who I am now?"
Kira smiled at how flustered she'd made herself over the matter as she continued asking essentially the same question over and over with slightly different wording. He decided to interrupt her with a kiss on the forehead.
She blushed and froze for a second to figure out what had just happened.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she grumbled as she rubbed her forehead.
"You're silly," he responded.
"I'm not silly!" she shrieked.
"Ah, that's true, you're Emiri," he smirked.
With that she punched him in the stomach with a pillow, nearly knocking what air he'd finally caught from rushing over to her back out of his lungs.
"God you're dumb," Emiri said, feeling slightly awkward about what had just occurred. "I try to ask you a serious question and you go do pointless stuff like that... Just get out of here, will you?!"
Kira smiled. "As you wish." He turned and left to go back to helping out around the base.
Emiri sighed again, her face still quite red.
"At any rate..." She twisted her shoulder. "I'm going to get rusty if I don't do anything soon..."
------------
Elsewhere in the base, Hikki and Lloyd had made their way back only to be greeted with annoyed glares from a good portion of the Syndicate.
"HEY! There you are!" Kamina looked up from helping Bruce and Pierrot build some more shelves.
"Where ya been all weekend, huh?! You made all your buddies upset!"
"Just a small vacation," Hikki answered, somewhat embarrassed.
"Ah." Kamina brought his hand to his chin, seemingly considering the thought of a vacation for himself. "That does sound like fun. BUT! Now isn't the time for vacations!"
"Right, right," Hikki nodded apologetically.
"SO! What do you think, eh?!" Kamina stretched his arm upward to the ceiling and brought it down to point Hikki in the general direction of the progress made on the base. The way this man talked, it seemed as though every statement, word or even question that he spoke would end in an exclamation point. Nevertheless, Hikki was glad that he didn't seem to be as upset with him as Samson was.
"We made a good amount of progress here, didn't we?" Kamina beamed.
Hikki looked over the base, thinking that surely they did make a great deal of progress, and then something caught his eye. "Who ees zat?"
"Who's what?!" Kamina had already gone back to helping build shelves but just raised the volume of his voice slightly louder so as to pretend he could still easily carry on the conversation from a distance.
"Zat man over zere een ze corner... eating a pizza?"
"Pizza?! OH! That guy! He showed up yesterday! Says his name is Larry and he wants to join!" Kamina continued shouting, "I don't have any authority over your guys' Syndicate so I told him to wait until you got back!"
"I see."
Hikki then noticed that Lloyd had been rather silent since they'd shown up and turned to find that Lloyd was looking rather intently at the sheer size of the base with a calculating look on his face.
"It’s big enough… I think it could work," Lloyd finally said with an eager grin.
------------
"He says he's got an announcement to make." Clarice flipped through the pages of one of Anne's textbooks, looking to set up her next lesson for her.
Samson grumbled. "I don't care."
"What are you so mad at him for? So he took a vacation.. It's not like we were doing any planning here anyway," Clarice responded.
"It's the fact that he would even begin to think it's okay at a time like this!" Samson shouted. "And furthermore, why hasn't there been any planning yet?! Why can't anyone see what a big deal this is?" Samson lowered his voice to a grumble. “Where would he even get the idea that it’s okay for him to do something stupid like that anyway?”
“Don’t you remember?” Clarice looked up from her book with a confused expression on her face. “He was begging Kamina and Sadar to let him take a trip, Kamina yelled at him to go away and then those two Order of the Glass kids... What’re their names again, Cid and Proof? Told him it would be okay to take a trip and that they’d smooth everything over in his absence.”
Despite this explanation, Samson was still crabby. “Okay, so there’s a bit of an excuse… but it still doesn’t mean he’s taking this seriously.”
"Well, he called a meeting for his big reveal didn't he? Maybe he has some kind of plan he wants to share..." Clarice continued flipping through the book, not entirely absorbed in the conversation.
"I doubt it... Anyway, when is it supposed to be?" Samson sat down at the table across from Clarice and began flipping through textbooks as well to distract himself.
"About an hour," she answered.
-------------
"LARRY! Come quickly and see this! My new brilliant idea that'll surely tip the scales in Ozzal's favour in any battle situation!" Matrix flung his arms forward to present the sketches he'd been working on.
Amy raised her hand.
"Yes. Question?" Matrix noticed.
"Larry isn't here," she replied.
"He's not?! When did that happen?" Matrix's arms dropped slowly from his presenting position like the stem of a half-dead dandelion. "Well, where did he go?!"
Amy raised her hand again.
"Uh-huh," Matrix urged her to go on.
"He left!" she answered, quite satisfied with the accuracy of her response.
"I see! Well, when did he leave? Did I know about this? Did I try to stop him?"
Amy raised her hand once more.
"Go ahead."
"No idea!" she exclaimed.
"Right, right, of course." Matrix thought for a moment.
Without his perpetually apathetic assistant he felt like some of the fun in presenting his new exciting inventions was missing.
"Well then, Amy! Would you like to see my brilliant new idea that'll surely tip the scales in Ozzal's favour in any battle situation?"
"No!" She answered energetically.
"Fantastic! I'll just go ahead and show you anyway," he continued, and enthusiastically drew his arms back to his sketches. "I present you with....." he paused for dramatic effect. "A giant, fighting, robot!" He grinned widely. The sketches were incredibly crudely drawn, even for a rough draft, and the objects on the page didn't resemble robots so much as more tentacle monsters, but damn if he didn't pour his heart into the idea. And God bless 'im he was proud.
"Wooooow! That sure is impressive!" Amy clapped.
"Thank you, thank you." Matrix bowed a little. "I figure Ozzal can issue some of these to the Comedian military when they invade. Surely then she'll see that I'm more than just a food lackey, right?"
"Of course!" Amy agreed.
Almost in synch with Amy's agreement, a loud buzzing sound filled the room.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
"Oh, speak of the devil, looks like Ozzal is on the line," Matrix acknowledged gleefully.
"Why does our phone buzz?" Amy wondered.
Matrix shrugged and pressed a button to accept the call.
"Your highness!" He started enthusiastically. "What excellent timing, I was just showing Amy my n-"
Before he could even begin to reveal his brilliant new plans, he was interrupted by Ozzal. "Listen, I've called in a professional team of scientists to design weapons for the upcoming invasion."
"I... don't understand," Matrix responded. He knew what she was driving at, but he just didn't want to accept it. Surely she meant something else, right?
"It means as of now, you're no longer in charge of my research and development department," Ozzal snapped. "Your new superiors will be coming in shortly; please assist them with their plans. That is all."
"Wait! You haven't even -" He was cut off once again; the phone had already started making that humming sound that signifies there's no one on the other line.
"That went well." Matrix forced a smile to Amy as he hung his head in defeat. What could have gone wrong? he thought.
---------
Back at the base, Hikki was preparing his announcement to the others.
Most of the members of the former Order of Glass and the GAR gang as well as the Syndicate were already gathered in the main room of the base to hear what he had to say.
Hikki adjusted the new microphone that was bought for the purpose of addressing large groups like this all at once. A large group it was indeed. He'd never spoken in front of this many people before, and he was surprisingly nervous.
"Sank you for gazzering, everyone!" he announced.
The crowd murmured a bit.
"I know zat I was away for a few days zere... But! Eet was not all wasted time!" he continued nervously.
The crowd continued to stir, sprinkled with a few scoffs and assorted varieties of shushing.
"While we were away, Lloyd proposed an idea zat could have ze potential to help us ween any battles against Ozzal and even during ze eenvasion!" His voice became excited.
Behind Hikki, Lloyd stepped forward holding a rather large picture frame.
"Een zees peecture, ees someseeng called a Knightmare frame! Lloyd tells me zat zey're commonly used for meeleetary combat een ze Land of ze Rising Beeg Red Dot. He builds zem! Eef we can have someseeng like zees, I'm certain zat we'd have ze advantage!" Hikki finished.
The crowd was impressed by the idea. The hushed conversations became more and more lively and excited.
With Hikki's announcement, Clarice shot Samson a quick "told you so" look and Samson felt a little ashamed for having been so angry with him for the whole day. In his defense, though, it did pretty much seem like he was just running away from his duties to go fool around with some guy he'd just met. His anger was really justified pretty much any way you look at it.
Samson stood up in the crowd.
"While this is a good idea in theory, and I'm sure it would benefit us if we could manage it... How do you really intend for this to work out with only that guy knowing how to make them? And that amount of work... for one person, it's just not reasonable!" From the sounds following, everyone seemed to agree with him.
Truthfully, Hikki hadn't even considered that.
"He's got a point," Lloyd agreed.
Then, from the back of the room a sheepish voice called out, "Uh... I could help..." It was the man whom Hikki had seen earlier eating pizza alone in the corner.
"Larry, was eet? You can help?" Hikki asked.
"Yes." The man nodded. "I used to work for Professor Matrix, the head of Ozzal's research and development team. I'm not sure how much help I would be... But surely two designers would be better than one. And once the plans are drawn up, I could make it easy for anyone with simple mechanical understanding to help build them. That is..." His voice trailed off. "If you'll have me..."
The room fell silent.
Hikki gestured to Samson and Kamina to come closer to the front where he was standing.
"What do we seenk?" Hikki questioned the others.
"Well, if you want this plan of yours to work, you can't really say no to him. Even though he's a rather suspicious person, having come from working for Ozzal and whatnot," Samson thought.
"I don't think he's a bad kid," Kamina smiled. "He wants to help. I say you let him."
Hikki nodded in consideration and brought the microphone back to his mouth.
"Welcome to ze Blacken Syndicate, Larry," he announced.
Larry was somewhat surprised that his "membership" in the Syndicate was announced so loudly as if it was some kind of a big deal, but he was happy nonetheless.
"So zen! Eet's settled! Now ze next order of business, pilots... Does anyone have experience een piloting mecha?" Hikki asked as a last-minute kind of addition, expecting no "yes" answers from anyone in the room.
The second Kamina and Kittan heard this, they both raised their arms into the air with overwhelming eagerness.
To everyone's surprise, they went on to tell tales of how they once piloted mecha with giant faces on them and won lots of battles.
While some people were still confused about how everything would turn out bringing the "Knightmares" into play, the majority of the Syndicate figured that anything that could make their weapons more advanced than Ozzal's was worth a shot. As the meeting came to a close, everyone went back to working on the base with the exception of Lloyd and Larry, who were already at work conversing about how to go about making the best designs they could with the resources they had.
----------
"So you're saying, you believe that people from the Order of Iron survived the bombing that took place?" It was later now and thankfully the sun seemed to have found a comfortable place in the sky where it wasn't beaming down harshly against the wreckage of the building.
Q, Hill and even Keith and Allen had been looking over the remains of the building for hours, as the white-haired man explained everything to them about the Orders and the threat they posed.
"That is correct," he replied.
"Hey, you wanna help over here instead of just rambling on and on, old man?" Keith thought out loud.
Sadar chose to ignore him, slightly annoyed by the "old man" remark.
"And... how do you know this?" Q asked, overturning more burnt wood and what was probably at one time the arm of a sofa.
"I would call it a hunch," Sadar said with a knowing smile.
"Oh yeah? So we're spending our day digging through this trash heap based on two people who have 'hunches'?" Allen muttered under his breath.
The digging carried on in silence for a while, with the occasional groan or sigh from Keith and Allen or even (more sporadically) Hill being the only things to break it up.
----------
Matrix was still in shock over his boss's announcement. Is this what it feels like to be demoted? he wondered. As he packed up his knickknacks that he had for so long kept wherever he so pleased in his lab, he started to feel sentimental. To think that after all this time as her head researcher, he'd be thrown aside for some "professionals." Matrix let out a chuckle. "What makes them any better than me, huh? I'll show them what I'm capable of," he said to himself, almost as though he were trying to fool himself into believing it. "I'll show everyone what Professor M Matrix can do!" he continued, his voice now louder.
"Oh? Isn't that inspiring?" a female voice called from behind Matrix.
"You are..." Matrix was embarrassed that his first impression of at least one of his new superiors was... that. He turned his head to face her, and was surprised to see she was a glamorous looking woman, her skin a deep tan with long light blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
"My name is Rakshata Chawla," the woman smiled. "I think we're going to get along just fine."
----
It had been a few hours, but even with Kira's support, Emiri still felt out of sorts. Maybe I should go get some air, take a walk or something, she thought. She sluggishly forced herself out of bed and pulled on a jacket. She put her hand on her head and sighed. "Snap out of it, me," she told herself.
She strode past the doorways into one of the main rooms of the base to see everyone still hard at work. She quietly hoped that Kira would see her and ask her what was wrong again so he could accompany her outside, but despite turning her head in every possible direction to look for him, she couldn't find him anywhere. Clearly, she wasn't going to go off into other sections of the base to look for him. Then she'd just seem desperate and that was the last thing she wanted right now.
She pressed open the large heavy doors of the bunker and felt slightly relieved when she could feel a few streams of light shining down even in the dense woods.
She smiled slightly.
----
"Congratulations!" Lloyd's exclamation resonated in every corner of the base. "We've determined that we can successfully have five Knightmares at the disposal of your cause if I can get a few shipped back from the Land of the Rising Big Red Dot!"
Hikki looked up from a project he was working on at a table adjacent to Lloyd's.
"Zat's great, now we just need to find pilots!" he said enthusiastically.
"What are you working on there?" Clarice asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Er, nosseeng." Hikki struggled to cover the sheet of paper he'd been scribbling on for the past hour or so.
"Doesn't seem like nothing." Clarice continued trying to look.
"Eet's not done yet!" Hikki shrieked, trying to get her to back off, ultimately only drawing more attention to himself and the mysterious paper he'd been guarding.
"What's going on over here?" Samson looked over from helping paint a wall nearby.
"Hikki's been working on something over here and won't show me what it is!" Clarice mock-whined.
"Come on, let us see it," Samson asked, trying to pull it from under the Frenchman's arms.
"Go away! Eet's not even feeneeshed yet!" he begged again.
While Hikki was focused on trying to defend the paper from Samson's clutches, Clarice noticed that he'd left his other side completely exposed and reached in to grab the paper from him.
"Huh?" She examined it. "What's with these drawings?" she wondered out loud. "Some kind of... uniforms?"
"I said zey're not done yet!" Hikki complained.
"That's all it was? Some drawings of uniforms?" Samson sighed, somewhat disappointed.
"Well, zey're not just any uniforms, zey're new uniforms for ze Syndicate!" Hikki declared, a little embarrassed to have had his grand plan for new uniforms discovered while they weren't even finished.
Clarice and Samson met Hikki's statement with similar ".....huh?" looks on their faces.
"What do we even need uniforms for?" Clarice asked, examining the paper again.
"Well, we don't need zem, I just seenk eet would be a nice seeng to have..." Hikki explained some more.
"Hmm." Samson looked over the paper more. "Which one is yours?" he wondered out loud before answering himself with an "Ah, here it is."
Samson grabbed a pencil from the table and started scribbling on the paper a little.
"There we go." He proudly displayed his modifications.
"...You gave him a cape," Lucille remarked seemingly out of nowhere.
"Eh?! Lucille? Where did you come from?" Clarice turned.
"I've been here the whole time!" she announced matter-of-factly. "You three have just been too wrapped up in yourselves to notice. Anyway, why do we need uniforms now? Haven't you guys been parading around doing your missions and whatnot without them all this time?"
"Well, we did have those ridiculous Mardi Gras outfits a while back..." Clarice recalled.
"I seenk zey're a good idea!" Hikki defended.
"I dunno, they're kind of cool, I guess..." Samson shrugged, looking over the paper again. "But aren't we all busy enough as it is? Do we really need a whole other group of people making uniforms?"
"Zat's what Tres ees for," Hikki said with a confident nod.
"Well, whatever floats your boats, I guess," Lucille sighed.
"And that's good about your robots, Lloyd," Samson finally acknowledged.
"Indeed," Lloyd grinned. "Tell me, Mr. Monroe, have you ever thought about piloting?"
"About piloting one of those Knightmare things? Seeing that I just heard about them today, I'm going to have to say no," he answered.
"Because from what Hikki's told me, you seem like a prime candidate for his partner in one of the dual manned frames I've planned out!" Lloyd continued as if he'd been the only one talking all along.
"Huh? Why's that?" Samson asked with a confused look on his face.
"Basically, what you'll have is full control over weapons and movement and he'll have control over the slower weapons that you, controlling the rest of the Knightmare, wouldn't regularly have time to activate. He'll also be in charge of giving commands from it, but that's not really something that concerns you right now," he elaborated, still ignoring Samson's questions and responses.
"Okay, that's fine. But why me?" Samson raised his voice.
"Chemistry, of course!" Lloyd chirped.
"Oh lordy..." Samson brought his hand to his forehead and hung his head in grief.
Lloyd looked over the plans he and Larry had drawn up. "In addition, Kamina and Kittan will also be working together in the other dual manned frame, and Holland could use one of the ones I'm having shipped here... But as for the rest of the pilots... "
He thought for a moment. "And that's all I have for now, I guess."
"WAIT! WAIT!" an eager voice called out from across the room.
Everyone's attention turned to the source of the voice. It was Proof, a rather unimposing and forgettable member of the former Order of Glass.
"I wanna help too!" He said with a determined look on his face. "I wanna be a pilot!" he shouted. With this, the rest of the Syndicate turned their attention back to what they were doing, knowing that it was nothing urgent.
Lloyd folded his hands. "How interesting," he grinned.
--------
As the day rolled on, Q was beginning to feel hopeless about her quest for clues in the scrap heap that used to be the base of the Order of Iron.
By now, she was certain they'd overturned just about everything they could. She'd found plenty of "interesting" things: old lamps still in perfect condition, some fancy antique picture frames... but nothing of significance. Nothing that told her anything, nothing she could draw conclusions from.
She was beginning to feel hopeless when she heard the distinct sound of scratching against metal somewhere nearby. She looked down to see that her hands were placed directly above what seemed to be a manhole. Her eyes widened. Could this be?
Sadar smiled from the street where he'd been watching them for a good portion of the day. "Why, what have you found there?" he called out expectantly.
"It looks like... an escape route," she answered.
Keith, Hill and Allen gathered around it.
"What do you think?" Hill looked to Q.
She bit her lip in excitement. "I think we found our lead," she replied anxiously.
"Hey old ma-" Allen turned to question the white-haired man to ask about his hunch and how exactly he knew about the Order of Iron, only to see that he had seemingly vanished. He thought it suspicious, but didn't want to ruin his boss's good mood by informing her of it.
"So then, we gonna lift this thing up or what?" Keith wondered as he looked around at the others.
"Don't look at me," Hill said, excusing himself from the task. "If you haven't noticed, I'm not quite in ship shape to be lifting things like that already."
Keith turned his gaze to Allen and Q before deciding with a sigh that he might as well do it himself and get it over with.
He cautiously lifted the surprisingly heavy lid of the manhole aside and looked down.
"Pitch black," he stated.
They all gathered around it to look down. It was indeed as Keith said, pitch black. They couldn't tell how deep it was, or what, if anything, was down there. All they could tell was that it was dark.
"Allen! Go get a flashlight from the car!" the Chief ordered.
Allen nodded and rushed back to the to car to find one. Seconds later, he returned, flashlight in hand. He passed it to Q, who bent down closer to the hole and tried to make out what she could with the flashlight. She first shone it straight down, hoping to make heads or tails of how deep it was. To her surprise, the light couldn't reach the ground.
"It's deep," she declared.
"Well? What do you suggest now, Chief?" Keith lit another cigarette.
Q thought for a moment. "We have to go down there," she answered.
"Are you insane? You don't know what's down there!" Allen looked warily at the hole in the ground.
Q continued to shine the flashlight in various angles to try to uncover clues about what things were like down there. "I'm not passing this up," she responded.
Keith sighed. "There's no reasoning with you, is there?"
Q looked up from her searching. "Keith, I'm going to need some rope and a gun."
"Wait, let me come with you," Hill offered.
Q appreciated it, but with Hill's condition she knew it would be better for him if he didn't accompany her.
"I think I can manage," she replied. "Don't worry, I'm just going down to check it out. If things get dangerous, I'll tug on the rope and one of you can pull me up."
"Then what's the gun for?" Hill asked worriedly. Keith returned, carrying a good length of rope and the chief's gun. He began to unravel the rope as Q tied it securely around her waist and thighs like rock climbers do with their harnesses.
"Just in case," she answered him.
Hill didn't like the sound of it. He was resistant to let Q go down alone when there was a chance of her being put in danger. But he knew what kind of woman she was; she didn't need him to defend her, and if he tried to argue against going on her own she might become offended.
Hill nodded. "Be safe."
--------------
The streams of light that appeared spread apart throughout the woods surrounding the bunker had become dimmer since Emiri set foot outside. It was serene and quite peaceful, and she hoped that by getting out for some air, she could cure herself of the feelings of insecurity and weakness she'd somehow managed to gain in her hiatus from fighting. However, since she'd left, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being followed. Though she didn't hear any footsteps following her own, she was certain she wasn't alone.
She took a step forward and spun around as fast as she could, hoping to out whomever it was who was being bold enough to stalk her.
Not so much to her surprise, she saw that it was Kira trailing her. He froze, slightly embarrassed to have been found out.
She sighed, kind of disappointed that she hadn't found herself an opportunity to sharpen her skills on some creep.
"Kira, if you wanted to come with me you should have just asked..."
"I'm sorry, I thought you'd wanted to be alone... But at the same time, I was worried so I -"
"You don't need to worry about me, you know," Emiri shook her head.
"I know," Kira said, avoiding eye contact with Emiri out of a mix of respect and shame.
As he slowly brought his head up to apologize he felt a strange, yet familiar pressure. Could it be... No, why would he be here?
He must have been imagining things, since he could have sworn he felt Byakuya's spiritual pressure approaching.
He blinked, trying to shake it off the feeling. Then suddenly he felt a strange warmth in his side. His eyes shot open as wide as possible as he realized he wasn't simply imagining things just now, and the left side of his torso had been split open as easily as a piece of fruit. But he didn't have time to wallow in the pain.
Byakuya looked down at him with a cold expression and uttered to no one in particular what a pathetic sight Kira had become since leaving the Soul Society.
"HEY!" Emiri called out to him.
Byakuya didn't even so much as turn his head to acknowledge her words.
Emiri picked up a rock and threw it at the back of his head.
"HEY ASSHOLE, I'M TALKING TO YOU!" she shouted.
Byakuya turned to face her.
Emiri was standing confidently with a twisted grin on her face. The fire was back in her eyes; whatever funk she was in seemed to be over.
Emiri was back.
Characters:
Keith Douglas - K_dawg3484
Allen Black - Alastour_Blaque
Q Holmes – Q_chan
Hill – fool_on_the_hill
John Sadar - FurionTassadar
Samson Monroe - MasterSamson
Tres - (Trinity Blood)
Cille Compton -- Cille
Hikki Follet – Kohikki
Lloyd Asplund - (Code Geass)
Kaia - namek_kaia
Kirara Amour - kiraralove
Bruce Herman - bherman
Jean Pierrot – pierrot_le_fou
Proof - NoProof
Cid - Cidthekittyisfun
Emiri - _Boxers_
Kira Izuru – (Bleach)
Pierrot - pierrot_le_fou
Kamina – (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
Larry Zorin - LAZY17
Professor M.Matrix - matrixman124
Amy - Amalgam
Ozzal - Mike Lazzo
Kittan - (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
Lucille Compton - Cille
Byakuya - (Bleach)
New Characters:
Rakshata Chawla – (Code Geass)
"So this is what you dragged me out of bed at five o'clock in the morning for?" Keith grumbled as he surveyed the area.
Rubble. A few walls still stood here and there but mostly the whole scene just looked like it was waiting for a garbage crew to take care of it. Even aside from the wreckage of what probably wasn't a marvelous beauty of a manor, the whole area looked like it probably hadn't seen a good day in over fifty years. The fact that the sun was just beginning to rise and had begun to illuminate the area just made it worse - shining garbage, great.
He shook his head. "Isn't this the place that got the crap blown out of it by a zeppelin a while ago?"
Allen nodded. "Yep, I can definitely reme-"
"We're looking for hints, clues, leads, anything," Chief Q interrupted, seemingly having been ignoring the comments of her subordinates.
I'm sick of being kept in the dark, Q thought. If I can find anything... just one ounce of information about what's really going on with those groups... the Orders, the Syndicate...
"Huh?" Keith pulled a cigarette from his pocket and grumbled some more, trying to find his lighter. "You really expect us to be able to find an actual clue in this mess?"
Q shot him a glare from over her shoulder. "I'm so sorry, have I overestimated your abilities?"
He sighed and shook his hands in a surrendering fashion. "Fine, fine, whatever you say, Chief."
"But still, do you really expect the three of us to be able to find anything worthwhile here any time soon? I mean, there's a lot of ground to cover here when you consider that the top of this garbage used to be three stories high or so," Allen complained. "And then who knows how long it'll take us to check through the other bits... Can't we just ask the trash collectors to save anything interesting for us?"
"Trouble with that is defining exactly what counts as 'interesting'?" an accented voice questioned from nearby. It was Hill, shockingly standing and out working again so soon after being injured, even if he was mostly being supported by a thin black cane.
"If you actually want to find any information that's worth something, I'd suggest you do as the lady says and assist her." He smiled at Q.
"No offense, England, but an independent investigation like this thing she's come up with here doesn't really concern your organization, does it?" Keith remarked.
"That's where you're wrong." Hill strode closer to the wreckage, his footsteps accompanied by a faint metal clanking. "The presence of this third group concerns the world at large."
"Ha? Is that so?" Keith laughed. "Do you really believe that? Think of yourself as some kind of hero, is that it?"
"The fellow with the cane has a point," another voice interjected as a man with white hair stepped forward toward them. It was Sadar.
"And who are you?" Allen looked up, still comfortably seated in the car.
"Just think of me as a well informed citizen," the man answered.
"Well informed, huh..." Q finally spoke up again. "How about you start by telling us your name?"
"I'm afraid I can't do that, Chief." Sadar smiled slightly.
"Then there's no reason for us to listen to what you have to say, is there?" she retorted.
"Of course there is," he responded. "Because I happen to know why you're here and what you're looking for."
Q stared at the man, confused, intrigued and slightly angered. Just who is this man? she wondered. And what does he know?
------------
"Where the hell is that guy?" Samson grumbled to himself as he waited outside the front of Café de l'Argeno. He'd been pacing in front of the door for over an hour now, occasionally pounding on the windows and calling out for someone to answer the door.
Just then, a figure moving around inside caught his eye.
"Tres!" Samson called. "Tres!"
Tres turned for a moment to look at Samson and then started back to the kitchen where he had been washing dishes.
"TRES! ANSWER THE DOOR!"
Leaving so soon without saying anything, and when there's going to be a full-scale invasion in less than one month... Honestly, what kind of leader... Samson thought. "TRES, GODAMNIT, OPEN THE DOOR!" Samson hollered as he pounded some more on the windows.
"I am sorry," Tres stated. "I am under strict orders to allow no one to enter the café while Hikki is out."
"What the hell? Where is he?" Samson was becoming furious. He was just about ready to bash in the door and wreck up the place.
"Would you like to leave a message?" Tres offered, much in the same way an answering machine does.
"NO! I would not like to leav- WHY DO YOU HAVE VOICEMAIL?!" Samson was at wit's end with this nonsense when a bus pulled up at the corner.
From the bus a familiar voice called, "Oh! Samson! What are you doing here so early een ze day, mm?"
Samson stomped again.
By now, there was a clear trail of Samson's presence in front of the café. He'd been stomping and pacing for so long, cracks had even begun to appear in the sidewalk. "HIKKI, WHERE IN GOD'S NAME HAVE YOU BEEN ALL WEEKEND?!"
"Huh?" Hikki looked up from getting his bags off the bus and turned to Lloyd for an answer. "Deedn't you say zat ze rest of ze Syndicate would be filling een for me?"
Lloyd shrugged.
"I was taking a brief vacation, Chu!" Hikki shouted back to Samson. "I had a lovely time!" He grinned.
A look of grief crawled over Samson's face and he began to stomp again without stopping.
"Lloyd, can you help me get zese?" Hikki mumbled in the distance.
"Eh? What makes you think I can lift that? You shouldn't have bought so much!" Lloyd laughed.
"But I couldn't reseest! Ze man at ze geeft shop was just so cute," Hikki joked back.
"Say! Why don't you get that android to carry them? I'm sure he could manage."
"He's usually washing deeshes at zees time, zough... so I seenk eef I gave heem anozzer order he'd first need to complete ze one at hand... SAMSON! Samson! Be a dear and help me weez my bags, would you?" Hikki started over towards the café.
"Hmm? Are you upset?" Hikki noticed Samson's expression as he came closer.
Samson stopped.
"This isn't a game! What the hell are you thinking?! Taking a vacation when the country is going to be invaded soon?! Are you insane?!" Samson was clearly more seriously upset than his behaviour had led Hikki to believe he was. "Take your job more seriously, people are counting on you, damnit!"
"Samson..." Hikki didn't know what to say. He had thought it was a bad idea to go on the trip in the first place... but he didn't expect his absence to be so much of a hindrance to the planning for the day of the invasion that it would make Samson so upset. After all, he never saw himself as such a great leader in the first place. Sure, he figured he was good enough with words and could, on occasion, inspire people to do their best with missions, but was it really that big a deal that he was gone for such a short period of time?
"I'm sorry," he finished.
"You better damn well be," Samson responded. "I'm going back to the base. I hope when you arrive you'll be ready to act like a leader again." With that, Samson started away.
"What was all that?" Lloyd mused, still gradually trying to drag their bags towards the café.
Hikki shook his head. "Deedn't you say we had permission from ze rest of ze Syndicate to go on zat leetle outing?"
"Huh? Didn't that Kamina tell you to 'get out of here'?" Lloyd tilted his head to the side in the same manner a confused cat would. "You were bothering him about something and that's what he said."
"So zen..." the Frenchman let out a heavy sigh. "A meesunderstanding," he muttered.
"Hmm?"
"Nossing, we'd better get ready to head to ze base as well... I suppose."
--------------------------
Tucked in the middle of the woods, away from the city, the future base of the Syndicate and their newly found comrades was still being finished. Though the outside was as unimpressive and bleak as ever, inside it had become brighter and was actually quite full of life. While the living area had been successfully converted into bedrooms for the people residing at the base, there remained much work to be done if the still somewhat barren bunker was even to begin to resemble a functional base of operations for a serious rebel group.
However, the amount of activity going on inside would make one think that they could possibly have everything finished by sunset that day. Kaia and Kirara were hard at work deciding on a colour palette for the kitchen, Bruce and his friends were working to repair walls and set up doors, while Proof and Cid helped move furniture into the rooms.
Everyone was seemingly occupied with getting the place in working order.
Everyone, except for Emiri.
Emiri was sprawled out on her bed in her newly acquired room, in a setting reminiscent of back when she was still living at the Estate.
She couldn't help thinking that she'd been doing less and less ever since she came to the Syndicate. Her mind was more relaxed in many ways, and in these times she began to recall memories of things she had done while still working for Ozzal.
Faces, smells... though it hadn't been long since she had encountered them, it was beginning to feel like she was watching glimpses from the memory of someone else. In a way, it was for the best, she thought. She didn't want to be tied to the gruesome scenes she recalled.
But in another way, she couldn't help but feel she had lost her sense of purpose.
"Wait... What purpose is that again?" she muttered to herself. "Urgh... This kind of crap... This is why I hate being bored," she whined to no one in particular. "I start thinking all this depressing shit..." she continued to lay motionless on her bed.
"KIRA," Emiri groaned as loud as she could manage.
She expected a sigh or a "What's the matter, Emiri?" from her ever-faithful servant, but instead was answered with silence.
"...So that's how it is..." she brought her arm over her eyes slowly as an unfamiliar smile formed on her face.
"Emiri!" An audibly out-of-breath Kira was running to her room not long after she'd called his name.
He gasped a little. "I'm sorry, did you call me? I was helpi- Are you..." He looked at Emiri and noticed her expression.
"What's wrong?" He put his hand on her shoulder gently in an attempt to console her.
Emiri moved her arm from its place over her eyes slightly to see him.
"You're crying," Kira noticed, shocked. It wasn't often he saw this sight. He couldn't even recall if he'd seen it before... if so, then not too recently.
"AM NOT!" she shouted back, wiping her face. "There's something in my eye, you idiot! Why would I be crying?! Who the hell do you think I am?!"
"Are too," he responded.
She stared at him, frustrated at being caught.
"So what if I am?" she sniffed. "I'm allowed to cry once in a while just like anyone else, aren't I?"
Kira wasn't amused by her act. "What's wrong?"
"Leave me alone." She turned on her side.
"You're the one who called me here, remember?" he remarked.
She sighed and silence once again filled the air in her room.
After a few minutes, she gave in. "Have I changed?" Emiri forced herself to ask.
Kira was unsure what response she wanted to hear from him. After a few seconds of figuring it in his head he decided he'd go with a vague reply that could go either way, in hopes of getting more of a hint of what was bothering her.
"Maybe..." he replied.
"Hmm," she muttered, her back still turned. "Do..." She stopped herself for a moment. "Do you still like me? Do you... still stand by what you said that one time? That you'd follow me to the ends of the earth? I'm not the same anymore, right? I don't do the same things I used to... and... Does that mean I'm not the same Emiri? Is the Emiri who worked for Ozzal different than who I am now?"
Kira smiled at how flustered she'd made herself over the matter as she continued asking essentially the same question over and over with slightly different wording. He decided to interrupt her with a kiss on the forehead.
She blushed and froze for a second to figure out what had just happened.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she grumbled as she rubbed her forehead.
"You're silly," he responded.
"I'm not silly!" she shrieked.
"Ah, that's true, you're Emiri," he smirked.
With that she punched him in the stomach with a pillow, nearly knocking what air he'd finally caught from rushing over to her back out of his lungs.
"God you're dumb," Emiri said, feeling slightly awkward about what had just occurred. "I try to ask you a serious question and you go do pointless stuff like that... Just get out of here, will you?!"
Kira smiled. "As you wish." He turned and left to go back to helping out around the base.
Emiri sighed again, her face still quite red.
"At any rate..." She twisted her shoulder. "I'm going to get rusty if I don't do anything soon..."
------------
Elsewhere in the base, Hikki and Lloyd had made their way back only to be greeted with annoyed glares from a good portion of the Syndicate.
"HEY! There you are!" Kamina looked up from helping Bruce and Pierrot build some more shelves.
"Where ya been all weekend, huh?! You made all your buddies upset!"
"Just a small vacation," Hikki answered, somewhat embarrassed.
"Ah." Kamina brought his hand to his chin, seemingly considering the thought of a vacation for himself. "That does sound like fun. BUT! Now isn't the time for vacations!"
"Right, right," Hikki nodded apologetically.
"SO! What do you think, eh?!" Kamina stretched his arm upward to the ceiling and brought it down to point Hikki in the general direction of the progress made on the base. The way this man talked, it seemed as though every statement, word or even question that he spoke would end in an exclamation point. Nevertheless, Hikki was glad that he didn't seem to be as upset with him as Samson was.
"We made a good amount of progress here, didn't we?" Kamina beamed.
Hikki looked over the base, thinking that surely they did make a great deal of progress, and then something caught his eye. "Who ees zat?"
"Who's what?!" Kamina had already gone back to helping build shelves but just raised the volume of his voice slightly louder so as to pretend he could still easily carry on the conversation from a distance.
"Zat man over zere een ze corner... eating a pizza?"
"Pizza?! OH! That guy! He showed up yesterday! Says his name is Larry and he wants to join!" Kamina continued shouting, "I don't have any authority over your guys' Syndicate so I told him to wait until you got back!"
"I see."
Hikki then noticed that Lloyd had been rather silent since they'd shown up and turned to find that Lloyd was looking rather intently at the sheer size of the base with a calculating look on his face.
"It’s big enough… I think it could work," Lloyd finally said with an eager grin.
------------
"He says he's got an announcement to make." Clarice flipped through the pages of one of Anne's textbooks, looking to set up her next lesson for her.
Samson grumbled. "I don't care."
"What are you so mad at him for? So he took a vacation.. It's not like we were doing any planning here anyway," Clarice responded.
"It's the fact that he would even begin to think it's okay at a time like this!" Samson shouted. "And furthermore, why hasn't there been any planning yet?! Why can't anyone see what a big deal this is?" Samson lowered his voice to a grumble. “Where would he even get the idea that it’s okay for him to do something stupid like that anyway?”
“Don’t you remember?” Clarice looked up from her book with a confused expression on her face. “He was begging Kamina and Sadar to let him take a trip, Kamina yelled at him to go away and then those two Order of the Glass kids... What’re their names again, Cid and Proof? Told him it would be okay to take a trip and that they’d smooth everything over in his absence.”
Despite this explanation, Samson was still crabby. “Okay, so there’s a bit of an excuse… but it still doesn’t mean he’s taking this seriously.”
"Well, he called a meeting for his big reveal didn't he? Maybe he has some kind of plan he wants to share..." Clarice continued flipping through the book, not entirely absorbed in the conversation.
"I doubt it... Anyway, when is it supposed to be?" Samson sat down at the table across from Clarice and began flipping through textbooks as well to distract himself.
"About an hour," she answered.
-------------
"LARRY! Come quickly and see this! My new brilliant idea that'll surely tip the scales in Ozzal's favour in any battle situation!" Matrix flung his arms forward to present the sketches he'd been working on.
Amy raised her hand.
"Yes. Question?" Matrix noticed.
"Larry isn't here," she replied.
"He's not?! When did that happen?" Matrix's arms dropped slowly from his presenting position like the stem of a half-dead dandelion. "Well, where did he go?!"
Amy raised her hand again.
"Uh-huh," Matrix urged her to go on.
"He left!" she answered, quite satisfied with the accuracy of her response.
"I see! Well, when did he leave? Did I know about this? Did I try to stop him?"
Amy raised her hand once more.
"Go ahead."
"No idea!" she exclaimed.
"Right, right, of course." Matrix thought for a moment.
Without his perpetually apathetic assistant he felt like some of the fun in presenting his new exciting inventions was missing.
"Well then, Amy! Would you like to see my brilliant new idea that'll surely tip the scales in Ozzal's favour in any battle situation?"
"No!" She answered energetically.
"Fantastic! I'll just go ahead and show you anyway," he continued, and enthusiastically drew his arms back to his sketches. "I present you with....." he paused for dramatic effect. "A giant, fighting, robot!" He grinned widely. The sketches were incredibly crudely drawn, even for a rough draft, and the objects on the page didn't resemble robots so much as more tentacle monsters, but damn if he didn't pour his heart into the idea. And God bless 'im he was proud.
"Wooooow! That sure is impressive!" Amy clapped.
"Thank you, thank you." Matrix bowed a little. "I figure Ozzal can issue some of these to the Comedian military when they invade. Surely then she'll see that I'm more than just a food lackey, right?"
"Of course!" Amy agreed.
Almost in synch with Amy's agreement, a loud buzzing sound filled the room.
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
"Oh, speak of the devil, looks like Ozzal is on the line," Matrix acknowledged gleefully.
"Why does our phone buzz?" Amy wondered.
Matrix shrugged and pressed a button to accept the call.
"Your highness!" He started enthusiastically. "What excellent timing, I was just showing Amy my n-"
Before he could even begin to reveal his brilliant new plans, he was interrupted by Ozzal. "Listen, I've called in a professional team of scientists to design weapons for the upcoming invasion."
"I... don't understand," Matrix responded. He knew what she was driving at, but he just didn't want to accept it. Surely she meant something else, right?
"It means as of now, you're no longer in charge of my research and development department," Ozzal snapped. "Your new superiors will be coming in shortly; please assist them with their plans. That is all."
"Wait! You haven't even -" He was cut off once again; the phone had already started making that humming sound that signifies there's no one on the other line.
"That went well." Matrix forced a smile to Amy as he hung his head in defeat. What could have gone wrong? he thought.
---------
Back at the base, Hikki was preparing his announcement to the others.
Most of the members of the former Order of Glass and the GAR gang as well as the Syndicate were already gathered in the main room of the base to hear what he had to say.
Hikki adjusted the new microphone that was bought for the purpose of addressing large groups like this all at once. A large group it was indeed. He'd never spoken in front of this many people before, and he was surprisingly nervous.
"Sank you for gazzering, everyone!" he announced.
The crowd murmured a bit.
"I know zat I was away for a few days zere... But! Eet was not all wasted time!" he continued nervously.
The crowd continued to stir, sprinkled with a few scoffs and assorted varieties of shushing.
"While we were away, Lloyd proposed an idea zat could have ze potential to help us ween any battles against Ozzal and even during ze eenvasion!" His voice became excited.
Behind Hikki, Lloyd stepped forward holding a rather large picture frame.
"Een zees peecture, ees someseeng called a Knightmare frame! Lloyd tells me zat zey're commonly used for meeleetary combat een ze Land of ze Rising Beeg Red Dot. He builds zem! Eef we can have someseeng like zees, I'm certain zat we'd have ze advantage!" Hikki finished.
The crowd was impressed by the idea. The hushed conversations became more and more lively and excited.
With Hikki's announcement, Clarice shot Samson a quick "told you so" look and Samson felt a little ashamed for having been so angry with him for the whole day. In his defense, though, it did pretty much seem like he was just running away from his duties to go fool around with some guy he'd just met. His anger was really justified pretty much any way you look at it.
Samson stood up in the crowd.
"While this is a good idea in theory, and I'm sure it would benefit us if we could manage it... How do you really intend for this to work out with only that guy knowing how to make them? And that amount of work... for one person, it's just not reasonable!" From the sounds following, everyone seemed to agree with him.
Truthfully, Hikki hadn't even considered that.
"He's got a point," Lloyd agreed.
Then, from the back of the room a sheepish voice called out, "Uh... I could help..." It was the man whom Hikki had seen earlier eating pizza alone in the corner.
"Larry, was eet? You can help?" Hikki asked.
"Yes." The man nodded. "I used to work for Professor Matrix, the head of Ozzal's research and development team. I'm not sure how much help I would be... But surely two designers would be better than one. And once the plans are drawn up, I could make it easy for anyone with simple mechanical understanding to help build them. That is..." His voice trailed off. "If you'll have me..."
The room fell silent.
Hikki gestured to Samson and Kamina to come closer to the front where he was standing.
"What do we seenk?" Hikki questioned the others.
"Well, if you want this plan of yours to work, you can't really say no to him. Even though he's a rather suspicious person, having come from working for Ozzal and whatnot," Samson thought.
"I don't think he's a bad kid," Kamina smiled. "He wants to help. I say you let him."
Hikki nodded in consideration and brought the microphone back to his mouth.
"Welcome to ze Blacken Syndicate, Larry," he announced.
Larry was somewhat surprised that his "membership" in the Syndicate was announced so loudly as if it was some kind of a big deal, but he was happy nonetheless.
"So zen! Eet's settled! Now ze next order of business, pilots... Does anyone have experience een piloting mecha?" Hikki asked as a last-minute kind of addition, expecting no "yes" answers from anyone in the room.
The second Kamina and Kittan heard this, they both raised their arms into the air with overwhelming eagerness.
To everyone's surprise, they went on to tell tales of how they once piloted mecha with giant faces on them and won lots of battles.
While some people were still confused about how everything would turn out bringing the "Knightmares" into play, the majority of the Syndicate figured that anything that could make their weapons more advanced than Ozzal's was worth a shot. As the meeting came to a close, everyone went back to working on the base with the exception of Lloyd and Larry, who were already at work conversing about how to go about making the best designs they could with the resources they had.
----------
"So you're saying, you believe that people from the Order of Iron survived the bombing that took place?" It was later now and thankfully the sun seemed to have found a comfortable place in the sky where it wasn't beaming down harshly against the wreckage of the building.
Q, Hill and even Keith and Allen had been looking over the remains of the building for hours, as the white-haired man explained everything to them about the Orders and the threat they posed.
"That is correct," he replied.
"Hey, you wanna help over here instead of just rambling on and on, old man?" Keith thought out loud.
Sadar chose to ignore him, slightly annoyed by the "old man" remark.
"And... how do you know this?" Q asked, overturning more burnt wood and what was probably at one time the arm of a sofa.
"I would call it a hunch," Sadar said with a knowing smile.
"Oh yeah? So we're spending our day digging through this trash heap based on two people who have 'hunches'?" Allen muttered under his breath.
The digging carried on in silence for a while, with the occasional groan or sigh from Keith and Allen or even (more sporadically) Hill being the only things to break it up.
----------
Matrix was still in shock over his boss's announcement. Is this what it feels like to be demoted? he wondered. As he packed up his knickknacks that he had for so long kept wherever he so pleased in his lab, he started to feel sentimental. To think that after all this time as her head researcher, he'd be thrown aside for some "professionals." Matrix let out a chuckle. "What makes them any better than me, huh? I'll show them what I'm capable of," he said to himself, almost as though he were trying to fool himself into believing it. "I'll show everyone what Professor M Matrix can do!" he continued, his voice now louder.
"Oh? Isn't that inspiring?" a female voice called from behind Matrix.
"You are..." Matrix was embarrassed that his first impression of at least one of his new superiors was... that. He turned his head to face her, and was surprised to see she was a glamorous looking woman, her skin a deep tan with long light blonde hair and bright blue eyes.
"My name is Rakshata Chawla," the woman smiled. "I think we're going to get along just fine."
----
It had been a few hours, but even with Kira's support, Emiri still felt out of sorts. Maybe I should go get some air, take a walk or something, she thought. She sluggishly forced herself out of bed and pulled on a jacket. She put her hand on her head and sighed. "Snap out of it, me," she told herself.
She strode past the doorways into one of the main rooms of the base to see everyone still hard at work. She quietly hoped that Kira would see her and ask her what was wrong again so he could accompany her outside, but despite turning her head in every possible direction to look for him, she couldn't find him anywhere. Clearly, she wasn't going to go off into other sections of the base to look for him. Then she'd just seem desperate and that was the last thing she wanted right now.
She pressed open the large heavy doors of the bunker and felt slightly relieved when she could feel a few streams of light shining down even in the dense woods.
She smiled slightly.
----
"Congratulations!" Lloyd's exclamation resonated in every corner of the base. "We've determined that we can successfully have five Knightmares at the disposal of your cause if I can get a few shipped back from the Land of the Rising Big Red Dot!"
Hikki looked up from a project he was working on at a table adjacent to Lloyd's.
"Zat's great, now we just need to find pilots!" he said enthusiastically.
"What are you working on there?" Clarice asked, looking over her shoulder.
"Er, nosseeng." Hikki struggled to cover the sheet of paper he'd been scribbling on for the past hour or so.
"Doesn't seem like nothing." Clarice continued trying to look.
"Eet's not done yet!" Hikki shrieked, trying to get her to back off, ultimately only drawing more attention to himself and the mysterious paper he'd been guarding.
"What's going on over here?" Samson looked over from helping paint a wall nearby.
"Hikki's been working on something over here and won't show me what it is!" Clarice mock-whined.
"Come on, let us see it," Samson asked, trying to pull it from under the Frenchman's arms.
"Go away! Eet's not even feeneeshed yet!" he begged again.
While Hikki was focused on trying to defend the paper from Samson's clutches, Clarice noticed that he'd left his other side completely exposed and reached in to grab the paper from him.
"Huh?" She examined it. "What's with these drawings?" she wondered out loud. "Some kind of... uniforms?"
"I said zey're not done yet!" Hikki complained.
"That's all it was? Some drawings of uniforms?" Samson sighed, somewhat disappointed.
"Well, zey're not just any uniforms, zey're new uniforms for ze Syndicate!" Hikki declared, a little embarrassed to have had his grand plan for new uniforms discovered while they weren't even finished.
Clarice and Samson met Hikki's statement with similar ".....huh?" looks on their faces.
"What do we even need uniforms for?" Clarice asked, examining the paper again.
"Well, we don't need zem, I just seenk eet would be a nice seeng to have..." Hikki explained some more.
"Hmm." Samson looked over the paper more. "Which one is yours?" he wondered out loud before answering himself with an "Ah, here it is."
Samson grabbed a pencil from the table and started scribbling on the paper a little.
"There we go." He proudly displayed his modifications.
"...You gave him a cape," Lucille remarked seemingly out of nowhere.
"Eh?! Lucille? Where did you come from?" Clarice turned.
"I've been here the whole time!" she announced matter-of-factly. "You three have just been too wrapped up in yourselves to notice. Anyway, why do we need uniforms now? Haven't you guys been parading around doing your missions and whatnot without them all this time?"
"Well, we did have those ridiculous Mardi Gras outfits a while back..." Clarice recalled.
"I seenk zey're a good idea!" Hikki defended.
"I dunno, they're kind of cool, I guess..." Samson shrugged, looking over the paper again. "But aren't we all busy enough as it is? Do we really need a whole other group of people making uniforms?"
"Zat's what Tres ees for," Hikki said with a confident nod.
"Well, whatever floats your boats, I guess," Lucille sighed.
"And that's good about your robots, Lloyd," Samson finally acknowledged.
"Indeed," Lloyd grinned. "Tell me, Mr. Monroe, have you ever thought about piloting?"
"About piloting one of those Knightmare things? Seeing that I just heard about them today, I'm going to have to say no," he answered.
"Because from what Hikki's told me, you seem like a prime candidate for his partner in one of the dual manned frames I've planned out!" Lloyd continued as if he'd been the only one talking all along.
"Huh? Why's that?" Samson asked with a confused look on his face.
"Basically, what you'll have is full control over weapons and movement and he'll have control over the slower weapons that you, controlling the rest of the Knightmare, wouldn't regularly have time to activate. He'll also be in charge of giving commands from it, but that's not really something that concerns you right now," he elaborated, still ignoring Samson's questions and responses.
"Okay, that's fine. But why me?" Samson raised his voice.
"Chemistry, of course!" Lloyd chirped.
"Oh lordy..." Samson brought his hand to his forehead and hung his head in grief.
Lloyd looked over the plans he and Larry had drawn up. "In addition, Kamina and Kittan will also be working together in the other dual manned frame, and Holland could use one of the ones I'm having shipped here... But as for the rest of the pilots... "
He thought for a moment. "And that's all I have for now, I guess."
"WAIT! WAIT!" an eager voice called out from across the room.
Everyone's attention turned to the source of the voice. It was Proof, a rather unimposing and forgettable member of the former Order of Glass.
"I wanna help too!" He said with a determined look on his face. "I wanna be a pilot!" he shouted. With this, the rest of the Syndicate turned their attention back to what they were doing, knowing that it was nothing urgent.
Lloyd folded his hands. "How interesting," he grinned.
--------
As the day rolled on, Q was beginning to feel hopeless about her quest for clues in the scrap heap that used to be the base of the Order of Iron.
By now, she was certain they'd overturned just about everything they could. She'd found plenty of "interesting" things: old lamps still in perfect condition, some fancy antique picture frames... but nothing of significance. Nothing that told her anything, nothing she could draw conclusions from.
She was beginning to feel hopeless when she heard the distinct sound of scratching against metal somewhere nearby. She looked down to see that her hands were placed directly above what seemed to be a manhole. Her eyes widened. Could this be?
Sadar smiled from the street where he'd been watching them for a good portion of the day. "Why, what have you found there?" he called out expectantly.
"It looks like... an escape route," she answered.
Keith, Hill and Allen gathered around it.
"What do you think?" Hill looked to Q.
She bit her lip in excitement. "I think we found our lead," she replied anxiously.
"Hey old ma-" Allen turned to question the white-haired man to ask about his hunch and how exactly he knew about the Order of Iron, only to see that he had seemingly vanished. He thought it suspicious, but didn't want to ruin his boss's good mood by informing her of it.
"So then, we gonna lift this thing up or what?" Keith wondered as he looked around at the others.
"Don't look at me," Hill said, excusing himself from the task. "If you haven't noticed, I'm not quite in ship shape to be lifting things like that already."
Keith turned his gaze to Allen and Q before deciding with a sigh that he might as well do it himself and get it over with.
He cautiously lifted the surprisingly heavy lid of the manhole aside and looked down.
"Pitch black," he stated.
They all gathered around it to look down. It was indeed as Keith said, pitch black. They couldn't tell how deep it was, or what, if anything, was down there. All they could tell was that it was dark.
"Allen! Go get a flashlight from the car!" the Chief ordered.
Allen nodded and rushed back to the to car to find one. Seconds later, he returned, flashlight in hand. He passed it to Q, who bent down closer to the hole and tried to make out what she could with the flashlight. She first shone it straight down, hoping to make heads or tails of how deep it was. To her surprise, the light couldn't reach the ground.
"It's deep," she declared.
"Well? What do you suggest now, Chief?" Keith lit another cigarette.
Q thought for a moment. "We have to go down there," she answered.
"Are you insane? You don't know what's down there!" Allen looked warily at the hole in the ground.
Q continued to shine the flashlight in various angles to try to uncover clues about what things were like down there. "I'm not passing this up," she responded.
Keith sighed. "There's no reasoning with you, is there?"
Q looked up from her searching. "Keith, I'm going to need some rope and a gun."
"Wait, let me come with you," Hill offered.
Q appreciated it, but with Hill's condition she knew it would be better for him if he didn't accompany her.
"I think I can manage," she replied. "Don't worry, I'm just going down to check it out. If things get dangerous, I'll tug on the rope and one of you can pull me up."
"Then what's the gun for?" Hill asked worriedly. Keith returned, carrying a good length of rope and the chief's gun. He began to unravel the rope as Q tied it securely around her waist and thighs like rock climbers do with their harnesses.
"Just in case," she answered him.
Hill didn't like the sound of it. He was resistant to let Q go down alone when there was a chance of her being put in danger. But he knew what kind of woman she was; she didn't need him to defend her, and if he tried to argue against going on her own she might become offended.
Hill nodded. "Be safe."
--------------
The streams of light that appeared spread apart throughout the woods surrounding the bunker had become dimmer since Emiri set foot outside. It was serene and quite peaceful, and she hoped that by getting out for some air, she could cure herself of the feelings of insecurity and weakness she'd somehow managed to gain in her hiatus from fighting. However, since she'd left, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being followed. Though she didn't hear any footsteps following her own, she was certain she wasn't alone.
She took a step forward and spun around as fast as she could, hoping to out whomever it was who was being bold enough to stalk her.
Not so much to her surprise, she saw that it was Kira trailing her. He froze, slightly embarrassed to have been found out.
She sighed, kind of disappointed that she hadn't found herself an opportunity to sharpen her skills on some creep.
"Kira, if you wanted to come with me you should have just asked..."
"I'm sorry, I thought you'd wanted to be alone... But at the same time, I was worried so I -"
"You don't need to worry about me, you know," Emiri shook her head.
"I know," Kira said, avoiding eye contact with Emiri out of a mix of respect and shame.
As he slowly brought his head up to apologize he felt a strange, yet familiar pressure. Could it be... No, why would he be here?
He must have been imagining things, since he could have sworn he felt Byakuya's spiritual pressure approaching.
He blinked, trying to shake it off the feeling. Then suddenly he felt a strange warmth in his side. His eyes shot open as wide as possible as he realized he wasn't simply imagining things just now, and the left side of his torso had been split open as easily as a piece of fruit. But he didn't have time to wallow in the pain.
Byakuya looked down at him with a cold expression and uttered to no one in particular what a pathetic sight Kira had become since leaving the Soul Society.
"HEY!" Emiri called out to him.
Byakuya didn't even so much as turn his head to acknowledge her words.
Emiri picked up a rock and threw it at the back of his head.
"HEY ASSHOLE, I'M TALKING TO YOU!" she shouted.
Byakuya turned to face her.
Emiri was standing confidently with a twisted grin on her face. The fire was back in her eyes; whatever funk she was in seemed to be over.
Emiri was back.
Characters:
Keith Douglas - K_dawg3484
Allen Black - Alastour_Blaque
Q Holmes – Q_chan
Hill – fool_on_the_hill
John Sadar - FurionTassadar
Samson Monroe - MasterSamson
Tres - (Trinity Blood)
Cille Compton -- Cille
Hikki Follet – Kohikki
Lloyd Asplund - (Code Geass)
Kaia - namek_kaia
Kirara Amour - kiraralove
Bruce Herman - bherman
Jean Pierrot – pierrot_le_fou
Proof - NoProof
Cid - Cidthekittyisfun
Emiri - _Boxers_
Kira Izuru – (Bleach)
Pierrot - pierrot_le_fou
Kamina – (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
Larry Zorin - LAZY17
Professor M.Matrix - matrixman124
Amy - Amalgam
Ozzal - Mike Lazzo
Kittan - (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann)
Lucille Compton - Cille
Byakuya - (Bleach)
New Characters:
Rakshata Chawla – (Code Geass)