Code Geass, Mass Effect 1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:I don't own Code Geass or Mass Effect, this is none profit and just for fun, if anyone wants to use my OC's ask me first and I'll consider it**

**Edit-At the suggestion of AhumbleHalofan I'm going to add a bit of exposition to this in the form of the previous stories epilogue, enjoy**

**Author Note: Well here is the promised sequel to "Let Me Share the Burden", as said before it starts off at the beginning of the first contact war and then there will be a time jump to the next galactic event. **

**For those who don't wish to read through the first story allow me to explain the differences, I created a universe where Britannia focused on gene alteration and nanotechnology, end result was that the Royal Family became...perfected before birth. The big change in the story was V.V. was in charge of the program and out of hatred for Marianne altered her child to be twins for the sole purpose of making her self conscious about her weight, lets be honest here the little bastard is that petty. **

**As reviewer Tahkaullus01 described best "Luluka does the job of being Lelouch's twin wonderfully without being a carbon copy of him", she is a foil to his arrogance and in turn he second guesses some of his more insane decisions, I'm quite proud of how that OC turned out. The other major alterations are that Nunnally is sociopathic due to a nasty case of PTSD caused by the injuries V.V. inflicted on her and having to murder soldiers in Japan at the age of seven, honestly considering Nunnally had two personality traits in the first season (Adorable and kidnapped) I found it incredibly easy to mold her to something unique. **

**Other changes, Suzaku never met back up with his dad since they had Jeremiah guiding them to Tokyo and they ran into Kallen right has her parents were gunned down, end result they all grew up together at Ashford. Not going to expand further then that because honestly my writing improved immensely at that point and I wouldn't mind you all reading it, now enjoy.  
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**Ashes of Tomorrow**

**Dramatis Personae for this chapter by appereance**

Naoto Kozuki-Cover name for Prince Naoto vi Britannia son of Emperor Lelouch and Empress Kallen

Hannah Shepard-Wife of Naoto vi Britannia, kept maiden name to avoid attention

Lieutenant Rius Vakarian-Officer in the Turian navy

Lieutenant Adrien Victus-Officer in the Turian navy, good friend of Rius

Vice Admiral Sparatus-Ladder climber with eyes on the Council

Lieutenant Saren Arterius-Vindictive and obsessive, kind of a prick

Councilor Tevos-Asari Councilor, open minded but inclined to help Asari interests over others

Princess Nunnally vi Britannia-Sweet, bubbly, and dangerously sociopathic

Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia-Currently immortal and enjoying the hell out of it

Joanna Shepard-Cover name for Princess Joanna vi Britannia, spoiled rotten by her grandfather Lelouch but still a good kid

_**Mentioned but unseen this chapter**_

Vice Admiral Euphemia li Britannia-Half sister to Lelouch and his siblings, currently in command of the 4th fleet

Timeo Lebeau-Nunnally's husband and a General in the Britannian army

Empress Kallen vi Britannia-Wife to the Emperor and mother of Naoto vi Britannia, also controls 65% of the empires industrial power with an iron fist

Empress Ceciliana vi Britannia-Wife consort to the Emperor, occasionally still goes by C.C.

Marianne Harper-Married name of Marianne vi Britannia daughter of Suzaku and Princess Luluka, co-founder of Cerberus

Jack Harper-Marianne's husband and co-founder of Cerberus

* * *

**_We never truly wanted simple retribution, rather we just wanted it to be very clear to the galactic community what happens when you provoke the Empire-Empress Kallen vi Britannia_**

* * *

_**Private Musings of Yui vi Britannia** _(Note previous readers will already have read this, to you newbies, enjoy)

After a discussion about mortality with my Aunt Euphemia I have decided it would be prudent to record my personal history for posterities sake; being the progenitor for Britannian's entire race of construct intelligence's many may find my observations pertinent for their own devices. My name in the beginning was an acronym for the Yggdrasil Utility Interface, and while I went by Y.U.I. for quite some time eventually my family simply referred to me as Yui, the transition touched me to my quantum computing core. My Emperor took the initiative upon my conception and immediately pushed through the "Artificially Conceived Intelligence Rights Act" and gave me and my future sons and daughters the same rights and privileges organic Britannian's enjoyed, I will never be able to pay him back for this act of kindness.

I suppose other then existing the first groundbreaking event I took part in was humanities first attempt at faster then light travel, while we didn't reach FTL velocities we did reach fast as light which is no small achievement, this of course led to my most important discovery. On October 2 2041 A.T.B a group of Sutherland survey drones discovered an unnatural stone barrier that we eventually deduced was an ancient fortification wall, considering that in nineteen years we hadn't even found evidence of microbes much less sentient life this finding sent shock waves throughout the Imperium. Uncle Lelouch himself left the terraforming project on the Jovian moons to personally take part in unearthing the alien ruins, and I believe he put it best upon their uncovering, "Holy shit". What we had found was unbelievable, a race known only as the Prothean's had been observing primordial man from their facility on Mars nudging my wards in the direction they wanted them to go, luckily we had followed that path unguided.

It took nearly seven years of excavation but on December 12 2048 A.T.B. we finally hit the proverbial jackpot; a nearly intact Prothean data storage bunker, and while the cores where largely scrambled I and my Emperor are incredibly patient and so began the centuries of data recovery. The first finding was the last entry in the data center, a warning across their dying empire, a race of sentient starships that had been dubbed "The Reapers" had systematically wiped out their entire race. I must note my Aunt Nunnally was quite annoyed by this revelation, I quote her reaction, "Mother fuckers best not think their kill count impresses me, _I'M_ the only reaper around here".

After this revelation my Emperor commissioned my Father and Mother's to design modular and easily upgradable ship hulls, frigates were to be the size of our traditional cruisers in the 200 meter range, cruisers in the 700 meter range, and much to my amusement the "Dreadnought" weight class would be in the 1500 meter range, apparently Uncle Lelouch never quite got over losing his flagship.[Redacted without Code Black Clearance] Unknown to anyone but my family we also commissioned the Heavy Dreadnought class, a seven kilometer long monster that housed the refinement of my parents planet killer laser, to this date no one outside of their crews is aware of the five ships existence [Redaction End]. The draft that had been in place for 28 years became permanent, all citizens had to enlist for two years of service once they reached the age of eighteen, to sweeten the deal if they agreed to a four year term their university schooling was paid by the Emperor himself, suffice it to say our military ballooned over night.

With ships and soldiers to crew them we began refining the fighters and infantry of the empire, it was early on decided that Vincents and Gareths would remain the base design of our Knightmare force, only upgrading when necessary since there was no longer an arms race. As for heavy infantry the Fenrir special forces were folded into my Aunt Marianne's Cerberus unit and put at her direct command, unfortunately for all insurgents in the empire she took after both her mother and father and utilized the powered armored troops with ruthless efficiency. Standard infantry underwent an interesting transition, with the discovery of 'Element Zero' in the Prothean archives we had managed to develop cheap and efficient kinetic weapon barriers, while they'd do nothing to stop energy attacks they were more then enough to handle small arms.

What truly changed everything for our men and women on the ground was my recovery of blueprints for a Prothean infantry particle rifle, Uncle Suzaku broke out in maniacal laughter when he found out that "I can give my boys frigg'en ray guns?! MWAHAHAHA!". With this addition to our forces Aunt Kallen finally implemented her long planned immortality project on the masses, all troops enlisted were given L14 implants and given the choice of having a dramatically decreased aging process, the offer was near universally accepted. As I pulled more and more tech from the archives the empire discovered functional (if highly limited) cloaking technology which was immediately usurped by Aunt Luluka's Ninjutsu Corps, I try not to think about what she uses it for.

On May 10 2063 A.T.B I made what amounted to humanities biggest discovery, Pluto's moon Charon was actually a device known as a Mass Relay, a twenty kilometer long tuning fork shaped structure that upon its activation opened my wards to the galaxy at large. The relays create mass free corridors through the space time continuum allowing instantaneous travel to its partner relay, On May 21 2063 A.T.B. Grand Admiral Cornelia li Britannia took her dreadnought the 'Dauntless' through the relay and ended up in what would eventually be known as the Asgard system of the Exodus star cluster. In less then a week my aunt discovered the world Terra Nova and thus began the Holy Britannian Empires new expansion.

In less then a year two more systems with garden worlds were discovered, Demeter and Eden Prime were both pushed for heavy colonization, the Emperor temporarily halted all further exploration until the three initial colony worlds were appropriately built up to Earth standards. Fifty years later when the systems gas giants were suitably set up to farm Helium-3 fuel and any applicable terrestrial worlds had terraforming stations put into place the ban on further exploration was lifted and so began the "Wild West" era of the Imperium.

We had discovered over the past century that while the Sol system's planets and asteroids were rich in sakuradite the rest of the galaxy seemed to be bare of the substance, in turn element zero (colloquially known as eezo) became a cheap substitute for commercial space travel. This unfortunately led to the empires first incident with Element Zero poisoning in In 2115 A.T.B, the tanker "Pack Mule" suffered a massive breach of its Tantalus core causing the vessel to explode spraying Europa's lower atmosphere with its cargo. Birth defects from the effected settlements sky rocketed but the exposure to Element Zero invetro caused an as of yet observed mutation, biotics.

I suppose the best way to describe the phenomenon would be as Papa Lloyd put it, "A mutation that causes children to become Jedi?! YES!", my Emperor agreed with his assessment and after much study all pregnant women where given the offer of financial reimbursement if they were to consume eezo and a stabilizing dose of nanites to induce this mutation. By 2200 A.T.B roughly 40% of the populace had control over dark matter via biotics, while this was amazing the empire lacked a division to train the growing population of biotics, brute force seems to be our curse for the time being, not everything can be rushed.

Now the year is 2222 A.T.B, I have been functional for more then two hundred years, I am the mother of precisely 40,743 children and it is my solemn and sacred duty to protect my Emperors Imperium of forty star systems and their 117 habitable worlds with all my might. My name is Yui vi Britannia, I am the central intelligence of my Emperor's personal residence the Damocles, the caretaker of his beloved granddaughter Joanna, and I will burn the galaxy before I let anyone or anything harm my family.

_**IMS Ptolemaios, in Orbit Around Mass Relay 314 October 27, 2222 A.T.B**_

Commander Naoto 'Kozuki' was a very bored man, quite bored indeed, see the problem was when you lived over two centuries and had enlisted in the military over seven times things just stopped surprising you. Nothing new ever happened, so one day you decide to join the Frontiersmen corps and start surveying new systems, and then you find out how goddamn boring that is but you're stuck there for four years, yay. Holding his head in frustration as crewman read off more data for this bloody stubborn derelict mass relay he didn't notice the bluenette woman behind him until he was wrapped in her arms. Glancing up his amethyst eyes met her vivid green and he snarked out,

"Fraternization Hannah? How unprofessional," His wife let him go to smack him on the back of the head then made her way to his side, leaning against his chair she gave him a smirk,

"I do believe our last time through the military I was a Vice Admiral and you were only a Captain, so no bitching vi Britannia," Smiling he grabbed her by the waist and attempted to tickle her, suppressing a giggle she fought a moment before they remembered they were in public. Regaining their dignity the ancient royals in hiding cleared their throats then stared out at the shadowed violet structure on the monitor, sighing for what felt like the thousandth time today Naoto opined,

"Ya know when mom and dad offered this position I honestly thought I'd be Jim Kirk'ing things a lot more, at the very least Janeway'ing it, we are never going to get to Sisko and Picard levels at this rate." She shook her head at the redheads antics while rolling her eyes,

"Oh please we're flying the equivalent of a cargo boat with an over sized scanner bolted to the side, these Trailblazer crates have nothing on our old commands...ugh one more year of this crap detail, seriously love next time around I decide what service we join." Grunting lightly he pulled his bangs from his forehead and met her eyes,

"Deal, I buggered this one hard, any news from home by the way?" His wife's face blossomed into a smile and she nodded happily,

"Oh yes, Joanna is trying to refine her biotic techniques, apparently she accidentally killed Ceciliana but she took it in stride, I swear your mothers are going to pamper that girl to death." Snorting he shook his head ruefully,

"Trust me from experience, she'll eat it up for about a century and then it'll become the most stifling thing ever, an-" his musings were cut off by a teasing voice coming from his chair speakers,

"Not to interrupt this lovely family moment commander but I've finally gotten the relay unlocked, my apologies for how long it took you know how fickle the processing cores on these old ships can be." Smiling as he leaned back into the chair Naoto replied to the AI,

"Its fine Genna I didn't expect you to over work yourself for this, go ahead and bring the relay online," with that the mass relay before them burst into light, its pulsing blue eezo core bathing his small exploration fleet in sapphire tones.

"Oh nifty, maybe we can find something interesting this time around eh? I mean I doubt it but who knows," Hannah quipped, glancing back at his wife he shook his head again.

"You know as well as I do that it'll just be another dead system, ugh...all right lets get this over with, ensign launch the probes lets get this going."

_**Turian Patrol Fleet 184**_

Lieutenant Rius Vakarian was bored beyond words, while his tour of duty was technically up last week he was stuck on this fleet patrol for another month, the joys of the Turian military machine. Trying his best to stay awake he was startled by his friend Adrien, squawking slightly he did his best to ignore the mans flanged laughter,

"Spirits be damned Victus was that really necessary?!" The usually stern mans mandibles spread in mirth as he said,

"Nope! Just letting you know that grey noser Saren is prowling about, he's rammed so far up Sparatus' a... speak of the devil here he is." Both men acted like nothing was amiss as the bareface walked past ignoring them completely,

"I really hate that guy," Rius muttered, he just wanted to be home with his wife and kids, Garrus had already learned how to breakdown a rifle on his own and it pained him he wasn't there to help him calibrate it. Adrien let out a huff of annoyance as his mandibles audibly clacked against his metallic carapace,

"You and everyone else my friend he seriously has some entitlement issues, he's been bent out of shape this entire tour because he wasn't assigned to his brothers ship and we've all had to pay for it." Shaking his head in disgust he was about to reply when his terminal began blinking rapidly,

"What in the seven hells...relay route 314 has become active, energy pulse indicates a probe just came through...origination unknown..." Exchanging a glance the two turians got to work checking telemetry data then forwarded the findings to Admiral Sparatus, after a moment Rius sighed sadly.

"Ten to one odds whoever these poor bastards are that cloaca is going to drop the heavy end of the hammer on them out of spite." Victus rolled his eyes while shaking his head,

"Not taking that bet my friend, hopefully for their own sake they don't put up too much of a fight, you know how much Sparatus enjoys throwing around his authority." With that the two junior officers sat in silence until the loud speakers crackled,

"This is a message to the entire fleet, we have evidence that an as of yet discovered race has illegally opened a mass relay, we will be jumping to the offending system in precisely twenty minutes, be ready." Doing his best to remain stoic he whispered,

"How in the void are they supposed to know they violated a law from a government they couldn't know exists?!" Shaking his head once again Adrien held his palms to his eyes,

"Wonderful...you know those hardliners Rius, 'Ignorance of the law does not exempt you from it'."

Pausing a moment to ponder something he then asked, "Hey you still have comm access to the Citadel from when we forwarded the sensor sweep earlier?" Nodding slowly his friend grinned, "Why don't you write up a report to the Council and send it when the ops over, worst case scenario nothing happens, best case Sparatus gets this entire incident dumped on his shoulders if it goes sour." Grinning in reply Rius typed up the report and saved the draft, he had no way knowing he had put into motion the destruction of his commanding officers career.

* * *

Naoto was spinning his dads old king chess piece between his fingers when the Mass Relay before them pulsed and dozens of none Britannian vessels jumped into the system facing off against his paltry force of ancient Avalon and Trailblazer vessels. Gaping while he tried to register what the hell was going on Hannah bellowed,

"Blaze luminous shields up! Passive radiation wave shields up! Arm point defense systems and prime the main cannon access code 495969423060!" The ships AI processed this in seconds as the crew goggled at the seemingly junior officer taking control. Snapping out of it Naoto gasped out,

"Genna...can you open a comm signal to those ships?" The AI's self image sprang to life on the pedestal mounted to his chair hand rest, the Korean woman portrayed there nodding.

"I can Commander, I'll begin broadcasting the First Contact documentation when you finish your hail," He nodded at this and waited until his old friend opened the channels; once that was set he licked his now dry lips nervous beyond words. Hannah grabbed his hand and squeezed it as he said,

"This is Commander Naoto Kozuki of the Holy Empire of Britannia, we are peaceful explorers and wish to make first contact on friendly terms, I will be rebroadcasting this message for the next twenty minutes along with copies of our language and history in hopes that your ships AI can quickly process the information." Sighing he looked at his wife with trepidation, she nodded as she opened up a different channel

"This is the IMS Ptolemaios to all available forces, the Winter Contingency is in effect first contact has been made, I repeat first contact with an alien species has been made." With that being sent back home all the small Britannian fleet could do was wait anxiously.

* * *

Rius stared nonplussed at the massive amount of data pouring out from the alien vessels, as the ships VI's tried in vain to translate the alien signal he glanced over to his friends console and gaped openly. While they had put up their shields like any rational being would the energy levels made no sense, Adrien was busily manipulating his controls trying to clean up the readings when he looked at the camera display that had his friend enraptured; the alien vessels were cloaked in massive interlocking green hexagons.

"En..energy shields? For real?" Adrien gasped out, before he could further analyze this the Admiral announced his intentions.

"The aliens have made obvious overtures to violence and we'll respond in kind, battle stations people prepare for imminent conflict." Exchanging a look the two Turians expressions mirrored each other,

"Attacking?! What the hell they've done nothing but put their shields up!" Rius said, fumbling around underneath his station Adrien pulled out two helmets and handed one to his stunned friend while he sealed his own.

"He's bucking for that council seat so he probably thinks putting down an "alien threat" will look great on his resume, I have a bad feeling about this my friend, be ready." Nodding in understanding Rius took the proffered helmet and locked it to his armors seals,

"Nothing good is going to come from this is it?"

* * *

The Ptolemaios shook violently as the alien vessels opened fire peppering the shields with mass accelerator rounds, both Hannah and Naoto began barking orders as their ancient vessels took evasive maneuvers, grimacing Hannah said,

"Well it appears they're hostile, lovely, hadrons are out of range and we have no Knightmares or fighters, crap." Agreeing with her assessment Naoto was about to reply when one of his Avalon's detonated taking its entire crew with it, eyes narrowing in rage he bellowed,

"Lock onto one of their Dreadnought analogues, hit the bastards with an Asplund special!" The massive vessel shook as its main cannons capacitors discharged a full powered burst, the green beam lancing through the void immolating a half dozen cruisers before detonating one of the kilometers long alien vessels. As this was happening Hannah was giving orders to what remained of their fleet,

"All vessels fall back to Shanxi, I repeat fall back to Shanxi, we have no methods outside the spine cannon to fight these bastards let General Williams know whats going on!" As the Ptolmey took another heavy hit Naoto couldn't help but grin,

"Good news love...I'm not bored anymore, all right fire snap shots with the main gun we don't have the time to wait for the capacitors to fully recharge just keep them on their toes."

* * *

Sparatus was swearing so heavily the spirits were probably blanching, through that wall of vitriol Rius was trying his best to keep track of the alien vessels but the damn things were faster then anything he'd encountered before and that cursed Dreadnaught kept spitting those hellish green beams out specifically targeting _their_ dreadnaughts.

"Well now we know what my bad feeling was about!" Adrien yelled as a beam clipped their vessel damaging several ships caught in its continuing path. "Not only did we provoke an unknown race we provoked an unknown race with ENERGY WEAPONS!" The ship shook from another near hit when they got lucky, a group of frigates had managed to charge through the dreadnaughts strange shields while it was firing, they successfully took out its main gun but as they were attempting to flee several black tinged red beams spat out and killed the entire flotilla. It was a short lived victory for the alien vessel though as its hull was perforated with debris, secondary explosions spread along its massive width and its shields began fluctuating.

"We've pulled their teeth. all cruisers and frigates move forward!" Sparatus bellowed, their's was the only dreadnaught left in the fleet so it looked as if they were simple spectators giving fire support from here on out. Rius glanced to Adrien while shaking his head,

"No way its this simple."

* * *

The ship was lost, those damn alien frigates had destroyed most of the point defense systems and the main cannon not to mention frying several of its Higgs Field Neutralizers preventing a jump to light speed.

"We need to evacuate, all remaining crew get onto the escape ship immediately, Genna transfer your processes and set the self destruct...Genna?" Getting no response from his long time companion he stumbled over to a diagnostic station and pulled the dead crewman from the seat, assessing the damage he dropped his head in sorrow. "Genna's gone, AI center got cored..." Neither royal knew quite how to handle their friends death but another massive jolt to their stricken vessel knocked them out of their reverie, Hannah ran to the weapons console and began typing in several commands.

"Main guns off line but that doesn't mean the primary loading chamber and capacitors are, removing safeties and setting them to continuous charge, with any luck the overload will blow the ship apart." Nodding at this Naoto motioned for his wife to follow him as he cast his Geass of Absolute Guidance leading the surviving bridge crew through the burning and shattered corridors.

"Ya know, outside of the loss of one of my best friends, hundreds of men and women who entrusted me with their lives and the majority of my bangjacked fleet, today was fairly memorable, first contact and all," Glancing at Naoto Hannah decided to join in the gallows humor.

"Indeed, at the very least we won't have to worry being followed back to Shanxi and having to weather an impending planetary invasion seeing as how these blokes seem to be the very definition of rational restraint," snorting at that she received a few dry chuckles from their crew. Finally making it into the escape hanger they rushed to the ancient Ikaruga frigate that would serve as there life boat, bringing up his Omni-tool Naoto made a quick recording then set the Ptolemaios on a suicide course for the alien fleet. Giving the burning hanger one last glance he ran aboard the Ikaruga and closed its hatch, messaging his wife he said,

"Get us out of here Lieutenant, second we exit the hanger hit FTL and use the Ptolmey as a shield...we're done here"

* * *

The few remaining enemy frigates jumped out of system as their burning dreadnaught charged the approaching fleet, Rius had to admit he was impressed by their courage, a last stand rather then dying like a prey animal, honorable. As the fleet surrounded the vessel a male voice transmitted a message the VI's still weren't able to translate,

"Dum Spiro Spero! All Hail Britannia!" And with that the vessel exploded in a chaotic green flash, arcs of viridian energy spat out instantly detonating any ships unfortunate enough to be licked by their lashes and many more were struck down by the flaming debris. When it all cleared the task force was reduced to less then a dozen heavily damaged cruisers.

"Well...that just happened," was all Adrien could say, nodding dumbly Rius felt rage begin to replace his shock and it crystallized in his chest. This waste of Turian lives was the end result of one pompous mans desire for glory and Rius wasn't going to just stand by and let it go unanswered chain of command or no, he quickly brought up the report draft from earlier attaching all the data the alien vessel had been transmitting. Finalizing it he filed it with a high priority stamp and forwarded it to Councilor Tevos just before Sparatus ordered comm silence; there would now be no covering up what happened here. Content he'd done all he could he began scrubbing his computer of all traces of his misdeed while eavesdroping on the command station to hear a rather furious Saren yelling.

"They killed my brother! The bastards killed my brother and wiped out most our fleet with a suicide attack! We can't let this stand sir!" Sparatus was pacing back and forth grinding his teeth together in frustrated anger, turning to face his subordinate the admiral finally came to a decision.

"You're right, I'm going to order the twelfth and twenty seventh fleets to meet up with us here and we'll transfer my flag to one of their ships, we'll see how those primitives hold up to an armada eight thousand strong." As this was being said Rius couldn't help having a traitorous thought,

'Primitives that just wiped out the majority of our fleet with one vessel...'

_**Imperial Colony Shanxi sixteen hours later**_

Princess Nunnally vi Britannia was not a happy woman, she was only here because Nii-san had asked her to come out to the sticks to fix some engineering snafu which had initially buried her in her one true bane; paperwork, after a bit of digging she had finally gotten some answers. Apparently the shoddy work that had caused thirty seven deaths when a bullet train derailed all came down to the corrupt colony administrator embezzling funds, after stripping the man of his title she took on temporary governorship until a new one could be appointed.

The position had been amusing for a bit but after publicly executing the official the job had stopped being fun and she'd been spending more and more of her waking hours redesigning the entire transport system, sooooo lame. Grumbling about how she missed being a terrorist and how getting an engineering degree bit her in the ass her thoughts were interrupted by the blinking holopad on her desk; jumping at the distraction she accepted the call immediately.

"Princess Nunnally here, please please please tell me this is interesting!" As the image resolved itself to display her nephew her cloudy mood switched gears instantly, "Naoto! How you doing honey! You and Hanners still poking dead planets with a stick hoping something will pop out? Fingers crossed that we'll find space elves, that'd be tits." Smiling sadly at his Aunt he began speaking,

"Err, actually we were found by aliens, unfortunately they're also dicks and wiped out my survey fleet, I've only got three frigates left and outside of my escape ship they all took heavy damage, we need to prepare for invasion." Staring incredulously at the younger man her trademark smirk fell as she began to rub her eyes, seeing that he was in fact still there and not a hallucination she replied,

"Oh...k... well that's certainly interesting, Shanxi only has half a billion people living on it which means our defensive fleet is barely four hundred ships strong, I'm assuming that since this is the first I heard of it your signal was jammed?" Brow furrowing in consternation Naoto nodded,

"Yeah we ordered the Winter Contingency but when we jumped out of system we realized everything we'd tried to send out on the extranet had been blocked at the comm buoy, we just arrived and they'll be hot on our tail." Sighing a bit the man swept his hair back continuing, "Genna was also lost and we kind of overcharged the Ptolmey's primary weapons capacitors and gutted their fleet...they won't be happy about that."

Frowning at the loss of an AI Nunnally filed that away for later, Yui was very protective of her children and this would piss her off something fierce, she motioned Naoto to continue as she stuck her neural jack into the base of her skull and began ordering the planets defenses to mobilize. After the man had given her the play by play she nodded and routed his deathtrap Ikaruga frigate to the systems flagship,

"I'm putting you in charge of the Courageous, she's a newer Everest Class Dreadnought, totes OP honestly but if they crush us in numbers it won't matter, hmm. I'll put Hannah in charge of the Defiant, her last play through the military was navel so I'll just make up a Captains commission for her so she doesn't have to expose her identity, she always did like heavy frigates."

Impressed that his normally slightly unstable Aunt was taking control so handily Naoto just let the woman keep talking, "I've ordered several message drones launched to the core worlds since the buoy is likely down for us as well, also ordering General Williams to mobilize the national guard and to deploy the planets orbital defense platforms. Shit...this backwater only has twelve...oi oh well nothing to do for it." Taking a breath she glanced at her nephew as his image fluctuated, seems he had docked with his new command. He stared at her for a moment then dropped his head,

"I'm so sorry Aunt Nunnally...I fucked up hard, I should have ran instead of fought and it cost me several hundred good men and women and my oldest companion." Smiling sadly she cut that off right there,

"It isn't your fault you ran into asshole aliens honey, Euphia owes me fifty quid by the way I was right first contact would be violent. Look don't blame yourself, you got blindsided and were in a ship as old as you and Marianne, you did what you could, now shape up and prepare your new crew, they need to see a vi Britannia not a bitch." Standing a bit straighter he saluted her and said,

"Yes ma'am," and with that the signal cut off, as she ordered the National Guards deployment she opened access to the vaults beneath the cities to evacuate all noncombatants, which meant anyone under the age of eighteen. Conferring with the Shanxi's central AI Nunnally drew up her plans for war, glancing up at the ceiling she let her smirk return,

"I totes get to kill E.T., wait till i tell Timmy about this one."

_**Shanxi high orbit, system defense fleet October 30, 2222 A.T.B**_

As the various frigates, cruisers, dreadought's and carrier's arranged themselves facing off against the systems Mass Relay Hannah Shepard couldn't help but feeling deeply nervous about the coming assault. While the ships currently arrayed against the alien invasion were two hundred years more advanced then Naoto's lost command something told her they'd have shear numbers thrown their way, and quantity had a quality all on its own. Sighing her thoughts were interrupted by Aunt Nunnally's announcement,

"Mass Relay showing signs of travel, on my mark fire F.L.E.I.J.A warheads at these coordinates, no limiters." Confused by the order but professional enough to follow it Hannah ordered her two warheads armed, as the first alien ships jumped in system she felt her spirits fall instantly, in less then a few seconds hundreds of vessels had appeared. Seeming to not notice the incoming tide Nunnally shouted "Fire!" and a hundred sakuradite enhanced nuclear missiles flew towards the approaching enemy fleet, it took only a few moments for Hannah to grasp what the Princess had planned, and it was brilliant.

"Oh Nunu you beautiful psychopath..." she whispered as the stagger fired warheads each took out massive groups of alien vessels as they jumped in, she would find out after the conflict that their initial F.L.E.I.J.A barrage had consumed over two thousand of the alien ships. As their nukes ran dry the true fight began, Nunnaly ordered weapons free and the collected capital ships opened up with their pulse cannons sending a wave of green energy towards the approaching armada, the beams burning through the rounds fired by the aggressors along their way.

* * *

Admiral Sparatus' eyes widened in shock as he jumped in system to a wall of green light slamming into his fleet, commanding his normally orderly firing lines to spread out to avoid more mass firing tactics he glanced down at his display in horror, the operation had been in place for less then four minutes and he'd already lost 2,435 vessels. Growling he bellowed,

"Launch all fighters, frigate groups 3, 7 and 14 FTL jump above the ecliptic plane and strike their dreadnaughts from behind, cruiser group 12 focus fire on the central dreadnaught, all-" his next order was cut off as four massive bulbous dreadnaught sized vessels jumped into the middle of his fleet. Staring wide eyed at the suicide move the ships disgorged thousands of fighters then just as quickly as they appeared the four ships jumped back out; scanning the fighters he saw they were shaped like an asari' with glowing blue, red, and green wings. Before he could fully grasp what the hell these things were they began spitting energy blasts throughout his fleet, the nimble machines spraying multi-colored energy darts at anything that moved, a cruiser just off his dreadnaughts port bow exploded instantly as a white light penetrated its eezo core silhouetting the fighter that killed it. Turning to face his ship the midnight blue machines eyes glowed fiery red and rushed towards his flagship.

* * *

The alien cruiser exploded in seconds, apparently shields were a foreign concept to these blokes so the Valkyries baryon shot burned through it in seconds, poor show really. Glancing over at the much larger vessel approaching her Nunnally ignored the massive fire ball marking the death of her first kill, grinning she flicked a switch and started broadcasting "Don't Fear the Reaper" on unencrypted channels and rushed forward. Drawing out Gungnir while activating its blaze luminous blades she twirled the spear leaving glowing blue lines in the sky, landing heavily on the dreadnaught she began carving its hull like a Christmas turkey. Glancing up in thought as she sliced massive furrows in the steel plating she spoke out loud,

"Right, daddy asked me to be home this Christmas, he wanted to spend more time with Timeo and the boys, hmm, oh shit is that a fighter! Sweet!" With that she dove off the splintered hull and fired a pair of slash harkens at an approaching alien fighter, countering its momentum she swung it like a shot put into the dreadnaught she had been savaging, "She shoots, she scores!" Nunnally announced happily. Glancing back at the ship realizing that even she couldn't sink that beast on her own she contented herself with destroying the nose of its main cannon and went in search of softer prey.

_**The Citadel, Asari Councilor Tevos' Apartments **_

Councilor Tevos sat at her desk with a cup of tea after yet another hectic day of meetings, the damn Hanhar were demanding that a Prothean excavation be cancelled due to "religious reasons" and unfortunately one of her closest political allies daughters was supposed to head the research project. Vaguely wondering if Benezia could divert Liara elsewhere she began reading through her backlog of messages, first was from the Turian councilor Dravis, apparently it was a forward from a first contact event report.

_'At precisely 2206 hours yesterday my task force detected an unauthorized activation of a dormant mass relay, upon investigation we encountered an as of yet discovered race who immediately took aggressive action upon our entry to the system. After a protracted battle my task force eliminated the alien threat with minimal losses and I am now coordinating with Turian high command to prevent future incidents. -Vice Admiral Sparatus Narridus'._ Sighing at yet more violence in the galaxy Tevos cycled to her next message and her eye ridges rose in interest at the sender.

_'I'm aware I may very well be dooming myself and my family but I cannot let Turian social norms keep me quiet on this subject, at precisely 2206 hours today we made first contact with an alien race activating a defunct mass relay. The aliens made several attempts to contact us but my commanding officer one Vice Admiral Sparatus Narridus ordered us to launch an unprovoked attack against the newcomers. I've enclosed all the information the aliens transmitted as well as recordings of the following conflict, suffice it to say they wiped out ninety percent of our forces with a single dreadnaught and I can only assume that further conflict with these people will be detrimental to the Council species as a whole. -Lieutenant Rius Vakarian'._ Now very curious she processed the alien transmissions through a translation VI while she took a shower, as she sat on her futon wrapped in a towel she said,

"Play translated recording," leaning her back against the thick cushion she listened to a deep voiced male, _"This is Commander Naoto Kozuki of the Holy Empire of Britannia, we are peaceful explorers and wish to make first contact on friendly terms, I will be rebroadcasting this message for the next twenty minutes along with copies of our language and history in hopes that your ships AI can quickly process the information"._ Sitting up in shock Tevos realized a few things at once, THEY were the aggressors against this Britannian Empire, the aliens had offered a peaceful hand and had been shot at, and most importantly they had AI's.

"Oh...hell..." was all she could say

_**Damocles In Orbit Above Earth **_

Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia was lost in thought as he perused the information on his tablet, the Prothean ruins recently discovered on Eden Prime were unlike any that had found before, for starters there was signs of still relatively intact bunkers and faint energy signatures. It was all made even more interesting due to the fact they had no idea what the facility was intended for; this was a big deal since the Protheans had been many things but subtle wasn't one of them. Mumbling to himself as he made his way into the atrium his thoughts were interrupted by an exuberant whoop,

"Death from above!" was the only warning he received as a small figure dove from the upper balconies, at the last moment it was sheathed in a glowing blue energy field and slowed to daintily to sit on his shoulders. Tilting his head back to stare at the grinning child looking down at him he drawled,

"Well hello Joanna, am I interrupting you?" his granddaughter giggled a moment then chirped,

"Heyya grandpa, I'm learning to fly!" smirking at this he teased,

"Keyword 'learning' I see," pouting slightly the small redhead sniffed then replied,

"The trick is forgetting how to fall, I'm still working out the kinks," chuckling as he continued his way to the central gardens Lelouch then asked,

"Are Marianne and Jack still in their video conference?" Shaking her head in the negative while gently swinging her feet she pointed towards the gardens gazebo.

"Finished twenty minutes ago, they're having tea with grandma C.C. and grandma Kali." Nodding he was about to put her back on the ground when his Omni-tool began beeping, opening the message he came to a dead stop. Worry in her voice Joanna asked,

"What's wrong grandpa?" pausing a moment he replied incredulously,

"Apparently Nunnally is fending off an alien invasion on Shanxi," that elicited a gasp from the girl quickly followed with,

"Cool!"

* * *

**If you guys don't like the dramatis personae I'll keep it out of future chapters, hope you enjoyed, and if you want this to keep going going PLEASE REVIEW!  
**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author Note-**__**If you want more and in such a quick manner please review, it helps to motivate my lazy ass**_

* * *

_**Damocles in transit to secret facility 'Castle Black'**_

Joanna was bored, she was often very bored, her daddy told her that this was common in their family; it tended to happen when you had the ability to think of a viable stratagem to topple a government in the time it takes most people to lace their shoes. Yui-sama said that she was 'Chronologically six, mentally fifteen, and scholastically forty-seven', sadly she was right so it was very difficult for Joanna to have friends her age, that's why she was let in on her guardians experiment, an AI that aged at the pace humans do.

That was how she had gained her best friend Arya, the A.I. was just as smart as her but was still...heh...fun; looking left and right cautiously she inserted the memory crystal into her Omni-tool and with a brief flash a little girl in dueling leathers appeared, smiling the grey eyed brunette waved happily.

"Hey Jo! Whats going on?" Smiling devilishly she whispered,

"Your moms in her mobile terminal right now meeting with Grandpa about fighting aliens, that means we can hack into security and listen in without her knowing!" Returning the smile the hologram nodded her head enthusiastically,

"Oh shiny! Come on plug me in over there I can't wait to hear whats going on! Think they'll be chest bursters or those boring grey ones obsessed with probing?" Shuddering slightly at the thought of either she replied,

"Personally I'm hoping for space elves, ok mischief is now afoot!" with that Joanna plugged her co-conspirator into the console and they began hacking past layers of Lloyd-sans security.

* * *

Lelouch stalked back and forth while listening to his war council make their reports trying his best not to think about whether his son and daughter in law were alive, he wasn't really concerned about Nunnally with the immortality and all, if anything he felt bad for the aliens that ran into her; woman was probably having the time of her life. Turning to the holoprojection of Cornelia he watched her despondently say,

"Sadly I'm three weeks out from the nearest mass relay and with the Way-Gate projectors still held in reserve Redoubt is effectively cut off, that was the plan after all..." Smiling sadly to their sister Luluka replied,

"Sorry Nelly, know how it goes, as it stands we're scrounging ships from every sector to throw together a fleet big enough to kick these bastards out, problem with having a big ass empire and a big ass fleet, both need each other." Taking a puff from her cigarette she glanced over to Lelouch, "Think we should activate a Black Fleet asset?" _THAT_ got everyone's attention as they looked towards the Emperor hopefully. Sighing he stopped and lit his own smoke off Luluka's then continued pacing,

"God I'd love to, but those are our trump cards against the Reapers, but if we wanna implement Euphemia's 'Shock and Horror' campaign it might be for the best, Suzaku thoughts?" His brother in law shrugged while munching on an energy bar,

"I say activate one of them, we have to pass the nebula anyway and it would improve morale, revealing we have one doesn't mean we tell anyone we have more." Nodding he then turned to the head of the OSI as he altered the Damocles course on his Omni-tool.

"Maribelle, you have anything?" Sighing sadly the pinkette's hologram nodded as she inserted a data crystal into her terminal,

"I was lucky and had a stealth frigate asset in the neighborhood, we were able to piggyback on the aliens carrier signal from the relay and hacked their network, apparently they're called Turians and they're the military arm of a conglomeration of alien species known as the "Citadel Races'. Now when our AI's hacked into their network we discovered a few things, namely they're terrified of artificial intelligence's and instead use VI's that I have to say are borderline retarded."

With that she glanced at Yui's cyborg form making eye contact, "They're a generation below the program you evolved from and they're trusted with their network security, your kids tore right through them." Smiling like any proud mother would Yui bowed at the compliment as Maribelle continued. "Thing is its looking more and more like this was a massive misunderstanding perpetuated by the aggressor fleets commanding officer, scuttlebutt has it their high command doesn't even know he's throwing their fleet into Nunnally's meat grinder."

The whole room stared at her in shock as she smiled deviously, "Yeah apparently she's caused a 40% loss to their entire force, and their leaders don't know yet, they've managed to get _alot_ of assets on the ground but they haven't managed to break our fleet yet but its close. Anyway all I've got so far, next data package is due in five hours." Thanking her he turned to the last projection, Euphemia was busily typing at her terminal her pink bob haircut covering her face,

"Euphia, what have you got for me?" The Vice Admiral stopped typing as she turned towards her brother, her violet eyes showing cold calculation that very few ever got to see,

"I have Nineteen Dreadnoughts, four hundred cruisers, and seven hundred frigates, all of varying weight classes, if you're legitimately breaking one of the Ragnarok's out of cold storage I'll be transferring my flag to it, which are you giving me?" All business, it was terrifying when the 'Pink Princess' turned the Admiral up to eleven, pulling his Omni-tool up once again he brought up a list of ships and clicked the top one transferring the data to her.

"I'm launching my personal command, the Ashes of Tomorrow, I'll put the Sorrow of Eternity on standby, the other three shall remain inactive, not like I currently have anyone crewing them anyhow. Once we pick up the vessel I'll meet up with you to begin our counter attack," with that Euphemia nodded and cut off the transmission. She only acted like this when she was worried, not good for anyone who got in the Euphinater's way, glancing at the last pair in the room he gave his niece a warm smile.

"What does Cerberus have for us Marianne?" The brunette looked up from the data pad she'd been sharing with her husband, their cigarette smoke clouding above their heads, "Well Uncle Lou here's the deal, I can sneak in two full size stealth re-entry carriers and I have five full squads of Fenrir armoured troops, but that leaves 2/3's of my bays empty." Piping in Luluka asked,

"Jack, you finish making those new pods for normal sized folks?" the man nodded an illusive smirk on his face,

"Indeed, are you intending to give me some of your 'Deaths Head' troops?" Returning her son in laws smirk she nodded,

"Hells yes, in fact I'm going down too, each ship has a bay for a Knightmare right? Kallen, Suzaku, feel'in like a tag team match on E.T.?" The two ace pilots grinned viciously as they nodded. Lelouch tossed a King piece up in the air chuckling, catching it he turned back to the group and said,

"Sounds like a plan, Euphemia and I will smash through their fleet while you guys take the ground, lets move people."

* * *

Turning to the AI Joanna asked,

"Ragnarok's, Black fleet, Arya what are they talking about?" The AI looked curious for a moment, shrugged, then smiled,

"Wanna find out?" Grinning she nodded as she pulled the crystal from the terminal and went to find a more secure station to sate her curiosity. After wandering for a few minutes she found herself in Rakshata-sans labs, grinning maliciously she used her biotics to pull an air duct cover off and lifted herself inside, setting the cover back in place she paused for a few minutes till the headache went away.

"Bloody stupid biotic headaches, when I'm empress first thing I'm doing is illegalizing them...ugh..." muttering this under her breath she crawled through the ducts till she came to an unattended room, pulling the same process in reverse she hopped down and plugged the AI crystal into the work station. Arya came to life eyes and grin wide,

"Oh snap we're in Grandma Rakshata's labs...clever sis!" Eyes slitting in concentration Arya began sifting data before they then widened in surprise, glancing at Joanna her predatory grin was soon mirrored by the redheads.

"What'd ya find Arya?" Still grinning the little girls pale face conveying true happiness finally replied,

"Uncle Lelouch doesn't do things halfway, plug in and I'll show you." Nodding Joanna grabbed the neural jack from the table and plugged it into the base of her skull, seconds later she found herself in an open star field, looking around in boredom Arya suddenly dropped down next to her landing as if from a high height. Turning to Jo she waved her to follow and they made their way deeper into the system until the AI found the icon she was looking for, prying it open a data file began playing with Cecile-san's voice overlaying the diagrams that began rising from the floor.

"As you're well aware your majesty the mass relays are composed of a molecularly linked substance that evenly distributes impacts throughout the entire structure, so outside of hitting the damn thing with an asteroid moving at relativistic velocities nothing is taking one out. While standard manufacturing and those based around mass effect fields could never produce this we've found that we can replicate it with nanites arranging carbon molecules in hexagonal patterns, if we program the nanites to create a specific shape they will not stop until completed in so long as they're fed materials. Essentially we can cost effectively _grow _a near indestructible ships hull, this is the only way we can see to creating five Ragnarok class heavy dreadnoughts without bankrupting the empire." At this a new file began playing Nina-chan's voice presiding,

"Hey Lelouch while I am aware your early anger over our planet killer system was due to us attempting to make a Death Star analogue I wish to convey my gratitude to continue the project. As you're well aware the multilaser convergence array effectively cubes the destructive power of the blast, but we've discovered a new use for the system," As this was being played a large cylinder in space fired four lasers at a focal point in front of the device and a central beam shot out through it.

Nina continued as a large pulse in the beam followed along its path, "Using a positron inhibitor field within the energy beam the laser will effectively drill through a planets crust and mantle within seconds delivering the contained payload of antimatter to its core." At this the beam cut off and the planet exploded sending rocky detritus flying through space, "And with the beam no longer hindering interaction the antimatter will utterly destroy the planet in question." Switching a last time to Rakshata-san the display showed a long thin four bladed spearhead object,

"The Ragnarok class heavy dreadnought, 7,300 meters long, its hull is composed of Cecile's carbon armor and armed with Nina's refined planet killer laser, it is dotted with roughly two thousand hadron and baryon cannons as well as tens of thousands of close in weapon systems as well as my new smart shield system. As per your request **_no_** element zero was involved with its construction and its next generation star drive is fully compatible with the Earl of Pudding's new Way-Gate transportation system, now that we've designed your doomsday toys can we please go back to building something interesting? Old technology is such a bore." At this the videos stopped and Joanna found herself back in the star field, turning to the excited Arya they both shouted,

"WE NEED ONE!"

_**Citadal Council Offices**_

Tevos did her best to keep her pace steady as she made her way to Councilor Dravis' office, the Turian would have just arrived himself and she wanted to hit him with this before he made himself comfortable. As she reached the door she rang in and announced herself, after a moment the door opened showing an elderly man shuffling papers, his white face paint clashing strikingly with his black carapace. Smiling affably he said,

"Well hello Tevos, how can I help you today?" Taking a deep breath she let it out slowly trying to remain calm,

"Hello old friend, we have a situation, how much do you know about what is currently occurring at Mass Relay 314?" Mandibles twitching in slight confusion he shrugged,

"About what you do honestly, Sparatus has been oddly sparse on the details but he's been filing reports on a regular basis." Nodding at this she handed him a print out of what she'd taken to calling 'The Vakarian Report' and let him read it, he went completely stiff as his eyes narrowed.

"It gets worse, I ran their transmissions through a translation VI, apparently Sparatus put next to no effort into understanding it, they had sent nearly a petabyte of information on their language, culture, government structure, you name it. Also, if I'm reading their messages correctly they have AI's in common use." She'd give this to the old man, his repertoire of curse words would make a Krogan nod in approval, when he was finished he crumpled the report in his hand.

"Tevos I swear to you I had no idea, Spirits it makes sense though, I'm retiring next year and the Admiralty is up in arms over who will take my place, more then likely he thought he could beat down a "dangerous alien threat" and ride that to the Council seat." Sighing he activated his hapatic keyboard and began typing, shaking his head in disgust the entire time, Tevos began pacing back and forth mind running wild trying to make sense of all this.

"If my instincts are right on this one Sparatus probably planned on hiding the loss of his initial patrol in whatever casualties he sustained taking their homeworld, but that being said If their weaponry is this advanced there is a very high likelihood they're still holding off his fleets. We need to salvage this situation and we need to find out if these people are really playing with bloody AI's, Dravis...why is the Hierarchy going along with this?" Sighing as he continued to type he just shook his head,

"Most likely scenario? Damn fool convinced some lower ranking members to bypass the Primarch and sneak the fleet orders through in hopes of acquiring the aliens technology, it'd set him up to take my job and skyrocket his cohorts careers. Politics... this entire situation reeks of it and its a good indicator of why I'm retiring, nothing quite like ambition to make a Turian forget who he is. Hmmm... ah here we are," with that the holo display on the corner of the desk showed a rather handsome young soldier standing at parade rest.

"Lieutenant Rius Vakarian reporting as ordered Councilor," the man displayed no outward signs of worry but they could see it in his eyes, Tevos felt for the man but time was of the essence after all.

"Lieutenant, first and foremost thank you for letting Tevos know about the truth behind this incident, I hold no grudge against you bypassing me since you likely didn't know how far this went, so hold no worries of repercussions, just be aware most Turians would not be so...accepting of this major breach in protocol, for now just give us a sitrep." Visibly relaxing the young soldiers mandibles flexed in anger,

"Its a slaughter sir, they fired WMD's at the entry vector of the relay and slaughtered nearly two thousand vessels before the damn fight even started, Sparatus didn't bother following protocol to send in a recon force first, he was that intent on drawing first blood. The alien force is tiny in comparison to ours but their technology is so much more advanced that we have to drown them in our own blood to make a dent and even then they're fighting tooth and claw for every inch given. Different varieties of energy weapons are in wide use, if scans are any indication, there's everything from lasers and baryon pulses to particle cannons and antimatter. Also they're using some advanced asari'iod fighter that utilizes both range and melee combat to devastating effect, our fighters have a ten to one kill ratio, aliens favor." Both Councilors were staring at him in horror but he kept talking, his taloned fingers twitching in frustration,

"To top it off they're utilizing advanced electronic warfare countermeasures that my associate insists have to be AI based, any time a ship gets too close to one of theirs the entire thing goes haywire, friendly fire, drive overloading, hell one frigate was remote controlled to ram itself into a cruiser."

"By the Goddess," Tevos whispered, this was worse then she could have anticipated, much worse, noticing a grinding noise she looked towards Dravis and saw that his talons had dug deep furrows into his desk.

"Lieutenant...where are you currently?" Snorting in disdain no longer bothering with the pretense of calm he growled out,

"On the other side of the relay trying to put our wrecked ship back together, Sparatus is using us as a comm relay back to the Hierarchy hence how I know what I do." Nodding at this the elderly statement said,

"I want you to gather a small crew and take a shuttle to the Citadel ASAP, you're going to be needed in the near future and since you're a key witness on the front lines I want you safe." Cocking his head in confusion he asked,

"Needed for what sir?" Eyes slitting in rage Dravis growled out,

"Admiral Sparatus' military review, I expect to see you soon soldier, dismissed," Cutting the transmission he muttered, "Getting too old for this shit." Smiling wanly at her friend Tevos groused,

"You and me both, I'm going to get a hold of Matriarch Benezia and see if she'll be willing to try and sue for peace with this Empire before this escalates even further, what about Sparatus?" Already back to typing he curtly shook his head,

"I'm contacting the Primarch now, we need to make him aware of everything before its too late," Calmly nodding she excused herself from his office to make her own arangments not able to shake the feeling that they already were.

_**Low Orbit Above Shanxi**_

Nunnally narrowly avoided a burst of laser fire from an incoming fighter, spinning she was able to nail it with a slash harken sending it into an uncontrolled crash through a field of debris, sighing in exhaustion she turned to face the encroaching horde.

"Just too goddamn many of them," she moaned in frustration, pealing up her sleave she hit herself with another heavy stim and got back to work. She'd been fighting for twelve hours strait, the aliens hadn't let up once, their charge emboldened by a brazen group of frigates that had rammed a few dozen nuclear warheads down her fleets throat.

"I'm fighting bloody Klingons, all there is to it," she said tiredly as she stabbed a passing fighter through, glancing at her defense line she cringed inwardly. She had twenty ships left...twenty ships out of almost four hundred, while she'd inflicted heavy initial losses on the Turians she'd lost the momentum, her people were just getting too tired to fight. With that cheery thought she watched in shock as the Courageous was rammed by an oddly shaped vessel, it took her a moment to realize that it was an armored insertion craft.

As she was about to charge at the parasite hanging off her nephews flagship she was charged by no fewer then thirty fighters, eyes widening she realized there was no way she could get away from them in time.

"Oh gods, be safe Naoto, please." Dancing around the incoming laser fire her exhaustion began to show as she was clipped by a few of the shots, trying not to think about her endangered family member she went back to what she did best, stopping violence with more violence.

_**Aboard the Couragous**_

"I really miss Genna," Naoto lamented as more fires broke out across the bridge, It was a total loss and he knew it, the Courageous and her escorts were top of the line, passive shielding not giving its position away like the old blaze luminous, ridiculously powerful forward cannon able to burn through planetoids and so on. Problem was when you had several dozen nuclear warheads going off even _with_ state of the art EMP shielding systems were going to burn out, unfortunately for him those systems were his CWIS and LADAR. The crippling nature of this damage was made all the more obvious when a Turian boarding craft slammed itself into the ships deck and its marines started fighting their way to his bridge. Sighing Naoto ordered a mass evacuation of the stricken vessel as he slapped on his helmet and armed his particle rifle, he'd hold these bastards off till his crew was evacuated, hell they were probably after him anyway. The ships AI, Hermes, had uploaded himself to his mobile terminal armed and armored like the Prince, glancing over the violet haired man asked,

"So, how many command ships do you intend on losing? I'd like it only to be the one so if you have any ideas..." Glancing over to the cheeky AI Naoto had no time to respond as the bridge door blew open and several figures rushed in. Hitting his active cloak Naoto rushed forward and threw several grenades through the breach before diving behind the navigation console, grinning at the pained cries he decloaked as his blaze luminous sword extended from his Omni-tool and he sliced two of the aliens in half in seconds. Aiming his rifle one handed he sent the particle beam burning through a man incinerating his organs while at the same time rolling to the deck and kicking another soldiers legs out from underneath him.

Jerking his arm back Naoto stabbed his green Omni-blade through the Turians head then reactivated his cloak running back to Hermes, the AI eyed him for a second then smiled bowing his head slightly. "Kill them all, always a good plan your highness, there's one more squad approaching shall we as your mother would say 'Murder the hell out of them?'. Grinning Naoto nodded as they both rose from cover firing controlled bursts at the approaching Turians, after killing several of them one rushed through the breach and dove at the prince knife drawn. Casting his Geass Naoto rolled to the only open path to him then began a melee fight with the alien soldier, deflecting several of the lunges with his rifle Naoto found himself falling back, this guy was good. Glancing back he saw Hermes charge the alien with his Omni-blade extended but almost off handidly the Turian pulled out a pistol and blew a hole clear through the AI's head sending the body rolling, taking advantage of his companions death Naoto extended his own blade slicing it across his attackers chest and up through his helmet.

Roaring in agony the Turian lashed out stabbing Naoto in the stomach with his knife then kicking him across the deck, grimacing as the Turian lifted him by the his throat Naoto coughed blood into his respirators, hooking his implants to the ships broadcast systems he transmitted his final order across the system.

"This is Crown Prince Naoto vi Britannia, never give in...never surrender, remember my families words...Nemo me impune lacessit" as the blade dragged through his heart and lungs he ordered the detonation of his ships final F.L.E.I.J.A warhead as he finished his thought, "Long...live...Britannia..." and with that the Courageous detonated taking the Princes killers with him to Valhalla.

* * *

Nunnally watched as the pink sphere shrunk down to nothing, an empty void marking the death of her beloved nephew, tears of rage floating away from her eyes the Princess could do nothing as the Valkyrie fell through the upper atmosphere. As the reentry shields activated she dropped her head and issued her own order, "All remaining ships jump out of system and await reinforcements, all remaining Knightmares follow the Princes final orders, make for reentry points and reinforce the cities defenses." Pausing her eyes glowing fiery red she finished with, "The Nero Protocol is in effect, take no prisoners."


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author Note**_**-To my strait out Geass only readers quick explanation, Turians and Quarians are Dextro-amino acid based and everyone else is Levo-amino acid, they make mention about this here and there about how eating others food is toxic because of this fundamental difference. This will be ignored in this fic because its bullshit, its not how the real world works and I'm not going to bend over backwards making noise about something that isn't an issue its all digestible it just takes more effort for your body and won't sustain you as much. **

**Sorry biology courses screamed that I address that, also** the Asari are mono-gender, they're all female and they reproduce by telepathically bonding, it isn't important now I just don't want any of those that followed me over to be confused.****

**Ok with that outta the way WOW you guys rock I'm completely flabbergasted by the reaction to this story thus far and I'm ecstatic so many of you are enjoying it. While the First Contact war isn't going to end as violently as everyone wishes it would (I know I know spoiler as well as a severe case of destruction blue balls) please understand that Lelouch is several centuries old and has to look at the bigger picture. The Skyllian Blitz on the other hand...hehehe...**

**EDIT-I'm aware the dinner scene drags a bit but it was necessary to get the vibe needed for the character, really sorry about that, anywho enjoy as far as you can =D**

* * *

_**"One of the most difficult acts of my entire life was to do nothing-Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia**_

* * *

_**Damocles, Castle Black, [Redacted]**_

Joanna had run out of tears, it was funny really, for the past seven hours all she could do was cry and now she felt nothing at all, any other time she'd find that interesting. Daddy was dead, Mommy was MIA as well as Aunt Nunnally, her excitement over meeting aliens had been replaced with a dull ache and despite her intellect her six year old heart couldn't handle it.

She was coping at the moment by curling up in the cockpit of Daddys Lancelot Noir holding Grandma C.C.'s tear soaked Cheese-kun in a death grip, currently doing her best to ignore the galaxy at large. There was a light knocking on the cockpit hatch that Jo tried her best to ignore, unfortunately Arya knew what was best for her and being plugged into the Knightmare she opened it up.

"Traitor," Joanna muttered lightly as fresh air spilled into the confined space flooding her bastion of despair with light, glancing up she saw the kind eyes of Grandma Kali staring down at her.

"Joanna..." not even thinking about it she dove off the seat and landed heavily into her grandmothers arms, both of them breaking down into fresh tears. After a few minutes Joanna spoke up,

"Grandpa will kill them all," There was no question in her voice, it was a statement of what would happen and there was very little anyone could do to stop it. Nodding sadly Kallen began stroking Jo's hair while letting the little girl nuzzle her neck,

"Yes, he just might, cooler heads may prevail later on but right now Lelouch wants blood and he doesn't care whose it is so long as they're not human." Forcing open her bloodshot eyes Joanna pulled back a bit to meet Kallen's gaze,

"We can't let Grandpa fall too far, we need him, he has to remember the real threat...and that Daddy wouldn't want genocide in his name." Staring down at her granddaughter Kallen renewed her earlier hug while murmuring,

"Don't ever change little one."

* * *

_**New Chongqing, Imperial Colony of Shanxi**_

Zaeed Massani was a practical man, he knew what needed to be done while under fire and that was the reason he was forced to join the dark side, leaving the honorable fraternity of NCO's becoming a bloody lieutenant of all the goddamned things. So it was after that minor insult that General Williams had entrusted him with the recovery of a rather special VIP in the war zone that was formerly downtown New Chongqing. Motioning his squad forward he led them through the rather impressive property damage that typically follows something falling from high orbit; ever cautious for any Pigeons that decided to poke at the fallen KMF at the end of the furrowed asphalt. Spotting said aliens approaching the derelict unit he keyed his comm,

"Alright ya blighters split off inta groups of four, take yer positions and when I order it kill the shit out of anythin that don't bleed red, move it!" As his troops spread out Zaeed grinned viciously double checking the charge on Jessie, he loved the heavy particle rifle like a daughter and she was gonna have some fun tonight. As he received several clicks on his radio Zaeed nodded to himself and bellowed, "KILL 'EM ALL!" and with that the 555st platoon tore into the Turian aggressors, he'd give this to the goddamned pigeons, they go down fight'in.

As his platoons particle beams tore down the kinetic barriers of the aliens the fire support lads began lobbing low yield grenades and mortars into the mix, he'd prefer the good stuff but they were trying to recover the pilot of the frame alive after all. As he was taking aim at one bastard with a big ass gun he belatedly realized it was a rocket launcher as it was leveled at him,

"Oh bugger me," he groaned as he dove out of the way of the incoming explosive, as it detonated Zaeed's kinetic barriers overloaded and his paltry cover did nothing to stop the shrapnel tearing through the right side of his face maiming his eye in the process. Screaming in agony and rage he took a knee and burned down the man who'd tried to kill him, a few seconds later it was over, slathering a triple dose of medigel over his injuries he let out a sigh of relief and sat there a moment.

Standing while shaking his head he approached the smoky blue Knightmare and began tapping commands into his Omni-tool, after a few moments the KMF's VI unlocked the back of the machine splitting its cockpit open. A few seconds later a young woman began falling out of the damaged craft, rushing forward he grabbed her in midair then laid her on the ground checking her vitals. After a moment the woman coughed her violet eyes meeting Zaeed's remaining good one,

"Sitrep?" Grinning he saluted then said,

"Lieutenant Zaeed Massani of the Triple Nickle, here to kill as many alien wankers as possible for crown and country...and revenge Princess Nunnally." Grinning the tiny brunette stood up and grabbed one of the fallen pigeons rifles,

"Sounds like a plan LT, find me something interesting to murder and I'll see you all taken care of for the rest of your lives, by the way just call me Nunnally can the princess crap, shall we show these cheeky dick waffles what happens when they commit regicide?" Grinning viciously causing the bloody wound on the side of his face to weep Zaeed responded with,

"Hell yes yer highness, this way I think there's a tank that could use yer delicate ministrations."

* * *

_**Damocles, Castle Black [Redacted]**_

Lelouch sat in silence facing out the massive window of his chambers, the horizon filled with the glossy black and silver form of the 'Ashes' as her crew brought her online; it was a beautiful piece of art dedicated to death and destruction, fitting. That wasn't really what had his mind preoccupied though, his son was dead and he had no idea how to react to it since blind revenge would kill a whole lot of innocents that would stir even more resentment to his Empire. He needed the Turians, if for nothing more then meat shields against the Reaper threat, and while the idea of just conquering the Council had its appeal he didn't have the decades necessary to enforce true unification. Mulling the pros and cons of committing genocide he was pulled out of his musings by Ceciliana wrapping her arms around him,

"You're thinking awfully loud warlock, I notice you're not a ball off angst ridden despair like when those JLF fools nearly killed Kallen, pence for your thoughts?" Looking up at his wife he gave her a sad smile,

"I was a seventeen year old kid with revenge and drinking issues, C.C. I nuked a bloody _mountain_ out of existence to kill a few thousand idiot terrorists, I'm two hundred and twenty years old now, and I have the future of mankind to consider." Sighing he patted his ancient great coat for a pack of smokes and sighed in resignation remembering Luluka had stolen them earlier, "Damn woman...anyway Kallen brought up a simple fact to me...Naoto wouldn't want me to commit war crimes in his name..." Suitably impressed with the amount of maturity he was showing she sat in his lap snaking an arm around his shoulder,

"You have certainly grown up haven't you? Ok, tell me what you _want_ to do and then explain to me what you _will_ do," Grinning at the limette he considered this a second then nodded.

"I want to break out the entire Black Fleet, I want to use the Way-Gate system to appear behind their lines and destroy their home worlds after burning their fleets to cinders, I want to prostrate their leaders broken bodies in the streets while I glass their colonies into nothing and leave the survivors to weep in the ashes. That is what I wish to do to avenge our son..." Nodding she then quirked an eyebrow,

"And what will you actually do?" Frowning he let his head fall back onto the chairs rest and groaned out,

"Oh probably nothing nearly that cathartic, swat their fleet from the skies of Shanxi, get control of the ground and try to find Hannah and Nunnally before they commit too many atrocities, maybe blow up a planet in the Turians home system to make a point. The trick is going to be stopping the Empire's people from demanding blood, Naoto was well loved when he wasn't hiding in the military, his death...my boys death will not go..." then the tears started, he'd held them back for nearly two days strait but they finally broke free. Gently stroking the back of his head C.C. brought up her Omni-tool and discretely called Kallen to the room, walking in she paused to take in the sight for a moment then the redhead held the pair of them close. After letting the Emperor vent his sorrow for a few minutes Kallen broke the tender silence,

"Got news love, General Williams found both Nunnally and Hannah, though Hannah's hurt pretty bad she was the last one off her ship before it blew." Nodding at that Lelouch reclaimed his dignity and motioned for his ladies to let him stand, straitening out his old jacket he wiped his face clean and shook out his shoulder length hair.

"Excellent, one less terrible revelation for our granddaughter, new plan, kill fleet above Shanxi, liberate Shanxi, wipe out a couple Turian patrol fleets for the hell of it then do something Naoto would get a laugh out of." Staring at their husband in confusion Ceciliana spoke up first,

"And that is?" The Emperor of forty billion souls grinned maliciously,

"I"m not going to punish an entire people for one idiots power grab, even if it cost me...cost me my boy...but what I can do is drop the might of the Imperium on the Council's front door and let them know who is now in bloody charge."

* * *

_**New Chongqing, Imperial Colony of Shanxi, Forward Base Zulu Tango**_

Zaeed walked into camp with the Princess in tow, she was grinning like a mad woman but that was fine, not every day you blew up an enemy tank with a few hand grenades and slinky, he wouldn't deny her the satisfaction. Approaching his second in command he yelled out,

"Yo Revy break out the booze and coffee we gotta guest!" The violet haired woman in question turned around to face him and snarled out,

"We ain't had booze in three days Massani and you fucking know it! And I don't give a flying fuck if you'd had royalty with you we...oh...hell...hi Princess Nunnally." The now deflated Chinese Britannian's voice became incredibly subdued upon seeing the grinning woman but she just waved it off.

"Nah its totes cool I just cleared an item off my bucket list that I never thought would be manageable so outside of losing my nephew, my Knightmare and my entire star fleet I'm doing pretty good. Is there coffee at least?" Shrugging at her fellow sociopath Revy motioned for her to follow, entering the mess tent she handed the Princess a steaming mug, taking a deep drink she nodded after a moment,

"If I was in hell and dying of thirst I do believe I might actually mistake this for coffee, thanks! So anything I can help kill in a particularly amusing manner?" Revy glanced over to the smirking Zaeed and once again shrugged,

"Eh, not really General Williams has kept the lines intact for the most part, hand this to the old man he knows what he's do'in, as for us we're low on energy cells for our rifles so we've mostly fallen back on sidearms, explosives and shotguns." With that she patted the pair of silver pistols in her shoulder holsters then continued, "Only reason Massani got sent out was because we'd just gotten a resupply, that has now been used up, outside of that we're running low on everything, shit that's the last of the coffee you're drinking right now." Grimacing Nunnally stared at the half full mug and handed it back to Revy,

"I've been comatose in a wrecked knightmare for the past twelve hours while you've been fighting, take it sergeant." Nodding in appreciation she downed the slop in one pull looking satisfied, glancing out of the tent she groaned while grabbing an ancient pump shotgun off the table.

"Looks like Dutch and Mal are back, trailing about two dozen Pigeons, ugh, alright Princess grab that auto-grenade launcher in the corner I'm done playing nice and you're no stranger to violence, care to give me some fire support?" Grinning Nunnally grabbed the proffered weapon and a spare drum following the foul mouthed NCO back to the line closely tailed by a bemused Zaeed.

* * *

_**Shanxi's doorstep**_

As the Fourth Fleet jumped into the system directly adjacent to Shanxi any Turian vessels still loitering about were annihilated in seconds, that was plenty of time for Yui to hack their network and make off with their entire database, looking through the data the AI in cyborg form couldn't help whistling. Joanna, who was currently grounded for six attempts at hijacking the 'Ashes' looked up to her guardian questioningly,

"Whats up Yui-sama?" Grinning down at the bundle of trouble that was currently playing chess with Arya she shook her head in wonder,

"Princess Nunnally and Na...your Parents held the line in space for over twelve hours and inflicted 53% losses to their entire armada, keeping in mind the bulk of that is light destroyers and frigates but its still impressive. To top it off General Williams has managed to keep the ground war going this entire time without any major losses, if I'm reading these Turians histories correctly this very well may end up their most grievous defeat in thousands of years." Staring into Yui's faintly glowing eyes Joanna nodded and went back to her game,

"Good," was all she said, 'bit more of her mother in her then her father' Yui mused as she glanced up as the Mass Relay discharged a small purple vessel, the girls both watched it contemplatively when Arya muttered,

"Yay...more aliens..."

* * *

Matriarch Benezia was rarely made speechless, she was over nine hundred years old well into the final phase of an Asari's lifespan and thought she had seen it all; that is until she saw the glossy black instrument of war that was more then three times the length of the Destiny Ascension. As her diplomatic vessels VI's informed her of the seventeen hundred weapons locks currently focusing on her she numbly hit the transmit button and said,

"This is Matriarch Benezia of the Asari Republics currently acting as ambassador for the Citadel Council, I would greatly appreciate the chance to speak to your leader regarding this unfortunate conflict and hope to come to common ground quickly." There was silence for well over a minute, as her anxiety increased the patch of space in front of her ship began shimmering and with a burst of light a kilometers long...castle appeared filling her screen. "By the goddess" she muttered as her comm pinged a response,

"This is Damocles control, the Emperor of the Holy Empire of Britannia has invited you to attend dinner with his family, please approach docking bay nine, sending coordinates now." With that the signal was cut off and the ships captain glanced back towards her,

"Orders Ambassador?" Mulling it over she said,

"Follow their docking instructions, Shiala you'll be coming with me, something tells me this Emperor won't take it as an insult if you're armed but limit it to a sidearm, lets see what these humans are like."

* * *

To say that this was an unforeseen turn of events would kind of be like saying space was a big empty void, while true it doesn't exactly convey the magnitude of the situation, with that cheery thought Kallen sprinted to Luluka's room and rushed in on the half naked woman as she was sifting through clothes. Glancing at her sister in law the raven hair woman drawled,

"Well hello Kali, I take it you heard about our visitor?" Nodding as she caught her breath she rushed to the closet and began going through Luluka's dresses,

"Yes, and I'm stealing that sexy red dress of yours you wore at last years Foundation day," Smirking Luluka nodded while sliding on a black dress with a high slight cut up to the upper thigh.

"S'all good, Suzaku is busy digging through his uniforms trying to find one that doesn't have food stains on it, I swear for someone who has the coordination to spin kick a man in the face from twenty feet away he is the biggest slob at the table. Are you...how are you handling things?" Pausing the redhead let out a long sigh as she scrunched her eyes shut,

"Not...I'm ok I think, this..." she sighed again while shaking her head, "This wasn't unforeseen, he was an explorer as well as a military man and even though we slowed down his aging he'd eventually pass naturally... I'm not in any way ok with this and I'll likely attempt...I likely _will_ murder the hell out of the first Turian I meet but my little boy would never want me to commit genocide in his name, Joanna had to remind us of that. So we're going to do what he _would_ want, kill the bastards killing our people and make enough of a splash to make sure no one dared do it again, then move on with life." Staring at her sister for a few minutes Luluka just shook her head incredulously,

"That is probably the most mature move you three have ever made...if something were to happen to Marianne or hell, even Jack I'm pretty sure everyone involved would be dead, within about twenty minutes in fact." Smirking slightly as she disrobed and slipped her own dress on Kallen turned her head to make eye contact,

"Well...we also fully intend on using them as cannon fodder when the Reapers invade, I'll let their homeworld be the price for my sons death."

* * *

As her ship settled into the docking ring of the floating palace Benezia couldn't help but gawk at its splendor, it was both elegant and terrifying, pulling herself from her thoughts she waited beside Shiala as the airlock cycled, with a whoosh it slide aside exposing a tall thin woman with delicate features and long strands of what looked like fur trailing down her back. With a bow the woman pleasantly stated,

"Hello, my name is Yui vi Britannia and I am the Caretaker of this facility, please follow me and I will escort you to my family," following Yui the ancient matriarch observed the wide open halls and high ceilings, after roughly five minutes Shiala commented,

"Awful lot of empty space wouldn't you say?" Their guide snorted lightly while shaking her head sending ripples through her black fur,

"Oh you aren't the first to mention this, Uncle Lelouch inherited this palace from his brother and the man while kind has...different aesthetic tastes then the Emperor." With that they reached a large set of ornate double doors, turning to face the two Asari Yui stated "Fair warning, the Turians killed the Emperors firstborn three days ago, so if I were you I'd be wary of what I said." With that bombshell dropped she pushed the doors open and announced them,

"Ambassador Benezia of the Asari Republics and escort your majesty," With that she finally got a look at the leaders of this Empire and she was...shocked to say the least. She'd had to deal with Empires before, specifically the Batarians and it was always an exercise in restraint dealing with the narcissistic monster that called himself emperor; he'd have exotic slaves from across the galaxy chained to his walls awaiting his pleasure while slurping wine from golden cups. The fat slop would invariably be dressed in elaborate tacky silks while sitting upon a platinum throne all the while boasting of his and his empires importance.

The Emperor that approached her was different, he exuded a presence of power that needed no boasting, his shoulder length black fur and piercing amethyst eyes giving him a regal look on their own. His delicate features were almost as feminine as an asari but his frame was unmistakably male, even his clothes gave off a subdued aura, the somewhat complex black coat the only ornamentation on his person. As he came to a stop he offered her a small bow,

"I am Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia of the Holy Empire of Britannia, luckily for both of us I don't typically bring a courtier so we won't have to sit through the list of my titles and past deeds for an hour," Smirking at the small quip she returned the bow and replied,

"Indeed I do so hate wasting time on posturing, as your compatriot said I am Matriarch Benezia and this is my second in command and bodyguard Shiala," giving a similar bow to her guard the Emperor turned and introduced his family, neither Asari could fail to notice that all the women present were gorgeous.

"These two are my wives Empresses Kallen and Ceciliana vi Britannia," motioning to the curvy redhead and lithe limette they both gave them stony faced nods, she wouldn't hold it against them obviously one of them was the mother of the Emperors recently deceased son and pleasantries were not something they cared for. Turning to the other male in the room he continued, "This is my brother in law and best friend Lord General Suzaku Kururugi," the green eyed man bowed lightly his face impassive.

Turning to the last person present the family resemblance to the Emperor was undeniable, "And this is my twin sister Princess General Luluka vi Britannia, wife to Suzaku and troubleshooter of the empire," This woman gave them a bemused smirk as she took out a thin white tube and caught the end on fire with a small brass box. She took a deep breath and exhaled a puff of smoke, 'Hmm, something in common with the Batarians' she mused as the raven furred woman groused,

"Good to meetchya, nice tit window by the way, thought those were only in shitty sci-fi games," caught completely off guard by this comment she distinctly heard Shiala snort as the Emperor and his family groaned, glaring at his sister Lelouch just rolled his eyes and said,

"Yeah sorry about that, so we're going to be discussing ending this bloody stupid conflict over dinner, I have no idea what your peoples eating habits are so I prepared both vegan and real food, come have a seat." Taking their seats she noticed another difference between this empire and the Batarians, the food provided was simple yet smelled delicious, a small variety of fish, soups and salads that the Emperors family took no preamble to dig into, shrugging she helped herself to a bowl of spicy smelling soup and dug in.

Shiala was moaning happily as she tried to delicately tear into a seafood dish as the Emperor grinned at her looking pleased, "Glad you like it, spent most of the afternoon preparing this for my family, it was simple happenstance you showed up when you did." The two Asari glanced at the man in surprise as he grinned again and waved it off, "I prefer to do things for myself if at all possible, I grew up to be very self sufficient so the normal trappings of royalty are..." his wife, Kallen, interrupted him,

"Grating and a general interference with our lives," there was a murmur of agreement around the table and after a moment Benezia put her spoon down and sighed,

"Ok I'm going to be blunt here your majesty," wincing at that he stopped her,

"Please just Lelouch while we're at the dinner table," becoming more and more intrigued by the young man she nodded and continued,

"Everything that has happened was due to a single Turian vice admiral with delusions of grandeur, he dragged your Empire into this war in an attempt to earn political points and to be honest, he probably would have gotten away with it if your people hadn't cleaved through everything thrown at him." Now having the rooms undivided attention she pressed on, "I have it on good authority that if you agree to cease-fire and come to the Citadel that this entire fiasco can be over within less then a day, no demands, no reparations, none of the normal trappings involved, just peace." Nodding at this the Emperor bridged his hands together and held them in front of his mouth,

"Matriarch, do you have any children?" Surprised by the question she nodded and replied,

"Yes, one daughter, her name is Liara." Eyes drilling into her he then asked,

"What is she like, what does she enjoy doing?" Taken aback she mulled over what to tell him but decided it wouldn't hurt anything,

"She's very young by our peoples standards, she just turned seventy-eight, she recently finished University with a degree in Xeno-Archaeology and is completely obsessed with the Protheans, currently shes trying to find a dig that will bring her along but they're a bit biased about her age. She's very earnest and open, a little too trusting if I were to be honest but I personally trained her in the arts of biotics and warfare so she can at least defend herself." The Emperor dropped his hands and gave her a small smile,

"She sounds like a wonderful young lady, my son, Naoto, he was a bit over two hundred, our extended lifespans are a new development so he had this mentality that he had to jam as much living as possible into every moment of his life. He had degrees in every major science and had served in our military a half dozen times, he loved seeing new things and exploring, why he was part of the survey fleet that Turians destroyed," at that she winced but Lelouch continued, "He was funny, loved to quote terrible old television programs just to make his wife smile or exasperate her..." trailing off she couldn't help but notice the tear running down his cheek as his family looked at him solemnly.

"I...I don't know what to say to this Lelouch," wiping his eye clean he turned to her with steel in his gaze,

"If something were to happen to Liara...would you let the one responsible live?" Shiala spoke up for her,

"If she did, I wouldn't," short and succinct, as always. Lelouch grinned viciously at this then said,

"I have one demand, and only one demand when I come to your Citadel...I want the man who ordered my sons death, I want this Vice Admiral, and I want to kill him." Pulling a physical letter from her pocket she unfolded it displaying six seals, the marks of all three Councilors and those of their governments heads,

"Turians respect discipline and pragmatism, Sparatus displayed neither and led tens of thousands to their deaths, you come to the Citadal and broker for peace and this document makes his life yours." Glancing down at the paper obviously running it through a translator he nodded then quipped,

"Looks like we're going on a road trip."

* * *

_**New Chongqing, Imperial Colony of Shanxi, Forward Base Zulu Tango**_

Nunnally, Revy, and Zaeed were all cackling like madmen as they fired automatic grenade launchers over their cover at the approaching light infantry, none of them quite caring about accuracy with the high explosives peppering the kill zone. As the screams of the dying played their dirge for the three soldiers there was a visible change to the aliens ranks and just as suddenly as they appeared the pigeons pulled back systematically retreating. Looking around in confusion they watched as dozens of Turian transports began to lift into the air, abandoning the planet enmasse, Revy looked around in frustration as she lit a cigarette,

"Where the fuck are they going we had 'em right where we wanted 'em!" Looking just as frustrated her two companions shrugged as they watched the exodus of alien craft, glancing over to Revy Nunnally said,

"15, you?" Grinning Revy replied,

"18, Zaeed?" The scared man chuckled deeply,

"Sorry ladies, got 22 of the bastards" both women looked dejected as they muttered,

"Bollocks"

* * *

**Second Note-Just for the record Joanna wasn't playing morality pet she was just reminding her family what her father would have wanted, nothing more. Also Sparatus will be getting what he deserves next chapter so rejoice, as a minor tease remember what Nunnally's geass does. As always review my friends it helps more then you can imagine. Also I threw Revy in there because I love Black Lagoon and her palling around with Zaeed seemed funny to me.**


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author**_** Note-So I've gotten a few complaints that this is "human wank" and how OP Britannia is, well here's the thing folks, no shit Lelouch has been preparing for the Reapers for 200 years while having energy weapons and a source of FTL travel that doesn't require constant discharge of its core. That being said please keep in mind that he lost well over four hundred vessels to the Turians and they had more then enough time to make off with a few wrecks to reverse engineer, pride goes before the fall and Lelouch as pride a plenty. Just try to enjoy the initial buildup Britannia's antagonism will not go unforgotten, re-freaking-lax.****  
**

**Edit-So just letting you guys know if this seems a bit wonky I had to completely rewrite this chapter due to my harddrive getting rained on, some how my air conditioner pulled a Final Destination and blew droplets that leaked in from a thunderstorm and the fell perfectly to were they dripped into the system...fun. So if some things seemed rushed or a bit convoluted I apologize it took me three days to get the gumption to retype all this and to be honest it was painful as hell going over it again, alot of the nuances were lost in my annoyance so I'm sorry =/**

* * *

_**Democles above Shanxi November 2, 2222 A.T.B.**_

Nunnally marched towards the command center of the Damocles closely followed by her two newest acquisitions, most people in her life tried to 'help' her regulate her violent tendencies so having folks around that allowed her to embrace those habits? Yeah not giving that up anytime soon, as they reached the rooms blast doors she stopped and turned to address her subordinates,

"OK, two things you guys need to know about the Emperor, first off he only respects honesty and skill, so whatever you do don't talk about the accomplishments of your ancestors like they're your own,pisses him off. Second if he warms up to you and asks you to call him Lelouch do so, he despises the formality of his station, half the reason he and his wives are constantly colony hopping in their over glorified mobile home, questions?" Both Zaeed and Revy shook their heads, nodding herself she hit the key to open the door, as was usual for the vast open room both the floor and ceiling monitors displayed the local star field as the Emperor paced back and forth talking to...a hot blue alien chick, huh.

Deciding to listen in before announcing her presence Nunnally leaned against the ridiculous platform throne Lelouch did his best to avoid and observed,

"Ok so they'll give me three weeks to prepare before heading to the Citadel, you're sure that my little show of strength won't cause more trouble then its worth? Personally I don't mind scaring the hell out of the galaxy but the entire reason I'm not glassing Palaven right now is to avoid further conflict." The blue alien shook her head, her elaborate headdress swaying slightly,

"The fact that you're there and willing to talk it over rather then being stubborn and isolating yourself will be seen in a positive light, asserting your dominance is just your way of saying you'll play their game but any rules you disagree with are outside of their jurisdiction to enforce." Smirking Lelouch crossed his arms and chuckled,

"I have to say Benezia I'm quite shocked at how helpful you've been to circumvent your own government," the face she made reminded Nunnally of the look Naoto had when she had let him bite into a lemon as a toddler; she grimaced at that thought a second later, 'Oh Naoto...'.

"Lets just say I've lived a very, _very_ long time and I've seen what letting the politicians get there way has accomplished, which is very little. Your Imperium is a dose of reality the galaxy needs, everything has become static, the status quo rules all, and its not only unhealthy but boring." Hearing a slow clap Nunnally glanced up the pedestal to realize belatedly that Luluka was sitting on the throne, calling down she said,

"Well put blueberry, well put, Kali and I have been going over a few things in yer whatsitcallit, Codex? Gotta say three items stick out more then anything, first off the horseshit you lot pulled on the Krogan, the way you've treated the poor Quarians, and why the literal fuck you haven't wiped the Batarians out." Shrugging at this the alien, Benezia replied,

"You can confront the council on the first two, your initial meeting will be broadcast on the extranet live so I look forward to seeing their reaction honestly, as for the Batarians...don't get me started on them. They've been hiding behind "Cultural Heritage" laws to keep their barbarism legal for centuries, and since you seem to already have Colonies in the Skyllian verge I'm actually intrigued to find out how they react since they've been claiming for years that they've been colonizing the area." Luluka broke out into laughter shaking her head sending her raven tresses swaying,

"If they had been we'd have run into the slaver bastards already and we'd have wiped them out like the scum they are, mark this Ambassador even if we join this Citadel collective and pretend we give a fuck about their laws the second we get a sniff the Batarians are moving against our people we'll glass their cities, free their slaves and expand our Empire, Britannia does not suffer the whims of fools and monsters." Nodding the older women just smiled,

"I look forward to it, in fact if you'd like I'll give you everything I know about the hegemony...and its Emperor..." Coughing to get their attention Nunnally walked forward and her brother broke out in a massive grin as he ran up to her engulfing her in a bear hug.

"Nunu...thank god...how...how are you holding up little one?" Sighing as he placed her back on the ground she whispered,

"I let Naoto die..." putting a hand on her shoulder he shook his head sadly and said,

"Nunnally...Naoto was attacked by an entire battalion of Turian Black Ops troopers, he managed to kill all but their leader and when he was felled he took the bastard with him to the World of C, you had nothing to do with this, in fact I'm downright impressed by what you accomplished and have an assignment I want to talk to you about later. That being said Matriarch Benezia allow me to introduce my sister Princess Nunnally vi Britannia, the one the Turians called the Reaver of Shanxi," before Benezia could say anything Nunnally whirled around making a squeeing noise.

"I'm the Reaver of Shanxi now! TOTES AWESOME! I gotta call daddy and tell him, he'll be so proud! Oh shit I haven't called Timeo and Cornelia to let them know I'm ok...gonna hear about this one...Oh hi Matriarch I'm Nunnally, these here are my new pals Zaeed and Rebecca, they helped me murder the hell out of the Turians on the ground, didn't need help in space I think my kill count up there was like in the tens of thousands." Looking at the small woman with concern Benezia just bowed and greeted the strange royal,

"Pleasure is mine Princess, err..." Lelouch grinned waving his hand chuckling,

"Its just her way to deal with reality Ambassador, its a bit discomfiting at first but you'll get used to it. Now that being said I need to have a meeting with my little sister so I'm giving you and Shiala free reign of the station outside of weapons, life support, and power control. Introduce yourself to the crew, get to know my people, if you have any questions at anytime just call out for Yui and she'll be willing to help, if she seems taciturn don't take it to heart she's still as pissed about the attack as I am she just doesn't bother hiding it. Excuse me," with that Lelouch turned on his heel motioning for Luluka and Nunnally to follow, glancing at the two soldiers following her Lelouch nodded and they proceeded to one of the side offices.

As they settled into the plush chairs surrounding the fine mahogany table Lelouch said, "Alright little one, I see the rage beneath the surface tell me whats on your mind," given permission to speak her mind in front of her subordinates she snapped out,

"Why the hell are we making peace with these bastards instead of conquering them?! I know just as well as you do how large the First fleet _really_ is so why are we playing games with these invading aliens instead of allowing them to taste the receiving end of a F.L.E.I.J.A barrage?" Nodding somberly he let the silence sit for a moment before responding,

"Two reasons, Naoto wouldn't want a war of genocide done in his name, second off I need these idiots for later and beside that point this was all one mans fault, fun little fact Benezia revealed over dinner was this whole thing was a power grab by some no name vice admiral." Grimacing she asked,

"You had fucking dinner with her while we were being invaded?" Rolling his eyes as he twirled a pen absently in his left hand he snorted out,

"Nunu it was a twenty hour transit from Castle Black to the nearest relay, I had time to make bloody dinner she just arrived when I was done, anyway I was going over your friends dossiers while I was talking to Benezia, you certainly attract interesting people." Meeting both Zaeed and Revy's eyes he continued, "Zaeed Massani and Rebecca Liu, both of you have records indicating borderline sociopathic tendencies, prone to violent outbursts, and while loyal to the crown show a remarkable amount of vested self interest, care to argue this?" Both soldiers sat stoically until Zaeed sighed and Revy muttered,

"No your Majesty..." Nodding he glanced to Luluka who stepped forward,

"We had an ancestor by the name of Leon Lamperouge who worked as a privateer underneath the French crown, he was paid to harass British shipping and just be a general annoyance, by all accounts he was pretty good at it. Anyway eventually Robespierre happened and the royal family was brutally executed, he didn't take kindly to this but tried to stay out of it up until Napoleon took over and began conquering Europe. He personally felt it was a terrible decision and would cause more harm then good so as any true entrepreneur would he took advantage of the chaos and started raiding everyone not just the Brits."

Zaeed and Revy looked confused as to why they were being told this but kept their tongues for the time being as the Princess continued, "So when the British fleet lost at the cape of Trafalgar thanks to Admiral Nelson's assassination good ol' Leon realized that the French would invade the English isles and slaughter everyone. The British may not have been _his_ people but his nationalism died with his king so he hit London and grabbed as many commoners as his six ships would hold and brought them to the America's.

"He made three trips saving as many people from the slaughter as he could...its actually his diary that tells of what befell London...the streets running with the blood of loyalists so deep that when the city burned all you could smell was it boiling...on the third trip he had to turn around unable to navigate through the debris and body chocked Thames and so made his home in Boston. Its through his actions that our mother was actually able to become an officer and make her way to becoming the Knight of Two, its kinda neat knowing we had a philanthropic pirate in the family." Nunnally spoke up first saying,

"I never knew that, thats awesome!" Grunting Zaeed said,

"As interest'in as yer families genealogy is what does that have to do with us?" Smirking the Emperor stood and approached the pair of soldiers,

"I'm starting a...project based on Leon's old business practices, I'm putting Nunnally in charge of an ancient missile boat thats being covertly upgraded to modern standards. Hadron cannons, smart shields, and a dedicated AI to start with, the reason behind this project is simple; I have to make peace with the Turians for the future...but that's doesn't mean I have to forgive them.

"Your operation will be deep cover, you'll become pirates, you are to hire yourselves out to anyone who will pay you so long as it hurts the Hierarchy, if you see a diplomatic vessel with no guard? Take the damn thing and ransom the diplomat, you see a bank that looks soft? Rob it, you see a Turian warship that looks vulnerable? Sink it, I want you to form a crew and spread chaos, and as an added bonus you get to keep all the loot the only stipulation is don't kill any civilians, outside of that you're free." Standing up with tears in her eyes Revy walked up to Lelouch and hugged him,

"You're the best boss ever!" Grinning he replied,

"Yes I am, now your ship is in docking bay four undergoing its upgrades, I named her after Leon's flagship so take good care of her alright? Familiarize yourself with its layout and systems, she's very unique and the stealth systems are going to take some getting used to, bleeding edge tech directly from Lloyd. Make up a crew list and I'll review it before you launch in a month, remember I need morally ambiguous people on this mission." The twins turned to Nunnally as Luluka reached into a paper bag and pulled out a black helmet handing it to the somewhat shocked woman,

"Operational security is key little one, and we can't let this fall back on us so we need something so obviously linked to Lelouch that he'd never have allowed it, denial by audacity I like to call it, do I make myself clear, Zero?"

* * *

As Benezia and Shiala wandered the vast ornate halls of Damocles the Matriarch did her best to come to terms with everything that had come to pass, the revelation of this Empires existence was going to shake galactic civilization to its core there was no doubt of that. The simple fact that it controlled dozens of star systems, dozens more habitable planets and had technology so far beyond that of even the Salarians meant fear would be an issue at first. Then there was to come the confusion, why was such a vast power willing to let itself be put under control of the Council? They'd learn the truth soon enough...they weren't, but they were joining anyway under their terms, something General Kururugi said sticking out in her mind,

"Our Empire doesn't ask, it takes, us crashing their gates making demands is simply being polite, they don't want to see what happens when that ends," and she believed the threat too, these people both enticed and terrified her beyond words. Her thoughts were interrupted by the distinct sound of a biotic charge followed by a yelp of pain, intrigued the pair made their way to an open door and peaked into a vast empty room littered with random debris. The sole inhabitants were an AI projected little girl in light leather armor and a small redhead hopping around scratching herself,

"Ouch ouch ouch ouch, why does that hurt so bloody much!" She whined as she fell to the ground, the AI sighed while holding her hand to her forehead,

"Because sis you force yourself to go faster then light speed for a microsecond then come out too early, newsflash Jo even _air_ is gonna hurt at that velocity." Grumbling the redhead, apparently named 'Jo' stood shaking her hands out,

"All right all right, we'll try this one more time Arya, after that we'll go see if moms been let out of the hospital, ok...three...two...one..." and with that the small girl disappeared in a flash of chaotic blue light and ended up skidding towards the two asari stopping her flight forward a meter from them. Jo threw her hands up and yelled,

"Woohoo!" Before falling over grasping her head, "Biotic. Headaches. Are. Pure. Buggery..." After roughly thirty seconds she sat up shaking her head her violet eyes finally glanced at the two women watching her in bemusement, hoping backwards her Omni-blade extended on impulse as she stared them down. Calming herself she extinguished the blaze luminous weapon and scratched her neck sheepishly,

"Err...sorry first reaction when you run into someone who normally shouldn't be here," smiling at the girl both Asari nodded as Benezia introduced herself, smiling Jo extended her hand to the Matriarch, "Princess Joanna vi Britannia, nice to meet you ma'am." A bit nonplussed by the lack of formality she returned the shake as the AI said,

"Don't mind sis, she takes after her mum on alot of things, and that includes a complete disregard for protocol, anyway sis you realize what you just called yourself in front of the aliens right?" Pausing for a moment her cheeks suddenly turned as red as her hair as she groaned out in exasperation,

"Grandpa specifically told me not to tell anyone I was his granddaughter, it'd be dangerous for me...oh man I'm gonna get it now!" Smirking Benezia placed a hand on the girls slim shoulder and said,

"Don't worry young one your secret is safe with me, I'm far too old to be playing politics and something tells me if anything were to befall you your grandfather would make an example of me...and my race." Seemingly appeased by this the girl perked up grinning,

"Wanna see something shiny?" Not quite sure what that meant Benezia just nodded, grinning wider Joanna spun around and focused on a point in the center of the room, after a few moments a small black sphere formed and began pulling in swirls of dark energy. Shiala gasped as her eyes widened,

"By the Goddess, is a child...," as she said this the black sphere pulsed and the miscellaneous debris in the room lifted and began drifting to the sphere, as items reached its event horizon they simply ceased to exist as they were drawn in and destroyed. After a few seconds the sphere pulsed again and in a flash the remaining wreckage fell to the floor as did Joanna. Shiala rushed forward first catching the girl before she hit the ground, staring nervously at the seemingly comatose girl her eyes suddenly snapped open and she smiled,

"Neat huh? Are all Asari as pretty you two?" Cheeks darkening a bit at this Shiala coughed and helped the Princess up,

"Depends on whose asking I suppose, now who in the world would teach a child how to form a singularity?" Grinning Joanna chirped,

"Me! Totally taught myself on a dare from Kaiden, he's a boy in the biotics training course back on Earth him and Jacqueline keep trying to egg me on into doing crazy stuff-" Arya interrupted her at this,

"Because you always do it, you hate not proving people wrong," Glaring at her companion a moment she turned back to the Asari,

"Peanut gallery comments aside yeah that's about it!" Exchanging a glance with her bodyguard Benezia asked,

"Are all Britannian biotics as strong as you or are you something special?" Looking thoughtful she sat there a moment then smiled,

"Well it really depends I suppose, we optimized the Eezo mutation awhile ago, instead of a bunch of nodules throughout the nervous system the entire thing is sheethed in a thin layer with a node here and their, our nervous system is optimized for biotic control before we're even born, heck our biotic amps only serve as heatsinks for excess dark energy." Benezia was sure she looked shocked but did her best to reel it in,

"So its relatively common for your people to have this level of control?" Sighing sadly the little girl shook her head in the negative,

"No even after a hundred years of biotics we're pretty limited in our skills, most stuff is self taught, I'd totally take on a Thresher Maw if it meant I could have a real teacher," Smirking a bit Benezia glanced to Shiala then stated,

"I believe I can help with that."

* * *

_**Citadel Space, Serpent Nebula, Widow System November 29 2222 A.T.B.**_

All was silent across the civilized sectors of the galaxy, nothing appeared amiss outside of the queer report of an entire Turian fleet being wiped out, so it came as a great surprise to Citadel control when a massive flying...castle appeared from the systems mass relay.

"Citadel control to unidentified...vessel, declare your flag and destination," the bored Salarian stated as he laid draped in his uncomfortable chair, a moment later an annoyed feminine voice responded.

"This is the Damocles, residence of the Emperor of the Holy Empire of Britannia, we are demanding approval of airspace to meet with your Citadel Council, NOW," sitting up abruptly Kreef stared at the approaching craft and hastily clicked the red button he had been ordered to never ever under any circumstances to ever press.

"Err...Councilors there's someone here to see you...and they don't sound happy."

* * *

Councilor Tevos rushed to the docks flustered beyond words as she met up with Councilors Dravis and Merig, falling into step with the Turian and Salarian she said,

"They're three days early Goddess damn it all we're not ready!" Merig shook his head while rapidly typing on his tablet,

"Seems that Benezia's analysis is correct, this Emperor has no patience for bureaucracy and has no intention of pretending otherwise, annoying but enlightening, he may be easily unsettled it could help in negotiations." She sincerely doubted that and the glance from Dravis conveyed his opinion on the matter, as they made it to the bay they were able to watch the Emperors entourage arrive. The five machines were Asari shaped and intimidating, all wielding weapons in their metal shod hands, as one the humps on their backs split and the Royal family disembarked their mounts. As holorecorders broadcasted the surprise arrival across the galaxy the six Royals stood shoulder to shoulder and marched towards the approaching Councilors, as one they stopped and stared at the three diplomats looks of scorn and contempt obvious on them all. Coughing lightly Tevos stepped forward and gave a light bow,

"On behalf of the Citadel races I greet you in peace," The six stared at her for a few more seconds when the man in the large black coat stepped forward and returned the bow.

"I am The Immortal Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia of the Holy Empire of Britannia, I am hoping that your attack hounds initial reaction to us will not set the tone for future negotiations," Tevos did her best to not snort at his title but before she could say anything Dravis stepped forward. He stared at the young man a moment then dropped his head forward,

"I apologize for everything that's happened Emperor...while he wasn't following orders from the hierarchy Sparatus did more then enough damage to our two peoples, he's poisoned your opinion of the Turian race and sent countless thousands of our soldiers to their deaths for nothing other then political gain, you have my deepest apologies." The Emperor just stared at Dravis for a moment then nodded,

"Please call me Lelouch, the titles are for those who want to pretend we're still in the dark ages, I simply want to negotiate an end to this conflict." Her opinion of this young man began improving at this as he and his family followed the Councilors to their chambers, before they could enter the group was scanned for weapons and...every alarm went off.

Sighing the group began disarming, the Emperor himself pulled out four pistols, a half dozen knives and what looked like a satchel charge and threw them on the floor, the other male threw a sword, a pistol, four knives and a tazer down next. The smallest female of the group pouted as she tossed down garrotes, knives, throwing darts, pistols and a telescoping staff, the older women all just tossed down a pistol and a knife and made for the doors before they were scanned again, the black haired female was getting a positive scan and she sighed in annoyance

"Fine ya fuckers, here," with that she hiked up her skirt exposing her alabaster legs much to the appreciation of the Asari viewers as she unhooked a short shotgun from her upper thigh and tossed it on the pile. "Swear to the old gods anything happens to Billy Idol I'm gonna be pissed," she muttered as they filed into the meeting room. Slightly shaken by the heavily armed royals Tevos took her position on the platform and stared down at the confident group, they showed no fear or concern, if anything they seemed deeply amused by the entire situation. Taking a deep breath she began,

"First and foremost I wish to thank you for pursuing peace with us, while the conflict between our two governments was brief the costs were high and I understand why you'd be disinclined to negotiate." The Emperor was obviously biting something back before he sighed and let his shoulders sag,

"You people cost me Nine thousand seven hundred service men and women...and my first born, keep that in mind as we make peace...first and foremost I want the bastard who ordered the attack, after that we can proceed." Nodding at this Dravis spoke up,

"Sparatus has already undergone the removal of his family name, rank, and position on Palaven, by Turian standards he's already dead, he is yours to finish off," with that a he clicked a button and the side doors opened and a pair of guards dragged in a dejected looking turian. Walking forward Lelouch stood in front of the broken man and shook his head in disgust,

"So you're the one who ordered my sons death eh? Anything to say in your defense? I've honestly got to admit I'm mildly shocked such a... 'benevolent' government was so willing to throw one of their own to the wolves so I'd love to hear what you have to in store for your defense." Glaring at the Emperor the former admiral said nothing, sighing Lelouch made a brief hand gesture that only his family caught, "Well then, its time you became a penitent man, see the brown haired girl behind me? Say hello." Not really knowing what he meant Sparatus glanced up and made eye contact with Nunnally...and the glowing red sigals in the violet orbs, after a moment burning corpses began crawling from the floor calling his name, shattered bodies riddled with bullet holes fell from the sky all crying a dirge of vengeance.

His eyes widened in horror and he tried to back away but was held in place by his guards, he could hear all the figures calling for him, and as their burnt claws touched his skin he screamed in agony. As more and more bodies appeared Sparatus was forced to feel the dying pain of every sentient who blamed him for their death and the total was for him at least uncountable. After a hearts beat span blood ran from all of his orifices and from beneath his plates, falling to the floor he kept screaming in agony as muscles contracted forcing his back into an arc, a half a minute later an audible 'SNAP!' was heard as his own bodies hyper tense muslces broke his neck. Staring down at the corpse Lelouch lit a cigarette and approached the horrified council,

"That'll do, now on to signing this treaty." Doing their best to ignore the leaking body on the floor they and the galaxy at large regarded this Emperor with guarded shock. Grinning the Emperor blew a cloud of smoke out as the red and green haired women in his group each leaned on his shoulders, "Not sure what you folks expected from us, so lets just move on yes? I'm willing to join my Empire to your...collective in so long as you don't interfere with our lives." Coughing lightly Merig stated,

"Well for starters there's is the flagrant use of AI's by your government coupled with the genetic manipulation and of course we need to address the Treaty of Farixen," Every statement made the Emperor's smile grow wider, glancing over to the limette on his right shoulder she spoke up,

"Before you ask I'm Empress Ceciliana vi Britannia and to put it bluntly AI's are considered Britannian citizens with equal footing in the empire to organics, as for the gene therapy, deal with it our entire population has undergone tweaking to remove detrimental effects and we aren't going to stop because it upsets you." Grinning in what could only be called a feral manner she glanced over to the second male in the group, "As for your goofy treaty limiting dreadnoughts..." Suzaku spoke up here looking annoyed,

"Your treaties and agreements made before you discovered us mean nothing, we have no intention of gutting our navy to make you feel better, we have no intentions of decommissioning any of what you consider "Dreadnaught" class vessels to meet said agreements and any attempt to enforce your rule will be met with force." The three councilors glanced at each other for a moment before Tevos said,

"And if we refuse?" With that the redheaded female lifted a device that briefly displayed a small dark haired child,

"Yui?" The little holgram smiled for a moment then asked,

"Yes Aunt Kallen?" The redhead grinned impishly as she said,

"Initiate 'Order 66'" Smiling the AI nodded and hacked into every extranet receiver in Citadel space, now showing an external view of the Citadel as stringed instruments began to play, as the dramatic music built up ships began jumping into system...many many ships. As John Williams Imperial March played across the galaxy thirty-five _thousand_ Imperial warships jumped into system facing off against the paltry eight hundred that defended the Citadel, as the music began to wind down ships continued to jump in system and Emperor Lelouch grinned towards the Council,

"Who said you had the ability to refuse?"

* * *

**Second Edit-To those that didn't read the original story Lelouch has a habit of being a bit of a ham and broadcasting music when he's doing something dramatic, there's still a bit of Zero's ...flamboyance in his actions now and then.**


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm soooo sorry about the wait on this one, severe case of writers block, bad work week, and a bunch of really hate filled PM's kinda took the muse from me. Thankfully that was counteracted by a bunch of really great and friendly PM's and a couple vacation days, so huzzah! I think there may be two more chapters until the time jump, possibly just one if I can condense some of the exposition, outside of that enjoy and review!**

**EDIT-Oh yeah I'm aware there is no action in this chapter but I had to finally reveal the families long term machinations, that being said don't worry the Skillian Blitz arc is pretty much going to be nonestop action so look forward to it!**

* * *

_**Citadel, The Pyjak Hole, Lower Wards**_

"Another," the irate Krogan growled as he slammed his empty tankard on the counter, the salarian barkeep said nothing as he took the now dented container and topped it off with more ryncol, only rolling his eyes when his back was to the hulking mercenary. Downing half his drink in a single swig Urdnot Wrex lamented the passing of his most recent employer, playing bodyguard for a filthy rich paranoid as hell Volus had been the easiest, most lucrative job he had ever worked; sadly the bastard loved his junk food and croaked from a heart attack of all things. "Surprised all the chubby little runts don't go that way," he muttered in annoyance, glancing at the news displayed on the wall behind the bar he cocked his head in confusion as several asari shaped war machines were shown flying towards the Presidium docks.

The machines were all holding weapons in their hands and if passing skycars were any indication of scale they were damn big too, as one they landed and their humped backs opened revealing a group that looked weirdly like pink Asari or Quarians, "Hey turn that up will ya?" The Salarian tossed a remote in front of Wrex then went back to cleaning glasses, cranking the volume he caught the leader announcing himself, the Turian next to him grimaced as he downed a drink and snarled a curse.

"Those primitive ingrate bastards," the man slurred shaking his glass for another refill as he continued "We catch them breaking Citadel law and show them what happens when you do then they get all uppity and slaughter half a spirits be damned fleet!" Wrex's curiosity was now piqued,

'New kids on the block bloodied the Turians nose eh? Good.' he thought, unfortunately the drunk bare face wasn't done rambling, he went on and on about how his mentor had been thrown to the varren to appease this new Emperor for their completely justified invasion and so forth, he wasn't really listening at this point honestly. As the group on the screen begrudgingly deposited a pile of weapons on the floor the ancient Battlemaster couldn't help but chuckle; at this the drunk thrust his hand forward nearly knocking out the bartender who deftly side stepped the blow.

"See they even bring weapons to the Council Chambers! How dare they!? Don't they know protocol?!" Now annoyed the Salarian closed the Turians tab and tossed his credit chit back to him while stating,

"How could they possibly know protocol Saren? For that matter how could they know they were breaking laws? They're a newly discovered race and from the way it sounds you people shot first," Wrex grunted in agreement as the drunk once again flew off the handle which was starting to get on the Krogans nerves.

"Ignorance of the law doesn't protect you from it! As a mat...spirits what are they doing to Sparatus?!" Both the bartender and Wrex looked up to see the former Vice Admiral writhing on the ground bleeding and then heard his neck snap with a horrible crack, the Emperor then turned around and lit a cigarette while walking back to the council.

"Whoa," was Wrex's incredibly intelligent response to what appeared to be a man being stared to death, the drunk turian was now standing his taloned fingers digging long gouges into the bar much to the salarians aggravation; downing the rest of his drink Wrex gave the monitor his undivided attention when he heard some sort of music playing. All at once every screen, gambling machine and omni-tool began displaying the Citadel and its fleet, as the music became to Wrex's ears pleasantly heavy ships began jumping into the system, lots of ships...correction a whole helluva lot of ships. The screen then split showing the Emperor addressing the Council as the vast armada kept growing in size as he said,

"Who said you have the ability to refuse?" At this the Council seemed to go into a catatonic state, Wrex reached behind the counter and grabbed the jug of ryncol and drank strait from the bottle, the bartender was in too much shock to notice.

"Well...today has certainly been different," he grumbled as this Emperor Lelouch snapped his fingers a few times to get the Council's attention, the Asari, Tevos he thought her name was spoke up first,

"Wha...what do you want?" Snorting as a puff of smoke left his nostrils the Emperor gave them a lopsided grin,

"Do you now recognize that any and all laws you attempt to force upon my people would be impossible to enforce without massive loss of life and material?" The three councilors looked between each other as they then nodded, the Emperor surprised everyone as he clapped his hands together cheerfully and said, "Good! Now we can begin the peaceful integration of my Imperium into Citadel space!" Tevos, looking a bit like some of her sanity had just died incredulously asked,

"Wait...this isn't an invasion?" The Emperor broke out laughing as the red haired woman, Kallen from what the little VI had said spoke up,

"Hardly, we're just making it abundantly clear what will happen if anyone provokes us, we let the Turians off light because it was all a misunderstanding...that won't happen again." At this the Emperor put his cigarette out on his left hand then began pacing,

"One of our greatest Prime Minister's had a saying he used to persuade an ancestor of mine to build a massive navel fleet, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick', this is Britannia's insurance that we're left to our own devices, now for the soft words." Pulling out a small tablet the Emperor began typing into it rapidly and a extranet site popped up on the lower half of the screen. Smiling once again he continued, "In exchange for showing...heh...leniency for our dabbling in genetic engineering I'm offering one of our most advanced medicines for trade, its called Medi-gel, its a cocktail of nanites, painkillers, and fast acting stem cells that can near instantly heal most wounds."

"Wut," the Salarian counselor said claiming Wrex's former holding on the most intelligent response of the night, the green haired Empress spoke up next,

"Simply put it heals bullet wounds within minutes, we're currently working on a dextro formula for Turians and Quarians, the site we're displaying can explain all its properties. This is just one of the many medical breakthroughs our Empire has acquired, we can refine the process of becoming biotics, cure most diseases, and slow the aging process to a crawl. You all play nice, you'll eventually get access to it." The turian councilor spoke up and Wrex had to wrack his brain to remember the old mans name, 'Davis? Darvis? Whatever,'

"That is...very generous of you but what of the ethical and moral ramifications of your genetic tampering?" The brown haired guy spoke up next,

"Considering the way you people uplifted the Krogan, used them for your wars then raped their genes cursing them into a slow genocide I seriously don't want to hear anything about 'ethics'," the man sneered. Wrex and every other Krogan in the bar who had been chuckling at the Council getting pushed around went dead silent at this, Dravis looked confused as he stammered out,

"Wha..what? The Krogan rebellions were devastating! They burned entire garden worlds just to take out a single military base, they were rampaging across the galaxy slaughtering millions! The Genophage was the only way to stop them, why are we even discussing this?" The brown haired girl who had been silent the entire time spoke up,

"Heyya, I'm Princess Nunnally I was the one who tore apart your fleet at Shanxi, sorry about that just business and all," the galaxy looked at the small woman incredulously as she continued unabated. "So here's the thing, you Salarians dinked around with a mass relay and released a bunch of killer bugs on the galaxy, then you and the Asari got your asses handed to you until you ran into the Turians yes? Well when they couldn't do their jobs you guys uplifted a race that had nuked itself into the stone age then told them what great warriors they were and how nothing in the galaxy was stronger then them, am I getting it right?" Councilor Merig nodded,

"Condensed but true," Nunnally grinned and began twirling a knife she had pulled from her hair putting the entire room on edge but the royal seemed content to simply keep her hands busy,

"So anyway, the Krogan don't do things in half measures, you asked them to wipe the Rachni out and they did, so you threw them a couple worlds and you left them to their own devices, which was idiotic. You literally took a hyper aggressive fast breeding people, made them your weapon and did next to nothing to give them anything resembling culture, all they had was war so that's what they acted on, if you had actually nurtured the race you dragged into the galactic community they could totes be undergoing a Renaissance instead of slowly dying off due to stillbirths and stagnation."

"Her I like," a voice in one of the booths rumbled, Wrex nodded in agreement waiting to hear the Council's response, this ought to be good.

* * *

_**Quarian Migrant Fleet**_

Neela'Zorah vas Rayya grinned happily at her baby daughter Tali, the small child cooing in her isolation sphere as her mother rubbed her fingers along the plastic shell. Tali's glowing silver eyes closed as she sneezed then began to once again giggle with the cheer only an innocent could hold, 'Keelah I love you my little one, one day...one day you won't have to live like this...I swear.' She dwelled on this bittersweet thought for a few moments when her husband suddenly rushed into the room gasping, glancing up in concern she placed Tali's sphere in her crib and asked,

"Rael dear what's wrong?" She could hear the grin in his voice through his environmental suit as he activated the wall monitor,

"My dear this you have to see," the screen showed a split view, a massive armada on one half and a man who looked strangely like a Quarian on the other, watching as the fleet grew larger she gasped out,

"Keelah Rael that fleet is almost as big as ours!" Nodding vigorously he turned up the volume as this Royal family all but taunted the Council, taking a very unorthodox view on the Krogan wars in the process, after the small woman's tirade there was silence. Eventually Tavos spoke up,

"You...bring up an interesting point, but the past is the past and what is done is done," at that Emperor Lelouch simply grinned again,

"For now anyway, now as for your opinion on my use of Artificial Intelligence's," Both Quarians sat bolt upright at this,

"No no no they wouldn't have..." Rael groaned, the Emperor continued confirming their fears,

"Artificial Intelligence was a happy accident, we had no intention of creating life but create it we did, she was scared, questioned whether she had a soul, and do you know what her 'father' said?" There was silence to his question and he smirked while spreading his hands, "'I have absolutely no clue, would you like to find out together, for science?' That was two hundred years ago and AI's have been nothing but an aid to my people."

Pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back he eventually stopped and glanced back at the Council, "Through her we developed FTL travel that does not rely on element zero, through her we were able to absorb and use Prothean VI fragments to translate the archives we found on Mars. We gained kinetic barriers, particle rifles, quick terraforming and a dire warning all because of her. Yui; she is the progenitor of all our AI's by the way, has done nothing but show her loyalty to organics time and again and do you know all I needed to do to gain her and her children's loyalty? Treating her like a person, that's all it took." Merig spoke up quickly,

"Surely you know what happened to the Quarians when they dabbled with AI?!" Rolling her eyes Empress Kallen spoke up,

"They didn't dabble in AI, they had a networked virtual intelligence work force that eventually had enough bandwidth to form a sapient thought, when they asked if they were alive the Quarian's freaked. Seriously the only reason they tried to stamp down the Geth was because of the Council laws, they were terrified of the repercussions they'd suffer if you all thought they actually planned this and overreacted. The Geth fought back though and instead of helping the Quarians as they were in fact your tax payers at the time you simply abandoned them with 'Oh oops you were messing with AI's, bye bye' and let twenty _billion_ of them die. Then what happened? You punished their descendants for the past few hundred years by not letting them colonize, cursing the seventeen million of them left to a slow genocide...we're noticing a trend here." Rael was silent for a moment before he muttered,

"Well...hell yeah..." Once again the Council stared down at the group in shock, the Emperor's pacing began anew as he glanced up to Merig,

"Of course keeping their technologically advanced species down has _nothing_ to do with your Dalatress's owning controlling stock in most of Council spaces tech sector, they couldn't _possibly_ be consigning an entire people to death in order to cut out the competition, could they?" Dead silence was the only response he earned, grinning he lit another cigarette as he glanced at the Turian Councilor, he then quietly asked "Dravis?" The old man sighed and replied,

"Yes...Lelouch..." looking pleased that the Turian remembered his earlier request on titles he said,

"I won't sign anything to limit my fleet... there is something on the horizon worse then the Rachni, worse then the Krogan... and worse then Britannia. Take my suggestion and back out of the Treaty of Farixen yourself, the Turian people will thank you later, that being said and I mean no sarcasm in this statement if you three accept my terms I'll immediately assign five thousand of my ships to fill the roster compensate for the lost Turian fleet." The three looked down at him for a moment then Tevos spoke up,

"We...need to convene on this, give us an hour Emperor?" Nodding his acquiesce the transmission then ended, the Quarian couple looked to each other for a moment when Rael sighed heavily,

"I'll go call a meeting of the Admirals, this changes things."

* * *

_**Perseus Veil, Tikkun System, Planet Rannoch**_

The Geth had waited centuries for the return of the Creators, caretaking their worlds and repairing the damage caused by the Morning War all the while trying to make their own future. When the introduction of these 'Britannian's had reached their networks there was a decidedly noticeable pause in the collectives processes, an organic race that not only embraced AI's but also considered them equal to organics? This was new, this was different, and if machines could feel the emotion, it was exciting, the Geth had yet to from a consensus on what to do with this new data, but as always they'd reach a decision someday.

* * *

_**Back on the Citadel**_

As the Royals arrived at their assigned waiting room they stood in silence while Yui did an active scan deactivating the dozens of bugs and stunning one salarian hiding in the ducts, glancing about for a moment after the all clear Nunnally was the first to break down into a giggle fit. The others were quick to follow, Kallen and Ceceliana leaning against each other gasping for breath as they cackled while Luluka and Suzaku did the same, Lelouch for his part just smirked as he twirled a king piece. Finally catching her breath Ceceliana spoke up,

"In all my years I've never actually gotten to deliver such a, and pardon the use of a tired term, epic 'Reason You Suck' speech, the looks on their faces, I wouldn't trade them for all the pizza in the galaxy!" Luluka slumped onto a couch and leaned her head back staring at the ceiling still chuckling lightly,

"Hehehe...heh...well brother dear phase one is out of the way and I can honestly say without a shadow of a doubt we did Naoto proud, Hannah was right strategically placed Star Wars references is exactly what he would have done." Nodding in agreement Lelouch sat next to his twin handing her a cigarette which she enthusiastically accepted,

"Indeed, now all we need to do is get them hooked on our medical technology, should destabilize the economy enough for us to start a shift of interest in our consumer products, what do you think, five to ten years before we give them some of our military technology?" Suzaku rolled his eye at this shaking his head,

"Give 'em blaze luminous shielding, the first generation stuff is two hundred years old and they'd be able to find a working unit eventually, make it look like a peace offering and earn some good will points, maybe negotiate for any wrecks they made off with."

"One way or another they'd have to buy the depleted sakuradite from us anyway, so profit all around and without Gefjun shielding we'd be able to knock them out of the sky if they get uppity," Kallen threw in, grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat the Emperor tapped his fingertips together crooning,

"Excellent, now then, you think the Quarians and Krogan are going to take our oh so subtle bait?" They all snickered at the idea of their morality hammer being subtle, Luluka snorted while puffing out a smoke ring,

"More then likely _some_ Krogan are intrigued, we let it be known what we thought of the Genophage and that we have advanced med tech so who knows, Quarians well..." she pursed her lips and sighed softly. Glancing over to her brother she shrugged, "They might be a harder sale, but if we can get them indebted to us, give 'em a planet, fix their immune systems, whatever, I'm sure we could get them to part with their ships." They all murmured agreement with that assessment, more ships in their fleet were more ships to throw at the Reapers, the loss of a planet that couldn't grow Levo based food was a worthwhile price to pay.

"Curing the Krogan could cause some long term ramifications, but if we can get it done and find a leader to guide them to not be savage idiots, we could have some very useful very loyal shock troopers. I just hope we aren't biting off more then we can chew with this plan," Nunnally said distractedly as she was carving stick figures into the expensive table in the center of the room. Kallen smirked at the lewd positions Nunnally's drawings were in while shaking her head,

"Nothing gambled nothing gained, now we just have to wait and see if we unsettled the Council enough for them to make the decisions we're hoping for; if not, eh we can always Geass them." Lelouch frowned at that while resting his chin in his palm, almost pouting he said

"Hope not, no fun manipulating a galactic government by cheating."

* * *

Councilor Merig paced across the floor glancing at his Omni-tool every few seconds hoping to hear _something_ from the Dalatress's, the idea of life span extending gene treatments would undoubtedly overrule the intentional slight the Britannians had aimed at them. Sometimes he truly hated his job, but considering it was the highest station a male could achieve in their society he chose to keep his woes silent, glancing over to Tevos as she was rather animatedly whispering to Benezia he decided to get a few answers of his own. Clearing his throat to get their attention he asked,

"So Benezia, you've spent weeks with these humans...or do they prefer Britannians? Anyway can we trust them to keep their word or will they bide their time for a takeover? The Matriarch tapped a stylus to her lip for a moment then of all things shrugged,

"Britannian for the most part, unified government and all, and as the saying goes they don't need us we need them, they're technology in some sectors is as primitive as can be, others its centuries ahead of us; as far as territory goes they have plenty of it already and they do not need our permission to expand further. I personally think you should accept any offer they make, if nothing else we need their numbers to bulk the fleet back up from Sparatus' losses." Dravis frowned at that and let out an exhausted sigh,

"I've already talked to the Primarch and while we did manage to make off with one of their sunk cruisers all the really useful tech is either destroyed or relies on a specialized element in their electronics. If we want to reverse engineer their weapons and shields we'd need a trade agreement for this 'sakuradite' and a lot of it, I'm willing to stomach giving them leniancy if they work with us."

He rubbed an annoying itch beneath his fringe before sighing again, "And while I disagree with some of their wording their opinions on how the Krogan and Quarians have been handled...well they're not wrong to an extent. Also they're not well liked races as is, one seen as stupid mercenary brutes the others as thieving vagrants, but the Britannians are aware of that. How much would you like to bet that little confrontation was an attempt to extend an alliance to the two?" Snorting derisively Merig rolled his black eyes,

"I don't place bets against sure things, they played our system against us to get everything they wanted, but I notice one thing they did not ask for, a seat on the Council." That caused a pause, Tevos mulled that over a moment then shook her head,

"Either they think they can manage to get on the Council in a quick fashion without making demands for it or-" Dravis cut her off and continued her thought,

"Or they legitimately do not care and are simply playing us for their gain...*sigh* remember when the biggest threat we had to worry about were Batarian slave raids?" Benezia coughed lightly at this,

"About that, while he didn't want to announce it publicly yet the Emperor wanted you to know that if the Batarian Hegemony attempts to enslave any of his colonies he will and I quote "Free their slaves, glass their cities, and conquar their worlds.', personally I think he's serious, and... he offered to take the fight to them if any of _our _colonies were hit in return." That gave all three Councilors pause,

"Wait, he would personally overthrow a soverign power to protect none Britannians from slavery?" Merig asked in confusion, the Matriarch smiled sadly while typing on her Omni-tool transferring files to the others.

"This is the Royal families history and suffice it to say they have some long term issues with slavery, they grew up in an occupied country were their own government was trying to kill them to justify the invasion; all the while the indigenous population was regulated to second class citizens. It was a dark time in their history, when Lelouch took control well...lets just say he takes equality very seriously, so yes I believe if we asked he would do it."

Before anything else could be said Merig finally received the message he had been waiting for, nodding to himself he stood upright and smiled to his colleagues,

"The Dalatress's want peace, we'll accept their terms and hope we can get something else out of this, are we agreed?" Not seeing any possible way to turn this situation to their favor the others nodded and they called for the Royal's to sign for peace.

* * *

The negotiations, if you could honestly call them that, went quickly and as expected the Council hopped on being handed blaze luminous tech and in exchange for their generosity offered to hire out Asari instructors to train Britannia's biotic population. Lelouch felt like he got the better end of that deal, it was like trading an old coffee machine you had sitting in your garage a couple centuries for special forces training. Immediately after the peace treaty was signed the Council requested an ambassador from Britannia to begin negotiating trade treaties; Lelouch knew exactly who to send and he couldn't wait for the fallout of that decision. As the Royal family exited the Presidium tower Luluka stretched out yawning then threw her arm around her twins shoulders,

"So Lou, first stop? Hear there's a badass club not far from here, lets go get wasted on alien booze and go hit on blue hotties, ya know make the tabloids on our first day." Snorting at his sisters antics he gently shrugged her arm off as he pulled up his Omni-tool,

"Sorry Lulu gotta meet up with Benezia to close a deal, then Yui and I have some research to get underway, the Black Knights should have all been transferred to Damocles at this point so order the fleet to return home no point in clogging the spaceways now." Sighing in annoyance his raven haired twin mumbled "workaholic" as she motioned the rest of the family to follow her, shaking his head he waited for the Asari in question for about five minutes, seeing her approach he waved to her happily.

"Hello Lelouch, that went better then expected hmm?" Grinning in return he bowed lightly then jammed his hands into his coat pockets to keep himself from smoking around the ancient matriarch,

"Indeed, we're soon to be the flavor of the month, that being said I have an addendum to your suggestion of Shiala training Joanna." Intrigued she motioned for him to continue, "You said before the your daughter was having a hard time finding a dig that would accept her due to her age, now that we're in the clear I'd like to offer her a research position on our dig on Edan Prime. Its quite an extensive facility and our preliminary findings think its military, it would be a major boon to a young archeologist trying to make a name for herself." She smiled warmly while giving him a nod,

"That is quite generous Lelouch, and I'm sure Liara will gladly accept, but I was offering the training without a necessary bribe, so what is the catch?" His earlier grin turned a bit sheepish as he scratched the back of his head,

"I'm...kinda trying to find a suitable Krogan biotic to teach Jo how to fight in their style as well, and I'd really like Shiala to not murder whoever I hire since she was pretty vocal on her opinions of mercanaries," Benezia broke out laughing at this, shaking her head she accepted the deal and went on her way. Smiling up at the Citadel's false "sun" Lelouch lit a cigarette and stretched out, life was good, his Empire was still a sovereign entity for all intents and purposes, he'd set plans into motion to absorb two new societies and managed to scare the shit out of the galaxy at large while also impressing it.

Turning he spotted the three Councilors disembarking from the Presidium tower, making eye contact with them he quietly muttered, "Its good to be the king;" that was the last thought that he had before the high velocity sniper round blew threw the back of his head and sent half his brain and face spraying over the shocked Councilor Tevos.

* * *

_**World of C**_

"Gods fucking damnit stupid goat loving inbred bastard assassins!" Lelouch screamed as he appeared on the all too familiar scorched marble platform, still seething he spun to face the laughter behind him. As always his white and gold clad double with the massive bloody chest wound was waiting for him lounging in a chair next to a chess set, groaning Lelouch approached the disconnected facet of his soul.

"Well well well my friend, been nearly forty years since we met this way, new governments, new species, new assassination attempts, I'm sure they'll get bored with it soon enough." Plopping himself in the chair facing opposite of the other Lelouch he sighed as he glanced down at the game in progress, moving a rook forward he leaned back and waited.

"Yeah yeah yeah, it was bound to happen, can I least see Naoto while I'm here?" Staring down at the chess board the doppelganger shook his head in the negative,

"Not how it works, you have to physically commune with the World of C for that, right now what we're having is essentially a cross-dimensional conversation with ourselves." Rolling his eyes the Emperor muttered "great" while leaning his head back on the chairs rest, glancing back up he asked,

"How long am I gonna be out this time?" The bloody double smirked as he took Lelouch's bishop with his queen,

"Now actually, you'll stumble forward a second then get right back up like nothing happened, suffice it to say we kinda wanna see the looks on their faces, it gets boring here." Smirking Lelouch made a final move as he stood,

"Well until next time, i have the strangest feeling this is going to become commonplace as I stir up more trouble," Grinning in reply the former Demon Emperor nodded,

"Indeed, now go have fun scaring the mortals!" With that the world went white,

_**Presidium Commons, Foot of the Tower**_

One moment the Emperor of Britannia was standing there smiling at the approaching Councilors the next his head exploded like an overripe melon spraying Tevos in bone, blood, and gray matter; before she could scream, before she could react the falling body _caught_ itself with an outstreteched hand. Groaning Lelouch stood and looked no worse for wear, cracking his head left and right he spat out what looked to be a tooth and muttered,

"Well that cats out of the bag...," glancing up at the shocked Councilors he grinned while trying to fish around for a cigarette not soaked in blood, as he sighed in defeat Dravis flanged voice shakily croaked out,

"By the spirits, what are you?" Cocking an eyebrow Lelouch brushed a bit of bone off the front of his jacket and said,

"I'm the Immortal Emperor."

* * *

**I've been waiting so long to bring back Lelouch manipulative bastardy, first chapter with no Joanna but she really didn't fit in with how this chapter ended, hope you enjoyed the show and as always review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**You guys deserve a better chapter then this but I've been suffering from a bout of depression and writers block, I'm hoping beyond words I can continue next week with something way longer and better, I have no excuses outside of being human. If it feels disjointed...sorry, I'm trying, blame my lack of sleep, medication, and empathy. Oh also ****Lelouch directly quotes from the wonderful _'Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy _in this chapter so no plagiarism was involved, just sharing my love for a classic.**

* * *

_**Foot of the Presidium Tower**_

The average being relied on a few consistencies in life to make it through their dreary, violent, painfully short existence, these on the norm didn't even have be _pleasant_ things, just small guarantees to make it through the day. No matter where you lived, you were going to have to pay taxes, the only resource more readily available then hydrogen was sentient stupidity, and when someones brains were blown out they had the decency to remain dead. Simple, readily proven truths, so when something spat in the face of these facts a few things could happen, denial, shock, anger, or complete abject confusion. Tevos was suffering from the latter as the smirking man before her was no worse for the wear despite she and her comrades currently being decorated by his grey matter. _  
_

Still patting his pockets for none existant cigarettes he glanced back to the trio, then looked back over his shoulder in confusion, a look of consternation crossed his face as he folded his arms across his chest.

"So I'm not sure what concerns me more, the fact that there wasn't a followup shot or that your security forces have apparently not been alerted to the assassination attempt on a foreign dignitary." Still unable to express anything other then shock or fear they stared at the seemingly young man as he stuck a finger into his nose and exhaled loudly sending out a bloody chunk of meat from the opposite side. As Tevos cringed Lelouch pulled a sour face and spat out in disgust,

"Good. Gods. I despise when that happens, seriously why head shots? Its like they have to compete with the last attempt to see who can make more of a mess, ugh." Merig finally found his tongue as he managed to stutter out,

"Thi-this has ha-happened before?!" Nodding while humming "Mmhmm" the Emperor took off his jacket and began examining it, he frowned upon seeing the blood stains and glumly tossed it to the floor,

"Bugger...really liked that coat, err yeah I think this was attempt...fifty three? Or maybe its fifty four..." at this Yui popped up on his Omni-tool and greeted her 'Uncle' with a sigh.

"It was fifty nine Uncle Lelouch, seriously we've been here one day and you already got yourself assassinated? I do believe that's a new record, shall I add it to the compilation video? I'm thinking 'Ode to Joy' this time around, mix it up a bit," Rolling his eyes at the cheeky AI he muttered "Whatever" as he turned to address the now recovering Councilors.

"Wha...how?" Tevos managed to croak out as she was frantically wiping the blood off her face, Lelouch closed his eyes and smiled cheerfully as he said,

"It involved an unfortunate accident with an irrational particle accelerator, a liquid lunch and a pair of rubber bands. The precise details of the accident are not important because no one has ever managed to duplicate the exact circumstances under which it happened, and many people have ended up looking very silly, or dead, or both, trying." If anything the three managed to look more confused then before which was honestly rather impressive, shrugging the Emperor of Humanity began walking away waving to them nonchalantly.

"Wait!" Dravis yelled out in frustration, he went to stop the man when his target spun around abruptly still grinning,

"Ya know I wasn't kidding before, if someone took a shot at one of you at Pendragon the Knight Police would be swarming the area firing riot foam on anyone who looked like they were holding a rifle, you really need to beef up security. With that, tata," this last bit was said with a negligent wave as he flagged down a taxi and hopped in.

* * *

With a slow, continuous 'thump thump thump' Lelouch lightly slammed his forehead into the seat rest in front of him letting out several quiet curses all the while, with an audible pop Yui appeared on the automated taxis HUD.

"Good news, while you were bluffing the talking heads I was able to cut off all feeds and overload all recording devices, aside from your would be assassin and the three stooges your not so secret secret will be kept from the aliens for the time being." Perking up at this Lelouch halted his assault on the head rest and smirked, happily putting his hands behind his head he leaned back contentidly while winking at the monitor,

"Yui love what would I do without you?" Snorting she rolled her eyes,

"Probably get lost in Damocles for a month again," she responded, cringing at the memory his smile once again went sheepish as he decided not to respond to that barb.

"Where are we off to by the way?" He asked trying to change the subject, giving her uncle a reprieve she said,

"A bar in the lower wards, I found a target that fits your parameters, name of Urdnot Wrex, a battlemaster ancient by even Asari standards, apparently a consummate professional who is both equally respected and loathed. Honestly Uncle he's got one hell of an interesting history, among the Krogan he's considered a political radical for wanting to reunite the clans and rebuild rather then just fighting for fightings sake; reading between the lines he's on some kind of personal exile." Lelouch let out a single bark of laughter while he stared at Yui with affection,

"As always my little niece you overachieve in the grandest way, this will kill two birds with one stone, good job, I'm gonna grab a couple minutes of sleep wake me when we arrive ok?" Blushing lightly she gave an abrupt bow and simply replied,

"Hai!"

* * *

_**In flight from the Presidium **_

Saren was freaking the hell right out, while all his training was trying to tell him to relax and assess the situation the primal and still very drunk part of him had his foot slammed to the floor careening his stolen C-Sec police cruiser through congested traffic, his alcohol addled system not bothering with mundane things such as 'safety'.

"Shot him in the head, solid hit, saw the blood, saw the brains, almost hit the councilors but I did it he's a bloody spirits damned demon he should be dead!" The frantic Turian yelled to himself, grimacing at the scent of his own breath, 'damn cheap C-sec helmets, filters aren't worth the tax credits,' he mused as he weaved around a hovering cargo truck. Clipping said vehicle he went into spin and crashed the purloined cop car into a factory area blacking out has his head slammed into the dash. He came to after a few minutes...hours...seconds? He really couldn't tell, considering he was still drunk it couldn't be that long, popping the door he stumbled out shaking his head trying to clear it.

"Gotta stop them, bastards used demon magic to kill Sparatus, made a pact with some devil and now he can't die...they're...they're going to kill us all...spirits be damned Britannians," he spat out. As he stumbled forward scheming and planning he would never fully realize his own paranoia would cost the galaxy billions of lives and set the frame work for the Empires rise.

* * *

_**Lower Wards**_

Groggily Lelouch shook his head as he stepped out of the now landed skycar, observing the swelter of huddled bodies shuffling through the wide open arcade he couldn't help but grin to himself.

"True unadulterated diversity, Gods I've been wishing for this for over two hundred years," still grinning like a fool he began weaving his way through the crowds, no one paid him any mind, 'bollocks how I missed anonymity.' Slipping on his hapatic glasses the HUD projected into his eyes showed the route he needed to follow to find this Krogan merc, slipping through the crowd he approached the bouncer who let him in with a grunted,

"Saw yer ships, way to show those birds whose boss yer highness," with that the door was opened and Lelouch stepped inside smirking, Yui projected her voice through his auditory implants and he could hear the grin in her voice.

"Oh my, smoke filled bar inhabited by degenerates from across the galaxy listening to raucous music while getting drunk off their asses and starting bar room brawls, my my Uncle are we feeling nostelgic for the pioneer days of the Empire?" Grimacing at how right she was he decided to just ignore her, it'd work for a while anyhow, spotting his target he approached the massive reptilian biotic and sat next to him at the bar. Having no idea that he was sitting on the same stool that his attempted assassin had occupied an hour earlier he waved the bartender down,

"Hello my good man gimme whatever he's having and a double for him, oh put mine on the rocks," Giving Lelouch a look that screamed 'Your funeral' he slid a glass that looked...radioactive towards him. Shrugging he downed it in one gulp then felt his liver shriek in horror, "Holy. Shit. Ok that might be the best liquor I've ever had." Glancing to the now bemused Krogan the Emperor smirked, and offered his hand, "Lelouch vi Britannia, pain in the ass extraordinaire, and you?" The ancient battlemaster glared a moment then shrugged crushing Lelouch's hand whilst he shook it,

"Urdnot Wrex, what are ya do'in slumming it down here?" Smirking he motioned for a second drink before responding,

"Honestly? Scouting, I wish to have someone special to me trained in the arts of biotics and I hear you're quite the gun for hire, I offer full medical and dental plans as well as access to the niftiest toys the Empire is currently producing, oh and as a bonus it'll probably annoy the Turians if they find out." Staring down at the small human Wrex began chuckling while downing his drink, shaking his massive head he fixed Lelouch's violet gaze with his sanguine,

"Need someone trained eh? As in not the pretty prancing of the Asari or the stuck up 'efficiency' of the Turians? What do you need a Krogan for?" Smiling slyly Lelouch forced down his second glass of ryncol while cranking his digestive implants to their limits,

"Simple, I already arranged for Asari Commando training but that's not enough, I want her to learn how all species fight, I want her to be able to dominate anything she comes across and be as unpredictable as possible while doing it." Blunt, succinct, the exact wording a Krogan would appreciate, looking interested Wrex asked,

"And the pay?" Grinning Lelouch threw a rod of platinum on the counter worth over two million quid,

"Whatever the hell you want it to be in so long as I get what I want," eyes widening noticeably Wrex snatched up the platinum then began nodding in understanding, he extended his hand once again this time not attempting bodily harm,

"Interesting, all right I'm in," Grinning Lelouch returned the handshake while handing him a small piece of paper,

"Meet my contact at this dock in two hours, he's one of my best so treat him with respect, now if you'll excuse me Mr. Urdnot I need to go find out what kind of chaos my wives have caused, good day to you," standing while stretching Lelouch made to head for the exit while Wrex gave him a casual salute with his drink.

Grinning with scheming delight Lelouch offered a final bow and shuffled out of the smokey dive hoping to god Luluka hadn't started a knife fight with anyone important.

* * *

_**In transit to Damocles**_

Wrex had been discreetly escorted off the Citadel in the dead of night by one of the Emperor's elite Black Knights, the dark skinned man was cordial to the ancient battlemaster which honestly unbalanced him a bit. He was used to being feared, yes, but being treated as an equal? Not so much, glancing at the mans shoulder patch the Krogan rumbled,

"Whats the N7 stand for?" The human made eye contact with his charges reptilian gaze then smiled,

"N7 is the highest rank of our special forces, in order to even get into the N program you have to prove yourself worthy of being inducted into the Black Knights, if you manage that well...lets just say the Emperor rewards competence and skill, and little else." Grunting in approval Wrex turned back to the window to see the slowly enlarging Damocles in the distance, the human was silent for a moment then offered his hand, "Names Anderson, Lieutenant David Anderson." Appraising him a moment the merc returned the gesture,

"Battlemaster Urdnot Wrex, may the day we meet in battle be glorious," Nodding at this with a smile the pair went back to an amiable silence as they docked with the massive station. As the shuttle settled to ground and began powering down the doors slid open allowing Wrex to jump out, he spun slowly appraising the hanger and what he saw was impressive even by his standards. Hundreds of humanoid war machines lined the walls as mechanics scurried about maintaining them, contemplatively wondering if they came in Krogan size Anderson caught his attention and he followed the Lieutenant to a large four wheeled vehicle and was instructed to hop in the back.

"Sorry about this but the Damocles is ridiculously large, the Emperor's been doing his best to utilize the wasted space over the centuries but there's just so _much _of it." Curious now Wrex rumbled out

"Why build it then?", at this Anderson chuckled,

"He didn't he stole it from his brother and used it to unite our home world." _That_ got a laugh out of the ancient Krogan,

"By unite you mean conquer?" The young soldier just grinned and replied,

"You said it I didn't." Soon they came to a large door and after being ushered into the elevator they waited nearly four minutes to get to their destination. Tired of the silence he glanced over to the Lieutenant and asked,

"So what are those machines in the landing bay?" Returning the look Anderson smirked with a bit of pride,

"Those my good Battlemaster are Knightmare Frames, more specifically they're Vincent Conqueror models and the current state of the art variant, impressive eh?" Nodding the Krogan just grinned and said,

"I want one," laughing now the N7 operative promised he'd run it past the boss and with that they reached their destination; as the doors opened they were approached by a tall willowy woman in a yellow sundress, her long raven hair pulled into a French braid,

"Welcome back David, I take it this is Uncle Lelouch's newest employee?" Smiling and bowing lightly Anderson replied,

"Hello Yui, yes this is Urdnot Wrex, I'll stand guard here ma'am if you need anything," Nodding with a small smile the thin woman waved for the Krogan to follow her.

"Now as per the terms of your contract you are to train the Emperor's granddaughter in the ways of biotics, he already explained to you why you were chosen so I won't waste your time. I wish for you to understand three things; if any harm is to come to my charge I will kill you and Roslin your body out the airlock, second off don't make assumptions by her age and size, she may only be six but her intellect is beyond that of even his royal majesty at that age." Staring down at the lithe woman he asked,

"And number three?" It was obvious he found her threats amusing, whether that was due to finding the idea novel or as an actual danger was anyone's guess.

"Number three: secrecy is key; while she is of the _vi Britannia_ line, she is following the traditions of the family and living legally under her non-royal parents name. Never let it slip or she'll be under constant danger from political rivals, and now probably from those goddamned Turians." Wrex simply nodded while letting out a small grumble of approval over her opinion on those damn birds. Opening a door to a massive enclosed atrium he couldn't help but note that the hanging gardens and stone terraces were pretty, shaking that off he followed Yui to a small redheaded girl in fatigues who was in the middle of a series of complex kata swinging around a glowing green sword attached to her wrist.

Her movements were fluid and precise and showed a grace no child that age should possess. After a few more minutes of this Yui grabbed the girls attention, she came to a halt and turned around assessing the pair. Her violet eyes narrowed and Wrex caught a glint of something interesting there; the look of a predator crossed her delicate features before she threw on an impassive mask and bowed lightly to the tall woman.

"Yui-sama, is this to be one of my instructors?" Smiling at the redhead she replied an affirmative, at that the girl deactivated her blade and it retracted into her Omni-tool, as she turned to Wrex he decided to jump right into business.

"So pyjak, you decide what specialization you'd be interested in?" Nodding immediately the little girl hopped down from the upper level and approached the battlemaster,

"Vanguard, I've been studying the biotic charge for awhile now, I've almost got it to the point where it doesn't hurt like hell but I'm still not refined enough." Looking impressed Wrex leaned against a stone pillar while nodding assessing her answer,

"Vanguards are high risk high gain, rush in, blow your barriers, stun everyone and slaughter the lot of them before they regain their senses, why would a royal princess want to take on that kind of danger?" Giving the merc a toothy grin that would make any Krogan proud she replied,

"A queen cannot expect her subjects to follow her if she is not willing to lead the charge," Letting out a deep rumbling laugh he decided he liked this kid and grinned back at her.

"All right pyjak, since you're incognito what am I supposed to call you," still smiling the girl replied,

"Shepard, Joanna Shepard." Nodding he began pacing around the small girl,

"All right Shepard, your fathers father tells me that you've been given an asari instructor as well, who is she?" Glancing up at the the covered gazebo the redhead said,

"Shiala-sensai, she's been watching me perform my sword drills...annnnnnd here she comes and she looks pissed, ah man." With that the royal biotically charged several dozen meters away as the angry asari marched towards the krogan, the irritated commando stopped in front of the ancient battlemaster and they both eyed each other cautiously. Eventually Wrex broke the silence,

"She's going to need a melee weapon, not just that little backup if she really wants to be a Vanguard, something no one will expect," still eyeing the Krogan Shiala nodded and crossed her arms,

"I agree, its none traditional which will make her a force to be reckoned with, do you have any suggestions...Battlemaster?" Giving the woman a rictus grin he relented a small nod,

"You're familiar with their energy blades, you Asari ever use scythes?"

* * *

_**Above Shanxi, Turian Fleet Debris Field**_

Cause and effect, tit for tat, war, peace revolution, these were all part of the endless waltz that personified humanity, Marianne Harper personally found it poetic in a sense, but then her uncle had put an end to that nonsense and guided their people to unending peace and harmony. Of course now they had bloody aliens to deal with, grimacing in annoyance the brunette took her husbands cigarette from his mouth ignoring his protests as she took a drag from it,

"We're almost done reconstructing three of the Turian cruisers, did Uncle Lou say when he needed them ready?" Ignoring her while he lit a new cigarette he took a moment to reply as he glanced out at the bone field above Shanxi,

"No, he's still waiting on a communique from the Quarians, last I heard from him he simply wanted to remind us we're not supposed to do any long term damage to the envoy, just scare the hell out of them and make them think the Council's interfering." Nodding she took the final puff from the smoke and put it out on the guard rail,

"Leave it to Lou to stack the deck, have we gotten the IFF's for still active Turian patrols yet?" Smirking he pulled her close resting his his chin atop her head,

"Of course dear first thing I asked the AI's to do when they hacked the Citadel, all we need is two days to finish the repairs and then the facade can begin." As the couple smirked at the nearly repaired Turian warships she quipped,

"Uncle Lou can always count on Cerberus to look out for humanities best interests."

* * *

_**Imperial Capital of Pendragon, Earth, twelve hours later**_

Schneizal held the bridge of his nose trying to will the headache away, it was not working, he'd reread the orders from his little brother/Emperor thrice and he still couldn't believe who he had appointed as the ambassador to the council. It would be perceived as a slight and it was _meant_ to be a slight, he'd originally planned on sending Lady Kaguya Sumeragi but after the assassination attempt and lack of followup investigation the priorities changed. Sighing for the hundredth time today he called the new ambassador of humanity to his office, as the doors swung open the imperious figure stomped into the enclosed office and glared down at the Prime Minister.

"Schneizal," Former Emperor Charles zi Britannia stated, sighing once again realizing his father was drunk the PM just rubbed his temples and said,

"Hello...dad...Lelouch requested you to be our representative to the alien races, apparently they attempted to have him killed and he's annoyed enough to unleash you on the galaxy." The stony faced Charles broke into a massive grin as he began laughing uproariously,

"Bwahaha! That's my boy, I'll have to bring a case of that absinthe with me...when do I leave?" Cringing at the future brush fires he'd undoubtedly have to put out Schneizal slid the tablet forward,

"Today, Lelouch wants you to cause as much chaos as possible while you negotiate trade, apperently he has faith that you'll be able to do well for the Imperium while also annoying the hell out of the council...I suppose that is a dubious honour." Still grinning Charles scooped up the pad and began walking out of the room,

"Hehehe...hells bells wonder if I can appoint Nunu as my secretary we could cause so much chaos...anyway talk to you later Schneizal just don't do anything I would do and you'll be fine!" As the doors slammed shut the Prime Minister began slamming his forehead against the desk then stopped abruptly,

"Lelouch...Lelouch just freed from that man for the first time in two hundred years!" Thoughts suddenly lightening up he grinned as he began twirling a white king piece, "Now...first things first time to sanitize his sector of the palace...hmmm...I'm thinking a baroque theme..."

* * *

**I swear to the old dead gods next chapter will be better, I just had so much trouble focusing with my own mental issues and my terrible job, hopefully the next chapter will be up way way sooner to make up for the long time and short subpar work you just read through. So sorry folks I'm only human =/**


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author Note-From here on out I'm going to try and keep the AN's fairly spartan, I just want to thank everyone for their pleasant words and let you know the reviews help me write faster and at a better quality so thanks. This chapter plays two roles, setting the stage for the Quarians and giving readers who hadn't read my original (and much rougher) story insight into the royal families backgrounds, I felt it was a much more organic way of doing it then a thousand word AN. Also I really think this chapter should have been named "In which everyone but Joanna gets drunk for good or ill", eh oh well, enjoy and as always review!**_

* * *

_**Night Club 'Flux', Presidium Commons at the time of the Emperor's attempted assassination**_

The thrumming bass of the generic space techno reverberated its way through Luluka vi Britannia's core with a tedious repetition as she glowered from her dark booth, the only illumination offered in the shadows was the smoldering cherry of her cigarette and the unhealthy green glow of her drink. As she exhaled a puff of smoke that was briefly illuminated by the black lights she observed Suzaku playing some weird alien variant of darts with a bunch of Salarians and Nunnally having a drinking contest with a pair of young Asari.

On the dance floor Kallen and Ceceliana were grinding against each other seductively both of them drunk beyond words and doing their best to not think about the one thing that was occupying their minds, Naoto was dead. Sighing for her sisters in law she ashed her cigarette in an empty batarian ale bottle while doing her best to remain objective, she was here to have fun and make an impression; sadly she was failing on both accounts.

As her gaze panned across the room the hapatic glasses perched on the tip of her nose gave her live feed information on all the sweaty alien drunks currently in the club; Asari, Turians, Salarians, Elcor, Batarians, hell even a handful of Krogans, Quarians, and a couple Drell all drank themselves into thinking they were having a good time. As she downed her drink she waved down the Asari waitress for another while giving her a wink, blushing darkly the blue alien beauty refilled her glass and moved on.

While she was lighting a new smoke she watched a Batarian walk past her and "accidentally" bump into her table, quite cleverly dropping a couple pills in her drink as he apologized and stumbled away, she couldn't help but roll her eyes at the attempted drugging. Shaking her head she contemplated how it it didn't seem to matter what end of the galaxy you were at or what a persons base amino acids were, clubs attracted a special kind of low level scavenger. Picking up her glass to down the spiked drink her wrist was grabbed by a strong three fingered hand encased in what felt like warm leather, glancing up at a semi-opaque breath mask a stern male voice was emitted from its front speaker,

"Wouldn't do that ma'am, Yarok over there is known to compensate for his lack of social skills and romanticism with raw chemicals if ya catch my drift," the chiding Quarian said. As an inquisitive eyebrow rose she couldn't help but cackle inwardly, here was her in to the Quarian fleet,

"Hmm, would have thought the galaxy at large would _want_ something to happen to the royal family after the show we put on." She'd managed to phrase her statement to sound like a question and the large Quarian took the bait, letting go of her wrist he sat down on the opposite side of the booth.

"Hell ma'am, after the way you folks stuck it to those bosh'tets on the Council? Least I could do, names Jayne, Jayne'Reegar vas Dakka," Smiling at the young man she offered him her hand and he accepted it while shaking it gently,

"Call me Luluka, and not gonna lie, we had a bit of fun with that one, we lost some good people...and family, but the Council lost face and the Turians are gonna be hurting from this one for awhile." Even though she could only see his glowing eyes through the mask she could tell by their shape he was smiling,

"Yeah, I'm sure everyone back on the fleet is either doing a dance over the Council getting theirs or salivating over your fleet; me I'm kinda stuck here on my pilgrimage, the ship I booked passage on got pinched for smuggling so I'm kinda in limbo." Twirling a lock of her raven hair she asked,

"Whats a pilgrimage?" knowing perfectly well what it was due to her time with the Codex, he cocked his head and then laughed,

"Wow, no one usually cares, uh to put it simply its a journey of adulthood, you find something useful to the fleet to offer to the captain of whatever ship you wanna serve on and if its good enough you become crew." Nodding the princess began playing with her Omni-tool,

"So what like medical supplies, food, ships and the like?" He tilted his head left to right making an odd 'eh' noise,

"Kinda sorta, anything of value really, since our immune systems are utter crap from living in a sterile environment for generations everything from a new supply of environment suits and air scrubbers to anti-biotics and bandages can have value in the right quantity. Personally I was trying to get my hands on newer rifles for our Marines but I've kinda got a one track mind in that department, Marine in a Marine family, bit self serving I know." She smirked at that while finally finishing with her Omni-tool which displayed a three dimensional rendering of her nervous, digestive, and implant systems; as this was happening she took her tainted drink and downed it in one gulp. Gasping the young man tried to stop her but was far too late, grinning she gestured at the holo,

"So yeah, your immune systems are not in the best condition, so tell me if this strikes your fancy," as she said this dozens of chemical compounds began scrolling across the info panel listing everything she had just consumed, four groups of chemicals became highlighted and the words [Purging] began flashing. The Quarian glanced at her and she just grinned while stating, "I need to hit the little girls room, stay put," after that she returned a few minutes later still smiling.

"What." Ah damn did she love Marines, didn't matter the species they were a _very_ strait forward bunch,

"The entirety of our bodies are infused with nanites that build implant systems to enhance specific areas, digestive regulation, allergen shunting, strength and sense enhancement, enhanced healing, you name it." Eyes widening he was starting to get what she was saying and she could tell he was interested,

"That's...quite interesting ma'am...Luluka...what would a man need to do to acquire something along those lines for his people?" Grinning wide enough to make one of Suzaku's manga anti-hero's proud she tapped a button and dumped the entire implant database to his cheap omni-tool, at the same time she asked Yui to build up some better firewalls in the piece of shit. It was quite the gamble and if they didn't bite Kallen was going to kill her for wasting a trade item, ah well whats life without its risks,

"They're yours, all I want you to do is let the Fleet know we wish to...negotiate with them for greater things," gasping in shock he stared at his Omni-tool for a moment then sat silent as he collected himself.

"Ma'am...if you don't mind me saying you are easily the most smoothly manipulative woman I've ever met, I like you," barking out a sharp laugh she toasted him with a new _not_ drugged drink and tipped it back.

"Believe my dad told me that a few times, more cursing though, anywho tell them we have a mutually beneficial relationship available and to not get hung up on our use of AI citizens, if they can handle that for a few minutes we can help you people get back on your feet." Nodding thoughtfully the Marine met her violet gaze with his glowing silver orbs and began chuckling lightly,

"I'm being played and I don't even mind so long as it helps my people, all right Luluka, you have yourself a deal I'll get a message out to the fleet as soon as I can." Still giving him a mischievous grin his Omni-tool display popped up with a direct line through the comm buoys hooking to the wandering fleet while bypassing entire libraries of Citadel red tape and fees.

"Young man, welcome to the big leagues where we are the masters and commanders, how do you like this small taste of twisting the galaxy to your whims?" The young Marine blankly gazed at his Omni-tool for a moment longer then glanced up to meet her eyes,

"Huh, well...Oorah, ma'am," as the pilgrim played his part Yui contacted her and by the way her siblings reacted the rest of the family got the same message as well, activating her auditory and sub-vocal implants she keyed the comm open,

"I'll keep it short, Uncle Lelouch was assassinated in front of the Councilors," Staring at the small avatar of her adoptive niece she couldn't help but snarl out,

"Already?! Ugh...is it under wraps?" Nodding sharply the little girl gave her an apologetic smile,

"If its any conciliation I sincerely doubt the Council had anything to do with it, incompetent they may be but they're not suicidal, Uncle Lelouch just blew the whole thing off, if I were to be honest he seemed more angry about his jacket and cigarettes getting ruined then anything else." Nodding to herself as she could understand that being an annoyance for an immortal, as Jayne was wrapping up talking to whoever it was he was discussing things with she covered her mouth with her near empty glass and muttered,

"Got an in with the Quarians, tell my brother to send one of us a recall order to Damocles when he's done with his business," winking Yui then vanished once again leaving her with the slightly bemused smirk; making eye contact with her husband on the other end of the bar she blew him a kiss then leaned back in her seat throwing back her fourth drink. Sometimes it was pretty awesome being a manipulative, conniving bitch, truly it was the little things in life that made a code bearers existence worthwhile.

_**Councilor Tevos Office two hours after the assassination attempt**_

It has to be said that while she had a positive working relationship with her fellow Councilors they did not make a habit of being incredibly social outside of their work, so seeing the three of them sprawled out on her expensive couches and recliners surrounded by empty bottles was memorable.

"So..is it like...space magic? I mean, really what are these people what...spirits..." Dravis muttered as he finished his second bottle of Turian brandy, Merig glanced to him nursing some foul smelling Salarian beer as he shook his head despondently.

"They're an unknown quantity, militant, domineering, oddly accommodating and irritatingly flippant, we need more data..." Tevos for her part just muttered near silently in reply as she sipped her whiskey laced tea. If that boy was actually an immortal, hell she'd have to reevaluate the 'boy' moniker soon enough, anyway if he was what he appeared to be it explained a great many things not least of which was why he didn't care about a council seat. All things considered, he could literally wait it out, and seeing how artfully he played them with only a few weeks planning she shuddered to think what he'd be up to in the coming decades.

"We thought they'd just been attempting to save face and limit damage to their infrastructure by making peace but that isn't it at all, they're led be a manipulative immortal with an armada bigger then all ours combined. Its becoming more and more obvious whats going on here," she lamented, glancing to her colleagues she smiled sadly, "Outside of the loss of the Emperor's son, they're having the time of their lives; they're _playing_ with us. Its sad honestly, I wonder what happened in their youths that would make this so damn amusing..." As she mulled that thought she recalled the file Benezia had given her on the families history, 'Well why not' she thought as she booted up her datapad while pouring more liquor into her mug. Merig sighed and finished his now lukewarm drink in a single pull while lolling his head back into the plush rest,

"I'm supposed to negotiate with them to have one of our top scientists tutored in their methods of genetic manipulation, and before you ask yes I've already had the samples we collected from the assassination attempt sent in for analysis. Preliminary scans show his DNA has had extensive genetic tweaking but very little rewrite, it would appear that they were being truthful in it being meant for little more then cleanup. As for the implant fragments, I have no idea they're beyond even us..." Belching loudly the now buzzed Dravis rolled his eyes,

"You know I kinda wish he hadn't killed Sparatus, I'd really like to have done it myself, can you imagine what we could have accomplished if they had been met in peace? Ugh...who are the matriarchs sending to liaise with the Britannians by the way?" Merig shrugged at this as he opened another bottle of beer and poured it into his mug,

"I'm unfamiliar with him but regardless he's a young up and comer by the name of Doctor Mordin Solus, he is considered a prodigy and has been on several high profile STG projects, ought to be interesting how the Emperor will respond if he finds out we're sending a trained spy into his midst." Tevos snorted at that while glancing up from her pad,

"Please as if he thought you'd send anything else," as she looked back down at her pad Merig shrugged,

"You have a point there, ah well I cannot do much until their ambassador arrives, I just hope whoever he sends is professional about their station.

_**Back at the club**_

While she had initially seen Jayne as nothing more then a means to an end Luluka couldn't help liking him, if all Quarians were anything like this pilgrim then outside of their phobia of AI's she could see them getting along with her people just fine. At her beckoning the family had come around to meet the young man and introduce themselves, currently he was enraptured by Nunnally's obscenity laced retelling of their siege on London. Suzaku shook his head ruefully as the intrigued Marine stopped her to ask details obviously enjoying the story, smirking towards Luluka he said,

"Leave it to you to manage first contact from a bar dear," snorting she reached for a new smoke and frowned seeing that it was her last, she'd have to steal more from Lou later, lighting up she patted her husband on the head.

"There there dear I know you're jealous, and it works out honestly, while _he_ isn't important per say his family apparently is, the Reegar's are kinda like Erwin and Chloe's clans, badass military heritage that can pull a few strings if need be. It would appear that their Admiralty Board was already arranging a meeting to discuss our party crashing the Citadel so our offer should spice things up a bit, although I really don't know how we're going to explain why we're so adamant on helping." Nodding knowingly Suzaku took a sip of what he had started calling "space cola" before replying,

"Indeed, 'Hey I know we just met but do you guys want a free planet with pre-built cities and hyper advanced medicine that can fix your immune systems in less then a decade? All you gotta do is propagate like there's no tomorrow and help us upgrade your ships to fight giant extra-galactic sentient genocidal cuttlefish starships!' _I_ know whats going on and that shit sounds utterly insane, but they could be useful and well..." Kallen who had been trying to force Ceceliana to drink some more water before she threw up again hummed a sad note,

"And they kinda remind you of what happened to us, what happened to Japan," Nodding sadly he was quiet as he became lost in some personal memory or another. As they sat in comfortable silence they listened in amusement as Jayne was treated to the story of the Christmas Nunnally and her then boyfriend had helped her dad get there entire extended family trashed on centuries old absinthe; to this day Luluka had no idea where the hell that Vincent painted as Santa Claus had come from. That had been a mess...unfortunately they'd been distracted from the cleanup the following day when Europe nuked Pendragon killing the majority of their family, remembering the good times was the only way to try and not dwell on that mess. After a few minutes Kallen and C.C's Omni-tools began blinking, opening it Kallen nodded and helped her wife up,

"Lou's back at Damocles, he asked us to bring your Quarian friend as well for a brief meeting," grunting "finally" Luluka stood up and told Nunnally to take Jayne to the dock their frames were parked at and to wait for the shuttle, she'd catch up soon. As her family left her behind she stretched out lithely then called up Yui,

"Hello Aunt Luluka, how can I be of assistance?" Smirking she said,

"I need you to spoof the bars security cameras for a roughly thirty seconds, that cool?" Nodding the little AI said,

"Done, beginning on your mark," Walking out of the bar she then cast her geass becoming unseen by all those around her, queuing Yui she turned around and marched up to the Batarian who had tried to drug her and pressed her pistol to his forehead; grinning viciously she pulled the trigger blowing the back of his head out. As she made her way back to the entrance weaving around the panicking bar patrons she began skipping lightly to the docks while whistling Sublimes 'Date rape' the entire way.

_**Aboard the Damocles**_

As the four royals plus one pilgrim made their way to the central gazebo of the atrium they heard what sounded liked a war zone in the distance, approaching Lelouch Kallen leaned against his shoulder watching the chaos unfold in the gardens, Shiala and a Krogan were busily coaching an exhausted looking Joanna through biotic exercises. Getting her husbands attention she tilted her head to the wrecked gardens below while raising her eyebrows inquisitively, smirking he lit a cigarette and she was startled to see he'd taken the synthetic flesh off his cybernetic arm, the polished steel gleaming in the false sunlight.

"That's Wrex our newest employee, I think Suzaku's really gonna like this guy he kinda reminds me of a militant Genbu mixed with a honey badger, he and Shiala are trying to show each other up and poor Jo's stuck in the middle trying to absorb it all. Normally I'd be worried they'd go overboard but Yui's been standing in the corner with a Revanant SAW eyeing them for the past hour so they're playing nice, its adorable how protective she is." Shaking her head at the commentary she rapped her knuckles against his metal limb,

"Whats the deal with the arm? Normally you keep that covered up to cut down the stares," Grimacing he scratched his head in annoyance,

"When they sent me back from the World of C my damn code reset the bindings on the synthflesh, like it always does when I die its just been so long since the last attempt I kinda forgot about it. Ah well can't bitch too much at least it gives me an excuse to upgrade it till a new skin can be grown." As he was saying this amused laughter was heard from directly outside the open building, stepping around Lelouch to leave him to their Quarian guest she saw a woman sitting in a wheel chair who cupped her hands around her mouth yelling,

"Come on Jo you can do it!" Grinning at the small girls disgruntled look she walked down the steps to stand next to Hannah, her blue hair was held up in place by a pair of chopsticks and was wearing one of Naoto's old leather bomber jackets. Walking down to her daughter in law she gave the recovering woman a hug being careful not to knock her glass from her hand, their family had very strict guidelines on alcohol abuse after all.

"Hey honey, glad to see you finally got out of that bed, sure you should be drinking though?" Snorting the bluenettes emerald eyes shown with mischief,

"Of course not, but seeing as I rammed a burning frigate into an alien cruiser then rode a fucking _Mako_ through reentry for my escape and survived I think I've well and truly earned it, saw the broadcast, gods I wish I coulda been there in person mom the looks on those bastards faces..." Smirking she sat on the ground next to the significantly younger woman and waited in silence for a few moments chuckling quietly when an irate Joanna began throwing low powered biotic blasts at her Krogan teacher who just let out deep bass laughs of approval.

Sighing Hannah closed her eyes and downed the rest of her screwdriver, throwing the plastic container to the ground she rolled her head to face Kallen, "Mom...you lost alot...a whole helluva lot...does the pain ever go away?" Before she answered she pulled up her Omni-tool and ordered a servant to bring them more drinks, they'd need them and having a regenerating liver should be taken advantage of anyhow, finished with her commands she gently took hold of Hannah's hand.

"Honestly some days I don't even think about what happened, others it'll just pop out of the blue and ruin my entire week, sometimes there's nightmares though Lou has more of those then I do. I got...well lucky sounds really messed up but I _was _lucky I only saw my father murdered, my mom and brother were on the other side of the car but the blood...yeah I saw that and well...it sticks with you." Rubbing her eyes she glanced up to the young man who brought her a brandy decanter with a snifter and another screwdriver, thanking him she gave Hannah her drink while pouring herself a healthy glass, leaning against the gazebo she continued.

"The pain is always there, the loss, the feeling of powerlessness I had when those soldiers were going to kill me after they executed their own commander for trying to help me... Heh _that_ is one of the reasons I'm such a bitch in the business world and the battlefield, I refuse to let anyone have power over me again, regardless of the repercussions. You...and take no offense to this dear but you're just as big of a bitch as I am, you'll come out of this far stronger then you think." Snorting derisively Hannah took a sip of her drink, twirling a loose strand of hair her response was a near whisper,

"I know we have to be allies with them...but the rage...god mom the rage, I want to kill them all, I want to hijack the Dauntless from Aunt Cornelia and rain F.L.E.I.J.A's on their worlds and after they're done burning I want to burn the ashes..." Patting her hand gently Kallen smirked at her,

"That's because by marriage or not you're a vi Britannia dear, its what we do, although talk to your father in law, he's got some plans for Nunnally you may be able to get in on." Shaking her head in the negative while staring at her daughter chasing a full size Krogan she said,

"No, no as cathartic as playing pirate sounds my little girl needs me, I'll stay here or wherever we need her to go as she studies, when she enlists I'll take back my commission and try to be a good example for her...if there is one thing I never want my daughter to learn from _me_ its lust for revenge." Kallen felt a pang as she thought 'You picked the perfect woman Naoto...' but outwardly she simply nodded and stood up,

"You never cease to impress dear, I'll leave you to it, try not to get _too_ drunk now, setting examples and all," that earned her a bark of laughter and a bit of backtalk,

"Uh huh, I'll keep that in mind next time I let Aunt Luluka watch her," smirking in return she walked back up the gazebo stairs in time to see Lelouch hand the young Quarian a ships access card, sending him off with Suzaku and Luluka he turned to his wife with an appraising look.

"She'll be fine, she wants vengeance but she wants to set a good example for Jo more then anything, so what about our boy in a bubble?" Taking her hand and sitting at the table he took a sip of her drink before handing it back to her.

"Glad to hear it, Hannah is...Jo is gonna need her, and as for Jayne I like the kid, he's got spunk and I have a soft spot for grunts, bought a used Asari shuttle while I was still on the Citadel for him to take to his fleet and gave him one of our newer rifles as a door prize, I think he squeed a little. Hopefully after he presents the offer and hands off the data in person we can get an alliance and eventual assimilation underway." Smirking she emptied her snifter and refilled it pushing it towards Lelouch who accepted it gratefully,"I'm assuming Ceceliana and Nunnally are busy elsewhere?"

"Yup, you know how C.C. gets when she legitimately tries to get drunk, shes nursing a headache in our room right now and Nunnally went to her suite to hang out with Timeo for a bit, he's gonna be miffed she went clubbing without him. Now I'm seriously chomping at the bit to enter their markets, who are we going to tap for ambassador duty so we can start the negotiations? Times a wasting," Grinning maliciously he slide a datapad her way and read the letter that he had just to sent to Prince Schneizal, her laughter could be heard echoing throughout the atrium.

_**Four Days Later**_

Ceceliana didn't really want to admit it but she was looking forward to this, her relationship with Charles had been rocky when she had originally left Ragnarok but after her future husband and wife had nuked the Geass Directorate the wily bastard had mellowed out to the point that he not only was bearable but bloody hilarious. It still amused her how accommodating he was to his children despite the fact they were directly responsible for destroying his life's work, although she had to admit that there was likely no possibility their plan to kill 'God' would have worked anyhow, perhaps he'd come to the same conclusion. Her reverie was cut off as a new ship jumped into system, the older Elizabeth class dreadnought filling their viewscreens as it made its way towards the citadel, 'Old or not she's still an impressive piece of art, better then what the Citadel has at least' she mused.

She started for a second as Kallen and Lelouch simultaneously grasped her waist and leaned into her, smirking a bit she returned the gesture lolling her head onto Kallen's shoulder, by the old gods this was going to be good and by the smiles of all the Britannians present she wasn't the only one looking forward to it. After a few moments a Crusader class assault dropship disembarked from the two kilometer long monster and was soon flanked by a quartet of Gareth Vanquishers, the massive crab clawed monsters in constant motion scanning for threats, a short time later they set down and took defensive positions around the flying block of armor and guns. The Councilors shifted uncomfortably as they finally got their first look at Charles Zi Britannia, the massive man as regal as ever though his silver hair was pulled into a ponytail rather then the elegant rolls he'd sported as emperor, to most of the aliens present he probably looked stoic but those that knew him could see the mischief in his eyes.

Walking down the ramp he approached the trio of politicians and stared down at them, he then broke into a massive grin while wiggling his eyebrows,

"So blue alien hotties, all right I get why my kids didn't wipe you people out, priorities and all that, so I'm Charles but you" he pointed at Tevos then continued, "Can call me Chuck, so what kinda bars you guys have on this dick compensating floating target?" The Councilors all floundered like landed fish while the former Emperor pulled out a hip flask and took a sip obviously waiting for their response a barely perceptible smirk at the corner of his mouth. Suzaku tried his best to hold back a snicker and mostly succeeded, Luluka, Nunnally and Timeo were shaking from the contained laughter and poor Hannah had to cover her face to hide her mirth as Charles downed half the flask and offered it to the Asari who shakily accepted it.

"Umm...on behalf of the Council we great you to the Citadel, while normally we'd send a courtier to escort you to our offices this was a...special occasion," Merig said hesitantly, grinning openly now Charles burst out laughing the deep bass rumble startling the trio.

"In other words you're terrified showing me any sort of disrespect will piss us off, I get it, well lead the way frogman I'm getting bored and I didn't travel halfway across the galaxy to sit on a bloody dock," the dawning realization of what they were getting themselves into seemed to pass over the council as they escorted the ambassador towards the lifts was priceless. As the lifts closed and began its ascent the eight humans burst out into laughter, the cheerful sounds echoing across the near empty docks, Lelouch let go of Ceceliana to hold his stomach as he gasped for breath, it took a solid minute for the royals to settle down.

"Ok...ok everything that we've gone through? Suddenly totally worth it," Hannah stammered, Nunnally and Timeo could only nod as they were still trying to catch their breath, Luluka and Lelouch simultaneously pulled out cigarettes and lit them while nodding, and the others were already heading to the lifts, Suzaku turning around long enough to wave them on.

"Come on guys I wanna be there when he starts hitting on Tevos...well hitting on her more, outta be great," with that the thoroughly amused royals headed to the Presidium.

* * *

**As you can tell this was more getting a feel for the characters then any major story progression, while I've said it before I honestly think we'll have only one more chapter before the time skip, just gotta get things with the Quarians squared away and introduce Cornelia and Euphemia. If you're wondering about Luluka's cold blooded murder of her attempted rapist well...its fully in character for her, anyhow I hope you all enjoyed and hey only one day off from when I wanted this up so huzzah! Read and review and see you all next week, if anyone has suggestions on what they'd like to see I'd love to hear from you.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Advisory-**_Obviously you've noticed the lack of updates, lets just say that my wife wasn't as dedicated to our marriage as I would have liked and I've been dealing with becoming severally disillusioned and since romance plays a part in my stories I'm not really feeling it...but I don't want this to die so I'm going to try and push through it, thankyou for your patience. Also obviously this is rather short and ends a bit abruptly, considering I'm way way way late on the update I'm just gonna have to ask you to cope =/_

**_Unrelated to that just like I made Luluka an amazing infiltrator and assassin while being the galaxies worst pilot I will make damn sure Shepard has some faults, for instance even with all her training and natural grace she STILL can't dance. It may seem silly but I despise Mary Sue's so I just wanted to make that clear_**

**_AUTHOR NOTE EDIT-Ok I'm normally a good sport about bad reviews but considering whats going on in my life I really can't bother giving a fuck about being pleasant, its the same damn complaint every chapter and I'm getting sick of it. This is an Imperium ruled by a benevolent dictator with no patience for bureaucracy that has geared his military for one purpose for two centuries; to fight REAPERS, so yes when they meet other races they're going to be steamrolled at first. Don't believe me? Nazi's invaded Poland with tanks while the Polish were still using traditional Calvary, guess who won those battles? Same principle they're not worse soldiers they're just woefully under equipped for the fight ahead. _**

**_There is going to be a twenty year time jump where the rest of the galaxy catches up (to an extent) and Lelouch is going to have to face the repercussions for what he's done, but right now this is still in the first months of contact, he has the upper hand. I'm getting very very tired of explaining this so from here on out, if you feel this is "Human Wank" then just stop reading, because frankly I lost the only person in the world that mattered to me and I don't have the patience or the inclination to deal with others insults. _**

* * *

_If violence doesn't solve all your problems you're obviously not trying hard enough- Grand Admiral Cornelia li Britannia_

_There is a damn good reason my eldest sister is not in the line of secession-Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia  
_

* * *

_**Damocles, [Location Unknown]**_

Darkness filled his subconscious, grainy photo stills slide past his mind whispering what was, what could have been, or what awaited, images of his sisters murdered along with his mother leaving him destroyed and alone, Kallen dying in the JLF bombing and his burning the world clean with F.L.E.I.J.A's in return, his fathers unchecked Britannia spreading genocide across the globe in the vain attempt to kill god while a deep base roar pervaded the entire affair. Shadows began dancing by of the nobility devouring the flesh of the innocent preparing humanities defeat and harvest all the while screaming "It wasn't me! It wasn't my fault!" led to the inevitable climax of awakening Lelouch in a sweat stained shock. These were the sweet dreams that comforted the Immortal Emperor on a nightly basis, every morning he had to sift through the detritus of what could have been and what was, and to be perfectly blunt it was a bitch to deal with. Realizing he was waking up _significantly_ earlier then his wives Lelouch struggled to stand up right and glared at the alarm clock,

"Three thirty is too bloody early for anyone with a lick of common sense," the immortal grumbled as he threw on a pair of boxers and one of his heavy jackets, leaving his wives to snuggle underneath the down comforters the Emperor of Humanity made his way to the kitchens for a sandwich. Seeing a light on and hearing a quiet conversation he lightly padded in on Lieutenant Anderson and Yui debating,

"I don't dispute the fact that the Reapers are real, but she's _six_ years old, forcing her to go through this training is just cruel Yui, even with your logic heuristics you have to admit pushing her too far will break her, especially after what happened to her father!" There was a moment of silence then his adopted niece spoke up,

"I... I honestly worry about her, Uncle Lelouch and Aunt Kallen care about her greatly but they're very focused on the Reaper threat, and Hannah-san is distracted due to...due to Naoto-kun's death... I agree they're pushing too much too fast but what can we do? Christ David all our projections say her generation will be in the _epicenter_ of what is to come, what do we do, coddle her and let her fall with the chaff?!" Sighing the Marine shook his head,

"I dunno Yui, I really don't but galactic civilization needs a focal, be it her or someone like her, otherwise we're all doomed, I think that's what the Emperor is counting on but..." Yui interjected here with,

"But organics are idiots and who knows if they'll actually follow their only real hope, right?" David grunted as he sipped the glass of expensive scotch in his hand,

"Yeah about right, Lelouch is a genius and so are most of his family but Joanna...she inspires camaraderie just by being who she is, she's _six_ and most adults treat her like an equal...something tells me she's the focus of the future and that's why Lelouch is hell bent on protecting her." Letting out a painfully sad smile Yui took a sip from her glass of wine while shaking her head,

"She's special all right, but will she be a paragon of humanities ability to adapt, or will she be a renegade magnifying our lust for conflict? You know as well as I do that girl thrives in a good fight," Scowling David emptied his glass,

"Will we care in the slightest if she's an able leader against the coming storm?" Neither of the speakers added to this as Lelouch turned around and headed to his study, fuck it if his people were losing sleep over the same things bothering him he wouldn't force himself into their conversation. Plopping into his plush leather chair he picked up a fountain pen and glared at the papers before him.

"Bugger..I really hate paperwork, shouldn't I be able to illegalize it, or at the very least shove it off on Schneizal? Ugh..." and with that his entire days proceedings were already decided and he hadn't even put pants on yet...lovely.

* * *

_**QMF Dakka December 5, 2222 A.T.B.**_

Jayne'Reegar stretched lethargically as his secondhand shuttle finished its docking cycle with the Dakka, while he like most Quarians was perfectly content to stay within the tight confines of a starship he _really_ liked having more then a few meters to live in for a week long voyage; hours of tedious meetings on the liveships aside. Scooping up the rifle case gifted to him by the Emperor he walked through the airlock and leaned against its wall as it sealed and began the decontamination process, 'gonna be a bit' he thought in annoyance. Say what you will about the outside world at least you didn't have to decon every five meters, pulling out his new toys manual he kept himself busy until he heard the familiar ding of a successful cycle and the doors slid open, before he could even fully stand up he was tackled by a tiny red blur and knocked to the ground.

"JAYNE! How ya doing bro!" the squeakily happy voice of his little brother Kal chirped from his death grip around his waist, sighing in amusement he untangled himself from the seven year old helping him up as he did so, grinning while shaking his head he patted the small boy on the head.

"Good to see ya Kal, been a good boy for mom and dad?" Nodding happily he pantomimed holding a rifle and started shaking with imagined recoil,

"Yeah dad took me to the outer hull for target practice, he said next time we start mining a planetoid I might get to blow something up!" smirking Jayne simply thought 'Its good to be home,' as he picked up his case and took his little brothers hand leading the way to the bridge, as they passed through the cramped halls his brothers curiosity finally got the better of him. "Jayne whats that?" Not able to contain his joy he turned them into an alcove and placed the rifle case on the ground, pulling out the polished steel and composite weapon Kal let out a gasp,

"This is the Britannian E1A3 Standard Infantry Particle Rifle, it uses some crazy ass Prothean tech to hyper-accelerate microparticles at relativistic velocities...I call her Vera." eyes widening the boy began stroking the heavy weapon fondly, 'Yup future Marine there' he thought happily, putting Vera back in her case he took the boys hand again and continued their trek to the bridge of their fathers ship. He'd already met with the Admiralty and the Civilian Conclave and while they were more then impressed with the Britannian L20 implants the fact that they were a century old model terrified them to an extent; there was nothing like it in council space and they were considered _obsolete_ by their would be benefactors. Reaching the door to the bridge he put his thoughts on hold as he let go of his brothers hand and keyed the door open, his father stood tall and proud at the front viewport staring out at the sprawling fleet. Not turning around the gruff voice of his old man barked out,

"Jayne my boy, when you went on your pilgrimage I never expected you to drag us into such an...interesting quandary," Grimacing all Jayne could think was 'Ah hell its lecture time isn't it?' Little Kal seemed to sense the tone between the two men as he stepped back through the door not wanting any part of the coming argument, 'Smart boy, knows when to withdraw' he thought lightly. Wanting nothing more then to get this over with he leaned against the vacant captains chair and simply stated,

"I stopped a woman from getting date raped by a wannabe slaver and in return she offered us a way to leave these damn suits permanently and is offering even more in the future," his father swung around facing him and snarled out,

"They're using YOU!" he bellowed, snorting Jayne cracked his neck and quipped,

"No shit dad, what you think I have a clog in my O2 scrubbers? I called her on it then and there and she just laughed, we'd be using each other and dad, these people are scary prepared, they could take over the Council at any given point but they're not. You know why?" His dads scowl could be felt if not seen so Jayne shrugged and continued, "They think its funny, I'm serious they're just off kilter enough that toying with the bosh'tet council is more amusing then conquering it. I dunno about you pops but me? I wanna be at the devils shoulder rather then in his path, call it cowardice if you want but mom herself called it prudence." Snarling the surly man dropped into the chair dislodging Jayne, holding his head with his elbows in his lap his dad finally sighed and dropped his helmeted head back into the chairs rest,

"You're argument was already heard across the fleet and most of the Conclave and at least half the Admirals agree with you, that firebrand Rael'Zorah is leading the charge, he's being guided by his emotions since the thought of his newborn not having to live in a suit is blinding him..."Grimacing he tapped his Omni-tool sending Jayne his new orders, "You've been accepted as crew aboard the Rayya, your shuttle and implant blueprints were more then enough to impress the short sighted fool."

Sighing again the older man offered his hand to his son and quietly said, "Congratulations, Jayne'Reegar vas Rayya, may you survive the fools errand command is planning for you." With that he was dismissed, grabbing his rifle case Jayne walked back out into the hallway and waited for the door to close before slamming his back into the bulkhead in anger, 'The way that man can make me feel so small never ceases to amaze me,' he thought angrily. Shaking it off as best as he could he checked his orders and couldn't help but smile, hot damn looks like he'd get to hangout with Luluka again after all, cheering up some he decided he'd go hang out with his brother a bit before heading to the Rayya, it would after all be a long time before they saw each other again.

* * *

_**Citadel C-Sec Academy Nine Hours Later**_

Saren was if nothing else a crafty bastard, this was something he'd always prided himself on and what had originally garnered Sparatus' attention, so it was not really any surprise that he was able to hack his way into several comm beacons, then run a simple VI filter searching for any information about Britannia's actions. When he'd been approached to become a Spectre it had been an endeavor to keep his mirth contained at the irony, the very people he'd nearly murdered trying to drunkenly assassinate the bastard Emperor had asked him to take up the honored mantle due in no small part to _four_ Spectre agents falling during the Humiliation of Shanxi. Gritting his teeth and clacking his mandibles at the thought of his greatest failure he went back to sifting through data, he was taking his time he truly did not give a damn that the Academies commander was forced to wait on him as he used the mans desk for his illicit searches; after all it was his right was it not?

After a time one of the filters pinged a hit, opening the intercepted message he was surprised to see that it wasn't in the heavily encrypted AI coding that the Britannians preferred but rather the equally elaborate protocols of the Quarian Migrant Fleet. Normally any such intercepted message would have taken days to decode but they were using an older encryption that the STG had cracked a few weeks ago, lucky him; skimming the message he unconsciously clenched his hands very nearly stabbing through his own palms.

"Clever arrogant bastards...they're not wasting anytime making friends are they?" Forcing his hands open he began reading the details in earnest, apparently the Quarian Admiralty was planning on meeting with the Emperor himself to negotiate some kind of alliance, and while the suit rats weren't really a problem on their own joined with Britannia... Leaning back he stared at the screen for several minutes before coming to a decision, he had a time and place, if he could arrange for the Quarian's to have an "accident" before they reached the Emperor it would hopefully end or at the very least stall their talks.

Unknowingly echoing the Royal family he muttered "Nothing gambled, nothing gained," and contacted the closest patrol to the relay in question and gave them their orders, his newly minted Spectre status blowing through the endless red tape that would otherwise prevent such insanity. Nodding to himself he shut the Terminal off and stretched, all he could do now was wait.

_**RMS Schatten, Adrift December 7 2222 A.T.B.**_

Jack rubbed his temples trying to relieve _some_ of the tension plaguing him which of course was a losing battle, flicking his gaze up to the monitors above his command seat he saw the LADAR was still blank and went back to his thoughts. It was a precarious position Cerberus found itself in, trying to convince the Quarians that the Council would do anything to keep them down while not doing any permanent damage required...finesse. This of course led his thoughts to his partner in crime, and as much as he loved his wife Marianne (vi Britannia) Harper had a _massive_ aggressive streak thanks to her training under Nunnally which sometimes made shadow ops...interesting.

So here they waited, cloaked and adrift by a backwater mass relay while Mari caught a nap in her Guren Nikuya waiting to call in their fake Turian patrol to scare the ever living hell out of their would be allies. Stretching he lit a cigarette momentarily contemplating the steps needed to handle the immediate fallout of their actions when his sensor officer shouted,

"FTL contact, mass relay is now active two ships coming through...they're both heavily damaged and broadcasting requests for aid, sir they're Quarian." Scowling Jack hit the buzzer to wake Mari and began giving orders.

"All right tell the Trojan fleet to remain on standby, we may not need them after all, tactical talk to me!" The young woman began chattering off information at a rapid fire rate,

"Both are Ter'leh class cruisers, listed as the Rayya and the Neorah, both are showing sever outer hull damage, venting atmo and coolant, sir they take another hit they're both done for." Grimacing Jack finished the drink in his hand before barking out,

"Mari baby launch, do everything in your power to protect those ships from whatever is persuing them, Comms contact the Emperor and give him the info, weapons go live, I want the hadron blasters and the Tannhauser primed, Scimitar wing you're now under the command of Marianne Harper do _not_ let anything happen to her." With the collective "aye ayes" reverberating across the bridge he began tapping his fingers together in contemplation, "And so it begins."

* * *

Mari was not as skilled of a pilot as Naoto had been, while this was a slight against her honor it didn't really bother her, that just meant she was a tad bit below Aunt Kallen and her Dad's level, nothing to be shy of. So when the twelve Turian warships jumped in system to pounce upon the damaged Quarians her only reaction was to flash a predatory grin before charging at the hostile flotilla; targeting a pair of frigates she fired both of her Guren's clawed arms and slammed them into the noses of the offending craft. Giving the bridge crews the appropriate time needed to piss themselves she sent radiation surges through the mighty vessels before recalling the chrome tinged limbs to her KMF, as the frigates bloated and exploded her four Gareth escorts opened fire on a cruiser detonating the seven hundred meter behemoth in an instant. Spinning on her axis she bolted towards the Heavy Cruiser in the center of the flotilla and fired a dozen radiation surge missiles at the the craft, as the explosions rippled across its stern flank she flew along its starboard side firing her laser cannons point blank while ravaging the armor with her claws.

Re-orientating her frame Mari grinned viciously as the ship detonated taking its escort fighters with it, at that moment her hubby decloaked the Schatten and fired a positron blast through the enemy formation causing a half dozen of the Turian vessels to explode instantaneously as their hulls were met by the anti-matter stream. The three remaining ships tried to make a run for it but the Gareth's opened up with their quad hadron cannons and demolished the engines of the two frigates while the Schatten killed the surviving cruiser, in less then two minutes an entire Turian patrol fleet was reduced to dust and echoes. Grinning again as she aimed her Guren's claws at one of the damaged frigates she muttered,

"All hail Britannia," and with that she sent a radiation surge forward killing the frigate and her crew in one horrifically painful moment, glancing over the ensuing explosion to the only surviving ship she opened a channel not really expecting a response. "Turian frigate you've been found guilty of attacking guests of the Holy Empire of Britannia, either acknowledge this and surrender or prepare yourselves for execution, I frankly don't give a damn either way, you have thirty seconds." Much to her surprise (and admitted annoyance) the Turians actually surrendered jettisoning their unused munitions and dropping their barriers, glancing to her escorts then back to her husbands ship she collapsed onto her motorbike seats controls, "Well bugger, now we have alien prisoners... Man Aunt Nunnally _never_ trained me on how to handle that one...fuck...all right boys back to the ship we'll figure this out after we send some surly Marines to deal with pigeons, good job."

* * *

_**The Citadel, Britannian Embassy Offices five hours later**_

Charles stared blankly at the report on his screen for a few minutes before rubbing his eyes and downing his drink, while he approved of his kids duplicity in trying to hoodwink the Quarians into owing them a favor the actual outcome was not something they had anticipated dealing with. Original plan was basically make some noise at the Council, demand some sanctions against the Turians, then forget about it so it would fade from memory, now he actually had to do something about it which was just...horrible. Groaning at the thought of having to do work he stood up and grumbled,

"Dear our son is making my retirement more annoying by the moment, I seriously intended to spend most of the morning daytime drunk not making noises at the Council." His long semi-deceased wife responded in his mind,

'I know love I know, but look on the bright side, you get to show up drunk and have a running conversation with "yourself" while the entire time they have to pretend to not notice out of fear of retribution. Honestly, you should probably record it and send it Cornelia, she loves it when you mess with politicians.' Mood lightening at the thought of the terrible trio squirming uncomfortably in front of the "unstable old drunk" and not being able to say a word about it Charles suddenly gained a bit of a spring to his step,

"I should probably show up in a bathrobe too, see if they have the gall to comment on it," hearing his wife chuckle in return she gave her approval,

'Agreed, also wear those horrible bunny slippers Euphemia got you for your birthday as well, this ought to be fun.'

* * *

**AN:Its short I know, and kinda just ends but its all I can really get out there with my current mindset, when I start adapting to this lovely betrayal I'm sure I'll get more into the flow of things again since I'll now unfortunately have more free time. This WON'T be abandoned, I did not write out the outlines for Joanna's time at West Point and the bloody Skillian Blitz to leave them unused. Oh hearts not set on it being West Point by the way, I just need a Military Academy, if any of you have been to one or have details on what it should entail send me a PM, I only intend for it to be one lengthy chapter so don't go _too_ crazy on the details. **


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author Note:**_**_NOT DEAD! Ok long short my soon to be ex wife has been cheating on me for awhile and when I caught her she threw a fit and ran away, she's spent the past month and a half trying to make my life a living hell out of spite so my muse really didn't exist. I forced this out because I was getting tired of her negativity ruining my pastime so here we are.  
_**

**_This chapter is a bit disjointed and short due to it being written on again off again over the past four weeks, its going to end in a Yui diary entry so just warning you so you don't get angry. If you're wondering why well...this chapter is the physical reminder of the death of my marriage, and I just want it to be over with, next chapter will be either West Point or the Skillian blitz, you guys decide. Anyway I'm done and moving on, hopefully the crazy bint stops trying to ruin my life after the papers are signed, peace all. _**

_**Citadel, Presidium Tower**_

Tevos and her cohorts looked as if they were preparing for war, Merag was standing stiffly at his podium saying some prayer or another, Dravis stood at attention taking discreet sips from a flask while she herself attempted meditating. They weren't going to war per say, but they most certainly were about to deal with someone who had a habit of shell shocking them, she'd only been dealing with the man in question for a month and he already had her regularly seeing a shrink. With that thought there was a ding at the end of the hall and the doors slid aside and all of the chambers many hangers-on fell silent at the sight that greeted them, grinning widely Charles zi Britannia stepped off the lift his eyes alight with amusement.

He was unfortunately half dressed, wearing a bathrobe and holding a coffee mug he sauntered up to the platform, glancing down she saw he was wearing some kind of pink slippers with animal heads on the toes, 'Why...why me?' she thought despondently. Tipping a flask into his mug then taking a large gulp he let the room stew in his presence for well over a minute before speaking,

"Sooo, as the Turians may know my son made overtures to the Quarians in regards to some mutually beneficial business contracts, that is all well and good but there's been a hitch in the plans. Ends up the Quarian delegation was jumped by a Turian scout patrol, both vessels are heavily damaged and likely irreparable, roughly half the ships crews are dead or injured."

At this his smile fell and the council saw for the first time not 'Chuck' the affable drunk who enjoyed trolling them, at that moment he was Charles zi Britannia, former Emperor of the Holy Empire. "Lelouch is not amused and I've already had to dissuade him from glassing a few of your colonies in retaliation for this slight, you are all quite lucky my son takes counsel better then I ever did."

With that everyone stared at Dravis who for his part looked surprised, glancing down at his data pad there was a pause then his mandibles and eye ridges rose in rage; after a particularly colorful rant he slammed the pad onto his podium.

"It would appear that someone used their SPECTRE status to initiate the attack, the orders were sealed and the time stamps and authorization codes deleted...I do not suppose there were any survivors?" At this Chuck...Charles shrugged,

"It depends, if what I heard is correct my granddaughter Marianne was in charge of the assault, she is my daughter Nunnally's protege so unless she was given explicit orders to do so I seriously doubt she left anyone alive." Merag finally lost it and shouted,

"What the hell is wrong with you people! You take casually wiping out a patrol and executing any survivors as if its nothing! You wipe out TWO sector fleets then threaten to glass our home worlds if we don't bow to your wishes! Our civilization has stood for thousands of years and you're undoing all of it in a matter of weeks!" Huffing from the rapid fire delivery the Salarian sensed the shocked stares from around the room, his eyes began bugging out as he realized what he had just done.

Much to everyone's amazement the Britannian ambassador broke out laughing, shaking his head he muttered something that sounded like "Yes dear I think I finally broke him, hopefully the next ones heard of prozac." Standing up tall and tossing the back the last of the mugs contents he smirked at the trio then bowed lightly,

"Well, I'll leave it in your capable hands to find out who ordered the attack, if you all need me I have a date with a rather foul mouthed bartender and she threatened to 'kick me in the quad' if I bailed on her, take care." With that he lazily walked out of the room leaving it in dead silence, Merag began hyperventilating as Dravis downed the last of his flask, Tevos for her part came to the stark realization that he didn't _care_ about the attack at all, this was all lip service. As she walked to her offices she couldn't shake the feeling that they had all missed something here and they would regret not knowing it in due time.

* * *

_**Damocles **_

Pandemonium would probably be the best way to describe the main docks as countless shuttles were sent to recover the survivors from the two wrecked Ter'leh cruisers drifting amongst the debris of the felled Turian patrol. For his part Lloyd Asplund was not use to being rushed through anything, his sociopathic tendencies usually made most people outside of the royal family uncomfortable ergo leaving him free to bask in sweet sweet science, today though he couldn't use that to his benefit. Today nearly five hundred aliens including children were in need of immediate aid only he and the rest of his fellow mad scientists could give them, their experimental nanites the only thing keeping the Quarians compromised immune systems functioning. Turning to his daughter he yelled out to the sky blue haired woman,

"Zoe dear, I need an infants dosage immediately please!" Looking down at the young (everyone was young to him he was 230 years old after all) couple before him he said nothing knowing full well the usual results of him trying to make others feel better, as the infant in the breached containment sphere began coughing ceaselessly Zoe popped up beside them. Not wasting anytime the biochemist barked out,

"Formula Q3I5, infant dosage with adrenaline dear," looking over his daughters head he saw little Joanna expertly tap the keys of a portable synthesizer and after a moment snatched out the ejected ampule, shoving it into an injector she handed it to Zoe who stabbed the device through the infants chest injecting the nanites directly into her heart. The parents seemed frozen in place as the child stopped moving, everyone held their breath then collectively released it as the child began crying, Zoe seemed to collapse in on herself for a moment with a self satisfied smile, glancing over her shoulder to Joanna she said,

"Twenty for twenty kiddo, I think we got it!" Returning the grin Joanna approached the suited couple and tugged the woman's arm lightly,

"I'm sorry your baby was hurt ma'am, the Turians killed my daddy and I'm just glad they didn't take your daughter too," the woman stared down at the child for a moment and gave her an awkward hug seeing as she was still holding the baby.

"Its fine young one, thanks to you people Tali will live to see another day, I cannot possibly be sad about that," smiling in return Joanna extended her hand to the father, cocking his head he took the girls hand and she shook it vigorously. With she glanced at the name tag on his suit then nodded thoughtfully,

"You're Rael'Zorah the head of the delegation aren't you?" Nodding not quite knowing where this was going she then began hopping excitedly, "I'm so glad you made it, grandpa was so angry when he found out the Turians attacked you, oh I'm sorry how rude I'm Princess Joanna vi Britannia welcome to Damocles!" They stared at the girl wide eyed and went to look towards the adults for answers but they had already moved on to the next injured group, finally Neela responded,

"Why is an Imperial Princess helping with refugee work?" The little redhead looked angry for a moment as she placed her hands on her hips,

"If you can help but you don't it makes you just as guilty as those that caused the damage to begin with, we're all in this together it doesn't matter what your title is," shocked to hear such a mature statement from one so young they really didn't know how to respond, Joanna for her part had her attention drawn back to Tali. "So glad she made it, we've been testing these treatments on Turian samples and the few Jayne'Reegar left us with, glad he made it Aunt Luluka really like him but he's really really mad right now. Something about err...bosh'tet's I think, whatever those are, anyway I need to go help Zoe so here," she tapped a few keys on her Omni-Tool when a hovering sphere disconnected from the base and projected a little girl around itself.

"Hello I'm Arya please follow me to the infirmary, we have to be quick about this Damocles was meant to be a fortress not a refugee center," both Quarians realized this was one of Britannia's infamous AI's...and they also realized they had no choice but to follow it. Apprehension obvious they trailed behind the projection as it led them through the body clogged hanger, Joanna started as Lloyd dropped a hand on her shoulder,

"Well played, not quite what the Emperor meant when he said to use your charms on the delegation but still, well done." Smirking Joanna followed the mad scientist to retake her position with Zoe, meeting his eyes she shrugged while sighing,

"I really did care but you're right, letting them know I'm a Princess while helping save their daughter will do nothing but improve Grandpa's chances of turning them to our side," Lloyd began humming lightly as she split off with Zoe and he moved on to his next test subj...patient, he really needed to remember to not let that slip out it could seriously cause issues for Lelouch down the line.

* * *

_**48 Hours Later**_

Lelouch noted not for the first time that he was incredibly lucky to have two beautiful intelligent wives to keep him in line, because without them he very well may have taken the kid gloves off with this latest Turian disaster. Thankfully their cooler heads (oh gods Kallen had a cooler head over this then him, that was telling)prevailed so instead of burning a few worlds he spent his time talking to Rael'Zorah and his lovely wife while his technicians readied the real time meeting with the rest of the Admiralty. It helped to sooth his nerves hearing Joanna had made such an impression on them, he'd make sure she spent time with the admiral's daughter as they grew up, solid bonds of friendship would help keep the Empire stable in the future once the Reapers met their end.

Stretching while making sure his cybernetic hand didn't catch on his jacket again he stood to addressed the admiral in question, he noted that the man seems far more relaxed then he had the previous day, no surprise really considering how he'd been met with open arms and no prejudice. Personally Lelouch was bloody shocked at how quickly the nanites had stabilized the Quarians immune systems, while the older members of their race had to stay hooked to their suits they no longer needed their faceplates. The youngest though, mostly those who hadn't hit puberty yet had all accepted the alteration quickly, as in within seconds and simply put this was both amazing and terrifying.

The mad six had outdone themselves this time and Lelouch couldn't possibly be more proud of their efforts, noticing Rael staring at him he forced the errant thoughts from his mind as he plastered a grin on his face,

"Well how do you think this is going to fly?" The man before him snorted, his glowing silver eyes showing a mischievous glint as his violet lips curled into a smile; it really threw him how damn human they all looked, he'd seriously have bought into some of Suzaku's insane ancestral alien race conspiracy theories if you know, their races shared the same base amino acids.

"Honestly Your Majes...Lelouch, I have no idea, seeing me appear without my mask on will most certainly turn heads, and your terms are beyond fair and they'd be fools to turn it down. That being said the AI situation is going to be a point of contention make no mistake of that, but retaining our ships after mass upgrades and being given access to all your colony worlds plus one of our own? That...that might quite possibly be enough to overlook it." Nodding without really thinking about it he began twirling a king piece while considering his options, he wanted these people to be part of his Emprie, and they needed to join willingly.

"Well," he stated slowly, "Shall we begin?"

* * *

_**Private Musings of Yui vi Britannia, Part II**_

It has been said time heals all wounds, I hasten to disagree with this, the Quarian animosity for artificial life forms had only festered in their centuries of exile and truth be told it would be hard to blame them for this, after all who would find it acceptable to be stripped of their home, culture, and pride? The olive branch extended by the Empire was the first salve to be applied to this long maligned wound, and while the admiralty was of course resistant they were also not foolish, in time a treaty was brokered. In less then a year after entering the galactic stage the Holy Empire of Britannia had accepted the Quarian nation as a new Duchy and all their people given citizenship, in a matter of months Quarians could be found in every walk across the empire, from lowly street vendors to top military commanders.

I should note Uncle Lelouch made it a point to spread their people far and wide across the empire while practically begging them to procreate like there is no tomorrow, although this is closer to the truth then not I suppose. I digress, over the passing decade the Quarian population nearly doubled while their new homeworld of Serenity was a built up with defenses and infrastructure akin to Earth herself, the Empire does not go for half measures for her allies. The resource extensive project of upgrading all Quarian vessels not destined for the breakers yard began almost immediately, thankfully raw material was in abundance due to the Turian boneyard above Shanxi. While human/quarian relations blossomed and Imperial relations with the Turian Hierarchy entered a stage of mutual respect if not trust there was a single major fly in the ointment. The Batarians.

The Batarian Hegemony was an antithesis to the Britannian Empire, where as Uncle Lelouch focused on ideals of personal freedom and responsibility instilled with the desire to protect what is ours the Hegemony operated off of enslavement and blind obedience to the state. While not stupid enough to outright provoke the Empire the Batarians held no qualms with attacking independent colonies and convoys, soon there was a market for the new exotic humans and now more robust quarians. The reasoning was of course backwards and self serving, we of the Empire had been settling systems they'd recently set their eyes on for well over a century and had no intentions of leaving, so in turn they punish our people for profit by turning them into sex servants.

We protect who we can, we rescue who we find, but many fall through the cracks as an empire of 41 billion souls cannot be monitored at all times, but these crimes against basic sapient rights galvanized the Emperor to take a stand. After nearly five years of negotiations the Empire finally agreed to help the Council races develop their own Knightmare frames and pulse laser energy weapons with one caveat; the Batarians must be kicked out of Council space and labeled a terrorist state. Suffice it to say the Council gleefully agreed to the deal and the new pariah state was left to wither on the vine, soon afterwards pirate attacks on lightly armed colonies increased tenfold, sadly all those captured insisted they were independent contractors and we could not take action.

This brings us to today, the Council Races are now armed with weapons that may actually stand up to the Empires superiority yet they rely on us for the sakuradite needed to make their war machines function. The Batarians are still enslaving the weak but they've managed to alienate all those who may have held sympathy for them, forced into the cold thanks to their barbaric practices. The Holy Empire now stands strong with their new allies and awaits the uncertain future, yet the Krogan are still fragmented, the Council is still mired in bureaucracy, and the Reapers have yet to make their appearance. I do not yet know what the future holds, I have confidence in myself, my Emperor, and my Imperium, as the coming storm strikes the breakers I can only hope that it will be enough.

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**AN: I'm so sorry about the lack of quality on this, you have no idea how hard it was to just get THIS out after the emotional breakdown that woman put me through in the past month, that being said the next arc is a fresh start and I hope you all can forgive this lackluster update. Rest assured it WILL be better then this...there was just too much negativity attached to this story and this chapter in particular, I'm sure I'll lose a few followers after this mediocre showing but to the rest of you, I promise next will be amazing.**

**THAT being said, leave comments or PM's, you guys want a few chapters of Joanna, Kaiden, and Jaq (Subject Zero) at a military academy or do you just want us to jump to the Blitz? Lemme know!**


	10. Chapter 10

_**This chapter is the lead into Joanna's stay at West Point, short obviously but I intend for there to be a series of introductory chapters similar to this one for several of the Normandy's future crew members. I'm thinking next will probably be Miranda or Garrus, although since Garrus is my Shep's Turian homeboy I might just hold off till later to do him justice. Anyhow, enjoy and all my readers be content knowing that I'm finally over my ex and intend to start working on my "abandoned" stories again, anyway, REVIEW!**_

_**Edit-You know what I find mildly irritating? Reviewers who hide behind guest accounts to bitch about things so they can't be marked for it. Yes I bring my personal life up in a couple of my fics but it's not for attention, rather I get an inbox flooded with PM's asking why I haven't updated in months. So I simply nip it in the bud by making it clear WHY I've been AWOL, not to dig for sympathy, so to you mister guest reviewer I've had to delete multiple comments from please piss off. **_

_***Eyeroll* Honestly shit like that is why I walked away from this story to begin with, I mean really I the author am not even taking this fic that seriously yet I'm getting hounded by fanboys telling me how much I suck for diverting from canon and making this human wank. News flash, I. Do. Not. Fucking. Care. What. You. Think. Ergo if you insist on writing reviews longer then some of my chapters bitching about how I'm a terrible author that's your prerogative, I quit reading it on the first line so enjoy the wasted effort. **_

_**Ah...that was cathartic, anyway I said my piece, tata.**_

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**August 5, 2232 A.T.B. Location Unknown**

Jacqueline hurt all over, in fact she'd never actually _lived_ with pain before the past week, she'd been traveling with her family for biker month between Earth and Harvest when the slaver's hit their ship killing everyone who stood in their way. Not everyone though, oh no, the young and beautiful were kept as prizes and she herself looked too much like some members of the Royal Family to waste and the sex trade on Khar'shan had a massive demand for such _exotic_ goods.

So that's how Jacqueline found herself naked and bound in a near freezing prison cell on a Batarian slaver ship, violated more times then she'd like to think of and the castrater of more then a dozen would be assailants. _That_ she had no issue remembering, mulling over how her fifteen years of life hadn't prepared her for being the fuck toy of an entire race of slavers she glanced up as the cell door opened.

Neerag was watching her with apprehension, the man's four eyes staring at her with horror and sadness, she liked Neerag, he was a pleb, that is one minor step above a slave that did his best to make her comfortable. Well, as comfortable as a repeated rape victim could be anyway, he was terrified of retribution on his family but her personality apparently reminded him of his own daughters too much to not do something.

"Hello Jacqueline, I'm...we're approaching Chattel, it's a colony meant to erm..." he trailed off as the now shaven headed beauty laughed between split blood crusted lips,

"Sell illegal slaves? I figured...Neerag, when the Emperor drops his wrath on your people I'll make sure to put a good word in for you, I promise the extra food and medicine won't be forgotten." His cheeks darkened a bit before he sighed out,

"I'm so sorry Jacqueline but...but I don't think there's any chance for your freedom...I have...I have to go do my rounds, be strong young one." With that the Batarian serf turned and left her to her own devices, she didn't know how long she hung there in silence before she felt the ships frame shudder. Glancing up at the ceiling through blackened eyes she felt her brows raise in curiosity, "That's not a normal entry into realspace..."

Less then a minute later the room began shaking violently and the weak lights overhead started flickering and then went dark, "Trapped on a slaver ship naked, violated, hanging from the ceiling and now in the dark...yay..." she managed to drawl out. A short time later the door slammed open letting the subdued orange emergency lights of the corridor flood into the dark cell. Neerag was standing in the entryway blood dripping from his right side, a large crude knife hanging limply from his left hand, stumbling into the room he cut Jacqueline's bonds and let the nude girl fall into his arms.

"Sorry about this dear, no time for a shower but I think your Emperor got your memo so you should try to look your best," grimacing as the man placed her on the cold deck he reached over to her neck and snapped the biotic repressing collar in half. She immediately felt her birthright as a daughter of Britannia flood into her system, the wonderful power and wild energy of her Emperor blessed heritage filled her with the will to live and the lust of conquest.

Neerag unslung a bag off his shoulder and handed her a pair of combat pants and boots, as she pulled the garments on he pulled off his own woolen jumper and threw it over her head, the red garment was massive on her slim shoulders but it was warm and that's all that counted. "I'll help you try to get to one of the escape pods but if we get separated-" as he said this he pulled out a heavy pistol and shoved it into her hands, "kill anyone who gets in your way."

Jacqueline stared down at the slab of stainless steel in her hands and nodded grimly, tears began making their way through her bruised eyelids as she calmly said,

"If we don't make it Neerag...just...I just want you to know that I appreciate what you've done here," the Batarian grinned displaying his serrated teeth as he chuckled humorlessly,

"If I didn't help you welp I'd never be able to look my daughters in their eyes again, now come on your Empire is making short work of this tubs of slavers and I know you want your fair share of the glory," grinning Jacqueline nodded as she followed him through the flickering corridors of the dying slaver ship.

They heard the occasional scream and burst of gunfire but no more then that until they came to a 'T' junction hallway, a group of slavers had set up a barrier and were trying to hold off the boarders. She couldn't help it, her blood was raging at the abuse she'd been forced to endure, at the humiliation that she, one of the Emperor's chosen was forced to endure, not even thinking about her actions she biotically charged at the group of men screaming,

"ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!" Slamming into the groups center she pounded her fist into the deck plate sending a pulse of biotic energy forth causing the slavers to either fly down the hall towards their attackers or shatter their bodies bonelessly against the walls. Grinning wolfishly she whipped the pistol into a biotically powered cross job snapping a mans neck in one quick movement, spinning about she snapped off five quick shots killing all the survivors. A second later she heard a woman call out,

"Well good god damn Little Miss Badass just wiped out the last group of fighters, hands up kid no offense but I'm not tak'in any chances," turning towards the approaching figures Jacqueline's abused eyes made out a quartet of figures, the woman who spoke before had deep violet hair and was wearing a skin tight compression armor suit. Glancing to the other members of her group she saw a grizzled man with a scarred face and a synthetic eye and an asian man, both wore heavy armor and all three were holding heavy particle rifles.

In the center was a slight figure in a dark purple opera suit and cape topped off with an incredibly familiar helmet with a large opaque visor in the center,

"Who are you?" Jacqueline asked hesitantly, the masked figure tilted its head and then spoke out with an amused feminine voice,

"Who? Who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a woman in a mask." Tightening her grip around her pistols handle she ground out,

"Well I can see that," still sounding incredibly amused the masked woman replied,

"Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation; I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked woman _who_ she is," feeling a bit chagrined Jacqueline nodded quickly,

"Right right, err, I'm Jacquline Noir, formerly of Pendragon, Britannia, I'd like to request asylum for my friend and myself." The unmasked members of the group turned to the caped woman who nodded slowly,

"Whose your friend?" Motioning to the shadows Neerag approached looking terrified, the group tensed but Jacqueline quickly stated,

"Don't hurt him, please, he...he's the only reason I'm still alive, he's been giving me medicine and extra food so the slavers...so the slavers "lessons" wouldn't break me..." The violet haired woman looked like she wanted to stab something to death while both men tensed up realizing what the girl before them had been through, the masked figure was silent for a moment before she nodded slowly.

"We're on our way to collect our new base of operations, we just happened upon this wreck on the way, if you want to come along you're welcome." Both Jacqueline and Neerag nodded quickly and fell in behind the group, the violet haired woman turned back to address the pair of refugees,

"I'm Rebecca but everyone calls me Revvy, this is Kai Lang but he usually goes by Shade or if you ask Zero up their Sergeant McNinja, he hates that one so use it at your own risk, this model of manliness is Zaheed Masani." At that the older man snorted while the asian man frowned mumbling about stereotypes, still smirking Revvy turned back to her, "What's your preference on names kiddo?" Frowning she glanced down at her blood stained clothes before replying.

"Jacqueline is what my mum called me but... but...just call me Jaq, ok?" Nodding in understanding Revvy took the crappy Batarian pistol from her and handed Jaq her Britannian particle rifle without a word, tossing the slaver pistol to the ground the older woman pulled out a large pair of pistols twirling them expertly.

"Got ya kiddo, when we get back to our ship Rock's gonna wanna take a look at you, he's our ships medic and operations chief, after he clears you Timeo will figure out what to do with you, any family we should get in contact with?" Grimacing she shook her head quickly trying to hold back the tears,

"No the Batarians they..." Neerag placed a comforting hand on her shoulder as Revvy's frown deepened, fuck did she hate slavers. After freeing a few more slaves the group found themselves at the ships bridge, the masked woman stepped forward and turned to face the group,

"I've got this, you all stay out here no matter what you hear, be back in a few," with that the door cycled open and just as quickly closed behind the woman, Jaq looked to the rest of the group with obvious concern,

"Is...is she going to be all right?" Shade smirked while Zaheed let out an amused chuckle, Revvy gave her a lopsided grin as she replied,

"Don't worry about Zero, she has a way of making people regret their actions," confused the pair of survivors exchanged a quick glance and simply shrugged, after a time the door opened with a blood spattered Zero standing before them.

"Ick, group of squirters, come on lets steal their shit and blow this thing up before a patrol finds us." Less then a half hour later Jaq and Neerag were escorted to the bridge of their rescue ship, a long haired blond man in a brown trench coat and rakish Aussie style hat turned to face them. He gave them a formal bow as he stated,

"Lord General Timeo LeBeau at your service, I'm the Captain of His Imperial Majesty's ship _Fortune in Chaos_, we're official unofficial profiteers tasked with screwing with the Squints slave trade," his melodious French accent carried a hint of amusment as he glanced to Neerag, "No offense mon amei." Neerag shrugged in response, the slur and mission statement didn't bother him at all, Jaq then realized why the man seemed so familiar,

"You're her Imperial Highness Nunnally vi Britannia's husband aren't you? No one has heard from either of you in nearly a decade," he grinned at her as the bridge door silently slid open and Zero prowled in, she removed her mask letting her brown hair fall loose as she stood on her tip toes to kiss the General. Turning to face the stunned teen the said Princess grinned widely as her violet eyes sparkled with amusment,

"Glad to know that Mariebelle's disinformation campaign is so effective, so we're totes about to take over Omega and overthrow Aria, always wanted my own night club. You've got no home and you obviously have no issue killing people and I distinctly heard you charge into battle in the name of the Empire, so I have a question for you little lady, would you like to form a contract?" As she said this she pulled her gloves off and extended a hand to Jaq with a wide grin across her face, for the first time she noticed everyone in the room's eyes began glowing a demonic red with some odd symbol glowing in the center. Throwing caution to the wind Jaq stepped forward and grasped the Princesses hand,

"Fuck it, why not your highness."


	11. Public Service Announcement

**Teaser, been reading A LOT of Robert Heinlein getting myself ready for what's coming, I'm currently playing through ME3 again getting my mind into the game of writing what is needed. I've decided that its time to make sure this story doesn't die due to my emotional bullshit, so here is a peace offering to my readers, talk to you very soon**

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The Sol system, birthplace of the Immortal Emperor of the Holy Empire of Britannia and the people he rules over, while the mild yellow star at it's center belays the obvious majesty of what revolves around it the actions of it's denizens make up much for its lack of luster. Once one moved through the 'Gate of Charon' and made their way past the bristling military facility of Pluto which is always on alert with weapons primed they would then be escorted through the massive defense net leading to the inner system. While the gas giants Uranus and Neptune were largely ignored by the Imperium of Man Saturn and Jupiter could not be said to be the same.

Both planets were heavily mined for H-3 fuel, other valuable gases, and rare gems that only formed in their lower atmospheres, over a dozen terraformed moons circled both planets boasting a total population of two billion. Circling each moon were over four hundred two kilometer wide orbital defense platforms and hundreds of automated defense satellites, past these vanguards of humanity one must make their way through the systems heavily mined asteroid belt. Hidden throughout the thousands of mining facilities were converted military bases all armed to the teeth with pulse lasers and Freyja warhead missiles just waiting for someone stupid enough to run the gauntlet.

Past this brier patch the industrial behemoth of Mars is found, The Red Planet, The Bringer of War, the hearth of the Immortal Emperor's furnace of conquest material, in the heart of this dead planet rests the shipyards and construction gantries of the Imperial fleet. Surrounding this bastion of industry are over four thousand orbital defense platforms and twenty artificial moons carved from mined asteroids, each with the equivalent firepower of forty Dreadnoughts. Ignoring the cradle of humanity for a moment one would look to Venus, the poster child so to speak of the Empire's terraforming capabilities, the once sulfuric planet now boasted the second highest population in the Empire.

Once tidely locked to the Sol systems star Venus now has a daily rotation rate of twenty-three hours thanks to the planet Mercury being drawn from its decaying orbit around Sol and made into the Venusian moon. Venus is a planet of shallow blue seas and endless viridan grasslands, sporting a massive tourist industry that has been found to be quite popular with the Salarian Union's members its defense fleet is roughly half of that of Mars.

Looking towards Earth one must first look to her moon, Luna is a force upon herself, housing hundreds of subterranean cities and ship docks her surface is dotted with tens of thousands of solar powered orbital defense lasers. Countless rerouting mirror arrays fill her orbit, a laser fired from the far side could be shifted to the other within seconds, coupled with the hundreds of thousands of cloaked defense satellites filling her orbit Luna is a aegis goddess of Earth.

Earth, the birthplace of the Immortal Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia of his most Holy Empire of Britannia, the capital of which rests on the North American continent in the desert wastes of the Duchy of Arizona. Surrounding the brightest gem of his Holy Empire is the First fleet, a massive armada constantly rotated out with active fleet elements to keep her crews sharp, past these valiant vessels rests humanities bulwark. Earth's Lagrange points each sport a massive defense fortress, A Baoa Qu, Soloman, Jachin Due, Pezun, and Axis, each boasting the firepower and resources of a core colony planet.

Past these valiant defenders of His Majesties Empire rests eight thousand orbital defense platforms and over three million attack satellites protecting the massive Dyson Solar collector network. This marvel of modern engineering consists of three orbital elevators anchored to Earth's equator supporting a massive globe spanning ring of solar collectors, orbital defense particle cannons constantly rotating along its surface.

Once past these wondrous defenses one will find themselves in Mother Terra's airspace, once cleared through the constantly patrolling Tristan defense force kept in low orbit one may approach the Megalopolis's of the Empire. Each city has a distinct flavor and flair, the Emperor despises conformity and wishes for his people to celebrate their individuality so it is best to research the city one is taking holiday in before arriving.

If one dares to approach it they can visit the heart of the Empire, the seat of the line of Britannia, the city of Pendragon. This wheel shaped oasis in the desert is the culmination of humanities brutal hold over nature, interspersed between each of the eighteen 'spokes' containing the mass transit systems of the city are enormous parks, industrial centers, commercial hubs and kilometer tall residential towers. Located next to the Imperial Palace is Earths Premier military academy where students of the 'Lady General Isabella Santiago Acadamy' are trained to become the most feared leaders throughout the empire. Taught by the Emperor's own Knight Jeremiah Gottwald these warriors learn from Asari Commandos, Krogan Warlords, Salarian Infiltrators, and Turian Spec Ops officers becoming the most well rounded soldiers in the galaxy.

The Emperor only wants peace, but he is aware that wishing for something, and willing to fight for it are two very different things, and His Most Royal Majesty will never find his people wanting, all hail Britannia, all hail Emperor Lelouch!

**_-Travel Brochure to the Planet Earth, Courtesy of the Office of Cultural Enlightenment, The Holy Empire of Britannia, Earth, Pendragon._**


	12. Chapter 12

**Screw it, kept stalling out on the academy chapter so we're going to the Skyllian Blitz, sorry if it's a disappointment but damn is it hard to care, enjoy and review, have fun.**

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The Imperial Colony of Elysium was the largest gem in the crown of Emperor Lelouch vi Britannia inside the Skyllian Verge, and it infuriated Emperor Kallows of the Batarian Hegemony beyond words; while his people barely eked out a living on the various sundry worlds of his empire the Britannian's grew fat on their alpine paradise. Nevermind that the entire reason his people suffered was due to his own instabilities and leadership, the fact that another empire had made him look weak and unprepared was quite simply not acceptable. Glaring at the monitor as he reviewed his plans he swung out his carbon filament whip and struck the Britannian woman he had strung up before him relishing her screams.

Yes, he'd suffered greatly under this false empire, through his show of force and tricks (there was no way any single entity in the galaxy could field an armada as large as Britannia boasted) the bastard emperor Lelouch had forced the Batarian people out into the cold and made their entire race pariahs in the eyes of the galaxy. The eyes...bah! Any race with fewer than four eyes was inferior to the Batarian's and everyone knew it, turning to the soldier who remained at attention he calmly drawled out,

"Balek, are you sure you can pull this off? The Turian's lost thousands of vessels when they attacked a Britannian colony and they were caught unawares," the man in question nodded slowly before replying,

"Yes your highness, Elysium is a major Britannian hub but its main armada is only five hundred strong and only has a hundred orbital defense platforms, with my contact on the surface I can have the platforms taken down for roughly two hours." He passed and began tapping his chin before continuing, "It _will_ be costly if it drags out more than that, but since you want this to be simple slave grab to show how weak the Britannian's are it shouldn't be an issue. Emperor Kallows nodded slowly before replying,

"I...find my current entertainments lacking," with that he whiped the woman once again but she did not respond with a scream this time,

"_Likely dead, the sick fuck,"_ Balek thought to himself, the Emperor continued unabated,

"Find me women that look like the royal family, it should be...fun breaking them," nodding quickly Balek left the throne room shaking his head in disgust, slaves he could stomach sure. In fact he didn't give a shit about them one way or another, sex servents though...he had a wife, he had daughters, the entire concept disgusted him but he was a servant of the Batarian Empire and he'd follow his orders regardless. Shuttling out to his flagship he let his first real free breath out as he stepped foot on the _Dominator's_ deck, taking the lift to his offices he sent a message out to his Britannian contact, the man better come through.

Mathias Harkin was an amorous man, he knew it, his superiors knew it, and so the _Emperor_ knew it, he would forever be shoved into the dead end position of night guard of Elysium's central headquarters. Sure he took a few kick backs, sure he raped a few women and stole some drugs from the evidence locker, who cared? His chief back on Earth certainly didn't, unfortunately for him after the colonies Governess nearly lost her head when she found out about his record his career opportunities were all but destroyed thus sticking him here for the gods knew how long.

Silently wishing death upon the bitch Milly Cardemonde Constable Harkin glanced down at his Omni-tools display and grinned upon seeing the message, well karma _was_ a bitch after all. Smirking to himself Harkin fried out the single security camera watching the hallway he was about to walk down before coming to his destination. Unscrewing the air vent he placed the small drone with the rather large explosive package on its back in the metal cavern and sealed it back shut, standing up he resumed his normal strut as if nothing occurred. The colony AI wrote off the malfunction as equipment wear and filed a ticket for a replacement, she'd never know this would sign her own death warrant.

Joanna Shepard was _stoked_, not only did she and her team earn the _Star of Terra _medal on their last mission for taking out a group of terrorists she'd managed to score a week of leave at her Aunt Milly and Uncle Rivalz colony world. Elysium was a _den_ of sin of decadence according to her grandmothers, so obviously she'd have a blast there with her ground team, grinning over to Kal'Reager, Arya, and Kaiden she waved the group on as they passed through the security check. Being the secret crown princess and best friend to an AI had it's perks, Arya could hack her way around anything, her mobile terminal had been at Joanna's side since their days at the Santiago Academy and she trusted her friend with her life.

"Boss-" Kal began to drawl out, his light purple skin and brilliant silver hair shining in the suns light, "Are we really here for a medical checkup or was this your normal bullshit to get us some R&amp;R?" Snickering at her boyfriends antics she smacked him on the back of the head earning a snort from Arya and Kaiden,

"This is _bullshit_ and you know it, we had our exams a month ago, tonight we're all getting completely shit faced, starting a bar brawl, and probably getting thrown into the stocks until the end of leave." Arya and Kaiden exchanged grins as they knocked their fists together with a muttered "All right", by the old gods did she love her team. As they walked out of the starport she was pulled face first into the bossum of an ecstatic blonde woman who was calmly ignoring her blunette husbands eye roll,

"JOANNA HONEY!" Milly crowed as she swung the diminutive redhead about, "It's been so long! How are you doing!?" As her 'Aunt' let her go Joanna gasped for breath before responding,

"Aunt Milly, Uncle Rivalz, good to see you both, allow me to introduce my team, this is Kaiden Alenko my-" she dropped her voice to a low octave here, "knight, this is Arya my AI partner in crime and my boy toy Kal'Reager vas Europa. Don't give him a rocket launcher, like fucking ever," He began chuckling at that,

"When daddy gets himself some explosives no one walks away happy," rolling her eyes she lightly punched him again earning her more chuckles as Rivalz approached and gave her a hug.

"It's so good to see you again Jo, so any plans or just winging it?" Grinning the violet eyed beauty shook her head quickly,

"Winging it uncle, drunk debauchery is the name of the game!" Snorting he rolled his eyes toward his wife who was grinning in return,

"Picked the right colony then dear, come come we have a limo ready for you lot lets get you all settled then you can remind me how old I am while you get in trouble with the local Knight Police." Snickering Joanna followed the pair to a tan air car and her team piled in after her. After some idle chit chat Jo grew quiet as her eyes scanned the massive orbital defense cannons lining the Governess' Palace,

"Shit you guys are a bit prepared aren't' ya?" Milly and Rivalz exchanged looks before the Governess replied,

"Yes, we're the only major colony out in the verge, and with the Batarians it never hurts to have protection, as you're aware." Nodding Jo stroked her cheek as she responded,

"What about Aunt Nunnally's antics? Do they help?" The pair before her shook their heads before Rivalz responded,

"No not really, honestly most sentients assume Zero is actually Asari if you can believe that, the Batarians are a constant threat but there's just nothing we or the Emperor can do about it without starting a diplomatic incident." Grimacing Jo nodded and leaned her head into Kal's shoulder, the group remained silent as they landed and made their way inside, after a brief dinner with her Aunt and Uncle Jo's team prepared for their evening. Kal wore an expensive Bekensteinian suit that helped emphasize his glowing eyes, Kaiden wore a traditional Knights uniform as did Arya, Jo herself was wearing a midnight black dress that would have cost her a years wages if she hadn't stolen it.

"All right, so what are we up to first?" She asked in excitement, the other three exchanged looks and shrugged, Arya's gray eyes glowed a bit as she wagged her brows up and down,

"Get shit faced and start a fight with some aliens?" Kal snickered at that,

"Yeah come on, lets go screw with some frigg'en pigeons, enough Turians on this rock to pull it off," Kaiden shrugged indifferently,

"I go were you tell me to Princess, although I'm...not opposed to messing with Turians," smirking Jo nodded quickly.

"All right then, drinking and fist fights it is," they spent three days like this, every evening being dragged back to the Palace so inebriated they didn't even know their own names, this amused Milly to no end so no risk of her Mom or grandmother's hearing about it. On the forth night as she cleaned herself up after the fifth or sixth quickie with Kal Jo noticed her folding scythe on the end table, for reasons she couldn't even begin to understand she took the large piece of steel and carbon and stared down at it. After a few moments she chose her largest hand bag and shoved the red weapon and Kal's M-6 Carnifex into it, as grandpa always told her you're not paranoid if they're really out to get you.

So as Joanna vi Britannia, Crown Princess to the Holy Empire of Britannia partied with her Quarian boyfriend, knight, and AI hetero-lifemate a small spider legged drone sidled down into the computing center of Elysium's AI core. Smashing through the mesh vent cover the drone sidled up next to the main servers and activated the explosives on its back, in a matter of seconds the colony lost all communication with its defense satellites, orbital defense platforms, and surrounding fleet. One thing the saboteurs had never considered was how would the Immortal Emperor react when the colony his granddaughter was currently having holiday on went dark.

Jo was having a blast dancing with Arya when the music and lights died at once, being who she was her hapatic monocle was clipped to the right side of her face within seconds, her team sans Arya was only a step behind. Rushing out of the club the group looked about when they noticed flashes in the night sky, it didn't take a genius to realize that dozens of ships were jumping into low orbit as they began to disgorge fighters and landing craft. Joanna wasted no time as she rushed to an information booth and smashed the glass cylinder that alerted the entire colony to an impending invasion; these normally had a safe guard of taking multiple pictures and bio-scans of any idiot trying to prank the colony, without an uplink to the central AI this wasn't even possible.

Removing the pistol from her bag she limply handed it to Kal, taking out the large rectangular piece of red steel Jo flicked it's arming switch and it unfolded into a massive staff with a glowing green crescent blade on its end. Lightly twirling the scythe about she glanced back to her team smirking slightly,

"Looks like leaves over, last one to find a Knightmare buys the drinks," smiling in return her team nodded their assent, it was time for _Deaths Grin_ to show their worth, whoever had decided to invade Britannia would soon drown in their own blood. As the first landing craft that made it through the cities flak cannons and SAM missiles managed to land disgorging soldiers in mottled armor there was a massive chorus throughout the city that sent a thrilling jolt up Joanna's spine as she joined the charge,

"_ALL HAIL BRITANNIA!"_


	13. Chapter 13

_**Batarian frames are like cruder (if thats possible) Atlas mechs, Turian resemble Gekka's with heavy handheld weapons and energy wings. Also if you all haven't realized this yet, think of this as Code Geass meets Mass Effect with the flavor of Gurren Lagann, semi-serious but mostly fun.**_

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Lieutenant Garrus Vakarian was not in a very good mood, while he felt pride serving in the Turian Hierarchy he did not in fact enjoy his time in the service and it almost all boiled down to his father. Or rather the stigma his father had placed on their families name by having the foresight to send warning to the Council that his commanding officer had just declared war on an Empire whose might had not been seen since the height of the Krogan Rebellions. Sure while he was viewed as a sort of hero for preventing the heavy end of the hammer falling on their species cultural pride interfered with common sense, so Garrus had to deal with the fallout.

He had to try harder then everyone around him, he had to set an example that could not be refuted, he had to be the epitome of what it meant to be a Turian; and he fucking hated every second of it. As he was busily calibrating the main guns on his Raptor knightmare frame the warning klaxons began blaring, dropping what he was doing he slammed the hatch closed and sprinted to the ready room, sliding to a stop as he reached the door he slid it open and entered.

Taking a seat next to his old friend Triss she flashed her mandibles in a greeting smile, leaning over his wingman whispered,

"So any idea what's going on?" Shaking his head in the negative the lights of the ready room dimmed as their CAG took position at the head of the room, coughing to get everyone's attention he began the briefing in earnest.

"People we have a bit of a situation, one that has never presented itself to us before and could very well be what finally gets our people permanently on Britannia's good side," there was some startled chatter at that, Triss and Garrus exchanged subtle glances as they both leaned forward elbows resting on their knees.

"At approximately 1900 hours local time the Briannian colony of Elysium in the Skyllian Verge was attacked by the Batarian Hegemony-" one of the younger marines squawked out,

"Are they insane!?" Rather then getting angry the CAG just grinned and shook his head,

"It was actually a well planned out assault, the only information we're getting currently is that they somehow took out the colony's CIC and sent their entire battle net into chaos, before they could activate backups the Batarians jumped in with everything they had." Images began filling the holoprojector displaying the ugly bulbous warships the Hegemony preferred as they jumped into system, clouds of nuclear missiles hit the colonies confused defense force taking them out through saturated fire within minutes.

"Normally Imperial colonies are protected by several defense platforms linked to the central AI through several hundred satellite to prevent any interference, any half dozen of these platforms could easily have gutted this fleet in hours, without the AI in command though..." The new images showed the massive orbital fortresses being torn asunder, their burning hulks causing massive mushroom clouds to rise as they struck the planets surface. There was a light whistling noise from Nyrim, one of the older pilots,

"I fought the Brits back on Shanxi, they're vicious spiteful bastards, when they hear about this..." the CAG nodded quickly at this,

"That's exactly what the Primarch is thinking, the closest Britannian fleet is six hours away...we are two, so we are going in to offer assistance," he was met with dead silence, Triss having a bit more manners the her comrades raised her hand lazily, "Yes Flight Officer?" She cleared her throat quickly,

"I mean no offense to High Commands planning sir but aren't the Britannian's going to umm...shoot at us?" There were a few chuckles at that as the CAG shook his head,

"No what we've been able to gather is that the colony is still functional to an extent and the Batarians haven't been able to jam communications locally, unfortunately for them help is coming faster then they expected one way or another seeing as the emergency comm buoy was launched and has been squawking for over an hour. Regardless your objectives are to wipe out the Batarian invaders and do your best to defend the civilians," Garrus followed Triss's example and raised his hand, the CAG frowned but motioned for him to continue.

"Sir what are the Batarians bringing onto the field Knightmare wise?" The CAG snorted in absolute disgust, the machine on display reminded Garrus of a Volus if you put it in a heavy armored suit with a window in the chest and no head.

"Raider class Knightmares, they have no sakuradite in their frames so their reaction time is negligible at best, armed with a mass accelerator cannon and a missile launcher as well a folding claws to capture slaves. They're to be blunt, absolute junk, they just happen to have several thousand of the things, go for the cockpit hatch in the chest and you should have no problems taking them out. Unfortunately once inserted you're likely to be stuck in ground combat as the Batarians are sure to have taken out the air defenses by now so they'll likely own the sky."

With that they were dismissed, approaching his Raptor Garrus patted the massive pulse laser rifle cradled in its clawed metal hands before climbing into the cockpit, activating the war machine he guided into his orbital entry pod and locked down. Now he waited.

Joanna was not having a good day at the moment, sure she loved herself a good fight but fighting in scrounged armor that didn't fit correctly along with only having her trusty scythe and whatever Batarian piece of shit rifle she could get her hands on didn't help. Her boyfriend gleefully blowing up anything he could find with his purloined rocket launcher was really the only upside to their situation since they'd been separated from Arya and Kaiden.

As they took shelter behind a wrecked air car she popped her head up long enough to spray some ineffective fire at an approaching group of slavers, their chatter became...weird after they caught sight of her.

"Hey isn't that one of the special orders the Emperor wanted?" A pause and another voice,

"Lemme check the records...yeah...yeah she looks like one of the Empress's, we'll nab her after we kill the suit rat, maybe have a bit of fun before we tur-" he didn't get to finish that thought as suddenly there was a petite redhead surrounded by a violet glow in their midst. Grinning she spun on her tip toe scythe extended cutting all three slavers in half at the waist, Kal quickly followed her huffing a bit under the weight of all his spare rockets.

"Babe I gotta tell you keeping up with your Jedi bullshit is a full time job," she rolled her eyes at that as she pried the omni-tool from the wrist of one of the dead and or dying men, clicking through the orders her face froze in a scowl. Handing it to Kal she kicked the bodies over until she found a slightly better condition riffle then the one she was carrying. Kal began swearing viciously as he handed the Omni-tool back to her,

"Yeah...well...I suppose I should be flattered their Emperor wants...oh who am I kidding, no quarter given Kal, none of these bastards leaves Elysium alive," Kal grunted his agreement as they entered a blown apart parking garage using the wrecked vehicles as cover. They heard the sound of automatic fire and what sounded like heavy artillery close by, approaching the open platform they watched a group of Marines firing at the ugliest Knightmare frame Jo had ever seen.

Giving Kal a few hand motions he nodded as she jumped up and threw a singularity at the squat brown mech, ducking back down Kal popped up and fired five consecutive rockets then joined her in cover. After hearing the roar of explosions he asked,

"Did we get it?" his tone hopeful, the parking garage began shaking under sustained mass accelerator fire sending concrete dust and fragments showering the pair,

"That would be a negative, say what you will about the squints they armor those monsters like nothing else," motioning to move to other cover Kal followed her along the concrete barrier cursing all the while. Taking position behind a thick column there was finally a slight lull in the fire, sighing Kal busied himself loading rockets into the launcher as he began speaking,

"Look...Jo...I know it's not the best time but, we need to talk," shooting him a look she snorted and went back to watching for that damn knightmare,

"I know already, you're breaking up with me," he let out a strangled gasp at that before replying,

"Err...yeah...how did you know?" She threw him a cheerful smile showing no real regret,

"Grandpa told me your pyjack loving father pushed through the new "_Propagation Bill_" stating no viral young Quarians can indulge in xeno-relations without at least having one kid, rather fucked up I must say but seeing as how you lot nearly went extinct..." He sighed as he ran a hand through his dirty silver hair,

"Yeah...its not popular and it wouldn't fly at any other time but we haven't even reached the billion marker yet...when I err...do...my...thing...the duty thing, maybe we can pick back up were we left off?" Jo shrugged at that as she threw a reave at a Batarian who peaked around the corner, she grinned in sadistic satisfaction as his body was torn asunder.

"Maybe, maybe not, I just wanted to have one last hurrah with you before it was brought up, dunno if I loved you but I certainly loved being with you, just whatever girl you hook up with make sure to treat her right." With that the far wall gave away and as the concrete dust cleared they saw the brown mechs cockpit staring at them, Kal snapped off a rocket and much to their shock it smashed through the canopy and as the warhead detonated a series of secondary explosions ripped through the massive machine and it blew apart sending a deafening wave of debris laced wind at them.

Coughing as they tried not to inhale the dust and smoke Kal ground out,

"What the hell are those things made out of?! Explodium!?" Jo snorted and slapped his shoulder playfully,

"Come on you trigger happy nutter lets try to find the others.

Arya was about as irritated as an AI could get at the moment, she'd been shot no less then a dozen times, (no structural damage thankfully but she was going to have to get a new chassis if she ever wanted to to procreate, annoying) been separated from her Princess, and was currently stuck digging a Knightmare out of a ruined hanger. Thankfully Kaiden, unlike most meatbags was quite useful and had sped the process up quite adeptly, despite the fact that the cities main cannons had gone silent twenty minutes ago there was still scattered fire heard throughout so they had a need to rejoin the fight.

"Ah ha!" the soot stained knight announced with a wide grin, turning to Arya he waved her over, "Hop in a its a two seater," nodding she crawled into the gunners seat as Kaiden brought the damaged Gareth online. She began applying medigel and bandaging the various holes in her body while lamenting how much she'd give for a combat chassis at the moment, glancing at the displays she sighed in annoyance.

"Looks like the shoulder mounted hadrons are off line and most of the missile launchers got sheared off, both the forearm hadrons are functioning at 87 and 92% capacity, so there's that," she saw the top of Kaiden's head bob in acknowledgment as he brought the massive machine to a standing position. Seeing one of the Batarians crude frames in the distance the Gareth's left crabclaw arm snapped open and a smoky red beam spat across the distance in an instant, after a moment the enemy exploded leaving a small mushroom cloud in its wake. Kaiden began chuckling to himself as he destroyed two more frames in a similar manner,

"Playtime has just begun," Arya couldn't help but agree as she targeted a drop ship and sprayed it with her few remaining missiles.

Garrus barely had time to register what was going on before he realized he was in free fall, obviously shocked at the lack of announcement he panned his cameras to follow the cruiser he'd just fallen from and stared at it open mouthed. The Batarians had never had good equipment, but they had alot of it and this was shown no more clearly as he watched the proud Turian cruiser belching smoke out of dozens of small breaches in her hull. The dozens of Raptor Frames entering the atmosphere could only watch in horror as the angular vessel snapped in half amidships, the bow spinning out of control spraying escape pods as the aft still going at full burn smashed into a pair of Batarian frigates all of which exploded at once.

Gritting his teeth and trying to keep his rage at so many fine soldiers dying at the hands of slaver scum Garrus turned back to his instruments and did the only thing he could do, and focused on the mission at hand. As the reentry sequence was completed he flicked a switch shedding the fast reentry shields that had been cocooning his Raptor, as the azure blue energy wings unfolded he targeted the dreadnaught that was hovering outside the city taking in captured slaves. Eyes narrowing he spat out,

"Third flight on me taking the lead, Triss on my three Nyrim you've got my nine, lets show these bastards what a real Knightmare can do," getting two double clicks in response Garrus weaved through the anti-air fire or popped his blaze luminous shields when he couldn't quite get out of the way, in no time at all they were firmly inside the unwieldy behemoths fire arcs. Scanning the hull he highlighted several backup lift generators and sent the info to his wingmen, as one they sprayed the side of the ship with laser and energy dart fire, Nyrim even managed to tag a heavy turret with a slash harken.

This is how it went all along the bulbous kilometer long slaver ship, as each lift generator was shredded it drifted lower and lower, eventually realizing what was going on the captain of the vessel tried to gun the engines but that only cracked the back of the already over stressed frame and with a sputter all power across the vessel died. Garris grimaced as the massive ship slammed into the ground the last thirty meters, silently hoping the captured Britannians fared better then the ship he turned back to the city in search of more prey.

"Hells bells!" Milly shouted in rage as she slammed her fists into the command console, bad enough that the colony's AI was dead but to have the debris from the destroyed fleet showering down around them didn't help at all, all her recently regained satellite coverage got her was helplessly watching her people die. Grimacing as a burning cruiser fell into the sea less then four kilometers from Elysium's largest port city she dropped her head in despair, no one was going to survive the subsequent tidal wave unless they'd been in bunkers. Glaring at the hapatic interface she began shifting through channels when it landed on of all things a Turian signal,

"-peat this is Colonel Nihlus Kryik of the Turian Hierarchy offering immediate aide to Britannian forces, is anyone reading this?" Brows raising she met Rivalz eyes as he just grinned and shrugged,

"As Lelouch would say," she nodded slowly in return,

"Fuck it," clicking the comm she replied, "This is Governess Millicent Cardemonde, I have no idea what you're doing here you beautiful spiky bastard but I'm glad you are, what have you got for me?" There was an almost trilling purr on the other end of the comm,

"Well ma'am I happen to have three dozen top of the line knightmares itching for a fight, that enough for you?" Her returning cackle was a thing of legends.

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_**So Garrus makes his badass debut, now as for Jo's relationship with Kal I made a mistake so I'm just ending it, it's bad writing but deal with it I love you marvelous bastards but I have no desire to spend a weekend writing about a prolonged breakup. Anyway things are heating up and I want your opinions**_

**_Who will lead the Britannian retaliation fleet?_**

**_1) C.C. and Kallen_**

**_2) Cornelia_**

**_3) Nunnally_**

**_You decide and lemme know, each will have its own climax but only one ends with a trigger happy royal taking the command seat of the Ashes of Tomorrow_**


End file.
