Story: New Demoness

This had been a bad day all around. That idiot Tamaki ruined everything and brought the military down on all of their heads, and now she was being cornered by a group of enemy Sutherlands with no hope of escape. Still. She was determined not to give in just yet. So long as she kept fighting there was a chance she could get away - She could at least shoot down that helicopter before it did too much damage! There was still hope.

A hope that was quickly dashed when out of nowhere the Sutherland squads swooped in around her, leaving her with only one direction for retreat. They were faster than her, stronger than her and had greater numbers.

“It’s our Glasgow friend!” the lead pilot taunted, and Kallen fled around the corner because what else could she do in a situation like this?

“Just thirty minutes left,” Kallen gasped as the alert made its own taunting beep that echoed throughout her cockpit. She couldn’t keep going like this! It looked like she would be seeing Naoto again sooner than she expected…

But these thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected voice that changed the course of the battle in an instant.

<hr>
“Shirley? This is Kallen. Kallen, this is Shirley.”

Kallen turned around and looked up at Ashford Academy’s student council president, presenting a pretty, orange-haired, blushing girl as if she were a prize at a game show. Just another one of those quirky little things she did. Funny thing. Anyone else behaving this way - especially some rich Britannian chick - would’ve pissed Kallen off. Somehow Milly managed to be charming in her eccentric and even perverted behaviour.

“Hello, Shirley,” Kallen said with her deliberate sleepy, gentle, not even remotely like her normal speaking voice tone that she only ever used here at school. “I hear you’ve been sick recently? That’s such a shame, but I can certainly sympathise. Pleasure to meet you.”

“L-Likewise!” Shirley said. She reached out a hand as if deliberately putting her hand into an open fire. Strange. From the way the other council members had been talking about her, Shirley was usually upbeat and outgoing, but it seemed as though right now she was even worse than Nina. Almost felt sorry for the girl, whatever she had must be really -

“Yow!” Kallen yelped at the moment of contact. Weird. “Static discharge?” she wondered aloud.

“That’s a good sign,” Milly declared, enthusiastically grabbing both girls around the shoulders and pulled them into a group hug. “Instant chemistry between you both. You’ll be best of friends by year’s end, and that’s a Milly-proof guarantee!”

“Um…” Nina’s quiet voice rose. “Wouldn’t a Milly-proof guarantee mean it’s one that even you couldn’t affect in any way?”

“Semantics!” Milly replied, swaggering off in that cocky way that somehow told you it was okay that she was in charge. It was almost like the council president was casting some freaky spell with her very presence, commanding all around to like her just a little bit, if not a lot more. “Now, that means we’re all here… Save one errant vice-president!”

“Sorry, prez,” Rivalz offered with a shrug. Lazy idiot. Too much of a joker for Kallen’s taste, and way too obviously into the student council president for her to even bother paying much attention to him. “I’ve not seen him today.”

“M-Me neither!” Shirley insisted just a little too loudly. “I mean… The last time I saw him was a few days ago. Before I was sick. When could I have possibly seen him after that? Right?”

Kallen rolled her eyes. Oh, boy. After an outburst like that, a pervert like Milly Ashford was certain to zero in and pounce on her like a ravenous wild cat. That was so utterly transparent. Might as well have screamed “we had sex last night” at the top of her lungs for all to hear, and now -

“Ugh, that boy…” Milly said. She slammed her hands down on the table. “He’s smart and he knows it, but he’s so unmotivated! Hmph. Maybe if he had a nice girlfriend he might decide to tidy up his act a little? Maybe if a certain someone let him know her real feelings? One can only hope.”

<hr>
So much for hope. It had been going so well, but that was the damning part of it. The only way to make a person actually feel the crushing drop of despair when they’d already hit the bottom was to raise them up again, so the drop would actually mean something this time.

And, oh! Did it ever mean something. The verge of winning an actual battle against Britannian forces, and victory was plucked right out of their grasp because of a new Knightmare model! The blasted thing had already taken out half of their frames by itself. Ambushes weren’t working. It deflected bullets, moved too quickly and attacked too efficiently. They couldn’t fight it. And now it was going right for their mysterious leader.

“Are you the guy that's in command?” she heard the pilot yell. She watched it deliver a crushing spin kick that, somehow, the leader was able to block, and then she arrived. Her Glasgow was still down an arm, and he caught her punch as easily as a paper dart.

“Hey, I’m returning the favor.” As if it mattered at this point. She’d be lucky to slow this thing down. It was so fast she’d be lucky to even land a -

<i>“Attention, all forces. Cease fire at once. I, Clovis, third prince of Britannia and royal viceroy of Area Eleven, hereby command you. All forces are ordered to cease fire at once. You shall also cease destruction of any buildings or property. All casualties, whether Britannian or Eleven, shall be treated equally and without prejudice. In the name of Clovis la Britannia, you are hereby ordered, cease fire at once. I shall allow no further fighting.”</i>

“A ceasefire?” all three of them said at once. Suddenly things became just a little bit… Awkward. Three Knightmare frames idling around, none of the pilots seeming to know what to do.

“Withdraw, and make sure you aren’t followed,” the mystery voice commanded.

“W-Wait! I still don’t know who you are!”

“Better that way for all of us! Don’t start any fights, unless you’d prefer the slaughter to start all over again. Well done, Q1. Didn’t I promise you that we’d win if you trusted me?”

Indeed he had. There wasn’t anything else for it but… They had to retreat immediately, which meant abandoning the Glasgow and hightailing it out of there before anyone could catch up with them. She was tempted to try to follow the mysterious voice, try to figure out who he was - But somehow she couldn’t quite bring herself to do that. Instead she was left rushing through the ruined streets of Shinjuku while trying to keep her head down and -

A door swung open in the street ahead, in the middle of a ruined wall. Kallen stared at it for a moment and blinked a few times, then gasped. Impossible. It couldn’t be. Could it? How could that -

<hr>
“You know, it’s really weird come to think of it!” Rivalz said. Kallen shook her head. That fuzzy memory... Something about a rung arsenal? She couldn’t quite grab hold of it. “Last time I saw you, you were running off after Lelouch when you found out he got hung up by traffic. You know, the day of the Shinj-”

“I’m going to go look for Lelou!” Shirley suddenly said out of nowhere, but it was already too late. Kallen’s attention snapped around towards the (blushing, pretty) girl she’d just met with a laser beam like focus. Shinjuku again? And to do with Lelouch...? “I swear, first day back and he’s already skipping again? Ohhh! That boy is getting a stern talking to!”

“You mean a rigorous tongue lashing?” Milly chuckled. “Alright, you go ahead. We don’t have that much business to attend to this morning. Kallen’s been a wonder for efficiency, haven’t you?”

“I try,” she slowly said. Her eyes glued towards Shirley as she stepped out of the room, constantly nervously checking back as she walked away. Even more suspicious. Kallen waited until the door was closed before speaking up again, and by this time the hairs on the back of her neck were really standing on end. “But if you’ll excuse me… I’m actually not feeling all that well right now. I think I should head off to the infirmary, just to be safe.”

“You gonna manage by yourself?” Rivalz asked. “I can take you if -”

“I’ll be fine,” Kallen gently but firmly stated. What was she even doing right now? Well. The literal answer was following a girl behaving a little weirdly around her while looking for a boy that -

She pressed herself hard against the corner of a corridor. Funny thing how her training had made her so effective at stealth. She wasn’t just looking for that errant vice-president, was she?

That girl and that boy. That was the trouble. There was something about the two of them that was making her skin itch. Both of them had left her with freaky first impressions and both of them had a connection to Shinjuku that day. Had to be. It was too much of a coincidence, especially after the way he randomly brought up...

<hr>
“God, I hate this! I’m sick of acting like a freakin’ invalid!”

Ugh! Having to be undercover at school sucked. Really, really sucked! She was athletic enough to outperform the school’s best, but here she was pretending to have the stamina of an ice cube in the middle of the desert. And! And she had to do that while surrounded by arrogant, rich, ignorant Britannian snobs that had probably never dreamed of interacting with people lacking at least a silver spoon in their mouths when they were born. Still. That was how you could tell it was a good cover. She hated it so much that nobody would even think to look into her as a suspect. Not a chance. No how. No way!

“Ahem.”

Unless she was overheard ranting and raving by a random… <b>really cute</b> Britannian boy. ‘Crap,’ she thought while wolfing down her sandwich. ‘He saw me!’

“Can I help you or something?” she asked, slipping back into her persona. Then the next thing she knew, he was still sort of staring at her and she had a blinding headache. <b>Also her heart was racing. Something about him was making her feel weird</b>.

“Um, did you want something?”

“No. I got what I wanted here. Oh, wait. Just to be sure. Don't tell anyone about Shinjuku.”

Shinjuku? “What do you mean, about Shinjuku? Why would you say that?”

That seemed to catch him off guard. Like he wasn’t expecting that response at all. What the hell did he mean by -

<hr>
On reflection, he knew something was up and by all appearances this girl might know something too. A connection to the mystery voice that saved them? Maybe he’d seen her and was trying to keep things quiet? Or maybe she had seen something while trying to get to Lelouch and told her? Kallen bit her lip and watched Shirley tentatively open a door to peek inside the room.

“There you are!” Shirley exclaimed, stepping inside the room and closing the door behind her. Seconds after that Kallen had her ear pressed hard against the door, controlling her breathing so she didn’t give the game away. Eavesdropping was an art all to itself, after all. “What’s the big idea ditching the meeting this morning? Are you avoiding me after using your Geass on me last night?”

Geass? The hell were they talking about?

“Not at all,” Lelouch replied. The lazy genius who didn’t seem to care about much of anything. “You gave me a lot to think about, and I need time to digest it.”

“I understand,” Shirley sniffed. “It’s a lot to take in, I’ve still not really got it all but… I want to help. Really! Any way I can.” Help? What on earth were they talking about? None of this made any sense. Were they talking about her fighting against Britannia? That was the trouble, she had no context for what they were talking about.

“You’ve done enough already -” Lelouch began. Which was right about the point where the door opened into the room for seemingly no good reason.

1. Kallen demands answers, and feels an odd compulsion to use seduction to get them.
2. Kallen gets a bit weirded out when both Lelouch and Shirley start hitting on her.
3. What caused the DVDs in the first place?
4. Something else