rakuen | The Opening Battery

Current Location: Fortitude Tower
Current Music: The William Tell Overture

Entry tags:

The Opening Battery

Characters: Lelouch vi Britannia, Fortitude Campus, and YOU
Format: I started as prose, but tag as you like
This log is: open
Location: Near the tower on Fortitude campus grounds. At about 6:30 a.m. Monday morning
Summary: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Warnings: EXPLOSIOOOOOOOOONS

The process had begun shortly after he had gained his prefect status. Since now he had his own room, he had a bit more freedom to work in secret. So he set to work on a project that looked like something out of centuries gone past. Sure, it was highly dangerous, and the whole process could quite literally blow up in his face, but he had to be prepared. The power packed into the package (wrapped up in fabric like the Japanese would a lunchbox) would be quite enough to blow nearly any conventional door down, and severely damage even the thickest steel doors. If there was some collateral damage to the lowest level of his target, it would not be sufficient to weaken the structural integrity of the structure. But this, of course, was only a last resort.

He carried his parcel carefully by the knotted handle, and took an unoccupied route early in the morning. He set it gently in position, and walked up to the entrance of the tower. He pressed his ear against the door, not particularly expecting to hear anything. He tried all conventional means of opening the door, until he came to the hand-shaped imprints. He tried his own hand in the one that corresponded to his school and previously-assigned dorm. There was no effect on the door, but he felt a strange tingle in his hand. That was promising.

While what he was doing seemed excessively risky, he had calculated just how big a risk he was taking. Death was impermanent. Pain he could accept, either inflicted on himself or Suzaku. Even if the system decided to kill Suzaku, he would come back. He was quite sure the powers of this place had eliminated the Geass he had placed on the knight. Revocation of his prefect status was highly unlikely. There had been other things that placed him into that role. And sending him away would not complete the job that this system was in place to perform.

So it was a fairly safe, relatively speaking, prospect to do what he had done. He had stolen a network access card out of a computer and wired it in to the detonator of his device. All he needed was to send a message to it and it would go off.

He moved to a safe distance, and around the corner of the dorm building. There wasn’t a soul around. Almost everyone else was just waking up, or getting ready to start classes for the day. A few of the more ambitious might already be headed to the cafeteria for breakfast. But they were heading nowhere near this direction.

He punched in a series of numbers and hit Send. At almost the same moment, the device exploded loudly. It sent vibrations through the Fortitude campus. The sound surely woke up even the soundest sleepers at the Conquest campus. Spooked birds took flight in the forest within a few hundred yards of the explosion. A black cloud of smoke rose from the explosion site, a side-effect of the crude black powder mixture he had created.

Lelouch moved quickly, using his beret to cover his mouth and nose, to investigate what kind of damage it had done. Much to his dismay, all it had done was leave a black charred streak on the door and surrounding walls. There wasn’t even a scratch on the surface. He reached out and touched the surface, just to be sure. All he succeeded in doing was getting the black soot on his hand.

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Dolorosa was actually awake when the explosion occurred, she had been awake for some time now and was well into her morning routine. The tower he had tried to blow up, that was her tower. She was physically connected to it, and you know what, it hurt. It took her a few minutes to get over the pain, it was staggering, but once she felt well enough to move she was on her way to the tower.

Well, with one little pit stop. First she visited Nanami, it would be unwise to go unarmed and her weapon would help immensely. After thanking Nanami for her help and promising that she was in fact okay, she started towards the tower.

This is one unhappy headmistress.

Lelouch crouched and checked the pieces of what was left. It appeared to have gone off like it was supposed to. Was the mix not strong enough?

He glanced up when Dolorosa approached. "Headmistress! I was just about to come look for you. I don't know what just happened!" He stood up, and stepped over the debris and toward her.

She looks at him suspiciously for only a moment, he was a good student and caused no trouble that she was aware of. He couldn't possibly do something like this. Dolorosa reaches out and touches the door, it was her tower, why would someone want to hurt it? She knew that the students didn't know which tower was connected to which staff member, but she liked to think that she treated others well enough that they wouldn't deliberately choose her tower.

"Lelouch, are you unhurt? Do you know who would want to do this?"

"No, ma'am, I'm fine. Whoever it is, they're not kidding around. Looking at this damage to the ground, they're working with some serious explosives. Why would someone want to break into these towers?" He brushed his sooty hands off on his pants. He had to step through this conversation carefully. He still wasn't sure what information the Headmistresses and the Mayor had about his full identity.

She tsks to herself a bit but doesn't answer his question. She knows the importance of the towers, and so do the other five staff members, but the others shouldn't. There's no reason this tower, or any of the towers, should be targets, "Where would one get explosives here?" she asks instead.

He seemed to consider that for a moment. He looked like he was about to bring up something he didn't particularly want to discuss. "Ma'am, I think I might have an idea of who is responsible. Do you recall the treatise that was posted on the dormitory entrances last week?"

Dolorosa looks confused, "I don't believe I recall what you are talking about. What was posted and how could it be connected to what happened?"

"There is a very dangerous terrorist, Zero. He comes from my world, from the Britannian Empire. Last week he posted a threat to the Exaclan system on the inside of all of the dormitory doors. I'm fairly certain I saw his cape going around the corner when I arrived here." He lowered his voice a bit. "I hope you'll forgive me for not giving chase. I am a prince of the empire he's trying to destroy back home, though I was exiled as a child. He's killed several of my half-siblings in the last couple of years. I do not intend to add my head to his pike."

She frowns, "Death means nothing here, but I understand your hesitation. Please tell me everything you know about this Zero person."

"In short, he considers himself an ally of justice, and an enemy of the powerful that prey upon the weak. He emerged from a recently conquered Area, and fights to liberate it and destroy the Empire. He uses many different strategies, from basic recruitment, to things like this," he gestured to the tower. "It's quite likely that this is only the beginning."

"We do not wish to harm you, or to keep you here against your will, but we do not have a choice in the matter. We are doing our jobs just as you are doing your job as a student, and now a Prefect. I wish I could tell him that we are not evil nor an enemy, no matter how cruel others may be."

He nodded. "Yes, I believe you have good intentions," he smiled slightly. "Thank you for looking over us."

With a serious note she turns to him, "Please tell me everything you know regarding Zero."

He appeared to be a bit taken aback. "He wears a cape and a mask... and he was trying to liberate the Elevens. That is, the Japanese, from the Britannian Empire. The Empire had ordered that they no longer be called Japanese, instead go by their Area number, just as they do with all of the other countries they had conquered.

"He was an ally for those who still wanted to fight for Japan. I expect he is continuing his battle here only now we are those he is attempting to liberate."

"There is nowhere to liberate them to, that is the problem. You cannot leave this island, it is impossible to swim there or follow the train tracks without receiving a penalty," she shakes her head, "He may end up hurting people."

Awakened by the explosion and the shaking, Dahlia sat bolt upright in bed and looked around, eyes wide with fear.

"Wh-what-- What was that?"

Suzaku was already awake and had been running before breakfast, around the town since he had permission to leave the campus. At the explosion Suzaku headed towards it, recognising the sound for what it was and feeling a sense of dread.

Zero it had to be, ignoring the rules Suzaku entered Fortitude campus and followed the crowd. He spotted Lelouch and hurried over.

"What happened are you okay?"

Lelouch looked a little smokey. But he was unhurt. "No, it doesn't seem to have done any damage to me." By design, naturally. "I can't give you permission to be here. That's Santana's job."

"I am glad you are unhurt," Suzaku looked around, he didn't care about being here without permission, as long as Lelouch was safe.

"Do you think it was Zero?"

He nodded. "Yes, it looks like his work. I saw his cape going around the corner of the building when I arrived." Sure, it was a boldfaced lie. But it made dealing with Suzaku's memory loss easier.

Suzaku frowned, at least no one seemed to be hurt. He wasn't sure what Zero had been trying to do, but he had suspected trouble after those posters.

"It looks like no one was hurt at least."

"Indeed. That is fortunate. It doesn't seem like he succeeded in what he had set out to do." He wondered what exactly that door was made out of, and if it even came from a world he knew.

Suzaku nodded and walked towards the door. "I guess he was trying to open it." The doors must be made of something impressive to not be damaged.

Dave was up already. He hated being up early, but with him actually attending school here, he was up earlier so he can get his day started. For the most part, he just sat in the dorm or stretched out in case. Sometimes he'd just wander campus before heading back to the dorms.

He swung the door open and headed out to look. Explosions weren't part of this shitty game.

His brows furrowed a bit. Dave started making his way down onto the campus and towards what he was pretty sure where the explosion came from.

Lelouch was alone with what was a scorch when Dave arrived. He was stepping back from it, putting his soiled beret into the back pocket of his pants. He'd clearly been doing some investigating, and he had some soot marks on him to prove it.

He's going to be suspicious of you Lelouch. But he doesn't know you, which is really most of where his suspicion comes from. It's not like he has anything to work with.

He approaches him, though. He glances around. It seems that whoever tried to destroy the tower wasn't around anymore. Or at least, isn't trying a second attempt.

Really, he'd just arrived, and really, it wasn't any of his business to go investigating around like some kind of snooping detective, but who didn't go to investigate when it sounded like a bomb had just gone off outside your dorm!?

In any case, it wasn't hard for Sakuya to divine the general direction it had come from... and the trailing smoke led him in once he was close enough to spot it.

"What happened? Is anyone hurt?"

He glanced back at the next guy that showed up. "No no one was hurt." He looked a little sooty, but then so would anyone else that hung around there for any decent length of time.

"Ah, that's good..." Relaxing now that he knew there wasn't anyone in danger, Sakuya took a better look around. The charred marks on the tower door... "Do you know what happened?"

"It appears that someone tried to force their way into the doors," he answered. He kind of felt like he was stating the obvious.

"So it would seem... was it really a bomb? It sounded like one... but it doesn't seem to have done much damage," he noted, walking over to inspect it. "Scary to think there would be things like bombings in a school, even one like this..."

"Look at the ground, and the scorch. And there's some pieces of what it was in littered around. This could have severely hurt someone." He pointed around at some of the larger pieces while he spoke.

"That's what I was most worried of... I wonder who would do something like this," said the butler, frowning. "I hope they catch whoever it was soon."

Enjoying all this attention, Lelouch? The next person who shows up shouldn't actually be here. He watches Lelouch examine the door from several yards away, at first, before approaching.

"What happened here?"

He has not yet begun to draw attention, yet. Golbez again? "It looks like someone attempted to blow up this tower." And it was certainly a thing that had nothing to do with him.

That was one sturdy tower, then, to withstand an explosion with that much force. "You didn't happen to see who it was, then."

He nodded, actually. He looked down at himself and sighed. He was covered in soot. "Zero," he replied. "I saw his cape going around the side of the building when I got here."

Well, well. So Zero was making good on his threats. But that was odd of Lelouch to say -- "You know how Zero dresses?"

And was the glimpse of a cape really enough to say who had done it? Golbez was wearing a cape, after all.

"Yes, he's from my world. He's a terrorist trying to bring down the empire. He was on TV all the time." He shrugged. "Let's just say it was in my best interest to keep track of him when I was home. And now that he's here..." he trailed off, sounding a little nervous.

Which would also account for why Lelouch had automatically assumed it had been Zero. It made sense to suspect him, but one couldn't say for certain. Either way, just talking about it wouldn't help them figure it out.

"He claims to seek freedom from this system." Golbez glanced at the door to the tower. "Since this attempt was unsuccessful, do you have any idea what his next move might be? As someone familiar with him, that is."

"I'm not really an expert. I couldn't tell you much, unfortunately. I was more concerned with where he was rather than what he was doing and why." He scratched at the back of his neck, and frowned when he realized he'd deposited soot on the back of his neck. "I suppose it's time for a shower."

Golbez gave Lelouch a long stare, but didn't press further. Although it seemed as though he wasn't being entirely truthful, Golbez didn't suspect that Lelouch actually was Zero -- he just seemed unhelpful, was all. Maybe it came with being appointed prefect. None of the people in power were particularly willing to give out answers.

"I suppose," he agreed. "If you don't know anything, I'd best be getting back."

He nodded. "Yes, I think that's a good idea. You're not supposed to be over here. Headmistress Dolorosa was here earlier, I don't think she has gone far."

He nodded, and turned to depart. ~~His capeswishes are far more awesome than yours ever will be, Zero.~~

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The Opening Battery

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