Chapter 207
No sooner said than done, a bright star, carrying a shock ring, swooped down.
—That wasn't a shooting star, but a large, flying Knightmare.
[Excalibur]
"Attack!!"
"Commander Marukal, please store the communications enhancement device. We will cover you as you rendezvous with the Minsk Front Army!"
Without Layla's order, the heavy firepower squad unleashed a barrage of bullets with all its might, but none of them broke through the solid energy shield that shimmered with fluorescent green light.
This is an energy shield with a much more exaggerated light output rate than the White Knight that Akid faced.
After all, the size of the mech is what it is.
According to data officers from the W-ZERO forces, to deal with [Excalibur], you must use clustered heavy firepower to break the energy shield. If a small squad encounters it in open field, unless there is a huge difference in piloting skills, there is obviously no solution at this stage.
Or she could use a powerful weapon like the [Sakura Dite] bomb, but while moving at high speed, Layla looked around and saw her comrades-in-arms whom she had spent every day with. Should she use it?
Unfortunately, time waits for no one, and the barren open space within a radius of several hundred meters was something they blasted out themselves.
Just as Layla hesitated, a silvery shadow swooped down, accelerated twice, and a silver-gray steel claw shot out like lightning, grabbing the torso of the command aircraft that Layla was piloting and squeezing it up completely.
"I've found you."
She seemed to hear a cool, clear voice speaking to her.
Click~
The less than 4.5-meter- Alexander appears as small and frail as a child next to the nearly 13-meter -Excalibur.
Bang!
Alexander was pulled along, reaching a kilometer away in a few breaths, and then was slammed into the ground like a cannonball, stirring up mud and sand, raising dust, and then falling like raindrops.
A crisp, clean tearing sound rang out, indicating severe damage to the connection between the cockpit and the fuselage.
"Ahem... wait, we can talk..."
[Excalibur] raised a foot and stepped on [Alexander]'s torso, interrupting Layla's words.
No rush.
Buzzing—
Vera looked at the Wyvern Team charging towards her fearlessly, especially the heavy firepower squadron. Their storage modules were equipped with [Sakura Dite] bombs. Interesting. Was it some kind of unconscious assimilation infection brought about by the shared mental connection? She couldn't let them get close.
She pulled the trigger of the Hadron Cannon again, and the intensely hot particles instantly condensed into a dark red beam of light, which was launched horizontally and engulfed them.
Without exception, all the KMF mechs engulfed by the powerful particle beam expanded and exploded.
"No, no!!"
Layla was in a panic because she still saw something even though the cockpit sensors were damaged.
In the midst of this profound emotional upheaval, she seemed to hear and see more clearly.
[Excalibur] Inside the cockpit of the torso, the Blonde Beauty with heterochromatic eyes looked up and was looking at her.
"Now that you have met the lord, why do you not pay your respects?"
The Third Princess of Britannia met her gaze.
What a pair of eyes they were!
The inhuman left eye, a scarlet, flickering firebird, seemed alive, radiating a multitude of negative emotions such as lust, arrogance, indifference, and belligerence. When Layla stared at it, she felt like a fish on a chopping board, with the other party contemplating where to strike.
"Has it already awakened to this extent? Very good."
Vera could naturally feel the spying sensation that had been lingering in her mind.
She gripped the control stick linked to Excalibur's right hand, ripped off the capsule-shaped cockpit, and with a ripping sound, tore it off along with the hatch.
An energy shield is deployed to temporarily isolate the inside from the outside.
With a click, the heavy main armor belt of the torso unfolded, and Vera stepped out of the control cockpit. She looked at the cockpit with the sunroof opened in the palm of the [Excalibur] and saw Layla, who was also swaying and struggling to stand up. She had abrasions on her forehead and body and looked tired and resentful.
"A descendant of the von Bleisgau."
Vera smiled elegantly, the scarlet Geass bird mark in her left eye flashing as she met the shimmering blue Geass.
The two were now less than a meter apart.
Vera could sense that her firebird, which had been 'wanting to spread its wings' but 'unable to fly,' was now able to take flight.
The hard-soled heels collided with the armored shell, making a crisp sound, as she approached step by step.
Until, "plunder".
201
Chapter 201 Your Geass, the Starting Point of My Extraordinary Path.
Who I am?
Where am I?
What am I doing?
I am Vera, and I am in Eastern Europe in the world of [CODE GEASS]. I am trying to seize the Geass called [Shared Emotion] that Lelouch von Blaisgogh possesses.
Vague yet incredibly real, Vera entered Layla's mental world through a tunnel that seemed to be composed of colorful points of light, intertwined like nerve veins.
From the eerie, bystander's perspective, somewhere between reality and illusion, she watches the scene before her—the delivery room, the birth of a baby.
A short but happy childhood, a life of constant wandering and escape, moments of peace after settling down, a father who died young in a bomb attack during a rally because he chose to go into politics, a mother who died unjustly in a second attack, a life of changing her surname and being adopted by the Malcar family, attending military school, graduating early, forming the W-ZERO unit...
The life of a 17-year-old girl in the prime of her youth.
Not interested in the private affairs of young girls, Vera searched for her target.
"Found it."
Finally, she stopped in the midst of a blanket of white snow.
Heavy snow blocked the mountain pass; night fell; deep forest; frozen lake.
An explosion, an overturned car, and a woman critically injured and on the verge of death.
"Layla, run...!"
"Mother."
A girl runs forward with her head down in the snow, her mother's last words echoing in her ears.
Crack! The ice broke, and the exhausted girl slipped and fell into the icy lake.
A life that is about to end prematurely.
Do you want to live?
The green-haired, white-haired woman, who appeared like a snow sprite, spoke.
She reached out, took the girl's hand, and pulled her out of the icy lake.
"Does having power guarantee survival? This is a contract. Make a contract with me, and you can continue to live, but in a way that is different from ordinary people, independent of the world, and detached from worldly affairs. The power of the [King] will make you lonely. If you are prepared, then use it."
As soon as she finished speaking, the green-haired woman turned around.
"However, you are still young. I will give you time to consider your choice. Once you use your power, there will be no turning back. But if you don't use it, the power will cease to exist in the future..."
The woman's voice faded into the distance.
"And you used it."
Just as the girl stood there in a daze, an ominous red light flashed in her left eye, and a strange bird spread its wings within it, a clear and indifferent voice broke in.
The hard-soled heels pressed down on the soft snow with a 'shh, shh' sound. Vera stepped out from behind the girl and bent down to place her hand on the shoulder of the young Layla in Layla's mental world, where she had obtained the Geass moment.
She slowly knelt down in front of young Layla.
"Look into my eyes, my sweetheart."
Their eyes met; the right pupil was indigo and crimson, the left pupil a scarlet Geass bird mark.
Plunder!
Vera silently prayed to herself.
Boom--
The deep forest, the frozen lake, and young Layla that she once knew have all vanished.
Vera felt a deafening roar in her head, like a planet colliding, but it wasn't unpleasant. Then came indistinct murmurs, a panoramic sound that seemed to appear and disappear, sometimes loud and sometimes soft, until finally, light.
Vera's eyes refocused.
It felt like a moment, yet also like an eternity.
Fragments, sounds, images... Vera immediately sensed the countless individual emotions and mental fluctuations around her. A flood of other people's thoughts rushed into her mind, and what she saw and heard flashed before her eyes like a film reel from an old-fashioned sound projector.
Turning to the side, with the help of the gleaming silver-gray armor of Excalibur, she saw that the Geass bird mark on her left eye was still there, but had changed from red to blue.
It's done!
At the same time, in District 11, in the Tokyo Concession, in the underground structure of a three-dimensional urban building.
"Even though he had already decided to take that step, he still carefully selected to apply Geass instead of turning them all into zombies. How gentle of him, Lelouch."
"Shut up! You pizza witch! What do you know? I've already used Geass on Kallen once, it won't work a second time. She's the Black Knights' absolute number one fighter, I need her power. If Kaname Ohgi, Toudou, Tamashiro and the others into Geass slaves, she'll find out. Besides, I need them to take initiative and demonstrate their appeal among the Japanese."
In the unassuming safety maintenance passage of the structure, Lelouch, wearing a jet-black ZERO mask, and C. C. walked slowly, protected by sentries standing guard in both light and shadow.
Among the sentries were workers, thugs, police officers, and subway employees—people of all kinds—but without exception, their irises emitted a barely perceptible, eerie red glow.
That was proof that a Geass curse had been placed upon it.
"Ugh... Damn it!"
As he walked, Lelouch suddenly clutched his stomach and leaned against the wall, letting out a hissing sound, suppressing his voice as if trying to suppress some kind of pain.
"You should just stay at the academy to recover from your injuries. I'll go and convene a meeting of the Black Knights for you."
C. C. glanced at Lelouch.
He has a very weak body.
"No. You already showed up during the Narita-Renzan battle, and you have a precedent of disguising yourself as ZERO. If ZERO appears while you are not, they will become suspicious. So I have to go. Besides, I need to strengthen the organization and tightness of the Black Knights."
"I don't have time to waste months lying in a hospital bed. Internal infiltration, CC, you're right, I was too naive before. Secretly controlling the quartermaster, the Self-Healing antibacterial dressings and new wound sprays transported from European Britannia to District 11... you?"
Lelouch looked at C. C., who had suddenly stopped, with a puzzled expression.
"CC? What's wrong with you?"
CC looked up, her bright golden eyes revealing a strange surprise. "The contract has been terminated."
Lelouch frowned.
"Contract terminated?"
His voice suddenly became a little louder.
Perhaps even Lelouch himself didn't know that, unknowingly, he had gradually begun to rely on this ageless witch who had lived for who knows how long.
He didn't want to get involved with everyone at the Ashford Academy; Nunnally was a little angel who needed to be cared for, and he couldn't let her know about these things; Kallen Kouzuki was more of a pawn than a friend; only C. C. was an accomplice, and without C. C., he really didn't know who to confide in, and he would become a truly lonely person.
"What, afraid I'll leave you? Boy."
Then CC's playful voice rang out.
She glanced at Lelouch, smiled, and her expression didn't change much.
"It's not a contract with you."
Who is that?
Ignoring everything else, Lelouch pressed on with his question.
"Like Mao? Don't tell me that another of your contractors has arrived in District 11. What is his Geass ability? Tell me."