Code Geass: A New Beginning, A New Battlefield
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Chapter 07 : Nation of Peace
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The Archangel and her crews were saved from a pinch when Orb Union decided to lend them a hand and secretly hid the mobile fortress in their country. Currently Archangel was docked within a large hangar owned by Morgenroete, Inc. There, the mobile fortress is undergoing repair due to accumulated damage during their journey and still needed to resupply for materials which in total will took approximately a week before the process could be finished.
Meanwhile, Lelouch who was now feeling better after his nap in the infirmary decided to ask for permission from the Captain to go to the city. He realized that as he has yet to see what other things had changed after his long absence from Earth and he also wanted to find more information of the world that he couldn't get from Archangel's database. As most of the data available within Archangel were related to military battle data while Heliopolis itself only featured outdated news and brief history of the countries that currently existed. What he wanted to gain is an accurate information of what was going on around the world. Hoping that he could find what he was seeking in the Orb Union's Capital City, he went on his way to the Bridge.
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Not that Murrue could refuse him when she knew that Lelouch could make her life much more difficult as he had done quite a few times in the past. Lelouch saw her face flushed as he approached the brown haired captain. Ignoring her strange behavior, he gave her a short explanation and told her that he was going to take a leave for a few days. With the knowledge that he had Murrue dancing on his palm, figuratively of course, he easily acquired permission from her and but met unexpected resistance from her second-in-command, Ensign Natarle Badgiruel, which resulted in a small argument between the two female. As he did not want to complicate the situation, Lelouch took the matter into his own hand and decided to speak with the black haired female to find out her reason for resisting.
"Can I ask you why you're complaining if I'm taking a leave Natarle?" Lelouch asked calmly yet inwardly he was curious at the black haired woman who often kept to herself when she was off-duty. He addressed her with her given name as he already knew her quite well. She often ate by herself since all the other crews were not very comfortable to speak with her when she was off-duty knowing how assertive she was. It was very fortunate that he somehow found out something about her during the time Archangel was on the way to the now destroyed Artemis.
/Flashback/
It was a strange event when he saw a drop of tear flowed down through her cheek as the fork she was holding slipped from her grip. When Lelouch walked closer fearing that somehow he had mixed a bad ingredient when he made some of his original recipe, the black haired supervisor of Archangel's CIC blinked.
"Are you all right miss? Is there something wrong with the food?" Lelouch asked worried for the woman if he had somehow added something expired into his carefully prepared food.
Natarle blinked again, now her whole body were also quivering.
"Miss? Miss? ...Miss?" Lelouch repeated several times before he finally decided to shook her shoulder to rouse the woman from whatever she was doing. 'Uh oh! Don't tell me that this is this a case of food poisoning!'
Slowly coming back from her brief orgasmic bliss, the black haired woman sluggishly focused her eyes to look at the person who was shaking her. 'Huh? What the? what am I doing here?' She thought to herself, then seeing the tray still filled with food in front of her she finally recalled what she was doing before she briefly lost in her daze.
"Miss? are you alright there?" He asked again concernedly to the black haired woman.
Natarle hastily replied, "I'm fine! You're one of the chef here right? Mind if I ask who made this food that I'm eating right now?" She asked to the eye-patched chef.
Lelouch who was glad that she was alright then relaxed and answered, "Good, yes I am one of the chef and I'm the one who made the food you're eating right now. I'm sorry if there's something wrong with it." He smiled regretfully and half bowed hoping that she'll forgive him if there was something wrong with what he cooked.
"N-No!! There's NOTHING wrong with it! I'm sorry if I offended you for asking." She quickly replied to the eye-patched chef not wanting to offend the younger man.
"I see... then I'll leave you to continue with your dinner miss?" he asked cautiously.
"Natarle! Ensign Natarle Badgiruel", She half-shouted as she introduced herself. "And you are?" She queried wanting to know more of the one who had cooked food so delicious that made her forgot herself in daze.
Lelouch smiled politely at her and replied, "Lelouch Lamperouge, at your service."
"Lelouch..." Natarle whispered as she rolled his name in her tongue. Then she focused her eyes at him, "I'll be looking forward to eat your cooking for my 'every' meal Lelouch." She said as she gave him one of her rare smile.
'Oh? this is new. I never thought my cooking was good enough that I'll have someone looking forward to eat them.' He thought silently while trying to think of a way to bring this to his advantage. Perhaps... "Then I'll be looking forward when you came for a meal Natarle." Lelouch replied as he flashed her a wide grin realizing that he could use this as a way to get to know more about the militant woman.
She nodded and pretended to continue to eat her meal. She released the breath she was holding and she thought to herself, 'Phew... I'm glad he didn't find out...'
'What was that smell? It was kind of familiar but I couldn't place where I've smelt it' Lelouch who left Natarle to continue her dinner pondered.
/End Flashback/
Natarle who was not looking forward to eat bland cooking of prepared by other chefs in the cafeteria after she was used to being pampered with the delicious freshly cooked meal prepared by the eye-patched chef tried to stop the cook from taking a leave. "Err... you're in the military! Without a permission from Alaska you're not allowed take a leave!" She quickly answered knowing that as the eye-patched cook is part of the military then he also had to follow the same protocols as she was.
"Actually... though I'm part of the military, as a chef I'm also allowed to take a short-leave during resupply so I could to find some ingredients that are quite rare and harder to acquire Natarle." Lelouch said confidently as though he didn't really remember the content of his contract as there were none but decided to make it up as it goes. It's not like she was going to check his contract and he could just say that his copy was destroyed along with the destruction of Heliopolis.
"Huh? I didn't know they allowed that in the contract?" Natarle said confused, she was sure that she would know that as she had studied all military laws zealously during her time as students.
Lelouch then smiled reassuringly as he knew that the black haired woman was also unsure of herself at that moment. "I'm sure it was added just recently." Then he continued, "Anyway I'll be leaving soon, don't worry as I won't be leaving that long" Lelouch said. 'I'm not sure how long though...'
The supervisor of Archangel's CIC was wavering as her usually sharp mind was confused and desperate to find another reason to prevent the cook from taking his leave.
'Check' Lelouch chuckled in his mind as he look at her expression. 'Now for the kill...'
"Don't worry... I'm sure I can prepare a special meal for you with the ingredients I'm going to acquire once I return Natarle", he whispered to her ear softly. 'Checkmate' He then grinned widely when he saw her body language slacked along with all sign of resistance from the closet gourmet.
Natarle was already hesitating at that point but when she heard of his whisper, she stopped listening when she reached the 'a special meal for you' part and decided 'what are few days of suffering from eating the bland cooking' compared to the 'specially prepared meal for her'.
'Hmm... never knew she was that desperate to eat his cooking. If he knew from the start then he would never waste his time to reason and went for the kill. Eh, it was not like he was omnipotent after all.' Lelouch thought and he quickly return to his room to find his pack.
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Before he left, Lelouch had overheard when Murrue and Natarle was talking that Kira was asked by Morgenroete, Inc to help them do something while Archangel is still being repaired. Curious of what was going on in Morgenroete as he recognized the name as the collaborator in the creation of G-Weapons and Archangel, he decided that a little bit of snooping is in order.
What he already knew of Morgenroete, Inc is the fact that they are a semi-nationalized military contractor based in Orb Union. Aside from that and their involvement in Heliopolis, he is curious to what else the organization had been doing. That was the main reason why he is currently wearing a uniform he 'borrowed' from the one of the workers with the aid of his geass. The ID Card he got from one of the important researchers also helped him to access many restricted areas within Morgenroete Facility.
During his 'walk', he found some interesting things such as the mobile suits that Orb had been developing, M1-Astray and some of his 'interview' session also led him to a name, 'Erica Simmons'. He found out that aside being the chief designer in the Orb Union's military force and senior engineer of Morgenroete, she is also responsible to many of the most important projects that are currently still in progress.
One of the ongoing main projects also involves Kira who was currently busy developing an Interface Mobile Suit OS designed for 'Naturals'. It was strange that one teenage Coordinator could do something what many adult Coordinator couldn't do. Even though Mobile Suits were superior to average Knightmares created in his past, he still couldn't really understand why the control system they developed was much more complex. Some of his search also led to various fascinating reports that accidentally allowed him to find one of the most intriguing research.
'Superior Evolutionary Element Destined-factor... interesting title...' He thought for a second before he swiftly skimmed through the report.
'I see... A factor that determines the course of a species' evolution... Those who bear the 'SEED' were unknown in number but they are also very special... Is that the reason why Kira was able to out-fight our ZAFT pursuers even when he was out-numbered in his battles even against trained Coordinators? What kind of enchancement does this 'SEED' give to the bearers? Does this means that a small percentage of humanity as a whole could break through their imposed limit then attain 'SEED' or the phenomenon only applied to Coordinators? All of these were only theories and are yet to be proved scientifically but... this still quite interesting but without further leads...' Lelouch thought to himself.
'Erica Simmons...' He read the wooden nameplate hanging on the door. It's a little strange to see something so... 'natural' but who was he to complain?
'So this is her office...' After he briefly checked for security cameras, he entered her office using access code he acquired with his geass after his accidental meeting with the chief engineer. While he had acquired name of the most important subjects and passwords to access her files Lelouch realized that he was not gifted enough to erase trace of his usage after he accessed her computer.
'Hmm? Why do I need to worry? I'll leave false trails that will mask what I've accessed. She won't be able to find out who was the culprit and I have ensured before that I left no trace while I was infiltrating this facility' Lelouch thought to himself then tried to access what data that could be found in Erica Simmons' desktop.
'...!' After five minutes of skimming myriads of random files, he determined that it'll be impossible for him even to only skim through all the files and information inside the desktop, he decided that he would have to copy some of what he thought were important into his trusty PDA. It could handle a few gigabytes of data while he can't possibly find out that much before he was discovered by someone. It took almost an hour before he finished sorting the data into the PDA and laid false trails on the access record.
Ending his self-assigned short espionage mission after successfully finished his 'information gathering' and returned what he borrowed to his 'kind helpers', Lelouch quickly exited the facility and went on his way to the city.
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End of Chapter 07
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Author's Rant : Finally Lelouch arrived at Orb... Anyway since there's some changes to my original draft, It'll take some time till I could finish what I originally planned to add for this chapter. Till then. Btw, I'm starting to hesitate that I put my story in the right genre. Should I change it to General/Romance or Adventure/Romance? +Knightmare corrected. Thx ominae.
Cavalyn : Thx for the suggestion. I don't think I'm doing too good at romance and I personally thought some part was a bit dry myself. Glad that some of you guys enjoyed it. lol
Nim Maj : Hope that you'll continue enjoying this fic as I have fun writing it too. My grammar was quite messy wasn't it? Hope as I continue to write I'll get better. --
Elladan : Thx for the praise.
Rasgara : lol. Then enjoy this update.
ZeroX1999 : Hmm... You'll have to wait but as I've invested quite a bit to Murrue... There's a chance this fic will end up as LelouchxHarem but I'll have to see whether I have the skill to pull this off or not. Your suggestion?
MysticMaiden 18 : lol. Glad you enjoyed that. I was not really thinking of when I make the draft and it finished that way. It'll still continue slowly for a while anyway.
Ominae : That could work... hmm... I'm getting some delicious image there.
LittleNK : lol.
mm : Thx for your ideas. Some of those were similar to what I have wrote in my drafts but there's some parts that I'll integrate into my fic. I'll put a credit on those chapters if/when I use your suggestion. You've made me re-think of some points that I was confused of between divergence points and I'm working to smooth them out now as I'm trying to foresee how they could develop and the impacts of following those path in the end.
GenMcvile : Unfortunately there's still no fighting scenes for a while yet. At this point it'll be more 'Laying foundation' part. Even now Lulu still have no true reason to involve himself... but after that...
WyldStallyns808 : Some of your questions were answered in this chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. As for the talks... perhaps...
Capito Celcior : Thx. Well, I tried to write within reasonable pace when I'm free so that's what I released. As for his geass...
Any constructive criticism and suggestion is appreciated. Thx again to all readers and reviewers who have spent their time on this fic.