Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own Code Geass, wish I did.

Slipping the Bonds of Yesterday – Book 1, Turn 1

Tokyo Settlement, Area 11 – 2016 a.t.b.

"Checkmate," Lelouch said, as the noble across from him paled and started sputtering. As he collected his winnings, he and Anya left the man staring mutely at the board. Lelouch paid the parking fee and retrieved their motorcycle while Anya transferred the small briefcase with the money into her backpack, leaving her arms free to wrap around Lelouch's waist when she got on behind him. They didn't talk as they slowly pulled away from the curb, while overhead the news screens showed the Viceroy as he gave a predicable speech denouncing the heartless Eleven terrorists. The two rode in silence, not needing conversation and content just to be together.

While he drove, Lelouch idly wondered if Euphemia and Milly were having fun planning Milly's next school party. He slightly regretted adding Euphemia and C.C. to Milly's list of conspirators, as the parties had been even more over the top since they'd arrived. He was broken out of his reverie when a large truck came speeding up behind them. Lelouch didn't have much time to react, swerving to the right to avoid being hit. As he swerved right and the truck swerved left into a construction site, their bike hit a pothole and threw them off. Without thinking, Lelouch grabbed Anya and pulled her to him, wrapping himself around her. He took the brunt of the impact as they slammed into the ground, his helmeted head bouncing off the pavement. They slid for several meters before they came to a stop. Anya quickly scrambled out of Lelouch's hold, whisking off her helmet and gingerly removing Lelouch's. He grunted out at the throbbing he felt. It was widespread but mild, and he could tell he hadn't taken any major damage. His school uniform was shredded from the slide, exposing the black underclothes he wore, which remained untorn during the skid.

"Lelouch, are you alright?" Anya asked franticly. She had been on top thanks to Lelouch, and hadn't taken any damage from the landing or slide.

"I'm good, I'm good. The wonders of Kevlar," he said, indicating his black underclothes. He'd convinced the members of his little group to wear Kevlar under-armor when they went out and about. Originally, it was just for himself and his knights, but Cornelia had approved when he mentioned it one day over the phone, and Euphemia and Anya soon followed suit. He was suddenly quite thankful that he'd been doing research into body armor after so effectively proving its usefulness.

Lelouch looked over to where he last saw the truck heading. He spotted the truck rammed into a pillar in the nearby construction site. He then glanced at his bike, the state of which was summed up in one word.

Totaled.

He groaned out, "Our ride's wrecked. We might as well go check on the other guys."

"Are you sure?" Anya asked. "I say we just leave 'em. They almost hit us and I don't feel like being nice to them at the moment." Lelouch looked at her and raised an eyebrow, giving her a look that said 'Are you really being so petty?'. She gave a muffled 'hmph' and apout, but eventually sighed and followed as he led the way to the truck. As they walked over, Lelouch fished out his phone and found that it was crushed from the impact. It looked like there was no calling for Jerry to give them a ride at the moment. When they made it to the truck, Lelouch jogged around to the driver's side.

"Hey! Hello? You okay in there?" Lelouch called as he tried to open the driver's door. Unfortunately, the debris was preventing it from opening.

"Lelouch! There's an open hatch back here," called Anya.

The two of them climbed up on top of the truck. Lelouch was peering in when the truck suddenly backed up, causing him to lose his balance and fall in. Anya tried to grab him and pull him up, but his momentum pulled her down with him. The two landed with a thud, as the truck took off and drove deeper into the ghetto.

They got up and looked around. The inside of the truck was pretty bare. There was a large shape sitting in the back, and next to where they stood was a large purple sphere. They also noticed that there was no ladder on the inside.

-"Pull over and surrender, filthy Elevens!"- was heard through the walls of the truck's hold, as they heard whirring high overhead. Faint pinging noises sounded against the back doors of the truck.

Lelouch looked at Anya. "Tell me, does that sound like the military to you?" She nodded. "Damn, I was hoping it was just me. I do believe we've fallen into a terrorist's truck." He didn't get the chance to say more, as a door connecting to the cab opened. Lelouch and Anya ducked behind the large sphere, both pulling out weapons.

Lelouch had paid a visit to his R&D team last week, and his gunsmith had finished up their new toys from the specifications Lelouch had given him. The ideas came from him looking at his sister's gunblade. Lelouch had a pair of black 9mm pistols, with a metal blade curving from the front of the barrel down to the bottom of the grip. The blade was similar in nature to the katar, which Lelouch had managed to get Sayoko to train him to use. Anya held a pair of tanto gunblades. They were Japanese short swords with built-in revolvers. The blades were approximately one foot in length, with a pair of revolvers in the handles. A long barrel ran up the back of each blade. The two of them had trained with these weapons, but hadn't had them for long enough to truly use them.

They kept their weapons ready as a Japanese girl with red hair walked past, talking to someone on a handheld radio. Lelouch thought she looked vaguely familiar, and he admitted to himself that she looked good in combat fatigues, not many women could pull that off as well as she was right now. He watched as she left the radio in a pocket of a jacket, which she hung on the wall nearby, before she boarded a red knightmare and leapt from the back of the truck. Lelouch signaled Anya to grab the radio while he examined the capsule next to him.

At first glance, it looked like it could hold gas of some kind, most likely poison or nerve gas. But when he looked closer, he couldn't see any sort of pump or motor. It reminded him more of the capsules you got from toy vending machines, the small plastic ones that held a figurine inside. He was about to try the attached keyboard when the truck crashed again.

After standing back up, Anya went to the side door and pulled it open, and she stuck her head out to look around. Lelouch turned back around to deal with the capsule when a shadowed form leapt out of the darkness at his back. Anya quickly stepped up behind Lelouch and blocked the flying kick, and then grabbed the offending limb, twisting and pulling it to drag the attacker to the ground. She jumped on his back and pinned him, pressing her sword against his back.

"Surrender and stop this senseless killing!" he shouted, but the intimidating effect was lost as they heard the quaver in his voice from having a sword at his back.

Lelouch noticed the military uniform he wore, and switched into his Princely voice. He rarely used it, but he had paid attention to the way Cornelia talked when ordering others around, and he was able to convey a good amount of authority when he tried. "Name, rank, and unit soldier!"

The boy didn't really have time to think, and his subconscious quickly answered the authority it perceived. "Private Suzaku Kururugi, 122nd Honorary Brigade, sir!"

Lelouch nodded to Anya, then turned back to the capsule.

"We're not with the terrorists, Private Kururugi. What do you know of the capsule?" Anya asked as she let the boy up.

"We were told that the terrorists had stolen a container of poison gas," he answered. Lelouch laughed at that.

"Well then you were lied to Private, there's no way this is gas. There's no pump, no motor. It's more like a holding container than a gas capsule." As he said that, he managed to get the container opened. A cloud of white smoke was released. Suzaku tried to rush forward to put his gas mask over Lelouch's face, but Lelouch motioned him to stop. As the smoke cleared, a figure could be seen toppling over out of the container. Lelouch stepped forward and caught the girl as she fell. She had long black hair, and her skin tone was the same as that of a Japanese person's. Lelouch guessed her to be no more than eighteen years old. Her frame was thin but not frail, and her unblemished face look relaxed as she lay unconscious. Lelouch started undoing the straps keeping her tied up as Anya whirled towards the direction of incoming footsteps.

"You filthy Eleven! Not even true Britannians are allowed to open that!" shouted a man. He was wearing an officer's uniform, and flanking him were several members of Clovis's royal guard. They raised their weapons and pointed them at the trio beside the truck.

"But sir!" shouted Suzaku. "They're not with the terrorists, and it's not poison gas!"

"Silence! I'll give you one chance to redeem yourself. Take this weapon and kill the two terrorists," he said as he tossed a pistol to the boy.

Lelouch looked at the soldier. The naïve fool was about to refuse, and they'd all get shot either way. Lelouch motioned to Anya to incapacitate Suzaku, and she reached up and punched the back of his head. As soon as the private was knocked out, Lelouch stood and looked at the royal guardsmen. He had one command he had yet to try out, and now was as good a time as ever. He flared his Geass, and shouted, "Obey!" The crane sigil soared into their eyes, and Lelouch fell to a knee as he felt a sharp pain behind his eye. He clutched the left side of his head as he thought, 'Okay, note to self. Either don't do so many at once, or use a simpler command.' He resolved to see what the limit of people he could Geass at once was, as he had neglected to add that to his list of things to test. He looked up to see the soldiers standing at attention and staring blankly ahead. He deliberated a second over what orders to give.

"You," he said, looking at the officer. "Call in two knightmares to this location, then come stand over here. You," he pointed to another soldier and then indicated the unconscious Suzaku, "take this man and see that he receives medical attention. You will then find a location away from other people and kill yourself." He turned to the rest of the soldiers as the man followed his instructions. "The rest of you, kill yourselves." As they complied, he turned to the officer and had him tell them everything important about the girl from the capsule and the current status of the area.

By the time the knightmares had shown up, Lelouch was informed that she was the subject of the Code-R super soldier project, trying to create immortal soldiers. General Bartley Asprius was in charge of the research team and Clovis was in control of the project. 'Looks like we found what dad wanted us to look for,' he thought. Then it occurred to him that he referred to the man as 'dad', and he pondered over that. He was now also acutely aware that Clovis was attempting to liquidate the ghetto, and had sealed of all access to Shinjuku. Lelouch reasoned that he would need to make his own exit.

He and Anya boarded the knightmares, leaving the newly Geassed pilots to kill themselves, while the head guard was sent to await Lelouch at the G-1 that Clovis was using. Lelouch had the black haired girl lying across him as he piloted the Sutherland out of the subway tunnel.

"Lelouch," Anya said over the secure communications, "Why'd you make them shoot themselves?"

"Because Anya, mindless slaves are highly inefficient. Geassing and enslaving regular soldiers gives a negligible return on investment. If I commanded them to act as normal as possible but still obey me, I'd have to set ground rules and other parameters, lest someone discover that I'd enslaved them. For individuals of importance, the time it takes to calibrate the Geass control is worth it. Take General Bartley, for example. If I manage to Geass him, I could potentially take over control of the entire Code-R project. Geass enslavement is for either large masses or individuals, but anywhere in between and it loses efficiency. Normally I wouldn't be so quick to remove them from the equation, but it was them or us. I'm sure I could have eventually found another method, but we're pressed for time and I really don't like leaving loose ends." He finished this last bit just as the girl groggily woke up. "Ah, and it seems our new friend is awake. So what's your name?"

The girl was hesitant at first, having woken up laying across a man she didn't know, but seeing as she wasn't bound inside a container or being tortured, she decided that she could at least be thankful to him for freeing her. "My name is R.R.," she said.

Lelouch's mind suddenly took off, fitting together previously separate pieces of information. Code-R, immortality project. R.R., name of only two initials, like V.V. and C.C. He turned to her and said,

"You're a Code bearer, aren't you?" When she gasped in shock at him knowing or somehow figuring out what she was, he grinned. "So, my new friend R.R., if I asked you if you wanted to form a contract, what would you wish for in return?"

It took her a minute to calm down after the surprise he just sprung on her, which Lelouch used to save a beaten up red Glasgow, most likely the good looking pilot from the truck. He smiled at that, he would have to look her up. She was incredibly talented from what he was seeing. Her resistance members showed up around her, and he had just gifted them a train-full of Sutherlands, courtesy of Clovis, and distributed call-signs. He ordered them to prepare and adjust to the KMFs, and he would contact them in ten minutes. By the time he was done, R.R. had debated the pros and cons of making a contract with this man she didn't know about but who apparently knew about her. She figured that it couldn't hurt, as he seemed capable, but she had the distinct feeling that she was missing something.

"In exchange," she said, breaking Lelouch out of his plotting and strategizing, "I want you to free me from this curse."

"Curse?" he repeated, curious what she meant. His peripherals showed him Anya on one of his screens, firing away at some of Clovis's ground troops. "What do you mean?"

"My immortality. For some of us Code bearers, we realized too late just what it means to be immortal. It's so hard to watch the world move on without you, while everyone and everything you know fades away in front of you. I've been trying for almost a century to get rid of my code. I want you to help me."

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold it. How am I supposed to do that?"

"As you use your Geass, it grows stronger. Eventually it will evolve and spread to both eyes. If you manage to gain control over your Geass and it becomes powerful enough to manifest in both eyes, you can take the Code from a code bearer. This will render them mortal, while the code will stay inactive within you until you die, at which moment it will activate. When you absorb the Code of the bearer who gave you Geass, you lose your Geass when you die."

While he ordered about his newly conscripted terrorists as they eliminated Clovis's forces, Lelouch's mind went spinning once again, running through scenarios and coming up with lists of implications from what she had just told him. Eventually, he started to giggle, then start cackling maniacally. When he calmed down, he said,

"Very well, R.R. I shall agree to take your Code from you in exchange for you granting me a Geass."

Her eyes widened. She quickly made the contract before he changed his mind. When it was done, she said, "I hope you know what you've gotten yourself into. Immortality is a lot worse than people think." He just laughed at her.

"My dear, when you have aspirations for global domination, immortality is anything but a curse," he said with a feral grin. R.R. shivered. That look was so predatory; she'd be scared if she wasn't already immortal.

Lelouch was brought back to the battle as Anya reported a prototype knightmare entering the fray. He ordered his rag-tag army to stash the Sutherlands and evacuate any remaining civies. He then moved to provide Anya backup against the white knightmare that was heading her way. He let her lead the engagement, while he would support and try to distract the enemy pilot. While he was usually a better pilot than Anya, he was much more at home in faster frames, like the Glasgow or his own Aberdeens. But with him in a Sutherland or one of the new Gloucesters, Anya could beat him three out of every five times. She was much more comfortable piloting heavier frames than he was.

The white knightmare arrived, and it was time for them to dance.

"Anya, take his right and try to turn his back to me, I'll shoot out his landspinners," he called out.

"Roger," she called, as she dodged several slash harkens. "It seems he has extra slash harkens, be advised." She darted to her right, using her rifle in her right hand and using her left hand's stun tonfa to cause him to block with his arm that was nearest Lelouch.

"Noted, keep him there." Lelouch fired and took out the opponents landspinners, slowing it significantly. Anya moved back as they both opened fire, but their bullets were blocked by a green colored glowing barrier that appeared. "Anya, remind me to dig around and find out what this thing is. I want one." His words earned him a giggle from her. Anya dropped her now empty rifle and pulled out a chaos grenade in each hand. She threw one at the white frame as she and Lelouch ducked behind cover.

When the rain of piercing metal spikes ended, the pilot of the white frame saw a slash harken coming towards him, but its trajectory would miss him by a short distance. He decided to try and grab the harken and pull his opponent in. It was only after he grabbed the wire that he realized there was something stuck to the end of the harken, which was now directly beside him. He barely managed to bring up his blaze luminous and protect his torso before the second grenade detonated, perforating his legs with razor sharp projectiles. His crippled frame fell to its knees. As he awaited the finishing blow, he realized some time later that his attackers had retreated. A small part of his awareness heard Lloyd yelling in the background asking about his precious Lancelot's status, while Cecile was asking if he was okay.

When they arrived at the G-1, Lelouch sent R.R. back with Anya, telling them to take the tunnels back to the underground base beneath Ashford. It wasn't the biggest of his warehouses, but it was a good holding area for things before they were transported elsewhere. He watched them go as he met up with his enslaved guard. He Geassed a uniform from a nearby soldier, then had the guard escort him to the G-1 command room. He had the man inform Clovis and Bartley that one of his soldiers had a report about the gas container, and wished to report it himself since it was of a sensitive nature. Lelouch walked in behind the guard, and spotted Clovis sitting on his throne at the rear of the room, with Bartley beside him. He took off his helmet and looked Bartley in the eye, saying "Obey". Then he turned to Clovis and said at gunpoint,

"Hello brother, it's so nice to see you. Fancy meeting you here, of all places. I suggest you order a ceasefire."

After hastily calling a ceasefire, the man was stuttering like mad. "L-L-Lelouch, w-w-what are you d-doing here?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just almost got killed by your royal guardsmen. I enslaved them and killed most of them. Then I trashed your forces and stole Bartley over there from you. By the way, would you mind giving me everything you have on Code-R? I could take it from you by force, but I'd rather not."

"W-what d-do you m-m-mean? I have no idea what you're talking about," Clovis lied, although it was extremely obvious that he did, if his wide eyes and profuse sweating meant anything. Lelouch turned to Bartley.

"General Bartley Asprius, you will act as normal as possible while under my control. You will obey me and your loyalty belongs to me."

"Yes, your highness. What would you ask of me?" he responded with a bow, his motions losing the robotic quality that was usually present with those under his Geass. His eyes didn't lose the faint red outline though.

"Please get me all the data on Code-R, and destroy any copies that you cannot bring to me, physical or otherwise."

"Yes my lord, I shall go retrieve them. Also, you may wish to know that Prince Clovis's ring contains a data chip with copies of most of the data."

Lelouch smiled. "Thank you," he said, as Bartley bowed and went off to complete his task. He turned to Clovis and motioned for him to give him the ring, flaring his Geass threateningly until he complied. "My thanks, dear brother. I have to ask, whose idea was it to completely screw over all the progress you've made here? This will be a PR nightmare for your administration."

"I-it was Bartley," he all but shouted. "He said the only way to get the container back without anybody finding out was to eliminate the whole ghetto. I never liked the idea, but he convinced me it was for the best."

Lelouch sighed, amazed at his brother's ineptitude. "I'm sorry that your advisors failed you, brother. I believe you that it wasn't your idea. But now I have a dilemma. What am I to do with you? I'd rather not kill you, but I can't let you go to spread the knowledge of my actions here today. Hmm, what to do…" Clovis started to beg and plead, but nothing he could offer did Lelouch need from him. He ordered the still nearby guard to download any and all valuable or useful data from the G-1, then delete the security recordings. Having decided what to do with Clovis, he turned back to his whimpering brother.

"You shall forget everything about both Code-R and my involvement in today's events. If I say to you the words "King's Gambit" you will obey me until I tell you otherwise. You will now fall unconscious after I shoot you and strike you on the head." With that, he shot Clovis in the side with the guard's pistol- no sense leaving ballistics evidence- and then pistol whipped him on the temple.

Bartley returned, and he collected both the G-1 data and the Code-R data from his minions. He then ordered the guard to get medical attention and a guard detail for the prince, and then go kill himself away from where others could see. He pulled a notebook from his back pocket, then wrote down a set of coordinates on a piece of paper and handed it to Bartley, ordering him to gather his team and all of their equipment and supplies, and then head to the warehouse at that location.

Having done all he needed to for the moment, Lelouch replaced his helmet upon his head, and returned to his knightmare. Nobody noticed him entering the subway tunnels as he left the scene and headed back to Ashford.

AN:

This marks the end of the reworked chapters of the rewrite. Everything from here on out will be original and will take longer to write.