Fanfic / Dauntless (Allora Gale)

Truly, a man who is not to be trifled with.

Dauntless is a Code Geass For Want Of A Nail fanfic by Allora Gale, notable both for its quality and for updating at Ludicrous Speed (or at least it used to. For the first ninety chapters, it updated practically once a week, then it slowed down. A lot. Now there are only a handful of new chapters every year).

The premise: Lelouch is spotted by Clovis while out gambling. With only enough time to hide Nunnally away, he allows himself to be brought back to Britannia and reluctantly reclaims his status as an Imperial prince. The remainder of the story (so far) follows his navigating Britannian politics and later joining the military, with separate plot threads expanding on the Back Story of Kallen and Naoto Kozuki's resistance group from canon, Jeremiah Gottwald's attempts to track them down, Nunnally's coping with loneliness and separation from Lelouch, and the activities of the Lelouch-less Ashford Academy student council.

There is a collection of side stories, Dauntless: Sidestories.

After a four year haitus starting in August 2016, the fic was revived by the author. The latest chapter was posted on November 5, 2021.

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This fic contains examples of the following tropes, in addition to those already present in the source material:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Lelouch is fairly amused when C.C. uses half his library to make a miniature castle.
• Arch-Enemy: While the Emperor's head is his ultimate goal (and with Suzaku as his ally) as far he is concerned, Cornelia is at the top of Lelouch's hit list after ratting him out to the Emperor, which could have ended in execution easily.
  Emperor Charles: [raises an eyebrow] Explain to me why Cornelia has warned me that you're possibly plotting your revenge against me,''
• Arms Dealer: Jin Nakata, Naoto and Kallen's childhood friend, ditched La Résistance years ago and makes a living by smuggling weapons from China by sea. Smart, underhanded and quite business-driven.
• Arranged Marriage: Lelouch and Abigail.
  • Schneizel himself is putting off his own (with his intended's help).
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: As of chapter 79, Kallen's criminal records for treason, sedition, murder, attempted regicide and theft. Well, not technically. Lelouch got the papers done but he never filed them.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • Lelouch's generally views Geass as a last resort. While it makes things easier, he can also only use it once. As a result, he (almost) always goes for persuasion first. C.C. observed that this behavior is far from the norm for Geass' users to the point that one time he used it without her expecting it, the first thing that crossed her mind was that he was in immediate mortal danger.
  • Likewise the Shriekers can destroy virtually any structure with a significant amount of quartz in it. However, except for destroying bases like the Cursed Sand Fort (which was made of stone) or the JLF headquarters (built into a mountain), they don't see any use.
• Badass Boast: Edith gives an awesome one when she calmly threatens to kill Kallen.
  Edith: I've had the blade of a professional assassin coming straight for me, Miss Wallbridge. Do you think I'm going to cower at the sight of you and a butter knife? A better question is, do you think I really came here alone? Or unarmed? I will put you down myself if you don't put that knife down.
• Badass Crew: Lelouch's Royal Guard.
• Berserk Button: C.C. only has one: anybody who would so much look at Lelouch wrong will die. Messily and begging for their life, if she had any say in the matter.
  • For Lelouch, it's racism and bigotry, reasons why he can barely tolerate his wife.
  • Also, don't even think of harming Euphemia around Lelouch.
    • Euphemia, his friends, Suzaku (as the Purist faction learned the hard way), Nunnally, Edith...
  • Lelouch is truly pissed when Gino suggests Suzaku is blackmailing Lelouch.
• Beta Couple: Milly and Rivalz. That said, it took them more effort than the usual Beta Couple to get there.
• Blatant Lies: Euphemia and Viletta visit Lukas while claiming to be his sisters. Not only do they look nothing like Lukas (who has blonde hair and green eyes), they look nothing like each other (Euphy being fair skinned with pink hair and blue eyes while Viletta has dark skin, blue hair, and yellow eyes).
• Blood Knight: Deconstructed with Cornelia. While she is intelligent, extremely capable, and an all around stellar strategist, her desire to confront her enemies has left her unimaginative and stubborn. Lelouch compared her to an spoiled brat, used to getting her way in battle. Schneizel happens to agree.
• Bodyguard Crush: Surprisingly enough, Cornelia has something of a crush on her Knight of Honor and even more surprisingly Guilford does not seem to feel the same in spite of his fanatical Undying Loyalty toward the princess. Chapter 86 also shows how irked Cornelia was of the fact that Guilford was apparently seeing someone during their stay in Japan.
• Bonus Material: Dauntless: Sidestories
• Boring, but Practical: The reverse-engineered sand panels aren't as flashy as other Knightmare upgrades but they give near unparalleled mobility, even over terrain that Knightmares normally can barely move in.
• Bribing Your Way to Victory: A mild example but Lelouch bribes the man in charge of his boot camp to make sure he gets assigned to Knightmare Corps. Afterwards he worries whether he should've made sure Lukas got in as well but correctly guesses he wouldn't want to get in on anything but his own merits.
• Brutal Honesty: Lelouch makes it painfully clear to Abigail that their marriage is a sham. Later when Gino wants to discuss something in private, Lelouch explicitly tells him and Anya that they're the only ones present Lelouch doesn't trust.
  • Lukas has a tendency towards telling Euphemia the truth, even if it's something she doesn't want to hear. Instances include telling her he doesn't follow her orders but Lelouch's, and telling her that if she truly wants to help Lelouch then she should return to Pendragon.
• The Bus Came Back: When Lelouch needs a bodyguard for Euphemia who can pass as a student, he remembers his friend Lukas from boot camp, who happens to be one of his Royal Guards' younger brother.
  • Viletta becomes Euphemia's Knight in chapter 93.
• The Butcher: Lelouch is not amused when he learns one of his nicknames among the enemies is "The Butcher of Area Eighteen". Schneizel decided to keep this nickname out of the press due to the bad publicity.
  • He uses this image to draw out part of the Kenshiki terrorist group in chapter 88, by staging a fake execution of their family members.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You:
  • Downplayed with Kallen, despite what she may think. Lelouch certainly doesn't need her but she's currently more useful alive than dead.
  • Kallen admits that even if she could kill Lelouch and his sisters, he'd just be replaced by someone worse.
• Celibate Hero: Lelouch, possibly more so than canon, in that he is married and also has to deal with C.C. acting as his Dark Mistress and has yet to do anything. Ultimately averted when Abigail convinces him to treat their marriage as something more than the business deal they both know it is.
• Chekhov's Gun: A few chapters after its first appearance, Von Hoffman's Knightmare cleaner (which uses vibrations to make sand fall off and out of Knightmare Frames) is upscaled, mounted on slash harkens and used to completely annihilate an enemy base. After that, the devise is code-named the Shrieker because of the horrible sound it produces when it's running.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang: The Shrieker is used again against the JLF secret base in Narita.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: When trapped in Shinjuku during a battle between terrorists and Clovis' forces, Lelouch suddenly remembers that one of the officers (Jeremiah) had previously offered his service.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Jeremiah's marksmanship skills, first observed in Chapter 12 where he shot a man in the heart, puncturing the right ventricle and killing him almost instantly. Proved vital to free Lelouch from any suspicion on Clovis' death via Wounded Gazelle Gambit and much later to Shoot the Hostage Taker.
• The Chessmaster: Schneizel, right down to having a chessboard with pieces representing people. Sound familiar?
  • Also, Lelouch keeps the trait of referring to people with chess notations, as well as claiming that Ohgi's group is just "pawns on his board".
• Chick Magnet: Lelouch, of course. After his various public unveilings, he gets fangirls trying to get into the Aeries Villa and having to have them arrested for trespassing, and in one chapter while talking to Milly, he learns of some sort of vote for both sexiest man and most eligible bachelor by one of the talk shows in Area 11 that he won. It gets dialed down a bit after his arranged marriage.
• Children Are Innocent: Ken is a prime example.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: It's all but genetic for the Imperial Family, sadly.
• Cloud Cuckoolander/Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Lloyd is just as strange if not stranger than his canon portrayal, constantly referring Suzaku as a "machine that needed to be repaired".
• Comically Small Demand: In exchange for helping Schneizel take the throne, Lelouch only asks for Japan. (Schneizel had been prepared to offer half the empire)
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Lelouch's modus operandi. Examples include:
  • Firing an (empty) gun at a guard who let a guest into his house with a gun.
  • Revoking the entire purist faction's noble titles.
  • Giving Jeremiah a death sentence in the form of becoming his knight for disobeying orders.
  • Forcing Kallen to enlist in Britannian bootcamp to avoid execution (and make her useful to him).
  • Making Kaguya, who appeared as his advisor in full traditional Japanese clothing, look like a petulant child by inviting a serious Japanese businessman (who's regarded as a saint to the Japanese) to be another advisor. Although whether he planned this or it was a happy coincidence is uncertain.
• Dark Mistress: In Dauntless, C.C. actively cultivates her image as this to Lelouch in order to keep people from asking questions about who she is and why he lets her hang around.
  • She even goes as far as sleeping in his bed with him. Though they never actually have sex.
  • Marianne was this for Charles, literally carving the way to power with the bodies of the entire Imperial Family and his enemies, long before she was even considered wife material.
• Deadpan Snarker: This quote from the very first chapter shows Lelouch's verbal pwnage skills. And it only gets better from there.
  Britannian soldier: You some kind of Eleven sympathizer? You feel bad for him?
  Lelouch: Hardly. I feel worse for you. That the sole purpose of your existence is to brutalize an unarmed civilian is a little sad.
• Death Faked for You: Lelouch took advantage of Kenshiki's bombings to fake the death of Kallen "Stadtfeld" and arranged an easily justified closed-casket funeral.
• Didn't See That Coming: Cornelia placed Lelouch under Hector's command because she trusted the man and was planning on making him one of her Royal Guard once he had some leadership experience. She certainly didn't expect Lelouch to earn the Undying Loyalty of the entire squad.
• Didn't Think This Through: Kaguya joining Lelouch's council while wearing traditional Japanese attire (to declare pride in her heritage) alienates the entire council against her.
  • Euphemia forces her way onto the plane headed to Osaka and assumes that since Lelouch didn't force her to leave he doesn't really mind. She later learns that Lelouch is constantly being challenged and couldn't afford to look like he couldn't control his own little sister so had to pretend it was his idea for him to come.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Clovis has the soldiers who roughed up Lelouch while bringing him in executed. Although Clovis and Lelouch were rather close as children and Lelouch is royalty, it's not like the soldiers knew it, so it's still much.
• Doomed by Canon: Naoto.
  • Clovis as well, although it happens a little differently than in canon.
• Door Stopper: Overlaps with the sensation of Arc Fatigue, thanks to slow pacing.
• Dramatic Irony: A small example. Kallen is somewhat peeved because Lelouch's Royal Guard don't let her pilot anything better than a Sutherland, thinking they want to humiliate/annoy her. Suzaku, the best Knightmare pilot among them, doesn't want her at the controls of anything but a regular model because she'd be too dangerous if she ever goes rogue.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Sergeant Harken. Don't call him "Slash".
• Even Evil Has Standards: Charles admits in his thoughts that he dislike interacting with Marianne when she's on Anya's body, since it makes him feel like he is a pedophile
• A Father to His Men: Lelouch.
• First-Name Basis: Lelouch with all his subordinates. He only insists people refer to him by title to let them know they're on his shit list.
  • At Euphemia's insistence, her knight Villetta refers to her as Euphy.
• Foil: Edith serves as one to Kallen. Both are half-Britannian and can pass for full Britannian, but Edith willingly works for a Britannian prince while Kallen is blackmailed into it. Furthermore, Edith is highly skilled in most areas outside of combat (and given her threat to Kallen probably decent with a gun as well) but Kallen's only notable skill is as a Knightmare pilot, where she excels. Finally, Kallen is ruled heavily by her emotions whereas Edith is a consummate professional. Naturally, they can't stand each other.
• From Bad to Worse: All of chapter 75. To the point of being a Wham Episode.
  • The chapter starts off with Mao kidnapping Lelouch's wife. Then Kenshiki bombs Ashford Academy, killing lots of innocent students all to just get at Euphie (who was recently revealed to be attending there). Naturally it sets off Lelouch's Berserk Button, since one of the places of Academy damaged in the attack was where he and Nunnally used to live, as well as the fact it threatened the lives of all his old friends there.
  • The reveal that the military fortress Lelouch blew up also housed almost a thousand innocent refugees in Area 18 kicks off one of these.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Hansel von Hoffman, Lelouch's squad's mechanic.
• Genre Blind: Euphemia thinks Lelouch could "stand to be challenged a little". She doesn't realize that he's constantly being challenged by pretty much everyone he associates with except the military and she's just adding to his stress.
• Gone Horribly Right: Lelouch geasses Jeremiah to shoot him in a way that it couldn't be self-inflicted to clear him of any suspicion regarding Clovis' death. The shot nearly kills him.
• HA HA HA—No: Edith to Kallen in chapter 78.
• Hate at First Sight: Edith and Kallen for some reason. The latter's PoV explicitly says that "[the] woman just rubbed her the wrong way".
• Hates Being Alone: A variation. C.C. hates sleeping without at least being able to hear someone else close by because sleeping alone reminds her of the prolonged periods of sensory deprivation at the hands of Clovis' scientists.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Of some sort. Lelouch allowing himself to be caught by Clovis and his men so Nunnally can evade recognition and capture.
  • Also Suzaku and C.C. when confronted with Clovis's royal guard... just like in canon. And neither of them died/stayed dead, either, again just like in canon.
• Hidden Depths: Abigail's admits to being selfish and conceited. She's also trying to get Lelouch to act like a real husband because if she has an heir, her father will let her half-brother back into the family.
• Hollywood Tactics: Lelouch allows himself, Jeremiah, and Ohgi's group to be completely surrounded while fighting in Shinjuku. Justified in the fact he was trying to get them killed while he and Jeremiah ejected.
• Honor Before Reason: Played straight with Kallen who insists on helping Kasumi, an Honorary Britannian in her boot camp, which results in the rest of her squad ganging up on her.
  • Averted with Lelouch and Jeremiah, the former having told the latter that "sometimes pride is less important than survival". Also averted with Kasumi who joins the military because "They give paychecks on time and pride and honor don't pay the rent or put food on the table."
  • The police comissioner in Osaka confiscated the Guren and didn't tell any of Lelouch's men until it was stolen over a month later.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Edith. While actually several magnitudes lower than Lelouch, she is one of the most competent individuals in the series, literally commanding all the resources of Lelouch and deciding who lives and who dies unless Lelouch says otherwise. She is also probably the second person on the entire planet that Lelouch actually trusts.
  • To the point that she knows full well that she's more valuable to Lelouch than Kallen.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Sergeant Harkin repeatedly chews out Lelouch for his tactics in the Knightmare simulators, especially when his tactics would cost civilian lives, such as dropping several buildings on enemy forces.
• Jerkass Realization: Lelouch realizes how coldly he's been treating Abigail when after being rescued from Mao she asks him to call Euphemia for her.
  • He has another more minor moment earlier when Edith thinks Lelouch wants to have sex with her. While denying it Lelouch realizes that up til then, he hadn't seen Edith as a person, let alone a woman.
• Katanas Are More Symbolic: Lelouch gives Suzaku an authentic katana for his knighting ceremony rather than a Britannian sword in order to show him (and Britannia) that he is still Japanese.
• Kick the Dog: Jeremiah's treatment towards the Elevens (especially Naoto's resistance group) is a pretty big one of these, albeit very fitting to his canon portrayal in Season 1.
  • His killing Matsumoto and then torturing Naoto in an effort to gain information before killing him are quite likely to be seen as a Moral Event Horizon crossing by Kallen.
  • The Kenshiki terrorist group has been kicking the dog for a while in story but in chapter 75 they really do some major puppy kicking when they use one of Euphemia's classmates to gain access and bomb Ashford Academy with the terrorist doing the actual deed impersonating Suzaku.
• King Incognito: Lelouch deliberately invokes this by not piloting the King Piece but instead piloting one of it's guards.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Harken teaches the recruits that "some battles just aren't worth fighting," which is why he leaves Lelouch alone about the small white box (containing an origami crane from Nunally) after Lelouch subtly threatens him. A well respected drill sergeant he may be, but at the end of the day Lelouch can destroy him with a word.
• Large and in Charge: The Emperor Charles, of course. He is a giant, both in strength and authority.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Like canon, the Purist Faction tries to use Suzaku as a scapegoat. In response, Lelouch strips all of them of their noble titles and transfers them to stable Areas where they're unlikely to ever regain their nobility.
• Like Brother and Sister: Milly claims this about Lelouch, likely an attempt to discourage shipping of this pair.
• Like Father, Like Son: Cornelia says this word for word when she first encounters C.C. and assumes she's Lelouch's mistress.
• Little "No": Rakshata's reaction to learning the Kenshiki stole the Guren.
• Logical Weakness: An obvious yet easily dismissed shortcoming in Mao's M.O.: What if the intended target's worst dirty secrets are harmless stuff like re-gifting a Christmas present or taking too much change from a coffee shop? Edith was such a case and Mao found her "boringly normal".
• Mama Bear: Charles describes Marianne as such.
  • She reacted with a pure snarl of fury to the news that Lelouch had nearly been killed by Clovis, and it was plain that, had he survived, she would have killed him herself, spirit or no.
  • She also temporarily took control of Anya at Lelouch's forced wedding just so she could glare at Abigail.
• Manipulative Bastard: While Lelouch is no surprise, he eventually realizes that Abigail hasn't been aligning the nobility towards him but herself. Thus making sure Lelouch can't dismiss her out of hand or send her back to Britannia.
• Must Make Amends: Jeremiah for framing Suzaku. In chapter 68, he redeems himself to Lelouch after shooting the man holding Euphemia hostage.
• My Fist Forgives You: Lelouch "forgives" Lukas' failure to protect his friends by punching him in the face. Notably, Lelouch already forgave him but Lukas wouldn't be able to forgive himself for it, and Lelouch is personally angrier that Lukas is insisting on being punished.
• My Greatest Failure: Lukas views Lelouch's friends being taken hostage as this. Lukas' insistence on being punished for it pisses Lelouch off to the point he punches Lukas in the face.
• Noble Bigot: Jeremiah, mainly because he is still technically a Noble but a complete and utter bigot with no sense of shame whatsoever of his past abuses. He is still kind, loyal to a fault, and honorable... so long as you are a Britannian and/or a member of the Royal Family.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: Lelouch cheats at Poker by counting cards, but he also fully expects all the other players to do this too.
• Not What It Looks Like: Lelouch shows up at Edith's door in the middle of the night and tells her he needs her to help him with something. No, not that.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Lelouch's brother-in-law is badmouthed enough to give Kallen a run for her money. Most of his hostility is focused on Abigail though.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: The police in Osaka go out of their way to be as unhelpful as possible towards Lelouch and his men, resenting him "taking over their investigation". That their investigation involves the terrorist faction he's currently trying to eliminate, that they have no way to actually counter said faction, and that Lelouch is an Imperial Prince seems to escape them.
• Official Couple: Lelouch and C.C. When the author admitted this during a post-chapter message, it brought about a mild fan backlash. Allora Gale found that to be hilarious.
• Offing the Offspring: Emperor Charles really, really doesn't like his sons and daughters, marking them as annoyances for a game he has grown tired of years ago. The only he actually felt proud and a little of empathy with is Lelouch, and well...
• Oh, Crap!: Gino's reaction when he realizes he had shot Lelouch in the back when he was testing Suzaku's aptitude as a Knightmare pilot.
  • ...aaand C.C.'s reaction when she notices that Mao is nearby.
  • The JLF leaders once they realized Lelouch's had found out where they are by delivering them the dead bodies of 9 of their members at their "secret" Narita base with a message telling them that he hoped they were really still a resistance group and not stooping to petty terrorism has shown at the hotel jacking and that he was staying his hand because he thinks that was just action of one wayward member and not the JLF as a whole.
  • A Military Police officer's reaction to realizing the "uppity Eleven" assaulting him is Lelouch's Knight of Honor.
  • Lelouch's reaction when Clovis (reluctantly) orders his death.
  • A couple rookie cops have this reaction when they realize Suzaku and Lukas heard them suggesting Suzaku is Lelouch's gay lover.
• Operation: Jealousy: An implied case. After Lelouch consumed his marriage, C.C. made obvious advances on Carson (Abigail's brother) to get a reaction out of Lelouch. She was successful on that but she betrayed her surprise when she realized that Lelouch's only concern was that C.C. could make the fifteen year old boy her new contractor and pick him over himself.
• Original Character: Many, although they are all characterized well, and are made with good reason.
• Parental Favoritism: Played in a very twisted way. As the Villain Episode shows, Lelouch's by far the Emperor's favorite child and that's the reason why he goes out of his way to mess with his life. The fact that Lelouch became C.C.'s contractor only increased said interest.
  • Charles goes so far as to tell Gino that Lelouch is his only child whose death would be completely unacceptable.
• Pet the Dog: Lelouch's birthday present to Nunnally. And in chapter 69, he visits her for the first time in months.
  • Another to Jeremiah. After he saves Euphemia from a terrorist who was holding her hostage, Lelouch tells him that he can call him by name from now on.
• Police Are Useless: The Osaka police question Lelouch's sexuality, go out of their way to be as unhelpful as possible, and one of them even tried to shoot Suzaku. All this, despite knowing that as an Imperial Prince and Viceroy of the Area, Lelouch could have them executed for not liking their names.
• Properly Paranoid: The amount of security Lelouch places on Ashford Academy, his friends, and his sisters is ridiculous. And it does its job so well that Mao, the mind reader, can't find a way around it, although he finds a way to get Lelouch's attention when he's able to abduct his wife Abigail. And the Ashford security still isn't enough, as a Kenshiki member manages to sneak a bomb in.
• Put on a Bus: The Purist Faction was disbanded and all of their members had their titles stripped by Lelouch before he shipped them off to quiet posts where they'll never make a name for themselves. Viletta was included in this, but she eventually returned as Euphie's Knight.
• Rage Breaking Point: Captain Hopkins is described "one word away from leaping over the table and attacking" Commissioner Price after learning that the police had confiscated a prototype Knightmare and kept quiet about it until it was stolen over a month later.
• Rapid-Fire Typing: During a simulation, C.C. was typing commands into the computer fast enough to easily beat Lelouch's Royal Guards. And she was doing it one-handed.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: The entire Purist Faction.
• Recursive Fanfiction: Dauntless: Side Stories by Francis D. Saber.
• Red Baron: Lelouch becomes known as the "Wolf of Britannia" with his Royal Guard occasionally referred to as the Wolf Pack. He's even adopted the wolf as his personal emblem.
• Red Herring: Lelouch designs a particularly flashy Knightmare with a crown... which one of his Royal Guards pilot while he pilots a standard model.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Kenshiki faction use civilians (or what is left to them) to scare the population to follow their demands.
  • Which is why groups/people like them get no mercy from Lelouch. Like in canon, he doesn't care who you are; you target civilians of any background, you are a target.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Kallen asks Edith whether Lelouch would find an ace pilot or a secretary more valuable. Edith calmly informs her that she knows full well that Lelouch values her more than Kallen. After all, Edith is not only a Hyper-Competent Sidekick, but also one of the only people Lelouch trusts. He keeps Kallen around because she's somewhat more useful alive; he already has several pilots as skilled or almost as skilled as her.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Lelouch when he thought the JLF had killed Euphemia. Even when he finds out she's still alive, he tells Hector, "I'll be upset if you leave any of them alive."
  • After Kusakabe's hijacking of the hotel and Kenshiki bombing of Ashford Academy, Cornelia is so angry that Lelouch is having to do so much just to not have her screw over his plans in a blind range trying to retaliate like trying to get the JLF hand over Kusakabe (who's still alive after the hotel jacking in this story although current events is making it look like he's not gonna be such for much longer) to at least turn him over to her to turn down her rage before she does something that forces Lelouch to have set back his plans.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Lelouch since becoming Viceroy of Area 11.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: The reason for Lelouch's insubordination after he was ordered to fire on an 18 convoy that had mostly refugees.
• Sexless Marriage: Lelouch and Abigail's marriage until she finally gets enough leverage on him to progress their relationship.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: How Euphemia's kidnapping ended.
• Shout-Out: Who the hell do you think Lelouch is?
• Sliding Scale of Realistic vs. Fantastic: The author has claimed to wish to keep the fic quite realistic, with many fans finding this one of its strong positive points, and has also apologized for how unrealistic Suzaku's recovery from being shot is.
• Spanner in the Works: Euphemia's presence seriously screws up Lelouch's plans for his council.
• Take That!: Sergeant Harkin repeatedly chews out Lelouch during Basic for using similar tactics to the ones he uses in canon in the Knightmare simulators, such as collapsing buildings to take out a superior force, killing the hundreds of civilians inside.
  • Chapter 88 gives one to canon when Lelouch notes that a leader with no face and barely a name would never be able to earn his subordinates' Undying Loyalty.
• They Would Cut You Up: What Clovis' scientists did to C.C. to try to learn more about her immortality. Unlike canon, being the highest Britannian authority in Area 11 allowed Lelouch to gain access to the memoirs of the "experiments". Years-worth of them.
• Too Dumb to Live: A cop tries to shoot Suzaku, arguing that "a monkey like him must be blackmailing the prince". Even if another soldier hadn't shot him, Lelouch's response would have been legendary. Furthermore, attacking a Knight of Honor is legally exactly the same as attacking the prince/princess they're sworn to.
• Tranquil Fury: For both Lelouch and Abigail, this is what happens when they're truly furious.
• Undying Loyalty: Jeremiah to Marianne and, through her, Lelouch.
  • Lelouch's personal guard to pure fanatic levels. The leader (Hector) was thoroughly pissed when Lelouch put his life in danger in Area 18 to save one of them. He was pissed at the soldier (his best friend) and flat-out tells him if that ever happens again, he would let him die. The soldier agrees.
    • His entire Royal Guard, including its mechanic, abandoned their posts and took the first flight to Japan once they heard Lelouch was shot. Unbeknownst to them, he'd already requested their transfer over a month prior so they couldn't officially get in any trouble.
  • Later, Lukas turns down an offer to become Euphemia's knight because it'd mean that he'd no longer serve under Lelouch.
  • Also Sayoko, whose loyalty to Lelouch was described as "absolute" by the mind-reader Mao despite of the fact that she is Japanese and knew about his and Nunnally's past from the beginning.
• Villain Episode: Chapter 43 has a section devoted to Charles and Marianne.
  • Charles gets another one with V.V. in chapter 57.
• We ARE Struggling Together: None, absolutely none of the Japanese terrorist groups work together in any way, fashion, or sense. They are even antagonistic to each other, almost as bad as they are against Britannia. To be fair, given the Kenshiki's standard M.O. of targeting even Japanese civilians, it's little wonder that no one wants anything to do with them. Even freedom fighter groups have standards, y'know.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Milly, Suzaku, and even Lelouch had given one to Lelouch for abandoning Nunnally and not even contacting her while in Japan, literally leaving her to "rot" in solitude. While his gift was a Pet the Dog, he is still called out in his actions.
  • Although he does justify his actions because he said that Nunnally was dead after he was forced to return to the Britannia royal family he needs to minimize any chance that she will be found through him, even if this means keeping his interactions with her to a bare minimum even at the cost of him being able to interact with her to show he still cares.
• Witch with a Capital "B": C.C. quotes this almost exactly, both to Lelouch and to Abigail.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Lelouch throws off any suspicion against him in Clovis' death by Geassing Jeremiah to shoot him in a place where the wound couldn't be self-inflicted.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Jin Nakata both expects and prepares for Lelouch to take him prisoner or kill him after their deal. He's actually surprised when Lelouch deals with him honestly, including paying for Jin's information.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In a very rare and unexpected (offscreen) display of concern, Kallen's stepmother interceded for her sake when she was arrested for terrorism... and Lelouch very easily got her to desist by promising her that he only had business with Kallen Kozuki and that Kallen Stadtfeld would be listed as one of the victims of Ashford bombing. Even a ruthless utilitarian like him was somewhat appalled by Mrs. Stadtfeld's quick and cold-hearted acquiescence.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Subverted. After solving the Code-R case and (seemingly) killing all the terrorists who knew about the "poison gas", Jeremiah fully expected for Clovis to have him killed. Instead Clovis has him resume his previous assignment after ordering him not to mention the project to anyone.
• You Killed My Brother: One of Kallen's main motivations for fighting in the resistance.

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