The Princess decided to test out her ability. Marcus gave her a suggestion: to run a simulation in one of the spheres.
"This is how you develop your machine." The Inventor Prince explained to his older sister.
"The more you spend time in it, the more data my artificial intelligence gets. With more data, the more personalised the machine will be." He explained to her.
"I understand. All I need to do is pilot a Knightmare inside this sphere." She concluded.
"..." Marcus didn't respond as he looked at his simulation sphere.
"Lelouch?"
"R-Right." He closed his Geass eye and shook his head." My power, I am still figuring out." He waved his hand motion so she would not worry.
"All you need to do inside is pilot a Bedrock model of my KK-units. The more you do, the more my Legion adjust and eventually makes a blueprint model of your suit.
Once we get that, we can start designing according to it."
"I see. Then I shall test my Geass inside of it." With that said, the Princess got inside of it, and the cockpit sealed behind.
"Prince Lelouch, what is going on?" Cornelia's knight asked. He was a bit concerned about that glowing eye the princess got.
"You should ask your Princess, Guilford. She will explain things the way she wants.
All you need to know is that we shall fight on the same side." He smiled at him while saying that.
"...So… Princess has joined your faction."
"Pretty much. She will explain in her words." Marcus nodded as they looked at the holograms.
Cornelia quickly got the idea of how the machine works. She did that extremely quickly before laying waste to Sutherland Knightmares.
"Destroying my own machines is not what I find funny, Lelouch." The 2nd Princess complained as she began to move… like she was predicting their moves and attacking before they did!
"..."
Marcus looked surprised. Even when there are that many Sutherlands, she is capable of dodging all of the bullets thanks to Lugh's heightened performance.
"Princess never moved like that." Her Knight was impressed by that as well.
"She has Absolute Battle Instincts," C.C. said from beside Marcus. She saw a similar Geass before in her long life.
"A very fitting Geass, you got lucky." The witch said to him. Marcus looked at her; he noticed she was oddly close to him.
"Yeah…" The Prince replied as he looked at the fight with his Geass eye.
'I can see their moves before they move, even the moves that they could do.
There are also future possible paths.
The more complex the item, structure or person, the easier it is for me to understand its progression sequence.'
Marcus slowly realised that, to be sure, he summoned a holographic window and typed a single letter.
The moment he looked at a single letter, he felt like throwing up as his head began to hurt!
He quickly closed his Geass Eye.
'Fuck! It hurts!' The Inventor Prince felt like someone had cracked open his skull!
To confirm this, he quickly coded a simple calculator and examined it.
When he looked at the simple program, he saw the beginning and possible progression of this program!
But he then looked deeper, and it became more complex: a simple calculator program evolved into a computer OS and even AI.
Since he had done that before several times, it was extremely easy for him to understand and comprehend what he was looking at.
'The basis of this is my mind.'
"Are you okay?" C.C. hugged his hand and looked closer at him.
"I think I know what my Geass is." He replied to her.
"Do tell. The more complex the person, the more specific Geass can be." She explained as her golden eyes were looking at him.
"...My Geass is orderly sequences, my logical mind comprehends everything in sequences."
"...Oh my. Isn't that just perfect for your technology development?" The witch looked surprised.
'I think it's more than that.' Marcus looked back at his calculator program and focused harder and looking past the sequences he understood.
What he saw made his head start hurting because it was like gazing at infinity itself.
He gnashed his teeth for a second before closing his eye.
"Don't push yourself. Geass grows in strength the more it is used. Yours is particularly strong. You can't even turn it off." She sounded worried.
"I know. I am going to train it." He replied, making her slowly nod. Though that worried look didn't disappear.
'But first, my guests have to leave.' Marcus thought to himself. He can start his training session after he satisfies his dearest older sister.
~~~~~~After Practise~~~~~~
"We need a plan or a course of action. Something to work towards." Cornelia said to Marcus as they were sitting at a table. Her two followers were with her. By this point, she was satisfied with her new power, so her regular eye had returned. She could turn it off!
When Marcus saw it, he was jealous!
"I know, I already have a plan." With a hand motion world's map appeared on a hologram.
"According to C.C., to start Dad's Ragnarok Connection, he needs most of these temples under his control."
The map got dotted with them, and a considerable number were under Britannian control; these were marked by the witch.
"To halt this, we will use our superior machines." He pointed at his KK-units with a thumb.
"We shall level them to the ground." Marcus dropped what he would do.
Cornelia nodded; it was exactly what she was thinking.
"Once he can't do his grand plan. He will retaliate; I expect mobilisation to destroy my machines. It's where we declare rebellion.
I shall bait him with my KK units. Once we destroy the bulk of the Britannian forces, the Empire will fracture due to internal strife, thanks to its enormous size.
Once that happens, you will start your conquest." She nodded, understanding the basic idea.
"Ragnarok Connection has been Charles' plan for decades. He won't be happy with all that failure." C.C. said from her seat.
"You should expect unreasonable behaviour." She warned them.
"That's why I created my Mobile Suits. Their technology is something they have no means to deal with," Marcus replied as he looked back at her. The witch shrugged at him.
"It's a simple warning, expect the unexpected, who knows how he will respond. Maybe he will want to burn the whole world. No one knows his response to the failure of the Ragnarok Connection."
C.C.'s casual comment about burning the whole Earth made Cornelia and her followers look nerviously. Marcus furrowed his eyebrow as one of his eyes was closed.
He does remember the anime and the fury of the royals. They all have Charles' genes. That means the Emperor's no different from his children.
"...we might have a technological advantage, but… we are severely lacking the numbers." Cornelia swiftly recovered from the thought of her father doing something reckless on a massive scale.
"I know. That is why I have been developing a mass production unit." The prince replied as he motioned at the light-pink-haired girl who was waiting for them at the side.
"Anna, show us what you've been working on."
The Princess and her followers immediately knew who this girl was. She was the head of the wZERO development program for the seventh-generation Knightmares!
"Yes. Please, pay attention to the hologram screen."
The hologram shifted into a humanoid knight-like mobile suit. It looked like a human wearing medieval armour.
"This is KKS-01 Setanta. A mobile suit with the intention of being mass-produced. While it doesn't have ridiculous specs like KK units, it can be rapidly produced.
I designed it with modular parts in mind. Similar to Knightmares, its joints can be replaced swiftly.
It incorporates all of Anaheim's technologies, albeit in a less extreme form, without ion thrusters or nano-metal. Instead, I designed it using a titanium-carbon alloy that can withstand physical bullets with minimal damage.
It features a state-of-the-art 360-degree panoramic cockpit, Anaheim's renowned robotics joints, and is powered by a new Lithium Sakuradite energy filler.
By initial calculations, this mobile suit is around five times stronger than any current Knightmare in military use.
Except whatever prototypes nations are building." The girl gave a rundown on the new mass-produced machine.
"..." Cornelia looked at the mech for a couple of moments before looking at her brother.
"I want those. You can forget the 40 Sutherlands you owe me. I want these instead." She borderline demanted before looking at Anna.
"Anna Clement. I request commander unit models for my commanders."
"...Umm… Okay." She looked at Marcus, as if confirming with him.
He nodded at her, telling her that it's fine with him.
"We shouldn't hurry. Cornelia, for now, we play the waiting game. To build an army, we need resources.
My refineries are coming online as we speak. Once they are functioning, I will be bringing raw materials from space."
"...Space?" The Princess was surprised! Isn't it faster to mine on Earth?
"Yes. My Plane is designed for material gathering, and the asteroid belt is full of raw materials in a single place.
It's faster to bring them to the refineries than mine from ground or refine from scrap."
The thing was, his scrapyards are slowing down. All the junk metal from war has started to dry up.
That is why he is switching to a different model. He will buy metals from Britannia to keep Anaheim's front company running, while behind the scenes, he will be bringing raw materials from space to feed his refineries.
Once his factories are running, he will have an army in no time.
Then, he will only need decent pilots. But that's not a priority, as he could switch to drone versions; with them, he could even out the odds.
"Interesting, so you reached that point. I assume you could do strikes from orbit?"
When Cornelia mentioned that, the glasses-girl next to Marcus paled for a second. She recalled Marcus telling specifically just that!
"Do you want to? Orbital strikes are not the cleanest means of attack.
From craters to dust clouding the sky, those kinds of things can happen." He didn't deny that he could organise an orbital bombardment.
"Yes, I understand that, but worst-case scenario, we must have means to erase in case father does something utterly reckless." Cornelia is not giving any chances after she learned that their father, the Emperor, wants to end the world! Just thinking about that makes her tremble with anger; she wants to pull out her musket and shoot it right into his mad face!
"In that case, I will make something just to make you have peace of mind."
The 2nd Princess sighed in relief. She felt a bit relieved that they would have some sort of trump card!
Only Anna was worried; while she didn't know all the details, it sounded like there was something major about to be decided!
"Good. Then it is decided. The next part is communications. I doubt Father is in the dark about what is going on here. "
"Oh, he does know. But he is using more supernatural means. For example, he can speak with the dead. Though I made sure Clovis was too traumatised to say anything." C.C. chipped in, making sure no one was aware of what had happened there.
Cornelia looked at her with a bit of anger.
C.C. didn't say anything else about Clovis as she switched to the said means.
"He interacts with the C world. Or as you say, afterlife, the Collective Consciousness through the Thought Elevator underneath the Imperial Palace in the Pendragon."
"Thought Elevators are the temples we discussed." She clarified to the ignorant. Though there are still more of them… for example, Anna… who is clueless about the supernatural.
Marcus looked at her, smiling a bit.
"Don't worry, I will explain everything to you." He whispered as he stroked her back.
The girl blushed when she felt his hand on her back.
"O-Okay." She nodded with a small but very happy smile. The girl was extremely weak to his advances…