"... You expect me to believe any of this drivel?"
Nah, not really. Worth a try, tho.
"I admit, I'm in a diminished form right now. I would love to show you my full glory, but I lack the materials and I'm currently too weak to support it."
Instead of making up a complete bullshit story whole-cloth, I told them the truth. Well, part of the truth.
I am the agent of a powerful entity that has taken an interest in this world. My creator hasn't fully explained what my purpose here is, so I have been left to choose my own actions. I am not human, but rather the personification of a self-aware warship. There is an entire fleet of others like me, but they and my creator are occupied with a protracted blockade on another world.
Of course, he found this ridiculous.
"Living alien warships? That create human avatars to represent them?" Lelouch asks.
"I only appear human because that is the sapient species which I would make contact with on this planet. If I'd been sent to a world populated by intelligent squid-like animals, I would look like those. Honestly, given our shared aquatic nature I would probably enjoy their form more than I would that of bipedal land-bound primates. No offense."
Kallen is sitting on the top of the stairs to the upper deck of this bus, staring at Lelouch with a still pretty confused and stunned face. She's been like that since Lelouch took off the Zero helmet. I figure her worldview is a little scrambled right now, but she'll get over it. I mean... she eventually got over learning Lelouch was Zero in the original timeline, didn't she?
C.C. actually looks... bemused. Like she's not sure whether to find this funny or disturbing. She's what, a thousand years old? This has to be the most interesting thing that's happened on her watch in centuries.
"Hahahahaha! This sounds preposterous! What could this powerful being you serve find so interesting about our world?"
"You would have to ask the Admiralty Code yourself. I wasn't exactly given specific instructions when she left me here."
C.C.'s eyes visibly widened at the word "code". That stands out as odd to me. I don't remember what the "Code" in Code Geass was supposed to stand for, but apparently it's something relevant to C.C.
"What proof do you have for this?"
Hmm... without my ship, what can I prove? I guess there's only one thing I can clearly demonstrate to him.
"Well, there is one thing."
I thrust a hand forward and my Klein Field reaches out to grab Lelouch's gun. It flies out of its holster and into my hand. Kallen seems to get her wits about her and start rushing down the stairs as I raise the gun. C.C. rushes to put herself between me and Lelouch.
And then they all freeze when I put the gun to my own neck and shoot myself.
I suppose many people would be surprised to learn that the mental model is not typically superhumanly durable. It can be, but most of the time it isn't. For example, I recall when Haruna and Kirishima were flung several miles by their exploding ships. In order to survive the impact, Haruna converted her clothes into a crumple zone. (yay, fanservice) Such a blow would have likely damaged her and Kirishima's cores had she not done that.
It's assumed one would be protected by her ship. What's the point of your mental model being Superman if it's not even supposed to be in direct combat on its own?
In my case, my mental model isn't especially hardened for battle because my core just isn't powerful enough.
Thus, a simple handgun bullet penetrates the side of my neck and buries itself somewhere in my throat.
This is actually very painful. Scratch that, insanely painful. Why the hell did I do this?! Mother fucking [screams internally].
Just run that program for a few seconds to drown out the stupid. Keep calm. The bullet will just break down inside me in a few seconds, the wound will close, and it will be like nothing happened.
The hole in my neck is a void of black. The skin surrounding glows with a white honeycomb as my nanomaterials are rearranged to fill in the wound. The patch of hexagons shrinks as the hole does, until the both fade.
"I think I've adequately demonstrated my obvious lack of a human species membership card. Do I need to physically rip out my core and show it to you, or is this enough?"
Don't visibly freak out. Don't visibly freak out. Don't- ah fuck it.
[screaming internally]
Why?! Why was I programmed to FEEL PAIN?!
