"They moved us again?" Villetta Nu questioned in disbelief.
"No one wants to deal with us." Jeremiah Gottwald replied morosely as he looked out the window of his... much smaller office.
"I suspect within the hour I'll get another order telling me that absolutely no one will deploy alongside us and we'll be relegated to the ass-end of nowhere... or thrown at a suicidal position. Either way, the paperwork is only multiplying." he said, gazing forlornly at the pile of forms he had yet to fill on his desk and thinking of all the calls he would have to drudge through.
"With respect, sir..." Villetta began, curling her nose at a foul stench. "Inhaling lethal chemicals isn't helping matters."
"It certainly isn't hurting." Jeremiah responded as he took another drag of his cigarette. He'd stopped smoking years ago. With his career nosediving, he didn't think indulging the old vice could make things any worse in the short term.
"Believe me, I need it. The last 4 days..." he said, rubbing his eyes to relieve some of his fatigue and stress.
In typical fashion, military logistics was a horror show. They'd been delivered the wrong set of parts for their Sutherlands and had to ship them back. There was a crate of 7 year old clamps for the arm attachments a bloody Glasgow, for God's sake! The manufacturer that produced them didn't even exist anymore!
Then a software update for the stabilizer shipped with a bug, causing Knightmares to topple over without any warning during training when the Land Spinners were run at a specific speed under a specific RPM at a certain incline. This wasn't isolated to just The Purist Faction's Knightmares, which could be considered a small mercy.
Making matters worse, all the experienced technical specialists had been moved to other units, leaving Jeremiah's platoon with a bunch of trainees who couldn't find their own asses with a map, compass and spool of twine leading them. If they were ready by the time orders to mobilize came, it would be a miracle.
His authority was reduced to a mere platoon of soldiers that now questioned his loyalty, and an army that took every opportunity to make his life hell.
Jeremiah's shame was deep and his desperation to clear it only grew by the day. Thanks to Zero and now Morgan, he would never be able to honor Villetta Nu's service under his command with a title of nobility that would be passed to her descendants. His disgrace would leave her future children to live as commoners. Not only that, the morale of all the Purists was in shambles to the point they had even tried to assassinate him! Kewell Soresi was now just as much a threat to Jeremiah as the thrice damned Elevens!
Zero ruined him and his entire unit for the sake of a worthless Honorary! An Honorary that had subsequently seen unparalleled success, no less! Everywhere Jeremiah failed, the trash Eleven succeeded with his advanced machine! Such technology was wasted, WASTED on filth like that! A real, native born Britannian deserved the prestige of piloting that Knightmare!
"Just hope that whatever you're about to give me won't permanently bring back this damned addiction."
Villetta winced before she hesitantly handed him a folder that was quickly snatched and torn open. Jeremiah barely took a second to look at the photo attached to the first page before he nearly dropped his smoke. He quickly collected himself and hid his surprise, turning to the window so that Villetta couldn't see his face.
'No, how could this... Is it him? He would be that age now... Yes, it has to be him! He's the spitting image of his mother! He even used her maiden name!' Jeremiah thought, long-buried emotions resurfacing. 'He's been alive all along. Marianne's son...'
Jeremiah's eyes lost focus as he recalled the memories of that young boy years ago. He was the son of a woman whom Jeremiah Gottwald respected and admired more than anyone else. Her children had been of the utmost importance to him; a precious legacy of his idol. With her tragic death, protecting them became his greatest desire.
A desire that seemed doomed to fail from the beginning.
They were traded off to the Japs and soon lost in the fires of war; widely thought murdered by their captors. Jeremiah had been crushed, his spirit broken. He grew to hate the Japanese in particular, joining the Purists and forming a significant following in Area 11 specifically to get revenge on the nation that took away the legacy of Marianne.
"How much did you learn about this young man? How much evidence do you have?" he asked, flipping through the folder.
"I'm... sorry to report that I could find no concrete evidence either for or against Lelouch Lamperouge's involvement with the Black Knights. He has habitually skipped classes since his early teens, taking part in all sorts of high stakes gambling."
"Which would mean he's not recently done anything out of the ordinary for him."
"There's also been reports of Zero taking part in the Black Knights' normal operations at the same times Lamperouge was actually in class. However, it doesn't rule out the possibility of Zero in fact being a persona assumed by multiple individuals."
"Of course that isn't likely to hold up in court, not against a native Britannian citizen... Thank you. That will be all." Jeremiah said as he made to put out the last of the cigarette, only to remember that he hadn't owned an ashtray for years. He opened the window and rubbed it out on the ledge before tossing it. "I will need some time to consider what to do next."
"Very well, sir."
Villetta exited after they exchanged salutes, a good deal of training with the platoon ahead of her. The former leader of Area 11's Purists sat back down and returned to the work of attacking paper with a pen.
Left alone with only paperwork to take up his concentration, Jeremiah's thoughts couldn't help but fixate on this revelation.
To think, the beloved son of Marianne could be... NO! No, that... that was not acceptable! He couldn't... Not her son. There was just no way.
Not Lady Marianne's boy...
