Code Geass: Lelouch of Britannia

Code Geass: Lelouch of Britannia by Cal Reflector is a Code Geass Fanfic, one of the best in existence. It takes place in a hypothetical Alternate Universe in which Lelouch, in his confrontation with his father after his mother's death, chose to back down and apologize, leading to him and Nunnally staying in Britannia rather than being exiled to Japan.

Seven years later, Lelouch enters the Britannian military and takes command of the 382nd Ashfordshire Regiment, leading them against the North African Federation and later the Euro Universe in a campaign strikingly similar to the North African theatre of World War Two. Much awesomeness ensues, earning Lelouch fame and prestige as the Black Prince of the Empire.

And then he takes a trip to Japan.

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

• A Father to His Men: Lelouch is this to his subordinates and to ordinary citizens (Britannian and Japanese) that he meets. The textbooks debate with each other on whether or not this was genuine or all part of a scheming personality.
• All of the Other Reindeer: Villetta was subjected to this at military academy, due to being from a lower-class background.
• Alternate Universe
• A Man Is Not a Virgin: Jeremiah endorses this trope, encouraging Kewell to lose his virginity when they were at school.
• Ascended Extra
  • Kewell was an unsympathetic minor villain summarily killed off in the first season of Code Geass. Here, he's reimagined as An Officer and a Gentleman with an amusingly combative friendship with Jeremiah, a reserved romance with Villetta, and a tearjerking Heroic Sacrifice.
    • Fix Fic
    • Rescued From the Scrappy Heap
  • So, too, is Kewell's younger sister, Marika, who, after only being mentioned in novels and appearing for all of two seconds on screen as a pilot under Luciano's command before suddenly dying by Kallen's hand, is taken from Luciano and made Lelouch's subordinate, and given character development of her own.
  • In a slightly different example, the Euro Universe Panzer Hummel is upgraded from Mecha Mook to Bigger Stick (justified by the story being set much earlier than the Curb Stomp Battle where the Lancelot pwned them in canon).
  • And, in chapter 26, Darlton, revealed to be an alternate Zero.
  • At this point its safe to say that a good portion of the cast are Ascended Extras and OC Stand Ins. On the other hand,this might change as more characters from the canon storyline show up.
• Ascended Meme: Whole heartedly embraces Jeremiah's Orange-kun nick name. His family even grows oranges.
  • And he even has a phobia of them stemming back to an unfortunate incident in his childhood (even dubbed 'citrusphobia' by doctors, according to Kewell), though he vehemently denies it. Fortunately for Jeremiah, this is the subject of friendly ribbing from his friends (notably Kewell) rather than psyche-breaking accusations of treachery.
• Awesome but Impractical: A Powered Armor project Darlton oversaw that was shelved for costing way too much and being way too complicated for practical use, with the final nail in its coffin being a showcase of the Knigtmare Frames' performance in Japan. He takes the project's fifth prototype to dole out some justice bearing the name Zero.
• Awesome Moment of Crowning: Not actual crowning, obviously, but the scene where Lelouch is honoured by Emperor Charles before the Britannian court qualifies in every other way, as does the Roman-style triumph beforehand.
• Badass Army: The (Britannian) Black Knights.
• Bash Brothers: Jeremiah and Kewell, with a healthy dose of Vitriolic Best Buds. It's in clear display during the prison raid.
• Bathe Her and Bring Her to Me: The beginning of chapter 23.
• BFG: "Any weapon that operates on the basic principle of a big powerful gun must be of some worth."
  • Chapter 26 has Zero wield an AA gun.
• Bifauxnen: One of Villetta's classmates teased her about being this due to wearing her dress uniform for formal occasions.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Black Knights are this to a supply company in Ch. 9.
• Bigger Stick: The Panzer Hummel is this to the Britannian Knightmares.
• Boring but Practical: Lelouch's approach to combating enemy Knightmare forces with his undersupplied unit: Cool Tanks and lots of antitank missile launchers.
• Brother-Sister Incest: At least one reviewer's eyebrows were raised by Lelouch and Cornelia sharing a bed... but it seems to be entirely innocent.
  • Nonette teasingly suggests that Cornelia give Lelouch "hands-on" lessons on the facts of life in chapter 17; Cornelia nearly has an aneurism just thinking about it. Definitely innocent.
    • Alternatively, the comment hit too close to home for comfort...
• Bulletproof Human Shield: Averted. Zero explicitly tells Lieutenant Kirkham that when attempting to invoke this trope, you should pick a fat guy (More mass to slow the bullets).
• Cement Shoes: How Darlton planned to dispose of Lieutenant Kirkham, as a form of poetic justice due to how he had children stuffed into a container and ordered the container disposed into the sea. Ultimately though, it is Lelouch who sends Kirkham to his watery grave.
• Christmas Episode
• Colonel Badass: Lelouch and Jeremiah.
• Contrived Coincidence: The circumstances which cause Suzaku to pilot the Lancelot. See The Stations of the Canon.
  • See also Crowning Moment of Funny, though, so it's not all bad.
• Cool Tank: The Longbows.

"When these Challenger III Longbows debuted, they were the fastest, most powerful fighting vehicles on the planet, combining artillery and main battle tank into one platform, with a 140mm rail gun firing 15 rounds per minute up to 100 kilometers. They only built a handful before we invaded Area Eleven, and after that… well, no one was really interested in tanks after that. Production stopped and the finished pieces were placed into storage."

• Cure Your Gays: Yeah, apparently, Nina's in love with Lelouch now.
  • Although to be fair, the original always had a distinct Single-Target Sexuality vibe to it. Nina may well just be Bi the Way.
• Dead Fic: The update schedule was always atrocious, as the author entered law school and then got a job in Taiwan. The last update was in July, 2010, although the last chapter does have the author mention he'd like to submit the story to Sunrise.
  • As of 10/8/2011, there's a new chapter.
• Did Not Do the Research: The earlier chapters displayed a slight lack of knowledge of the use of British aristocratic titles that some reviewers picked up upon. Corrected for later chapters.
• Falling Into the Cockpit: Suzaku gets recruited as the pilot of the Lancelot...after Lloyd hits him with his car.
• False-Flag Operation: Played with: Lelouch has Jeremiah steal supplies from his jealous superiors using captured Panzer Hummels, who are then "driven off" by Black Knights reinforcements.
• Fictional Document: Every chapter opens with an excerpt from one or more of these, ranging from personal memoirs, to news stories, to history texts, to theatre, to naughty romance novels (see Crowning Moment of Funny).
• Foregone Conclusion: To a point. Many of the Fictional Documents are from decades in the future, and show that Lelouch (as the Black Prince) is both considered historically relevant and a inspiration for fiction. They also suggest that a lot of the things that went on "behind the scenes" in the present have become public knowledge. (For example, the trashy romance novel actually implies that in the future, everyone knows about Kallen's terrorist/rebellion activities). On the other hand, they give the implication that Lelouch is not alive when those documents were written, with the earliest future document being from 2026. It is of course possible that we are only supposed to think that.
• For Want of a Nail: The entire premise of the fic. Chapter 27 seems to hint that the divergence occurs at least slightly before Lelouch's Calling the Old Man Out moment, since Lelouch has a dream-flashback to just before he discovered his mother's body where Charles uses his Geass on him, which didn't happen in the canon; though what the effects of this were exactly has yet to be established.
• Freudian Excuse: Chapter 23 implied Nina's racism stems from her getting raped.
• Genre Shift: When the story moves to Japan, there are a lot more romantic and comedic elements compared to the more military-focused plot of the earlier chapters.
• Gratuitous French: Justified, since it's spoken by a pair of Swiss mercenaries hired to kill Lelouch.
• Gratuitous German: The title of Chapter XV. Ironic when you think about it, given that they're fighting the Germans...
• Guns Akimbo: Used with machine guns in Ch.26 to invoke More Dakka.
• Her Heart Will Go On: Villetta after Kewell's death.
• Human Shield: Attempted. Fails MASSIVELY in the face of Zero's More Dakka.

"Lesson 3: When using a human shield, grab a fat guy."

• In Spite of a Nail: Some things just refuse to change. The Black Knights still exist as a frighteningly effective fighting force (albeit on the other side), Suzaku is still due to become the Lancelot's pilot, Diethard is still obsessed with following Lelouch's story and Lelouch still can't beat Schniezel at chess.
• Knight Templar Big Sister: When Lelouch's is presumed missing or dead after his transportation is shot down, Cornelia launches a sudden attack that has diplomatic reprecussions. She is then seen torturing a prisoner to get information on Lelouch's possible whereabouts...when it's clear the prisoner knows nothing. The whole time she's in a Tranquil Fury.
  • It's also later explicitly said in her internal monologue that she would've gone as far as all-out invading the EU if Lelouch hadn't turned up when he did (which is what happens anyway thanks to the diplomatic repercussions mentioned above, but the implication is she'd have gone about it a lot faster and with a lot more fury).
• More Dakka: See BFG above.
• Mythology Gag
  • Lelouch's Awesome Moment of Not-Quite-Crowning (see above) is very reminiscent of Suzaku's knighting ceremony in the original series, particularly when one person known to be close to the recipient of the honours (Lloyd in the original, Cornelia here) begins clapping alone in the crowd of hostile nobles, then another person less close to them and with wide general respect joins in (Darlton/Schneizel), which finally precipitates general applause.
  • In the original, Lelouch/Zero made a point of turning to stare directly into the camera carried by Diethard when he announced his name to be Zero. Darlton, this universe's Zero (so far, at least), does the exact same thing, albeit in very different circumstances.
  • The Power Armor Zero uses in chapter 26 has a heavily-muscled frame and an overall design scheme similar to MasterAsia!Zero.
• Noodle Incident

Shirley: "I wonder what it'd be like if all the Emperor's wives and children lived together." Lelouch: "They tried that once. Didn't work out."

• Not What It Looks Like: Subverted and then inverted - Lelouch lets his subordinates think that his lying naked on the floor of a bathroom with a soaking wet Kallen on top of him is exactly what it looks like, in order to protect her reputation.
• OC Stand In: Several. The two that come to mind are Darlton's adopted son Claudio, and Kewell's sister Marika, but many other characters overlooked by canon have expanded roles. Even established characters are given more history and backstory. The fanfic is better for it.

"Milner is not an original character, just a name I came up with for the leader of Clovis' elite guards who Lelouch commands to die at the end of episode one".

• Papa Wolf: You kill children and Darlton will fuck you up.
• Prolonged Prologue: Lelouch only enters Japan in the twentieth chapter. But Tropes Are Not Bad.
• Real Person Fic: In-story example - Lelouch finds some of this on the internet, pairing him with his subordinates or his half-siblings. The world should be thankful that he apparently hasn't found any Lelouch/Nunnally fics (which exist in real life).
  • Given that in the picture dramas from the anime its revealed that Nunnally actually did want to marry Lelouch when she was a child and that it apparently wasn't unheard of for royalty to marry within their own family in the Code Geass universe given that Euphemia at one point had a thing for Lelouch as well, and that Lelouch hinted it was at one point reciprocated'..... this probably wouldn't be as upsetting to him as we might think. Suzaku even comments on Lelouch having a sister complex when he sees Nunnally bound and gagged in a picture sent to Lelouch by Mao before Lelouch actually tells him what the real score is....
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Ironically, Clovis seems to come off as this for Area Eleven. The rest of the imperial family members related to Lelouch (and Lelouch himself) are also seen this way.
  • Certainly justified in the case of Clovis. His two big problems in the original, after all, were that he was overly cruel to the Elevens and not smart enough to match Zero. The latter is hardly saying much, given what Zero is, whilst the former was in fact due to Lelouch and Nunnally's 'deaths' when Japan fell to Britannia. Which, obviously, didn't happen in this continuity.
• Rescue Romance: Nina seemingly falls for Lelouch after he saves her and Shirley from muggers, in a mirror of her rescue by Euphemia in canon.
• Rousing Speech
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: In spades. While there are plenty of nobles who fail to get much done, Lelouch and his closer family members in office are damned capable leaders. Even Clovis is shown to be able to do his job effectively (not that he won't turn to Lelouch for some help here and there).
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money: Lieutenant Kirkham attempts this in Chapter 26. It doesn't pan out.
• Serious Business: In Chapter 27, Milly posts a notice describing in great detail the "pizza thief's" crimes, the penalties involved, and the fact she hired a private detective (or drafted Lelouch) into finding the culprit. Stealing pizza under Milly's watch is apparently Serious Business.
• Ship Tease: There has been a lot of hinting around Lelouch/Milly and Lelouch/Kallen. Chapter 20, in which Milly kisses Lelouch, even closes with a joking "It's been a long journey: Thank you all for reading Lelouch of Britannia. Please look forward to my next work.".
  • Milly also quite unsubtly (if you're anyone but Lelouch, that is) implies that she'd quite like to marry him some day.
• Shotacon: A Somali pirate leader's moll hits on Rolo.
  • Several 40-something women hit on Lelouch repeatedly.
• Shout-Out: Various.
  • The Black Knights here are an obvious Shout-Out to Lelouch's followers from canon, only here they're on the opposite side.
  • As noted above, many parallels can be drawn between the battles in North Africa and World War Two, including:
    • A relatively small, under-supplied British/Britannian force defeating seemingly vastly superior enemy forces.
    • The German military being regarded as much more effective than the Italians.
    • The Black Knights taking so many prisoners that they had to divert a lot of their forces just to guard them (as happened during the first British offensive against the Italians in Real Life).
    • The climactic battle even takes place at El Alamein.
    • A Siege of Tobruk, albeit one which succeeded (With the Europeans playing the part of the Australian defenders and the Brittanians as the besieging Germans).
  • Somali Pirates.
  • Several allusions to the story of Faust.
    • Isn't it more the Pilgrims Progress?
  • Chapter 20 mentions the New Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, led by conductor Shinichi Chiaki
  • One of the guests at Clovis' party is San Francisco 49ers quarterback Shin Seijuro.
  • Kallen's ambushing Lelouch in the shower in chapter 24 harks back to a well-known scene in episode 3 of the first season, albeit with a Gender Flip.
  • The Zero battlesuit used in Chapter 26 has a number of features - radar in the helmet, slash harken grappling hooks, cape that stiffens to become a glider - evocative of a certain movie series featuring a Crazy Prepared hero.
    • Hell, the whole chapter 26 is a shout out to The Dark Knight.
  • In the Black Knights' first action against the North African League, they are raiding a prison to rescue Britannian soldiers. Jeremiah yells at a soldier just freed, "On your feet, soldier; we are leaving!"
  • Diethard's co-anchor is named Diane.
    • Diethard survives the events of the fic and by around 2040 is hosting Sixty Minutes
  • One of Clovis' favorite quotes is "with great mojo comes great responsibility"
  • The Daily Show with Jim Stewart makes an appearance in one pre-chapter excerpt, making fun of the media frenzy over Lelouch's departure from the public eye.
  • See if this sounds familiar: a pair of young military officers, involved in a campaign in a desert region, the one more comfortable with a desk job, the other determined to remain in frontline service. Despite the former's disposition, he ends up dying in a heroic sacrifice, showing outstanding valour; he is given a full military burial and posthumously promoted three ranks, ironically finally surpassing his friend, as was a long-standing ambition of his. Oh, and his death is one of the most emotional moments in the series. Kewell with Jeremiah, or Maes Hughes with Roy Mustang? Bonus points for being another Red Oni, Blue Oni pairing, although several of the traits are swapped around.
  • Sawasaki's return to Japan is evocative of General Douglas Mac Arthur's return to the Phillipines during WW 2.
• Spot of Tea: In keeping with the general Britishness of the fic's tone.
• Squee: Lelouch's celebrity status after North Africa is such that upon his triumphal parade in the capital, he induces a mass Squee among the women of Pendragon.

"That day, the young women of Pendragon died many happy deaths."

• Stalker with a Crush: Lelouch mistakes Kallen for one of these
  • Played straight with Lelouch's reminiscences about some of his more 'dedicated' fangirls in the past, which is why he actually comes to the conclusion he does about Kallen (that, and he's a bit of a naïve idiot when it comes to women in this fic, presumably because unlike in the canon he's been privately educated as an Imperial Prince rather than attending a posh yet otherwise normal high school).
• The Stations of the Canon: Seems to be played with. Word of God has stated that Lelouch in this fic arrives in Japan at about the same time as the actual series begins (thus potentially setting him up to encounter C.C.), while Suzaku still manages Falling Into the Cockpit of the Super Prototype, albeit in different fashion. However, the ramifications of these events may prove to have a different result.
• The Strategist: Lelouch, naturally. It aggravates his rivals in the Imperial family a lot. To the point that they would give the information of his whereabouts to the EU just to get rid of him.
• Tsundere: Kallen, even more so than in canon, since she's caught between hatred of smug Brittanian royalty, grudging respect for him, and the uncomfortable fact that he's really, really hot.
• Vigilante Execution by a Vigilante Man: Darlton became Zero in order to punish Lieutenant Kirkham who was not found guilty of killing Japanese children as part of a coverup of his slave trade activities. While Darlton did kill the platoon that served with the noble in a Curb Stomp Battle, it is Lelouch that has the Complete Monster sleeping with the fishes.
• What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?: Lelouch uses his strategic genius... to help the Army beat the Navy at football. And make lots of money betting on it.
• What If: This is the fic's basic premise, of simply what if Lelouch remained a royal.
• Wild Teen Party: Jeremiah reminisces about one of these after Kewell dies, even noting that it was "just like the movies".
• You Are Not Alone: As an indication of how different the timeline is compared to canon, Cornelia and Euphemia are there to comfort Lelouch after Marianne's funeral. As time passes, we also see that Schneizel, Clovis and Cornelia's generals (who may as well be family) are solidly with Lelouch and actively help him whenever they can.
  • And he seems to be returning the favor.