The stifling air of the Zeon military academy mess hall crackled with resentment. Every head turned as Lieutenant General Zabi's aide, a stiff, humorless man in a pristine uniform, read the announcement. Cadets, fueled by lukewarm rations and simmering ambition, listened with grim faces. But when the aide reached the core of the message, a collective gasp, followed by mutters thick with outrage, swept through the room.
"By direct invitation from Lieutenant General Dozle Zabi, endorsed and arranged by Lieutenant Selene von Zehrtfeld of the Military Development Corps, Cadets Lelouch and Tanya von Zehrtfeld are to attend the upcoming live-fire demonstration at Granada Base on the Moon. Transportation and itinerary will be provided. Dismissed."
The aide pivoted sharply and exited, leaving behind a maelstrom of bewildered anger. Eyes, sharp and accusatory, fixed like bayonet points on the two figures seated slightly apart from the general throng: Lelouch and Tanya von Zehrtfeld. Twins. Known less for their time in the cockpit – though their sim scores were bafflingly high – and more for their disconcerting intellect and an unnerving calm that bordered on arrogance.
"The von Zehrtfelds?" a burly cadet sneered, loud enough for them to hear. "Why them? What, are they too good for regular drills now? Getting special treatment from the Big Man himself?"
"Probably some political stunt," another whispered, though the whispers carried easily in the charged silence. "Their family's connected, everyone knows that. Just gifted a spot."
Lelouch, his dark eyes scanning the room with detached observation, felt the familiar prickle of envy and suspicion. He remained outwardly impassive, a hand resting lightly on the table. Tanya, however, didn't bother with such niceties. Her blue eyes, sharp and cold, met the glares head-on, a flicker of something dangerous in their depths that made the bolder cadets look away.
They finished their miserable meal in silence, the unspoken tension heavier than the gravity onboard the orbiting academy. As soon as they were back in their shared, Spartan quarters, the pretense dropped.
"Granada. Dozle Zabi. Live-fire demonstration," Lelouch enumerated, his voice low, devoid of emotion. He pulled up schematic diagrams of the lunar base on a small data-pad. "This isn't an honor, Tanya."
Tanya was already packing a small bag, selecting not parade dress, but practical, dark clothing and a compact survival kit. "Obviously not. Dozle Zabi doesn't host tea parties. And he certainly doesn't invite junior cadets to watch expensive ordnance displays out of the goodness of his heart."
"Exactly," Lelouch agreed, pacing the small room. "He's a brute, yes, but not a fool. He rules Granada with an iron fist and trusts almost no one outside his immediate circle. An invitation to us, relative unknowns from a peripheral cadet branch, smells less of favor and more of… scrutiny."
"A test," Tanya finished, zipping her bag. "Or a trap. Or both. Throw us into a chaotic environment, outside our usual parameters – the controlled simulations, the predictable academy drills – and see if we break. Or how we adapt."
Lelouch stopped pacing, his gaze distant. "Granada is his domain. The 'live fire' part… it could be genuine demonstration, or it could be a pretext for something else entirely. A staged incident. A sudden 'emergency'. Something designed to put us under extreme pressure, observed by his people."
"Into the lion's den," Tanya murmured, a faint, almost predatory smile touching her lips. Unlike the hesitant faces of their fellow cadets, the prospect seemed to sharpen her focus. "Good. I was getting bored with simulating textbook scenarios."
They spent the next few hours preparing, not by poring over the technical specifications of the latest Zakus, but by studying Dozle Zabi's known habits, the psychological profiles of his inner circle, and the layout of the sprawling Granada base – entry points, maintenance tunnels, power conduits, potential blind spots. Lelouch focused on strategic implications and contingency planning; Tanya on immediate tactical responses and threat assessment. Their synergy was seamless, born of a shared history and an almost telepathic understanding. They knew how the other thought, how they would react, compensating for each other's blind spots.
The journey to Granada was swift and silent, conducted aboard a military transport that offered zero amenities and even less privacy. They arrived to the oppressive, utilitarian architecture of the lunar base, the air thick with the smell of ozone and propellant. Dozle Zabi himself was not at the transit hub, but his representative, a stern officer with a perpetually furrowed brow, met them.
"Cadets von Zehrtfeld," the officer barked, not offering a hand. "Welcome to Granada. Lieutenant General Zabi expects punctuality and competence. You will be escorted to the observation post. Stay put, stay silent, and keep your hands where we can see them."
They were led through sterile corridors, past armed guards who eyed them with open suspicion, to a reinforced observation bunker overlooking a vast, rocky plain dotted with hardened targets and defensive emplacements. High above, the distant Earth hung like a pale blue ornament. A handful of other officers were present, all senior to them, none bothering to acknowledge their arrival beyond curt nods. They were anomalies, intrusions.
The demonstration began. Mobile suits, powerful and imposing, moved with brutal efficiency, tearing apart mock fortifications with beam weapons and artillery. The ground shuddered with each blast. It was loud, terrifyingly real, a stark contrast to the academy's simulations. Lelouch watched the patterns of attack, analyzing the mobile suit movements and coordination, while Tanya's gaze swept the entire panorama, assessing lines of sight, potential cover, and the reaction time of the defending emplacements.
Then, without warning, the programmed sequence deviated. Sirens wailed, not the simulated alarms of the demonstration, but the shrill, jarring note of a genuine alert. Lights flickered. Above them, on the observation screen, a message flashed: UNIDENTIFIED BREACH – SECTOR GAMMA.
Chaos erupted in the bunker. Officers shouted into comms, scrambling for reports. The live-fire demonstration ground to a halt, mobile suits freezing in position. This was it. The test.
"Sector Gamma," Lelouch stated calmly, pointing at a section of the base perimeter visible on a secondary monitor. "That's adjacent to the main deuterium-uranium storage. If that goes…"
"…the entire base is compromised," Tanya finished, her eyes already scanning their immediate surroundings. The armed guards outside the bunker were now on high alert, weapons raised. The other officers, trained for command and analysis, not necessarily for immediate ground-level survival in a chaotic environment, were lost in the sudden shift from observation to crisis.
"We need to get out of here," Tanya said, her voice low and urgent. "This bunker is a target if the breach isn't contained quickly, or a bottleneck if they order an evacuation. Staying put is the worst option."
Lelouch nodded, his mind racing. "Agreed. The corridors will be packed. We need an alternative route. The ventilation shafts? Service tunnels?"
Tanya was already moving towards a reinforced door marked 'Maintenance Access'. "Likely monitored. But less likely to be blocked by panicked personnel. And they lead deeper into the base, away from the perimeter breach, surprisingly close to the secondary command center, which has dedicated escape paths."
They moved with a speed and coordination that belied their cadet status. Sliding the heavy door open, they slipped into the cramped, dark tunnel system. The air was hot and smelled of grease. Footfalls echoed. They navigated the labyrinthine passages, guided by Tanya's uncanny sense of direction and Lelouch's ability to read the subtle cues of the base's infrastructure – changes in airflow, junction markings, the faint hum of machinery.
They weren't running blindly. They were assessing, adapting, anticipating. A distant explosion rocked the tunnel; they flattened themselves against the wall until the vibrations subsided. The sounds of the base security forces scrambling above them were a constant reminder of the danger. They encountered a maintenance bot; Lelouch quickly rerouted its path using a simple override sequence he'd memorized from the base schematics. They reached a security grate; Tanya had it bypassed in seconds with a small set of tools from her kit.
The 'breach', they realized, seemed contained, or perhaps it had been designed to be contained quickly. The sirens began to subside, replaced by clipped, professional voices over intercoms announcing the 'situation is under control'. But the test wasn't over. They were deep inside a restricted area, having bypassed security measures. Their unauthorised movement would have been detected the moment they entered the maintenance tunnels.
They found their way back to a non-restricted corridor, emerging near a secondary muster point just as ordered personnel were beginning to arrive, looking shaken but relieved. They blended in seamlessly, two more cadets who had managed to reach a safe zone. They offered no explanations, answered no questions, just adopted the posture of relieved survivors.
Later, back on the transport heading away from Granada, the silence between them was different. Not tense, but reflective.
"They watched us," Tanya said, staring out at the stars. "Every step. Every decision."
"Yes," Lelouch confirmed, a flicker of something akin to satisfaction in his eyes. "They wanted to see if we'd freeze, panic, or try to use our 'status'. Instead, we bypassed their chaos, used their own infrastructure against them, and emerged exactly where a rational analysis dictated we should go for maximum survival odds."
"We passed this test, at least," Tanya mused. "But it's just the beginning, isn't it?"
Lelouch nodded, the detached observation returning. "The lion has seen us. Now it decided if we are a threat… or a tool."
Back at the Zeon Military Academy, in a secure communication room deep within the intelligence wing, Ken Bederstadt sat before a terminal, encrypted lines of data scrolling rapidly across the screen. He spoke into a secure, classified channel, his voice flat, precise.
"Their performance was… unorthodox, but highly effective, Commander," Bederstadt reported. "Didn't follow protocol during the 'breach' simulation. Identified critical vulnerability points and reaction times faster than embedded senior staff. Navigated the base infrastructure expertly, bypassing standard security and panic zones. Didn't attempt communication or rely on rank. Just… adapted. Like chameleons."
A cool, measured voice responded from the other end, identifiable only as Commander Kycilia. "Interesting. And their interaction?"
"Minimal external interaction," Bederstadt replied. "Complete trust and seamless coordination with each other. Almost like a single unit. They didn't just survive the scenario; they optimized their path through it. They bypassed the bottleneck we engineered at the primary evacuation points entirely."
There was a brief pause on the line. The air in the room seemed to grow colder.
"The Von Zehrtfeld twins," Kycilia's voice finally stated, each word weighed with calculation. "They're either the next stage… or a future purge target. Keep them under observation. Covertly.""
Elsewhere, back at a different base, away from the political machinations of the Zabis, Lieutenant Commander Shin Matsunaga, the White Wolf, leaned back in his pilot chair, reviewing the raw data logs and simulated performance results from the Granada incident. His own scores were legendary, his standards impossibly high.
He scrolled through the complex matrix of data points – reaction times, decision trees, pathfinding efficiency, resource management (minimal, in this case, but astute). Specifically, he was looking at the data attributed to the two cadet anomalies.
His eyebrow rose slightly, a rare physical display of interest. The path they took through the simulated breach, the speed of their analysis, the complete lack of panic-driven errors… it was unlike typical cadet performance. It was unlike most soldiers' performance.
"Von Zehrfeldt twins, huh?" Matsunaga muttered to himself, tapping a finger on the screen. He leaned back, a faint, almost cynical smile touching his lips. "Hmph. Hope they're better than the last batch of prodigies. This situation doesn't have room for dead weight, no matter the bloodline."
The data glowed on the screen, a silent testament to two young cadets who had just stepped into a much larger, much more dangerous game.