• A Choice
    By Brad Hiburi

    The year, 2017, the location, Area 11, this story follows the tail of a young man, a young man wanting peace, peace in a world bathed in chaos, a bread of chaos that takes many forms, one form is a empire that will stop at nothing to rule the world, another form is the over whelming use of a drug called refrain, this drug lets you relive your past, a past of when you where happy, popular amongst the 11s. Then there is the hidden chaos, the chaos of Geass, An omnipresent power that has many users and many abusers. He will change this world, or so he hopes, with the help of his friends and family, he will do his best to change the world; this is the story of a half-Britannia, half Japanese youth that goes by the name Brad Shepard, or his Japanese name, Brad Hiburi.
    “Brad, are you day-dreaming again?!” A teacher yelled throughout the classroom. “Wha?… or sorry Ms. Church.” The boy commented, not really meaning it. “Mr. Shepard, please pay more attention while where in class, I don’t want to have to say this again.” “Yes ma’am.” ‘I hate history class, propaganda bull trying to make us love our God-forsaken country…’ he thought as he started looking outside once again. ‘I’m so sick of this… day in day out, class, homework, bed, repeat. This life is tedious, mundane… boring…’ The bell rang. “Thank god.” He said out loud as he walked out of the classroom to his locker. He opened the locker door as a letter fell out. He went to pick the letter up off the ground as a blond girl snatched it from him. “Another love letter from your girlfriend?” She mockingly asked. “Madam President, please, not this again.” Brad asked. “You do this every time Allison puts a letter in my locker; this makes the 7th time if I remember right.” “Oh you know I’m just playing Brad, here.” The girl said as she handed him the letter. “Thanks Milly.” He responded. “By the way, have you seen the Vice-President around?” Milly asked as they started to walk towards the courtyard. “Lelouch? I think him and Rivalz ditched to go gamble again.” He responded, opening up the letter.

    ‘Dear Brad,
    I couldn’t tell you this in person, it would be too hard, but I wanted to tell you that I was accepted into that study program I told you about! This will look great on my collage app, and I’m really looking forward to it, but here is the problem… It’s in Narita, I know, I’m surprised it’s in that half backwater town too, but I have to stay there for about 6 months, and I had to leave today. The last train there for me to catch my first class left at 9am today, I just… I just didn’t have time to tell you goodbye… I hope you can forgive me. At least I’m not THAT far away, I’m only a train ride away, and I’ll call you whenever I can. Please don’t be mad at me Brad.
    All my love
    Allison Lokhart’
    He felt a cold strike in his heart, he was hurt, but he wasn’t mad, in fact, he smiled. “Did she say anything juicy?” Milly asked, wanting something to gossip about, like always. “… She’s living in Narita for 6 months, and she left this morning…” Brad said, forcing a smile so not to worry his friend. “Brad… I’m sorry.” She stammered out. They opened the doors to walk out to the fountain in the middle of the courtyard. “It’s ok Milly, really, you know what they say; distant only makes the heart grow stronger.” He said, with a real smile this time. “Madam President! Over here!” They heard from the other side of the courtyard, a dark orange haired girl stood up and started waving her arm to get their attention; she was with a young woman with green hair and glasses. “Coming Shirly!” Milly yelled back. “Nina is there with her too? Mind if I join you three?” Brad asked. “Of course you can Brad.” She said as she ruffled his dirty blond hair up, like a child.
    “What?! Lulu is gambling again?!” “Come-on Shirly, you should know your Lulu’s habits by now.” Brad joked with her. Her face turned a cherry red as she looked like she wanted to wrap her friends around Brad’s neck until his gray eyes rolled into the back of his head. “So Brad… How’s Allison doing?” Nina asked one of her only male friends. Milly looked sad, but Brad just smiled. “She got accepted to her study program, she’s really happy.” He said with a genuine smile. ‘That’s true love isn’t it? It must be nice’ Milly thought, dreading yet another blind date her mother set her on later that week. “I’ve been meaning to ask you Brad, how’d you and Allison meet?” Milly asked, still wanting to gossip. “That’s the funny thing, she hated me at first, she thought I was argent and just didn’t care about anything. I remember that she would go out of her way to tell me off sometimes, it was funny to tell the truth, but I remember the day that she started liking me.” He started his story, thinking ‘They asked for it.’ “I remember walking with my friend Duke, me and him where talking when we saw a Japan… I mean, an 11 boy getting beaten by a Britannia Nobel. All the boy asked was could he get him his toy plain that was in the man’s reach. He started kicking and beating him with his cane. I was sickened, so I ran up and used my arms to shield the boy. The man started yelling at me that I was a disgrace to the empire which bore me or some crap like that and started punching me.” “Did you hit him back?” Shirly asked. “Why would I? That wouldn’t have solved anything, which would have just proven his point. That’s what I thought, but Duke on the other hand; he socked the guy right in the face, knocking him out cold as ice.” He said with a laugh. “I helped the boy up and asked if he was ok. ‘Thanks mister! What my mommy told me was wrong I guess there are nice Britannians out there!’ then he told me his name was Zenaku and ran off to go tell his mom and friends I guess. Turns out, Allison was watching the whole time, she came over to me to wipe the blood off of my chin and then she said, ‘I guess I was wrong about you, you do care about something after all.’ And in about a month, we started going out. That was almost a year ago in a couple weeks.” He was beet red during the whole story. “That’s so cute! I’m really happy for you two Brad.” Shirly exclaimed. Brad looked down at his necklace, a sword with a red throne rose wrapped around it, a present from Allison for his birthday. ‘Thank you Ally.’ He thought.
    After talking to his friends for a while, Brad started to head back to his apartment on the campus of Ashford Academy. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a huge pillar of smoke, instantly he had a bad feeling and couldn’t shake the fact he knew someone near there. He got onto his motorbike and speed towards the smoke. ‘Ally is going to kill me for this, but I just can’t shake the feeling…’ Down the road, he was forced to stop by a blockade of Knighmares. “Sutherlands… this has to be really big.” He said, he then saw to his left that someone had left some wood planks out near the guard rail. Something possessed him to use them as a ramp and jump past the Knighmare frames and speed towards the pillar. On the way, he started hearing gun fire and stopped the bike. He looked down from the overpass and saw 11s running away as Britannian soldiers shot them in the back. ‘My god… what have I gotten myself into?’ he started the bike, but it backfired and the soldiers looked up. “Get him!” one yelled. “Ah s**t!” Brad yelled as he left the bike and ran off towards a destroyed ghetto building and jumped through a hole to get into it. In the building, he saw a strange person, a person with very long blue hair, down to her legs and beyond, she wore a bright red, almost pink dress, she was clearly not form the ghetto. “Miss, what are you doing here, the soldiers, there…” before Brad could finish, he heard 3 sets of footsteps coming from the bottom floor of the building. He grabbed the woman and they both hid in some rubble by the door. “Please, stay quiet; I don’t think you want to die here.” He whispered to her as the men ran into the room. “I can’t die here, or anywhere.” She whispered back in a cold, almost sad, tone. “What was that?” One of the men asked. “Damn it… where going to die here! I can’t die here… Allison… someone, anyone… help!” Suddenly Brad’s world went gray. Many objects speed past him as he saw the blue haired woman standing in front of her. “You want power do you? Power to save yourself, or power to save those around you?” Her voice echoed throughout the room. “This is the contract I ask of you, in exchange for the power of a ruler, you must do what you deem as just, do you agree?” ‘The power of a ruler, of a king…’ “I agree to the conditions of the contract, I accept!” The speed of the room returned to normal, as if it never happened, as if it all happened inside Brad’s mind. Brad looked at a piece of broken glass on the ground, his right eye was different now, it had a bird-like symbol in the middle. “You! Come out from behind here now!” one of the soldiers’ yelled at the blue haired woman and Brad. “Hey hey hey, calm down guys, we were just riding through the ghetto when all of this started; we don’t want any part of you killing the 11s.” “But let me ask you this, why do you do this? Why do you kill without hate, without asking why?” He asked as he covered his right eye. “Because the viceroy demands it.” One answered. “Then the viceroy must die, as well as you, I Brad zi Shepard commands all of you, die.” In the instance he commanded them; they all turned the guns upon themselves and took their own lives. “You haven’t had this power for two minutes and you already use it to kill people?” the woman asked. “You where here, they felt bad about taking the lives of 11s that didn’t do anything to anyone and took their own lives.” Brad smirked. “Who are you anyway?” he asked her. “You can call me I.I.” “What will you do now that you have this power?” I.I. asked him. “What else? I will make this world a better place; I will destroy the corrupt empire of Britannia

    (To Be Continued)