It's possible that Britannia's wars of conquest are actually to capture these artifacts.
Meanwhile, Euphemia has figured out that Zero is Lelouch. The four lost people reconvene and are brought to Prince Schneizel by accidentally activating the artifact.
Zero and Kallen steal a prototype flying Knightmare and escape.
Suzaku is arrested for mutiny. Lelouch had used his geass on him to force him to choose to live rather than throw his life away.
Suzaku resigns as Euphemia's Knight, feeling himself unworthy.
A group calling itself The Japanese Government In Exile, backed by The Chinese Federation, attacks and conquers Kyushu.
Zero rejects their claim and suggests that the Black Knights declare Tokyo independent.
Suzaku is sent to fight the JGIE in Kyushu, but he is cornered and running low on power.
Euphemia calls him to make a love confession, but he's doomed.
Until Zero and C.C. show up in Gawain (their stolen experimental Knightmare.) With a spare battery.
They take out the JGIE.
Lelouch has a school festival to run and a coup d'etat to organize.
Euphemia attends in disguise. When she's revealed, she takes advantage of the press attention to announce the Special Administrative District of Japan.
Within the district, the Japanese and Britannians will have equal rights.
This cuts Zero's legs out from under him; if he supports it, he has to give up on violence. If he opposes it, he'll lose his popular support.
Zero talks with Euphemia, asking her to shoot him and make him a martyr. She refuses and he agrees to go along with her plan.
She finds it hilarious that he thought she would shoot him on request.
He can compel obedience, he explains. He could tell her to kill all the Japanese.
Meanwhile, Suzaku detects C.C. in attendance. He goes to ask her something, but as he touches her, there is some kind of flux in the power of geass, knocking him out and causing C.C.'s geass mark to flare.
And pushing Lelouch's geass out of control, so that it it always on.
Lelouch's example becomes an order, and Euphemia opens fire into the crowd, then order her soldiers to as well.
The opening of the Special Administrative Zone becomes a lie and a massacre.
Zero orders the Black Knights to fight. Only he and C.C. know that this was a mistake.
Zero shoots Euphemia himself.
Suzaku pulls her out of battle in hope of saving her, but she only gets a short amount of time.
Just enough to make it clear that she doesn't remember what happened and would never have endorsed it.
Zero pulls rank of the remaining heads of Kyoto; they work for him now.
He declares the independent nation: The United States of Japan.
He makes an immediate move to attack the Britannian city at Tokyo with all the forces he can muster.
Right before the battle, Suzaku calls him from Euphemia's phone.
He is going to abandon playing by the rules and fight out of hatred now.
Lelouch tells him that he should, despite knowing he'll be the target.
Then the battle begins.
Geassed operators collapse the outer wall of the city, and the battle begins.
Let's back up. Two people have learned about Zero's power:
Suzaku has been told by V.V., a mysterious boy.
Villetta Nu has recovered from her amnesia and infiltrated the Knights' command center.
Suzaku attacks Zero, but is trapped by a field that disables Lancelot.
The Knights are using the school as a command center. When Villetta causes chaos, the student council move to free Suzaku from the field.
With everyone else out, V.V. comes for Nunnaly.
Cornelia draws Zero into a trap, but he's geassed her subordinate, and defeats her.
Then he questions her regarding his mother's death.
His mother withdrew her own protection that day. And Schneizel retrieved her body for mysterious reasons; it wasn't in the coffin.
C.C. tells Lelouch than Nunnaly has been captured and he leaves the battlefield to find her on the hidden island.
The Knights backup leadership are not good enough to win in the confusion.
Cornelia tells Suzaku to follow Zero and bring him to justice. Kallen follows Suzaku.
Lelouch and C.C. are hit by a trap, and we see flashes of C.C.'s history. Lelouch swears the remain her ally. She leaves to fight off the forces giving chase.
But when Lelouch reaches the door that Nunnaly is surely behind. Suzaku is there, waiting for him.
Zero is unmasked before Suzaku and Kallen.
Suzaku thinks he always knew. Kallen feels betrayed, but Lelouch says Japan will be freed, she should be happy with the outcome.
Suzaku and Lelouch have a high noon gunfight, drawing and shooting each other simultaneously.
Go get a snack, that's the end of season one, with the bullets still in the air.
Season 2 opens with an illusion. Lelouch is cutting school and gambling. The Black Rebellion failed a year ago. Japan is being crushed under an even harsher heel.
But Lelouch has been given amnesia and false memories, to be bait in a trap set for C.C.
But C.C. springs the trap on the trapmakers, unlocking Lelouch's true memories.
The small handful of the Black Knights that are still free ask Zero what he would have them do.
Here's what happened: Lelouch and Suzaku both missed, but Suzaku rushed Lelouch, removed the bomb and captured him.
Then he traded him to the Emperor for membership in the Knights of the Round.
The emperor has his own geass: to rewrite memories. He used it on Lelouch.
Currently, Lelouch is up to his old tricks: using his geass to steal an enemy Knightmare, directing his forces with inside intelligence, and pulling off miracles.
Kallen wants answers though: did Lelouch use his geass on her, or did she follow on her own.
(It was her choice.)
The Knights are bedeviled by a Knightmare built on the same technology as Lancelot, but with a short-range teleport. But they fight it off in time to collapse the building on their enemies.
Zero again declares the United States of Japan, even though it's just one room.
Nunnaly is missing, of course. In her place, Lelouch has a brother, Rolo. He's obviously a spy of some sort.
He is the pilot of the experimental Knightmare. And he has a geass of his own.
Meanwhile, the Emperor shows Suzaku his secret: the Sword of Akasha: a weapon to kill God.
Roll comes to the embassy as Zero is broadcasting. But right then, he gets a call from Lelouch! How?
In fact Lelouch is back at school.
The Office of Secret Intelligence can't detect Lelouch behaving any differently, not even with 180 hidden cameras and 47 undercover observers.
Everyone else has forgotten Nunnaly as well.
Rolo's geass is a mass paralysis. Everyone within range is immobilized.
Guilford (Cornelia's Knight) is acting head of Tokyo right now. To draw out Zero, the threatens to execute the captured Black Knights.
Lelouch throws off his tail and gets the drop on Rolo. But before he can geass him, he himself is geassed.
Rolo's geass is either a time stop or induces amnesia. I'll bet that's how his Knightmare teleports too.
Zero stages an answer to Guilford's challenge that frees his companions.
If Rolo doesn't stop him.
But Rolo has no family. Lelouch tells him that even if the memories are fake, the last year they spent together was real. He turns his loyalty.
It's all a lie, of course.
Suzaku returns to school. Two other Knights of the Round, Gino and Anya also arrive, with their custom Knightmares.
When Villetta was amnesiac, she stayed with Ohgi, the second-in-command of the Black Knights. Lelouch learns this and blackmails her into working with him.
Suzaku tells Lelouch his plan: to become top knight. The top knight is given rule of an area of his choice, and Suzaku aims to pick Japan.
He'll be able to work well with then new viceroy, who is arriving soon.
In fact, she's on the phone right now.
It's Nunnaly.
Rolo's geass buys him a few seconds to explain before he has to pretend not to know her.
Zero has the Knights attack to capture her as she approaches. But when he confronts her, she says she's not a pawn, but a volunteer. She wants to follow in Euphemia's footsteps.
She's going to reopen the special administrative zone and everything.
Suzaku rescues her and she isn't captured.
Lelouch has a crisis of confidence: with Nunnaly doing the SAZ, his campaign directly opposes her. But she's the reason he became Zero in the first place!
Strong words from Kallen and Rolo help him reorient.
He bails out the Knights, then orders them to cooperate with the SAZ.
Zero arranges for a million people to come to the SAZ. In exchange, he will be exiled.
Appearing on the big screen at the ceremony, he asks Suzaku what it means to be Japanese. Is it blood? History? Land?
Suzaku says it's if you hold Japanese culture in your heart.
Zero agrees.
But it's a trick! Fog is released and when it clears, there are a million Zeros!
Now Suzaku is left with this choice: let them depart into exile peacefully, or crack down and prove Zero's rebellion right again.
He lets them go.
Conveniently, a ship is waiting.
The Japanese escape to an island off the coast of China.
However, they have already been outmaneuvered. The high eunuchs have arranged a marriage between the Empress and the first prince of Britannia.
Zero interferes and kidnaps the child empress.
Xing Ke is the official who granted the Knights amnesty in the Chinese embassy. He also promised to get the empress out of the forbidden city.
His coup d'etat failed when Zero showed up, but the eunuchs are willing to use him.
His tactical genius forces Zero onto his back foot.
Xing Ke has captured Kallen and has Zero trapped. Unfortunately for him, the Eunuchs use their international relations to call in a favor from the Knights of the Round: destroy both the rebels and the Japanese!
Xing Ke is drawn into a hopeless position when the empress gets out.
Zero appears to save them in a custom Knightmare built from the wreckage of the Gawain.
Xing Ke asks if he thinks one Knightmare will turn the tide of battle.
No. War is won through strategy, not tactics.
Meanwhile, rebellious uprisings break out in 14 different cities.
The Knights break out of the trap and the Xing Ke dispatches the eunuchs.
Lelouch and C.C. have effectively conquered China for a reason: to track down the secret order that gives people geass. They move when the leader changes. C.C. was the leader before, and V.V. is now.
Lelouch returns to school to keep up his cover. He discovers that his body double has been managing things for him in his absence in an unexpected manner.
He's become a bit of a playboy.
How, the _actual_ kissing Lelouch count is: C.C. 2, everyone else 0.
But as far as Shirley is concerned, she's been kissed by Lelouch.
And she gets real mad when she finds out how many other girls he's been dating.
(There's a waiting list.)
Oh yeah, and the other Knights of the Round have enrolled in the school.
Shenanigans ensue when a dating game takes place at the school, with a special bounty placed on Lelouch.
Circumstances bring Lelouch and Shirley together and they officially become an item.
But the next day, V.V. deploys a geass canceller and all of Shirley's memories return.
Oh god, now I have to backfill about Jeremiah, who I've been ignoring.
Jeremiah was a Knightmare pilot. He was disgraced when Zero freed Suzaku. He and Villetta compared notes about lost time and that's what helped Villetta realize Lelouch was involved.
After he was injured in battle, he was rebuilt as a cyborg in an experiment on geass and attacked Zero again.
After that, V.V. modified him with the geass canceller, and now he's an assassin for the order coming to kill Lelouch.
I think we're caught up on that now.
Jeremiah corners Lelouch, but he has a device that will disrupt Jeremiah's cybernetics.
Jeremiah asks why Lelouch became Zero. It turns out that Jeremiah was in Lady Marianne (Lelouch's mother)'s honor guard. His first loyalty is to her, not V.V.
He joins Lelouch's side.
Shirley runs in to help, and meets Rolo doing the same.
After a tense check that they are really on the same side, she tells Rolo that she wants to help make Lelouch happy. To help him reunite with Nunnaly.
That's why he finds her lying in a pool of blood. She dies in his arms.
Lelouch pinpoints the cult of geass' headquarters and attacks with the black knights.
They kill the researchers and the experiments, some of whom are children.
Lelouch corners V.V., but a magic door opens and Charles is there, and Lelouch is pulled into a vision.
This is no mere vision. Lelouch is physically in the Thought Elevator/Sword of Akasha confronting Charles. He uses his geass and Charles shoots himself through the heart.
But it isn't that easy.
The final stage of geass is to absorb the progenitor's immortality.
Charles has taken V.V.'s immortality.
C.C.'s ultimate goal is for Lelouch to take hers. Or it was, anyway. She arrives to confront Charles and sends Lelouch into her own memories.
But Lelouch will not be removed. After learning C.C.'s history, he returns and destroys the Sword.
Lelouch rescues her from the collapsing subspace and they escape through the mystic door.
But C.C. has lost her entire memory, regressing to the mind of a medieval slave.
Charles is trapped in subspace. Britannia is rudderless.
The United States of Japan evolves into The United Federation of Nations, by merging with China's successor states.
They intend to liberate Japan and show that Britannia isn't the leading force in the world anymore.
Charles appears via broadcast, and says if it's war Zero wants, bring it on!
Zero now faces, not a headless Britannia, but a fully operational one.
Lelouch reaches out to the one friend he has who can protect his sister in the upcoming war: Suzaku.
The price is high.
Suzaku demands a private meeting with Lelouch.
He has a bunch of questions he wants answered. But he doesn't know that Prince Schneizel's people are following him.
Lelouch is captured and Schneizel learns his identity.
He escapes, of course, and the battle begins.
Kallen is released and joins the battle. She fights Suzaku, and beats him.
This would be his end, but he's been geassed to live.
And they've installed an annihilation bomb on the Lancelot. It he discharges it over Tokyo, he will survive.
Nunnaly is vaporized in the blast.
Schneizel cones on a diplomatic mission to the black knights.
While Lelouch has a breakdown, he tells the Knights about Zero's identity, and about geass. He has a dossier of people who have been geassed.
The Knights feel betrayed. They agree to trade Zero for Japan.
Rolo helps Lelouch escape. But it turns out that his geass has a fatal flaw. When he stops time, it stops his own heart.
He uses it so many times trying to get away that he dies.
Lelouch has lost everything now.
Nunnaly, C.C., Rolo, the Black Knights.
Only revenge remains.
Zero has broadcast his communication with the high eunuchs around the Chinese federation, and their disdain has thrown the people into open revolt. The Britannians withdraw; an alliance with the eunuchs is worthless now.
But Kallen was turned over to Suzaku. She's his prisoner.