Dorothea Ernst | Code Geass - June '22 (Patreon)

Commission for Jronk

Zero Requiem spelled the end of the current world order. Any semblance of stability crumbled by the tyranny of Emperor Lelouch's reign. The world was now in shambles, a radioactive wasteland thrown back three--some places five--hundred years into the past as national and racial tensions finally snapped and erupted into civil wars and mass slaughters for small pieces of arable land and precious resources.

Britannia had regressed into a Third World country in less than a year, its Areas splitting off into independent states and doing their best to keep their citizens alive. Due to the former country's progenitor race's past domination, however, pureblood Britannians were regarded with suspicion throughout the world, often treated as mere Numbers had at one time.

Some Britannians, however, were not so obviously tied to that race through genes. By all accounts, the scantily clad female mercenary sitting in her favorite pub was a lowborn Arab, struggling no less than her people had been beneath the heel of the few colonies Britannia had wrenched away from the Chinese Federation a couple of decades before both countries' demise. In truth, this woman had once been a valiant Knight of the Round of mixed blood who had led the charge in a desperate attempt to depose the usurper Emperor Lelouch who they knew would inevitably plunge his country into chaos due to many of the unethical tactical decisions he had made during his rebellion in the country of Japan--one of the few countries that now prospered and imposed its own will over the broken world. Nothing corrupted quite like power and the collective anger of an entire population of millions.

It had been the unusually dense armor of her powerful custom Knightmare Frame the Palomides which had allowed the disgraced noble to survive her fiery plunge to the desert floor after a surprise attack from her old comrade had shocked the Knight of Four Dorothea Ernst, terrifying her too much to eject her cockpit block. She had awoken battered and a little scorched, and upon exiting the smoldering ruin of her war machine, she found that she was surrounded by brainwashed soldiers. After they had taken her into custody as a prisoner of war, she had been interrogated most painfully by the bitter Emperor. But he insured that she never scarred to keep her body's lustrous beauty. Once she had finally broken he had taken her as his Consort more as a symbol of humiliation than as one to bear his heirs.

Three months after the nightmare had begun, it was over with the assassination of the Demon Emperor. Many agreed the circumstances of his death were suspicious, and some made the claim that the war criminal Suzaku Kururugi, Dorothea's old comrade turned traitor and Lelouch's lackey, was the one hiding beneath the mask of the "hero" Zero, now obediently following the new Japanese Empress to show his country where his true loyalties lied since the greater world's and the fledgling United Federation of Nations' collapse.

One wondered why Lelouch would have created the UFN in the first place if Suzaku truly was Zero and this had all been some grand scheme no one could decipher. If it had been in an attempt at uniting the world, the boys would know all it would take to destroy that "peace" was the unmasking of Kururugi. In either case, the result of nuking the entire world could not be avoided. EVERYTHING had collapsed, and hundreds of millions had died needlessly. Including the one whom Dorothea had considered her younger sister, her inspiration to help to change Britannia with her pollical power as Knight of the Round: Monica Krushevsky, a girl so sweet and idealistic that just a single smile from her could brighten anyone's day. And Dorothea would never know peace, all thanks to such selfishness which had been brought down upon everyone. Indeed, humanity's future was all but uncertain.

But one day, an old friend, who was now the leader of the peacekeeping Glinda Knights, came into the knight-errant's watering hole. Nonette Enneagram was shocked by the formerly strait-laced and dutiful half-Arab's revealing attire but glad she still kept her traditional Egyptian shamshir sword with her at all times. It was the part of her identity no one would ever be able to take away, Dorothea had always said. The color of her skin was not the thing that made her unique. And Nonette was impressed by how much curvier she had become over the years. Her diligent daily exercises weren't the only thing that improved her legendary looks. Sometimes, time was just generous to a body.

Nonette had come to her with unsettling news that no amount of booze could soften. A photographer hiding in secret had captured a photograph of Zero's true identity. Looking at that face which filled her with such remorse and terror, Dorothea vowed that she would reveal Zero's identity in front of the entire world not only for herself or her dead sister--but for the good of all mankind so that, finally, everyone could begin healing.