Orange Skirmish

The Orange Skirmish was a brief engagement between members of the Pureblood Faction of the Britannian military.

Background
After the assassination of Clovis la Britannia at the hands of Zero, Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald took command of the government as Acting Viceroy of Area 11, while his Pureblood faction rose to control the military. However, the Orange Incident called into question Jeremiah's loyalty to Britannia, and rumours began to fly that Jeremiah was bribed into releasing Suzaku Kururugi. This incident cost Jeremiah his position as Acting Viceroy, as well as creating doubt within the Purebloods as to Jeremiah's political integrity.

As a result of this, combined with the news that Second Princess Cornelia li Britannia was to assume the role of Viceroy, Pureblood member Kewell Soresi collaborated with various members of the Purebloods to remove Jeremiah as leader of the faction.

The Skirmish
Lauching their plan into action, Jeremiah is falsely informed that Zero has been sighted in a stadium in Shinjuku Ghetto. This is a trap: the news is actually a ruse to lure Jeremiah into an ambush by Kewell and three others armed with lance-equipped Sutherlands. Faced with these insurmountable odds, Jeremiah quickly loses his assault rifle and is nearly killed, but is saved by the intervention of Suzaku Kururugi in the Lancelot Knightmare Frame. Utilising the yet-untested Maser Vibration Sword, Suzaku quickly disarms and damages the Purebloods' Knightmares, but is unable to stop Kewell from lauching an attempted final blow on Jeremiah's damaged Sutherland. However, Kewell is stopped by the timely arrival of Villetta Nu in her own Sutherland.

Now faced with near-insurmountable odds, Kewell made one final attempt to finish off Jeremiah using a deadly Chaos Mine. He deploys the grenade just as Euphemia li Britannia intervenes, running into the staduim unprotected just as the mine activates. However, she is saved from the mine's shrapnel by the Lancelot's Blaze Luminous. After this, she immediately orders the Purebloods to stand down, identifying herself as the Third Princess of Britannia. At this, the Britannian Purebloods obey the order and stand down, ending the battle.

Aftermath
Following the skirmish, Jeremiah is imprisoned on suspicion of corruption, but is released when Cornelia li Britannia assumes command of Area 11, albeit at the cost of his noble title, having been demoted three ranks for incompetence, and falling from Margrave to Knight in one blow. To add insult to injury, the entire Pureblood faction is later set aside in subsequent battles, assigned to rear-line defensive roles and often being placed on standby instead of active engagement as a frontline unit as they had been prior to the Orange Incident. As a bitter Kewell puts it, the incident effectively "ended their careers".