Red Knight of October
A BGC2040 fanfiction
Disclaimer: This fanfiction is written with no profit. It is just written for the sake of fan appreciation and own take of the BGC2040 story and alternate continuation. Bubblegum Crisis: Tokyo 2040 and it's characters, design, universe, etc. does not belong to me but AIC and ADV plus other companies involved. The only things that belongs to me is this story written and the original characters put in the story.
----------The day had been very quiet and uneventful so far. But when staying at the old summerhouse in lack of any other place to go, and it being located far from any city, it would be expected to be quiet. Even so, it was oddly bothering the beautiful woman. The only sound that came would be the occasional bumblebee and the sound of porcelain against porcelain as she brought up the cup of tea from the plate she was drinking from that Mr. Henderson had so nicely given her.
She sighed and stopped bringing the cup midway to her lips. She supposed that she missed the very lively months that had been fighting boomers, being surrounded by the Knight Sabers, listening to Mackey talking to Nigel about mechanics while he would reply with his "hm" as he was a man of few words.
Speaking of Mackey, the poor boomerboy was still recovering from having himself taken by Galatea and then thrown back to his human shell with his memories in a bundle. When he had finally returned two days earlier, her heart felt like it could beat again with a regained energy as he had uttered her name, remembering her. Even if Mackey was just a creation by her father from her mind, that little boy had become exactly like a little brother to her. She had almost become protective of him like a, sister? No, like a mother.
Finally, she took one last sip of the tea and put it down a bit loudly by accident. Henderson picked up the sound and went out to the porch where Sylia was sitting.
"More tea, Madame?" he politely asked her.
But she shook her head. "No, thank you Mr. Henderson. How is Mackey?" she asked with concern. She knew Henderson was keeping an eye on him as he needed supervision until full recovery. "Has he eaten properly?" she added to her previous question.
"Mackey seems to be recovering, but not any fast process I am afraid, Madame. He seems to be bothered by something which I am afraid I do not know what. He is eating, but sparsely." he answered kindly but his voice had a hint of worried concern before putting rest of the tea on the table out on the porch in front of Sylia.
"Alright, thank you Mr. Henderson.", she said as grateful as possible. But she couldn't keep the worry out of her voice. Not only was Mackey still shattered but none of the Knight Sabers had appeared and she currently had no access to engines that could help looking them up. She felt so helpless in this position and she had three lives on her conscience. None of which she had any news on.
Henderson decided to break the silence. "If you need me, I will be around, Madame Sylia.", he told her nicely before bowing and walking back into the country house, leaving Sylia sitting alone in her thoughts out on the porch. He knew Sylia was the person who needed a lot of time for herself, especially when in a very worried state like she was in now. But Henderson could at least offer being around in case there was something he could do for her.
Inside the house, Mackey was sitting in an armchair while looking silently at a wall that was covered in different framed pictures. He wasn't entirely focused on them but deep in thought, trying to regain his memories that were scattered in his mind. Pieces were falling back, he was remembering, he began recognizing, he knew more and more. His sister Galatea had been kind enough to, when she decided to put millions of pieces of herself down onto earth, to give back his memories and other data. But it was scattered and not put together yet.
Mackey leaned back his head towards the back of the armchair and stared up at the ceiling. His blue eyes were thoughtful. He felt something in his mind and came to sense that a very important person was not around. She was blonde, with blue-green eyes, smallish... it was coming together and as it did, he felt more alive. Like a big piece of him was returning back and making his core increase in energy and beat with more force. He began remembering slowly how he had met her. An awkward first meeting that had surprised his virgin pure mind and made him blush. How she at first disliked him but came to befriend him, exchanging conversations and knowledge with him. Often visited him after work just to talk and socialize and whenever she did he became so overjoyed.
He remembered how he was fascinated with her, found her to be amazing in so many ways. She was so intelligent, bright and resourceful. But that was just the beginning. He soon enough found himself being attracted to her looks and features. What was this? He had heard the terms attraction and love. Could he feel love or not? When it came to human feelings, he had been a bit clueless and probably thusly came across as boyish, awkward and timid. Being an artificial biomechanic being was not easy when having a human mind and soul because a lot of things confused him to no end.
But what had briefly been a feeling of happiness, later turned into a hurt that panged his core with a feeling of desperate loneliness. He missed her. He missed... what was her name...?
Nene Romanova.
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Linna leaned lightly against the car while holding a can of beverage, enjoying the pause they had taken from driving. It had taken an hour or so and the car needed to be refilled so they had stopped at a gas station that was in a good condition being away from the disaster in Tokyo. She really needed to stretch her legs and have a drink, as it was impossible to get some back in Tokyo. The little plush ermine, Uprio-chan, was tucked safely into her pocket, so Linna knew she would not loose it. After all, she was determined to have it returned to Nene.
Speaking of Nene, Linna thought back to when they were rescued much earlier that day. Leon and Daley had not asked for any details on the event, but she was sure they were going to ask sooner or later. The event replayed in Linna's head over and over, not being able to stop thinking about it. She looked briefly at Leon and Daley; Leon was close to kicking some coffee machine while Daley was calmly telling him to calm down and that kicking won't solve anything. Most likely worsen it, eventually drenching everything in hot coffee and that would not be a pleasant thing to experience.
Soon enough, the can of beverage was empty and Linna decided to dump it in a recycling can that was located next to the outdoor coffee machine Leon had declared revenge upon. Daley just gave his co-worker a chuckle, and then looked over at Linna. "So, Linna."
"Hmm?" Linna looked over at Daley. "Yes, Mr. Wong?"
"Hey, you can call me Daley." he smiled softly, not finding any necessity of being very polite to each others. "You never told me, or Leon, exactly what happened out there. Mind telling?"
Leon picked up the conversation and gave up on muttering at the coffee machine, decided that his curiosity will be fed as he too was wondering exactly what had happened. "I would like to know, too." he chimed in.
She knew that it was no idea to decline the request, besides; she owed them to know exactly what had happened out there after they had picked her up and supported her. They had even agreed on driving all the way to Sylia's old country house, they had been a great support. "Okay.", she said and she instantly got the two men's attentions.
After telling them how the battle had gone, how she and Nene had successfully landed on earth but sadly having to leave Priss behind, being stranded on the island and doing their best to survive, well, at least she was very focused on it while Nene was desperately trying to turn every sea animal across as a pet, even a tail-less stingray she very nicely named Mackey the Second, she got into the rescuing part. "But apparently, one of the captains was not just some random Russian..." she began, telling from her flashback.
The tall blond Russian looked at the petite young woman with great happiness. "Моя воробейушка!" (My little sparrow!), he said and opened his arms.
"Папушка!" (Daddy!), Nene said with the same amount of happiness and ran into the man's open arms and got held up high into the air easily like she weighted nothing at all. When so close to each other, Linna instantly saw the resemblances the two had and figured out-- Nene's father had rescued them?
But she barely got more time to think as two of the sailors ran up to her but had suddenly stopped, stared at her, then the other one glared at his comrade. "Ты сказал мне, что будут голые женщины!" (You told me that there would be naked women!), he yelled.
"Там - возможно - быть, ты идиот" (There would -possibly- be, you moron!), the other young man barked back. This apparently infuriated the other and he growled back, "Достаточно, я убью тебя!" (That does it, I'll kill you!), then proceeded tackling, and a fight broke out in the sand.
Not sure what to say, Linna just stood there and eyed the fighting youngsters for a while, until an sailor came up with a set of navy-wear, shyly handing them to her. As soon as she accepted the items, the sailor ran back towards the submarine past the rejoiced father and daughter.
Speaking of them, Nene ran from her father back to Linna, "Linna, this is amazing! My dad is the second captain on one of the submarines of the Pacific Submarine Fleet of Russia." she said with excitement in her voice. "I haven't seen him for so long!" she continued on, obviously very happy of the outcome of the adventure. Linna barely got time to open her mouth to speak until Nene spoke again, "And I got clothes, and so did you. Put them on, Linna, we're going back to civilization!" She pushed Linna towards some bushes to put on the clothes in peace from hormone-crazed young sailors' eyes.
Leon's eyes widened. "The second captain was the brat's father?" he said with a surprise in his voice. "Who would have known..." he trailed off, and then spoke up again."Please continue!" Leon said eagerly.
So she did.
It was a little noisy down in the submarine as the engines were working fully as it drove back into deeper waters, disappearing from the surface into the sea to safely travel back to civilization. The two feisty sailors who had previously been on the verge on killing each others in the sand were now tending their nosebleeds and small wounds they had given each others, exchanging spiteful glares. The shy one who had previously given the half-naked Linna her clothes was gone messing with the engines and made sure it was properly working the way it should.
Before Nene was walking back to Linna, she exchanged a few words with her father, none which Linna knew. "Okay, Linna. It will take a few hours to get there. They do not want to push the engines too much, if the wait's okay for you, that is...?" Nene asked her friend with concern.
"Oh... No, it's fine by me.", she answered to Nene's concerned question. A few hours was not a big thing, especially not after being rescued and in a safe place. "I just..." she began, trailing off a bit.
Nene tilted her head a bit. "Hmm?"
"I... don't know any Russian." she finished explaining her main concern right now. "I just know Japanese and basic English. So..."
But her blond friend just giggled, gesturing with her hand like it was no big deal. "Don't worry, Linna. I do, and the crew here know a little share of English as well. If that was your biggest worry, there should be none."
After she heard that, she was relieved. As soon as they had gotten rescued Linna had felt a bit left out, not understanding a word of what they had said. All she knew, is that they spoke Russian both from the sound of it and how Nene apparently had understood the large blond man, and going by Nene's last name... "You are Russian, am I right?" she carefully asked.
Nene nodded. "Да", she said playfully and giggled a bit doing so. "But I and my parents moved to Japan when I was pretty young and achieved a Japanese citizenship not too long ago as I decided to stay there. I like to keep my past a bit secret, as a hacker and all, or they can trace me back to my roots." she explained as Linna nodded. Then she changed subject. "Also, there are two beds where we can rest for a little while until we're having food. I'm exhausted after all the fighting and being stranded." she said as she stretched with an arm up in the air.
"Resting sounds good." Linna agreed with her friend.
Instantly afterwards a bunch of the sailors walked past them with a water-filled aquarium walked by. "Аквариум, проникая." (An aquarium, coming through).
As they left, Linna was pretty confused and decided to ask Nene. "Aquarium?"
"Ah, yes. I decided to take along Mackey the Second." Nene explained nonchalantly after yawning.
"You brought along the stingray!" she said, baffled by the fact that Nene bothered to bring along the tailless stingray found by the island.
"Whoa, wait. A... stingray?" Leon asked puzzled. "Did I miss something?"
Linna looked a bit bitter. "Well, yes. She tried to turn every sea animal around into a pet; including a tailless stingray she nicely named Mackey the Second."
For some reason, the entire situation imagined made both Daley and Leon chuckle a bit. "Well, it sounds like Nene, alright." Daley said in amusement. "But I am not sure how Mackey would think about having a monstrous-looking fish named after him."
Leon turned to Daley, "Stingrays are fishes? I never knew."
Daley decided to change subject from fishes to Nene again. "But I am curious, Linna. How come Nene did not decide to return, she have so many friends here wishing her to come back. Could you fill us in, please?" he asked her politely.
She bit her lip softly, "Well..."
As dinnertime finally had come, Linna got to experience the not so pretty sight of Nene stuffing her face full of food; everything from blinis (Russian pancakes) to piroshki to different bakeries. The other sailors seemed intrigued by Linna and found themselves looking at her and practicing their awkward English on her.
"I believe piroshki kan chang'ke vorld.", one sailor said cheerily before taking a bite out of his piroshki, just confusing the poor brunette even more than she was before.
For every minute that passed, she felt more and more out of place. But she comforted herself with the facts that Nene was here, the crew was generally nice and friendly, and she was returning home in one piece. But as she slowly sipped the borsch-- with much more table manners than Nene had!--, she was thinking about the people at home, her family, and most of all Priss. Pretty early in the adventure out in space they had separated and Priss was left alone to face the psychotic boomer herself. While it was comforting knowing that Priss is a true fighter, she couldn't help but wanting to know what happened. Did she survive, or did she...
"Prettij girl, eat borsch bevfore koldness engulves it's varmt!", one sailor said jokingly to her, interrupting her from her thoughts.
It was true, though, she had held the spoon to her lips for a good minute or so. Despite being hungry, Linna's worries dominated her mind right now. But then something else hit her. "Excuse me, where is Nene?", she asked in the best English she could muster.
"Eh, Nellya?" the tall burly blond man that apparently was her father turned to her. "She vent's to de dorm." he explained like it was no concern. As he had known his own daughter from birth, he knew Nene liked to draw herself back to somewhere peaceful and quiet. She was just that kind of girl to withdraw.
"Thank you.", Linna almost whispered and stood up slowly to head to the dorm Linna and Nene got to borrow until the return to Japan.
But Linna got to see Nene sitting on one of the thin beds that were all over the dorm for the sailors and engineers to sleep on. After a while, the figure sighed and Linna decided to speak up. Something was not right here, she knew it. "Nene?" No response, so she decided to walk up to the sitting blonde and sit next to her, looking at her with concern. "Nene, is something wro--?"
Nene cut off Linna, "I can't go back with you to Japan." she began. Then after a short pause she continued. "I'm sorry, Linna. I can't.", she said with a more shaky voice and looked up at Linna with a pained look. "I spoke to papa, and... I decided to go with him to S:t Petersburg again. I would return with you, but..."
Everything had to sink in before Linna could ask her, "But, what?" Then she asked the question she really wanted an answer to. "Why?"
It was silent for a while, as Nene tried to muster to speak up again, collecting the right words. After a sigh, and Linna's patient waiting, she finally responded, not facing Linna's gaze. "It's... you know... I... I don't think I can face... what's waiting for me at home, Linna." was her slightly cryptic answer Linna tried to interpret.
"Waiting... at home?" the brunette finally spoke up, not really sure if she had interpret what she said correctly.
"Mackey.", came the word as Nene looked back to Linna, a very sad gaze meeting hers, which was rare to see from such a cheerful person as Nene. Linna knew that it was hurting her a lot. From the short time, Linna had known Nene, it really did show that the blonde was emotional and once she showed her feelings, they were strong in their expression. Just like know...
After a long silence, Nene uttered, "I'm sorry.", and closed her eyes, sinking together with her face in her palms.
Instantly acting on her instincts as a friend; she held her softly.
Linna sighed, and the two men looked at her with silence, and she quickly broke the silence with adding, "That's pretty much it."
"So Nene's on the way to S:t Petersburg now? At least, we know where we got her. But still...", Leon sighed too.
His co-worker could not help but smile slyly at his superior, "Aww, you miss Officer Romanova already?", he asked him teasingly, poking a little fun at him like he usually did to the poor guy. Just as he wanted, Leon reacted.
"No, why the hell would I miss that... brat. With all the Leon-chan and Leon-pyon... what's "-pyon" supposed to mean? Seriously!", then Leon pointed to Daley. "Besides, I have you as a replacement-picker anyway."
Daley softly pushed away Leon's hand and chuckled. "But you react in a funny way to the picking, no wonder Romanova often does it. You have quite the temper.", he told him as-a-matter-of-factly, patting him on the shoulder.
"Truthfully, you do.", the brunette said, supporting Daley's accusation. "No offense, McNichol.", she smiled softly.
After shifting his eyes between the two, he held up his arms in defeat. "Okay, I admit! You win.", then he let his arms down again. "Now, we should continue on our travel, alright? Enough picking on poor Me.", he said firmly and headed towards the car, the other two smiling and following after him to the vehicle. It was some good hours of driving left, so it was a good decision.
The white-clad figure jumped off the tall animal that had just comfortably lain down on the ground to take a rest from the long walk through the desert. Before turning to the two salesmen, she fixed the scarf protecting her nose and mouth against the sand. "Thank you.", she said, always keeping her speech short and with only necessary words wasted.
"No problems. You are heading to the ambassador, right?", he asked her but got no answer, and took that as a hint to continue on. The man pointed to far into Cairo where tall modern buildings and skyscrapers were seen, behind the bazaar that was it's foreground. "Head there. People shall tell you directions. English is our country's second language. Good luck on travel.", the man finished and went to help his friend unpack everything from the two camels.
With no words, she headed off.
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A/N: Well, here it is, chapter 3. Finally! I have been here and there, so it took it's time. I had a difficult time wrapping up the chapter, so it might seem to have lesser quality (Hah! Quality...) than the first part. Oh well... some emo in there too. Well well, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Translations list:
Моя воробейушка! - Majja varabjejushka.
Папушка - Pappushka
Ты сказал мне, что будут голые женщины! - Ty skazal mnje shtå budut gålye zhenschinyj
Там - возможно - быть, ты идиот - Tam VOZMOZHNA byt'. Ty idiot
Достаточно, я убью тебя! - Dastatochna ja ub'ju tebja
Да - Da
Аквариум, проникая. - Akvarium pronikaja.
Å is kind of like "o" and "u" mixed together.