Late update due to gaming crash. I went back to the MMO I used to play (since Transformers Universe hasn't opened yet, supposedly it's due to begin as a Beta next month... for which I signed up back in the spring, because TRANSFORMERS!) and discovered that they'd added a new server, so I naturally had to help populate it.
08_BD_WOASS_Ch_05b
2010-10-30 - Fixed a couple of missing or repeated word errors
2009-11-29 - credits fix & new annotation
2009-11-22 - just a couple of spelchekz
2007-06-11 - continuity edit
2007-06-07 - the typical just-posted-it-why-didn't-I-see-that-before errors fixed, including a couple of fairly major continuity glitches and numerous spelchekz
2007-06-04 - added a look in Priss's head to clarify while facing down Sylvie, and vagued something else up
2007-06-02 - FINISHED! First draft anyway, now I just need to get it online somehow...
2007-06-01 - yatta! fixed Cynthia/buma flashback & got to The Big Twist.
2007-05-31 - split the chapter into two files as it was becoming inconveniently large, with six scenes completed (from Ride Free) and one partial (Nam & Sylvie return)
Continued from 08_BD_WOASS_Ch_
The observation room was dark as Leon and Nene entered, despite the bright skies outside - it had to be, to keep those inside from showing through the two-way mirror to the psych ward room beyond. Dr. Yamane waved them to take seats at the desk within, and the redheaded policewoman gratefully complied, folding the keyboard out from her tablet to type notes - even with three decades of refinements and her own improvements, the handwriting recognition was still a bit dodgy. Seeing her nod, the doctor gave her observations.
"The patient's name is Naota Watanabe, after hours security officer for Kisaragi Cyberdroid Service Center in the Kawasaki district. Last night, it appears he was attacked by this 'Bakemono Burglar' that has the papers in an uproar. Like the previous victims, he reports only getting a glimpse of the person involved, and even under hypnosis the only description he can give is that they were slight, like a woman or a young boy, and had brightly glowing red eyes after taking off a visor or possibly motorcycle goggles. After that, he fell unconscious, and didn't revive until the fire department arrived after the Kisaragi shop exploded."
On the far side of the glass, Watanabe shuddered and clutched at his bedcovers, as a burly male orderly entered with a meal tray. They could see him stammering a frightened challenge and the man's soothing response, but soundproofing prevented the conversation from carrying to the observation area since the microphones were turned off.
Yamane ran a hand through her short black hair, before continuing, "Mr. Watanabe's mental trauma from the incident is severe, easily the worst of the victims so far. He becomes distraught if a person matching the assailant's build is present, especially if their eyes are uncovered - as you saw, the orderlies have to borrow a pair of goggles from the lab to bring his meals, or he's too agitated to eat. He was moved to this ward after becoming violent with the intake nurse when she tried to check his pupil response with the light in her opthalmascope, and had to be sedated. I've had to limit my contact with him for those reasons, but my colleague Dr. Shelby is out sick today, and as head of the department he's been keeping me up to date."
"As I said, the patient was severely shaken by his experience, and seems to have suffered some sort of supernatural nightmare while unconscious, though he avoids any questions on the subject at best, more often becoming incoherent, muttering about monsters, ghosts, and wizards controlling his mind with the jigan. Since his previous psychological records list him as being somewhat excitable but well grounded in reality, it's Dr. Shelby's professional opinion that this nightmare is the effect of the current media frenzy acting as a suggestion to his unconscious mind."
Leaning against the back wall, Leon scoffed and quipped, "Monsters, wizards, and the Evil Eye? Of course it's just a delusion, none of that stuff is real, right Nene?"
Caught off guard by such a question, and wondering just how he'd react if she contradicted him, Nene stammered, "Buh-ah, of course they're not real, eh heh..."
Attention more on his thoughts than her reply, he grunted contemplatively, then asked Dr. Yamane, "Those previous reports, they're from his cybernetics post-operation counseling? Is there any sign of BDD?"
The psychiatrist's eyes flared as the frowned, giving him a stern glare. "I assure you, Mr. Watanbe's condition with regards to his cybernetic arm and lower leg remains in the top .5 percentile - in fact, the familiarity of talking about them with a professional without worry or awkwardness is one of the ways Dr. Shelby has found to calm him when he becomes too upset about this more recent trauma." Yamane's gaze turned even more steely as she concluded, "Even if he were experiencing difficulties with his prosthetics, Mr. Watanabe falls well blow the 70% cutoff point, Inspector."
Nene eeped at the steel in the other woman's tone, and even Leon flinched back in his seat. *Looks like Yamane-sensei doesn't approve of the 70% law,* the pink-haired Saber thought, grinning in spite of herself at the sight of her brash senior cowed by the petite doctor.
Striving to regain his composure, Leon waved his hands placatingly and temporized, "No one's looking for trouble, Doc, but it's my job to be concerned when someone with cybernetics is having mental problems. I'm sure I speak for everyone in the AD Police when I say we'd be happy if your department could put ours out of business."
Still far from reassured, the doctor softened her glare from piercing to merely skeptical.
The ride back from the hospital was mostly silent; Nene paying attention to the slightly unfamiliar task of driving a car rather than her scooter; Leon churning over the few leads they had. Finally, as they neared the station, he grunted in dissatisfaction and leaned back, the seat back tilting with a thunk as he released the catch.
Familiar enough with her coworker to know that meant he'd set the problem aside for the moment to let his subconscious chew on it, the redhead shot him a quick glance and asked, "I've seen the newsfax, of course, but do people really think it's some kind of oni? I didn't think the old myths were believed much any more."
"Eh, just the usual crazies," Leon drawled, adjusting his shades. "That's what I like about this town, it's never dull. It's mostly the newshounds chasing the excitement of the moment, but some folks are going off the deep end. There was a call for the N-Police yesterday when a crowd at some shrine started getting rowdy after they ran out of wards to sell... But it's strange, none of the men at the places that were attacked have gotten anything worse than a few bruises consistent with falling off their feet, and as far as we can tell from the wreckage nothing seems to be missing." Peering over the top of the wraparounds, he quipped, "Maybe the bakemono only likes to eat girls."
Nene, with certain knowledge that such things were not only possible but increasingly common as word of Kami-sama's death spread through the underworld, gave it rather more serious consideration than he'd intended, speculating, "My dad told me a story once about an eight headed dragon that only ate girls, and if he swallowed a boy by mistake he'd spit him back out." Grinning suddenly, she mused, "I should keep an eye out as well, that sounds like a fun fight!"
"Ha!" The chestnut haired Inspector flipped upright in surprise, sunglasses sliding off to dangle from one ear as he gave her an incredulous look.
Suddenly, realization struck. "Eh heheh, I mean it would be a fun fight, uh... for a ... martial artist ... movie, yeah. You know, like 'Jane Li vs. Jade Chan in _Attack of the Bakemono Burglar!_'" she backpedaled, deepening her voice and giving it a melodramatic tone. She laughed nervously and kept her eyes assiduously on the road, hoping her more skeptical sempai would buy it.
Her silent prayers appeared to be answered; Leon collected himself and leaned back once more, dismissing the whole supernatural aspect with a snort as he settled his shades comfortably again. "Given the destruction and the descriptions the guards have given, it's a lot more likely that it's a buma, looking for something we haven't figured out yet."
"A buma?" Nene protested. "Buma can knock people out with eye-beams!" Certainly, no buma the Sabers had ever faced could do such a thing... Or were their suit visors protection against it? Lots of buma had glowing eyes, now and then, for sure.
"It might," he replied, "if it was a 33-S type buma, that had a hypnotic function. Of course, none of them are around any more, since it was the one model that was completely banned."
"I'll admit, it's a little easier to picture you chasing a strange buma in a K-suit than some fire-breathing oni," Nene remarked.
He smirked, then sighed resignedly. "There's a lot of pressure from above to solve this one quickly, since they're targeting Genom-affiliated businesses. At the same time, it seems none of them are actually big enough to make it worth Genom's time to send their bully-boys in, when a quiet word in the right ear gets us out in force. Not that we'd let anyone get away with it, but it would be nice to do without the political games."
The car was silent again for a few minutes, as she pulled off the highway to return to the ADPolice building. "Oh, drop me off at Hangar Three, would you?" Leon requested. "They're giving me some new patrol bike to test." At her nod, he gave the redhead his best 'Nice Guy' smile and wink and invited, "If you like action movies like that, you should come to my squad's barbecue party on Friday evenings, Nene. They're a little rough, but a good bunch at heart." Then it was her turn to boggle, at least until he shouted to watch out for the turn-off.
Nene had passed the Inspector's theories on to Sylia, and admitted that since her parents hadn't found traces from an active demon, they looked like the most probable explanation. "I've done some checking, and there's a few traces as if someone was doing some cracking from the businesses that were attacked, too well hidden for the regular ADP computer team to find. But, I'm still not sure why the 33-S was banned," she added.
"It became troublesome when external weapon linkages from combat-class buma were added to them," Sylia explained, a blush lighting her fair features as she continued, "Their use before that was scandalous enough. It was a sexaroid type."
Wide eyed, Nene repeated, "A sexaroid?" She ducked her head and hid a matching blush behind one hand as she squealed, "So they really do exist!"
"I thought you weren't interested in perverted things like that," Sylia scolded, tapping her finger against the monitor over her younger friend's nose.
"Whyyy nooot?" the policewoman whined, before a different train of thought brightened her over-dramatic sulky expression. "I wonder if they're as pretty as the girl I met yesterday?"
Accepting the topic change, the steely haired Saber inquired, "Oh? Who's that?"
"One of Priss's biker friends. Her name's Sylvie, and is she hot! She's got a body to die for, and her other friend Nam isn't far behind," the redhead enthused while clasping her hands, suffused with romantic bliss, before leaning in conspiratorially to wink and share, "Priss gets along with her unusually well."
"With Nam?"
"No, Sylvie. Nam let me ride on her cycle to see what it was like while they raced to the restaurant after leaving Hot Legs."
The Saber leader hummed noncommittally, then concluded, "Sounds like someone I might like to meet. Anyway, inform me if something else happens, all right?"
"You got it!" Nene chirped, before shutting down the link.
The frown Sylia had been hiding behind her usual calm front settled onto her face, and she was left to contemplate the implications of a 33-S on the loose at the same time as a battlemover designed for operation with a synchronized pilot.
In a low rent, single room loft, Nam and Anri were stirring around quietly, going about their morning routines. They'd found themselves to be quite compatible as room mates, having similar tastes for the most part, though Anri didn't share the other buma's passion for Transystyr Systyr (especially at high volume) preferring the more laid back style of reggae, or ska in her more energetic moods. The local retrothrash band whose leader Sylvie and Nam had befriended seemed to be a happy compromise solution, and the demo chip she'd gotten from them was playing quietly as Nam slipped into her underthings and pulled the nightgown off over her head.
Thinking about Priss and her friends brought other questions to mind, and she decided finally to just come right out with it. "Ne, Anri," she queried, "do you mind if I ask you a question about Sylvie?"
Looking up as she slipped on her brassiere, the green-haired sexaroid blinked and hummed negatively, "Mhm-m. What is it?"
"Um... well, doesn't it bother you that she's been spending the night with someone else?" the medic buma asked.
"Don't think badly of Sylvie," Anri explained. "She and I are the best of friends, close enough to keep each other company when the night's too lonely, but we're not really... you know, romantic. I just don't like girls that much, the way Sylvie does. I'm happy for her, really Nam, and she'd be happy for me if I find a guy I like."
"I... I guess I understand," the speedster replied. "I never really cared either way, I just wanted to find someone to share feelings with."
Catching her room mate's phrasing, Anri grinned mischievously. "Wanted to? Have you found someone, then? Maybe that cute redhead you mentioned..."
Blushing and stuttering, Nam could only stammer incoherently for a moment. "N... No!" she finally forced out. "It's nothing like that, we're just going to look at motorcycles since she liked riding behind me the other night!"
"Ooooh," Anri teased, nodding knowingly. "She likes you from behind, then!" She laughed merrily as Nam buried her beet red face in her hands and curled up in embarrassment.
Fortunately for her, any further teasing was preempted by the faint sounds of the other bed's occupant waking up, and the two of them hastened to finish getting dressed.
Lady Miyaumoto paused in her morning promenade, looking over the visitors in her domain speculatively as they arrived on two of the smaller sort of annoying-loud-wheely-thing humans were so fond of. The red-furred one proceeded toward the food dispensers nearby, while the other, blue and white dappled nearly as splendidly as the Lady's own brown and white, partook of the fresh breeze and admirable view. Miyaumoto approved, a healthy regard for the necessities of life in one, and a fine sense of aesthetics for the other.
As she herself was returning from a jaunt to the shore, where there had been a delectable bit of crab leg left in a crevice by one of the gulls, the Lady padded over to the red one, calling for attention as the two of them seemed caught up in their own discussion. Honestly, humans were so silly sometimes! Who gave a hairball about buma or the Genom Production Control Center on the skyline when there were sandwiches to be had? Reminded of the more important things, the red one bowed down to her, and rendered tribute in the form of a hearty helping of the still-warm fast food burger, but withheld the remainder most rudely when asked for a second helping. Ungrateful creature, and to think, Miyaumoto had deigned to strop against her leg earlier!
Here the Ungracious One's companion interceded, showing the true nobility of tabby-coats as she offered the entirety of her own hamburger to compensate. Lady Miyaumoto magnanimously decided to forgive the pair in light of the gesture, and even allowed herself to be held and stroked by the Noble One when she had finished her repast. Ah, a superior patterned coat, the scent of life and healthy energy, and talented hands as well! Letting bygones be bygones, she sang her appreciation, the low throaty tones of a premiere soloist.
Watching as her lover cradled the stray, Priss gave a lopsided grin of amusement. "Looks like it likes you, Sylvie. I almost thought it was going to attack me when I wouldn't give it any more of mine." The grin widened as she reached out to stroke one of the other woman's shoulders and teased, "I guess you've just got the magic touch, ne?"
Sylvie blushed slightly as she hugged the purring moggie closer, turning back to look out over the bay. "Ah, Priss, don't exaggerate," she replied. *Even this cat is free,* she thought happily, basking in the morning sun.
Finished with her own food, Priss wadded up the wrapper and tossed it in a nearby bin with her cola can, then swung onto her bike. "Well, let's go," she prompted, explaining, " I've got a rehearsal coming up, and a sound check after we set up at the club."
Sylvie set down the cat, with a final stroke as it rubbed affectionately against her knees before wandering off. "Ah?" *But it's so nice here, and we didn't leave Genaros just to start following new orders,* she thought, waffling for a moment. The sheer joy of self-determination made up her mind, and she replied easily, "I think I'll stay here a little longer."
Priss straightened on the saddle, smarting at the brush off, and the buma woman tried to explain. Unfortunately, the amazing, intoxicating feeling of freedom after a life of servitude was just too big to put into words, and all she could do was blurt, "I, am... free. I'm free now! You see?" She spread her arms, trying to indicate the unbounded world of possibilities all around them, just waiting to be explored in any direction.
No more enlightened, the singer could only repeat, "Free?"
Sylvie gave her a megawatt smile, and a flirty wink from one amber eye. "Right!"
Still puzzled, Priss could only figure it must be a personal space thing - she understood that, at least. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I'll catch you later." Helmet strapped on, she started the bike and kicked off, a farewell shout of "Call me!" tossed over a shoulder as she let the clutch out and merged into the slow mid-morning traffic.
Sylvie waved energetically, but was saddened by the thought that her lover probably didn't even really understand her own freedom, or how precious it was. Then again, she'd rather no one ever had to go through a life like her own, even if it meant being so oblivious to what they had. With a melancholy smile, she leaned against the rail once more, watching the gulls and the ships in the bay.
Since his cruiser still hadn t been replaced, and two bikes would fit in his parking place at home, Leon had just used the new motorcycle unit he'd been assigned to commute - he was supposed to be testing the thing anyway, right? Even better, it saved trying to find a spot in the cramped police parking garage, since he could just return it to Hangar Three where the support equipment for the prototype had been set up. As he shut it down and undid the clasp on his helmet strap, Kenty Yeager, the head mecha technician, slipped out of the partially disassembled K-11 she was working on and headed over to greet him.
"Hey Leon, how do you like the new toy so far? Had any chances to open 'er up?" she asked.
"I only got it from you last night, you know. You didn't even explain what the heck the thing is, except that it's more than just a bike," he complained.
"Eh?" She blinked and cocked her head at him, a grease stain on one cheek making her look absolutely adorable - he certainly hoped Yeager appreciated her, the lucky bastard, and given that the brunette's pregnancy was just starting to show he damn well better. "I sent you the user manual a week ago, as soon as you were picked to test one."
Leon thought about the stack of coffee cans competing with his inbox for a height record, and concentrated on maintaining his cool look.
Relenting, Kenty shook her head at the vagaries of of detectives, and launched into a quick summary, pointing out controls and display items as they were mentioned. "It's called a Police Motorcycle Battloid, or P. M. B. for short, and it's Genom R&D's latest answer to our need for better equipment to use against rogue security and military buma - though judging by the photos I've seen, not to mention the evidence materials that have been taken by various government agencies 'for further study' it's probably as direct a copy as they can manage of the motorcycle-based units your Knights in shining hardsuits like to use, and you'll need to be wearing the special body armor that you left behind last night in order to pilot it in battleframe mode."
Here she gave the Inspector a stern look. "Without it, the unit can still transform and accept voice commands if you dismount, but it doesn't use a buma brain so it's not very smart at all, not even as much as a trained animal. With the suit, it's still a little less armored than a K-11, but far beyond their specs, even the new K-12S, in practically every other way - speed, strength, agility, even the combat computer that drives the heads-up display can track more targets more accurately and actually predict what known enemy types are likely to do, as well as where hits will land and tracking the origin and path of gunfire."
She started going into the specifics then, Leon paying close attention as it seemed he'd greatly underestimated the bike's capabilities before, having thought it was just some attempt at a cost saving measure over cruisers when the ADP rarely arrested anyone - even in cases of normal civilian models that went rogue due to being misused or poorly maintained, the owners were more likely to be fined than detained, and if they did need to be taken anywhere it was usually in an ambulance.
Not to mention, he just loved piloting, on those occasions he had the chance to get in some Armored Trooper time. If the Department wanted to give him one of his very own, he sure wasn't going to complain!
Mackie had gone looking for his sister, needing authorization for the new design he and Dr. Raven had worked out before they started ordering parts and materials. He found her in her office talking on the videophone, one hand still holding a pen, and the customer copy of a delivery invoice in front of her for the trailer that had arrived around mid day - one that held the wreckage of the Batmobile, which had been confiscated by the police but eventually sold at auction after investigations found that it held no leads to finding the Sabers, who weren't actually wanted on charges more serious than disturbing the peace and flight from crime scenes anyway, and far from giving any insight on their advanced technology, was built with components and techniques over two decades outdated.
If it wasn't for the fact that it was his logical, unflappable sister he was talking about, he'd almost have said... *Wait... No, no way! She can't be...* The teen's thoughts trailed off as Sylia finally capped the pen and stuffed it in a pocket before wiping at her eyes and actually *sniffling.* "Sis?" he asked, quietly. "Are you okay? I mean, you're..."
Sylia jumped, for all her advanced senses still having been too distracted to notice him approach. "Still human despite it all, it seems," she replied, voice trembling. "It's silly of me, and illogical, but... The Wayne money, and companies, and even the estate in America, none of that was ever Daddy's true legacy to me... All of that was just what he used as a disguise, the mask he hid behind. The real Bruce Wayne was the one who had a secret underground base, who put on a kevlar suit almost every night and went out to stand between the bad guys and the people of his city, the one who had the most amazing car in the world. Mother -"
She choked up, and had to wipe at the tears over running her eyes again. Mackie looked helplessly at the grey-haired man on the screen, who shrugged and mouthed "I was there too," before waving his attention back to Sylia. After making use of a hanky, the words flowed on, as unstoppable as the tears, or the tremors shaking her like a rag doll in her younger brother's embrace. "Mother once told me that as a baby, sometimes the only way to get me to quiet down at night was to go for a ride in that car, with its engine that rumbled and purred like a huge cat, none of the normal ones would do the trick. And now..."
Stuffing the balled up kerchief back in a pocket, she choked off a derisive laugh before it could become a sob. "It wasn't even this car, the one she talked about got replaced years before he died. But it's still... I just..." Words failed her, and all Sylia could do was hold and be held by her only remaining blood relative.
"It was a fine car and a great loss, but how many did Bruce lose this way? Remember that it was made to be used; a tool like your suits," the man on the screen told her. "In fact, I remember taking you on some of those rides with your mom; that car got wrecked in a chase with the Joker when he used an exploding cream pie launcher built into the back of the one that nut was driving at the time." Seeing Mackie's alarmed look at the pickup when he'd casually mentioned 'suits' the stranger assured him, "Not to worry, it's a secure line, and like I said I've been in the family business for a while. Dick Grayson, once called Robin, then Nightwing up until I had to retire. You must be Mackie. I've heard a lot about you."
"Yeah, that's me. Uh, I guess I've heard about you, too. If you're retired, though, then who's..."
"The current Batman? Well, I really shouldn't say. I am still in on the background end of things, though. Anyway, I've go to go, time difference in the US and all. Just keep helping Cee out, okay? Bruce adopted me before even meeting your mom, so she's my sister too, you know?"
Patchy clouds on the horizon still floated like purple and orange ghosts of the sunset, but the storm front due sometime after midnight was still well out to sea, so those few stars bright enough to make it through the city's glow were as clear as they ever were over most of Megatokyo that evening. At one of the large, automated depots for the still ongoing Kanto Earthquake Recovery Zone, they were blocked by something still less permeable - plumes of smoke from the security buma that had been stationed there. The low-grade construction buma that were based at the facility had continued to function obliviously, at least until their control link to the GPCC mainframe had been taken over for other purposes.
The one human evening overseer was slumped in a corner of his office unconscious, while at his terminal Nam's fingers moved so quickly they seemed to have disappeared as she abused their stolen access while it lasted, relentlessly hunting down the data they desperately needed. Just outside, Sylvie held the DD Battlemover ready to take off at a moment's notice - they'd made too much of a disruption to go unnoticed for long, but hacking the control connection alone would have seen to that so there was no point to subtlety this time. She could hear sirens in the distance, and was about to call for Nam to abandon the search and go when she heard the lavender-haired sexaroid's triumphant cry, then there was a blur of color as she zipped out and up to a perch on the DD's back. Not waiting for anything to go wrong, she fired the battlemover's thrusters and took off into the night.
In his temporary quarters on Genaros, Daley Wong shut off the videodisc player, a disgusted look still on his face. He'd barely seen Kaufmann into the airlock of a shuttle, handcuffed and escorted by a pair of SSPD officers, before someone had nudged him from behind and shoved it into his hands, vanishing into the crowd of rubberneckers before he could even turn around. He'd seen some truly nasty things in a his time as a cop - just working cleanup after a buma rampage could ensure that on any given day, thanks to the difference between their strength and durability and that of a human - and he'd always figured you couldn't really be in the ADP and think of buma as people per se, but that hadn't made it any easier to watch - he hadn't even been able to tell it was a buma on the operating table in the first scenes until enough of the skin was off to show the reinforced rib cage, and that would have been bad enough on its own, even if the perp had been sitting in a cell in front of him.
It was the murderous looks the nurse had thrown at the man doing the job whenever his back was turned, and the tears that even crappy low-quality surveillance camera footage could catch as she cleaned up afterwards that were the worst, because that said the bastard had at least some misuse of authority that let him get away with doing things like that, and making others take part. The fact that it was almost certainly another buma... It didn't really matter, not this time.
Then, that clip had ended, and the next one showed the buma who'd been tortured - he had to go back to the beginning, to where her face was intact enough to recognize, to make sure, but it was her - toting a submachine gun, standing beside another buma (though that wasn't apparent at first, either) with several more people unidentifiable in the background as the same man confronted them, and the second woman blurred with superhuman speed to knock him against a wall. The former victim then proceeded to empty the gun's large clip into him, less than a minute later being cut in half herself by debris when one of the float-cars exploded.
That hadn't been the end, though - as he knew all too well, buma were damn hard to kill, and apparently that extended even to sexaroids. In the next clip, she was back on an operating table, screaming as some kind of heat-sealing tool was used to fuse her skin to the cruder synthetic of a mannequin-class hip and leg assembly, while that utter asshole Kaufmann directed the process in between interrogating her about the other sexaroids and the shuttle they'd stolen, without much luck.
That still wasn't quite the end, though - there had been one more scene, of the poor girl in some kind of isolation cell, naked except for old blood around the marks of a brutal beating, and copious amounts of fresh being coughed up uncontrollably until it had literally pooled around her huddled form. The mannequin-class parts seemed oddly warped, and he wondered about that for a moment. There weren't really any sensors in most of a mannequin's shell at all, so it was unlikely to be a result of the abuse she'd still been undergoing. Of course, expecting the kind of slime who'd do such a thing to make rational decisions was its own kind of folly, but still...
It was only when the wall beneath her had torn away, leaving behind a fringe of ropy cables fluttering in the escaping atmosphere that he realized it was similar to the way scavenged materials looked when a one of the more recent buma types used them to add a weapon or patch their armor as the nanites worked on it, a guess confirmed by the last part of the disk.
It was an audio-only recording of a voice with the metallic overtones of an active-mode security type, leaving a message for him personally. It said, "Hyatt was one of the gentlest souls any of us ever met - no one could believe it when she was the one who gunned down Barnaby. Believe this Inspector if you believe nothing else I say: she was only his last victim, one of many, and if anyone deserved to die it was that bastard. She'd been used as a testbed for fusion nanites similar to the ones now incorporated into the BU-55C, but it never worked before the incident you saw. She has already died three times for nothing more than the quest for her own freedom; please, if she somehow makes it to Earth after all this, and ends up in your area, just let her be."
That was it, finally, and the black screen had turned to static until he shut it down. The hell of it was, as a police officer he couldn't condone murdering a man, but as a person he couldn't begin to pretend that Hyatt deserved any more punishment that she'd already received, buma or not. He ejected the disk and scowled at it for a minute or so, before shattering it under a boot heel.
Enough. He still had to check a few last leads, then contact Leon and warn him about what he'd discovered about the DD. There was police work to be done, and it had nothing to do with any 33-S except the one piloting that battlemover.
Magnus Largo glided into Flint's office like the specter of death itself, smooth and collected and radiating an icy hatred that would make the coldest winter days, when the snow squealed underfoot and every breath made the lungs and teeth ache, seem like a vacation in Hawaii. "Tell me, Flint," he commented scathingly, "Is there ANYONE competent in your organization at ALL? First the bungled assassination last week, now it seems that Kaufmann has been arrested, for arranging to smuggle the DD."
Ignoring the executive's outraged sputtering, the tall, white haired man with the gold-on-black eyes stalked over to the desk and hauled him out of it by the collar, eliciting a startled squawk from Flint, along with a desperate glance at the two bodyguard buma still standing obliviously by the door.
"They can't see me," Largo explained, "or hear me, or you, or anything else I don't want them to detect. As far as their senses can tell them, you are still sitting right here, reading files, and in just a moment you're going to tell them to leave, because you're about done for the night." At this the older man tried again to protest, only to be cut off with a sinister glare. "Your cooperation is not required, and believe me, you are quite finished. We're going to go for a little... trip, you and I. Now."
Behind them, the frames of the office windows warped and slid aside, and a hazy blue sphere of energy formed around Magnus and his unwilling companion then lifted them out and away, the windows again closing behind them. Shortly after, the bodyguards acknowledged words that only they could hear, and quietly left the office to head back to their maintenance cycle cubicles.
It was about 10 PM by the time Sylvie and Nam got back to the loft, but Anri had stayed up waiting for them, too worried to rest, and their other house guest, the former buma Cynthia, had stayed up with her, alternately telling the sexaroid that she could see them and everything was fine, and pleading with her to just sit still so she could heal the daily blood degradation her damaged mechanical systems were unable to slow. The little blonde had joined them right after they bailed out of the Orca IV, flying to meet the airborne battlemover in a bubble of light after helping the shuttle along far enough that it would crash in the next valley over, instead of in the horse field.
As if that hadn't been strange enough, she'd been accompanied by a pair of actual fairies, beautiful tiny girls that fluttered along on butterfly wings shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, and when they'd landed and she learned that Anri was hurt, Cynthia had conferred with them for a bit, then bathed the comatose buma in a differently hued glow, making the barely scabbed-over wound heal as they watched. Sylvie had still been holding her partner in her lap in the opened cockpit, and had caught enough of the fringe of the effect to feel revitalized as well, the fatigue of the nerve wracking manually controlled approach falling away like mud under a hose.
Anri had awakened then to find the child peering earnestly at her, then explaining with a smile, "Hi! I made you better, but your buma part is still broken. You should go back with me to Miss Cecilia! She can fix it for you."
Bewildered, the green-tressed sexaroid had turned to Sylvie, who was still clutching her as if afraid she'd run away. "This is Cynthia," the smiling pilot introduced. "Cynthia, this is my partner Anri. I don't know how you healed her, but thank you. Are you some kind of buma? Is Cecilia your owner?"
The little girl giggled and bounced happily on the fallen tree she'd sat upon. "I used to be, but Miss Cecilia fixed me when the giant robot attacked and Priss-oneesan had to cut it away from my leg, and then she took me to see a nice man who took all the metal out so I could be a normal girl. But he died then, so he can't take your metal out." The fairy in white, who had short, silvery hair, inserted a comment, using an audio datasquirt the sexaroids couldn't quite catch. "Yuki says I could learn to do magic like the nice man did," the blonde continued, "but it's really hard so it would take a long time. Are you sure you can't let Miss Cecilia fix you? She's not my owner, because normal people don't get owned. She's the boss for Nan and Grampa Akimoto, and everyone there is my friend!"
Sylvie shook her head. "We have to make it a secret that we're here. Can you keep a secret?"
"Uh-huh. I hafta keep lots of secrets, because of I see things that are private, even if I'm not trying sometimes. Nan Akimoto taught me it's important to keep what other people do private unless it's hurting somebody or they say it's okay. But Miss Cecilia is really good at keeping secrets too, so I'm sure it would be okay." This time it was the dark-haired fairy who chimed in, the light one just chirping agreement. "Hotaru says Anri-neesan really needs to have her parts fixed, or else get healed like that every day," Cynthia finished worriedly. She looked over at Nam, who'd slumped against the tree stump and was very pale, thanks to the use she'd had to make of her 35-A patch during the escape, but who had followed the conversation with a wide eyed wonder, having always had a love of magic and fairy tales. "You're kinda sick too, I think, like the way Anri-neesan was because her metal stuff is broken. I can help you too, I think, but your metal parts all seem okay."
"Our systems weren't built that way," the speedster replied, after a moment of shock. "Even working properly we still get sick like this, because the men who made us wanted to make sure they could stay our owners. It happens faster with me, but Sylvie would need maintenance in a few months, as well. We just want to be normal people too."
Cynthia gasped, "That's horrible! Just hold still a minute." She gathered power again as she spoke, then plied the same radiance over Nam, who sighed in relief as the status alerts from her diagnostics died down and the logy, sick feeling in her body was replaced by an amazing energy.
"Oh, that feels so nice," she sighed. "As a Bio-Maintenance nurse I heard stories about 'having a healing touch,' but nothing like that. I wish I could do it."
"Yuki taught me," the blonde child noted, "So maybe you can learn too. But, you're grown-ups, so if you went away and don't have owners anymore, can't you get fixed?"
"That's why we came here," Sylvie answered her, "so we can find out how. We still have to get the data from the bad guys, though. That's why being here is a secret." She thought quickly, moral qualms struggling with expedience, and genuine need. "It'll only take a little while, maybe you could come with us, to help us keep from getting sick while we get it, and then go back to Miss Cecilia and your grandparents when we're done?"
Anri had sat up indignantly in her lap, then, and hissed into her ear, "What on earth are you doing, Sylvie, taking advantage of this child like that? All we have to do is leave, and let her tell anyone who asks as much - they'll know we were on the shuttle anyway as soon as they check with the station!"
"It gives us more time," the pilot whispered back, "and without what she just did, we'd have to replace your blood supply every day. How do you think I'd have to do that? It's not like we're going to hurt her or keep her forever - hell, she CARRIED the Orca somehow, I don't think we even could if she doesn't want to..."
There had been a bit more discussion, but in the end the girl had agreed to come with them for a little while, to help keep their secret and find the design data they needed to get their systems rebuilt correctly. In the weeks since, she'd become like a little sister or even a daughter to the runaways, perhaps even a living symbol of the freedom their comrades had died to give them, a former buma who now lived as a human girl. Cynthia had finally drifted off half an hour ago, too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer, but Yuki and Hotaru fluttered over to dance happy rings in the air around the returning pair.
For her part, Anri threw herself at the other sexaroids, taking them both into a relieved embrace. "Thank goodness, you're both all right," she whispered. After a few seconds, she reluctantly released them. "Please, don't do this any more, it's too dangerous. If one of you got caught, you'd be eliminated for sure! You've done enough for me, you should live for yourselves - take more time so you can find a safer way to get the data before you need it. I'll find another way, someone who's learned more magic than Cynthia, or just go with her to this 'Cecilia' who helped her," she pleaded.
Sylvie just shook her head with a gentle smile, one Nam mirrored as well. "It's alright, Anri," the pilot explained. "We did it. Nam found out where the disk with the design data is, all we have to do is go and get it, and we'll all finally be able to live entirely by our own power."
Seeing Nam's confirming nod, Anri's eyes widened, and her serious frown turned into a joyous grin.
Katherine Madigan had been quite surprised to awaken in a hospital bed, more so to discover both legs and an arm in casts, with a matching deep ache in the ribs on the right side of her chest, and an amazingly uncomfortable feeling in more private areas. She looked around the room in confusion, only partly reassured by the buma guard standing watchfully by the window, since it wasn't her usual one. Collecting her wits, she found the call button thoughtfully clipped to the left rail of the bed, where her good arm could reach it, and summoned a nurse in hopes of getting the situation explained.
Soon enough, a nurse arrived to do the usual vitals checks and remove the plumbing arrangements in favor of a bedpan, but before the lavender haired executive - and that had taken so long to grow out, too! Now it barely reached her shoulders! - could ask for any details, the monitor screen built into the wall activated, revealing the familiar face of Chairman Quincy. Pulling herself painfully upright, Madigan forced her slightly fuzzy thoughts into order, snapping out a respectful greeting.
The Chairman looked down from the wall contemplatively for a moment before speaking. "You have awakened," he said, secure in the knowledge that no one was going to call him on redundancy. "It has been several days. What do you recall of the attack?"
*I was attacked?* she wondered, stunned by the sheer audacity of such an act. Shaking her head, she replied, "Not a thinng, sirr. The last I can recall, I was rriding in one of the company carrs, and everythin' was fine."
Quincy hummed and frowned slightly, but told her, "The signals from your driver and bodyguard were disrupted as soon as it began, and their recorders destroyed; at this time there is little further information with any degree of credibility. If your memory returns, report it to me immediately. Also, you will insure you have a competent second in place in the event you are injured in the future. Kuroma is to be terminated with prejudice as soon as you resume your duties. I can only assume that he performed more adequately under supervision." His gaze shifted to the nurse, then, standing respectfully beside the bed. "Miss Madigan is to receive the best and most expedient care, as I dislike dealing with sycophantic incompetents. Inform the staff of as much."
Cynthia had awakened when they tried to move the girl onto her futon, and insisted on using her healing magic - actually just an energy aura, she'd told them, not a proper spell; it just gave their own bodies the power to heal themselves - on Nam and Anri since everyone was there and calmed down. Once she'd gone back to sleep, the runaways decided to go for the data now, before there was a chance it might be moved, and while the girl's healing effect was still recent enough to give a mild degree of regeneration if they were injured in the attempt. Then too, they'd never done two raids in the same night before, and only once two on consecutive nights, so no one should be expecting them to move so quickly. Anri would stay at the apartment as usual to watch over Cynthia, while Sylvie went after the disk and Nam hacked into the security system to look out for patrolling buma, since she'd be fast enough to intercept them or escape where Sylvie would have much more difficulty.
The only human the monitors had shown in the area they needed to access was Flint, the division manager, reading files with a desk lamp in his darkened office. When Sylvie arrived, though, the room was empty, and Nam confirmed over the intercom that he'd just vanished as she opened the door. "Someone must be onto us, feeding the system false data," she worried. "What do we do, Sylvie?"
"We can't turn back now," the other sexaroid replied. "Especially if they know we're here. We can't let them move the disk, or destroy it... There's nothing to do but hurry forward."
Fortunately, the storage room they needed was just down the hall, and it was only a few, tense minutes later that her search paid off, the small disk stuffed into her cleavage as she left, since the motorcycle suit's pockets weren't the greatest. "What's the situation?" she asked tensely, knowing Nam was keeping the intercom open as she moved through the corridors. She was almost out, now, on only the second floor.
"I still don't see any more signs that someone knows we're here, but there's a patrol coming your way... Oh no, there's no way to avoid them! I'll intercept them."
"What? No Nam, wait! Nam?" There was no reply, and a few seconds later she heard the high pitched screech of the medic's sonic blasters, followed by the crash of something slamming into a wall. "Now we've done it," she groaned, running for the end of the hall. Sure enough, intruder alarms began wailing, and she grabbed Nam's arm and ran back the other way, remembering a bay window that had been in sight of where they'd left the bikes.
That was quickly disposed of with another sonic blast, their tougher than human frames absorbing the impact of dropping from the second floor without difficulty, and the pair of them peeled out just as a handful of buma, their human disguises already shed, crashed out through the front doors of the GPCC building to give chase.
As they vanished on trails of thruster fire, Magnus Largo stepped out of the shadowed lobby, a satisfied smirk on his handsome face, golden eyes glittering coldly.
*Someone who only saw his usual grumpy attitude might have been surprised at the Chief back there,* Leon thought, *but he's always there in a pinch, backing up us poor field officers 100%. Heh, I think he forgot I'd been assigned this baby, he was sure surprised when I agreed to his order not to go looking for trouble in a patrol heli.* He twisted the throttle open a little more, expertly maneuvering the PMB through the sparse 2 AM traffic on Highway 5. Getting the unfamiliar body armor on and adjusted had been a bit of a challenge, and he was definitely going to recommend adding a bit more padding to the knee guards, but it handled like a dream, even with a pair of heavy K-11 carbines mounted on the back instead of the usual saddlebags, where they'd be like pistols in hip-holsters to the battleframe mode. He'd been tempted to bring his StoMACH, but it didn't have the right kind of mounting lugs, and the grip would be too small for the PMB's hands.
A flash caught his eye in the rear view mirror, distracting him just as the turn off to avoid the Kanto Canyon quake damage zone came up. He bit off a curse and slowed, but more flashes and the rumble of distant explosions washed away any other complaints. With a silent prayer that everything would line up the way it had when he'd tested it in the mecha bay, he hit the jump boosters and thumbed the transformation switch.
There was a jolt as tiny jets threw the cycle into the air, then the saddle fell away beneath him and he was clinging to the handlebars as the body of the big racing-style cycle unfolded into arms and legs behind his back, the front wheel splitting into twin lift fans at the shoulder blades while the back wheel folded up into a backpack. Then he heard the solid thunks as his armored back slapped into the chest hollow of the battleframe and the latches locked. The nose and windscreen folded up against his own chest as he dropped his arms to the control handles on the battloid's inner forearms, while the soles of his boots latched into the pegs on the robot's calves. His helmet HUD stabilized again and everything was - thankfully! - nominal as he spun the hovering mecha to face a rapidly approaching firefight, drawing his carbines like a gunfighter in one of those American movies.
A feeling of deja vu hit him as he saw that it was 55-C buma chasing women on motorcycles, but it wasn't Priss this time, at least. They were weaving around too much to give him a clear shot at the pursuing mechanoids, but he couldn't blame them for that, with how freely the buma were tossing blasts around from their mouth lasers. His eyes widened as the second, in yellow and blue leathers on a gold bike, suddenly flipped up to stand on the still moving cycle, one foot hooked on the throttle side of the yoke as she faced back down the road, leaning into the wind. "Impossible!" he mouthed, even as some kind of energy bolts reached out from the woman's shoulders and swatted one of the combat buma out of the air to tumble and crash into a building. "No one can do that, even a buma!" A twitch of her foot and twist of her torso in the slipstream sent her bike back and forth across the highway, dodging two more bolts before returning fire again, though less successfully.
They blew past him then, and Leon pushed the PMB's flight engines to their limit to match speeds, using double bursts in their thrusters to wax two more of the 55s, cutting them down to three as - *The canyons!*
The girls on their bikes had ridden right over the edge where the highway had collapsed, and hadn't seemed surprised to do it. The buma of course - were they all buma, on both sides? - the pursuers had of course just followed them down on their flight systems, and he did likewise, holding his fire since the bikers had vanished into the darkness below.
Remembering the shoulder mounted searchlight, he flicked it on, then activated the bullhorn on the other side. "This is the ADPolice!" he announced, commanding, "Shut down your weapon systems and lie face down, or -"
In the illuminated circle on the canyon floor, a pile of scrap was shaking as something freed itself from underneath, while a yellow streak circled one of the buma then turned into the daredevil biker as she slammed a flying kick into it and tossed it to crash through a wall. One of the remaining pair picked up the wrecked blue cycle and threw it at the momentarily stationary target, but she blurred away again before it hit.
Meanwhile, a big red shape, recognizable from the data Daley had sent as the DD's quadruped form, had freed itself from the scrap it was hidden in and a quad-barrel gun blew the head off the buma that had thrown the motorcycle. The one remaining roared and opened its heat projector array, but just as it fired the speedster appeared again, her shoulder beams shattering the lenses, the unfocused energy immolating it in a spectacular fireball.
Touching down at the third point of a triangle from the DD and the woman in blue and yellow, he called out, "This is Inspector McNichol, of the A. D. Police. I say again, shut down your weapon systems. I'm not going to attack you, just come out of there!"
There was a rumble behind him, and a roar, and he spun aside just in time for the combat buma that had been kicked through a wall to miss with its mouth laser as he dodged into the air.
Firing line clear, the DD launched a pair of small missiles at the buma, but it jetted away at the last moment as well. It landed on a ledge and tried to set itself for another shot, but the lavender-haired speedster blurred away again, running straight up the wall to its side and launching it to tumble back to the earth with a mighty uppercut. Even as it landed, the DD pounced, crushing the cyberdroid's torso and severing its spine with a taloned foreleg, and they were back at the stand-off.
"We can't let you stop us, Inspector," Nam called out pleadingly. "Not now, after everything we've come through. Please, we haven't killed anyone, or even really hurt them. Just turn away, and we'll be gone."
"That's something I can't do," he countered. "That thing is a menace to the entire city and everyone in it, and that's not even mentioning theft of government property, private and public damages, and weapons violations." His two carbines weren't exactly aimed at the pair, but they were clearly trained in their general directions as he landed again. "Backup is already on its way, even if you get past me you can't escape. You're right, you haven't killed anyone yet - if you come quietly you probably won't even be dismantled."
"NO! THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" Sylvie shouted, then jerked in shock as the battlemover lurched under her. "What the!" The cockpit lights turned red and the instruments went crazy, as electricity played over the outside of the mecha and it began to change into the J-1 controlled humanoid mode. "No, why! The J-1 shouldn't be activating unless the pilot is dead, and I'm not even hurt..."
The cockpit around her seemed to melt and shift, slim armor plates like fins or blades forming a control frame around her, while liquid-like metal flowed over her and around the biker leathers. The link system collar, arm and leg bands snapped into place, and a wash of energy played over Sylvie's form, flaring her hair like a corona as the DD and whatever had taken it over synchronized with her OS.
Outside, the heavy armor of the DD broke up and reformed in ways that were very disturbing to Priss and Sylia, watching from the rim of the canyon above, but even more so for Nene, who had seen the form the weird robot "Guardian 215" had taken on the top of Genom Tower when it replaced Priss's motoslave. It still mimicked the over all shape of the DD, but the jutting fins, and most tellingly the close-packed array of blades on the forearms were the same. A little ball of fear started to grow in her stomach at the thought that they'd come to disable or destroy the DD, whatever the cost, when they'd have to fight against THAT.
(N.B.: If desired, start playing "Shock the Monkey" now)
Linna wasn't even looking at the battlemover. The spotty cloud cover had cleared again, and somehow, the full moon overhead was irresistibly fascinating, even as her heart beat pounded in her head and the body armor Sylia had built to mount her familiar weapon systems seemed to shrink and squeeze uncomfortably. The other Sabers turned to stare as the sounds of shattering ceramic and tearing nanoweave came form her, looking on in shock as their team mate tore out of the suit, face warping and extending into a baboon like muzzle, dark fur coating her body as the now loose long tail lashed uncontrollably. The giant's eyes glowed with an ominous red light as it continued to expand, a spiky, pitch black mane of hair the only thing still recognizable from their friend.
Rising on the skyline and easily four times larger than the DD itself, oozaru-Linna roared and beat her fists together with a crash like thunder. She looked down at last, sighting her enemy, then drew a deep breath and let loose with a tight, twisting blast of ki-fueled flames, exploding at the impact point like a bomb as the three below hastily dodged.
In the meantime, unseen by anyone, a small, stealthy form that had been trailing Priss for nearly two months even inside the new headquarters, and which had interfaced with a similar component it found there, slipped off to rejoin its master unit.
The initial contact was terrifying, like being washed away in a flood as the foreign system downloaded her entire archived memory, even as the part of the composite that was the J-1 battle computer evaded the fire attack and calculated threats and targeting points for the unknown new opponent. As the part that was Sylvie regained a sense of individual identity, outrage at the intrusion turned to shock as the stealth remote unit also rejoined the composite, and its findings were laid open before her - including the backed up mission-critical files retrieved from another remote that had been encountered in the Knight Sabers' base. Priss was a Knight Saber, Linna and Nene as well! And the Guardian, an actual alien artefact, that had somehow mistaken Priss for the user it had been intended for... Perhaps the ultimate slave, it held incredible power but had no desire for self-determination, and what little decision making capacity it had was damaged almost beyond recovery in the last battle with Priss, who simply didn't seem to understand. Even some of Priss's own memories were included in the data, copied from her lover's mind in an earlier attempt to recover from data loss, and to understand the troublesome person the Guardian had bound itself to.
Now, the part that was the Royal Guardian needed to be a true whole once more, and it would be up to her to integrate the muddle of directives and memories from a handful of sources, as the only general-purpose heuristic logic system in the composite... The part that was Sylvie felt a stab of terror, at the thought that she could really make a mess of things if a being with the Guardian's power ended up running wild, like the J-1's 'kill everything and blow up the bodies' program. Even now, it was bringing out all the extra armor and modules the Guardian had been able to recover or reconstruct while scavenging the quake canyon, and she had to countermand the assembly of half a dozen different weapons that would have done untold amounts of collateral damage... And she had to work quickly, because one thing the J-1 retained total control of was the self-destruct bomb.
The remaining Knight Sabers had scattered as well, to avoid being trampled more than anything, and Nene came to perch on top of a section of the highway that had landed on its side on the canyon floor just as the speed demon in yellow came to a stop there as well. Not having gotten a good look before, another shock piled onto this night of doozies as she recognized Nam, the new girl-friend she'd spent most of the day shopping with, looking at motorcycles, and she blurted out, "Eeeh? Nam! But if you're here, is Sylvie...?"
Nam was equally surprised to be recognized, but before she could say anything - with the build under that somewhat minimal armor, it could only be Nene in the new Pink Saber suit - they had to dodge away again. The DD had charged the oozaru, a pair of massive, sharpened fins extended from the forearms like the wolvers popular with cybergangs, only to be met with a back-hand smash that sent it flying, straight through the crumbling concrete of their road fragment.
Leon had ended up sharing a perch with the White Saber, though more by design - he'd intentionally headed for her, so as to pass on his critical information. "Listen," he warned her, "The DD - we've got to destroy it quickly! I don't know what's happened to it, but once the J-1 takes control, it'll self destruct when it runs out of power. We'll be blown to pieces, along with the entire city!"
"What? Nene, deep scan the DD, now!" Sylia ordered, over the scrambled radio link.
Nam, who'd ended up close enough to hear the tail end of Leon's warning, gasped as well. "That strong!" she cried. "She only said it would be dangerous, not... apocalyptic!"
Deploying her backpack sensors, the pink Saber quickly confirmed, "It's true! It's got a micro neutron bomb, and it's only 180 seconds from critical mass!" She'd forgotten to switch over to the speakers in her haste, but the nod of her helmet was enough to convey the worst to Nam.
Message delivered, Leon double-teamed the DD with Saber Blue who had come to the party in similar play clothes, the slightly more massive Typhoon still showing the obvious design similarities of the two mecha. Unfortunately, their shots simply ricocheted off the reinforced battlemover's armor, and it fired the last of its conventional missiles to drive them back before taking to the air. The powerful thrusters of the airborne battlemover had been augmented with the Guardian's advanced gravity control, making it faster and more maneuverable than ever, and it put that agility to good use, dodging more fire attacks from the giant ape. The missed shots blasted a trail of destruction, chewing a huge new divot out of the battered side of the Kanto Canyon, then wiping away a half dozen nearby blocks as she tried to hit the rapidly moving target.
The DD deployed the four-vaned energy cannon assembly that had replaced its gatling, charging and firing a sun-bright river of energy that caught the oozaru in the chest and knocked her tumbling head over heels through several more buildings, to land in a heap near the bay.
Howling her fury to the stars, were-Linna kipupped back to her feet, grabbing a radio mast from the wreckage and flinging it like a javelin at the battlemover, knocking it out of the air as it tried to set up another shot while everyone else rushed to catch up to its location.
As Sylvie had reintegrated the fragmented programming and files of the Royal Guardian's decision matrix, she'd found so much of the original data had been lost, now replaced by patterns copied from her and Priss's memories, that the part that was the Guardian was becoming more and more human until finally it too awakened to a sense of existence as an individual. Checking on the J-1, she realized how short time had gotten, and sent the new consciousness - and somehow that new beginning was a comfort in the face of immanent death - the sorrowful thought, *I've done what I can, the rest will have to be up to you to figure out, masah mahnyee 215, no, Masamune Niichigo. Whatever you decide to do, go for it with everything, ne?*
Nam reached the DD first, of course, Priss and Leon next in their flying battleframes, then Nene and Sylia. Leon, one side of his PMB scorched black by the exploding missiles, went straight to the attack again, putting the entire mass of the unit into a go-for-broke haymaker. The J-1 was still too quick, catching the punch and flipping him into the wall of an already damaged building, burying him in rubble as it collapsed further.
The others formed a semicircle around the red and grey battlemover, tensed but not yet committed to any attacks, when suddenly the extra fins and armor plates flowed away and vanished from the DD's frame, even most of the original armor and systems gone now as well where the Guardian's technology had replaced them. With a clunk and a hiss, the cockpit hatch opened, revealing Sylvie in her blue cycling jumpsuit, interface shackles still locked in place but the rest of the cockpit gutted, even the seat reduced to a bare frame. "Priss," she called out to Saber Blue. "I know it's you, Priss. Please, you have to kill me. The J-1 is linked to me, so that will shut it down - it's the only way. Hurry!"
Taken aback, the singer could only gasp, "Sylvie! Why... Why do you have to die? Can't you just turn the damn thing off!"
Amber eyes shimmering with tears, the sexaroid pled, "Please, it's completely out of control now. If you leave it, or even if another network connects to it, it'll destroy the whole city."
"I... No, I can't!" Priss cried, shaking gun arm extended, seemingly against her will. Nam, equally horrified, staggered back to lean against a flipped car, while Sylia and Nene called out to their team mate. The stubby firing stud inside her weapon gauntlet suddenly felt as huge and heavy as the world itself, and with terrible slowness her finger slid against it, pressing it right to the limit before the contacts would click over and launch a rail gun spike. *What am I doing? What CAN I do? I... I can't just...* too quietly even for the helmet microphone to pick up, she breathed, "Forgive me, I -"
Before she could cross that edge or back away from it, oozaru-Linna reoriented herself and bounded across the devastated cityscape to attack. Spotting the foolish weakness at her enemy's heart, she snapped a hand forward, and with the heavy damage done by the Guardian's removal the battlemover's lurching dodge was no longer anywhere near fast enough. With a horrid crunch and the snapping of reinforced cables, her massive hand wrapped around Sylvie and ripped her out of the cockpit, uncaring of the damage inflicted in her rage as the sexaroid all but vanished in her massive fist then was tossed carelessly aside.
Scrambled by the sudden hole in its control network, the J-1 had already begun shutting down before the giant monkey's fists slammed into it one after the other, hammering the battlemover into the earth before loosing a final blast of fire breath, instantly slagging what little of the mecha was not vaporized outright. A massive crater was blasted out around her feet by the secondary explosion even as the were-ape bellowed her victory.
Outraged, Nam zipped through the flaming rubble to slam stinging punches and kicks all over the giant as she ran up and down its body, adjusting her position in the slipstream to keep her feet pressed against it for traction. "HOW COULD YOU!" she howled, "SHE WAS MY FRIEND!" Tiring, she had to slow, and clung to the beast's fur, a mistake it quickly capitalized on to slap her away, coincidentally landing close to where Priss had shed her helmet to cradle Sylvie's broken body against her chest.
"Sylvie... I can't believe it was you..." the chestnut-topped Saber sobbed, wiping ineffectually at the blood welling from where the interface collar had dug into her neck before the cables tore free.
The sexaroids voice was a pain-filled rattle, and she coughed up a mouthful of blood before scrabbling at the data disk and croaking out, "Priss, take this... there's another girl, Anri, at my apartment, give it to her and Nam. It's why we fought, with this they can finally be free, like you... I beg you..."
"Sylvie..." her lover sobbed again, brushing back blood-matted black hair from the buma's face. "Sylvie? Answer me..."
Eyelids drooping, the dying woman forced out just a few more words. "Priss... just one... more... be kind to 'r... child..." Her energy was spent, then, and all that was left was the floating feeling of shock, and a deep dissatisfaction at dying in this manner.
"Child? I don't understand... Sylvie? SYLVIE!" Unanswered, the singer could only cry over the body of her love, Nam crawling over to join in her grief as cumulative damage from using her speed for so long left her shaking and weak with blood poisoning.
Rid of the climbing pest, oozaru-Linna turned to the only other fighters still standing, roaring a challenge into the night, even as the sirens of emergency vehicles and helicopter rotors sounded in the distance. Seeing no recognition in those bloodshot eyes, Sylia and Nene stood wary, ready to dodge if necessary. Taking their aggressive stances as defiance, she attacked, leaping into the air to drop on her erstwhile friends in a massive stomp that shook the earth as she landed, making more of the ruins collapse and forcing the two active Sabers to dodge and dodge again.
Despair tightening her chest, Sylia commanded, "We've got to try to lead her back into the canyon, away from the inhabited city. Priss is in no condition for this now, so it's up to us, Nene." Warily, she turned the powerplant in her own pack up to full output - while this one had at least not exploded when she lit off the fusion reaction, she was still less certain of the design than she'd like - and increased the draw to her personal energy supply to match. A pale glow shimmered into being around her body as it was stockpiled, and with a mental nudge it became a form-fitting energy shield that would cushion impacts and enhance her own speed and force.
Nene too raised her energy level, the battle aura she'd learned to bring out through training with her parents serving much the same purpose as Sylia's technologically generated shield. In fact, according to her mother's sensing spells, they were even formed from similar energy in essentially the same way, science catching up with ancient magic at last thanks to the theories of James Christian Dykstra as applied by Stingray genius. Concentrating on more immediate matters, she suggested, "I'll hit high, you hit her low?" "Agreed. Try not to do too much damage, we still don't know why she transformed, or how long it will last," the Saber leader replied.
"Somehow, I don't think that'll be a problem," the redhead muttered, before pulling open a portal in the air so she could travel to the top of a still-intact building near the oozaru's head.
The maneuver went as planned, the combined attack from opposite directions taking the giant at the ankles and shoulder blades, knocking her sprawling in the shattered street. Bellowing with anger, the huge ape chased the troublesome bugs back to the quake zone, crouching on the edge to look down, trying to spot where they'd run to.
The edge itself was blasted away by a pair of energy balls, one ki-based and the other a packet of plasma in a gravatic envelope, and the giant tumbled into the gorge with a squawk which became a pained roar as her shoulder was gouged by steel beams jutting from a fallen building. Maddened, she flailed at the offending wall, crumbling it to chunks as the clouds swept in again and a heavy rain began to fall.
Deprived of moonlight, the transformation reversed, rubble half-burying the still struggling oozaru as it shrank, snout reverting to a more human mouth and nose, fur fading away to leave a seemingly human body though one only slightly scraped and bruised by the concrete where a normal person would be crushed to a pulp. Working quickly to leave before investigators arrived, Sylia and Nene dug their friend out of the debris and hurried away into the night, radioing instructions to Priss to do the same.
If the sarcastic applause and compliments for putting on such an amusing show that sounded only in her mind gave the silver-haired scion of Wayne and Stingray pause, she betrayed no sign.
Next time on Bubblegum Disaster: There's a whole lot of pieces to be picked up...
Yamane-sensei and the "70% cut-off" law - this line wasn't intended to be a pun, and she is certainly dead serious about it at the moment, but... I come from a medical family, and I know the kind of gallows humor doctors tend to have, and I'm absolutely certain that the phrase would be ingrained enough among members of the medical community that it would come out automatically.
Choji and Shika (Shikamaru) are ninja in the Naruto manga and anime written by Masahi Kishimoto. Shikamaru is a strategist as a teen, while Chouji is more of a meat tank who follows his lead. As cops in a more modern world, Chouji developed his observation and analytical skills after his friend died in the 2027 Kanto quake. Their third team mate, Ino, is as yet unused, but I'm sure she'll be barging into my thoughts soon enough to demand a role.
Jane Li and Jade Chan - Jane is Jet Li's actual daughter's name, and Jade was Jackie's niece in the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon.
PMBs vs. MOSPEADA: While basic concept of a quick, agile motorcycle with armor for the rider which can transform and link to that armor to become a combat exoskeleton is amazingly cool in theory, the design used in Genesis Climber MOSPEADA falls short on several counts. The most significant design stupidity in the MOSPEADA cycle is that except for a pair of non-load-bearing thigh guards the ENTIRE motorcycle wraps around the rider's upper body, and I don't know about you, but I damn sure can't hold up the weight of a motorbike, let alone run, jump, and fight while carrying it; if I could then I wouldn't want to because the unpowered body armor would be less noticeable and restrict my movement that much less. A motoslave is a complete, autonomous robot which has a hollow interior to accept a pilot, who operates the limbs in much the same way as the waldo controls of a normal K-series battle frame. Further, the MOSPEADA is blocky and falls in that range where it's too ugly to be cool, but not ugly enough that no one dares to say so to its face. In contrast, the Police Motor Battloid shares the sleekness of its Knight Saber cousins, with a few variations - it's essentially the 'production model' shown in the BGC:EX RPG sourcebook, but with the hover fans and the ability to accept a pilot in battle frame mode restored. I've added a modified scan of this also, for those who don't have BGC:EX.
If you have a copy of Mekton Zeta, there's a picture of Kenty the mechatech on page 29. She also has a sidebar quote in MZ Plus, page 6. She's something of a stock character to populate a mecha bay in gearhead circles but I rounded her out a bit (in a literal sense if you consider her impending parenthood!) for this.
Paul Bergman came up with the line I gave to Dick Grayson about getting the Batmobile wrecked - thanks, PMB! And no, I didn't actually name the police motoslave after you, there may not be any such thing as "coincidence" but it wasn't me who plotted that twist.
On the classifications of humanoid combat suits - "body armor" is unpowered, though it may have computer or support systems built in, "hardsuits" are only slightly larger and generally lump in with "power armor" like the one used by Mason in canon BGC, they have some form of motive system that at least compensates for their own weight. The K-12 Armored Trooper, motoslave, and PMB are "battleframes" - significantly larger than human but the pilot's arms and legs are still at least partially inside the limbs. "Battlemovers" are big enough to have a cockpit where the pilot is entirely within the torso. I expect this all was fairly obvious from context, but just in case, here you go.
"Wait, so what happened to Flint?" It seems our dear Mr. Flint went on a snark hunt, but found a boojum instead. If you don't know what that means, and can't figure it out, read more Lewis Carroll. I've actually been more clear about what became of him than canon, if you watch the episode in question.
"Niichigo", while directly representing "ni" "ichi" and "go", 2, 1, and 5, is written as a name ni+ichigo, "two strawberries." "Masamune" being only similar in sound to "ma-sah mahn-yee," "royal guardian" in the unknown alien language of its creators, is spelled like the famous swordsmith.
"I am damn dissatisfied to be killed in this manner!" I don't remember what movie it was, but a bad guy in a poorly dubbed martial arts movie had this for a last line, and it always stuck with me. Basically it's just me being vague about whether Sylvie has enough of a sense of unfinished business to become a ghost.
"Ano, Niichigo doko wa?" - Doko kashira, kashira kashira...
Guardian 215 should be imagined with the vocal talents of Susan Blu; if you don't know her by name, she did (among other shows) Arcee on the post-movie Transformers episodes, as well as in the movie itself. You can even keep the flanging effect if you like, though it's not really there.
Many thanks to my prereaders: Hoderi Hibiki, Paul Bergman, Nathan Baxter, Hide Hasegawa, Leong Mun Yee, Andrew Wilson, Christopher Gilbert, and Drakensis, and to everyone on the BDPreread mailing list - you get your name listed if you actually make commentary, but just reading and finding nothing bad enough to complain about is still commentary of a sort.
Drakensis used to keep a remote archive of the story on his web site, but unfortunately it no longer exists. Since he's a damn good fic writer himself, I'll give a link to his profile instead, as a thank you for the effort when he did. It's at .net/u/347490/drakensis
Special thanks to Bob Schroeck, Consulting Acronymologist. He also happens to be the author of another rather good BGC fanfic called _Drunkard's Walk II_ (The first one is not available for public consumption, but it's a rather modular series.) The Drunkard's Walk home page is .net/~ and Bob's message board is at .com/
Sgt. Fuko MacNamara and her art are also Bob's property, from _Drunkards Walk II_ in fact.
Bubblegum Crisis belongs to Youmex and Animeigo, I make no claims otherwise. Please don't sue me, I have no money to speak of and fanfic does more to promote your products than anything else I know of - without it, I never would have known about anime at all, and I'd certainly never have bought the BGC tapes based on the sucky box copy.
Ranma 1/2 I'm not so sure of, except that the creator was Rumiko Takahashi, not me, and that I make no claims to own IT either. I THINK that the Ranma manga are done by Viz in the US, but that may be incorrect.
The Bionic Six is similarly of unknown provenance, but I have a very vague and unreliable memory that it may have been animated by Suncoast video... In any case, it's STILL not my own creation.
_Dykstra's War_ is by Jeffery D Kooistra, published by Baen Books.
Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were created by Akira Toriyama, owned overall by Bandai I think, and released on video in the US by FUNimation and in manga by Dark Horse (again not so sure about that one - could be Viz)
Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and is undoubtedly also owned by some animation studio or another. I know that the RPG rights in North America at least belong to Guardians of Order.
_Shock The Monkey_ was originally by Peter Gabriel, but was more recently covered by Ozzy and Coal Chamber.
OMAKE!
As the giant ape appeared on the city skyline, the Chairman's eyes widened slightly from where he looked out of his office's huge klasterglass windows. Schooling his face into its usual imperturbable expression, Quincy turned back to his desk and keyed in a short combination. Immediately, Misato appeared on the viewscreen.
"Sirr?" she saluted.
"Prepare Unit 01 for launch," he commanded gruffly.
"But the pilot -"
"A spare has arrived."
"Aye sirr!"
Deep in the subterranean levels of the Tower, a massive, purple and green cyberdroid began to stir into a semblance of life.
Yeah yeah, so Madigan has purple hair, not blue. Bite me, I'm delicious.
EOF