Fateful Meetings

by Sora G. Silverwind

Novelization/re-telling of the game Bomberman 64: The Second Attack. Simultaneously loltastic and depressing, realistic and nonsensical. Starlight: Breakaway

37. Starlight: Breakaway

"Over my dead body!" Tolbi shouted, bending over for his fallen gun.

FWSH! FWSH!

Two chi knives embedded themselves into the floor right in front of the gun, mere centimeters away from his fingertips.

Tolbi turned and gawked at Lilith.

"Tempting prospect," she chirped, "but too messy."

Tolbi swallowed, exhaled through his nose...and slowly composed himself into something more reminiscent of the cold-hearted business king he'd been up in his office. "Hmph. Didn't think you of all people would be one to be concerned about being 'messy' in a situation like this."

Lilith's eyes narrowed for a moment before she simply gave a careless sigh and an equally careless shrug with an even more careless smile. "Well, there's messy, and then there's..." She snapped a wrist out.

FWSH!

"Aaah!" Tolbi flinched.

"...'messy'," she finished.

An expertly thrown chi knife had sliced a hole in the side of Tolbi's pants pocket – a hole from which three brightly colored key cards spilled out.

"No!" He gasped and started forward.

In a flash, Lilith swung her forearm against his throat, slamming his head back against the locker behind him. WHAM! "You just lost the game, Tolbi," she warned, her voice deceptively light. "Feel free to tell me if you're up for losing your life as well." Her eyes met his – dark chocolate brown against faded steel blue.

A tense moment stretched out and yawned like a reclining wildcat.

...Tolbi gritted his teeth and looked away.

"You truly are who – or what – they say you are, Miss Reynard," he muttered.

"I never said I wasn't," she responded, still smiling. "Pommy, could you get the other cards and give them to Bomberman, please?"

"Myu, right away!" Pommy scurried over and dutifully scooped them up before trotting over to Bomberman. As Bomberman took the cards, Pommy glanced back at Lilith. "Um...can Pommy ask Lilith something?"

"Sure, what is it?"

"H-how did Lilith and Bomberman know to come down here?"

"We asked one of the guards back at the office," Bomberman said as he set low-power ice bombs by Iodem's hands and feet. The resulting frosty explosions froze the bodyguard's appendages to the floor, and Bomberman safely stepped off him without worry of being attacked again. "He didn't know too many specifics, but he'd heard that something weird was going on in the lower levels, so we headed down here and poked around. We ended up running into an angry janitor who was apparently on his way to the infirmary or something, grumbling about...er, well, I won't repeat his exact words, but he wasn't too happy about Mr. Tolbi."

"I knew that charity could only come around to bite me in the ass," Tolbi muttered.

Lilith frowned and further ground her arm into his neck.

"Agh! That's my esophagus, you bi – "

"When we talked to him," Bomberman continued, "he told us that he'd seen Mr. Tolbi in the sub-basement, and pointed us to it."

"But the elevator to the sub-basement is key-activated," Tolbi said, slightly hoarse. "How'd you get inside?"

"The janitor got us in."

Wide eyes. "Just like that?"

"Quid pro quo," Lilith said. "Or equivalent exchange, if that's the way you roll. I happened to have a remedy on me for the headache apparently inflicted on him by your hands. In return, he activated the elevator for us." She snickered. "This is why you don't piss off the little people."

"And then once we got in the sub-basement, we spotted Walking Bloodstain here" – Bomberman tilted his head towards Iodem – "wandering the halls. We tracked him to this warehouse, but didn't follow him inside. We were walking around looking for an alternate entrance when we heard the gunshots go off from inside, and, well..." A glance at the large hole in the wall. "We decided it'd be quicker if we just made our own entrance."

"Well, aren't you two just the plucky pair!" Tolbi cackled. "But there's still one piece of the puzzle you're missing." He pointed.

Lilith's eyes followed the invisible path sprouting from his fingertip to the lonely bamboo-like steel stalk sprouting up next to a large door in a relatively spacious area of the warehouse. She squinted. "Is that...a combo swiper?"

"Right on the money. The cards you've got will get you to the Gravity Generator room...but only if you swipe them in the correct order." He smirked. "And you'll only get two chances to nail it before the security system nails you with fifty thousand volts of electricity and then slams a cage on you! Hahaha!" He gave Lilith a positively gleeful look. "Go on, try it – make my day. Once you and your little boytoy are under bars, I'll get the BHB Army to haul you off for good!"

"I wouldn't count the chickenfishes before they're fried if I were you," Lilith remarked. "Bomberman, mind taking over for me here? I'll see what I can do about the cards."

Bomberman was silent as he studied the key cards in his hand. All four of them sported a magnetic stripe running down the right edge on one side of the cards. Etched into the other side were shimmering designs that varied in content and color for each card.

A crimson queen dancing in a flowing gown with a heart-shaped decorative collar – the Queen of Hearts.

A viridian king with a regal scepter topped with a club – the King of Clubs.

A golden knight brandishing a diamond-tipped lance – the Jack of Diamonds.

And a single cerulean spade surrounded in intricate flourishes – the Ace of Spades.

The colors swirled and congealed in Bomberman's mind...

"Er...Bomberman?"

Inspiration struck him then, provoked by an odd detail that he'd retained from earlier in the day. It was a bit of a long shot, true, but it was better than nothing. Anyway, since he only had two chances to get things right, he'd find out soon enough whether his inspiration would become his expiration.

"Bomberman, did you – "

"I know the order," Bomberman said simply, turning and walking off.

Lilith blinked at his retreating back. "Wh-what?"

"Oho!" Tolbi snorted. "This'll be rich!"

Bomberman marched over to the combo reader with Lilith, Tolbi, and Pommy watching from afar. He fanned out the cards in his hands, rearranging them in what he thought might be the correct sequence. He took a breath, and then – starting from the left – began to swipe them in quick succession.

Yellow.

Green.

Red.

Blue.

And then...

The swiper gave a cheerful, affirmative beep-beep before descending back into the floor.

The door hissed pneumatically as it slid into the wall.

"Myu!" Pommy held up a triumphant pink fist. "Nice job!"

Tolbi's mouth dropped. "H-how did you...?"

Bomberman rolled his eyes at Tolbi. "It was in the order of the lightning in your office behind your desk," he retorted, secretly relieved that he'd managed that shot in the dark. "You can't get much more obvious than that! Seriously, did you fail Security 101 or something? Yeesh." He peered into the newly revealed passageway. "Well, I guess we'd better get a move on. The sooner we're out of here, the sooner we'll be...uh...out of here."

"Agreed." Lilith promptly shoved a protesting Tolbi inside an empty locker and shut him in. ­CL-CLANG! Click! She eyed the twitching figure of Iodem on the floor.

A pause.

Her eyes glowing gold again, Lilith grabbed the back of Iodem's shirt and yanked him up from the floor, cracking his ice manacles in the process. CR-AAACCK! Before he could figure out that he'd been freed, Lilith tossed him one-handedly into the locker next to Tolbi's and flung the door closed. CLANG-click!

Bomberman stared.

She gave an innocent blink. "What?"

Bomberman shook his head. Lilith surprised him every time she breathed, it seemed. "Never mind..."

B-O-M-B

"Pommy's glad to see that Bomberman and Lilith are okay!" Pommy said as the three of them walked down the passage to the Gravity Generator room. "Pommy would've stayed and helped with the guards, but Pommy knew that you two wanted information from Mr. Tolbi, so when Mr. Tolbi left, Pommy decided it would be better to follow him!"

Lilith laughed. "Good thinking there. You weren't scared?"

"Not at all!" The creature proudly stuck out his chest...whatever he had of one. "Mr. Tolbi and Iodem were nothing compared to Pommy, the greatest hero in the universe!"

Bomberman glanced down at Pommy. "I have to admit...I'm surprised you survived that long against...well, not Tolbi, but that bodyguard of his."

"Well, it wasn't hard at all – not for Pommy!"

"Ahh, cram it. You're not convincing anyone."

"I don't know, Bomberman," Lilith said slyly. "I'm finding Pommy's rhetoric rather compelling."

Bomberman gave her a weird look. "Oh, really? What kind of rhetoric is he using, argumentum ad delusional creampuff?"

A musical laugh. "More like argumentum ad cuteness – anything he says is true because he's so cute."

"Pfft! I'd argue that his cuteness actually undermines anything he has to say."

"What? Bomberman's just being cute-ist now, myu!"

"Everyone's a little bit cute-ist sometimes..."

After another turn onto a straightaway, they stepped out onto a semi-circular platform jutting out into the Gravity Generator chamber. Two staircases on either side of the platform snaked along the adjacent walls before turning forward onto the main floor. The shielded generator, irritating in its familiarity by this point, stood in the center. Guarding its corners (and presumably powering the generator's force field) were four gigantic pillars of industrial blue-violet stretching from floor to ceiling, shot through with veins of pulsing electrical white from exposed circuitry. The only other thing of note in the chamber was a large computer console built into one of the walls.

Lilith stared. "Erm...wow," she breathed. "I think I'm definitely going to leave this up to you and your kablams."

"I'm not even sure I could 'kablam' my way through those." But Bomberman headed down a staircase to try, followed by Pommy. The bomber cautiously approached the nearest pillar and rapped a knuckled against it. "Feels rock solid all the way through." He hummed thoughtfully and turned to see Lilith at the computer, tapping lightly on the main screen as she navigated its programs and commands. "Find anything interesting over there?"

"Yeah. Whoever set up the desktop must really have a hardcore foot fetish."

Bomberman did a double-take.

A few more soft taps, followed by an annoyed sigh. "I can't get too far in this thing – a lot of the important functions are password-protected. Looks like we'll just have to disable the force field with a whole lot of force." She turned and leaned back against the console, smiling serenely. "So go do your thing."

Bomberman nodded, motioning to Pommy to take cover. He placed a fire superbomb by the pillar, stepped back, and set it off with his remote.

BOOOM!

"Myu..." Pommy pouted. "That barely did any damage at all!"

Indeed, the only evidence of Bomberman's explosive efforts was a melted, soot-haloed shallow dent in the side of the pillar and on the floor. It hadn't even penetrated the outer casing of the pillar.

"Tough guy, aren't you?" Bomberman remarked. Undeterred, he charged four fire superbombs and stationed them strategically around the pillar before setting the explosives off.

KA-BOOOOMM!!

The roar of the quadruple blasts reverberated in the chamber; the smoke filled the air and dissipated.

There was a stunned pause.

"No freakin' way..." Bomberman ran over and inspected the damage – or lack thereof, rather. The flames and force from the explosions had warped the outer layer of the pillar a little more than before, but that was it. "No way! It resisted all that?!"

"And it didn't even set off an alarm," Lilith added, sounding partially amused and partially surprised.

"Maybe Bomberman should put down even more bombs!" Pommy suggested.

"No can do." Bomberman sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm tapped at four supers."

Pommy scratched his head. "Myu? Why's that?"

"Bombers have a 'reservoir' of chi in their bodies that they use to power their explosives," Bomberman explained, bending over to run a hand over the most noticeably damaged section of the pillar. "Every time we create a bomb, we drain that reservoir. The only way to fill that reservoir back up is if the bomb explodes, because that's when the chi returns to us so we can use it again."

"Really?"

Lilith was also intrigued. "So that means...you can only put down a certain number of bombs before running out of chi to use for them."

"Right. Most bombers cap out at three or four normal bombs. Some reach as high as five or six. Honestly, though, reservoir size isn't all that important in the entire scheme of things. Well, except in deathmatches, but that's an entirely different story. All in all, it's more useful to mess around with the level of explosive power concentrated in a single bomb, instead." Bomberman shoved the tip of his shoe against the pillar, still testing the extent of the damage he'd managed to inflict. "Reservoir size really only matters – and only to a limited degree – if you're in military or law enforcement work, or if you're a criminal hellbent on mass destruction without being at the scene of the crime."

"Some might argue that there's no difference between the two." She tilted her head. "Can I ask where you happen to stand in the middle of all these stats and stuff?"

"Ah..." Bomberman simpered and shrugged. "I'm kind of a freak of nature. My limit's eight normals...which would be about equivalent to four supers."

Lilith raised her eyebrows with a smile. "Oh, I get it now! I bet that's why you're called 'Bomberman', huh?"

Bomberman laughed – and it wasn't an entirely amused sound. "If only it were that simple." He sighed again. "But never mind that. Let's figure out how we're going to take down this damn thing." He glared at the pillar. "From what I can tell, I could probably eventually eat my way through, but it would take about twelve supers for just one. Do the math and we're talking about forty-eight supers total."

Lilith whistled. "And I'm assuming that not even you could deal with that many."

"Yeah. I can make supers more easily than most bombers, but if I had to do forty-freakin'-eight I think the resulting headache and fatigue would murder me about halfway through, especially if we wanted to get out of here within the next hour or so." He frowned contemplatively as he considered other potential options. "This is what's shielding the generator, right?"

"That's what the computer's indicating to me." She stretched out an arm and tapped her way through various digitally rendered figures and data streams. "There's probably a way to just de-power the pillars from here, but without the right authentication I can't get to that point. And while I have some hacking experience, I usually do it with the aid of an external device or a few, something to disrupt the normal process so I can more easily get in and mess around. That, or I have someone who helps out remotely." Her voice seemed hushed with these last few words.

Bomberman kicked the pillar again, resigned. "Well, if we don't have any other options, I guess I'd better get bombing – "

"Wait."

He did.

Lilith stared at the computer and inhaled. She turned...glanced at Bomberman...glanced at the pillar...then back at Bomberman.

"Wh-what's up?" he asked.

"I think I know how we can disable the force field without you having to bomb yourself oblivion." A tiny shrug. "Though...I can kind of understand if you don't want to go through with it."

"Why?"

"Because you'd need to use the Lightning Elemental."

Silence.

Bomberman gazed at her, feeling curiously empty and light.

The composed young woman actually fidgeted, ever so slightly. "...l-like I said, you don't – "

"We ought to do what we feel we must, though we lack even the Ancestrals' trust," Bomberman recited flatly, "for how else can we truly learn the price that must be paid for wisdom earned?" He quirked a faint smile at Lilith's blank look. "An old saying from some religious scholar in my neck of the woods. It was meant to be empowering, but it's had a bit of a bloody history, considering that it's been used to justify its unfair share of idealistic atrocities on Bomber Star from here to infinity." The smile disappeared. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"Well...those pillars are big hulking things of metal, right? And metal conducts electricity like a maestro conducts an orchestra, right? So..." Lilith gestured. "If you can use the Lightning Elemental to create electric-based explosives or something, you might be able to fry the circuitry inside the pillars – and thus disrupt the shielding programs – without having to actually destroy the pillars themselves."

Bomberman considered this. "That sounds reasonable enough. It's worth trying, at any rate."

"I'll keep an eye on the processes from here."

With two calming breaths and a burst of concentration, Bomberman drew out the pinkish-purple aura of the Lightning Stone in his mind, or from wherever those stones were floating around in his body. When he connected with it, he was surprised to find that, although the energy felt kind of prickly to him, it wasn't as unpleasant of a sensation as he initially feared. It was more akin to slightly dry grass in summer than to, say, a thorny rose bush. Though oddly enough...his mind registered the energy as smelling like roses, ever so faintly.

Bomberman shook that nonsensical thought out of his skull. He held out a hand and called up a purple bomb with a sharp metal fuse, charging it to a glowing red superbomb, and then – after backing up a safe distance – flung the bomb at the pillar.

KA-ZAAAPPP!!

It exploded in a brilliant sphere of violet-tinted lightning with a molten white core.

ZZZT-ZZT-ZZZTTT!!

White electricity bled out in jagged arcs from wrinkling seams in the pillar as the explosion wreaked havoc on the internal processes and circuits.

The sound of a machine's power supply being choked out suddenly gurgled in from somewhere, followed closely by –

WHEEeeeeEEEeeeeeOOOooooo...!

- the death wail of a security alarm.

"That did it!" Lilith announced over the clamor. "One of the pillars completely lost power, and the force field's been weakened!" She grinned. "Looks like I won't even have to do anything on my end!"

Pommy hopped up and down. "Let's hurry and get the rest of the pillars so we can leave!"

Bomberman didn't need to be told twice. With quick charging and a good throwing arm, he tossed more electrically charged bombs at the remaining force field pillars, efficiently disabling every one of them and consequently leaving the Gravity Generator vulnerable. Lilith joined Bomberman in making scrap metal of the contraption (WHAM! CRASH! KA-BLAM!) before the two of them sprinted back up the staircases to flee the chamber, with Pommy close at their heels.

Behind them, the computer sent a digital, soulless SOS to the nearest BHB outpost...

B-O-M-B

"So, I just thought of something kinda important," Bomberman panted, running out of the warehouse and back into the hallways of the sub-basement.

"What's that?" Lilith asked.

"How're we gonna get back up to the regular basement if the only elevator up there is key-activated and we don't have the key?"

"Simple. We just go deeper down the cabbit hole."

"...uh?"

"There's another level below this one," Lilith explained as she, Bomberman, and Pommy rounded a corner. "It leads to a vehicle hangar, which leads to planes that we can 'borrow' for a bit, which thus leads to freedom." She picked up the pace and edged out to the front, a subtle signal to leave things to her once again.

Bomberman wondered how she knew about that, since he couldn't recall seeing anything of the sort on any of the maps he'd seen. "Okay, but what about our other planes? I mean, we've got our stuff there and all..."

"First thing's first – we gotta jet." She paused for a moment of thought. "Once we're in the clear...I'm going to get someone else to get our things. Hopefully he'll have some free time to waste playing 'go fetch!' for us, even if it means growling at us all the way to and from. We'll meet him on the Merchant Ship Frontier, hand over our keys, then we sit back and hide out on the ship for a bit until he gets back. I know, I know, it's not the most reassuring of plans, and it could go wrong in more ways than I care to think about at the moment, but at least it is a plan."

"Who's this person you're talking about?"

"Hmm...a co-worker, you could say."

He blinked. "Myu?"

At the end of the hallway was a set of closed metal doors. Off to the side was a computer screen displaying a keypad.

"Damn, it needs an entry code," Bomberman grumbled.

"Not if we can help it!" Lilith threw him a sly look over her shoulder. "Think you can zap that out of commission for me? Things will be easier if I don't also have to wrestle with ghosts in the shell."

Slightly confused, Bomberman nevertheless hurled a lightning bomb at the panel.

KA-ZAAAPP!

The screen sparked, fizzled, and blacked out.

Brown eyes now aglow with ethereal gold, Lilith skidded to a stop before the doors, actually dug her fingers into the hairline crack between them, and pried them open with a throaty yet feminine growl.

CREAAAAAKK!

For a certain definition of the word "open", anyway, since the rumpled metal paired with the slender shape of the actual opening created a vaguely obscene-looking entrance.

"I'm going to have to ask you later how you keep doing things like that," Bomberman told her as he and Pommy climbed through the makeshift entrance after her.

Lilith laughed. "If I told you, I might end up killing you."

"Myu, Pommy hears trouble up ahead!" Pommy warned. "There's people running this way!"

Sure enough, thirteen black-suited BHB guards emerged from around the corner up ahead, armed and dangerous. "There they are!" one of them shouted as the rest of them fell into some sort of formation.

Lilith was about to let fly with a spray of chi knives when two lightning bombs sailed through the air on either side of her from behind.

They landed about a foot from the advancing enemies.

KA-ZAAAAPP! KA-ZAAAPP!

The front four were immediately caught in the electrical blasts. Twitching, jerking, and swearing, they collapsed to the ground, half-paralyzed. Their comrades retreated back slightly, not wishing to share their fate.

"Works even better than tasers," Bomberman remarked dryly.

"What're you doing, you cowards?" shouted the guards from earlier. "Smoke 'em!"

They tried their best.

SP-SP-SPAAANG! SP-SP-SP-SPANG!

Bomberman and Lilith wove through the bright blue laser fire, teeth gritting and eyes narrowed. As she ducked down low, Lilith flung out knives – FWSH-FWSH-FWSH-FWSH! – that embedded themselves into kneecaps, shins, feet.

Three guards bent over in pain. TH-THUMP!

A charged iced bomb arced low across the floor, landing on one of their backs...

BLAAAMMM!!

They were frozen in fetal, prone, and kneeling positions.

"Pah! Screw this!" One of the remaining six guards paused in his firing to reach inside a waist pouch and retrieve a grenade. He yanked out the pin with his teeth and hurled it at Bomberman and Lilith.

Two pairs of dark brown eyes widened –

BOOM!

Flames and smoke filled the hallway.

"Yeah!" another guard cheered. "You got 'em!"

WHOOOSH!

The air suddenly cleared, courtesy of a wind bomb.

The guards blinked and stared.

"Protip, guys," Bomberman said, a lightning bomb in his palm. "You don't want to be tossing bombs at someone who can toss bombs right back at you...and never run out." He dropkicked the explosive at the guards.

KA-ZAAPPP!

The explosion paralyzed them, leaving them jerking and groaning.

"Let's go!" Bomberman called, sprinting past them, with Lilith clearing the heap of downed guards with a single graceful leap and Pommy scurrying around the fallen bodies.

B-O-M-B

KA-WHAM!

Bomberman kicked open the door to the hangar, smacking aside a BHB guard just behind it. WHACK!

"Gah!" The guard reeled –

BLAM! An ice bomb froze him between the door and the wall.

From behind Bomberman, Lilith barreled in, arms swinging as she snapped out chi knife after chi knife after chi knife at the BHB guards that rushed upon them.

FWSH-FWSH-FWSH-FWSH-FWSH!

Bomberman alternated between tossing ice bombs and lightning bombs as he ran, flipped, and dodged.

ZAAAPPP! BLAAMM! KA-ZAAAPPP!

Many guards fell from the combined ambush.

But not enough.

"Nnnngh!" Bomberman planted a foot on an empty dolly and sent the thing careening at some guards. They scattered, but the distraction was enough to allow Bomberman to stun and then freeze them with the appropriate elemental bombs.

ZAAAAPP! BLAAMM!

His neck prickled with honed instincts, alerting him to danger from behind. He tossed one ice bomb in front of him to deal with one guard, effectively freezing him (BLAM!), then flung an ice bomb behind his back like a basketball player passing the ball to deal with the one behind him.

KA-BLAM!

The radius of the frosty explosion just barely missed.

The guard smirked. "Gotta do better'n that!" He aimed again –

"Super-Pommy al rescate!" Pommy bravely bounded in from out of nowhere and chomped down onto the guard's leg.

"Owww!" Growling, the guard swiveled his gun down.

FWSH! A chi knife sang through the air and pierced the back of his hand.

The guard howled in pain and dropped his weapon.

Lilith sailed in with a boot to his face. WHAM!

He fell back comically, his feet snapping upwards and launching Pommy into the air. SWOOSH!

Lilith caught the creature by his floppy ears. "Gotcha!" she said, smiling. Her smile dropped and her eyes blinked as she caught sight of three more guards. "Oops, maybe not!" She dropped Pommy unceremoniously to the ground as she prepared to face them.

"M-myu!" PLOP!

The guards opened fire.

SP-SP-SP-SP-SPANG!

Lilith danced between the plasma with grace and ease. As soon as she got her first opening, her wrist snapped out.

FWSH!

One knife between widened eyes, before he dropped like a sandbag. FWUMP!

She sidestepped and twirled...

FWSH!

Another knife between ribs. This one stumbled and collapsed onto his back. THUMP!

The third guard gasped as he realized that his two comrades had been taken out. He spat out a vile curse and unleashed the full force of his laser rifle. "GRAAAAAUUGH!"

SP-SP-SP-SP-SPAAANNGGG! SP-SP-SP-SPAAANG!

Lilith frowned, swerved around the round of fire, and flicked out three more chi knives in quick succession.

FWSH!

Forehead.

FWSH!

Chest.

And...

FWSH!

"AAAGH!" The guard stumbled and rolled up into a ball of agony on the concrete, howling as he clutched between his legs.

A beat.

Lilith regarded him with a cold gaze – a gaze so cold her dark eyes almost seemed blue in the clinical white lights of the hangar.

...she silently kicked his gun away.

Cl-clank!

She inhaled and lifted her eyes.

In another part of the hangar...

SP-SP-SP-SP-SPANG!

WHUMP!

Bomberman dove and rolled behind a large metal crate for cover. He pressed his back up against it and inched towards the edge. A pause...and then he launched lightning bombs out from around the corner.

ZAAAPP! ZAAPP! ZAPP!

Startled screams and groans filled the air.

Bomberman took the cue and followed up with a barrage of ice bombs, successfully trapping some of the guards in an icy prison.

KA-BLAM! KA-BLAM!

He dared to peek out of his hiding place to survey the damage...

And Time slowed as he was forced to bend backwards at a precarious angle to just barely avoid having his upper torso fried by surprise lasers.

SP-SP-SPAAANG...!

...Time ran for its life again.

Bomberman turned the awkward dodge into a feat of acrobatic finesse as he simply planted his palms on the ground behind him and swiftly flipped back into an upright position. No sooner had he done so than he tossed out ice bombs at his aggressor.

BLAM! KA-BLAM!

The guard was frozen into position, like a life-sized soldier figurine.

Bomberman inhaled and ran a hand through his hair.

...footsteps sounded behind him.

He whirled around, lightning bomb at the ready.

"Ack!" Lilith held up her hands defensively. "Hold it, it's just me!"

Bomberman sighed. "Damn, you scared me!" He recalled the bomb, then glanced around at the hangar, finding beaten bodies of black littering the floor. "I'm assuming you took care of the rest?"

"Right as rain."

"Then let's get out of here before more guards show up!" Pommy said, toddling up beside Lilith from wherever he'd been during the fight. He looked around. "Um...which plane should we take?"

"One that works, obviously." Lilith hummed as she looked around and tapped a finger to her chin. "Let's check that one out," she said, pointing at one plane with an already-opened door.

These planes were of a different model than the BHB plane Bomberman had taken on Alcatraz. Whereas his stolen ride, dark and clunky, seemed to have been built for simple patrol and transportation, this one was a sleek fighter ship, narrower and yet slightly larger than the Alcatraz plane.

"Excellent!" Lilith exclaimed as she rummaged around the pockets of a fallen guard just outside the plane. "If we happen to run into trouble out there, we can just shoot it down." She came up with a silver key and climbed into the pilot's side to turn the plane on.

At the twist of the key, the dashboard lit up with a flurry of colored lights. The touchscreen came to life, displaying buttons and commands. The engine purred to life.

"Hehehe! All systems are go!" She entered a few commands, then smiled at Bomberman. "Well...what do you say we get this show on the space road, huh?"

B-O-M-B

Aaaaaand that marks the end of the Starlight arc, finally! But before we move onto Neverland, we'll be spending some time on the Merchant Ship Frontier. Why? Because I can. And because I'm still trying to figure out what the hell I want to do on Neverland.

Thanks to everyone to keeps up with this, whether you review or not! This is mainly my way of keepin' it real while I wait for Hudson to get its act together and produce another game of TSA's caliber or with the TSA characters. And yeah, I realize I'm probably going to be waiting a hella long time for something like that, but considering that I'm projecting this fic and its sequel to have over 60 chapters each, well...I daresay I'll be quite occupied in the meantime.

Review if you will, flame if you must!

-Sora G. Silverwind
oh, let me be your Augustine