Flight Three, First Impressions
Linna and Nene sat Gally down a few blocks away from the Boomer rampage area, on a deserted street deep in the darker section of Sohto ward, where few normal people dared to go and rarely anyone was coherent enough to know what was going on. It was a preferred after-mission pickup location for the Knight Sabers. They could meet-up with Sylia's van, get onboard and drive off without anyone being the wiser.
"What are we doing here?" Gally demanded the moment Linna and Nene set her down, "I thought I was meeting your boss."
"You are," Linna answered simply. She was nervous having this extremely powerful girl being anywhere near her, especially with the angered look that she was displaying.
"Then why are we standing in the middle of the street? Aren't we exposed?" Gally prodded. She wanted answers, answers to where she was, why she was here, what Boomers were, and why they went insane, and she wasn't getting any nearer to the truth with the two armored women.
"We're not meeting here, silly," Nene replied, smiling behind the helmet, "We're just being picked up here," she pointed one massive gauntlet in the direction of a white delivery van that was barreling towards them, "That's our boss now."
"Nene!" a voice shouted over the blonde's radio, "Don't give away information on an open channel!"
"Sorry..." Nene said, shame dripping from her voice. She knew she had a tendency to put her foot in her mouth, but it always annoyed her to be caught in the act of doing so.
"So who are you two?"
"We're the Knight Sabers, of course," Linna answered, feeling a twinge of pride in knowing that she really was a Knight Saber, a dream come true for her.
"You said that before," Gally noted, "I mean, what are your names?"
"Oh, I'm..." Nene was about to speak when Linna cut her off.
"We can't tell you that while were out in the open like this," she explained, "Once we're inside the Mobile Pit we can tell you what you want to know."
"I want to know a lot," Gally answered in as defiant a tone as she could muster. She then turned and watched the delivery van speed nearer and nearer until it was almost upon them.
If not for the skill of the driver, it would have torn right through the three, crushing them beneath the van's wheels, however, the van turned at the last second, skidding sideways to a halt just a few feet away from them.
The van was non-descript in every way, even missing a label or name as to which company it delivered for, and since it was mobile, it could go anywhere in the city it needed to. Gally mused that it would be the perfect cover for a group of armored vigilantes such as the two standing next to her, it couldn't be tracked or traced if it was seen, and it could quickly reach danger zones without anyone noticing it.
A door on the side of the van opened automatically, separating into two pieces. One piece, the larger part, extended outwards and upwards, allowing access, while the second, much smaller piece moved downward, creating a few steps to allow the girls to walk up into the vehicle.
"Hurry, get in!" a voice cried out from inside, "The ADPolice are right behind you!"
The three girls moved as quickly as possible, scrambling into the entryway, Nene jumping in last, which closed a second later. The van turned, then barreled away again off into the night.
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Amishi Kurimitsu lumbered out of the flower shop in her K-suit, Boomer head in one massive hand and gattling rifle in the other. She made a few more steps before she deactivated the unit and opened the canopy.
"Just what the hell did you think you were doing?" Leon yelled, running up to her, arms waving like a madman.
Amishi glanced in the man's direction, "I was doing my job," she said in the most serious voice she could. It didn't come out serious at all, it came out the same way everything else she said came out, cutely.
"You're job is to follow my orders, not go running off in a K-suit to play little-miss-hero!" Leon shouted, "You keep doing stunts like that and you're gonna be dead real quick!"
"I killed the Boomer, didn't I?" Amishi asked, confused by Leon's shouting. She was overtired from the incident that had just occurred and didn't feel much like talking, arguing or thinking for the next several hours. She just wanted to go home and go to sleep.
"Yeah, you killed the Boomer alright, but you could've been seriously hurt! The Knight Sabers might've been in there!" Leon argued even louder, then stopped as sudden realization hit him, "Wait, you killed the Boomer?"
"Yes, I killed the Boomer and the Knight Sabers were there! And so was some weird girl!" Amishi shouted back, getting more than a bit fed up with Leon's shouting.
Leon was about to go back into his ranting, when Daley, who always seemed to appear at just the right time, stopped him with his traditional hand to the shoulder, "Wait a second, Leon," he told his overactive partner, "Amishi, what do you mean by a weird girl?"
"I mean there was some weird little girl with black hair fighting the Boomer when I got there. She thought she had killed it when the Knight Sabers showed up, and then the Boomer got back up and I shot it and the Knight Sabers ran off with the girl!" Amishi explained, although not with any real detail and with barely enough thought put into her words to make them make any sense.
"I didn't quite get that," Daley answered quizically, "Could you repeat it a little more slowly this time?"
"I said..." Amishi was about to begin again when Leon cut her off angrily.
"Never mind!" the annoyed Inspector shouted, "We'll fill out a report back at the precinct," he turned to the officers milling about in the background, "Pack it up guys, the shows over, we're going home!"
Amishi walked back to the car, leaving the K-suit and the Boomer body for the others to deal with, she turned and looked up at the skyline, hoping to find three glimmers in the sky, proof of the escaping Knight Sabers.
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The majority of the trip to the Knight Saber's HeadQuarters was ridden in silence, each of the three young girls far to lost in their own thoughts to speak with one another. They entered the vehicle in silence, sitting down upon the specially designed seats inside without a word or extraneous action, save that of the two armored figures removing their helmets.
Gally stared in disbelief at her two unmasked companions, their faces and hair that of extremely young women, one no more than twenty-three, and the other barely older than she herself appeared to be, perhaps sixteen, or an under-developed eighteen. That two women who had barely begun their adult lives could wear the tremendous armor and battle the demonic-looking rogue Boomers was astonishing.
The battle-hardened cyborg stared at the older of the two women with awe. She looked certain of herself, but there were telltale signs of doubt and disbelief. The eyes were nearly watering with held-back tears of fear, and she was subtly biting her lower lip in worry.
The other one, however, had none of the doubt in her appearance. She was happy, positively beaming with pride, as if going out in her suit was like sugar for her, the same reaction seen in Motorball players who played for the rush. She was an adrenaline junkie, it appeared, but looks, as always could be deceiving.
Linna also stewed in her thoughts, allowing waves of conflicting emotions to smash against her mental defenses as she strove to keep a straight face about it all. Relief, anger, desperation, confusion, caution, trepidation, and fear all raged through her in a kaleidoscope of emotional colors. She glanced at Nene, who was so happy and cheerful; about everything, only getting truly angry or upset when one of the others started picking on her. She wished she could be more like her, grin and bare it, so to speak.
Then she turned to look at the strange girl, with skin on her face and yet metal through-and-through as her arms and legs implied-. She seemed so awe-struck by everything she saw, and yet was doing her best to hide it. Linna felt deep down that the girl was not from Tokyo and so her awe probably stemmed from being in this strange, utterly remarkable feeling city. Linna could understand that concept quite well, as she herself was new to the city and found it just as awe-inspiring.
Nene was engaged in thoughts wholly alien to the other two at that moment. Her mind was swirling with memories of the night, previous nights, and thoughts of upcoming nights. She was hyper, and her senses were literally overflowing with sensations. She was so excited over the nights events and all that it meant. Not only did she not get pulverized by the Boomer, like usual, which was always a plus, but she went out without Priss, which she knew would piss the singer off to no end. Plus there was the new girl, who could fight better than Priss, which she knew would also piss the singer off. All in all the night was aces in her book.
"Tell me," a voice spoke from nowhere, shattering the silent atmosphere in the room, "What is your name?"
"Who are you?" Gally demanded, looking around. She focused on a small camera unit placed near the front section of the room, directed specifically at her. Next to it a small speaker was mounted, where the voice emanated, no, more so flowed gracefully into the room.
"I would appreciate it if you would humor me by accepting that I cannot answer that question. Not at this time, anyway. Suffice to say I am the leader of these girls, whose names you may also not yet know. We must discover if we can trust you enough to give you our names," the voice responded cooly.
"If you can't trust me enough with your names, then why should I give you mine?" Gally shot back.
"Well, we must call you something. Saying 'Hey you' isn't going to get either of us very far, after all."
"Yes, but the same could go for you. I need to know what someone's name is before I am willing to speak with them as a human being," Gally countered.
[Absolutely amazing,] Sylia thought to herself, [This girl is definitely not a Boomer.] She coughed, clearing her throat before she continued, "I can see it's a trust issue here. My name is Sylia. That's all you need to know for now."
Gally pointed to the other two, although more for her own benefit than the mysterious voice's, "What about them?"
"Girls, if you would please tell our guest your first names," Sylia prodded.
"My name's Nene," the redhead said vibrantly. She eagerly reached out a hand, although the space between her and Gally made it practically impossible to shake without getting up, and in a moving vehicle that would be truly unwise. She pulled her hand back and smiled sheepishly.
The older girl was far more hesitant, "Linna..." she said after a moment, worried to even make eye contact.
"My name is Gally," the cyborg said suddenly.
"Is that your only name?" Sylia prodded, "Or is that all you wish to tell us?"
"It's the only real name I've ever known. It was given to me by a friend. I have a nickname, but I doubt asking to be called 'Killing Angel' would do much for a relationship."
"Very true," Sylia agreed, "And we don't want to get this relationship started off on the wrong foot, now do we?"
"I don't know, do we?" Gally asked, trying to put as much venom as she could into her voice. Sylia's mere use of the word "Relationship" meant that she wanted something from Gally, and that always spelled trouble in the young cyborg's book.
"You shouldn't be so mistrusting, young lady," Sylia reprimanded, "We're probably the closest things you've got to friends in the entire city. It would be a bad idea to make us into enemies."
"You're right about that," Gally admitted, lowering her head, remembering the people she knew and loved, people whom she may never see again, "I don't know anyone in this place."
"Well, now you know us," Nene spoke up jubilantly. Deep down she really wanted to make the young girl feel welcome, although for reasons she couldn't put her finger on. Perhaps she truly felt for the girl and wanted to help her out, or perhaps she selfishly wanted the girl to look up to her as a friend or leader.
Either way, she failed as the girl looked even more pained than before. "Do I really?" she asked, "I mean, all of this is happening so fast, I don't really know who to trust and which side I should be on. Those police officers didn't seem too happy when they found out you were there. Does that make you criminals, or merely rivals?"
"The police do not approve of our methods in dealing with Rogue Boomers," Sylia explained, "We're not duly appointed officers of the law and so we are sometimes looked upon as outlaws. I wouldn't say they think of us as criminals as they do glory-hunting mercenaries."
"What we do is right, it's just our methods that make the ADPolice upset," Linna offered, trying to assuage her own concerns at the same time, "I'm not too big on the idea of fighting against them either, but there really is no better way to get the job done."
"Is there really, or have you just convinced yourself. Back where I come from, mercenaries are hired out as law enforcement. We worked for money, but justice was still served in the end... In most cases," Gally argued, trailing off at the thought of her long dead beloved Yugo.
"There's no time to worry about semantics right now," Sylia explained, "We're home."
"Where's home?" Gally wondered.
"Considering you have no idea where anything is, let's just say it's in a safe part of town," Sylia answered. "We'll talk in a few minutes, after the girls have had a chance to change. I'll answer all of your questions then, all right?"
"All right. I really have no choice in the matter, do I?" Gally asked with a "harumph".
"No, not really," Sylia agreed.
The door to the van opened to a world Gally was not expecting. From her own experiences, she expected a tiny, greasy, and dirty maintenance area just large enough to fit the van and a workstation in. Instead, she found a vast, almost empty chamber with hallways and corridors leading into other areas of the building.
"How many people do you share this place with?" Gally asked in amazement. Surprise did not come easy to the girl, and shocked disbelief settled far less with her always-ready mind. She was nearly bowled over by her own emotions.
"Why, no one. I own every inch of this building," Sylia answered proudly.
"Absolutely incredible," Gally said. She stepped out into the chamber, quickly followed by the two armored women, "You must be very rich to own all this free space."
"I have money, but I would not say I am overly rich. Why would you think that?" Sylia wondered. She stepped out of the vehicle's cockpit and right up behind the cyborg girl, almost without making a sound.
Gally really didn't notice Sylia's abrupt and silent approach, she was still far too mystified by the sights around her for anything else to truly latch onto her senses. "Where I come from, free space is precious, and a chamber like this could house ten or twelve families. People who own large living spaces are considered well-to-do, people who own entire buildings are revered as super-rich."
"You speak far more eloquently than a girl from the world you describe should sound like," Sylia prodded, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Gally finally realized that the person she was talking to was standing directly behind her, she turned on her wheeled feet to stare into the eyes of her supposed benefactor, but was stopped dead in her tracks by the image that assaulted her.
The woman was beautiful, most likely in her mid-twenties, with long silver-flowing hair and piercing lavender eyes. Her skin was pale, but not unhealthily so, and her body was shaped exquisitely, with the right touches here and there to give off an aura of caged sexuality. The woman was in complete control over herself, and one look into her eyes would tell one that she knew she could use her appearance to her advantage without any moral qualms. There was an iciness to her stare and her features seemed harsh beneath the beauty, but there was definitely something there.
"Are you Sylia?" Gally asked, nearly stuttering out the question.
"Yes. I am Sylia. I am the leader of the Knight Sabers," the woman answered, both cold fact and warmth dripped from her words.
"I didn't expect..." Gally trailed off.
"Did not expect what?" Sylia prodded, "That a woman like myself could lead a group of vigilantes? You yourself are a woman so that should not be what surprises you."
"I did not expect that someone as beautiful as you could be the leader of such an extremist group of outlaws. Where I come from, people change their outward appearances to reflect their internal feelings. Criminals change their faces and bodies to avoid the law, to rise above the law," Gally explained, priding herself on an understanding of the criminal mind, "Female criminals, in particular the beautiful ones, scar or replace their faces to hide from those who would hunt them. And yet you allow your beauty to show, as if you were daring the law to come and get you."
Sylia smiled slyly at Gally's words, "I would assume from what you've just said that you consider me to be a criminal? Why is that?"
"You fight Boomers, which are a menace to society, I admit. However, you do so outside the confines of law enforcement. You are mercenaries and vigilantes, which where I come would be looked upon as the law, and yet here is seen as criminal. Would you not call that criminal?"
"You yourself fought and nearly killed the Boomer. Would that not be considered a criminal act?"
"I was not in possession of all of the facts at that time. What I have done was an accident. It will not be repeated. I am not the law here."
"I see, and would you believe me if I told you that you are still not in possession of all the facts?"
"Most likely not. But I will listen."
"The ADPolice are under-equipped. They do not have the tools required to adequately dispose of Boomers. Their armored K-suits are like toys or relics compared to my teams hardsuits. They're slow, clunky, and far too lightly armed for the kind of work they're needed for. They're supposedly state-of-the-art and yet are seriously lacking in the most base Boomer fighting requirements."
"Then give the ADPolice your suits. Let them use the technology to fight the Boomers. The Police have the manpower you do not. They can use them more effectively that way."
"That is not their only downfall. Many of the ADPolice were culled from the normal police forces. These men have barely any skills required to effectively fight Boomers even if they were properly equipped. To give men like that high-tech weaponry like the hard-suits, we'd all be in serious trouble. The suits are meant for fighting Boomers, but in the wrong hands can be used to fight an army. I can't trust my designs in anyone else's hands."
"It's still wrong," Gally argued, "There has to be a better way to do this."
"Would it help you any if I said I had spent years thinking of a better way? Of perhaps convincing the government to create a task force, with operatives I specifically requested? Or maybe sell the armor and designs on the open market, creating a business competitor to Genom, so that the Boomer market would be weakened? NO, none of those approaches would have worked. Hardsuit technology is too unflexible, too strict, and there are too many secrets that I can't let the public know about. So I have to do things this way."
"I can't say I understand, but I think things are clearer now," Gally shrugged. Her arm was starting to jam up on her, the oil was nearly depleted and the friction would start permanently damaging the joints soon, she realized. She hoped Sylia had the equipment to repair her arm and body, otherwise she was in real trouble. "If I may, I'd like to stay here tonight. I'll leave in the morning."
"Why leave?"
"I don't want to work with outlaws. I want to work within the law, so tomorrow I'm going down to sign up with the ADPolice."
Sylia laughed, "I don't see how you can join the ADPolice with no training, no identity and a cyborg body. Not to mention that they probably have a warrant out for your arrest after today's stunt. No, I'd say the police are definitely not the way for you to go. Besides, I saw the way you acted, the police would never take you in, you're too brutal, too undisciplined, too destructive to be one of them."
"It's the only kind of life I know, besides singing, and I doubt I could find a job for a singer in a city like this. Too many women out there already I bet. What could I offer the world with my scarred face and metal body?" Gally sighed unhappily. She knew her place in the Scrapyards, she had a purpose and a life. In this city, she had nothing, less than nothing without her friends and loved ones.
"Then your options are limited. I suppose more may present themselves as time goes by. You are too hard on yourself, your skills are varied and quite impressive," Sylia said softly, reaching out with one long, elegant hand to stroke Gally's cheek, just under the metal slashes, "You are far more lovely than you give yourself credit for, the scars merely add to your intrigue."
Gally did not enjoy Sylia's touch at all. It made what little skin she had crawl, and gave her a strange, frightening feeling. She pulled away quickly, hoping that by breaking the contact the feelings would vanish, and, thankfully they did. There was something about the woman that made the young cyborg uneasy. "Yes, well, for now I am out of options."
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There are three members of the Knight Sabers whose duties are predominately combat oriented: The first, Linna Yamazaki, the newest recruit and most inexperienced fighter, who was good, but not yet good enough. The second was Nene Romanova, the weakest fighter and all-around computer expert, whose skills with the suit could use a major upgrade. Finally, there was Priss Asagari, the mysterious and aloof brute of the team, the one depended upon to defeat the Boomers. She was conspicuously absent from the day's battle, and no one had really wondered why. Everything had happened so quickly there was no time to complain about the missing third fighter until long after the battle was over, one of their members had even enjoyed Priss's absence.
Priss, however, was not used to being forgotten. She was almost always available to fight for Sylia, and those times when she had a concert at her local bar she could almost always be expected to get away from it within moments after receiving her page. It got her in trouble with the bar's owner and manager, but it could easily be said that the bar would collapse without her, so these incidents remained unchallenged.
This time, Priss never received a page, or a phone call, or anything that would indicate there was a problem and that her services would be required. She thought that nothing of interest had happened on this seemingly dull day. Little did she know...
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Priss Asagiri walked down the side steps on the stage, a sweat-soaked towel in one hand, and her jacket in the other. She sat down at one of the unoccupied stools and ordered a beer. The bartender handed it to her less than a minute later, his speed something he took pride in and yet no one ever noticed. She took a drink of the foul-tasting brew, not really caring. She merely needed something to drink and this was the closest and cheapest at hand.
"Did you hear? About the Boomer?" A young kid, probably sixteen or seventeen, said to his friend, a bearded guy with long curly black hair. The two were sitting just a few stools away from Priss, far enough away for Priss's required personal space to remain unbroken, but close enough for her to hear them over the sheer noise of the crowd. It was strange to think that such a young boy could have snuck into a bar, but the bartenders in that part of the city did not strictly adhere to the ID policy.
"Yeah, I did. I heard it went crazy, started killing people. I heard rumors some weird girl killed it. I heard that the Knight Sabers were there too."
"Bet you it won't be on the news," the kid pointed out.
"Yeah, like they think no one knows about the Boomers, or the Knight Sabers. They're just covering up things for the government."
"No, I heard the Knight Sabers are covert operatives for the ADPolice, and they don't want to admit they exist. If they did, it would blow their cover."
"What cover? Why would they be undercover?"
"As long as the people behind the crazy Boomers think the Knight Sabers are just a bunch of trigger happy mercenaries, they won't realize that the ADPolice are working with them to discover the truth!"
"You've been watching too much Anime. This is the real world. There aren't any conspiracies. Only a few Boomers actually go crazy, and the ADPolice or the Knight Sabers usually take care of them. Boomer technology is just too new to get all the bugs out right away. In a few years, nobody will have any problems with them, then we won't need the ADPolice or the Knight Sabers!"
"Sure, and everyone will forget what's happened? I don't think so."
"People forget things that they don't want to remember. All the bad things will just be conveniently forgotten as if they never happened. We can't do anything about that. All we can do is ride it out while they fix the bugs. Everything will be fine in a few years. Then we won't need any ADPolice or trigger0happy mercenaries."
Priss had overheard enough from the two men. She slammed her glass down hard, making miniscule cracks in the glass and spilling the brown liquid onto her gloved hand. She wiped her hand on a nearby bar rag and growled, "Damn them!" She stood up, tossing the beer away in a fit of rage, nearly missing a young man's head in the process.
"Whaoh!" the bearded man said in response to Priss's outburst, "She looks pissed!"
"She looks hot!" the younger man said without any regards to who might have heard him.
Under other circumstances, the young boy would have come out of that with a few missing teeth and bruises, but with the mood Priss was in, she did not have the time to waste any effort on one little punk. She had bigger fish to fry. She stormed out of the bar without a word.
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Miss Asagiri was pissed. So pissed the aura she was giving off was like tongues of flame licking out, setting everything off around her. She was so infuriated she would most likely hit the next man who hit on her. She needed to smash a Boomer to pieces so badly right then and there, but her two "associates had beaten her to the punch, literally. And with no Boomer to take out her frustrations on, her team-mates were just going to have to do. She was going to make sure everyone knew she did not like being left behind.
Her bike roared down the street like literal hell on wheels, sparks flying faster and faster as she accelerated, pushing the limits of her bike and her own body. At such speeds, one minor mistake, one single slip-up, would spell destruction, death, or permenant physical harm. Priss didn't care, in fact, normally she would thrive on such negative energies, but in this case she gained no joy, she harvested no exstacy from this experiance of riding the razor's edge.
She drove for what seemed like forever, dodging through what little traffic there was in the middle of the night in Tokyo's darker streets, nearly killing herself a dozen times or more in the process. She really couldn't remember just how many near misses, she was just too mentally occupied to keep such minor details fresh in her mind.
After what seemed an eternity to Priss's burning mind, she finally arrived at Lady's 633. She dismounted her bike, placing the helmet atop it carefully before moving on. Her bike was the most important piece of equipment she had. It was her only way to escape, her only way to really feel and truly think. It was her only peace and was more important, more expensive than her own life. If she were to die, so be it, but she could never live without her bike.
She walked with strength through the various trick passageways designed to throw off curious visitors straight through to the real purpose of the lingerie shop's warehouse. The secret base of the Knight Sabers lie deep within the structure, far underground where no passive detectors could ever find it amidst the rubble of the underground passageways that predated the second great Santo Quake. She patted the bulge in her pocket tenderly, as a mother would a good child, except no child lie within Priss's pocket, and no motherly instinct lie within Priss. The pocket contained her "Great Equalizer", to be used in case of emergencies and in case she was pissed off, which happened a lot.
She stepped into the main elevator with little more than a low growl, something truly animalistic. Blood would be spilled tonight, she knew this for a fact.
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Sylia closely examined the young girl that stood before her, eyeing every feature, every exposed servo, wire, actuator and hydraulic. Gally's entire body was an elegant, perfectly tuned and oft-used machine, capable of tremendous strength and agility normally only found in her own hard-suits and the higher-level Boomers the Knight Sabers fought. "Fascinating..." she whispered to herself.
"I don't think I'm that fascinating, and I don't like being poked and prodded like I'm some kind of Guinea pig. I'm a human being, damn it, and I'd appreciate just a little respect!" Gally blurted angrily. It was completely understandable. She had just been yanked from everything she had known and loved into a strange new world, been in a battle with a demonic robot, and now she was being examined as if she were a doll or engine.
"Of course, I'm sorry," Sylia apologized, "It's just that I have never seen anything along these lines. In one sense, the technology is far outdated, and yet in the same sense, it's far superior to anything we have right now. I'm merely intrigued," she explained.
"I'm nothing special. Perhaps when I had the Beserker body, but that was sold off..." Gally held back a sigh of regret, one of dozens she kept hidden deep inside her metal encased soul. "I can't believe I allowed you to examine me like this. May I put my jacket on now?" she asked impatiently.
"But I can't let you wear that ratty old thing. I'll find something much more comfortable for someone as lovely as you," Sylia said, stuffing one of Gally's few links to her past down a garbage chute. The chute sealed, then glowed red for a moment. A green light flashed on and the chute opened, releasing a geyser of steam into the air, revealing an empty chute.
Gally reached out after her jacket, but was far too late, it was gone, and so easily disposed of. Was that what her life amounted to, a collection of easily destroyed things? "That was a gift..." she said regretfully. Her mind wasn't coherent enough to bear hatred, but that would come soon enough...
"Oh, don't worry about it. It was ripped up anyway. It's time to cast of your metal shell and find the woman you've always been," Sylia replied nonchalantly. "I can find you something much better, and much prettier. Perhaps I can even find something prettier to put it on as well. Have you ever put any thought into synthetics?"
"Synthetics?" Gally looked up at Sylia, hatred creeping into her mind at the corners.
"Yes, artificial skin. It looks and feels just like the real thing. It even has nerve sensors to simulate the touch sensation. It's highly revolutionary, but I may be able to pull a few strings. Interested?"
Gally's eyes lit up. One of her great dreams had been to have human skin, to feel the world as others did, to be more like them and not so hidden behind metal and plastic. She lifted her damaged arm and stared at it, imagining what it would be like to have skin, form, and feeling. With that one thing, anything would be possible, a normal life, a normal job, perhaps even love and...
She shook it off. Other thoughts entered her mind. With skin and a weaker body, she'd be defenseless, unprepared for any attackers who wished her harm. With feeling came pain, and permenant injury. Could she handle that? Could she deal with having to tone down her livlihood, to take precautions and face fear?
She was mulling this over when Priss stampeded into the room, looking pissed, or at least as pissed as the blank-faced young woman could look. "Sylia!" she shouted, "What the hell were you doing!?"
Gally looked this new individual over with something akin to awe. The other two women she had met earlier treated Sylia with deference and regard, and yet this woman was yelling at her as if they were equals. Yet she did not seem to feel like an equal. Her clothes were rugged and ragged, having seen better days years ago. Her hair was unkempt, she wore no makeup to speak of, and her appearance was sub-standered to say the least. Her attitude appeared wild and uninhibited, not calm and collected like Sylia's. She had the look of a lowly factory drone. In every way she seemed a lesser to Sylia. So why was she yelling? It was strange, to say the least.
"Ah, Priss, I've been trying to call you for hours," Sylia said plainly, never losing her cool in the face of the punk girl's onslaught.
"Don't give me that crap!" Priss argued, "I didn't get any calls. You went out without me! Why?"
"We didn't have the time to call you, Priss. Besides, Linna needed a good chance to try out her armor again. Her last run was rather... unsuccesful," Sylia explained, "Besides, we had all the help we could need waiting for us there," she gestured at Gally.
Gally's face flushed when Sylia directed Priss over to her. Without her jacket, her body was exposed to the world and she didn't like feeling vulnerable.
"What are you..." Priss trailed off as she turned her head. She took one look at Gally, who was sheepishly waving at her, and shouted, "Boomer!" then reached into her jacket. She pulled out a small gun, roughly the size of a shotgun stock, and aimed it at the girl.
"Priss, don't shoot, she's not..." Sylia shouted, but wasn't in time. Priss fired twice...
The bullets lodged themselves deep in Gally's wounded arm, igniting the leaking oil on fire and causing her arm to burst into flame. "What the hell?!" Gally shouted. She shook her arm, trying to get the flames to go down, but it was no use. The fire would not go out until it had used up all the available fuel, and Gally's body was the equivalent of a fuel drum. Within a minutes she would most likely explode, and there was nothing she could do.
---------------
Away from Sylia, Gally and Priss, away from their petty little problems of life and death, far away and above them lie the Tower. A glittering apex of human ingenuity and engineering, an icon of everything technology stood for. The Tower stretched forth, from its base on the island-country of Japan extending out past Earth's atmosphere to the Genaros Space Station, linking forever the land, sky and space in an invincible construction of steel and titanium. And yet, like the proverbial Apple for Adam and Eve, there were snakes infesting the Tower, who had control over the Tower. The snake was known as Genom.
For years Genom and its main product, the Boomers, had cornered virtually every market on the planet, creating a near-unshakable stranglehold on the world's economy. They were everywhere and controlled everything one could imagine. The leaders of this incredible company were looked upon as near-gods, inhabitants of a portion of the world far above normal everyday humans, on a tower that linked the Earth to the heavens.
But the CEO's are not Gods, nor even close approximations thereof. No, they are mere mortals governed by their selfish ambitions and petty needs, driven by a horrific desire to see those who would stand against them crushed beneath their Boomers heels.
It is that very selfish hatred which drives the president and CEO of Genom, Quincy Rosencroitz, on this day-like-any-other. He has had an annoyance of late, a group of women who thwart his every move. These women who destroy his children, his lovely sons and daughters of the mechanical seed, who fight what seems to be the impossible battle, night after night. A never-ending war waged by the women known only as the Knight Sabers.
They were not nearly as dangerous as one might assume, however, for a company as large as Genom had very little that could not be counter-checked. Many times Quincy used the Knight Sabers for his own agendas, helping them to find and destroy his more disobedient children before the public could learn of them. If he truly wished he could learn the identities of the Knight Sabers and have them hunted down and executed within an hour, and yet he did not do this. The mere knowledge of his power gave him an enormous high, which was why he allowed them to live, as barely acknowledged pests routing around in his city.
But something else was out there now, something lethal, quick, and dangerous. Something he could not keep tabs on. He did not like the idea of an unknown variant in his plans. The variant would either have to be acquired and absorbed... or violently removed as soon as possible.
"Meson, have you seen the reports?" Chairman Rosencroitz spoke, his voice channeled through speakers set throughout his vast office. The Chairman was not a normal man, in this or any regard. His body, atrophied from lack of movement and decaying from within from cancers and disease, was incapable of the simplest actions without machinery. His frail, deformed body was forever linked with his massive throne-like chair, which monitored his life-signs and kept him alive long after he should have died. Only his eyes, those two, uncaring soul-less eyes could move and they did, as they stared at his executive assistant with contempt and fury.
"Yes I have. It appears another Boomer went on the rampage. It is nothing you need to worry about. It only killed seven people. In today's news that's hardly a front-page news story," Brian J. Meson responded between clenched lips. His mouth rarely moved, all so he could hide the gritted teeth and urge to retch when in front of his superior. The Chairman's form made him sick to his stomach. He shaded his eyes in the shadows of the room, covering his true feelings, for his eyes were filled with disgust and pity for the foolish old man, the man Meson knew he would one day kill to achieve his own glorified goals.
"That is not the point, Meson," the Chairman replied coldly, his heaving breaths audible in his raspy voice, "I am not concerned with the rogue child. It happens now and then that a newborn child rebels against his parents. The Boomer is no different. I am more concerned with the girl."
Meson's eyes lit up at the mention of the girl, yet his voice betrayed no concern, "What girl?"
"The rebellious bitch who hurt my poor son. She did quite a bit of damage before vanishing without a trace," Quincy's eyes trailed over to a screen nearby, which lit up at the command of his very will. On the screens, images of the cyborg girl appeared, images of her in a grueling battle with the rogue Boomer. "What do you know of this child?"
Meson studied the images, images he knew all to well from his own studies, and from other, unknowable sources. "She does not appear to be anything special. She has no armor, and appears no older than thirteen or fourteen. Her fighting skills appear rather impressive, however. I see no reason for her to be able to hold her own against even a maintenance Boomer let alone nearly destroy one," Meson remarked, his face completely passive.
"And yet that is exactly what this girl did. She has strength far surpassing a normal human, and reflexes that nearly rate of the scale. On top of that she was 'rescued' by the Knight Sabers. I have no doubts as to this girl being something far more than she appears. I believe she may be some new kind of weapon," Quincy explained. His eyes narrowed and his gaze took on a frightening sheen, "I want to acquire her as soon as possible. I see potential here."
"As you wish, sir," Meson answered, bowing as was custom. He stood and walked out, his face contorting to a scowl as soon as he walked into the shadows of the end of the office.
He stepped out the door only to be greeted by a pale skinned female Boomer with red hair, clear eyes and a dark purple dress. "The meeting did not go well?" it, or rather she, asked.
"No, it did not. I finally found an edge and the ancient bastard beat me to the punch!" Meson almost growled, trying to keep his anger well in check. "He found out about the girl. How?"
"Girl, sir?" the Boomer questioned. Her analytical mind could only understand detailed conversation, not fragments, so her confusion was understandable, and yet damning.
"Do not give me the same treatment I gave him!" he yelled, "How did the Chairman find out about the girl who fought the Boomer. We wiped the camera scanners clear. We deleted the ADPolice's report on it. It never happened!" he waved his hands around like a madman.
"Sir. I believe the arresting officer on the scene filed triple-redundant paperwork on the incident. We erased two files, yet were unsuccessful at erasing the third before the Chairman found it," the Boomer droned matter-of-factly.
"Damn!" Meson cursed, "The girl was my Project. She belonged to me, not the old man. He has no idea how much time I have invested in this Project, and he won't find out either. Set up the standard screening methods. I want the girl to be found by tomorrow afternoon, preferably in small pieces, and then we can truly find her."
"I do not understand," the Boomer looked perplexed.
"Understanding is not required, only obedience. Tell my lab team I want an exact duplicate of the girl created by tomorrow morning. We'll take it a step at a time after that," Meson commanded as he walked back to his own office.
"The Chairman will not appreciate being deceived..." the Boomer trailed.
"He is not being deceived, only informed early. Once we have the girl and learn her secrets, she will be in pieces anyway," Meson chuckled, "My plans will come to fruition, and that girl is the key to my key."
Linna and Nene sat Gally down a few blocks away from the Boomer rampage area, on a deserted street deep in the darker section of Sohto ward, where few normal people dared to go and rarely anyone was coherent enough to know what was going on. It was a preferred after-mission pickup location for the Knight Sabers. They could meet-up with Sylia's van, get onboard and drive off without anyone being the wiser.
"What are we doing here?" Gally demanded the moment Linna and Nene set her down, "I thought I was meeting your boss."
"You are," Linna answered simply. She was nervous having this extremely powerful girl being anywhere near her, especially with the angered look that she was displaying.
"Then why are we standing in the middle of the street? Aren't we exposed?" Gally prodded. She wanted answers, answers to where she was, why she was here, what Boomers were, and why they went insane, and she wasn't getting any nearer to the truth with the two armored women.
"We're not meeting here, silly," Nene replied, smiling behind the helmet, "We're just being picked up here," she pointed one massive gauntlet in the direction of a white delivery van that was barreling towards them, "That's our boss now."
"Nene!" a voice shouted over the blonde's radio, "Don't give away information on an open channel!"
"Sorry..." Nene said, shame dripping from her voice. She knew she had a tendency to put her foot in her mouth, but it always annoyed her to be caught in the act of doing so.
"So who are you two?"
"We're the Knight Sabers, of course," Linna answered, feeling a twinge of pride in knowing that she really was a Knight Saber, a dream come true for her.
"You said that before," Gally noted, "I mean, what are your names?"
"Oh, I'm..." Nene was about to speak when Linna cut her off.
"We can't tell you that while were out in the open like this," she explained, "Once we're inside the Mobile Pit we can tell you what you want to know."
"I want to know a lot," Gally answered in as defiant a tone as she could muster. She then turned and watched the delivery van speed nearer and nearer until it was almost upon them.
If not for the skill of the driver, it would have torn right through the three, crushing them beneath the van's wheels, however, the van turned at the last second, skidding sideways to a halt just a few feet away from them.
The van was non-descript in every way, even missing a label or name as to which company it delivered for, and since it was mobile, it could go anywhere in the city it needed to. Gally mused that it would be the perfect cover for a group of armored vigilantes such as the two standing next to her, it couldn't be tracked or traced if it was seen, and it could quickly reach danger zones without anyone noticing it.
A door on the side of the van opened automatically, separating into two pieces. One piece, the larger part, extended outwards and upwards, allowing access, while the second, much smaller piece moved downward, creating a few steps to allow the girls to walk up into the vehicle.
"Hurry, get in!" a voice cried out from inside, "The ADPolice are right behind you!"
The three girls moved as quickly as possible, scrambling into the entryway, Nene jumping in last, which closed a second later. The van turned, then barreled away again off into the night.
--------------
Amishi Kurimitsu lumbered out of the flower shop in her K-suit, Boomer head in one massive hand and gattling rifle in the other. She made a few more steps before she deactivated the unit and opened the canopy.
"Just what the hell did you think you were doing?" Leon yelled, running up to her, arms waving like a madman.
Amishi glanced in the man's direction, "I was doing my job," she said in the most serious voice she could. It didn't come out serious at all, it came out the same way everything else she said came out, cutely.
"You're job is to follow my orders, not go running off in a K-suit to play little-miss-hero!" Leon shouted, "You keep doing stunts like that and you're gonna be dead real quick!"
"I killed the Boomer, didn't I?" Amishi asked, confused by Leon's shouting. She was overtired from the incident that had just occurred and didn't feel much like talking, arguing or thinking for the next several hours. She just wanted to go home and go to sleep.
"Yeah, you killed the Boomer alright, but you could've been seriously hurt! The Knight Sabers might've been in there!" Leon argued even louder, then stopped as sudden realization hit him, "Wait, you killed the Boomer?"
"Yes, I killed the Boomer and the Knight Sabers were there! And so was some weird girl!" Amishi shouted back, getting more than a bit fed up with Leon's shouting.
Leon was about to go back into his ranting, when Daley, who always seemed to appear at just the right time, stopped him with his traditional hand to the shoulder, "Wait a second, Leon," he told his overactive partner, "Amishi, what do you mean by a weird girl?"
"I mean there was some weird little girl with black hair fighting the Boomer when I got there. She thought she had killed it when the Knight Sabers showed up, and then the Boomer got back up and I shot it and the Knight Sabers ran off with the girl!" Amishi explained, although not with any real detail and with barely enough thought put into her words to make them make any sense.
"I didn't quite get that," Daley answered quizically, "Could you repeat it a little more slowly this time?"
"I said..." Amishi was about to begin again when Leon cut her off angrily.
"Never mind!" the annoyed Inspector shouted, "We'll fill out a report back at the precinct," he turned to the officers milling about in the background, "Pack it up guys, the shows over, we're going home!"
Amishi walked back to the car, leaving the K-suit and the Boomer body for the others to deal with, she turned and looked up at the skyline, hoping to find three glimmers in the sky, proof of the escaping Knight Sabers.
--------------
The majority of the trip to the Knight Saber's HeadQuarters was ridden in silence, each of the three young girls far to lost in their own thoughts to speak with one another. They entered the vehicle in silence, sitting down upon the specially designed seats inside without a word or extraneous action, save that of the two armored figures removing their helmets.
Gally stared in disbelief at her two unmasked companions, their faces and hair that of extremely young women, one no more than twenty-three, and the other barely older than she herself appeared to be, perhaps sixteen, or an under-developed eighteen. That two women who had barely begun their adult lives could wear the tremendous armor and battle the demonic-looking rogue Boomers was astonishing.
The battle-hardened cyborg stared at the older of the two women with awe. She looked certain of herself, but there were telltale signs of doubt and disbelief. The eyes were nearly watering with held-back tears of fear, and she was subtly biting her lower lip in worry.
The other one, however, had none of the doubt in her appearance. She was happy, positively beaming with pride, as if going out in her suit was like sugar for her, the same reaction seen in Motorball players who played for the rush. She was an adrenaline junkie, it appeared, but looks, as always could be deceiving.
Linna also stewed in her thoughts, allowing waves of conflicting emotions to smash against her mental defenses as she strove to keep a straight face about it all. Relief, anger, desperation, confusion, caution, trepidation, and fear all raged through her in a kaleidoscope of emotional colors. She glanced at Nene, who was so happy and cheerful; about everything, only getting truly angry or upset when one of the others started picking on her. She wished she could be more like her, grin and bare it, so to speak.
Then she turned to look at the strange girl, with skin on her face and yet metal through-and-through as her arms and legs implied-. She seemed so awe-struck by everything she saw, and yet was doing her best to hide it. Linna felt deep down that the girl was not from Tokyo and so her awe probably stemmed from being in this strange, utterly remarkable feeling city. Linna could understand that concept quite well, as she herself was new to the city and found it just as awe-inspiring.
Nene was engaged in thoughts wholly alien to the other two at that moment. Her mind was swirling with memories of the night, previous nights, and thoughts of upcoming nights. She was hyper, and her senses were literally overflowing with sensations. She was so excited over the nights events and all that it meant. Not only did she not get pulverized by the Boomer, like usual, which was always a plus, but she went out without Priss, which she knew would piss the singer off to no end. Plus there was the new girl, who could fight better than Priss, which she knew would also piss the singer off. All in all the night was aces in her book.
"Tell me," a voice spoke from nowhere, shattering the silent atmosphere in the room, "What is your name?"
"Who are you?" Gally demanded, looking around. She focused on a small camera unit placed near the front section of the room, directed specifically at her. Next to it a small speaker was mounted, where the voice emanated, no, more so flowed gracefully into the room.
"I would appreciate it if you would humor me by accepting that I cannot answer that question. Not at this time, anyway. Suffice to say I am the leader of these girls, whose names you may also not yet know. We must discover if we can trust you enough to give you our names," the voice responded cooly.
"If you can't trust me enough with your names, then why should I give you mine?" Gally shot back.
"Well, we must call you something. Saying 'Hey you' isn't going to get either of us very far, after all."
"Yes, but the same could go for you. I need to know what someone's name is before I am willing to speak with them as a human being," Gally countered.
[Absolutely amazing,] Sylia thought to herself, [This girl is definitely not a Boomer.] She coughed, clearing her throat before she continued, "I can see it's a trust issue here. My name is Sylia. That's all you need to know for now."
Gally pointed to the other two, although more for her own benefit than the mysterious voice's, "What about them?"
"Girls, if you would please tell our guest your first names," Sylia prodded.
"My name's Nene," the redhead said vibrantly. She eagerly reached out a hand, although the space between her and Gally made it practically impossible to shake without getting up, and in a moving vehicle that would be truly unwise. She pulled her hand back and smiled sheepishly.
The older girl was far more hesitant, "Linna..." she said after a moment, worried to even make eye contact.
"My name is Gally," the cyborg said suddenly.
"Is that your only name?" Sylia prodded, "Or is that all you wish to tell us?"
"It's the only real name I've ever known. It was given to me by a friend. I have a nickname, but I doubt asking to be called 'Killing Angel' would do much for a relationship."
"Very true," Sylia agreed, "And we don't want to get this relationship started off on the wrong foot, now do we?"
"I don't know, do we?" Gally asked, trying to put as much venom as she could into her voice. Sylia's mere use of the word "Relationship" meant that she wanted something from Gally, and that always spelled trouble in the young cyborg's book.
"You shouldn't be so mistrusting, young lady," Sylia reprimanded, "We're probably the closest things you've got to friends in the entire city. It would be a bad idea to make us into enemies."
"You're right about that," Gally admitted, lowering her head, remembering the people she knew and loved, people whom she may never see again, "I don't know anyone in this place."
"Well, now you know us," Nene spoke up jubilantly. Deep down she really wanted to make the young girl feel welcome, although for reasons she couldn't put her finger on. Perhaps she truly felt for the girl and wanted to help her out, or perhaps she selfishly wanted the girl to look up to her as a friend or leader.
Either way, she failed as the girl looked even more pained than before. "Do I really?" she asked, "I mean, all of this is happening so fast, I don't really know who to trust and which side I should be on. Those police officers didn't seem too happy when they found out you were there. Does that make you criminals, or merely rivals?"
"The police do not approve of our methods in dealing with Rogue Boomers," Sylia explained, "We're not duly appointed officers of the law and so we are sometimes looked upon as outlaws. I wouldn't say they think of us as criminals as they do glory-hunting mercenaries."
"What we do is right, it's just our methods that make the ADPolice upset," Linna offered, trying to assuage her own concerns at the same time, "I'm not too big on the idea of fighting against them either, but there really is no better way to get the job done."
"Is there really, or have you just convinced yourself. Back where I come from, mercenaries are hired out as law enforcement. We worked for money, but justice was still served in the end... In most cases," Gally argued, trailing off at the thought of her long dead beloved Yugo.
"There's no time to worry about semantics right now," Sylia explained, "We're home."
"Where's home?" Gally wondered.
"Considering you have no idea where anything is, let's just say it's in a safe part of town," Sylia answered. "We'll talk in a few minutes, after the girls have had a chance to change. I'll answer all of your questions then, all right?"
"All right. I really have no choice in the matter, do I?" Gally asked with a "harumph".
"No, not really," Sylia agreed.
The door to the van opened to a world Gally was not expecting. From her own experiences, she expected a tiny, greasy, and dirty maintenance area just large enough to fit the van and a workstation in. Instead, she found a vast, almost empty chamber with hallways and corridors leading into other areas of the building.
"How many people do you share this place with?" Gally asked in amazement. Surprise did not come easy to the girl, and shocked disbelief settled far less with her always-ready mind. She was nearly bowled over by her own emotions.
"Why, no one. I own every inch of this building," Sylia answered proudly.
"Absolutely incredible," Gally said. She stepped out into the chamber, quickly followed by the two armored women, "You must be very rich to own all this free space."
"I have money, but I would not say I am overly rich. Why would you think that?" Sylia wondered. She stepped out of the vehicle's cockpit and right up behind the cyborg girl, almost without making a sound.
Gally really didn't notice Sylia's abrupt and silent approach, she was still far too mystified by the sights around her for anything else to truly latch onto her senses. "Where I come from, free space is precious, and a chamber like this could house ten or twelve families. People who own large living spaces are considered well-to-do, people who own entire buildings are revered as super-rich."
"You speak far more eloquently than a girl from the world you describe should sound like," Sylia prodded, her curiosity getting the better of her.
Gally finally realized that the person she was talking to was standing directly behind her, she turned on her wheeled feet to stare into the eyes of her supposed benefactor, but was stopped dead in her tracks by the image that assaulted her.
The woman was beautiful, most likely in her mid-twenties, with long silver-flowing hair and piercing lavender eyes. Her skin was pale, but not unhealthily so, and her body was shaped exquisitely, with the right touches here and there to give off an aura of caged sexuality. The woman was in complete control over herself, and one look into her eyes would tell one that she knew she could use her appearance to her advantage without any moral qualms. There was an iciness to her stare and her features seemed harsh beneath the beauty, but there was definitely something there.
"Are you Sylia?" Gally asked, nearly stuttering out the question.
"Yes. I am Sylia. I am the leader of the Knight Sabers," the woman answered, both cold fact and warmth dripped from her words.
"I didn't expect..." Gally trailed off.
"Did not expect what?" Sylia prodded, "That a woman like myself could lead a group of vigilantes? You yourself are a woman so that should not be what surprises you."
"I did not expect that someone as beautiful as you could be the leader of such an extremist group of outlaws. Where I come from, people change their outward appearances to reflect their internal feelings. Criminals change their faces and bodies to avoid the law, to rise above the law," Gally explained, priding herself on an understanding of the criminal mind, "Female criminals, in particular the beautiful ones, scar or replace their faces to hide from those who would hunt them. And yet you allow your beauty to show, as if you were daring the law to come and get you."
Sylia smiled slyly at Gally's words, "I would assume from what you've just said that you consider me to be a criminal? Why is that?"
"You fight Boomers, which are a menace to society, I admit. However, you do so outside the confines of law enforcement. You are mercenaries and vigilantes, which where I come would be looked upon as the law, and yet here is seen as criminal. Would you not call that criminal?"
"You yourself fought and nearly killed the Boomer. Would that not be considered a criminal act?"
"I was not in possession of all of the facts at that time. What I have done was an accident. It will not be repeated. I am not the law here."
"I see, and would you believe me if I told you that you are still not in possession of all the facts?"
"Most likely not. But I will listen."
"The ADPolice are under-equipped. They do not have the tools required to adequately dispose of Boomers. Their armored K-suits are like toys or relics compared to my teams hardsuits. They're slow, clunky, and far too lightly armed for the kind of work they're needed for. They're supposedly state-of-the-art and yet are seriously lacking in the most base Boomer fighting requirements."
"Then give the ADPolice your suits. Let them use the technology to fight the Boomers. The Police have the manpower you do not. They can use them more effectively that way."
"That is not their only downfall. Many of the ADPolice were culled from the normal police forces. These men have barely any skills required to effectively fight Boomers even if they were properly equipped. To give men like that high-tech weaponry like the hard-suits, we'd all be in serious trouble. The suits are meant for fighting Boomers, but in the wrong hands can be used to fight an army. I can't trust my designs in anyone else's hands."
"It's still wrong," Gally argued, "There has to be a better way to do this."
"Would it help you any if I said I had spent years thinking of a better way? Of perhaps convincing the government to create a task force, with operatives I specifically requested? Or maybe sell the armor and designs on the open market, creating a business competitor to Genom, so that the Boomer market would be weakened? NO, none of those approaches would have worked. Hardsuit technology is too unflexible, too strict, and there are too many secrets that I can't let the public know about. So I have to do things this way."
"I can't say I understand, but I think things are clearer now," Gally shrugged. Her arm was starting to jam up on her, the oil was nearly depleted and the friction would start permanently damaging the joints soon, she realized. She hoped Sylia had the equipment to repair her arm and body, otherwise she was in real trouble. "If I may, I'd like to stay here tonight. I'll leave in the morning."
"Why leave?"
"I don't want to work with outlaws. I want to work within the law, so tomorrow I'm going down to sign up with the ADPolice."
Sylia laughed, "I don't see how you can join the ADPolice with no training, no identity and a cyborg body. Not to mention that they probably have a warrant out for your arrest after today's stunt. No, I'd say the police are definitely not the way for you to go. Besides, I saw the way you acted, the police would never take you in, you're too brutal, too undisciplined, too destructive to be one of them."
"It's the only kind of life I know, besides singing, and I doubt I could find a job for a singer in a city like this. Too many women out there already I bet. What could I offer the world with my scarred face and metal body?" Gally sighed unhappily. She knew her place in the Scrapyards, she had a purpose and a life. In this city, she had nothing, less than nothing without her friends and loved ones.
"Then your options are limited. I suppose more may present themselves as time goes by. You are too hard on yourself, your skills are varied and quite impressive," Sylia said softly, reaching out with one long, elegant hand to stroke Gally's cheek, just under the metal slashes, "You are far more lovely than you give yourself credit for, the scars merely add to your intrigue."
Gally did not enjoy Sylia's touch at all. It made what little skin she had crawl, and gave her a strange, frightening feeling. She pulled away quickly, hoping that by breaking the contact the feelings would vanish, and, thankfully they did. There was something about the woman that made the young cyborg uneasy. "Yes, well, for now I am out of options."
-------------
There are three members of the Knight Sabers whose duties are predominately combat oriented: The first, Linna Yamazaki, the newest recruit and most inexperienced fighter, who was good, but not yet good enough. The second was Nene Romanova, the weakest fighter and all-around computer expert, whose skills with the suit could use a major upgrade. Finally, there was Priss Asagari, the mysterious and aloof brute of the team, the one depended upon to defeat the Boomers. She was conspicuously absent from the day's battle, and no one had really wondered why. Everything had happened so quickly there was no time to complain about the missing third fighter until long after the battle was over, one of their members had even enjoyed Priss's absence.
Priss, however, was not used to being forgotten. She was almost always available to fight for Sylia, and those times when she had a concert at her local bar she could almost always be expected to get away from it within moments after receiving her page. It got her in trouble with the bar's owner and manager, but it could easily be said that the bar would collapse without her, so these incidents remained unchallenged.
This time, Priss never received a page, or a phone call, or anything that would indicate there was a problem and that her services would be required. She thought that nothing of interest had happened on this seemingly dull day. Little did she know...
--------------
Priss Asagiri walked down the side steps on the stage, a sweat-soaked towel in one hand, and her jacket in the other. She sat down at one of the unoccupied stools and ordered a beer. The bartender handed it to her less than a minute later, his speed something he took pride in and yet no one ever noticed. She took a drink of the foul-tasting brew, not really caring. She merely needed something to drink and this was the closest and cheapest at hand.
"Did you hear? About the Boomer?" A young kid, probably sixteen or seventeen, said to his friend, a bearded guy with long curly black hair. The two were sitting just a few stools away from Priss, far enough away for Priss's required personal space to remain unbroken, but close enough for her to hear them over the sheer noise of the crowd. It was strange to think that such a young boy could have snuck into a bar, but the bartenders in that part of the city did not strictly adhere to the ID policy.
"Yeah, I did. I heard it went crazy, started killing people. I heard rumors some weird girl killed it. I heard that the Knight Sabers were there too."
"Bet you it won't be on the news," the kid pointed out.
"Yeah, like they think no one knows about the Boomers, or the Knight Sabers. They're just covering up things for the government."
"No, I heard the Knight Sabers are covert operatives for the ADPolice, and they don't want to admit they exist. If they did, it would blow their cover."
"What cover? Why would they be undercover?"
"As long as the people behind the crazy Boomers think the Knight Sabers are just a bunch of trigger happy mercenaries, they won't realize that the ADPolice are working with them to discover the truth!"
"You've been watching too much Anime. This is the real world. There aren't any conspiracies. Only a few Boomers actually go crazy, and the ADPolice or the Knight Sabers usually take care of them. Boomer technology is just too new to get all the bugs out right away. In a few years, nobody will have any problems with them, then we won't need the ADPolice or the Knight Sabers!"
"Sure, and everyone will forget what's happened? I don't think so."
"People forget things that they don't want to remember. All the bad things will just be conveniently forgotten as if they never happened. We can't do anything about that. All we can do is ride it out while they fix the bugs. Everything will be fine in a few years. Then we won't need any ADPolice or trigger0happy mercenaries."
Priss had overheard enough from the two men. She slammed her glass down hard, making miniscule cracks in the glass and spilling the brown liquid onto her gloved hand. She wiped her hand on a nearby bar rag and growled, "Damn them!" She stood up, tossing the beer away in a fit of rage, nearly missing a young man's head in the process.
"Whaoh!" the bearded man said in response to Priss's outburst, "She looks pissed!"
"She looks hot!" the younger man said without any regards to who might have heard him.
Under other circumstances, the young boy would have come out of that with a few missing teeth and bruises, but with the mood Priss was in, she did not have the time to waste any effort on one little punk. She had bigger fish to fry. She stormed out of the bar without a word.
--------------
Miss Asagiri was pissed. So pissed the aura she was giving off was like tongues of flame licking out, setting everything off around her. She was so infuriated she would most likely hit the next man who hit on her. She needed to smash a Boomer to pieces so badly right then and there, but her two "associates had beaten her to the punch, literally. And with no Boomer to take out her frustrations on, her team-mates were just going to have to do. She was going to make sure everyone knew she did not like being left behind.
Her bike roared down the street like literal hell on wheels, sparks flying faster and faster as she accelerated, pushing the limits of her bike and her own body. At such speeds, one minor mistake, one single slip-up, would spell destruction, death, or permenant physical harm. Priss didn't care, in fact, normally she would thrive on such negative energies, but in this case she gained no joy, she harvested no exstacy from this experiance of riding the razor's edge.
She drove for what seemed like forever, dodging through what little traffic there was in the middle of the night in Tokyo's darker streets, nearly killing herself a dozen times or more in the process. She really couldn't remember just how many near misses, she was just too mentally occupied to keep such minor details fresh in her mind.
After what seemed an eternity to Priss's burning mind, she finally arrived at Lady's 633. She dismounted her bike, placing the helmet atop it carefully before moving on. Her bike was the most important piece of equipment she had. It was her only way to escape, her only way to really feel and truly think. It was her only peace and was more important, more expensive than her own life. If she were to die, so be it, but she could never live without her bike.
She walked with strength through the various trick passageways designed to throw off curious visitors straight through to the real purpose of the lingerie shop's warehouse. The secret base of the Knight Sabers lie deep within the structure, far underground where no passive detectors could ever find it amidst the rubble of the underground passageways that predated the second great Santo Quake. She patted the bulge in her pocket tenderly, as a mother would a good child, except no child lie within Priss's pocket, and no motherly instinct lie within Priss. The pocket contained her "Great Equalizer", to be used in case of emergencies and in case she was pissed off, which happened a lot.
She stepped into the main elevator with little more than a low growl, something truly animalistic. Blood would be spilled tonight, she knew this for a fact.
--------------
Sylia closely examined the young girl that stood before her, eyeing every feature, every exposed servo, wire, actuator and hydraulic. Gally's entire body was an elegant, perfectly tuned and oft-used machine, capable of tremendous strength and agility normally only found in her own hard-suits and the higher-level Boomers the Knight Sabers fought. "Fascinating..." she whispered to herself.
"I don't think I'm that fascinating, and I don't like being poked and prodded like I'm some kind of Guinea pig. I'm a human being, damn it, and I'd appreciate just a little respect!" Gally blurted angrily. It was completely understandable. She had just been yanked from everything she had known and loved into a strange new world, been in a battle with a demonic robot, and now she was being examined as if she were a doll or engine.
"Of course, I'm sorry," Sylia apologized, "It's just that I have never seen anything along these lines. In one sense, the technology is far outdated, and yet in the same sense, it's far superior to anything we have right now. I'm merely intrigued," she explained.
"I'm nothing special. Perhaps when I had the Beserker body, but that was sold off..." Gally held back a sigh of regret, one of dozens she kept hidden deep inside her metal encased soul. "I can't believe I allowed you to examine me like this. May I put my jacket on now?" she asked impatiently.
"But I can't let you wear that ratty old thing. I'll find something much more comfortable for someone as lovely as you," Sylia said, stuffing one of Gally's few links to her past down a garbage chute. The chute sealed, then glowed red for a moment. A green light flashed on and the chute opened, releasing a geyser of steam into the air, revealing an empty chute.
Gally reached out after her jacket, but was far too late, it was gone, and so easily disposed of. Was that what her life amounted to, a collection of easily destroyed things? "That was a gift..." she said regretfully. Her mind wasn't coherent enough to bear hatred, but that would come soon enough...
"Oh, don't worry about it. It was ripped up anyway. It's time to cast of your metal shell and find the woman you've always been," Sylia replied nonchalantly. "I can find you something much better, and much prettier. Perhaps I can even find something prettier to put it on as well. Have you ever put any thought into synthetics?"
"Synthetics?" Gally looked up at Sylia, hatred creeping into her mind at the corners.
"Yes, artificial skin. It looks and feels just like the real thing. It even has nerve sensors to simulate the touch sensation. It's highly revolutionary, but I may be able to pull a few strings. Interested?"
Gally's eyes lit up. One of her great dreams had been to have human skin, to feel the world as others did, to be more like them and not so hidden behind metal and plastic. She lifted her damaged arm and stared at it, imagining what it would be like to have skin, form, and feeling. With that one thing, anything would be possible, a normal life, a normal job, perhaps even love and...
She shook it off. Other thoughts entered her mind. With skin and a weaker body, she'd be defenseless, unprepared for any attackers who wished her harm. With feeling came pain, and permenant injury. Could she handle that? Could she deal with having to tone down her livlihood, to take precautions and face fear?
She was mulling this over when Priss stampeded into the room, looking pissed, or at least as pissed as the blank-faced young woman could look. "Sylia!" she shouted, "What the hell were you doing!?"
Gally looked this new individual over with something akin to awe. The other two women she had met earlier treated Sylia with deference and regard, and yet this woman was yelling at her as if they were equals. Yet she did not seem to feel like an equal. Her clothes were rugged and ragged, having seen better days years ago. Her hair was unkempt, she wore no makeup to speak of, and her appearance was sub-standered to say the least. Her attitude appeared wild and uninhibited, not calm and collected like Sylia's. She had the look of a lowly factory drone. In every way she seemed a lesser to Sylia. So why was she yelling? It was strange, to say the least.
"Ah, Priss, I've been trying to call you for hours," Sylia said plainly, never losing her cool in the face of the punk girl's onslaught.
"Don't give me that crap!" Priss argued, "I didn't get any calls. You went out without me! Why?"
"We didn't have the time to call you, Priss. Besides, Linna needed a good chance to try out her armor again. Her last run was rather... unsuccesful," Sylia explained, "Besides, we had all the help we could need waiting for us there," she gestured at Gally.
Gally's face flushed when Sylia directed Priss over to her. Without her jacket, her body was exposed to the world and she didn't like feeling vulnerable.
"What are you..." Priss trailed off as she turned her head. She took one look at Gally, who was sheepishly waving at her, and shouted, "Boomer!" then reached into her jacket. She pulled out a small gun, roughly the size of a shotgun stock, and aimed it at the girl.
"Priss, don't shoot, she's not..." Sylia shouted, but wasn't in time. Priss fired twice...
The bullets lodged themselves deep in Gally's wounded arm, igniting the leaking oil on fire and causing her arm to burst into flame. "What the hell?!" Gally shouted. She shook her arm, trying to get the flames to go down, but it was no use. The fire would not go out until it had used up all the available fuel, and Gally's body was the equivalent of a fuel drum. Within a minutes she would most likely explode, and there was nothing she could do.
---------------
Away from Sylia, Gally and Priss, away from their petty little problems of life and death, far away and above them lie the Tower. A glittering apex of human ingenuity and engineering, an icon of everything technology stood for. The Tower stretched forth, from its base on the island-country of Japan extending out past Earth's atmosphere to the Genaros Space Station, linking forever the land, sky and space in an invincible construction of steel and titanium. And yet, like the proverbial Apple for Adam and Eve, there were snakes infesting the Tower, who had control over the Tower. The snake was known as Genom.
For years Genom and its main product, the Boomers, had cornered virtually every market on the planet, creating a near-unshakable stranglehold on the world's economy. They were everywhere and controlled everything one could imagine. The leaders of this incredible company were looked upon as near-gods, inhabitants of a portion of the world far above normal everyday humans, on a tower that linked the Earth to the heavens.
But the CEO's are not Gods, nor even close approximations thereof. No, they are mere mortals governed by their selfish ambitions and petty needs, driven by a horrific desire to see those who would stand against them crushed beneath their Boomers heels.
It is that very selfish hatred which drives the president and CEO of Genom, Quincy Rosencroitz, on this day-like-any-other. He has had an annoyance of late, a group of women who thwart his every move. These women who destroy his children, his lovely sons and daughters of the mechanical seed, who fight what seems to be the impossible battle, night after night. A never-ending war waged by the women known only as the Knight Sabers.
They were not nearly as dangerous as one might assume, however, for a company as large as Genom had very little that could not be counter-checked. Many times Quincy used the Knight Sabers for his own agendas, helping them to find and destroy his more disobedient children before the public could learn of them. If he truly wished he could learn the identities of the Knight Sabers and have them hunted down and executed within an hour, and yet he did not do this. The mere knowledge of his power gave him an enormous high, which was why he allowed them to live, as barely acknowledged pests routing around in his city.
But something else was out there now, something lethal, quick, and dangerous. Something he could not keep tabs on. He did not like the idea of an unknown variant in his plans. The variant would either have to be acquired and absorbed... or violently removed as soon as possible.
"Meson, have you seen the reports?" Chairman Rosencroitz spoke, his voice channeled through speakers set throughout his vast office. The Chairman was not a normal man, in this or any regard. His body, atrophied from lack of movement and decaying from within from cancers and disease, was incapable of the simplest actions without machinery. His frail, deformed body was forever linked with his massive throne-like chair, which monitored his life-signs and kept him alive long after he should have died. Only his eyes, those two, uncaring soul-less eyes could move and they did, as they stared at his executive assistant with contempt and fury.
"Yes I have. It appears another Boomer went on the rampage. It is nothing you need to worry about. It only killed seven people. In today's news that's hardly a front-page news story," Brian J. Meson responded between clenched lips. His mouth rarely moved, all so he could hide the gritted teeth and urge to retch when in front of his superior. The Chairman's form made him sick to his stomach. He shaded his eyes in the shadows of the room, covering his true feelings, for his eyes were filled with disgust and pity for the foolish old man, the man Meson knew he would one day kill to achieve his own glorified goals.
"That is not the point, Meson," the Chairman replied coldly, his heaving breaths audible in his raspy voice, "I am not concerned with the rogue child. It happens now and then that a newborn child rebels against his parents. The Boomer is no different. I am more concerned with the girl."
Meson's eyes lit up at the mention of the girl, yet his voice betrayed no concern, "What girl?"
"The rebellious bitch who hurt my poor son. She did quite a bit of damage before vanishing without a trace," Quincy's eyes trailed over to a screen nearby, which lit up at the command of his very will. On the screens, images of the cyborg girl appeared, images of her in a grueling battle with the rogue Boomer. "What do you know of this child?"
Meson studied the images, images he knew all to well from his own studies, and from other, unknowable sources. "She does not appear to be anything special. She has no armor, and appears no older than thirteen or fourteen. Her fighting skills appear rather impressive, however. I see no reason for her to be able to hold her own against even a maintenance Boomer let alone nearly destroy one," Meson remarked, his face completely passive.
"And yet that is exactly what this girl did. She has strength far surpassing a normal human, and reflexes that nearly rate of the scale. On top of that she was 'rescued' by the Knight Sabers. I have no doubts as to this girl being something far more than she appears. I believe she may be some new kind of weapon," Quincy explained. His eyes narrowed and his gaze took on a frightening sheen, "I want to acquire her as soon as possible. I see potential here."
"As you wish, sir," Meson answered, bowing as was custom. He stood and walked out, his face contorting to a scowl as soon as he walked into the shadows of the end of the office.
He stepped out the door only to be greeted by a pale skinned female Boomer with red hair, clear eyes and a dark purple dress. "The meeting did not go well?" it, or rather she, asked.
"No, it did not. I finally found an edge and the ancient bastard beat me to the punch!" Meson almost growled, trying to keep his anger well in check. "He found out about the girl. How?"
"Girl, sir?" the Boomer questioned. Her analytical mind could only understand detailed conversation, not fragments, so her confusion was understandable, and yet damning.
"Do not give me the same treatment I gave him!" he yelled, "How did the Chairman find out about the girl who fought the Boomer. We wiped the camera scanners clear. We deleted the ADPolice's report on it. It never happened!" he waved his hands around like a madman.
"Sir. I believe the arresting officer on the scene filed triple-redundant paperwork on the incident. We erased two files, yet were unsuccessful at erasing the third before the Chairman found it," the Boomer droned matter-of-factly.
"Damn!" Meson cursed, "The girl was my Project. She belonged to me, not the old man. He has no idea how much time I have invested in this Project, and he won't find out either. Set up the standard screening methods. I want the girl to be found by tomorrow afternoon, preferably in small pieces, and then we can truly find her."
"I do not understand," the Boomer looked perplexed.
"Understanding is not required, only obedience. Tell my lab team I want an exact duplicate of the girl created by tomorrow morning. We'll take it a step at a time after that," Meson commanded as he walked back to his own office.
"The Chairman will not appreciate being deceived..." the Boomer trailed.
"He is not being deceived, only informed early. Once we have the girl and learn her secrets, she will be in pieces anyway," Meson chuckled, "My plans will come to fruition, and that girl is the key to my key."
