Bubblegum Hime

The roar of the Orphan shook the earth, the afternoon sun shining on the misshapen beast of flesh and technology. It looked a bit like a combination of a gorilla and a lizard, pulling itself forward on powerful arms while trailing a long, lizard-like tail. Red eyes blazed with fury, it's fanged mouth stretched wide with rage.

"This is interesting," Yukino noted as her battle suit deployed it's mini-drones, "they don't normally appear during the day."

"I noticed," Natsuki snarled, her wolfen helm giving her a ferrocious look. "Duran, load cartridge!" she pointed her arm cannon as the gun loaded on voice command then yelled, "Fire!"

The unique shell unraveled in midair, but unlike the 'silver' ice rounds it was a standard fragmentation type, shards of metal pinging and scoring off the metal shell. The beast howled as slivers pried into gaps in it's armored shell, a bit of inhuman blood seeping from the wounds.

Without waiting for a cue Mikoto raced in, her midnight blue armor shining in the sun as she swung the claymore-like sword. Her suit's superhuman strength combined with the unearthly alloy's of her sword to cleave into the beast's armor, stripping a layer of it off.

"Get clear, Mikoto," Yukino ordered as she saw the beast begin to swing. Mikoto leapt in time to dodge the swipe, the Orphan's claws shredding a tree as well as tearing into the turf.

"It's stronger than the last ones," Shizuru noted, one of the serpent-like heads mounted on her arm deformed and broken from a glancing blow. She looked at Yukino apologetically, "My acid shooter was housed there, I won't be able to use it."

"I think we can take it," Yukino reassured her. She looked up in the sky, "Mai, have you finished powering up?"

Mai's fire wings flared and sputtered as her suit pulled in oxygen to burn brighter, the flame throwers in each palm running on overdrive. "Ready!" Mai answered as light flared up around her.

"Everyone clear out!" Natsuki yelled as she leapt back from the expected blast area around the Orphan.

"Kagutsuchi!" Mai yelled, "Fire!"

The fireball dwarfed anything the public had seen, the people in the distance feeling a chill of fear as what looked like a mini-sun was tossed down at the Orphan. It looked up just as the globe hit then was engulfed in destructive fire, the shockwave booming outward to rattle buildings and send people sprawling.

Yukino launched a new set of drones, the first set having been melted into slag. "It's not moving," she said as she took in the images on her armor Diana's visor, "and life signs are all reading zero. It's down."

As the crowd of students realized the monster was still they broke out in a cheer, the roar of the crowd washing over them. While the Hime had been known as a rumor and there had been furtive sightings, this was the first time the group had actually been seen in public.

"What now?" Natsuki asked warily as the team gathered around Yukino.

"Secondary command center," Yukino decided as they leaped up and away, "let's go!"

"Wait!" Takeda yelped as he and the volunteer police force ran through the burned down brush, but the armored figures were gone. "Damn it!" he cursed softly.

Chie Harada walked up beside him rather more calmly, holding a portable video camera rather than her usual cellphone. "I got some good footage, boss," she reassured him.

"That's something," Takeda acknowledged sourly. As the rest of the security team arrived he ordered some to use the fire extinguishers to put out any remaining spot fires, others to keep the crowd back and the rest to secure the scene.

Midori Sugiura worked with the volunteers collecting debris, the older redhead moving in a confident manner. "Big bruiser," she noted, "and there's never any identifying marks?"

"Nope," Kazuya said, the cheerful brown haired man working with her girl friend Akane, "though in this case they'd be melted off anyway."

"So somebody has a... Orphan factory out there and no one is doing anything about it?" Midori sounded offended.

Takeda was circling the monster, trying to decide how they'd get the corpse out of there. "We followed the damage trail back a few times," he noted, "as far as we can tell someone dropped them in from the air."

"Helicopter?" Chie guessed.

"Probably," Takeda agreed, "some big military or construction job, probably."

Midori looked thoughtful, "Is there a way we could narrow down who in our area could mobilize something like that?"

Both Chie and Takeda looked at her in surprise. "That's... a very good idea," Takeda admitted, "maybe we could put Miss Mashiro on it? She has the business contacts."

"Sounds like a plan," Chie agreed.

Meanwhile, blending into the crowd Rena Sayers watched the Orphan being dragged off by a truck and several volunteers. 'I'm impressed,' she admitted, having seen much of the battle. She had gotten reports of the Hime's capabilities, of course, but seeing them in person was something else again.

As she turned away Rena felt a surge of disappointment that this had interrupted her lunch with Natsuki Kuga. Which reminded her... Rena took out her phone, dialing and letting it ring. "Saeko?" she asked as the phone was picked up.

Back in her lab Saeko Kuga pushed her long black hair back, her square framed glasses giving her a studious look. "Yes?" Saeko responded then smiled as she realized who was calling, "Is that you, Rena?"

Rena smiled at the sudden warmth in her lover's voice. "Yeah," she answered quietly, "I met with Natsuki today. We talked at lunch, at least until a Orphan showed up."

"You two are all right?" Saeko demanded.

"We were far enough away when it attacked," Rena reassured her, "though Natsuki had to leave to check on her friends." She frowned, "Why did the Orphan attack in daylight? I thought Nagi wanted to avoid that...."

"Something went wrong with the internal guidence system," Saeko revealed with a sigh, "it should have attacked last night with the other one." Eagerly she changed the subject, "What was Natsuki like?"

Rena had to smile at her lover's enthusiasm. "She reminds me a lot of you," she revealed as she walked along campus, "if a bit more sullen."

Finally, not far from Fuka Academy was a great stone hill, on which the Fuka Shrine was based. However, few people knew about the caves beneath the shrine and the command center that had been constructed within there.

"Doing that in daylight was interesting," Mai said wryly as she walked down the corridor, the dragon helm of her armor tucked beneath her arm.

"This is going to make things more complicated," Natsuki said with a scowl as she sat at the meeting table in the large common room.

"That it will," Yukino conceded tiredly. She looked over to where Shizuru sat beside Natsuki, "What should the student council do?"

Shizuru had removed much of the armor, relaxing in the core unit that covered her like a older style swimsuit. "We'll have to publicaly acknowledge the Hime," she mused, "there were too many people who saw us to cover it up."

"Why is that bad?" Mikoto asked innocently.

"It's not bad so much as complicated," Yukino said mildly. "Once we're out in the open we'll have people asking where we got our armor, who built it and so on."

"None of which I think Mashiro wants us to reveal," Mai sighed.

"We can dodge around any such questions," Shizuru said mildly. She sighed, "But I best not be the one doing the explaining."

"Huh?" Mikoto blinked.

"Mah accent," Shizuru drawled, "it's not too bad normally, but I think people could put two and two together."

"It get's especially think when she gets excited," Natsuki noted.

"You'd know," Mai smirked.

"Mai!" Natsuki blushed, "That was not what I meant."

To be continued....