Life Goes On

Disclaimer:Gunslinger Girl, Noir, Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid, Metal Slug and Saikano are owned by their respective owners. I 'own' Giuseppe, Elena and Rolito. Handsome Men and Jeremy Colt original characters owned by Person with many aliases, who gave me permission to use them. I highly recommend you read up his work with the same title to get a better feel out of his OCs.


Revamped Chronology: This story happens past Volume Six of Gunslinger Girl, several years after Noir, sometime after Full Metal Panic: The Second Raid and five years or so before the events of Saikano (manga).

Dedication: To Person with many aliases. You made this possible. Cheers.


Seventeen

Handsome Men


Since the introduction of the mechanical body as an antiterrorist and anticrime weapon in 2000, various First World countries and several organizations such as Amalgam developed their own cyborg commandos. The most renowned of them were the Italians' pioneering Political Warfare Division Section Two and its Israeli counterpart, Childville.

Following the stellar, if covert, performance of Section Two and Childville operatives during the Second Gulf War, the United States put a similar cyborg soldier program into motion. They used technology secretly transferred by the Italians and Israelis as well as borrowing from Whispered think tanks and, secretly, Amalgam.

Like all contemporaries to date, the American cyborgs were exclusively children, none older than fourteen, all girls, either cripples or orphans. Powerful drugs suppressed their memories and cemented their obedience to their handlers. Bullet-resistant carbon compound skin, artificial muscle fibers loosely based off the US Army's XM-9 Arm Slave's muscle packages and cybernetic implants made them into killing machines.

In a series of brutal battles against the Mafia, terrorists, zealots and the international mercenary force kNIGHTS, the American cyborgs proved their worth ten times over. The program remained "black", officially nonexistent, but funding massively increased after the reelection of key Senators and Congressmen who benefited from the project.

The project heads, with typically casual American humor, named their unconventional operatives after a somewhat erratic superhero team from a renowned video game and its tie-in book.

They called them the Handsome Men.


Jeremy Colt was a person with many aliases. 666-Lives. Crazy Horse. That Fucking Bastard Who Just Won't Die. He lived up all of them. It was a necessity. In his line of business, those who failed to do so died very quickly.

Currently he occupied a table in a dimly-lit but rather swanky bar with the presumptuous name of "Maria's Heavenly Brewery". A fedora hat, long-tailed coat with buttoned-up collar and dark sunglasses made him look like a CIA spy from a bad Sixties movie. The summer heat and thick clothes made him sweat buckets.

And all the tour guides said the Mediterranean has lovely summer weather. Fuck 'em.

His mug done, Colt asked a sour-looking middle-aged waitress for some more ice on his drink. At least he thought he said so in Italian. The way the woman stared, he'd probably told her he was an evil man who planned to hide in Italy until robot Lolita rooted him out with machine guns and grenades.

Yes, the truth certainly was stranger than fiction.

His idea was to stand out so as not to deserve attention. The torturous route to that oxymoronic notion could be briefly summarized. Colt noticed that people wearing trench coats tended to be very obvious. He also had a wealth of painful experience– and not a few bullet scars– about people often missing the obvious. Given these premises, he theorized that if he dressed suspiciously but stuck out like a sore thumb while at it, people would not bother with him, thinking him crazy or stupid.

He emptied half a case of the piss-poor local beer alongside a bottle of aspirin before he was done. Maybe he really was crazy or stupid. Maybe he was both. God knows he had lived long enough.

Unbelievably, his idea worked. No sane person wanted to be caught dead looking at the moron wearing heavy clothing on a blazing hot summer day. An American tourist, ever-practical Italians decided at first glance. It figures. Crazy foreigners…

Cause for celebration. Colt ordered a refill.

The waitress poured him water.

"Fuck."

Maria's was one of the few places his hunters would stick out even worse than he did now. No way a ten-year-old girl make ten steps past the front door without some conscientious adult loudly telling her the place was off-limits to kids.

Aside, he wondered if any of those cyborg girls understood Italian.

A further advantage was that Maria's was a favorite watering hole for the local Mafia. At least half of the customers were button men. "Enemy of my enemy" applied. Colt took all the allies he could get.

Shining example was his still-absent contact. She stood as his complete opposite, preferring stealth to his erratic flair, pinpoint accuracy against stupendous firepower and silent lethality to braggadocio. She had only one codename. Its mere mention automatically sent shivers down the spine of any European underworld denizen (and certain Asian and American ones as well). Any pretender quickly died at her hands.

Obviously she was an old friend of his.

He needed her. His enemies were legion, tenacious as hell and very dangerous. Someone guarding his back was always welcome.

That and they were in love.

Everyone thought him dead after the Ogura Mission. Colt had sort of agreed with the bleak prognosis. Fighting hand-to-hand with a mechanical body got him cracked ribs and sternum, a broken nose and both arms bent ninety degrees in the wrong direction at the elbows. Not to mention a full clip of 9mm bullets emptied into his body. And to top it off, he got thrown out the window of a two-storey building.

I'd like to see the face of the stuntman who plays me in my autobiographical movie when he sees the shitload of stuff he has to do.

But he wasn't one to die like that– or at all. Not while knowing she might be dying on him. So he dragged his mangled body home, waited just long enough to heal his gunshot wounds and rushed to that bloody Manor in the Franco-Spanish border so save her.

She was the furthest from a damsel in distress. He was certainly no knight in shining armor– though dark knight he did play to a certain cyborg girl who was trying to kill him back then. Still, their ending was fairy tale enough: save the girl, go home to have lots of hot sex and live happily ever after.

This was the sucky, prerequisite sequel.

One of the patrons looked familiar. I did see a putty tat, Colt grimly confirmed, recognizing the casually-dressed American "handler" (that was the popular term, so he heard) from New York half a year ago. That means Lil' Miss P90 is lurking about somewhere.

He popped half a dozen aspirins and waited. Half an hour remained before his friend came back as agreed. He might as well sit back and enjoy himself until all hell broke loose.


"Danielle? Are you in position?"

"Yes, Vincent."

"Stand by and watch out. Keep yourself hidden until I give the word or you spot Colt attempting to escape."

"Okay." A moment of hesitation before she added, "Be careful, Vincent."

"I will. You, too, okay?"

"Yes."


Handsome Blue was one of nine operational Handsome Men Teams. A member of the "Amati Three" (so-called because their cyborgs usually carried their weapons in Amati violin cases), Blue was an Attack Unit specializing in frontal assault and close quarters combat. Danielle provided ninety five percent of its firepower.

The eight-year-old girl was a compact package of death. Just under four feet and blindingly fast, she was a difficult target at best due both her small size and lightning reflexes. Her artificial muscle packages gave her the strength of six men. Her reinforced skin was impervious to small caliber bullets. She could kill a hardened combatant with her bare hands alone.

She was also adorable. Black bow ribbons bound her neck-long hair into two thick ponytails that neatly flanked and magnified her pixy face. The long-sleeved vest of light purple had white cufflinks worn over a white turtleneck blouse and with a dark blue pleated skirt went well with her doe brown eyes and sweet looks. Anyone who saw her could not help but gush at such a cute little girl–

–which allowed her to take the first, usually fatal, shot.

Her weapons depended on her mood. Today she carried her modified FN P90 with pistol-grip modeled on Jan Valentine's gun from the anime Hellsing. It was arguably her favorite weapon. She wanted her Mateba automatic revolver (customized in the manner of Trigun's Vash Stampede's .454 "Angel Arm") to go along with it. Vincent finally pointed out that her clothes couldn't conceal the huge handgun. Pouting, Danielle settled for a Beretta– customized, of course, to look like Éclair's from Kiddy Grade.

Vincent always had nightmares about ammo load-outs for their missions.

They needed the firepower. Crazy Horse had a rep for soaking up bullets like the aspirin he'd been observed to excessively pop. Orders were to literally cut his head off. And if he came back from that, then maybe he really was the Devil that the Underworld and the Christians kept talking about.

He was also difficult to track. Intel believed Colt killed during his battle with Handsome Light Brown in the Ogura mission. Everyone cheered or sighed in relief, popped beers and quickly forgot him.

Several months later, the "dead" man, his twin brother or an animated corpse gunned down a fairly unimportant US liaison officer assigned in Italy– a man who happened to be the favorite son of one of the Handsome Men's fairy god-Senators. By accident, too, according to Intel; Colt was after the Statie's female Russian counterpart, reportedly a KGB plant that the FBI and State Department trying to "flip". The American made the chivalrous but fatal mistake of getting in Colt's way.

The Russian died, too.

So much for Intel. The hunt for Crazy Horse was on again.

Mister Superior tapped two Teams, Blue and Light Brown, for the hit. Vincent, being the only handler who encountered Colt face-to-face before, was selected mission leader.

Most importantly, the Handsome Men would go into Rome unannounced. Not even their Italian counterpart and organizational model, Italy's Section Two, would be informed. Mr. Superior stressed utmost secrecy: "The diplomatic and political fallout that will follow discovery of our presence in Italy will be disastrous. This is a private hit for a loyal supporter. We must not compromise ourselves in any way."


Danielle (Handsome Light Blue) was extremely enthusiastic about the mission. She was the first cyborg to encounter– and lose to– Colt, and so wanted revenge just as badly as their sponsor.

Her partner Yuki (Light Brown) displayed no visible reaction other than to nod and state in her usual cryptic way, "Understood." Danielle tried her best to get her fellow agent to be more energetic.

"We're going to get him this time!"

"That remains to be seen," was the frustratingly mysterious answer.

Later that day, May (Orange) was seen talking to Yuki. No one knew what they discussed, but May's handler Johnny later noted that May acted– strange.


A US Air Force C-17 Globemaster III covertly ferried the two Teams into a NATO air base in Northern Italy. Come nightfall, they snuck out of the air base, assumed their faked identities and hopped into a waiting unmarked van. Detective work commenced in Rome, where Colt was last sighted.

Surprise Number One: their quarry wasn't alone. The Teams found women's clothing at the first two apartments they searched. Unless Crazy Horse happened to be a transvestite– unlikely, as male clothing several sizes bigger were also recovered on site–, he had a girl friend along for the ride.

But she never appeared. Successive apartments surrendered only men's clothes. Maybe the woman was a prostitute, a brief sexual fling who got tired and left in the middle of the night. Still, it paid to be careful.

The Teams finally caught Colt fleeing his latest apartment. (They were luckier than they knew. The suspicious assassin had booby-trapped the door with a Claymore anti-personnel mine. An assistant manager who made a little extra on the side by stealing from his customers' rooms died a spectacularly fiery death that night.) They stalked him through a maddeningly circuitous route across the city, losing him several times until a frantic Vincent split his forces in two. Twice Colt placed brief calls using public payphones before rushing off again.

Finally, Colt entered a bar– "Maria's Heavenly Brewery"– and didn't come out. Light Brown watched the front while Blue hurriedly circled the building to look for a back door. There was, but Colt had apparently not left the premises.

Lazarus then did the bravest thing a senior agent could do: he walked into Maria's without his cyborg partner. He confirmed Colt to be inside. He also noted that the man appeared to be waiting for someone.

That last troubled them.

A brief council decided to wait Colt out. The man couldn't wait forever. He would leave, sooner and later, and then they would have him.

Danielle would wait in ambush at the back of Maria's. Vincent would enter Maria's. Someone needed to keep an eye on the shifty Colt. While their mark had seen Vincent before, it had been nearly a year. Maybe he'd forgotten. Better than him recognizing and suspecting Lazarus. Light Brown's anonymity was irreplaceable at this point of the hunt.

Lazarus and Yuki camped on shaded bench in front of a ramshackle apartment across the street. The man pretended to read a newspaper. His partner did the same with an English-language paperback edition of The Little Prince. Yuki's Amati carrying case with the Colt Patriot and spare hundred-round drum magazine sat within easy reach. A small but powerful Beretta Px4 Storm hid somewhere in the back of her blouse.

If shit hit the fan, Yuki would take out the two guards at the entrance– her position gave her a clear field of fire– before storming Maria's front while Danielle simultaneously blew through the back door. The two cyborgs would then clean house.

Vincent hoped to avoid a premature shootout. Colt was smart. Maria's was packed with hostiles– local Mafia– as well as civilian noncombatants. Not the most unfavorable battlefield in history, but bad enough. Once the shooting started, the place would turn into a madhouse that Colt could easily use to escape. Not to mention the incident would make the headlines of the local newspapers, the exact opposite of secrecy that the Teams were supposed to maintain.

The low murmuring about him had tapered off. Slightly alarmed, Vincent turned to look. So had every customer inside– including, he didn't notice, his mark.


Colt knew the exact moment she arrived. The atmosphere in Maria's switched from restrained contentment to a bemused silence filled with wonder. That and he had eyes on the entrance all along. The sight was, to say the least, pleasant.

Her appearance could be termed exotic. Her sharply angular face, slanting brows and fox eyes defied racial classification. For convenience's sake and judging by her name, Colt assumed she was French– though she could be an alien from outer space for all he knew. She drew attention like a black hole sucked in light, displaying her presence for everyone's viewing pleasure instead of skulking in the shadows.

The white beret topping her head reminded him of a swollen button mushroom. Neatly tucked within and beneath the headgear was hair of an odd shade of red that bordered on violet. Two thick bangs shielded the sides of her strong but youthful face. A white ribbon secured the rest into a rat tail. Her pupils were dark green orbs, hard and sharp and mysterious.

Her fashion sense was childishly cutesy. Her dress was white all over and clung to her lean frame like a second skin. Blue bands circled her throat and wrists. A cute purple-blue ribbon bow further decorated her dress' front while a bigger bow hung at her lower back. The ankle-length skirt split at the sides. Every sprightly step in brown girl's boots revealed lean legs and thigh-high black stockings.

The clothes made her look younger than– what? Colt realized he didn't know her exact age. Sixteen? Eighteen? He didn't plan on asking. No sense getting knifed (he was sure she hid at least half a dozen daggers in that dress) for broaching such a delicate subject. Assassin she might be, but she was also very much a woman– as many torrid Italian nights had taught him full well.

She marched, very sure of herself, across the bar and to his table. Her boots made an interesting clunking sound that hinted of petty annoyance. Parading herself in the open ran against the very grain of her nature, training and experience of sneaking in unseen to stab everyone in the back. That she acted so convincingly harmless, despite all the eyes tracking her every prim movement as she primly sat herself across Colt, spoke of a much-underplayed acting skill.

Feeling the envious interest directed at him, Colt smirked at his guest. "Nice dress," he drawled aloud in badly-accented French. "You cosplaying for an anime or something?"

"You mispronounced the word 'anime'." Her command of the language was perfect. Maybe she really was French. Her hard jade eyes disapproved of his attire. "You could have bought new clothes while attempting to throw off your pursuers."

"Nitpicker." He held his arms out to his sides in a pretended conciliatory manner. "Well, sorry for my shabby costume, Miss Fashion Expert, but the bastards have chased us out of every apartment we've rented before we even started settling in. I'm practically wearing my whole wardrobe on my back."

"And whose fault is it for being so sloppy in covering our tracks?"

"Screw you, woman. I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. I didn't ask you to critique my fashion sense or my skills."

She harrumphed in disdain. Then a faint smile creased her face. "I've missed you, Jeremy."

"Don't call me that." Colt hated his first name. And to think they had only been apart for a day. But he did return her smile and murmur back a faint "Me, too."

"By the way, that American sitting by himself is probably an enemy."

"So I've noticed." His forehead crinkled in curiosity. "Hey, you can tell he's American?"

"He smells American."

He decided not to test her sense of smell or judgment. "Uh, huh. Got a new bolt hole set up?"

"Yes. It's an old loft I used for my missions here several years ago. Only Mother and that girl know of it. I've checked it out. It's secure."

"Sounds great. All that's left is to shake off my unwanted admirers and bury my head in the ground for maybe the next decade or so. Then we can live happily ever after."

"Why don't you just eliminate them?"

"I've tried. They're pretty much bulletproof."

A red eyebrow rose.

"Remember all my afterglow stories about the Gunslinger Girls? Well, they're real. One or two are probably waiting outside."

"I assume the Japanese girl seated across the street in front of this establishment is one?"

"Yeah. She was the one who broke my arms before I went to save your sweet dimpled behind at the Manor. Did you also see a redhead while at it?" He discreetly gestured towards the casually-dressed American seated at the counter. "That's her handler."

"I see. Unfortunately, I did not notice a red-haired girl outside."

"Shit. If she isn't up front, she's probably lurking somewhere in the back of this dump. That means we'll have to use Exit Plan B."

"What is Exit Plan B?" She didn't remember an Exit Plan A, either.

"Give me a couple of minutes to think it up." He downed a handful of pills with his sixth glass of water.

"You don't have a plan," she accused.

"Plans aren't everything. You overplan, you die."

"The same can be said for having no plan at all."

"Stick in the mud."

And all was right in their little slice of the world.


A shadow fell over Page 40 and 41 of The Little Prince. "Mizcuzi," a small and rather musical voice asked in Italian, then switched to heavily accented English, "You play violin?"

The girl could have passed for Danielle save she had shorter hair. She wore a sleeveless white collared blouse alongside a skirt checkered by black and red and white lines. She toted an Amati violin case similar to Yuki's and a shyly nervous smile.

Yuki considered several possible answers out of politeness. Then she caught Lazarus rubbing at his nose. "Keep focused," it meant in their silent battle language.

Finding the suggestion sound but also deciding to be polite, Yuki murmured, "No," before returning to her discreet watch.

"Oh? No?" The girl babbled something in Italian. Aside, Yuki thought that Danielle, being Italian, might have done better at this discussion.

"How about viola?" the girl slowly asked.

Her persistence struck Yuki as suspicious. The pale-haired cyborg tapped Page 43 with her thumb twice to signal Lazarus about "potential danger". Her handler tipped his head slightly: "Understood, proceed".

The girl was still babbling. "Here is mine." She held up her Amati case to about the same level as the impassive Yuki's face and unlocked it. The lid flipped down to reveal–

Instantly Yuki dropped her book and went for her pistol.

–an FN P90 submachine gun.

"Don't move."

The command came from behind her. The newcomer's English was superbly cold. Same with the steel pistol muzzle pressed almost into the base of the unmoving Lazarus' head.

Yuki froze.

Her distraction smiled sadly. "Sorry," the redhead apologized, about all the remaining English she knew.


Vincent suppressed an urge to bite his lower lip. Colt's "friend" merited notice. Not just because she was a sweet thing to look at, the American agent told himself, the better to get rid of extraneous thoughts early.

Must be the owner of those clothes we picked up at the first apartment. Why did she appear only now? Was she an assassin, too? Shit.

Complications when least needed. He needed to confer with Lazarus. He had the feeling this new development might get them killed.

"Hello."

She was alluringly blonde. Though surprised and a bit puzzled at her attention, Vincent couldn't help but look her over. Her fair skin, golden hair and stunning looks advertised her as French. Her eyes were deep green and intelligent and completely locked on him. Great fashion sense, too: elegant red sleeveless blouse and a black skirt that his friend Joseph would politely describe as "brief".

"Hello," Vincent found himself replying. He felt rather pleased that such a looker would notice him. "Do we know each other?"

"We do now." The woman smiled some more. "My name's Mireille."


Her cybernetic implants made her immune to cramps but not boredom. The latter feeling was unwelcome after an hour squatting behind rusty sheet metal leaning against Maria's back fence. Part of the price paid for having less conditioning than the others. A price she gladly accepted. Vincent wanted her so. She believed in him.

Footsteps sounded yet again. Vincent's standing orders were to avoid detection. Danielle huddled further into her concealment. She peered through the hole.

A mismatched pair entered the alleyway leading to Maria's. Both wore glossy dark suits. The man was big and dark-haired and stern-looking. His companion was a girl of thirteen or fourteen, tanned and blonde, walking in a combat crouch, pacing her steps for maximum silence.

In her arms, ominous barrel swinging from side to side like a obedient hunting dog's muzzle, was an angry-looking, bayonet-fanged shotgun.

Danielle quit breathing.


This was the last thing all of them expected: to meet like this, without warning, and bring them back together like– "You."

Next on Life Goes On: Incontro(Encounter).