JUNE 8, 2035
"GRINDTOWN" INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT
OSAKA, JAPAN
"Sylia, what's wrong?"
Sylia Stingray pulled herself out of her thoughts with a quick shake of her head and smiled at the woman who had become - to their mutual surprise - her closest friend. "Nothing. Just thinking about how quickly all this happened."
Nene sighed and carefully leaned her head back against one of the Knightwing's unpadded headrests. "I guess I understand. For years and years it was just us, and now, whammo, we've got 'expansion teams' all over the place."
"That's part of it, I guess. But... I owe all of you an apology."
The redhead made a face and reached forward to rap her gauntlet off of the other woman's helmet. "I was a kid, Sylia. God only knows what kind of mess I'd've made of things if you'd put me in charge of the entire computer system back then. Yeah, okay, you shouldn't've tried to do it all yourself, superhuman computer brain or not, but we've all done a lot of growing up since then. You don't need to mope about it any more than Priss needs to mope about all the suits she wrecked."
"I wrecked?" the singer said through the comlink from where she was leaning against the VTOL's landing gear. "Hey, while we're comparing repair bills, Little Miss Cyberpunk, let's talk about-"
"They're here," Linna said, cutting in against another chapter of the perpetual good-natured fued between the Knight Sabers' most and least agressive members.
The five armored figures that were landing on the roof where the Knightwing had set down were clad in armor very similar to the Sabers' own - as it should have been - but were still distinctively different. First and foremost, of course, there was the fact that one of them were quite unmistakably male, but other details large and small, from the design of their boots to the use of slashes of color on a drab background rather than solid shades, gave them a unified appearance all their own.
"So who gets to kill who?" Nene asked as she lifted her helmet on and sealed it in place.
Linna turned to look at her, though of course she couldn't see more than a dim profile from outside the one-way mirroring of the Knightwing's cockpit. "This is just an exercise, you know. No one is going to kill anyone."
The youngest Saber blew a raspberry at her.
"Red and Blue will work together to occupy Owl, Cobra, and Wolf. Green and I will seperate and eliminate Hawk and Tiger, respectively, before returning to support you." Sylia belted out the orders as the aircraft's cockpit opened to allow its two occupants to disembark. "Green, be careful, Hawk is-"
"I know, we've met before."
"Good." She stood and armed her suit's systems. "Knight Sabers, sanjou!"
This is ultimately supposed to be the Menagerie's story, not the Sabers', but our favorite girls will likely make cameos from time to time.
As to who the Menagerie are themselves, well, I know differing amounts about different members - the ones I have the most on are Hawk and Wolf, who are, well...
Hawk is, of course, one of the group's two close-combat specialists, and a good enough martial artist that she was living off of tournament prizes before she got pregnant with her daughter (who is, BTW, somewhere around sixish, and smart and precocious enough to seem anywhere between half again and twice that). Outside of the suits, she'd take Linna apart fairly easily, for comparison, although experience with that sort of fighting makes the odds both more even and weighted in the other direction in the situation described above.In between beating up psychotic boomers and taking care of her kid, she's fueding with her ex-husband and dating Cobra.
No, Owl is the resident male, along with being the team leader and the person who shelled out the Menagerie's starting capital. His suit is the only generalist design.
Cobra's a stripper in her day job. Owl's the only other one who knows that, though, and even he hasn't figured out that she's an escaped 33-S rather than a 50/50 cyborg with a blood disorder. She's one of the two shooters.
My earliest drafts had Tiger as being Jeena Malso of ADP fame, but on reflection I suspect it'd be best to scrap that... which'd leave the only fact we have being that she's the other close-combat specialist.
Wolf is the oldest, the most cynical, and the most experienced at violence, being as she is, or was, a professional mercenary for most of her adult life. She's Russian, originally, and has a fairly serious hate on for the male species in general. Thinks Owl means well, but never turns her back on him. Besides being the other shooter, she carries the demolition charges.
Their suits were all designed using the RPG rules, and those familiar with same will likely recognize their mark.
The Hawk suit is capable of independant flight up to Skyknight levels, is unusually flexible, and is armed with a railgun on one arm, a three-shot plasma torch (aka, lightsaber) deployable from the other, and shock plates on heels and knuckles. Its helmet is shaped and painted to resemble a hawk's face.
The Tiger is slow, its only ranged weapon is a set of low-intensity plate lasers, like those seen in the 55 series boomers, and its close-combat weapons are limited to a series of Really Really Sharp claws on the fingers of its gauntlets, but it's very heavily armored and stronger by far than any of the other hardsuits - comfortably stronger than anything short of Largo's superboomers. Given proper tactics and a working knowledge of leverage, it's capable of quite literally pulling most opponents limb from limb.
Besides carrying arm-mounted railguns and a laser array in the helmet, the Cobra is also the Menagerie's electronic warfare platform. Its jammers deploy above the shoulders, on either side of the helmet, giving rise to its name.
The Wolf has half a dozen S-mines in either arm and a pair of large laser cannons mounted on shoulder armatures and stored along the back - they deploy below the arm, rather than over the shoulders, though.
You might've noticed I didn't mention the Cobra as having hypersensors - it doesn't. The Owl carries those, but aside from that and substituting railguns for the lasers, it's a fairly close copy of Sylia's later suits, right down to the flight capability.
As to why I'm posting here, well, partially it's just to get this down on record rather than cooking in my brain, but I'd also genuinely like input, ideas, and other commentary.
Heck, coauthors are welcome!
Ja, -n
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"