Running through his memories, the battered policeman paused a moment, then began, "I'd just caught up with the DD and was out of weapons, so I tried a physical attack. It caught the blow and threw me into a wall, and things are fuzzy from there - the next thing I can say for sure is that the DD was in about the same place but heavily damaged, and the pilot had opened the cockpit for some reason. The blue Knight Saber was in one of their motorbike units, but she'd raised her own suit arm to aim at the pilot. For some reason she didn't or couldn't fire. Then that giant... thing attacked again. It ripped the DD's pilot out of the cockpit and tossed her aside, then beat it into scrap and hit what was left with another energy blast. Blue went to check on the pilot, while the fast one attacked the monster, but she got smacked away as well. It moved then so it was hard to see from where I was buried, but the last two Sabers attacked it then, and lead it back to the quake zone."
Surprised, his partner queried, "You don't think it was working with them, then, some kind of battlemover piloted by the missing one with the green suit?"
"After what happened with the Griffon?" Leon shook his head. "She's got to be dead, crushed like jelly. As for the monster, it sure didn't look like a battlemover, and it was acting completely uncontrollable, like a rogue buma, not in any kind of teamwork with them or anyone else. It's more likely they were after that thing and the battles just happened to cross, though that still doesn't say where it came from or where it went."
Daley made a few notes, then looked back at the file and asked, "The pilot wasn't in the DD, then? What happened to her?"
Leon frowned again, remembering. Eventually he answered, "I didn't look back that way until the monster and the pink and white Knight Sabers had left... She was covered in blood, dead or just unconscious, and her partner had collapsed but was still moving. The blue Saber carried them both away." The frown deepened at that, but the rest of his face was an unreadable mask.
"According to Kaufmann's statement, he hired the Knight Sabers to retrieve her and the DD, or at least destroy it," the redhead noted. "Given that I only arrested him a couple hours before, that would have been in line with their contract if they didn't know. It still doesn't look good for them, though."
Leon was surprised by that one, complaining, "They're trying to pin this on them? The Sabers have always been on our side; even when that building was destroyed the investigation showed it was the gas heating system, set off by the buma's grenades."
"Someone has to take the rap, and it's either them or the DD pilot, since the other battlemover disappeared," the other cop reasoned. He stopped the recorder and entered a few commands, sending copies of the file and his notes to headquarters and the various political offices that had wanted it and had the authority to make it stick. Then he settled more comfortably in the driver's seat and began again. "Okay, once more, from the beginning of the encounter this time. This is Inspector Daley Wong..."
--=--
Amid the massive rescue, cleanup and recovery efforts, no one took any special notice of one more buma clearing debris, especially not in the quake zone. That it was carrying a small metal cooler and putting the chunks of flesh and hair inside before returning to the unmarked van it alone had arrived in, went unremarked as well.
---=- + -=---
Linna woke reluctantly, curling into the fluffy blankets. She hadn't slept that well for a week at least, not when she was alone. She didn't know why, but her strength problems had turned out not to be problems as her relationship with Yasuo progressed; after a certain point it just drained away and she could be a normal woman for a while instead of living in a world of eggshells and rice paper. It made... things... even better, and she was pretty sure Yasuo enjoyed her enthusiasm as well. Eyes still closed she gave a salacious grin and snuggled the pillow tighter - the new infirmary bed was just incredibly comfortable, she could sleep here all the...
*Wait, the infirmary? Why would I be in the infirmary?* Arms, legs, fingers, toes, tail, nose - everything checking in and twitching against the covers as she took inventory. Something else that needed taking care of, but not immediately yet, and no damage that felt worse than mild bruising. "What could have happened?" she wondered quietly. "We were just getting ready to jump the DD, but then what?" None of the other beds were occupied, and the clock display on the monitor in the corner said it was around two PM, the same day they'd mobilized in the wee hours of the morning, so she hadn't been out for a serious amount of time.
Shrugging, she got up and took care of that increasingly urgent problem, then took a quick shower, emerging draped in a big yellow towel and fluffing out her spiky hair so it would dry on its own. That was another question - why had she been sleeping in the buff? Even if she had somehow gotten knocked out without raising a welt on her head, she hadn't had any injuries bad enough to need to strip her to treat, though she'd noticed a needle mark in her left elbow, familiar from the times she'd need to have blood drawn for testing, or to have a supply in case she needed a transfusion. It was one mystery after another, but if she'd been put here instead of her room in the HQ apartments there had to be a reason.
Letting out a resigned puff of air, she snagged the remote control and an emery board from the desk and perched on the bed to do her toenails and watch the news. She quickly forgot all thoughts of pedicures as coverage continued of the devastation that had struck the center of the city, from a battle that had lasted barely two minutes. With so little time to get any cameras on the scene, footage was limited, just a few shaky, long range shots of something big and dark moving among the low buildings of a minor business district, firing a series of energy blasts from its head, and grainy stills from a cell phone camera.
"What the hell happened here!?" she blurted.
"We were hoping you could tell us," said a man's voice from the doorway. She placed it as soon as she looked - it was Sylia's, no, 'Cecilia Ishioka-Wayne's' private doctor, T. T. Vector. "I take it that means you don't remember what happened last night, then?"
He sat down at the desk, booting up the terminal there and activating a second, dedicated monitor on the wall. Watching curiously as he navigated the file system, Linna could see that he was pulling up a clip from Nene's hardsuit camera, and momentarily it opened, showing a low angle shot of some giant, hairy monster swelling to fill the screen, a scrap of green and grey hanging from one shoulder then falling away as it slammed its fists together with a crash of displaced air and roared.
*Green and grey? That's the bodysuit for my new armor!* "Did that thing attack me, then?" she asked incredulously. "I don't feel worked over, but not like that time when Hiryuko healed me, either. What is it, some kind of buma?" *Oh, great, he's got Bad News Face. Do they give classes in that at medical school or something?*
Bracing herself for whatever was coming, Linna was still unprepared when the doctor solemnly stated, "Actually, that's you. Miss Kagami's hardsuit camera got the best view, but her mother was also watching from a more distant location, and reported that when the clouds cleared, you became fascinated by the full moon and transformed into the giant, ape-like creature. Though exhibiting no signs of conscious thought you then proceeded to attack the designated mission target, but the collateral damage was extreme and once it was silenced Mistress Ishioka-Wayne and Miss Kagami were forced to lead you away from populated areas until the transformation reversed itself."
Paling and hugging her arms to her chest, Linna sickly said, "I attacked Nene and Sylia? Oh kami, are they...?" Looking wildly at the other beds as if she could somehow have missed two of her best friends lying in them, she felt no reassurance - that thing had been HUGE, and the video on the news had shown energy blasts that leveled entire BLOCKS.
"They are fine, as is Miss Asagiri, and the other BU-33S who was assisting the pilot of the battlemover, Nam I believe her name was. Unfortunately the pilot herself - the young lady Miss Asagiri had been involved with recently, if I understand correctly - did not, and as you saw on the news, collateral damage was severe." The doctor's face tightened briefly before returning to a professional calm, as he concluded, "As for yourself, apart from minor abrasions and contusions and your still anomalous tail, you seem to be in perfect health. I Must recommend avoiding strong exertion or excitement until the cause of the incident can be determined, however."
The anchorman was giving the latest update on the numbers injured and dead, as well as still missing. The brunette laughed hollowly before repeating, "No exertion or excitement, got it." Eyes glistening, she grabbed the big pillow and hugged it, chin sinking into one end as she kept watching the news. The young doctor asked her a few other questions but she didn't really hear, just shaking her head until he went away and she could cry for real. Nene appeared sometime later to hold her and that was even worse, because murdering monsters didn't deserve to have friends like that.
The Knight Sabers were supposed to STOP rampaging monsters, dammit, not become them. That was what she'd joined to do, what she was proud to do. *What I'll do anything it takes to do,* she resolved, finally wiping away her tears, and dropping the pillow so she could hug Nene back. *If they can't find out what happened, and how to stop it ever happening again, I'll do what's necessary. To stop rampaging monsters from hurting people.* She gave the younger girl a squeeze - the redhead was one of the few who could handle the incredible strength she was still getting used to - and murmured thanks for being such a good friend.
Feeling Linna come around, the half-spirit patted her back and happily returned the squeeze.
---=- + -=---
Linna had stayed behind when Nene and Sylia left not long after, tail tucked close around her waist and once again hugging the stuffing out of her pillow - nearly literally - as she stayed glued to the news coverage with a deeply sorrowful expression, though the first crushing surge of guilt had thankfully passed. Nene was kind of glad, one of the things they had to do was take Sylvie's body to a funeral home where Sylia had connections, which the grieving former dancer would undoubtedly have found devastating. Nene was bad enough off herself, and even Sylia, who'd never met the buma alive, was solemn. She'd dropped Nene off at ADPolice headquarters on her way to pick up Priss, the surviving sexaroids, and surprisingly enough Cynthia, who was no doubt in for a record-breaking Sylia-lecture after running away.
She was somewhat on edge, under the circumstances, so when the Chief spotted her coming into the office and bellowed, "ROMANOVA! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN, EVERYONE GOT CALLED IN HOURS AGO!?" she snapped back without conscious thought.
"I've been taking my FRIEND to the MORGUE, OKAY!? She was KILLED last night, and I got hurt in it myself!" Suddenly realizing what she'd just done, she paled and stared at her feet, waiting to be fired for yelling at the boss. Fortunately she hadn't said anything about why they'd been there or how she was injured, that would have lead to even bigger problems.
Taken aback momentarily, Todo whispered a curse and wiped away the sweat on his balding pate awkwardly, before quietly apologizing, "I'm sorry to hear that, Romanova. There was too much of that going around last night." She wasn't a line officer after all, where death was a daily prospect and came all too often for friends and comrades. In some ways, she was very young, and to tell the truth he liked how she reminded him of his niece at times.
More firmly, the thickset man commanded, "Well, you're here now, so get over here and help me answer these damn phones. Everyone else from the office is out on disaster relief, and every two-bit politico from the Prime Minister to the Nerima-cho dog catcher wants to know what we're doing about that disappearing giant. Tell them the investigation is in progress and we'll deal with it as firmly as the law allows. The press gets the same story and not a word more! If there's an actual, current buma incident, transfer them to the Second Division in Minato-cho, they've kept their response unit intact to deal with them while our officers and heavy equipment assist emergency services."
---=- + -=---
Eventually, the fires were put out, the streets cleared, everyone who could be saved had been saved, and life in Megatokyo returned to something like the old routine. Reconstruction would still be underway for some time, and the buma crews were out in even greater force than the previous, still ongoing Kanto quake recovery levels. The ADP was kept busy with over worked and under maintained rogues, but thankfully no major incidents involving the more powerful security and military models occurred. The government witch-hunt a few of the more extreme politicians had tried to stir up against the Knight Sabers was stifled by more level heads, with some help from a subtle media campaign of data showing their many pro-bono sorties to stop rampaging buma and a couple of contracts to capture major criminals leaked to investigating reporters, though their standing in even the shadier government circles had taken a significant dive.
Sylia had set Nam and Anri up with full identities in another part of the city after making the necessary repairs and modifications to their systems. The slight shimmer of her synchronization system's energy field had prevented Leon or his mecha from getting clear images of Nam's facial structure, and lavender was a common enough hair color - including the dye jobs, anyway - not to be suspicious on its own. For her part, Anri hadn't been implicated in anything since arriving on the planet anyway. Their records from the Genaros escape were simply altered enough for image matching systems to pass them by, and since the voices at Genom who'd been putting the official heat on had only ever cared about the DD and its pilot, their disappearance was quickly swept under the tide of current police work.
Nam had gotten a different cycling jumpsuit, of course, but little more subdued than her original yellow and blue - the new one was mostly black, with a white collar and trim stripes at the shoulder seams, a wide white stripe down the outside of each leg, and a pair of blue bands, one light and one dark, that wrapped around her from the left shoulder across her chest and lower back to end on the left thigh. It was actually quite similar to the white jumpsuit Sylia had worn to drive the Batmobile, but rather than a clamshell breastplate Nam had just added silver-grey boots, armguards, and a wide, segmented belt with a dozen little compartments to help hide the sonic blasters she still kept handy as a precaution.
Nam and Anri came to visit Cynthia a time or two, trying to build bridges with the Akimotos after inducing the girl to run away with them, with but limited success. She and Nene had continued to hang around together in their free time, though not often in company with Priss as it hurt the singer just to be around the purple-eyed buma who was so tied with her memories of Sylvie.
The singer filled her days with music to keep busy, and the Replicants' increasing popularity saw them score a gig at the fashionable Club Olympus. She'd lost a bit of weight as well, and every now and then she'd see a well-built woman with short dark hair from the corner of her eye, only to spin and find no one there. The funeral for the freedom-loving buma had been held a few days later, but Priss had been unable to lay her to rest in her heart.
Linna had quit her instructor's job at Phoebe's Gym, claiming a long term injury from what had become known as "the Doomsday Incident" after the battlemover's involvement had become more public knowledge. As the melee specialist had become more withdrawn and subdued, Sylia worried that there might be some element of truth to the lie, if not in a physical sense. The only time she was her old self was with her music-industry boyfriend, and despite the injunction against such outside liaisons in the groups' largely ignored charter the Saber leader could only feel thankful that the relationship seemed stable for once.
It was two weeks after the disastrous battle that she finally made some small headway in finding a reason for Linna's metamorphosis, as Dr. Vector finally delivered the results of the blood test comparisons he'd run between the sample taken that night and on previous occasions before and after her tail had appeared. Since regrowing the appendage, all of the samples had included varying amounts of an unusual hormone, and on the night in question the level was an order of magnitude greater.
The unknown gland running the length of the member was the obvious culprit, but the trigger remained unclear until Sylia remembered the odd link it had to the optic nerves, the extra fibers in her spinal cord the only other major anatomical differences between Linna and baseline human. The full moon seemed to be a reasonable possibility then, since it had been the last thing she looked at before transforming, and to test the hypothesis a virtual reality headset was loaded with the simulation of an otherwise quiet moonlit field. On a pleasant sunny day they hiked out to the valley where the Orca IV had crashed, Nene and Nam also tagging along in case the experiment worked *too* well. Dr. Vector was not included in the expedition, as Nam was a capable medic and there was no way around the need to strip down unless she wanted to tear out of her clothes if it worked. While Linna could handle being nude in only semi-private situations, she preferred it to be in solely female company.
After setting up the recorders they'd backpacked to the site, and taping the sensors in place on Linna's spine and a small shaved patch on the tail, the VR rig was booted up and the brunette carefully put it on, after a double-check to make sure the moon displayed would be behind her at first.
"Alright, we've got a good baseline for the daylight and inside the simulation, Linna, try turning around and looking at the moon," Sylia instructed. She complied and for a moment it seemed like a bust.
"Nothing, Sylia. Just a moon," the tailed woman reported, disappointedly.
"It's not the pattern itself that's important then, it seems," the Saber leader noted. "Turn around again, and I'll change the setting from a plain white and grey circle to an actual, true-color moon image."
After the settings were adjusted Linna turned again to look at the ever so slightly more greenish genuine moon, and it soon became clear they'd reasoned things accurately, the monitor equipment erupting in a cacophony of bleeps, chirps, and burbles as readings changed and values skyrocketed, followed by the sharp crack of the headset shattering as a baboon-like snout expanded under it.
Thankfully, the transformation hadn't even completely occurred before reversing, due to the lack of moonlight after the headset broke, so there was little cleanup to be done this time. As the troupe picked up their gear and headed back to the base, Nene reflected that Linna seemed happier than she'd seen the former dancer since the battle, while Nam, who'd bounced back for the most part, was shaken and pale, and noticeably keeping the other two women between herself and the brunette.
Linna had noticed the usually sweet-tempered buma's hesitance as well, and while it stung a bit she could hardly blame the girl. Figuring that the best way to reassure her was the way she'd be insuring the world would stay kaiju-free, she asked, "So, will Dr. Vector be able to take the tail off, or should I make a hospital appointment, Sylia?"
"That's an extreme solution to jump to," the steel-maned woman cautioned. "We still don't fully understand what purpose it serves for you otherwise. The simple shape of a moon had no effect, it was only when the specific light spectrum was received that the metamorphosis began. A pair of sunglasses that block those frequencies-"
"Could get lost or broken," Linna cut her off, irritated. "Then what? Just don't look? What if I saw it in a reflection from a window, or a puddle on the ground? More importantly, this can't be allowed to happen again, Sylia." Recalling her thoughts from that awful morning, she added, "We're the Knight Sabers. We stop rampaging monsters, it's what we DO." *Whatever it takes,* she reminded herself, snagging the tip of the flicking tail in one hand. Pulling it taut, she formed a knuckle bomb over the other, and slid the arm down her back, wrist twisted just enough that it wouldn't hit anything until reaching -
"ITAAEEOOO!" she yelped as the mini-blast went off with a crack, a small spray of blood falling to the trail while the length of the tail came away in her left hand. Staggering as her balance shifted, she whimpered and blinked back tears of pain. Rubbing her sore posterior, she shakily told her stunned companions, "Okay... I'm going to admit, that wasn't such a great idea," before tripping as she lost her balance again.
---=- + -=---
Priss was just on her way into the Comet Club to set up the band's gear when she saw the woman again, a svelte profile in blue and white leathers with short dark hair. Dropping the microphone stands she'd been carrying she spun to look, seeing only a shadow moving into a nearby alley. She dashed over, breath catching in a suddenly dry throat- It was empty, nothing but a dead end with a couple of half-filled trash cans, not even a fire escape or a window someone could have jumped to. Silently cursing herself for holding on to stupid, impossible dreams, the singer stalked back out and picked up the equipment again. "I'm going nuts," she muttered irritably, eyeing the scratched chrome where one part had scuffed against the pavement.
---=- + -=---
Sylia was dreaming. She had to be, she told herself, because there was no way she would ever, in a million years, be lounging on top of a piano in a slinky, sequined dress. Particularly not when Fargo was at the keys. There was a short drumroll from behind her, and she turned to see Linna grinning back at her from a drum kit, while Priss launched into a bluesy intro on an angular electric guitar, and Nene stood by with some strange combination of a bass guitar and synth. Without any input from her, her body turned back to face the front of the stage, which seemed to be in a smoky club of some kind, with an enthusiastic crowd cheering and carrying on. The only sounds she heard were the music, as Nene and Fargo joined in, and her own voice as she raised a microphone and began to sing.
*This is so completely embarrasing,* she thought, trying to ignore what her dream-self sang. She usually had far better control, but this dream seemed to be completely beyond her ability to alter. She could feel tears trickling down her cheeks, as some of the forms in the crowd became recognizable... Her mother, in her favorite kimono. Papa Stingray in a lab coat. Little Brian in the jumpsuit with the juice stain from a food fight when they were seven. Mackie, in his overalls, with a smudge of grease on his nose... Daddy... She could feel herself sobbing now, but her voice still kept singing as the second verse came around.
When she'd finished, she stepped down from the piano and across the stage, trading microphone for guitar with Priss. At least her outfit had turned into something a little less out of character, a sleeveless silver wrap-around that wasn't quite so tight and ended near the knees instead of almost at her ankles, with matching long, fingerless gloves. Of course, she hadn't touched a guitar since her second year in high school, but her dream-self seemed to know what to do with it.
Fargo played an on the piano, then she and Nene joined in on their strings, and Priss launched into a song she'd never heard of, though it was very much in the feisty singer's style, even at the slower, more mournful pace the bluesy atmosphere called for. "You're not the only one who's lonely/try sitting on the crescent moon..."
Hands still moving on their own, Sylia looked out at the crowd again, fearing the reaction she'd see on their faces, but Mother was smiling softly and nodding with the beat, Papa had that faintly puzzled expression that meant he didn't understand but was happy if she was, and Daddy... He pulled off the cowl and gave her a wink, as if to say, "It's all right to be a person, too." The tempo picked up, more the usual Replicants style after the first chorus, and Mackie danced around in front of the stage with a faceless, purple haired woman.
Sighing softly and snuggling into her pillow, the worry lines on Sylia's sleeping face smoothed away as she relaxed and let peaceful dreams sooth her mind.
--=--
In a run-down trailer perched precariously close to a giant footprint, Priss opened her eye and sat up slowly. "That was one fucked up dream," she muttered, shaking her head. "Wonder if Sylia can really sing and play like that, though?" Dismissing the notion, she hauled herself out of bed and headed for the bathroom before grabbing a pad to write down lyrics and chords - it was never a good idea to ignore the muse when it flowed, and it wasn't like she'd have gotten back to sleep any time soon anyway. *Born to be happy, yeah right,* she thought, scribbling down the last of what she remembered. It was no good, she couldn't do something this upbeat now. She tossed the pad in the general direction of the shelf, and grabbed her guitar to work on something a little closer to her heart at the moment.
The intro was solid, and the first few measures, but the transition before the chorus was still a little awkward. She tried a few variations, chording around, before finding something that fit and singing along. "You, angel, fallen to earth, living here and now..."
*Yes.* Writing the new measure on the composition sheet still open on her table from earlier, she moved on to the next problem spot.
--=--
And, in the smoky haze of Bill's Blues Bar, Fargo waited out the guitar intro before hitting the keys and belting out the first lines of an ancient Cramps tune with a secretive smirk.
-----------------------------
Next time on Bubblegum Disaster: Don't bring a gun to a Z fight. It never helps.
-----------------------------
For those who still haven't recognized it (which seems to be *everyone*) Linna's high-fashion date wear is a slightly modified version of the Great Saiyaman costume from DBZ. The black body glove and green tabard are the same, though of course cut for a woman, as is the red sash, but the white boots and gloves are much more form-fitting, and instead of a helmet or sunglasses, Linna had worn a red bandanna headband to match the sash, and pulled one down to cover her face (like a cowboy from a western perspective, more ninja-like to the Nipponophile.) Note also that this is the aftermath of Saiyawoman's battle with the Bakemono Burglar...
Cynthia and range of her abilities - In Ch3, she watches the battle on top of Genom Tower and puts up a shield that stops the satellite laser cold, all from her room at the Akimotos' cottage, but here she's in the city but can't help Sylvie heal, who's closer than the Tower was then. This is in fact intentional, not an error - for one thing, the shield is a spell, one of the simplest but which is as strong as there's power to make it, while healing magic spells are very much more complex; the simple energy infusion that she's been using can't be done at long distance. It's also more of a Jedi/Force type effect, the better your visualization and willpower the better it works - much more primal than proper spells as such - and even as an exceptional one she's still a child, and by that time an exhausted, distraught child. As unfortunate as it was, Sylvie's death was necessary for Priss's development and this way it also shows that Cynthia has limitations of her own.
As for her essentially endless magical energy, that's thanks to what Kami-sama did to turn her into a normal girl and two fairybots - as previously noted, that spell is intended to be used to prepare a new successor to the office of planetary Kami by separating any evil in them out to a new being, who then generally is either captured or escapes and becomes a new demon lord - it calls directly on the power of the Heart of the World, giving the person it is used on a link to it. Cynthia had no malice in her, so the spell was able to separate a different aspect of her being, the cybernetic from the biological. Despite carrying the Heart, Cynthia is not a Kami successor and does not have the power of the office - but she does have the link, and only Laviolus Daimaoh (or his counterpart Piccolo, a quarter of the way around the galaxy, the South and East quadrant kami having dealt with their darker selves) can rival her power. She will need to perform the spell as well when a successor does appear, hence her being tutored in magic with the knowledge instilled in the fae at the same time.
"Bake two cakes in one oven" - killing two birds with one stone, for those who like cute little birdies and yummy snacks.
"Anata" is a particularly polite way of saying "you" in Japanese, commonly used by wives to their husbands the way an English speaker would use "dearest" or something similar. I can't remember if it's specifically considered a feminine-use word, however.
Exaggerated, humor-anime-style reactions - the Kagamis are the mirror clones of Ranma Saotome, after all, and half supernatural as well. As such, and bearing in mind DBZ's humor manga roots as well, those kind of larger than life expressions will occasionally come out, despite the generally more serious tone of BGC, which I usually adhere to. As things continue to get grimmer, they'll probably get more common, because too much angst and gloom makes my trigger finger itch.
Another funeral for Priss to attend - in the past year, she's been to Irene's, Sho and his mom's, and now Sylvie's - that's a lot, for someone under 25, with as few close friends as she has.
Answers that can keep until the afternoon - No indeed, our Sylia is *not* a morning person. Good thing everything seems to happen at night, ne? If you watch the series, there's about one scene per OVA that actually takes place while the sun is up.
Club Olympus - in one of the city panoramas, I believe part of the opening montage of OVA 1, a neon sign that says "Olympus" can be seen. While this is probably a reference to the shape of Genom Tower and Masamune Shirow's Appleseed, I chose to make it a nightclub's sign, and being on a bright street would make it either a fashionable and successful one, or very short-lived.
The Comet Club, of course, is from The Tick cartoon, a superheroes only club where they can kick back in the company of their peers. With the way even the canon Sabers mimic the classic superhero style, this amuses me greatly, but there isn't any major cape presence in the world at this point - the Bat-clan was all they ever had, and now there's only one active member besides Sylia, over in the Gotham sector of East City, the megalopolis created as Boston, NYC, and coastal cities even as far south as Hartford Connecticut grew until they merged, giving new meaning to the term "urban sprawl."
The song Priss performs in Sylia's dream is "Asu e Touchdown," included in both Hurricane Live 2032 and 2033, though only the 2032 edition has the music video with non-series animation showing the recruitment of the Sabers, which is officially canon. The one she's working out the music for is "Bara no Soldier" from H.L. 2033. "Rock Me" (despite being addressed to a "lonely boy" in the lyrics, framed for a mostly straight audience) and "Crisis - Ikari o Komete Hashire" (also from 2033) are probably also Sylvie-songs, IC speaking, even though the second was specifically written as a Gibson/Griffon song by Tsubokura Yuiko, the VA who played her.
*Batman* unmasking, and telling Sylia 'it's alright to be a person, too'? Yaright? - Two points here: A) this is a Batman who got married and had a daughter, who was two by the time he died; B) it's a dream, after all, by a girl who was only two when she last saw her daddy.
Fargo's 'ancient Cramps tune' is "Bikini Girls with Machine Guns," and I'm sure you can see why he'd be amused by it. Since I'm not really into the Blues genre (There's a few numbers I like, but not the majority - even Bikini Girls is on the Punk side of Blues, or the Blues side of Punk) I had to kind of talk around whatever Sylia sang, because I don't know any that would fit. If anyone has a suggestion for something with piano and electric guitar that fits a feeling of faltering under the weight of the world, be sure to let me know.
Guardian 215 should be imagined with the vocal talents of Susan Blu; if you don't know her by name, she did (among other shows) Arcee on the post-movie Transformers episodes, as well as in the movie itself. You can even keep the flanging effect if you like, though it's not really there.
Many thanks to my prereaders: Nathan Baxter, Hide Hasegawa, Leong Mun Yee, Andrew Wilson, Christopher Gilbert, and Drakensis, and to everyone on the BDPreread mailing list - you get your name listed if you actually make commentary, but just reading and finding nothing bad enough to complain about is still commentary of a sort.
Drakensis also gets a nod for keeping a remote archive of the story on his website, www.100megsfree4.com/drakensis/ in the Miscellaneous section.
Bubblegum Crisis belongs to Youmex and Animeigo, I make no claims otherwise. Please don't sue me, I have no money to speak of and fanfic does more to promote your products than anything else I know of - without it, I never would have known about anime at all, and I'd certainly never have bought the BGC tapes based on the sucky box copy.
Ranma 1/2 I'm not so sure of, except that the creator was Rumiko Takahashi, not me, and that I make no claims to own IT either. Likewise, Dragonball was created by Akira Toriyama, and is distributed in the US on video by FUNimation. I THINK that both Ranma and Dragonball comics are done by Viz in the US, but that may be incorrect.
The Bionic Six is similarly of unknown provenance, but I have a very vague and unreliable memory that it may have been animated by Suncoast video... In any case, it's STILL not my own creation.
_Dykstra's War_ is by Jeffery D Kooistra, published by Baen Books.
Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were created by Akira Toriyama, owned overall by Bandai I think, and released on video in the US by FUNimation and in manga by Dark Horse (again not so sure about that one - could be Vis)
Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and is undoubtedly also owned by some animation studio or another. I know that the RPG rights in North America at least belong to Guardians of Order.
-----------------------------
Omake! The straights/gays counter!
Lots of fanfic authors go nuts making the cast match their sexual preference and/or fantasies. I'm not, because even naughty, naughty perverts can have some standards - hence, I've only made changes where strongly justified or where the canon was unclear to begin with. And, what do you know, most of the major cast is, indeed, straight! Here's the breakdown:
Straight:
Sylia
Linna
Mackie
Leon
Mason/Largo (twistedly perverse even by my standards, but straight. You don't want to know what he used to do with that green haired, Sylia look-alike buma from the BU-25B attack sequence in OVA 2)
Madigan
Chief Todo
Lisa Vanette
Vision
Kou
Irene
Dr. Raven
J B Gibson
Naomi
Tora Kagami
Hiryuko Kagami
----------------------
Total : 16
A Little Bent:
Anri is just gay enough to have fun with a special enough woman, but generally looks at guys.
Nene is curious, she needs to experiment and find her preferences. She looks but only admits to looking at guys.
Quincy dresses like a gay pimp, but only really loves power. No one dares to ask about his private life, and he likes it that way.
-------------------
Total : 3
Really Bisexual:
Priss
Mina - of course, as sexaroids they're designed to enjoy it in as many ways a possible, so not being bi is anomalous for them
Hyatt
Dot
Lou
Nam
-------------------
Total : 6
Exclusively Gay:
Sylvie
Meg
Daley
------------------
Total : 3
Not interested or too young:
Niichigo
Cynthia
Lisa probably belongs here, certainly the Chief thinks so! She's got that whole teen-girl-boy-crazy thing going on, though, even though she hides it well most of the time. Her room is utterly plastered with boy-band posters.
Double Omake Bonus!
Tales from the Cutting Room Floor!
I really wanted to include this, but it just didn't fit with the way things flowed, and while I couldn't see any way to have Priss plausibly join the outing I needed her to be part of the last KS sighting. Dammit. So, you get the noteblock.
Official disfavor not quite enough to kill another USSD contract, though - they've tracked down the next link in the buyer chain for the DD and want a deniable asset to make him vanish over there, just happening to appear over here, be overwhelmed with remorse after the massive property damage, and turn himself in. Air quotes as necessary. Now needing ca$$$h more than ever with still more equipment damage and the expense of trying to find out what the hell happened to Linna, Sylia takes the job. "Right now, the Knight Sabers are a very plausibly deniable asset, and not that far from being a liability. Which will it be?" I like this idea. There's at least a month, probably two or three, before OVA 6, and there should be something to fill that time frame. Who is it? How about a former terrorist turned assassin called Snake, who hides his face behind a mirrored mask? Combo GIJoe/TFs ref! Double score! "Sssuch a wonderful artwork you made in Megatokyo, but what wasss the point if you disssclaimed it? They jussst don't make terrorists like they usssed to... COOOBR-" interrupted by gut punch, doubles over wheezing.
EOF
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
Surprised, his partner queried, "You don't think it was working with them, then, some kind of battlemover piloted by the missing one with the green suit?"
"After what happened with the Griffon?" Leon shook his head. "She's got to be dead, crushed like jelly. As for the monster, it sure didn't look like a battlemover, and it was acting completely uncontrollable, like a rogue buma, not in any kind of teamwork with them or anyone else. It's more likely they were after that thing and the battles just happened to cross, though that still doesn't say where it came from or where it went."
Daley made a few notes, then looked back at the file and asked, "The pilot wasn't in the DD, then? What happened to her?"
Leon frowned again, remembering. Eventually he answered, "I didn't look back that way until the monster and the pink and white Knight Sabers had left... She was covered in blood, dead or just unconscious, and her partner had collapsed but was still moving. The blue Saber carried them both away." The frown deepened at that, but the rest of his face was an unreadable mask.
"According to Kaufmann's statement, he hired the Knight Sabers to retrieve her and the DD, or at least destroy it," the redhead noted. "Given that I only arrested him a couple hours before, that would have been in line with their contract if they didn't know. It still doesn't look good for them, though."
Leon was surprised by that one, complaining, "They're trying to pin this on them? The Sabers have always been on our side; even when that building was destroyed the investigation showed it was the gas heating system, set off by the buma's grenades."
"Someone has to take the rap, and it's either them or the DD pilot, since the other battlemover disappeared," the other cop reasoned. He stopped the recorder and entered a few commands, sending copies of the file and his notes to headquarters and the various political offices that had wanted it and had the authority to make it stick. Then he settled more comfortably in the driver's seat and began again. "Okay, once more, from the beginning of the encounter this time. This is Inspector Daley Wong..."
--=--
Amid the massive rescue, cleanup and recovery efforts, no one took any special notice of one more buma clearing debris, especially not in the quake zone. That it was carrying a small metal cooler and putting the chunks of flesh and hair inside before returning to the unmarked van it alone had arrived in, went unremarked as well.
---=- + -=---
Linna woke reluctantly, curling into the fluffy blankets. She hadn't slept that well for a week at least, not when she was alone. She didn't know why, but her strength problems had turned out not to be problems as her relationship with Yasuo progressed; after a certain point it just drained away and she could be a normal woman for a while instead of living in a world of eggshells and rice paper. It made... things... even better, and she was pretty sure Yasuo enjoyed her enthusiasm as well. Eyes still closed she gave a salacious grin and snuggled the pillow tighter - the new infirmary bed was just incredibly comfortable, she could sleep here all the...
*Wait, the infirmary? Why would I be in the infirmary?* Arms, legs, fingers, toes, tail, nose - everything checking in and twitching against the covers as she took inventory. Something else that needed taking care of, but not immediately yet, and no damage that felt worse than mild bruising. "What could have happened?" she wondered quietly. "We were just getting ready to jump the DD, but then what?" None of the other beds were occupied, and the clock display on the monitor in the corner said it was around two PM, the same day they'd mobilized in the wee hours of the morning, so she hadn't been out for a serious amount of time.
Shrugging, she got up and took care of that increasingly urgent problem, then took a quick shower, emerging draped in a big yellow towel and fluffing out her spiky hair so it would dry on its own. That was another question - why had she been sleeping in the buff? Even if she had somehow gotten knocked out without raising a welt on her head, she hadn't had any injuries bad enough to need to strip her to treat, though she'd noticed a needle mark in her left elbow, familiar from the times she'd need to have blood drawn for testing, or to have a supply in case she needed a transfusion. It was one mystery after another, but if she'd been put here instead of her room in the HQ apartments there had to be a reason.
Letting out a resigned puff of air, she snagged the remote control and an emery board from the desk and perched on the bed to do her toenails and watch the news. She quickly forgot all thoughts of pedicures as coverage continued of the devastation that had struck the center of the city, from a battle that had lasted barely two minutes. With so little time to get any cameras on the scene, footage was limited, just a few shaky, long range shots of something big and dark moving among the low buildings of a minor business district, firing a series of energy blasts from its head, and grainy stills from a cell phone camera.
"What the hell happened here!?" she blurted.
"We were hoping you could tell us," said a man's voice from the doorway. She placed it as soon as she looked - it was Sylia's, no, 'Cecilia Ishioka-Wayne's' private doctor, T. T. Vector. "I take it that means you don't remember what happened last night, then?"
He sat down at the desk, booting up the terminal there and activating a second, dedicated monitor on the wall. Watching curiously as he navigated the file system, Linna could see that he was pulling up a clip from Nene's hardsuit camera, and momentarily it opened, showing a low angle shot of some giant, hairy monster swelling to fill the screen, a scrap of green and grey hanging from one shoulder then falling away as it slammed its fists together with a crash of displaced air and roared.
*Green and grey? That's the bodysuit for my new armor!* "Did that thing attack me, then?" she asked incredulously. "I don't feel worked over, but not like that time when Hiryuko healed me, either. What is it, some kind of buma?" *Oh, great, he's got Bad News Face. Do they give classes in that at medical school or something?*
Bracing herself for whatever was coming, Linna was still unprepared when the doctor solemnly stated, "Actually, that's you. Miss Kagami's hardsuit camera got the best view, but her mother was also watching from a more distant location, and reported that when the clouds cleared, you became fascinated by the full moon and transformed into the giant, ape-like creature. Though exhibiting no signs of conscious thought you then proceeded to attack the designated mission target, but the collateral damage was extreme and once it was silenced Mistress Ishioka-Wayne and Miss Kagami were forced to lead you away from populated areas until the transformation reversed itself."
Paling and hugging her arms to her chest, Linna sickly said, "I attacked Nene and Sylia? Oh kami, are they...?" Looking wildly at the other beds as if she could somehow have missed two of her best friends lying in them, she felt no reassurance - that thing had been HUGE, and the video on the news had shown energy blasts that leveled entire BLOCKS.
"They are fine, as is Miss Asagiri, and the other BU-33S who was assisting the pilot of the battlemover, Nam I believe her name was. Unfortunately the pilot herself - the young lady Miss Asagiri had been involved with recently, if I understand correctly - did not, and as you saw on the news, collateral damage was severe." The doctor's face tightened briefly before returning to a professional calm, as he concluded, "As for yourself, apart from minor abrasions and contusions and your still anomalous tail, you seem to be in perfect health. I Must recommend avoiding strong exertion or excitement until the cause of the incident can be determined, however."
The anchorman was giving the latest update on the numbers injured and dead, as well as still missing. The brunette laughed hollowly before repeating, "No exertion or excitement, got it." Eyes glistening, she grabbed the big pillow and hugged it, chin sinking into one end as she kept watching the news. The young doctor asked her a few other questions but she didn't really hear, just shaking her head until he went away and she could cry for real. Nene appeared sometime later to hold her and that was even worse, because murdering monsters didn't deserve to have friends like that.
The Knight Sabers were supposed to STOP rampaging monsters, dammit, not become them. That was what she'd joined to do, what she was proud to do. *What I'll do anything it takes to do,* she resolved, finally wiping away her tears, and dropping the pillow so she could hug Nene back. *If they can't find out what happened, and how to stop it ever happening again, I'll do what's necessary. To stop rampaging monsters from hurting people.* She gave the younger girl a squeeze - the redhead was one of the few who could handle the incredible strength she was still getting used to - and murmured thanks for being such a good friend.
Feeling Linna come around, the half-spirit patted her back and happily returned the squeeze.
---=- + -=---
Linna had stayed behind when Nene and Sylia left not long after, tail tucked close around her waist and once again hugging the stuffing out of her pillow - nearly literally - as she stayed glued to the news coverage with a deeply sorrowful expression, though the first crushing surge of guilt had thankfully passed. Nene was kind of glad, one of the things they had to do was take Sylvie's body to a funeral home where Sylia had connections, which the grieving former dancer would undoubtedly have found devastating. Nene was bad enough off herself, and even Sylia, who'd never met the buma alive, was solemn. She'd dropped Nene off at ADPolice headquarters on her way to pick up Priss, the surviving sexaroids, and surprisingly enough Cynthia, who was no doubt in for a record-breaking Sylia-lecture after running away.
She was somewhat on edge, under the circumstances, so when the Chief spotted her coming into the office and bellowed, "ROMANOVA! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN, EVERYONE GOT CALLED IN HOURS AGO!?" she snapped back without conscious thought.
"I've been taking my FRIEND to the MORGUE, OKAY!? She was KILLED last night, and I got hurt in it myself!" Suddenly realizing what she'd just done, she paled and stared at her feet, waiting to be fired for yelling at the boss. Fortunately she hadn't said anything about why they'd been there or how she was injured, that would have lead to even bigger problems.
Taken aback momentarily, Todo whispered a curse and wiped away the sweat on his balding pate awkwardly, before quietly apologizing, "I'm sorry to hear that, Romanova. There was too much of that going around last night." She wasn't a line officer after all, where death was a daily prospect and came all too often for friends and comrades. In some ways, she was very young, and to tell the truth he liked how she reminded him of his niece at times.
More firmly, the thickset man commanded, "Well, you're here now, so get over here and help me answer these damn phones. Everyone else from the office is out on disaster relief, and every two-bit politico from the Prime Minister to the Nerima-cho dog catcher wants to know what we're doing about that disappearing giant. Tell them the investigation is in progress and we'll deal with it as firmly as the law allows. The press gets the same story and not a word more! If there's an actual, current buma incident, transfer them to the Second Division in Minato-cho, they've kept their response unit intact to deal with them while our officers and heavy equipment assist emergency services."
---=- + -=---
Eventually, the fires were put out, the streets cleared, everyone who could be saved had been saved, and life in Megatokyo returned to something like the old routine. Reconstruction would still be underway for some time, and the buma crews were out in even greater force than the previous, still ongoing Kanto quake recovery levels. The ADP was kept busy with over worked and under maintained rogues, but thankfully no major incidents involving the more powerful security and military models occurred. The government witch-hunt a few of the more extreme politicians had tried to stir up against the Knight Sabers was stifled by more level heads, with some help from a subtle media campaign of data showing their many pro-bono sorties to stop rampaging buma and a couple of contracts to capture major criminals leaked to investigating reporters, though their standing in even the shadier government circles had taken a significant dive.
Sylia had set Nam and Anri up with full identities in another part of the city after making the necessary repairs and modifications to their systems. The slight shimmer of her synchronization system's energy field had prevented Leon or his mecha from getting clear images of Nam's facial structure, and lavender was a common enough hair color - including the dye jobs, anyway - not to be suspicious on its own. For her part, Anri hadn't been implicated in anything since arriving on the planet anyway. Their records from the Genaros escape were simply altered enough for image matching systems to pass them by, and since the voices at Genom who'd been putting the official heat on had only ever cared about the DD and its pilot, their disappearance was quickly swept under the tide of current police work.
Nam had gotten a different cycling jumpsuit, of course, but little more subdued than her original yellow and blue - the new one was mostly black, with a white collar and trim stripes at the shoulder seams, a wide white stripe down the outside of each leg, and a pair of blue bands, one light and one dark, that wrapped around her from the left shoulder across her chest and lower back to end on the left thigh. It was actually quite similar to the white jumpsuit Sylia had worn to drive the Batmobile, but rather than a clamshell breastplate Nam had just added silver-grey boots, armguards, and a wide, segmented belt with a dozen little compartments to help hide the sonic blasters she still kept handy as a precaution.
Nam and Anri came to visit Cynthia a time or two, trying to build bridges with the Akimotos after inducing the girl to run away with them, with but limited success. She and Nene had continued to hang around together in their free time, though not often in company with Priss as it hurt the singer just to be around the purple-eyed buma who was so tied with her memories of Sylvie.
The singer filled her days with music to keep busy, and the Replicants' increasing popularity saw them score a gig at the fashionable Club Olympus. She'd lost a bit of weight as well, and every now and then she'd see a well-built woman with short dark hair from the corner of her eye, only to spin and find no one there. The funeral for the freedom-loving buma had been held a few days later, but Priss had been unable to lay her to rest in her heart.
Linna had quit her instructor's job at Phoebe's Gym, claiming a long term injury from what had become known as "the Doomsday Incident" after the battlemover's involvement had become more public knowledge. As the melee specialist had become more withdrawn and subdued, Sylia worried that there might be some element of truth to the lie, if not in a physical sense. The only time she was her old self was with her music-industry boyfriend, and despite the injunction against such outside liaisons in the groups' largely ignored charter the Saber leader could only feel thankful that the relationship seemed stable for once.
It was two weeks after the disastrous battle that she finally made some small headway in finding a reason for Linna's metamorphosis, as Dr. Vector finally delivered the results of the blood test comparisons he'd run between the sample taken that night and on previous occasions before and after her tail had appeared. Since regrowing the appendage, all of the samples had included varying amounts of an unusual hormone, and on the night in question the level was an order of magnitude greater.
The unknown gland running the length of the member was the obvious culprit, but the trigger remained unclear until Sylia remembered the odd link it had to the optic nerves, the extra fibers in her spinal cord the only other major anatomical differences between Linna and baseline human. The full moon seemed to be a reasonable possibility then, since it had been the last thing she looked at before transforming, and to test the hypothesis a virtual reality headset was loaded with the simulation of an otherwise quiet moonlit field. On a pleasant sunny day they hiked out to the valley where the Orca IV had crashed, Nene and Nam also tagging along in case the experiment worked *too* well. Dr. Vector was not included in the expedition, as Nam was a capable medic and there was no way around the need to strip down unless she wanted to tear out of her clothes if it worked. While Linna could handle being nude in only semi-private situations, she preferred it to be in solely female company.
After setting up the recorders they'd backpacked to the site, and taping the sensors in place on Linna's spine and a small shaved patch on the tail, the VR rig was booted up and the brunette carefully put it on, after a double-check to make sure the moon displayed would be behind her at first.
"Alright, we've got a good baseline for the daylight and inside the simulation, Linna, try turning around and looking at the moon," Sylia instructed. She complied and for a moment it seemed like a bust.
"Nothing, Sylia. Just a moon," the tailed woman reported, disappointedly.
"It's not the pattern itself that's important then, it seems," the Saber leader noted. "Turn around again, and I'll change the setting from a plain white and grey circle to an actual, true-color moon image."
After the settings were adjusted Linna turned again to look at the ever so slightly more greenish genuine moon, and it soon became clear they'd reasoned things accurately, the monitor equipment erupting in a cacophony of bleeps, chirps, and burbles as readings changed and values skyrocketed, followed by the sharp crack of the headset shattering as a baboon-like snout expanded under it.
Thankfully, the transformation hadn't even completely occurred before reversing, due to the lack of moonlight after the headset broke, so there was little cleanup to be done this time. As the troupe picked up their gear and headed back to the base, Nene reflected that Linna seemed happier than she'd seen the former dancer since the battle, while Nam, who'd bounced back for the most part, was shaken and pale, and noticeably keeping the other two women between herself and the brunette.
Linna had noticed the usually sweet-tempered buma's hesitance as well, and while it stung a bit she could hardly blame the girl. Figuring that the best way to reassure her was the way she'd be insuring the world would stay kaiju-free, she asked, "So, will Dr. Vector be able to take the tail off, or should I make a hospital appointment, Sylia?"
"That's an extreme solution to jump to," the steel-maned woman cautioned. "We still don't fully understand what purpose it serves for you otherwise. The simple shape of a moon had no effect, it was only when the specific light spectrum was received that the metamorphosis began. A pair of sunglasses that block those frequencies-"
"Could get lost or broken," Linna cut her off, irritated. "Then what? Just don't look? What if I saw it in a reflection from a window, or a puddle on the ground? More importantly, this can't be allowed to happen again, Sylia." Recalling her thoughts from that awful morning, she added, "We're the Knight Sabers. We stop rampaging monsters, it's what we DO." *Whatever it takes,* she reminded herself, snagging the tip of the flicking tail in one hand. Pulling it taut, she formed a knuckle bomb over the other, and slid the arm down her back, wrist twisted just enough that it wouldn't hit anything until reaching -
"ITAAEEOOO!" she yelped as the mini-blast went off with a crack, a small spray of blood falling to the trail while the length of the tail came away in her left hand. Staggering as her balance shifted, she whimpered and blinked back tears of pain. Rubbing her sore posterior, she shakily told her stunned companions, "Okay... I'm going to admit, that wasn't such a great idea," before tripping as she lost her balance again.
---=- + -=---
Priss was just on her way into the Comet Club to set up the band's gear when she saw the woman again, a svelte profile in blue and white leathers with short dark hair. Dropping the microphone stands she'd been carrying she spun to look, seeing only a shadow moving into a nearby alley. She dashed over, breath catching in a suddenly dry throat- It was empty, nothing but a dead end with a couple of half-filled trash cans, not even a fire escape or a window someone could have jumped to. Silently cursing herself for holding on to stupid, impossible dreams, the singer stalked back out and picked up the equipment again. "I'm going nuts," she muttered irritably, eyeing the scratched chrome where one part had scuffed against the pavement.
---=- + -=---
Sylia was dreaming. She had to be, she told herself, because there was no way she would ever, in a million years, be lounging on top of a piano in a slinky, sequined dress. Particularly not when Fargo was at the keys. There was a short drumroll from behind her, and she turned to see Linna grinning back at her from a drum kit, while Priss launched into a bluesy intro on an angular electric guitar, and Nene stood by with some strange combination of a bass guitar and synth. Without any input from her, her body turned back to face the front of the stage, which seemed to be in a smoky club of some kind, with an enthusiastic crowd cheering and carrying on. The only sounds she heard were the music, as Nene and Fargo joined in, and her own voice as she raised a microphone and began to sing.
*This is so completely embarrasing,* she thought, trying to ignore what her dream-self sang. She usually had far better control, but this dream seemed to be completely beyond her ability to alter. She could feel tears trickling down her cheeks, as some of the forms in the crowd became recognizable... Her mother, in her favorite kimono. Papa Stingray in a lab coat. Little Brian in the jumpsuit with the juice stain from a food fight when they were seven. Mackie, in his overalls, with a smudge of grease on his nose... Daddy... She could feel herself sobbing now, but her voice still kept singing as the second verse came around.
When she'd finished, she stepped down from the piano and across the stage, trading microphone for guitar with Priss. At least her outfit had turned into something a little less out of character, a sleeveless silver wrap-around that wasn't quite so tight and ended near the knees instead of almost at her ankles, with matching long, fingerless gloves. Of course, she hadn't touched a guitar since her second year in high school, but her dream-self seemed to know what to do with it.
Fargo played an on the piano, then she and Nene joined in on their strings, and Priss launched into a song she'd never heard of, though it was very much in the feisty singer's style, even at the slower, more mournful pace the bluesy atmosphere called for. "You're not the only one who's lonely/try sitting on the crescent moon..."
Hands still moving on their own, Sylia looked out at the crowd again, fearing the reaction she'd see on their faces, but Mother was smiling softly and nodding with the beat, Papa had that faintly puzzled expression that meant he didn't understand but was happy if she was, and Daddy... He pulled off the cowl and gave her a wink, as if to say, "It's all right to be a person, too." The tempo picked up, more the usual Replicants style after the first chorus, and Mackie danced around in front of the stage with a faceless, purple haired woman.
Sighing softly and snuggling into her pillow, the worry lines on Sylia's sleeping face smoothed away as she relaxed and let peaceful dreams sooth her mind.
--=--
In a run-down trailer perched precariously close to a giant footprint, Priss opened her eye and sat up slowly. "That was one fucked up dream," she muttered, shaking her head. "Wonder if Sylia can really sing and play like that, though?" Dismissing the notion, she hauled herself out of bed and headed for the bathroom before grabbing a pad to write down lyrics and chords - it was never a good idea to ignore the muse when it flowed, and it wasn't like she'd have gotten back to sleep any time soon anyway. *Born to be happy, yeah right,* she thought, scribbling down the last of what she remembered. It was no good, she couldn't do something this upbeat now. She tossed the pad in the general direction of the shelf, and grabbed her guitar to work on something a little closer to her heart at the moment.
The intro was solid, and the first few measures, but the transition before the chorus was still a little awkward. She tried a few variations, chording around, before finding something that fit and singing along. "You, angel, fallen to earth, living here and now..."
*Yes.* Writing the new measure on the composition sheet still open on her table from earlier, she moved on to the next problem spot.
--=--
And, in the smoky haze of Bill's Blues Bar, Fargo waited out the guitar intro before hitting the keys and belting out the first lines of an ancient Cramps tune with a secretive smirk.
-----------------------------
Next time on Bubblegum Disaster: Don't bring a gun to a Z fight. It never helps.
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For those who still haven't recognized it (which seems to be *everyone*) Linna's high-fashion date wear is a slightly modified version of the Great Saiyaman costume from DBZ. The black body glove and green tabard are the same, though of course cut for a woman, as is the red sash, but the white boots and gloves are much more form-fitting, and instead of a helmet or sunglasses, Linna had worn a red bandanna headband to match the sash, and pulled one down to cover her face (like a cowboy from a western perspective, more ninja-like to the Nipponophile.) Note also that this is the aftermath of Saiyawoman's battle with the Bakemono Burglar...
Cynthia and range of her abilities - In Ch3, she watches the battle on top of Genom Tower and puts up a shield that stops the satellite laser cold, all from her room at the Akimotos' cottage, but here she's in the city but can't help Sylvie heal, who's closer than the Tower was then. This is in fact intentional, not an error - for one thing, the shield is a spell, one of the simplest but which is as strong as there's power to make it, while healing magic spells are very much more complex; the simple energy infusion that she's been using can't be done at long distance. It's also more of a Jedi/Force type effect, the better your visualization and willpower the better it works - much more primal than proper spells as such - and even as an exceptional one she's still a child, and by that time an exhausted, distraught child. As unfortunate as it was, Sylvie's death was necessary for Priss's development and this way it also shows that Cynthia has limitations of her own.
As for her essentially endless magical energy, that's thanks to what Kami-sama did to turn her into a normal girl and two fairybots - as previously noted, that spell is intended to be used to prepare a new successor to the office of planetary Kami by separating any evil in them out to a new being, who then generally is either captured or escapes and becomes a new demon lord - it calls directly on the power of the Heart of the World, giving the person it is used on a link to it. Cynthia had no malice in her, so the spell was able to separate a different aspect of her being, the cybernetic from the biological. Despite carrying the Heart, Cynthia is not a Kami successor and does not have the power of the office - but she does have the link, and only Laviolus Daimaoh (or his counterpart Piccolo, a quarter of the way around the galaxy, the South and East quadrant kami having dealt with their darker selves) can rival her power. She will need to perform the spell as well when a successor does appear, hence her being tutored in magic with the knowledge instilled in the fae at the same time.
"Bake two cakes in one oven" - killing two birds with one stone, for those who like cute little birdies and yummy snacks.
"Anata" is a particularly polite way of saying "you" in Japanese, commonly used by wives to their husbands the way an English speaker would use "dearest" or something similar. I can't remember if it's specifically considered a feminine-use word, however.
Exaggerated, humor-anime-style reactions - the Kagamis are the mirror clones of Ranma Saotome, after all, and half supernatural as well. As such, and bearing in mind DBZ's humor manga roots as well, those kind of larger than life expressions will occasionally come out, despite the generally more serious tone of BGC, which I usually adhere to. As things continue to get grimmer, they'll probably get more common, because too much angst and gloom makes my trigger finger itch.
Another funeral for Priss to attend - in the past year, she's been to Irene's, Sho and his mom's, and now Sylvie's - that's a lot, for someone under 25, with as few close friends as she has.
Answers that can keep until the afternoon - No indeed, our Sylia is *not* a morning person. Good thing everything seems to happen at night, ne? If you watch the series, there's about one scene per OVA that actually takes place while the sun is up.
Club Olympus - in one of the city panoramas, I believe part of the opening montage of OVA 1, a neon sign that says "Olympus" can be seen. While this is probably a reference to the shape of Genom Tower and Masamune Shirow's Appleseed, I chose to make it a nightclub's sign, and being on a bright street would make it either a fashionable and successful one, or very short-lived.
The Comet Club, of course, is from The Tick cartoon, a superheroes only club where they can kick back in the company of their peers. With the way even the canon Sabers mimic the classic superhero style, this amuses me greatly, but there isn't any major cape presence in the world at this point - the Bat-clan was all they ever had, and now there's only one active member besides Sylia, over in the Gotham sector of East City, the megalopolis created as Boston, NYC, and coastal cities even as far south as Hartford Connecticut grew until they merged, giving new meaning to the term "urban sprawl."
The song Priss performs in Sylia's dream is "Asu e Touchdown," included in both Hurricane Live 2032 and 2033, though only the 2032 edition has the music video with non-series animation showing the recruitment of the Sabers, which is officially canon. The one she's working out the music for is "Bara no Soldier" from H.L. 2033. "Rock Me" (despite being addressed to a "lonely boy" in the lyrics, framed for a mostly straight audience) and "Crisis - Ikari o Komete Hashire" (also from 2033) are probably also Sylvie-songs, IC speaking, even though the second was specifically written as a Gibson/Griffon song by Tsubokura Yuiko, the VA who played her.
*Batman* unmasking, and telling Sylia 'it's alright to be a person, too'? Yaright? - Two points here: A) this is a Batman who got married and had a daughter, who was two by the time he died; B) it's a dream, after all, by a girl who was only two when she last saw her daddy.
Fargo's 'ancient Cramps tune' is "Bikini Girls with Machine Guns," and I'm sure you can see why he'd be amused by it. Since I'm not really into the Blues genre (There's a few numbers I like, but not the majority - even Bikini Girls is on the Punk side of Blues, or the Blues side of Punk) I had to kind of talk around whatever Sylia sang, because I don't know any that would fit. If anyone has a suggestion for something with piano and electric guitar that fits a feeling of faltering under the weight of the world, be sure to let me know.
Guardian 215 should be imagined with the vocal talents of Susan Blu; if you don't know her by name, she did (among other shows) Arcee on the post-movie Transformers episodes, as well as in the movie itself. You can even keep the flanging effect if you like, though it's not really there.
Many thanks to my prereaders: Nathan Baxter, Hide Hasegawa, Leong Mun Yee, Andrew Wilson, Christopher Gilbert, and Drakensis, and to everyone on the BDPreread mailing list - you get your name listed if you actually make commentary, but just reading and finding nothing bad enough to complain about is still commentary of a sort.
Drakensis also gets a nod for keeping a remote archive of the story on his website, www.100megsfree4.com/drakensis/ in the Miscellaneous section.
Bubblegum Crisis belongs to Youmex and Animeigo, I make no claims otherwise. Please don't sue me, I have no money to speak of and fanfic does more to promote your products than anything else I know of - without it, I never would have known about anime at all, and I'd certainly never have bought the BGC tapes based on the sucky box copy.
Ranma 1/2 I'm not so sure of, except that the creator was Rumiko Takahashi, not me, and that I make no claims to own IT either. Likewise, Dragonball was created by Akira Toriyama, and is distributed in the US on video by FUNimation. I THINK that both Ranma and Dragonball comics are done by Viz in the US, but that may be incorrect.
The Bionic Six is similarly of unknown provenance, but I have a very vague and unreliable memory that it may have been animated by Suncoast video... In any case, it's STILL not my own creation.
_Dykstra's War_ is by Jeffery D Kooistra, published by Baen Books.
Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were created by Akira Toriyama, owned overall by Bandai I think, and released on video in the US by FUNimation and in manga by Dark Horse (again not so sure about that one - could be Vis)
Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and is undoubtedly also owned by some animation studio or another. I know that the RPG rights in North America at least belong to Guardians of Order.
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Omake! The straights/gays counter!
Lots of fanfic authors go nuts making the cast match their sexual preference and/or fantasies. I'm not, because even naughty, naughty perverts can have some standards - hence, I've only made changes where strongly justified or where the canon was unclear to begin with. And, what do you know, most of the major cast is, indeed, straight! Here's the breakdown:
Straight:
Sylia
Linna
Mackie
Leon
Mason/Largo (twistedly perverse even by my standards, but straight. You don't want to know what he used to do with that green haired, Sylia look-alike buma from the BU-25B attack sequence in OVA 2)
Madigan
Chief Todo
Lisa Vanette
Vision
Kou
Irene
Dr. Raven
J B Gibson
Naomi
Tora Kagami
Hiryuko Kagami
----------------------
Total : 16
A Little Bent:
Anri is just gay enough to have fun with a special enough woman, but generally looks at guys.
Nene is curious, she needs to experiment and find her preferences. She looks but only admits to looking at guys.
Quincy dresses like a gay pimp, but only really loves power. No one dares to ask about his private life, and he likes it that way.
-------------------
Total : 3
Really Bisexual:
Priss
Mina - of course, as sexaroids they're designed to enjoy it in as many ways a possible, so not being bi is anomalous for them
Hyatt
Dot
Lou
Nam
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Total : 6
Exclusively Gay:
Sylvie
Meg
Daley
------------------
Total : 3
Not interested or too young:
Niichigo
Cynthia
Lisa probably belongs here, certainly the Chief thinks so! She's got that whole teen-girl-boy-crazy thing going on, though, even though she hides it well most of the time. Her room is utterly plastered with boy-band posters.
Double Omake Bonus!
Tales from the Cutting Room Floor!
I really wanted to include this, but it just didn't fit with the way things flowed, and while I couldn't see any way to have Priss plausibly join the outing I needed her to be part of the last KS sighting. Dammit. So, you get the noteblock.
Official disfavor not quite enough to kill another USSD contract, though - they've tracked down the next link in the buyer chain for the DD and want a deniable asset to make him vanish over there, just happening to appear over here, be overwhelmed with remorse after the massive property damage, and turn himself in. Air quotes as necessary. Now needing ca$$$h more than ever with still more equipment damage and the expense of trying to find out what the hell happened to Linna, Sylia takes the job. "Right now, the Knight Sabers are a very plausibly deniable asset, and not that far from being a liability. Which will it be?" I like this idea. There's at least a month, probably two or three, before OVA 6, and there should be something to fill that time frame. Who is it? How about a former terrorist turned assassin called Snake, who hides his face behind a mirrored mask? Combo GIJoe/TFs ref! Double score! "Sssuch a wonderful artwork you made in Megatokyo, but what wasss the point if you disssclaimed it? They jussst don't make terrorists like they usssed to... COOOBR-" interrupted by gut punch, doubles over wheezing.
EOF
SERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
For the next 72 hours, Itachi intoned, I will slap you with this trout. - Spying no Jutsu, chapter 3
"In the futuristic taco bell of the year 20XX, justice wears an aluminum sombrero!"hemlock-martini
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows