Bubblegum Crisis Fan Fiction ❯ Black Knights, Steel Hearts ❯ Chapter 2

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

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The Bubble Gum Crisis OVA's (which this story is based on) are copyrighted by
Artmic Inc. and Youmex, Inc. I am just borrowing the characters for a little
while for non-monetary reasons. I can be contacted at the Email address above.
Serious C&C will be accepted, out-and-out flames will result in a Boomer
or two being sent after you, once they get around to building them.

Please, enjoy my take on the Bubble Gum Crisis universe . . .

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Ch apter 2

District 6
MegaTokyo, Japan
Friday December 21, 2035
1:12am

It was cold this time of year in the city. It hadn't snowed in several days, and what little remained was confined to the deepest shadows of alleys and walls. Even the most harden of the city's street people had found shelter, which meant there were few people around to see the latest Boomer rampage.

The Boomers were a pair of advanced CU-5Ts that had broken out of a DARSTAR research lab late in the evening. The CU-5T was designed to perform both security and maintenance roles in the buildings they were assigned to. To downplay the fact it was a Boomer, it was designed and built to look almost human. The coal gray skin and the red-lensed eyes were dead giveaways, of course, but the design was thought to be a reliable and solid example of Boomer technology.

Or it had been until tonight.

The pair had destroyed several abandoned tenement buildings in the area, and was now in the process of rampaging through a business district. The number of people killed and injured would be limited to a few unfortunates living in the tenements and members of the ADP unlucky
enough to be in the Boomer's path.

It wasn't hard for Inspector Leon McNichols to track the Boomers - all he had to do was follow the wreckage they left in their wake. Behind him, the survivors of several AD Police squads that had already clashed with the Boomers followed in silence.

Leon didn't blame them. The AD Police, hampered by idiotic orders and restrictions, were not having much luck slowing rampaging Boomers. The last six months had been nothing but a succession of out and out failures and half successes.

Morale was low in the department, and still sinking. Too many officers were calling in sick, or quitting the force altogether. These days, it wasn't uncommon to work sixteen-hours shifts to keep the AD police units up to full strength. The press depicted them as gun happy idiots who were more of a menace to the citizens of MegaTokyo then the Boomers were. It wasn't going to be a happy Christmas this year around AD police headquarters.

They reached an intersection and stopped. Most of the light was coming from the flaming wrecks of cars that had made the mistake of being parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. A vidphone booth had been turned into twisted rubble, and all the nearby storefronts had been torn apart.

"Any sign of them?" Leon asked his partner, Daley Wong.

The redhead shrugged his shoulders as he looked around. "I don't see them."

"Any ideas?"

An explosion off to Leon's right, half a block away, interrupted the conversation. Daley looked at Leon, shrugged again, and pointed in the direction of the explosion. "Maybe that way?"

**********

Above District 6
MegaTokyo, Japan
Friday, December 21, 2035
1:17am

The Knight Wing flew low over the buildings, heading toward the new explosions that lit up the night sky. A block and a half from the last explosion, the aircraft came to a hover a dozen meters over the roof of a six story office building. Four hardsuited figures dropped from the
aircraft to the roof with quick and efficient motions. As soon as the last one touched the rooftop, the Knight Wing lifted quietly away into the darkness of the night sky.

The quartet quickly moved to the edge of the roof, and stared down at the deserted street below. Nothing stirred below them, but though the audio pickups, they could hear the sounds of objects being destroyed, and the sounds of heavy footsteps.

"Nene, what are the AD police bands saying?" asked Sylia.

"Leon and Daley are tracking the Boomers now," replied Nene. "They've got a dozen really pissed ADP troopers with them, but no heavy firepower."

"Typical," snarled Priss. "They always bring the least amount of firepower against the maximum threat."

"It's not their fault, Priss," said Nene, quick to defend her fellow officers. "The AD Police are turning into a morass of bureaucratic ineptitude. These days, Leon's spending more time filling out paperwork then he is hunting Boomers."

"We can discuss the value of the AD police later," said Sylia. "Right now, we have two Boomers to take down. Nene, where exactly are they?"

"I've got one three hundred meters off to the right," Nene replied, pointing to a storefront near that video arcade. "The other one is in the second building down from us, on this side of the street. They read like CU 5Ts. Standard CU's have a heavy laser mounted in the right arm. The left arm has a taser and a grenade launcher built in. The grenade launcher has two rounds of tear gas. They have lighter armor then the BU series, and aren't that fast."

"Priss, Linna," said Sylia. "You've got the Boomer in the building. Nene and I will take the one near the arcade. Any questions?" There were none. "Let's move out."

**********

Daley stared up at the four figures leaping from the rooftop of a building two blocks in front of him. "Hey Leon," he called out to his partner. "Your girlfriends are here."

About time," grunted Leon, glancing up. He watched them land, especially the blue hardsuit, then turned to the senior AD trooper. "Form a defensive line at the next intersection." He turned back to Daley. "Any chance of getting reinforcements soon?"

Daley shook his head. "Ditto to the chances of getting any K-suits out here before the next century. We are it."

"Damn." Leon watched the troopers dash past him. "We can't keep doing this job if the bosses don't give us the tools we need!"

Daley shrugged. "If the chief doesn't listen to you, he's sure as hell not going to listen to the rest of us."

"After tonight, he will," growled Leon. "Or I'm going to make him wish he had."

**********

Priss and Linna cautiously approached the large hole the Boomer had made in the store's front. What had been the door laid in the middle of the street, a testament to the Boomer's amazing strength. They could still the Boomer inside the store, wrecking everything it could get its hands on from the amount of noise it was making.

From the scattered albums littering the sidewalk, Priss figured the place had been a music store. Sort of like my singing career these days, she thought wearily.

"How do you want to do this?" asked Linna.

Priss waited until the spike shooters settled into firing position before she answered. "I'll get his attention, and draw it out into the street. According to the data, These models don't have combat sensors, so you should be able to blindside and hamstring it quickly enough."

"All right," replied Linna. "Just be careful."

"Aren't I always? On the count of three. One . . . two . . . THREE!"

Priss stepped into the open, her head up display quickly isolating the target. It had just finished destroying the large set of shelves in the back of the store. It turned as the Knight Saber moved into view.

Most of its skin and clothing had been torn away in the firefights with the AD Police. It now looked like a zombie from an old horror movie. It stared at her for a fraction of a second, as if analyzing how much of a threat she was. In a fraction of a second, it decided Priss was a serious threat, and pointed its arm-mounted weapons at her.

Priss was faster. A large gout of plasma from each spike shooter signaled the firing of several 40cm tungsten spikes at the Boomer. Two of the spikes tore away the Boomer's right arm in a fiery explosion. Two more spikes punched deep into its chest, while the last spike mangled the Boomer's left arm taser.

A popping sound near Priss feet made her glance down. The Boomer had gotten off one round of tear gas, and now the area was rapidly filling with smoke. Before the smoke obscured it, Priss saw the Boomer charging at her, howling like a wounded beast.

Priss jumped back, her leap taking her halfway across the street. As the CU-5T crashed out of the smoke, Priss fired again. Several spikes missed, but two more struck it in the left leg, and the Boomer staggered.

A blur of green suddenly appeared off to the Boomer's right. Linna snapped her head forward, and the Boomer snarled as its left arm was severed by the Saber's ribbon cutters. It tried to rush the green hardsuit in an attempt to smash her up against the wall of the music store. Linna easily avoided the attack simply by jumping up and over the armless Boomer.

The Boomer glared at her as she cleared it by more then a meter. At the high point of her jump, she fired both Wire daggers down into the Boomer. The laser edged blades punched deep into the Boomer's shoulders, generating another electronic scream from it. As Linna twisted her body to land, she sent a massive electrical charge through the wires.

The Boomer shuddered as the electrical charge surged through its internal circuitry, destroying circuits, overloading memory chips, and burning wires. As Linna landed, the Wire daggers released from the Boomer, doing it even more damage, and flew back to her waiting hands.

The Boomer was now shaking hard, as its internal components tried to overcome the damage inflicted on it. Priss ran up to it, activating her forearm rapier as she closed on it. "Here's an early Christmas present from the Knight Sabers, metalhead!" she shouted over the suit's loudspeaker.

Before the CU-5T could react, Priss's right rapier had punched up through its jaw, into its main CPU. She withdrew the blade, stepped back, and swung the left blade in a short arc though the Boomer's neck.

As the head fell away, it exploded, showering Priss with small chunks of metal and electronics. The body slowly collapsed onto its back, a smoking heap of parts.

Linna landed next to Priss. "Nice finish."

Priss turn to where the arcade stood. "We'd better see how Sylia and Nene are doing."

**********

Nene and Sylia saw the Boomer duck into an alley next to the arcade.

"How do you want to handle this?" asked Nene.

"According to the map," replied Sylia. "The alley's a dead end, so it's not going any-where." She glanced up at the flat roof of the arcade. "Does this Boomer model have thrusters?"

"Not according to the specs I have. It could have been modified, though."

"I'll take the risk." She pointed to the arcade's roof. "I'm going up there. You go to the alley and keep its attention on you. Linger around the entrance. If I can get behind it, we can trap it between us."

"OK, but be careful."

They sprinted most of the distance to the alley's entrance. Ten meters from the dark opening, Sylia activated her thrusters and launched herself toward the roof. Nene slowed to a cautious trot, bringing her hardsuit's hypersensors and Pulse strikers on-line.

Nene reached the alley, and pressed up against the wall. Her mouth was dry as she said, "Ready here."

"Let's do it."

Nene nodded and stepped out into the open. As soon as she did so, she activated the hypersensors, and brought her hardsuit's barrier system up to standby. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," she muttered, her mind sorting through the data the hyper-sensors was relaying to her.

The alley itself was only five meters wide, and filled with trash and debris that had accumulated over the years. Three trash dumpsters sat there, two ten meters to Nene's left, the other farther away, on the right. The surrounding walls were at least thirty meters tall, and twice as long, ending in a fifty-meter tall brick wall. The only illumination in the alley came from a weak security light over the back door of the arcade.

There were no immediate signs of the Boomer, but the trash dumpsters limited the sensors. "Sylia," said Nene. "I'm not picking it up. Can you see it?"

"No," whispered Sylia. "Move forward five meters. That should give you better results with your hypersensors."

"OK."

Nene stepped forward slowly through the small piles of trash her senses alert for anything. As she reached the first dumpster, her sensors caught a glimmer of movement near the dumpster farthest away. She had just enough time to recognize the Boomer before the Cyberdroid fired at her.

She shifted to the right to avoid the beam of intense light. "Sylia!" she shouted. "It's charging!"

"I see it," replied Sylia. "Stand by."

The Boomer's sensors registered the descending form of the white Knight Saber too late to react. She landed gracefully off to the Boomers right, laserswords ready. The lasersword cut clean through the Boomer's right arm, sending it spinning off into the darkness. The CU-5T reacted with an electronic scream of rage, and threw a massive left cross at her face.

Sylia dodged just before the Boomer's attack would have punched through her helmet. She heard the impact of the Boomer's fist as she moved, the sound of concrete shattering behind her quite audible in the night air. She brought her right arm around and up, tying to sever the Boomer's arm with her laser sword, but the Cyberdroid pulled its limb back in time.

They continued to spar for several seconds, with the Boomer receiving the worst of the exchanges. Behind Sylia, Nene waited for a clear shot. Her Pulse strikers were ready, but the Boomer stayed too close to Sylia to fire. Nene wasn't sure the high frequency electrons wouldn't fry Sylia's suit, and Sylia herself in the process. The alley was too narrow for Nene to maneuver for another firing position.

Sylia knew that she had to get clear. "On three, Nene," she said, disengaging the laserswords and gauging the distance between her and the Boomer. "One . . . two . . . "

She leapt into the air, shouting "Three," at the same instance. She felt the blast of high frequency electrons pass below her as she tucked into a backflip. She heard the pops and cracks of overloading circuitry as the Boomer took the brunt of Nene's assault.

Sylia landed next to Nene, and glanced at the Boomer. It was still standing, but smoke and sparks poured from every joint. A fine network of cracks had appeared in the armor, and the Boomer's eyes glowed weakly.

Without a word, Sylia raised her arms, and fired her lasers. The two beams of concentrated light punched through the Boomer's weakened armor, and finished the job. The Boomer disintegrated into a heap of metal and circuitry.

Priss and Linna reached the mouth of the alley just in time to watch Sylia deliver the finishing blow to the Boomer. The four watched the remains smoke and spark for several seconds in silence.

"Well, that was easy," said Linna.

"Too damn easy," growled Priss. "The AD police should have been able to handle this with no sweat."

"Well, they didn't," said Sylia. "Let's tell the AD police the threat has been dealt with."

They turned and left the alley. None of them saw the shadow appear on the arcade's roof, and stare down at the dead Boomer. After several seconds, the shadow shrugged and melted into the darkness.