Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ The Anime Margin: 108 Stars of Destiny ❯ Sci/Psi Story, part 1: The M1 Astray ( Chapter 2 )

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


Disclaimer:
This fic uses characters, places, themes from franchises that are the property of others. I do not own these franchises.

Special Thanks to:
Charles Xavier, Fanfiction.net author: For writing an awesome crossover with anime and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Suikosource website: for providing great information that made this fic possible.

The Anime Margin: 108 Stars of Destiny
By: RB3

Sci/Psi Story, part 1: The M1 Astray

It was another night over at one of the many cities in the Anime worlds. At first glance this city was like most others. It was a forest of rounded concrete, glass, and metal monoliths lit by neon signs. One the ground, countless vehicles zipped about like ants travelling to and fro. This city, the city of Saint Lowell, had an active nightlife. Bars of all kinds opened for business from friends and strangers alike. Some were merely social gatherings, places where people could come to relax and unwind after a hard day's work. Others had more risqué content in the form of women stripping for entertainment. Unlike most cities, this one was not built on the soil of the Earth.

Saint Lowell was actually a city of Mars, the red planet. In the night sky, the Earth was visible as the bluest star in the heavens. The two moons hovered prominently in the sky like a pair of eyes watching the land below. It was in this city that a Saint Lowell police cruiser, occupied by two officers, travelled down the street. The driver was an attractive young woman barely out of her teens. For a police officer, this blonde wore quite a scandalous red leather ensemble. It consisted of a bikini top, jacket, hot pants and boots. This hot young woman was Naomi Armitage, officer of the Martian Police Department, Technical Criminal SWAT, or TCS, division. She was also a Third, a special android designed to look as human as possible.

Her partner, also her beloved husband, was the proverbial tall, dark, handsome stranger. This cool and calm man, Ross Syllabus, had a tanned skin tone, brown almost to the point of being that of an ethnic African. The normally stoic Syllabus yawned wearily as their patrol shift came to an end. He pulled the sleeve of his trench coat away to reveal an arm encased by metal prosthetics. These prosthetics emitted a faint, nearly inaudible hum that indicated their cybernetic nature. From his watch, the time was 10:57 pm, almost quitting time.

After returning their patrol vehicle to the station, the two took their personal vehicle to drive home. They greeted their babysitter on the way out and paid her well for her services. They checked up on their daughter, Yoko, who was fast asleep under the covers. The next day, Naomi and Ross returned to work at the police station. The moustachioed chief, a world-weary man in a white shirt and suspenders, called them into the briefing room for a special assignment. There were at least a dozen officers already there, chatting with each other. Armitage could pick out some familiar faces, such as Murphy and Smith. Once all the officers reported to the room, the chief started the briefing.

"Good day ladies and gentlemen, you're all probably wondering why you're here," began the chief. "I'll keep this short and to the point. Our detectives have located a smuggling ring operating from a warehouse at 619 Broadshore St. in the industrial district. We have several photos which can illustrate the magnitude of this operation."

The chief shut off the lights, darkening the room. He pressed a prominent black button on a slide show projector which cast the image of a photo taken by a detective. The photo showed the interior of a shoddy room taken from an elevated position. The windows were cracked and the corners wrapped in thick cobwebs. In the lower left, a small group of unscrupulous men were haggling over the prices for their wares. There were trucks and vans in the room, as well as crates and boxes, some of which were covered by blankets. The chief moved to the next slide, which showed the contents of some of the boxes. It was filled with bags containing a white powder of some kind.

"Right here is 600kg of pure cocaine. This shipment alone is worth up to US $100m," narrated the chief.

The next slide showed several boxes containing fearsome, military-grade weapons such as assault rifles and rocket launchers, as well as ammunition. Not only did the smuggling operation run drugs, they also ran arms to various terrorists and terrorist organizations. The last slide was the most telling of all. In it were boxes and crates filled with spare parts for a giant, humanoid machine of some kind. They contained replacement arms, legs, hands, and even a head, as well as servos and circuitry. They appeared to be the components of what seemed to be a gigantic robot-like war machine.

"The smugglers are also running arms. They are selling premium military grade hardware to whoever can pay their price. They have terrorists and criminal organizations of all kinds buying their goods. That's where we come in. We're going to put a stop to this operation once and for all."




The night fell over Saint Lowell with commuters being replaced by swingers of all kinds. These people flit from night club to nightclub, bar to bar, in search of the latest source of excitement. At 619 Broadshore St., a pair of smugglers approached the warehouse in a truck, the same kind used by people to transport their possessions when moving. The warehouse interior was packed with thugs in camouflage gear, each toting submachine guns in their hands. The passenger, a teenaged pretty boy, disembarked from the cab and proceeded to guide the driver as he backed into the building. The same man fetched a forklift and proceeded to unload crates onto the factory floor. Once done, the passenger took off his cap and fixed his mussed blue hair.

Just seconds later, their customers showed up in black sedans. They backed a truck of their own into the warehouse while suited guards took positions in the doorway. They were led by a pair of unscrupulous individuals, a man and a woman. The black-haired man was a person that had a well-kept appearance that belied the dirty nature of his transaction. He was of Caucasian descent with a handsomeness that belied the darkness and criminality of his heart. The woman was of Chinese descent with black hair that reached her shoulders. Her beauty also served to mask the dark heart of a thief and cold-blooded killer.

"Let's see what we got here..." requested the man.

"Andy, open the boxes," ordered the driver.

"Sure thing, boss," replied Andy, the passenger. The boy used a crowbar to bust open a crate revealing the head of a combat robot to the buyer. It had a Japanese superhero look to it.

"An Orb M1 Astray mobile suit, just as you ordered Mr. Dean," stated the driver.

"Excellent," commented Dean. "Okay Gillian, bring our hosts their pay."

Gillian placed a set of briefcases on a table and opened them for everyone to see. Within them were stacks and stacks of $100 bills in American money. The driver looked at all that money in awe. There had to have been at least $100 million worth of cash in all those briefcases combined. Just to be sure, he counted the money. His initial assessments were indeed correct, and thus accepted it as payment for the M1 Astray.

"Thank you Mr. Dean. Enjoy that Astray," said the driver.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Ronald," said Dean in return. "Okay Gillian, load it in the truck!"

Dean's goons fetched the Astray's parts and began to load them into their truck. Gillian, seemingly the strongest woman to ever live, was able to pick up the boxes filled with mobile suit parts that weighed two to three tons each. Obviously, she was no ordinary human if she could do all that by herself. With her superhuman strength, the loading only took about 15 minutes at maximum. Just when things seem to be going good for the arms runners, fate intervened.

"Police! This is a raid! Drop your weapons and put your hands in the air!" cried an officer over a bullhorn.

"Shit! It's the cops!" cried Dean. "Run for it!"

Dean and his goons scrambled for their vehicles and sped out of the warehouse as fast as they could. Andy rushed back to his truck and slammed the door behind him. Ronald was not far behind; starting the engine once he got into the driver's seat. The police cars had barricaded the way out, making Roland and Andy's situation ever grimmer. Naomi, Ross, and their allied police officers open fired on the truck. The bullets ricocheted off the metal chassis with sparks flying everywhere. Out of desperation, Ronald sped up the truck to bust through the barricade. The crunching and the windows shattering was deafening as the truck twisted the metal of the patrol vehicles on its way through.

Ross dove to safety while Naomi leapt onto the hood of the engine. "You're not getting away that easily!" stated Naomi.

Andy pulled a gun and made a clean shot right to Naomi's forehead. Blood and sparks of electricity burst of her forehead, but she was not dead. She hung on to the edge of the truck like a greedy dog with its teeth dug into a piece of meat. He fired more shots, missing his first three, but hitting Naomi in the arm on the fourth. It caused her to release her grip and spill onto the road. He watched as the police woman rolled down the street in the mirror to be picked up a moment later by her partner.

The truck sped down asphalt roads with at least five squad cars in pursuit. The truck travelled down streets until they entered the busy streets of a commercial district. The truck weaved around cars on the street until it came to an intersection. It barrelled through, nearly hitting a turning car as it ran the red light. Andy looked back to see the police still hot on their tail. The sirens let out a shrill cry that signalled that the police were on their tail. Now, a swishing filled the air, the sign that a helicopter had joined in on the hunt. Its spotlight shined on them to highlight their location to the pursuing cops. Nothing would stop them until they had caught their prey.

"They've got a chopper on us!" exclaimed Andy. "We need to get underground!"

At that moment, an idea dawned on Ronald. "I know! We can go to the cave networks in Olympian Park!"

Ronald turned a hard right corner at high speed, nearly sliding into the sidewalk and pedestrians at the opposite side. True to form, the police were right on their trail, not willing to allow them to the luxury of getting away. The helicopter emerged over a hotel and shined its light back on them to mark their location. The truck sped down the road at breakneck speed until a vast countryside filled with greenness appeared in the horizon. The truck barrelled through a gate and into a parking lot. Not even bothering to stop there, the truck burst into the wilds kicking up dirt and grass.

The police attempted to follow through the wilderness, but one by one, they crashed into trees and bushes which halted their pursuit. The smugglers abandoned their truck near a mountain and dove into the caves. Using flashlights to see in the dark, the two smugglers navigated the labyrinthine cave network. When they passed through to the other side, all they could see was pure wilderness. There was no police anywhere.

"I think we lost the heat," remarked Ronald. "We'd better lay low for awhile just to be safe. When the heat dies down, I'll contact you."

"Okay Ronald, I guess this is goodbye," said Andy. "For a blue and pure world!"

"For a blue and pure world!" echoed Ronald.

The two made their way back to city limits on foot, making sure to keep a vigilant eye for law enforcement officials. They two split up with Andy heading returning to his apartment building at 117 Russells Lane. It was a moderately well-kept building within a middle-class neighbourhood. Andy entered, putting up a "do not disturb" sign on the way in, and locked the door behind him. He took off his soiled jumpsuit and took a brief, but relaxing shower before changing into casual clothing.

He pulled out a briefcase from his closet and opened it to reveal circuitry and transistors. This object had a handheld microphone for speaking and a set of headphones for receiving the message of the other person. It had dials and a LCD display for adjusting the frequency. Andy donned the headphones and fiddled with the controls to reach his true masters.

"This is agent Baby Blue, please respond," requested Andy.

"This is Mama Blue, glad to hear from you, Baby Blue. Please report," requested the female voice of Andy's handler.

"I have planted a tracking bug on the M1 Astray. I will be keeping tabs on the movements of the buyers."

"Good work, Baby Blue," said Mama Blue. "Mama Blue signing off."

Andy closed the briefcase radio and returned it to its hiding spot in his closet. He took a deep breath to relax himself. He fetched a small device that resembled a handheld personal planner. He pressed a button which caused it to display a map of the city. The device bleeped with each movement of the tracking bug. Its motions were erratic and impossible to predict. It made left turns and right turns in rapid succession, as though it had no idea where to go. It was likely that the buyers were still being pursued by the police. Since he was not going to get anything at this moment, he put the instrument away. He pulled out a picture of himself and a young, tomboyish girl of the same age from his wallet. Andy gazed at it, fondly reminiscing on the event that surrounded the creation of this photo.




It was a bright sunny day on a summer carnival in the Orb Union, an island nation in the south Pacific. The air was humid and the sun beat down on the land below. The merry-go-round played an upbeat circus tune as kids bobbed up and down on their horses. The roller coaster rumbled down its track with kids screaming as the ride made a sudden dip. Everywhere around them, the people were having fun with the games.

Down the road, walked Andy with the blonde girl in the photo. "Hey Kira, wait for us!" cried the girl.

Up ahead, a brown-haired teenaged boy paused and turned around to wait for the blonde girl, Cagalli. The red head beside him wasn't so eager to wait. "Leave them behind, Kira. They're too slow!" complained the red head.

Cagalli dragged Andy with her to meet up with Kira and his girlfriend, Flay. "Hey wait up, I want to play this game!" said Cagalli.

The game Cagalli wanted to play was "whack-a-mole." In this game, several mechanical moles would pop their heads out of a set of holes in the game machine. The player's goal was to hit as many of the moles as possible within a minute. Cagalli stepped up to plate at the centre of the machine and started to pummel those pests as quickly as she could. Once the minute was up, she got a score of 50, a fairly modest score. She won a small handheld teddy bear as her prize.

"Damn, I wanted to win that big bear!" remarked Cagalli.

"You want that bear?" asked Andy. "What would you say if I won it for you?"

"Do you really mean it?" asked Cagalli. "That would be so sweet!"

Andy paid the carnie and picked up the hammer. "Okay, here it goes!"

As a Coordinator, a genetically modified human, this game was easy for Andy. With his genetically enhanced reflexes Andy reacted quite quickly to each of the moles foolish enough to stick their heads out. He pounded away and racked up huge points in the process. In the end, Andy got a score of 80, which was quite a good score. It was more than enough to win the big bear which he gave to his girl as a present.

Later that day, Andy and his girl posed for a photo to commemorate this wonderful day. The two posed on a park bench, with Cagalli holding her gifts and Andy having his arm wrapped around her shoulders. "Okay guys, say 'cheese!'" said Kira as he aimed the camera.

"Cheese!"




The flash blinded the couple and returned Andy to the present and to his mission for his nation. The boy pocketed the photo and checked back at the bug tracking device. On the screen, the M1 Astray's movements became less erratic and more consistent, as though the buyers weren't in any hurry to get somewhere. They likely have eluded the cops. The dot moved down the streets until it had reached a large building somewhere at the other side of town. From Andy's cross-referencing on a computer, that location was at another warehouse in a commercial district.

Meanwhile, back at the MPD headquarters, the officers hauled in the men they had caught. The police threw the men into jail cells while they waited questioning. The captured men could be easily divided into two groups based on their clothing. One group wore blue jumpsuits and they were the ones who sold the smuggled groups. The others were men in black suits and sunglasses like normal organized criminals. They were the buyers of the stolen goods and had made off with foreign military hardware.

The police dragged the men from their cells one by one to an interrogation room. When the police got to one of the men in black, he suddenly began to experience pain in his chest. He clutched at his chest in agony, trying to fight whatever it was that was attacking his heart. He gasped in pain before collapsing on the ground. The guard came across the man just as the other men followed suit. They began to experience the same pains as their first comrade. All the men collapsed onto the ground alarming the guard.

"Dammit! We need a medic here!" cried the guard as more rushed in to secure the area.

As this happened, Naomi and Ross were busy at his desk. She opened a panel in the side of her head to reveal a series of ports for input and output. Ross connected wires from his desk computer to his wife's head. Within seconds, a pair of images filled the screen and the computer queried several databases to find the identities of the men. The truck driver was a man named Ronald McNab. He had a criminal record for assault, smuggling, and arms running. He was also a suspected member of the Blue Cosmos terrorist group. The other man, the passenger, was named Andy Zimmerman, who had three cases of assault on his record. Ross uploaded the pictures to the police database for dissemination.

The medical team rushed through the office on their way to the jail cell. Within minutes, all the men were pronounced dead on the scene by the medics. Naomi, Ross, and the rest of the police force watched as the men were carted out in body bags. "Just our luck. We want to question them and they go and croak on us!" exclaimed Naomi.

"What happened?" asked Ross of the crowd of officers.

One officer, Murphy, responded. "I think our perps just had a cause of heart attack. Half of them died from that thing alone!"

"That's strange. How can eight people all have heart attacks at the same time? It doesn't make any sense," remarked Ross, at a loss to explain the strange deaths of the mobile suit buyers.

"Yeah, we'll know more once the coroner files his report. Until then, we'll have to wait," said Murphy.

Two days passed with Naomi and Ross returning to the station as part of their daily grind. Murphy, rushed up with news for the two. "Ross, you remember those perps we captured a few days ago, the ones that had the heart attack?"

"Yeah?" asked Ross, unsure of where Murphy was going.

"Well, the coroner's reports just came in this morning. You won't believe what it says on the report.

Naomi and Ross read the reports, which came from the coroner office. "Cyanide poisoning?" asked Naomi.

"Yeah," replied Murphy. "Read the rest of it. It gets interesting."

Within each of the buyers was an ampoule of cyanide surgically attached to their hearts. The ampoule was controlled by a small electronic device. Upon the sending of a specific radio signal, the device would insert a needle into the heart and allow the poison to seep into the person's blood. This resulting in a quick death that would be passed off as a heart attack to an onlooker.

"This looks like something out of a spy movie," remarked Ross.

"Yeah, I was thinking that too," said Naomi. "Here we have a good lead and it's gone like that!"

"Don't worry, I have good news for you," assured Murphy. "You've been looking for Andy Zimmerman and Ronald McNab, right? Well, eye witnesses have reporting seeing Zimmerman near the Russells Lane neighbourhood. He had been seen entering a David's Supermart in the area."

"Yeah, thanks Murphy," said Naomi. "Tell the chief we'll be out for a while."

Ross and Naomi hit the streets of Saint Lowell in pursuit of their lead. They pulled up to a typical supermarket store in a quiet middle-class neighbourhood. The supermarket interior was a large, sanitized room lined with shelves of items used in daily living. There were sections for produce, a butcher's area, an area for frozen foods, and even drugs on sale in this supermarket. The people walked around the aisles of the store, blissfully buying up everything they needed.

Ross and Naomi sought the store's manager and flashed their IDs to indicate their authority. "Have you seen this man?" asked Naomi.

The manager looked over the picture of Andy Zimmerman. "Hmm, I don't think so. A lot of people come through the doors so I can't really remember them all."

"Mind if we check out your security footage from this morning?" asked Ross.

"Oh sure, just ask Bob to let you in," said the manager.

The police duo knocked on the door to the camera room which was answered by a somewhat elderly man in a security guard's brown uniform. "Hello Bob, we're with the Martian Police Department," said Ross, who flashed his badge. "We're here to review some security footage for a case."

Bob let the two police in and showed them the footage taken during the early morning. From 7 am and before, there was no sign of the man they were looking for. The people in the store milled about normally, loading their purchases into carts and paying at the front counters. At around 8:47 am, someone suspicious purchased a fairly large load of groceries from the store and went to pay at the register. Though the face wasn't directly in line with the camera, it drew suspicion from Naomi.

"Hold it there, Ross," requested Naomi. "Play the scene back from a different angle."

Ross switched the disks in the machine and replayed the scene once again, starting from the 8:47 am mark. This footage came from the overhead camera positioned above the exit door. That suspicious person wore a cap that served to conceal his face from detection. He paid for his groceries and picked up a pair of filled grocery bags. In doing so, he moved his head just enough for the camera to get a slightly off-side view of his face. It was clear that he was Andy Zimmerman.

"That's him!" exclaimed Naomi. "Play back some footage of him at the outside."

Ross did so, playing some footage from an outdoor camera. Andy Zimmerman had left the store on foot and walked up a nearby street crossing on the left of the screen. "Let's check the intersection camera," suggested Ross.

The duo returned to their car and logged into their police departments network via the computer in their dashboard. After inputting a request, the intersection camera displayed an image of Andy walking westward away from the camera in the crowd of commuters. The duo followed his trail on the camera he walked two blocks west to another intersection. Andy travelled north at this intersection until he entered an apartment building. That building was 117 Russells Lane.

"We got him!" proclaimed Naomi. "Let's pay him a little visit."

The duo made their way to this apartment building and flashed their badges to the security guard at the front desk. "MPD, we're here for Andy Zimmerman."

"He's in room 316 on the third floor," informed the security guard.

The duo made their way up to his door. Naomi knocked on it. "This is the MPD. Please open the door!"

Inside, Andy was in the middle of communicating with his handlers. He was alarmed when he heard the police duo asking for him to open the door. His mind immediately leapt to searching for a method of escape. "Baby Blue, are you there? Please respond!" The duo busted the door down and burst in with guns drawn. Andy was nowhere to be found. ""Baby Blue, please respond!" continued the headset.

Naomi saw the open window and rushed to check outside. She saw Andy running away in the alley below. "He's outside!"

Naomi climbed out of the window and over the fire escape railing, descending the height of three stories in a single bound. The Third police woman landed in a crouched position before beginning pursuit. She emerged from the alley and found Andy running northward up the street. The boy weaved around pedestrians on the street to throw off the trail of his pursuer. She ran as fast as she could, following the fugitive down the busy street and into a crowed alleyway. Andy leapt over a chain-link fence and continued his escape.

In a single bound, Naomi leapt onto the fence, stunning the fugitive as he glanced behind him. She made a tremendous leap into the air which landed her on Andy's back. The two fell into a heap but Andy wormed out of the way and attempted to fight. He threw a punch which connected dead on with Naomi's face, but recoiled in pain as though he had struck a brick wall. Naomi was unfazed by the hit.

She threw a kick with enough speed to raise Andy's eyebrows, despite the fact that he had managed to catch the blow. Andy went for a leg sweep, but instead of tripping her, it helped her segue into a backwards somersault kick to the head. Andy fumbled backwards in a daze, momentarily unaware of his situation. With a final kick to the gut, Naomi planted Andy into the ground. She promptly pinned him face first on the ground and slapped handcuffs on him.

Ross came down the street in time to see his wife leading the captured man out of the alley. "We got him!" said Naomi triumphantly.

"Time to go back to the station," murmured Ross, as he guided Andy into the back seat of the squad. Ross and Naomi boarded the car and zoomed off back to the station with their quarry tucked away in the back seat.

END OF CHAPTER

New Stars of Heaven/Heavenly Leaders:
#34 Tenbou, Savage Star: Naomi Armitage (Armitage III)
#35 Tenkoku, Wailing Star: Ross Syllabus (Armitage III)
#15 Tenritsu, Star of Standing Spear: "Andy Zimmerman" (Gundam Seed)

New Stars of Earth/Earthly Warriors:
None