P. Kristen Enos's Projects & Furia Press

The Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040 Continuation Fanfic Series

by P. Kristen Enos

SPOILERS WARNING!!!
Most of these stories take place AFTER the TV Series! So DON’T blame me if I ruin the ending for you because you read these stories first!
Lesbian/Yuri/Shoujo Ai Warning! (Non-explicit — at least in the “PG13″/”R” sort of way.) Just not written for children because they probably wouldn’t get half of it. All rights belong to JVC/AIC, ADV Films and the other creative powers that be. I just want credit for writing the story.

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Chapter 40: Setting The Stage

“Sir, I’ve received word that the special boomers have been put into position and have responded positively to our test signals,” Madigan reported as she scanned her data pad. The two of them were once again in the privacy of Quincy’s office. “The crew just needs the word from you of when to start.”

“Oh, tell them… 1:23 p.m. tomorrow should be the test beginning time,” Quincy said as he glanced at his calendar on his own data pad. “The rest of us should all be in the middle of the all day company meeting at that time, ensuring minimal risk of Genom employees accidentally being in the test area.”

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way, Madigan, I just got off the phone with Largo Watanabe. He’s going to place an order for one of the current models after all. Make certain he gets the first one rolled off the assembly line, so to speak.”

“Yes, sir. Do you think they’re going to do their own tests on it?”

“Oh, no doubt about it. And I don’t think they’ll get very far beyond the performance basics. After all, top level boomer technology as well as encrypted programming expertise is needed to crack open the deeper secrets of our boomers. And the only team remotely qualified just happens to be employed with Genom,” he said with a smirk. “Did anything come up yet on your search about Mei Asakawa?”

“Some interesting pieces, sir. She is the youngest of seven children of a Japanese industrialist, and apparently showed incredible natural martial arts abilities as a teenager, winning first place in tournaments around the country in karate and tae kwon do. The only other interesting fact about her from her youth was that she attended the prestigious all-girls Shimizu Academy in the same class as Reika Chang and Ms. Watanabe, who was their class president. It’s very possible that’s how she originally met Ms. Watanabe, whom she has been living with in Rome for the past five years.”

“’Living with’ as in ‘intimately’?” Quincy guessed.

“There’s nothing confirming such a relationship such as domestic partnership documents but it’s very possible,” Madigan said.

“Is it just me, or do we keep coming across a lot of lesbians these days?” he mused out loud as he scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Ah well. I guess that’s what happens when you send these rich girls to be schooled in an environment devoid of boys.”

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Madigan answered with her utmost patience.

“Sorry, I’m digressing. — Anything else about her?”

“Actually, no, and that’s the odd part. In the time between graduating high school and moving in with Ms. Watanabe, there are absolutely no records of her. Not even residential addresses.”

“Hmm. Well, if her connection to the Watanabes goes as far back as high school, then it’s possible for her to go under the radar of the public and private records. Still, she was there at the demo as a boomer combat specialist. That’s pretty odd given that she’s got a martial arts background. I would think those two forms of combat would be about as opposite from each other as one could get.”

“Should I tell the team to continue their research on her?”

He shook his head. “I doubt we’re going to find anything else given who she’s connected to. What about Yoshiko Watanabe? Anything else on her?”

Madigan scanned the data for a moment and said, “She moved to Rome shortly after graduating high school, and has maintained that city as her primary address since then. She is extremely well connected internationally in the darker side of her family’s business and it’s rumored that her brother rarely makes big decisions without consulting her first. She has quite a reputation as an expert in combat technology, a superb marksman in a variety of weapons, and a master in various forms of hand-to-hand combat. Like Asakawa, she showed exceptional talent in various forms of martial arts, including traditional weaponry. However, our research teams couldn’t find anything concrete to substantiate her modern weaponry skills or how she got her training and knowledge to begin with.”

“Well, it’s not as if there are college courses that one can take for credit, yet people somehow get trained in these things. Especially if they’re connected to the mob.” Quincy smirked and said, “A reputation in those circles is sometimes scarier than the real thing. At the demonstration, did she seem knowledgeable to you?”

“Yes, very much so. Asakawa as well even though her questions were rather limited.”

“Well, just add them to the list of people we need to be aware of,” he said as he stood to get himself a drink from the bar. A long time work relationship kept him from offering anything to Madigan because he knew she was not a drinker of alcohol. “What else do we have updates on?”

“Let’s see… The scanning for Sylvie has turned up nothing, which could further support the theory that she’s not local, and if she is, she isn’t functional. We are now putting the scanners on auto-alert so we can re-deploy our staff to other things. The other girls and the male prototype are progressing well. And the production of the version one models for customer orders is on track. I think the biggest project at the moment is our pending Knight Sabers test.”

Quincy smiled as he took a sip of scotch and said, “Yes, it should flush them out. After all, downtown Tokyo in a mid-weekday offers a lot of innocents that need to be protected and rescued. It’s an embellishment on their previous M.O., but it should do the trick.”

“What if they never show up? Should I give a target time to the staff of when to call off the test?”

Quincy mulled it over for a moment and then said, “When they destroy each other, or when their batteries run out. Whichever happens first will do.”

— End Chapter 40 —

Chapter 41: If Only

Reika once again found herself staring at the ceiling in her nightly battle with insomnia. She truly missed the days when she could lie down and practically be asleep within five minutes of her head hitting the pillow – providing of course the purpose was to sleep.

She knew her sleeping problem started long before the arrival of Linna at her home. In fact, it started the night her parents died.

In the beginning, she tried to act as if nothing was wrong even though she was conscious of the fact that the lack of sleep was affecting her appearance and ability to function. Now she spent the long trips in planes and limos catching up on sleep as best she could. Of course, it was never as satisfying as a full night’s rest, but she knew she had reached a point where she was a beggar who couldn’t be a chooser.

With a sigh of defeat, Reika got up from the bed, slipped on her bathrobe and left the room to indulge in what had become her nightly ritual of a walk around the house and the outside grounds. It was too late to indulge her only relaxing past time, which was playing the grand piano in the living room. She stepped out into the hallway and immediately found herself looking at the closed door of Linna’s room.

She quietly opened the door and listened for any sounds of the other woman actually being awake. Finding none, she slipped in, closed the door behind her. Guided by the dim light of a thin beam of moonlight through the cracks in the curtains, Reika took a seat in the chair by the bed, finding some comfort in Linna’s nearness even if the patient didn’t know she was there. This had become part of her ritual too.

While she was immensely pleased that Linna had finally woken up that day and showed no signs of brain damage, she now knew the clock was really ticking down to when Linna would finally leave. And according to extremely positive reports from Mrs. Takeuchi, it might be sooner than planned, even if the time still measured in months.

Reika let out a small sigh and then stood. She gently kissed Linna on the forehead and went to the door to proceed with her walk. She started to turn the handle when a soft voice said, “Have you been doing that every single night?”

Letting out an audible sigh at being caught, Reika sheepishly smiled to herself and kept the door closed.

“How long have you been awake?” she asked.

“For a while,” Linna said. “My body wants to sleep but my mind is still going over everything that happened today.”

“I’m sorry for disturbing you…. Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

Without turning on the lights, Reika went back to her spot on the chair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“It made me feel better. But then it didn’t.”

“I know what you mean,” Reika admitted softly.

“So what were you thinking about when you sat there before?”

“About the last time I truly felt happy. Which was when we were out on the balcony.”

“… I’m about two seconds away from crying and I know it has nothing to do with the fall.”

“Sorry… About everything. I treated you so poorly that I’m honestly surprised that you don’t seem to hate me.”

Linna let out a sigh and said, “If I wasn’t in a general self-pity mode, I probably would have. But even then it would have been motivated by selfishness. I know you couldn’t help what happened… I do have one question though, would you have ever told me about your engagement?”

Reika’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, but then relaxed when she realized she shouldn’t be. “Did Irene tell you?”

“No, Mrs. Takeuchi did. Or rather, she told me that my being here seems to cheer you up, especially with all of your pressures, the engagement included. I don’t know much more than that.”

“His name is Densuke,” Reika explained softly. “He lives in an apartment in downtown Tokyo to better enjoy the night life, so I doubt you’ll ever see much less meet him. Not that I would do that to you. He has a particular weakness for pretty girls and I would strangle him if he ever made a pass at you.”

“Then why are you marrying him?”

Reika shrugged even though she knew Linna couldn’t see her. “Since I knew I had to get married to continue the family line, I went for the easiest option, which was him. When I was five years old, it was clear that my parents didn’t want to have anymore children after Irene, and therefore would not have any boys to carry on the Chang lineage and responsibilities. So they made an arrangement with a long time ally of ours, a very prominent Japanese family who would be very familiar with our ways and responsibilities -“

“Do you mean Yakuza?”

Reika paused for a moment and then said, “I guess Yakuza would be the best description of what my family is, even though it’s a little more complicated than that. Either way, that is Densuke’s family background. Densuke himself was the youngest of four children, with two older brothers and a sister who were already groomed to continue their lineage.

“From what my grandfather recently explained to me, my dad considered the arrangement with Densuke ideal in that as Densuke would not be a direct part of his family’s lineage, it gave us more freedom to still groom me as the head and maintain the Chang autonomy from the Watanabes. Densuke’s family agreed to the arrangement and he and I were engaged at the ripe old age of five.

“And we stayed engaged until I fell in love with Sylia and had Dad break off the engagement when I was fifteen. Of course, I had no idea of the family politics behind the arrangement, nor would I have cared. All that mattered to me was that my life course didn’t seem as set as I had been led to believe and I took that chance with as much gusto as I could. Apparently Dad took a lot of flack for breaking things off, but he never let me know how much.

“Now, I’m back to where I was before, and it almost feels as if the past thirteen years were just some dream world that never really happened,” she said with a sigh. “Sometimes I do wonder if things are predestined.”

“So you don’t love him?”

“Oh no,” Reika stated adamantly. “If anything, I’ve always felt kind of sorry for him, when he wasn’t annoying me at some level. But I figured, if I must marry someone, then at least let it be someone who fully understands it’s purely for convenience and that there are no possibilities of me loving him. The rest of my family and household could never stand him. Irene hates his guts, and he lives in mortal fear of her. And I can keep Densuke under control for the most part, whereas someone else might get it into his head that he’s more important than he really is.

“I’ve recently gotten the impression that his own family considers him to be a loser. His siblings are an extremely different breed. — Now they’re undeniably Yakuza. — And Densuke doesn’t fit in with them anymore than he does with us. At least he has value over here, whereas he doesn’t in his own family. It’s a shame because he can be a really nice guy. It’s rare but it’s possible. I guess I’m just used to him.”

“It sounds as if, even if I was a man, I still wouldn’t have had a chance because you never would have broken off your engagement if you hadn’t met Sylia,” Linna surmised softly. “It was a no-win situation to begin with.”

“I guess it does sound like that doesn’t it?” Reika sadly admitted. “Maybe I was deluding myself about the whole thing after all.”

There was a moment of silence before Linna said, “Sylia didn’t really talk that much about you, other than to make it clear that she really loved you back then. She never did say why you two broke up, and I never had the guts to ask. Was it because of the Knight Sabers? Or something else?”

Reika sighed, having known and dreaded that this question would be asked. “It was a culmination of a lot of things. I think the best way to summarize it is that she realized before I did that our relationship was perfect as long as we never had to deal with the rest of the world. She began planning the Knight Sabers long before we graduated high school. And when she started working with Nigel, well… that was pretty much the nail in the coffin when combined with everything else going on at the time.”

“She had an affair on you?!” Linna blurted, clearly surprised.

“No, I don’t believe she did — at least now I don’t,” she said. “I wasn’t quite so gracious back then. But the attraction and intellectual compatibility were obvious from day one. It was my first time to realizehow poorly I handle jealousy. By then it was also clear that I couldn’t handle her near accidents in testing her hardsuits, so when real battle dangers came around, I was a mess with worry as well. And Sylia reacted by reverting to the more stubborn and uncompromising side of her nature – I assure you she’s mellowed out quite a bit compared to the way she was back thing. Unfortunately, the one thing that was never in doubt was how perfectly matched we were in terms of raging tempers. Poor Jill and Mei probably looked forward to the battles after watching one of our fights.

“And I honestly can’t blame our break-up only on the Knight Sabers. Eventually my family issues would have become a breaking up point, I’m sure. Families like mine will ignore personal ‘indiscretions’ as long as the continuation and support of the family line is not compromised. “

“But do you still love her?” Linna asked.

“In my own way, Linna, I always will, but that doesn’t mean I’m still pining over her romantically. She was my best friend, and that loss was more devastating… If anything, I should thank you for proving to me that it is possible to find someone that I felt like I wanted to trust again.”

There was a long silence, and Reika was afraid she said too much.

When Linna finally spoke again, her voice was low but clearly shaky, “I, uh, think you’d better go or you won’t get any sleep tonight. I shouldn’t be keeping you up. After all, I can sleep all day tomorrow where, I’m sure you have things to do.”

Reika got the hint and stood, “You’re right. I really should try to get some sleep. I’m sorry for disturbing you. And you should get some sleep, too.”

“I’m going to try…”

‘Me, too,’ Reika thought as she finally left the room.

— End Chapter 41 —

Chapter 42: Once A Cop

“Man! You have no idea how much I missed good ramen!” Leon said between slurps as the three of them sat in the noodle bar perched on top of one of the tall buildings in the Tokyo shopping center.

“Given that that’s your third bowl, it seems pretty obvious to me,” Daley commented with a quirk of a smile. “You and Nene should have an eating contest one of these days.”

The young woman in question frowned but didn’t stop her own consumption of noodles.

“I’m actually surprised that you want to get back to work so quickly, Leon,” Daley continued. “I would’ve thought you’d want to spend some time getting settled.”

Leon shrugged, “I’ve spent the last three years feeling like I’ve been on vacation. I’m more than ready to come back to work. And I miss being a cop, and being around them. Musicians are a totally different breed, I tell ya. They’re not bad guys, but there were times I felt like I had to turn a blind eye because they did things I used to arrest people for.”

“Like what?” Nene asked, her ears burning for gossip.

“Oh, nothing big. Mild drugs. Some groupies who were questionably under-aged…. But I also miss the discipline and structure of a regular life. There would be weeks where none of us would wake before noon. And I missed having a real home. I actually wanted to come back a lot a long time ago, but Priss and the guys weren’t there yet… Unless, Daley, you were making that crack so me and Priss’d get out of your home sooner.”

Daley laughed and waved away Leon’s concern. “You’ve only been there a couple of nights. Yuuji and I are rarely home as it is. So it’s nice for the place to be lived in for a change. And since Yuuji’s going to an international press conference Sunday for a week in Los Angeles, I appreciate the company.”

Leon let out a sigh of relief and then looked at the view of the city before them. “You know, from up here, the city looks pretty recovered.”

“Yeah, the city planners learned their lessons from the earthquake rebuild and put them to good use. There’s still a heck of a lot of construction going on, but it’s more in the back street areas, away from the eyes of the tourists.”

“Hmm…” Then Leon looked at Nene and said, “So, kiddo, how are things going with you and Mackey? Have you taken him to meet your parents yet?”

“A couple of times in the beginning. Mom really likes him,” she said with a noticeably dark statement. “But she keeps bugging me to bring him out there, which I haven’t in the past couple of years because, well… you know. Plus she keeps hinting about marriage.”

“What about this ‘other woman’ situation?” Daley asked, remembering their interrupted conversation from two days before.

Nene glared at him just as Leon’s expression turned to shock.

“Is that little bastard fooling around on you?!” Leon declared angrily.

“No, no, no, Leo-Peo!” Nene said. “He just really gets along with their… cousin. I guess I’m just feeling a little insecure about how much they have in common. I don’t think it’s anything serious… At least it better not be.”

“Oh. Well, I’m sure he knows what a good thing he has with you.“

“So Leon,” Nene said hesitantly, “Was Priss serious about turning down Sylia?” When Nene had received the news directly from Priss at dinner the night before, she was too stunned and disappointed to press the issue further, especially since they were in a public restaurant.

Leon nodded. “Yeah, it seems so. Besides, it seems she would’ve been just on stand-by status, along with you. And I’m sure you can handle anything that comes up by yourself.”

Nene gave a weak smile but said nothing.

“Say,” Leon said to both of them, “I have to admit I’m really impressed with what I’ve seen of the Neo-Tech Crimes Division so far. It seems like a pretty slick operation so far.”

“Yeah, it is,” Daley said proudly. “Unlike the A.D. Police where we were indirectly under Genom’s thumb with Genom appointed leaders, we ironically have a lot more fire-power and autonomy being part of the regular Police Force. It’s like we were able to pull together the best officers from both the A.D. Police as well as the regular police, and I think the top brass realize that. Both the public and our peers actually recognize us as a force to be reckoned with instead of uniformed clowns.”

“Well, that’s certainly a refreshing change. So what kind of cases have you been working on? Besides this Plaza Slaughter, I mean.”

Daley smirked and said, “Well, Nene here just nabbed a 13 year old hacker who’s been siphoning a hundred yen here and there from various bank accounts for the past three months. In the end, he managed to accumulate well over two hundred thousand yen.”

“Yeah,” Nene said with a giggle, “when we got him, he says he was saving money to run away from home. His parents naturally claimed no knowledge, and we think it’s true. He’s in juvenile custody but the point is we stopped him. The work is a heck of a lot more fun than being a dispatcher, I can tell you that.”

Leon arched an eyebrow and said, “Well, that’s certainly different from rogue boomers. Are the cases always so techie?”

“No, not at all,” Daley explained. “The latest one we’re trying to get our arms around is this new drug that’s been showing up. Its street name is ‘warp’ and apparently it’s some sort of bio-engineered steroid that speeds up a body’s functions including brain activity. It was initially used in gang fights where the drug gives people quicker reflexes, as well as with thieves and burglars who can run up to three times as fast as normal to keep from being caught. The thing about it is that it also burns out of the system so quickly that there’s no trace of it, at least as of yet with the drug tests we currently use.

“The draw-back is that it also burns out the drug users, sometimes pushing their body tolerances to a limit. Three people have already had heart attacks from an O.D. The problem is that this drug is strongly suspected of showing up in various athletic competitions, which as you can imagine is having impacts of international proportions.

“So right now we’re working with the Drug Enforcement Agency since they don’t currently have the technology and people power to help track this down. Right now, we can’t even tell where it’s coming from and how it’s being distributed. Given that most of the reported instances were in Tokyo, we’re guessing the source is local. In fact, we were just starting to sink our teeth into it when the Plaza Slaughter happened.”

Leon looked noticeably intrigued as he asked, “So where are we -“

“THERE’S ROGUE BOOMERS ON THE STREET!” a voice screamed from nearby just as the sound of large metal objects crashing against each other could be heard.

The three officers exchanged a bewildered look and then immediately jumped from their seats to rush to the railing, along with the rest of the crowd.

Ten stories below, in the midst of cars frozen in traffic, two large quad-pedal construction boomers were wrestling over a car with the pinchers on their arms. The driver frantically opened the door and fell out, clearly injuring his leg before limping away to the sidewalk.

“They’re rogue?!” Leon exclaimed, perplexed at the sight. “They’re not morphed or anything. They look like regular construction boomers!”

“Morphed or not,” Daley pointed out, “regular construction boomers don’t act like that!”

Just as the words left his mouth, one of the boomers succeeded in twisting the car free from the other and tossing it into a nearby shop window, hitting the handful of people who had been watching from inside.

“Oh my God!” Nene blurted along with other horrified people in the crowd, as both boomers started to attack the other abandoned cars littering the street around them.

“Don’t those damn people know to get as far away as possible?!” Leon growled at the collecting crowd of onlookers on the sidewalks and in the building windows.

Then remembering she could actually do something about it, Nene quickly blurted, “Um, got to go, guys!”

She forced her way through the crowd, sometimes having to use elbows and kicks just to make it to the elevator.

Taking the cue, Daley pulled out his phone and then paused, remembering that it was tapped.

“Switch phones with me!” Daley whispered to Leon. “Call headquarters for back-up. I’ll call Sylia.”

Leon frowned but did what he was told.

— End Chapter 42 —