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 43: Wild Card

Priss checked to make sure her guitar case was firmly secured on her back as she readied herself for the bike ride ahead. She was about to slip on her helmet when her phone buzzed in her jacket pocket. She turned it on to find a frantic and almost haggard looking Sylia on the screen.

“Priss, there are two rogue construction boomers downtown!” Sylia declared immediately. “They’ve already caused five injuries and three deaths. So are you in or out?… I’ll call us even for the airplane tickets.”

Priss froze, immediately distracted by the suddenly wild rhythm of her heartbeat.

Sylia frowned and then said, “Fine, sorry to dis-“

“I’ll do it,” Priss suddenly blurted. “I’ll head over right now.”

Sylia sat in the main chair of the command booth overlooking the pit. Dressed in her bathrobe, she tried desperately to fight the leftover grogginess of the medicated sleep she had been awakened from.

Down below, Nigel put the finishing touches on preparing the suit frames for use. Sylvie waited patiently off to the side as she watched the events unfold.

Just then, the elevator door opened and Priss came running in, panting frantically in full biker garb with her guitar case still strapped to her back.

“Nene’s not here yet?!” Priss blurted as she pulled off her precious instrument and placed it down on the floor. Then she began to frantically tear off her clothes.

“She should be here any moment now,” Sylia answered through the speakerphone. “I don’t want you to wait for her. These boomers have already torn up two blocks and killed two more people. Mackey’s keeping watch in the monitor room since it’s all over every news station in town, if not the world!”

“I’m here! I’m here! — Priss!” Nene blurted as she came running in. Even though the situation was dire, her happiness and relief was evident.

Now naked and ready for the transformation, Priss ran up the ramp to the nearest suit frame. She was about step back in place when she froze. A wild panicked look contorted her features as her hand clutched at her chest.

“Priss! Are you all right?!” Sylia demanded.

Priss shook her head both in response and to snap back to her senses. “I’m fine!” she blurted angrily.

“Priss, hurry up!” Nene declared as she now ran up the ramp to slip into the other suit frame. “These boomers aren’t pulling punches!”

Priss scrunched her face tightly in concentration as she took a deep breath and stepped into the metal contraption.

Once both Knight Sabers emerged, Sylia explained, “These suits are pretty much the Galatea versions with some modifications. The most notable one is that our comm-links have two channels, the default is the one that’s audible only by our team, and the other one can be heard by outsiders. They shouldn’t feel different otherwise.”

“I know! I know!” Nene blurted as she rushed into the launch tube and was gone in a flash.

“Priss! Are you certain you’re okay?” Sylia persisted as she noticed how the woman paused a step.

With her visor still up, Priss winked at her and said with surprising calm, “Worried I’m going to go rogue, Sylia?”

Before the stunned woman could make a reply, Priss had already slipped into the launch tube and taken off.

With the two Knight Sabers now on their way, the pit was deathly silent as Nigel stood against the wall and watched Sylia expectantly. Sylvie occupied herself by picking up and folding the discarded clothing.

Meanwhile, Sylia stared at the readings on her screens and frowned. She then looked at the two people below her and said cryptically, “Get ready.”

“So much for a low profile,” Priss muttered as they descended down into the chaotic street scene.

With their pincer-arms and four legs, the two boomers were each causing their own chaos, apparently focused on doing as much property and people damage as possible. News choppers and police were storming around the parameter of the battle zone, and of course there were pedestrians gathered just beyond the safety lines. The remains of K-suits also littered the sidewalk, some successfully abandoned and some not.

“They look just like regular construction boomers! Are you sure they’re rogue?” Priss demanded into the comm-link.

“Rogue or not, they need to be stopped!” Sylia’s voice came back in a shot. “It should be a piece of cake, right?”

Priss frowned at the tone and then focused on landing in the middle of the street with a thud. Nene had already landed just seconds before her and hadn’t yet figured out what to do.

“Nene, you take that one and I’ll go for the other before it grabs that bus!”

“Got it!”

Nene fired at her targeted boomer, sending a barrage of rods at the middle section of the bulky machine. The powerful rods hit the shell, but then bounced off as if they had encountered an impregnable layer beneath. The boomer immediately spun its head at her. With the sudden frenzied speed and agility of a spider, it charged at the red Knight Saber.

“I didn’t know construction boomers were built like that!” Nene screamed in amazement as she jumped out of the way to barely avoid being snagged by one of the powerful pincers.

“They aren’t!” Sylia’s voice came back, her anger clearly evident. “These are obviously special boomers. We were set up, damn it!”

“What?!” Priss blurted just as she snagged the abandoned bus and yanked it out of her boomer’s reach. “I’m nobody’s plaything!”

The boomer then decided that this new blue figure would be a worthy consolation prize as it decided to go for her instead.

With a run and a somersault, Priss landed on top of her boomer and pulled back her arm to land a knuckle-bomb enhanced punched at its chest. Just as she was about to land her first real blow, her arm froze — not the hardsuit arm, as had happened four years ago when incomplete upgrades caused the mechanism to lock, but her own arm

“Priss! Kill it already!” Sylia’s voice demanded frantically.

Fighting down the sudden feeling of panic that started to distract her, Priss readied her other arm, and then that one locked into place too. In her frozen state, the boomer snagged her, one pincer grabbing her waist and the other her leg, and then threw her into the side of the bus she had just saved.

“PRISS!” Nene screamed.

The distraction was the opening her own boomer needed. It grabbed Nene by the arm and flung her into an already destroyed shop window, lodging her securely into the rubble of steel and concrete of the building.

Priss felt her vision go dim as she stayed wedged in the bus remains, knowing that it was due to the darkness of being surrounded by wreckage. Suddenly, there was the undeniable squeal of metal as the sky became visible. Her boomer peeled apart the debris and started to pummel her as she remained on her back.

“PRISS! Fight back, damn it!” Sylia yelled.

With her arms still locked in their now ludicrous and mocking battle poses, Priss gulped and felt her entire body start to shake with the frantic racing of her heart. The pounding from the boomer was barely noticeable compared to her struggle against her own anxiety attack.

Suddenly the pounding stopped as abruptly as it began. The boomer suddenly disappeared at well.

Priss lifted her head to see the familiar White Knight Saber wrestle with her former attacker, wrenching off one of its pincers in the process as if it was a pretzel.

“Damn it, Sylia! You’re not supposed to be here!” Priss yelled angrily. Her fury distracted her from the fact that her arms suddenly unfroze as she scrambled up from the wreckage.

After ripping open the inner protective layer, the other Knight Saber reached in and crushed the boomer’s core.

“Was I wrong, Priss, in thinking you were getting your ass kicked?” Sylia’s taunting voice remarked.

Before the enraged Priss could reply, the second boomer suddenly tackled her teammate, body-slamming her into a concrete wall.

Letting out a roar of fury, Priss leaped and jumped onto the final boomer.

“Die, damn you!” she cried out as she slammed her fist into the reinforced body shell.

— End Chapter 43 —

Chapter 44: Indiscretions

“Come on, Nene,” Priss said as she helped her friend from the wreckage. “Let’s go before we’re considered part of an encore.”

As she and the white Knight Saber helped Nene to her feet, Priss glanced at the crowd that was staring at them.

The pedestrians, both civilians and civil servants, were unsure what to make of these female-shaped boomers. The police squads were already swarming over the boomer wreckage while news crews started to feel emboldened to come forward.

“Let’s go,” Priss said, realizing that the news hawks were getting close.

Before she could take another step, a familiar tall figure in the crowd caught her eye. She and Leon stared at each other for a moment.

Priss then focused on her thrusters and jumped out of range of the swarm of reporters.

Priss stepped out of the launch tube and froze at the sight of a concerned Sylia waiting in her bathrobe. She even lifted her visor to make certain she wasn’t hallucinating. “How –?”

The distinctive sound of hardsuit steps came from behind her, and the white figure appeared out of the corner of her eye.

Priss took a step away from this form that suddenly didn’t seem so familiar even though the shape was the same. “Then who –?”

The visor of the white Knight Saber lifted, revealing Sylvie’s elegant features.

“NO WAY!” Nene blurted since she too had arrived to this scene.

“Sorry to fool you both,” Sylia explained with a humorless smirk. “But Sylvie was set up as a last resort that we had hoped we would never use. I suppose it was good fortune she was available.”

Sylvie bowed to the surprised women, which looked quite odd given what she was wearing, and said, “Please accept my apology for the masquerade. I had asked Sylia to be considered as a backup as atonement for my intent to harm your fallen comrade.”

“What if you had come at us in battle?!” a freaked-out Nene blurted.

“Nene,” Sylia explained calmly, “had she done anything remotely close to betraying my trust in her, I would have used her kill-switch. She knows this.”

“It’s true,” Sylvie said, her eyes still lowered.

“Still, you were great for your first time, Sylvie!” Mackey blurted since he too had been waiting to the side.

“Why, thank you, Mackey,” she replied with a smile and a nod.

Already mad, Nene’s temper unleashed as she shoved her boyfriend towards the elevator and yelled, “Get out of here so we can change!”

“Yes, ma’am!” he declared with a gulp as he ran for his life.

The speechless Nene just shook her head and went up to the ramp, wordlessly preparing to get out of her hardsuit.

Sylvie looked up to see Priss staring at her, which she met with a returning gaze.

“Thanks for saving me,” Priss said softly.

Sylvie smiled in response and bowed again.

Alone in the locker room, Priss zipped up her jacket and picked up her guitar case.

“Priss,” Sylia said softly from the doorway. “I’d like to run some scans on you. In fact I should have as soon as you came back from your battle with Galatea.”

“No,” she answered in a low, firm voice. “What happened today caught me off guard, but I’m not totally surprised either. We both know why my body reacted that way, and that’s good enough for me.”

“But if I can find some way to cure -“

“I said ‘no’,” she repeated, anger started to brim beneath her words. She then took a deep, calming breath and said, “I don’t want to know what you find. It’s enough to know that it’s there. I won’t be turned into some lab rat, too…. And you’re right, as much as I despise the fact that we’re being used, innocent people are caught in the middle of this. So consider me on active status again.”

Sylia narrowed her eyes and then asked frankly, “Even though you ultimately redeemed yourself, what if you fail in battle again?”

Priss smirked and said, “Then let me get the shit beaten out of me. I deserve it for taking such chances. And if I really do go rogue and endanger someone, then use the kill-switch you’ve implanted in our suits. You can’t tell me there isn’t one.”

Sylia frowned. “Is this honestly what you want?”

“Promise me,” Priss stated softly. “I’d rather die than kill an innocent person. And if there’s any way that I can still be of use, then I’d like to take those chances as often as they come. And promise me that you’ll keep this just between the two of us, just like before.”

The two women stared at each other, measuring the seriousness of the other.

“I promise,” Sylia finally said.

After taking a breath, Priss then asked, “So is Sylvie part of the team permanently now that she’s proven herself?”

“I don’t know yet. I have to talk to her about it. It wouldn’t hurt to have as many able bodies available as possible, even when Linna returns to active status herself.”

Priss then frowned at a sudden thought and said, “What about this little display we were part of? Are you going to do anything about it?”

Sylia let out a sigh and said, “I don’t know if there’s anything to be done, other than accept the fact that the entire world now knows about us. I’m having Mackey record as much as of the news footage from the fight as possible to see if there’s anything we can analyze. Someone was obviously trying to flush us out. And I’m pretty certain it’s related to the fact that we have Sylvie. There are some very smart people at Genom. It may just be the general state of things and we might just have to learn to accept it.”

Priss broke out into a quirk of a grin and said, “Well, at least it’s a relief that it’s not really rogue boomers after all.”

Sylia gave her a pointed look but said nothing.

From inside her jacket pocket, Priss’s phone suddenly chirped, indicating a waiting message.

Ignoring her phone, Priss slipped the guitar case strap over her shoulder and said, “Well, I’m late for an appointment with Linna. I’m sure she’s dying to know the details since she probably watched every televised moment of it.”

Sylia arched an eyebrow and said, “You know that was her who called?”

Priss walked towards the door and without looking back just said, “That was Leon.”

— End Chapter 44 —

Chapter 45: Spin Doctor

“ – I assure you that Genom Corporation is appalled by what happened!” Quincy Rosenkreuz said earnestly as his prominent profile commanded the center of the vidscreen. He stood at a podium with a handful of distinguished and powerful government officials flanking him on both sides in support. “We are working with government officials to make full restitution to victims, their surviving families and the City of Tokyo. Genom Corporation is just as much of a victim in this horrendous incident as anyone. I had been working personally with Commissioner Suzuki here on the fact that a certain international terrorist group has been giving us warnings that they would use Genom technology to execute their plans to endanger the general public. Unfortunately, it seems we were not able to stop these groups from using or compromising our prod-“

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Leon muttered as he pressed the button on the monitor to turn off the news conference that being televised from the lobby of their building. He looked at Daley and muttered, “I’ll just bet if we did a search in the system right now, we’d find a case file referring to these terrorist activities backdated to six months ago.”

“Try seven. It’s a luckier number,” Daley remarked, both of them apparently not caring about the surveillance of their conversation. “Well, I think this just reinforces the fact that you don’t need to go through the expense of having an entire police force under your thumb when one or two key people will do.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing how a few people in the right places can make a big difference,” Leon said as he pulled out his phone and pressed the preprogrammed button to once again dial Priss, and once again reached her voice mail. He frowned and hung up without leaving a message.

Daley winced for him and proceeded with the conversation. “At this point I think I just want to wait to see what we’re fed through the official channels. Yuuji told me that as much as the press ran with the idea of rogue boomers at first, more and more people are eating up this story about satellite controlled terrorist machines. It seems people would rather believe a human villain than a reoccurrence of the voomer plague. I don’t know whether that’s good or bad.”

“Well, this afternoon also proved to me that our combat squad is still as useless as ever.”

Daley nodded but also sighed. “It’s not as if they could deploy the tank units in to the shopping district. In the days of the AD Police, we wouldn’t have thought twice about doing it. Now at least we balance the type of force used with the destruction it causes. Unfortunately, a lot of the people in the NTC Combat Unit are still the undisciplined, trigger-happy bunch from the ADP since all of the really good officers wouldn’t touch that unit with a ten-foot pole. And to be fair to them, you have to remember, this is the first time the combat unit has been used for something like this since the NTC has been formed. It’s been straight forward human combat skirmishes before now, which haven’t always resulted in stellar performances then either.”

Leon frowned. “Yeah, but still, we really need to beef up the training of our units who are commanding the more high tech weaponry and equipment. They were obviously sloppy out there and got themselves wiped out with barely minimum effort.”

“Welll… I did walk by Nick Roland’s office and overhear him gripe about the same thing,” Daley said, using a teasing tone that indicated he had been holding something back.

His partner narrowed his eyes and demanded, “Okay, Wong, spill it!”

“Apparently this weakness in the combat unit was already identified before today. They were already transferring someone out to take over the unit effective at the end of the month. But after today, they’re hoping to expediting the transfer so the new combat commander will be here by the the beginning of next week.”

“… And?…” Leon knew there was another shoe that was waiting to drop.

Daley pushed his glasses in place and leaned back in his chair. There was an undeniable smirk on his lips as he said, “Do you remember someone calling you ‘Cowboy’ during your academy days?”

The association immediately clicked as Leon blurted, “Aw, Hell! This day just can’t get any better, I tell ya!”

“Yep, she’s going to take that office right across from us, so you two will be able to greet each other every morning. Just like when you were cadets,” Daley said. “And I can just imagine what her reaction will be when she finds out you’ll be her neighbor again. I’m picturing something pretty similar to what you’re expressing now.”

“Damn! I need some coffee!” Leon blurted as he stormed out of the room while rummaging through his pockets for change.

Glad that his partner fell right into his plan to move their conversation to a less supervised space, Daley immediately hopped out of his seat and followed him.

“Trying to make my day even better, Wong?” Leon said without looking up from his task of pushing buttons on the vending machine.

“So what do you think happened with Priss?” Daley asked carefully. “She seemed incredibly… unrehearsed.”

“Like it was amateur night?” Leon’s anger from the instant before seemed to dissipate as he stared out the window. “Man, Daley, you have no idea how much my heart felt like it stopped.”

“Well, perhaps because it’s been a while since she’s performed in Tokyo?” Daley offered, trying to cheer his friend up without belittling the situation.

“I don’t think so. She told me about the equipment problems that happened in the last audition for Sylia’s band. I have half the mind to go over and tell Sylia to get her act together before pulling other people into it.”

Daley shrugged and said, “Well, go for it. But I have the feeling that confronting Sylia would be hundred times more dangerous than Priss. She’s one scary woman behind the smiles if you think about it.”

Leon was quiet as he clearly thought over the statement. He finally just frowned and growled in response.

“Hey, guys!” Nene called out as she came in with an unusual bounce in her step. “It’s like a zoo down in the lobby!”

Both men immediately straightened in surprise.

“Nene, I thought you’d taken the rest of the day off!” a shocked Daley blurted.

“Well, I was asked to do some special research on a project I was just assigned,” she said. “So I thought I’d get a head start.”

“Here?” Daley asked, trying his best to remind her through a hint about the surveillance.

Nene just smiled and winked at him. “It’s like magic tricks. Get the audience to watch something other than what you’re actually doing.”

“So how’s Priss?!” Leon immediately demanded.

Nene looked at him with a clearly bewildered expression at his concern. “She’s doing fine. At least last I saw. She’d already left by the time I was finished talking with Mackey.”

Leon immediately pulled out his phone to call her and once again got her voice mail. He hung up and sighed.

“He’s a little discouraged about the quality of her performance,” Daley explained cryptically.

“Oh, that,” Nene responded with a casual wave of her hand. “She said it was a fluke just because she was rusty. She told me it won’t happen the next time.”

“Next time?!” Leon exclaimed.

Now Nene was really confused. “Yeah. Didn’t you know that she told Sylia she’d join up the line-up again?”

“WHAT?!”

— End Chapter 45 —