Revenge Wars
Episode V
(?) STRIKES BACK
It is a dark time for the Rebellion.
Although Washuu has been freed from (?)'s influence, Enemy forces have
learned of Fred's location, and are massing to crush the Freedom Fighters
once and for all.
Racing the clock, the inhabitants of Fred scramble to prepare themselves for
the conflict to come, knowing that this may be their final battle.
Following his own agenda, one of (?)'s generals, Largo, has already
established a spy on Fred, who watches the preparations, waiting for the
right moment to strike. . .
***
Largo strode silently down the halls of his ship. Although his face was
expressionless, those around him could feel his anger and instinctively got
out of his way.
He arrived in the conference room, empty save for himself. He activated a
small control panel in the large oval table and activated the holographic
conference mode. Immediately the room was filled with holographic images.
One was an image of a nine foot tall boomer-like being, Lord Zoa of the
Evoluder. His bird's mask faceplate rose to reveal a holographic human face.
Next was the holographic triumvirate that was Gorn. Following him was the
reptilian image of the Invid Regent, and finally the disembodied floating
head of Garimoth, Captain of the Bunker Pirates.
"Gentlemen," Largo began, using the same tone he used during negotiations
for Genom. "I believe you understand the situation. We have secured the
location of the Rebel's pocket dimension, and the formation of the fleet is
proceeding according to schedule. However, one of our most valuable assets
has been corrupted. Washuu was turned."
"Is there any possibility of reasserting control over her?" One of Gorn's
aspects asked.
"Unknown. The point is moot, anyway, as she has been terminated." Largo
replied.
"Was that wise?" Another Gorn aspect asked. "Her skills were largely
responsible for our success in locating Fred."
"She was a traitor." Garimoth replied. "Death is the only recourse for dealing
with traitors."
Largo nodded. "She would have been too dangerous if allowed to live.
Besides, the decision and execution were both made by our Lord, and
therefore not to be questioned." <At least not out loud.> Largo thought to
himself. "However she has already caused considerable damage. Before her
termination she dispatched a rampant AI to Fred with full technical and
tactical data on our fleet, most notably full schematics of Zohma."
"Is this supposed to worry us?" Lord Zoa boomed. "They are weak. No
amount of information will save them!"
"Such assumptions are dangerous and illogical." All three Gorn aspects
replied. "Given they have complete data on the Zohma battle planet, they
may be able to discover a weakness and exploit it to formulate a defence
against it."
"Zohma has no weaknesses!" Zoa roared.
Largo held up a hand to silence him. "Nevertheless, we must be cautious.
They know we are coming, and now they will be prepared. They are not the
weaklings you are accustomed to dealing with, Zoa. They have turned our
best warriors to their side, and have reaped the benefits of many different
technologies, as have we. We must ensure their defences are smashed and
their troops demoralized before we bring Zohma into harms way. I suggest a
series of terrorist attacks to frighten and confuse them before we strike."
"You have such an attack already planned?" Garimoth asked.
Largo nodded and smiled coldly. "In fact the plan is already in motion."
***
Revenge Wars
Episode V
(?) Strikes Back
Section I - Hour of the Wolf
Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow
In association with
von Harlas Schweremachinerywerk GmbH(Side 3) (Mobile Suit division)
Present
A HentAI Production
THE HOUR OF THE WOLF...
It was night.. Alterday watch.
Alpha, the HentAI from Hell was cruising the electronic highways and
byways of FREDnet.. bored out of his virtual mind! His other half was fast
asleep.. it was the middle of the night after all, but he was bored.
Bored Bored BORED!
He was passing the personnel records node when he spotted a figure
studying the node's gateway intently..
A figure he didn't recognise.. a _female_ figure..
The persona appeared to be being generated externally to FREDnet.. and on
something that made a CRAY look like an abacus..
He studied her for whole milliseconds.. she was wearing a deeply hooded
cloak, mottled, shifting grey, thrown back over her shoulders revealing a
loose fitting belted tunic and pants tucked into soft boots, gloved hands
rested on her hips.. all in black. The archetypal image of a fantasy style
thief.
And she seemed completely unaware of him... and the bulges and curves
hinted at under.. The HentAI's thoughts began to degenerate into a haze of
lust.. his last rational thought was <Gee. I wonder if she's a redhead..>
*C*Y*B*E*R*G*L*O*M*P*!!!!!!
Alpha spent a few brief moments in heaven. The woman seemed stunned..
"Nice Software!" he murmured, snuggling..
There was an incoherent shriek of rage and he was blown away by a spray of
viruses! They were crude as hell, but incredibly quickly generated.. this had
to be an AI, no hacker could react that fast..
As he frantically parried and dodged, the figure turned to face him... a pair
of actinide blue eyes were visible deep in the hood, then she hurled a
powerful logic bomb at him.
"Hoboyhoboyhoboy" He ducked frantically as it parted his (nonexistent)
hair.. impacting on the side of the node, blowing a large hole in it.
He countered with a spamstorm..
The cloaked figure flew through it brandishing a sword of black ICE.
<BLACK ICE!> Alpha gibbered, back peddling <She's trying to KILL Me!>
She backed the HentAI up against the side of the node.. the point of the
sword darting from side to side blocking his escape.. then she stopped and
stood back, shrugging the cloak forward to conceal her form..
<So firm.. so pert.. > he thought with regret..
"Listen you malodorous mass of malfunctioning microcode, if you do
_anything_ like that again, I will disassemble you byte by byte and recompile
you in COBOL!" the figure hissed then blinked out.
"Wow! She loves me!"
***
In a warehouse... Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse, Four
containers were lined up by the bay doors with care, In hopes that the
outshift soon would be there. Three had been checked, one had been not,
no one could have foreseen the carnage this brought.
It had been carefully timed. The containers had arrived just before shift
change. The outgoing crew assumed the incoming would check it. The
incoming, when they checked the computer records found that the outgoing
had already checked it. A small program ran and then erased itself.
The containers had been moved to storage. They were safety stocks, not
immediately required.
Careful planning indeed.
At 3 AM, the container opened, shipping seals spanging off the wall, a over a
dozen figures emerged, half male, half female, all wearing Bob/Betty
uniforms and moved off into complex.
Half an hour later, the warehouse burst apart as a force of BU-12 boomers
blew down the walls and fanned out...
***
Fox sighed in exhaustion as she stepped into the main operations room for
LPAC. It had just been a _long_ eight hour shift building Anti Air
emplacements. Especially the cooling coils of tower 81. <God, those coils
just didn't want to fit.> Now she had to serve her second shift working at
the comm consoles keeping everybody in touch and where they're supposed
to be. <*Sigh* What I wouldn't give for it all to end.>
As she walked up to her position, she saw Turbo finishing up on the console
and waited there for a few seconds until he noticed her. As he looked up,
she saw the look of exhaustion they all shared.
"Hey, Fox. Glad to see you! How about a date after you get off and we have all
that free time?"
She laughed at his poor joke, knowing as well as he that with all of the
engies working two out of three shifts or more, the odds were that he would
either have another shift of work, or like her, was really planning on
attempting to catch a few hours sleep. "Maybe some other time."
He shrugged and started telling her what projects were going on and what
to watch out for. "Team 2 is in the Southern sector working on..."
***
%POST active
%Offensive weapons: 100%
%Motive units: 100%
%Power: 100%
%Command Paths: 100%
%Directives:
1. Locate and assassinate any targets on the primary list
Primary target list:
Wyrm/Wyrm-chan/Wyrm of Gallifrey
Frosty-usa
Stargazer
Barry Cadwgan
Numbski
Captain Gloval
Rick/Lisa Hunter
Kysaku/Akiko Natsume
Erin 2.5
Eric Jones
2. Maintain cover as a MONForce Bob until target acquired
3. Cause as much collateral damage as possible as long as this doesn't
conflict with primary directive.
%Current location: Fred Warehouses.
%Command: spread out and locate target
The death machine spent a few microseconds calculating as it left the
warehouse until it chose a target and moved towards where it's files
indicated the victim was most likely to be.
***
"Sorry, Otaku, but the last time we were blasting away some rubble for space
in the middle of the night, Fred command threw a fit, and we've been
ordered not to do that anymore."
"Damn it, Fox, how are we supposed to get the job done with all of this crap
in the way? And why should they get to sleep if none of us are?"
This was starting to get on Fox's nerves. The worst part was that she
understood his frustration, but couldn't do anything about it.
"Cool off, Otaku. Yelling at me won't help. They just don't understand what
we're going through, and with everybody so uptight, explosions in the
middle of the night make them nervous."
"Damn management." He put in bitterly. "They want us to get the job done,
then complain and hamper us when we do it.."
"We do what we have to, make do."
"*sigh* Ok, sorry to bug you, Fox. We'll get this cleared, even if we have to
shovel it."
"Good luck Otaku. Fox out."
Fox sighed. <Well, that's one problem down, several million more to go.>
***
%Current location: 1 mile from suspected target location
%Time until BU-12s attack: 10 minutes.
%Probability of locating target and terminating before BU-12 attacks: Good
***
As usual it had been one problem after another. Fortunately, this time Fox
didn't have to deal with it. Two of LPAC's people brought down a barrel and
set it down in front of her workstation. It seemed a little heavy duty for
holding low-friction lubricants like the label said. They asked to see
Commander Stargazer himself and said that there was a supply problem. He
came out of his office, looking as tired and haggard as the rest of them. He
was in one of those morph suit/ body armors they issued to LPAC. <I wonder
why they did?> Fox wondered. <I mean, it's not like we'll really be attacked
here, is it? Sure I know about the previous attack, but now we have all the
animates on our side and have _much_ better defences. How could anything
get through?>
Fox shook herself out of that line of thought and was about to listen in on
what this supply problem was when she noticed that her console was
beeping. It turned out to be another repair team asking for information. As
she looked up what they need to know, she was distracted by Stargazer's
reaction to what the two told him. Apparently the drum wasn't full of
lubricants, but _highly_ concentrated Hydrofluoric acid. <_Geesh_ I can
hardly believe that our suppliers would make a blunder like that. If we
hadn't caught the mistake and used that...>
She was brought back to her senses as the repair team again asked for the
information. She hated being tired; it caused her mind to wander.
***
The android was happy with itself. It had located the quarters and labs of
the Legion of PAC and was on it's way to the main operations room.
%Enemy detected: Human, male, approx. 20 years of age, no identifiable
weapons. Identify as enemy1
%Course of action: Directive 2 applies. Maintain cover and use to locate
target.
%Course of action: Talk to target enemy1 and use to locate Primary Target:
Stargazer
%Determine what to say: I need to find Stargazer. I have an important
message for him from Wyrm.
%Vocal response from enemy1 detected: Isn't it a bit late? Never mind.
He's down in the Ops room. It's not well marked, so I'll take you there
myself.
%Course of action: Follow enemy1, look out for traps.
%Course of action: Respond to enemy1 to maintain cover
%Determine what to say: Thank you.
%Memorize path for intelligence gathering: Decent of staircase in main
building. Exit out into cafeteria style room. Targets present: none. Cross
cafeteria to a larger room. Targets present: 11.
%Evaluate situation: Designate 5 targets seated at a table to left as
enemies2-6. Designate 2 targets seated at computer terminals and talking
into como gear as enemies 7-8. Designate 3 targets standing near a barrel of
unknown liquid as enemies 9-10 and Primary target: Stargazer.
%Weapons detected: 3 light energy weapons of unknown capability.
%Threat to mission assessment: med-to-high.
%Potential for successful clandestine assassination: 0%
%Evaluate options: Best option is transform and attack target designated
Stargazer.
***
<Well, at least I got them that information.> Fox thought. <Actually, tonight's
been a rather slow night. Damn, I should have known better than to think
something like that. What's that Bob doing here? We don't see many of
them in this part of Fred, I wonder what's up?>
<That Bob is sure acting odd.> She thought. <Looking around the room like
that, he's making me feel nervous. Something's up. That's odd... why has it
stopped looking around and is now staring at Stargazer?>
Panic washed through her as she saw what she now knew as a Boomer burst
out of it's disguise. Time seemed to slow to less than a crawl. She heard
sounds as people tried for cover and brought weapons out. The two who
brought the barrel in looked at each other and started lifting it as though
they planed to throw the contents at it. Stargazer, though. His face went
from an unusual display of open shock to hardening into... resignation? <
_My God!_ He knows the things here to kill him and that there isn't anyway
to avoid it! He's just standing there trying to outdraw it with his pulse
pistol!>
<He's not going to make it.> The Boomer was already deploying it's mouth
cannon. <I can't let this happen!> "NO!"
Fox jumped.
***
A Betty walked in, arm in arm with Mackie. He was sweating and his eyes
were wild, trapped. Barry looked up at the new arrivals and the Betty's eyes
glowed red as they met.
He froze.
Her face contorted into something like a smile "Excellent. The master will
be pleased." Her face twitched for a moment as if she wanted to say
something else.
She stepped away from Mackie, revealing the pistol she had been holding to
Mackie's side, and then pistol whipping him into unconsciousness.
"Stand up. The master has a message for those that oppose him."
He was 3/4 facing her, arms by his side. There was no way he could draw
the PPG fast enough, but the glaive in it's thigh sheath was facing away from
her. He unclipped the retainer strap and eased it out with his fingertips.
Just a moment of inattention was all he needed, and he might be able to
take her with him.
"You will know pain, you will know fear then you will know DEATH."
Mackie let out a groan. Confident that her primary target was frozen, the
sexaroid turned to deal with him.
The faint whine of a PPG arming jerked her back to see her primary target
had drawn his pistol and was standing in a two handed Weaver firing stance.
"Drop it." his voice colourless.
She tried to mesmerise him again.
He shook his head slightly "Please, just drop it.."
Despairingly she mouthed "I can't.."
Her gun came up, fast. The hiss of the gauss pistol was drowned out by the
roar of the PPG...
Barry was spun around by sledgehammer blows to left arm and ribs. The
sexaroid was blown backwards by the plasma pulses explosively converting
water to steam...
He tried to stand, but a shark bit him in the side and he fell back to his
knees in a swirl of cold dizziness, dropping the gun. He smelt the carpet
burning against the muzzle over the tang of ozone and stink of burning meat.
Spurred on by a surge of adrenalin, he scrabbled around for the PPG, and
staggered up to see Mackie starting to stir.
The sexaroid was lying by the door, like a puppet with it's strings cut.
Fortunately she had fallen forwards, hiding the damage the PPG had done.
But not the pool of blood slowly spreading, or her face, her eyes staring at
nothing.
He was starting to go into shock... cold sweat..
He cautiously reached around with his right hand. He felt blood, side and
arm. He hacked and coughed into his hand. No blood, that was good..
"If there's one, there'll be more.. " he muttered, reaching for the vid-phone.
Then his knees gave way and he slumped forward onto the desk.
He came to.
Mackie was shaking him. "Are You Alright?!" There was a pressure cut on
the youngster's forehead, bleeding profusely, but his pupils were same sized.
"Not really.. arm and side.. ... Christ it hurts...there may be more.. sound the
alarm.. call Frosty.. call someone. Move Damnit!"
Kate burst in, in a dressing gown. She had a pistol in her hand. She glanced
down at the 33-S, then Barry. Her mouth thinned, but that was her only
reaction.
Outside Sirens began to wail and a few moments there were muffled
explosions. The BU-12's had joined the party.
"Well, that should wake people up. Mackie, go and prep your suit. Check for
sabotage." Barry gasped and gritted his teeth as he slowly stood. "Go! Mads,
gimmie a hand, Run kid, we're under attack!"
Mackie looked uncertainly at his boss.
Kate spoke calmly "Mackie, we will need your firepower to survive. I can
patch him up. Get the techs together and equipped too."
As Mackie left, they began to carefully work off the armoured coveralls that
had saved his life, accompanied by occasional gasps of pain...
***
Eric stumbled into his dorm, collapsing into his bed. So far it hadn't been
that stupendous of a re-introduction to FRED. It started with some good
news, the removal of that damned sig lock.. Which of course allowed him to
travel to many dangerous places. And so naturally, he had.
The last few days had been punctuated by frequent visits to the Bacta tanks;
first after he took that hit for Wyrm (why the HELL did I do that? What was
I thinking?), and then, after he'd recovered, he'd pretty much gone right
back in, when his newfound bunking partner Ranchan decided to ki-blast
the bejeezus out of him.
Yep, all in all, not that great of a return to the FRED forces. And Wyrm
wasn't letting him leave. Eric grated his teeth. Wyrm was really starting to
cramp his style, and there was little he could do about it, without suffering
greatly at the hands of far too many people. Grr.. When this was all over, he
was going to make sure that -Wyrm- had some unpleasant experiences of
some kind..
And now that he was completely free of medical stay (for now), his insomnia
was cropping up again. It didn't help that two of his bunkmates were
Ranchan and Azusa... Ranchan had this bad effect of making Eric paranoid,
especially since the burning clothes routine... And Azusa was, well... Azusa.
Little more needed to be said.
But now, there was a chance for peace and quiet. For the first time in a
while, Eric felt he could sleep, and no one else was around.. Thank the
gods, he might actually be able to get some rest...
And Eric did just that, falling into a deep slumber, all fears and worries and
paranoias drifting away. For the moment.
***
Akari and Ryouga had arrived a little later, walking in, laughing loudly. They
were experienced with Eric's sleeping problems by now, and expected him
to be incessantly tapping away at the computer. When they saw him
sprawled out on the bed, not moving, bad thoughts came to mind.
After making sure he actually had a heart rate, and was breathing, they
calmed down, but were still confused. No amount of shaking would wake
him. This was the kid who couldn't fall asleep if his life depended on it?
Eventually, they gave up. It was late, almost 2:30 am, and they needed to
get some rest before their next shifts...
***
Eric was having a dream. A nice dream, where he finally took over the
world. David Bowie was his personal musician, Spider Robinson and Terry
Prachett his writers, and Ken Flett did all his art work.
But best of all, and most satisfying, Wyrm was his man-servant.
He rang a little bell, while idly sitting atop a small throne. "Wyrmm... Oh
WYRRRMMM!"
Finally, Wyrm arrived, and kneeled before him. "What is it you wish,
master?"
Eric's sleeping form smiled. This might be a good evening after all. Of
course it couldn't last.
***
David lay in bed, not moving as he stared at the ceiling, listening to the faint
sighing breaths of the girl sleeping next to him. He knew it was some time
in the middle of the night, but he didn't feel like bothering to turn over to
look at the clock. Also, he didn't want to wake her. Moving his head
fractionally, he looked at her again, still wondering just why she'd bothered
to choose to find him. The faint light coming through the curtains showed
him a fine-boned face, loose silky hair spread across the pillow and bed. Her
large eyes were closed, a small smile on her face. Again he wondered how
people could think her such a monster, if they could see her like this he was
certain they'd change their opinion. Of course, after the events of tonight he
didn't want anyone but himself to be in a position to see her like this, but
still...
Smiling in unconscious mimicry of her, he turned his head back to the
ceiling, as the evenings events unwound themselves again in his head. After
all the disturbances of one sort or another, not to mention the idiots in the
pilot's lounge, he hadn't managed to get much further with his plans for
investigating security leaks. His resolve to do so had been fatally weakened
anyway, when Iczer-2 had finally got fed up with all the problems,
whispered something to the remaining problem-causers that had caused
them to blanche, and grabbed him before teleporting them both back to his
rooms. Once they'd got there, the expression on her face, not to mention
the sultry look she gave him, made him pretty certain she hadn't dragged
him back to discuss business or to play chess. He'd been right. Boy, had he
been right!! He'd never realised just how... hmm... adaptable and flexible
Iczer-2 was until tonight. He was glad now for the training required for all
Fred personnel, it had done wonders for his stamina...
His pleasant, not to mention self-indulgent, reminiscing was upset by a faint
buzzing noise. <Who the hell would be at my door at _this_ time of night!!>
He ignored it for a few moments, hoping whoever it was would go away and
leave him alone. After all, it couldn't be really important or he'd have been
called on his priority line. But the buzzer rang again. Cursing silently, he
carefully slid off the bed, trying his best not to wake Iczer-2. She murmured
something, turning over and burying her head deeper in the pillow, but
didn't seem to be awake. Damning whoever it was to hell, or preferably a
starring role in a dubbed series of Sailor Moon, he padded to the bedroom
door, grabbing his robe from the hook as he did so.
Still grumbling, he flicked on the light in the main room, walking over to
the door. He could see the light flashing by it, and bent slightly to look
through the peephole.
<If this is one of those idiot pilots playing the fool, I'll have him on garbage
scow detail till he has a long white beard. Or till _she_ does...>
Blinking sleepily, he peered out. And of course saw nothing but a vaguely
male human. Cursing again, he turned back, reaching for his glasses; as
usual, he'd forgotten he'd taken his contacts out earlier. That movement
saved his life, as the door behind him suddenly exploded into fragments, a
couple of which slashed him before embedding themselves in the wall.
Stunned, he twisted, to see a Boomer in the process of shedding its artificial
skin covering as it changed into battle mode, its eyes glowing red as it
advanced on him through the now- demolished doorway.
<I'm dead...> he thought.
The Boomer strode towards him, as he stumbled back, blood running down
his arm from one of the wounds, as he frantically looked around for
something to use as a weapon, realising his phaser was still in the bedroom.
He saw the Boomer raise its arm, obviously (and correctly) deciding it didn't
need to use any of its inbuilt weaponry on him, and a part of him was almost
insulted.
As the Boomer drew back its fist in preparation to smashing his skull,
however, it got a surprise. David just got the impression of a blur streaking
past him, as a naked Iczer-2 impacted the Boomer, her momentum
knocking it back clear into the corridor as her hand grabbed it about the
throat with a snarl of rage. Stunned, he watched, a part of him wondering
with complete irrelevancy about if attacking a robot while naked violated the
Fred dress conventions...
The Boomer heaved upward, its mass barely enabling it to break the hold the
girl had on it as it thrust her backwards, it's eyes glowing red as its mouth
opened and the sighting devices about the eyes rose, questing like insect
antenna as they tried to lock on to her. Iczer-2 wasn't going to wait,
however. With a fluid motion she regained her balance then leapt, her arm
swinging back, then forward as her energy sword flicked into existence, its
light outlining the shattered door with an eerie blue glow. He watched
mesmerised as with a series of flickering strokes far too fast for him to
follow she sliced the Boomer into a set of small fragments, before it could do
more than fire its mouth-cannon for a brief instant. The burst was harmless,
striking the ceiling, the only effect of which was to set off the fire alarm and
sprinkler system in the corridor.
He looked out, still moving like an automaton as it slowly seeped into his
mind that he _wasn't_ going to die after all, watching as Iczer-2 stood above
the remains of one of GENOM's war robots, the spray of water from the
ceiling sprinklers washing the fluids splashing her naked body.
A door further down the corridor opened, a head sticking out, looking
blearily about to see what all the noise and fuss was about. The man looked at
the water, then saw the nude girl standing above a rather large pile of
chucks of robot, a humming energy sword in her hand. The head suddenly
vanished with the speed of a conjuring trick, as whoever it was decided he
really shouldn't interfere in that sort of thing.
David gulped, and looked over at Iczer-2. "You'd better come inside, I don't
think the fire detectors like your sword"
Iczer-2 grinned at him, the fire of battle-lust slowly fading from her eyes, as
she walked in with a pantherlike grace, apparently completely unconcerned
at her lack of clothing.
"What was that, exactly?"
"A Boomer. A battle robot, which can disguise itself as human. It tried to kill
me."
"Not exactly subtle, was it?"
David nodded, then jerked as the private com line into his office blared into
life. He listened to it for some seconds, as the security channel started to
detail fragmentary (and often contradictory) reports of fights and injuries
that were, with his personal experience to add to it, obviously accounts of
multiple Boomer attacks on the Fred personnel compound.
"Damn, they're all over the place! We have to get down to security, try and
get some coordination, otherwise they'll be picking people off all over the
place!"
Iczer-2 nodded, but then frowned. "Not yet. I'm not letting you go out there,
it almost killed you! And you're hurt!"
"I _have_ to go, Iczer. It'd my job. If I don't, a lot more people might get
killed. Besides, its only a scratch, nothing serious."
She frowned, glaring at nothing in particular as she looked like she would
physically restrain him. He sighed, and reached out, gently touching her
arm.
"_We_ have to go. We can't stand by and hide while other people are getting
killed if we can do anything about this, can we?
She shook her head, but as he turned to get his kit, he felt her hand fall on
his shoulder.
"Wait. Before we go, I have something for you. It was remiss of me not to give
it to you sooner, but... I got distracted.
David blinked, not understanding, as she held out her hand, a faint blue aura
flickering over it as a dark metal bracelet appeared on it.
"Wear this, please. It's something to keep you safe."
David looked deep into her eyes, as he smiled back, carefully taking it and
fastening it about his wrist.
"Of course I'll wear it..."
She grinned back, looking a lot more relieved, and he wondered for a
moment exactly what this bracelet was, then she reached for him.
"Come on"
He nearly reached out to hold her, then suddenly remembered a few things.
"Hang on, we need to get some things!"
Running into the bedroom, he tossed his robe aside, frantically pulling on
jeans as he grabbed his kit from beside the bed, slapping an emergency
bandage over the shallow cut along his arm. As he ran out, Iczer-2 was still
standing there, absently running her hands through her hair to remove
some of the water. He jerked to a stop as he watched her for a second,
standing poised with the water droplets glinting on her pale skin, then
gulped.
"Ah... you aren't dressed...!"
She grinned.
"Oh, I forgot. You humans are so funny about some things!"
Laughing, she grabbed a spare robe from the door, throwing it over herself,
then reached out to hold him.
"Security HQ?"
He nodded, slipping his arms about her slender waist.
"First. Let's try and get a handle on this, see if we can stop it before those
damn robots kill too many people!"
***
10 minutes later, Barry was wearing a fresh coverall and had latched a set of
heavy clamshell torso armour on over it, his damaged arm immobilised and
in a sling, and enough painkillers in his system to damp the pain.
He'd moved the pistol to a conventional holster and had the
shotgun-from-hell on a muzzle forward patrol sling, along with it's
ammunition bandolier and a pouch of grenades and combat webbing.
While Kate shrugged herself into a similar rig Barry moved over to the 33-S
lying by the door.
He knelt by the corpse, he put out a hand.. quivering slightly and touched
the cold cheek, then closed her staring eyes.
Kate came up behind him "It was just a boomer.."
He snapped up and she knew he was going to hit her and possibly kill her.
Even hurt, her training was no use against his training, not now, backed up
with his strength...
Then he stopped, just as abruptly as he'd started.
He hissed "She wasn't an It! She was human in every way that mattered, if
she'd been given the chance! If she wasn't human, then I'm Not! Damn it
Kate! If you can't see that... It's not how you get here, it's what you do once
you arrive! She was a Slave! I could see it in her eyes, she didn't want to.. I
killed her.. Oh god, I killed her." His voice was now on the ragged edge of
hysteria.
"Calm down, you're not making sense..."
He took a deep breath and the ice was back "Only to you Kate.. only to you.
If you can't.. you're more damned than I."
He didn't see the hurt expression that briefly passed across that smooth
countenance.
***
"Hey, Yuki. Can you hand me that soldering gun and some solder? I think I
found the problem in here. Just a buggered connection."
"Sure Josh, here." Yuki said as she placed the aforementioned device into
his waiting hand, watching it disappear in to the access hatch that had
seemingly swallowed about half of Josh, the engineer she had been assigned
to as an assistant. Yuki watched a moment more before his hand reappeared
with soldering gun. "Here. Thanks."
Once she took the gun, his hand flipped over to grab the edge of the access
hatch and then with a quick motion, Josh shot out of the hatch and onto his
feet. "All right," he said as he pushed the hatch shut and secured it. "That
should do it."
Popping open the terminal next to the hatch, he tapped a quick code in to
the pad and watched in satisfaction as the AA laser he had just repaired
came on line with a hum and began going though its calibration sequence,
before shifting to stand by and relinquishing control to the FDF master fire
directors.
"And there we have it Yuki. One more piece of kluge back in working order.
Well, what's next on..."
The only warning the two had of an attack was the whine of a turbine
moments before the newly repaired turret exploded, sending white hot
fragments in a cone shaped arc just above their heads. A moment to late,
both Josh and Yuki hit the ground, praying that there wasn't going to be
anything else thrown at them.
Looking up the two heard the turbines whine cut off and then a loud impact
as whatever had blown up the turret landed on the roof. It was large, dark
brown, and had one arm ending in a large weapons pod. A boomer,
specifically, a BU-12B. <Oh shit. This is bad.> One part of his mind
commented. Another part replied <So good of you to notice.> A third went
in to full rant <That bastard! I just fixed that! He could have picked some
other roof top, with some other turret but nooooo, he has to go and shoot
OURS!>
Slowly climbing to his feet, Josh eyed the boomer warily. For the moment it
wasn't doing much of anything, just standing there, looking rather
menacing.
"Yuki, get out of here. I'll try to distract it while you run." Josh said,
realizing that his heritage gave him a chance against this thing, but not with
Yuki around. As Yuki began rising to her feet the boomer made up its mind
and exploded into motion, taking a step forward and raising it's weapons
arm to point at Yuki. With a cry of fear, Yuki threw her self to the side as the
boomer fired. Her sudden movement was enough to throw the boomers aim
off and the rail gun shot slammed into the concrete in front of her.
Josh watched with horror as the BU-12s HE round slammed into the roof in
front of Yuki, picking her up and tossing her over the side of the building. A
moment later, he was moving, his body shifting fully into automatic. Totally
ignoring the boomer, he rushed to the edge of the building, where Yuki had
fallen, summoning all the dark energies he could as he ran. Part of the
power separated from him self and arced over to the boomer, and another
part bonded itself to him. His body begin to change he leapt off the edge
into a swan dive after the screaming form of Yuki.
Yuki, who was expecting to make the transition from cute AMP officer to not
so cute dent in the sidewalk, was understandably surprised when she felt
and saw a pair of red tinged arms wrap around her and heard a low whomp
as someone, or something holding her suddenly pulled up and out of the
soon to be fatal dive.
"What?" She managed to get out., trying to get a look at the person who had
pulled off the mid air rescue. "Please do not struggle Yuki, I will explain
when we get to the ground. I am sorry you had to find out this way though."
Came a deep voice from somewhere above and behind her. Not having any
better ideas, Yuki complied with the request, and instead tried to get her
adrenaline levels back to controllable levels. Not that she had much success
with the only thing between her and the ground was a pair of arms.
Arcing up and over the buildings, her rescuer lined up with the roof of a
building, and a moment later, touched down with a gentle burst of air from
his wings. Once down, he released Yuki, who took an immediate step away
and spun around to get a good look at whoever it was that has saved her.
"OK, now... oh my." She said as saw the being who had saved her. He was
over 7 feet tall, broadly built, had a pair of black leather wings arcing over
his shoulders and had slightly red tinged skin. He also had a face that was
vaguely recognizable.
"J-Josh? Is that you?!"
"Unfortunately, yes. I am sorry. I did not wish anyone to know about this.
About what I have become. I... aah. Please. give me a moment." Josh said
as he sank to his knees, skin losing it's red tinge, as his wings shrank into
his shoulder blades and he shrank back to normal proportions. "Ow.
Remind me NOT to do that much. It HURTS." He said.
"Josh? How? What? But I thought... You're supposed to be." Said Yuki,
slowly backing away from Josh, who was quickly recovering from the strain
of changing forms.
"Thought what? That I was completely human? Unaltered, uncursed, and
perfectly normal? I was. Once. That however, was a long time ago. Now.
now I'm slowly losing my humanity, losing my soul to the ravenous darkness
of my demon ancestry. Not the kind of inheritance I would have liked, but
the one I got."
"Who? How?"
"That is a very long story, as much as I would like to tell it to you, this is
neither the time or the place to do so. I will tell you the story at a later
time, if you don't mind. Right now, we have far greater problems to deal
with."
Yuki, who was by now mostly covered from a bad case of confusion, only
nodded her head in agreement. Suddenly remembering the _minor_
problem that had sparked all this asked "What happened to that boomer
back there? Why didn't it try to kill us again?"
"I'm not sure." Josh said. "I think I killed it, but I'm not sure. I was
running mostly on instinct at the time. We should probably get off this roof
and out of the area though. There might be more of them around." *That
and that little display back there probably told every one with magical
abilities within a few blocks that there is a demon running around. The last
thing I need is a fight with a would be demon hunter. Much less a demon
hunter I'm supposed to be allied with.
"Come on, Yuki. I need to get to my place for some gear if I'm going to be
any help in this fight."
***
Things were relatively normal at the Fred Special Ops dorm. Only five or six
new holes had been put in the walls, only minor weapons fire was reported,
and the beer supply was holding. Things were relatively quiet, mainly
because Webdragon was out.
Zen was fiddling with his captured Phor energy staff. He had taken a shine
to the weapon, and was trying to figure out how it worked without
permanently disabling it. Ukyou was practising with her lightsaber, trying to
block the shots from a seeker drone. Although she got nailed far more times
than she blocked, she seemed determined to master this skill. Kyone was
still trying to get rid of all the dust bunnies she had accidentally conjured up
nearly a week ago. Kei and Yuri were busy blasting away at each other on a
holographic video game.
Prime trudged down the stairs, exhausted. He dropped into the nearest
couch, letting out a big sigh.
"Is she finally asleep?" Zen asked.
"Yeah." Prime replied. "I KNOW I didn't ask that many questions when I was
her age. I never knew a twelve year old to be so curious!"
"She probably gets it from her mother." Zen replied, returning his attention
to his staff.
Prime grimaced. "Thank God I've managed to stave off that question so far.
How am I supposed to explain to her that her mother is right now the pawn
of an evil entity that's trying its best to kill all of us?"
"How about 'Your mother is a pawn of an evil entity that's trying its best to
kill all of us.'?" Kyone said, making a futile grab at a retreating dust bunny.
"Oh, you're a great help." Prime replied. "I can tell your kids are going to
end up neurotic messes."
Kyone shrugged. "It's not something I'm terribly worried about right now."
"Yeah, neither was I," Prime said. "And look at me now!"
"At least you don't have to try and explain a Jusenkyo curse to her." Zen said.
"I imagine Nightelf is going to have fun with that one."
Prime *harumphed* but remained silent. The door to the dorm opened and
Webdragon walked in. "Evening, all."
Prime blinked and stared hard at Webdragon. Webdragon ignored him and
headed for the stairs. "I'm headed to bed. I'll check on Proxy for ya before I
turn in."
Prime calmly stood, raised his arm as Glitch reconfigured itself, and casually
blew Webdragon's head off. "Like Hell you will." He hissed.
Everyone in the room immediately went into a fighting stance. Kei and Yuri
had their weapons trained on him almost instantly, and would have fired had
Yuri not noticed a lack of organic matter from the corpse. It shed it's skin as
it bulked out into a BU-55C Boomer and.. still headless, charged Prime.
Then it stopped.. floating in the air.. and began to crumple inwards..
becoming a sphere of tortured metal a little less than a meter across,
resembling a car after an encounter with a car crusher. Prime's eyes were
narrowed in concentration, and once it was over he groaned and dropped to
the couch.
"Don't wanna have to do that again." He muttered.
The others walked warily towards him. "Prime, what the hell just
happened?" Kyone asked, eyeing him nervously.
Ukyou knelt next to the sphere and studied it. "It was a robot! " She looked
over to Prime. "How did you know?"
"I felt it's mind. It was _wrong_, somehow. And then I caught it's thoughts...
it was programmed to get Proxima first, then it was coming back for us.
Clean sweep."
Kei poked the wreckage. "Mind explaining exactly how you did this?"
Prime looked a little embarrassed. "I... I'm not exactly sure."
"You just crushed a boomer into an amusingly shaped paperweight without so
much as touching it and _you're_ _not_ _sure_?!"
Outside sirens started to wail, and explosions could be heard even through
the soundproofing.
"Zen thinks this means trouble."
"Whuzzup?" A sleepy voiced floated in from the stairs. "What's all the noise?"
Prime turned to see his daughter standing halfway down the stairs, still
wearing her nightgown and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Then she
noticed the boomer. "What's THAT?!"
Prime didn't want to alarm his daughter, but he couldn't think of a
convincing lie quickly enough. "It's... uh, it WAS a boomer." He admitted.
Proxima's eyes went wide. "Really? COOL!" she ran down the stairs to get a
closer look. "Oh wow it really is, isn't it? What kind was it, a 33-S? No, there
would have been more organic matter, and it would have been all grody. A
55-C, right? What happened to it? It looks like it's been through a hydraulic
press! Did it try to hurt you?" Suddenly Proxima looked up at her father, eyes
filled with concern. "Dad, did it hurt you? Are you all right?"
Prime wasn't exactly sure how to react. "I'm fine, kiddo. Not a scratch, see?"
Zen smiled. "Actually Proxy, your dad was the one who destroyed it."
Proxy blinked. "Really?" Her eyes filled with parental hero worship. Prime
looked embarrassed.
"Really." Zen replied. He looked at Prime. "You realize there are probably
more of these things out there."
Prime nodded. He felt a strange itching at the back of his mind that told
him that all was not right on Fred. "I'd bank on it. Look, it isn't safe for
Proxy here anymore. You guys go find out what's going on, I'll take Proxy to
the bomb shelter near the infirmary and catch up with you as soon as I can."
***
Ryouga was awakened around 3, when there was a knocking at the door.
Hazily, he got up, turning on a light so he could find his way to the door.
"Lucas must've forgot his key or something..." he mumbled, opening the
door to the bathroom. Seeing no one there, he shrugged, and went back to
bed.
A few moments later, there was another knocking. Ryouga ignored it, but
this time the noise woke up Akari. She turned on another light, and got up
to answer the door. She opened it slowly, but was quickly assisted by
someone forcing it open all the way. With an "eep!" of surprise, Akari fell to
the floor, and a man dressed in a standard Bob uniform scanned the room
slowly.
Ryouga had been awakened by the commotion and noise at the front door.
He got up again, to see the man taking a step into the room. It looked
around the room, and seeing Eric, took a few more steps into the room.
Ryouga, possibly enjoying Eric's bout of sleepfullness as much as Eric, got up
quickly. "He's asleep, don't do any... urk!"
This was brought about by the man turning to Ryouga, and lifting him off the
ground, by his neck. "This doesn't concern you." He said simply, tossing
Ryouga into a wall.
Ryouga got up quickly, leaping towards the man. "I don't know who you are,
but you're really starting to bug me!!"
Ryouga lashed out a fist, which *clanged* against the man's chest. Clang?
Metal?
"Oh shit.. BOOMER!"
***
Eric was dreaming. This much he knew. It was pretty obvious from the
weird ethereal voices that occasionally popped up, telling him to wake up,
and the more recent cries of 'Boomer'. But Eric didn't care, he was enjoying
himself too much.
"That's good Wyrm, you've almost got every spot of dirt off my motorbike.
Almost. Give it another run over just to be sure.. And after you're done, the
royal lavatory needs cleaning..."
Eric smiled. Yes, indeed, the outside world could wait for a while. At least,
not until the ethereal voices said one word which sent chills through his
soul.
"Washuu might still want the Guide.. She might have sent it!! Eric, wake
up!!!"
<Washuu? OhdamnohcripesI'mgonnadie...>
-=-
Eric woke up screaming, moments after Akari yelled these words. His
vision came in to a scene of unimaginable violence and chaos. Had he not
just been pulled from his first night of sleep in weeks, he might have
enjoyed it. As it stood, he was annoyed. Looking around, he saw no Washuu,
and thus, no real need to have woken up.
There -was- however, a rampaging boomer trying to turn Ryouga into swiss
cheese. And it was responsible for his (once more) extended lack of sleep.
"AARRRHHHH!!!" was what Eric managed to utter, before leaping up into the
air, tackling into the boomer, and being thrown back. Oh yeah, made of
metal. Cripes that hurt.
It did, however, manage to get the boomer's attention. It tossed Ryouga
aside, and Eric winced. Those could have been his contusions... Or worse.
The boomer smiled, and began to walk towards him.
For once in a long time, Eric considered that his actions may harm others
around him. An uncharacteristic moment, but maybe being around all these
overzealous overpowered writers was having an effect on him..
Irregardless, he razzed the boomer, flipped him the bird, and whipped out a
grenade from his trench (which of course he never took off). He tossed it at
the ceiling, and flew through the opening it created.
"You want me pal? Come and get me!!!" he cried, flying off into the night
sky. Naturally, and perhaps foolishly, the boomer did just that.
Explosions and gunfire rattled across the FRED base. It was going to be a
long night. In Eric's case, -another- one.
***
Three Mistakes..
The Natsume family and retainers were bunking together. Kysaku and Akiko
in one room, Nuku Nuku, Eimi and Ryunosuke another and Arisa and Kyouko
and their gun collection in a third.
Akiko was understandably not pleased with the cramped accommodations;
Too much like the time they 'played' house. Kysaku was, of course, very
happy. All the equipment and resources he needed, and a large crew of
Otaku Engineers who could be persuaded to help realise his dreams.
The 55-C had entered without knocking. It's first mistake.
Then it had transformed. It's second mistake. Nuku Nuku had a new
playmate...
Then Eimi and the Office Ladies from Hell joined in.
The third mistake was made by Arisa, who had not unloaded her rocket
launcher from last time. It had a clip of Catnip loaded.
It took almost an hour for Ryunosuke to calm the catgirl down, during which
time she and Emii caused almost as much damage as the 55-C would have.
***
Nightelf sat alone in her apartment, casually reading away as the urgent
harmonies of "Cursum Perficio" played softly in the background. Tonight was
a night off for her, a chance to go out and have some fun. She thought about
hanging out at Akie's. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite feeling up to it, so she
decided to spend some time alone - with the person she cared for most.
The bard's words came softly from her lips as she told a small fairy tale,
though her audience was far too young to understand.
"Captain of our fairy band,
Helena is here at hand;
And the youth, mistook by me,
Pleading for a lover's fee.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
A small nudge pricked at the back of her mind, a danger sense she'd learned
to listen to over time. Something was going wrong nearby, she could feel it.
Unfortunately, she hadn't a clue as to what it was, save that it was steadily
increasing. It felt almost like a chorus of screams to her mind.
A sense of questioning came to her soon afterward, a light she was all too
familiar with. The mind closest to her stirred with apprehension.
<Don't worry, kiddo. Mommy will see what's wrong.> She put on her
jacket and prepared to leave when the commpanel buzzed throughout the
apartment.
"Nightelf here. What's wrong?"
Dr. Tofu stared out from the screen, a nervous look on his face. "Nick, we
have an emergency here. Some boomers are rampaging through FRED, and
we're starting to get in casualties."
"I'll be right there."
"No." Tofu's negative startled her; she wasn't expecting to be told _not_ to
come in. "The situation's too dangerous; we'll arrange transport as soon as
we can. Just be ready when the time comes."
Nicola gritted her teeth, holding back her anger. She hated to be treated
like something fragile. She may be a girl now, but that didn't mean they had
to treat her like one. "As you wish..."
***
The BU-55C ripped the security door of the Fred Portal Access Building off
it's hinges. According to the data it had been fed, one of the primary targets
didn't actually reside in the pocket dimension, but spent most of his time in
a hidden lab accessible through the portal in this building.
After entering the main room, it activated the portal in the corner of the
room. With the majority of the authors and animates busy fighting the other
Boomers in the compound, no one could be spared to warn Erin 2.5 that
one of Genom's most dangerous creations was en route to Shallow 15.
There were many things that annoyed Erin Mills version 2.5. People who
changed lanes without signalling, for instance. There were a group of things
that he disliked, such as people who thought they were better than everyone
else. And there were several things that he actually hated; tomatoes,
telephones, surly customers, and anything that roused him out of a sound
sleep before he was damn good and ready to wake up.
So his first response when Max sounded the security alert was: <If this is
another fucking drill, I'm gonna unplug his surge protector and jam a LARGE
negative load across his logic terminals.>
His second response was triggered by the sound of Max yelling;
"HELP, DAVE! LARGE ROBOTIC DAVE BOOMER HAS PENETRATED
SHALLOW 15. HURRY, DAVE, HURRY! RUN DAVE! RUUUU--DAISY, DAISY,
GIVE MEEE YOURRRRR ANNNSWERRRRR--"
Instantly, Erin was out of bed and tuning the security cameras in on his PC's
monitor. Sure enough, a large man who vaguely resembled Arnold
Schwarzenegger (only about half as bright) was ripping into the circuitry
underneath Max's keyboard. This provoked a chemical reaction in Erin's
brain, which caused him to go into what he termed a "Full-Blown Force 12
Pre-Psychotic Rage."
The rage was increased when the Boomer decided to open fire on Max and
all the equipment currently in the main lab. Erin's eyes went wide and he
began to actively foam at the mouth.
"Right." was all he said.
Pulling on a pair of jeans on the floor, he left the living quarters and headed
for the arsenal.
The Boomer stopped shooting up the main lab when it's ammo clip ran out.
It paused to change the clip, then proceeded to the large steel door leading
to the next room. According to the blueprints of the lab it's master had
acquired, the room beyond was where the majority of the products the
target completed were held. That room would have to go.
The Boomer was about to rip this security door off as well, but was saved the
trouble when the door slid open of it's own accord. "Bad to the Bone" began
playing out of Shallow 15's intercom system.
Soon, the Boomer was standing facing the heavily armed, highly annoyed
master of Shallow 15.
Erin was decked out in a black motorcycle jacket, a pair of fingerless leather
gloves, a bandolier of grenades, and various types of weapons about his
person. In his hands, he held his trusty Smith-Hitachi Godzilla Blaster, a
mammoth weapon with a 10-inch barrel, a three inch bore and more kick
than a Tabasco factory.
Erin smiled dangerously.
"Surprise."
He pulled the trigger.
Now, it is an well-known fact that one has to have his or her feet properly
positioned before firing a Smith-Hitachi Godzilla Blaster, lest the recoil send
the wielder flying in the opposite direction in accordance with Newton's
Third Law. Erin was fully aware of this, but since it was 3:45 in the morning
and he had just received a rude awakening, he can probably be forgiven for
the oversight.
The Boomer slammed into the main entrance of Shallow 15, while Erin
slammed into the door leading to the living quarters, causing three things to
happen:
1) Erin's grenade belt went flying, tossing grenades everywhere. As these
were a pinless prototype designed to detonate five seconds after being
pulled from the belt, Shallow 15 was soon rocked with a number of
explosions.
2) The explosions set off the fire alarms and sprinkler system. The water
and fire retardant chemicals reacted violently with Max's exposed circuitry,
and started a fire which short-circuited the fire prevention system.
3) Erin lost all of his weapons except the Blaster. These were destroyed by
the aforementioned grenades.
Needless to say, Erin was not thrilled to see the Boomer stand up, shed it's
remaining syntheflesh, and power up all of it's weapons. In fact, his next
statement pretty much summed up his feelings.
"Aw, shit."
Erin sat against the door to the living quarters, and watched as the
Genom-spawned assassin began to trudge across the main lab towards the
finished projects room. He knew that a second blast from the Smith-Hitachi
wasn't going to do any good, and the rest of his weapons were useless. In
retrospect, Erin figured he probably should have watched more BGC in the
past.
Oh, well. There was one recourse left to him. He flicked his left wrist and
the Shallow 15 Master Remote Control slid into his hand. He prepared to
press the "Auto-Destruct" button. Sure, he'd probably die from the force of
the explosion, but at least nobody else would be able to use Shallow 15 to
help (?). He was about to press it when he spotted another button, one that
he'd forgotten about in the confusion.
The one marked "Panic."
Erin pressed the Panic button. Instantly, the sounds of Oingo Boingo's
"Weird Science" filled the air. Erin watched in sadistic glee as the Boomer
was sealed into the main lab by way of an energy net that surrounded the
whole room. Out of several hidden panels, six service droids rolled out, each
equipped with an assortment of tools, gadgets, arc welders, chainsaws,
buzzsaws, and even a small tacnuke or two.
Erin sealed the door to the main lab, stood up, holstered his blaster,
reached into his pocket and pulled out a thin cigar. He didn't smoke, but
tonight was going to be... special.
He unsealed the door to the living quarters and settled in to watch the fun
on the monitor.
"And people say there's nothing good on TV anymore." he smiled as he lit
the stogie.
It is not worth going into what happened after this, except to say that
Shallow 15's supply room was soon equipped with several hundred new
spare parts. Max was repaired with little difficulty. The scorch marks came
off with a little soap and water. And Erin decided to begin designing some
more advanced security measures. It was a pain to have to clean char marks
off the wall every week.
***
It had been by sheer luck that Belgaren had survived the initial assault. She
had been, once again, on a secure line with Dee, the angel taking care of her
responsibilities while she was technically AWOL, when it happened.
".. I'm telling you Bel, if that demon had whined one more time about
personal damages I'd have pulled his tentacles out one by one! I'm not
supposed to have to handle this type of thing, I should only have to settle
matters that deal directly with the Accords. Ohh, if I ever get my hands on
him..."
Bel bigsweated and decided to change the subject. "Well, I'd like to thank
you for the damping device Dee. I feel a lot safer now that I don't have to
worry about any more practical jokes or accidents."
"Just remember, it's not 100%. So you should _still_ be careful. How's
Ekisya doing? You haven't said anything about him for awhile."
"He's off doing his own th.." *Boom!*
The door to Bel's room blew in to reveal a large blue android. The red glow
from the thing's eyes scanned the room as Bel quickly recovered from her
shock. In a swift motion, one to make John Woo nauseous, Bel scrambled
for the bathroom door, blessing her boss that she had been she when this
happened, while the boomer opened fire. In desperation Bel threw herself
into the closed door and vanished an instant before the door itself was blown
into next week.
Disappointed, or as disappointed as a boomer gets, the robot turned it's
attention to Deethdra's projected image and opened fire. Dee, in response,
pulled down her lower right eyelid with her right middle finger and gave
the machine a wet raspberry before vanishing as the shot intended for her
destroyed Bel's MSBeast.
***
It watched him in silence, its weapons arm lowered and still smoking. A
pile of bodies, mangled beyond any recognition by the entry and exit wounds
of numerous 12.7mm rounds, save for the fact that they had been
defenceless civilians. A pool of blood congealed around the foot of the
BU-12B but it never took its optics off the figure in crimson standing not ten
feet away, its vibro claws extended out of its armor's forearms.
The victims had been on their way back home, after a long night of partying,
when they had heard the sirens wail. In panic and confusion, they had
rushed headlong into the darkness and into a BU-12B Battle Boomer. The
killing machine, a hulking mass of armor and weapons, had followed its
programmed directive and slaughtered them all with a single burst from its
Gatling cannon.
Gunned them down without a single thought. Webdragon had seen the
BU-12B do it with no more than a casual sweep of its arm and a hail of
bullets. Red-glowing eyes stared at him from the head of the metal
monster and it took a step towards him, its adversary. Webdragon roared a
battlecry, for himself as well as for the innocent people lying in crumpled
heaps, like sacks of meat, then he began to stalk the BU-12B with arms
extended and claws glowing a light blue in the darkness, in the Hour of the
Wolf.
There was a whirring of servomotors and suddenly the weapons arm of the
boomer was up and pointing at him. It was so... so fast! To think that a thing
of its mass could move so... Webdragon dove to one side as a hail of bullets
shot through the air from where he had once stood. He kept moving,
searching for cover, and bullets tore the ground up in chunks of concrete,
flying and hitting his armor, stinging him a little. Then he ducked behind a
trashcan, just seconds before the bullets struck the it and tore it to bits.
There was no sight of Webdragon when the smoke and dust cleared.
The Gatling gun whirred to a stop and the battle boomer began to stalk its
prey, its gun on standby and ready to fire. All manner of optics and search
programs scanned the darkness, waiting for its prey to leap out and attack.
Its programs told it that it had the advantage, since the crimson figure had
no guns and had only a pair of forearm claws. The enemy had to close the
distance to be effective. It had a 95% chance of winning the combat, under
present circumstances.
"Surprise." It came from the boomer's left, seemingly from nowhere.
Instantly the battle boomer whirled on the spot and unleashed a blast from
its 46mm railgun, the report so loud it shattered nearby windows. The huge
slug tore through steel and concrete alike, before finally impacting on a
lamp post across the street - and buckling it in two. It had hit nothing.
Suddenly claws ripped through the BU-12B's armor like a razor through
paper, ripping out internal circuitry and crippling the boomer. It staggered
before the surprise attack from its right, and it tried to bring its weapons
arm to bear. Webdragon suddenly materialized, and he was slashing away at
the machine with wild abandon, each swipe of his claws ripping away a good
chunk of armor and machinery.
"Die!!!" he cried, "Die you son of a bitch!!!"
He leapt into the air, landed on the boomer's shoulders and rammed his fist
through its head, the claws cutting deep into its brain.
The BU-12B's eyes lost their light and it began to topple over. Before it hit
the floor Webdragon had already somersaulted off and landed on his feet -
with minimal damage to his armor. What was the big fuss?, he thought as he
let his claws retract into his armor. These things were little more than
wimps. It had hardly put up much of a fight.
He stared down at the mass of dead civilians and his anger began to rise. It
may have been a wimp for him, but for these people....these defenceless and
unarmed people....untrained in any form of combat.....
Curse the indiscriminatory nature of war! The good get killed along with the
bad, like the thing he had just took out. He turned back, to look at it
and...perhaps....spit on its metal corpse.
It was gone.
<What?!>
There was a sound, like thunder, but infinitely deadlier, and Webdragon was
sent flying, to slam against the wall of a nearby building.
"Uhhhgh!!!" he let out before blackness took him. It lasted for a second,
though, and he slowly got to his feet. He had a large hole in the side of his
armor, and he hurt like hell! What the hell was going on here?!
The answer was revealed when the supposedly-dead boomer skimmed into
view and opened fire with its Gatling.
Hundreds of bullets ripped the air at hypersonic speeds and slammed into
Webdragon, chewing up his armor so quickly that much of it was gone in the
initial assault. And still the bullets kept coming, even past the point when
Webdragon should have been a long smear of blood on the street.
<Should...have...been dead!>, thought Webdragon as he fell to his knees,
bullets slamming into him. It should have been dead! He thought he had
killed it...but apparently he had been too careless... and now he was going to
die for his mistake.
But he wasn't dead yet. Bullets struck him repeatedly, in places where his
armor had been ripped off, and all he felt was incredible pain. The wounds
he had were only scrapes, and cuts and bruises galore. <Why am I still
alive?>, he wondered as he held his arms up in wonder, watching the bullets
bounce off his skin. <Why?>
There was another thunderclap, and the darkness took him a second time.
The boomer's Gatling had long since run out of ammo and it was now using
its 46mm railgun to finish the job. It skimmed close to the broken wreck of
its opponent and it began to wonder. Why hadn't its target been obliterated
by the hail of bullets it had sent its way? According to its archives, a normal
human being should have been dead 20.567 seconds ago, from the first shot
to unprotected skin. This was no normal human being, it decided, and
another 46mm round was loaded into its railgun. It fired at the target at
nearly pointblank range, and its opponent was sent tumbling head over
heels, for the third time since the battle. Sensors scanned and the boomer
halted. It STILL was alive, though badly hurt.
Webdragon felt a rage settle in his stomach, a cold and inhuman fury he had
never known before. It tore through his mind and broke through many
barriers of his former life. And suddenly the world changed. He changed.
No longer was he Webdragon. He was Other, now, and Other revelled in his
new freedom.
Webdragon got to his feet and the boomer fired at him again. There was a
flash of dark red ki before him and the bullet ricocheted, bouncing off a
shield that had suddenly appeared in front of him.
Then Webdragon snarled and a swirl of energy began to coalesce around
him. The boomer began to retreat, but it was already too late. He suddenly
punched out at the boomer and a fireball of crimson ki exploded from his
hand, melted the concrete beneath his feet and struck the boomer squarely.
The effect was astounding. An explosion rocked the foundations of Fred as
the boomer's armor crumpled beneath the power of the ki blast and gave
way, allowing the energy from the ki blast to tear its innards out in a fiery
spectacle of flying parts and circuitry.
This was life! This was power! To crush one's enemies beneath one's claws!
Webdragon's eyes glowed red with power, the same red as the boomer's eyes
had once shone. He hissed with satisfaction, a frightening sound, and he
whirled around, his long hair flying and dark red ki burning at his fingertips.
Dead civilians, huge holes punched through their frail bodies, blood
everywhere.
Hah...it was their own fault. They were so weak, and defenceless, that they
deserved to die. Weakling humans, totally unfit for battle and for war. He
turned to leave, to find more boomers to kill.
Then....something moved in the pile of dead bodies and a small hand
surfaced. It waved around for a bit, searching for something to grab onto. A
child, no more than four, pulled itself from beneath the body of its mother
and it stared down at the men and women that had once been its family, and
family's friends. Tears streaked its blood-covered face as it cried, and cried,
and cried. It happened to look up and it saw Webdragon. It cried out in
terror at the dark figure with red glowing eyes, the same glow that had been
in the late boomer's optics.
Slowly, the Other retreated into Webdragon and his eyes slowly returned to
their normal colour.
He shook himself to clear his vision and he stared at the child amidst the
corpses. A....kid?, he thought as he started walking towards the child.
It screamed in horror and backpedalled over its mother, lying in gory death,
and it tripped. She, for it was a girl, fell to the ground and struck her head,
crying out in pain and in fear. Her eyes were wide and focused all on
Webdragon, and her tiny hands were held up as if to ward off the impending
attack.
Shell shock. Or trauma. After seeing her mother, and probably her father,
and more people, gunned down - she must be emotionally scarred.
Webdragon took another step and the kid backed away in fear. No wonder,
thought Webdragon as he looked down at himself. He looked like a monster,
with his bruises and his blood covering his entire body. If the kid wouldn't
come with him, then he would have to go to the kid. He couldn't just leave
her there, could he? But she was scared to death of him, this walking
monstrosity that looked vaguely like a human being.
The sound of a broken fire hydrant caught his attention and he stared at the
stream of water gushing out of the fixture. It beckoned to him. And he
braced himself for the change as he walked over to it and dipped his head
under the cool water.
A little while later Webdragon-chan had the child in her arms and she was
soothing her with whispers. She knew it. The female figure was less
threatening to the child, and was similar in shape to the child's dead
mother. She had washed the blood off herself and the child. It helped to
calm the child down, at least.
The child nestled against Webdragon-chan's chest and she flinched, but she
relaxed and continued walking back to the Special Ops dorm, the future in
one arm and the wrecked weapons arm of a battle boomer in her other
hand.
***
Ranchan sprinted back to his dorm. Alarms sounded all over the place.
<This is not good.> he thought to himself as he tried to get back to his room
to help his friend. He had been helping a few techies with the upkeep on
his fighter. He figured that it would be a good idea to get as familiar with
the jet as possible. He had also wanted something special added to the
payload. The techs had been surprised at the request, but saw nothing
wrong with it. Just as they were closing up shop at 3 am, all hell broke
loose. There was a massive explosion from the warehouse district.
Fred was under attack.
He had turned on his personal comm and listened to the reports as they
came in. Boomers had infiltrated Fred and were doing mass damage.
Several key members of the ALF were under fire and collateral damage was
high. Ranchan had immediately headed back to his dorm. He knew his
roomie Eric Jones would probably be a target, what with him creating the
hitchhikers guide to reality. What few people knew was that he didn't have
it with him. The boomers probably didn't know, but they would still be
after him. He also knew that Jonesy, while prone to insomnia, could sleep
through a supernova. If he fell asleep that is.
Ranchan worst suspicions were realized when he approached his semi
destroyed dorm. The top level had collapsed. The main level still seemed
intact though, just really messy. As he dug his way in he found a battered
Ryouga being held by a crying Akari. He was breathing okay, and seemed
only a little beat up, but Akari had almost lost him once and was not taking
any injury to her fiance well.
"What happened?" Ranchan asked as he checked Ryouga, and was relieved
to find his cursory evaluation of him had been bang on.
"B-b-boomer a-a-attacked." she stammered. Several moments passed as she
stopped crying and tried to compose herself. "It was after Jones." she said
finally. "Ryouga tried to stop it, but he's still not a hundred percent yet. He
was knocked out trying to protect me." she started crying again. Ranchan
went over to her and gave her a hug. She grasped at him tightly.
"Don't worry." he soothed. "Ryouga's gonna be okay. He's been through
worse than this." That seemed to help a little as Akari calmed down.
"Where's Azusa?" he asked.
"She wasn't here when it attacked, she was with Mikado."
Ranchan smiled to himself. <With Mikado, eh?> "What about Eric?"
"He escaped. Tried to distract the boomer that was attacking us. It
followed him." she indicated a direction. Ranchan got up to leave, he turned
to Akari.
"Don't worry, I'll send for the medics. In the meantime stay put. I doubt
the boomers'd try this place again." he said gesturing to the damaged dorm.
"Good thing my room is on the ground floor." he mumbled to himself. With
that he took off in the direction Akari had indicated. It didn't take long to
figure out which way they'd gone. Several small craters indicated where Eric
had vented his -explosive- tendencies. As he continued along he came
across a boomer's severed arm and leg. Explosions and laser fire resounded
all around him.
<These things are playing for keeps.> he thought.
***
Eric stood over the ruined, scarred body of the once-boomer that was
strewn out in pieces around him. The grenades hadn't done too much
damage, but that thermal detonator had certainly done the trick.. Too bad it
had taken out a good chunk of the forest with it.
Satisfied that the boomer was indeed non-functional (and after making sure
of the point, pulling out a large sword and bashing the boomer remains with
it for a while), Eric had barely paused before he leapt up into the air again.
He was pissed.
First, someone wiped his hard drive. THEN, someone chased him, trying to
steal an object he didn't even want. After -that-, he'd been forcefully locked
in a pocket dimension. And then, oohh, and then, he took a hit that should
have been Wyrm's, and now.. His sleep had been stolen from him. No
matter how peaceful one tries to be, one can only take too much...
Little flames could be seen bursting all around his head. Eric had just
passed his limit.
"I'M GOING TO GET SOME PEACE AND QUIET TONIGHT, IF I HAVE TO
KILL EVERYONE ON THIS BASE!!!" Eric cried, leaping into the air. From
the chaos around him, it was obvious he had not been the only target. But
now, the hunters were going to be hunted.
Eric reached into his jacket, and pulled out a strangely glowing sword, with
engraved crosses in it's hilt, and most importantly, a very sharp edge.
Hmm. This would do.. A glint came to Eric's eyes, as he smiled more than a
little insanely. Time to go shopping...
***
Ranchan was picking his way through the debris when he came upon a large
crater filled with the remains of what looked like a boomer. "Looks like Eric
went with the thermal detonator." he commented as he checked the sides
of the crater. "Yep, smooth as glass." He said as he felt the ground.
Thermal detonators created so much heat when they exploded that they
fused the sand on the ground into glass. He was examining the boomers
trashed body when he heard a voice carried by the wind. Even with all the
explosions and gunfire around it came through loud and clear. "I'M GOING
TO GET SOME PEACE AND QUIET TONIGHT, IF I HAVE TO KILL
EVERYONE ON THIS BASE!!!"
Ranchan looked off in the direction of the voice and could see something
eerily glowing in the sky. "Yep, that's Jonesy alright. Sounds like he may
have gotten to sleep too, he's usually only that cranky when he wakes up."
Ranchan had learned early on that Eric didn't sleep much, he'd also learned
via Ryouga that one shouldn't bother him when he did wake up. Jonesy just
was not a morning person. For Ryouga to be nervous about him was
something to be said indeed. "Well I'd better get over there before he goes
and does something stupid...again." With that Ranchan took off after his
flying comrade.
***
Ranchan approached his pissed off partner. "Yo! Jonesy!" he called to his
friend. Eric turned to look at Ranchan with fire in his eyes, Ranchan took a
step back but stared at his comrade. After a few minutes Eric flinched and
seemed to calm slightly.
"What do you want?" Eric said with an edge to his voice. Ranchan had never
known his friend to get this angry and decided to play it cool.
"Oh nothing." he replied. "Just out for a stroll, heard a few explosions and
decided I wanted to get in on some of the carnage." he pulled out his
lightsaber and ignited it for effect. The bright green blade flared to life with
a *snap-hiss*. "Mind if I join you?"
Eric seemed to contemplate this for a moment before floating down to the
ground. "I finally fell asleep. Finally. Was having a great dream too, and
then some stupid Boomer has to come and ruin it." he said in an
exasperated tone. "Well I've had it. They are going to pay!" he said, his voice
rising in anger. "And you better not try to stop me."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Ranchan replied. "Hang on just a sec. Just need to
slip into something more comfortable." While Eric watched Ranchan
walked over to a broken water main and allowed it to soak him. Ranchan
walked back over to where Eric waited and her clothes reshaped to fit her
new body.
Flames erupted around her body coalescing into the form of a phoenix. She
looked at Eric and smiled wickedly, her green eyes flashing. "Ah much
better. Shall we?" she asked. Eric smiled at her and took to the air. She
followed close behind.
Suddenly Ranchan's comlink buzzed at her side. "<Mayday, mayday. Sickbay
is under attack. We need anybody who can fight. Mayday, mayday.>"
Ranchan pulled her comlink from her belt and flicked it on. "Ranchan and
Jonesy on our way." The two arrowed off towards the med-centre.
***
Wyrm-chan poked her head into the study. "Um, Wyrm-sama. Do you know
that the Fred's alarm sirens are sounding?" she asked.
The core of the triad that was Wyrm, Wyrm-kernel, was leaning back in his
chair reading _Applied Block Transfer Mathematics_, By Adric of Alzarius.
He looked up at Wyrm-chan and said simply, "Yes. Ignore it."
The redhead's eyes widened, "huh? But if Fred's in trouble, we gotta help
'em!"
"That damn siren's busted; it's been sounding false alarms for the past
month," Wyrm said evenly. "I've asked for it to be replaced, but nobody's
seen me about it. It's probably another false alarm."
"Say, are you hungry?" asked Wyrm abruptly.
"Come to think of it, yeah!" Wyrm-chan smiled.
Wyrm picked up the phone next to him (an anachronism) and pressed
speed-dial for his favourite pizza joint. He waited for a second, "Hi, I'd like
to order a small Buffalo Sampler pizza..."
***
Erin sealed the door to the main lab, holstered his blaster and sighed.
<I didn't want to have to use it, but it looks like I have no choice...>
He stepped to the door of the Arsenal and deactivated the seventeen
security locks. He went into the room.
The walls were lined with a wide variety of weaponry, ranging from ancient
tribal spears to fully automatic, hand-held particle beam cannons. The main
feature of the room was a huge glass cylinder with a blue platform at it's top
and base. The cylinder stood 14 meters high, 8 meters wide and was
surmounted by a flashing blue light. The entire cylinder was surrounded by a
green energy shield.
Erin raised the S15MRC and pressed a button. The shield instantly
disappeared. He entered the glass chamber and stood on the bottom
platform.
"Activate." he commanded.
He was surrounded by a field of glowing charged particles moving at great
speed. A high whining noise filled the room. And as the keening reached its
peak, there was a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning shot from nowhere,
striking the top of the cylinder. The electricity was diffused through the
particle field, bathing Erin in a bright white light.
When the light faded, Erin stood in the cylinder dressed in silver body
armor with the Shallow 15 logo on the left breast. His feet were encased in
silver knee high armored boots with yellow trim. His forearms were covered
with silver bracers. A considerably modified Smith-Hitachi was attached to
the left, while the right held a communications panel. His collar length hair
was pulled back into a short ponytail and his glasses had changed into a pair
of solid silver wraparounds. A pair of blue gloves completed the ensemble.
"Let's Rock." he said quietly. He tapped the comm panel.
"Fred command, this is Captain Mills. I'm coming in. Out."
He pressed a sequence of buttons on the blaster, causing a list of various
ammos to appear on a small readout.
<Lessee here... Standard, Storm, Flame, Ice, Spark, Sting, Torpedo,
Boomerang and Shield. All full. Good.>
He left the Arsenal, unsealed the lab door, deactivated the energy net,
walked past the scattered parts of the ex-Boomer activated the portal to
Fred and stepped through.
***
Back in the Special Ops living room..
The dorm door creaked as it opened once more. This time it was greeted
with the sound of a respectable number of energy weapons charging up and
the clack and snick of bolts, slides and safety catches.
In the doorway was another Webdragon. However, this one was in female
form, and looked as if she had just lost a fight with a piece of large farm
equipment. Hanging from her were the remains of some kind of armored
suit, and her upper body was completely bare. In one hand she carried the
severed weapons arm of a combat boomer. Cradled firmly against her chest
with the other was a small child, no more than three or four years old.
Prime motioned everyone to lower their weapons. "It's cool. It's the genuine
article. No boomer's mind could be that twisted."
"Gee, thanks." Webdragon snorted. She tossed the weapon arm onto the
floor. "We have a problem."
Zen moved aside so that Webdragon could see the scrapped boomer. "We
noticed."
Webdragon raised an eyebrow. "What the hell happened to... no, nevermind,
I don't wanna know."
Prime stared at the child. He was getting some odd feelings from the child
that he KNEW couldn't be right. Feelings directed at Webdragon. "Webby,
who's..."
The child stirred and peeked out at the motley group standing around the
living room. "Mommy, who are these people?"
There was the distinctive sound of multiple jaws striking the floor.
"_Mommy_?!" Everyone said in unison.
Webdragon ignored them and walked over to the nearest couch. "They're
friends, sweetheart." She tried to disentangle the child, but she refused to
let go, so Webdragon simply plunked down with the girl still clinging to her.
Zen leaned over to Kyone. "Zen thinks maybe this parenthood thing is
becoming contagious."
"Wonder if there's a vaccine?" Kyone replied.
"Gee, Webby, have you been beaming without protection?" Prime asked with
a lopsided grin.
"Shut up, Prime." Webdragon replied.
Prime was taken aback by the coldness in her voice. He caught a stray image
from her mind, of a blood-soaked child clinging to the barely recognizable
corpse of a woman, crying. He shook his head to clear it, wondering why his
psionics had picked now to go into high gear.
"We were just headed out to see if there were more of these running
around." Yuri said, kicking the scrap pile.
"There are. It's a war zone out there." Webdragon said. "Give me a minute
and I'll go with you." She tried to get up, but cluched her side and winced,
sinking slowly back down.
"Not likely, sugar." Ukyou replied, strapping on her weapons belt and
clipping her lightsaber to it. "You can barely walk, and I think you have other
things to worry about." She waved a hand at the child clinging to Webdragon.
Prime considered for a minute. "Zen, what are the chances of another
boomer coming here?"
Zen shrugged. "If they're going for specific targets, probably not much. Zen
thinks the military boomers will probably stay where the population
concentration is greatest."
"Alright." Prime fixed Webdragon with a hard look. "Webby, I'm leaving
Proxima here with you. I want you to promise me that you'll make sure she's
safe."
"I'm not..." Webdragon began, but trailed off. Prime was giving her a look
that told her she'd better not refuse. She glanced over at the boomer
remains, and got a sneaking suspicion about who had destroyed it. "Alright. I
promise you I'll make sure she's safe."
Prime nodded. "Good." He turned to Proxima. "I'm going to leave you here
for a bit so we can find out what's going on. You stay here and do what
Webdragon says, okay?"
Proxima rolled her eyes. "Daaad! I'm not a kid anymore, y'know!"
Prime grinned and ruffled her hair. "'Course you're not." He picked up a
large plasma rifle and nodded to Ukyou. "Okay, lead on fearless leader."
Ukyou lead them out, Prime taking one last glance at his daughter. Once
they left, Webdragon sighed and sank back into the couch.
Proxima gave her a lopsided grin, almost exactly like her father's. "So,
_Auntie_ Webdragon, would you like me to get you some clothes?"
***
The Wrecking Crew...
"We're ready chief." Roland, the senior squad leader spoke
Barry looked out over the eighteen.. nineteen faces looking back.. the crew
of techs who'd been putting FRED back together. He'd worked with them,
trained with them, lived with them, and now he was going to fight with
them.
They were all in armour and field gear, helmets held in both hands in front
of them. Mackie in his Powersuit towering over all, the headpiece folded
back. An automatic grenade launcher and hyper velocity chaingun poking
over the shoulders supplementing the rocket launcher in one fist.
He could see Kate out of the corner of his eye, at his elbow in case he
stumbled.. the painkillers were making him feel a little light headed, he had
taken just enough to get the edge off... his arm and side throbbed. He knew
he probably shouldn't be doing this, but it was something he had to do, and
he judged he was still capable of leading, if not fighting.
"OK, lock the place down and we move out. By the numbers people, like the
sims. They _should_ only have thermal vision... smoke and ultrasound
tactics. Lock and load."
Helmets went on and were sealed and checked. There was a series of
whines as PPGs were armed, and the rattle of bolts and snick of shotgun
cassettes being loaded, the three Squad Automatic Weapons troopers testing
the freedom of movement of their gyromounts.
"Are you OK with this Kate.. We're going into harm's way, this is not what
you signed up for. You could stay.." he spoke softly as she helped him put his
helmet on
"I think I'm probably safer with you. Anyway I'm not one of these delicate
flowers that shrink at the sight of blood."
He thought for a moment of his office a few minutes ago, and a scene from
the OVAs on the steps of GENOM "Aye.. that you're not Kate.. It's you choice.
I'm sorry about before. I was.."
"<Mayday, mayday. Sickbay is under attack. We need anybody who can fight.
Mayday, mayday.>" A small telltale on his HUD told him it was the FRED
emergency frequency.
Barry's head snapped up.. "Captain Cadwgan here, Give me a sitrep!"
He listened for a moment... nodded. "We're on our way"
"Unit Push." he muttered, the helmet AI selected the Wrecking Crew
general channel "OK, Listen up! The Med Center is under attack! At least
three BU-12b's Ready to move out! Deploy drones! MOUNT UP!"
Four jeeps with pintel mounts and a powersuit screamed out of the
engineering building.. a small swarm of recon drones fanning out on their
axis of advance.
Toward the sound of the guns...
***
"Contact Front-left! 70 meters! Closing fast!" the drone controller shouted,
limiters damping the volume to something tolerable over the comm-links.
"ACTION ON FRONT! SMOKE AND DEPLOY! AMBUSH DRILL!" Barry
shouted, trying to keep the tension out of his voice.
There was a scream of tires as the jeeps crash stopped and their cargo
tumbled out..
The automatic grenade launcher on Mackie's suit chugged out a spread of
grenades creating a smoke bank. The Wrecking Crew scuttled into it and
found cover.... Vents in their helmets automatically closed as they went onto
internal air, their HUDs displaying a monochrome world of ultrasound.
The Boomer skidded around the corner riding it's thrusters, straight into
the hot smoke and a point blank volley of PPG fire and 7mm rocket
assisted osmium projectiles..
***
On the other side of Fred, one of the construction teams was trying to clear
away one of the piles of rubble left over from the days wanton destuct... er
playfulness of the inhabitants.
The entire area was lit up with floodlights to allow the work to continue at
night. While this was not something they normally liked to do, it became
necessary in order to get every project done before Fred was attacked.
The five person team was split up to accomplish the various tasks, though
they all stopped as they heard a huge *BOOM* . They were soon to find out
that the BU-12's had started their attack.
"Sparks," Otaku called up. "Can you see who's causing that? If I get my
hands on whichever person is giving us more work to do this time, I'll
personally rip his head off!"
After a few seconds, Sparks called down. "My god, sarge! It's a freken
Combat Boomer, and it's headed this way!"
"_WHAT?_" Otaku tried raising LPAC Ops, but didn't know that the people in
there were currently fighting for their lives. "Frack! This is bad.
Everybodydown here, STAT! We've got to figure out how to get out of this
alive."
A few seconds later, they were assembled together. "Ok, whose got any
weapons?"
There was a chorus of no's to that, as almost everybody but those in SpecOps
and a few others had ignored their commander's warning and hadn't started
carrying weapons nor armor yet.
"Crap." Otaku spat. "We can't raise any help, so it's up to us to stop that
thing." Despite the sounds of shocked disbelief at what he'd said, Otaku
started looking around at the various construction equipment and
remembering the discussions they'd had during training about how to use
construction equipment as weapons. "And I think I've got an idea."
***
The first boomer had been easy. It had waltzed into their ambush. The first
volley disabled it, sending it spinning into a building, easy meat for the
second.
Barry had the Wrecking Crew leave the jeeps a block from the Med center.
They were quiet, but not _that_ quiet. He could hear the ripping snarl of
heavy machine guns and Auto PPGs duelling and a boom of something
heavier. <May as well get a few good licks in before they know we're here.>
"Drones, give me a picture. Hmmm.. OK Squad leaders to me."
Even with high tech communications, it's people who fight, and personal
contact is best for explaining things when you have time..
They clustered around the flexible thin film display showing that area of
FRED, themselves and the Boomers as located by the recon drones.
"This is how we'll do it. Squad advance by bound and overwatch. A and B
point, D covering, C with the jeeps and Mackie staying here as our mobile
reserve. standard interval to here," as he indicated with his finger, the map
added graphics indicating the movement "A and B move to here and here, D
to here, Mackie and C squad reserve, here. D squad will initiate. Any
questions?"
He looked up, meeting each ones eyes in turn. Everyone was scared, even
himself in a cool dispassionate way.
"OK then, lets do it!"
"We'll wreck the Bastards!" joked Roland.
***
The BU-12 walked into the well light area where the LPAC construction
team had been only a minute or two earlier. It could still sense energy
signatures from the abandoned construction equipment. It was a little
frustrated at having missed the engineers, which were a high priority target,
but decided to relieve that by blowing some more stuff up. Unfortunately for
it, it was wrong.
As the boomer took a few more steps forward and brought up it's gun to
demolish a wrecker, four packages of HE demolition charges were swung on
ropes towards it, one actually managing to explode in its face, though that
was more a fortuitous circumstance than something that was actually
planned. That didn't matter anyway, as Otaku suddenly drove out a grav
roller towards it. A grav roller is a relative to a steam roller, except that it
hovers through the use of a 20 g focused grav field that it used to flatten
surfaces. What they had done to it was to remove _all_ of the inhibitors,
which meant that instead of being a massive, slow moving vehicle that
hovered only about a foot off the ground, it was now a massive, 10 feet in
the air, hard to control 60 g masher. Actually, it careened all over the place
like Ryo-oki drunk, but Otaku still managed to run over the boomer before
it's sensors could recover. The death machine became a permanent part of
the landscape.
***
Barry was watching the boomers through a fiber optic periscope. It was
difficult to manipulate one handed, but he wasn't going to poke his head up
to get it shot off.
"Squad Report."
"A ready." Roland's voice came through from the building to his left
"B Ready." reported Jane from the one to his right
"C Ready." piped up Yoshi, parked a block behind in three of the jeeps
"Mackie ready."
Barry glanced around, D squad, the command squad was ready, crouched by
windows, out of sight.
Two Boomers were in his kill zone, blazing away at the Med Center. The
third was in cover repairing itself.
"A and B, on my word, take the closest. C, Mackie, be ready to move.."
One of the Boomers began moving backwards, disengaging...
"FIRE!"
Bright hissing streams of plasma from the SAWs played over the two
Boomers, accompanied by the stuttering roar of the shotguns and single
shots from the PPG rifles.
For a moment the Boomers writhed under the hammer, then they returned
fire, lashing the buildings with heavy machine gun fire. The already
damaged Boomer, it's thrusters disabled lumbered towards cover. A and B
squads stopped firing to shift position, dumping smoke grenades to cover
themselves.
"Mackie, Take Target 2! C squad, move up and block Target 3! D squad,
Target 1, OPEN FIRE!" Barry scrambled up, resting the shotgun barrel on
the window ledge and squeezed off a burst...
***
At the field, Rick and Lisa Hunter had been going over the morning's patrol
schedules and general squadron paperwork, burning the midnight oil.
Pilots as good as Rick sometimes have a sixth sense about danger.
Rick suddenly kicked Lisa's feet out from under her, twisting to land
underneath her.
Her surprise turned to shock as a laser bolt shattered the window through
thermal shock and cratered the wall behind them, then Rick was
scrambling for the door, tugging Lisa behind him.
The 55-C boomer kicked in the door and began to stalk..
***
The boomers must have decided that they couldn't breach the Med Center's
defences with the Wrecking Crew dug in behind them. That was good.
This meant that the 47mm rounds they'd been reserving for maximum
destruction when they _did_ make it in they could now use. On the
Wrecking Crew.
That was bad.
He finished reloading one handed and checked the map display. Mackie was
duelling with one BU12b, C squad was playing a lethal game of tag, darting in
and out between buildings, spraying another with PPG fire from the jeep's
pintle mounts. And there were now two for A,B and D to deal with.
The world blew up.
A hammer of air blew Barry back against the rear wall of the room. For a
moment he saw stars, then a reflex he didn't know he had jerked him back
up. Through the dust and gloom he could see a figure slumped a few meters
away. The HUD identified it as Kate. Akira lay sprawled a few meters further
away.
Someone was moaning in pain over the comm channel.
"D squad report" he gasped. Static.
He moved over to the figure... starting to feel bruises and feeling the sting
where shrapnel and slivers of concrete had licked open veins in his arms
and legs.
There was a crash of glass as a larger than man sized shape made an
entrance and began to limp towards him, severed actuators in one leg
clattering as it moved.
There were two of his people in the room and he had only one good arm.
Barry made a staggering dash towards Akira's PPG rifle. The weapon arm of
the Boomer snapped up and there was a whirring as the gatling dry fired.
Barry bent over the rifle for a moment, then he stood, smoothly turning to
face the boomer.
***
Webdragon adjusted the wrist bracers on her bodysuit. She had dug out the
old body armor she had worn during the incident at Washuu's lab. It didn't
offer nearly as much protection as the heavy suit did, and there was no
strength enhancements or flight rig, but it did have the vibro-claws and the
stealth device. It would have to do. There was, of course, one other problem.
"M..Mommy! Don't leave me!" the child cried out while clutching at
Webdragon-chan's arm. Since she had brought her back into the dorm, she
had been calling her 'Mommy'.
Imagine, somebody not feeling safe inside the Special Ops dorm... but the
child was serious, and crying, and was latched onto her arm with
determination.
"I'm...I mean...Mommy's not really leaving you. M...Mommy's just going out
to kill some boomers, that's all. Just sleep tight over there, and I'll be back
before you know it." A sweatdrop rolled down her neck and ran down her
chest.
"But...I'm scared, Mommy! The monster was there... in the darkness! His
eyes were red... and I was scared!"
Webdragon-chan wondered if she meant the boomer or her male side's
Other. Probably both. She knelt down to the level of the child and she
hugged her.
"Mommy's...going out. To get the bad guys. After the bad guys are gone, I'll
come back to you. Okay?"
The little girl looked at her and she nodded uncertainly.
"You promise?"
"I... I promise." The image of the child's dead mother came to her mind
and she tried to blink tears away, but failed. The child reached up and
touched Webdragon-chan's tears.
"Why are you crying, Mommy?"
"Don't worry... it's nothing." Webdragon-chan stood and glanced over at
Proxima, who was watching the exchange with interest. "Proxy, will you
watch out for her? I mean, make sure she's okay and everything?"
"Yeah, I will." Proxima said solemnly.
Webdragon picked up her spare naginata and turned to leave. "You SURE
you'll be okay here by yourself?"
Proxima made a face. "Why is everyone treating me like a little kid? I can
take care of myself!"
Webdragon nodded, satisfied and quickly left the dorm building before she
could change her mind.
***
All through FRED combat raged as boomers were desperately fought by
people who were mostly ill fitted to the task. Fires burned, buildings
crumbled and people died. It was not surprising that, in the midst of the
confusion, no one noticed an intricate design of runes flare into brilliance
then vanishing as if they had never been.
The wards had been breached.
It's creators should have noticed, but they were far too preoccupided with
avoiding being shot.
This may or may not have been a good thing...
***
Dr. Tofu Ono gulped down an old, cooled cup of tea, and tried to clear his
head. Medicine may have its rewards, but it also had its share of
heartbreaks. He'd just watched White Wolf die from his injuries, the latest
of many victims of this onslaught. Fortunately, the problem was largely
contained now, and help was on the way to deal with the injured.
Triage. Heartbreaking choices. Those who would survive without immediate
treatment, those who would _not_ survive without immediate treatment, and
last, those who would not survive.
He was a doctor, but he was also a man, and this was a side of his profession
he had hoped never to see. But he would save as much as he could, as many
as he could. But bullets and bombs and shells was far better at taking life
than he was at saving it.
Tofu sighed, and looked over at the most recent casualty. LPAC soldier, by
the look of it, with a bleeding wound in his right side, most likely the result
of a gunshot. The wound didn't look very good; it spurted blood out in
regular, but slowing intervals. If something weren't done soon... one who
could be saved.
He ordered the patient wheeled into the trauma room.
He scrubbed quickly, with an efficiency born of years of practice. Trauma
was a dangerous compromise at times; a doctor needed to act quickly to
save a patient's life without endangering the life of said patient. With a
slight flair, he dried his hands, and walked back into the room.
"Doc...Doctor?" The young man's voice was strained, but sounded...cold,
almost mechanical.
"Don't worry, son. We'll get you fixed up right away." He turned around to
the nurse, to make sure his surgical instruments were in order. He didn't
notice the sinister red glow that entered the patient's eyes....
***
Proxima was bored. She couldn't sleep. The four-year-old had passed out on
the couch in the living room. Proxy envied her.
Where were they? It had been nearly an hour. She should be out there
helping them, but no, she was too young. If only they'd stop treating her like
a kid! Then she'd show them all she could handle it!
Proxima's train of thought was derailed as she heard a sound outside the
room. She killed the lights and dove behind the couch. The door opened,
admitting an attractive young woman in a one piece jumpsuit. Her eyes were
glowing red, as she scanned the room, Uzi in hand. Proxima held her
breath, hoping that the assassin wouldn't see them.
It was, of course, at this point that the girl woke up.
"Mommy?" she asked. Then she saw the glowing eyes and began screaming.
"Shit!" Proxima cursed, she jumped from her hiding place, snatched up the
four-year-old and ran for the stairs, the Boomer in hot pursuit.
Erin dashed out of the Portal Access Building into the coumpound. The early
morning sky was ablaze with the light from explosions and gunfire.
"Just another typical night in Fred." Erin smiled grimly.
He began running across the compound.
<What next?> Proxima thought, shifting the weight of the crying
four-year-old on her back. She had dashed up all the flights of stairs she
could find, hoping to throw the Boomer off. Then, when that failed, she
began running through rooms, opening doors left and right, only to find that
they were trapped on the roof of the dorm with no way out.
The Boomer burst through the roof access and raised her weapon.
"You will know pain, you will know fear, and then, you will know death!" she
intoned.
Proxima decided to enact the one option left open to her.
"HEELLLLPPP!!!"
The Boomer opened fire.
***
"HEELLLLPP!!!"
Erin skidded to a halt and searched for the source of the scream.
"Scan." he said. On the inside of his wraparounds, a small screen popped
open, scanning the surrounding area. The scan settled on the roof of the
SpecOps dorm.
"Enhance."
The picture zoomed in, showing Proxima and a young girl of about four
cowering at the sight of an Uzi-toting Sexaroid Boomer.
"Activate EAS!" he yelled. The screen changed to a digital readout.
*3...2...1...ENGAGE*
Jets of compressed CO2 shot from the soles of Erin's boots, lifting him
slightly off his feet and towards the building at 50KPH.
As he neared the wall of the building, he bent his knees and planted his feet
against the ground. The force of the jets propelled him forward and halfway
up the wall.
Erin then began pumping his legs as if he were on a Stairmaster, letting his
toes come in contact with the walls and allowing the Emergency
Acceleration System to help him climb the surface of the building.
Proxima and the child had hit the dirt as soon as the 33S had opened fire.
Proxima watched in awe as the shots went every way EXCEPT in their
direction. It was almost as if the psuedo-woman were trying to find some
way to break her programming. If that was the case, then the two of them
had a chance of surviving this.
<Then again,> she thought as she saw the Boomer straighten and a cold
glem filled it's eyes. It looked straight at the two frightened girls, took aim,
squeezed the trigger...
And was ripped to pieces by a huge horizontal vortex of purple energy. The
Boomer was reduced to scrap in seconds.
A silver clad figure leaped up onto the roof, close to the girls. His left arm,
along with a very BIG gun attached to it, was extended. The child screamed
again, Proxima moved to comfort her.
The silver indivdual knelt down next to them.
"Are you all right?"
"Were f-fine," Proxima stammered. "Just a little frightened is all. Who are
you?"
The man took off his wraparounds.
"Erin Mills version 2.5 at your service."
Proxima's eyes widened. "The guy that runs Shallow 15? Cool!" Her mind
began to race with questions. "How do you make all that stuff? Does it really
work? What about power consumption?"
Erin held up his hands. "Whoa, hold on there. You must be Prime's daughter,
right?" Proxima nodded. Erin gestured to the trembling four-year-old.
"Who's she?"
"We don't know. Webdragon brought her home."
"He WHAT?" Erin had a hard time reconciling the man who asked for the
improved armor with the one who brought the child home with him.
"No, he was in female form at the time. She," Proxima pointed at the girl.
"thinks Webdragon's her mother."
Erin nodded. "Well, regardless, I think we'd better get you two out of here.
I'll call your father after I get you to safety."
"Aw, c'mon," Proxima whined. "I want to help you guys. I'm not a kid
anymore."
<Actually,> Erin thought. <If the stories I've heard are right, you were never
a kid, period.>
"Listen, Proxima," he began. "We need someone to look after her. There's
bound to be more fighting tonight, and neither I nor your father can be
spared to look after you while you're here. I also need you to look after her,
okay?"
Proxima pouted. Erin sighed.
"I was going to leave you in Shallow 15--"
Proxima jumped up. "Well, why didn't you say so! Let's go!"
Erin smiled. <She's Washuu's daughter, all right.>
He raised his gun arm again and pushed a few buttons, then he helped
Proxima climb on his back, put on his wraparounds and picked up the other
girl.
"Close your eyes and hold on," he said. "This trip's gonna be fast and hard on
the eyes." The girl looked at Proxima fearfully. Proxima just smiled and
nodded. The girl looked up at Erin.
"If you hurt me, my mommy'll come for you." she said indignatly and
squeezed her eyes shut. Proxima laughed and did likewise. Erin looked at
the child in his arms.
<That's what scares me, kiddo.> he thought.
"EAS Activate!"
The mad scientist and the two youngsters vanished into the night.
***
Within the dark and abandonded SpecOps dormatory red fire flared into
being on the floor, quickly forming itself in to the outline of a pentagram.
Above the center of this design a ball of green light abruptly grew from
nothingness, expanding until it burst and leaving behind two girls standing
on the fading pentagram.
Both looked remarkably similar to the other, the only difference being their
clothes and hair. One wore a solid blue fuku and had waist length grey hair,
while the other had shoulder length black hair and was clothed in an
identical costume but in green.
The two were holding hands as they appeared, but when the last of the fire
had disippated they released each other.
"Geeze, this place is a mess!" one remarked absently as she surveyed the
repeatedly patched walls and the newer bullet holes which decorated them,
"Josh sure could use with tidying up a bit."
The other was examining a large metal sphere which stood in the center of
the room, trying to work out what exactly it was. Her best guess was modern
art of some kind.
"You _do_ know that we're talking to ourselves." She remarked absently.
"Yes, but it was a legitimate comment."
"This conversation isn't though."
That caused the two of them to shut up, at least for a moment. That moment
was long enough so that, in the momentary silence, the dull thud of an
explosion could be heard distinctly.
This sound distinctly worried Richard and gave him a bad feeling in both his
halves. Josh had helped him just after they'd been split into two bodies and
Richard felt he owed the fellow author something.
He'd decided to come and visit Josh and the Magic Knights at their home so
he'd opened the Gate with "Kyone's Home" as it's destination. Something
must have gone wrong somewhere as it seemed to have dumped him
somewhere else entirely. He could have sworn that he'd gotten it right.
As he wondered where he/they were and considered the implications of the
explosion another concussion sounded. This time much closer.
Moving to a window Phobos, the body wearing blue, stared out. The street
was a mess and, as she watched, something large and both heavily armed
and armored skimmed along the street. She blinked slightly as the Boomer
passed by, it's weapons ready to take on anything it might encounter.
"I don't think we're in Kansus anymore, Toto." the two muttered, as Richard
tried to think of what a _Boomer_ was doing here.
***
Several minutes later two figures were leaping between the rooftops, each
providing cover as the other leapt over the streets. Richard still wasn't sure
where he was, but from the remains which he had found on the first roof he
didn't particularly care. People were dying on the street as bio-mechanical
war machines were let losse on innocent and defenseless people.
In some places it was as if nightmares had come to life and Richard tried to
block out the sound of terrified screams. Now though he found his selves
having to pause, hidden on the rooftops as he waited for one of these
monstrosities to pass by before he continued.
He hated feeling helpless, but he had few illusions about his fighting
abilities. Minor demons would not be a trouble, a high tech murderous
android was another thing entirely.
"No, please, no!"
The pair on the rooftops rushed to the edge of the one they were on and
peered down three stories into the street.
Two pairs of eyes quickly focused on the source of the screams and as they
watched the man who had cried out had his head simply crushed like a
grape in the hand of the BU-12B.
The expressions on a pair of faces altered, going from neutral to enraged. A
pair blue gloved hands suddenly pulled a sleek and lethal looking gun out of
nowhere and an identical set in green were now holding a two-handed
weapon, it's blade jagged with vicious looking barbs.
In Richard's mind this machine was now thought of as evil. You didn't pass
evil by, you dealt with it no matter what the cost.
Phobos prepared herself and her gun, the grip feeling warm in her hand as
she allowed it tap into her energy to power itself. It would be hard fight. She
grinned at that thought as her finger caressed the trigger.
Demios shifted the hold she had on her weapon, firming until she was
completely certain that it would not leave her hands until she choose to let
go. It would be a hard fight, she thought as she began to judge the distance
to the technological demon below.
With a sudden flick of her legs, Demios flipped over the edge of the roof.
Her body described a high arc up and over before beginning to straight down
parallel to the boomers spine. Above her now Phobos, was ready to fire at
the first opportunity.
Just the instant prior to the blade of her weapon striking the boomer
Demios lifted the restriction she had placed on it and the blade roared as
the barbs whipped around the blade, flickering with a shadowy energy. The
blade revealed itself as kin to a chain saw and an instant later struck.
If the strike had landed exactly as planned then the machine would have
been cloven almost in twain, as it was the force of the fall behind the
moving, energized blade only managed to sever the boomers arm and make a
deep furrow in it's side.
Only.
She landed heavily and barely managed to roll to the side before her
opponent spun around towards her. Richard knew they had been lucky with
that first cut and was thankful for it, but dared not presume that it would
continue.
Before the roll was completed the chain saw had been replaced with another
weapon, a shotgun. They knew that it would do little against her adversary,
but it would serve marvellously as a distraction.
Fire then pump while rolling. That was the rhythim that she fell into as she
desperately dodged the bullets spewing from the war machine. She was
thankful that the railgun was out of action, having been attached to the
severed arm.
Richard dodged and dived with Demios body while a part of his attention
still looked out of Phobos's eyes and caressesed the trigger of the weapon
she held.
For an instant the gyrations of the two combatant below brought them into
the alignment which she had waited for, the boomer's injured side facing
towards her and Demios having just rolled away from it.
She pulled the trigger back and held the gun steady as it fired.
Richard felt skin tighten against heat, despite Demios's distance from the
point of impact. Demios threw herself further from the heat and Phobos
casually adjusted her aim so that the countless blue balls of plasma which the
weapon spat out continued to hit their target.
Phobos felt her head begin to spin, a sign that too much had been drained
too quickly, so she released the trigger and drived for cover against any
potential retaliation.
As she did so Demios turned back towards their opponent, her chain sword
manifesting itself in her hands again. Richard steeled himself against the
heat and Demios rushed back at the boomer.
The boomer was not doing well. It was missing a limb and had it's back and
one side virtualy slagged, the ammunition for it chain gun exploding had not
helped. All in all it could have been in better condition, but most
importantly of all it was still trying to move.
As Demios got closer its hand twitch and, with a wide grin, Demios lopped
off the offending appendage. She could still see faint traces of blood from
where a human being had had his skull crushed by that hand.
The girl stood there for a moment and watched the boomer feebly try to
move, not doing anything except holding her sword loosely and watching for
the boomer to try to escape. Her other half dropped from the roof holding
another weapon, a true chain saw.
They spoke in a whisper as they moved as one.
"We are Phobos and Demios," they said almost lovingly to the dying android,
"In the name of all that is true, we will punish you..."
It would be a very long time until the vivisected machine stoppped moving,
but the cutting continued even after that.
***
Kei eased her head carefully around the corner of the building. She caught a
quick glimpse of the BU-12 and ducked back before it could spot her.
"It's in position."
Yuri grinned, caressing the detonator with her thumb, an almost manic
gleam in her eyes.
"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Kyone asked skeptically.
"It _always_ works." Yuri replied. "Trust me!" Gently she pressed the button.
The explosions were deafening as a large section of the wall nearest the
boomer was suddenly blown outwards. The BU-12 didn't even have a chance
to react as it was buried under tonnes of rubble.
Kei glanced around the corner at the inert pile of rubble and gave Yuri the
thumbs up. "Bingo!"
Yuri nochalantly walked around the corner to examine her handiwork.
"Toldja it always works."
Then the rubble shifted.
Yuri backed up a couple of steps. "Uh... well, almost always..."
Kei dropped into a firing crouch and leveled her plasma rifle at the pile. The
rubbled exploded away as the boomer used it's jump jets to blast free.
"Shit! What does it take to put this thing down?!" Kei cried. She pumped a
few dozen rounds into the boomer which blackened it's armor, but didn't
penetrate.
She and Yuri had to dodge quickly as the boomer opened up with it's
railgun, blasting away a good protion of their cover.
"It keeps this up and it'll drop a building on _us_!" Ukyou said, clutching her
lightsaber and wishing she had brought some kind of long range weapon.
Prime gritted his teeth as another explosion rang in his ears. He tried to
concentrate, to find this boomer's mind like he had found the last one's.
After a moment he was rewarded with a few flashes, but the boomer's core
AI was too well shielded for him to do anything with.
One of the flashes caught his attention. It had to do with threat and
capability assesment. <There... that might actually work!>
"I've got a plan." He said. "Yuri, grab that rocket launcher."
Yuri looked puzzled, but did as he asked.
Prime looked at Kei and Zen who were returning fire as best they could.
"Can you hold it for a few minutes?"
"You'd better hope so!" Kei replied.
"Good." Prime grabbed Yuri around the waist, pulling her to him, and raised
his left arm up towards the roof og the building they were hiding behind.
"Hey you pervert, this is no time to...!"
Prime ignored her. "Glitch, line." A single line arced up, securing itself in
the moulding around the roof of the structure. Immediately the keytool
began hoisting them up.
Yuri closed her eyes and grabbed onto Prime. "Ooooo....!"
Had Prime not been concentrating on what he was doing he would have
enjoyed the experience. They reached the top and Prime boosted Yuri up,
then pulled himself up after her.
"Mind explaining what this is about?" Yuri asked, loading the rocket
launcher.
"When I scanned the boomer's mind, I sensed a couple of things. First off,
we hurt it when we dropped the building on it; Most of it's external sensors
have been damaged, and it's operating on visual scanning only. Second, it
rates us as normal humans."
"So?"
"So, when it plots our possible escape routes, 'Up' isn't part of the equation."
Prime grinned. "It won't even see what hit it!"
Yuri caught on. She finished prepping the launcher and kneeled at the
edged of the roof, taking aim at the boomer. She kept the launcher on visual
sighting, just in case the boomer had threat detection gear that could sense
a radar lock-on. She lined the maching up carefully, painfully aware that she
would get only one shot.
Prime stiffened abruptly. He felt fear, terror in fact, from someone very close
to him.
"PROXIMA!" He cried and ran blindly to where he could sense she was. Right
off the edge of the building.
In most cases this would have resulted in a long and most likely crippling
fall. However, as one person has said, flying is simply a matter of throwing
yourself at the ground and missing. For once Prime's aim was off. He missed
completely.
Yuri gaped as Prime _flew_ away from the roof. Then she remembered the
boomer and quickly resighted.
The BU-12 was looking right up at her.
"Uh oh!"
***
At the field, the Boomer's last thought was one of surprise as the Gerwalk
mode Valkyrie crushed what passed for it's life out of it's metallic hide with
a giant fist.
A faint giggling came from the cockpit. It had only been built for one, and
Rick was finding the experience quite distracting. Fun, but distracting.
Still, it was probably the safest place for Lisa on base at the moment.
***
Ranchan and Jonsey flew through the night towards the Med Center. They
could see fires all over FRED, hear the sounds of a dozen desperate battles.
The Med center though, that was important.
As they arrowed down towards it they could see bright fireflies of PPG fire
converging on a dark shape.
Ranchan accelerated, the Phoenix aura expanding as she activated her
lightsaber, stooping on the Boomer.
With a scream she thrust the blade down through it's head, letting her anger
flow through it and into the machine.
The boomer glowed red at every joint and orifice . The fire of rage scouring
out the armoured shell, then it toppled, falling with a tremendous crash.
Jonsey landed next to her. "Why didn't you leave one for me? I needed to
let out my aggression on something!"
Ranchan's comm-link activated "You two out by the boomer, This is Sergeant
Roland, Wrecking Crew. There's another Boomer in the building to your
left! Be careful, the Captain's in there too!"
There was a bright, stroboscopic series of red flashes from one room of the
building in question, a sound like PPG fire but much too fast... then an
explosion that blew out the last of the windows in a shower of fragments,
glittering in the moonlight.
Ranchan and Jonsey looked at each other.
"That must be..." They both moved towards the building... flying up to the
nearest window.
Three figures in wrecking crew armour and coveralls were in the room, two
apparently unconscious. The third was on his knees, a PPG rifle with a
deformed barrel, still glowing softly, lying in front of him. He was facing the
remains of a BU-12B.
>From the melted edges, the BU12-b had been cut clean in half from head to
crotch by a powerful energy burst..
The kneeling figure started at their appearance, then slowly and painfully
stood.
There was a pounding of boots and two more figures ran in, weapons ready.
Barry waved them back and flipped up his visor revealing a face drawn with
fatigue and strain.
His voice was tired "Cadet Ranchan. There is another boomer at grid
reference 34 by 12. Take your friend and deal with it."
"But what about...?" Ranchan began to ask
Barry's voice took on a cryogenic hiss "Do you normally argue your orders
Cadet? There are people dying out there! MOVE!"
Ranchan snapped off a salute "Yes sir! Captain sir!"
Barry returned the salute and turned away, moving towards one of the
unconscious figures, now stirring.
***
Two Veritechs in Battloid mode stood guard over the med center.
Edward Becerra had organised the defence of the Med Center, one of the
few authors with real military experience. A sexaroid that had infiltrated
tried to shoot him in the back. He had shot faster. They had held the line
until Ranchan, Jonsey and the Wrecking Crew arrived, hammer to his anvil,
but the 33-S had escaped in the confusion.
It had been a good thing he'd insisted on the Med Center being a hardened
site with it's own defences.
The Wrecking crew were staggering around or just sitting slumped with
exhaustion after the adreneline/terror high of combat. One of the jeeps was
brewed up, upside down and covered in foam now, Yoshi, the driver was
still pinned under it. Not that it mattered. He'd died in the impact rather
than the fire.
Mackie's battlesuit had taken a real hammering... The autocannon was gone
completely, if he hadn't installed wet stowage, he'd have been killed when
the ammunition started to gang fire down the feed. He was still checking it
over, muttering darkly.
Jerry, demolitions expert and one of the best precision machinists Barry
knew was lying back against a wall zonked out of his mind with painkillers,
his right arm clipped off neatly above the elbow.
Barry had been pressing a pressure point in his armpit to stop him bleeding
out while Kate finished dressing the stump, their gloves were slick with
blood. He peeled his off and flung them away. Kate turned and started
throwing up. Barry held her head up, her forehead cool against his hand.
When she'd finished, he passed her his canteen...
It was no use calling for a medic. The ones in the Med Center itself were flat
chat, and of the three in the Wrecking Crew, John and Andrea were too
busy, and the third, Naoko, lay sprawled a few meters away. She had taken a
12.7mm slug in the head. It hadn't penetrated the helmet, but the impact
had broken her neck. Mike, B squad's SAW gunner was sitting cradling her,
tears streaming down his face.
Only two fatalities, and four serious wounds. The usual ratio.
<Acceptable losses.> he thought, and shuddered at the notion. He'd known
it would be like this, but knowing and memories don't quite equate to
reality.
There was a shouted "Fire in the Hole" followed by a dull boom as a satchel
charge made sure a boomer was really dead.
It jerked Barry out of his moment of introspection.
"C.." he coughed, his throat unaccountably tight "Come on Mike, we can't
leave her here."
Together they slowly carried Naoko to the improvised morgue.
***
Prime didn't think too hard about what he was doing. He was afraid that if
he questioned how he was managing to skim past the fifth story of nearby
buildings at nearly a hundred klicks, he'd end up like the centipede that
questioned it's ability to coordinate so many feet, and suddenly not be able to
do it anymore. All he thought about was Proxima. Her terror had subsided,
but he could still feel her mind touch, so she was still alive and conscious.
That was good, and probably meant everything was okay, but he needed to
find out for himself.
The mind touch shifted direction and he shifted with it. She was on the
move, and at a fair clip. He caught sight of a silver-clad figure, laden with
the two girls and skimming along the ground. It obviously wasn't Webdragon.
Prime didn't sense any fear from Proxima, but he wasn't taking any chances.
He dropped to the ground in front of the figure and raised Glitch, which
reconfigured into PPG mode. "That's far enough. Mind explaining what
you're doing with my daughter?"
The silver figure halted. "Prime?"
Prime blinked. <I know that voice!> "Erin? Is that you in there?"
Erin nodded. Proxima disentagled herself from him and ran up to her
father. "Dad!"
Prime grabbed his daughter up in a quick hug, relieved to see her safe. "You
were in trouble. What happened?" He asked.
"Boomer attacked the dorm." Erin replied. "I found these two alone, and
decided to take them to a shelter."
"Alone?!" Prime asked. "What happened to Webdragon?"
"He... uh, SHE left to try and take out some of the boomers." Proxima
replied. "She thought we were safe, honest!"
Erin backed up a few steps. There were no outward signs from Prime, but
Erin could instinctivly tell that he had just blown a gasket. Possibly it had
something to do with the slight blue glow that was emanating from his eyes.
Prime turned to Erin. "Can you get Proxima to the shelter by yourself?"
Erin nodded. "Sure, no problem. going to go trash some boomers?"
Prime shook his head. "No. I'm going to trash Webdragon." with that he
launched himself skyward, no longer caring how he did it.
Erin watched him go, wondering if Webdragon's health insurance was paid
up. <I hope the neural limiter holds up. I wouldn't want to be around him if
he went into meltdown in the state he's in.>
***
It was almost 5AM by the time Nick heard the door chime. Sleep was still
an impossibility for her, as the mental screams kept her awake. Still, she
managed as best she could, covering her eyes and trying to let the terror
pass over her. She got up and went over to the door, mentally preparing
herself for her job.
A pair of LPAC regs were waiting for her. "Lieutenant? We've been sent to
escort you to the Infirmary."
She nodded. Truth to tell, she hated the pomp of rank, though she did
recognize its usefulness at times. "Okay. Lead the way."
As they approached the hospital (not a far drive, but a dangerous one), the
urgency of the situation made itself evident. Buildings everywhere were
damaged or demolished, bodies lay strewn across the street, and fires raged
out of control. Her heart froze; what she could feel of the outside was
something out of the darkest hells.
"How bad was it?"
The two soldiers looked at each other, then back at her. "Bad, ma'am. Very
bad. Somehow, the boomers infiltrated and tore right through us."
"Sounds gruesome," she whispered, then winced at the inadequate phrasing.
They pulled up to the infirmary. Nicola struggled for a moment; they didn't
have pregnant women in mind when they designed jeeps. With the help of
her escort, she got up and walked inside.
The place, as expected, was a madhouse. Dozens of casualties lined the
corridors. Most were minor injuries, victims caught in the crossfire.
Others, though... She fought to keep her emotions in check as she
approached the desk.
"Nick? Thank Kami-sama you've come." The nurse handed her a clipboard.
"We've got fourteen serious trauma cases, all of which could use your help.
Dr. Tofu's in surgery right now, but I'll alert him to your arrival."
"AAAAAuugh!" The empath collapsed on the ground, the emotional scream
too much for her to bear. The cry she "heard" was far more than simple
pain; it was betrayal, loss...hopelessness.
Moreover, it was Tofu. Ignoring the pain, she struggled to her feet.
"Wh...What room is the doctor in?"
"Uh... room 115, Trauma one. What's wrong?"
"He's in trouble." She motioned for the escort still behind her. "Come on.
We may need your help."
The sight that greeted her was one to rival her worst nightmares... and,
given that she'd faced (?), that was saying something. Nurses lay around the
operating table, all life gone from them, their faces twisted in agony and
horror. Tofu was on the operating table, a gag in his mouth to keep him
from screaming, though his eyes were wild with hell's touch. His body was
covered in precise, calculated incisions, and his abdomen was opened as if
for surgery.
Above the body was a sight that Nick knew from her anime past, but never
wished to see in the flesh. The boomer that stared back at her was
halfway-exposed, most likely by whatever combat had occured in here. A
scalpel was held in a metal hand, while the face was a phantom's mask.
Seeing the intruders, it stepped back, and readied itself for combat.
The boomer analyzed the targets with clinical speed. Two LPAC soldiers,
male, armed and ready to fight. Medium threat. One medical officer,
female, unsuited for combat due to pregnancy. Not a threat; capture and use
for terror act.
Big mistake.
The boomer shed what remained of his human guise, and aimed at what he
saw was the greatest threat. The soldiers tried to fire, but weren't fast
enough. Nick dropped; she knew better than to go toe-to-toe with a
boomer. Especially when there were other options.
The death screams from the soldiers broke her concentration for a moment.
She looked up to find the boomer standing there, ready to grab her.
Then her eyes started to glow. Her hazel eyes seemed to flare red for a
moment, and locked onto the mechanical monstrosity.
It was in that moment that the boomer realized its one and only mistake.
The hand that reached for her stopped, as though it slammed into a wall. A
moment later, the boomer found itself flying.
"You...you have...killed...people very dear to me, and for that you're going to
pay." She reached out with her hand.
Instantly, the boomer felt the same walls as before lift him up off the ground
and contain him within some sort of prison. In an instant, other walls came.
Mechanical screams echoed through the room as joints miraculously gave
way, arms were pulled out of their sockets, and triple-redundant systems
failed mysteriously. Within seconds, all that was left of the creature was a
pile of scrap.
Nicola looked away from the boomer, and back to her comrade. Tofu was
still alive, though how was anyone's guess. The creature had meticulously
removed several of his nonvital organs, toying with the doctor before the
death blow. His eyes screamed at her, pleading to end the pain. Unsure of
what else to do, she took out an anaesthetic hypospray, and used it on the
young doctor. Time to get to work.
***
Webdragon-chan ducked behind a wall fragment as gatling rounds from the
boomer pinged all around her. She chided herself for not thinking to bring
any heavy ranged weapons. It just wasn't in her nature to use such weapons,
or any ranged weapon for that matter, for there was no gun that could
compare to the way melee weapons seemed to become -an extension of
herself, a part as inseparable as her hands, or arms, or fingers...
Still, in the name of prudence, she should have raided Zen's room for a
plasma gun or two, so she could finish this boomer off and move on to the
next one.
<I'll just have to wait it out, run it around in circles until it runs out of
ammo.> She thought. <Of course, I could always just rush it, and hope what
happened with the last boomer wasn't just a fluke, or a really weird dream.
But I'd be swiss cheese if it was.>
The boomer was doing a good job of chopping away Webdragon's cover. She
spotted another good shelter, grabbed up her naginata and dashed across
the open street.
Unfortunately, some of the loosened pavement slipped out from under her
feet, causing her to stumble and slow. The boomer reoriented, switching to
the railgun. She prepared to leap. If one couldn't run, one could always
leap...
There was an odd whistling whirr, and abruptly the boomer didn't _have_ a
railgun anymore. For that matter, it didn't even have any weapons anymore.
Something had sliced the weapons arm off cleanly at the elbow.
Webdragon-chan looked to her left in time to see a black bladed disc whizz
by. It reoriented, shrinking and losing its blades, then snapped onto Prime's
left wrist bracer.
The boomer briefly directed its attention to the new threat, momentarily
ignoring Webdragon-chan. By the time it realized its mistake, she was
already on top of it.
This time she took no chances. Three slashes through the body of the
machine with her naginata and the boomer crumpled. She darted clear as
the reactor melted down, blowing the remains to fragments.
Satisfied that the boomer was completely destroyed, she turned to Prime.
"Hey, thanks for the assist! Not..."
She saw the punch coming a mile away, but the surprise kept her from
blocking. Prime nailed her with a right cross to the jaw, which she
instinctively rolled with, coming back up into a fighting stance, her naginata
extended and held in a behind-the-back position. "Prime! What the hell are
you doing?!" she yelled.
Glinting in Prime's eyes was a cold rage. "You promised to make sure she'd
be safe." He said. "Damn you, you promised!!"
<What is he... oh no!> "Sandra? Proxy? Are they...?" she never relaxed her
fighting stance. Paranoia told her the Prime standing in front of her could
be a boomer...
"They're fine, thanks to Erin." Prime replied. "If they weren't, I would have
done a hell of a lot more than just slug you!" Prime unconsciously shook his
hand, noting how his knuckles stung, like he had punched a cement wall.
Webdragon-chan, on the other hand, didn't seem to be affected at all, save
for the surprised look on her face. And he had whacked her as hard as he
could, too.
"Wait a minute. Prove to me that you're Prime. Telekinetically levitate that
piece of rock to my left." Webdragon-chan left her words trailing off; the
consequence of failure was obvious in the way she shifted the naginata in her
hands threateningly.
Prime narrowed his eyes, the anger starting to turn from cold to boiling, but
he made the piece of rock fly with his telekinetic powers - aimed at
Webdragon-chan's midsection. She was armored and she had excellent
reflexes, so Prime figured that it wouldn't hurt her if the rock did hit. It
measured about the size of an apple and it wasn't travelling too fast. It would
be a symbol of his anger at her, for shirking her responsibilities and putting
Proxima, and Sandra, in danger...
"Kiii-yaaaa!"
Her right fist shot at the rock and struck it, shattering the missile into bits.
Prime, losing control over the shattered rock, accidentally locked onto
Webdragon-chan's fist - and before he could stop it he had already sent her
flying into the nearest building. She struck the building with an audible
*thud*, but no sooner that she did when she bounced off the wall, the
naginata butt-end pointing at Prime, her eyes promising considerable pain
to him.
Prime quickly dodged the strike, which shattered the concrete where he
had stood, and he spoke, "Glitch - staff!" A black metal staff formed out of
Glitch and he held it at the ready stance. If she wanted to give him a lesson,
he would be more than happy to prove how wrong she was to think that she
was the better!
Webdragon-chan snarled and pointed her naginata blade in a safe direction.
She depressed a button and the blade shot out, a trail of white smoke behind
it, and it embedded itself in a stone pillar. Then she began to twirl her staff
expertly, all her attention on Prime...
Amidst the ruins of a section of Fred, with fire and smoke to serve as the
backdrop, two figures fought each other with a ferocity that was born out of
part misunderstanding, and part blind anger. But of course, none of that
mattered to either of them as they sought to beat the crap out of each other.
The smaller figure blocked a forward thrust and she retaliated with a
downward arcing strike, two handed, aimed at Prime's head.
Prime dodged the attack, which put a sizable hole on the floor, and he
struck back with another thrust. Webdragon-chan parried and
counterstruck, and in the process brought herself closer to Prime. Prime,
noting this alarming change, tried to backpedal away but Webdragon-chan
was already on top of him. She got a hold of his shoulder with her free hand
- cracking his armor in the process - and placing her foot behind his own,
she flung him aside. Like a rag doll in a hurricane, Prime went flying and
struck the ground, hard.
Before Webdragon-chan could close the distance and finish him off, he
bounced back to his feet and imposed a normal telekinetic barrier before
him, trying to stop his adversary in her tracks. It didn't stop her at all and
Prime had to frantically pump more power into the barrier to finally grind
her to a halt.
"Why the hell did you attack me?!" she yelled at Prime, her blade-less spear
endeavoring to reach him.
"It was an accident....but you still deserved it! Running off and leaving
Proxima, not to mention *your* kid, to fight a boomer! Did you think you
were missing out on all the fun?!"
"You SHUT UP!!" she screamed before a swirl of dark red energy began to
coalesce on her right fist, which was, incidentally, pointed right at him.
Prime was nimble. Prime was quick. Prime was smart to dodge to one side
as fast as he could. For a fireball, made of crimson, flaming ki, exploded out
of Webdragon-chan's fist and burned a hole through the wall behind Prime,
through the succeeding walls inside the building, and out the other side. It
didn't stop there, since the fireball kept travelling in a straight line,
incinerating anything that happened to get into its path, until it suddenly
dissipated with a loud bang.
"Is that how you see me?! Has nothing of what you've seen lately of me
taught you ANYTHING?! Why did you think I left little Sandra alone with
Proxy in the dorm!? WHY!??" she cried as she stalked Prime, her staff
strapped to her back, both hands now covered with red fire.
"YOU PROMISED!! DAMN IT, YOU PROMISED TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY
WERE SAFE!!" roared Prime before he unleashed a telekinetic blast at
Webdragon-chan, who leapt aside well beforehand.
"I promised! Yes, I promised! But how could I just sit in there while
boomers are out killing people like Sandra's mother, and family?!"
"It still does not excuse the fact that a boomer waltzed right in and
attempted to kill the girls! If it weren't for Erin..."
"OH, SO IT'S THE SAVIOUR OF THE DAY, ERIN, TO THE RESCUE, IS IT!!
YOU JUST DON'T SEE MY SIDE!!!"
***
Zen motioned Kei and Yuri to move up to flank the unsuspecting BU-12 in a
courtyard. Ukyou was at Zen's side, her lightsaber clutched in one hand and
ready to activate. Zen aimed his high intensity plasma rifle at the boomer
but he did not activate it yet. He nodded to Kei, who hefted her rocket
launcher and took aim at the boomer's weapon-arm...
It was a perfect plan. Remove the boomer's weapon arm to allow Zen to
cripple the boomer with one shot - thereby letting Ukyou waltz in and slice
its head off before it could regenerate. It was the only prudent plan, unlike
the little sniper stunt Prime had pulled. Yuri was lucky the boomer hadn't
nailed her with that railgun round. It might have helped if Prime hadn't
flown off for some unknown reason. It also left the question as to when
Prime had learned how to fly. there was something weird going on with
Prime. And Webdragon, for that matter.
Speaking of which, Zen wondered where the two were.
He needn't wonder any longer as the wall to the side of the boomer, facing
Zen and the group, exploded outwards and two figures shot through. Zen
recognized the first one as Prime - albeit a very pissed off Prime - but the
second one didn't quite register in his mind until he looked more closely.
Webdragon-chan. And she had red fire around her hands, the manifestation
of ki energy.
"Oh, I see your side alright! You just HATE to be left out, that's all!" cried
Prime. The boomer reoriented its guns on him.
"That's not it! Like I said, I couldn't sit easy while knowing that those things
are out there killing innocent people! Besides, I thought Proxy had the
knowhow or power to protect herself!!" screeched Webdragon-chan back.
The boomer reoriented its guns on her instead.
"A twelve year old KID?! You expect Proxima to defend herself against a
boomer? And you left on that *assumption*?!"
The boomer seemed to consider the two adversaries for a moment, then it
aimed its weapons at Prime.
"STAY OUT OF THIS!!!" yelled Webdragon-chan and Prime at once as
Webdragon-chan pointed both hands at the boomer and unleashed a ki blast
of tremendous proportions, even as Prime gestured at the boomer. Zen
could see the meeting of two tremendous forces converging on the boomer -
rolling, red fire and a barely-visible telekinetic blast - and the death of the
boomer was nothing short of spectacular.
The red fire turned the back of the boomer into slag and burned through
circuitry - it would have torn the boomer out the other side but for the
telekinetic blast, which literally ripped the boomer's front and innards to
shreds. The two forces warred for a moment, keeping the now-dead
boomer on its feet, then they dissipated and the broken, and slagged, husk
of the war machine crumpled to the hard concrete.
The entire group gaped. Zen glanced back at his companions. "Correct Zen
if he is wrong, but I don't believe either of them could do that yesterday."
Kei ducked a flying piece of debris. "Well, they're doing more damage than
the boomer was! We have to stop them before the wreck this entire block!"
"Oh yeah, sure," Yuri replied. "YOU go up and tell them to play nice!"
Kei was about to reply when one of her earrings beeped. She grasped it,
activating the tiny comlink. "Mughi?"
There was a stream of growls and snarfs, which Kei impatiently cut off.
"Yeah, yeah, I don't care if all the big explosions are disturbing your nap, for
once we AREN'T making them! Our comlines to Fred Central Command are
jammed, so just shut up and reroute our signal, okay?"
***
Wyrm's pizza was quite nice.. it had an interesting piquancy.
***
Prime stood in front of the pile of rubble from a recently destroyed wall He
raised his arms upwards and in response dozens of chunks of rubble rose
into the air. Then he thrust his arms forward, as if throwing something, and
the rubble screamed towards Webdragon like a phalanx of sparrow missiles.
Webdragon jumped at the last second, dodging most of the missiles. A few
followed her in her jump and she vaporised them with a ki blast in mid-air.
She landed a few feet away from Prime and charged, staff ready.
Moments before their weapons would have met, they were flung apart like
paper dolls in a Typhoon by a blazing sapphire thunderbolt that impacted
against the ground between them, shattering it in an ozone-reeking
explosion that left them coughing.
Prime groggily got to his feet and turned to face his new attacker, blinking
away the afterimages that danced before his eyes. His mouth immediately
went dry.
Standing in the middle of the carnage was a tall, slender woman with
delicate, almost elven features and long red hair flowing in a knee-length
mane down her back. He mentally ignored the fact that she looked
extremely annoyed, his mind instantly fixating on the fact that she was only
wearing a loosely tied bathrobe. A very _short_ loosely tied bathrobe...
Prime knew that she looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place her. In
spite of himself the Cute Redhead Subroutine had kicked into overdrive. It
immediately pointed out to him just how accident prone the bathrobe
looked.
The girl looked at him, dark fire burning in her cobalt eyes as she stood
poised, a few flickering remnants of electricity still crackling along her
fingertips of her half-raised hand.
"I suggest you learn to control your emotions around me." she said coldly, an
air of unmistakable menace in her husky voice.
Prime recognised that voice. <Iczer-2!> He thought. He immediately went
into the quick set of mental exercises he had taught himself to bring the
Cute Redhead Subroutine under control, and cursed himself for being such a
hentai.
Iczer-2 looked at him for a moment longer, then turned that same cold
stare on Webdragon. "You two have caused quite a disturbance. I presume
fighting the _enemy_ wasn't interesting enough for you?"
"HE started it!" Webdragon and Prime said at the same moment, pointing at
each other.
Iczer-2 didn't seem in the slightest amused. Prime could _feel_ the icy
disapproval of her contempt washing over him, and he didn't like it one bit.
***
Captain Gloval.. The old space dog had been found dead in his quarters, his
sidearm had been fired twice, and fragments of armour from a BU-55-C
were discovered, but there were very few handguns able to do more than
scratch a combat boomer.
***
Tomaru Shindo had died when the building he was in collapsed. Too many
46mm railgun rounds had fatally weakened it's structure. There was no time
for him to transform, but he had saved Michi Kanzaki, in who's brain the
secrets of the Evoluder resided, protecting her with his body.
***
Eric and Ranchan approached the building that Barry had indicated with
caution. Neither of them knew what they were going to find there and with
all the craziness around they were taking no chances. Eric surveyed the
building. It was a civilian dormitory, probably housed about 100 people, but
it was deathly quiet.
"You take the south entrance, I'll use this one." Eric told Ranchan as he
hovered above her. Ranchan nodded her assent and took off for the rear of
the building. Eric decided that it would probably be best if he were to start
at the bottom and work his way up. He floated to the ground and went in
through the main doors. The sight that met him made him gratefull that he
had had no time for dinner.
Bodies lay all over the main foyer, all of them dead or very close to it. Blood
was strewn about all over the walls. Eric got weak in the legs, followed by a
flash of anger. <These were innocent people dammit.. They weren't even a
threat! Whoever did this will pay!> He worked his way through the building
avoiding the bodies when he could and saying a silent prayer for each of
them.
On the other side of the building Ranchan was even more furious. Upon
seeing the carnage, she had promptly thrown up, unable to look at the
bodies' blank faces. When that had passed she was filled with a blinding
hatred. Her Aura had flared bright and she let loose an anquished scream
before blasting a good chunk out of the far wall with one of her Ki blasts.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" *BOOOOOOM!!!*
Eric felt the building shake and the strangled cry of his partner. <She must
have found the bodies too.> He proceeded to the staircase and headed up.
On the top floor it didn't look much better than below, and still no sign of
the boomer that did this. As he began to scour the level he heard some
muffled crying.
"Who's there?" he called out. His only response was more crying. As he
edged his way into the room where the crying originated, he saw a teenaged
girl with her arms wrapped around her knees crying. He also noticed her
hands covered in blood and a knife in her hands. The last thing he saw was
a patch of metal on her arm where the flesh had been ripped away. She was
-THE- boomer.
"Shit!" He immediately pulled out his Rune sword, ready to vent his anger on
the boomer that killed so many innocent people. That is, he was going to do
all that until he looked into her eyes, and saw the sadness there.
That stopped him cold. So did what she had to say. "P-p-p-please...I-I-I-I
didn't want to do it. I had no ch-choice. They made me do it. Please don't
kill me. It wasn't my fault. Please, I don't want to die." she continued to sob.
Eric froze, he couldn't kill this thing, even after what it had done. It was
begging him for crissakes, and it wasn't entirely impossible that what it was
saying wasn't true. Damn.
Before Eric could decide an inhuman growl broke the silence. There was a
blur and the hum of a lightsaber as Ranchan dropped from her perch. One
word issued from her lips as she brought the saber down in a wide arc
meant to slice the boomer from shoulder to crotch. "DIIIIIEEEE!!!"
"NOOO! Lucas don't do it!" Eric cried as he tried to stop his partner, but she
was too quick, and within a no time at all the boomer lay in two halves
with Ranchan crouched over it like a cat observing it's kill.
"Why the hell did you do that?!" Eric screamed. Ranchan turned to look at
him, eyes glowing and Eric took a step back. Ready to defend himself if
need be.
"I just saved your life." Ranchan said in a flat, unemotional tone.
Eric stared at his friend, "What are you talking about? She wasn't going to
do anything, she was begging me not to kill her. It wasn't her fault. (?) was
controlling her. YOU MURDERED HER!!" he finished, shouting, anger
building up. He was ready to lash out when Ranchan raised one of the dead
boomer's arms to show that it was holding a small but powerful looking gun.
"While you were busy being a nice guy, she was training this gun on you. A
couple more seconds and you would have been an addition here." she said
gesturing around the room to the dead bodies.
Eric just stood there, slack jawwed. "This is a war Eric, whether or not she
was being controlled she was still going to kill you. I was watching, I heard
you and followed you and was watching. I was willing to give her the benefit
of the doubt but the second she started pulling that gun on you, I either had
to kill her, or watch her kill you. She wasn't going to hesitate to kill you no
matter what she was saying. You have to be ready to do the same." Ranchan
looked at the remains of the human looking cyborg. "It's not a game
anymore." At that Ranchan seemed to sag inwardly, the fight taken out of
her. "File a report." she said to Eric.
She spun, ran to the nearest window and jumped out, disappearing into the
night. For a few minutes Eric just stood there looking at the fallen boomer's
body, and then at the gun that had been meant to kill him. "Damn you,
Wyrm... I -didn't- sign up for this..."
Somewhere in a dark alley, amid the sounds of explosion and gunfire,
Ranchan sat. Her legs held tightly to her chest, arms wrapped around
them. And sobbed about lost innocence.
***
Fleet medical teams had finally transported down, and the ship's medical
bays were taking a lot of the load off the FRED facilities... the immediate
crisis was over.
Dr Tofu was not in when Barry loomed in through the door.. There were so
many wounded, including Dr Tofu himself.
But Nicola was... Nicola, acting CMO, healer, telepath and empath.
<Damn! This was a mistake... Committed now..>
"Gudday Nicola." Barry rasped, his throat scoured by smoke and ozone.
"Good.." Nicola paused and rubbed the bridge of her nose. She was so tired
"..Good morning I think."
He was haggard and grimy, still in battledress bulked out by armour, and
fully armed. He flipped the chair around one handed and sat straddling the
back to clear his equipment and webbing, the barrel of the shotgun clanked
on the chair.
<Lets see now... moving badly, favouring his left side, left arm immobilised.
Gunshot probably> she thought, she had seen a lot of them now. Her
nostrils quivered as the air conditioning wafted the stink of mud and blood
and pain, explosive residues, burnt metal and stress across the desk. She
was not feeling much better, she had spent the last few hours literally up to
her elbows in people, surgery. But at least had had the opportunity to
shower.
As he sat down she felt a coldness radiating from him, submerging the pain
in side and arm. A bleak cold anger, mixed with grief, guilt and grim
determination... an inner darkness that made her wince. Almost
unconsciously, she reached out to find the source...
She caught two images, just flashes:
One was in his office, looking over the sights of a pistol at a young woman
being hammered backwards by bright splashes of fire. A look of surprise and
despair on her face. A bright afterimage from the plasma bolts, and a smell
of ozone. He was falling too. There was pain, body and soul. A loss of
innocence at a line being crossed.
The other was of a city street. Not on earth, the architecture was wrong...
The sun was hidden behind clouds of black smoke reflecting a red glow
from below. The buildings were scarred, some demolished. The tail of
something like a helicopter gunship poked out of a pile of rubble that had
been a house. An armoured fighting vehicle of some sort, paint blistering
and flame roaring out of its hatches like a blast furnace as the ammunition
burned. What looked like bundles of old clothes lay draped over the rubble,
out of windows and in the street, not all wore uniforms. Men, women and
children... there was distant, ground shaking thunder, heavy artillery and,
closer, the crackle of small arms and crump of grenades. The stench was
indescribable... smoke, burning plastics, an open sewer, burnt flesh and
toluenes. The smell of a city dying. There was the kinaesthetic sense of
something, a weapon in his hands, and targeting icons in his field of view,
hologrammatically projected in the air in front of him... The image had
overtones of hopelessness and self disgust.
She started at their strength and their eyes locked.
Then it was gone. It was as if something had flipflopped and his mind had
started operating on a whole different level, blocking her out with
impenetrable threads of cold logic.
His voice and face were bleakly calm. "My apologies doctor. Please stay out
of my mind, better for both of us."
She remembered seeing him at the wake, he had only just arrived, and
found out Linna was one of the dead. He had looked like a ghost himself,
radiating so strongly he was painful for her to be near.
"No, the fault was mine. I normally don't go probing someone else's mind
except for medical reasons. It's just that... your thoughts were so dark that I
couldn't hold back."
Treatment proceeded with minimal conversation. Nicola did not have the
energy left to do more than accelerate Barry's own healing. There were so
many, but with this latest blow, the engineering team was a high priority.
As he turned to leave Nicola spoke "I think you should have counselling.."
He snorted a laugh "When I have time doc, for now... most of us are walking
wounded, one way or another. I'm still functional."
Bel appeared in the doorway just as he was leaving, knocking them both
over. Barry came up fast into a crouch, the shotgun already pointing before
he recognised the part time goddess. The snack of the safety catch being
rengaged echoed loudly in the suddenly silent room.
Nicola had noticed Barry had relaxed a lot as his injuries healed, the
emotional pain was almost welcome compared to the freezing void. For a
moment, before he had recognised Belgaran, he had been completely
impenetrable, his mind and face perfect masks. But his unthinking
violence... he had changed a lot in the last few hours.
"You again." he said coldly, relaxing slightly. Nicola released what little
power she had gathered, it was not a good day for unexpected appearances.
He walked over and hauled the slight figure up with his good arm. Or started
to. As he touched her hand, she recoiled. For a moment it had seemed to
be covered in blood...
Something dark and terrible was lying on his soul. Not the stench of evil,
that the goddess would have recognised immediately, but something cold
and ancient, grim and purposeful.
She scrambled to her feet, talking fast to cover nervousness "I just got back
from talking with Frosty, we've got a lot of buildings damaged, they need
surveying, and you've got to supervise. She wants you at southside
commisary in five minutes."
"That would be a neat trick, it's a 10 minute run from here."
"Not really. (*Bigsweat*) I've been assigned to transport you around FRED
until we get things under control."
"Figures. Well, lets get moving." His eyes had no life and no colour, and his
voice was dry as the wind...
***
Dawn. A yellow sun, familiar yet foreign, crept over the horizon, painting
the sky in brilliant red-orange. There was a slight nip to the air, enough to
cool the savage heart without freezing it. Birds could be heard chirping over
the roar of heavy machinery, as though the terror of last night were but a
memory.
Nicola Leifker stood alone outside of the hospital, resting her bones in the
outside air. A mug of hot decaf was in her hand, protecting her from an
internal chill while at the same time comforting her externally with its
warmth.
Up until last night, she had thought she'd seen hell. She knew full well
what it was like to be personally violated, to have her sense of self shattered,
and to stare evil in its face. What she saw last night was a new type of hell,
for it struck at something she could not protect: her friends. Seven nurses
and soldiers died from the hospital boomer alone. Tofu, the CMO, barely
survived, and would be out for at least another week. Worse, what they had
gone through was something to make Dante recoil, a scene reminiscent
more of _Inferno_ than a hospital. Beyond that, other boomers claimed the
lives of countless others, and left hundreds homeless.
"Nicola?"
"Hey, Nodoka. What's up?" Her voice carried with it the strain of the past
day: weariness, sadness, a touch of anger.
"Not much. The nursing staff's going to be busy over the next few days
getting everything in order." She wrapped a comforting arm around the
expecting woman. "Nicola...are you okay?"
"No. I'm tired; I've performed meatball surgery on far too many people over
the past six hours. I've seen people banged up, busted, mutilated...and I'm
expected to be able to care for all of them. I'm frustrated, scared, angry..."
She turned around, and grabbed onto the elder woman. "Right now, I just
need a shoulder to cry on."
"I...I know." Nodoka held the woman in her arms, letting her vent her
sorrows in dawn's light. She looked up to the sun herself, and thought of
the child she had lost. Perhaps there was hope there: while some had died,
and others were hurt beyond repair...they still kept on fighting. The
cause...the war...was worth dying for, because the alternative wasn't worth
living for.
***
It had been a hectic day.. digging dead and injured out of the rubble,
surveying buildings, quick structural repairs to avert collapse.. Wyrm's fleet
marines and engineers had finally landed, letting his and Stargazer's people
find a corner to collapse and sleep in.
Barry was back by the lake, he needed some downtime too.
He was sitting under a tree brooding. He could hear the construction
equipment faintly.. going night and day now, working under floodlights. If
things had been hectic before, now... it was pandemonium.
A meteor flashed across the nights sky.. he half formed a wish..
<Illogical.. just a bit of orbital debris>
Someone was approaching, deliberately making a lot of noise. With everyone
so hyped up and stressed out, surprises were a good way to win a Darwin
Award.
"Hello Barry." It was Kate. She sat down beside him "Penny for your
thoughts."
She smelt good, clean. A small island of civilisation. They had both
showered and changed as soon as the pressure was off. Barry had scrubbed
and scrubbed and scrubbed. He still didn't feel clean. Kate was wearing
coveralls. But she must have done something to them, somehow, she made
them into a fashion statement, even accessorised with a sidearm.
He stared into infinity "Found out something I'd rather not have known..."
"What? That you are capable of killing? Most people are. In the right
circumstances."
"I keep on seeing her. I'm sorry for what I said before Kate..."
She looked out over the lake "It's easier if you dehumanise your opponent
you know. It causes less pain. I have never been one to shrink from
unpleasant realities, you know that. It needed to be done, and I couldn't ask
anyone else to do it. And using a boomer is the same as doing it yourself."
she spoke barely above a whisper, her hands were clenched, white
knuckled.
"But you had to do it cold, I had fear and then anger."
"In a hundred years it will not matter... It will matter even less if we lose."
"But I will still remember... Ten thousand years and I will still remember."
"You do what you have to do, and you pay the price." Her voice was as cold as
his had been.
Neither spoke for a while.
You cannot work with someone intensively for months without coming to
know them, somewhat. When there are only a few people who will even give
you the time of day, or there is only one person who you share a secret with,
it creates a certain bond. At the least, someone you can talk freely to.
"In the last few hours, I've never been so scared, or exhilarated. When I
knew I'd survived, and then.."
"And then you felt sick. Nothing except a battle won can be half so
melancholy as a battle lost."
"You are one of a very few writers that were writing me sympathetically.
But.. Don't have any illusions. I will do what I have to do. I have a duty to
Genom, it's shareholders. That includes protecting them from a 'hostile
takeover' of epic proportions. That is where my duty lies."
"Will Chairman Quincy see it that way?"
She smiled at him "It scarcely matters. He isn't here. I am acting on my
own initiative. But in the long term, what we are doing is in the best
interests of Genom. Despite what Miss Stingray thought Genom does more
good than harm. And there are other reasons..." her smile grew hard
Barry looked like he had just bitten a lemon "Can we drop that? It's not
something I like to think about."
Kate shrugged and leaned back, her eyes closed.
They sat back lost in their thoughts for a while until Barry broke the silence.
"Kate, I'm an engineer, I build things. Even the wargames, I got as much
pleasure from building and painting the models as using them. Lead soldiers
don't bleed, and winning was less important than having fun. Here if we
lose, we die, and worse. I've been fooling myself I guess, I can never go back
now, not really. I didn't have the skill to just wound her, not reliably. You
shoot for the center of mass and I would not take the risk. That branch of
the decision tree... I just couldn't risk it."
"You had no choice."
Barry rested his forehead on his knees and shut his eyes, whispering "Yes, I
did. There was a choice. I could have let her kill me. And Mackie. And
you."
***
Rally Cheyenne sighed and leaned back in her chair, deep in thought as the
her spell dissipated. This was not something she had expected. A demon
in the FDF, who had somehow managed to hide his true nature from
everyone else. Until now. Could he be a spy from (?)? It was possible. But
not likely. That boomer had been as interested in him as it had been in Yuki.
Rally doubted (?) would kill his own spy with out reason, but the possibility
was still there. <This bears further investigation. I don't think anyone else
needs to know quite yet though.>
***
"..But there _was_ another AI!"
"Yeah Alpha." Leela replied tiredly.. "Sure Alpha. There's no evidence, there
was no outside access and there _aren't_ any other AIs on FRED with that
level of sophistication. You were just imagining things." she looked carefully
at the subdued happyface. "How long since you were in for a checkup? Are
you feeling allright?"
"No." he quavered "I feel sick. I need lots of devoted nursing from... _YOU_!"
and did what came naturally.
"AAARRRGGGGG! DIVINE RETRIBUTION!" screamed Leela.
She waited a few minutes for the thoroughly zarked HentAI to recover. She
noted the slightly disturbing fact that he seemed to be building up a
resistance to her cyber-shocks.
"But there really was another AI!" he whined
"There _Was_ no other AI!" Leela retorted
<But there WAS!> he thought.
<...And I'll prove it!>