Bubblegum Clash!
Prologue
Some where and some when else in the vast multiverse:
(I.e. this is an alternate reality's version of the Knight Sabers)
Blue Saber jumped from rooftop to rooftop as she blazed brazenly towards
Genom Tower. Most people would think that assaulting the seat of Genom's
power would have been foolhardy at the very least. Added to the fact that
she was in pursuit of the hyperboomer, Jinnai, that had driven the mighty
megacorp to its knees, her mission was downright suicidal. Any rational
person would have run away screaming even considering the risks she took.
However, Blue Saber was not the most rational of individuals at the best of
times and this certainly was *not* the best of times.
A few weeks ago, Blue Saber had befriended a pair of escaped sexaroids,
Yuka and Sayuri. She got them a position in her band and convinced Saber
Prime to concoct an artificial serum for them that would satiate their need
for blood. For the first time in long years, Blue Saber opened her heart to
someone else besides her fellow Knight Sabers. Her albums were selling
well, there was talk of a concert and it had been quiet as far as boomer
rampages were concerned. All in all, it seemed as if things were looking
up. Yuka and Sayuri were proving themselves to be the best friends that
Blue Saber could hope for.
Then Jinnai killed them. He did not do so overtly, that was not his style.
He strapped Sayuri to a huge military boomer that was no more than a
walking bomb and let it wreak havoc in the streets of Mega Tokyo. The
Knight Sabers had to kill Sayuri or the boomer would have detonated,
leveling more than a quarter of the city. Blue Saber practically felt her
heart tear itself out of chest as she pulled the trigger of her flechette
cannon. She remembered every gruesome moment as the small blades tore into
Sayuri's face, reducing her lovely features into a grisly pulped mass of
blood and plastic.
Blue Saber withdrew into herself upon Sayuri's death. She refused to
perform on stage and requested a leave of absence from the Knight Sabers.
She was content to wallow in misery and the rest of the Knight Sabers gave
her some space to deal with her grief. Every few days, one of the other
Knight Sabers would drop in and make some small talk. Green Saber was
genuinely sympathetic, having gone through this once before. Pink Saber
tried her best to cheer Blue Saber up. Too bad her repertoire consisted
mainly of funny faces and pints of ice-cream. Saber Prime, the scientific
arm of the Knight Sabers brought a little motherly advice and Dark Saber,
their field leader had an excellent listening ear. Even their pilot and
general gofer, Nanami Jinnai, came around to drag Blue Saber off for
shopping trips.
It was during this time that Blue Saber realized something that had become
fact for a long time now. The Knight Sabers were far more than a mercenary
cum vigilante group. They were a family, they took care of their own. Inch
by inch, Blue Saber came out of her shell until she was almost functional
again. Almost. Blue Saber's tenuous grasp on her temper slipped completely
when she found out that Jinnai had used his once-human charms to beguile
Yuka. He twisted the na�ve sexaroid around his little finger as he used her
as a pawn to obtain what he craved more than any drug addict, power. In
this case, power took the form of a "black box" that would allow him total
control over the Orbital Satellite Lasers of the USSD. Hell, if power came
in the form of a shiny crystal, Jinnai would have seized it all the same.
Rage burned hotly in Blue Saber's heart, a rage that was as familiar a
companion to her as her own shadow. The rage that had ignited in her heart
ever since her fianc� was killed, simply because he had powers that Genom
feared. Kasuga Kyosuke was a kind, gentle soul who never threatened anyone.
He also had ESPer abilities that made him more than match for any combat
boomer; he could have easily risen to a position of power if he had so
chosen. Instead, the only 'power' he had ever exercised was the one he had
to make her happy.
All Yuka and Sayuri ever wanted was a chance to be free, to live with human
dignity as was their right as sentient beings. It was too late for Sayuri
but Blue Saber would be damned if she would let Yuka down too. With that in
her mind, she burst into Genom Tower with all of the thunder and fury she
could muster, ready to rescue Yuka or die trying.
In a few minutes, the "die trying" option was the only one that Blue Saber
had left. The sick, twisted mind games of Jinnai had confused Yuka's
thinking so much that she actually took up a vibroknife and stabbed Blue
Saber. The loss of Sayuri and then the apparent betrayal of her only
remaining friend had severely unbalanced Yuka. Blue Saber's heartfelt
explanation of the circumstances pertaining to Sayuri's death made Yuka
realize who her real enemy was. Her hands stained with Blue Saber's blood,
Yuka turned on Jinnai, the very knife he had pressed into her hand was now
raised in an uncharacteristic act of vengeance. Jinnai casually crushed her
like a bug. Then he turned his attention to Blue Saber.
Blue Saber was a consummate hand-to-hand combatant, armed with cutting edge
technology provided by the self-proclaimed "greatest genius of the
universe" and with a meanness that came from a rough childhood on the
streets. Jinnai seemed to expend all the effort of swatting a fly to
shatter her hardsuit and then stood over her battered form to gloat.
Instead of dispatching her with one of his vacuum blasts, he decided to eke
out every ounce of sadistic pleasure possible from her demise. Jinnai's
hands encircled her throat and slowly strangled her, laughing at her futile
attempts to dislodge his fingers from her windpipe. Hot tears flowed down
her cheeks as Blue Saber's vision began to dim. It could not end like
this.....
A dull rapport like muffled thunder was Jinnai's only warning as a metal
slug the size of a man's fist slammed into his chest at just under mach 1,
propelling him away from the defenseless Blue Saber. A strident male voice
rang out, "Knight Sabers, sanjo!"
Blue Saber raised grateful eyes to the night sky as the rest of the Knight
Sabers descended onto Genom Tower like a flight of avenging angels.
Outfitted in their newly upgraded motoslaves, the Knight Sabers formed a
protective ring around the semi-conscious Blue Saber with a speed born of
long practice.
Dark Saber raised the others on the Knight Sabers' tactical frequency.
"Pink Saber, get Blue Saber into the Knight Raven, Green saber and I will
hold him off."
"Acknowledged Dark Saber, stomp him good for me willya?"
Jinnai simply stood his ground as he watched Pink Saber heft Blue Saber
onto her shoulder and use her thrusters to leap up to the Knight Raven, the
Knight Saber's transport VTOL craft. His omnipresent smirk twisted his lips
as the hole in his chest slowly knit itself shut. Pointing to Dark Saber,
he began to rant. "So you've finally come. All my life, you have stolen
what was rightfully mine; the school presidency, my friends, my humanity
and my rightful place beside my beloved. Now I have the power to pay you
back for a lifetime of pain."
Dark Saber's eyes narrowed dangerously as he raised his Gauss rifle and
fired another transonic round at Jinnai. Once upon a time, Dark Saber would
have written Jinnai off as an annoyance. Dark Saber was hardly the author
of Jinnai's miseries that Jinnai made him out to be. Out of consideration
for Nanami, he had never struck back at Jinnai's near-constant sniping.
Dark Saber swore under his breath, "Nanami, I know he's your brother but if
that homicidal maniac lays a finger on Saber Prime, so help me God, I'm
going to ensure that there will not be enough left of Jinnai to fill a
matchbox."
Dark Saber frowned as the hole his weapon had made in Jinnai's torso sealed
itself once again, he was broadcasting orders for evasive maneuvers to
Green Saber when Jinnai lifted his hand up in an imperious gesture. With an
intolerably smug expression adorning his face, Jinnai simply whispered,
"shin ne." A moment later a blue pillar of coherent light lanced from the
night sky to engulf Dark Saber in its incandescent fury.
Green Saber instinctively tried to cover his ears as Dark Saber's agonized
scream rang out from his helmet radio. A rather pointless gesture when one
is wearing a hardsuit. The smoke cleared, revealing Dark Saber still
standing, albeit in a heavily damaged motoslave. Green Saber silently
cheered whilst Jinnai's face adopted an almost comical look of disbelief.
Jinnai's expression transformed from incredulous to triumphant in a
heartbeat as Dark Saber was enveloped in green tendrils of energy. The
massive beam weapon had overloaded the phase/particle shielding Saber Prime
had installed into the motoslaves causing it to chain-react. From his
choked cries over their tactical frequency, Green Saber could tell that
Dark Saber was being fried alive in his armor despite the insulation of his
hardsuit.
Jinnai contemptuously flicked his wrist at Dark Saber, releasing a vacuum
blast that blasted the wildly stumbling Knight Saber off the roof of Genom
Tower. Jinnai smiled maniacally as he dispatched his most hated foe.
Finally his adversary was vanquished. This triggered an uncontrollable urge
to laugh in the insane hyperboomer as he expressed the sheer joy he felt
for the entire world to see.
His audience, Green Saber was definitely not amused. Green Saber fired the
twin particle beam cannons mounted on his motoslave at Jinnai, blasting the
still laughing maniac through the wall of rubble that was once the office
of the head of Genom. Green Saber rushed to the side of the building where
Dark Saber had fallen. His writhing, green sheathed figure could be seen
tumbling madly as it grew smaller and smaller, and smaller..... In a move
more suited to Blue Saber, Green Saber leapt off the building in pursuit of
the rapidly diminishing form of Dark Saber.
Despite pushing his motoslave's retrothrusters to their breaking point,
Green Saber knew he could not catch up with Dark Saber in time, he had too
much of a head start. Rather this was what his logical mind told him. Dark
Saber was like an elder brother to him, to all of them; there was no way
that Green Saber would let him die. Those few seconds after he leapt off
the roof of Genom would become forever etched into Green Saber's memory as
one of the greatest adrenaline rushes that he had ever had. Diverting all
available power to his propulsion system, Green Saber *willed* his
motoslave faster, all the time praying to see the telltale flare of light
that signaled that Dark Saber had fired his own retrothrusters. All this
time, Green Saber could hear Dark Saber's hoarse screams, which served to
urge him to attain even greater speeds.
Green Saber's determination was rewarded when he finally got close enough
to see the details of Dark Saber's motoslave, still twitching weakly in
paroxysms of pain. His optical sensors detected a flare of light from the
still diminutive form of Dark Saber and Green Saber felt a wave of relief
flood his senses. That lasted for an entire eye blink until Green Saber
realized that the flare was far too bright to be a retrothruster from that
range. It could however correspond to a fairly large explosion. Such a
Knight Saber's motoslave exploding for example. Tears blurred Green Saber's
vision he tried to kill his forward momentum. The angry flames from the
explosion grew larger in his vision until his world was consumed by white
light.
******
Nanami helped Pink Saber strap the limp form of Blue Saber into the
Autodoc. The Autodoc was another of Saber Prime's marvelous inventions. It
packed the many of the functions of a hospital into a cylindrical chamber.
Hopefully, it would stabilize her until they could get her to the more
comprehensive medical help available at Knight Saber Head Quarters.
Hearing Dark Saber's scream ring out on their tactical frequency, Nanami
and Pink Saber ran to the cockpit just in time to witness Green Saber leap
off Genom Tower in pursuit of Dark Saber who was visible to them only due
to the green lightning wreathing his armor. The two women stood transfixed
as the green speck that was Dark Saber and the orange drive tail of Green
Saber's retrothrusters grew progressively closer until Dark Saber's green
image became a red ball of light that flared brightly before winking out.
At that moment, Green Saber's voice joined Dark Saber's on the tactical
frequency in a cacophony of pain before the tactical frequency went deathly
silent.
*****
Blue Saber groaned and sat up in the Autodoc. She felt as if she had just
been trampled by a herd of boomer pachyderms. She deactivated the Autodoc
and staggered to the cockpit where Pink Saber and Nanami stood transfixed.
Blue Saber leaned heavily on Pink Saber and then heard Dark and Green
Saber's voices scream in a curious symphony. And then silence. Utter
complete silence, no transmissions from either of them.
Blue Saber's voice became soft and sibilant as she hissed, "Jinnai......"
Her fists clenched so tightly that her fingernails drew blood as Blue Saber
contemplated what her vengeance had cost them.
*****
Jinnai emerged from the wall only a little worse for wear. Brushing himself
off, he noted that his enemies had quit the field. Surely they had not
thought that such a puny blast had hurt the Great Jinnai? Their transport
was still hovering in place. Jinnai contemplated his next move. Perhaps an
Orbital Satellite Strike to remind those meddlesome mortals that the Mighty
Jinnai would not be laid low by such insignificant pests?
A blood-curdling battle cry roused him from his reverie. Blue Saber, now
attired in her motoslave and a spare hardsuit, sliced downward with the
twin vibroblades that were her primary armaments.
Vibroblades vibrated at ultrasonic frequencies, allowing them to cut
through virtually any substance. A vibroblade the size of a penknife was
what Yuka used to pierce Blue Saber's ceramic armor. The katana-sized
vibroblade on Blue Saber's hardsuit made it possible for her to slice
boomers in half. The six-foot long, foot wide vibroblades on Blue Saber's
motoslave meant that she now had the means to turn Jinnai into sashimi.
Before any coherent thought could register in Jinnai's brain, he found
himself disarmed, literally. Blue saber's vibroblades had severed both of
his arms at the shoulders. Before he could blink, Pink Saber was unloading
her Biotronic Fusion Gun (BFG) into him as fast as it could fire. Then the
pain hit his nervous system.
Blue Saber smiled in satisfaction as Jinnai shouted in agony. Revenge could
be sweet indeed.
Jinnai was furious. How dare they drive him to his knees?! Even under the
sustained salvo, his systems were compensating and repairing the damage
faster than they caused it. Calling on his reserves of power, he unleashed
an omni-directional energy blast that knocked both Knight Sabers off their
feet.
Snarling, he pronounced their rightful judgement upon them. "For daring to
harm me, a God, the sentence is death." He raised his hand up to call down
another Orbital Satellite Laser Strike.
"KATSUHITO JINNAI."
Jinnai knew that voice; he looked up at the Knight Raven with an expression
disturbingly akin to maniac glee. "Sister dear! So that's where you been
hiding!" Jinnai was beyond joy. Today he had defeated Genom and slew his
rival in love along with his petty band of toy soldiers. Now he was to be
reunited with his long-lost sister. Ah, how this day would live on in
history as the finest day of Jinnai the First, Emperor of the Cosmos!
"YOU ARE NOT HIM, HE DIED A LONG TIME AGO TO GIVE BIRTH TO AN ABOMINATION."
With that, Nanami Jinnai fired all of the Knight Raven's weaponry at the
being that she once loved as a brother.
Blue Saber scrambled to her feet quickly as Nanami poured all the firepower
at her disposal on Jinnai. One of the new additions of her motoslave was a
sonic disruptor cannon and Blue Saber decided that Jinnai would make a
worthy test subject. Once more Pink Saber and Blue Saber fired in unison
displaying the teamwork that had carried the Knight Sabers to victory after
victory.
Jinnai's voice came from the centre of the firestorm. "Kami no, you've
corrupted Nanami as well. NOOOOOOO..........."
The coup de grace came in the form of Green Saber. Howling in incoherent
fury, he flew up to the top of Genom Tower dripping molten fire from his
shields. Green Saber considered himself a pretty mellow guy. The "swear
eternal vengeance and then go out to break stuff" mentality belonged to
Ryoga and Blue Saber rather than him. However in this instance, every fiber
of his being wanted Jinnai DEAD. With a fluid gesture befitting the Master
of Martial Arts Gunslinging, Green Saber raised both arms and let Jinnai
have it with both particle beams at full bore.
*****
Jinnai saw a green phoenix reborn in the flames reach out to embrace him
with blue talons. Before death took him he sobbed out, "all I ever wanted
was to be loved. Washu-chan....."
*****
Under the sustained barrage of three Knight Sabers and the Knight Raven,
all
that was left of Jinnai was a charred spot on the ground and a lingering
scream. Now the Knight Sabers could tend to their fallen.
The three remaining Knight Sabers flew down in the Knight Raven to street
level looking for a trace of Dark Saber. A large molten puddle of asphalt
marked the place where his motoslave fell and bits of ceramic armor lay
scattered about the impact crater. They combed the area for any clue no
matter now slight that Dark Saber might have survived the fall. They would
look in vain.
*****
Washu, otherwise known as Saber Prime, looked up from her latest experiment
as her computer informed her that the Knight Raven had returned. She took
off her lab coat and tried to make herself presentable as she went to
welcome back her husband.
As the Knight Sabers descended down the ramp, Washu could detect a pall
that seemed out of place for a team that had just returned triumphant from
another successful mission. Green Saber did not so much as walk down the
ramp as drag himself step by step towards Washu. All of the energy that he
usually possessed seemed to have been leached out of him, leaving an empty
husk behind. Blue Saber moved stiffly and jerkily as if every small
movement hurt but her steps seemed to be weighted down by something far
heavier than mere physical pain. Pink saber's body language was a study in
utter devastation as she held a round object covered in a white cloth.
Washu felt the icy grip of fear tighten around her heart. Pink saber walked
up to her and handed her the object. Underneath the cloth was a melted,
deformed lump of plastic that was barely recognizable as Dark Saber's
motoslave helmet.
"No....." Washu whispered, as the world seemed to shatter around her.
Her daughters, Ryoko and Mayuka came out of their rooms, awakened by the
arrival of the Knight Raven. Ryoko asked in a faint voice, "Mommy, where is
Daddy?"
Dark Saber's helmet fell out of Washu's nerveless hands to clatter on the
floor. "Daddy's gone, Ryoko. He's gone." Washu intoned emotionlessly to her
eleven-year-old daughter.
The Knight Sabers huddled together in grief as they mourned the loss of one
of their own.
*****
Earlier at Genom Tower:
Dark Saber flailed helplessly as he rocketed down towards a very unpleasant
meeting with the asphalt. The electrical discharges from his malfunctioning
motoslave were scrambling his synapses and the vertigo from being in
free-fall did not help either. Hovering on the brink of unconsciousness,
Dark Saber activated the emergency ejection module of his motoslave. With
supreme effort, he managed to extend out an arm to snag an outcropping
ledge. The sudden stop nearly dislocated his arm as his enhanced strength
let him dig his fingers into the concrete.
Dark Saber climbed into a nearby window and fell onto the floor in a heap,
all of his energy depleted. The room was a phantasmorgia of scintillating
color as a cool feminine voice enounced for his benefit, "Warning,
dimensional barrier breached. Warning, all personnel evacuate or risk
intra-spatial translocation." A strange whine began to fill the air.
Before, Dark Saber had experienced the greatest physical pain in his
existence when his motoslave tried to electrocute him. Now that whine
heralded a pain several orders of magnitudes greater. It felt as if he was
being torn apart in several different directions at once.
In the instant before he lost consciousness, Dark Saber's last coherent
thought was, "why do these things always seem to happen to me?"