I just remmembered that i did post the completed part 1
****
"Unit One, this is Unit Two, we're in position."
"Roger that, Unit Two," a shadowed figure replied. "Unit One
will be going through the front door in 1 minute and 50 seconds."
"Understood," came the reply. "Unit Two will enter the compound
from the back 15 seconds later," a pause, then, "Be careful Maverick."
"Don't worry Gunner. Out."
Lyon, or Maverick, went back to studying the house and its
surroundings, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The success of
the mission and the lives of his comrades depended on him. He was in
command of this mission, it was his first command. He was promoted
after the last and first mission that he did for the TDC, Temporal
Defense Corps. The General said that not only was he promoted to
command Units One and Two, but he was supposed to train them also. He
has been training them for a month and a half and they've all improved
a lot. His training consisted of a gravity room and martial arts, just
like in Dragon Ball. If they knew that his training method was from an
anime more than 1000 years old they'd all think he was crazy and he
definitely would not have gotten promoted, he thought. He'd just
wanted to see if it worked, so he experimented with himself as the test
subject.
He looked at the rest of his unit, like him they were all wearing
full combat gear. On their heads were the latest combat head gear,
helmet made of plasteel that covered the whole head and face. There
was a rectangular visor that acted as eye protection and heads up
display of sensors data. Their helmets also had an antenna pointing
backwards diagonally on each side. The antennas were for sensors,
communications and radar. They were all wearing full body skin tight
suits made of a malleable version of plasteel, it wasn't as tough as
the plasteel of the helmet, but it could bend and stretch a bit so it
was perfect for a form fitting body suit. They were also each wearing
a body armor made of the same material as their helmets for added
protection. Their gloves had reenforced knuckles in case they had to
fight hand to hand and their boots were made of a combination of the
two different types of plasteel. All their gear was black, the natural
color of plasteel, which was just perfect for night missions.
It was time to move in, he gave the signal. All members of his
unit moved quietly towards the wall of the surrounding the compound.
Just as quietly they were up and over it. On the other side they moved
quickly towards the front door. They had to shoot three guards and the
security cameras on the way. The cameras were the most important,
without them the people guarding the compound won't be able to tell
their numbers and exact position. With the first cameras down the
guards should know that there was an attack at the front and send more
of people to repel the attack. Hopefully a lot more, and that would
leave the back lightly defended. That would leave Unit Two an easy way
inside the house while his unit draws attention.
After a while and there was still no sound of an alarm, and no
sign of additional guards. He began to run over the intel he was
given. It only said to assume light to medium resistance, that's why
he only took his two units of ten even though he could have taken
another two units. It seems that resistance will be very light.
"Unit Two, how many guards?"
"Only two so far."
"Okay. Switch to plan B."
"Copy that, Unit One."
The rest of unit one were already flanking the front door,
waiting for him to enter. One of them opened the door, another guards.
No one was in sight, he entered the house followed by his unit. The
first floor was clear except for the washroom where who he assumed to
be the guard of the monitoring room was. They left the guard sprawled
on the floor, unconscious not dead, and went down to the basement just
as Unit Two was entering the house.
****
Down in the basement a mad scientist was flicking switches,
pushing buttons and powering up machines. Computer screens were
scrolling with technical data, that the scientist was checking once in
a while.
"At last!!" the scientist shouted in joys, there was a crazy
glint in his eyes. "Once I push this button, I can go back in time and
no one will be able to stop me from taking over the world." He was
already imagining himself as the ruler of whole world. He will crush
any opposition with superior technology. Too bad that his calculations
showed him that the temporal gate could only handle three to five
transition. That was why he would be going by himself, but he'd take
hi-tech equipment instead of men. It should be easy enough to recruit
an army. "The coordinates are already set to 1999." He'd already
pushed the button, activating the temporal gate when the door to the
lab banged open.
He turned towards the door, saw what looked to him like a
policemen and panicked. He stated ran towards the temporal gate. He
was so panicked that he didn't notice the gate waver and start
fluctuating. The computer screens were filled with warning signs. He
jumped into the gate and what he thought was his only escape from the
authorities.
As he went through the gate he felt a hand on his back, but it
slid away. Then he was traveling through an energy tunnel. That was
when he noticed that the tunnel wasn't stable and knew that he failed
in his quest.
****
Two minutes earlier outside the door to the lab, Lyon was
positioning and giving instructions to Unit One. They could all hear
the sound of machines powering up and knew that they might soon be out
of time.
With a signal from Lyon, a member of Unit One kicked the door
open and entered. Maverick's eyes immediately locked on the man in a
lab coat, then he saw the temporal gate. He did some quick thinking
and shot what looked like the control panel of the gate. He was about
to arrest the scientist when he suddenly started running for the gate.
He did the only thing that he could think of to stop the mad man,
he ran after him and tried to tackle the running man. But he wasn't
fast enough, he made a grab for the man but only barely touched him as
he was about to go through the gate. Its was then that he realized too
late, he was going to fast to stop before he entered the wildly
fluctuating gate.
He'd traveled through temporal gates before, heck he had to
because he live in the year 2000 and the TDC HQ was in year 3153. By
now he was used to flying through a tunnel that looked like it was made
of energy. That was what he was experiencing now but this time it
wasn't smooth sailing. The ride was rough and dizzying with what seems
like a hundred twist and turns.
After getting very dizzy to the point of being nauseous, he
realized that transit through a temporal gate should not be taking this
long. He started worrying weather or not he's going to be stuck in the
tunnel. He hasn't heard of any case of someone being stuck in a
tunnel, but he's heard of gates that didn't open at the designated
coordinates. On those cases they always found out that the gate opened
somewhere. Those incidents happened back when time travel just got
started, there hasn't been an accident involving time travel in at
least 500 years, according to records that is.
He was looking straight ahead, like he always does when
traveling through time, so he saw what was supposed to be impossible.
There was a fork in the tunnel, which was impossible, the time tunnel
was supposed to go straight. Thinking about that, he realized that the
twist and turns were impossible too.
He didn't have a lot of time to consider the impossibilities of it
all before he was pass the fork, he went to the left, and saw that
the tunnel opened not far away.
Temporal Corps Production
Proudly Presents
A Wandering Lyon
by: Leobert
Home Page: http://members.tripod.com/stilesilverthorn/index.html
Email: naldoza@intergate.ca
Date Started: May 01, 2000
Last Updated: May 20, 2000
Disclaimers:
Bubblegum Crisis is copyrighted by Artmic Inc. and
Youmex, Inc.
I am just borrowing the characters for a
little while.
Part I -_^
He groaned as he got up, rubbing sore muscles, trying to clear
his head of dizziness and his stomach of nausea. That was some ride,
he didn't want to repeat the experience anytime soon. Although he was
grateful that he wasn't going to be stuck in the tunnel. The dizziness
and nausea tells him that he was still alive, after all he couldn't
fell this bad if he was dead. He slowly got to his feet as the world
slowly stopped spinning and his stomach began to settle. After he got
up and was feeling better, he looked around and saw that he was in a
darkened alley. He decided to contact HQ first and tell them that he
was alright. "This is Lieutenant Lyon, come in HQ." After waiting for
a few seconds he tried again. "HQ do you read me." There was only
static coming from his ear plug, it was like the Temporal Defense Corps
HeadQuarters didn't exist. He kept on trying to make contact with
headquarters for ten more minutes then decided to give it up.
He could not understand it, there was no way that headquarters
could just disappear. Even if he went back as far as the age of the
dinosaurs he should still have been able to contact headquarters. From
his surroundings, it was obvious that he didn't go back in time that
far, maybe around the year 2000 give or take 30 years. So he should be
able to contact HQ, either something was wrong with his equipment or
there was no headquarters to contact. Either way was very bad, but he
preferred the first, that way he still had a chance of getting home.
It would be just a matter of looking out for other TDC agents.
His musings was suddenly interrupted by the sound of footsteps,
he turned towards the noise, the entrance to the alley, and found
himself looking at what looked to be a gang of bikers from their
clothes. He reached for his gun but realized that he'd dropped it
when one of the gang members picked it up. It was a good thing that
no one else could use the gun but him.
"Hey look at this fancy looking gun boss," said the guy, holding
the gun to the leader of the gang.
"Hmmm... Pretty nice looking gun, feels light for its size
though," said the leader. The leader of the gang was tall about six
feet, he had black hair and a scarred face. He wore a leather jacket
and torn denims. And he held the gun as if he knew how to use it, not
that he could though.
Lyon, studied the others, there were ten in all including the
leader and the guy that picked up the gun. They all looked like thugs,
they obviously had a weird sense of hair color. There were light blue,
green, purple, pink, and any other color in a rainbow. They also all
have weapons, knives, pipes, and chains. Some of them had what looked
like bionic implants, on their arms, legs and even faces. Deciding
that they were no treat to him, he spoke out.
"Better give that to me before you hurt yourself." Lyon was
wearing full combat gear, so he wasn't really worried if they decided
to attack him if they got mad.
"It's you that's gonna hurt, buddy," shouted the guy who picked
up the gun. "This is Outriders territory, and this alley is ours.
Right, Boss."
"That's right, little fella, you're gonna get hurt if you don't
hand over everything you have right now."
"Oh, I don't think so." Lyon quickly got in to a martial arts
stance that was best for dealing with multiple opponents.
"Boss! what if he's a boomer." Lyon head a guy in the back say
quietly. Something about that and the name of the gang got his attention.
"He's not a boomer, he's just some punk playing dress up," said
their leader, "Get him!!!" Then they rushed Lyon.
When the closest of the thugs were about half way to Lyon he bent
his legs then jumped the remaining distance between them. What
followed were a bunch of thugs flying towards walls, garbage cans and
out of the alley and into the streets. A little later the alley was
filled with groaning bodies and there were only two figures left
standing.
"I told you to give me the gun before you got hurt," Lyon said
with what he thought was enough menace in his voice. "I'm telling you
again. Give me the gun."
The gang leader's reply was to point the gun at Lyon. "Who..
What are you?" His hand was shaking, he'd just seen his entire gang
defeated in under a minute, but he wasn't going to give up. He was
stupid. He did the only thing that he could think of, he pulled the
trigger.
There was a faint click, the sound of the guns trigger being
pulled, then Lyon was in motion. He grabbed the gun out of the gang
leader's hand with one hand and shot a palm strike to the guy's chin.
The gang lead flew backwards and slammed into a wall.
Lyon was already checking his gun for any damage caused by his
rough arrival and journey through an unstable temporal gate. When he
was satisfied that nothing was wrong, he put it back to its holster at
his waist. He was just about to leave when it came back to him.
Boomers and the Outriders. God! he was in Mega Tokyo. He noticed one
of the thugs getting up and decided to confirm it and ask what the
date.
"You!" He walked towards the guy getting up from the street and
picked him up by his shirt. "I have a few questions."
"Any thing! Please don't kill me," begged the scared thug. "I
knew he was a boomer." The last was whispered, but Lyon still heard
it.
"Nope, I'm not a boomer or a boomeroid."
"Gulp! Okay, your not a boomer."
"Now, I want to know if I'm in Mega Tokyo."
"Y.. Yes, you're in Mega Tokyo."
"Good. What's the date, year?"
"May 16, 2032. Can you let me go now?" asked the guy, sounding
pathetic.
"Okay." Lyon replied and then he let go and started walking away
while the thug crawled away so as not to be noticed. It was another
impossible thing, he was really getting tier of impossible things. If
he's right and he was in Mega Tokyo then that would mean that he was in
a different dimension. That would also mean that there was no TDC HQ
or agents to contact. He was stuck, the chances of getting home was
null. But there was a bright side to all of this, he was all ways
looking at the bright side of things. He was in one of his favorite
anime and the series should only just be beginning. He could watch the
Knight Sabers in action, live!, or he could help out. And maybe they'd
help him get back to his own universe, Sylia Stingray might be able to
help him. As far as helping the Saber go, it would be fun and he would
be carrying out TDCs directives. Stop anyone using time machines who
were bent on world conquest. Genom might not be using time machines
but they were bent on world conquest.
First though, he needed money so he turned around, walked back to
the fallen bodies and looted them. He let the one crawling away alone,
he'd already given him more important information. He still got around
75 000 yen in cash though, he guessed that they all didn't believe in
banks. He also took all their jewelry and watches to pawn of later.
He also decided that he didn't want to walk so he grabbed all their
keys. When he was out of the alley, he looked for the gang's bikes and
found them all parked a few meters away from the alley. The closest
bike looked to be the newest, and he always did like bikes built for
speed. It was a very slick racing bike, painted black with white go-
faster stripes. It should match with his black combat gear very
nicely, so he tried the keys he took from the bodies one by one, then
dumped the rest when he got it started.
He was riding around, obeying every traffic law he could think of
so that the cops won't have any reason to pull him over. Unless of
course the Outriders have already gone to the police, but it would
really be hard to explain that the guy that you were going to rob
robbed you instead.
Suddenly there was a streak of light, at first he thought it was
lightning but when he looked the wasn't a cloud in the sky. Then came
the explosion, from the looks of it an entire section of Mega Tokyo has
just been demolished. He only knew of two instances of a satellite
particle beam strike in the entire series. One was in the first
episode, the other hit Largo, from the date this was the first one.
****
Later in the basement of the Lady633 building, the Knight Saber
were getting out of the Silky Wagon. They were all out of their
hardsuits and back to wearing civilian clothes.
"I said I'm fine!" Priss said to Nene, getting angry and brushing
of Nene's attempt to help her. "It's nothing serious and Sylia already
fixed me up."
"If you say so."
"Did anyone get a good look at that chopper? Was it Genom?"
Priss asked no one in particular.
"Yes." said Sylia, answering the second question.
"Some day, I'm going to find a way to make Genom really pay."
Priss said, some of her anger going into her voice.
"Speaking about pay, are we still going to get paid or what?"
Linna asked Sylia.
"The USSD hired us to get Cynthia back for them, no we won't be
paid." Sylia replied.
"Oh well, there goes being rich."
****
Three days latter Lyon was sitting in the small room that he was
renting in a motel. He was listening to the news on the TV, it was
about what had happened in Aqua City. A USSD official was saying that
what happened was an accident and would never happen again. There was
no mention of Genom at all, they covered their tracks too well for
that.
Lyon shut off the TV and began to think. The money he got from
the thugs won't last long. He got around 110 000 yen from the
Outriders, the cash plus the pawned items. Minus the money he spent on
the motel and clothes. He needs to get a job, because he doubted that
the Outriders would kindly give him some more money. To get a job, he
needs ID, but getting fake IDs would cost more money than he's willing
to part with right now. What he thought of doing, was to approach the
Knight Sabers and ask for their help. He doesn't know how he'd do that
though.
Another thing that's bothering him was the fact that Irene was
going to get killed. He can't decide whether to save her or not. He
didn't have it in him to just let her get killed, but it was TDCs
policy not to interfere with the time line. On the other hand TDC also
doesn't have a rule that prevents someone from interfering with the
time line, its just policy. The main objective of TDC was to prevent
anyone from using time travel to take over the world, to prevent major
disasters, and to stop illegal transport of technology from the future
to the past. Still the policy was there for a reason, no one can
predict what a change, how ever small, would do to the future. He just
couldn't let Irene die though, time to start planning.
A couple of weeks later he was sitting in a coffee shop across
the street from the aerobics and martial arts club where Linna worked
at. The news about the Genom lab explosion was in the news yesterday,
so Lyon decided that it was time to start following Irene and Linna
around.
****
A few hours later Irene and Linna were coming out of a restaurant
when Linna noticed that her car has been towed. After talking about
it, Irene decided that she'll walk home and Linna decided to call
someone to pick her up.
As Linna was about to enter a telephone booth a black car came
barreling towards her. She jumped out of the way and the car smashed
the into booth and kept on going. Linna saw that the car was heading
where Irene went to and decided to call Sylia for help.
"Sylia! a car just tried to run me over," Linna contacted Sylia
with her watch, a Knight Sabers communications device. "I think it was
after Irene." After giving Sylia more detail she started running after
the car and Irene. Hoping that she'd get there in time to help.
****
Irene was scared, someone was trying to run her over with a car,
to kill her. She was praying that someone had heard her call for help,
that someone would save her. She was walking home from lunch in a
restaurant with Linna when a black car started chasing her. She knew
it was someone from Genom. They want her dead, just like they killed
her fiance.
Irene turned into an alley, hopefully the car won't follow her
into it. She was wrong, as soon as she started to catch her breath the
car that has been chasing her turned into the alley way. She ran to
the other end, turned left and went into another alley, trying to at
least slow the car down. She was running to the other end of the alley
when she felt someone grab her from out of the shadows. She was about
to scream when she heard a command.
"Quiet! I won't hurt you. I'm here to help."
Irene felt the hand holding her let go and started to back away.
She made sure to observe the figure in the shadows for any sudden
movement, ready to run.
Lyon stepped slowly out of the shadows, he knew that a wrong move
would scare Irene and she would start running again. He didn't want
that, she would be safer with him for now. And he didn't want to chase
he by roof hopping again. "Don't worry, remember the Hou Bang? I'm
here to help," Lyon said, trying to keep his voice as soft as possible.
At the mention of the Hou Bang Irene started to believe him. She
was the granddaughter of the Hou Bang's leader, if this guy was a
member then he would not dare to hurt her. She studied him for a
moment and started to relax more. He was about 5'5" of medium build,
he had straight short black hair and dark brown eyes. He had a
friendly face except that she had the feeling that his main attention
was elsewhere. He wore black pants, white shirt and a black jacket.
All in all she didn't think that looked like a person who would hurt
her. She was almost relaxed all the way when she saw the black car
stop at the entrance of the alley. A woman stepped out of the driver
side door, Irene recognized her as one of the bodyguards of Mason.
Then she almost screamed when with a sound of ionized air, first a very
thin white streak of light hit the woman then after a second or two, a
brighter streak of light hit the woman again. As she watched Mason's
bodyguard blow apart. There was no blood, she realized that it was a
boomer bodyguard. She turn towards where the white streak that blew
apart the boomer came from and saw her savior holing some kind of gun.
"We have to get going. I surprised that one, they might send
more after you," Lyon said. And besides that second shot was with the
gun on full power, his gun only had four shots per power cell on full
power. He only had three power cells for his gun, but he didn't want
to tell her that. The first shot was on stun, just in case the woman
was human. It had no effect so he set his gun on full and fired again.
"Come on, I'll take you somewhere safe."
****
At the Lady633 building, at Sylia's penthouse, Sylia, Priss,
Linna, Nene and Mackie were at the living room sitting, drinking coffee
or tea and discussing the destroyed boomer and the car that tried to
run over Linna and chased after Irene.
"I'm worried about Irene," Linna said. "We don't know if she's
safe or if she got away."
"What I want to know is what could have destroyed that boomer,"
Priss said. "Even if it didn't have that much armor it still doesn't
explain what could destroy a boomer that way. Could Irene have
destroyed that boomer? Did she have a gun or something?"
"No, I don't think Irene had a gun or anything that could have
done that to the boomer," replied Linna.
"I don't think Irene could have had anything to do that to the
boomer either," put in Sylia. "Even in our hardsuits we couldn't have
caused that much damage, except maybe if we hit it with two or three
knuckle bombers at once."
"Do you think it's a new type of boomer could have done it?" Nene
asked Sylia, getting worried.
"If there's a new type of boomer capable of doing that then we're
going to have to be more careful when fighting boomers." Sylia set her
cup down on the coffee table. "But why would Genom send a new type of
boomer to interfere with Mason's bodyguard boomer? No, I don't think
that a boomer did that."
"I'm still worried about Irene you guys." Linna said again.
"Don't worry Linna," Nene said patting Linna's hand, trying to
reassure her. "I'm sure that she's alright."
"Nene's right Linna don't worry about Irene for now, I'm sure
that whoever she's with right now is just hiding her somewhere safe."
Sylia turned from Linna to Nene and asked, "Did you and Mackie tracked
down that truck that left the lab before it exploded?" Then turned to
her brother, Mackie. "Mackie is the Silky Wagon ready?"
"Yes."
"It's ready sis."
"Then let's suit up for the mission," said Sylia in a commanding
voice, "Linna we'll look for Irene tomorrow after the mission,
alright?."
"Yes Sylia, let's go. I want to pay Mason back!" said Linna
getting up from the couch.
****
"You should be safe here for now," said Lyon entering his room at
the motel. "No one should be able to follow us here." He made sure of
that by having them take three cabs to different parts of the city and
finally taking a bus and walking the rest of the way to the motel. The
fares for the cab took a lot out his remaining money but he was sure it
was worth it. "Make yourself comfortable, are you hungry? thirsty?"
"Thank you, no," Irene replied. "Um... you haven't told me your
name."
"My name's Lyon and you're Irene Chang not Irene Chan," Lyon
hesitated then added, "Um... I gave you the wrong impression back
there."
"What?" Irene asked confused.
"I'm not from the Hou Bang," Lyon said. "But, I am here to help
you." He added when Irene started looking wary. "Look if I wanted to
harm you I would have already, I just didn't want you to keep thinking
that I'm from the Hou Bang."
"How do you know my real name if you're not from the Hou Bang?
And how do you know about the Hou Bang?" Irene asked still a little
wary of Lyon.
"Hmmm... Do you have any way to contact your Grandfather? Can
you call him or anyone with the Hou Bang?" Lyon asked avoiding Irene's
questions. "You'd be safer with them, I alone, can't protect you that
well."
"I can call my grandfather," said Irene. "I talk call him all
the time."
"That's good," Lyon said handing Irene the phone, "there's the
phone, call and tell your grandfather what happened. Get him to send
someone to pick you up. I'll just go out and get us something to eat."
"You're leaving me here alone!" Irene exclaimed.
"Don't worry, I'll be back in less than 10 minutes, there's a
diner across the street," Lyon said. "Don't open the door to anyone,
I'm going to lock it." With that said Lyon went out and locked the
door to his room.
When Lyon got back to his room carrying take out food, Irene was
still taking to her grandfather on the vid phone. Her grandfather was
an old man, but he looked like he was still fit. From the way they
were talking, he could tell that they loved each other very much. When
he closed the door he deliberately made a lot of noise to get Irene's
attention. Irene turned and waved for him to come into camera range of
the phone. He walked towards her, setting the food on the bed, and
looked at her grandfather in the eyes.
"Grandfather, this is Mr. Lyon, the one who saved me." Irene
introduced Lyon her grandfather. "Mr. Lyon this is Chin Chang, my
grandfather, he wants to talk to you."
"First of all I'd like to thank you Mr. Lyon for saving my
granddaughter." Mr. Chang said as soon as Irene was finished talking.
"I don't want to lose her like I lost her parents."
"You're welcome, but I only did the right thing to do. I
couldn't allow her to get killed without trying to save her. And
please just call me Lyon."
"Yes, I see," said Mr. Chang with a thoughtful look, studying
Lyon's face. "Second, I'd like to meet you in person to thank you
appropriately. I'll send a private plane to the nearest airport to
pick you and Irene up so you can fly here to the States where I can
protect her better. Is that alright with you Lyon?"
Lyon nodded and said, "I don't have an ID or a passport, I assume
that you can take care of that? Good, the farther your granddaughter
is from Mason the better."
"Mason?" asked Mr. Chang his eyes becoming more alert.
"Yeah, Brian J. Mason an executive of Genom, he's probably the
one who ordered her assassination, it was his bodyguard that tried to
kill her." Lyon looked at Mr. Chang's alert eyes, "Don't worry sir,
Irene will not be in danger for more than a few months. Mason should
be dead by then." This Lyon said with his voice full of conviction.
"I'll even make sure of it personally if necessary." At this statement
Irene gasped and Mr. Chang looked at Lyon more closely.
"I take it that you don't like Mason?" It was more of a
statement than a question. "You implied that someone else wants Mason
killed." Mr. Chang prompted Lyon to explain.
Lyon smiled and nodded. "Mason has been causing a lot of
trouble, if the Knight Sabers don't get him, then Quincy will."
"Oh?"
"The Knight Sabers?" Irene asked interested, she'd joked about
getting the Sabers to avenge her with Linna if something happened to
her.
Lyon smiled some more. "The Knight Sabers don't like people
getting killed and if Mason continues to do business the way he's doing
right now he's going to push them to far." Lyon explained to Irene and
Mr. Chang. "And as for Quincy, Mason is planning to over throw him."
"Hmmm... You've given me a lot to think about." Mr. Chang said
thoughtfully. "I'm sure you two needs some rest, so I'll see you
tomorrow. The plane will be at the airport at 9:00 pm, get some rest,
Kou will pick you up and bring you to the air port when the plane
arrives. Until tomorrow then, good bye."
"You should eat first and then take a nap on the bed, you have a
couple of hours." Lyon handed Irene some take out and chopsticks. He
took some for himself, sat then preceded to eat.
"What about you?" asked Irene before starting to eat.
Lyon pause from eating, "I'll be standing watch just in case.
I'll sleep on the plane."
****
In Sylia's penthouse later that night, the Knight Sabers were
discussing their latest mission.
"I guess we're not going to get paid again, huh?" asked Linna to
no one in particular. "But that should teach Mason a lesson, I just
wish we could do more to him. I hope that Irene's okay."
"I'm sure that Irene is fine, Linna," said Nene.
"How can you be so sure that she's fine?!" asked Linna. "She
could be dead or someone could be holding her captive."
"Calm down Linna," said Sylia. "First she's not dead or you and
Priss would have found her body instead of the boomer's. Second if she
is being held captive by someone we'll look for and rescue her."
"Yeah, we'll make whoever has her pay!" puts in Priss.
The Knight Sabers went back to discussing their recent mission,
pointing out what they did wrong, what they did right and what changes
could have been done. This went on for about an hour then they all
said their goodbyes, agreed to meet next day to start looking for Irene
and went to their respective homes.
****
"It's good to meet the man who saved my granddaughter's life in
person," said Mr. Chang shaking Lyon's hand from across the table.
"It's nice to meet you too, sir," Lyon said. They were in Mr.
Chang's office at the Chang Family Estate. The office was decorated in
what looked to be a mixture of Oriental and European style. The office
looked to be tailored to Mr. Chang perfectly. The only other people in
the room were Kou and Irene. Irene was seated on a chair on the side
of the desk and Kou was standing behind and to the right of Mr. Chang.
"Please sit," Mr. Chang waved to the chair in front of the desk.
"I trust that you've rested after your flight? Good, we have some
things to discuss. First I'd like to reward you for saving Irene's
life, ask anything and I'll see if I can provide it."
"Thank you, yes I do need something," said Lyon. "I said earlier
that I didn't have any identification. If you could arrange to have
someone make me an ID, drivers license, birth certificate, passports
and any other document necessary to provide me with a background."
"I can certainly provide that, but is that all you require?" said
Mr. Chang with a frown.
"Yes I'm sure that is all I need," replied Lyon. "With those I
should be able to get a job and find some place to live in Mega Tokyo."
"Hmmm... I'll provide you with a place to live, Chang
Conglomerate owns a hotel in Mega Tokyo. Now to the second item I
wanted to discuss. Are you sure that it is only Mason that threatens
my granddaughter?"
"Reasonably certain, yes," Lyon replied. "Besides by now Genom
should know that Irene is your granddaughter, Quincy isn't about to
start a war between the Hou Bang and Genom."
"Yes, I see," Mr. Chang nodded. "Third and last, I would like to
offer to make you a member of the Chang Family. If you accept, you can
ask for help from any one in the Hou Bang, should you require it. I
think that you are involve in something dangerous and might need help
sometime in the future." He looked at Lyon intently, then continued
when Lyon remained silent. "Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you what
you're up to. I get the feeling, though, that Genom is not going to
like it."
"I'd like to thank again for saving my life, Lyon," said Irene
standing up with Mr. Chang.
Lyon nodded and also stood up.
"Kou will take you to see Tseng Sung, he should be able to give
you what you need. Kou, I want you to give Lyon one of the private
rooms in the hotel and open an account for him in a bank in Mega Tokyo,
2 million yen. It's the least that we could do for you."
****
"This makes for the third boomer rampage this week! How come
there are so many boomers going berserk all of a sudden?" Linna heard
Nene say from her seat inside the Silky Wagon. They were headed to a
boomer rampage, and as Nene said it was the third time this week. Not
only that but every incident involved more than one boomer. The
boomers were causing a lot of property damage and lost of life. Boomer
incidents were becoming more frequent all of a sudden. The police have
gone so far a deploy their own hard suits, the K-11s, but it still
wasn't enough. The Knight Saber have had to go out and help them.
But Linna mind is not entirely focused on their upcoming battle
with boomers. She was still thinking about Irene. Sylia and Nene have
been working hard trying to find her, but it seems like she just
disappeared. None of Sylia's contacts can find her and Nene can't find
her through the Net. Linna was getting really worried despite Sylia's
and Nene's reassurance. She starting to think that Irene might already
be dead.
"One minute Sis." She heard Mackie say. She brought her
thoughts back to the mission at hand. According to the ADP, there were
five BU-55Cs that went berserk, the AD Police should just be getting
there and setting up a perimeter before they move in. Hopefully
they'll get there before anyone gets killed. The back door of the
Silky Wagon opened signaling that they were close to the action. A few
minutes later Linna jumped out of the Silky Wagon following Sylia,
firing her heel jets to control her fall. On the streets Sylia and
Linna jumped onto a roof top followed by Priss and Nene. They were
observing the boomers who seem to be intents on doing a lot of property
damage to the surrounding area. Two boomers were firing at a
restaurant, another two were causing havoc inside a store and the last
was wrecking parked cars. It was a good thing that the area was
evacuated quickly.
"Sylia, the ADP has just finished setting up a perimeter to
protect the civilians, they're getting ready to move in." Nene was
keeping tabs on ADP activities. They would be able to help them better
if they knew what the police were doing.
"Alright, Nene start jamming the boomers in 15 seconds, Linna
stay close to Nene after we've engaged the boomers. Priss you and I
will attack the boomers head on." With Sylia's signal all of them
leapt off the roof and attacked the boomers.
The boomers, alerted by their sensors, all turned to watch the
Sabers land on the streets. They abandoned what they were doing and
were about to engaged the Knight Sabers as a team when Nene's jamming
started.
"Priss and I will take the ones out on the street, Linna, you and
Nene take care of the two in the store." The Knight Sabers used the
momentary confusion, caused by Nene's jamming, of the boomers to their
advantage. The boomer that was wrecking the cars went down quickly,
Priss took it down with a knuckle bomber while it was still suffering
from the surprise of suddenly being jammed. That left one each for
Sylia and Priss, but by that time the boomers were already back to
normal. They just couldn't work together.
While Sylia and Priss were fighting the boomers in the street,
Linna and Nene approached the two boomers coming out of the store
carefully. Linna was not engaging them on a head on battle because she
had to protect Nene and Nene had to keep jamming and study different
sensors data.
Linna and Nene quickly fired their lasers at the boomers to keep
them pinned down. Unfortunately their lasers only served to slow the
boomers' advance towards them a little bit. When the boomers were half
way to their position, Linna jumped forward, hoping to engage both
boomers. The did not agree with her idea though. She engaged the
boomer on the right, shooting it with her laser and moving around it
and dodging its attacks to get better chance to use her monomolecular
ribbons. But the boomer on the left ignored her and went after Nene,
whom it perceived as an easier target.
Nene saw Linna run forward and start fighting one of the boomers,
that left the other boomer to her. She kept firing her only weapon, a
laser, at it but the boomer either dodge or when hit there was little
effect. She was getting worried, she could probably take it on, but
she'd have to drop her jamming, ECM and ECCM. Nene started to back
away, hoping that one of the others finishes with their opponents
quickly to be able to help her.
The boomer was almost on her when a white streak came from above,
hit the boomer on the chest and threw the boomer back a couple of
meters. The boomer's chest was damaged to the point where its heat
cannon was useless, but it still got up slowly to fight. The boomer
was up and looking towards origin of the shot when Nene noticed a
communications signal flashing on her HUD. She keyed her computer to
receive and started to look up towards the source of the shot.
"..me in Pink Saber. Need a little help?"
"Yes." Nene saw a guy wearing a helmet that covered his whole
head, body armor with leg and some sort of skin tight full body suit,
jump from a roof to her side. He also had some type of gun in his
hand. "Who are you?"
"Call me Maverick," Lyon tapped the top front of his helmet where
the name was engraved with one hand and aiming his gun at the boomer
with the other.
Nene saw another streak of energy hit the boomer, this one taking
its head off. As the boomer fell to the ground she turned back to look
at Maverick. "What are you? That can't be a hardsuit you're wearing."
"No its not a hardsuit. Can you tell Green Saber to back off
from the boomer." Lyon took aim at the boomer Linna was fighting,
waited for her to get receive Nene's message and get out of the line of
fire.
Linna having received a message from Nene that the other boomer
was down and to back of a little did so. She saw a streak of light hit
the boomer, it goes down. She took advantage of the situation and
leapt forward, snapping her head, her ribbons flew out and sliced the
boomer's head off. She looked to make sure that it was dead, turned
towards Nene and saw her standing with a guy. He was wearing some kind
of armor but there was no doubt he was a guy. The skin tight suit he
was wearing didn't do anything to hide the fact after all.
"Who is he, Nene?" asked Linna.
"He said to call him Maverick. Here I'll patch you in, um,
remember not to use our names. Use Green Saber, Pink Saber and so on,
that's what he's calling us." Just then Sylia and Priss arrived and
Nene repeated the same to them.
While Sylia was listening to Nene she studied their uninvited
guest. He showed up as completely human to her scanners, what
interested her though was that he did not show up on any radar. Her
radar should at least be able to pick up his armor, obviously it was
made of radar absorbing materials that she did not know about. She was
also interested in his gun, it couldn't be an ordinary gun she saw the
last shot and didn't know what kind of projectile he was using. She
wondered what technology was involved in making it.
"Nice to meet you Green Saber, Blue Saber, Saber Prime." Lyon
nodded to each of them and turned to Nene. "Could we talk on a secure
channel?"
"Okay, first let me reassure you ladies that I am neither a
boomer or a boomeroid," Lyon said when they were on a secure channel.
"Second, Irene is safe."
"Irene? What do you know about Irene? She's safe?" Linna
stepped forward from the rest of the Knight Sabers.
"Yes she's safe. Her family is hiding her right now. And I was
the one that saved her." Lyon noticed that the ADP were closing in on
the area. "I have to go, the police are here. I'm sure you do too,
see you around. We could sing or dance or have ice cream together
sometime." He jumped to a roof before they could react, then he was
gone.
****
Lyon checked his sensors to see if anyone was near him, then
jumped into his balcony when he saw that the coast was clear. Today
was the first time he met the Knight Sabers out on a mission, he'd met
Linna before in her club and seen all of them except for Sylia at Hot
Legs. This won't be the last time he'd be seeing them fighting
boomers, with boomer incidents rising he'd be seeing them a lot.
Lyon opened the balcony doors and went in. As he made his way
into the kitchen for something to eat he got out of his armor,
hopefully there won't be anymore rampaging boomers today. He also
replaced the clip on his gun with a fully charged clip from his belt,
put his gun on the coffee table. He only had three clips, but they
were self recharging, it takes about three days to fully charge one
clip when it was empty. He decided early on, before he actively went
out and sought rampaging boomers that he could not afford to use his
gun on full power, because he'd only get four shots out of each clip.
Fortunately one setting below does quiet well. Not only does he get 40
shots out of each clip, each shot was could also drop a boomer, if he
aimed for the head that is. He won't be able to kill a boomer in one
shot anymore unless he shoots them in the head, but it gets the job
done. He had his clips on rotation now, so every time he went out he
had a fully charged clip in his gun.
He was already out of his combat gear and in the kitchen
preparing a sandwich and thinking about what had been happening since
his meeting with Mr. Chang. Kou and Tseng Sung helped him decide on an
identity, then made it for him. He was now registered as Richard D.
Lyon, there was no reason not to use his real name, well except for the
D part. A day after that Kou helped him get settled in the hotel in
Mega Tokyo, then went back to the States saying to contact the Hou Bang
if he needed anything. The first week was fine, there was only one
boomer rampage that he had to stop and it was only a construction
boomer. But after that the boomers started rampaging twice then three
times a week, then came the BU-55Cs. It's the third week now.
This was the first time that he showed himself to anyone, he'd
just stayed in the shadows and sniped at the boomers until now. He
found that it worked very well against boomers. They couldn't see him
and they didn't know that they were being targeted until they got hit.
The reason for that, he thought, was because he was manually targeting
the boomers. He didn't have any targeting systems on his helmet, so
the boomers won't be alerted that someone had a target lock on them.
And he also always put his sensors and radar on passive when going in
combat. He also kept moving after each shot so that boomers won't get
a visual lock on him.
He came out of the shadows today because he wanted to meet the
Knight Sabers. He wanted them to know that he existed and to get
Sylia's attention. Hopefully, she'll investigate, get a lot more
interested and approach him herself. That way she won't get suspicious
of him or his motives. And that parting remark from him should get all
of their attention. He wondered if they were talking about it right
now. He bit into his sandwich and smiled.
****
The Knight Sabers were all in Sylia's living room, their post
combat discussion done. They were now talking about the mysterious
Maverick.
"Sylia, do you really think that he knows who we are?" Nene took
a bite of a cracker. "I mean, you heard what he said, sing, dance and
ice cream. Priss sings, Linna dances and I like ice cream."
"Speaking of ice creams, I think you've gained weight from eating
too much of it." Priss teased Nene.
"I'm serious, Priss!" Nene said, blushing. "So what do you
think, Sylia?"
"It could have been a chance remark," Sylia began. "But I highly
doubt so. As you said Nene, each one has something to do with one of
you."
"But he didn't say anything that's tied to you, Sylia." Linna
frowned, she too thought that he knew who they were. "What I really
want to know is if he was telling the truth about Irene."
"We can't trust what he says until we know more about him."
Sylia looked each one of them, stopping at Nene. "Nene tell us again
what you saw, and what he said when he showed up."
Nene told them everything she could remember of her encounter
with Maverick.
"Hmmm... Yes I didn't see him use anything to jump to the roof
top. No jets or any kind of boosters. He said he wasn't a boomer or a
boomeroid. Even boomers can't jump that high without using their
boosters." Sylia sighed. "There's a lot that we don't know for sure.
Until we know more we'll treat him as a neutral. As for Irene we'll
ask what he knows about her if we meet him again."
"Sylia! I think that he's the one that ADP has been getting
reports about." Nene reached for a cake, but decided against it. "ADP
has been getting reports from witnesses about streaks of light hitting
boomers from out of no where for weeks now. When ADP arrived at the
scene the boomers are either dead or severely damaged."
"Interesting, I want you to get everything ADP has on him
tomorrow, Nene," said Sylia.
****
Lyon entered the martial arts section of the club where Linna
worked. He was there to practice katas and to spend some time getting
to know Linna. Between the two his priority was the second. He could
practice better at the hotel in his rooms, there was enough space for
him to do his most difficult katas, but in public he had to hold back
or people would think he wasn't human or a boomeroid. So he kept his
katas at reasonable level. He just wished he had some place to
practice his ki blast where he wouldn't attract attention. Not that he
had much of a ki blast, the more reason why he needed a place to
practice. The last time he tried he could only barely manage a ki
blast, it took him a long time to set up and by the end he could barely
move. There was no place in the city he was comfortable enough to
practice his ki blast though.
Linna greeted him while he was coming out of the men's changing
room. "Hi Richard!"
"Linna, I told you, it's Lyon or Rick, I don't like being called
Richard." Lyon sighed, he should never have told her that he didn't
like his given name. Even his call sign would be better, Mave"Rick",
but he couldn't tell her that, yet.
"So do you want to spar again?" Linna asked.
"Yes, after I do my warm ups," said Lyon.
Lyon liked practicing here because they were the only ones who
used the dojo at one hour before lunch. The dojo also had more room to
move around in than his suit.
Linna watched Lyon as he immersed himself in one of his katas.
She was doing a kata of her own, but it was no where nearly as
difficult as his. She still wondered at how skilled he was. They have
been practicing together for a week now and she's been feeling that he
was holding back a lot more than he says. She watched him flow from
attack to defense, from punch to kick to block. As usual she tried to
keep track of the different schools he was using, kempo, tai chi, judo,
karate, kung fu and a bunch of others. She sighed, she wished she
could be that good. She sighed again and continued to watch, trying to
memorize every new move that she saw.
"Okay! I'm done warming up!"
Linna got attention back to Lyon, he preferred Lyon to either
Rick or Richard. "Okay, I'm ready," she said walking to the center of
the room and going into a defensive stance.
Lyon seeing that Linna was in a defensive stance started the
sparring by attacking. He probed her defenses, letting her know where
the holes are by attacking them lightly. She was improving, every
sparring match they have he had to up his level a bit to get through
her defense. Of course she might not notice that she was improving if
she didn't spar with anyone else regularly. On some signal between
them he switched to defense as she suddenly lunched into the attack.
Linna has been picking up some of his attacks too. The combination
attack she just did was simple but he'd made it to be efficient. He
saw some other moves that he had used on their other sparring matches.
They went on like that for about 30 minutes, back and forth and
all over the room. When Lyon saw that Linna was starting to get too
tired, he ended the match like he always did. He used a combination
move that she hasn't seen before. He'd be willing to bet that she
would remember it and copy it on another sparring match.
"That was a good match, Linna." Lyon dropped his stance.
"Thanks."
Linna looked at Lyon as she was getting up. He didn't even seem
to be sweating, another indication that he was holding back a lot. She
was grateful though, ever since she started sparring with him her
scores in Sylia's test were going up.
"Welcome." She looked around to see if anyone was around. "Ah..
Are you doing anything tonight?"
"No why."
"I was wondering if you'd like to go out." She'd just dumped
Patrick, a couple of days ago and hasn't been out with a guy since.
"You know maybe have some dinner."
Lyon thought about it, "Sure, I'd like to," he said with a smile.
"I don't know any place to go to so you'll have to pick."
"Great! I know this great place where they serve the best food."
"Is it okay if I meet you there?" Lyon asked.
"That's fine."
****
"Sure Priss! we'll be there!" They were in the private elevator
to Sylia's penthouse. "Linna and I always loved to hear you sing."
Nene walked out of the elevator as it opened.
"Sorry you guys but I'm meeting someone for dinner tonight."
Linna followed Nene out. "But I'll see if I can convince him to go to
Hot Legs after."
"I thought you broke up with... Patrick? was it. It's so hard to
keep track," Nene teased Linna. "Don't tell me you have a new man
already?"
"Yeah, Linna you go through men like Nene goes through cakes and
ice cream." Priss followed them into the living room, sitting on the
couch.
"Hey!" Nene and Linna yelled as Priss laughed.
Nene frowned at Priss until she stopped laughing. "So who is he?
Is he nice? Is he handsome? Can I meet him?" Nene asked Linna.
"His name is Lyon, no Priss not Leon, Lyon. Richard Lyon. Yes.
Yes. And I saw him first." The last Linna said to Nene with a glare.
"Besides I don't think he's interested, we're only going for dinner.
I'm hoping to find out more about him over dinner."
"How long have you known him anyway?" asked Priss.
"About a week and a half." Linna looked up, and saw Sylia enter
the room. "He come to the club to practice martial arts, he's very
good. He only stays for about an hour, he does katas and spars with me
if I'm there then leaves." Linna turns to Sylia. "You noticed that my
scores are going up on the holo-simulator, right? I've been improving
since I've been sparring with him. Maybe we could get him to train all
of us."
"I'll think about it," said Sylia.
"What's this meeting about anyway? Do we have a job?" asked
Priss.
"No, this is about Maverick." Sylia went to her computer and
brought up an image of Maverick about to shoot a boomer. "This is from
my suit, I got a good look at him as he shot the last boomer." She
keyed the computer to play in slow motion. "Watch." On the screen the
Knight Sabers saw a bullet shaped light come from Maverick's gun. It
traveled through the air, pulsing with energy. As it hit the boomer
the bullet tore it's armor apart until the bullet ran out of energy.
Then the recording started to play again.
"What it this supposed to tell us?" asked Priss.
"That projectile is made out of energy." Sylia looked at the
other three young women. "We only see a streak because its moving so
fast. To an observer it would look like a stream of energy, like in a
particle cannon or laser. This is very different. I don't know anyone
who has this kind of technology, not even Genom."
****
A few days later Lyon was on top of a building near Sylia's. He
was watching them clean up after a boomer rampage. He didn't get there
in time. The boomer was already junk when he arrived at the scene. He
decided to watch the Knight Sabers clean up the mess in Sylia's store.
He's met all of them except for Sylia a few days ago in Hot Legs after
he had dinner with Linna. They all had a good time, he'd danced both
with Linna and Nene, unfortunately Priss had to sing. He didn't mind
though, he'd rather hear Priss sing than dance with her any time.
A few minutes later he left, thinking of what was coming in the
near future. As far as he could remember the Silky Doll was only
attacked once by a boomer, that was when Mason pushed the Knight Sabers
too far. Mason and the Knight Sabers will be going head to head at
Genom tower, he had to prepare for it.
A few days later he made a mistake of not sticking to Priss like
he did to Linna and Irene. He should have stuck to her like glue. But
he was out patrolling the streets of Mega Tokyo, roof hopping. He did
that some times, just go around the city with an ear open to the police
band for boomer rampages. He didn't even realized what had happened
until he was passing near Genom Tower and saw a truck release Priss and
Linna in their hardsuit and on motorcycles. He realized right then
that the event that pushed the Sabers was the death of Sho's mother.
He didn't have time to be sorry at the time. Right then he was focused
on getting to Genom Tower and killing Mason.
At the bottom of the Tower Priss and Linna with their motoslaves
transformed were engaging BU-12B in a fight. He decided to give them a
little help and set his gun on full power. He didn't fell like holding
back right now. As he ran towards the Tower, past a surprised Linna
and Priss, he shot the two BU-12Bs that was in his way in the chest.
Both boomers didn't have any time to dodge his shot, they were too busy
with Priss and Linna. The result was the same as when he shot the
bodyguard boomer with full power. Both boomers blew apart as streaks
of light hit them. Before all the pieces hit the ground, he was
through them and was running up the side of Genom Tower.
The first thing he saw when he reached the top was Nene in
trouble with a boomer. He decided to help when it looked like the
boomer was about to finish her. He shot at the boomer hoping to
distract it, but he forgot that his gun was set on full power. He
cursed himself, now he only had one full power shot or ten shots on one
setting lower. He set his gun a setting lower, looked around and saw
that Mason had Sylia by her neck.
He was about to aim at Mason when he heard him say. "Drop you
gun, who... Urg!" And saw Sylia's blade sticking out from Mason's
neck.
Sylia dropped Masons body and slowly walked towards Nene, from
the way they were acting he could tell that they were talking about
something. About him probably. He walked to Mason's body, looked down
and shot the head a couple of times. He told himself that it was to
prevent anyone from getting Mason's memories to make Largo. But who
was he kidding, it was just to pay him back.
When he looked up Linna and Priss where standing with Nene and
Sylia not far away looking at him. Priss looked like she wanted to aim
her rail gun at him. He opened a com link to Nene.
"Sorry for coming uninvited." He waited to see if they were
receiving his signal.
"We want to talk to you Maverick." Probably Sylia, from the cool
tone, and the white hardsuited leader or the Saber had stepped forward.
"But first let's switch to a secure channel and get to some place more
private."
They made their way down the Tower, the Knight Sabers using their
jumpjets and Maverick bouncing down the walls of the Tower. At the
bottom their truck was waiting for them. They loaded their motoslaves,
but didn't go with the truck when it left.
"Follow me." Sylia used her jumpjets to go to the roof tops
followed by the other Sabers and Maverick.
After they were some distance away from Genom Tower Sylia stopped
and turned to Maverick. "What were you doing at Genom Tower?" she
asked.
"I saw you, and followed," Lyon replied. "I mean you don't
usually attack Genom Tower so I thought that something was up." That
was basically true, he did follow them to Genom Tower.
"I don't believe you," Priss began, then stopped when Sylia held
up her hand.
"We'd like to ask you some questions." Sylia stepped towards
Maverick, taking time to study him up close.
"You can ask, but I might not answer them. Ask anyway."
"First, about Irene how do..."
"Irene should be fine." Lyon interrupted, looking at Linna.
"I'll make a call, then her family should let her out of hiding. With
Mason dead there's no reason for her to hide. She's in the States by
the way."
"What? How?..." Linna stepped forward but stopped when Sylia held
her hand up again.
"Second, what are you?" Sylia asked not really expecting an
answer.
"I'm human, if that's what you're asking. I don't have a single
ounce of metal attached to me. Technically that's true, I don't think
the monomolecular armor under my skin is metal." Lyon murmured, trying
to remember what the docs told him when they gave it to him. "Or I
could say that I'm a wandering warrior, a ronin maybe."
Sylia noted that he murmured something and told herself to check
the recordings later. "Why are you against Genom?"
"Probably the same reason you are. I don't want Genom to take
over the world." Lyon turned away from them, walking to the edge of
the roof. "I worked for an organization that's against anyone
individual or corporation ruling the over everyone." He looked back
over his shoulders to Priss. "I'm sorry about Sho's mother, I should
have been there. I have to go."
****
Back in his hotel rooms Lyon phoned the number that Kou gave him
to contact the Hou Bang. He had to tell them that Mason was dead. He
also hoped that he could ask another favor of them. The screen lit up
and Kou appeared on the screen.
"Hello Lyon."
"Hi, Kou."
"What can I do for you?" Kou asked.
"Actually I called to say that Irene shouldn't be in danger
anymore. Mason is dead."
"Could you wait a minute, Mr. Chang will want to hear what you
say." Lyon saw Kou lean forward and press a button. "Mr. Chang, I
have Lyon on the line. Yes sir." The screen split vertical down the
middle.
"It's a pleasure to see you again Lyon." Mr. Chang motioned and
Irene appeared besides him.
"Hi Lyon!" Irene greeted him.
"Kou tells me that Mason is dead. Tell us what happened."
"This morning Mason ordered a house to be torn down. He didn't
give the occupants any warning. As a result a woman died, she has a
son, a young boy." Lyon tried hard not to let the guilt that he felt
for not being there show. "The Knight Sabers finally had enough of
him. They attacked Genom Tower and Mason met them in his own hardsuit
with some boomers. I was also there, I was hoping to get Mason myself,
but the Knight Saber's leader killed Mason before I could."
"Good!" Everyone turned to Irene, her face was a little grim but
she was pleased about the news. "I should be able to get back to Mega
Tokyo tomorrow then."
"Irene, it's still dangerous here. Even with Mason gone there
are still boomer rampages." Lyon thought that it would be best for him
if Irene stayed away from Mega Tokyo. She would be able to recognize
his gun and it's effect. She would be able to guess who Maverick is
easily.
"No! I will go back to Mega Tokyo. I'm tired of hiding and I
want to see my friends."
"Two conditions," Mr. Chang said. "Kou will go with you and you
will stay at our private family suit, oh! and Lyon will move in with
you. The family suit takes up the whole top two floors. It has ten
bedrooms, a living room, a full kitchen, five bathrooms and others
rooms that no one really needs."
"But Grand... Oh! okay," Irene sighed but she was smiling.
"Um... Mr. Chang?" Lyon began.
"Oh! please say you'll agree Lyon." Irene looked at him with a
smile and pleading eyes, who could resist it?
"Sure," Lyon sighed. "Mr. Chang, I have a favor to ask."
"Lyon, I owe you a great debt for saving my granddaughter. Ask."
"It's about the son of the woman who died, could you do something
for him? He is so young, I wasn't there for his mother but maybe..."
"Yes, I'll see what can be done."
****
At their headquarters the Knight Sabers has finished putting away
their hardsuits and motoslaves. They were now dressed as ordinary, but
beautiful women.
"That guy knows who we are!" Priss said. "Or at least who I am.
He knew that I knew Sho and his mother there can't be another
explanation."
"Yes, I've come to that conclusion myself." Sylia looked at each
of them calmly. "Add what he said the last time and I think that he
knows everyone of us."
"Sylia! what are we going to do?" asked Nene. "He could expose us
to Genom and everyone else."
"I don't think he'd do that Nene." Linna laid a hand on Nene's
shoulder to calm her down. "He could have told anyone who we are weeks
ago, but he hasn't."
"How do we know that he hasn't?" Nene calmed down a little, seeing
that Sylia wasn't worried.
"Linna's probably right," said Sylia. "He is against Genom, but
he's alone. He needs all the help he can get. He is probably letting
us know that he knows who we are to get us to trust him. He might want
our help. But it could also be a trap." Although she couldn't see how
it could be a trap. He knows who they were, he probably knows where
they live. If he'd wanted them dead he could have attacked when they
didn't have their hardsuits. And from what Linna and Priss said
earlier, about him blowing apart two BU-12Bs with one shot each his gun
is powerful enough to destroy a hardsuit too. His technology seems to
be more advanced than theirs and Genom, so he can't be after her
father's secrets. If it was a trap, it was a highly elaborate one.
"I wonder what he meant when he said that he was sorry about Sho's
mother and that he should have been there." Linna looked at each of her
team mates. "I mean he couldn't have know what Mason would do."
****
The next day Kou and Irene were already settled in the family
rooms in the hotel. They were sitting in the living room with Lyon,
drinking tea.
"So what are your plans for tomorrow, Irene?" Lyon took a sip from
his cup.
"I decided to go to the club Linna works at." Irene put down her
cup and turned to Lyon. "She needs to know that I'm alright. She was
with me just before I was attacked."
Not good. "Yeah, she does. But don't tell her I'm the one who
saved you. Tell her it was a guy called Maverick." There's no point in
trying to hide it from them, they'll figure it out anyway. Or Kou might
already know. Well they won't know the name I use, but Irene could
recognize his gun's effect if she saw it in the new. And some people
actually had footage of him shooting boomers from the shadows. And
besides it was time to tell them more about himself, they were almost
family now.
Kou stood up and went towards a window. "So you're actively going
out and looking for rampaging boomers?" When Lyon said nothing he
looked at Irene, then back. "How long? The media hasn't known about
you for a long time. They've only started reporting about mysterious
streaks of light striking down boomers."
Lyon drained his cup, buying time to think. "I guess I started
when I saved Irene." He looked at her then Kou then back. "You see, I
knew that she was going to be targeted." He paused to take a deep
breath. "I also knew that she would die if I didn't interfere." He
heard Irene gasped, but continued before one of them could interrupt.
"I followed Linna knowing that they would attack you just after you left
her outside that restaurant. You know you guys never asked me how I
knew about your connection to the Hou Bang Irene."
"No we haven't," said Kou looking at Lyon intently. "Mr. Chang
felt that you wouldn't tell and he didn't want to make you."
"You wouldn't have believed my explanation anyway." Lyon got up
and began to pace. "Kou, you've seen my equipment haven't you? You
inspected them when I met Mr. Chang." Kou nodded. "Have you seen
anything like it?"
Kou looked thoughtful before answering. "Can I see them again?"
he asked.
Lyon went into his room and walked back carrying a duffle bag. He
dropped it on the table, opened the bag and started taking out his
combat gear. "I wasn't wearing any of this when I saved you Irene."
Kou looked at the gear on the table. A helmet with Maverick
written on its forehead and an antenna on each side. It had a
rectangular visor about three centimeters wide and a front piece to
cover the rest of the face. A body armor that would cover a person from
waist to neck. It looked like an ordinary body armor but he was willing
to bet that it wasn't. There was also what looked like a skin tight
suit for the whole body. Last were arm guards that fit from wrist to
elbow, a pair of gloves with knuckle guards, leg guards from ankle to
knees and a pair of boots. Then there was Lyon's gun and something that
looked like a sword hilt. They were all black, it spoke of gear that
was meant for stealth. "Yes, I've seen light combat armor before, but I
don't think this is light combat armor. I haven't seen anything like
that suit though." Kou turned to Lyon with a questioning look.
"It is light combat armor," said Lyon looking back at Kou. "It's
a light armor that can probably take a hit from a boomer's particle beam
cannon. The suit could probably take glancing blows."
"I don't understand," said Irene looking confused, light armor
that can take a hit from a particle beam cannon?
"This is what light armor is where I come from. If I had heavy
armor I could probably take on an army of boomers by myself. You see
all my equipment is from technology that is way ahead of this world's
current technology." Then he preceded to tell them about TDC, the
mission he was on and how he ended up in this world.
"So you're from another world?" asked Irene, not really believing
it yet. She looked to Kou but he remained silent. "How do you know
about me and the Hou Bang, if you're from another world?"
"Ah.. you.. see.. um.." Lyon looked back and forth from them.
"There's an anime where I come from called Bubblegum Crisis..." He told
them what an anime was and told them what he could remember of the
series. He didn't reveal to them the Knight Saber's name, he referred
to them by their colors. By the end of it he could see that they were
convinced.
"So, can you tell who the Knight Sabers are?" asked Irene.
"Why?"
"Well... I want to ask them if I can join the Knight Sabers."
"What?!" yelled Kou and Lyon. They looked at each other then
turned back to Irene. "Why do you want to join the Knight Sabers?" Lyon
asked.
"I want to be able to get back at Genom some how." Irene said with
some heat. "The Knight Sabers seem to be the only one that can do that
before you came. And you only have one set of combat gear. So will you
tell me who the Knight Sabers are?"
"I'll think about it," Lyon said.
****
The next day Lyon, Irene and Kou went to Linna's club at the same
time. Irene had convinced them that it would be good for her to learn
martial arts. Lyon had to agree, it would be better if she knew how to
defend herself.
At the change rooms Kou stayed outside the ladies' change room and
waited for Lyon to get out from the men's change room before going in to
change him self. It seem that Mr. Chang assigned Kou to be Irene's
bodyguard and he's taking it way too seriously, thought Lyon. Irene
shouldn't be in any danger now that Mason was dead.
Irene went out of the change room wearing a woman's aerobics
uniform. Very short shorts and a tight T-shirt. "So will this do for
exercise?" She turned in a full circle, smiling at the way Lyon looked
at her.
"Um.. Yeah." The men's change room door opened and Kou walked
out. To Lyon it looked like he stopped to stare at Irene for a quick
moment but it was so fast that no one else could have noticed it. They
walked to the dojo, Lyon in front, Irene and Kou behind him with Kou one
step behind Irene.
"Hey Lyon!" Linna saw and waved Lyon over. "Come for another
sparring..." Then she saw who was behind him and ran past him. "Irene!"
Linna hugged her then stepped back. "I'm sorry. You're safe, I thought
they got you or killed you!."
Before Irene could say anything Lyon said. "We're attracting
attention." He motioned to the people looking at them. "Let's go into
the dojo first."
"I'm so glad that you're safe. I would have hired the Knight
Sabers if anything happened to you know. Just like you asked me to."
Linna said with a laugh when they entered the dojo. "Can you tell me
what happened?"
"Yes," Irene replied and began telling her how she was chased by
the black car, how a guy named Maverick stopped her in an alley, that
she recognized the driver of the car to be Mason's bodyguard, who turned
out to be a boomer and how Maverick saved her from the boomer. She left
out any mention of the Hou Bang and Lyon. But she did tell Linna that
Lyon was a friend of her family when Linna asked how she knew him. She
also told Linna that Kou was a friend of hers which Linna took as
"boy"friend.
Lyon and Kou left them alone and went to the other side of the
dojo to practice their katas. They studied each other's style, looking
for weaknesses and strengths. They both stopped when the ladies walked
towards them.
"So ready to learn?" Lyon asked Irene.
"Yes sensei," answered Irene with a giggle.
"Lyon why didn't you tell me that you knew Irene?" Linna asked
Lyon.
"Um.. because I didn't know that you knew Irene?" Lyon lied.
"Oh! yeah, right. So you're teaching Irene martial arts, care to
have another pupil?"
"Sure, let me just show Irene some basic stretches and I'll teach
you a kata. Warm up first." He showed Irene some stretches and simple
punches end kicks then showed Linna a kata until she could do it by
herself. Lyon watched the two girls for a while, correcting their
mistakes and giving tips on how to improve.
He told Linna and Irene to continue practicing and went to where
Kou had resumed his kata while he was busy with them. "Do you want to
spar? I need a good work out."
Kou stopped his kata and nodded.
Lyon faced off against Kou, he studied Kou's stance, looking for
holes. He knew that Kou was doing the same. Kou's stance was solid,
not many openings but there were some or those could be left open on
purpose, just like he left openings in his own defense. Lyon started
circling slowly to the left, waiting for the right moment to attack.
Kou matched him, also moving to his left.
Irene and Linna's attention were drawn to the two fighters as soon
as they faced off. Linna soon stopped her kata and Irene also stopped.
They waited patiently as the two fighters started circling each other.
Then as if by some signal that only they could see, Lyon and Kou
met in the middle of their circle with a flurry of punches, kicks, and
blocks. Kou used mostly kempo, judo and aikido, but Lyon also knew
those three and more.
Lyon blocked a punch and the one following it, he countered with a
sweep kick but Kou jumped over it. He went straight to a round house
kick which Kou blocked again. He had to admit that Kou was very good,
better than Linna. He was already reaching the limit of the level of
skill he'd decided to show.
Kou was having a hard time blocking and avoiding all of Lyon's
attacks, but he was pleased to see that he was correct in guessing that
Lyon was very good from the way he moved. He stepped aside and blocked
a round house kick and countered with a spinning back hand.
Linna watched as Lyon blocked a spinning back hand then grabbed
and pulled it with the same hand, causing Kou to flip over him. Kou
rolled to the side, got up and they were fight again. The fight lasted
for another ten minutes, the fighters trading blow after blow.
Then by mutual consent, Kou and Lyon separated and bowed to each
other. Kou was sweating and breathing heavily, obviously tired from the
match. Lyon however was only slightly tired but he was also sweating,
though only a little.
"You were holding back." Kou walked to get a towel off to the
side. He turned back to Lyon, wiping sweat off. "I don't know how
much, but you were holding back." There was no accusation in his voice,
only curiosity.
"I always hold back," Lyon said also getting a towel. He turned
to the girls and said, "Linna get back to your kata." Then walked
towards Irene to show her a basic kata.
****
Leon was in his patrol car when he received a call to investigate
a boomer rampage. They told him that the closest to the incident other
than him was ten minutes away, they told him to wait for back up if
necessary. He arrived at the scene in three minutes. He immediately
saw two 55C boomers destroying everything in sight in the middle of the
streets. He swore and wished that Genom would stop making those things.
He skidded to a stop and called in the situation before getting
out of his car. He pulled out his gun and crouched low, using his car
for cover. About six minutes before back up arrives. He took a deep
breath, stood up and fired three shots at the closer boomer. Two hit it
in the chest and bounced off, the third hit it in an eye, damaging it.
It only served to enrage the boomers and draw attention to himself.
Leon took a couple more shots at the boomer damaging it some more
and emptying his clip. He ducked back down and felt his the air around
him heat up from a particle beam that passed where his head used to be.
He was hoping that the Knight Sabers would show up as he reloaded his
gun. Or maybe whoever it was that shoots boomers from the shadows would
start shooting any minute now, thought Leon. He stood up again and shot
at the boomers trying to keep them back. He himself hasn't seen the guy
in action, he wasn't even sure if he was a guy. The guys at ADP only
assumed it was a guy since the Sabers were all women. Leon didn't
understand their logic but he was willing to go along with them.
Lyon landed on a roof top one building away from the fight. He
saw a guy behind a police car holding off two 55C boomers with a gun.
Hmmm... dark hair, wears tinted shades, crazy as hell to be facing two
boomers with only a gun, must be Inspector Leon McNichol, Lyon thought.
The boomers were getting close to Leon so Lyon decided to give
them another distraction. Lyon fired a shot then leapt to another
shadowy spot, fired again then changed position again. But Leon kept on
firing at the boomers, so when they couldn't find where the new threat
came from they decided to deal with the one they could see.
Lyon saw that the boomers were still concentrating on Leon. Damn!
He had to get them away from Leon and shooting at them wasn't working.
What the heck, Lyon thought, he was tired of always staying in the
shadows anyways. He jumped towards one boomer and hit it with a fly
kick to the head, he used the kick to bounce to the other boomer. He
hit the boomer with both feet and bounced again and landed close to it
as it fell down from the force of his kick. As he landed he aimed his
gun and shot it on the head at point black range.
The other boomer was just turning around after recovering from the
kick it received from Lyon when it received two shot from Lyon's gun.
One on the chest then on the head.
As the last of the boomers fell down Leon stood up and walked
around his car towards his rescuer. He was wearing what looked to be
some kind of light armor over a skin tight suit, attached to his waist
were his gun, two clips of ammo or what looked to be clips of ammo, and
a cylindrical object about one foot in length. Leon couldn't think of
what that might be. He looked up and saw "Maverick" written across his
helmet. "Is Maverick a call sign or your name?" he asked gesturing.
"My call sign. You know that you're crazy going against those
boomers with only a gun." Lyon replied through his helmet speakers,
gesturing where the boomers were.
"You didn't seem to have a problem," said Leon looking closely at
the gun that can deal the kind of damage that he'd seen it could. He
wanted one, heck he wanted one for every ADP personal.
"My gun is special, one of a kind. Aren't you going to try to
arrest me?" asked Lyon.
"Would you come peacefully or do I have to use force?" asked Leon
with a smile.
"I won't come at all."
"That's what I figured," Leon mumbled under his breath but Lyon
still heard it.
"Well, if that's all Inspector McNichol, I better be on my way.
Others aren't as understanding as you are." As Lyon bounded away he
shouted through his helmet speakers. "Next time Leon, wait for back
up!"
****
The next day at the ADP headquarters after Leon handed in his
report about the incident, Chief Todo scanned the report and looked up
to Leon. "So we know what he looks like now." The chief tapped a
photograph taken from a security camera's recording of the street where
the incident occurred. "Good thing that you noticed that there was a
camera recording the fight. I take it that you handled him like you do
the Knight Sabers, you let him go?" At Leon's nodded he continued.
"You some of the higher ups will rave that you didn't even try to arrest
him."
"Yes sir," answered Leon. "One thing I didn't put in the report
though sir, is that he called me by name. And I didn't have my badge
on."
"He could have seen you in the news. You have been in the news
once in a while."
"Yes but... "
"No. Leave it at that. Dismissed."
"Yes sir." Leon walked out of the chief's office and met Daley a
few meters away.
"Hello Leon-chan, what did the chief want with you this time?"
Daley asked him as they walked towards Leon's desk.
"I gave him my report on yesterday's incident."
"Yeah, I heard you took on two 55C boomers by yourself without a
K-11 suit and you won. Good job! partner." Daley looked at Leon waiting
for an explanation.
"That's because I had a little help."
"Ah! your girlfriends show up and saved you."
Leon ignored the girlfriends crack. "No, the Knight Sabers didn't
show up. Maverick did."
"Boyfriend?! But Leon-chan you know that I'm the only one for
you!" Daley acted jealous.
"No! Not a boyfriend, will you quit it Daley!" said Leon getting
irritated, his voice rising.
"Leon what's this about a boy friend?" asked Nene. She was on her
way to her desk when she heard and decided to tease Leon some more.
"Priss won't like you two timing her with a guy."
Leon glared at Nene then switched it to Daley. "No, I was just
telling Daley about Maverick." Leon and Daley missed Nene's startled
expression. "He's the guy we're getting reports about, the one who
shots rampaging boomers from the shadows. I met him last night,
apparently he's decided to come out in the open." Leon turned back to
Nene. "Can you do me a favor? Can you look around the net for any
information on him? Maybe he's a mercenary."
That was the first thing Sylia had Nene do after their first
encounter with him. So far she still couldn't find any info on him. "I
don't know Leon, I'm kinda busy."
"I have a couple of coupons to that ice cream place that you like
so much." Leon took out the coupons that he got from the place before
he went to work.
"Deal! I'll see what I can find!" Nene grabbed the coupons and
went to her desk.
"How much did that cost you?" asked Daley.
"I have a deal with the owner, I advertise for him through Nene
and he give the coupons to me for free."
****
In Quincy's office, inside Genom Tower, Madigan was also handing a
report on yesterday's boomer rampage to her superior, Quincy. Quincy
read the report meticulously, as if searching for hidden facts.
"Interesting." Quincy said at one point and continued reading.
"It seems that he finally decided to show himself."
"Sir he has shown himself a couple of time before."
"Yes, yes," Quincy wave a silencing hand. "But this time he
showed himself to a police officer. Keep on a watch full eye for him.
I want to know who and what he is and who or what produced him."
"Yes sir."
"Get a report on what we do know about him to me by tomorrow."
"Yes sir."
"I want you to find out more about him, do whatever it takes."
"Yes sir. I already have a plan on how to get more information
about him. Do I have permission to implement it, sir?"
"I said do whatever it takes. Don't make the same mistakes that
Mason did, Madigan. Dismissed." Quincy went back to studying the file
on Maverick not bothering to see if Madigan has left or not.
****
A week later, at noon, ten BU-55C boomers went "berserk". The
boomers went through a couple of blocks, causing a lot of damage, before
they all stopped moving in the middle of a park. The park was part
baseball part soccer field, there was a lot of open space and little
place to hide.
Sylia called the Knight Sabers together to deal with the boomers,
when Nene told her what was happening. She told Nene to get out of work
anyway she could. Sylia knew already that this wasn't a case of
rampaging boomers, rampaging boomers just don't stop to destroy a park.
And ten 55Cs was stretching it, this had to be a staged boomer rampage.
But for what purpose, Sylia asked herself. It could be a trap set by
Genom to destroy them. With so little cover in the park the boomers
could shoot at them easily. But only ten boomers, all the Knight Saber
should be able to handle that. There was also Maverick, if he showed up
the battle would be easier. That was when she realized that Maverick
almost always fight while hiding, but in the park he wouldn't be able to
hide.
"Ladies!" Sylia called for the other Saber's attention when they
were all suiting up. "I want you to know that this boomer rampage is
probably a trap."
"What!" Linna and Priss said.
"I knew it!" said Nene. "Talk about obvious. Ten boomer suddenly
deciding to rampage in a park, come on! No body is dumb enough to
believe that!"
"Nene is right. But this trap is not set for us, it's for
Maverick." Sylia let that sink in while they all put on their hardsuits.
"Genom might be planning to capture him, we can't let them have him. If
Genom gets their hand on his technology and puts it on every boomer they
will be unstoppable. His gun and whatever stealth system he has alone
would make a boomer ten times more dangerous." She explained as they
were on their way aboard the Knight Wing. "And we don't know what else
Maverick has."
Soon they were they were at their destination and Sylia ordered
her brother, Mackie, to drop them of to the south of the boomers. The
Knight Sabers, each of them with a motoslave, dropped from Knight Wing.
They fired their jumpjets to slow their descent.
****
As the Knight Sabers arrived at the scene, Lyon was heading
towards it, by roof hopping. He was only a couple of blocks from the
park, so he saw the Knight Wing drop the Knight Sabers and leave. He
also saw that the ADP was already there and forming a perimeter around
the park, preventing civilians from entering. He couldn't see any of
their armored squad though.
When he arrived, the battle was already in full gear. The Knight
Sabers had already killed two boomers with the help of their motoslaves
and Linna was working on a third. He was about 40 meters away from the
battle, on top of an apartment building east of the park. He didn't see
any choice at all, he would have to go into the open. With a flex of
his leg muscles he lunched himself towards the battle.
As soon as he heard that there were ten BU-55C boomers he'd
decided to use at least about five to six full powered shots. He wanted
to lower the number of boomers before they could gang up on him. So
with his gun on full power, he landed 15 meters away from the battle on
an equipment shed, jumped high and shot at three boomers while he was in
the air. Two boomers blew apart, hit with streaks of light. The other
saw him coming and had enough time to dodge.
As he landed he looked at each of the Knight Sabers. Linna was
turning one into scrap metal with her motoslave's cannon, Sylia and
Priss were both shooting at two boomers each, keeping them pinned down
and Nene was of to the side jamming the boomers and occasional taking
pot shots at them, most of which missed. There was one boomer that
seemed to be intent on Nene though, it had just opened its mouth cannon
when Lyon saw it. Lyon fired of his last full powered shot at the
boomer and changed the power cell of his gun.
Unfortunately, Lyon didn't really bother to change his gun's power
cell as fast as he could. He thought that the Knight Saber had the rest
of the boomer occupied already. But he didn't know that five of the ten
boomers were specifically programmed to make Maverick their priority
target. Three of those five boomers survived.
The three boomers saw their priority target and ignored their
current combatant. One of the boomers Sylia was fighting dodge a blast
from her motoslave's cannon, opened its mouth and fired its particle
beam cannon at Lyon, at the same time both of the boomers that Priss
were firing at ignored her and one opened its chest and fired its heat
cannon at Lyon, other used its mouth cannon.
Lyon had time to clumsily dodge two attacks, but the second
particle beam hit him full on in the chest while he was recovering from
his last dodge. He was lifted of his feet and thrown 15 meters backward
towards the equipment shed he'd landed on earlier.
****
Nene was having trouble jamming and firing at the boomers at the
same time. Her jamming prevents them from working together, but there
was just too many of them. They were also modified and equipped with
12mm Gatling gun. She was firing her motoslave's cannon once in a while
to keep the boomers back, but she couldn't keep on firing or there would
be a chance that the boomers would break her jamming. It was a good
thing that they all had a motoslave, they could take more hits from the
boomers and they could hit back a lot harder. So far none of the Knight
Sabers has gotten hit really badly and they've already brought down two
boomer with another one to go. Suddenly there were three streaks of
light and two boomers blew apart and the ground near a third exploded.
"Sylia! Maverick is here!" Nene announced through the Saber's com
channel in case anyone missed it. Nene stared at the remains of the two
boomers that was hit moments ago. She still could not believe that a
gun that size could be so powerful. Then she turned her attention to
the black clad figure that landed a few meters away. Maverick, she
thought, who and what was he? As she watched, Maverick brought his gun
up and fired. There was an explosion of to her side and she realized
that she was ignoring the battle. That boomer was probably going for
her and she didn't even know it. Before she turned back to the battle
she saw Maverick eject a clip from his gun and reached to his belt for a
replacement.
She turned just in time to see three boomers break of their fight
with the other Sabers. The three boomers all fired at Maverick, two
with their mouth cannons and the other with its heat cannon. She turned
back just in time to see maverick get hit with one of the particle
beams. She saw him fly towards the equipment shed and through its
walls.
With the boomers attention somewhere else, the Knight Sabers took
them down fast. They all turned and started walking towards the wrecked
shed. They all saw Maverick fly to and through its walls while they
were busy dealing with the boomers.
"He couldn't have survived that! No one could," said Priss her
voice thickening. "Damn Genom!"
"We don't know that yet Priss," said Sylia although she too
doubted that Maverick survived. "We'd better check. And besides we
don't want Genom to get him, dead or alive."
"Sylia come here! Look he went through the other wall too."
Sylia went to Linna and looked to where she was pointing. On the ground
a few meters away from the other side of the shed was Maverick. His
armor had a small crack on it and he was not moving but that was it. He
didn't look like he was dead, she could see that he was still breathing.
"Sylia! I've called Mackie. The police's K-11s are coming." Sylia
heard Nene's voice in her helmet.
"Good, ladies we'd better hurry. Priss carry Maverick with you.
We have to get out of here."
****
"I'm getting worried, Lyon should have been back by now." Irene
was in the living room, watching the TV for any news on the boomer
rampage.
"Don't worry he can take care of himself and if something has
happened to him it would have been on the news." Kou put an arm around
Irene, holding her to him. They've gotten close in the past couple of
that Kou has been teaching Irene martial arts. Lyon also taught Irene,
but Lyon couldn't teach her every day like Kou did. Kou was about to
say again that Lyon would be back soon when the news grabbed their
attention.
"We will show you a recording of the fight between ten boomers,
the Knight Sabers and a new vigilante. This might not be suitable to
all viewers, use your own discretion." A woman inside of a news set was
show in the TV. Then the picture changed to that of the battle in the
park. From the angle of the camera, the shot could have been taken from
on top of a building or a hovering chopper.
Kou and Irene watched as the events unfolded in total silence.
The news broadcast started from before the Knight Sabers arrived to
until they left with an unconscious Lyon. Then the picture changed back
to the woman.
"We have no way of knowing if the unknown vigilante is still alive
or just injured." Irene tuned out the rest of the broadcast and buried
her face in Kou's shoulder.
"Oh God! He could be dead. Lyon could be dead!" Irene cried
clinging to Kou.
"Sh... He not dead Irene." Kou hoped that he was right. "He said
that his armor could take a hit from a particle beam cannon right?
That's what he got hit with, he should be alright. He's just a little
shaken up that's all."
"I hope you're right Kou." He heard Irene whisper and hoped that
Lyon told the truth about his armor and wasn't just boasting.
****
In the infirmary inside the Knight Saber's HQ, Sylia looked down
at Lyon on the hospital bed. The other Knight Sabers were in the room a
few feet from the bed, giving Sylia enough room to examine him.
"I can't tell what's wrong with him without removing his armor."
examined Maverick's armor closely. There didn't seem to be any straps
that fastens the body armor together, she wouldn't be able to get it off
without cutting it off. And she wasn't sure that she had anything that
could cut his armor. The helmet was easier, she undid a few clasp and
then removed it.
"Lyon?!" gasped Linna and Nene.
Priss who only met Lyon for a little while in a dark club took a
closer look. She was the only one who noticed Lyon's eyes blinking
open. Sylia had turn a questioning look at Linna and Nene.
"Wh.. what happened?" asked Lyon groggily. Then he saw Priss
leaning over him and at the same time realized that he wasn't wearing
his helmet. "Hi! Priss! Nice to see you again!" he said or at least
he'd intended to say, but the pain in his ribs had him gasping. "I
think I have some broken ribs."
"I have to remove your armor to be able to threat your wounds."
Sylia came over and examined his pupils.
"I'll have to get up," Lyon told her, pushing himself up and off
the bed. He had a hard time, his ribs hurt even when he breathe.
Linna went over to him, holding him up. "Are you sure that you're
up to standing?"
"Easiest way to get my gear of." Lyon tugged of this gloves, arm
guards, leg guards and boots then pushed buttons on his armor that were
hidden along the breast bone, his armor split on the left side with a
hiss. He slid his right arm free and handed all of it to Priss. He
reached to remove his belt when he realized that he wasn't wearing it.
"Where's my belt?" Lyon asked Sylia.
"I removed it," Sylia replied cooly meeting Lyon's eyes with her
own.
"Okay, so long as I didn't lose it during the fight." There was
little chance that could have happened, but he didn't want to sound
accusing. He pushed a button on his collar and his skin tight suit
split from his neck to just above his waist. He pealed off the suit and
stood wearing only his shorts. He turned to Linna who had been
supporting him all the time and handed the suit to her then went back to
lie on the bed.
As soon as he got back into the bed Sylia started examining him.
"You have three broken ribs, you'll have to stay in bed until they
heal." She looked into his eyes again. "You don't seem to have a
concussion, do you want a sedative for the pain? It will also make you
sleep."
"Yes." Lyon watched as Sylia went to get the sedative. "You know
this isn't how I wanted to reveal myself to you. Oh well, I was about
ready to approach you anyway."
Sylia gave him the shot then asked. "What did you want to
approach us about?"
"I need help, I'll tell you about what later. When I'm thinking
more clearly. Sylia, could you hand me my helmet for a sec?" Lyon took
it from her and entered in his authorization codes. "Here you should be
able to use this now Sylia." He gave her the helmet. "You'll only be
able to access a few technical files, but they should help you against
Genom. See you all tomorrow, I think the sedative is taking effect." He
closed his eyes and in a few moments he was asleep.
"Can't believe that Lyon is Maverick, and he knew who we were all
along!" said Linna when she saw that Lyon was already asleep.
"But we didn't meet Lyon until after the first time we saw
Maverick, at least Priss and I didn't, and I don't think that Lyon has
met Sylia at all," Nene said.
"No, I have not met him before," Sylia said, from her bandaging
Lyon's ribs. "We can ask him question later, right now he needs some
rest and time to heal." Her task done she covered Lyon with a blanket
and ushered the others out of the room, taking Lyon's helmet with her.
****
The next day Sylia went down to check on Lyon. It was late, she'd
over slept because she lost track of time going over the technical files
stored in Lyon's helmet and ended up sleeping at dawn. Lyon was right,
those files will help them go up against Genom. There was information
in Lyon's helmet on how his gun was made, more important it showed how
the gun's power cells were made. Sylia realized last night that if she
could use those power cells on the Knight Saber's hardsuit it would
increase the hardsuit's power supply by more than 500%. If she could
also put a gun like Lyon's in their hardsuit it would increase their
attacking power by 150-200%. Then there was Lyon's energy sword that
doubles as a shield generator. Either one would be very useful in a
hardsuit. The data on Lyon's armor was also very interesting, she would
have to see if she could make those kinds of alloys and if she could
make hardsuits out of it. She might also be able to make their inner
wear from the same material as Lyon's skin tight full body suit.
Sylia entered the infirmary carrying a tray of food, Lyon should
be hungry by now, he didn't eat dinner or breakfast. She activated the
lights and heard Lyon groan.
"Good morning. I brought you something to eat." Sylia set the
tray down near the bed, sat on a nearby chair and waited for Lyon to
fully wake up.
"Good morning," Lyon greeted Sylia with a nod. "Thanks! I'm
starving!"
"That's because you've skipped dinner and breakfast," Sylia told
him, watching him eat.
Lyon was about to shove more food into his mouth when what she
said hit him. "What! What time is it? And where's my gun?!" Lyon
shouted and nearly made it out of bed if Sylia hadn't stopped him.
"It's past noon and I don't know where you're gun is." Sylia
pushed Lyon back into the bed. "We didn't have time to look for it
before the ADP arrived and we had to leave. What are you worried about?
It said on your files that only you could use that gun. Are you worried
that Genom will find it?" Asked Sylia, thinking of what Genom can do if
they got possession of Lyon's gun.
Lyon stopped struggling as soon as he heard the time. "Past noon?
No, I'm not worried that someone would find it, I thought that you had
my gun." Lyon sighed.
"Why would you worry about that?" Sylia asked.
"It has a delayed self destruct mechanism, if I loose contact with
it for 24 hours it melts," Lyon told her, then asked. "What time is
it?" At her answer he sighed and closed his eyes. "13:30, I guess I
don't have a gun anymore." He opened his eyes and looked at Sylia.
"I'm sorry, I didn't know. It didn't say anything about a self
destruct mechanism on the file on your gun in your helmet. If I'd
know..."
Lyon interrupted. "Not your fault. I still have my sword, I
didn't use it before because I was maintaining a low profile. I've
always liked hand to hand or melee to ranged combat anyway." Lyon told
her with a smile.
Sylia looked at him thoughtfully. She's learned a few things
about him from the files in his helmet. She knew that he belonged to
some organization called TDC. She knew that because the files said that
Lyon's gear were for use of TDC personal on a mission requiring only
light armor and armament. Although if guns that can take out boomers in
one shot is considered light armament she didn't like to think what
heavy would be. She needed to know where he was from, although she had
a bad feeling about finding out.
"Why did you let me have access to your helmet?" she asked.
"I wanted you to see them before I tried to explained who and what
I am. And what I need your help for." Lyon paused to take a deep
breath. "I'm not from this world." He studied Sylia's face after he
said it. "You don't seem to be surprised. Why?"
"I've had a couple of ideas on who and what you are after I went
through the files on your helmet." Sylia said calmly, but she still had
a hard time accepting what he had just said. "One of them is that
you're from another planet."
"What made you think that I was from another planet? An alien?"
Lyon asked surprised.
"Your gear, according to your files it's only purpose was for
armor, no enhancements and no jumpjets or anything that would allow you
to jump the way you have been. That is if you were human. I thought
that you could be a boomer or a boomeroid, but you got injured and I did
a full med scan on you. You show up as completely human, which doesn't
make sense if you're an alien. I need more information before I decide
which you are," Sylia told him.
Lyon smiled. "I am human. I'm from another world but I'm still
from Earth or Terra."
"You mean another dimension? That's even harder to believe.
Right now I think that some government made you in a top secret
facility. Our knowledge of bioengineering has been going up. That was
the most reasonable thing I could think of to explain what you could do.
You were made with bioengineering by some government."
"How about my gear?" Lyon said with a smile. He'd like to hear
what she came up with to explain it.
"A major break through on energy manipulation and alloys that was
kept a secret." By now Sylia was doubting her own explanations. One
government couldn't have had all those advances in technology and kept
it so secret that no one even heard a rumor about it.
"I am from another dimension Sylia." He preceded to tell her
about TDC and its purpose. "That's why my gun has a self destruct, if I
was back in time and I lost it, I'll only have a day to try to find it
before it gets destroyed, it prevents someone from finding it and trying
to reverse engineer it." He explained to her how he arrived to this
world and that he hoped that she might be able to help him figure out
how to get home. When she asked how he knew the Knight Saber's
identities if he was from another world, he told her about Bubblegum
Crisis. He avoided mentioning anything about future episodes, he only
explained what the show was about and told her about the episodes that
have already happened.
Sylia listened to it all hardly believing any of it at first, but
she was monitoring him with the room's sensor, including a lie detector.
If he was lying, either he was telling the truth or he believed it was
true.
"So, you know what is going to happen in the future?" Sylia asked
when he finished his explanation. She'd decided that he was telling the
truth.
"You don't really want to know what's going to happen, do you?"
Lyon asked. "Besides, I've already changed a lot of things just by
being here." After a pause he whispered. "Irene was killed in the
series, as a result one whole episode shouldn't happen anymore."
"You're right I don't want to know. You'd better eat, the food's
getting cold." Sylia stood up and walked towards the door. She had a
lot to think about.
****
An hour of so earlier, Lyon's gun was in a Genom laboratory being
studied by two scientist. They have just been ordered by Kate Madigan
to find out how it worked and to see if they could make a gun like it
for boomers. They weren't told where it came from, but they've both
seen the news broadcast about the boomer rampage in the park. Both of
them guessed right, that it was the gun of the new vigilante, Maverick.
They were both excited about studying the gun, from what they've
seen on the news, this gun was very powerful and they wanted to know how
it worked. Genom was sure to reward them if they succeeded.
They've just ran the gun through the first scanner when it started
to glow. The two scientist checked their instruments to see what was
causing it.
"It's generating heat! It's temperature is increasing!" said one
of the scientist, a woman, looking at a screen showing the temperature
of the gun.
"What?! Oh god! Celene we have to get out of here!" The other
scientist, a man, looked over to the screen. "Something wrong. It's
going to explode!" He ran to the exit.
"Oh! you're right, Jhon." Celene followed him. As she exited she
saw Jhon press the emergency button besides the door. It will seal the
room to contain the explosion. Then they both ran as fast and as far as
they could from the lab.
Inside the lab, Lyon's gun didn't explode like they thought it
would. It just released its power cell's energy in the form of heat,
first melting the metal examining table it was on then the super tough
alloy the gun was made of.
****
Lyon watched Sylia walk out of the infirmary and continued eating.
He needed all the energy he could get to heal fast. Now that he'd told
Sylia his about himself he hoped that she could help him get home. But
if he couldn't get home he could always stay and help the Knight Sabers
fight Genom. He'd still be fighting for the same thing as TDC fights
for. That was why he gave Sylia access to his helmet, whether he gets
home or not he wanted to give them an edge against Genom.
He finished the food and set the tray aside. His ribs should be
healed in two or three days. He had to contact Irene and Kou to tell
them that he was alright. They must be worrying about him by now. He
had to ask Sylia if he could make a call when she comes back.
Lyon leaned back on the pillows and thought about what he did
wrong during the battle. As far as he could tell everything went wrong
when he'd reloaded his gun. He took his eyes off the battle, big
mistake. Next thing he knew he was dodging desperately and then flying
through the air. He probably wouldn't have gotten broken ribs if he
didn't hit a wall and he wouldn't have lost his gun. He remembered that
he still had his gun while flying through the air but he blacked out
after he hit the shed. It might be a good idea to get rid of his gun,
it was the reason he got hit, thought Lyon.
His thoughts were interrupted when Linna entered the room. "Hi!
Lyon."
"Hello Linna," Lyon greeted her. "Could you ask Sylia if I could
make a phone call? I want to tell Irene and Kou that I'm alright."
"Yes you can, Linna could you get my cell phone, it's in my
purse." Sylia entered the room carrying Lyon's helmet. "I thought
about what you said." She started after Linna left the room. "I still
think that you're right, I don't want to know anything about the future,
but if you think there's anything I should know about..."
"I'll tell you. Are you going to tell the others what I told
you?" Lyon asked Sylia.
"Is there a reason not to?"
"No."
"I also came to ask you if there was a way for me to be able to
down load your files from your helmet into my computer," Sylia told him.
"Yes, here." Lyon reached for his helmet, then showed her where
to plug in her computer and told her the password to use to be able to
down load. Lyon handed his helmet back to Sylia as Linna came back with
the phone.
"Here's the phone Lyon." Linna handed it to him. "Do you want us
to leave you alone while you make your call?" she asked.
"No, don't bother." Lyon gestured for them to stay and sit down.
"I wont take long." He dialed Irene's cell phone number, she was
probably out shopping or something by this time of day. "Irene, it's
Lyon."
/"Lyon! oh thank God! Are okay? We saw what happened on the news
and..."/
"I'm fine, I'll be back in a few days."
/"A few days? why? Where are you?"/
"I'm with the Knight Sabers. I have to go, don't worry about me,
bye." Lyon handed the phone back to Linna.
"I take it that Irene knows you're Maverick," said Sylia. "How
much have you told her about yourself."
"I told her most of what I told you."
"What did you tell her?" asked Linna.
"Does she know who we are?" Sylia asked.
Lyon smiled. "No, but she wanted me to tell her. She wanted to
know because she wants to join the Knight Sabers. Should I tell her
that there's an opening for another Saber?"
"I'll think about it."
"Irene wants to be one of us? That's great!" Linna said smiling.
"What's great?" Priss entered the room and sat down on the
opposite side of the bed from Linna and Sylia.
"That Irene wants to be a Knight Saber," Lyon told her.
"Is she going to be?" Priss asked Sylia.
"I said that I'll think about it. Well, I have some things to do
so I'll see you later." Sylia stood up and walked to the door.
Lyon, Linna and Priss talked some more. Lyon asked Priss for
copies of her songs, he discussed Linna's progress on her martial arts
with her and that Priss should learn martial arts, but she refused. He
also told them an edited version of his past. No mention of time travel
or other dimensions. He'd tell them all later so that he doesn't have
to repeat himself again. Or he could just let Sylia tell them, he
thought.
A few hours later, Nene enter the room. "Hi! Sylia said that I'd
find all of you here. I just got off work, it was busy at ADP because
of what happened yesterday. Leon was angry because someone let Genom
take over the investigation."
"What?! It was Genom who let those boomers loose and they're the
ones investigating?" Priss shouted, getting angry. Genom would probably
cover it up like order boomer "rampages".
"I did think yesterday was a set up. I just didn't realize that
it was a set up for me. Those three boomers were probably programmed to
go after me."
"Yes. Sylia said that it was probably a trap for you," said
Linna.
Sylia walked into the room. "Yes, they probably wanted to capture
you, dead or alive. Genom would want your advanced technology." She
walked to the foot of the bed and looked at all of them, letting her
gaze settle on Lyon. "I want you to tell the others what you told me."
"Are you sure you don't want to be the one to tell them?" Lyon
asked. "They'd take it better if it came from you." He saw Sylia shake
her head and sighed. "Okay." He looked at the others, thinking how to
start. "I'm from another dimension." He decided in the blunt approach.
Everyone except for Lyon and Sylia, blinked. "Oookay," Priss
said, she recovered from the surprise first. She looked at the others
to see what they were thinking, when she saw Sylia's face she knew that
it was serious. "Okay, do you want to run that by us again. It's kinda
hard to believe."
"Believe it, he is telling the truth," said Sylia.
Then Lyon proceeded to tell them what he'd already told Sylia. He
answered all their questions except for one concerning confidential
materials of TDC.
"We're famous!" Nene exclaimed at one point while Lyon was
explaining about Bubblegum Crisis. "What?!" she asked when Lyon and the
others gave her odd looks before he continued.
At the end Lyon looked at all of them. "Since I realized where I
was I've wanted to get in touch with you because you're the only ones I
could trust with my technology. You'll need to know about it to know if
you could help me or not." He explained to Sylia.
"I'm sorry but from looking at the files, I don't think I could
help you get home." Sylia apologized to Lyon, the technology used on
the temporal gates was one thousand years ahead of theirs. "And from
what you told us, even if we built a temporal gate it would only allow
you to travel in time. You got here by accident."
Lyon sighed. "Yeah, it was a long shot anyway. I guess I'm
stuck." He'd already knew that his getting home was slim, asking Sylia
for help was his last hope. But he also knew that there was very little
chance that she would be able to help him.
****
Madigan was in the elevator to Quincy's office, she had a folder
in her hand. It contained the data that the sensor that were hidden
near the battle have on Maverick. The information on the folder led her
to wonder a lot more about Maverick, rather than answer some questions.
At least now they knew what he called himself, thanks to a police report
and the video images from the fight. It was the first time she saw an
image of him clear enough to make out what was written on his helmet.
The door slid open and she stepped out into Quincy's office. If
only the gun her team had found in the destroyed shed hadn't
mysteriously melted. She would have had better things to report to
Quincy. She thought of what she could have done if she'd had time to
reverse engineer Maverick's gun. But the data her scientist got from it
before it melted wasn't enough.
"Here's the data on yesterdays operation sir." Madigan handed
Quincy the folder.
Quincy took it and put it aside. "You messed up Madigan." His
voice was cold and a little threatening.
Madigan flinched from his tone of voice. "Sir?!"
"Because of your actions Maverick is now in the hands of the
Knight Sabers. Dead or alive, his technology alone will give them a
huge advantage against Genom. You had better hope that he's dead, that
will minimize the damage that you've done."
Madigan swore in her mind, she knew that Quincy was right and
hated him for pointing it out to her. And as he said, she hoped that
Maverick was dead.
"You're dismissed! And don't make this kind of mistake again."
****
Two days later Lyon and Sylia were in the Knight Saber's training
room. He convinced Sylia to let him out of bed and train by saying that
the kind of training that he was going to do wouldn't put strain on his
newly healed ribs. She'd agree but told him that she'll have watch him
to make sure.
Lyon told Sylia the truth, training his ki won't strain his ribs
but he wasn't sure what Sylia will think about him after he was done.
So he tried to convince her that he didn't need her supervision. It
only seemed to make her want to go with him more.
Lyon looked around the training room. On his left were some
exercise equipment and on his right was space with a padded floor. He
went into the center of the exercise floor.
"Sylia, how thick is that wall?" Lyon asked, pointing at the wall
opposite of the door.
Sylia looked at the wall Lyon was pointing to. "It's steel, a
foot thick. We're underground and there's more concrete beyond that
wall for the foundation."
He motioned Sylia to stand aside and went into a stance facing one
of the wall opposite to the door. His feet were parallel and diagonal
to were he was facing, with his left foot in front. He had his hands
cupped at his waist and started concentrating.
Sylia looked at Lyon from where she was standing. When he told
her that he wanted to do some training so soon after his ribs healed she
of course told him no. Then he'd told her that he wouldn't be doing
anything that involved too much physical activity. She was here with
him to make sure that he doesn't do too much and she was curious on what
kind of training he'd intended to do. From what she could see him doing
he wasn't doing anything at all. He was just standing there in some
kind of stance with his eyes closed.
Sylia was about to ask Lyon what he was doing after a few minutes
of watching him stand in the center of the room when she noticed light
forming in his cupped hands. She was about to ask him about it then
decided to save it for later. She wanted to see what would happen. The
light was brighter now, and bigger. It looked like an orb of energy
pulsing between his cupped hands.
Lyon opened his eyes and smiled, that was easier than the last
time he tried this. He concentrated some more, until the ball of ki was
about the size of a baseball. Then he brought his hands forward and
released his ki.
The ki-blast traveled through the air leaving a trail of light and
heat. There was a small explosion as it hit the wall, the ball of
energy shattered and there was a blinding flash of light.
Lyon fell to his knees, exhausted. That might have been easier
than the last times but the energy drain still fells the same. He
slowly got to his feet, he took a few deep breaths to steady himself.
"What was that?" Sylia looked from Lyon to the wall. The was
only has a small scorch mark on it, but it was proof that something did
hit the wall.
"A ki-blast."
"What's a ki-blast?"
"It's a martial arts technique." Seeing her unbelieving face he
explained all he knew about ki and ki-blast. All he knew on the subject
was from watching Ranma 1/2, DBZ, other martial arts anime and some
books that he'd read from the public library, though. He also told her
how he trained himself in a gravity room, DBZ style.
"So, you learned how to do a ki-blast because of some anime in
your world?" Sylia asked shaking her head.
"Yeah," Lyon said sheepishly. "I haven't been able to practice
my ki-blast since I got here. I didn't want to attract attention and I
couldn't practice it in my hotel rooms. I'm still trying to perfect
it."
"Would you mind if I record you while you're practicing?" Sylia
wanted to know how it was possible for a human to throw energy around.
A few sensors and a camera to record Lyon and she should be able to get
to the bottom of this.
****
Lyon went back to the hotel at noon. Sylia agreed to let him go
because his ribs were healed and he said that Irene and Kou would worry.
Sylia also agreed to let him train at their headquarters, but he had to
use the Knight Sabers' live fire testing range for his training instead
of the training room.
"Lyon! You're back!" Irene said as she hugged him.
Lyon winched as pain flared in his ribs. "Ouch! Irene could you
let go? Please?! Besides I think Kou is getting jealous." Lyon looked
at Kou over Irene's shoulder, he didn't look jealous but Irene did let
go.
"What are you talking about?" Irene stepped back from him with her
head bowed, Lyon still saw her blush though. When she looked up Lyon
was grinning.
"I wasn't sure, but you're reaction just confirmed it." Lyon's
grin got wider as Irene's cheeks turned even redder. Lyon noticed Kou
looking uncomfortable and grinned some more.
Irene recovered and decided to change the subject. "What was the
Knight Sabers' headquarters like? You said that you were in their
infirmary, did you get to see a lot of it?"
"It looked like a typical secret mercenary base, I guess." Lyon
said sounding bored.
"And how many secret mercenary bases have you been in?" Irene
asked archly getting annoyed.
Lyon smiled as he answered. "One. Come on, I'll tell you about
it while I get something to eat. I hope there's something in the
fridge," he said as he walked to the kitchen. "Are you two hungry? I'm
starving! Okay, I'll make us some lunch."
As Lyon prepared lunch he described the Knight Sabers' HQ to
Irene. He told her as much as he could without revealing where it was
or any sensitive materials. Irene seemed to want to know everything
about the Knight Sabers. It seems that she hasn't forgotten about
wanting to be a Knight Saber like Lyon thought she would.
"That boomer rampage was a trap for you Lyon," Kou said after
they'd finished eating. "Those three boomers went after you as soon as
you shoed up."
"A trap?!" Irene exclaimed.
"Yeah, I kinda figured that out already." Lyon put the dishes
away and sat across from Kou and Irene. "Don't worry they only got me
because I was reloading, won't happen again. Don't have my gun
anymore," Lyon said with a sigh.
"What do you mean you don't have your gun anymore?" asked Irene.
"Lost it in the fight, it had a self destruct on it. It should
have activated 24 hours after the boomer incident." Lyon sighed again.
"I preferred melee to ranged combat anyway, besides I can fight better
with my sword anyway."
"Sword? Are you crazy?" asked Irene. "You can't fight a boomer
with a sword!"
"I can with a sword made of pure energy." That quieted Irene
down. "It can also turn into a force field. I'll be using a better
weapon and I'll also have a better defense." Lyon smiled evilly.
"Genom won't know what hit them."
"Why didn't you use that instead of your gun if you had it?" Kou
asked, but he looked like he already knew the answer.
"I didn't want Genom to know about it, its overkill, and I didn't
use it because I was trying not to be noticed." Lyon explained.
"Are you sure you'll be alright? What if Genom sets a trap for
you again?" Irene looked at Lyon with concern on her face, then looked
to Kou for his opinion.
"Yes, you shouldn't go out by yourself, you need backup."
"I'll be fine! They won't catch me not paying attention to the
battle again. And the Knight Sabers will be my backup from now on,
alright?" Lyon said to them. "Now, I have orders to get a lot of rest
to help me heal faster. And I'm tired from this morning."
A few minutes later Lyon was fast asleep in his room. He'd spent
a lot of ki practicing in the morning and he needed to replenish it.
****
Sylia ran the video again to make sure that what she was saw the
last time she watched it was real. The screen showed Lyon in a stance,
concentrating until a globe of ki formed in his cupped hands. She had
gotten used to the idea of him being to do this kind of seemingly
impossible thing after a couple of days. Her theory, supported by data
gathered while Lyon was practicing, was that he was somehow using his
bio-energy. She did find some text about ki and chi in the Net but she
thought that bio-energy was the same thing or close enough.
There, after the blast hit its target the energy just went
everywhere. It was like a ball of water, it took the path of least
resistance. That was probably why the blast didn't do much damage.
She'd have to talk to Lyon and tell him what the problem was.
Sylia has been helping Lyon with his training for the past few
days now, just like he was helping her study the files in his helmet.
It was an interesting experience, applying scientific principals to
something like throwing ki-blast, which despite her theory about it was
still a little mystical.
Sylia checked the time, saw that Lyon should arrive for today's
training in a few minutes and went to the live fire testing room/range.
Lyon was already there and was preparing the target dummy, a steel dummy
that was made to look like a boomer, on the far side of the room.
"I have some suggestions to make before you start," Sylia said
when Lyon was done with the dummy. "I want to show you something." She
went to a wall where a computer was and inserted a disk containing the
video that she was watching. She played it in slow motion and stood
aside for Lyon. "Your ki-blast doesn't do much damage because the
energy in it is wasted. The energy of the blast scatters everywhere
after it hits its target. If you could just focus it in one direction,
like the hardsuits' knuckle bombers, you should be able to cause more
damage." Sylia knew that Lyon knew how the knuckle bombers worked since
she showed him its schematics.
"You're right," said Lyon after watching the video. "I'll see
what I can do to change my ki-blast."
Lyon spent the next few days trying to change his ki-blast,
although his efforts got results, his ki-blast still wasn't strong
enough to do much damage to the boomer dummy.
Still not powerful enough, thought Lyon. Lyon thought back to
Sylia's comment about making it like the knuckle bombers and got an
idea. He doesn't have much control of his ki-blast once it leaves his
hands, but if he gathered ki into his fist then released it when he
punches he should have a knuckle bomber of his own.
"I'm going to try a new technique today," Lyon told Sylia. Lyon
had told her yesterday that his ki-blast wasn't improving much. He'd
spent the rest of the day channeling ki into his fist then releasing it
in one direction in the shape of a cone pointed at the target. This
would be the first time he was going to try it on a solid object.
"Yes, I looked at yesterdays videos." Sylia had seen him punching
air with a glowing fist, at the end of the punch she saw ki energy
travel from his fist to a single point about three inches from his fist,
then spread out again. The result was an hour glass shape. "I think
this will work better than your ki-blast."
Lyon stood in a ready stance in front of the boomer dummy, it was
the same dummy that Sylia does her knuckle bomber test on. For this
first time, he decided to take his time to put a lot of ki into the
punch.
Sylia watched as Lyon's fist grew brighter than what she'd seen on
the yesterdays video. She heard him say "Knuckle Bomber" and saw him
lunge forward. There was a blinding flare of light and sounds of
rending metal as his fist connected with the dummy's chest. When she
could see again she saw Lyon still in his punch position with his fist
hovering above the dummy's legs, which were bolted to the floor. The
rest of the dummy was scattered all the way across the room.
Lyon stood up and started walking to Sylia, he was shaking his
head to clear the ringing of his ears. "Um... I guess I put too much
ki in that," said Lyon as he fell to his knees.
"Yes, what you were practicing with should be enough. At least to
punch a hole through the dummy." Sylia helped him get to his feet and
held him up until he could stand alone.
"I can't use any more ki or I'll be drained, so I guess I won't be
practicing anymore today." Lyon walked with Sylia to the door. "Do you
want to go over my files again?"
"No, I have some things to show you." Sylia led Lyon to her
study. "I've been able to design a power cell for the hardsuits based
on your gun's power cell. It would be the size of the power cells that
I'm using right now, but it would increase the power of the hardsuits by
about 300%. And the power cells would be self-recharging. I've also
designed a built in gun for the hardsuits that's based on your gun. I
can't make it as powerful as yours, it will be about 50% as powerful as
your gun in full power. But it will be shooting at about 70-90% as
powerful as your gun in its lower setting. I have not been able to
duplicate the alloy in your armor though." There was also the repair
nanites that Lyon's armor had. They were so advanced that she didn't
even think about duplicating them. The nanites in Lyon's armor used
less power and were much smaller than the nanites of her world. "I
think I would also like to put a shield like the one on your sword on
Nene's hardsuit. The problem is that it would use too much energy."
"Hmmm... You've done a lot. You could use one of my gun's power
cells for Nene's hardsuit, I don't need it anymore." Lyon thought about
it and liked the idea of Nene being able to defend herself better. "You
can have the other one too."
"Here are the designs of the new hardsuits," Sylia said, calling
up the file of the designs in her computer. "I want to know what you
think of them."
****
Madigan looked at the screens over the scientist's shoulders, she
was supervising all the stages of creating the boomers that would bring
down the Knight Sabers and Maverick if he was still alive. She would
personally make sure that nothing would go wrong. Her plan was perfect,
after it over there would be nothing in the way of Genom anymore.
The boomers Madigan would be using in her plan were Mason's super
boomer design with some changes that's she thought would increase their
chance of beating the Knight Sabers and Maverick. These boomers would
be disguised as BU-55C boomers but when the Knight Sabers and Maverick
shows up they would show their true colors. She thought her plans
through thoroughly, when the Knight Sabers hears about five 55C boomers
rampaging they would not consider them enough of a threat to bring their
motoslaves, and when they arrive they'll be in for a surprise. Three of
the super boomers should be enough to handle the Knight Sabers, the
other two will engage Maverick in close combat, they won't allow him
enough room to use his gun effectively.
A few more days to get it all ready, thought Madigan. She would
soon see the last of the Knight Sabers and Maverick. She'd been through
a lot to get so high a position in Genom and she won't let her past
mistake bring her down. After this she would become even higher in
Genom.
****
"You two are really improving, Linna you can almost take Kou on
now, and Irene you've come a long way from being a beginner." Lyon took
a sip of his drink.
"Yes, thank you for teaching us." Irene smiled at Kou and Lyon.
"Kou says you're still holding back a lot." Linna looked to Kou
across the table to Lyon besides her. She wondered just how much he
held back when sparring with them. She'd seen some of the videos of him
throwing those ki-blast and wondered if it was really all martial arts
like Lyon says.
"I told all of you, I always hold back. It comes in handy in a
real fight, it's better to have an opponent underestimate you." Lyon
put down the menu that he was looking at. "Ready to order?"
"Yes," said Linna looking at the price of the food, one word
expensive. "It's nice of you two to take use out for dinner tonight, I
need it." She had a horrible day, a night out in a fancy restaurant
with friends was just what she needed right now. She was just about to
tell them what her day was like when she heard a familiar beeping. "Oh
god not now!" Linna whispered.
"Linna we have to go," said Lyon shutting of his watch after
reading the message from Sylia. Sylia had given it to him a couple of
days ago.
"But you haven't eaten yet!" Irene studied both of them. "Why
did you're watch beep." Why would both their watches beep at the same
time? Irene asked herself.
"Um... forgot we had something to do," Lyon lied. "You love birds
just have dinner and don't worry about it." He saw Irene blush and
grinned. "Kou, Linna and I have to go, see you around."
"Be careful." Kou looked from Lyon to Linna, then turned to Irene
and put an arm on her shoulder and grinned. "Irene and I will enjoy a
romantic dinner, like love birds do." Irene blushed some more, but
didn't pull away from Kou.
Lyon and Linna made their way out of the restaurant while Irene
was still flustered. They went to the parking lot and took Linna's van.
"What is it this time? It can't be a mission if Sylia is calling you
too." Linna backed out of the parking lot and merged with the traffic.
"No, it's not a mission, Sylia said she'd only contact me with the
watch when its an emergency. It's five BU-55C boomers rampaging."
Linna took a turn that would take them to Sylia's building. "She
knew that I was out with you and probably thought that you'd like to
join us. You still have your gear at Sylia's right?"
"You're right. This is the first boomer rampage since the park.
I'd like to test how I do against boomers without my gun, and I want to
try something." Lyon got out as Linna parked in Sylia's garage.
"Better hurry."
****
In the warehouse district near the harbor, five 55C boomers were
destroying blinding left and right. One building was on fire, it
started when one of the boomers shot at a forklift that was inside and
hit its gas tank, causing it to explode. The fire provided light to see
the boomers by as they wrecked havoc in the darkening sky of the night.
The property damage was a lot, but the cost in human lives would have
been more if it wasn't already night. Most workers were already well on
their way home when the boomers showed up. And the few that were left
behind managed to escape easily, the boomers ignored them and
concentrated on destroying buildings.
The ADP, called by the workers who escaped, were already at the
scene, they've put a one kilometer perimeter around the area, blocking
any one from entering. The ADP were now waiting for K-11 reinforcements
before engaging the boomers. Fire-Bees were circling the area, they've
lost a few of their comrades on earlier attacks on the boomers and they
were ordered to wait for the K-11 to arrive before engaging them again.
One of the pilots suddenly saw a black shape detach itself out of the
night sky. It hovered on top of a building a block away from the
boomers and he could see figures dropping out of it.
On top of the building the Knight Sabers and Maverick looked
towards the boomers. They were all scanning the area, making sure that
there were no hidden dangers. Once they were sure that there were no
hidden boomers, they leapt of the roof and went their separate ways.
They were planning on boxing the boomers in, attack them from all sides.
Lyon and Linna jumped east, across a street to land on a building on the
other side, then ran north on the roof top and jumped across another
street to another building, heading towards the intersection where the
boomers were. Sylia, Priss and Nene went north right away.
"These boomers are causing a lot of damage Linna." Lyon looked
down to the street at the rampaging boomers.
"Get back from there! We're not supposed to be seen until Nene
starts messing with their sensors." Linna was at the center of the roof
to avoid being seen by the boomers.
"Don't worry, my suit can't be seen by sensors remember?" Lyon
took another look then turned to walk to Linna. "Better get into
position, Nene should start jamming any time now." Lyon pointed to the
north side of the building, then went back to his position at the north
west corner of the roof. He looked across the street and saw Sylia
going to her position at the north east corner of the roof of the
building she was on. Lyon looked diagonally across the intersection,
Priss should have made her way around the boomers by now.
"Now!"
That was Sylia's signal to start the attack. Lyon jumped of the
building just as Nene started jamming the boomers. As he was falling he
saw the boomers hesitate on what they were doing as Nene's jamming
effected them. This will be easy, Lyon thought to himself as he landed
on the pavement. He drew his sword from his waist, but didn't activate
it. He wanted the sword to be a surprise. He saw Sylia, to his left,
drop of from the building to the street and Linna, to his right, was
already running towards the battle. Priss was across, to the other side
of the boomers, also ready to attack. And Nene was behind Sylia,
cautiously approaching the boomers.
When the boomers felt their communications, sensors and radar
being jammed they immediately executed the orders they were given just
for such an occasion. All five boomers stopped what they were doing and
bulged out of their 55C body disguises. Instead of blue that was the
color of the 55C model boomers they were now red super boomers.
"Everyone! these are not 55Cs, they're super boomers!" Lyon heard
Sylia say in his helmet as he watched the boomers transformation. "It's
a trap!" It didn't matter now, Lyon thought as he saw the now super
boomers turn to engage them. They didn't have time for a new plan, the
boomers would be on them in a few seconds.
"I don't care if they're super boomers, they'll be scarp metal
when I'm done with them." Lyon heard Priss say and saw hey jump into
the fray.
Lyon ran to help Priss but was intercepted by two of the super
boomers before he got very far. He had a feeling of dread as the two
boomers singled him out and the other three concentrated on the Knight
Sabers. He dodged a spray of bullets from one boomer's Gatling gun and
jumped out of the way of a particle beam that came from the other. The
boomers came in close to him under cover of their attacks. One punched
at him as he landed from his jump, he ducked under it's arm and
concentrated ki into his left fist. Lyon didn't bother to call out his
attack as he pushed of the ground with his fist and hit the boomer in
the stomach with an uppercut. As the boomer flew back a few feet Lyon
dodged as the other boomer tried to punch him with a fist the had claws
protruding from it. He activated his sword as he spun and used his
momentum in his swing, cutting the boomer diagonal in half. As the dead
boomer fell, Lyon saw the one that he punched get up with a large dent
on its armor.
His didn't put as much ki on that punch as he'd done when he
demolished the boomer dummy and the supper boomer had more armor which
was the only reason it was still standing. As the boomer got up it
opened its mouth and fired its particle beam cannon three times in rapid
succession. Lyon brought his sword forward and the energy blade
vanished, the beams hit a force field forming a semi circle two feet in
front of Lyon. The beams splashed on the force field forming a
hemi-sphere in front of Lyon. The force from the hit pushed Lyon back a
foot as he held the shield in front of him. He charged at the boomer,
dodging bullets from its Gatling gun. With an upward slash Lyon cut of
its gun arm then changed the direction to cut off its head.
Lyon looked at where the Knight Sabers were busy with the other
three boomers. Sylia was on his left side busy with one of the boomers,
she was fighting it with her mono-blade, with Nene supporting her by
taking the occasional pot shot at the boomer. Linna was on his right,
fighting a boomer with a missing arm, probably cut by her monomolecular
ribbon, she looked to be winning. And Priss was in front of him and
looked to be having trouble with her boomer. The super boomer was too
fast for her to hit with her knuckle bomber and it wouldn't give her
enough space to use her rail gun.
Lyon rushed over to help Priss, she was between him and the
boomer. He saw Priss stumble on a rock lying on the ground, the boomer
took the opportunity to open its mouth cannon and fire a particle beam
at her. Lyon put on a burst of speed as he saw the boomer open its
mouth, as the boomer fired Lyon was in front of Priss, activating his
force field. He kept on going even under the force of the beam, with
one hand holding his shield up he clenched his other into a fist and
summoned all the ki that he could into it. He dropped his shield,
activated his sword, swung at the arm reaching for him and punched the
boomer in the neck with a ki charged fist. The boomer's head and arm
went flying as it fell to the ground. Lyon turned around just as Priss
was levering herself up from where she'd fallen.
"Thanks," Priss said grudgingly.
They both turned just in time to see Sylia chop the boomer's head
of and Linna hit her boomer in the head with a knuckle bomber. Lyon
walked towards Sylia as he saw her bend over the body of the boomer
she'd just killed and start examining it. Sylia stood up as Lyon
stopped next to her.
"We better get out of here. I've already called Mackie, he'll
pick us up at the building he dropped us on."
As the Knight Sabers and Maverick left the area, a figure hiding
deep in the shadows watched them. From the shape, the figure was
obviously a woman, an elegantly tall woman with long hair. She waved
the staff she was holding and stepped through a door way that wasn't
there before.
****
Madigan watched the video of the fight again, she had picked the
place for the boomers to stage their rampage where one of Genom's
satellites could monitor and record the fight.
Everything went as she planned at the beginning. The Knight
Sabers didn't bring their motoslaves thinking they only had to deal with
five 55C boomers. She saw that they were surprised when the BU-55Cs
became super boomers. They should have all been defeated by her
boomers. Maverick, it was him again that ruined her plan. Where did he
get that sword? and what was it? She hadn't known that Maverick was
that effective in close combat, he has only used his gun before, when
she formulated her plan. And the energy sword/shield, the technology
for that was beyond what Genom or anyone was capable of.
She hated reporting another failure to Chairman Quincy, but at
lest she could show him why the Knight Sabers and Maverick escaped her
trap.
****
"What were you looking for in the body of that boomer Sylia?"
asked Lyon as he followed the Knight Sabers into Sylia's living room.
"I was looking for a black box, a satellite control system. Those
boomers looked like the one Mason built, it had the USSD's satellite
control system."
"Those boomers didn't have them did they?" Lyon sat on a couch
across from Sylia.
"No, they didn't." Sylia looked around the room. Linna was
beside Lyon, to his left, and Nene sat on Linna's left. Priss was
sitting on a chair to her right. "We all know that it was another trap
set by Genom, probably to capture or kill us or Lyon. We have to be
more careful now."
There was silence around the room, each of them thinking of what
Genom might think of next. All their faces were grim, even Nene's
always cheerful face.
"Let them set more traps!" Priss broke the silence. "We'll just
junk all the boomers that they send after us like we did tonight."
"Yeah, we should be able to handle anything together, even super
boomers." Lyon gave all of them a cocky grin. "And once Sylia makes
the new hardsuits, we'll be even harder to beat."
"What new hardsuits?" asked Linna, Priss, and Nene.
"You haven't told them yet?" Lyon asked Sylia.
"No, I haven't, because the new hardsuits are only in the design
stages. I'm not even sure yet if I could make them because it involves
your worlds technology." Sylia explained. "It would take at least a
year more before I can build them."
"Yeah, you're right." Lyon nodded to Sylia, becoming thoughtful.
"You know, I could train all of you so that you could fight better."
"That's a good idea, in fact I've been meaning to ask you to that
myself." Sylia looked at the others. "Starting tomorrow, all of you
will be training with Lyon at 18:00."
"I'm afraid Lyon won't be here tomorrow, Ms. Stingray."
Everyone in the room leapt out of their seats to their feet when
they heard the unfamiliar voice. They all turned towards the sources
and saw a woman in the door way to the room. She was a beautiful woman
in her early 20s, she had long green hair and wore some sort of body
suit and a short skirt. She also had a staff shaped liked a key in her
right hand.
"Who are you?" asked everyone except Lyon and Sylia. Sylia didn't
ask because she was busy studying the woman and Lyon because he said
something different.
"Sailor Pluto?" Lyon asked, not really believing what he saw in
front of him.
"Yes. I'm sorry Lyon," Pluto said as she waved her staff in his
direction, opening a portal behind Lyon. "Dead Scream!" Then she shot
a small blast at him to send him through it.
"Freeze!" Priss, seeing what the strange woman just did, pulled
her gun from under her jacket. "Don't make another move or I'll blow
your head off."
But before Priss finished giving her warning, Pluto stepped into
another portal that opened behind her. As the portal closed a piece of
paper landed on the floor Sailor Pluto had been standing on.
Nene, the closest, picked it up and read what it said. She looked
at the others now standing close to her and read the letter a loud.
"Knight Sabers,
Don't worry, Lyon will be back some day soon.
Sailor Pluto."
****
"Its done," Pluto said as she stepped out of the portal into the
room. "I wish I didn't have to do it so abruptly."
"You know that he wouldn't have left the Knight Sabers," said a
woman with long brown hair, a serene face with marks on her forehead.
"This is for the best."
"I know. Thanks Belldandy." With a swirl of light Pluto changed
back into Setsuna. "Why did Kami-sama have to bring him here in the
first place? He could have brought him there himself, instead of making
me do it."
"You know Father doesn't always explain why he does things. It
might not make sense at first but it will at the end."
****
THE END of Part 1 of A Wandering Lyon
Home Page: http://members.tripod.com/stilesilverthorn/index.html
Email: naldoza@intergate.ca
Part 2 should be up in the end of May 2000 even if its not completed.
It probably won't be completed yet but it will be up.