"Mackie!" Nene cried out as she gripped her side in pain where she'd made contact with the steel girder, "Sylia! Anybody?" she whimpered as she stared at the hulking monstrosity standing between her and Linna's prone form, "Where are you?" "I'm right here," Mackie's voice suddenly came in. "Mackie! Where did you go just now? What am I supposed to do? She still isn't moving Mackie, I..." "Nene, I need you to calm down," Mackie said, his voice betraying his own anxiety, "Help is coming." "Priss?" Nene asked hopefully. "No, Sylia." There was a moment of silence, then, "What?" the blonde asked disbelievingly. ------ She landed hard on the roof, the built in thrusters launching her into the air before she was fully prepared. She silently cursed her timing as the throbbing behind her eyes continued. As the buildings underneath her flew by and she started to descend again, she realized she wasn't going to make the roof. "Shit," she growled as the jet pack on her back gave forth a small burst, carrying her the needed distance to land on the building. This wasn't good; she helped design the suits and fought on countless missions. Hell, she was the leader of the Knight Sabers. The way she was stumbling around one would think it was her first time in a hardsuit. The trembling in her hands wasn't helping either. "Concentrate," she whispered to herself as she took a running start on the roof, launching herself once again into the night. ------ Priss finally made it into her dressing room. After two encores, autograph signings, and the offer from a representative of MTV Japan to do a reality show about herself as an up and coming pop star, she was exhausted. Elated, but exhausted. She went to her makeup mirror, and noted the red light flashing on her cell phone, meaning she'd had messages left for her during the concert. Not giving her number out to too many people, she was expecting to see two or three messages at the most. The phone showed she had twenty-one. She hit the button to listen to the most recent one as she wiped the sweat off her face with a towel. She dropped the towel to the floor as she listened to the message and the panic in Mackie's voice. "No," she gasped. As the rest of Sekiria were making their way back to the dressing room, the door flung open as a leather-clad streak ran by them and out the exit. ------ The behemoth made up of construction boomers roared at Nene, its legs spread apart in a fighting stance. Behind it lay Linna's prone body. Nene knew that if Linna was alive, and if she was going to survive, then she had to do something now. She ran at it, firing her needles into its face once again as her sensors continued searching for its core. Before she could get too close though, the thing used one of its appendages to swat her aside, knocking her into a pile of sheet metal. As the blonde looked up painfully at the boomer, she regretted the fact that her hardsuit hadn't been designed more for close combat. Then she remembered something. She fought back the pain and fear she was feeling as she concentrated. "Suit," she whispered, "I release you. Help me." The liquid metal around her right arm started to re-shape itself as if it had a mind of its own. When it finished, Nene found she had a shiny pink curved blade at the end of her arm. ‘Here goes nothing,' she thought as she leapt at the thing. Slashing at tentacles as they reached for her, she almost made it to the head before one of the tentacles again grabbed her, dangling her upside down in front of its misshapen face. She was about to slash at it, when something silvery flew by, cutting the tentacle off for her. "Sylia!" Nene exclaimed as she landed. "Nene, are you alright?" "I've been better," the blonde quipped. "Anything from Linna?" "No, nothing," she answered emotionally, fighting the urge to cry. Sylia was desperately fighting to keep it together, and a hysterical Nene wasn't helping. She hadn't been out in a hardsuit in close to a month, not since the night of the intervention. She looked over at the still body of the woman she'd fallen in love with over the past month, and she could already feel the pain of loss as she was being taken away from her. "I've been trying to scan the thing, looking for some sort of a shared core." Her love was once more being snatched away from her by a damned boomer. She was going to be left alone again. "So far nothing," Nene continued, "And I can't get past the thing to check on Linna. Sylia, what do we do?" Why had she tried so hard to sober up and get her life back on track? Why had she been suffering DTs, night sweats, and all the rest? What had been the point, when the woman she'd done it all for was most probably gone? "Sylia?" Nene asked, "Sylia, are you listening to me?" She looked up at the monster in front of her with unbridled hate in her eyes. "You fucking bastard!" she screamed, the blade of her arm whizzing through the air as she charged at it. ------ The AD Police car came barreling over the hill fast enough for its tires to leave the pavement. It landed with a thud a few seconds later, its shocks bouncing as it screeched around a corner, sirens blaring. "Leon, are you nuts?" Daley cried as the turn pressed him into the side window, "You're going to get us killed! And what's with the anti-boomer bazooka in the back seat?" "I just got a call from Mackie!" Leon answered as he streaked through a red light, "Linna and Nene are in trouble!" "What?" Daley asked, watching as people were running for their lives to the sidewalks and out of the cruiser's way. "Our shift ended eight minutes ago! If we're caught with our sirens on going this fast down the street on off time with a bazooka in the back..." "Look," Leon said while doing a left turn that made Daley's stomach churn, "They're in trouble, and they can't find Priss. You want out, tell me now and I'll pull over." Daley looked at Leon as he pondered what could possibly be out there that was so terrible the Knight Sabers would need their help? He then thought of all the times the four women had been there for them... "Did you manage to snag us an extra bazooka?" he finally asked as the Police car continued to race towards the construction site. Leon smiled. "It's in the trunk," he answered as he managed to sideswipe a garbage can while taking another sharp right. ------ Breaking the speed limit (as well as a host of other traffic laws) Priss finally made it to the Silky Doll. She cursed herself for not getting done sooner as she unlocked the entrance doors and raced to the secret elevator located in the changing room, pushing the down button as she entered it. "Come on, damn it," she growled as she waited for the elevator to reach the bottom floor. Finally the door opened and she ran out, heading into the command center. "Priss!" Mackie cried as he looked away from the screens in front of him, "Where have you been?" "Never mind that now," Priss snapped, "What's the situation?" she asked as she took her leather jacket off and threw it on a nearby chair. "Linna's down," Mackie answered, "She's not responding, and we can't get any linkup to her hardsuit to check to see if she's just unconscious or..." Priss didn't want to hear the "or," "Where's your sister?" she asked, cutting him off as she removed her boots. "Out at the scene in her suit." "What?" Priss asked in shock. Sylia was in no condition to be out in the field right now, and she knew it. "Right," she said as she ran back towards the armor room, "Get the chamber ready," she ordered, adding under her breath, "I'm coming guys. Hold on." ------ Linna's evening was not going as planned. She had planned on another romantic dinner with Sylia. She'd bought a bouquet of roses for her, intending to make sure that after last nights passionate encounter Sylia understood that her feelings for her were more than physical. After being allowed to see a softer, more vulnerable side of her leader during the past few weeks, she found herself falling in love with her, and wanted to share that with her. Instead, she was stuck out here at a construction site in a dead hardsuit with what sounded like a vicious battle going on around her. She'd tried setting her suit free so it could open her visor, but without power it was a futile effort. Her body ached from the fight, and she could feel what air was left to her getting progressively stuffy and stale. She'd been trying to keep her breathing controlled, but she knew that the minutes were ticking away and she was slowly suffocating. "No doubt about it," she thought to herself, "sometimes, being a superhero sucks." She had only one option left, and it was a long shot. During the boomer revolution, the Knight Sabers had managed to create a psychic link on several occasions. Of course, the last time any of them had tried anything like it since was when Priss used the link to let them know where she'd landed after she fell from orbit. Still, it might work... She closed her eyes and began to focus on the first person that came to mind. ------ Sylia had managed to cut the thing's right arm off. As the appendage reformed itself into a construction boomer, she forced her blade into it and crushed its core. "Nene," she yelled as she extracted her shaking hand from the boomer, "Tearing it apart and destroying each of these boomers individually is going to take too much time!" she ignored the searing pain in her head as she ducked out of the way of another tentacle, "Can't you locate its core?" "I'm trying, but it's..." Nene's voice disappeared as Sylia suddenly found herself alone in a dark, confined space. She felt trapped, unable to move and struggling to breath. "Help me," a weak voice whispered. Then, the voice, disappeared, as well as the darkness and the confinement. "...Like the core is being guarded somehow by a... Sylia?" Nene asked in alarm as she watched her leader sink to her knees clutching at the sides of her head, "Sylia, what..." "She's still alive." "What?" Sylia looked up at Nene as she rose to her feet determinedly, "She just contacted me. She's still alive, but we've got to get to her now!" she added as she turned away from the pink Knight Saber to launch herself at the gigantic boomer with renewed vigor, her sword once again shooting forth from her arm. Nene ran in after her, her own blade slicing through the monster's appendages as she continued to search for a possible shared core. After several minutes, frustration began to set in. "This is no good," Nene cried, "We can't get close enough to do any real damage because of these stupid tentacles!" "Then we go back to taking it down one piece at a time, Damn it!" Sylia answered, panic evident in her voice, "It's still between us and Linna, I..." her voice died off as she caught sight of something blue racing towards them in the night sky, its body silhouetted against the waning moon, "About fucking time," she muttered. Nene looked over to Sylia in confusion at the last remark when Priss suddenly shot down from nowhere onto the thing's back. The combined boomer was caught completely off guard, all its attention focused on the silver and pink Knight Sabers in front of it. "Priss!" Nene exclaimed. "Now, Sylia!" Priss shouted as she began to rip, tear and pound at anything she could get her hands on, "I'll keep the son of a bitch occupied, go get Linna!" Sylia leaped over to Linna, just avoiding one of the flailing members. She quickly opened Linna's visor. The younger woman's eyes were bulging as she took a huge gasp of air. Sylia held her in her arms as the younger woman began to cough. "Nene," Priss yelled as a tentacle reached up and wrapped around her waist, "Where the fuck is the core?" "I've found it!" the blonde cried triumphantly, "Two feet below its head! I'm transferring the info to your screen!" The data was transferred, but before Priss could make use of it the thing tightened the appendage around her waist and threw her to the ground. It then raised its one remaining arm to smash the blue Knight Saber, when its attention was caught by the approaching sound of a police siren. Priss and the others looked on as the chain link fence surrounding the construction site gave way with a crash as an AD Police cruiser came bounding into the fight. "Daley, take the wheel!" Leon shouted. "Wha... Why? What are you planning to..." Daley's voice died off as he watched Leon grab the bazooka from the back and lean out the driver's side window with it, "Holy shit," he gasped just before his partner fired. The resulting explosion shattered the windshield of the police cruiser and took the boomer's head off. Leon roared out in pain as the recoil popped his shoulder out of socket. Priss smirked to herself as she picked herself up off the ground. "That's my man," she quipped as she leapt back up on the monster, finally smashing the thing's combined core. As the it collapsed to the ground motionless, the AD Police car skidded to a halt. Daley and Leon, clutching his arm to his side, exited the vehicle and walked over to the two Knight Sabers standing by the huge corpse. "Shit," Leon groaned, "My arm..." "Well no one told you to fire that thing while you were still in the car." Daley said, his ears still ringing from being so close to Leon when he fired. "What are you two doing here anyways?" Priss asked. "Mackie called us when he couldn't reach you." Leon said. Priss looked away, unable to look at him or anyone else. Because of her, Linna was almost killed, Sylia was forced back into action way too soon, and her boyfriend suffered a dislocated shoulder. Nene noticed Priss' reaction and put her hand on her shoulder. "Hey, cheer up," she said, "You didn't know any of this was going to happen. Besides, you, Daley and Leon Poo were still here in time to save the day." Priss put her hand over Nene's hand and turned towards her. "Thanks," she said, adding, "Let's go and check up on Linna and Sylia." ------ Sylia had removed Linna's helmet as well as her own. She was cradling her in her arms, her headache forgotten for the moment as their cheeks touched. "Are you alright?" she asked as a tear gently ran down her cheek. "I am, now that you're here," Linna answered softly, "Sylia?" "Yes?" "Before all this happened, there was something I was going to tell you." Sylia looked at her questioningly, "What?" she asked, not quite sure where this was going. Linna swallowed hard, "I love you," she said as her own eyes started to tear up. It was the first time either woman had admitted to the other that she loved her, and part of her feared that she might scare her off by saying it out loud. As she gazed at Sylia's though, she saw a look of joy spread over her leader's face. "Linna," Sylia whispered tenderly as she leaned towards her "I love you too." She pressed her lips to the green Knight Sabers, both women tasting each other's tears as they gave vent to the emotions of the moment. For a moment the world seemed to disappear as they lost themselves. "A-hem." Linna and Sylia both looked up to see Priss, Nene, Leon and Daley staring at them. Nene quickly looking away while Priss stood with her arms folded in front of her, her head cocked a bit to the side. Leon's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head, while Daley just looked amused. "Well," Daley finally said as he broke the awkward silence, "It looks like I'm no longer the token homosexual around here." "My god..." Nene mumbled under her breath, too shocked to know exactly how to react. Priss looked from the blond back over to her other two team members. "So..." she asked with a smirk, "Sylia, Linna; care to share anything with the rest of the class?"
Back to One Step at a Time Index - Back to Bubblegum Crisis Shoujo-Ai Fanfiction