Bubblegum Crisis: After the Crash
Sylia Stingray gestured towards the couches with a bandaged arm as she said tiredly, "Grab a seat, everyone."
"Sylia, are you sure you don't want us to take you to the hospital?" Nene Romanova asked, looking at her with gentle concern.
"Linna did a good job bandaging me up," Sylia said mildly as she saw Linna Yamazaki blush faintly, "I think it should be fine."
"You want something to drink?" Linna asked, deciding to change the subject a moment. When the others agreed on tea she bustled into the kitchen quickly preparing a pot and bringing it in with cream, sugar and lemon.
"Thank you," Sylia smiled from where she was sitting on one of the couches, the black haired woman letting her bandaged up left forearm rest gently on her lap. She was dressed very out of her typical style that afternoon, instead of her regular business wear she was dressed in a slightly battered T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. With her right hand she slowly sipped at her cup of tea even as she looked up at the three other women in the room.
The spacious, comfortably designed living room had plenty of places for guests to sit down, but as usual Priss Asagiri leaned up against the wall in a simple T-shirt and jeans and a sullen expression on her handsome face. Both a still business-suited Linna and the much more casually dressed Nene sat there fidgeting nervously across from Sylia on the room’s other large couch, even as the oppressive tension built in the room.
Sylia drank a bit more of her cup of tea as she sat there silently and patiently waited for one of the three to speak up, waited to see if they would be able to get up the nerve to ask her about what they had all seen back in the hardsuit’s repair bay.
On reflection it had been a stupid mistake, the kind of error that someone like Sylia Stingray didn’t normally let herself make. The Knight Sabers had been less active lately, with Genom laying low due to the fallout of the Largo affair, but that was no excuse for what happened. Sylia was performing a demonstration on a hardsuit mock-up that she had built, patiently explaining to them how to get the pilot out of one of them if there was a total and absolute failure of every major system. As well as all of the emergency back-ups, of course. Above all else Sylia wanted them to be prepared, well aware of the dangers I their chosen occupation.
Sylia was showing them how to use a powered micro-blade to cut through the chest unit's main connections and then pop the suit’s seals to get the pilot out, when the blade slipped on the smooth surface of the outer armor shell. Everything seemed to go into slow motion then as they all heard the loud scrape along the shell, an eerily familiar soft sound of flesh tearing, then the shocking sound of metal on metal.
Unable to stand the silence any longer, Nene suddenly blurted out the question, “What are you?” The redheaded girl blushed furiously, realizing what it sounded like, but she looked up defiantly to meet Sylia's eyes.
“Nene!” a shocked Linna quickly scolded her friend, the dark brown haired woman going so far as to clap her hand over the shorter redhead’s mouth. “That was so rude!” she said, looking up at Sylia in apology.
“It’s all right,” a serious Sylia said softly to Linna, holding up her uninjured hand to stop a possible fight. “I guess I should have told all of you about this a long time ago,” she admitted, a finger nervously stroking the bandage. She held up her injured arm and stated, “You saw metal there, when I accidentally cut my arm.”
Linna and Nene nodded and Priss just grunted loudly. The brown haired woman was keeping her distance still, an unreadable look in her dark eyes. There was a tension in her lean body too, almost as if she was fighting the urge to flee.
“Did you have the bones in your arm replaced?” Linna asked Sylia gently. “Maybe because of some injury you had?”
“No, not... exactly,” Sylia answered her, smiling a bit sadly as she considered what to say. And more importantly, how to say it.
"Sylia?" Nene prompted gently.
Taking a deep breath, she launched into what was by the sound of it almost certainly a long prepared speech, one that she had begun to consider making a very long time ago. “You all know about my father and his development of the early boomer prototypes," Sylia said gravely. "What you may not know, is that he was also interested in developing a method of using boomer-like technologies on the human body. Not necessarily in replacing specific organs, but instead helping to improve the body's overall function.”
Priss' eyes narrowed slightly, almost as if the singer knew, or could guess what was coming. Sylia looked up a moment to see how they were taking it, and was encouraged by the interest in their eyes. "I heard about Boomeroid biotech," Linna murmured, "but nothing like this."
Sylia shook her head ruefully as she said “In my teens, I was willing to do almost anything to destroy Genom and strike back at Quincy, even taking the substantial risk of using my own father’s experimental technology on myself.”
“What exactly did you do?” Nene asked her rather breathlessly, already beginning to wonder what that technology could do for a cyperpunk like herself!
Sylia spoke softly, in a very detached, almost scientific tone as she explained, “The majority of my bones, including the leg, arm, spine and skull, are reinforced by a extremely durable but lightweight titanium alloy. I’m stronger, and my reflexes are much faster than any normal human’s are. A slight change in my brain’s chemistry helped triple my processing speed and increased my mental capacity as well,” Sylia said softly.
Sylia stopped speaking and cautiously looked up from her tea to see their reactions. Linna and Nene looked all right, a bit shocked, but still all right. But Priss wasn’t handling it so well, going by the shocked expression on her handsome face.
Priss looked across the room at Sylia, obviously appalled by what she had heard. “So to fight Genom you turned yourself into some kind of boomer?!” she yelled, gesturing wildly.
“No I didn’t, Priss,” Sylia said in her normally calm tones, even though she was cringing inside at the look of disgust on Priss’s face.
“It’s close enough,” Priss bit out angrily to her, then she picked up her leather jacket and left the room, loudly slamming the door behind her.
“Priss, wait!” Nene shouted as the door slammed shut, half getting up from the couch to go after her and try to bring her back.
“No, Nene,” Sylia said softly, “let her go.” She sighed softly, and as she shook her head said “I was almost expecting her to react like that.”
Linna was shaking her head too as she murmured, “Even after everything that happened with Sylvie, she just can’t seem to get over it.”
Sylia almost winced but she tried to not let it show. The knowledge that Priss and Sylvie had probably been more than friends haunted Sylia, especially when she considered her own relationship or lack thereof with Priss.
"Yeah," Nene nodded glumly, agreeing with Linna.
Looking over at Sylia, Linna smiled at her bravely as she said, “It’ll take some time to get used to the idea, but I think I’ll manage.”
Nene nodded her agreement, “Yeah, it’s actually kind of cool!”
"Gee, thanks," Sylia rolled her eyes at that, getting soft laughter from Linna and Nene. ‘It feels good,’ Sylia thought, ‘not keeping that secret anymore.’ She smiled at the two young women, and after a bit more talk gently ushered them out.
Linna hesitated, "If you need something, anything, don't forget to call."
"I'll do that," Sylia smiled as she went to shut the door.
"Give Priss some time," Nene said quietly before she was off, "she likes you too much to leave over something like this."
"I hope so," Sylia whispered, pressing her cheek to the door once they were gone. ‘Oh Priss,’ she thought to herself sadly, feeling the first prickling of tears at the corner of her eyes, ‘I never wanted to tell you this. I knew you couldn’t handle it.’
Wiping her eyes Sylia strode into her bedroom and undressed, slipping into a silk robe before she headed off to bed. She stopped for a moment by a tall mirror and took a moment to look herself over. Her fingers gently traced the network of nearly invisible scars, as she let herself remember the weeks she had been under the knife, trying to shape herself into a warrior. She smiled wryly, thinking about Priss, ‘Instead, I found one.’ She tightened her robe, and climbed into bed.
To be continued...