Legend: "(...)" Japanese dialogue. ------ Nene finally got her breath back, and moaned in pain as she sat up. Clutching her shoulder, she looked around, seeing the body of the yakuza with the gun lying about fifty feet away from her. Using her right hand to push herself up, she got off the ground, her left arm hanging at her side. Reaching her hand up underneath her faceplate, she could feel the blood and realized she'd bit her lip when she fell. She bent down to pick her bow up when she heard it; galloping. Horses were coming. 'They're coming.' she thought with a relieved sigh. 'Nigel will take care of the bullet, and Sylia will...' "Death to the Emperor!" the shouts came, reverberating through the forest, "Death to the Knight Sabers!" Nene got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Grabbing her bow, she ran off to her left into the woods, her feel slipping on the wet leaves in the underbrush causing her to tumble down the hillside. She finally came to a stop when she collided with a bush. She lay there covered in wet leaves and dirt, her heart feeling like it was going to beat out of her chest, and waited. Up on the top of the hill, the men came as a group, stopping when they got to the dead rifleman on top. "What the hell happened here?" "I don't know. Where's the Gatling?" "Here boss." One of the men said, the gun in question being towed by his horse. "Nene!" a woman's voice cried out. They all looked in the direction it was coming from. The sound of galloping confirmed they had company coming. "Everyone get back. Toshiro, unstrap the gun and get it over here now!" "Right." The yakuza answered. ------ Priss was in the lead up the hill, followed by Linna and Captain Mc Nichol. As Priss came around a bend, she saw a large group of men standing behind a very nasty-looking gun. "Chikusho!" she cursed as she quickly pulled her reigns, causing the horse to rear up. "Look out! They've got a fucking..." she was cut off as the smiling man behind the gun started to crank the firing mechanism, blowing the horse's hind legs away in a sea of bullets. "Priss-chan!" Linna screamed, as both horse and rider tumbled to the ground. Priss somehow managed to scramble behind a tree, and used it for cover. Leon came up beside Linna, and got off his horse. From their vantage point they could both see Priss crouched behind the tree. Unfortunately there was a good twenty feet between the tree and the relative safety of where they where. Leon pulled out his Colt. "Priss, can you hear me?" he yelled, as another barrage of bullets flew around her hiding spot. "Leon? Now's not the time to be asking me out to dinner!" Leon rolled his eyes. "I'm going to give you cover." he shouted. "When I say now, run for it." He pulled the hammer back on his gun and took a deep breath. "Now!" he shouted, as he came out into the open, firing at the group in front of him. The man behind the Gatling took one in the forehead and collapsed backward. By the time the second rifleman came forward, Priss was back with Linna. She quickly got on Linna's horse, clutching onto her lover's waist as Leon ran back to his own horse. They quickly took off back to the others. One of the ex-daimyo rode forward and looked at the others. "My men, stay with me. We'll watch the gun. The rest of you, get them! Kill them! Bring back the Emperor's head!" ------ At the sound of the Gatling, Daley quickly reined his horse in, pulling his pistol out as he did so. Sylia, behind him, immediately rode her horse into the dense forest to her left and was lost from sight. A few seconds later, Roland and Nigel joined Daley. "How many guns do they have up there, Colonel?" Daley asked. Roland's response was to make a sour face. "Just one, Wong-kun. It's a Gatling gun. I can still remember the sound of those damned things from my time on the front." Nigel took his own pistol out and pulled the hammer back. He made it a rule to always keep an empty chamber under the hammer for safety purposes, but decided that in this instance he was going to probably need all the firepower he could get. As he placed a bullet in the last chamber, Captain McNichol, Linna and Priss came galloping down the hill toward them. "McNichol!" Roland yelled, "What happened up there?" "They have a bleedin' Gatling up there, Colonel Sir!" he said breathlessly. Priss dismounted Linna's horse as the sounds of galloping started to come up behind them. Leon started quickly reloading his cap and ball revolver, as Colonel Roland cocked his Winchester. "This is it, boys." he said, as the galloping became louder. ------ "(Did you hear that?)" Chief Toodou asked, "(What the hell kind of firepower do they have up there?)" Mackie, unable to speak Japanese, just sat in his saddle and looked ahead. Henderson poked his head out of the front flap of the wagon where he and the Emperor were playing Rummy. "Mackie." Henderson said, "Chief Toodou here just asked what kind of guns they had." "Huh? Oh, um, I don't know." "(He says he doesn't know.)" Henderson said, addressing Toodou. The police chief rolled his eyes as he looked out at the hill in front of him. He should be out there with the others. Henderson came out to sit in the seat in the front of the wagon, followed by the Emperor. "(How do you think things are going for them?)" Meiji asked. Toodou looked grim. "(They have some pretty heavy firepower up there, Your Majesty.)" he said. Meiji studied his face for a moment and smiled. "(You wish you were up there with them, don't you?)" he asked. Chief Toodou only nodded. Henderson looked over to Mackie's worried face. Besides his sister, he also had Nene to worry about. "Don't worry, lad." Henderson said in a soothing voice, "Nene and your sister will be fine." Mackie looked over to Sylia's butler and frowned. "I wish I could be as confident. Sylia should be resting in a bed somewhere, not out here fighting gangsters. And Nene... All I know is that we sent her up, and then we heard the gunshot." Henderson was at a loss as to what to say to that. He just sighed, and looked off in the distance at the hill with Mackie. ------ She could think of a thousand reasons why what she was doing was wrong. She was alone, for one. She had no backup. Plus she was still weak from her wounds inflicted on her by Galatia. Then there was the little matter of her not knowing how many men would be left behind to watch the gun. And of course, her armor was in tatters. On the other hand, if the gun wasn't taken out, they were all as good as dead anyways. And there was the little matter of Nene; if she was still alive, then it was her responsibility as leader to get her the hell out of this mess. As she continued riding forward through the thick forest, she could hear the majority of the enemy's forces riding by her on the trail to her right. She swallowed hard as she continued on her way up the hill through the woods. ------ As they first caught sight of them, Colonel Roland led the charge, shooting two yakuza before the rifleman on the other side shot his horse out from under him. Landing with a thud, the animal had Roland's leg pinned under it. Priss immediately ran to him, even as an arrow, shot by one of the ronin, flew by her and lodged itself painfully in Daley's thigh. Daley fell off his horse as Linna, Nigel and McNichol rode past him and toward the onrushing men. As Priss struggled to get Colonel Roland out from under his horse, listening to him curse loudly in a language she didn't understand, the rifleman fired at her, blowing away part of the edge of her helmet and shoulder armor. McNichol managed to shoot the rifleman off his horse, as the archer sent an arrow into the neck of Nigel's horse. He quickly got off the animal before it collapsed and found cover behind a cherry tree. Daley likewise limped behind the nearest tree down where he was, and yanked the arrow out. Linna meanwhile had her reigns clenched between her teeth as she rode to meet two sword wielding ronin, a katana in each of her hands. ------ The six men left on the hill with the Gatling listened intently to the sounds of the firefight below them. The former daimyo's men consisted of two ronin and three yakuza, one of whom was kneeling behind the gun, hand nervously clutching the handle. "How do you think it's going down there?" one of the ronin asked. "How do you think?" a yakuza answered. "We have the high ground and the manpower, we..." "They're not human." The man behind the gun whispered. All looked to him. "They've been outnumbered before. Hell, I was in a tavern once where they were up against o-niwaban and a group of us gangsters, and they still managed to get out alive." The former Daimyo looked angrily at the speaker. "You're not another one of those who think that they're really demons, are you?" The man turned away from the others and stared back down the path. "I don't know what they are, but..." he was cut off by movement in the woods ahead to his right. Tension began to mount in the group as they all focused their attention ahead. Suddenly, a horse bolted out of the woods. The gunner quickly mauled it down, blood and flesh erupting from the beast as it collapsed to the ground. As the smoke cleared and he got a better look, he realized the animal had no rider on it. Turning to the others, he sat back and was about to say something when an object flew from the woods behind him into his lap. He looked down to see... A lit stick of dynamite. Boom! Both the gunner and the gun itself were torn apart by the explosion. Sylia, clad still in the white poncho over what was left of her armor and without her helmet, rushed out, pulling her sword out so than the point would face downward. Taking advantage of the confusion she slashed at the nearest man, a ronin, and gutted him. A yakuza came up behind her, sword raised overhead, but was stopped when she thrust her sword back behind her, cutting his chest open as well. As the man fell backward, however, Sylia fell back with him, landing on top of him. Her other three opponents looked on as she almost clumsily pushed herself back up onto unsteady legs and extracted the sword from his chest. She brought the katana in front of her, planting the point in the ground to use as a makeshift cane. ------ "Wong!" Nigel called out, separated from the officer by four trees between them, "Are you all right?" Daley looked down at his now blood-soaked trousers. "I've been better." he admitted. Meanwhile, as Priss continued to struggle to get Colonel Roland out from underneath his horse, five yakuza dismounted and surrounded her, pulling their blades out as they did so. Priss rushed toward the nearest as she extracted her dotanuki, slicing the man's throat as she did so. She quickly turned to her right and caught the next one in the jugular before he had the chance to defend himself. A third man came from her left, managing to cut through her armor and get a cut in around her left shoulder blade before she'd managed to gut him. The remaining two were just about to attack, when Roland blasted them both away with one of the Colts he carried at his hip. Linna, meanwhile, had just killed the second of the two ronin she was fighting, when she saw the archer directly in front of her, his arrow pointed straight at her. A gunshot blast later, however, had him falling to the ground off his horse. She looked around to see who'd killed him, when she spotted Leon, his gun still smoking from the discharge. "Why?" she asked, honestly confused why a man who'd challenged her to a duel would be willing to save her. "We can discuss that later." he answered, before riding off in the opposite direction. ------ Sylia crouched down as she held her katana in front of her, resting her weight on the sword as she breathed heavily. Of the original six, there were three men left for her to contend with. One of the men, a ronin, started to come cautiously at her from the front as an ex-daimyo started to sneak up from behind. A yakuza, coming up from behind the ronin's left side, circled around behind him to his right. Pushing herself off as hard as she could with her good left leg, she brought the sword, blade facing out, in an upward swing across the ronin, slicing from the right of his navel to the top of his left collarbone. As he fell backward, she stumbled forward, loosing her balance. As the yakuza came at her, trying to take advantage, she quickly tucked her head down, using her momentum to do a forward roll. Coming out of her tuck, she swung her blade to the left, catching him in the abdomen. As she crouched down on her knees, two dead men on either side of her lying in their own blood and three more in front of her by the demolished gun, she slowly turned her head toward the former daimyo, the one who was previously coming up behind her. Allowing a grunt to escape, she used her katana once again as a cane, pushing herself off the ground with it and resting her body weight on it once she was back on her feet. The man assumed a defensive stance as he studied the woman in front of him, remembering the words of the gunner. "Wh... What the hell are you women?" he asked, "Demons from Meifumado (Buddhist Hell)?" Sylia smiled, "We're the Knight Sabers." She grunted out, still breathing hard. "All we wanted was the Emperor." he said, as he noted her weakened condition. "Why did you have to get involved? What do you hope to accomplish?" Sylia's mind raced back to her days at Sensei Raven's dojo, and the lessons she learned there on bushido. "To defend peace and justice, and rid the world of evil." she said, almost quoting her sensei word for word. The daimyo's eyes narrowed as he took a step forward. "A worthy objective. But will it hold true for me, I wonder?" he asked as he rushed at her, bringing his blade down hard with both hands. She raised her blade in time to block, but was caught off guard as he took his left hand off the hilt of his sword to backhand her across the face. ------ The five remaining enemy troops, three yakuza and two former daimyo, decided to try to make a break for it down the hill, with the hopes of both escaping the two Knight Sabers and their allies as well as possibly making it to wherever the Emperor was in hiding. Priss finally managed to get Colonel Roland's leg free as three rode by on their horses. She quickly left his side to attack the fourth horseman, slashing his mare's front legs out from under it. He came down with a thud, Priss quickly pouncing on him to deliver the death blow. As the fifth one came up behind her, he was shot by Colonel Roland's derringer and fell from his horse. Captain McNichol and Linna chased after the three remaining men, as Daley and Nigel stumbled out of hiding, both firing at the same man. He dropped to the ground as Linna caught up with one of the other two and sliced him down the back. Leon got the last one with his gun, just as the yakuza was within sight of the wagon. Priss wearily went over to Colonel Roland who was still on the ground. "Can you walk?" she asked, already suspecting the answer. "Young lady, does it look like I can walk?" Roland asked, noting his clearly twisted ankle. Linna rode over, and immediately noticed the shoulder wound on Priss. "Priss-chan! Your shoulder!" "Never mind me." she said, "Help me get Colonel Roland here back to the wagon. Then, we have to go find Sylia and Nene." Below them, Nigel and McNichol were helping Daley as well. ------ Nene continued to slowly climb back up the hill, her bow clutched in her right hand as she struggled along. Beneath her helmet, her lower lip and chin were stained with blood and her left shoulder continued to give off a dull throbbing pain. Finally reaching the top, she made her way through the dense foliage, and stopped at the edge of the forest. There, in front of her was Sylia, blood running down her face from her nose, fighting a desperate sword duel with a very dangerous looking swordsman. Around them were several dead men and a demolished gun. From her vantage point, she could see that Sylia was getting tired. Another minute or so, and he'd have her. Saying a silent prayer to the Most Holy Theotokos, Nene removed her helmet. She then pulled an arrow out, and knelt down. Holding the shaft just behind the arrow head with her index and middle fingers, and grasping the bow with her thumb and end fingers, she made one final attempt to move her left arm. No good. 'This is crazy,' she thought as she brought the quiver and string up to her mouth. She took the quiver in her mouth, bit down and pulled it and the string back, holding her breath as she attempted to aim. Meanwhile, the former daimyo continued to swing at Sylia, even as the now exhausted leader of the Knight Sabers continued to block his blows. Taking a step back, she lost her footing as she tripped over one of the dead. Her assailant rushed forward, sword held overhead. Thwipp! "Sglurggglll..." Sylia looked as the man dropped his sword, an arrow stuck through his neck. His eyes rolled back as he fell to the ground. Sylia looked over to see Nene kneeling down at the edge of the woods, slowly lowering her bow from in front of her bloody mouth. The older woman slowly stood up, using her katana for help, and trudged over to the young blond. "You don't look so good." she said, holding her hand out to the young blond. Nene took her hand and allowed Sylia to help her up. "You're a sight as well." the Russian noted, looking at the beads of sweat running down Sylia's face. Sylia sheathed her sword and put Nene's right arm around her shoulder. "I'll hold you up if you hold me up." she said, getting a smile out of the younger woman. "Sounds good to me. How do you think the others are doing?" "A damn sight better than us, I hope." more seriously, she added, "So exactly what's going on between Linna and Captain McNichol?" Nene looked a bit shocked at first, then smiled. "Should've known you'd pick up on the fact that something was wrong. Leon poo has challenged Linna to a duel over Priss." Now it was Sylia's turn to look startled. "You're serious, aren't you?" "Afraid so. From what I can tell Priss knows nothing about it." "Hmmm... I'll have to have a talk with the good Captain the next chance I get. By the way; thanks for saving my life back there." Even beneath the blood on her face, Sylia could tell Nene was blushing. "Any time." "You know, this is the second time you've saved my life on this trip. In fact..." Sylia said in a low, seductive voice as she flashed a wicked smile, "If I wasn't with Nigel, and you weren't with Mackey..." Nene gave Sylia a weird look, then smiled. "It'd never work." she joked, "There's too much of an age difference between Mackie and Nigel." They both laughed at that as they slowly continued down the hill, joined halfway down by Priss and Linna. ---To Be Continued--- End Notes: Surprised? So am I. I never thought I'd manage to finish another chapter before moving. I'll be entering my new apartment next Wednesday, and will be hopefully getting internet access sometime around the 17th. Next chapter in about three weeks. For those playing at home: Yes, if you've ever seen the Bubblegum Crisis OVA series, you'll notice that part of Sylia's dialogue with the daimyo sounds familiar. Portions of it came from Sylia's dialogue with the boomer Frederick in "Tinsel City." The original dialogue was- Frederick- "What do you hope to accomplish?" Sylia- "To defend peace and justice, and rid the world of evil." Frederick- "A worthy objective. But will it hold true for me, I wonder?" It sounded like something a heroic samurai might say, so I used it.
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