Chapter Text
There are a few people who deserve a great deal of thanks for this story;
without them, it would not have been possible:
----- Jim Thomas, John Thomas, Stan Winston, Steve Wang, AS, the late Kevin
Peter Hall, and the people behind PREDATOR and PREDATOR 2, for giving us
the meanest hunter this side of the galaxy.
----- The staff of ARTMIC Studios, for creating the world of Bubble Gum Crisis,
and giving us four of the "best babes in battlesuits".
----- The staff of Dark Horse Comics, for taking the adventures of the Knight
Sabers and the Predator beyond the screen and into excellent stories.
The blackness of space.
No, not exactly blackness. There were the pinpoints of billions of stars. Pinpoints of light, seemingly close, yet far, far away. Except one.
It grew in size and shape until its true form was revealed: a cylindrical craft of gleaming metal, resembling the snout of some nightmarish creature. The craft's design and speed were not native to the blue-white world it was fast approaching--Earth. It sliced through the planet's atmosphere, surprisingly shaking off the intense heat generated by such a maneuver. As it completed its entry, the craft hit the dense air of Earth's biosphere. Moving at Mach 25, the craft passed over South America and headed west. Not a single instrument detected its passing. It sped across the Pacific Ocean and angled down toward the islands of Japan. Another course correction was made, and the ship was on a perfect approach to its destination.
The year was 2033. The ship's destination....Mega-Tokyo.
"HEEYYYYYYYYYY!!!!! This is Don "Dragon" Jones of WMTR, Mega-Tokyo's really rockin' station! I'll tell you, it was one bu-list-erin' day, and it'll be one bu-list-erin' night! The temperature is gonna hit the big 38 degrees, folks, so hit those ACs for all they're worth--"
With a swipe of his hand, Leon McNichol shut off the portable radio on his desk. He didn't have to hear how hot it was--he felt it, even with the AC going full-blast in the AD Police Headquarters building.
May 28. Today. The tenth day of the freak heat wave that had hit the city of Mega-Tokyo. Ten days of temperatures pushing past 35, and in some cases, 40 degrees. It was driving the city up the wall in the forms of powercuts, brownouts, heat-related medical emergencies, and worst of all....increased crime. The heat had brought out the worst behavior possible, and the crime rate had soared. The ADP was in action seemingly 24 hours a day.
The Boomers were the worst. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was something else; Leon hadn't figured it out yet. The rate of Boomer attacks had doubled--no, tripled. Leon had barely gotten any sleep over the last week. He was sure the same could be said of the Knight Sabers.
A smile crossed Leon's face as he thought about that. He had called Priss a few times the last few days, and she had sounded just as bad as he felt.
"Leon!! Baby!!" Looking up, Leon saw Daley Wong approaching his desk. He also saw how busy the place was: people running back and forth with messages, cases, the usual shit. What no one could see were nerves that were slowly being frayed.
"Yeah, Daley, what is it?"
Daley sat on the edge of the desk. His shirt had been unbuttoned, the sleeves rolled up. "I just heard this from the chief...we might be getting reinforcements."
Leon's hands hit the desk as he sat upright. "You-you can't be serious! The chief can't be serious about this."
Daley crossed his arms, a "don't look at me" expression on his face. "It's that bad, Leon. The rise of Boomer incidents is stretching us to the limit! You know it too. Even your girls have their hands full."
"Your girls." Leon knew what that meant, and Daily was right on the mark.
The Silky Doll lingerie shop, tucked away among a row of stores lining one of Mega-Tokyo's major avenues, resembled any other fashion store. That suited Celia Stingray just fine.
An attractive young woman with dark blue hair and brown eyes, with axe-keen intelligence to boot, she turned away from the window of her apartment that was above the store to look at the four people sitting or standing around her apartment. "Well, everybody, what's going on?"
Linna Yamazaki, eyes wide, sputtered, "You asked us that last night, Celia!" She ran a hand through her dark hair. Beside her, Nene Romanova began to doze off.
"What's going on? I'll tell you what's going on!!"
All eyes turned to Priss. She was leaning against the wall, dressed in her riding outfit, arms crossed, brown bangs hanging over her eyes. "I'll tell you what's going on. We're being put through the goddamn grinder, and there's nothing we can do about it!"
"Priss!" young Mackie Stingray blurted out. He looked at the floor when Priss' gaze fell on him.
"Listen, Mackie, you know what we're up against, right?"
Mackie gulped, and looked at Celia. "Sis..."
"Go on, Mackie," she urged.
"Look, everyone....Priss is right. The heat, the constant battles you've had over the last week or so...I've barely had time to do full, overall repairs. The hardsuits are undergoing major stress, even the backup units. I've tried everything, but I'll need at least forty-eight to seventy-two hours to repair everything."
"We can't give you that, Mackie," Celia replied. "What about the AD Police, Nene?"
Jerking awake, Nene said,"Huh?" then understood. "I just heard that the SPDC and USSD are probably sending men and materials to us." From the room came sounds of surprise. Celia's face, however, registered none.
Nene continued. "Last night we lost seven officers. Ten more were injured, two critical. The mayor is riding the chief to do something, anything."
"Leon pretty much said the same thing," Priss put in. "Last time I saw him, he looked like shit."
"But that's probably from the heat, not the work."
"Linna, was that supposed to be a joke?" Priss asked.
Eyes downcast, Linna said no. A long silence followed. Finally, Celia turned to look out the window. "It's five o'clock now. Nene, you'd better be getting to work. The rest of you, stay here until something comes up."
Leon drained his fourth glass of water, his fourth in only twenty minutes. The air conditioning in the ADP Building had gone on the fritz an hour ago, and maintenance was still trying to repair it. It was five-thirty now.
"Goddamn..." He leaned back in his chair, huge patches of sweat on his shirt, chest, and underarms. He hadn't worn his jacket at all; it was still slung over the back of his chair. Aya Hiryuki, a young, pretty officer with her dark hair styled in a rough shag, approached his desk. "Hey Leon, you're sweating like a pig."
"And what's that to you, Miss Hiryuki?"
"Well..." She sat on the edge of his desk and leaned over. "After you're finished, if you want to freshen up, I can suggest my place...."
Leon suddenly felt a harsh dryness in his mouth and an uncomfortable tightness in his pants. He opened his mouth to squeak out a reply when a loud
klaxon bell went off.
"Boomer alert!"
He was up out of his chair in an instant. Looking at Aya, he said, "Sorry, not right now." He headed out with several other officers, Daley
included. Hiryuki watched him go, a downcast look on her face.
"Almost had him..." she said.
Mackie Stingray's hands flew across the keyboard. In front of him, the large monitor screen displayed information and maps, all scrolling quickly. Behind him, the door opened and Celia, Linna, and Priss entered.
"What's going on?" Celia asked.
Mackie turned. ""Two Boomer attacks, different locations. Here and here." He pointed out two locations on the map he called up on the screen. "The ADP is heading to the first one, here. It seems like a big one. The second one's getting a smaller contingent. Plus, it's closer."
"What's happening there?" Priss asked.
"Two Boomers, a BU-55C and a BU-12B, attacking a mall."
Eyes narrowed, Priss looked at Celia. "A BU-12B? We haven't faced one of
those--"
"--In a long time," Celia finished. "Suit up, everyone. We'll also use Motoslaves. Mackie, stay here and monitor the situation. Nene will be in touch with us as well. We'll go after those two Boomers first."
"Sis, what-what if the suits, well, screw up?"
Priss fielded that one. "If they do, Mackie....guess who's going to be really sorry?"
Mackie gulped, but said nothing.
A convoy of AD Police vehicles lumbered through Mega-Tokyo, heading to the area of trouble. Inside the first one, Leon and Daily were receiving the lowdown from Captain Kegawa, a huge bear of a man with years of experience under his belt.
"Alright. About twenty minutes ago, a combined human-Boomer team hit the Kellig Building on Tomino Street. It's some computer networking joint, not too big on the outside, but has one hell of a node on the inside. Twenty-five people were there. One got set off the alarm before the terrorists aced him. Ten minutes ago, an ADP squad arrived. They tried a direct assault."
"What happened?" Daily asked.
"Five men were cut down. So far, it's a standoff. We can't get in, and those assholes are threatening to ace the hostages one by one. And now we're here."
They were pulling up in front of a building on the street corner, only a few months old. It was only six stories tall. Closer to the building, Leon saw several ruined vehicles, gutted by fire and still burning. To one side were five tarp-covered bodies.
The transports stopped, and cries of "GO! GO! GO!" were heard. Leon made a final adjustment to his flak vest (still hot and uncomfortable as ever) and stepped out. He followed Kegawa and Daily as they approached a red-haired man who was shouting orders to the men around him.
"Lt. Gellers?"
That's me," the man said. "Capt. Kegawa, right? Listen, we've been here
for a while now, and unless we do something fast, it'll be-"
The next thing everybody knew, there was a loud, ripping sound. Two ADP cruisers suddenly became fireballs.
"What the hell was THAT?" Leon shouted.
"That," Geller answered, pointing at the roof. Looking up, Leon caught a glimpse of something huge and metallic, caught in the glare of the surrounding buildings. A Boomer....with a large chaingun in place of its right arm.
"See that?" Geller said. "We can't go in. They threw down some kinda sensor field around the building. Get within 20 to 50 meters of there, that son-of-a-bitch will know. He's also got a buddy up there with a rocket launcher and some kind of plasma cannon."
"Shit!" Leon cursed. They couldn't do a damn thing now.
Something else was watching the besieged building. However, it saw the area as a collection of cool blues and hot yellows, reds, oranges. The colors of the infra-red spectrum. The Predator trilled softly to itself, taking in the view, seeing the red rectangles representing the ADP vehicles and the hot, red images of the officers. It swung back to the Kellig Building and studied the forms on the roof. Symbols in an unknown language scrolled down one side of its field of vision, placed there by the battle helmet it wore. It checked the computer it wore on its left arm, making sure that the camouflage was on.
The time had come to hunt.
The fifth floor of the Kellig Building was nearly empty, despite the fact that it was occupied by dozens of CPUs and terminals. It was empty in terms of the human presence. At one terminal, a young man was sending his hands across the keyboard, staring but not staring at the screen. Two wires led from an input jack of the CPU into the back of his head, at the base of his pompadour of purple hair.
"C'mon, c'mon...." he urged. Trying to hack into this system was a bitch, he thought, but it wasn't impossible...
"How is it going?" came a synthesized voice from his left. The man turned to see the alloyed form of a BU-55C Boomer.
"It's-it's going okay. I'm almost in. Good Christ, please don't do that again!"
"Very well," the Boomer said. "Hurry. I'm calling in AX-335 and DT-241. Remaar-" it called to a sullen-looking man standing to one side- "Get Deems on the radio. Tell him to prepare to leave."
"What about the hostages?" Remaar asked.
"When we destroy the building, they'll be taken care of."
"GOT IT!" the hacker suddenly shouted. "Downloading now."
"Excellent," the Boomer said. "Everyone-prepare to leave. Get the charges out and set them."
Just then, Deems entered, along with the other two Boomers. The one known as DT-241, still in human form, said, "The ADP will attempt to storm the place after we leave."
"Good. More fuel to the fire-" the lead Boomer stopped and turned its head up to the roof. "Sensors indicate something moving on the sixth floor." Needle-like probes emerged from its eyes and head, quivering slightly.
"Impossible!" snapped Deems. "The ADP wouldn't have the balls to-"
Suddenly, the lead Boomer's mouth opened, revealing the particle beam cannon nestled there. Blue fire lanced out at the ceiling, blowing a huge hole there. Chunks of plastic, conduit and wiring rained down as the other men and Boomers opened up with their weapons. Soon the ceiling was filled with gaping holes. "Cease fire!" the leader shouted. Bits of rubble trickled down in the silence.
Remaar was looking around, eyes wide, sweat pouring down his brow. "What the hell were we firing at?"
Putting out its sensors again, the lead Boomer said, "There was something there...now it's gone."
"Great!" the hacker snorted. "We frag half the roof trying to kill a fucking ghost!!" He stood up from the terminal. "Now the ADP is gonna be up here!"
"Shut up, Saeba," snapped Remaar. "I say we just set the charges and bring down the whole place."
"A good idea, Remaar," the leader replied, then it stiffened. "It's here again!..."
The next instant, the ceiling three meters away from the terrorists gave way, falling to the ground. The group opened fire....at nothing.
Then nothing _came_ at them.
Leon, Daley, and Kegawa were arguing with Gellers about what to do next when something came flying out of the fifth floor window of the Kellig building. It hit the roof of an ADP cruiser with an explosive thud.
"Holy!..." someone shouted. More shouts, yells, and curses came from the men. Leon ran over to the cruiser and saw a man's body there, quite dead. In his right hand was an assault rifle. Beside Leon, Daley said, "Jesus, Leon, what the hell-"
Suddenly, there were sounds of machine gun fire, plasma blasts, and screams. A huge explosion erupted from the fifth floor of the building. Glass and concrete rained down.
Leon made up his mind right then and there. "Daley! Captain! C'mon!"
Over Gellers' objections, the three men sprinted to the front doors of the building. Above them, the sounds of battle continued. "Leon! What about the
sensors?" Daley shouted.
"Screw 'em!" Pointing to an officer with a grenade launcher, he yelled, "Blow it!" The man obeyed, and the charge sent the doors flying. Hastily selecting five more men, the three entered the main lobby.
"Where are the hostages?" Kegawa asked.
"Second or third floor," one officer responded.
Kegawa ordered four men to find them, and the rest followed himself, Leon, and Daley up the emergency stairs. At the fifth floor, they noticed the sudden quiet. "The shooting's stopped," Daley murmured.
Leon opened the door carefully. The men stormed in, weapons ready, yelling for anyone or anything to freeze. Then they stopped short.
The floor was mostly dark, but from the light given off by the surviving fluorescent bulbs and the staircase, the men saw a scene of carnage beyond belief....
The BU-12B Combat Boomer found its target and fired the 46mm bazooka on its right arm. Priss saw the flash and rolled away, motoslave and hardsuit acting as one. She brought up the 'slave's heavy rifle and let loose. The Boomer, with lightning speed, avoided the shots.
It didn't avoid Celia's attack. Appearing as if out of thin air, she fired twin blasts from her hardsuit's disrupter cannon and scored a direct hit on the machine's bazooka arm, blowing it clean off. Then Linna moved in to finish the job with her 'suit's knuckle bomber.
"Whew!" Priss said as the three Knight Sabers gathered around the fallen Boomer. "At least he gave us less trouble than the other one." The first Boomer was nothing more than a few scraps of metal, courtesy of Linna and her motoslave. That had been a tough one.
"All right," Celia said. "Let's head to the next site. Transform motoslaves." With that, all three motoslaves shifted to their cycle modes. They took off in a howl of rubber and noise, leaving the ADP team behind to clean up the mess. The three made a sharp right and headed out.
Suddenly, Nene's voice came over their headsets. "Celia! Boss--don't go to the second site! Don't go!"
"Why not?" Celia asked over Priss' and Linna's sounds of surprise.
"Something's just happened a few minutes ago--hey! There's just been--listen, just head home! I'll explain later." With that, she signed off.
"Well, I guess that's that," Linna remarked.
"I guess so," Priss answered. "Celia, better call Mackie. We're coming home."
Fifteen stories above the street, the Predator watched the motoslaves speeding away. It had caught the last part of the battle, fresh from its own. It had been thrilling, its hunt. It was puzzled by the new prey it had found, but interested nonetheless. The new prey had been faster, stronger than the human prey the creature normally hunted. But the battle below had further raised the Predator's expectations. The three warriors had dispatched their enemies with little effort. These warriors had never been seen before. It would make quite a tale for the homeworld. These warriors were worthy, indeed....
Leon's arms hung limply at his sides. Around him, the rest of the men stared at what was before them.
The fifth floor looked as if an all-out war had broken out. All the windows were either shattered or were large holes in the walls. A massive hole was opened up on one wall. There were more holes everywhere. Splashes of blood streaked across the area like morbid banners. Yet the worst was at the center of it all.
Hanging from the ceiling (what was left of it) by wires were three bodies. Two were larger than the third in terms of bulk, the dull gleam of alloyed metal betraying the identity of one and glimmering through the muscles of the other. Muscles. Artificial muscles. The two were Boomers. The other was human, because no metal showed through the muscles and tendons and ligaments which could be seen because they had been--
"Skinned," Leon whispered in the quiet. "They've been skinned."
"Not these two," came Daley's voice from Leon's left. "Look."
Leon forced himself to turn away and walked over to where Daley stood. Two bodies were there--one, a Boomer, sprawled on the floor, the other, human, the head pushed through a computer monitor. "Him and the others must've fired all-out," Kegawa said, coming up behind Daley. "It didn't do them any good."
Daley squatted to get a closer look at the massive hole in the Boomer's chest. It was large enough to cram a man's head through. "Check this out," he said to Leon.
"What?"
I can't find any fragments or shrapnel. It's fused--cauterized."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning," Daley said as he stood up, "I have no clue as to what did
this."
Kegawa indicated the bodies hanging from the ceiling. "Those have the same thing."
Leon stalked over. He hadn't seen that in the absence of light...."Even the Boomers? Christ!"
"Could it have been the Knight Sabers?" an officer asked.
Leon and Daley traded looks. "Look," he finally answered, "Let's not assume anything yet."
Just then, another voice came from behind them. "Captain Kegawa, the hostages are okay--Holy shit!!" The officer stopped short at the sight in front of him.
Kegawa looked at Leon. "Better go talk to those hostages. Maybe they heard something. And McNichol, if your girls are responsible for this, God help them."
"Wow," Priss said as she pulled off her hardsuit's helmet, "Thank goodness that's over." She began to remove the armor, Linna and Celia doing the same. They were back in the secret garage/training center of the Knight Sabers. When all three were finished, they placed their respective hardsuits in the appropriate cubicles. Dressed in their regular outfits, they went through a large steel door into a smaller room lined with consoles and screens. Mackie was seated in front of the largest one, watching what appeared to be-
"The news, Mackie?" Linna asked.
Mackie's seat swiveled around. His face was ashen-grey, his eyes wide. "Guys-" he said, "You have to see this."
"...So far, the AD Police is saying nothing. But, according to eyewitnesses, the band of terrorists in the Kellig Building were all killed by an unknown person or persons. A source indicated that it was the vigilante group, the Knight Sabers...."
"Bullshit!" Priss shouted at the reporter onscreen.
"It can't be us!" Linna wailed. "We weren't even there, Celia!"
Celia didn't answer right away. She was watching the screen. "Leon's there."
As the four watched, Leon walked into the camera's field of view, talking to two other men. The reporter marched up to them and thrust her mike at Leon's face. "Officer McNichol, is this really the work of the Knight Sabers? Is it true that they dismembered the terrorists and--"
Leon spoke, eyes flashing with anger. "Listen. As of now, we don't know who was responsible for this. All the hostages are safe. Besides, we have a report that the Knight Sabers were involved in another incident south of here. They left that area and went in the opposite direction--away from here. We had marksmen and observers posted around here, and they saw _nothing_. Unless the Knight Sabers can become invisible, they can't be held responsible."
With that, he left, a crowd of cameras and reporters following. The first reporter turned back to the camera and continued talking. Mackie muted the sound and said, "This is nuts, sis."
"It is, Mackie," Celia replied. "Keep track of this. Get as much information that we can use."
Right then and there the phone went off. It was Nene.
The place was taped off, the experts were coming in, the hostages were coming out, and there was still a lot of work to do.
Leon eased into the passenger seat of the ADP cruiser Daily had commandeered. He checked the time: ten thirty-one. He put the seat all the way back, and put his hands behind his head. Daley got into the driver's seat and started the car. "Well?" he asked.
"Well what?"
"Well, what are we going to do about the reports? I mean, when we get back to headquarters--"
"Daley, just drive. We'll figure it out when we get there."
"Any idea what we should put?"
"Yeah," Leon said as they drove off. "Cause of death--the big X. DK."
"X? DK?"
"Yeah. X as in Unknown, DK as in Don't Know." Leon glanced out the window at the buildings rushing by. "It's gonna be a long night."
He reached out and picked up the mobile police phone's headset, dialed a number, waited, and spoke. "Priss, it's Leon. Meet me at the usual spot, tomorrow at noon." He hung up.
Daley looked at him quizzically. "What was that about?"
"Drive," Leon snapped.