As before, all praise/blame goes to Marco de la Cruz
<marco@chinook.physics.utoronto.ca>
        Don't worry, X-Change Students is alive and well.
 
HTG
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Nene walked along the corridors through various storage rooms
and labs, but she hadn't been able to find the girl. She
finally reached a long corridor about 100 meters long at the
end of which a metal door was tightly shut. According to her
viewscreen's map, behind it lay an elevator shaft which lead
directly to the tritoxen deposit underground.  The door was
made of a 30 cm thick titanium alloy, and was used to seal the
lower levels in case of an emergency.

She spun around violently as her scanners detected something
right behind her. The girl was staring at her, less than half
a meter away.

Nene was momentarily startled by her sudden appearance. She
got a close look at her for the first time. The girl was
physically very small, even smaller than she was. Her head
barely reached her shoulder. She also was extremely thin, as
the tight black leather suit she wore delineated her
child-like figure. She had on a trench coat and some sort of
knee-protectors where her bright red cloth boots ended. Her
small hands hung loosely by her sides wrapped in black leather
gloves.

Her face was framed by thick black hair. She was not
particularly pretty, but her large beautiful honey eyes were
captivating. She stood motionless, glaring at her, a cold
expression on her face.

Nene wasn't sure what to do. Should she get the girl out of
the building and then come back to help them against the
Dobermans?

It seemed she didn't have much choice. But she was scared,
both for herself and for her friends. She resolved not to let
the girl sense her fear.

    "Hello, don't be afraid. What's your na..."

Nene's visor exploded.

As she staggered backwards, she could feel the transparent
kevlar splinters cutting into her cheeks and
forehead. Instinctively, she covered her face with her hands.

    "LIIIINN..."

A second blow, this time a kick, caught her directly on the
sternum. The ceramic armour of the hardsuit cracked and small
tile-like pieces flew apart. The impact forced the air out of
her lungs, and she found herself incapable of breathing. All
the while she kept reeling backwards in an almost comical
fashion.

A brutal punch just below her right arm went almost all the
way through the suit, and the dull sound of crunching metal
and cracking ribs echoed throughout the corridor.

Nene was blind with pain. Her suit's shields were down, and
the vicious attack was unlike anything she ever encountered or
trained for. Each blow was systematic, calculated to cause the
maximum damage without actually killing her. She was slowly
being crushed inside her suit.

Fear gave away to panic. In a desperate effort she tried to
retaliate. Moving her right arm was impossible, as the pain in
her side swelled beyond words. She made a swing with the
left. Had she actually hit something, it would have been a
pulverizing blow. However, her fist simply cut through the
air. She looked at her attacker. The girl now had a firm grip
of her arm. In one swift move she violently jerked it down as
she lifted her leg. Nene's eyes widened in terror as she saw
the girl's knee go through her elbow. Both artificial and
organic limbs snapped with an atrocious crack.

Nene screamed in agony.

As the girl slowly kept pounding her body, the suit started to
crumble. She could taste blood in her mouth, her broken ribs
already having punctured her lungs. Nene began to black out.

Suddenly, it stopped. Nene staggered backward a couple of
steps and hit something. The door. She had been pummeled along
the length of the corridor.

Crouching against the thick metal wall, she began to
sob. Tears formed streaks on her bloodied face. She painfully
started to whimper

    "Please, no more. Please, I beg you, don't hurt me
    anymore. Please, please don't hit me. Please, don't..."

She felt two hands gently take her head. Slowly, they lifted
her face until she was looking directly into the girl's
eyes. The girl had the same cold expression as when she first
saw her, as if nothing had happened. She placed her hands over
Nene's ears and softly wiped the tears with her thumbs.

A ray of hope surged in Nene's mind. The girl would forgive
her! She would live! Through the pain she began to feel some
relief. She looked again into the girl's beautiful eyes, as if
grateful towards an executioner who had just spared her life.

Suddenly, her vision started to blur.

The spherical shock wave radially propagated inward within
Nene's skull. Tissue, blood and cerebral fluid were suddenly
violently compressed.

Her brain was imploding.

The massive pressure then began to cause a tremendous increase
in temperature. Small bubbles of superheated vapour started to
form inside the now shapeless mass of tissue. Within a few
milliseconds it would explode.

Nene, of course, never felt a thing.

-----

Linna evaded the Doberman's fist which smashed into the wall a
few centimeters from were her head had been. At the same time
she jabbed the boomer with her Knuckle Bomber, but the
explosion barely managed to dent the mecha's incredibly tough
armour. She put some distance between her and the Doberman,
but it was already preparing to attack again.

Only her mono-streamers seemed to be able to penetrate its
hide, but not enough. As the boomer charged towards her she
performed a somersault which propelled her over the Doberman's
head, just centimeters from the corridor's roof. At the same
time she lashed her whips at its neck, and these tightly
coiled around it, digging into the metal. She then turned on
her jets, maximum thrust.

The jerk almost ripped the helmet off her head, but the
mono-streamers dug deep into the Doberman's throat. It
thrashed wildly trying to break free but the harder it pulled
the deeper the streamers burrowed into its neck. Suddenly
Linna tumbled forward and crashed against the wall. The whips
had managed to sever the Doberman's head. But the mecha
continued to fire blindly in all directions, violently
smashing its fists against the walls trying to connect. Linna
got up and jumped on its back. The Doberman violently stepped
backward crushing her against the wall. Linna's scream turned
into a cry of rage and fury as she savagely rammed her fist
down the Doberman's neck and began firing. The machine gun
exploded within the mecha's body as the bullets ripped apart
its interior mechanisms. The Doberman began to convulse
violently as if it were suffering an epilepsy seizure. The
noise coming from within its torso was an infernal scream, a
mix of screeching metal and deafening explosions. Linna kept
firing for ten, twenty, thirty seconds. Even after she had
exhausted the ammunition the gun's barrel kept spinning
furiously as she continued to pull the trigger. Finally, she
let go. She climbed off the Doberman's back. The mechanical
monster stood in place, like an empty shell, its innards
completely destroyed.

Linna stood there, contemplating the remains of the
Doberman. She was breathing heavily, a tinge of madness in her
eyes, her arm smoking and dripping the dark green liquid which
had once been the mecha's "blood". She had single-handedly
defeated the beast, and the feeling had been exhilarating,
almost orgasmic.

Suddenly she remembered Nene. She thought she had heard her
calling through the radio while in the heat of the battle. She
tried to contact her, but got no response. She slowly detached
the empty magazine from her forearm and let it fall on the
floor. She then took a second one which was strapped to her
thigh. The new magazine clicked into the recess where the old
one had been.

If Nene had been hurt, she would hunt down whatever had harmed
her, and then blow its fucking head off.

-----

In the control room all hell had broken loose. The Doberman
was gaining ground. Sylia and Priss had to do something.

Fast.

    "Back me up!" yelled Priss, as she darted towards the
Doberman.

A bullet grazed her shoulder, chipping her armour, but she
managed to maintain her balance. In one swift move she shot
her fist into the boomer's mouth as she detonated the
explosive insertor. The laser in its head blew apart, but the
Doberman caught her with a backhand swing that smashed her
against the wall, trapping her body with its arm. Priss lifted
her right arm and fired the densematter gun at the Doberman's
face. The slug went through its eye, ripping apart its
head. The Doberman roared in fury as it pointed its
machine-gun towards her face.

-----

Linna went through the maze of corridors towards where her
viewscreen's map indicated Nene's position with a small red
dot. Each hardsuit was equipped with a beacon and she had
superimposed the plant's map on the suit's signal. She seemed
to be at the end of a long corridor which led to an elevator
that had been sealed off. She was right next to the door, and
didn't appear to be moving.

She arrived at the entrance of the corridor, and readied her
gun. She went in.

At the end of the corridor Linna could discern two figures. As
the visor's optics zoomed in, she recognized the small girl
kneeling with her back to her. Something was behind her,
leaning against the wall. The girl suddenly stood up and made
a half turn, glaring back at Linna. Nene's lifeless torso slid
sideways, leaving streaks of blood marked on the wall.

The girl vanished.

In a split second the computer within Linna's hardsuit had
identified its target. As Linna swung her left arm upwards in
a defensive stance she glanced at the reading from the pulse
doppler radar. 61 m/s. She started to point her right arm as
she looked up. The helmet's viewscreen had already focused on
the girl, and a small red rectangular sight was locked on her
forehead. 152 m/s. The girl was already more than halfway
there. Linna aimed the power gun. 210 m/s. The sight turned
green. 231 m/s. She fired.

The gatling gun started spewing 2 mm depleted plutonium slugs
at over a 500 rounds/min. As the bullets shrieked through the
air the machine gun's nozzle lit in fury. The bullets,
however, never hit their target. At five meters from where
Linna stood, the girl had leaped. She jumped head first and
spun in mid-air as the bullets streaked below her.  She came
out of her spin with her feet aiming directly towards Linna's
head. The doppler radar froze at 243 m/s.

Linna grinned, grinding her teeth.

As the thermic whips lashed out at the girl at mach three
Linna knew she had won this fight. The IR thermal jet
signature was absent. The boomer girl was too small to carry
any thrusters. The moment she had lost touch with the ground
she had become unable to control her direction or speed, and
was therefore helpless to avoid being split in two by the
whips. The suit's targeting mechanism had automatically made
the appropriate trajectory calculations.

The girl was already dead.

At a combined speed of over 4500 km/hr it would take less than
five milliseconds for the whips to make contact. 0.001 seconds
after she had straightened from the spin the girl had begun
another maneuver. She stretched out her arms and for a
millisecond formed a perfect cross in mid air, the plane of
which was parallel with respect to the floor. 0.003 seconds
later, she had folded her body in two at her waist, her knees
almost touching her chin. The whips crisscrossed the space
where her chest would have been. The girl then straightened
out again, this time head first. She held her right arm
tightly against her body, and positioned her left forearm just
below her eyes.

She could see the knife's shiny metal reflecting off the
hardsuit's helmet.

Almost instinctively, Linna realized something had gone
wrong. It was only because of her years of training and almost
superhuman reflexes that she actually managed to fasten her
stance and tighten the muscles in her left arm to lock the
suit's servomotors in place. 1/50 of a second later, Linna saw
the knife's blade.

Its edge was coming out of her wrist.

Everything began to spin wildly around her. She tried to read
the electronic gyros but it was useless. A massive power
failure had blacked out all displays. Stabilizers were
out. Nothing seemed to respond. She was completely helpless.

Suddenly, she hit the ground. She was becoming increasingly
dizzy and couldn't understand what she was seeing. The girl
was now towering over her, motionless. Behind her she saw
somebody in a hardsuit, facing opposite to the girl.

By the time she realized the hardsuit was her own, she was
dead.

-----

Priss closed her eyes, but the final explosion never came.

She opened them to see the Doberman looking quizzically at its
right arm.

Or, more appropriately, towards where its right arm should
have been.

The Doberman's head suddenly appeared to grow a horn, like a
unicorn, as a blade erupted from its head.

Sylia, after having severed its arm, had plunged her
vibroblade upwards through the mecha's throat, all the way
through the top of its skull.

The arm which it was using to pin Priss to the wall slackened
a little. In one swift move she freed herself as she stuck a
small charge to its chest.

    "Sylia, duck!"

Both women covered themselves the best the could as the charge
went off. The force of the explosion hurled the Doberman
backwards, smashing it against the control panel. As Sylia and
Priss looked up the saw the Doberman was still standing, with
a hole the size of a bowling ball in its chest.

    "Yipee-kai-yay Motherfucker!"

Priss fired her densematter gun into the hole. Needless to
say, the Doberman did not get up again. Ever.

    "Linna! Nene! Do you read?"

As Sylia tried to get in touch with the others, she saw Priss
falter.

    "Priss! Are you O.K.?"

    "Uuungh. That last blow must've broken my arm. Don't
worry, I'll live," she said, trying to smile.

    "I can't get them on the radio. You get out of the plant,
I'll trace their beacon"

    "No way! I'm with you!"

    "You're hurt. Get out. That's an order!"

Priss grinned. She was feeling like shit, and didn't want to
argue. So instead, she reasoned with her.

    "And what if I bump into the third Doberman on my way out?
Huh? Then what?"

    "Damn!" thought Sylia. She had a point.

    "O.K., but whatever happens you fall back and cover me,
got that?"

    "Yes, sir!"

They started walking along the corridors towards the two red
dots on the map. They where at the other end of a plant, in
some sort of corridor. They slowly headed towards them,
carefully entering each room they had to go through.

They were halfway there when they found themselves in a huge
room full of valves and pipes. The walls were webbed with
thick tubes, each thoroughly wrapped with electric and heat
insulating material. The tubes were empty, of course, since
all tritoxen flow had already been cut off.

As they scanned the room in search of the Doberman, they saw
her.

The girl was crouching at the corner of the room, her face to
the walls. She seemed to be holding something in her arms and
was gently making a rocking movement with her whole body.

Priss ran a scan on the girl. There was something strange
about her. The EEM aura, the brain's electrical signature
which only humans possessed, was there. But other readings did
not make sense, such as the huge temperature gradients over
her body,

    "Sylia, be careful. There's something weird about that
girl"

    "I'll get her. You stay here"

As Sylia approached her from behind, she could hear her
humming. She then began to pray. She was, in fact, softly
singing.

    "Hollow men have got you, long before you realize..."

Sylia put her hand on the girl's left shoulder.

    "Come on, we must get you out of here," she said, in a
soft but firm manner.

The girl stopped her cradling. She remained silent for several
seconds. Sylia was getting impatient. She was about to pick
her up when, without lifting her head, the girl whispered,

    "The poison paralyses"

She started to bend to carry her, when suddenly the girl
thrusted what she was holding into her arms.

It was Linna's head.

For a moment, Sylia faltered. She looked at the face of what
once had been Linna Yamazaki. The corners of her mouth had
been ripped apart, so that her lips where now forming a
grotesque smile. The blood that had oozed from her mouth and
nose had been smeared on her cheeks, as if it were a macabre
rouge. Her eyes bulged out, as her eyelids had been shoved
behind the orbs. The overall expression was that of a
maniacal, monstrous jester.

Suddenly, she felt herself being jerked to the right. The girl
had gotten hold of her wrist and had somehow managed to put
her off balance. She now stood facing the girl towards the
corner, with Priss behind her.

She didn't realize she was being used as a shield until it was
too late.

The girl had a firm hold of her right wrist, and had placed
her legs between the hardsuit's, so that her feet were firmly
locked just below and behind the knees. Sylia's legs were
immobilized.

Sylia's only hope was the explosive insertor in her left
hand. As she lifted her arm to deliver the shattering blow to
the girl's head, the girl placed her open hand on her
shoulder.

Sylia howled in pain as the suit's surface temperature
indicator lit up, blazing red. Her fist froze in mid air, mere
centimeters from the girl's temple. In less than a second, her
shoulder junction had been welded into place, the actuator
within now a formless mass of molten metal.

The girl now slid her incandescent hand over Sylia's chest,
just above her left breast. She could hear the electric arc
cracking heinously as it pierced the air.

Upon touching the surface of the hardsuit the ceramic
composite layer exploded as the plasma jet violently increased
its temperature to 40000 K. The titanium- carbonfiber
superalloy underneath immediately turned white hot as the
girl's hand effortlessly cut through the armour.

Waves of excruciating pain swept through Sylia's whole
body. Droplets of boiling plastic and metal pierced her skin
as the interior surface of her hardsuit started to melt and
bubble. Within the suit the stench of burning flesh began to
swell.

As the girl's hand penetrated into the armour the pitch of her
scream rose to a shriek of unbelievable pain and terror.

Without stopping, the girl's hand plunged into Sylia's
chest. Her flesh dissolved as the plasma ravaged through her
torso. Tissue and bone burned away, and Sylia's head jerked
back in one violent spasm that broke her neck. In a paroxysm
of pain, her whole body went into convulsions.

The plasma jet faded. Incredibly, Sylia was not dead
yet. Within her chest the girl had cupped her heart in her
hand, and had felt a beat.

Before she felt another, she closed her fist, crushing it.

-----

Sylia's agonizing scream still echoed in Priss' head as the
girl untangled herself from the remains of the hardsuit and
the body within.

In less than five seconds she had seen her two best friends
murdered while she stood helpless to do anything. The moment
she saw Linna's head drop on the floor she had aimed her fist
gun, but the girl had already shielded herself using Sylia's
body. As Priss started to advance towards them Sylia's
piercing scream exploded in her helmet. For the first time
since joining the Knight Sabers, she felt true fear. She
froze. A second later she had recovered, but it was too late.

The girl stepped back, and Sylia's body collapsed.

Her right hand was crimson red, and the remains of the heart
she had tore out of Sylia's chest slid down her fingers and
fell to the floor. Staring at Priss, she slowly lifted her
hand to her face and with her index finger traced a red streak
under each eye.

Priss was paralyzed.

The numbing pain in her arm combined with the shock of what
she was seeing was making her black out. It was a nightmare
beyond imagination. She was in Hell.

Suddenly, the scent of burnt flesh reached her nostrils. She
gagged. She pointed her densematter gun at the girl. As the
vomit reached her throat, she fired.

The girl's shoulder exploded. Pieces of metal and dark brown
droplets of liquid flew in all directions. Her arm right spun
in the air and bounced against a wall before hitting the
floor. The bloodied hand twitched twice, and then froze.

The girl stood motionless, looking at Priss.

She grabbed the hilt of the knife that she had strapped to her
remaining arm and lifted it over her head.

Priss fired again.

This time the high-density titanium-tipped plutonium slug hit
her directly in the stomach. The force of the blow was such
that she was almost split in half, her legs and waist held up
by a thin strip of "skin" on her right side. The girl had
managed to remain standing as she sustained her upper torso by
holding onto the knife which was now deeply incrusted into one
of the deposit's pipes.

Her arm then split open just below her shoulder. Six short,
needle-tipped, metallic pencils could be seen inside.

Priss pointed her gun, for the last time, at the girl's head.

As the sight on her visor locked on her forehead and turned
green, Priss hesitated.

The girl was smiling at her.

With her head slightly tilted sideways, it was a beautiful
smile. Her eyes almost closed, it radiated warmth and
love. But above all, it was an infinitely sad smile.

It was the same smile a friend had given her a long time ago
as he said

    "Good-bye"

Priss fired.

The electrical discharge from the little girl's arm went
through the knife directly into the tube. Once inside, it
spread at lightning speed through its conductive interior
surface.

In less than a microsecond it had travelled along the tube's
length directly into the heart of one of the huge tritoxen
tanks ten floors below.

And the wrath of God stormed the earth.

As the temperature at the center of the explosion rose to 6
million degrees, everything in a 10 km radius vaporized
instantly. In the blink of an eye fifteen million people had
ceased to exist.

Buildings exploded as the shock wave advanced destroying
everything in its path. It crushed earthquake-proof structures
as far as NeoYokohama. The fires that then began to rage
covered an area of over 2000 square kilometers. A tsunami that
formed within the city's bay soon reached Yokosuka and Chiba,
flooding them under billions of litres of water. The once
proud city of MegaTokyo had been obliterated in less than a
minute.

By sunrise, thirty-nine million people had perished.

-----

The man stood before the ruins of the semi-destroyed bar. It
was one of the few structures that had survived. Looking
around, he noticed that the only buildings that remained
standing where almost perfectly aligned radially away from
where the explosion had occurred. Facing towards the blast's
direction, he suddenly understood why. A couple of kilometers
away a huge black pile of molten concrete and metal could be
seen. He had once heard that the tower had been built to last
a hundred thousand years, a symbol of Genom's everlasting
power. It didn't quite make it, but the fact that its charred
ruins remained standing was indeed a tribute to their
engineering prowess. He sadly smiled when he realized the
cruel irony.

The same company that had destroyed everything he ever had,
had also saved his life.

For the last time, he entered the bar. He went to the small
room in the back where he had lived for so many years and in
which he would never sleep again. He walked between the
tables, most of which had been crushed by the heavy pieces of
concrete that had once formed a ceiling. The wall where the
dartboard used to hang was no more. He slowly slid his hand
over the counter behind which he had spent most of his
existence. It was cracked and covered with debris.

As he was about to leave, he saw something lying on the floor
near the corner of the room. It was the little girl's
synthesizer. As he picked it up he noticed a few music sheets
underneath. It was the song she had been writing. It had no
title. It never would. The only name it would ever have was
the dedication scribbled at the top of the page

    "For Daisuke"

THE END?