Here it is folks, the final part.  This is still the first draft, and I 
do intend to release a revised version sometime soon, but it may take a 
while as I will be working on another project (BGC/Batman: Darkest 
Knights) and also looking for a job.  I will get it out there, though.

In the meantime, enjoy!  Please give me some good C&C on this... I've 
really enjoyed writing this story and want to make it as good as possible.

                  Bubblegum Collision

     A Bubblegum Crisis fanfic by Douglas A. Reeves

Note: BGC characters are the property of whoever they are the property of. 
This fic was not written for profit, and if anyone uses it for such it is without
my knowledge and permission (and I really, really wish I could claim it was
that good)

Note #2 : This is it!  The end of it all!  Read on!

PART SIX OF SIX - Dead End!

     Four o'clock AM.  Citizens of Megatokyo woke, startled from their sleep
by the sounds of motorcycles tearing through the streets at incredible speed. 
Those who were already awake could see the Knight Sabers ride.  Any who
saw this ride would never forget the sight.
     "There it is," Nene breathed.  "Straight ahead."
     "I'll get the door," Priss answered as the massive building grew rapidly
larger in front of them.  "Get ready for a fight."
     "I've been ready for a long time," Christine said cooly.  "Let's do it."
     Racing ahead of the others, Priss opened the distance, then suddenly
transformed her motoslave to flight mode.  Setting it down on the street, she
raised its hefty cannon and pointed it straight at the Tower's main entrance. 
Three times the muzzle flashed, each shot propelling Priss backwards about two
feet.  The door never had a chance.  The first shot caved it in, and the two that
followed blew it down.  Screaming past the outside defenses, the four Knight
Sabers enetered the hornet's nest. 
     "Set up a perimeter," Priss ordered, having become the group's leader by
default.  "We've got to watch each other's backs."
     "We're on it," Linna replied, checking the door they had just come
through.  "They haven't followed us in yet... I wonder why?"
     "They don't have any heavy artillery out there," Nene answered.  "They're
sending for it, but by the time it gets there we'll be further inside."
     "Great," Priss commented, looking both ways down the corridor.  "Which
way, Nene?"
     "Your left," she answered calmly.
     "All right, lets move.  Linna, Chris, you guard the rear."
     "Consider it done," Christine answered.
     Cautiously, they moved down the hall, all but Priss leaving the motoslaves
behind.  She didn't like having to use hers in these corridors, but she wanted
the cannon.  Her mind was racing, trying to remember all the things Sylia had
taught her.  "Someday I may not be there to lead you," she had said.  "So I'm
going to teach you how."  Priss had been reluctant to learn, secretly wondering
if she was up to the task, but there was no time to wonder now.  She was the
leader, and she would lead.
     "Nene, you picking up anything?" she asked.
     "Not yet."
     "This is too quiet.  I don't like it," Priss grumbled.
     "Maybe we actually surprised them," Linna suggested hopefully.
     "And maybe not.  Best to assume we didn't... it's safer." Christine
commented.
     "Agreed, Christine.  If we did, it'll be a pleasant surprise." Priss concluded.
     Reaching the end of the hall, they found a hefty steel door with an
electronic lock.  "Nene?" asked Priss, checking the ammo in the motoslave's
gun.  Three shots down, five to go.
     Nene hesitated a second, then held up her hand.  The door slid open to
reveal another corridor.  "All too easy."
     Priss shook her head, "Amazing."  She could not help but admire how
much Nene had grown as a member of the team.  There had been a time when
she would almost have advocated removing her, but now she was indispensible.
"So far, so good."
     "Wait," Nene interrupted, and for a long second there was silence. 
"They're coming.  I've got a lot of interference, but there are definitely four
boomers coming down this hallway."
     A second later, she was proved right.  Four of the new 34-CX class
cyberdroids were coming down the corridor straight at them.  Priss raised the
gun again, firing another of her precious rounds, and one of the metal
monstrosities exploded.  Stepping back, she was about to take aim again when
she saw that there was no time.
     "I've got the second one," Christine called, firing the first of her three
energy webs.  The target flew right into the net, which tossed it backwards
several yards and immobilized it.  Two quick shots of the disc cannon shattered
its head, and it was done for.
     Linna was already charging the third.  Sensing that she wanted to fight at
close range, it extended its knife and pulled back to strike.  Waiting until the
last second, Linna feinted to her left, then rolled right, bringing both of her
whips across the boomer's body.  Sparks flew, and it crashed to the floor in a
heap.
     One boomer remained, and it was headed straight for Nene.  "Time to see
if this works," she thought, issuing a mental command to the suit.  Suddenly,
the cyberdroid came to a screeching halt, both hands clasping its head.  Falling
to its knees, it made an easy target for her arm laser.
     "What the hell was that?!" Priss shouted.
     "A new system Sylia apparently added to the hardsuit.  It scrambles the
boomers' artificial synapses, it seems."
     "Nice," Christine said appreciatively.  "That should make this a lot easier,
anyway."
     "More coming," Nene warned.  "I suggest we go up."
     "Easy enough," Priss said.  "Stand back."  Raising the motoslave's gun
again, she fired a single shot through the ceiling.   It blew up, raining down on
them in chunks of metal and plastic, and they proceeded upwards.
     "Looks like there's less security on this level," Nene estimated.  "Go
right."
     "Right it is," Priss said, and they ran down the hall.  At the end was
another heavy door with a keypad lock, which Nene easily passed.  In the room
beyond, several men in lab coats were working on an arm design for a boomer. 
Christine put a disc through the testing station's power supply, and with a
flurry of sparks it shut down.
     "Everybody out!" Priss yelled.  "We're taking this place apart!"
     The scientists needed no encouragement.  One of them started to run off
with a box, but when Linna pointed her gun arm in his general direction, he
dropped it and ran.  Linna then vaporized the box.
     "Destroy everything," Priss ordered.
     "With pleasure," Christine responded, physically smashing computers and
equipment with her armored hands.  Nene and Linna, not having to worry
about ammunition, did most of the damage with their arm lasers, and within
two minutes the entire room was smashed.
     "The vault?" Linna asked, pointing to an even heavier door beyond.
     "That's a physical lock," Nene said.
     "Not a problem," Priss answered, lifting the huge gun again and putting a
shell through the door.  The locking mechanism shattered, and Christine opened
it.
     "Data tapes," she said, looking inside.
     "Trash them."  It took less than a minute.
     "Where now, Nene?" inquired Priss.
     "The building has three computer cores.. The primary and two backups. 
We should probably take out all three."
     "All right, show us the way."
                   * * * * * * * * *
     Priss could not believe how easily this was happening.  The vaunted
Genom Tower was ridiculously underdefended, she thought.  They had already
destroyed two of the building's main computer cores, and they were on the way
to the primary now.  Running through another corridor, she asked Nene for a
status report.
    "Four squads of boomers are mobilized on our level, but we should be able
to evade them pretty easily.  I don't think they realize we can track them."
    "So much the better," she responded.  The corridors were much narrower
here, and she had been forced to abandon her motoslave some distance back, so
she would as soon avoid a fight for the moment.  She had ordered it to smash
its way to the upper levels, and she hoped to regain it there.
    "Coming up on the core now," Nene said, taking an angry pleasure from the
destruction.  "Here it is."  Once again, she worked her magic on the door,
which obediently opened to reveal a large chamber with a cone-shaped
computer console in the center.  A single shot from Priss's arm cannon was all
it took - the computer exploded in a flash of fire and memory chips rained
throughout the room.  The fire systems triggered, and the room began to fill
with fire-suppressant gas.  "Let's go," Priss said, ushering the others out before
the gas began to choke off the oxygen supply.  Closing the door behind her as
they left, she said, "Primary mission accomplished."
     "All right!" Christine said, grinning inside her helmet.  "What's the
secondary mission?"
     "Property damage.  Lots of it." was Priss's response.
     "Now THERE'S a battle plan I like!" Chris barely restrained her voice to a
low yell.
     "Let's rock," Priss responded.  It was an appropriate statement... she'd just
gotten the inspiration for a new song, and it was running in her mind as they
blasted their way through Genom's headquarters.
                   * * * * * * * * *
     "Main defenses are on alert now," Nene warned.
     "Took them long enough," Priss answered.
     "No kidding," Linna agreed.
     "Two squads of boomers coming up on us... one to the left and one to the
right.  I read four boomers each."
     "Let's go meet the ones on the right.  Better than fighting both at once,"
Priss orderded.
     "Time to test out some of Sylia's work," Linna commented, checking her
suit's status.
     They met the boomers coming around a corner.  Surprising them, Priss
managed to take one down with her arm cannon before they had even turned to
fight.  Nene engaged her synapse-scrambler on the second, and it fell in a heap.
     A red light flashed on the inside of Linna's faceplate, reading the word,
"THREAT".  Instinctively she leaped, just as one of the boomers began to fire
a heavy machine gun at her.  Twisting in the air, she extended her new weapon
- electrically charge blades - from the heels of her boots.  Using her momentum
to drive a devastating kick to the boomer's head, she was rewarded with a
show of fireworks as the machine's internal systems overloaded.  Retracting the
blades, she leaped off just as it exploded.
     "I LIKE it!" Christine commented as she used the second of her energy
webs to ensare the final boomer.  A small blade deployed from her left
gauntlet, and with a backhanded swipe she neatly severed the beast's head.
"I like that, too."
     "Here comes the other set," Nene warned.
     "Let's take them... we seem to have the firepower advantage now," Priss
spoke with confidence, growing into her leadership.
     "All right!" Christine answered with a grin.
                   * * * * * * * * *
     As the second set of boomers lay in a pile of twisted and scarred metal
before them, the Knight Sabers found themselves having to supress the
temptation to relax.  "There's still a lot ahead of us," Priss said.
     "The floors above are the executive areas," Nene said.  "Lots of things to
hit, but the security is going to be tight."
     "Let's get on it," Priss said, indicating a set of stairs.
     "Going up the normal way?" Linna asked.
     "Trying to save ammo." Priss explained, kicking open the door to the
stairs.  "Watch yourselves... this is a good place to spring a trap."
     "I'm not picking up anything," Nene reassured as they entered.  As before,
Linna and Chris took the rear guard, with Priss leading the way and Nene in
the middle.  Two floors up, Priss said, "Here," and they entered another
corridor.
     "Office areas, like you said," Priss confirmed Nene's earlier evaluation.
     "Not much alive up here, but there are quite a few computer-operated
security devices."  Nene said, pointing down the hall.  "Watch for lasers hidden
in the walls."
     "Can you scramble them?" Priss asked. 
     "Some of them... they're all over the place."  As if to emphasize her point,
she raised her arm cannon and vaporized something that looked like a smoke
detector.  "That one was aiming at you, Priss."
     Priss nodded, "Be careful, everyone."
     "This is going to be slow work; we might want to consider fanning out a
bit," Linna suggested.
     "I don't know..."
     "Numbers aren't going to help much against the type of security they have
up here," Nene pointed out.  "And the systems will be slower to react to a
single target."
     "Good point," Priss acknowledged.  "Stay in contact, though."
     "Will do."
     Watching the others start off in different directions, Priss began to slowly
proceed down the corridor of her choice.  Staying close to the wall, she looked
for hidden weapons.  Not seeing any, she slipped into a set of offices.
     "Bingo," she thought, seeing some of the nameplates.  Methodically
searching each office, she put a flechette in each of their computers.  "I wonder
where the network server is?"
                   * * * * * * * * *
     Linna smiled as she destroyed yet another of the annoying laser devices. 
Slipping around a corner, she saw a heavy steel door and thought, "This is
odd... must be something important."  She took a turn at the lock, but was
unable to get anything out of it, and she was relatively sure that it would repel
laser blasts.  Priming the knuckle bomber, she punched the door, and it gave
way with a satisfying crash.
     Cautiously making her way inside, she flipped on the lights.  The THREAT
light flashed on again, and she rolled backwards just as four hidden lasers fired
at the spot she had just occupied.  Quickly destroying each of the weapons
before it could fire again, she looked around.
     "Ah... a power generator," she thought, smiling.  "And here's the cutoff." 
Checking the switch for traps first, she satisfied herself that it was safe and
then flipped it.
                   * * * * * * * * *
     "What the hell...?" Christine said as all the lights suddenly went out.
     "I hit the power cutoff," Linna replied.
     "The lasers are off," Nene informed after a second.
     "Good work, Linna," Priss congratulated.
     "All right," Christine thought, setting her low-light gear in the helmet and
moving on down the hall.  Almost immediately she had decided to follow
Nene... the young one had seemed rather purposeful in her choice of route once
they had parted company.  Almost as if she knew something...
                   * * * * * * * * *
     Nene smiled to herself as she passed yet another keypad lock.  "Good thing
these locks have their own power source, or I might never open them," she
thought.  Her sensors had detected a couple of lifesigns in this direction, and
from checking the computer map she had downloaded she thought she knew
who one of those might be.
     "Now Nene," she asked herself, "What will you do if you're right?"
     Truthfully, she could not answer that question.  She felt compelled to check
this out, though, and she decided that she would wait until she got there to
figure that out.  Between checking for new security systems and her own
thoughts, she was too preoccupied to notice that Christine was following her.
     Finding another stairway, she proceeded upward to the highest level of the
Tower.  Images raced through her mind as she remembered the battle which
had taken place just over where she stood now; it was a battle that would pale
by comparison to what she was about to do.
     She found herself faced with yet another electronic lock, one that was far
more complex that she had dealt with before.  Letting all her other thoughts go,
she entered an almost mechanical state, cryptographic sequences flowing
through her mind as the hardsuit fed her data.  It took almost a full minute, but
eventually she reached the solution.  The mammoth door opened, revealing a
cavernous room, the center of which contained a single, and very large desk.
     Startled, the man at the desk whirled around to face her.  Her thoughts all
froze for an instant as she recognized him - she had been right.  "Quincy!" she
shouted, the hatred swelling in her and hardening her voice like steel.
     The man in the chair laughed, quickly regaining his composure.  "Do you
really think I would be caught here when you came?" a familiar voice boomed
through the room.  "Surely you've seen my doubles enough times not to be
fooled by them."
     Quincy's image flickered on a screen behind the desk, looming large over
the room.  Raising her arm cannon, she shattered the screen with a single shot. 
"My scanners say you're flesh and blood, Quincy.  Now you answer for what
you've done!"
     Quincy recoiled, falling out of his chair.  Backing away from her, he said,
"You wouldn't... I know you wouldn't, Nene Romanova.  You're AD Police,
and you can't kill me."
     "You'd be surprised."  Nene's voice was like ice, and Quincy shivered
when he heard it.  He began to crawl backwards, looking for any place to hide,
and finding none.
     "Where are all your boomer guards, Quincy?" Nene asked, her scanners
telling her that there were none in the room.  Quincy only retreated further.  "It
ends.  Now."  That said, Nene took aim with her arm laser.
                   * * * * * * * * *
     "Hell!" Christine swore when she heard Nene shout Quincy's name. 
"Lord, grant me the speed to stop her!"  Christine was not a religious person,
but her words carried the vehemence of a desparate prayer... and perhaps they
were.  Using her jump unit to propel her up the stairs, she sprinted around the
corner at the top and burst through the door just in time to see Nene take aim
at the man.  Realizing she didn't have time to reason with her, she fired her
energy web.
     Totally absorbed in the sight of the broken Quincy before her, Nene was
caught off guard.  The energy web struck, propelling her across the room and
pinning her to the wall.
     "CHRISTINE!" She screamed, "YOU -"
     Christine cut her off.   "I'm sorry, Nene... but I can't let you do that." 
Removing her helmet, she walked over to Quincy.  "Do you remember me?"
she asked.
     Quincy just sat there on the floor in shock, not moving or making a sound. 
"I'll take that as a no," Christine said.  "My name is Christine Starblade.  I
used to be called Christine Stevenson, but those days are over.  Does THAT
name ring a bell?"
     Quincy nodded, some hope rising within him that this one might spare
him... her voice at least seemed gentle enough.
     "You hired me once..."
     "Y-yes,' Quincy stammered, not remebering her at all, but just agreeing
with her in the hope that she might let him live.   On the other side of the
room, Nene watched in disbelief, certain that they had been betrayed.
     "...and then you tried to kill me," she finished, her voice growing cold. 
Quincy felt his heart shatter, all his hope crushed to to the ground.  Christine
dropped her helmet, and raised her right arm to point at him.  "You've hurt a
lot of people, you bastard.  It's time for payback."
     The expression on her face like stone, she fired a single disc from her arm. 
It slashed through Quincy's shoulder, blood spurting out onto the floor.  He
gaped, the pain to shocking to even allow him a scream.  "That was for me,"
Christine narrated.
     "This," she continued, putting another disc through his left wrist, shattering
the bone and slashing the artery, "is for Nene."  Nene gasped at the cruelty of
her attack, yet her anger made it a pleasant sight.
     "This is for Sylia."  Another disc, this time through the back, slashing
through his right lung.  Quincy coughed, blood spurting from his mouth.  He
tried to look as though he was dying, but he knew if they left now he could
still survive.  If only he could convince them -
     Christine lowered her cannon, and Quincy thought it might actually have
worked.  Raising the arm again, Chris pressed a hidden button on the gauntlet
and the disc magazine opened.  Slowly, carefully, she removed a single blade
from the clip, then snapped the magazine closed.  Deliberately, she slipped the
weapon between her middle and fourth fingers on her right hand positioned so
as not to cut her.  A vicious smile crossed her face, then faded as she steeled
herself to what she was about to do.  The room seemed frozen in time, and
what was only three seconds seemed as an hour to all who were present. 
Suddenly, she swung her arm back and slashed across with the disc, slicing
open the front of Quincy's throat.  "And that was for James, you son of a
bitch!" she screamed, blood trailing from her right hand as it pulled away.
     Quincy choked, his larynx shattered by the blow.   For several seconds, he
writhed, gasping for breath, and then he lay still.  Pressing a button on her left
gauntlet, Christine released Nene from the energy web and went over to her,
dropping the disc by Quincy's body.
     "Is he - ?' Nene asked, then shuddered as her sensors answered the
question before she could finish it.  "You-?"
     "Killed him?" Christine finished the sentence.  "Yes.  May his blood be the
last I ever shed."
     "You stopped me... why?"
     "You'll understand eventually."  Reaching out, Christine hugged Nene, or
at least did as best she could with both of them in hardsuits.  There they stood
for several minutes until Priss and Linna found them.
     "What happened here?" Priss asked, seeing the blood everywhere, then
went over to look at the body.  "The real one?"
     Christine nodded.  "He must have been here to oversee the attacks on us."
     "I guess he didn't expect us to strike back," Linna frowned.
     "He didn't expect us to live to... or at least not enough of us, anyway."
     "So it's over, then," Linna sighed.
     "Perhaps.  The monster has lost its head," Christine said softly, "but who
can say if a new one will take it's place?"
     "If it does, we will be ready." Priss resolved.  "One more thing to do. 
Nene, the honor is yours."  With that, the youngest Knight Saber pointed her
arm laser at the floor by Quincy's lifeless body.  It flitted around in an odd
pattern, leaving a familiar burn scar in the floor.
      As if on cue, dawn broke across Megatokyo, flooding the room with light
through the panoramic windows.  The Knight Sabers, victorious, were the
heralds of a new day.

END PART SIX


Epilogue - 
     It was one of the most beautiful days MegaTokyo had ever seen.  The
smog was almost non-existant, and the sky was clearer than it had been in
years.   Sylia awoke that day, and smiled at what she saw.  Clustered around
her bed were the assembled Knight Sabers - Priss, Linna, Nene, Mackie, and
Christine.  Even Priss was smiling, and they all looked a little different, but the
biggest change was in Nene.
     Sitting there in her AD Police uniform, she looked happy again; still, she
was not the same as she had been before.  She looked a little older, perhaps
just more mature.  The old light shone in her eyes again, but it seemed
tempered by something, as if her innocence had grown into something more
substantial.
     Christine looked different, too.  A sad smile graced her face, and while it
was apparent that she was not over all her pain (and probably never would be),
she had let go of her anger at last.  Sylia felt a swell of pride for both of them. 
Seeing her gaze shift from one to the other, Christine smiled at Nene, who
returned the gesture.  This, more than anything, lifted Sylia's heart into the
clouds.
     They spent several hours talking about the things that had been - the
destruction of Sylia's home had been a loss, but not an insurmountable one. 
The final battle with Genom, and the death of Quincy, weighed heavily in their
thoughts.  For the first time, they had hope of a peaceful future.  They all
agreed that they must be vigilant, though, lest another evil rise greater than the
first.
     Genom's fall had been phenomenal.  Nene had downloaded information
regarding corruption through every layer of the company and the government,
including ties to higher-ups in the AD Police.  Over a hundred executives and
politicians had gone to jail, and Nene had earned her promotion to Captain. 
The Knight Sabers, while officially illegal, were regarded as public heroes. 
Their secret identities revealed, they had been concerned about legal action
against them, but the public outcry protected them in the end.
     Probably the strongest statement in their behalf had been the end of the
boomer crimes.  The leviathan was dead, and it no longer lashed out at those
around it.  For the first time in a decade, the citizens of Megatokyo were free.
     Christine Stevenson had resurfaced several days later, her role as a Knight
Saber already revealed.  She asked that the things she had given away remain
with their recipients, as she no longer desired them.  The remnants of Genom
were forced to make restitution for her home, and that was all she wanted.
     Finally, Priss had seen some changes, too.  Her new song, "Dead Ends"
had become an instant hit, and she had been offered several record contracts. 
In the end, though, she and Linna had decided to form their own label, and it
looked to be a wildly successful endeavor.  In the three days after the song's
release, she had already made enough money to get a new home.
     The last piece of news was not so good.  The falling debris had damaged
Sylia's spine, and she would likely never walk again.  Still, she argued, it was
a small loss compared to what they had gained.  Priss would be the field leader
for the Knight Sabers, should they ever need to go into action again, and she
had proven quite capable.  As with Christine, her home and business had been
paid for by the auction of the remnants of Genom, so she would be busy re-establishing the shop.
     The Knight Sabers live on, but their role has changed.  Once the last spark
of hope in Megatokyo, now they are the guardians of its flame.


--------------------------------------------------------
Stormwalker <temporarily at pingley@post.cis.smu.edu>
"Chaos is a good thing"
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