This is part six and the epilogue to Bubblegum Collision.  C&C would be
appreciated.  Please send any replies to the list or to
<stormwalker@airmail.net>, as I check that account much more often.  (I
had to send this from here because it's two big to use cut/paste to put it
in a Netscape Messenger message).

Thank you very much.  Author's notes will be forthcoming.

Stormwalker presents, the final battle with GENOM...

     Priss's mind flooded with memories as GENOM's artificial mountain
of a headquarters loomed larger in her vision.  Twice she had been
there before, both times for a confrontation with a single man.  Mason.
Largo.  The cycle began anew...
     Uncertainty tore at her heart as they raced toward destiny.  With
Sylia out of the picture, the leadership had fallen to her. More
memories... lessons in command she had not wished to learn; now she was
glad for them.  Sylia had seen this day coming, and once again her
foresight might just save them all...

*****************************************************************
Stormwalker <stormwalker@airmail.net> proudly presents...

                      Bubblegum Collision
                                
       A Bubblegum Crisis fanfiction by Douglas A. Reeves
*****************************************************************

Finale (part six of six) - Dead End!

     In her mind, Priss reviewed the mission objectives.  As their
identities had been compromised, there were now several levels of
threat to be neutralized.  First and foremost, they had to know exactly
what GENOM knew about them, and that meant accessing the Tower's
central computer net.  After that, they had to find Quincy... his very
existence was now a threat to their survival.
     A chill passed through her at that thought.  She had often 
wondered how Sylia had felt when she came to the conclusion that Mason 
had to die; now she knew.  A cold knot formed in her stomach as she
steeled herself to the task at hand.  Finding Quincy would not be 
easy... killing him might be more difficult still.  Nevertheless, it
had to be done.
     Trying to put aside that line of thought, she looked up at their
destination.  The monolithic Tower now dominated their vision, looming
like an omen of ill will.  "Defensive strength?" she asked, almost
mechanically.
     "Heavy, but spread thinly," Nene responded.  "We should be able to
punch through the front gates if we strike quickly."
     "Let's do it, then."  Closing her eyes for a second, she felt the
sudden rush of anger and the desire for vengeance--It could be held
back no longer.  "For Sylia!" she cried, "Knight Sabers, sanjo!"
     "For Sylia!" came the unison response as they throttled up their
motoslaves and charged to the attack.
     As the defenders came into visual range, Priss was surprised at
how undefended the front gate was.  "Didn't they learn from the last
time?" she thought to herself, then answered, "Guess not."  Using her
left hand to steer, she raised her arm cannon and fired two shots.
Armor piercing rounds slammed through the front door, caving it inward,
and a third blast blew it down.
     "Seven rounds left," she reminded herself.
     Four boomers, two from each side of the gate, charged out to meet
them.  Each pair consisted of one 34-CX and one 55-C, with the modular
variants equipped for artillery.  Cannon fire blazed on all sides as
the Sabers closed in, getting frighteningly more accurate.  "Enough of
this," Priss growled and transformed her motoslave.  As the massive
armor slowed, now hovering inches above the ground, she lifted the gun
and fired two bursts.  The 34-CX's exploded, leaving only the smaller
opponents, and their last shots deflected harmlessly off the
Typhoon-IIB's armor.
     "I've got the left one," Linna called, leaping from her motoslave.  Even as she jumped, a beam of energy from the boomer
she was targeting seared the space she was departing; before the laser
was even shut down she was upon her foe.  The knuckle bomber flared,
and one defender remained.
     Christine swerved left and right, taking the motoslave right up to
the target in its cycle mode.  Deploying her newest weapon, a 
micro-serrated knife in her left gauntlet, she was rewarded with a
shower of sparks.  The boomer's head fell to the ground, and it
collapsed.  Not stopping until she reached the ruined door, she called
out, "Clear inside."
     "Great," Priss answered, unable to shake the feeling that it had
been too easy.  Still, she wasn't about to complain... the worst would
not begin for some time.
     Nene and Linna quickly slipped into the building behind Christine
and Priss, and they set off down the entrance corridor.
     "No pursuit," Nene noted, "but this whole building is full of 
boomers."
     "Try to steer us around them as best as possible," Priss said,
then thought, "Did I just say that?  It's the right decision, though..."
     "Right.  Primary computer core is fifteen floors up.  Secondary is
thirty up, and Tertiary is buried four sublevels deep.  There should be
stairs that way," Nene pointed.
     "Very good.  Linna, Nene, Chris... send your motoslaves in the
opposite direction... it'll make a nice diversion.  I'll keep mine a
little longer for the firepower."
     "Can they fight much on their own?"
     "Oh, yeah."  This was the first outing for the Typhoon-IIB's, 
but Priss remembered very well the fighting capabilities of their
predecessor.  Her Typhoon-II had saved her life.
     After a minute, the motoslaves charged down the corridor with
their new orders.  
                       * * * * * * * * *                             
     Alarm Klaxons rang throughout the Tower as the Knight Sabers
easily blasted their way through the outer defense.  The security chief
sat comfortably at his desk and started giving orders.
     "They're on the ground floor now, making for the main stairway.
Groups Alpha-Seven and Gamma-Six, move to intercept."
     "Affirmative, "a very synthetic-sounding voice answered.
     "Gamma-Five, three signals just broke from the main cluster...
they're headed your way.  Take them."
                       * * * * * * * * *
     "We've got two groups of boomers closing in on us... they're not
going to let us have the stairs," Nene warned.
     "Like hell they're not," Priss answered.  "Get ready for a fight."
     They set up defensive positions in the corridor, with Nene giving
continuous updates on the boomers' locations.  The wait seemed eternal
to Priss; every decision she made and every order she gave weighed
heavily on her heart.  Was sending the motoslaves as a diversion the
right thing to do?  Should she have kept them for the firepower?
"Second-guessing is part of the territory," she remembered Sylia
telling her, but knowing that didn't make it any less nerve-racking.
Quickly she was coming to understand why their leader had always seemed
so dispassionate, when they all knew she wasn't really that way, and
she found her respect for Sylia increasing.
     "Here they come!" Nene called out the warning.
     "How many, now?"
     "Two groups of four.  We'll get about one minute between groups."
     "All right, work fast, then."  As she said it, the first group of
boomers burst around the corner.  Raising the motoslave's massive gun
again, she blew the first cyberdroid to oblivion.  Linna charged the
second, dropping into a roll at the last second to avoid being struck.
Her razor-whips trailed out to the sides, and with a flurry of sparks
the boomer's legs were severed at the knees.  It fell, and she drove
the knuckle bomber into its back to finish it.  Two remained.
     "Fifteen seconds," Nene warned as she gave her suit a mental
command.  "Time to see if this works," she thought.  Suddenly, a
piercing screech was torn from the nearest boomer as it fell to its
knees.  Nene quickly finished it off with her arm laser.
     "What the hell was that?" Christine shouted as she dodged an
attack from the fourth boomer.  Leaping backwards to get some clearance, she fired three discs into her foe, and it fell.
     "My new weapon," Nene answered, gesturing to the second group of
boomers as they rounded the corner ahead of them.  "I'll explain later!"
     "Right," Christine agreed, selecting her energy web...
                       * * * * * * * * *
     "You're sure these stairs aren't booby-trapped, Nene?"
     "I'm sure, Priss."
     "All right, let's go."
     As they cautiously ascended, silence dominated them. Finally,
Christine spoke up, "Now... what did you DO back there?"
     "Well, we each got something new, and that was mine.  It scrambles the artificial synapses of a boomer's neural net."
     "Ouch," Christine shuddered, feeling particularly glad to be human.
"Effective."
     "Very," Priss agreed.  Looking up the stairs, she could see that
they narrowed as one ascended.  "I'm going to have to leave the
motoslave behind," she said.  Climbing out of the bulky armor, she
slapped it on the back and said, "Go raise some hell." With that, they
resumed their ascent.
     By the time they had reached the fifteenth floor, a reception had
been prepared for them.
     "It would seem they have no trouble tracking us," Priss scowled as
she fired her arm cannon with its usual devastating result.
     "No kidding," Linna answered with more edge than usual on her
voice.  Ducking underneath a Bu-12's machine-gun barrel, she planted
her left hand on the ground and drove both feet toward the boomer in a
savage kick.  Electrified blades extended from her heels, and with all
the force she could manage she rammed them into its knees.  A loud
crackling drowned out the sounds of battle momentarily, and the boomer
collapsed, its systems fried.  Even as she withdrew her feet and moved to stand, the blades
retracted.
     "Nice," Priss commented, trying to ignore the strong smell of
ozone.  Picking off another Bu-12 with her rail cannon, she argued,
"This is too easy."
     "You complaining?" Christine shot back.
     "Yes!" she growled as she dodged an energy blade swipe.  She
responded with a sharp strength-enhanced uppercut that crushed the
offending 34-CX's armor.  "Something's not right about this!"
     "Some of the defenses still haven't been mobilized, and I can't
 pin down why," Nene observed.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "What do you mean, no response?" the security chief snarled.
     "Boomer groups Eta, Lambda, and Mu are not responding, sir."
     "Find out why!"
     "Yes, sir," the comm specialist replied, having no way of knowing
that it was in impossible order.  Triggered by the Knight Sabers'
attack, a long-dormant and nearly untraceable computer virus was
running rampant in the Tower's systems and causing massive degradation
of their internal comm-net.  Sylia's foresight was at work again.
     "Where are they now?" the chief asked himself as he stared at the
monitor.  Glaring at the security chief, he said, "Looks like they've
split up.  See if you can get ANY security forces to respond."
     "I'll try," was the response, accompanied by a sigh.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "They're diverting forces to stop the motoslaves," Nene informed.  "They STILL haven't activated all of their defenses."
     "Then lets move before they fix that," Priss prodded.  Two empty
corridors later, they were confronted with a heavily- armored security
door.
     "This is going to take time," cautioned Nene as she set to work.
     Priss nodded.  "Set up a defensive position, in case we get
company."  So far, so good, she thought.  Things were going a little
too well for her to be entirely comfortable, but if GENOM was setting
up a trap they had waited too long to spring it.  Any second now they'd
be at the primary computer core.
     "I'm in!" Nene called triumphantly as the doors parted for her.
Greeted by a hail of laser fire, she barely managed to get under cover.
     "Be careful!" Priss hissed.  "We need to access that computer
before we trash it."  Once again, she was surprised by her own words.
Perhaps Sylia had taught her better than she believed.
     "Right," Christine answered, a trace of sarcasm evident in her
voice."
     Priss almost repeated the order, not liking the sound of
Christine's response.  Just as she opened her mouth to speak, however,
she realized that it was exactly what she would have said--even if she
intended to obey.  With that thought, she wondered what it was like for
Sylia to deal with her.
     Another burst of gunfire pushed such thoughts from her mind. 
"Christine, can you web those bastards down?"
     "I can try," she responded dryly as she prepared the weapon and
waited for enough of a lull to get off a shot.  Eventually the break
came; she stepped into the doorway and fired the web.  Leaping
backwards to avoid the retaliatory fire, she nodded to Priss.  "Got
most of them, anyway."
     "It'll have to do.  Let's go!" she yelled as she charged through
the door.  Machine-gun fire ricocheted off her armor as she dove for
cover.  Once she was safe, she started picking off guards with the
needle cannon.
     "Cover me," Christine called, then dove through the doorway
herself.  Immediately, three of the boomer guards turned to fire at
her, but Priss was faster.  Three armor-piercing rounds took out the
defenders, and Christine set herself up on the opposite side of the
door.
     "All right, we've got them now," Priss couldn't help but grin as
she and Christine finished off the remaining guards.  "Come on in."
     Linna and Nene hurried into the room, and Nene immediately set to
work on the computer.
     "Guard that door," Priss ordered vehemently.  While Nene worked on
the computer she was terribly vulnerable, and if she should be hit it
was all over.
     "Accessing... I'm in," Nene informed.  Quickly, she began to
search for certain keywords in the databanks.  The amount of data she
found was frightening.
     "Priss..." she breathed.  "They know almost everything."
     "Damn."  Suddenly, all their plans had been shot to hell.
"Destroy it."
     Nene nodded, downloaded one last packet of files, performed a
quick command on the workstations, and fired stepped away from the
databank.  Firing several shots, she rendered the machine little more
than melted scrap.  "Let's go."
                       * * * * * * * * *
     "Sir, the primary is down!" the communications officer cried in a
panic.  "I'm getting nothing on the comm-net, either!"
     "No point for us to hang around, then... let's get the hell out."
     "Right with you, boss."
                       * * * * * * * * *
     Priss's mind was reeling as she tried to salvage some form of a
battle plan.  They had not counted on more than a few higher-ups having
access to their identities, but it turned out that the data had been
keyed to only a moderate security clearance.  Hundreds of people might
possibly know.
     Sylia would know what to do, she thought... damn.  Any hope of a
quick solution was lost now; GENOM had to be taken out of the picture
entirely, or they would never be safe... but how?  "Think, Priss!" a
voice in her head cried out.
     "All right.  We still have to achieve our primary goals, then we
can worry about whatever is left," she sighed.  "What kind of defense
are they putting together, Nene?"
     "Not much.  Their entire communications system is down for some
reason."
     "Good... we can split up.  Linna and I will hit the secondary
computer core, you two go after the tertiary.  Destroy anything you
happen to find along the way."
     "Right," Christine nodded.  "Let's go, Nene."
     Nene hesitated.  For a split second, bitterness flared up inside
her, and she almost asked Priss to change the groups... then she
stopped.  She was a Knight Saber, and a Knight Saber she would be above
all.  This was not the time for personal conflicts.  "All right.  This
way," she indicated.
     Priss sighed.  She had seen Nene freeze up for a moment, and she
had feared that their unity was too fragile to hold.  Fortunately, she
had been wrong.  Crisis fuses a team, after all.
                       * * * * * * * * *                              
     "Tertiary core is down," Nene called out.
     "Good work," Priss's response cut through the static.  Static...
Nene thought.  Ever since they had dropped below the ground level, the
comm system had not worked quite correctly.  It was almost as if there
was some sort of jamming... or possibly shielding?"
     "Christine," she said coldly, "There's something important in
these sublevels."
     "Besides this core?" Christine asked.
     She nodded.  "More important than that.  They've got some serious
electromagnetic shielding down here."
     Christine nodded, understanding.  "In other words, this place was
designed to take an orbital strike."
     "Exactly."
     "Well, let's check it out.  Can you put a map on the screen here?"
     Nene smirked at that.  "Of course."
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "All right!  Secondary core is down.  All Tower mainframes are
destroyed."  Priss reported.  "We're moving on to the research
facilities."
     "You do that," Christine responded.  "Nene's found something down
here, and we're going to check it out."
     "Right.  Be careful."
     "Always.  Starblade out."
     Priss looked around the corner to see a small squad of boomers
coming down the hall.  "Linna, we've got company."
     "I see them.  Four Bu-12's.  Shouldn't be a problem."
     Priss nodded.  "Let's take them."
     Like a carefully orchestrated and long-rehearsed ballet, the two
sprang into action.  Not a word was spoken between the two, but each
instinctively knew where the other would strike.  Linna went high as
Priss fired low, the last shells from her arm cannon taking out two of
the four.  Even as the rounds impacted, Linna fell on the nearest
enemy, and the Knuckle Bomber flared as she rammed the emitters into
its neck.  Smoke and flame shot from the gash made in its armor, and it
fell.
     Linna never touched the ground, using the hulk of the first
cyberdroid as a springboard.  Flipping forward, she extended the blades
from her heels and used her weight to drive them downward into the
second foe's shoulders.  A flurry of sparks accompanied the sizzle of
overloading circuitry, and the fight was over.
     "As good as ever," Priss said, her grin hidden by her helmet.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "Two major spots to check out," Nene commented, pointing out the
locations on the map.  "I'll take this one... the electronic security
is tighter."
     "Right," Christine affirmed. "You sure you're up to going it
alone?"
     Nene nodded.  "I don't read any active boomers down here, and
they'd have hard time activating any with the computer and comm-net
down."
     "Good point," Christine conceded.  "All right, let's go."
     Nene nodded, and they headed back out into the corridors. Moving
in opposite directions ,they began their search.
     Nene smiled slightly, as a predator might.  Slipping through the
corridors as stealthily as was possible in powered armor, she switched
her scanners to passive mode.  The active mode read too many signals,
and she might miss something in the clutter.
     Almost immediately, a small object on the wall in front of her was
overlaid in red.  Analyzing the threat   an infrared-targeted laser,
she raised her arm and cannon and vaporized it.  This would be slow
going, she realized.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     Christine was being far less cautious; in fact, she was
preoccupied with something else entirely.  Her instincts were blaring a
warning, telling her that she was being deceived, but she couldn't tell
why.  The area she was checking out didn't seem suspicious to her at
all; there was minimal security, and so far she had seen nothing but
storage rooms.  Still, Nene had indicated that there was something of
importance this way.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     Nene's slight smile became a wicked grin as she found what she was
looking for.  The sensors in her suit displayed the outline of a hidden
door in the wall in front of her, and she began to scan for
electronics.  "There!"  She thought, isolating the security mechanism.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     Priss whistled as she looked at the lab they had just cleared out.
Experimental technologies abounded, and most of them looked like
military advances.  Nodding to Linna, she activated her flechette
cannon and started destroying equipment.  By the time they were done,
the whole lab was in ruins.
     "This floor is all labs.  We need to trash them all," she
said.
     Linna nodded.  "It's time to put GENOM out of the boomer
business."
                        * * * * * * * * *                                
     After a few seconds, Nene managed to access the door's systems
and bring them on-line.  Isolating the activation code from its own
databank, she began the security sequence.
     "Welcome," a gentle female voice spoke.  It was a prompt of some
sort, Nene realized, but for what?  Guessing that she had little time,
she submerged herself in the computer.
     Neural transceptors in her helmet sprang to life as her mind
linked directly into the machine, reading her thoughts and translating
them to the computer.  Her vision blurred for a moment, then data began
to overlay itself on her sense of sight.  Cryptography gave way to
pattern-recognition, and finally she saw it.  Voiceprint.
     "Initiate search," she mentally commanded the unit, knowing she
had only fractions of a second remaining, and it isolated the correct
pattern just in time.  "Playback," she commanded.
     "It is I." Quincy's ominous voice came from the speaker of her
comm system... a perfect replication.
     "Greetings, sir," the voice responded.  "Welcome home."  With
those words, the door slowly opened, revealing a surprisingly large
entry chamber.  De-synchronizing with the suit's computers and
beginning a lifesign scan, Nene found that which she sought and
cautiously slipped through the entryway.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "Damn!" Christine thought to herself as she rounded the final
corridor and found herself looking at a blank wall.  "She tricked me...
but why?"  Suddenly she thought she knew, and she broke back down the
hallways in a dead sprint.
     "Nene!" she called out, neither expecting nor receiving a response.
"Dear Lord, grant me the speed!"  Triggering her jump unit for further
acceleration, she felt her feet lift off the ground, and she flew.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     Quincy did not hear the door softly open; it had been designed to
be silent.  He did not hear the sounds of hardsuited feet on the
carpeted floor, nor the soft whine of the armor's sensor systems.
He certainly did not expect to be so rudely jolted from his rest as he
was.
     "QUINCY!" Nene screamed, bringing her arm laser to bear.  Her
voice hardened as ice as she warned, "Don't even move."
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "Hell!" Christine cursed under her breath as she heard Nene's cry.
She was closing down on her position, but if she didn't get there fast
it would be far, far too late.
     "Damn it, Nene, why?" she questioned, knowing that it was a race
 against time now.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "Who are you?" the old man asked, a slight crack in his voice
barely betraying the fear he felt.  NOBODY should have been able to
penetrate this... his home, his inner sanctum.  "What are you doing
here?"
     "I am a Knight Saber, and I am here to kill you," Nene breathed,
taking two short steps toward him.
     "Many have tried that before... do you really think that I would
allow you to find me?" his voice echoed through the room as the wall
behind him dissolved into a viewscreen bearing his mocking visage.
     "Allow?" Nene mocked.  "You had no idea I was coming.  My scanners
say that you are flesh and blood, Quincy, and no double.  You hurt me,
and for that--"
     "NO!" Christine cried, firing her last energy web at Nene.  Caught
off guard, the young Knight Saber was thrown across the room into the
wall, where she was pinned.
     "Chris... you..." her voice trailed off, the bitter taste of
betrayal choking off the words.
     "I'm sorry, Nene, but I can't let you do that."
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "That does it," Priss said, the satisfaction clear in her voice.
"Let's go meet up with Nene and Chris."
     "Wait," Linna answered.  "One more thing."  Grabbing a pair of
ammunition crates, she dragged them into the center of the room.  "Find
anything that will burn."
     "Ah, good idea."  It took a couple of minutes, but they set up a
large pile of explosive materials.
     "NOW let's go," Linna said.  On their way out, she turned and
fired a single shot with her laser.
     The resulting explosion was dramatic.  "Go!" she yelled to Priss
as flame shot from the doorway she had just fired through.  Fleeing
the conflaglaration, they headed for the stairs down.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     At the abandoned security station, fire alarms wailed in protest
as the blaze swept through the laboratory area of the tower.  Automated
blast doors slammed shut on three floors to contain the fires, but they
would still cause hundreds of millions in damages.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     "I'm sorry, Nene, but I can't let you do that," Christine's voice
took on an apologetic tone.  "Not you," she thought.  "You've never
shed blood, and I won't let you do it now."
     Quincy looked up, the expression on his face that of a man who had
just stared down death and walked away.  Christine turned to face him,
removing her helmet.
     "My name is Christine Starblade.  Do you remember me?"  Quincy
nodded, remembering no such thing but not wanting to offend his savior.
     "Then perhaps you remember hiring me," she continued.
     He nodded again.  Slowly, the name started to come to his memory...
but he couldn't quite recall it.
     "And perhaps... you remember trying to KILL me!" she finished,
her voice turning venomous.
     Quincy's eyes widened, his hope shattered like so much glass.
"You've hurt a lot of people," Christine added, "and now it's time you
paid for it."
     The old man retreated a little, stepping backwards, hoping to find
a way to escape.  There was none.
     "This," Christine narrated, firing a razor-disc into Quincy's
wrist, "was for Nene."
     Shocked at actually having been hurt, he cried out in pain. Fear
gripped his heart, and he backed away further, trembling.
     Firing another, this time through his left shoulder, she added,
"That was for me."
     She paused a minute, checked the number of discs in the magazine,
and smiled slightly.  Two.  "This one," she carried on, "is for Sylia."
The disc shot through his body, narrowly missing his spine, and tore
through his back.
     Then, she stopped.  Quincy climbed back to his knees before her,
silently begging for life.  She might yet spare him, he thought, but
soon he saw that any such hope was in vain.
     Slowly, deliberately, she opened the magazine of the disc launcher.
Carefully, she removed the final remaining blade, slipping it between
two of her fingers as she walked toward GENOM's cowering CEO.  Standing
over him, she felt a tear roll down her cheek as a memory came back to
her.
     "This..." her voice broke.  "This is for James, you son of a
bitch!"  Her whisper became a scream of pure rage as she slashed across
Quincy's throat.  Blood trailed from the blade as she pulled it away,
and with his larynx sliced open, Quincy began to choke.
     "Just die, you bastard," Christine whispered as she turned away
from him, feeling her rage drain away in a torrent of sorrow.
Stumbling over to Nene, she released the web and pulled her close to
herself.   Knowing it was over, she began to weep violently.
     Behind her, Quincy fought in vain for breath.  It was only a few
seconds later that he died.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     Ten minutes passed before a resounding explosion signaled the
destruction of Quincy's secret door.  Triggering the motoslave's
release, Priss climbed out of the armor and ran into the room.  What
she saw stunned her.
     Quincy lay dead on the floor in a pool of blood.  Christine and
Nene, helmets off, stood in the corner of the room, holding each other
tightly, Nene comforting Christine.  Christine looked as if all the
grief she had suppressed had broken through at once, and she cried
like a wounded child.
     Linna came in behind her, stopping short in the doorway at the
sight.  "So... it really is over," she whispered.
     "Perhaps," Priss said cautiously, sounding very much like Sylia
might.  "The beast has lost its head... but time will tell if it may
grow a new one.  For now, it is enough."
     Linna nodded.
                       * * * * * * * * *                                
     Fifteen minutes later, the Knight Sabers were gathered on the roof
of GENOM Tower.  The AD Police had just started to arrive, not having
been alerted until the fire alarms went off.
     "Did you leave all that data you downloaded?" Priss asked Nene.
     Nene nodded.  Hard copy and locked into the terminals.  It should
give them something to think about, anyway."
     "Heads will roll," Christine added, speaking much more softly than
usual.
     "I hope so," Linna answered.  "Maybe it really is over."
     "Maybe so," Priss said, for once with no trace of cynicism in her
voice.  "Maybe so."
     Almost on cue, the sun broke the horizon, spreading beams of light
and warmth to banish the haze of Megatokyo's skies.  The Knight Sabers,
victorious, were the heralds of a new day.

*************
End Part Six




Epilogue   A New Day.

One week later  
     
     It was one of the most beautiful days Megatokyo had ever
seen.  The smog was almost non-existent, and the sky was clearer
than it had been in years.  Sylia awoke on that perfect day, and
smiled at the first thing 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.  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 of 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.
     For Sylia herself, the news was not all good.  The falling
debris had damaged her spinal cord, and she would likely never
walk again.  Still, her mood was pleasant, and even with her
injury she seemed to be happier than they had ever known her. 
Perhaps she was simply not afraid to show it, now.
     They spent several hours talking about the things that had
been   the destruction of Sylia's home and business had been a
loss, but not an insurmountable one.  The revelation of their
secret identities was worse, but even that was less severe than
it might have been.  Even Christine's home had been rebuilt and
restored to her, though she would not reclaim the remainder of
her fortune.  Most of all, the final battle with GENOM, and the
death of Quincy, weighted heavily in their thoughts.
     For the first time, they had hope of a peaceful future. 
GENOM would never build boomers again; the news of corruption
Nene had released had spread like wildfire in the media, and
scores of government and GENOM officials went into forced
retirement.  The Knight Sabers were safe, even with their
identities known, for none remained to strike at them.  Still,
they all agreed that they must remain vigilant, lest another evil
rise greater than the first.  They would have a new role   once
the last spark of hope in Megatokyo, they would now be the
guardians of its flame.


End.


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* Stormwalker <stormer@utdallas.edu> and <stormwalker@airmail.net>    *
* Student, Anime fan, and writer of fanfiction                        *
* Storm Warnings - http://web2.airmail.net/a0011387/                  *
* Bubblegum Collision*Bubblebum Collapse*BGC-Awakenings (in progress) *
* "Knowledge is power, language is torque" - Alra E. Reeves II        *
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