Disclaimer: The Phantom is the property of King Features Syndicate and 
Bubblegum Crisis 2040 is the property of JVC. No money is being made from 
this and no such intent should be inferred.

C&C,, public or private is welcome. I respond to all C&C....eventually

************************
"Now there's something you don't see every day...
Unless you're us."
-Xander, "Buffy The Vampire Slayer"


With the Phantom close behind, the Knight Sabers emerged from the underground 
complex to be greeted with a horrific sight. Boomers marched across the 
complex, firing concussion beams at anything that moved, the waves of force 
crushing and twisting everything they hit, be it steel, stone, wood, or flesh 
and bone. People didn't so much as die, as they collapsed under their own 
weight as their skeletons fractured into shards.

Like a well oiled machine, the Knight Sabers sprang into action. Sylia took 
to the air as Nene fell back, her hardsuit generating EM waves at high 
frequency which wreaked havoc with the boomer's gyros, making them easy prey 
for Linna and Priss as they darted into they fray, the armor of the boomers 
resisting, but gradually denting into pieces under the repeated blows.

"Phantom!" Guran called as he too emerged from underground, carrying a large 
laser cannon. Taking it, the Phantom took aim as his suit's systems connected 
with the cannon's targeting scanners, bringing up the HUD in his mask.

"Computer," Phantom said, firing at the boomers whenever he could as he 
dodged their return fire. "Uplink to Ghost Eye One for tightbeam com 
transmission to Sparks."

"Operator," replied a boy's voice a moment later. It was very young, it's 
owner couldn't have been more then fifteen. Sparks was actually only 
fourteen, but he was quite possibly the best computer expert in the world.

"Sparks, have you been watching those old movies again?" A snicker was the 
reply. The Phantom decided to ignore that. "Bring up the telemetry from my 
mask and tell me what kind of boomer I'm looking at," he said. "There's about 
twenty or so of them that I can see and they're tearing up Walker 
International."

"One sec." There was the sound of keys tapping. "Sweet. Those are top of the 
line. Class A Urban Assault Boomer. Heavy combat model. Shipstone power 
source, inch thick armor with ceramic overlay and armed with a class two 
force rifle, seventy-five caliber recoilless machine pistol with two thousand 
round ammunition, variable type, and vibroblade knife. Full spectrum audio 
and visual sensors, with a maximum temperature tolerance of two thousand-"

"I don't need a sales pitch, Sparks, I need to know where it's weak spot is." 
Silence. "Sparks?"

"Here. Sorry. Needed to hack into Genom's files. Took me a few seconds."

"Sparks...even you need more then a few seconds to break into Genom's 
mainframe."

"I know, but I've got a reputation to uphold. Besides, Maximum stole the 
files three months ago. There's several memos about it." That made more 
sense. Sparks had been hacking Maximum for months and had a permanently 
encoded backdoor into their systems.

"The weak spot, Sparks."

No weak spot per se, but the armor is only half an inch thick just below the 
back of the neck in a two square inch section. That's where it keeps the 
antenna for it's com gear." A diagram flashed in the Phantom's mask of the 
boomers, a small square highlighted.

"Got it. Thanks, Sparks. Computer, cancel uplink and log on to Phantom Jet 
mainframe. Download sabercom and synchronoize." Automatically, the Phantom 
Jet recorded all communications and ran them through a decrypt program which 
contained all known ciphers. When he had been told this, he had naturally 
asked how that was possible. As it turned out, Walker International made 
cryptology equipment and had several governments as customers, Each machine 
W.I. turned out had a component that copied and transmitted the codes to 
Walker International's mainframe via the electrical lines by something called 
Muzak. The component then disintegrated into dust which was removed and 
disposed of by the machine's automaintenance system. This way, the Bandar had 
stolen thousands of codes and ciphers and using them, helped themselves to 
billions of secrets.

Stolen. 

Kit's friend Chip Gordon often voiced his lack of trust in anyone who did 
something for reasons of religion. The Bandar did everything in the name of 
their God and quite frankly, the Phantom was beginning to wonder just how 
closely he could trust the Bandar when it was becoming increasingly apparent 
that they possessed little in the way of ethics.

In any case, a few days ago, during the battle with the boomers, the jet had 
recorded the Sabers com traffic. The Phantom could only imagine the look on 
Guran's face when the program cracked their encryption in five minutes. By 
sheer coincidence, both the Phantom and the Knight Sabers used variations of 
the McGuffin Cipher, which according to Guran, had fallen into the dim 
recesses of obscurity since nobody used anymore. And since nobody used it, 
nobody would think to try it.

Unless they used it, of course.

"...Watch your left, Linna!" Sylia was shouting as the suit's com 
synchronized with the Saber's.

"Hey!" Nene interrupted. "Somebody just broke into the com net!"

"That's me, Nene," the Phantom replied. "There's a two square inch section 
right below the back of the neck where their armor's the thinnest. Go for 
that."

"Right. Linna? Priss?"

"Already there," Priss said, already striking the spot with her knuckle bombs 
and then leaping away as Linna's monofilament ribbons slashed the thin armor 
into shreds. From there, Sylia fired her laser cannon into the open space, 
the intense energy refracting and tearing the boomer's guts into shreds. The 
Phantom helped where he could, darting back and forth around the battlefield, 
aiming at the boomer's optical systems with his handguns, forcing them to 
concentrate on him, leaving them open to Priss, Sylia, and Linna. Nene 
focused on messing with the boomer's tactical net and com systems.

It wasn't the quickest way, but it worked and one by one, the boomers began 
to fall. 

****
"God!" Linna gasped as she pulled off her helmet and sank down onto a piece 
of rubble. "I'm exhausted."

"Yeah," Nene said, joining her friend. Setting aside her helmet, she suddenly 
glared at the Phantom. "How did you get into our com net anyways?"

"The phantom's jet simply decoded your scrambling, while you were engaged in 
battle with the rogue's the other day, " Guran said as he joined them and 
passed out canteens of water. "And then passed it onto the Phantom."

"Simply!" Nene cried, lunging to her feet. "Simply?! I worked for weeks on 
that com cipher, Mister! You do not 'simply' decode Nene Romanova's code. No. 
Way. Uh-uh. Forget. It."

"We use a variation of the McGuffin Cipher too." Guran replied.

Nene glared at Guran for a moment. "You are so losing your credit rating," 
she muttered and sat back down. 

The Phantom, however, was frowning, as he stared at the boomers. Moving 
slowly, Walker International Security officers were dropping EM grenades into 
the open plates of the boomers, permanently frying their systems. "So, you 
feel it too," Sylia said. "You're right, it was too easy."

"Distraction?" Priss asked, joining them.

"Of course," Sylia said archly. "But from what?"

"Agggggghhhhhhhhh!" Linna and the Phantom shouted simultaneously, grabbing 
their heads. The pain lasted only for a moment and then Linna recovered.

"You okay?" Nene asked.

"I...I don't know. It was like something was calling me, urgently summoning 
me, right, Kit? Kit?"

They looked around, and then in the distance, they saw a purple figure 
charging towards the distant trees, a plume of smoke rising upwards from 
them.

"That answers that," Sylia said.

"We must hurry," Guran said, retrieving the Phantom's dropped laser cannon. 
"Great Nekoaluri has summoned His champion. The Ghost Jungle is in peril."

****
In their suits, Priss, Linna, and Nene could run up to two hundred kph, but 
with the rubble strewn ground, they were forced instead to do a sort of 
running hop. Sylia's armor however, boasted a jet pack and she raced 
overhead, reaching the source of the smoke well before the others, who 
arrived only seconds later.

Before them lay a blasted clearing, trees charred and smoking. In the middle 
of it was a black kay suit battling the Phantom. They knew they should move 
in. Help him somehow, but they stayed were they were. For all their desire to 
help, something even stronger told them to stay back, that this was not their 
fight.

And while she obeyed that feeling, Linna's horror was growing, for the 
Phantom was losing. He was simply no match for the sheer power of the kay 
suit. The operator wasn't even bothering with weapons, the impact of his 
suit's fists leaving craters in the forest floor and toppling trees.

Worse yet, the Phantom was tiring and the blasts from his plasma blasters 
were having little effect on the kay suit's heavy armor. Finally, he made his 
mistake, stumbling on a scrap of wood and falling. Like a bolt of lightning, 
the kay suit's hand shot out, grabbing him by the arm and heaving him into 
the air like a rag doll and then slamming him down onto the ground.

It was a blow that would have stunned any man, but somehow, the Phantom got 
up. 

The kay suit backhanded him across the clearing.

Again, the Phantom got up, slowly, and obviously in pain, only to be 
assaulted by the kay suit once more.

And with each blow, Linna felt her resentment at being trapped begin to 
vanish with each blow the Phantom took. Time and time again, he was struck, 
and each time, he refused to give up. Refused to lie down. And as she 
watched, Linna had a flash of insight. The Phantom embodied the human spirit. 
No matter what adversity he faced, no matter what happened, The Phantom 
somehow went on. It was like a slap to the face.

They had told Linna Yamazaki there was no way she, a girl from a small town 
with barely any training could beat Sun-Yin, one of the fastest women in the 
world at the Eastern Games. Linna Yamazaki had beaten her by a full three 
seconds.

They had told her that she would never compete professionally again after her 
knee injury. Linna Yamazaki took first at the Japan national Games in 
Tai-Chi.

After Hammoto had used her, Linna Yamazaki had vowed that never again, would 
she be used for someone else's plans.

But in the jungle, watching an ordinary man fight a battle he couldn't win, 
something in Linna clicked...

And completely and totally without reservation, she surrendered to her fate. 
She was the Phantom's bride, it was she who would bring the next Phantom into 
the world, she would raise him with all the love in her heart that a mother 
could give a child, and he would grow up to be every inch the man that his 
father was.

The kay suit raised it's foot to crush the Phantom beneath it's heel and a 
scream burst forward from Linna's throat, amplified by her suit.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

With a crash, the kay suit's foot came down on empty ground. Not twenty feet 
away, the Phantom hovered as though weightless, arms dangling loosely. There 
was something different about the look on his face and the Sabers felt as 
though there were others in the clearing, called there by some otherworldly 
force. In the dim light of the setting sun, it almost seemed as though the 
clearing was no longer a clearing, but that others had arrived. Ghostly 
figures wearing masks, dressed in purple. With them there were others. Women 
every bit as strong and courageous as the men they stood beside.

In one single moment of both acceptance and defiance, Linna had summoned the 
Phantoms of the past and the women who stood with them. Twenty-three 
generations of perhaps the most noble legacy had returned once again to the 
world they had donated to and in some cases, given, their lives to protect.

Not seeing the figures, or perhaps simply not caring, the kay suit moved 
towards the Phantom and swung it's fist, which was stopped by the Phantom's 
own hand.

"What trick is this?" The suit's operator demanded, voice altered by the 
speakers.

"We are the Phantom," the Phantom replied in a voice that seemed to echo as 
though others were speaking with him. "We are order where there is chaos, 
light where there is shadow, hope where there is dispair. Strike us down, we 
will rise again."

"Pretty speech," the operator snarled and swung their suit's other fist 
forward. The Phantom caught that too, all the while repeating those same 
words.

"Look at Linna," Nene whispered and Sylia and Priss turned to look. The green 
suited saber was hovering off the ground just like the Phantom, glowing 
softly with a pale blue light and then over the com, she too began repeating 
the Phantom's words, and the ghostly figures also began to chant the same 
words and the light in the clearing began to take on a green glow.

"Cover your eyes!" Guran shouted.

"What?" Nene asked.

"Your eyes! Damn it all, cover your eyes! The Jungle itself is bringing it's 
power to bear! Cover your eyes if you want to keep your souls!" The Sabers 
complied, opauqing their faceplates for good measure.

Something else seemed to enter the clearing, something inhuman, something 
ancient beyond all comprehension that struck a cord in them and then the 
force of an explosion hit them, knocking them to the ground with a roar they 
felt in their very bones.

For a moment, they heard nothing, and then Linna's voice came over the com. 
"It's all right, it's over." Resetting their faceplates, the Sabers found 
themselves looking at a the remains of the clearing, the burned out wreck of 
the kay suit in the middle. All the figures were gone save two, a man and 
woman facing the Phantom. The woman's lips moved, and then they vanished.

"Look," Nene said, pointing. At the very edge of the clearing, a great black 
panther stood, it's stance more then just one of the great cats, it was the 
stance of a king. Then, that great head moved in a nod of respect before it 
turned and vanished into the jungle.

"Praise be, Great Nekoaluri," Guran whispered softly.

*************
Steve "Komodo" T.
"Great," Nabiki said, getting up to pace as her voice began to climb in 
volume with every word. "Kasumi gets a man who worships the ground she walks 
on, Akane has three different rich lunatics, or kings, or Demigods fall in 
love with her nearly every day--and that's just before breakfast, mind 
you--and what do I get?" She glared at SETCOM's burnished black metal shell, 
her voice soft, but her tone as cold as ice. "A computer."



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