Bubblegum Crisis Fan Fiction ❯ Black Knights, Steel Hearts ❯ Chapter 15
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
By: Trboturtle 
The battle on the highway begins. . . .
Anime/Manga: Bubblegum Crisis Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mecha / Cyberpunk / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 12.25.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.4K | Visits: 632 | Status: Work In Progress
The battle on the highway begins. . . .
Anime/Manga: Bubblegum Crisis Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Mecha / Cyberpunk / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 12.25.2007 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.4K | Visits: 632 | Status: Work In Progress
**************************************************
The Bubble Gum Crisis OVA's (which this story is based on) are copyrighted by
Artmic Inc. and Youmex, Inc. I am just borrowing the characters for a little
while for non-monetary reasons. I can be contacted at the Email address above.
Serious C&C will be accepted, out-and-out flames will result in a Boomer
or two being sent after you, once they get around to building them.
Please, enjoy my take on the Bubble Gum Crisis universe . . .
*************************************************
Ch apter 15
Highway 17
District 6
Saturday, December 22, 2035
3:18am
"Sylia!"
The Knight Saber's leader looked up from the map and looked at Nene. "Yes?"
"I'm getting a signal from someone asking for the Knight Sabers. He claims to be one of the Black Knights."
"Location?"
"It's from one of the unknown contacts."
"Sis!" shouted Mackie from the cockpit. "I can see several explosions on the highway, right near where Priss is suppose to be!"
"Nene, patch the Black Knight through. ETA to drop area?"
"Four minutes."
"Are the Motorslaves ready, Linna?"
From the back of the compartment, the green hardsuit waved an arm. "As ready as they can be."
"Patching the Knight through now, Sylia."
Sylia nodded. "This is White Saber. Who is this?"
For several seconds there was silence, the a voice said, //This is Red Four, of the Black Knights.// The voice was clipped and the electronic distortion robbed the voice of most of its emotion. //Be advised that the current situation you are flying toward is a trap, I repeat, a trap. Knight One is advising that you stand off and stand by.//
"Negative, Red Four," said Sylia coldly. "I don't take orders from Knight One."
//White Saber, this is Knight One,// said a familiar voice. //This entire incident below is a trap of some sort. My team is in the process of springing it, so I advise you to stand off for the time being.//
"Negative, Knight One. This is our city, not yours. We are not going to stand by."
Sylia thought she heard Knight One mutter a curse, then said, //All right, White Saber. Since you won't stand off, you might as well join the party. I recommend that you come in behind the cars. Do you see the tractor trailers in front and behind the cars?//
"I see them sis," said Mackie over the internal line. "Looks like the Knights are going after them too."
"We see them, Knight One," said Sylia.
//Be careful of them. Their cargo are BU-12B combat Boomers, getting ready to spring the trap.//
"We are well versed in Boomer combat, Knight One."
//I never said you weren't. Just be careful, Okay?//
"Understood, Knight One. We will be. I suggest we keep this channel as our line of communications between you and me."
//Understood, White Saber. I'll alert my people that you're coming in. See you when you get down here.//
"Understood, Knight One. White Saber out." Sylia took several seconds to add the new frequency to her comm unit, then turned to Nene. "Contact Priss, and tell her what's happening. Mackie, Linna, get ready to for a hot landing zone."
Sylia heard the Knight Wing's powerful weapons deploy, and lock into place. She thought for a second that maybe she'd was pushing things a bit, but she dismissed the idea. I've never let anyone fight my battles before. I won't start now.
**********
Priss twisted her bike hard to the right to avoid another explosion that threw up concrete and bits of shrapnel. Where the hell are you Sylia? she thought savagely, as she twisted the bike to the left to present an elusive a target as she could.
She hated this one sided fight. There were at least two Boomers firing at her from the rear car, and there was almost nothing she could do to stop them. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't just pull out her pistol and return fire. She didn't dare to remove either hand from the bike's handles at this speed. Slowing down was also out, as that would present the Boomers with a better target. And besides, she doubted that her firearm would be able to hit a Boomer's vital spot at this range anyway.
But the thought of backing off the pursuit until the Knight Wing arrived only briefly crossed her mind. She was angry now. Angry at the band for dumping her, enraged at Leon for disappearing off the face of the earth, and mad at Sylia for not being here yet. Finally, she was furious at the Boomers in front of her for showing themselves when she was around. There was no way in hell that she was going to show a group of Boomers anything but a snarl and the muzzle bore of the largest weapon she could carry.
She eased off the bike's accelerator slightly, putting twenty more meters between her and the cars. She started drifting to her right, trying to put herself in a more difficult location for the Boomers to get a shot at her. If Sylia and the others don't show up soon, I'll -
Something large and loud roared out of the night, passing over her head, heading in the opposite direction. A high pitched whine, like the cry of a fantastic beast, echoed in her helmet. She snapped her head around to track whatever it was, but all she could make out was a black shape heading away from her very fast in the night sky.
She turned back to locate the cars, when the highway in front of the two vehicles exploded in a mass of flame, smoke, and noise. Both cars came to a hard stop, the screaming of their brakes almost drowned out by the roar of flames. Priss applied her own brakes hard, sluing the cycle in a half circle to a stop.
Beyond the cars, something large and black hung five meters above the roadway, smoke from the explosion swirling around it like a halo. This time, Priss could hear the whine, and feel it in the concrete beneath her feet. Whatever it was, it wasn't the Knight Wing. She flipped up her visor to get a better look at the object.
After several seconds of hard staring, Priss realized what it was. A helicopter?she thought, an uncomfortable feeling at the back of her neck. Not ADP's, that for sure. But whose?</</i>I>
Despite the shadows Priss watched four shadowy figures drop from the helicopter into the smoke. The car doors quickly opened, and Boomers stepped out and started shedding their human disguises in preparation for battle.
I think we're in trouble.
**********
Leon watched the semi slow as the Rattlesnake approached it. His hands tightened on the joystick as he waited for the HUD to line up on the trailer. He heard Mallory order Rattler one to fire in front of the cars, and heard faintly the explosions a kilometer behind him.
"Pilot, Drop us lower," said Blue Leader from the cargo compartment. "We'll hit them from the ground. Gunner, you can fire whenever you're ready."
"Understood," replied Leon. Just then, the HUD beeped a target lock. Leon opened fire. Two 60mm shells slammed into the front of the truck, shattering the engine, and sending smoke and flame into the night air. Fifty meters from the helicopter, the truck came to a complete stop, like it had hit an invisible brick wall. As it did so, the trailer exploded like fragile glass, and a least half a dozen Boomers came swarming out of the trailers remains.
Three Boomers activated their thrusters and sprang at the Rattlesnake, while the others ran towards the cars. Leon cursed as he saw they were BU-12s - Boomers designed solely for use in combat. Three arms came up, and all three fired.
Trask hissed a curse, and banked the Rattlesnake hard to the left. Three streams of machine gun bullets passed the airspace where the helicopter had just been. Leon locked on one of the Boomers and opened fired with the 25mm rotary cannon. The Boomer suddenly lost most of its head, shoulders, and upper chest to a dozen rounds of depleted uranium. It dropped like a rock to the roadway below, and exploded.
"Blue team down," called out Blue Leader. Leon's head snapped down to see three black-and-gold hardsuits moving to intercept the Boomers still on the ground. He hadn't even known they had jumped until that second. Good Luck, he thought, then started looking for the other two Boomers.
"Three o'clock!" shouted Trask. Leon looked right just in time to see one of the Boomers sink a claw into the pylon between the air to air missiles and the rocket drum. It raised the other arm to fire into the cockpit, and he found himself staring down the barrel of the machine gun. Immediately, he tightened his finger on the rotary cannon's trigger, but nothing happened.
"I can't shoot him!" Leon yelled.
"Damn safety interlock," snarled Trask. He slammed the chopper hard over to the right, trying to shake the Boomer off. But the Boomer hung on, even though its return fire missed the cockpit by centimeters.
"Ill worry about our passenger," snarled Trask. "Find that other Boomer before it nail us."
"Understood." Leon started looking, but the flames, smoke and explosions were making the job difficult.
The chopper suddenly lost height and slued to the right. Had Leon not been securely strapped in, he would have gone crashing into the windshield. As it was, his helmet saved him from a concussion, though his vision was blurred for several seconds. By the time it cleared, Leon saw the ground rushing up at him very quickly. This has not been my day!
With a loud groan, Trask yanked up hard on the joystick. The Rattlesnake bounced hard on the roadway, then shot up into the air again, the rotors clawing for air. Leon looked at where the BU-12 had been holding on, and mouthed a curse. The Boomer was still there, somewhat battered by the touch-and-go tactic, but still functional.
He shouted, "Its still there!"
"I can't shake him!" bellowed Trask. The chopper continued to twist and weave, but the Boomer simple hung on.
"Can you hold this ship steady for three seconds?" asked Leon, reaching for his pistol.
"And have that thing plaster us?"
"Not if I get it first." He checked the pistol cylinder. "On three." His right hand reached over to pull open a sliding panel in the helicopter's canopy. "One." He pulled open the panel, and a thin rush of cold air entered the cockpit. He raised his visor. "Two." He poked the muzzle of his Rugar Redhawk through the narrow hole, and leaned forward to stare down the barrel at his target. The Boomer was too busy just hanging on to notice the new danger yet.
"Three." As soon as the helicopter straightened out and flew straight, Leon fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. Four .44 magnum bullets crashed into the Boomer's right wrist, where the armor was thinnest. Greatly weakened by the sledgehammer blows, the joint snapped with an audible crack. The Boomer dropped away from the helicopter into the war zone below, its claw still attached to the pylon.
"About time!" shouted Trask, sounding relieved. "Stand by to trash that sucker with some rockets!" He swung the Rattlesnake around quickly, and put the chopper into a shallow dive. Leon ropped the still smoking pistol into his lap, and turn the switches controlling the rocket drums on. Two green lights told him they were ready to fire. Just then, Leon saw the Boomer in his sights.
The Boomer had fallen at least two hundred feet from the chopper to the hard surface of the roadway, near the bonfire that had been the semi. Had it been human, the fall would have killed it instantly. But it wasn't a human.
The fall had seriously damaged it, though. As Leon lined up his shot, he could see it was still struggling to stand, despite the fact it was leaking several different fluids. Let's see how you like THIS. His finger tightened on the trigger for the rockets.
A dozen HE rockets shot from the Rattlesnake and left a trail of smoke and flame as they bore in on the damaged Boomer. They hit in and around the cyberdroid almost at the same time, the series of loud discharges sounding like one long rolling thunderclap. The series of explosions shattered the Boomer like an eggshell under the impact of a sledgehammer. Before the chopper pulled up into the night sky, Leon saw the flaming wreckage scattered across several meters of roadway.
"That's two," muttered Trask. "Where's number three?"
Just then, Leon spotted a familiar shape in the night sky five hundred meters away. The Knight Wing had arrived. As he watched, the VTOL hovered just above the roadway, and three well-known hardsuits dropped to the surface. Four other figures dropped from the VTOL, much larger then the first three, and opened fire on the closest Boomers.
Trask saw them too. "Rattler Two to All Knights. The Knight Sabers are on the ground near Red Team's location."
"Understood Rattler Two," replied Mallory.
Leon saw something glint in the night sky. "Here comes number three," he said quickly, all thoughts about the Knight Sabers forgotten. "Two o'clock high."
"I see him," said Trask. "Let's see if this Buma can dance any better then the others."
**********
The Bubble Gum Crisis OVA's (which this story is based on) are copyrighted by
Artmic Inc. and Youmex, Inc. I am just borrowing the characters for a little
while for non-monetary reasons. I can be contacted at the Email address above.
Serious C&C will be accepted, out-and-out flames will result in a Boomer
or two being sent after you, once they get around to building them.
Please, enjoy my take on the Bubble Gum Crisis universe . . .
*************************************************
Ch apter 15
Highway 17
District 6
Saturday, December 22, 2035
3:18am
"Sylia!"
The Knight Saber's leader looked up from the map and looked at Nene. "Yes?"
"I'm getting a signal from someone asking for the Knight Sabers. He claims to be one of the Black Knights."
"Location?"
"It's from one of the unknown contacts."
"Sis!" shouted Mackie from the cockpit. "I can see several explosions on the highway, right near where Priss is suppose to be!"
"Nene, patch the Black Knight through. ETA to drop area?"
"Four minutes."
"Are the Motorslaves ready, Linna?"
From the back of the compartment, the green hardsuit waved an arm. "As ready as they can be."
"Patching the Knight through now, Sylia."
Sylia nodded. "This is White Saber. Who is this?"
For several seconds there was silence, the a voice said, //This is Red Four, of the Black Knights.// The voice was clipped and the electronic distortion robbed the voice of most of its emotion. //Be advised that the current situation you are flying toward is a trap, I repeat, a trap. Knight One is advising that you stand off and stand by.//
"Negative, Red Four," said Sylia coldly. "I don't take orders from Knight One."
//White Saber, this is Knight One,// said a familiar voice. //This entire incident below is a trap of some sort. My team is in the process of springing it, so I advise you to stand off for the time being.//
"Negative, Knight One. This is our city, not yours. We are not going to stand by."
Sylia thought she heard Knight One mutter a curse, then said, //All right, White Saber. Since you won't stand off, you might as well join the party. I recommend that you come in behind the cars. Do you see the tractor trailers in front and behind the cars?//
"I see them sis," said Mackie over the internal line. "Looks like the Knights are going after them too."
"We see them, Knight One," said Sylia.
//Be careful of them. Their cargo are BU-12B combat Boomers, getting ready to spring the trap.//
"We are well versed in Boomer combat, Knight One."
//I never said you weren't. Just be careful, Okay?//
"Understood, Knight One. We will be. I suggest we keep this channel as our line of communications between you and me."
//Understood, White Saber. I'll alert my people that you're coming in. See you when you get down here.//
"Understood, Knight One. White Saber out." Sylia took several seconds to add the new frequency to her comm unit, then turned to Nene. "Contact Priss, and tell her what's happening. Mackie, Linna, get ready to for a hot landing zone."
Sylia heard the Knight Wing's powerful weapons deploy, and lock into place. She thought for a second that maybe she'd was pushing things a bit, but she dismissed the idea. I've never let anyone fight my battles before. I won't start now.
**********
Priss twisted her bike hard to the right to avoid another explosion that threw up concrete and bits of shrapnel. Where the hell are you Sylia? she thought savagely, as she twisted the bike to the left to present an elusive a target as she could.
She hated this one sided fight. There were at least two Boomers firing at her from the rear car, and there was almost nothing she could do to stop them. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't just pull out her pistol and return fire. She didn't dare to remove either hand from the bike's handles at this speed. Slowing down was also out, as that would present the Boomers with a better target. And besides, she doubted that her firearm would be able to hit a Boomer's vital spot at this range anyway.
But the thought of backing off the pursuit until the Knight Wing arrived only briefly crossed her mind. She was angry now. Angry at the band for dumping her, enraged at Leon for disappearing off the face of the earth, and mad at Sylia for not being here yet. Finally, she was furious at the Boomers in front of her for showing themselves when she was around. There was no way in hell that she was going to show a group of Boomers anything but a snarl and the muzzle bore of the largest weapon she could carry.
She eased off the bike's accelerator slightly, putting twenty more meters between her and the cars. She started drifting to her right, trying to put herself in a more difficult location for the Boomers to get a shot at her. If Sylia and the others don't show up soon, I'll -
Something large and loud roared out of the night, passing over her head, heading in the opposite direction. A high pitched whine, like the cry of a fantastic beast, echoed in her helmet. She snapped her head around to track whatever it was, but all she could make out was a black shape heading away from her very fast in the night sky.
She turned back to locate the cars, when the highway in front of the two vehicles exploded in a mass of flame, smoke, and noise. Both cars came to a hard stop, the screaming of their brakes almost drowned out by the roar of flames. Priss applied her own brakes hard, sluing the cycle in a half circle to a stop.
Beyond the cars, something large and black hung five meters above the roadway, smoke from the explosion swirling around it like a halo. This time, Priss could hear the whine, and feel it in the concrete beneath her feet. Whatever it was, it wasn't the Knight Wing. She flipped up her visor to get a better look at the object.
After several seconds of hard staring, Priss realized what it was. A helicopter?she thought, an uncomfortable feeling at the back of her neck. Not ADP's, that for sure. But whose?</</i>I>
Despite the shadows Priss watched four shadowy figures drop from the helicopter into the smoke. The car doors quickly opened, and Boomers stepped out and started shedding their human disguises in preparation for battle.
I think we're in trouble.
**********
Leon watched the semi slow as the Rattlesnake approached it. His hands tightened on the joystick as he waited for the HUD to line up on the trailer. He heard Mallory order Rattler one to fire in front of the cars, and heard faintly the explosions a kilometer behind him.
"Pilot, Drop us lower," said Blue Leader from the cargo compartment. "We'll hit them from the ground. Gunner, you can fire whenever you're ready."
"Understood," replied Leon. Just then, the HUD beeped a target lock. Leon opened fire. Two 60mm shells slammed into the front of the truck, shattering the engine, and sending smoke and flame into the night air. Fifty meters from the helicopter, the truck came to a complete stop, like it had hit an invisible brick wall. As it did so, the trailer exploded like fragile glass, and a least half a dozen Boomers came swarming out of the trailers remains.
Three Boomers activated their thrusters and sprang at the Rattlesnake, while the others ran towards the cars. Leon cursed as he saw they were BU-12s - Boomers designed solely for use in combat. Three arms came up, and all three fired.
Trask hissed a curse, and banked the Rattlesnake hard to the left. Three streams of machine gun bullets passed the airspace where the helicopter had just been. Leon locked on one of the Boomers and opened fired with the 25mm rotary cannon. The Boomer suddenly lost most of its head, shoulders, and upper chest to a dozen rounds of depleted uranium. It dropped like a rock to the roadway below, and exploded.
"Blue team down," called out Blue Leader. Leon's head snapped down to see three black-and-gold hardsuits moving to intercept the Boomers still on the ground. He hadn't even known they had jumped until that second. Good Luck, he thought, then started looking for the other two Boomers.
"Three o'clock!" shouted Trask. Leon looked right just in time to see one of the Boomers sink a claw into the pylon between the air to air missiles and the rocket drum. It raised the other arm to fire into the cockpit, and he found himself staring down the barrel of the machine gun. Immediately, he tightened his finger on the rotary cannon's trigger, but nothing happened.
"I can't shoot him!" Leon yelled.
"Damn safety interlock," snarled Trask. He slammed the chopper hard over to the right, trying to shake the Boomer off. But the Boomer hung on, even though its return fire missed the cockpit by centimeters.
"Ill worry about our passenger," snarled Trask. "Find that other Boomer before it nail us."
"Understood." Leon started looking, but the flames, smoke and explosions were making the job difficult.
The chopper suddenly lost height and slued to the right. Had Leon not been securely strapped in, he would have gone crashing into the windshield. As it was, his helmet saved him from a concussion, though his vision was blurred for several seconds. By the time it cleared, Leon saw the ground rushing up at him very quickly. This has not been my day!
With a loud groan, Trask yanked up hard on the joystick. The Rattlesnake bounced hard on the roadway, then shot up into the air again, the rotors clawing for air. Leon looked at where the BU-12 had been holding on, and mouthed a curse. The Boomer was still there, somewhat battered by the touch-and-go tactic, but still functional.
He shouted, "Its still there!"
"I can't shake him!" bellowed Trask. The chopper continued to twist and weave, but the Boomer simple hung on.
"Can you hold this ship steady for three seconds?" asked Leon, reaching for his pistol.
"And have that thing plaster us?"
"Not if I get it first." He checked the pistol cylinder. "On three." His right hand reached over to pull open a sliding panel in the helicopter's canopy. "One." He pulled open the panel, and a thin rush of cold air entered the cockpit. He raised his visor. "Two." He poked the muzzle of his Rugar Redhawk through the narrow hole, and leaned forward to stare down the barrel at his target. The Boomer was too busy just hanging on to notice the new danger yet.
"Three." As soon as the helicopter straightened out and flew straight, Leon fired as fast as he could pull the trigger. Four .44 magnum bullets crashed into the Boomer's right wrist, where the armor was thinnest. Greatly weakened by the sledgehammer blows, the joint snapped with an audible crack. The Boomer dropped away from the helicopter into the war zone below, its claw still attached to the pylon.
"About time!" shouted Trask, sounding relieved. "Stand by to trash that sucker with some rockets!" He swung the Rattlesnake around quickly, and put the chopper into a shallow dive. Leon ropped the still smoking pistol into his lap, and turn the switches controlling the rocket drums on. Two green lights told him they were ready to fire. Just then, Leon saw the Boomer in his sights.
The Boomer had fallen at least two hundred feet from the chopper to the hard surface of the roadway, near the bonfire that had been the semi. Had it been human, the fall would have killed it instantly. But it wasn't a human.
The fall had seriously damaged it, though. As Leon lined up his shot, he could see it was still struggling to stand, despite the fact it was leaking several different fluids. Let's see how you like THIS. His finger tightened on the trigger for the rockets.
A dozen HE rockets shot from the Rattlesnake and left a trail of smoke and flame as they bore in on the damaged Boomer. They hit in and around the cyberdroid almost at the same time, the series of loud discharges sounding like one long rolling thunderclap. The series of explosions shattered the Boomer like an eggshell under the impact of a sledgehammer. Before the chopper pulled up into the night sky, Leon saw the flaming wreckage scattered across several meters of roadway.
"That's two," muttered Trask. "Where's number three?"
Just then, Leon spotted a familiar shape in the night sky five hundred meters away. The Knight Wing had arrived. As he watched, the VTOL hovered just above the roadway, and three well-known hardsuits dropped to the surface. Four other figures dropped from the VTOL, much larger then the first three, and opened fire on the closest Boomers.
Trask saw them too. "Rattler Two to All Knights. The Knight Sabers are on the ground near Red Team's location."
"Understood Rattler Two," replied Mallory.
Leon saw something glint in the night sky. "Here comes number three," he said quickly, all thoughts about the Knight Sabers forgotten. "Two o'clock high."
"I see him," said Trask. "Let's see if this Buma can dance any better then the others."
**********