Bubblegum Chakram
By Chris Davies
Chapter Two
"Display,"
said the cold voice.
A
map of MegaTokyo displayed itself in the air before her. There were clusters
marked in red in Nerima ward -- Still. After nearly half a year. -- and
a huge blotch of red surrounding the Central Data Bank. That one, in
particular, made her want to scream in frustration that it had been allowed to
happen.
She
shook her head, in silence, and focused on the situation at hand. "Show
most recent addition, in focus."
The
area indicated was not far from the hell of Nerima. It couldn't be much more
than a few city blocks in diameter, but it was her only hope of finding her.
DeGales' last gift to the world. His apprentice.
Her
doom.
"Can't
we get any more focused on the source than this?" she asked aloud.
"The
energy of the summoning was evenly dispersed over this area."
"That's
not possible," she said calmly. She was very calm. She had to be.
"The energy of a summoning must be concentrated in a single area, or what
you summon is a faint mist of organic particles. In order to mask the focal
point, the summoner would have to be a full magician, which is not
within the realm of possibility."
"Irrespective
of this, Mistress, the energy of the summoning was evenly dispersed --"
"Voice
off," she muttered, and the annoying voice of the speaker daemon vanished.
Stupid semi-material lifeforms.
Sometime
within the last twenty-four hours, her hidden nemesis had drawn something
to this world, from another, distantly removed sphere. In itself, not
impressive. She did the same on a fairly regular basis. But this summoning was
the first firm clue that she'd found in nearly six months as to her enemy's
whereabouts.
And
Kate Madigan wouldn't have made it anywhere nearly as high as she had in Genom
if she hadn't been ready to seize a chance to destroy an enemy.
* * *
She
had to tell her. It was burning in her heart, making her want to almost cry
with frustration. Every look, every word, searing into her. At last, she could
take it no more.
"AAAAAGH!"
Gabrielle screamed. "You are hopeless! You can't learn a single word of a
civilized language! I mean, even the ROMANS can at least learn to speak Greek,
and look at them!"
"Bar
bar bar bar bar bar?" the woman who called herself Priss asked, glaring at
her from across the
campfire.
From her face, from her tone, Gabrielle could tell that whatever she'd just
said, it had been very sarcastic.
Gabrielle
held her face in her hands for a few moments. "Okay. We've exhausted all my
resources. If Xena were here ... she'd probably say `I have many skills',
reveal that she can teach anyone to speak anything, make me feel utterly
inferior, and then ... but she's not here, and that's the root of the problem.
Urgh." She thought for a few seconds more, then nodded decisively.
"Right. I know what Xena did, when she was confronted with something that
was completely beyond her capabilities. And, fortunately, I think I have a
better relationship with the gods than she does. Of course, my tendency to get into
these silly situations ... well, that speaks against that theory, but still
--"
On
the other side of the campfire, Priss looked up at the strange girl --
Gabrielle, she'd said her name was -- who was quite energetically talking to
herself. Not that that was surprising. The girl seemed to be talking more or
less constantly, and since the only one around here who understood a damn word
of it was her, she was pretty much always talking to herself. In any event, she
now stood up, and started off into the bush for some reason. Probably going to
take a leak. Priss shrugged, and pulled another roasting potato out of the
fire.
Only
a few yards away from the camp, Gabrielle found a perfect place -- a clearing,
affording her a clear view of the moon. Drawing in a deep breath, she knelt
down. The words of the hymns were clearly in her mind --
And
then she realized she had no idea who she was supposed to pray to in a
situation like this.
She
quickly ruled out Zeus, Hades and Poseidon -- especially the last one, who had
no reason to like Xena. She didn't want to think about the possibility that
Xena was in the Underworld, either ... and really didn't like the
thought that Zeus had decided to start chasing around after attractive mortal
females again, and started with Xena.
Likewise,
the elder goddesses were out. Hestia and Demeter had very specific interests
that had nothing to do with Xena, while Hera was -- well, there was no other
word for it -- a bitch. She couldn't expect any help from any of them,
especially not Hera.
So
that left the younger set. She started ticking them off, one by one.
Aphrodite
... she would probably still be upset over the little mess with Joxer a while
back. No help there.
Ares.
No.
Artemis.
Gabrielle smiled. Of course. Patron of the woods, guardian of child birth,
goddess of the
Amazons
-- And I'm the queen of the Amazons, after all ... -- and
Gabrielle's
smile faded. And the goddess who had turned her into a giant bird a while back
to force Xena into helping out the gods with a few problems they were having.
Nnnno. Even if she was inclined to help, Gabrielle wasn't sure she wanted it,
if that was the way she treated the ruler of her chosen people.
Athena.
Gabrielle's
frown grew. Athena didn't figure in a lot of stories. She was supposedly born
full-grown from Zeus' brow, and was a goddess of cunning in battle, as opposed
to Ares, who ruled over savagery and rage. But she couldn't remember much else
about her, beyond the kenning "grey-eyed".
The
battle part suggested that she might be interested in Xena, but her opposition
to Ares, whom Xena had nominally served, might ...
Gabrielle
sighed. What's the worst that could happen? If she says no, she says no.
She drew another deep breath, and began. "Exquisite soldier --"
"Well,
finally," said a familiar voice, behind her.
Gabrielle
let out a short shriek, and whirled around, winding up on her butt as she
stared up into the face of the goddess Athena. The simple, certain knowledge
that that was exactly who she was looking at was burned into her mind in the
instant that their eyes met.
Her
eyes were, as the kenning stated, slate grey. They were also hard, and looking
at them gave Gabrielle a feeling of swiftness and motion that at once terrified
and excited. The legends had not said a word about her hair, so she was
surprised to see that it was silver. Not the shiny gray of an old woman, but a
metallic silver, a colour impossible in nature. It looked good on her. She was
dressed in the typical armor of an Athenian soldier, holding a silver-pointed
spear in her right hand while an owl as large as her head perched on her left
shoulder. Her face was not really that remarkable -- gorgeous, but not
remarkable. Something about it tugged at Gabrielle's memory, but she couldn't
think clearly.
Gabrielle
realized that her mouth was hanging open, and that she was in danger of
starting to drool.
"Uh
... Athena?"
"Very
good deduction, bard," Athena drawled. "Styx, I've been waiting for hours
for you to work up the nerve to ask for a bit of help. One or two bad
experiences, and you mortals start getting paranoid about meetings with the
divine. Honestly!"
"Oh
... sorry about that," Gabrielle said.
"Right,
so, you wanted to be able to understand the person who appeared when Xena
vanished?"
Gabrielle
nodded, quickly.
"Right,"
the goddess said, and turned around to march in the direction of the camp site.
Gabrielle got up off her butt and followed quickly after.
Priss
looked up with a mildly startled expression as the armored woman warrior
stepped out of the forest and said, "Yo, how you doing?"
"Finally!"
Priss snapped. "Someone who speaks a civilized language -- what the hell
is your problem?" she asked the warrior, who had started to chuckle.
"You
wouldn't believe me if I told you," she answered.
"You
got her to speak Greek!" Gabrielle enthused as she arrived.
"Say
what?" Priss asked, flatly.
"In
the interests of avoiding a silly conflict," Athena interrupted,
"I'll just come out and say it -- I've made it so that when anyone around
you speaks, you hear it as Japanese, and whenever you speak to anyone, they
hear it as Greek. Are we clear on this?"
Gabrielle
quickly nodded. "Yes, now, where did you come from, and how did you get
here, and --"
"Look,"
Priss said, waving her hands. "I don't even know where here is! For all I
know, someone slipped me a really interesting mickey last night, and
this is all --"
"You're
not dreaming," Athena interrupted. She considered for a few moments, then
shook her head.
"No,
there is no way you could discover this for yourselves. You, Priss Asagiri of
MegaTokyo, have been dimensionally transposed for a woman of this world, Xena
of Amphipolis, by a powerful, miscast spell." Athena paused to let that
sink in.
Priss
stared at her. "I like my mickey theory better."
Athena
gritted her teeth. "I hate dimensional travelers. I hate their `the
universe works this way, and all evidence that a different universe works
another way must be discounted' attitude. Look, I don't actually care whether
you accept the reality of your senses or not. But if you don't, what do you
have to go on?"
Priss
considered ... then shrugged. "You got a point."
"Who
cast the spell on Xena?" Gabrielle pressed.
"No
one cast a spell on Xena," Athena replied. "Someone from Priss' world
cast a spell on her --"
"We're
headed for the land of disbelief again," Priss said in a sing-song voice.
"There's no such thing as magic --"
"Yes,
there is. Maybe you don't know as much about your own reality as you thought,
huh? Chew on that," Athena spat at Priss, then returned to
Gabrielle. "Someone cast a spell on her, which sent her here, unbalancing
the two realities. The Polyuniversal Equilibrium tried to compensate by sending
Xena to her world." She paused. "Emphasis on tried. It didn't
work, for a number of reasons."
"What
does that mean?" Gabrielle asked.
"Short
term, it means that you have a chance to get Xena back," Athena answered
calmly. "Long term, it means they're both doomed."
* * *
The
electronic chirping of the computerized bird yanked Sylia out of a rather
pleasant dream involving her cutting a Quincy-shaped cake into many pieces and
serving one of them to her father. She reached out, and shut the alarm off, and
settled in to catch a few minutes of extra sleep.
The
phone began to ring just as the bird program started its "Wake up NOW, you
lazy bum," routine, causing Sylia to sit straight up in bed. She shut the
alarm off for real this time, and picked up the audiophone. "What?"
she asked flatly to one of the five people on Earth who had her private number.
"Um,
good morning, Sylia," Nene chirped. "I hope I didn't wake you up
--"
"You
didn't, Nene," Sylia replied, regaining a bit of her usual decorum.
"Did Priss contact you about the meeting you missed?"
"Well,
yes, but --"
"So
why weren't you there?"
"Um,
that's not really important right now," Nene said lamely.
Sylia's
own conception of its importance increased geometrically. "Oh really. Why
don't you tell me and I'll decide if it's important or not."
"Um,
well ... can I tell you why I called you first?"
Sylia
blinked. "I presumed that you'd called to tell me about your reasons for
being absent."
"No
... you see, I've got a bit of a problem ..." Nene replied, trailing off.
For a few seconds she said nothing. Then, "You remember a few months ago?
That guy who hired us? The one you ... uh, really, really didn't
like?"
Sylia's
blood ran cold er. "Yes, I do," she said, remembering looking at a
video monitor, seeing nothing, but knowing there was something to see
there ... she shook her head to clear it. "Are any of his ... associates
giving you trouble?"
"Uh,
not exactly, noooo ... it's more like I've just found out something rather
disturbing about the ... um, the ... the long-term effects of that mission!
Yeah!"
Long-term
effects? "I see," she lied. "Is there anything that I can do,
Nene?"
"YES!
Ahem, I mean, yes, there is ... could you come over to my apartment right
away?"
Sylia
considered the possibility, however remote, that this was a trap. However, if
Nene was being forced to try to lure her to her apartment, she would certainly
have made it extremely obvious that Sylia had to come, immediately, without
wasting all the time with the explanations -- so that Sylia's paranoia would have
been activated.
Unless
she'd been turned.
There
was only one thing to do. "Of course, Nene, I'll be over there right
away."
"Thanks,
Sylia," Nene replied with obvious relief. "See you soon."
Sylia
hung up, and immediately dialed Priss' number. Priss' answering machine picked
up and said,
"This
is Priss, you know the drill. And Leon? Be sure and tell Daley thanks so much
for introducing me to those two `friends' of his. I'm sure the three of us will
have many laughs ... and other things."
Sylia
contained herself. "Wake up," she barked. "Erase this message,
then get down to the usual place at once." She then dialed Linna and
delivered a similar terse message, although Linna actually responded, although
groggily. Sylia then headed down to the armory to start warming the hardsuits
up.
Linna
arrived ten minutes later, and Sylia decided that she couldn't afford to wait
any longer for Priss. Irritated and regretful, she gave Linna a quick
explanation of the situation, and told her to take up a sniper position on the
roof of the building across from Nene's apartment. Linna quickly suited up, and
headed out on the new Motorslave that Sylia had finally built for her, only a
few days earlier. Sylia spent a fragment of a a moment worrying whether or not
the new mecha had received enough testing, then headed out herself.
Roughly
half an hour after she'd hung up the phone with Nene, Sylia stepped out of the
elevator on the eighteenth floor of the girl's apartment, and casually walked
to the door. She rapped at it with her knuckles.
Nene
flung open the door, her face in a blind panic. Her bathrobe, Sylia noted
calmly, was loose. For a half-second, she entertained a scenario in which Nene
had brought someone back to her place, things had gone further than planned,
and she'd wound up killing her attempted rapist. A closer examination of Nene's
face -- the absence of tear tracks -- caused her to reject the scenario.
Nene
quickly yet silently ushered Sylia in, closing the door behind her. She then
clasped her hands together, and smiled at Sylia.
"Well?"
Sylia asked. "Explanation?"
Nene's
smile turned into a grimace rather quickly. "Ummmm ... I'm not really sure
where to start."
Sylia
closed her eyes briefly. "The beginning, perhaps?"
"Right."
The grimace showed no signs of getting any better. "Well ... this is gonna
be really hard to explain ..."
A
door slammed open behind Sylia, and she whirled.
"Are
you this young wizard's master or what?" the fictional character who had
stepped into the room asked.
Sylia
blinked. For her, it was stupefaction. Her mother had left behind a small cache
of the original
"Xena"
television series when she had vanished, and Sylia had devoured them all.
"Um
... this is Xena. The Warrior Princess," Nene added, unnecessarily.
"Well,
are you or aren't you?" `Xena' asked.
Sylia
shook her head, angrily. "Dammit. I knew that there were still some people
in Genom making boomers that looked like anime characters -- like that one
Lum-clone that was involved in the Evers case -- but I had no idea that
--"
Nene
stared. "Uh, Sylia?"
"--
they'd moved on to actual, live action -- what?"
"She's
not a boomer," Nene said, miserably. "She's the real article."
"Of
course I am," `Xena' snapped. "What the hell is a
boomer?"
"START
EXPLAINING," Sylia said in what she liked to call her "voice of
doom" voice.
Nene,
now thoroughly intimidated, started to do just that.
* * *
"Doomed?"
Gabrielle shrieked. "What do you mean, doomed? You can't just say,
`They're doomed,' and then not give any explanations! I don't care how tasty
the tubers are, stop noshing and explain to me why this weirdo being here means
that Xena is doomed!"
"I'm
rather curious about that myself," Priss asked, deadpan.
Athena
wiped her lips clean, and let out a sigh. "Okay. There are a couple ways
that people can travel
through
the dimensions, but being sent, involuntarily, is not one of the more
interesting or fun ways to go. It doesn't help that all this was an accident.
The Polyuniversal Equilibrium hates accidents. So, in about a week
--"
"This
is what you think of as long-term?!?" Gabrielle gaped.
Athena
ignored her. "-- the two `exchanged parties' are going to start to die in
a slow, agonizing manner, to prevent further dimensional contamination, unless
you can get the two of them back where they belong." She smiled.
"Look at it as incentive."
"I
feel inspired, how 'bout you?" Priss asked Gabrielle.
Gabrielle
ignored her. "Can you get them back? Will you help us?"
Athena
frowned, and seemed to be thinking rather deeply for a moment. She nodded then.
"Yes, I could probably set things right -- but I'm not going
to."
Gabrielle
gaped. "Why NOT?"
Athena
smiled.
Before
Gabrielle could do anything, she was seeing that smile at a considerably closer
range than she wanted, as Athena had somehow grabbed her by her halter and
yanked her across the campsite without the bard even realizing that she was in
motion. She was also close enough to see that the smile didn't reach Athena's eyes.
"Now
listen to me very carefully, because I will only explain this
once," Athena began. "That -- doing things for you people --
is not how I do business. You want success in battle? I'll advise, I'll
guide, I'll inspire -- but do not ever ask me to fight for you. That's
how Ares does his little scam. He gets you dependant on his little bits of aid,
and by the time he's done with you, you don't have a single solitary thought in
your head; you let him do all your thinking for you. You want that kind of help,
you should have asked for him. Oh, he'd have gone along with it. He'd do bloody
well anything to get his favorite play toy back. There probably wouldn't have
been any price to pay ... at least not this time. But I don't work like
that. I have more respect for your species as a developing intelligence than
that. If you want to succeed, you succeed on your own strength, or you don't.
That's how it is. Cope."
Athena
released Gabrielle, and in some way that she didn't understand, the bard found
herself right back where she'd started. She took a moment to steady herself.
"Okay ... okay, I-I get it. So there's a way that we can get Xena back
without your help?"
Athena
blinked. "Sort of. There's a way ... but it's not here. You're going to
have to wait, and hope that the people where you're from," she said,
looking at Priss, "figure out how to save you in time."
"Okay,"
Priss shrugged. "Hell, I still think someone switched one of my smokes for
some kind of hallucinatory shit."
Athena
glared. "You know, I'm not surprised that the gods of your reality are
such wimps, with such a bunch of hardened cynics running around on your
planet."
Priss
frowned. "Lady, as far as I know, the only god there was blew it big time
when I was twelve. If he doesn't care enough to stop an earthquake that kills a
million people, I don't care if he's real or not. So just go --" She
proceeded to suggest that Athena use her spear for something that would be very
painful. Gabrielle stared at her in sheer horror.
Athena
said nothing. She only looked at Priss long enough to make the dimensionally
displaced person slightly uncomfortable -- what would in someone with a
proper degree of respect for one's own life and limb be called mortal fear.
And
then, slowly, a smile crossed her face. "Thanks. You just gave me a bit of
hope for that one's species," she said, nodding her head at Gabrielle. She
stood then, and vanished in the traditional flash of light and odd noise.
Gabrielle
collapsed to a seated position. "I don't believe it," she muttered.
"You just effectively impugned Athena's maidenhead, and we're both still
breathing."
"All
in a day's work," Priss replied. "I think we may have a potato left
..."
* * *
Xena
only half-listened to the explanation that the red-haired wizard gave her
purply-haired superior. Parts of it involved an explanation that there was
magic, a brief demonstration of it (the fireballs that
Nene
juggled were rather small, and so it only took a bit of effort to stamp them
out when, inevitably, she fumbled a catch and dropped them all) and repeated
statements by Sylia to the effect that this wasn't actually happening. This
didn't really interest Xena, and she'd already had the account of how she'd
come to this place from Nene, earlier. Most of it had been somewhat beyond her,
but so it went. She had never claimed that she had all skills, and magic
was obviously beyond her. So be it.
She
was staring out the window, examining the city. Gods, it was huge. Babylon
and Troy hadn't been as large ... and the towers stretched higher than anything
she had even imagined. They challenged the clouds for supremacy.
Xena
blinked. That was damn near poetic. Gabrielle would find that ah shit ...
She had, for a matter of moments, forgotten how her companion would probably be
feeling ... separated from her as surely as she had been when either of them
had been dead. And at the same time having to put up with a probably outraged
denizen of this dimension.
Beside
her, there was the sound of a throat clearing. She turned to look at Sylia
Stingray. An interesting woman. From what she'd overheard, magic was as beyond
her as it was beyond Xena herself ... but the wizard still deferred to her.
There was authority in those eyes.
“Satisfied
I'm real, and not one of those ... what did you call 'em? Buumaas?" she
asked, testing that authority.
Sylia
let out a long sigh. "I find myself with very few options beyond
accepting your reality. My opponents could probably create an android that
would fool anything short of vivisection, but I don't want to believe that they
could condition Nene with such a ... complex set of beliefs and memories as she
has related."
"So
now what?"
"Now,
Nene starts trying to figure out how to send you back, and retrieve Priss. She
has an idea where to begin, at least --"
"I
mean, now what do I do?"
Sylia
was silent. "I don't know. Wait, I suppose."
Xena
turned to look out the window. "I hate waiting. I hate not knowing what's
going to happen next."
"Doesn't
that describe your life under normal circumstances?" Sylia asked calmly,
politely.
A
touch, I do confess it,
Xena thought wryly. "True enough."
Sylia
nodded. "I think I can see *why* you were exchanged for Priss. You and she
... have a great deal in common, I think."
"Why
doesn't that make me feel better?"
* * *
Priss
slowly became aware of something on her chest as she rose out of
unconsciousness. Blinking the sleep out of her eyes, she looked down her chest
to see an arm flopped limply across it. Her eyes followed the arm up to the
shoulder pressing against her side, and then she slowly turned her head to see
Gabrielle's face only a few inches away.
The
young bard's eyes were closed, but she was close enough that Priss could see
her eyes moving rapidly beneath their lids. Dreaming, then, and from the look
on her face, in the grip of a nightmare.
It
didn't take a great deal to figure out what the nightmare was probably about,
since Priss was more or less the cause of it. Well, it was mostly Nene's
fault, but ...
Okay.
Gotta get her arm off of me or I'm never gonna get to sleep ... but if I move
her, she'll probably wake up right now. So ... okay, this is never gonna work, but --
"Gabrielle,"
she whispered. "Gabrielle, it's me. It's Xena."
"Xna?"
Gabrielle muttered out of the depths of her dream.
"Yeah,
Gabrielle, everything's okay. Everything's just fine."
"Xna
..." the bard said, smiling sweetly, and pressing herself even closer to
Priss' side.
...
well, that backfired.
A
few seconds passed, and her breathing was once again even. But the smile
lingered.
Y'know,
she's pretty casual about this.
Dirty-minded
wench, Priss told the
reptile grinning in her mind. It's probably just that she's used to curling
up with Xena whenever she gets cold at night. It's probably just that.
Yeah,
right.
Priss
spent a few more moments gazing at Gabrielle's face. She was sweet, innocent,
gentle, naive, brave, kind ... cute ...
It'd
be like fucking Nene.
Forget it.
Priss
lay back and closed her eyes, trying to get some sleep despite the arm at her
stomach.
It
was surprisingly easy.
Return to the
Bubblegum Stories
Author’s Note:
Certain bits of Athena's character were
inspired by a manga-style comic entitled "Athena", by Dean Hsieh. It
was pretty good. The boomer that looks like Lum comes from the adventure in
David Pulver's "Bubblegum Crisis: Before and After" game supplement.
Just a little nod of the hat to a guy who has achieved every BGC fan's dream.
The incident involving Artemis turning
Gabrielle into a giant bird happened in the Hercules/Xena animated video. (It
was okay. Not great, but okay.)
Interesting cool note: If I read the
map of MegaTokyo in the the
Bubblegum Crisis role-playing game
correctly, Nene's apartment is located in the northwest of the city, not far
from the contemporary location of the Nerima ward. I was
not aware of
this when writing "Apotheosis", in which Nene and Aethan go on foot
from her digs to the Nekohanten in a fairly short period of time.
"Bubblegum
Crisis" was created by Toshimichi Suzuki and others, and brought to North
America by AnimEigo. Xena: Warrior Princess was created by Robert Tapert and
Sam Raimi, and distributed worldwide by Universal/MCA. This story, while
incorporating elements of motion pictures held under copyright by others, is
copyright 1998 of Chris Davies.
Nobody
sue me, okay?