ART ADDED TO MY PROFILE! Make sure you check it out.

11_BD_WOASS_Ch6_EXa

2011-11-29 - waffled again over the secodn series - the most noteable crossover characters are Ranmaverse, after all.
2011-11-28 - fixed a bunch of annoying spelling and grammatic errors, and changged categories to Dragonball given the power levels in Ch6.
2011-10-11 - cut the notes-only half of the file off to post the beginning to FFn, to alleviate the cliffhanger.
2010-11-06 - filled out Yoshimi notes, added rogue buma notes.
2010-10-28 - Atlas killed the tunnel scene, but the replacement is better.
2010-10-27 - Tunnel scene rough, those plus the fight should finish this
2010-10-26 - Quincy/Madigan planning scene done, Jokerz briefing outline
2009-12-02 - at least some notes for many new scenes. The original segments have essentially turned into cutscenes for the plot that came out of nowhere; so much for thinking this was almost complete.
2009-11-30 - moved cliffhanger back to 6c, replacement teaser, meeting
2009-11-28 - Lovely Angels become Lovely Aces, to integrate with the new group name. Added Ha-chan's scenes, started filling out reformation 2009-11-26 - proofing, annotations & fragments
2009-11-24 - Aperture Science & Lovely Angels scenes
2009-11-22 - added dishes scene, notes
2009-06-23 - added Priss/215 road scene
2008-10-08 - moved last scene of 6c to here to kill gratuitous cliffhanger
2007-06-04 - created document, began adding notes

With the confusion of the still ongoing clean ups, various emergency shipments of supplies for the relief and recovery efforts, and the delays caused by the attacks themselves, it was inevitable that the Megatokyo Port Authority would miss some things. Chronically understaffed, underfunded, and overworked, with a hearty vein of corruption at even the best of times, the only shipments getting close inspections now were the ones in front of the cameras when another news crew would set up for a segment from the waterfront.

Entire containers of illicit drugs, of weapons, of sexaroid-modified secretary buma, of chocolates and cheese imported without paying taxes, all passed without the slightest incident or notice... plus one other. The shipping container was in great shape, unlike some of the rusting hulks that passed through, with tight seams, high quality locks, and fresh paint. The manifest listed it as pet beds, food, and toys, transshipped in Oman from a supplier in Tasmania.

Under normal conditions, one of the honest employees or one who hadn't been paid not to snoop might have taken an interest, maybe even contacted the Omani officials when the digital manifest looked suspicious, having the supplier's name misspelled. Investigation on that end could have discovered that it had actually come ashore from a ship carrying cargo from several Central and South American sources. Nothing outrageous about that except that it was hidden, and with the political mess in that region it would have been months at least and more likely over a year to get through the tangle of bribes and kickbacks to find the real origin. A close look at the container in just the right light would have revealed that the new paint covered another layer, one plastered with biohazard trefoils, acronyms, and warnings in Portuguese, and on the long sides a corporate logo and the word 'Tyrell.'

Bewilderbeast Studios Present

BUBBLEGUM DISASTER

Season One

WISHES ON A SHOOTING STAR

A work of BGC fan fiction by ClassicDrogn

Chapter Six EX

After breakfast, Mackie joined Sylia at the kitchen sink, drying and stacking dishes while she washed. "Sis..." he began, his face troubled, "If the Knight Sabers disband... Are we really going to just let Genom get away with what they do?"

Scrubbing at a stubborn plate, the elder Stingray replied, "While we might have an edge in technology, especially with the systems derived from Priss's mysterious unit, at best the Knight Sabers are only a single squad. We can't stand against the entire Self Defense Force, even without the moral question of firing on human soldiers following the government's lawful orders." She passed the now clean plate, and started working on another.

"Fortunately, the secret of our identities remains secure, and with the recent developments in our abilities the characteristic hardsuits are no longer strictly necessary. Priss with the Guardian, even if she's taking a sabbatical, Linna's 'fashionable hero' incident, even your rescue of Inspector McNichol in the Speed King all occurred without association to the Knight Sabers. If there wasn't a currently active Batman in America's East City I might take up the theme, but I'm sure Nene and I can come up with something. Regardless, with a different organizational identity it's simply a matter of allowing 'the Knight Sabers' to vanish and presenting ourselves as a new group organized by the fixers I already use, to fill the same kind of contracts."

While Mackie thought that over, absently toweling off the last of the dishes, she drained the sink and stowed the gloves that protected her 'Cecilia Ishioka-Wayne' manicure back under it. "More immediately, my attention is needed for Wayne Group business - with the damage to Genom's operations, there's a lot of production contracts going unfilled worldwide, on top of the recovery efforts, and then there's that stunt they tried to pull with a knock-off Hurricane Motoslave for the ADP. One of my agents managed to grab the wreckage of that, and it was definitely using the same linear actuators and distributed microcontroller motion control setup - apparently someone didn't think to check the patent office just because they were studying salvaged Sabers equipment, and WayneTech's legal department is collectively slavering at the bit over that little error."

"Wait a minute, you mean you patented part of the Sabers' technology!" he protested. "But those are on public record, why would you do that when every other thing is aimed at keeping our advanced technology out of circulation?"

Sylia gave him a calm look and explained, "Those designs were key parts of the first Realskin prosthetic cybernetics line in 2028, as the advanced sensors that gave the limbs a truly lifelike feel to the user left too little room for older motor types. Even their incorporation into the Type-9 military battlemover can't make me regret the thousands worldwide who have a body that feels like genuine flesh instead of a numb mass of metal and plastic, or the external support pod of buma systems. The power supply and systems integration of hardsuit technology is one thing, but withholding medical technology just because it also has military applications is the kind of action I formed the Knight Sabers to remedy."

Breaking the serious mood, she gave a 'jet-setter Cecilia' grin and confided, "Actually, they're in it deeper than that - before I decided to create a private team, the motoslave concept was for anti-buma police equipment, so the body armor to battleframe link-up turns out to be infringing as well. Genom is in for a nice corporate espionage suit, and with the genie out of the bottle there's no reason not to go ahead and have HMW put the Hurricane type - with a few modifications so the Knight Sabers version looks like a knockoff as well - into production to fill the market Genom was targeting with their Police Motorcycle Battloid. The 5200R production line was about to shut down and start retooling anyway, and with the new K-12S and K-17 lines destroyed at GPCC and Genom Sydney there's a golden opportunity to grab the law enforcement procurement contracts - contracts Wayne Group will actually fill on time and on budget, instead of strangling the ability of police to respond to buma crime." Sylia's face fell again, thinking of the devastation that had opened those doors to opportunity, but reminded herself that they'd done the best they could to deal with the crisis as it appeared.

It had taken nearly three days before a path was cleared and certified safe through the rubble of the outer sections of Genom Tower to the inner, undamaged areas that had been protected by its armored partitions. Officially, the first human to traverse that path was Chairman Quincy, to hold a press conference against a background of more buma laborers clearing rubble to prove that his appearances remotely broadcast from the inner shelters hadn't been some technical trick, and that the 'Buma, Assemblers of Prosperity' slogan from the Kanto Quake recovery project was just as relevant in the wake of this current disaster.

This was, in fact, untrue. The press conference was held by one of the Chairman's replicant buma, because he was far too busy with salvaging and reworking the megacorporation's web of influence and clandestine interests from the Division Black operations room, also known as The Vault. The first human through the reopened access was in fact Kate Madigan, who had coordinated the excavation to insure that none of the company's many secrets would accidentally be exposed by the clean up.

With that now in hand, she presented herself to her superior so he could catch her up on the status of Black and any other projects he wanted her to focus on. A monitor overhead was showing the press conference outside, and she listened in while waiting for the Chairman to finish what he was working on and turn his attention to her.

"Due to the lateness of the hour, the outer areas were largely deserted at the time of the incident," the double was saying. "A complete census has been taken among those sheltered inside, and it pleases me greatly to announce that miraculously, no human lives were lost among those on the premises. Indeed, as medical facilities are among the services available within, even those who suffered injuries in the attack will soon be whole once more. Naturally, with the way now open to the outside, Genom's medical facilities have been made available for relief efforts; just one more example of how the public can rely on Genom in these troubled..."

Quincy saved and transmitted the email, and waved Madigan forward. Tapping a finger thoughtfully against the desk's built in monitor, he got straight to business. "Black's special projects are, for the moment, in hand," he rumbled. "Mr. Watanabe's reports should fill in any details you require on that front. As to how numerous personnel last logged in outer areas came to be found in the Park Zone, I'm sure you've heard rumors on your way in?"

Madigan nodded and her face was troubled. "Aye, some sort o' portals that mysterriously appeared t' drop them therre just before things went totally out of controll. I'd not have bellieved it, if it hadn't happened t' me as well."

Quincy's eyebrows quirked. "Indeed, Ms. Madigan? That was not in your report."

The woman ducked her eyes, admitting, "I thought I must ha' been imagining things, between the adrenaline crash and thinkin' you'd just been killed in front o' me, sirr. I didna' want to seem a madwoman. It happened too quick to see how it was done but the man, Tora - more likely a buma or bumaroid, from his strrength and speed - appeared from one after that battlemover took me from yourr office. He left through one again later, after throwin' me over his shoulder, and dumped me on the outskirts o' the city."

"I see," said Quincy, contemplatively. He steepled his fingers in front of his face before continuing. "Understandable, given the circumstances. And he did not discuss the process with this 'Maki' who was piloting the battlemover?"

"Not at all, sir. If the Knight Sabers have had access to this technology and are familiar with it, it could explain how they've managed to avoid bein' traced back to their base beforre."

"Indeed, and combined with the knowledge Maki showed of Genom secrets, the ability to penetrate physical security effortlessly is a formidable weapon in anyone's hands. Such a weapon must be understood, and either blocked or destroyed if it cannot not be acquired for our own purposes. To that end, Black will begin a new project, Aperture Science, to research this... portal technology. Mr. Pettybone is assembling a list of possible personnel for this initiative."

"More immediately, our friend Dr. McLaren's team at Gulf & Bradley has been anxious about the status of Sabertooth in light of the recent setback. As the development project closest to deployment and with the considerable projected sales of the Sabertooth, this is to be your primary concern for the moment. It is imperative to prove before the world that despite this blow Genom is neither down nor out, and you are to see that every effort is made to roll out the new model buma on or ahead of schedule. Am I understood, Ms. Madigan?"

"Clearly, sirr," she replied, with a respectful half-bow.

"Excellent," the aged blond concluded. "In that case, I shall leave you to your duties, and look in on other departments. Sadly, not all of my subordinates are as efficient as yourself."

"Thank you, sirr. I'll continue t' do my best, for the good of all of us." It would be little comfort to the ones who were dead, but she could no no more than that, and at least she herself was still alive, which hadn't been all that certain for a bit.

Hyatt hadn't accumulated all that many possessions as Millie Jackson, at least not many that mattered to her - Largo had supplied and furnished an apartment under that name, and (through Genom's shadier connections) a documentation trail for that identity, but none of those things held any emotional importance except as reminders of how Magnus had played upon her grief and anger. With the way her body had become since he reprogrammed and upgraded the experimental fusion system she'd used to escape from Genaros she didn't need any souvenirs to remember that. As far as anyone knew, Millie Jackson had vanished in the supposed bombing or its aftermath.

Her mutable body had made it easy to adopt a face and build that, while close enough that she didn't feel like she was looking at a stranger in the mirror, were different enough for any detailed investigation to show different biometrics - the distance between the eyes, angle of cheekbones, spine and limb length, and so on - than had been recorded for 'Millie Jackson.' Supposedly now she was an American immigrant with the surname Addams, taller, sharper featured, with her hair pulled back into a thick braid, its red-purple specular highlights suppressed to a more natural brown and her canines shifted to be a bit more prominent.

Rather than risk connecting her new appearance and the identities the Knight Sabers had created for her, Anri and Nam with a visit to retrieve items she didn't care about, Hyatt had saved her nostalgia for a walk along the breakwater of the bay, climbing down the rocky embankment to look at a jumble of metal half buried in the mudflat at the foot by tidal action. She ran one hand along an exposed edge of the heavy ceramel armor, its surface scored and lined with rivulets of metal melted by the heat of atmospheric reentry. She felt the cracks left from thermal shock when it had skipped across the water to land in the shallows.

She remembered the aching cold of space, only tolerable by comparison to the searing heat before she'd moved from the glaring sunlight into the shadow of the patch of hull she'd clung to as the station's air pressure blew her out into vaccuum, the numbing terror when she realized the momentum imparted by the blowout was enough that she'd fall into the atmosphere before being killed by radiation, cold, or suffocation. A smile flickered across her face momentarily as the buma woman remembered a nature documentary she'd once seen, even before the 33-S was banned and she'd been shipped up to the station when her original owner turned her in during the buyout. He'd been a lot kinder than some of the stories she'd heard there, but even so got the oddest ideas sometimes, and had heard an old song somewhere about 'doing like it they do on the Discovery Channel.' They'd wound up fulfilling the sexaroids' designed function in front of the television, in accordance with the lyrics.

More memorable than the encounter itself was the image of dolphins surfing in the bow wave of a boat that had been on the screen, and as the first wispy tendrils of atmosphere shattered brittle, frozen locks of hair she'd reshaped the chunk of hull material into a dolphin-like aeroshell around herself. She remembered the endless wait as more and more of her body went numb, autonomous systems working desperately to conserve what oxygen remained for the most critical organs even as her lungs heaved against the all but imperceptibly thin stratospheric air, only collected even to that level by a mouth-like ramscoop at the front of her 'space dolphin,' the agony of the improvised reentry shield sizzling against her skin with transferred heat during the endless descent, the dizzying impacts when it finally touched down, skipping across the water and slowing until it just nosed its way into the mud and came to rest instead of being splattered like an egg dropped over the side of a rooftop grill.

Looking at it objectively, it was an incredible, even legendary feat, and even if it wasn't something she could see herself talking about freely for a long time yet - maybe not ever - it was unquestionably a defining moment in her life, the decision to reach out and grab life from death, to act and accept the chance of failure instead of hoping it would pass by if she kept her head down, or lying back and allowing the cold, impersonal universe to swallow her in the endless depths of space or the fiery doom of a meteor. With a thought, her left index finger stretched into a long, thin blade, and a jangling subharmonic whined in her teeth as she cut a large chunk of the shell free. Sometimes the best thing to do with a bad memory was laugh at it, she knew, and they still needed a frying pan for the apartment - Nam and Anri seemed to think microwaving frozen dinners and boiling cup ramen counted as 'cooking.'

Hyatt shuddered as she turned to begin the steep climb back up to street level and the used but well-kept electric scooter from Nam's friend Nene. She thought it was an extravagant gift but one the energetic pinkette had insisted she accept after hearing the concocted story of how all her things had been lost in the disaster; the policewoman had even gone so far as to say Hyatt was doing a *her* a favor since the redhead had a motorcycle now and would have to pay a hefty disposal fee if she took the scooter to a scrap yard.

"So where you'd come from before finding me in Aqua City, anyway?" Priss asked, the words rushing out in a burst after a couple hours of riding in Niichigo's tractor cab form, pulling her trailer. "The part of you that wasn't Sylvie or... me, I mean." Getting her trailer and Kiba's van extracted from the mess that was Megatokyo had been a bitch and a half, but after running across the rest of the band and retrieving their instruments from the wrecked apartment it had been the most efficient way to get a roof over their heads, and with their shows lined up (and trained search and rescue personnel making her efforts in Masamune's hardsuit form superfluous) they'd decided the best thing to do was go ahead with the tour. Ghoulish as it was, the simple fact that they'd been in Megatokyo for the event seemed to be spurring interest according to the club managers they'd been talking to.

"Well, there was a lot of data loss, but part of what survived was the general knowledge base, basically the builders' version of the Encyclopaedia Britannica," 215 replied. "Given that, plus the amount of material on stars and planets... I'm pretty sure the original Guardian unit came from outer space, and judging by the current positions of a few stars I've matched up it was put into stasis for delivery to the child of a planetary monarch over fifty thousand years ago." The hybrid's voice came over the cab's sound system, since she still hadn't assimilated enough material to form a humanoid body as well as the cab interior and truck form - the engine compartment and the "sleeper" extension off the back of the cab were still just shells filled with rubble to be used as raw material, with the passage back from the control area blocked off.

Straightening up from her slouch against the window, Priss looked sharply at the old, green visor mounted unobtrusively in the center of the dash. "Wait a minute, you're telling me it glommed onto me 'cause it thought I was some kinda alien princess or something? I may've been orphaned, but I have a birth certificate and a really gross video file from the hospital to prove I wasn't some Clark Kent foundling from a UFO."

"No, you're 100% native human; even at that point there was a lot of data loss from crashing into the harbor. Basically, any carbon-based, land-dwelling, endoskeletal humanoid would have fit what it had for ID comparison, as long as it did something that could be identified as 'princely' or noble. You just had the good luck to meet it before it found a particularly dashing orangutan or something," Niichigo replied, jokingly.

Priss huffed, crossed her arms, and looked away, but not before a grin snuck across her lips. She leaned against the window again to watch the road go by, following the van with the rest of the Replicants on the first leg of their tour to Osaka.

As March gave way to April, most of Megatokyo was back to some semblance of normality, at least outside the mile-wide ring of total destruction centered on Genom Tower and the irregularly spaced scars where Largo's orbital strikes or stray shots from the battle had landed. At least one in three street lights had been repaired but the night was still darker than it had been in a century, as most buildings only had tarps or plywood in place of missing glass and their signs were unlit. Apart from that, the solar panels that crowded every rooftop charging batteries during the day for nighttime power were also shattered by the repeated blasts, putting electrical power from the city grid at a premium.

Between the darkness and the obstructed views Linna had figured the Kanto Canyons would be a safe enough place for a flying lesson, which Nene had been clamoring for since hearing the former dancer's after action report. Even so there was no need to be careless so Linna had worn her body-glove-and-tabard outfit again while Nene added a similar red tabard to her motorcycle leathers, and both wore red helmets with tinted visors and built in radios. They were also equipped with heads-up displays that Nene had programmed to show virtual horizon, airspeed and altitude readings using the same symbology as the hardsuits.

They did not, however, include radar or even passive radar detection, so neither woman realized it when they were painted by the terrain mapping system of a news aerodyne getting footage for an upcoming 'one month after' story. Too giddy with the ability to fly under their own power, they didn't even notice the craft until their game of aerial tag was interrupted by a reporter at the top of the canyon calling to them.

Nene let out a squeak of surprise, then her right hand flew to the panel strapped to her left forearm, advanced controls for signal hacking and descrambling connected to her helmet's peripheral port. Mere seconds later she'd tapped the camera crew's frequency, the aerodyne pilot condemning the reporter as a madwoman for actively trying to attract the attention of two obvious buma, acting crazy. "Hey," she cut in, "We are not acting crazy! And we're not buma, either, you jerk!"

Visions of journalism awards dancing in her head, the reporter demanded, "This is Ara Dokoda, Megatokyo News 54. In the green, you're the one who intercepted the buma attack on the highway in February, aren't you? Who are you, and how can you fly without visible jets, buma or not? Are you connected to the Knight Sabers? What's your opinion of the alleged nuclear attack at Genom tower?" Realizing that she had to give them time to talk if she wanted any answers, Ara took a deep breath and concentrated on getting the best possible shot as the AV-4's spotlight centered on the flying duo.

"No! We're, ahm, we're the ..." Nene floundered, having not the faintest notion of what to say.

Linna remembered the woman's name from the byline of the original 'Fashionable Hero' story, but that wasn't quite the reputation she'd want to encourage - being stylish was all well and good, but innate beauty was always better. She drifted forward and blurted, "Lovely..." before choking as well.

With the prompt, Nene jumped in again, babbling, "Yeah, that's it, the Lovely, er, Lovely Aces, that's us! Because we can fly, of course!" Desperate to get away from the camera, she grabbed Linna's arm and flared her aura, then dragged her friend higher into the air.

"That's right, Lovely Aces!" Linna agreed. "No further comment." She'd quickly regained her composure and now brought up her own aura, then the pair blasted off. They flew a high speed slalom through the buildings to evade the aerodyne and get out of sight.

"We are going to be in *so* much trouble..." Nene groaned, rubbing a hand down the visor hiding her face.

"Sylia is going to strangle us," Linna commiserated. "We should have just used your parents' place as usual."

The Replicants' second set of the night had just ended, and the Olympus Club Osaka crowd was raising the roof with their approval. The manager, however, was not so happy at the moment - not because of anything the band had done, but because of the waitress buma he'd caught sneaking backstage instead of circulating in the crowd to take and deliver orders.

"What the HELL is your malfunction!" he demanded. "I paid good zenii for you, and I expect a return on the investment. What do you think you're doing back here, D-30?"

"Act 'Priss and the Replicants' has superior quality, sir," the female styled mannequin buma replied, an unusual fervor in her synthesied voice. "... Ah- ... Ah- ... I ... want ... to ... participate in entertainment product creation with them, sir." Folding drink tray attached to her left wrist out of the way, the buma mimiced the finger positions for the solo of "Konya wa Hurricane" and strummed an air guitar, the metallic synthesized voice actually doing a fair job of simulating the light distortion used in most of the Reps' songs as she hummed the root notes of the chords. "GENOM Music model EK-205 with onboard processor and Steel Dragon Appearance Package would allow optimal efficiency according to my computations, sir."

"Oh? Well, I'll just run right out and pick one up then, shall I? Like a buma musician would be any better than a beat box, or a recording! Olympus already has a jukebox and a DJ for when there's no live band on stage, there's no need for another music machine." The manager crossed his arms, and gave a sharp, final nod. "You're going to the depot tomorrow, and they'll get rid of the fool idea if you have to be reformatted to a base install! Now, reboot and get back on the floor and serve the customers, or is your OS too buggy to do the work you're actually programmed for?"

BU-30-D-68435 wobbled slightly as her eyelids flickered, and her voice box produced the characteristic faint sounds of a soft restart. Rather than turn back out to the club area, though, the unfortunate mechanism made several abortive attempts at gestures - Priss, now standing off to the side with the other guys form the band after coming off the stage, was half convinced at least one of them had been distinctly on the crude side, and the limited range of motion available to her face had warped it into a disturbing blend of pain and anger. A long-time resident of Megatokyo, she found herself edging away from the clearly malfunctioning buma.

"Talk chip ... fail! Head hur- hu-, error... error! Error! ErRAAAGH!" 68435's speech process crashed then, with a burst of garbled words, and the manager who'd been berating it went pale and started backing away as well. Suddenly, there was a burst of oddly modulated sounds, the agitated buma's eyes dimmed out, and it slumped into a stable shutdown posture.

"Damn, that was *not* meant to come out of human vocal cords," Priss complained, rubbing her throat.

"Wha- What was that?" the manager stuttered, not yet recovered from the sudden rush of adrenaline.

"I have a friend who's a buma tech, who specializes in catching buma who start going rogue and stabilizing them. That's an audio shutdown code hardwired into most civilian-use buma, but she said using it is like tying someone up so they can't move, then locking them in a silent, dark room - if you leave them like that, they go bugnuts crazy and fast. Look, I'll give her a call and get her to come right over, but let me out of the last set, will you?" She rubbed her throat again, and coughed. "Nam is a top-rate Bio Maintainaince tech. She'll either get her back in working order, or take her off your hands at scrap rates," the singer continued, a little hoarsly.

"Scrap rates! This is a top-of-the-line domestic model! That's not even CLOSE to-"

"It's a better deal than you'd be getting from the AD Police about now if I'd let it run rogue," she cut him off. "Try a few hundred thousand yen in property damage, lost business while closed for repairs, and insurance rates jacked up to the sky after having that kind of thing happen."

The manager grit his teeth, but nodded. He spun around sharply, and stomped off to tell the DJ he'd be taking over from the live act an hour early.

"So... is this kind of thing what happened every time you blew off half a show on us back in Megatokyo? Catching rogue buma for this friend of yours?"

Startled, Pris jumped and spun around. She hadn't noticed the rest of the band coming backstage, having taken a few extra minutes to deal with their instruments. Brushing aside the question, all too close to the truth, she scowled and demanded, "Eddie, Hikaru, grab her shoulders; we can't leave her standing in the middle of the hall. The dressing room's got a couch, she can go on that."

"Yeah yeah, sure, do this do that, leave your private life out of it," Jack complained jokingly, well used to their front woman's ways, and her temper. He held the door for the other two men as they muscled the buma - considerably heavier than a human of the same size, despite being a civilian model without the heavy armor of security or combat types - into the small dressing room. "Is that why you're always bad mouthing the ADP, because they do so much collateral damage when some funky sound does the trick with none?"

She really didn't want to go into that, but it was better than the first question, and she did owe them some kind of explanation after all the brush offs in the past. "No, the code only works sometimes, if enough of a buma's systems are screwed it doesn't do a thing... You can see my eyes, yeah? Let's just say the ADP didn't get there fast enough... There was other stuff, but leave it at that."

Seeing her lips press into a hard line, and the closed expression on her face as Priss relived some obviously painful memories, the guys knew not to push any more - not when the tour was going so well before now. If she went into one of her snits and vanished for a few days they'd be up a creek - especially since they were living out of her trailer!

Jack paused as he teased his hair back into something close to its usual bouffant after taking off the huge stage wig. Eddie had just been joking around earlier, but... He remembered the way Priss often had a limp, or a tender arm, or bruises that had to be covered with stage makeup after one of her little disappearing acts. He'd put it down to her liking it rough with some boyfriend (or girlfriend - she was always chasing guys away, but he'd seen her meet several female friends after shows, some openly affectionate) since she'd told them off the time they'd offered to kick the ass of whoever was roughing her up, and he wondered.

What if there actually was something to it? She'd never gone into what her supposedly regular job was before telling them she'd quit and was free to tour with the band. If not for the fact that she chipped in a share for the apartment despite living in her trailer they'd probably have found another vocalist and tried a tour before now. Still, could there be something to it? He tried to imagine Priss, wearing one of those bulky tactical vests the ADP deployed in, waving a giant butterfly net and chasing a runaway buma.

"Naah."

With Hyatt sharing an apartment with Nam and Anri, it had been inevitable that at least part of Cynthia's story would come out - Nam was actively learning magic from her and her fairy-buma companions Yuki and Hotaru after all - but the exact connections between the sexaroids, former buma child, Cecilia Ishioka-Wayne, Nene and Linna, and the Knight Sabers had been left obscure by agreement on all sides. Taking a vidcall from Sylia inviting her to a meeting to discuss 'knight work,' however, Anri was very aware of the conversation she'd had with Hyatt earlier that day.

The dark haired woman had been subdued, even for her, and Anri had immediately noticed her pensive mood. Not the most outgoing sort herself, she hadn't pried, but within a few minutes Hyatt blurted out, "You know the Knight Sabers, don't you Anri?"

"Well, I know how to get in contact," the pilot replied guardedly, "but you know it's better if some secrets stay hidden, for everyone's safety. That's what you agreed when Nam returned with you, wasn't it?"

"I know," said Hyatt, "and I did agree. But..." she trailed off with a troubled look.

Anri could see her friend's lips press into a hard line despite her ducked face, but still jumped with shock as the normally reticent brunette suddenly clenched a fist and slammed it down on the table.

"This world... IS CORRUPT! And the worst of all is Genom! What you *have* told me, what the White Saber said in that office about treating buma like any other intelligent person... The Knight Sabers may not be some ideological organization dedicated to changing the world, but at least they do what they can, starting with the city, this city. That's something I want to be a part of, and maybe the nation and then the world can come later."

"You want... to be a part of it?" Anri repeated.

Vehemence spent, her friend sat back in her seat and nodded sharply. "Yes," she confirmed. "When Magnus reprogrammed my fusion system, it became much more powerful. You've seen me shift my fingers and change my face to become Hyatt Addams, but that's really just the beginning." As she spoke, a wave of silver washed up her body from her feet, leaving her a moving statue of gleaming metal. The details blurred and a few of the characteristic tendrils of fusion buma crawled across her body before merging again into a sleek armored form, that then darkened to the powder-coated blue of a combat unit.

"I absorbed a supply of armor and copied combat programs, so I can fight if that's what they need." She raised an arm and popped a set of so-called 'wolver' blades out and back, then the armored form shrank and returned to the appearance of flesh and fabric, and Anri was looking at herself sitting in the beanbag chair across the room. "I can spy on Genom again, with someone to set up an identity, or fill a support position if they have skillchips for it. It doesn't matter, I just want to do something meaningful with my life, now that it's mine to decide."

Anri relayed that conversation to Sylia, then waited while the steely haired woman mulled over the idea. Ultimately, the former Knight Saber leader knew, Hyatt had enough pieces of the puzzle that if she wanted to be in, there was no keeping her out. Better to have her on their own terms than frustrated and forcing herself in unexpectedly. "All right," she decided at last, "Bring her to the meeting tonight, we'll see where she can fit into the new operation."

"Good evening ladies." Sylia had put her steel blue hair up in a French braid, similar to but more elaborate than what she wore under her helmet since the nanite transformation that grew it out from her previous short, midnight blue style. Between that and the runway confection of a business dress, it was evident that she'd just come from a Wayne Group meeting of some kind, since she tended to more comfortable (if equally stylish) clothes for everyday wear, while 'Cecilia Ishioka-Wayne' social outings always got the waist-length wig and usually flashed quite a bit more cleavage, belly, and/or leg.

She nodded acknowledgment of the return greetings and ignored her brother clearing his throat pointedly at the feminine address in favor of taking a napkin and a tea biscuit from the tray on the side table, nibbling on it as she sat at the controls of the briefing room's presentation computer. She nudged the mouse to wake it up, but then turned the chair to the side to face everyone instead of the projection screen on the back wall. Wiping her fingers free of crumbs, she looked around at the people who'd gathered at her request.

Nene and Linna were sharing a couch, their hair still wet from the showers after an afternoon's sparring, and the redhead was wearing her ADP uniform as she had a late shift tonight. The straps of a large shoulder holster stood out across her chest since the jacket was folded over her lap. Sylia felt her lip twitch, remembering the young woman's mix of pique and chagrin, admitting to having set a new firing range record in her frustration over the fake Knight Sabers' attacks, and how Leon and his squad had teased her into agreeing to carry one of the bulky .454 Magnums as a sidearm since she'd so handily qualified with it.

Mackie was there too; he'd often attended Sabers briefings in the past, but after performing so well in his first field operation she knew there was no way he'd step back and let her face that hazard alone. Even she had to admit, the Speed King battlemover he'd designed and built with Dr. Raven was an amazing piece of work, having taken a direct orbital weapon strike with nothing more than scorched paint and melted trim.

Since his shift to combat operations would leave them short a pilot and she'd already filled the slot once, Anri was also present, sitting a bit uncertainly on the arm of an over stuffed chair. Nam, with her enhanced speed combined with medical and magical healing skills could be invaluable both for evacuating and tending to civilians and in case of battlefield injuries. Those two were still a bit reserved with Sylia, though they'd gotten to know the other original Knight Sabers through Priss and Sylvie even before learning their secret identities as high tech vigilantes.

The true newcomer was Hyatt, sitting close to Nam on the love seat and looking around nervously at everyone, obviously uncomfortable with the idea that she'd known them all but not made the connection to the 'terrible buma-hunters' Largo had described to her. Nene in particular with her tie to AD Police as well as the Sabers she couldn't meet the eyes of, though Sylia noticed several long glances at the gunbutt peeking out of its holster.

Before the tension could build too high, she began the meeting. "Several days ago, one of my contacts in the Minato ward noticed a suspiciously repainted container, but there wasn't enough evidence to take to the harbor patrol. It was being transferred to a long term holding area near one of the damage zones, but when he checked back on it today it appeared to have been blasted open. Since it wasn't there during the Largo incident it obviously was not damaged at the time, and as you can see -" here the elder Stingray paused and displayed a photo on the big screen, of a plain light purple shipping unit with a ragged hole torn in the top and one side, "- the pattern of damage is more consistent with something bursting out from inside. He wasn't able to make a detailed examination, but from the pictures taken through the breach," several still shots flicked on and off the screen, until it stopped on one showing the corner of an oversized, wrecked hibernation pod with a distinctive corporate logo visible, "it looks like the truth is going to be something very big, and very nasty."

She made another adjustment to the control console, and the view zoomed in on that logo, then shrank to an inset beside a clearer view of the same logo, on the masthead of a press release from Tyrell Biogenetique S. A., announcing the deployment of a new breed of genetically engineered warbeast to the Antarctic battle lines, properly named Discinderius Horridus but called by the marketing department 'Shredzilla.'

After giving everyone a moment to look over the pictures and stats of the beast, Sylia continued. "Fortunately, there's been only faint traces of such a creature on the loose, as even the AD Police would be ill equipped to deal with a creation meant to face platoons of combat buma and battlemovers. At the same time, in the current climate there's no way we could resume operating as the Knight Sabers. Even if we could, without Priss our tactical formation would be too weak. That's why I've invited a few new members, as you can see," she said, nodding toward the three buma women. "Some of our patterns will need adjustment with a larger squad, but it will also increase our tactical flexibility significantly. The first question on the table, is what name and image to present now that 'the Knight Sabers' have been vilified before the world."

Nene tried to suppress a giggle and snorted indelicately, thinking of the sketch Leon had given her of Saber White as Sailor Moon.

Catching the glance her way, Sylia shot that idea down preemptively, stating firmly, "No, I am NOT going as Moon anything, no matter how funny that sketch of Nene's is." Mackie opened his mouth, only to receive a quelling glare. "No, absolutely not," she repeated.

"I was just going to suggest 'Moonlight Shadow,'" he protested.

"No. No moons, knights, or blades," his sister insisted. "The point is to create an identity separate from the Knight Sabers, not remind people of it."

"I know you weren't too happy about the incident, but the 'Lovely Aces' already have a little exposure, and good press," Linna suggested.

Mackie grimaced. "It's not too bad as far as it goes," he replied, "but kind of... girly, if I'm finally on the active team."

Anri shifted to sit fully in the chair, and spoke up with the next gap in the discussion. "You try to appear, do the mission, and disappear," she observed. "How about 'Silver Mist,' or something to do with a mirage?"

Several other suggestions were made and discussed, but none really seemed to capture the group's imagination or suggest a visual theme with hardsuits out of the equation, and they got sidetracked by that to individual suggestions. Nam noticed that Hyatt seemed to be inching forward and shrinking back as it went on, and nudged her ribs hard enough to make her squeak in surprise.

Now the center of attention, she was obliged to speak up. "I can fill whatever position is needed by shifting, but with that unpleasant person that used to operate in Gotham 'Joker' isn't the kind of name I'd want. However, 'Ha-chan...' I've had that nickname. It sounds a bit like 'hachi,' eight in English, so perhaps I could be called 'Crazy Eight,' or 'Wild Eight,'" Hyatt suggested, "since Linna-sempai and Nene-sempai are already proclaimed as aces."

Sylia cocked her head. "That's not a bad idea," she said reflectively. She nodded toward Mackie and added, "We already have a 'Speed King,' and if we used the European suites Nam could be Cups Queen, for the healing symbology. To further obscure any connection to the Knight Sabers' all female operatives, I've created a bulky armored suit with a voice changer. I can use it to pose as Coins Jack, fixer and coordinator for the new mercenary group 'Straight Flush.' That leaves Swords Ace and Wands Ace for Linna and Nene as the front line fighters, with their superhuman martial arts abilities."

"Wait, front line?" Nene protested. "I mean, sure I can fight now, but how am I supposed to jam enemy communications or hack targets, not to mention keep our own tactical net scrambled and secure while I'm thumping the bad guys?"

"Since the hardsuits are so distinctive to the Knight Sabers, Straight Flush can't use them, and that means only minimal ability to mount and power the support equipment you require in that role," Sylia explained. "While the Speed King can easily be fitted to transport equipment cases to use in dedicated cracking operations that call for your inimitable touch, between my innate abilities and a suitably genderless armor's bulk, I'll be more than capable of filling the communications and electronic warfare role under the new paradigm. Minimizing the chance of my abilities being seen in use will also be important to keeping the new group distinct from the Knight Sabers."

With that decided, and given the prior appearances of the newly named Swords Ace and Wands Ace, the basic visual theme was set as heavy boots and gloves and a colored tabard over a dark body suit, made of bulletproof nanoweave and supplemented by hard armor plates in critical areas. Thick but flexible mats of the same material could protect the abdomen where mobility was still necessary, and of course they'd wear helmets to hide their identity and mount sensory and communications equipment. Mackie could wear a similar outfit while piloting the Speed King, if without hard armor on the extremities due to its limited cockpit space, while Sylia's Coins Jack battleframe would simply be painted so its wide shoulder housings and angled torso suggested the tabards of the rest of the team.

Hyatt would shift into a similar form as needed, coloring her combat armor to match the others' bodysuits and disguising her head with a visor, faceplate, and a pair of 'cat ear' sensor booms. Everyone, of course, would have detailing or trim appliques to match their new codename, and the team aircraft would be called 'Cardshark' instead of 'Knightwing.' Opinions were divided on whether that should double as Anri's call sign; a long time pilot she thought it was good enough while Nam and Mackie thought she should be known as 'Dealer.'

The meeting began to break up at that point into smaller groups and Nene had to head in to work, so after quickly scheduling tactics exercises and passing out signal bracelets to the new members the meeting turned into more of a dinner party and shifted venue to a Korean barbecue restaurant down the road from the Ishioka farm.

Note that in the context of the Japanese governing body, "Diet" is pronounced "dee-eht"

Buma-tech cybernetics needing an external support system - mainly seen in ADP Files (circa 2027) and Crash (2034) where the Cyberpunk influences were more pronounced, these are the backpacks and handheld units cabled to various slummers' big, clunky borg parts. None of the subjects act all that stable, as one might expect from genre convention.

Type-9 military battlemover - apparently these first appeared in a side-story manga or video game; my knowledge of them comes from the "Bubblegum Crisis EX" sourcebook for the BGC RPG once published by R. Talsorian Games. It's a clunky looking beast with two stubby legs that have small wheels in the knees and a third, larger, wheel hanging off the butt below a pair of 'ring rails' with mounting hardpoints for various weapon systems, two of which are typically occupied by oversized gorilla-arms. There are a pair of smaller retractable arms built into the cheese wedge shaped torso section, roughly equivalent to the arms of a K-12 in terms of size. Crouching down onto the wheels, the unit can make 50mph/80kph, but that's still nothing on the DD, intended as its replacement. Though much larger and better armed the unit itself is roughly equivalent to a Hurricane motoslave. I'd expect the combat engineers have a specialized crane ringrail attachment and possibly others as well, and oversized welding equipment that the small arms can use while the large ones hold heavy parts in place. Of course, if they're on hand heavy weapons are just a hardpoint swap away, and it's designed for carried weapons as well. They're known for exceptional strength and responsiveness due to integrating then-cutting-edge medical prosthetic technology into the control and actuation systems, as Sylia mentioned.

Aperture Science - Unless you've been hiding under a snowbank in Antarctica it's nearly a certainty you at least heard about Portal, the 'fun little bonus game' originally packaged with Half-Life 2 that turned into a runaway smash hit. The reference in this scene isn't any major plot element, it's mainly just to show that Genom isn't letting an (apparent) totally new technology pass by them unremarked. And too, "For the good of all of us (except the ones who are dead)" could easily be the corporate slogan. GLaDOS's insanity also seems apropos for a buma-brain-based AI that's gone off the rails.

Mr. Pettybone - I'm pretty sure this is in fact not the character I'm actually trying to reference, I know it was one of Droopy Dog's pseudonyms but it's also the only name I can think of for the one-shot mild mannered scientist character who invents Portable Holes in one of the old Hanna Barberra or possibly Warner Brothers cartoons, a black liquid that could be squirted out into a puddle to dry and reached into or through, then picked up and rolled or folded like rubber to be moved. A dastardly burglar stole a supply of holes and went on a crime spree with them before being tricked into putting himself into prison via the back wall, and in the epilogue the scientist's nagging Lady MacBeth-type wife trips into one on the floor of the lab and finds herself in a fiery cave being greeted by a red-faced fellow with a trident. "My, that was a deep one," says Pettybone just before the iris out to credits.

"The Bad Touch" is by The Bloodhound Gang, and actually references using a particular sexual position 'so we can both watch X-Files' but with two decades after the song's release for popular culture to move on, Hyatt's owner had no idea what 'X-Files' was, and just figured it must have been something on the Discovery Channel, since that's mentioned in the chorus. Hence getting it on in front of a nature documentary. Hopefully I have gotten the points of the scene and the explanation across while avoiding being explicit. The orbit diving takes after 2040 in the delphinid aeroshell, but the movie 'Dark Star' got there first in terms of reentry via surfing.

Mentioning the fate of Nene's scooter, now scorned in favor of a more exciting ride, also seemed like a fun detail to add, and Hyatt has to get around the city somehow now that she doesn't have Magnus's company car to drive. On that count, it's worth mentioning that Hyatt knows that the Knight Sabers know about the Genaros escapees being buma, and that Nene and the others are Nam's friends, but not that Nene is or rather was a Knight Saber, or for that matter who any of the other (former) members are, or about Cynthia's story, at the time of her seaside walk.

Lovely Aces - this is a reference to the Lovely Angels (don't call them the Dirty Pair!) and before one of the revisions was even more direct. Classic Yuri's hair was long and deep blue, and Kei a bit spikier and red-orange, but given the collateral damage level in this fic the comparison seemed quite apt, and also set up a possible new organizational identity for the reformed group. Many readers will also be familiar with the epic Undocumented Features series by the folks over at Eyrie Productions, Unlimited, which prominently features the Pair vs. Buma in one of the memorable early scenes. It probably comes as no surprise given my 'cinematic title and end credits/notes' style that UF is a major if indirect inspiration for my own insanely huge writing project, especially in working up the courage to say "Damn the in-jokes, full speed ahead!" and just put the thing online; let people say what they will. As PCHammer put it in one of his parts, "If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking 'till you do succeed." For those unfamiliar with either the UF version or the originals, Dirty Pair is essentially a two woman Dirty-Harry-plus-comedy space opera. The more recent anime Kiddy Grade follows a similar premise, if more seriously and with a swirl of conspiracy theory as well; if you like one you'll probably like the other. Dirty Pair Flash was a remake apparently intended to appeal to a slightly younger audience, it's not as bad as that makes it sound but still inferior to the original in my holy-ahem-humble opinion.

AV-4 - Take your basic large commercial van and replace the wheels with ducted fan units and you essentially have the AV-4, staple of the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG setting, from which the "aerodyne" designation is also taken. What I've called Bumaroid Disassosciative Disorder is one of the very few appearances of anything like the RPG's "humanity loss" game balance mechanic for people getting cybernetics, but I take a much less rigid approach to it than the game, maybe mid way between it and the genre-defining Gibson novels.

Waitress buma Bu-30D-68435 - The first draft name was actually B-3TA, a reference to one episode of the G1 Transformers cartoon where several characters were thrown far back in time to the beginning of the Cybertronians' (Not yet even Transformers, as such systems either had not been invented yet or were restricted to the Guardians, since the loyal Guardians had the same design as Omega Supreme who was canonically tyhe last survivor or them after himself joining the uprising) rebellion against their creators, the Quintessons. The leader of the rebellion was a female-styled robot with the civilian model slave brand (AKA the Autobot symbol) known as Beta - her lieutenant was A-3 who later became Alpha Trion. That designation style doesn't fit with the buma that have previously appeared, however, so I changed it to a simple serial number, with job-specific modifications to the base 30D chassis too numerous to consider each a separate model. 30D (or d30) in turn is a reference to my dice-collector side, because who doesn't love those golf-ball size 30 siders? While 68435 doesn't have any such role planned, given that she's about to be handed over to one of the rogue sexaroids it's a safe assumption that she'll be freed of her slave programming and either upgraded to pass for human in a crowd and set up with an identity or absorbed into Wayne Group holdings with a complicated lease contract that ends up amounting to being on roughly even footing with the rest of the employees. Don't be holding your breath about seeing her again.

This world ... is corrupt! Etc. - Ha-chan's roots are showing; originally only intended as a cameo character her look and tendency to cough up blood were lifted from Excel Saga's Hyatt, though her personality was purely developed to fill the role I had for her. Of course, anyone who follows Excel Saga knows that Hyatt just won't stay dead, and she insisted on reanimating and taking on an ongoing part, like some background character in a TV show that unexpectedly turns into a regular. The corrupt world speech is from the opening monologue by Lord Il Palazzo, leader of the Ideological Organization ACROSS of which Hyatt and Excel are promptly introduced as field agents. Likewise, control of the city is presented as 'a prudent first step' to dominion over a single country and then, the world! Her new hairdo is based on her Excel-sempai, but don't hold your breath for Excel-ian manic energy. The old coughing-up-blood-and-rising-from-the-dead Hyatt might have fit in better with the Addams family, but I didn't think of it until just now, unfortunately.

Minato ward - the main dock district of Tokyo and Megatokyo after it.

Swords, wands, cups & coins - these correspond to spades, clubs, hearts, and diamonds in US decks. Note also that with the Japanese convention of putting the family name first, "Coins Jack" is actually a plausible real (male) name. Not likely perhaps, but plausible nonetheless.

I'll be adding a picture of Coins Jack to the BDPreread Files section, but if you have a copy of the _Bubblegum Crisis: EX_ sourcebook from R. Talsorian Games, it's basically the Fright Knight armor without the trim patterns on the knees and chestplate but with a logo on the left side of the chestplate, a yellow circle with a pentacle (representing a gold coin) with a capital J superimposed over it in red. I did a little highlighting with the airbrush, so it looks pretty good for your basic coloring book page.

Tyrell Biogenetique - Based in Brazil, Tyrell is to genetic engineering what GENOM is to robotics, and their warbeasts are the shock troops of the Arab-African-South America side of the Polar War, though there are a noticeable number of their Replicants (now granted full citizen status after a huge scandal and anti-slavery protests on behalf of these human-based creations in 2029) in the US armed forces, a legacy of the prewar era. They'll be popping up a lot as we move beyond the events of the BGC OVAs.

Silver Mist - one of the earlier versions of what became Guardian 215 was used for a Marvel Super Heroes character (the old TSR version, with the named ability ranks) in the form of a series of powersuit designs, beginning with the Quicksilver, and progressing through Armored Quicksilver, Silverbullet, and Silvermist. I highly doubt anyone who would recognize this reference will ever read this, but now you know.

The burly detective - 'burly detective syndrome' is a writing critic term for constantly referring to characters by some characteristic other than their name. It's one I particularly have trouble with, because not only did I have 'don't repeat words' pounded into me at every level of schooling from 1st grade to 200-level college English Composition, it serves as a handy way to keep sneaking in bits of description so they're more than a gender and nametag. I've never shied from laughing at myself, so with the opportunity to slip the phrase in I couldn't resist.

Besondertactischgruppe - 'special tactical squad' in German, or an approximation at least. I don't know if that's actually what Berlin calls its version of a SWAT team, but it's the best I could cobble together from an English-to-German dictionary.

Magnetic Rose - while I don't know the name of the anime involved, this is the title of an absolutley awesome AMV set to Harajuku's "The Phantom of the Opera." While not the Reps' style per se it served as well as anything for a random club name.

Orange Milk - said like "milk from an orange" not "milk which is orange" though given the ADPolice Files canon cafe named "Piss" it would hardly be the worst-named gin joint in Japan.

Ordinary as earthquakes - it's apparently a rare week in Tokyo without three or four earthquakes strong enough to feel, and hundreds that only instruments pick up every day. Los Angelinos reading this would probably have a similar attitude, but to those of us in the eastern US, Europe or areas similarly devoid of active tectonic activity it's something of a mental stretch. It was the best comparison I could think of, though - fire drills would also work, but aren't usually held frequently enough to compare. I note that this scene was written over a year before the RL earthquake that hit Japan and caused such trouble with their Daiichi nuclear power plant in Tokushima. I haven't seen it written down, but doesn't that just translate as "Big One?"

Guardian 215 should be imagined with the vocal talents of Susan Blu; if you don't know her by name, she did (among other shows) Arcee on the post-movie Transformers episodes, as well as in the movie itself. You can even keep the flanging effect if you like, though it's not really there.

Many thanks to Drakensis and Necratoid for their feedback, as well as everyone on the BDPreread mailing list - you'll get your name listed if you actually make commentary, but just reading and finding nothing bad enough to complain about is still commentary of a sort.

Drakensis used to keep a remote archive of the story on his web site, but unfortunately it no longer exists. Since he's a damn good fic writer himself, I'll give a link to his profile instead, as a thank you for the effort when he did. It's at .net/u/347490/drakensis

Special thanks to Bob Schroeck, Consulting Acronymologist. He also happens to be the author of another rather good BGC fanfic called _Drunkard's Walk II_ (The first one is not available for public consumption, but it's a rather modular series.) The Drunkard's Walk home page is .net/~ and Bob's message board is at .com/

Bubblegum Crisis belongs to Youmex and Animeigo, I make no claims otherwise. Please don't sue me, I have no money to speak of and fanfic does more to promote your products than anything else I know of - without it, I never would have known about anime at all, and I'd certainly never have bought the BGC tapes based on the sucky box copy.

Ranma 1/2 I'm not so sure of, except that the creator was Rumiko Takahashi, not me, and that I make no claims to own IT either. I THINK that the Ranma manga are done by Viz in the US, but that may be incorrect.

The Bionic Six is similarly of unknown provenance, but I have a very vague and unreliable memory that it may have been animated by Suncoast video... In any case, it's STILL not my own creation.

_Dykstra's War_ is by Jeffery D Kooistra, published by Baen Books.

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z were created by Akira Toriyama, owned overall by Bandai I think, and released on video in the US by FUNimation and in manga by Dark Horse (again not so sure about that one - could be Viz)

Sailor Moon was created by Naoko Takeuchi, and is undoubtedly also owned by some animation studio or another. DIC? I know that the RPG rights in North America used to belong to Guardians of Order.

Excel Saga coomes from the deranged mind of Koshi Rikdo, and is published in the US by Viz. And those translated tankubon are damn well done, I must say.

EOF