Rolling into the next to last song on the night I wrote named Victory the crowed was pumped, as usual it went off without a hitch and it rocked. But when the drums started the back beat to the last song on the night the crowed seemed to surge forward and everyone who wasn't on their feet before was now, it looked like and might have been one hundred fists pumping in the air in time in unison to the beat as I prepared myself to launch into the opening lyrics. There were hoots and hollers and screams, the stage lights changed color and pulsed to the rhythm, I felt the old familiar feeling begin to course through me and quickly building in intensity until I exploded passionately into the opening verses. I felt alive...Konya Wa Hurricane blew them away and blew us away.

We all came alive during that song, all the others were great, really good actually but this song...it seemed to have a life of it's own and possessed anyone in range of it. The crowed chanted the chorus along with us, the whole building seemed to vibrate as we set the Hot Legs on fire proverbially as sweat saturated my stage clothes, the silly blond wig that I made go with it strands sticking to my face. We gave it our all and that was a lot, as the song wound down and moments later we stepped off stage it was like a mob but they all parted before us and it was always a trip for me. We all made our way to the back door and back stage, tossing my stage get up in a bag I always had Hiroshi take to a dry cleaners and getting dressed not bothering grabbing a shower...not like I could get one any way as Hot Legs wasn't that classy.

Sidling up to the bar next to Hiroshi flopping the old gym bag with my stage get up in it into his lap and ordering myself a Asahi taking a gulp as soon as it came, I looked over to see Hiroshi giving me this look that looked half serious.

"You know Priss...ya think I ever get tired of hauling your laundry round?"

I cracked a smile and took a drink of my beer eying him from the corner of my eye with a smiling expression on my face as I drank, coming off it I squared up to him.

"Not like you do that cleaning Hiroshi, sides I don't have time to be running across town when you live over that way. Oh, and don't get any bright ideas and steal my underwear...cause I'll stick my foot up your ass if you do."

After a moment we laughed it off never serious, all of us were always ragging on one another and never got into any real fights over dumb shit.

"Oh damn Priss...now you done gone and ruined my plans for the evening, shit."

I gave him a sharp elbow and he about spewed his beer, I giggled at this and polished off my beer. Throwing on my leather jacket and securing the zipper locking the leather pants to it, then flipping a few switches and pressing a button my bike started up. It wheezed as usual and then started whining steadily as the turbine wound up to rpm, once stabilized and steady I slipped my helmet on and flipped the lights on and kicked it into gear and sped off out of the side ally and into the light evening traffic.

Tonight I was feeling good, nothing as dampening it weather mentally or physically. The show went off killer and without a hitch, hell even that annoying ADP ass hat Leon wasn't there and if he wasn't there to trying to get a date with me that was always good.

Beep...beep...beep

"Ahh...shit, I knew I spoke too soon...damn it!"

It was my wrist pager, looked like a decent watch kinda like a Seiko or a Casio. But it's really a disguised pager Sylia had come up with long time back even before the Knight Sabers, I was fuming inside my helmet at the moment...the god damned thing seemed to KNOW when I was in a good mood and ALWAYS went off when I was having one. Touching a button I shut it up and then weaved between two cars and gunned the throttle and burned a fish tail 180 degrees and started to haul ass towards the Lady 633, it wasn't all that far from the Hot Legs and I was swearing this better be good to screw up my good night.

Slipping in the back way to the under ground garage of the building I parked my bike and hopped off taking off my helmet and hanging it on the break lever, unzipping my jacket as I walked to the elevator just as Linna was coming round the corner. She caught sight of me and smiled typing in the special code for access to the hardsuit bay, we both stepped in and as the doors were closing behind we heard a voice.

"You guy's! Wait up!Hold the door!"

We both laughed and I caught the elevator door at the very last possible moment just for extra effect, it was Nene. She hopped in panting and disheveled looking, she leaned against the back of the elevator her red hair however wasn't messed up...she always seemed to never mess her hair up oddly.

"Oh my god, I am SO trading in that scooter...that's the third time this month it has pooped out on me!"

She panted a bit more.

"Well I keep telling you that thing is a piece of shit Nene, you should get a real bike."

"Priss! Do you have any idea how bad I would wreck that sort of thing? I have bad enough luck with these kinds of things, at least my scooter wont kill me!"

Linna snickered at our exchange and added.

"Well you know Nene you can always catch a ride with me, the offer always stands."

Nene huffed a little bit at that, her and Linna were never really abrasive to each other even jokingly that was just how they worked as for me they all know I mean well and it is just how I am. I just sat back half listening to the conversation enjoying the cool recycled air conditioning as the elevator slid silently down and down, the cool air felt great as if wafted into my jacket. I started thinking, what exactly was it this time Sylia called us for. Likely as usual some boomer going nuts, the ADP screwing things up as they always did...we go out ave their butts and kill the thing or things easy as pie and go home. As we neared out stop I came out of my thinking, Linna and Nene came back to the forefront once more.

"It's more about independence than stubborn ego...that's Priss' area of expertise any way...that's why I ride that scooter."

I rolled my eye's hearing this, I wasn't too in the mood for cracking around with Nene as she seemed already in a fine mood as well.

#Ding#

The doors slid open bright fluorescent light pored into the elevator cab and we all piled out heading to the left to the changing room, soon as we arrived there stood an already suited up Sylia sans helmet. Damn she was always like that, I swear some times she had to be some kind of god damned boomer in disguise the way she ran ship. We all opened our lockers and stripped and started slipping into our inner wear, soon as we were into those and snapped it secured Sylia started our briefing as we started suiting up.

"According to reports and my sources we have approximately 3 boomers running lose down in the warehouse district in Yokohama, all three seem to be BU-55C combat models."

I looked up at her as I pulled up and snapped my suit in place feeling it lock and snug around my body like a glove, placing a metallic hand on a metallic hip.

"Is that it? Don't tell me...the ADP either aren't there at all or are actually being stomped? Those lazy.."

Sylia actually cut me off, giving me one of those looks that means to shut the hell up. I never liked those, from anyone but Sylia was after all our leader not to mention got us all paid for all of our troubles. So I shut the hell up.

"Yes there are only three of these boomers, but BU-55C models aren't like BU-12B's. Or are you forgetting the concussion you received from one last week Priss?"

I huffed at this grabbing my helmet and putting it on feeling it seal and lock into place, the HUD came to life as soon as it locked bright colors and clear vision with all the enhancements. Reading all the data was a snap and all systems were good to go, I hated it when she was right damn it all.

A while later I heard Mackie announce that we had a ETA of 2 minutes give or take, looking around seeing Linna in her green suit, Nene, and Sylia in theirs with only helmets for faces it was familiar as I eased myself into a mindset I always did before dropping into a situation. Some where between hyped up and kill you dead pissed off, flexing my body a few times I then stood up as Mackie again announced that this time we had less than a minute the others following my lead I checked my HUD again to double check all the systems and it was all ok. Mackie pulled the truck up in a dark alley behind an old decrepit fishery warehouse, we swung open the doors and rushed off into the night keeping our grouping tight while Nene scanned the area for traces of the boomers making sure we hopefully didn't get ambushed. Suddenly we stopped.

"Any sign of the three boomers Pink?"

"No...not yet...oh wait there they are! All three of them are up ahead about 40 meters, I'm updating the info to your HUD's."

"Alright, we will split into teams. Blue and Green, Pink is with me. We will come at them from the front and behind, watch yourselves...there may only be three but were not taking any chances."

Listening to Sylia actually put a small plan out there for just three boomers was weird, I nodded as the patch from Nene came through my visor and live feed from her's gave me a good view of where those three scrap heaps were. Sylia managed to find out that Mason for the last month had shifted his attention to gunning for us, which figured into the ambush the other week...the one where I got the concussion. Linna and I activated our jump jets and started roof hopping along the edge of the area, as we came up on them we counted three boomers exactly. I looked to Linna and nodded and she nodded back and I took a deep breath and launched off of the roof top aiming for the one on the left, while Linna went for the one on the right at the same time I picked up Sylia and Nene going for the one in the middle at nearly the same time as Linna and I jumped into the action.

Two of the boomers turned in our direction mine and the middle, hell yeah! I yelled sadistically in my mind knowing Sylia and Nene would wipe the floor with their attack now a sneak attack. Just at the tail end of that though I came into contact with my boomer swinging a right cross with my knuckle bombers activated and my HUD lit up like downtown Tokyo, I didn't get the head as I was aiming for but instead contacted and blew the things left arm almost clean off as it tried to block my shot. Damn thing was pretty fast I thought as I dodged it's right fist with a back flip, soon as I landed though the ground exploded right in front of my feet knocking me off balance as it's mouth laser carved up the concrete that was just under my feet missing my left leg by enough for me to feel the heat of it through my armor cursing under my visor.

"Shit...dumb ass..."

Regaining my footing quickly and ducking yet another right hook from the thing as it's destroyed left arm spewed orange bio fluids all over the place not to mention all over my suit as I ducked under to the things left, catching purchase on the ground I dug in and spun around and nailing it square in the middle of it's lower back with my leg bombers extended and activated.

BOOM!

The thing fell to it's knees before me spraying even more of that orange crap out of it's lower back now, trying to get up again I put it back down for good with several needles from my rail gun. Just as I was doing that I saw from the corner of my visor Linna finishing hers off , slicing the things head clean off with her mono ribbons like it was letting her do it and the thing crumpled over and fell on top of it's own head both of ours leaking one hell of a mess on the ground.

"Well that was eventful...is everyone ok?"

Linna and I turned to Sylia and Nene, Sylia took care of the third one as Nene had it distracted and go figure had it down before we had ours down. I myself had hardly broken a sweat despite the close call with the laser as that was hardly the closest call I had ever had, Linna's fight had went about the same as mine minus the close call. We all nodded to Sylias question, not even a scratch, unless you count that I had pretty much been covered in nasty ass orange goo but other than that no harm no foul.

"Well then let's all go home then, Mackie were on our way back."

"Ok...wow that went quick, ok sis!"

Yeah that did go quick

I thought to myself as we loaded into the truck and headed back, after we all got changed out and back into our clothes we all gathered in Sylia's living room to get debriefed. It was late but I for once accepted a cup of coffee from the tray but avoided the pastries, I never was much into sweets especially after being out in my suit. Reclining back into the plush coffee and creamer colored leather couch sipping some of the coffee, it was actually really good...Sylia paid a lot for it as with about everything else in her building. Linna and Nene were chatting across from me on the other couch, chat ranging from tonight's battle to their work tomorrow morning. A moment later Sylia strode in wearing her usual expensive business suit type deal, looking as calm and collected as ever.

Debriefing went as usual, nothing special except conspiracy theory's to do with mason and tonight's boomer rampage.

"Well as we all witnessed tonight those were three BU-55C combat models out there, dose any one have any strange feelings about tonight?"

Sylia looked around calmly at the three of us, I spoke up just cutting Nene off about some thing about the ADP.

"Yeah, just what the hell were they doing way out at the Warehouse District in Yokohama? I mean...Genom almost always let's loose boomer in expensive or highly populated areas...but tonight..."

Sylia piped up at my pause, her look turning serious.

"Precisely...This is what has had me worried for the past few weeks, it seems that some thing strange is going on and I am willing to place a bet that Mason is pulling the strings on it. Priss is right about tonight, it is very strange that these combat boomers as advanced as they are were roaming around in the Yokohama warehouse area. There is nothing out there that Genom wants, so we must take it that we are being watched and perhaps even being tested."

Nene spoke up at this point, no joking around as she took on a thoughtful look as she spoke.

"Well...I think that all makes sense, and if we all are being watched and possibly tested. They are likely trying to gauge the full capability and even the armament of our suits, and if that is the case..."

"Were going to have to be very careful from now on."

Sylia cut in. We all knew that Mason had more than taken an interest in us, it seemed more and more like he was either trying to out right kill us or some thing. Tonight was weird and even those combat boomers went down really easy, so it was getting weirder and weirder and even I was starting to wonder what the hell he was up too.

"Well can't we just go up there and kick his ass? I'm getting tired of this Mason guy's bullshit, I would just as soon get him off my ass the rat bastard."

Sylia sighed and flipped her ash from her cigarette into a crystal ash trey on the end table, blowing out a thin streak of smoke looking me in the eye's.

"Believe me if we could I would be in favor of it Priss, but we can't do that. For one it would be too dangerous and not to mention we would very likely be pinned as murderers, and I think we have enough of everyone's attention for now without having the ADP along with everyone else trying to hunt us down."

And that was that, soon after we all left Sylia's place and went home. As I was mounting my bike I heard foot steps behind me, I spun around quickly only to find that it was Nene standing there with a sheepish look on her face. She was fidgeting a little bit, and I was about to ask her what her deal was when she answered my question for me.

"Um, Priss...can't I get a ride home? Um Linna seems to have forgot she would give me a ride home, Mackie has my scooter and he's going to fix it for me..."

I didn't bother replying or letting her finish, I just tossed her my helmet which she barely caught out of surprise.

"Hop on."

I only had one helmet and I figured she'd need it more than I did if anything did happen, which it never if rarely did...hell I've road for years. I dropped Nene off at her place, slipped my helmet on and waved in return as I sped off down the road. It was a way's from her place to mine so down a way I stopped at a Funy Burger, I didn't think I was that hungry but I polished off a burger and a Coke in under 3 minutes flat. Later on I got home and locked my bike up in the front used my old key to jiggle and eventually unlock the old ass but secure thing, I was so tired I tossed the keys over onto a shelf that was stacked high with Musicians Friend and other assorted magazines and beer cans. Kicking off my boots I trudged over to the fridge and popped it open and got myself a beer, pulling the tab taking a big drink flopping down onto the old couch.

I thought about tonight's events and everything else, finally I was smiling once more as I recalled the show earlier in the night as I drained the can and tossed it randomly over to a box I been TRYING to use for a trash can...but kept missing. I found myself staring at the can for a minute as if I were trying to will the thing to get up and trash itself when I realized how damn tired I was and saw that it was four in the morning, I said screw the table lamp rolled over and drifted off clothes and all.