I have a message from another time...

                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents

                UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT
                   - SYMPHONY OF THE SWORD No. 3 -

                                Arena

                         Benjamin D. Hutchins

                (c) 2003 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


                       FRIDAY, JANUARY 11, 2408
                         WORLD WIDE BUILDING
                        NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI

        Corwin Ravenhair got home a little before 11:30 PM.  He came
into his apartment, which made up the top floor of the World Wide
Building, brushing snow from the epaulets of his brown leather bomber
jacket and whistling the bridge from Kaitlyn's newest song, which he'd
heard her band rehearsing earlier that night.
        His roommate, Kozue Kaoru, was sprawled on one of the
apartment's two black leather couches in her usual after-hours dress
of aerospace-company T-shirt (today's sponsor, the Anaheim Electronics
Corporation) and gym shorts, eating potato chips.
        "You're home early," she remarked, hitching herself up on the
sofa arm by one elbow to present her cheek for a kiss hello.  This
Corwin gave her, after he hung up his jacket and took off his boots by
the door, on his way past the couch to the bathroom.
        Corwin's relationship with Kozue was not only complex but also
just weird, which, with the adaptability that has made humanity one of
the most successful spacefaring species, he had accepted as the normal
course of his affairs.  She wasn't his girlfriend, though they
pretended she was in order to keep the other guys at their high
school, Fritz Koopman Memorial, from assuming she was available.
        Even though she wasn't, they were more than "just friends", if
that phrase meant anything.  Their friends who knew that their public
relationship was a sham had differing opinions as to the nature of
what lay behind it.  Some thought Corwin was essentially a surrogate
for Kozue's twin brother Miki, who was off on Tomodachi attending
university.  A couple thought that might be true, but that there was
more to -that- than a person would expect.  Others maintained that the
sham was itself a sham, even if the participants didn't realize it
yet.
        Whatever the case, they were very close, but their relations
were essentially chaste.  Corwin was a bit of an aesthete, and he
didn't struggle against the fact that he enjoyed looking at his
roommate (and snuggling up with her on the couch from time to time),
but that was as far as he went, and Kozue's attitude toward him was
much the same.  They had a good time living together, pursuing their
own interests and common ones with the easy grace that comes without
the pressure generated by a capital-R Relationship.
        Now, as Corwin came back out of the bathroom with his silver
forelock dripping from the cold dashing he'd just given his face in
the sink, he saw the opening credits of the program Kozue was watching
and groaned.
        "Why do you watch this show?" he asked as he sat down next to
her on the couch.
        "Because it's cool," Kozue replied unconcernedly.  "Y'know, it
continues to surprise me that you don't like it.  I mean, I'd have
thought it was right up your alley."
        The show in question was a "sports" program (ironic quote
marks Corwin's) called "Mobile Fighter G-Gundam", which was broadcast
live from the New Avalon Battledrome every Friday night after the
eleven o'clock news on Channel 17.  Every week, a variety of pilots
with colorful personas would fight in the Battledrome, the sector's
finest Destroid combat center, with medium Destroids of various
configurations.  There was a prize system and a schedule of titles,
but both of them were confusing and mostly arbitrary, and most of the
show's viewers ignored them anyway.
        The show's title, "G-Gundam", came from the fact that many of
the pilots used heavily modified variants on the eponymous series of
medium airmobile Destroids.  This roster included the most popular
Mobile Fighter, the de facto star of the show, an unreasonably intense
young man by the name of Domon Kasshu.  The "G", Corwin had heard,
stood for "Gladiator", but he wasn't sure whether that was true.
        Corwin tried to watch the show occasionally.  Kozue was really
fond of it, and on the odd Friday when he found himself at home at
eleven-thirty, he would do his best to put up with it in the name of
apartment solidarity... but it was tough, and he could never quite
keep his distaste for the program from showing.
        "So why -don't- you like this show?" Kozue inquired during the
first commercial.  "I mean, robot battles, you'd think you'd be all
over that."
        Corwin snorted.  "It's all -fake-," he said dismissively.
"All these guys flexing their muscles and talking smack, and then
these goofy fights - it's professional wrestling with Destroids.  They
don't use any tactics, they don't pay any attention to comparative
capabilities - they just do whatever looks spectacular for the
cameras, and the outcomes are all preordained."
        "What do you base -that- conclusion on?"
        "Look at the power levels they're using," Corwin said,
gesturing randomly at the screen.  "They're ridiculous, out of
proportion.  It's not even vaguely fair.  Take that guy Kasshu.  He's
got a weapon about 300 times more powerful than anybody else's on his
mech, and everybody else knows about it, but do they ever DO anything
about it?  No.  They just charge in and get their heads ripped off.
Every week it's the same damn thing.  It's -stupid-."
        Kozue folded her arms.  "Well, it's not supposed to be -art-,"
she replied.  "It's just entertainment.  Turn your brain off and watch
the robots beat on each other."
        Corwin opened his mouth to lodge some further objection, but
then the garish title card and blaring theme music splashed across the
TV again, heralding the return of the show, and he subsided in the
name of peace.  He did have to admit that one of the two commentators
was pretty funny.  The ditzy blonde who did the floor reporting was
irritating - did cultural norms -never- expire anymore? - but color
commentary on robot battles from Mark "Haywire" Luchini couldn't help
but be entertaining, even if the fights themselves were outrageously
fake.
        Toward the end of the show came the obligatory Big Moment,
when the current champion - Kasshu, of course - faced off against the
winner of this week's challenge rounds and proceeded to dismantle his
machine with extreme prejudice.  Corwin decided that if he had to
watch this, he might as well have some -fun- with his unimpressedness.
        Kozue caught him mumbling mockingly along with the Standard
Kasshu Rant ("This HAND of mine glows with an AWESOME POWER!") and
elbowed him, but she was unable to suppress a giggle, all the same.
        "What a -loser- that guy is," Corwin grumbled as the credits
rolled.  "Even his -posturing- is canned."  He got up from the couch
and struck a Dramatic Pose.  "This HAND glows with a MIGHTY POWER!
The VOICES in my HEAD tell me to DESTROY you!!  PAUL IS DEAD!  HAIL
SATAN!  OZZY RULES OK!!"
        Kozue laughed her way off the couch, then picked herself up
and punched him in the shoulder.  "Smartass," she remarked, switching
off the TV.
        "'Mobile Fighter Champion Domon Kasshu'," Corwin muttered,
shaking his head.  "What a crock.  It's too bad he'd never agree to a
real fight.  I'd like to show him how a -real- MechWarrior does
business sometime."
        "What-EVER," said Kozue sarcastically.  "Sorry I brought it UP
already.  How was your date?"
        "Same as it ever was," Corwin replied, yawning.  "We spent
most of it at Aunt Bell's; she and Uncle Keiichi let Kate and her band
use the garage to rehearse in."
        "Sheesh.  They're -still- not allowed to practice on campus?"
        "Nope.  Noise regs, and NIT doesn't have a performing arts
building."
        "What about Hotohori U?"
        "Kate can't get a key over there, she's not a student."
        "I don't understand why she doesn't go there instead of Tech,"
Kozue said as she climbed up the ladder to her top bunk.  "NIT doesn't
even have a music program.  She must be going crazy without an
orchestra to run."
        "She wants to get the electrical engineering piece first,"
Corwin replied as he changed for bed.  "If she's still sane when she
graduates, then she'll go over to Hotohori and start over in the
conservatory, I bet."
        "Has anybody pointed out that if she does that, she'll have to
live in a dorm -again- as a first-year student?" asked Kozue with a
giggle.
        "I'll bet you anything they all move off campus the -instant-
they're allowed to this summer," Corwin said.  "Utena's about ready to
kill her floor's RA, and that's not even -counting- all the problems
they've had with the Office of Student Housing."
        "No kidding.  I saw Miki's dorm room last month, remember?
After the Castle, that must be a hell of a come-down."
        "Ah, well.  They say that kind of experience builds
character," Corwin said philosophically.  "At least his roommate's not
Psycho Boy like Saionji's was.  Anyway, if they do move off campus and
establish residency in Nekomikoka, then Kate will be able to enroll as
a commuting student when she switches to Hotohori U."
        "Oooh, good point.  You'd probably better remind her of that,
just to make sure she does it."
        "I don't think we have to worry about that.  Won't be too much
longer before Anthy puts a curse on the Student Housing people."
        "Man.  When Anthy loses her patience, you know it's bad.  No
wonder she almost always comes -here- on Saturdays nowadays.  Speaking
of, when's she getting in?"
        "We're actually going to Cephiro this weekend.  Now that she
and Aunt Bell have her car running reliably, she wants to drive down
the Coast Road to Mitsumaru, like we did the first time."
        "Oh.  Well, that's cool."
        "What about you?" Corwin asked as he climbed into bed and
switched off the light.
        "Me 'n the girls are going shopping," Kozue replied.  "Maybe
see a movie.  I hear the new Crimson Lizard flick's pretty good."
        "There's a new Crimson Lizard movie out?  Damn!  Well, I know
what we're doing -next- Friday... "
        "Utena likes the Crimson Lizard?" Kozue asked skeptically.
        "It's more that she likes Kojiro Akechi," Corwin replied,
chuckling.  "She likes Kanna's style.  -I- like the Crimson Lizard."
        "Like father, like son," Kozue remarked airily.
        "Not like -that-," Corwin protested, then added thoughtfully,
"though she wouldn't have to put a gun to my head... "
        "I'd throw a pillow at you, but you'd make me come down after
the damn thing, and I just don't have the energy... "

                       FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2408
                        NEKOMIKOKA, TOMODACHI

        Skuld Ravenhair's cottage on Technology Drive was one of Utena
Tenjou's favorite places.  It had been ever since the summer of 2405,
which she'd largely spent there, studying for her starship master's
certificate exam.  She'd spent two very tense weeks there in the
spring of 2406 - it hardly seemed possible that that had been less
than two years ago - waiting for word of Corwin's Trial of Ascension.
And since last September, it had been her prime sanctuary when living
on campus at the Nekomi Institute of Technology just got to be too
damn much, which was about every third day.
        It helped that Skuld was one of her favorite people, and she
was one of Skuld's.  The cheerful goddess of technology, Norn of
Tomorrow, always had some neat project or other going on, and she was
always glad to welcome Utena.  Lately she'd been teaching the younger
girl carpentry, a skill she'd learned from the dwarven master
woodworkers of Vanaheim during a long-ago cooperative exchange
program, and to which Utena was taking with considerably more facility
than her more mechanically-minded teacher ever had.
        Thus, it felt considerably more like coming home when Utena
and Corwin went back to the cottage after their movie than it ever did
going back to the cramped, dreary dorm room she shared with Anthy back
on the NIT campus - not least because Skuld was waiting with ice
cream.  This was a trick that Anthy couldn't manage, since there
wasn't room in their cell for anything bigger than a soda cooler.
Certainly there was no place for a freezer big enough to keep ice
cream in.
        "We have -got- to get our own place.  It's getting to the
point where we can't wait for summer just so that we can have our room
on the -Valiant- back, and that's not exactly a suite at the
Monolith," Utena groused as she plunked onto Skuld's couch with a bowl
of Cherry Garcia in hand.
        "Hey, at least you're actually rooming together," Corwin
noted.  "For a while there it didn't look like they were even going to
let you do that."
        Utena palmed her face.  "Oh, don't -remind- me.  You know, I
really thought Anthy was going to hit that woman."
        Skuld looked faintly puzzled.  "Which woman would that be?"
        "The one in the Student Housing office who gave her the
patient look and said, 'Well, you're not -really- married, dear,' when
Anthy went down and asked for a room reassignment."
        "I didn't hear about that part!" said Skuld indignantly.  "All
I heard was that they'd put you in separate rooms."
        "Separate -dorms-," Corwin corrected his mother.  "On opposite
sides of campus.  Anthy was originally in Abercrombie."
        "Mm-hmm, and then when she finally did persuade them to let us
room together, they moved -her- to -my- room rather than the other way
around," Utena said.  "I'm sure that was deliberate.  You know how
much smaller the double rooms are in Kurahone."
        Skuld blinked.  "Why, that - why didn't you say anything?  I'd
have gone down there and broken some heads, and so would Bell and
Keiichi.  That's just not -right-!"
        "I wanted to, but Anthy said she didn't want to make it look
like we were getting special treatment because of our ties to some of
the faculty.  Anyway, it's only for a year, and it's half over now -
we'll survive.  We could have it worse; Miki and Moose are sharing a
room almost identical to ours, and Moose just about takes up his half
all by himself."
        Skuld smiled evilly.  "Want me to build you a dimensional
superimposition modulator?  A little bit of void locking and a
harmonic coupler by the door, and you could have all the room you want
in there."
        Utena snickered.  "Tempting," she said, "but we might get in
trouble with Plant Services.  Anyway, like I say, it's only for this
year.  If we had to go back there this fall, sure, but... "  She
shrugged, grinning.  "I have a plan."
        "Oh?" asked Skuld, leaning forward with a conspiratorial look.
        Utena looked around, then said confidentially, "I'll tell you
about it later."
        "You better!" Skuld replied with a wink.  Then she noticed the
time on the wall clock and said, "Ah!  It's time!"
        Before either of her guests could ask, "Time for what?" Skuld
had plopped down on the couch between them and switched on the TV - 
        - to the overblown opening music and cheesy graphics of
"Mobile Fighter G-Gundam".
        "Oh, -no-," Corwin grumbled.  "Mom, I -hate- this show."
        "Oh, hush," Skuld replied, patting his knee.  "I grant you it
isn't 'Today in Science', but I think it's fun."
        Corwin made a give-me-strength gesture with both hands; Utena
laughed, reached across Skuld's back and patted his shoulder as he
slumped into his end of the sofa.
        "Oh, hey, viewer mail," said Skuld cheerily.  She turned up
the volume a bit.
        "Before we get started this week," said the very good-looking
young woman on the screen (a graphic hovering at the bottom indicated
that her name was Rain and she was Domon Kasshu's manager), "we've
received a letter that Mr. Kasshu wanted to address on the air."
        The black-haired, overly intense man next to her - "G-GUNDAM
CHAMPION DOMON KASSHU", the graphic said - nodded gravely and turned
his scowling face to the camera.
        Domon Kasshu was a humanized Cheltari Salusian in his
mid-forties - early adulthood, the Salusian equivalent of the human
early twenties.  He was tall and wiry but broad-shouldered, with thick
black hair that would have hung to his shoulders if it hadn't been
wire-stiff and spiky.  As it was, his black-furred primary ears almost
disappeared in it, making a lot of people fail to realize he was
Salusian at first.  He kept it out of his eyes with a red band across
his forehead.
        His face was lean and a bit hard-looking, though that was
undoubtedly exaggerated by the fact that he nearly always looked angry
when he appeared on TV.  There was an X-shaped scar on his right
cheek, though Corwin couldn't tell from here if it was real or an
affectation, like the eyepatch Haywire wore for no good reason when
voicing over the show.  He had black eyes that were a bit small for
his face, but overall he was a decently presentable guy, and when he
wasn't fighting he always dressed the same, in hiking boots, jeans,
fingerless gloves, and a grey medium-weight jacket that looked like it
had seen better days, all under a long red cloak.
        "That's right," he said, anger charging his voice with an
undertone.  He held up a piece of paper in one half-gloved hand.
"'Dear Mr. Kasshu,'" he read.  "'I love your show and watch it every
week, but I have a problem.  My -boyfriend-,'" (Kasshu pronounced
'boyfriend' as though it were a word with roughly the same meaning as
'cretin') "-doesn't- like the show.'"
        Corwin snorted.  "Good for him," he said, earning a "Shh!"
from his mother.
        "'He says it's all -fake-,'" Kasshu read on, becoming more
visibly annoyed as he went.
        "(It -is-,)" Corwin muttered.
        "(Shh!)" said Skuld.
        "'He also says that none of the Mobile Fighters have any grasp
of robot tactics - '"
        "(They -don't-.)"
        "(Shh!)"
        "' - and that you're a -loser-!'" Kasshu snarled, nearly
crumpling the paper.
        "(You -are-.)"
        "(Shh!)"
        "'He says it's too bad you'd never agree to a real fight,
because he'd like to show you how a -real- MechWarrior does business
sometime,'" Kasshu went on, and suddenly all the color drained out of
Corwin's face.
        "Oh, no," he murmured.  "No, no, she didn't - "
        "'Anyway,'" Kasshu finished, his tone backing away from the
peak of wrath he'd been at a moment before, "'love the show, and good
luck against Crockett next week.  Yours sincerely, Kozue Kaoru.'"
        "BWAH!" said Utena and Skuld together.
        Corwin made an incoherent moaning sound best spelled
"Ohhhnnnngggg."
        "Well, Kozue," said Kasshu, his eyes burning with anger as he
leaned toward the camera, "let me tell you this: If your boyfriend
thinks my fights are fixed, he's wrong - DEAD wrong.  And if he wants
to take me on, then bring him on!  Before you and everyone in our
viewing and studio audiences, I -accept- his challenge!"

                       SUNDAY, JANUARY 20, 2408
                         WORLD WIDE BUILDING

        "I can't believe you did that," said Corwin grumpily as he
stir-fried lunch.
        "What?" said Kozue, trying and failing to look innocent with
her hands behind her back.  "You said you wanted to fight him."
        "I did not!" Corwin snapped.
        "Yes you did."
        "Well, I didn't -mean- it."  He sighed and poured on the
sauce, vanishing briefly in a cloud of steam.  "What a dumb way to
spend a Friday afternoon."
        "Dumber than playing rugby in a hailstorm?" Kozue asked with
an impish grin.
        "That was fun!" Corwin protested; then he looked thoughtful
and said, "I suppose you did kinda have to be there, though."
        "So are you just not gonna show up?" Kozue wondered.  "I mean,
it's not like he's gonna come after you if you don't."
        "I dunno.  I don't feel right about cutting out, even though
you -did- commit me without my permission," he added with heavy
wryness.  "But I dunno.  I mean, I don't even have anything in that
tonnage class!  I can hardly show up with Big O and say 'OK, let's
boogie.'"
        "Sure you do."
        Corwin raised an eyebrow.  "I do?"
        "Sure.  That big grey thing you use to move stuff around down
in the hangar complex."
        Corwin slapped his forehead.  "That old junker?  Kozue, I use
that as a forklift for a -reason-.  It barely runs, it's got no
weapons - it was never much good when it was -new-!"
        Kozue shrugged.  "So?  You've got a whole -week-."
        Corwin stirred the bubbling mix of meat and sauce, his
expression slowly changing from perplexed to thoughtful.
        Then he cracked a little smile and said, "That's true... "

        Throughout the next school week, Corwin had that preoccupied
intensity about him which all his friends and most of his enemies knew
meant he was working on a project - a big one.  He spent every free
minute of the first two days of the week scribbling furiously with
broad-tipped black marker on a big drawing pad, the brand on his
forehead glowing from time to time.  This process came to an end at
lunchtime on Wednesday (to the applause of all the others at his usual
lunch table when he signed his name with a grand flourish and clapped
the pad shut), and as soon as school was out, the actual -work- began.
        For some of that work, he needed a crew, and when he put out
the call, they came.  His mother came from Tomodachi, and she brought
with her a gang of well-wishers, most of them more or less unskilled
but all willing to pitch in.  A good portion of the Tomodachi
Duelists' Federation blew off their classes on Thursday as the work
carried on.
        It was a fun change of pace, for all that it was pretty hard
work.  It went on in a kind of party atmosphere as Corwin's Aunt Bell
and Anthy Tenjou, shaved-ice-maker extraordinaire, kept the
refreshments flowing and a portable stereo rig filled the hangar bay
with Kaitlyn's music.  By Thursday evening, they'd done about all they
could do.  Corwin thanked them all for their help and then retired to
sleep off the effort.
        The word went out on the Internet, reaching to all the group's
various allies and friends around the galaxy and beyond.  On
Tomodachi, on Jeraddo, in New Avalon, around the IPO's far-flung bases
and starships, even in Asgard and Alfheim, a great many TiVos were
instructed to record the next evening's "G-Gundam" episode.  In
Cephiro, where Midgardian TV had yet to arrive, plans were made to
leave for Tomodachi the instant Friday's classes were over.
        Everybody at Fritz Koopman Memorial High School knew about it
Friday morning, and Corwin was greeted with applause and well-wishers
wherever he went.  He took it with graceful good humor (and the
occasional wry scowl at Kozue), until, walking down the hall past the
office between classes, surrounded by a group of cheering freshmen, he
suddenly found himself confronted by the bald and scowling figure of
Principal Strickland.
        "Mr. Ravenhair," Strickland said, sounding (as he always did)
unimpressed.  "I understand you're going to appear on 'Mobile Fighter
G-Gundam' this evening."
        Corwin stopped; the freshmen dispersed like roaches in a
suddenly-lit kitchen, all pretending they didn't see the principal and
hadn't been near Corwin, let alone making a lot of noise on his
behalf.
        "Uh... yessir," Corwin replied.
        Strickland nodded gravely.  "Well.  Keep in mind that you're
representing this school out there.  Don't do anything to embarrass
us, and I -don't- mean just losing.  I trust I can rely on you to be
honorable and sportsmanlike."
        Corwin nodded.  "Yessir," he repeated.
        Strickland eased his fierce scowl a bit, which was his version
of a smile.  "All right, then.  I'll be watching.  Good luck."
        Corwin blinked.  Strickland was going to watch the show?!
"Uh... thank you, sir.  I'll do my best."
        The principal nodded.  "See that you do."  He reached into his
pocket as the bell rang, scribbled on a pass, tore it from the pad,
and handed it to Corwin.  "When Mr. Elliott gives you trouble - "
(Corwin suppressed a grin as he noted that Strickland hadn't said
"if") "- give him this."
        Corwin tucked the pass into his shirt pocket.  "You know he'll
call it in," he observed.
        This time Strickland actually did smile, just a little, his
eyes twinkling.
        "Of course.  I'm looking forward to it," he said.  Then he
resumed his customary scowl, nodded curtly, turned, and went back into
the office.  Corwin looked after him through the glass door and
noticed Mrs. Bonis, the elderly office secretary, giving him a grin
and a thumbs-up.  He smiled, waved, and went to his next class.

                       FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 2408
                        NEW AVALON BATTLEDROME

        Rain Mikamura sighed to herself as she walked through the
corridors of the Battledrome's office complex.  She liked Domon
Kasshu, she really did.  She acknowledged that he was kind of a jerk
at the best of times, but he -did- possess a sense of humor, and he
could be very kind under the right circumstances...
        ... but for the last few months, she had come to suspect that
his success on TV was going to his head.  He was becoming something of
a prima donna, like many fighting champions at the top of their game.
There had been a time, when they'd been starting out on the Outer Rim
with nothing but his martial arts training, her mechanical skills, and
a second-hand GM, that he'd been focused on being a great fighter
rather than being a famous one.  He'd always been gruff and
undemonstrative, it was part of his personality, but he'd at least
sometimes acknowledged that he was grateful for all the help Rain gave
him.
        Now, she was starting to wonder why she stayed.
        She put the thought out of her mind, pushed the door to the
conference room open, and went in to meet the new challenger.  In the
doorway, she paused in surprise.
        He was, she thought, a very handsome young man, but what
really pulled her up short was that he was so -young-.  He had to be
in high school, maybe sixteen years old, maybe younger.  And, she
noted, he was alone.  That might be a problem.
        He stood up as she entered, smiling.  Though not tall for his
age, he was quite broad-shouldered, and the hand he extended to her
was big and powerful-looking.  He looked a little like Domon, with his
thick, unruly black hair, but Domon's hair was longer and didn't have
that white shock in front, and this guy's build was sturdier and his
face more open and friendly, with a smile that reached his clear blue
eyes.
        Be still my heart, thought Rain wryly as she shook his hand.
"I'm Rain, Mr. Kasshu's manager," she said.  "You must be our new
challenger?"
        Corwin nodded.  "Corwin Ravenhair," he said.
        Rain blinked.  "Corwin... Ravenhair?" she repeated.  "-The-
Corwin Ravenhair?  Gryphon's son, chief engineer of the Valiant?"
        Corwin looked a little embarrassed as he rubbed at the back of
his neck with one hand.  "Eh... yeah.  That's me.  So you've, uh,
heard of me, huh."
        Rain recovered her composure and smiled.  "I read the
Cornet-Scientifer," she told him.  "I know all about your work on
Titan.  You know the robot you used for that battle doesn't meet our
regulations... "
        Corwin laughed.  "Sure, no problem."  He reached into the
breast pocket of his dark blue flannel shirt and tossed her a data
crystal.
        Rain sat down, gesturing him to follow suit, and slotted the
crystal into a reader built into the table.  Immediately, a
holographic image of Corwin's new machine rezzed up in the air above
the crystal reader.  Rain raised an eyebrow and looked across the
image at Corwin's grinning face.
        "Are you sure you want to take on Shining Gundam with this?"
she asked.  "Knowing who you are now, I can almost believe you might
be pilot enough to take on Domon, but with -this-?"
        Corwin's grin was easy and cheerful as he replied, "Sure.  No
problem."
        "Listen, there's something you need to understand," said
Rain as she removed the crystal and passed it back across the table
to its owner.  "You're wrong about the show - the fights aren't fake.
I grant you that a lot of the opposition Domon gets isn't up to the
challenge, which makes it look easy, but nothing is ever rigged.  And
you made him pretty angry with some of the comments your girlfriend's
letter quoted.  I'm not saying he'll come after you on purpose - he's
an honorable fighter, he wouldn't deliberately injure an opponent -
but even so, you might get hurt."
        Corwin nodded.  "I know.  Actually, I'm glad - if you had told
me that it really was rigged, I'd be heading out the door right now.
I'm only interested in a real match."
        "You'll have to sign a release - how old are you?"
        "15," Corwin replied, "but I make my own decisions."  He
pushed up a sleeve and showed her his wristwatch, which imprinted the
telepathic knowledge that he was a Lensman on her consciousness, and
she understood and nodded.
        "All right.  Is your machine ready to go?"
        "My crew started unloading as soon as we got here and your pit
guys showed them where to go."  He concentrated on his Lens for a
moment, then nodded as if to himself and said, "We'll be ready to go
as soon as I'm finished here."

        The crowd at the Battledrome that Friday could sense that
something was up.  For one thing, the show wasn't following its usual
format; the preliminary fights weren't the normal elimination rounds
leading to a clash with the champion.  This was billed as a special
exhibition episode, which led to a lot of flashy stunts as the prelim
fighters didn't bother saving anything for later.
        The audience ate up the change of pace, and the instant
returns on the TV ratings indicated that it wasn't doing any harm to
the broadcast viewership either.  In the control room, the show's
producer jotted a note to himself to investigate making this sort of
thing a regular part of the series, to keep things spiced up and
interesting.
        After the last commercial, they ran the video from the
previous week of Kasshu reading Kozue's letter and accepting the
challenge implied in it.  Then they cut live to the Battledrome
fighting floor.
        For the final match, the Battledrome's five-acre main battle
floor had been configured to resemble a war-torn city, with
semi-ruined buildings, abandoned vehicles, and rubble-strewn streets.
Overhead, the holographic ceiling showed a nighttime skyscape complete
with the reddish glow of distant fires - the part of the "city" which
was only a horizon projection was "on fire."
        Domon Kasshu, tall, thin, and dressed in his usual battle
costume, stood on top of one of the low square buildings, his arms
folded, his red cloak blowing in the simulated wind.  Next to the
building, in the street, knelt his much-modified Gundam (which had
started life as a stock Wedge Defense Force RX-78, many years ago),
cockpit hatch open, fusion plant at idle, waiting.
        "I am the Mobile Fight Champion, Domon Kasshu," intoned the
red-caped figure as the main hovercam pulled in for a tight close-up
of his narrow, angry face.  "I stand here today in answer to an
anonymous challenge.  My opponent's face and name are not important to
me.  He says my fights are -fake-.  He says I'm not a real robot
pilot.  Well, we'll see about -that-."  Turning to face to the west,
he raised his voice in a shout that was amplified by the broadcast
gear and rang throughout the Battledrome on the PA system.  "Are you
ready to face me?"
        In the cockpit of his specially prepared battle machine,
Corwin rolled his eyes, then thumbed his push-to-talk.  "Whenever
you're done beating your chest."
        "Oooooh," said the studio audience; but, to their surprise,
Kasshu smiled, his face magnified for them by a subdisplay of the
holographic sky.
        "All right then," he said wryly.  Then he snapped his fingers
dramatically and cried, "RISE, SHINING GUNDAM!"
        The Gundam quivered; then the whir of its powerplant's cooling
system spooled up to a more audible register as the machine came to
operational readiness.  It rose to its feet, and as it straightened,
Kasshu jumped from the rooftop into the machine's open cockpit, which
hissed shut behind him.  The robot finished standing, its optics
flashing.
        "Ladies and gentlebeings!" blared the voice of Mark "Haywire"
Luchini over the PA system.  "Your Mobile Fight Champion's challenger
has asked that his identity not be revealed until the end of the
fight.  Well, if that's the way he wants it, please welcome the
mysterious pilot of OLLLLLLLD EXTERRRMINATORRRRR!  WOOHOOOO!  Let's
get this party STARTED!  READY?  GO!!"
        Corwin set his machine in motion, and smiled wryly at the
shower of mostly boos which descended upon him.  When he emerged from
the tunnel at the west side of the arena and into the light, he smiled
a little wider at the sudden change in tone that swept over the
audience as they got a good look at his ride - the boos replaced by
the buzz of conversation as those in the audience who knew something
about battle robot history explained what the hell it was to those who
didn't.
        Given the sort of sporting event they were watching, a good
number of the people in the stands -did- know the history of the
machine Corwin was riding, and as they explained it to those who
didn't, a not-inconsiderable number of laughs started floating down
from the hundred thousand seats arranged in a great shadowy ring above
the Battledrome's perimeter.
        For his part, Corwin was trying not to laugh at his opponent.
He knew that the Mobile Fighters' units were all equipped with the
Mobile Trace control system, which Corwin regarded as the stupidest
way of controlling a giant robot yet invented, for both practical and
aesthetic reasons.  The practical reason was that he regarded any
control system which left the pilot unsecured, to rattle around in the
cockpit like a hex nut in a coffee can, as stupid.
        The aesthetic reason was that MT-equipped machines went
through the -goofiest- poses as the data film was forcibly stretched
over the pilot's body by the control ring.
        (That was another thing that was dumb about it.  There were
-way- better means of applying a data film - stretching it down over
the pilot's head like that was both inefficient and, so he had heard,
exceedingly uncomfortable.  He figured it was another way for the
Mobile Fighters to show how macho they were or something.)
        None of that for -him-.  When he'd rebuilt Old Exterminator,
he -had- replaced most of the cockpit fixtures, but it wasn't to put
in a system like that.  Instead, the machine sported a cockpit
arrangement like a miniature version of Big O's, complete with the
ring-tracked joysticks and banked controls, though the command
pedestal was inside a small spherical holotank instead of Big O's
enormous monitor-lined chamber.
        Let 'em laugh, he thought as he thumbed Old Exterminator's
primary weapons online.  They'll be singing a different tune in a
little while... 

        Domon Kasshu stared at his opponent's image in his
full-surround holographic combat display and couldn't believe his
eyes.  It couldn't be, it simply -couldn't- be, but it -was-.
        It was a -Zaku-, a three-hundred-year-old Zeon freaking ZAKU
TWO, in all its burly, rounded, spike-shouldered, one-eyed glory,
marching out of the challenger's tunnel into the Battledrome.  It
wasn't even a particularly nice-looking Zaku; its armor was painted
mostly a shabby matte grey, like a primer coat that no one had had
time to apply the real paint over, with some equally shabby black on
the center section.  It carried a drum-magazined autocannon in its
left hand, and as it advanced, its single glowing green optic tracked
from side to side in the dark slot of its "face".
        "A ZAKU?!" Domon blurted.  Then his face darkened into a
fierce scowl.  "This guy's making FUN of me!  Well, we'll see how
funny he thinks it is in a MINUTE!"

/*  Killing Joke  "Millennium" (Juno Reactor remix)  _Millennium_  */

        So saying, he threw Shining Gundam into a dead run, charging
down the "main street" toward his lumbering grey opponent.  As he
charged, he ran one eye over the holographic readout of his enemy
analysis system, which informed him that his opponent was an MS-06J
Zaku II, the mass-produced ground combat type, circa 2105.  Not being
able to fly wouldn't be a huge disadvantage here in the enclosed (if
huge) space of the Battledrome, but the J-type couldn't even -jump-
all that far.  One more advantage for Shining Gundam - not that it
would -need- another.
        "A-HAAAA!" Kasshu roared, drawing one of his Gundam's beam
sabers and bringing it down in a great sweeping arc which would
relieve the Zaku of its head and left arm while leaving the cockpit
intact.
        Except... 
        ... it wasn't there.
        " - wha?!" Kasshu blurted as his saber neatly cleaved a
crescent-edged section out of one of the burned-out building shells.
He stopped Shining Gundam without colliding with the building, then
pivoted, scanning his surroundings -
        Suddenly cannon fire began exploding against the Shining
Gundam's armor, blanketing the blue-and-white machine in small
fireballs.  To Kasshu, thanks to his unit's Mobile Trace control
system, it felt like he had just stepped into the line of fire of a
very angry automatic tennis volleyer.
        "Argh!  Dammit!" he snarled, raising his arms instinctively to
protect his face.  He took two steps back, felt the building across
the street against his back, and peered through the flashes of the
exploding cannon shells to see the grey Zaku half a block to the east,
raking him with its autocannon.
        Kasshu jumped to the right, kicking his Gundam's boosters to
help him with the slide out of the Zaku's line of fire, then returned
fire with Shining Gundam's forearm-mounted beam cannon.  The blast
tore across the building next to the Zaku, throwing up a cloud of
concrete dust; just before it reached the grey machine itself, the
Zaku faded back and turned to present its right-shoulder-mounted
shield panel.  The beam slashed across the panel, raising a glowing
scar on the metal, but didn't penetrate; and then, with a squirt from
the ground-maneuver thrusters in its lower legs, the Zaku was gone.
        "Damn!" Kasshu spat.  "He's hopped that Zaku up some.  It's
not supposed to be able to move that fast."  He set the Shining Gundam
in motion again, walking carefully forward down the street, alert for
any sign of his opponent.

        For Corwin's part, he was rather impressed.  It seemed this
Kasshu guy might be a real fighter - what the old-time WDF Destroid
jockeys called a MechWarrior - after all.  His preliminary read on
Shining Gundam's power characteristics was surprising too, considering
that the machine was basically used as a sideshow attraction.  That
particle beam had been for real, though, and Old Exterminator's
primary shield was down to about two-thirds integrity as a result.  He
was fast, too, fast enough that getting out of his way before that
saber strike came down had taken real work.
        Corwin smiled, flexing his fingers around the Zaku's
joysticks.  This was going to be more fun than he'd expected.
        So much the better!

        "I just can't believe it!" crowed Haywire, WDF fighter ace and
"Mobile Fighter G-Gundam" color commentator.  "The Mysterious
Challenger's driving a ZAKU?!  Man, I remember the One-Year War.  What
a friggin' slaughter!  The Zeons had like four good pilots and the
only decent equipment they had was this one Super Valkyrie they stole
from a repair depot.  And their UNIFORMS!  You shoulda seen the -
what?  OK, OK, jeez, just trying to give a little background
information.  Anyway, it looks like our Mobile Fighter Champion isn't
gonna have much trouble with - WHOA!  What the F*** was THAT?"

        "That" was the result of the action Corwin had taken after
he'd ducked Old Exterminator away from Kasshu's beam barrage.
        "Zaku Wing!" he ordered, and the neurovocal systems selector
switched in one of the experimental systems he'd installed a prototype
of in the old beast.  The Zaku briefly disappeared in a cloud of grey
smoke, and when it emerged, it sported what looked like a cloak of
heavy grey fabric, shrouding its heavy body and whipping in the
slipstream as the machine leaped into the air.
        Corwin grinned as he felt the flex-metal anti-gravity matrix
work, lightening the old Zaku's effective mass to the point where its
puny ground-assist thrusters could not only propel it aloft but keep
it there indefinitely.  The cloak also incorporated elements of the
tried-and-true Zentraedi Inertia-Vector control system, giving him a
good deal of aerial maneuver control.
        He touched down lightly on the flat top of a hotel, kicked
off, and dropped into the street behind the Shining Gundam, raking the
blue-and-white machine's aft armor with his autocannon - just to get
his attention, you understand... 
        Domon Kasshu cursed and spun his Gundam around, his Mobile
Trace plugsuit stinging his back where the machine's armor had been
pocked by the Zaku's 120mm hi-ex shells.  He slashed his beam cannons
across the street again, but the Zaku disappeared like a ghost,
darting straight up into the air out of the cloud of concrete dust
which exploded up where the Gundam's beams tore into the street.
        It was a partial victory for Kasshu, though; out of the dust
cloud blossomed an orange-red explosion as one of the beams tagged the
Zaku's cannon magazine and cooked the weapon off.
        "Oops," Corwin muttered as Old Exterminator touched down and
knelt on the roof of another neighboring building.  He glanced at the
Zaku's left hand, saw that it was undamaged except for a bright scar
on the vambrace armor, and nodded.  Almost lost a hand on that one;
Kasshu's got good reaction time and good aim, too.
        He raised the Zaku to its feet and considered his options.  He
hadn't had time to fit Old Exterminator with any reliable ranged
energy weapons, and with the autocannon destroyed, Shining Gundam
outgunned him by a wide margin.  Best thing to do here would be to get
inside the particle beams' minimum safe range.  Close combat, that'd
be the ticket.
        He looked over the edge of the building and saw Shining Gundam
edging warily up the street, facing away, trying to figure out where
he'd gone.  Mobile Fighters weren't permitted to use anything other
than visual and visual-augmenting sensors (ultraviolet, thermographic,
and so forth), so the Gundam's pilot couldn't use radar to locate his
adversary - not that radar would do much good in the Battledrome's
simulated city environment anyway.
        Old Exterminator moved to the very edge of the roof, furled
its cloak around it, and stepped off.  It plummeted toward the street
with no braking of any kind, falling in the space of a few heartbeats
to less than half its own height above the street - then it flung the
cloak wide, energizing the anti-gravity matrix and firing its
thrusters on full at the same time.
        The gravity wave and thruster wash blasted a neat circle in
the rubble scattered across the street; the Zaku pulled up short as if
it were attached to a cable, stopped, went back -up- just the slightest
bit, and then the thrusters cut off and it fell the rest of the way
unimpeded, slamming to the street in a cloud of broken concrete with
its cloak settling stylishly around it.
        "HA!" Corwin cried, driving Old Exterminator ahead.  He flung
both joysticks forward, causing the Zaku to wrap its burly arms around
Shining Gundam from behind, pinning the Gundam's arms to its sides.
Then he jammed his heels down on the pedals, making the Zaku dig in
and halt its charge.  The joysticks quivered against his hands as he
levered the Gundam up and back, completely off its feet.
        Corwin didn't get to use this move often; he'd learned it from
Aeryn Stonefist, the Valkyrie close combat expert, in the course of an
afternoon which was imprinted on his memory as the most painful day
he'd ever been sorry to see end.
        He drove his heels down as hard as they would go, raising Old
Exterminator's arms with their fast-held burden at the same time, and
deliberately overbalanced the machine.  Both robots crashed down onto
the front of a shoe store, sending hiking boots flying in all
directions, but it was Shining Gundam's head and shoulders which took
the brunt of the impact.
        Kasshu impressed Corwin again with his toughness as he got his
Gundam to its feet in short order, though he noted that the machine
was bobbing and shaking its head in a rather comical impression of a
stunned fighter.  He got Old Exterminator up, set it, and charged.
        Shining Gundam faked another headbob, then suddenly whirled,
steam gushing from its cooling vents, and slammed a teeth-rattling axe
kick into the gap between Old Exterminator's spiked left pauldron and
its one-eyed turret head.  Corwin's grunt of discomfort as he was
flung against his seat harness was drowned out by the ear-ringing
metallic crash as the holosphere briefly fuzzed to static before
snapping back into focus.  Old Exterminator reeled, gyros and pilot's
balance sense both shocked, and plowed drunkenly into a bank.
        OK, thought Corwin, maybe close combat wasn't the best option
here... 
        Shining Gundam reached down, seized the Zaku by the connecting
strut of its right-shoulder pivoting shield, and hauled it upright.
        "You put up a pretty good fight for a punk in a Zaku, mystery
man," Kasshu's voice rang over the Mobile Fight comm band.  "Still
believe my battles are faked?"
        "Nope," Corwin replied cheerfully.  "I freely admit that I was
wrong about that part."
        Corwin considered his options and settled on the rocket
bazooka.  It had been the hardest piece of his Zaku's battle suite to
find, and for a while it looked like he would have to go without it,
but at the last moment, one of his sources had found a genuine intact
Zeon 280mm rocket bazooka, the standard issue J-type Zaku II heavy
weapon.  It had arrived in New Avalon barely in time, and had only one
round in its magazine.  God only knew what type it was, and Corwin
hadn't had time to ask Him or check for himself.
        "Well, old boy, we'll probably take some blast damage
ourselves," he muttered to the Zaku, "but it'll sure get him to back
off."
        He reached back under the Zaku Wing cloak, took hold of the
bazooka, and yanked it from its storage rack, swinging it into
position, aiming reticule lined up with the Zaku's monoptic.  Before
Kasshu could react other than to go "Holy - !" he'd drawn a point-
blank bead on the center point of the V on Shining Gundam's forehead.
        "However," Corwin added, "I -do- still have to show you how a
real MechWarrior does business!"
        With a little luck, I'll blow his head off, thought Corwin as
he pulled the trigger.  The cockpit's buried down in the center torso,
it won't hurt Kasshu any; they build these gladiator units expecting
stuff like that.
        If the shell's not a dud... 

        "Holy S***!" Haywire blurted, jumping to his feet.  "Look out,
Domon, this one's gonna HURT!"
        With a tremendous WHOOMP, both Mobile Fighters vanished in a
tremendous, boiling cloud of thick scarlet smoke.
        "... SMOKE?!" Haywire screamed, slamming a fist against the
klaster of the broadcast booth's panoramic window.  "What the F*** is
going ON down there?!  J**** C****!"
        (Back in the control room, the network censor, a woman with
considerable experience managing Haywire's dialogue, plied her beep
button with her usual consummate skill and idly considered asking the
network for a raise.)
        Down on the floor, Domon Kasshu reeled.  He couldn't see
forward, because there was something red smeared all over his Gundam's
optics, and his Mobile Trace interface had just given him the
remarkably accurate sensation of having been punched very hard, smack
in the middle of the forehead.  It took a few moments for it to sink
in that the red stuff was the residue of a smoke rocket's explosion.
        "A smoke round?  He had me dead to rights and he used a SMOKE
ROUND?"  He blinked rapidly, triggering Shining Gundam's automatic
optics cleaners, and shook his head to clear it.  The smoke, thick and
heavy, dissipated only slowly.  Kasshu moved his Gundam carefully down
the street, one beam saber drawn but not ignited, until he'd moved
out of the cloud; then he looked around and saw nothing.
        "Where the hell are you?!" he demanded of the tac band.
        "Right here!" the mystery man's voice replied.  He looked
around again, then tilted Shining Gundam's head back and looked up - 
        - and there was the grey Zaku, standing up at the corner of a
ten-story building like a man waiting at the curb for a bus, arms
folded across its barrel chest, its cloak - when did it get a cloak? -
flapping picturesquely in the Battledrome's artificial wind.
        "I gotta hand it to you, pal," Kasshu said with undisguised
admiration in his voice.  "You make that old Zaku look -cool-."
        "Have you got a line to the control booth?" Corwin replied.
        "I can open one.  Why?"
        "Because you're gonna have to ask the network for more
airtime," Corwin replied with a laugh, and then the Zaku turned and
leaped away, covering half a block in a single jump.
        Kasshu blinked, then laughed himself and kicked in Shining
Gundam's flight thrusters.  This was starting to get -good-.

             /*  Def Leppard  "Run Riot"  _Hysteria_  */

        This was the beginning of an exciting, high-mobility phase of
the battle which ran from one end of the Battledrome to the other,
leaving wrecked buildings and burning cars in its wake.  Corwin,
lacking any useful ranged weapons, ducked and dodged and used all of
Old Exterminator's enhanced mobility to stay out of the line of fire
of Shining Gundam's beam weapons.  For his own ranged attacks he
improvised, at one point performing a terrific running caber toss with
a bus which Kasshu barely intercepted with a beam saber in time to
avoid catching a face full of Crosstown Express.
        This phase of the fight went on for almost ten minutes, eating
well into the time slot for "At Home with the Blorxxs", but for once
the network didn't kick up a fuss - the executives had one eye on the
show itself and the other on the ratings, and they liked what they saw
with both.
        Finally, though, it came to an end.  Shining Gundam came
around a corner opening onto the wrecked faux city's central plaza,
and there was Old Exterminator, wielding a lamppost like a baseball
bat and striding into a letter-perfect swing for the fences that
smashed the Gundam's forearm-mounted beam projector like a beer can.
Sparks flickered over the crushed and ruined weapon; Kasshu snarled in
pain as his Mobile Trace suit lashed his own forearm.  The Gundam
opened up with its head-mounted machineguns, but their light slugs did
little but smear the Zaku's grey primer.
        Kasshu drove the Gundam forward, intending to grapple, but Old
Exterminator dropped its ersatz bat and leaped lightly back, crossing
the plaza and settling gracefully on the other side.  For a couple of
seconds, the two machines regarded each other silently across the
roughly-block-wide plaza.
        Then, as though a silent signal had passed between them, they
both set themselves.  Kasshu, still waiting to get some feeling back
into his right hand, drew a beam saber with his left.  The Zaku
reached behind its back, under its now tatter-edged cloak, with its
own left hand, and a moment later came out with a gleaming
single-bladed axe.
        "A Heat Hawk!" Kasshu exclaimed at the sight of the Zaku's
trademark close combat weapon.  The Heat Hawk, a kind of
high-temperature vibro-axe, was a devastating weapon in skilled hands,
capable of melting, crushing and cleaving armor all at the same time
and even dividing enemy units completely in half if the strike were
properly aimed... but it was still a metal weapon, and so it had one
great disadvantage.
        "You'll never stop a beam saber with that, my friend!" Kasshu
crowed, raising the weapon he'd just named in challenge.
        "Don't be so sure, Domon," Corwin replied, unable to keep the
grin out of his voice.
        Kasshu grinned himself, for he felt the tingling in his right
hand which meant that Shining Gundam's auto-repair systems had
recovered from the system shock to the arm's actuators.  The PBWs
wouldn't work again without shop repairs, but he could use the hand,
and that meant... 
        The Mobile Fight Champion flexed his unit's right hand in
anticipation, but just as he was drawing breath to speak, the Zaku's
pilot stole his thunder.  The ancient Zeon suit's thumb moved, pressed
down on a button, and the Heat Hawk began to glow with a bright... 
GREEN light??
        On the full public channel, heard by not only his opponent but
the audience in the stands, the controllers in the booth, and millions
of television viewers, Corwin declared grandly,
        "This AXE of mine glows with an AWESOME POWER!"
        Domon Kasshu felt his face beginning to glow itself as a
ripple of laughter roared across the live audience.
        "Its BURNING EDGE tells me to DEFEAT you!" Corwin continued,
setting the Zaku in a challenging pose and sweeping the glowing axe
across in a dramatic gesture, leaving a fading afterimage of green
radiance in its wake.  The Zaku surged into motion, much faster than a
Zaku was supposed to be able to move, and Kasshu - unable to keep a
continued grin from stretching his lips - spurred Shining Gundam
forward to meet it.
        "What do you know," he murmured to himself.  "Rain was right -
those lines really -do- sound silly when you're not the one saying
them."
        "Now, here I go!" Corwin continued as his mount pounded at top
speed across the plaza toward his fast-closing, saber-wielding foe;
and then, as they met in the center and Corwin brought the axe
sweeping around, he roared, "GETTER HAWK!"
        The two robots crossed each other's path with a tremendous
metallic WHANG and traveled a good twenty yards past each other.
Shining Gundam's left arm, from just above the elbow down, kept going
in the same direction as Old Exterminator, tumbling to the ground and
then skittering off across the cobbled courtyard, fingers still
twitching in time with the sparks spitting from the severed cables in
the cut-off end.
        Shining Gundam slowed, then stopped, blue-green lightning
crackling over the severed stub of its left arm.  Kasshu, teeth
gritted, forced down the pain, called up a holocontrol panel and cut
the left arm out of the control system so that his own left arm would
stop feeling like someone had just cut it off with a red-hot axe.  He
whirled the unit around, prepared to grab for his remaining beam
saber.
        Old Exterminator, twenty yards away, stumbled to a halt, then
fell to its knees and settled back into something like seiza.
Kasshu's forehead furrowed in puzzlement.  What was he doing?  Why was
the crowd howling in dismay like that?  Cautiously, wary of some
trick, he moved Shining Gundam around in an arc, coming around the
kneeling Zaku at a decently safe distance - and then he saw.
        His own strike hadn't been entirely futile.  It had failed to
return the favor by relieving the Zaku of its arm, but it had scored a
-more- telling hit.  There was a great smoking furrow torn in the
Zaku's side just above the waist rotator, a deep gouge exposing vital
inner parts and severing one of the external conduit hoses that ran
from the machine's belly reactor to its thruster backpack.
        Green lightning raced around the wound; occasionally it would
spike to exceptionally high levels, at which point the entire Zaku
would twitch spasmodically, faint curls of the same green energy
sputtering over its entire surface.  Its one emerald optic flickered
and dimmed in time with the pulses of power.
        Domon wasn't sure exactly what sort of reactor did -that- when
you cut into the side of it, but he wasn't about to argue.  He
understood now - the audience was howling in dismay because this fight
was effectively over, and most of them felt like the final clash had
been an anti-climax after the great build-up the battle had given
them.
        He could just shut down, climb out, and give a victory
speech... but this had been an honorable and skillful opponent, and he
deserved a truly glorious exit, not this ignominious twitching while
his reactor bled its power cells to death.
        "This hand of mine glows with an awesome power," he said, much
more softly than he normally did - speaking into the sudden hush that
had fallen on the crowd when he raised Shining Gundam's remaining
hand.  Building the energy up again for the audience, he went on, "Its
burning grip -tells- me to DEFEAT you!"
        "Oh, crap," muttered Corwin to himself as he frantically threw
switches and patched circuits in the cockpit of Old Exterminator.
        "Now, -here I go-!" Kasshu cried.  "SHINING FINGER!"
        Shining Gundam lunged forward, golden energy trailing from its
suddenly-blazing right hand, and seized the Zaku by the head, raising
it up from its crumpled seiza.  Smoke rose as the Gundam's burning
hand seared the Zaku's paint.  All Corwin could see was golden light,
as Old Exterminator's optic was looking straight at Shining Gundam's
palm.
        "Dammit," Corwin snarled.  "I'm NOT gonna lose like THIS!  Not
in front of everybody!  Not in front of -Mom-, not in front of
-Kozue-, not in front of -Utena-!"
        Up in Section 127-A of the Battledrome stands, Utena Tenjou
felt herself blush scarlet, and also realized she was holding her
breath.  Next to her, Skuld clenched a fist and stared with an almost
laserlike intensity at the twitching grey form of Old Exterminator.
She thought she knew what her son was up to in there, and if he could
pull it off... 
        Working with the speed and precision of a machine, he
completed the modification he was making to the power management
panel, and even as he did so, the power it had to manage suddenly
increased.
        The primary core modification he'd made to this old Zaku when
transforming it into Old Exterminator was to replace the fusion
reactor with the prototype for a new power system he'd devised, one
which used the semi-sorcerous power of Cephirean gaolith - G-stone,
the most potent natural source of Getter rays ever found - to generate
energy on a massive scale.  Those Getter rays and their mystic source
reacted to sentient emotions, and since G-stone was of Cephiro and
Corwin was that world's Pillar, its reaction was doubly strong.
        In response to his fierce desire for victory, Old
Exterminator's wounded GS-Ride reactor suddenly poured power into the
testbed Getter Zaku's systems.  Severed cables hanging from the gaping
wound in the robot's side twitched, writhed, and then jumped together
as if magnetized, weaving into each other and forming new traces and
junctions.  Energy flowed into the old Mobile Suit's limbs and weapons -
        - and it gushed through a new pathway just opened by Corwin's
modifications to the power panel.
        "Congratulations, mystery man," said Kasshu, his tone sincere.
"This has been the only really satisfying fight I've had in a year -
but now it's OVER!"  Tightening his Shining Finger grip on the Zaku's
head, he went on, "ARTICLE ONE of the Mobile Fight Regulations: A unit
whose head module is DESTROYED - is DISQUAL"
        "GETTER BEAM!" Corwin roared, overpowering Kasshu's triumphant
voice.  Mashing down both of his thumb triggers, he released the
energy that had been pouring into the system he had just modified.
        To Domon Kasshu, it felt like someone had just rammed a
red-hot poker into the palm of his hand.  A beam of brilliant green
energy erupted from the Zaku's monoptic, tore into the palm of Shining
Gundam's hand, and clawed its way straight up the arm, tearing,
melting, vaporizing gundarium alloy plating, reinforced titanium
chassis members, wiring, everything, clean up to the shoulder.
Shining Gundam reeled backward as its entire right arm literally
exploded from the inside out, scattering yellow-hot chunks of wreckage
all over the courtyard.
        Old Exterminator rose to its feet like a revenant rising from
the grave, the Getter Hawk in its left hand energizing again, green
lightning still sizzling around its fiercely-glowing monoptic.  While
Domon Kasshu clutched at his right shoulder and tried not to throw up,
the Zaku took a half-step back.
        Corwin Ravenhair's father hailed from the twentieth century,
as did a good many of his father's peers.  His mother was very fond of
twentieth-century culture herself, despite being the Norn of the
Future, and his aunt Urd, the Norn of the Past, practically still
lived there, er, then.  As a young man with that much twentieth-
century influence in his life who had a strong interest in swordplay,
he'd seen a particular movie many, many times, as had most of his
friends.  In addition, a particular adventure of his father's, of which
he had heard many times, included a reference to that same movie which
had itself become part of the galactic cultural background noise.
        It thus came as no surprise to anyone who knew him that Corwin
was unable to resist the temptation to shout, "There can be only ONE!"
as he relieved Shining Gundam of its head.
        In the sudden dead silence that permeated the arena, as the
beheaded, armless Gundam stood wobbling on its feet, the Zaku backed
away, stowing its Getter Hawk behind its back again.  Then, a decent
distance away, it composed itself into a respectful attitude, its
cloak falling tidily around it, and bowed to its defeated opponent.
        Shining Gundam wavered, teetered, and then toppled over
backward, crashing down in a huge cloud of dust.  The noise of its
impact, reverberating through the Battledrome, snapped the crowd out
of its reverie, and the cheers washed down over both combatants like
the sound of heavy surf.
        "I! DON'T! F***ING! BELIEVE IT!" Haywire bellowed over the PA
system.  "OLD F***ING EXTERMINATOR _WINS_!  F***ING _A_ MUTHAF***A!"

        Domon Kasshu climbed from the smoking wreckage of his Gundam,
his right arm still trying to decide whether to feel like it was on
fire or be numb.  He stood looking in blank-faced amazement at the
grey Zaku as a service elevator popped out of the street nearby and
Rain Mikamura came to his side with a medical tricorder in her hand.
        "Are you OK?" Rain asked him as she scanned him with the
tricorder.
        "Guh," Kasshu replied.  "My arm's still -numb-.  Who the hell
IS that guy?"
        "Do you really want to know?" Rain asked as she readied a
spray hypo.
        "Hell, yes," Kasshu said.
        Rain shot him in the arm with the spray hypo, and as he felt
the numbness recede in favor of considerable lingering pain and
gasped, wincing, she said blandly, "Corwin Ravenhair."
        Kasshu shook his head, looking at his crew chief/manager/doctor/ 
business partner in utter disbelief.
        "THE Corwin Ravenhair?" he demanded.  "Gryphon's son?  The
Atlas Killer?  The Scourge of Task Force Titan?!"
        "That's the one," said Rain, putting away her hypo.
        "You knew?"
        "Mm-hmm," replied Rain detachedly as she ran the tricorder
over the rest of him, looking for any hidden injuries.
        "And you let me fight him?  COLD?"
        "Mm-hmm," Rain repeated, prodding at the side of his head with
her fingertips.
        Kasshu caught her wrist in his good hand and looked her in the
eye.  "WHY?" he demanded.
        "Well, frankly, Domon," she snapped, "because you've been such
an -asshole- lately that I wanted to see you -lose-."
        Then, as he stood there gaping, completely astonished, she
turned her back and walked away into the elevator.

        He was still wearing the same sort of expression ten minutes
later, having showered and dressed in his street clothes again.  He
was sitting in the pilots' lounge, holding a cup of coffee, not really
watching the crowd disperse through the one-way klaster.  Judging by
the way Rain had lashed out at him, he must have been wearing on her
nerves for quite a while now, and he'd -never noticed he was doing
it-.
        Looking back, though, it was fairly obvious.  He'd been pretty
much ignoring her since she got him the Battledrome gig.  He'd been
pretty much ignoring -everything- since she got him the Battledrome
gig... 
        The door hissed open.  Kasshu turned, hoping it was Rain
coming to take his apology, and instead saw a smiling young man in his
mid-teens with jagged black hair, one silver shock in front jutting
out over a tattoo-circled forehead and laughing ice-blue eyes - Corwin
Ravenhair, just as he'd looked on the front page of the
Cornet-Scientifer summer before last, after he'd wasted that
Earthforce Destroid company on Titan, except he'd looked a lot more
serious in that photo.
        And by his side was a tall, slim, stunning girl with feathery
pink hair, blue eyes a few shades darker than his, and a bright
smile.  She looked familiar, but Domon couldn't place her.
        "Uh... hi," said Corwin, looking a little awkward under his
friendly smile.  "I don't want to bother you, I just wanted to come in
and say I'm sorry for the stuff I said.  You're the real thing.  That
was a great fight."  He held out a hand.  "No hard feelings?"
        Kasshu looked at the hand for a second as if not seeing it;
then he shook himself out of his reverie, took it, and pumped it
firmly.  "Sure," he said.  "After the whipping you gave me, where
would I get off holding a grudge about -that- stuff?"
        Corwin's grin lost its traces of uneasiness.  "Well, that's
good to know.  Oh, sorry - obviously you know who -I- am.  Domon
Kasshu, this is Utena Tenjou," he said, indicating the girl with him.
        "Nice to meet you," said Utena, shaking his hand in her turn.
Domon Kasshu blinked, recognition crossing his face like a shadow; he
held onto her hand after he'd finished shaking it, staring hard at her
with her his dark pinprick eyes.  Utena began to feel more than
vaguely uneasy; the expression had a lot of Saionji's old
"hyperfocused, and not in a good way" look to it.
        "Utena... -Tenjou-," said Domon Kasshu as it all fell into
place.
        Utena Tenjou, captain of the IPO Irregular Projects starship
Valiant.
        With that piece of the puzzle filled in for him, it hit Domon
like that smoke rocket to the forehead where he'd seen the name "Kozue
Kaoru" before; it had been nagging at his subconscious this whole
time, but he'd been too annoyed about the accusations leveled by the
mysterious boyfriend to give much thought to the identity of the girl
writing the letter.
        "I've been -had-," he said.
        And then, to Utena's immense relief, he threw back his head
and laughed.
        "Will you guys excuse me for a second?" he said.  "Wait right
here.  I have to go talk to somebody."
        "Uh - sure," Corwin replied.  "Listen - "
        The door opened again, and a silver-haired man in a suit (and
sunglasses, indoors, at night) came in, talking a solid stream around
the dead stub of a cigarette.
        "Domon, baby, that was fantastic.  And listen, I hope you
don't take this the wrong way, but I think it was really a good thing
that you lost - the show was getting predictable, you know?  Kid, that
Zaku of yours is really something!  When can you come back for the big
rematch?  Not for a couple three weeks, I wouldn't think, let 'em stew
for a while, but - "
        "Murray," said Domon in a quiet voice which nonetheless sliced
clean through the suit's stream of jabber, silencing him.
        "Uh... yeah, Domon?"
        Domon crossed the room, put a hand on the suit's shoulder,
looked him in the eye, smiled, and said, "I quit."
        "You WHAT?!" Murray blurted.  "Domon, baby, you can't DO that!
You've got a contract, you - "
        "Sue me," Kasshu replied, still grinning.  "Hey, maybe you can
hire the kid to take my place.  Now if you'll excuse me?"
        So saying, he slipped past the suit and disappeared into the
corridor.
        "Domon... " Murray whined, looking blankly at the inside of
the door.  Then he turned a weak smile to Corwin.  "Uh... how 'bout
it?"
        "No thanks," Corwin replied.

        By an odd coincidence, Rain Mikamura was in her office,
throwing stuff at random from her desk drawers into a Stor-All, having
just independently reached the same conclusion regarding her career.
She wasn't sure what she was going to do next, but what the hell; she
was a medical doctor rated for humans and Salusians, a qualified
Destroid mechanic, and not a bad pilot herself.  She could find
-something- to do.
        The door opened and there was Domon, showered, changed, and
looking... vaguely -amused- about something?
        He chuckled as he saw Rain cleaning out her desk.  "What're
you, psychic?"
        "What are you talking about?" Rain asked, her tone cool.
Then, her eyes flashing, she went on in a hotter tone, "Or do you mean
because you came here to fire me?  Well, you -can't- fire me,
Mr. Mobile Fight Champion, because I -quit-!"
        That opened the floodgates, and it was all downhill from
there.  Rain figured he was probably here to chew her out for setting
him up against Ravenhair without telling him, and for calling him an
asshole, and she wasn't prepared to have any.  She'd had enough of his
lousy attitude and his recent habit of ignoring her unless he needed
her to do, buy or fix something for him, and, with her stress level at
its peak, she wasn't shy about telling him so, either.
        He stood there and absorbed the barrage for a minute or so;
then, still smiling that same little smile (which she was too worked
up now to notice), he slowly crossed the office until he was standing
right in front of her, smiling down at her as she vented her
frustration upward into his face.
        Then, to her immense surprise, he grabbed the side of her face
with one of his lean, strong hands, tipped her chin up, bent down, and
silenced her by kissing her - hard.  Her rant was instantly cut off
in a sort of subvocalized exclamation point; her eyes flew wide open
in disbelief, then softened, then slipped shut.
        When he was done with that, Domon released her, walked around
her desk, and said offhandedly over his shoulder, "I just quit myself.
This place isn't good for me.  Why don't you finish packing and see if
you can find us a new place to keep our stuff?  I'm sure Murray will
throw us out as soon as he realizes I'm serious about quitting.  Oh,
and Shining Gundam's going to need a lot of repairs, so you'd better
order the parts.  When you're done with that, c'mon up to the lounge.
I'll be talking with Ravenhair."
        Rain, still a trifle disoriented, blinked and opened her mouth
to tell him that this kind of autocratic -bullshit- was -exactly- what
she'd just been telling him she was fed -up- with - when she noticed
the twinkle in his eyes and the ironic little grin on his lips,
understood, and burst out laughing.  Domon raised one hand in a
negligent little wave and swept out of the office.

        She found Domon in the lounge, right where he said he'd be,
with Corwin and a girl Rain instantly recognized as Utena Tenjou from
her picture on the famous "AYE AYE, CAP'N!" issue of the New Avalon
Cornet-Scientifer.  There were two other people there, too, only one
of whom Rain recognized.
        That one was Chibodee Crockett, the Mobile Fighter from New
New York and probably Domon's closest rival in terms of actual
fighting ability.  Chibodee had a personality that was much better
suited to the life of an arena fighter than Domon's; he was
flamboyant, a natural showman, with a demeanor that harkened back to
the charismatic boxers of the twentieth century.
        "Man," Crockett was saying as Rain entered the lounge.
"You're really quittin'?  I can't believe it.  I thought you'd stick
around until one of us regulars finally brought you down."  He
grinned.  "Always figured it'd be either me or Argo."
        Domon chuckled.  "In your dreams, Crockett," he replied.
"Anyway, I might not be gone -forever-.  Murray's pretty mad right
now, but he'll cool off when he realizes that if he has me back as a
guest star now and then he'll double his ratings."
        Crockett laughed.  "So what'll you do instead?"
        "Beats me," Kasshu said.  "I've got quite a bit of money saved
up.  Maybe I'll buy a second-hand DropShip and just wander around for
a while.  Go back out to the Rim and hit some of my old haunts, see if
they still remember me out there."
        "Well... good luck," said Crockett, shaking Kasshu's hand.
"You better not be a stranger, Salusia."
        "Oh, I'll come back sometime," Domon replied.  "I wouldn't
want you guys to forget who's the best."
        Crockett guffawed.  "Yeah, -right-.  See you around, Domon."
He turned to go, saw Rain, and smiled.  "Miss Rain.  I guess you'll be
leavin' us too, huh?"
        She smiled.  "It looks that way, Chibodee," she said.
        "Well, you take care of Domon," said Crockett with a wink.
"We won't forgive you if he doesn't come back and shake the place up
again next sweeps week."
        Rain laughed.  "I'll do my best."
        "We'll hold you to that!" Crockett cautioned, grinning.  Then
Rain got her second surprise kiss of the day as the Mobile Fighter
planted one on her cheek before striding from the room with a cheery,
"Take it easy, you guys!"
        Rain watched the door shut behind him with a bemused
expression, then turned back to the group.
        The person she didn't recognize, a tall, slender girl who
rather resembled Corwin - his sister, perhaps? - got up and smiled at
Rain.  "You must be Rain?  I'm Skuld Ravenhair.  We were just going to
head over to Tosci's for ice cream.  Would you and Domon like to join
us?"

        "So, listen," Domon Kasshu murmured aside to Corwin while the
three girls laughed over some shared joke.  "I thought you were Kozue
Kaoru's boyfriend.  That's Kozue Kaoru the asteroid racer, right?  I'm
kicking myself for not recognizing her name."
        Corwin chuckled, rubbing at the back of his neck.  "Yeah,
that's her.  It's, uh, kinda complicated," he said.
        Domon laughed.  "What isn't, when women are involved?" he
asked rhetorically.  "Can I ask you a question?"
        "Sure," Corwin replied, spooning up some of his
marshmallow-on-chocolate sundae.  "Shoot."
        "How'd you revive your Zaku like that?" Domon asked.  "I've
never seen a unit recover from a reactor hit before."
        "Ah," said Corwin, grinning confidentially.  "Old Exterminator
has an experimental power supply I invented.  Tonight was actually the
first field test."  His smile was a satisfied one as he had another
spoonful of ice cream and added, "It performed well beyond my
expectations."
        "So it was a -fluke-?" Domon asked incredulously.
        "Don't flatter yourself," Corwin replied mock-smugly.
        Domon blinked as the implications of what Corwin had just
said, combined with the nature of several of the remodeled Zaku's
weapons, struck him.  "Holy - !  You mean you actually rode a Getter
reactor into combat?!  Are you insane?"
        Corwin grinned.  "It's a new type," he said.  "A lot more
stable than the old Corellian Getter collector systems.  Hell, you
breached the reactor casing and, aside from screwing up the robot, it
didn't do anything.  I'm very pleased with the results - pleased
enough that I'll probably start work on the full-scale version pretty
soon.  After tonight, I think I can safely consider the concept
proven."
        "I guess you can!" Domon agreed, sounding impressed.  Then,
shaking his head, he said ruefully, "My poor Gundam.  You totally
trashed it... "
        "No problem," said Corwin with a wave of his hand.  "Lend me
Rain for a couple of weeks and we'll fix it up better than new."
        Rain, at the other end of the table, looked over with interest
on her face.  "I heard my name," she said.
        "Ravenhair says if he can borrow you for a couple weeks, you
guys can fix up Shining Gundam better than new," said Domon, angling a
thumb at Corwin.  "If you do it, though, you'd better watch yourself,"
he added with a wink.  "I mean, it looks like the kid's got at least
two girlfriends already."
        "DO-mon!" gasped Rain, scandalized, as the two younger people
at the table both went red with mingled embarrassment and annoyance
and Skuld nearly keeled over laughing.

        "So it's all set," said Rain as she and Domon prepared to part
from the others at the Millrace N station.  "The Battledrome salvage
carriers will deliver Shining Gundam to your workshop tomorrow,
Corwin, and we can get started on Monday."
        "And I'll start shopping for a DropShip," said Domon.  "Hey,
listen, kid - thanks for everything.  I didn't even realize what a rut
I was stuck in until you came along and kicked me out of it."
        "Thank Kozue," replied Corwin wryly as he shook the Mobile
Fighter's hand.  "She's the one who sent in that letter."
        "Oh, if I ever see her, I'll -thank- her all right," said
Kasshu with mock annoyance.  "You're a hell of a robot jockey, Corwin
Ravenhair."
        "You're pretty good yourself, Domon Kasshu," Corwin replied.
"Maybe we'll have to go back to the Battledrome and give your producer
that rematch he wants sometime."
        "That'd be fun - after I've had a chance to sort some stuff
out," Domon said.  Then, grinning, he added, "-And- after I've given
Rain a nice, long vacation."
        "Mmm, someplace -warm-," said Rain as a January Avalon wind
swept down the boulevard.
        "How about the Crystal Beaches of Borastan?" Skuld suggested.
        "Ooh!" said Rain.  "That sounds -great-."
        "Borastan it is, then," said Domon.
        "And when you get back, Mr. Kasshu, look me up," said Skuld.
"I might have a... job offer... for you.  Corwin will know where to
find me."
        Domon smiled.  "I dunno if I'll be looking for a job,
Professor, but I'll hear what you have to say.  Until then, goodnight,
everybody.  It was nice meeting you guys."
        Kasshu descended into the subway.  Rain took a couple of step
to follow, then turned around, came back to the group, and surprised
Corwin by giving him a hug.
        "Thank you," she murmured in his ear, still holding onto him.
"Thank you for bringing Domon back to me."
        "Uh... you're welcome," he replied.
        Rain smiled, whispered, "See you Monday," kissed him on the
cheek, and then turned and trotted into the subway after Domon,
pausing at the top of the stairs to wave to everyone.
        "I believe I would classify that relationship as somewhat
dysfunctional," Skuld observed with an exaggeratedly clinical air.
"But, I think they'll muddle through, all the same."
        Utena and Corwin looked at each other, then broke up
laughing.

        Kozue was asleep when Corwin came upstairs - it was, after
all, nearly two in the morning.  She didn't wake when Corwin came into
the bed corner to grab the extra blankets and stuff for the sofa.
(Utena had felt a little weird about crashing at the World Wide
Building since Kozue moved in for good, but it hadn't taken her too
long to get used to it.  What was one more weird dimension to the
intersection of her life and Corwin's at this point?)
        It wasn't until Corwin bade Utena goodnight and climbed into
his own bed that Kozue woke.  Then, as Corwin got comfortable, she
swung partway down, looking under her bunk with her head upside down,
and said softly, "Hey."
        "Hey," Corwin replied.
        "You were awesome," she whispered, her eyes sparkling in the
dimness of the muted Avalon nightglow coming through the gaps in the
curtains.
        "Thanks," said Corwin.  "Did the network run the whole fight?"
        "You bet.  I crystallized it.  Figure I can make a few bucks
selling copies on eBay to people in places where they don't get Avalon
17," she added with an inverted grin.  "So what's he like in person?"
        "Not too bad, actually," Corwin replied.  "You're not gonna
like this, but he, uh, quit the show tonight."
        "What?!" Kozue blurted, her voice squeaking as she prevented
herself from shouting it.  "Why?  Because you beat him?"
        "Sort of... it's complicated.  I think he'll be better off,
though."
        "Huh.  Well, I'll take your word for it 'til you can explain
it.  I guess I'll have to start rooting for Chibodee Crockett.  Did
you meet him?"
        "Briefly."
        "Did you ask him what kind of a name 'Chibodee' is?"
        Corwin chuckled.  "It's a stage name.  His real name is Jim."
        "Huh.  Hey, is Rain as hot in person?"
        "Maybe more so," Corwin replied, amused.  "She's really nice,
too.  She's going to be down this way for a couple weeks - I'm helping
her rebuild Domon's Gundam.  'S the least I can do, since I trashed
it."
        "Oh -really-," said Kozue, her inverted grin becoming impish.
"First you wreck his career, then you steal his woman?  You really
-are- a Viking."
        "Kozue... " said Corwin wearily.
        Kozue giggled.  "Sorry, I'm punchy.  G'night, Corwin."  She
disappeared, back up into her own place, then leaned back down for a
moment longer and said, "You really -were- awesome.  Thanks for
playing along."
        "You're welcome.  G'night, Kozue."
        "G'night, Corwin."

        Back on Tomodachi, Skuld Ravenhair rose out of the glowing
surface of her hot tub, walked across it, and stepped down to the tile
surround as the glow faded, leaving the normal water gently steaming
again.  She paused, considered the tub, looked at her watch, then
shrugged, stripped, and climbed into the tub with a long, drawn-out,
satisfied sigh.  The night's activities had made her more than usually
tense.
        Still, it'd been worth it.  It had been a hell of a fight to
watch, and even though a person couldn't actually see much more from a
seat in the Battledrome than from in front of the TV at home (which
was one of the reasons why Kozue had stayed home), there was something
satisfying about having been there in person.  Again she was filled
with a warm glow of pride in Corwin's abilities - and his character as
well.  He'd handled his victory with such grace, making friends with
the man he'd defeated when another might have alienated Kasshu.  And,
in the process, he'd uncovered a potentially valuable ally.
        Smiling, Skuld reached to the wall panel next to the tub and
punched a button.
        "Personal memo, Skuld Ravenhair, priority code L," she said.
"Domon Kasshu, martial artist and Gundam fighter; and Rain Mikamura,
physician-mechanic.  Add to the Six List."
        Then she released the button, punched another which summoned
some quiet old-fashioned guitar rock into the room, then settled back
into the tub with another satisfied sigh.
        Life is sweet, she thought, closing her eyes with a smile.
        Very, very sweet.
        "Getter Beam!" she murmured softly, giggling.

      /*  The Ventures  "Walk, Don't Run"  _Walk, Don't Run_  */


                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                              presented
                        UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES
                           FUTURE IMPERFECT
                   - Symphony of the Sword No. 3 -

                              Entr'acte:
                                Arena

                               The Cast
                       (in order of appearance)
                           Corwin Ravenhair
                             Kozue Kaoru
                             Utena Tenjou
                           Skuld Ravenhair
                            Rain Mikamura
                             Domon Kasshu
                           James Strickland
                           Katherine Bonis
                             Mark Luchini
                          Murray Kronenlicht
                          Chibodee Crockett

                 with a special montage appearance by
                  the Tomodachi Duelists' Federation
                  and Verthandi Wishbringer-Morisato

                           and introducing
                            Shining Gundam
                                 and
                           Old Exterminator

                            Fight Promoter
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins

                           Ring Attendants
                             Rob Shannon
                           Kelly St. Clair
                            James Rinehart

                           Round Card Girl
                            Janice Barlow

                       Illicit Sports Gambling
                          The Usual Suspects

                 "Mobile Fighter G Gundam" created by
                  Hajime Yatate and Yasuhiro Imagawa
                        after Yoshiyuki Tomino

                  "Getter Robo" created by Go Nagai

                       The Symphony will return

                         E P U (colour) 2003