Christmas Eve in Olympia

 Olympia

"A bit late to be doing your Christmas shopping, isn't it?" Yohane asked, waving a greeting, pulling her coat tightly around herself.

It was snowing in the aerial city of Olympia. Not a huge surprise at this time of year as it cruised over the Atlantic Ocean, on the last leg of a voyage to spend Christmas Day hovering near New York City. The city was as busy as any other during the holiday season, people of all shapes and sizes and origins hustling around, if only to take advantage of the usual sales. Chris Yukine nodded at her one-time roommate as she exited the subway terminal, just another leg in a long trip from Tennessee.

"I already shopped for you, so you have nothing to fear," Chris countered, giving Yohane a gentle slap on the back. "Besides, I'm not looking for anything unique, just something I can buy in a good quantity."

"Sweets?" Yohane asked, smirking.

"Sweets," Chris confirmed. "Molly invited me to Christmas with her family. Despite repeatedly being told I don't need to bring anything except a crossbow for her aunt, I felt I should at least bring SOMETHING. It feels polite."

Yohane nodded as the duo began to walk out into the great, big city. The snow was falling quite gently, creating a peaceful atmosphere that was amenable to people actually going out and finishing up their Christmas preparations. The Fallen Angel was right to be concerned about late shopping though; the two were hardly the only people out roaming the city for tokens of familiar affection, every specialty store from top to bottom seemingly stuffed with shoppers in need of last minute stocking stuffers. Only the crossbow store was devoid of a throng of shoppers. Shocking, I know. At least Chris didn't seem deterred by many of the city's offerings being light on the 'local' variety, content to buy things like fancy Dr. Pepper varieties and Japanese Kit-Kat bars, things that were at least unique to Earth still. The Fallen Angel at her side couldn't help but glance over though, noticing Chris was pointedly carrying everything - doing everything, when she thought about it - with her left hand.

"I thought you had IT replaced?" she asked carefully.

Chris looked to her right and shrugged. "I'd make a joke about something costing an arm and a leg, but I still have my legs. No, I had a loaner for a bit, but it's Echolux property and I didn't feel like taking it out of the country. Xiulan's making me a replacement anyway."

Yohane nodded, a gesture to give her time to respond. "You getting a new power armor too?"

"We'll see. You're not the first person to ask about that. That doctor from Tennessee offered to stick a Radiance in me, but I've coached enough people who got them on how to calm down to want one casually. I've got the Asterisk if I need it, but-"

A loud click suddenly interrupted the conversation as a masked figure stepped to the mouth of an alleyway, a pistol held in their hands. Yohane yelped and jumped behind Chris, her sides protuding by an inch or so. Chris turned her head slowly, looking at the mugger carefully, watching their grip as they motioned for the two women to step into the alley. Begrudgingly, Chris obliged, stepping away from the street.

"Money, now," a young-sounding voice demanded. "Get it out or I'll get it from you."

Chris wiggled the stump of her right arm. "I'm down an arm. Take it easy."

The mugger's grip twitched slightly as Chris gently set her bags down, including the crossbow, and reached across her stomach towards her wallet. "You sure you want to do this? You'll have to live with the consequences if you do something rash."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll cry myself to sleep," the gunman grunted. Yohane was reaching for her own purse, where she kept a taser, but Chris gently shook her head.

"I don't mean because you're doing a crime," Chris continued. "Your grip's sloppy and you're holding a Beretta Nano. The way you hold it, it might pop out of your hand and hit you in the nose."

"Shut the fuck up! It's a GUN and I'M holding it-"

"Poorly. Did you even take the safety off? Did you even remember to load it?"

"I SAID-"

The gun trembled for only a moment, but that was long enough for Chris to pull her wallet out and fling it like a shuriken. The would-be crook raised an arm protectively, caught by surprise. Suddenly, Chris and Yohane didn't have a gun pointed at them. A moment later, Chris even had a new gun, slapping it out of their assailant's hand and plucking it from the air by the barrel. She paused to look at it while the Fallen Angel finally got her taser out, holding it protectively while the bandit realized the tables had turned, and the gun with it.

"No and no," Chris said, looking at the small pistol as she held it. "Have you ever held this thing before today?"

"...no," the would-be crook muttered, trembling slightly.

"Where'd you get it?"

"Grandpa's drawer...I need money..."

Chris sighed and looked the small gun over again before handing it back. The robber - and Yohane - looked at it in shock. The one-armed woman sighed and held it out more forcefully, trying to return it. Reluctantly, the hooded kid took it back, voice trembling in confusion.

"What's the deal? Grandpa sick? You owe someone money?"

The kid nodded, nearly taking off their mask before deciding against it. The gun was put away though, at least, the terrified menace draining out of them slowly as Chris picked up her wallet, tucking it away before getting out her phone, shooting off a message to someone who would send off another message before they replied to Chris with an address. Satisfied, she looked back at her former assailant, holding up her phone.

"See this address? You're going to go there and tell them your story," she ordered.

"Is it a precinct?" the kid asked.

"No, it's a charity. Whatever you problems are - and probably your Grandpa's too - I can't fix them. I could break someone's bones or go threaten someone, but that's not a solution. You need someone who is here and can actually help get to the bottom of things," Chris explained, reaching for her bags. "And for God's sake, if you're going to wave a pop gun around, at least learn how to hold it right. Okay?"

"Y-yes...yes, ma'am. Thank you ma'am." The bandit pocketed their pistol and turned to flee. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas to you too," Chris answered, watching them go. Yohane let out a sigh of relief as they exited the alley, getting back to their shopping after the brief delay.

The rest of the shopping excursion was uneventful. Chris was able to locate some sufficiently-interest treats to take to Mysidia and Yohane was able to...help Chris carry it back to her apartment. Dan the Cat meowed curiously as the meatball-headed master and her friend entered the domain of the tiny creature, enduring a thorough interrogation as the black-furred menace welcomed them. The bags were taken to the living room and Chris began to organize everything as Yohane started to cook some actual Italian food, a hearty lasagna and garlic bread. As the warm aroma wafted through the apartment, Chris leaned back and sighed, glancing out the window.

"Hey, Yohane?"

"Yeah?"

"You asked if I was going to replace Ichaival," Chris said, looking over her shoulder. "The answer is...not yet. Not when I can still find solutions with who I am and what I've got. Maybe there'll be a day when I need to blow up a small moon, but that's definitely not Christmas."

Yohane smiled and gave a more genuine nod this time around. "Good enough for me. Merry Christmas, gremline."

"Merry Christmas, Meatball."

Getter Out Of Here: Tales from the Dark Star's Universe

"CHANGE GETTER-!"

I must have said those words hundreds of times since Dark Matter began invading Earth and...well...its victory over the Kobbers. Us included, I suppose. Oh, I should introduce myself.

My name is Yoshiko Tsushima. Along with my friends You Watanabe and Hanamaru Kunikida, I was a pilot for the fantastic super robot Getter Robo! With three forms powered by an incredible energy source from space and with us members of the Stratford Institute of Technology and Robotics piloting, it helped to defend the Earth against alien invaders and hostile would-be tyrants! For years, we scored victory after victory over Dark Matter's robot monsters that attacked us to steal Professor Stratford's fantastic Getter Ray technology!

In hindsight, it seems like we were merely a sideshow for the actual invasion, always seeming to get attacked by one or two...what did the Professor call them?...Mechasauruses, I think. Dark Matter's minions would always attack us in small groups every few days, sometimes as long as a month apart. We didn't know where they came from, but they were almost always formidable opponents, even for our magnificent Getter Robo, but through teamwork and perseverance, we always pulled through, triumphing over everything thrown at us!

As long as the great Getter Team of Yohane, Zura, and the Captain - oh, those were the nicknames me, Hanamaru, and You went by, really...kind of silly in hindsight but we were...naive. Anyway, as long as we were together, would couldn't ever lose, we told ourselves!

And then the murders began.

Well, murders is a dramatic way of saying it, but Dark Matter stopped taking us so lightly one day, about a month before...well...let's not get ahead of ourselves. As the years went by, we lost contact with more and more Kobbers. Some must have died, others were captured. We know this because the Mechasaurus stopped coming and in their place were the Kobbers. Big ones.

The first was Labrys, an android captured and reprogrammed by Dark Matter's pet scientists and fused with a powerful mech buried beneath Las Vegas. We called it Big O. That was the first time any of us Getter pilots had actually been injured ourselves; plenty of mechanical damage, but we'd always maintained an aura of personal invincibility. It was tougher than anything we'd faced and was armed to the teeth. It went down swinging, landing one last punch on Hanamura's Getter-3 before it died, almost crushing my friend.

Just days later, with Hanamura still in bandages as she piloted, we were challenged by God Neptune. From what we knew, Decepticon pirates had actually come to Earth to take advantage of the chaos caused by Dark Matter to harvest the world for Energon Cubes to take off-world. Dangerous work, but potentially valuable enough that they could retire. Well, Dark Matter caught wind of them and subsumed them as well, adding their powerful combined form to its forces. It might not have been as powerful as Big O, but with so many minds in one body, it was hard to actually kill and nearly killed You.

King J-Der...we had no idea where it came from or who was piloting it...if it even had one. All we knew was we were up against our most formidable opponent ever when it showed up, towering over our Getter Robo. We'd never faced anything so large and, until recently, heavily armed. Our energy attacks washed over its barrier like water and none of our projectiles were having much luck either. This enemy was big and strong, able to withstand anything we threw at it and able to match us move for move. We pulled out all the stops, flying at speeds that almost made us black out, reckless attacks that almost got us killed multiple times but were all we could do to land a decisive hit, and mustering all of the courage and teamwork we could to finally bring it down. By the end of the battle, I was the only one left conscious in Getter Robo; You was knocked unconscious when we took a missile hit and Hanamaru passed out from exhaustion trying to match King J-Der's strength.

We weren't done.

Whoever Dark Matter had put in charge of attacking us for so many years must have been feeling confident that morning. I awoke that day in the medical ward to find the Institute in chaos, an evacuation in-progress as staff and researching were emptying the building of equipment and documents and hauling them off in whatever vehicles they could find. The only person who didn't seem to be participating in the furious terror was Professor Stratford herself, who simply stood in the control room watching the monitor, where our last opponent had appeared that morning and stood patiently.

Godzilla.

God. Fucking. Zilla.

My blood turned to ice and my heart stopped as I stood next to the brilliant genius, amazed that even the most powerful lifeform on the planet had eventually succumbed to the machinations of Dark Matter. Our enemy was done playing around; we were no longer needed for the greater war effort so we were going to be stomped out of existence. Why just stand there though? Why not attack?

My shock and confusion must have been evident. Professor Stratford - Deb, as she always insisted we call her and never did - just looked at me with a sad smile.

"He's waiting for you," was all she said.

Our enemy had something to prove then. For a moment, I was unable to move. You and Hanamura - my Captain and Zura - were in no condition to pilot Getter Robo. It was more or less repaired, but we pilots weren't so easy to fix. The robot could be piloted by one person, sure, but nowhere near full strength. After a few tense moments, my heart was beating again, threatening to tear itself out of my chest as I began heading to the hangar.

"You're not going to fight though."

I turned and Professor Stratford was busy on a console, typing rapidly.

"You can't win, Yoshiko. We both know it. Captain and Zura were the first ones out. Everyone is leaving, you included."

I stopped. "But...Getter Robo..."

"Take Getter Robo and fly away, as far as you can," she ordered. "You'll find someone who can help you...somewhere."

Tears welled up in my eyes. "But what about you?" The ground began to tremble. Was Godzilla making a move now?

The professor...Deb...took a photograph out of her pocket. It was amazing how much she'd seemed to age in just a few years, but she looked at it once and then pocketed it. "Don't you worry. I'm going home to see my boys after this, I promise."

Her boys... She'd often talked about her two sons in the present tense, but we'd never met or seen them ourselves. Her closest aides had been tight-lipped on the subject and she'd always treated us pilots like her kids. She sounded confident though, a reassuring statement that was good enough for me at the time. Something about it still bothered me, but in the heat of the moment I couldn't remember why.

It wasn't until later that I realized what she'd really meant.

As I ran down the hall, it was amazing how the chaos managed to be almost orderly. Then again, there was currently only urgency and no danger yet. The enemy was at the door and waiting to be let in. The absurd politeness would've made me laugh if things weren't so dire. Nobody stopped me, nobody tried to guide me anywhere; too busy taking care of their own work, probably assumed I was going to do the same.

The hangar was empty. Getter Robo had been prepared for launch and then the entire crew had evacuated. Unlike everywhere else in the Institute, it was deathly quiet in there. I could hear my footsteps echoing through the massive room, designed to store, maintain, and deploy a 40-meter tall robot. It wasn't until I boarded that I realized with a pain in my heart that I was alone. Even when things had been at their worst, I'd had my friends and copilots to talk to, to joke with and be scared with. Now it was just me and-

"Yoshiko."

Professor Stratford's voice came through the speakers suddenly as her image appeared in the cockpit, getting a jump out of me.

"Yes, Professor?"

The ground trembled. I had a feeling what the problem was.

"I'm sorry. I was hoping to wait for everyone to leave, but the enemy is moving in. They must have known you were about to take off," she explained regretfully.

"I'll fight him!" I swore. "I can-!"

"No!" she cut in sharply. "You will do no such thing. I...I'm going to detonate the reactor."

A massive Getter Ray-powered reactor that provided the entire Institute with its energy, a huge self-sustaining energy source full of volatile power. There was no way anyone still in the Institute would survive.

"I know what you're thinking. I've made up my mind," Professor Stratford sighed. "You can make it though if you leave now."

The ground trembled again. Or maybe it was just me taking in what she was saying. Tears ran down my cheeks as I shook my head. "I won't leave you, Deb!"

 "Took you long enough to call me that." The older woman smiled. "I won't lose any more youngsters to the Dark Matter though."

I looked at the monitor, confused. As Deb continued to work though and the hangar doors began opening, it hit me: one of the first targets hit by Dark Matter when it started its war was Deb's hometown. Almost everyone killed in the fighting; Deb has survived by being here overseeing construction of the Institute.

It snapped into place as a timer to the reactor's detonation began to tick down. Sixty seconds until a small apocalypse occurred in front of me, whether the atomic dinosaur steadily stomping towards us or the devastating bomb that had been my home for a few years. One way or another though?

Deb was going home.

The next ten seconds were a life-changing blur. All I could see as Getter Robo began flying into the air was the explosion, expanding outward from the building, destroying everything in its path. Moments before it engulfed me, I could see it hitting the King of the Monsters, reducing it to dust. I don't know why, but the Getter explosion destroyed it in a strange, horrible way: melting the flesh from its bones and then reducing those bones to atoms. It roared defiantly until the end though as the light engulfed me as well.

I don't know how long I was unconscious following that explosion.

When I woke up, I was tired, hungry, and in pain. Everything was dark except for a few lights on the control panel, but nothing felt right. I felt...light? When the camera finally turned on, I found myself staring at a sea of stars: I wasn't on Earth anymore. I looked about in a panic only to find myself above...Jupiter?! The largest planet in the solar system sat beneath me, turning without a care in the world as I tried to get my bearings.

And that's where I am now, drifting through space, starving to death, and alone except for bad memories. Do I even WANT to return to Earth though? Better to die as myself than be subsumed by Dark Matter.

Wait...

Is that a ship?! It's...it's MASSIVE.

That's weird...

Why does it have a large face on it?