Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Ransom Due ❯ Bakuhatsuha ( Chapter 9 )

Here's another installment as requested. This one's a little strange, but that's what happens when you just let this stuff get written as it comes to mind (yes, there's very little in the way of planning involved in this - I have a backhoe standing by in the event of plotholes, so just let me know if you see any.) Anyway, I have so much going on these days I believe my brain is slowly turning into pasta primavera, so that's my excuse.

 

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Ransom Due: Chapter 9 - Bakuhatsuha (or: Feieza 75 is for crabs.)

 

The difference between the capital city and the swamp-side of planet Frieza 75 was the difference between night and day back home. The place they had landed was little more than a filthy conglomeration of shanties, most of which were half sinking into the spongy ground. For a moment, Ranchi was thankful that she was bereft of physical senses save for sight and sound as she noticed both Saiya-jin wrinkle their noses in disgust upon landing. There were several more of the tiny `scrubbers' hovering around her counterpart as well.

 

“I'm wondering,” Raditzu had commented snidely to Nappa, “what business a former decorated general such as yourself would have in an obvious cesspool like this.”

 

“You shouldn't get so high an' mighty about your present position,” came the gruff reply, “the only reason you even have rank is to annoy Vegeta. Turns out it's working, too.”

 

The blonde noticeably snickered at this, at which point Nappa raised an eyebrow and looked at Raditzu as if questioning why he put up with such insolence from his charge. Raditzu simply offered an exaggerated sigh before berating the larger Saiya-jin again.

 

“Please! As though I would rise to such paltry bait. Sometimes the worst thing you can do to it is ignore it as it seems to thrive on attention” All the while he made a big show of glaring at the malnourished denizens of the shanty town as they scurried out of the way of the two warriors, but Ranchi noticed that this was all a farce. His tail had given him away again. She could see that in reality he was giving her blonde counterpart the majority of his attention, and periodically he cast a wary glance at Nappa as well. This didn't seem to have escaped the blonde, either, as she watched him watching her, when she wasn't casting her eye calculatedly at every shadowed nook they passed, of which there were many.

 

Observing this, Ranchi wondered if Raditzu had in fact caught on to whatever game of wits the blonde thought she was playing. Moreover, though she knew it was highly likely that the tyrant Frieza had put him in a high ranking position that clearly was not his place in whatever rules Saiya-jin society followed in part to annoy Vegeta, she doubted it was the only reason. She had read enough of Missionary's ship's logs to gather that Daax was just barely competent in terms of running the ship. He was what they called a party boy back home, and left most administrative tasks of any importance to his underlings. Sure, it seemed like beating the tar out of his first officer was the only reason he had one, but the logs showed that the sub commander was the closest thing to a navigator that Missionary had. They would have been flying in proverbial circles without him. If she hadn't seen the logs, she wouldn't have believed it. On the surface, and most times beyond it as well, he just didn't seem to be that intelligent, and no one, least of all Raditzu himself, ever even so much as mentioned the fact that he did a damn good job with navigation. She had always just sort of assumed that he was either somewhat of an idiot savant or simply didn't care about any practical skills he had save for fighting skills. In retrospect, it was very much like the way his brother would pull off strategy during a fight regardless of the fact that most of the time he acted like there was little more than air between his ears.

 

After walking down several ill kept avenues and one narrow alleyway, they reached their final destination. The place was a larger version of the shacks they had passed thus far, except that it was up on stilts as it fronted what looked like a wide meandering canal. Over the front door a sign hung lopsidedly that read “Enoch Pratt's Book Exchange” in the crude phonetic language she'd learned quickly and come accustomed to reading on the ship. Even though the place looked like a total dive, it was obvious that it was the nerve center of the community. Patrons of every conceivable description were spilling out onto the rickety balconies that were precariously supported over the stinking canal.

 

The blonde and the two Saiya-jin pushed their way through the small crowd gathered in front of the entrance. Some of the assembled looked like they could have been formidable warriors themselves, though most of them looked almost as rough as the average denizens of the community. They were either not intimidated by the two Saiya-jin or, more likely, they were already emboldened by the drinks that were being sold from a large keg outside the establishment. All lot of them shot sour looks at the pair and she thought she heard some grumbling about the ale prices having been hiked. At this point Nappa, who'd been grinning like an idiot at the patrons despite their reception, put his arm around the blonde and said “Just make sure you look thrilled to be here.”

 

“I'm ecstatic already. Couldn't you tell?” she replied sarcastically as she made to shrug his arm off.

 

He just pulled her closer, judging by her expression, painfully, and simply said “Don't.” A dead serious, almost murderous expression crossed his features for a moment when he said it, but then he'd gone back to smiling vapidly. The blonde, having been persuaded into some form of submission or at least pretending to have been, followed suit accordingly.

 

Raditzu, unimpressed by the entire exchange, sighed loudly. “You never did tell me; why in hell's name do you want to hang around this dump?”

 

“Because,” Nappa said in an exasperated tone, “unlike the state side of this planet this isn't completely boring. Cripes, only two other Saiyans in the entire universe and lucky me I end up with a couple `a fucking kids. One thinks he's the all powerful Super Saiyan and the other would rather lock step with Frieza's goons than get out `an have some fun. What a jip.”

 

The blonde was obviously amused at this statement, but when Nappa's hand conveniently strayed down to her rear and squeezed her face contorted into a grimace.

 

“Hey!” she cried. Suddenly she was holding a snub-nosed revolver at point blank range to the big Saiyan's grinning mug.

 

 

Ranchi noticed that Raditzu looked a little more than peeved at the turn of events. He even opened his mouth to say something but then he shut it just as quickly, resigned to glaring at his comrade and the blonde.

 

“You're joking, right?” asked Nappa as he pried the weapon from her fingers and crumpled it as though it were made of paper. He threw the mashed chunk of metal over his shoulder carelessly as he gave her another piercing glare.

 

The blonde paled somewhat and shrugged. “Heh. Sorry. Force of habit.”

 

“Ow!,” somebody in the back of the crowd yelped, apparently having been beaned by the discarded wad of former pistol. “Damn filthy Saiyan dogs!” someone else yelled, shaking a fist over the crowd, a few of whom grumbled in concurrence with the rabble rouser.

 

"What'd I tell ya." Nappa laughed. "Never a dull moment."

 

They'd finally reached the front door where they were stopped by a rather tall and svelte looking humanoid woman hefting what looked like a broadsword over her shoulder. What had looked like plate armor from a distance turned out to be a kind of reddish calcite shell that erupted from her skin in places, obviously a trademark of whatever her species was. Wispy pale yellow hair that reminded Ranchi of cornsilk hung to her shoulders.

 

"Nappa!" she greeted the larger Saiyan warmly. "I didn't think you'd darken this doorstep again in a thousand years, yet here you are. I'd say it was a pleasant surprise, except after what happened last time..." She stopped abruptly after getting a good look at the blonde, who was succeeding in looking like she was having the time of her life, as instructed. "I see," said the lady bouncer, "so you've brought help this time. Good idea since my sister has cursed your name daily. She swore she'd never so much as lift a finger for the likes of you again. Of course, I warned her about getting involved with you in the first place." She winked salaciously at him and smiled broadly, revealing a mouthful of pointy teeth that looked like they should belong to a shark.

 

Nappa laughed again and grinned back. "It's not like you ever minded..."

 

"Yes, but everyone already knows I have no taste whatsoever. Lenore should know better. Anyway, Pratt's in his office if you wanna check in." She gestured toward Raditzu. "I'll have someone get your friend a seat. The usual, I presume?"

 

"Of course."

 

The woman reached behind her and pulled a large metal ring attached to a chain. This released a mechanism that raised a rickety platform across a moat designed to restrict access to the building. She ushered the trio in, reminding them to enjoy their stay before hollering instructions to the next guard inside the doorway.

 

The guard, a male that looked similar to the woman at the outer door except slightly taller, gestured to a small door adjacent to the entryway, and then asked Raditzu to follow him to a large table in the back corner of the place. It was already occupied by several people, all of whom save one immediately cleared out when they saw the guard and the Saiyan approach. The unlucky straggler was starting to protest when the guard wordlessly made use of the sword like weapon he carried, cutting the man down in one stroke. No one in the place appeared to notice. Ranchi watched in shock at the sudden bloodshed as two boys, also of the same species as the guards, came running out of what appeared to be a kitchen entrance. One set down several bottles on the table while the other hurriedly mopped up what was left of the unfortunate protester. She watched her master look over the bottles and then open one before her consciousness seemed to be snatched back into the smaller room where Nappa had taken her counterpart.

 

The small room was almost lavish in contrast with the rest of the place. Shelves lining the wall bourgeoned with the weight of various books and rich looking trinkets. A portly man, much older than the guards as evidenced by the proliferation of calcite plates covering his body, sat behind a desk and was reading from a holoscreen ledger, a pair of what she thought were spectacles perched at the end of his pointy nose.

 

"Mmmmm, and Chircadian artifacts have increased in value over 3000 percent since your last visit,” he said in a nasal voice punctuated by a raspy clicking noise. “I didn't expect it would be too difficult a suggestion to his lordship to clean that place out, and you and the princeling always do such and expedient job. Good, good. I suppose you'll be wanting your cut." He punched a few buttons on a portable data tablet, and then turned the holoscreen towards the Sayain to inspect.

 

"Huh," Nappa mumbled, "that's even better than I thought it would be."

 

"Yes, well my contractors managed to convince the leaders of several Chircadian provinces that it would be wise to trade a good portion of their artifacts in return for protection." The portly man chuckled, "too bad they just happened to be called away right when his Frieza Sama decided a purge was in order."

 

The blonde was looking less than comfortable as Nappa had kept his arm wrapped tightly around her waist and continued using any opening he got to be overly familiar with her. It seemed she had stopped putting forth an effort into acting as though it didn't bother her. Added to that, she was more than a little distracted by the contents of the room. Her gaze kept wandering over the things displayed on the shelves. There was one thing that her eyes went back to rest on several times. Oddly enough, it looked out of place, and if Ranchi hadn't had her attention drawn to it more than once, she would have assumed that someone misplaced it in the office instead of the kitchen. After another look though, it suddenly became clear why her counterpart had been drawn to it, and why it was kept with artifacts instead of the kitchen equipment.

 

The object was a large sized electric rice steamer, as mundane as any she had seen on chikyu, except for the smiling bunnies illustrated around its baby blue rim and the omamori tied there. She had just begun to think about all the possibilities the presence of such an object in that place could entail when she was distracted by the fact that the topic of conversation had turned to her counterpart.

 

"Where did you come by that?" The proprietor had asked, followed by several observations about fair market value in the flesh trade. "You're not still looking for something viable? Of course I don't subscribe to this opinion, but rumor is, your race is cursed. I just tend to think that if you didn't find what you were looking for here in my veritable paradise, you're simply not going to find it anywhere." He chuckled some more. "Terribly sorry about my youngest, she's a bit more headstrong than is good for her, but I swear if you had more time to perhaps force the issue, she'd come around eventually." At this the proprietor looked over the blonde with some consternation, as though mentally comparing what he had to offer with what the Saiya-jin already had acquired. "Perhaps if I gave her a little fatherly advice she'd..."

 

"Forget it. It's nothing to do with that, anyway," Nappa said in an exaggerated tone that suggested that whatever it was they were discussing had everything to do with his showing up with the blonde on his arm. "I just figured I'd try my hand at entering your little contest this evening and brought my own shucker under the assumption that my preferred choice would not be forthcoming with any such niceties." He smiled in obvious feigned amicability.

 

"Well, sir, you just go on and take a load off and we'll have a pallet out to you shortly. I suppose it couldn't hurt for this one to have a practice run before the contest as I'm sure it's unlikely to spoil your appetite. On the house, of course."

 

"Now, Pratt, you know I wouldn't have it any other way,” Nappa replied as he steered the blonde toward the entryway of the office. He looked back at the proprietor for a moment as though to solidify the notion that “on the house” was not an option but an absolute.

 

When they reached the threshold and the door clicked shut behind them, Nappa suddenly and violently pinned the blonde to the wall just outside the office. “You don't look happy anymore,” he growled in low tone, practically a whisper. Oddly, Ranchi heard this as if he had spoken directly into her ear, although it had seemed like she was viewing the two of them from several feet away. “Look, missy, you do like I tell you. I could tell you were scared when Vegeta pulled his little demonstration on you. You just keep in mind that I taught the little prince most of what he knows,” he threatened. He looked like he was about to continue when he noticed a woman who looked very much like the bouncer they had met at the front door, except that her features were somewhat softer, approaching. All of a sudden he wrapped the blonde in both massive arms plus his tail and kissed her full on the lips. If she'd been physically there, Ranchi knew she'd have been paralyzed with shock. If there was a way for her disembodied form to have been abjectly gaping at the pair, she was.

 

The blonde seemed to have taken the whole thing in stride. She even leaned back against the wall and swooned slightly as if it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to her, but Ranchi was able to discern the pulsing of a vein on her temple. She instinctively knew that in reality her counterpart was nothing short of livid. She knew things couldn't go well from then on out. There had been some small saving grace in that the view from the public area of the establishment was blocked. She cringed inwardly at the thought of her master having witnessed the scene. However, the woman approaching had seen the whole thing, apparently orchestrated especially for her benefit, up close.

 

“I can't believe you'd come in here with that… that thing and… You degenerate ass!” she screeched, then marched right up to the big Saiyan, stood up one her toes and unabashedly and fearlessly gave him an open handed slap right across his face. Then she yanked the door next to them open, stomped into the little office and slammed the door shut in her wake.

 

“Now that's what I expect,” Nappa crowed as he pushed the blonde into the larger public room. “Perfect!”

 

“Do that again and I swear I'll find a way to make sure you wind up dead!” the blonde hissed under her breath.

 

“Right. Sure,” he chuckled. The idiot grin had returned. “Watch carefully,” he ordered and directed her attention to the table nearest them where two of the town's denizens sat. They each held what looked like a large nail which they were deftly using to crack open some kind of crustaceans one after the other, discarding the shells on the floor after slurping up their contents. “Tell you what,” he said in feigned joviality, “you open those things fast enough to keep up with me and you won't wind up dead.”

 

“Fine,” the blonde pouted a little, “looks easy enough.” She grumbled some but kept a convincing smile pasted on as they pushed their way to the back of the room and joined Raditzu at the corner table. “So, basically you dragged us out to this stink hole to participate in some kind of demented eating contest?” the blonde asked as she gave her master an exaggerated sidelong glance as if to say `are you sure you really want to waste your time with this?' She turned back to Nappa and smirked. “Oh, and lets not forget about making the crab-faced wait staff jealous. Boss, did I hear you right earlier? This guy used to be a general in your army or whatever? I find it hard to imagine him leading…”

 

To Ranchi's relief Nappa interrupted her before she could do any more verbal damage. “Sheesh, Raditz, you let this thing smart off like this all the time?”

 

“You're the one who wanted to borrow it.” By the looks of the still full bottles on the table, Raditzu been nursing the first one, but he finished it in two swallows at that point and shook his head in vexation as though he'd come to the same conclusion about ensuing trouble that Ranchi had and had summarily resigned himself to it. “Just make sure and keep your end of the bargain.”

 

The two boys had returned from the kitchen each carrying one end of a large wooden try, heaped high with the odd looking shellfish. They deposited it and one of the rudimentary opening devices on the table. The blonde picked up the opener and absentmindedly twirled it between her fingers before going to work on the pile. “Why do you need me for this, anyway?” she asked, already well into the task of flipping open the shells as though it were second nature.

 

Nappa, apparently not wont to interrupt his enjoyment of eating, replied by simply picking up one of the things still in its shell and made to flip open the top half with a thumbnail. The shell summarily shattered into tiny pieces, crushing the meat into a slimy pulp.

 

“And I suppose eating them whole is against the rules,” she added dryly.

 

Nappa nodded in the affirmative. By that point, they'd made short work of the first round and he leaned back in his chair, seemingly satisfied with her performance. “You may yet live through this,” he said offhandedly.

 

Raditzu was roused from what seemed to be a stupor of boredom at the comment. “I said you could borrow it, not terminate it!”

 

“Yeah, well I'm surprised you've let it live this long, anyway. What's the big deal? Oh… that's right, lower levels aren't used to owning property.”

 

“Nonetheless, I reserve the right.” The two Saiyans exchanged challenging glances. While they were distracted, Ranchi noticed the blonde reach out and quickly palm the lid from the first bottle Radtzu had opened. The boys had returned with another tray. Before they retreated to the kitchen, the woman from outside the office sauntered up to the table, slapping down a stack of paper credits.

 

“You might as well forfeit,” she declared, pointing an accusatory finger at Nappa. “You bleed this place dry as it is, I'm not letting you walk out of here with that prize money, so you might as well take a good look at it now.” Ranchi noticed that the woman's finger was tipped with a pointy fingernail that looked very much like the tool provided to open the shellfish. She also noticed that the blonde seemed to be weighing the option of swiping the stack of credits off the table top. Instead, she turned to the woman and gloated.

 

“Bring it, pasty face. Twice that wager says we clean this place out completely before it's all over with.” She sidled up a little closer to Nappa and rested her head on his shoulder affectionately. Ranchi could have sworn she heard a low growl erupt from Raditzu, who eyed the blonde with undisguised malice.

 

If Nappa was aware of his comrade's disquiet, he didn't show it. He laughed and took up where the blonde left off. “You heard her, Lenore. Perhaps it's you who should forfeit before you get started.”

 

“Pfft!” The woman tossed her head sending a cascade of wispy hair back over her shoulder. “She doesn't have anything to wager.” She indicated the slave collar with the still pointing finger. “Not that I'd be intimidated, anyway.” She scooped the credits back up off the table.

 

“What I have to wager isn't the point,” the blonde countered. “You can't win and that's all there is to it.”

 

“We'll see about that.” The woman gestured to the boys to count her into the contest and took up a seat at a nearby table, evicting another hapless customer.

 

“Don't tell me that's what you're after here?” Raditzu grumbled at Nappa, even though he was still glaring at the blonde. She returned a sickeningly sweet look, pretending total innocence in the whole affair.

 

“What? You squeamish or something?” Nappa asked as though this were nothing out of the ordinary.

 

“No,” came the indignant reply. “I'd be the last one to deny that the body has its needs, but this seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to.”

 

“These are a lot more resilient than they look, and they're really fun when they're mad. Trust me, that one's a total firecracker. Besides, they're supposed to be extremely prolific. Nothing's materialized yet, but you never know.”

 

“What!? Are you telling me you're actually trying to sire hybrids?” Indignation was swiftly turning into incredulity. “Aside from it being highly implausible, it's just madness. Why would you even want to…?”

 

“Eh. At this point I figure better a tainted bloodline than a dead one. I lost all the progeny I had when Vegetasei was destroyed. I figure I may as well get started trying to fix that being that chances are so slim anyway. In a life where I find myself outranked by the likes of you, it doesn't seem all that outlandish, really.”

 

“Why don't you just exercise some patience until some more survivors are found? It can't be too much longer before…”

 

“I've searched extensively. There are no more survivors.”

 

“What are you talking about? Kakarott…”

 

“Kakarott's a fluke. Besides, last I heard he ain't female, so I'm not interested.”

 

After that the contest started uneventfully aside from the jilted Lenore and the blonde shooting daggers at each other with their eyes as the two of them seemed evenly matched at de-shelling. Surprisingly the deceivingly skinny female appeared to match the big Saiyan in consuming the shellfish as well. Just when everything seemed to be going smoothly, or as smoothly as could have been expected in such a situation, the blonde unobtrusively flicked the bottle cap she'd retrieved earlier with enough force to fly across the distance to a nearby table and painfully smack the side of the head of one of the customers who'd been ousted from their table earlier.

 

The target picked up the bottle cap to get a look at what had hit him, easily recognizing that it went to the bottles Raditzu had been served earlier. “That's it!” he roared in a slurred voice as he flew out of his chair, which went sailing out behind him. “You over-glorified monkeys come in here like you own the place…” He didn't get to finish as the chair had rammed into someone at the next table, who wasted no time in jumping him, fists flying. Within the space of a few moments, the whole place had erupted into a full scale riot. The two Saiya-jin, who could have easily vaporized the whole lot, seemed only too happy to take the opportunity to engage in good old fashioned fisticuffs, at least at the outset.

 

The blonde had ducked under the table first, and then began to navigate her way across the floor on her belly through the tangle of skirmishing patrons. When she reached the threshold of the small office, she got to her feet and took the pointy end of the nail like opener and stabbed it into the side of the slave collar. She momentarily went into convulsions as the thing overloaded and shocked her. Simultaneously, a loud pop issued from the other side of the room as the feedback overloaded Raditzu's scouter, causing a small explosion.

 

“Son of a…!” Ranchi was sure she could hear her master's curses over the din, but the next thing she knew she was in the small office again as the blonde had regained her wits and moved on. The ungainly Pratt was standing behind his desk, outraged at the violation of his personal domain. The blonde suddenly produced an older model M-16 semi-auto and pointed it at him with one hand while reaching back and jamming the door shut with a small end table that had been conveniently located near the entrance. Even if the weapon wouldn't have had an effect on him, Pratt must have been unfamiliar with it as he raised both hands in submission.

 

“Well, well. You surprise me with your tenacity, so what can I do for you?” he stammered. The blonde used her free hand to untie the red scarf she routinely wore in her hair. It unrolled, revealing a small capsule, which she popped open, producing a military issued rucksack already half full with what Ranchi guessed were items stolen from various other planets.

 

“Just fill it up,” the blonde ordered. Pratt moved toward the closest shelf when the blonde stopped him. “That first,” she said indicating the rice cooker. Pratt tossed it into the sack as directed and proceeded to rake other items off of the shelf after it. Just as the blonde took the opportunity to glance back at the door to make sure her makeshift lock was holding Pratt attempted to rush her. She reacted quickly, laying on the trigger of the M-16. Bullets sprayed the large target he presented, but they bounced off his natural armor harmlessly.

 

“Ha!” he yelled in triumph as he reached her, fingernails bared to rake at her.

 

“Wrong.” She countered without hesitation as she thrust the barrel of the gun between two of the armored plates where they met at his neck and fired. He slumped to the ground as a fountain of violet colored gore sprayed out behind him.

 

The blonde wasted no time in encapsulating the now full rucksack and enfolding the capsule in the scarf, which she tied back in her hair. She utilized the weapon again, perforating the far wall of the office with holes before kicking at the wood to create an opening large enough for her to slip through. At that moment, the door to the office crashed open and the bouncer from the front door came running in, perhaps alerted by the gunfire. Pratt, still splayed out on the floor, but somehow not yet deceased lifted his head and gurgled “Harriet, stop her!” She gave pause just long enough for the blonde to hoist herself out the exit she'd created and scuttle up the roughshod outside wall to the roof as the place was surrounded by the reeking canal. In continuation of what seemed to be her inexhaustible luck, a hovercraft, presumably Pratt's, was parked at the far end of the roof. The bouncer had hastily followed her, appearing doubly fueled with anger at the death of the proprietor. The two ended up in a standoff on the rooftop.

 

The bouncer swiped at the blonde in a rage with her overly large blade, but there was already enough distance between the two to render the effort ineffective.

 

The blonde reacted by leveling the gun still in her grip at the bouncer. “Looks like you brought a knife to a gunfight,” she said.

 

The bouncer just grinned her shark's smile. “Oh, no, honey. It's you who's brought a gun to a knife fight.” She brandished the blade again, this time her arm stretched to twice its length as she stabbed at the blonde.

 

Ranchi watched as her counterpart parried the thrust with the butt end of the gun, but the blade sliced right through the metal easily. With egress being her main objective, the blonde dropped what remained of the weapon and evaded the bouncer's attack while backing toward the waiting hovercraft. Unexpectedly, the part of the roof directly behind her exploded in a fountain of ki energy and debris while she was in mid stride. She lost her balance and plummeted backward through the resulting hole, and much to Ranchi's dismay, sneezed forcefully on the way down.

 

She felt herself snatched back into the physical plane as if being hit by a ton of bricks and gasped, fully expecting to land hard on the ground, but the impact never happened. Instead she found herself in the grasp of her master's arms. She looked up at him in surprise as he looked back at her through the lens of a scouter. She had only half a moment to realize that he must have borrowed it from Napppa and tracked her counterpart on the roof. She had landed in what had become the center of the melee her counterpart had started, as every single person in the place seemed to have focused their ire on the two Saiya-jin.

 

“Aw, to hell with this,” muttered Nappa, who was right beside them. He stepped forward and raised two fingers.

 

She thought she saw Raditzu's eyes widen in alarm for a split second. “Shit!” he exclaimed as she suddenly found herself engulfed in the white-hot energy of his aura. She squeezed her eyes shut against the maelstrom and prayed that it would all be over with quickly. No more than a few seconds could have passed between the time she'd fallen through the roof and when he finally powered down, but it seemed like hours.

 

When the tumult subsided, she opened one eye halfway to hazard a look around. The first thing she saw was her master, looking down at her in what she thought was distress as she realized that she was still clinging to him tightly as though he was the only safe port in a raging storm. She had fully expected him to just drop her on the ground at that point but instead, strangely, he gently set her down on her feet. It was then that she got a full look around. There was nothing but scorched earth, as far as the eye could see. Even the canal had completely dried up. The three of them stood in a crater, the rim of which stretched to the horizon.

 

“What the hell was that for?!” Raditzu yelled at Nappa while she was regaining her balance on legs that she thought were going to give out on her.

 

“Eh. I was getting bored.” The big man shrugged and scratched the back of his bald head.

 

“You mean you were just now starting to find this excursion tedious? Well, if you're finished wasting time on inanities…” Raditzu took up a fighting stance.

 

“Are you sure you still wanna do this?” Nappa asked, clearly not taking the younger warrior seriously. “I'm assuming you wanna test out your higher power level, but surely you could find a way that would be… uh, safer?” He looked back at his would be opponent as if to give him a chance to back out of the challenge. Seeing that it wasn't going to happen, he shrugged again. “Alright then,” he sighed, and the next thing Ranchi knew, the two were locked in battle… somewhere. She couldn't see them as they were moving so fast, except for the occasional lull when they clashed and wound up wailing on each other at close quarters.

 

Her instinct was to get as far out of their way as possible, but there was nowhere to go, really. She looked around, half panicked. There was absolutely no cover, and she could've walked for miles and it would only be more of the same. She knew from experience that the range of the fight itself could span miles at the rate they were going. She finally gave up and just sat down on the ground to wait, hoping that she wouldn't end up caught in between the brawl.

 

She hadn't been waiting long when something landed hard on the ground, a few yards away from her. She looked over and gasped again. It was her master, battered and bloodied from head to toe, it looked as though he'd landed flat on his back from quite a distance. He groaned sharply and attempted to roll over, but wasn't able to as one leg was shattered and jutted out in an unnatural direction. To her surprise, he started to laugh, but ended up coughing up a bloody mess and spitting it in the dust beside him. She remembered that he'd already ignored some mild form of injury after his fight in the tournament and wondered if there was any way to even get him somewhere where the damage could be mended. As she sat and debated what to do, something touched down lightly on the other side of her. She turned to see Nappa, hardly a scratch on him, eyeing the two of them as though they were little more than prey. He wiped his hands together as though satisfied at having finished a routine task.

 

“See, now that was hardly even fun. And ya know what, a guy goes to all the trouble to get a little companionship from the fairer sex and comes up empty, that's a real shame. Well, I thought about it and decided even though it might not last very long, that'll do.” He leveled his gaze at Ranchi. “Being that it's at fault here and there's really nothing you can do to stop me.”

 

He took a step towards her and she backpedaled on what had become dusty ground. Her breath was coming in ragged, burning gasps that tasted like sulfur and she realized that only one of the little scrubbers had survived the earlier destruction. She looked back over her shoulder in the hope that there would have been any sort of salvation from her master. Amazingly, he had managed to turn over and sit up slightly. He winced as he wrenched his broken leg back he way it belonged. He choked out a short laugh, at least feigning amusement.

 

“You duplicitous bastard,” he said to Nappa in reproach. “I knew you'd go back on our deal, especially after all your crazy talk earlier. You haven't got a shred of honor left to your name, have you?”

 

All of a sudden, she was overcome by a burning rage, which was entirely an unfamiliar feeling to her. Her mind flooded with disbelief and hate directed toward the crippled Saiya-jin behind her. By the unwritten rules that he'd claimed to follow, he was supposed to have been at least a little bit responsible for her. She had done everything he'd asked, no, demanded of her during the past several years and now if she somehow happened to survive suffocating on the poison air, what could only be a horrible death awaited her at the hands of his comrade, and if he even cared he thought it was funny. The venomous thoughts swirled in her mind as Nappa reached down to retrieve her from the ground.

 

And then everything went dark as she fell into one of the spaces in between, the place she went when the other took control, where there was nothing and thankfully she'd never remember what happened as consciousness slipped out of her grasp.