Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Time's Folly; A Bittersweet Symphony ❯ A Snap Back From The Past ( Chapter 18 )

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* chap 18 *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

- A few hours later -

 

Dark eyes roamed over the ground below as she flew at a moderate pace through the night sky. Finding a suitable spot, she descended, landing in a fair-sized clearing. Trees stood off in the distance on almost all sides, as well as a river not to far off to the right of the treeline. Other than that, it was just her and the ankle-high carpet of grass covering the clearing. Kicking off her boots, she inhaled slowly and began stretching.

 

It wasn't the first time she'd come outside to practice alone, nor was it her first time in this particular spot. As she finished with her initial warm-ups, she stood still for a moment, looking up at the sky. A soft random breeze brushed over her, lightly touching her uncovered arms, gently lifting the very long, unbound, deep black hair behind her, and ruffling the light material of her pants against her legs. Her eyes closed in preparation for light meditation

 

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A strong muscular chest rose and fell with calm rhythm, yet he was not sleeping like he wanted or needed to be. If light had somehow illuminated the dark room, his blue eyes would shine with fierce concentration as though in deep thought. Every so often he'd clench his fists and flex his arms, before he would relax again. An ongoing and random cycle, he sighed mentally. A restful sleep was not forthcoming on this night, he concurred, so he decided to get up. After pulling on a pair sweatpants and a black tank top, he left his room.

 

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Her movements were strong, fierce, but also quite graceful. It would be obvious to any experienced fighter that there was much skill in the way that she moved and fought against her invisible opponent. Curiously, even these graceful, purposeful movements were tainted with a strange awkwardness usually seen in less experienced fighters. Despite the outward physical beauty of her attacks, an inner turmoil raged within the thoughts of the fighter:

 

Frieza. Vegita. That planet. That explosion. That… girl. What the fuck? Why?! These stupid visions keep getting…more vivid, more real! My body…

 

Just then an unexpected jolt of pain radiated from a point in her lower back, making her stumble backwards with a surprised grunt. It was less painful this time, for once. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, focusing on that spot, and after some seconds the pain faded.

 

“Shit,” she seethed quietly.

 

And these fucking pains, she fumed in silent frustration. They've been coming on me more and more frequently. At least now, if I focus my energy where it hurts, I can make it go away, but somehow it always comes back stronger again, just before the pain stops altogether. Unfortunately, it only stays away for so long, and the cycle starts all over again. What a fucking bother! I don't even know why.

 

Once the pain subsided, she levitated several feet off the ground so that she could continue her movements in the air. Amazing! It's so simple and much more enthralling. Maybe I've become so used to the pressure inside the gravity chamber that being outside of it makes me feel so light. It's more of a challenge to stay in the air in there...

 

In the middle of her kata, a new pain suddenly came from her middle and radiated throughout her body. The pain made her hunch over violently, but she managed to give her full attention to her pain. After a minute of intense focusing, the pain finally receded.

 

Damn it!!Swearing under her breath, she took a couple deep inhales to calm herself before starting up her aerial katas once more.

 

<>Vegita: What an idiot.<>

 

Those snide little comments he gives; what the fuck is up with that?

 

<>Vegita: Weakling human!... You should be faster than that that, little girl!… What the hell is wrong with you! You're careless!<>

 

What the hell does he know? Asshole!!

 

An all-too-real image of a scornful Vegita suddenly flashed in front of her startled eyes. Shaken, she “tripped” over herself, losing her concentration and tumbling a couple feet from where she was in the air.

 

What the…?!

 

In the middle of her descent, another excruciating pain came upon her. This one radiated from the lower half of her body, causing her to emit a series of short, painful grunts right before she hit the ground, landing on her knees.

 

At least the bitch knows her place…The sound of a scratchy feminine-like voice echoed from inside her head.

 

As some of the pain subsided, she looked up. This time, an image of Frieza stood before her - his face looking down on her with a most evil grin. Shocked, she crawled backwards away from the specter-like image as it began to laugh. Without warning, another sharper, radiating pain was felt on her lower back. She cried out, arching her body backwards in response to the pain. Again, Frieza's face appeared above her, but this time it held a more serious expression.

 

You're hiding something from me, aren't you?

 

One arm shot out and grabbed her neck. As soon as it “touched” her, the pain transferred upwards into her neck. Automatically, her hands came up to protect her neck. As soon as she did, his hands “disappeared” from around her neck, as did his body, but only for a moment.

 

The sound of his maniacal laugh persisted in her ears as his image blinked in and out around her. Interspersed with Freiza's image were other disturbing visions - including the still-blurred face of the Saiya-jin female, as well as “pictures” of Vegita, varying between how he appeared when he was with Frieza and how he looked now.

 

Her whole body then began to ache horribly, now engulfed throughout with a sharp, burning pain. She screamed as she writhed, contorting her body into all sorts of positions while lying on her back. The flashes did not let up, but continued but with more variety and new images:

 

A “girl” being brutally dragged across a floor by a slim, but strong, sliver rope of some kind, attached to a thin metallic, sliver-colored necklace looped around her neck. The other end of the rope was gripped by one of Frieza's hands.

 

Another vision, which was blurred, was of groups of aliens, all maroon-ish in color, but with varying hues and color patterns. Tentacle-like appendages flowed from in between their back shoulder blades, draping down the middle of their backs; all of them with smooth tails that were thick and quite long.

 

This vision was soon replaced by still another, somewhat blurred image of the “girl,” seemingly naked, lying limply on her back. This time, a smirking Frieza was holding her by the waist with both his hands, moving between her outspread legs. Behind the girl and also on the bed was a blurred, battered Vegita hanging off of some, un-seeable...thing.

 

These terrible sights, along with flashes of previous “images,” filled her panicked mind, fading in and out of view and coherency, some parts clearer than others. Just when she thought she was going to lose her mind, a ring of light appeared at her feet and began to move up her body, rising twice before fading. Her body tensed up and seemed to contract inwardly. As the pain in her body reached its climax, a noiseless yell was ripped from back in her throat. By doing so, the strangling, painful tension seemed to slowly let go of her; relaxing deep inside her core, she reflexively started calling upon her ki.

 

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Curious blue eyes darted slightly to the side as he felt an unusual flux of ki not to far from his current location. It wavered briefly, then stabilized for a short time, before starting to steadily climb. Recognizing its signature, he quickly moved towards it.

 

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A soft white glow spun and danced around her, her eyes flashed with blue color.

Somewhere, somehow her ki had been summoned. The pain was ebbing at a steady pace, as did the ki she had previously called upon. As they rescinded, she lay on the ground and closed her eyes, not moving, but breathing heavily. For a few moments, she only laid there, catching her breath until the pain went away for good. After a few minutes, she stood up.

 

Her eyes flashed brilliant blue again, this time lingering for a few seconds before fading. She then began to visualize her opponents as they stood in front of her: a younger-than-present Vegita, accompanied by Frieza, both standing next to a blurred imaged of one of those aliens that had everything but its deep maroon-colored hands covered by a dark cloak.

 

A second passed, and then she attacked.

 

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A light but warm breeze brushed past his hovering form as he looked down to where the source of ki was originating. He lowered his own ki so that he could make himself undetectable to her, landing far enough away so that he would not be in the way but could still see everything perfectly.

 

He remained still, observing her closely for a few minutes. But as the time passed, his annoyance grew.

 

Admittedly, he knew he was jealous of this girl. It irked him that Vegita was so focused on her. The man who had once rebuffed him, telling him that he “trained alone”, would now be taking the time and effort to train someone who wasn't anywhere near a percentage of his father's strength - a someone who wasn't of his own blood; someone who wasn't even a Saiya-jin.

 

The fact that she spent more time with his father than he did was another source of irritation for him.

 

He was also annoyed at her general personality, which held an arrogant similarity to his father's. It seemed to him as though she was constantly mocking him. Both of them seemed to be able to get under each other's skin with ease. No wonder the two of them had been at odds with each other from practically the beginning.

 

And then there was her ki strength. With her growing ability to use it, her ki was slowly rising, but only to the level of becoming a sparring toy for the two Saiya-jin children.

 

Finally, there was the possible issue of her true origin. Up until now, most of the “Lookout” group was leaning toward the notion that she was originally from this universe and that the switch between dimensions had been caused in part by her impressive ki ability and strange ki signature. Vegita had also firmly asserted that she was truly of their universe, but that her true identity was not what was being revealed at present.

 

But why would that pique your interest? And then to want to train her…

 

But with the new developments that Piccolo had unearthed in regards to Autumn and Asia, they, minus Vegita and himself, had migrated towards a more neutral stance on the subject of her, at least until a little more time passed that would present any more curious discoveries.

 

Although, what about Goku? he pondered.Where does he actually stand on all of this? I just don't get it. I can't really read Goku at all. I'll admit, he hasn't really reacted to too much of anything regarding these girls, and yet everyone else seems surprised. And, around father…it's almost like he and Vegita have some sort of… I don't know…unspoken mutual pact? That's not all that surprising, though.

 

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She landed a perfectly executed kick combo that left her in a crouch with her back facing the visitor she had noticed earlier. Slowly she stood up, aware that his full attention had been on her since she had landed her last combination. Her eyes flashed blue again as she quickly twisted the top half of her body around, releasing a ki blast his direction.

 

He tilted his head to the side as the blast flew past him, barely brushing over his shoulder. She turned completely around to face him. The two stared each other down for a good minute before she raised her hand, releasing a series of blasts aimed at him. In response, he held out a hand, almost nonchalantly deflecting the blasts into the surrounding trees wherein they exploded.

 

“Trunks, the faulted son of Vegita,” she said in a low, taunting voice.

 

“Fuck you,” he breathed steadily.

 

She smirked. “Fucking pussy. Let's have a go then, shall we?” She extended her arms out with one hand behind the other and released a single strong ki blast at her opponent.

 

“You're a fool for daring to taking me on, Azure,” he sneered scornfully as he canceled out the blast with one of his own before charging at her.

 

“We'll see,” she said, smirking darkly as she charged at him.

 

Instead of colliding, at the last possible second, they both shot straight up into the air at the same time. Noticing that they both did the same thing they jeered at each other in the middle of their ascents. Trunks put on his aerial brakes just as he reached out and grabbed Azure's ankles with both hands. He quickly swung her around twice in a long elliptical circle before flinging her into the ground. The night breezes soon disbursed the clouds of dirt and dust, revealing a circular depression, a few feet in depth.

 

From inside the new crater, a bright ki ball shot up towards him. Though he easily doused it with one of his own, he was quickly greeted with a punch to the face, immediately followed by a knee to his gut and an elbow in the middle of his back that had him falling towards the ground.

 

Trunks outstretched his arms, stopping his descent well before hitting the ground. Whipping around, he saw her attempting another attack from above. Trunks fazed out and she immediately stopped her descent towards him. Realizing her error, she turned around a bit too late. Before she could turn around, Trunks reappeared and double back-fisted her, driving her back into the crater.

 

Trunks landed a few feet away and outstretched his hands, launching a short-lasting volley of ki balls at the just-standing Azure, who managed to launch into the air at the last second.

 

Next, she avoided Trunks' leaping high kick by rolling to the side and countered with a sharp slash at his chest enhanced by ki at the end of her roll. Trunks lurched forward after the contact but quickly blocked another incoming punch. He grabbed her wrist and in the process he swung his legs upwards aiming for a hard kick to the stomach. Seeing this, Azure dodged his attack by raising her body into the air upside-down, while at the same time untwisting herself out of his grip. She then swung her legs around his neck, tightly locking his head in between her thighs.

 

Trunks grunted as he grabbed onto her thighs with his hands, squeezing and digging his fingers into her flesh. She hunched forward momentarily with some of her unbound hair falling in his face before throwing her body backwards into a flip, which in turn flipped Trunks over her, hurling him towards the ground. Quickly she flipped again into an upright position and blasted a two-handed ki attack at him falling figure that would assure his impact with the ground.

 

She landed successfully just as Trunks' body smacked the ground, raising another cloud dirt and smoke into the air.

 

“Vegita's son,” she snuffed with distaste.

 

From within the dust cloud, she heard him let out a short, dismissive laugh. “That's not even a warm-up,” he said as the smoke cleared. He stood mainly unharmed, save for the lightly bleeding cut on his chest.

 

Azure raised one hand, palm down and fingers pointing straight at Trunks. Then she smirked and her eyes flashed blue again.

 

“It's not supposed to be anything but,” she said in a low voice. Dagger-like ki points quickly formed at the tips of her fingers right before they shot at their target. As the ki left her fingertips, Azure launched herself in the same direction.

 

Just as Trunks leapt in the air to avoid her and the sharp points of ki, she faded out, only to reappear behind him. With a viscous two-footed kick to his back, she forced him forward into the path of the small, ki-sharpened missiles. Two hit directly on each of his shoulders, while the last one just missed the left side of his neck.

 

As the ki-points made contact, Trunks let out a sharp, surprised hiss. In response, he shot ki out from his hands at the ground, which launched him up into the air like a rocket. He flipped backwards into a standing position and sent a roundhouse kick that just missed his advancing opponent. But although his kick missed its mark, the ki blast that he immediately sent after it did not, knocking Azure backwards in the air several feet.

 

Not waiting for her tumble to complete itself, he charged at her again, this time striking with another, harder punch to her stomach. He followed that with a double back-handed fist to the face and a kick to her upper chest that sent her into a rolling bounce, on and off the ground, before finally stopping.

 

A warning voice somewhere in the back of mind was telling him to be careful. As strong as she appeared to be, it told him, her body had yet to match her power potential, despite the fact that she could give considerably more than she her physical body could actually take in return. Trunks cursed silently. It was all so frustrating. He didn't necessarily want to hold back. When his attention returned to what was at hand, he noticed that Azure was starting to get up.

 

It was obvious that she was having some difficulty. Eventually, she was able to stand, though it was evident that his hits, which were not as restrained as they should be, had caused her quite a bit of damage. Her arms were slightly bleeding, as were one of her lower legs where her pants were ripped. A small stream of blood trickled from a corner of her mouth. She took a couple big breaths, angrily wiped away the blood off her face, and glared at him.

 

Slowly however, a strange smile formed on her mouth. With a little bit of a leisurely stagger, she began to walk towards him, her eyes fixed on his. Confused, Trunks looked at her. That odd blue coloration seemed to filter into her eyes for several seconds before dissipating.

 

What the hell?

 

A few seconds later, that same blue color swirled through her eyes, but this time it persisted a few seconds longer before dissipating.

 

Trunks stayed on alert as she continued to approach him. Something was nagging at him lightly from within. What is this…What the fuck is going on? Does this mean something? Azure stopped her advance a few feet in front of him.

 

“Very nice. Very nice indeed,” she said. The tone of her voice was slightly altered, lowered into a rougher octave that Trunk just barely noticed. He frowned and stood prepared.

 

Azure suddenly faded out then reappearing in front of him. She quickly slapped him across the face with an open hand, her fingers slightly bent as her nails lightly raked over the skin. What the hell was thatsupposed to be? Trunks cocked a puzzled eyebrow, looking at her with surprise. She smiled.

 

Baffled as he was by her odd behavior, he was not going to allow anything she did to put him off-guard. Sure enough, his hand came up to grab one of hers, automatically blocking an obvious uppercut, while her other hand suddenly swept in, driving a sharp ki point into his arm that was holding her. Grunting and gritting his teeth, he clenched down harder on the hand he was still holding from the uppercut. As he started to bleed, he stepped inward intending to send a knee into her stomach, which she eluded by jumping into the air. She flipped over him, again using a ki-enhanced hand-chop that sliced through the tank top into his back. She followed with a kick accompanied by a swift jerk was strong enough to break her hand free from his grip as Trunks fell forward. He stumbled forwards a few steps but avoided falling down altogether, just as a thought crossed his mind.

 

What the hell is this? Is she intentionally playing with me? This nonsense can't even be called playfighting! Trunks whirled around with annoyance in time to watch her land from her aerial flip onto one knee, her face looking at the ground. Slowly, she looked up at him.

 

Her eyes were again lightly clouded with that weird, blue mist. As she stood up slowly, an animalistic look crossed over her features. Trunks' nostrils were then hit with a strange, unrecognizable scent. He blinked. The smell was enticing his senses, drawing them curiously to it.

 

What…?

 

The strange scent began to get stronger, making him want more of it. In his entranced state, he saw her walking towards him, smiling; her steps slow and languid.

 

Trunks breathed in deeply a couple times as the scent over took his senses, causing him to fall into a slight daze, into a feeling of…

 

Trunks came back to the present a second too late. He felt a new punch connect under his jaw right before his legs were swept out from under him. As soon as he landed onto his back, he felt Azure sit on top of him, her weight pinning his torso down. She leaned forward, placing both hands right above his shoulders. To his shock, she lowered her head and lightly trailed her face against the side of his neck, barely touching, as it slid down to his shoulder. Aroused by the scent of his bloodied wounds, she moved from one shoulder to the other.

 

Her scent was strong and foreign. The warmth of her breathing against his skin made his eyes roll backwards under their heated lids. Trunks' thoughts were jumbled; his mind seemed to be locked in an unaccustomed battle with his senses. He could feel half of his body start to respond favorably to her deliberate actions, wanting to unlock restraint and give into his instinctive desires, while the other half wanted to violently rid himself of the source of his irritation.

 

His breathing picked up slightly as she slowly moved down his body, briefly resting her head down on his chest, simply taking in the scent of his blood. At the same time, she lightly began to grind her hips over his steadily aroused crotch. He clenched his hands around her upper arms as she started to moan with soft sensuality, her tongue flicking into the area right below the cut, tasting his blood.

 

One of her hands made its way down to his waist, pausing for a moment on the waistband of his sweatpants, before lightly grazing over his taut arousal with a strangely light touch. Trunks shuddered at the sensation as she slowly increased the motion and pressure, working her hand on him through the fabric.

 

Despite his body's obvious reaction to her entrapment, his mind kept intruding, reminding him of his angry, annoyed feelings for her…causing him to clench her arms in irritation, each time with increasing strength.

 

She grunted as soon as she started to feel real pain, leaning forward just enough to sink a quick bite into an offending hand. This, in turn, made Trunks suck at his teeth sharply, making his already growing irritation double the moment the scent started to rapidly disappear.

 

As his senses returned more into his control, he growled furiously, releasing one hand to grab a fistful of black hair. Fired by a mix of emotions, he yanked her head backwards violently, which resulted in Azure letting out a painful yell.

 

“Get off me!” Forgetting his own strength for a moment, he placed his other hand against her midsection and shoved her hard backwards. She rolled and bounced a bit, before finally coming to rest several feet away from him. He let out a yell born of frustration and immense irritation, repeatedly pounding the ground so fiercely it left craters on both sides of him.

 

After many minutes, he eventually sat up and looked over to see the rather lifeless body of Azure lying on her back. Gritting his teeth, he got up and made his way to her. Sure enough, she was out cold.

 

“What the hell is wrong with you, coming after me like that?” he yelled at the unmoving girl. “Don't you realize I could have killed you? Do you know how close I came to doing just that? Yet…” he paused, shaking his head from side-to-side as if it would make everything clear again before falling to his knees.

 

He shut his eyes for a moment as a small shiver ran through his body. A hand went to his head as he took a couple of deep breaths, willing himself to relax again. Now, at a complete calm, he sighed. “I'm exhausted,” he said, closing his eyes momentarily. Reaching over, he picked up the comatose body that was Azure and lifted off into the sky towards Capsule Corp.

 

As he flew, he mentally played back what had just happened. Somewhere in the back of his mind it occurred to him that her eyes had indeed changed somehow; they had turned completely different, foreign. If he hadn't let himself become so damned distracted and been more coherent, he would had recognized something familiar in her soft, mumbling speech. Sometime later, he would recall these words, some of which she had uttered more than once when he had been trapped by her scent -

 

Vegita.

 

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Under a darkly tinted purple-ish sky, stood a large congregation of the native, maroon-hued, tailed population. They formed half-circle around the outside of an entrance to a low building, in front of which four of them were kneeling. These four kept throwing nervous glances at an angle behind them, watching as another of their kin stood in front the smirking alien. It was wearing the armor that their race had come to despise - the armor worn by those who served the tyrant Frieza.

 

The enemy of the maroon natives wore a malice-filled grin, extending its arm slowly forward with an open palm. Ki shot out, aimed at the alien's shoulder. When it hit, the alien's right side flew backwards, the left side following within a few seconds. The struck alien let out a horrible shrill scream. His arm had been shot off, a muddy red-purple- colored blood dripped form the seared wound. The sleek, furry tail that had been tightly wound the waist of the attacker slowly unraveled and hung lightly behind as it resumed its slaughter.

 

The injured alien watched as his attacker rushed at him then seemed to disappear at the last instant. Then he felt pain as he was struck from behind. A second later he was struck in the head before he felt himself land on the ground. After a couple seconds, he raised his head slightly and saw black boots walking towards him.

 

He felt his hair - all of which was concentrated at the base of the skull, like all of his kind, being cruelly pulled back. A heartbeat later, he felt himself in the air - he had been thrown upwards. His body was greeted with a thin blade of ki that created a deep gash in one of his thighs. The next thing he knew a booted foot slammed into that gash, followed by a hard knee to the side of his head that sent him flying. He didn't even see the hand that had opened, holding the ki formed within it, he flew into it, knocking him backwards and to the ground.

 

Through waves of pain, he vaguely saw three fingers being pointed at him - the middle finger lying atop the pointer and the ring with the thumb and pinky tucked within the palm. A thick rounded beam formed from those fingers and shot out towards his other shoulder, blasting a hole in it. His attacker was only a few feet from him and started walking slowly towards him.

 

“Stop it!” a voice from the crowd screamed out. “She's going to kill him!” came from one of those who had been kneeling, which none were now as they had all turned around to watch in horror. “It's just like what happened on our other planet!” another cried aloud in despair.

 

Similar comments that had only been whispered as the beatings started were becoming louder. The victim tried to stand and get away.

 

“Yes, do get up. I'm not finished with you yet,” the female attacker said in a tauntingly dark manner that was laced with sick amusement. She looked up into the crowd for the first time since before she started her beating. Her bluish-black eyes showed a touch of insanity evident to anyone who was brave enough to look directly into them.

 

She levitated into the air. When she was but a foot from the alien, who managed to rise halfway, she delivered a roundhouse kick to his head, which hurled him face-first into the ground. Again she landed and grabbed a fistful of hair and jerking backwards so hard it came close to decapitating him. Pausing, she slammed her heel into the back of his leg - directly into the gash wound her ki made earlier - and breaking it.

 

She leapt a few feet into the air, swinging him up and then down into the ground, the impact making a crater. Three more times she fired her three-fingered attack into the depression. Moments passed with only screams of pain before the crowd saw the body of their most definitely unconscious leader being tossed into the air, full of bloody holes and cuts. Before his battered body could hit the ground she kicked him in the stomach. Bouncing on the ground a couple times, he rolled to a stop a few feet from the edge of the horrified crowd.

 

She lifted a few feet into the air, some distance from her victim on the ground below. She raised her arm, outstretching her opened hand and looking at the frightened crowd with disdain. A dark grin crossed her features as she licked her lips, while ki started to build in her outstretched palm. She crossed over the wrist of the ki-ready hand with her other wrist. With calm detachment, she released her attack.

 

“Bi Cosmic Flash!”

 

The twin beams quickly fused into one, released straight at the bleeding and broken alien on the ground. The alien was encased in the blue-tinted yellow ki before it soaked into his defenseless body, enveloping it once more before releasing a blinding flash.

 

As the smoke cleared, nothing was left. Turning her attention to the stunned crowd, she smirked again.

 

Then she turned her head around to face the four previously kneeling aliens.

 

“Next.”

 

<><><><><><>

 

“Bitch!”

 

Veru snarled softly, vividly remembering the horrific scene that happened in front of her eyes.

 

“How dare you, …both planets… to Sierk, so many lives. You will die for that! For working under Frieza and Koola so diligently. Your breed of dumb evil will die out soon enough. Then we, the Augin-jin, will come out on top and rule again…and more. Our weapons, our secrets; our perfect plan to destroy you and claim one of the best planets we've found. It will be ours for the taking…for the ruling, for the control, for ultimate power!

 

“And we won't have to wait two years - No, time has tilted in our favor and we can strike much sooner. It'll be perfect. In a matter of hours I will join the others, and we can initiate the next phase. And you, Suika…you Saiya-jin Bitch…you will pay!”

 

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