Title: The Library
Date: 1. Feb. 2007
(Dedicated to new beginnings) (Also with this story, this takes place after Trunks returns to the future, as if he never died)
Disclaimer: Akira Toriyama created Dragon Ball/Z/GT and all of it's characters . . . I'm not making any money off of it ha . . . I wish .'
- - - -
Trunks stood over her grave.
When they first started building the time capsule, there was so much hope - then he came back to find her dead . . . a heart attack -
Or grief . . .
Now he truly was alone. It had been years since he saw another person in this city. Who knows who was still alive out there, hiding for their lives. He didn't want to cry, help lead by example; but their was nobody left to be an example for, so he bowed his head and cried.
- - - -
He cried for days before he finally decided to fly around and stretch his muscles. While he flew over the city he became aware of just how quiet everything was. He had noticed it before of course; it just never bothered him when he had the chance to talk to someone, like Bulma or Gohan.
He landed on some street with a deep pit in the middle. Charred clothes - children clothes - still gathered dust in the middle of it. The only way they remained there was because of a large boulder that seemed to dig into them. His imigination began to take over and he quickly ran into the nearest building to escape it. He opened his eyes and focused into the darkness to detect where he was. As he walked further into it, the forms turned into shapes - books actually. Suprisingly most of this library had remained intact. Whether the library was closed that day when they first arrived, or whether those androids didn't think a bunch of librarians were much of a threat, didn't matter; what mattered was the old looking generator in the middle of the room.
Trunks walked towards it, eyeing it almost suspiciously. He bent down and punched a few different colored buttons until he heard a motor running. It hadn't been used in so long that the dust that had collected on it flew everywhere. He coughed a few times then watched as every light and computer on the floor came on. Why his mother or friend or even him hadn't found this place before was beyond him, but it didn't matter - he found it now.
He walked over to the computers and opened up the most recent document that was typed. He grabbed a chair that was overturned on the floor beside the desk and sat down to read:
I have to type quickly - we have heard the reports of these creatures for days now but we all assumed we had more time to hide or be prepared; but there's nothing to prepare you for them. If you see them you're most likely going to be dead before you can even think about running. I hope this gets to somebody and you can warn the world. There's no hope for us - they'll find you no matter where you are. A few of us hide in here, we even broke the electrical cables in hope these monsters would think they already attacked this building. All we have is this little generator that is allowing me to type to you tonight. We can only use the generator at night - during the day we make no sound - it's like we're Jews hiding from the Nazi's. There's no escaping them and I can only pray that one da-
That's where it stopped, as aruptly as it began and all Trunks could do is turn it back off.
Guess they found them.
He pushed the chair underneath the desk and walked over to the newspaper section. Thumbing through he looked for the days that led up to the first attack on the city. He found the tag and pulled the paper out. Clutching it between his hands he looked down on it:
ALIENS ATTACK - WAR
The headline took over the entire length of the paper. Trunks brow came together as if he was about to cry again - the pit, the children's clothes, the hidden librarians and their friends and now this headline staring him in the face. Why did he do this? Why was he making himself look at this?
He threw the paper onto the floor and gathered up his strength. Each vein pulsing, each muscle twitching, each bone locking together until finally he threw his head back and screamed at the heavens.
As he powered up he blinked; he felt a strong wind rush past him.
He stopped yelling and turned around -
"You rang," she smiled at him. Not a sweet smile but a smile filled with contempt and sarcasm.
"18," was all Trunks could muster. Even with being all powered up he knew that he couldn't defeat her. And what was the point of throwing in a few punches, which weren't going to be that good to begin with, since he was so emotional at the moment? All that would do is get him bloodied up and bruised while she had a good laugh out of it, "What do you want?"
She blinked in confusion,"No quick retort? No punching or - what is wrong with you? Are you sick?"
"Leave me the fuck alone! Go away!," he turned and began his way to the glass doors that led outside.
To that pit - filled with children's clothes, his stomach turned.
"Now there's the Trunks I know - why are you so far from your house? Aren't you worried about your 'mommy'?"
Trunks looked back and watched her closely as she hovered towards him, "My mother died."
She stopped and eyed him just as carefully as he was her, "My friends are gone, too."
Neither of them seemed to believe the other one; at least not at first. But when several minutes past where no one began laughing as if it were some kind of misguided joke, they both looked down. Trunks looked down because he was trying to hide his smile about the news so she wouldn't start beating the shit out of him, and 18 looked down because she was trying to figure out why he was looking down. Not finding it, she spoke up,
"Now what?"
Trunks looked up at her and snickered, "'Now what?' That's all you can say?! You've destroyed everything and killed everyone - who knows if there is anybody left! And all you can say is 'now what?'!!!"
18 laughed, "Do you really think we could be the last two people left on Earth?"
Trunks shot her a thourough glance then returned his gaze to the floor, "What does it matter? Maybe with some luck there are some people who survived that are living underneath a rock somewhere-" That image of the pit crawled into his mind again, the clothes straining to get out underneath that boulder, "How could you?"
"What?"
Trunks looked out the glass doors, into that pit, "How could you kill everyone?"
"I was programmed to," she replied with such simplicity as if she had rehearsed several times.
But that was enough for Trunks, he snapped. He powered up again and lunged toward her. Grabbing her by the neck he threw her down so hard that the floor tiles cracked beneath their weight. Her head flipped backwards and it was then that he saw another smile on her face, but it wasn't the one he saw before, no this one, looked almost happy. He turned his face away, it didn't matter, so she enjoyed his attempts to kill her, and maybe she was even thinking about killing him right then and there; it just didn't matter anymore - because he wasn't going to run away this time unless one of them was dead. So what if she killed him? Nobody was waiting for him at home. No mother, no friend; nothing to loose. And he wasn't going to loose, he owed the people he loved that much.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and began tightening his grip as much as he could until he finally managed to look back at her.
And there she was, with one of his arms around her back and a hand clenched against her neck, laying beneath him, the air slowly escaping her - dying. It was too easy he realised, almost fearing the reality of the situtation. Did she lie to him about her friends being dead - was this a trap and her "friends" were going to pop out any second to destroy him?
"Where are they?!," he screamed into her face.
She opened her eyes and Trunks stared with utter shock back at her - she was crying.
"Please kill me," she begged.
She begged.
He released his grip and stood her up.
"What are you doing?! Don't you want to kill me?!"
"I can't. Not like this -"
"Why no- YOU'RE A COWARD!" she screamed at him falling onto her knees and slamming her fists into the floor, breaking more tiles.
Trunks looked down at her and frowned, "Because I will not help you commit suicide!"
"You're a fucking coward - you have fought me from day one and I am actually sitting here - putting myself on a damn silver platter for you and that's when you decide to GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS!" before she could stop herself she threw herself on him and began to hit him as much as she could,
"There's no more purpose here! I did my job and lost everyone in the process - everyone - THEY ALL DIED!"
Trunks got over his inital shock of what she was saying and grabbed her by the arm and flung her around until he finally threw her towards a bookshelf that cracked in half and fell on top of her. More dust went up into the air and Trunks walked his was through until he stood by the bookcase, watching her right leg twitch underneath,
"Now you know how everyone else felt when you killed there loved ones - when you killed MY LOVED ONES!" he kicked the shelf and it flew across the room and landed with a crash against the wall, finally resting on the floor. She was laying there waiting for it; a blast, a punch, a kick, anything that would put her out of her misery. But nothing came,
"Go kill yourself; I won't help you."
He began to walk away when he heard her whisper, "I've tried."
Trunks stopped and listened.
"I've tried everything but it won't work - the others died but I can't."
He watched as more tears appeared on her face.
This can't be happening - I refuse to feel sorry for this exterminator.
But he was feeling sorry for her - not even looking back at that pit could change his mind now. She looked so helpless, to the point that if you didn't know her, you really wouldn't have thought she was anything more but a scared teenager.
He bent down and gathered her up in his arms. She inhaled a deep breath as if he was going to kill her right then and there, but he didn't, all he did was hold her in his arms,
"We're going to fix you up - and then I will kill you -"
"But why?" she asked out of guinine confusion.
"Because if I kill you now, when you're obviously weak, then I'm no better than you. No, I'll help you now and then it will be a fair fight."
She didn't ask anymore questions - she let it be at that.
- - - -
After a while in the air, Trunks looked down and saw 18 sleeping, almost contently in his arms. He wasn't quite sure what just happened but he knew it was nothing good; the fact that he was already feeling sorry for her worried him to no end.
She on the other end had no worries; she'd get better, and then they would fight "fairly," and she would finally get to die.