Prologue

I walked tirelessly through the rubble that hid the black asphalt which used to be the streets of the greatest city on my world. I had no real aim at that time, so early in the morning that dark day. I lazily pushed back one purple lock of my once-shiny hair, now dirtied with the charcoal dust which was once the wooden supports to most of the buildings of the suburbs, now rubble, which I had slept among many nights before. As I walked, the chilly wind rustled the faded blue jacket which I wore and tugged lightly on the large, old sword which I kept in its scabbard at my back with a belt around my chest and down to my waist positioned as a sash. It also blew softly at my slightly larger-than-needed brown pants, the only kind I could get and up-keep in the times. As I wandered with no real purpose, memories from the life I knew before the second war flooded back to me. Memories from only a few months ago to 3 years.

My name is Sakina Briefs, and I am the only daughter of Mirai Trunks and Felicity Smith. My mother died from diabetes when I was very young because there is not much medicine available to anyone of this day. I have my father's purple hair color and his blue eyes, along with most of his personality. When I was a child, my father out-grew his old blue jacket and gave it to me. When he thought I was old enough to handle it, my father also created a sword out of scrap metal with the aid of an energy beam. He had gotten to be quite an astounding metal artist, and the sword is very beautiful. Being only a quarter-Saiyin, I originally had a tail, but a childhood accident involving me dropping my sword on it caused the fact that I no-longer have one. I am now much more adept at wielding my sword.

When I was 11, my father and I were practicing energy beams and we had unleashed two large blasts when something strange happened. Apparently, beings from 3 other parallel dimensions had also unleashed blasts of the exact same power at the exact same moment on the exact same relative spot. This caused portals to be formed between my world and the 3 other worlds, connecting 4 universes total. From one of the worlds came the timeline that my father had created with his own sweat and blood, the timeline where his father still lived. From the second, there seemed to be a common knowledge of all the worlds, but there were no powers there besides an extensive knowledge of agriculture and machine work, a world rich in resources. From the last, strange and powerful creatures reigned, the most powerful of all was a black cat-like creature and its minions of black mice with electronic powers. It referred to itself as The Black Plague and to its minions as The Rodents. The moment the portals were opened, this creature was drawn through into my world. My father and I both recognized its power level to be 7 times our own combined, and were forced to flee. It then began its reign of destruction, but after only a little while, the Black Plague discovered the existence of the Dragon Balls and their purpose, and set out to the new Namekian planet (the only planet left with a working set) to retrieve them. The Black Plague there made one wish before destroying the Dragon and the Dragon Balls for fear that someone else would come along and wish him away. We were helpless to stop it.

When the Black Plague came back to Earth, its power level had multiplied one thousand fold and my grandmother, Bulma, had begun to study it in the hope of discovering its strengths and weaknesses. She had apparently succeeded and had hidden her work in a secret laboratory. She had given my dad a coded message only moments before the Black Plague's minions found and killed her. Due to the sheer number of them, Dad's only option was to attempt escape and somehow decode the message.

The Black Plague's reason for its hatred against all sentient life that had not pledged its allegiance to it was something to do with crimes committed against it in its own world. The species that the Black Plague referred to itself, its minions, and various creatures similar to itself as being was something like and from the way it seemed, the species of these powerful creatures contained many subspecies. The Black Plague itself was one of the subspecies called , and the Rodents were made up of and given genetic engineering to brand them with the Black Plague's emblem (a red eye with a needle drawn diagonally over it from the top right to the bottom left) and to color them black.

My father and I hid for two years total together trying to survive while outside hundreds of people died per day as the Black Plague's minions spread through the worlds like wildfire. There were only a few thousand, but they could cause more damage than all the universes' past armies combined if they tried. The reason the Rodent's movement was so large in comparison to the progression of the death toll was because they always liked to with their victims before finally killing them.

After being fed up with the reign of terror these creatures inflicted upon the world, my dad decided to continue training me in our world, hoping that the Black Plague and the creatures from its world wouldn't be able to sense and capture us as we had our training sessions. For the first few months, only the Black Plague stirred every time my dad powered up into SSJ form, and we could easily get away from it by escaping through one of the portals. The fact that energy can't be sensed through the portals had kept us alive that long.

Then, disaster struck. My father and I had been training in a cave in our world when the Black Plague came through one of the portals into our world, immediately sensing and coming for us. I still remember the night as clearly as if it were happening this instant...

I screamed. The Black Plague! It's coming! I had been the first to sense it.

ARG! Can we not get even one moment of peace? Sakina! Grab your sword and let's go! Quick! Hurry! He ordered as he powered down from his SSJ form and into stealth mode. I had merely enough time to reach my sword and strap it on myself before the Black Plague arrived, backed up by hundreds of its minions. Its entrance was marked by a blast which opened the cave completely up, leaving not a wall left to see. Its minions had acquired Saiyin technology and now wore poorly fitted armor and scanners which seemed too large to fit on their 1-2 foot tall bodies. The Black Plague stared coldly at my father and I while a low laugh which sounded like a growl filled its throat, clearly audible to all life forms around.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm... Two little mice hiding from the big, black cat. Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm... It chuckled.

I took a sideways glance at my father. His fists were clenched along with his teeth, and he wore an expression of pure hatred. He was back to SSJ in an instant and ready to take the second level. I was terrified. I knew neither of us could defeat the Black Plague or even most of its minions before being crushed, neither could we escape if the Black Plague didn't want us to.

I knew why my father hated this thing so much. The first war on this world had been versus two androids which went on a rampage and began to destroy everything my father, in his youth, held dear. He grew up in a world of fear, not knowing if he would live past the next two minutes, never knowing where his next meal would come from if it would come at all. I was privileged to grow up merely in the aftermath, in a world where civilization was being rebuilt. With the aid of a machine my grandmother had built, he traveled back in time before the androids were activated, before Goku had died from a fatal heart disease. He delivered the necessary medicine to save Goku, rightfully believing that his presence would take a large part in preventing the androids from achieving their rampageous state. The only problem is that by going back in time, he had not prevented his youth's events from happening, but only created an alternate universe where the events never existed. He still had to go back to his own time to destroy the plague of that time. He succeeded and began to help the world along the long road to recovery. During this time, he married and had me. Though my mother died very soon afterward from diabetes (a problem that anyone with Saiyin blood in their veins doesn't have to worry about), my father and I had gotten along fine. After the sudden discovery of my inheritance of the Saiyin strength, not just the tail, my father began to train me to be the next protector of Earth. The Black Plague reminded him all too sharply of the androids before my father had attained enough strength to defeat them.

After a few tense moments, my father lashed out violently with everything he had at the monster, who dodged the blow as if dodging a clumsy mosquito. It then flicked my father almost lazily to the ground. Dad went SSJ2 and struck out with a series of physical and energy blows, each being dodged or absorbed by the Black Plague. All the while, I stood below, too terrified to move. My father's fight was pointless, futile. After becoming bored of playing with my father, the Black Plague seized him by the neck and sent an energy beam through his mid-section, just below his heart. This left a large, smoking hole straight through him and sent him crashing, convulsing to the ground right to the side of me. I cringed and a tear of suspended rage rolled across my down-turned cheek. I was shocked, but kneeled near him nonetheless, staring lovingly into his wide-open and tormented eyes. I held his head and upper body slightly off the ground in my arms, shaking violently from the mix of emotions I now held within me. He whispered to me through gasps while the Black Plague and its minions heartily laughed above.

he gasped, flinging his eyes shut and convulsing as a wave of intense pain overtook him.

I'm here, Dad. I calmly told him while tears welled up in my eyes. It was a false calm, and I knew that his shock-wide eyes were no longer seeing the world as all his senses were spent on alerting his brain to the intense pain which flew over him in waves.

L-listen. Y-you have to g-go. You're the l-last hope for the w-worlds. R-reach in my p-pocket- ARG! he screamed as another wave sent his sweating, bleeding face to turn over toward the ground. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, and I knew he wouldn't last much longer. He gathered himself enough to look at me again, his eyes unseeing, his body now beyond the pain. Take the paper from my pocket. Decode it and follow the instructions. Sakina, you must! I retrieved the paper. I would not disobey a great, dying man's last requests. Now go! He screamed, almost at the last of his breathing. Before... they... get... you... too... and with that, he let go of the last of his breath, closed his eyes, and went limp in my arms. I dropped him and stood up, backing off slowly as I shook my head and repeated the word over and over again, softly at first, but growing more violent by the second. I was in shock. I screamed, as I tore at my hair. This sent the Black Plague and its minions into a laughing fit, the sadistic worms. After tugging at my hair and achieving nothing but more hurt, I stared, wide-eyed, at my hands. They were covered with the still-warm and dripping blood of my father. I stared at them, shaking violently. I felt my father's pain, heard his thoughts, felt his despair. At that time, the world seemed to be spinning around me as I sank to my knees. My hair fell about my down-turned face as shock changed suddenly into rage. All that pain, all that suffering, exploded at once in a golden fireball of fury. My hair spiked up and changed to a golden color, a great wind rushed about me, and my eyes changed to a deep, mono-colored turquoise instead of their regular mottled blue. I had been pushed past the line into a Super Saiyin. I screamed in rage as the fireball exploded, vaporizing the first three fronts of the Black Plague's minions. Some people say that the first SSJ transformation of an individual is their most powerful jump of that level, and at this time, I believed it. I was at the first level, the first female SSJ. I stood in the air, staring at the Black Plague through eyes full of hatred, but a hatred not without intelligence. Though the SSJ form was powerful, the Black Plague held hundreds of times that power in a single one of its hands.

Well well. It coldly laughed in its deep, devilish voice. Looks like the last of the mice has come out of hiding. What do you say we have a little fun with her, eh? It asked its minions. They, of course, cried out with glee. I had caused many deaths on their force with a single blast, and they wanted me to suffer. I was a pathetic, hated thing in their eyes.

The Black Plague turned back to me with a smirk on its face, raised one hand, and began firing energy beams all around the now-open area, causing me to zip back and forth like a fly high on marijuana to avoid being vaporized myself. The Rodents were uproarious with the glee that comes from watching the last and only threat to their cause become a scared, chased toy.

Then I remembered suddenly my fathers orders, his last words. Now go! Before... they... get... you... too... I gritted my teeth, powering up for the next undertaking, and zipped off for the portals with everything I had. All my strength, all my emotion, all of my being was placed into that one attempt at escape. A few of the Rodents began to give chase, but the Black Plague stopped them, and in a voice louder than a nuclear explosion and icier than absolute zero, uttered the words which would haunt my memory for the rest of its existence: Let her go, for is it not more fun to prolong her suspense before finally whiping her from existence? Such a budding warrior deserves to live a while longer before we finally smash her. Though I was by then too far out of reach of their sound to hear, I knew that the Rodents had given up a cheer at that statement.

Since that day, I have survived alone on the streets of the four worlds, helping a few people along as well as I could, but mostly just keeping myself alive. I spend most of my time in stealth mode, keeping my energy as low as possible, but on occasion, I let loose a massive blast into the night sky of one of the worlds. All of my anger is put into those blasts, and they calm me for a while before I have to switch worlds to avoid being caught. The fireworks probably also give hope to the survivors of the world, though that wasn't their original purpose. They are my way of letting my old friends and neighbors know that I still exist. So far, it has been an entire year since my father's death, and I have made little progress in decoding the message that he left me. I am 14 now.

As I ambled pointlessly through the street that cold and windy morning, I completed a piece of poetry in my mind which had struck me first a week ago and had been pushing to surface as completed ever since. It was yet another way to alert the world, more secretly, of my existence, and to tell it that the hope my father had first granted to it had died within me. I spied a glinting piece of painted metal amidst a pile of ash, charcoal dust, and rubble which used to be a hospital. I decided to write it there...