Discomfort.

She felt frozen in her body. Her joints were stuck in place, her eyes were refusing to open. She thought perhaps she should go back to sleep. But her awareness was beginning to return in a rapid swirl of revival. Soon she was struggling to regain movement. A bitter taste sat behind her cracked lips. Slowly, she fought against the sharp pains of movement and pushed herself up to sit. She felt as though the very nano-machines injected to enhance her muscles were rending them apart now; a single hand rising to try and clear the grit blurring her eyes. All around her were crumbling, jagged shapes. Long, dark and winding snakes jutted out from them as far as she could see, and she could not clear her eyes no matter how she rubbed into them, no matter how many times she tried to run a diagnostic check. In fact, she was not receiving any system feedback at all. Desperately she tried to make sense of her surroundings, to make the blurred images she was receiving focus. A fierce panic began to take hold of her.

Hunching forward, gingerly she wrapped her arms around her knees and rested her head on them. A heavy strand of cornsilk hair fell into her eyes, and after a moment of debate, she gave rise to an aching arm to brush it out of the way. There was no familiar softness when she went to pass her fingers through her hair, however. Instead she was met with a matted, tangled clump. Her thoughts were starting to turn to anxious pleadings -- where was she, how did she get here? Where was Seventeen?

Where was he? Her brother ... he had been at her side only moments ago. They had been ... they had been ... Where had they been before? She couldn't remember, couldn't recall anything of what might have happened before waking here in this abandoned place. Was it abandoned? Eighteen hadn't picked up any signs of life. But wait, how could she? None of her systems were functioning. This frightened her far more than she wanted it to, so dependent had she become on the stream of information that played on the back of her retina.

Straightening up, she began to take notice of her surroundings, only to be violently seized with a shooting pain in her neck. She gasped at the sensation, a hand flying up to her nape. What did this all mean? All this pain? Were her few cybernetics still functioning properly? What if they weren't? The grip around her knees tightened as she shrunk down into herself. The ever-increasing bombardment of terrified questions would not stop.

"Seventeen? Seventeen, where are you?" she shouted out into the air, the only way it seemed her mind would stop its panicked convulsions.

"Seventeen! Are you there!"

No response. Not even any sounds of shuffling, not even the sound of an animal scurrying. What was going on? You're all alone! All alone and broken with no help! The thoughts continued to pound on her modified mind, unceasingly, ever-mounting as though she were going to burst forth in a madness if they could not be calmed.

She had to get up. She had to stand up and look around. Maybe Seventeen was nearby and unconscious like she had been. Placing her hands onto the cold blocks of broken stone, she leaned forward to push herself up from her patch of lesser debris. Sucking in a harsh breath, she straightened herself, taking hold of the spiraling snake of iron beside her. The blurriness would not leave her her snow-shadow eyes and still she was unable to discern most of the shapes that were before her.

"Focus," she said aloud. The word appeared vibrant in the darkness of her chaotic mind. She ran over each curve of the letter, the sound each one made on its own, and made the word grow until it was blocking out all other thought. Focus, she would, until she could see properly again. She could see enough right now, though, and began to make her way forward into the unfamiliar. The click of her boot heels underneath seemed to be the only thing that was familiar in this place. Eighteen could barely piece together what kind of place this might have been. There were no buildings that she could see. Everything was rubble, fallen upon itself in high, dangerous piles. The sky was a dull blue stretch, touched here and there with thin, wispy lines of cloud. The sun hung behind her, low in the sky.

"Seventeen, can you hear me!" she shouted out into the still air once again. Her voice felt painfull scratchy and harsh, ground out from her parched throat. Again, Eighteen took a wary survey of her surroundings, which were becoming, ever so slowly, slightly more defined.

"BRUH--!"

Eighteen's voice caught in her throat as she whipped around, fists up in defense. She had been touched. Who was it behind her? An orange bandana! Oh, but ... her body was frozen again. And the world had become fuzzy around her. Then black.

Seventeen rushed to catch his sister's limp body.


"Please ... don't stop," Eighteen whispered dreamily, her hand catching a slender wrist. Her eyes fluttered open. It was dark and warm here. Relieved, she let out a gentle sigh to see her brother hovering above her, running his hand through her hair once again. She could see him now. She felt at rest in his embrace.

"Sister," he said softly with that smooth, almost sedative voice, "I ... almost didn't think that was you." Why not? Eighteen thought. Was she that badly injured as to be unrecognizable? Quizzically, she looked up at his boyish face from his lap. Seventeen's gaze fell down on her at the same time, an uncommon expression of sorrow and relief on his face. He looked forward then, into the dimly lit room they seemed to be in, and continued to brush back the hair from her forehead.

"Seventeen ... ? Why didn't you think it was me? Was I --" His hand fell to her mouth, sharp eyes following suit.

"I thought you had been destroyed," he said solemnly. Eighteen's eyes narrowed on her brother's, pushing his hand aside.

"Why on earth would you ever think I was destroyed?" she snapped at him. "When have I ever been so much as scratched, Seventeen? When? What are you talking about?" What was he talking about? They had long since killed off those nuisances, those pathetic humans and their saiyan comrades. The only one left of their lot was nearly incapable of defending himself when he sought out her and her brother, and they only kept him alive for amusement. She was annoyed; what kind of stunt was he trying to pull on her? Then Eighteen realized that he looked too serious to be fooling around. "Seventeen?"

Her darker half pulled her up, wrapping his arms around her, pressing his chest against her back. She felt the soft skin of his cheek resting against the curve of her shoulder. Maybe the brat's mother had done something to them in their sleep? She couldn't recall. All Eighteen could remember was the playful rush of fighting with her brother, and later sitting by a burning car together in an industrial park, looking up at the stars. Surely, if they had dozed off, she would have awakened at the presence of an intruder. They didn't need to sleep like normal humans.

"Seventeen?"

"Yes?" he asked gently, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"Why did you think I was destroyed? Did something happen to us? Was it Bulma?"

"Bulma? Who? What? No, Eighteen. I don't know what you're talking about."

"How can you not know what I'm talking about," she said, annoyed tone creeping into her voice.

"I don't know. Maybe...maybe you're just recalling some of your memories before Dr. Gero deactivated us."

His arms squeezed her tightly. Eighteen's muscles tensed at this, more so from her brother's words than his actions. Irritated from his vague responses, she tore away from his arms and stood, turning to face him.

"Seventeen, I don't know what you could possibly be forgetting here, but Bulma is the mother of that half-wit, half-saiyan, Trunks! He wants to kill us? His mother is a scientist? Capsule corporation? Do these words ring any bells with you?"

But her brother was only staring back at her with a startled, wide-eyed expression. His lips were quivering, trying to call some words to his tongue to respond to her.

"What IS it!" she shouted. "Why are you looking at me like that? Don't you remember who they are?" A moment passed. Eighteen threw her arms up in frustration as her brother sat there still, unable to speak. It was then she noticed something protruding from her neck. Startled, she sat back down next to Seventeen and frantically ran a hand over her ear, tracing its shape until she felt the small, thin tube jutting out from the skin behind her ear. And as if he were anticipating this reaction, Seventeen reached over to the small table beside the bed and took hold of the mirror sitting on it.

Gently he grasped Eighteen's wrist and drew her closer to him, holding the mirror before him so that she could see herself. She noticed immediately that she had been bathed. Her hair was still wet. Turning her neck slightly, she cautiously peered at the tube in the mirror. It felt horrid to touch at first; she could feel it move inside, beneath her skin when she did, but she quickly realized where it was placed and what it might be. There was a soft blue light at its top, blinking at a casually paced interval. What was it? Instantly a menu appeared in her right eye and the name of the insertable was found. So it seemed she was on-line again. Gently, Eighteen pushed the mirror down and looked at her brother. He looked away.

"Seventeen, what happened to me?" she asked quietly.

His eyes fluttered to her and then quickly back to his lap. "Uhm ... I guess what happened was ... Dr. Gero decided that, after all that bullshit he put us through, we had been failures. We were going to be 'dismantled,' as he put it, because he had finally created a perfected specimen and we were thus unnecessary. He didn't say this to me directly, though. Well, maybe he did. Either way, I overheard him saying it when he was staring at me with my pod open. I guess the asshole forgot that when the pod doors are open, it puts us online. Maybe he forgot to turn that function off or can't read his own goddamn interface or something. He didn't even have the remote on him!

"So I got up. And I killed him, Eighteen. I took his head off. I was going to wake you up and take out his "perfect specimen" next, but there was an explosion. I saw the light from outside coming in, and then I heard voices, a few that actually registered in those databanks Gero installed. Then the place lit up around me and I was hurled against that asshole's huge main computer. When I woke up again, I could see the sun shining down on me in spots beneath the rubble. Part of my forearm was crushed in. I don't know, Eighteen. I guess they never saw me or something. When I got up finally to look for you, I couldn't find you, and all I could find were bits of our pods strewn about with the other debris of the lab. The whole laboratory was completely destroyed, Eighteen. I couldn't find you ... anywhere. I barely found anything of Gero's body ..."

Seventeen's head hung weakly, his hands gripping tight on his knees as he sat, staring at nothing. Eighteen sat at his side, mouth parted in disbelief of this story, her hand, which had been idly brushing against the insertable, now still. She felt guilty for pushing him away now. But this didn't make sense to her. In the fleeting moments she had, she couldn't begin wrap her mind around it. And yet here was Seventeen, her brother, on the verge of tears before her.

"But where did you find me today if you couldn't find me then? Wasn't I showing up on your sensors?"

"I don't know!" he sobbed suddenly. "I ... I couldn't find you at all, Eighteen. No matter what I did, not even the smallest part of you! I ... today I was flying past the ruin of the old lab towards Gero's secret laboratory for some things when all of the sudden there was a blip on my scanner and you were there. I saw your body lying there, in plain view right on top of the fake concrete stones and the wire! You were just there, like I had been overlooking you before. And ... and ... !"

He struggled to formulate the words in his head then, the mystery of his sister's appearance finally having its greater impact on him. Eighteen did not know what to make of his explanation, the sight of her brother in this state quickly taking her back to the times they spent in Dr. Gero's lab, clinging to one another for protection before he split them apart for his experiments. The yet unanswered questions fell to the back of her mind, and all she saw now was her brother in need. She pulled him into her embrace and held him close.

"It's all right, Seventeen," she cooed to him, "I'm back with you now..."


It was good to be "back" with her brother, Eighteen thought. Though as far as she was concerned, she had never really left him. She was as mystified as ever on how she had come to be unconscious and filthy in the rubble. Numerous times Eighteen had tried to tell her brother about the things she remembered before she woke up there, but he would only grow confused, insisting they had never done any such things together and that perhaps she was only having memories of their lives before Gero.

Such a notion she refused to believe, however. She had little recollection of their lives before the doctor had abducted them, and even so, in these memories they were definitely cyborgs. They could fly, they were destroyers. But Seventeen was completely unaware. More than once Eighteen submitted to violent outbursts from the lack of answers to this mystery, from the docile behavior of her once vicious brother. In the end, all she could do was try not to think about it too much and enjoy Seventeen's sweet company.

Over the days that came, Eighteen had only enough strength to explore the gardens of her new home, which were covered in great blankets of snow. They lived in an abandoned mansion, Seventeen told her, which wasn't at all hard to believe. The place had a seemingly innumerable amount of rooms, not to mention a fantastic ballroom on the second level. At first, she had wondered why such a place would be abandoned, and it wasn't until she could more freely move around that she discovered a good portion of the mansion was destroyed. The ballroom was in tact, but many of the rooms were crumbling and exposed to the open air, snow coating what must have once been lush, priceless furniture. She would have liked to go out down the path to have a better look of the grounds and the mansion itself, but she was being repaired, that thing still jutting out of her neck, making it uncomfortable to even lay down.

Eighteen had little choice but to rest in solitude. Seventeen would leave for hours at a time, which she never liked, to be left alone with her thoughts. He would make his absence up to her by returning with a present each time -- her favorite food, a book, a pretty journal to write in, bound with expensive paper. Yesterday she had awakened to find two new tops and a pair of jeans sitting on her bed. And they fit her perfectly. Before this, she had been wearing Seventeen's clothing. For her new clothes, he quickly attributed the excellent fit to them merely being twins, blushing wildly at the insinuation from his sister that he had actually tried them on before he got them.

All her life she truly knew only her brother. In her memories, Eighteen recalled a young man who satisfied his every desire on a whim. He was brash and arrogant and played around too much for her tastes, and yet she followed him anyway, despite being the older of the two. This Seventeen before her in the here and now, however, felt different somehow. He was her brother, she knew this from their conversations. He was still arrogant and too playful, but it was hard to adjust to him. She was used to being his shadow. Now he would only lavish his attention upon her, and more than once had been overcome with emotion. He would dote on her every word and insisted that all things be to her preference. She spent her nights curled up in his protective embrace. He was her brother, her only kin, and yet she continued to struggle to accept this new world of hers, where he had never known the thrill of his own true power. Could she have really only have dreamed of these things?


Eighteen's easy gaze shifted to her brother. He had wrapped her arm around his, leading her down the winding, snow-covered pathways that spawned from the main garden of the property. While she wore a heavy turtleneck sweater, Seventeen wore only jeans and t-shirt, apparently unaffected by the chill air that reddened her skin. Eighteen had been recovering at a rapid pace, and was now able to remove the insertable from the input jack behind her ear for the first time in the two weeks. As much as she liked to see, hear and scan clearly, the presence of the little blinking cylinder was always a nuisance.

There were times in the early morning hours when she would awaken, unable to stop herself from listening to the whirring sounds of its inner processes. Now Eighteen could stand firm without it, and though she quickly tired, her brother was always at her side. She turned against relying on the device the minute Seventeen removed it, despite losing some of the quality of her vision and the sharpness of her hearing. Just like the first times they had been enhanced, Seventeen told her, their bodies would have to grow accustomed to the changes on their own. It amazed her how much he knew about the mechanics of their altered bodies. In her memories, Seventeen cared nothing of this.

"So where do you go when you leave me, Seventeen?" A pause. She nudged him gently and suddenly his brow perked and he looked at her. How beautiful he was. His straight, dark hair whisking gently against the high cheekbones they shared, and his smooth and flawless skin pulled tautly over them.

"Well," he started, his eyes trailing to the dull blue sky above, "lately I've been going to Gero's second laboratory to retrieve parts and data to help rebuild you. It's not very far from here, but it takes a while to find what I need most of the time." He lapsed into silence.

"So is that the only place you go?" she laughed softly, smiling at her brother. "Where do you get our food from?"

"Oh, that? Where do you think, Eighteen?"

"Huh?"

"Where do you think I go, blondie?" he asked with a raised brow, the pale blue eyes returning to hers. She blinked and only stared at Seventeen, waiting for his response. "I get it from the grocery store, where else?" Eighteen's mouth fell open.

"The grocery store? Do you pay for it all?"

"Of course I do, why wouldn't I?"

"What?"

"What do you mean, 'what,' Eighteen? Why wouldn't I pay for it?"

"You never did before. You just took what you wanted before!" Seventeen looked away from her with a huff, a frown emerging on his lips.

"What the hell? Why do you always get like this?" She pulled her arm away from his and turned to confront him in the middle of their snowy path. Seventeen's hands fell to his pockets as he continued to look away with that frown. "Seventeen. Answer me." The lithe twin let out another huff and turned his head to look at her.

"I 'get like this' because you insist that we did things we never did! I don't ...like I don't even know where you're coming up with half this stuff, E. We ruled the world? Maybe Gero implanted some false memories in your brain and forgot to give them to me or something. Maybe he was conditioning you with memories like that so you wouldn't be afraid of our targets. I don't know. But I have never once done any of that stuff with you. I mean, I certainly wouldn't mind ruling the world with no opposition and doing what we wanted all the damn time, but the harsh truth is that we can't."

"And why can't we?" she shot back.

"Are you completely gone?" he retorted, mouth agape. "We can't because we'd get killed!"

Eighteen stared at her brother in shock. Finally her voice returned to her.

"Killed by who?"

"Anyone! Anyone on this damn planet that was strong enough to do so, E!" Seventeen scoffed at his twin. "Sure, it would be easy to beat down any human that got in my way, but those saiyans are too much hassle to bother with! Why would I bother stealing our food and chance getting my ass handed to me when I can just pay for it?" He wrinkled his nose in irritation and turned away from her, something Eighteen had seen plenty of times before when her brother was forced to talk about something he didn't want to. She stared at him.

"I don't understand. What saiyans? There were only ever four of them," she stated in a wary tone. Seventeen turned and faced her then, grabbing her by the shoulders. Uneasily, she glanced down to the sinew popping in his arms and then back to his eyes, which were swirling with the anger of frustration. She couldn't understand why!

Four saiyans, Eighteen?" he coolly asked behind gritted teeth. "When have there ever been only four saiyans, dear sister? When?" The raven haired twin threw his arms aside, suddenly enraged.

"Since ALWAYS, Seventeen! Always! Goku! Vegeta! Gohan! And that ridiculous Trunks! And we killed all of them but the brat! What other saiyans are there!" she demanded.

Seventeen growled suddenly, causing his sister to tense, but all he did was shove his hands back in his pockets and turn away from her again. A moment passed. A tuft of snow tumbled out of a pine's branches and onto the ground. A hand drew itself out of Seventeen's pocket and moved to his brow, massaging it. From his lips escaped a slow, steady breath, briefly gaining form in the chill air, and then he stepped forward and drew his unwilling sister into his embrace. Weakened by her excitement, she couldn't put up much struggle.

"I hate when you're angry with me," he whispered, hugging her tightly to him. "I try to have patience when you get this way, but you know how short my temper is. I'm sorry. Maybe ... I shouldn't have removed the rx-IN yet."

"No," she pleaded softly, "that has nothing to do with it, Seventeen. I just ... it's hard to believe all these memories I have are fake. I --"

"Shh...we should go back inside, you're starting to shiver." And she was, beneath that thick sweater her petite body was trembling.

"But, Sev, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around what you're telling me. It sounds so unreal, how --"

"Come on. Let's just go back inside." Eighteen looked up at her brother feeling as though she had let him down with her outburst. She found herself burrowing her head into his chest, looking for comfort, though she wondered why in the back of her head.

"I'll have to insert the rx-IN again, though, so I can see if any of your processes stopped functioning, ok?" His voice felt as though it were laced with lavender, so soothing it had become to her. Eighteen nodded absently, letting herself be ruled by the calming sensation of her brother's hands through her hair.

Back inside it felt warm and cozy, and she suddenly felt much more fatigued than she had been outside. Seventeen picked her up in his arms and carried her to bed, where he lay her down with a loving care she had rarely been shown this often in her memories. Maybe they were falsehoods implanted by Gero. Was his sadism that intense? For what reason? She couldn't think of anything, nor could she find any hints that her memories were truth. Gero had performed his share of experiments in perceived reality on them, but never for such prolonged amounts of time as this. There was so much she remembered and thought she had truly experienced. Now, with each passing day, she began to question those memories. She should just accept her reality now, that she was alive and still had her brother.

Seventeen appeared in the doorway with a small device in his left hand, the little computer that monitored and analyzed the readings the rx-IN output gave. In his right hand was the rx-IN itself and a paperback novel, it looked. Eighteen wrinkled her nose at its appearance, but pushed herself up nontheless. He smiled at her. He was wearing the same t-shirt with a pair of boxers now.

Seventeen sat down and then scooted behind her on the bed, crossing his legs. His hand began to caress the skin behind her ear and before she knew it, the insertable was in. In the blink of an eye, she felt a hundred times more aware. Her fatigue was still king, however, and she happily crawled beneath the plush sheets of her bed. The lights went out, Eighteen began to doze off, and Seventeen was at her side, leaning against the headboard with his book in hand.

The next day came, warm, awakening the flaxen haired cyborg with the light pitter patter of melting ice and snow. Groggily she pushed up from the covers. A bowl of soup sat a top a tray in the place Seventeen had been. Eighteen sat up further and scanned for him, her left pupil briefly flickering an unnatural shade white. He was not there. He must have gone out again, she mused, slumping against the headboard. Oh well. He wouldn't be gone long, he never was.

Reaching across the sizeable mattress, she carefully grabbed the tray and brought it to her lap. The soup broth was still warm and she savored every sip. It never ceased to amaze her how thoughtful Seventeen was, how his attention to detail was unceasing. The Seventeen in her memories was not uncaring, but he was never this affectionate with her.

Eighteen's hand rose absently to feel the insertable sticking out of her neck. It had certainly done a good job. She felt too well-rested to remain in bed, and without another moment's passing, she stuck her feet into the cat-headed slippers Seventeen had gotten for her, threw on her robe, and was up shuffling down the long, hardwood hallways of the mansion.


It was around midday when Seventeen returned home, dark red splotches on his neck where his trademark bandana was sagging. A ripe bruise sat under his eye.

"What happened to you!" Eighteen rushed to his side, pale blue eyes wide with worry.

"It's nothing to worry about, E," he said irritably, brushing her hands away from his face. Annoyed, she slapped his own hands away and began to examine his marks anyway.

"How do you figure it isn't, hmm?"

"Because I say so. Because this is how I take care of you. And let's leave it at that." Eighteen looked into his face and laughed outright.

"You take care of me by getting beaten up? I see..." Seventeen grit his teeth and began to make his way upstairs to the master bathroom of the mansion. Not about to be walked away from, Eighteen followed him in earnest. She refused to allow him to try and wander off like this, hoping she would forget her questions.

Into the bathroom she followed, taking a seat on the vanity chair as her brother went to study himself in the full length mirror next to her.

"So tell me how this happened to you." Seventeen whipped back suddenly to look at her, a snarl stuck on his mouth. His sister only put on a dry smile and waited. After a moment, Seventeen returned to examining himself in the mirror. He removed the tight-fighting shirt he wore and let it drop to the floor. Grimacing, he prodded gently at the dark bruises over his ribs. He had to tend to himself quickly; it hurt. Before Eighteen could open her mouth again he spoke.

"I get money this way."

"How?" she spat out. She could see Seventeen visibly tremble at her voice.

"Well," he began in a paced tone, "since I prefer to avoid menial labor at all costs, fighting is the easiest method to getting paid, dear sister." She stared at him in silence, until he whipped around to look at her again, his sharp eyes piercing her trance.

"But who do you fight? I don't..."

"Whoever enters the tournaments, Eighteen."

"Huh?" Seventeen sat down on the edge of the tub, sighing.

"Don't you remember anything at all?"

"No, idiot. I --"

"Let me finish! Fuck! Don't you know what a fucking martial arts tournament is? People fight. For money. If you win, that means you get paid, Eighteen. I didn't think you were that stupid, that I had to explain shit this simple to you, but holy shit, it looks like that little blinky in your neck just isn't doing a good enough repair job!"

Seventeen was glaring at her with an icy spite in his eyes. Those words stung, bit deep, and she hadn't expected him to get this angry at all. She stared back at him with wide, irritated eyes, unable to gather a response, not when he kept looking at her that way, challenging her to ask just one more question.

"Can I talk now, Eighteen? Can I explain this to you without you trying to tell me how something is? Because you need to listen. You need to listen to me and forget about those dead memories of yours, ok?"

Eighteen gave a hesitant nod.

"Good. Now listen. I go fight in these tournaments for money. They pay well if you win. But it's hard to win because there are a lot of saiyans that enter. There are a lot of saiyans in general, anywhere you go. As for the tournament, this time I didn't win. I'm hurt, but I'll be fine. And when I am ok again, I'm going to enter into another tournament because we need to eat. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Again Eighteen nodded, never taking her eyes off her brother, though this time he was inches away from her face, his hands planted on the vanity table. "Good," he said as he straightened himself, brow still knit together with frustration. "I'm going to take a nap because I feel like shit, and then if you want, I can take you out to dinner. Does that sound ok?"

"You mean outside, out to dinner? Like a restaurant?"

"Yes," he replied, with a gentler tone this time. "Is that ok, Eighteen?"

"I'd like that."

02 index

Dragonball © Akira Toriyama. All other nonsense © number18.