Chapter Thirteen – A Daughter's Tale
My name is Bra Briefs. I am the daughter of Vegeta and Bulma Briefs.
I am the woman who watched the world die and could only run.
My name is Bra, and this is the story of how the world ended.
On may the twelfth, three years from now, on an island nine miles south of South city, four deadly Androids will appear, and if nothing is done, everyone dies.
"Frieza's still alive, and he's coming, now!" Vegeta yelled, swiping the shards of broken glass from the table top with a cry of fury.
"Are you sure?! No, I can sense it too! Wait… Why is there three of him?!" Goku cried out, looking to the sky in shock.
"You guys… What are we going to do?" Yamcha spoke, quaking in his boots.
"I don't know about you, fool, but I will face them like a true Saiyan. They won't know what hit them." Vegeta growled in derision.
"Vegeta, do you know who those two with Frieza are? They're just as strong, if not stronger than him." Goku spoke, his eyes never leaving that spot in the sky.
"Cooler and King Cold. Frieza's brother and father. There's no-one else Frieza would allow to travel with him if their power levels were that close together." Vegeta growled.
"Then what are we waiting for?! Let's GO!" Goku shouts as he forces himself into the sky with a blast of Ki.
Vegeta followed right after him, the air tearing as the two Saiyans fly faster than sound.
They are swiftly followed by Yamcha and soon Tien is flying by their side with Chiaotzu.
The five landed together on a ridge in a mountain range to find that Piccolo had already beaten them there.
All six of them watched in silence as the disk landed down upon the plain. An alien army flooded out first, followed by three familiar looking figures.
As expected, Vegeta exploded with rage, his aura lighting up as every scouter in the army detonated; overloaded well beyond their limit by the Saiyan Prince's rage gifted power.
He fell upon them like the angel of death, a tidal wave of death and blood as he swept through them to land a single blow into one of Frieza's few organic parts, throwing the emperor back.
He was swiftly joined by Goku who, upon landing, exploded in the glorious light of a Super Saiyan and fell upon the strongest power.
King Cold recoiled under the flurry of blows as Cooler became occupied with Tien, Chiaotzu, Yamcha and Piccolo.
Frieza, his strength enhanced by his mechanical augmentation, was fighting on equal terms with Vegeta, the latter of whom had a shark like smile plastered across his face as he dealt blow after punishing blow upon his onetime master.
His smirk grew ever wider as he danced around the albino alien in a flurry of blows and Ki blasts.
Tien's crimson aura pierced the sky as he and the others attacked Cooler, the purple alien becoming slowly more impatient with the admittedly painful rain of blows that landed against him. What made him snap was when the weakest of them, that damned floating doll, managed to muster up enough power to throw him to the ground and singe his back.
With a low growl he pushed them back, his eyes glowing pure blood red as he transformed beyond anything the Cold line of descent had ever seen.
A fifth form that only Cooler knew.
His power rocketed to the sky and beyond, coming close to the power of the Super Saiyans. With a single movement he struck down the four battling with him, their blood painting his exoskeleton.
At that precise moment, he appeared, like a divine intervention.
Gohan looked around in panic and found that he was already too late, the blood of his Father's friends was spread across the field and a powerful being was gloating over them.
The poor boy lost all trace of sanity and he was bathed in the green light of the fallen.
With a maddened yell, he burst forward and ripped through Frieza with a single swipe, starting at the right side of his head, and ending just below his left armpit, destroying the majority of his remaining organs as well as the vital synthetic components that kept his system running.
That wasn't enough for the demi-saiyan though, and with a scream more akin to a roar Frieza's remains were atomized with a blast of barely focused Ki
He turned to Cooler, madness dancing in his pupil-less eyes and with another roar that shattered the Heavens, he tore him apart with his bare hands.
The Earth shook beneath him when another Godly power appeared.
The beast turned to face a demon.
With elongated head and hunched back and a countenance more alien than ever, his power was unnatural, further even than his sons'.
It did nothing to save him from the fledgling beast.
Gohan stood in the pool of blood that had once been King Cold, laughing manically as his power burned ever stronger in the green light.
And then he set his eyes on Goku, having no ability to tell friend from foe.
Thinking fast, Goku phased behind the boy and struck him with all his power against the back of the neck, causing the boy to fall forward, all of his power falling from his grasp as he slumped, unconscious.
They had won that day, but at what cost? For the Dragon Balls could no longer be used with the death of Piccolo so all those whom died had to stay dead.
And then everything got so much worse; for Son Goku died of a heart virus just three weeks later.
Then, on the twelfth of May, on an island nine Kilometers south-west of South City, four androids appeared, their power dwarfing all before them.
Android Seventeen, Android Eighteen, Android K and Android Y.
Created by the psychopathic genius; Doctor Gero formerly of the Red Ribbon Army they had but one objective; Kill Son Goku.
But Son Goku was already dead.
Full of power and without direction, the Androids set upon a new directive.
They would conquer the world.
Vegeta and Gohan disagreed of course, but even with the power of two super Saiyans, they were doomed to fail.
Vegeta could only buy time for Gohan to escape and live on.
Personally, I am thankful he did.
Now there were only three of us left, though I believe Roshi and the Turtle island gang escaped in a submarine, Gohan, my mother and I. Two demi-Saiyans and a self-confessed genius were the only hope.
Not that hope could defeat beings as strong as these.
In eighteen years we only managed to cut their numbers in half and even then only with sheer luck.
Android Y got caught in a thunderstorm and was struck by a seemingly divine bolt of lightning; Popo's last act of revenge, perhaps. It was this that alerted us to the fact that the Androids had self-destruct bombs wired inside of them, as that Android detonated in an explosion that took out an entire city.
We then managed to catch Android 17 on his own without the others. Somehow, both of us together managed to destroy him despite his overwhelming power.
Then, one day, the last two androids struck again.
A man and a woman stand on a ridge, looking down upon the city below.
The man was tall with wild raven hair and eyes of the deepest black, his hardened face broken by a scar that was split by his left eye. He wore an orange fighting Gi with a blue sash to keep it clinched tight. The time for weighted clothes had long since past, the two didn't have the luxury of holding back.
The most jarring thing about his war torn appearance however, was that he was missing his entire left arm.
This was Son Gohan.
The woman beside him was just slightly shorter than him with flowing lavender coloured hair and the same deep ebony eyes. Her pale face, though beautiful, was also scarred; a deep remnant of a stab wound upon her right cheek.
She was clad thickly in clothes, barely a touch of skin showing below her neck, making it difficult to discern her exact body type.
This was Bra Briefs.
"They're down there." Gohan spoke. "It's time we finished them off once and for all. Prepare yourself, Bra." Without warning, he began to glow with the golden power as his hair turned golden blonde.
"Right." Bra spoke, ascending with him so they shone together like beacons in the night.
With a resounding crack they set off as one, landing in the city with a flash of golden light before the deadly female Android known only as Eighteen.
"Where is the other?" Gohan growls, his golden aura flaring.
The deadly beauty smirks and points right behind him and they both turn around to see the deceptively diminutive Android K burst from the ground and thrust his palm through Gohan's chest with extreme prejudice.
The effect is instantaneous. The golden aura sank away and his hair fades to its natural raven black.
With dying eyes he turned his head to Bra, blood staining the corner of his mouth as he whispered but a few short words before his eyes became like glass and, with K's hand removed, fell.
"GOHAAAAAAAN!"
Bra's aura sparked outwards as she yelled to the heavens that were already sending down rain to mark the passing of Earth's bravest warrior.
She screamed again before throwing herself at Android K.
However even with all her strength, there is only one of her and two of them. Soon, she was fighting just to stay alive.
"What do you say, Eighteen? Time we put her out of her misery?" Android K spoke.
"Yeah, this cat and mouse game has gone on long enough. Let's do it." Eighteen smirked, her cold, deadly eyes staring down at the pitiful excuse for a fighter that stood before them.
"I will crush you bo-" Bra never finished that sentence due to Android K's fist being embedded in her gut.
She was thrown to the ground, coughing up blood violently as the two Androids prepared their attack.
The blast was seen for miles around.
The Androids left the scene, happy in the knowledge that their work was done.
Except it wasn't.
Two long weeks later a young woman with lavender hair heard the voice of her mother speaking to her from the bedside.
"The medicine and the time capsule are ready. We-No, you can stop this all happening, build a brighter future. Do make sure you come back for your dear old mother when you're done now, won't you?" Even with the joking tone, the woman's voice was grim. The conflict had taken its toll on everyone, Bulma Briefs possibly more so, as she could do nothing but watch as her family and friends were ripped from her, while at least the others could try to fight.
Still, for the first time in so long, it felt like there may be light at the end of the tunnel after all.
But the cruelty of this world would not let her go without one last blow.
For just as Bra pressed the button to began the final checks of the Time Capsule, the systems already humming and the air around the device distorting, Android K broke down through the building and looked at Bra right in the eyes, a merciless smirk on his face.
He reached out and just as the machine began to fade away, he broke Bulma's neck with a single twitch of his synthetic muscles, the crack of her spine resounding through Bra's mind as she began the descent through the stream of time.
"That is how it is. You, Goku, will die from a heart virus and none of the Z-Fighters will be able to withstand the might of those four. If nothing is done, you will all die over again. But I am here to make sure that never happens. I will die before I allow any of you to fall to these Androids." Bra spoke.
'I won't lose any of you ever again.' She thought with conviction filling her being.
So why did it still feel as if someone were dancing on their graves?
Writing by Umbra Gami
Beta editor was Slicerness