BLACK MOON - DBZ MOIRAI SAGA BOOK 1

by FangSoul

Son Gohan and Jae Raske are two teenagers who share the same secret in their blood: They are both half-breed Saiyans. Brought together by fate from their separate walks of life, each with their own emotional baggage and demons, the two of them form an unshakeable bond and must work together to fight against an ancient evil that threatens to resurface after centuries of confinement.

38. CH36: Hunted

36. Hunted

Jae

Two Hours Earlier

"Let's hang out!" Maddy had finally said, three weeks after I arrived in Arrington.

I couldn't bring myself to be irritated about it; I was just glad I would finally get a chance to spend some time with her again, catch her up on all the things that had happened to me, and I wanted to catch up on how she was doing—if she was truly as well as her blasé attitude over our last few phone conversations made her sound.

When I pulled my grandpa's little old pickup into Maddy's driveway, Maddy wasn't alone as she trotted out her front door. Carly was with her.

"Oh, I thought Carly could come along, too! She's never been to the Harvest Market." Never-mind that Maddy hadn't mentioned anything to me at all—via call or text—that she wanted to invite Carly, let alone if I would be okay with it, given this was our first time catching more than a fleeting conversation with each other since I moved across the sea. Or that the Harvest Festival in downtown Landia had always been our thing, a tradition Maddy and I had kept up ever since our mothers first took us when we were eight.

Biting my tongue with enough force to draw blood, I kept my displeasure quiet. I wouldn't be a petty bitch about it. I could forgive it.

I repeated this mantra to myself throughout the afternoon as we trailed along the expanse of White Bell's Courtyard on Landia's riverside community, deep in the center of the Harvest Market; with each cubby and stand we passed, Carly had to remark on everything, often dismissing the sort of things Maddy and I always gushed over—slots of art supplies and hand-made goodies; mini-galleries of some of our favorite independent photographers, a local and family-owned bakery that made the most delectable scones on the planet.

"I don't understand how someone can demand three or five hundred dollars for just a painting or a picture that I could have easily taken myself." "Why in the hell would paper cost so much? That's inflation. What a rip-off." "Egh, these are gross."

The worst part? Maddy either half-heartedly shrugged at all of it, or she simply made a sound of vague agreement. I could swear she could feel me stewing, but didn't dare look at me. I didn't know what that meant.

Whenever we reached a stand Carly liked—things Maddy had never cared for or even gave a second take to whenever she and I had come—Maddy suddenly praised its existence; jewelry, band posters of bands I hadn't even realized Maddy listened to, useless things that had no practical purpose and were just a waste of money.

The thing about Maddy: she was a new-age hipster. She despised anything mainstream just because it was mainstream, regardless of whether there was any true merit to it or not, and often times without even trying said mainstream thing. Even on the seldom occasion when I enjoyed something that the masses loved—music, food, books, movies, anything—she was never impressed with it, no matter how much I'd try to explain its value to her.

Carly was proving to be one of those girls who was all about the mainstream, even if she liked to pretend she wasn't. Her favorite excuse in just the short time I'd spent in her presence was, "Oh, yeah, I used to like them/it/that, but I'm so over it now, it was stupid", or, "Oh, I found them/this/that waaayyy before it ever became popular".

A headache began to burrow into my temple the longer I listened to her.

One cubby we approached was for a psychiatrist's office that was promoting mental health and suicide awareness in places where it was gravely neglected—mainly workplaces and schools. Carly and Maddy both moved in unison to talk to the associate there. Well, Carly mostly talked, even when Maddy tried to interject something, Carly hastily and excitedly began talking over her. I was so strung with anger over it, my hand trembled at my side with restraint as I fought the desire to slap her.

"Yeah, we've been cut-free for two months!" Carly told the associate, motioning for an exaggerated high-five with Maddy, who mirrored her, and their hands met together in a loud, triumphant slap. The associate congratulated them in earnest, asking if they would mind putting a snippet of their story down to share with others struggling with mental illness.

"That's great," I finally blurted, sounding a little deflated and not near as ecstatic as I should have sounded. Mostly, I was just flabbergasted, gawping at Maddy as she and Carly turned to face me. "You haven't…cut in two months? That's…that's fantastic."

Maddy beamed. "Oh yeah! Didn't I tell you that?"

"No."

She blinked, oblivious. "Oh. Well, yeah, I've told you I've been fine! Carly has been taking me to see her therapist, and it's really helped. But yeah, it was officially two months yesterday."

"And I'm so proud of you," Carly gushed, throwing her arms around Maddy's shoulders in a hug that Maddy returned in full. Like me, Maddy had never been much of a person for physical affection; it was never a tool in our repertoire of communication.

"And I'm proud of you," Maddy beamed.

A bitter, selfish, disheartened cold fell over me just then.

Eventually, I faded away altogether, walking behind the both of them as they chirped happily together, throwing inside jokes at one another, striking random poses that had no meaning to me but obviously had some secret merit amongst each other. It was being stuck behind them that I continued silently fuming, glaring at how they had even dyed and styled their hair the same—dark strawberry blonde, with black tips, straightened and cut to fall in a sleek 'do touching their shoulders.

They even dressed the same, I realized with a blow to the gut; they both wore the same color of low-hanging skinny-jeans, flat-top shoes, and shirts that were different in design and color, but were of the same band.

Tired of being the forgotten third wheel, I branched off on my own, my mind so numb that I didn't even know what to think about.

Two months. She'd been cut-free for two months, and she hadn't shared it with me. I had to find out from Carly. Our brief, spread-out phone conversations over the past month on her part had merely been, "Today was okay", "Today was a good day", "I had such a horrible day, it's not getting any better, I don't know why I even bother".

I never knew what to say, and anything I'd tried never seemed to work; I had been empathetic, going as far as to let myself choke up on those bad days when she was wailing to me that she hated her life so much and she didn't know what to do; I had been defensive and protective, proclaiming I'd mow down whatever was hurting her; I had tried projecting positivity, using the rekindled light in my heart to bring about a 'bright side'; I had been pragmatic, even-headed, offering attainable solutions and options to shift her mood or help fix her problems.

Nothing worked. I might as well have been talking to a wall, because nothing I said, no matter how I said it, seemed offer any solace to Maddy. And even when I had been living here, even before I had found out about her afflictions, I always tried to make things better when I noticed she was having a rough day. I thought back to those happy times, too; all the days we made each other laugh so hard that we cried, or tried something new and exhilarating for the first time and had been overwhelmed with adrenaline and exuberance for life, or even just those simple days when we did nothing but sit quietly and contentedly, working on a project or homework.

I couldn't stop the greedy, hurt thought from surfacing in my mind: What does Carly give her that I haven't already given?

It was difficult to wrap my head around this feeling. I didn't understand how it could be jealousy; I shared Maddy with our mutual friends without any issue, and I never had esteem problems whenever she was friendly with random kids at school that I didn't know.

It's not jealousy, my mind offered, It's just that you're becoming insignificant to the first friend you ever made. And it felt far, far worse than jealousy ever could.

Walking toward the riverfront, I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn't realize people around me were flocking and rushing. At first, I didn't think anything of it; it wasn't abnormal for water sports on the river to be going on full force this time of year.

Pulling myself out of my thoughts, I noticed a writhing, unsettled feeling in my gut. That feeling then spread to my limbs, as if the very blood in my veins was icing over.

Hurrying to the waterfront, the first thing I noticed, in the open expanse of space before me, was the sky. Once again, I found myself struck with how it resembled the skies of a brewing tornado, only unnatural and sickly looking, rather than eerie and awe-inspiring.

The second thing I noticed was the bleeding darkness off in the distance, where the River blended into the ocean—and along the curve of the shore of Northern Lockeleer that hugged the River, I saw red.

The red of cinders, of flames.

I saw Hell.

Through the thick clouds—smoke, I now realized—I could make out shapes gliding in the air, shimmering lights ejecting from them like a meteor shower. For a moment, I was disembodied, with no thought or interpretation of what I was witnessing.

And then it clicked. The realization rung through me, all-consuming like a bell stroke, and I was moving. I pulled out my phone and called Maddy.

"Hey, where'd you go? We've been looking—"

"Where are you?"

"We're almost on the south end of the market. Where are you?" Maddy didn't sound panicked, only confused.

"Get out of the market. I'll meet you by the clock tower."

"Leave? Why?" I could hear Carly in the background, spewing objections, apparently.

"Something isn't right, we just need to get away from here, okay?"

"Oookaay…?"

"I'll be there in—" A bone-shaking force launched me into the air, my feet leaving the ground, and I landed back on the concrete with a skull-rattling thud. I wasn't too disoriented to feel the ground continue shuddering beneath me, to hear the deafening blare of screams, explosions, and eerie, weighted whistles. Motion was all around me—people were running, screaming; energy beams zipped in the air, making contact with people and buildings alike.

I didn't give myself a moment's hesitation—I just got to my feet and ran.

I dodged blasts, chunks of debris, weaved around scurrying people; some fell ahead of and beside me, but I forced myself to keep running, however wretched it felt to leave helpless people to be trampled or blasted.

Get to Maddy. That's your only priority.

There was so much chaos everywhere I turned; so many obstacles, so much dizzying movement all over, and no matter how fast I ran, it felt as though I wasn't getting anywhere at all—

You can fly, you dipshit!

Upon taking to the sky, not giving a rat's ass if people saw me, I realized for a different reason entirely that it wasn't such a good idea.

The majority of the attacks now seemed to be honed on me. People—aliens, I assumed, if their bizarre armor-like get-up told me anything—tracked after me in the air, shooting beams of energy and some other hollow plasma in my direction. No matter how far I weaved, dove, and ascended, no matter how fast I whipped around the corner of a skyscraper, they stayed on my ass.

A weighted thought settled in me: Are they after me? Were these the rest of Needo's friends, come to finish what he started?

I didn't allow my panic to sink its oily claws into me any further. I couldn't afford to let it. I had to shake these assholes off and find Maddy.

Once I reached a chokepoint of crowded city buildings, I utilized the blind-spot to rear back on my pursuers and fire a hefty blast in their direction—to stun and block them, if nothing else. I dove back for the city streets, finding cover in the deserted caverns of a parking garage, running deep into its shelter before dropping down between two cars. Before even catching my breath, I focused only on pulling my energy as deep inside myself as I could, folding it in again, again, and then again like origami.

I sat undisturbed for countless breaths, the distant, echoing sounds of pandemonium and panic saturating the air. Peeking up over the car hood, the coast seemed clear, so I moved, keeping low enough to duck behind a car should I need to. So long as I kept my energy signature low, hopefully they couldn't seek me out—

Shit! I barely threw myself behind an SUV in time to get out of sightline as a figure came around the corner. As the footsteps drew closer, I realized with a shot of dread that maybe I'd been seen anyway, or made too much noise. Worse, I had nowhere to go; I couldn't fit under either car, and I was against a solid wall with no exit.

My heart beat against my ribcage like a frantic bird as the footsteps drew closer, sharp pins and needles prodding at my body. I would surely be found.

I had to make a decision.

Shifting to my feet and scooting closer to the tail-end of the car I hid behind, I counted the steps, counting down in my head… And then when the shadow breeched the car's surface—

Like a wildcat, I sprung up from my hiding space, arm locking around the throat of this alien warrior in armor garb and cutting off his alerting cry to something choked and garbled. I willed all my strength into cutting off his airway, but he had plenty of awareness left to thrash and swing his body; I tucked my legs in and tilted my face down so his clawing fingers couldn't find purchase. He towered over me, at least seven feet tall, so it was taking him a while to run out of air. I cursed him for his resilience, praying that his backup wouldn't hear or see us in our struggle.

His body seemed to slow down, sagging to the concrete ground. I didn't have the coordination or time to land on my feet, too focused on being merciless with my grip around his neck, so the next best thing I could do was twist his body and mine so that we dropped onto the ground on our sides. My skull jangled, stars twinkling in the corners of my vision, but it was better than landing beneath him and having the wind knocked out of me.

Why won't this bastard expire already? Pass out, die, I didn't care—just so long as I could move on to safety.

To think I'd vomited when I killed Needo's partner, even though it had been in self-defense... When it came to killing for survival, I found there wasn't much room for shock or remorse in my priorities.

Finally, finally, his limbs fell limp, his body stilling against my own. His weapon—blaster, gun, whatever—clunked to the ground. I maintained my grip for a few added seconds just to be sure he wasn't faking, and then disengaged myself, adrenaline still spiking through every limb. Before I took off, I grabbed the ornamental device attached to his ear that hovered over his right eye.

When I reached a safe nook to hide in, I inspected the sleek device—a padded ear-piece shelled with some sort of reinforced vinyl-like surface, a couple buttons, and the light-yellow extension that had rested over the guy's eye, like a screen or lens of a set of glasses.

We had to be cautious; all of Freeza's army had scouters that could not only measure our power levels, but also detect them, even across an entire planet.

It was a detail I remembered from Gohan's recital of his adventures on Namek, how he and Krillin had to play a game of cat and mouse with Freeza's minions, avoiding detection from their technology that could sniff them out like a bloodhound if they were too careless with the energy signals.

I searched for the nearest energy signature I could find—it was dinky, unimpressive compared to what I was used to—but I found it easily enough. Then I turned my attention to the device—a scouter, if my suspicions were correct. I watched the screen, waiting for something to happen—

Numbers and symbols I didn't recognize flickered on its transparent lens, with a small humming noise. One symbol I did recognize was similar to an arrow, as if pointing in a direction… I peeked out from my hiding spot, searching for movement, and sure enough, two figures, shadowed by the dimness of the open gaps in the garage, came into view.

I cursed under my breath.

So these were scouters—or, at least, something similar to them.

Carefully, I broke the device in half so the sound was muted, and chucked one piece out to the opposite end of the garage level. That caught the figures' attentions, and they scrambled to investigate, leaving me free to sneak away. I ran through the garage, slipping beneath cars, under barrier wires between separate levels, before finally emerging from an opposite exit on the other side of the block. The street was near-desolate now, littered with debris and—

Bodies.

My stomach flipped, and I had to fight the nausea threatening to spring up my throat, which was difficult to do, as the air itself seemed to be thick with the smell of blood and offal—a reminder of the death around me, even with my eyes closed to it.

Keep moving, don't lose your shit now.

Now effectively turned around, I searched for street signs and any intact landmarks to determine where I was—all while trying not to look at the bodies and blood at my feet.

Unbidden, the thought came to me, If I was stronger, could I have prevented this? Could I have kept all these people from dying?

Stop. Don't.

There was almost nothing left of the bustling downtown Landia that I grew up with; skyscrapers taller than a few stories were either collapsed or riddled with structural damage, all of our beautiful waterfront parks and walkways were indistinguishable from the rest of the rubble graveyard… It took me the longest time to find an open spot where I wasn't surrounded by disaster, and only then was I able to figure my way around.

East. I needed to go east to the clock tower.

Then I caught something out of the corner of my eye; for as quiet as this city block was now, I could hear the destruction continue miles away—could see its progress shifting south, like a storm, up into the southern hills.

The southern hills—where the small town Rivershore resided, and where my cousin Bianca lived. My work-from-home, first-time-new-mom cousin Bianca.

Just like that, I felt my soul split in two.

I didn't know if Maddy made it out. Every minute would count if she was in trouble—if she was buried beneath debris or injured or caught in the crosshairs—

And every minute counted for my cousin, the eye of the storm headed right toward her neighborhood.

Her husband could be home, I told myself. He was a discharged army sergeant; he would be able to keep her and baby Mikael out of danger—

But if they were caught in the middle of this apocalypse? None of them would survive.

My soul screamed as I was torn between the two, but I had to make a split-second decision if I had to save even one of these people I loved.

With a strangled half-snarl, half-cry, silently begging Maddy for forgiveness, I took off for Rivershore.

Ignoring my earlier precautions, I launched into the air, avoiding the maelstrom of death and keeping to its outskirts, out of sight of the little ships. Once I was at a reasonable distance, my feet returned to the ground and I compacted my energy once more, running as fast as my legs could carry me. I ran against the flow of panicked civilians at cross-streets, had leapt and rolled over speeding cars. I just kept running, running, running.

Passing the massive rolling hills of a military memorial grounds and family parks, I found the steep incline of Bianca's street, following it up, up; most houses seemed either abandoned or their residents were hunkered down in basements.

Rounding the corner of a treed family park, I entered Bianca's neighborhood, locking eyes on her house—an elegant, brand-new stone and Tudor home with a touch of rustic charm. I didn't see any cars in the driveway—including her husband's pickup.

I didn't know what I prayed for most: that she was in the house, or that she wasn't.

The streets were eerily silent this far up the mountain, and I hoped that the city would distract the invaders long enough for me to find my cousin and get her family as far away as I could.

Though it was still in the height of late noon, the skies had darkened so much with whatever unnatural smoke and gloom these invaders brought with them that it cast the world in a dusk-like dimness. My lungs burned with what I could only assume were ash and smoke.

Loping up the porch steps, I practically threw myself against the front door, to find it locked.

"Bianca!" I knocked furiously. "Bianca, are you there?" Just as I was about to tear around to the backyard, I heard footsteps in the foyer, and then the door burst open to reveal Bianca, whole and untouched. Taking me in, she was stuck in a place between confusion and worry. I stepped inside the foyer, and then I heard Anna, saw her come around the corner from the living room.

"Jay-Bird!" Her instantaneous smile at my presence fell to something panicked when she saw me from head to toe—probably covered in soot, dirt, and skinned up.

"We need to leave—get Mikael and let's go, now." The both of them descended on me now—side by side, polar opposites in appearance, with the exception of their near-identical expressions. Anna took more after their mother—with her tanned skin and golden locks and hazel eyes—while Bianca took after their father, elegant pale skin with wavy, dark hair that cascaded past her shoulders, and his bright blue eyes. Summer and winter incarnate.

"Jae, not that I'm not glad to see you, but what in the hell is going on? You can't just come barging into my house and tell me we need to leave without some explanation—"

"I don't have the time to explain, B, especially since you probably won't believe me anyway. Just trust me, please? We need to get moving, now."

Whatever they saw in my face or heard in my tone, it made then listen. Anna went to get their purses and the baby's diaper bag while Bianca put Mikael in a fabric swaddle against her chest. Just as I was about to ask Bianca where the keys to her car were, I caught something out of the corner of my eye—something large and dark.

I looked up, and froze in place.

Dangling on the glass of the two-story windows of the living room was a creature that I could only describe as coming from a nightmare. Or from the depths of Hell itself, if Hell truly existed.

I couldn't make out any great details, aside from its shape: disjointed, long-limbed and sinewy, dome-skulled, tail-less, and dark. I caught the gleam of black, beady eyes as they made contact with my own, its maw parted in a toothy, unsettling grin.

Did that thing follow me here?

"Bianca, hurry up." The words came out breathless, weak; Bianca made a noise that indicated she wanted me to repeat myself, but she must have seen my stricken gape—and followed it. A string of horrified expletives flowed from her mouth, and Anna followed suit. Whatever they were doing, it attracted the thing's attention; its head snapped in their direction. Then it scuttled—crawling like a spider—further up the roof, out of sight.

An icy wave of terror seized me when I realized the front door was still open.

Turning on my heel, pure adrenaline propelled me for the front door, and I threw my body against it, turning the deadbolt.

Then glass shattered.

"Go through the garage! Get out of here!"

"Jae!"

"GO!" I threw vases and other heavy décor trinkets at the creature, hoping to distract it from my cousins so they could slip out the garage; I ran up the stairs, and it followed. I pulled over bookcases, hall tables, and other furniture as I passed, but nothing slowed it down, and both of us went barreling into Mikael's nursery, busting through the door as the creature pounced on me. The weight of it alone sent a sick shock through me, the reek of it—like rotting flesh and sulfur—gagging me, but I scrambled out from under it, rushing out of the room. I felt the whisper of its massive talons against my skin.

As soon as I put enough distance between us, I turned to throw a hefty energy blast. The thing lunged right through it, and that was when I realized I was royally screwed.

To buy myself extra time, I kept firing, not necessarily hitting the creature, but also walls and ceilings, kicking up as much dust and debris as I could. I would grovel to Bianca later.

I made a mad dash for the only thing I could think of: Bianca and Reed's room, where Bianca affectionately joked how Reed, ever the soldier, always kept not only his pistol by their bed, but also his gargantuan dagger, because he was a man who never took chances when it came to his family's safety.

I slammed the master bedroom's doors shut, shoving the elaborate, heavy bookcase against it to buy me a little time, books and trinkets toppling over onto the floor. Diving beside the bed and nightstands, my hands felt around for anything. I found the pistol, but I knew if my energy blasts didn't do anything, then bullets likely wouldn't.

Still, I didn't want to be completely empty-handed. And perhaps a blade would merit more of an advantage—if I was lucky.

I found Reed's massive eight-inch military dagger, its blade sleek and wicked and meticulous, and I pulled it free of its sheath just in time for the doors to begin splitting as the creature hurtled itself against the wood.

I didn't want to be caught like a deer in the headlights again. With the door still blocking its sight of me, still a solid obstacle, I caught onto my advantage.

Readying the dagger in my hold the way Dom had taught me, I leapt onto the fell bookcase, and waited for that ugly thing to poke its grotesquely large head through the hole it made in the wood—and lunged my hand down, blade-down. The beautiful instrument of death sunk triumphantly between the thing's beady eyes with a quiet thrruup, through skin and bone and whatever else the thing was made of. It screeched in agony, but thrashed anew so violently that I nearly lost my grip on the dagger in its attempts to pull its head back through the door.

I took my chance and lunged for the window, blasting through the glass as I leapt out, rolling with the impact in the grass two stories down until I lay sprawled on the cement patio close to the in-ground pool. Once straightened on my feet, I heard another crashing sound, and another one of those creatures came hurtling around the corner of the house.

It collided into me before I had enough time to properly twist my dagger around, and I found myself pinned beneath it, clutching its head to keep it away from me as it snapped and snapped. I'd had to drop the dagger.

My ears rung when a thunderous bang cracked through the air, and the creature above me flinched—if only barely, swinging its gaze to something off to my left. It was a narrow window, and I didn't hesitate to take advantage, grabbing the dagger and shoving it up, blade-first, into the thing's exposed jugular. It let out a gurgled shriek of pain, and I gagged and retched as its foul-smelling, thick blood sprayed me like a geyser. Fighting through my repulsion, just as I did with Needo's partner, I dragged my dagger with as much force as I could muster to tear the thing's throat open.

I scrambled out from under the creature, but its long, gangly limbs still clawed for me; the cement ground was too slippery with its thick blood for me to catch my bearings, so I just kept pulling myself toward the pool. With the creature nearly on top of me, I dropped down into the water, pulling it with me. Could these things swim? Was water toxic to them? I hoped no to the first, and yes to the second as I pushed back for the surface, grappling for the lip of the pool's rim and hauling myself out. Adrenaline still pumped madly through my body, and I took off running, dripping wet. As I rounded the corner of the yard and jumped the picket fence, I heard,

"JAE ADELYN RASKE, GET YOUR ASS IN THIS CAR, NOW!" On the curbside, Bianca stood beside her SUV, holding a ten-gauge shotgun.

I didn't argue this time, loping for the car and getting in the passenger's side; Anna sat in the back with Mikael held against her in the swaddle. With all of us safely in the car, Bianca peeled off down the street.

Safe for now, I allowed my body a second to just breathe—to realize I soaking wet and that my clothes clung to my body in uncomfortable ways; I could still feel residual blood and gore in the roots of my hair, but I tried not to think on it too much.

MADDY.

Her name hit me like a bolt of lightning, throwing me back into fight-or-flight.

Bianca wasn't the least bit pleased with me when I commanded her to go to her dad's riverside cabin in the Gorge, while I went back into the disaster to find my friend; she pulled the "I'm the eldest", "You will do what I say, I'm the adult, you're the minor, you're my responsibility", "I'm not going to let my baby cousin go run off into an alien warzone for anyone" and on and on. The locks to the doors clicked into engaged positions as her final form of protest. I raised a brow at her inscrutably.

"You do know that I could easily rip this door off its hinges, right?"

As if suddenly remembering that her 'baby cousin' was part alien, Bianca had a difficult time coming up with a retort for that, as much as I could tell she desperately wished she could. She just gawked at me helplessly, and Anna blabbered and begged for me to stay with them. I could see in Bianca's eyes that she knew she couldn't keep me from going.

The lock to the doors unlatched.

Before I angled my body to leap from the car, the morbid thought struck me that something terrible could still happen—to either of us; that this could possibly be the last time I saw my cousins.

Fighting the tautness in my throat, I murmured, "I love you guys." The words felt rusty with non-use; I couldn't remember the last time I said the words to anyone, even in my own family.

Throwing the door open, I took off for the skies, trying my damndest to keep my energy output as low as I could manage while still giving enough speed to matter. I prayed my cousins sought refuge without trouble, and dove back into the heart of the destruction.

Clusters of surviving patrons from the Harvest Market had been driven toward the highway on foot, a large herd of scrambling, frazzled prey, and the heart of danger was still on their tail. Shuttles and flocks of soldiers swept across the town's extensions, heading all the way toward the industrial water district, not at all concerned with catching the wave of survivors fleeing the danger.

That was my first stop.

I dropped into the middle of the massive swarm of people, hovering above them like a surveying hawk, looking for Maddy, trying to remember I was looking for strawberry-blonde and black hair instead of golden brown—

I had to scream her name, and even then, my voice could barely carry over the deafening thrum of panicked cries and shouting. How in the hell was I supposed to find her in this madness?

I could try sensing her life force, but normal humans are so low, and my training in that area isn't exactly perfect, so I couldn't even hone in on her signal.

The army of invaders encroached, and when people saw, they panicked even more, trampling one another trying to get into or over cars, road barriers, trying to find any route they could that would lead them to guaranteed safety.

There, out of the corner of my eye—

"Maddy!" I drove down for her, and she barely saw me a second before I took her arm and pulled her with me off the street, heading for the drop-off behind a bridge. We had just stepped off the concrete of the road when Maddy planted her feet, and I nearly pulled her over until I realized she wanted me to stop.

Looking at her face, I wished I could forget what I saw; eyes wide in frantic terror, eyeliner smudged from the tears streaking down her face... I would give anything to erase that fear from her so she would never remember it.

"Thank god, Jae!" she blabbered in stark relief.

"It'll be okay, just follow me." I didn't know if it would be okay; I couldn't quite lie to myself and believe things would be, but I didn't want her to know that.

Someone called Maddy's name in the crowd, barely perceptible; I saw a head with the same style and color of hair as Maddy trying to catch our line of sight before the stampede of people caught her up in a wave.

An upsurge of cries and screams swelled off in the distance; a fresh flood of people rounded the corner of the road. Muffled but resonant pulses of destruction tailed them. Just as Carly's name was about to leave Maddy's lips, a great shudder rocked the ground beneath us, a sonic wave erupting shortly thereafter as another blast went off. I tackled Maddy to the ground, covering her with my body as the force of the blast sent powerful gusts and heavy debris our way. To add to our protection, I willed my energy to form a cocoon around us the way Gohan had taught me, deflecting any harmful objects flying through the air or tumbling to the ground. Below me, Maddy trembled and wailed in terror.

The instant debris stopped raining down, I pulled Maddy into a run down the rest of the hill, using the cover of sloping structures and cars to our advantage. The sounds of destruction and annihilation faded in the opposite direction as we ran, but the cocktail of adrenaline and other responses refused to ebb away. I couldn't drop my guard.

Even once we reached the mouth of the industrial district further down the waterfront, its isolation so profound that I could feel the silence saturating my bones, my wariness didn't ease; I branched out and sought any energy signatures in the area, scanning for any signs of a patrol. When I was positive the massive warehouse was empty, I pulled Maddy inside and we tucked into an alcove that must have led to a storage corridor of some sort.

Taking a deep breath, I rallied my thoughts for the next step. I didn't know if we should just stay put until this all blew over, or risk setting out for my uncle's cabin—a good ten miles east. It would be nothing if I flew, but even if I could get Maddy to be on board for that, I wasn't sure if I was willing to risk discovery or being tailed by those soldiers or creatures or whatever else was a part of this motley crew from hell…

"We have to go back." I was so deep in thought I didn't register Maddy had said anything until she shrieked, "Jae! Are you listening to me? We have to go back for her!"

"I'm not risking going back there."

"We can't just leave her! We have to go—"

"Maddy." I didn't yell, but the way I said her name stopped whatever words were about to come from her mouth. I turned to her fully, staring her in the eye unflinchingly. "My only priority is keeping you safe. I am not going back for her, and neither are you."

Somehow, my voice was strong, though I could feel my heart crumble a little under the weight of her disbelieving, appalled stare. "She's my friend, Jae."

"I know, and I'm sorry," I said, and meant it with all my heart, despite the sour taste Carly left in my mouth. "But you are my friend, and I'm not going to risk your life to go look for her when she may already be dead."

It was a bit of a double-standard I was pulling, and it was unfair. But I didn't care. The world as I knew it was falling down around me; I would look after my own. Tears collected in Maddy's eyes then, an edge of disbelief to them. I wasn't sure if it was due to the idea of Carly being dead, or my blunt, cold tone.

"I need you to trust me and do what I say until I can get us out of this warzone. Please."

She didn't say anything; she didn't even motion with her head or any expression whatsoever, but she didn't protest when I tugged her along throughout the warehouse. My heart sunk to my stomach at the look on her face—this blank, desolate vacantness—but I couldn't worry about it now. When—if—I got us out of here alive, I would beg for her forgiveness later.

Slinking between warehouses along the desolate warehouse district, we thankfully remained unseen for a good stretch of time, the sounds of death and chaos growing more distant. Ash and smoke hung in the air to a horrid degree; my eyes burned, Maddy was hacking a lung, and I was close to following suit.

Finally, we reached a clear patch of air near the docks—not completely clean, but it was an improvement.

The timing couldn't have been more dire.

Blinking away the excess water in my eyes, I caught movement on the other side of the boatyard. I pushed Maddy back until we were behind protective cover, but daring to peek around a corner, I gleaned as many details as I could—which wasn't much, other than the fact that whatever was stalking around these grounds was tall. I could only determine their outlines in the smog, and they weren't near as elaborate as the previous cronies I've had run-ins with so far. They looked…relatively human, aside from their staggering size.

They definitely weren't friendlies, though—the way they sauntered about made that clear.

Trying to get out of this shipyard was going to be like tip-toeing around a minefield.

I didn't know what to do: Stay here and hunker down until the coast was clear, or risk surging forward in hopes of clearing this warzone.

Gods, I wished I could get a hold of Gohan somehow. My phone was gone to the wind, Maddy somehow lost hers in the pandemonium, and apparently, there was a limited range as to how far my telepathy could stretch in attempting to call Gohan.

It worried me—not just because I was alone, but that also likely meant that Gohan was dealing with similar trouble across the sea; I know he would have immediately flown over the instant he felt my energy swell.

He isn't here, but that doesn't mean you're helpless. Don't just sit around and wait for him to come rescue you. You have to keep moving.

So that's what I did. I kept us moving, though I second-guessed myself with every step.

Latched at the wrists, I led Maddy through the smoky shipyard, daring to use what little of my powers I could to seek out little energy pings from danger. I didn't pick up on anything, so I figured we were safe.

I learned very differently when we rounded a corner around a building and nearly collided with a tall, dark figure coming our way through the fog. I barely had enough time to pull Maddy to cover while the giant's head wasn't turned in our direction, but even then, his footfalls struck the pavement, moving closer to where we hid behind a dumpster. I kept Maddy sandwiched behind me and the dumpster, could feel her shaking like a leaf.

Please keep going. Keep going.

In a blink, the towering enemy was right in front of us—a broad-shouldered, plainly-dressed, bazooka-wielding titan that had yet to actually turn his head toward us and discover us. He instantly came alert, and though he hadn't actually laid eyes on us yet, I tensed for the killing blow that was sure to come—

A shuddering crack sounded, and something seemed to hit the giant; again, then another time before I realized that the gaping, singing holes in the giant's chest revealed not blood and gore and offal, but wires, cold metal, and gears.

This thing wasn't even human. Even the sound of it colliding with the ground was metallic.

First alien soldiers, and now freaking androids?

Too stunned to move, we just sat there, listening to the thudding gait of another one of those android things come rushing around the corner—only to be met with the strange, plasmatic gunfire.

I heard voices. Men's voices. It wasn't a crowd; more like a few individuals. As to whom it could have been, I didn't have a clue—

Then I could see them through the smog; men, dressed in dark, camouflaged military gear, wielding large weapons I had never seen before. One soldier saw us—though I couldn't see his face, as it was covered with a gas mask—and he immediately reached for us, shouting through his mask to come with him, that we were safe now, they would take us to the emergency base, wherever that was. Maddy and I complied, walking numbly, allowing the soldier to usher us the way they came toward a large military vessel docked at the shipyard's waterfront.

My mind couldn't process this, how quickly and anti-climactically we'd found refuge, just like that. It didn't mean the fight was over; a militia had shown up, sure, but it wasn't going to be enough to handle the threat, not entirely. We were still going to be knee-deep in shit.

"Jae? Jae!"

That voice! I praised it and cursed its presence at the same time, because it meant that he was here, that he would be on the front-lines—

Dominic had removed his gas mask and caught me in his arms for perhaps the tightest hug he'd ever given me in my entire life, squeezing me into him so fiercely that it was actually difficult to get a full breath out. His hefty body-gear didn't do much to help there as well, but I clutched him just as tightly.

"Thank god you're okay," he muttered against my hair, his voice wrought with a tight, raw emotion I'd never heard from him before.

"Raske, save the reunion for later, we have to haul ass!" one of the soldiers called from ahead—a senior officer, from the sounds and looks of it.

Dom pulled away from me. "Okay, follow these guys, and they'll get you and your friend to an emergency base—"

"Like hell I'm leaving you." I stood planted as he tried to hand me off to another soldier, who held his hand out expectantly.

"Jae—"

A deafening boom exploded through the shipyard, knocking us all off our feet as the ground trembled beneath us. Gusts of heat and air cocooned us, water spraying, metal screeching; it was what I expected the end of the world to sound like. For a second, I wasn't sure which way was the ground and which was the sky.

Through my ringing ears, I heard muffled voices of soldiers barking orders, Dom pushing me and Maddy along for cover as water, cinders, and sheets of metal rained down on us. I could hear the mortal panic in the soldiers' voices, try as they might to keep their shit together in this new warzone.

We all half-scrambled, half-crawled to shelter; I had one hand around Maddy's wrist, the other hand clutching at Dom's gear to make sure they were both still with me. Gunshots rang out, thunderous bangs came from the larger guns or cannons on whatever ships were still in the harbor. I looked up at just the right time to catch a group of alien soldiers coming at us from the left flank, and on instinct, I lashed out with my energy, sweeping them off the harbor and into the bay.

Stealth abandoned, I countered with my own attacks. A building was hit by a stray enemy blast, and I just barely had the time to will my energy around us into a domed shield—one only large enough to cover anyone in a six-foot radius of me. With each chunk of debris and enemy attack that bounced off that shield, I felt it in my bones—an unpleasant, zinging pang, but I withstood it and kept us moving.

Whatever new weapons our military had, they certainly were an improvement over traditional ones, but their effectiveness only went so far; they took down or wounded whatever androids and alien soldiers came our way, but didn't do jack-shit against bigger, badder opponents.

Like the hell-spawn creatures.

I let out curses in tandem with each blast, trying to ensure Maddy and Dom were at my side and unharmed in the dizzying madness of gunfire, screams, and blood. In the shuffle, I made out Leann and Zach; I wasn't sure whether to be relieved. Just two more people I happened to care for were caught up in this shit-show.

We managed to slip away from immediate danger after weaving in and out of one building, then the next, and another until we finally reached the Finch's Stone Mill, its water wheel no longer in use after years of abandonment. It wasn't until Dom and Zach carefully shut the sliding metal door did we all fall to the ground in collected respite.

I observed each face—Dom, Zach, Leann, and a few more soldiers I didn't recognize. I wondered how many of them had fallen back there?

"I didn't sign up for this shit," one of them exclaimed breathlessly, obviously losing his shit.

"Yeah, you did, you dumb-ass. What part of 'specialized terror unit', with the possibility of 'combating extraterrestrial enemies' didn't convey that?" another spat cynically, though he sounded just as frayed. I glanced at Dom questioningly, taking in the gear all of them wore. It wasn't traditional Marine battle garb of blue or green, but a diluted olive and black, their protective vests looking far more reinforced than average bullet-proof vests.

It seemed our military got more than just an upgrade of weapons.

I was curious to see what the ships looked like.

Maddy still trembled beside me, her face ashen with terror, eyes red with smoke and tears. Drawing my arm across her shoulders, I attempted to assure her we were safe. It felt as though she stiffened even more under my touch. Her expression sobered, slightly.

As my cousin and his brothers and sisters in arms conversed amongst each other as to what their next move was going to be, Maddy quietly murmured so that only I could hear, "You couldn't do all of that, before…" At first, I wasn't sure what she meant. "Or could you always do those things, but never showed it…?"

"No, I couldn't use my powers like that before," I affirmed, my tone cautious for some reason. Maddy's expression was too complicated for me to read.

"Did that guy—the one who's like you—did he teach you all that?"

"He did."

The room suddenly fell empty of conversation. When I looked up, Dom and his entire unit was looking over at us. Looking at me.

"Raske, you left out that your baby cousin has powers like the fuckers we're fighting against," a man said, side-glaring at Dom with distrusting awe.

Dom shifted on his feet, almost leaning in front of me. "What difference would it have made? She's just a kid." His voice was level and calm, but there was an underlying hint of threat to it, too.

"A kid who can apparently shoot down their ships and create force fields around herself," another soldier said.

"So she's an alien, just like these bastards overrunning the city? Just like the ones from all those years ago?"

"Shit, Raske, what kind of family do you have? Are you even human?"

"Oh, fuck off, Rodriguez—"

"Hey!" I wasn't sure how I found my voice, but it was almost natural to rise and stare each of them down—all people who were at least five years my senior at the youngest, who apparently now viewed me as an anomaly, a wild card, they weren't sure what to do with. "I'm nothing like those assholes out there, let's get that straight right now."

"Then what the hell are they? And what are you, for the matter?"

Before I could answer, Dom cut in, "She's my little cousin, Jae Adelyn Raske, born October thirtieth, sixteen years ago, to my aunt Deanne Raske and her partner, Hancock—who, yes, wasn't exactly mundane but he never used what powers he had to hurt people, never laid a damn finger on anyone unless they deserved it, and Jae is no different. Whether she's wholly human or not shouldn't matter, because she's only done her part to keep our asses safe in a fight we're totally outgunned in."

A quiet beat fell there.

"I watched this kid grow up," Zach interjected with his own sobering determination. "She's every bit as human as you or me, super-powers or not."

Something inside me swelled at Dom and Zach coming to defense of my character; even Leann stood at their sides, not at all frazzled.

"Besides, she has connections to others like her," Dom added. "Others who can help tip the scales in this sort of fight, just like all those years ago." They all apparently knew what he was referring to in saying 'all those years ago'; according to what Dom had told me, there was not a single soldier who wasn't familiar with the Cell Games in some shape or form. "So let's all keep our shit together and get out of this cluster-fuck alive, shall we?"

That was that.

Slinking out of the mill, we treaded on our toes; I kept to Dom's side, Maddy behind me, and the rest of the unit around us. The world was unsettlingly quiet, as if purged by Death itself. I couldn't even hear the trail of destruction anymore. The sun had been obliterated from the sky altogether, casting the world in a darkness that could be dusk or coverage of smoke, or both. Dom handed over his gas mask to me, which I accepted, then handed to Maddy to use instead, despite the choking air quality that prickled the back of my throat. In turn, Zach gave Dom his gas mask every few yards to take advantage of its filtration and oxygen system, and then Dom passed it to me; we kept up this exchange for the mile and a half we trekked through the industrial district.

Our destination was to reach the other side of the bay, where another base would be established. I hoped they were all still in one piece.

With the limited light, everyone activated low-beam torches that provided some illumination, but not enough to give away our position to enemy eyes. I would have offered to use my ki, but with the energy-sensing tech our enemy appeared to have, I didn't want to chance it.

We have to be getting close. We'd been wandering for two miles, and still no sign from Dom or his comrades that we were any closer to refuge. Just as I was about to ask how much farther he thought we had to go, a faint, metallic screeching pierced the air, like a whale call. Dom's left arm shot up at a ninety-degree angle, palm open; only through playing war games and paintball with him did I know that meant we needed to stop moving.

Another blaring sound came again, and this time, I could feel it in the concrete ground beneath me. After an exchange of various hand movements too fast for me to register among Dom and his comrades, we all shuffled toward the closest warehouse, using its walls as cover as we sauntered.

Shadows emerged from around the corner, the smog so thick that we didn't even realize it was danger until we were almost on top of each other. There was a split-second where they saw us, we saw them—two giant, towering alien soldiers—and I acted on instinct. I hurled a ki blast straight for them, then another, buying us time to scurry back down an alley between two buildings, while Dom's unit continued firing their specialized weapons every few stretches, just for good measure.

We ran. And ran and ran, all the while I tried to mask my energy back down, desperately.

There! Just before Dom emerged around the corner, I pulled him back, just as another shadowy mass passed by a few yards away in the smog. Hunkering down low and keeping still, we listened. I trained my ear when I heard the figures speaking,

"Did you feel that?"

"Yes." A smooth, heavy voice. "Nothing from Kastar or Jeb."

"Probably got themselves blasted. The stupid bastards. They can't tell a blaster from their own hands, much less know what to shoot at."

A grunt in reply. "Incompetence matters not. We'll find the little mouse soon, one way or another."

Shit shit shit shit shit.

"Should we alert Lord Freeza and his…associates to the energy marker?"

With that name, it was like someone dumped me in a trough of ice and water. SHIT.

"Don't be stupid. We will not pester Lord Freeza unless we have something to take to him."

Their voices grew distant, but I caught the tail-end of the conversation, "What about…the others? The cyborgs? The 'little mouse' we're hunting took has survived our platoons and the shade-crawlers…"

I didn't hear the reply, but I didn't need to; the ominous words, riddled with little clues and even more questions were enough to turn my blood to ice. If Freeza, that cold, tyrannical maniac was in fact somehow back… Gohan's going to flip his shit. And cyborgs? Were those the "associates" those goons had been referred to?

I didn't have the time to sort through my memory of Gohan's past enemies to determine an answer; I had to keep moving, keep my head in the present to figure out how I was going to get everyone out of here—safely.

A part of me wrestled with telling Dom and the others to take Maddy to the base and I would lead the scout parties out. Somehow, the prospect of being alone in this game of cat and mouse wasn't quiet as daunting as knowing any wrong step I made could cost the lives of my best friend and my cousin. On the other hand, though, what if they got caught in the crossfires, despite by tactics, and I wasn't there to protect them?

But I couldn't very well ensure we snuck out of this without being discovered one way or another, could I? They were hunting me, after all, and if I had to use my powers again to protect us, it would only draw more trouble to, and put Dom and Maddy in further danger.

It was the only practical solution.

I glanced sidelong at my cousin. I knew he wouldn't let me go easy. He would fight me on it, but he was a soldier, and he not only had a platoon to lead, but a civilian to protect. And it was as he said earlier, I've used my inhuman abilities to keep us safe thus far, and I could continue to do so, to perform my duty as he had to perform his.

I gathered the words in my head as we hurried across an open expanse of a shipyard, deciding as soon as we found cover, I would tell Dom my plan, tell him to just keep going—

Before I could realize the oppressive force that loomed over me like a death sentence, before I could make out the silhouette hovering high above in the billowing smoke, a flash of pink light cast the world ablaze, and next I knew, the soldier at my side collapsed to the ground—Zach.

Zach.

Dom was shouting, pushing me; Maddy was shrieking in panic, and we were shuffling, running—blasts went off, and I fired my own attacks only out of the mere instincts that blared, danger, danger!

I didn't know if anyone else fell around me; every fiber of my being was only focused on Maddy and Dom, keeping my eyes on them at all times no matter how many turns we took or how hard we had to throw ourselves to the ground to avoid getting hit.

When we finally stopped moving, having found shelter in another warehouse somewhere, I finally allowed myself to take in more than Dom and Maddy. I didn't know how far we'd run, or how we managed to slip away. I looked at the faces around us. A soldier had been hit, a round coin-sized hole in his side, punctured right through his specialized vest, blood pouring from the wound. His comrade set him carefully onto the ground, and they clamored amongst each other for a way to bind the wound and staunch the bleeding.

As they worked, swearing and barking orders at each other, Dom watched them, only he wasn't really watching them; and I watched him, only I wasn't really watching him, either. I kept seeing Zach drop at just an arm's length from me, kept hearing the boneless thud his body made when it connected to the ground.

The moment repeated itself in my mind, over and over again like a crude movie, until, suddenly, Dom was right in my face, his nose nearly to my nose. "Jae. Jae. Jae." Finally he shook me, grabbing my jaw with his gloved fingers to make me look him in the eye—his wide, red-rimmed, and frantic eyes. "Hey, snap out of it. We need to keep moving."

I couldn't say anything. I just gawped at my cousin, coming to grips with the reality that his best friend just died steps from me—that he was shot down like an animal, and we'd left him.

"Hey," Dom insisted, his look softening, letting an inkling of his vulnerability and empathy show—a vulnerability I'd never witnessed in my entire sixteen years. "Be brave. Come on."

Be brave. Those were words from my childhood and his, words his father, my Uncle Will, always said to us kids whenever we found ourselves intimidated or challenged by something difficult. Come on, Juby, be brave, he'd said when I was five, as he released his hold from my bike and let me paddle on my own without training wheels, frightfully unsteady yet functional in my paddling as I went. Be brave, kiddo! Hold that line! he'd coached when I was nine and caught my first fish, its thrashing so intense it nearly tore the fishing rod from my hands.

Taking a deep breath through my nostrils and letting it flow out through my mouth, my head cleared; my chest loosened. This was war, and we didn't have the luxury to mourn our fallen. Not yet.

Assured that my head was back where it needed to be, Dom patted my cheek and checked in on his fellow soldiers.

My choice was made easier now. And I couldn't let Dom know, not after he just lost his best friend; he would do all that he could to stop me—even put me in a choke hold 'til I lost consciousness, I wouldn't doubt, to keep me from running into the fray.

Just off to my right, there was a hallway. Everyone was to the left of me, occupied too much in what they were doing to really pay any heed to me.

Shuffling back discreetly, it was easy enough to slip away into the shadowy, cold hallway, emerging from the unlocked steel door at the end of it. I waited until I'd sprinted a good half-mile, steadily letting my energy climb, before I finally let it spike like a homing beacon.

Please get out of there safe, I wished them, and kept running.

It was difficult to see through the thick smoke, but I could feel I was being pursued. Every eighth of a mile, I retracted my energy again, giving me enough time to get another head start before signaling my location again.

I wanted to be able to rejoin Dom and the others at this base, and in order to do that, I had to draw my hunters far from the industrial park, so I zig-zagged from there and into the residential streets and wooded park hills beyond. I sought cover behind trees, under trucks, in bushes, anywhere I could access when I felt my pursuers practically breathing down my neck.

The closer they came each time, every instant I thought I was for sure found and done for, it felt as though five years were shed off my lifespan; I could feel my bravado dwindling, that mortal, quintessential fear necessary for survival kicking in to its highest potency.

Would this be far enough? Did I have enough time and distance between us to sneak back down to the industrial park to find Dom and Maddy without leading the danger back to them?

One more round.

Just as I rallied my last nerve for one more jaunt, an explosion rocked the ground, and debris soon rained down around me like confetti. Whoever was tracking me was apparently done with this game of hide and seek if they were going to resort to blowing up random houses and buildings.

The only small relief was that the residential area looked as deserted as a ghost town. Good. I didn't want to bear witness to any more death, certainly not by the masses.

Hoping it would keep them off my direct tail, I tossed quick beams of energy off in random directions while slinking away in the completely opposite way, carefully working my way back toward the industrial harbor a couple miles down.

It worked. It actually worked. It wasn't until I found myself at the mouth of the forest bordering the highway across from the industrial park that I let out a ragged breath, leaning against a tree. I couldn't feel any imminent danger close by. I could afford to rest for a couple of minutes.

It was only my desire to see the light at the end of this tunnel—to be safe with my cousin and best friend—that spurred me onward, only allowing myself one minute of rest as opposed to a good handful of them as my body and mind would have liked.

Making sure my power was tucked in deep within to the point of obscurity, I snuck back across the highway and down toward the series of warehouses on the harbor. I couldn't see beyond to the waterfront, but Dom had said the closest vessel and established base was five miles east from the mouth of the Cascade, where the river flowed into the sea… Reestablishing my bearings, I was able to determine my trajectory, and headed east, all the while being especially watchful of my surroundings.

I hate this. I indeed felt like a mouse, with a giant target on my back, practically blind to any potential attack until it was practically on top of me. And even then, there was only so much I could do to protect myself.

Gohan, where the hell are you?

I hadn't taken the time to really absorb how disturbing and haunting the industrial park looked, with its looming, dark warehouses in a cold kingdom of steel and iron, encased in darkness so thick, not even the motion lights could penetrate it very far. It almost made me want to skip this route altogether and find a new way to the harbor, but I needed this maze for cover if the situation arose.

As far as I could hear or see or feel, it was truly empty here. Still, I took every corner one inch at a time, held my breath every time I was out in the open, and kept low to the ground each time the wind so much as whispered.

Rounding another building alley, my foot caught on something rather large and I went sprawling, yelping with the shock of it; something clanked. I didn't linger to see if I could discern what it was; I simply scrambled, half on my hands and knees and then clambered to a run on my feet.

The funny thing about panic; once you let it sink one claw in you, it takes little work for the rest to join, hooking in solid and unrelenting. Once that composure frayed, it was difficult for me to get it back. I didn't take as much care in being diligent or stealthy; I just wanted to get as far away from that noise-making fumble as fast as I could before—

A figure slammed into my field of vision before I could stop myself, and my first instinct was to blast it. It was a sloppy attack, and it missed due to the enemy having enough sense to drop and roll out of its path—

"JAE! It's me!"

Dom! "What the hell?! I could have killed you!" Before I could say another word, Dom's hand took my wrist and he hauled ass into the nearest building.

"And I could kill you for running off the way you did! You little shit, you gave me a heart attack—"

"Whoever these bastards are, they're after me, Dom! They've been tracking me like flies on a carcass all afternoon; I was thinking I could draw them away, give you a chance to—"

"I know perfectly well what you were trying to do, and I don't care! You don't ever do that to me again, you hear?!" His voice shot through the empty harbor, echoing with an eerie foreboding. There was barely any light, but I could see enough of his face to make out the hysterical fear in his eyes, could hear it in his voice, now gruff and coarse with smoke inhalation.

For the first time in my life, he sounded like an adult, full of patriarchal demand, scolding a child. I didn't like it, but neither did I have the energy or heart to argue with him more about it.

"Where're Maddy and the others?"

"They reached the base—I made sure of it, before turning around to come back for you."

Though we weren't quite of the woods yet, hearing that Maddy was safe had taken a world of weight off my chest.

The words "thank you" were on my lips, but I never got to say them, because the building we'd taken refuge within started collapsing under heavy ki fire. Dom and I both hauled one another out the door we'd come in, thrown onto the ground with the force of the blasts eradicating the warehouse.

"Come on, come on!" The words scratched from my throat in a desperate plight as I pushed myself to my feet, practically dragging Dom up to his as we ran. The heat of the explosion seared at our backs and didn't relent until we'd thrown ourselves behind the nearest stack of cargo freights. Dom sounded as though he could hack up a lung with the exertion, the sound worrying me. How much longer would he last through all this inhalation of whatever was in the air?

That looming, ominous presence was there again—I could feel it seeking, prodding; it—they—knew we were still close. As quietly as we could, Dom and I shuffled our way in-between and through rows and stacks of the cargo boxes, twisting and turning again and again like a maze until we had taken so many turns, I was practically dizzy.

Finally, we rested in the tiny walkway space between two freighters, just enough space for us to lean against each wall opposite of one another. The air stank of rusted metal and smog and musty seawater, and the tightness of the space was not helping matters; for a helpless moment, I felt the claws of a panic attack begin to sink into me once more, but I used the last of my resolve to banish it.

What do we do now?

I regarded my cousin again—watched him breathe haggard breaths, his face covered in soot and grime, made out the lines of exhaustion and fear laced with stubborn determination. Somehow, he truly looked his age now—not in the sense he looked refined and matured, but that he looked young, reminding me he was still only barely a fully-fledged adult.

I could feel the oncoming wave of fatigue, my muscles quaking with the effort to straighten myself back to my feet.

"Where is that Saiyan boyfriend of yours, anyway?" Dom managed, leaning his head against the ridged metal surface of the freight. "I thought he was Earth's defender and all that…"

"He's got to be dealing with this over on his side, too… That's the only reason I would think that he hasn't come yet." I knew my energy still wasn't an impressive thing—just a blip on a map, one grain of sand in a sea of thousands, but I also knew Gohan, I knew how in-tune he and I were with one another. He would come as soon as he could get away. I knew he would.

But you don't have the luxury to sit here waiting.

So, once we rested, we made our way through the maze. I couldn't ignore how disconcertingly quiet it had fallen once more, as if we were the only living things in this harbor. I knew we weren't; that dark signature was still around—faint, but still hovering. Waiting like a cat waited for a mouse to dare venture out of its hiding hole.

Unlike a cat, however, they weren't the most patient of hunters; another ear-splitting explosion rocked the stacks, causing some cargo boxes to fall from their towering rows. Dom pushed me ahead of him to start running; the path wasn't wide enough for us to run side-by-side.

Keep your power down. Every few strides, as my panic built, I kept checking myself.

Every mortal instinct in my body screamed to run for the nearest exit I could find, the shortest way to prevent us from being in the thick of the falling freighters—

But something in the back of my mind told me to do the opposite.

Pulling Dom around another corner, we took another path that led down another corridor, avoiding the exit that had been just yards from us.

Silence. And then another blast, from close to where we would have emerged out of the maze.

Two paths ahead—

Another blast eradicated the option to our right. So we went left.

Another blast. Another path cut off. My ears rang from the deafening shock of it, my brain rattling in my skull. Even through all of that, the realization that they were herding us to the exit of their choice only made my panic rise even more.

But I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't go any faster without leaving my cousin in the dust. I couldn't fight back, because it would alert our pursuers of our location, and I wasn't strong enough for it to matter in a brawl.

It was as those aliens said before. I am truly just a mouse, left to resort to running, running, running. It was pathetic. Why did I have to be so useless? If I had been stronger, more practiced—If I was like Gohan—I could show these bastards that they made the mistake of their lives in coming to my city.

The thoughts rotated in my conscience, hammering like a nail with each round my foot hit the pavement, each one smarting more than the last. My anger kindled, my resentment toward my weakness as a Saiyan honing it into something slippery and reckless.

They knew where we were, so stealth was useless. I wouldn't just be a scurrying mouse, dancing to their beat.

"Keep going for the nearest exit and don't stop."

"Don't you dare—!"

I shot upward through the stack of cargo, knowing Dom would hate me for it; I only hoped he would listen to me and do as I told him.

I emerged from my cover, firing unremittingly toward that ominous shadow I could barely make out through the thicker smoke. It was hard to tell if anything hit, but if I did get one in, it didn't do shit because they threw back their own attacks at just as aggressive of a pace. I made myself dizzy in my efforts to avoid them, and one eventually caught me in the ribs—a biting, hot shock of pain that made me stumble in the air until I just collided with the steel top of a cargo box.

From out of nowhere, a synthetic blast fired from the depths of the metal trenches, not anywhere near close to hitting my assailant. Dom. I had to draw this bastard away from him, toward the already wrecked shipyard—

I shot again, then skipped across cargo rooftops, alternating between taking calculated leaps and throwing reckless ki attacks. In my shuffling to get closer toward the flaming heap of metal destruction, I caught a glimpse of the shape of my attacker through the smoke, illuminated by the cinders and fire… Its shape… I could have sworn it looked an awful lot like—

The shock of recognition when I caught the silhouette's unique shape made me stagger, my reflexes too slow to correct myself, and a blast hit home. I was rocketed back across a gap, rolling to a stop as pain seared my arm, but I fought through its haze enough to scramble back to my feet, running in the opposite direction, toward the thickest smoke-bank, hoping I'd bought Dom enough time to just take off—

Just as I was ready to take a leap from the cargo stacks and into the air, a pain like nothing I'd ever known hit my leg, stunning me so horrendously that my flight stunted altogether and I fell several stories to the concrete ground. When I made contact, a scream ripped from the back of my throat, going on longer than I would have let it if I had any semblance of control over my body.

I lay there, my chest heaving as I sucked in frantic breaths, more cries locked in the back of my throat. The pain was crippling, but the shock of it was even worse.

Get up. GET UP, DAMMIT! Gritting my jaw with such force I was sure I would crack teeth, I rolled over with a gasping yelp, willing my legs to work, but the moment I sent the command to my right leg, molten fire shot straight up through my pelvis and to my heart, resulting in a string of hissed curses through my teeth.

I forced myself to lift my head and look ahead of me—

There was a drop-off. I didn't know if it was into the ocean, or onto another concrete landing, but I had to get out of sight now.

So I crawled, half-dragging my injured leg behind me as I shuffled over the ground. My left arm could hardly bear any weight, something about its shape off-kilter, somehow.

I felt that presence again, sauntering closer like a languid big cat coming in for the kill, and a terror seized me so completely, but instead of rendering me immobile, it surged me onward. I pushed myself faster, almost half-limping and half sprawling on all-fours, the skin of my palms ripping open from the friction with the pavement. With each beat of my heart, my death felt imminent, inevitable, within a single heartbeat—

Instead, I was launched upward from behind, something taking hold of the back of my shirt and pulling me forward; Dom's voice shouting frantic commands, the sound of his blaster firing off as he dragged me toward safety—

One breath, there had been solid ground beneath us, and the next we were tumbling through nothing; rolling like barrels down a stairwell until we were finally stopped by a wall. I didn't know how, but we both somehow found the orientation and strength to keep pulling each other back, back, back until we were in an alleyway between warehouses.

It was amazing I had any breath left, but it came out of me in burning gasps; I felt light-headed, swimmy. I couldn't tell if it was due to lack of oxygen or the blood loss.

Resting beside Dom, I assessed my leg, scared of what I'd see. Sure enough, it wasn't pretty; there was a hole about the size of a quarter in the meat of my thigh. My shorts, already caked with dirt and mud were now soaked with blood. An alarming amount of it, coloring the whole side of the denim, nearly. Did that blast sever my femoral artery?

"Shit," I rasped, closing my eyes against the pounding in my head. Suddenly, I was aware of how quiet Dom was; I didn't feel him assessing my wound, or cursing me for running off on him—again. It must be so bad that he himself was in shock, my femoral artery surely severed—

When I looked to my cousin, he was slumped against the wall beside me, and he looked odd, almost like he was imitating a fish underwater, mouth opening and closing. My own breaths had been so loud in my ears that I hadn't even registered his—in that they were so quiet and curtailed it barely sounded as they he was breathing at all.

"Dom?"

His eyes shifted, as if he wanted to look at me, but his head didn't move. Finally, he coughed, and that's when blood dribbled out of his mouth.

I said his name again, spurring to life beside him, the hazy pain in my body forgotten for a moment. I scanned his body, looking for anything—

My eyes didn't have to travel very far. There, on the left side of his chest was a matching hole to the one in my leg, his gear pierced through.

I stared at it, not quite believing—refusing to believe what was right in front of my face. Everything suddenly went very still as my sluggish brain processed what was happening, dueling with the fraught refusal that screamed in my conscience.

Finally, I brought my eyes from the damning wound to look at my cousin's face; those hazel eyes were looking at me, remnants of him still there, hazing and unfocused. His jaw quivered, as if trying to speak, but all that came was blood. In that shared look, a single, wordless communication passed between us—in the furrow of his brow, the tiny spark of helplessness in his eyes.

He was dying. My cousin was dying before my eyes, and there was nothing I could do to help him.

"No. No, no, no, no no no no no." I uselessly tried to apply pressure to the wound, even though I knew it wouldn't do a lick of good. "No, no no no, don't. Dom, don't. Don't."

His tremoring hand somehow made its way to rest atop of my own on his chest, his feeble fingers struggling to grip me. I looked at him again, trying to find something to say other than his name, which tumbled from my tongue over and over again in garbled gibberish. His mouth opened, a croaking sound coming out of it that sounded like, Go.

I shook my head too vigorously, enough to make me topple over from dizziness. "No. No, I'm not leaving, I'm not leaving you here, I'm not, I won't."

His body stiffened and convulsed under my hands; wet, painful coughs brought fresh blood from his mouth and wound once more, and those eyes looked at me pleadingly once more before the light in them seemed to flatten. His chest sputtered one more time with something like a last breath before everything about him went still—even the hand that had been clutching mine. It flopped over unceremoniously onto the ground.

My mind knew, as I gawped at those empty eyes, that he was gone. My heart, on the other hand, rejected the reality, tried convincing me this was just some bizarre, awful nightmare I would wake from in just a little bit; I would be in my room, and Dom would be on his way home, and he would finally get to meet Gohan—

I started saying his name, over and over again like a litany, as if it was the special incantation to end this nightmare, like stoking a magic spell. My tongue tripped over his name until nothing but broken, wailing sounds came out instead. My world blurred to nothing as I lay my head on his shoulder, the spicy smell of him somehow present even through the stink of metal and ash and smoke and blood. Already, his body was cooling.

I didn't care how loud my cries were. I didn't care if it alerted my location. I didn't care about anything.

Dom was dead.

My cousin was dead.

My cousin was dead.

"Come on out, little mouse," a smooth, booming voice echoed from beyond the warehouse walls, bleeding in through the open windows and doors. "End this silly game and come to us willingly, and no further harm will come to you." A pause. "Yet, anyway."

My gasping anguish twisted into something seething and hot. They couldn't hurt me any more than they already have—nothing they could do to me would be worse than this.

Everything inside me turned molten, from my bones to the surface of my skin. This grief was different than what I'd felt when Ziggy died, even from when Nikki killed herself; this was something hot, feral, and unhinged. My family—my blood—was gone from this world, and I felt his absence in me like a lost limb.

Injuries forgotten, I sprung to my feet, not even feeling the crippling pain; when I reached the nearest door, I fired at the first solid figure I saw hovering in the air above the warehouse. Again and again and again I fired, until he seemed to regain himself from the initial surprise and began firing back.

The aggressive pace of the blasts was the only thing that made me retreat, too fast for me to counter. Taking cover back on the opposite side of the warehouse, the walls began to crumble and take damage from the enemy blasts.

Through my teary, dusty vision, I gazed at my cousin's body lying against the wall across the space from me. A childish part of me fantasized he would be fine, that I would have turned away and looked back to find him whole and unharmed and alive.

My eyes brimmed with fresh tears and a new swell of anger.

I'll come back for you, Dom.

I took off running. The blasts followed me as I weaved between buildings, through them, until I slipped into an expansive ship hangar half on the water. Inside, it was cold and dank, stinking of water-eroded metal and steel. I took in what I could, trying to find any point of advantage—

My eye caught a flash of gold—gold, spiked locks where my soft, brown tresses of hair should have been.

Then I noticed another blur of creamy blonde where my bangs were meant to be, half-falling in my left eye.

Grabbing my hair, I brought a handful of it into view, noticing right away that the texture was different even before my eyes finally took in the blonde, sharp locks.

Did I… Was I…

"That slippery ghoul didn't say anything about the little mouse being a Super Saiyan."

I turned, blinking twice when I saw that there were four Cells elegantly perched atop a steel beam in the hangar's opening. Only they weren't Cell—they couldn't be, as none of them were green in coloring. Instead they were shades of blue, purple, blood-orange, and another was all black, with faint gray dappled specks. He was the one who chilled my blood. The others all looked aloof, playful, cocky—but the black one… His gaze was cold, calculating, and haughty; he teetered on the edge between chilling calm and thoughtless cruelty.

It was that black one with the eyes of a killer that launched himself at me first, so fast that all it took was barely a blink and he was gone from the rafting, and next I knew his hand was at my throat, my back slamming into the concrete ground. The dark Cell look-alike loomed over me like a domineering wolf subjugating its inferior. His sneer was oily and wicked.

"An inexperienced Super Saiyan," he said in delayed reply to his compatriots, looking down at me as if I was the least impressive thing he'd ever laid eyes upon.

"She must have just turned," one of them called back, snickering. "We did hear her wailing like a dying cat after you shot her and her companion down, after all, so it's probably safe to say the human trash didn't survive and the little girl is all upset." They sniggered amongst each other some more.

After you shot her and her companion down.

Glaring into the eyes of the black Cell doppelganger—my cousin's killer—all I saw was red.

Baring my teeth like an animal, I snarled while attempting to lunge up and strike him, but he slammed me back down. I tried reaching for him with my hands, clawing at his impenetrable, armor-like skin, using my knuckles to jab and find weak spots in it, struck out with my legs in an attempt to find something solid to kick—

"Was that it, little Saiyan?" the black one above me jeered, his voice syrupy with mock pity. "Did your little human soldier die? What a pathetic catalyst for a coveted power." My legs didn't find any purchase, and even if my fist and clawing fingers found something to hit, my position hindered my ability to put any power into it. Still, I tried. I roared up in his face, feeling every bit the provoked animal I was sure I looked.

"Ay, remember what Father said about Goku's son, though? The little sniveling brat ascended to his power over the death of a cyborg—a cyborg. Now that is pathetic," one of them shot.

"Well, they're part human, remember?" another spurred. "They have those disgusting, feeble human emotions…"

The one holding me down had barely lifted his chin upward before he was catapulted off of me, a string of curses from the others following. The ground trembled and shook with what I could only assume was some sort of impact.

Pushing myself up, readying for whatever was next, I was awestruck with what stood in front of me.

A figure I knew too well—the shape of the shoulders, the line of his posture—before he finally turned and I beheld the creature I'd been waiting to see with my own eyes for some time now.

From all the things Gohan said about his power—his "killing power", he called it—I had expected some significant change, like a mutation from a mundane creature to a terrifying giant. But when he turned to face me over his shoulder, all I saw was…Gohan.

With different hair, sure—just like how it had been in those flashbacks of the Cell Games, the same up-standing 'do with the claw-like bang falling in front of his face; his eyes were harder, glistening with an intensity that was even more devastating to see in person…

But it was still Gohan, still that boy who sat with me beneath the stars, who held me when I fell apart, and who laughed in good nature in the face of my temper. He was especially Gohan in the way he looked at me now; his look softened shortly after he took me in—the hair and eye color change that mirrored his own. Explanations would have to wait.

"You came," I whispered to him, an echo of what I'd told him after Needo had taken me.

"Of course I came," he said, his voice, though resonant with power, still soft.

"Well, look who showed up to crash the party."

With that, Gohan's attention returned to the four Cell doppelgangers that now circled like vultures. I got to my feet, standing beside Gohan, who tensed, as if ready to leap in front of me at a moment's notice. Both sides regarded each other, sizing the other up, determining the best course of action.

Gohan was apparently confident enough to take the moment to tell me, "I'll take care of them. You get to safety."

Now was not the time for him to pull this protective hero crap. I was simmering with murderous intent, and I wanted to quell that thirst. "I want to fight."

"Jae, you're injured—" Neither of us got to make a decision or continue the debate; Cell's look-alike 'sons' pounced, and Gohan had enough time to block their attack with a mighty wall of energy—

Next I knew, he gently shoved me out of the way with his energy, and I skid behind the closest ship anchored to the dock. Gohan's power and the combined power of the four Cell doppelgangers overtook the air around me, even as their battle moved beyond the walls of the hangar, the air itself shuddered with the force of their struggle, the ground a steady tremor as if the Earth herself shook with fear. And there I was, a little, solitary ant tucked away and forgotten.

If I was smart, I would leave. I would go find the base Dom had taken Maddy while Gohan had those bastards distracted. He could handle them.

I remained rooted in place, as though my body refused to listen to reason. Because everything inside me screamed with the desire to stay and fight—if not to be an ally for Gohan, if not to be of some use, if not to prove I wasn't a witless coward, then at least for the promise of vengeance.

It was a war song that had consumed me before, the night I had beat Chad into a bag of bones as penance for Nikki's life; that war song rang through me once more, and only the spilled blood of my enemies would silence it.

Getting to my feet, I rushed outside, adrenaline and power and whatever else that flowed through my body allowing me to forget the crippling pain in my leg, the weakness from blood loss. A distant part of my mind wondered how long that would last—how long I would last, but I was beyond reasoning now.

As it would turn out, the fight would come back to me.

One of Cell's clone-like offspring—the orange one—had somehow managed to slip past Gohan, grinning down at me from midair. It was a grin that goaded and mocked, dared me to make a move.

And like a trigger-happy fool, I fell for it.

None of my hits landed, but the execution of action was catharsis enough, only stoking my furious drive onward. He may not have been the one to put the hole in Dom's chest, but he was a good outlet for my anger, regardless.

Lost in my spiraling bloodlust, I paid no heed to my surroundings. Whenever I was knocked down, I sprung back up and went back for more. I fired wave after wave of power, high on the need to give more, to unleash more, even if no damage was done—especially because no damage was done. All I could hear in my head was a dull, rumbling beat; my heart, my blood, my blows, I couldn't know, but it was a song my body moved to, the rhythm my rage danced to.

"Jae."

The voice stopped me, a voice distant and yet so close, so full of presence and power that I actually stumbled with the instinct to abide by it. "Jae, get the hell out of here! If you keep up what you're doing, you'll burnout."

My roiling mind didn't grasp Gohan's warning. All I felt was power, power, and more power surging through every fiber of me, addictive and galvanizing. I didn't want to leave. I wouldn't leave. I wanted to feel the blood of my cousin's killer on my hands, the same way I felt Chad's that night—

"JAE."

We'd been here before, hadn't we? The thought in my mind prodded, distant and small, and a little ironic. The roar in my head eventually drowned that thought and Gohan's voice out, in tandem with the war cry that ripped from my throat as I launched myself at my enemy once more. Tangled in a flurry of clawing nails and trading hits with bone and muscle, he tossed me aside and I met a hard bed of thick metal—I'd been thrown into the side of one of the old ships in the harbor. The sharp edges of steel dug into my flesh, but I ignored it, ripping myself free so I could go on the offensive once more. The orange bastard looked to be having a ball, his grin shameless and glittering with amusement; I would enjoy ripping that smirk off his face.

In one moment, I had conjured up a sizeable accumulation of energy with a few deft, absent movements of my hand, as if forming clay on a wheel, and I let it loose; it collided with my opponent's with bone-shuddering force, locked in contention that was a disorienting tug and push game. I gave more, and a little more, and even more.

Higher and higher up that precipice I climbed, like inching up the peak of a carnival ride, feeling as though once I crested over that hill, once I hit that descent, there would be nothing to stop me—

Only when I did finally tip past that peak, it wasn't a smooth descent forward; it was a complete derailment.

The disorientation hit me first, then an aggressive sense of vertigo, before my stomach flipped, and next I knew, the power that had been surging through my veins sputtered, as if every last drop had suddenly been sucked out of me. My body fell cold and achy with it, and I nearly vomited up my guts.

Somehow, I wasn't swallowed up in the assaulting blast—

Because Gohan had swept me out of the way, had me secured in the crook of his arm as he launched away with dizzying speed. In a blink, I was back on solid ground again, but crumpled with an unkind thud, despite Gohan's surprising care in placing me down.

"Why can't you ever do as I say?" I heard him grumble, a dark edge to his voice.

I wanted to fire back with a witty retort, but I felt too sick, too embarrassed, too frustrated—he had been right, he knew I was digging myself into a deeper hole, and I had yet again refused to see it and stop—

"Please, get to safety." Within a span of breaths, he was gone, leaving me alone. Once I gathered myself, I assessed my surroundings: I was on a small patch of land perched beneath a freeway that curved against the sea harbor. My mind was too jumbled to calculate the miles Gohan had managed to put between me and Cell's goons; all I knew was I couldn't see or hear the fight anymore.

I heard something else, though…

The whirring of distant machinery. The faint clamor of people, orders being barked. The blare of ship horns, the firing of massive canons…

Half-limping, half-running around the bend where the road dipped down to sea-level, it was the north-facing port, and in its port were navy vessels, bustling with activity I could see even from the distance. On the land, I saw tents and outbuildings, people rushing in and out and around. There was a trio of ships out on the open water some miles out, firing off canons onto the land opposite of the river—another stretch of Landia, still bathed in fire and death.

The base. This had to be the base where Dom had taken Maddy. Why were there so many people still on land? My eyes drank in the massive crowds; soldiers, medics, civilians—all of them clamored in and out of tents, vehicles… Wasn't the militia going to start loading people onto the ships? Their safest bet, at this point, would be to clear out whatever civilians they could and sail away from all of this—

Making up my mind, I marched onward.

As minutes dragged on, whatever magical cure the adrenaline had given me to inhibit the pain of my injuries wore off more and more, and soon, I could barely stand with the pain my body was in. I was pretty sure my left arm was dislocated. The hole in my thigh burned like a mother, rendering my whole leg numb with pain, and my head pulsed and pounded with a headache from the depths of hell itself.

By the time I reached the base, I was delirious with pain. It would be a miracle if I knew Maddy when I spotted her, if I even found her at all.

With the frantic environment, not many paid me any mind until I found myself stumbling into what looked like holding quarters; civilians surrounded every inch of free space, some standing or sitting covered only in grime and ash, others lying on blankets with bloody wounds concealed beneath hastily applied bandages.

A soldier came into my line of sight, but I didn't hear him, didn't acknowledge him; my eyes just scanned the room, looking for that one face—

"Jae? Jae!" Then Maddy was running for me, breaking from the cluster of people to rush for me. Whatever color had come back to her face drained once again upon looking at me, starting from my toes to my eyes, surely taking in the tattered clothes and all the blood sticking to my skin. Without a word, I stumbled forward and drew her against me, using my good arm to hold her. I didn't care that I was filthy; I was just so relieved she was alive, and with Dom's death still fresh and raw in my heart, I needed something physical to anchor my hope to.

Maddy stiffened beneath me as if I'd caught her off-guard, taking a few breaths too long to reciprocate the embrace, her arms loosely wrapping around my shoulders.

The soldier that had found me first ushered me to the nearest cot, where field medics assessed my wounds; they talked among themselves about the similar "hole-like" wounds as they'd seen in the bodies of civilians they'd found, wondering at what sort of weapons could inflict such marks. I was too numb to care about explaining, or to find a dark humor in it. They fussed over me, asking me what blood type I was, to which I replied that I didn't know; sure, I was half-human, but what did being half Saiyan mean for my blood type?

My only comfort was remembering how much blood Gohan had lost after Cell had shot the left side of his torso; Saiyans, apparently, had a handy knack for being less susceptible to the shock of significant blood loss than humans. I could only hope that would apply to me as well, at least until I could find the right help.

Despite looking at me as though I was a walking corpse already, the field medics let me be, handing me a bottle of water after I refused intravenous fluids; I didn't want to be hooked up to anything should trouble find its way to me again.

Maddy was disconcertingly quiet as she sat beside me. Her eyes didn't leave the entrance to the tent, as if she was waiting for someone to come through them. To distract myself from the pain and lightheadedness, I also observed my surroundings, trying to pick up on bits and pieces of conversations between military personnel to glean anything helpful.

There was one thing I learned quickly: Despite the handful of navy vessels in the port, there were no initiations made to get people loaded onto them. Apparently, the military was waiting for assigned ferries and cargo ships from neighboring harbors further east to assist as civilian transports; what few sailors and fishermen were among our company that did have working water vessels had pledged to be of service, but they could only fit a handful of people at a time.

I wanted to approach the commanding officer, to explain that he needed to expedite and take people out to sea now, that there was no time to wait for a more convenient transportation, but I knew I wouldn't be taken seriously, no matter how I spun the urgency of the matter.

Then I felt it; that imposing inevitability of that power looming closer and closer. However far Gohan brought me from the battle site, they were gaining ground on me again—too fast. There were four of them versus one of him, after all; no matter how good Gohan was, one of them was bound to make the slip eventually.

This port would be caught in the heart of the battle if I stayed here, but I wasn't in any condition to keep running—just the thought of walking alone was enough to make me crumple. But what choice did I have?

I saw Dom's face, ashen and cold with death, in the back of my mind. If only I hadn't back-tracked to the harbor… If only I hadn't lost my shit and gave away my position, with Dom caught in the crosshairs…

No. I had to leave. Cell's little posse of doppelgangers were after me, for whatever damned reason; they would follow me where I went, and I could at least steer them away from all this—from Maddy. I would not let another person I loved die because of me. And if I died in that process…

The conviction, however small and fear-laced it was, lent me enough strength to get to my feet, which caused Maddy to eye me with more disbelief and confusion.

"Stay here and get on the soonest boat that you can," I said, my voice cracked and dry.

"W-where are you going?"

"Away. I got my cousin killed; I won't let you fall to the same fate."

Here. That quiet instinct was the only thing that alerted me that it was too late—that the battle was already upon us—before I heard the thundering clamor of the crowds outside the tent, felt the booming expulsion of ship canons. Peeking outside the tent, my fears were confirmed: in the skies above the pier, I saw a golden aura tackling four others, breaking their vicious formation to avoid being hit by whatever death canons the navy vessels shot with. Soldiers and civilians alike all clambered for the docks, soldiers ushering as many whole and uninjured civilians as they could onto what boats were available.

Once again, adrenaline was the only thing animating my body as I reached back into the tent and pulled Maddy out, rushing her through the chaotic crowds. If I could just get her onto one of those boats—

As soon as we stepped foot on the dock, a blast hit the small fishing vessel, filled with scrambling people. The effort to halt my body so abruptly jolted at my wounds, but I fought through it and pulled Maddy in another direction. I wrestled with myself if I had enough strength to fly—and carry Maddy, just to put some distance between us and the turmoil…

Maybe, maybe once we rounded this next warehouse hangar, I would be clear to take for the skies—

Except our path was cut off when the black phantom Cell materialized, and I only had the span of half a breath to shove Maddy out of his range before his large hand snatched me by the neck, throwing me into the massive crane within the hangar's open threshold. I didn't feel the impact my body made with the unforgiving steel; I only felt the molten agony of one steel rod, at just the right angle to where it didn't give under my weight, flesh and muscle giving way until the left side of my clavicle was impaled on the keen piece of metal.

I weaved in and out of consciousness, black hedges in my vision even when I managed to cling to awareness. That disgusting face still sneered down at me, saying words that I couldn't discern due to the muffled ringing in my ears. Then he was gone with the presence of a flashing light, and the ground shuddered with the impact of more traded blows, more ki blasts. The hangar around me began to crumble, the vibrations shuddering through the crane and the pole I was impaled on, rendering me dizzy with blistering white pain—

Next I felt water. It was a blessed relief to feel its coolness against my bloody skin, only for a brief moment, until the panic set in as I realized the crane was falling with the dock into the dark water. I tried pulling myself forward, to inch myself off the rod, but the pain was too excruciating. I screamed—not just from the agony of it, but in hatred of my helplessness, that I wasn't strong enough to be above this pain, that I couldn't save myself—save my friend—

I almost didn't realize the shift in angle, the clanging of steel snapping in two like a twig, until I saw Gohan's blond hair in the hazy edges of my watery vision. "Hold on," he said—a command, a plea—as his hands undid my trap.

"Maddy," I croaked. She was still on this harbor, still in danger— "Get Maddy!" Our eyes locked—brown and aqua—conflict and desperation. Gohan returned to cracking the rods of the crane—

"Gohan!" My voice was hoarse and raw, but it was enough to make him pause. "Go to Maddy! Go!" I can hold out, please.

Whether he saw those words in my face, or perhaps he heard them in our unspoken connection somehow, I didn't know. Those eyes burned with icy fire as he stared at me, a tic in his jaw as he weighed the options before him.

He chose right; within a blink, he was gone.

That choice, his courage to follow through with my plight to save my friend even though he wanted to save me, reinvigorated my own determination. With a shuddering breath, I grit my teeth and pulled myself forward over the rod, my coarse scream filling my ears as I kept going—

I barely caught a breath to draw in before I was completely submerged, the water cradling and caressing me like a phantom blanket. As comforting as it was, to just let myself sink into its embrace, the fire in my gut refused to let me. I would not just give up and die here, not like this—

Then there was a flash of gold; and Gohan was before me again, his face both angelic and deadly as bubbles gave way around him.

"I'm sorry." Before the gist of his remark could sink in, his hands were on me and he pulled me free in one smooth force. It was quick, but nevertheless a shock to my body, and my vision blacked out the instant I was pulled against his body.

I faded in and out, only vaguely aware that I was no longer in water; I heard Gohan's voice, distant and muted, exchanging words with another man whose voice was both familiar and new; I only vaguely felt the transference of my body from one set of arms to another. Before I let go completely, submitting to the darkness, I heard Gohan's voice loud and clear in my mind:

"Hold on, Jae."

---

BREATHE.

It was the first and only alert instinct that pounded through my body.

BREATHE.

It became easier and easier with each pass. My body became corporal in my mind once more, filled with awareness and sensation. Pain had been a fog blanketing my mind and body for an eternity, it seemed, and I was finally emerging from that fog bank.

My eyes finally fluttered open, my vision no longer hazy and dotted. Clear sky greeted me, wind tasting of freedom and bliss kissing my skin. Was this the afterlife?

"Jae?" A green face obscured my vision of the sky—Piccolo?

No. Dende. "Jae, it's Dende. Can you hear me?" Words felt clumsy, so I just nodded. Dende nodded back, kindness softening the worry on his face. "You're at the Lookout. I just healed you—only enough to prevent the worst of your wounds from being life-threatening, but I couldn't restore your reserves completely."

"That's what this is for!" It was a cheerful voice that came out of nowhere, and I almost jumped to my feet from its presence. Looking up, I saw a blond man—similar in stature as Gohan, only the hair was different, and he was obviously much older, despite any lack of wrinkles or other tells to age aside from just a…a sense, a look…

He was smiling hopefully, offering something in the palm of his hand—a senzu bean. I looked at the man again, drinking in the details of his face; the same shape of nose, the same eyes, the same mouth—

"You're…"

"I'm Goku, and you must be Jae, if I've got to go based off what Dende says. Here, eat this; it will finish fixing you up."

I just sat there, flabbergasted and gawping. "But you're supposed to be… You're dead." Was I in the afterlife after all?

Gohan's father chuckled, almost like a kid. "Oh, I still am! It just turns out, the Other World is a bit of a mess right now, and I was allowed to come down here to help." Did Gohan know he was here? Gods, what must have gone through his head…

He offered the bean again. "Eat up. I've got to get back to giving Gohan a hand, but he was pretty worried about you, so I don't want to leave until I'm sure you'll be good as new."

I obeyed, taking the bean from his hand and popping it into my mouth, tentatively chewing. Once I swallowed, Goku looked pleased, nodding in approval. Then, without another word, he rested two fingertips against the center of his forehead, a flickering expression of concentration falling over his features before he just vanished.

Alien crafts and hell-spawn monsters were running around wreaking havoc, Cell look-a-likes were on my tail, Freeza's name was being whispered among the ranks, and Gohan's dead father was a tangible ghost, amped and ready to jump into the fray.

What.

The.

Actual.

Hell.

---

A/N:

F'ing finally. I'm sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. When I started getting to the meat of the action in this chapter, I just got completely stuck. Then, to pile on top of it, these last couple months have been tough, mentally, just with life and work getting overwhelming and wearing me down to the point I just needed to take a break from writing and stressing about deadlines for a while. I've been working the last few weeks to finish this chapter so I could post it by Christmas, so...here it is! Now, I'm off to recover my lead on the chapters and lose myself in some more writing to help myself cope after seeing Star Wars TRoS...

Thank you all so much for your patience, my dears, and even more so for the reviews! I'm sorry that I do not always have a chance to respond to everyone's comments, but I do read them all and your kind words and feedback are so, so appreciated! I hope you all have a Happy Holiday (whatever you celebrate) and an even happier New Year! I'll see you guys in the next chapter!

- J.M.A.