The plane doused the forest with the fire extinguisher and buzzed, somewhere above the RNP.
On the ground, Dr. Brief's special defibrillator also emitted an increasing hum; Bulma squeaked in fright as the two metal plates crackled against the boy's bare chest, lifting him slightly off the ground.
The people and the military watched, speechless.
Kate held her breath, filled with tenacious hope. Eighteen rested quietly in her arms, Kate inhaled the scent of her loose hair.
Bulma had quickly realised the cyborg girl's life wasn't in jeopardy, she would be next.
"Again," Brief ordered his daughter.
Their special defibrillator's dial indicated the device was already operating at the maximum.
"Dad, that's enough!"
"What the heck do you want me to use, Bulma, kid gloves and fairy dust?"
"His back..."
"I know, it's broken. But this one's a cyborg and I have to shock his heart."
A mighty undertaking; old Brief did not flinch as he uttered the truth, the people watching let out a collective groan of disbelief.
"Huh what, really?"
Brent looked at Lillian and only got a shrug from her.
"What did you think he was..."
Brief rolled his eyes at the reaction of his fellow Earthlings. Luckily he had brought some first aid equipment from home: when they got there, one-armed Krillin had yelled something confused at him and a minute later he and Bulma had ripped off what was left of the cyborg's shirt.
Six times the defibrillator pads had crackled, Seventeen hadn't shown any signs of life yet.
In truth his heart had already stopped, for less than a second: the defibrillator was just special, not magical, but Brief speculated that if he disturbed the deactivation device there would be some hope.
That more dead-than-alive cyborg had suffered a gash as long as his entire upper half: even Dr. Brief believed the boy wouldn't have lived long, hadn't it been for Bulma's upgrade.
"I didn't touch this one," the younger scientist specified, somewhat incredulous at the shiny black vein that now joined the two edges of the wound. "Only Sixteen and Eighteen."
"Interesting..."
The scientist had prepared to give yet another shock to the heart of #17, but the latter's pulse had suddenly reappeared. Weak, but regular.
Indeed, in slow growth.
And out of nowhere the boy's hand gently squeezed, as if he were dreaming to hold something.
/
The Briefs had flown the twins, their mother and the rest of their families and allies to West City.
In that laboratory she now knew, Kate had watched Krillin and Carly not succumb to sleep, persisting in holding the hand of her sleeping children.
Yes, now they were just sleeping. They were alive.
"Senzu bean?"
Krillin tried to fish in his little bag, with only one arm it was complicated; Carly left Lapis's hand and reached out to help him.
Kate knew those magic beans well enough by now, Bulma had used one to fix her broken ribs just before.
"Will your arm grow back?"
"No, I'll have to ask Shenron for that."
"And who is Shenron?"
Krillin ate a senzu, tossing it into the air. "Senzu, Carly?"
Carly seemed too sad and/or angry for a senzu. Or maybe she didn't need one.
"Why don't you give it to them too, doesn't it occur to you they're wounded?"
Carly gestured to the twins with a wave of her hand. "Lazuli suffered multiple bleeds, Lapis...I don't know where to start."
The Briefs weren't equipped to give the cyborgs a senzu drip, as they had once done with Kate.
There were no suitable needles.
It was to be expected that the twins had to be conscious enough to swallow the senzu bean.
And to accelerate their recovery, Sixteen had peacefully allowed the scientists to strap electrodes on him, which would connect his reactor to that of Seventeen and Eighteen.
His needed to jump-start theirs, they were lucky to have him there.
"Mumumum..."
Marron called, pleaded; she crawled on the bed in the lab, tugged at her mum's hot, sweaty shirt without her waking up.
/
It was nearly 11pm. In the kitchen of her house, Bulma watched Carly remove a coffee-brimming cup from under the machine. She had already offered to lend her some pj's.
"You should sleep as long as you can. Don't drink coffee."
Carly didn't answer, but the way she looked and moved overflowed with nervousness.
She had been sitting at Seventeen's bedside since they got there, now she was doing everything she could to keep from falling asleep.
Bulma couldn't blame her.
Mrs Brief appeared in the kitchen, a hint of weariness on her gentle features.
"Bulma, I put baby Marron to sleep in Trunks' old crib. I didn't bother Kate Lang to ask her if it was okay, I hope it was okay…"
That little gesture touched Carly through all the layers of her concern.
And since empathy is contagious, it came naturally for Mrs Brief to strike up a conversation with Seventeen's partner.
"Don't despair. That boy has to wake up soon or later, Bulma says he's stable now."
Carly was so worried she couldn't even talk to the baby; she kept staring at her coffee, hoping perhaps to read positive responses in it.
"Boy or girl?"
"I have no idea, we decided to make it a surprise."
"Ahhh. Unusual, rare these days!"
Bulma's mother proclaimed, almost dreamily. "By now we humans have almost control over nature but with all our technology, we sometimes forget to slow down and enjoy the natural rhythms. What a nice thing to keep a bond with a simpler life."
" Actually, since I want a boy and Lapis a girl, we prefer not to know. You know, just to avoid any possible quarrel. "
Carly said in one breath, in her thoughts.
"Yeah, right? "
/
Eighteen felt feverish and dazed and sore.
All she saw around her was darkness, from which screaming skulls emerged. The skulls that had appeared in Cell's aura the first time she saw him.
Eighteen saw a giant Bulma watching her from above.
"Faces. She is seeing faces."
How to explain that she did not see faces, but only skulls?
The darkness grew: total darkness, corrosive darkness that engulfed and drowned her.
Marron's voice had reached her from afar and, as it had not happened for a long time, Eighteen had opened her eyes with a chest full of milk.
The Brief lab was the first thing she saw, then she soon met Krillin's elated smile.
"Easy with mom, honey."
"Mama-muuuum!"
Marron attacked her with the wettest kisses: her baby girl's sweet lips welcomed Eighteen back to life.
What would she be without Marron?
Kate sat on the bed, Sixteen looked at everyone from his chair in the corner.
The various Briefs, Carly and Hacchan ran to the door, not wanting to miss the awakening.
Eighteen thought she was reborn seeing everyone, she had never been so happy to see so many people together.
It was then that she saw Seventeen, lying in bed next to her, alive.
It was at her that he looked.
/
Kate had just had time to see their eyes and feel their hug: the twins had woken up together and Bulma had urgently given them a senzu, then they had fallen back into semi-sleep soon after while the magic bean patched up torn veins and fixed broken bones.
When Seventeen awoke the sun shone high; his sister and Sixteen weren't there, Kate was sleeping in Eighteen's bed, Krillin in a chair beside her.
His hands were empty, and the cyborg found no boxes in his pockets.
"Never mind…"
Finally feeling himself, he rolled over to get up and nearly elbowed Carly.
She had fallen asleep at who knows what time, she clung to him as she sensed that he'd moved farther from her.
She was the portrait of tenderness, ruddy and fair, her braid half undone and the pj bottoms barely containing her baby bump.
Seventeen kissed her, a smile escaped him like when he saw her walking around the house with her top up, to show him "how cute the baby was".
That could have been, more or less, a one-to-one moment with the baby: Seventeen pictured Carly saying "Don't you want to say hello to your dad?" and gently felt her belly as if to urge the creature, who in return pushed feet and elbows forward, many times in a row: the sight of those humps beside his hand made Seventeen feel more than lucky.
His unborn child was happy he was there.
All that enthusiasm disturbed the maternal slumber, Carly turned with a grunt and the fun was over.
Cell and Gero had been disintegrated, Seventeen and Eighteen had survived, once again.
Now their privileged life awaited them, Seventeen could say that he was really well.
Sixteen and Eighteen must have been on the terrace, he could hear them conversing.
"Good morning Princess."
Eighteen alluded to the sun already strong in the sky, seeing her brother coming.
Sixteen and Hacchan, who had been repaired that same night, watched the twins observe each other: they hoped they would do what they clearly wanted to do.
But maybe hugging was too basic human: Seventeen joined his sister near the railing and put his arm around her shoulder, Eighteen leaned her head against his collarbone.
They beheld the acres of garden around the Brief mansion, listening to the city bustle.
"We did it. You and I."
"Not only us. You should have seen Mum too."
They had had all the support of their loved ones, but they had also grown stronger.
"When you turned Gero into glass and disintegrated him,...that was rad."
"It wasn't glass. And when you bombed Cell inside the force field, respect."
"Thanks for what you did."
Carly had told Seventeen about Eighteen and her weaponised blood.
"No problem. I paid my debt."
"You weren't in debt."
Yes she was.
For that first time before Cell.
Eighteen wanted Seventeen to know that she had never stopped grieving, since that time. She wanted to tell him there was nothing she wouldn't do for him.
"It seems you're learning to manage your force fields better and better. Projecting one on Verny, ..."
"It was one of the risks I took."
Risks...
Eighteen felt Seventeen's heart, as strong as ever. As it should be.
"But what went through your head? Throwing yourself at Cell like that, didn't you think at all...?"
"I had to make him let his guard down."
Seventeen knew that his strength still did not surpass Cell's, but that there was a way to win: he was surprised at his own way of thinking, two years before he would never have spent time concocting combat strategies.
"What if it didn't work?"
"But it worked."
More than circuits and superhuman physiology, what made the twins machines was their relentlessness: no matter how much damage they suffered or how long the fight lasted, Seventeen and Eighteen could keep going and going.
In the end they hadn't shut down from lack of energy, but from very serious injuries.
Sixteen knew it too, "Seventeen, if the kachi katchin hadn't closed your wound you would be dead. Did you know you could count on it?"
During the night Dr. Brief had scanned the male cyborg and found tiny shards of kachi katchin grafted into his sternum, as if he had been pierced by a blade and the blade had broken inside him.
His recovery had been so slow, because the material was not directly integrated into his core.
"I had no idea."
Seventeen unbuttoned his shirt and looked: nothing was left of his hideous wound, except a long line that ran all the way to his abdominals, as if drawn in pencil.
Kachi katchin.
Eighteen had protected and saved him in the end.
/
Grandpa Ronan had landed in West City while Marron was still having her afternoon nap.
Eighteen looked out of the second floor window, waiting for her daughter to wake up: Seventeen and Carly stood aside under the pergola, Bulma looked at her wristwatch apprehensively.
Kate had disappeared.
The atmosphere that reigned that afternoon was that of the relief of being alive, everyone seemed in a good mood.
That time, Bulma was thankful that Vegeta had gone to train for a few days at Kami's Lookout: he never knew about Cell, nor the battle, nor the Red Ribbon creations that the Brief scientists were still hosting.
Eighteen watched with suspicion Ronan and Bulma's assistant secluding themselves in a gazebo at the back of the garden.
She would have gladly gone to have a look if her superfine hearing hadn't brought to her ears the still faint moans of waking Marron.
She picked her up and rocked her, kissing her little head.
"I'm sorry, my love," Eighteen said sadly, in her thoughts. "Tomorrow is your birthday and we have not prepared anything for you ..."
A party on the designated day. Something normal within the reach of every fricking parent, to which every child was entitled. Marron had the right to a normal life! But perhaps, the sooner she would realise that her mother and father weren't normal, the less she would suffer.
Or maybe it was still easy for Eighteen to see everything blacker.
"Mumum?"
Marron straightened up against her mother's chest, caressing her face with her clumsy fat little hands.
Sometimes Eighteen wondered if Marron was the one looking out for her, and not the other way around. Her little girl felt her pain, and she healed it.
"I thought I wouldn't see you again..."
The cyborg stood like that in the corridor, basking in the glowing warmth of love. When it was time to appear in the garden, mother and daughter were greeted by festoons and trumpets, by cheerful music.
Pink balloons inflated in record time decorated the garden, leading Eighteen's steps to the gazebo where Ronan and the assistant had holed up: on a pink-dressed table sat a birthday cake, complete with a candle, waiting for the guest of honour.
It was a party. Marron's first birthday party.
Kate winked at the surprised Eighteen: the cake had been a four-handed job, thanks to Mrs Brief's help no one would get poisoned.
Everyone had followed mother and daughter into the gazebo: a paper trumpet unrolled not far from Eighteen's face, "Happy birthday Marron!"
Only Krillin could have one arm and still be so happy.
/
The birthday girl couldn't count on the presence of her whole family, or any other children other than Trunks, but Krillin and Eighteen immediately thought it was not that important: they would have another party at Kame House, after all they were specialists in celebrating important occasions twice.
"If my daughter had known, you'd see what a party she could throw for you."
Mrs Brief was the reason Eighteen had eaten the cake with such great pleasure: she deserved to know that that simple little party was perfect as it was.
It was August 30th, one day ahead of time, but no occasion was more perfect to celebrate Marron, life in general.
Watching her daughter laugh, eat cake and tear gift paper off the few packages, Eighteen thought she couldn't ask for more.
Kate was also finishing her slice.
"It's so obvious you didn't make it."
Lapis overstated her cooking skills, popping out from behind and making her drop the plate.
"I...made it too ."
From her son, Kate got nothing but a smirk but all right, that was status quo.
Seventeen sat down next to his mother, looking at her hands totally free of recent war scars.
"Eighteen told me; you blasting Gero, that's badass."
Kate blushed at those words, "Thank you, darling. Now tell me what you really want. "
Lapis had too many better things to do than praising her, in fact the permission seemed to relieve him.
Seventeen had only a tiny percentage of his pre-conversion memories left, he knew he couldn't rely on them.
"Ma, did I wear sports uniforms as a kid?"
He asked point blank, before anger at the theft of his memories flared up again.
It would have been totally irrelevant now, more than ever.
Kate wasn't expecting it.
"Well, yeah… you used to play football. I still have your blue uniform. "
Blue. Rah...
Realising that Lapis was troubled saddened Kate; she wished she could get in his head so she could make him feel better.
Ask to ask, the cyborg wanted to know if the path through the cliffs existed.
"In the South City district there was a stretch of coast called the Jurassic Coast, just as you describe it."
Seventeen had grown anxious, "What happened to it?"
"They leveled it to make beaches, divided it into land to sell; this was when I was your age."
Kate shrugged, no more distressed by that conclusion than Seventeen was.
A natural beauty that no longer existed: Seventeen's day was better and better.
He wanted Kate to take a flying leap, even though she didn't deserve that.
"You're from the South and you never took us there, not even once: shame on you. "
Kate didn't let him finish, "I knew what was best for you; I have my reasons."
Her lapidary tone dispelled all provocative instincts. Seventeen sighed theatrically, walking toward another corner of the garden.
"I take back what I said, Madam."
Always like that with her, woe to talk about the South.
/
The afternoon drew to a close, but the visits were not over yet: Mrs Brief walked a group in the garden, three men and a girl.
"Hey mate!"
Brent grinned at Seventeen, John and Elliott walked up to him grinning as well.
And like a fireball Lillian shoved them and practically jumped into the arms of the top ranger, for the sheer joy of seeing him alive and well.
His friends had travelled to West City to come visit him, to see if he was okay: Seventeen would never have imagined it, when Gero had reactivated him.
"Those two are good people..."
Bulma sipped champagne and thought about Future Trunks's tales. Another time, another story, others Seventeen and Eighteen.
Now that the battle of Verny was over, Brent remembered the real important things.
"Sev explain it to me. Is it true that you're a cyborg? "
Seventeen nodded.
"You are..." Elliott looked from Sev to Carly. "But she is..."
"So what?" Carly cut off that conversation.
"The jet pack." Brent whispered to Lillian.
"What?" Ronan stepped in.
Soon the newest holders of truth began to squabble, until Eighteen ordered them to go find cyborg in the dictionary.
"We're not here for FAQs."
"Lazuli too?" Ronan ventured to ask Kate.
"Imagine what her husband went through," Elliott whispered to Brent, pointing to Krillin.
"Imagine what Carly went through."
The two friends -and Seventeen- giggled like jerks.
"Stop it." Eighteen hissed instead. "Yokels..."
John thought back to his first meeting with Seventeen, to all the avalanches that hadn't fallen in two years.
Instead of driving him mad, the truth seemed extremely logical.
"Now everything is clear."
Seventeen raised only one corner of his mouth.
"And I jokingly called him the Terminator..."
Elliott couldn't believe it, as he texted that crazy scoop to the MIR of his heart.
/
Before the liberation was complete, damage had to be repaired.
Krillin was also sure he wanted his arm back, so Shenron's help was to be asked once again.
That same evening Bulma accompanied her injured friend in search of the enchanted orbs.
"I hope Shenron doesn't get tired of me. I've summoned him four times in the past two years," Krillin pondered.
Bulma gathered the dragon balls at their feet, the sky went black and the dragon made its majestic entrance.
"Hey Shenron. Please, repair any damage to property and people that has occurred during the battle of Verny, ... But without bringing Cell and Gero back. "
Krillin hoped he had chosen his words well.
" Your wish has been granted. "
Krillin heard a snap and a tingle; in the afterglow of Shenron's leave, he could move ten fingers again.
/
September
She had woken early, when outside it was still dark and the ice hadn't melted yet. That was graduation day, it was necessary to take all the time even in the tub.
Seventeen was the one who didn't need to sleep, but Carly could beat him at that game: when it came to getting ready she could make him look slow.
In fact, he had stayed in bed while she whizzed back and forth, busy with hair and lipstick that had to be nothing short of perfect.
"Instead of doing nothing, either get dressed or go get the car ready."
Carly had muttered, with a few bobby pins in her mouth and a militaristic stance.
The morning had passed in the blink of an eye, it was almost time to go when Seventeen had reappeared in the room carrying a cold trail with him.
"The car is ready, I just scraped the windshield."
"Did you go out and scrape it like that?"
The mirror gave Carly back the reflection of Lapis still dishevelled, wearing only the pants of his suit and his orange tie.
It was almost time to go and he was still half naked.
"Lapis, your jacket?"
"Washed and ironed while you snored."
"But I'm already dressed."
Two years ago Carly had bought a suit, which was jealously kept for the graduation ceremony.
When she had bought that suit, the day she would be reunited with hee beau wasn't even a dream anymore.
Never Carly would have thought that she'd eventually wear a wrap dress, because she would be pregnant by Lapis.
It was something that made her feel complete; she was smiling radiantly at that overwhelming proof of the love that the most handsome man in the world reserved for her.
She gave a twirl to her skirt.
Maybe it was motherhood, not her fine attire, to make her feel so happy to be herself.
Seventeen opened the wardrobe to pick a shirt, but ended up dwelling on Carly: he wanted to fill his eyes with her.
Just as they had imagined ten years ago, Carly carried around her bump with pride and beauty. If for Seventeen she was always beautiful, now she was a wonder to behold.
He was so proud of her, his excellent nerd, the one to whom he had given seed and who had repaid him with a whole spring.
The love of his life, as long as he would live.
Time for shoes: Carly had refused flats, she would have put on the heels she had bought at the cost of walking like a T-Rex.
"Can you even see where you're walking?"
"No!" Carly took an uncertain step toward him, "How do I look?"
"Out of proportion."
Lapis wasn't looking at her outfit.
Carly adjusted her neckline, "And I'm proud of it."
Everything was going great, Carly felt incredibly charged and her iron had even gone back up.
She didn't have time to fall off those heels, Lapis surprised her with a hug, kissed her neck, squeezed her waist.
In public they just held hands and Carly might sit on his lap, but in private it was so different: people had no idea how warm Lapis could be in private.
They stood in front of the mirror, it was nice to look at each other while they cuddled.
They looked good together, soon they would look even better.
Then Carly pushed Seventeen away, gave him her brush.
"Now put on those clothes, hotshot. Dad just landed and we're late!"
/
Thoughts of the author:
I left an artwork I had commissioned, depicting the "graduation morning" scene, in a link on my page!