Author Notes
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/17002452. Written for the Vegebulocracy 2018 Big Bang. Full MA version of the story can be read there.
GUNSHIP is the first in a much larger series of stories. This one is loosely based on The Shape of Water—especially Michael Shannon's character. Disclaimer: I borrowed bits of his dialogue because I am just so enamored with every line out of that man's vile mouth. This one is also inspired by the music of an amazing synthwave band called Gunship (especially their track 'Kitsune'). Also borrowed are some planets/enemies from the Metroid series, because I was under a time crunch and not imaginative enough to come up with my own. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This story is an AU that starts six-ish years after Goku kills King Piccolo, roughly the timeframe where the Saiyan Saga would have happened. But in this world, KP doesn't release our beloved Piccolo Jr. before he dies (ugh.. I know. I'm sorry!), meaning Kami dies with him, so there are no Dragon Balls.
Planet Vegeta and the Saiyan race are alive and well (almost). The Saiyans in this universe are run by a corrupt council of priests (pretty similar to the roman papacy back in the day). They're not space pirates, but they do rule over their empire with an iron fist and exploit the resources and inhabitants of all the planets within their rule.
My undying thanks to the artists that lent their talents to provide the story with some killer artwork: BianWW and Deathandstrawberries! And thank you LadyLan for beta reading and musicofthespheres for making sure I use real, not made up words that I think are real. Also the rest of the Vegebulocracy crew who make this such an awesome community.
Sorry for all of the POV hopping. This was the first story I've ever written. Lol.
Chapter 1: The Asset
Lieutenant Hoffstead was pretty sure he was going to die today. This certainly wasn't the first time he envisioned his own demise at the hands of some supernatural being. Earth had its fair share of them. And each time the army was tasked to subdue some deviant terror, the same thought always popped into his head: that his unwavering obedience to authority would be his fatal flaw.
Hoffstead never truly wanted to be a soldier, but Hoffstead was a great soldier—esteemed among the enlisted men and the officers above and below him. His rank rose through the years simply because he followed the chain of command to a fault, a trait that garnered him the respect of both his superiors and his men.
Hoffstead's father retired as a colonel and his grandfather before him. He was predestined to follow the same path, which he did with the dutifulness of a repressed cadet. From a private obeying his sergeants, and a sergeant obeying his lieutenants, and so on and so forth, Hoffstead was now a direct report to General Strickland himself, the highest-ranking officer in the Army's Western Division and Head of the Department of Weapons Research and Development.
Having served under the General for three years, Hoffstead now understood that if there was ever a man born to lead with the frenzied zeal of a dictator, it was Strickland. Unlike Hoffstead's father or the officers who instructed him in the camaraderie of the Old Breed, Strickland's reckless ego led his men into situations that were precarious at best, all for the advancement of his own position. Hoffstead knew this, yet he entered each mission without question. His survival instincts under Strickland were in a losing battle to both fear of the man and the lieutenant's lifelong oath of service.
Thus here he was, alone with the general in the middle of the Western Deadlands, scanning the extraordinary powers that lied within a crashed alien aircraft.
"Open the door," his general said. His shadowy figure stood at the edge of the deep crater where the alien's ship had landed. The sunset began to dip behind him.
Despite the alarms of impending danger that fought to stay his hand, Hoffstead didn't blink. His entire life was dedicated to refining a stoic, emotionless demeanor. He extended a steady hand, pulling and twisting the door handle on the space ship. In his other hand, he gripped the gun.
He whispered an internal prayer that the anti-ki darts in the chamber would work, that they wouldn't just prick and anger the powerful creature that lie dormant inside the pod. He fingered the trigger on the weapon and inhaled sharply, swinging the portal open.
Expecting to see a creature like the last big green menace, Hoffstead was shocked to find a being that looked like a human man. He had been flung from his seat and lied awkwardly against the ship's console, which smoked and sparked beneath him. A trail of blood traced the man's face from a wound near his hairline and dripped off his chin onto a white and gold breastplate.
"What are you waiting for?" his general barked from above. "Shoot it."
It was hard to believe that the man inside the pod registered eighteen thousand on the power level scanner. He appeared no more than five and a half feet tall. Hoffstead discharged his weapon at the man's thigh, twice to be sure. When he remained motionless, Hoffstead let out his breath and thanked the gods that this supernatural was not going to kill him today.
It wasn't until he hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder that he realized what first seemed like a fur belt was actually a tail. It uncoiled from his waist and hung limply as the lieutenant carried the alien up the crater's steep walls and deposited him in the armored truck.
Lieutenant Hoffstead watched as the general threw a capsule at the spherical ship, shrinking it into the palm of his hand with tight lipped smile.
"Sir, may I ask what we're going to do with him?"
"I do believe we just found our missing monkey!" The general's smirk grew wider, and he shook his head with contemptuous glee. "All that energy in one animal… We're going to learn how it works! And I know just the scientist to do it."
Bulma Briefs trotted alongside Lieutenant Hoffstead through the maze of hallways and fortified doors that led to the Weapons R&D wing of the military base. The white, sterile corridors were familiar. The young scientist had lent her services to the military before, specifically to aid them during the war of King Piccolo—almost a decade ago, when she had developed a technology to temporarily subdue the green slug's powers.
Previously, whenever she'd worked in the facility, it had been teeming with scientists and engineers buzzing about their latest projects like a chorus of bees. Today, her high heels echoed down the hallways that were lined instead with combat-readied soldiers. All of them stood, unmoving statues, ten feet apart along the walls that led to the base's most heavily fortified lab: a giant, atomic-grade dome built for testing secret weapons that was known as The Tank.
Inside the dome's first armored door, a short hallway presented two more. One opened to the large, curved room where blasts and bombs were tried before the thick panes of a nearly indestructible plasma window—the scientists and military personnel safely collecting data in a state-of-the-art viewing room behind them.
But the lieutenant stopped before the opposite door—the one that led to a smaller lab meant for the most clandestine initiatives: a secure, soundproofed room that was no larger than a two-car garage and monitored solely by the general and his lieutenant.
Before Hoffstead could scan his fingertips on its key panel, the door beeped open, and through the narrow crack slipped General Strickland. He snapped it shut behind him, looking as if he'd just wrestled a grizzly bear. The general's usually crisp white shirt clung to his torso, sticky with blood. A red-stained cloth was wound tightly around his left hand. And in his right, he clasped an anti-ki wand, which dripped the crimson fluid from its sharp, hissing tips onto the pristine white tiles.
"General? What the hell is going on?" Bulma forgot military decorum as her mouth gaped open at the man. His face lit with a menacing zeal.
"First things first." He extended the index finger of his hastily bandaged hand. "You run your tests, you keep your trap shut. The thing we keep in here is the most dangerous asset ever to be housed in this facility. The only souls permitted in this room are you, myself, and the lieutenant."
Bulma nodded, a mix of curiosity and fear beginning to churn at the General's wolfish visage.
Lieutenant Hoffstead had disclosed very little on the phone, only that she was to report the base immediately. That the project was the general's making did not surprise Bulma. General Strickland was a callous man with boundless ambition. His tone was always tinged with self-righteous fervor, especially as he talked down at the female genius.
"This beast is more powerful than the gods themselves! Clocked in at eighteen thousand," he said, jerking his head to punish the brown strands of hair that disobeyed his clean-cut and fell loose against his forehead. The general beeped the door open and extended the wand to show-off his prize.
Bulma's breath caught in her throat. He looked just like Goku, but smaller in stature than her lifelong friend: his sharp features, coarse black hair spiked in disarray, and most notably, the long tawny tail that flicked behind his legs. The alien hovered inches from the ground, chained by his wrists to the ceiling—a nightmarish picture covered nearly head to toe in blood. His black eyes pinned in their direction as a low growl emitted from his red-stained teeth.
"I hauled that vile thing out of a hole in the desert. Thank gods I did. A rabid animal like that unleashed on the world. Can you imagine?" Strickland scrunched his nose and twirled his anti-ki wand, not taking his eyes from the alien.
"Is that really necessary?" Bulma asked. Her eyes darted between the crackling baton and the cavernous wounds below the alien's ribs where the wand's spiked tips had gouged him open. A puddle of his vital fluids grew below his boots that were cuffed around his ankles.
"Well, I tried rubbing its belly first, Dr. Briefs, but the fucker bit me." The general smiled wickedly and approached the alien.
"Fear is the first rule of submission." He held out the instrument. Its tips sizzled an inch from the alien's cheek; though, he refused to flinch. Instead, he bared his sharp teeth and spat something in a harsh, guttural language.
"What's that? Not scared yet, huh? Go ahead, I dare you to take another bite."
The general extended his bandaged hand, taunting the man, seemingly unaware of the furry appendage that whipped out from behind to seize him around the waist.
"Oh, don't start with that again. Don't you know any other tricks?" The general laughed and thrust the wand into the man's gut. The alien roared. Even against the dampened walls, his voice bounded through the room like thunder through a canyon as the weapon crackled and tore further into his flesh.
"Stop!" Bulma yelled. Her hands were clasped over her ears. It felt as if her own insides were being ripped open at the agonizing sound.
Her mind traced back to the Piccolo battles, when a young Goku killed the tyrant by blasting his small, ki-charged body through the slug's heart. The general had been determined to search out the monkey child that had slayed the powerful being, and Bulma knew that Strickland wasn't looking to throw her friend a parade. He wanted to source Goku's powers for himself.
Thankfully, throughout the years Goku's existence became an urban legend, a fable told by few of Earth's citizens each anniversary of King Piccolo's demise. Most didn't believe that the supernatural monkey kid existed, and Strickland himself propagated the falsity that the army destroyed the tyrant under his own command. Only Bulma and her friends knew the truth, but they kept quiet for Goku's sake. The Briefs did everything they could to safeguard his identity, including the amputation of his tail. Well, that was one reason they removed it.
"I know, Dr. Briefs, that this project disturbs your delicate sensibilities. It can't be helped. You're a daughter of the gods. It's in your nature."
The alien's roar subsided into heavy pants, and his tail withdrew to hang listlessly behind him.
Finally, the general ripped the wand away from his flesh and twirled it around as he walked toward her. A maniacal grin twisted across his lips. "Perhaps, I should find a man better suited to the task."
Bulma balled her fists at her sides. She refused to make a lab rat out of the alien, yet whatever the general was planning was better left to the painless dignity her conscience required, rather than some subservient drone or worse. "What is it you want me to do?"
His square jaw twitched before he fixed his steely gaze in her direction. "Fix it up, then report to my office for details."
His attention turned to Hoffstead, who stood like a prop against the wall, anti-ki gun clasped in his hand. "Assist the doctor and redose the creature every twelve hours."
The lieutenant saluted his accord.
"But wait!" Bulma shouted. "That serum was designed for gastropoids like King Piccolo. It's not meant for mammals."
The general shrugged and shoved the bloodied wand into her arms, staining her lab coat. "Dealer's choice, Dr. Briefs."
With Strickland out of earshot, Bulma cursed him to the next dimension and turned to his lieutenant. "You heard the man," she said. "Prep a bed and a med kit."
The chained man's vital life drained into a crimson pond below his feet. In her mind, as terrifying as he appeared, this alien was no different from Goku. He wasn't some tyrannical demon who deserved to be tortured to the gates of Hell. Power levels don't automatically make foes, as Goku was living proof.
"Ma'am," the lieutenant started, unmoving from his position against the wall. "It would be wiser if you retrieved–"
"I'll be fine, lieutenant. Give me the gun." She observed the lieutenant's internal debate, sizing her up. "That is, unless you want him to die on your watch."
Reluctantly, Hoffstead placed the anti-ki gun in the doctor's outstretched palm. He backed toward the door, his eyes fixed between the fiery little woman who stood like a warrior in the center of the lab, weapons in each hand, and the alien who hung before her out of reach, unable to do anything but feebly hiss between his teeth.
Bulma listened to the door beep shut before the weapons clattered to the ground. Fixing her gaze on the bound and battered man, she held up her empty hands and approached with caution. A barely audible growl rumbled from his chest, and his ominous eyes fought to remain open and locked to hers.
Once she was within arm's reach, when their faces were nearly aligned, Bulma swallowed her fear. It's just Goku, it's just Goku, she repeated in her head like a mantra as she placed a delicate palm on the man's ribs, over the two deep holes the wand created. She pressed down. His inky irises, hazy with blood loss, suddenly lit as his brows knit into a hostile frown. The skin beneath her hand erupted in heat, and the alien sprung to life, thrashing against the cuffs, which hissed and sparked. He spat at her in a husky voice, red flecks misting her face in words she couldn't understand.
Bulma wrapped her free arm around his waist and hugged him, pressing her palm harder against his wounds. She buried her head in his bare chest, hiding any susceptible flesh out of range from his gnashing fangs.
"Calm the fuck down! I'm trying to help you!" She regretted wearing high heels. Her feet slid in the pool of his blood while the alien continued to fight and curse her, nearly knocking her to the floor.
Bulma heard the door open and tipped her head to see the lieutenant scramble to roll the cot inside and pick up the weapons she'd dropped. "Don't shoot!" she shouted.
Lieutenant Hoffstead froze. The white knuckled grip he held on his gun belied his soldierly countenance. With the scientist covering the alien protectively, he didn't have a clean shot.
"I need you to move ma'am," he ordered.
"Not until you drop your weapon." Another dose of the untested substance shot into his vulnerable system could cause permanent harm or kill him.
Already, Bulma felt the energy waning from the man in her grip. The heat left his skin as his body stilled and growls subsided into faint, wheezing breaths. His black eyes, blazed in bitterness, fed her guilt as she lifted her chin and stared into them.
She cursed herself for ever letting the military get a hold of the anti-ki technology. Back when she developed the devices and serums, as King Piccolo laid waste to entire cities and wiped out half of the army, Bulma was desperate to lend her skills to temper the dangerous menace. That these weapons would be used recklessly against someone who hadn't posed a direct threat, simply to advance some overzealous general's yearning for power and prestige, was not something she had considered at the time.
The man in her arms struggled to compose his breath. Blood sputtered from his mouth with a cough and dripped down his chin.
"Don't just stand there lieutenant! He's bleeding out. Help me get him down."
Decisive to the demands screamed by his field medics, the doctor's sharp declaration spurred the lieutenant into action. Lieutenant Hoffstead traded his weapon for his keys at his belt and unfastened the cuffs overhead.
The doctor refused to unwind herself from the beast. When the thing dropped down, he took the small woman with him, landing them both in the puddle below with audible splat. Hoffstead thought to draw the gun again from his holster, but before he could move, the dainty girl rolled him off her as she howled, "Lift him, you dolt!"
Hoffstead helped the bloodsoaked doctor heft the alien onto the cot. But before he could cuff the beast to the bed, he instead found his palms pressing against his wounds at her instruction. If she wasn't so headstrong, she would have made a great officer: fearless, fast-acting, no-nonsense—clearly not squeamish to the carnage of battle. Sometimes he wondered who he feared more, the young Dr. Briefs or Strickland.
He watched as the doctor extracted a small tin case from her pocket and flicked it open. They were capsules, her family's flagship patent. The small cylindrical containers, each labeled with a coded number, sat in the palm of her hand. She plucked the smallest one from the tin, activating it with a click of her thumb and tossed it to the ground.
When the smoke cleared, four units of dark fluids laid at her feet. From his vantage, they looked like any other blood bags.
"It's synthesized," Bulma lied, snatching one up. "Made for any species." The lieutenant was not a man of science; though, she knew him to be a man of duty. "Hoffstead. This is just between us. Your orders were to help me fix him."
Hoffstead nodded; technically, that was true. Besides, the alien looked white as snowfall, and his breath was sharp and shallow. It would not bode well for them if that thing died today.
Bulma hastily hooked up the IV that would provide the man with the blood of his species: Goku's blood, which took great pains to collect from her needle-fearing friend in the event that he needed it himself.
The alien watched the fluids slither through the tube from the corners of his eyes. His arm twitched as if he was trying to pull it away from the encroaching substance. Bulma leaned over him and clasped her hand around his chin. Turning his face to hers, she stared at him earnestly for a moment, hoping that somehow he would understand that she was trying to save his life. As weak as he was, she could still see hate smoldering in the blackness of his eyes, but he was helpless to fight. A feeble frown flickered across his face as she went to work repairing the gaping wounds.
Beneath the blood and grime that was caked onto his frame were scars—hundreds of pale, jagged lines etched across his skin.
"Where the hell did you come from?" she wondered.
"Knock before you enter my office," Strickland said without looking up from his shaking hand. He hooked the suturing needle through the layers of his skin that barely held his pinky to his palm, listening to the doctor's bitter huff. "Go back out and knock, then we'll talk. That's the protocol."
The woman spun back to the open door and banged her fists against the frame. She was always testing the limits of his lenience, the unruly bitch. If she wasn't an anomaly, somehow blessed by the gods with unnatural beauty combined with a genius he'd never witnessed among men, her insubordinate ass would be assigned to a cell in the military prison.
"See, was that so hard?" He glanced at her from under his lids while he knit the fibers of his palm back together. Her appearance was unseemly, like she'd been swimming in the lakes of Hell. She stood before his desk, fair features clashing with the crusted blood that stained her face and clumped the exotic blue strands of her hair.
"I know what you're thinking," he said, loud enough to halt the insolent noise that was about to leave her lips. "Seems downright human? Hell, I bet if it weren't for that tail, you'd be asking it to buy you a drink, flashing your titties after a few martinis."
The general lifted his gaze to enjoy her reaction: crossed arms and cocked hip, her pretty face bent into a bitchy frown.
"The thing is, Dr. Briefs, we humans were created in the gods' image. You don't think that's what the gods look like do you?"
Before she could unhinge her clenched jaw, Strickland answered for her. His voice boomed across the desk as if she was two rooms away. "No! The gods look like humans, Dr. Briefs! Like me, or even you... Maybe a little more like me."
His focus returned to serenely sew his skin. "Now, I know some primitive woodland tribes worship the little primate. They call him The Savior... Tch! Can you believe that?"
He glanced back up at her from his work. She was staring at his hand with narrowed eyes, the corners of her lips turned up in the faintest smile, gloating.
For the moment, he ignored her and calmly tied a knot in the threads and snipped the ends. When he was done, he stood and leaned over the desk to meet the doctor face-to-face.
"Your job, Dr. Briefs, is to find a way to harness that creature's power," he said in the same even tone he used on his men. A smirk rolled across his lips, watching her refined features flick up from his palm.
"I want to develop weapons with the strength to bring down one of those motherfuckers!" Strickland shouted and pounded his good fist against the wood, earning a gratifying jolt from the woman.
The doctor shook her grisly dreads. "But, he's intelligent! We can't chain him up like an animal for our experiments. He's capable of language, of emotions. He's–"
"That what they taught you in vet school? Have you ever been to war, Dr. Briefs?" Strickland didn't wait for her negative response. "We've been killing sentient beings since the dawn of man. Wars, wars, always wars. If it's not nations, it's these abominations. Harnessing this kind of power would end that. No one would dare challenge us! Don't you understand? What's one filthy animal sacrificed in service to the greater good?"
"How do you expect me to engineer his power if he's drugged, prodded, and chained?" she asked with an incredulous tip of her head.
The general's square jaw twitched against his hardened features. He imagined yanking the woman across his desk, throwing her over his knee to beat the fear of the gods into her ass. Maybe another day when his hand wasn't shredded to bits.
"The bottom line is, doctor, this isn't a petting zoo. I don't want that thing here any longer than you do. Get me what I want. Get it quickly, or I'll find someone who will.
"Oh, and one more thing." Strickland pulled a capsule from his pocket and held it between his fingers. "See what you can do with this."