Setting: Approximately a few years after the end of DBZ.
Rating: PG-13 for language and
violence.
Notes: ** are for thought. And I
got the title from my own song, "Silver Goodbye." Maybe I'll stick
the lyrics somewhere in the story. You should basically know Lee and Ree from
that prologue thing, but I'll explain a bit more. The dimensional rift they
headed towards pushed Lee into the Core, HQ of the Wandering Souls, an
interdimensional policing agency. She works for them, but all Ree knows is that
Lee tends to disappear a lot, leaving Ree to wander around the galaxy in search
for her. Anyways... oh, and the Kemanians are basically purple female
Namekians. There are a few big differences, but that'll be revealed later.
Okay, enough blab.
The take-off was a standard
procedure everyone in the WS knew well: the official send-off and salute in the
docking bay, the boarding of the pod, the engine ignition while present members
of the group watched from the one huge window in the Core looking out to the
closed-in bay. The bay was more like a parking space for the pod, which faced a
wall programmed to channel dimensional holes. The whole of the Core was
designed to save time, space, and energy, like the Wandering Souls itself – but
unlike their "bible" of sorts, "The Wandering Souls Official
Handbook for Technical, Emotional, and Moral Assistance." Or, as the old
members called it, "the Big Book." Every WS member knew the
procedures and protocol by heart, or else they'd be forced to carry the
forty-thousand page manual with them on every mission. The one procedure all
present at the Core had to take part of was the take-off of a fellow member on
a mission, since who knew if it would be their last.
So it was that it only took less
than a moment of thought and a quick glance at the Core window to realize that
the Core was completely empty and devoid of other WS members, save Zenith and
Satan. She wondered absently just how many experienced members were out on
missions that Zenith had to look for Lee specifically. In any case, Lee felt a
tingle of apprehension.
Something wasn't quite right.
"On my mark." Zenith's
voice was little more than a hiss in the ancient speakers placed throughout the
pod, two of which hanging from the ceiling and tilting down towards the pilot
seat, which Lee had buckled herself into moments before.
Lee double-checked the
instruments on the control panel, waving her palms over the motion-sensitive
panels and glancing at the technical readouts. Satisfied that the pod was in
working order -- which was surprising considering its age -- she hovered her
right hand over a spot on the panel shaped like a hand. "Ready when you
are, Zee."
"On three. Three, two, one…
mark."
Lee pressed her hand on the
panel, and the engines roared to life, shaking the interior of the pod and
moving anything not bolted down.
"Luck to you,
Lee-dee-dee!" Satan jolted Lee back into reality with a voice that could
probably break the pod speakers if she tried hard enough, if only with her
sheer jumpiness and partial annoyance. "May your skies be clear, your
Vodka strong, and your aim deadly!"
Lee smirked; everyone had a
tailor-made send-off, and it was obvious Satan helped create this one.
"Since when was my aim NOT deadly?" she murmured with a chuckle,
sitting back in the pilot chair and staring at the ceiling, as the engines took
the pod up and then forward, through the starry dimensional hole. "See you
on the other side, kid. And don't give her too much sugar, Zenith."
Was it Lee's imagination, or
could she actually HEAR Zenith raise an eyebrow? "Luck to you, Lee of
Saiyajin... and since when do I have sugar anywhere near Satania?"
The speakers went silent as the
pod shot out into its programmed dimension.
*Space. The final frontier.*
All at once, the pod started to
shake. The lights went dim for a moment, and the red warning lights came
blinking on, as everything not bolted down banged against the rounded walls of
the pod. Lee unbuckled herself from the hard steel chair and broke away just a
moment before it crashed on the ceiling and made a very dangerous looking dent
in the metal. She stared at the chunk of twisted metal where her head would've
been.
*Space... the final graveyard?*
Lee sighed, hovering in mid-air,
waiting for the pod's systems to correct the gravity...
"Okay so far, sis?"
A very young Lee made a face at
the speakers as she checked the systems of her pod, blowing a strand of gray
hair out of an eye. "Of course I'm okay. I know how these things work. I
know more than YOU, anyway." She grimaced at the dust that had settled on
the panels thanks to the disuse of the old pod, but she had to make do; it was
all the two could get, and they were in quite a hurry at the time.
"All right, all
right," Ree replied, her voice nothing more than a ghostly rasp on the
ancient communication device installed in the walls on each side of the pilot
seat. "I was just concerned, that's all."
Lee flopped down in the seat and
sighed wearily, elbows on her knees, leaning her forehead on her palms.
"Well, don't be," she breathed out. "I can take care of
myself."
"Yeah, you demonstrated
that clearly before we left, didn't you?"
Lee gritted her teeth, about to
make a very obscene comment at her sister, when the pod suddenly rocked
violently, throwing her out of the chair and sprawling her on the floor with a
hard thud. Scrambling up quickly, she made it to the controls and ran a quick
scan on the inner systems. "Ree, something just happened. Felt anything
just now?"
Silence.
"Ree?" Lee pushed a
button and opened the pod's main window; maybe she'd be able to search for
whatever caused the shake. As the clear window was revealed, Lee took a quick
look outside and gasped, watching as the pod's auto-pilot swerved the pod this
way and that to avoid a sudden asteroid field that it had come across. Not even
come across -- somehow, the pod wound up almost in the middle of it. But how?
They were too close to Vegita-Sei for the sensors to miss such an abnormal
spatial anomaly before they took off. *Ree! Dammit, talk to me!*
The
responding voice, which should have sounded more solid and clear considering
the strength of the sisters' mental connection as opposed to the antique
speakers, was more of a feathery whisper, and it frightened Lee more than the
situation itself. *Oh Kami, tell me that wasn't just my imagination, tell me
that wasn't what I think...*
A screaming alarm startled Lee
out of her remembrances and plopped her quite unceremoniously back to the
present. *Oh, fuck, NOW what?* Lee
thought as she scanned the pod's programming for errors. A sudden glaring phrase
of words came up on-screen, giving her a scare for a moment.
-- INTERNAL SYSTEM ERROR: POD
GRAVITY AT 78% NORMAL --
*And why would that be bad?
What, just cause your little wires want a hundred percent from everything?
Well, that's what you get when you're programmed by an almost-perfect android,
ne? Perfectionist computers all around me, ugh...*
Lee floated there for a moment,
wondering why it would be so bad to let the pilot of a Wandering Souls pod
float in zero-gravity. It wasn't like they weren't trained for it; hell, they
were supposed to handle everything from killer gravity to killer mutants.
Staring up at the pilot seat, which was now firmly lodged in the ceiling, she
stuck her hands in her pockets -- and felt something. Taking out one hand, she
produced the micro-CD from one pocket.
Her assignment CD.
*Heh, almost forgot about that.*
A sudden, overwhelming sense of
curiosity seized her, making her fingers itch at the very touch of the CD. Just
what WAS her assignment, anyway? After everything that she'd found out or
deduced happened at the Core while she was away, it was obvious that something
very, very big was happening, and she didn't like it. Not one bit. The smell
was just wrong – it was the smell of blood, the blood of a thousand good men
and women, shed in one swoop, cleaned up haphazardly, leaving nothing to see
but so much to smell.
The smell of death reeked on
that tiny CD held with the bare touch of her fingertips.
*All right. Let's see just what
the hell's going on here.*
Running (floating, really) to
the back of the pod, she reached a small console hooked up to the wall next to
the head of the small cot that was to be her bed for the course of the trip.
*WS pods, the only way to fly.* Inserting the CD, she sat on the cot and waited
patiently for a file readout to appear on the tiny screen.
Static.
"Dammit," Lee cursed
out loud, banging the console repeatedly. "C'mon, show me
SOMETHING..."
An image of Zenith appeared for
a split second, fuzzed, and then cleared up, catching her in mid-sentence.
"... what was going to happen here at the Core two months ago. I knew
about the attack." It paused, then skipped almost a full minute of frames,
continuing mid-sentence again. "... many deaths, but perhaps... compensate
for the damage... object of your mission in general, after all... thought the
attack would only hinder us for a short while, but..."
Another burst of static paused
the transmission as the console's system tried to compensate for the damage.
There were many members in the
Wandering Souls when Lee had worked at the Core. Almost no one knew each other;
in fact, only a privileged few not in the WS knew what they actually did and
how large a group they were. Most members worked in their native territory,
which meant there were many operatives throughout hundreds of galaxies in an
almost infinite amount of dimensions. To eliminate only five members would most
likely mean traveling to five different dimensions, but that would be
impossible –- by the time one member would be eliminated, four more would be on
the scene to investigate, and all members would be immediately alerted. To
eliminate more than one member would take an incredible amount of speed as well
as a deadly accuracy unmatched by anyone anywhere.
In short, complete annihilation
of the Wandering Souls was very close to impossible.
Very close, but apparently not
close enough.
As if some inner mechanism
whacked itself back in synch with the rest of the console, the video file
cleared up, and the damage after that point was minimal. Zenith appeared again
in crystal clear video, looking straight into the camera device she had
recorded into. She seemed to see directly past everything and right to Lee.
Maybe it was her silver eyes that only gave that impression, but it was still
unsettling. Even more unsettling was her message.
"I knew that everyone save
you and Satan would die, and I would perish soon afterwards. Hence, I could do
nothing to stop the coming chaos. It was foretold to happen, and... well, you
know how stubborn destiny is.
"There are two
possibilities for our future – the future of you, Satan, all species in every
dimension. One would be the annihilation of existence itself. I doubt anyone
would lay down and submit to this option. The other option is quite surprising,
considering the key players involved. Satan, you see, has been chosen to take
my place at the Core. This is not totally accurate, however. She will indeed
take my place heading the Core at the Machine's controls. You, however, have a
most difficult destiny, and hard shoes to fill.
"You were always a fiery
one, Lee. The wild firebird of the Souls, always flitting from one battle to
the next with a ferocity unmatched by any member before or since. I watched you
closely, analyzing every aspect of you. Moral, emotional, physical, mental. The
more I analyzed, the more I found my calculations to be incorrect. Throwing a
hypothetical at the Machine, however, found my calculations completely
feasible. It told me many things. Of alternate futures, alternate lives you
could have led. From schizophrenic rebel to commanding general warrioress to
technical genius... to a doting wife and queen. Despite some negative
connotations, most of these are very noble. And you still have the potential
for them. Through the Machine, I saw in you everything I wanted for the future
Wandering Souls. For Beta.
"Your ultimate mission is
not the README file contained in the pod's circuitry. Your mission, and you
have no choice but to accept, is to resurrect the Wandering Souls, to make it
better, to lead a new generation of Wanderers in an existence where god-like
power is held by those who do not deserve it and cannot use it wisely. You must
be the epitome of power in the face of universal chaos. Basically, the Big Guy
gave me this power, and I now hand it to your hopefully capable hands."
*Hopefully...?* Evidently,
Zenith didn't give all THAT much credit to the Machine's predictions. Typical
of an android created by the 'Big Guy' himself. It was nice to know that even
androids could have a bit of a superiority complex.
It was also nice to know that
Zenith actually had hope.
Fingers brushed her cheek
softly, and she stirred. Hands soothed her aching shoulders, wiped tears gently
from her eyes, and she sighed, falling into a strong, warm embrace. Arms held
her tightly – why was the feeling so painfully familiar? – and she felt the
strong beating of someone else's heart close to hers. Lips touched her ear as a
gentle, low whisper offered her eternal comfort; no more pain, no more torture,
just silence and warmth…
Lee woke with a soft sigh and a
small shiver, blinking open wet eyes and staring at the ceiling.
Even her less torturous dreams
found ways of haunting her.
She stretched cat-like on the
tiny cot, arching her back as she let out a tiny purr. Zenith once made the
very obvious observation that Lee had always seemed to exhibit characteristics
of both a firebird and a cat, existing in a constant flaming fury in one moment
and achieving a sense of a slinky, independent aloofness the next. Standing up
and heading towards the small box loosely called a fridge, Lee let herself
smile. If there was anything to like about being Saiyajin, other than the
ability to get stronger after each battle, it was the ability to show traits of
various animals without even knowing it. Ree was the owl-slash-fox, cooking up
crafty schemes and letting Lee in on various secrets of the universe with an
insight Lee never knew possible.... It must've been the Keman blood in her.
Lee took one look inside the
fridge and sighed, shoulders slumping.
*Half a bottle of tequila and a
lemon. Yummy.*
A sudden pang of guilt washed
over her, but she shook her head, trying to physically clear it of all thought.
As long as she kept her mind on the mission, she'd be fine. Hell, she might
even be quick enough to finish the mission and be back on Earth before she
missed any major battles. Taking the bottle and lemon, she closed the now empty
fridge and walked to the control panel, tapping a few keys.
-- ETA: 48 STANDARD HOURS --
Lee sighed. Her eyes glanced at
the bottle in her hands.
It would be a long two days, she
decided, rummaging through the cabinets for some salt.
*Thirty-three dead Ice-jin
bodies on the wall, thirty-three dead Ice-jin bodies...* Lee sat cross-legged
on the cot, salt in one hand, what was left of a lemon in the other. The now
empty bottle of tequila lay dripping on the floor, and she eyed it with
disdain. *Dunno what Ree sees in this stuff… gimme my good ol' vodka any day a'
the—*
Warning sirens suddenly started
to sound, and the interior of the tiny pod shone a very dangerous looking
blood-red. Lee glanced at the panels in the front and frowned, noticing a lot
of tiny blinking lights. Groaning, she managed to stand up and stumble over to
the panels –- but not before swerving enough to dodge the incoming chair that
suddenly smashed down from the ceiling. She stared down at the metal mess on
the floor near her feet.
*At least I know the gravity's
fixed.*
Standing where she would've sat
had the chair have been in its rightful place, she checked all internal systems
but found no problems. Mind starting to clear and focus with her problem, she
ran quick fingers over the panel to check any external causes.
-- WARNING: TWENTY METEORS
SURROUNDING POD --
*Say WHAT? Okay, and where
exactly would these 'meteors' be coming from?* she thought, tapping in the
query. Not two seconds later, the system spat out a string of seemingly
impossible coordinates on the screen. Lee froze for a moment. From the
coordinates, it looked like the pod was being—
"Attention, unidentified
pod," a scratchy, unknown voice announced from the speakers. "You are
trespassing in Silver's airspace. You will surrender immediately and prepare to
be boarded. Do not attempt to break through; you are surrounded."
*Silver?* Lee grabbed the pod's
mic and cleared her throat, glad that her adrenaline was overpowering the
tequila in her mind. "This is Lee, Saiyajin second-class on board pod
ID#42775B, identify yourself, I repeat, identify yourself." *Or I'll blow
all those tiny little dots on my screen to itty-bitty smithereens…*
The voice came back, more
commanding than before. "Your ID isn't registered. Don't make it harder
for yourself, woman. Just surrender and prepare to be boarded. We can do this
the easy way, or our way."
"I'll take choice
three," Lee said to herself, throwing the mic over her shoulder and
switching the piloting to manual, grabbing the controls firmly. "MY
way."
And then she pulled back hard,
planting her feet firmly on the floor as she felt her stomach turn and the pod
shoot up and away, right above where what the system said was a 'meteor'
hovering directly in front of the pod. Then came the first jolts of cannon
blasts, hitting the back of the pod with tremendous force but only serving to
propel the pod faster. Lee took one hand off the controls only long enough to
open the windows, after which her eyes were riveted on the sight ahead.
Silver looked like nothing but a
cloud of dust.
It hung in space, a silvery gray
cloud of dense space smog, with what looked like hundreds of thousands of tiny
'meteors' surrounding it with a complex net of electricity -- almost like an intricate,
glowing spider web. It was obvious that whoever had control of this thing
didn't want to give it up that easily. That, or they were protecting something.
But what would be worth protecting in a cloud of silver nothing?
Lee looked to the wall behind
her that had become transparent when she activated the windows. The 'meteors,'
which looked more like huge cannons with rocket engines and pilots attached,
were coming up fast behind her; if she didn't pull off some miracle flying,
she'd be shot down or taken prisoner in a matter of minutes. At which point it
might be impossible to complete her mission-- *Waitasec... what IS my mission
here...?*
Mentally cursing her drunken
self for forgetting to check the README file in the pod's internal circuitry,
she quickly called it up and read as fast as her eyes would let her. And then
she continued to stare at the words, even while the enemy cannons almost shot
the back of the pod completely away.
-- MISSION: INFILTRATE SILVER;
RESCUE PRISONERS; DESTROY ALL OBSTACLES; SURVIVE. --
As Lee forcibly shook herself
back into reality, she took another look outside and growled low. The electric
web around "Silver" was still there and, according to the tech
readouts her controls showed her, indestructible. With one of the newer makes
of the WS pods, she might've been able to fire a few wet torpedoes at some of
the electric 'meteors,' possibly short-circuiting them. With the equipment she
had now -- which were most likely centuries behind in terms of WS technology --
she had no chance of forcing her way past the cloud's defenses.
Unless, of course, she was taken
captive.
*And then what? What the hell
use am I going to be behind bars?*
She ignored the tiny voice in
her head, concentrating instead on not dying in the now very damaged pod before
she got the chance to officially surrender. Grabbing the manual controls again
(which, as she scanned all the instruments, were the only controls left), she
pushed hard, making the pod dive low just as a cannon blast zipped over only a
few inches above, making the pod shake violently.
*Hold together hold together
hold together--*
But it didn't hold together.
Another blast came too close,
and the walls of the pod finally gave out, breaking apart like an egg shell,
leaving the inner workings and machinery dangling in space along with its one
passenger.
Outer space suddenly seemed less
silent and more deadly than Lee ever imagined.
The lack of pressure seemed to
make her body feel not only much lighter, but fuller as well, as if someone
were pumping her full of burning cold air. Through eyes that were starting to
bleed with the extreme pressure change, she could make out some kind of flying
asteroid heading towards her, glittering a dark purple as it sped towards the
remains of the pod and her straining body. Then her back arched uncontrollably
– she never did fare too well in low pressure situations – and she fought
against the full body spasms as she coughed up blood that hung in space before
her like a sticky red web.
The last thing she saw before
she blacked out was the shadow of what she had thought was an asteroid. And the
last thing she felt were its arms around her, carrying her far away from the
wreckage, possibly to her final resting place, with soft grass, tall, strong trees,
and beautiful, beautiful sunlight…
"I can't get a lock on her
pulse."
"So defibrillate."
"Should we take that
chance?"
"She's right, we don't even
know if her body responds to that kind of--"
"Oh, for kami's sake, look
at the bone density, she's Saiyajin!"
"Wait, wait, oh damn, I
think she's conscious..."
"Quick, alert the others.
She might be hostile."
Lee regained consciousness way
before she gathered the courage to open her eyes -- the light in the room was
glaring, even through the backs of her eyelids, and it almost hurt to move her
eyes anyway. She could feel straps on her arms and legs, but she took it as a
good sign, since she could actually feel her arms and legs in the first place.
Which meant that her body was more or less in tact. Then she heard the
voices... and her heart leapt in anger.
Hostile?
"I'm not hostile," she
managed to growl out through a jaw which was probably wired shut. "I'm
lethal."
"She's Saiyajin all right,"
an almost timid-sounding female voice spoke near her right ear. "Less
charming than her sister, though."
Dawning recognition clouded her
anger for a moment. And then--
"PURPLE FREAKS! LET ME GO
OR I'LL SLAUGHTER THE LOT OF YOU!"
Ree's voice rang clearly in the
distance, and Lee swore up and down that, sister or no, Ree was acting more
like the Kemanians than a Saiyajin, and she'd smack her good for it.
"Drug her."
Wow, finished with this part. Now to get the girls onto
Earth... and get the main plot moving along. Heh.