Three days later and Jade had fully recovered from her efforts, and was trying desperately on a regular basis to sneak away from the complex and Bulma's eagle eye. She couldn't help it, she was bored.
"You'll never get better if you don't rest," Bulma said with exasperation as she caught Jade with one foot on the windowsill, the third time that morning.
"But Bulma, I'm not sick. There's nothing wrong with me." Jade cast the blue-haired woman a dismayed look, and as the blue eyes stared firmly back at her, she took her foot off the sill and sat back on the bed.
"Run any test you like on me. Just don't make me stay in here. Please, I can't take much more of this."
Bulma ran her hands through her hair in a gesture of exasperation much as Trunks would have. So that's where he gets it, Jade thought offhandedly.
"If I let you out of the room, will you promise me you won't go out of the complex without someone else?"
"Done," Jade squeaked happily, hugged Bulma's shoulders and ran out of the bedroom to goodness-knows-where.
Blasted Saiyan genes, Bulma whispered in the back of her mind. Why won't they let me take care of them? They're not as strong as they think they are, and…
[Yes we are. Don't be foolish, woman.] Vegeta's thought cut into hers as he walked past her in the corridor.
"Is nothing held sacred from you?!" she hollered after him.
"Nothing you know about," he threw back.
In the living room, Trunks sat in front of the television with Videl and Gohan. The three of them had become quite close over the weeks since Trunks had arrived, and they mumbled absently to each other as the screen played a documentary about the life of Mr Satan, the "World's Greatest Champion," while Videl rolled her eyes.
From the far door, Jade snuck into the room, pleased to see her friends in the one spot. Keeping her power level down to the point of almost nonexistence, she crept up behind Trunks, pressed her knees into his back and yanked his arms back playfully, at the same time immobilising him.
Trunks yelped in shock, and by some amazing reflex flipped himself out of her grasp and pinned her to the floor with his knees, one fist drawn back.
"Hello to you too," Jade laughed quietly, and his expression softened to a full smile.
"She let you out of there?"
"Don't ask stupid questions." Jade replied in a Vegeta-esque voice. "Now if you don't mind, I'm having a little difficulty breathing with you crushing my ribs like that," she added with a faint cough.
"Oops, sorry. Guess I don't know my own weight." Trunks took his knee off her chest obligingly remembering her weakness, and she grabbed his shoulder, flipping him so she sat on top of him again.
"Sucker." The dark eyes, which had been hung with exhaustion, sparkled with their old fire.
"Bitch," Trunks spat out in amusement, before launching himself at her with energy he hadn't had for days. As they wrestled happily on the living room floor, Gohan and Videl laughed till tears ran down their faces.
"What the hell is going on in here?!" a scream from the doorway, and Bulma stood looking shocked and worried. Trunks let go of Jade's arm and she let the shoulder she'd pinned rise to a sitting position. The pair smiled guiltily and meekly.
"Oh, for pity's sake. Just not in the house, okay?"
"Yes, mother." Trunks answered for both of them.
She left the room in pique, and Trunks complied with her request and resumed his position in front of the television set. Jade pulled a pillow out of the air and lay down beside him. The four of them stayed there in companionable silence until Gohan piped up with a very Saiyan request.
"Hey Trunks, you got any soda?"
Trunks shrugged his shoulders.
"I suppose so, I'll go see. Anyone else want one?" He counted in mock concentration. "Now, let's see, that's one for Videl, one for me, one for Jade, and twenty-seven for Gohan makes thirty." He looked up in triumph that made Videl giggle.
"Alright, I'm going. Keep your shirt on."
Still peeved from being surprised previously, he placed on hand on the small of Jade's back to push himself up. Her tail whipped out and caught his arm bruisingly.
"Ow!" he yelped again.
"Sorry, reflex." She released his arm, and he rubbed his wrist, then looked down in deep interest.
"What's this?" his finger traced scar above the small tattoo on her back.
"What's what?"
"The scar, of course."
"The pig whose bones I crushed gave it to me during a battle. You remember what I told you about how big my people were on honour?"
Aware she must have said it to Trunks when they weren't there, Gohan and Videl humoured Jade and nodded affirmatively.
"Well, I beat him fair and square, and he got up and slashed me across the back. I'll leave it at that," she added bitterly. Trunks made a mental note to question her about it later, although his mind was already making connections.
Tactless as ever, Gohan had reached a similar conclusion.
"So, was this the same 'pig' your father had you betrothed to?" Jade stiffened.
"Same pig," she replied in a tone implicit with 'keep it up and I'll pound you into the ground'.
"Excuse me, but I don't appreciate being called a pig," came a voice accented like Jadali's from the doorway. Behind him, Dr Briefs stood looking sheepish.
"This fellow says he's a friend of yours, dear," he said to Jade.
"Thankyou, Dr Briefs." Jade nodded politely to the befuddled man and he left in a hurry, sensing unwelcome tension in the air.
"Ragal, you stinking worm. I wondered where you'd slithered off to," Jade snapped viciously at the handsome young man whose face was marred by a scar across one cheek. If he'd had one more scar, he could have been a younger version of Yamcha. Trunks now understood why she disliked his mother's old friend.
The language she'd fallen into was Ismiri, and although nobody except its two residents understood it fully, Jade had spent hours and days teaching Trunks the gist of the lyrical dialect. He translated roughly for Gohan and Videl, who sat in stunned silence.
The two mages launched into a fierce tirade of verbal abuse, circling each other like fighting cocks and moving their hands in a way Trunks sensed was dangerous. He'd never seen magic used as a weapon before, and he sensed it wouldn't be pretty.
"It's beautiful…like they're singing," Videl mumbled. Trunks nearly laughed out loud.
"If you knew what they were saying, you wouldn't think so."
"What is going on in here?!" Bulma's sharp Mother Voice queried.
Jadali and Ragal paused in their insulting rally, and Ragal cocked his head curiously.
"Well, you're a pretty one, aren't you? Maybe you'd make a better mate for me than this little bitch."
"Yamcha?" Bulma said quietly.
"No. Even Yamcha isn't stupid enough to have said that in my hearing," a regal voice rumbled. "Friend of yours, Jadali?"
She grimaced. "Unwanted acquaintance."
"Whatever. I've no time for pathetic weaklings like him. You four deal with it." He gestured towards the group of young people and left the room with a shrug.
"Well, that's a first," Trunks reflected.
"Um, excuse me? I thought I was having a moment with my darling bride here." Ragal tapped an impatient foot on the floor.
"She's not your bride, idiot!" Trunks let his temper loose and slugged Ragal in the jaw, sending him out the open window. This brought a disapproving look from Bulma, and he grinned with a shrug. "You said 'not in the house'."
Outside, as Ragal pulled himself out of the trench he'd dug with his own nose, Jade floated down gracefully, followed by her friends, and eyes him with distaste.
"This is how I'll remember you, if I choose to give you that dignity. Face down in the dirt. Where you belong." Jade raised one glowing hand, and fired from it. Obviously powerful, it blew back the hair on the bystanders' heads and made Bulma grab for Trunks to steady herself, but the warriors amongst them could sense no ki. It must be the power Jade talked about as being a part of her, mother and son thought simultaneously.
Ragal produced a smaller blast of his own, but they fired not at each other, but into the air. Above Jadali's head, the sky darkened as she closed her eyes in concentration, wind whipping at her hair as she stood perfectly calm, in a beautiful and terrifying display. The beam of light she'd shot out began to take form, and slowly a phoenix of pure light emerged from the brightness.
Jade's eyes flashed open for an instant, shining with light like the phoenix above her, then she closed them and the phoenix opened its own.
Not fifty metres away, a leopard had formed above Ragal, and opened its eyes as well.
"This is the last time, Ragal. We will not meet this way again." Jadali's sweet voice declared loudly, although her lips did not move. The sound was in their minds, and she had become the light phoenix, leaving her human form below her.
"It is at that," Ragal snarled. His voice, although the accent was the same, was not sweet or pleasant to the ear like Jadali's was, and the leopard he had manifested glowed just as brightly, but with a deeper, obviously flawed colouring.
The two creatures lunged at each other, giving off flashes of lightning as they struck and feinted. Cavorting around in a deadly dance, the leopard took the phoenix's wing in its gaping jaws, seemed to swell in size in proportion to the phoenix's diminishing power.
"No…please don't die," came the distraught thought from the ground.
Seeming to hear the mental plea, the phoenix broke loose, slashing at the leopard with its talons and acquiring a killing hold on the beastly creature's throat before the sky filled with lethal radiance, and only the giant bird remained.
It called in triumph, flew upwards where it posed regally, then flew straight at Jadali's body, surrounding it and uniting the two halves again.
Jade fell to one knee, gasping for breath as her friends ran to her.
Some distance off, Ragal's body lay in a crumpled heap, and slowly faded away to nothingness.
[Thankyou,] rang a beautiful voice in Trunks' head. Unsure of whether she could hear him or not, Trunks replied simply: [You're welcome.]
Two days later, a bright and beautiful Sunday, Trunks set off for home.
On the front lawn of Capsule Corporation, his friends and family assembled to see him off and wish him good luck in rebuilding his world. Jade was nowhere to be found, and his heart sank. She'd already said her goodbyes, and wasn't taking the loss of her first friend particularly well.
The last people Trunks farewelled were his alternate parents.
"You come back and visit any time, okay?" Bulma hugged the tall version of her son, and he squeezed her shoulders warmly.
He turned to Vegeta, restrained the desire to embrace the foul-tempered loud-mouthed father he didn't really know but loved anyway, and settled for a handshake.
He flicked some switches, closed the hatch, and the time machine blinked back to the future.
Bulma walked inside with a heavy heart, saddened by her "other" son's departure as much as the fact Jadali had refused to say goodbye. She sighed and walked into the kitchen, where she found a note on the table in unfamiliar, tiny script. Beneath it, she found a wrist guard that looked like something from ancient armour. Jade! Something's happened to her! She struggled to read the tiny, neat hand.
Dear Bulma,
First and foremost, I'd like to thank you for your hospitality. You didn't have to be so nice, and you were without reservation. I've grown to love you as the mother I never had.
I've gone with Trunks back to his time. I figure I'd be of more use there than spending my life 'now' defending a planet that's well protected anyway. You don't really need me here, but I'll miss you anyway.
I suppose by now you've found the armour I left behind. I always carry spares, so don't worry about that. I thought it could be useful to you, and when you activate it, it will replenish the pouch of "jewellry" (as you put it). Just don't drop the black gems, they're highly explosive.
Please don't be angry with me. Farewell, and perhaps we'll meet again someday.
Ravek (love), Jadali
Bulma held the letter to her breast. "I'm not mad, you silly girl. You just take care, okay?" she said to the open air, hoping that somehow her thoughts would reach across time and space.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Trunks yelped in fright as Jade appeared on his lap.
"Hitchhiking, I believe you call it," Jade replied, flashing him a sneaky grin.
"I—I didn't think – you never said –" His voice cracked, and she ran a finger along his temple to brush the hair from his eyes.
"What, goodbye? Why would I say that when I was coming with you? You're sillier than I thought, little Prince." He smiled faintly.
"What's my mother going to say? Bringing home strange girls with no warning…" Jade shrugged and settled against his chest for the journey in the crowded capsule.
"She'll love me. The other one does, and you do. I pull stuff from the air. What's not to like?" The faint smile on Trunks' face widened and he kissed the top of her hair.
"Bitch."
"Sucker."
{[SHAMELESS PLUG]}
Want to know what happens next? Find out in the sequel "A Desolate Future" (currently under construction).
