Disclaimer: DBZ does not belong to me. I am not making any money off this, etc, therefore it would be completely pointless to sue me over this one little fanfic. Also, to answer a question I've been asked about twenty times, no, I had never, ever read Ender's Game before writing this story. Whatever similarities between this fanfic and OSC's writings are purely coincidental, believe it or not.

Fire and Ice

Chapter Four, The Visit

Ender threw down the tools she was holding and sat down on the stone floor, suddenly feeling exhausted. Cramped muscles unclenched a little as she let herself relax for the first time in months. She needed rest, sleep. She had been working almost non-stop for...how long? A long time, anyway, training when her eyes began getting sore from staring at the electronic screen before her, buying supplies when needed, but otherwise, all she did was sit in front of the computer console and work.

A year ago, two days after the arrival of Alec, she had abandoned every other project she was on and began a new one: to duplicate Alec's time machine. She knew it was possible, so the sole question remaining was how.

But she didn't spend all of her time on the project. At least at first, she spent a lot of her time on the Internet, where identities and purchases could be layered over and over again in a labyrinth of complexity so deep that only the best of hackers could guess her identity. Some of her time went toward finding information on a certain Dr. Gero and his creations, but most of it was devoted to trying to find the electronic trail that Gero used to create his androids. The path had to exist, but she had no luck in all the time she had been searching.

But that was only to be expected. Gero was a master hacker. So she paused in her work. Didn't stop, just paused, and moved onto more pressing matters- the androids and the time limit of three years.

After two months of designing and working in a room she had rented that was far too small for her things, she had reluctantly faced the fact that she had to move back to the cavern that she hated so much, the one that she had vowed to only reside in during winters, because it was the sole place that would hold all of her equipment. So she had made the transition, and forced the bad memories associated with this place away.

But even after weeks of experimentation in a larger place, she couldn't get it right. She had come close, she had a full sized working model with limitations, but that was it. She had figured that the time machine needed some part that was not yet invented.

So, once again, she dropped the whole thing.

She used the limited version she had created, modified it, and made it a gateway between dimensions. She knew how it worked, but so many of its procedures were tied up in theories that while she was building it, she had been forced to design new software for the programming and testing.

She had bought most of her materials online, using different screen names for each purchase. She doubted that any hacker could follow her movements online, but she wasn't that worried about hackers. Only an insane idiot would be interested in tracing multiple SNs buying equipment online.

Then she had worked for nine months.

The machine had taken up just a little over seven of those nine months to build, to tell the truth, but it had taken a long time to locate the right timeline- Alec's timeline.

It had been hard to find it within the maze of parallel universes splitting off one another. She had to figure out a new way of categorizing these lines, so she divided them into sectors and zones; each sector's timelines were almost like parallel universes to each other, with only very small differences. A zone was a timeline where time ran differently from hers.

But still, there were an infinite amount of these lines to sort through, and it had given her headaches for a week while she struggled to write the coding that would instruct her computer to classify them without having her to do it manually. She had to sell her old equipment, then spend all of the money she got from that to buy a better computer and the upgrades she required. By then, she was drained- barely able to function anymore, but she forced herself to do work. If she stopped, she knew she wouldn't be able to make herself continue the project any longer.

As soon as the program was written, there was no celebration, no inward satisfaction. She was so tired that she had just shook her head and gone to sleep for a few days.

When she woke up, Ender had done her calculations to find the general area where the time machine must have came from, using the initial blast of pure energy left by Alec's flashy departure in the time machine. So she had eliminated all of the timelines that didn't show that same showy burst of power at the time of Alec's departure.

Still, there was something like half a billion parallel universes left to comb through one by one. She then got rid of all of the ones where Alec had never been born, where Bulma had died, where any members of the Z gang were still alive, where Goku had not died of a heart disease, gradually getting through the piles of information. After she was done, there were still over a hundred million timelines. It was a staggering number, but at least the load was lightened.

Then, after all that, she had to find the miniscule thread linking her universe to Alec's, the filament created when Alec made contact with her time and changed this world's destiny.

She had gotten very lucky. She could only go through a few thousand of the timelines a day, looking for the very subtle link between two worlds. She had expected it to take at least six months to comb through everything. It had taken her three weeks. The strand of energy that still linked their two worlds together was wavering, almost gone when she found the lines. A few weeks more and it would have been gone.

Coordinates 20.82.244, SRC264, ZHW1109.

The machine still hadn't been tested yet, because it would take too long to program in a test subject. It had taken her two weeks of sleepless nights and missed meals to enter all of her own components into the state-of-the-art computer, and now she was tired.

[I'll try it out after I go to sleep....]

* * * * *

The sound of water running near her was in the air, as the leaves crackled beneath her. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but she knew that this couldn't be right.

He was handsome, with icy blue eyes, slanted, and long black hair that hung down to his shoulders. He seemed to be in good shape, his whole body sinewy and tight, but at the same time, he was slender enough to look almost vulnerable.

She had no chance against him.

He looked at her for a moment, and she felt naked all of a sudden, although she was clothed. He smiled, but his pale blue eyes stayed so cold as his long hair fell, brushing her face. His fingers traced a line from her cheekbone to her throat.

He whispered soft words, a mockery of affection, the quiet voice almost emotionless.

* * * * *

She sucked in a sharp breath as she bolted upright. For a second, she panicked, wondering if she was there again by the waterfall. Then she forced the memory down and opened her eyes.

[Damn. Not this again...]

For the past three months she had been too fatigued to dream, and now...

[Not this.]

She pulled the covers aside. No chance of getting any sleep now. Might as well get up. Take a shower. Test out the damn thing.

And the frickin' machine had better work.

* * * * *

Ender stepped out the icy waters at the bottom of the waterfall, reaching for a towel. She dried herself in a hurry, for there was a cold wind blowing and she had no desire to get sick. She shook her head. There was a faster way to do this. For the first time in weeks, she let her ki surface, the aura springing up around her, drying her body and hair as the warmth spread.

She didn't like using her Saiyan powers. She didn't like to be too dependent on them, or if something ever happened to her energy, she'd be helpless. But in times like this, it did come in handy.

She dressed. T-shirt, jeans, jacket.

Haven't trained much lately... She realized, tying her hair back. She had let it grow out, and now the jet-black strands came down a little past her shoulders. No matter. I can make up for lost time _after_ I find Alec.

She stepped up to the gateway and began plugging in coordinates, then waited for the gate to power up.

The air shivered, and the opening that would lead to another place pulsated, bolts of electricity crackling around it. For an instant, the gate went blank, but Ender waited. She had run every known simulation in the world on the possibility of this gate working, and they had all came back with one answer.

Sure enough, the gate crackled again, and with one final shudder, it settled down, and the opening changed into a view of a different world.

Now this was where the certainty ended. The same simulations had shown different results. About two-thirds of them had said that the gate would kill off any human that tried to go through it, since the gate actually drained a person's power to fuel that person's passage.

She was hoping that, being demi-Saiyan, she would have the power needed for passage through the gate. Ender eyed the contraption with a mixture of uncertainty and determination. She had to go through, that much was true. She had too many questions that had to be answered.

But wouldn't it be better to be alive and uncertain than uncertain and dead?
She stood there for a moment, her feet on the cusp of another world, letting the wind of Alec's timeline rustle her clothes and hair.

No.

Been there, done that.

She took a step forward.

* * * * *

Bulma was cooking dinner, when she heard several knocks at the door, and voices outside that sounded like it was coming from a crowd. She sighed. If those people wanted another explanation for something or the other, they'd be more polite to a demi-Saiyan than to her.

"Trunks!" She shouted, "Could you go get it please?"

Trunks got up from the kitchen table, putting down the book he had been reading. He strode to the door, making a mental note of the page he had been on as he opened the door to find a very unnerved couple leading a crowd of people.

"Trunks!" The man said, nervous, "She, she..."

"Just appeared out of thin air..." The woman said, her voice fading.

"What?" Trunks said, stepping out of the doorway "Where?"

"I did apologize for scaring them," A voice said, coming from close to him, an oddly familiar voice from a year ago, "I didn't mean to, and I told them that. But they're still hysterical." Alec turned to his right, and for a few moments, all he could do was stare.

She was standing there leaning against the wall outside of his doorway casually, looking almost the same as the last time he'd seen her, her jet-black hair longer now, but those slanted blue-green eyes still looking at him with the same smooth air as a year ago, her movements every bit as graceful. Still beautiful.

"Hello, Alec."

* * * * *

After she had come into Alec's home and Alec had explained all he knew to the rather frightened crowd, they were still a little unsettled, but at least they had stopped thinking that she was one of Gero's newest android creations.
Sometimes humans can be amusing. She thought dryly as the couple insisted on knowing how she had appeared out of thin air.

"Some technology of hers, I suppose..." Alec said, "I want to know that myself..." He glared at her. She shook her head and jerked a finger toward the doorway in such a way that none of the people outside could see it. The action was unmistakable. Get rid of them.

"Look, Mr. and Mrs...."

"Reidenger."

"Reidenger. Please give me a second to talk to her. As soon as I know what's going on, I'll explain everything to the crowd here. I promise."

"All right, I suppose..."

"Thank you. Could you please tell the others as well? Thank you. Yes, I'll explain everything in a few minutes. Yes, I'll have to make an announcement. Give me an hour. All right. Thank you. Goodbye." He closed the door, leaning against it with an aggravated sigh.

"Dammit, couldn't you have given me a little warning that you were going to visit?"

"Sorry. It's hard to pinpoint where exactly you're going to land from a couple thousand timelines away."

It was impossible to tell whether she was being sarcastic or serious, "You could have sent a note in first."

"No I couldn't have. Number one, you'd never have noticed something as little as that, and number two, they're so goddamn jumpy that they would still be intimidated at a piece of paper appearing out of-"

"Trunks!" Bulma called from the kitchen, "Who is it?"

* * * * *

"-She's just a friend, who's somehow figured out a way to travel between timelines." Alec explained to the people around him, "That's all." He sighed in relief as the crowd dispersed little by little.

[It's all your fault.] He glared at Ender.

She caught his glance, "I already explained that-"

"I know, I know." He stretched and watched as she began to walk away, "Hey, hey. Where're you going?"

"To look around." She said, deliberately continuing to walk in the opposite direction from Alec's home, "Figuring out how you managed to build almost everything underground."

"Easy. See the rock of the walls?" He rapped it with two knuckles, "That's solid granite. This entire place is a huge quarry. Took us forever to blast out the rooms using dynamite before I figured out how to control my detonations, but the good thing about living underground is that it's warmer during the winters and cooler during the summers. The constant temperature and lack of harsh weather also helps the crops."

"Crops..."

"With the right irrigation channels and with a few sunlamps around, we can grow plants, for food." He said, "It took us a long time to carry the soil down for plants as well and to created the drainage in the planting rooms." He shook his head, "Any more questions?"

"Show me the plants."

Alec stared at her for a second.

[Direct little thing, isn't she?]

"Can it wait?" Alec said, "Mother was cooking dinner the last time I saw her.

Aren't you hungry at all?"

"All right." She said, not answering his question at all, "But afterwards..."

"I'll give you the grand tour."

* * * * *

"So," Bulma said thoughtfully, still cooking at the stove, "You created a machine that allows you to travel in between timelines? That's interesting... What does it run on?" She glared at her son, who was standing a few feet away from them with an exasperated look on his face. He clearly wanted the conversation to end so that he could yell at the girl. What was her name? Ender?

Ender shook her head, ignoring the demi-Saiyan behind her, "That's the problem. It runs on electricity to power up, but for the passage, it needs ki, in a sense. I don't think that humans can go through it without getting killed, but Saiyans have enough power to spare."

"So what you're saying is that only you and I can go through this gateway?" Alec said, beginning to pace. Ender considered him for a moment.

[Almost like a caged animal.]

"Yes." Ender said, "And in my timeline, Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta can go through it as well, but that's it, unless I find some way to modify it."

"I see..." Bulma drifted off for a second, thinking, then snapped back to attention, "You know, I heard of a theory that said that if you traveled to another timeline, then time would run in a different way..."

"If you're not in the same zone, yes." Ender said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bulma said.

"To keep everything straight in my head, I group timelines in which time runs at a similar pace together and call them zones."

"And your timeline and my timeline are in the same zone?"

"Yes."

"And after you go through this gateway, can you go back?"

"No."

Alec almost choked, "Then what the hell are you planning to do?" He shouted, not bothering to hide the fury in his voice, "Live with us?"

"Build another gateway here." Ender said, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"It's not as easy as that..."

"Oh, I think she's right..." Bulma said, glaring at her son, "It should be possible...provided that I know what parts I need."

"I brought a copy of the plans for the machine." Ender said.

"Where are they?" Alec said. God, how can they be so damned calm? She could be stranded here forever, but she doesn't act like she cares...

Ender patted her jacket pocket, "Capsuled."

Bulma nodded, but Alec gave an exasperated sigh, "The last time I saw you, I thought you said that capsules could only carry specific things?"

"The Bulma from my place improved them."

"Whatever." Bulma said, "Let's see those plans." Ender nodded, and picked out a capsule. She clicked the small button, threw it at the ground a few feet away, and a chest of drawers appeared. Ender took the key out of her pocket, unlocked it, dug through papers and disks inside. She rummaged through the files for a moment, then got up with a few CD-ROMs in her hand. Bulma took them and flipped through them, looking at the labels.

"Mother?" Alec said, "Stove?" He nodded his head at the direction of the kitchen.

"Oh." Bulma said absently, already heading toward the door that would lead her to the lab. Alec shook his head and turned the stove off for her.

"You mind if I look through the rest of that?" Bulma said, nodding her head toward the chest of drawers.

"No."

"Thanks." Bulma said, "Make Trunks give you a tour around the place. I'll be looking at these."

* * * * *

"You're mad at me." Ender said as soon as she was sure Bulma couldn't hear them. It wasn't a question.

Alec pushed the door open so hard that it slammed against the wall, "Had it ever occurred to you at any one time that you might not have been welcome here?"

"Yes."

"Why the hell did you come?"

"I figured that even if you had kicked me out, I could find somewhere else to live for a while until I managed to build another gateway. There wasn't much chance of you making me leave, anyway."

That was true. He hated to admit it, but he couldn't deny that.

"Fine. Did you ever consider the risks of going through that gateway?" He continued to walk on, not caring whether she followed.

"Yes." She said.

"Well, then, you shouldn't have done it!"

"Professional risk."

"Dammit, Ender-"

"No, listen to me. You're demi-Saiyan. Fighting is a skill that you're born to master. It's your life. I'm a Saiyan and, unlike my predecessors, who had more brawn than brains, I'm also an inventor. Fighting and creating are the two things my life revolves around."

"But-"

"Alec, stepping through that gateway was no different than fighting Frieza. I could have been killed either way, but that doesn't matter anymore."

"Yes it does!"

"No it doesn't. I'm alive. Nothing happened. And I'm using the identical plans to create a second gateway that will work as well as the first."

Alec stopped and just stared at her for a moment.

[She's so dispassionate about dying. ]

She stopped walking and watched him. No sign of impatience. No sign of anger.

[She's always calm no matter the circumstances. That trait of hers is so unnerving and so striking at the same time. She's....different. From every other girl I've met.]

Pale blue-green eyes watched him, emotionless. He had forgotten how unnerving those eyes were.

[Cold as ice...]

"A year ago, when you were fighting Frieza," Alec said, forcing his anger away, "You said that you were seventeen, almost eighteen. So that would make you nearly nineteen now."

"Yes."

"How old are you physically?"

"Fourteen."

"So how is that possible?"

"Ever heard of the theory of relativity? If you go outside in a spaceship and start traveling at the speed of light, then you'd come back younger than you are supposed to be."

"So you've been in space then."

"Yes. For five years."

"And you didn't grow older in all that time?"

"..." She just looked at him.

"Okay.... Sorry. Stupid question. Then, what were you doing in space?" He watched her face for an expression, any expression.

"That's another story." She said, her face every bit as neutral as before, "Show me the irrigation channels."

* * * * *

[Everything in this place is simple and bare.] Ender realized as she went through room after room, [There's nothing luxurious. Makes sense...what could you expect when they've been living underground since the invasion of the androids?]

And despite every attempt to make the underground caverns look more comfortable, the fact remained that everything was a struggle for survival. For instance, the crops looked as if they had been doing poorly, probably since the soil had been used and reused far too many times. But the people living underground couldn't get more, since it would mean risking themselves in the open air and exposing themselves to the androids.

But the problems ran deeper than that. From what Alec told her, she had assumed there were several more of these cities all over the world, hiding them from the view of the androids. Since human ki could still be sensed if there were enough people around, each city could only hold one to two hundred people or so, depending on its size.

The space factor was a problem in itself. Every once in a while, some overpopulated place's ki would be tracked down by the androids and destroyed, meaning that nearby cities had to take survivors in. Also, like any residence, there were children. Sooner or later, overpopulation would force everyone to build more cities, which would mean going above ground and exposing themselves to the androids, which would mean casualties, which would mean...

[Maybe Alec and I, together, could do something...] Ender mused, [One of us draws the androids away, or at least keeps an eye out for them, while the other picks up whatever this underground city needs.]

"How many people are left?" Ender asked. It was a whimsical question, asked purely out of curiousity.

Alec glanced at her, wondering how she could sound so detached about something this important, "After the destruction of what's left of the second North City, there's around 4,000 people within a 100 mile radius of this area. That's just about all I know. The radio signals are so old they can't broadcast too far anymore, and the rubble above us clogs them up anyway. A hundred miles is just about all we can do."

"The Earth's surface area is about 200 million square feet." Ender said, "Divide that by three, since two-thirds of the earth is water, and you end up with about 66 and a half million square feet of land."

"Whatever you say..." Alec said, amused despite himself.

"You also said that there are 4,000 people in a radius of a hundred miles. So that means that there are 4,000 people occupying..." She considered for a moment, "31,400 square miles of land."

"Then you divide 66 million miles2 by 31,4002, and you get..." Alec estimated the figures in his head, then shook his head, "That can't be right."

"You get a little over 2,000." Ender said, "Multiply that by 4,000, since there are 4,000 people for every 31,400 miles squared...."

"And you get..."

"Eight and a half million people left in the world."

"That's too little... That can't be right."

"..."

[I'm sorry...]








Author's note: Another slow chapter, I know, but I promise it'll pick up... eventually...