Disclaimer: I don't own dbz

Ok, everything in single ' is thoughts, " is speaking, I'll think of something better to say up here later, but now…



Wind whistled through torn and broken buildings, sounding like the moans of long forgotten ghosts. Raen shivered as she walked down the dark street, everything seemed so fuzzy, as if nothing was real. There was pain somewhere, she was sure of it, there was blood as well. The hard concrete was so cold under her bare feet, then something moved in the edge of her vision. An alleyway branched off the street, and there was someone, or something, at the end off it. Raen stopped uncertainly, hesitating, then moving slowly forwards. A figure moved in the shadows, holding out its hand towards her. Raen froze. From between the figures fingers was a warm glow, a light that cast long shadows over the alleyway. Someone lay on the ground behind the figure, who she could see now was male. He moved towards her, then with a swift movement of his arm, threw the small ball of light toward her. It hit her, and made her feel warm, so very warm, and the pain was gone. Raen sighed...

... and woke up.

False dawn was lingering in the sky, promising a warm day to follow a freezing night. Raen massaged feeling back into her legs, cramped from yet another night on the ground. She was pleased to see the scar down her calf was no longer painful, and was now fading. 'Thank you mother' she thought somewhat sarcastically 'even if your blood is the only thing other than life you've ever given me.' She stood up, stretching all her cramped up muscles 'Ow' she thought, pulling a white fist sized piece of stone from under her back 'no wonder I'm sore.' She combed her fingers through her long dark, utterly tangled hair, then gave up, and went to find something, anything, to eat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

It had been a long day.

 Trunks had returned from the past that afternoon, expecting to find Bulma at Capsule Corp. But she wasn't there, and he'd spent the rest of the day searching for her. Sometime that evening, from the other side of the city, he saw a blaze of light shoot up into the sky. 'Oh no, not again!' He spun round and sped towards the source. 'Damn androids!'

They were both gone by the time he arrived and he searched the city for survivors. He felt her presence as the first stars appeared in the cold clear night. 'Kaasan!' he thought, as he flew in the direction of her disappearing ki. She was lying all beaten up at the back of an alleyway, he bent over her 'kaasan you shouldn't be out here' he scolded mentally 'What were you doing?'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Raen nursed her bleeding arm, wincing as she held it. She had been hurt before, the hurt came with living in this time, but it had taught her something valuable. She now knew that her arm would heal, much faster than that of a human, because she was a hybrid, a cross between two races. But being half human, she also knew her wound would not begin to heal immediately, and if she didn't do something to stop the bleeding, she would soon collapse. She hoped that no major veins had been cut, but had no idea where they were, so couldn't tell. Raen had received the vicious slash down her arm earlier that evening, when a building was blown up above her. It had rained glass, heavy pointy glass, that caught on her arm and opened it. She had ran for the cover of a nearby, unharmed doorway, shielding her eyes she watched the rest of the building implode and crumble, and two flashes of light streak off in the distance. She had lived a lifetime of hiding and running and all she knew of what was destroying her world were two flashes of light, sometimes a figure silhouetted against the sky, and, of course the wake of destruction and death left behind them.

Her first six years of life had been moving from one city to the next, trying to escape, with her father, his wife and their daughter, her halfsister Lilly. But when Lillys mother was killed, their father moved Raen and Lilly into a cave, out in the bush. Somehow, Raen could not remember, even though she had been ten at the time, 'They' had still found them, and killed Raens father and halfsister. Her mother was long gone, Raen had never know her, maybe she was dead, no matter, a mother was just another item on her list of things she'd never know. Her father used to tell stories of how her mother was strange and mysterious, a woman from another planet, with strange gifts. It was only a few years ago, when gifts of her own started showing through, that she began to wonder if they really were stories, or her father preparing her for what she really was. Last year, on returning to one of the houses she and her father had lived in before he met Lillys mum, she had found her mothers journal, and now knew it all.

Rean sighed, and shivered, she knew she was doing much better than some survivors she'd encountered, apart from being wounded, hungry, lonely and cold. Many survivors of the attacks were mush worse off than her, they'd gone insane, some homicidal. 'At least I don't look like the city' she thought, almost every major building had been ripped apart, so were many, no, all houses. The roads were scarred and the population was practically gone. The once crowded city was now almost deserted, many had left, and many many more had died. Raen sneezed, and shivered again, wincing as a bare foot stood on a stone. She heard a noise coming from an alleyway and stopped short. There was a boy, not much older than her, bending over a woman who looked close to death. Raen looked at him, weighing him up, not wanting to be around if he turned out to be dangerous, she wasn't sure if she had the energy to run. He had shoulder length lavender hair, and was wearing a torn up Capsule Corp. jacket. 'Capsule Corp.?' Raen had heard of that before, her dad had said something about its new president, and inventions, and a huge dragon that had appeared above the domes of the building a couple of times when he was a teenager. The boy in the jacket turned round, as if he sensed her presence, his eyes went from her ripped bloody arm, to her ripped bloody clothes, and ended up at her dark orange eyes. She stared back into his blue ones, and for a moment it seemed everything had stopped. Until something got his attention in the air above and behind her "They're coming back" he warned "will you be okay?".

Raen smiled wearily "yeah, I will, I mean, I think, so" thinking, I hope so as she said it.

"Ok" he said, picking up the woman behind him 'Good luck".

Raen nodded, making herself dizzy "Will, will you come back?" she asked, surprising herself, 'Where did that question come from?' she wondered.

He turned to face her "yeah" he said, his answer surprising him. Raens arm was killing her, literally, she felt like she would black out any minute, and knew she had waited too long before bandaging it. He noticed her pain, dug round in his pocket and threw her something "Here. Eat. Now hide!" he ordered, before disappearing into the sky. Raen peered up behind her, to where he had looked before, then stumbled behind a row of dented trash cans. The two figured shot past within seconds, and Raen let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She looked down at what he had thrown her, in the palm of her hand was a bean. 'Wow this will really fill me up' she thought sarcastically. She nibbled at half of it, made a face, and dropped the rest in her pocket. A warm happy feeling started in her throat and spread to her head, her body and out to her fingertips. She watched in amazement as her arm closed up and the bone disappeared from view. She felt so, so alive and suddenly powerfull. She flexed her renewed arm, and found, with surprise, that she could feel Them, Their presence, two and a half miles away, heading west and the guy-with-the-weird-bean, was off in the opposite direction, two miles away. 'Now that,' she thought 'was strange.' She shivered, cold again, although no longer hungry or hurt, she decided she better find somewhere warm to spend the night, if not the sleep (she was no longer tired either) then to try and work out what had just happened. She found a place, a half gone house, and buried herself under piles of old blankets in the only remaining bedroom. 'Who was he? I know I know him, from somewhere, its just a weird sense of dejavu, really strange. And what was that bean? and why? why did I asked him to come back? Raen, you shouldn't just trust people like that!' she scolded herself, 'But his eyes,' a smaller voice from the back of her mind said 'His eyes. How can you not trust anyone with those eyes?' They had held a deep yet unknown sense of wisdom, and the pain that came with it, 'and something else, strength, some hidden strength he doesn't know he has.' Raen yawned, finding herself tired after all, and, deciding to leave her mystery till the morning, went to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~