(usual disclaimers, dun own nothing, except for my original characters ^^)

Chapter One

Diary entry; Its twelve earth years since the end of freeza's reign. The third raid on the planet earth was a successful one; more slaves have been brought down to the planet. After the partial destruction the second wave had caused most of the planets populace had lost anywhere to run to. Again I missed out on a chance to be amongst my brothers. I'd been training hard only to be rejected again and sent back to this menial task of keeping watch of the palace.

Yet the weak species must be good for something more than labour or they would not keep getting more. The incessant crying that inevitably fills the air is beginning to get on my nerves though. At first they don't really understand the pointlessness of struggle but it soon sinks in. anger, denial, tears and then finally resignation. With the exception it seemed of one. Unruly short blonde hair, blue eyes and a slight frame, not at all muscular; its obvious that he is still a youth. His name no one seems to know. He carries quite a dignified air of mystery round with him though; he has to be the strangest specimen of human I have seen.

There isn't the usual sign of capitulation and strangely he looks more feminine than any male species should be allowed to look. The females seem to like this kind of handsome quality. I made the mistake of thinking him weak; a defective outcome of the male species, more trouble than they were worth having been pampered beyond what was healthy. If he'd been born a saiyan he would have no doubt been killed by now. I was so sure he wouldn't last when they relocated him to working on the new buildings. His twin had looked more able to look after himself, though dark and a complete opposite to the almost angelic blonde. Sometimes he had more than acted like a spawn of evil. It was inevitable that he had got sold off first, all troublemakers did.

**************

I can read your mind

And I know your story…

**************

Juuhachi wasn't really concentrating on what she was doing. It was the monotony of the work that made her mind wander ceaselessly. She suspected she wasn't the only one bored out of her skull. It was the same thing day in day out. The fact that she wasn't content and growing restless didn't help. She worked for no one but even she knew she hadn't a chance of getting out of here alone. There were too many guards for a start and outside of that she would have the model citizens of planet Vegeta to deal with. She was good but her limits she knew personally. She would have blasted the place to pieces by now but this wasn't earth. It would be easier there, this planet seemed a lot more versatile and its people stronger than those of the earth that barely registered any power levels whatsoever. Her actions became almost mechanical as she worked. She could practically do this in her sleep. For all the sleep she managed to get, even she needed a rest every now and then besides it made for a more intresting alternative to staring at an opposing wall.

The food was awful too. She ate sparsely she knew but when she did eat she rather preferred it didn't taste like something designed to kill. Apart form all that though, her mind was on something else too…

Juunana.

He'd been taken from her a month after they were brought to this planet. Without him she felt more lost than she had ever thought she could be. Dependency wasn't something she had been aware lurked in her makeup. They hadn't been apart since they had been activated and weren't supposed to be as far as she knew. She'd had to keep reminding him numerous times about his temper and to wait patiently for an opening but waiting wasn't one of his strong points.

---------------

She straightened up as she heard the not so subtle change in her environment. Someone was calling her, not so much by her name as by the rank she'd unwittingly acquired along with every one else brought here against their will. She took an almost sadistic delight in mentally tearing the offender apart limb by limb. Such delight explained the almost invisible smile that danced round the corner of her lips as she looked up at the guard on duty who glared at her. She stared back unfazed under a look that would have sent any normal person scurrying for cover.

She wasn't a normal person.

He said nothing but she could see he wasn't pleased and the unwavering gaze she gave him. He was no doubt used to a more fearful reaction to the dark look. He simply looked her over obviously taking in her frame and mentally calculating. She could see it in the glint of his eyes. Instead of the first set of orders he had changed his mind and gave another. "Take those sacks over to the stores." She looked over at the huge pile of sacks she was meant to carry…

"…by yourself." He added enjoying the look of incredulity cross her face. It would take more than one person to finish in a reasonable time period. So silently peeved she was at what was meant to be some sort of punishment she didn't see his foot placed in her way and she tripped falling flat on her face. The loud laughter that left him wasn't one that so much suggested satisfaction so much as the desire to humiliate. To her ears it sounded hallow and fake, even forced. Some of the other men laughed too, fearing that to not laugh would alienate them from the source of power here and now that the guard presented. Someone did step forward however in an attempt to help her up, she didn't see who it was because he was pushed back almost savagely.

"Leave him…unless you wish to visit the halls." It was simply said but the threat in itself was daunting. No one would be willing to risk doing anything that would get them sent there A place were screams were said to haunt it were the worst things anyone could ever bear to hear. Hardly anyone returned from that place. Juuhachi rose and picked up the first sack, beginning a job that though she didn't know it yet would take her nearly the whole of the rest of the day to finish, and threw it over her shoulder with less effort than it would take to lift a small bucket of water to the guards surprise.

How disguising herself as a guy was such a good idea she couldn't remember but it had made sense in the beginning. It had also served the purpose of keeping her and her brother together only that hadn't lasted very long. What hurt most was that she hadn't even known when he had been taken away. Somehow she had been deprived of something she couldn't name by that action. She had just returned to find him gone and herself so very alone. This charade was no longer fun when he wasn't there to constantly tease her and ridicule the glasses she had taken to wearing to complete her 'disguise' or even the hair that now just brushed the middle of her ears where it had before loving grazed her shoulders. The last thing she was blind to was his faults, he was a conceited, aggravating, self-assured, pain-in-the-rear but she would still give anything to be wherever he was right now.

She had wondered at times if he was dead, which was an idea so incredulous that she would wonder straight away how she could have thought of something so farfetched. It was more likely that he had taken to keeping a low profile. She muttered an expletive beneath her breath. Lousy timing Juunanagou. At least if he was till being his destructive self she would know he was somewhere at least from being able to sense him. Right now she could feel a great big nothing!

So far she had just barely succeeded in keeping to the shadows, no one noticed her and that was how she wanted it but you can't have everything and so she wasn't able to avoided everyone entirely as the scene with the guard proved and every time she did draw attention trouble came along with it like the ever faithful dog it was. Sometimes she was sure she would be found out. That bothered her a lot. It wasn't like she could just decided to drop the pretence suddenly and it wouldn't be any better if she was found out either. She wasn't really concentrating on where she was going again so when she ended up ramming into someone it set her totally off balance by its unexpectedness that she had no chance of regaining her footing and the weight of the sack turned against her. She fell backwards the sack coming in use as it just about prevented her from hitting her head on the unforgivably hard ground. She was so blindingly angry at having fallen twice in the same day like some ungainly clod that she practically growled at the as yet unseen culprit.

"Don't you look where you are going!" she snapped as a whole load of melon like fruit rolled round the floor. It still didn't cease to amaze her that anything could grow on this blighted planet. She heard the apology as she rose refusing the hand offered her. She would have probably just pulled the person down on her and that would be no help at all. When she finally saw the offender her gaze registered slight surprise at his height. He had managed to throw her off balance? "I'm really sorry." She heard him say as he retracted his rejected hand to rush back a few strands of raven black hair plastered against his lightly perspiring brow. He gave a brief laugh, one of coupled mirth and sheepishness.

"I should have been looking where I was going."

She shook her head suddenly. How he could laugh was surprising. Not so much at the situation they presently found themselves in when she was about ready to thump him but in general. She hadn't come across someone who could laugh in this place, a true laugh, one so real it would bring with it a thousand memories in tow bestowing a bitter sweet kind of gift. The kind that yanked at something buried deep inside her and physically embodied itself in moments of bitter consuming jealousy…long enough to have destroyed something. In a rare act of kindness she would have never made in what now seemed like a previous life she began helping him put the fruit back into the box he'd been carrying.

"I'm Krillin." He offered with a hint of red "who are you?" She simply looked blankly at him. He looked sheepish again and took her silence to mean she didn't wish to introduce herself but it wasn't that. It was surprise. He was offering her some form of budding friendship? She came to the conclusion that he was either made…or new, she was willing to bet it was the latter.

"Juuhachigou." She answered with no real idea why. He looked puzzled as the last melon like fruit was returned. "Is that a nickname?" he asked. She wasn't about to discuss the intricate details of how she had come by her name and simply nodded instead. He smiled. "See you later yeah" he said simply as he picked up the box again with a sudden hurry and left with a brief smile. It occurred to her that she actually liked his smile. She picked up the sack quickly and hurried off realising that if she didn't get the sacks shifted by the due time she wouldn't get any lunch. She wasn't hungry, quite the contrary she just knew that he would inevitably be there along with everyone else. She had o plan to talk to him or draw his attention but rather to study the strange man from a distance and try to figure out if she could exactly what he was about.

She needn't have bothered, as she didn't get to have lunch. The guard had deliberately added more sacks for her to carry knowing full well that it would take her all lunch time and more to finish carrying them all. He'd finally got some satisfaction after being thwarted earlier.

----------------------------------

Krillin looked round again trying to spot the blonde haired boy. He couldn't find him at all. He'd rather expected to meet up with him again. There was a lot about him that seemed strange, he couldn't sense anything from hi, no ki whatsoever. Either the boy was very good at being able to hide his energy levels, which would mean there was more to him than met the eye or he didn't have one and then he had a whole lot of questions he would need to answer. He turned to the tubby guy on his right. "Hey, do you know if Juuhachi is round here?" the guy looked confused "Juuhachi? Who or what is that?"

"blonde hair, blue eyed boy, doesn't say much." Krillin explained. Recognition suddenly dawned on the man's face. "so that's what he is called then." He said "I saw him earlier. He's still working…apparently got on the wrong side of one of the guards. He's a strange one," he said. The guy's friend nodded. He reminded Krillin of a human version of a rat especially with his impossibly long and skeletal like fingers. His nails looked like claws in their length. How long had he been here he began to wonder. "Stuck up brat thinks he is too good." He muttered almost bitterly speaking for the first time since they had sat at the table.

"Doesn't talk to any one at all. Just sits over there all alone like." The tubby guy informed him as he pointed to a dark corner of the hall. Krillin's gaze followed the direction he pointed in but Juuhachi wasn't there. "All brooding and quiet." He continued "No one knows him…no one really cares."

"Remember his twin I do, black haired bastard was even worse." Rat guy chuckled strangely as he peered at Krillin.

Tubby shrugged nonchalantly suddenly deeming it fit to talk as he ate, time wasn't something they could play around with; when lunch was over, it was over, the fact that you hadn't finished was irrelevant. "He rather built a reputation for himself around here." He said above the food he continued to shovel into his mouth "He was the kind people called the 'pretty boy' type. I can see where the blonde gets it from, must run in the family cause they are identical peas in a pod. Only difference was hair and personality. The blonde one never said a thing, never did a thing. The dark haired one on the other hand would leave you alone if you left him alone but sometimes just start trouble for the fun of it. Pretty popular with the ladies and he knew it the jumped-up bastard."

This was news to Krillin even as he had to avoid being splattered without making it too obvious so as to appear rude. Under normal circumstances he would have politely asked him to wait till he had finished what he was eating before attempting to talk but this was hardly normal circumstances so he sat there trying not to move much and yet stay splatter free. Juuhachi had a twin? "Where is he then?" Krillin asked.

"Got sold off didn't he, me and Oswald saw the whole thing." Rat-guy informed Krillin with a smile that was kind of a cross between a weird grin and a sneer as he gestured towards the man at his side. Oswald nodded barely breaking the continuous flow of food from plate to mouth to stomach. "Oh." Krillin said briefly as rat-guy took him in slowly "You're asking an awful lot of questions for someone new. You're a spy…you're one of them aliens? Blondie got himself in some sort a trouble? Be sure to let him know Bisman shopped him in" he said. Krillin looked surprised at the vehemence "Why do you hate him so much?"

The man's expression seemed to change into one that bordered on obsessive hatred and mental deterioration and he indicted with a crocked finger for Krillin to lean in closer. "I told him they'd always been watching us them saiyans, they was there while we slept, evil beings watching and waiting, I told everyone I said they were but no one believed me. 'Crazy fool' they called me, wanted to send Bisman to the mad house." His harp and sudden almost maniacal laughter made Krillin jump back startled his gaze widening in reflex. "Stupid fools the lot of them, I told him I did, I says I always knew but no one believed me and then Bisman asks him for a measly morsel to eat ad he says 'you're a crazy fool, get off me' all posh and up nosed."

Krillin couldn't help but be amazed at his near perfect mimicry of Juuhachi "I hate him, think he was better than me he did. I'll show him soon. Nothing better than the rest of us, I say he deserves everything he gets, he's like all the to hers who said Bisman was crazy. They'll see then that I wasn't crazy. When they come for them, evil in the night they will know then." He suddenly began nursing the slop in front of him relishing its warmth as his voice dropped into a soft whine almost like he was on the verge of tears "Bisman's been here too long…going mad with all the things he's seen…"

Krillin looked uneasy at the sudden angle the conversation had taken and glanced at the tubby guy he now knew as Oswald. The man simply shook his head with a rueful smile and tapped his forehead "like he said been here too long, he was amongst the very first, like some kind of pilot scheme. He's not all that 'there' anymore, sometimes its more obvious than usual." Krillin nodded his unease not abating in the slightest. He looked normal only Krillin now knew different. "Are you going to eat that?" Bisman suddenly queried.

"No, be my guest." Krillin said pushing the bowl of soup, what kind he daren't ask, towards him. He smiled brightly as he took it quickly "Bisman likes you. You don't think Bisman is crazy."

--------------------

Juuhachigou was officially tired but more bored by the time she had finished. She ran a hand through her hair. She wasn't off the hook though, not by a long shot. It was the same guard that had the same duty tomorrow and if he was a predictable as she suspected he would probably find some other way of degrading her anew. She took off the glasses, a part of her costume accessory, rather amazed that still they had managed to remain. She'd got them in the hope that they would take away from the feminine curves of her face. She moved uncomfortably, sighing as she closed her eyes trying to get some sleep in a bed that was harder and more uncomfortable than the ground itself and the snoring of the other two occupants of the tiny room was not helping. Privacy was such a sacred thing and something she would give almost anything to have enough of.

They weren't the worst of people to be cooped up with apart from the one-in-a-million chance that they both snored like wild boars. She pulled the blanket up around her. Hopes of it keeping anyone or anything warm had long since died as the hopes of the many people who had used it before her. As if to add proof to this her foot pocked through one of the numerous holes emergent in the threadbare blanket. She didn't really need it, it wasn't a cold night besides, the planet was seemingly always warm. She hadn't been made to feel much but strangely that wasn't how it turned out. The one thing that had come out right though must have been the amount of hate she had felt for her creator. He'd ruined her life and that of her brother. As far as she was concerned disposing of him had not given her any sleepless nights even if it had been Juunana who'd done it. No one had really known the extent of his depravity or even his little known 'other' experiments. The ones he had kept secret of which she was just one product; made to have been unquestionably loyal to his ever demand. Made only to satisfy a twisted desire to make the whole world pay for his humiliation.

He hadn't deemed it fit to even give her a name after stealing her first. To him there hadn't been a point, a name hadn't been top of his priorities for an 'it' a number would more than suffice. Maybe by giving her a name he could have tried to give her back the smallest bit of what he had taken away and not just be coldly indifferent to what he had done to her, for taking away the very essence of who she had been and substituting it with something artificially made. Then, even when they had gone on to do what they had been programmed to do, yes, even after they had killed him and there really was no point, what else did they have to their existence?, they'd found someone else was raining on their parade.

They were the ones who should have been holding the world to ransom, destroying things and putting the fear of god into the pathetic humans and they weren't even able to do that. Now she was stuck here with a whole bunch of them. There were no points for guessing who had got them into this predicament. Who else would totally disregard her intuition and get into a fight without first assessing his enemy feeling himself totally invincible as to not need to use his head. She felt she had every right to blame him. She had told him she'd sensed something amiss and she hadn't liked it. From what she knew there wasn't supposed to be anyone stronger than them and Juunana had pointed out such with a supremely arrogant laugh which at the time she had agreed with. Yet they had been and he'd told her too keep out of it which she had done though rather put out. They hadn't seen her though and she'd kept out of the way wondering what she would do next and which place she could raze to the ground. When the rest of them had turned up like an ambush she had known he'd stood no chance and hadn't been stupid enough to make herself known when they still didn't know she was there.

However when they had taken him she'd been intrigued as to why and where they were taking him too just as much as not being willing to have him taken out of her sight. She had soon found out from bits of the conversation. She hadn't been foolish enough o think she could take a shipload of them on and in the humans that were being taken in she didn't have any inters. Realising they were collecting slaves was easy enough; you not notice you would have to be dumb especially with recent events. Maybe the idea of dressing up as a guy had been a stupid one and not entirely thought out but how else was she to have had a chance of being placed where her brother had been. Funnily it had worked.

The drawback had been that he was unconscious, something hard to believe but he was alright and no matter how hard she tried she hadn't been able to rouse him. She had later found out why. She'd easily broken free, obviously since it had only been made strong enough to keep in humans. She'd almost got him out, even if it had been in the undignified position of having him slung across her shoulder. She supposed the appearance of the guards suddenly round the very corner she'd been going round was a fluke. Some kind of sick card fate had dealt out of everything else it could have done in that moment but she had been more than ready to blast her way out since she had been so close to the exit.

What she hadn't bargained for was the funny shaped weapon they had pointed at her. She was to come to realise later on that it was something they used quite often. She'd blacked out before she could protest at the obscenely huge jolt of electricity she had received and woken up hours later to find herself laying next to her twin. He'd been sitting glaring at something on the other side. She had then found that the huge space round them wasn't because they were still the only ones in the containment room but rather because all the other occupants had moved to the opposite side of the room all of them squeezing back into that one small space obviously trying to put as much distance between themselves and the raven haired boy. She noticed the blackened part of the wall above their heads and she didn't need to be told what Juunana had done to set them all on edge. She had risen hand on her head.

I get headaches? She had wondered in surprise at the pounding in her head. The she had remembered. "We have to get out of this place." She said. "Too late for that, we are already in space."

"So bloody what? We could still turn the blasted ship around." She muttered angry fire burning in her eyes. He looked amused at her colourful language. She had a totally 'put out' expression on her face. "Tried that already. Seems this particular unit was built with our kind in mind." He said sarcastically as he gestured to the door. It absorbs everything I hit it with and the walls aren't any better. See that blackened space above their heads? It should be a huge gaping hole not a blackened smear. How insulted do you think I felt?" He was silent a moment watching the different emotions chase each other across her face before saying "What did you do to yourself?"

"What I could to save your ungrateful hide." She said running her hand over her shorn hair.

"I like it." He'd said. She'd given a 'humph' "never liked what Gero did to it anyway, I won't be fashioned after his idea of the perfect hairstyle, besides, that's not the only thing I did." She had said referring to the way she was still dressed. He'd looked surprised "What?! You mean you are not my brother?" she'd felt she would laugh but she had clocked him one over the head instead "oh shut up!" she had said then thinking that maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all, they were together, all they had to do was get a ship back home. That had turned out to be easier said than done.

Sleep finally came, as did a smile.

Soon…they must let down their guard soon…

End chapter one