AN: I swore that I would never write for this category again. But I'm a redhead, and I go through mood swings. This will most likely be my last tribute to DBZ/SM, so consider this an official farewell piece (and, consequently, the only one that will ever be finished).
I think I got fed up with the huge amount of cliches that abound in this fandom somewhere along the way. I was determined to write a piece that would be much different than anything else. Though Misty beat me to it with Requiem (which is bloody brilliant, by the way), I still want to write this. There is no fluff, no hopping dimensions, no Sailormoon coming and saving the evil person's soul, and no impossibly difficult enemy that is only just beaten by a ton of training. This is in no way going to be a very happy ending. Just a warning: I screwed with a lot of things here. I shaped it to my whims, in order to make the story work. Deal.
The fic is also I guess a sort of political criticism: it reflects my view of war in general, which I felt was appropriate, when my country is ready to attack Iraq--which has been plagued with the results of war for decades--with little provocation. I'll tell you right now, I'm very left wing and don't like Bush very much. You can say what you want in your review; I have been told many things about my views: I was told that if I hated America, I should leave, and one rather daft person suggested that I was part of the Taliban. I don't think they would know how they're supposed to kill me, quite frankly.
No, I don't think George Bush is a complete idiot: he's gotta have some parts missing.
I'm rambling now, aren't I?
Standard disclaimers apply.
stumble until you crawl
sinking into sweet uncertainty
i'm still running away
i won't play your hide and seek games
what a dizzy dance....
this sweetness will not be concerned with me
--Sweetness-Jimmy Eat World
----------
It had happened... the dam had broken, the fire had consumed, and hell broke out and spilled its grizzly contents of war and bloodshed. The Earth and the Moon had gone to war. What had started off as a simple jealousy of the longevity of the dwellers of the moon and indignation of their total control had boiled into black hatred. The plans for the attack were made entirely underground: the Crown Prince, Endymion, knew that the moon's control was enforced in order to make it easier to defend--Earth's natural resources made it the envy of every empire for light years around. But he was one of the few to remember that as the Earth went on its deadly spiral of mutiny.
Goku watched the battle ensue from the surface of the planet he now called home. Originally from a planet in a distant end of the galaxy, he'd come to the Earth, along with that planet's prince, when his warlike people had finally caused the apocalypse that had been coming for decades. They were Vegita-sei's only survivors.
That had been over 20 years ago, when the young prince had been 8 and he'd been 11. Now, both he and Vegita were in the Earth's Imperial Army, co-commanding the most powerful regiment in the army.
The pair was the first to be visited by Kunzite, one of the Prince's four generals, and one of his most trusted men. Kunzite had promised a handsome sum for their support, but they refused. The Sayajins loved the thrill of battle, the rush of adrenaline, but they both knew how futile the effort was, and how groundless. The rebels had nothing to gain and millions of lives to lose.
The Prince, no matter how clever and astute, had discovered the revolution too late: as the ships were leaving. He rallied the few loyal men left--including the men of the Sayajins' regiment--and had taken to the moon, in order to defend the moon's capital, where the Queen and her daughter lived. It was rumored that he and the young princess had been forbidden lovers. It wasn't unlikely; the Prince was a romantic man.
Goku's coal black eyes surveyed the moon. As far as he could tell, there was nothing noticeable, but it didn't take his keen eyes long to see the tiny, red splotch that marred the satellite's otherwise perfect silver surface.
Blood...
Goku had never known such a meaningless feud.
----------
Vegita's son, Trunks, was also watching the battle. He wasn't able to see the blood of the insurgents and the moon dwellers, but he knew that it was being shed. He lived in the heart of the capital city, and there was a surge of people in the streets, shouting, chanting for the downfall of the Moon Kingdom, and creating general chaos. This was open hostility of the kind Trunks had never seen in his life, and was unlikely to see ever again. And though his Sayajin blood kept him outwardly unaffected, his human soul reeled with horror. Was this the true human nature? Filled with the lust to kill and destroy? Even the two surviving Sayajins, of a race that reveled and felt at home in battle, had refused to take part it this senseless carnage.
But there was a strange mechanic way that the crowds were shouting, as though some great force held the strings of a marionette mob. Trunks was utterly confused by this notion: it made no sense, and yet it did... He was confused and repulsed, and he longed to turn away, but something held him there, watching, waiting...
A tremor ran across the mass of bodies, and the inane din died away quickly. All eyes turned to the beautiful orb in the sky, fixed, waiting in awe.
Time stood still...
A dazzling light erupted on the moon, blinding the crowd. Trunks fought to keep his eyes open, but the pain became too great; tears streaming down his face, Trunks' eyes slid shut.
The brilliance behind his closed lids lessened into a pinpoint, and Trunks dared to open them again.
The throng of people seemed to have broken free of their strings, for they surged in every direction, and the shouts of bloodlust had changed to screams of terror. Trunks looked up, and it looked as though the light from the moon had formed into a brilliant meteor, careening earthbound. The people fled in fear of their lives. Trunks watched devoid of emotion, until the object pierced the atmosphere, where it should have burned to a crisp. The object began to slow as it reached the tips of the city skyscrapers, as though a spacecraft landing.
And then Trunks saw that it was some sort of spacecraft, made of some sort of crystalline material: it was faceted like a shimmering diamond. His eyes followed its slow decent until it fell below his range of vision. He darted out the open window and landed where the spacecraft had touched down.
The object was transparent, and Trunks could see its lone occupant. The outline was vague, but he could tell that it was a woman. She was curled up loosely, as though she was being cradled in a person's arms, and she was floating in the crystal, suspended, as though in water.
The crystal began to shrink before the young Sayajin's eyes, and there was another dazzling flash of pure light. When Trunks could see again, he saw only the young woman. She looked young: only just showing the signs of womanhood. She was dressed in a pure white gown, elaborately embroidered in gold on the top. She was covered from head to toe in blood--even her long, radiant white tresses were matted with life-fluid.
She extended her arms upward, towards the shining moon that she'd fallen from, as though expecting a pair of warm arms to embrace her and draw her back to the heavens. The arms never claimed her, and tears began to stream from her cobalt eyes. She swayed wearily, and Trunks caught her in his arms, his initial awe fading.
He shot back up to the open window, holding the moon-fallen girl in his arms. "Mom!" he shouted. "Mom! A girl fell from the sky... she's hurt!"
His sea-haired mother walked into the room. "What are you talking about, falling from the sky... Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing the blood. "Put her on the bed!" she commanded. Trunks laid the girl gingerly on his bed as his mother hurried about.
"Please, don't concern yourself," came a weak, broken voice. Trunks and his mother looked to the girl, who'd been the one to speak. "I am uninjured, in the physical sense."
"Then what about..." Bulma started, but the girl cut her off.
"The blood is not mine. It belongs to the others who fought on the moon in my defense..." she choked on a broken sob. "Endymion..." she whispered.
"Endymion, you said?" Bulma asked. "Fought in your defense... you're Serenity, aren't you! The princess..."
The girl nodded in ascension. "I am... and I am useless! I couldn't even defend the one I loved. He was killed trying to protect me. The blood you see is his. My senshi fell just moments later. My mother died banishing The Dark with the remainder of her power. I'm the only one who was on the moon this day that is alive. The only one!" She broke into tears of despair.
Bulma wrapped her arms around the girl in a comforting gesture. "There, there now, Princess. Get some sleep; you've had a very trying day.
The young princess nodded and sank down into the pillows, her eyes closing in exhaustion. Bulma left the room, followed by her son, who flopped onto the couch.
His last thought before oblivion claimed him was the moon princess' emotionless eyes drowned in tears, as though they could no longer convey pain.
----------
Trunks was awakened some time later by the sound of the door shutting. He turned over, assuming that it was his father, but when he didn't hear the sound of Vegita's boots, he shot up. He listened as hard as he could, and made out the sound of small feet on the stairs to the roof, just above them. Trunks dashed out of the room, of course being sure not to be too loud, for fear of his mother's drowsy wrath.
He reached the roof, and was surprised to find Serenity standing there. The young princess was staring at the shattered remains of her kingdom, the tracks of her tears apparent through the blood. She was holding a tear-shaped crystal in her hand, the only thing about her that wasn't covered in blood. Trunks wondered where she'd got it from; she hadn't had it with her, and his mother didn't own anything like that.
"Apollo was jealous of the prosperity of his twin's children," she murmured in a hallow voice. "He was angry that he could not produce a civilization, and so he sent an Evil to this planet, poisoning Gaia's impressionable children. It would be through them that he would sate his envious desires."
She hung his head. "He won, of course. Now, only the weakest of Diana's children remain. Why only me? Why did the rest die? Apollo had become Mars..." Her head shot up, and the first real emotion her eyes had shown lit a fire in those blue depths--determination.
"I will not let him do this. I may be young, but I will not let him win!" She took the crystal fiercely in her hands, holding it up to the heavens. She closed her eyes, and peace seemed to settle over her figure like a warm blanket. "Diana, grant your surviving daughter her final wish. Bring my senshi, my love, and myself far into the future, where we may begin life anew. This life has been ruined by war, but I may find peace and happiness in the next..."
Silence fell, turning anything Trunks had been about to say back down his throat. He simply watched the young girl whose life had been destroyed by combat, while the princess stood, enthralled by the rhapsody of the goddess' blessing flowing through her veins.
Clouds began to roll in, but the moon was left uncovered, unhindered, by the storm billows.
The princess again held her arms to the moon, waiting for its motherly embrace, the crystal floating between her palms.
A fleeting moment of eternity...
The moonlight erupted from the gem, and the princess was shrouded by this light. Suddenly, the stone and the girl shattered, sending shimmering shards everywhere. They fell on Trunks like rain, covering him in their dazzling radiance. He tried to catch some in his hands in wonderment, but the crystalline precipitation vanished the moment it touched his skin, as though it was just an illusion, as he was beginning the think the girl might have been.
How could she have existed? This purity, in the midst of war? He was sure that he'd been imagining it. A fleeting fantasy, nothing more.
The clouds rolled over the moon, and the storm unleashed its fury. The rain fell down in torrents. It splashed on Trunks, and he brought in the full sight and smell of it.
The sky was raining blood.
He could hear the shrieks of shocked horror from the streets. It was like something out of their worst imaginations, come to life. Trunks saw the few remaining people in the streets flee in utter terror and revulsion. This was no illusion: it was reality: the reality of war. The princess was a mirage, Trunks was sure--something conjured from his mind to try and deny the horrors of bloodshed. And now that horror was raining down upon the world that had caused it. There was no denial.
Thunder clapped, and the entire city could hear the agonized screams of the dying.
----------
Weird, huh? I'm not sure what was going on in my head when I wrote this. Oh well.
Just a note to Misty: I wasn't able to get back to you (stupid AOL being a b*tch), but you can go ahead and send me a chapter for OC-C whenever you get the chance. I just want to see where you're gonna go with it: as far as I'm concerned, it's fine that you continue.
And another note: See Treasure Planet! I loved that movie... Oh, shut up. I know I have the mentality of a 10 year old at times. (Shut up C-chan) But in all seriousness, it's a really brilliant movie; well animated, and Disney did a good job of adapting Treasure Island. They changed a lot around, which I think was great. So go see it now, or you will have *ME* to answer to. And it WILL NOT BE PRETTY!! ^_~
Good-bye, everyone!
Red-chan
I think I got fed up with the huge amount of cliches that abound in this fandom somewhere along the way. I was determined to write a piece that would be much different than anything else. Though Misty beat me to it with Requiem (which is bloody brilliant, by the way), I still want to write this. There is no fluff, no hopping dimensions, no Sailormoon coming and saving the evil person's soul, and no impossibly difficult enemy that is only just beaten by a ton of training. This is in no way going to be a very happy ending. Just a warning: I screwed with a lot of things here. I shaped it to my whims, in order to make the story work. Deal.
The fic is also I guess a sort of political criticism: it reflects my view of war in general, which I felt was appropriate, when my country is ready to attack Iraq--which has been plagued with the results of war for decades--with little provocation. I'll tell you right now, I'm very left wing and don't like Bush very much. You can say what you want in your review; I have been told many things about my views: I was told that if I hated America, I should leave, and one rather daft person suggested that I was part of the Taliban. I don't think they would know how they're supposed to kill me, quite frankly.
No, I don't think George Bush is a complete idiot: he's gotta have some parts missing.
I'm rambling now, aren't I?
Standard disclaimers apply.
stumble until you crawl
sinking into sweet uncertainty
i'm still running away
i won't play your hide and seek games
what a dizzy dance....
this sweetness will not be concerned with me
--Sweetness-Jimmy Eat World
----------
It had happened... the dam had broken, the fire had consumed, and hell broke out and spilled its grizzly contents of war and bloodshed. The Earth and the Moon had gone to war. What had started off as a simple jealousy of the longevity of the dwellers of the moon and indignation of their total control had boiled into black hatred. The plans for the attack were made entirely underground: the Crown Prince, Endymion, knew that the moon's control was enforced in order to make it easier to defend--Earth's natural resources made it the envy of every empire for light years around. But he was one of the few to remember that as the Earth went on its deadly spiral of mutiny.
Goku watched the battle ensue from the surface of the planet he now called home. Originally from a planet in a distant end of the galaxy, he'd come to the Earth, along with that planet's prince, when his warlike people had finally caused the apocalypse that had been coming for decades. They were Vegita-sei's only survivors.
That had been over 20 years ago, when the young prince had been 8 and he'd been 11. Now, both he and Vegita were in the Earth's Imperial Army, co-commanding the most powerful regiment in the army.
The pair was the first to be visited by Kunzite, one of the Prince's four generals, and one of his most trusted men. Kunzite had promised a handsome sum for their support, but they refused. The Sayajins loved the thrill of battle, the rush of adrenaline, but they both knew how futile the effort was, and how groundless. The rebels had nothing to gain and millions of lives to lose.
The Prince, no matter how clever and astute, had discovered the revolution too late: as the ships were leaving. He rallied the few loyal men left--including the men of the Sayajins' regiment--and had taken to the moon, in order to defend the moon's capital, where the Queen and her daughter lived. It was rumored that he and the young princess had been forbidden lovers. It wasn't unlikely; the Prince was a romantic man.
Goku's coal black eyes surveyed the moon. As far as he could tell, there was nothing noticeable, but it didn't take his keen eyes long to see the tiny, red splotch that marred the satellite's otherwise perfect silver surface.
Blood...
Goku had never known such a meaningless feud.
----------
Vegita's son, Trunks, was also watching the battle. He wasn't able to see the blood of the insurgents and the moon dwellers, but he knew that it was being shed. He lived in the heart of the capital city, and there was a surge of people in the streets, shouting, chanting for the downfall of the Moon Kingdom, and creating general chaos. This was open hostility of the kind Trunks had never seen in his life, and was unlikely to see ever again. And though his Sayajin blood kept him outwardly unaffected, his human soul reeled with horror. Was this the true human nature? Filled with the lust to kill and destroy? Even the two surviving Sayajins, of a race that reveled and felt at home in battle, had refused to take part it this senseless carnage.
But there was a strange mechanic way that the crowds were shouting, as though some great force held the strings of a marionette mob. Trunks was utterly confused by this notion: it made no sense, and yet it did... He was confused and repulsed, and he longed to turn away, but something held him there, watching, waiting...
A tremor ran across the mass of bodies, and the inane din died away quickly. All eyes turned to the beautiful orb in the sky, fixed, waiting in awe.
Time stood still...
A dazzling light erupted on the moon, blinding the crowd. Trunks fought to keep his eyes open, but the pain became too great; tears streaming down his face, Trunks' eyes slid shut.
The brilliance behind his closed lids lessened into a pinpoint, and Trunks dared to open them again.
The throng of people seemed to have broken free of their strings, for they surged in every direction, and the shouts of bloodlust had changed to screams of terror. Trunks looked up, and it looked as though the light from the moon had formed into a brilliant meteor, careening earthbound. The people fled in fear of their lives. Trunks watched devoid of emotion, until the object pierced the atmosphere, where it should have burned to a crisp. The object began to slow as it reached the tips of the city skyscrapers, as though a spacecraft landing.
And then Trunks saw that it was some sort of spacecraft, made of some sort of crystalline material: it was faceted like a shimmering diamond. His eyes followed its slow decent until it fell below his range of vision. He darted out the open window and landed where the spacecraft had touched down.
The object was transparent, and Trunks could see its lone occupant. The outline was vague, but he could tell that it was a woman. She was curled up loosely, as though she was being cradled in a person's arms, and she was floating in the crystal, suspended, as though in water.
The crystal began to shrink before the young Sayajin's eyes, and there was another dazzling flash of pure light. When Trunks could see again, he saw only the young woman. She looked young: only just showing the signs of womanhood. She was dressed in a pure white gown, elaborately embroidered in gold on the top. She was covered from head to toe in blood--even her long, radiant white tresses were matted with life-fluid.
She extended her arms upward, towards the shining moon that she'd fallen from, as though expecting a pair of warm arms to embrace her and draw her back to the heavens. The arms never claimed her, and tears began to stream from her cobalt eyes. She swayed wearily, and Trunks caught her in his arms, his initial awe fading.
He shot back up to the open window, holding the moon-fallen girl in his arms. "Mom!" he shouted. "Mom! A girl fell from the sky... she's hurt!"
His sea-haired mother walked into the room. "What are you talking about, falling from the sky... Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing the blood. "Put her on the bed!" she commanded. Trunks laid the girl gingerly on his bed as his mother hurried about.
"Please, don't concern yourself," came a weak, broken voice. Trunks and his mother looked to the girl, who'd been the one to speak. "I am uninjured, in the physical sense."
"Then what about..." Bulma started, but the girl cut her off.
"The blood is not mine. It belongs to the others who fought on the moon in my defense..." she choked on a broken sob. "Endymion..." she whispered.
"Endymion, you said?" Bulma asked. "Fought in your defense... you're Serenity, aren't you! The princess..."
The girl nodded in ascension. "I am... and I am useless! I couldn't even defend the one I loved. He was killed trying to protect me. The blood you see is his. My senshi fell just moments later. My mother died banishing The Dark with the remainder of her power. I'm the only one who was on the moon this day that is alive. The only one!" She broke into tears of despair.
Bulma wrapped her arms around the girl in a comforting gesture. "There, there now, Princess. Get some sleep; you've had a very trying day.
The young princess nodded and sank down into the pillows, her eyes closing in exhaustion. Bulma left the room, followed by her son, who flopped onto the couch.
His last thought before oblivion claimed him was the moon princess' emotionless eyes drowned in tears, as though they could no longer convey pain.
----------
Trunks was awakened some time later by the sound of the door shutting. He turned over, assuming that it was his father, but when he didn't hear the sound of Vegita's boots, he shot up. He listened as hard as he could, and made out the sound of small feet on the stairs to the roof, just above them. Trunks dashed out of the room, of course being sure not to be too loud, for fear of his mother's drowsy wrath.
He reached the roof, and was surprised to find Serenity standing there. The young princess was staring at the shattered remains of her kingdom, the tracks of her tears apparent through the blood. She was holding a tear-shaped crystal in her hand, the only thing about her that wasn't covered in blood. Trunks wondered where she'd got it from; she hadn't had it with her, and his mother didn't own anything like that.
"Apollo was jealous of the prosperity of his twin's children," she murmured in a hallow voice. "He was angry that he could not produce a civilization, and so he sent an Evil to this planet, poisoning Gaia's impressionable children. It would be through them that he would sate his envious desires."
She hung his head. "He won, of course. Now, only the weakest of Diana's children remain. Why only me? Why did the rest die? Apollo had become Mars..." Her head shot up, and the first real emotion her eyes had shown lit a fire in those blue depths--determination.
"I will not let him do this. I may be young, but I will not let him win!" She took the crystal fiercely in her hands, holding it up to the heavens. She closed her eyes, and peace seemed to settle over her figure like a warm blanket. "Diana, grant your surviving daughter her final wish. Bring my senshi, my love, and myself far into the future, where we may begin life anew. This life has been ruined by war, but I may find peace and happiness in the next..."
Silence fell, turning anything Trunks had been about to say back down his throat. He simply watched the young girl whose life had been destroyed by combat, while the princess stood, enthralled by the rhapsody of the goddess' blessing flowing through her veins.
Clouds began to roll in, but the moon was left uncovered, unhindered, by the storm billows.
The princess again held her arms to the moon, waiting for its motherly embrace, the crystal floating between her palms.
A fleeting moment of eternity...
The moonlight erupted from the gem, and the princess was shrouded by this light. Suddenly, the stone and the girl shattered, sending shimmering shards everywhere. They fell on Trunks like rain, covering him in their dazzling radiance. He tried to catch some in his hands in wonderment, but the crystalline precipitation vanished the moment it touched his skin, as though it was just an illusion, as he was beginning the think the girl might have been.
How could she have existed? This purity, in the midst of war? He was sure that he'd been imagining it. A fleeting fantasy, nothing more.
The clouds rolled over the moon, and the storm unleashed its fury. The rain fell down in torrents. It splashed on Trunks, and he brought in the full sight and smell of it.
The sky was raining blood.
He could hear the shrieks of shocked horror from the streets. It was like something out of their worst imaginations, come to life. Trunks saw the few remaining people in the streets flee in utter terror and revulsion. This was no illusion: it was reality: the reality of war. The princess was a mirage, Trunks was sure--something conjured from his mind to try and deny the horrors of bloodshed. And now that horror was raining down upon the world that had caused it. There was no denial.
Thunder clapped, and the entire city could hear the agonized screams of the dying.
----------
Weird, huh? I'm not sure what was going on in my head when I wrote this. Oh well.
Just a note to Misty: I wasn't able to get back to you (stupid AOL being a b*tch), but you can go ahead and send me a chapter for OC-C whenever you get the chance. I just want to see where you're gonna go with it: as far as I'm concerned, it's fine that you continue.
And another note: See Treasure Planet! I loved that movie... Oh, shut up. I know I have the mentality of a 10 year old at times. (Shut up C-chan) But in all seriousness, it's a really brilliant movie; well animated, and Disney did a good job of adapting Treasure Island. They changed a lot around, which I think was great. So go see it now, or you will have *ME* to answer to. And it WILL NOT BE PRETTY!! ^_~
Good-bye, everyone!
Red-chan