1-2: Saiyans, now available in female.
"What is it you exactly want here?" one of the three Earthlings said. He was tall, green, dressed in purple, and did not look friendly. Which was good we weren't exactly friendly either. Wait… Was he wearing little orange booties? With pointed toes? Poor fashion blind Earthlings…
"That voice…" Vegeta said thoughtfully, "You killed Raditz."
The green man looked surprised. He had two short antennas fairly low on his forehead as far as aliens' antennas go and pointy ears. I did a quick glance between him and the two Earthlings on either side him and decided green skin was a minority trait on Earth. The other two Earthlings' appearances were very similar to a Saiyan's aside from the fact both of them were incredibly short and had pale complexions in comparison to ours.
"Didn't Raditz tell you?" Vegeta said. I swear he took a deep breath, preparing to flaunt our superior technology to the backwater Earthlings. He gestured to the scouter that wrapped around from his left ear to left eye, "These also serve as transmitters."
The green man looked surprised again. An Oh damn! expression to be exact.
"He's a Namekian," Nappa said bluntly. Namekian… Namekian, I had heard that somewhere before and it was kind of important… Weren't they part of the Chef-Pizza-Wish theory/legend?
Now it was the other two Earthlings' turns to look surprised, instead of scared. Actually… All three of them looked surprised.
"You hear that? Piccolo is an alien too!" said one of the, presumably, humans. His baldhead gleamed in the midday sun like polished glass and two rows of three little dots stretched parallel to each other from the top of his head to the middle of his forehead. Other than that his face was devoid of unique traits except… I squinted and looked closer. He apparently had no nose. Poor human.
He wore a style of clothing some what similar to, who I guessed was Piccolo, except Salsada code name: Baldy's outfit was orange with a white patch on the left side of his chest that had a black symbol scribbled on it. A strip of navy cloth served as a belt and it looked like he had lightweight slipper things on his feet. I decided this was the style of clothing worn by fighters on Earth, loose and lightweight versus a Saiyan's skin tight and stretchy.
"R-really, Piccolo?" the other human said, by far the most timid looking little boy I had ever seen in my life. He dressed like the Namekian Piccolo and accessorized with a puffy white thing around his neck for a collar. The little human boy, however, did have a nose, but was in desperate need of a bath and a hair cut.
I finally analyzed Piccolo's face. Poor guy, he looked like he had just been living a lie his whole life.
"I'm going to assume it was you who created the 'dragon balls', slug. We've traveled quiet a distance and would like our wish now," Vegeta said, he really had no patience.
"You… You guys know about the dragon balls?!" Baldy cried surprised.
"Why else would we bother with this planet?" Nappa said with a haughty snort, "Just give us your balls, green boy and we'll be happy."
An awkward bead of sweat trailed down my forehead. Vegeta carried a similar expression. Perhaps we should have spoken with Nappa about the subtle messages that words gave a person.
Piccolo laughed, slid his front leg forward, and raised his arms on guard for an attack stance, "Thanks to you, I suddenly have a much better insight into my ancestry. Alas for me, however, it was not I who made the dragon balls. My specialty is combat as you will no doubt see."
Vegeta's eyes flickered back to me for a moment then returned to Piccolo, "Very well, if you won't willingly tell us what we want to know then we'll have to show you what Saiyan's specialty is."
I hoped Vegeta hadn't suddenly desired my appointed task in our little Saiyan team.
Piccolo's companions moved to their own stances. Baldy took an offensive stance while the little boy, who I had not yet named, adopted a defensive stance.
Nappa turned on a knob on his scouter that would give him constant read outs of the three Earthlings' chi count, their life or fight power. The scouter chirped to life and bleeped three times.
"981, 1220, and 1083. Don't insult us, you're hardly worth the time," Nappa said with disgust.
Vegeta watch the three in front of us for a moment before he commented.
"Take your scouters off," he said watching them carefully.
Nappa and I glanced at Vegeta uncertainly. Was he insane? The scouters were our only gauge in battle, they automatically locked on to one chi source for us to follow later, if we ever got split up they were our only way to communicate with each other, they calculated answers to large sums of numbers that we couldn't solve in our heads, and they told the time! We needed our scouters!
"These slugs can hide their true chi level. Anything that machine tells you is inaccurate," he said taking his off and tucking it into his tail wrapped around his waist like a belt.
Oh, okay, I thought, taking off my scouter.
"Smart move," Piccolo said, "That's how your friend died. Trusting his little machine."
"Raditz was a weakling and would have gotten killed by one mistake or another," I informed them. I took a twisted delight in how worried their faces became when I told them Raditz was a weakling compared to us. Baldy broke into a nervous sweat and the little boy's face couldn't get much more scared, well, maybe a little bit more.
Piccolo seemed to be taken the news very well considering he had struggled to kill Raditz himself. But hadn't the power level's Raditz had muttered to himself over the transmitter been much lower?
"Nappa, how many cultivars are left?" Vegeta asked crossing his arms and smiling. Oh, fun he had a plan.
Nappa pulled out a (his) fist size vial from a pouch tucked under his armor. The vial was divided into two halves through the horizontal middle, six purple, round seeds rested above a pale, acidic green liquid on the bottom.
"Just enough for six, Vegeta," Nappa said gentle shaking the vial with pride.
"Good, let's play a little game," Vegeta said between the three of us, "We let them play with Nappa's little pets for a while then we'll ask them about the dragon balls again."
"Fine," I said, "I don't care."
"Well then, its fine with Her Grace. Go ahead and plant them Nappa," Vegeta said smirking at me.
Nappa crouched down and poked six holes at even intervals apart in to the yellow soil. He dropped one purple seed into each hole, lovingly spread the soil back over them, and patted the ground affectionately when he was done. Then he delicately poured the acid green liquid over each patch of earth he had planted a seed in. Satisfied, he stepped away and dusted his hands off on each other.
And now… I mused… We wait.
A minute passed.
The Earthlings looked on at the garden patch of doom with dread, Nappa had the apperance of a gardener intent on making his crops grow by staring at them, Vegeta looked like a child watching his presents pile up under the Christmas tree, and I stifled the over powering urge to yawn.
Another minute passed and Vegeta began to look less excited. He leaned over towards Nappa and whispered, "How long is this supposed to take?"
Nappa whispered back to Vegeta behind his hand, "A minute or so, but these were at the bottom of the vial…"
Whatever prior feelings of anxiety I had were now being replaced by boredom, irritability, and crankiness just as fast as the cultivars were slow to grow. Must be the sun, it was kind of bright and the fact it was around midday wasn't preventing the shine factor.
The cultivars had better show up soon or I was just going to make the Earthlings talk my self with out six cabbages to back me up. What was taking them so long to grow?
I sighed loudly and wondered if I could use Nappa's or Baldy's heads as sundials in this sun… I'd just need something to stick on top… I wondered if bald heads still shined when the owner was dead… I guess it would, the skin would loose its warm look though. I thought back to all the dead bald people I had seen and I couldn't really recall if they still glimmered.
The earth began to quiver and things that looked like shriveled heads of cabbage began popping up.
"Finally," Vegeta grunted. I had to restrain my self not to leap around with delight and sing praise to the Saiyan Moon Goddess.
"What are those things?" Baldy cried as the cultivars' bodies came into view.
Cultivars' had enormous green, vein covered cabbage heads that appeared to have demonic, little faces glued on. A cultivar's face was either the most terrifying or most annoying face you would ever see. Their mouths are forever stretched into these awful grins that make them look like they're about to clutch their root like fingers to their faces and burst into maniacal giggles while they dangle the keys to your spaceship just out of your reach in front of you.
I do not like the cultivars. They give me the creeps.
Nappa pointed at the Earthlings, "Those three are your targets."
"This could be difficult," Baldy muttered.
"That it could," Piccolo replied.
Baldy suddenly began searching the sky for something. A few seconds later I saw two shadows appear on the ground near the Earthlings. An average height human with no hair and an infant sized human wearing white face paint dropped down beside them.
Baldy had known they were coming before they go here… How did he do that with out a scouter or anything else to help him identify a near by chi?
"Tenshinhan! Chaozu!" Baldy cried. He might as well have said, 'Boy, I'm glad to see you guys.' I guess they were strong and would offer some help…
The normal sized human looked like he'd be relatively powerful, so he'd be more help and important, so he'd probably be the first one Tenshinhan. That left Chaozu, who was hovering in the air, which would mean he had chi to spare, or just very good control, or he was telekinetic or any other form of ESP. Both were pretty eccentric looking, Tenshinhan had three eyes, his extra in the middle of his forehead, and Chaozu's white face paint with little red dots over his cheeks made him look like a little mime wearing a black cap with a red pomp-pomp on top. Maybe they both were ESP users.
I decided that the calm and collected Tenshinhan would be called Three Eyes. His small and nervous looking companion, Chaozu, would be called the Mime.
"Alright, those five are your opponents," Nappa said correcting his former order to the cultivars.
An orange blur dropped out of the sky down beside Baldy. It was a male human, defiantly a fighter judging from the toned muscles showing from under the uniform that matched Baldy's. He had long, wavy black hair he had tied back against his neck and his skin was tan, he probably spent a lot of his time in the sun. He also had a pretty face, not like the kind of pretty face fighters I knew, they were pretty men who happened to fight. This guy looked like a fighter who happened to have a pretty face. There was a big difference… I had a bad history with the pretty face fighters.
"Yamcha!" Baldy said excitedly, as if he was seeing an old friend. He might have been since they shared the same uniform; they probably trained under the same teacher.
"Sorry, I'm late," the new guy told his friends. He had two scars on his face, one that followed his left jaw and another over his right eye that went down his cheek, two good locations for scars. In a Saiyan's opinion scars were an attractive thing for a warrior to have. It showed you had been around and had your share of rough fights. In fact Vegeta and I on a few occasions had picked at the scabs on wounds if we liked where they were on our bodies to create scars, but most of them were very light. I decided to call this one Scars.
He seemed confidant enough, the way he was engaging his friends in small talk. Tough guy, it was always fun to watch the tough guys loose. Although, they usually waited a while, this guy fell to pieces the second he saw me…
"ACK!!" I think his jaw just came unhinged in shock.
"Yamcha, are you okay?" Baldy asked, trying to pry terrified Scars off of his leg.
"Guh-guh-irlie… No b-b-body s-said th-there'd be a giiiirl…" Scars looked almost as scared as the little boy dressed like Piccolo, but instead of a cold sweat he was blushing red past his ears and pointing at me like something you would see in a zoo.
Vegeta and Nappa slowly looked from Scars to me, from me to Scars, and then burst out laughing. I glared at them. Work place sexual harassment, that what this was…
Baldy patted Scars on the back and reached out with a hand to help steady him as he crawled to his feet. Baldy offered him words of encouragement, "I know, man, but you gotta pull your self together. Earth is counting on you… Besides she looks like the cold hearted Amazon type, they're never really any good."
What the hell was that supposed to mean?!
"Gu-gu-guuuuriiilie… Brrrrrr…"
I wasn't going to even try and figure out what he meant by that.
"Is he going to be able to fight?" Piccolo asked looking at an awkward loss of patience.
Baldy sighed sadly, "I don't know…"
Nappa looked like tears were threatening to roll down his face as he clutched his sides with laughter, "Forget the cultivars! We'll just send Salsada after him, she'll rip him to—OW!" Nappa cried as he landed face first in the dirt. A red mark on the back of his head in the shape of my boot had left a deep impression that I had thought it would.
"Are you idiots done giggling?!" I growled hovering above Nappa's body. Nappa raised his hand and gave a weak, "Yes." Vegeta had cut his laughter back to a snicker against the back of his gloved hand.
I glared over at the Earthlings, they all looked surprised, maybe they weren't use to seeing little fighting women kick giants over.
"Are you done?!"
"Yeh-yeh-yes…" Scars whimpered standing up and bowing his head in shame. I had a feeling he just lost a lot of credibility with the Earthlings and defiantly with us.
"Now," I said stalking in front of the cultivars and my companions, "Since there are six of you and six cultivars why don't we play a little one-on-one?"
"Play?! I did not come here to take part in your childish games!" Piccolo shouted.
Baldy tried to calm down Piccolo with frantic waves of his hand, "No, wait. Goku isn't here yet. This could work for us."
Who was Goku?
Piccolo watched us steadily, his jaw was clenched and so were his fists. He was anxious to get the fight started, he felt more comfortable that way. Piccolo was afraid. Baldy kept glancing between Piccolo and us, hoping that Piccolo would agree to my terms.
I put my hands on my hips and spoke jeeringly, "Well, what do you say? Take your pick. The cultivars or me? You should know I'm dying to rip you all apart," I said the end with my lips pulled back for my fangs to show. The cultivars giggled behind me, an added bonus effect.
"Fine."
"Excellent!" I said before Piccolo finished saying the whole word, "Nappa, pick one out."
I walked back behind the row of six cultivars to stand beside Vegeta. I smiled satisfied as Nappa picked out one of the cultivars and ushered it forward. Vegeta coughed lightly into his fist before speaking, "Did your stasis just wear off or do you really like him?"
"Shut up," I said running my hands through my thick black hair. I watched the Earthlings pick who would fight and disappointingly realized it wouldn't be him. I sighed as if to sound bored in attempt to through off Vegeta, "I think this sun gave me a headache. It made me irritable."
"It also made you blush a few moments ago."
I stopped playing with my hair and dropped my hands to my side. Vegeta was snickering I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I snickered like him, I wonder if I got it from being around him for so long or it was inherited.
I smiled evilly and looked ahead of us to see that the Earthlings had finally picked a fighter. "Someday, Vegeta. Someday this will happen to you and when it does I will laugh at you for a very long time."
Vegeta laughed nervously, he avoided this subject at all costs, "They picked Three Eyes. He looks confidant."
"He doesn't look like he looses much."
"That makes it all the more fun."
A word from Rin:
I had meant to get this out sooner, but I went back to work on it about a day after the first chapter and the whole mood for the story had left me. I think I finished it in the right mood and attitude for Salsada, I hope. It's a little difficult to do because the rough draft/outline for this I wrote over Christmas break was very different mood wise. Salsada was kind of moody for another reason, which will go unnamed because it is still important to the story at the moment. The moods for the story change a lot from different drafts. This actual point in the story has been written in various formats nearly four times over the past while (it was a long while, so embarrassingly long I won't say.) For your future reference or thinking, most of the story has been plotted out so I doubt you'll ever get anything major out of sheer randomness, I felt I'd say that for one reason or another.
The reason I changed the original mood was because it might have been too vague to follow or too complex to begin the story with. It also might have been a bit too dramatic or mature to begin the story with. The whole vision idea was actually much older and I had dismissed it for being somewhat childish and less 'cool', but I decided to go back to it. It also makes a transition point or scene in the story later on much easier as well as being rather ironic when you find out whom or what is the spirit is exactly.
I think the ending for this was probably not good, too little information, not suspenseful enough, or vague, but I wanted to stick to this outline I have done. The notebook and pen are lovely because they are portable (unlike the computer) and they get out the rough ideas (which can be embellished when put on the computer.)
Am I speaking needlessly? Sorry.
I felt kinda guilty for giving away the romantic plot so early after that review (thanks, by the way. Encouragement or signs of reading are greatly appreciated.) When I thought about it however, it's more likely to hook you sooner, correct? It's a difficult match, but after hard thought I'm getting it to work.
By the way: How is Vegeta and Salsada's relationship coming across to the reader? …If you ignore the summary…