DISCLAIMER: The desert, creatures inside and the desert girl are © cacat-angel. Other characters remain property to their respective owners.
SUMMARY: A Cell romance. What would the most powerful being in the universe do with the one little woman who seems to matter more to him than he would have cared for?
well. i've done it again. hopped from one male protagonist to another. and a dbz villain to boot lol. except this time, i'm trying my hand at an original character -___-; i seriously hope she doesn't come across as a mary-sue figure because quite honestly, i'm not exactly a fan of them. the badly written ones anyway.
i realize that most Cell fics center on the time period where he's awaiting the cell games. sigh. i realise why too...there hardly is any other in between pauses this big guy seems to take!! aagh. whyyy??? Well this takes place somewhere during the Cell games, right after Cell was blasted to pieces on self-destruction mode. We all know that he resurrected, and this was what went on in between ^.^
By: cacat-angel
The scorching rays of the desert sun beat down on him. His body hurt. Ached painfully, even long after he had regained his powers and more. Nobody knew about it yet - those Z fighters assumed foolishly that he had died in the blast together with the useless idiot Son Goku - and he wasn't about to let them find out otherwise.
At least, not so soon.
It was thanks to the genius of his creator, Doctor Gero, that he had managed to regenerate after his supposed self-destruction at planet king kai. Now, all he had to do was make his tactful retreat, and wait. For the time when his body mechanisms would surpass even his perfect form. He would be invincible, indestructible. but not for now.
Still, he held his head up high, and he carried his mighty body with a grace only royalty could manage. For that was what he was, a high prince, born to destroy the Z fighters and rule the universe.
It was no foolish ambition of a careless dreamer.
It was what he, Cell was destinied to do from the start.
The desert child kneeled on the chilled ground of the cave, the sharp flint she had in one thin hand grating roughly against the twig in the other. With practised ease, she twisted the twig around repeatedly, allowing the flint to create friction against its brown bark. The stinging scent of smoke entered her nose. The heat would come soon, she knew. And the biting cold would be held at bay. For this night.
Soon, bright sparks of fire crackled merrily, lighting up the pitch-black cave with its orange brilliance. The girl breathed a silent sigh and allowed herself to relax slightly, holding out her pale, bony digits against the rich warmth.
Fire. It was one of the few friends she had known, throughout the countless number of moons she had ran over the desert. The tiny critters came to her at times, and she spared them whatever scraps she had rationed. They were friendly enough, but turn your back on them when they are starving, and they are on you within minutes.
But the little cunning hunters were tame compared to the wild beasts which roamed the desert plains; ferocious, gigantic predators with hides tougher than porous stone and enormous appetites that would wipe out entire colonies of rodents. She knew; the bloody carcass strewn over the moonlit sands every once in awhile were proof enough.
Shuddering, she picked up the pale, fur hide she had placed next to the fire. Satisfied with its warmth, she slipped the make-shift coat over her slight body. The coat had been crafted roughly out of desert wolf skin - trophy of a victory she had won years ago, and constant reminder that she was no weakling despite her size and limited strength. She was no outsider ignorant and foolish, despite her unique appearance and her obvious dissimilarity to the rest of the desert.
The warmed coat and the orange flames were working their magic quickly. The stiffness in her body was gradually disappearing, replaced with a contented, fuzzy feeling. Her hunger had been satisfied by a quick meal of rabbit meat earlier on, and now she was no longer affected by the night winds.
A desert wolf howled suddenly.
It was rare for the beasts to hunt at night, but it happened. And when it did, it meant that the wolves were ravenous, for they were day creatures, adapt only to the dangerous sunlight, absorbing its poison and using it as their own... The packs would arrive within moments, and another unsuspecting victim would fall prey to the bloodthirsty wolves - mutated beasts dripping venomous toxin from their thick lips, resembling their wolf counterparts only by ancestry.
Her dark brows tightened and her expression tensed visibly. The wolves learnt their lesson that night when their mighty leader fell at her seemingly insignificant hands, and they stayed clear of her for many moons to come. And it was none other than her trusty friend, the fire, a secret biological flaw of the mutant wolves that she had discovered by accident.
Echoes of a fearful scream from long ago rang through her head. Memories of a past.
Uncertainty flickered through her clear brown eyes momentarily.
Should she try again?
Large, toxic fangs and silvered armour gleamed in the moonlight. Gutteral snarls met with calculative silence. Desert wolf faced off against a single, hulking android.
The wolves made the first move.
With powerful leaps, they covered the distance between their prey easily, kicking up clouds of coarse pale blue sand in their trail. They moved in quickly from all four corners. Soon, the lone figure was surrounded by the giant, hungry wolves, snarling and venemous dribble hanging between six inch-long fangs.
And yet, he did not budge.
Not he, Cell. These pathetic existences served no purpose, if only to fuel his amusement. This day, he had travelled deep into the Sahara desert for a purpose. A purpose which might shift the odds completely to his favour. And he most certainly would not be stopped by mere desert animals.
But still...
He was no fool, to think that he was half as powerful as he had been previously.
If Cell was anything, he was a realist. The millitary tactics long fused into his brain cells by Doctor Gero, pushed against his proud nature, forcing the reality into his consciousness all too unwillingly. Made him pause to think and reconsider his situation, despite his protesting pride.
He was in enemy territory.
His body had barely completed its regenerative process, barely recovering.
And he was greatly outnumbered by giant mutant wolves measuring at least seven feet in length and four feet across, with toxic drool that could melt Son Goku's thick skull.
The wolves, on the other hand, were eying him with undeniable confidence, of the animalistic kind.
Still, he refused to admit, if even to himself, that he might be fighting a losing battle. He snorted, half with disgust at himself, half with contempt for the earthling creatures. He, who could destroy galaxies with a mere flick of his wrist, reduce planets to ashes with just a glare, the most perfect being on earth ever to be created.
Except perhaps now, he wasn't so perfect afterall.
Damn the Z fighters to H.F.I.L...
It went against all that she had taught herself: all reasonings of safety, logic and caution. But she had to do it. Some instinctual nagging inside of her insisted.
She removed a good, thick branch wedged beneath the glowing pile, careful not to displace the other branches. The fire was dancing merrily, covering the upper end of the branch with its transclucent, orange-red flames, its warm musky scent wafting into her nose.
There wasn't much time left to waste. Securing the wolf pelt firmly around her body with its belt, she grabbed a long spear hanging from the cave wall, its shaft made of thick baobab branches that grew a distance away, the spear head carved to a sharp and dangerous point. This was a dangerous bet, crazy even, but she had to take it. It had been the exact same situation many many moons ago, one with an ending she regretted even till this day.
And she didn't want to risk it a second time.
Fire torch in one hand and weapon in the other, she stepped out of the cleverly concealed entrance and into the blue nightscape, towards the source of the wolf howls.
Cell panted madly as he took to the air, a cross between an maniacally arrogant grin and a pained grimace splitting his face. He took the opportunity to regain his breath in the split instant and dived towards earth again, gathering the smatterings of his energy for another Ki blast.
The battle had raged on fiercely, both sides more equally matched than Cell would have cared to admit. At least, what the wolves lacked in power as compared to Cell, they more than made up for in number. He gritted his teeth as he leapt a distance away from the remaining wolves. His muscles and internal organs ached and his skin throbbed madly from the radioactive burns of the sun during the day, and the patches where the wolve's poisonous saliva touched his skin.
This would be slightly longer than he expected...
She arrived a few miles away from the scene. Her eyes flickered with momentary fear at the sight of giant silouhettes - the desert wolves. And...
The prey...
It was just as her gut feeling had told her.
This was no normal desert creature the wolves were picking on - it walked on two legs...just like her!
With wide open eyes, she observed the dark form, never taking her eyes off it as it seemed to dash with amazing speed through the air. Every so often, it would release some sort of radiant power blast from its hands, though the wolves kept on. But what amazed her most, perhaps, was the fact that she was seeing one of her own kind. Again. For the second time in her entire life...
"You couldn't have been living in this place for all these years, child? Surely it must have been a miracle..."
She watched on with curious brown eyes, following the woman's every movement intently.
The words which sprouted from the woman's sweet red mouth like a bubbling desert stream delighted her, but she did not understand a single word that had been uttered. The sound was strange, foreign to her ears. Neither the quick, clicking tongue of the desert critters, nor the rising and falling howl of the wolves. Yet, they were compelling, bewitching. Like something forgotten by her memory, something from a time long ago, but not so distant.
The woman reached out her clothed hand and the desert child scurried backwards on her palms and feet. The woman frowned softly, her hand hovering in mid-air.
"Child, you poor, poor child..." Her eyes lingered on the younger girl's forearms, then shifted to take in the rest of the primitive cave. Then, those liquid blue eyes of hers hardened with firm resolve. "I shall take you away from here. You shall travel back to the city with me, where you will be given proper attire and care and attention. Nobody deserves to struggle for survival in such wretched and dangerous conditions, not especially a little one like you."
The girl was silent and still, but something warmed in her heart, and she smiled for the first time.
Suddenly, a particularly large blast landed just metres from the waif, shaking her out of her wonder. Urgency kicked in and she dashed from the low orange boulder she hid behind, charging towards the wolves and brandishing her torch with a crazy yell. It blazed through the night-sky, leaving a mighty orange trail behind as she darted towards the wolves, uncaring that they might tear her to pieces as easily, or that she might be their next prey instead.
All the desert child cared for, was that the life of this creature who looked like her, was safe.
Cell picked up the presence of another ki almost immediately.
His breathing was laboured, and he could feel the sustaining life-force within him drain away with every fatal blow the wolves delivered upon him. He could scarcely keep them off him now. His once-invincible armour, which had shielded him even from the blows of Son Goku's Kamehameha, seemed now to be but burdens of heavy, green shell, empty and without usage. His frame which had been light as air, was now weighed down with his diminishing level of ki; his regenerative abilities were all but active.
Then this presence.
Half distracted, he thought he felt it flare for the briefest instant. It was a faint flickering, a mere dust mite as it flitted through space, and then it was gone.
It was all it took for the wolves to rip through his remaining defense.
With a triumphant howl, a bulky, tawn-coloured wolf charged forward and clamped its jaws over Cell's arm, toxic sizzling with delight at contact with his skin, A second sprang onto Cell's back, causing him to stagger forward with the immense weight and momentum. And like vicious piranhas in a frenzied feeding, the pack moved in swiftly for the kill.
Cell trashed and roared, but he was weakened by the attacks and he knew he could last no longer. The wolves covered his large body like living pelts of fur, ripping out chunks after bloodied chunks of his pale flesh under his exoskeleton. Wild anger flooded his being, at his own helplessness and his weakness.
But it was impossible for him to recharge - he had used up almost all his energy to resurrect himself and there was hardly any ki left...
She arrived just in time to see the tall being's body engulfed completely by an endless sea of writhing wolves. It was almost a wonder that he was managing to stand even under the weight of the great brutes.
A surge of righteous anger crashed against her.
The next thing she knew, she was admist the bodies of the snarling beasts, waving the torch before her. The two-legged being was supported on her back, barely alive, she knew. His incredible body mass crashed down on her and she bit her lips and as she staggered forwards, growling gutteral warnings in the desert wolve's tongue and thrusting the flaming torch out at those who snapped back in disbelief, warning them of the fate that would befall them should they defy the wrath of mighty Fire-God.
She never knew how sweet victory tasted, until this moment, until she collapsed into her cave exhausted, with the unconscious stranger she had rescued leaning heavily across her narrow shoulders. Gently and with much effort, she lowered him onto the unever ground beside the strong fire. She never knew the exhilerating high of joy until this very moment.
She had rescued him. She was successful. And, battered and worn as he was, this two-legged creature who looked just like her, was still alive.
The joy was infectious and soon, the desert child found her lips parting and widening and her eyes crinkling. It was almost like when she had slayed the great leader of the desert-wolf pack, only this time, magnified many times over. It was a bitter-sweet, aching sensation, similar to the one she had felt when she had encountered the first two-legged creature. It tugged at something inside of her, it made the blood within her rush in a heady stream towards the top, making her giddy and light-headed. And she smiled, a real, genuine smile of happiness, for the second time in her life.
But just as quickly, the bubbling rapture died down. Now she was faced with the challenges of reality. She hesitated for the slightest moment before placing her small thin hand onto the being's heavy chest, taking just a moment to observe his intriguing body structure. It was only then, did she realise that he wasn't as similar as she had thought.
For one...
Her almond-shaped eyes widened a good margin even as the realisation sank in.
She had never seen anything, which could heal itself so quickly. Ever. Even as she removed her hand slowly and settled herself back on her heels to observe in amazement, she could see the thick purple welts of skin curl in slow motion together, rejoining in the center seamlessly. Her eyes travelled downwards and she realised that it was true even for his hands and every part of his pale skin which was left uncovered and wounded.
It was extraordinary.
Yes. There were definitely more differences between the two of them than she had originally thought. But it didn't really surprise her, in a way. It was like the desert-wolves and their cousins, the lesser wolves. Two entirely different creatures which had spawned from the same womb. She had seen the lesser wolves before. Though carnivorous and pack creatures, they were far less vicious, and they lacked the deadly venom their mutant cousins had.
Was this the same between her and this other two-legged creature?
Initial surprise soon gave way to curiosity. This, she had to inspect.
With her second finger, she touched his face lightly. It was soft, slightly warm with the blood that flew underneath. She lifted her finger and felt her own skin. Certainly felt the same. Then, she leaned in closer and gently fingered the feathery black lashes which lined his closed eyes. She had those too, though maybe not as long as his...
Her finger trailed downwards, past his pale, thickly muscled neck and down to the thick, strange armoury which covered his chest. She frowned and pressed harder. What was this foreign material? She had never seen anything like it before - neither fur, nor hide, not even horn or tusk. Yet it was smooth, smoother than the most perfect rock surface she had seen. And cold as the desert's night.
Just... what was it?
And where did this strange being come from? Now, safe in the comfort of her own hole, she was at least, spared the time to ponder over this baffling creature.
Cell awoke to the funniest sensation of being probed.
Doctor Gero?
No... impossible. He had been annilhated... by his traitor siblings.
Had he been taken by the wolves? Was he finally in H.F.I.L?
Again, highly improbable. He was the mightiest being in the galaxy, the perfect creation; mere mortal hazards were simply deprived of the ability to take his life.
With no small amount of exertion, he pried his heavy lids open. They were reluctant at first, crying out for the rest they badly deserved. But he paid no heed to his protesting organs. His senses had better not fail him now. Popping first one eye and then the other, his first envisionment since consciousness was...
The black hair of a human wench. With her head pressed audiaciously against his chest.
He frowned at the sudden twist of reality that was presented before him.
"What in Kami's name, might I know, are you doing?"
Soo... wasn't too um. Weird was it? *nervous laughter*