Rip Van Who?
4. Waking up
The other girls all looked up as Amy re-entered the room. Bra was asleep in the next room – she passed out shortly after the battle – so they had to keep their voices down. The little girl seemed a little off-balance, understandable considering what she had been put through. She was staying at Amy's place, mainly because, if anyone asked, they could pass her off as Amy's kid sister, until they found out where Bra really belonged.
"How's she holding up?" Serena asked, first to voice her concerns.
"She's asleep," Amy reported. She shook her head, disturbed by this turn of events. "She talks in her sleep. She kept calling out to her parents. I didn't know what to do." Amy closed her eyes, still trying to figure things out. She took a seat next to Greg. He flashed her a warm, comforting, smile.
"With all that power, I guess it's hard remembering she's just a lost little kid," said Lita, rubbing her neck self-consciously. She perked up. "Hey, do you think she knows where Beryl's base is?"
"Doubt it," said Artemis "Looks like whatever was controlling her was running the show. It probably gave her the powers she had too." The white cat shook his head.
"I'm not sure," Greg started. "But I don't think she was the girl in my vision. I mean, she was in it, but I'm not sure if she was the dangerous one." He shook his head, smiling apologetically. He rapped gently on his head. "It's all a little hazy up here, but I'll never forget that aura."
"What are you talking about, Greg?" Lita asked.
"In my vision, there was this golden aura. It was…" Greg shook his head. "I can't really describe it. It's like it was fuelled by rage and pain and suffering. I'm not sure, but I think I saw another girl. She had spiky blonde hair and green eyes. Not at all like Bra."
"Could the Negaverse have another soldier like Bra waiting in the wings?" Rei wondered. An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, each of the room's occupants contemplating a possible confrontation with another fighter like Bra. They all reached the same conclusion, and it was evident by the looks on their faces. "I think we're in trouble, you guys."
***
Bra yawned, sitting up. She had been asleep in the shade of an old-looking oak tree. Strange, she couldn't really remember falling asleep under the tree. Not two feet away, Bra could make out Pan's small frame curled up comfortably. Obviously, the girl was still asleep.
Bra stood up, and moved out from underneath the oak. It was a nice spring day, if she was any judge. The sky was a perfect blue, not a cloud in sight, just like she remembered it. The grass appeared almost impossibly green. Birds were happily singing. It was how she imagined the Kai's sacred world must have looked before her papa and Pan's grandpa fought Majin Buu there.
Bra stretched a little to work the kinks out of her muscles. There was something about this situation – this place – that seemed different, wrong, to the girl. "Pan, come on. Wake up already," Bra said, taking a deep breath of fresh air. She nudged her friend with her foot.
"Just five more minutes, mommy," Pan grumbled. She rolled over and went back to sleep. Bra sighed, exasperated, shaking her friend just a little harder this time. Pan groaned, but sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "Alright, I'm awake," she said, yawning.
Pan looked around, blinking. "Huh?" She asked.
"Good morning, sunshine," Bra said evenly. Pan flipped easily to her feet, taking a couple of steps out into the open. She looked around, a slight frown on her young face.
"Where are we?" Pan asked. She closed her eyes, stretched out her senses. Ordinarily, she should have been able to sense powerful energies, like her father's or Bra's father's. She shook her head slightly.
"I don't know," Bra said. She looked around again. There was something about this place… it just didn't seem right to her. There was something subtle – maybe something she'd always taken for granted – that was missing, and she couldn't put her finger on exactly what it was. "This sure doesn't look like home."
"That's because it isn't."
The two girls spun around quickly, both of them unconsciously raising their power levels to meet an anticipated threat. There was a woman, beautiful by most standards. She had long wavy red-brown hair and strange eyes, a deep orange. She had pointed ears, and looked every bit the alien. The girls even thought they noticed the woman had fangs, but when they looked again, her teeth looked normal enough. She was dressed in a long flowing gown of deep purple material. She was no threat, with a power level that even Turtle could beat.
"My name is Queen Beryl, the rightful ruler of this planet. It would be my pleasure to help you find your way back home." The woman smiled, and gestured for the two girls to follow her. Not knowing any better, Bra and Pan followed. After all, someone with a power level that low couldn't possibly hurt them, so where was the danger…? Then why did she feel this terrible sense of foreboding…?
***
Bra's eyes snapped open, and she sat up, breathing heavily. "It was all a dream," the little girl muttered, sounding unconvinced of her own words. Even if it had happened in a dream, it felt much too much like a memory for her liking.
The girl tried to relax a little, noticing that she was breathing quickly. Bra looked around at the unfamiliar room. It was decorated in pale blue, sparsely furnished, with a dresser, a couple of chairs, and a comfortable bed, which she now occupied.
"Where am I?" She wondered. She felt distress welling up inside her. This wasn't her room. These weren't her things. This wasn't home! She suddenly felt so homesick, so alone. She wanted to go home, to see her family again, even her annoying brother, Trunks.
Bra felt her own power soar, unconsciously raised by her sense of alarm. She tried to calm herself down, to force her power level down. As low as she could push it, she was still fully capable of destroying a small moon. Even Master Roshi had done that once, though she imagined that it had been more of an effort for the elderly martial artist than it would be for her. She couldn't let her power hurt innocent people.
Bra pulled the powder blue sheets out of the way, and slipped her feet from the bed. Someone had dressed her in a pair of pyjamas that were obviously too big for her. They hung loosely from her body, emphasising how small she really was. She had to hike up the pants to walk properly.
The little girl slipped silently out of the room and into the hall. She had no idea where she was, but whoever owned the place was relatively well off and it was readily apparent in the manner in which the place was decorated. Old-looking pictures and antique-looking things were placed strategically along the hall. The walls were painted a nice off-white.
Voices were clearly audible down the hall. Bra crept silently in their direction. There were five girls seated in a comfortable-looking living room. The room was furnished with a couple of over-stuffed chairs, and a matching blue couch. The walls were painted the same off-white as the hall. There was a large sliding door set in one of the walls, leading to a balcony.
The girls were talking about something, but Bra couldn't quite make out what. She crept a little closer.
"But the wand took care of what was controlling her." The speaker had blue eyes and blonde hair, worn in the most bizarre style Bra had ever encountered. The style resembled pigtails. She was dressed in some kind of uniform: a knee-length pleated dark blue skirt and a white top with a sailor-like collar the same colour as her skirt. "Can't we use it to take care of any more of them, if they show up?"
"We were extremely lucky, Serena," said another girl. The speaker had short blue hair and blue eyes. She spoke with an intelligent tone of voice, her words were carefully enunciated. She was dressed in the same uniform as the first girl. "If our attacks hadn't startled her, then she would have killed you and the Crystal would now be in Queen Beryl's hands."
Bra gasped involuntarily. So Beryl was real, not just a horrible nightmare!
Suddenly, all eyes were on her. "Hey there," said a third girl. She had brown hair, worn in a high ponytail, and warm green eyes. The girl wore rose-shaped earrings. Her uniform, while similar to the other two girls', was light brown where theirs were dark blue. "How are you feeling?"
"A little confused," Bra admitted, not dropping her guard.
"My name's Serena," said the girl with the bizarre hairstyle. She smiled warmly at Bra, trying to make her feel welcome. "These are my friends. Introduce yourselves, girls."
"I'm Mina," said the other blonde. Her hair was unrealistically long, some of it held back by a crimson bow. She had warm blue eyes, and gave Bra the impression that she was slightly clueless. She was dressed in the same uniform that Serena and her blue-haired friend wore.
"Rei," said another girl, smiling. She had long dark hair, about as long as Mina's, and violet eyes. The girl was dressed differently from the other girls, but her outfit still came across as a uniform. She wore a knee-length grey pleated skirt, a slightly lighter grey vest with sailor-like collar, and a white shirt underneath.
"My name is Amy," said the girl with the blue hair.
"And I'm Lita," said the girl with the brown hair, the one who had asked her how she felt.
"Pleased to meet you," Bra mumbled, more a formality than an actual feeling. Who were these girls? Why did they feel so strange?
Bra had never really trained, relying more on the strength and cunning that she inherited from her father than on practice and training, but she did have the ability to sense energy signatures. These girls all felt so strange. The feeling really was indescribable.
Strange energies or not, they wouldn't stand a chance against Bra, if she decided that they were a threat.
"So, do you remember anything, kiddo?" Mina asked.
"Mina!" Lita said. "She just woke up!"
"The last thing I remember was training with my friend, Pan," Bra said, her eyes distant. "We overdid it a little, so we took a nap." She looked around the room, checking for any reaction. "Where am I?" She asked.
"You're at Amy's place," Mina said.
"I mean, what planet is this? I'm from Earth. Is that far away from here?"
"Uh, this is Earth," Serena said, sounding more than a little confused. Bra looked uncertain, bewildered. How could this possibly be Earth? Bra found her eyes moving over to the large window. Everything was different.
This city was unlike anything Bra had ever seen. The buildings were all constructed along harsh, geometric, lines, made of materials like concrete, steel, and glass. Not at all like the pleasant organic configurations, built of durable polymers, that she was used to. Then there were the cars. Bra couldn't see a single hover-craft. Not a single capsule-car. They seemed to favour crude combustion-powered vehicles here, the kind that were being phased out in favour of something more environmentally friendly back home.
Bra couldn't sense any of the strong powers she had grown up knowing. She couldn't sense her papa or Pan's grandpa, and they were two of the strongest fighters in the universe. This couldn't be Earth. It just couldn't.
The little girl shook her head. What reason did Serena have for lying to her? Maybe… no. That didn't make any sense. "This… is Earth?" Bra asked uncertainly. She shook her head again. "This can't be happening. This is all some kinda dream!"
"No. This is reality," said Serena, clueless.
Bra felt her power level climbing again. She took a deep breath, and tried to remain calm. Okay, so this was apparently Earth, but it wasn't her Earth. What were the possible explanations? This could be some kind of parallel dimension, an alternate Earth, or she could've been thrown back into the past somehow, to a more primitive time, or forward, to some post-apocalyptic world where they had lost all of the advanced technology of her age.
"Don't worry, Bra," said Serena reassuringly. "We'll help you find your way back home."
A thought occurred to her. "How do you know my name?" Bra asked. "I never introduced myself." Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. Serena laughed nervously.
"This is going to sound difficult to believe," said a new voice. Bra's eyes shifted, fixing on an average-sized black cat, the speaker. There were talking cats where she was from, but none of them looked like just an average house cat.
"A talking cat."
"Her name's Luna," Serena supplied, with a grin.
"What's going to be difficult for me to believe?" Bra asked.
"You were possessed by a fighter from the Negaverse, under a powerful spell," said Luna in an even tone of voice. "They must have brought you here to use you against us. While you were under their control, a man named Prince Darien introduced you to us. That's how we know your name."
Geez, all that just to explain how they knew her name? Bra felt a little annoyed, but the sensation was dwarfed by the anger she felt at being controlled. The feeling was quickly replaced with an overwhelming sense of dread. What if the bad guys had control of Pan?
"Did he say anything about my friend Pan?" Bra asked.
"No, he didn't," said Amy. "Now you have to go to bed. It's way too late for a girl your age to be awake." She stood up, and held her hand out to Bra. After just a moment's hesitation, the girl took the offered hand and let Amy lead her back into the bedroom that she'd just left.
"I have to find Pan," said Bra, even as Amy started tucking the girl in.
"Don't worry about that now," Amy responded. "You've had a long day, and you need to get some sleep." She smiled at the little girl, before standing up and walking towards the door. "Everything's going to be okay." With that, Amy turned off the lights and closed the door. She walked back into the living room.
"She's taking this remarkably well," Luna observed.
"Yeah," said Mina cheerfully. "I don't know what I'd do if I woke up in a completely different world with no memory of how I got there." Each of the girls nodded, agreeing with the girl.
"I'm worried, you guys," said Amy. "What if the Negaverse comes after her again?" Silence settled over the group. It was almost unbelievable how quickly Amy had taken up the role of big sister. "We should be careful."