Ahhh, this took so long, sorry! I think the only business I have to attend to is my lovely reviewers (feel free to berate me if I have forgotten anything).
Talysmin, this is just for you, everyone else, take it or leave it, it has nothing to do with Misery, it was posted for Talysmin who was complaining about…well…having nothing to complain about.
Onece upan a thyme there was a grl named Usage. This grl was infininatly beautiful, infinatly powerfill and enfinatly wise and everbody loved her, or soo she thought. One dey, after having lunch with the outers, who were all infenatly perfect and loving, she went to a meating with the inner senshshi. Whan she arrved there she herd many strange grunts and moans coming from the tample. Usagi, being the conscientious grl she was, thought someone was in trouble and bolted up the stares. What she found there was a mass orgy with hundreds of people and right in the center was Mamory with many naked women clinging to him., including all the inners, Molly, some girls she had never seen before, a couple of three year olds and two or three women who couldn't have been younger than 90.
"W-what is this?" Usage asked, hororrified.
"Just a welcomeing party." Mamory smirked. "We've decided to tell you that we all hate you ." everyone int the room paused what they were doing to nod there heads. "And that Marge is our new leader." Mamoru pulled a woman who looked to be about 110 out of the crawd.
"Now be a good little grl and hand over the crystal." Marge cackled, smiling and evil, toothless grin.
Usage, being the perfect human being that she was, quickly got over her amazment and horror. "No." she said, looking strait at Marge. "You have all betrayed me and you will pay!" Usage then blinked very deliberately and everyone in the tample died in a flash o fire and brimestone.
Suddenly Sestuna appeared with a very long list in her hands. Stepping over the charrred bodies she began to speak very rapidly. "Hello princess, I've come to send you to your true home where you'll find…" Sestuna held the piece of paper up to her face, "ah, your father, your brother, your reel scouts, your son, your true love, your aunts uncles and cousins, your grand father and, oh yes, you will save the world. Buy now!"
There was a flash of light and suddenly Usage was plummeting to the ground. But of course, being the amazeingly graceful being that she was, she managed to piroette, sommersault, make a pot of tea and save a school bus full of orphans and nuns all before landing with cat-like grace on her feet in the middle of a battle.
Immediately she sent an army of pink fluffy pink bunnies to devour the monster. She then turned to the group of people who had previously been fighting and the crowd that had gathered to watch.
"Father!" she cried as she hugged one of the men. "Brother! Grandpa! Grandma! Auntie! Uncle!…" this continued into the night and well into the morning until she finally finsished with "Third cousin once removed!" buy this time she had hugged everyone who had gathered, all except for a short man sulking by himself.
"Don't touch me!" he grumbled when she walked up to hym.
Usage quirked a perfect eyebrow at the man who only came up to her shoulder. "And what are you going to do about it little man?"
His andger flared as she continued to speak.
"And dear heart that spandex is much to revealing for you, it's far to easy for the whole world to seen that your not…er…very well endowed."
In fury Vegeta attacked her, butt the all powerful Usage swatted him away like a fly.
Then, suddenly, they fell madly in love and Usage discover that they were really magical spandex that served to disguise his magnificence. So they all lived happily ever affter with Usage as the perfect leader of the perfect world and Vegita promising never to hurt a fly, or loose his temper, or yell at all, or train, or spike his hair, or be so short, or breate to much, or…
That was really long, I'm sorry, I just got on a roll. Does anyone know how hard it is to start typing and spelling right just after a page and a quarter of deliberately being atrocious?
Misty: I admit it, I'm addicted to commas! They're just so seductive with their dot, that little curve and that come hither pause! I need help! I need a support group, Comma-holics Anonymous, will you be my comma buddy? I can see the IMs now…
Niamh: Misty I need help.
Misty: Don't do it Niamh!
Niamh: I want to! I want to type a comma!
Misty: No. just calm down Niamh. You don't have to-
Niamh: But I need them!
Misty: No you don't!
Niamh: Yes!,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Misty: NO! Damn you commas! Damn you!
* sighs * I'm in a very strange mood today.
Niamh
Ten years had passed since the prince had gone back in time, ten years and so little had changed. After a few tries he had finally been able to defeat the androids, but it had been an empty victory. Trunks' little jaunt through time had fixed nothing; he had succeeded only in tearing the two timelines apart, when he returned home his world was still destroyed.
There were some survivors, of the billions that had inhabited the earth about two hundred remained. He and his mother had gathered them all into a single walled city and formed a community. Slowly their numbers began to grow.
The people had elected Trunks as their leader, deaf to his claims of incompetence. Once his mother accidentally let it slip that he was a prince they had gone wild and he was trapped. They wouldn't leave him alone so Trunks grudgingly accepted the responsibility, hoping that their love of him would die out quickly. It did not. Ten years had passed and he was still sitting in a dull gray room every morning, slouched in his chair as his advisors droned on about things he didn't want to know.
The prince was simply burnt out. He had held sole responsibility for this world for thirteen years, ever since Gohan had died. For thirteen years he had held this world on his back and he was tired, he just wanted to rest. But no one seemed willing to let him do that. Impatiently he blew a strand of lavender hair out of his face, he closed his eyes and lett the advisors dull, shaky voice wash over him and drift away. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. Laundry, he was talking about laundry! Momentarily letting his temper get the better of him the prince shot up, knocking his chair over in the process.
"S-Sire?" the advisor asked, now visibly shaking.
Trunks passed a hand wearily over his face, this was probably the reason everyone was so frightened of him. Somehow he had grown into his father's legendary temper, though he could usually keep it in check. "I'm sorry," he said with a sigh, turning to right the chair behind him, only to find it had already been done. He clenched his fists and turned back, Trunks would never get used to being waited on hand and foot. "I simply fail to understand why I need to hear about the laundry." He finished, his teeth only slightly clenched.
"W-Well," the advisor stuttered.
"They are having problems keeping up," Bran cut in, "they've requested more help and a larger space."
Bran was the only person who seemed able to speak an entire sentence to the prince without stuttered or trembling. He was perhaps the one who really ought to be running the city, he knew far more about it than Trunks did.
"Impossible." The prince muttered sitting back down. "We're still low on housing, we can't add onto the washrooms until we catch up on that. As for personnel, tell them…tell them to work harder, all they do is wash for god's sake."
"R-Right." The advisor mumbled, flipping loudly through the pages of paper in his hands. "L-Lets see…ah-" he said, finally stopping on a page, "there w-was another disturbance, t-this time in s-sector four."
The prince flew out of his chair once more, but this time it was not out of anger, but out of urgency. "Like the others?" he asked, his voice hushed.
"Y-yes sir."
"I'm going to check it out." He said, walking briskly to the door.
"Your highness-" Bran started, catching his arm.
"I'm going!" the prince growled, wrenching himself from Bran's grasp. "I'll be back in a few hours." His voice had calmed considerably and had dropped to a chilly tone that made it clear that there would be no more discussion. He quickly left the room before Bran could say anything more.
Trunks could feel his anger slowly building as he walked among the squat stone houses. "Laundry," he simmered, "they told me about laundry before they mentioned this." Straining to keep his anger in check the prince ground his teeth and clenched his fists, trying not to look at the people who had crowded onto their doorsteps, their faces a mingling of fear and awe. Trunks was so busy not paying attention that he barely noticed when a small hand tugged at his curled fist. When the tug became more insistent he whipped around, nearly knocking a little girl off her feet.
"Sorry." He muttered, but she seemed not to have noticed.
"It's pretty," she whispered, pointing to the small sparks of power that were igniting around the prince.
Trunks sighed, struggling to cool his temper. "What do you want?" he asked, forcing his eyes to remain a clear, crisp blue.
"My mommy says you can fly." The girl said softly. "Can you?"
"No." the prince growled, trying to walk away.
"But you're the prince!" the girl cried, running in front of him, effectively halting his progress. "And you're a hee-ro, you stopped the andy- the andy- you stopped the robots, you can fly, you can!"
Trunks groaned softly, he'd been turned into some sort of nursery story, this was why he didn't use his true strength out in the open, it only served to bolster their awe of him. He looked at this little girl standing in front of him, she couldn't have been more than five, her eyes were slowly filling with tears as she insisted that he was a hero, faster than a speeding bullet, the voice of truth and justice, rob from the rich and give to the poor, someone these kids who lived in a world that stood on the brink of total annihilation, someone these kids could look up to, someone to give them hope. Trunks put a hand to his forehead and swore softly before he shot off into the air. As he sped away he could hear the little girl squealing loudly back on the ground.
As Trunks landed in sector four he could feel all his anger drain away to be replaced with a terrible weariness and a heavy sadness. There wasn't a building left standing, almost as if an enormous gust of wind had come and simply pushed the buildings over. There were probably people in there, he thought absently, trapped under the rubble. There were already people poking around in the wreckage, salvage crews and clean-up crews, picking over the disaster to see what they could save.
The prince had to lock his knees to keep them from buckling beneath him. Twenty-five people, an eighth of the population now lay lifeless in the dirt. Trunks walked slowly to the nearest victim and knelt by their side. There was no blood, no lacerations or evidence of any sort of struggle. It was a woman; she had long black hair and sea-green eyes. The only clue to how she died was the expression of terror fixed on her face.
"I beg your pardon highness," spoke a woman's voice beside him. Trunks looked up to see a woman squatting next to him, grasping a bulging bag with a number four stamped on the side. "I'm sorry sire," she said quietly, "but I need to take her clothing."
Trunks nodded slowly as he stood and stepped to one side. This woman hadn't stuttered at all while she spoke to him, but he knew better than to think that it was because she knew not to fear him. The woman was from the washroom; she was one of those who they sent out to collect the clothing off of dead bodies. Trunks had noticed that the people they sent out for that seemed to be more or less numb to all emotion, he wasn't sure they could survive doing what they did if they weren't. It sickened him slightly to watch as the collector carefully removed the dead woman's shirt, as she carefully avoided looking into the dead woman's face, into her wide, fearful, glazed eyes. Eventually he had to turn away or risk retching. He understood why it had to be done, their supplies were extremely limited, they couldn't waste even a single sock by burying it in the ground, but Trunks was thankful that he wasn't the one who had to do it.
Two hours passed before Trunks finally headed back. He had spent much of the time wandering aimlessly through the rubble, searching diligently for any clues. He found none. The wall around the city had not been touched, there were no patches of new stone, but immediately inside that wall everything had been torn up, buildings, gardens, even the stone paths. There was no way to make sense of it; the same thing had happened a week earlier is sector two. That raised the death toll to fifty, yet there was no sign of what had killed them, no blood, no poison, no survivors, nothing but fifty dead bodies that appeared to have been scared to death.
The prince flew home, for once not caring that someone may glance up and see him. Fifty people, a fourth of the population gone in a week and no clear reason behind it. He did not immediately return to his headquarters. Instead he headed toward the remains of Capsule Corp. Ruins, destroyed by time and androids, they lay just to the west of the town center, just to the west of his headquarters. He had not yet been able to tear them down, though he knew he should, these ruins were the only place he knew he could be alone. No one ever went there, they seemed to hold the same frightening power that he himself did. People refused to set foot anywhere near this place and so the prince had never destroyed them.
He headed to where the gravity room used to be. It didn't work anymore, the ceiling had caved in and even if it hadn't there wouldn't be enough electricity to power it, but the prince had cleared the floor of all debris and this was where he went to train. Trunks glanced longingly at the control panel for a moment before he stepped in. "Damn I miss electricity." He muttered softly. They'd had a generator at Capsule Corp that they'd been able to salvage, but all the power that produced went to the hospital and the water purifiers. The rest of the city had to make due with fire. His mother had created a new fuel, produced from resources more plentiful than trees to replace the wood that was quickly running out, but fire could not run a gravity machine or a computer, so people had to do without. Shaking his head slowly to clear it the prince began to release the anger that had built up that morning and the fury that had simmered just below the surface of his sorrow while he was in sector four.
By the time he had finished, Trunks was drenched in sweat and completely exhausted. He fell asleep in the ruins of the gravity room, alone under the starless sky.
I hope you all enjoyed that, I hope I didn't make too many mistakes. Anyway, review please, they brighten my day!
Niamh