If The Future Holds -
Book One: Fire With Fire
By Moonraker One
copyright ©
2004 Moonraker One. All rights reserved.
All Dragonball Z characters are trademarks of FUNImation and other respective companies
This book may NOT be altered or sold
CHAPTER TWO
Light came streaming in through a thin line that extended across a visible field, slicing in half the pitch blackness. As it became brighter, Bulma opened her eyes and as the colors returned and the image sharpened to fullness, a single piercing thought raced to the front of her mind: W...wait, I'm...alive?! It almost seemed like a cruel act of fate, that she live and die paralyzed from starvation instead of being with her son right away. At that particular moment, what seemed to be an act of God told her that perhaps she wouldn't die of starvation after all: she twitched her finger. She didn't turn her head to see it twitching, but her brain kept telling her, Girl, you can move your finger! She clenched and loosened her entire right hand; when it didn't surge in pain, she lifted her entire right arm to where she could see it without moving her head, and again, no pain. She'd soon discover that not only could she move her arms, but her entire body as if her spine hadn't been crushed by a thirty-five foot fall onto a hard concrete floor. A question emerged; how, considering the circumstances, could such a thing be possible?
It was about that moment she noticed it.
In her otherwise normal field of vision, two particularly new additions jumped out at her: two distinct meters. In the lower corner of her vision, there was one tiny vertical bar that seemed more like a horizontal blip, and a separate vertical bar that rose high above the first one. They were small, and each a different color. Next to them were numbers: six for the first one, eleven million for the second one. Each bar also was labeled: Natural Ki, and Artificial Ki. Confused, she forced her entire body to a standing position, and marveled at the fact that her aging bones didn't feel the least bit rough on the uptake. That alone made her all the more apprehensive; she hadn't felt this alive in some ten years. Moving her hand behind her head revealed that her cracked skull had been repaired completely. According to her internal clock (whose presence caused her more concern), only four minutes passed since she fell. Her mind ruled out all possibilities save for two: either she was dead and in a warped heaven, or the nanites worked.
Her mind banked on the latter.
While she looked around at her surroundings, a mesage appeared directly in front of her field of vision, it maintaining its translucency in order not to block her vision. It read, Combining program data with memories from neuron connections:, below which was a progress bar that seemed to shoot from zero to a hundred instantaneously. She found, the instant the message vanished, that she knew how to work the nanites according to her will. She decided to give it a try. Show martial arts programs, she commanded mentally.
None available from motion capture, her system responded instantly, Therefore, default martial arts program is opened. Activate?
Yes.
Mode?
Highest available.
Default program activated in Expert Mode.
Almost immediately after seeing the message pop up and then vanish, she knew at least ten years' worth of skill, although she'd never fought a day in her life. She came to the conclusion that the only thing to do from this point forward would be to use her newfound abilities in order to kill the androids. Activate all knowledge on usage of artificial ki, she told her system.
Activated. Initiate Natural and Artificial Ki Sensors?
Now THAT was something she didn't expect. She knew that warriors could sense people's ki, but she never knew a radar could be built that would allow the detection of artifical spirit energy, activating both nevertheless. Yes.
All sensors activated. CAUTION: Two artifical ki signatures reported, one rating at thirty-five million, another rating at forty million. Raise artificial ki level to equalize?
In her mind, she felt where the two androids were. Apparently, Juunanagou and Juuhachigou were thousands of miles apart; it seemed that they decided to go in search for Humans in separate districts. The earliest Juunanagou could come to the aid of his sister would be twelve minutes, and that'd be more than long enough for Bulma to get what she wanted; information. Clutching her fists at her side, her aura caused by her artificial energy flared up as her power level surged to thirty-eight million. Of the android twins, the sister decided to search the ruins of West City for humans still alive, while her brother went up north to the colder districts. Juuhachigou had the less power of the two, so she'd be the first target.
Juuhachigou lifted slab after slab, eager to find people she could maim and vaporize, but she and her brother had already done enough damage; she found only a scarce one or two, here and there. The most fun she had was when she found a family of three underneath a ruined building, but even that only gave her a few minutes worth of action. Maybe, she figured, that game where she and her brother ran humans down with cars was more fun than searching.
WHOCK!
A flying kick nailed her directly in the back of her head, propelling her through about six different piles of rubble. Getting up, the female android searched all around, shouting her question into the air, "WHO THE HELL DID THAT?!" Then her eyes set on the figure approaching her. B...Bulma?! the question lingered on Juuhachigou's mind; for all she knew, the human scientist was nothing more. Since when did SHE learn how to fight!? She barely dodged a fist that sailed directly at her face, but couldn't dodge a kick aimed at her side. Bulma, taking initiative, sent a rising knee at the android's chest, which sent her back a few meters. Her next assault was a rapid flurry of punches that slammed into their target with powerful malice. For Juuhachigou, she could hardly believe that the woman whose house she helped ransack could fight back against her not even a couple days later. Bulma's primary goal in this particular moment had two particular motives: mainly, she wanted to motion-capture the female android's fighting style, and secondly, she felt that she could at least put some fear into the duo that took her son away from her. The blonde-haired Juuhachigou saw an opening in her opponent's assault and countered with a kick to the side, which unfortunately for her, didn't break the cycle of attacks coming from the scientist. Bulma could sense that she greatly outmatched Juuhachigou, so she used that information to her advantage in the form of an axe-handle smash that sent the blonde cyborg through several buildings. She made sure she pursued the droid no matter where she went, for this time, the tables were turned and the prey became the hunter.
"How...How'd you possibly get this strong!?" Juuhachigou's demand of a question brought a grin to the face of Bulma. Instead of giving an immediate response, she made sure to first move quickly over to her opponent's position and throw a jab to the stomach that caused a decent amount of pain.
"You wishing you were more powerful, all of a sudden?" Bulma said, lifting her opponent off the ground by her neck. "Suddenly, you're not as cocky as you usually are? I'm slightly disappointed; you kill my son, but here you are, losing to me. That just blows my mind ."
Motion capture complete; saving information on Juuhachigou's fighting style.
Excellent, thought Bulma. Use fighting style on Juuhachigou to predict future actions.
Affirmative.
Bulma threw her opponent to the ground, and with her eyes, flashed a blinding light that allowed her enough time to escape. Even if the blonde android went to Capsule Corp., it would be useless now that sleep no longer was needed. Flight, a new action for Bulma, made her feel more alive than she'd ever been.
Juuhachigou took it upon herself to find her way to her brother in order to tell him the news. That is, when her vision returned, she would. Once she could properly see again she flew north with all the speed that she could muster. What she didn't understand was how exactly could a woman who'd never fought back before suddenly wield power greater than one of the two most powerful people in the universe? The blonde-haired cyborg couldn't comprehend it; if she had the power earlier, why didn't she use it quite a bit ago? No, she figured, if Bulma had the power earlier, she'd certainly have used it a while ago, or at least before her son Trunks got killed. That meant that she had to have developed a method of getting the power on her own. Juuhachigou cursed herself for not ensuring that all the potential saviours of the world were killed.
Juunanagou finished his run of destruction upon a small northern village, slowly and painfully killing every citizen of the four thousand person population. He almost headed off in the direction of another village further north when he turned to see his sister, who'd visibly taken quite a beating, zoom in. From her torn clothing and scratches on her face, she'd been given a good run for her money. The thought of someone being actually strong enough to take her on seemed strange to him.
"Juuhachigou!" he shrieked. "You got the shit beat out of you! Who did this?!" Although his abnormal sense of caring took her by surprise, she did not care except to tell him the truth as soon as possible.
"You won't believe me when I tell you this..." she began.
His mouth turned downward into an angry frown. "Try me."
"Bulma did this to me. She somehow was really powerful."
Juunanagou really couldn't help himself at the sound of that. "You're kidding. What, were you knocked over the head by a falling building, or something?!"
"Brother, I'm NOT lying! Come with me to Capsule Corp., and I'll show you!" His lack of belief over her statement upset her, because both of them knew that neither of the two androids ever lied to each other.
"Fine, let's go. I still don't believe that woman can fight, but I'll take your word for it."
At the ruins of Capsule Corp., Bulma instinctively noticed that she had both of the androids headed in her direction. Neither of them could sense exactly how powerful she was at any given moment, thus she thought of a plan that could possibly buy her a little more time before she made her move. On her mental radar the duo rushed as fast as they could to get to their destination with little time wasted. The entire way there, though, the two androids argued with each other over every detail of how such a simple human woman could possibly gain the degree of power Juuhachigou said she had in such a small period of time. Bulma snatched a small fake blood caplet from her halloween supply cabinet (which hadn't been opened in years), and slid it under her tongue in case they decided to fall for her plan.
Sure enough, a banging was heard promptly followed by the door being forced open. In stormed the two androids, Juuhachigou thinking she was finally going to prove her point to her brother, Juunanagou thinking that this whole thing was a gigantic waste of his time. Bulma made sure to put on her best angry look, while inside, she was jumpy out of eagerness to fight the two.
"So, you decided to be like a cockroach and stay around?" he asked, driving his knee into Bulma's gut. She acted as though it hurt, even going as far as to crush the blood caplet in her teeth and splurt fake blood on his black shirt. He wiped the fake red stuff off with disgust, taking offense to it and uppercutting her in the face, sending her sailing over the couch to slam against the wall. She was no idiot; she kept her eyes shut and played dead, and despite all her opinions, it worked. Juunanagou looked at the woman and at his sister, whose jaw seemed to hang out of confusion. "Sis, look. She's pathetically weak. She couldn't possibly have beaten you up!"
"Dammit, brother!" she yelled, then noticed she was two inches from his face gripping his collar, so she released him and backed off. "I'm no IDIOT! I think she's lying, but the fact is..."
Her brother cut her off. "THE DEAL IS..." he interrupted, suddenly becoming angry, "that you're wasting my time with this bullshit!" He began to storm away. "You can find your own colony of humans to destroy; don't come near mine." Shooting him an angry look, and the bird, she watched him leave.
"FINE!"
Once her brother was completely out of shouting range, Juuhachigou whipped her body around to face the woman who pretended to lay unconscious against the wall. She took the woman by the neck, and lifted her off the floor. "I STILL think you're a lying piece of..."
She found herself interrupted mid-sentence by a vicious elbow to the gut, immediately followed by a right hook to the face that sent the android stumbling backwards. "Don't you love it?!" egged Bulma. "All these years you and your brother kill whomever you please, and now I'm outmatching you."
"YOU THINK IT'S FUNNY, DON'T YOU!? LET'S SEE HOW MUCH YOU LAUGH IN A FEW MINUTES!" Juuhachigou angrily took a swipe at the middle-aged woman, who ducked beneath it easily. On the uptake, Bulma violently shoved her fist into the female android's stomach, forcing a tiny spit of real blood out her mouth. The blonde android tried an uppercut, but the fist was caught midswing, and her entire body got launched against the far back wall.
"You're running out of options, android," Bulma explained. At her middle back, a small bulge appeared, from which a tube-like tail complete with a pointed stinger at the tip emerged from it. Juuhachigou almost screamed at the horror she was witnessing. Instinctively, she tried to run, even a few feet would help her evade the woman, but with her speed, Bulma kept appearing in front of her. Throwing a punch at Bulma, the android threw her off just long enough to bolt for the door. Out into the outside world, she felt free. She felt free to continue her reign of terror, she kept her eyes on the mostly-ruined Capsule Corp. building as she dashed on.
BUMP.
Turning her head around to see what she bumped into, Juuhachigou saw Bulma, and she saw the stinger on the tail open up wide like a vacuum cleaner hose. Then she saw darkness as her entire body got sucked up into the tail as though she were a piece of dirt.