Author: Nadz
Email: vegitto02 at yahoo dot com

Disclaimer:
The title "DragonTek" is owned by the author.
Any characters owned by the producers of Tekkaman, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT, or Rurouni Kenshin are, of course, the property of those respective individuals or companies. Any original characters are strictly owned by the author of this fan fiction.
The story line of the entire DragonTek series is also owned strictly by me.
This story may not be distributed to anybody without the author's permission. However, the author does encourage you to welcome your friends to read DragonTek on FanFiction dot net. Much thanks...

DragonTek (Part III: The Vengeance Saga)

Chapter 32 – The Aiba Family Story

Special Note: The story that Takaya tells in this chapter is almost identical to the one he tells in the original Tekkaman Blade anime. I just want to give credit where it is due.

The North African Coastline…

Gecko woke up upon hearing a small noise; it was still the middle of the night, and they were sleeping in an opening in the wooded area. The short man became a bit worried as he heard the sound approach closer and closer. Sitting upright, he estimated that the sound of footsteps came from about a hundred feet behind him. Turning around, he saw a small animal scurrying from a tree.

'Phew. I am worrying about nothing. I might as well get back to sleep,' he thought to himself, lowering himself back to the portable bed. Their master, Shinjo, had suddenly left them a little less than a week ago and had told them to stay put in that exact location, which is indeed what his crew did. They had collected only two Dragonballs since they had arrived on Earth from Io, and they still had five more to go.

'I wonder where Master Shinjo could be? He's been gone for too long,' he thought as he closed his eyes. This time, he heard a more terrifying sound, a sound of a screaming animal that was silenced almost as quickly as it was heard. Gecko jumped out of the bed and grabbed his weapon.

"Who's there? Come out where we can see you!" he demanded, yelling at the source of the sound.

"Hey, can you keep it down, Gecko? We're trying to sleep here," Rubiko's voice slurred.

"Rubiko, everybody, wake up! There's somebody here!" Gecko yelled. "Arm yourselves!"

With that, the rest of Shinjo's crew rolled out of their beds, yet rather quickly, and grabbed for their laser rifles lying under their beds. They put on their night vision goggles and looked at the direction in which Gecko was pointing. The men gasped in shock upon seeing the armored being hiding in the woods, staring right at them. It was somewhat slender, with good curves, and it seemed almost female. It had short oblique spikes along its arm, and it was gripping a lance jagged to excessive proportions.

"What in the hell is that?" cried Peric, another of Shinjo's crew, as he charged his weapon.

'There are ten of them in all. Not a bad size; that should be enough killing for now,' Blood chuckled to herself as she approached the men. With every step, she could see the fear grow over their faces as they powered their weapons. She felt a smile spread across her lips as she aimed her lance at them.

"I do not wish to harm you men," Blood called out as she reached the clearing. "I just want the Dragonballs in your possession. I know you have them, so don't pretend that you don't know about them."

"We aren't giving you any Dragonballs," Rubiko answered. "You should get out of here."

"Are we really going to fire?" the youngest member of the team asked. Blood looked straight at the boy and wondered how old he was; he couldn't possibly have been older than seventeen years of age. It would be a pity to end such a potential lad's life so violently as she was planning.

"Master Shinjo told us not to kill," the boy asserted.

"Yes, Junto, but we'll have to take it out," answered Gecko, who fired a powerful blast at Alena.

"That was not smart," Blood yawned as she stepped towards Gecko. "Only suicidal."

"Fire again!" yelled Gecko, and this time, all the men fired their rifles at the Tekkaman. Their blasts lazily bounced off her gleaming armor, and Shinjo's men froze in fear. Alena laughed sinisterly as she lunged for Gecko and grabbed him by the hair. Gecko let out a cry as Alena pulled his hair on the back of his head downwards, causing his face to look up at the sky. With a quick stroke, she jammed her lance lengthwise into his mouth, down his throat, and all the way into his intestinal region. With a quick stroke, Alena removed the lance from Gecko and whipped off its blood. The remaining men watched in horror as their comrade fell lifeless to the dirt. Turning towards the rest of them, Alena flashed a scarlet eye.

"Now, before the rest of you get hurt, give me your Dragonballs," she threatened.

"What happened was a nightmare… a dream so horrible that it hurts us even to think about it," said Miyuki, closing her eyes. It was such a frightful memory to her that she wished that she had forgotten it completely. In the turn of an hour, her entire life had crumbled before her.

"Six weeks ago," she started, "my family and I, along with ten other crew members, boarded the spacecraft Argos. My father led the mission – we were to fly to the outskirts of the solar system and collect samples from each planet along the way. It was when we approached the planet Saturn that 'it' appeared."

"It appeared?" Aki asked. "What exactly did you see?"

"What we saw was our gate to hell," interrupted Takaya, who remembered every detail – for he had never truly lost his memory but had lied about it. "Out of nowhere, a large ship, probably five times the size of our own, appeared in our scanners. We weren't too far away, and it wouldn't have taken long to approach it. At the time, my twin brother Shinya and I were manning the navigation controls. Miyuki was monitoring the life support systems on the ship, and my father Kouzou was giving out commands…"

flashback

"What in the hell is that?" Shinya asked incredulously. Never before had he seen a vessel that big; it had suddenly appeared near the ship. Perhaps a cloaking shield had protected it – surprising because it was considered difficult to cloak ships of its size.

"Is it alien, father?" asked the young man.

"See if you can get an infrared scan on the ship," came the order from Kouzou, a middle-aged man who was solid as a rock. Kouzou was a man of great respect and honor. His colleagues had deemed him as extremely intelligent yet humble. He was a man that loved adventure but also cared for the safety of the people around him. In this unfortunate case, his judgment had gone awry.

"There seems to be a lot of biological specimens on board but no movement. I doubt there's any intelligent life on board," answered Miyuki after getting readouts from the computer.

"What should we do now, father? I've already begun to… what the?" trailed off Takaya.

"It's drawing us in!" said Shinya in surprise. "Its tractor beam is too strong for us to escape."

"Try to get loose!" ordered Kouzou, now worried. The rest of their crew was resting in the hibernation chambers; damage to the ship would possibly cause great damage to the people sleeping inside.

"It's no use, Father," Shinya said exasperatedly as he desperately played with the controls.

"Be ready! Strap yourselves in," Kouzou instructed as the ship felt a sharp jolt. The tractor beam slowly pulled the ship towards the enormous mysterious vessel, and their craft docked next to an entrance. The four unbuckled their safety straps and examined the exterior of the craft through their viewing portal.

"Incredible…" whispered Shinya to himself. "We have to go explore it."

"Are you nuts?" asked Takaya, always the one to be careful and comprehensive before making a move. "We don't know what's in there. How do we know that we're safe?"

"We won't know until we find out, Takaya," Shinya replied with a slight grin. "Come on, I don't think we've ever had contact with aliens before; this is our first one. We'll be famous for exploring it. We're space explorers, after all. What do you say, father?"

"I think Shinya is right," Kouzou said, observing the surprised expressions on Miyuki's and Takaya's faces. "We were sent here to explore space, and we will be doing it. Besides, we are stuck to this thing, so we might as well find out what we are really stuck to."

"Father…" Miyuki responded, knowing that it would be hard to change her father's decision once he had made it. The only thing now was to be prepared for whatever is to come. "The protective suits are in the compartment just behind this room. Make sure you take your laser pistols."

end flashback

"Gecko! GECKO!" Peric screamed, tears blurring his eyes as he tried to digest the death of his older brother. He burned with rage and turned to the murderer, who chuckled and stared at him with scorn.

"Fuck you and the Dragonballs! I'm going to kill you right here!" Peric growled.

"I think it would be most fitting for you two to die together…" Blood said viciously as she lunged towards the younger man. Peric fired at her face at point-blank range, but the girl easily dodged the blast and grabbed his gun. She dropped her lance to the ground and used her free hand to pull the hair on the back of Peric's head, also causing his face to look up at the starry night above.

"… And in a similar fashion," she muttered as she turned the gun around and rammed its barrel down Peric's throat. Pressing the trigger, she let out a barrage of laser fire, completely burning her victim from the inside. The convulsing man was alive for a few more seconds – only to see Blood pull the gun out of his mouth and shoot him straight in the face. He fell into a dead heap, and Alena tossed away the pistol.

"By now, you must know I'm not kidding," Alena warned. "I want your Dragonballs now."

"I'll get them for you!" cried seventeen-year old Junto, shaking heavily from having witnessed murder for the first time, and such brutal murder at that. "Just please don't hurt anybody else!"

"Junto!" Rubiko yelled after the boy that ran towards the mound they had recently dug. "You can't just let her have the Dragonballs. We have to defend them with our lives!"

"Rubiko, Master Shinjo would rather give up the balls than see his own crew dead like this," said the boy as he reached the mound. He began to dig and soon unearthed a small cylinder they had buried, finding the three-star and six-star Dragonballs inside. He turned to look at Blood and froze. A crystal shell appeared around it as it de-transformed. In its place stood a very attractive young woman, who stared at the boy intently. Junto carefully walked over to the girl and noticed the gleaming sword in her right hand.

"Hey cutie, you are quite young, aren't you?" Alena chuckled, showing him her red irises.

"Here they are. Please leave from here!" he pleaded as his quaking hand held out the cylinder.

Alena took it, pleased to see two of the balls. Giru, on her shoulder, confirmed they were genuine.

"You got what you wanted. Now leave us alone," begged Rubiko, frozen with fear.

"I am really happy that you got me the Dragonballs," Alena smiled. "In fact, I'm so happy that I think we should celebrate, no? How do you men like to celebrate?"

"What?" asked Rubiko incredulously. This monster was not only vicious; she was insane.

"Just answer the question," she smiled thinly, placing the balls in her pouch.

"We celebrate with food, drink, and music," answered Rubiko carefully.

"Oh, I guess we truly are different," Alena sighed, appreciating the gleam of Kotukari in her hand.

"Different is an understate—"

"I like to celebrate by murdering the helpless."

"We were so stupid; we should never have boarded that ship," Takaya sadly sighed as he slammed his fist on the floor. "What were we thinking – entering that ship as if it was our own backyard? We had no idea what was going to happen, but when we did, it was too late to do anything about it…"

flashback

"Get ready for anything," Kouzou warned as they stepped into the foreign vessel's entry corridor. The passageway resembled a long tunnel; the walls were lined with a thick, solid greenish type of vine, and the air was humid and heavy. Down at the end of the hall was a source of light. Shinya readily walked down the tunnel, and the rest of the Argos crew, woken up by Miyuki, followed suit.

"What kind of life forms are these?" wondered Takaya out loud as he noticed thin rivers of pink-purplish ooze trickle down the wall. He reached out and touched it. "High levels of viscosity."

"Don't touch anything you don't need to," instructed Kouzou, and Takaya nodded. Upon reaching the end of the corridor, they stepped into a large, vast chamber. On the walls were dozens of spherical pods that emanated a soft pinkish light. The floor that lay before them was of a dark bluish color; it too seemed to be organic. Thick dark-green vines covered the walls and expanded up towards the ceiling.

"What the…" Kengo turned his head as he saw something creep in the distance. It was gone.

'Humans have made the job much easier for me. I don't have to go all the way to Earth to get my first samples; they have come to me,' Omega silently laughed to himself as he hid in the corner. Kouzou's crew continued to poke around the chamber, flashing their lights at any object they could find. A small cry distracted them all as they turned around and looked at the tunnel they came from.

"Behind us!" Takaya cried as he noticed the spherical pods from the ceiling swoop down. Shrieks of terror could be heard as each member of the Argos crew was swallowed by a unique pod, one by one. Kouzou was the first in his family to be captured. Shinya was next, followed by Kengo. Finally, Fritz too was swallowed. Takaya witnessed the expressions of horror and helplessness on the faces of his friends and family. Their mouths were wide open; they had been screaming, but their voices could not be heard.

"Run, Miyuki! Get out of here while you can!" Takaya yelled as he fired at the pod chasing his younger sister. He succeeded in severing it from the organic cables that bound it to the ceiling, but it was of no use. Another pod pursued her, who tripped and was quickly swallowed. Takaya screamed for her.

"You bastards!" the young man yelled as he fired his laser pistol at the oncoming pods. He was the last one of the crew left standing, and he would do everything in his power to free his family and friends. One of his blasts succeeded in immobilizing a pod, but another one knocked him from behind, causing him to drop the gun. Takaya turned around and shrieked as the pod swallowed him up as well.

end flashback

"Then, at least for a while, everything went black," Takaya said exhaustedly. He realized he was sweating hard and that his fists were so tightly clenched his nails dug into his skin. He heard soft sniffles around him and looked up. Miyuki was already crying, and even Kenshin had moistness in his eyes.

"Just like that, in a flash, Radam had seized my entire family," he said.

"I'm so sorry," Aki said, her voice quivering. Her eyes fully watered as she sat down next to him and held his hand. "I'm so sorry that had to happen to your loved ones and your friends."

"A soldier like you crying for me?" Takaya whispered to her, and Aki nodded. He reached over, wiped a running tear from her cheek, and lifted her chin up. "Thank you…"

"Those pods were Tekka-pods, part of the networked Tek-system used to transform its subjects into Tekkamen," continued Miyuki while Takaya caught his breath. "We sat helplessly in each of our own pods as we watched our comrades undergo the conversion process, which stretches the human body to its greatest limit. The body has to endure stresses that it had never seen, and only a few unfortunate souls would survive it. I remember seeing other crewmembers being spit out by their individual pods; their bodies were not strong enough to endure the conversion and were incompatible as a result. Anybody who was incompatible would die in a matter of minutes due to the fact that their energy was sucked dry."

"Those of thus that survived," Takaya cut in, "were damned enough to become Tekkamen. My brothers Kengo and Shinya had their humanity sucked out, making them completely brainwashed and fully loyal to Radam. They are soulless creatures now, war machines ready to fight, destroy, and kill."

"You're making it more exciting – like deer trying to escape from a hunter," she purred, noticing the men flee. Alena generated six energy balls and fired at them, roasting two and knocking the rest down.

"I finished off four of you, but six still remain," she said, appearing next to Rubiko and stabbing him through the side of his waist. The man realized that his wound, although painful, was not quite lethal.

"What… what are you going to do?" he stammered.

"Ever wonder what a baseball feels when it hits a foul pole?" Alena said. Using her strength, she swung her sword like a batter hitting a home run. The man flew off her blade and sailed high into the air, screaming as he saw the ground get farther away. Within seconds, he smashed into the trunk of a tall tree with a sickening crunch. Alena watched as he fell through the prickly branches and crashed to the ground.

"What!" she snapped to attention, realizing that a laser blast had severed the pouch on her belt. She watched in anger as the Dragonballs fell to the ground, and she turned her head towards the direction of the blast's source. "You, young one? I didn't expect such a bold move."

"You monster," Junto growled as he lay on his stomach facing her. He raised his arm and fired another shot from his pistol, but Alena effortlessly knocked it aside. "I hate you … I hate you!"

"You tried to destroy the Dragonballs, didn't you?" she asked, quite irritated. "You almost destroyed what I worked so hard for, kid. Do you realize that you just signed your own death warrant?"

"Go to hell, bitch," he spit towards her.

"I wonder about one thing, Takaya," Noal said politely, yet nervously, as he ran his hand through his hair. Takaya's story was really getting to him and hitting a nerve; he couldn't imagine what his friend had to endure. "How did you escape before getting brainwashed by the enemy?"

"The reason was my father…" Takaya answered.

flashback

The kind father grunted heavily as he landed onto the floor. Looking above, he realized that he had just been rejected by the system – which only meant that he had a very short time to live. Kouzou looked up and saw his family trapped; he could think of only one thing – being able to free his children.

'Takaya…' he thought to himself as he realized the person enveloped in the pod nearest to him. Seeing his son's laser pistol lying on the ground, he picked it up and fired at the pod, severing its ties to the ceiling. The pod crashed to the ground, spilling out its contents as well as the person inside of it.

"Takaya, are you there? Is that you?" Kouzou asked his son desperately.

"I'm here, father…" replied the young man, feeling disoriented.

"I've got to get you out of here, son," Kouzou said as he walked his son towards the escape shuttle nearby. The father saw the lavender ooze start to gather on the ground and approach the two, and he rushed his son into the airlock and pushed him into an escape pod.

"Son, the Radam are the vilest of races ever to exist. They'll continue to visit planets and enslave its inhabitants, just as they did with our family. They'll do this repeatedly, growing their numbers while conquering planets. I don't know why they are doing this, but they just are," Kouzou said exasperatedly. "Your brothers and sister won't be human anymore. You'll have to fight and destroy them."

"What about you, father?" Blade asked desperately, his voice choking as he saw his father shut the door between them. He soon realized that his father would sacrifice himself in order to let his son survive and escape from the ship. "What will happen to you?"

"I was rejected by the system, son, so my time is up. I'll soon be entering heaven," he gave a sad smile. "You, on the other hand, will be plunged into hell. It will be upon your shoulders to save the Earth from these monsters. Only you can do it, son… only you can…"

"Father!" Blade shrieked as he saw his father turn the valve, releasing the pod from its restraints.

"Good-bye, my son," Kouzou said softly as he looked sadly at his son. Within moments, the ooze enveloped him, paralyzing his body. Aiba Kouzou left the plane of the living via suffocation minutes later.

end flashback

"Before I knew it, I had just lost my entire family. I was drifting through space in a tiny shuttle, with the sun's gravity directing me towards itself, and Earth," continued Takaya, opening his eyes and noticing that everybody had been shedding tears. He turned to Miyuki, who gave a soft smile in response.

"Takaya…" Aki managed to choke, continuing to hold his hand. The man looked into her eyes and saw her pain and suffering – pain and suffering from hearing what he had gone through. Aki felt what he had felt. She knew exactly what he was going through, and she truly cared about it.

"The only thing I could think about while floating towards Earth was defeating the enemy," he continued. "When I arrived, I saw I was too late – Radam had reached before me and had begun their primary invasion. I transformed into Tekkaman Blade for the first time and began taking out the buggers. That was when I met the first of Omega's Tekkamen… Dagger. It was during that battle that I got pushed towards the Earth, causing that crater you and Noal found. I guess you know what happens from there."

"I'm so sorry…" Aki softly replied, trying to console him. Takaya gave her a soft nod.

"You psycho bitch… why are you killing us after we gave you our Dragonballs?" asked Junto, the seventeen-year old on the ground, with spite. "Why don't you answer me? Or don't you have an answer?"

"Oh, I have an answer for you, alright," Alena replied coldly. "You may have given me two of the balls, but that shows me you have a means of searching for the rest of them. If I let you live, you will find another one. If I don't have all seven, I can't make my wish. So that's why you all need to die. Get it?"

"So, you do have a reason," he growled. "I thought you were just killing us for pure pleasure."

"Well, that is part of it… Now why don't you tell me how to kill you? I ran out of creative ideas."

"How can you murder that boy?" another comrade yelled. "He has his whole life ahead of him!"

"To me, death is blind of age," Alena responded. "Besides, I know of a sixteen year old I still need to kill – my cousin. I won't hesitate to take his life… or yours. Take your death proudly, kid."

Junto, lying on his belly from the pain of her stun blast, pointed his pistol at her and fired. She deflected it and sliced off his hand at the wrist. Alena knelt and peered directly into his agonized, cursing expression. Tears of agony streamed down his cheeks, and she almost felt sorry for his unfortunate fate.

"It's better for both of us if I end your misery…" she said gravely… and fatally stabbed him. She looked at the corpse before her and fell silent, realizing that she felt no joy at the moment. Was it remorse?

She was soon distracted by another noise coming from behind her. It was another of Shinjo's men, struggling to speak into some sort of device. He was speaking desperately and almost unintelligibly.

'So…' she frowned. 'He's trying to establish communication with someone… that vermin…'