"Revelations, Repercussions and Robots Oh My!" By Ryley Breen AKA Shadow Master
email : rybreen@theberries.ns.ca
The Magic Shop, Sunnydale, 12:30 p.m
Buffy walked into the Magic Shop more alert than she had been five and a half hours ago but she was still tired and thanked whatever diety that was playing with her life that research was probably the only thing that she would have to do in the next while. She had seen the pile of things that Giles had managed to grab from Glory's safe before the whole place blew and hoped it would be enough to track the hell bitch down. Looking around from her position near the door she smiled at her ex-Watcher's consistancy as she saw that he had already started trying to decipher the clues Glory had left behind and had apparently been doing so for awhile. He already had three separate piles of books sitting on the table near the back of the room and appeared on the verge of getting more. Not wanting to interrupt his train of thought she walked up quietly towards the table and picked one book up at random to see if he had found out anything signficant so far in the time that he had been working. The book she was looking at had been written in a foriegn tongue so she couldn't make heads or tails of the words but fortunately, as was the case with most old books, they had pictures that were usually enough to help her figure the rest out. The one that she was currently looking at showed a figure in some sort of robe with his arms raised to the skies while some lightning seemed to strike something on the ground in front of him. Unfortunately the drawing did not show what was being struck and did not give any other clues as to where this had taken place since the background was fairly commonplace. It had the usual trees, caves and other things you would expect to find in a book this old and dusty which meant that it was probably one of Giles' favorites. Dropping it back on the table she winced as it landed a bit too loudly and startled Giles out of his train of thought almost causing him to drop his own book right then and there.
"B-Buffy! I didn't hear you come in." Giles stated as he tried to settle his recently startled nerves.
"Sorry, just one of the fringe benefits to training under Piccolo." , Buffy said as she picked up another book that had been left open, "It was *impossible* to sneak up on that guy! I tried forever and only managed to get within three feet of him before he turned aroun and knocked me across the room."
"Well, as I'm sure he has told you those ears of his are not just for show." , Giles replied as he looked back to the book he had been reading, "Besides you got closer than I ever could and that was at a time before he had absorbed Kami and Nail into himself."
Buffy was just about to ask him if he had managed to turn anything up on Glory's whereabouts but she was pre-empted by the sound of the front door of the magic shop opening up. Turning around the Slayer smiled as she watched the rest of the Scooby gang file in, Xander and Anya carrying what appeared to be boxes of donuts from the local bakery while Willow and Tara carried the coffee. Willow had already told her before she had left that they would be a few minutes late in getting to the Magic shop and now she saw why. It was pretty nice of her considering that all of them were still feeling the drain from the fight early this morning and a little suger and caffiene would be just the thing to perk them up. Once the coffee and the boxes of donuts were put down on the table the contents of both were quickly divided amongst those present and soon they were all relatively awake and comfortable as they waited to hear what Giles had managed to find out.
"So G-Man, what's up?" , Xander asked as he dumped the contents of a suger packet into his coffee, "Find anything interesting or are we back to pulverising Willie the Snitch?"
Buffy smiled at the expression of amusement on her friend's face, ever since he found a guy even more pathetic than himself to beat on he had been significantly more secure about his masculinity. That and the fact that interrogating Willie was something that wouldn't end up with him being a mess of bruises an hour later. Still for all the moments when he ducked for cover or tried to help out when he was clearly way over his head Xander was still one of the best friends she had here in Sunnydale. Still it was clear despite the sarcasm that he was as eager as the rest of them to find out what Giles had managed to find out from his research. Turning to the watcher she saw that he had only peripherally heard the Zeppo as most of his attention was focused solely on the volume that he held in his hands. Just then a sharp look of concern appeared on his face and faster than she had ever seen him move in his life he rushed over to a bookshelf and began to look for something. His movements clearly showed the urgency of what he had found out and this caused everyone to wait eagerly to find out what was so important to put the former Watcher into such a tizzy. It took awhile but eventually he seemed to find the book that he was looking for but when he flipped through it and landed on a certain page his face turned a distinctly pale shade. Slowly, almost distracted by what he he had discovered, he returned to the table where they were all sitting and placed the book down on the table. For the next few moments he said nothing and this only added to the tension in the room as the rest of the Scooby Gang waited for him to explain the reason for his current state. When nothing happened after five minutes Willow reached over and picked up the book that Giles had been looking at and tried to find what had disturbed him so, hoping probably that she would be able to tell the rest of them what Rupert Giles could not. Unfortunately as soon as she found what Giles had been looking at her face took on a pale look to it but slightly less which allowed her to look up from the book with an explanation at her lips.
"Um, we're doomed." was all that came out of the Wicca's lips before she looked up to Giles for some sign that they still had a chance.
"Will you two quit acting all foreboding and tell us already!" Anya exclaimed with irritation and a bit of fear in her voice.
Picking up the book that had apparently sounded the death knell for them Willow began to flip through the book until she came to a page with a picture. Once she was satisfied that the thing depicted was what she wanted she turned it around and placed it on the table for the rest of the gang to see for themselves. Illustrated on the page was a drawing of a gigantic chinese dragon that looked like it was five miles long since it almost blotted out the sky entirely. Below the dragon was a wizard and at the bearded man's feet were seven glowing spheres which appeared to be positioned directly below the dragon. Needless to say it did not take long for them to clue in and figure out what had caused Giles and Willow such distress because they too were beginning to feel like their days were numbered. After all Glory was difficult enough to deal with on her own but if she was after the dragonballs then matters had gone from bad, took a right turn a horrible and parked right in front of the house owned by Mr. Oh Shit! As it all hit them how much trouble they were all in the rest of the Scooby gang looked up at Giles and hoped that he had some wise and comforting solution to the problem. However all he did was walk over to the only free seat in the room, sit down and pinch the bridge of his nose as if he had the mother of all headaches.
This was *not* a comforting sign.
Taking charge Buffy stood up and said "Alright. So Glory's after the one thing that could make her all powerful and destroy the world. We can work with this."
"How?" asked Xander as he looked at her with a look that said he had full confidence in her but at the same time was resigned to a gorey and painful death.
For a moment it looked as though Buffy wouldn't be able to come up with an answer for them but then something apparently clicked in her mind and she seemed more hopeful of their continued survival.
"Well we know that once someone has used the dragonballs to make a wish they scatter all over the world." , Buffy said with her expression brightening as he train of thought continued, "So there's no way that she could possibly have found them all in under a month and besides she would need Bulma's dragonball radar to find them at all."
"Not necessarily, there are a few magical incantations that might allow her to locate them." , Giles stated but as soon as he saw the looks on their faces he immediately added, "Still we know that Goku's family keep at least one with them so chances are we would have heard from them if anything had happened."
"That's right a-and there's no way she could beat Goku, with him being a Super-Saiyan and all." Willow added to brighten the mood even further.
"Still it's a safe bet that she is hot on the trail of the remaining dragonballs and has had a month to look for them already." , Giles said as he stood up with a look of purpose in his eyes, "Willow I would like you to do a search on your computor, see if there has been any unusual outbreaks of insanity in Japan. If Glory is already there than she will have left tell-tale signs of her feedings behind as well as other evidence of her being in Japan."
"No problem." , Willow said as she got up from her seat, "Tara and I can also try to cast a spell to locate the rest of the dragonballs and see how many of them Glory has managed to gather already."
"Good. Buffy, try to get in contact with Goku and the others overseas." , Giles said as he was no doubt beginning to run through a list of books that might contain information about the dragonballs, "Even if Glory is not there yet it would be good to appraise them of the current situation and adivse them to keep an eye out for anything unusual."
"Gotcha." the Slayer said and without further adieu she went over to where the phone was located and began to dial the number Chi-Chi had given them during their first visit. Rupert inwardly groaned at the long distance charges this was no doubt going to cost him but assured himself that it was for a good cause.
"What do the rest of us do?" Xander asked as self-proclaimed spokesman for the left over Scoobies.
"Begin checking with the local airports for flights leaving for Japan in the next few days." , Giles said as he tried to think of something useful for them to do, "Also Dawn will have to be excused from school for a week or two since we'll most likely need everyone if Glory somehow manages to make her wish."
"Two weeks off school!? YES!", Dawn exclaimed in jubilation before seeing the ex-Watcher's look of disappointment, "I mean I'm sure I could learn a lot from this field trip, like how to speak Japanese and how to use chop-sticks."
This did little to dilute the look on the British man's face but at least it was enough to coax him into heading to the bookshelves to apply himself to his assigned task.
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Two Hours Later, The Magic Shop, Sunnydale
"Oh yeah! Well here's what you can do with your 'necessary authorization!" Buffy said as she slammed the reciever down onto the phone.
Unfortunately she had done it just a little to hard and wound up crushing the phone beneath her fist making her wince as she noted yet another thing Giles would have to replace. She had been trying for the past hour and a half to get through to Goku's house but had been blocked each time by some security person who insisted that she provide the proper authorization code. That was one of the problems when your friends lived in a scientists wonderland that happened to be sponsered by some of the most powerful companies in the world. Bulma had explained it after the who Garlic senior mess but she still found it a little hard to believe despite those capsule things the blue haird woman showed them all. Apparently a little over fifteen years ago a group of four Eurasian companies bought a large portion of land from the Japanese government and used it to construct something straight out of a sci-fi movie. It was supposed to be a testing ground for new technological inventions as well as seeing what affect the said inventions would have on people over an extended period of time. The Japanese government agreed on the condition that if any inventions that turned out to be a success the government would get a cut of the profits. From there on in things expanded exponentially with everything from flying cars to guns that would make a machine gun look like a B-B gun. Unfortunately that also meant that there was tight security involved, both on the part of the Japanese government and the four companies that founded the experimental city of the future. She had finally managed to get past the first level of security by saying she was some scientist who needed to talk to someone in the city but apparently they had traced her phone call and caught onto her charade. She had then been booted back out causing her to spend the last fifteen minutes trying to get through another way but all she had to show for it was a wish that she could blast someone on another continent.
"I take it that you had no luck getting through to Goku?" Willow asked as she looked up from her laptop.
After they had all been given their assignments the wicca had gone home to get the equipment and ingredients she would need to do her job. She had first tried to cast a spell with Tara to locate the seven dragonballs but that had turned out to be a complete bust. Apparently the energies being given off by the Hellmouth were interfering with the spell and caused it to fragment once the magick reached the ocean. With that no longer an option the redhead went on to hacking into the medical database of the hospitols inside the 'Future City' to look for any signs of Glory's feeding habits. It would take a bit longer to do than the spell since she had to be extra careful not to get caight by security but if anyone could do it Willow could.
"No! Those jerks in security wouldn't even let me get a message through to them!" , Buffy said with frustration as she plopped down into a vacant chair, "Any luck checking the hospitols?"
"Well there are ten large hospitols in the future city and so far I've managed to go through seven of them already." , Willow explained as she continued trying to hack her way into the next hospitol's database, "So far there haven't been any unusual outbreaks of wackiness but that could just mean that Glory's spreading her feeding around so she won't attract attention."
That did little to brighten the Slayer's mood, it could mean that Glory knew about Goku and the others since it would explain her caution but then again she might not be anywhere near there at all. Still the hell-goddess was hardly the subtle type, sooner or later she would do something that would let them know where she was and then she could finally put an end to that bitch's ways once and for all. Just then Xander, Faith and the rest of the remaining Scoobies came it with looks that said they had managed to accomplish their mission fairly successfully. Their job however was the easier one of the three since all it required was to check the closest airport for flights that would get them where they needed to go and were affordable enough for them to take. Still that wouldn't do them a whole lot of good if they couldn't get ahold of their friends overseas and arrange for *authorization* to enter the 'Future City'.
"Okay we've got a flight heading out to Japan tonight at 9 and another heading there in two days at noon." Xander said as he slapped a few airline brochures and other pamphlets that had the flight times written on them.
"Well then the only thing we need to do now is somehow contact Goku and the others so that we can get to them without causing a international incident." Giles said from his position near the book shelves.
"Well we can forget about just calling them up." , Buffy said with a frown, "There is so much security on the phone lines that it would take a week just to convince the guards to take us seriously."
"Maybe Willow could hack into the computors and put our names on the VIP list." , Xander said as he sat next to Anya whose attention was elsewhere, "Then we could just dress up spiffy and walk through the front door."
"Uh uh, that wouldn't work." , Willow said as she shut down her computor, "Even if I could get by their computor security I somehow doubt that we'd be able to fool them into thinking that we belonged on that list."
"We could always try a spell to teleport us to Goku's place." , Tara suggested with a bit of optimism, "Then we could get in and out without anyone knowing."
"A fair idea but teleportation spells are tricky and it would take a large amount of energy to teleport us all across so great a distance." Giles said with disappointment as another promising idea was tossed in the discard pile.
"Well we could always just get to Japan and Dawn, Faith and me could fly the rest of you to Goku's place." , Buffy suggested in a pondering tone, "After all we've gotten pretty good at flying around Sunnydale without being seen and I've seen Piccolo fly so fast that I couldn't see him."
"Yes but he is much faster than you are and I doubt that he has gone unnoticed by the security forces of the area" , Giles stated as he began to clean his glasses, "More than likely the only reason why Goku an the others are allowed to fly where they will is because the company and government officials involved know it would be unwise to anger any of them."
"Well I could show them how 'unwise' it is to anger me!" Buffy muttered under her breath in frustration.
Giles stiffened for a second as he thought he heard a bit of the Buffy that had turned the two demon's to ash earlier this morning in his Slayer's voice but dismissed it as fatigue. He had been somewhat alarmed at what had happened, as had no doubt the rest of the gang had been, but he had all but forgotten about it when she had returned to her usual self. Now however there was a nagging feeling that there was something more to it than he had previously thought, something that pulling at the folds of his memory as if trying to uncover something important. He shook his head an refocused on the task at hand, after all if what was nagging him was important he would more than likely come eventually if he let his subconscious do the work for him.
For the next few moments they all threw out ideas that might get them inside the privately owned future city but each one was more or less shot down. Willow had come up with an idea to make them all invisible which would allow them to sneak past the security but Giles had pointed out that most invisibility spells only made one so to humanoid eyes while leaving one vulnerable to mechanical ones. Xander had come up with the idea of trying to go through the sewer system like he had seen in some movie but that idea was shot down almost as fast as it had gotten airborne. Any sort of sewer system that the future city would have undoubtably would have been given a security system of it's own which made it unlikely that they would be able to circumvent it. All the while Anya was spinning something around on a long chain paying little if any attention to what was going on at the moment. Unlike the other Scoobies the ex-vengence demon was completely self-absorbed and the only thing that she could be said to actually care about was Xander. Even with that bit of decency to show for herself it was anyone's guess as to how far her feelings actually went and if it could be anything even closely resembling love. It was while the object on the chain was on an upward swing that he somehow came loose and flew through the air before landing on the table and sliding into Willow's computor. Annoyed a bit at how their meeting had been interrupted the wicca picked up the cylindrical object and prepared to throw it back at Anya but just as she was about to wind up for the pitch she stopped. She looked at the object with a look that made the word 'shock' seem like an understatement and carefully examined the object to be sure that it was what she thought it was and not a hallucination.
It was a grey cylinder like object with what looked like a button of some type at the top and a green band around it's center with the number seven on it in white. The button was not like the one you might find on the controller to a videogame system or even on a remote but more like a door handle. It stuck out of what was apparently the top of the cylinder and looked like you were supposed to press down on it and then release it. In her mind though Willow knew what she held in her hand and now more than ever wished that she could whack Anya upside the back of her head.
"Where did you get this?!" Willow asked with urgency in her voice.
"Android 18 gave it to me before she and Krillin went back home." , Anya replied in confusion, "What's the big deal? It's just a wierd key chain."
"This is *NOT* a keychain!" Willow said as she pressed down once on the button and threw it into the most open space she could find.
It hit the floor and for a moment the wicca thought that she had been mistaken with her conclusion but then there was an explosion of smoke that rushed out in a three feet radius. They all had to wait a few minutes for the smoke to clear but when it did the space that had previously been completely unoccupied was now almost completely filled up. From the spot where the cylinder had been a few moments earlier now stood something that looked like an arcade machine but much more advanced. It was a bland light blue color, the kind of color that you would find in a hospitol, and had what looked like a phone reciever and a set of numbered buttons in a square configuration where the joystick and action buttons would normally be on an arcade game. Everyone stood there with blank looks on their faces, as if they were still trying to grasp what had just happened before them but when it had finally sunk in they all turned to look at Anya with looks of incredulous disbelief that said 'Why didn't you tell us you had a capsule that could do that!?'
Her only reply was an embarassed "What?"
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Brief's Home, Japan, 7:30a.m(Japan time)
"What kind of crap is this woman!?" yelled Vegita as he threw the plate holding his breakfast across the room until it shattered against the wall.
"Hey! Money doesn't grow on trees Vegita!" Bulma yelled in reply as she confronted the Saiyan Prince on his latest actions.
Here we go again! thought Trunks as he silently as he watched his parents gear up for another fight, the latest in a log line that went back about as far as he could remember.
He wasn't worried though, nothing serious ever came of it and the two of them more or less made up afterwards so he didn't bother getting upset. Instead he just at his breakfast and randomly listened in on how the verbal sparring match was going in case it was going to get violent. Generally when that happened it was his job to handle damage control and try and catch everything that his mom or dad threw before it shattered or got smashed. Like his mom said money didn't grow on trees and while they were among the wealthy upper class he knew his father could render them bankrupt in a month if someone didn't step in and do something. Fortunately though this fight looked like it was just going to be one of those skirmishes that ended with one or both of them storming out of the room to vent their frustrations in a more satisfying way. For his dad that meant a five hour workout in the enhanced gravity room and for his mother it was a trip to the laboratory to work on some project or other that had up until then been neglected. In any case it was just business as usual in the Brief home and wasn't likely to change anytime soon.
"Beepbeepbeep"
Trunks turned around in surprise as he heard the sound of the long range communications console beeping and wondered who could be called them from so far away. He knew that his mom or grandpa usually used it to talk with the other companies that they worked with but he didn't remember hearing his mother saying anything about a conference call happening today. Looking over at his mom he waited to see if she had heard the beeping sound but after a few moments it became clear that she hadn't heard anything over the decible level of Vegita's voice. Shaking his head at the way that these two fought he got up from the table and went over to answer whoever was calling at this hour. If it was important he could probably get his mother's attention and give his dad something else to be mad at. Once at the console he typed in his personal access code and picked up the reciever that would automatically initiate the connection. The face that appeared on the viewscreen was not one he had expected to see at all but at the same time he consiberably brightened things up.
"Willow!" , Trunks exclaimed as he smiled at the redhead's face on the viewscreen, "What's up?"
"Uh..Nothing much. Could you get your mom on the phone for me?" Willow asked in a way that made it clear to the little half-Saiya-jin that she was hiding something.
"Okay, I'll see if she's free." Trunks replied as he lay the reciever down in a stable spot before heading over to where his mom was still yelling at his dad.
He wasn't sure if they would hear him with all their yelling but in all likelihood his mom would be so shocked at hearing that there was a phone call from someone they hadn't heard from in a while that she would immediately drop her shouting match with dad. Then it would be up to him to get his dad away before he blasted the communications console for interfering in his contest of dominance with his wife. It was one of the many downsides to having such a volatile father but the upside was that if he got in a fight then his dead actually praised him rather than scold him like his mother would.
Seeing an opening in their yelling he decided to make his move.
"Hey mom! Willow's on the phone for ya." Trunks said as he gave a gentle tug on his mother's shirt in case his voice alone was unable to reach her.
"What?! Willow?!" Bulma exclaimed in shock as well as inquiry before she left her position nose to nose with Vegita and headed towards the communications console.
"Come back her woman! I'm not through with you yet!" Vegita yelled as he started after his wife so that they could settle the matter of breakfast for good.
Grabbing his arm Trunks kept his father from pursuing his mom and just like he planned focused all of his father's attention on him.
"C'mon Dad! You said that after breakfast you'd spar with me in the enhanced gravity room!" Trunks declared with actual interest in his voice.
Sparring in the enhanced gravity room was one of the few things that he and his father did together and so it was one each of them enjoyed. For Vegita it was an oppourtunity to instruct his son on the proper way for a Saiya-jin to act and it also provided him with a way to vent his frustrations in a way that wouldn't blow up the planet. For Trunks it was a chance to learn some cool moves and spend some quality time with his father who otherwise he would only see at meals or when there was some crisis facing the planet. In this case however it was purely diversionary but that didn't mean that Trunks couldn't enjoy it just the same.
For a moment it looked as though the Saiya-jin Prince was going to toss his son through a wall but with one final frown in his wife's direction he nodded to his son and they left the kitchen.
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"Hey Willow! Howya doing?" , Bulma said joyfully as she smiled at the face on the screen, "God! It's been months since that whole Garlic thing got done. So what's up?"
"Uh...I was kinda callin' to ask if you'd heard of anything wierd happening in your area." Will replied as if she didn't know quite how to ask the questions she wanted to ask.
"Nothing out of the ordinary." , Bulma replied with a frown, "Why?"
For a moment Willow looked away from the screen but then replied "We think that maybe one of the baddies from Sunnydale may have decided on a change of scenery and relocated to Japan. Specifically your area."
"What's it look like?" Bulma said nonchalantly as she grabbed a notepad from a drawer next to the phone and looked ready to scribble down some facts.
This seemed a bit surprising to Willow, no doubt the wicca was expecting her to freak out and begin asking questions a a fairly rapid pace. However after all she had been through with Goku and the gang some ugly and smelly demon from California, USA was nothing. After all it couldn't be any worse than Cell or Maijin Buu and she had managed to survive that more or less intact.
Eventually Willow recovered from her shock and replied "Well she looks like a knockout blond woman but she's a total psycho that feeds off of people's nueral energy. You can usually tell where she's been by the sudden increase in the crazy person population."
"Okay got it. Crazy blond woman, sucks out neural energy." , Bulma said as she jotted down the information, "Any idea why she moved here?"
"Well we think that she's after the dragonballs." Willow replied.
"Oh, really?" , Bulma said with about as much concern as she would give what channel to watch on TV.
With every reply that Bulma gave she could tell that Willow was somewhat puzzled by something.
"What's wrong?" Bulma asked in curiousity.
"Well, you're sorta being a bit calm about having a hell goddess in your backyard." , Willow answered, "That isn't exactly normal."
"Hey, after all the Cells and Maijin-Buus that I've managed to live through one blond bimbo with a few screws loose will be no problem." , Bulma replied with an abundance of confidence, "So when are you guys comin' over here? I mean I assume you'll want to deal with this personally."
"In about two days, we'll be taking the 12 o' clock flight." Willow replied.
"Well then I'll see you guys later then." , Bulma replied
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