The Last Warrior

Chapter 13: Mechanical Foes

By: Daniel Graffio

April 25, 2005

"How many bases is it now?" Kane asked sitting on his throne, his tone not hiding his seething anger as much as he had hoped. The underling who stood at the bottom of the stairs could barely make an audible answer, but upon seeing the look in his master's eyes, he somehow was able to speak.

"T-Ten in the last 3 months sire." he squeaked. Kane was motionless for a moment, staring out into space. Then he turned his gaze back to the frightened soldier.

"And who has now joined him?" Kane asked, his voice almost a deadly whisper.

"G-General DuVrey." the soldier stammered, praying to every god he could think of that he wouldn't be killed for this news.

"Get out of my sight." he said. The soldier moved as quick as if Kane had been firing blasts at him all the way out. As soon as he was gone, Kane turned to Zenyu.

"I'm beginning to regret not killing that boy when I had the chance." he said.

"Shall I hunt him down for you master?" Zenyu said, bowing slightly.

"Not yet," Kane said, a bit distractedly, "This boy has had a lot of time. Give a Saiyan enough time and they can be quite dangerous. Lord Freeza learned this the hard way."

"Might I suggest something master?" came a voice that seemed to rise out of the stair halfway towards Kane's throne. It was the voice of Delar, Kane's chief scientific mind.

"What is it?" Kane said, half-rising from his throne. Delar usually only addressed Kane personally when he had something very interesting to report.

"Sire, do you remember when I informed you that our scouts had found the ruins of an old laboratory in the mountains to the west?" said Delar, smirking.

"Yes." said Kane, leaning forward.

"Well, then as you no doubt also remember, inside this lab were blueprints and files for some amazing technology. The human to whom the lab belonged possessed a genius that rivals even my own." said Delar, the last point sounding almost like an admittance of failure.

"Get to the point." said Kane, who did rise from his throne now.

Delar bowed a bit in apology, and continued.

"Well, part of this was plans for some rather powerful Artificial Intelligence fighters called Androids. Upon closer inspection, it seems the scientist had invented them for the main purpose of solving a problem that mirrors your own."

"He made them to kill Saiyans?" Kane said, his eyebrows rose in interest.

"Yes my lord. It's not known if they succeeded in killing any of the ones on this planet, but at the very least, they might be useful in drawing our Saiyan out and gauging his power."

Kane sat back down on his throne, and rubbed his chin. A few seconds later he smiled and laughed his cold laugh.

"Very well Delar. Use them. But make sure their orders are to kill the Saiyan. If he does die, than it's all the better for me."

Slade wiped the blood from his lip; it was only a small cut. He looked over to Nax, who was sporting a much larger cut on his temple. Slade enjoyed sparring with Nax, as he was one of the few people who could last as long as Slade could in a fight. Of course this didn't stop Slade from asking,

"You sure you wanna continue?"

"I'm fine." Nax said, smirking. Slade smirked back at him, and leapt back into battle. The gravity in the chamber was at 100G, and though Nax was wearing the anti-grav belt, he was still put on the defensive from Slade's attacks. Nax was able to counter every one of Slade's moves, and then finally land a kick to his stomach. Slade doubled over from the force of the kick, which allowed Nax to punch him in the face. The Saiyan fighter arched in the air from the punch, and Nax took the opportunity to spin in midair and attempt another kick to the stomach. Before his foot had made contact, Slade zanzokened out of the way and behind his opponent, kicking him hard in the back. Nax fell forward and landed hard on his face, but using his own momentum was able to get back to his feet and take to the air. Slade looked at him, ready to follow, and then saw Nax was charging an attack. His whole body seemed to be glowing with his reddish ki, as if Nax were on fire.

"Energy body!" Nax yelled, and he seemed to split into two, one being normal, the other made of ki. The being made of Nax's ki flew straight towards Slade, who dodged it easily. The thing wasn't done yet, as it turned in midair and attempted its kamikaze run again. Slade managed to avoid it on two more passes.

"Well, seems it's not gonna run out of steam." Slade thought, "Better hit it head on."

Slade dodged the attack again, and as it turned around to fly back at him, Slade put his hands to his forehead, palms out. His ki gathered, and just as the ki being was making his way back, Slade released it.

"Masenko-AA!" Slade yelled. The two attacks collided with each other and exploded. Slade was glad the training room had been extra fortified, and that he was so exhausted. Nax seemed to be too, as he landed next to Slade and sat down on the ground.

"Call it a day?" Slade said him.

"Deal." Nax said, laughing.

"That was some attack." Slade complimented, sitting down with him.

"Thanks," Nax said with a smile, "Takes a lot out of me though. Not only making it, controlling it is hard too."

"Not surprising." said Slade, whose stomach gave a loud growl at that moment. "Wow, I am starving."

Nax froze a bit. Anyone who watched Slade eat knew it was second only to watching him fight in terms of sheer unbeliveability. This time was no different. As soon as Slade got to the cafeteria, he was brought a massive amount of food, which he seemed to inhale in about five minutes.

"That was a good snack." Slade said, patting his belly. "Who's in the kitchen today?"

"I...I think it's Eve's turn." said Nax, trying to hide his single bowl of ramen from the black hole in human from sitting across from him.

"Oh, really?" said Slade, almost in a daze, "She sure can cook huh?"

"Adding to her ever growing list of charms correct?" said Nax almost off-handily, though he was giving Slade a definite teasing eye. Slade was going to respond when the alarm began to sound loudly throughout the base. Both Slade and Nax stood up quickly and ran off to the comm. room. The rest of the active fighters were gathered there.

"What's going on?" Slade demanded.

"Someone or something is attacking the city right now!" said Page.

"I haven't sensed any hostile ki, something's not right." said Slade, half to himself.

"We didn't sense anything either Slade." said Kado.

"Well just the same, we're going." said Slade, then he turned to them all and said, "Ena, Una, Glenn, and Kado, you four stay here and guard the base. This could be a ploy to find out where we are, if it is, I know you can hold out long enough for us to get back. Guldan, Alex, Nax, Aiden and Eve, you're coming with me, and we're gonna find out what's going on."

"Yes sir." said everyone.

They arrived in the center of the city shortly afterwards. It was in mostly in ruins, but thankfully it seemed most of the people had got away. There were some deaths, and numerous injured to take care of. Slade clenched his fist at this and wondered why someone had done this. Slade found the least injured person he could, a middle-aged man, and asked him what happened.

"I-I couldn't really see who it was, everything just happened so fast. I know there were two of them, and I thought I heard one of them say, 'This ought to flush him out.'"

Slade froze a bit at that, he knew who "him" was, but that didn't solve the mystery of who it was trying to find him. Slade didn't have long to think though as he felt something coming at him very fast. Slade turned around quickly, knocking away the approaching energy blast with a swipe of his hand.

"Slade!" yelled Eve, she came up to him quickly, joined by the rest who had come. They looked towards the direction of the blast and saw two people walking towards them. As they got closer, Slade could see that one of them was a young man with long black hair, and the other was a short and fat little man with bone-white skin.

"Nice reflexes you have Slade." said the young man. "I'd expect no less from a Saiyan."

"You seem to know me." Slade said in his deathly calm voice, "How about you tell me who, or what you are. I don't sense any ki from either of you, so there is no way you can be human, or even living."

"Correct." said the young man, smiling a wicked smile, "We're not humans or living, not technically anyway. We're androids. My name is Android A; my companion here is Android B."

The fat little man smiled wickedly as well.

"What do you want?" Slade asked, his voice rising.

"We have been sent by Kane to kill you." said B in a robotic voice. "Though we didn't know where you were, so we decided to make you come to us."

"By hurting all these innocent people?" screamed Eve indignantly.

"Exactly." laughed A.

Eve almost leapt at them herself, but Slade stopped her.

"If you want to fight with me fine, but let's do it outside of this city. I think the people here have had enough of you for one day.

"Sounds fine to me." said A, "Lead the way."

Slade's ki flared around him, and he flew off quickly, the rest of the Z warriors and the androids following close behind him. They had been flying for about 5 minutes when Slade landed in a rocky canyon. His friends landed behind him, staring down the androids landing a few feet in front of them. Slade took off his sword and coat and dropped them to the ground. Not looking at his friends behind him, he said.

"I want you guys to stay out of this. It's me they want."

"But Slade..." Eve began, then she felt Nax's hand on her shoulder.

"Leave him alone Eve, he'll be alright." he said, then added in a whisper in her ear, "First sign of trouble, we rush in there and take them out."

She smiled without looking at him, and nodded to show she heard him.

"Let's get this started shall we?" said A, "Your first opponent will be Android B."