Saiyance
Disclaimer – It's not mine!
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"There! Right there! He has to be one of those people!" Judy asserted, pointing her finger on the screen display. She pursed her lips, remembering how little she had been when the Cell games had broken out, just like that kid with the black hair.
"I remember that kid. Man, my mother completely flipped at the idea of a little boy being allowed anywhere near… it. We thought they were locals or something. That bald one right there looks like some sort of monk, doesn't he?"
Melani played the video of the Cell Games slowly, pausing at every third frame to find an ideal angle of the kid's face, "And we're certain that's Gohan? No, he's way too young."
"He called him a brat. It's either that kid or the one with the lavender hair, and Talia knows a guy in her friend's school named Gohan with black hair," Judy reasoned, "She's sure it's him."
"Is there any way of contacting him?" Melani asked, distressed.
"Talia and the others are trying, but hardly anyone knows much about him and everyone is probably asleep right now. And he goes to Orange Star High, do you have any idea how far away that is?"
"Gaiger could be dead by now!" Melani hissed.
"You read what the board said, Cell is wanting to make a deal. He wants us to let him back into this world."
"He's using her as a hostage," somebody whimpered.
"You know what happens if we let him back through that stupid board? We die. All of us. He wiped out two whole cities, you were there," Judy seethed, "If we don't find this Gohan person, we can't help her, and we die anyway."
"What do you want me to do with this?" a blonde girl asked nervously, holding the large crystal ball.
"Don't touch that!" Melani and Judy yelled in unison. The blonde girl, jumpy as she was, dropped the ball at the sound of their screams. They all watched, horrified, as the ball fell to the floor like a frosted bubble, hitting the carpet with a spine-rattling crack.
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Gaiger struggled over the curved lip of the cliff-like slope, kicking an avalanche of pebbles and dust down behind her. Her hands were stinging horribly and her lungs hiccoughing out fine sand. The soft soles of her slippers offered no grip at all on the little bits of twig and root that she fought to plant her feet on. Gaiger yipped as she slid another foot and a half down the steep ledge.
"Unless you have advanced climbing skills and can abseil without a harness, my dear, I suggest you forego any thought of getting off this mountain unaided," Cell stated firmly from the other side of his prison bars.
Gaiger looked up at the android through her dark mess of hair. She gazed at all of the strange monsters confined within the barred cave and considered just letting go and falling.
"My dear, you are in hell; and the only way of any of us getting out of hell, is through your wonderful friends and their seance." Cell could see the doubt in the girl's eyes, "You are a hostage; my hostage.
And you should be grateful for that fact because I may in fact be one of the only sentient beings in hell that has your welfare in their best interests. Do you think any other of the damned are going to be sympathetic towards your situation?"
"You just want to shoot me!" Gaiger protested angrily, scrabbling to keep herself up.
"That is illogical; why would one shoot one's own hostage?"
Gaiger swallowed, and looked about for justification. She glared at Frieza; "He wants to shoot me!"
Cell surveyed the ice-jinn dispassionately; "Frieza is an insignificant being. I am far more powerful than him."
"Only in your wildest dreams!" Frieza snarled.
"Y-you won't shoot me?"
"I will not shoot you," Cell replied seriously, "I give you my word as an android."
Gaiger, not knowing if such a word was worth any amount of trust, bit her lip in consideration, "And you won't let them shoot me either?"
"It is in my best interests that you remain alive."
"I won't hurt you either," Recoome added positively.
"Neither, mate!"
"I won't kill the human."
"You're not worth my time or energy."
Cell decided to go that extra step, just to make sure the female didn't suffer another panic and accidentally run off the top of the mountain, and extended his pale hand in a gentlemanly fashion, his brow line raised in unassuming expectation.
Gaiger reluctantly pushed one slipper firmly into the side of the mountain, trying hard to heave herself up and the mountainside gave beneath her. The pyjama-clad girl clung to the moving chunk of earth as the mountainside screamed past her face. Gaiger's startled gasp was all she managed before the air was torn from her mouth and gravity thrust her downwards.
The slab of dirt broke and began disintegrating beneath her, the teen's arm grazing the jagged slope as it rushed past. She cried out in pain as a rock slammed into her hip and sent her spinning sideways. Her exterior felt numbed as she tumbled down further and further and with a jarring halt collided with the flat ground. Pebbles and little rocks rattled down after her. Gaiger groaned, but didn't move.
"Mez, did you hear something?"
"No."
"Oh," said Goz in confusion, "Must've been me."
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"What IS IT?" Erasa yelled into the phone. It was 5am for Kami's sake!
"Erasa! You go to Orange Star High, right?" someone asked on the other side of the phone, talking way too quickly for the one they had just woken up.
"Who is this?" Erasa moaned sleepily.
"Talia. Do you know anyone named Gohan?"
"Talia? What—yeah, I know him. Why? What do you want with him?"
"You know him! Do you have his phone number?"
"Tails, what's going on? Why do you want Gohan's number?"
"We need Gohan's help."
"Why? What's up?"
"Melani made us do a seance and we called Cell's spirit and then Gaiger vanished and we tried calling for her and we heard her screaming saying that Cell had her and was going to kill her if we didn't get him through the Ouija board the same way that Gaiger went through his way and he's going to kill her if we don't do something and Gaiger told us to get help and get Gohan!"
Erasa screwed up her eyes, "Hang on… a seance? What did you just say? …I'll call Videl."
"Videl? Hercule's daughter?"
"Yeah, she might be able to get her Dad to help… or maybe you should get a priest or something." This didn't make any sense!
"Gaiger said Gohan. Do you have his number?"
Erasa yawned involuntary, "N-no, but I'll be seeing him at school tomorrow. I'll give him your number and make him call you, promise."
"You've got to hurry, Erasa, Gaiger could be dead by now."
"Okay, don't worry, I'll ask Gohan what to do, and I'll call Videl. You find a priest," Erasa put the phone down and looked puzzled at it. Cell? Ouija boards? She hoped that they weren't just pulling her leg; if they were they were going to be in big trouble. She'd better tell Videl at school, just in case it wasn't real. Erasa glanced at the clock, and decided to get a little more sleep before it was time for school.
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Gaiger got up slowly and brushed the layer of dust off her pyjama top. The fabric was covered in dust and with holes and little cuts where they had snagged in places; a large rip on her arm had formed where she had grazed it. Bright red skin was lined with dirt that Gaiger tenderly wiped off with her other sleeve. She had liked those pyjamas, too. They were new, fitted ones… and the loose pyjama pants had been so comfy. Except now, that was, as they were covered in dirt. There were bits of vegetation in her hair—Gaiger pondered whether plants growing in Hell would be considered alive or not.
No matter.
She looked up at the mountain. It was so tall… surely a fall like that would have killed her. She looked up, but still couldn't see a halo, thank goodness.
'Wonder if I passed out… in Hell? Can you sleep in Hell?' Gaiger walked around the mountain, wishing to walk away from the prison without the aliens being able to watch her go by and fire at her. She shuddered at the thought.
Her eyes constantly wandered up the side of the rocky peak she had fallen from. There was definitely no way of getting up there again. What if Cell was right and Gaiger did run into something else that wanted to 'play' with her? Were creatures like Frieza common around here? Sure, they were locked up, but what was to protect the outside world, or for their own protection?
Gaiger shuddered and walked faster. No, nothing could possibly be more terrifying than that bunch; and why would Hell have protection for anyone? It was probably to stop them breaking stuff.
An hour or so of level walking, Gaiger found herself away from the open plains that surrounded the tall peak in which Cell and the others remained. And they could stay there! Gaiger sat down at the edge of a blood-red lake, testing the water with her hands. It didn't burn her or anything dangerous. She cupped another handful and cleaned the graze on her arm, staining her pyjama sleeve purple.
"AH!" Gaiger tumbled backwards as a cloud-like figure floated over the red pond. It hovered over the shimmering crimson surface, bobbing a little. Gaiger grabbed a small handful of pebbles and flung it at the cloud, for all the good it would do. The cloud paused and shook, little pebbles flying off it and into the red pond below. Gaiger watched it curiously, considering anything from Hell an immediate enemy. The little white cloud circled around the teen and Gaiger jumped into the lake, the water coming halfway up her calves, and was herded through the red water at speed.
Thankfully there were no sharp rocks in the pond. Gaiger ran clumsily over the smooth surface, ducking and avoiding the cloud, sliding without a care for grace or balance. The white fluffy thing whizzed over her head and forward towards a… carnival? Gaiger stared, entranced by the pastel colours of the leisurely rotating Ferris wheel. That looked like fun.
She stepped out of the pond and walked past the fountain spouting the red liquid. There were lots of little white clouds floating about, some with little hats or bows. Gaiger avoided them like the plague, but after a while of aimless wandering, found herself seated cross-legged on a park bench, licking away at an icecream. Gaiger looked down at her hands, re-examining the little cuts and scrapes that stung absently. 'I wonder if I'll have the courage to make my friends go through with it' she wondered, 'No, not courage. Temptation? No, I'll die if I don't. There isn't any other way.'
"Quite enjoying yourself, are we, my dear?" a familiar, smooth voice asked from behind her.
"How did you get out?" the teen asked with wild eyes.
"The usual way. The problem with escaping in this place is staying free; no doubt Frieza and his goons are blowing up everything they can find. Fools," Cell murmured.
"They haven't talked to me, if you're wondering," Gaiger muttered darkly. Cell was temporarily bewildered, but realised the girl was talking about her friends on the side of the living, not the terrors that plagued the dead.
True enough, the blazing figures of Guldo and Jeice flew over the pretty carnival, throwing bombs of burning light and fire at the cloud-people's habitat. The white alien Cell had called Frieza landed atop a building close by, sinking into a meditative position to watch the human and the android through narrowed eyes. Gaiger's grip on the seat tightened.
"Forgive me for inquiring, my dear, but my memory banks tell me we have met before."
Gaiger looked up; Cell had been staring at her, "Yeah, we have. Nikki Town; you absorbed me."
A familiar smirk leapt to life across Cell's white face, "Did I now? How did it feel, being part of perfection?" the android questioned proudly.
"All I remember was hearing voices. I didn't feel anything, apart from where you…" Gaiger's eyes flitted over Cell's form, his tail was missing.
"I have evolved since then," Cell interrupted, "I no longer have the need to use the energy of the weak."
Gaiger nodded, "You looked different, too. When I saw the videos I thought they had the wrong one, or that it was someone dressed like you."
Cell laughed, "Humans. Are there many conspiracy tales about the monster of Nikki Town?"
"Some people said you could fly and shoot light and fire out of your hands. No one believed those, of course. Hercule said it was all smoke bombs and mirrors."
Cell rolled his eyes. "I must've been… inside you when you fought Hercule…" the girl murmured.
"I did not fight Hercule," the android growled, "I threw him into a rock wall without so much as a wave of my hand."
"That Gohan kid, can he… fly?"
"The Z-senshi can all use their ki to fly and to fire attacks with," Cell explained, "There forces at war over your planet that you humans could not possibly hope to comprehend, save for the few and the gifted."
"Like Dr Gero?"
Cell's eyes darted to the female sharply, "What did you say?"
"Hey, some people that you absorbed were left with unexplained memories; some people even got smarter. I woke up in the middle of the street with a hole in the back of my shirt thinking about an old man with a white beard looking at me through a tank of green water."
Gaiger mentally squirmed under Cell's intense gaze. He did not seem to radiate the presence of a killer at this moment in time, but who knew what calculations were forming in that big brain of his. "Interesting," Cell finally said, "Quite interesting."
Gaiger considered the icecream she held in her hand. "Cell, were you made in that tank?"
"Before we dip into the intimate details of each other's childhood and conception, may I have your name, my dear?" at Gaiger's blank look he added, "For the sake of courteous company."
"Gaiger."
"Very well, Gaiger; yes, I was created in a medical tank. My creator Dr Gero sought to make the perfect being from the DNA of the universe's most powerful, and he succeeded."
"Some perfection. A little boy destroyed you," Frieza muttered loudly from where he was perched.
Cell ignored him, "I required energy to complete my imperfect form and so I absorbed humans to gain enough energy to approach the androids, which I absorbed to complete my perfection."
"And then an eight-year-old blew you up with those same… attacks?" Gaiger questioned.
Cell's eyes narrowed, "By luck, and with a much larger ki attack than anything you have witnessed. He and his friends broke the rules and teamed up in what was supposed to be a one-on-one battle," he explained.
"And I once caught a fish thiiiis big!" Frieza called sarcastically.
"But it was a fight for the freedom of the Earth, you can't have blamed them for ganging up on you to stop you," Gaiger reasoned.
Cell smirked, "Freedom? Do you think I would have kept you little humans in slavery after I defeated the Z-fighters? You would have been destroyed; all of you."
"I wouldn't have been. I would still have been inside of you."
"Effectively dead also, my dear, I'm afraid."
"At least I wasn't killed by an eight-year-old," Gaiger whispered under her breath, licking at her icecream.
"No, you were killed by a four-year-old."
Gaiger coughed, her thoughts reeling, 'You call that a four-year-old? Hell… and I thought my cousins were rotten toddlers.'
"How long do you think it will take your friends to make the decision to try and contact you again?" Cell asked.
"Judy wouldn't stand for it. She'd be afraid that you would kill her; which you would, wouldn't you?" Gaiger blinked at the tall android; "You'd blow up the entire city just to celebrate your own return."
Cell smirked, "It is most likely. Continue."
"Melani might. She does everything fast… but it's been a while now; so she might have decided not to."
"You are not exactly in my good books for telling your friends to go fetch help from that Gohan boy," Cell frowned meditatively, "I doubt they will find him."
"But you still can't kill me."
"I will give them twelve more hours. Then I will kill you."
Gaiger hugged herself, "Damn you."
"I am already damned. And so are you… effectively," Cell chuckled.
"I told you I heard something! Look, they're out again, and they're attacking the carnival!" Cell glanced casually over his shoulder at the running figures of Goz and Mez. He tensed, slightly. The last thing the android needed was for them to find the girl—if they did his most likely chance for absolute freedom was gone.
"Is that… the Devil?" Gaiger hissed. She sounded frightened.
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Hey everyone, me again, the author. Thank you SO much for all the positive feedback, it's really got me going. Thanks for reading this, guys, keep on rocking.