Obligatory copyright disclaimer: Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z and relative characters are intellectual property of their respective owners. I'm using them without permission, but this is only a no-profit Fan fiction.
Edit: My heartfelt thanks to Angel-Rias for Beta-reading the chapter!
Chapter 7, A Warrior's Pride
Uncomfortably curled in a fetal position on the hard ground, Usagi groaned. The wind blowing was the only audible sound. Her awakening movements led to a sharp pain in her left foot.
"Ow! W-what happened?" Sitting up, she looked around. The sun was rising, shining on a vast field of ruined buildings. Broken terrain, smoldering fires and smoke columns surrounded her.
"Where am I?" She anxiously asked herself, painfully standing up and almost falling down, due to a severe burn wound on her left foot. Her armored boot was missing.
Looking down, she finally realized the ground she was asleep on was not made of soil. To her horror, she was standing on bones, hundreds of thousands of bones!
Overwhelmed by terror, she ran in blind panic, limping and stumbling, until she was finally out of the field of ruins.
Having reached a copse of trees, she collapsed on her knees panting. "What's happened, where am I?"
Remembering her scouter, she brought her hand on her face. The instrument was missing! "Oh no! I lost it! I cannot reach the girls without it!"
Fear and anxiety clouded her mind for a moment, then the years of experiences as Sailor Moon sparked courage and will in her heart. "My friends... they might be in trouble. I must find the scouter! Ow!" A sharp pain reminded her of her wound.
Looking at herself, she realized her armor was damaged. Shoulder and hip pads were missing. The chest armor had been punctured many times. Removing it, Usagi became aware of a number of small cuts and bruises on her body.
"Ouch! I'm a mess!" Her undersuit was full of tears, big enough not to mend by themselves.
Strangely enough most of the wounds were already healing, as if she suffered them a few days before. The leg burn was the most severe and recent one. Her toe nails were missing, and the skin was red and blistered.
"It's not as painful as it seems, though..." she said to herself, examining her foot in horrid fascination. No other serious wounds were visible to her, but her tail was sore and aching, the fur all ruffled, impossible to keep around the waist.
She removed her gauntlets, using one as a makeshift shoe for her wounded foot. Then she limped grimly towards the ruins, in search of her scouter. Looking again at the bones, she shivered. "I wonder why I was sleeping there." Then she noted the strange shape of the remains. Reluctantly picking one up, she examined it.
"It is not a bone... more like... a bug shell? I've already seen this, but where?"
A beeping sound made her lose focus. It was the scouter calling sound! Searching feverishly in the morbid mound, she finally found it. Hastily donning the instrument, she activated it.
"U-Usagi here! Guys! W-Where are you? I'm s-so scared!" She stammered quickly.
"Usagi-chan! It's Makoto! There was a battle here, it's all in ruins! Reach a safe place and stay there. I'll try to reach the others." Her friend's self-assured voice managed to calm Usagi.
"Mako-chan! I'm standing over a field of... something. I fear they are shells... bug shells?" She was slowly coming to a terrifying insight. Shells... like Ed's, bug shell from a bug people...
"M-Mako-chan? I fear these are Ed's people's shells... I'm going to faint... I cannot..."
"Usagi! Try to stay calm. Breathe slowly! Walk away until you cannot see the shells. Then sit down and wait. We will make it."
Following the orders she walked in a daze, until she found the trees and her discarded armor. She sat there, in a stunned silence. "Someone killed them and wounded me. How come I cannot remember anything of it?"
Sometime later the scouter beeped again. "Ami here, Usagi-chan!"
"Ami-chan! How... where are you? I'm... surrounded by dead Babkians"
"I know, Makoto told me. It's the same for me. We will speak later. I'm sending you an attack ball. When it arrives board it and close the hatch. I'll call it here. We will be together in minutes, OK?"
"Yes, Ami-chan... OK."
But it was not OK. Thousands of deaths. A city in ruin. "Why! Why! Why!" Crying, she asked the sky, in vain.
Half an hour later, the attack ball brought her in yet another ruined field. However four other ships were there, to her immense relief. After landing she quickly left the ship hurling herself in the arms of her friends.
"Ooh, I was so scared! B-but you are all terribly wounded!" She jumped back when hugging Rei, Rei had grimaced in pain. Looking at her friends she realized their wounds were as severe as hers.
The least wounded was Makoto, with several bruises and a single nasty cut on her left cheek. "Makoto! Your face!" Usagi cried. "Ami, Rei... Minako!" She fell on her knees, her strength waning along with her anxiety. "You are all wounded... I'm so glad you are alive... I can't understand what happened... so many deaths!"
Minako hugged her, then her detective instincts kicked in. "We awakened in different battlefields. Many miles from one another, wounded and exhausted. Thousands of dead Babkians and no sign of the enemy! This situation stinks!"
"I agree. I had a bad feeling when the reptilian aliens fled from us at the fair." Rei nodded at her.
"Yeah! I remember." Replied Makoto. "You followed them. I forgot to ask you if you learned something."
"Nothing at all. When they saw me they took flight and in a minute their spaceship left the planet!"
"They left the planet? Maybe they knew of an impending attack!"
Ami shook her head. "We were the 'impending attack', remember? They probably knew of the Saiyan mercenary work for the PTO. However, we may look at the data gathered by our scouters, and try to understand what happened from the registrations."
They looked at each other. Rei was the first to speak up. "OK, what are we waiting for? Let's do it!"
Ami nodded, than removed her scouter, the old scientific one. "I lost the military scouter. This one however has video capabilities. I started recording to document the full moon event, so it should have memorized at least an hour of footage. I'll screen it on that wall."
The footage appeared on the uneven surface. The excited voices of the Babkians echoed from the small device. The Announcer was shouting the numbers of the countdown. "-3, -2, -1... And the MOON IS FULL!" Then a growling sound covered the noise of the crowd, growing louder and louder, until it become an inhumane howling! "GROOOOOAAAAWRRRRRR!"
The image of a terrified Ed appeared on the screen. He was shouting towards the scouter. "Girls? What's happening to you...? Y-you are changing... Please tell me something!" The camera's point of view was going up, until Ed was at least fifteen meters down. A huge hairy fist clenched in front of the camera, then smashed down on the poor terrified Babkian.
A horrible crunching sound was followed by a shriek of pain. Then the camera angle changed to frame two horrendous giant apes, wearing Saiyan armors in the colors worn by Rei and Makoto. The monsters were smashing the fair stall and squashing the poor Babkians underfoot.
The point of view changed again, this time looking at two other monsters, opening their mouths wide, and then shouting waves of energy that destroyed immediately two city blocks in a catastrophic explosion. Then a voice cried from down below. "W-Why? I t-thought we were f-friends..." Ed was still alive, horribly wounded, but alive.
The hand of the beast who wore the scouter grabbed the poor alien, bringing him close to the camera. His grievous wounds were surely fatal, but his doom was to be much more horrible. "A-Ami please... It's me... Ed! Don't... no... NO! NOOO!" His shouts stopped when the Babkian was brought under the camera angle and were replaced by a disgusting munching sound, followed by a swallowing noise!
Ami immediately fell to her knees, convulsively throwing up. Rei quickly grabbed the scouter, turning it off. An ominous shock took hold on the group while Ami, still gagging started to cry. "I killed him! I KILLED AND ATE HIM! AAAAAAHHHH!" She shouted, her forehead pressed on the Babkian soil.
"I... was one... of the two firing blasts at the city? The armor... It was mine..." Minako stood up shivering. "I'm a monster... a hideous monster... we are all monsters! It was the moon! The full moon!" She turned towards Makoto. "They knew! They all knew! Malaka told us the armor would grow with us! Nizuki told us of the full moon! They knew we would have transformed into were-king-kongs! They framed us!" She started to hit herself on the head with her fist.
"You are right! It all makes sense now! They knew all along we would have killed all the Babkians!" Makoto smashed her fist against the wall, cracking it. "I hate them! They made me a killer! We killed them all!" She continued to smash the wall to pieces, ignoring the blood on her hands and the horrible cracking sound of her fingers breaking.
Rei's eyes were glazed. Her premonitions failed her spectacularly. She killed thousands of innocents and now, by Shinto doctrine, she was pure no more. "The grudge of the dead will follow us for all of our lives... we are sinners now... I... am not a Miko anymore..." She sobbed while hugging herself, the nails on her hands carving bloody wounds in her arms.
"Enough!" Usagi whispered at her shocked friends. They ignored her. "ENOUGH!" She shouted on the top of her lungs, while standing up. This time they heard her. They slowly stopped to look at her.
"We are not killers, nor monsters. We are not sinners and you will STOP HARMING YOURSELVES!" Crying, she slapped Rei on the face, and moved between the wall and Makoto. She was about to slap Minako too, when Ami anticipated her, standing up still sobbing and hugging the distressed girl.
"Usagi is right. These bodies... must be normal for them. Some sort of transformation. I wondered how a few Saiyans could possibly conquer a whole planet." She coughed. "They thought we were aware of this. And the Saurian aliens probably knew it too. We were not conscious during the battle; I think we were reduced to savage predators. Probably for the entire duration of the full moon."
Usagi nodded at her. "We are cursed, like werewolves." She took hold of Makoto's hands, gently kissing the bloody ruined knuckles of her friend. "Cursed to kill without choice. We are victims too. Remember that. Please..." She looked at her, the tears in her eyes mirrored in her friend's.
Rei, having recovered from the shock, stood up and put a hand on Usagi shoulder. "Thanks." She told her whispering. "Yet, what can we do now?"
Usagi turned to Ami. "Can you modify the attack balls as for the initial plan?"
Ami shook her head replied wearily, her normal confidence replaced by uncertainty. "Not without tools and time. I thought of doing this during mission time. But now we are due to return. Even with tools... It will take a lot of time."
"No. We have no time. I will not risk our lives on a very unlikely possibility. We'll return to planet Vegeta, to immediately contact Jean-san. Then we will hunt down the void and escape from this madness. I can't stand this universe any longer! I want to go HOME!"
"Yes. We can leave any time. The attack balls are already set up." Ami nodded at her, surprised by her unusual incisiveness.
"Then let's do it. Now!" She took hold of Minako's arm and dragged her into one of the capsules. "Go, go, now!" She told them.
Her friends complied one after the other. When all of them were in the balls, Usagi contacted Ami through the scouter. "Ami, time to go. Launch us."
The attack balls rocketed away from planet Babke, into deep space. Looking out of the porthole Usagi was thinking. 'Mamoru... Dear Mamo-chan! Will you love me anyway, now that I'm a monster? I miss you so much...' Then the balls accelerated to faster than light speed, when they were mercifully put in stasis.
~Two weeks later, on planet Vegeta...~
Nizuki was nervously walking towards the spaceport landing pads. Captain Maizen gave her the order to evaluate the new squad's performance.
"Nizuki..." He'd told her. "... You have shown great progress in these years. Your strength is rapidly improving, but it's your organization skills I need more."
She hadn't been sure if it was a compliment or not. "You actually have the patience to listen and do something about other people problems. This is rare in us Saiyans. So I'm promoting you to staff sergeant."
This was a good thing. Being a staff sergeant meant more privileges, better training, the access to elite mess-hall and various perks from the PTO technicians. On the other hand she would get all the annoying assignments every true Saiyan warrior hated. Like this one...
"Being all motherly with those poopy pants girls, tsk. What a load of crap!" Fuming, she finally got there, looking at the empty landing pads.
"Are they coming or not?" She asked coldly to one of the technicians.
"Yes sir! The attack balls will be here in 50 seconds, sir!"
Nizuki smiled inwardly. Being called sir every time was one of the perks...
Exactly 50 seconds later, five white metal spheres landed roughly on the impact-absorbing landing pads. The hatches however remained closed.
"Are they in there?" She asked again.
"Yes sir! The attack ball internal sensors read five power levels, four of them quite low however. They must be wounded. Permission asked for emergency extraction sir!" The technician was a veteran, he knew saiyans could return in critical condition, and had ordered his staff to be ready.
"Hmmm... OK, go on." Nizuki waved her hand towards him, wondering why the fifth one, clearly not wounded, was still in the ball.
The spaceport staff hurried to open the hatches, pulling out the wounded girls. Then one of the technicians screamed and was thrown away. From the ball emerged a very enraged Makoto, her hands covered in bruises and clotted blood. A nasty wound bleeding on her left cheek made her anger even more obvious.
"NIZUKI! YOU MONSTER! I'LL KILL YOU!" She shouted, charging her!
Nizuki was so surprised she could hardly avoid being struck in her gut by a powerful punch, followed by an elbow strike in her face and a devastating kick to her chest. She crashed in the spaceport wall, damaged but not stunned.
She managed to narrowly dodge a nasty punch to her face who struck the wall crushing it! 'What strength!' She thought rolling away from Makoto's onslaught. The tall girl was trying to extract her arm from the wall she completely punched through, thus giving Nizuki the time to check her scouter.
Makoto beep 1997
"W-what! She's almost as strong as me!" In the past weeks she trained hard to increase her level, the memory of the strange girls increasing their power at will burning in her mind. "If they can do it, so do I." However the secret of their skill eluded her. Yet she managed to raise her level to 2036.
She moved to attack the girl, still blocked by the wall, with a vicious kick in the neck. A lesser being would have been decapitated, but Makoto parried the blow with her left arm. However the sound of the bone crunching told Nizuki she inflicted serious damage.
Makoto finally freed herself from the wall, her eyes still burning in anger. "WHY? WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS TO US? MONSTER!" She charged again, but this time Nizuki was ready.
"She's strong and skilled, but careless..." She waited for her to strike, and then dodged at the last instant, sidestepping her and kneeing her in the stomach.
"Oooofff!" Makoto stopped in her track, clutching her abdomen. Then Nizuki hit her with an elbow smash on her back. She fell down unmoving.
Nizuki kicked her viciously, breaking some ribs. "You stupid bitch! I should kill you!"
"Please... don't!" A crying voice told her from the crowd. Usagi limped towards her, pushing away the technicians. She fell on her knees, hugging her friend.
"She was wrong to attack you, but please don't harm her anymore..."
"She attacked me! Not the other way around!" Nizuki snapped at her.
"You sent us on the mission...we...we killed everyone...you knew of the moon, didn't you?" Usagi looked at her with intense accusing eyes. At the same time her staggering friends reached her, moving defensively between them.
Feeling dirty without knowing why, Nizuki calmed down. "Obviously! Every Saiyan knows of the oozaru transformation! How on Vegeta could a bunch of half-baked low-class warriors think of conquering a planet full of strong aliens as Babke without turning into oozarus?"
She looked at the girls astounded. They weren't aware of the oozaru transformation! How was this possible? Finally understanding she decided to explain the situation. "The PTO was keeping an eye on that planet for years, waiting for the full moon! I simply obeyed Captain Maizen's order to book an adequate mission for you girls! If I hadn't, another squad would have taken your place!"
"But they were harmless... poor civilians..." Minako started to say, but Nizuki interrupted her.
"Harmless? They managed to almost kill five oozarus after a full month of fighting! They were very strong and possessed dangerous weapons. An Elite squad would have had no trouble, but for you five, it was a dangerous assignment!"
"If it was dangerous why did you select it?" Rei asked her dryly.
"Captain Maizen wanted you to clear the stain on your clan honor and pride. Thus Commander Nappa would have no ground to execute you for uselessness. Do you remember what he said when you met the first time? A difficult mission was the only choice. Win or die! Where's your warrior pride?" The last words she almost spat at them.
"Warrior's pride?" Usagi replied. She remembered her terrible battle with Galaxia. She asked her the same thing when she refused to fight her. "I'm no warrior. I have no pride to save." She shook her head. "But you are right... you obeyed your orders, as any good soldier should do. May I speak to Captain Maizen?"
Nizuki was startled by the request. She could understand Makoto's reaction, but Usagi's... Her reasoning eluded her. "I'll call him. He will decide. However you should go to the medical center. You are wounded badly... now all of you." She smirked towards Makoto.
"You son of a..." Minako raised her hand menacingly, but a single look from Usagi stopped her.
Nizuki intercepted the exchange. 'Ooh! She is their leader! I know that look; Maizen often uses it on me...' She thought while activating her scouter.
"Captain Maizen sir! Nizuki here! The new squad has returned heavily wounded, but their 'leader' Usagi wants to speak with you."
"Oy Nizuki. Is it really necessary? I'm busy at this time." Maizen replied. He was to meet with a friend, but he worried for the bun-head girl. "Ah scrap that, I'm near the spaceport, I'll be there in a minute. Maizen out."
Nizuki looked at the group. Makoto was regaining her senses, but her power level had dropped to less than 300. 'She was going all out, and now she is exhausted.' Nizuki thought.
"OK girls. Captain Maizen will be here shortly. Beware of what you'll say; he's elite, far less forgiving than me!" She spat at them.
The eyes of the little group spoke of defiance and anger, not of fear. 'These are good eyes, these girls have. I like them.' She thought surprised by herself. Her scouter beeped having sensed an incoming great strength. The following instant Maizen landed beside her.
"I'm here. Now, what's the problem? You should be in a healing pod, not here blathering!" He scolded them. Then he noticed their eyes, accusing, angry, hurt.
"Why?" Usagi asked him.
"Why what? Woman your question has no meaning, explain yourself!" He replied, puzzled.
"Why did you make us kill them? Why?"
"This is an unusual question. You are soldiers, we gave you an order, and you fulfilled the mission. What else?"
"They never changed into oozaru before, sir!" Nizuki interjected.
"Why?" Usagi asked again.
This time however Maizen understood. Their eyes and the unusual emotions they conveyed. The sadness, the pain, not of the body but of the soul. His thoughts bringing him to an astounding realization.
"During the full moon you lost control! You could not even remember killing the Babkians, don't you?"
Usagi and her friends nodded, looking at him with their strange eyes. Something inside him shuddered at the thought of the suffering they were evidently carrying in their hearts, but his Saiyan upbringing left him with no choice on the matter. Emotional response was a weakness.
"A true Saiyan can only fight or die. Death is the choice of the coward, and you seem no cowards to me. No other option remains, you have to fight. If you hate battles against civilian populations, I suggest you to train." He purposefully raised his voice to convey the importance of his words.
"Train until you master the oozaru. Train to retain control. Train until you are strong enough to choose the really difficult assignments, those reserved for the elite. Real war missions against pirates, enemy armies or space monsters. Train to master your destiny, until no one could tell you what to do." He paused, looking into their eyes, accepting the challenge he saw in them.
"Until then... your objective is to survive. Survive any way possible, even at the cost of the lives of others. This is the Saiyan way. I have nothing more to say." He looked at Nizuki.
"Next time don't call me for such a trivial matter, sergeant! We will talk again later." Ignoring the girls, who obviously wanted to reply, he flew away.
In his mind he wondered why those girls plight was so important for him, especially Usagi's. Shaking his head, he buried the thought deep inside his mind and hurried to his work.
Nizuki, embarrassed for the scolding Maizen gave her, barked her orders at the girls. "Go heal yourselves in the Medical center, then try to not cross my way for at least a week, or I will not be so forgiving, next time!"
They nodded at her, without saying anything, so Nizuki marched away to mind her business, leaving them alone.
"What now? I cannot even remember the way to the medical center..." Usagi asked her friends.
"Me neither... perhaps we can ask these technicians." Minako whispered. "Excuse me, can you tell us..."
Before she had the chance to complete the question, the alien tech answered. "That way. Turn right at the fourth crossing. The go straight until you see an old unused mess hall. Turn left two crossings later. Then..." He gave them complete instructions, speaking for one full minute.
They thanked him, then walking wearily they tried to reach the Medical facilities. One hour later they were completely lost.
"I think we should go right..." Usagi wondered.
"We followed you and now... it's hopeless!" Rei glowered at her.
"It's not my fault! He blathered for an eternity! How could I possibly remember that?"
"Then why did you insist to turn left at that crossing? You... airhead!"
"Guys, please, stop quarreling!" Minako tried to stop them. "We may ask someone..."
Ami saw a smallish Saiyan walking beside them while reading a data pad. She approached him smiling, despite her aching, wounded body. "Excuse me, sir. Can you please tell us how to reach the nearest medical center?"
He was actually a boy of approximately their age. Distracted from his readings he replied surprised. "Oh, yes! I was actually going there. You can follow me, if you want. I don't mind... Not that you bother me, not at all! It's actually a pleasure!" He looked at her curious, noting her wounds. "You must have returned recently from a mission. We must hurry, these wound and your friend's must be painful."
"Indeed. Thank you, sir." She bowed to him.
"No need to be so formal! You can call me by name!" He told her while walking towards the Medical center. "I'm Tarble! Nice to meet you!"