Part Four: Wrath of the Betrayed
Chapter Thirty-one - Fury Incarnate
18 stared at the screen of her pod as the world outside zipped past in a blur of reds, whites, and blues. The pod had entered the atmosphere a few moments ago and was currently surging down through the sky toward the surface of the planet. Her eyes were watching both the nearing planet and her data readouts. Her course was right on, she'd land just outside the perimeter of the Research Center, about a mile or two beyond the edge. The scanners in the pod were reading a handful of powers still in the area, but every so often one of them would blink out of existence. Others were dropping and slowly fading on their own.
Something was definitely going on down below. She couldn't stop worrying about Marron. If anything had happened to her.... She closed her eyes and shook her head, forcing those thoughts away. Trunks was down there somewhere, he could protect her from whatever was going on. Unless he was dead, too. "Stop it." she told herself, clenching her teeth. "Stop doing that, everything's going to be fine, you'll see." Though she kept repeating it over and over the whole way down she found she still wasn't believing it even as she felt the bone jarring impact of landing.
As the pod door began to hiss and open she reached out a hand and shoved it the rest of the way up causing the motor to whine and spark in protest. Ignoring it 18 pulled herself out the pod and turned her gaze toward the research complex. She could see billowing clouds of smoke rising up all over the place and her scanners picked up three more powers as they blinked out of existence. Hearing a startled gasp beside her she turned and saw Faith starring at the rising smoke, eyes wide. 18 turned her focus back to the complex and started adjusting her scanners. Marron only had a power of nine, she could ignore everything above that and just track the lower ones, try and find her that way.
"Your daughter... is here?" Faith asked.
18 nodded. "Somewhere." she said. "Stay here, I'm going to go and find her." With that she lifted into the air and flew off toward the complex. She reached the outer edge of the complex a few seconds later and pulled to a stop, eyes roaming over everything she could see. She could tell, just by the layout of the destruction, that this hadn't simply been some sort of random accident. The ComCenter was a pile of rubble as were all the ships and ship ports. It was impossible for anyone on the surface to get a message out or leave.
Her first thought was that maybe Valor had already sent out part of his Battle Droid army. Gorneo was fairly close to Leberion, but she doubted it. This had to be something else....
She was tempted to crank her scanners back up again, try and get a lock on Trunks's power instead of Marron's. Assuming that whoever did this hadn't caught him by surprise he would have survived, might still be out there fighting them. But she resisted the urge. Trunks could take care of himself and, much as she cared about him, her daughter was far more important to her. Marron represented everything she felt like she'd lost, everything she now lived for. She had to find her.
She realized then that she was shaking, shivering despite the warmth of the sun beating down on her. Her heart was pounding and her hands were sweaty. She hadn't felt like this in years. Not since that night. The night she'd warned Krillin to evacuate, told him that she was with the Empire, that Imperial soldiers were coming to wipe out the base. She'd felt sick to her stomach then, confessing what she was to him, terrified that he'd hate her. But he hadn't, he'd asked her to come with him, to escape with them. And she would have, if she hadn't known about all of Gero's failsafes.
But because of them it hadn't been possible and she told him so and so she'd helped him to get away and she'd gone on to openly join the Empire and then the Masters. She'd lost him that night, though. Long before the Earth had been destroyed, long before he was killed, she'd lost him. She'd lost her daughter before that but had vowed to find her again and had. Found her and tracked her and watched over her as soon as it was possible to do so. Now Krillin was lost for good, completely and totally, and Marron was all she had. If she lost her now, lost her again, lost her completely....
'INTERNAL RECORDING IN PROGRESS....' suddenly flashed across her vision. She wasn't sure she'd be in the proper state of mind after this to make any sort of report. Better to record everything and give that to Gero than try to do it herself.
Swallowing her fear she gazed over the burning, smoking, and ruined complex looking for the main command center. A moment later she spotted a building that still looked mostly intact, though there was smoke pouring out the doors and windows and the walls were cracked. It looked like the command center and she flew off toward it, landing on the steps outside a moment later. She tried to force her body to calm down, to get back under control, but the sight of the all but obliterated interior of the building was making it hard for her to focus, for her to even stay on her feet.
She opened her mouth to call out, to yell for her daughter, but the sound caught in her throat. She couldn't make her legs work, she couldn't make her voice work, she couldn't even focus on the data still streaming into her mind from her scanner. She closed her eyes, swallowed again, forced the memory of that building out of her mind, and focused on the numbers she was getting. There were eight powers in the building. Two near the back, five closer to the middle, and one near the front, off to the right side. Probably only a few feet inside the door.
The two in the back were dropping slowly, currently only just over three. Whoever they belonged to they were slowly dying. The five near the center ranged from one to six and were shifting about, up and down, like a flickering candle. The five of them were in shock, their bodies overloading from pain and injury and shutting down. The one closest to her was only at two now, dropping slowly, but faster than those in the back. Whoever it was was fading, wouldn't live much longer. Those eight powers were it, were all 18 could detect in the area. All of them were dying and she was terrified that if she called for Marron one of those dying people would answer.
Suddenly, she froze.
Her shaking froze, her throat froze in the midst of another swallow of fear, it felt like even her heart had frozen. She'd heard a sound. Faint, barely audible at all. It sounded like a sob, someone crying. The closest of the eight powers, probably. The one that looked like it would be gone in a few more moments. And it sounded like it was a female. "It can't be Marron." 18 thought. "It just can't be...." Her hands started shaking again as she made a half step forward, then took a step back instead. As soon as she did she hated herself for it. "No, if it is then I have to know. I have to. And... and if it is then... I don't want her to be alone now." she thought, finishing the swallow that had frozen in her throat.
She took a step forward, slowly, cautiously. She opened her mouth to try again to call but still nothing came out. Another step, another attempt to call out, still nothing. But she could hear the crying better now, could tell for certain that it was a woman. She refused to believe what her gut was telling her, though. Refused to believe that it was Marron. Nearly turned around and went to look somewhere else, to find out where Marron actually was, because she couldn't be the power just beyond the door that would be gone soon. She couldn't....
"Marron...?" she called, softly, barely over a whisper. She stopped then, shocked that she'd managed any sound at all, and then froze again. The sobbing had cut and she could hear a voice. Soft and weak. "Oh... no, no, no, no, no." 18 whispered, her body coming back into her control, and she ran into the building and around the corner and stopped dead, eyes wide. There lay Marron, just a couple of feet away, leaning against the wall of the building, covered in blood, clothes torn. Her legs were broken, her right arm was broken, she could see a rib poking out of her....
"Oh Kami...." 18 cried, hurrying over and dropping down beside her, eyes burning with tears. She could see the blood streaks on the floor, the scrapes on Marron's legs. The girl had crawled this way, tried to crawl out of the building, but had run out of strength and stopped, resting against the wall.
"18?" Marron asked, almost too softly to hear.
"I'm here...." 18 said, reaching a hand out toward her but then stopping, terrified that just touching her would hurt her more. Would be too much for her fragile and broken body and kill her. "Oh, Kami... Marron.... I'm sorry... Sorry I didn't get here sooner...."
"You... knew?" Marron asked. She couldn't believe 18 would have known about this, but then, she couldn't believe it had happened, either.
18 blinked. "Knew?" she asked.
"This...."
"No." 18 shook her head. "Bulma... Bulma said you'd gotten a job here." she explained. "I was passing already, going back to Saiya...." 18 swallowed as she forced her voice to stay even. "I wanted to see you... Bulma said... said you were happy and... and... and...." She couldn't fight it anymore and her vision blurred as the tears started down her cheeks. "Why...? What... what happened?"
Marron stared at her for a moment, crying as well, forcing her mouth and throat to work despite the pain, despite the fact the world around her was fading away. "Trunks...." she managed.
"Trunks? Where is he? Did he go after...."
Marron shook her head, slowly. "Him." she forced out.
18 froze again. Wholly and completely. Her mind was numb. "No. That can't be... I must have... must have misunderstood." she thought. Her mind cleared and started working again when she heard Marron cough, saw more blood come out of her mouth. "T-Trunks...." the Cyborg started, staring at her dying daughter in disbelief. "Trunks did... did this?"
Marron closed her eyes and nodded once, slowly, barely. It was all she could manage.
18 couldn't think. She couldn't process it. "Why? Why would he do this? Why would he attack them? Why would he attack Marron? Why would he kill her?" And as she gazed at her daughter more things about her appearance came into focus. The torn clothing that had clearly been ripped apart. The bruises on her arms and legs. "Oh... no.... Oh Kami, no... she...." She closed her eyes and swallowed again, forcing her empty stomach not to try and empty itself anyway. It didn't make any sense, none of it. Why would he...? How could he...?
She was brought back to the world by Marron coughing again. Her daughter's eyes were still closed. Her power reading was now only 0.9 and still going down. She didn't have much more time. Not even a minute left. Her breathing was shallow, wheezing. More blood was coming out of her mouth. Punctured lung, filling with blood. Who knew how many other internal injuries.... All of them slowly killing her daughter right before her eyes. She couldn't put what she was seeing and Trunks together, it didn't seem possible.
She knew what he was like, of course. She'd been down to the holding cells with him before. But this was different. This wasn't some prisoner. This was her daughter. Her life. Her heart and soul. Her everything. Not someone threatening the Empire. Not someone dangerous. She just couldn't see how.... She moved over to the wall beside her daughter as Marron began to fall over and caught her, laying her head gently down in her lap, stroking her hair. Marron tried to say something but all that came out was more blood. She tried again, anyway, she wanted to let her mother know, but 18 put a finger over the girl's lips and shook her head.
"Don't talk. It's ok." she said softly. "You're going to be ok, now." She wasn't even sure if Marron could hear her. She could barely hear herself through he rampaging thoughts in her mind. If it was Trunks, if it truly had been him, and Marron had no reason to lie about that, then she had to know. She had to know why. But she couldn't leave her daughter. Couldn't leave her to die alone. So she just sat there, cradling her daughter, crying, and waiting for her to die. She couldn't even bring herself to end it sooner, to spare her daughter the pain.
She wasn't really sure how long she sat there. She stayed until she couldn't hear her daughter's strained breathing anymore. Until she couldn't feel the gentle pulse of her heart anymore. Until she stopped moving and just lay there, still, quiet. Until her scanner no longer registered her presence. Until her own tears finally began to subside enough for her to see. Until the raging storm in her mind finally faded enough for her to think. "Trunks.... I don't see how.... How he could have...." She shuddered and fought the urge to clutch Marron tighter. Her daughter was in bad enough shape already. "It's his style, though." she thought suddenly, gazing over the damage. "It's got his signature all over it. Where.... What?" Suddenly words had flashed up in front of her eyes.
FAILSAFE FIVE ACTIVATION - SECURITY LOCKOUT ENGAGED
"What is...?" she wondered. And then she 'felt' it. Her link in with the Empire's network, her constant connection to Gero's computers.... It was gone. Sealed. She hadn't known anything about a fifth failsafe, though. Just the four. And this one made no sense, it sealed her off from Gero's computers, from outside intervention. The tracer was off, she couldn't be tracked, and with this lockout in place he couldn't shut off her generator, put her into a coma, or blow her up. She pushed all of that aside for now, though, and focused on finding Trunks.
"Now, where is he?" She pushed her scanner back up to full sensitivity again. She didn't see any powers that seemed like him, nothing over thirty within a twenty mile range. And then there was a sudden spike. A power jumped from 10 to 5,000. Then came the explosion. 18's eyes narrowed as she slid out from under Marron, laying her out gently on the floor, arms crossed over her body. As she stood she looked at her bloody hands, hands now soaked in her own daughter's blood, and her eyes narrowed further.
"Wait for me here, Marron. I'll pay them back for this, I promise." she said, turning. "I wont be long." She walked away from her daughter then and out the door, eyes scanning the sky for some sign of her target. There was another power spike, 10 to 5,000, and she locked onto it. Clenching her bloody hands into fists as she lifted into the air and took off toward the power near the edge of the complex.
She followed the power reading and found she'd been right. It lead her to exactly who she was looking for. Despite recognizing the blue bodysuit, and the red, white, and gold armor of a Royal, her mind still struggled to accept the truth. As she neared she saw him stop in his flight and then fire off a few Ki blasts toward the outskirts of the compound destroying a couple more buildings. She didn't know what he was up to but at this point she didn't really care, she knew now that Marron had been right.
Still undetected, she pulled to a stop behind him, tears still rolling down her cheeks. She raised a blood soaked hand and clenched it into a fist, fighting the urge to simply blast him where he floated. She wanted answers first. "You took her!" she cried. "You took her away from me!"
Trunks eyes snapped wide in disbelief, and a little fear, as he recognized that voice. And the implications of her statement. "18...." he said, turning slowly.
"Shut up!" she shouted. Anger dripping from her voice more than he'd ever heard. Her body was shaking as she fought to keep control of herself and the Prince wasn't sure how long she'd be able to do that. "You killed her! And you... you...." her voice caught in her throat and a mix of hate and despair flashed across her face for a moment. The hate soon won out, however. "WHY!?" she suddenly demanded.
"I'm sorry, 18." Trunks said slowly, picking his words carefully. "But she was dangerous."
"Dangerous!?"
Trunks nodded. "She had a power flare up a while back." he explained. "She was as powerful as Gohan, and that may not have been the full extent of her power." He sighed and shook his head. "I know how you feel right now, Bra's not going to be happy about this either, but we had to do what was best for...."
"We?"
"My father...."
18 growled. "I should have known! He ordered this, didn't he?"
Trunks nodded again. "Yes. But you have to understand...."
"Understand? Understand?! UNDERSTAND!?" she cried. A sudden burst of power blew her hair out behind her and pushed Trunks back through the air. He swallowed as he watched her shake more. He'd never seen her like this before. Ever. "I understand. You say she was dangerous. I don't care! She was my daughter! My daughter! She was... was all I had left of...."
The words trailed off but the sentence finished itself in her mind several times over. All she had left of her past. All she had left of her humanity. All she had left of Krillin. All she had left of everything worth living for. All she had left of what kept her sane. Her eyes darkened suddenly and the shaking stopped. That made Trunks even more worried.
"Go to hell." she said at last, softly. And then, yelling at the top of her lungs... "Go to HELL!" suddenly she thrust her arms forward and fired a massive ball of golden energy toward the shocked Hybrid. Trunks managed to collect his thoughts and transformed at the last second, catching the attack with his hands. As soon as he felt it pushing against his palms his eyes widened even more. She'd put a lot of her power into this. If he'd not transformed he'd be dead right now. She wasn't playing around.
He gulped and then pushed the energy off sending it hurtling into space. "18, don't do this!" he called. "Get a hold of yourself. You keep this up and...."
"And what?!" she yelled. "You'll kill me, too? Well, I'm going to make you work for it!" As she'd been talking a soft blue light had begun forming around her body. Trunks thought he felt something, it was nagging at the back of his mind, but he couldn't place what the sensation was. And he didn't have time to think about it right now, anyway. He dashed to the side quickly as the energy disc 18 had pitched sped through the space he'd just occupied. She turned and threw five more but he dodged them all without trouble.
"Knock it off!" he yelled. "I don't want to have to kill you!"
"Too bad!" 18 growled as she pulled back a little. "I do want to kill you!" As she spoke her eyes darted about and her scanners checked for power levels. There were some, but not many, and most of them were fading anyway. She placed her hands in front of her stomach, fingers bent in to point at each other, and then red energy began to gather between her hands. "If I die in the process...." she continued. Her voice darkened to match the look in her eyes. "Then so be it."
Trunks eyes widened. He'd never heard 18's voice so... cold. And the attack she was forming.... In a flash of gold he shot in at her before she could finish forming it, thrust his arm down under her hands and up, slamming his fist into her stomach, doubling her over and causing her gathered energy to disperse. "Planning to destroy the planet, eh? You really are serious. Unfortunately for you, making an attack like that takes more time than I'll give you."
18 scowled at him and swung her left fist at his face. He didn't bother to move, even as strong as she was she couldn't hurt him when he was transformed. Her fist smashed into his face and knocked him sailing backwards in complete shock. "What... but... how!?" his mind cried. That had actually hurt. As he looked at her he saw that the blue glow of before had intensified considerably now. "An... aura? But... she can't produce an aura and that doesn't look like any aura I've ever seen before, either."
He shook it off as she charged at him again and the two locked into close combat, a furious flurry of punches and kicks, dodges and blocks. He couldn't believe it, he was actually having trouble with her. What's more, as the fight went on, she seemed to be getting faster, stronger. This just didn't make any sense! He let out a yell as he transformed to the second level, the blast of force knocking 18 back a few yards. Trunks scowled as the blue aura around 18 grew even stronger yet.
He launched in at her again, slammed his knee into her stomach and then interlocked his fists and slammed them into her back driving her down into the ground. He relaxed a little at that point. He'd put enough power into that she should be out cold. But then blue light began seeping through the dust cloud and then the dust began to swirl as a scream sounded from below. And then he felt it, a power. Ki. And it was coming from 18!
Suddenly the dust cloud exploded apart and the building Ki subsided some, settling at around his own Super Sai-jin power. This sensible energy wasn't the only thing that had changed about the Cyborg, either. Her appearance was different. She was several inches taller now, making her almost six feet, both sides of her face, from her jaw line up to her hair line, were now blue, and her pupils and irises were both now purple.
And her hair... it was shorter and the style was different. It hung down off of her head in large clumps, two framing her face, two on either side of her head, and it looked like three in back. Thanks to her being a natural blonde it looked almost like upside down Super Sai-jin hair. Trunks didn't know what had just happened but he was sure it wasn't a good thing. He hadn't gotten a feel for just how much power she'd been putting out before and didn't know if what he could sense was the extent of it or not.
In a flash of gold he surged down at her and pulled back his fist. "Sorry 18. I like you but you've become too much of a problem. I don't have any choice but to kill you. I'll make it quick." he thought, channeling energy into his fist. He'd finish her with this blow. Reaching her, he thrust his arm forward and slammed his fist into her face with a thunderous crack. But she didn't even flinch.
"Good-bye, Trunks." she said, raising an arm and pressing a palm against his chest, over his heart. "I'll send your father to join you in Hell eventually. I swear it." And then he felt her power shoot up through the roof. He'd barely even processed it before a blast of blue energy punched clean through his chest, where his heart had been. He was flung up and back, going a hundred yards before hitting the ground. He was dead before did.
18 lowered her hand and turned back toward where Marron's body lay. She still had extra space pods with her, she'd take her daughter with her and find a proper place to bury her. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh as the blue skin faded away and she shrank to her normal height. "I wonder if that was Gero's doing...." she thought out loud as she took off to recover her daughter's body.
Landing outside what was left of the main command center for the complex 18 stepped inside again and gazed down at her daughter. Her anger and despair welled up and fought with each other as she looked at her, battered and broken. "I... never even got to ask you... why you were happy." she said sadly, as she knelt down and gently lifted her up. Floating into the air she flew out the door and back toward her and Faith's pods. As she did she checked over the recording she'd made and tried to connect to the ComNet, but she couldn't get past the solar flare's interference.
A second later she was landing by the pods, Faith staring at her in shock. "Is... is that...?"
18 nodded. The sight of Faith forced her anger even higher in her. She wasn't angry at the woman but at what she'd been forced to do on Leberion for an Empire that had already turned on her, already condemned her daughter to death. She carefully laid Marron down inside the pod she'd used to come to the planet, then fished out her capsule case. "It looks like... it's not much safer for you here than back on Leberion." she said, pulling out another Space Pod and decapsulating it.
"What? Why?"
"Because I'm not a Master anymore." replied 18. "And they know you were with me and will know, before long, that I know about this." 18 then pulled another Capsule out of the case and opened it. This time revealing what looked like a large satellite dish.
Faith blinked a few times. "Wait... you mean that... the Masters... the Masters did this...?"
18 nodded. "Vegeta ordered this. Trunks...." her voice caught in her throat and she froze for a second. "Looks like you and I have just traded places. Now I'm out to bring them down." And with that she patched into the transmitter unit and linked in with the ComNet.
She had a video to send out.