Chapter Five
As midnight approached, the thrumming of the Prismasphere quickened to a heartbeat's pace. Starlessness and a depth like potent wine filled the space beyond the windowpane, casting its violet light over everything below, darkening the reds and brightening the whites. A scrap of paper rolled halfway across one before sailing into an alley. It was a landscape for ghosts to walk.
Or maybe Pan was just tired. The empty streets below had to be the most benign thing she'd seen since she'd gotten here. Predictably, drinking coffee before bedtime had left her without a headache but also wide awake. It didn't help Saiyans could go days without sleep if they felt threatened, and Pan felt threatened. The teeth of the Vile Wave bear trap grazed the back of her neck even through the closed window. Or maybe it was only the memory of its teeth that haunted her.
"Not scared, not scared, not scared," Pan whispered.
She turned from the window. On the dresser, the row of dolls stared at her with round and glassy eyes, every line of their face opacity, down to their faint perhaps-smiles.
"Oh, who am I kidding."
She opened the drawer below and shoved the whole row into it with one wipe. She closed it with perhaps a little more force than the toys deserved. But when she met her own eyes in the mirror, she wondered if she should have bothered.
Only one thing would make her feel better now.
Yawning, Pan padded down the hall and down the stairs to the dojo.
She didn't give her brain time to think. She just started doing push-ups, counting off in her head and trying not to fall in time with the Prismasphere. Normally, training cleared her head, but this time she couldn't shake the feeling something terrible was coming; in fact, it got worse by the moment. Ember plotting to ambush her now that she was alone, perhaps? She switched to crunches, enjoying the relief spreading through her cramped muscles. She'd be ready for him. What to do once she finished this set? Pan didn't trust herself not to destroy the training dummies. Or the walls, for that matter. She'd already broken their mirror practicing with Incendria.
"Four hundred seventy-six, four hundred seventy-seven…"
Pan stopped halfway up and held the pose.
Something was coming.
More appropriately, somebody was rushing the palace. Dismal ki surrounded the dojo from every side. Pan vaulted to her feet, instinct landing her in a fighting stance. It felt like an invading army out there, but the windows showed her nothing but empty night, and the mirror showed her nothing but her own reflection.
Until every light in the dojo went out, and then she couldn't even see that.
It was every light, too. Even the Prismasphere's violet glow disappeared. Pan groped for the door, found the handle, opened it.
And was punched directly in the sternum.
She blocked, and not a moment too soon. Even after she'd gotten the impact under control it sent her across the room and into the wall, potentially through it. If she'd taken that full-force it would have killed her on the spot. Another one just like it followed, segueing into entire storm delivered so fast her mind raced to catch up with what her hands were deflecting. Something like a boa constrictor double-wrapped her neck and squeezed.
This… was not Ember. It wasn't even Incendria. All that ki, what she'd thought was the Vile Wave outside congealing around her, it all belonged to one immensely powerful creature. And that creature was trying its damndest to kill her.
Oh, wow! What an opponent! Grandpa would be so jealous!
Spreading her arms, Pan drew luminescent energy to her palms. Not even those globes of light could pierce this darkness, but she freed it just the same. It loosened the flesh-noose around her neck. Her attacker didn't waste any time on surprise; he moved, and she tried to follow. Her next strike caught only air, and then she was in the air, and then on the dojo floor. She tasted copper dripping through her lips, down the corner of her chin. She spun and pushed back to her feet just in time to hear the crash as the place she had been was reduced to shrapnel.
That wasn't all she heard. Words followed. Words she mentally responded to with, "Oh, crap."
"Vile Wave Laceration!"
The malignant energy sawed the floor like cruel laughter and fanned towards Pan. Blocking this would not be enough. She had only one defense and too little practice with it, and she wasn't supposed to summon when the Vile Wave crested unless she absolutely had to, but she absolutely had to.
"Green Wave Deflection!"
Her form was not the best. The energy wobbled, and her shield took the wave from the side, not so much deflecting it as knocking it off-course. Shattering glass followed. It must have hit the mirror instead of her.
It wasn't much of a victory. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than she was bear-hugged from behind. She twisted. Tried to get hold of something, anything. She couldn't; there was no breaking free…
…and then he let her go, just like that.
The lights came back on.
Pan didn't drop her guard. She didn't know what game her enemy was playing, but she was ready to see an empty dojo, ready to search for an ambush. She didn't have to, though. The lights hadn't been returned by the same mysterious force that had stolen them. They'd been turned on at the switch, mundane as ever.
He stood in plain sight, a segmented pink Reizomorph in pale armor and a ratty old black cloak, one hand on the light switch and the other tucked behind his back. He smiled at her, open and genuine. There was nothing sinister about him. In any other context he would have looked friendly.
But that gruesome life force remained, and the damage it had done to the place; that Pan wasn't ready to see. The walls had been shredded and the yard beyond them. The floor and the ground beneath it, deep pits. There were only a few lights left to come on. How had the roof not collapsed?
"I beg your pardon," He said. "There's been a terrible mistake. Indulge me in conversation a moment, won't you? Perhaps we can figure out what went wrong."
Was this who Pan had been fighting? The Vile Wave still filled the space like venomous fog, but he was so… nonthreatening. She couldn't even match his voice, gentle like the low key of a flute, to the shriek that had summoned the Vile Wave.
"You see, when I dispatched my sentry to Earth, I specifically ordered it to bring me Son Goku, but clearly, that isn't who stands before me now. I should have known. Triggering my trap early so you'd have time to escape the crypt, holing up in the palace; those are the moves of a chessmaster, not a buffoon who struggles with checkers. He's not cold enough to send you as a decoy, either. Which begs the question… who are you, and why did my sentry ignore him in favor of you?"
He worded it like a question, but didn't invite any answer from Pan. He strode to her. Pan readied for another attack, but none came. He leaned over her shoulder and tasted the blood on the corner of her mouth.
Pan patted her cheek. She couldn't see her expression, but she could imagine it. "Did you just lick my face?"
"That is Saiyan blood, to be sure, and it's got a familiar bite to it. Do I finally have the honor of addressing Raditz's child?"
"You licked my great uncle's face?" Pan asked.
"Great uncle? Ah! A granddaughter, then. That would make you the child of that docile little thing I met on Namek. Well! That explains how you tricked my sentry, doesn't it?"
"If that bee was your sentry, you must be with the Cold family."
He chuckled. "Oh, my dear, I am the Cold family. Emperor Frieza, at your service."
"Emperor Frieza," Pan repeated.
He didn't make a move. He continued to stand with his hands tucked behind his back, wide open, smiling placidly. Frieza was dead. Fought and killed on Namek, fought and killed again in Hell. And yet Pan knew, with a nightmare's certainty, this man was telling her the truth.
"You're not what I expected."
"Let me guess," He said. "You thought I'd be taller."
Pan measured him against her own head and said, "No, you're about the right height." It was more like when Grandpa and Vegeta had talked about the man who'd murdered their parents, slaughtered their race, and atomized their homeworld, she'd envisioned something eviler. But then, what did evil look like? This, apparently. And it wasn't what she'd expected.
"Charming. Really." He did not sound charmed, and there was a scornful edge to his sarcasm. "You don't know me, but if you had expectations, I can only assume you know of me. That's good. It saves time. I don't need to convince you to answer my questions or explain what will happen if you don't. Fortunately, I have only one, and it's an easy one. Where is Son Goku?"
That may have been an easy question to Frieza, but to Pan, it was downright absurd. It was true, Frieza had been in hell when it happened, but surely he'd heard. Surely he knew.
"Son Goku is dead," Pan said.
The quiet thickened and mingled with the Vile energy. Frieza did not budge. He regarded Pan so impassively, she wondered if he'd heard her.
"I do not appreciate…"
It changed with the sudden ferocity of the Vile Wave itself. His smile melted into a fanged grimace so intense he looked like a completely different person, and his voice, too, pitched like breaking glass, and now Pan could match that face and voice to the monster she'd fought in the darkness.
"…BEING LIED TO!"
Six more Lacerations flew at Pan, and she barely shielded herself from the first five. The final clipped her on the arm, leaving a trail of blood and the same kind of sting as the sentry bee. The others smashed into the floor, and this time, the wall did come crashing down, billowing dust. The lights were gone again, but at least this time, she had the Prismasphere for light. Pan wove through the falling chunks and flew above the debris.
"I'm not lying!" Pan tried to predict where she'd need to shield next. "Earth was attacked by seven dragons. He managed to slay six of them. The seventh… he killed it, too. But he was wounded in the fight and… and he never…"
Pan wiped her eyes as discreetly as she could. No crying in front of the tyrant.
"You can spare me your theatrics as well as your lies. Do you seriously expect me to believe the Saiyan who brought down the mighty Frieza met his end at the hands of a mystic vapor? Don't make me laugh." Frieza had taken to the air as well. He threw vile spike after vile spike. "And don't." Laceration. "Make." Laceration. "Me. Ask. Again."
Erratic though they may have been, the waves of energy were delivered rapidly, and hit close enough Pan still had to dodge them. She was so occupied doing that she didn't notice Frieza had followed the last one to her; not until he was right next to her. He released another, but stopped it before it hit her. It lingered so close to her face she could hear it cackle like live wire. Pan turned away but he launched another out of the floor and blocked her path. Two more pierced the ground, enclosing her like thorns.
"If I recall," Frieza said, "That monkey had an uncharacteristic soft spot for the weak. Most Saiyans place winning above all, but not Goku, oh no; he'd risk the battle and his life to save a friend in danger. How much further would he go to save his granddaughter? Or, more relevant to you, how loud do you think you'd have to be screaming before he couldn't resist speeding to your rescue?"
"I'd save my ears if I were you," Pan said.
She fired a Kamehameha, and he'd been so intent on intimidating her, he hadn't even noticed her forming it. It annoyed him like a mosquito bite might have, but at least it shattered his trap.
Grandpa told Pan stories about Frieza. What had he said? Frieza relied too much on brute strength. He'd come out swinging, but the longer a fight lasted, the more likely he was to burn himself out before it was over. That battle he'd boasted about on Namek; according to Grandpa, it had lasted five minutes, and Frieza had been so winded at the end he would have lost even if he hadn't walked into one of his own attacks. Surely Pan could hold out that long.
Another barrage of punches shook the ground. Even if Pan could, the castle surely couldn't.
She couldn't afford a moment's distraction. She couldn't afford to slip. He feinted and she fell for it; she hurled energy she couldn't spare in an explosive wave. That did save her from the blow, but it also knocked the roof off its last legs, and it fell directly on her. The ensuing impact was worse than a car crash. It was disorienting to hear her bones break before she felt it, and to feel it before she understood it. Get your bearings, Pan! She wormed free of the rubble and pushed Frieza back by attrition. The shock splintered what little was left of the wall. Had Pan really been sparring with Incendria in this room just this morning?
Wait. Frieza wasn't bothering with shields. It wouldn't hurt him, but she didn't need to, she only needed to move him.
"Masenko!"
He stepped into the grass and heather. Good. Vile Wave or no Vile Wave, Pan had to get him away from the palace, away from Asphodel, away from all these people. She may not have connected but least she had him moving in the right direction.
Frieza glanced past Pan, to the hall beyond. Did he suspect?
No, that wasn't it. The guards were coming. They were close enough their footsteps echoed from the walls. Not many; they hadn't been fighting long enough. Pan felt Ember. Gelata. Incendria, repressing less energy than usual. And a fourth she didn't recognize. Of course they'd have noticed Frieza blasted the dojo to smithereens- they were inside the palace when he started tearing chunks off it, after all- and the strongest would be the quickest on the scene. Frustrated, Pan willed them to turn around. They'd be running straight into a room that, for all intents and purposes, didn't exist anymore.
Yet Frieza held one hand over his chest and his fingers glistened. Surely that beam hadn't hurt him. It hadn't even hit him. When he next spoke, his voice was all oil again.
"I'm afraid I must take my leave, but don't misunderstand. We're picking this conversation back up at my next nearest convenience. I hope to find you in a more talkative mood. It will go better for everyone."
Pan wanted to retort, but her ribs hurt so much even breathing was an effort. Speaking wasn't happening.
There wasn't anyone to speak to, anyway. By the time Incendria and the guards reached her, Frieza was gone. He hadn't flown away, or even vanished in smoke, he was just gone.
But the dojo smoldered. The ground cracked to stygian depths. Pan's bones were still broken. There was no question the Emperor had been here.