Waiting for activity on a slow day has to be the worst hours of work imaginable. You'd think the boredom would give you a welcome time to think and catch your breath, which you seldom are allowed under Frieza's rule. But no, such time only allows you to reflect on how trapped you are under the tyrant's boot. How hopeless you are for any semblance of a free life of your choosing. You can't do the job you are given until someone gets hurt, or a prisoner needs saving from Zarbon or Dodoria's "care".
Chanterelle has simply been stuck here for hours with absolutely nothing better to do with her life, the watchful eyes of Frieza made sure of that.
"The med bay has been rather quiet with those two away, hasn't it?" Nabana asked, trying to break the air of boredom they are stuck in.
"Yeah, with all their training, Vegeta and Nappa are the only ones keeping us employed at this rate. We're lucky we keep getting these prisoners from New Plant. Even if I hate to see them resist so much. They're only gonna get worse treatment when it's over, resistance is short sighted." Chanterelle sighed.
Chanterelle remembered why she was stuck here. A disease that had struck those of "weak" Tuffle stock. Devised by Dr. Lychee, he released the plague onto the remaining Tuffle population to ensure only the strong and pure remained standing.
If she hadn't been on New Plant at that time, maybe her dad wouldn't have resorted to the gene therapy to save her. Now she's part tuffle, part saiyan, part god knows what else.
A damned genocidal maniac left her dependent on steroids to remain physically strong enough to function. Her healing abilities kept her alive for as long as she can remember, it certainly wasn't her strength.
When Frieza came to New Plant, both her parents were just slaughtered by Zarbon. The only thing keeping her alive was her aunt Fenna.
A young girl hid in a closet after running from the screams of her parents. The door broke in as a thin blue man whipped his hair out of his face, in any other situation, the girl may have found that cute, but this man was holding her father by the neck and choking out all of his remaining strength.
"I know the saiyan's here. We're detecting both the saiyan and the half breed in this house. If you don't let us find either of them, your head will pop off your body. Your choice."
The blue-green man continued to slowly choke the life out of her father.
Something pricked the girl's back. She gasped, as a familiar hand reached out around her mouth. Her aunt had finally mustered the strength to fight back against her former boss.
Years of putting the life of a warrior behind her; she wasn't sure she could stand up to Zarbon, or Dodoria for that matter.
Dodoria stood up after leaning on the wall, "My turn to get the information from this bitch."
Zarbon conceded, "Fine, it was getting boring anyway"
Dodoria stomped on her father's head, slowly taking care to not crack his skull too soon, giving him a chance to respond. Although, the only response he was getting was screams.
Charging into the door of the closet, Fenna charged into a headbutt with all her might, hoping to knock Dodoria off balance, and off her new best friend.
"You may have been killed, Fasha, but they'll never get to me or your niece." Fenna held back tears, growling heartily at Dodoria.
"You'll never kill another one of us again. Even if there won't be any of us left!" Fenna blasted a hole in the ceiling.
The perpetual moonlight of New Plant's winter caressed Fenna's body as she grew into a feral monster, a demon monkey. Jumping far away from the house, Fenna roared as if to goad Dodoria to chase after her.
Dodoria stomped her father's ribs into the ground. As soon as he took off after Fenna, the girl jumped out to help her father. Looking at her dad's now mangled body, she tried to save him. He was clearly rendered unable to speak, his jaw had unhinged from his skull in a gruesome display of dodoria's crushing weight. Now left dying alongside the frieza soldiers he had managed to fight off until that point, Chanterelle tried to find a way to save him.
Chanterelle was taught their form of healing by her father, but she was just a child, and he had lost too much of his energy to begin with. She had to find another source.
She looked around frantically, before she grabbed a dying frieza soldier, and she started taking his remaining energy to give back to her father. Drawing upon the energy she stole from these soldiers to keep her father alive, if only barely.
Hours passed and Fenna never returned to comfort her adoptive daughter. Her father gave her Fenna's genes so she'd survive Dr. Lychee's plague, now, she is one of the last saiyans, if only a half breed.
Chanterelle remained crying as her father slowly died in her arms, the energy she could provide being far from enough to save him.
Zarbon witnessed the attempts, however, and if this power could be harnessed, maybe he could become strong enough to rival even frieza if he could have her steal the ki from the weaklings and share it with him. He'd need to keep it secret, if Frieza found out of his plot to overthrow him, he'd surely be executed.
The doors flew open as a Tuffle fighter was thrown into Chanterelle's arms by Dodoria. Just barely catching the man, and dropping both her and the body to the ground, Dodoria ordered her around. "Put 'em in the tank, he's not worth my time anymore!"
The man struggled to make eye contact with Chanterelle, before she felt something in her head as she worked her ki into his body. His wounds started to mend themselves as the voice became clearer to her mind.
You are part Tuffle, Your genes carry the key to a revival of our race. The voice spoke, The few remaining Tuffles are not the last. Like a mushroom, the plucked shroom is only the surface, the network of mycelial energy that connects our souls can never be snuffed. Our spores have spread throughout the galaxy.
I don't understand... You're saying all tuffles can share their minds, our memories? Chanterelle was taken aback by the voice, even more so by this new development.
The man continued to speak directly to her soul.
Yes, we all share a collective memory, a collective mind, a collective soul. We share a collective life, collective energy. All connected like mycelium to the disconnected mushrooms on the surface of a log.
Chanterelle watched as his energy slowly left his body, into her own pool of ki. She could do nothing to stop this transfer of energy he was forcing with all his remaining willpower, as he died to provide his remaining energy to her.
Oddly enough, he didn't lose the will to live, quite the opposite. He had willed himself to die for the betterment of the rest of the Tuffle Race. Chanterelle didn't know what to do with that thought, however she felt a surge of power coursing through her.
Dodoria's scouter picked up this sudden surge in power, as well as the power draining from the weakened Tuffle he'd just left in Chanterelle's hands. What the hell is she up to? Before he could go back to check, he receives a message from Frieza.
"Dodoria, you buffoon, you left a weakling down there with the rest of the planet, several of those weaklings survived your attack! Get down there now and finish them off for good! Then we can finally sell this worthless rock!" Dodoria had to take off the scouter to prevent hearing damage, but he sighed and prepared to yell back, but he stopped himself, "Take the half Tuffle bitch with you, maybe she can keep them alive so we can interrogate them for the leader of this pathetic rebellion."
What good would she do? She's frail, weak. If I bring her along, she'd just hold us back, keep me and Zarbon from going all out. Why would we need her to keep them alive? Dodoria's inner complaints were tempered by the orders Freiza expected of him, and he let out a sigh and returned to collect Chanterelle for the mission.
Trying to dispose of the now shriveled corpse she was quite rudely left with, Chanterelle shot the body out the airlock. He could have at least asked before killing himself. Jeez. He didn't even get off me first.
Dodoria slammed the med bay doors open, with a crack that quite possibly broke them, rather than wait the split second required of the door to detect his presence and open itself. So impatient, that he simply grabbed Chanterelle by the arm and dragged her with him to the nearby space pods. Chanterelle tried to get an answer out of him, but she failed to get his attention as he threw her into a pod.
"We're leaving! Don't get in my way!" Dodoria spat, just as the pod door closed and the pod instantly barreled down towards the planet.
"So, are you gonna at least tell me what the damn mission is?" Chanterelle grasped for some kind of reason for her recent treatment by the fat pink scumbag.
No response.
Dodoria's pod launched in after her. The two landed nearby Raditz' pod, despite Raditz himself somehow managing to be captured by the resistance's robotic minions. As Dodoria explained their situation, Chanterelle realized that maybe Raditz was in trouble after all. Chanterelle couldn't help but worry, the two had managed to keep their relationship a secret to the likes of Dodoria and Zarbon, although they'd only been together for a few weeks at this point.
It seems they didn't know about me and Raditz… If they had known, they'd have surely avoided sending me on this rescue mission. Chanterelle considered her options here. If they found out we had feelings for each other, and could have a child that would reverse the near extinction of the Saiyan race… She shuddered at the thought of them both getting executed.
Dodoria continued, as Chanterelle barely made note of the details as she remained deep in thought. After snapping out of her trance, Dodoria's voice resumed its place in her mind.
"So, we have to break that monkey wimp out of the rebel base, and fight off some robots. They won't be any challenge for a guy like me, so stick behind me and you won't get hurt. Your job is to keep any of the rebels alive so we can break them and get any information we can on their leader. Got it?" Dodoria continued.
The two sat in their pods, already surrounded by robots and Tuffle soldiers.
"Wait, Dodoria, I think I can handle this." She explained over the comms.
Getting out of her pod, the tuffle soldier's laser guns remained aimed at her, as she prepared a ki blast at the ground, aimed at a dying soldier hit by the pod.
Her aura turned a sea green as she touched the man, healing his wounds with the energy she had taken from the old prisoner moments ago.
"Now Enoki has a chance to live on. I had nothing to do with his death, why he is not here with you now, but I bring his remaining energy, so that he may live on with us in a shared memory. Had I left his energy with me, Enoki wouldn't be reunited with his people. Now, I ask you to return Raditz, one of my only friends, back to me in exchange.."
The tuffles laid down their rifles, upon seeing another Tuffle among them.
This hope quickly turned to fear as they realized she wore the same armor as Frieza's men. More precisely, Frieza's medics, with a red and white armor shaded like that of wine or a plum.
Chanterelle tried calming them down, holding her hands against her rusty blonde hair as she walked slowly towards them.
"I'm not gonna hurt you, in fact, I wouldn't allow myself to. I just want my friend back, and we can be on our way. My comrade back in his pod is far less… reasonable." Chanterelle struggled to find a less provocative word, but that's what she settled on. Desperately trying to avoid conflict, this was far from ideal. She kept walking after a short pause, but continued.
"I'd prefer not having to mop up his rampage, I really hate him for not even trying to avoid needless and painful deaths, but we can work through this, can't we?"
The air remained tense, and it seemed like anything she could say would only create more doubt, more problems down the line. She had to think of something, and fast.
Tilting her body to peek behind her at Dodoria in his pod, clearly fuming at not simply killing these people, she had an idea.
Chanterelle lept back behind Dodoria's pod, her ears flicking off her scouter visor as the jump launched the device from her eyes as she caught it mid-backflip. Her tail unwrapped from around her waist to maintain her balance, as she reached for another wounded tuffle nearly under Dodoria's pod.
Choosing in a split second to simply rip the tuffle out from under the pod, tearing the legs off the poor woman's body, as she tried healing her with the blood and ki rapidly leaving from both ends of the stump.
The tuffles raised their guns, and a few started firing upon assuming her attempt at aid was an attack. Dodoria burst out of his pod immediately to defend her, sighing profusely.
"I told Frieza bringing you along would be a waste of time, it seems literally. Your whole Spiel lasted a whole 5 minutes." Dodoria flew around a robot as he ripped off both its metal limbs, throwing them at a group of Tuffles, knocking them to the ground, dead.
Chanterelle hid behind the pod, still trying to heal the dying tuffle. As the woman's ki left her now removed legs, Chanterelle tried pulling it into herself to save it and reapply the energy to heal her later. Despite the battle raging Around her, she tried to focus on saving the woman's life.
One of the Tuffles, now thrown behind where Chanterelle was healing, reached out to kick Chanterelle away from the woman.
"Get the hell away from my sister, you bitch." He screamed, Chanterelle grabbed his leg and in an instant, his leg shriveled to a Tuffle Jerky, and the woman's leg regrew, like a lizard, or a Namekian. She had somehow drained his leg and forced regeneration in his sister.
The regeneration continued to snake its way up the man's body, draining him of all his ki as that energy entered the woman. Chanterelle's hand froze, the shock of what she was doing kept her from moving.
Unfortunately for the soldier, as he clawed at her hand to release him, he kept growing weaker with each passing second until he finally gave up.
The excess energy she had drained from the man gave her a renewed strength, no longer being ravaged by disease. Before now, the ki she had healed with had never returned back to her own body. She could only use it to heal others, not herself. But now, she's no longer weak. Her strength is returning to a point before the plague, and she was gonna use that to finally get the hell out of here.
After many years of getting beaten down, being kept as Zarbon's pet project. She finally has a chance to escape after so long.
Now that she's able to, she may as well try.
Chanterelle decided, in that moment, she'd take Raditz and run. Away from Frieza, maybe to this Earth Raditz's brother was sent to. Maybe she could finally live a normal life again. Like she deserved, a peaceful life.