His grip deformed the metal frame of the ship as he clawed open the canopy. Shards of glass cut through his skin, and his hand smeared blood across the fuselage as he reached outside the cockpit. He tried to pull himself out, but his muscles faltered, and he fell back into the seat with a cry of pain.

He took one breath. Then another. He focused his mind on the pain, reshaped it to a narrow pinprick. He accepted it. And then he dug deeper.

He hauled himself out of the ship and dropped like a stone to the ground below; the impact was brutally solid, knocking the wind out of him with a sharp cry echoed by the clatter of an object dropping beside him. For several minutes, he just lay there, breathing raggedly, the air oppressively thick around him. Part of his mind was sluggishly taking stock of his condition. He counted breaks and fractures, and listened to the wheeze of his breath. (Two ribs. Lung punctured, but not collapsed. Why was it so hard to breathe?) He tested the motion of each of his fingers, and then his toes. He tracked the sensation of pain up his limbs. Something was burning in his shoulder: dislocated, most likely.

Finally, he drew his attention to his back. He searched for something intangible along his spine, and his breath started to tremble and heave the longer he struggled to find it. Emptiness cracked open inside him. "No," he rasped, desperate and furious and grief-stricken all at once. "No–"

He opened his eyes to blood-red skies, and his breath stuck in his throat. He stared wordlessly at the open sky, crimson interrupted by white clouds, and felt his world shift unsteadily beneath him.

Where–?

He slowly eased onto his good side. He had to pause to catch his breath as pain lanced through him. And then he carefully braced his hand on the ground and started to push himself upwards. Just enough to sit. Just enough to see.

Hard ground, hard rocks. Mountains in the distance. Scarce plant life. A desert. But the rock formations were strange, unlike anything he could recall from back home: something about them seemed carved and stacked together, manmade – or at least man-manipulated.

He probed carefully at his injured shoulder and grew immediately lightheaded with pain. He closed his eyes, breathing carefully as he tried to calm his racing heartbeat, and then for a full minute afterwards to prepare himself. He grasped his wrist and held out the dislocated arm in front of him, and then he pulled.

His scream echoed across the rocks in mocking reverberation.

A thin layer of sweat sheened across his skin, but when he opened his eyes, his gaze was clear with the relief of receding pain. He began to slowly work off his jacket – first from his good arm, and then more carefully from the other – but it took longer to turn it into a sling one-handed; in the end, he had to use his teeth with one sleeve to get it to tie off. Once it was done, he finally managed to drag himself, inch by inch, to his feet.

The view was the same, but he studied it even closer now, trying to find some point of familiarity – or, failing that, at least an indication of civilization. But from mountains to desert, there was nothing. He reached out with his ki next, searching in every direction, looking for – something. Anything.

A startle ran up his spine, enough to almost jostle his shoulder. He focused on an area many miles out, trying to get a clearer feeling. Surely he couldn't be sensing that correctly. He was hurt and injured, something was off with his ki–.

No. He took another breath, steadying himself, and tried again, only to come to the same conclusion. There were enough ki signatures to indicate a settlement of some sort, but they were all far stronger than any average Earthling would be. Not enough to threaten him, but enough to whisper unsettlingly at the back of his mind.

He studied the strange, alien rock formations once more with a rising frisson of unease. He looked up at the bloodied sky. He closed his eyes and carefully deconstructed the threat of panic inside of him.

And then he opened them. He turned back to the ship and started to drag his hand along its exterior, his fingers fumbling in search until he finally found a small panel with some give. He pressed it and watched the ship disappear in a puff of smoke to leave behind a capsule on the ground. He picked it up. Pocketed it.

He looked at the sword on the ground for a long time before finally reaching to pick it up.

And then Trunks turned in the direction of life and started walking.