Potara stared at her target, a portal with the word 'Terra' written underneath it. She frowned, fiddling with her earring absentmindedly. Did she really want to go back there? There were a lot of bad memories inherited from Pan lurking there. Not to mention, did she really want to see what had become of the world after the Saiyan's had murdered the last of the humans? She sighed, rubbing her eyes. Ever since she had thought of it, going to the afterlife to visit Anuerin and confront Odianna, it had plagued her nonstop. She knew it would continue to nag her endlessly until she did so. Sometimes she really hated that she had gotten Pan's memories dumped on her. That girl had left so many things unresolved...
Potara slowly shook her head, took in a deep breath, let it out, and walked through the portal...
...and what she found on the other side came as a surprise. She had expected to see utter ruin and devastation. Instead, she found a staircase had been built up the hill leading to the portal. The ruined town she could remember seeing the first time she had come here was gone. In its place, she could see Saiyans building a complex of sort. The land around the hill and town had been completely wiped away and was now a flat desert-like space. Though, she could see some workers were building what looked to be an... aqueduct or some empty water system of sorts going to the complex building. Potara opened up her senses and stiffened. There were hundreds of Saiyans on the world from what she could sense, and several spaceships in the atmosphere. She had expected Terra to be in ruin, instead, the Saiyans were colonizing it. Potara ground her teeth and clenched her fists in anger. This was even worse than she had expected. They were removing all traces of what had once been here, building on the corpses and graves of humanity. It took everything she had to not go God and start annihilating everything and everyone in sight. She would not risk some kind of retaliation against her home dimension.
She sighed to herself, hating to have to bottle up her rage. She closed her eyes and used Bata's technique, teleporting herself to the check-in station of this world. She nodded in satisfaction before pondering which to do first...
Pain or pleasantry? Visit Odianna in hell and give her one heck of a screaming and or beating, or go talk with Anuerin? She tilted her head back and forth before shrugging and walking into the check-in station and up to the desk.
The demon on duty paused its sentencing of a white spirit blob and frowned at her. "Can I help you...?"
The demon paused, taking note of her clothes. "O-oh! A Kaioshin? I... oh um..."
She wasn't going to tell him otherwise and merely asked, "I'm looking for someone who would have died roughly half a year ago. Her name is Odianna."
She was a bit surprised to see recognition in the demon's eye. "Ah, the 'special' case."
Potara raised an eyebrow. "Special?"
The demon wiggled his nose with distaste. "That one, a good start to life, then it all went downhill. Directly responsible for thousands of deaths, mind you most were in self-defense of herself and her world. But, that one took to much pleasure in that slaughter. Her actions also left many repercussions throughout the universe, though, I'm unsure if the Saiyans learning how to once again go Super Saiyan from battling her ought to have been held against her or not. To be frank, I wasn't honestly sure what I was going to do with her, but the decision was taken out of my hands anyway. A few heroes and a Kai called in a favor to get her sent to the Grand Kai's world."
Potara pursed her lips. "I see."
Odianna got out of going to hell because someone called in a favor? Hmph. Such a fate was to good for her in Potara's opinion. She was NOT biased like Pan had been towards the woman. She felt utter contempt for her and what she had done to Pan.
"I require transport to the Grand Kai's world then," said Potara.
The demon nodded and motioned to one of his file-helpers who led Potara to a cloud car. The traveled in silence until a world came into view in the distance.
"I'll fly from here," said Potara, leaving the car.
"Uh... hey!" exclaimed the driver, but Potara paid no heed.
A cloud car would draw attention. She wanted to observe first. She flew, keeping her presence and power as tiny as possible until she descended onto the planet. It was just like the last one she had been on.
She winced and went rigged, a sense of deja vu hitting her all the sudden...
Pan sighed and turned around after the car left. She glanced down a path leading to a giant white building with one big entrance and tons of windows everywhere. There were pools of water, and tons of spots of green grass everywhere, oddly trapped in squares. There were also a number of people there...
Potara viciously shook her head, banishing the memory. She rubbed her forehead, sighing quietly to herself. She moved quietly and swiftly, hiding behind trees or statues or temporarily behind people. She kept her senses open, feeling a vaguely familiar presence. She reached the main white building and walked along the edges, keeping her body pressed against it as she snuck around. There, in the 'backyard' of the Grand Kai's building, was who she was looking for. But... the scene she came across was something that simply dumbstruck her.
A giggling little boy ran along the grass. "Can't catch me sis!"
Odianna was chasing the boy, intentionally moving slow, a smile on her face. "Oh you better believe I can!"
Potara STARED at her, disbelief on her face. Odianna was playing with a child? She was... happy? Actually happy, and not faking it, not a hint of anger or rage or hate on her face. That boy... he had called Odianna 'sis'...
Odianna nodded. "The first Saiyan to invade Terra was sent as a baby. His name... was Rutabage, though, we came to call him the Despoiler. Everyplace he went was ruined, everyone's lives he touched were destroyed. Despite how weak he was compared to the Saiyan's we deal with nowadays, he was singlehandedly responsible for killing the vast majority of humanity. He wiped out over half of our population before he was stopped."
"One... just... one single Saiyan?" asked Pan with disbelief.
Odianna nodded again. "I encountered him when I was six years old. Despite being the same age as me, he was utterly merciless. My village was one of the first to fall. He killed everyone, all the villagers, my mother, my father, my brother, and toyed with me for amusement."
Potara grew confused, studying the child. He shared Odianna's brown eyes and black hair. There faces and builds, despite the age difference, were similar. She could see him being her little brother. Only... two problems.
One. Why was he here? This was a place warriors were taken.
Two. He had died over forty years ago. Why was he still a child? Or did you not age in Otherworld?
"Aunt Dina, saaaave meee," squealed the child.
Potara followed the child's path with her eyes and laid her gaze upon three warriors standing watch over Odianna and the child's antics, smirks or smiles on their faces. Each of them were human, each of them wearing the Fox Hermit Gi.
Odianna's words to Pan made their way into her mind...
Odianna cleared her throat."Just before Rutabage was going to finish me off, the legendary fox hermit, Master Kokatsune appeared, and fought the boy off. He tended to my wounds and had planned to leave me at an orphanage. However, I begged him to train me, to allow me to take revenge for my family."
Odianna frowned. "We continued to try to stop him, along the way over the years, we began to pick up other survivors. The first was an indian who went by the name of Kiaan, his entire family had been killed, and he had been knocked out cold, powerless to stop Rutabage. Kiaan swore revenge and joined us on the hunt. He was a gentle giant at first, but, Rutabage changed him."
"The next was... was someone who would become a dear friend to me," said Odianna sadly, "Her name was Dina."
Odianna smiled faintly. "She was a weird one alright. The only reason she lived through the attack on her village was because she scared the crap out of Rutabage."
"How?" asked Pan.
Odianna smirked. "She had a... condition... whenever she sneezed, her hair and eyecolor would change and her personality would dramatically shift."
Pan blinked a few times. "That... sounds like Launch."
Odianna gave a start. "Sounds like Launch?"
Pan nodded. "Launch is a lady I know who does the exact same thing when she sneezes. When her hair is blue, she's really nice, and a bit naive. When her hair is yellow, she has a wicked temper and always pulls out a gun to shoot people. She was a major bank robber back in her youth."
"Pfff, bank robber," said Odianna with distaste, "Well, they sound similar except for the last part. Though, nice Dina was a brunette, and angry Dina was a redhead. Her switching between her personalities freaked Rutabage out enough to make him run away. Having no one else to go, she joined up with us. I looked up to her, kind of like a big sister. She saved my ass a lot back then."
Potara's eyes flickered, matching each vague description to the person. So this was... they were... she tilted her head in thought, a faint smile on her face. They were Terra's 'Z Fighters', or whatever they called their group. The way they held themselves, the comfortableness around one another, the above average energy. For a brief moment, she found herself in Pan's memories, her eyes going wide at the first time she had ever seen Grandpa's friends all together.
Potara shook her head and focused as the brunette woman of the group sneezed, her hair changing red, before she charged out and swept the child off his feet. "Oh no you don't Odianna! This one's miiineeee! Buggar off!"
The woman, Dina, turned and bolted, a mischievous smirk on her face, with Odianna hollering and chasing after her. Potara just stared silently at the spectacle.
She frowned suddenly, looking back to the other two before whispering to herself, "Where's Aneurin?"
"Behind you," came a soft voice.
Potara couldn't help but jump and spin. Standing behind her, arms crossed, was her fifty year old friend. He was tough looking, muscular, with a serious face. But, hidden in that rough look were soft, kind eyes. He still wore his Fox Hermit Gi.
Aneurin gave her a once over, eyes briefly flickering above her head searching for and not finding a halo, before his eyes fell back on her and his eyebrows raised. "Fancy meeting you here. Come here often?"
Potara remained silent, suddenly unsure of how to proceed. She instead turned around and continued to watch the bizarre spectacle, ignoring his greeting.
"She's... strange," murmured Potara, "She's not as I remember her."
Aneurin moved to stand next to her. "Maybe not as you remember her, but, as I used to, as the rest of us used to, back when it all began."
"It's weird," said Potara, "She's not tense, not on guard, not paying attention to her surroundings, doesn't have an ounce of power ready..."
"Pan...," said Aneurin before sighing.
He shook his head. "It's over Pan. We fought, we lost, we died. We're tired of fighting, we're done. It's... time for us to let go and move on, that's why we asked her brother to come down from heaven and be with her, to help her let go of her hate."
Potara absorbed what he said silently, her eyes passing over the honored dead again. She started feeling a bit guilty, she had wanted to come to the afterlife just to give Odianna a piece of her mind, now though? She didn't want to intrude, if that woman could find some semblance of peace after all of this, might as well let her. What would holding onto a grudge really do for either of them?
Aneurin put a hand on her shoulder. "You okay Pan? Odianna told me about what happened at the tournament."
Potara's eyes narrowed. Okay, scratch that, grudge reborn. Did Odianna just go about telling EVERYONE about Pan's little 'incident'? She herself had told the Z-Fighters to press a point, for what reason or right did Odianna have to go telling this group? Pff...
She shook her head. "I should go."
"Yes, I suppose you should," came Aneurin's voice, a mischievous hint to it.
Potara gave a startled yelp as Aneurin picked her up and threw her forward past the edge of the building into it's backyard. She landed with a thump, furious and annoyed. She looked up, sighting that the other's ahead had paused to look at her. Odianna laid her eyes on Potara and they went wide with surprise.
Potara rose to her feet, dusted herself off, and shot Aneurin a dirty look. "Asshole."
Aneurin merely smiled at her with satisfaction.
Potara heard the pattering of feet and looked forward, sighting Odianna running towards her, a mortified look on her face. Odianna came to a pause a little ways away, her eyes looking up over Potara's head for a halo that wasn't there.
Relief played across Odianna's face. "You're not dead."
She lowered her eyes and met Potara's, she was about to speak before she froze. "..."
Odianna searched with her eyes for a moment before frowning intently. "Who are you?"
Aneurin gave a start behind them. "Uh... Odianna?"
Potara smirked with satisfaction. "At least someone figured it out without me correcting them."
The other's of Odianna's group arrived, standing behind her and giving Potara a curious look.
"I'll not ask again," said Odianna, her voice thin and hostile.
Ah, there was the Odianna Pan knew so well.
"My name is Potara," was Potara's reply.
"Like the earrings?" asked Dina before pausing and doing a double take, "Oh."
Potara resisted the urge to snort. That was the second time someone had had that reaction to her name. She found it mildly amusing.
Odianna turned her head to Dina. "Potara Earrings?"
Dina nodded slowly. "They're used by the Supreme Kai's in extreme situations. They're used to merge the mind, body, power, and soul of two beings together into one new entity."
Odianna gave Potara a peculiar look. "Pan... 'merged' with someone? Why?"
Potara narrowed her eyes and spoke hostile, "Because of the damn promise you had her make!"
A passive look crossed Odianna's face. "I see."
She turned to pass her eyes over the others. "I wish to speak to her, alone. This is not up for debate."
They group slowly dispersed, leaving Potara and Odianna standing by themselves. Potara eyed the woman with disdain. She had been willing to just leave, but, here they were. Might as well get it over with.
"Do you have any idea what you did to Pan?" she growled.
Odianna merely stared at her.
Potara clenched her fists. "Every fault in her life I can damn near lay at your feet. You taught her to kill, to disregard mercy, to chase power, all in the name of killing Saiyans. She looked up to you, and even loved you deep down, even after you tried to kill her, you..."
"I said my peace to Pan at the tournament, admitted my failings to her, even if it wasn't good enough I still apologized," interrupted Odianna, "What more do you want of me?"
Potara glared at her. "What more do I want? You learned NOTHING! In the time you 'helped' Pan you made her ten times worse! You just don't get it, do you? Let me remind you."
Potara blurred and closed the distance, floating infront of Odianna and grabbing her forehead, pouring a memory into her mind...
Odianna cupped Pan's chin in her hand and lifted her head up to make eye contact. "Pan, look at me. There is nothing wrong with obtaining the power you need to protect those you care for. Mercy is all well and good, but more often than not, you just need to put down your enemies."
Their was a darkening inside Pan's eyes. "There's nothing wrong with obtaining power..."
Odianna nodded. "They had NO right to say those kind of things to you."
Pan's eyes tightened. "They had no right."
"When you're older, and in control of your power, it'll be you who makes the decisions Pan. You might have to put up with their bullshit until you attain control, but there will come a day when it is by YOUR hand that justice will be met out, and by your will that evil like the Saiyans we dealt with shall be struck down," explained Odianna.
Pan smiled eagerly. "Yeah... when I figure that power out. I'll be the hero..."
"Even greater then your Grandfather," said Odianna.
"Even greater than Grandpa," whispered Pan, almost fanatically.
Odianna smiled at her. "And I trust that you will do whatever it takes to reach that point, and make the existence we live in a much better place. Promise?"
Pan nodded feverishly. "Yes, yes! I promise, I'll make the dimensions a better place!"
Odianna patted her head. "Good girl."
Pan hugged her and started sobbing again. "I'm such an idiot! I was... I was going to kill myself because I thought they wouldn't want me anymore, that I'd be alone... that I was a failure... big sis... thank you, thank you for stopping me, for saving me."
Odianna blushed a bit. "I'd do it again in a heart beat my little sister. But, to be frank, I saw nothing wrong with the beating you gave to that Coli bitch, I would have wanted you to do more, and I would never have abandoned you for it."
Pan smiled warmly. "Hee hee... that's cause you do worse things than I do to Saiyans. N-n-not that they don't deserve it!"
Odianna nodded and cupped Pan's chin. "Not that they don't deserve it indeed. Remember the promise Pan, real monsters like Coli have no place in the dimensions. When the time comes..."
"I'll make the dimensions a better place," whispered Pan fanatically.
Potara threw her to the ground before descending. "Do you understand yet?"
Odianna rose to her feet silently. "..."
Potara pointed a finger at her. "You twisted and turned a vulnerable little girl into a weapon, AGAIN! What, was the first time back on Terra not enough for you? She..."
Potara faltered for a moment. "She had come so far... she was finally healing, finally returning to the way things used to be... then the tournament happened. Then the mind attacks happened. Then you happened. I see the life she had, I see the life she COULD have had, and I... I envy it, I crave it. She threw it all away on a promise... and do you know what it got her? What it got me?"
Potara turned Super Saiyan Blue, the force of the transformation sending Odianna to the ground again. "It got me power, but even then, it wasn't enough. The green power was stripped away from me."
She glowered at Odianna, starting to shake. "And now... without that power... I have nothing..."
"SO WHAT GOOD WAS THAT PROMISE?!" she screamed at her in rage.
Odianna looked away. "..."
Potara barley resisted a sob, her voice cracking a bit, "WELL?!"
When Odianna still said nothing, Potara turned away, powering down. "I don't know why I came here. Enjoy your fucking afterlife."
She started walking away, readying herself to teleport back to Terra, when Odianna called out. "Potara..."
Potara stopped walked and clenched her fists. "What?"
There was a soft footfall before Potara froze as Odianna's arms wrapped around her in a sad hug. "I'm sorry, to you, and to Pan. I wish I could have told that to her."
Potara did not respond. "..."
Odianna released her and walked a few steps away before speaking, "Find your own path Potara, and this time, don't let anyone, especially not me, influence you or tell you what to do or how to live your life."
Potara looked at the ground, frustrated. "..."
"Don't waste your time on me anymore, some people should be forgotten," whispered Odianna.
Potara couldn't stop a tear from streaming down her face, struggling with Pan's memories and adoration for the woman. She stood there, quiet for a moment, before she turned her head, watching Odianna walk away towards her group. A wind picked up, giving the grass a gentle sway. The woman's hair and clothes following suit. Potara etched the moment into her mind, deciding this would be a better last memory of the woman than her anger for her. Potara closed her eyes and took a deep breath, slowly letting it out. She had wanted to talk to Aneurin as well, but, she... couldn't bring herself to stay here any longer. It was enough for her that Aneurin and Odianna seemed content and happy in their afterlives. Perhaps... it was for the best that it was left at that.
"My own path huh?" murmured Potara, "Hmph. Easier said than done."
She faintly smiled. "Nothings ever easy though."
She tilted her head back. "I guess... for now I'll go home."
With that, she teleported back to Terra, to the portal...
GRAB
Potara gave a start, surprised to see a hand grabbing the collar of her shirt and lifting her up. She was thrown off the hill a second later, landing on her back at the foot of the steps. Potara shook her head and glared upward. There, standing at the top of the hill blocking the entrance to the portal, was the Saiyan Emperor Kale...