"We will NOT
surrender!" she screamed and charged again. Mameko may not have been raised
as a fighter, but all Saiyajin had a fighting spirit. Only two members of the
party of six remained, fighting with everything they had to defeat the creatures.
They had misjudged their strength. It would have taken ten more Saiyajin to
subdue them; ten more elites. They were all 3rd class and they were doomed.
"Beta!" she turned around after blasting
another one into oblivion and looked for her comrade.
"Mameko... get out of here..." the woman
muttered. Her body was hefted above the head of one of the monstrous, green
natives. Her tail hung limp. With little effort, the creature pulled and rent
the body in half at the waist.
"No!!" Mameko flew at the monster and
gave it her all, but her left arm was already broken and her energy level was
pitifully low. She knew it was all over, but she would rather go out fighting
than turn tail and run.
Just before the darkness closed in, she felt her body being lifted up. Unable to protest, she was carried for some distance. She was placed in a cold, wet substance. As her nose, mouth and ears filled with the goo, she lost consciousness.
*
Dim. Grey. Muffled voices. A tiny beam of light
in her eye.
Mameko blinked rapidly and struggled to renew
her senses. A purple shape resolved itself.
The alien in front of her was short and aquatic
looking. He held a medical monitor in one hand and a high-powered tazer in the
other.
"Ah, you're reviving nicely."
'Regen tank...' she thought. 'I survived...'
He continued to poke and prod her with the instrument.
"Yes, I was worried. You sure took your sweet time healing. Then we ran
into a bit of difficulty. Yes. A fine specimen you are. I shall have to start
all over again, but you're fine, fine..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she
asked, blearily. Her eyes focused and she took in her surroundings. "This..
this isn't..."
All around her were tall cylinders with frosted
windows. Inside each, she could make out the form of a being. Confused and angry,
she pulled at her restraints. The purple alien turned on the tazer apprehensively.
"Now, don't try anything funny, Saiyajin."
The way he said her species name was like a curse.
Mameko gritted her teeth. She was a captive. 'Not for long,' she thought and
quickly snapped the ties which bound her to the wall.
The alien cried out and thrust the tazer at her
in a panic. She reached out quicker and snapped the arm holding the weapon off
like a twig. A pale, white sort of blood flowed profusely from the wound. She
then flipped the arm around and tazed him with his own hand. Mameko stepped
up to his now crouching, twitching body and twisted his head 180 degrees. He
slumped to the floor, dead.
"Well. That was refreshing. Now where the
hell am I?" Mameko stepped over him and wandered out of the room.
It wasn't long before she realized she was on
a space ship and that that ship was hovering in orbit over a small, blue-green
plant.
Her stomach rumbled. Frowning, Mameko looked at
the foreign controls.
"Computer?" she asked tentatively. To
her relief, a tinny voice answered.
"Yes?"
"Take us down."
"Only the captain is cleared to navigate
this ship."
'Machines,' she thought angrilly. "He's dead.
Land or I blow you to bits."
"All right," the computer nonchalantly
agreed and began descent.
After a few minutes, the voice called out again.
"Captain, we are being hailed on all frequencies."
"Um..." she thought for a second. "On
screen?"
An image of a smallish, furry man in a military
uniform appeared on the large display.
"Attention incoming ship. Identify yourself!"
Mameko raised a brow and bid the computer open
her channel. "This is the Saiyajin Hunger Express!" she shouted. "We're
coming in."
He looked visibly shocked. "Be you friend
or foe?!"
A thin, hunger-crazed, evil grin came over her
face. "You'll have to see for yourselves! OHOHOHOHO!" she laughed
and closed the communication.
When the ship landed, Mameko disembarked and was
met by a fairly large and heavily armed military force. She put her fists on
her hips and grinned. No one moved. She took a step forward.
"What are you!?" a man's voice boomed
from a public address monitor. "Friend or foe!?"
She paused for dramatic effect before shouting
back, "FOE!!!" and charging into the thick of them.
The battle was extremely one-sided and was going
fairly quickly... until the back up arrived.
Mameko spotted the four people flying in and stopped
her rampage. Their leader called down to her.
"Oi! I think your fight is with us!"
She raised her brows and dusted off her hands.
"Very well!" She lifted off the ground and followed them away from
the ship, much to the surprise of the remaining army.
When they touched
down, the leader opened his mouth to speak again, but was cut off by a shorter
man.
"What are you?!" he barked.
"I'm a Saiyajin."
"You lie!"
Mameko unraveled her tail from around her waist.
"I AM A SAIYAJIN! And you are about to find out just what that means!"
The shorter man charged at her. One of the younger
men of the group called out after him. "Papa, no!"
He wasn't listening. They exchanged blows for
a minute or so before Mameko discovered that she was hopelessly outclassed by
just this one man. The other three were probably her match as well. Some of
them seemed strikingly similar. It didn't matter. She would still rather die
fighting than return home a failure.
Just as the man was powering up to deliver a hefty
power attack, the leader called out to him.
"Vegeta, Stop!"
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"Bejiita..." Mameko's eyes went wide.
She fell to her knees and looked up at him. "Please forgive my insolence,
Ousama!!"
Vegeta halted his attack and frowned down on her.
"Get up!"
She stood immediately at attention and waited.
"Who are you?"
"I am Mameko, Saiyajin, 3rd class, Division
14, Ousama!"
Vegeta circled her and scrutinized her. "Where
did you come from?"
"A PT take-over on the planet Elkye, which
I must with deep shame report went horrible awry, Ousama."
"Stop calling me that. I am Vegeta Oujisama."
"Ouji?" she asked and made eye contact
with him. She had had audience with the king only once, but she would never
forget how tall and intimidating he was. This man looked like the king, sounded
like the king, but he was a foot shy of his impressive stature. 'Can this be
an older son?' she thought. 'A rouge brother? The Prince is just a child...'
"And you cannot be a Saiyajin!" Vegeta
yelled and charged at her again.
No one dared interfere
until the woman was hardly conscious. Goku flew in front of Vegeta and held
out his arms.
"That's enough."
Vegeta growled and backed off. "Calls herself
a Saiyajin," he scoffed.
"Papa, you could have asked her to elaborate..."
Trunks folded his arms and frowned.
"Is she alive?" Goten asked.
"Hai, Goten-kun." Goku picked her up
gently and they followed him as he carried her back to Capsule Corp.
*
A small crowd gathered around Bulma as she programmed
the regen tank. After she bumped into someone for the third time, she screamed
for everyone to get out. Only Vegeta remained.
"Honestly, Vegeta. Did you have to go this
far?"
"She's weak," was his only answer.
"Let her heal. Then after I talk to her you
can beat the poor helpless thing up again," she said as she passed by him.
"She wasn't so helpless when she took out
those platoons of Earth soldiers."
"What?"
"We found her plowing through a fleet of
tanks. I guess she didn't take too kindly to their idea of a welcome wagon."
Bulma frowned and looked at the young woman in
the tank. Her eyes were closed, but she had that same permanent scowl that Vegeta
wore when he slept. "Come on. Let's let her be for now."
*
A few hours later, Mameko stirred. She opened
her eyes, shocked to feel the warm liquid against them. 'How did I get back
here?!' she thought wildly and struggled to get out. The pain that coursed through
her limbs reminded her of the encounter with the man who called himself 'Prince'.
She began to think that she HAD died on the battle field and this was simply
some form of hellish afterlife. Mameko thrust her good arm through the plate-glass
and it burst into a million shatter-proof pieces. The liquid sloshed out on
to the floor. She ripped free of the restraints, found her tattered armor, put
it back on and staggered out of the room.
Frustrated, confused and tired, she grew impatient
trying to find a door and blasted a window out. Mameko shielded her eyes against
the bright, yellow sun and wandered out onto the lawn.
"Oi!" a girl's voice called out from
behind her. "Just where do you think you're going, impostor?"
Mameko turned and looked at the girl. She was
short and had black hair. She was wearing a blue and white set of Saiyajin armor
and her dark tail wagged back and forth anxiously.
"I'm... I'm not an impostor..." she
replied and held her head. "Who are you?" she asked. Her voice held
the same strange, almost British accent that Vegeta touted.
"I'm Koshi. Otousan says you can't possibly
be a Saiyajin."
"You're one... Why do people think I'm lying!?"
Mameko grabbed her tail and pulled at it a little. She winced at the slight
pain. "See! It's not coming off!"
"But..." Koshi raised a brow. Her arms
were tightly folded. "It's blue."
"Huh..?" Mameko looked at her tail.
"What the Hell!?"
Koshi couldn't help but laugh out loud at the
horrified look on the young woman's face. "Hahahaha! You mean this is news
to you?!"
"Well yes! It was brown the last time I checked!"
Mameko pulled at the spiky hair on her head and was shocked to find that it
too was a dusty, blue color. Koshi continued to laugh. Mameko growled and took
a fighting stance. "Bakayarou! Make fun of me, will you!?"
"How DARE you speak to me like that! I am
your Princess!"
"What?! Not this again!" she groaned.
"What's going on? Where's that man who looks like the King who calls himself
Prince?"
"What? You know what the king looked like?"
"Yes I... wait..." Mameko relaxed her
shoulders. "LOOKED like?"
"Mmhm. He's been dead a long time. I never
knew my grandfather."
Mameko stared at this girl. She slowly shook her
head. "This IS hell... Either that or I have completely lost my mind!"
"There is no way you could have known what
my father looked like," Vegeta said as he stepped out of the hole Mameko
had blasted in the side of his house.
"Of COURSE there is! I was even given audience
with him once! He congratulated me on a job well done for the taking of the
Gambaru Quadrant just a few years ago!"
"Girl, I was a child when we took the Gambaru
Quadrant." Vegeta walked up to her and examined her torn armor. It was
decorated with the Saiyajin Empire logo, as bold as the day it was printed,
and the blood stains of battle. "I am Vegeta. Prince of all Saiyajin and
your leader. I do not know where you came from, but I believe you."
Mameko shuddered. "What happened to me? Why
are you grown, Oujisama?"
"It appears that time has left you behind.
What was the last thing that happened to you?"
Mameko furrowed her brows and recanted what little
she had experienced. When she was done she looked up and saw Koshi burrowing
a hole in her with eyes. Vegeta paced away and thought.
"Hm..." he mused. "While you were
healing, my woman and son did some research at the ship you arrived in. It seems
that this purple thing that you so neatly disposed of was a collector."
"A what?" Koshi asked, interested.
"He had an example of nearly every species
of sentient being I've ever seen on board that ship. Something went wrong though,
and all the life support systems shut down. They were all dead. You somehow
survived this."
"He COLLECTED me?!" Mameko cried. "Did
he do this to my hair!?"
"No. That was probably an after effect of
the cryogenic process."
Mameko sank to the ground. "Cryogenic. As
in, stasis?"
He nodded. "You've been paused for roughly
50 Earth years... 25 to you and me."
Mameko stared at the ground.
"So, she's technically in her seventies?"
Koshi whispered to herself.
"What can I do now? My life is in your hands,
My Prince." She bowed deeply, despite the pain of her wounds.
Vegeta thought for a second. "Koshi. Get
Mameko a room. She will stay with us until further arrangements can me made.
Mameko?"
She stood up, eyes wide. "Hai, Oujisama!"
"You are to do whatever Koshi, Trunks, my
woman, Bulma or I say. You are too old for school." Vegeta tilted his head.
"Do you have any useful skills other than combat?"
"I was supposed to become a teacher..."
Vegeta barked at her in the rough Saiyajin tong.
She barked back. "Excellent. You shall teach my children Saiyago."
"Hai Oujisama!" Mameko beamed.
Koshi raised a brow. "But, Otousan! I know
Saiyago!"
"You language skills are poor because I do
not have the patience to teach you. Her diction is very clear and precise."
"Hai, Otousan."
"Now come on. Your mother will start screaming
if we're late for dinner again."
"DINNER!" Mameko cried. "Ano...
I'm soooo hungry!!!"
Vegeta walked back through the hole in the wall.
"After dinner, fix this."
"Hai Otousan."
"Hai Ouji-sama."
Koshi turned to Mameko and made a face. "So.
I guess you'll be staying here for a while."
"If that's all right with you, Koshi-sama?"
Koshi blinked a few times. "Koshi-sama..."
she grinned. "Nice ring to it. Come on. Let's go eat."
032701
Next : Arrival Chapter Two
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