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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:01:35 GMT
Chapter One: Blood Three loud, sharp cracks echoed through the stone-walled room. The entire home above them rattled and further chunks of concrete rained down, dirtying the dark hair of the three, young Saiyans in the room. Celerus, Ollis, and Gehn were all present in the basement of their family home—a subterranean training room that once again needed repairs. Their parents chided the older, inseparable brother-sister pair for continuing to spar beneath the home given their ever-growing power. “It’s not like Gehn is making it any worse!” they always retorted. Yet another sideways jab at their younger brother with the shiny, bowl-cut hair. Once again, Gehn laid in the dust before his eldest sibling. Celerus towered over him; older, taller, and stronger in every way. The younger boy coughed against the concrete that his cheek was flat against and quietly curse the numerous, needle-like pin pricks of pain that the small chunks of concrete made as they dug into his skin. A quiet groan escaped the young man, followed by a shiver as he felt a bead of sweat run down from his soaked hair and across his nose. A jolt of pain lanced through Gehn’s body and the beaten and bruised boy reached out to grab his wrist. “Oh, poor baby~” Ollis chided him with her usual, sarcastic cooing. “Did you hurt your wittle wist?” The taller, dark-haired Saiyan girl stood overtop Gehn as well. Her hands were at her sides, pressing her ratty, torn-up brown pants into herself. She also wore a black, tattered, sleeveless top. The edges split open in various places, frayed in others—same for her pants. One of her bare feet tapped against the violet-stone floor. Vegeta was never known for its aesthetics. “Come on, Gehn,” his brother nudged him with a foot. Unlike Ollis, he wore a much better maintained outfit. His was a bright, light blue set of clothes, complete with matching white gloves and boots. The only thing missing from the teenage Saiyan boy was the set of armor that his father had made for Celerus. Gehn just groaned in pain and kept his hand wrapped around his wrist. Ollis scoffed at the sight and, unlike Celerus, drove her bare foot into Gehn’s exposed gut. The younger boy shrieked and then bit his tongue to hold back the scream, but Ollis simply stomped her foot onto his side once, twice, three times. “Ollis, Ollis,” Celerus put out one of his heavily-muscled arms and pushed his younger sibling back. She groaned, dropping her coy act, “But why not? He deserves it! Beatings are the only thing that are going to get through-!” Ollis grunted and pushed past her brother’s arm one more time simply to stomp on Gehn’s head. The crack of bone against stone echoed through the basement and Gehn gave out a quiet, gurgling noise. When he rolled over onto his back, blood started to drip from the side of his hand that had just been crushed into the floor. “Ollis, Celerus grabbed her by the shoulder and immediately tossed her to her ass. She immediately glared up at her blue-clad brother, snarled, but backed down when she looked away. “That’s what I thought,” Celerus all but spat the words at her. “You’re just as much a feral beast as you are a warrior, Ollis—and that’s going to mean your death, someday.” Ollis paid no attention to him. When she failed to get her way, she acted like a spoiled toddler and gave those around her the silent treatment. Even laying in the dust and dirt, Gehn hated the arrogance that bled off it. The sense that she needed no one else but herself and could afford to treat them like something lower than pond scum. Meanwhile, deep down, he knew where he would be without his siblings: Dead. Discarded. Disowned. Tossed into some back-alley trash heap here on Vegeta, forgotten as the offspring of successful and long-lived Saiyan soldiers. “Now, Gehn, get up,” Celerus snapped his gloved fingers at the younger boy. “You’ve taken bigger ass-kickings from Ollis before. You can handle a few body shots from me and a twisted wrist from your fall.” Gehn just groaned and shook his head against the ground. That is, he shook it as much as he could given that his cheek laid firm against the stone still. “Gehn, please, this is getting downright embarrassing. Stand up and take your stance before I—” his brother never managed to fish those words. A golden light shot out in small rays from between the fingers of the hand Gehn was cradling mere moments ago. While Celerus talked, he placed the palm against the stone floor and flared to life a blast of energy. It ignited a moment later and swallowed the brotherly pair in a cloud of violet dust to match the color of the stone floor. Celerus’ eyes went wide as his brother, prone and helpless a moment before, hurled himself forward. Gehn already pulled back the arm he used to do the cradling. The fingers curled into a fist in plain sight as the hand sailed straight for Celerus’ completely exposed face. Under normal circumstances, Gehn realized, his diversion and tactic would have worked. His brother, completely off-guard and his arms at his sides, would have taken the punch straight to the face. Like Ollis, he likely would have gotten knocked onto his ass. Instead, his arm moved with a blinding speed. The palm caught Gehn’s wrist and shoved it to the side, just as Celerus bent at the knees. With one half-jump, he drove one of the joints straight up and into the chest of the mid-flight Gehn. The impact caught him square and clean. The force alone tossed the much weaker brother straight up to the top of the tall-ceiling basement where his whole body flattened out with a louder, house-shaking thud. Another thud, quieter now, echoed through the room when Gehn plummeted from the ceiling and hit the floor again. He groaned louder this time and squirmed like before. “Clever little trick,” Celerus gave a begrudging compliment to Gehn’s dirty tactic. The younger brother said nothing in response and instead writhed like a worm. Ollis, on the other hand, laughed like a hyena. She cackled and held her flat stomach. The muscles burned from the powerful contractions, enough that she fell over onto her side in a fit of hysteria. “All of that! That whole little plan he probably spent that whole time in the dirt thinking up! You destroyed it all because he was just too weak!” Ollis blurted out the words between her fits of laughter. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. “Gehn, you’re priceless! You’re so much weaker than us that Celerus was fast enough to pull that off! I’ve met boars faster than you, Gehn!” By the time Ollis finished, Gehn managed to crawl onto his knees and forearms. He hunched over, head hanging and his dark hair dangling towards the floor with it. The sight of his face, twisted in agony, frustration, and embarrassment, remained hidden from his siblings. The tears that dropped from his eyes, down his nose, and onto the floor stayed out of sight as well. With a quiet roar, Gehn smashed his hands into the stone floor and jumped to his feet. He took a single, long step forward to get into range of his brother. He swung a left first, straight for Celerus’ gut, but stopped short. Just as he did, his right arm hooked around in a wide and powerful swing. Celerus caught it in his gloved hand. His grip squeezed down like a vice and Gehn shrieked in pain, dropping to his knees. His eyes went wide as he tugged at his captive hand. “You’ll break it! You’ll break it!” he shouted at his brother as he pulled and pulled. “Come at me again,” Celerus answered his brother’s pleas flatly. He let go of the hand and Gehn stumbled backward. His chest heaved from the heavy breathing and cold sweat rolled down the back of Gehn’s neck. Gehn’s mind ran through the options. Another feint. A direct attack with no feint. Each time he imagined his assault on his brother, it ended up with him on the floor, crying. These few moments of patience from Celerus were critical, so he thought, thought, thought. “Too slow,” Celerus quipped, as casual as can be, and swung his arm out in wide arc. It looked like more of a slap, one that arced up into Gehn’s face and snapped his head backwards. Ollis cheered at the sight and giggled as blood flew from Gehn’s nose and spattered across the floor. Nearly thrown onto his ass from the force of the casual blow, Gehn pulled himself back forward. His feet steadied beneath him and the bottoms of his black boots crunched against the small pieces of concrete from the ceiling. “Better!” Celerus declared with a small laugh. “It’s almost like you’re learning!” A low growl followed from Gehn, who clenched both of his hands into fists. Without another moment’s hesitation, he charged forward to Celerus—only to stop short. His entire body came to a sudden step out of arm’s reach of the older Saiyan, only for Gehn to pull a backflip. As he tumbled backwards, his legs stretched out for a kick aimed straight for Celerus’ chin. Air whistled as the boot narrowly missed thanks to Celerus leaning backwards just in time. He called out to his brother as he got back to his feet, “Keeping me at a distance, good!” Back on his feet, Gehn moved all of his bodyweight to his left leg. Just as he did, he pulled his hand back, palm mostly opened, and summoned another golden orb of energy into it. It howled and whistled as it formed and Gehn started to lift his arm—but stopped. Instead, all of the weight on his leg served to lift his other one straight into a snap kick at Celerus’ chest. The older Saiyan lifted an arm and, with a reverberating thud, caught the full-force kick in his hand. “Gehn, feints like that ar—” he chuckled, shaking his head with closed eyes, only to stop the moment he opened them back up. In front of him was Gehn’s outstretched arm, a blast of energy aimed down his own leg and straight for Celerus’ face. With no chance to block it and no way to dodge fast enough, even for him. “I’ve finally got you!” Gehn screamed in the moment before shooting his own brother in the head. When he next blinked, he was looking up at the ceiling. “Huh?” Was the last word he managed to speak before Ollis’ elbow crashed into his face. The force of it smacked the back of his head into the floor with a crunch, adding another bloody spot to the one on the side. Above him, through his blurred vision, stood his cackling sister. “Perfect leg sweep, Celerus! Did you see that?” She laughed, shoving around the body of her stunned younger brother. Celerus just stood there and looked from Gehn to Ollis. Another sharp crack sounded off through the basement. Ollis stumbled backwards, hand over her cheek, and blinked a few times in shock. She lifted her head and looked back over to Celerus, “What the f—” “Don’t even try,” he said, a finger pointed right at Ollis. Their voices sounded muffled to Gehn, like he listened to them while underwater. “He finally shows us some fire and you snuff it out. You nearly knocked him out entirely, he’s barely moving after that!” “Oh, so what?” She scoffed and growled. “He’s the runt, Celerus. He’s always going to be the runt! Who cares if I cut his big moment short, huh?” Celerus grinded his teeth, “Don’t you want him stronger?” A single, hearty ‘ha!’ followed as an answer, “Why would I? We’re all we need. Let Gehn rot as a Low Class soldier for the rest of his life, what does it matter?” “Mom and Da—” “Mom and Dad don’t really care,” Ollis brushed it off. “Gehn’s a lost cause to them. What’s his Power Level right now? He’s been stuck where he is for as long as I can remember, and we were much further along at his age.” “That doesn’t mean we leave him behind,” Celerus snapped back at her. “And why the hell not? He’s like carrying around an anchor, Celerus. I’m tired of the cute boys making fun of me because of my little brother being such a failure.” “Because he’s family, Ollis,” Celerus hardly sounded like he meant those words. “How far are you willing to go for family, huh? You and I—we could have been training and practicing all day! Instead, you’ve spent hours exhausting him and for nothing! He never gets stronger, he barely learns anything. You’re investing all this time into someone born to be the butt of our jokes. Let’s just treat him like destiny intended, ya’ know?” Celerus paused. He just looked at Ollis, then to Gehn, and once more back to Ollis. “You know I’m right. Just look at him.” He did just that. What he saw, rightly, disturbed him. His little brother was laying in concrete dust with a bloodied noise, a bloody side of his head, and even more blood starting to pool beneath his skull. His teeth looked stained with it and his eyes were only just barely cracked open. “Pathetic, huh? Now, come on, how much longer are ya’ gonna do this, Celly?” Celerus always hated that name. Even Gehn knew that much, though he had no way to help his brother and stop Ollis from using it. “I’m heading upstairs to change,” Celerus suddenly said, all the energy and earlier enthusiasm lost. “You get Gehn cleaned up, will you?” “Right, of course,” she lied. Heavy footsteps—Celerus sounded frustrated, to Gehn’s ears—ascended the stairs leading out of the basement and towards the heavy, metal door that separated it from the rest of the house. Something about not wanting to hear the screams was the excuse their parents presented for attaching such an ominous door to it. Ollis just stood there. Instead of helping Gehn like she promised, she towered above him with a disgusted and impatient look on her face. “You’re killing him inside,” he spat the words and then literally spat on her little brother. “Why won’t you just die, huh? If you did that, Celly wouldn’t get so worked up over you. You! If you could get any stronger than you were right now, it would have happened already! How long have you been stuck here anyway, Gehn?” Slowly, Gehn pried open one of his eyes and got a clearer sight of his long-haired sister. He said, “ Kill yourself.” A bare foot crashed into the side of Gehn’s face and snapped his head to the side. He groaned and coughed, spitting blood onto his white shirt. Until now, it avoided getting soiled by his own blood. Ollis ruined that like she, in Gehn’s opinion, ruined every chance his life had to improve. “Don’t you dare talk to me like that, boar,” she growled at him. Her foot hovered over his head, ready to stomp on it again. “I’m the Queen of Saiyans compared to the likes of you. And I’m tired of seeing you drag Celerus down because, for some reason, he actually gives a hell about you! From now on you’re going to stay in that dark, miserable dungeon you call a life all alone. No more visitors, got it?” Gehn barely had the self-awareness to groan. Instead, the noise he made sounded more like the sputtering of a fuel-starved combustion engine. “Disgusting,” Ollis said under her breath. “He likes me more than you,” was the next thing Gehn said. His chest started to convulse and shake as the sound of wet laughter came out of him. He spattered even more blood across the floor because of it. “What the hell was that?” Ollis snapped at him. “Celerus. He likes me way more than you,” Gehn kept on with his broken laughter. “You’re like a wild ape even when you’re normal. I bet you’d kill us all if Mom and Dad ever let you see the moon.” “Shut up, boar.” “Celerus wants a quieter girl, you know. He’s talked to me about it, since we’re brothers,” Gehn kept on with his laughter. “You’re a beast. Inside, you’re always the big ape monster that lives in all of us. One day, you’ll look it, too. He can barely tolerate being around you.” “I’ll kill you, Gehn,” Ollis pointed out the fact cooly. She started to pace around him, slowly, headed in the direction of his feet first. “I’ll say you couldn’t handle your wounds. No one will care. Hear me?” “He really has the hots for Aspara,” Gehn went right on with it. “That body, those tits. He tells me he can barely get her out of his mind—and she’s someone he could take in public. Strong, but not some uncivilized thug like you.” “I’ll kill you, Gehn.” “He’s getting to that age, too. Seventeen is a good age to start seriously considering a mate. Dad picked Mom when he was only 16, remember?” She already circled him one time, her eyes getting sharper and sharper as what little humanity she had started to evaporate before Gehn’s very eyes. “Best of all, Ollis?” Gehn paused for a moment. This was something he waited to tell her for a very, very long time. “He’s already had some dreams with her, if you know what I mean. Apparently she’s grea—” “You f—” her words were cut off by a sudden scream. Just as she passed by Gehn’s feet again, he snapped his leg out in a sudden kick that caught her in the knee. Celerus was much stronger than Gehn. Ollis was stronger too—but not so much that his surprise attacks couldn’t get her. He never once hit Celerus, but he had caught Ollis before. The girl toppled the floor, her voice surprisingly masculine as she released a string of curses. In moments, Gehn was on top of her. He grabbed Ollis by the shoulder and tossed her the rest of the way to her back before he straddled her chest and pinned her arms under his knees. She immediately started grabbing at him but found nothing but thigh and lower back. He felt her arms slide around against the stone, but managed to keep her down. Gehn, however, had perfect access to her face. With both hands pulled back into fists, he started to drive each one into her face. One after another, a thud echoed through the room as Gehn’s knuckles found purchase in either her cheek, lips, noise, eye, forehead, or jaw. Sometimes Ollis managed to swerve out of the way to avoid one, but those proved to be the rare exception. As the beating continued, Gehn growled out a few curt words through his grit teeth: “I—” “hate—” “you—” “Ollis!” One of Ollis’ arms finally popped free of Gehn’s knee, but the infuriated boy hardly noticed. She first tried to push him off or stop his arms, but found she had no leverage. Then her hand started to explore the floor around them in a panic, smacking against it as she got mercilessly beat by her younger brother. Then she felt the rough edges of a fist-sized stone that had fallen loose from the ceiling with Gehn’s last impact against it. Her soft, thin fingers gripped it tight and, with a single heave, smashed it into the side of Gehn’s head—the same side she bloodied before. Gehn toppled this time and, like he did before, Ollis tossed him to his back and got atop him. She shrieked now, like a wild animal, and pinned Gehn down by the throat with her free hand. Then, with a speed that made the air whistle, she smashed the rock into Gehn’s head. Unlike Gehn, however, she never bothered to target his face exclusively. She smashed it into him over and over, whether the top of the head, the face, anything at all—and she screamed the entire way. Only a few words were distinguishable, one for each time she smashed the rock into Gehn’s head. “He—” “loves—” “me—” “more—” “than—” “you!” With Gehn’s face reduced to an even bloodier mess than hers, Ollis held the stone above his head one more time. Her face was red with more than just her own blood and her chest heaved about her brother. Her fingers gripped the rock so hard that they split themselves open on the nails. Her arm trembled as she fought with bringing it down on her brother again—who long since lost consciousness. The rock clattered across the floor a moment later. It glistened, painted crimson, after it rolled to a stop. “Oh no,” she gasped, a new panic taking hold of her. She immediately looked at her bloody hand. “Celly’s gonna be so pissed that I almost…” Her voice trailed off just as her finger touched her own face. She recoiled in pain and, when she pulled it away, saw fresh blood. She blinked at it a couple of times and, slowly, a wicked smile stretch from ear to ear across her face. “You attacked me~” She giggled. “I was just stopping you!” She looked at the door and grinned, then opened her mouth wide. What followed next, as she crawled off her brother, was a scream that pierced the whole house. “Celerus!!”
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:02:06 GMT
Chapter Two: Fools “I can’t believe he’s done this.” “Shut up and put those boots on faster, Ollis.” The two of them stood outside their tall, angular home. Saiyan architecture borrowed much from the Tuffles before them, resulting in homes and other structures that were either built at a strange angle to cope with the high gravity of Planet Vegeta, or rounded off at various points. Celerus’ new home was no exception to this rule. Above them, the red sky of Vegeta glowed brightly with the setting sun. Gehn chose an evening to retreat when they would be no chance, at all, of a full moon on this part of the planet. That fact alone infuriated the already-frustrated Celerus and Ollis even more. By the time they finished dressing themselves to leave home—and to fight their own brother yet again—they both worn a twinned scowl that could chill even a battle-hardened Saiyan warrior. Matching, crimson glows erupted around the two Saiyans. Celerus’ vertically spike hair, tied off into a short tail that ran down the back of his neck, swayed in the breeze along with Ollis’ even longer hair. The two of them took off from the concrete-covered ground a moment later, dust trailing with them into the sky as they rose to a cruising altitude. “How did he sneak out, Ollis?” Celerus finally asked his sister once they were in flight. The question sat on his tongue ever since they found out just fifteen minutes ago. “Do I look like a Clairvoyant to you, Celly? Leave that to the Kanassans, will you?” Ollis chided him for asking. She tried not to let her frustration show, but the sharpness she hid behind each of her words was impossible for her to fully conceal. “He’s been fighting with us about this Dragon Ball”—he groaned as he said the name—“issue for months now. He caught wind of some rumor from a traveler at the spaceport and hasn’t stopped investigating it for how long, now?” Ollis just groaned and shook her head as the two continued to rocket through the air. Just a few hundred feet above them, thin, wispy clouds floated through the red expanse of the Vegetian sky. “I told you to keep an eye on him for a reason, Ollis,” Celerus’ tone got lower and more serious. “You are your brother’s keeper. Now what’s your excuse? We’ll never hear the end of this if he gets off the pla—” “Oh for the sake of…Celly, do you ever stop?” “I’ve told you not to call me that.” “Then don’t bitch at a girl for wanting some alone time with her boyfriend, maybe?” “Boyfriend.” Celerus scoffed at the mere idea. “What? I have a boyfriend!” “No, Ollis,” he shook his head. “You have a toy with the parts of a man. Besides, you never told me what happened with you and Ruu.” Ollis looked away from her brother for a moment, “She and I broke up. I told you that.” “That’s not what happened, is it?” “She broke up with me,” she lied. “Are you going to really make me go through that again?” This time, Celerus shut his mouth and turned his attention back forward. The wind whipped through his hair and pushed down his exceptionally tall style. “Actually? Yes,” he insisted. “It’s been months, Ollis. Talk about it, or you’re as much a coward as the deserters and traitors.” This time, she growled. She always hated it when Celerus made a point that got around her usual attempts to emotionally manipulate him. “She found another guy, okay? Happy, now that you’ve made me say it?” “So you went and found one for yourself, then?” “Hey, listen, Kabage isn’t just fo—” “Be honest with yourself for once,” Celerus interrupted her harshly. “You’ve always preferred the comfort of women over men. Is your thing with this Kabage really serious? Because with you and men, that’d be one hell of a first.” Ollis licked her lips, but didn’t respond right away. Instead, she pretended to be interested in the sprawling cityscape beneath them as they rushed towards the distant Spaceport. Any moment now, they figured, the sounds of sirens would interrupt their conversation. Ollis wish for little more at that moment, except perhaps to punch Gehn in the face a few times. “I didn’t think so,” Celerus reached his own conclusion. “Yeah, I prefer girls, but Kabage is promising. I just can’t seem to, you know,” Ollis struggled to find words, even after her unexpected answer. “Not feeling it, huh?” Celerus laughed a little. “Something missing?” “Did you ever feel this way?” “Before Aspara? Yes, I did,” he admitted honestly. “Something was missing with them, but not with her. Maybe Kabage isn’t the guy for you—maybe there isn’t a guy for you.” “I’m starting to think that might be it,” Ollis lied. “Well, we’ll have to talk more when we get back to my home,” Celerus answered. He lifted an arm and pointed it ahead of them. The spaceport was already well in clear view but, much to the surprise of both, no sirens sounded off about the attempted left of a Space Pod. Even Ollis furrowed her brow at that. The entire place, huge as it was and loaded with ships of all sizes, seemed to be operating at a normal evening capacity and people came and went as they pleased. The two of them touched down just outside the portion of the facility that held the lots for the Space Pods. There were countless numbers of them that stretched into the horizon. The entire area remained protected by projections of Ki fields that guarded each lot from any Saiyan on the planet—or anyone else, for that matter—that might fly right in. It forced you to go through the main entryway of the facility and then make for the lot you needed. “Gehn’s going to try to force his way past the guards with his usual diversions,” Celerus explained to Ollis as he slapped the blue, Saiyan-style armor that hung over his chest. He tugged his white gloves tighter onto his hands. “We’re going to find them unconscious or confused—move right past them, Ollis.” “Got it,” she said, checking her own armor. It was identical in model to Celerus’, except hers sported a crimson red. More importantly to Ollis, she also lacked the long, flowing, white cape that he wore. Even now, it seemed excessively gaudy and unnecessary. “We’ll split up. Either of us can knock little Gehn on his ass if we need to.” “Hell yes we can,” Celerus agreed. Together, they marched right up towards the metallic, sliding double-doors of the lot. However, well before they reached the doors, they hissed open. Out of them marched a small squadron of Saiyans, each one armored for battle, and with scowls across their faces. Some wore scouters, others did not, but each of them focused on the two new arrivals. “Stop right there, Celerus, Ollis,” a larger man in the front announced. The squadron stopped behind him and crossed their arms behind their backs. “I know you two are eager for your next promotion, but it’s unacceptable for you to attempt to steal Pods and go about your own missions. As much as I respect you, and your father, I cannot all—” After a moments shock and awe, Celerus interrupted him, “Gula, just what are you talking about?” “We heard about your impatience,” Gula answered. “You’ve always been a little too eager for more responsibility and challenge, Celerus. You’re still plenty young. But this plan of yours, it’s too impulsive, even for a young pup such as yourself.” Although he said those words, most of the eyes behind him flicked over to Ollis. Her reputation spoke for itself. She just smiled at them. “Gula, we’re not here to steal any Pods!” Celerus insisted. “I know the timing looks suspicious, but you have to know that Ge—” “Gehn’s many things, Celerus,” Gula cut him short. “But he’s no liar. He’s always been honest with us, always been a loyal soldier since he was a boy. He told us how you’d be acting and that you were planning to show up today.” Celerus paused, then continued, “Did he, now?” “He’s off warning the other lot guard squadrons. So let’s put this to rest, Celerus. Go home, cool down, spend some time with Aspara. You’ll hurt your career more than you’ll ever help it, like this.” Gehn was always the crafty type, Celerus remembered. To see Gula, an old family friend, so convinced by whatever story Gehn spun was no surprised. He picked the timing perfectly—Celerus and Ollis both were top candidates for another step up the ladder of promotion within the Saiyan military. Thanks to Ollis, the siblings had a reputation for bold and irresponsible action to seal the deal on further advancement of their ranks. Celerus knew all of this, and he knew that Gehn did, too. With a click of his tongue, he shook his head at the larger, older man in front of him. “I’m sorry, Gula,” Celerus answered, his tone regretful. But as he continued, a hint of excitement flashed through his voice, “But I must get in there to stop Gehn.” Gula sighed deeply and, along with Celerus, took his own stance. Ollis did the same, as did the other soldiers of the squadron. He answered the younger man, “I’m sorry, I can’t trust you here.” “I understand.” It took a moment before anything happened. At first, Celerus and Ollis merely started down Gula and his gang of goons. There was the quiet whistle of breeze as it blew across the open street of the Spaceport—plenty wide enough for large vehicles to pass through. Then, in a flash and with a rumble, it all changed. The Saiyans vanished from place and the sound of combat rang out. The Spaceport shook as all the soldiers engaged in immediate hand to hand. Flashes of Ki energy followed suit mere moments later. In the middle of the fray were Celerus and Gula. Their arms crossed with each strike, as did their legs. Their teeth were grit, but only Celerus wore a smile as they clashed again and again. That stalemate continued for seconds, then a minute, before the sounds of battle around the two men changed. “Sorry, Gula!” Ollis’ voice cried out as she suddenly appeared next to the two men. There were already welts across her face from holding off the rest of the squadron single-handedly. In that moment, with Gula pre-occupied with Celerus, she drove a hard kick into his side, just beneath his rib cage. The older man grimaced and his eyes went wide. He twisted around Ollis’ foot for a moment before the sheer force of the impact tossed him back wards the metallic streets beneath them. He crashed into with a thunderous impact that left the metal bent and ripped open in places. All around them, the squadron stopped for a moment to guffaw at the sight. Ollis turned to Celerus, “You go ahead, I’ll hold them here.” “What? You’re stronger than the group, but with Gula, and these numbers, you’ll be turned int—” “They’re not trying to kill me, so what’s the harm?” Ollis interrupted. “They’ll toss me in a tank after we clear this up, now go kick Gehn’s ass.” He paused for a moment, thought about what she was saying. The beating might very well prove to be the worst of her life, he realized. But if Gehn got away, neither of them would receive a promotion ever again. The shame on their family would be limitless. He charged straight past the rest of the soldiers as they rushed Ollis yet again and made it through the still-open doors.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:02:24 GMT
After Celerus made it into the compound, getting through the remaining guards proved relatively simple for him. Gula was the strongest man stationed here regularly. What proved even better for him was the announcement of which Space Pod lot had its Ki barriers lowered—only done, naturally, during launches and arrivals. There were no scheduled arrivals. One of the terminals in the office he initially passed through told him that much. Celerus skidded to a stop on the metallic lot. Before him stood a small lake of Space Pods—hundreds—and in one of them was Gehn. One of these was about to launch and, when it did, Celerus planned to hurl himself into the sky and stop it with his bare hands. Gehn couldn’t outpace Celerus in a Space Pod while it was still in the atmosphere. No other alarms went off either, which meant this lot was no distraction. “Come out, Gehn,” Celerus shouted towards the endless rows of Pods. “There’s no win condition for you here, you must that realize that? “Stop right ther—” A voice shouted from behind, interrupted by a golden blast of energy that Celerus fired off into his chest. It carried the man away, screaming, until he crashed into something. Celerus couldn’t find it in himself to care about what that might have been. “Gehn, please, this is absurd,” Celerus shouted again, less accepting. He spoke like it was yet another childish behavior out of his annoying younger sibling—because that was, in Celerus’ eyes, exactly the situation. “There are no Dragon Balls and there’s nothing wrong with Saiyan society. We’re not hurtling towards some demographic disaster or whatever it is you think the problem might be. You’re throwing everything away—Me, Ollis, Mom, Dad, your people—over a myth and a chip on your shoulder!” “No, Celerus,” a voice blared through the audio system for the lot. Celerus recognized his brother no matter what he listened to him through. “I’m not throwing anything away, and the Dragon Balls are real. I’ve learned and discovered too many mentions to them. Wish-granting orbs, Celerus? I can’t possibly turn that down.” Celerus sighed again and held either side of his own head. He roared back, “Gehn! This is the stupidest shit you’ve ever pulled. Listen to yourself! Wish-granting orbs? Did we drop you on your head?” “You left me alone with Ollis, wasn’t that even worse?” Gehn snapped right back. “She never seriously hurt you, Gehn.” “Bullshit. You and Mom and Dad? You just don’t want to deal with it because it’s hard. Because she’s strong and I’m weak. She’s worth something and I’m not.” “Shut your boar mouth,” Celerus snapped back this time, nastier and colder than he ever usually was with his little brother. He never used Ollis’ ‘nickname’ for him before today. Gehn said nothing. Celerus sighed, “No, listen, that’s not how I mea—” “That’s exactly what you meant. All these years, you acted like you cared. But you never did. I was your weak little brother and you saved face by pretending to try to help me. I’m tired of being the card you play to seem noble in the eyes of others. ‘Oh, look at my poor, weak brother and all I do to help him!’ You’re a simpering sycophant, and you make me sick.” Celerus said nothing. He just stood there and stared down the army of Pods. “Get out of here, Celerus,” Gehn’s voice carried a confidence and finality that Celerus never heard out of his brother. “I’ve got nothing left to say to you.” “For the lov—Gehn! Get out before I start blowing each one of these into scrap metal.” There was another pause. It continued. Silence pervaded the situation between the two men. “Then you better get started.” The launch procedure began. For every single Space Pod. The howling of wind as the propulsion system kicked in deafened. Celerus raised an arm at first to shield his eyes from the gusts and bursts. Before him, each Pod started to levitate into the air. A string of curses followed, one to rival even the best of Ollis’ rants. His hands lit up a moment later with a golden glow and he furiously began to hurl blast after blast through the rising Pods. Each one exploded brightly into a shower of fire and metal. Each one, however, completely lacked a body within. Celerus continued to pump his arms back and forth, marching forward through the smoke, fire and debris to work his way further and further into the crowd of pods. As they continued to rise, Celerus floated into the air behind them. He started to fly up with them faster and faster as they continued to ascend through the red sky of Vegeta. Before he knew it, his aura blazed around him while he flew fast enough that it shrieked as it passed through it. His arms continued to hurl blast after blast through the army of Pods Gehn somehow hijacked and, time and time again, found only an empty bucket. Below him, the massive Spaceport slowly shrank down to a visible size, and then began to shrink further. Celerus and Gehn only went further and further. Until the remaining Pods started to turn around. One at a time, they diverted their course. They turned around and started to hurl themselves, speed still gaining as if they were trying to escape orbit, back at Celerus himself. The blue-clad Saiyan went wide-eyed at the sight, but continued forward and blasted apart each one that came towards him. But they got faster and faster until he simply couldn’t anymore. “Gehn!” He shouted, knowing how futile it was at this altitude and with the constant explosions around him. Finally, he found himself pinned against the glass dome window of one of the pods. It caught him flush and, too fast for him to escape after all this exertion, carried him back down towards the surface. The entire way down he screamed and screamed a single thing; and the word he chose was none other than his little brother’s name.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:02:49 GMT
Up in space, Gehn heaved a sigh of relief. He wiped the considerable sweat from his brow and wiped it on his shirt. After another breath, he sank back into the padded seat of his Pod and rested his head against the back. Before him was the expanse of space, freed from the shackles of light pollution back down on Vegeta—and he loved the sight. “My first time in space,” he laughed, if only so he did rage or sob. His family never let him off-world. In their words, someone as weak as him never had a reason to leave Vegeta. He would never hold responsibility greater than guarding something that no one truly cared about, or something to that effect. The thought alone curled one of his hands into a tight fist. He had to take another, slow, deep breath to relax it. Just a moment later, the communications indicator gave a soft beep. “Gehn!” A voice shouted over the system. Gula’s voice. “I can’t believe it, they weren’t kidding! You wanted to steal a Pod!” “Gula, it’s great that you’re okay. Beat Ollis, then?” “Turn it around right now, Gehn! If you don’t, I can’t pro—” “Promise that you can protect me?” “Wh—” “That’s what you were about to say, right? That, if I don’t turn around right now, you can’t promise that you’ll be able to protect me. Am I close?” “Yes! But if you come back down, I can smooth this out for you and Celerus and Ollis.” Gehn laughed into the control panel in front of him, “Yes! It is all about them, isn’t it?” “Gehn, that’s no—” “Pass.” “Gehn! You’ll be an outcast, a criminal! If we ever find you in Empire space—hell! You’ll never be able to come home again!” “Good,” Gehn spat right back. “Back to this shithole? I’m better off without it. Without Celerus, Ollis, Mom, Dad, you. Without all of you dumbasses.” “You’re not powerful enough to—” another interruption. This one, however, followed with a muffled conversation occurring away from the communicator. Silence followed. “You almost killed Celerus, Gehn,” Gula announced, his voice flatter and colder. “I’m sorry to hear that.” “I know you probably didn’t mean for that, but this is an incredibly seri—” “I was hoping the crash would crush his skull,” Gehn interrupted yet again. “You know, like Ollis almost did to me. I told you about that, didn’t I, Gula? What was it you said? ‘Even if it happened—and if you got knocked upside the head, it might not have!—then you just need to move on. This stuff can happen in the heat of battle, even training.’ I’m confident that’s verbatim, in fact.” Silence again. “Nothing to say?” Gehn laughed. “No surprise. Well then, Gula, let me give this to you, as a parting gift: “Even if that happened to Celerus, you just need to move on. This stuff can happen when a monster of a brother tries to keep his own flesh and blood as a prisoner in a gilded cage. “Especially when that cage is his own home.” Gehn disabled the communications link back to Vegeta. He never turned it back on.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:03:13 GMT
Chapter Three: Naivete Bright, daytime sunlight burned at Gehn’s eyes. He laid in a patch of grass along the edge of a small lake. His entire body baked in the rays from this alien world’s star. He stared up into the blue sky—still a refreshing color after all these months—and simply laid there in the grass. His eyes were wide and he hardly cared that he might be burning his retina out. He could hear the quiet sounds of other footsteps the grass above his head, closer to a small grouping of trees. This lake was part of a large park near the Northern Capitol, so Gehn expected visitors. It was simply the best place he could imagine up to unwind at after the months he had. They’re not real, he told himself. They were never real. After all the drama back on Vegeta, from his arguments with his family for months and his great escape at the very end, he arrived at Earth to find nothing. No Dragon Balls, no trace of them. The people he did talk to who heard about the rumors dismissed them just as his family did, and he never once managed to find any trace of the mystical objects. They were as ephemeral as actual ghosts and slipped through his fingers like water. For months he lived on Earth, tail wrapped around his waist and hidden by his pants, and tried everything he could think of. Searching, reading, talking to the locals, everything. He flew from major city to city, from rural town to rural town, field to mountain, none of it mattered. At first, he blamed it on the fact that such objects must have been in incredibly high demand. They were, after all, capable of granting any wish. Other people likely had them—he merely had to find out who and where. After that, he started to tell himself that he knew just how hard this would be. Excuse after excuse followed for weeks until, finally, the crushing weight of reality crashed down on him. He threw away his whole life over a rumor that turned out to be false. Suddenly, all his arguments against the unsustainability of Saiyan society and their need to change seemed pointless. Abruptly, he realized just how absurd the things he said about the Dragon Balls really were. Celerus, at least in part, had gotten completely vindicated by this failure. Wish-granting orbs did sound completely asinine and Gehn refused to acknowledge that fact. Now Gehn laid in the grass near some peaceful pond with a sparkling surface of pure, blue water. He had nothing left now. Planet Vegeta would never take him back and even if they did, Ollis and Celerus both would likely murder him with their own hands. There was no place for him there, just like there was no real place for him here on this planet. As much as he worried about what the Saiyan’s obsession with combat would do to their society in the future, Human culture was too dreary and boring for him. Most of them possessed zero passion and drive for anything, and everything about their civilization they built up slowly and over the millennia. The only thing about Saiyan society that evolved so slowly was their technological prowess. We’re not very bright, are we? Gehn reflected on that unfortunate stereotype about Saiyans. Half a year ago he would have agreed, but labeled himself an exception to the rule. He felt brighter than most Saiyans. Now, if asked again, he knew exactly what he’d say: I just happen to be one of the absolute dumbest to ever be born. Who else would ruin their life over some childish fantasy like having wishes simply granted to them? All in exchange for what, some scavenger hunt? The real world never worked like that. Only now did he realize it. “That’s bad for your eyes, you know,” a soft, feminine voice cut into Gehn’s dazing. He sat up in a hurry and looked over his shoulder. Before him stood a young woman. She wore her long, dark hair in twin braids that hung down either side of her. Violet eyes seemed to shimmer in the sunlight from behind her perfectly circular, frameless lenses. Her outfit appeared to be some sort of uniform, mostly a light purple matched with a darker shade of violet, complete with a skirt and tall leggings. She hunched over just enough to be nearly eye-level with Gehn while he sat in the grass. Behind her was a small group of other students, men and women both, who chatted away while standing in the shade of a tree. Most had notebooks or wide pads with large, blank, white sheets. His new visitor carried one of the notepads, tucked against her chest by an arm. “I have tough eyes,” Gehn gave a nonsense answer and pivoted on the grass to face her. He never got to his feet. “You do look pretty tough, but your eyes?” She teased him. “You’re squinting. I bet you can barely see me, right?” “I can see just fi—” Gehn tried to protest until he felt a handful of blades of grass get tossed into his face. He closed his eyes and just sat there for a moment as they fluttered down and landed on his shirt and pants. “Yeah? Go on…” she restrained a giggle. “I got carried away thinking,” Gehn relented. “You picked a wonderful place to daydream, then,” she said, and suddenly took a seat in the grass across from him. She smiled, pushed her glasses back into place, and continued, “My name’s Calculi, by the way.” Gehn smiled too, “Gehn. Don’t you have something to do with your…friends, back there?” He nodded towards the students behind her, all wearing similar uniforms to the skirted Calculi in front of him. She just shook her head, “We’re here to get ‘inspiration’ for our projects. We’re all artists. But staring at something pretty never did it for me, you know? I’d rather do something, meet someone, anything at all.” “I suppose I can understand that,” Gehn admitted. “Doesn’t explain why you’re talking to a stranger by a lake, though.” She giggled, “Everyone’s a stranger at first, aren’t they? I’d just rather they don’t stay that way for too long.” That got another smile out of Gehn, “And does all of this help you with your writing, then?” “A lot, actually,” she answered with a prideful nod of the head. “The more I know, the better. If I meet a lot of different people, I’ll be able to write a lot of different characters.” “What about the people you don’t like?” This time, she smiled, “Every story needs an antagonist, huh? I guess I have to get to know those.” “Well then, I suppose you’ve found your antag—” “Nope!” “…What?” “You’re not antagonist material at all. The ruggedly handsome fighter brooding by a bright lake? That’s just upbeat enough to be a bearable kind of edgy. You’re more like…an anti-hero.” “Why do you think I’m a fighter? I’m not strong at all.” “Excuse me?” She busted out laughing with that one. “Look at you! You’re wearing a shirt so tight that you don’t even need to enter a wet t-shirt contest. I bet you could grind meat on those abs.” “Oh, I get it,” Gehn laughed. “You just go after men who have bodies you enjoy, then?” “Well,” she laughed more softly this time. “I mean, it doesn’t hurt. But that’s not what we’re talking about!”—she smacked a pen against her notebook a few times and puffed out her cheeks for a moment—“I was answering why I could tell that you’re a fighter! And you are, aren’t you?” “I suppose I am,” Gehn refused to give this outspoken young woman a direct yes. “What’s it to you? Is that what your book is about?” “As a matter of fact,” she gave him a big, smug, toothy-grin. As he expected, each one was immaculately white. Whoever she was, she took excellent care of herself. Clearly no fighter, but her body was very well taken care of, and she even had a chest wor— “Hey,” Calculi snapped her fingers at Gehn. “You’re zoning out again, big guy. You must have a lot on your mind, huh?” “Just reflecting on some bad decisions,” Gehn half-lied to her. “Got some regrets already, huh?” “Already?” “Well, I mean, forgive me for saying so, but you’re a young-looking sort of dude. I wouldn’t put you a day past eighteen.” Gehn smiled, “Try again.” “Okay, fine, twenty is the absolute oldest I’ll believe. Anything else and you’re a filthy liar, Gehn.” “Twenty-four.” “Nope. You’re not.” Gehn laughed again, “That’s a promise. I’m twenty-four years old. Besides, what would a twelve-year-old little girl care?” Calculi’s jaw dropped open and she crossed her arms over her chest, “Excuse me? Have you seen me in this top? I am, like, way past twelve.” “Thirteen, then.” “I hate you already, I’m leaving.” “Okay, fine, fine,” Gehn laughed and gestured her to stay seated. “You’re not thirteen.” “Good, glad you see tha—” “You’re definitely just twelve.” “You’re the meanest guy I’ve ever met, Gehn,” Calculi huffed. “You threw grass in my face. If a sense of formality is what you wanted, I’m not sure you know how to go about getting it.” She just groaned at him and rolled her eyes, “Fine, whatever. You’re twenty-four and aging very well, then.” As far as Gehn knew, he was aging normally. Maybe Humans weren’t so similarly blessed, he wondered. “And what does all of this matter?” “I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t chatting up a pervy old man,” she teased. “There’s a lot of them around here, I’ve noticed.” “Well, I can assure you that I’m no old man.” “Oooh, cheeky!” she laughed at him. “I see what you did there. But, geez, regrets at twenty-four? Just what did you do?” This woman, Gehn noted, seemed to completely lack any sense of personal boundaries. He respected her for that. “I left home under poor circumstances,” he kept things as vague as possible. “Turns out that I was the idiot and just didn’t realize it, but gambled everything on the opposite.” “Ouch,” she grimaced. All her previous spunk evaporated from her voice. “Can’t bring yourself to go back after that?” “They wouldn’t take me,” Gehn shook his head. “They made that very clear.” “Oh no,” Calculi suddenly took on a depressed tone that, much to Gehn’s surprise, sounded genuine. “I’m—wow, I’m sorry to hear that. I didn’t mean to—” He just shook his head, “I’ve told you of my own free will, don’t apologize for that.” “Well, if you insist,” she hesitantly agreed, then shifted gears. “And has anyone told you that you talk kinda weird, Gehn?” “Do I?” Gehn tilted his head at the question. “But realize you’re talking to a man with a bowl cut. Was “weird” something you didn’t expect?” Calculi laughed at that, “Okay, and you can be funny, too. But what is the deal with your hair? Lost a bet?” “It’s more like my hair doesn’t want to do anything else,” he insisted. “Believe me, I’ve tried to do something about it, before.” “Perpetual bad hair days, huh?” Calculi giggled and grabbed one of her tails. “That’s why I braid mine, or it goes nutso on me.” “So, is all of this in the book, then?” Gehn glanced over to the notepad that sat in her lap. “Or do you just like interrogating men about their hair and training habits?” She blinked at his use of the word ‘training’. Then she got suddenly sheepish, a small smile coming over her and brightening her until she seemed to glow brighter than the surface of the lake behind them. “Would you like to hear where I am with it?”
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:03:42 GMT
The latch of a door clicked open. The heavy, wooden door swung inwards and revealed the mostly darkened interior of an apartment. It appeared sparsely populated with furniture, including a couch off to the side that was barely visible from the small, hallway-like foyer. Directly ahead was the door to the bathroom, with the light on and Gehn standing with his back to the door. He hunched over slightly and had pulled his pants almost entirely up. His tail, complete with brown fur, stuck out and curved in a serpentine pattern. Behind him, books plummeted through the air and thudded against the thinly-carpeted floor. Pens and pencils both crashed down next to them by the time he looked over his shoulder, attention drawn by the sound of his door spontaneously opening. Standing there in a pink sundress, with her hair in the usual style and glasses as perfectly clean as ever, was Calculi. “…Gehn?” He sighed deeply, slowly, and pulled his pants the rest of the way up. His tail was hidden again beneath the waist of the pants, which he tied down using his usual red sash. He clipped it tight with a golden buckle in the back. “You should really knock,” Gehn sighed again, then pointed in the direction of the main room. “Get on the sofa, I’ll explain everything.” Wide-eyed with shock, Calculi walked through the dimly-lit apartment and took a seat on the ratty old leather sofa. She sank into it, as she usually did, and stared at the blank, beige wall across from her. Gehn owned no televisions, no computers, no books, nothing at all. His home had little except for a small kitchen, a sofa, a bathroom, and a bed. She wasn’t even sure how he made a living. “You’re a—” Calculi tried to say something through her surprise. “A Saiyan, yes,” Gehn finished it for her. “You shouldn’t be this shocked. There are others here on this planet.” “Well, yeah, but they also tend to talk with their fists before their lips,” Calculi spoke softly, slowly, as if she was terrified now. “Are you speaking from experience?” Gehn asked. He tugged on one of his many white shirts and, finally, made his way around to the front of the couch. When he dropped into it next to Calculi, she scooted further from him—a first. “Growing up, there was a Saiyan—a halfy—that I knew. She wasn’t always…gentle with me,” Calculi admitted, but refused to look at Gehn. “Oh, some good, old-fashioned racism, then?” Gehn cut right to the heart of the matter. “I don’t blame you. Compared to Human culture, most Saiyans are monsters. I hear they usually cause quite a bit of trouble when they come to Earth.” “Not always.” “You don’t sound like you believe that.” “You’re clearly an exception.” “Still sounds like you expect that to change now that you’ve found me out. But if I wanted to hurt you, Calculi, I could have done it by now. I was weak on planet Vegeta, especially compared to my siblings, but I’ve got biceps as big as your body—you wouldn’t stand much of a chance.” Calculi managed a small laugh at that, “I suppose you’re right about that, musclehead.” Another one of her many nicknames for him. He smiled when she said it, “You can understand why I haven’t advertised this? I didn’t lie to you, either.” Calculi laughed again, “You never said you were Human, you’re right. But then, neither have I?” Gehn laughed instead, “Is this the part where you dramatically reveal your real heritage? Maybe you’re a Saiyan, too? A Super Saiyan!” Even more giggling followed, “A Super Saiyan? Is that something that actually exists?” He just shook his head at that, “They’re about as real as the Dragon Balls, I’m pretty sure. But it’s a popular legend among my people: Saiyans who gain such great power that it becomes a catalyst for a new form, a sort of god of battle. About what you’d expect out of a warrior race such as ourselves.” “So that’s something you can’t believe, but turning into giant monkeys is totally mundane to you?” Gehn laughed even more, “Yes. I’ve done it myself, actually, a handful of times. Horrible experience.” Calculi looked away for a moment, “Sounds like it. But I’ve heard some Saiyans like their Oos—Ooze—Oozau—” “Oozaru.” “—Oozaru forms! Is that really the case? Who wants to be a big, ugly ape?” “The stronger ones among us, the Elites usually, can typically control their Oozaru transformation. For them it is mundane.” “But you can’t?” Gehn bit the inside of his cheek hard, just shy of breaking the fleshy skin, “No, I’m far too weak to figure out how to do that. After my eighth year, my family never let me see the full moon again. I avoid it here on Earth, too.” “And why don’t you guys just call it Great Ape? Why Ooze-whatever?” “Would you like me to call you a Nerdy Chimp?” That got another giggle out of her, “Okay, I see your point.” “You’ve gotten used to this fast, Calculi. Or was all your shock just seeing me without a shirt?” She scoffed at him, “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m young, but I’ve been with a couple of men already.” “How many?” Calculi turned red at the question, “You just don’t know when to shut up, do you?! You really are a Saiyan!” “Does that explain a lot?” Gehn laughed. “Yes!!” She shoved him while she was at it. “Well then let me correct this grave injustice of yours by at least picking up your books for you,” Gehn offered as he stood up. “That’s why you barged in, right? Some new, brilliant idea for your book that you wanted to run past me?” Calculi just there in a huff—Gehn was right, like usual—while he went and got her books from the ground. As much a gentleman to her as ever, he handed them over already back into their neat little stack. He even did it with a smile, something she rarely saw out of men like him with such a great physique. In all her experience, those were the men that tended to be the most arrogant around women. They understood their value and got the most out of it. For her, Gehn stood out as an anomaly among those types. Only now, by understanding more about where he came from, and how his people viewed him, did she begin to understand. “You were really a nobody on Vegeta, weren’t you?” She asked out of the blue while Gehn sat down. “Yes, I was,” Gehn sighed and admitted the fact. “Lower than scum. My sister liked to call me a boar.” “You have those.” “Something like yours, surprisingly. Made worse by the fact that I proved her right when I left the planet the way I did—and broke countless laws in the process. They’ll kill me if I ever go back.” Calculi dipped her head and stared a hole into her stack of books. She used some for reference, and one other notebook to write. “You weren’t kidding, then,” she said, quietly. “I was hoping you were exaggerating, that maybe you’d find a way…” Her voice trailed off. She had nothing to follow that up with and she knew it. Even Gehn said nothing afterwards. For a few minutes, the two of them sat in silence. “Your books, you’re trying to write some Space epic,” Gehn suddenly chimed in and pointed at the stack in her lap. “Well, you’re talking to someone who has been in space, and lived as part of an Empire among the stars.” Calculi’s eyes started to light up. “Now that the—” Gehn stopped and furrowed his brow. “Cat? The cat’s out of the bag? Is that what you say? Well, now that it is, I might as well help you.” She started to giggle again, “I’d really like that, Gehn; thanks. I don’t really know anything about space travel, or have any friends who work in the industry. So that was always going to be a tough part, not to mention the politics!” Gehn laughed at that one, “Oh yes, the politics.” “The ways, too. I bet you know a lot about those, huh?” “A few things.” “Do you—uh, miss that? All the fighting?” Gehn ground his teeth together in thought, but answered, “I’d be a liar to say I didn’t. I haven’t gotten the chance to have a real fight here on Earth. I haven’t wanted to out myself. But I am still very much a Saiyan.” “What are you gonna do, anyway?” she kept right on going with the questions. “You’re a Saiyan here on Earth, the Dragon Balls weren’t real, so I mean, like, what’s next for you now, Gehn?” He didn’t answer. Instead, Calculi added one more question: “You’re not leaving, right?” There was a pause, but Gehn managed to shake his head. “No, I’m not leaving,” he reassured her. “I’ve got nowhere to go. And after nearly a year on this planet, it has more people I’ve”—he hesitated—“come to care about.” Calculi broke into a big smile, “Oh yeah? Like who? I saw you chatting it up with that Coco.” Gehn laughed, “Too demure for me.” “Right, right,” Calculi giggled. “You’re a Saiyan! You need a tougher girl who’s a fighter, am I right?” “Not even close,” Gehn laughed again. “Please keep trying. It’s fun watching miss know-it-all get it wrong time and time again.” She huffed at him, “I know what I kno—” “You know what you know, yeah, I’ve heard it a million times, Calculi,” he teased her even more. “That’s becoming a catchphrase of yours.” “Shut up and tell me about the Saiyan Empire! I don’t know much except what we get out of news, and sometimes that’s frightening stuff!” Calculi tried to force the subject to shift, despite her somewhat red face. “They should be frightening. I know they had their eyes on Earth for quite a while.” “Oh please, if the Saiyans could make you, they can’t be too scary,” Calculi argued, but couldn’t manage a smile with that one. “Or they might burn themselves out before then, you never know,” Gehn kept right on with his train of thought. There was a thick bitterness to his voice, “With almost our entire population dedicated to the military, a single devastating war could spell extinction for us.” Calculi just looked at Gehn. The conversation veered into a heavy direction she never anticipated when she walked in the door today. Naturally, she never anticipated discovering that Gehn was a Saiyan, either. “No one was interested in hearing my concerns on Planet Vegeta, either,” Gehn just laughed at Calculi’s stunned silence. “But I’ve read about your Human history. Since your people never used Ki to fight, your women were biologically much weaker than your men. You kept them away from battlefields, and that ensured that your birthrates could be kept high even if you lost many men in battle.” Gehn just shook his head, “But the Saiyans do nothing like that to protect ourselves. We’re gambling with every war that our race might not come back from it.” “I didn’t realize that you felt that way,” was all Calculi offered him. “I’m no expert, I just want to write novels, but if that’s the situation, someone else must realize it, right? I mean, it makes sense to me, on the surface.” “I don’t think they care,” Gehn shook his head. “You’re the first person to ever even seriously listen, Calculi. And why would they? I’m just a boar, just Low Class scu—” Suddenly, Gehn felt both of Calculi’s hands on his cheeks. She reached out and grabbed him and held his head as tight as her thin little arms could. “Don’t say that,” Calculi demanded. “You’re not a boar, Gehn. You care, I can hear it in your voice. You’re just worried about your people, and all they do is blow it off. Doesn’t inspire confidence.” One more time, Gehn sighed. He turned his head away from Calculi and she, reluctantly, let him. He answered, “I should get over it. Nothing I can do from here.” “I don’t think you could get over it any more than I could get over my family, even though I moved out,” Calculi offered him that perspective in a soft voice. “And they’re still your family, aren’t they?” At first, Gehn said and did nothing. Then, slowly, he nodded. Calculi smiled at the sight. “You know what, Gehn?” He turned his attention back to her, “Oh no. What have you come up with now?” “Maybe I’ll put something like this in my book.” “No, Calculi, a nobody worrying about things like extinction is a little too absur—” “No, no, really. An underappreciated thinker who works really hard for his people but has his concerns ignored? I mean, not exactly a copy of your story, but I think that’d get people’s attention! I wanted a bunch of races in there, so I’d pick one of them to have a self-destructive risk that they keep ignoring. It’d be great!” Gehn just smiled and shook his head, “What? Don’t think I’m a thinker?” Calculi giggled again and felt the mood start to lighten. Gehn did too. She teased, “No, you’re more of a do-er, I think. Skipped the whole, ‘get some clout in this field first’ and went right to ‘storm off and do your own thing’. But I kind of like that, too.” “I’m a do-er, you say?” He laughed. “I think you’re right.” He leaned over and kissed her soundly.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:04:07 GMT
Chapter Four: Home “Oi, Kincha!” A feminine voice called out. She held a tall, empty glass in her outstretched arm. In front of her, a program of some sort played out on the wide, glowing green before her. She was wearing little more than a loose, green dress. A furry, brown tail poked out from behind her as well and flicked away as she hooted and hollered at the events unfolding in front of her. “Can you get me another while you’re in the kitchen?!” “Get it yourself, Parena!” An irritated, much more masculine voice called back. “I’m busy in here!” “Stop making out with Kanni and get your sister a drink, will ya’?!” Parena yelled right back at him, laughing as she did. She leaned back and twisted around, which only showed off even more of her shiny, dark hair that hung half way down her legs. Back in the kitchen, sitting on a stool, Kincha groaned. He ran a hand through the back of his shorter, dark hair. The front spiked off into three separate bangs. He wore a ratty, white t-shirt and loose-fit fighting pants with a couple holes in them, plus some white boots. Next to him on another stool, with glistening lips, was a young woman. Her hair rivaled Parena’s in length, but was violet. She had light-blue eyes and a black, white-trimmed dress paired with a short, pleated skirt. “Sorry, Kanni,” he whispered so his sister couldn’t hear. “I should probably be a nice big brother.” Kanni just smiled at him, “How do you think she knew we were making out?” Kincha just smiled and leaned forward, giving her a peck on the cheek, “Easy. When aren’t we?” With a giggle, Kanni gave him a shove and pointed in the direction of the living, which was right through an open archway, “Go get your sister’s drink!” Kincha rolled his eyes at his girlfriend, but stood up from the stool and marched out into the living. The stone, tiled floor quickly gave way to the thick carpeting of the living. Kincha padded across it in his boots—his father always scolded him for it—and snagged Parena’s empty glass from her hand. She looked up to him with a wide smile and a contented flick of her tail. “You’re my favorite brother, Kincha,” she lied in her usual, saccharine tone. “Maybe I’ll leave my door open a crack tonight and let y—” “Kanni’s are bigger,” Kincha shot right back with a chuckle as he turned around and walked back towards the kitchen. Parena’s jaw hit the floor as he did. “At least let your sister down gentle—wow!” There were a few moments of silence before Kincha returned with a full glass, bubbling with Parena’s drink of choice. Kincha never bothered to ask and Parena rarely cared; so long as she enjoyed it. If red and bubbly translated to delicious, she would drink it all the same. “You’re lucky I love you,” he said as she took it from his hands. “Someone has to, right?” Off to their side, the sliding patio door opened. Standing there was Caul, the youngest of them all, with dark, unruly hair that hung even longer than Parena’s—but just barely. He leaned in through the threshold and hung onto the frame for support. His baggy, violet shirt hung off him and his shredded fighting pants looked more like rags to the other two in the room. “Hey, Parena,” he chimed in with a wide, toothy grin. “Talon and I are about to go head-to-head for a while. You want in?” Kincha just rolled his eyes, “Really, man? Big family dinner and you and Talon are going to spar, of all things?” “Don’t hate it just because we can beat your lily-white ass, Kincha,” Caul teased his older brother relentlessly. Behind him, his own, furry tail flicked about in anticipation. “So, Parena, what do you say?” She hummed quietly for a moment and took a sip of her drink. The she glanced at the television, then back to Caul, then at the television again. She hummed even more, after that. “Is Talon gonna use that blunted sword of his?” She suddenly asked. “You bet,” Caul answered with an even bigger grin. “I insisted. I want big bro going all out.” Parena’s tail flicked around the news and she visibly shuddered at the thought, “Oh, I have to be a part of this. He never cuts loose with me.” “Must just be your pretty face, ParPar,” he teased her and turned right back around. He slid the glass patio door closed behind him and ran back out into the wide, grassy field behind their family home. In the distance, the tallest of them stood out like a sore thumb, with his long, purple hair that nearly reached down to his shoulders. Kincha just groaned, but never lost his smile. Parena looked at him and gave a big grin in response. “You used to get into huge fights with Dad over this sort of thing,” Parena pointed out and squinted at her little brother. “You’ve been so chill with it the past few years. What ever happened with that, anyway?” Kincha paused for a moment and thought about it, “I can’t really say. I guess, I don’t know, talking about it so much with Talon and Caul…” When his voice trailed off, his smiling sister picked up for him, “You can’t help be okay with it when they love fighting so much, am I right?” He smirked when she said that, “Yeah, I suppose that has to be it. I always thought that Dad was incredibly dumb about it, you know? Like, who cares about fighting that much when apparently, he wasn’t even that good at it?” “That made him so mad,” Parena laughed. “I thought he’d bring the whole house down on you for bringing that up!” “It was a low blow, wasn’t it?” Kincha hesitated to say it and scratched at the back of his head. “But when I started to think about it like something my brothers loved to do, instead of something my Dad forced me to do, I think that’s when it started to change.” “Ooooh~, that makes sense,” Parena cooed. “I bet that Kanni’s really happy you’ve at least kept up with basic training so you don’t get weaker. Not to mention the other, ahem”—she looked up and down her older brother for a moment—“pleasant side-effects.” That got Kincha to roll his eyes again, “Stop creeping on what I do with my girlfriend, Parena.” “Come onnnn,” she fake-whined at him. “I haven’t had a steady boyfriend in over a year. Can’t you at least let me dote over my big brother? At this rate, you’ll be the first of us to marry! Talon gets no where with the ladies.” “He’s too busy with all of us, I think,” Kincha laughed when he brought that up. “He’s been playing referee between the three of us and Mom and Dad since we were little kids. Hardly gave him any time to get to know any.” “Never stopped those adorable love letters he’d get,” Parena giggled at the memory. “Oh, the ones that made you intensely jealous because those ‘little witches’, you called them, might steal your brother?” This time, Parena rolled her eyes, “Please! I was a little kid! I was attached, okay? Is having a little-girl crush on your big brother a crime nowadays?!” He let himself laugh outright because of that one, “You’ll never lose that spark, will you, Parena?” She grinned right back at him, “Mom always said that it would be why my future husband fell in love with me~”
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:04:41 GMT
Outside the home, the early-evening sunlight was still bright and warm. They were just past the Summer Equinox and the days dragged on and on—perfect for a get-together like this. There was even a steady breeze, more than enough to keep the family cool despite the heat. The home itself was in the Northern Sector of Earth, well outside the Northern Capitol. Gehn bought it after the birth of his first son, Talon, to get them out of the city. They owned countless acres of land, earned with the money from Gehn’s work in excavation up in the Yunzabit Highlands. Not many workers could handle the cold the way Gehn could and the still glacier-swallowed mountain range hid an immense amount of fine metals. It earned Gehn a healthy income. Out in that yard, a fire already burned tall and wild in the pit they dug so many years ago for that express purpose. Wooden chairs and tables strewn about the yard, with most of them already filled by the various members of the family. Gehn sat at the head of the table and Calculi at the other end, the two of them positioned like supporting pillars that held everything else up. Much further out in the grass field, with a tree line a quarter of a kilometer even further back, stood Caul and Talon. Caul wore his black and violet armor, trimmed in gold. Gehn warned him about how gaudy it looked but Caul insisted. For his eighteenth birthday, his passage into manhood, Gehn hardly found it in himself to turn his youngest down. Talon, on the other hand, wore nothing but a dark grey tank-top, off-white fighting pants, and black boots that matched his father’s. At his side hung the brown sheath for his katana. The bottom was cold and the ring around the opening matched. The blade itself remained put away and the complete set hung at his side, strapped on by his grey sash. The pommel of the blade matched the sheath and shined gold as well. Caul never admitted it to anyone—he probably never would—but Talon’s sword is why he chose the colors for his armor that he did. “Okay, boys,” Calculi clapped her hands together and then pushed his glasses back up her nose. Now at the ripe old age of forty-two, she still wore the same style. “You know the rules. Caul, no dirty moves if you get desperate! Talon, don’t go easy on him or I’ll make your Dad come over there and rip you a new one!” “Damn, Mom!” Talon half-shouted and half-laughed. “Who says that to their son?!” “Enough complaining!” Caul laughed right back at him and dropped into a low stance, fists ready. “I’ve been looking forward to this all month and we’re wastin’ daylight!” Talon just grinned right back at his little brother. He bent at the knees and drew his sword. It whistled through the air as he brought it into a direct, forward stance. The silvery shine of the metal flashed in the sunlight and, for a moment, blinded Caul. Neither brother moved to take advantage of that, and instead waited. Back at the table well away from the boys, both Gehn and Parena got to their feet. Kincha stayed seated next to Kanni and chatted away with her while the match began. As Gehn and his daughter approached, he cracked his knuckles in preparation. “Alright you two,” he came to a stop, but still shouted down the field at his boys. “Loser gets to team up with Parena to fight the winner here. So, Parena, start thinking up tactics you can use with your younger brother.” Parena busted out laughing at that and Caul just looked at his father with a smirk, “I’m making Talon pay for that, old man.” “Shut up and keep your eyes on your brother,” Gehn retorted with a smile. “Besides, I don’t look a day older than him.” “You don’t even have the pervy old guy vibe, Dad~” Parena giggled. Gehn just shook his head, “Your mother said the same thing, once. Hope she still believes it.” He didn’t dare ask, but he did raise his arm and continue, “First one on their ass is the loser.” Then he dropped his arm like the hammer of a judge. “Go.” Caul vanished with a ground-shaking charge forward. Parena cheered and jumped up and down when she felt it. He reappeared a second later just in front of Talon and swung a hard straight right for his brother’s face. Talon, however, already flipped the blade in his grip and pulled it back towards himself. Caul’s knuckles caught against the flat of the steel and sent a shockwave over the field that pushed all the grass down for just a moment. Both young men wore wide smiles on their faces. Caul lost his first. Talon’s eyes flashed to life and twin beams blasted forth. They caught Caul in his forehead and the younger brother growled and stumbled backwards as a cloud of smoke enveloped his face. He cursed himself for falling for his brother’s favorite tactic yet again and then cleared the smoke with a wave of his hand— Only to reveal that Talon charged right back at him. He raised his sword and both hands gripped it tight right before he swung it down at Caul’s shoulder. He barely managed to side-step his brother’s swing and felt it whistle past his face as he did. His fist curled tight and he swung it around in a wide hook for Talon’s nose. “Kick his ass, Caul!” Parena finally shouted words after all the hoots and hollers that followed their initial clash. Air whistled once more as Talon kicked himself into the sky. He retreated backwards, higher and higher into the air as his brother gave chase. Both of them flared their auras—Talon’s white, Caul’s purple—to life as they ascended higher and higher still. Slowly, Caul started to close the gap, grunting as sweat started to bead on his forehead. “You’re going to exhaust yourself like that, little bro!” Talon laughed and shouted down at his brother. Despite his words, he picked up the pace himself, no matter how much the wind whipped at his exceedingly long hair that framed either hair of his face and hung down to his shoulders. “You better have a plan besides jus—" Below him, Caul drew both of his arms back. In his hands appeared the tell-tale glow of violet. Between the stance and the power that Talon felt coming from his little brother, he knew exactly what it was: The family move, passed onto Gehn from his father and from him, onto them. Talon immediately swerved his path off, but Caul followed. Even as Talon took through through twists and turns in the sky, Caul pursued and pursued even as the patterns got stranger and wilder. Now Talon’s back faced Caul, allowing the older brother to go as fast as he possibly could. At the very last moment, Talon flipped around to face his brother and curved their path back towards the grassy field below. “Eat it, Talon!” Caul shouted with a wild grin as he thrusted both of his hands down at his brother. “Thyym Cannon!” Talon never liked that name. He brought both of his arms up into a cross-guard—his sword already sat back in the scabbard at his side. Just as he did, the violet wave crashed into his arms and pushed him violent downwards, straight for the ground. “You got him!” Parena squealed with excitement from below and jumped up and down. Caul followed the tail of the wave as it carried his brother down and, the moment it crashed into the ground and created a huge cloud of dirt and dust, he plunged right in. His right arm was drawn back into a fist that he drove straight into the ground—right where his brother would be floating, if he wasn’t already buried in the dirt himself. When his fist hit something, it certainly wasn’t his brother. The force of it shook the entire field and Caul felt his arm bury itself up to the elbow in dirt. He kneeled in place now and cursed, blind, before he let his sixth sense find his brother for him. Talon stood just off to the side and, before Caul could even free his arm, drove a hard kick right into his brother’s cheek. The force of it busted his arm loose from the dirt and sent the younger man soaring through the air, just above the ground. He stabbed his fingers into the dirt to slow himself down, digging half-pipes through the grass and soil as he did, and flipped around to get his feet back under him. When he came to a stop, he was clear of the cloud. His brother, however, was nowhere in sight. Caul checked to his left, then his right, but neither showed him any trace of Talon. Immediately, he checked above and behind him—both to no avail. Which left only one place left: The cloud. Without any hesitation, Caul started to pump his arms forward over and over. Each time, a golden blast of energy lunged from his palms and fired straight through the cloud before it curved skyward to eventually dissipate. Gehn hated it when they ruined his lawn. He fired repeatedly, like his life depended on it; but every time, it popped out the other side and bent upwards into the air. “Come on out of your hidey hole, Talon!” Caul shouted back at his brother and slowly lowered his arms. He kept his fists ready at his side and flared his violet aura back to life around him. “Today’s the day, I can feel it!” “Hell yeah it is, Caul!” Parena shouted again from down range. “Get in there and beat his ass like a man!” Who could turn down a request from their older sister? Caul certainly couldn’t and, just like that, took to the air and rushed right back into the cloud. What followed sounded like a series of thuds and small explosions. The cloud started to grow larger and larger. Caul’s voice cursed a string of profanity before even more thuds and explosions followed as the two brothers seemingly traded fists behind the veil of dust. The cloud grew even more when Talon’s voice followed with its own litany of expletives. Then someone screamed, but no one could tell who the voice belonged to. Not until Caul tumbled out of the cloud, side over side. His armor tore up the grass and soil each time he impacted the ground until he finally, slowly, rolled to a stop. “You idiot!” Parena shrieked and stomped her feet before she started to run across the grass to her downed brother. Behind him, Talon started to walk out of the cloud, the blunted model of his katana in his right hand. A smear of blood stood out on his lip—a parting gift from his little brother, no doubt. “He did phenomenal, Parena,” Talon tried to reassure her. Like Caul, Parena never once came close to defeating Talon. Unlike Caul, she also never really stood a chance. “Don’t give him a hard time.” Parena dropped to her knees next to Caul as he groaned and writhed. She looked up at her older brother, “I thought he had you! Did you really dodge each of those blasts?” Talon just smiled, “You know what they say about magicians.” She just groaned at him, “Your hobby is dumb, Talon! How did you manage it?” Caul finally sat up, “You’ve been practicing your dodging, haven’t you?” That put an even bigger smile on the eldest brother’s face, “Don’t you know it. Can’t let Parena always be the most agile among us, can I? Someone has to keep a fire under both of your asses, you know.” Finally, Gehn caught up and came to a stop next to his three children. His arms crossed over his chest and a satisfied smile hung on his face. He knew, just standing there, that each of them long surpassed his power—with the only exception of Kincha who, at the last check-in, matched him almost exactly. Today was another demonstration of how far the two strongest, Talon and Caul themselves, had managed to come. “Not trying to pick on anyone of you, but Talon’s not slowing down,” he nodded to his oldest. “Two on one might not be enough.” As much as Caul, still sitting, dind’t like it, he refrained from arguing. Parena just huffed, but offered no more protest than that. Gehn looked over his shoulder back towards the table where Kincha still sat with Kanni. “Kincha!” he shouted over to him and got the boy’s attention. “Caul and Parena are gonna need you over here. Gonna turn ‘em down?” Kincha scowled a little, he knew exactly what his father meant. He looked over to Kanni and said, “I should have known. What do you think? Do I?” She just smiled, “Come on, your clothes look like you fight all the time. Go make good on that this once, huh?” Kincha groaned quietly, “Okay, yeah, maybe, but I thin—” His words got cut off when Kanni leaned in and whispered in his ear. He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes widened. “Okay, okay, I’ll go get my gloves.” Just off to his side, his mother started laughing. Parena started to jump for joy yet again while Gehn helped Caul back onto his feet. It took them years to get here, Gehn realized. It took him losing his entire life back on Planet Vegeta, back with his old family, but now? Now he had something, an achievement, that genuinely made him feel proud every single day. He smiled at the scene, despite it’s imperfections. Kincha still had attitude and, usually, only kept it in check when Kanni was around. Parena had too lackadaisical an approach to life and still lived at home. Talon seemed isolated and almost painfully lonely. Caul did little except train and fight, yet still failed to surpass his eldest brother. As imperfect as it was, even he admitted that he loved it. It took all of that, but for the first time in his life, Gehn felt like he was home.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:04:54 GMT
Chapter Five: Homeless Clouds hung thick and heavy over Gehn’s family home. He stood in the threshold of the front down to the semi-spherical main structure in which he lived. Within, he stared at an alien form the likes of which he hadn’t seen in decades. It was short—very short. Two black spikes protruded from either side of his head. The natural body armor of his people looked almost polished and appeared to be a near-perfect white. The glass-like substance that coated part of his skull, along with the skin that could be seen, was a combination of light orange and crimson red. Whoever this man was, he was an oddity among Arcosians. What forced Gehn into his paralyzed state wasn’t the Changeling in front of it. Even the immense power that he felt radiated off the man did nothing to startle him. What shocked him the most was the sight of what he sat on: a throne. A throne made of bodies. Arms and legs were twisted into arm rests and supports. Chests were stacked to form the base of the seat. Behind him, Gehn vaguely made out the sight of Parena’s chest in her usual, green dress that now looked soaked with her own blood. The Changeling sat in it and casually tapped his feet while Gehn stood there, unable to fully comprehend what he saw. “You look pale, Gehn,” the man said with an inappropriately casual tone. He sounded surprisingly feminine to Gehn’s ears. “Would you like to sit down? You’re welcome to my seat, of course. It is your home.” Gehn just stared. “Not in a talking mood, then?” he smiled. “Quite all right. Here, how about I take the lead on this one and you do your best to keep up, yes? Sound like a plan?” Again, Gehn said nothing at all. “Right, then,” he continued with a dismissive wave of his small hand. “My name is Axar. I’m an Arcosian—I think you people prefer Changeling?—mercenary. Sent, yes, to kill you—and any wretched family you sired while you were here. But four children, Gehn? My, my; you’ve been busy.” The orange Changeling snapped his fingers. When he did, another person rounded the corner and entered the family room. Calculi. Her hair hung in those usual braids and her usually bright, violet eyes were burned red from what must have been hours upon hours of violent sobbing. She wore a long, thin dress that barely kept her modesty and walked right up to the side of the Changeling. The entire time, she never looked at him, his ‘throne’, or anything in that direction at all. She stared right at Gehn, on the verge of tears. “I certainly see why, too,” Axar continued and ran a single, small finger down Calculi’s cheek. “What a pretty little thing you’ve found. Or so I imagine this is what all you hairless apes might aesthetically appreciate. I’ll be honest: your mating rituals always grossed me out.” Fat, ugly tears started to stream down Calculi’s cheeks as Axar continued to touch her soft skin. He never once looked at he, just like she never looked at him. Instead, they both continued to stare at Gehn with a continued, unspoken question being asked. ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘Are you going to save me, Gehn?’ Axar pulled his finger away and sighed, “Still comatose, are you? What will it take to get you to wake up, Gehn?” Finally, he looked over to the short human girl next to him. A satisfied, devious smile spread over his alien lips. “Oh, I have just the thing,” his voice perked up at the idea. A gust of wind rushed over Gehn and blew his hair up straight. Axar flicked a single finger forward, right into Calculi’s cheek. The force was enough to punch a hole straight through the soft flesh and spin her head around a full one hundred eighty degrees, complete with the wet snapping of bone. Her entire body crumpled to the floor among the rubble from the cave-in ceiling and thudded like a sack of potatoes. Axar dusted his hands, as if to complete a hard day’s work. “Killing the womb wasn’t in the contract,” Axar clarified for Gehn. “That one was just because I hate your people, even if I do like your money. Which, conveniently, reminds me of the last little detail I need to carry out before I kill you, too, Gehn: Can you guess who entered into this deal with me? Hm? I’ll give you three attempts.” “Ollis,” he finally said, hands curled into fists. The word came out loud, strong, and hated like never before. “Close, so close,” Axar laughed at him. “Celerus. Dear big brother himself! Why, if this wasn’t just business, I might stick around just to find out what sort of delicious, juicy drama went down to make a brother hate another so much that he sends someone else to kill his own blood.” Axar jumped to his feet from the throne of flesh and bone. He started to walk forward, slowly. His three-fingered feet crushed any stones from the ceiling that they stepped on to get at him. “You’re certainly a cooperative victim,” Axar noted with a detached sort of amusement. “I really appreciate that, you’ll make this much easi—“ The carpeted floor of the home exploded in a gold and orange conflagration. Bits of singed fabric flew past Axar’s face and a whole cloud of rocky debris and dust erupted into his vision. He forced his eyes shut immediately and started to cough. “Bitch!” He immediately cursed at Gehn’s tactic before he cleared the air with a single, powerful swipe of his arm. The Saiyan was, of course, completely out of sight. Axar just sighed and reached up to the violet-glassed scouter that hung in front of his eye. With the click of just two buttons, it flashed to life and started to scan the surrounding area for his newest runaway. “I do so hate it when they do this…”
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:05:06 GMT
Gehn’s back pressed into a crumbly, brick wall. He was in some sort of commercial district of Ocariin City, hidden in an alley. To his right and left, streams of Konatsians flowed through the streets of their most famous city. For Gehn, however, it turned into a prison. Weeks had flown by while he hid among the people, sewers, and alleys of the city to keep himself alive. Axar pursued him relentlessly, always just a half-step behind and as deadly as ever. Pain lanced through his right arm as he slumped to his ass on the brick walkway of the alley. He looked over to see the cast-wrapped arm, the hand barely visible on the other side. The pain and injury alike served as a testament to the overwhelmingly superior power of Axar. A single, grazing blow that Gehn managed to shove away cost him the integrity of his very bones. If this happened so easily when he went barely touched the man, he shuddered to imagine the result of a direct confrontation. Only by the grace of whatever gods did or did not exist, and his own, great luck, had Gehn managed to survive this far. Worse yet, he knew it. Running, hiding, and groveling like he did, proved to be the only way he could survive. Axar was simply too thorough, too powerful, and despite his short stature, he had none of the usual character flaws that Gehn looked to exploit. Calculi would have said, “This is not his first rodeo.” She never told Gehn what ‘rodeo’ meant. “Bye, bye, boar,” sounded off the all-too-familiar voice of Axar. Gehn raised his head and looked down towards the end of the alley just in time to see the orange Changeling. His open hand pointed right at Gehn and a glowing, blue orb sprang to life within it. Gehn didn’t move, even when the blast fired off towards him and howled through the air. He didn’t even move when the wall next to him burst open and sent chunks of stone flying through the alley. A large, strong arm reached out through the flying debris and grabbed the blast of energy directly. It hissed in the grip of the mystery arrival until, slowly, it got crushed into nothingness. Standing next to Gehn was a tall man, well-built. His dark hair pointed almost straight up and he appeared to be built more like a tank than a person. His ears lacked the iconic point of the Konatsian people. He wore a white fighter’s outfit, little more than a robe and white pants with boots, all of it trimmed red. “You’re late, Blink,” Gehn fake a scolding with a smile. Blink looked over his shoulder, “You told me to go for the dramatic entrance, sir. To rub it in ‘his stupid, citrus-y face.’ Isn’t that what you wanted?” Gehn just laughed and gradually got to his feet, “And who says Androids can’t have a sense of humor?” “Cyborg,” Blink corrected him, still smiling, and turned his attention back to Axar down the alley. “I’m a Cyborg. It’s Farmer that’s the fully-artificial Android.” “You’re kidding me,” Axar shrieked and shook his head. “There’s two of you? Gehn! Where did you find this guy?!” Gehn just smiled, “Since when were you under the impression that you’re the only mercenary in the galaxy, Axar? Try not to be so full of yourself, will you?” Then, Gehn waved at Axar, “Good to see you again, Farmer.” Axar had no time to look behind him before a large, strong arm—not quite as big as Blink—wrapped around his neck. He immediately got lifted off his feet and started to kick and flail wildly. Gehn, however, flared his own crimson aura to life around him. “Just keep him busy until I get off the planet,” Gehn reminded them. “But if things go extra well and you feel like breaking his neck, well, don’t let me stop you two gentlemen.” The Changeling kept kicking and squirming in the grip of the taller, but thinner-framed Android behind him kept a tight grip around his neck. Blink simply raised his fists and lit up his own, white aura. “Oh, trust me, Gehn—we won’t,” he said, right before he charged straight back at the Changeling. Gehn lingered just long enough to watch as Blink’s oversized fists started to pound relentlessly into Axar’s gut and the glass-like object in the center of his chest. Each squeal and shriek of pain and frustration out of the Changeling put a bigger and bigger smile on his face, even as he slowly ascended into the sky above their heads. Another orb of golden energy appeared in his hand and, for a moment, Gehn held it there. He watched the beat down go on just a few moments longer before Axar, finally, squirmed out of Farmer’s grip. It was on that note that he detonated the blast right there in the air and let the sudden steam and smoke cover his hasty retreat. He rushed away for Ocariin City even faster than when he retreated from the Northern Capitol on Earth. Back then, he only had to make it to the old cave he found where he kept his original Space Pod. Now, however, he needed to make it out of the heart of the city before he could get back to his landing area well off into the distance. He hoped—would have prayed, if he believed in that sort of thing—that the two Androids could stall the orange-flavored Arcosian long enough for him to make it. Better yet, maybe they could kill him and get the retribution that he could not.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:05:24 GMT
He never found out what happened to Blink or Farmer. All he knew was that, a few days into his flight into deep space, Axar’s ship appeared on his Pod’s radar. It closed on him quickly, which forced Gehn to keep going and going unless he wanted to land only for Axar to blast him into pieces before he even got out of the Pod. When he left Earth, at least he maintained his lead on the Changeling. That luck finally ran out. Before him floated the overwhelmingly green view of the only habitable planet he had the range to get to. His Pod lost power to the engines hours ago and now plummeted through the planet’s gravity well, on a clear crash course. From what the computer could tell, he would hit the atmosphere in five minutes and then the surface a mere two minutes later. The atmosphere of this world appeared thicker than average, according to sensors, and without a controlled entry the computer warned him of the risk of burning up during entry. Gehn took that chance—not like he had any choice in the matter. Just as he leaned back in the ripped, old, red leather that acted as padding for his pod, the communications system sprung to life. When it did, that inescapable voice called out through the audio system in the ship, laughing. “Oh my, what a predicament you’re in, Gehn,” Axar laughed at him even more. “The Pod’s losing power and you can’t even slow your descent. Why, this looks like a great time for me to put in a call to Celerus, tell him the job’s finally done, and head off to some sandy resort for a vacation!” “Please do,” Gehn sarcastically intoned. “Looks like you finally got me. Will Mommy give you a pat on your glass head? Careful that she doesn’t crack it.” “It’s not glass you simple-minded cretin,” Axar snapped at him. “It’s all part of my superior complexion! You just don’t know how to have fun, do you?” “Haven’t been in the mood.” “For months? Come now, Gehn. Why are you letting a few cases of homicide get you down? You’re a Saiyan, you should have bounced back by now! Perk up, big guy!” “Don’t you need to go brood someone like the lizard freak you are, Axar? Maybe eat some raw crabs?” “Boiled, Gehn,” Axar corrected him. Gehn swore he could hear him waggle his finger on the other end of the communications link. “With a red, earthy wine. Really complements well. Not that you’d know, of course.” “Then shouldn’t you be going to do that?” “Oh no, no. Not yet. See, I don’t trust for a moment that this crash will kill you, you see. After you hit the ground, I’m going to come down there and find your body myself. When I, inevitably, discover that you’re still breathing? I’ll crush your rib cage under my foot—and then I’ll go eat those crabs.” “And then go tell Mommy what a disappointment you are?” “Not at all!” He laughed. “I’ll go tell Celerus that he was right: You never amounted to anything. Snagged some pretty Earthling piece and pumped out a few kids. The saddest excuse for a Saiyan, especially when you turned and ran the moment you saw what I did to your family.” “Can you breathe water, Axar?” “Excuse me?” “I know your people can survive in space for quite a while. But if I make you fill your lungs with water, will you die? “It would be extremely painful”— “Then I think I know exactly what I’ll be doing.” — “For you.” Gehn just laughed, “Tough talk. Fine, Axar. You want to end this? After I survive this crash, come find me. I’ll drown you like the rodent you are and drag your body back to Caucumber.” “Says the Low Class reject monkey. But if you’re finally ready to die, I won’t complain. Make your peace with whatever higher power you apes believe in. We’ll settle this shortly.” The communications link cut off with a static snap. Gehn sighed and relaxed back into his chair. Despite all of his tough words, he never actually believed that he could drown Axar. While he thought the method might work, he had no way to keep the man’s head underwater long enough for him to actually die. It all turned back around into a single, core issue for him: He simply wasn’t strong enough. Any clash between them would end up with him dead unless someone else—like Blink and Farmer—arrived to save him. Fate decreed that Gehn died by Axar’s hand. No matter what he did, Gehn couldn’t seem to escape what was written for him. The Pod started to shake and rattle all around him. He felt the initial boom as he hit the atmosphere and watched as his entire view out the front window turned into a conflagration of searing flame. He plummeted through upper layers of the world like a bullet, getting hotter and hotter as his highly aerodynamic vessels cut straight through. Only sixty seconds into descent and he already punched into the surface layer of the atmosphere, still flaming. From what he could tell on the radar—it was hard to read through all the turbulence—he was about to land somewhere near the main ocean in the northern hemisphere of the world. Worse yet, the entry was ripping his old pod apart. The metal on other side of him in the interior already split open and exposed circuit boards were beginning to melt and shatter like sheets of glass. Worse yet, the Pod was venting some sort of gas into his interior as he continued his fall through the sky. Gehn lost consciousness before he even crashed through the tree-top canopy and into the dirt beneath.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:05:42 GMT
Chapter Six: Wire A gasping breath escaped Gehn. His eyes bolted open and he immediately tried to sit upright, only to be stopped short by cold, metallic restraints against his ankles and wrists. They pulled him back down against the metal table beneath him with a thud. “You’re finally awake!” A vaguely masculine voice called out to him. Gehn heard something like a chair rolling across the floor, and turned his head to the side. In front of him sat a young man with dark hair brushed back and held in place with copious amounts of hair gel. There was a single section of white along with the black that Gehn could barely see. The man wore a striped, black shirt, a tie, and a charcoal grey coat overtop of it. His eyes were darker than most Saiyans and he had an almost undead quality about him, between his gaze and his pale, clammy skin. “Where am I?” Gehn asked in a quiet, strained and started to look around. The room he was in looked fairly normal, except for the metal walls. There were countless bolts along what might have been steel panels, or any other silvery metal in the galaxy. Some of it even appeared to have a green sheen to it, but that faded into and out of his vision. The more Gehn looked around, the more he saw padded chairs in front of various consoles with sensors, controls, and reports scattered about. From where he laid, he felt like he was in the center of the room. “You’re in deep space, away from any of the sapient, space-faring races and their empires,” the man explained quite matter-of-factly. “This is my planet. Nothing here but the trees, the grass, the bushes, and some animals. They’re quite a delicacy, actually; at least to me. Oh, and my various Androids, as well.” “Androids?” Gehn suddenly groaned and shut his left eye in pain. “Yes, Androids. I’m a cyberneticist. Left Earth, as you can tell.” “Earth? You’re human?” “Quite. But Red Ribbon means there’s little warm welcome for me back there, so I walked away. Or flew away, more accurately,” he explained with a casual shrug. Gehn hardly understood how something so immense and major in his life was treated so nonchalantly. “Count yourself lucky for that. The fact that I was here on this backwater planet means that your life was saved.” “My life was saved…?” Gehn’s voice trailed off. He felt slow in the head, sluggish, like he was still getting himself up to speed. When he looked down his body, he saw his usual outfit: white shirt, red sash, grey pants, black boots. All of them were free of stains or any other blemishes. They were in the best shape they had ever been since he left Earth. “See?” he said, and glanced at Gehn’s body as well. “I did a great job, I think. You’re good as new—better than new, in fact.” “You said you were a cyberneticist, not a regenerator, how did—” “No, no, shhhh,” he insisted. “That’s exactly it, my friend. I’m Doctor Xavier, cyberneticist extraordinaire! Your body did most of the healing after I put it back together.” “I see,” Gehn lied. He didn’t understand at all and his head was too fuzzy for him to ask the right questions. Xavier picked up a glowing tablet next to Gehn’s table and started to read. Then, suddenly, his eyes lit back up. “Axar,” Gehn suddenly spit the name out. He looked over to the young Xavier. “I was pursued here by a Changeling, Doctor. If he finds this place, he’ll kill us all. We have to prepare f—“ “Oh, the alien in orbit?” Xavier chimed in, never taking his eyes off the screen he held in his hands. “Yes, well, my Androids should be able to take care of him if he gets close to this place. But the same technology that makes them undetectable, cyborgs included, protects this place. He’d have to find us the old-fashioned way.” Gehn visibly relaxed into the table he was on. Hearing words like that was a tangible relief, though he refused to entirely discount the risk. Axar found him before despite the odds and he could, Gehn felt certain, find him again. “The restraints,” Gehn brought them up and lifted an arm. The metal arm attached to the bed lifted as well, and rattled when it reached its maximum angle. “These aren’t necessary, Doctor. I’m not going to hurt the man who saved my life.” “Oh, well, yes, I’m sure you won’t,” he said, his tone suddenly less self-assured. “But let’s talk about about that for a moment, shall we? There are some things you should know.” Gehn paused for a moment, “What sort of things?” Xavier smiled, like a father about to dote over his successful child. The thought nearly made Gehn grimace. That wound was still tender and fresh. “Well, you see, your body was quite severely injured,” he began to explain. “Gaping holes, organs gone, and your left eye had a long, thin spike of metal impaled into it. Took my Androids a long while, by their standards, to extract you from the wreckage. I had to do quite a bit of work to make sure you survived.” “Doctor, please, cut to the chase,” Gehn tried to hold his thinning impatience. He couldn’t get the fear of what this man was hiding out of his mind. Xavier nodded at him and reached under the table Gehn laid atop of. When he pull it back out, thin, silvery fibers were wrapped around a finger of each hand and stretched out between them. Xavier pulled and Gehn watched as the fibers expanded, then contracted, something like living tissue. “Synethic tissue, lighter than muscle, stronger than muscle, and able to integrate and adapt to any organic body,” Xavier explained. “Even stronger than your Saiyan musculature, in fact. More energy-efficient as well. These particular strands were modeled after your cells and DNA, so you shouldn’t feel an different. Your skin is unchanged as well.” “Wait,” Gehn gasped the word. “You put that inside of me?” “Well, of course,” Xavier said with a tilt of his head. “I did say that I’m a cyberneticist, did I not? These fibers have, over the weeks, replaced your regular muscular-skeletal system entirely. Soon enough I'll enhance the bones themselves, even the organs -- but not yet. For now, just your muscles, tendons, ligaments, the parts you can consciously move.” Gehn started to hyperventilate on the spot, “Doctor, reverse this. After what I’ve been through, the things I’ve endured, you’ve taken the last thing I had away from me. I’m a Saiyan, Doctor Xavier, not a lab rat. I can’t be…reduced to some breathing bucket of bolts.” “Gehn, Gehn,” the Doctor waved his hand back and forth after he put away the sample of synthetic tissue. “Don’t worry about these things so much. Besides this material of mine—my greatest breakthrough, so far!—there are no other alterations to you except some regulatory implants to help your body manage these new additions. You’ll never notice them.” Xavier furrowed his brow, “Well, there is also the matter of your eye, like I mentioned.” “My ey—“ Gehn immediately blinked his left hard once, twice, three times. It was after the third that the green sheen returned to his vision. It felt hard. “What have you done to me?” Gehn suddenly roared. He tensed his entire body and strained against the metal arms that kept him pinned against the table. These were more than just regular restraints, it was a machine that actually fought back against him. “Calm down,” the doctor insisted in a harsher tone. “Unruly Subjects like y—“ “Subjects?” Gehn growled and pushed against the machine again. “Yes, subjects, Gehn. Now, please, stop. That machine is built to restrain you despite your growing Power Level.” At that news, Gehn did stop for a moment. “Ah, that appears to have your attention!” Xavier laughed. “Yes, your Power Level when I found you was around four hundred. At last measure, you were above seven hundred and rising still. My process has more than doubled your strength just during your recovery phase. I can only imagine the heights you’ll reach during rebuilding—you’re the first Saiyan I’ve worked on, after all.” Despite his speechlessness, Gehn’s chest still heaved as he listened to the Doctor. Whether Xavier didn’t notice, or didn’t care, was left unclear. The man just continued, “Now, as for your eye? I’ve replaced it with scanning and analysis technology. Think of it like your Saiyan Scouters, except with some additional features. Any green in your vision will clear up as the neural implant adjusts the translation from machine language to brain signals.” By the time that explanation ended, Gehn laid there in a stupor. In the past few months he had lost his woman, his children, his home, his freedom, and now? Now he lost his Saiyan heritage, the last connection he had to who he still was. It hurt at a level that Gehn never thought could even feel pain. He felt like everything had been taken from him, he had been kicked into a whole, and then started to get buried by fate itself—all while it cackled in devilish amusement. Xavier was only the latest in a long, long line of tragedy. Suddenly, Gehn’s entire body went tense. His legs and arms both started to pull against the machine arms that kept him pinned to the bench. He even sat up as much as it would let him and put every single one of his altered muscle fibers to work. “You should—” he groaned the words out “have—” “let me—” “fucking—” “die!” Metal groaned and screamed as it tried to hold him back. Slowly, Gehn’s arms lifted higher, he sat further upright, and his legs rose as well. The joints of the metal arms groaned and Xavier started to back away from the console in a panic. “That’s not—” he refused to say the dreaded last words. “No one else got this much stronger this fast!” “I’m not anyone else!” Gehn screamed right back at him as Xavier stumbled towards the one, sliding, metal door that Gehn saw. “I’m a Saiyan, and you shouldn’t have messed with one before you knew what you were doing! You push buttons, mutilate people, and call it a kindness! I’ve lost my family, my home, my freedom, and now you’ve taken my own body from me!” Gehn’s right arm ripped the restraining arm straight out of the bench it was attached to. The moment he did, he felt the natural flow of his Ki return to it. An orb flared to life in his hand, which he pointed right at Xavier as he turned, nearly tripped, and tried to dive out of the door and into the hallway. “No more, Doctor!” The blast fired out more as a wave that the usual orb. It punched straight through Xavier’s back and then out his chest. Xavier screamed for just a second before the energy swallowed his lungs and diaphragm whole. The golden energy hit the metal wall in front of him and split off into countless, smaller arcs, before it evaporated entirely and left behind only scorch mars. Xavier collapsed to the metallic floor with a gaping, cauterized wound where his chest cavity used to be. With a great roar, Gehn ripped each of the remaining restraint arms out of the machine beneath his bench. He then pried them all off his wrists and ankles, leaving a scattered mess of scrap metal all around the cold, silver bed that Xavier laid him in. Gehn refused to stop there. After he freed himself, he immediately vaporized Doctor Xavier’s body using his newfound strength. What followed was a systematic destruction of the stunningly large complex that Xavier constructed during his time on this planet. In just an hour, Gehn reduced most of the facility to a flaming wrecked as he blasted his way through it. Naturally, the Androids on the planet arrived—altered humans, the both of them—and tried to avenge their creator’s death with a nearly religious zeal about them. He destroyed them as well. The new cyborg felt it just from obliterating Xavier’s nightmare house. Whatever he did to Gehn had an empowering effect far in excess of anything Xavier seemed to build before. Gehn caught glimpses of various screens and reports on tablets as he destroyed the facility and learned that the effects he felt far exceeded anything the Doctor recorded prior to his arrival. He also appeared to be the first Saiyan the Doctor ever worked on, just like he said. If nothing else, Xavier seemed honest. None of that stopped Gehn from leveling the entire place.
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Post by Gehn on Aug 7, 2017 17:06:36 GMT
A heavy, metal door collapsed inward. The center of it was dented in heavily in the shape of a fist. When it hit the ground, dust got kicked into the air and revealed a long, long hall. Lining either side were deactivated Androids of some sort—Gehn saw plenty of them through his rampage—in completely unlit pods. He took a step inside and his hands turned alight with energy. “How many of you did this psychopath build?” Gehn asked no-one in particular. He knew that if he activated even a single one of these wretched abominations—he was one himself, now—he risked biting off more than he could chew. He understood very little about what was done to him and only now, two hours into his mission to eradicate this place, did he begin to think about just what that might entail for his future. Even though the thoughts finally entered his mind, he dismissed them. With both arms pointed in either direction, Gehn started to walk through the long hallway. He blasted through pod after pod on either side of him as he advanced. The ones on the left were empty, while those on the right had people of all shapes and sizes. Each one, he noticed, was labeled “Failure” and given a number. He destroyed each one. His eyes lit up with just a little joy each time he saw a number go up in flames. “Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-fo—“ he suddenly stopped. This was one was different. The woman in the cage was, according to the console attached to her pod, a human. But when he looked through the glass at her, he saw someone with two fleshy horns that protruded from her forehead. Her skin looked like an entirely unnatural sort of grey-ish pale. She wore a strange robe wrapped around her that barely maintained her modesty—and there was a lot for her to hide. The flickering flames behind him danced shadows and unique colors over her face as he watched. This was something he simply had to investigate for himself. He quickly tapped his way through the console. Failure-64 Project: Apotheosis Initial Power Level: 1,100 The number his new eye told him—he already figured out how to use the Scouter functions—was higher than that. Notably higher than that. On top of that, none of the other pods he found with Androids had a project name even a tenth as dramatic as ‘apotheosis’, including the other Failures that he glanced at. So, then, just who was this supposedly human woman? Gehn glanced over to the red switch just beneath the console controls. The usage was rather obvious: flip it upwards and it would awaken whichever Android it kept in stasis in that pod. An hour ago, Gehn would have ignored it entirely. But now, as his frustration simmered and cooled, the more rational side of him began to take ahold. This woman might know more about just what Xavier was doing. She might have answers to questions about what this ‘Apotheosis’ project was. More importantly, she might be able to help Gehn with any complications after his transformation into a cyborg like that mercenary Blink back on Konats. These were all very good, understandable reasons to set her free—Gehn genuinely felt that way. Yet his palm still pointed straight for her face, ready to blast through the glass and her skull. He could walk away from this all, find a way to deal with Axar, and then find a way off this planet. It would be easier, alone. Safer. The number on his Scouter sounded like the opposite of what he wanted to fight right now. But within might be answers, perhaps life-saving ones, and maybe a sense of peace if he could find someone else to share his latest hatred with. Gehn swallowed loudly. ‘ His hand reached out and he grabbed the red switch. Once again, he hesitated. Behind him, the destroyed pods sparked and flamed. Blood pooled between the containers and threatened to reach to his heels if he stayed here any longer. Then, he took one more look at her face. “You probably didn’t ask for this, either, did you?” Gehn spoke as if she could hear him. When he glanced down at the other pods for Failure-65, -66, and beyond, he saw they all had the same Apotheosis label on the console screen. The others did not, and half of the ones he destroyed looked deformed or outright dead already. He flipped the switch.
[Word Count: 21,011]
Thank you for reading!
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Vi-Poi
Administrator
Premier of Earth
PL: 434,410
Soul(x40P), Overdrive(x43)
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Tag: @vipoi
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Post by Vi-Poi on Aug 12, 2017 3:20:05 GMT
Gehn Oh boy, big read. I'm only 90% sure, but I think there is a cap that precludes the normal thread cap for BPs at 15,000 PL. So I will be awarding you with 15,000 PL. If this cap turns out not to exist (though I'm pretty sure it does), I'll add the difference down the road. Welcome! Go ahead and start your RP.
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