Other Tales: The Reunion Tour

[Hela]

The three of them again.

The TARDIS found what could be deigned nearly a mirror of events in the Crossroads.

Fascinating.

***​

This was supposed to be a routine mission.

Amid the wailing of klaxons on the deck of the EMS Valiant, the crew desperately tried to diagnose the situation.

“We’ve lost engine power!” A fresh-faced lieutenant howled from the far corner of the room as they fumbled not to drop the inter-ship comm device. “Engineering says the whole system has burnt out.”

“EMP?” Someone shouted from the array of seats around the ship’s main comm array. “Vid screens are dark, and our sensors are acting as if they’re just… gone.”

The ensigns and lieutenants continued to frantically shout across the bridge as the ship’s commanding officer stared deftly into the seemingly empty void of space spread out in front of their metaphorically capsized vessel. For the untrained eye, there was nothing out there but distant stars and absolute darkness, but Piper Juunanagou, even with the glasses that balanced precariously on her nose, could see the abnormal folds that concealed a cloaked vessel.

“Prepare to be boarded,” the woman boomed over the din of frantic voices around her. At the sound of their CO’s shout, the bridge crew fell silent, with many of them nearly freezing in place mid-action.

“General?” A nearby voice whispered.

Turning her head, Piper scowled at her executive officer. On a normal mission, she would have Colonel Hoshi as her number one, but this was not your standard space operation. They were out here to give a dry run to a new group of commissioned officers, and in an instance of dumb luck, it was Piper’s turn to take out the green-faced recruits for their ceremonial ‘first op.’

“My four o’clock,” she spoke flatly as she gestured into the darkness. “Cloaked ship… I can’t tell the origins, but the rate of movement implies they’re coming at us with impulse engines. Tells me they’ll probably board us directly, but the attack on our ship system tells me they mean no good to us. Arm the black box to detonate if they try to take control of the ship.” Piper rose from the chair and adjusted the beret that mostly concealed her head of red hair. “I need to get to my private quarters before they board the ship,” the woman continued as she turned to her XO. “Lieutenant, I want you to maintain decorum on this bridge and prepare for worst-case scenarios. If I do not return, it means that they’ve likely apprehended me, and the ship falls to you. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Ma’am!” The young boy declared with a salute as he sank into the chair and immediately started to wring his hands as the gravity of the situation washed over him.

As the door slid shut behind Piper, she broke into a sudden sprint. The Valiant was a ship she’d run missions on before, so she knew the layout by heart. Her route snaked around a mess hall and a pair of small common areas, and on all three occasions, she found herself shoving and manhandling through fellow crew members. If they survived, she was certain they would forgive her for the bruises they’d find on their backs and asses in the morning.

By the time she reached the captain’s quarters, she could feel the ship shuddering violently beneath her. Years ago, the quaking of the vessel as its airlock was punctured would have sent her stumbling or flailing for the nearest solid surface. All these tremors accomplished was to stagger her for half a step and cause the beret to dislodge from her head. The woman made no effort to catch the hat given her hair wasn’t long enough to become a nuisance without it. Instead, she slipped into her quarters and made for the desk.

Slipping into the chair, Piper yanked the drawer open and dumped the contents unceremoniously onto the desk. In the background, she heard a second short tremor before the klaxons abruptly stopped their endless wailing. In their place, she heard something far more unsettling—screams.

“Damn it,” the woman rasped as she heard the familiar trill of laser-based projectiles ricocheting off ablated plating. “Where is it?” She added as she pushed aside a half-written manuscript (she had a digital backup) and set her eyes on the outdated piece of saiyan technology. Fitting the scouter over her ear, she mashed the only ‘button’ on the device and watched as it booted to life and gave her the only function programmed into it.

“Send the signal,” Piper whispered as the text on the screen turned green. A little bar filled up the bottom corner of the visor before the whole thing went blank.

“Hands up,” a voice rasped from behind the woman as the barrel of a weapon pressed into the spot between her shoulder blades. “Stand up slowly, or we will jettison everyone who hasn’t chosen death over surrender.”

“I yield,” Piper muttered as she lifted her palms and slowly turned to face a surprisingly human-looking figure in battle armor. “To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

Her captor suddenly stepped forward and smacked a palm against her neck. Piper felt a flash of heat and lost her balance. The side of her head smacked against her desk as the scouter flew from her ear, smacked the ground, and skidded near the foot of her bed. Before rolling over to look up at her attacker, the general twitched her index finger and yanked the processor chip from the discarded scouter. The small piece of technology sprung forward and sank into a small patch of exposed skin above her belt line.

With that, Piper reached a hand up to her neck and felt that a band of metal had snaked around her throat.

“You looked younger in your pictures,” the gun-totting man chuckled as he looked down at the handful of gray that dotted the woman’s roots. “I guess all the legends grow old eventually.”

“I could murder you with my bare hands,” Piper slurred before losing consciousness.

***

An unknown distance removed from the EMS Valiant, a soft beeping stirred a sleeping warrior from his sleep.

The sleeper lay still for a moment, but that was all it took for him to realize that it was that signal.

Jolting from his bed, the saiyan warrior ignored the protests of his half-awake wife as he made it to the bookshelf. There, in the corner of the top shelf, a dusty scouter was beeping to indicate that a new message had been received. The device jiggled once before it popped free from the row of aged tomes, prompting them all to tilt onto their sides at the lose of their bookend.

“What is it, Vad?” A woman’s soft voice replied as a hand snaked around his bare abdomen.

“She sent the signal.” He replied as he stared at the simple message on the scouter’s screen: ‘S.O.S’ and a string of variables that served as coordinates to the location of the matching scouter. “She’s in danger.”

“What are we going to do?” Trixie asked as her husband started to walk toward the other side of the room. He came to a stop in front of a pair of wall-mounted swords. With a metallic jiggle, the pair of gladii leapt from the wall into their owner’s willing hands.

“It’s Piper,” he muttered as he tested the balance of the swords. “We do what do nest… what she would do if she were receiving this signal.” He turned to face his wife and smiled. “We kill everyone and save our friend.”

 

[Beatrix III]

It had been five years since they’d seen each other, but Piper was in trouble and Vad knew what he had to do. As Trixie packed their various belongings, clothes, valuables, and hygiene stuffs into various duffle bags Vad sat down at a nearby terminal in their small Vejita-sei apartment. He enabled the screen and plugged in the coordinates he had been given.

“I got her location. Are we ready to go, babe?” He said, moving back into the bedroom.

Trixie was dressed in a set of Frost Wars fatigues Luna had left her. A shoulder holster was strapped to her torso, her desert eagle resting at her left breast.

“Yeah, carry the bags. The ship is in docking bay thirty-two.”

Vad nodded and took hold of the bags she had prepared. He was dressed in a Frost Wars BDU. Slinging one bag over his torso, he took the other four in his hands and made for the door of the apartment. Both Vad and his wife boarded their medium sized ship capable of supporting two people comfortably. It was a Capsule Corporation model that included a training bay, kitchen, sleeping quarters, and the cockpit. Trixie sat down in the pilot’s chair and punched in the start up sequence codes. The ship whirred to life.

“Main engines started.” Trixie reported.

“Cleared for departure, Miss Zulenka.” The tower spoke over the radio.

“Thank you, tower. See you again.”

With the formalities aside she punched in the coordinates that the scouter had reported, and the ship shuddered. After a few seconds the inertial dampeners kicked in and the vessel rocketed from the spaceport into the sky.

“Computer reports we’ll be there in a few hours if we burn with all four reactors.”

“Do it.” Vad said as he entered the cockpit.

***​

“We’re coming up on Piper’s ship now.” Trixie said over the intercom.

Vad moved to the cockpit, and both watched as the giant ship grew larger in their viewscreen.

“The ship looks disabled. Dock with it using the top hatch. The bottom one appears to have been forcefully opened.”

Trixie retreated to the safety of Vad’s mind as he suited up in one of the spacesuits they kept on board. Fitting his helmet on the Saiyan lowered his faceplate and sealed himself in with an audible hiss. Moving to the airlock, Vad closed the door behind him and opened the outer door. Punching in a series of codes to the hatch on the Valiant he turned the latch and the door creaked open. Entering the ship, he closed the door behind him and moved into the corridor next to the airlock. There were bodies of unlucky crew members littered across the various rooms. Those who had decided to fight back it seems.

“I don’t sense anyone on board.” Vad said aloud.

“That’s not good.” Trixie said into his mind.

No. It was not. Vad moved through the ship to the bridge where he found the various terminals being powered by auxiliary power. The main reactors must have been disabled. Vad typed on one of the open terminals and browsed the ship logs.

“Auxiliary power is almost gone. It looks like they suffered some sort of attack to the ship systems that rendered them blind to what was going on. There’s no info on what craft attacked them or if Piper is even alive.” Vad reported.

“Can you sense her?”

Vad closed his eyes and relaxed his breathing. Pushing out into the universe around him with his senses he picked on Piper’s trail. He turned to face the starboard side of the ship and opened his eyes.

“Did you get something?”

“I can’t sense her directly, but her energy heads in that direction. The only thing in that direction is Kajin Rala. She must be planet side.”

Vad returned to his ship and decoupled with the Valiant. Turning their heading to Kajin Rala, Vad punched in the coordinates and sent them on their way. It only took a few hours for them to reach the planet in hyperspace. The ship shuddered as the hyperdrive spooled down and the ship entered orbit around Kajin Rala. Almost immediately they came under fire. Energy rounds pelted the exterior of the ship, making the whole thing shift and shudder. Vad sat in the pilot’s chair and took hold of the controls.

“Babe, I need you out here.” He said aloud.

Trixie materialized and sat behind him to his right, handling auxiliary systems.

“Deflector shields at maximum.”

Vad gave the engines full power and dove away from the oncoming enemy ships, avoiding more of their fire. The Saiyan opened fire on two enemy ships in front of him blowing one up and passing the other by. The ship shuddered as it blew through the wreckage.

“Four more to the starboard, including the four behind us. This ship wasn’t built for space combat, babe.”

A new screen came across the dashboard of Vad’s controls.

“Unknown vessel, you are under arrest by order of the Kajin Rala council. Disarm now and prepared to be boarded.”

They think they can board us.

“Not if I can he-“

The ship quite suddenly and violently shuddered, throwing Trixie from her seat.

“Main drive failure. Systems are frozen. The fuck did they hit us with?”

Before Vad could do anything, he was being dragged from his chair by unknown assailants. He felt a hard object slap around his neck which resulted in his strength to fail him. One of his captors struck him in the head with the butt of their weapon and the world went black.

 

[Hela]

Lieutenant General Piper Juunanagou grimaced as the smell of shit, piss, and sweat hit her nostrils. With a grunt, the woman sat up off the floor of the jail cell and immediately found herself cradling her forehead in her palms. Still groggy from the head trauma and suffering from some ringing in her ears, she took a moment to steel herself before dropping her hands into her lap and exhaling sharply.

“I thought you were dead over there, Ma’am.”

Piper, her muscles and bones still sore, tilted her head in the direction of the speaker. In the corner of the cell, she spotted one of her young helmsmen sitting down and hugging his legs. “You are … Lieutenant Schwartz, right?”

He nodded his head without looking up to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry we didn’t catch this, Ma’am. We were all trying so hard to make ‘the general’ proud.”

She rolled her eyes and was thankful he wasn’t looking at her. “Neither you nor anyone else onboard that ship owe me anything. I’m just a middle-aged woman who happened to survive a couple wars, fight a few aliens, and manage to blow myself to pieces. If anything, this is my fault.”

“Your fault, Ma’am?”

“You know how many enemies I have, Lieutenant Schwartz?”

The young man chuckled as he lifted his head up to show a weak smile on a face that had been bruised and battered.

“By the Kais, what did they do to you?”

“I may have mouthed off once or twice,” he replied weakly.

Piper shook her head softly. “Talk shit—”

“Get hit, Ma’am. We all watched your documentary in basic training.”

The older woman cringed at the memory of that stupid extended PSA that the brass had forced upon her a few years ago. They were trying to raise awareness of how to endure under interrogation, with the proliferation of kidnappings in the outer rims of the quadrant. She had hated so much of the script, if only because she was personally a fan of the school of thought wherein you piss off your kidnappers to the point where they reveal something or screw up in some way. The stupid slogan they made her read had been a big laugh among the other generals, and she didn’t blame them.

“Do you know where we are?” Piper asked as she pressed a hand to the wall and gingerly made it to her feet.

“I think it’s somewhere on Kajin Rala, Ma’am.”

Before Piper could respond with a follow up, the other half of the room light up to reveal that they were in one half of a larger, subdivided cell. A door on the other side of a translucent barrier cracked open just long enough for the guards to dump a man through them. Before Piper could scream at them, they had already slammed and relocked the exit.

With a somewhat familiar scream, the figure on the other side of the energy barrier ripped free from his bindings and threw himself at the door. His fists and feet slammed into the steel over and over, but it was clear within a few moments that the flashing inhibitor on his neck was limiting what would have otherwise been an onslaught of strength. After shredding his knuckles and the bottom of his feet, Vad turned and slumped against the door. It was then that his eyes met those of a woman he hadn’t seen in nearly half a decade.

“Piper,” he muttered almost nonchalantly. “We, uh… we got your call.”

The woman shook her head. “You don’t know how much I want to reach through this barrier and ring your neck.”

Vad smiled even as blood continued to seep from his hairline. “You could have warned us, you know.”

She ignored what was intended as a gag. “I thought the two of you were dead. Reports went silent from Veget years ago. I heard there were wars on the planet… and an information blackout?”

Her old friend nodded his head. “We should have stayed in better touch with you, but it was hard. We were in a rural part of the planet, and like you said, there were blackouts. Trixie and I were so caught up there that we hadn’t realized the time that had passed.”

“I tried sending message the normal way,” Piper spoke softly. “The first year that you two were gone was… rough, but I knew that you had gone to Vegeta for your own personal reasons. I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to use the emergency line unless it was life and death.”

“What happened?” He asked.

“A long story,” the soft response came. “I’ll tell you later, when we’re not in a jail cell. What was Vegeta like? Tell me something uplifting,” despite herself, she did laugh a little bit, and she regretted that decision when she felt fresh jabs of pain in her chest.

Vad smiled as he pressed a hand to his heart. “We found what was left of the old House Zulenka. My people. My family. A connection to the past. That was the nice part. It wasn’t all dinners and drinks. They were being kept prisoners by House Glendale, so there was a lot of violence involved in freeing the members of my house. Do you remember my sister?”

“Some kind of pilot, yea.” Piper had pulled Rebekah’s service logs for Vad years ago, but the trail had come up cold.

“She was there.” The former assassin continued to smile as he recalled the memories. “She spent years just living her best life on Planet Vegeta… right under the noses of the people who had tried to kill our family. She had only recently been discovered and captured when Trixie and I freed her.”

“That’s wonderful.” Piper winced as she spoke.

“How are the twins?” Vad asked.

Piper smiled as a new, deeper pain gripped her heart. “Hopefully, they’re unaware of any of this. They’re studying.”

“…college?”

“You left right before they graduated high school,” Piper shot back. “I think your tickets to the commencement are still in a drawer somewhere.”

“We’ll make it up to them.”

“I’m sure they’re enjoy that,” Piper stepped away from the wall and nearly collapsed. Both her lieutenant and Vad saw what happened, but neither of them reacted before the general had caught her balance. “I’m fine… just hurts, but even at this age, I’ll bounce back. Just…” her hand found the collar on her neck. “This is making it so much worse. I hate this fucking technology.”

Vad touched the inhibitor around his neck and nodded his head. “We need a plan. A good one. My wife is still somewhere in this prison.”

“Your wife and whatever is left of my crew,” Piper added as she pointed to Lieutenant Schwartz. “Skeleton crew of about two dozen fresh officers, and there’s not a single one of them who deserved this.”

“Your ship was dead in the water,” Vad replied. “Intact but dead. There wasn’t anyone onboard.”

“We have to save them.”

“Of course.”

Piper ran a hand through her hair, brushing away bangs that held just a few too many gray hairs for her liking.

“Any brilliant plans you picked up while fighting and picnicking on Vegeta?”

Vad smiled faintly. “You’re the brilliant, upstart office of the Earth’s Combined Militia… you tell me, Lieutenant General Juunanagou.”

The woman rolled her eyes. "You're useless... as always."

 

[Beatrix III]

“Any idea why we’ve been locked up?” Vad asked, taking stock of his cell.

He had been stripped of his armor so all he was left wearing was his black BDU.

“No clue. They knew who we were though, so that can’t be a good sign. Are you wanted on any other planets besides Earth?” Piper said.

“Very funny. I’ve paid up with every bounty office that had hits out on me. Earth is the only one still holding a grudge.”

“Yeah, well you leveled half of Central City.” Piper reminded him.

“Oh shut up. Stop giving me grief for that will you? Plus, they know what they’re doing.”

“How do you figure?” Piper asked, resting against the bars of her cell so she could see her comrade.

Vad gestured to his backside where his tail had once been.

“This is the second time a captor has ripped my tail off and let me tell you. It’s not the best feeling in the world. They obviously know what happens if I see a full moon.”

Piper pursed her lips. “I’m sorry they did that to you.”

“It’s fine. Trixie can grow it back.” Vad said leaning against his cell. “She’s not going to be happy they ripped it off though.”

“I can imagine.”

Vad slammed his hand on the door to his cell. His strength was being sapped by the damn collar around his neck. All his training and his power was useless here. He wished he could just kill whoever came up with this stupid collar technology. The door to both of their cells opened blinding them with visible light coming through the door. Two guards grabbed hold of each of them and dragged them out and into the hallway.

“We’ve got a special event planned for you two.” One of the guards said as he forcibly led them down the hall.

After several hallways and staircases, the two were led into what appeared to be a ready room of some kind. There were primitive weapons littering the walls with shields to go with them. Piper and Vad did the only thing they could think of. They both gave each other an approving nod before lunging to grab a nearby weapon. Turning them on their captors, both were immediately dropped to the floor by a sizable electric shock emanating from the collar around their necks.

“Fuck that never gets old, does it?” Vad groaned, trying to sit up.

“No. No it does not.” Piper said, helping her comrade up to his feet after clamoring to her own.

“Idiot off-worlders. Do you want to live? You fight in the arena. You die in the arena. Or you be executed by us.” The guards laughed as they left, locking the door behind them.

Vad sighed and picked up a nearby gladius, twirling it in his hand to get a sense of the weight. Picking up a shield reminiscent of a Greek hoplite’s, he felt the weight.

“Might as well play along. We may get a chance, at some point, to get out of here.”

Piper armed herself with a broadsword and a kite shield from the opposite wall.

“I guess so.”

They both could hear the rumble of a crowd just outside the metal doors leading out opposite the way they came in. The thunder and noise of what sounded like thousands of patrons awaited them. There was a red light at the top of the door. It started blinking red before a buzzer sounded and it went green. Their door shot open flooding the room with bright light and the sting of warm arid air. Both soldiers proceeded out into what could be described as a gladiatorial arena. The floor beneath was covered in a fine layer of soft dirt. Blood stains and decaying corpses littered the battlefield. Vad readied his shield and made his way into the center. From the opposite side two other people emerged.

Trixie!

His wife and another warrior made their way to the center as well. They were both wearing collars. That would explain why she wasn’t with him.

“Babe!” She said jogging over to both Piper and Vad.

“Good to see you, Piper. I’ve missed you.” She said endearingly.

The crowd booed as the four of them huddled together.

“I guess you guys know each other?” The fourth wheel spoke.

“Yeah, we’re kinda old friends.” Piper sassed.

“I have an idea. Babe, if we kill your corporeal form would you be able to break free and reconnect to my mind?”

Trixie reached for her collar and tugged at it. “That might work yeah. Not exactly what I had planned for our reunion, but if killing me is in our favor, then I guess let’s do it.”

The crowd continued to boo. Several guards were headed in their direction.

“I have a feeling if we don’t give them a good show we’ll be killed regardless. So play along!” Piper said as she snap kicked Trixie in the ribs sending her tumbling backwards.

Vad readied his shield and charged the fourth member of their group who brought his sword up to parry the blow. The Saiyan began to exchange blows with the man who had seemingly agreed to go along with making it look good. The crowd erupted into chaotic cheers as the fight started. Vad came down with a vertical slash at his opponent who side stepped and swiped right with his blade which deflected off the Saiyan’s shield. Pushing against the shield, the man bashed his weapon into Vad’s defense before managing to slice into his arm drawing blood. Vad took a step back and looked at his cut clothing, the sensation of warm blood beginning to seep down his arm.

“Hells. Here. We. Go.”

 

[Hela]

Piper, who owned her late father’s signature weapon, had never quite mastered the art of swordplay, despite making several aborted attempts over the years. From what Mikey had told her, Piper’s father hadn’t been much better than her.

“I think he just liked the optics. Y’know. ‘Everything is more dramatic when you’re holding a sword, Mikey!’”

The thought made the woman smile as she used the crude weapon to parry the man’s cudgel strike. She’d only ever met her father once in her lifetime, but she’s heard enough about the man to feel like she’s known him. After all, she’s inherited his house and many of his former colleagues, and in many ways, she’d spent the last two decades living the exact dream her father had wanted for himself—a mostly normal life. Sure, she had worked a pretty intensive job, and yes, there had been interruptions to deal with calamities both on the ground and in the skies above. Even so, she had thus far lived a rather fulfilling life, and where ever he may be, she hoped that her father found some peace in knowing that.

As she shifted her weight to evade another strike, Piper felt her knee wobble. She nearly lost her balance, but she recovered and managed to use the nearly out of control shift in her momentum to put some space between herself and the frantic slave. About forty yards away, Vad and Trixie were dancing all around the place, putting on a show for the audience as the pair swapping loving barbs with one another.

The fourth member of their equation, however, had seen the writing on the wall. He knew that the three were familiar with each other, and he knew they had some sort of plan that didn’t involve him.

He came racing at Piper once again. She took a precautionary step back and adjusted her posture. Her eyes noted the way he held his weapon, and while she had close to no interest in killing this man, she figured it would be easier to end this fight one way or another if she could disarm him. While she would never become a master at swordplay, her military career had nevertheless given her ample opportunities to train herself in close-quarters combat. If anything, she’d prefer they fight hand to hand, even if he looked to be two decades her junior.

The swing came from high, and the general side-stepped rather easily as the mace crashed into the grimy dirt of the arena floor. While she could have ended it there with a simple sword thrust through the chest, she stepped forward and had the blade cut through the man’s loose tunic. She grabbed him by the opposing shoulder and squeezed.

“I don’t want to end your life. Just play along, and we can entertain these people enough to all live.”

His response was to slam the side of his skull into Piper’s nose and forehead. She pitched backwards and lost her grip on the sword as an elbow smacked into her gut.

Stars exploded across the woman’s field of view as the audience broke into a bloodthirsty chorus of hoots and hollers.

“It doesn’t work like that!” The other prisoner rasped as he lashed forward with both of the weapons he now held. Despite her blurred vision and shortness of breath, Piper managed to avoid being eviscerated and keep her balance. “Losers in these pits are fed to the Beast.”

The woman furrowed her brow but had to quickly stumble away as he came at her with another half-manic flailing of his weapons. The crowds were frothing at the mouth as they watched the older woman stumble and crash to the ground.

“Fuck this,” Piper rasped as she grabbed a fist full of the sand-like substrate and flung it in the man’s widened, reddened eyes.

“You bitch!” He shrieked as his weapons fell to the ground to free up his hands to clutch as his eyes. “You fucking bitch!”

Piper shoved up off the ground and tackled her adversary to the ground. Despite the sand burning in his eyeballs, he immediately started clawing at her with his dirt-encrusted nails. One of his fingernails clipped the side of her face an inch or so from her right eye, and she winced as she felt the skin tear. Another hooked her cheek a moment later, but by then, she had landed the first blow to the center of the man’s forehead.

Before she could follow up, an open palm crashed into the side of her head. She tasted fresh blood in her mouth as her opponent managed to crawl on his back from beneath her. With a fresh ringing in her ears, she clasped a hand to her throbbing ear and watched him try to re-arm himself. For a split-second, she tried to call out to the weapon before realizing that her powers were still being inhibited by the collar. Scrambling on her hands and knees, she crashed down onto his back as he reached for the mace.

She dropped all her weight onto the small of his back, and when his head snapped back in a howl of pain, she grabbed a handful of his scraggly hair and promptly slammed his visage into the dirt and sand of the arena floor. “It didn’t.” She paused to bash his skull back into the ground before peeling it away. “Have to be like this.” She concluded with ragged breaths as she let go and rolled off of the twitching, groaning man.

Piper, her body throbbing with fresh agonies that she hadn’t felt in years, tried to catch her breath as she looked up at the stars that twinkled and shined above the domed edifices of Kajin Rala. Her brain literally felt like it was throbbing, but she had to imagine it was possible that her ‘nieces and nephew’ were catching glimpses of the same constellations. Hopefully, the news of this incident wouldn’t be publicized. The last thing the woman would want was for her family to be distracted by the situation their ‘auntie’ had gotten herself into.

I’ll be home soon. She glimpsed to the facility whose towers poked above the structure of the makeshift colosseum. And I’m bringing these rookies all back with me.

The man stirred.

Piper grabbed the nearby sword, rolled over, and drove it down through the man’s heart.

As she sagged back to the ground, the crowd broke out into another fresh round of bloodthirsty screams.