V S M Electric Dreams of Retribution

[Beatrix III]

Baldwin pushed everything off the receptionist's desk and was already climbing over the counter before the military police in the lobby had pulled him down.

“WHERE IS IZZY!? WHERE IS MY NIECE!?”

Baldwin Glendale. Married to Toma’s bastard sister, Emilia. Through marriage and war this made him Isabelle’s great uncle. They had discovered each other during the siege of Markov. The older saiyan, now in his seventies, provided her with support during her time under Roy Mustang. Isabelle had been out on assignment and her unit was late by two weeks. No one had any idea where she was. The cordoned search areas had turned up nothing, including logistics from triangulated last received messages. There was a constant beeping on her frequency that no one had any idea how to interpret. It was assumed to be channel static. Several squads had been put under her command and the young Saiyan had been tasked with eradicating pocketed Unmaking resistance in the nearby ruined city of Cyrene. The last communication command had received from her unit had been an artillery request.

“Glendale. We’ve already given you all of the up to date information we have.” The receptionist said, straightening her military jacket.

“That’s BULLSHIT and you know it! I JUST heard that your orders to find her had been rescinded!” Glendale feigned weakness against the two military police who were restraining him.

With an exasperated sigh the receptionist, also a Lieutenant, picked up her phone and dialed an arrangement of numbers.

***​

The sky had opened up on the battlefield below and soaking rain had been falling for days now. Members of the 501st Expeditionary Force had entrenched themselves in a hedgerow on the city limits. They had dug in with the intention of moving into the city. That had been three weeks ago. The battalion was at sixty five percent strength and they had taken and lost ground inside the city several times before coming to the stalemate they were in now.

Week 7. Radio communication is still down. Ration supply nominal for now. With the amount of casualties we haven’t been using as much food. Ammunition is beginning to run low. Some of the troops had made sure to bring melee weapons for just such an occasion. Our next move is to set up our portable radio on one of the taller buildings. I only hope that we can find one that isn’t going to crumble beneath us. I haven’t been sleeping well. Sergeant Henderson frequently requests that I get some shut eye and let him watch the line, but I can’t leave these men and women without me just for some stupid sleep…

Isabelle trailed off the last sentence before checking the time on her wrist and time stamping the entry of her journal. Closing the datapad she stuffed it back into her rucksack before bringing her weapon around. Pulling the magazine she checked the contents before shoving it back in place. The rain had picked up again and was drenching everyone and everything. Isabelle moved along the trench they had dug and into a little tent covered portion where the soldiers on duty would watch the line. Sergeant Henderson turned and smiled once he realized who had joined him. Isabelle adjusted her armored vest and settled into one of the only dry corners available. A streak of lightning pierced the night sky as she fished a soggy pack of cigarettes from within one of the pockets on her vest and sighed.

“I got you, Izz.” Henderson said, tossing his pack to her.

Without missing a beat she caught the pack and withdrew one of the nicosticks, placing the end to her lips. Tossing the pack back she withdrew her zippo from another pocket and lit her cigarette, taking a long drag off of it. With a long exhale she snapped the lighter shut and returned it to her pocket, releasing the smoke from her lungs into the air around them.

“Any movement?” She asked, resting her head against the dirt wall.

Isabelle closed her eyes and listened to the tapping of the rain on the canvas roof they had erected.

“Nothing worth noting. They know we’re still here. I’ve caught several cultist soldiers watching our position. Did you manage any sleep?”

A grin formed across the woman’s features, “Of course not. Couldn’t let you guys do all the work.”

Henderson lit up his own cigarette. “You know what the doc said. Plus if you don’t get some sack time you’ll end up making mistakes.”

Having already finished her cigarette, Isabelle flicked the butt to the floor and took a canteen from her belt. Twisting off the top she took a long thirst quenching drink, water spilling down her chin. The lid clanged against the metal container as the saiyan woman had her fill. Returning her canteen to her belt Isabelle smirked.

“We’re supposed to try getting our antenna up on one of those buildings tomorrow. Have we figured out which building we’re setting up in?”

Henderson pulled out of a map of the city encased in a canvas sheath. It had markings on it and one circled building about a mile into the city.

“This office building here is our target. It looks mostly intact. However the city is crawling with infantry. You know we’re behind you, but if this mission fails you’ll die. Without the aid from Markov you’d be overrun within minutes.”

“I’m well aware of the odds, Sergeant. This is our only shot. The parademons have evacuated the area. With just unmaking infantry we have a chance I intend-”

The faint whirring of mortars filled the air.

“MORTARS!” Isabelle shouted as she put her helmet on.

The rounds exploded all around the entrenched expeditionary force. The Saiyan woman reached for her radio, reporting her contact to anyone who would listen.

“Nat call. Nat call. This is Trojan One. Enemy contact. I have mortars all across my line. I’m pulling the OP in, over.” The woman spoke as the entrenched machine guns opened fire on unmaking infantry making for their hedgerow. She waved off the advance her troops had started, their machine guns covering the retreat of the forward push.

 

[Elizabeth La Varet]

Captain Loux looked down at Isabelle, whose corpse was lying on the ground in front of her, propped up against a concrete wall where Henderson had tried to perform first aid. Blood-soaked bandages and discard first aid packaging was scattered around her. According to her second in command, Isabelle had taken a high caliber round that hit her chest two inches from her heart. Nepheli furrowed her brow as she stared as her comrade’s body. Isabelle had successfully gotten the radio transmitter set up and had made the call for rescue. Within minutes Veritech fighters were on site providing close air support. She had saved the remaining soldiers under her command before taking the hit that would end her life.

Nepheli reached down and gripped the woman’s dog tags, pausing a moment to close her eyes. She ripped one of them away from the chain and gripped it in her hand before standing up. With a sigh the captain turned to move back towards her troops.

“Take a count of their wounded and report back to me, Sergeant.” She said to the trooper in front of her.

He saluted and went about his duties. Nepheli shifted her weapon that was slung across the front of her torso and removed a packet of cigarettes from a pouch. Flicking open a lighter she placed one to her lips and lit it up. Losing good soldiers was never easy. Isabelle’s unit had completed their objective. Cyrene was secure and cleared of Unmaking. Whoever had sanctioned the mission got what they were after, but at what cost? To Nepheli taking this city was a waste of time and held no strategic value. It wasn’t even in the direction the Fade had been reported going.

Orders are orders though. She had learned that the hard way during her time with the Republic. Several Veritech fighters roared by overhead as the airborne convoy arrived that was going to bring everyone back to Markov. The low altitude assault transports set down in formation around the area where Nepheli’s troops and Isabelle’s remaining unit had positioned themselves.

 

[Lucien Lockwood]

The door to hospital room 464 opened from the hallway. An older woman entered the room and proceeded to the foot of the hospital bed. She picked up the chart hanging there and flipped through the various pages.

Four direct hits to the chest. Multiple broken bones.

Isabelle stirred from her slumber. She shifted in the bed as best as she could, but she was heavily bandaged and medicated. Part of her head was bandaged, and she only had access to one of her eyes, but she knew who was standing before her.

“Don’t move too much, dear. It’s a miracle of medical science that you’re alive. You had a lot of chest trauma.”

Try as she might, Isabelle couldn’t adjust herself to get a better view. Everything hurt. Giving up she rested her head on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

“How did you find me, Hailey?”

“Did you forget that me and your father had the same training?”

“Luna wouldn’t elaborate about you or any of the training you and my father went through.” The injured Saiyan replied with a sigh.

“That’s because she doesn’t know. The Agency collapsed shortly after the Red Stallion invasion on Earth before you were born. Only those of us who had maintained contact with them were able to get any files out.”

“You have records from The Agency?” This made Isabelle pick her head up and make eye contract with Hailey.

The older woman moved to the side of the bed and poured a small cup of water. Bringing the plastic to Isabelle’s lips she let the woman have a long-needed drink.

“I have everything pertaining to your father’s training and then my subsequent training using his algorithms. While I respect Luna deeply for all her assistance over the years, I do think that her tremendous power has made her blind to proper fighting technique. I don’t doubt that you’re trained, Izzy. I do think that you’re not trained well enough. Especially because you’re a Zulenka.”

“Everyone says that. I refuse to follow in my fathers’ footsteps. I love him. I do. However, he was a monster…”

“Your mother and father were a product of their environment. Plus, you’re missing the point. Being a Zulenka doesn’t mean killing innocents or destroying entire cities. You’d do well to remember that and look at the files I’ve obtained from the Ministry of Records on Vejita about your family.”

Hailey poured herself a glass of water popping two pills into her mouth before downing the cold liquid.

“Still fighting cellular decay?”

Hailey nodded. “They gave me six months to live. I’ve lasted two years. Now that I’m here with you I can’t go until I’ve taught you everything I know.”

“Hailey…you don’t have to do that.”

“Yes. I do. I owe your father that much.”

“What was he like?” Isabelle asked, pressing the button on her bed control so that she could sit up, careful not to get her IV tubes tangled. She pressed the button on her pain meds and smiled slightly as the constant throbbing pain in her chest subsided.

“He was a man of focus. No matter the challenge he threw everything he had at it. When I met him, he had already been with your mother for many years. Knowing how he was on the battlefield it always surprised me at how affectionate he was towards your mom. They were very much in love.”

“Luna told me that a big part of his lifestyle changed because of Piper. Was she a friend?”

Hailey smiled, recalling her own memories.

“Piper was the catalyst that brought Vad to the side of good. She gave him a chance when no one else would. Everyone always focuses on the atrocities he committed, but they never realize that even when Earth was being invaded and ripped apart…he was there. Your father was right there dying with everyone else trying to save the planet that so desperately wanted to execute him.”

Hailey removed a pouch from her hoodie and smiled. “We can talk of this later. I came to get you out of that bed.”

“How?” Izzy asked.

Hailey took a small green bean from the leather pouch she was holding. Moving over to Isabelle she placed it to her lips. The young Saiyan took it and bit down crunching it up. She swallowed and almost immediately she felt incredible. She could feel her muscles bulking up. She ripped off the bandages on her face and removed the needles from her arm. Swinging her legs out from under the covers Isabelle got up and dropped into a fighting stance.

“Skleroi Martial Arts, eh? She always did think her family better than House Zulenka.”

“This is amazing. I feel great! What was that bean?”

“It was a senzu. It heals nearly any injury and completely restores the body and energy of the one who eats it.”

Hailey swung the dufflebag she had draped across her torso forward.

“Here I brought you some clothing.” Hailey unzipped the bag and removed an orange and black gi.

“This is a replica set of the clothing your grandfather wore. Black and orange are your house colors. Now get dressed.”

The blond tossed Isabelle a matching pair of underwear and set the clothes on the bed. A knock came upon the door as the doctor arrived to check on his patient.

“What!? How are you out of bed?”

Isabelle had just slid her boots and gloves on, adjusting them so they fit snug. “Don’t worry doc. I’m good. Does Command know I’m alive?”

“N-no. You were classified as dead at the behest of Cytokine Industries. A man came by with a letter, a business card, and a cellphone for you while you were in surgery.”

Isabelle and Hailey made eye contact. “Give them to me.” The older woman said.

The doctor nodded and moved to the bedside nightstand and removed the items. Hailey tossed the phone to Isabelle while she tore open the letter and read it.

Miss Zulenka.

We at Cytokine Industries have been alerted to your very interesting background. We’d like to extend a job offer to you. We are returning you to active duty. You will be promoted to Lieutenant at some point in the coming days. At which time you will be given more information about your assignment. We hope you’ll make the right decision.

Sector Chief Barnes

“Well, the good news is you’re going to be promoted to Lieutenant. However, it looks like they expect you to complete an assignment for them.”

Isabelle rolled her eyes as she stood up and straightened her shirt. “Maybe I can convince them to give me a few months off so we can train. Or convince them to let you come with me.”

Hailey laughed. “I do have a pretty distinguished resume.”

“I can imagine.”

 

[Android XVII]

The civilization that clung to its surface might think otherwise, but the truth of the situation was that Cevanti had died eons ago. The massive spheroid was a literal graveyard, with the sprawling urban clusterfuck of Markov standing as literal proof that people—whatever their race, origin, or inclination—can never turn down a profit.

Beyond ‘the dome’ of the great city, there had always been pockets of life. Some were ephemeral, given the complexities of living in a world infested with killer machines and monsters that literally seemed like they were forged from oil and darkness. Out there in that chaos, only the truly brave—or truly stupid—opted to try and make ‘a living’. Out there in the chaos, it was easy to fuck up and become lost into the great nothing. With the advent of the unmaking and the rise of the Darkseid lunatics that seemed to thrive in the wilderness, those dangers became all the more real.

Yet, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to survive out there in ‘the rough’ of Cevanti.

On this particular day, a detachment of Cytokine Spec Ops soldiers found themselves tailing the remnants of a band that had gained a small amount of notoriety over the last six months, even if their origins stretched back to before the unmaking.

For the last three or so years, the Custodians had managed to become one of the most high-profile paramilitary groups to operate solely outside of Markov. At the beginning, they had simply been a collection of borderline-criminals who found their pushing of boundaries within the city to be a source of unwanted attention. The story that’s shared in bars throughout the outer hoods of Markov is that the original Custodian quite literally crashed onto Markov. This quasi-mythical figure found themselves quickly at odds with … complex and nuanced web of governance that kept the city from collapsing into chaos.

The original Custodian set out into the wilderness, following by a retinue of morally ambiguous mercenaries, scalpers, ruffians, and even some petty criminals. Beyond the walls of Markov, Cevanti may be a tomb, but it’s a lucrative crypt for those insane—or stupid—enough to venture into its dark nooks and crannies. While the Custodians were but one of many bands of raiders outside of Markov, their longevity is what set them apart from the others. Stories tell of a military precision paired with an almost fatalistic approach to the tasks at hand. Whatever the secret to their success, the band prospered out there in the harsh, uncaring landscape of the tomb world.

Unfortunately, it seemed the Unmaking altered the trajectory of the Custodians in unforeseen ways. They started to funnel weapons and recovered materiel not through the underbelly of Markov or into off-world ventures connected to Arcadia or Kaalakiota Corp but instead back to the city itself. While not a major source, the Custodians became a key supplier of weapons and armaments to a number of units within the various segments of Markov’s civil and military institutions. It was rumored that the Lonely Hearts, with their own charismatic leader, had spent a period of weeks with the Custodians to share training regimens out in the wilderness.

Yet, that higher profile may have been what led to the end of the Custodian’s story, and the start of a whole different type of tale altogether.

The detachment of Cytokine field agents had trailed the remnants of the Custodians for nearly a week at this point. While they hadn’t yet accrued all the details, they had learned enough through observations and intercepting of transmissions to understand that the fabled headquarters of the paramilitary gun runners was no more. Whether through an assault or an infiltration, it sounded as if the Unmaking had rooted out their base and finally put an end to them. What remained of the group seemed to be on a death march deeper into the wilderness, and when those truths became clear, the Cytokine agents decided to make their move.

After nearly two weeks, the four agents simply walked into the camp. They immediately found themselves accosted by six of the seven survivors.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve strolling in here.”

“We come in peace and mean no harm,” Agent A remarked. “We are rep—”

“You’re from Cytokine Industries,” the only seated figure interjected through a voice modulator on their helmet. “You’ve been trailing us for twelve days.”

“You’ve known the entire time?” Agent B asked.

“You don’t survive out here for years without seeing and hearing everything that moves in these parts,” the helmeted figure replied as they stood up and gestured off the other six survivors.

It was Agent C who spoke this time. “You’re the Leader, aren’t you?”

“In the flesh,” they answered. “Do you care to explain why you’ve been tailing us? If you can’t tell, we’ve been under a fair amount of stress over the last few days.”

“Your base was raided by the unmade?”

“Infiltrated, yes,” the response came. “A few of the new recruits had … seeds of disarray that we didn’t notice. The crazies have gotten better at concealing themselves, but once they were into the Light House, that was all she wrote. The big ones were there within hours. We’re a capable bunch, but the unmaking isn’t stupid. They probably sent an army half the size of what attacked Markov, just to squash us.”

“Impressive.”

“Not enough,” the Leader replied. “We’re cockroaches, you see.”

“Where are you going?”

The Leader tilted their helmeted head. “Why are you here?”

“The Unmaking has grown… more desperate over the last year. The events out in the wilds with the Syntech people seems to have simultaneously rattled them and driven them to more fervent heights. Cytokine Industries had been interested in recruiting the majority of your organization, pending background checks.”

A few of the surviving Custodians chuckled. “We’ve been running guns and abandoned tech to you all almost exclusively for the last four months and now you’re pitching us the company line.”

“A valid point,” the Leader spoke with a modulated chuckle.

One of the agents frowned. “It wasn’t supposed to be… like this. None of us knew what had happened to you when we were dispatched. Command simply thought that you were on a longer-than-usual operation. You should know that we have all the respect in the world for what you’ve accomplished.”

“It all goes to dust eventually,” the Leader remarked as they looked at their companions. “Our outfit is trashed, so I’ll respect your decisions to do with your lives as you please. Take their offer or not.”

“What about you, Boss?”

The Leader stayed silent for a moment before giving an almost laconic shrug of their shoulders. “I was legit in my younger days, so it might be high time that I give that another spin… the world is a lot different than it was five year ago.”

“We go where you go, Boss,” a different Custodian remarked as the Leader nodded their head and turned back to the Cytokine agents.

“Looks like we’re going back to Markov,” they replied. “But I’m agreeing to your offer on one condition.”

“That is?”

“At a point of my choosing, with a complement of arms and people of my choice, I want the freedom to come back out here and ice the unmade contingent that slaughtered our squad.”

The agents shared some silent looks before Agent A nodded his head. “It’s a deal,” he replied as he stuck out his hand. “Mister…”

The Leader took the handshake and then proceeded to flip a few pneumatic latches on their helmet. With a hiss, they detached the headguard and let it roll to the ground.

Beneath the helmet, the Leader of the Custodians had all the appearances of a woman in her forties. She had a defined chin that bore a few small scars, and a longer one marred her right cheek, nearly costing her the vision in one of her unsettling green eyes. Her hair, a likewise jarring shock of red with some streaks of gray, was pulled into a tight bun.

“I’m Piper Juunanagou, former Brigadier General of the ECM and War Boss of the Custodians.”

 

[Android XVII]

The woman scowled as she walked down the hallway.

Over the last few weeks, she had been reminded—wholeheartedly—of all the reasons she had recoiled from the idea of living or serving in the city of Markov. Despite everything she had learned over nearly a decade of service in the officer corps of South, Central, and finally the Earth’s Combined Military, Piper still found the military-industrial complex of Markov to be borderline insufferable.

Her prior exposure had been primarily with the more bureaucratic elements of the city’s governance, particularly the Kingdom and the Pilot’s Union. While never in an official capacity, she had always balked at her interactions with their sea of suits. Despite the fact that the planet itself was mostly uninhabited and that Markov itself was almost constantly under siege by some sort of monstrosity—Unmade or otherwise—the various pillars of the city’s society seemed equally obsessed with their age-old competitions. An outsider might see Markov as a grimy jewel managing to flourish in a planet-sized den of vipers, but the bonds of servitude that tethered together the many tribalized aspects of its society were more tenuous than most would surmise.

At the very least, the fact that she had been recruited by the most outwardly passive of the city’s tribes was a source of relief for the former general. Of course, the reality wasn’t what was projected, and the corporation had its hands in a number of various shady dealings and situations. In reality, Cytokine played the same game as all the other major factions of Markov, with the major difference being that they seemed to benefit from the best public perception. After all, the average person just trying to make a living usually had a stronger opinion about the face of government more so than the company that packaged their peas and provided the newest toys to the convenience store. More than that, it was easier to blame government and talking heads for the rising price of goods than the corporate entities responsible for stocking and selling them.

If the woman had to go out on a limb, she might even say that Cytokine Industries was likely the most ‘popular’ of the organizations when it came to the interstellar realm of public theater as well.

She’d yet to meet the woman who ran the organization, despite the fact that a band of well-equipped agents had been sent to personally recruit her. From her time in Markov years ago, Piper knew that Aria T’Loak was equal parts magnanimous business magnate and serpent-tongued plutocrat. As someone who could quite literally read the emotions of her peers, the older woman had no real drive to meet with the businesswoman.

“Have you been settling into your new confines, General Juunanagou?”

Piper pivoted and flashed a cordial, albeit tense, smile to the young man standing on the other side of the otherwise empty common room that she had recently entered. He wasn’t one of her recruiters, but he had essentially served as a ‘handler’ for her over the last few weeks. His name was…

“I’m great, Blake,” the redhead replied as she tipped her beret. James Blake was a career pencil-pusher who worked as a mid-level bureaucrat in Cytokines Human Resources department. From what she’d gleaned, he helped coordinate a number of new ‘hires’ and help them acclimate to working with the company before shipping them off to some other supervisor in whatever department their skills best suited. Not offensive but also not anyone she intended to remember, Blake got paid to ensure she was comfy and cozy. The fact that Piper had zero doubts that she was also the subject of an extensive psychological and emotional evaluation had also helped to paint her view of the smiling, nondescript 30-something in the business casual attire. Also, the woman was a firm believer of the notion that you should never trust someone who had two first names.

“No cold sweats or fevers lately?”

The woman scowled. “No.” Blake must have had a few other appointments to make, because he normally warmed her up with a handful of vapid platitudes before asking these types of questions. “I also only had nice dreams about puppies and kittens and absolutely nothing to do with the entire lifetime of trauma I’ve endured that makes the last few years seem like a glorified siesta.”

Blake smiled as he sipped from his red coffee mug. “That’s good to hear,” he replied after a longer-than-usual bout of silence. “And you’re certain that you have no interest in medications to help with your pre-existing conditions?”

“I’m quite all right,” the redhead replied with a smile. “As I mentioned in those lovely interviews, those were conditions I suffered from in my youth.”

“Yes,” Blake muttered before a sip. “Before you… temporarily ‘fused’ with a pair of,” he paused once again. “I think the term you used was ‘functional sadomasochists’?”

“You left out the part where I mentioned that they were some of the best people I’ve ever known.”

“Yes, right.”

“You must be busy, Blake,” Piper mentioned as she pointed to the clock in the little sitting room. “Don’t you normally have a ten o’clock that you visit? Are you running late?”

Without turning to look at the time, James Blake simply took another sip of hot coffee from his plain red mug. “Do you have some other business this morning, General?”

“You should know my schedule, Blake. After all, you know that I’m limited to only this little bungalow that your company provided me so graciously.”

“You were briefed on the screening process at your onboarding, General Juunanagou. Do you need me to send you a copy of the terms of agreement?”

Piper smiled. “I’m quite all right.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I do have to make another appointment. Ms. Zulenka doesn’t enjoy when I’m late.”

The redheaded general twitched ever so slightly in her chair as she glanced a little harder at Blake, who didn’t seem to catch or notice her sudden shift in demeanor. The mere mention of that name—one that Piper had not shared with Blake or any of the Cytokine handlers—was nearly enough to compel the woman to pin the pencilpusher to the wall and extract the memories from him.

But this whole thing was a waiting game.

“Have fun, Blake,” Piper remarked as her senior handler made his way out of the sitting room.

He gave a slight tip of his mug in response without turning away from the door. “Someone from the team will be in to talk with you this evening, General. I hope you’ll be in a nicer mood for them.”

Fuck off. The woman’s eyes burned holes in the man’s back. “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” she finally replied.

“I hope, for your sake, you are simply being cheeky.”

The calm demeanor of the retort only added to Piper’s unease of this entire situation. Even so, she had played the long game many times in her life. Whether it was surviving invasions, weathering skirmishes with super-powered lunatics from distant worlds, or negotiating between rivals, she had a knack for enduring the unendurable.

This would be no different.

Yet, the name added a whole new dimension to this endeavor. Piper knew that the Crossroads was some sort of … cosmic or temporal dumping ground for misfit toys. It had been a few years since she’d seen Vad and Trixie. Over the last five years, the trio had grown somewhat distant, with Vad embroiled in a number of dramatic developments on his home world. For her part, Piper had been busy overseeing the gradual union of Earth’s city-states into one nearly unified body politique. While she wanted absolutely nothing to do with the political aspects, she knew that those processes were likewise nearing their conclusion.

Had that all moved on smoothly in her absence?

Piper scowled. She hadn’t thought of the Earth in years. Life out in Cevanti’s wilds had given her an active present that didn’t allow her to dwell on her former life.

But now, in this apartment complex, it was quite possible that a major component of that former life was less than a few miles away.

 

[Lucien Lockwood]

Another monsoon had decided to take up residence over the city of Markov. The rain appeared to have no end in sight. Thankfully the infrastructure of the city was prepared for such heavy rainfall so disruption to day-to-day life was minimal. Two cloaked figures stood on the roof of an apartment complex in one of the older housing districts. A woman took out an older model phone, it slid open, and she looked down at it with her piercing pink eyes.

“No service on the Q Wave. That would mean your scouter is dead until we figure out what communication grid this universe uses,” She explained, retracting her arm beneath her black cloak.

“Do you sense what I sense?” She asked.

“Yes. It appears our daughter resides within the city. Even more interesting is that Hailey is with her.” The man spoke.

“Whatever divine power controls this universe must have grabbed all of us. I even think I sense Piper.”

“Let’s go see our daughter. She has a considerable energy signature which means that Luna did her job just like we had asked. No doubt teaching her Kaioken instead of unlocking her Saiyan blood.”

Vad smirked. “Maybe she won’t have been told about our lives on Earth.”

“Doubtful. You know how Luna is.” Trixie replied.

“Let’s go.” Vad ordered, slowly lifting off the ground.

His blue aura ignited around him violently before he blasted off into the sky towards Hailey and his daughter, Trixie right on his heels.

***​

Hailey ducked under a punch from Isabelle just as her senses snapped at her. She held up her hand, sweat rolling down her face. Isabelle was strong and she didn’t have the stamina she used to due to her cellular decay.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your mother and father are headed this way.”

“What!?” Isabelle stood up from her fighting stance and relaxed her Kaioken form away.

“I’m almost positive. They’re both immense powers and they’re closing in fast on our position.”

“What do we do, Hailey? Are they going to be hostile?”

“They’re your parents, Izzy. If they do anything, your father will want to spar with you. Just keep an open mind like we talked about.”

From the opposite end of the giant dojo the door opened, and the two cloaked figures entered the hall. Both lowered their hoods and took stock of the two women standing before them. Isabelle recognized her mother’s fiery red hair and pink eyes, but she knew little of her father. Apparently this full blooded Saiyan standing before her was the monster Earth wanted to execute and the man whom she was related to.

Vad smiled. Trixie outstretched her arms, “Izzy! My baby girl!” She jogged over to a cautious Isabelle and placed a hand on her head.

“Look at how much you’ve grown! Not just as a person, but as a fighter!”

Trixie embraced her daughter and breathed a sigh of relief.

“Good to see you too, Mom.”

Good to see you too Hailey. It’s curious that you’re here considering your condition.” Trixie said looking over to the blonde.

Hailey wiped the sweat from her brow and took a long drink of water before answering.

“Luna knew that Isabelle would need guidance, so she bargained with the powers at be to send me here to assist.”

“Assist with what?” This time it was Vad who spoke.

He removed his cloak and threw it to the floor exposing his menacing suit of armor. Just like the stories Luna used to tell.

“I can sense something that isn’t quite…right with the surrounding area.”

Isabelle took a drink from her water bottle. “That’s the Unmaking. One of the divines of this universe has been corrupted and is seeking to consume every living thing. His name is Darkseid. Markov, the city you’re in, has already defended against one of his attacks. I was part of that effort on the front lines.”

Vad smiled. “A soldier just like your grandfather. He’d be proud…not that he’d tell you.”

“Well, whatever it is me and your mother can help. Right babe?”

“Right!” Trixie took Isabelle by the hand and pulled her into a hug again, kissing her forehead.”

“I’m sorry we couldn’t raise you, sweetheart. Your father’s death was…unexpected. As Luna probably told you, without your father I eventually cease to exist.” Trixie hugged Isabelle tightly.

“I’ve filled her in on everything I could. Earth. Namek. Red Stallions. Your early years. The training that me and you were put through. Even Piper.” Hailey explained.

“If you’re going to help with the Unmaking, Dad.” Isabelle pulled herself away from Trixie.

“You can’t hurt innocent people. You can’t brute force your way through everything. You need to let me, Hailey, and Mom handle the diplomatic side of things so we can help more efficiently.”

Trixie looked at her husband who had a big shit eating grin on his face.

“Whatever you say, love. Just let me know when you want to unleash the ‘monster.’” Vad used air quotes and laughed to himself.

“I don’t think you’re a monster, Dad. Not anymore. Now that I know more about you…I understand.”

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s good to hear.” She played with Isabelle’s hair, much to the younger woman’s dismay.

“First me and your father need to establish contact with the powers at be and get some upgraded equipment. Everything from Earth doesn’t work here.”

“I can help with that.” Hailey piped in. “There is a Cytokine Industries depot store three blocks over. They’ll have everything you need.”

“Good. Who should we meet first?” Trixie said, moving back to her husband’s side.

“My current contact is from Cytokine Industries. Sector Chief Barnes. We should meet with him and see what they want. You’ll be able to ask any questions you have. Just…behave.” Isabelle said.

“Don’t worry sweetie, I’ll keep him in line.” Trixie said with a laugh, pecking her husband on the cheek.

The Zulenkan Legend had Returned

 

[Lucien Lockwood]

Vad and his wife had decided to leave and let Isabelle and Hailey finish their training. Having been given directions to the depot store, and Hailey’s credit card, the duo took off. Vad entered the store out of the rain followed by his wife. They were both still wearing their thick black cloaks. The various customers stared at them, not knowing what to make of the new pair of warriors to arrive in the Crossroads. Trixie split off from her husband to grab what they needed. Two phones, two earpieces with a few spares, a firearm for Trixie, and the key to a furnished apartment in a nearby complex. Vad waited by the door, his menacing presence keeping people away from him as he watched the room full of people. People who at one time he might have tried to slaughter.

The Saiyan had come a long way in his seventy years. He felt like a new objective had been dropped into his lap. This unmaking, whatever it was, was something that his daughter had fought firsthand. She was a soldier just like Toma. He felt a deep seeded need to protect his daughter now that he and Trixie had arrived. Should Isabelle be harmed by this Darkseid…the thought nearly boiled his blood. Vad had no idea what kind of fight he was walking into, but he knew one thing. He needed some alone time with his wife. Whatever had happened to bring them to the Crossroads, it felt like an eternity since the two of them had been together. He had been given safe passage to Heaven at the behest of his mother and much to his dismay found that his wife had not made the journey. Without his mortal form to keep her corporeal she had been all but erased from existence.

Vad mourned his wife while in Heaven. If only to hold her once more. To hold his daughter. Something he never really got to do. He was always so busy when Izzy was born that he never had any real time to bond with her. She was still his little girl and as he watched Trixie at the checkout counter, he yearned to prove that he could be a worthy father.

“You look like you’re troubled.” Trixie said as she came back to the front door with her bag in hand.

“It’s nothing. Let’s go.” He replied.

“You know that isn’t how this works. Tell me, babe.”

“I will. Not here. Let’s just go get some rest. I haven’t felt at ease since we arrived. There is so much energy on this planet. I’m having trouble tuning it out.”

“Alright. Follow me.” She touched his face before opening the door and leading him back into the rain.

“I got us a two-bedroom apartment just down the street. One year lease. From what I can see of this neighborhood. It won’t be anything like the place we had on Namek.”

Vad smirked as they proceeded down the street. It didn’t take long before they had arrived at the four-story apartment complex. They were on the bottom floor. Trixie slid the key into the bolt and unlocked the door pushing it open. They were met with a musty damp apartment. It wasn’t great, but it was now home.

“I’ll put the gear on the table and meet you in the master bedroom.” Trixie said, closing the door behind them.

Vad removed his cloak and hung it on the wall by the door. He moved to the air conditioning controls on the wall and enabled the cooling system and the dehumidifier. Both systems hummed to life as the Saiyan flicked on the living room lights. Moving to the bedroom his armor melted away into nothing. Unzipping the BDU he wore underneath he slipped out of it and threw it over a chair in the corner. For a moment he stood there naked, staring at the empty bed before collapsing face first into the cool sheets. He sighed and rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve some of the tension in his muscles. Trixie had left her cloak on the couch and exited the kitchen where she had put their electronics for the moment. She unzipped her top, revealing her lace bra as she entered the bedroom. With a smile on her face, she stripped out of most of her clothes and climbed onto her husband, straddling his waist. She pressed her fingers into his shoulder blades and worked the muscle outward.

“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, babe.” She said, leaning in to kiss his neck.

She wrapped her arms around his torso and pressed her bosom against his chest into a hug, resting her head on his.

“I know it must have been quite a shock to find out that I wasn’t going to join you in the afterlife. You handled seeing your daughter for the first time since she was five well.”

Vad lifted himself up and rolled over, pulling Trixie under him. He pinned her arms to the bed and pressed his lips to hers, kissing her in the most passionate way possible. He needed her. He had been truly lost without his wife. Even though he had had Toma to train with in Heaven, there wasn’t a day that had gone by where he didn’t wish she was there with him. Trixie pushed herself into the kiss, biting his lip before pressing their lips together again. She knew what he wanted. She desperately wanted it too. Reaching down she kicked off her panties and opened her legs, wrapping them around his lower back. Vad pushed forward with his hips causing Trixie to inhale softly. They kissed again as he pumped against her, the Mistress wrapping her arms around his neck, pushing his head into her chest.

“I’ll never leave you again.” He whispered into her ear, forcing a soft moan from his wife.

Trixie dug her nails into his back as his movement became rougher, pushing her into the bed. It was the best feeling in the world. She could never get enough of Vad. He knew how to make her melt away as she did for him. Even after all this time, his stamina hadn’t faltered. As he thrust against her she kissed him again before pulling away to fill the room with her moans. She bit her lip playfully as their gaze met. She knew what he wanted. It would be the one thing he couldn’t withstand with her.

“Do it.” He whispered, lowering his head to kiss her neck.

With a smile on her face, Trixie opened her mouth and two sharp fangs shot down from where her canines were. Her bright pink eyes flared up with demonic energy and she bit down on his neck, moaning his name as she did. Vad sped up his motion, grunting as his body approached climax. With one final thrust they both climaxed, Trixie released her bite and moaned even louder than before. Vad collapsed onto her, his breathing heavy. They lay there, his head on her chest, while she ran her fingers through his black hair.

“I’ll never let you go again.” Vad said, wrapping his arms around Trixie.

Never again.

 

[Android XVII]

The woman had spent close to six years in the Crossroads.

She stared out through the window at the neon sprawl of one of Markov’s less residential districts. Here, far removed from the hustle and bustle of the city’s more affluent and central districts, society operated on far different rule sets. It wasn’t the same as living outside the dome, but in these parts, people had an edge that simply didn’t exist in central Markov, even years after the siege had rocked this city to its cold, industrial heart.

Brigadier General Piper Juunanagou unlocked her chair and spun it back around to face her workstation. After more months than she would have appreciated living as an essential prisoner in Cytokine’s central facilities, they had off-boarded her to this installation. Her glorious task and the reason she had been recruited despite her previous job of running a band of smugglers outside the dome?

“Observation and maintenance.”

The woman sighed as she glanced down the list of reports from the staff members at this facility. She had met nearly all of them at some point over the last six months, and it had been clear from the start that she had essentially been placed in some sort of island of misfit toys in the great network that was Cytokine Industries. That didn’t mean the people under her stewardship were worthless, because they were mostly hardworking individuals. Most of them just had blemishes in their past, whether that was through run-ins with the law, psych evals gone awry, or poor performance in higher-stress work situations.

Her liaison back at the central offices remained, strangely enough, the psychiatrist they had appointed to her during her lengthy onboarding process. Since her posting out here, she’d only checked in with Dr. Blake on a handful of occasions, and none of those appointments had ever been in-person. In fact, unless someone on her roster was on payroll to report on her activities, Piper gradually assumed that she was genuinely on an island out here.

A rainstorm was brewing outside. Weather like this seemed to be more frequent over the last few months.

“Planet is restless.” The woman muttered as she closed the active window on her screen. As she did, she reached down and plugged in a small device to the computer’s USB port. After a few ticks, the software she used to properly monitor the surrounding districts loaded onto her screen.

From this app, the former general turned facility supervisor could tap into camera feeds, wireless communication, and a number of other pieces of software or communication channels in the surrounding districts. In fact, she’d nearly cracked the sequences needed to turn an inquisitive eye toward operations in the heart of the city. It had been a slow process, but she figured she would have unfettered access to everything within a few more months.

The best part was the fact that the various computer engineers and software techs didn’t have to be any the wiser that she’d taken advantage of their innate understanding to buoy her extreme lack of tech savvy. After all, the Piper of a year ago would have approaching hacking with a hammer or a wrench.

“That’s… huh.”

Something strange pinged on the display. An attempted communications broadcast that had fallen on deaf ears due to a lack of appropriate receivers. Piper didn’t need the knowledge of a few engineers to be able to recognize a Q-wave reading when she saw one. In her time in the Crossroads, she hadn’t known a single person who knew, let alone used, the technology.

“Someone native to my Earth?”

Tracing the attempted signal, Piper managed to triangulate it to a location in a neighboring district. Unfortunately, the weather made it impossible for her to get a bead on anything using the CCTV-style cameras or even the surveillance drones. On one shot, she swore she spotted a pair of figures in cloaks, but it wasn’t conclusive.

Closing down the software and retrieving the stick, Piper continued to frown as she turned the chair back around to face the ongoing storm. Despite namedropping who he was going to see that day, Dr. Blake had never again followed up on the Ms. Zulenka he had spoken about meeting, and Piper wasn’t within striking distance of being able to hack payroll or private communications among Cytokine’s higher ups.

Still, this couldn’t be a coincidence… could it?

Turning back to her desk, Piper retrieved her notepad and scribbled a memo to herself to try and develop some sort of surveillance algorithm that could let her passively scan all the camera feeds for individuals matching a given description. Hell, she may even be able to get something like this from central, with the claims that she believed Unmade entities were potentially infiltrating the sector.

Then again, that might bring attention to her little isle of misfit toys.

 

[Lucien Lockwood]

Fresh out the shower after their passionate love making session, Vad tossed a capsule to the floor and retrieved a fresh BDU from the duffle bag that had popped out of it.

“What’s up?” Trixie asked as she slid into a fresh pair of panties.

“I need to make sure I have access to my power. We know we can fly, and my metal binding works, but I need to transform and see if I’m even still capable of doing that. Do you even still have the ability unleash the Valkyrie?”

Trixie shook her head. “No. I don’t have that ability anymore. It’s sealed like it was before. I’m hoping that with time it will unlock.”

“Well shit. At least you can always empower your base form.”

Trixie nodded as she watched Vad form his armor over his BDU. With a few quick stretches to make sure it was up to snuff he headed into the living room and grabbed his cloak. Wrapping it around his body he waited for Trixie to do the same before opening the door for her. As soon as they got to the street, they both lifted off and headed towards the city limits. It wasn’t long before they were outside the barrier and the rain in the middle of a damp field to the east of the city.

“This might attract some attention so let’s be quick.” Trixie said as they touched down.

Vad nodded as he clenched his fists and ignited his blue aura. It started with a low growl before a notable grunt as his hair turned blond and his eyes became teal. Trixie was paying attention with her senses.

Super Saiyan One.

“Rrrrrraaahhhhh” Vad bellowed as he pushed further into his power.

With a blinding flash of electricity and a power surge that buckled the ground beneath them Vad ascended into SSJ2. Pushing further Vad unleashed the very depth of his power with a loud scream. His aura expanded violently, forcing wind currents to blow away from him. Various rocks and pebbles began to rise around him, the grass beneath his feet had been scorched away. Vad’s muscles bulged slightly to accommodate the extra power flowing through him. Sheets of electricity arced around him as he straightened his back and howled into the sky, pushing his power to the limit.

“I think that’s all you’re going to get. You retained SSJ2, but it seems like both of our powers were diminished upon entry to this universe.” Trixie said, resting her weight on one of her hips, her arms crossed.

Back in the dojo, Hailey stopped what she was doing and looked eastward. Isabelle had done the same.

“Is that my Dad?”

“That didn’t take long.” Hailey said with a laugh. “Always showing off.”

“And you’re telling me he was stronger on Earth?”

“Immensely stronger.” Hailey said wiping the sweat from her brow.

“Yikes.” Isabelle remarked, standing up from her stance.

Back in the field Vad had ceased his powerup and was letting his power level sit at its maximum. His aura pulsed around him violently.

“That’s enough. You’ve probably set off every radar and sensor in the city.”

With a long exhale Vad relaxed his form and his hair returned to its normal black color, the yellow aura dissipating along with the arcing electricity. Standing upright Vad retrieved his cloak from the ground and wrapped it around himself once more. Kicking off the ground, both took off into the sky back towards the city. Landing outside the dojo Isabelle and Hailey were in they were immediately surrounded by Markov military police.

“Unknown persons! Stop! Comply immediately!”

“Comply to what?” Trixie asked, crossing her arms.

“What is that commotion outside?” Isabelle asked Hailey.

“I sense your parents.”

“Oh shit. His display of power would have alerted the military.” Isabelle said rushing to the door.

She grabbed her military ID from the clothes and exited the building to her parents being held at gunpoint. Not surprisingly, they were unphased.

“Stand down! I am Lieutenant Zulenka. These two work for me!” She said, trying to calm the situation.

Vad laughed, which caused Trixie to elbow him.

“Our Colonel wants to know why we detected an energy signature east of the city of unknown origin. We’re here to investigate possible Unmaking activity!” The sergeant in command stated.

“Relax, Sergeant. They’re my parents. They’re new to the planet. They’ve never been here so they wouldn’t show up in your system. They’re not citizens.”

“Yeah, Sergeant. Piss off.” Vad remarked with a grin.

“Hush!” Trixie shushed him.

Isabelle rolled her eyes. “I’ll make sure they go to the visitor’s center, okay? Can we lower the weapons?”

The military police backed away and got back in their Humvees, leaving the area.

“Do you like causing trouble?” Isabelle said, storming over to her father.

She looked up at him with a stern look. He smiled and placed a hand on her head which startled her and diffused the situation.

“We were never in any real danger.” He said with a laugh.

“I didn’t know you were an LT. You outrank me. If I were even still active duty.”

Trixie smiled happily; it was nice to see Vad interacting with her.

“You were active duty on Earth?” Isabelle asked, brushing away her father’s hand.

“Yeah, for quite a while. I was a Sergeant under Piper.” He replied.

“And what do you mean you were never in any danger? I told you! No hurting people!”

Vad sighed. “Izzy, do you not trust me?”

“Not really. I just met you!” An answer which made Trixie sigh.

He’s not going to take that well.

“That’s fair. I haven’t seen you since you were five.” Vad smiled.

Trixie raised an eyebrow. “Maybe he won’t.”

“I’m not five anymore, Dad.” Izzy replied, flustered.

“I know that.” He replied, placing his armored hand back on her head.

“Hopefully in time that will change. Maybe you’ll listen to some of the stories directly from the source.”

Vad moved inside the dojo, the trio following him. He only hoped he could earn his daughter’s trust in time. He took a seat along the back wall of the dojo.

“Your Dad means well, Izzy.” Trixie said.

Isabelle tossed her ID back among her belongings and returned to the center of the room ignoring her mother, who sighed. Her daughter had become very independent.

“C’mon, Hailey. We have twenty more minutes.”

The blond unscrewed a pill bottle and downed several of the pills inside.

“I’ll be ready in a second.” She said, taking a long swig of water.

 

[Android XVII]

While they normally had Hailey with them, today had inadvertently become a solo venture for the Zulenka ‘family’. After a few conversations with her superiors, and the vanishing of a great deal of red tape, Isabelle had managed to get her parents on the ‘green lists’ that would let them freely travel outside of the Dome without triggering a dozen warnings at a litany of observation stations.

On this particular day, the trio had opted to take a longer than normal trek (against Isabelle’s protestations) to practice in an old junkyard. While she wasn’t familiar with this particular installation, the youngest Zulenka assumed that the facility was probably constructed just before the Fall, but despite its proximity to the Dome, it had been relatively unmolested by wastelanders or after-market technology profiteers.

“Lots of wasted steel.”

The voice of Isabelle’s father pierced through the silence as the trio paced away from the rusted gateway that had provided the only blockade in their afternoon jaunt.

“That looks like a reprocessing plant,” Isabelle spoke as she gestured toward the large building that stood on the other side of a few hills of gnarled, partially overgrown wreckage. “Most of this waste here was likely intended to be repurposed for the war effort.”

“What war effort?” Vad asked as he lifted a palm. A few yards away, shards and pieces of metal started to wobble and crumble into an almost slag-like form before slowing creeping across the sun-baked dirt.

“The war that culminated in the Fall,” amusingly enough, it was Trixie who answered her question, even as her daughter’s mouth had opened with a similar reply waiting in the wings. “And before you ask, the Fall was some sort of catastrophe that rendered much of this planet uninhabited. The power brokers in Markov are still, at least publicly, divided on the exact causes of the Fall. Ask any five people, and they’ll give you five different reasons ranging from ‘hubris of the empire’ to techno-pandemics to space religion.”

“You care that much for history?” Isabelle asked as she continued to watch her father collect more liquid metal. Vad seemed laser-focused as he had the metal swirl in front of him, and Isabelle found the act strangely transfixing.

“It’s part of her ‘thing’.” Vad muttered, breaking the immersion as he glanced over his shoulder at his daughter.

Trixie smiled as she stepped forward and rested her hands on her husband’s shoulders. She planted a kiss on the back of his exposed neck as he brought the metal together and started to shape it into something less miscible.

“I figured it would be important to understand the history of where we are,” Trixie replied softly. “Effective tactics and strategy in combat often require or are enhanced by an understanding of the playing field.”

“Like I said,” Vad sniggered. “It’s part of her ‘thing’.”

Isabelle nodded her head. The young woman had still yet to fully adjust to the reality of her dead parents being alive once again. In her own time and place, they had been almost like fairytales, even though she faintly recalled memories of an older version of her mother before her passing. That woman had been at the end of a life that had been artificially lengthened, but those old recollections did not mesh with the figure in front of her who sashayed, doted on her husband, and generally seemed to float and dance a few inches off the ground.

“Why this place?” Isabelle finally asked as she watched her father finished what seemed to be a pair of half-molded bodies. Uncomplete below the midsection, the creations dribbled hot, ki-infused metal on the ground but otherwise maintained their new form well.

“Push our limits,” Vad said with a smile as he stepped back and suddenly snapped his fingers. As if some unseen switch had been flipped, the half-golems craned their necks toward the young woman. Burning red eyeholes appeared on their makeshift skulls as they lifted their molten limbs and suddenly burst toward the saiyan’s daughter. “You first!” He laughed as Isabelle backflipped to dodge the lancing bursts of ki-infused steel.

***​

The Zulenkas passed a few hours in what could best be described as ‘Zulenka Family bonding’. That is to say, they blew up an inordinate number of things and punched each other as hard as they could (with love).

They continued this all the way up to the point when the central building of the junkyard complex exploded.

Despite being halfway through dodging an offensive from his daughter, Vad caught the blast in the moments before it came roaring up from the innards of the building. That split-second was all the time the revived warrior needed to change trajectory and come crashing down in front of Isabelle just before the shockwave crashed into her.

His arms wrapped around her as the concussive force and assorted chunks of concrete and steel slammed over him. Grimacing, he weathered the assault, and even though there was still a very clear and present danger, he turned around to continue shielding his daughter as he scanned the surroundings. “Beatrix?!” He bellowed over the slight ringing in his ears.

“Over here!” The voice came as the woman materialized up out of the ground in a whisp of pink-purple smoke. While she was initially relieved, her expression soon twisted into one of shock as she pointed behind her husband. “Behind you!”

It was Isabelle who acted first. The young woman stepped around her father and quickly summoned a nearby sheet of metal as a bulwark against the belch of high-powered munitions from the smog-laden epicenter of the junkyard. The metal, infused with her energy, held fast against the blast, but the ground still shuddered beneath them.

“What is it?” Trixie spoke softly as she rushed up to join her family. Her eyes seemed to be trying to see through the haze, but based on her wincing and general consternation, she couldn’t perceive anything, even with her augmented senses.

“Nothing good,” Isabelle replied as a giant, metal hand erupted straight up from the hazy grave of the reclamation facility. The arm came crashing down in a heap of junk as the rest of the creature’s heaving, bulky form rose up from the ground. “Nothing good.”

“The bigger they are…” Vad trailed off as the air around him started to simmer with golden ki. The saiyan’s mouth twisted in a sinister grin as the ground underfoot splintered. Before he had a chance to spring into action, the hulking, amorphous trash monstrosity opened its maw and let loose a whirring shriek of grinding gears and screeching metal. A dark cloud seemed to belch forth from underneath and behind it, and in an instant, a horde of chittering entities started to materialize in that daemonic ether.

“The Unmade,” Isabelle rasped as she started to draw in nearby metal to form armor across her body, which bore the bruises and scrapes of the lengthy training session.

“All the more fun!” Vad bellowed, but once more, he found himself restrained.

This time it was the gentle grasp of his wife on his wrist. He turned and saw the look in her eye and already knew what was coming from her mouth. “No.” There was no wavering in her voice. “We’re all a bit tired, and there are too many variables here.”

Vad tilted his head and scowled. “Babe, it’s a metal monster. Izzy and I could tear it apart without breaking a sweat.”

Trixie shook her head. “Try. That … corruption. It’ll be immune. This thing is too strong, Vad. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

“… have you met me?” He shot back as the skittering, unmade creatures closed to gap to nearly twenty meters.

“This will end poorly.”

“When doesn’t it?” With that, Vad erupted forth—his body momentarily vanishing amongst a nearly opaque golden aura. Like a literal knife through butter, the saiyan cleaved through the oncoming host of unmade underlings and floated up into the sky where he was within striking range of the great beast. “Good night,” he rasped as he thrust a hand forward and clenched his fingers.

There was a pregnant pause as the unmade trash monster seemed to tilt its house-sized cranium to observe the tiny warrior floating before it. Then, a massive amalgam of corruption-infused steel swatted Vad Zulenka out of the sky. On the ground, Trixie and her daughter were coordinating a withdrawal toward the edge of the junkyard.

“We need a plan!” Isabelle shouted as she put a plasma round through one of the insect-like creature’s heads only to watch as four more crawled over its corpse.

“Shouldn’t Markov have some sort of response to this?” Beatrix inquired as the pair leapt over a mound of moss-coated machinery and jogged to the tall fence at the perimeter of the lot. “We traveled far, but not that far for such a mechanized city-state.”

“Remember that time I had to hassle my superiors not to monitor you and your husband?”

The way the young woman had phrased that question stung Trixie a little, but truthfully, it had only been a few weeks since the three had started on this familial journey together. “In hindsight, that was probably a tactical mishap.”

“No shit,” Isabelle replied, but the faint smile on the soldier’s face showed that she had picked up the sarcasm. “These Unmade have probably been sniffing around for the three of us since we first left the wall.”

“Lovely.”

Before Isabelle could reply, the specter of the main threat loomed up overhead, and the two woman were cast into the shadow of a beast still half a football field away. A curse started to form on the young Zulenka’s mouth, but whatever she may have said was lost as a rocket came screaming from behind their position and slammed into the nearby mountain of debris.

Both women turned their heads to stare through the charred gap in the fence. On a hill outside the junkyard, a fifteen-foot mech suit gestured them.

“Fall back!”

With that order, the pilot of the machine opened fire with another salvo of rockets and plasma bursts. As Beatrix and Isabelle passed underneath, they were joined by an ichor-spattered Vad just moments before the pilot ejected herself from the still-firing mech and landed in the dirt a few yards from them.

“This way!” A familiar, albeit fatigued voice shouted. “There’s an underground passage just over these hills.” With that, the redhaired woman sprinted in the direction she’d indicated as her mech suit started to walk forward to address the ever-surging host of unmade.

Trixie turned to her husband. “Was that?”

“Let’s go.” Vad replied as he grabbed the ladies’ hands and rushed ahead.

Despite a lead, Piper had barely got down into the shaft when the Zulenkas came barreling down after her. Once she’d ensured everyone was safely underground, the redhead grabbed a nearby valve and closed the hatch with a few quick spins. Turning around, her eyes found Vad’s and her stern expression wavered for just a moment.

“We’ll be safe for now. These tunnels, when you run power through them, have a sort of anti-infrared grid. It makes it impossible to detect life within them,” when she saw the expression on the man’s face, she rolled her eyes. “I used tunnels like this all the time when I lived outside the city.”

After having had a few moments to compose herself and adjust to the diminished lighting in the tunnel, Isabelle let out a gasp. “Piper?” At that, the woman burst forward and wrapped her arms around the redhead.

Piper, who hadn’t broken eye contact with the patriarch of the little family, now turned to look at the woman actively crushing her in a bearhug. “Who is this?” She managed to wheeze before gently prying Isabelle away from her. The look in the young woman’s face immediately went from one of joy to a mixture of confusion and sadness.

“It’s me,” she replied. “Izzy.” She turned to look at her parents, and it was Beatrix who stepped forward and light up the tunnel with a small handful of ki. The demon walked right up to the former medic and furrowed her brow as she looked at her.

“You don’t remember my daughter?” Beatrix finally asked, prompting a confused expression from the Zulenka matriarch’s former ally.

“You two have a child?” Piper asked as she looked at the young woman and did note what was clearly a familial resemblance. “She’s grown. You two been hiding her off on Vegeta all this time?” She turned back to look at Vad, who was still silent. “Is this what you were doing all those years?”

It was then that the former assassin stepped forward. He knew this was Piper, because now that they were up close, there was no second-guessing the woman’s unique ki signature. The trio’s previous forays into demonic fusion techniques had ‘tainted’ their ki with markers that were impossible to truly replicate. “Do you not remember Kajin Rala?” Vad finally asked softly.

Piper scowled. “I mean… I’ve heard of it,” she answered.

“Does the name Evelyn mean anything to you?” He pressed, which again prompted a confused expression from the middle-aged medic. “James? … Paige?”

“My mother?”

Vad frowned as he turned to Beatrix. “It’s Piper, but … not.”

“What do you mean?” Isabelle muttered. “How is this not Generalissima Juunanagou?”

“Who?” Piper asked with a soft laugh.

Beatrix put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, but a frustrated Izzy shrugged it away before trying to discretely wipe her face.

Vad cleared his throat to redirect everyone to him. “She hasn’t been to Kajin Rala yet.”

His wife sullenly continued. “The Crossroads doesn’t operate by any ‘rules’ when it comes to drawing people here, and I guess those rules apply fourth dimensionally as well.”

The once-medic shook her head. “You’re telling me we’re from different times?”

“I was dead before I came here,” Vad explained. “Dead for a few years.”

“Of what?” Piper asked.

“Old age,” he replied softly as his gaze met that of his wife. “Trixie as well.” He gestured to Isabelle. “This is our daughter, Izzy, and she was born almost thirty-five years after the Stallions.”

Piper frowned as she turned to look at the slightly distraught young woman. “Is that so?”

“You and your family helped me a lot after they died,” Isabelle spoke softly. “You have a … large family. You, uh, personally helped me a lot.” It was clear that the young woman was managing to just barely maintain her composure, and even though she’d never met her, Piper did feel a strange connection to her.

“I’m … sorry that I’m not the version of me you know,” Piper finally offered as she put a gloved hand on Izzy’s face. “I haven’t been a version of me I remember in a long time, for what it’s worth. I’ve been here for years.”

All around them, the walls of the tunnel started to shake.

“I thought we were secured down here?” Trixie rasped as she glanced up at the ceiling above them.

“I said we were undetectable … I didn’t say we were in an indestructible safety network,” Piper counter-rasped as she looked to Vad. “We need to move, because I can’t promise you that those Unmade won’t come sniffing down here sooner rather than later.”

“You know the way through these sewers?”

Piper laughed. “Not this area, no. That said … I think anywhere we go is better than sticking around here.”

 

[Android XVII]

They had walked for nearly two miles when something other than the trudging of boots through thick ‘water’ broke the silence.

“I guess I never knew how much I wanted to know the ins and outs of Markov’s waste disposal systems.” Vad muttered as the quartet reached a fork in the tunnels. Up ahead to the left, there was the distinct sound of water rushing down an incline of some sorts, but there wasn’t nearly enough ambient light to verify that ascertain.

“Who knows how many people in that city,” Piper spoke over her shoulder. “And most of ‘em piss and shit.”

“You said you used to run through these tunnels, Generalissima?” Isabelle asked as the group ground to a halt.

“Yea,” Piper answered. “And don’t call me that – that’s not me.”

Izzy frowned. “Just because you’re someone else doesn’t change the fact that I knew Piper Juuanangou. Just because you spent years running guns through sewers doesn’t change my memories of a far better version of you.”

Piper twisted and had a hand loosely around Izzy’s next before either of her parents could react. Vad, perhaps sensing that this wasn’t the preface to an assault, barely flinched as the redhead’s free palm conjured a ki sword that prevented his wife from reacting more harshly.

“None of you can understand the life I’ve had to live in this place.” Her voice had more sadness than anger within it. “You can’t imagine what I had to sacrifice after Markov spit me out. You can’t imagine what I had to forget in order to survive, because otherwise the weight of what I have lost would have killed me.” She wasn’t gripping the younger woman’s throat, but she also hadn’t moved her hand away.

“We’re sorry,” Beatrix replied as she sidestepped the unmoving energy weapon and hugged her old friend. “We’re also sorry for falling out of touch with you over the years.”

Piper, who blinked to hide a few tears, let go of Isabelle and turned to Vad. “Reports went silent from Vegeta years ago. Diplomatic tension and other bureaucratic bullshit. I heard there were wars on the planet, but there was also an information blackout.”

Vad nodded his head. “It wasn’t all fun and games,” he explained. “We found what was left of the old House Zulenka. My people. My family.” The former assassin paused before taking a moment to touch his heart and smile. “A connection to the past. That was the nice part. It wasn’t all dinners and drinks.”

“I read about that. House Glendale had nearly wiped them out,” Isabelle commented.

“I thought they had.” Vad responded as he looked at Piper. “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.”

Piper, who had finally relaxed herself, nodded her head. “It’s okay. After the first year, it wasn’t that bad.”

“The stuff with your mother, right?”

The woman laughed. “I guess you would know, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s our past,” Vad replied, gesturing to the three Zulenkas. “Trixie and I were sorry to hear it back then, and we’re still sorry now.”

The aged, former medic shook her head. “It’s old news, anyway. Four or five years in this place feels like a couple lifetimes. I was never this gray, but after a couple dozen botched runs in the wastes…” she sighed.

“You were doing a good thing.” It was Izzy, whose eyes betrayed the sadness in her own heart.

“Surviving isn’t a good thing, especially when others often die in the process.” Piper looked at the young woman. “I tried to put a bullet in my brain a few years ago… I’m sorry if that further degrades the image of me you have, but it was an afternoon where I lost six colleagues after we had to collapse some tunnels before they could reach us.”

Vad opened his mouth, but the woman before him had developed an excellent low-light vision over the years.

“Don’t say a thing.” She grunted. “We could have given them more time… but even I wasn’t thinking straight. Let the fear and anxiety cloud my judgement. I could have saved them, and I failed.” A few more tears glinted in the dark. “The worst part, though? I couldn’t even kill myself. My damn skull is literally too thick.”

“In our time,” Vad finally spoke. “You save thousands… maybe more. You’re a good person, and you helped the two of us to be better people.”

The former general sighed. “That’s kind of you to say, but it doesn’t change what I’ve lived. What I’m tortured by.”

Piper gave another loose smile. “And it isn’t just the bad decisions that plague my unwaking world you know.” She paused for a moment as the memory came into focus. “Recently, I had these dreams that the three of us were…” She laced her hands together. “Do you remember? Namek? The Stallions?”

“Viper?”

A nod from the redheaded general. “I mean, I had those when we were all younger, too.”

“We’ll have those forever,” Trixie interjected as she looked over at a confused Isabelle. “The three of us bound our souls, our ki, and our physical selves on a few occasions to fight great threats. Even separated, we still have … connections.”

“In these dreams, we were her, and we were trapped in some town filled with monsters and zombies.”

Vad furrowed his brow. “Sounds like that botched mission you had.”

She shook her head. “This was different. I don’t know how to explain it. Even though it was us, it also felt like it was something else. I had those dreams for a while when I first came here. I also had these dreams about ‘us’ in the marshes of some foreign planet… unearthing some temple.” Even in the near darkness, she caught the expression on Vad’s face. “What?”

It was Isabelle who answered. “That was Arlia. You used to tell me that story when I was in middle school.”

Piper frowned.

“Your gifts,” Beatrix spoke. “Your ability to ‘read’ things… it’s likely that your displacement here influenced it in some way. Perhaps our arrival also served to trigger a reaction in your subconscious, given the intertwining of our souls.”

“You’re saying I’m dreaming of a future I’ll never live?”

“And, perhaps, other worlds that could have been.”

The redheaded general continued to scowl. “That makes it worse… I thought it was just too much melatonin.” She turned away from the three Zulenkas and ran her hands through her hair as she tried to shift the focus away from cosmic shit that she didn’t want to understand, let alone try to process.

“I… I think if we keep going this way, we’ll come into the processing plant that’s about two klicks from the Sector Six gate. We’ll certainly be out of the range of any stray unmade.”

“Please,” Beatrix replied as she rested a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “Lead the way.”