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From: nkjem@aol.com (NKJem)
Subject: DBZ:  The Last Warrior Pt. 8 [Fanfic]
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Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 05:09:45 GMT
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So here we go again---Trunks and Shiatar's battle is rudely interrupted,
as Bulma realizes the implications of the manifestation she's just
witnessed and fought off.  In this installment, we get a further glimpse
of the mind of the mysterious Ko Shiatar.  And we see a bit more of
Trunks' world . . .

For those of you who are wondering whether the fight in Pt. 7 was the only
action you'll get in TLW . . . stay tuned.  Things will get very hot, very
soon . . .  and for those of you who prefer the characterization stuff,
don't worry; that will continue throughout the story.  And as always, if
you have comments, gripes, flames, or glowing words of praise <<eg>> feel
free to drop me a note.  'Mata!

NKJem


Dragonball Z:  The Last Warrior
Episode 8
"I'VE GOT TO GET STRONGER!!"  TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!

 Shiatar snarled to herself as she followed the pale-haired demi-Saiyin
and his mother through the corridors.  What was so important that it
couldn't have waited until she and Trunks had concluded their match?  She
had been waiting to test herself against him; his ability so far had been
most interesting.  *Interesting?* she thought, grudgingly.  *Much more
than interesting!*  She winced, tonguing the inside of her lip where she'd
bitten it inadvertently after he'd knocked her to the floor.  *Bastard,*
she thought, but then smiled.  Sore spots or not, it was the best workout
she'd had in years.
 But, she mused ruefully, it must be urgent if Bulma had interrupted their
session.  She'd seen Trunks' expression when the intercom buzzer went off;
he liked the interruption no more than she had.  Trunks had at first
seemed to her to have all the animation of a rock, but perhaps she had
been wrong in her first assessment of him; she certainly had been wrong
about his fighting spirit.  The *ki* he'd manifested in the gravity
chamber at the very end had been frighteningly strong.  She hadn't been
the only one holding back, it seemed.  But the question remained to be
answered:  she'd shown him the limit of her abilities.  Had he?
 Cursing again to herself, she shook her head and winced as perspiration
ran into her eyes.  Damn him, he'd barely broken a sweat himself.  Then
she smiled, seeing the already-purpling bruise on the corner of his mouth.
 At least he hadn't escaped completely unscathed. . .
 But at that moment she recalled the reason for Bulma's interruption, and
frowned.  Something happening with the gateway?  What did that mean? 
Would her departure from this strange alternate Earth be delayed?  She
sighed, and tried to stifle the sense of frustration that roiled in her. 
She had to get back; while she was stuck here Vejiita had undisputed
control of her world, and with his new power he must be making life hell
for everyone left there.  And if Vejiita had been able to discover the
secret of becoming Super Saiya-jin, perhaps he'd be able to teach it to
his lieutenants . . .
 She frowned.  Who was she kidding?  She couldn't hold her own against one
Super Saiya-jin; how in the hell did she expect to be able to beat more
than one?  She shuddered at the thought of Kakaloto, who was already
horrendously strong and skilled without that exponential increase in
power, or Nappa, a giant of a Saiyan warrior, with such power.  Vejiita
was only the worst of his lot.  The others were no less of a threat.  And
without knowing Vejiita's secret herself, her own strength was pitifully
inadequate to the task of defeating them.
 So; what difference did it make if she couldn't go back anytime soon?  It
just gave her a longer vacation before her own death.
 They entered the chamber that held the DITMIX machine, and Shiatar
scrutinized the gate; it looked no worse than it had the day before. 
Bulma immediately moved over to the console and leaned against it.  Her
agitation was visible even now, after she'd had a chance to calm down
during the walk.  Trunks frowned and moved to hold Bulma's arm; Shiatar
found herself observing this gesture with avid interest.  Bulma nodded
gratefully to her son and sat in the console chair, her face pale.
 "The more I've considered this, the more disturbing it is to me,"  she
said, rubbing her hands together as if cold.  "But there's no other
possible explanation."
 "For what, Kaasan?" Trunks asked.
 She blinked as if only then recalling that they were there, and smiled
ruefully.  "Sorry."  And then she told them of the partial manifestation
that had occurred in the lab.
 As the human woman told them of the words she'd half-heard, Shiatar felt
her blood run cold.  "*my prince, we will find her. . .*"  It sounded like
. . . but it couldn't be.  Could it?
 ". . . so I ran a scan of the nearby dimensional frequencies, trying to
see if the fields showed any sign of systolic transfer or translative
crossover, and I found it on a number of planar settings.  It may mean---"
 Trunks shook his head, smiling.  "Okaasan, please."
 "Oh.  Sorry.  Basically, what I think this means is that someone, on one
of the dimensions that parallels this one, has also built a DITMIX-type
device that allows them to move between dimensions.  And what I saw in the
lab was a test of that device; a pseudo-gate that was established, for
only a moment, into this world.  That's the first step I used, when I was
testing the DITMIX; you can't travel through a pseudo-gate, but you can
use it to establish a pathway between one world and another."
 Shiatar turned away, considering this, as Trunks frowned.  "So someone in
another world's trying to come into this one," he said.
 "It's not that simple," Bulma interjected.  "My scan found more than one
disturbance; twelve, in fact, out of the nearest thousand planes.  This
means that at least twelve other nearby worlds have DITMIX gates, and have
been testing them."
 "What?"  Trunks' voice was incredulous.
 "Think about it," Bulma explained.  "Shiatar's world seems to have been
an exact mirror of our own, up until the point that Gokuu---Kakaloto,
there---came to Earth.  Those worlds in the dimensions nearest our own are
the ones that are most like our own.  There may be other scientists,
there, with other machines like mine, who are using them the same way. 
Twelve of them are, anyway."
 "And one of them," Shiatar said, "is my world."
 Silence behind her.  She turned, and saw both of them staring at her. 
Then Trunks, also, turned to face Bulma.  Bulma's face fell, and she would
not meet Shiatar's eyes.  
 "Yes."
 Confirmation.  She hadn't anticipated it, but she should have.  "The
first thing I did was scan your world's frequency," Bulma admitted.  "It
was one of the twelve.  The closest of them, in fact.  If they use the
same strategy I did, the likelihood of them stumbling upon this world is
much greater than if they just searched randomly.  But keep in mind, there
are *infinite* dimensions out there; the odds are *still* astronomical
that they could find this one even if they searched nearby planes only."
 She could be right.  But . . . Shiatar folded her arms across her chest
and closed her eyes, fighting down the rising disquiet within herself. 
*Think!* she commanded herself, and tensed suddenly as the realization
came to her.  She turned on Bulma, accusingly.  "That's not completely
right, either," she said.  "If you could search for other nearby planes
that use DITMIX gates, so could they.  That would narrow the search down,
I'd say.  From infinity to twelve.  Is that right?"  She turned to face
them.
 Bulma paled a little more, and nodded.  Trunks folded his arms, frowning.
"You're assuming that your enemies are even searching for you," he said. 
"You didn't stroll into the open gateway, you got blasted through it, and
the blast that came through with you was great enough that it *should*
have killed you.  Why should they even believe you're still alive? 
Wouldn't your Vejiita think he'd vaporized you with that blast?"
 Shiatar considered it, then shook her head.  "I was trying to get away
even as he shot at me; I survived because I was only clipped by the blast.
 What you probably got through your gate was only a portion of the power
he sent at me."  She shuddered at the memory.  Pain upon pain . . . no. 
She couldn't think of that. But then something else occurred to her.  "I
think . . . I think maybe . . . Vejiita *meant* to keep me alive," she
said in shock.  "I mean, by the time he sent that blast, I was barely
conscious.  There was no way he should have missed.  So he may have
expected to see a body."  And, she recalled, it would have been just like
the Prince to want to extend her death . . .
 "And when he didn't find me---"  She could imagine his reaction.  Prince
Vejiita of the Saiyan Empire did not make mistakes.  He did not accept
wins by forfeit.  He was never thwarted.  He would have been utterly
furious.  And as obsessive as he'd been in the matter of the demi-Saiyin,
he would stop at nothing to destroy this last enemy, however insignificant
Shiatar might be to a Super Saiya-jin.  She had dared to defy him; if he
even remotely suspected that she might be alive, he, and his Elite, would
cross a thousand dimensions if they had to, to find her.
 Then another idea occurred to her.  "The Saiya-jin didn't have anything
like your DITMIX, but . . . when I was in the resistance," she said
slowly, "we heard rumors that Vejiita had a science division composed of
the best scientists from all the captive worlds of the Empire, which he
ran as a project for his father.  He barely paid attention to it---science
is not a Saiyan strong point---but we did, and I remember seeing a report
that listed the projects that they were working on.  One of them, I
remember, was called a 'transmat,' or something like that.  I didn't pay
much attention to it, either; we were on the lookout for new weapon
designs, not toys."
 "'Transmat?'" Bulma murmured, and Shiatar turned to look at her.  The
human woman's face was thoughtful.  "As in a matter transmission device? 
Maybe a teleporter?  The DITMIX works on a similar principle, except that
it moves things through planes of existence rather than space.  It
wouldn't be hard to make the leap to something like my machine."
 "And---no offense meant---my world's technology is substantially ahead of
this one's.  Remember that we have access to the full accumulated
knowledge of the Saiyan Empire, and we had no apocalyptic war against the
Cyborgs to stop progress.  However long it took you to develop your
DITMIX, however many weeks it will take you to fix it, once they came up
with the idea it would take them no time at all to make it real."
 Trunks straightened, and Shiatar noted with some pleasure that he moved
gingerly, as if his back pained him.  "So we have to accept the
possibility that your world may have found a way to reach ours.  That
doesn't mean that it's happened."  Bulma nodded, agreeing, but Shiatar saw
the almost desperate look in the woman's eyes.  Bulma didn't believe that
any more than Shiatar did.
 "So the bottom line is this," she said, rubbing her eyes; her head ached
in a dull, incessant way.  Ah, a tension headache; just like the old days
in the resistance.  "Vejiita may open up a gate and step into your front
yard anytime to kill us all, or he may never show up and you can go on
with your lives when I leave.  Which means that there's nothing we can do
but continue as if nothing will ever happen."  She looked up at their
startled faces, and smiled.  "All or nothing.  It's not very reassuring,
but I must admit, I seem to thrive on these kinds of situations."
 Trunks and Bulma stared at each other as if they thought she'd gone mad. 
It pleased her that she'd ruffled the enigmatic demi-Saiyin warrior.  So
something besides a fight or watching her making a fool of herself could
crack that stoneface of his.  Suddenly weary, she sighed and stretched
idly. 
 "I'm going to take a shower," she announced.  "Please call me if anything
else changes, Bulma-san.  Later, Trunks-san."
 She would have given much to be a fly on the wall after she left the
DITMIX chamber, to hear whatever conversation they had about her.  But
perhaps it was best to give them some time alone, to talk.  She had, after
all, brought a substantial element of danger into their lives, and for
that she was profoundly sorry.  If they asked her to leave, she would
understand and be gracious about it.  They'd already been more than kind.
 Unbidden the thought came into her mind:  where could she go?  What could
she do, if Vejiita or Kakaloto or Nappa or the whole damned Saiyan army
came through the gate one day?  She was good enough, she knew, to face
anyone short of Kakaloto.  But that wasn't enough, not remotely, to face
Vejiita.
 And she'd been matched---easily---by a demi-Saiyin from another world,
who didn't even look Saiya-jin except for a certain sternness of his
features, who didn't even have any others of his kind to spar against. 
She had to face it; Trunks was probably stronger than she was.  When he'd
powered up, just before Bulma had interrupted their session, she'd felt an
instinctive conviction that he was just getting started, while she had
reached her limit.  Which meant that if she wasn't good enough to defeat
him, she didn't dare return to her own world.  To do so would be futile;
she would only accomplish her own death.  And then her Earth would have no
hope at all.
 The knowledge was like bile in her mouth, repellent and sour.  She'd been
the best, once.  She'd been stronger than any other demi-Saiyin on the
planet, and even when she'd faced Kakaloto she'd given him a few good
injuries for his trouble.  She'd been the youngest, at sixteen, to ever
win the tournament, and her fellow slaves had speculated that she might
someday be inducted into the ranks of the Saiya-jin upper echelons, not
just admitted as a common soldier.  She'd wanted that, then; she idolized
Vejiita and his elite cadre of warriors, as most young demi-Saiyin arena
slaves did, and had fantasized about the idea of one day rubbing elbows
with the likes of Radditz and Nappa.  Little had she known . . . That had
been before she'd learned the truth about the Saiya-jin "honor" that the
propaganda corps prattled on about.  Before she'd understood what the
"benevolent" Saiya-jin occupation had done to the people of Earth.  Before
she'd realized that with each demi-Saiyin that she killed for the
soldiers' entertainment, she killed one of the few warriors who might help
to liberate the planet, and one of her own brothers.  She'd been killing
the wrong people the whole time.
 And now, on a different world from the one she'd known her whole life,
she was still screwing up; she should be using this time to get stronger,
to improve herself.  But what good would that do?  She could spar against
Trunks until they both died from exhaustion; she could increase the
gravity in the special chamber he'd shown her until her bones broke; it
would still do no good.  Perhaps she would be ready to face Kakaloto, but
not Vejiita.  Without the secret of becoming Super Saiya-jin, she might as
well kill herself now.
 She had reached her door; now she closed her eyes and leaned her head
against it.  The same questions rattled through her mind that had
tormented her throughout her year of hiding.  What if she couldn't become
Super Saiya-jin?  What if there was no secret to be learned---if only
Vejiita could do it?  Or what if only full-blooded Saiya-jin could access
such power?  Or worse, what if there was no logistical barrier to the
transformation, and she simply never learned the secret?  It was the last
speculation that galled her the most, because it had the greatest
likelihood of coming true.
 And there was not one damned thing she could do about it.
 Weary only a few hours into the day, she went inside and took a shower,
trying very hard not to think of her troubles as she stood beneath the
stream of water.  She hurt in every place that Trunks had tagged her; he
hadn't pulled his punches, at least.  She didn't know whether to be
thankful for the respect conveyed by that action or annoyed at his
roughness.  She conjured an image in her mind of him, wreathed in the pale
tendrils of his aura, a wicked half-smile on his face . . . in spite of
her surprise at his show of power, it had been exhilarating to see him
like that.  He seemed so unflappable, most of the time . . . but, she had
to admit, he had the look of a true warrior when he was roused.  Perhaps
she underestimated him because he looked so human; she'd only seen a
handful of demi-Saiyin without the characteristic features of their
Saiya-jin parents.  Trunks' pale hair and blue eyes made him look
deceptively unthreatening to Shiatar's arena-trained sight.  It certainly
made him distinctive-looking.  With that long, satin-smooth hair and such
finely-drawn facial features, handsome in repose and commandingly so when
he was in fighting mode, and that warrior's body of his, it was a wonder
that he wasn't unbearably vain.  But then, there were too many lurking
shadows of past torment in his eyes; he hadn't had time for vanity,
growing up in a world like this.
 Stepping out of the shower, she scowled again at the image of herself in
the mirror before turning away to dress.  There was little chance that
Trunks might find *her* attractive; women with battle-scars, split nails,
and calloused knuckles hardly fit the ideal image of femininity.  While
she was not entirely deficient in curvature, the prominence of her ribs
and collarbones did not compliment her frame at all.  It was a wonder that
anyone had ever found her attractive, at all---
 *pain in her wrists, bound awkwardly behind her back . . . hands on her
body, mocking her struggles to escape . . . a grating chuckle in her ear,
hot and foul breath upon her cheek.  "Give it up, girl.  You're mine, now
. . ."*
 She stumbled back, jamming the heels of her hands into her eyes to drive
the images away from her mind.  A choking morass of emotions---fear,
nausea, humiliation, and most of all an unquenchable, burning
*rage*---seethed within her, and she was unaware of the manifestation of
her fighting aura around her while she struggled to control the assault. 
*No!  NO!*
 It was another ten minutes before she regained full control, and she
sagged against the wall, spent.  She'd thought that she'd succeeded in
eliminating those memories; what had happened was in the past, and there
was no point in letting it affect her now.  She hadn't the time to act
like some traumatized, shell-shocked victim.  And she refused to give
*him* that much satisfaction, even after the fact.
 *At least he's dead,* she thought, telling herself again and again, like
a mantra.  *At least he'll never hurt me again.*
 After a few minutes of lying on her bed, she felt enough like herself
again to sit up.  It was Bulma's tale of the gate manifestation that had
provoked this, she realized, and sighed.  She'd be no good at all unless
she could work off the tension that the earlier conversation had created. 
Another bout in the gravity room would do her no good; she would only
frustrate herself by recalling the interrupted match with Trunks.  But
perhaps there was a way to clear her mind, after all.
 Bounding up from the bed, she opened her window again and leaped out into
the air, revelling anew in the freedom of uninhibited flight.  From long
habit, she concealed her *ki,* but made only that concession to her old
habits.  Damn flying low, or slow, or only in rural areas!  To fly, as
high and as far as she wished, without fear!  It was marvellous, bliss
like nothing she'd ever felt in her harsh life.  She closed her eyes as
she shot straight up, feeling the wind plaster her hair to her head and
her clothes to her body, streaking through the stratosphere, up to where
the air was thin and ice-cold.  Only then did she turn, opening her eyes
gleefully, and dive, so fast that when she at last turned upward again she
heard the rumbling thunder of a sonic boom behind her.  Then she returned
to cloud-level, diving in and out of the mist-shrouded corridors between
the thin rows of cirrus clouds that dominated the grey autumn day,
laughing as her wake created new and bizarre patterns.
 She could grow to love this world.
 After a while she slowed, and dipped below the clouds to observe what lay
below.  More of the empty, ruined cities, sparse flickers of human *ki*
here and there.  The sight forced her to amend her earlier thought; she
might have been able to love this world as it once was, before the Cyborgs
had ruined it, but not now.  She wished Trunks well of his world; it would
be a long time before it was lovely again.
 Almost as if her thought had been a summons, she sensed a familiar flare
of *ki* below, and slowed, peering about to find the source of the
sensation.  Yes; Trunks was flying far below her, skimming barely above
treetop level, a mote almost too small to be seen.  She tensed for a
moment before she realized that he hadn't noticed her; without thinking
she moved higher into the clouds to conceal herself.  Had anyone asked her
why she took steps to hide from a fellow demi-Saiyin and non-enemy, she
couldn't have told them; a lifetime of caution had reasserted itself and
she no longer questioned habits that had saved her life time and again. 
It made no difference that she was in no danger; her reaction was
instinctive rather than reasoned, and it would never have occurred to her
to simply fly down and question him.  That simply wasn't the way she did
things.
 *Now where is he going?* she wondered, watching as he zipped along,
gliding at a leisurely cruise-speed.  As usual, his *ki* announced itself
to all who could see it, painting the surrounding ambient in magnificent
patterns of power all thoroughly imprinted with his personal signature. 
Curious, she moved to follow him, keeping to the clouds to stay hidden. 
Trunks was an enigma to her; a demi-Saiyin of obvious power, the only one
of his kind on this world, mysterious and aloof . . . what was he really
like?  What did someone like that do in his spare time?  Perhaps now she
would find out.
 Below, the mote slowed and turned, circling a small settlement that she
could make out amid the trees, and she took the opportunity to shoot down
to tree-level, just below boom-speed so that she wouldn't be seen unless
someone was looking for her.  The forest was silent as she slipped below
its canopy, weaving amid the tree-trunks and vines slowly as she moved
toward the village.  The trees did not thin as she reached the boundaries
of the village, so she was able to settle in the branch of one gnarled old
giant and hide behind a screen of leafy branches to observe unseen.
 This village was a new one, she realized, seeing the freshly-cut timbers
of its buildings and the newly-laid pathways between the buildings.  The
grass hadn't even grown back where trenches had been recently dug,
probably to lay some sort of pipe.  Trunks had landed in the square of
this rude village, and its inhabitants---ragged, scrawny humans---were
emerging from their dwellings or turning from their tasks to meet him.  To
Shiatar's surprise, they all seemed to have a smile from the pale-haired
young warrior, but even more surprising was that Trunks, too, was smiling,
turning about to greet this and that face among the grouping.
 So; he was known to these people.  Which meant that he'd been here
before.  But why?  Saiya-jin and even demi-Saiyin, in her experience,
rarely interacted with humans unless they had to, and only in the
resistance had she seen humans and her kind mingling freely.  Even in the
resistance, there had been tension; allies or not, it had been difficult
for the humans not to resent the much stronger demi-Saiyin who were, after
all, children of the enemy.  So why were these people fawning all over
Trunks as if he were the Prince himself?
 Shiatar leaned forward in her tree-branch, thankful again for the
ultra-sensitive hearing that was one of the few real gifts she'd gotten
from her unknown Saiya-jin father.  Perhaps the conversation between the
human villagers and Trunks would be informative; it certainly might be
more useful than the evasions Bulma and her son had given Shiatar.  Like
she'd always said, she hadn't survived as long as she had by remaining
ignorant.  She'd learned the value of good intelligence during her time in
the movement.
 It was time for some revelations.


*****Danger lurks in the background as Trunks debates revealing his
secrets to Shiatar; will he decide to train her?  Or will he teach her a
different kind of lesson for following him?  In the next episode: 
TRUNKS-SENSEI?!?!  WILL HE MAKE HIS CHOICE?*****

*End Pt. 8



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