Ape-ocalypse Now

"You're supposed to be scrubbing it with the spongey side!" the manager said as Nashua furiously attempted to clean a dish with a sponge. "Huh?" she confusedly said, the Saiyan feeling overwhelmed by just how many dishes kept flying into the kitchen for her to clean. "But it's a sponge, the whole thing is a spongey side!" she replied, and after she spoke, she could practically hear veins popping in the manager's head. "No!" he shouted, stepping over and yanking the sponge and plate out of her hands. "You're using the abrasive side, look!" he demonstrated how flipping it over and using the soft, squishy side to wash the dishes made the process much easier. "Oh," Nashua slowly replied after being handed the dish and sponge back. Well, that was embarrassing. The manager wasn't going to let her off the hook yet, though. "Are all you Saiyans this stupid or is it just you?" he asked with his arms folded across his chest.

"...Just me," she responded after staring down at the scrubbed clean plate in shamed silence for a few moments. The manager seemed satisfied enough with that answer, and walked off to go pester some other staff member. With a sigh, Nashua placed the dish into its slot inside the dishwasher, grabbing the next dirty plate and scrubbing it properly this time. Getting a part time job as a dish washer at some diner in a small city on Earth wasn't really what Nashua had been expecting to do after the World Trade Fleet's assault on her home. She'd more been picturing grand military meetings among the survivors and epic battles between good and evil as her people fought to reclaim their home from the Arcosian menace. Things were moving a little more slowly than that, though. And Nashua needed food to survive. But food required Zeni. And Zeni required work. So here she was.

The hours prattled on, somehow defying the laws of space and time to become at least twice as long as an hour should be. But the diner wrapped up its evening shift, and everyone was allowed to leave. For some stupid reason, they only paid the workers once every two weeks, which felt like it should be illegal to Nashua, but there wasn't much she could do to protest, given that she was technically an illegal immigrant. The Saiyan had mostly just been bunking out in the space ship she'd managed to buy for a good deal a while back, and she'd even set herself up a small sleeping area in one of the parts where there weren't control panels or anything to get in the way. "See ya tomorrow, Nashua!" one of her co-workers said as they waked out the front door. "Oh, yeah, see you," she replied, giving them a brief wave as they parted ways.

She'd carefully parked her ship just a few blocks away in the middle of some field nobody seemed to be using. It wasn't too far a walk, so she arrived within just a couple of minutes, but noticed something was immediately amiss the moment she arrived. The ship was still there, but the entrance was open, the light from the inside beaming out the entryway. She had definitely left the door shut and locked when she went to work for the day, so something was up. Cautiously, Nashua advanced to the pod, sneaking up the stairs with her ears perked. As she poked her head inside, she saw two figures standing right inside her pod, and heard them speak. "Yeah, I dunno," one of them said in a gruff, deep voice. "This place looks abandoned. Nobody could live in a pigsty of a ship like this, it's a damn health hazard."

The other person, this one a smaller woman, though still with a deep voice, quickly replied, "I told you, I've been watching out for this for a few days now, it's a Saiyan girl who bunks out in here every night and goes to work at that crappy diner down the street. It's a prime hit!" A prime hit? A pigsty? What were these two doing in her ship? Nashua decided to stop listening in and walked up the last few steps, clearing her throat and speaking to make herself known. "Um, I'm sorry," she began, the pair whipping around and staring wide-eyed at her. "Can I help you two?" The pair of strangers exchanged glances, before the girl very quickly pulled out what looked like a gun and shot it right at Nashua.

Nashua froze in panic for a second, then realized that she didn't really feel like she'd just been shot or anything. In fact, looking down at her torso, she didn't see any kind of wound on herself. Although her left arm felt kind of weird. Nashua glanced down at it and saw some kind of dart thing sticking out of her lower forearm. Was that what she'd been shot with? "Target tranquilized," the girl said, stuffing the gun back into her pocket. "Target? Tranquilized?" Nashua asked with a look of confusion on her face. Suddenly, she felt really dizzy. It was starting to get hard to keep her balance, and try as she may have, Nashua ended up stumbling over and falling flat on her face. "Ow," she mumbled, the side of her cheek pressed against the metal floor.

As everything started to go dark and her vision failed to focus, she heard the man say, "Oh yeah, this one'll go far, I can already tell." The girl curtly replied, "Just help me carry it," and Nashua felt two pairs of arms grab her legs and shoulders as she was lifted off the ground. She tried to fight it, but just kept feeling sleepier and sleepier...

***

When Nashua woke up, she was already an Oozaru. Mindless, hungry, and scared. That was all she could feel as she abruptly got up and her head darted around to see where she was. She couldn't initially make out much, as her vision was still largely clouded, but as her sight returned, she wished it hadn't. Dozens of other Oozaru sat around her, each trapped in a cage made of what must have been a tremendously sturdy metal. Nashua herself seemed to also be surrounded by these bars, and the first thing she did when she regained feeling in her limbs was lash out a massive punch straight at the cage. Sure enough, the metal didn't even budge, and now Nashua's fist hurt. The Oozaru let out a howl, which was followed by accompanying howls from those trapped around her. What sort of hell was this?

"Shut up, apes!" Nashua heard a familiar, feminine voice speak. She turned to see the source and found the very same woman who'd tranquilized her walking down the room, before coming to a stop right in front of Nashua. "Good morning, girl," she smugly said, a cheap grin across her face. Nashua responded by charging at her, her face slamming into the bars are she let out barks and growls, with her comping teeth desperately trying to get a piece of the girl, to no avail. "Wow, you're a fighter," the girl said with a chuckle, continuing to speak over Nashua's roars. "Anyway, you're probably confused, huh? Well, I don't know if the information actually reaches your pea-sized brain, but basically, you work for us now. You will fight the Oozaru we tell you to fight, and people will bet on you or them to win. Then you will come back to your cage and you will not cause us any trouble."

The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a strange looking device, before pointing it at Nashua through the cage bars. "Otherwise," she said with a smile, pushing the button on it. A beam of ki energy shot out of it in the form of electricity, zapping Nashua right in the face and sending her sprawling back with a pained howl. "You like that?" the woman said, "That's what happens every time you do something we don't like. So if you're smart, you'll just shut up and do your fights. Now go to sleep." And with that, the girl walked away, leaving Nashua crumpled to the ground with her paws gripping her face in pain. She stopped a few feet away, and added, "By the way, we have blutz generators running all throughout the place, so don't count on reverting back to your human form anytime soon."

Hours passed with the Oozaru left alone in the cage, or maybe days, weeks, months. Probably not months or weeks, actually, but it certainly felt like forever. Nashua still occasionally tried to bust herself free through the bars, but each attempt was to no avail and only left her fists in pain. Eventually, she did fall asleep in a curled up ball on the hard, stone floor, but it wasn't a very comfortable or restful one. Again, hours passed, and Nashua was awoken by a sudden zap to her rear end, which had her howling up and shooting straight up, which led to another zap square in her back. "Your fight's up in five minutes, ape," an unfamiliar voice said, and the creak of a door swinging open followed. A door was opening... Escape was possible!

Nashua shot up again and bound forward towards the open door, only to immediately receive an even more powerful zap than had been before right in her side, which was enough to knock her down and immobilize her completely. "Stupid ape," the person said, approaching Nashua and locking some kind of metallic collar around her neck. Attached to it was a long chain, which the person yanked on with quite some force, tugging the wounded Oozaru along with him. Nashua had no choice but to comply or receive another painful shock. She did not want to get shocked again.

After following the man along down the depressing room of caged Oozaru, they reached a weird and dark area where Nashua had trouble making out most details. It was cold and kind of damp, and every noise echoed a good amount. Were they underground? Not long after they entered the new area, Nashua was instructed to proceed forward without the human, which she did with a growl. As much as she wanted to bite the human's head off, something in her still knew he'd be fast enough to just stun her completely before she had the chance. What other choice did she have but to comply?

Once she'd gone ahead a few meters, she heard a long clang, and turned around to see that a barred door had been shut behind her. What was going on? Then, the lights turned on. They were incredibly bright, and Nashua shielded her eyes and let out a growl, before they eventually adjusted to reveal a sight both incredible and terrifying. A round arena, with a dirt and blood covered floor, a cage hanging over the entire battlefield, a roaring crowd of hundreds of people lined up around to watch, and across from Nashua, another Oozaru, looking as dazed and frightened as she was. The crowd started chanting.

"Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!"

The words roared throughout the chamber, although neither Oozaru made any real movement other than gazing around at the overwhelming sight. Then, they both received shocks to the backs of their heads. With a yelp, each of them charged at each other ferociously. "If I defeat this Oozaru, the electricity goes away!" was Nashua's general thought process as she threw herself at other great ape. Something about the ape seemed strangely familiar to her, and a small flicker of cognition went through the beast's mind, but it was quickly snuffed out as the beasts collided. A powerful fist slammed into Nashua's torso, and she returned the favor by chomping her teeth over her opponent's shoulder. The crowd went bonkers over the fight, screams and shouts of excitement overpowering the ferocious bellowing of the Oozaru pair.

The Oozaru that opposed Nashua continued to violently slam its fists into her chest as her teeth sunk deeper and deeper into his shoulder, before she finally released her jaw's grip and reared back, bringing two fists slamming down on top of their head. This seemed to stun them a bit, as they fell back and stumbled. Nashua took full advantage of the situation and charged at them, but the other Oozaru recovered quickly and took up a defensive stance as Nashua rushed towards him. Wait, that stance looked... Familiar? Something once again flickered in the back of Nashua's mind. She... She knew this Oozaru. She must have, right? The great ape stopped in her tracks, and stared blankly at her foe. A few "boo"s and other jeering came from the audience, but Nashua ignored that. Something wasn't right. She shouldn't be fighting this Oozaru.

The ape was snapped out of it when a fist came flying at her and made direct contact with her chin. The other Oozaru certainly didn't recognize her back, as he tackled Nashua over and began pounding mercilessly on her with her fists. Pain! Rage! This beast needed to pay! Just before another fist came crashing down onto Nashua, her own fist shot straight up into the other Oozaru's face with tremendous force, and he was sent flying off at shockingly high speeds, crashing straight into the top of the cage before careening back down and landing on the dirt with a massive thud. Nashua followed this up immediately by leaping onto his bruised body and doing much the same he'd just done to her, her fits pounding and pounding against the defenseless Oozaru. It felt good. The crowd was loving it, and Nashua wasn't getting shocked.

After a quite a few powerful blows to the face, the enemy Oozaru seemed all but spent, his limbs sprawled across the ground and his blackened eyes barely able to stay open. Nashua stood over his body taking deep breaths. And then, the audience started chanting again.

"Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Nashua was about to gladly comply, but as she rose her fist to deliver the finishing blow, she heard the Oozaru croak something through his bleeding mouth. "Na...shua?" Did he just speak? Did he say his mother's name was Martha? No, wait, he'd said Nashua's name. Something in her head clicked. This Oozaru... It was Pinachi? Memories flooded back into Nashua's head about the Saiyan she'd been friends with on Vegeta and his many screw ups. She was always covering for him and helping to clean up his messes, but despite all his faults, he'd been kind and supportive of her when she refused to bring serious harm to others. And now, here she was, poised to end his life for sport. No. That was not how this was going to go. Finally, the flicker in the back of Nashua's mind that had been pestering her erupted into a roaring flame, and Nashua lowered her fist. For the first time, Nashua could think clearly as an Oozaru.

She was Nashua, the Saiyan who'd taken a personal vow to never end another creature's life. And that especially included friends. Nashua lowered her fist to her side and stood up straight. She was herself once more. The crowd began to jeer at her, but she didn't care, she needed to find a way to get herself, Pinachi, and all the other captive Saiyans out of this hellhole. Those bars that surrounded the cage were impervious to her fists, but the ground? That was a different story. Nashua charged up all the ki she could into her palms, and fired a massive beam straight into the ground, focusing it there for several seconds before diverting her attention to the monsters who ran this place. She spotted several of them out of the corner of her eye trying to zap her.

Nope. Nashua redirected the beam up and straight at them, spinning herself around to spray the blast straight through the bars and making contact with just about everyone in the audience, but intentionally weakened it so that she wouldn't be killing any of them, simply blasting them unconscious. Once she'd finished the full circle, she carefully picked up Pinachi's injured body, carrying him along with her down into the hole she'd made in the ground. It went pretty damn deep, but Nashua wasn't planning on taking it all the way down, instead shooting a beam diagonally up after a short while, and climbing out to find herself just where she'd hoped to be: in the Oozaru cage room. "Hey guys!" she yelled, getting all the Oozarus' attention, as well as the human guards in the room.

One of them charged at her, and she quickly put Pinachi down before sidestepping the electric beam he blasted at her and grabbing him off the ground, holding him up in front of herself before the other two guards that had run at her. "Give me the damn keys to these cages or I blow all three of your heads off," she threatened in the gruff voice her Oozaru form bestowed upon her. She placed her palm up against the side of the human she was holding captive's head, and added, "Starting with him," which caused him to start whimpering like a child. The two humans exchanged glances, before one of them nervously threw a pair of keys onto the floor and dropped their weapon, putting their hands in the air to surrender. The other quickly did the same, and the one she was holding threw his own shocking device to the ground as well.

Nashua dropped him, and told the trio "Get the hell out of here," which they promptly did with impressive speed. What followed was an interesting twenty minutes or so of Nashua fumbling with the very small keys in her giant ape hands and trying every single one on each individual door's lock, but she eventually did get every single one unlocked. Surprisingly, none of the Oozaru attacked her once she'd freed them. Perhaps they were thankful, or had minds of their own as well. Either way, Nashua was glad she could avoid a fight. Although it seemed she was the only one who could speak, as she announced, "Everyone, follow me for the exit!" after freeing the last ape and picking Pinachi back up. Also to her surprise, the Oozaru complied once again, with proud roars and ape noises echoing across the room.

The pacifistic ape led the group through the halls of the building, not really having any great idea of where the exit was and more hoping she could improvise the way out without taking too long. Finally, they found a ramp that led up at a pretty sharp angle. That had to have been the way out! "This way!" she exclaimed, and excited ape noises rang in response behind her as the group charged forward. The pounding of their steps got louder and louder as they picked up speed, before finally bursting through the front doors into the sunlight and fresh air. Nashua could only imagine some of these apes had been here for months without any bit of sunlight, so this must have been utter heaven for them. But it seemed they weren't done yet.

"Stop right there!" a familiar voice shouted. Nashua looked over to see the girl who'd brought her here standing way up on some kind of cliff. In her hand was one of the shocking devices, pointed straight at the group. "I have this set to lethal levels!" she threatened. "Everyone back in your cages now, or I kill you all!" Nashua wasn't gonna be having any of that. In the blink of an eye, the powerful ape held up her hand and launched a ki blast right below where the woman was standing, causing the cliff beneath her to collapse and sending the woman tumbling down until she finally hit the bottom. With Pinachi still slung over her shoulder, Nashua walked over to where she'd landed. The shocking device had fallen out of the woman's grip onto the ground a few feet away, which Nashua promptly stepped on and crushed.

"Grrr..." the woman growled like an animal as she sat up, clearly in a good deal of pain from her fall. "What're you gonna do," she asked, looking up at Nashua. "Kill me?" Nashua scoffed. "Me, kill you?" she asked. "Nah, I don't kill people." The ape shook her head, and saw a face of relief wash over her ex-captor. But Nashua wasn't done talking. "Those guys, on the other hand," she added, glancing back at the massive group of pissed off Oozaru. "Well, those are wild animals. I can't control what they do." The Saiyan relished the look of horror on the woman's face as she waved her goodbye and began to walk away, the crowd of newly freed Oozaru closing in on the slave owner. The last thing Nashua heard was the lady begging for mercy before she flew away.

***

"You're late," Nashua's manager said as the Saiyan rushed into the front door of the diner. "I-I know," Nashua stammered. "But I have a good reason! I was kidnapped and trapped into gladiator style combat as a giant ape!" Her manager stared at her in the face with a mixed look of confusion and awe. Nashua stared back blankly for a few seconds, then let out a sigh. "Am I fired?" she asked, defeatedly. To her surprise, though, the manager responded, "No, just don't be late again, alright? I know we give you a lot of crap, but we need you around to clean those dishes." With a friendly pat on Nashua's shoulder, he continued, "Just go clean yourself up and get to work. You look like you haven't slept in days."

"Yes sir," Nashua quickly responded, "Th-Thank you!" That was some relief. Especially now that she had Pinachi hanging out around her ship while she finished nursing him back to health. Food was twice as expensive for two people not to mention the various medical supplies she'd had to use to patch up all his wounds. It was hard work, but she was really just glad she hadn't killed him. It felt good to see an old friend after so long feeling all alone on Earth. The girl ran back to the kitchen with a smile on her face now that her job was secure.

There were dishes to wash!

OOC NOTES: Week of 6/11/18