Scouring The Wastes [Invite]

Dark, ebony eyes peered over the flattened top of one of the iron-red spires of stone. The wasteland stretched, seemingly endless and identical throughout, all around Celirii. She hugged the side of the spire opposite to the woman in the distance, a young Saiyan like herself. The furry, brown tail and the way she knew exactly which animals in the area were good to kill, and where to find firewood, revealed her familiarity with the planet.

It smelled good, too, even from her. Celirii sniffed at the air and felt her mouth water when she caught a whiff of the roasting meat in the distance. She watched the young woman the entire time since she appeared in the wasteland. People never visited these parts for no reason, Celirii knew all too well. They only came to this place to train, to fight, to hide from the law, or even worse reasons. She heard rumors of the trafficking and other illegal enterprises that happened hear.

Saiyans rarely got deterred by things as flimsy as laws, unless the law was present in the form of a particularly muscular man with a heavy blaster. Celirii understood that deeply and intimately.

Like an insect, she crawled back down the rocks as quietly as could be. Her tank top dragged along the stone and snagged in a few places. It threatened to expose her chest more than a few times as she got back down to the unlevel ground, which forced her to tug it roughly back into place. She stuffed her jacket, laying on the dirt, into her bag and tightened the strings again. As quiet as could be, she bit down at the strings that doubled as a handle and crouched down low.

Like some of the oversized insects she had the unfortunate pleasure of “meeting” in this awful place, she crawled along the ground and over the rocks. She had spent weeks here now, long enough to get around as if she lived here her whole life. She knew where to put her hands when she climbs, where the stone would be strong enough to support her weight if she put her foot there, and how to be quiet. She moved across the rocky terrain with speed befit a desert beetle as it sped along like a greased jackrabbit struck by lightning.

Until, suddenly, she hid behind a boulder. She set her brown, leather bag down and quickly ruffled her hair. She peered over the top of the boulder the same way she did the spire just a minute earlier and finally got a better look at the woman:

Oh my gooood~ she cooed, but kept it to herself. She even covered her hand with a small hand as he got a good look at the young girl: definitely Saiyan. Raven-black hair and a stare that seemed icy cold at first glance, but seemed to have more personality behind it than usual. What really struck Celirii into her wide-eyed, mental squealing, was that she was cute. Weeks alone in this place might have made even the most busted-face man decently attractive to her if he had a good body, but to see a genuinely hot Saiyan girl here?

It almost made her panic.

She ducked back behind the rock and silently slapped her face with both hands.

Okay, okay, Iri!! You have to do this! Just talk to her! She hyped herself up and even pumped her arms, her hands tightened into fists. She nodded at the thin air in front of herself, vigorously, and then ran her hands through her dark, messy hair repeatedly. It felt longer than her visitor’s hair, so she wanted it to look as natural and not-greasy as possible.

Just, you know, act natural! She looks like she might be younger than you, too, you know, so it’s like… her mind started to run right off its own rails. …Like, treat her like the little sister you don’t have! Yeah! I mean, uh, at first! I mean, she is cute, sooo…

Silently, she slapped her face with both hands again, and shook it back and forth.

Focus! She yelled at herself again. Just stand up and introduce yourself! She might be strong, too, and maybe she’ll fight with you so you can see how powerful you’ve gotten and, and—waaaaaaa~

Suddenly, Celirii cleared her throat and bolted to her full height. She appeared over the top of the rock and, stiff as a board, waved at the raven-haired visitor.

“Hey, you, uhm…” she cleared her throat again.

“Got room for one more over there?”

So smooth, Iri! The wild-haired Saiyan girl chided herself immediately when she heard her own words. Why, I’m bettin’ she’s just madly curious about you now! You’ll be the only thing she can think about for days, obviously. You and your dumb words…

As deep as her disappointment with her own words ran, they seemed to keep the woman’s attention. In fact, she even invited her to come on over, which Celirii accepted. She took a few steps closer but, when the woman mentioned that the food was not to be shared, she felt a pang of regret stab through her heart. Her eyes darted to the roasted animal over the fire and, immediately, she felt her stomach threatened to gurgle and growl and expose her intentions to everyone. Through sheer will, and imagining herself kicking her comically anthropomorphized stomach repeated, she kept it under control.

“Oh, uhm, no I would never think about just taking a pretty young lady’s food…” Celirii expertly denied the suggestion after she got a few times closer. She dug her heel nervously against the dirt beneath them both and felt her eyes dart away from the unyielding, ebony stare of the young woman.

It was her company’s own words that saved her from the painful embarrassment and the red that started to burn against her cheeks.

“Wasn’t spyin’ at all!” Celirii promised, eager to change the subject. She gave her new friend a smile. “I’ve been out here for weeks, training, tryin’ to get stronger, you know? It’s done a lot for my balance, but this particular region isn’t as dangerous as I’d like…like…the breeding pits, maybe?”

Celirii tilted her head from side to side as she spoke and considered where to go next. The survival aspects of her extended trip were helpful, of course, and navigating the rough terrain while refusing to fly anymore than necessary did a lot for her general athleticism. But her actual, regular power? She really didn’t feel any stronger at all, as much as she hated to admit it.

And she hated it. Unlike what she thought, the particular few square miles she lived in the past few weeks had almost nothing of dangerous strength for her that she ran into, at least so far. It had, easily, been her biggest irritant. If she wanted to get stronger, and boy did she, she needed to fight something eventually.

Suddenly, Celirii wiped her hands repeatedly against the back of her extra-short shorts. She felt some of the dirt and dust fall off while the rest wiped against the cargo material, and she took a few steps forward and offered one of her soft hands to her new friend.

“My name’s Celirii, but everyone just calls me Iri,” she said, her tone more and more upbeat with each passing second. “But, ‘cha know, why are you out here? You don’t seem like you’re trainin’ like I am. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt or anything, if you’re lost. I can point you in the direction of the nearest city.”

Safe never really occurred to Celirii. She came out here to push herself, put herself in danger, do something new. All of the sparring and training back home had done nothing for her, so it only made sense to change things, to force herself off this plateau she lived on, given her new, survival-motivated determination to get stronger as a fighter. Finding a hot guy to settle down with and live a quiet life went out the window when an army of pointy-headed shape-shifters invaded the planet and took countless lives in the process.

More and more, Celirii wondered if maybe the Saiyans should have softened a little less than they have over the past couple hundred years.

“Welllll, you’re right, it’s not very safe,” Celirii grinned at the women as she shook her hand, but, curiously, did not share her name in return. “So I don’t really blame you for not wanting to be here yourself! But that danger is exactly why I’m here! Strong, wild animals, random landslides, it’s exactly what I need! All of the martial arts training in the world wasn’t getting me anywhere.”

That didn’t answer the lingering question that her huntress friend left lingering: who was the person she was looking for? Celirii wanted to ask, but got distracted a moment later with the offer of food. Her eyes darted to the roasted meat that a bite had already been taken out of and she felt her mouth start to aggressively water.

No, no, no! Focus! Food later! she yelled at herself in private and, as much as she hated it, swallowed.

“Oh, I’m good, thank you!!” She insisted with a wave of her hands. “I’ll eat later. But, I mean, you can’t just say something as mysterious and interesting like you’re looking for someone and think you might have found them! Who are you looking for waaay out here in the middle of Capital Nowhere? I mean, unless the person you’re after is made of rocks.”

One of Celirii’s shoe-covered feet kicked at a rock on the dirt next to them. It rolled a few meters away before it tumbled to a steady stop up against an even bigger rock. Besides that, dirt, some extremely minor vegetation, and dangerous animals that survived on those rudiments, there was nothing here. Even Celirii didn’t want to come back after she felt like she got everything she possibly could out of it. Doing things the same way, over and over, got her into this situation.

“So, unless you’re a bounty hunter or working for the government on some super, top-secret mission, who are you after?” Celirii asked with a tilted head. Her hair, freshly fluffed, hung to the side as well, just as wild and untamed as ever. Flecks of dust dotted the raven-black threads throughout, too. “And how did you find them, anyway?”

She looked around them a few times.

“I only know the general direction to get back home, let alone how to find someone hiding out here.”

As strongly as she insisted that she did not, in fact, want any of Yacha’s food, she did. She had her own in her bag. She hunted animals while she was out here, too. But to turn down freshly-roasted meat that was right there, free for the taking? That was a challenge unlike any that Celirii ever had to experience in her life up until that point. She did her best not to stare as Yacha mowed through the rest of it and tossed the perfectly white bone back into the fire before she picked the conversation back up.

She immediately forgot all about the food.

Divine powers? Aliens? Conquering the galaxy? These questions swirled through her head and her young eyes got wider and wider as her imagination ran wild. She was the person that Yacha searched through these wastelands for. She had been selected by some sort of divine being to join a group of people trying to unify the entire galaxy. She couldn’t even imagine that. Only in ancient history, centuries ago, did her people engage in that kind of political power-playing throughout the cosmos. Ultimately, it reduced them back to a single world.

Dreams of those ancient stories played through her mind. Legends of the golden light of Super Saiyans as they fought to conquer entirely new worlds. Myths of the great battles that took place, entire planets torn asunder. Celirii saw countless thousands die in the attack of the World Trade Fleet on Vegeta. If the Saiyans had kept their galaxy-spanning strength intact, would Vegeta have ever been vulnerable to something like that?

Now, as far as she knew, no one in her family really cared about that. Until those words left Yacha’s soft-looking lips, Celirii herself never thought much about it, either. It was simply out of her league. Suddenly, this woman casually talked about the impossible, and offered Celirii a ticket on a plane that would take her back through time, to be part of the stories that so fascinated her as a little girl.

Until she remember just how weak she was compared to most Saiyan soldiers. The light of interest and wonder in her eyes died down. Then, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that she had no real reason to believe any of this. The more she replayed Yacha’s words in her mind, the more she sounded crazy.

But she doesn’t look crazy… Celirii argued with herself, privately, and hummed as she looked between Yacha and the fire. Her gaze dropped to her hands and her fingertips idly picked at her nails, anything for a distraction from the doubts and foreboding sense of inadequacy that all converged on her at once.

“So, you know, I’m going to risk sounding like a stupid little girl,” she cleared her throat, lifted her head, and looked at Yacha. A sudden, uncharacteristic shyness permeated everything about her. “But that’s a lot to digest. I don’t even know what a Kai is. And, me? Help conquer anything? That’s…”

Her voice petered out into a small squeak by the end. She hated to think about it, or admit it, but the truth still dangled from the tip of her tongue.

“Why me? I’m not all that strong at all, in the big picture, and I’m only nineteen!” she said. “And, after you answer that, can you like…I don’t think you’re a liar, okay? But hearing this, I really need to see some sort of evidence, right? I think that’s only fair.”

Not a single part of Celirii fully believed Yacha when mentioned being younger. Something about her, her pragmatism, her crystal-clear rationality, seemed far too mature. Girls younger than her seemed more vapid and arrogant than Yacha acted like she could ever be, a fact that Celirii enjoyed deeply. It contributed to why she even entertained these ideas of divine powers, a group of people trying to get stronger, and an attempt to conquer the entire galaxy and even the entire universe. The fact that they found this girl on some other planet entirely, some place named Namek? That, too, added a ton of credibility to things that Celirii couldn’t simply ignore.

Especially if I could get stronger, she reminded her. Or, I mean, you know, maybe spend some more time with someone like Yacha…

She pushed the thought back out of her mind for a moment, considered what else Yacha added, and hummed quietly. She nodded to Yacha’s reassurances, convinced that this young lady wouldn’t offer to protect her should things go south unless she honestly meant it. She had no qualms admitting that she wasn’t fully convinced they could actually achieve anything, but that there was clearly something to be gained from working together and seeing what could come of it.

That could not be denied. Whoever this Inna person was, she really did seem to know things. Celirii, of course, wanted to believe that she had a lot of untapped potential. If someone else thought that? It told her she was not entirely alone with those thoughts.

“Okay, okay,” Celirii nodded a few more times. “I can think of something. Before I jump on this big ship with you guys, could you maybe have Inna come meet me? Somewhere on the planet, anywhere she wants. But I wanna see her and talk to her before we do anything big.”

Celirii held the younger girl’s gaze as she asked, then nodded one more time. She tapped at her chin and let her eyes wander away for a moment as she thought a bit more about it. Then, she suddenly smiled, and looked back to Yacha with a renewed interest and fire in her eyes.

“And, if it wouldn’t trouble you toooooo much, would you be willing to show me what you can do?” She asked and leered forward a bit as she did. “Nothin’ crazy! But I’m kinda small-time and everyone I know, except my sister, is pretty small-time too. If we got at it just a little bit, out here in the middle of no-where, that’ll really tell me who I’m working with, right?”

She tilted her head as asked and gave a bright, innocent little smile.

“Oh!” She went on. “And if you’re a lot stronger than me, and I kinda think you and everyone else involved probably are, it’ll be really good for me, too. And if it makes me stronger, and I team up with you guys and try to help become strong enough to conquer a whole galaxy? Then that’s good for all of us, too, isn’t it?”

Celirii smiled, wide and bright, the moment Yacha showed even a moment of hesitation. Her parents never got her a scouter, so she couldn’t be entirely sure, but a single look at Yacha reminded her of how Deni seemed when she got serious during their fight two years ago: much stronger. If Celirii had to guess, she would have pegged Yacha as being a number of leagues beyond Deni herself, strong enough to put Celirii through a mountain range or two if she really, truly wanted to. The more she thought about it, the bigger her smile grew, and she nodded along to Yacha’s uncertainties.

“No, no, don’t even worry about it!” She insisted and let her dark hair swing from side to side when she shook her head again. “I can, like, feel it in my bones that you’re way stronger than me. But I really want to actually feel it, right? Like…if I can see what that kinda strength is like first-hand, I might be able to get there faster. Does that make anysense?”

She giggled at her own words and the sudden enthusiasm that spread, like a bolt of lightning, through her entire body. She felt it impacted at the top of her spine, obliterate her previous doubts and concerns, and fly through her body like a purifying fire. As Yacha tucked an arm away behind her back, Celirii playfully glared at the gesture, but privately thanked the younger girl for the handicap. She hated the situation, of course, but not more than she loved the thrill of impossible odds and seeing a summit that she had never personally witnessed before.

Yacha was probably stronger than Deni, Chaya, and her own parents combined. How could she not think that was the wildest, coolest thing in the whole world at the moment? Divine powers and galaxy-conquerors were up there, naturally, but simple raw power being given a physical form right before her very eyes?

The idea that it went leagues above Yacha, too?

Could anything in life—besides pretty girls and attractive boys—be much better than that?

“Allllllllllllllll I ask is that you don’t blow my head off by accident,” she winked at Yacha and took a few steps away from the girl who could be her prodigal younger sister, in a different world and a different history. “I have a feeling that even my absolute biggest move isn’t gonna scratch someone like you, at least not right now.”

Then, her playful teasing and words vanished for a moment as she smirked, “But I still wanna try like hell anyway.”

Celirii spread her arms out and, with a deep breath, suddenly lifted the soles of her shoes off the rocky, dusty ground beneath them both. She rose higher and higher until a dozen or so meters separated her from the onyx-haired Saiyan youth below her. She giggled a little bit, felt that fire of excitement rush through her veins again, and lifted a hand over her head. Her whole body twisted, and she lifted a leg at the knee, until she looked like she was about to pitch a ball.

Above her, in the palm of the hand well above her head, a blue light appeared. It glowed brightly and intensely from the moment it materialized and a high-pitched hum cried out over the entire wasteland around them both. Her wild, black hair twisted and whipped in the wind that it created, becoming even more of a tangled mess with each passing second. The light in her hand grew and grew, right along with Celirii’s smile.

“Okay!” She shouted down at Yacha over the sound of her own, roiling energy that seemed to mirror her excitement and curiosity. “Let’s start with something like this! I call it…”

She took a deep breath as the blue mass of energy in her hand suddenly surged in size and the hum hit a crescendo.

“Stardust…!” She yelled down to Yacha, then threw her hand down and forward. Just as her arm finished the snap of her ‘throw,’ a final flash of navy blue rushed over the world as a body-sized mass of pure fighting energy burst forth from her palm.

“Wave!”

Just like Celirii feared: Yacha simply stood there and stared at the mass of blue energy as it crashed down on her. Clearly, all the attack’s power meant absolutely nothing to her, and she just watched it. She even cheered Celirii on as she got ready to launch it with every bit of power she had. Then, without even meaning to, Yacha ground some salt into the wound when the blast consumed her entirely. Celirii grit her teeth and watched, certain that the younger woman wanted to demonstrate just how harmless the blast was, as it crashed into the ground and exploded into a fiery conflagration that consumed everything for meters around the armored woman.

Until her soft voice called out from the side, just beyond the reach of the dust and fire, about how close that had been. Even if she didn’t mean to, the comment burned. Celirii realized that she was entirely out-classed from the beginning, but to fake it, as if she really had a chance to hit her in the first place? That was a unique sort of taunt, but she kept her mouth shut. She deserved it for picking a fight with someone so much stronger than her just to see what she could do.

If she wanted to achieve anything during this exhibition, she needed to fight smart.

“The next one won’t be so easy to get out of!” Celirii shouted back down at Yacha, a grin back on her face, as she lifted her fists to protect either side of her head. She squeezed them tight, despite how small and distinctly feminine they were, and readied herself for whatever the younger girl had in store for her next.

You know, this is gonna rock my world, isn’t it? Celirii realized as a shiver of uncertainty, and fear, pulsed down her spine. Well, you know what? Screw it! What’s the Earth phrase? In for a penny, in for a…something? Yeah, that!

She grinned just a bit more widely, and then Yacha vanished. Or, seemed to vanish. A quiet puff of dust remained where Yacha once stood and Celirii hardly had time to squint her eyes at the spot before she felt a presence right next to her in the air. Her eyes barely had time to turn, to see the suddenly-imposing figure next to her, fists at the ready, and one aimed straight at her as a simple jab.

A simple jab that moved faster than anyone she ever saw before.

She could have surrendered in that moment, let it happen, and agreed to call the fight before things got any farther. Instead, she tried to move her arms, to get something in front of the first jab before it connected, but she simply couldn’t. Yacha weaved right through her guard before she had a chance to react and she felt the younger woman’s knuckles connect, cleanly, with her jaw.

Celirii never had a chance to scream before the sheer force of the blow, intentional or otherwise, snapped her had to the side. All of the strength she used to keep herself floating in the air vanished and the impact sent Celirii whistling through the air. She raced away from Yacha, powerless, right before she smashed into, and straight through one of the rocky towers that dotted the wasteland. Then she smashed through another. Then another. Then a fourth, before she tumbled along the ground along with rocks, pebbles, and full-size boulders alike.

For a few seconds, she laid there. Her hand twitched and her eyes hung open, completely flat and lifeless. Her foot twitched next, and then a sudden, sharp breath followed as she sucked in air. She started coughing immediately as she laid there and, with a loud groan, started to put her hands underneath her. Everything about her body felt sensitive and the pebbles beneath her soft palm bit into the skin like thousands of little knives. With all the strength she could muster, she pushed herself up onto her bare knees. Wobbling the entire way, she lifted herself up onto her feet after a couple more seconds.

Before she got back to full height, she stumbled forward. Her bare feet caught against the dirt and rock below, and quietly screamed as even the smallest rocks felt like she had been stabbed. She took another, slow breath before she managed to stand up straight again. Her chest, small and even with a tight bra on, heaved and bounced as she tried to catch her breath.

Her jaw, where she took the blow, felt numb and nearly dislocated.

“Wow, that’s…” she started, breathless as she stared up at the Saiyan above. Without even trying, she hit harder than Deni’s ‘Stellar Impact’ did, way back when. “That’s pretty amazing. But I can do this all day!!”

Blue light burst into creation around Celirii. She clenched her fists again and push her energy back underneath her, lifting her bare feet from the dirt and rock. Dust fell from the soles of her feet as she rose into the air until she reached the same height as Yacha once again. Then, the blue light pulsed, and grew, as Celirii pushed herself to her absolute full strength.

Around her fists, specifically, the glow of blue grew the brightest.

“Ready, set…!!” she shouted and then, with a burst of air, rushed straight forward at Yacha. Her right fist drew back in the second before she got in range, she threw it forward as a straight jab right back at Yacha’s face, just like she had gotten from her. Just as she punched, she took in a sudden gasp of air, and held it.

The punch fell short and instead, before either of them were in range, the glowing energy around her fist exploded harmlessly. However, it swallowed them both in a wave of heat and smoke that turned the clear air into an thickly obscured fog that choked and burned at the throats of everything caught inside it, Celirii included.

If she hadn’t held her breath.

With her vision suddenly blackened and the air abruptly noxious, she started to throw punch after punch, and even spun around for some high kicks to the head, straight at the Saiyan woman. She hoped and pleaded, with no one in particular, that her little stunt accomplished something, anything, or she might not get up from what followed next.