[ Contents | Chapter 30 | Epilogue | ]

Deceiver's Legacy

By Dragoness Eclectic

 

EPILOG

Goten looked out the back window of the new house Goku had built for them. It was very much like his old back window, right up to and including the ghostly Saiyan boy sitting on the window sill.

Perejil looked at Goten wistfully. Goten wondered; something was different. He didn't seem so sad anymore Perejil said something Goten still couldn't understand, and smiled. Bardock loomed behind Perejil outside the window; the wicked scar across his cheek made him look unsettled and dangerous.

"Goten," said Bardock. "Perejil wants to tell you goodbye. Zana is safe now, and his duty is done."

Goten sniffed and wiped away a tear. "Goodbye, Perejil. Goodbye, Grandpa!"

Perejil waved, "Thank you, Goten. Good-Bye."

And then there was only the night and the wind.

* * *

Weeks later, the sea finally gave up its plaything, the shattered, half-machine that the deep sea currents and the waves had tossed and rolled. The waves pushed it up onto a deserted beach in a pile of driftwood and flotsam. The tide ebbed away, as if reluctant to abandon its toy.

Something stirred. Metal shuddered; the robots of Jinkousei built well, back-up system upon back-up system. Scorched and twisted, sustained only by the last back-up thermal cell, what had once been a Saiyan warrior slithered up the beach. Only minute threads of melted gold remained of the once-glittering command net; that inner voice was forever silenced. Only hate remained.

Something dropped onto the sand near the crawling ruin. A blonde-haired woman, who sunk to her ankles in the sand with more than the weight of a woman stared down at the remnants of Naranja.

"Took me a while to get a fix on your power-plant, but I did," Eighteen said. "How convenient that they rebuilt you using their own technology-- Bulma had plenty of samples to study after your robot army got wiped out. It didn't take her long to whip up a sensor to find any Jinkouseian bots the boys missed. She didn't trust that you were dead, anymore than I did. You tried to turn Vegeta against her, and there's no forgiving that."

Her face was cold and hard. "Gohan thinks you're dead, Raditz is too busy with his honeymoon--" She paused as the thing at her feet twitched. "--oh yeah, you failed at even that. Vegeta believed Bulma over your frame-up, and Raditz is back in his good graces. Goku maybe suspects--but he's too good a man. It takes real hatred to hunt a broken enemy for days and weeks, and he'd rather let you go than hold on to that kind of hate."

Eighteen lifted the battered metallic skull and looked into the one remaining machine eye. "You should never have tried to kill my little girl," Eighteen said as her fist came down.

* * *

The robot ships had their destination, but no orders for once they got there, save the general directive to defend Origin. No Commander, no Origin Central Computer hailed them. The machines were on their own... and being but machines, with no imagination, all they did once they arrived at Jinkousei was sit and wait for orders that would never come.

But they defended Origin. While they existed, nothing ever landed on Jinkousei again.


[ Contents | Chapter 30 | Epilogue | ]

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Copyright 2002-2005 by Dragoness Eclectic