Soja: Laughter in the Dark
Spoiler:
I saw it coming. If King Vegeta and his lackeys had any common sense, they would have seen this coming too. Maybe the storytellers of other planets will laugh at all this years from now, you know, about the Saiyans getting what they deserve and all.
Ever since I was a kid, I was never one for fighting - it was boring! And . . . well, being small and skinny didn't help when the other youngsters were beating you to a pulp. Besides, playing tricks was a much better use of my cunning. Let me tell you, no punch will piss off your enemies quite like putting ants in their bed, or shaving their heads while they sleep!
People from the Wind Clan were just stupid most of the time, so how could I not play a few innocent tricks? Almost everyone loved storming out of the village on a raid, just to return with all these gummy, crusty gashes all over their skin. (That was when everyone went naked before the planet trade came and--well, I'll go into that later.) The Wind Clan got along pretty well with our closest neighbors, the Rain Clan, but all the other neighboring clans were fair game. It was idiotic, getting all worked up in front of a bonfire, chanting at the stars, just to go running off into the rain forest to kill people. And they didn't need much provocation, either. An insult to one of the Wind Clan's patriarchs, or a warning that food stock was low, or the rumor of wealth, and everyone goes off to murder a few of the locals.
I know, I know, tough times can make anyone edgy. Always wondering if there will be enough animals to hunt or enough fruit to scrounge. Yeah, the Saiyans were hungry. Fighting for survival made Saiyans vicious and angry, but that didn't make all the killing any less senseless.
Well, when I was growing up, battles meant prank time for me! When the darkness of night had swallowed up that evening's warriors, I scuttled into the grass and mud huts of those who ran off to fight. Dried fruits, roots,
sacred stones, I stole this and that, hiding them in a tree hollow deep in the rain forest to enjoy later. Why? The food was tasty, and the stones were pretty, I guess, but the main reason was just to hear the warriors curse
when they scrambled inside their huts! Let them worry about their own huts before they scamper off to raid someone else's!
They'd all come back, get stoned on gemtun snuff, and race around the village, babbling half-intelligent gibberish about war and glory, blah blah blah. It was too much fun, taking a water skin and squirting the stoned
guys in the face with water. They'd sprint after me, tail hairs bristled, but they'd fall on their faces or careen into black-bark trees. I laughed for hours about it!
Oh, they hated me for it, my clan. Everyone in the Wind Clan whispered about me when I passed. Troublemaker. Trickster. Thief. Coward. You'd think they forgot that my name was Soja, with all the nicknames they gave me. Even my parents - or rather, the couple who found me in the brush when I was a baby - frowned on me. "Mischief-maker!" they'd shout. "What kind of warrior are you!? We should have left you where we found you!"
Did it hurt? Yeah. Was it lonely growing up? Of course.
Womanhood came. Nature was pretty generous with curves, but they didn't help much, because none of the men of the Wind Clan or the Rain Clan wanted to take me as his wife. "Her? She can't even fight! She'd rather play pranks all day!" all the men said. The longer I lived in my adoptive parents' hut, the more they grumbled.
When I got to be about twenty, Vegeta of the Rain Clan visited our village more and more often. Evidently, this guy got the idea that a full-scale war should be waged against the city dwellers to the north, and spent all his time organizing the Saiyan clans for battle. It was Saiyan destiny, so he said, to massacre the Tsufuru race and claim Plant-sei as our own. All the land and game would be ours. No, I didn't get it either when I first heard it.
It was just stupid. Here, Vegeta was bringing the clans together, halting all the bloodshed that marked clan relations. Finally, somebody created peace and cooperation among the Saiyan race. And what did he use that organization for but to go cause trouble for the Tsufuru!
The Rain Clan and the Wind clan lived pretty close together, so all kinds of gossip flowed between them, and I found out soon enough why Vegeta wanted war.
One morning, I was walking back to my village with a handful of earthroot berries, when I heard two women whispering under a black-bark tree. Distant cousins of Vegeta, I think. They muttered between themselves that a few months before, Vegeta's Rain Clan friends were decimated by Tsufuru near the
rain forest border. Supposedly they had been hunting boars when Tsufuru soldiers fired on them with flame guns, and Vegeta was the only survivor . . . who then killed the offenders, of course. No one gave a reason
why the soldiers attacked. Everyone sided with Vegeta's hunger for revenge, but think about it for a sec! The Tsufuru never bothered us before. Ever. So why would they just attack a band of harmless Saiyans? Even if a few bad apples attacked, they had been dealt with! Why bring the whole Tsufuru race
into the mess? As far as I was concerned, the Tsufuru had as much of a right to live on Plant-sei as the Saiyans or animals or anyone else did. They stayed in their cities and left us alone. What was the problem?
Everyone knew the legend of Hanuman and Furu. You know, the ancient ape Hanuman fell in love with the tailless spirit-woman Furu, and they made the rain forests and plains their marriage bed. Then they had kids. The children who looked more like Hanuman were the first Saiyans, and the children who
looked more like Furu were the first Tsufuru, and everyone got along in the ancient times. Now I always put a lot of faith in legends, and I believe to this day that the Saiyans and Tsufuru were ancestral relatives. What good could come out of slaughtering our ancient relatives?
But I'm getting off the subject. Anyway, Vegeta had a tall, firm body and a beard I could have eaten for dessert. But he made my hair stand on end! All the time, nothing but talk, talk, talk about massacring the Tsufuru! All this nonsense about the Saiyan clans uniting to kill, aboyt how the Tsufuru sat on heavenly lands for fishing and hunting, blah blah blah.
"The Saiyans must protect their honor and land! The Saiyan struggle for survival is not over yet! Are we to cower while the tailless weaklings squat on land rich with food and rivers? Are we to ignore blatant acts of Tsufuru violence? Never! Our pride and survival as a race come first! Fight with me!" he said once.
And you know what? The Wind Clan believed every word. Spilling Tsufuru blood distracted them from empty food baskets and dwindling herds. And what did I get when I complained it was all a crock?
"Stay out of this, troublemaker!"
Vegeta wanted power, pure, unchallenged power. The way he strutted, the way he looked down his nose at the weaker warriors made it obvious. This man wanted to rule over all the clans. Once he united the clans, he played them like flutes. The Tsufuru, as far as I was concerned, were his convenient
scapegoats. Hell, he might have even made up that attack story for the purpose. And do you know what Inach, the eldest patriarch of the Wind Clan, shouted when I said that?
"Stay out of this, trickster!"
But Vegeta was all about rending flesh. The raids he led in the outskirts of the Tsufuru cities were proof of that. I didn't know if the stories were true. Maybe he really did collect the heads of Tsufuru victims. But I knew
that his heart was full of fear. I could practically smell the fear on him. The way he wrung his hands, the way the tip of his tail twitched, the stiff lips and cheeks - they all gave it away. What he was afraid of
was a mystery then. All I knew was that Vegeta was dangerous. Very dangerous.
A week before it happened, Vegeta sat in a circle with the Wind Clan patriarchs in the center of the village, eating roots and raw hare flesh. I was walking through the gemtun trees outside the
village, carefully carrying a twig with a flaming tip (borrowed without asking from a neighbor's fire) to light my own fire. Just as I was thinking about the tasty roots I would roast over my fire, I saw the familiar shock
of brown hair from behind a tree. Vegeta say with his back to the tree, facing the open village and the other patriarchs.
"A single Saiyan in Oozaru form is the most formidable warrior imaginable," he explained in that deep, cutting voice of his, "so imagine the fighting power of thousands of Oozaru Saiyans! Such a force would be invincible! We must strike on the night of the full moon, for no Tsufuru technology will rival our strength then."
Unnoticed, I decided that he could well use some humility. Creeping along the ground, I crawled up silently behind Vegeta and lit his tail hairs on fire. The brown hairs blackened and curled before he even smelled them charring.
"The raids on the outskirts of the jungle cost the Tsufuru hundreds of lives while it--what's that smell?" Vegeta muttered, stiffening his back. When he glanced down at his waist and saw the tail hairs smoldering, he roared, smacking the flame.
"Soja!" shouted the Wind Clan patriarchs. About six middle-aged men in all, they had sinewy limbs and dozens of thick white scars each, the marks of old warriors.
Once he put the fire of his singed tail out, Vegeta spun around, growling.
"You!" he barked, pointing at the lit twig in my hand.
Okay. I knew it was stupid. I knew Vegeta could sear a Saiyan to ashes with a single chi-blast from his palm. I should have burst into a run right then and there. But I laughed until tears flooded my eyes.
"Ahahahaha! You think you're-- wahaha!--invincible? You can't even protect your tail!"
Vegeta and the patriarchs all heated chi in their palms, and I threw the lit twig at Vegeta's chest before I ran. Sprinting, I saw the energy-balls smack trees and stones, narrowly missing me as I ran through muddy puddles. The jungle became a blur of blue, green, and bark-brown as I sprinted away from the voices of shouting men, and after diving into a stream behind a stone, I lost them.
I lay against the smooth stones of until the air was quiet, feeling the water trickle through my hair. I stood up and chuckled, wiping the mud from my face
I could never return to the Wind Clan. Ever. My transgression against their hero was too great, and they'd spill my blood or worse if I ever went back. But it was worth it. I would have done it again. For a moment, the monstrous Vegeta was humbled.
Karro Mountain was infested with mato, dream spirits, or at least that's what people believed. Most Saiyans mentioned it with shudders and frightened glances over their shoulders. But dreams can't hurt you, right?
What more did I have to fear than Vegeta and his Saiyan allies? All I cared about was that Karro was isolated. I hiked toward the ruddy mountain, having decided to lay low for a while.
I spent a few days wandering the rain forests. I could sit up in a tree for hours, just listening to the wind and the birds. Id' sit up in a fruit tree, peering through the blue-green leaves and swelling fruit, watching a leopard stalk its prey below, or a spider weave its web beside me.
In time, I wandered to Karro Mountain and stayed there for a night. A beautiful place it was, with the deep red soil, the burgundy rocks, the herds that galloped across its face. The whole mountain stretched across the
rain forest like a sleeping body, a sun-reddened body at peace. And the dreams I had there! Wild shit, let me tell you!
I was sleeping in the branches of this lush tree with gold and green leaves. The animals couldn't eat me up there, and it was kind of cozy too. I stared up at the gibbous moon in the blue-black sky until sleep came to me. The dream I had that night! I dreamed that a little grass-green chameleon waddled up to me along one of the tree branches, but this chameleon had the brightest eyes I've ever seen! Bright as two moons, and just as round and silver!
From the distance came a roar that shook the whole mountain. The leaves trembled, and the tree itself felt as if it were about to topple over. I hung onto the branches until my hands went white, and loosened leaves rained down around me. The smell of mold and meat floated on the wind, and my eyes watered as it crept into my nostrils. In the distance, larger than the sky itself, was this huge void, this huge nothingness shaped like a leopard. It opened its mouth, which was wide as the mountain, and from its black teeth dripped the bodies of Saiyans and Tsufuru. It roared again, its voice deep and stale.
"What the hell is that!?" I yelled.
"Oh. Him? That's Mouth-of-Death," the chameleon muttered.
The nothingness leopard vanished, and the mountain was quiet.
"He's getting on my nerves," the chameleon said. "Doesn't know his place."
"Is he one of those mato?" I asked.
"Hey, I'm a mato, thank you very much!"
"Sorry."
"Mouth-of-Death's the force of destruction. He eats everything. When things die and break down, that's thanks to him. He's gotten obnoxious, though."
"Obnoxious?"
"He wants to eat the whole universe. Nothing would be left if he did that! Now I'm okay with everything dying when it's time. Otherwise, there'd be too many of us in the universe. But he wants to eat everything NOW. He even talked the stupid Saiyans into getting him food."
I shuddered. Some big cosmic leopard wanted to eat everything. Maybe that's why the Saiyans were so eager to fight. Maybe that big cosmic leopard got inside of them.
"Hey! Wanna know a secret?" the chameleon whispered.
I sat up and scooped the chameleon onto my lap. "Sure!" I replied.
"Wanna cause some real mischief for Vegeta? And Mouth-of-Death?"
"Is Caram-bola pale? Of course!"
"Well, you see, I know some tricks when it comes to looking like things. Like that rock down there? I could turn that color. No one would know it was me. But you're Saiyan, so you can't exactly do that, you see?"
As the chameleon slowly walked up my arm, he shared a secret with me. "You're different, you know. I can show you a trick that only you can do. Mother Plant-sei wanted me to tell you."
"Yeah?"
"What you do is, you smear some mud all over you. You can turn mud into skin on you. You can look like anyone you want. Then, you just tear off the skin when you get tired of it."
"Cool!"
"Now remember something! Only you can do this! That's what Mother Plant
said."
"Okay."
"Now go and have fun with that idiot Vegeta. But promise you'll come back soon! There's more I wanna tell you about Mouth-of-Death."
When I woke up, light filtered through the leaves onto my face. I climbed down the rust-colored trunk, ran to a nearby stream, and scooped up handfuls of red mud. It was cool and heavy and sticky on my skin, and I had to laugh because of the feeling! When I smeared mud all over my hair and body, I drew a breath.
"All right . . . if this is true, then make me look like Vegeta!"
The red mud grew hot, then cool as it clung closer to my body. When I opened my eyes, I looked down at my hands, only to see skin and flesh on them instead of mud! My hands were larger, rougher, a man's hands with calloused palms. I ran fingers through my hair, now erect and spiky with a widow's
peak down the middle of my forehead. I groped my face and found it fuller, found my nose narrower, my chin rough from the coarse hairs of a beard. My breath quickened, and a giggle rose from my throat as I glanced down at my body, only to find my legs longer. Yes, I was as tall as Vegeta! My limbs
were muscled, my chest was flat like a man's, yes, down to the miniscule masculine member, I looked like Vegeta of the Rain Clan.
"The mato don't lie! Hey! Talking chameleon! Thanks!"
My hands immediately smacked over my mouth when I heard my own voice. For all the appearance of a man, my voice was still high and light.
"I take that back! What use is the body without the voice? Hey!"
With the likeness of Vegeta, I strode back to the Wind Clan homelands, a two day journey by foot. When I arrived, dull evening light was falling on the rain forest, and agitated voices rose from my destination. Between the black-bark trees and flowering vines, I could see Saiyans moving amidst the mud huts.
In the tradition of Saiyan raids, a bonfire blazed on the grassy clearing at the far end of the Wind Clan village, and hundreds of Saiyans, tail hairs bristling, were chanting.
"The full moon rises / Caram-bola turns to us / The full moon rises / Caram-bola turns to us / The weaklings perish / when Caram-bola turns to us / We emerge victors / when Caram-bola turns to us."
So Vegeta finally went through with it. Orchestrated Oozaru attacks on the night of the full moon. I wondered if all of the clans were in on the raid. Idiots!
"Vegeta! I thought you'd be with the Rain Clan!" shouted Inach, eyebrows raised.
Inach strode up to me, smiling with his arms extended. His long black hair was streaked with sweat from dancing, and the white scars on his stocky body shone even more brightly in the bonfire light.
All right, I thought. Vegeta organized the Oozaru raid tonight. If I make the Wind Clan hate him, maybe they won't go through with it!
I looked up at the bluish-purple sky. The sun had almost sank below the black silhouette of the horizon. Not much time.
With Vegeta's likeness, I smiled at Inach, walked slowly toward him, and grabbed his testicles. Inach's eyes sprung wide open, and his body stiffened when he gasped.
"Vegeta! What--?"
I gave him a peck on the cheek and skipped off as he sputtered. Orega, the second oldest patriarch, a man with wavy white hair and a graying moustache, ran over.
"Vegeta! What is this?" he hissed.
I looked down at my likeness of Vegeta's body and pondered the masculine member there. Okay, how exactly does this thing work? I thought as I fingered it. Then it hit me. I stood before Orega and took a wizz on his foot. He fell backwards, mouth twisted in a gasp.
"STOP! This is disgusting!" Orega bellowed, shaking his wet foot.
"Vegeta's gone insane!" a teenage girl from the band of warriors giggled.
As the rest of the warriors stared and gasped, I pulled every stunt I could imagine: I tickled one woman's neck with my new beard until she screamed and ran; I body slammed people left and right; I jumped on a plump man's back and made horse noises until he threw me off. I fell face-first into a thorny
earthroot bush, the thorns digging deep into my face. When I pulled my head away, bits of false skin clung to the thorns and stretched like gum. SNAP! The stretchy bits of skin snapped off my face, whipping back into the thorns. Cool air tickled my real skin underneath, and the crowd of warriors was pointing and roaring.
"It's the troublemaker! It's the coward! She's wearing Vegeta's skin! GET HER!"
False skin dangled in shreds from the left side of my face. Bits of blue hair hung out of the tear. They knew.
"You're all idiots!" I laughed as I ran back into the rain forest. "Vegeta's plan is a mistake!"
Hundreds of footsteps stormed behind me as I wove between trees and bushes. Night had already fallen, and the full moon was already peaking up over the horizon. As I ran, I tore off shards of false skin, leaving a wad of Vegeta's hair here, a shard of his skin there. After a few minutes, I lost
the marauders over a hill, and when I sprinted up to a stream, I threw myself into the stream mud, rolling around until my entire bare body was coated. As the shouts of Saiyans rose over the hill, I hoped, I prayed, and held my breath. When I opened my eyes, I found that it worked: the skin of a
black panther covered me, and in the shape of a panther, I looked on as the Saiyans raced past me. A bunch of Saiyans were shouting threats of murder and worse as they hunted for a Saiyan Soja. Heh. I slinked into the night on all fours, unnoticed.
As I trotted away from the Wind Clan homelands, I heard Oozaru roars shake the air. The ground under me shook as the Oozaru's stomped in the distance. Until I got away from the Wind Clan homelands, I knew I wouldn't be safe, so I kept the panther skin on. I kept my eyes focused on the black silhouettes
of trees in front of me. Oozaru form might give me away if I snatched a glance at the full moon.
What a shame. I'd gone Oozaru twice in my whole life - once when I was four, and again when I was twelve - and it was great. Your heart pounds, and your whole body just tingles with this delicious fury inside you. I loved being tall as the trees. But I couldn't risk it that night. Poor Caram-bola. He must have been pissed when he saw the use that the Saiyans put Oozaru form to.
After hours of walking, my curiosity gnawed at me. I couldn't help it. I looked behind me. When I turned my head, I saw this sick-looking light on the northern horizon. Red light. Fires, most likely. Yellow light.
Chi-blasts, maybe? The ground trembled again, and the grasses and white flowers quivered. When faint ape roars split the air, I knew that the Tsufuru were no more.
Yep. I decided to hang out at Karro Mountain for a loooooong time. No hope of redemption for me, nope. It wouldn't be so bad, I decided. The mountain had enough food for me, and the way the Saiyan race was getting, maybe it was best that I didn't hang around.
I slept in my old tree when I came back, and dreamed that I was sitting on a sandy red rock, twice as long as my body, floating in the sky. The little moon-eyed chameleon crawled up my leg, whipped its tongue out to eat a mosquito, and winked at me.
"So how'd the mud thing work out?" it asked.
"Not so well," I replied. "I had some Saiyans going there for a few minutes, but the skin tore. I did a good panther impression, though."
"You've got to be careful!"
"I know, I know."
A stale, putrid breeze floated through the air, that old meat and mold smell I associated with the nothingness leopard. I saw it again on the northern horizon, smacking its lips. Tsufuru bodies dripped from its gaping mouth
like crumbs. Its gray-black stomach was bloated, and it lumbered aimlessly through the night.
"Hmph. Him again," the chameleon remarked. "He's full right now, but you watch. He'll be just as hungry tomorrow."
"What is he?"
"Didn't I tell you before? That's Mouth-of-Death. He's death and destruction and decay and all that jazz."
"Something's wrong with him."
"Damn right! Things used to be okay in the old days. I mean, if we didn't have death, there wouldn't be room for new life, know what I mean?"
Mouth-of-Death crouched down, his mouth hanging open. I cringed when I saw Vegeta, Inach, and thousands of Saiyan warriors carry Tsufuru bodies - sometimes just heads or arms or legs - and throw them into the void
leopard's mouth. It was disgusting. He chomped and smacked on those dead bodies like they were berries.
The chameleon crawled up to my shoulder. "He just eats and eats and eats! He's eating too much! He'll eat the whole universe, and then what will be left?"
I shivered. "This is serious, isn't it?"
"You bet it's serious! Look over there."
I looked to my left, and far in the distance, I saw this beautiful eagle flapping its wings. It's feathers were glowing, like they were made of fire, this throbbing crimson color. You'd think it was made out of hot coals, the way it glowed and sparkled.
"Whoa! That's beautiful!"
When the eagle flapped its wings, the air rippled across the whole land. Out of its wings flew Saiyans, animals, plants, birds, fish, just about every living thing I could imagine. Mouth-of-Death raced over to the bird,
grunting, and started snatching mouthfuls of living creatures right out of the sky! The eagle got mad and pecked at him, but he didn't seem to care.
"That bird there? That's Life-Giving-She."
"She's beautiful!" I shouted. "Why won't Mouth-of-Death leave her alone?"
"Because he's hungry. He likes to eat life. Life-Giving-She creates all the life in the universe, because she's creation and birth and all that. But he eats life faster than she can make it. At this rate, he'll eat the whole universe. Then, he'll get desperate and try to eat her. I know it!"
"Hey! Tell me something. Why were the Saiyans feeding him dead Tsufuru?"
The chameleon snorted. "He tricked them. Mouth-of-Death gets living creatures to feed him other living creatures. I guess it makes his job easier. He'll eat them too, someday. As a matter of fact, he's going to eat this whole planet soon."
"He can't! He can't eat Plant-sei!"
"He will. The whole planet and most of the Saiyans will die soon. Mother Plant told me to tell you that the end is coming."
"What!?"
"Mother Plant-sei told me to tell you that you're one of the five."
"Five what?"
"Five rescuers. She picked out five Saiyans. Your job is to rescue the good people and innocent creatures. Something else, too. Saiyan heroes are on their way. There's going to be lot of bad people in the universe soon, people who are going to spread Mouth-of-Death's destruction."
"Like Vegeta?"
"Oh please! Vegeta's just for starters. Freeza will take over the Saiyans and turn them into murderers."
"They're not that far from it now. Look what they did to the Tsufuru!"
"Freeza will make it worse. He'll come down from the stars, and that's when you know the end times are coming. That's why the Saiyan heroes are so important. They'll get rid of Freeza someday and protect life from all the evil people Mouth-of-Death recruits."
"So I'm one of the five--what?"
"Five protectors. Five rescuers. You're a troublemaker. You can make a lot of trouble for Freeza and Vegeta and the seduced Saiyans. You can't save them all. A lot of Saiyans are going to die, now that the end times are
coming. But there are still creatures you can save. The heroes, for instance."
"But I've been causing trouble all my life. It never got me anywhere."
"Maybe you need some new tricks, then! That mud trick is a gift from Mother Plant. Only you can use it, she said. You just need more practice with it."
"Well, what am I supposed to do with it?"
"Wreak havoc on Freeza and Vegeta!"
"And these other people? The other four?"
One's already on this mountain. She sees visions and things. That's Mother Plant's gift to her. Basically, help the other four any way you can. You know how to piss people off, right?"
"Do I ever!"
"Well, how's this? When they get down, piss them off! Give them a kick in the ass so they'll keep fighting the good fight. Make them laugh if you can. Laughter will keep them from getting all depressed."
Day came in my dream, and I saw two suns in the sky. The second sun swelled and boiled the sizzling sky, until the rock I was sitting on turned to bubbling mud beneath me. The air itself burst into flames as the second sun plummeted from the sky. Everything - the mountain, the sky, me - got engulfed in all that fire and heat. I screamed.
"That's how it's going to end," I heard the chameleon say amidst the light. "A second sun's going to fall on Plant-sei. See that you're not underneath it!"
I woke up in a sweat, sitting in my same tree as the morning light filtered through the leaves. My heart was pounding, and I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I sat up.
I was still seeing spots from looking at the second sun. I swear I could smell the charred odor of melting rock. My home. My home was underneath that fireball. Plant-sei and all her creatures. I sat up in my tree for a long time, rubbing my temples.
Death has its place. I mean, you can't just live forever. But that Mouth-of-Death thing made me shiver. Destroy my whole world? No more streams? No more trees and mountains? No more spiders or panthers? It wasn't right! It wasn't time for Plant-sei to die yet!
I ran my hands through my hair and bit my lip. It was all going to end? That was it? Kaboom? The Saiyans were going to hell?
"This could have been brought to my attention A LONG TIME AGO!" I shouted, half to myself, half to the mato.
My stomach churned. Why me? How was little ol' Soja supposed to save people? I barely saved myself a few nights before! Where do you start when you get a mission like that? And where would I find the other four, anyway?
I hopped down from the tree, and my legs felt rubbery when I hit the ground. My whole body was hot from my panic, but the moist earth cooled the soles of my feet a little. The chameleon said that one of the others was on Karro Mountain. I wandered aimlessly, munching on a plum I'd plucked from a tree,
eyes darting this way and that for another Saiyan.
It didn't take long to find her. I saw in the distance a large red rock on which laid a Saiyan woman, limp and pale. She was small and skinny like me, with bowled black hair and full lips. Her eyes were almond-shaped, very large on her face. She squeezed the rock with all her might, trembling, like she was ready to burst into tears.
Now what other Saiyan would be hanging around Karro Mountain, except the seer that the chameleon told me about? The had to be all upset for a reason? The second sun?
It hit me then. The second sun was enough to get anybody depressed, but nothing would get done if we all moped. I had to get my ass into gear. No more self-pity. No more doubt. The world wouldn't be any better if she just lay there hugging the rock.
I saw a stagnant pond a few paces away and knelt there, sinking my hands into the dank, spongy soil. Plunging my fingers through fuzzy moss and fungus, I scooped out big handfuls of red marsh mud and smeared it over me. In a few seconds, I had taken on the most absurd form I could think of at the time: a blue tiger. THAT would get her attention!
With a handful of pebbles in hand, I strutted over to the red rock where Ms. Melancholy was still moping. I took a thumbnail-sized pebble and whipped it at her ass.
"What are you? Frigging the rock?" I shouted.
Heh. THAT would piss her off! A talking blue tiger on its hind legs ought to have made her look twice! I took off running, knowing she was bound to stop sulking for a minute and chase me. Hey, if she was off her feet, we could get started.
But I didn't hear any footsteps behind me. No cracking twigs, no shouting, no cursing, no chi-blast zipping past my head, nothing. I glanced over my shoulder, and she was still lying there like a dead deer carcass.
"Hey! Aren't you going to chase me?" I hollered.
So I ran over there and climbed up on the red rock. I asked her if this sort of thing happened often. She told me to leave her alone. I asked her if walking, talking blue tigers were odd. She didn't answer. I tore off every shred of tiger skin, so she could see the Saiyan me! She didn't even bat an eyelash!
It took a while, but we got to talking, and she was all upset about this dream she had about the second sun. When I told her that I had a dream about the end too, she threw this huge hissy fit about me not caring, and how I couldn't be one of the five. Hell, at least she wasn't moping anymore.
"Now just think for a sec! I dreamed about the second sun too, and Mouth-of-Death and Life-Giving-She. I dreamed about the five. How could I know about all this?"
She huffed. "Fine."
She said her name was Harico. Harico of the Sun Clan.
"I'm Soja," I announced. "Soja of--well, I used to be of the Wind Clan, until I set Vegeta's tail on fire."
"You what?"
"I set his tail on fire. He had it coming."
"And he didn't kill you!?"
"I'm a fast runner." That made her chuckle a little.
"Why were you a tiger?"
"I had a dream where this little chameleon showed me how to put on other skins."
I told her about the dreams, about Mouth-of-Death and the moon-eyed chameleon and all that. She loosened up a little after that.
"A dragonfly mato showed me the stages of the end," she sighed. "Seven events will come to pass. The Tsufuru will be massacred. A contrary star will appear in the heavens. A slave will rule over the Saiyans, Vegeta, I'm convinced. Saiyans will hunt down other races and eat their bodies. No more female children will be born. The oceans will boil. And finally, a second sun will appear in the sky and fall on the world."
"Heavy shit!"
Those big almond-shaped eyes of hers were wandering, and her eyes had dark rings around them from fatigue. I had never seen eyes like that. Orchid eyes that burned right through you. They reflected the light funny.
"The dragonfly mato said I would be a teacher," she said, her eyes following something I couldn't see. "I have to visit the clans and tell them. But they won't believe me."
Oh, for the love of Hanuman, this little beanpole was going to preach? With her message, the Saiyans would get so pissed off they'd tear her to shreds, I thought. And she was no warrior, either: small build, no
scars, gentle demeanor . . . oh Hanuman, they'd eat her. Well, I'd make sure she taught in one piece.
"I'll come with you," I said. "I can, um, collect the donations and stuff."
Harico's eyes lit up. "You want to come with me?"
"Yeah! We're in this together," I replied. How bad could it be?
"Why?"
"Well . . . you seem nice and stuff. And in case some limp-dick Saiyan started up trouble, I could squeeze his tail while you ran."
She let out a weak laugh.
"Teaching isn't so bad," I remarked.
"Did you ever teach?"
"Um . . . well, I taught people to let go of their pride."
"How did you teach them?"
"I put roaches in their beds."
Harico raised an eyebrow.
We stood up and began the long hike back to the Saiyan homelands. I picked a few plums for Harico, and she in turn let me have some sips from her water sack. No hard feelings.
"You're clean," she said one afternoon, while we were eating berries and herbs under a leaning tree.
"Clean?"
"You don't have haze around you. You don't smell like smoke or rot or anything. That's rare among the Saiyans."
Oooooookaaaay.
"Um . . . thanks . . . " I sputtered.
"The land here pulses," she continued. "I can see the soil pulsing. It's full of life. Saiyan land doesn't do this. I think it's because they bring so much death to the land."
Oooooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaay.
"Do you think I'm mad?" she suddenly asked, boring into me with those almond-shaped eyes.
"Um . . . well . . . I . . . ah . . . "
"You can say it," she huffed, casting her eyes down. "They all think I'm mad when I say things like that. But I know what I see is real. So what of the other Saiyans can't see these things? Maybe they don't want to see."
Harico picked up a handful of clay soil and rolled in between her palms, until she had a smooth clay ball. "I'm telling you this so you know. You're different. I can see that. And I'm different."
We hiked to Rain Clan territory, and I threw some mud on and gave myself the appearance of a burly older man. Hey, I'd have to be intimidating to keep Harico safe!
Harico decided that Vegeta and his clan should be warned first, since Vegeta bright about the first sign of the end. Fat chance of that. When we waded through the vegetation that evening, we saw something wide and metallic in the distance. A huge disk, spotted with glass bubbles for windows, sat beside the Rain Clan village. Strange men of all sizes and skin colors, some resembling Saiyans without tails, others resembling fish or animals, stood in front of the ship. All wore what looked like metal or rubber over their bodies, and it was in the most disgusting colors, let me tell you.
Already, the Rain Clan settlement looked completely different. Several of the mud huts had been swept away, and more of the strange men were laying down metal and plastic foundations. In some spots, these garishly-colored metal walls were coming up for new buildings. The foundation for some huge building laid where forests should have towered, and hundreds of the strange men were scurrying about with tools, with orders, with metal and plastic, with arrogance.
"No . . . what is this?" Harico whispered. Those almond-shaped eyes of hers were wide.
We hid behind the shrubs and watched. Saiyans were cheering and chuckling. Men and women tried on the rubber and metal that the strange men wore, and fitted chips of metal and colored glass over their eyes: scouters.
"Jeez! Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever seen?" I whispered to Harico. "Imagine walking around all day covered up like that. Isn't it hot under that? How can people tell if you're a man or woman, then? How--"
"SSSHHHH!"
I shut up.
A few yards in front of us, I spied Vegeta standing erect before a metal pod, but this pod floated in the air, just like the stone in my dream. Nothing held it up that I could see, and I gasped. This long, thick pink thing dangled out from the pod, and when it twitched, I saw that it was some creature's tail.
Vegeta and whatever was in the pod spoke about "telling them" and "the agreement" for some "trade". Vegeta was sweating. His tail twitched. His body was stiff. His dark eyes were fixed on the pod. Eventually, he cast his eyes down and nodded, then walked off a little too quickly.
The mighty Vegeta of the Rain Clan, acting humble like this? Wha--? I thought.
The pod turned and floated away, and Harico and I saw a smallish creature with gray horns, ape-like hands, and pale skin smirking within. The pod floated across the settlement until it rose back into the ship.
Vegeta strode to the center of the Rain Clan village, called out until everyone's eyes were fixed on him, and spoke.
"Lord Freeza has given us a most noble gift: the opportunity to fight across the stars! Our pride in battle will be known across the many worlds, for now we have a special task: to eliminate all the weak."
His voice wavered just slightly. Scared shitless, he was.
"I've spoken with many of you today about this opportunity," he continued. "All of you are strong warriors, and saw the prudence in accepting Lord Freeza's offer. It is an honor, mind you, to be the first clan approached with this offer of battle and conquest. Is the Rain Clan in favor of Freeza's task?"
The crowd of Rain Clan Saiyans cheered. Men and women shouted about new armor, wealth, battles, glory, blah blah blah.
A few days before, everyone was obsessed with killing Tsufuru and getting new lands for hunting and gathering. That day, they were all overjoyed about killing among the stars. I don't know what stunned me more: the Saiyans' short attention spans, or whatever force came down and gave them the ideas.
"What is all of this? What's going on?" I whispered to myself. The mato talked about Freeza and the bloodshed he'd bring with him. But already? I found myself breathing too fast.
"I'm not in favor," came a woman's voice. Suddenly, Harico stepped into the center of the village, face to face with Vegeta. I burst out of the shrubs and ran after her.
"I'm not in favor of more battles," she said. "All these battles only serve to announce the end."
"What are you talking about?" Vegeta growled.
"I had a vision. Plant-sei's time is short. This world will come to an end soon."
The crowd laughed.
"Seven signs will come to pass," she said, raising her voice against the laughter of the clan. "Then, Plant-sei will die, and so will the Saiyan race. You, Vegeta, caused the first sign to pass. You led the massacre of the Tsufuru."
Vegeta snarled and warmed a chi-blast in his hand, and had I not thrown Harico to the ground in time, she would have been a pile of ashes. As Harico rose to her feet, half a dozen of the strange men grabbed hold of us and dragged us away. I mumbled something about how their gray and blue garments didn't go well with their complexions as they carried me away.
We were dragged to a mossy spot behind the ship, where about four other Saiyans - two men, two women - were shouting.
"We don't take orders from you!" one woman barked at the strange men.
"You're not our patriarchs! You can't just march in and tell us what to do!" bayed another man.
The four had small red and black singe marks on their arms and legs, and were rubbing them as they bared their teeth and shouted.
"Two more dissenters!" said one of our captors, a seven-foot tall cat-man with yellow fur. We were thrown into the four Saiyans, who had been corralled between the ship and a handful of the strange men in metal/rubber armor. The cat-man toyed with a metal box on his wrist, and a burst of heat and light erupted from it. The laser hit the ground loudly and burnt the grasses black.
"Quiet! All a yous!" the cat-mass hissed.
Harico and I rolled off the dissenters and stood up.
"What is all this?" Harico whispered to one of the women, a tall, wiry teenager with cream-colored hair.
"We were lied to!" the woman hissed. "Vegeta lied to us all!"
"Lied?"
"He used us to kill Tsufuru! We thought we were avenging Saiyan murders! We thought there would be good land for us!"
"But what's this?"
"That Freeza was behind it! That thing in the floating pod! We found out when these freaks came. Freeza told Vegeta to get all the Saiyans together and kill off Tsufuru!"
Harico swallowed hard. " . . . Why?"
"Hell if I know! I just know he used us."
Someone tricked or forced Vegeta into this mess? Who would want the whole Tsufuru nation dead? Why did Vegeta obey? That story about his hunting companions . . . was it even true? The questions swam in my head. My stomach soured.
"This is happening too fast!" I muttered.
"Hey, shut up!" shouted the cat-man again, who fired a blue laser several inches from Harico's head.
"Is it time for coffee yet?" asked one of our guards, a crimson fish man with bumpy skin.
"Nope," said another, who resembled a short gray Saiyan without a tail. "Freeza's orders. Wait till nightfall. Then kill all the troublemakers in one big group."
Just then, I saw a Saiyan man saunter toward us, smooth-skinned with a delicate face. He had a mass of black hair bound in a bun at the base of his skull, and quiet-looking eyes. Like the dissenters, he wore no clothing.
"Let me discipline the troublemakers," he said, batting his tail.
"Huh? Whadda you want, Gemusa?" the cat-man growled.
"The dissenters."
"You think cause you're friends with Vegeta you can do anything?"
"We Saiyans have our own way of dealing with troublemakers," Gemusa replied. "I speak for Vegeta. Hand them over to me." His eyes darted back and forth from the cat-man to the other guards. His eyebrows narrowed.
"Why should we?" barked one of the strange men, a bearded fellow with reddish-orange skin.
"I already have permission from Freeza and Vegeta." Gemusa frowned and folded his arms.
The cat-man batted his tail and reached for something on his belt.
"Awright. Wait," he mumbled. He lifted six pairs of metal hoops from his belt and bound the dissenters, Harico, and myself at the wrists. As much as we all tugged at the metal hoops, the metal just wouldn't give. Those cuffs couldn't have been made from anything on Plant-sei! After taking a thin
metal chain and looping it through the cuffs, the cat-man bound us all together on one line. Gemusa took a metal rod-key from the cat-man, then took hold of the thin chain and led us into the rain forest.
"And you bring those cuffs back when they're dead!" the cat-man yelled. "The planet trade don't just give stuff away for free!"
Already, it was getting late. The sky was mauve and orange against the setting sun, and the air was cool and crisp. Gemusa led us all by that metal chain deeper and deeper into the vegetation, for what must have been several miles from the Rain Clan village.
I watched Gemusa, and he was different from every other Saiyan man I'd met. The voice, the mannerisms, they weren't really, well, masculine. Not that he moved like a pansy or something, but he didn't scowl or leer at you. He didn't hold himself like he was ready to hit someone. I mean, every Saiyan man I'd met had this macho take-no-shit air to him. Gemusa didn't have that. He walked quickly and smoothly, looking this way and that.
"What are you thinking?" I finally piped up. "So what if our wrists are bound? How do you know the six of us won't try something?"
Gemusa lifted his eyebrows and stared at me. "Why would such a big man have a woman's voice?"
"Um . . . well, I think it's a very manly voice, thank you very much!"
Gemusa stopped suddenly, dropped the chain, and gave a tense glance over his shoulder in the direction of the village. Then, biting his lip, he hurriedly took the metal rod key, wiggled it in the cuffs, and freed all of us from the manacles.
"Listen to me," he said to all of us, his voice hard. "Get out of the Saiyan homelands. Go to Karro. Go to the abandoned Tsufuru lands. Anywhere away from Freeza."
The sun had already sunk below the horizon, and the sky darkened like a blushing face. I glanced at Gemusa, then at the others, then at Gemusa. And I swore he looked different! His hips looked wider, and his face looked smoother.
"Freeza and Vegeta have plans," he added. "Do you want to take orders from Freeza's men? Or watch your land scarred? Then leave. Get away from here."
"Why'd you do it?" asked one of the dissenter men.
He sighed. "No one has to serve that murderer if they don't want to." Gemusa's waist narrowed. I swore it. His lips looked fuller.
I glanced over at Harico, only to find that she was staring back at me, eyes wide. She saw it too! The two men and two women, however, just looked on as Gemusa spoke, acting like this sort of thing happened every day.
"You're all right," remarked the cream-haired woman. "You got the right idea. So does that black-haired girl. What's your name?"
"Harico," said my friend.
"Daikon," replied the cream-haired woman, patting Harico on the back. The other three dissenters introduced themselves: Dulse, an orange-haired woman with round cheeks; Kombu, her orange-haired brother; and Agaragar, her black-maned, burly cousin. All were teenagers or young adults, with fire in their eyes.
Daikon turned to me. "What about you?"
I decided the strangers might as well be trusted, and started peeling off the false skin as Gemusa and the four dissenters shouted.
"I'm Soja! And please keep all of this between us, okay?"
Gemusa and the dissenters stared at me, mouths hanging open.
"It's a trick I learned! Come on. Please don't tell anyone about me. I've been in big trouble with Vegeta before."
Gemusa and the dissenters went pale and exchanged glances, but eventually nodded.
"How . . . ?" Dulse whispered.
I laughed and threw a shard of skin at her.
Then, I looked at Gemusa again, and his body was curvy. His hips were wide, his waist narrow, his face more delicate than before, and his chest . . . well, let's just say he wasn't flat-chested anymore. And I won't even start on the whole between-the-legs thing. As the rain forest darkened and stars speckled the night sky, Gemusa had transformed into a woman. Harico and I gasped.
"How?" Harico blurted out. "You're a woman?"
"Freeza and his men think that Gemusa's a man," Daikon said impassively.
"And I intend for it to stay that way," Gemusa added. "When it's daylight, I'm a man, and when it's night, I'm a woman. It's always been that way."
Whoa! I can masquerade as a man, but she transforms into one! I thought.
Gemusa lowered her voice. "Listen, Daikon, Dulse, Kombu, Agaragar. Where are you going to flee?"
Dulse thought for a moment. "What about the Tsufuru cities?"
Agaragar snorted. "What can we find there? Vegeta lied to us. There's no forests or fishing lands up there. It's got stone and metal all over it."
"Karro Mountain?" Harico suggested.
Kombu shuddered. "Hell no! That place has mato crawling all over it! They'll drive you insane!"
"Karro mountain has food and game," Harico said quietly. "No Saiyans go there because of the legends. The mato bring wisdom, not madness."
Dulse and Daikon shuddered. "I heard a lot of bad stories about that place," Daikon warned.
"It's safe. I promise you."
"Well I don't like the sound of it," Agaragar growled.
"Fine. Where are you going, then? The Tsufuru cities? You just said they have nothing you want. The Saiyan lands aren't safe. You can take your chances and hide in the rain forest, but you have no guarantee that other
Saiyans won't find you. If they're in league with those strange men, they'll kill you."
The four dissenters sighed.
"Karro Mountain is a nasty place. I don't like the notion of staying there," Kombu said.
"It's a beautiful place. I promise you that. It will take care of your needs."
The four dissenters didn't say anything for a few minutes. Then, Daikon spoke up.
"Okay. But if anyone starts going crazy there, I'm leaving!"
"The mato are cool," I said. "They taught me that trick I showed you."
"The mato showed me signs of the end," Harico added, frowning.
Gemusa touched Harico's shoulder. "Listen to me. I haven't told anyone from the Rain Clan about this before. I myself went to Karro weeks ago. I wept over the dream I had there. You," she said, nodding to Harico," your message made me think of my dream."
Harico, me, and the dissenters listened as Gemusa told her tale: how she was Vegeta's advisor by daylight and his bride by night, how Freeza came to manipulate Vegeta, and about the nightmare of the end. Lo and behold, we'd found the third of the five saviors.
Ever since I was a kid, I was never one for fighting - it was boring! And . . . well, being small and skinny didn't help when the other youngsters were beating you to a pulp. Besides, playing tricks was a much better use of my cunning. Let me tell you, no punch will piss off your enemies quite like putting ants in their bed, or shaving their heads while they sleep!
People from the Wind Clan were just stupid most of the time, so how could I not play a few innocent tricks? Almost everyone loved storming out of the village on a raid, just to return with all these gummy, crusty gashes all over their skin. (That was when everyone went naked before the planet trade came and--well, I'll go into that later.) The Wind Clan got along pretty well with our closest neighbors, the Rain Clan, but all the other neighboring clans were fair game. It was idiotic, getting all worked up in front of a bonfire, chanting at the stars, just to go running off into the rain forest to kill people. And they didn't need much provocation, either. An insult to one of the Wind Clan's patriarchs, or a warning that food stock was low, or the rumor of wealth, and everyone goes off to murder a few of the locals.
I know, I know, tough times can make anyone edgy. Always wondering if there will be enough animals to hunt or enough fruit to scrounge. Yeah, the Saiyans were hungry. Fighting for survival made Saiyans vicious and angry, but that didn't make all the killing any less senseless.
Well, when I was growing up, battles meant prank time for me! When the darkness of night had swallowed up that evening's warriors, I scuttled into the grass and mud huts of those who ran off to fight. Dried fruits, roots,
sacred stones, I stole this and that, hiding them in a tree hollow deep in the rain forest to enjoy later. Why? The food was tasty, and the stones were pretty, I guess, but the main reason was just to hear the warriors curse
when they scrambled inside their huts! Let them worry about their own huts before they scamper off to raid someone else's!
They'd all come back, get stoned on gemtun snuff, and race around the village, babbling half-intelligent gibberish about war and glory, blah blah blah. It was too much fun, taking a water skin and squirting the stoned
guys in the face with water. They'd sprint after me, tail hairs bristled, but they'd fall on their faces or careen into black-bark trees. I laughed for hours about it!
Oh, they hated me for it, my clan. Everyone in the Wind Clan whispered about me when I passed. Troublemaker. Trickster. Thief. Coward. You'd think they forgot that my name was Soja, with all the nicknames they gave me. Even my parents - or rather, the couple who found me in the brush when I was a baby - frowned on me. "Mischief-maker!" they'd shout. "What kind of warrior are you!? We should have left you where we found you!"
Did it hurt? Yeah. Was it lonely growing up? Of course.
Womanhood came. Nature was pretty generous with curves, but they didn't help much, because none of the men of the Wind Clan or the Rain Clan wanted to take me as his wife. "Her? She can't even fight! She'd rather play pranks all day!" all the men said. The longer I lived in my adoptive parents' hut, the more they grumbled.
When I got to be about twenty, Vegeta of the Rain Clan visited our village more and more often. Evidently, this guy got the idea that a full-scale war should be waged against the city dwellers to the north, and spent all his time organizing the Saiyan clans for battle. It was Saiyan destiny, so he said, to massacre the Tsufuru race and claim Plant-sei as our own. All the land and game would be ours. No, I didn't get it either when I first heard it.
It was just stupid. Here, Vegeta was bringing the clans together, halting all the bloodshed that marked clan relations. Finally, somebody created peace and cooperation among the Saiyan race. And what did he use that organization for but to go cause trouble for the Tsufuru!
The Rain Clan and the Wind clan lived pretty close together, so all kinds of gossip flowed between them, and I found out soon enough why Vegeta wanted war.
One morning, I was walking back to my village with a handful of earthroot berries, when I heard two women whispering under a black-bark tree. Distant cousins of Vegeta, I think. They muttered between themselves that a few months before, Vegeta's Rain Clan friends were decimated by Tsufuru near the
rain forest border. Supposedly they had been hunting boars when Tsufuru soldiers fired on them with flame guns, and Vegeta was the only survivor . . . who then killed the offenders, of course. No one gave a reason
why the soldiers attacked. Everyone sided with Vegeta's hunger for revenge, but think about it for a sec! The Tsufuru never bothered us before. Ever. So why would they just attack a band of harmless Saiyans? Even if a few bad apples attacked, they had been dealt with! Why bring the whole Tsufuru race
into the mess? As far as I was concerned, the Tsufuru had as much of a right to live on Plant-sei as the Saiyans or animals or anyone else did. They stayed in their cities and left us alone. What was the problem?
Everyone knew the legend of Hanuman and Furu. You know, the ancient ape Hanuman fell in love with the tailless spirit-woman Furu, and they made the rain forests and plains their marriage bed. Then they had kids. The children who looked more like Hanuman were the first Saiyans, and the children who
looked more like Furu were the first Tsufuru, and everyone got along in the ancient times. Now I always put a lot of faith in legends, and I believe to this day that the Saiyans and Tsufuru were ancestral relatives. What good could come out of slaughtering our ancient relatives?
But I'm getting off the subject. Anyway, Vegeta had a tall, firm body and a beard I could have eaten for dessert. But he made my hair stand on end! All the time, nothing but talk, talk, talk about massacring the Tsufuru! All this nonsense about the Saiyan clans uniting to kill, aboyt how the Tsufuru sat on heavenly lands for fishing and hunting, blah blah blah.
"The Saiyans must protect their honor and land! The Saiyan struggle for survival is not over yet! Are we to cower while the tailless weaklings squat on land rich with food and rivers? Are we to ignore blatant acts of Tsufuru violence? Never! Our pride and survival as a race come first! Fight with me!" he said once.
And you know what? The Wind Clan believed every word. Spilling Tsufuru blood distracted them from empty food baskets and dwindling herds. And what did I get when I complained it was all a crock?
"Stay out of this, troublemaker!"
Vegeta wanted power, pure, unchallenged power. The way he strutted, the way he looked down his nose at the weaker warriors made it obvious. This man wanted to rule over all the clans. Once he united the clans, he played them like flutes. The Tsufuru, as far as I was concerned, were his convenient
scapegoats. Hell, he might have even made up that attack story for the purpose. And do you know what Inach, the eldest patriarch of the Wind Clan, shouted when I said that?
"Stay out of this, trickster!"
But Vegeta was all about rending flesh. The raids he led in the outskirts of the Tsufuru cities were proof of that. I didn't know if the stories were true. Maybe he really did collect the heads of Tsufuru victims. But I knew
that his heart was full of fear. I could practically smell the fear on him. The way he wrung his hands, the way the tip of his tail twitched, the stiff lips and cheeks - they all gave it away. What he was afraid of
was a mystery then. All I knew was that Vegeta was dangerous. Very dangerous.
A week before it happened, Vegeta sat in a circle with the Wind Clan patriarchs in the center of the village, eating roots and raw hare flesh. I was walking through the gemtun trees outside the
village, carefully carrying a twig with a flaming tip (borrowed without asking from a neighbor's fire) to light my own fire. Just as I was thinking about the tasty roots I would roast over my fire, I saw the familiar shock
of brown hair from behind a tree. Vegeta say with his back to the tree, facing the open village and the other patriarchs.
"A single Saiyan in Oozaru form is the most formidable warrior imaginable," he explained in that deep, cutting voice of his, "so imagine the fighting power of thousands of Oozaru Saiyans! Such a force would be invincible! We must strike on the night of the full moon, for no Tsufuru technology will rival our strength then."
Unnoticed, I decided that he could well use some humility. Creeping along the ground, I crawled up silently behind Vegeta and lit his tail hairs on fire. The brown hairs blackened and curled before he even smelled them charring.
"The raids on the outskirts of the jungle cost the Tsufuru hundreds of lives while it--what's that smell?" Vegeta muttered, stiffening his back. When he glanced down at his waist and saw the tail hairs smoldering, he roared, smacking the flame.
"Soja!" shouted the Wind Clan patriarchs. About six middle-aged men in all, they had sinewy limbs and dozens of thick white scars each, the marks of old warriors.
Once he put the fire of his singed tail out, Vegeta spun around, growling.
"You!" he barked, pointing at the lit twig in my hand.
Okay. I knew it was stupid. I knew Vegeta could sear a Saiyan to ashes with a single chi-blast from his palm. I should have burst into a run right then and there. But I laughed until tears flooded my eyes.
"Ahahahaha! You think you're-- wahaha!--invincible? You can't even protect your tail!"
Vegeta and the patriarchs all heated chi in their palms, and I threw the lit twig at Vegeta's chest before I ran. Sprinting, I saw the energy-balls smack trees and stones, narrowly missing me as I ran through muddy puddles. The jungle became a blur of blue, green, and bark-brown as I sprinted away from the voices of shouting men, and after diving into a stream behind a stone, I lost them.
I lay against the smooth stones of until the air was quiet, feeling the water trickle through my hair. I stood up and chuckled, wiping the mud from my face
I could never return to the Wind Clan. Ever. My transgression against their hero was too great, and they'd spill my blood or worse if I ever went back. But it was worth it. I would have done it again. For a moment, the monstrous Vegeta was humbled.
Karro Mountain was infested with mato, dream spirits, or at least that's what people believed. Most Saiyans mentioned it with shudders and frightened glances over their shoulders. But dreams can't hurt you, right?
What more did I have to fear than Vegeta and his Saiyan allies? All I cared about was that Karro was isolated. I hiked toward the ruddy mountain, having decided to lay low for a while.
I spent a few days wandering the rain forests. I could sit up in a tree for hours, just listening to the wind and the birds. Id' sit up in a fruit tree, peering through the blue-green leaves and swelling fruit, watching a leopard stalk its prey below, or a spider weave its web beside me.
In time, I wandered to Karro Mountain and stayed there for a night. A beautiful place it was, with the deep red soil, the burgundy rocks, the herds that galloped across its face. The whole mountain stretched across the
rain forest like a sleeping body, a sun-reddened body at peace. And the dreams I had there! Wild shit, let me tell you!
I was sleeping in the branches of this lush tree with gold and green leaves. The animals couldn't eat me up there, and it was kind of cozy too. I stared up at the gibbous moon in the blue-black sky until sleep came to me. The dream I had that night! I dreamed that a little grass-green chameleon waddled up to me along one of the tree branches, but this chameleon had the brightest eyes I've ever seen! Bright as two moons, and just as round and silver!
From the distance came a roar that shook the whole mountain. The leaves trembled, and the tree itself felt as if it were about to topple over. I hung onto the branches until my hands went white, and loosened leaves rained down around me. The smell of mold and meat floated on the wind, and my eyes watered as it crept into my nostrils. In the distance, larger than the sky itself, was this huge void, this huge nothingness shaped like a leopard. It opened its mouth, which was wide as the mountain, and from its black teeth dripped the bodies of Saiyans and Tsufuru. It roared again, its voice deep and stale.
"What the hell is that!?" I yelled.
"Oh. Him? That's Mouth-of-Death," the chameleon muttered.
The nothingness leopard vanished, and the mountain was quiet.
"He's getting on my nerves," the chameleon said. "Doesn't know his place."
"Is he one of those mato?" I asked.
"Hey, I'm a mato, thank you very much!"
"Sorry."
"Mouth-of-Death's the force of destruction. He eats everything. When things die and break down, that's thanks to him. He's gotten obnoxious, though."
"Obnoxious?"
"He wants to eat the whole universe. Nothing would be left if he did that! Now I'm okay with everything dying when it's time. Otherwise, there'd be too many of us in the universe. But he wants to eat everything NOW. He even talked the stupid Saiyans into getting him food."
I shuddered. Some big cosmic leopard wanted to eat everything. Maybe that's why the Saiyans were so eager to fight. Maybe that big cosmic leopard got inside of them.
"Hey! Wanna know a secret?" the chameleon whispered.
I sat up and scooped the chameleon onto my lap. "Sure!" I replied.
"Wanna cause some real mischief for Vegeta? And Mouth-of-Death?"
"Is Caram-bola pale? Of course!"
"Well, you see, I know some tricks when it comes to looking like things. Like that rock down there? I could turn that color. No one would know it was me. But you're Saiyan, so you can't exactly do that, you see?"
As the chameleon slowly walked up my arm, he shared a secret with me. "You're different, you know. I can show you a trick that only you can do. Mother Plant-sei wanted me to tell you."
"Yeah?"
"What you do is, you smear some mud all over you. You can turn mud into skin on you. You can look like anyone you want. Then, you just tear off the skin when you get tired of it."
"Cool!"
"Now remember something! Only you can do this! That's what Mother Plant
said."
"Okay."
"Now go and have fun with that idiot Vegeta. But promise you'll come back soon! There's more I wanna tell you about Mouth-of-Death."
When I woke up, light filtered through the leaves onto my face. I climbed down the rust-colored trunk, ran to a nearby stream, and scooped up handfuls of red mud. It was cool and heavy and sticky on my skin, and I had to laugh because of the feeling! When I smeared mud all over my hair and body, I drew a breath.
"All right . . . if this is true, then make me look like Vegeta!"
The red mud grew hot, then cool as it clung closer to my body. When I opened my eyes, I looked down at my hands, only to see skin and flesh on them instead of mud! My hands were larger, rougher, a man's hands with calloused palms. I ran fingers through my hair, now erect and spiky with a widow's
peak down the middle of my forehead. I groped my face and found it fuller, found my nose narrower, my chin rough from the coarse hairs of a beard. My breath quickened, and a giggle rose from my throat as I glanced down at my body, only to find my legs longer. Yes, I was as tall as Vegeta! My limbs
were muscled, my chest was flat like a man's, yes, down to the miniscule masculine member, I looked like Vegeta of the Rain Clan.
"The mato don't lie! Hey! Talking chameleon! Thanks!"
My hands immediately smacked over my mouth when I heard my own voice. For all the appearance of a man, my voice was still high and light.
"I take that back! What use is the body without the voice? Hey!"
With the likeness of Vegeta, I strode back to the Wind Clan homelands, a two day journey by foot. When I arrived, dull evening light was falling on the rain forest, and agitated voices rose from my destination. Between the black-bark trees and flowering vines, I could see Saiyans moving amidst the mud huts.
In the tradition of Saiyan raids, a bonfire blazed on the grassy clearing at the far end of the Wind Clan village, and hundreds of Saiyans, tail hairs bristling, were chanting.
"The full moon rises / Caram-bola turns to us / The full moon rises / Caram-bola turns to us / The weaklings perish / when Caram-bola turns to us / We emerge victors / when Caram-bola turns to us."
So Vegeta finally went through with it. Orchestrated Oozaru attacks on the night of the full moon. I wondered if all of the clans were in on the raid. Idiots!
"Vegeta! I thought you'd be with the Rain Clan!" shouted Inach, eyebrows raised.
Inach strode up to me, smiling with his arms extended. His long black hair was streaked with sweat from dancing, and the white scars on his stocky body shone even more brightly in the bonfire light.
All right, I thought. Vegeta organized the Oozaru raid tonight. If I make the Wind Clan hate him, maybe they won't go through with it!
I looked up at the bluish-purple sky. The sun had almost sank below the black silhouette of the horizon. Not much time.
With Vegeta's likeness, I smiled at Inach, walked slowly toward him, and grabbed his testicles. Inach's eyes sprung wide open, and his body stiffened when he gasped.
"Vegeta! What--?"
I gave him a peck on the cheek and skipped off as he sputtered. Orega, the second oldest patriarch, a man with wavy white hair and a graying moustache, ran over.
"Vegeta! What is this?" he hissed.
I looked down at my likeness of Vegeta's body and pondered the masculine member there. Okay, how exactly does this thing work? I thought as I fingered it. Then it hit me. I stood before Orega and took a wizz on his foot. He fell backwards, mouth twisted in a gasp.
"STOP! This is disgusting!" Orega bellowed, shaking his wet foot.
"Vegeta's gone insane!" a teenage girl from the band of warriors giggled.
As the rest of the warriors stared and gasped, I pulled every stunt I could imagine: I tickled one woman's neck with my new beard until she screamed and ran; I body slammed people left and right; I jumped on a plump man's back and made horse noises until he threw me off. I fell face-first into a thorny
earthroot bush, the thorns digging deep into my face. When I pulled my head away, bits of false skin clung to the thorns and stretched like gum. SNAP! The stretchy bits of skin snapped off my face, whipping back into the thorns. Cool air tickled my real skin underneath, and the crowd of warriors was pointing and roaring.
"It's the troublemaker! It's the coward! She's wearing Vegeta's skin! GET HER!"
False skin dangled in shreds from the left side of my face. Bits of blue hair hung out of the tear. They knew.
"You're all idiots!" I laughed as I ran back into the rain forest. "Vegeta's plan is a mistake!"
Hundreds of footsteps stormed behind me as I wove between trees and bushes. Night had already fallen, and the full moon was already peaking up over the horizon. As I ran, I tore off shards of false skin, leaving a wad of Vegeta's hair here, a shard of his skin there. After a few minutes, I lost
the marauders over a hill, and when I sprinted up to a stream, I threw myself into the stream mud, rolling around until my entire bare body was coated. As the shouts of Saiyans rose over the hill, I hoped, I prayed, and held my breath. When I opened my eyes, I found that it worked: the skin of a
black panther covered me, and in the shape of a panther, I looked on as the Saiyans raced past me. A bunch of Saiyans were shouting threats of murder and worse as they hunted for a Saiyan Soja. Heh. I slinked into the night on all fours, unnoticed.
As I trotted away from the Wind Clan homelands, I heard Oozaru roars shake the air. The ground under me shook as the Oozaru's stomped in the distance. Until I got away from the Wind Clan homelands, I knew I wouldn't be safe, so I kept the panther skin on. I kept my eyes focused on the black silhouettes
of trees in front of me. Oozaru form might give me away if I snatched a glance at the full moon.
What a shame. I'd gone Oozaru twice in my whole life - once when I was four, and again when I was twelve - and it was great. Your heart pounds, and your whole body just tingles with this delicious fury inside you. I loved being tall as the trees. But I couldn't risk it that night. Poor Caram-bola. He must have been pissed when he saw the use that the Saiyans put Oozaru form to.
After hours of walking, my curiosity gnawed at me. I couldn't help it. I looked behind me. When I turned my head, I saw this sick-looking light on the northern horizon. Red light. Fires, most likely. Yellow light.
Chi-blasts, maybe? The ground trembled again, and the grasses and white flowers quivered. When faint ape roars split the air, I knew that the Tsufuru were no more.
Yep. I decided to hang out at Karro Mountain for a loooooong time. No hope of redemption for me, nope. It wouldn't be so bad, I decided. The mountain had enough food for me, and the way the Saiyan race was getting, maybe it was best that I didn't hang around.
I slept in my old tree when I came back, and dreamed that I was sitting on a sandy red rock, twice as long as my body, floating in the sky. The little moon-eyed chameleon crawled up my leg, whipped its tongue out to eat a mosquito, and winked at me.
"So how'd the mud thing work out?" it asked.
"Not so well," I replied. "I had some Saiyans going there for a few minutes, but the skin tore. I did a good panther impression, though."
"You've got to be careful!"
"I know, I know."
A stale, putrid breeze floated through the air, that old meat and mold smell I associated with the nothingness leopard. I saw it again on the northern horizon, smacking its lips. Tsufuru bodies dripped from its gaping mouth
like crumbs. Its gray-black stomach was bloated, and it lumbered aimlessly through the night.
"Hmph. Him again," the chameleon remarked. "He's full right now, but you watch. He'll be just as hungry tomorrow."
"What is he?"
"Didn't I tell you before? That's Mouth-of-Death. He's death and destruction and decay and all that jazz."
"Something's wrong with him."
"Damn right! Things used to be okay in the old days. I mean, if we didn't have death, there wouldn't be room for new life, know what I mean?"
Mouth-of-Death crouched down, his mouth hanging open. I cringed when I saw Vegeta, Inach, and thousands of Saiyan warriors carry Tsufuru bodies - sometimes just heads or arms or legs - and throw them into the void
leopard's mouth. It was disgusting. He chomped and smacked on those dead bodies like they were berries.
The chameleon crawled up to my shoulder. "He just eats and eats and eats! He's eating too much! He'll eat the whole universe, and then what will be left?"
I shivered. "This is serious, isn't it?"
"You bet it's serious! Look over there."
I looked to my left, and far in the distance, I saw this beautiful eagle flapping its wings. It's feathers were glowing, like they were made of fire, this throbbing crimson color. You'd think it was made out of hot coals, the way it glowed and sparkled.
"Whoa! That's beautiful!"
When the eagle flapped its wings, the air rippled across the whole land. Out of its wings flew Saiyans, animals, plants, birds, fish, just about every living thing I could imagine. Mouth-of-Death raced over to the bird,
grunting, and started snatching mouthfuls of living creatures right out of the sky! The eagle got mad and pecked at him, but he didn't seem to care.
"That bird there? That's Life-Giving-She."
"She's beautiful!" I shouted. "Why won't Mouth-of-Death leave her alone?"
"Because he's hungry. He likes to eat life. Life-Giving-She creates all the life in the universe, because she's creation and birth and all that. But he eats life faster than she can make it. At this rate, he'll eat the whole universe. Then, he'll get desperate and try to eat her. I know it!"
"Hey! Tell me something. Why were the Saiyans feeding him dead Tsufuru?"
The chameleon snorted. "He tricked them. Mouth-of-Death gets living creatures to feed him other living creatures. I guess it makes his job easier. He'll eat them too, someday. As a matter of fact, he's going to eat this whole planet soon."
"He can't! He can't eat Plant-sei!"
"He will. The whole planet and most of the Saiyans will die soon. Mother Plant told me to tell you that the end is coming."
"What!?"
"Mother Plant-sei told me to tell you that you're one of the five."
"Five what?"
"Five rescuers. She picked out five Saiyans. Your job is to rescue the good people and innocent creatures. Something else, too. Saiyan heroes are on their way. There's going to be lot of bad people in the universe soon, people who are going to spread Mouth-of-Death's destruction."
"Like Vegeta?"
"Oh please! Vegeta's just for starters. Freeza will take over the Saiyans and turn them into murderers."
"They're not that far from it now. Look what they did to the Tsufuru!"
"Freeza will make it worse. He'll come down from the stars, and that's when you know the end times are coming. That's why the Saiyan heroes are so important. They'll get rid of Freeza someday and protect life from all the evil people Mouth-of-Death recruits."
"So I'm one of the five--what?"
"Five protectors. Five rescuers. You're a troublemaker. You can make a lot of trouble for Freeza and Vegeta and the seduced Saiyans. You can't save them all. A lot of Saiyans are going to die, now that the end times are
coming. But there are still creatures you can save. The heroes, for instance."
"But I've been causing trouble all my life. It never got me anywhere."
"Maybe you need some new tricks, then! That mud trick is a gift from Mother Plant. Only you can use it, she said. You just need more practice with it."
"Well, what am I supposed to do with it?"
"Wreak havoc on Freeza and Vegeta!"
"And these other people? The other four?"
One's already on this mountain. She sees visions and things. That's Mother Plant's gift to her. Basically, help the other four any way you can. You know how to piss people off, right?"
"Do I ever!"
"Well, how's this? When they get down, piss them off! Give them a kick in the ass so they'll keep fighting the good fight. Make them laugh if you can. Laughter will keep them from getting all depressed."
Day came in my dream, and I saw two suns in the sky. The second sun swelled and boiled the sizzling sky, until the rock I was sitting on turned to bubbling mud beneath me. The air itself burst into flames as the second sun plummeted from the sky. Everything - the mountain, the sky, me - got engulfed in all that fire and heat. I screamed.
"That's how it's going to end," I heard the chameleon say amidst the light. "A second sun's going to fall on Plant-sei. See that you're not underneath it!"
I woke up in a sweat, sitting in my same tree as the morning light filtered through the leaves. My heart was pounding, and I wiped the sweat from my forehead as I sat up.
I was still seeing spots from looking at the second sun. I swear I could smell the charred odor of melting rock. My home. My home was underneath that fireball. Plant-sei and all her creatures. I sat up in my tree for a long time, rubbing my temples.
Death has its place. I mean, you can't just live forever. But that Mouth-of-Death thing made me shiver. Destroy my whole world? No more streams? No more trees and mountains? No more spiders or panthers? It wasn't right! It wasn't time for Plant-sei to die yet!
I ran my hands through my hair and bit my lip. It was all going to end? That was it? Kaboom? The Saiyans were going to hell?
"This could have been brought to my attention A LONG TIME AGO!" I shouted, half to myself, half to the mato.
My stomach churned. Why me? How was little ol' Soja supposed to save people? I barely saved myself a few nights before! Where do you start when you get a mission like that? And where would I find the other four, anyway?
I hopped down from the tree, and my legs felt rubbery when I hit the ground. My whole body was hot from my panic, but the moist earth cooled the soles of my feet a little. The chameleon said that one of the others was on Karro Mountain. I wandered aimlessly, munching on a plum I'd plucked from a tree,
eyes darting this way and that for another Saiyan.
It didn't take long to find her. I saw in the distance a large red rock on which laid a Saiyan woman, limp and pale. She was small and skinny like me, with bowled black hair and full lips. Her eyes were almond-shaped, very large on her face. She squeezed the rock with all her might, trembling, like she was ready to burst into tears.
Now what other Saiyan would be hanging around Karro Mountain, except the seer that the chameleon told me about? The had to be all upset for a reason? The second sun?
It hit me then. The second sun was enough to get anybody depressed, but nothing would get done if we all moped. I had to get my ass into gear. No more self-pity. No more doubt. The world wouldn't be any better if she just lay there hugging the rock.
I saw a stagnant pond a few paces away and knelt there, sinking my hands into the dank, spongy soil. Plunging my fingers through fuzzy moss and fungus, I scooped out big handfuls of red marsh mud and smeared it over me. In a few seconds, I had taken on the most absurd form I could think of at the time: a blue tiger. THAT would get her attention!
With a handful of pebbles in hand, I strutted over to the red rock where Ms. Melancholy was still moping. I took a thumbnail-sized pebble and whipped it at her ass.
"What are you? Frigging the rock?" I shouted.
Heh. THAT would piss her off! A talking blue tiger on its hind legs ought to have made her look twice! I took off running, knowing she was bound to stop sulking for a minute and chase me. Hey, if she was off her feet, we could get started.
But I didn't hear any footsteps behind me. No cracking twigs, no shouting, no cursing, no chi-blast zipping past my head, nothing. I glanced over my shoulder, and she was still lying there like a dead deer carcass.
"Hey! Aren't you going to chase me?" I hollered.
So I ran over there and climbed up on the red rock. I asked her if this sort of thing happened often. She told me to leave her alone. I asked her if walking, talking blue tigers were odd. She didn't answer. I tore off every shred of tiger skin, so she could see the Saiyan me! She didn't even bat an eyelash!
It took a while, but we got to talking, and she was all upset about this dream she had about the second sun. When I told her that I had a dream about the end too, she threw this huge hissy fit about me not caring, and how I couldn't be one of the five. Hell, at least she wasn't moping anymore.
"Now just think for a sec! I dreamed about the second sun too, and Mouth-of-Death and Life-Giving-She. I dreamed about the five. How could I know about all this?"
She huffed. "Fine."
She said her name was Harico. Harico of the Sun Clan.
"I'm Soja," I announced. "Soja of--well, I used to be of the Wind Clan, until I set Vegeta's tail on fire."
"You what?"
"I set his tail on fire. He had it coming."
"And he didn't kill you!?"
"I'm a fast runner." That made her chuckle a little.
"Why were you a tiger?"
"I had a dream where this little chameleon showed me how to put on other skins."
I told her about the dreams, about Mouth-of-Death and the moon-eyed chameleon and all that. She loosened up a little after that.
"A dragonfly mato showed me the stages of the end," she sighed. "Seven events will come to pass. The Tsufuru will be massacred. A contrary star will appear in the heavens. A slave will rule over the Saiyans, Vegeta, I'm convinced. Saiyans will hunt down other races and eat their bodies. No more female children will be born. The oceans will boil. And finally, a second sun will appear in the sky and fall on the world."
"Heavy shit!"
Those big almond-shaped eyes of hers were wandering, and her eyes had dark rings around them from fatigue. I had never seen eyes like that. Orchid eyes that burned right through you. They reflected the light funny.
"The dragonfly mato said I would be a teacher," she said, her eyes following something I couldn't see. "I have to visit the clans and tell them. But they won't believe me."
Oh, for the love of Hanuman, this little beanpole was going to preach? With her message, the Saiyans would get so pissed off they'd tear her to shreds, I thought. And she was no warrior, either: small build, no
scars, gentle demeanor . . . oh Hanuman, they'd eat her. Well, I'd make sure she taught in one piece.
"I'll come with you," I said. "I can, um, collect the donations and stuff."
Harico's eyes lit up. "You want to come with me?"
"Yeah! We're in this together," I replied. How bad could it be?
"Why?"
"Well . . . you seem nice and stuff. And in case some limp-dick Saiyan started up trouble, I could squeeze his tail while you ran."
She let out a weak laugh.
"Teaching isn't so bad," I remarked.
"Did you ever teach?"
"Um . . . well, I taught people to let go of their pride."
"How did you teach them?"
"I put roaches in their beds."
Harico raised an eyebrow.
We stood up and began the long hike back to the Saiyan homelands. I picked a few plums for Harico, and she in turn let me have some sips from her water sack. No hard feelings.
"You're clean," she said one afternoon, while we were eating berries and herbs under a leaning tree.
"Clean?"
"You don't have haze around you. You don't smell like smoke or rot or anything. That's rare among the Saiyans."
Oooooookaaaay.
"Um . . . thanks . . . " I sputtered.
"The land here pulses," she continued. "I can see the soil pulsing. It's full of life. Saiyan land doesn't do this. I think it's because they bring so much death to the land."
Oooooooooooooookaaaaaaaaaay.
"Do you think I'm mad?" she suddenly asked, boring into me with those almond-shaped eyes.
"Um . . . well . . . I . . . ah . . . "
"You can say it," she huffed, casting her eyes down. "They all think I'm mad when I say things like that. But I know what I see is real. So what of the other Saiyans can't see these things? Maybe they don't want to see."
Harico picked up a handful of clay soil and rolled in between her palms, until she had a smooth clay ball. "I'm telling you this so you know. You're different. I can see that. And I'm different."
We hiked to Rain Clan territory, and I threw some mud on and gave myself the appearance of a burly older man. Hey, I'd have to be intimidating to keep Harico safe!
Harico decided that Vegeta and his clan should be warned first, since Vegeta bright about the first sign of the end. Fat chance of that. When we waded through the vegetation that evening, we saw something wide and metallic in the distance. A huge disk, spotted with glass bubbles for windows, sat beside the Rain Clan village. Strange men of all sizes and skin colors, some resembling Saiyans without tails, others resembling fish or animals, stood in front of the ship. All wore what looked like metal or rubber over their bodies, and it was in the most disgusting colors, let me tell you.
Already, the Rain Clan settlement looked completely different. Several of the mud huts had been swept away, and more of the strange men were laying down metal and plastic foundations. In some spots, these garishly-colored metal walls were coming up for new buildings. The foundation for some huge building laid where forests should have towered, and hundreds of the strange men were scurrying about with tools, with orders, with metal and plastic, with arrogance.
"No . . . what is this?" Harico whispered. Those almond-shaped eyes of hers were wide.
We hid behind the shrubs and watched. Saiyans were cheering and chuckling. Men and women tried on the rubber and metal that the strange men wore, and fitted chips of metal and colored glass over their eyes: scouters.
"Jeez! Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever seen?" I whispered to Harico. "Imagine walking around all day covered up like that. Isn't it hot under that? How can people tell if you're a man or woman, then? How--"
"SSSHHHH!"
I shut up.
A few yards in front of us, I spied Vegeta standing erect before a metal pod, but this pod floated in the air, just like the stone in my dream. Nothing held it up that I could see, and I gasped. This long, thick pink thing dangled out from the pod, and when it twitched, I saw that it was some creature's tail.
Vegeta and whatever was in the pod spoke about "telling them" and "the agreement" for some "trade". Vegeta was sweating. His tail twitched. His body was stiff. His dark eyes were fixed on the pod. Eventually, he cast his eyes down and nodded, then walked off a little too quickly.
The mighty Vegeta of the Rain Clan, acting humble like this? Wha--? I thought.
The pod turned and floated away, and Harico and I saw a smallish creature with gray horns, ape-like hands, and pale skin smirking within. The pod floated across the settlement until it rose back into the ship.
Vegeta strode to the center of the Rain Clan village, called out until everyone's eyes were fixed on him, and spoke.
"Lord Freeza has given us a most noble gift: the opportunity to fight across the stars! Our pride in battle will be known across the many worlds, for now we have a special task: to eliminate all the weak."
His voice wavered just slightly. Scared shitless, he was.
"I've spoken with many of you today about this opportunity," he continued. "All of you are strong warriors, and saw the prudence in accepting Lord Freeza's offer. It is an honor, mind you, to be the first clan approached with this offer of battle and conquest. Is the Rain Clan in favor of Freeza's task?"
The crowd of Rain Clan Saiyans cheered. Men and women shouted about new armor, wealth, battles, glory, blah blah blah.
A few days before, everyone was obsessed with killing Tsufuru and getting new lands for hunting and gathering. That day, they were all overjoyed about killing among the stars. I don't know what stunned me more: the Saiyans' short attention spans, or whatever force came down and gave them the ideas.
"What is all of this? What's going on?" I whispered to myself. The mato talked about Freeza and the bloodshed he'd bring with him. But already? I found myself breathing too fast.
"I'm not in favor," came a woman's voice. Suddenly, Harico stepped into the center of the village, face to face with Vegeta. I burst out of the shrubs and ran after her.
"I'm not in favor of more battles," she said. "All these battles only serve to announce the end."
"What are you talking about?" Vegeta growled.
"I had a vision. Plant-sei's time is short. This world will come to an end soon."
The crowd laughed.
"Seven signs will come to pass," she said, raising her voice against the laughter of the clan. "Then, Plant-sei will die, and so will the Saiyan race. You, Vegeta, caused the first sign to pass. You led the massacre of the Tsufuru."
Vegeta snarled and warmed a chi-blast in his hand, and had I not thrown Harico to the ground in time, she would have been a pile of ashes. As Harico rose to her feet, half a dozen of the strange men grabbed hold of us and dragged us away. I mumbled something about how their gray and blue garments didn't go well with their complexions as they carried me away.
We were dragged to a mossy spot behind the ship, where about four other Saiyans - two men, two women - were shouting.
"We don't take orders from you!" one woman barked at the strange men.
"You're not our patriarchs! You can't just march in and tell us what to do!" bayed another man.
The four had small red and black singe marks on their arms and legs, and were rubbing them as they bared their teeth and shouted.
"Two more dissenters!" said one of our captors, a seven-foot tall cat-man with yellow fur. We were thrown into the four Saiyans, who had been corralled between the ship and a handful of the strange men in metal/rubber armor. The cat-man toyed with a metal box on his wrist, and a burst of heat and light erupted from it. The laser hit the ground loudly and burnt the grasses black.
"Quiet! All a yous!" the cat-mass hissed.
Harico and I rolled off the dissenters and stood up.
"What is all this?" Harico whispered to one of the women, a tall, wiry teenager with cream-colored hair.
"We were lied to!" the woman hissed. "Vegeta lied to us all!"
"Lied?"
"He used us to kill Tsufuru! We thought we were avenging Saiyan murders! We thought there would be good land for us!"
"But what's this?"
"That Freeza was behind it! That thing in the floating pod! We found out when these freaks came. Freeza told Vegeta to get all the Saiyans together and kill off Tsufuru!"
Harico swallowed hard. " . . . Why?"
"Hell if I know! I just know he used us."
Someone tricked or forced Vegeta into this mess? Who would want the whole Tsufuru nation dead? Why did Vegeta obey? That story about his hunting companions . . . was it even true? The questions swam in my head. My stomach soured.
"This is happening too fast!" I muttered.
"Hey, shut up!" shouted the cat-man again, who fired a blue laser several inches from Harico's head.
"Is it time for coffee yet?" asked one of our guards, a crimson fish man with bumpy skin.
"Nope," said another, who resembled a short gray Saiyan without a tail. "Freeza's orders. Wait till nightfall. Then kill all the troublemakers in one big group."
Just then, I saw a Saiyan man saunter toward us, smooth-skinned with a delicate face. He had a mass of black hair bound in a bun at the base of his skull, and quiet-looking eyes. Like the dissenters, he wore no clothing.
"Let me discipline the troublemakers," he said, batting his tail.
"Huh? Whadda you want, Gemusa?" the cat-man growled.
"The dissenters."
"You think cause you're friends with Vegeta you can do anything?"
"We Saiyans have our own way of dealing with troublemakers," Gemusa replied. "I speak for Vegeta. Hand them over to me." His eyes darted back and forth from the cat-man to the other guards. His eyebrows narrowed.
"Why should we?" barked one of the strange men, a bearded fellow with reddish-orange skin.
"I already have permission from Freeza and Vegeta." Gemusa frowned and folded his arms.
The cat-man batted his tail and reached for something on his belt.
"Awright. Wait," he mumbled. He lifted six pairs of metal hoops from his belt and bound the dissenters, Harico, and myself at the wrists. As much as we all tugged at the metal hoops, the metal just wouldn't give. Those cuffs couldn't have been made from anything on Plant-sei! After taking a thin
metal chain and looping it through the cuffs, the cat-man bound us all together on one line. Gemusa took a metal rod-key from the cat-man, then took hold of the thin chain and led us into the rain forest.
"And you bring those cuffs back when they're dead!" the cat-man yelled. "The planet trade don't just give stuff away for free!"
Already, it was getting late. The sky was mauve and orange against the setting sun, and the air was cool and crisp. Gemusa led us all by that metal chain deeper and deeper into the vegetation, for what must have been several miles from the Rain Clan village.
I watched Gemusa, and he was different from every other Saiyan man I'd met. The voice, the mannerisms, they weren't really, well, masculine. Not that he moved like a pansy or something, but he didn't scowl or leer at you. He didn't hold himself like he was ready to hit someone. I mean, every Saiyan man I'd met had this macho take-no-shit air to him. Gemusa didn't have that. He walked quickly and smoothly, looking this way and that.
"What are you thinking?" I finally piped up. "So what if our wrists are bound? How do you know the six of us won't try something?"
Gemusa lifted his eyebrows and stared at me. "Why would such a big man have a woman's voice?"
"Um . . . well, I think it's a very manly voice, thank you very much!"
Gemusa stopped suddenly, dropped the chain, and gave a tense glance over his shoulder in the direction of the village. Then, biting his lip, he hurriedly took the metal rod key, wiggled it in the cuffs, and freed all of us from the manacles.
"Listen to me," he said to all of us, his voice hard. "Get out of the Saiyan homelands. Go to Karro. Go to the abandoned Tsufuru lands. Anywhere away from Freeza."
The sun had already sunk below the horizon, and the sky darkened like a blushing face. I glanced at Gemusa, then at the others, then at Gemusa. And I swore he looked different! His hips looked wider, and his face looked smoother.
"Freeza and Vegeta have plans," he added. "Do you want to take orders from Freeza's men? Or watch your land scarred? Then leave. Get away from here."
"Why'd you do it?" asked one of the dissenter men.
He sighed. "No one has to serve that murderer if they don't want to." Gemusa's waist narrowed. I swore it. His lips looked fuller.
I glanced over at Harico, only to find that she was staring back at me, eyes wide. She saw it too! The two men and two women, however, just looked on as Gemusa spoke, acting like this sort of thing happened every day.
"You're all right," remarked the cream-haired woman. "You got the right idea. So does that black-haired girl. What's your name?"
"Harico," said my friend.
"Daikon," replied the cream-haired woman, patting Harico on the back. The other three dissenters introduced themselves: Dulse, an orange-haired woman with round cheeks; Kombu, her orange-haired brother; and Agaragar, her black-maned, burly cousin. All were teenagers or young adults, with fire in their eyes.
Daikon turned to me. "What about you?"
I decided the strangers might as well be trusted, and started peeling off the false skin as Gemusa and the four dissenters shouted.
"I'm Soja! And please keep all of this between us, okay?"
Gemusa and the dissenters stared at me, mouths hanging open.
"It's a trick I learned! Come on. Please don't tell anyone about me. I've been in big trouble with Vegeta before."
Gemusa and the dissenters went pale and exchanged glances, but eventually nodded.
"How . . . ?" Dulse whispered.
I laughed and threw a shard of skin at her.
Then, I looked at Gemusa again, and his body was curvy. His hips were wide, his waist narrow, his face more delicate than before, and his chest . . . well, let's just say he wasn't flat-chested anymore. And I won't even start on the whole between-the-legs thing. As the rain forest darkened and stars speckled the night sky, Gemusa had transformed into a woman. Harico and I gasped.
"How?" Harico blurted out. "You're a woman?"
"Freeza and his men think that Gemusa's a man," Daikon said impassively.
"And I intend for it to stay that way," Gemusa added. "When it's daylight, I'm a man, and when it's night, I'm a woman. It's always been that way."
Whoa! I can masquerade as a man, but she transforms into one! I thought.
Gemusa lowered her voice. "Listen, Daikon, Dulse, Kombu, Agaragar. Where are you going to flee?"
Dulse thought for a moment. "What about the Tsufuru cities?"
Agaragar snorted. "What can we find there? Vegeta lied to us. There's no forests or fishing lands up there. It's got stone and metal all over it."
"Karro Mountain?" Harico suggested.
Kombu shuddered. "Hell no! That place has mato crawling all over it! They'll drive you insane!"
"Karro mountain has food and game," Harico said quietly. "No Saiyans go there because of the legends. The mato bring wisdom, not madness."
Dulse and Daikon shuddered. "I heard a lot of bad stories about that place," Daikon warned.
"It's safe. I promise you."
"Well I don't like the sound of it," Agaragar growled.
"Fine. Where are you going, then? The Tsufuru cities? You just said they have nothing you want. The Saiyan lands aren't safe. You can take your chances and hide in the rain forest, but you have no guarantee that other
Saiyans won't find you. If they're in league with those strange men, they'll kill you."
The four dissenters sighed.
"Karro Mountain is a nasty place. I don't like the notion of staying there," Kombu said.
"It's a beautiful place. I promise you that. It will take care of your needs."
The four dissenters didn't say anything for a few minutes. Then, Daikon spoke up.
"Okay. But if anyone starts going crazy there, I'm leaving!"
"The mato are cool," I said. "They taught me that trick I showed you."
"The mato showed me signs of the end," Harico added, frowning.
Gemusa touched Harico's shoulder. "Listen to me. I haven't told anyone from the Rain Clan about this before. I myself went to Karro weeks ago. I wept over the dream I had there. You," she said, nodding to Harico," your message made me think of my dream."
Harico, me, and the dissenters listened as Gemusa told her tale: how she was Vegeta's advisor by daylight and his bride by night, how Freeza came to manipulate Vegeta, and about the nightmare of the end. Lo and behold, we'd found the third of the five saviors.
