[Namek] Defense of the Ancients

[Sophia]

“Right, so…” Kaden folded the pamphlet that he had grabbed from the officer’s station and stored it away in one of the inner pockets of his jacket, “…we’re set to go, right? Fighting the good fight?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Sophia shrugged her shoulders, trying to match Kaden’s strides and paying attention to little else. Things were moving a little fast, she had to admit, but she felt contentment with her situation that she hadn’t felt since…she had to think a bit about it, but she hadn’t been content since before her father died. All it took was an old friend suddenly appearing at her place of business, suddenly back into her life, and offer to take her off to fight some distant war on another planet. The thought seemed as ridiculous as ever, but it worked nonetheless.

All they had to do at this point was fight. Sophia was good at fighting.

Several thoughts struck her at once, however, upon examining her situation further. It had been a long time; a very, very long time since she had even lifted anything over fifty pounds, let alone fight someone else to the death. It had been even longer since she had thought about forming even the simplest ball of ki. When she thought about it, she was so far beyond the point of “being rusty” that she was basically starting again from scratch.

And she was expected to protect a foreign race from super-powered aliens and mutants and Kai-knows-what-else. Needless to say, the thought mortified her to the bone, so much so that she found herself clutching at Kaden’s wrist tightly. “Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no…”

“…what’s the matter?” the courier spoke through a wince, wringing free his wrist from Sophia’s death-grip. “Oh wow, your face is really pale.”

“Kaden,” she whispered frantically, her face mostly obscured by the hair that fell as she lowered her head, as if that would make her invisible. “…what the heck am I doing here?”

“…what?” Kaden merely blinked. It was a reasonable reaction, all things considered.

“What am I doing here!” she spoke again, this time her voice more closely resembling a shout as she reached over to grab both of the man’s shoulders, shaking him lightly. “I sucked at fighting before, and that was, like, two years ago! I’m so not ready for this! I don’t remember anything, Kaden, I don’t remember!”

Kaden opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out initially. It seemed that the gears in his head were working overtime to determine just what the hell this crazy woman was going on about. “Uh…h-hey, calm down, or…something. This just occurred to you?”

“I didn’t think about it!” Sophia shouted, letting go of her friend and taking a couple steps backwards. “I mean, how often does a girl get to take a vacation, anyway?”

“Well…” the courier put a hand on his hip, looking to the sky. He genuinely appeared to be thinking over his options, though the motion seemed to stem from frustration or impatience. “I don’t know what to tell you, Soph. We can’t exactly go back now. Are you sure you’ve forgotten everything? It hasn’t been that long.”

“I…well,” Sophia paused to consider the question. She had died, maintained her spirit, trained under one of the most renowned teachers in the universe, and came back to life. When she reconsidered, it didn’t seem likely that a year or two would obscure all of her training. She held out her hand, closed her eyes, and concentrated…she didn’t even have to open her eyes back up to know that she at least remembered how to use ki. “Okay, so I’m not totally useless. But still!” She walked back up to Kaden and shoved an index finger into his chest. “You should have reminded me!”

“How is it my…I was just…” the ki specialist sighed and shook his head. “You’re right. You’re completely absolved of any wrong-doing or lack of forethought. Can we go on, now?”

“Yes,” Sophia responded, quite sure that she had won. With that out of the way, they were free to…they were free to… “Where are we going, exactly?”

“That’s what I was asking you to begin with.”

“Oh. Well…I don’t know,” the ex-priestess shrugged. “We should go protect a village. Or something.”

“Well…yeah, we’re going to do that,” Kaden breathed another sigh. He sure seemed to have trouble making up his mind. “Well…let’s find a smaller village. The bigger ones probably have enough security, anyway.”

“Makes…sense,” Sophia guessed. “Is there a map, or something?”

“I’m sure someone around here can show us around.”

“Alrighty.”

***

Sophia and Kaden arrived in pretty good time, considering they arrived by jeep. The village was small enough to be assigned just two warriors—in this case, Sophia and Kaden, and that wasn’t bad, all things considering. Kaden hopped out of the vehicle first and helped Sophia out, tapping the jeep to signal its departure. As it sped away, the pair turned to face the village at the same time. It was fairly quaint, only containing a small field in which they surely farmed for some sort of crop, and just a handful of houses surrounded it. It was fairly unassuming, but deserving of protection nonetheless.

“Think anyone’s home?” Kaden inquired as they began walking towards the village.

“Sure doesn’t look like it,” Sophia shook her head. “You think we’re too late?”

“Could be,” the courier shrugged, stopping to look around. Sophia decided to wait for him. “But then again, everything just seems too…neat. I don’t think anyone’s been here for a while.”

“Maybe everyone’s inside.”

“Or maybe the militia sent us to a ghost town,” Kaden laughed…or maybe it was a scoff. It was hard to tell. “It figures. We left Earth because we were tired of doing nothing, and now we’ve been sent off to do exactly that.”

“Well, we won’t know anything unless we look around,” Sophia patted him on the shoulder and continued onward. She could have sworn she heard something off in the distance, but she shrugged it off.