[6] Chasing Sebastian

[Friend or Foe]

Sage
Ashe
Zena


The three girls took a jeep out of the desert until they made it to the river that was signalled on their map. If they were going to get to Sebastian and his Snake Emblem, they would have to leave the vehicle and travel on foot.

Their destination was on the other side of the strong rapids of the river...in the vast jungle.















(You guys have creative control. Feel free to include chasing Sebastian or other obstacles if you want, however your actual confrontation will not be this round. But, like I said, feel free to include him, or request a post from me about him)

[Friend or Foe]

He didn't really like the outdoors very much, but Sebastian Strong was pretty good holding his own. He had a group of ten soldiers walking around him, ensuring he was safe from traps in the jungle or any animals that were hunching around, but honestly he hardly needed it. The worry was mainly from the heat and the blazing sun that hit him past the treetops.

The man wiped the sweat off of his forehead and put his white mask back over his head, ensuring it was held tight to his face.

"Sir?" One of the soldiers asked, "How far deep are we going?"

"We're going to the site of the Nanihiti Tribe," he explained, "Before we got here, Kai had them relocated, so their village is still intact, just abandoned. Hopefully it's not too ravaged by animals."

The soldier nodded and moved away from him, letting him walk in silence. That was always the rule. Never talk to Sebastian unless necessary. He wasn't your friend, and he wasn't interested in trying to be.

It wasn't that the man wasn't a sociable person. Get him in the real world and he can drink and have fun with the best of 'em. But Kai had contacted him through the underground fight network he was connected to and employed him. This was a job. This was serious business.

Of course, he hadn't expected the burglary on Kajin Rala to get traced all the way here. The changeling had got a tip that funding came from Kai, because of the paycheck Sebastian used to fund one of the groups involved. Fortunately, thanks to his own meddling, Balrog had taken out Szar, and Trisha was sure to take care of the redhead and the blonde, who had already forgotten about the incident on Kajin Rala.

As he took note of the tiger footprints in the mud, he pondered who was following him. They were surely going to run into his traps, but would probably get by them, knowing the group Kai had found. Even though he was an underground fighting champion, Sebastian didn't like getting his hands dirty. He was your typical gay man when it came to looking good: Scars are not pretty.

"Sir!" Someone said, interupting his thoughts. He turned, annoyed, to find one of the scouts behind him. "We found the team chasing you. It's the saiyan princesses...and the pink-haired girl."

"That's it?" He asked, blinking in surprise. "They sent three useless little girls to fight me? I'm Sebastian Strong! I'm the fastest and most beautiful man in the world and all I get as a challenge is three toddlers?"

The man pulled out the Snake Emblem and smirked.

"Fine," he said, "So be it. We'll have a little fun with them."

He wasn't like the other Demons. Balrog didn't like to kill, but he was fighting because he owed Kai a favor. Trisha was a good fighter but had her eyes on other things, like material possessions. Rosemary, despite probably being the strongest person on the island, preferred to help somebody. Jackson was a blind puppet, a killer who fought for the right to die. Even Kai, the smartest man in the world, preferred to walk away from a fight then go through with it.

But Sebastian...he was different. He fought in underground networks because he couldn't get away with the horrible, brutal techniques he used to dismember his opponents. He was a born murderer and he loved the power of ending someone's life. It was almost like a fetish, driving him forward from kill to kill, keeping him entertained.

To this day, his death count was in the hundreds. He stopped killing people outright and started to take real, extreme pleasure out of it. Listening to them scream, watching their life slowly drift away.

"Mmmmmm," he murmured to himself, causing the scout to look confused. "I'm starting to get hot just thinking about what I'm gonna do to those girls."

The guard laughed, uncomfortable, assuming Sebastian meant rape, which was common talk about the black market soldiers Kai had gotten. But the horrible, bloody things inside Sebastian's head were the kind of images you cry over.

[Sage]

Because I can.

On the ride to the edge of the river, Sage was silent, lost in despondency. The other two didn’t bother her; they probably thought she was just exhausted from the abuse Balrog had dealt her. She would have snorted in contempt at that if she didn’t know it would hurt so much. It wasn’t like Ashe had been any better off. It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t care. Just as long as they left her alone.

She was hardly aware of the jeep coming to a halt. The short squeak of the brakes seemed far off and distant, and she didn’t even notice the vibrations of the engine cease as Zena shut the vehicle down. The others climbed out of the vehicle. She thought so, anyway. It didn’t matter, anyway.

A hand gently came down on her shoulder. Ashe’s hand. Sage violently shrugged it off and bolted up out of the vehicle, stalking off along the river. “Sage!” the pink haired girl called after her. “Where are you going!?”

The young doctor chose to ignore her, and quickened her pace, her eyes stinging with fresh tears, her face contorted into a mask of sadness and fury. “Sage!!” came a different voice. With an angry curse, the crystal haired girl stamped a foot into the sandy ground and stiffly stood, heeding her sister’s call. “Get over here!” the authoritative voice took on a hint of anger. She wanted to lash out, to tell her to fuck off. Sage wanted to tell her to leave her the hell alone, but...

The girl turned around, and dejectedly made her way back to Zena. Her unfamiliar, angry eyes, obscured by stray hair, fell upon her sister. Sage was nearly snarling, and this put the more battle-hardened twin ill at ease. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You think you can just wander off like an idiot?! This whole island is a death trap!”

At this the smaller twin said nothing. She just nodded despite what was being said, her eyes firmly fixed on her feet as she nervously wrung her hands. Ashe couldn’t believe she was just going to stand there and take it. No, she wouldn’t let that happen.

“Hey, come on,” she spoke to Zena. “She’s your sister.”

“Another word out of you and you won’t make it home,” was the blunt retort. “Now come on. I’ll fly you hair balls across the river and we can get going. Sage, make sure to watch what you’re doing from here on.”

“Hey,” Ashe nearly whispered, resting her palm on the blue haired girl’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about- augh!” she stumbled back as Sage planted her palm square against her chest.

“Don’t worry about what?!” she growled, her voice coming as a shock even to her. “Don’t worry that we’re about to die on an island for some millionaire’s snuff film?! Don’t worry that you and I just got beaten up for no reason other than to please some sick, twisted degenerate?! What shouldn’t I worry about, was that it?!”

“Sage!” Zena barked. “Enough!!”

“NO!!” the addict screamed, stunning the confident blond. Her surprise was etched on her face; Sage never, ever talked back to her sister for any reason. “I killed someone today, Zena!” she shouted, the tears streaming down her face.

“You-” the blue eyed girl didn’t quite know how to respond. Sage had never killed anyone. Zena knew how much she cherished human life, because she had to console her for months after killing people who had done sinister things to her.

“I saw that, Sage,” Ashe stated, a hand still on her chest. “You did it to save your sister. That guard was sneaking up on her. You did what you had to do,” in truth, the sight had unnerved her, as well, but she knew the azure haired girl needed support at the moment, not a lesson in ethics.

“Zena could have easily brushed him off,” Sage bitterly countered. “But I shot him. I shot him in the back and I-” she began to sob. “And I killed him anyway.”

“You prevented an ambush, Sage. Balrog was-”

What the hell do you know, Ashe?! Sage telepathically screamed at the pink haired girl. Have you ever killed anyone?! her eyes bored into Ashe’s. Have you ever taken away someone’s right to live?! overcome with grief, Sage fell to her knees as she wept.

“Enough. We’re in difficult circumstances,” Zena began. “You did what anyone-”

“I’m a doctor, Zena! Don’t you get it? I have saved over a hundred patients from death, and I’ve made life better for hundreds more. And all of that... everything I did - everything I do after this - it’s... it’s all for nothing. Mom... and dad... and you... you’re killers. I was going to be a killer too, but I’m... ruined. I thought I would save lives instead of take them... I thought I could make up for it for us... make up for it for me, but, now...” Sage looked down at the gun that had found its way into her hand. She turned it over, looking at the lethality selector switch. There was a non-lethal option. But it wasn’t the option the switch was set to. “...I threw everything away. My only...” she finished under her breath. “My only reason to live.”

She wiped her eyes and climbed to her feet. And then, to Ashe and Zena’s horror, she put the gun to her head, and had already pulled the trigger halfway before her sister managed to teleport behind her, violently slapping the gun out of her hand with enough force to send the girl sprawling. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Zena roared.

“But, I...”

“You can’t do this! I won’t let you!”

Sage looked at the gun in the sand. Her stare was empty. Where there was always fear, or the occasional glimmer of hope, now there was nothing. What tiny fragment of herself she had left had been taken from her.

Because I can.

“What’s the point?” she finally demanded, the shocking passion and anger having died out with the rest of her. “I can’t help you; I’m just a burden anyway. Zena, I... have always been a-”

“Shut up.”

“It’s true and you-”

“We’re not talking about this!”

“But we are talking about this!” Sage pleaded, her eyes searching for something. “We’re talking about the truth! Being a doctor was all that I had left, so why even bother? You’ll be able to move faster without me, anyway.”

“We’re not leaving my sister behind!” Zena retorted. “And I’m not letting you blow your brains out on some game show.”

“But... but, Zena, I want to die.”

Silence.

“Sage,” it was Ashe this time. “There... are people who have done terrible things and have learned to live with them. You can atone for this, someday-”

“How can I-”

“But for right now,” Ashe pushed through Sage’s rebuttal. “You have to stay strong. If not for me, then for your sister.”

“My sister doesn’t need me; she’s taken care of me since I was thirteen.”

“That isn’t true,” Zena snapped. “I... do need you.”

Sage blinked her surprise. “...For what?” her voice sounded somewhat more even. Zena sighed. She didn’t like getting mushy.

“You say you live for being a doctor, and that you depend on me, right?”

“...Yeah, but-”

“Have you ever thought that maybe I needed something to live for?”

“I don't-”

“When I had nothing else to live for, I lived for taking care of you.”

Sage was dumbstruck. “Zena... I...”

“Are you going to take away something I live for, or will you at least wait until after Kai is dead to make your choice?”

“You'll find something, Sage,” Ashe promised.

Zena picked up the gun and held it out to her sister. “Now, if we're done here, you're wasting time, Sage,” she grumbled, reverting to her old self. And yet, Sage couldn't help but smile, despite it all. Things were bleak, but she would try to sort it out. For Zena. “So let's go.”

[Celena]

After twenty years, a new Super Saiyaness had been born as a result from a response to a need. Zena had needed to stop the former boxer from inflicting more harm to her only sister, and she had gained that power and had used it to slay Balrog Tast, who was now a former member of the Five Demons. As for Ares, she was not going to forget about that traitor. If she were to come in contact with him again, she would kill him without questioning or restraint.

From Zena’s perspective, as long as Kai Demolic was still breathing, his show still went on. Even though she hated admitting it, the girl knew she was playing by his rules. He called the shots and now he had arranged for the remaining nine participants in his TV programme (scratch that, eight, since Judas, aka Ares, was now aligned with Mr Demolic) to split into groups in order to retrieve emblems from his three remaining Demons. Only by retrieving the emblems, would Zena finally get her chance to destroy the evil mastermind.

The fact that she was the only fighter amongst the trio of females, put their group at a disadvantage. Despite that, she was not going to let any disadvantages stop her from achieving her goal.

The group’s journey towards the edge of the river had so far been silent. Considering the chain of events, which had transpired recently, nobody, was in the chatty mood. Probably one of the few things the twins had in common were the fact that neither was chatty. As for Ashe, well Zena did not know her at all, and was not interested in getting to know the teenager. Ashe however broke the silence because there had been something she wanted to get off her chest. “If you’re Zena,” she asked the girl sitting beside Sage. “Then who was the dark haired girl back at the abandoned town claiming to be you?”

The blonde haired cutie was actually surprised Ashe had not asked by now. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“After all of the weird things I’ve seen since being on this island, nothing would surprise me.”

The student had a good point there. Zena decided she was not going to go into a lot of detail explaining to the teen and one of the main reasons was because she was still warn out from transforming into a Super Saiyan for the first time. She did not envy how her mother must have felt when she had first transformed, not to imagine what effect becoming an ascended Super Saiyan for the first time must have had on her.

“A friend of mine and I merged bodies. Long story short, while we were in a cave earlier, we got shot. She took the bullet and at the same time, somehow managing to defuse and as a result, prevented me from feeling the effects of the bullet. I was unharmed, while she died. So here I am; me again.”

There was silence for a moment and then Ashe tried to ask, “what’s-”

“No more questions. The topic ends, now,” replied Zena who turned her face away from Ashe with a frown and back to the window by her left hand side.

As much as the pink haired girl wanted to know the definition of this ‘merging’ importantly, as well as a few other things Zena had explained, she knew her original question had left the princess in a discomforting state, therefore, she let her anxiety rest. Perhaps she could require knowing more once she had gotten to know Zena a little bit better, but for now, silence resumed.

======

Despite Zena detesting her sister’s meltdowns, it happened again, as she had expected. Zena had not been aware that Sage had killed someone in order to prevent that person from possibly killing her. Despite how devastated Sage was feeling because she had taken a life, the elder sister was proud of her unusual act of courage. She did not regret what her little sister had done. If anything, Zena was disappointed in the fact that Sage felt remorseful because of what she had done. Even though Sage had been forced to take a life, something she had never committed before, she had saved a life and not just any life, her only sister’s. Even Ashe had tried to nail that into her head. Why could she not understand? She was concerned about nobody else but herself. Why was she being selfish?

It was no good Zena telling Sage that she did what anyone would have done in her shoes, because she was gazing at a blue haired girl who believed all life was sacred, even the wicked lives of people like Kai Demolic. Zena should have kept her thoughts bottled up, but she was entitled to a freedom of speech, entitled to her opinion. Even if it was no good telling Sage what she believed, Sage needed to hear it.

“You value life sacredly, yet you wanted to end your own existence from this world,” Zena let out of her mouth, stopping her journey in front of the other two, who then stopped too.

“Yes, because-”

Zena’s hand rose sharply through the air, delivering a hot and crispy slap across the right hand side of Sage’s face, causing it to jiggle (like this), before the girl buckled over and pressed a hand against her cheek with a soft yelp, and then she burst into tears.

“What the hell was that for?!” Ashe snapped.

“Don’t you ever think about committing suicide, not in my presence, not anywhere,” the heir pointed with her index finger.

Sage’s lips trembled as her mouth opened.

“No ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’,” Zena guessed her sister was about to say. “You claim you are useless, but you fail to see, you’re the reason I was able to transform into a Super Saiyan. I couldn’t bare the thought of…” She struggled for the courage to utter the next words, ‘sugar coated candy’ like words she was not used to saying. She decided she would not say them, instead, move along. “You didn’t choose to be on this island, just like you didn’t choose to be bullied around by Balrog. I did what was needed to be done. Life isn’t fair and that’s just the way it is.”

“Zena-”

“You need to understand that I killed Balrog because I had to, not because I wanted to. People like that only bring pain to the world. Even if you refuse to agree with everything or anything I am saying, I’d willingly kill in order to protect the people I…” she hesitated to conclude, “just like mom and dad would; end of story.”

Zena began walking once more and so did Ashe, but Sage remained still. They both paused once they realised that she was not following.

“What were you going to say?” asked Sage.

“What?” the elder twin responded.

“You paused after saying ‘protect the people I-’” Sage longed to hear those four words come out of Zena’s mouth. “What were you going to say after ‘I’?

“Nothing. I’ve said everything I’ve needed to, to you…for now.”

“I know what you were going to say,” Ashe knew. “What’s wrong with telling someone you-?”

“We’re stalling,” Zena interrupted, before Ashe had the chance to say that oh so special, cheesy, four letter word. Even though Zena obviously loved her sister, it was something she would never admit. Was it not enough that she had revealed to her sister that she was her reason for living? Getting all sloppy was not her style and she damn sure hoped that she would not be forced to act in that manner again and then she hastily began moving again, putting quite a distance between the other two in order to intentionally avoid discussion, until she reached a long bridge above a river, and waited for them to catch up. Zena was first to carefully stepped on the rafts. They all held onto the side ropes for balance, as the bridge swayed from left to right while they continued to advance across. The jungle lay ahead.

[Ashe]

“We’re stalling,” the blond Saiyaness dropped bluntly, making it clear that she was through with the discussion. Without giving them Ashe a chance to pry it out of her, Zena quickened her pace until she had left a gap between herself and the others. Sage watched her leave without a word, lowering her outstretched hand slowly before closing her mouth, retreating into her thoughts once more.

Ashe kicked at the ground after the woman had intentionally left hearing distance. Something told the girl, however, that she hadn’t quite gone far enough up to be able to shut out their words. “Ugh, this is so stupid,” Ashe finally exclaimed, throwing her arms forward in an angry gesture. Sage snapped up in attention, prompting Ashe to continue. “I mean, why does she always have to have sand up her vag? I don’t get it, did you guys grow up on the street or something? What is with the hardened emotionless façade that she’s always trying to portray?”

Sage’s mouth dropped - while Zena visibly tensed up in the distance without actually responding - leaving Ashe to quickly apologize for her harshness. “I’m sorry, its not that I’m trying to bash on your sister or insult your heritage or anything. I just… I don’t get it. I thought you two were Princesses? Shouldn’t you have grown up in a palace or something? What part of being a Princess causes sandy vag syndrome?”

“I don’t… We didn’t… Sandy vag?” Sage sputtered, not quite sure what to respond to first. She didn’t even seem to entirely understand Ashe’s words.

The student continued over top of her words, not entirely discussing so much as she was ranting. “She puffs herself up so proud and tough, when its obvious from the way that she runs away from actually talking about things that she’s just as terrified as the rest of us.” Ashe turned and looked at Sage for a moment and bumped her arm up against the girl who had now wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to withdraw as well. “Hey!” she called, catching her attention again. “Maybe she’s just trying to be strong for you or something,” she voiced, hoping to cheer Sage up. The girl slowly nodded, and Ashe let out a gasp of air.

“Without her, as weak as I am, I’d fade away,” she mouthed in a near whisper, nearly trembling.

She honestly didn’t entirely feel that was the case. There was more to it than that. Zena, and almost every other Saiyan that she’d encountered so far, was consistent in that they wanted everyone around them to know that they were the toughest mothers on the street. It was like a turf war without the turf. Sage was the only one of them that seemed to not try to hold that impenetrable aura around herself and Ashe could only take a guess at what it was.

In every story there was a protagonist - the main character - and then an antagonist. Most people assumed that being an antagonist automatically meant ‘the bad guy’ or at least a rival, but Ashe had learned differently from that. Those two ways were usually the most common methods of portraying one, but in the story of Sage, it seemed that Zena was her antagonist - the character who’s practical reason for existence was to help accentuate the qualities of the protagonist.

If every Saiyan was the elite of the elite and the strongest warrior on their planet, then they would all be nothing more than average. Ashe reasoned that there had to be some Saiyans, like Sage, that were constantly forced into submission and humbled by the prideful ones, who also happened to be the heralds of their stereotype. So then… In their cutthroat world of one-upsmanship, there would have to be people at the opposite side of the road, right?

“Sage, I don’t really think you are weak. I think you just feel that way because of just how much effort your sister,” And every other Saiyan she’d met, Ashe skipped, “puts into puffing herself up to look strong. She puts so much effort into convincing everyone around her that they are weak and inferior to her that you either end up believing it to help further the illusion,” Her mind wandered to the other Saiyans that had immediately set to groveling at the mere mention from the girl that she was a Princess, immediately seeking to exercise their own display of strength so as to be seen favorable by her. “or you end up killing each other just to find out who is right and who is dead,” she ended grimly.

“My sister is powerful,” Sage pleaded. “She… became a Super Saiyan! For me!” Ashe didn’t know entirely how to proceed with the conversation. She didn’t want to destroy whatever comforting hope that Sage had as a reason to live, but she respected her and didn’t want to lie either.

“Sage…” she trailed off, lowering her voice so that Zena would not hear her. “I don’t know why she’s flaunting that as much as she has been. Watch the news sometime. I think something like thirty or fourty percent of your race can do that. We live in a dangerous world, and while I never really wanted to accept that,” she shrugged, looking around as they came up to a bridge. “Here we are. On an island being hunted.”

The girl stopped talking a moment as she glanced over the edge of the mountainside that they had come to. The river raged below them, casting steam and water sprays up at them as wave after wave crashed against the rocks below. Ashe looked up, her eyes falling onto the rotting rope bridge that they had come to. “Dude, there’s no way-” she began, getting silenced as Zena grabbed the ropes on both sides of the bridge for support before stepping out onto the planks.

“Seems fine,” she announced after testing the weight. “They aren’t as rotten as they look. So hurry up.”

Sage was nearly frozen, leaving Ashe no choice but to gently put her arm around her back and nudge her forward. “Just do like your sister is doing. Grab the ropes on each side and walk across. Just hold the ropes tightly,” she guided, walking forward herself until Sage was on the bridge.

Zena was nearly halfway across by now as she looked back over at the pair. “Sage, we don’t have time for this shit,” she growled. She turned her head back and took another cautious step.

“The bridge… The wood is rotten,” the seafoam haired girl voiced to Ashe.

The pink haired girl could only shake her head to reassure her. “No, its really not that bad. But,” she added, prompting her to look over at Ashe, “I would definitely not test that theory if I were you.” Somehow, despite the pressure they were under, she let out a laugh. She motioned down with her head so that Sage saw that she had her legs spread wide enough that she was effectively walking on the ropes that the planks were connected to instead of the wood itself. “Probably will be a lot safer going about it this way.”

Sage readjusted her footing and then took a deep breath. “I’m scared,” she said after a moment.

“So is Zena. Look at her knuckles. They are about as white as they can get around those ropes.”

“But she can fly,” her sister reasoned.

“So could Rose. Wanna end up wet again?” she pointed out, leaving Sage to a decision.

“Not really.”

The girls increased their pace as they spider walked their way across the ropes themselves, making their way to the halfway point of the swaying bridge. Every sway scared them a bit more than before, but they tried to keep each other strong in their fear. Zena made a point of staying ahead of them as if hoping to be the one to trigger any traps, but Ashe took note that the gap between them had decreased tremendously as they shuffled across the chasm.

Just about fifteen steps from the other side, Sage bumped into her sister, who was frozen in place. “Zena?” she whispered.

Ashe’s eyes feel onto what Zena had already noticed. A camera was attached to branch of a large tree that was growing near the water’s edge. Looking down revealed that there was an even larger amount of rocks for them to be crushed upon of anything happened with the bridge.

“How could I have been so stupid!” Zena cursed after a moment.

The quieter pair looked at her in concern, unsure as the why the girl had suddenly decided that being on a rickety bridge over a raging river was the precise moment to return to having a discussion. She kept her hands locked onto the ropes as she slowly turned her head towards them. “Don’t… move…” she cautioned slowly.

Ashe looked around for whatever had left Zena so worried. Bringing her gaze back to the Saiyan’s own, she noticed the woman’s eyes narrowed. “What’s-” she began, receiving a hiss from her in response.

“Turn around slowly, but don’t let go. And for fuck’s sake, don’t shake this bridge,” she warned.

The two did as they were told, not noticing what the problem was. “Ok…” Ashe reacted after a moment. “Do you want us to walk back across?”

“Follow the ropes back to the other side where we started. With your eyes,” she hissed once more when the girl started to actually shuffle back that way. “Know why everything is so fresh and new? Look down!”

The pink haired girl looked straight through the planks to the crashing rocks below them, until she finally noticed the algae covered slabs of wood that were lodged in them. A rope appeared in between wave crashes. “This bridge is here to replace one that’s already been destroyed,” she realized. She turned back to follow the rope again as Sage held on puzzled - and terrified.

“So wouldn’t replacing the bridge be a good thing?” she inquired, her voice shaking with concern.

Ashe slowly and carefully shook her head. “Not if you are trying to film a snuff film. Cameras pointed directly at this thing? There’s no way this thing isn’t rigged or sabotaged. There!” she finally announced, her eyes catching what she wished she hadn’t seen.

There were blades on both sides of the ropes at the side of the bridge that they had arrived on. They hadn’t seen them when they first stepped across because the wood had hidden them when looked at from that direction. The knives were placed in such a way that whenever the ropes swayed back and forth with the bridge, it would move up and down the edges of the knives, sawing away with every swing.

“The ropes are cut from the bridge shaking. There’s some type of blade under each of them, and we’ve been causing them to cut deeper and deeper into the rope. And its nearly at the breaking point,” she observed, adrenaline and fear rushing into her system.

“About time you saw it. I thought I was going to have to point it out for you,” the tougher girl huffed, having just noticed it at Ashe’s mention herself. She had pieced together that there was a trap the moment she realized the remnants of the previous bridge were below them. The moment the flashing red dot of the camera had attracted her attention. “Carefully, without shaking the bridge, get to land,” she directed, taking a step forward.

As if by command, a burst of wind blew up from the rushing water, soaking them with moisture while simultaneously sending a tremor throughout the bridge. Six eyes widened as they all heard it. A sharp twang followed by another immediately snap. “Hold on!” Ashe cried out as the hand ropes gave way suddenly, nearly sending the girls over the edge on its own. They slammed hard into the wood as their supports were released from beneath them.

Snap…
Snap!

The bottom two ropes gave out under the weight and it felt as if they had immediately been thrown onto a rollercoaster that was halfway through a loop. “AhhhHHHHHHHHH!” Their cries were loud and sharp, and not one of them would later remember having been a part of it. Their hands were drained of all blood as they held tightly to the ropes, watching with faces buried into the wood as the gravity changed directions and the cliffside wall rushed out to meet them.

Collision sent waves of shock through each of them, Ashe’s knuckles painfully cutting deep as they struck the smooth water cut face of the earth’s maw. Clenching her teeth, she absorbed the pain with tears.

Sage, who had been in the middle of them, wasn’t as lucky. Upon impact, her own hands had slipped due to the water that had been endlessly thrown upwards at them from the rapids. Too wet to get a decent grip, she found herself suddenly flailing into the open air, cast into a freefall as her eyes widened.

Her older sister came to her rescue, her strong hand catching the girl by the wrist as she swung wildly back into the group. Ashe was in shock, unsure of what to do in the moment and unable to react. Zena pulled her up, barely having a safe hold of her own, and demanded that she grab the ropes once more with her hands.

The three girls could not entirely recall how long it took them to pull themselves up the cliff face to the grassy jungle at its edge, but as they lay there taking deep breaths and calming themselves, the camera’s light continued to flash red. They may not remember, but the camera would not forget.

[Sage]

She didn’t even care anymore. About the bridge, the rocks, the blades, the fall. None of it. So, then, why was she so frightened? What drove her to keep feeling fear? Was it just natural response to the immense danger all around her? Was it concern for the others, who Sage really didn’t want to see any harm come to? Or was it just that she was so used to being afraid that she didn’t know how else to feel? Sage found herself deeply concerned about that prospect. Had she become so attached to her fears that she let them define her?

“Kai... Kai did this,” she muttered, out of earshot of both her companions. An unfamiliar feeling stirred within her, but it was faint and obscure. A smudge on the wall in a corner of some cluttered room, unimportant and not worth a second glance but just on the edge of noticing and not noticing, causing the viewer to focus only on it out of sheer annoyance.

Zena was up ahead, of course, making sure everything was okay for the other two girls. Really, Sage felt bad for Ashe. The cerulean haired girl was used to being treated as though she were useless or inept, but she didn’t want for her new friend to have to feel that way, too. Not that she would say as much. She was tired from talking as much as she had, today. Some days she’d gone without saying a word at all. She recalled how lonely and depressing that felt, and yet now she looked back on days like that with a bitter fondness.

Falling into step a few beats behind Ashe, she kept pace until she and Zena were confident she was following along, and then she drifted back and away from them, disappearing behind the cover of a pair of trees.

Flopping heavily against the trunk of the larger tree, she fished her bottle of pills from her front pocket. Her buzz was fading, and this was hardly the time for her edge to come back. She popped one of the pills and swallowed hard, clearing her throat at the irritation it caused her. Sage closed the bottle and put the Valium back in her pocket.

Leaning back, she closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Somewhere in the depths of her imagination, a digital watch alarm was going off, its high pitched beep beep beep telling her to stop wasting time and get back to the group. She sighed; sleeping at the foot of this tree seemed so... inviting.

She opened her eyes, but the incessant beeping could still be heard. Her head swiveled about to try to find the source, and her gaze fell onto a blinking light flashing through the foliage just a few feet from her. She narrowed her eyes at it. She was sure now that the beeping was coming from it, beeping in time with each pulse of the cherry red light.

Just in her periphery, she saw another light, and turned to see it. Then another appeared off to the right. Another to the left. Another up front. Another, and another. Soon, there were lights everywhere she looked, on the ground and in the trees. She took in a shaky breath and tensed up, looking around for Zena and Ashe, and only then realizing that she wasn’t really sure what direction they were heading in anymore. Oh no, she silently cursed, biting her lip. Her back pressed up against the tree and she waited, anticipation and dread of whatever was to come wafting all around her, and all the while more red dots appeared in the thick underbrush.

One of them came into view, revealing itself as a roughly human-shaped robot, with no facial features at all, unless you counted the glowing red light on what passed for its head. It crawled on all fours and had menacing ‘claws’ where the fingers and toes should have been. The machine was shiny and reflective, like chrome. Sage took no solace in the terrified reflection that stared back at her from the glossy metal.

It pounced. She shrieked, and cowered, hands over her head. The shiny machine, claws outstretched, sailed over her head and crashed into the tree behind her, crumpling on impact. It collapsed beside the desperate girl, angry sparks spitting from splits in its shell.

Run!

She bolted, dashing through the thick jungle, running for her life for what felt like the millionth time. She could hear heavy, mechanical thudding behind her as those many lights began to converge upon her. She could see them at the edge of her vision, and she felt the thrumming of metal ‘feet’ on soil behind her.

“Zena!” she screamed, and then skidded to a stop as one of the mechanized creatures came sailing across her path. Sage kept running, unknowingly dodging three more who pounced on her position when she’d stopped.

The azure haired girl kept running, fighting back the niggling fear that kept taunting her from the corners of her mind. You don’t know where you’re going, it said. You could be running opposite the direction of your sister. You could be running straight into a trap!

What choice did she have? So she ran. The vicious crack and high pitched shriek of falling timber suddenly invaded her senses, but she wasn’t about to turn around to see why trees were suddenly being knocked over.

Ahead, she spotted a derelict camp of some sort. It looked obviously worn and uncared for, but there was a tiny concrete building that stuck out from the soil in the clearing. She could hide from the machines in there. Sage just prayed the metal door wasn’t locked.

One of the machines suddenly came hurdling over her shoulder, its claw just brushing her shoulder, the metal so sharp her sweater was shredded at the point of contact. The machine tumbled, skidding into the brush, and Sage burst into the clearing. Just a few feet remained from she and the door when from the roof of the little concrete structure leapt another of the swarming robots.

The machine’s forelimbs crashed into Sage’s chest, and the machination violently slammed her to the dirt, pinning her on the ground. It raised up a limb, and a set of those deadly metal claws were suddenly produced in the previously fingerless hand. The arm reared back, and the girl’s eyes went wide. “Zena?! Ashe?! HELP!!”

The claw swiped downward, her guillotine. She had asked for death, and even had been willing to act as her own executioner, but this... this was wrong. Sage didn’t want to die like this. Alone in a jungle, killed by some featureless robot. Before, with her gun at her head, she had the power. She held authority. She alone. To die like that... she really was going to pull the trigger. To die like this, to die powerless like this, it would prove everything everyone had ever said about her. Sage wasn’t good enough. Sage was ruined. Sage was a special case.

But the claw stopped. An inch or so from her face, she wasn’t sure, but it was close enough that she couldn’t turn her head to look around for fear of brushing against the dreadfully sharp, metal claws. What’s... why didn’t it...?

CLANG!!

Zena swept in, smashing her heels into the machine atop her sister, before starting in on the myriad other mechanized monstrosities that surrounded her. Ki blasts and feet and fists lashed out in all directions, a blur to the prone hybrid, who watched, bedazzled by her sister’s heroics. But...

Soon, all that remained of the machines was oil and scrap. Many of them were on fire now, along with parts of the rainforest. Ashe emerged from cover, then, into the clearing with the royal sisters. Zena growled, a fire in her eyes as she hauled Sage to her feet. “Why the hell did you wander off like that?! What the hell is wrong with you, Sage?!”

Sage couldn’t say. Not just because she wouldn’t defy her sister, but because she really didn’t know. Not anymore. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it. Some internal conflict raged inside her, and she opened her mouth again, but she paused. “The robot,” finally. “It... it had lots of time to... to kill me before you... came and...” she trailed off.

“What’s your point?” Zena irately demanded, though she had a pretty good idea of where this conversation was heading. She wasn’t a fan of the kinds of questions that were coming.

“Why?”

“Why what?” if only Zena knew how much her impatient irritation hurt Sage.

“Why didn’t it...?”

“I don’t know.”

“But-”

“I don’t know.”

That was it, then. The crystal haired girl knew she could only push a subject so far and then was expected to fall silent, and she did. Turning to the abandoned camp, she finally had the time to drink in its details.

It looked very military in origin. There were only four buildings, three made of wood and the little concrete shed... thing. They were arranged in a semicircle on the east edge of a much larger, flat circle of cleared dirt. It looked like a fence surrounded most of the area at one point - columns interspersed here and there lent support to the idea - but they were no longer present.

“This where we’re supposed to go?” Ashe inquired, looking about herself, watching for any sign of a grand confrontation like the one in Olde Town. “The guy we’re looking for, he’s-”

“No, it’s a strategically poor location. The advantage here is inside the camp, and that’s where we are,” Zena replied, her normal indifference mitigated by careful concentration as she scanned the area thoroughly. Sage was, in a way, surprised by this. She still didn’t know for sure how Zena had returned to her old form, but the Zena she knew was no soldier. Had she retained Zasha’s memories? How was she doing so well in the field if she hadn’t? “Still... this camp isn’t here for nothing. I doubt it hasn’t been in some way tampered with. The question now: is it a trap, or is something we need here?”

And then the ground fell out beneath them. Inexplicably, they found themselves crumpled in a heap in a deep, perfectly constructed corridor, staring up at the sky above them. They watched in horror as a series or bars shot from the tops of the walls, crisscrossing the open sky above them until there was a bar every six inches apart the length of the massive corridor. Zena immediately slammed a ki-charged fist into one, but failed to even fleck any paint off it. “Dammit!” she cursed, slamming a fist into the wall with an equally underwhelming effect. They had fallen into a trap.

Because of me, Sage didn’t add aloud. Their new situation was bleak. There was a wall immediately behind them, which meant there was only one way to go down the corridor, and it stretched on so far they couldn’t see the end of it, even with the illumination of the blazing sun above them. The bars cast dreary shadows upon them, but all was silent, at least. Nothing bad seemed to be happening. Immediately.

“We’re sitting ducks. We have to get moving, now,” Ashe declared. Zena nodded, almost to the teenager’s surprise. “But... it could be another trap.”

“No, it will be a trap. What would the sense be in locking us up in an elaborate secret tunnel... thing like this otherwise?” the blond retorted. A fair observation, the girls with wilder hair colors decided.

“Then we-” Sage began, but fell short, unsure exactly how to articulate the sense of dread that washed over her.

“-Don’t have any other choice,” Ashe finished.

[Ashe]

Zena took a moment to catch her breath before stomping forward, her left arm trailing out to run along the side of the wall as if testing it for weaknesses. “Let’s get going,” she insisted, causing the others to step forward quickly to reach her. “Obviously, something is expected to happen down here, so just don’t get yourselves killed by it,” she warned, pointing at an angry red flashing light from a nearby camera tucked into a corner.

“We’ve all seen the movies, I’m guessing,” Ashe followed, looking around slowly. “So keep an eye on the floor for any stupid pressure plates or whatever. Also, make sure there’s no trip wires, switches on the walls-” She watched Zena snatch her hand back from the wall quickly before continuing. “Even… You guys ever see Indiana Jones?”

She received nothing more than silence as the trio cautiously took their steps. Bored and filling the silence, she continued on. “Yeah, well, basically I expect that we are going to have either the typical giant rushing stream of water suddenly come in from our entrance, or…,” she trailed off, reaching down to pick up a golf sized rock at her feet as she slid over it. “This guy’s older bigger brother coming out of the wall up there to roll down and crush us.”

“Do you ever shut up?” Zena finally asked, at the edge of her patience. Ashe hadn’t even been talking excessively, so she just chalked it up to another case of sand in the vag.

She raised her eyebrow a moment. “I think Sage might have some Midol in that medicine cabinet she carries around with her, if you need any,” she retorted, balling the stone in her fist before winding up and throwing it down the tunnel to hear it skip along in front of them. Without giving Zena much of a chance to flare back at her, a large axe blade swept out from the wall as it passed, barely missing the actual rock by a small space.

The three halted immediately, Zena immediately looking down to the ground to make a mental line where the blade had been triggered to come across. “Figures,” she growled angrily, suddenly whirling around and grabbing Ashe, slamming her forcefully against a wall. “If you would have just stayed in the back and shut up-” she began, holding her tightly as the pink haired girl struggled.

“-then we wouldn’t have even seen the blade until it cut through us!” she pointed out, grabbing Zena’s hand by the wrist and digging her thumbnail in sharply into the center, forcing the Saiyan girl’s muscles to release their grip as her grandfather had taught her to do in self defense. The girl snatched her hand back in surprise, before the group heard a loud metallic clang from behind them.

The trio twisted around to see a very cliché - but no less massive - boulder beginning a snowball’s path down the tunnel towards them. “Yeah, so that would happen,” Ashe grumbled, brushing her hands off on her hoody before looking at the others. “We should probably-”

“Run!,” Sage cried out, bursting forth and leaving the two surprised.

“Don’t forget the axe!”

Somehow, when she crossed the threshold and the blade swung out, it slowed down to a crawl as it approached her, the air feeling as if a cold draft had blown through it. She cleared it easily, with the other two girls diving through the pathway on the upswing of the guillotine. Their footsteps echoed loudly as they came around a curve in the tunnel to see that a section of the ground was missing.

Before them, it was as if a chunk of a pipe had been cut away, leaving a large pit in front of them with a large collection of snakes at the bottom. There were pillars placed in a manner that would allow them to cross, but only if they could make the jumps. Looking at the sides, it was obvious that they had been cut to a specific curve that would allow the boulder to roll across with no problem.

Hearing the rock rolling down the tunnel behind them, the snakes didn’t seem all that bad to two of them. Sage, however, was not thrilled. Ashe took a breath, and finally made a decision. “I’d say that we could try to climb down and brace ourselves against the pillars and the wall or something to let the rock roll over us without problem, but something tells me that those snakes aren’t the friendliest, so…” she trailed off, watching as Zena scooped up Sage and leapt, a burst of energy helping her clear the air to the first pillar before immediately skipping across the next few. The gravity was messing with her flight path, but thankfully she was able to stop to catch her path on each of the pillars without problem.

“Yeah, alright guys, I’ll totally be there in a moment,” she called out sarcastically, looking back over her shoulder in worry. Taking a deep breath, she dug her heels into the ground and ran, thrusting herself off the ground with the leap of a practiced gymnast. Her short dress rippled in the wind and blew up over her shorts as she came down, nearly overshooting her leap by a foot. She caught herself, and took a step back once more. One of the pit vipers hissed and sprung forward from its coil, leaping up the side of the column to nearly catch her leg in its fangs before falling back to the ground. A cluster of other snakes quickly began leaping high as well, riled up into a frenzy.

The ball wouldn’t stop, so neither would she. Zena and Sage were already well on their way forward, with Sage dragging her heels as she looking back at Ashe helplessly. The pink haired girl crunched her teeth together before leaping off again, nearly stumbling off the side of the second column until she caught herself by pushing off the side wall. Her breath caught in her throat as she sailed through the air to the third land bridge, hearing the relentless sound behind her combining with the symphony of the serpents below her.

Sage had been dragged around another corner by Zena, losing sight of Ashe entirely as her feet struck the ground on the other side of the pit, not even slowing down to look over her shoulder at the rolling rock. Each step felt to her as if the heel of her foot would strike it and send her to the ground to be crushed by the screaming train that was chasing her.

“Zena!”

The pink haired girl would have slid to a stop in any other situation when she heard Sage’s panicked voice, but she only hastened her pace, rushing to the aid of the girls who had left her behind in the name of survival. She rounded the corner to see Sage standing alone, a large section of the tunnel before them suddenly having erupted into a rushing wave of water as two hidden pipes opened in the walls. It only took a moment to realize that Zena had gotten snatched away and sent down the tunnel in the water and ripped away from Sage.

Sage turned to call for Ashe, her eyes suddenly widening as she saw the ball nearly upon them. She hesitated, looking back at the water and then back at Ashe without knowing what to do. Ashe collided with her, nearly picking her up and diving into the rushing water. They were likely dead either way, and she’d take drowning over being crushed by a boulder.

The duo rode wildly down the tunnel, unable to slow themselves against the raging torrent as they were thrown down a gradually narrowing length of tube until the rock behind them became lodged in the space that had grown too narrow for it to follow, blocking off the water that had been raging behind them. The girls screamed as they were carried down the stream. Ashe’s eyes fell realized that the path before them had grown dark and as far as she could tell, there was a large jet of water that suddenly raced out and curved down into open air.

A waterfall in the cave?

She wrapped her arms tightly around Sage, struggling to figure out exactly what she could do to keep from going over the edge to certain death when Zena’s hand snatched out and caught Sage’s shirt, her arm nearly being torn from its socket as she swung her sister and her extra baggage onto a small ledge that was on the side. They landed harshly, rolling across the ground before Ashe leapt to her feet, pulling Sage up with her.

“Zena…” she began, surprised that the girl was still alive.

The Saiyan’s fist finally let go of the metal ladder on the wall that she’d grabbed to pull herself out and to brace herself to catch the pair of girls. Storming over, she pulled Sage to her feet before immediately looking over the side of where the water would have sent them. “They were flushing us out onto a cluster of spikes,” she announced dryly.

Sage was standing at her feet, her arms ever presently wrapped around herself as she shivered from the moisture that had soaked her to the bone. Ashe pulled her hoody off over her head and took a moment to wring the water from it before approaching Sage. “Here,” she offered quietly to the poor girl.

She received a look of surprise from the timid Saiyan. “I’m not… cold…” she answered.

“You are shaking, now put the jacket on. Its wet, but its better than nothing,” Ashe insisted, frozen to the core herself from the icy water.

The cerulean haired girl quietly accepted the jacket and nodded, pulling it over her head and adjusting it into place on top of her own set of clothes while thanking Ashe. She couldn’t really explain to Ashe, but she wasn’t shaking from cold. She wasn’t even really cold at all, to be honest. She was shaking because of the unreleased adrenaline that was pouring through her system to combat the effects of the Valium. Speaking of…

“Oh,” she cried out, inciting Ashe to glance from her study of the wall to the girl. Her eyes widened and she waved the concerned girl and her sister away just as quickly. “Its, nothing, sorry, I had a cough,” she said reassuringly.

As the two girls looked back at the wall, she opened her hand once more at the shattered pill bottle she pulled from her pocket. The rocks that she’d been bashed against had crushed it, leaving her entire Valium stash to get soaked in the torrent, effectively destroying the remains of her chill pills. Her lip shook as she turned, dropping the bottle back into her pocket before pulling out her inhaler, checking it over.

“Here.”

She turned around, placing her inhaler back into her other pocket as Ashe pressed both of her palms against a smooth rock in the wall, causing dust and dirt to fall from the ceiling overhead onto the three soaked girls as a door slid open in front of them. Taking a moment to stare into the darkness, Ashe took a step inside, leaving Zena and Sage to follow behind her.

[Celena]

Zena had not been surprised with how the events pursuing Sebastian and his precious emblem had turned out. She knew right from the point that she had been reunited with her sister that she would be responsible for her. Sage depended on her; had since for seven years, so therefore she had expected that there would be more than one occasion where she would have to come to her sister’s aid. Although Sage was a burden unto her sister, Zena did need her. Whether the cerulean haired girl realised it or not, her dependableness, her wellbeing, was what gave Zena her strength. After all, it was the welfare of her sister, which had caused the young princess to transform into a Super Saiyan. She knew Sage would put the group in danger, so therefore, she was not angry with her sister when her aimless wondering had caused them to fall into a trap so early through their venture in the jungle.

As much as Zena hated Kai, she had to give the mastermind credit for reconstructing the jungle into an impressive and well planned death trap. Even herself, who she considered a young mastermind (probably not as smart as Kai Demolic, but very insightful nevertheless) had succumb a second of his discreet traps. A clever scheme by Kai, involved the ground forming a downward slope, which had caused her to tumble downwards into the water where the other two girls had soon joined. She knew that there would be a lot more traps she would have to look out for. She just hoped that the girls would not fall prey to them. She did not care for Ashe, but she assumed Sage did and Zena valued her sister’s happiness almost as much as her own, as selfish as it seemed. Despite the obstacles Kai had laid out for them, she believed that her diligence as a natural leader would get herself, Sage and Ashe through his underground terrain and lead them to the emblem she needed.

======

Ashe was the first to make her way into the dark room. That was exactly who Zena had hoped to go in first, just in case the door was wired with a trap, although it was not. A part of her wished it had been, in order to prove that acting without thinking (just as Ashe had done by walking into the dark room without caution) could result in severe consequences, in the worst case scenario, death. Zena was certain that she could easily get over Ashe’s death as the pink haired girl had no sentimental value to her, but then again, what kind of effect would the death of the pink haired girl have on her twin?

Sage rubbed the arms of the hooded jumper, which had been provided to her by her dear friend Ashe. Water easily found its way out of the fabric as she rubbed her arms more vigorously.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Zena from behind, placing a hand on her sister’s shoulder, before she had a chance to enter the room. It was as if Zena was a cure, because the moment she felt her sisters hand on her, her trembling ceased.

“Nothing,” replied the smaller girl, making an effort to smile and then slowly, she stepped into the room. Zena would take a different approach, carefully examining the seals around the door for any signs of danger, just in case.

All clear, she said to herself, finally stepping inside.

“Sage…? Zena…?” the twins heard Ashe call from ahead. It was so dark that all the student could make out were a couple of figures.

“We’re here, behind you,” the blue haired girl who could barely identify the curvaceous figure of Ashe, replied.

They all heard a buzz sound, which made them grow suspicious. The buzzing stopped with a thud and then flames emerging from four corners brightened the room. Zena’s instincts led her to duck and then spin around. They could all see clearly in the room now. The door behind them was closed and more so, to all of their surprises, the room was completely empty. There were four walls with fire lamps attached to each wall, and the floor was covered with orange dust.

“The door’s closed!” Ashe panicked.

“I admire your observation skills,” Zena replied sarcastically, gazing at the door.

Ahead of them, there was a stony staircase at the northwest end of the room, which led to a closed, stony door identical to the one they had entered through.

“I know I’m not Zena,” she mocked, glancing at Sage and then to the door at the top of the long staircase, “but even I know something’s not right.”

Zena wanted to believe Kai had purposely arranged for an empty room, which was designed solely to make the three of them suspicious, but this was Friend or Foe, a place with nonstop action and she had learned the hard way that Kai Demolic was a maniac. She would have preferred to enter a room with dozens of gunmen aiming their weapons at them, than an empty room, because with this empty room, she did not know what to expect and situations were more dangerous when you did not know what to expect, as there is no way to prepare for them.

“We should make a break for the door ahead, before the floor splits apart,” Ashe suspected. Sage nodded in agreement, but something seemed to be bothering Zena, who did nothing but stare blankly into space. Sage knew that expression of her sister’s all too well, which was why she smiled rather than share Ashe’s puzzled expression. That was the expression Zena used whenever she was trapped in deep thought.

“No, stand still, all of you,” said the superior intellectual of the trio, snapping out of her trance with a blink from both of her sapphire coloured eyes. “Whatever Sebastian has planned for us, it will appear in this room.” She stared sternly at Ashe. “Move or even make a run towards the door… and you might regret it.”

“Better than standing still!” Ashe retorted.

Zena sighed. “Do what you-”

The sound of a vibration under the floor caused her to cut her speech. Now they all moved, Sage scampering about in fear with quiet huffs and puffs, while Ashe stepped back and forth with worry, Zena with suspicion. They all turned their heads to the staircase simultaneously, all agape as the ground just in front of the staircase opened up, while orange dust began falling into the rectangular shaped hole, which moulded. They all continued to watch with anxiety, wondering what would arise, until their eyes caught sight of a wooden coffin. The rumbling stopped, but the thumping of hearts began, especially Sage’s. A chill ran down Zena’s spine.

I’m not nervous…I’m not nervous…I’m not nervous, she kept reciting, but as much as she tried to convince herself that she was not, she actually was. Without the union of Zasha, Sage’s safety was not the only thing Zena feared. The blonde haired princess feared a number of things, and this coffin was one of them. She had a gut feeling that it was not empty and dreaded the thought. Sage was trembling. “Zena,” she called softly, but knew not to expect her sister to hold her; instead, it was Ashe who wrapped her arms around the blue haired girl.

If not for Sage’s heavy breathing, the room would have been silent. All eyes were still fixed on the coffin, which then it popped open, causing the trio to flinch, while Sage whimpered like a humbled dog. A monstrous head emerged from the coffin. It can’t be Zena denied, while a body emerged afterwards. A low and haunting murmur escaped its mouth as it turned its square head towards the trio. Sage and Ashe ejected a loud and long shriek. This was worse than a horror movie. Frankenstein was here in front of them, in the flesh. Its face was familiarly old and pale green in colour, with many creases. Its hair was jet black and slick, and visible, was the monsters most distinctive feature, the iron pole sticking through the side of its neck. The beast dressed in black, made its way out of the coffin sluggishly.

“I-Is that really Frankenstein? The Frankenstein?” Ashe spoke. She was not holding Sage with comfort anymore; she was gripping the blue haired companion with fear, as it slowly advanced towards them.

Zena gazed at the door behind her. It lacked a handle and even though it seemed like an automatic door, she knew it was locked. The same could not be said for the door ahead of them however. Whether it was or was not, they had to find out. In order to get to the staircase, they needed to outrun Frankenstein. She would have smiled, if she were not nervous. She found the courage to speak boldly though.

“Outrun him,” she stated, her eyes not moving off the monster. With her next sentence, her confidence retuned. “It’ll be easy.” She was much faster than this pale green monster, not to mention that she had her trump card, her combat teleportation. As scary as Frank appeared, the realisation that she was superior to it filled her with confidence and caused her to smile. It was the return of her confidence, which washed out the fear in her. “On the count of three, let’s all split and make a run to the staircase. One…” Frank continued his snail like pace towards the two girls huddled together. His motive to approach two individuals rather than one was likely due to the fact that he was feeding off Sage and Ashe’s fear. “Two…” It took two more slow steps forward, its black boots thumping hard against the ground with each step. “Three.”

Wasting no time, they all ran, Sage and Ashe towards west and Zena, east. Shockingly, Frankenstein took off into an unprecedented sprint, impressively, matching the speed of blue and pink haired girls. He managed to increase his speed, making it seem as if he had been toying around. Now he was faster than they were, and began catching up to them.

No.

Zena would not allow it to catch them. If it was as destructive, as powerful as she knew it to be, then it would tear the girls apart if it caught them. In a flash, the blonde haired princess disappeared and then reappeared, diving behind Frank and taking him to the ground with her.

“Zena!” Sage cried, spinning around.

“Go!” Zena cried, struggling to pin him down. “I’ll catch up to you.”

“Zena!” Sage cried once more. “I won’t leave you!”

“You’d only get in the way! I won’t tell you again, now get out of my sight!” she growled aloud, pressing the monsters head down, almost to the ground.

Ashe did not like Zena’s attitude and how insignificantly she treated her sister, but she did respect the immense dosage of courage she possessed. It was admirable. She knew she could not let Zena’s act of heroism be in vain. “Your sister is strong…and a vag,” the teen uttered with sincerity to the blue haired girl, taking her arm and dragging Sage along with her towards the staircase, which led to their exit.

[Sage]

Sage and Ashe had hesitantly made their way down a metal, spiral staircase, and met with a steel door that stubbornly blocked their progress. The crystal haired girl traced its outline with her eyes before a moment, before turning to her teenaged friend.

“What do you think is in there?” she inquired, motioning to the door. “Is it... the exit?” she had to hope for something after all.

“I'll check. Sage, just... stay where you are a moment, okay?” Ashe instructed, pulling the lever and more or less falling into the door. She frowned, and pulled it again, slamming her shoulder into it. “It's... I think this thing is stuck or something, give me a sec,”

“Do you want my help?” the doctor offered.

“Nah, I think-” she cut herself off as she shoulder-checked the door again, and suddenly the door gave way and she sailed through it, straight into the wall.

“Ashe!” the hybrid shrieked as the wall flipped over, throwing Ashe over it into a secret passage beyond, and sealed shut shut with a thunderous bang, sealing the pink haired girl away in the room she wanted to investigate. Sage beat her fists impotently against the stone, unwilling to just leave her friend for dead. “Ashe!!”

But it was for nothing. The walls were too thick for sound to travel through them, and there were no mechanisms that Sage could see that might be used to re-open the entrance. Ashe was indeed trapped.

The blue haired girl saw no choice but to return to her sister, despite her furious demands for her to leave. She had to tell her what happened. That decided, Sage rushed back the way she came, but her way was blocked as another wall fell from the ceiling, crashing into the floor and sealing her off from her sister.

“N-No!!” she protested, her eyes scanning the wall. It was a futile gesture but she had to do it anyway. Her sister was locked in a room with a gigantic monster. She punched the offending barrier, hard. Her knuckles ruptured against the wall, flesh gave way to stone and her fair hand was stained red with her own blood. It dripped onto the cold floor with a distracting pitter-patter, a noise just loud enough to bother her.

Alone. For the first time in the competition, she wasn’t just alone like she always was, but actually alone! Nobody remained to help her, now. To defend her or reassure her. Sage suddenly chastised herself. How selfish was she that the first thing she worried about was that there was nobody left to make things better for her? What about them?

When had she lost that which separated her from the rest? When had she become a self-centered husk like the rest of the world?! She looked up at the ceiling, and caught sight of a camera looking right back at her. Its dull gaze seemed to observe her with a practiced disinterest. It didn’t so much care about her as it did about what happened to her. Not even that.

Angrily, she withdrew her energy pistol and leveled it at the camera, and opened fire. The recording device was obliterated in an anti-climatic plume of smoke, before what remained of the reinforced case clattered onto the floor. What right did Kai Demolic have to orchestrate this demented television show?

If Zena had just let her pull the trigger...

“No,” she mumbled. Zena and Ashe needed her. For a change, it was Sage that needed to be strong. She gazed down the long corridor, squinting into the inky blackness. The uncertainty filled her with such amazing dread, but she shuffled onward, her limbs like lead. Walking down the hall was exhausting, the anxiety overwhelming.

Part of her couldn’t help but wonder how much harder it would be to focus once the Valium wore off. Another part told her not to worry about it, desperately trying to keep the girl in the here and now.

Still, it was hard to keep her mind from wandering. What bothered her most was why Kai had spared her. And she was convinced Kai spared her. Why else would the robot have hesitated instead of striking her down? Why had the axe slowed down so dramatically for her as she ran past it?

It didn’t make any sense unless...

The game is rigged, Sage decided. It was a dangerous thing to assume you couldn’t die in a madman’s game, but that was exactly the conclusion the azure haired girl had come upon. Nothing else made any sense. A malfunction, maybe, but two in a row?

Still, Sage’s paranoid side couldn’t discount the possibility that two malfunctions in a row was exactly what happened. She would have to approach the game as if it were real, even if she suspected it wasn’t.

The hallway widened out into a chamber. It was empty, but well-lit, despite there not being any discernable light sources anywhere. Empty or not, Sage entered carefully, as her sister would have done. Or so she hoped.

A heavy portcullis slammed down behind her, jarring the poor girl, who by now was immensely tired of having heavy things crashing down around her. What was really bad, though, was knowing the gravity of being stuck in a sealed-off room in friend or foe. Something bad was going to happen.

In the middle of the room, a circular depression appeared where there hadn’t been any marks in the floor previously. It fell away, revealing a hole from which a black dome on a pedestal appeared. Sage eyed it apprehensively, but refused to approach it.

Suddenly, the dome collapsed, revealing some kind of gemstone. Sage couldn’t guess what kind, but it was orange. With a heavy sigh, she approached it, despite all the alarm bells in her head telling her not to move. To stay still and wait for Zena.

She reached out, and with a shaky hand, she touched it. And she screamed.

It burned. It burned like hell, and a metal cuff attached to the pedestal clinked shut around her wrist, refusing to allow her to pull away. A horrible sizzling sound cut beneath the shrill screams of the diminutive girl, who struggled wildly, wrenching her arm and twisting about in agony. Smoke began to curl up from under her palm and tears rolled from her face, but she could do nothing.

A small hole the size of a doorway appeared in the far wall, outside Sage’s sphere of awareness. The girl was still screaming at the unbearable pain, writhing and thrashing about with her one free hand. She pulled so hard against her restraint that she threatened to dislocate her shoulder, but it was in vain.

From the entrance that had appeared, emerged a short, scruffy man in a white polo, holding a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. He peered at Sage through thick glasses, utterly disinterested in her predicament. He fixed the pen between his ear and his temple, and headed back through the entrance, returning with a metal-and-plastic chair. He set it down a few feet out of Sage’s reach, and took a seat, glancing between the girl and his clipboard.

By now, Sage’s eyes were clenched so tight that there was no chance she could see her observer, until she fell to her knees, draped awkwardly over the pedestal, the fiery gemstone burning horribly all the while. She looked up, helplessly, and was startled when she saw the man watching her. He seemed to be writing something.

“Help me!!” she pleaded, the thought he was in Demolic’s employ not even occurring to her. She struggled, but he only raised his eyebrow in response, before quickly jotting something down. “Please!!”

The man tilted his head. “Does it hurt?” he inquired.

Does it hurt?! Sage mentally shrieked, her face bearing a look of utter hopelessness. Does it hurt?! You see me screaming don’t you?!

“Ah, I see,”

Another rush of what could only be described as distilled agony racked her, and she began to tremble violently. “Make it stop!!” she shrieked, choking on her words as spittle was caught in her throat.

“Would you kill a man if I did?”

“Wh-?!” Sage could hardly respond. Her pleading eyes only searched for a respite. An answer.

“Would you kill a man again if I made the pain stop?” he repeated. Sage only sobbed in response. “It’s a simple question, you know,” he pushed up his glasses and sighed. He fished out a remote from his pants pocket and pressed a button. Immediately the horrific pain subsided, and Sage was left only with the pain of damage already inflicted. “So, your answer?”

Sage only wept.

“Either you answer or I turn this back on and leave,”

“N-No, I won’t!” she exclaimed, terrified, knowing it was not the answer he wanted.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you go until you agree-”

“No, wait!” Sage desperately shrieked, not wanting to go through anymore misery. “I would kill... one person,” she stated, with an enormous degree of guilt.

“Oh...? And does this person have a name?”

“...K-Kai Demolic,” Sage answered, her head down. The cuff detached with a clink, causing the girl to look up. When she did, the man was gone, and only his chair and clipboard remained, with not a word written on it.

Sage, horrified at what she had just said, curled up into a ball, feeling suddenly very sick. What terrible things had she just agreed to?

[Ashe]

The pair of girls rushed blindly down the dark stairway and followed its spiral further down into the caves that they'd been funneled into. Sage had finally stopped struggling to return to Zena after Ashe repeated to her that Zena would be fine. They couldn't do anything but trust that she could survive. Neither of the pair were exactly trained in martial arts; not beyond the most basic levels at least.

They couldn't hear a single noise from the terrifying silence as each step sent a large metallic echo throughout the stairwell, drowning out all sounds of the possible battle above them. Their breathing was shallow, rapidly expiring from their chests as they approached another steel door at the bottom. "What do you think is in there?" Sage inquired, gesturing at it. "Is it... the exit?"

Ashe slowly approached the door and looked around before swallowing the moisture within her throat. "I'll check. Sage... Just stay where you are a moment, ok?" She heard the girl's approval and reached down, pressing hard into the lever while carefully watching for a trap.

After a moment, she realized that the lever wasn't budging far. "Its... I think this thing is stuck or something, give me a sec," she mumbled, thrusting her weight down onto the lever. It finally moved down, causing the door to push slightly open before getting stuck once more. "Ugh!" she grunted, finally slamming her shoulder against it.

"Do you want my help?"

The pink haired girl shook her head. "Nah, I think-" she coughed, slamming hard into it one more time. She didn't get to finish her sentence as the door flung open smoothly and her weight sent her reeling through the darkened room into the wall. "Sage!" she cried out as she struck the wall, feeling it give way beneath her.

Somehow, the lightweight girl managed to flip through the wall, tumbling into another room of darkness before the hidden door locked itself back into place, sealing Sage on one side, and Ashe on the other.

---

She was terrified, at this point. She had no idea where she was or what was going to happen to her. All she knew... was that she was sitting in what seemed to be a large closet. Before her, was yet another door. She held herself tight for a moment, summoning the courage to open the door, when the door sprung wide open, light blinding her as a figure stepped into her field of vision.

"But soft!" the extravagant but male voice cried, looking down upon her as the light poured in around him. "What light beyond they yonder window breaks?" Her eyes adjusted in time to see a man with a voluptuous blond hair tossing it back flamboyantly, before reaching up with a hand adorned by a set of fighting claws to touch the smooth white mask that had been hidden by his mane. "It is the East... and Sebastian," he continued, modifying his quote to fit himself as he removed his mask and gave her a charming yet wicked smile. "...is the Sun."

---

Moments later, Ashe found herself sitting unbound in a chair as the man paraded around before her. "What's with..." she began, coughing a moment. "What's with the opera getup?" This had been the single most confusing thing about him. All of Kai's henchmen had seemed to have their own special style, but Sebastian had taken it to an all new level. He'd gone beyond the limits to push for this Phantom of the Opera fused with Wolverine look of his.

He gave her a sharp look that twisted into a sneer. "Please, don't pretend to understand anything about fashion or beauty. However, I absolutely love your eyeliner. Where'd you get it?" he mocked, pointing at the bruising around the black eye that Balrog had given her during their beating.

She angrily began to push herself to her feet when his arm slashed out at her, prompting her to fall back quickly to trip over her chair. As soon as she hit the ground, she pushed herself back up and looked around for him. He was standing in the same place that he'd been before, having psyched her out with a slash that he knew would likely not touch her. "You even fall ugly."

The man approached her and gracefully propped his leg up onto her fallen chair, leaning down to look upon her. "Ugh!" he cried out in disgust, turning slowly from her and walking back away. "I don't think that I could bear to look at you any longer, filthy creature. Pick yourself up and be gone from my presence," he announced.

Her hands pressed off the ground as she rose to her full height, looking around the room at the surroundings and then back to him. "You aren't... going to kill me?" she asked warily, keeping an eye on the man.

Sebastian gave a chuckle and placed his mask back over his face before turning back to her. "That's not part of the plan," he informed her. "Not yet, rather. Now please, go use your magnificent woman's sense of direction and get yourself lost in the caves or something," he joked.

"I can't do that," she notified him, her voice strengthening. "I have to get that Raptor Emblem or whatever from you so we can get off this stupid island."

"Raptor Emblem?" His jaw would have dropped had it not been hidden by his mask. "I'm afraid that Rosemary has that. Feel free to go after it if you wish," he openly mocked her mistake.

The girl kicked the chair out of her way and took a few steps forward in anger. "Ok, whatever, you have the Snake Emblem or something then. I need it. So what's going to happen? Is Zena going to have to come in here and turn into a Super Saiyan and take it from you? I'd rather just skip that part if I can."

He shrugged at her, spreading his claws hands wide to gesture to the cave around him, turning a circle as if on a runway. "I'd rather she didn't. You see, if she does, then this entire cave is going to come crumbling down and crush all of us, yourselves included. That would be a shame, since I doubt Kai has planned for such an event at this time. Of course, it would make good television, knowing him," he mused, running his hands through his hair before placing one onto his hip to stare her down. "So you see, we are at an impasse, sorry."

Her eyes fell onto a card table sitting across the room where the soldiers that had previously occupied the room had been relaxing. "Ok then..." she began, thinking a moment. "How about we play a game for it? Know how to play Poker?"

Sebastian held up a finger and waved it at her. "As much as I'd love to toy with you before I use my claws to turn your inner ugly into outer ugly, I don't see anything in it for me. I already know that a woman doesn't even know how to play Poker," his voice nearly cracked as he choked himself with laughter.

"Then put your money where your mouth is," she taunted, already pulling out a chair at the table and taking a seat. As he watched her, she took the scattered cards that were on the table and quickly swept them together, touching the deck to the table to straight it before splitting the deck, shuffling the cards together, and then bridging the deck perfectly. With one hand. She glanced up at the man in the ridiculous clothing and used her foot under the table to kick the other chair out from the table. "You coming, or is your manly ego too unwilling to risk losing to a girl?"

He angrily crossed the room towards the chair when she interrupted him. "Dude, I'm already sitting here. If you are going to take part in this epic clash of manliness, then I'd recommend bringing out the juice," she called, nudging her head towards the alcohol bottles on top of the fridge in the corner.

"I don't take orders from you, little girl," his mouth twisted behind his mask in noncompliance.

She shrugged a moment as she shuffled the deck once more. "That's cool. Alright, then get over here," she called, waiting till he had obediently taken a step before yawning slowly. "You are probably a lightweight anyway. I mean, just look at those wiry arms of yours."

He crossed the room to the bottle and pulled it from the shelf before giving her a sharp reply. "My smooth and graceful arms are none of your concern, ugly!" he hissed before slamming the bottle down onto the table and taking his seat.

The camera in the corner was taking in everything as Ashe reached over to read the bottle. "Hmm... not exactly the good stuff. I guess Kai's little show doesn't bring in the bills to help buy some decent booze. You ever had a Flaming Jesus?" she suddenly asked, catching him off guard as she set out two shot glasses before them and then reached for the card deck. "Amazing drink, knocks you off your ass after a bit. Probably too manly for you, but you should try one sometime," she continued to speak, throwing cards out back and forth between the two.

She had played a lot of drinking games and card games at various parties during High School and had learned from the best boys around. And given exactly what she had in mind for this one, she was going to need to ingest a lot of liquor if she were to play it out in front of the camera for anyone to see. "Ok, here's the rules... You might have to remove that Jason mask of yours before we start though," she paused, giving him a moment to gingerly place it onto the table. "Just a normal game of Poker, of course, but only if you consider a normal game of Poker to have nothing wild. Everytime I win a hand, you'll have to take a shot or remove an article of clothing," she began, watching him flush.

"The last woman standing will leave the room with the Emblem. It's your choice on what to remove, however, once you are completely naked so I can stare at that gorgeous body of yours," she said in an overly sweet voice, "you won't be able to not take a shot. It's really up to you just how much you want to undress. I mean, there's no pressure, it just means you'll be ingesting more alcohol. So if you really aren't a lightweight, then just keep drinking. But keep in mind that the more you drink, the hotter you are going to get," and the less ashamed you'll be, she thought.

He leaned forward in his chair, intrigued despite the circumstances. "Then let's begin," he announced, picking up his hand.

---

The cameras were rolling as Sebastian was sitting at the table in nothing more than a pair of pants, having set his mask, claws, and other articles of clothing onto a chair. Ashe was sitting with in her shorts covering her bottom as well as her t-shirt over her upper body. She wanted to get a couple of shots in before she began removing clothing, to give herself a bit of liquid courage. Luckily, she'd done a good job so far with winning a few extra hands on the man, who was unfortunately not as terrible as she'd hoped at the game.

To her surprise, he'd taken more shots to the point that he seemed to feel, as she had hoped her lightweight comments would encourage, that he need to prove that he could drink a great amount of alcohol. She'd also figured out his tell at this point, now that his mask was off. Apparently the man didn't realize that without his visage hidden, he would obviously twitch his eyes and then run his fingers through the tip of his hair, in that order, to remove it from his eyes. They were both acting pretty silly at this point, but it was looking to be a close game.

"Come on, baby, let me see that sexy body of yours, man. I just don't think that you can handle anymore of the drinking," she trash talked, throwing down her hand in pride. She was intentionally being flirtatious with him as well as now choosing to remove specific articles of clothing to make Sebastian more and more uncomfortable. To him, it was like one straight guy waving their manhood in another straight guy's face. It was interfering with his game to the point that he was making a large number of mistakes at this point, being entirely unable to focus.

"You don't deserve to look upon true beauty," he quipped, pouring himself another shot before throwing his cards angrily down. He took a shot and Ashe laughed before dealing the cards back out. "You really are quite bad at this game," he laughed, pointing at her state of dress. "You've had how many shots by now?" he inquired.

"Uh... I think around eleven, but I might've lost count," she lied blatantly.

"Hah," he scoffed. "I don't believe you." Despite his words, he shuffled uncomfortably as if counting in his head to see if he was ahead of her embellished number.

The next hand came and went, and Ashe found herself on the losing end, taking a deep breath before playfully reaching down to grab the bottom of her shirt. "I guess you'll have to see something you've never seen before," she mumbled, pulling it over her head to reveal her ample breasts hidden behind her black bra.

The effect worked like a charm, as she teasingly stretched her back a moment in the chair and complained about its roughness, inadvertently shoving her chest forward. He turned his head to the side, disgusted, and swayed for a moment as if he were trying hard to hold in his stomach contents more from the girl's form rather than the drink itself.

She crossed her arms over her chest before they dealed up again. "Queens and sixes," he proclaimed, tossing his hand to the table. She stared at her cards for a moment before throwing down her own, deciding that it was time to toy with him a bit. "A pair of kings," she began, slowly setting down the two before he lit up. "Oh, wait, stupid me, there's one more," she laughed, dropping the third down to meet its fellow monarchs.

He angrily took another shot before dealing out the cards on his own. This time, he threw down a better hand than her and she shrugged. "Go fish," she mumbled, not entirely even sure what game they were playing at this point. Thinking back to how dumb that comment was, she laughed drunkenly and reached behind her, unclasping her bra. This event could only go her way, knowing the way Sebastian was responding.

"NO!" he cried, covering his eyes with his face. "Don't you dare stick those udders of yours out like a whore," he insulted, keeping his hand over his face.

She tossed the bra onto his head, swiftly crossing her arm over her chest to hold them out of view. "Sucks to be you," she reminded him, sliding a shot carefully over to him. "I think you are behind a shot," she prodded, hoping he had completely lost his focus. On pure involuntary instinct, he snatched up the shot and swallowed it before pouring himself another, not even realizing that she had just removed her bra as he shook it from his head and pointed angrily at her.

"Whore whore whore!" he chanted, throwing down his cards again. His finger jabbed out angrily as she looked down at his cards.

"Oh, I think I lose to that one!" she called out playfully, jumping up so that his finger nearly poked her in the breast when her arm moved away from them. He shrieked in disgust and covered his eyes again, swaying in his chair to avoid puking once more. "No! No, I win. I think," she laughed, dropping down a losing hand onto the table before stretching again and yawning, feeling light headed herself. Her stretch completely left her uncovered as she decided to play with the tip of her pink hair a moment before pushing both her shot and his towards him. He was in no thought process to argue with her or even verify that she had won before he took both shots, quickly forgetting the first.

Without even dealing out the next hand, she slapped her hand against the cards that were on the table, completely messing with his sense of reality at this point. He was so far ahead of her on alcohol. She had to hand it to him, the man COULD hold his drink a bit. "Well, that sucks, I lose again. But I'm just a girl, so I can't really drink much more, I mean, I'm already four shots ahead of you," she smirked, watching him pour himself a couple more shots to catch up. "I guess that means the bottom comes off," she warned, rising up and turning her back to him before placing her fingers into the waistband of her underwear and shaking her butt a bit.

CRASH

She smiled, still facing the opposite direction of him before she turned, looking down at the blond as he lay cold on the ground next to his chair, having whirled just a bit too quickly to keep from looking at her and letting vertigo defeat him. She leaned forward, picking up the Emblem that was laying on top of his clothes before deciding that a nap of her own would probably be best. She hadn't had as much as he had, but she definitely felt a bit sleepy.

But not here, she reasoned, lest he awaken and try to take the Emblem back. She picked up her discarded clothing and walked towards the door, covering her chest with the items. She could only hope that no one stopped her on her way out, because she definitely could not stomach actually having to kill the man, regardless of how disgusting of a human being he was. It would come down to the luck of the cards, she guessed.

[Celena]

With a growl, the Frankenstein swung his left elbow backwards; throwing the females weight off of him, but it was too late. The door had just slammed shut after Ashe and a reluctant Sage had escaped through it.

Zena’s legs wobbled as the exhausted saiyan rose to her feet. “Just me and you, stud,” she replied, while regaining her breath, although in terms of appearance it was the opposite of a stud.

“Girl let other girls go. You in bigger trouble,” frowned the large creature that towered over her.

This was the part where Zena was supposed to be afraid, but instead, she was smiling. She had angered him, which to any sane person would have been considered a dangerous thing to do, but she was okay with his mood. Right now, her saiyan blood was boiling for a fight. Interruptions or distractions were the last thing she wanted.

Here Zena was, standing opposite an incarnate of one of the most popular fictional characters the world had ever known. His presence amazed her to know end, regardless of him being a carbon copy of Victor Frankenstein’s original creation. “Amazing,” the former young scientist replied, smile refusing to erase from her face. “Who created you?” she asked, taking steps back, as it took steps forward towards her.

“Master,” it replied in a German accent, which did not surprise her.

“Who is your master?” she replied, forming a defensive stance as she continued to back up, while it continued to advance towards her.

“Kai Demolic,” it replied. “All intruders, Frankenstein asked to destroy. Frankenstein obey master.”

Of course, Zena realised. It did not know any better. Kai was an amazing person for having created it, but the fact of the matter was that the devil had created an android, solely for the purpose of destruction. Zena, her sister and Ashe had obviously been the targets. Mr Demolic and Sebastian were probably watching right now, hoping it would shred the saiyan princess into pieces.

From a scientist’s point of view, this Frankenstein was a precious specimen. It was a work of art, valuable. Zena’s saiyan spirit was telling her to test its power and see if it could topple her own, battle until only one of them was breathing, but her heart spoke another language to her. Her heart was set on beating it up until it was incapable of fighting back. If by a miracle, she could find some way to transport it off the island; she would damn sure work hard to re-programme it to her own desires. The thought of that almost caused her to drool. Suddenly her days as a scientist were catching up on her. It was as the saying went ‘when you love something, it’s hard to let go’.

“Must destroy enemy,” it said, thrusting its arms forward. It was a mistake the unfocused girl would soon regret. Due to a dropped guard, it was easy for him to pick a desirable spot. His large fist, the size of a bowling ball, connected to the right side of her face. A bright light flashed in Zena’s mind, subconscious to the fact that she had been lifted off her feet. All she saw was pitch black, as she lay on the ground and then slowly, her vision began to return.

[Friend or Foe]

All three of you advance to the Final 7. Ashe wins weighted clothing. Congratulations.