03-03-2010, 01:31 AM
"Are you sure that the target is correctly identified?"
"Yes, sir."
"So it is, without a doubt, the lil‘ varmint?"
"Yes, sir."
"Alright then." W35 turned to his subordinates. They had been waiting a long time for their prey to return, but their efforts and patience had, at last, borne fruit.
Not that they didn't have an endless supply of patience, being robots.
"Initiate protocol 541Y4N," W35 growled, his synthesized voice carrying over the glade. Reaching up with three metal fingers, he tucked the lip of his cowboy hat lower over his single red, glowing eye. "Let's go catch us a monkey."
Meditation wasn't as easy as most people believed, and clearing his mind of thought had been excruciatingly difficult for Belle, at least at first
It was much easier now, though; probably because he didn't need to worry about people trying to murder him anymore.
Finding a good spot close to Coast City, the world's greatest tourist trap, had been difficult. He had eventually settled on a flat rock that sat by a small waterfall in a tiny clearing a couple of miles into the forest. The spray felt good against his chest and back, and the only indication he was anywhere close to civilization was the occasional roar of a plane passing overhead.
He breathed easily, feeling every shift of his body as his chest rose and fell. His pulse, slow and throbbing, sounded in his ears above the gentle splash of the waterfall. A breeze played across the dewed skin of his back, chilling his muscles. He slowly delved deeper, and as he did, his senses began to widen. He could hear the movement of air across the grass and smell on it the pregnant pause of pollen ready for spring. Somewhere across the clearing, a bee buzzed over some stubbornly shut flower petals before zipping further into the tree line in search of more promising fare. A fish stirred in the water, the ripples caused by its movement contrasting oddly with the waterfall's.
He was about half an hour in when he noticed that something was wrong.
He frowned, trying to figure out what it was. Movement, he decided. Maybe half a mile away?
Eyes closed, he tried to get a better picture without pulling too far out of his trance. More than one person - a dozen at least, moving purposefully towards his position. A flock of birds leapt into the air, disturbed from their perches over a nest of undergrowth. They were coming quick.
So much for peace and quiet.
The scout robot ahead of W35 burst through the final tangle of bushes and emerged into the clearing where the saiyan hybrid was supposed to be. Several more assault droids followed, their shining, chrome bodies glinting in the sudden sunlight that broke through the tree canopy as another broke off from the main group and started circling around, a large rifle slung across its back. W35 stepped out last, and looked around.
Birds chirped and the waterfall hissed and burbled, but no red-headed fighter was to be seen. "You said he was here," W35 said, looking at the scout.
The sleeker model droid froze in the mechanical equivalent of a shrug. "He was," it burbled.
"Looking for me?"
Twelve silver heads turned in unison towards the top of the waterfall. A young man stood over them, naked from the waist up, his wild red hair tossing in the wind. It compared to the photos W35 had on file - it was Belle Hibiki, though with some minor differences. No tail. Older than indicated by the data.
"Yes," W35 acknowledged. "You're Belle Hibiki, right?"
"That's right," Belle answered, folding his arms and turning his eyes to each of them in turn. "And you guys are...?"
"My designation is W35, but you may call me Wess," the cowboy-hatted droid supplied.
"Hmph. Okay, 'Wess,'" Belle grunted, "what do you want with me? Spit it out and then buzz off - you're interrupting my training."
"My creator has taken a shining to ya. Your abilities have not gone unnoticed. My boss is recruitin' some o' the best fighters he can find for a competition. A game, if you wanna call it that, for the strongest warriors on the planet." Wess's eye whizzed as it zoomed in, lining up Belle in his targeting reticle. "He would like ya to be there."
Belle frowned. "Strongest, huh?" He seemed to consider it, then shook his head. He straightened. "Sorry, but I can't go fight in another Dante's Abyss thing. Sounds interesting, but I've got shit I need to do around here now, so I'm gonna have to say no."
A tone sounded inside Wess' skull casing. As if on cue, the sniper was in position. "Sorry for giving you the wrong impression," he said, raising a three-fingered hand. "It wasn't a question."
He brought his hand down.
The sharp report of a rifle cracked across the clearing, shattering the tranquility. Belle stood stock still as the sniper's dart whipped through the air towards the back of his neck. He didn't even twitch as the projectile passed right through his skin as if he were a phantom and kept on going.
The dart thudded into the trunk of a nearby tree, vibrating slightly. "If that's the best you can do, you'd better give up now," Belle continued, apparently unbothered by the fact that something shooting through his neck should have ventilated his throat instead of leaving him unmarked.
Wess stared at the dart, trying to puzzle out what had just happened. A moment later his memory pinged and pulled up the appropriate response: the afterimage technique. It had been mentioned in the files on Dante's Abyss. However, Belle Hibiki didn't have the reported presence of mind to use something like that to counter a sneak attack.
And how did he even know the attack was coming in the first place?
Belle placed his foot on one of the large rocks that formed the spout of the waterfall, tensed, and then suddenly gave a stupendous heave. There was a deafening snapping of roots as the small boulder came free and sailed towards the congregation below. Wess dived for cover, the compartment in his leg popping open and the mechanism inside shoving his prized sync-enhanced Smith and Wesson into his hand.
His fingers closed firmly around the specially modified grip as the rock slammed into the ground. Skidding along the ground on his side, he brought his weapon around to bear on the hybrid as he came to a stop.
But Belle was gone.
There was a sudden crackling of static from his internal comm followed by a garbled yell. The status symbol the sniper droid that had been glowing green on his visor suddenly went red. "Well now," he whistled electronically, "that's one quick bronco." He stood up and made a circular motion with his free hand. "Form up! Don't no one get parted from the herd!"
They pressed together, back to back in a tight circle. "Will he come?" one of the assault robots asked.
"He's got that thick saiyan blood," Wess answered. "'course he will."
"I see something," another one snapped, motioning towards the sky. Wess turned his head to look.
An irregularly shaped blob arced lazily through the air above them. Wess raised his gun and snapped off a shot, the round smacking off the object before it came down in a clatter at his feet. It was the severed arm of the sniper droid, still clutching the rifle in its iron grip. A fresh bullet hole sizzled in its forearm.
Something heavy landed in the center of the defensive ring. "Gotcha," Belle whispered behind him.
Two of the robots were down before Wess had time to react. They went spinning off in opposite directions and slammed into a pair of trees as Wess's wrist and elbow twisted around in a gruesome display of robotic flexibility, pointing his weapon at the saiyan and pulling the trigger.
Belle ducked. There was a loud THUNK as the round slammed into the robot that had been directly behind him. His powerful leg swept out, knocking Wess and another robot to the ground.
The rest were beginning to make their moves. Two swung in tandem towards the lowered saiyan's skull, but Belle was already moving to counter. Slipping his head under the path of their fists, he lunged upward, clamping his big hands around their mouthpieces and lifting them off the ground. He spun, hurled one at a robot that was midway through converting its hand into a blaster, and then heaved the next at the scout who was trying to put some distance between itself and the melee.
Wess lost track after that. The demi-saiyan was a whirlwind, tearing into the his team like a miniature hurricane bred with an atom bomb. By the time Wess could leap to his feet, only three of his compadres were still intact, and even they were scattered around the clearing on their back and chest plates.
"Whooo-eee, somehow ya gotta lot stronger, didn't ya, ya varmint?" Wess whistled, spinning his gun once on his finger and sliding it back into its leg holster. His fingers twitched in the air above it.
Belle, standing like an Olympian in the center of the grisly mechanical atrocity, slowly turned to face him. "You guys remiind me a lot of how Adam looked inside." He met his eye. "All robot, right? I didn't break any of their heads or bodies, so they should be fine." He glared, jaw set "Like I said, I'm not going anywhere."
Belle lifted his hand and made a dismissive gesture. "So go away."
Wess moved so fast that he was sure Belle didn't have time to dodge. His draw was the fastest in the west, east, north, south, or any damn place in the universe.
He pulled the trigger just as Belle vanished, and his round whizzed through the air where the saiyan had been just as Belle's leg connected with his head. There was a screech of electronics as Wess' neck joints snapped, and suddenly the world was spinning like a pig in mud.
Wess's severed head bounced across the grass before coming to rest against the foot of a bush. "Dammit," he wheezed.
His sensors were functional, though badly damaged. The auditory suite picked up the muffled sound of someone moving closer, and a moment later Belle stood over him, blocking out the sun.
The saiyan bent down and picked him up. A flare of sunlight made Wess's ocular retract - his hat had come loose during the tumble and lay on the ground next to Belle's foot, exposing his smooth, metallic face to sunlight.
"You still alive in there?" Belle demanded. He paused. "Or, well, still working, I guess?"
Wess moaned mock pitifully, his switches were going ten thousand miles a minute. Not a good situation. Belle might not terminate him, but there was a good chance if he came back empty handed that the boss would do anyway. The fact that it was clear that his information was wildly inaccurate probably didn't amount to much.
He went over a list of possible strategies he could use with the weapon he still had at his disposal. Only one seemed like it would work.
"So, you going to leave me alone?" Belle asked. "Or do I have to keep beating you guys up?"
"Alright, alright. You win, pardner," Wess sighed, then faked an electronic cough. "We'll mosey on outta here and leave ya in peace."
"Good," Belle muttered.
"One thing, though?" Wess asked tentatively. "Could ya get my hat? It's right there by your foot, and I got terrible skin."
"You're made of metal."
"Still."
Belle glowered at him. For a second, Wess didn't think the saiyan was going to do it. "Yeah, alright. Whatever. It's just a hat." Belle's eyes shifted to the side. One hand released Wess' head as he bent down, reaching out and exposing his throat.
A hidden compartment in the center of Wess' face sprung open. There was a sharp hiss of compressed air, and Belle yelped as a colorfully feathered dart smacked into his neck. "Hey!" he snapped, ripping the pointed tip out and quickly covering the small bead of blood that had immediately blossomed from the wound. "That's it - I'm gonna kick your - ! ... Your..."
Belle's eyelids drooped. He staggered, then shook his head. "I'm gonna getcha-...yeu..." He trailed off and swayed again, blinking. "Ashhole," he murmured abruptly, apparently remembering that he was in the middle of a sentence.
The halfbreed collapsed to the ground, his calloused hand rolling open and letting Wess' head bounce a few feet away. "Heh," Wess snorted as he settled on the grass. "Amateur."
One of the remaining robots lumbered over. "Hey," Wess barked. "Hey, you."
The robot looked up.
"Get me my hat, would ya?"
The assault droid complied, picking up the straw-woven apparel and coming over to put it back in its proper place, tucking the brim around the back of his head so that it wouldn't pop off.
"How long will he be unconscious?" the other asked.
"Long enough," Wess assured. "That's the same stuff they used on him in Central City, just about a hundred times stronger." He did some mental calculations. "That boy'll be out for another twelve hours, which is more than enough time. Get the boys together: we're heading back to the ol' cattle ranch to put this bronco to pasture."
"Yes, sir."
"So it is, without a doubt, the lil‘ varmint?"
"Yes, sir."
"Alright then." W35 turned to his subordinates. They had been waiting a long time for their prey to return, but their efforts and patience had, at last, borne fruit.
Not that they didn't have an endless supply of patience, being robots.
"Initiate protocol 541Y4N," W35 growled, his synthesized voice carrying over the glade. Reaching up with three metal fingers, he tucked the lip of his cowboy hat lower over his single red, glowing eye. "Let's go catch us a monkey."
~+~+~+~+~
Meditation wasn't as easy as most people believed, and clearing his mind of thought had been excruciatingly difficult for Belle, at least at first
It was much easier now, though; probably because he didn't need to worry about people trying to murder him anymore.
Finding a good spot close to Coast City, the world's greatest tourist trap, had been difficult. He had eventually settled on a flat rock that sat by a small waterfall in a tiny clearing a couple of miles into the forest. The spray felt good against his chest and back, and the only indication he was anywhere close to civilization was the occasional roar of a plane passing overhead.
He breathed easily, feeling every shift of his body as his chest rose and fell. His pulse, slow and throbbing, sounded in his ears above the gentle splash of the waterfall. A breeze played across the dewed skin of his back, chilling his muscles. He slowly delved deeper, and as he did, his senses began to widen. He could hear the movement of air across the grass and smell on it the pregnant pause of pollen ready for spring. Somewhere across the clearing, a bee buzzed over some stubbornly shut flower petals before zipping further into the tree line in search of more promising fare. A fish stirred in the water, the ripples caused by its movement contrasting oddly with the waterfall's.
He was about half an hour in when he noticed that something was wrong.
He frowned, trying to figure out what it was. Movement, he decided. Maybe half a mile away?
Eyes closed, he tried to get a better picture without pulling too far out of his trance. More than one person - a dozen at least, moving purposefully towards his position. A flock of birds leapt into the air, disturbed from their perches over a nest of undergrowth. They were coming quick.
So much for peace and quiet.
~+~+~+~+~
The scout robot ahead of W35 burst through the final tangle of bushes and emerged into the clearing where the saiyan hybrid was supposed to be. Several more assault droids followed, their shining, chrome bodies glinting in the sudden sunlight that broke through the tree canopy as another broke off from the main group and started circling around, a large rifle slung across its back. W35 stepped out last, and looked around.
Birds chirped and the waterfall hissed and burbled, but no red-headed fighter was to be seen. "You said he was here," W35 said, looking at the scout.
The sleeker model droid froze in the mechanical equivalent of a shrug. "He was," it burbled.
"Looking for me?"
Twelve silver heads turned in unison towards the top of the waterfall. A young man stood over them, naked from the waist up, his wild red hair tossing in the wind. It compared to the photos W35 had on file - it was Belle Hibiki, though with some minor differences. No tail. Older than indicated by the data.
"Yes," W35 acknowledged. "You're Belle Hibiki, right?"
"That's right," Belle answered, folding his arms and turning his eyes to each of them in turn. "And you guys are...?"
"My designation is W35, but you may call me Wess," the cowboy-hatted droid supplied.
"Hmph. Okay, 'Wess,'" Belle grunted, "what do you want with me? Spit it out and then buzz off - you're interrupting my training."
"My creator has taken a shining to ya. Your abilities have not gone unnoticed. My boss is recruitin' some o' the best fighters he can find for a competition. A game, if you wanna call it that, for the strongest warriors on the planet." Wess's eye whizzed as it zoomed in, lining up Belle in his targeting reticle. "He would like ya to be there."
Belle frowned. "Strongest, huh?" He seemed to consider it, then shook his head. He straightened. "Sorry, but I can't go fight in another Dante's Abyss thing. Sounds interesting, but I've got shit I need to do around here now, so I'm gonna have to say no."
A tone sounded inside Wess' skull casing. As if on cue, the sniper was in position. "Sorry for giving you the wrong impression," he said, raising a three-fingered hand. "It wasn't a question."
He brought his hand down.
The sharp report of a rifle cracked across the clearing, shattering the tranquility. Belle stood stock still as the sniper's dart whipped through the air towards the back of his neck. He didn't even twitch as the projectile passed right through his skin as if he were a phantom and kept on going.
The dart thudded into the trunk of a nearby tree, vibrating slightly. "If that's the best you can do, you'd better give up now," Belle continued, apparently unbothered by the fact that something shooting through his neck should have ventilated his throat instead of leaving him unmarked.
Wess stared at the dart, trying to puzzle out what had just happened. A moment later his memory pinged and pulled up the appropriate response: the afterimage technique. It had been mentioned in the files on Dante's Abyss. However, Belle Hibiki didn't have the reported presence of mind to use something like that to counter a sneak attack.
And how did he even know the attack was coming in the first place?
Belle placed his foot on one of the large rocks that formed the spout of the waterfall, tensed, and then suddenly gave a stupendous heave. There was a deafening snapping of roots as the small boulder came free and sailed towards the congregation below. Wess dived for cover, the compartment in his leg popping open and the mechanism inside shoving his prized sync-enhanced Smith and Wesson into his hand.
His fingers closed firmly around the specially modified grip as the rock slammed into the ground. Skidding along the ground on his side, he brought his weapon around to bear on the hybrid as he came to a stop.
But Belle was gone.
There was a sudden crackling of static from his internal comm followed by a garbled yell. The status symbol the sniper droid that had been glowing green on his visor suddenly went red. "Well now," he whistled electronically, "that's one quick bronco." He stood up and made a circular motion with his free hand. "Form up! Don't no one get parted from the herd!"
They pressed together, back to back in a tight circle. "Will he come?" one of the assault robots asked.
"He's got that thick saiyan blood," Wess answered. "'course he will."
"I see something," another one snapped, motioning towards the sky. Wess turned his head to look.
An irregularly shaped blob arced lazily through the air above them. Wess raised his gun and snapped off a shot, the round smacking off the object before it came down in a clatter at his feet. It was the severed arm of the sniper droid, still clutching the rifle in its iron grip. A fresh bullet hole sizzled in its forearm.
Something heavy landed in the center of the defensive ring. "Gotcha," Belle whispered behind him.
Two of the robots were down before Wess had time to react. They went spinning off in opposite directions and slammed into a pair of trees as Wess's wrist and elbow twisted around in a gruesome display of robotic flexibility, pointing his weapon at the saiyan and pulling the trigger.
Belle ducked. There was a loud THUNK as the round slammed into the robot that had been directly behind him. His powerful leg swept out, knocking Wess and another robot to the ground.
The rest were beginning to make their moves. Two swung in tandem towards the lowered saiyan's skull, but Belle was already moving to counter. Slipping his head under the path of their fists, he lunged upward, clamping his big hands around their mouthpieces and lifting them off the ground. He spun, hurled one at a robot that was midway through converting its hand into a blaster, and then heaved the next at the scout who was trying to put some distance between itself and the melee.
Wess lost track after that. The demi-saiyan was a whirlwind, tearing into the his team like a miniature hurricane bred with an atom bomb. By the time Wess could leap to his feet, only three of his compadres were still intact, and even they were scattered around the clearing on their back and chest plates.
"Whooo-eee, somehow ya gotta lot stronger, didn't ya, ya varmint?" Wess whistled, spinning his gun once on his finger and sliding it back into its leg holster. His fingers twitched in the air above it.
Belle, standing like an Olympian in the center of the grisly mechanical atrocity, slowly turned to face him. "You guys remiind me a lot of how Adam looked inside." He met his eye. "All robot, right? I didn't break any of their heads or bodies, so they should be fine." He glared, jaw set "Like I said, I'm not going anywhere."
Belle lifted his hand and made a dismissive gesture. "So go away."
Wess moved so fast that he was sure Belle didn't have time to dodge. His draw was the fastest in the west, east, north, south, or any damn place in the universe.
He pulled the trigger just as Belle vanished, and his round whizzed through the air where the saiyan had been just as Belle's leg connected with his head. There was a screech of electronics as Wess' neck joints snapped, and suddenly the world was spinning like a pig in mud.
Wess's severed head bounced across the grass before coming to rest against the foot of a bush. "Dammit," he wheezed.
His sensors were functional, though badly damaged. The auditory suite picked up the muffled sound of someone moving closer, and a moment later Belle stood over him, blocking out the sun.
The saiyan bent down and picked him up. A flare of sunlight made Wess's ocular retract - his hat had come loose during the tumble and lay on the ground next to Belle's foot, exposing his smooth, metallic face to sunlight.
"You still alive in there?" Belle demanded. He paused. "Or, well, still working, I guess?"
Wess moaned mock pitifully, his switches were going ten thousand miles a minute. Not a good situation. Belle might not terminate him, but there was a good chance if he came back empty handed that the boss would do anyway. The fact that it was clear that his information was wildly inaccurate probably didn't amount to much.
He went over a list of possible strategies he could use with the weapon he still had at his disposal. Only one seemed like it would work.
"So, you going to leave me alone?" Belle asked. "Or do I have to keep beating you guys up?"
"Alright, alright. You win, pardner," Wess sighed, then faked an electronic cough. "We'll mosey on outta here and leave ya in peace."
"Good," Belle muttered.
"One thing, though?" Wess asked tentatively. "Could ya get my hat? It's right there by your foot, and I got terrible skin."
"You're made of metal."
"Still."
Belle glowered at him. For a second, Wess didn't think the saiyan was going to do it. "Yeah, alright. Whatever. It's just a hat." Belle's eyes shifted to the side. One hand released Wess' head as he bent down, reaching out and exposing his throat.
A hidden compartment in the center of Wess' face sprung open. There was a sharp hiss of compressed air, and Belle yelped as a colorfully feathered dart smacked into his neck. "Hey!" he snapped, ripping the pointed tip out and quickly covering the small bead of blood that had immediately blossomed from the wound. "That's it - I'm gonna kick your - ! ... Your..."
Belle's eyelids drooped. He staggered, then shook his head. "I'm gonna getcha-...yeu..." He trailed off and swayed again, blinking. "Ashhole," he murmured abruptly, apparently remembering that he was in the middle of a sentence.
The halfbreed collapsed to the ground, his calloused hand rolling open and letting Wess' head bounce a few feet away. "Heh," Wess snorted as he settled on the grass. "Amateur."
One of the remaining robots lumbered over. "Hey," Wess barked. "Hey, you."
The robot looked up.
"Get me my hat, would ya?"
The assault droid complied, picking up the straw-woven apparel and coming over to put it back in its proper place, tucking the brim around the back of his head so that it wouldn't pop off.
"How long will he be unconscious?" the other asked.
"Long enough," Wess assured. "That's the same stuff they used on him in Central City, just about a hundred times stronger." He did some mental calculations. "That boy'll be out for another twelve hours, which is more than enough time. Get the boys together: we're heading back to the ol' cattle ranch to put this bronco to pasture."
![[Image: Bellesig6-1.jpg]](http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff137/catseye543/Bellesig6-1.jpg)