A mascot of my most favourite team in our national hockey league. After a streak of so many losses, we finally won. I was pretty excited to be there, when a lot of people are giving up on these boys.
Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.
Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.
Previous chapters conveniently available here.
[24 November 236 Before Age. Extraliga.]
"I’m in."
Zatte had spent a week preparing for this. The theory was simple: Since the Recollector was designed to detect certain life signs and only allow those with Wistian ki to use it, she would disguise her own life energy to fool the machine into giving her access. In practice, the task had been more difficult than she had expected.
Every Dorlun was blessed with a special innate ability, and Zatte’s was to manipulate energy. Mostly, she used this to bend light waves around her body to become invisible, and to mask her own ki to prevent enemies from sensing her presence. Fooling the Recollector worked on a similar principle, and it was just a matter of warping and shaping her life energy as it emanated from her body. Making it different was easy; the greater challenge was altering it to match something specific.
For practice, she had tried to imitate Extraligan ki signatures, since there had been plenty to use as a reference. She had also tried to mimic Luffa’s power from memory, although she couldn’t hope to match the intensity. Such exercises had been helpful, but she had to wait for the Wistian invasion to arrive before she could put her technique to the test.
She had sensed the Shockmaster as soon as he reached the planet, and started immediately. His footsoldiers would have worked just as well, but he was by far the most powerful, and she wanted a strong ki signal that she could sense at a great distance. Also, by focusing on a single reference, she could avoid getting distracted by the subtler differences between individuals of the same species.
Now, as she touched the Recollector for the first time, Zatte breathed a sigh of relief. Until now, it had been completely intangible to anyone who had tried to touch it or move it.
"You were right Tobiko," she said aloud. "It’s a telepathic interface. Can the rest of you see the displays I’m seeing?"
She was mentally linked to a band of anti-Wistian rebels on the opposite end of the galaxy, thanks to an alchemical potion brewed from samples of her own blood. In reality, she was alone in a cavern near one of Extraliga's oldest cities, standing in front of the Recollector, which lay on a stone slab. In her mind, the four of them were sitting at a table in a roadside bar, with the Recollector laying on the tabletop like an appetizer tray.
It was a prism-shaped object, about five feet in length and three feet in height. Zatte could see green rectangles appearing on the surface, displaying information in an alien script. Paradoxically, she couldn’t read the words, but she comprehended their meaning anyway.
"I see it now," M’ranga said from the opposite side of the table. "These glyphs fell out of use before the end of the Second Reformation..."
"Is that bad?" Zatte asked. She peeked over the edge to gauge M’ranga’s reaction.
"No, I don’t think so," she said. "It’s just that this thing’s a lot older than I realized."
"You’re touchin’ the thing now, right?" asked Scotch Woodcock. It was his mental abilities that made this mind-conference possible. Now his three eyes were staring intently at Zatte, as he focused on her mind to keep the connection as strong as possible.
"Yeah," Zatte said. In the real world, she patted the surface of the Recollector. It felt like polished marble, though it was warm to the touch. "Right now it’s solid as a rock."
"Then suppose you take the bloody thing to a ship and get it the hell out of there?" he suggested.
"No good," Zatte said. "I'm behind enemy lines already. The city near my position is under occupation, so I'd have to get past a lot of Wist soldiers just to make it to a ship. And even if I did manage to get off the surface, the Shockmaster’s fleet has Extraliga surrounded right now, so they’d be sure to intercept me. Once the Shockmaster finds out what I’ve got, it’s all over."
"We’ve no choice," Tobiko said. "We must permanently disable the Recollector here and now, if we can."
"First thing’s first," Zatte said. "I’m going to reset this thing to allow non-Wistians to operate it. At least that way I can drop my 'disguise', and it’ll be a good test of how much we can really do with this thing."
"Be careful," M’ranga warned. "There may be other security measures to deal with."
"My people are all about careful, Ensign," Zatte said with a mirthless smirk. "We don’t know how to do things any other way."
"Never did tell us what your species is, girl," Woodcock mentioned casually.
"You’re right, I didn’t," Zatte said. "Nothing personal, just a precaution."
******
At one point, they hit a snag, and Zatte took a break while M'ranga and Tobiko tried to make sense of a line of Ancient Wistian Runecode that defied telepathic comprehension. In the cavern, she continued to stand before the Recollector, listening carefully to the proximity alarms she had rigged to alert her of any unexpected visitors. In the psychic bar, she was playing an imaginary game of darts. The game was pointless, since it wasn't real, and Zatte couldn't miss the board unless she wanted to. It was just something to do with her hands, although her real hands weren't actually doing anything at the moment. It was strange to divide her awareness this way, but she had grown somewhat accustomed to it.
Suddenly, she gasped and botched her next throw completely. Woodcock, who had been watching her play, raised one of his eyebrows.
"It's her," she explained. "They've started fighting."
"Been keepin' tabs on the missus, have ya?" Woodcock asked.
"Not really," Zatte said. "But this ki... it'd be hard not to sense it."
"Any idea who's winnin'?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I can't tell. The powers are too huge and I'm too far away to sense anything that specific. But I do know that she'll do everything she can to drag it out. So there's no telling if she's just toying with him or buying us time."
Woodcock took a swig from his drink and snorted. "Reckon we oughta hurry along, then," he said.
******
The next several minutes had been very productive, but not decisive. The four of them crowded around the Recollector and watched while Zatte worked the controls. For the sixth time, the display image read "INVALID COMMAND" in ancient Wistian glyphs.
"It’s not working," Zatte said. "I can do just about anything I want with this thing, except destroy it."
"Maybe there’s a higher-level access you need," M’ranga suggested.
"No, we’ve been over that," Zatte said. "The only security measure was the Wist-only thing, and I shut that off."
"How 'bout you rig it so nobody can access the bloody thing?" Woodcock asked. "It’ll just stay intangible forever. Problem solved, isn't it?"
"I like that idea, but I can’t find any way to do that in this interface," Zatte muttered. "If it can be done at all, we may not have time to figure out how."
"Then we may have no choice," Tobiko said. "You may have to risk moving the Recollector to take it off the planet."
"I don’t know..." Zatte said. "You might be right, but-- Wait... something's happened."
"What's it doing?" M'ranga asked as she leaned into look at the Recollector's display.
"No, I don't mean here," Zatte said. "The fight on Extraliga. I can still sense Luffa’s ki, so she’s fine. But the Shockmaster is... gone?”
*******
Luffa stared at the prone body of the Shockmaster. She had been waiting for him to make his next move, when suddenly he collapsed, and his ki dwindled to almost nothing. It simply didn't add up. He was demoralized, perhaps even desperate, but he was far from beaten.
She approached him cautiously, anticipating a trick, but as she circled around him, she could find no signs of what he was up to. She only knew that she could not accept this situation at face value. An attack now might spring some sort of trap. By the same token, if he was playing for time, she couldn’t afford to delay.
She decided to split the difference and flew away, heading for what remained of the Wistian base camp he had been setting up when they began fighting. She returned with a pistol and an explosive shell. Hovering at what she judged to be a safe distance, she lobbed the shell towards the Shockmaster, then took aim with the gun. If he was truly incapacitated, he would be helpless against these weapons. It was possible that he had some way to mask his *ki* while he used it, similar to the technique Luffa had learned from Zatte, but even if his *ki* was undetectable, he would still have to use it to defend himself.
To her surprise, the shell exploded on contact, but when the smoke cleared, the Shockmaster remained unharmed and unmoved. She fired on him several times with the pistol, but the plasma beams did absolutely nothing when they reached his body. Then she noticed the dust cloud that had formed around him.
Luffa swooped down and took a closer look. Her shots had passed through the Shockmaster, only to blast at the ground beneath him, and kick up the dirt, which also passed through his massive body. She recalled that she had heard about this ability before. The last time she had fought the Shockmaster, he had been in some sort of deep meditation just before their battle. During that meditation, he was completely intangible, and his ki was drastically reduced.
But what good did it do him to use this power in the middle of a fight? Luffa couldn't hurt him, but neither could he hurt her. Did he seriously expect her to just leave and give him a chance to escape? She had worked too hard for this victory to walk away now.
"I’ve worked too hard... and so have you..." she muttered to herself as she crouched next to his body. "There has to be a tactical purpose to this. I just need to connect it with your objective, and--"
She suddenly clasped her hand over her mouth as the answer came to her.
*******
"FOOLS! DID YOU TRULY BELIEVE YOU COULD HIDE THE RECOLLECTOR FROM ME?!"
Without warning, the Shockmaster was there in the bar with them. Woodcock rose from his seat to confront him.
"Private party, mate," he grumbled. "Bugger on off."
"Scotch, let me handle this!" M’ranga said as she stepped in front of him. "We need you to maintain the telepathic link!"
"That’s the point, love," Woodcock muttered. "This whole place is just a mental construct. If he’s here, talkin’ to us, then it’s down to me to kick him out."
"YOU THINK YOU HAVE ANY ADVANTAGE HERE?" the Shockmaster bellowed. "YOU’RE EVEN MORE HELPLESS AGAINST ME THAN IN THE REAL WORLD! ALL I WANT IS THE RECOLLECTOR, AND NOW--!"
He raised his hand, and a stream of lightning arced across the room, striking the large prism on the table. Zatte backed away, but continued to watch the displays on the device.
"Zatte!" Tobiko cried. "Shut it down!"
"I can’t!" she shouted after a suspenseful moment at the controls. "What the hell is he doing?!"
"WHAT I CAME HERE TO DO!" he said. "WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING TO DO FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS! AND NONE OF YOU CAN STOP ME! NOT LUFFA, AND CERTAINLY NONE OF YOU!"
"Luffa? What did you do to her?!" Zatte demanded. "Answer me!"
He gave no reply, other than to laugh as the tendril of electricity danced from his finger. Before her, the Recollector’s displays flickered with readouts and instructions.
"He’s controlling it remotely," Tobiko said. "It’s a telepathic interface... but the Shockmaster never displayed this kind of ability before--!"
"Bollocks!" Woodcock growled. He stormed toward the Shockmaster, ready to fight. "Don’t care what-all he can do, he’s in my world now, and that means--!"
As he reached out to grab the Shockmaster, he was suddenly enveloped in bolts of violet lightning. Woodcock began to convulse where he stood. When the Shockmaster finally swatted him away and knocked him to the ground, it seemed almost merciful.
"YOUR MENTAL POWERS MAY BE FORMIDABLE INDEED," the Shockmaster proclaimed. "BUT YOU’LL NEVER OVERPOWER MY FORCE OF WILL! NONE OF YOU CAN!"
"We’ll see about that," Zatte said grimly. "We might not be able to beat you, but I’ve spent a few weeks figuring out how to operate this kind of tech. And if I shut it off, all that force of will means nothing!"
"FOOL! IT WAS YOUR ACTIVATION OF THE RECOLLECTOR THAT ALLOWED ME TO SENSE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE! THE RECOLLECTOR WAS DESIGNED FOR MY PEOPLE TO USE! AN OUTSIDER LIKE YOU COULD NEVER OVERRIDE MY COMMANDS!"
"Yeah, but in the real world, I’m standing a lot closer to this thing than you,” Zatte said, hoping she sounded braver than she felt. “I’m betting that gives me some kind of edge.”
"THEN I’LL DEAL WITH YOU FIRST!" the Shockmaster said.
"You’ll have to kill me," Zatte said defiantly. "I know what you plan to do with this thing! You're going to expose millions of people to lethal doses of radiation! I won’t just stand by and let you murder everyone on Extraliga."
He raised his hand and pointed at Zatte, who ducked behind the thoughtform of the Recollector as best she could. She didn’t know what else to do. Disconnecting herself from this mental conference seemed useless. It would allow her to hide her own person, but if the Shockmaster could operate the Recollector from anywhere on the planet, then there was nowhere to run. The only chance lay in opposing him, and the only place to do that was where she stood.
But she couldn’t oppose him, not for more than a few seconds. She was reminded of her last stand on the Durlo Prime colony, knowing that all she could do was buy time, and very little of it, and for a very high price.
She set her jaw and waited for whatever came next.
The Shockmaster stomped towards her, his massive arms reaching out for her.
And then, the entire pub was engulfed in golden flames.
"WHAT--?!" the Shockmaster snarled.
As he glanced around in confusion, Zatte smiled.
"Bastard! Did you think you could sneak past me, Shockmaster?!" Luffa screamed. "Me?"
"IT CAN’T BE!" he shouted. "NOT NOW!"
The form of Luffa seemed to coalesce from the flames. She went straight for the Shockmaster and began punching him.
"You coward," Luffa screeched. "I told you before: You have to get through me before you get to the Recollector! A warrior would have accepted that challenge. But you--! You tried to trick your way around me! Well it won’t work!"
"NO!" the Shockmaster protested. The flames licked at his body, and he cried out in pain. Zatte looked to the others, and saw that they were all surrounded by yellow fire, but none of them were harmed. It actually felt pleasant to her, though the bar was quickly turning into a smoldering wreck.
"YOUR WILLPOWER CANNOT BE GREATER THAN MINE!" he screamed. "YOU CANNOT BE DOING THIS!"
Zatte knew better, although she saw no need to explain it aloud. Again, she was reminded of the last battle of Dorlu Prime, and the image of Luffa, drenched in blood, fighting well after the battle was lost. Zatte spared a moment to admire her wife in action, then returned her attention to the Recollector.
And then suddenly, the two combatants were both gone. The yellow flames were gone as well, and the damaged they had done to the bar vanished with them. Woodcock rose to his feet and straightened his black hat.
"What happened?" M’ranga asked.
"I managed to sever the connection between us an’ them," Woodcock explained. "Couldn’t do it before, but once they started fighting... Well, I think she musta helped me out. Doubt I could do much of anything to that crazy bint if she didn’t want me to. Like a bloody tornado, she is."
He glanced back at Zatte and quickly added: "Er, no offense, of course."
"None taken," Zatte said. "She’d probably consider that a compliment... Oh no..."
"What is it?" Tobiko asked.
Zatte’s fingers scrambled over the interface display as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing. "I... I have control over the Recollector again, but it's too late! He managed to set it for a retrieval!"
"Can you cancel the command?" M’ranga asked.
"No, it’s locked in," Zatte said anxiously.
"How ’bout pullin’ the plug?" Woodcock suggested.
Zatte nodded and spent a moment at the controls. When she looked up again, her expression was even more worried than before.
