*Everything was so blurry, everything was so, so, strange. “Am I dead?” Serena managed to croak out.
“ No, fortunately, your not. You gave me quite a scare, though. For a while, I wasn’t sure you’d make it. How do you feel?”
Serena turned to face a man-child with full interest. As she sized him up, he appeared to be doing the same. He had a light lavender hair color, and purplish blue eyes set in a well -defined, hard face that seemed to instantly soften when he smiled at her. As she looked over the rest of him, she decided she was most definitely alive, but farther from Kansas than she had ever thought possible. He was huge, with well-toned muscles and had a sword strapped to his back. What made him so odd was that he was floating in mid-air next to her.
“ How do I feel?” She asked herself aloud. Then, she thought ‘I feel like a beaten, unwanted old hag. That’s how I feel. But I can’t very well say that out loud, now can I?’ “ I feel alright. What happened? Where am I, and who are you?”
The boy had been waiting for her to ask that, after all, it wasn’t every day that he found a beautiful woman washed up in the river, half drowned and saved her life. “ My name is Mirai Trunks Briefs. I found you on the bank of the river knocked out and I brought you here, to you here to my home. You have some pretty nasty cuts up and down your arms, what happened to you?”
“ What happened?” Serena flashed back through all her memories of Thereon, her family, her friends, and finally trying to end her life. But she wouldn’t tell him that. No, he would never know. “ Nothing, I just fell of the cliff.”
“ You fell. Off the cliff. Are you serious?”
“ I was sitting on the end and the rocks gave way. I wasn’t close enough to the solid ground to grab on, so I was pulled into the river and swept away.”
“ Hmm. If those rocks are that unstable, I should get Trunks, Goten and Gohan and go out there and take care of that before anyone else gets hurt. Here, eat this. All your cuts and bruises will be healed soon.” Said Trunks, carefully giving the new girl a senzu seed.
Mirai Trunks stood in wonder at the tiny girl that was before him. She was absolutely breathtaking. She had eyes like he’d never seen, he didn’t even think that her eye color had existed before she had opened her eyes to him. As he went down her, the more perfect she got. Full, pinkish lips, long neck, all the right curves, and great legs that seemed endless, when in fact, that girl couldn’t be more than 5’5” in height. He thought she was a goddess, and her voice sounded like silver bells that chimed lightly but with grace and ease. ‘I wonder what she thinks of me. She has an extremely low ki, but she seems completely healthy. I wonder why she is here. I wonder if she’ll go out with me.’
“ Um, Mirai Trunks, there’s a man in the doorway that has been calling your name for the last two minutes now. He looks really mad.” Trunks turned to the door and saw his ‘father’ Vegita standing there, looking like he was in a fairly good mood.
“ Oh, that’s my father, Vegita. He’s not mad. If he was, he would have punched me by now. What now Vegita?”
“ Boy! We were supposed to begin sparing five minutes ago. Stupid baka! Let’s go!”
“ Not now Vegita. Go find Piccalo and spare with him. I have to take care of this girl right now.”
“Vegita! Just what do you think you are doing? If you want to spare, go find someone else! Can’t you see Mirai is busy?”
“ Woman! Why must you be such a pain! He is my boy and I will tell him what to do and what not to do and right now, he’s going to spare with me, like it or not!”
“ Vegita! If you lay one hand on my son I swear to Kami I will make you sleep on the couch for a week! And no food cooked for you either!
Serena watched the entire scene unfold and almost started laughing. It was like her and Rei. Then that memory brought on sharp, painful memories and tears began to silently run down her cheeks. Of course, the harpy of a woman in the doorway saw this and made a beeline for the crying girl instantly.
“ Oh you poor baby! We didn’t mean to upset you with our fight, honestly. Right Veggie –Chan?” She said with a warning tone in her voice.
“mmbmbm” Was heard from across the room.
“ What was that Veggie-Chan?”
“ Sorry girl.” He said with an annoyed look on his furrowed face.
“ Now now, you boys go spar. I’ll take care of this poor girl right now. This is a job for a woman anyway.”
“ But mom…” Mirai wanted desperately to stay with this strange girl.
“ No buts. Go on, get out.” With that, she slammed the door in both the boy’s faces and went back to attending to the new girl, who was still crying. “There there, sweetheart. My name is Bulma, Mirai Trunk’s mother. Now then. Tell me what’s wrong.”
Serena looked into the woman’s eyes and knew she could trust her with most of her story. She began to tell of how her family had been so viciously attacked and how her friends had betrayed her, and how she had nearly ended her life. By the time she was finished, she had stopped crying and was giving Bulma the handkerchief Mirai Trunks had given her.
“ That’s probably the saddest story I’ve ever heard. You poor thing. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you would like, I’m sure no one would mind, and we have plenty of space here at Capsule Corps., and I know someone who could help you do better in school, no matter how bad you were in the past.”
“ Do you really think that I could stay here.”
“ I do or I wouldn’t have said so.” For a brief minute, Serena was ready to kiss the woman that she had only met two hours ago. Instead, she hugged her tightly and whispered in her ear :
“ Thank you.”
“ No problem. Come on, Let’s get you cleaned up, your clothes are a wreck!”
Serena snuck quietly down the corridor of Capsule Corps. If Bulma ever found out what she had been doing, She would be dead. It had all started six months ago when she had wanted to learn how to wield Mirai Trunk’s sword.
While he was in the shower, she had snuck into his room, grabbed the sword, and made a run for the library, where she knew no one at Capsule would be caught dead. She unsheathed the sword and swung it a few times, both surprised at the weight, and at the fact that she could swing it decently in one direction or the other without difficulty at all.
“Not bad. You need to loosen your grip though, otherwise the sword won’t go the direction you want it to, and it will just be a blade with an owner who doesn’t understand how to use it.”
Sai dropped the sword at the sound of the voice. Mirai Trunks had caught her.
“ I’m sorry, I just wanted to see if I could.”
“ It’s alright. If you want, instead of sneaking around, I’ll give you lessons in here every night at nine. Then you don’t have to worry about it cutting into your study time, and no one would have to know.”
“ Really? Thanks!” Since she had come to live with everyone at Capsule, instead of having Mirai continuously hit on her, she told him flat out no and never. Ever since then, they had become good friends. After only two months with Mirai, Sai had perfected her swordsmanship to a T, not even Mirai could best her in a sword fight. Then, one night, Vegita caught them sparing and decided it was time to give Sai her new lessons. Ever since that night, during the time she used to spend with Mirai, she learned to punch, kick, run, jump, and do practically everything, including throwing ki blasts of energy. The only thing she stubbornly refused to do was learn to levitate and fly. She felt it would be a fair unfair advantage, and though Vegita tried to pressure her into it, she stood her ground and told him no. Instead, Gohan taught her to use Nimbus, the flying cloud. This suited her much better.
“ Sai! Freeze! I knew it! I knew you were up to something. Come on now, spill it. What have you been doing this late at night. Come on now, out with it!”
“ Well, remember how I aced the SAT’s? At least it hasn’t effected me scholastically. And I’m always on time to the lab with you for my engineering lesson, so it hasn’t effected me in that either. So it really doesn’t matter what I’m doing because it hasn’t…”
“ Now.”
“ I’ve been learning to spar with Mirai and Vegita.”
“ What? Serena Usagi Tsukino! You can’t be serious!”
“ Yes Bulma, I am. And please, do not call me that. Remember when I decided that that was a lifetime ago and that I’m a different person now? I changed my name to forget all that my old life had handed me. My name is now Sai, not Serena. And Bulma, I’m not an innocent little girl. Trust me, I’m not. I enjoy sparing.”
“ Sai… your voice… it was, so, cold, unfeeling. I’m sorry, I was just worried about you. It seems that ever since you change your name, you’ve been forgetting the nice, sweet person Serena was and becoming more and more like Mirai was when he first came here. You used to trust everything so easily, now you barely trust me enough to let me teach you your course in engineering. I’m afraid you’re forgetting who you really are, shutting yourself in like this can’t be healthy. I’m sorry for caring.”
With that, Sai watched as Bulma walked away, and as she did, the last that was left of sweet Serena disappeared beneath the cold, ruthlessness of Sai.
The next day, Sai went to the lab as usual for her lessons, but nothing was usual. She and Bulma began to grow apart, and soon they only spoke when necessary. Sai had easily passed high school with flying colors from the help of the noted scholar and Briefs family friend Son Gohan. She had originally asked Bulma to teach her how capsules worked. This and that lead into Sai wishing to know more about engineering, and at first Bulma was happy to comply. However, after the night in the hallway, she and Bulma had avoided each other and soon, Sai found the need to escape the confines of Capsule Corps. was necessary. Only two short years since she had arrived, The Z Gang showed up to wish their newest and youngest member goodbye. The Sai that was leaving them was not, however, the lovely, happy teen that had come to them as Serena.
She had learned that with a capsule, she could alter her appearance, and had chosen to do so before leaving. Instead of long blonde hair in two buns, she had long black hair in one bun. Her eyes that were once a brilliant blue, were now tinted purple to give her a darker look. Instead of being short and fragile looking, she had made herself look taller by four inches. Her thin arms, that even despite her training had remained thin, had grown fatter with muscle. Her clothes had gone from school girl to fighter style with a sick twist, for she was dressed in an all black jump suit trimmed with silver and topped off with black combat boots, and had her sword Paix perched atop her back. As she waved goodbye, she gave a slight nod to Bulma. Though they had become so wary of each other, they knew deep down, they would never completely be devoid of feelings for each other. With that, Sai called upon Nimbus and began flying away from her problems for the second time in her life, and certainly not the last.
As the wind rushed over and around her, she spied a funny colored spot in the clouds. Turning Nimbus, she headed towards the spot. As she drew nearer, she could see it was a multicolored hole in the middle of the sky; and the closer she flew, the harder it was to resist the pull of the strange hole. Sai finally got too close, and with that, she was sucked into the anomaly and was thrown hard into a room she’d never seen the likes of.*