Puttee loaded Spats into the medical machine and set it to run basic life support. Though unable to heal her and awaken whoever was left inside her sister’s body, Puttee entrusted this machine with the basic maintenance Spats’s braindead body needed to stay alive.
Gaita followed Puttee in and helped set Spats in the machine. She was happy to help Puttee find a way to heal Spats, but dark clouds started forming in her head. She was worried that Puttee wasn’t really going to mourn Spats until it became clear she was never coming back; for as long as she could attempt to heal her nerves, and revive a new version of Spats, that couldn’t happen.
“Can you set our course, Gaita?” Puttee asked.
Gaita nodded and went to the controls. They had a target ball about a week away. “What will you miss most about Spats?” she asked as she opened up the flight map.
Puttee paused a second. “The balance. We always complimented each other, in every situation.”
The ship took to the air and shot out into space, headed out towards the next destination. Puttee used the medical machine to examine the nature and layout of Spats’s bioengineering. Gaita looked at the sample jar of the Devil’s Tincture that Puttee requested. Symbolic, given how Puttee was about to work herself to death. “What’s your favorite memory of…?” Gaita trailed off, seeing that Puttee wasn’t listening. She was paying too much attention to the growing schematics of Spats’s bioengineered body. The last bit of sister time they’d really get, one genius teaching another. Gaita wished she had the brain to appreciate that, too, if only to get to know Spats better.
Hours passed. “Come on, Puttee, seriously,” Gaita said. “It’s dinner time.”
“Fine,” Puttee said, still writing and drawing in her notebook. Gaita pulled her to the sitting area and put food in front of her. Puttee set down her pen and picked up her spoon, studying her notes so far.
“What was Legging like?” Gaita asked.
Puttee put her notebook down. “I barely knew her, really. I was three when she died. I remember her being warm, funny, and standing tall. Spats told me stuff about her growing up, and made her sound like a mythic Earth mother. I guess Spats died giving us a chance to learn what she’s really like.” Gaita smiled.
Puttee spent a few days studying the data from the medical machine, and then went to work upgrading Gaita. Having fully mapped out and appreciated the genius of Spats’s bioengineered power distribution system, Puttee had found a way to rewire Gaita’s systems so that she would be able to pull out even more power. In this way, Gaita was made even more into a mirror of Puttee’s lost sister, and was let in on that last bit of sister time she and Puttee had. With her new Machine Mutant capabilities, Puttee could simply program Gaita’s body to rewire itself, saving them both time.
A week later, they arrived at their destination. The planet they arrived on was covered in cities, and signs of war were everywhere. The particular city they landed outside of looked very large, fit for millions, but it was abandoned and in ruins. In the fields outside the city was a graveyard of war machines and spaceships. Smoke still hung in the air. “Where’s the Dragon Ball?” Gaita asked.
Puttee checked the radar. “The reading is coming from a deep underground cavern, in the middle of a massive groundwater lake,” she said.
Gaita smiled. “I’ll get my swimsuit.”
Before Gaita could step back into the ship, a voice called out across the plain. “Spats, is that you?!” Gaita and Puttee turned to attention, scanning the fields around them with great anticipation. Gaita spotted her first, a strange woman with reptilian features and jewel-like growths over thick bio-armor. The woman flew towards them fast, landing in front of Gaita. Giving her a closer look, the woman sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You reminded me of someone I know.”
“Who are you?” Puttee demanded. “How do you know Spats?”
The woman studied Puttee’s features, and then looked back at Gaita, and realized her mistake was not far from the mark. “Oh, wow, I didn’t realize…I’m Jockey, a Frost Demon looking to end a certain war. I met Spats about two months ago while intervening on another planet like this, ravaged by war. We only spent a day together, but even still, I feel her friendship means the world to me. I hope I can meet her again under happier skies.”
Puttee and Gaita were stunned. “You…you’re her friend?” Puttee asked, tearing up.
“Yes,” said Jockey. “I take it she didn’t have many; one of many things we share, I would imagine.”
“There’s…there’s…” Puttee covered her eyes and turned away.
“Look, there’s something you should know,” Gaita said. “Come inside.” Jockey followed Puttee and Gaita into the ship, becoming increasingly concerned. Puttee took a seat, and Gaita led Jockey to the medical machine. Jockey covered her mouth. “Her body persists, but she…she fried her nerves, and there’s nothing left.”
Jockey cried. “Oh, no! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know…she really did it…”
“What do you mean?” Gaita asked.
“While we were fighting together,” Jockey explained, “she used…whatever she used to fight the general, and I could tell it was killing her. She did it because I was too scared to fight for myself. I stepped up after that, but… This is exactly how I expected her to die in battle. A hero.” Gaita was stunned, turning to Puttee, who was marveling at Jockey.
Jockey sat with the Silico sisters and told them about her time with Spats. “Your sister,” she concluded, “gave me the courage to embrace my power instead of running away from it. I’m determined to master it all one day, so I can finish my mission. Now, my toast of victory when it’s all over will be in her honor.”
“You really knew her…” Puttee said, still reeling. “I left her, and…but she still had a friend, for a day.”
Gaita quietly realized that it was Jockey who turned Spats around and got her walking on a good path again. “I’m sure you gave Spats as much as she gave you,” Gaita said. “Thanks.”
“Anyway, you wanna stay and talk more?” Puttee asked. “I’d love to tell you more about her.”
“I’m sorry, but not right now,” said Jockey. “I know why you are on this planet. You can’t waste time hunting a Dragon Ball. I can help you retrieve it, to save time.”
“That’s a kind offer, but it’s in an underground lake,” Gaita explained. “We don’t have a rebreather to offer you.”
“I don’t need one,” Jockey said. “A little time not breathing won’t kill me. My people can survive all but the most grievous of injuries and live in the vacuum of space. Drowning in a lake is all the same to me.”
While Gaita marveled at that idea, Puttee noted some bleeding on Jockey’s arm. “Let me get that for you,” she said, taking a tissue to wipe it off. “I can sew it up for you, if you want.”
“It’s a minor cut,” Jockey declined. Her communicator went off, emitting an eerie signal. “That’s another battle I need to attend to. Seems my brother is going after a trading planet next. I’ll have to take my leave, but I hope this isn’t our last meeting.”
“Of course not!” said Puttee. “We should definitely meet up again!” She walked Jockey to the door, and Gaita joined them. Once outside, Jockey took to the air and waved one final time in farewell before flying off.
Gaita sighed warmly. “This was an amazing surprise.”
“It was,” said Puttee, folding the tissue up and putting it in her pocket.
Puttee was not a fan of blood or dirty napkins. Gaita gave a suspicious look. “What are you—?”
“We should get going after that Dragon Ball fast!” Puttee said. “I’ll get my swimsuit, too.” She sneered at Gaita. “I’m sorry we won’t quite match.”
Gaita knew Puttee had some secret thing going on, something she couldn’t pin down, and decided to let it go for the moment. She went back into the ship and changed alongside Puttee.
Once they changed, Gaita flew the two of them over to the location of the lake. With some seismic measurements, Gaita determined a good place to start digging. Puttee was placed far away so Gaita could fly up in the air and use an energy bomb to make a massive crater. “Nice!” Puttee said, clapping. “A surface lake, so you don’t flood the place while you dig into the groundwater!”
Concentrating some energy over her hands, Gaita began to spin and drill down into the bottom of the crater. Within a hundred feet down, she got into the groundwater reservoir, its intense cold and high mineral content giving it a unique and soothing feel. Gaita focused her eyes in the dark and headed further down still, towards the deep cavern that held her quarry.
Fifteen minutes later, a Demon Clan ship descended from the skies over the still-pooling surface lake. Puttee looked to it with fear, unsure what this next enemy would bring. Out from the ship came a rather tall Namekian, wiping back her upturned antennae with odd pride. This Namekian gave Puttee a calm stare before shaking her head. She reached into a pocket and removed a breathing device, which she placed over her mouth. She then flew into the lake, taking a moment to figure out how to navigate. Puttee took out her radio and called to Gaita. “Demon Clan, six o’clock!” There was too much interference for the call to go through.
Gaita continued to swim through the lake, scanning the walls to make a map of the caverns. She noted the garbled radio static in her ears and turned the water behind her. Soon, she found the Demon Clan officer headed her way and hugged the wall, hoping the dark and lack of chi would hide her. As the Namekian enemy swam through the waters, she had her eyes closed, and focused instead on her sharp hearing. She happened to be the most practiced among the Demon Clan in locating things by echo and reverberation. She noted a rather strangely shaped formation along the wall, and in focusing on it, detected faint electrical sounds.
Gaita felt crestfallen as the Namekian enemy swam in her direction. With a sigh, she kicked off the wall and began to circle around the enemy, hoping to overwhelm her senses with the all-around stimuli. After making a ball of crisscrossing wakes, Gaita charged up and fired a Chelsea at the Demon Clan officer. With incredible speed, the Namekian parried the energy wave and followed it to Gaita, tackling her and driving her upwards. They crashed into and pushed through bedrock until they emerged in the crater lake once more, and then into the open air.
The Namekian removed her rebreather. “You are a fool for underestimating the sharpest senses in the cosmos!” she said. “The name’s Abalone, Malacol’s most trusted advisor. You must be one of the upstarts making a mess of the Demon-Saiyan War. You and your friends have picked off a lot of my fellow officers, and a few on the other side. You won’t be able to do that anymore.” Abalone began her assault, a calm intensity in her movements. Gaita was able to guard fairly easily, and decided to test the limits of her new power rating. She was worried that she was going into the fight without any absorbed energy, but also knew that her current power was far greater than she expected.
Once Gaita began going all-out, Abalone was pushed to the defensive. Though Abalone held onto the confident gleam in her eyes for a moment, she lost more and more of that confidence with every powerful blow. Gaita smiled, estimating her current power rating as a match for Torta’s most recent Dagwood attack. Throwing Abalone by the leg high into the air, Gaita charged and fired a Hessian at her chest. Instead of seeing the beam pierce the demon’s chest, Abalone disappeared.
“Is that all you have to offer?” Abalone asked Gaita, from behind her. With a gasp, Gaita turned, only to be kicked into the ground. Abalone laughed quietly. “Congratulations on attaining basic competency as a warrior! However, that is not enough to defeat the likes of me, let alone the Demon Queen of Namek!” She cracked her knuckles. “It’s time to get serious!” Charging in with renewed strength, Abalone was able to completely overwhelm Gaita. The speed and power Abalone now demonstrated was far beyond the play-fighting she performed before; though Gaita didn’t think Abalone was on Daikon’s level, the distinction didn’t matter when she was this much stronger than Gaita.
Puttee was frozen in fear, her hands covering her mouth, her eyes streaming tears. She nearly lost Gaita once, and she lost Spats because of the decision she made to save Gaita. Watching her Android sister get beaten around with such ease filled her with intense terror. She couldn’t lose her sister, not again.
Abalone slammed Gaita into the ground and then fired a massive energy wave at her. “Ifrit!” she yelled. Seeing her chance, Gaita held up her hands and absorbed the Ifrit, feeling her reserve batteries refill like rain on parched earth. She smiled, thankful that her enemy underestimated the strength of Androids. Her resolve bolstered, Gaita flew back at Abalone and used the power of her Ifrit against her. The boost in power was notable, and Gaita anticipated that the added strength to her and the lost chi from Abalone would close the gap for her. She pressed her advantage for everything it was worth, using palm strikes to absorb more energy as she fought.
Abalone laughed. “Energy stealing technology makes for a fun trick,” she said. She put more effort into her movements, and was able to block all of Gaita’s strikes with relative ease. “Do you really think you’ve seen my true power?” Putting her fear aside, Gaita continued her assault, and eventually landed a flat palm against Abalone’s arm. She started stealing as much of Abalone’s energy as she could, feeling the increased energy raise her power rating. Abalone laughed again and chopped straight through Gaita’s arm, severing it with a wink. “Does that prove how useless this fight is?”
Another kick knocked Gaita into the ground, in the middle of the military scrap. Puttee screamed in horror. Abalone descended to the ground. “Daikon was always a fool, never confirming if the job was done. I’m not making that mistake.”
Freaking out, Gaita scrambled away, trying to figure out what sort of advantage she could give herself. She wanted to think the current power balance was tilted in her favor, but it was hard to tell, with Abalone playing with her sense of scale. Brushing her severed arm against a tank, Gaita remembered that she wasn’t just an Android anymore. Gaita jumped back and away from the advancing Abalone, scanning the battlefield around her. Having identified her target, Gaita landed on a tank and fused her circuits with the metal below, reforming it until the cannon of the tank replaced her lost arm. Abalone raised a brow, surprised. Gaita pointed her cannon at the demon and fired a powerful plasma burst.
The two danced through the leftover war ships. When Abalone got close, she would bust apart Gaita’s new weapons, and Gaita would respond by shifting through another tank or spaceship and come out armed with a new gun or blade; she also absorbed extra armor plating over her body. Gaita the Scrapyard Android was at her most quintessential moment.
With each pass, Abalone would bust apart more than the extra guns or blades. She also progressively stripped away more and more of Gaita’s original material. Gaita would replace it as best she could, but Abalone kept demolishing more and more of her body. Taking several deep wounds, Abalone grew tired of the infinite arsenal Gaita was provided with in the former warzone. Abalone kicked Gaita high into the air and then punched her down into the crater lake. She rolled her neck. “I won’t let you keep repairing yourself!” she declared.
Gaita rose from the waves, still holding onto a plasma cutter and a high-end laser rifle. With a look of fear, she turned to Puttee. “You won’t lose another sister,” she promised. Gaita turned her rifle at Abalone and fired the full extent of her base energy rating through its barrel. Abalone dodged and started moving forward. Once Abalone was too close for the rifle, Gaita switched to the plasma cutter, slinging energy blades through the air and swinging sharply to keep the demon at bay. Abalone could not be kept at bay, and soon she was on top of Gaita. She smashed the rifle apart and trapped the knife hand under her arm. Charging energy over her hand, Abalone prepared to land the killing blow. Gaita opened her chest, revealing a small cannon. She charged a blast with her full power and all the energy she absorbed from Abalone.
The massive blast hit home, and Abalone cried out in pain. Her right arm, shoulder, and much of her chest was burnt away. Gaita smiled and pulled back her freed cutting arm, prepared to bring it down on Abalone’s neck. However, Abalone caught the blade with a newly regenerated hand and growled. “You have yet to appreciate true strength, doll!” she said.
Puttee watched in horror as Abalone charged energy over her hand and thrust it through Gaita’s chest. Energy feedback rocked through Gaita’s body as the chi burst apart her infinite energy generator. Her eyes glowing, she looked back at a bawling Puttee. “I won’t abandon you!” she promised. With a burst of chi from her eyes, Abalone destroyed Gaita’s head.
Gaita’s parts were left to fall into the lake. Huffing, Abalone wiped her mouth. “I’ll come back for you, noncombatant,” she told Puttee as she put her breathing device back in and descended to the underground cavern to retrieve her prize. Puttee sobbed, powerless, as she watched her sister’s remains floating over the water and wash up on the shore.
A hand floated right in front of Puttee. She picked it up and held it with both hands to her chest, crying so that her eyes burned. Gaita had been made from her dreams for a better world, to reclaim all that her father tried taking from her genius. In many ways, she had hoped Gaita could be a bridge to Spats, and she helped make their renewed friendship possible. The promise she made to Gaita, to turn her into a living machine and true warrior, came to her mind. Puttee was left without any sisters, having failed them both.
All original story, all original characters! Check out Dragon Ball ‘Redux’!
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Life in the Gutters 