The Rainbow Stocking had landed on one of the larger moons of a gas giant in the system it orbited, to better stay off of enemy radar. Since the moon had water on it, Regal was satisfied with it as a base of operation, focusing even more on her training. Scallop was relieved to finally not be floating through space; she was much more accustomed to the dangers of such activities.
Though it was a difficult climb, Regal insisted that she progress her gravity training on a weekly basis. She increased from 160G to 170G after her first week, and then decided to lower the jumps to 5G at a time. At these extremes, the strain of increases in gravity were exponential in nature; without the added push of the Devil’s Tincture, her progress was slowed, and with this regimen, she pushed as fast as she ever had. Scallop complained the whole way, always a step behind Regal, but she managed to keep up enough.
Two months passed thus. Every now and then, Regal and Scallop would check the signals from the Dragon Balls, and watch as they were uncovered and then stolen from one team after another. Seeing the crisscrossing raids was a bit more fun when they did not have to participate. A couple hunter squads from the Demon Clan were sent after the duo, which surprised the heroes, but they were easily dispatched. The Saiyans steered clear of them.
Regal meditated in the 200G chamber, her body intensely resisting the weight to hold her pose after the fourth hour. Scallop was standing, at least halfway while bent over, and doing what she could to practice. She was determined to stand up straight and walk in another couple days.
Regal slowly rose to her feet and stretched. She looked over at Scallop. “You’re beginning to make faster progress,” she said. “Finally.” Scallop scoffed as Regal started slowly jogging around the chamber.
After a few minutes, Regal went to the control panel and turned the gravity off. “Let’s go outside and spar.”
Scallop wiped sweat from her forehead. “Sure thing.” This was a rare break from the gravity outside of sleep.
The two stepped out into the thin lunar air. The landscape was sparse, mostly rocks and dust littered with impact craters, but some moss did grow on the rocks on the shore of the river. There were no clouds in the dark daytime skies. Overhead, the marbled clouds of the red-and-orange gas giant dominated the view.
Regal took her stance. “Are you ready?”
Scallop took her own stance. “You’re always so impatient.”
Regal charged in and attacked Scallop fiercely, taking an early offensive. She continued to press her strength, ratcheting it up as far as she could go. Scallop did everything she could to defend against the barrage, but like usual, Regal was a class above her in power. Keeping up a guard was the best she could hope for. The power Regal was putting behind her blows was incredible, so Scallop patted herself on the back for being able to withstand them.
The two broke apart, landing where they started. “How was that?” Regal asked.
“I haven’t felt power like that since fighting Daikon,” Scallop said. “But I don’t want to get your hopes up. I didn’t fight Daikon in that second transformation you mentioned he had. Malacol is still going to be a challenge.”
Regal smiled. “She always will be, but I’ll keep fighting. She had my mother killed and drove the Grand Elder from her home, subjugated Namek, and she’s been gunning to kill you, her own daughter.”
Scallop looked to Regal. “You have a lot to lose, huh?”
“What do you fight for? You said you have your own dreams to achieve with the Dragon Balls.”
“At this point, I just want to be free.”
The two turned and went back into the ship. “I want to spend a few more days at 200G,” Regal said.
Scallop nodded along, glancing around the command center as she entered. Her eyes passed along the radar screen, and she became alarmed. “Look at this!” she called to Regal. Five signals had converged on one another. Only theirs and Torta’s balls were left in the open. “It’s a guarantee that someone is going to be coming for our ball very soon. They don’t have a lot of officers left, so it’s going to be a really big gun who comes after us now.”
A meteor shower started raining down on the moon. Regal paused to watch it, secretly wishing for victory against Malacol. “Get some water and back in the training room.”
“Of course.”
In the smattering of fresh craters, a single person craft sat. It had the distinctive aesthetic of the Demon Clan. The door opened, and from it emerged an imposing, confident Namekian warrior. Just as she had first done so many years ago, when she started this war, she wiped her antennae back on her head so that they stood up, as the horns of her demonic crown.
Just as Regal and Scallop readied themselves for the hammer fall that was turning the gravity back up in the training chamber, Scallop felt a terrible and familiar shiver down her spine. Focusing all her senses, she found the most distinct and intimidating presence in the universe approach her, for the first time in months. She froze, and became unaware of anything else but that presence.
Regal saw this change in Scallop. “What’s wrong?” Scallop did not answer. “What’s wrong?” Then she felt a powerful evil chi, released as a greeting and warning to the world. Regal was thunderstruck, having only felt that chi one other time in her life, just as she was born.
Scallop rushed out, leaving Regal behind. Scallop emerged from the Rainbow Stocking after ensuring the forcefield was active, and faced the calm yet imperious face of her mother, Malacol. Malacol sneered in condescension. “Where’s the real fighter?” she asked.
“I’ll never give you the Dragon Ball!” Scallop declared.
Sighing, Malacol took a deep breath and yelled, so that she could be heard for miles. “REGAL! IF YOU DO NOT TURN OFF THAT FORCEFIELD AND FIGHT ME, I’LL LASSO THE SHIP WITH CHI, THROW THE WHOLE THING IN THIS SYSTEM’S STAR, COOK YOU ALIVE, AND THEN HAVE MY TECHNICIANS TAKE THEIR TIME DISABLING THE FORCEFIELD! I AM THE DEMON QUEEN, AND I’LL NOT BE MADE TO WAIT!”
The forcefield was stripped away, and out from the Rainbow Stocking came Regal, the fabled Savior of Namek. She held up the Dragon Ball she stole from Limpet. “The winner can claim this,” she said, dropping it to the ground. As she watched the smile creep across Malacol’s face, Regal remembered Limpet’s prophecy of death, and could not help but let her insecurities take hold.
Malacol looked over Regal as she approached. “You look just like your mother.”
Regal shivered. “You don’t have any underlings to kill me with, like you did my mother.”
Malacol laughed, growing in intensity until she doubled over. She wiped a tear from her eye. “It was not some common cannon fodder that killed your mother! I did it myself!”
Regal was shocked, though she had always suspected it in the back of her mind. She felt the flames of fury fill every fiber of muscle in her body, flowing into her fists. Calling out in primal anger, Regal charged in at Malacol, fighting her with everything she had. With the power she now possessed, Regal expected she could force Daikon to transcend Super Saiyan, and hoped that would be enough. Malacol kept up her defense, and Regal drove her back. Scallop was dumbstruck at the level of fight she was seeing, especially to see anyone keeping up with her mother.
The first moment of Regal’s life kept flashing through her head as she attacked Malacol, with her mind’s eye zeroing in on the moment of her mother’s death, her attention on the subtle clues that showed Malacol killing her. The rage continued to pour into Regal’s fists, and it wouldn’t end no matter how many times she threw them.
Through her anger, Regal could not see how calmly Malacol was blocking her strikes. After a while, Malacol caught her fist. “I’ve had enough of a taste,” she said, and struck Regal in the gut, taking her breath. Returning the favor, Malacol beat and tore into Regal, so hard and fast that Regal couldn’t keep up. She laughed. “Melodica was an idealist, too! Keeping her head in the clouds cost her her life. As a Namekian, I understand your feelings, and how you have to keep gunning for my head. But you, a bratty child, gnashing and wailing over a parent you didn’t even know—it’s all meaningless noise!”
While Regal recoiled from that insult, she was hit by the most devastating punch of her life, launching her into the ground. Malacol descended to the crater. “I want to fight you, not your mother. Melodica never fought for herself, and my chance to face that warrior is gone. I won’t be robbed of my battle with you. The Demon Queen needs to overcome the hero.”
Regal struggled to get up as Malacol approached, ready to continue her assault. Scallop rushed in, ready to confront her mother. Malacol dodged the first kick, continuing to avoid every blow levied at her by Scallop. Though Malacol was surprised to see the progress Scallop had made as a fighter, she was still disappointed in her, as both a fighter and a daughter. She was too proud to be struck by a betrayer. With a single strike, Malacol deflected Scallop, sending her flying far across the moon. She turned back to Regal. “I would have preferred if the Grand Elder recognized me as a fellow elder,” she mused. “If she had, I could contact her across the cosmos after I gain immortality and let her know I’m coming to kill her!”
Once more feeling true fury, Regal stood up and attacked Malacol. “You’ll never get close to the Grand Elder!” she promised. Though still feeling shaky from the previous exchange, which made Limpet’s prophecy feel real, Regal pushed through and tried to return everything Malacol had done to her. Sighing in disappointment, Malacol caught Regal’s fist and slapped her away. She charged up a powerful energy wave over her fist and fired it into Regal. Regal barely put up a guard in time, but it was not enough, and the massive stream of chi burst over her.
Scallop, charging back in to support Regal, was caught by the neck and thrown to the ground by Malacol, who then drove her deep into the rock with a powerful kick. Malacol emerged from the hole. “I’m not interested in killing the bodyguard of a washed-up monk, either,” Malacol said. “Namek is in the palm of my hand, and soon every Namekian world will belong to me. I need to overcome Namek’s hero to become the Demon Queen these worlds deserve. Fight me!”
Regal shot a massive Jophiel as greeting to this challenge. She charged in as Malacol deflected this blast, once more pushing her fears to the background as she attacked. “I’ll never let you make Namek the center of an oppressive empire!” she roared. Malacol smiled; though the fight was just as easy for her as before, she was finally facing the warrior she cast in her life story as the Hero of Namek. This victory would make her the true Demon Queen. This was a trial she needed to overcome to achieve her self-image, after so many years of war.
“You don’t know anything about Namek!” Malacol roared back. “You don’t know what the Grand Elder and Melodica did! They told you I was born evil, but I wasn’t! I was born with great power, the culmination of the supreme Namekian heritage! I just wanted to use that power to help Namek. I trained as one of the Grand Elder’s warriors and followed the path.
“But then I learned that Namekians are persecuted on some worlds. No matter what they did, how much they assimilated to the local culture and reached out peacefully, the natives only saw them as invaders. I wanted to use my strength to defend them! But the Grand Elder refused! She offered aid to these worlds, return trips to Namek if it was too much, but the elders on these worlds refused. The Grand Elder was pleased by this! Their adherence to an idiotic mission! She said universal harmony wasn’t the plan, just greater understanding of life for Namekians. I pleaded with Melodica to come with me, but she agreed with the Grand Elder. She called it a personal vendetta!
“Those stupid elders didn’t know what was best for their tribes; it’s only righteous that I offer my aid! Cowardly saints like the Grand Elder and Melodica doomed our siblings to terror, and kept the universe from knowing that we are the supreme race. So I went to a troubled world, the Namekians there under siege from the military of that planet. I killed every attacking soldier and flattened their capitols. They would be sure never to cross a Namekian ever again.
“Then Melodica showed up and attacked me for my actions. She won that day and left me in the dirt, calling me a demon. So when I woke up, I became the demon who would save Namek from those peace-loving fools! I started my Demon Clan, formed my army, and took Namek.” Slamming Regal into the bedrock, Malacol laughed. “I am the one truly fighting to protect Namek!”
Regal scowled, kicking Malacol off. “You’re fighting for your own twisted ideology of supremacy, not Namek!”
Malacol knocked Regal back once more. “Then you’re not fighting for Namek, either, by that logic. You’re a fraud, fighting for fairy tales of idyllic pastures your mother passed down to you. You don’t know Namek; your home is some backwater boulder orbiting an unremarkable star. You’re an outsider, claiming justice for a place you don’t belong to.”
Regal knew Malacol was wrong; simply living away from Namek did not mean she wasn’t allowed to fight for her people, or claim to be one of them. She rushed back in with a vicious attack on Malacol, and as she did so, memories flashed to her mind of the day before she departed Earth, when she talked with the Grand Elder and called the Earth her home planet. Caught off guard by this memory, Regal flinched, and Malacol chuckled. She backhanded Regal. “You will die, and your death will make me a true Demon Queen,” Malacol said.
She approached for the final blow when Scallop shot back out of the ground and attacked once more. Malacol dodged her daughter once more and growled. She kicked Scallop into the air and followed, delivering a withering full-force attack that made Scallop’s insides quake as if liquefying. She spat on Scallop. “Your very existence is a stain on my legacy,” she hissed. “You won’t get another chance to interrupt my moment.”
This time, Regal intervened to help Scallop, hitting Malacol in the back with an Uriel. While Malacol was briefly surprised by this attack, Scallop slapped her mother across the face, feeling satisfied for the first time in her entire life. “You’re the stain!” Scallop told her mother with a wry smile. “I won’t stop fighting until I’m free of you!”
The Demon Queen screamed in anger as she was assaulted on both sides, one by a traitor and the other by a fool. She easily blocked and dodged all the strikes sent her way, and viciously beat both of her opponents without any mercy. After knocking Regal away a moment, Malacol drew her hand back and pierced it through Scallop’s heart. Regal cried out in shock as Malacol tossed Scallop to the ground. “Setting Scallop free makes me a good mother, doesn’t it?” she asked.
Regal froze for a moment, filled with intense anger at the death of her friend and symbol of hope, and terrified that losing that “hope” meant Limpet’s prophecy was nigh. Grunting to snap herself out of it, Regal charged back in at Malacol, ready to avenge Scallop and win this fight for her. Malacol played defense for a while against this Regal, but was left as unsatisfied as before. Having defeated her as the Hero of Namek, Malacol wanted to defeat that hero for the warrior she was. Watching Regal flail so passionately over the death of a lump like Scallop disappointed her. She grabbed Regal in a choke. “You are a worthless piece of trash,” Malacol told her, “putting up so much effort over a mother and planet you do not know, a failed leader of a failed ideology, and a traitorous waste of space.” She threw Regal to the ground. “You’ll die today.”
Regal charged back up at Malacol. “You don’t understand anything!” she yelled. “Not the Grand Elder’s feelings, or mine for my mother and Namek, or Scallop’s yearning for freedom from you! You are an empty vessel for anger and hatred, and you don’t have a right to say anything to me!” Malacol dodged all these insults, just as she dodged all of Regal’s strikes, and realized that Regal was already fighting for everything she felt was worth fighting for. Regal loaded her fist with all of her chi and life energy, and threw this Seraphim at Malacol with all her might; if she could make Daikon spit blood two months ago, she could surely kill Malacol now.
Malacol caught the Seraphim in her hand and felt the burst of energy blow her arm off. “Wow, that’s impressive!” Malacol admitted, regenerating the lost arm. With a final exertion, she used her sharp nails to cut open Regal across her torso, from her shoulder to her hip. Regal gasped in pain before falling to the ground.
Though wanting more from the moment, Malacol walked to the Dragon Ball and claimed it for her victory. “Daikon’s going to get the last outstanding ball,” she remarked. “He’ll bring it to Sadla. That’s just a few days away from here, isn’t it?” As Malacol walked back to her ship to leave, Regal bled into the dirt and wondered why she had to suffer the same fate as her mother.
All original story, all original characters! Check out Dragon Ball ‘Redux’!
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Life in the Gutters 