#rook is so freakin awesome

[caycanteven]

This was a commission piece for @under-art-reblogs with Rook absolutely styling and looking GORGEOUS! Thank you so much again for supporting me and my work! 🥰🫶I always love getting to see this beautiful girl again!

[aliciagaliano]

Crossed Roads, chapter 9

Author's Note: One more chapter before this ends. You're getting one more answer there.

Also, when I first wrote this, I felt that I wouldn’t end this chapter because of how darn cringy it was for me, and it really gave me a hard time to redact whatever the hell I did once and improve this version one way or another with more details and other stuff... please kill me and end my suffering.

...

Disclaimer: Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs belongs to Sony Pictures Animations.

The respective OC's belongs to me.

...

I'm sick of the secrets Stood on the edge Tied to a noose And you came along and you cut me loose

Amsterdam - Coldplay

...

It's been like two and a half days from the fight between Maximus Panther and Alice with the victory of the latter; in those two and a half days she remained unconscious in the same way from when she was found floating in the ocean. Flint didn't hesitate in any moment from moving away, remaining close and only leaving when he really needed to do something else like getting something to eat or feeding Steve, who also remained by their side upon her chest curled in a furry ball.

The wait just felt… agonic in many senses of the word, he hated to wait to see if she would come back or if the thing of the three days from the first time wouldn't happen due the magnitude of the fight and the poor condition she got left afterwards. More than one people asked for her condition to his father, all he could reply is that she was supposedly doing it alright in the meantime…

Why he had the feeling of having a dejavu sensation all over again? But the only difference is that this time it was taking longer to reach that damn ending that felt like about to drive him insane. Besides of that, part of what happened before just remained in his head including how beaten she was until the end… to then think, how many times that happened before? It was a long story of physical and psychological abuse – as much the evidence told…

It felt like the wait was totally worthless and she ended up falling in a coma, the wait was tiring, there was nothing to do as his mind became blocked for any ideas for an invention, and at some point he gave up having fallen asleep next to her; it was afternoon around 4:00 PM, the sky was cloudy and the rest of the world seemed to lose its sense after the revelation of knowing they weren't alone in the universe. Incredibly enough, the girl started to regain her conscious, awakening her...

Alice opened her eyes, heavily as the first time, being in the room she found herself the very first time, after having put the succession of events straight in her head she looked to her bare hands shaking softly not actually understanding at all if what happened was a dream or really happened; so many things that happened made her unsure about what was going on and what not, and actually she was expecting to having been a dream and that fight didn't happen, neither the way she and he argued neither the fight...

Then for a moment she thought it was an actual dream and nothing happened, ignoring entirely the presence of the inventor there, even more when she covered her face and started to cry in silence… then she felt a hand upon her back rubbing it softly that made her whimper…

"Flint..." She said with her voice cracked, "I-I-I..."

When the girl saw Flint, the livid memories of how they argued horribly came back, how she ran away to the grasslands angrily and heartbroken... the fight against Maximus, all of that, even when she inadvertently attacked him... she felt very embarrassed by that last action, so much that she wanted to run again, but even if her body healed, she still didn't have enough energy to do so... the girl was breaking slowly while tears fell down her face all over again.

She was just desperate and scared at the same time, not knowing what to do, Flint put a hand on her shoulder, she looked at him with reddened eyes, when she realized, he hugged her and began to cry against his chest, he simply put his chin upon her head affectionately rubbing her back... "Don't worry my girl… the nightmare has passed..."

For a few minutes there was just a loud yet muffled sob against his chest until she eventually started to calm down, the inventor just felt saddened and touched by it, showing how human she actually was even with her… special abilities; and after calming down all she did was only look down as the top of her head was still against him, feeling too stressed for everything that happened, and even if he was comforting her she still wanted to run away.

"Alice please… calm down… nobody's angry at you, I promise..." He said, "They all have been asking for you for the last two days..." His fingers slowly went to the base of her neck, starting to massage that part slowly, it made her body shiver, yet slowly relax, "Come on… I'll get you something to eat first, then let's go upstairs to talk calmly, alright?" There was silence, then he felt her nodding slowly against his chest, still looking down. "Hey… can you look at me, please?" Her head pressed more to him, "Please, calm down… I'm really sorry for having said all of those hurtful things to you back then..."

Regardless her actions in battle, the guilty feeling in his chest remained as he still was unable to apologize properly to until that moment… despite everything that feeling of she being still angry at hurt about his actions were very present and he hated it… then he felt her arms wrapped around his body too and her hands gripping his lab coat again…

"I'm sorry for having ran away… and for all the troubles I caused to you..." She quietly mumbled, her body shivered again when he caressed her hair. He just kept easing his friend as much as possible until he offered her again to get something to eat and go to his lab, so a few minutes later they did; her legs were like jelly as well, but she managed to stabilize up.

There was a little sensation of repeating the first day they met but without Tim, who was at his shop covering his turn as usual; for now he served her some milk there was from when he went to the States a few days ago in a glass, she took it and drank everything plus another two rounds at the same time the inventor took his time to inform his father about her awakening and how she was feeling… for a moment he looked at her, she still seemed to feel pretty low… yeah, he was worried, maybe it felt like they went right back to the start where she was again that shy little girl that just woke up…

So… time to start all over again?

Whenever he tried to to make any kind of contact like rubbing her back or anything else she used to flinch slightly in response, yet never complained neither said something about being uncomfortable, actually it just felt like she was expecting him to be mean, yell, be rude to her… it never happened. He sighed softly knowing they went several steps back as she was enclosing herself once again in a similar way from a few days ago and it was annoying in his honest opinion; but it was what it was, the only thing left to do was try to talk to her…

"Liz…?" He said in a low voice, sounding concerned, the nickname caught her attention, "Calm down… alright? I just wanna talk to you… I-I think we both deserve to sort out some things and… I wanna know about your life too..." He took a pause, then continued, "Look… I'm... really sorry for all the things I told you early a couple of days ago… I was… you know, overwhelmed for all the thrills that happened with Henry and Alex and then you turn out to have that kind of abilities and strength… I wasn't thinking I was… stressed and I didn't mean anything I said..." He sniffed hard for a moment trying to calm himself down, "I know I already apologized but… I… I'm really sorry… I was having a bad day and all I did was release all that rage upon someone who really didn't deserve it… you've been so nice and understanding to me and I repaid everything to you by being a complete dick..."

At that point he was tearing up to then just cry out loud while covering his face between his hands feeling all his thoughts totally messed up, he tried to keep going and be fully honest to her as much as he could but no words came out anymore, sending him slowly to despair; only to feel her hand upon his left chest as she felt his heart beating hard against it…

"Ishin denshin… (1)" Somehow he understood what she meant with it, there weren't any more words coming from her after she said that, it wasn't necessary anymore.

In part there was a weight lifted out of his shoulders, his right hand went upon hers feeling it warm, to then pass back again to a tight hug. Once done with it, they headed to the laboratory, right when they were going to enter to the elevator her friends peeked over the fence as they saw the inventor get out of the house, about to ask him how she was feeling, smiling widely when they saw her wide awake again. Alice couldn't avoid looking down in evident shame as Flint placed a hand upon her shoulder, rubbing it softly.

"Hey Al! You're finally awake!" Cal said sounding happy, "How do you feel?"

She bit her lower lip for a moment, to then look up with a little smile, "I'm good… thank you..."

"That was so awesome!" Cassie exclaimed completely blown away, "You royally kicked the ass of that idiot! And when you came back overpowered he was like 'please don't kill me' and–!"

"Really, it wasn't a big deal..." She replied, kinda squeezing the arm of her friend like still feeling uncomfortable.

"It is a big deal!" Cal exclaimed, "Tell us everything! You owe us an explanation too and we really wanna know because that was hella freakin' awesome!"

"That'll be for another time," Said Flint with a smile, "Alice still needs a break."

Without hesitation the two kids left with an "okay" as a response, letting the inventor and the little girl get into the elevator and go upstairs; in every moment she held his arm tight not seeming to want to let go, even less when he indicated her to sit on his rooking chair to talk, but in any case she did, looking down as he got another chair for himself… she felt so awkward and ashamed, no words could come out her mouth as she seemed unable to find a place to start.

"I'm sorry Flint I… I don't… I don't want you to change the way you see the things involving me… and..."

Before she could continue, he took her hands…

"Look all I want now is just… hear your story and understand… I mean you come from the freaking space! There is more out there in the universe and… and… I need to understand your story, what are you doing here? Why are you so far from home and why was that man trying to kill you?"

"First of all I'm not from out there… my… father is… mom's an earthling and I am too… or at least from a different plane of this planet..." He didn't seem to understand correctly, or at least that's what he thought, "There are many places around the Earth, but some are in a different dimension… some are hidden… stuff like that..."

There were so many dimensions and worlds across the entire universe, stars, galaxies, civilizations, technologies… everything humankind has been questioning for a long time were actually real… even if he already saw how evident the existence of life outside the planet was ready, it was still completely mind-blowing indeed… then she said it: she was a hybrid between an alien and a human being.

How her parents met? He went to Earth around in the early 90's when he was sent to Earth for research purposes, what kind?

"Although they were this high-technological empire with many planets in hands, they didn't know what a Caesarean operation was..." She explained, "We all are born with what is referred as 'power unit' and when the units of the baby is bigger than the mother well… she dies..."

And it was a huge problem among them no matter how many more there were across the universe, even more as they were a barbarian kind that has been expanding themselves for years and years. When they heard about Caesarean operations being made on Earth what was the first thing they did? They sent their young, proud-ass, cranky and quite annoying prince along his best friend/bodyguard/kind-of-like-that to the green planet.

"Wait a second… what?!" He needed just one moment to understand correctly that last bit of information before his brain could entirely melt down, "You're saying that you're a..."

"That's why he called me 'little princess' so many times..." She simply replied, "We, Saiyans are meant to be barbarians, a race of fighters where and stuff like that… but some of us just ain't that way..." There was a heavy sigh for a moment, "I didn't want any of this..."

He felt like he understood somehow, she continued the story of her parents or at least all she knew about their relationship. They were together for years – classmates better said, he was a royal asshole, proud, irritant, a prick, stubborn… well the list was long actually, while she was always focused in her studies, trying to be kind to her friends and other stuff, also with a lot of personality whenever she got pissed or in an unpleasant situation, in a nutshell: they were almost the opposite from the other.

Then there were the stories she's been hearing about him that seemed just like a fairy tale as the reality she knew about him was completely different is that he was actually a caring-type of person who just couldn't show it as he "lacked of parental love" in his life, even if he had grinds with everybody and mostly with her mother… among all the things that happened during those college days, once he even defended her from an overprotective boyfriend who was already way too annoying to her…

Oh yes, their relationship was actually weird: it was mostly him teasing her, she getting angry, and then she managing to roast him as it became a non-stopping circle of love/hate… then in 1999, one night they ended up in his room doing having an adventure as nobody else was there and his companion was somewhere else to "give them space"… the version she got from her father's friend, it was because they were going to leave soon and he wanted to leave something…

Something?

A child…

The day after her mother was alone in her apartment thinking that everything was a dream, finding out a month later that she was pregnant… she was lucky that her parents were understanding and supportive about it, being happier for having a grandchild than because it wasn't an expected thing to happen, besides she was an adult too...

The day after her mother was alone in her apartment thinking that everything was a dream, finding out a month later that she was pregnant and alone… she was lucky that her parents were understanding and supportive about it, being happier for having a grandchild than because it wasn't an expected thing to happen, besides she was an adult too…

Nine months later, via Caesarean section, Helena Galiano got a baby girl named Alicia…

Did her father know about her? According to Link, (who was nowdays his right hand in duties), he always knew and even went to see her when her parents were away and she was asleep… the girl didn't know if she should actually believe that story or not due his cold as hell personality… she didn't know what to believe or what was the truth: if it was the story of what they told about her father or stick to his abusive-like behavior towards her…

"What does he does to you, Alice?" Her friend asked softly, yet worried, she just flinched a bit and sniffed.

"He's always yelling at me for being weak..." She said in a low, cracked voice, "He's always repeating me that I'm weak and useless and… that he can't believe I'm his daughter..." She sniffed hard cleaning some tears from her face, "That I don't actually deserve to… be… a Saiyan..."

Placing his hands around her arms he felt her shaking in rage, like trying to tone it down and keep talking but all she was doing was burn inside without letting it get out… it made him feel quite helpless again, and he kind of shattered when she started to yell how much she hated her father so damn much and how she wished to not be any related to him in any way because all that it brought her in the last two years was pure and utter pain to her life.

He ultimately tried to calm her down when her hair started to levitate and the sound of a panicked Steve were heard around by hugging her tight and letting all the sorrow get out, making her cry hard and loud once again… now he actually felt bad for complaining about his relationship with his father… after a few minutes everything went back to normal as she regained control upon her emotions. How come her dad thought she was weak?! She wasn't at all in his opinion…

But that came to another realization: her father was wide stronger than her…

Then, if the problem with Max against him as far he had understood with the entire fucking affair, then why attacking a young girl?

There was a revenge in-between, that's what he allowed him to know as he talked about his race disappearing from the face of the universe, and at the same time she didn't have anything to do there at all even if he was completely decided to end her life. He was a space jerk who dragged her to their adult stuff (even if, as much as he could say for his appearance, was in his early 20's), which gave him to the conclusion back in the moment that the panther man was weaker than her father, but he was stronger than her, so it was (supposed to be) easier to get ridden of her…

It still made his blood boil… so. Damn. Hard.

And of course, any living, sentient being in the universe with a minimal level of common sense would agree that it was an injustice… then just have in mind that she wasn't the only one in the world – even the universe… gosh, reality just hit his face way too hard again, reminding him that there was brand more evil outside the island and the planet itself… how saddening, wasn't it? Before even daring to ask what the hell was going on at that side he had to massage his temples for a long while trying to calm down, process and digest what he already knew.

Then he realized there was something out of place…

"So… your mom didn't know about your father's provenance, right?" She gave a soft nod, petting Steve gently, "And if I understand this part correctly despite you didn't say it explicitly but maybe this is more an assumption of mine so I might be wrong, they haven't seen nor talked to each other in years, am I wrong?" She remained silent for a while, then shook her head a bit, "So I'm right..." She nodded again, "If that's the case, can you explain what is going on there? Your mom and your family got zero clues about your powers neither that you interact with your father, how?"

She shrugged in response.

"It's… very complicated… my powers never showed up when I was younger…" She explained, "He just popped up in my life a few days before I turned eight..."

She was taken to his home planet without her mother's knowledge (as much as she asked her father how she wouldn't find out, he refused to explain back then), where gravity was few ten or twenty times heavier than Earth with two suns, two moons, the full moon was only seen every eight years (at the time he arrived, the cycle was going back there) and the color of the sky had pink and yellow tones.

In a first moment everything was so awesome as the little – naive and innocent girl she was at the time: her father was a king, she was a princess and everything should've gone well after despite the coldness of him, she would live in a giant palace placed at the top of a cliff sustained by a giant pillar, own a room of the size of a two-floored house… and she wouldn't need to be like an earthling princess either.

When did everything go downhill? When she didn't show traits to be… like them maybe…

"You've seen my tail… right…?" She asked him, he nodded seeing it moving to the sides looking stressed again, "Well… uh… when full-moon hits its zenith the tail reacts at it… it's like being a werewolf… but instead of a human-sized wolf we turn into giant apes..."

The word was quite relative in size until something in his mind told him to think about a mythical giant, all he could say was a simple "Oh..."

"Yeah… and guess what else..."

He thought about it for a moment and bit his cheeks softly… he wasn't sure about the answer.

"You… you couldn't…?"

He noticed stress in her reaction towards his mid-answer, her hands were shaking once again, "A few ones knew about my real provenance… I was in a group of other kids that were going to turn into apes for their first time and… even if I was staring directly to the moon I…"

"You were the odd one..." He completed, getting a surprised look from her, "I understand… and you know that… you felt so out of place and weird to look like them but not being able to do the same as them and you wonder why..." He looked down and cleaned his face a bit, sniffing hard, "Sorry… keep going..."

"You are right… I… I didn't understand why I was the odd one like– uh… I mean my tail didn't grow until I went to Sadala with my father but… n-none of them ever thought that… uh… I'd be that… different…" Both Flint and Steve proceeded to try to ease her again as she was starting to shake again, "They… they realized I even wasn't from the planet but from somewhere else… and right there they're… like supremacist..."

A sector didn't like her at all for her hybrid blood, constantly mocking for being unable to become a giant ape, for being weaker than other kids, for pretending to be an actual Saiyan… how she was a mistake… and her father didn't help either, often becoming silent whenever she told him about people making fun of her instead of helping out somehow; of course that grew a constant anger and frustration inside in her, even more because at the time she wasn't even scratching the expectations of the king during their trainings, and instead of getting tips to be better she just got indifference and what looked like disappointment…

There were times she wanted to quit and go back to her life on Earth as if nothing ever happened, but for some reason she kept enduring and trying to learn how to become stronger – not just physically, but mentally to understand and learn better and faster… the second part kinda worked right, by someone inexperienced as her, she was fast by making strategies and learning movements from her rivals, which brought acknowledgment to her person after winning a tournament similar to the Olympic Games at the age of eight years… and for some time, it also kind of eased the tension between her and the king.

Then this shit happened…

A group equivalent to what white supremacists were, broke into the palace somehow, their leader was older, a general, the group consisted of young men following his ideals, thinking that they had to get ridden of her at the same time they were planning a coup d'etat towards their monarch for mixing his pure blood with another race…

"Woah, woah, hold on a minute..." Flint interrupted, "They kidnapped you?!"

"I was sleeping..." She sniffed hard as she was tearing up a lot, "They were all around me when I woke up… I tried to fight back but one of them hit my neck and I lost my conscience..."

Her friend grabbed her hand and pulled her to him, Steve quickly got on her shoulders as she stood up, then sat on his lap and hugged him tight, sobbing hard in the process; he caressed her hair softly as she curled in a ball against his chest, a few minutes later she started to calm down again… God, that must been a hell of a ride… from several…

"You're safe here Alice… keep talking to me..." He said concerned, "Just keep telling me everything, you'll start to feel better eventually, alright? We're safe… you're safe… I can say it's hard to go back there, but trust me, it'll be okay..."

It took a while again to get her calmed down, even with her stuttering she managed to keep going with her story.

"When I… when I woke up again I was far away… from planet Sadala… they had to tie me up to be sure that I wouldn't be able to escape… they called my father to go after me or..." She gulped softly, "Or I'd die..."

She didn't actually think he would go and save her, even less because it was in this volcano-like planet far, far away from her previous location: lava, volcanic rocks and a black sky covered with the smoke of the chimneys, the place itself looked like it was going self-destroy itself at some point, and according to some rumours, some of the worse criminals were taken there due its location and because there was something in its core that made the planet slowly start to suck the energy of any living being around the orbit…

They called it Anur Vladias, or The Dark Zone.

Why going to a place that dangerous if they could've all died? Well, it was their way to try to stand a chance against someone stronger than them, that's why.

And what seemed to be an eternal and terrifying wait became her joy when he actually went to save her, hearing him screaming a loud, raging "Where is my daughter?!" outside; she saw him using a combat armor and a red cape. Even if he showed to care about her, in the daytime she still wonders if he did it because of a genuine concern of his or just because to avoid problems with her mother if she died; although, he did seem genuinely angry towards the people who dared to take away his daughter.

Of course the young ones were easy to defeat as they were relatively unexperienced compared to their king, who didn't show signs of tiredness yet, at the same time it didn't mean he wasn't getting affected by the strange no-death situation of the planet, he was doing it as fast as he could before running out of energy.

At the point he went to that golden transformation she showed against Maximus, referred as the super Saiyan, she realized he started to feel the lack of energy in that point which could only worsen up the situation. To add more to the plot, the man who orchestrated her kidnapping made a ball of energy on a hand, once tossed to the sky it became bigger, and out of sudden there was a giant ape roaring…

"The thing is… when creating the artificial moon, the power of the user decreases to certain point for putting a lot of power in the technique. It should've been easier for dad to win but… somehow… it wasn't… he was losing..."

"And what about you…?"

.

Flashback

June 8th, 2008. Anur Vladias

Among all the many things that happened to her in the very few months since she descended to the hell that was being the daughter of a proud king, target of many people's laughs and discrimination for his half-blood provenance, exhaustive trainings, pretty much no recognition for her advances as a warrior and other things, maybe this experience, for a young age was much more than stressing and frightening.

For hours she's been trying to set her arms free and get out from the small, round space pod where she was trapped in, already having tried everything in her mind to do so, but alas, nothing was working. With all the fear she even did lose hopes on escaping alive or getting rescued by anybody as if they'd even care about that little hybrid-mistake until his father arrived with pure rage, almost having killed the frightened young ones of the group that realized their mistakes and finally going behind the person behind the entire affair happening.

And now she was witnessing how her father was being crushed by a giant ape even after the first went to a fourth form of the super saiyan where he looked more like a man-ape with red fur around his upper body and including arms, cursing under his breath about his bad luck about the affair and how he already needed to win before it could get any worse than it was.

King Vegeta IV was having a very bad time.

Naturally he was bigger, stronger, better and faster than any other warrior of his race, he was at the top of them with four versions of the super saiyan – an accomplishment never before, yet somehow it wasn't being enough to win this battle, and the worse part is that his opponent still didn't start to show any signs of tiredness unlike the king, who was slowly reaching that part. Even if his movements were still as fast and powerful as they should be, it was clear if he kept going it'd be the end. The only reason he kept going was to end all of it for once.

In the slightest chance he got to distract his pair by shooting an energy beam to his face leaving him blind and stunned for a while, he quickly he went to take her out from that pod by pressing a hidden button under the window, making the door of the pod open up, taking her out and releasing her wrists.

"Dad!" She whimpered and hugged him tight for his biggest surprise, even if he could be cold, he returned the hug seeming relieved to see her alright.

"We have to go right now, Sharotto. This place is dangerous for all of us." He said, "We will be alright… I promise..." Among all the things he's ever done, maybe that was the first time he was behaving like an actual father.

Without losing any more time he got her in his arms and started to run away to not drag the attention of the giant ape, who was still agonizing for the pain in his face after that hit from the king, the latter held the girl so tight in his arms as she was looking upon his shoulder towards the giant ape frightened…

Why not flying? He didn't have enough energy, there was a ship outside the orbit of the planet awaiting for his call. And, if anyone's wondering, he didn't want to leave, but there wasn't another choice as much as he hated that, his main priority was put her in a safe place first, recover a little bit and then end with that man afterwards…

She turned around to see how the ship, which had a strange resemblance to a bracelet because of the round "arms" of the ship, segmented in six equal parts each one met again without touching each other, leaving a large space of twenty meters long between the "arms" that ended in arrow points, with the walls of that part being totally soft, with energy panels all upon the plain surface, telling to the alien crew that the ship had a cannon incorporated in it. There was a ramp down ready to get them up, she looked back again, they were close from escaping…

The giant ape saw that and charged energy in his mouth...

"Dad watch out!"

There she felt him pushing down her head in a desperate attempt of protecting her life from the attack at the same time a bright light blinded them for a while…

There was darkness for a while where she became confused of what happened, she felt something – someone upon her; mid-key heavy, slowly she crawled out, finding herself still there. Turning around she looked at her father: unconscious, back to normal and hurt… she tried to wake him up, he wasn't responding…

"That's what our 'king' gets for mixing with a human!" The giant ape growled, surprisingly, "This is what happens when you are weak!"

"Dad… please… wake up..." There was nothing more than fear filling her inside, from the very deep down taking over her entire self, "Please… wake up… I'm sorry..." She sniffed, tears were falling non-stopping from her eyes.

She felt helpless, horrible, like a complete useless weight for everybody around… she was weak, stupid, lacking of total experience fighting, of the power needed to defeat someone like that man… there was despair, fear, she was screaming loud and hard underneath, was everything lost?

"Now that I'm getting rid from all of you, I will fucking find that human who gave you birth and kill her right in front of you! Then I will destroy the Earth!" The said by the giant ape hit her core way too hard, from fear it passed to a growing rage inside feeling like a burning fire spreading wildly.

Something snapped, she didn't know what. There was energy accumulating in her inside growing and growing uncontrollably, giving her a weird sensation going up in her spine; the pebbles around started to shake and then float up in the air, the volcanoes around the area erupted furiously letting out the lava straight to the black sky ragingly, the black clouds reacted to the strange chain reaction of the nature with loud thunders and quick lightnings…

People inside the ship were staring surprised to the scene, even more because her hair started to float, switching between a gold-like color and her dark brown constantly, her hands were gripping the remaining clothes of the back of his bleeding father who was barely alive and totally out while the rocky soil under her knees was cracking in a crater, ceding to the crushing growing power…

Broooooooooooom!

At the same time she let out a loud scream of rage at the very top of her lungs, a powerful, destructive shockwave was released, first the wave, then the powerful explosion turned dust the pebbles and rocks around the area. Her hair became a bright golden color as she was also surrounded by an aura of the same color, quite spiked up, looking up straight to the red eyes of the giant beast, her eyes became sky-blue filled with so much rage… a few tears were still around the corners, slowly fading away showing full rage.

"Impossible! There can't be another…!" The ape mumbled shocked, "You won't beat me anyways you filthy hybrid!"

She launched another loud, angry scream of rage and disappear from view, out of sudden she was right in front of him. Little time he had to react before feeling a sharp pain from a blow straight to his snout, which stunned him for a few moments, another blow was felt again on the other side of his face, and the thing that almost brought her the victory in three movements was a powerful blow straight to his throat.

As I said: almost.

He gagged for a while trying to recover his breath, quickly launching his hand towards her in a desperate attempt of grabbing her, and fast as a fly about to get smashed, she dodged and ran on his arms, again back to his face. He expected her for running out of energy quickly, but it didn't happen at all, quite the opposite: her blows were becoming harder and her movements faster.

The battle ended after she tossed this powerful energy blast that consumed the giant ape, as being the first time she ever went to that form and she wasn't used to a high energy consumption, she fell unconscious, but being catch by Link…

End of transmission

"When I woke up again I was in my room with a headache… the man who tried to kill me and my father got taken back too and was executed and the others… well… they were luckier and learned their lesson..." She ended.

He remained silent for a long while, again processing the story she told him about that affair…

"Why didn't they believe when you turned into the super-something?" He asked curious.

"There is a legend that says that every 1000 years a super warrior is born," She started to explain, "This being is the most powerful among all of them, it's the legend of the Super Saiyan… my dad was the first ever to reach that transformation like a decade ago…? And I'm the second one..."

"With eight years…!?" He was surprised, "But as you reached such kind of power at a young age, doesn't that means that maybe you are that warrior of this millennium? Just putting in mind that even if your father is the first one it doesn't means he's the person the legend has talked about."

She just let out a soft, almost sarcastic chuckle in response…

"Someone as pity as me can't be the person a legend like that is talking about..."

"Alice you can reach the second and third transformation your father can use and you're just ten years old. You are powerful enough to keep Maximus away from you for some time, maybe in this life you are, but you just haven't reached that power yet." She didn't answer this time, "Anyway, how did you meet Maximus? And how did you end up here in the island?"

Once again she started to shake…

"After my father learned I could turn into a super saiyan, his trainings became more of a hell… the first time he showed me how to do it, it took me… three or four days to learn how to transform myself without any more complications… so… one day… I escaped..."

Far, far away from everything to a safer place needing a break from his hellish, draining trainings she ended up in a distant planet, with some money she got saved and her royal provenance as a secret, ended in a little bar getting some food before tracing a route back to Earth in an effort to avoid and mislead the king and his army from getting her back.

This tall dude with cat-like ears appeared when she was getting something to eat, at first he didn't realize a thing despite the fact she seemed oddly familiar due a certain resemblance to her father, showing at first askance to her for looking like a saiyan until he somehow realized she actually was one – even if she was a hybrid, to then become a murder attempt when she dropped an insignia of the royal family: a red anchor-like insignia

This tall dude with cat-like ears appeared when she was getting something to eat, at first he didn't realize a thing despite the fact she seemed oddly familiar due a certain resemblance to her father, showing at first askance to her for looking like a saiyan until he somehow realized she actually was one – even if she was a hybrid, to then become a murder attempt when she dropped an insignia of the royal family: a red anchor-like insignia with three arrows at the left, right and up in a V, the line between the hook and the upper part was segmented in two, and the semi-circle at the bottom as the hook, with two half arrows at the ends.

"He started to attack you only for having that?" He asked, disappointed but not surprised at all at that point, "What does your family got to do there?"

"My grandfather declared them the war a couple of years before I was born after series of events that leaded to a genocide..." She explained, "Max did survive because he wasn't there when it happened, he was like… my age maybe… two years later my grandfather died and… well… he swore revenge against the royal family… so when he met me, he thought it'd be a 'nice place to start'… and it only added more problems to me..."

She didn't just unlock the other two transformations out of rage and despair (barely being able to maintain the third version) but get heavier training sessions that were draining both physically and mentally only to not end barely alive in another fight. Her father wasn't being any understanding about her lack of experience, constantly rushing and pushing her to the very limits, often ending in a medical capsule that uses a special liquid to heal any physical wound both outside and inside in a thing of a couple of hours depending of how bad the state of the person was, to then go all over again through the same process.

That was spiralling towards madness, faster for her for being a child. The plan was increase her powers as they got a special something that allows them to increase their power levels after receiving a large amount of damage, adjust to the enemy's battle tactics, and a few other extras that made them malleable specially for fighting… it kinda got limitations: self-inflicted wounds didn't help at all, and a constant, repeated use of this innate ability only could bring less progress than before.

It became futile.

"Woah..." That's all the inventor could say in that moment, she was still on his lap against his chest, as if she felt safe right there hearing his beating heart. "And… you escaped from there again before ending here, am I wrong…?" She nodded.

"We were having a training… he was pushing my limits all over again… he was mentally pushing me to the limits and… was calling me weak… that I worth nothing and… you know… stuff like that..." Her hands were holding his shirt tight as she started to tear up again, "I snapped..."

The thing she remembered from that day was the way she snapped before everything just became blurry, but as much as they have told her in the aftermath was that she completely lost her mind in an explosion of rage, how half of the palace suffered severe damage and how around a hundred people plus the king in his third form had to do everything to put her under control. For what?

To wake up in a cell, heavily chained like a monster that was totally out of control. Afraid and confused, impotent… alone…

She couldn't keep going, getting into a panic attack, being his turn to calm her down… think about the story, then remember his own words back then that morning, calling her a monster… his arms closed tighter around her, sniffing hard feeling way too dumb all again; the story so far was already unbelievable, now knowing how crazy her actual life was just made him feel dumber by how he treated her after saving him from the bullies… and yes, maybe she already forgave him twice for it, but he still couldn't get over it… at least not yet.

"It's alright Alice… don't forget we're here now… just keep going..."

"My father went to see me and…" She sniffed, sobbing softly, "I asked him to… to get me out of there… I was so scared and confused… I just wanted to go home… he told me that I was in jail and that I'd be there for an undefined amount of time… I pleaded him to not leave..."

"But he did..." She nodded, "I'm so sorry Al… how long did you stay down there?"

"Around a week… I guess Link released me on purpose as he was the last person to see me and even left a key… so in secret I left and made my way back home..."

Stealing a pod, disconnecting the tracker of it she programmed the coordinates back to Earth, which would be a long trip of around a day or so, landing on the dark side of the moon, ready to fly into the atmosphere, get back home and keep going on with her life as if nothing ever happened, neither the existence of her powers, aliens, the outer space nor her father and his race. Enough was enough, she was sick tired of everything and all she needed was a prolonged break and peace, get her feet down to earth (ironically), focus in stuff that kids of her age would… only to stumble upon Max, who apparently did follow her or it was a casualty.

She pleaded him to let her go because she wanted to avoid any kind of confrontation, he didn't listen as usual.

They fought, she was trying to get away, he didn't let her…

She didn't want to fight anymore. Period.

"Such a whiny little piece of shit..." She remembered him hissing, repeating it also out loud, feeling a ghost grip around her wrist, "And you call yourself a–"

"I told him that I'm not like them… and how I hate to be related to them... because I'm only paying for the broken plates..." There she looked straight to his eyes, "I told him he's a coward for downloading his rage on me… he punched my face..."

"Come on! Fight! Struggle! I don't fucking care but do something!" He shouted, she didn't reply, which just brought out an angry groan, "Ah! You're so pity! Tell me what's your purpose in this life!" She didn't understand that leaving him without reply, holding her neck tight and making her look to his eyes. "What is your true purpose in this meaningless life?!"

"I still didn't understand what he meant… I think I'm so empty and… meaningless..."

"Who you fucking are! Why are you still alive and why are you still fucking fighting me! You have none asides of the natural instinct of living, and that's so pathetic and pity that only makes me feel angry!"

She felt to have none... still lacking an answer to him, with a drifted off gaze. The man gave a spin and tossed her away towards the void of the cold space where she was expecting to die in a few seconds... a burning feeling got her body as she was dragged away. For moments she only felt pain and didn't hear anything…

Out of sudden there was some light as her eyes barely adjusted to the light, seeing the blue sky of the Earth, then, her body hit the water… she felt the cold, dark sea wrapping its arms around her, pulling her down to the deep while the surface was becoming distant; the aching pain of her wounds due the salt didn't matter, she didn't care whatever could happen now, only wanting to die…

"I didn't know who I was… why I was alive… why all of this was happening to me… I was just allowed me get swallowed in the sea..."

And then he showed up by taking her out...

Even if she witnessed worse shit than him, he still felt reflected in her life, she began to shatter way more than before, to proceed to sob harder than before; all she did was grip his arm as he hugged tighter and keep crying, Steve also made an effort to calm her down too, again.

For ten minutes all she did was cry until there was nothing left to sob… she felt lighter in certain way, having needed to let it out for so long under his point of view; there were still some questions he had in mind, but maybe it'd be nice to not do it for now. Her silence and her breathing tuned down made him think for a moment that she fell unconscious as a mechanism of self-defence of her brain to avoid more traumas to her mental stability, which was evidently fragile since the very first moment you meet her, she just cuddled more in response…

"Uh… I still have some other questions like how your mom knows nothing about this, where did you get that sword and what the material is or what is that plasticized piece of paper… or even how did you meet Coldplay…" He said, both trying to see if she was still await and if she would reply to him.

"One…: dad gave me that sword after showing interest in weapons… Link convinced him to do it..." She replied hoarse, "It's made of a hard material called adamantium… check on the internet… they only exists in outer space… two: the piece of paper is to set an illusion to hide my tail… third: I have no idea… but it's better for her to know nothing… and fourth: it happened a month after the kidnapping thing… I came across one of their concerts a couple of years ago and… I stuck around..." He felt her smiling a bit, yet she still felt so blue…

Placing her back on the swivel chair, he pulled out a mirror and placed it to one side, then grabbed the chair and dragged it in front of the mirror. She had her head down still feeling so petty and quite miserable, the young man softly proceeded to put his hands on her cheeks and raised her gaze towards the mirror, the face of the girl was red by tears, she seemed emotionally drained to look away, unable to do it...

"Alicia, tell me: what you see there?"

She looked at her reflection, reluctantly, her hands became fists with rage underneath like wanting to shatter it to pieces, and simply not feeling any right she said:

"I see a waste who cannot do anything without risking to people who she loves... carrying the weight of the errors of her family..."

"No... and that's not what I see..." Flint began with love in his voice, in the very same way her mother would've done it, "What I see is a girl who wants to do things by herself... who doesn't wants anyone's help to carry her world… it's a girl with a pretty fragile heart... which doesn't was anyone to worry for her even if deep down you need it... t's someone who doesn't know to who she can rely for their experiences... and who need rely to get ahead... someone who also knows the little things of life... and who is beautiful inside and out...

Alice gazed at her reflection, tears began to fall again, and a slight smile curved on its face, grabbed the hands of Flint and squeezed them, the young man was surprised that it actually worked, and felt very happy that she was trying to, hadn't given account of shooting star had granted him his wish…

"Thank you so much Flint… you don't know how… this means to me… so much..." She whimpered sounding happy, relieved...

"Why are you even thanking me? I should thank you for sticking around with me… even if I treated you like shit before..." He said, turning her around and cleaning her cheeks from the tears, "Come on, Alice you're the nicest person I've met in literally years, I'm actually surprised that life just enraged towards you in this way… you're nice, you care for the people you love, and if they won't see what you really are and worth then… they're just fucking stupid and blind to not realize what they're missing… and you know what? I'm not even sorry for meeting you. Actually you are the best thing that happened to me in so long… and I'm so grateful for meeting you… and..." Slowly he got away and grabbed the smithereens of her broken heart, then got close back to her and lend them to her, "I'm still so sorry for what I said… I… I tried to fix this… but..."

Her hands got upon the back of his and closed them, there was this bright light inside his, when he opened them again carefully, he saw the broken heart back to normal, as if it never broke at all… more questions came to his mind in that moment.

"I already forgave you… I couldn't be mad at you even if I tried..."

The girl gave a yelp when he suddenly gave her the tightest hug of the day with the crystal heart in a hand, it was a something she couldn't deny at all…

"I love you so much Al… so please… don't leave me alone..."

Her arms wrapped tighter around him.

"I won't… I promise..." She cleaned up her face seeming better, as if all the long chat lifted up a weight from her shoulders, the change of mood was felt by Steve, who became joyful, "And if you still have questions just keep going… we still have a long time here..."

He sat down and took a deep breath…

"So how did you do that? I mean fix it like that?"

"It's… uh… complicated… I mean my powers somehow can fix things… I discovered that once when I broke something made of porcelain at my grandma's house… just a random thing that happened… I learned how to control it and even use it in a greater scale..." Her gaze went out the window with a little smile, "It's like… going back in time or something like that…? It can go to a previous state or even further behind… it's weird..."

"I can tell..." He said, "Can I have powers like you?" The question clearly made her surprised, "This might sound crazy but when you lost control, well I felt this strange energy emanating… it made me feel so… powerful… that I could beat the entire world with a hand… it's weird isn't it! I just thought… maybe you can teach me… and yeah I'm a man of science, and I witnessed a fight of two aliens, my best friend is half alien and there is a brand different and greater world outside this planet! My-my mind has been expanded and..." If there was something that could make an accurate vision of his head was how it blew away, she chuckled softly.

"I think I can try..." Maybe the thing that was making him happier in that moment was seeing her smile without fear, "And… can… can you tell me what did I do when… when I lost control…? But please tell me everything… don't… don't hide anything..."

That made her little smile vanish, even if he preferred to hide the events and move on, it was something that couldn't be hidden away as maybe someone else would tell her sooner or later, so he did and told her how she completely lost control becoming this beast with dark energy and how Earth was nearly compromised twice because of a massive energy ball… and, unavoidable was telling her how she nearly killed him in the process… she looked down and completely embarrassed, passing back to that process of calming her down.

"Hey, hey… that energy wasn't you, I'm completely sure about that… so tell me the truth about this too..."

.

Flashback Two days ago…

Her way towards where her friend was (at the same time she could even feel the energy of the inventor next to two people she wanted to punch again) slower than a snail, barely being able to stand up, needing to lean against walls to keep on moving and fighting against the burning desire of falling down unconscious without caring anything else in the universe…

Flint was the only priority crossing her mind in that moment, even if meant dying in the process of protecting him from Maximus.

Very deep down in her mind in her subconscious, her conscience she just woke up, finding herself in a very dark place. A dim light was illuminating the darkness present, she was lying in a puddle of water upside down, half of her face outside feeling way too tired to move a little bit showing her mental weariness... then her body was being pulled up from there ground, being lifted it, looking down she saw shadows around her waist and down.

From the darkness a couple of eyes red popped out, with a monstrous white line of sharp teeth… then a large figure emerged, showing this large black snout. It was a Japanese dragon: it had a crocodile head with long deer horns, a long serpent body with dark violet scales like lizards, salamander snout, eagle claws, long dark beige lion manes at both sides of where his neck started, very long catfish whiskers, the lower part of his body had also a beige-cream tone with two red lines putting a limit of his upper and lower part. His tail was lost in the darkness...

"Gururu… you finally came down here to visit me..." His voice was deep, somehow familiar too.

"Who are you…?" She asked weakly, "I… I've heard you before..."

"My name is Drakon, Alice. I can give you power to finish him," Said the dragon with a demonic voice, "if you borrow me your body, I will take care of the rest for good..."

All she knew is that he wasn't using his tiny arms to get her but the shadows themselves, a shadow hand was opening one of the eyes of the girl, her body then arrived to where Maximus was torturing Flint, when the images came to the consciousness of the girl, they popped in the form of a screen on one side, feeling how negative emotions started to take over her and the shadows were surrounding her more...

"Flint... I need... save him..." She said weakly stretching an arm towards the screen, seeing how he was being punched in his stomach mercilessly, "I need… to save him…!"

"But you have no energy, little girl..."

He slowly placed Alice on the floor, she fell to a side tired still both physically and mentally, so she couldn't remain standing up. She looked helplessly like Tim how Maximus tortured her best friend; a few tears out of her eyes, the dark power engulfed her again, and the demon came out of the darkness quickly wrapping around the girl, who just looked forward, then said:

"If you don't want your friend to die, I'll pay you with my energy… what do you choose? His death or my offer…?"

At that point there was nothing to lose, right?

"What do you need…?"

End transmission

"So… I let him take over and… the rest is history already… I completely lost my conscience afterwards… I don't remember what did I do..."

The little last story just brought, again, many more questions than before…

"This Drakon thing… is uh… inside you then…?" She shrugged in response, "You've seen him before?"

"He's what sometimes makes me explode… back when I was eight I heard him… he just… triggered it…? Again when I first fought Max too… I think… and a couple of weeks ago when I exploded in Sadala too… but this is the first time I've ever seen him..."

"Maybe your enhanced healing powers got something to do with him… it kinda makes sense… I guess..." Again, she just shrugged in response, "Then that's the entire story… right?"

"Pretty much… I guess..."

He rubbed her back in a way to comfort, the crystal heart was still in one of his hands, looking at it he placed it back on his night stand, deciding to fix the base later. A little bit of his drawer was open, letting him peek inside. He saw the folded photograph inside, all he did was silently open it and unfold it to show again the picture of that fourteen years old girl he used to know as Marlene O'Neil, with him next to her looking like a couple… he looked happy, dressing an actual tuxedo suit as she wore a pretty aquamarine dress in what looked like a Valentine's dance…

His hands started to shake, then looked at Alice petting Steve on his head…

He couldn't take it any longer.

"Liz, I… I want to take you somewhere..." He said, his voice trembling, folding the photograph again and putting it next to the frame of his mother, "Can we…?"

Alice was staring at him confused and curious, tilting her head to a side softly...

"Where…?"

"You'll see it soon..." She walked to him as the monkey got down, grabbing his hand in a silent way to accept, "Ishin denshin..."

She nodded with a smile in response knowing that he could learn a lot from her… before leaving he called Tim to let him know that she was all right and they'd take a little walk, and after talking awhile, Flint hung up and lifted the girl on his back taking out from her some giggles, taking the elevator in that way. Steve stayed in the lab to avoid any further problems just in case...

Down the streets the people looked to Flint and Alice, both felt uncomfortable by the stare of everyone, then... heard an applause, then two, then five, and then everyone in the place were applauding, some even whistled joyfully. Earl watched with a smile to the duo... Cassie and Cal watched them pass with happiness, while Brent, simply smiled as Alex and Henry just took a step back, meaning a pause for an indefinite time to their teasing...

The duo were heroes, and they had all the respect of the people... for now.

...

(1) Ishin-denshin: Denotes a form of interpersonal communication through unspoken mutual understanding. This four-character compound literally translates as "what the mind thinks, the heart transmits". Sometimes translated into English as "telepathy" or "sympathy", ishin-denshin is also commonly rendered as "heart-to-heart communication" or "tacit understanding".