The field was unsually large, barren of anything taller than grass. A clear night sky hung overhead, stars bright, and without shadows to hide her, Trunks and Goten got their first good look at the stranger.

She was of medium height, compact and muscular; her clothes and hair were dusty, and smudges of dirt marked a face too hard for her seeming age. She stood tall, arms folded, head held high, and for a moment the image reminded Trunks so powerfully of his father that he had to remind himself he didn't know this girl. He and Goten landed in front of her.

"Interesting location," Goten commented, "If you like wide open spaces so much, why live in the city?"

"Who says I live there?" she countered. "Instead of jumping to conclusions perhaps you should listen to what I have to say." She paused, frowning pensively. How much to reveal... "What do you know of your father's birthplace?" she asked Goten.

"Vegetasei?"

"Yes, that's right. He was born to a lower-class warrior named Bardock."

Goten nodded. None of this was news to him, but the fact that she knew it was puzzling.

"Kakarot was not an only child," she continued quickly, "He had an older brother, Raditz: cruel, tough, proud--Saiyan to the core. He also had a sister, though personally I'd be amazed if you'd heard of her." A faint shrug, as though making excuses. "The Saiyan race produced a few female warriors, but by and large the women could not fight as well as the men; it was common practice not to mention one's female relatives."

"My dad met Raditz once," Goten interjected, "before I was born. I don't think Raditz ever even hinted that Goku had other siblings."

"Well," Takira snorted, "he never liked me much anyhow. The feeling was mutual."

"You?!" Goten blinked and received an odd smile.

"I was coming to that. I was still a child when Kakarot was sent away. I didn't want him to leave," she sighed, "I wanted to go, myself. When they sent him off, I made my decision to leave.

"There was a training camp, a school, if you will, where the children of the elite trained to become great warriors. In my naivete, I thought I would sneak in and train with them, become an elite fighter, and return to repay Bardock and Raditz for what they'd done." Her tone was vengeful, fired by the anger of old injustice.

Trunks was appalled.

"You'd kill your own father?" She gave him a quizzical look.

"Of course. The only was to settle old scores is with blood. I longed for the day when I could force him to reckon with me.

"As it was, my attempt to join the elite was quickly discovered." She made a slight face at her naivete. "I was taken in by the local authorities, but not before I killed one of the elite students. For that, I was sent to the palace to await sentence; the man whose son I'd slain had considerable influence at court, and met with the king himself to devise a suitable punishment.

"Vegeta Ou, for his part, had more pressing matters on his mind. When dealing in planets, it is inevitable that you will have to deal with unsavory characters, but in this case our ruler had entered an agreement he was beginning to regret, with a being he could not afford to anger: Freiza."

She paused for a moment, gauging their reactions. Goten was entranced; Trunks bore a look of guarded skepticism. For her story to ring true, she would have to not only be Saiyajin, but be close to Vegeta in age, and this girl standing before him was plainly neither. Still, there seemed no other explanation for how she came to know this information--he gestured for her to continue, trying to piece together an explanation.

"Freiza had ordered a number of planets, and even our worthy warriors were hard-pressed to keep up with his demand. A few of the indigenous races were putting up a stronger resistance than expected, and the result was an unavoidable delay in delivery. As payment, Freiza demanded custody of the king's only son: Vegeta Ouji. Your father, correct?" she asked, glancing at Trunks. He nodded.

"It was at this point that I was called to make my appearance before the king. The young prince stood at his right hand, the one they called Freiza to his left. They all had that look of superior indifference common to royalty, but in Freiza's eyes I saw a glimmer of something which unnerved me more.

"Ou's plan was clear enough: to kill two birds with one stone by making Freiza's payment my punishment, by offering me in place of the prince; obviously he was desperate. I forget how he worded the proposal...he neglected to mention that I was the daughter of a third-class fighter, or that I was little more than a common criminal. Freiza came forward and lifted me by the neck to make his inspection.

Takira shook her head slowly. "I'd never been close to a being that powerful, and that look in his eyes was enough to freeze my blood. When he'd finished inspecting me like a piece of baggage he threw me to the ground and said: 'You insult me, Vegeta. When I demanded your son as payment it was not with an eye toward bargaining. However, since you have seen fit to offer me this girl, I will take her as well.' That was it. He snapped his fingers and two of is attendants led us away. The king could do nothing but swallow his anger and make plans for his son's rescue."

Takira stopped and drew a breath of the cool night air.

"Mind if I sit down? I've been on my feet for a couple days now and it's beginning to tell on me."

"Suit yourself," sad Goten, "I think I'll join you. How about you, Trunks?"

Trunks remained standing, giving the girl a silent appraisal, before lowering himself to the ground.

"You don't trust me, do you?" Takira murmured. "Good. If you did, I would question whether you had Saiyan blood in you at all." She smiled, but it didn't seem to reach her eyes. "Ah, but I digress. Allow me to return to the subject of your father.

"He was something of a brat even then. At the time, he possessed the greatest power of our race, his father included. He was proud, angry at the treatment he had received, and secure in the certainty that his father would return and bring him back to fulfill his destiny.

"I," she said dryly, "had no such high hopes. We were tossed into one of the lower cells of Freiza's ship, and to my way of thinking it was only a matter of time before we were to be killed. Even if we weren't, it didn't seem likely that we'd ever return to Vegetasei. I didn't know whether to feel angry or relieved. What was I to do?"

Takira flicked her hand in a vague irritated gesture. "I must have said it aloud inadvertently, because young Vegeta immediately turned to me and snapped 'You'll keep quiet and stop annoying me with your childish babbling! I didn't ask to share this room, and if you keep it up, I won't have to anymore.' He smiled the threat at me. There was little doubt that he could kill me if he wanted, but I saw that as no great loss and I needed some way to vent my frustration, so without another word I slammed my fist into his face."

Goten looked shocked. Trunks suppressed a smile; Vegeta must have liked that. Takira shrugged.

"Needless to say he didn't kill me. He just burst out laughing. He said 'You hit like a girl. That's no way to throw a punch,' and without further ado proceeded to teach me what he knew of fighting. He knew a great deal. In retrospect," she mused, "I think he just wanted an excuse to show off, but I was so desperate for something to take my mind off of my predicament that I didn't care.

"Food and water came at regular intervals, but there was no night or day for us. We took turns sleeping while the other stood guard...against what, I couldn't tell you. Routine kept us from thinking about our situation, but when the subject came up, Vegeta assured me that even as we spoke his father was rallying his finest warriors for a rescue mission. Maybe he could get them to rescue me, too, since I'd done the service of keeping him entertained while he waited for his salvation to arrive.

"I don't know how long we'd been there when the first messenger came. He said that he was to take me to meet with Lord Freiza. I did what seemed the most logical thing at the time: I killed him.

"The door to our cell was open, so Vegeta and I could have escaped--but we both knew we wouldn't get far. We decided to make a game of it, see how many guards Freiza would send for us before he realized what was going on. We pulled the body of the first guard out of the doorway and had just stowed it in one corner when the second arrived. When at last Freiza came himself, he found two slit-eyed children perched atop a heap of corpses. He was," she murmured with a dry chuckle, "not entirely amused; he demanded to know which of us had done this. Vegeta answered that we had taken turns, since we were polite children and had been taught to share our toys." Takira smiled. He'd had a sharp tongue even at that tender age.

"For a moment, Freiza just stared at us. Then he smiled, and, stepping inside, closed the door behind him. 'From you,' he said, pointing to Vegeta, 'I expect this. With that attitude you may go far. However,' now he looked at me, 'you will never be a member of my fighting force, and therefore must learn a little more...respect.' The way he said it let me know full well what I was in for. I sat where I was, trying to control my fear; after all, it couldn't be any worse a beating than I'd had from Raditz, right?" She sighed.

"How wrong I was.

"I didn't even see his tail coming; the next thing I knew, it was around my neck. Vegeta tried to attack merely for the sake of a fight; Freiza, not in the mood for games, knocked him out immediately. For me, there was much more in store. He kept his power carefully controlled, so I stayed conscious, awake and in more agony than I would have thought possible. I didn't try to retaliate; I couldn't even stand, much less fight."

Takira heaved a terse sigh. "I don't know how long it lasted. At last Freiza incinerated the heap of guards with a flick of his fingers and dropped me in a blood-soaked heap next to Vegeta, taking his leave and confident that I'd learned my lesson well."

For a moment Takira was silent, eyes shut. With a deep breath and a brief shudder she launched into her story again.

"It must have been something like a week before I could move again. Vegeta spent his time training with the other soldiers; I rarely saw him. Soon he was getting assignments from Freiza, and he grew increasingly sullen when he was around. Once, in a misguided attempt to take his mind off his work, I asked him how long he thought it would be before the king came to rescue us.

"I realized it was a mistake the moment I said it. He gave me a look that knocked the breath out of me and when he spoke, it came so quietly I had to strain to hear him. 'They're not coming,' he said, 'They tried, and he killed them all, all of them, even my father. Then, the planet. Our planet, he destroyed it, everything, everyone, our entire race--gone.'

"He didn't cry. He wouldn't let himself mourn the loss, because to mourn it would be to accept it, and accept that he could do nothing about it. He remained, dry-eyed and vengeful, and I think that's when he began to fit the mold Freiza had made for him." She shifted her position stiffly, trying to keep the regret from her voice.

"Where was your part in all this?" Trunks asked guardedly. "Why would Freiza keep you if you weren't part of his fighting force? You weren't going to help him conquer any planets."

"I was retained as Vegeta's last link with sanity. He told me the old legends and prophecies about the coming of the next super Saiyan and confided in me all his plans for what he would do to Freiza when he finally achieved that state; and in telling me, it made his dreams seem more real, and gave him the hope he needed to endure.

"Over the years we became..." She shrugged. "As close as ruler and servant could be expected to. Freiza, of course, found a way to exploit this, too. I became Freiza's weapon against Vegeta. If Vegeta refused orders, or even just failed to carry them out satisfactorily, it was I who was punished, and sometimes he was called to watch. He would not shame our proud race by showing emotion at these events, nor did I wish him to. Whatever we were behind closed doors, we were both warriors before Freiza.

"...that was Freiza's secret to motivating his soldiers. He made them hate him with a single-minded fury that needed an outlet. He also instilled enough fear in them that they couldn't stand against him. They were left to release their frustrations in battle. It wasn't that they had anything in particular to fight for; they had nothing to gain by their victories. They had nothing to lose but their lives. In place of purpose and conviction all they had was pain, and this they took out on whatever unfortunate victims Freiza chose for them.

"Don't get me wrong," Takira added hastily, "These were still warriors, and they lived to fight and to kill, but I don't think they would have been so incredibly successful had not Freiza given them a source of hate from which they could draw their power."

"Clever," Trunks said coolly, "But wouldn't it have been even better to have left those warriors with something to fight for? Some portion of their race left alive? The possibility of returning to their families?"

"It would have given them more to fight for, certainly, but they would have been more likely to turn against Freiza if they'd had a common purpose like that. Not that Freiza wouldn't have been able to put down a revolt, but it would decrease efficiency, and he wasn't about to allow that. As it was, though, his ranks were still less than optimum.

"There is no way to gather that many lost souls in one place without problems. Fights were commonplace, deaths just as frequent. Freiza never sought to keep track of how many men he had, not because he was disorganized, but because it would have been nearly impossible. Between the acquisitions as planets were conquered and losses as the result of feuds and simple ill temper, the number of soldiers at Freiza's command was constantly fluctuating. It would have been anarchy but for the common thread of fear which united them all.

"Amid this chaos I attempted to keep as low a profile as possible. Freiza considered me harmless enough that he didn't keep me locked up. I was given free range of the spaceship with one warning: if I caused trouble, Vegeta would die. It was reason enough for me to behave myself, and I kept occupied by investigating possible escape routes. I didn't think I would ever use them, until they lost contact with Vegeta.

"It seemed that Raditz had been deployed to planet Earth to place it under Freiza's control; he had other motives as well, but didn't tell Freiza about Kakarot. Since then he had not returned, and it seemed that all was not going as it should have. Vegeta went with Nappa to investigate the situation and finish what Raditz had been sent to do.

"I didn't know what to do. If Raditz had been defeated, which looked likely, I could guess who had been responsible. If my little brother Kakarot were still alive on earth, and was strong enough to defeat Raditz, then there was no telling what he could do. I didn't want Vegeta to kill my brother, but the only other outcome would be that Vegeta would be killed, and if he died Freiza would have no reason to keep me alive." Takira took a deep breath before continuing.

"...and I had a very real reason to for which to live."