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duhragonball · 2 years

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (187/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: This story takes place about 1000 years before 66 years after the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[19 April, Age 850. Toki Toki City.]

Luffa's most recent mission had involved a harrowing battle against Kid Buu. She had prevailed, but just barely. Upon her return to the Time Nest, she was taken to the Toki Toki City hospital as quickly as possible. The Namekian healers could mend her injuries in mere minutes, but they could not undo her fatigue, and so Luffa was kept under observation while she slept.

When she awoke, the first thing she saw was a creature with pink skin, cruel eyes with black sclera, and a toothy grin. Luffa transformed on pure reflex, and in a flash the room was bathed in a golden light from her Super Saiyan form.

"Wha--?!" she blurted out. "What the--?!"

"It's all right, calm down. I'm just checking your readings."

With the room lit up, Luffa could now see the figure was wearing a white coat and black pants. It was a Majin woman, like so many others Luffa had seen in Toki Toki City, including her own roommate.

"I'm Dr. Reca," she said. "You're in the Toki Toki City hospital. Everything's fine."

"Sorry," Luffa said. "But you look a lot like--"

"Kid Buu, I know," Reca said. She pointed at her nostrils, which looked like the holes one might see on the snout of a reptile. "It's the nose, isn't it?"

"Yeah, kind of," Luffa said. "Also, I just fought him before I got here and..."

"Yes, I've heard," Reca said. "It sounds very impressive. Not many fighters could stand up to our ancestor, especially in his pure, original form. How did you do it?"

"I... I was just doing my job," Luffa said. "It's not like I beat him or anything. I just kept him busy for a while."

Reca walked around to the side of the bed and began checking machines connected to wires that were taped to Luffa's arm. As she worked, Luffa noticed a pair of pink tentacles on the doctor's head, which were intertwined to resemble a length of braided hair.

"Well, word's gotten around the city," Reca said. "I think you've definitely captured the Majin community's attention. We don't take much seriously, but our Grandfather Buu is kind of special to us all."

"Look," Luffa said, "It wasn't anything personal. He was possessed by Demigra. I had to fight him, or he would have altered the course of history."

"Of course, of course," Reca said. "All in the line of duty. How are you feeling?"

Luffa sat up and flexed the fingers on each hand. "Pretty good, actually. Last thing I remember was getting healed up and then falling asleep."

"Yes, that was three days ago," Reca said.

"Three days?"

Reca pointed at Luffa's arm. "Yes, we had to insert an IV tube to keep you hydrated. You're probably hungry. Let me see..."

Reca reached into the pockets of her coat until she found a pen. She then raised the braided tentacle up from her head until the tip was pointed at her hand. A beam of pink light shot from the tentacle, and the pen was suddenly transformed into a large chocolate bar, which she handed to Luffa.

"It's got peanuts in it. Saiyans like peanuts, right?" Reca asked.

"Uh, sure..." Luffa said. "Thanks."

"I did a few touch ups on you while you were asleep," Reca said. "Sometimes Majin healing powers can help things that Namekians can't. And sometimes it's the other way around, but Trunks told us you've been having some trouble with your ki ever since you got here."

"I have," Luffa said. "But I'll need to test myself before I can really tell if you did me any good."

"Of course," Reca said. "Drop by and let me know, okay?"

*******

Luffa returned to her apartment to find Jayncho lying on the floor, thumbing through a magazine about cars. She would occasionally sip from a glass of creme soda with ice cream scoops in it. Jayncho looked a lot like Dr. Reca, except she was red instead of pink, and her head tentacles were styled into a faux ponytail instead of a braid, and her nose looked more like a nose.

"Where have you been?" Jayncho asked idly.

And so Luffa explained her latest mission, and the convalescence that followed, leading right up to her encounter with Dr. Reca.

"She just seemed kind of... strange," Luffa said. "Like she was of put off by me fighting Majin Buu, but she wouldn't just come out and say it."

"Well, he's our ancestor," Jayncho said. "You'd be kind of ticked off if I beat up your ancestor, wouldn't you?"

"Not really," Luffa said. "Actually, I think I'd like to see that. You're not mad at me, are you?"

Jayncho shrugged. "Kid Buu's kind of a jerk anyway," she said. "Goku's the one who killed him. You just did what you had to do for the sake of history."

"Yeah," Luffa said.

"Besides, it's the Good Buu who was our ancestor. You saved his life by intervening. So, you know."

"Sure," Luffa said. "You know, the fat one, he's really tough. You should be proud of him--"

"It's just that... the Kid Buu form is where it all started," Jayncho said. "He's like the pure Majin, you know? We all carry him inside of us. I guess it means more to us than we wanted to admit."

"Great, he puts me in the hospital for three days and I'm the bad guy."

"You're not the bad guy," Jayncho said. "It's just kind of weird for people. Majins, I mean. It's like you being the Legendary Super Saiyan and all. How would you feel if that just went away, and it didn't matter anymore?"

"'If'?" Luffa shouted. "That's what happened! I've been dealing with that since I got to this stupid town!"

"Oh, yeah," Jayncho said.

"I lost most of my power, then I finally managed to turn Super Saiyan again, only to find out everybody else can do it too! And no one even remembers me in this era! All they care about is Kakarot, and apparently when he beats Majin Buu, he gets a free pass!"

"Are you hungry?" Jayncho asked. "You always gripe about Goku when you're hungry."

"Enough!" Luffa said. "I've got better things to do than listen to this!" She grabbed a bag containing a spare set of clothes and headed for the door.

"What about lunch?" Jayncho asked.

"Make it yourself!" Luffa growled. With that, she slammed the door behind her and marched down the hall.

*******

[1 July, Age 761. Earth.]

The Parallel Quests were the optimal training exercise for Time Patrollers. Each PQ was created using a fragment of altered history, usually involving a battle. These fragments had been cut off from the main timeline, and were completely isolated. Most of them only spanned fifteen minutes or less, with no true beginning or ending. As such, nothing in the PQ's was genuinely "real", and the Time Patrollers could do practically anything they wanted without causing any damage to the space-time continuum.

In this particular instance, being able to do "anything" meant not even completing the assigned mission. In this PQ, the opponents to face posed no great challenge, and so Luffa was free to unleash her power in a remote wasteland on Earth. As she screamed, the intensity of her ki formed dust devils on the sandy flats, and the ground beneath her was pulverized into a crater. Luffa simply floated in place, the eye of a miniature golden hurricane.

"Oi! Could you turn that down?"

Irritated, Luffa reduced her power level to something more manageable, and waited for the others to approach.

"That's better," said Dewar. As he floated down beside Luffa, the third member of their group, No. 44 followed close behind.

"What is it?" Luffa grumbled.

"Wellll now," Dewar said. "You don't have to be so grouchy about it. Your friend here was doing so well taking on Raditz that I thought I should check up on you before she finishes the mission."

Luffa glared at 44, who was now wearing baggy yellow pants and a black shirt. She still wore her "98CIAL" hat and jacket, and the bulky tool belt around her waist, but otherwise it looked very much like she was trying to imitate Luffa's fashion.

"Good," Luffa said. "But you two can do better than that. At your level, Raditz should be child's play, and a few Saibamen shouldn't be any trouble either. I don't know why you wanted to tag along on such an easy mission."

"I fought them alone," 44 said. "Dewar didn't help me, I promise."

"Yeah, I only wanted to join you guys because it seemed like the only way to talk to you, Luffa!" Dewar explained. "First you're on a mission, then you're in the hospital for three days, and now you're back to training!"

"I've got things to do," Luffa said. "What's on your mind, Dewar?"

"Did you ever spend much time in Camelian space?" Dewar asked.

"What?"

Dewar produced a Hoi-Poi Capsule from his pants pocket and opened it to release a folder of printouts. He then shuffled through these and handed a few select pages to Luffa.

"We've made some good progress on narrowing down your history," he said, "but there's been some conflicting reports about you. In particular, there's a Saiyan man who conducted raids on the Camelian Empire's frontier. Of course, he doesn't match your description, but a lot was made about how he did things no single Saiyan could do. He'd tear through heavily armed planets like he had a whole raiding party at his back, but witnesses claimed he was acting alone. You would have been--ohhhh-- let's say nineteen at the time."

"Nineteen?" Luffa exclaimed as she glanced at the pages. "That couldn't have anything to do with me. I spent most of that year--"

She suddenly grew very quiet, as she recognized a printout of a blurry photo of the mysterious raider. Then she blurted out a profanity that had not been heard for a thousand years.

"Ehhhh?" Dewar said, taking a step back. He did not recognize the word Luffa spoke, but the look on her face was enough to communicate its meaning. "You, uh, know the man?"

"He's my father," Luffa snarled. "This was what he was doing the whole time I was... Never mind."

"He had incredible power too, I take it?" Dewar asked.

"No he didn't," Luffa said. "By Saiyan standards he was strictly average. He only got this powerful by letting others experiment on his body. They used...!"

She quickly shoved the papers back into the open folder Dewar was holding.

"Hey, you don't have to fill me in on the whole thing," Dewar said. "He's not you, and that's the main thing I needed to clear up. It's just that there were a lot of sources that claimed you were a man, and it seems like a lot of the most credible ones were based on these reports. It definitely helps to have the real thing live and in person for questioning, hah?"

Luffa's hands began to tremble, and she quickly shoved them in her pockets. "It explains a few things," Luffa said. "There was a lot of confusion about me at the time. Mostly, it was a lot of fools who couldn't accept the idea that a woman could do the things I could do. But sometimes it seemed like people were genuinely confusing me with someone else. I never could figure it out, but it looks like Father was sabotaging me before I even got started."

"What happened to him, Luffa?" 44 asked.

Luffa looked at the girl as if she had forgotten she was there. "What do you care, kid?" she growled.

"I'm just... curious," 44 said.

"Oi, 44, read the room, will you?" Dewar said. "The lady obviously doesn't want to talk about it, and--"

Luffa faced 44 and stood about the same distance apart from her as she had with her father that day. The teenage girl was taller than Luffa, and so Luffa had to tilt back her head to lock eyes with her. The wild glare and dark circles under Luffa's eyes were no less intimidating, however.

"He betrayed me, so I killed him," Luffa said. "I gave him a free shot, just to see what he could do. Then I punched him, right about here--"

Luffa made a fist and gently held it up against 44's abdomen, though there was nothing gentle about her expression as she relived this moment.

"One strike, and I destroyed his liver. It would have taken him hours to die that way, so I offered him a quicker way out, if he told me something I needed to know.

She held up her hand in front of 44's face, mimicking a ki blast technique. "He answered my question, so I blasted his head off."

"I... I see," 44 said.

"Not a very wholesome story, is it?" Luffa said with a mirthless smile. "I doubt a cyborg like you could relate, 44. You don't even have a father, do you?"

"No," she said. "I don't.

"Trust me, you're better off," Luffa said. "You know, the stupid thing is, I actually miss him sometimes. He never really cared about me, but he had me fooled for a lot of years. Sometimes I wish I had let him live. But I guess I would have lost him anyway when I got brought to this era. So, 44, now that you've heard that story, are you sure you still want to wear my colors in battle?"

44 took a deep breath before answering. "I just thought... well, you seemed to enjoy my company during the Broly mission," she said. "And you invited me to accompany you on other missions. I thought if I wore the same clothes... well, it seemed like a show of solidarity..."

She looked like she was about to tear up, and Luffa decided to back off. "Forget it, kid," Luffa said. "I'm just in a bad mood, that's all. You can wear whatever you want, just don't assume I'm some sort of role model, all right?"

The girl nodded anxiously, and Luffa returned her attention to Dewar. "Well, was there anything else you wanted to know?" she asked.

"Uhhh, no, I think that'll do 'er," he replied. "Heh-heh...That's my little joke. "Do 'er? Dewar? Eh?"

"Fine," Luffa said. "Let's get the mission settled so I can reset to something more challenging. I really need to be alone right now, with something I can hit."

*******

[19 April, Age 850. Toki Toki City.]

"I think she doesn't like me," 44 said after they returned to the PQ station. Luffa had already taken off in the time machine to embark on a more difficult mission.

"Nah," Dewar said. "She's just under a lot of stress, kiddo. I'm in research and you're a clerk. The biggest problem we gotta deal with is a papercut, but she's out there tackling the real trouble. Super Saiyan or not, it takes a toll!"

"I hope you're right," 44 said.

"Don't worry," Dewar said. "It's not like she's gonna take a poke at you or anything. If Luffa were the type to fly off the handle like that, she would have done it to me a long time ago!"

"I hope you're right. I just... want her to like me," 44 said.

Dewar waved his tail sympathetically as he put his arm around her shoulder. "Hey hey hey," he said, "it's all right. Once you get to know her better, you'll see she's a real sweetheart. I should know!"

"How?" 44 asked.

Dewar proudly pointed his thumb at his chest. "Welllll, I happen to be a pretty good judge of character," he said. "You learn what makes folks tick when you study history, and when you've spent as much time around people as I have, you can start to tell these things. Luffa's not the hothead she comes across as. Trust me!"

As he finished speaking, one of the PQ Time Machines suddenly blinked into view. It descended onto the platform and the blue canopy began to open. Luffa jumped out as soon as the opening was wide enough for her to fit through, and she stormed through the crowd with a murderous look on her face.

"Where is he?!" Luffa growled. "He's going to answer for this!"

"Er, problem, Luffa?" Dewar asked as she walked up to him. The only answer she gave was to shove him to one side so she could keep going on her way.

"Something must have gone wrong in one of the PQ's she was using," 44 suggested, but she said this only after Luffa had walked far enough past them that 44 was reasonably sure she would be out of earshot.

"I guess so, but she was only gone a few minutes!" Dewar said. "What could have set her off so quickly?!"

*******

"She's still alive!"

Luffa had found the one she was looking for on the baseball diamond in Toki Toki City's residential zone. The field lacked even the most modest accommodations that players were used to. The dugouts were simply a pair of benches positioned just beyond the foul lines. But for those passionate about the game, it made no difference. Big League Chew was such an individual.

"Something wrong, Ace?" he asked as Luffa stormed onto the field.

"I sensed someone on Planet Namek!" Luffa shouted. "Trunks told me you were the most qualified to investigate it, and you found nothing!"

"Oh, that," he said. "Real sorry that didn't work out the way you hoped."

He was big, even by the standards of male Majins. Big League Chew looked a great deal like his famous ancestor, the fat version of Majin Buu. Except he was purple instead of pink, and even taller and rounder. He also wore a purple baseball uniform at all times. The only other colors he wore were on the red-green-and-yellow cap that shaded his eyes. It was a memento of his extraordinary career with the West City Taitans ball club. And Luffa did not care about any of this.

"You blew it!" Luffa said. She was now close enough to stand directly in front of him, though she was too short to poke him in the chest like she would have normally done in such a confrontation. Instead, she jabbed her finger at his belt buckle as she glared up at him.

"Say what?" Big League Chew asked. "Ma'am we went over that time frame at least a dozen times. And not just me. We're not perfect-- nobody bats a thousand-- but we're not exactly Bush league, either. Your friend wasn't on Namek that day."

"But she was on Earth a decade later!" Luffa. "I know because I sensed the same familiar ki when I went through the Parallel Quests involving Majin Buu!"

"Is that what this is about?" Big League Chew asked. "Listen, I know there's a lot of Majins giving you the Bronx Cheer for fighting Kid Buu the way you did. Truth is, I feel a little choked up about it myself, but I know what it's like. I was on the lineup that day when Lefty Wallace pitched his last game. He was on-track for a no-hitter, a perfect game to cap off a brilliant career. But when I went to bat, the ball sailed right into my wheelhouse. For a split second, I thought about whiffing it, but I couldn't do it. Lefty Wallace deserved my best, and that was what I gave him. I hit a triple, and the crowd wasn't too happy about it. For a few weeks, my self-respect was all I had--urk!"

Luffa had levitated up to the height of his head and she grabbed him by the collar of his uniform. "Shut. Up!" she said. "Listen to me. Keda somehow ended up on Namek. I don't know how you missed her, but she was there. From what I hear, she would have been teleported to Earth right before it exploded. She must have laid low there, but while I was in the PQ, I sensed her energy again."

"Where? When?" Big League Chew asked.

"Somewhere near West City," Luffa said. "The day Babidi and Majin Buu were going to destroy it. That's all I could sort out before the time fragment ended. There's so many people on Earth that I can't get a good fix on her location. And the whole Majin Buu thing was a distraction, so that only made things harder. But then I remembered you, and how Trunks said you were so skilled at tracking people down."

"Shoot, Ace, if you wanted my help, you should have just asked," Big League Chew said. He had only been momentarily surprised by Luffa grabbing him, but now he had fully regained his cool composure. "Thing is, if I struck out before, what makes you think I can find this girl now?"

"Because this time, we're going to do it together," Luffa said. "I'll keep Majin Buu off your back, and you can sniff out her exact location."

He thought this over for a moment and smirked in approval. "Shoot. It just might work. I know West City, and it's starting to sound like this kid of yours only shows herself when you're around. You can flush her out, and I can step in to clean up."

"I'm glad you approve," Luffa said. "Because we start now."

*******

[7 May, Age 850. Earth.]

"Majin Buu, what are you waiting for? Finish her off, now!"

For all of his wicked magic, the Evil Wizard Babidi was nothing more than a spectator for the battle between Buu and Luffa. She had no idea where Goku or the rest of the Earth's defenders were supposed to be, but it didn't particularly matter. This was only a fragment of time, and the people who existed within it were of no great consequence. Luffa wasn't fighting Majin Buu to defend anyone, or to preserve the timeline. She wasn't even doing it as a training exercise, although that end was achieved all the same.

The purpose of this battle was to produce enough ki to get Keda's attention, assuming she really was somewhere on Earth to be found. The last two times Luffa had sensed Keda, it had been while she was using her Super Saiyan form. Keda was the type to keep as low a profile as possible. When Big League Chew and the other Time Patrollers had searched for her on Namek, Keda might have suppressed her energy, because she didn't want to risk being discovered by unknown aliens. But Luffa's power represented something Keda might trust, and if Keda sensed Luffa fighting Frieza or Majin Buu, that would definitely get her attention.

This particular fragment was only seven minutes in duration. Luffa's plan was to raise her power as high as she could go and to fight Majin Buu as aggressively as possible. Majin Buu's strategy, on the other hand, was to kill anyone who got in his way.

"Mean lady really strong!" Buu squealed, "but not as strong as Buu is!"

"How are we doing?!" Luffa called out. She was speaking into the communicator hidden in her left ear. This confused Babidi, who kept demanding to know to whom she was speaking, but she had no intention of explaining it to him.

"Struck out again, Ace. I lost her," came the reply from Big League Chew.

"Dammit, we may have scared her off!" Luffa said. "She can sense your power too, and if she senses a Majin coming, she might think it's another enemy working for Babidi."

"Should we reset the mission, Ace? Try again?"

"Not yet," Luffa said. She was fistfighting Buu in close quarters while she spoke. At first, she had been reluctant to try this, due to Buu's great size and his fluid body structure. And yet, she had managed to frustrate him this way, as he seemed to lack experience in melee attacks.

"You no beat Buu!" he squealed.

He was right, of course. Luffa was stronger than she had been during her first battle with this version of Majin Buu, but even if she could defeat him, she doubted she could finish him off before the PQ mission ran out of time. And yet, Keda was sure to hide her power as long as Buu remained a threat.

As Luffa considered the dilemma, Buu's voluminous gut suddenly spread out and enveloped her.

"Brilliant move, Majin Buu!" cheered Babidi, who was hovering at a safe distance from the fight. "Crush the life right out of her!"

Luffa threw up her elbows over her head, and pushed back against the Majin flesh that now pressed against her from all sides. The pressure was manageable, but she could tell that he was only enjoying the moment before he began to bear down on her with his full power.

Resetting the mission, as Big League Chew had suggested, would be useless. They would just have to face the same problem all over again.

Ignoring Buu was no answer either. With no one to stop him, he would destroy West City long before they could locate Keda.

It seemed like the only answer was for Luffa to search West City while Big League Chew held Buu off, except that would be even more difficult than what they were already doing. Her senses weren't as sharp as his, so it would take longer to find Keda, and Big League Chew simply didn't have the strength to last in a battle like this.

And then, just as Buu's body had collapsed around her completely, cutting off what little air she had left, Luffa suddenly knew what to do.

She erupted out of Majin Buu's stomach like golden magma blasting out of a volcano.

"No! Majin Buu! What has she done to you?!" Babidi cried.

Luffa didn't waste time looking back to see. If she had done any damage to Buu at all, he would pull himself back together in no time. Instead, she moved away from them, and closer to West City.

"I've got to shoot you down, Chew!" Luffa said. "Prepare yourself!"

"Run that by me again, Ace?" Big League Chew replied.

"Keda thinks you're a hostile, and we don't have time to convince her you're not!" Luffa said. "But if I attack you, and you suppress your power, she'll think you've been neutralized!"

"Don't see how beaning me helps us steal a base," Big League Chew said.

"Because I'm going to shoot you down right over the city," Luffa explained. "You'll seem to be falling, but you'll actually be landing as close as you can to wherever you sensed Keda before. At that range, you should be able to pinpoint her, right?"

"Sure, Ace, if she stops suppressing her ki," Big League Chew said. "But if she balks..."

"Don't worry about that," Luffa said. "She'll power up again once she senses me winning. She wants me to find her, she just doesn't want to give away her position to the enemy. Now get ready! I'll try to be gentle, but I have to make this look good!"

"You're in the nosebleed section, Ace," Big League Chew said. "How're you gonna tag me from all the way over there?"

Luffa might have made a confident rejoinder to him, but Majin Buu had already recuperated and was preparing to attack her again. Luffa kept her back to him until the last possible moment, and she his giant yellow mitts were just inches away from her head...

...She let herself drop, allowing him to pass by her. In the moment of confusion, she flew back up to his level, then raised her index and middle fingers and swung her arm out at the back of Buu's head.

With a furious scream, she fired, sending a crimson ki blast straight through Buu's head and into the horizon beyond. Without delay, she pressed her assault on Buu, punching his back while Buu's arms flailed around his damaged head.

A moment later, she sensed a sudden drop in ki from West City, and she heard a yelp from her earpiece communicator.

"Th-that's some fastball..." Big League Chew gasped.

"Majin Buu, what are you doing?!" Babidi screamed. "Stop fooling around this instant and do something nasty to this young lady, do you hear me?!"

Luffa continued battering Majin Buu, and as she did, she began to yell. Her power level increased, rising higher and higher as she continued to press her attack. It was a theatrical gesture more than a true strategy. It would take long minutes to defeat an opponent like Majin Buu, which meant that she would need to conserve her energy instead of making a grandstand play. But Keda didn't know any of this, and Luffa only needed to make it look like she was winning.

"You're finished, Buu!" Luffa shouted. It was a lie, but it helped her get in the spirit of the deception. At the very least, fighting him at this intensity would make for an interesting exercise. As her fist pounded against his pink, rubbery flesh, she noticed the impressions left by her knuckles were getting deeper and deeper. Buu did nothing to counter, but that was typical for this version of the creature. He always let his opponent run wild before turning the tables on them. Even as she pummeled Buu, Luffa was mentally preparing herself for the payback he would dish out.

And then, Majin Buu suddenly decided he'd taken all he could stand. With a high-pitched "hmmph!" he tensed his entire body, repairing what little damage Luffa had done to it, and knocking her away like an errant crumb on his vest. The look on his face was so grim and spiteful that Luffa wondered if he was about to transform into one of his more sinister forms.

"You make me mad," Buu seethed. "Big power."

If looks could kill, Luffa would have already been dead in that moment. As it was, she backed off and raised her arms over her face, expecting the worst.

What followed was something she could only describe as "an explosive wave, but pink." For a moment, Luffa simply tumbled through the blast like a leaf in a hurricane, but the ki she used to protect herself held fast. When Buu's fury subsided, she was surprised to find herself relatively unharmed.

The rest of the Earth, however, seemed to be a different story. There had once been green terrain and blue waters below them. Now, there was only exposed bedrock, and veins of glowing orange where magma threatened to rise up between the cracks in the scarred landscape.

Not far away, Majin Buu still floated in the air. He looked much happier now, having vented his frustrations. Luffa could find no sign of Babidi. If Buu had spared any concern for his master's safety, there was no way to be sure.

"You still alive?" Majin Buu called to her. "Wow, you strong. More fun for Buu!"

Luffa set her teeth as she reached out with her senses. She was reasonably confident that she could hold out against Majin Buu for a while longer, but she wasn't sure if there was anything left of West City to protect. And then, just as she found a great emptiness where a large Earthling population had once been...

*******

...Suddenly, she found herself standing next to Big League Chew, at the same spot where they had left the time machine they had used to get there. Majin Buu was gone, and the destruction he had wrought was undone.

"What happened?" Luffa asked.

"We struck out," Big League Chew said. He pointed in the direction of West City, then gestured in the other direction, where Luffa could sense Majin Buu's immense ki, rapidly approaching. "Whatever he did a minute ago, it wiped out the whole town, so we failed the mission. Time Machine automatically reset us back at the start, Ace."

"Yes, I gathered that," Luffa said testily. "I meant what happened on your end? Did you find her?"

"Came real close," Big League Chew said. "Your pal raised her ki again, just like you said she would, but I needed to get closer, and I couldn't get there quick enough without raising my own power." He placed his right arm over his left shoulder and grunted. "And that beanball of yours didn't do me any favors. You really are a headhunter, y'know?"

"Sorry," Luffa said. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that she could see the results of her attack, it only shamed her to caused such harm to an ally. "I owe you one, Chew."

"Not yet, you don't," Big League Chew said with a shrug of his good shoulder. "I'm a little sore, but that doesn't mean I can't throw. We can try this a couple more times, and we're sure to pull this one out in extra innings."

"No, it's no good," Luffa said. "We've established she's here, and that's something, but even if knew exactly where to go, it doesn't do any good to contact her in this time fragment. And I don't know how to convince the Supreme Kai of Time to let me take a time machine to the actual West City of Age 774. She won't let us do anything that will alter the past, so until I work that out, it's not worth putting you through all that pain."

Big League Chew looked out at the horizon. Majin Buu hadn't flown into view yet, but he soon would. He moved his jaw a few times, then spit out the gum he had in his mouth.

"Think you might be right, Ace," he finally said. "Squeeze play isn't the way to go, but that doesn't mean we can't try something else..."

"You've got an idea?" Luffa asked.

*******

[19 April, Age 850. Earth.]

The house was one of the older Capsule Corp models from the previous century. Some of the siding was worn or covered in moss, and the garden surrounding it seemed to threaten to overrun the entire property, but the lawn ornaments were relatively new, and the mailbox flag was pointing up, and a modest air-car sat parked in the driveway.

Luffa and Big League Chew stood on the sidewalk that ran alongside the yard. It was an idyllic suburban scene. Nearby, children were playing a game of street hockey, and a man was repairing a grill in his garage. No one paid much attention to the Saiyan and Majin. Neither species was an unusual sight on the Earth in this era, but the two Time Patrollers had also taken the precaution of wearing disguises to be even less conspicuous.

"Gotta keep a low profile," Big League Chew had said before they left Toki Toki City. "This is my native era, and I played for the West City Taitans until recently. Someone might bug us for autographs."

Luffa trusted his judgment, but she didn't care much for the denim jackets and baseball caps he had picked out for the trip. They drew a few curious stares from the neighborhood, but no one recognized or suspected them, which she took as a good sign.

"So this is the place," Luffa said quietly as she gestured to the house.

"No doubt about it," Big League Chew assured her. "I remember this area from the mission. After you shot me down..." He pointed his massive thumb over his shoulder, "...I ended up just on the other side of those houses there. I sensed her, but I didn't have time to get a good fix. But they kept good records back in '74, and the pencil jockeys back at the Time Patrol are first string. All we had to do was cross-reference all the census records for this neighborhood."

Luffa nodded. They had checked and double-checked their research before coming to this place. She already knew it was the right address. All they had needed was a place to start looking, and the rest had come together quite easily. Keda might have made the search more difficult by using an alias, but she hadn't bothered. After all, she had been stranded on this strange planet, centuries in her future. She never would have expected anyone to recognize her name. Even better, she had stayed in the same house long after the Majin Buu crisis.

"'S'matter, Ace?" Big League Chew asked. "We're here. We already cleared it with the Supreme Kai of Time. Trips to the past are fouls, but nothing in the rulebook says you can't visit Earth in the present. You can walk right in and see your buddy whenever you want."

Luffa swallowed hard. "That's not what I was trying to accomplish," she said. "I wanted to prove that she was on Earth, that she got stuck here somehow, and that we needed to send her back home. If what those recordkeepers found out is true, she would have shown up around 763 or so. But now it's 850, and she'd have to be..."

As Luffa did the math in her head, she heard a latch click from the house. There was a creak as the door swung open, and then a voice...

"Come on outside, and I'll show you the tomatoes. They're really growing up fast."

Several seconds later an old woman stepped out, accompanied by a pair of small children. Once they were clear of the doorway, Luffa noticed a third child, a little girl, standing hesitantly at the threshold. The old woman looked back and waved to her.

"Well come on," she called out. "Don't you want to see the tomatoes?"

The girl smiled meekly and shook her head.

"You don't? Well suit yourself. We're gonna look at the garden."

She continued on her way with the other children, a boy and another girl, and led them through the rows of plants that took up most of the yard. There seemed to be no particular rhyme or reason to the tour. The old woman would stop occasionally to point out something trivial, or to gently ask the children not to play in the loamy soil. Eventually, the girl in the doorway finally decided to join the others. If any of them noticed Luffa and Big League Chew watching them, they did not show it.

"Is that her?" Big League Chew asked Luffa quietly. "I mean, she looks old enough."

"I'm not sure," Luffa said. Keda was a shapeshifter, which had surely helped her infiltrate Earthling society. Assuming her Dorlun powers worked as well as they did when Luffa last saw her, then Keda could have looked like anyone. The old woman, one of the children, or the man fixing the grill on the other side of the street. There was no way to be completely certain, and yet, according to the records, the house did belong to a woman named Keda, age ninety-nine.

"What are those, Mammaw Keda?" asked the older girl.

"Oh, that's loofah, dear."

Luffa had to stifle a gasp when she heard the word. For a moment, she thought the old woman had noticed her, but they never looked in her direction. Instead, the old woman simply gestured at a row of vines growing alongside the west wall of the house. They clung to a wooden frame that had been build onto the carport. Lengths of twine and wires were wrapped around each vine to support it. Several long, green fruits hung from the vines, which the old woman showed off to the children.

"They're not quite ready to be picked," she said. "Honestly, I don't have much use for the taste anyway."

"Then why do you grow them?" the older girl asked.

The old woman smiled gently at her. "Oh, I like the challenge, I suppose. It's not easy to grow these things at my age, or in this climate. And they remind me of someone I knew when I was a little girl."

"You were a little girl, Mammaw?"

She chuckled softly and patted the child on the head. "Well of course I was. But it was a very long time ago..."

Luffa tapped Big League Chew on the arm. "We need to get out of here," she said.

"What's wrong, Ace?"

"Nothing," Luffa said. "I just... We need to go. Now."

"But you didn't even go talk to her--"

"Come on," Luffa snarled, and she took him by the hand and led him away. Once they had found a secluded spot, they took off into the air, and Big League Chew followed her back to the time machine that had brought them here from Toki Toki City.

"I don't get it, Ace," he said. "We went to all that trouble to find her, and you didn't even say hello. Not that big a deal, I guess. You can always come back tomorrow, but it seems kind of funny to stop just short of home plate."

Luffa didn't answer him. She didn't know what to say, or how to feel. It had all been so simple to her before. The problem had seemed like an abstraction. An eleven year old girl was thought to be dead, only to turn up alive and lost in time. But the woman she had just seen, who had settled down on the Earth, started a family, and lived most of her life there...

Luffa had no idea how to respond to that. She didn't know what to think, or how to explain it to Big League Chew, or anyone else. And so she simply flew back to the time machine, and let the onrushing wind dry the tears that were now running down her face.

NEXT: Partycrasher.

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #big league chew #keda #majin buu #babidi #dewar #44 #dr reca #jayncho #earth #toki toki city #westwingconvert #dunno if you're still around but here's your answer

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