Proud & Powerful (Goku OR Vegeta x FOC)

Chapter Eighteen

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The green sky glimmers more vividly than she remembers, and Xylias looks upon the landscape of Planet Namek in a new sight of hyperrealism, observing details that she didn't see before.

She notices the gentle breeze blowing across the grass as she flies through the air, the shiny tears that glisten down Gohan's face while Krillin's screams of agony mixing with the evil laughter of Frieza sound like a distorted echo in an empty room. Xylias feels the hot piercing pain in her leg and side. She sees her blood flutter in the sky like scattered rose petals, or is that Krillin's blood?

When she hits the ground her vision blacks out for a moment, but a bright glowing light makes a small presence at the end of a seemingly dark tunnel. Xylias is immediately drawn to the energy, and she wills her battered body to run towards it, as her apparition moves closer, flashing images of a golden muscular male figure standing with his back to her becomes clear. Xylias reaches out to grab the Figure's arm, and the moment she touches him, his head abruptly snaps up to look at her and she's met with a familiar set of striking emerald eyes.

Xylias suddenly wakes with a gasp and sits up instantly, the breath gone from her lungs and the feeling of goosebumps raised on her cold, damp skin.

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Days had turned into weeks, and life was going by fast yet agonizingly slow to the Saiyan Woman. Xylias wasn't used to having so much time on her hands, and she found herself lost in thought frequently during her downtime, reflecting on her past, analyzing her interactions with people, her observations of the new world around her, and fantasizing about new yet foreign budding aspirations that would creep into her mind on the nights she couldn't sleep, which was most nights.

Xylias has been plagued with nightmares, ones so vivid she would awaken with her scars feeling like they were on fire, her body drenched in sweat yet her mind ready to fight, those first initial moments spent looking around and sometimes swinging wildly in a confused state until she realized that she wasn't back in her chamber on Frieza's ship, but on Earth.

Her progress wasn't linear, she had good days where socializing and venturing out into the world was exciting and uncomplicated, but there were also the bad days where she isolated herself from people and noise, sometimes it was hard to get out of bed and face the strange world she found herself in, and she experienced the feeling of being overwhelmed often.

She quickly figured out the screen that's mounted on the wall above the dresser in front of her bed was something the Earthlings called 'television'. On days where she would isolate herself she would get lost in this digital world, endlessly flipping through channels in fascination.

It helped her learn about life on Earth, from news reports and political discussions, to advertisements for various kinds of products that seemed to be unnecessary for survival, yet instructional cooking shows were aired frequently too. She saw dramatized shows that were obviously scripted but exaggerated to be real. These shows confused her and were hard to follow, so she didn't bother to watch them when they came up.

While watching Xylias would catch herself thinking about how blissfully ignorant the majority of these Earthlings are (excluding Bulma and the rest of the group), the general public had no idea about the evils that lurked outside this planet.

They didn't know there was life outside of Earth, no evil Emperors to take them from their homes. In a way she envied them, on her bad days she'd wish she had been born on Earth instead, to have that shot of normalcy. Facing her reality was tough on her bad days, coping with what she had been handed seemed impossible sometimes.