It was lucky for Harditz that his careening gait took him into the side of one of the muscular soldiers, rather than Pleez. The Majin didn’t seem to notice at all, and in fact her gaze slid practically through him as he addressed her. She didn’t recognise ‘Ma’am’ as a title for her, it seemed, or maybe she just wasn’t paying much attention.

The meathead that the cyborg had bumped into, though, reacted more violently. He raised his arm, summoning a bright glow of yellow power into his fist as he did so. “You smug Saiyan bastard!” He bellowed, “You think you can get away with that?!”

Tensions in the station were definitely high, and things may well have still gone badly for Harditz, if it wasn’t for one thing. In his haste to raise his fist and threaten the civilian, the solider’s elbow bumped against Pleez’s long head tentacle.

Everything happened very quickly after that.

Before Harditz could even offer an explanation, Pleez let out a howl of animal fury and leapt on the burly man, pinning him immediately to the floor. Her fists, small as they were, packed a terrifying amount of power as they hammered into the unfortunate soldier again, and again, and again. Each blow reverberated throughout the station.

“YOU. DON’T. TOUCH. ME.”

Each shrieked word was coupled with another bone-shattering strike. Both fists raised together in a devastating axe-handle to drive what had once been a man deeper into the floor. Blood, slick, and red, and dripping, spattered Pleez’s face, her uniform, and most especially her hands.

The other soldier looked on in mute horror at what had been done to his comrade. Bakon, the blue warthog, merely looked on with disinterest. When Pleez rose once more to her feet, she was actually smiling. A bright white slash, crooked on her stained pink features.

“Are you finished?” Bakon asked, “You know, you’ll have to explain that in my report.”

Pleez’s neck cracked at an unpleasant angle as she turned to face the man. “He hit me. You saw it.”

And just as quickly as it had begun, the horrific display of violence was over. When Pleez moved away from the body, scavengers moved in to take what they could from the dead man. Nobody seemed inclined to stop her, or even challenge her, for what she had done.

Life might go on, but in places like this, especially in times of war, life was also cheap.

To make matters worse for Harditz, it would rapidly become obvious that the psychotic monster and her traveling companions were heading in the same direction he was; the crowd wisely choosing to give them a wider berth than they had been before. It made it easier for Harditz if he wanted to follow in their wake, but of course, that also meant being close to the retinue that had just left a body in its wake as though it were nothing – and one of their own, no less!

The information broker in question was a renowned and sought-after individual, situated in The Hanged Man, a bar frequented by mercenaries, toughs, and bounty hunters – the sort of place where Harditz’s celebrity was as likely to get him in trouble as it was to loosen tongues.

But they said that One-Eyed Koja, the fat, one-eyed Frieza Clansman who occupied the third booth from the left all day every day, knew everyone and everything that happened in this sector of space. They said that there was nothing he didn’t know; or at least, nothing he couldn’t find out, given the right incentive and the right price. For that kind of information, surely it had to be worth risking a little danger, right?

The other question was… what did these people want here, at all?

(Wordcount: 1121/646 Harditz)

The remaining soldier looked sidelong at Harditz as the man fell in alongside them. He wasn’t quite inviting himself to be part of the entourage, but it would have been easy to make that assumption. Perhaps the surviving soldier figured that if Harditz was with them, his chances of surviving another of Pleez’s outbursts just doubled. Either way, he didn’t question it, and neither Pleez nor Bakon even seemed aware of the Saiyan’s presence so close to them.

Pleez’s momentary enjoyment of her murder faded quickly, and her expression returned to its dour, downcast state. As they walked to the bar, pink lightning swirled about her, starting from the tip of her head-tendril and working its way down in a looping path over her whole body. Where it passed, blood simply evaporated away. By the time they made it to the Hanged Man, there was no sign that she’d ever brutally murdered anyone at all. Other than the corpse left in their wake, of course.

“Remember your roles.” Bakon said, apparently addressing both Pleez and the soldier remaining in his escort. “This individual has vital intelligence. Let me do the talking. You’re just here to make sure that if anyone causes trouble in the bar, it doesn’t muss up my clothes.”

Pleez grunted in response, and the trio – with Harditz swept up in their orbit – pushed into the dingy bar.

The place was practically empty. A few hardcore drinkers dotted tables or propped themselves up against the bar, but the Empire forces didn’t bother to pay them any heed. They made a straight line directly towards Koja. The obese Frieza Clansman was not difficult to spot – and whilst he was definitely an impressively portly specimen, he apparently didn’t feel like he needed much in the way of obvious protection. He was an member of the most powerful species in the galaxy, after all; even if he was more rounded than most of them.

“BAKON, my FRIEND! How good it is to see you. The Empire flourishes, I hear! Though of course, if you were a Saiyan, I would be congratulating the Dominion on its victories as well.”

“Koja, you fat swine, my day is always brightened when it involves business with you. Let me buy you something to eat. Deep-fried lard, perhaps?”

The alien’s broad smile and booming laugh was utterly fake, and he patted the Warthog on the shoulder, as he ushered him into the comparative privacy of the booth.

As the pair began discussing whatever business it was which had brought the Empire to this station, Pleez turned her attention back out to the rest of the bar. It always bored her when she was taken to places like this, to watch over some weakling as he conducted business that was, in the grand scheme of things, entirely irrelevant. She dearly wished that one of the people in the bar would cause trouble.

Those blood red eyes of hers settled on Harditz at last, and a deeper frown pulled itself on her features as she regarded him.

“You.” She said, “Come here.”

And she raised two fingers, beckoning the cyborg closer – where, coincidentally, he could catch some snippets of the conversation.

“—collateral damage. Need to know who was responsible –"


(Wordcount: 1673/552) Harditz

The conversation behind Pleez might well compete with the woman herself for holding Harditz’s attention. Whispered as it was, it was impossible to catch every word spoken, but what filtered through to him was undoubtedly captivating, given the situation that he had found himself in.

“Not that – care.” The Warthog snorted with indignation, “—deniability. Security – matter of silence.”

Pleez, though, was not making it easy to concentrate on what was clearly a high-level and private conversation. The Majin’s scarlet gaze narrowed at the clumsy attempt to imply that she was interested in him in any kind of sexual way.

“If you say something like that again.” Pleez said, “Your next conversation will take place in the Other World.”

As far as shutting down pick-up lines went, Pleez had probably hit on the grand master technique. It was hard to consider whether she might be someone he wants to hit on when she was threatening to kill him as casually as though she were remarking on the décor.

“—possible, of course. Innocent people died. – celebrity maimed – price?”

Pleez floated off the ground. The diminutive Majin raised herself up to eye level, so that she could inspect Harditz’s remaining natural eye, and the damaged one. She vaguely recalled that he had been the individual who had granted her the excuse she needed to kill that loudmouth soldier. That was pleasing. His apparent interest in their doings? Less so.

“Classified.” Pleez said, tapping lightly at the symbol sealing the sash in place around her waist – the Ultramarine badge which gave her some authority, albeit not that much in this region officially beyond the Empire’s control. “I know you.”

The gears were turning in her head, and Harditz could almost feel it as the Majin focused all of her senses upon him. At this range, this close, if Harditz had any ability to sense energy, it would likely be a disconcerting – if not outright terrifying – experience. Pleez’s energy boiled and sparked inside her like a volcano waiting to be unleashed. Raw, destructive hatred and anger lived in her, just waiting for an opportunity to vent out into the open. Even if he couldn’t sense that, if his skills as a fighter were not yet that honed, there was still the predatory, disturbing gaze of the Majin as she focused on him in the same way that a hungry man might consider a meal.

Luckily for him, she seemed to find him no more tempting to her than she was to him. Her gaze fell back to the glassy, distant one he had seen before, and she descended back towards the floor.

“You’re the runner.” She said, “The one on the screens. I thought you’d be taller.”

Behind Pleez, though, the conversation was taking on a far more worrisome edge. Bakon was leaning across the table now, and if the pieces were falling into place for Harditz, the next words would be very concerning indeed.

“Nobody else can know. – considered ‘accident’ – extra hundred thousand – back it up.”

And the Frieza Clansman’s one good eye gleamed greedily at the enticement. An extra hundred thousand to mislead whoever else asked about this? To follow up a lie? Could these people have been sent here just to poison the well for investigations? Did that confirm that the Empire was responsible for this suspiciously-timed event that they were discussing?

(wordcount: 570 / 2243 Harditz)