East City Chronicles (Complete)

Walking through the streets of a city was not exactly the most comfortable thing for an extraterrestrial to do on Earth, since a majority of the population consisted of humans. It was much easier to blend into a more diverse group. However, the small Changeling warrior was anything but blending in. Some people assumed he was just some short guy or kid in a costume. Others seemed to see him for what he was and have him a wide berth. A sigh escaped the young Changeling’s lips as he continued on his self appointed errands.

“After all, what else can I do? I need to pick up some food and other supplies for when I finally leave Master Roshi’s house,” he said under his breath to no one in particular. He finally approached what appeared to be the right place. An array of food greeted him as he walked in the door and his stomach immediately started grumbling.

Looking at his midsection, the Changeling growled to it, “Don’t start with that. We’ll eat after we’re done shopping.”

With a light smile playing across his lips, he picked up a small shopping basket and walked into the back, looking for something that he could eat without having to cook. He found a few fresh vegetables and fruits that would work, so he decided to grab a few green apples and a couple of bags of grapes and put them in his basket before continuing with his shopping experience.

A loud sound, like a small explosion, filled the air, immediately catching the Changeling’s attention. He immediately went to go and check the front of the store and was surprised at what he saw. There was some guy standing there, holding what appeared to be a really primitive weapon, almost like a ki blaster, only much weaker. There was a hole in the ceiling, apparently where the man had fired the weapon.

“All right, woman… Give us all your money!” the short guy holding the weapon said, a small sneer crossing his face as he did so. Neither he nor his three cohorts seemed to notice the alien creature standing behind them, which gave Sairai an idea.

Without thinking twice, the small creature whipped his tail out from and grabbed the man’s wrist with it before gripping as tightly as he had to in order to snap the human’s wrist. The weapon fell to the ground with a slight thud, bouncing harmlessly off the floor.

“Tsk tsk…” the Changeling said with a small smirk. “Is that any way to treat a lady?”

The men turned around and turned pale as they noticed the alien creature that was, at least in their own minds, there to kill them.

“If I were you, I’d walk out of here and never return,” the young man said, a dangerous glint in his eyes. He withdrew his tail and waited, with his arms crossed, for a response.

The men completely ignored what they had been told and pointed their weapons at him without a second thought. Rolling his eyes, the alien hit the floor as two metal objects ricocheted off the ground behind him. “Such shoddy aim… Honestly, is this the best that you people can actually do, fire some primitive weapons that are so slow that even the most novice fighter could dodge them?”

He didn’t wait for a response this time as he whipped his tail out and took the humans’ legs out from under them with a half smile. He grabbed their weapons out of their hands and placed them carefully on the counter.

He could tell that these people were definitely no fighters, as they gave off almost no ki signature. To make them run, he charged his ki into a single point in front of his right index finger, holding it out almost like they had held out their own primitive weapons. “Leave… now!”

With a scream, the beings left the store, running as fast as they could. Sairai let out a small sigh of annoyance, before going to pick up his dropped groceries. He got up to the counter to find that the woman behind it was still frozen in what appeared to be shock. Sairai put some zeni on the table, taken out of his living expenditures, and left.

On his way out, he heard the woman speak up in a very small voice. “Th-thank you…” she said.

Sairai smiled slightly and said, “No problem. Hold on to those weapons and hand them in to the local peacekeepers if you would. I think they’ll be better suited for keeping a check on those people if they know exactly what they’re dealing with.”

With those words, the Changeling walked out of the store to find a quiet place to sit and eat his fresh, uncooked lunch in peace.

WC: 806

Sairai sat in the middle of a park, beneath the shadow of an old oak tree. “East City isn’t exactly quiet as peaceful as I one envisioned Earth being. A shame, really. These people have a plethora of natural splendors and plentiful resources. Why would anyone be reduced to stealing and robbery.”

Of course, he already knew part of the answer. Some people, a majority of his own race counted among that number, didn’t like walking the straight and narrow. They assumed that just because they had power, that they had the right to use it however they chose. This type of thinking had never sat well with the young Changeling. The Royal Family pushed ruthlessness and ever expanding political and military might as the end all, be all of life.

Sure, that might be fine for them, but for me… I need something more. The Changeling thought back to his training with Master Roshi. The old man had been a little bit on the unorthodox side, true, but he was also willing to drop everything for a single student if they needed him. There was something about that capacity to care for others that seemed to common in humanity that he admired, and even wished to emulate.

Then he thought back to his spar with Ava. The Saiyan woman had done nothing to earn his ire, and yet that voice had told him to outright kill her with his Death Beam attack. Thinking back to it even now caused him pain. However, there was something about it that seemed strange, as if the voice telling him to act like that was not his own.

“Someone’s trying to mess with me, to alter me. That’s got to be it…” Sairai sighted to himself as he took another bite out of the sour apple. He munched on apple thoughtfully for a moment before he made a strange decision. “Despite this troublesome voice in my head, I’m going to continue searching for my true purpose.”

With those words, he slid down and onto his bad and tossed the apple up and down with one hand. While he continued to think about finding his purpose in life, he did not realize that his purpose had already found him. He was going to act as a protector to the people of the planet he currently resided on, and while he realized that this was the truth, he did not think of it as a purpose so much as a duty.

WC: 416
TWC: 1,222

A loud sound in the distance brought Sairai out of his self reflection and back to reality with a crash. His eyes snapped open and he looked out and around the park to see what appeared to be a large human breaking through benches and wading through throngs of panicking people. The city’s peacekeepers immediately began to swarm around the man, armed with weapons of similar make to the ones that the criminals from before had with slight upgrades.

Sairai perched himself on top of a hill to watch the spectacle, and make sure the local enforcers didn’t need any help with someone of this guy’s immense size. They tried to wrestle the man to the ground with little in the way of success. His eyes seemed to pop out of his head with a strange combination of anger and glee as they were finally forced to open fire upon him, only for the metal objects being shot from their weapons to end up having little or no effect on the man before them.

The man stopped for a moment after the bullets hit him and flexed his muscles as the bullets fell out from under his shirt. He smiled wickedly for a moment before turning upon the now frightened enforcers.

It was at this moment that Sairai decided to step in. He flew out to the spot and landed silently behind the hulking behemoth. “You know, I didn’t think humans could get this big,” he said to himself with a soft chuckle.

The man turned on him with a snarl. The Changeling merely looked up at the man with a smirk on his face as he was addressed by the human. “And what are you supposed to be, little boy, some kind of alien?”

Sairai delivered a swift kick to the man’s abdomen, which brought him to his knees. “Well, in a sense, I suppose I am an alien to you people of earth, but the proper term for my race is Changeling. Remember that well.”

The man stood up with some difficulty, his breathing labored, and rushed at the much smaller being before him, screaming at the top of his lungs. With the sheer strength of his legs, he managed to push holes into the ground with his feet. Sairai merely waited for a few moments before looking at the man with a somewhat confused expression while he dodged the man’s rush attack.

“You’re fairly strong… You have to have put some training in to get this powerful. So, I have to ask, why do you lack self control? What happened to make you this angry?”

The big man fell flat on his face at these words, tripping over some of the rubble he had created during his rampage. “Wh-what?” he asked.

“Well, there’s got to be a reason behind your… less than intelligent actions,” the Changeling said, a tone of disdain in his voice. He floated up a few feet and crossed his legs, sitting in a meditative position.

“Why not talk it out?”

The man brought himself up to a kneeling position and turned to look at the smaller creature before him. “I’m angry. All my life I’ve been singled out because of my size. People would try to fight me just to prove that they were stronger than me, so I enrolled in a martial arts school. The same thing happened there. Just because I was the biggest and the strongest, I kept getting put in matches with people above my belt level. I became good, yeah, sure. Whatever that’s work, but that’s hardly the reason I joined. So, I left before my training was finished and took what I learned to make people fear me too much to ever want to fight me again.”

Sairai looked at the man with a slight frown. “So much pent up rage… That would explain some of what you’re doing, but why attack a bunch of innocent people who’d probably just as soon have nothing to do with you?”

“Because they’re always staring at me. They think I’m different, or even not human because I look different from them! It’s not fair!”

Sairai smiled and stood up, and levitated up to the man’s shoulder before laying his hand on it. “Listen, you think I feel any different, being as small and alien looking as I am among these humans?” The man shook his head. “Well, trust me. You have a much easier time of it than I do. At least you are a member of the people here. No matter how hard I try, I’ll never fit in as well as you do here.”

The Changeling looked out over the people and smiled slightly. “Listen, if you stop your destructive rampage and give up peacefully, I’m sure they will provide you with some leniency if you tell them the same story you told me, but don’t channel your energy toward this. It’s a waste of energy to mindlessly destroy things when you have so much more to live for.”

Sairai floated off, allowing the giant of a man to consider his words while the police slowly closed in around him. It’s true. No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be considered one of these people… But, perhaps I can be accepted among them, not as a member of humanity, but as a friend to these remarkable humans.

WC: 900
TWC: 2,122

Sairai was flying back to Kame House with his basket full of food and decided to be lazy about it for a change, turning over on his back in the air and just letting his speed fall a little. After all, training with the enigmatic Master Roshi was quite strenuous on the body and the mind, so a little time to relax couldn’t do much harm.

The clouds above swam by Roshi’s pupil as he allowed himself to daydream lazily about how interesting it truly would be to live among humans and to be accepted as a friend and ally. He imagined what it would be like to walk among the humans without having to see people look at him as though he was some sort of a monster. A smile crept across his face as he thought fondly of people coming up and shaking his hand before introducing themselves to him, and he even thought about making actual friends.

These were such happy thoughts. Unfortunately, a black cloud still loomed over the azure Changeling. And he wasn’t even sure what kind of enemy this being was. All he knew was that it was slowly driving him insane. Try as he might to fight it off, there was something about this power over him that he couldn’t completely overcome. While his aim was still to become one of the most powerful beings on the planet, and indeed to protect it from outside influences, he wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to protect himself from similar outside influences.

“I will not become a monster,” he swore to himself. With that thought bolstering his courage, he picked it up to full speed and made a beeline straight for Master Roshi’s home. This was going to be the beginning of something great, he could already tell.

WC: 304
TWC: 2,426