Can you call it a Mexican standoff if it isn’t in Mexico?

It’s one of the thoughts of all time. As I stare across the clearing, down the barrel of a laser, that’s what nags me. Not ‘oh no, I’m about to die’, or ‘please Mr. Robot, spare me’. The hum grows louder, and an eerie calm settles. Over me, over the borg, over the clearing as everything waits for what comes next.

It fires. Yellow concentrated heat flies towards me. A flex of my hand, a flick of the wrist, and the shot ricochets off my palm and into the treeline. This time I don’t stop and stare, but I do hear a tree topple and fall.

I keep my eyes ahead.

The mech adjusts its laser, charges up another shot. I move. A dash, a leap -- I’m across the clearing in the blink of an eye. With all three-and-a-half feet of my mighty frame, I leap into the air and take hold of the barrel I’ve positioned myself away from.

The steel crumples in my hand like wet tissue.

It’s cathartic, being this strong. A grin tugs at my lips, but it falls as quick as it comes. Now’s not the time to focus on that. With another flex of my ki, I pivot in mid air, and my foot connects with the chest of the robot. There’s a grinding, crushing sound -- like a rock caught in a thrumming engine’s piston -- and the bot flies across the clearing and through a tree. I clench my first, enjoy the moment of triumph for what it’s worth.

It doesn’t last long. As quick as the borg goes down, it stands back up. The stained-red bubble glass, centered roughly where its ‘head’ would be, flashes yellow and green. When it settles back on red, the mech raises its good arm, and I watch as it opens up and folds in on itself to reveal another cannon.

Another blast charges in the barrel. I scoff, raise my good hand. Breathing in through my nose, out through my mouth, I match its energy attack with one of my own.

A ball forms. Blue, tight, dense. It screeches in my hand like a bellbird begging to be let go. I flex. Push. The ki attack flies.

It impacts the borg’s own blast. There’s a struggle for a second, before the larger, yellow move caves. My own attack threads that needle, forces through, and makes its way to the machine that stands stock still. A direct hit. The groaning of metal as it gives drowns out every other sound. In the time it takes me to breathe, the discharge consumes everything in a fiery wake.

Nothing remains when the dust clears.

A crater marks the grave, but there’s not enough to bury. Some superheated slag cools in a puddle, shards of the glass that fractured from the force litter the ground, and as I draw near, I spot a metal leg off to the side. It’s mostly intact, from the ‘knee’ down, and it’s the only part from the machine that seems to have survived.

“Was this a drone?” I ask, wonder aloud as I crouch down and examine the complicated piece of robotics. With the sleek steel cover blown away, with the circuitry and criss-crossed wires exposed from underneath, it feels more familiar. A frown pulls at my lips. Even if it’s similar, it’s still not recognizable. From media or otherwise.

“Or was there a pilot inside?”

A chill seeps deep into my bones. As my blood and beating heart freeze, the implication of casual murder settles. Potential or not. I shake my head, slap my leg with my soot stained hand, and push myself up.

Did I just kill a man?

I don’t know. From what I recall -- what Vegeta recalls -- there isn’t an active pilot for every mech suit. Some of them are drones. But I remember the conversation before the battle, the back and forth, and I can’t help but think that a person just died by my hand. The same hand that comes up to my face and harshly rubs at my too smooth chin.

Now is not the time; whatever this is can come later. The firing of thrusters echoes in the distance. They’re close, but I still have time. With a jogging start, my ki ignites, and I jump into the air as my power propels me forward. Trees pass by, and I weave around their trunks as I stay as low to the ground as I can.

I hear them before I see them. It starts with the shaking sound of a space-shuttle taking flight. Then it’s the way the branches pop, yielding to metal and weight. Two smaller mechs break through the canopy above. I glance back, watch them lock onto me and pursue my trail, but the dense foliage and vegetation makes it hard for their bulky bodies. There’s enough room to breathe. Not by much, and I cuss under my breath as another shot flies past me through a gap in the trees. I dodge another that gets close, reach up to my scouter, and press for an area scan. It clicks several times as it starts the process.

A third blast snakes its way through, but it’s easy to hear -- even over the noise the scouter in my ear makes. I twirl away, use the thick trunks as cover. My eyes stay ahead, but it’s hard not to notice the scan stop and the shifting numbers settle.

On nothing. It comes back up blank. Inconclusive.

Does that mean they are drones? Or, a small part of me says as I turn my shoulder and backhand a blast that gets a little too close, they’re designed to hide that information. For recon? Stealth purposes, maybe? I bring an arm up to shield my face from a branch in my way, and a huff passes my lips when it cracks against my skin.

As it is, I’m giving these things too much credit. They might not have a reading -- rather from not having a pilot, or from their setout in design -- but they’re as loud as a dump-truck on a suburban street at midnight. There’s no way in hell one of these things can sneak up on anybody, let alone a Saiyan with enhanced senses.

A shot hits me. It stings, burns a little, but it isn’t nearly as bad as the one that I’d detonated earlier with my own hand. I flip over in the air and slap another shot away. It goes through a tree. Explodes. But even before the smoke clears, the two drones push through it, hot on my tail and refusing to let up in their chase.

I need something bigger.

Snaking through another set of trees, I flip over and charge up my own blast. Flying backwards while staring forward isn’t like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. It’s complicated, awkward, and pulls a lot of my attention away from the attack that forms. I stare at the drones, at the shrieking blue ball in my hand, and I fire.

But my nerves get the best of me.

I flinch at the last second. The bolt strikes the ground, explodes, and throws up dirt and dust. Destroyed trees fly back as shrapnel. I flip back over, pivot, and with a final glance back, I watch the two robots struggle to climb out of the wreckage.

A shaky breath leaves me. Was that the right call? As much as it chafes to admit: no, it probably wasn’t. But at the same time, out in the open skies -- without trees, brush, and foliage in the way -- it would be easier for the bots to give chase. But down here on the forest floor? I can play keep-away.

All it takes is a little collateral damage.

I bring a knuckle to my nose and shotgun out a clump of dirt, crust, and soot. Streaks of brown and green pass before my eyes, but the relative quiet does little to ease the tension in my muscles, the pounding of my thrumming heart. I breathe. Slow, steady. In and out. After a minute, the static in my ears fades to background noise, and I break to the right. A snap, a twist, and I’m between another crop of trees.

I reach once more for my ki.

Harsh contact with the back of my head interrupts the process.

I slam into the ground, dig a ditch with my face. By the time I stop, my jaw hurts, my head hurts -- I reach up into my mouth, pull out half a tooth that’s lodged into my cheek, and spit it on the ground -- “That really fuckin’ hurt.”

My vision blurs. From dark to black and back again. But as I push myself up, I can still make out a figure in the sky, who descends to the earth and touches down with an almost casual grace. Man, woman, something else? I’m not sure. But it looks undeniably like a person instead of a robot or a drone. A thin layer of a sleek steel-like alloy covers them from head to toe, and outside of the sharp, glowing red visor that cuts across their face, there aren’t any discernible details.

Average height, average build. There’s nothing telling. I have no clue who (or what) I’m looking at.

So I ask.

“Who the hell are you?” I bring a hand up to pull at my neck, hoping it’ll release some of the tension in my shoulders. It doesn’t. “And can you get the number of the bus that just hit me?” I reach up to my scouter, which is, surprisingly, still in one piece. Though a new scratch mars the outside of the glass and criss-crosses with the one that had been there before.

“Cus we’re gonna need to have a chat.”

The person doesn’t respond. They just watch me with an eerie calm that makes my muscles tighten and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I take a couple of steps away, circle around to look for an avenue of escape. They follow me. A slight turn of the neck, a shift of their stance -- they’re not going to let me go.

“So,” I say, wave a hand in their direction. I pause, watch a couple more seconds tick by on my HUD, and wonder if they don’t realize I’m stalling for time or just don’t care. “You gonna give me that name or what?” The scouter zeroes in, clicks through some numbers, but shows back up blank.

Again?

They move. Before I can breathe, a fist buries itself into my stomach. I double over. Heave. Spittle flies from my lips, and when I regain consciousness, I’m tumbling through the air.

One tree. I don’t stop. Two trees. My back connects first, and I feel the trunk give way. Three, four, five trees and I’m still flying through the air, end over end, and I want nothing more than to get off Mr. Bones Wild Ride. When I strike the seventh tree, it stays strong, and my momentum slows enough for me to slide down the splintered bark. I try to breathe in through my nose. Blood fills it. I snort, cough once, and spit everything out of my mouth in a disgusting, red blob.

“Holy shit,” I groan, sucking in air in fast, needy gasps. “What was that?”

I don’t get an answer. The only response comes from the muted footfalls of the Meta-Cooler reject strolling through the foliage. They make their way towards me. One step at a time.

“Didn’t hear no bell.” I say, standing up on shaky legs. My words come out slurred, and as I reach up to wipe away the blood on my chin, a sharp pain blossoms. Rather I have a concussion or a broken jaw, I’m not quite sure, but I still adjust until I find my footing and throw up a loose stance.

This is a bad idea.

I’m not sure what part of me realizes that. Not the part that grins, I’m sure. The sensible, rational, human part of me sure as shit doesn’t want to do that. It listens to the steps that keep getting closer and wants nothing more than to get the hell out of Dodge.

I don’t listen to it. It might speak through the fog in my head, but it’s easy enough to ignore. There’s a gap here. Between what I want, sure, but a more physical one exists between myself and my newest opponent. Too bad I’m failing the knowledge check harder than a one int warrior with brain damage, and I can’t tell if that distance is a foot, a yard, or an entire football field.

Regardless, I’m weaker. It might be by a little; it might be by a lot. It’s hard to tell. But this isn’t like the drones, the mechs -- whatever. This is different: a challenge. My blood sings, roars in my ears with a fervor that I can’t ignore. And as I watch the man, machine, mixture of the two make its way forward, one question comes to mind.

Is this what it means to be a Saiyan?

My grin sharpens, cuts across my face. I can’t stop the hammering of my heart, the shaking of my hand. Doubtful I would if I could. And as my opponent stops twenty paces away, my tongue runs across the inside of my bleeding cheek.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. Sunlight trickles in from above, and the leaves whistle as I release the breath I hold. Staring an enemy down? Smiling in their face, even with my back against the ropes? There’s something exhilarating about this, about competing against the stacked odds, even with so much on the line.

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Cognitively, I understand it’s a life or death battle. It’s them or me. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters. If I turn and run, they’ll hunt me like a dog. There is no escape.

This time, without the wind in my ears, I hear the gentle hum of their thrusters revving up. My blood sings in anticipation. For just a second, I see through the eyes of characters like Goku, Vegeta, and even Nappa. I understand the Saiyan desire for conflict. I understand the way it makes them feel, and I understand why they are the way they are.

I stand my ground and reach for my ki.

I’m ready. When they dash forward, I intercept. We meet somewhere in the middle. They swing. I push against their arm. Just enough that they miss my head, and the gust from their swing shakes the trees behind me. They swing again, and I bring my elbow down to block.

The force makes my bones creak.

But I stand strong. I bend just enough into the blow to spring back, throw my opponent off of me. They flip through the air, a gymnast in their element, and land on the forest floor not even fifteen feet away. Light catches between the leaves, brings out the shine in the alloy of their armor, and dances across its surface as my opponent comes up from a smooth crouch.

I snort. This is far from over. And this time, it’s my turn. I take the initiative. We meet in the middle, and my fist buries into their crossed arms. I jump, pivot in the air, and swing my heel towards their head. It gets caught. They try to pull me in, go for a grapple, and use my kick as leverage to pin me down.

Fuck that.

Pushing against the ground, I take flight. There’s a startled cry from my opponent. My female opponent. And she gasps as I break away, twist, and slam the bridge of my foot into her head. She rolls on the ground, bounces once or twice, and carves a trench that mirrors the one I’d made earlier.

But I’m not nearly as courteous. Before she stops moving, I’m fighting my ki, tearing off more than I’ve attempted thus far. I cup it between my hands. Bright, blue, burning with heat that threatens to consume. It pulses in front of me, slams against the barrier that I hold it within.

The Tuffle moves. She pushes herself up from the ground on shaky limbs. There’s not enough time.

There’s never enough time.

I throw my arms in front of me and release the attack.

There’s no aiming involved. I don’t get to point, adjust, and fire. My first thought is that it isn’t a beam. There’s not enough force on the sides, and they give way. The move explodes in a concussive cone, blanketing the area in a blinding light and fiery, hot heat. A flashbang in a burning sweatshop. I huff. A gasping, strained breath leaves my lips, and as I watch the smoke clear, I see the full damage from my attack.

The forest is gone. Reduced to charcoal and ash. Nothing living remains for at least one hundred feet in front of me.

Except my enemy.

She stands with arms held high at least twenty feet from where I’d pointed. The metal suit she wears seems to have melted away in parts, sticking to her skin as slag or having been torn away from the blast. Blackened burns, like a pig over a pit, reveal themselves where the armor isn’t, and trails of steam rise off of her barely standing form.

Yet she still stands. Battered and beaten, she never wavers. Never falls. Honestly, if I wasn’t so tight, I’d be impressed.

Too bad I’m one twitch away from shitting buckets.

I try to reach for my ki, but there’s little left. The once vast sea is empty. Only puddles remain. Almost everything I’d had left went into that blast, and the fumes I’m running on aren’t enough to put up much of a fight. But I keep my eyes on my opponent, watch the way she struggles to move, struggles to lower her ruined arms, and I think my chances are greater than hers.

So I raise my hands up in front of my face. She turns to me, and I swear I can almost hear a muted scream over the crackling flames. I inch forward. One step at a time. My arms are heavy, my legs are lead, and my body burns from the inside out. I don’t stop. I draw ever closer, and when I’m sure she can see the whites of my eyes, I swing.

It’s a soft jab to test the waters. She leans away from it, pulls in and tightens her guard. Her hands hang limp from her arms, like gimp T-rex claws, and I wonder if she can even move them anymore.

Time to test it.

One step. She takes one back to match me. Two steps. She swings a foot up, tries to catch me under the chin. It isn’t hard to dodge, and she retreats, almost falling when I reach for the extended limb. Three steps. She’s off balance. There’s no time for her to adjust. I pivot into my swing and plow into her stomach with my entire weight. She brings an arm up out of reflex, doesn’t realize her mistake until it’s too late.

This time, I do hear her scream. Loud, sharp, shrill. It’s the first real noise she’s made the entire fight, and a shiver tears through me.

I crash back to reality, leave the haze of instinct that had taken over. This isn’t a fight against some robot or drone or faceless machine. It’s a person. A person I’m fighting to the death.

All because I wanted to take a stroll through the woods.

My moment of hesitation costs me. She snarls, twists her upper body, and slams an elbow into my head. For a second, all I can see are stars. I’m on the ground, down on all fours. Blood pours from my nose, my vision blurs, and a wet, sloppy sound bubbles up from my throat. I’m so close that not even the pungent taste of iron can overwhelm the victory on my tongue.

The bitter taste of defeat? She can keep that for herself.

I push harder. Against the ground, against my ki, against the world. I fly up past the foot aimed to curb-stomp me to death, and I feel more than the mask shatter under the front of my skull. The soft cartilage of her nose gives way.

The Tuffle drops harder than a sack of potatoes. She falls backwards, and for the first time, I can see parts of her face. She’s young. Not as young as I am, but there isn’t a single wrinkle, no sign of advanced age, and the soft features of adolescenes still cling to her. Not even the shadow of her broken nose can strip them away.

She would look completely normal, if not for her pale, blue skin.

It reminds me a bit of Baby. And as much as that makes me want to scream, the color itself isn’t quite right. Instead of a deeper, dark shade, it’s closer to a pastel so soft it’s almost white. The tell-tale red facial marks aren’t present, and nothing else detracts from her, otherwise, normal countenance.

“You can’t be older than sixteen.” I don’t mean to speak, but the words tumble out regardless. Bile rises in my throat, comes up, and I spew on the ground next to me in chunks of brown and green. “Fuck me,” I whisper, bringing a hand up to wipe at the trail of gunk stuck to my chin, “I really gotta stop doing that.” I stumble forward, sit down, and lean back against the charred remains of a tree stump. The entire time, a singular thought nags at me.

Tuffles look human. There were some vague differences -- their shorter stature being the one I remember more than anything -- but they were just like Saiyans in that regard. A sigh leaves my lips, and I wonder if that means she’s artificial, bio-modded, or something else that I’ve yet to learn about.

It’s not important. At least, not right now. Instead of thinking on it further, I close my eyes and tune in to the sounds around me.

But this time, there’s nothing. At least, the sounds of life from before are gone. There are no birdsongs. The taste of ash and soot overpowers everything else. And instead of the rustling of leaves or the chirp of insects, all I hear is the crackling of flame.

Until I pick up the muted breathing next to me.

My eyes snap open. I blink several times, stare in amazement at the unconscious -- not dead, but out-cold and very much alive -- Tuffle. There’s a startled laugh, and I don’t realize it’s mine, until my shaky hand comes up to click at the scan on my scouter.

???

A frown pulls at my lips. It’s a different reading than the robots, and a different reading than when her suit had been operational. At that time, It had displayed as ‘no signature’. Now, it detects something, even if it can’t assign a value to it.

“I guess that means you’re actually alive, huh?” This time, I snort, chuckle to myself. “You’ve gotta be the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever seen.”

I take a couple of breaths before I push myself back up to standing. And even though my head spins like a top without the adrenaline to keep me going, a softer smile pulls at my lips. Perhaps it’s a bit self-celebratory. It’s definitely a bit strange. ‘Oh boy, I didn’t accidently kill someone,’ energy is the wildest thing that’s ever kept me going. I stare up at the sky, watch the clouds in the distance.

It’s the two figures I notice that make me pause.

The signature shine of metal catches my attention, and my heart rate picks up as I reach for my scouter and initiate a scan. From a soft Andante to an aggressive Allegro. “You gotta be kidding me,” I say under my breath, lower my hand, and exhale.

“Why can’t I catch a break?”

The reading comes back inconclusive. Shocker. But that doesn’t stop the two mechs that approach from the sky. It’s hard to tell if they’re the same ones as before, but with the amount of time I’ve spent fighting, it wouldn’t be a bad guess. One of them splits off to the left, goes in for a dive; one of them raises an arm, charges a blast in the cannon barrel pointed in my direction.

They might not be the same two as before. It doesn’t change the fact that I’m still kicking myself for not taking them out.

I dash away. Even though I feel like I’d just run a marathon after bar hopping all night, I keep pushing. A trail of ash kicks up behind me, but my thoughts are elsewhere. There’s an unconscious girl in the burning clearing. A girl that, despite everything, doesn’t deserve to die from some stray blast.

A small part of me says that she doesn’t really deserve to be saved, either. This time, I can’t tell if it’s the rational or irrational side of things. Or, which side is human.

Which side is Saiyan?

I dodge the first peppering blast, leap into the treeline, and listen for the thrusters that draw near. Thinking that someone doesn’t deserve to live bothers me. No, that’s not quite right. As my feet push off the ground, I realize that it’s something different.

I’m not irritated at my feelings; I dislike my lack of feelings. But at the same time, she’s spent the better part of however long trying to plaster the ground with my gray matter. So maybe it balances out.

Or it doesn't.

Another shot flies towards me. I turn, try to slap it away, but there’s a second of struggle, where my arm shakes against the force pushing against it. After a bit of back and forth, I’m able to get it off of me.

It detonates a foot from my head.

The world tumbles. I blink, push myself up, and wait… When did I end up on the ground? My ears ring, my vision blurs, and my head throbs like someone stuck an ice-pick into my skull. I reach a hand up to my face, wince at the sharp pain. Staring down at my hand, all I can see is red.

One of the robots lands in front of me, and, oh. Right. We were fighting. Breathing in, the acrid stench of burning hair fills my nose, and both sweat and blood continues to pour into my right eye.

I’d like to go back to fighting tigers, please.

The borg raises its arm, and I watch the way its hand folds onto itself to reveal another gun. God, don’t any of these things have cooler equipment? I’ve seen this already, and there’s less showcased variety than a state-fair cow pin.. I reach in deep, towards the dregs of my power that remain, and wait.

Motes of yellow come together. An attack forms. I glance out the side of my eye to get tabs on the other robot. It stands over the fallen form of their comrade, of the girl, protective yet idle.

Good. It’s distracted. That means I have a shot. There’s only one target I have to worry about.

The robot fires. Its blast streaks through the air, whistles towards me, and despite my protesting body, I raise my arms and point my open hands at the approaching attack. I push back with everything I have.

The attack slows. Stops.

With the final sliver of energy that I can muster, I push, scream, and the attack flies once more. Not at me, but back towards the robot that fired it. It impacts. Explodes. And while the force isn’t nearly as powerful as when I’d blown one of these things apart with my own attack, the glass visor shatters, and I can see smoke billowing out of the inside.

Thinking you’ve killed a man and seeing your actions kill a man are two different experiences.

The pilot is trapped within. He screams as he cooks in his own cockpit, and I watch as he struggles against a release mechanism. My first thought is a bit detached: if these suits are intended for combat, why don’t they have more equipment? And as fast as I recall that these are hunting suits, ones that are more than able to handle a typical Saiyan in a group, I also recall that this is the second one I’ve nixed today.

A typical Saiyan, I am not. And a man just died by my hand.

I've also confirmed he probably isn't the first, either.

With my attention split, I don’t notice the next attack until its too late. Another blast flies towards me, I try to side-step as soon as it registers in my peripherals. I fail. The yellow, condensed energy impacts my shoulder, explodes in heat and pain.

The tree next to me gets caught in the fallout. As I’m thrown off my feet, the trunk takes the brunt of the attack and craters. It starts to topple in on itself. I try to roll away, force myself onto my side, or even crawl a little extra distance.

It barely works. I can’t move much, and as far as my energy goes, there’s nothing left to spend.

I make it three or four feet across the ground before it falls. I can hear the wood splinter, the bark give way, and gravity as it takes hold. The ground shakes as it topples. And as I hear it roll in the opposite direction, a shaky breath leaves me.

That was close. Uncomfortably close. My entire body screams in protest as I try and push myself back up onto my elbows. Shit, I can’t even see my wounds, and at this point, I can’t even feel them anymore. It all hurts. It isn’t just my side, my face, or my back. It’s my everything. Using the little bit of height I can manage, I glance at the robot through the green glass of my somehow intact scouter.

Oh right, I’m about to die.

The machine stands stock still. In the exposed barrel of its cannon, yellow light starts to gather for the formation of its next attack, and several colors flash across the red glass of its cockpit. Except it isn’t pointed at me. Even though the robot faces my way, it looks to the sky, aims its weapon at the clouds.

My scouter beeps. It goes through clicks and hums and processing noises like a dial-up modem. Yellow flashes, and even though it doesn’t lock onto anything, a number starts to count. It climbs higher and higher. And after a second, it stops.

4200.

The mech fires its blast as my vision starts to fade. Nappa’s voice comes to life over my coms, as biting as ever. “Don’t tell me you got smeared by some third rate trash like this,” he says, a smirk still present in his voice. God, I’d laugh at him if I could. “If I find out that you did, I’m going to spend the week after you recover kicking your ass.”

“Good luck,” I whisper, falling back down to the ground. It’s all I can manage, and my eyes droop shut. But my words, as pointed as they are, aren’t meant for Nappa. No, if anything, I’m commiserating with the Tuffle.

Afterall, whoever that pilot is? They’re going to need all the help they can get.