Twelve Majestic Lies

Note: this story uses a severe and ungrammatical style of stream-of-consciousness in some parts.

“And a number 12 for me,” Captain Ginyu said, scratching his chin and posing like an Arcosian God of Swag. “With… extra space pickles. Hold the space cheese. Eyaaah!” What a guy, and he was looking up from between his legs now, up at the bewildered and consummately professional cashier. Magisterial again from Ginyu. What a show, etc.

The cashier alien looked like a pair of pants on stilts. “O-oh, it’s my turn! Hyaaah, I’m Burrrrrrrrter, the Blue Hurricane!” Burter hissed, waving his arms and falling onto his knees (where he looked very pretty), working that pose with stunning gangsta grace and moderate debauchery. “I want one of those Frozen Red Hurricane smoothies…”

“Alright, that’ll be–”

“Quiet, noob!” Burter roared. “I want my smoothie in the blue flavor instead!”

“I’m sorry sir, but the Frozen Red Hurricane only comes in Red.”

That was a most unsettling development for Big Blue to endure, and he was not happy at all, not even a little bit. “Captaaaaaain!!”

Captain Ginyu looked mighty embarrassed. They were in public after all. “Burter, shut up. You’re gonna order that Frozen Red Hurricane, and you’re gonna like it! Alright?” Ginyu jumped in the air, pirouetting exquisitely. However, he landed in the middle of a puddle on the floor, soiling his armor and smacking his head against the floor with much less grace than you would expect.

not her metal and yellow eyes pulling him out up away from his body but this is where i want to be this is my home and sounding the mechanical drills tasting sterility testing poking touching feeling knowing his body was nothing to be admired but i knew there wasnt any escape or the eggheads peering down the lights so yellow so bright tears in his eyes the corners of his lips pulling a needle full of blood down his leg putting something inside the the taste of metal and he was home

Adding up the total, the cashier said monotonously, “Is that all for you wonderful people who are customers of this fine establishment?”

“Kuriza!” Ginyu barked, slipping as he tried to stand again. His left horn was vibrating with pain and he didn’t like it when it vibrated with pain, essentially. “Tell that fool your order, kid.”

“No fair, no fair!” the young Arcosian was whining. He stood at the other corner of the fast food establishment, wrapped up regally in his snuggie, banging on a half-broken vending machine. “I need those space funyuns!” The prince was nearly in tears. “There aren’t any left on Daddy’s ship! They’re my favorite, Ginyu, my favorite!”

“Son of a Frieza!” Captain Ginyu swore loudly. Everyone freaked the hell out, as one would expect when the Glorious Leader’s name was mentioned. A space-badger customer (a well-paying customer who had just gotten out of the slammer and had committed no less than three acts of necrophilia since Wednesday) dived into a trash bin.

The vending machine’s screen was cracked from where the prince had hit it. “Y-you’re going to have to pay for that, sir,” the pants alien stammered.

“Like hell we do! We’re the Ginyu Force!”

“Burrrrrrrter!!” Burter sang, flying around the room. Ten thousand spasming napkins flocked to the skies. The pants alien was blown clear over. “Special pose: hungry for some candy!”

“Very good, Burter,” Ginyu said in monotone, his face like stone. Perched on his shoulder was young Kuriza, who was doing the crazy hands like a seizure victim. “You have… fabulous strength,” he admitted, albeit unwillingly. They were in public, after all, and some things were better left for the training room.

Captain Ginyu threw a handful of caramel candies onto the floor. A toad-looking alien and Burter fought for all the prizes, but when Burter tore the froggy alien’s head off after he stole a piece, the pants alien began to sob. “Cleanup at the cash register!” he cried passionately into his microphone. “We’re gonna need a bigger mop!!”

“Alright, kid, whaddya want?” Ginyu asked Kuriza.

“Pass!!” Kuriza screamed.

“Burter, order for the others.”

“Umm, sure, captain,” Burter hissed in surprise. For a fast guy, he sure was thicc.

“I’m faster than you!” Kuriza shrieked, pointing at Burter. “You’re too slow!”

Burter inhaled a scream. “B-bu-bu-but Prince Kuriza, I’m the fastest in the universe.” It was an accusation that hurt him deep, that made him want to reflect on his emotions for several hours in a dim-lit room with Dr. Boson, who had always been the best at telling Burter that he was indeed the fastest in the universe. That’s why he kept going back; Dr. Boson was a loyal egghead, a man of impeccable extremities.

“Shut up, liar!”

“Burter, just order the damn meal already!” Ginyu interjected. “I wanna get back before the space traffic gets bad!”

“Alright, alright, quiet in the fast food restaurant!” Burter hissed grandiosely. A few aliens gave him a stink eye. He shot them dead without a second thought. Those motherfuckers looked like they wanted to die. “So, Guldo wanted three extra large orders of Chili Cheese Space Coneys. No drinks.”

The pants looked like they were about to swing back and forth and awkwardly escape at a very manageable pace. “Anything else, sir?”

“Jeice wanted a fat bag of space tots! Extra crispy. Oh, and I’ll get that with extra Space Australia sauce, please.”

“Feel dat fire,” one of the onlookers interjected. Kuriza blew his head off with a finger beam. A lot of people screamed and hurled insults and bad words, and they died too, and it was really just a horribly bloody affair when everyone should have just been enjoying their shit food.

“Crikey,” Pants the cashier girl replied. “Anything else for you mildly pleasant sirs today?”

“Recoome wanted a tub of space corndogs with extra space mayonnaise. And one chocolate eclair!!”

“That’s an extreme amount of orders. I hope you’re as rich as my daddy’s space mustache,” the cashier cautioned.

“We never pay for anything!” Kuriza yelled boisterously.

Captain Ginyu concurred (he polished his horns nightly). “Whatever we get’s on the house.”

“But–”

“My Daddy wanted a big space salad!” Kuriza cried. “Get Daddy a big space salad with extra space oregano.”

“Kuriza, your father usually likes a nice space duck–”

“No, Ginyu! Daddy needs his big space salad!” He did a little spin in the air, slipped on Ginyu’s shoulder pauldron, and smacked his chin hard on the floor.

“Burter, get Lord Frieza a big space salad!”

“Cashier, I want a big space salad!”

And so it went. “My granddaddy’s a huge one. You should see him sometime,” Kuriza explained to the cashier as he walked over to Burter (he didn’t look even a little dazed). “He likes to drink wine all day. I want to get him a whole space ship full of it.”

“We don’t serve wine here, sir. I’m sorry, but this is a fast food restaurant, and our menu’s right above my head,” the pants alien said with a little bit of sass mouth. Nobody likes it when the cashier gives the sass mouth. “You’ll have to order something from up there.”

“I’ll get the kid’s meal for Granddaddy Cold,” Kuriza said dutifully. “He’s trying to collect all the Super Space Soniku’s.” It was a perfectly reasonable explanation since they were in the fine and singular Sonikku fast food establishment of Parsei Tepulai IV.

“Is that–”

“Space tacoooos!” Kuriza sang like one would imagine Kuriza would. “Gimme that!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we’re fresh out.”

“Then go make some more!”

“We’re out of the ingredients, sir. We sold our last batch to those gentlemen over there,” Pants the wonder-cashier said, pointing to a pair of tall aliens sitting in a booth in the far corner of the room.

Kuriza teleported over to them. “You’re eating my tacos!” he complained loudly. “Gimme!”

The aliens looked up at him strangely. They were wearing bizarre puffy white-and-yellow clothes that matched exactly. They had ordered the same meal too – the juicy tuna taco crunch. Kuriza licked his lips. It looked so good man, like you don’t even care that it tastes like a warm penny.

“Never will I ever do that, never once, never twice, not even three times!” one of the aliens shouted, taking his remaining taco and throwing it on the floor. A few of the survivors clapped. “Eat it now, ki–”

The booth exploded in a puff of smoke and heat. The aliens jumped aside, their food trays flying in the air like errant frisbees. One green-skinned woman, as there has to be, was walking with that sexy booty jafeel me with a tray in her hand but when she was hit in the side of the head by one, it wasn’t sexy anymore.

The aliens landed even as most of the rest of the patrons, those lucky few who had survived to be useful for this sentence, fled the Sonikku establishment. The taco-stealing aliens exchanged a glance, as if speaking telepathically.

“I’m Burter, the Blue Hurricane,” Burter yelled, spinning on his toes. “I’m the fastest in the universe!”

“You destroyed half the place!” one of the aliens shouted. “They’re gonna have to close up shop for weeks! Think of all the reconstruction! The horror!”

“Can they rebuild it?!” his companion asked tearfully.

“What are we supposed to get for lunch tomorrow? I love these tacos even more than I love other members of my species that I occasionally engage in copulation with, but that’s really none of your business!!”

“I love the space cheese, and the space tuna, but most of all, my favorite treat’s the space pico de gallo!” Kuriza screamed, resembling his father for one cold, terrifying moment.

“You are mentally unstable,” one alien said. Nodding to his partner, the two jumped two more paces away from one another. They fell into squatting poses. “We must defend the honor of our tacos! The space pico de gallo is ours!”

Kuriza inhaled terribly, as if he was too stunned to continue living. “T-take it back…!”

“Fu…sion…ha!” the duo spoke in unison, tipping on their tippy toes and swinging their arms and turning their knees and falling into a pose of slanted forms perfectly mirroring one another.

“Oh my candy Cooler…” Ginyu dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. “It’s beautiful! Burter, did you catch that?!”

“No way, Captain! I’m too busy being the fastest in the universe!”

One of these days, someone was going to have to tell him.

“It’s fabulous… exotic… pure style! I love it!” The two characters inevitably did what they had screamed, and then there was only one of them, who, to everyone else, looked just like the last two. “I have to know what they call a move like that…!” He struggled to stand, but Kuriza flew forward, knocking the captain into Burter.

“Those were my tacos!” The energy in his hands ran with blues and purples, like a ball of veins.

Having none of that, the alien put up his arms in a blocking move. “Please… can you guys do this outside?” Pants the cashier alien cried to no avail. Kuriza’s veiny ball flew through the air, sailing at the impressive two-aliens-who-turned-into-one magic routine.

“Not so fast…!” a woman shouted.

The energy exploded against the condiments corner, spraying the room with boiling space ketchup. Ginyu had stopped paying attention – he was off in the corner trying to mimic the alien fusion technique, but he lacked the technical dance skills to perform it adequately.

The woman appeared like a shadow, and landed between Kuriza and the fused alien. “I’m sorry, but I don’t get paid if anyone else kills them,” she said to the princeling.

The fused man staggered forward, grasping his neck where a large tear had formed near the base of his throat, the skin charred black around the edges of the wound. His skin had gone pale, his eyes wide and white and looking. So did he fall over, dead.

“Good riddance!” the Arcosian yelled shrilly.

Ginyu had stopped his dancing, looking for the girl, but she’d vanished. She wore all black, her skin dark as night, her long flowing hair the color of a summer sky. “Burter, where’d she go?”

Burter was licking space ketchup off his claws. “I didn’t see her, Captain! She was too fast for me!”

His scouter read 55,000. He was out the door in an instant, chasing the faint scent, the dimming level, the taste of nothingness…

It vanished into the dark, leaving Ginyu by himself in the parking lot to watch the other asteroids drift by. Smoke rose from a hole in the ceiling of the Sonikku. His stomach was itching for that #12.

“Why were you following me?” she asked, a ghost behind his ear.

“What the… who’s there?” He spun around, flits of energy sparking between his palms.

Squeezing his wrists, she made him dissipate the energy. Her light blue hair flowed over one of her eyes. She was slender as a poleaxe, half his height, with a narrow, skull-like face, and lavender eyes. “Did you think you could kill me?”

Her armor was frilly and black, with a sheen of dark purple, almost like sweat.

“N-no…” Ginyu stuttered, trying to overpower her all the same. He couldn’t break her grip. She was clearly a warrior of great talent. “I-I-I… I wanted to ask you to join my team: the Ginyu Force! We could use someone with your… talents, eheha!”

“Yeah? What’s your price?”

“Hah, well we offer you a chance at glory and–”

She was gone. 55,000. He could have used someone of her quality. The same urging feeling was squirming in his stomach. He’d have to make a difficult decision in that case. Ginyu’s eyes found the Sonikku again; through the window, he could see Kuriza standing on the counter, demanding the tacos he would surely never get. There was only one way this could…

The explosion was a spire of orange-white melting metal, and he could taste Nyarin air, the dust and the heat and the cat-like people, teal-furred, striped, their ears as wide and fluffy as the spreading light…

“Can we go now, Ginyu?” Kuriza was standing before him, a steaming bag of food in either hand. Burter wasn’t far behind, and he too had a bag in each hand.

“Tell me you got something for Zarbon and Dodoria,” Ginyu said coldly.

“Right here, boss,” Burter said, raising one of his bags.

“Oh.”

“You okay, Captain?”

“Y-yeah… it’s nothing. Let’s go. Kuriza can drive.”

“What…?! Really?” Kuriza was like one of them hood girls, one of them straight masterpieces.

“But Captain… last time you let him drive, he crashed into the moon on Planet Cooler 41! Don’t you remember?”

That was a memory Captain Ginyu couldn’t possibly remember, and it was ridiculous to assume it was even a true statement by that viper-faced liar who was known to lie just to get a child-sized space caramel. He’d once stolen Jeice’s space candy bar just for being Space Australian. What a slimy little fucker, what a crafty little shit. Cap’n Ginyu hated him moderately. He looked like a Tuffle spacewhore and not the good kind like you could find in space gas station bathrooms.

“Oh, that’s right. In that case… I’ll drive!” Ginyu had to do the Dance of Joy. It was marginally relevant to what was going on. “Huh, well look at you, Burter. Nice work, soldier. You finally are good for something.”

If Burter had been fast enough, he could have come up with a retort in time.

“You will be just fine.”

She drew up from the darkness, a shadow of a spectre, and there was his brother and his sister and his father behind. The smell of flowering trees and a slow-moistening sky. Fear and excitement were one in the same to him; the vividness of feeling, of simultaneous emotion, choked in his throat.

Miryu’s throat twitched as she drank deeply from the indiscreet bottle. Sweat glistened on her pale blue neck ''curling desperate fingers blue so blue mothers touch please mother I his cheek where the blue cold made him feel inside. Let me stay, he pleaded. Don’t be scared, my baby, Mother’s voice replied. I don’t want to go. You’ll go. Go, go! Don’t make me ask you again, Ginyu. And his brother, Jicho, with those melancholic eyes of his he was always so sad'' Father like a flurry of black. Go. Pupiless.

it’s all the same there or back home Go, go, don’t look back if you let it

He tread the road alone, the cold on his cheeks. It wasn’t as far to the foundry as he thought it would be. The road was not paved on the outskirts of Torrun. In the rising summer light, golden-winged insects hummed through the air, as if in uncontainable joy at the fall of night and the return of day. Sunlight slanted through wind-blown leaves. He was utterly alone, utterly removed from that oppressive realm known as social consciousness. In the distance, the city was drawn out of its surroundings like stroke brushes on a landscape painting; dust fluttered in the air like withered snowflakes.

A leaf drifted from a tree on the side of the road, bright as fire, and landed before him. Ginyu only realized what had happened after he stepped on it. The buildings too looked like trees – rising tall as kings, Torrun’s skyscraper’s were in competition only with one another. Around them huddled modest slate-grey buildings, fearful of the wind.

When he was three maybe four they had left. A fresh start, his father had said. We must. You’ll make friends, Mother had said, her voice soft as night. She brushed his hair and smiled down on him, wiping his tears away. ''Nyare’s a famous place. You should be happy we’re going. Stop crying, Ginyu! Oh, my boy, there’s no reason to be scared. Gicho, take him, make him stop! Papa are you getting a new job? Quiet Jicho not in front of Ginyu. But–. I said quiet!''

He could still hear that slap, ringing in his ears like galing summer winds. They whipped at his cheeks, battered him, harsh, but warming. He wanted to go away be someone else his blue hand against his mouth the wind loosing his tears Miryu’s eyes serene and pale and violet tingling the wind pulling down his cheeks numb.

“Keep your hand steady, Gin.” The Nyarin’s paws brushed down his arms, grasping his wrist loosely. With a reverberating bang of molten metal, he sent a thousand sparks into the sky where at least they could burn out for everyone to see. “That’s it, lad, that’s it. Smooth it over, make it even now, steady. You’ve got some skill, heh. For a forrun, at least. Heh, now don’t lose focus now…” Now now now reverberating black.

“Yeah, but father’s the first foreign branch manager in the world,” Jicho said.

A swelling of pride, happiness enough to bring tears, overcame him. Ginyu nibbled on a piece of chaak, a type of unleavened hard bread the Nyarins lived on. He spat it out – dry. So dry. His older brother was grinning thinly, leaning up against a mud stone wall in the shadow of a flowering tree. Gicho had a Nyarin girl on his arm, her yellow eyes slanting diagonally away from him. Their fingers coiled and rubbed, two separate lives.

He remembered time as golden, black and fleeting. It sucked away, and she was melted into the surrounding dark.

“Why do we have to work if daddy’s the boss?” The locker slammed closed. The rusty ones would give off subtly different squeaks than the newer ones when they were closed like that, but only if one did so with conviction.

“You’re going to become big and powerful like him one day, Gin. If he wants you to work in the foundry, you will. You’ll like it. Y’know, once Father retires, I’m going to take over as the new boss, so you better start…”

The declaration filled Ginyu with wonder. The sound of hammers beating mercilessly; the smell of deep-coal fires. Soot. Ash. Sweat. Yellow eyes descending, falling away. Cat eyes looking. Floppy ears sagging at the end of a long day. A great fire roaring. Their arms swinging in practiced motions, aqua-tinged fur, striped with deep creases of shadow.

His father had been late to get home for a while now, traffic was always busy this time of the night and when he But daddy I don’t wanna You’ll go, damn it all, you’ll go, you’re my son, what will the others think Don’t make me, they call me names, Words mean nothing, if you don’t ignore them, I’ll send you to work with your brother how would you like that your brother works harder than three men combined why aren’t you more like your brother

and

Miryu humming lightly to herself, Gicho tinkering with the heat tank by the window, Mother already gone to bed. She had to get up early since she worked as a chef for a Nyarin aristocrat in one of Torrun City’s high-rise buildings.

“And if you have to get up a little early, then what’s that to you?”

“You’re not even the damn factory manager! What about that you said youd be the branch head what about that huh were barely getting by the kids are miserable they dont fit in we dont fit in we arent Nyarins we arent welcome here.”

Bitter chaak. A mouthful of dust villager scum. Common. Breathing loud and i cant hear i cant hear it when they yell if i think about something else

“Damn forrun, get outta here!” The Nyarin adolescent threw a rock at Ginyu, hitting his tail. He remembered crying hurting more than the impact.

Father and mother and

“Say one more word and I’ll bury you in the desert. No one will ever come looking for you. I’ll tell the kids you ran away, that you gave up on them.”

“Yan–”

The sound of flesh in motion, and a thud. “This is it! This is all we’ve got! We’ve got to make it work! Your bitching won’t solve anything!” Something broke, something always breaks. “I was promised, honey…” he said, his voice becoming sweet again. “They told me I would lead the branch… they lied! What can I do about it? There’s no one to protect our kind out here. What are we supposed to do?

the a yellow white golden coming i cant coming its behind the light something there behind the light i cant see its there i know it is are you going to take me again where the needle is a sliver of metal bone yellow white white yellow burned to his eyes burned to the backs of eyelids but only for a short time only long enough to forget and if you tell your mother well whats to say they wont put you in the asylum your father works hard for us for the foundry hes going to be someone someday he needs this you cant mess it yellow gold like the molten bars of iron pressed into their moulds and the pressing of a needle against bone crying

He was always tired, the yellow beneath his eyes.

“Go on then forrun go on then. You shouldn’t look like that, come back here and I’ll skin ya!”

His sister died that summer. That was for the best she wasnt all there

Father was re-assigned to a factory in a different town. Mother didn’t have the money to go with him for another year. And it was only three years after that that they laid him to rest in the underwater crypts of Aubo Hall.

In the spring, the army drafted Gicho. The controversy of letting forruns fight died that day. They never saw him again.

Mother grew old and kind and unafraid.

“Deliver the shipment by noon. If you’re late, I’ll cut your hand off, forrun, ha! You know I will, don’t you?” Adukacho grinned. He had too many silver teeth. “Get movin’, kid. You got half an hour.”

Trapped in the body in the dust in the heart beating hot no reason for being the Nyarins trading buying walking running moving and him alone with his thoughts and where who did i I don’t want to be this anymore This isn’t me This isn’t who I want to be.

Two Nyarin children were scraping in the dusty street, drawing blood, their fur tinged with the deepest shade of blue where the wounds spilled out, fresh for all to see. A foreign trader was selling Nugahl Djio-Nil on discount, his squelching mandibles struggling in the heat. He needed the shade.

in you im The bonetower was echoing with music. Another forrun another problem take em out get em out of here did you actually think did you really the head of the foundry really are you mad best to be mad or a forrun never both

But it was another man with purple skin and pointy horns, wearing a tattered robe and holding a flask of some sealed alcohol. The bottle was green and murky, and the captain had a smile on his face – a chiseled, easy smile, fit for his rank. He was selling his haul to a group of thirsty-looking Nyarins.

Blue turned grey in the light and tiny hands like his father trapped and held another crypt made warm for him beneath the sea.

Feeling yellow I don’t want to be here this isn’t me this isn’t happening I have to

The taste of yellow. The life beyond it, staring down at him from the white blackness eggheads and eyes and capes and a bird beak sharpened. A spiced aroma in the air, faint as lingering perfume. Testing. Prodding. Making hushed comments. Blood on the table, looking up, unable to move. Why did they take him, why again and again the bloods gone washing away but the yellows still there and ill tell you if it makes you feel sick theres something wrong with you stop cryin Gin stop complaining nothings happened its all in your head youre a dreamer youll never learn youve had enough Chaak

A floating street monitor flashed soundlessly, showing the breathless dramatism of gladiators fighting in the Galactrix Arena: Nurt, Ghurt’s Blood versus Linessi, the Flea. He stayed and watched, feeling the cold yellow surge behind his eyes. One time, he’d asked Gicho if he had ever felt the same way.

“Nope. What the hell’s wrong with you, Gin? Are you alright? Are you feeling…?”

The horned man was vibrant. He sold bottle after bottle to those hushed Nyarin onlookers with easy words and a loose jaw, commanding the crowd like a hero from the stories. His muscles shone with sweat, with promise, with agency. He wanted to go. So bad he wanted to be gone black horns reflecting Nyare’s sunlight and the promise of escape in yellow

tingling

An old familiar feeling scratched at his brain, sending down a surge of blood so heavy that his eyesight rippled, and it was yellow.

Part 3 coming soon.