Nightwish

By Dib07

Foreword:

Sorry if the lore isn't quite right, or the continuity in the series isn't right either. I tend to take a page out of DBZ and create my own vision from there: a paradox if you will, yet I do try to keep it to the series as much as possible. I will also try and keep them in-character too, but this may not be true all of the time. After all, character development does and should allow a few bends here and there, otherwise there is no development and things wouldn't be as interesting. So welcome to Nightwish and I hope you have a great, great read. The rating may go up later, depending. And please, PLEASE review. I love to know what my audience is thinking! And I make it my ambition to answer every review. As for what this novel is about, I don't want to give anything away except of course what is in the summary. ^_^ So enjoy!

Chapter One: Downstream

"Vegeta! No!"

The eruption of bright light spread out like gathering thunder, and then it burst in every direction. Goku was sent somersaulting through the air and only just managed to stop his own impetus by enveloping a yellow shield around himself. The energy continued to beam and bombard his shield and everywhere else. Bolts of forked lightning probed the ground before splitting the asphalt and pushing up cracks through the hub of the training dome. The MkII Android set its sights on Goku when its previous target had been obliterated. Goku dropped down the shield and zoomed to the hub. If he couldn't turn off this machine in time, and the main circuits blew up the Android would be frozen in 'attack commandus' and it would not stop or rest. Every target was deemed a threat: that was how it had been designed.

By Bulma no less.

Goku poured on a burst of speed and just avoided its cerise avalanche of energy as great balls of electric gathered and then crashed down. The sky was on fire.

With precise aim, Goku let off a gossamer lance of energy and it cartwheeled into the droid's arm. The arm exploded into a shower of metal, tubing and crystal fibres, but before Goku had even sailed past it in his hurry for the main hub, its arm had already grown back by way of rapid repair. The Android turned to follow Goku with its senses at the same time, and fired off more waves of the brightest green. Debris and bits of brick flew around like hail. Goku flew through the main doors and slapped a hand on the control panel. The metal doors had been built to serve as shutters, and they began to grind downwards too slowly. The saiyan rushed to the computer terminal that was already going haywire. Loose electric sputtered up in flushes and the screens were all fuzzy with white static. Goku grabbed the gage and snapped it back. The internal power began to wheeze and die. The shutters had nearly closed, but a great bubble of fire was burning through the ultra reinforced metal from the other side.

Vegeta and his stupid ideas!

With this last thought in mind, Goku pressed on a button marked MANUEL OVERRIDE followed by other labelled SHUT DOWN.

"Shut down initiating." Spoke Bulma's recorded voice sequence. Goku quickly overlooked the buttons. Had there been any that he had missed? He quickly saw a knob marked SYSTEMS DISABLE and hit it anyway.

The shutters doors, that had now met the floor with a heavy thud, were now melting. The Android's flat, laconic face shone through a gap as runny metal dropped like acid rain.

"Shut down initiating. Standby."

"Hurry up!" Goku screamed. The roof, also made out of ultra reinforcement that even a saiyan could not breach began to crumble and vibrate. The Android reached out and peeled back a wedge of hot metal as if it was mere cheese in its claws. The shutters were folding in, and melting away, enabling easy access for a killer robot.

"Shut down initiated. Preparing to reboot in five..."

Goku leapt forwards. The Android with its stoic expression and red orbs for eyes stood motionless in the runny passage that used to be a doorway, its hand held upward to deliver the finalizing blow. Its claws were curled round a crystal.

"...Four..."

Goku ran round behind it, his eyes quickly scrutinising its back for the tiny lever. He and Vegeta had been so thrilled and excited to text out the Mk II that neither of them had taken pains to register how to actually 'switch it off.' Bulma had given them stern warnings of manually needing to hit a lever should the robot need permanent shut down if the fail safes didn't work, and they had barely heard her. All Goku had caught at the end was: 'it's on its back.'

"Three."

Goku's eyes searched desperately. The robot's spine was tinged with diadems, indestructible gears and armoured coils so that it could move at any angle, and twist in any way. Higher up along its vertebra were strange diamond diadems that glowed with angry energy. In the middle of one such encrustation was a tiny lever.

"Two. One."

Goku grabbed the lever and pulled. The Android made a single step forward in the direction of the control panel that was still fizzing out. Only when the robot had stood quietly for a few more seconds did Goku breathe a sigh of relief. "Thank Kami that's over with. I can't believe we agreed to make it so impossible to shut down, even with an override. What were we thinking? Especially when I put the Earth at risk. That isn't like me." The idea had sounded sweet at the time. On the rare off chance during Goku's fiftieth birthday, Vegeta had responded to his invitation and before the night had barely begun, Vegeta got Goku high on alcohol. Now Goku had never drunk alcohol before. He didn't relish poisons that hurt the body, and he never saw any point to it. Vegeta: hardened to whiskey just so that he could prove a point, (he had enjoyed the privileges of living on Earth very quickly shall we say) he brought wine over, and him and Goku drank and drank. First it started off as competition, as many things usually did between them. Then as the tension cleared and the empty wine bottles started to pile up, Vegeta and Goku started talking (and sometimes laughing); about how good it was to build a Super Bot that would help train them: using some of Cell's technology combined with that of elumin crystal. Not only would it be a bitch to destroy, but a pain to even hurt. "What if it healed itself outright every time we damaged it? Come on Kakarott, even if you had half a brain you would know it to be a good idea. Then again, even if you did have a brain you would never know how to use it." Vegeta had boasted that night, his cheeks flushed and his eyes twinkling from the candlelight as they sat out in the garden stewing over half finished brandy. The wine had all gone at that point. Bulma had sat between them, writing down notes. The candle had fluttered in the near dark like a winking star. Goku had agreed, forgetting of course about proper risk assessment. And he couldn't just blame the alcohol warming his system. It was his saiyan instincts to keep going higher. Was there ever a ceiling to reach when you were a warrior? Maybe not, but Goku grew restless when he didn't fight. And saiyans needed an outlet. There were no psychopaths to fight, no demons to destroy. Earth was safe and had been for a long time. No wonder Vegeta was coming up with these ideas. He was bored.

"Okay." Goku had said while Bulma glanced at him from the top of her notebook. "Sounds like a great idea. And if we can't blow it up, we won't have to worry about breaking anything."

"Exactly." Vegeta said with a smile before downing a shot of whiskey.

Goku walked back to face the silent Android. The baleful red eyes in its skull had dimmed, and then faded. The smoke pouring from its shapeless claws was cooling. The melted sheets of metal were hardening too, and though the computers still screamed and hissed, it was over.

What a mess.

A close instinct snapped in Goku's head. "Oh Lords! Vegeta!" He had been so driven my primal desperation to stop the android at all costs that he had forgotten all else about his former nemesis.

Without thinking he blasted through the hub's wall as it was faster than running round using the half melted doorways. Then he blasted forward like a bullet. It took him five seconds to reach the crater. Goku landed and peered down to view the hole. It was about five feet wide. The rest of the earth had been blasted into a disc shape. Some of it was still burning cobalt fire.

Goku cupped his hands around his mouth and hollered into the hole. "Vegeta?"

He stood, waiting, ruefully surprised when nothing happened. Why hadn't he come up by now? He was so used to seeing his psychopathic sidekick return after so many near-death eruptions and catalytic implosions. Then again, they had seldom experienced any fight as terrifying and as critical as this one had been – many had been close yes, like that fight with Frieza.

The only reason Goku had managed without being savagely beaten was because Vegeta had insisted that he fight the new edition of robot first to test it out, alone, and then Goku could try.

Yeah, that went well.

"Vegeta!" Goku paused, knelt down at the mouth of the hole and tried to listen. When that produced nothing, he tried to sense for his ki. When he couldn't sense or feel that either, he panicked. "Vegeta! I'm coming!" Goku pushed his puzzlement to one side and dived into the hole. It was very tight fitting, and the rocks jut and sliced into his thighs and arms. He put up a shield and at once the earth around his form billowed out, allowing him easier passage. The hole kept going down. Soon it became a narrow, vertical tunnel. And though the bulbous yellow shield provided light, it still could not penetrate the robust blackness ahead. "Vegeta!" Silence met him, and not a whisper of energy responded to his ki senses.

When he saw blood splashed onto the rocks further down that was his first sign of his nemesis ever being down here. The rocks turned into ore as he went deeper into the earth's crust. They had made a perfect monster out of that Mk II robot to have sent a single saiyan this far down.

"Vegeta? Please don't tell me you're down here!" The tunnel was growing smaller. Goku had to expand his shield, but there was little where else for the rocks to go. As he pushed the walls back, they bunched in tighter, and this made them grind too tightly. Smaller rocks started to fall, and as they did, a tremor down the length of the tunnel started. "Oh please be all right..." He knew his words were in vain. Vegeta had never been this unresponsive before, and his ki had never faded like that unless he... he had...

Goku went down ever faster and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. When he saw bits of debris he slowed down only enough to see what it was. Bits of shredded armour. A little further down relieved puddles of dark gore that had dribbled into crevices. And then, lying there in the dark of the silent underworld was Vegeta's white boot. Goku cut off his speed and lay in the tunnel, his shield still on to prevent rocks from coming down and landing on them. Vegeta lay on a bed of rock, his eyes closed, his hair and skin matted with gore. "V-Vegeta?" Goku raised a hand and reached out to touch Vegeta's boot. He waved it back and forth to get him to stir. There was little else he could do. The tunnel was tiny – as it had been formed by Vegeta's own body as he plunged down earth's crust like an inverted rocket. There was no way of getting around him. And Vegeta was not rousing.

Goku tried to reach in further.

Something was not right. Why was he still not sensing the saiyan prince's ki when he was right beside him?

As his hand extended further down, scoping for the prince's countenance his fingers at last brushed against Vegeta's partly opened lips. At first the contact revealed only wet blood. And then something else. Something bad. Vegeta was not breathing.

Goku had never sworn in his life, until today. "Shit! Oh, oh shit!"

He grabbed Vegeta's wrist in a steel grip and he closed his eyes, knowing that the only sure-fire way out of this was to successfully teleport him out of this tomb. Goku hated teleportation. It was a massive expenditure of ki, and he didn't always end up where he had intended to go. Even after much practise, he preferred the more straightforward approach of flying manually when there was sights to be seen and journeys to be taken than just fast-forwarding all the time. So he had given up the art, only finding that he needed it now more than ever.

TBC