Saramoto Sagas - Dragon Ball Hunt
Disclaimer: This is a fan fiction.
Summary: A young scientist, searching for the dragon balls, meets a strange child in the wilderness. Isolated from humanity and raised by a peculiar tribe of monkeys, the naive warrior's brute strength proves useful as they set out together to fulfill an uncanny quest.
Notes: This is the same as my other DBZ fan fiction. If you are interested, please bear with me as I rewrite it. I was very unhappy with a lot of things, but hopefully the changes I've come up with will make it better this time!
On a planet far away, on a sunny summer day, a motorboat skipped along the surface of the tropical ocean as waves rolled in the distance. A teenage girl leaned back, feeling the warm wind in her long, bright red hair. A speck of land caught her attention and she squinted at the horizon. She took a look at a small, rectangular, hand-held device in her lap. "Hmm… Just up ahead... it's gotta be there!" she exclaimed.
Meanwhile, on the edge of a forest, a large creature stalked in the shadows, making soft footprints in the sandy soil. A small, brown monkey was playing with a rock where the sunlight peeked through the canopy. She heard the bushes rustle and suddenly jumped up and tried to run as she heard a fateful growl.
She was about to become cat food when, out of nowhere a blur of black and peachy colors flew through the air and slammed into the predator. He had suffered some blunt injury to his neck and struggled to get up. A small human child, barely taller than her monkey friend, stood in a defensive posture gripping a handmade spear. She had a mess of shaggy black hair and hardly wore anything except for a loincloth made out of a jaguar's fur. Although it was strange for a human, she also had a furry brown tail.
"Run back now!" the monkey yelled.
"Wait!" The girl closed in on the large cat. It sensed her intent and decided to try its luck at fighting back. With a fierce growl, it suddenly lunged up again. But with a dodge, a kick, and a spear through the heart, the beast finally lay still.
"Nam, not hurt?!" the child's furry friend fussed over her.
"No! Nam stronger than Jaguar! I killed," she stated proudly.
"Good! Safer for Kozaru," the monkey nodded. "Go home now."
"OK!"
As they walked together they took a familiar path along the beach. Nam carried the body of the jaguar over her shoulders. They heard a roar off somewhere in the distance.
"Another jaguar?!" The female monkey looked around nervously.
"What is that?" Nam pointed to the ocean. The source of the loud roar was an unknown object traveling along the surface of the ocean. It was unlike anything the islanders had ever seen before. It created huge waves behind it as it floated up to the island and landed on the sand. A woman climbed over the side of the boat and stepped onto the sand. She had a tan short-sleeved jacket with some lace decoration over a white tank top, and a blue-green short skirt.
"Land-ho! Huh?" she flinched and jumped out of the way as some crazy jungle kid ran up past her.
"Hi-YAH!" she attacked the boat with a kick that caught it under the tip and caused it to flip up and over, landing back in the water with a splash. "Take that, monster!"
"W-w-what?! What did you do that for you freak!? Now my stuff is all wet!" She tried to run over to the boat as the kid cut her off.
"Away from monster, weird youkai! Your time now!"
"WAAAIT!" She threw her hands in the air as the child seemed about ready to run her through. "I'm not a youkai, I'm just a normal human!"
"Human? You?"
"Yes, silly, just like you! See?"
"No move!" she said distrustfully, remaining tense as she examined the woman.
"I need to get my wallet before it floats away..." the woman started to complain as she was held up at spear-point. The monkey that was with the child hesitantly drew a bit nearer as well.
"You have weird hair color… like tomato."
"S-shut up about my hair! Yours is full of mud!"
"Hm… OK," she seemed satisfied and relaxed somewhat. The redhead gave a sigh of relief and quickly grabbed a soaked backpack out of the water. She cringed as she set it further up on the sand and started pulling some things out of it to hopefully dry out faster. Good thing I had the locator in my hand when I stepped out! She thought to herself.
"But what monster was that?"
"That's not a monster, that's a boat! You live on an island and you don't even know what a boat is?"
"Boat roar like jaguar."
"It has a motor on it!" she snapped, getting irritated. "Who are you anyways, Tarzan?!"
"Hm? I Nam."
"I Tuc." The monkey added in a small voice. The redhead did a double take and gaped at her. "Th-the monkey can talk?!" They exchanged a glance and then stared at her as if they didn't understand her surprise at all.
"Tuc is Nam older sister. We are Kozaru tribe. But who you?"
"Well, my name is Ruby. I haven't heard of your tribe, but then again I don't watch the nature channel very often."
"Hmm... OK! Ruby come Kozaru home! Welcome in group!"
"Um, sure, just gotta check..." It must be just up the path here, she thought. "Great! Lead the way!"
About 10 minutes later, they were walking through the forest again.
"Why are you staring at my butt?"
"Why Ruby no have tail?" Ruby's eyes widened when she noticed the girl's tail. Why does she have a tail? As if in a trance, she reached out and stroked it like a cat's tail. Nam stiffened and pulled her tail in to her body, looking a bit disturbed at Ruby.
"Wow, you really have a tail," she breathed. "I've never seen that before. Humans don't have tails. You're weird," she concluded.
"But Ruby also weird! Come from ocean! How you live in water?"
She chuckled at the girl's ignorance, "I don't live in the ocean. There's much more land out there besides this island, and millions of people."
"Kozaru have story of human. We know only Nam," said Tuc.
"So what you're raised by monkeys and never seen another human until now?"
"Mm, hm!" Nam nodded and announced, "Home time!" She and her companion started climbing up the boulders and thick logs around the forest floor.
"Excuse me?! You can't seriously expect a lady like me to follow you up there! Hello?!" she shouted after them as they kept climbing up. When they ignored her, she pouted and sat down on a rock. "Ew, it's all damp," she muttered, and checked her device. "Oh, come on!" She shoved the machine into one of her pockets, and started climbing up the trees. It wasn't actually that hard to climb up, because it was a tropical rainforest with huge trees that even adult gorillas could live in. There was a rough den and living space created from a combination of tree limbs, canopy soil, and artificially added wooden planks. A totem pole had been constructed in the middle of the area. A few freshly plucked flowers lay around it. Several monkeys were hanging around the den and ogled at the city teenager. Some of them wore simple decorations made out of flowers or grass. Ruby carefully crawled up on all fours, being careful not to slip on the mossy parts of the logs.
"Ruby really human? Pretty bad climbing," Nam remarked. The spear was stuck into the ground and
"Ugh, you—for your information, MOST humans DON'T live in jungles! I guess these other monkeys are the Kozaru or whatever you called it… Eh?!" Suddenly, her expression perked up dramatically as she looked towards the center of the canopy. "Ahah! That's it! It's the two-star ball!" she exclaimed and hopped across to the totem pole and plucked off the central decoration from it. It was a very small ball, like a ping pong ball. It was made of a pearly white material and had two purple stars inside that seemed to be visible from every angle.
Nam jumped up and tugged on Ruby's arm. "No touch Taf! Is guardian spirit! He protect tribe from bad guys!"
"Don't be silly, it's just a decoration! Besides, isn't that what you do?"
"Put down Taf!" One of the Kozaru pleaded with a male voice.
"Why move Taf?" asked another male.
"Is Tomato bad guy?" came a female monkey's worried voice.
"W-wait! This treasure is more than you think! I need it for something important. Well… I wanted to keep this quiet, but I guess there's no harm in telling a bunch of monkeys…" She reached around in her pockets and pulled out two balls similar to the island's artifact. One of them had four stars and the other had five.
"Eh?! More Taf!" "Is his family!" The monkeys mused.
"No, no, no. They aren't gods. They're called dragon balls."
"What is dragon?" Nam tilted her head.
"OK, listen. In the civilized world where I'm from, I'm considered to be pretty darn smart—a scientist—a woman of learning! I first found this ball with five stars by chance, but after noticing some strange properties about it, I did some more research. I found that it emitted a unique type of energy which I could use to detect five more of them around the world. And I also discovered a legend in an ancient book that just might be true."
"What is legend?" "What happened?!" "Tell more!" They all asked in suspense.
"Apparently, if you collect all six of these dragon balls, you can summon Shenron, the Dragon God!"
"Gasp!" "Really God?!" "What is dragon?"
"And you can be granted three wishes. Anything you want!"
"Ooooh!" "Aaaah!"
"So… yeah, that's pretty much it, now do you mind if I take this? OK?! Hehehe!"
"Wait!" a Kozaru male wearing a grass skirt stepped forward. "You can take Taf's ball," he said, and Ruby let out the breath she had been holding. "Wait! Nam go with you."
"Pa, I go with her?"
"Nam human, still child. But Nam stronger than all Kozaru. Maybe can get much, much stronger! But stay with Kozaru, you stay weak." Ruby listened to the conversation in thought. Even though they all look the same to me, Nam really thinks of them as family the same way any normal people would. I sure could use that strength of hers, though.
"Come on, kid! You'll love it. And visiting back here is much easier than you think."
"But, Kozaru must defend! Must fight! I go, monsters hurt us."
"No. Nam kill almost all monsters here. Much safer now. Only little danger left now. Kozaru can defend it."
"O-OK. Nam go..."
Ruby had already started climbing down carefully as Nam was saying her heartfelt goodbyes to her childhood home. As she was about halfway down, the child leaped down past her, taking her little spear with her.
"Climb faster, Tomato! Let's go!"
"TOMATO?! Why, you cheeky little-buAAAAH!" Ruby yelped as she lost her footing and slid down the moist wood. The girl laughed loudly as she ran out towards the beach.