Eye of the Beholder

By Moonraker One

CHAPTER ONE

A hard burst of warm summer air flew down from thousands of feet above as it took in huge amounts of the sun's radiation and rose the temperature of the surrounding environment. From a dirt road, high above sea level in the Mount Paozu area, a forty-something mother of two by the name of Chi-Chi held in her arms a large bag of groceries that she was somehow able to afford thanks to money from her father and from Bulma. The rich heiress of Capsule Corp. loved to support her friends, and that was the predominating thought on the stressed housewife's mind. The few miles that were left on the route to her husband's and her humble home allowed precious time for her to think of her life and the man who was seldom around that consumed the vast majority of her life, and not in a bad way.

Hmm, she mentally sighed, bringing to mind the good times she shared with her husband. Goku, I'm glad you still care about me. Any other man would've long since left for a younger woman. One of the few facts about her husband that never ceased to amaze her was how he always thought only of others and never of himself. Such was just one of the many good facts she loved to ponder about Goku, as it kept her mind off of how he always took off at a moment's notice, and how training was the single most important aspect of his leisure time. Time passed in conjunction with the distance as rocks and dirt clods crumpled beneath Chi-Chi's footsteps. Huge trees and lots of green luscious forest provided for possibly the best scenery in the entire world, which aided in her perception of the passage of time; more specifically, it made time seem to pass much quicker.

"Well, for once, I'd say I'm on time, huh?"

The voice behind her frightened her momentarily to the point where she violently lurched forward, ready to fall on her face. A pair of strong hands, her husband Goku's hands, grabbed her and the bag, soundly before either hit the ground. Hoisting the bag onto his right shoulder, he leaned her backwards and kissed her, then pulled her back to a standing position. She smiled as the display of chivalry came halfway between the store dozens of miles back in the nearest city, allowing for a quick end to an otherwise longer walk. She shook her head a moment. "And here," she quipped, "I thought you'd left me behind."

"I leave no man or woman behind, eh?" joked Goku. Calmly he lifted her onto his left shoulder, and took off towards their house at normal speed. She extended her arms at her sides and closed her eyes, imagining that it was her flying them through the air, not him. The dream of power that could never be gave her a few moments of dreamland.

Once they reached their quiet, comfortable home, the groceries got put into their proper position in the cupboards and the dinner got made. Such was the life of a housewife such as Chi-Chi who never had a chance to experience much life outside the home. For the longest time, it had never brought her any sort of distress, but as the years went by and she aged while her husband remained relatively the same in appearance, she began to grow weary of the endless drudgery that was her life. She wanted to be able to fly off at a moment's notice; she wanted to be able to fight in a training battle against her husband and his friends. However, she knew it would never be, so she went about her life relatively normally, at least on the surface.

It was only about four in the afternoon, because dinner had to be made early due to the fact that both Goku and their two sons had plans of their own, which meant she had to have them fed before they left. She looked forward to her free time, as though it was her liberation, even if just for one evening.

The three Saiyans shoveled food at a rate that disgusted Chi-Chi. Finally, being unable to handle it anymore, she tapped her fork against her plate. "HEY!" she shouted. "EAT RIGHT! I TAUGHT YOU TWO BETTER!" Instantly, the pace slowed down as all three food crammers began using their forks more than their hands. After the uneasy silence that always came after she scolded her family for anything, the talk began.

"So, Goten," Gohan inquired of his older brother, "what's your plan for today?"

Goten tried to think in between bites. "I'm gonna play 'showdown' with Trunks for a bit," he answered. "I heard he's got a new toy I can use!"

"Gohan, are we still on for training?" Goku asked of his son.

The challenging grin Gohan fired back indicated that it was so. "You're on, dad!"

All three looked to the stressed woman sitting at the far end of the table. "Mom?" Goten wondered out loud. "What about you? You gonna do anything?"

Chi-Chi was going to sit and enjoy her time in the living room, meditating as she let the sun entering through the window warmed her body. "I'm…just going to hold down the fort," she announced.

Goku seemed confused. "Why don't you go out and do something fun?"

She glared at him like he was stupid, and he instantly backed off like a wounded animal, lest he meet the wrong end of the frying pan of doom. One by one, the male members of the family finished their meals, gave thanks and praise to the lady of the house, and took off. It was only about ten minutes after the end of the unusually early dinner that she found herself alone in her house.

At last, she thought, pulling the curtains open to let the afternoon sun cast its light and heat across the room. I can relax.

It wasn't ten whole minutes in her little world of peace that she heard a loud crash outside and was violently thrust out of her nice vegetation and back into reality. It was in the valley at the base on the left side of the mountain that the sound originated. With a look of bewilderment, she left the house and headed through the woods towards the path that led down the side of the mountain to the valley where she would usually do her fruit and vegetable picking. It wasn't a normal day of food gathering, though, as she saw the outline of a space vessel begin to disappear as a complicated cloaking device bent the light around it, making it seem invisible. A few dozen footsoldiers exited the now-invisible craft, exploring the environment nearby. Taking quick shelter behind a tree, she saw as two of them, holding a young girl in their tight grasp, look for something and not find it. Once they realized that it was not on this planet, they began to gather edible fruits and vegetables and board the ship.

Something of an evil idea hit her; perhaps she should try to get on board. She really didn't know why she decided—considering that she had family that would be wondering where she was—but for some reason she believed it was her turn to go on an adventure. It was the actual sneaking aboard—as opposed to reasoning with her own better judgment—that was difficult. Ducking from one tree to another while avoiding the gaze of any of the men from the ship that brought her back to the days of living with her mother and the rest of the forest amazons.

Upon filling a huge bag full of edible materials, an imposing looking soldier wearing generic alien armor flung the sack over his shoulder and shouted to the rest of his men, "Alright! We got to get back to home base! It's obvious the target is not here." He waved for the two holding the little girl. "You two! Get her on board! Do you realize how important she is!" Shaking his head, he and the rest of the crew walked up the ramp that was visible to them. Chi-Chi kept close to them by crawling down low, shielding herself from view in the tall grass. The underside of the ship had several openings that she could potentially climb through, it was just that three of them led to the ship's trash incinerator, two to the fusion reactor engine, and one that had an unknown use. She found out the hard way when she got under it and it sucked her up into it. Tumbling head over heels like a piece of wind blown paper through the pipe, she was being pulled on through the intake until it went from vertical to horizontal, and she righted herself.

Just in time to see that she was headed for a very large fan. With less than a moment to think before she would be fragmented, she stuck out her arms and legs to provide friction to slow her body down. Her shoes began to shred and her hands to blister due to the sheer velocity of the suction power. It seemed as though death was imminent as she decelerated slowly while the fan closed in very rapidly. Closing her eyes and expecting sharp blades to cut her to pieces, she gritted her teeth and pressed more firmly against the walls of the pipe with a small trail of blood from her hands beginning to grow wider. She felt her head strike something hard.

She opened her eyes. A protection grate shot up from a perforation in the pipe a thousandth of a second fast enough to stop her on a dime. A section of the floor of the pipe opened up and dropped her into what appeared to be a reactor room. She looked up then around; the pipe had been an air intake for the fusion reactor. Recalling a hasty lesson from Bulma on fusion reactions, she recalled that to start one required temperatures on the order of fifty million degrees centigrade. How bad her luck would have been: if she had been sucked through an opening in the fan large enough for her whole body to be unharmed—which was unlikely—she'd have been incinerated in the engine. She had to laugh quietly after catching her breath, as The Great Chi-Chi's death would have been a momentary blip in the ship's power supply and nothing more.

She found her way out of the engine room and into a small medical room with shelves of medicine and a large sink. The dimly lit room had shiny metal on every corner. At first she found nothing to sit on to wash herself off at the sink, but a bench at the other edge of the rectangular room she found very difficult (but possible) to drag across. Her shoes she forcefully tore off, as the burned edges had slightly scarred her feet. The blood flow from the bottom of her feet had been stopped by the heat from the friction of sliding down a steel pipe, so she washed them off in lukewarm water. Medicinal soap had far fewer harsh chemicals, so she utilized it in cleaning off both feet very deliberately, and wrapped the damaged goods in sterile gauze and medical tape. Her hands, though, caused her much more pain on the cleaning job. The blood had been stanched by cauterizing heat from friction, and they had to be washed much more carefully. She stuck a tongue depressor between her clenched teeth as she agonized over her hands. Finally she wrapped them in gauze and medical tape, and searched the shelves for antibiotics. She found them on one shelf, and another shelf had, carefully hidden, a bottle of twelve-year-old whiskey. She rolled her eyes, popped an antibiotic, and took a drink, gagging; the alcohol was very strong. She felt it was wise to keep both in her possession.

A back exit to the room put her in a less-guarded hallway, and she managed to duck between two security cameras when they were not pointed her way, and into an open doorway. Instantly, a twenties-ish woman with dark green hair took notice of a new presence in her room. "Hey!" the woman shouted in a whisper. Chi-Chi put her index finger up in a "shhh!" motion, and the woman shut up. "So," she uttered, closing her door, "are you a stow away? What happened to your hands and feet?"

Chi-Chi sat down. "Came in through the engine's air intake." The woman cringed and mouthed a silent "Oh, shit!" as she put her gun below her bed. "Yeah, I felt the same way."

The woman took notice of the whiskey. "Found the doc's secret stash, you did." She motioned, and her new roommate handed the bottle over. She opened the top and emptied four shots' worth in two gulps, replaced the top, and handed it back. "By the way, my name's Kezora." Smiling, she extended her hand. "You're the first real new face I've seen in the six years I been on this crate."

"I'm Chi-Chi," the gentle housewife-now-turned-adventurer admitted, shaking her new friend's hand. "I have to say, you look like something else." Hastily, she corrected herself. "N…not like that's a bad thing!"

Kezora chuckled quietly. "I know, I get that a lot, Chi-Chi." She liked the dark hair look that her new friend had, feeling that she should tie her green locks up in a ball behind her head with two small lengths on both sides of her face, just like Chi-Chi. She figured it would be a bit of a new thing, since she'd been used to her current outfit for too long. "Would ya mind turning your head while I take off my clothing and get into my sleep wear?" Chi-Chi complied and turned her head. The woman's outfit was obviously uncomfortable, as it was a dark energy-and-bullet proof vest above a puffy shirt and a very puffy black pair of pants. She slipped into a red evening tank top that ended right above her belly button.

Upon turning her head back, Chi-Chi just happened to move her field of vision across Kenzora's abdominal area, and saw the groin area of her purple panties. She saw that Kenzora had, among other things, a bulge present. It was one that women don't have. She almost vomited. Her friend took instant notice.

"You okay?"

Chi-Chi coughed, trying desperately to regain her composure. "I'm sorry, I just didn't know you were a 'sir' instead of a 'madam.'"

Kenzora burst out laughing. "Oh shit, did I leave it in?" She looked down at herself. Gasping, she reached into her duffel bag below her bed and pulled out a rather painful-looking gun-like mechanism. "Holy crap, I did! I'm sorry." She took the end of the gun-like device, which was a series of teeth, and attached them to a slightly discolored area of skin on the right side of her neck, and once the teeth were on tight, she pulled the trigger. The device painlessly yanked out what looked like a mix between a microchip and a piece of construction paper. Over the next three and a half seconds, her male parts shrunk and vanished, and her perfectly flat chest went to a B cup size. Chi-Chi was at a loss for words. "Um, Chi-Chi, I am a 'madam,'" she explained embarrassingly, "it's just that I need everyone else to think I'm a guy, so I put in a GRC."

Chi-Chi didn't understand. "GRC?"

"Gender Reassignment Chip," the green-haired woman answered. "Also it has other fringe benefits. I can't be raped, and I've got something to play with." From that comment, both women laughed. The ship rumbled gently, indicating that the engines had activated completely and the ship had taken off. "So, tell me something, Chi-Chi." She took off her wristwatch and lay back down on her bunk. "I took the job on this ship because I got no family left and I wanted to see the universe. Why would you want to hitch a ride aboard a ship whose purpose is to gather information for a military purpose?"

Chi-Chi really didn't have an answer that made sense. "I'm a housewife," she began, and she almost felt her new friend roll her eyes. "I'm tired of my husband getting to go on all the adventures—he's a Saiyan. I wanted to get to see the universe myself."

Kenzora had to sit up. "So, you're a human—like myself—and you wanted to put your life in danger and potentially have those who love you suffer by not knowing what the hell is happening to you?" She paused a moment, then grinned. "That's awesome!"

Chi-Chi shook her head, chuckling a bit. "Is it?" Her friend gave a nod. "I'm going to take a nap."

"You deserve it."

BEEP! BEEP!

Chi-Chi almost flew out of bed upon the sharp beeping tone of the alarm clock going off. Once she flipped over, she saw that Kenzora already had awoken and showered. The green-haired woman had slipped on her quite uncomfortable uniform and her wristwatch, and picked up her weapon to holster it at her side. Underneath her bed she reached for the uncomfortable device that applied and removed the GRC which she hated so much to have to wear every workday. She pressed the gun against her neck, on the opposite side than the day before. With a grit of her teeth, she pressed the trigger. It almost freaked her out more the next day than it did the night before, as the woman's chest flattened out, and the crotch of her pants expanded somewhat. Chi-Chi did not know how this woman could undergo such a painful procedure to hide her true gender. To her, it had to be severely painful not just on a physical level but mentally as well. "I know what you're thinking," the green-haired warrior shamefully admitted. "How can she do this every day? Sometimes, I don't even know. But I have to in order to stay aboard. The general's got some pretty strict rules about women soldiers, and I want the same pay and benefits of a male soldier, so I gotta pay the price."

Chi-Chi had extreme concern for her friend. "Why? What happens to female soldiers?"

Kenzora shook her head. "None, because there aren't any. Women can only be either nurses or manual labor servants, both jobs of which are far lower paying than the job of soldier and have no benefits." She looked down at the floor, slightly angrily. "Which I consider to be bull, because the general—herself—is a woman all the time. Damn Saiyan females, their kind killed two of my eight friends." As an afterthought, she looked at her watch and almost fell over in shock. "Holy…! It's that late! Sorry, Chi, but I gotta go! They'll come lookin'!"

"W…wait!"

Kenzora turned around. "Hmm?"

"Is…is there anything I can do?"

The green-haired soldier looked down at the front of her pants, then at Chi-Chi. "You sure you want to come with me?" Uneasily, the housewife nodded. "Well, I'm afraid that if you want to go out there as a soldier, you have to pack more than a gun, if you know what I mean."

"There's…no… permanent damage to…well you know…is there?"

Kenzora couldn't help but laugh at that statement. "Not at all," she assured her friend. "I'm just amazed that you would want to help me." Reaching under her bunk bed, she pulled out of her bag the familiar gun-like mechanism that would apply the chip. Below her street clothes, she found a bag of spare GRC chips. From the container she pulled out one that was slightly more brown than green. She opened the front part of the gun and snapped the chip into place between the metal prongs of the application device. She had in her bag an alternate set of her uniform, and she hoped it would fit her friend properly. "You ready?" A few seconds of deliberation followed, and then a nod.

Chi-Chi gritted her teeth as she felt the cold end of the applicator gun touch the soft skin on the left side of her neck. Here goes nothing, she thought. Kenzora waited a minute to make sure her friend was ready, and then pulled the trigger. The housewife winced as a click preceded a small piece of plastic be shoved underneath her skin, which hurt surprisingly less than she thought it would. It only took a few moments, and it felt bizarre at first as the genetic changes took effect. She barely felt it as her breasts slowly disappeared, and as new parts developed down below. After the transformation had completed, she examined herself, sure, certain changes had taken place, but as a whole person she looked mostly unchanged. Her curves still were mostly in their right places, and neither her face nor her voice had changed. It confused her at first. "Hey, um, Kenzora?" she inquired. "Aren't…men supposed to be… a little more different? I mean, why do I still look like me?"

"The main purpose of the GRC is to change the primary sexual characteristics," her green-haired friend explained, "the secondary sex characteristics are unaffected."

"Strange," Chi-Chi noticed.

Kenzora nodded, then threw her the extra set of clothing. "Now change," she requested.

In the primary living quarters of the general, a young girl—the one who was shown the surface of Earth a while back—sat across a dinner table from her captor, the female Saiyan general who commanded the ship in which they traveled the galaxy. She knew that she was held prisoner for one reason, and one alone, and it had to do with the object dangling from a necklace on her neck.

"How long are you going to delay?" the girl said, speaking slightly angrily at her captor. "You know that the Eye does not like to wait."

The general grinned. "You think I'm delaying?" she inquired. "No, I'm not delaying. I'm just waiting to get far enough away from most of the planets on our list. Can't have too many people sensing the transformation that will occur."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Do you honestly think people will sense it?" She knew she had to say the correct things or she'd be killed once her usefulness had ended. "You could do it right now, and no one would notice."

"Are you lying?" The general clamped her right hand down hard on the girl's neck. "Not that anyone could ever beat me as I am now, but I don't want anyone interrupting my destiny." The girl nervously shook her head.

Taking the vial of poison in her hand, the general turned to her second in command. "Captain! Make sure no one interrupts what is about to happen!" He saluted and left the room to patrol the only entrance to his superior officer's quarters. The general turned to the girl. "Now, you listen. Once I die, you place the eye on my forehead. If I am not resurrected in five minutes, you will be killed. Do you understand?" An apprehensive nod was her answer. Assured of herself, the general drank the vial of poison, which traveled directly to her brain by passing at once through the stomach wall into the blood. She didn't even feel pain as her eyes rolled up into her head and her seat fell over backwards with her body dead, but still in it. Under the constant watch of the soldiers in the room, the girl removed from underneath her shirt her necklace, and she carefully removed it and placed it in the middle of the general's forehead. It was a glass eye in the shape of an oval, with perfectly curved edges and one light green-and-black iris directly in the middle. Not one second after settling on the general's forehead, it began to glow very brightly a shade of gold, and a few seconds later the glow passed over the woman's entire body before dissipating. One instant after the light faded, a black portal opened up, and vanished, leaving behind the general, completely unharmed and alive. Her previous body, which lay dead on the floor, vanished into dust that faded out of existence.

The general examined herself, and clenched her fists at her side with a victorious look on her face. "YES!" she exclaimed. "Now I am no longer just any ordinary super Saiyan! Now I sit amongst the Legendary Super Saiyans born once in a thousand years!" Testing her new abilities, she took a knife from her fellow soldier's pocket, and drove it into her neck, in a spot that usually would warrant a fatal blow. Upon the blade's extraction, a shimmering white light emitted from the hole, sealing it up instantly. Not a single scar was left behind. "Immortality is mine! I shall rule every world! The glory days of the Saiyan Empire shall return! All of reality shall know the name Lakatorika!"

The girl bowed her head in sorrow; although she had been given no choice, she hated to grant the greatest gift of the Saiyan Gods to such an unworthy member of her kind. Her tail swished in agony. Lord Romthaon, she thought, praying to the king of the Saiyan Gods, Please forgive me.

On the other side of the spacecraft, a green-haired soldier and her best friend wandered through the halls, patrolling the important quarters as was their assigned task. Neither enjoyed the job, but for Kenzora, the pay was more than enough an excuse to put up with the misery. "So, Kenzora," Chi-Chi whispered, not wanting to be heard by everyone. "Tell me, who's in charge here?"

Kenzora motioned up ahead. "There's General Lakatorika's quarters. She's only ever in them when there's nothing interesting on the bridge." She heard a slight beeping, and looked down. Her gun had jammed slightly on the energy intake unit. She shook her head. "Ah, mother…! Damn thing's jammed. Hey, you go on ahead. I'll stay here and un-jam my gun."

Chi-Chi was almost three-fourths of the way down the hall before a loud blast was heard. Kenzora immediately jolted her head upwards as the entire ship shook. A meteor had struck the side of the ship inches from where her housewife friend stood, and due to the sudden worsening of the structural integrity, the small section was closed off by blast doors before Kenzora could run to her friend. "You piece of shit defense doors! Open up!" She knew it was useless, as the doors' lowering was a safety precaution.

A few minutes earlier

Lakatorika, still smiling from her victorious transformation, left her quarters. She turned to the two soldiers with the girl. "You two watch her, the captain and myself will go and take a seat on the bridge to monitor the progress of our ship."

The captain approached her outside the room after the door shut. "Ma'am? Shall I escort you to the bridge?" They walked lockstep with each other, unaware that a basketball-sized meteor rocketed towards the ship.

WHAM.

Two gigantic blast doors came down, separating Chi-Chi from the rest of the space ship. "Help!" she cried, pounding on the doors. "Get me out of here!" To her right was a damaged door to a set of living quarters. She kicked it and it disintegrated like a crushed cookie. Inside, much of the ceiling had collapsed, crushing both soldiers. She saw a young girl cowering underneath a large table that miraculously had held tight despite heavy debris atop it.

The girl shook her head. "Are you here to help me?" she asked of Chi-Chi. "I'm scared."

Chi-Chi pulled the girl from underneath the table a second before it broke. She held the girl tight in her arms, consoling her. "I'm here now, there's nothing that's going to hurt you."

The girl wiped tears from her eyes. "I'm glad you came, but now you're going to die with me."

Chi-Chi shook her head. "What…what do you mean?"

"Once the ship's been damaged," the girl explained sorrowfully, "the part that's taken a hit is sectioned off and sterilized by napalm fire before the repair crew can get in to fix the damage."

A loud sound over the intercom came after a series of crackles. "ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL: SECTION ONE ALPHA HAS TAKEN SEVERE STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. NAPALM STERILIZATION WILL OCCUR BEFORE REPAIRS ARE TO BE MADE."

Oh, fuck! Chi-Chi mentally swore, casting her gaze across the room, eagerly searching for something to protect them. A damaged cabinet caught her eye. "Hey, um, little girl?" She hoped to get the girl's attention, and she did. "I'm going to search for some kind of thing to cover us up in, okay?" The cabinet had solid steel doors, and only one of them had taken severe damage. It refused to budge, yet she was determined to save them. Clenching her teeth, she drove her right fist into the door, breaking every bone in her hand at once. She screamed in agony and the door finally gave with a hard tug from her left hand. In it, she found a thick green fire blanket.

But it was only big enough for the little girl.

Chi-Chi wiped a tear. I'm sorry, Goku, she thought, as she began to cry more readily. I guess I'm not hero material. But at least this girl'l be safe.

"Everything's okay, little girl." She wrapped the thick blanket over the girl enough to cover the entire surface of her body. Sealing it up tight, she clamped her good hand down on the ends of the material, and held it tight. No fire would get through to the girl, she swore. As an alarm went off, a blood red glow overcame the room, an instant before a thick fire would consume it.

"ARRRRRrrrgggghhhh!"

The last scream of a mid-forties housewife echoed through the room as her flesh was charred blacker than a lump of coal. The speed that it was over in was simply frightening. A blink would have been too long a wait. The girl pushed the blanket aside to see the scorched room. What she saw amazed her; the person had been a woman disguised as a man. She knew this because the fire had incinerated the GRC, and she changed back before she fell dead a few moments prior.

Maybe YOU, the girl thought, removing her necklace, can stand up to the general.

She placed the mythical Eye atop Chi-Chi's fire charred forehead, and the familiar glow lit up the room.