Disclaimer: As an American college student, I am able to say with perfect honesty that I own absolutely NOTHING. Dragonball Z is the property of FUNimation, Toei Animation, and Akira Toriyama.
Notes: Contrary to popular belief, I am NOT dead, and am in fact, continuing this fic (because I love the concept too much to let go of it). Point of fact, however (and this is IMPORTANT): I have totally and completely revamped the first two chapters, as I feel my writing skills have greatly improved (transl: they were crap), so for those of you who have already read them, you may want to go back and do so again, if only to get a fuller picture. I tried to keep the feel of the DBZ universe without sacrificing the more detail-oriented, slightly grittier quality of my own style, so let me know how that works out for you.
For NEW readers: this fic is set directly after episode 46: Big Trouble for Bulma (the one with the mother crab) and is positing a space of time between that incident and the one with Furiza's henchmen. From there, it goes into an alternate universe (which will be quickly made clear), featuring Goku & Vegeta from the post-Buu era. Enjoy.
IF YOU DIDN'T READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE, PLEASE DO SO NOW. IT'S IMPORTANT. TRUST ME.
Chapter 1: Strange in the Familiar
"Arrgh!"
Red-faced and panting, Bulma let herself fall, exhausted, to the rich Namekian ground, the wispy, surprisingly soft blue grass tickling her nose as she buried her face in the earth. She could feel the tension draining from her body as she relaxed under the steady warmth of the suns. The past few days had been almost unbearably miserable. Krillin and Gohan had abandoned her for the umpteenth time, and then that earthquake had come out of absolutely nowhere – that little joy had caused their only Dragonball to fall into the lake, forcing Bulma to risk life and limb – again – for the safety for the wretched thing. As much as she loved travel and adventure, Bulma could feel herself beginning to develop a deep grudge towards those seven magic spheres.
"What else can possibly go wrong in a day? How much worse can this get?" She moaned as she gazed at the alien sky, so familiar and yet so different to the one on Earth. At least everything seemed stable now; surely there had been enough peril for one day. Her muscles ached terribly, and she knew that it had to have been at least a full day since she'd slept, although it was impossible to tell without a watch. Tired and hot, and seeing no immediate threat, Bulma forced herself to her aching feet and dragged herself into the shade of a large boulder for a quick rest, lacking even the energy to trudge the few dozen yards to the capsule house.
She must have fallen asleep at one point, because when she next opened her eyes, Bulma found herself looking up at an unfamiliar and terrifying sight. Two hulking figures in saiyajin armor had appeared over the horizon and were flying rapidly in her direction.
"Please, be a nightmare, please," Bulma whispered, knowing the prayer was futile. She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing back tears, and took a deep breath. She had to keep her wits about her – they were the only thing she had.
Thinking quickly, Bulma snatched up the Dragonball and dove behind the boulder, pressing herself as far into the rock as she could. Every instinct in her body was telling her to run, but logic and experience told her that attempting to flee would be a death sentence as surely as fighting. The only thing she could do was hide and hope that the soldiers had been too far away to see her. She crouched for what felt like hours, her heart pounding painfully against her ribcage, muscles coiled and ready. She wanted to scream for help, but bit her lip in silence, drawing blood. Was it safe? After several more minutes of tense, empty silence, Bulma decided to risk emerging from her hiding place long enough to get a look at her surroundings. The two men were still there, now hovering in the sky roughly fifty feet up, looking down at where she cowered.
With a terrified gasp, Bulma yanked herself back behind the rock, knowing that it was useless. They knew she was there. Bulma felt like vomiting; her nails bit into her palms as she fought to keep from trembling. She was going to die here. The hopelessness was nearly overwhelming. She bit back a screech as the two soldiers landed in front of her with identical heavy thuds. Thinking quickly, Bulma wedged the Dragonball into a crevice in the rock and moved to block it from view. She hoped they didn't already know she had one. If they had a radar like she did, she was in some trouble.
"Well, what have we here?" The first soldier gave a toothy grin. He was extremely ugly, Bulma noted, disgust momentarily winning out over terror, and somewhat resembled an alligator… if alligators were seven feet tall, wore armor, and carried nasty looking guns.
"Looks like a little human woman... What are you doing this far out? And all alone, too. Tsk. Don'tcha know it's dangerous?" leered the second. This one was at least relatively human, but he was still no looker. And the stench! Kami! Bulma grimaced. She felt the urge to bathe just being near these freaks.
"Yeah," sneered alligator-man. "A weak thing like you could get hurt."
Bulma let out an involuntary whimper and scooted away, inadvertently knocking the Dragonball from where she'd wedged it in the rock. She could only watch in frozen horror as it rolled to a stop in the bluish grass, glowing warmly in the sunlight.
"What's this?" The second alien asked. He scooped up the Dragonball in one large, gloved hand. Bulma's eyes widened in panic. This wasn't good.
"Nothing! Just a trinket, purely ornamental," she lied quickly, hoping they were stupid enough to buy it. If they didn't already know what the Dragonball was, she certainly wasn't going to tell them.
"Hey, ain't that one of those things Furiza-sama is looking for?" Bulma's heart sank as alligator-man examined the ball his partner was holding.
"Yeah, I think you're right, looks like we've found us two surprises," the human-like one grinned and gave Bulma a leer, tossing the Dragonball aside as he advanced. Realizing the soldier's intentions, Bulma leaped to her feet, eyes flashing. Weak human or not, she wasn't going to give in without a fight.
"Not a chance! Don't you get near me, you scaly freaks!" She snarled. One hand crept to her jacket pocket; there was a weapons capsule in there somewhere, if she could just get to it...
"Oh yeah, and what are you gonna do about it?" taunted alligator-man.
'Where is it... where is it...?' Her fingers dug into the pocket and came up empty. 'Oh no!' she realized. 'They're in the house! I'm doomed!'
The two aliens advanced, baring their teeth in very unpleasant, matching grins.
"Get away!" She demanded hoarsely, her voice trembling as she tried to hold back her panic. 'Gohan, Krillen, where are you?'
"I suggest you do as the onna says," growled a deep voice. Bulma's head jerked upward, and she saw the outlines of two more figures in the sky.
'Not more of them!' She paled. 'I'm done for!'
"And just who do you think you are?" sneered alligator-man, squinting into the sunlight.
"Someone a lot stronger than you, I'd bet," chuckled another, more familiar voice. Bulma wished all three suns weren't in her eyes so she could see who her would-be rescuers were.
"Hey, I'll have you know we're part of Furiza's elite guards!" protested the human-like soldier. Good. He and alligator-man were entirely focused on the newcomers. Taking advantage of the aliens' distraction, Bulma snatched up the Dragonball and slipped behind the boulder to relative safety.
"I know very well who you are, and unless you want to die right now, I suggest you leave. We have no time to waste with weaklings like yourself," sneered the first voice. With twin shouts of indignation and fury, Furiza's men leapt into the air and fired a volley of blinding ki blasts at the silhouettes. Or at least, they tried to. The attacks shot harmlessly past where Bulma's saviours had hovered less than a second ago, and an instant later the henchmen fell dead to the ground, a blackish blood flowing freely from the gaping holes in their abdomens, their faces twisted and frozen in expressions of shock and horror.
Bulma squeezed her eyes shut and covered her mouth with her hand, feeling distinctly nauseous. She didn't have a weak stomach by any means (she couldn't, spending so much time with Goku), but the mangled corpses were far more disturbing than anything she had ever seen before.
"You OK there, Bulma-san?" The two figures floated down.
Bulma's eyes shot open. She did know that voice.
"Goku?! Is that you?!" She gaped at the familiar visage of her friend as he floated down to greet her with that warm, reassuring smile that Bulma could only identify as completely Goku, and she rushed over to give him a hug, unable to suppress the cry of joy that was torn from her throat. Laughing, he returned her embrace with a gentle squeeze. This was wonderful – they were saved! Goku was finally on Namek, wearing his familiar orange gi and silly grin, and everything was going be all right. But even as he held her tightly against his muscled chest, Bulma felt a twinge of wrongness. There was something… off. Bulma pulled back from the embrace, the elated fluttering in her stomach fading to an uncertain thrum as she fully took in her friend's appearance.
It wasn't a significant difference, at least physically. Like always, Goku was tall and muscular, his black hair sticking wildly out in every direction, a few of the spikes falling down over his warm, dark eyes. There were maybe a few lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes that hadn't been there before, but the real difference that Bulma felt was intangible. There was something there… an awareness, almost… that she couldn't really describe. Whatever it was, it didn't frighten her – if anything, it was comforting – but it was the sort of maturity and wisdom that she hadn't ever seen in Goku before, and that was what truly unnerved her.
Hesitantly, Bulma reached up and touched his face, just the barest brush of fingers on skin. Was this man really the naïve little boy she'd met so many years ago? It didn't seem so. "You… you seem different, Son-kun."
"He is different, baka onna." With a jolt, Bulma remembered the second person who had come to her rescue. That twinge returned – Goku had been traveling to Namek alone, hadn't he? She shoved her misgivings away and turned to greet the other man, but only managed a high pitched noise somewhere between a screech and a squeal.
"V-Vegeta!" Bulma leapt back behind her rock, looking to Goku for support. "What's he doing here?! What's going on, Goku?!"
To her confusion and horror, Goku made no move to fight the prince and only gave her a bewildered blink. "Gee, Bulma, I don't know why you're so worked up, it's only-"
The taller saiyajin was cut off as Vegeta viciously slammed his elbow into Goku's gut. Bulma ducked behind her rock with a shriek and waited for all hell to break loose.
"She doesn't know anything, baka! We're not in our time anymore!" Vegeta spat angrily, his eyes blazing.
Goku gave a chuckle and a sheepish grin, rubbing at his stomach where Vegeta had hit him. "Oh yeah, I forgot. Man, we really went back far, didn't we?" He let out a low whistle.
The saiyajin prince growled in irritation and rolled his eyes. "Kakarotto, you would forget your own head if it wasn't attached to your shoulders. Now let's go, we need to find the Dragonballs."
Bulma frowned and cautiously peeked out from behind the boulder. This wasn't the Goku and Vegeta she knew. The more she looked at them, the more Bulma could see how much older this Goku appeared, even if it was only subtly. Vegeta had aged even more obviously, growing taller (however minutely) and more muscular, although neither of the saiyajins looked a day over thirty-five. These two got along, sort of; they even sounded like friends, in a strange, terrifying way.
"Who... Who are you?" She asked, gaining a little of her courage back now that it seemed she wasn't in the middle of a war zone, after all. "You aren't Goku and Vegeta."
"Wha... Of course we are. Who else would we be?" Goku frowned. Vegeta growled again and shot his companion a scathing glare.
"It was our aim to avoid contact with any sentient beings, but seeing as how that idea has already flown out the window..."
"We might as well screw up the timeline even more?" Goku grinned brightly. Vegeta's scowl deepened. "And by the way, it wasn't me who decided to interfere, you-"
"Shut up!" Vegeta hissed; he turned to face the still cowering Bulma. "Get up, onna. You're being ridiculous. No one is going to kill you." Bulma snorted disbelievingly. "We're not quite who you think we are," he explained patiently, as though he were talking to a particularly slow child. Bulma's eyebrow gave an irritated twitch. "We're from the future."
Bulma raised a brow skeptically. "The future? Do you really think I'm going to buy that? I hate to tell you this, but time travel isn't even possible."
"But it will be," Goku interjected. "It's true, Bulma. We're probably about…" He paused and counted off his fingers for a moment, looking thoughtful. "I'd say fifteen years ahead of you, give or take a few. It's kind of a long story why we're here, so… Do you think we might be able to get something to eat while we explain?"
As intriguing as the idea of time travel was, Bulma couldn't help rolling her eyes. That was Goku, all right. Leave it to him, from whatever time, to think of food when she was half-dead from fright. She crawled out from behind her rock and took a few calming breaths as she dusted herself off.
"…Sure Goku, come on." Turning to look at Vegeta, she hesitated. Goku gave her a reassuring nod and a thumbs-up. Vegeta just scowled.
"I- I guess you can come too... It's just..."
"I'm not going to kill you, if that's what you're worried about, onna. Kakarotto and I have much bigger fish to fry." The two saiyajins exchanged dark glances that inexplicably frightened Bulma more than anything else that had happened thus far.
Bulma shook off the chill that crept up her spine and turned to go into the house, beckoning for the others to follow. She was still wary of this supposed new-and-improved Vegeta, but this person obviously wasn't the saiyajin prince she was familiar with, and Goku had vouched for him, so for now she would just keep her guard up. Bulma led the two men into the kitchen, pulled out an armful of items from the icebox, and began the daunting task of preparing some food for Goku's bottomless gullet.
Nearly an hour later, five chickens, eighteen bowls of rice, nine bowls of soup, and three chocolate cakes had been consumed and Bulma was getting antsy. She sat across the table from Goku and Vegeta, fingers tapping out a rhythm on the tabletop impatiently.
"Man Bulma, that was great," Goku exclaimed as he swallowed the last bit of cake. Bulma twitched. She could care less what Goku thought of her culinary skills; most of the food had been precooked anyway. She wanted to know what was happening! Like everything else in her life, it was clearly not of the norm.
"Now, down to business," Vegeta grunted. He himself hadn't eaten, but had made several remarks about Goku's admittedly disgusting dining habits and what had sounded suspiciously like a crack at her cooking. Bulma leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. Now this was what she had been waiting to hear.
"As Kakarotto said earlier, we are from about fifteen years in the future, perhaps a bit less," the prince began. "We have come back to this time to destroy a being that goes by the name of Sanzoku. He is what is known as an Imitari, a nearly extinct alien race with the ability to steal energy and abilities from their opponents. At some point, Sanzoku has gained the ability to travel in time, and has come from the future with intent to kill both Kakarotto and myself-"
"Which isn't really that unusual," Goku interjected. "And usually, we wouldn't be too worried..."
"But he isn't going after us as our present – to you, future – selves. He's decided-"
"To target you both as you are in this time," Bulma finished, glad she understood at least some of what was going on.
"Bingo," Goku said, all playfulness gone from his face. "We're too strong for him the way we are, so he came back to this time, when we were much, much weaker."
"But why does he want to kill you, Goku?"
"Who doesn't want to kill Kakarotto for one reason or another?" Vegeta said, rolling his eyes slightly. Bulma tensed but said nothing. Vegeta went on. "In this case, he wants to obliterate the entire saiyajin race, which is, again, not strange in itself. But Sanzoku... he may have found a way to do it. With our past selves out of the way, it will automatically prevent the existence of any children either of us may father, and killing Kakarotto's eldest brat will be no hard task here. Thus the entire saiyajin race is gone, with three quick kills, rather than several difficult ones." Vegeta finished.
"And here's where it gets complicated." Goku looked like his brain was hurting just mentioning it.
"Where what gets complicated?" Bulma asked curiously. "It sounds pretty simple to me. Find this Sanzoku guy, kill him, and go home happy."
"Baka onna, just by coming here we've created a separate reality," Vegeta snapped. "This never happened in our world. Sanzoku didn't exist. But he can do more than travel through time, he can tie worlds together. If he succeeds, he can use his own life force to bind all realities together at that one instant in time, so that no saiyajin exists anywhere, in any universe."
"And that would be, well... bad," Goku finished.
"I see." Bulma paused and frowned. "Hang on, rewind a minute... Did you say Goku's oldest child? You mean he's going to have more!" Her eyes lit up. She loved children, and sweet little Gohan would make such a good big brother…
Vegeta grimaced at his own slip and Goku smirked. "Who's saying things they're not supposed to now?"
"Damare yo, baka."
Goku just grinned. Bulma frowned at the continued ease between the two enemies. "You never told me, why are you working with Vegeta, Son-kun?"
"Oh! Right," Goku laughed again. "You know, I probably shouldn't say anything ("Then don't," Vegeta muttered under his breath.), but he's... kind of on our side now." Another grin.
Bulma's eyes widened. Vegeta? One of the good guys? She could hardly imagine him hanging around Capsule Corp. or at Master Roshi's with the other guys. But the way Goku said it... She could agree that this Vegeta was somehow different from the one from her time, but that didn't mean she was suddenly going to be all buddy-buddy with him.
"I'm not in your little group, Kakarotto," Vegeta growled, scowling. "You know perfectly well that I only stick around for my own interests, not to play hero."
"Whatever, Vegeta." Goku waved him off, which only irritated the shorter man further. "Anyway, let's get going. We need to find our past selves before Sanzoku gets to them."
"Along with the Dragonballs," Vegeta reminded his somewhat forgetful companion.
"What? Why?" Bulma asked sharply, instantly on the defensive. No matter what this future Goku said, she wasn't going to believe that Vegeta was good until she saw it for herself.
"Sanzoku knows we followed him," Vegeta enunciated each word slowly and clearly. Bulma bristled. "And he knows that if we find him, he's as good as dead. So chances are he'll be searching for the Dragonballs as well. If he gets his hands on them and makes a wish, were as good as beaten, onna."
"Ok, first off, the name's Bulma, and I expect to be called by it," Bulma began, earning a chuckle from Goku and a snort from Vegeta. "I can see your point about the Dragonballs, but as long as we have this one," Bulma waved a hand at the Dragonball next to her, "he can't call the dragon, so I don't really see the big hurry in getting them. Secondly, I'm not deaf, I'm not dumb, and I'm not four years old, so quit talking to me like I'm an idiot. And one more thing: if you're both going somewhere, you're taking me with you."
"Absolutely not," Vegeta said firmly. Bulma was a bit taken aback by his apparent concern for her safety, but that feeling was rapidly replaced with irritation as he finished his statement. "Having you in the way will only slow us down."
Vegeta or not, nobody said that to her! Goku seemed to sense that all hell was about to break loose, because he quickly intervened.
"Hey, hang on Bulma!" the taller saiyajin said, laying a restraining hand on her arm. "Maybe he's right. We need this taken care of as soon as possible, and-"
"Goku!" Bulma screeched and whirled on her friend. "I have been through absolute HELL in this place, and I deserve to at least see what's going on! You are taking me with you whether you want to or not!"
Vegeta's dark eyes hardened to a furious glare. "Fine then," he bit out, "let her get herself killed if she wants to that badly." He stalked to the door.
"Vegeta..." Goku began worriedly.
"Let's just go, Kakarotto. If you're coming, hurry up, onna."
"Don't call me that!"
To Be Continued...
Notes: All right, revamped part #1. It changed a lot more than part #2. Also, I am going to be mixing many of the English and Japanese names (ie; Furiza instead of Frieza, but Bulma instead of Buruma), simply because I like some spellings better than others. Along this note, I won't be using very much Japanese in this fic at all, primarily because I am not fluent in the language. The only times I'll be using it is when a word doesn't translate well into English, or when I decide to switch back and forth between translations (ie; I'm using both 'idiot' and 'baka' in the fic). It really just has to do with the "feel" of the words in the sentence. *shrugs*