The Dragon of the Seas
Here's a story that has been on the back of my mind for some time, though it's taken me some time to put it into action. This chapter is somewhat of a pilot and will determine whether I am to continue writing it or not based upon the response of my readers so here's to hoping for this story's successful start.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Dragon Ball Z or One Piece franchises. All rights belong to their respective owners.
Rated M for caution.
XxX
Chapter 0 (Prologue): To Begin Anew
The screams of his son wailed in his ears. The pain filled cries echoed, increasing in volume the more pressure his tormentor applied. Goku's clenched fists shook with barely suppressed rage as he was forced to watch helplessly as the monster known as Bojack mercilessly squeezed the life out of his son, Gohan; taking sick pleasure in his victim's bones creaking from the intensive strain they were put under.
Near him Bojack's cronies laughed at Gohan's expense, watching the spectacle with obvious amusement. All of the other z-fighters lay unconscious amongst the destroyed rubble that was once an elaborate city prop. Each of them had fought valiantly, but in the end they could not stand up against Bojack's terrifying strength that had surpassed even Cell's. One by one they had fallen, leaving only Gohan, Earth's last bastion of hope to combat against the alien tyrant alone.
Bojack's scarred face twisted into a cruel smirk at the sight of Gohan coughing blood, pushing Goku past his limit. King Kai saw the resolution in his former student's eyes and knew what the pureblooded saiyan was about to commit.
"My son needs my help!" Placing both his index and middle finger to the center of his forehead, Goku locked onto the fading energy signal of his son. Ignoring King Kai's warnings and pleas, Goku vanished like a whisper in the wind.
XxX
Bojack felt a head twisting sense of vertigo. One moment he was enjoying the cries of pain and anguish exuding from the halfblooded-saiyan, which sounded like music to his elfish ears, and then the next he found himself sprawling face first into the next building. For a brief moment he felt a glimmer of a presence, one that was eerily familiar.
Whatever it was it appeared to be transparent, yet it felt real enough to give him a clean right hook to his cheek. An impossible thought flew through his mind on who could've been the culprit.
"Was that…Goku?" he asked more to himself than anyone else. It was ludicrous; impossible. As far as he knew, Goku had died the day he had broken the seal that had confined him and his gang for centuries. It couldn't have possibly been Goku, yet his inner instincts told him that it couldn't have been anyone else but him. Within seconds his cronies were by his side, looking as equally perplexed as he was.
Shrugging their concerns off, Bojack stood to his full towering height, shaking the rubble off of himself. The unfamiliar taste of copper filled his mouth. His scarred face twisted in anger before spitting the blood that had accumulated in his mouth. It had been centuries since another had shed his blood. It did not matter whether or not it had been Goku who had saved his half-breed of a son, for soon both he and this world would perish. He smirked viciously as he relished in the multiple scenarios coursing through his mind; none of which were good for Gohan.
XxX
Goku swelled with pride as he witnessed his son, Gohan, once again reveal his true potential and save the Earth for the second time. Bojack had terribly underestimated Gohan and both he and his lackeys had paid dearly for it. Goku wished he could stay longer, but he knew that he was already walking on thin ice, breaking the laws of Other World to help his son.
Preparing for another instant transmission trip back to King Kai's location, Goku was alarmed when he found that for some reason, he could not travel back. Goku couldn't describe it for it felt as though some other power was blocking his connection, preventing him from using instant transmission. After many more unsuccessful attempts Goku finally ceased and was about to contact King Kai when the blue rounded man himself voice spoke to him.
"I'm afraid that will no longer work Goku." King Kai spoke somberly.
"King Kai what's happening? Why can't I get back?" Goku questioned.
"You left, unheeding of my warnings. The dead can't simply ignore the laws of Otherworld without facing the consequences."
Goku stood motionless, fearing exactly what these consequences entailed. Judging by the grave sound of King Kai's voice it couldn't have been good for him. "What exactly are these consequences?"
"There has only been one case such as yours and that was eons ago. Not to mention that it fell under the jurisdiction of South Kai so I don't know the exact details. Poor fellow was never heard from again from what I did hear though. It was rumored that he was banished to another realm, outside the jurisdiction of Otherworld. A fate none too dissimilar to both Bojack and Garlic Junior. Though, it was never confirmed whether or not the rumors were true."
"Isn't there anything you can do King Kai?" Goku asked, increasingly becoming more and more frantic.
The food loving saiyan could almost imagine King Kai shake his head side to side. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for you Goku. The laws of Otherworld were cemented long before even my time. I cannot influence the decision in any way. It's out of my power to do so." King Kai's voice nearly dropped to a whisper, clearly disheartened by the unfortunate turn of events.
Goku stood in silence for what seemed like an eternity, head lowered in deep thought. After finally collecting his thoughts, Goku steeled himself for what was inevitably to come. "I understand King Kai. Just do me one favor would you please?"
King Kai's response was immediate. "Of course my boy, anything for you."
Goku paused with hesitance, though only momentarily. "Tell all my friends and family that I love them deeply and make sure Gohan doesn't blame himself for this. He already feels that he is to blame for my death. I don't want this to add on to that guilt. Also, make sure that he knows for certain that I am proud of him no matter what. As for Chi-Chi; tell her that I love her with all my heart and that I am sorry."
King Kai was silent for some few moments before sighing heavily. "I will relay to them everything that you have stated Goku; I promise." Goku felt that there was so much more he had to say, but he just didn't know what. He always had a hard time conveying his thoughts into words.
"And King Kai?" Goku called, knowing this may be the last conversation he would have with his old master.
"Yes Goku?"
"It was honor to know you. Thanks for everything."
Goku could hear the muffled sounds of sniffles on the other end. "…The honor was mine my dear boy." And with those last parting words, the connection between the two ended.
Casting one last glance towards his now unconscious son, Goku managed a sad smile. "Knowing that you're here, I can leave with full confidence that you'll be able to protect the Earth from any future crisis. You've made me so proud." Goku paused, allowing a single tear to fall from his eyes. Images of the past flashed before his eyes. All of the wonderful memories he cherished deeply, both the good and bad. "…Goodbye, my son."
Goku's vision began to fade, as did his translucent-like body. Soon, he finally succumbed to the darkness that enshrouded him. His future was filled with uncertainty, but his thoughts lay elsewhere; clinging onto fond memories.
XxX
In an abrupt start, Goku jerked himself awake, heart hammering in his chest. His breathe labored and face perspiring, Goku took several long minutes to collect his himself. His eyes drifted towards his arms, which then followed to touch his face, as if testing if it was truly real or not. When his hands met the unmistakable skin that was his face, he realized that he wasn't somehow dreaming; he was indeed alive, or had at the least still retained his physical body.
Looking around, he noticed that he was covered by a white blanket, sitting on a full sized bed, positioned inside a small square-shaped brick walled room. Near him lay another bed in similar design, holding a single occupant. A young man with a small scar under his right eye, and wrapped in medical bandages that covered what Goku presumed were injuries. Another observation that Goku noticed was that the boy was stripped of any clothing, leaving him bare naked. It took Goku a moment to realize that he too was left nude and scarce of any clothing. To the Saiyan's dismay, his favorite orange-blue gi was gone.
Goku was broken from his sullen mood; his sensitive hearing only now had picked up on the numerous hushed whispers off to his side. Turning in the direction of the sound, Goku was surprised to see a large collection of women peering through the opposite side of steel bars that separated them from Goku. Goku was momentarily at a loss for words, as his eyes took in the appearance of the females before him.
Some were of average height, while others were unnaturally tall and bulky for normal human females. They all wore a similar state of attire, that being tribal clothing and animal pelts that covered only their more private areas, leaving much of their skin bare. A few of them wore long white capes on their backs that reached to their lower back and ankles. Every one of them had live snakes of varying colors that coiled around their bodies from their necks, seemingly tamed or domesticated. They were an odd sight to be sure, but in comparison to the individuals Goku had met during his time on Earth, their appearance didn't faze him in the least.
Their whispered conversations ended abruptly at the sudden loud yawning originating from the young boy on the other bed near Goku. Goku saw the boy stifle another yawn and then scratch his untamed black hair with one hand, while the other rubbed his tired eyes. The conversation between the women picked up again, loud enough for Goku to hear some snippets of their conversation.
"They certainly had a long sleep."
"Did you hear the rumors? Apparently, the skinny one ate while asleep."
"So what do men eat anyway? Raw meat?"
"Such ruggedly unusual beasts…"
"Look at them! They have no chest at all!"
Still drowsy, the boy crawled out of the sheets, murmuring softly. "What's all that racket…?"
"AHH! IT SPOKE!" one of the women from the crowd shouted, finger pointed at the boy.
The young boy either ignored the women's presence or he simply hadn't noticed them. He shook his head left and right, confusion obviously displayed on his face. Again, he spoke to aloud to himself, voicing his thoughts. "Huh? Where am I? What was I doing again?" Suddenly, a rush of memories came flooding through the rubber boy's mind. He remembered his crew on Sabaody Archipelago, followed by the traumatic battle with the shichibukai, Bartholomew Kuma.
One of the women seemed to grow frustrated as she strained to hear what the young man was saying over her fellow females' chatter. "SSSHH! Everyone it's saying something, quiet." She chastised.
Goku watched as the boy murmured some more incoherent words to himself, before his eyes wandered around the room, as though in search of something. His eyes lit up when he seemingly had found what he was looking for. "Ahh! There it is!" To both Goku and the women's surprise, the lanky boy's arm stretched to impossible lengths, passing through the room's vertical bars and snatching an old straw hat from the head of an unsuspecting female before receding back to its normal length. More than a few of the women staggered back in surprise.
A female with neck length hair held back to the side by a hairpin began to furiously scribble something into a notepad before questioning the boy. "Hey, what's your name?" Her fellow females silently waited for the boy to reply, eager to hear him speak more.
The boy stared at them with a rather blank expression before replying. "Huh? I'm Luffy." Luffy's eyes drifted around in an almost distracted manner before he looked down and shouted with a start, "Ah, I'm naked!"
Goku blinked as the whole crowd of woman gave Luffy an incredulous look. Some were more vocal and called out the straw-hat boy on how dense he was. Luffy shivered, now conscious of the fact that he had no clothing. But oddly enough he didn't seem all that bothered by the fact that a large crowd of females were openly staring at his nude form with strangely rapt interest. The boy didn't even bother to hide his modesty, but rather continued to converse with the tribal females in a rather casual manner.
"It's cold. What happened to my clothes?"
The females seemed to ignore his question, as one of them; a blonde haired female with neck length hair, posed a question of her own. She crouched in front of the metal bars, pointing in the general direction of Luffy's lower region. "Um, before you put on clothes, what do you have inside those sacks between your legs?"
Luffy crossed his arms over his chest and looked back down at his package, eyebrows raised in confusion. "You dunno know what this is?" He looked at the group of tribal women only to find a mix of curious and befuddled expressions. "You people are weird. These are my family jewels!" Luffy exclaimed in an exasperated manner. How could these women not know what these were? It should have been obvious, even to one such as himself.
"Family…jewels?" The women repeated the word over and over, unknowing of its true meaning. A few in the back of the crowd craned over the blonde woman to get a better look at the apparent phenomenon that was Luffy's manhood. Goku meanwhile, just observed the strange situation, trying to make head or tails of everything. These women acted like they had never seen a male before in their life.
"What do you mean by "family jewels"? " The blonde, apparently known as Marguerite pressed.
Luffy put both hands on his waist, allowing the women to get a better look. "Well, they're jewels of course!" He proudly proclaimed without a hint of shame and a huge grin on his face. The women stared open mouthed at the prospect that objects before them were so valuable.
Marguerite was the first to get out of her shock. "Hey, can you take those family jewels off and show them to us?" she pleaded with such innocence. Her fellow females eagerly held the same sentiment and held their palms out expectantly.
Goku, at this point couldn't hold it in any longer and guffawed out loud at the spectacle before him. He laughed so hard that his stomach had started to hurt. Luffy, on the other hand, didn't think it so funny and denied them rather vehemently.
Marguerite and the other women looked somewhat disappointed but handed Luffy his clothes, nonetheless. "Here you go. Your old ones were tattered so we made new ones in the same shape." Luffy graciously took the offered clothes and thanked them for their generosity.
The other female with the hair pin ushered Goku over. Goku obliged and to his delight she had his orange gi. "We found you floating unconscious up the nearby river stream. Your clothes got all wet so we dried them for you."
"Ah, thanks. I was wondering where it had go…ne" Goku trailed off once he found that his favorite uniform had been altered. Along the shoulder lines and across the waist were neatly woven flower petal patterns. Goku held his gi with shaking hands as he sulked about the alterations done to them. Luffy wasn't doing much better as his clothes also had flowering patterns stitched into the fabric.
Marguerite smiled kindly at them, confusing their sullen expressions with one of pure joy. "I put some sexy flower-frills on them."
Luffy though, wasn't having any that. His sulking mood quickly turned furious as he slammed his hand against the metal wall and yelled in outrage. "AHH! QUIT SCREWING WITH ME! I'M A MAN, YOU KNOW!"
A tribal woman with dark black hair tied firmly in a long ponytail and strong cheekbones narrowed her sharp eyes before jumping backwards a good distance away from the prison bars. Her fellow females immediately followed, brandishing weapons in Goku and Luffy's direction. The snakes that were curled around their bodies had taken the shape of bows. It was clear to Goku that the woman with the ponytail and sharply defined cheeks was the apparent leader of the group; at least with the way she carried herself and took command.
"You see," the woman began, voice full of suspicion and contempt for the men she had her arrow trained on. "This is man's true nature; ferocious. No better than an enraged beast. You show them an act of kindness and in return they lash out in anger at you." Her fellow female warriors murmured unanimously in agreement, swayed by their leader's words.
"As I thought," she continued. "Our kind simply cannot coexist." Meanwhile, Goku watched the events unfold before him with a puzzled expression. The saiyan was admittedly confused by the sudden turn of events. He'd presumed the tribal looking women to be rather nice, especially since they took him in and cleaned his uniform for him. Goku's inner musings blocked out most of the conversations taking place between Luffy and the Amazons but the spiky haired martial artists managed to catch a few things such as the fact that he was currently on an island inhabited by only females and that this Hebihime-sama was its undisputed queen or ruler.
Before Goku could give his own input to perhaps diffuse the tense situation, the leader of the group, whose name was apparently Kikyou ordered her warriors to fire. Both Goku and Luffy jumped on instinct, crashing through the stone ceiling, narrowly avoiding the speeding rush of arrows that flooded into the cell, plowing easily through the steel bars that once held Goku and Luffy. Goku openly gawked at the amount of power that the Amazonian's arrows packed.
Now Goku wasn't by any means the most intelligent man, but even he was took note that the women's arrows contained far more force than any normal arrow should've contained. Though, there was something of interest that the saiyan noticed about the tribal women and their weapon of choice. All of the women held varying power levels that were somewhat impressive, but not unusual given that these women were all trained warriors. It was the odd energy that they embedded into their arrows that truly befuddled Goku. In all his years, the experienced saiyan had never bore witness to the strange energy that the female warriors possessed. The energy itself felt reserved yet surprisingly powerful and versatile. The energy wrapped around the arrows played a similar effect to how Future Trunks shrouded his own energy or ki into his sword to increase its durability and overall performance as a blade.
On any other occasion, Goku would've felt the incredible urge and excitement at the prospect of fighting new opponents, especially with the odd and new energy he sensed from the warriors, but those urges were quelled by the fact that these people had helped Goku. And Goku could feel that a least a few of the women were somewhat reluctant to fight him as well. A fight between two begrudging participants took all the fun and excitement out of a battle.
Goku landed with a soft thud onto the tiled roof, just as Luffy did. The boy with the straw hat looked just as bewildered as Goku. "Why are you attacking us?!" Goku questioned the Amazon's, only to be forced to dodge more arrows that seared past his face. Luffy made use of his inhuman stretching ability to weave through oncoming arrows at impossible angles.
"Aphelandra!" Kikyou shouted, extracting another arrow from her pouch and lining for another shot.
"Right!" an abnormally tall woman cried as she leaped in front of both Goku and Luffy, arms stretched outwards and blocking their path. Caught by surprise, Goku and Luffy crashed face first into the Amazon's sizable chest, repelling them backwards off their feet. Both of them managed to regain their bearings, landing nimbly on the dirt floor.
Luffy looked amongst the group of Amazonian warriors until his eyes laid upon a specific one. Extending his arm out, the rubber boy ensnared the unsuspecting female around her chest and waist. Making certain that he'd gotten a good hold of the woman, Luffy once again leaped back onto the roof, just as he sidestepped a slash from a warrior's sword. Not knowing what to do, Goku simply followed the stretchable boy and the screaming girl held in his grip. Together, the two men scaled the enormous rocky wall that encased the entire village in.
"Oh Noo! Margaret has been taken!" Aphelandra shrieked, immensely worried for her friend's safety.
Kikyou cursed under her breathe before administering orders to her warriors. "After them! We must capture them before Hebihime-sama returns!" That was enough motivation to jumpstart the band of warriors into action and begin their pursuit of the dreaded men.
Once they'd made it to the apex of the steep wall, Luffy only spared a moments look at the nerve racking height that led to the jungle below, before the scared boy fearlessly jumped off the rocky cliff. The female Amazon screamed her lungs out, face etched in horror at what she anticipated to be her death. Goku hadn't even spared a shred of hesitation as he too leapt off the cliff with reckless abandon. The saiyan let a wide smile crease his visage as he enjoyed the cool air of breeze wash across his form as he free-fell down towards the abyss of the jungle floor; curious as to where this strange turn of events would lead him next.
End…
XxX
I just want to establish a few things for the story. First, I won't make any mention of power levels if only to avoid any misconceptions and possible arguments all together. Another thing is that I will try to keep a nice balance between the two anime, meaning that I may be flexible at times on certain things in the story that involve the characters. For example, many would normally believe Goku to be utterly stronger than even some of the most capable fighters in One Piece (Whitebeard, Admirals, Warlords, etc), but that would be a rather dull story to bring in a character that'll quite literally crush all competition. And no that doesn't mean that I will necessarily under power or strengthen characters in the story.
Any questions pertinent to the story will either be answered via PMs or posted on the end of every chapter depending on the importance of the topic.
I do pride my writing on its quality and interest so if I have made any major mistake, be it grammatical or merely the flow of the story then don't hesitate to notify me. I welcome any constructive criticism that you readers can provide me, though I would rather prefer that no one send me blatant flames or hate mail purely because they believe my story to be foolish in any way shape or manner. At the very least if you don't enjoy my story, then explain in good detail on why that is so.
Reviews are also much appreciated, as they fuel me with inspiration to continue this story.
