Things have settled down since future trunks and Mai returned home. It seems so long ago. It has only been about a year.
I am training in the GR. My wife has just layered the already complex computer system with our combined creation. A holosim. It takes holographic simulation to a level undiscovered. Not only are the holograms of substance, but they adapt to the users thoughts and knowledge.
So when I turn the holosim on and breathe the words Planet Vegeta at a near whisper, the machine generates my planet with all the information from Friezas mainframe. The first image is nearly perfect. As I look over the landscape though, I remember subtle differences. But before I can vocalize them, the computer steals away my thoughts and perfects itself.
Suddenly I am standing on the top of the Ozzaru mountains. Where my father took me for my first blooding. I curse myself as the memory unfolds inside my head. And suddenly, standing a still staggering height above me is my King. My father, exactly as I remember him. His regal armor and blood red cape. The symbol of our house branded into his chest plate and an all too familiar smirk on his mustached face. The look in his eyes is one of remarkable pride.
This is the look he gave me after my first blooding. When I had hunted down the most dangerous creature our planet had to offer. A mountain cat known as Grerock, translating to poison fang in my mother tongue. I had used no ki, had not flown. Used only the Superior strength of my trained body and my battle hardened technique. I killed it on my first try with only a small gash from its claws on my forearm to show for it. My father had shown me how to clean the animal and we sat around a fire I had built to eat from it. When every bone had been licked clean, and I finished drinking the still warm blood from its heart, I saw this same look of pride from my father. I still have the poison sacks hidden away somewhere as a trophy for my catch.
Damn Bulma and her ingenious design. The flutter of his cape in the wind, the strong musky scent of him surrounds me. I reach out to touch him but hesitate. A pang in my chest reminds me that this is not real. This man standing before me, pride shinning through his eyes, he is long dead and quite nearly forgotten.
"Disengage" I manage to growl out. My father frowns disapprovingly before he and my home planet both disappear before my eyes for a second time. My head feels dizzy, swimming with long repressed emotion and a bitterness I had though long dead. I am a whirlwind of emotion. So much so that when a new yet familiar ki appears suddenly near me I almost do not notice.
I take in a much needed breath and focus as I expend it. Mai. Her ki is radiating stress and fear in waves I am not used to feeling from any mere human. I shut the GR down and with what little composure I have left, quickly make my way towards her. As I exit the familiar sound of the time machine fills my senses. So does the scent of her blood. Dread threatens to fill my gut as I shove it down and rush towards her. I cannot sense my future son and the dread threatens it's way back up.
As I approach the open time machine I see her. She is splayed across the console unconscious and the heavy iron scent causes me to worry if she is even still alive. But I feel her ki, pulsing ever so lowly. The sound of heavy steps fill my ears and I shout to my son, still young and unknowing. "Trunks, get your mother! We need a senzu now!"
I scoop Mai into my arms gently as I would Bulma, and follow my son into the compound. Trunks must have known it was Mai as well, for his sense of urgency quickly produces Bulma before me. "We are out of senzu, quick to the Regen tanks!" She shouts worry ever present in her voice.
Suddenly I am starring at her prone form floating in the glowing blue liquid of the Regen tank. My wife used a senzu bean to create an even more flawless liquid compound then what Frieza's best scientist could come up with. I am lost in myself as I hear Bulma and young trunks speaking behind me.
My eyes locked onto the source of bleeding distress in the young woman before me. Two large puncture wounds on her neck, still red and raised despite the magic of the tanks serum. A wound I know, the tank cannot remove. It will scar over but always remain. I know now who the culprit is who has left my daughter in law near death. I now know why her ki was so remarkable even unconscious. The wound is a Saiyan mating mark. What has my son done...