Disclaimer: DBZ. Not Mine. Happy?
Old story redone. The first part in the Legend of the Triad Series. At first it will seem like the normal three kids get taken to the DBZ world fic - but its not. From the Kodajin, an ancient rage of mages, to the tale of the War Before Time, this is definetely not your everyday story. Destiny's entwine and three friends find themselves in a journey of heart and soul. Their correct places in the universe will finally be found...
Part I - Rebirth of the Triad
Chapter 1
Yasu Usagi's Shop of Wonders
Boredom wasn't just a state of mind. It was a damned disease. At least that's what Lee Travet thought as he lounged out lengthwise atop his multicolored carpet. The fan rattled noisily above and he considered actually fixing it for a moment, but his lethargy had a stronger hold on him. He wasn't usually like this. He was a hard worker - - well, when it came to things that mattered to him and seemed worthwhile.
Lately, however, Lee had been overcome with a great feeling of nothingness. That there was something else that needed to be done, and somewhere else he needed to be. The problem was that he couldn't think of a thing that that could be. He'd just finished his GED, finally getting the high school education he'd always wanted but could never have due to his family's moving habits. He knew he should be excited, especially because he'd just been accepted into one of the best colleges for technology in his area, but he wasn't.
"What's wrong with you, Lee?" He asked himself, rolling over on his stomach to stare at the chipping paint on his wall. His gaze rose until it hit a picture of three figures, all in comedic positions. The three people were Lisa Moore, Rowena Rhodes, and himself. For a moment he was reminded of the Ginyu force and their dumb poses. He shook his head with a smile, knowing exactly what he needed.
"I'll call Lisa."
OOO
Lisa Moore stared blankly at the television at the end of her bed. Twisted around her fingers was the cord for her game controller. The controller hung mere centimeters off the floor, swinging right and left. The game she'd been playing was paused, but she had a feeling that she'd just end up turning it off completely. "Caught again." She muttered, letting her hand go slack to drop the controller on the floor with a low clank. "Damn it."
Usually getting caught wasn't a big deal to her, but for once she had decided to play her favorite espionage game through without detection. Sometimes she wished she was as stealthy as the main game character was supposed to be. Where was Snake's abilities when you needed them? She sighed, climbed to her feet, then switched Metal Gear Solid off. "Food." She nodded. Snack first, then the guards.
She trudged out into the hall and shuffled downstairs. Even before she entered the kitchen she heard the hum of their oversized refrigerator, underscoring the fact that she was all alone in the house. Her family -- which consisted of an emotionally distant Aunt, a workaholic Uncle and a brat of a cousin -- had left her earlier that morning to go run errands. Upon seeing her spread out in front of her PS2 they didn't bother to ask her to come along.
Not that Lisa cared. She liked being left alone, at least by her family. After her mother died and her father split for who knows what destination she'd done everything in her power to escape the pitiful looks from the remaining relatives. Mostly it was her Aunt that got on her nerves, with her small pat on the shoulder and fake smile. The more Aunt Erin tried to make it seem she cared, the more she made it obvious she couldn't give a rat's ass what happened to her sister's daughter.
When Lisa was alone she could think clearly. Without the jumbled emotions and thoughts of the others she could quickly formulate what she needed to analyze. Silence bothered many other people, but she cherished it. Lately she'd needed it more than ever.
Deep inside her a great feeling of discontent was slowly rising. She couldn't explain it, but something was terribly wrong with her world. She knew it was absurd. Her life wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either. Still, the longer she thought about it the more she wanted to say her life wasn't really her life.
Well then, whose life is it?
That wasn't the half of it. For the past two weeks she'd felt like she was being watched. Even when she knew she was alone, and that nobody could possibly be near her, it seemed that eyes were following her every move. Now was no exception.
Lisa's hand paused on the cabinet door a she reached for a glass. Something had fallen in the hall and rolled across the carpet. She hadn't heard anyone come in, so who knocked it over? It wasn't Harley, her cousin's dog. After the incident with the new rug he hadn't been allowed back in the house.
"Hello?" She called. "Aunt Erin? Uncle Warren?"
No answer. There were no sounds at all. Stop it, Lisa. Stop it now. You're driving yourself nuts. No one is here.
Footsteps. Distinct footsteps.
Okay. It officially wasn't funny anymore. Grabbing the closest handy weapon, a heavy vase, she made her way out into the hall, where she half expected to run straight into a knife brandishing serial murderer. She was close.
As she rounded the corner she slammed into the slighter figure of the mystery intruder. With a scream of surprise she swung the vase, but hit nothing. The lock-picking prowler blocked the flying centerpiece with the grace of an experienced fighter warding off an attack and cried out herself, "whoa! Lisa calm down!"
Lisa blinked and lowered her arms. She placed the vase on the hall table. "Rowena?"
"Yeah. What's with the weaponry from the Ming dynasty?" She inquired. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I've just been jumpy lately. I'm by myself. You know how that is."
Yes, Rowena knew exactly how that was. Unlike Lisa, Rowena was left alone ninety percent of the time and had the freedom to do whatever she desired. However, she wondered whether the price of that freedom was worth it. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." Lisa replied, walking into the kitchen. "If I start talking about horned guys or King Yemma check for injuries."
Rowena grinned. Lisa was talking DBZ so she was all right.
OOO
Lee slung his bag over a shoulder and knocked on the door. Both Lisa's Aunt and Uncle's cars were gone when he walked up the driveway, but he knew she'd be home. By the look of the platform shoe print on the welcome mat he deduced that so was Rowena. Good. He needed to talk to them both.
It didn't take long for both girls to poke their noses outside. "Lee!" Lisa slung the door open. She grabbed him in a huge hug and dragged him inside. "I haven't seen you in a month. What's up?"
"Boring at home." He confided, dropping down on the couch. "What are you two doing? Causing trouble as usual I suspect?"
"Nope, no trouble." Lisa said. "We're probably just as bored as you. Believe it or not."
Lee smirked. Not really. He picked up a drawing pad that had been dropped on the side table and started leafing through. A portrait of Lisa's mom here, a fan picture of Piccolo there. In Lee's opinion Lisa was a very talented artist, but she was too judgmental in her works. Just because something wasn't perfect didn't mean that it wasn't worthy of being great. He wondered how someone who was such a perfectionist in some aspects of her life could be so disorderly in others.
He supposed it didn't really matter. He liked disorder and chaos. It kept the universe balanced. Without disorder there would be no order and then life would just suck, now wouldn't it? People who thrived on chaos were just as productive as those who abhorred it. So those like Lisa, who straddled the fence, had a knack for being unpredictable.
"Guys," Rowena interrupted Lee's thoughts, "there's something I wanted to ask you about."
"Yeah." Both Lee and Lisa said at the same time.
Rowena bit her lip, and then finally replied, a smile coming over her face. "Oh never mind, it wasn't important anyway." The other two knew that was a lie, but didn't push it. Rowena would come to them in her own time. "Anyway, do you want to go downtown and hang out? I heard they have some new daggers in at Bishop's."
"All right." Lisa nodded enthusiastically. "Maybe the one I ordered will be in. Lee?"
"I'm up for it. You know me, traveling man." He beamed. The girls rolled their eyes.
"Downtown it is." Lisa stood, grabbing up her keys. "Let me pull my car out of the garage."
OOO
"Yasu Usagi's Shop of Wonders" was a small store sandwiched between two bigger buildings. The way it seemed hastily shoved into place gave it the feel that it didn't belong there. Lisa Moore could have sworn that it had never been there before that day, yet her logic insisted that it had to have been. A building, a whole store, did not just appear out of nowhere. Did it?
The Shop of Wonders was a mix of antiquity and the modern metaphysical. It had everything from "all-seeing crystal balls" and those metal health bracelets that had been all the rage a few years before. Lisa picked her way through an old wooden box of rabbit's feet and extracted a dark green one.
Of course, to some that was all just your run of the mill hoodoo. Lisa found the best, most unique items toward the back. Such as the scorpion bracelet under the protective glass case that looked quite dangerous. When she passed she would have bet everything that it had moved. Items like these were not for the idle shopper. They were for the real customers that knew what they wanted and what they were buying.
She found Rowena in the very rear, gazing at a pair of old-looking dangly earrings the color of blood. With the male nowhere in sight Lisa took this time to speak to her best friend. "So, why'd you really come by today? I know it wasn't just to hang out."
The younger girl looked shocked. "What? What do you mean?" She looked at the other brunette in confusion.
"Come on, Rowe. I know you were planning on redecorating your bedroom today. You weren't really bored, were you?" Lisa asked, and Rowena did not answer. "What's wrong? You've been weird all day. You always buy something at Bishop's but all you did was stare at the swords. Is it… your dad?" The eighteen year old inquired tentatively.
Rowena shook her head. "No. I - - Well, if I told you you'd think I was paranoid." Lisa gave her a look. "Okay, Okay, maybe not. Here it is. For a while now I feel like I'm always being watched, like there's someone peering at me from some unseen place. It's scary, and… this store, this spot. It feels the strongest."
Lisa's deep emerald eyes slowly widened; Rowe had just described the exact same feelings she had. "I know, me too. Eerie. What do you think it is?"
"I don't know, but it's affected all of us." Lee stepped from behind a bookcase, startling the two girls. "Come on. I wanna show you something."
OOO
They were exquisite. Lisa gaped at them. Three pendants perfectly crafted and finely detailed. The first was a sword that had a dull silver blade and a darker silver hilt with a dark red stone placed in the center where all the extensions met. Inside the stone in black writing was a symbol from an unrecognizable alphabet. If Lisa hadn't been so awed she might have commented how alien it looked.
The second pendant was a shield with an emerald stone and yet another strange symbol inside. From the stone there were alternating bands of silver and dark green. The chain was short and made of small silver balls.
The last pendant was what most people would recognize as a pentacle. It was made of silver and deep violet with a shiny, almost glowing, clear stone in the center. It gave almost a prism effect, reflecting small pinpoints of different colors when tilted. It's chain was the frailest of the three, elegant and thin, as if it belonged to a princess.
"Wow." Rowena exclaimed, her fingers immediately drawn to the shield charm. "They're brilliant!"
"So you like them, little lady?" Asked a voice from behind.
The three teenagers turned to see an aging man with glasses standing there. This must be the owner of the shop. His smile was warm, but Lisa couldn't help but think there wasn't something more in that grin. It was like he knew something they didn't.
"Yeah." Rowena said. "How much are they?"
"For the three of you, free."
They all gasped. "No, we couldn't." Lisa took Rowena's hand and pulled her away. "We're just browsing."
"I don't mean any harm, Miss Moore." He said. "Please. Look closer at the Magician's Star."
Magician's Star? Her gaze turned to the last pendant. She picked it up and held it and was surprised when a sudden feeling of possession struck her. It felt like this amulet belonged to her somehow. "How do you know my name?"
"This is a small town. I know people." Mr. Usaji said, walking up to them. "Young man, why don't you go ahead and try on that sword. It seems to fit a warrior's spirit such as yourself."
Lee usually didn't trust people he just met, but there was something honest about this strange gentleman. He raised the Sword Pendant from its box and slipped it around his neck. He felt warm, and in a way stronger than before he put it on. He looked quizzically at the older man.
"Lee? Lisa?" Rowena frowned. The two seemed to be mesmerized, lost in the power of their pendants. "What's happening to them?" This seemed like a dream, something that would only happen in the movies. Were her friends being possessed by mere jewelry?
"Miss Rhodes, don't look at me with such suspicion. Ruri would have never done so."
"Ruri? Who's Ruri?" But as the question passed her lips she knew the name was familiar.
"Put on the last pendant, child, and see."
Rowena was aware that if she did as Mr. Usaji asked that something big would happen. Whether it was good or bad she didn't know. However, Rowena wasn't known for thinking things through and going the easy route. This sounded like adventure, and she was for it.
Without another thought she picked it up and fixed it around her neck. "What now?"
Yasu Usaji smiled.
That was the last thing Rowena saw before she was overcome with such a tremendous pain that she sank to her knees. Blackness edged around her vision. Lee and Lisa seemed to be in the same boat, gripping each other like Armageddon had descended upon them. "What did you do to us?" Rowena demanded, and then fell into darkness.
Her comrades soon followed and the three of them lay still. Yasu watched closely as they dematerialized, vanishing forever from the universe they'd known since birth. Their journey had begun, whether they liked it or not.
What do you think? Kind of boring now? Comments dearly welcomed.
Mizuki-Sama