"APPROACHING PLANET. DESIGNATION: EARTH. PREPARE FOR BATTLE."
The robotic voice of the intercom buzzed loudly in Kakarot's ear. It was an annoying sound, it got inside of his head, bounced around, and it wouldn't stop repeating itself. Through the window, the young Saiyan could see a blue dot. As it got closer, the noise stopped, the buzzing in his head ceased, and all seemed fine. Kakarot was about to fall back asleep when he felt a falling sensation. Eyes open, the pod's window looked orange at the edges. That quickly went to blue, and then a white that hurt his eyes. Through the window, he could now see green on the blue dot, which had overtaken the entire window. The pod was shaking violently, and Kakarot wanted it to stop, so he thrashed against the inside of the pod. It was to no avail, because a minute later, the biggest shake of all happened, though everything stopped , with a whirring sound, the window rose up and out of his view, leaving the sky open for him to see. As Kakarot got his bearings, he began crawling out of the pod, but what he saw next astonished him. He remembered that there was a big person that put him inside the pod, but this one was bigger, and green. Maybe it was here to help him, like the other big people did.
Or yell and make loud noises.
Kakarot launches himself at the tall green person with all his might, and began clawing and hitting every inch of him he could.
"Mr. Popo, can you help me with this?"
Then, a short person was there, blocking Kakarot's every move. It then gave him a chop to the neck, making him go limp as he was stunned.
"Thank you Mr. Popo. He seems quite violent, doesn't he? I suppose another like him may be in that other pod."
Kami, Guardian of Earth, gazed at the stirring child with curiosity. He heard a noise earlier that day, and came out onto the lookout to see the pod the child came in on a smoking crater, and another pod falling further away. The power in this pod, the child, was rather low, though stronger than most humans it's age. The other, however… it surpassed even Piccolo, Kami's evil half. "Mr. Popo, could you take the flying carpet and see who was in the other pod?"
"Yes Kami. Will you be all right with the little one here?"
"I think so, yes. He is violent, but not all that powerful. Be careful when you get there, we don't know what they want. With any luck, they'll be peaceful, though… as the other has some malice in it, I feel this may be a foolish hope."
Foolish as it was, even God needs to hope once in a while.
As Mr. Popo got closer to the power source, he got more and more worried. It seemed to be getting more… stable as he got closer, almost like it was a heavy sleeper waking up in the morning. Materializing in front of the landing site, he found another of the pods. It opened, revealing a boy with hair that looked like fire. He was still half-asleep, but his power… it was enormous. He had a tail, just like the other child, and he had some sort of armor on, as well as some sort of eyepiece on his face.. He crawled out of the pod, becoming fully awake, and stood up with his tail tiredly swishing around behind him. Then, he seemed to straighten himself out.
"You! What are you doing here? Where's the third-class?" The boy was suddenly angry, panicked, though he was trying to hide it.
"If you mean the child in the other pod, I will take you to him. That said… I will ask if you that you please don't kill any citizens of this planet." Mr. Popo was a bit terrified, because this being was strong enough that he would have much trouble even managing to incapacitate him, much less defeat him.
"Hmph. I'll bend to your request… for now. Take me to him."
"O-of course. If you wish to see him, simply stand on the carpet." Now that he was awake, Popo could easily see that he may very well attempt to conquer the Earth. With his power, it would likely be easy. If he couldn't find a way to convince him, and soon… well, if he decided to attack, the only possibly way of defeating him might be to get Kami to fuse back with Piccolo, and that was not what Popo wanted to think about right now.
Vegeta, rather surprisingly, complied. Both of them on the carpet, Popo had it fly back to the lookout, the rest of the world zooming by in seconds.
When they returned, they found Kami staring down the child, who now had some scrapes and had given up attacking him. When Vegeta came into sight, Kakarot seemed to gravitate toward him, running on all fours the best he could to hide behind the prince's legs.
"Feh. It seems that even the weaklings on this planet are too much for you, third-class. Now that I've found you, we can purge this planet and - and…"
As he thought about it, Vegeta's memories of what happened when he left resurfaced in a rush. He collapsed on the lookout's floor on his knees, shaking, cradling his head, the painful memories overtaking him.
"No… Planet Vegeta… Father… FRIEZA! Damn him, damn father's punishment, DAMN THOSE NATIVES, AND DAMN FRIEZA, AND THE ARCOSIANS, AND HIS POWER, AND…and… damn my… damn my weakness, damn my failures, damn everything! They're all gone… because I was a failure…" Vegeta ended in a quiet, hard to hear whisper, no longer shaking, giving the image of a broken man. Yet, he was just a boy.
Popo and Kami stared at him, a mixture of pity and apprehensiveness, not knowing what he might do in his anger.
Mr. Popo, be on your guard. What I'm about to do may endanger the Earth. Bracing himself, Kami cautiously took a step forward. "Excuse me, but… you said that you were…"
How should I say this…
"... Er, that you failed something because of…"
Not weakness, how about…
"... The strength of a being you fought, yes?"
Now awaiting the consequences, he hoped he hadn't insulted him.
"..."
Mr. Popo, go inside and look for a rice cooker.
Before he could, Vegeta gave a response, barely looking up at him.
"...Yes…"
"Hm. Well, if you wish… I could attempt to train you. At the very least, I could teach you about the various rooms here. Before you refuse, this lookout is an ancient place. The magic inside may help or utterly destroy you. It's your choice."
A minute passed by. Then two. The child grew bored, and was wandering about.
Finally, after what seemed like an hour to the anxious guardian of Earth, he said something that would cause a great change for everyone, a total shift of the timeline from what it could have gone back to.
"Fine. I'll accept your training. You may as well train the third-class, too."
Kami was relieved, but still the seed of worry was planted in his mind. This seems too… submissive, compared to his earlier outburst. "As you wish. There is only one rule that I ask you follow."
"And what's that? If your training is sufficient, then you needn't worry about me killing you. Yet."
The malice he projected, while calm, was not a good sign. Kami needed to temper it, try to make him less… evil before it was too late. "I only ask that you refrain from killing any of this planet's inhabitants, barring those who are evil or have committed such." Thinking fast, he added, "I doubt they're a threat to you anyway. Your power is better used up here than do senseless slaughter." Good, let's see if that got to him.
"Hmph."
For a second, it seemed he would refuse. I dearly hope he accepts...
"Fine, I will try to refrain from executing them. Now, when do we start?"
Gohan, student of the legendary Master Roshi, woke up early. He chopped firewood, ate breakfast, and went for a morning walk, looking at the birds, monkeys, plants, and the rising sun along his way. While he was out, he saw the oddest thing; far away, on the distant horizon, he could make out two streaks across the sky, somewhat silhouetted against the rising sun.
"Hm. I wonder what that could be." Wasting no time dwelling on it, he continued his walk. I'm sure that if it's important, I'll find out about it soon enough.
Alright, another one done. I surprised myself here. School's been annoying, by which I mean staying up till 11:00 doing homework. This doesn't bode well for me, because I require more sleep than 7 hours to start functioning. And today was a BITCH. It seemed like it was going so well, but then my cello broke. However, they sealed the front on, it wasn't meant to last too long. Oh well, my problem. At least there's the weekend. This one was shorter than the last, so I may try and remedy that later down the line.
On another note, if the people who read this (who probably number very few) want me to do a QnA with reviews that this story gets, I could. It's a matter if any of you want it. To Pie 555, thanks for the review! I put up a cover picture like you suggested, I probably should have done so sooner. On that note, I couldn't find any pictures of Goku/Kakarot and Vegeta together other than the one I tried to put up, mainly because I can't draw myself. I know it has Goku with his turtle gi instead of Saiyan armor, but like I said, I couldn't find any other ones. I'll try to post something roughly once a week, though that may not be possible.
