Disclaimer: All recognizable content is the property of Toei Animation, Toriyama, etc, etc. This is a profitless venture, simply artistic in nature, I claim no ownership nor property of anything within and seek no material gains. Not mine.
Chapter 3
As it turned out, what Oshar was so intent on showing them was a memorial. It was not a normal one and certainly not state sponsored. After leading them to a park at the edge of the city, the rebellious brothers dug up and pulled open a hatch buried in a seemingly innocuous patch of dirt. There was little risk to any of them from a simple fall, but Goten still used the ladder on his way down into what he was instantly aware was a sewer. After a short and unpleasant walk, they came to a stretch of sewer where, by the light of Oshar's ki-ball they witnessed a sign of what Oshar called "Vegeta's greatest crime." As Oshar recalled the days after victory over the Tuffle government, with the help of several Tuffle rebels who were sympathetic to their struggle, Goten for once paid him very indirect attention and simply read the graffiti across the wall while Trunks listened. Names were scrawled across every inch of the tunnel, names of Tuffle friends and comrades who King Vegeta had ordered killed. The walls bore various lamentations for these people and, Goten saw with some worry, confessions.
Mira was starving, I'm sorry, Kar, was written hastily in something that Goten thought resembled dried blood. Not far from it, I've killed three and given the rations away. I don't deserve them but no children deserve that death, and, distressingly, I've fed Tuffles with the blood of their parents still on my hands.
This is what we have become, slaughtering civilians who bare no guilt.
My neighbor killed thirteen of his own to protect my son. I cut his head from his body in front of his.
I took the children first. If something greater watches, they did not suffer.
My last meal was drowned in blood.
I'm taking someone with me when I go.
The confessions and names stretched out of sight into the distant darkness and Goten decided that finding out just how far this monument reached would not be a good idea. Even having just completed a meal, Goten felt sick to his stomach as he returned to hear Oshar end his story with a supposition that there could not be more than a hundred Tuffles from the city left alive. "The Defense Forces would not have allowed the rationing to stop until their duties were done. In those days the rebellion was a joke. If it weren't for-" Oshar stopped mid sentence and cleared his throat. Goten observed his face, observed a brief flash of outright guilt and then let it go.
Oshar and Iskar lead them back up to the surface and left them there, at the entrance without any significant sign of a goodbye. The thing was, by the time that they left, Goten had had many chances to read his friend's face and he knew very well what the two half-Saiyans were going to do. Whether Trunks had ignored the monument in exchange for Oshar's story or not, Goten wasn't sure but across every inch of his friend's face lay every emotion pouring through his own heart, making his body shake and his normally iron stomach weak. There was no smile on Trunks' face when his lips tightened and eyes narrowed but an ounce of his hardheaded determination was all Goten needed to see to place his hand on his friend's shoulder and speak both of their minds.
"Let's go talk to Ewa and Pitra," he said. In this way, Goten and Trunks became residents of Vegeta's capital city, Lure on the very same day the war began in earnest. It took several hours for Oshar to discover that they returned to the city and by that time the next morning's sun was rising. From him, they learned that the Defense Forces were in control of a fourth of the city in progressively well-defended perimeters set up centered around the palace. Combat, so far, was focused on obtaining control over key parts of the city outside of those boundaries. During the first day of fighting three main battles were fought resulting in the rebels capturing a water purification plant in the city and setting up some rudimentary defense. Unfortunately, the other two chosen battles had ended in the deaths of several hundred people.
"It's sad, yes," Oshar said, as Trunks's face shifted to a stony mask. "But the honest truth is that we only have so many blasters and while a direct energy blast would be stronger, it will drain a man far, far quicker than to channel it through a weapon. For warfare, endurance can sometimes make all of the difference and the Defense Forces hold several important strategic positions. All they need to do is tire us out. It has been decided to assess the damage to our forces, shore up defenses around our own lines and, then, to meet their forces at one of the outer military armories." That day was the last for several that they saw Oshar, who did not look as shaken by their losses as Trunks did or Goten felt.
Goten and Trunks, for their part, spent their time in the room above the restaurant where they were to lay low. This was important because, as Ewa said, all Saiyans hunger, even the enemy. Defense Forces frequented the restaurant, not out of any favoritism but because most of the other civilians had long since left the city or gone into hiding and that included those in food preparation. Goten was given to understand that Ewa and Pitra ran one of seven remaining places that prepared and served food, much less drink. Some days, as they sat in silence and attempted to avoid discovery, Goten could read his friend from across the small quarters they shared. Trunks was clearly conflicted about their silence and about not stepping in whenever things got loud or tense downstairs, which they seemed to during each of the four meal periods in a Saiyan's day.
The worst was at night, when the Earthlings were attempting to sleep but could hear people screaming and roaring at each other down below. How many times a day they heard someone accuse (however correctly) Ewa and Pitra of working with the rebels, Goten stopped counting. It seemed that every guard or soldier and his or her brother had an opinion on the best way to handle the rapidly escalating rebellion and none of them were very positive. Goten came to learn that Saiyan expletives were neither inventive nor particularly subtle. Though, perhaps that unkind thought was a result of being woken in the middle of the night by a loud crash and a man screaming, "GET HIM IN THE FUCK-BOX!" This unkind imagery aside, Ewa and Pitra reported very little meaningful damage or mess to clean up and often allowed Goten and Trunks to assist without asking motivation or offering explanation when one of them knelt to scrub blood from the wooden floor.
As the days began to pass, Goten found himself worrying less about the battles in the world outside and more about what might happen if those tails kept firmly wrapped around their benefactors' waists were to ever be discovered as a fake. Goten had come to gather that a tailless Saiyan was sneered at by, it seemed, everyone but Oshar. If gossip began to get around, if questions began to ask, how long would it take before their true identities were outed? More to the point, though Goten felt bad for thinking it, if Ewa and Pitra were discovered there would be little doubt that he and Trunks would have to run or risk discovery too. He was not entirely afraid of a small group of people finding them. What he was afraid of, however, was violating Oshar's begrudging trust that they would not effect the political landscape. On their sixth night on Planet Vegeta, Goten and Trunks were in a rare moment of discussion as sleep encroached upon their day.
"I'm not sure how much longer I can stand sitting around and doing nothing. Every day they come in here, break something, threaten Pitra or Ewa and eat without paying and they're already feeding us." Goten understood Trunks's feelings. One could only hear a cry of pain from a friend so many times before the urge to assist that friend began to leave one mighty nettled. "I've been opening the window at night, sometimes. Sometimes I can hear things. Most of it sounds like fighting, a lot of screaming, a lot of explosions and so many blasters, it sounds like thunder." Goten nodded but he did not confess that when Trunks thought he was asleep, he too lay awake listening to the faint sounds of war in the distance (or sometimes not so faint and not so distant.) This was mostly because of his motivation, a simple growing worry for Trunks who, whatever else may have happened recently, was not back to normal, was not behaving very much like himself.
"We promised, though," Goten said, "and besides, what are we going to do? Go try to get into the middle of a fight we know nothing about?"
"We were taught how to fight by Saiyan warriors!" The hissing whisper was the equivalent of a yell from this new, in-hiding Trunks who still sometimes spoke as his father did. "We helped save our planet when we were still being trained by Master Roshi. We are Super Saiyans, probably the two most powerful people on this planet!"
"Do you know how to fight as part of an army?" Goten asked. "I don't. No one ever taught me how to, not Gohan, not dad, not Roshi and definitely not your dad." Though his voice was calm, his words seemed to irritated Trunks, who stood from the mat he slept on and walked over to the covered window. "Look what happened when we first got here, did we help anyone?"
"Iskar wanted to destroy that building and it's gone isn't it?" Goten rose too this time, though he did so as carefully as he chose his response.
"How many people do you think got hurt?" Trunks's face showed that despite his rash behavior, this thought had clearly already occurred to him. "Not even the bad guys, either. Just people who were out there. Between Oshar and them being scared of you, almost everyone got out of the way of the falling but what about those who didn't? What about the people who got hit by pieces of debris. Some of these people aren't much stronger than any person back on Earth. Not all of them are soldiers, not all of them are trained in using their Ki and have no way to protect themselves. How many people do you think got hurt because you blew up that building."
"Are you saying it was my fault?" This time Trunks did not attempt to restrain his anger and Goten did not immediately answer as he waited to hear whether the noise downstairs changed or not. The boisterous crowd below didn't seem to notice a thing but if ever there was a discussion that could drive Trunks to giving away their position in his anger, it would probably be this one. "Are you?" He felt the lump in his own throat when he answered.
"Yes," Goten said. "You lost your head and blew up a building because you were mad. People were probably hurt, some could have died. Don't you wonder why Oshar didn't tell us anything about it?" Goten had not seen Trunks cry since they were still very young but he recognized the signs of grief on his friend's face even in the poor light from the one candle in the room. His first reaction was to try to soften the blow or even try to comfort Trunks but Goten suppressed it immediately. This was the harsh truth that might save Trunks's life. "We're not soldiers, we'll just get in the way and get hurt. Or worse, we'll hurt other people. If you see one big bad guy you think we have to fight, point him out to me and I'll go with you. This isn't a fight, this isn't something we've ever seen before."
They stood close together in the dim light and Goten knew that this meant something more to him than it did to Trunks, a realization that cause no small amount of guilt. Still, after several second of silence he reached out and rested his hand on one of his friend's tense shoulders, only to feel it shaking. He did not look at Trunks's face, allowing the man some privacy as he instead stared down at the floor, in some contemplation. That physical connection, simple as it was, provided a level of comfort to Goten that he could not put into words even if the intent was to do such for Trunks. Not wanting to wound his pride, after a short passage of time he withdrew his hand but stayed close by, standing a silent guard to his friend's grief. The aforementioned guilt was emboldened by the knowledge that the building's destruction was in reaction to a perceived threat to Goten, all because he had not been paying close enough attention and allowed himself to be distracted by fear.
After enough time had passed that Goten no longer feared anyone downstairs heard Trunks's outburst he returned to his mat and sat down. It took several more minutes for Trunks to do the same and though he did not lay down for a while after, neither did he speak. Goten wasn't inclined to push conversation on someone who had a history of hostility when he felt backed into a corner even though he was sure he could handle anything Trunks wanted to throw at him. It would almost be welcome to hear Trunks blame him for it all, as he too shared some complicity in the destruction of the Defense Force barracks through his inattention.
Neither of them opened the window and listened to the sprawling, burning city that night. While Goten continued to sit up as minutes turned to an hour, Trunks eventually fell asleep. After being alone with his own thoughts for some time, a noise from elsewhere in the room drew Goten's attention: a clearing of the throat. Oshar sat in the corner, (though Goten supposed that in a circular room there was no actual corner) and by all signs he had been for quite a while. Goten could not recall the sound of the door opening nor imagine how Oshar got by the number of people below. The man raised his right hand into the air, fingers stiffly out at an angle from the hand, a gesture which Goten had come to learn was more or less the equivalent of shushing someone.
"Now that I know you both understand what is happening here, there is something you need to see." Goten did not immediately ask about what he was to be shown. He had other, more pressing questions.
"Were you here for that whole conversation?"
"Of course I was. I have watched you and your friend many times." That should have been more surprising to him.
"How?"
"Perhaps that is a mystery best left for another evening, Son Goten. Tonight I'm going to show you what you have never seen before. Tonight I'm going to show you war." As Goten started to rise, eyes straying to Trunks, Oshar's quiet voice dropped in tone. "Just you. Not him. Come with me and I can walk us through the weapons of our foes unseen and unharmed."
Only after deciding to trust this man beyond levels that he should have considered reasonable did Goten rise from his mat and allow Oshar to lead him from the room and downstairs. The minute he felt Oshar's hand on his shoulder, the man's ki passed around his body. It was a truly outstanding display of strength in its own way. Oshar's inner energy reserves had to be deeper than any Saiyan on Vegeta. The ki quite literally made his skin tingle but it did not hurt him. It was almost as if it moved beside him but did not cross the barrier that was his skin. Heart hammering loudly in his chest, Goten followed Oshar's lead and stepped into the dining room. It was full as he had never seen it before. Wall to wall, each table was laden down with drink, food and people. Pitra and Ewa were positively running back and forth between the kitchen and various tables, refilling drink, bringing food. The sweat pouring from their bodies made their clothing stick tightly to them.
Not a single person in the bar seemed to care. There was no sign of respect or gratitude before they ate, there were no thanks given and whenever someone's glass or plate was empty the entire table began to grumble threats beneath their breath. At least three different men were promising different types of bodily harm if they did not get a drink. Oshar did not give Goten time to observe much more than this and certainly not enough time to talk himself into acting rashly and intervening. With Oshar steering him, the pair walked deftly in and out of their enemies, inadvertently starting more than one argument with a nudge at the wrong time or a glass dislodged from someone's hand. Yet, they did not slow down when they passed through the open doors. In fact, if anything Oshar forced him to speed up until they arrived at a suitably dark enough looking alley to duck into.
"That was," Goten murmured, "incredible. How did you do that?" For the second time that night Oshar chose not to answer the question and instead took immediately to the air. Goten was so surprised it took him a second to follow. Oshar had implied more than once that he could fly but Goten was used by now to seeing the man in conversation, not in action. He kept tight to Oshar's tail (a phrase which carried new significance on Planet Vegeta) and allow Oshar to guide him north to a darker part of the city. Darker, however, did not translate to quieter. The sound of fighting grew ever stronger until, shortly after Goten began to spot the tell-tale flares of a blaster firing, Oshar descended to the roof of an especially tall building.
Goten, whose eyes had not had time to adjust to the light on their brief trip through the dining room, had little trouble making out the battle lines that were clearly formed. Down the block was a small, squat building lit only by the glow from some sort of energy field surrounding it. This, of course, meant that the field backlit the line of people crouching just in front of it behind some sort of physical barrier. Goten saw very little of them beyond their outlines and the flash of blaster fire. Across the street, from a building that looked to be in ruins, fire was being returned though the occasional flare could fire from the darkness around and behind it. From the distance they held it was very hard to make out individual people on either side but Goten had the vague sense that the chaos and darkness around the second building was no accident.
"Four hours ago this fight started. There are five others just like it going on around the city. Thirty people in each group, trying to claim minor strategic victories while close to seven hundred thousand push and pressure the Defense Force's best and brightest against their own barriers, giving their lives to take the city over inch by inch. It didn't take long for this to become trench warfare. Both sides are dug in. Supplies are only getting to the enemy through northern and eastern routes. We control the south, meaning everything has to take the long way around the city and we have more than one group tasked with finding these supply runs and forestalling them by means of barriers and sabotage. We have the numbers for the kind of frontal warfare going on in the northern part of the city but not the technology, not the power. We will not hold out forever. If victory is in our grasp the price may be too great to fathom."
Goten listened and observed the style of combat. Neither side was making some big, daring charge. Every time the attacking force would begin to try to progress in any manner more fire would erupt from the defending, forcing them back into cover. Goten wasn't sure just how long even this fight could last. Goten's understanding of the weapons being used suggested that they could be enhanced or modified with the user's ki, but after their own stores of energy ran out would subsist almost entirely off of it. This produced potent, focused beams of energy and meted out the amount used but even still, people had their physical limits.
"Our men at the front have attempted a forward push, trying to reach the first energy barrier in the Defense Force's territory. It is folly. They will not, they will remain pinned down. There are not enough weapons for our men and they take significant risk in trying to press the issue without them. Our only hope is that people at our smaller targets will not be able to receive reinforcements. In the shell of an old home, our men are simply waiting to see who runs out of the will to fight first. It is all that we may do. They are armed with five blasters and a few knives to defend themselves should the enemy decide to come out from behind their walls. Each time it seems as if they have secured a new position or angle on the armory, fire reconcentrates and forces them back. The cover of darkness is doing very little to help. The Defense Forces' scouters are accurate enough to spot a man from thirty-thousand paces with good lines of sight."
"Why are you telling me this?" Goten asked, his tendency to try to find a reason winning out over his respectful silence.
"Because I want you to understand what may happen to these people or any of those they fight alongside. They are not part of the force attempting to take the palace but they are no less in danger. Whoever's strength falters first will either retreat or die or both. War is bloody but it is also exhausting. Morale can go from a blazing fire to a dying ember when hearts and lives are given and nothing is won." Oshar's frustration was growing. "I know, right now, I could go down there and probably influence the tide of this fight enough to drive the Defense Forces back. That is not my job, but I could do it. Do you know why I am not?" Goten shook his head to indicate that he did not, then realized it was likely too dark for that gesture to be seen.
"No," he admitted. It was actually a good question, why were they standing there watching this stand off like great observers who had no stake in the outcome? The thought disturbed Goten, who realized he was counting himself as one with a purpose to interfere. Yet, besides Oshar and maybe Iskar, did they know any Saiyans on the planet? No.
"Because I chose today to bring you here instead, to show you this and to ask if you will help me end this war before my people, our people are too torn apart by battle to ever come back together again." Goten sat in silence. Was this the moment where Oshar asked he and Trunks to do something reckless like try to blow a hole in the enemy defenses or distract someone, or worse, kill someone? Goten had been holding onto the worry that this was coming since the half-Saiyans decided to remain in Lure. "But it involves your friend Trunks and I get the feeling that he is unwell. I have only ever known him as he is now. You speak of him as heroic, nearly romanticize him. Whatever the truth may be, you have known another side of him. I need to know who he really is. I need to know the true measure of Prince Trunks." Goten turned to the vaguely defined outline of the rebel leader and squinted, trying to make out the fine lines of his face. "The Steward of the throne has launched ships. Three are leaving to find Prince Vegeta and two to find Prince Tarble. They want a successor on the throne. Will they find either of them?"
"I was little when Tarble came to Earth," Goten did not even register the slip of his tongue until much later, until the conversation was done and Oshar's plan rejected, guiltily. "Six or seven. I barely remember him, but I know he wasn't like Vegeta at all. Polite, intelligent, in love with his wife and," Goten felt bad saying it, "weak." Hearing Vegeta's words in his mouth left a poor taste behind. "I think he's still living where their father sent him. So I guess they'll find him. I don't know about Vegeta. Our parents won't tell us much about how he came to live on our planet and almost nothing about how Frieza died except that he died." Goten felt himself shiver slightly. These clothes Ewa and Pitra provided them were not built for warmth, but his gi was ruined beyond all chance of salvaging. He tried to tell himself this was he shook.
"Very well, Son Goten. Tell me about your Trunks and I will tell you about my plan."
Goten spoke as bluntly as he could even though much of it was hard to talk about. At an excessively young age, he and Trunks had learned a combat technique that allowed them to pool their resources inside of one body. That didn't just mean ki, it meant knowledge and consciousness as well. Goten and Trunks, as children, had become one person many times in a short amount of time. The connection this left behind was undeniable and left them well suited to friendship. Goten knew that Trunks had a good heart and enough willpower to cow his father but because he could show genuine care for people (something that Vegeta seemed to manage grudgingly during moments of extreme danger) his father's crass attitude forced him to turn to comedy and combat to maintain a relationship with the man. Goten told Oshar all of this and more as plainly as possible, admitting that more than a few of his observations could be skewed. Though he never entirely feared Vegeta, Goten remained far from his biggest fan.
By the time Oshar allowed Goten to leave his side, the restaurant was closed down for the night and Goten was able to walk in without any notable opposition. Of course, it took several minutes of knocking to wake Ewa, who let him in without asking questions. Their conversation was brief, he could see her exhaustion clearly and he supposed she could sense his discomfort. Throughout the entire conversation with Oshar, Goten had listened and watched and observed, at least audibly, what sounded like three deaths. This was not child's play, this was a struggle in which people gave their lives. Feeling upset,he eased the door to his shared quarters with Trunks closed and found no sign that his friend had woken in his absence. Goten lay himself quietly on the thin padded mat, blanket wrapping around his still-clothed form as he squeezed his eyes shut.
There were many things Goten could call Trunks. Healthy was not one of them, not right now. Even still, he felt as if there was a great betrayal at play here, as if he and Oshar were conspirators working behind Trunks's back. For what? Goten's eventual decision to absolutely shut the idea down did not strike him as appreciated by Oshar but, as he insisted time and time again, Oshar's plan hinged on Trunks being well enough and knowledgeable enough to play his part. Even with Oshar's lesson that evening, Goten did not think he knew enough to take any sort of active responsibility, himself. To ask it of Trunks was one thing: Trunks would likely agree. To expect it to go well was another matter entirely. I'm not going to be the one who makes him get involved in this. If Oshar says I have to be then he's going to be waiting a long time.
Goten turned over and stared into Trunks's sleeping face. Upset as he was, Goten found no pleasure in the act, no comfort at the sight. Instead he simply heard the sounds of the no-doubt ongoing battle at the armory in his mind: voices screaming obscenities, the constant drone of blaster fire, the occasional explosion from some device or a ki-blast and worst of all the sound of a man's cry of pain cut short as he died. Shivering, Goten longed for anyone to reach out to as he had not since he was a child. Father, mother, brother, even his sister-in-law would be enough familiarity to give him the peace of mind to sleep. Their faces filled his thoughts that evening, imagined conversations with each condemning his part in the start of this war, his pride, his decision to keep secrets from Trunks with equal parts frankness and disappointment.
Goten did not believe Trunks slept soundly that night but he felt a little envy as he could not sleep at all.
