From Enemy to Student

- a Dragon Ball Z fanfiction -

Chapter 4 – Loose ends

Disclaimer: I do not own, in any way, any official property related Dragon Ball, such as the anime, its characters, related movies, and so on. However, I hope to supplement that glorious work of art with my fanfictions, such as this one.

I would also like to point out that this fanfiction was originally written by Gonstika, from whom I adopted it, and many of the concepts and plot-points featured in its chapters are originated by Gonstika as well.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the story.

Writer's note: Regardless of which body they are occupying, Goku and Ginyu will be known by their respective names or by terms or designations that specifically refer to them, not by the name of the body inside which they are. Also, for purposes of clarification, this story follows the premise that the Body Change technique does not switch the body's voice, and the change of voice seen in the anime is merely to avoid confusion in the viewers.

Goku had tried his utter best to be ready to counter whatever attack Ginyu would throw at him, but when the time the purple alien finally unleashed his technique, things had become so confusing that he hadn't even known how to react, nor had he had the time to do so.

First thing he knew, it seemed as if his body had become made of stone, with him being rendered unable to do gestures as simple as blinking, and him being rendered blind. An instant later, he felt as if he was squeezed through a tight tunnel, before ending up splattered against a hard surface, like an egg thrown against a wall. Once that part had ended, his vision had come back, but it was so blurry that he couldn't see beyond the tip of his nose, and somehow, it had been joined by the right side of his chest exploding in a fiery inferno of pain.

Just what was happening to him?

Before Goku had the time to dwell on that, he fell his body fall a few inches down. With extreme effort, he blocked the pain – which seemed unusually strong even for an injury as the one he had – and regained enough focus to stay afloat, lifting himself up the few inches he had fallen, while at the same time taking his left hand to the injury in his chest.

With his levitation now reassured, Goku blinked repeatedly in an effort to get his vision back, always trying not to let the massive pain overwhelm him. By now, he could see something. It was an orange and blue figure, standing right in front of him, not too far away.

Orange and blue? But the only being around here who could have such a look was… but there was no way that could be!

Hoping that somehow the pain was starting to make him imagine things, Goku blinked yet again, just to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him. After he did so, the pain in his chest seemed to intensify, as his heart sank in the full understanding that he indeed was seeing things the right way.

Standing right in front of him was none other than himself. However, the look on that clone's face was nothing like any look Goku remembered to have ever assumed. But, regardless of the look, how could such a thing be possible? What had Ginyu done exactly?

As if he had read his thoughts, Ginyu snickered, and then spoke in Goku's voice, "I exchanged my body by yours… thanks to my Body Change."

Goku's heart sank even deeper than it had before, as Ginyu's words reached his ears. It was impossible… there was just no way he could have done it.

Pointing at his physical self in front of him – and finding, to his great fright, that he was pointing with a purple hand whose fingers were tipped by sharp black nails – Goku stammered, "Wh-wh-what am I doing there?"

To his ever increasing horror, Goku realized that he had actually spoken in Ginyu's voice.

"I already told you," Ginyu replied. "We changed bodies."

Goku felt as if he had been punched straight in the heart, as he realized that Ginyu really hadn't been kidding. The two of them had indeed moved into each other's bodies.

"I-it's impossible," Goku still managed to get out, in spite of the pain becoming more intense when he spoke. "It can't be."

Part of him knew more than well enough that his words were empty, but somehow, Goku wanted to keep denying them, as if doing so would somehow make what he said true.

"It can, and it is," Ginyu replied simply, the evil smile on his face accentuating his affirmation.

The sentence was simple to the extreme, but the amount of certainty and finality that it conveyed made Goku recoil as if the statement had struck him physically.

No longer caring about his already defeated opponent, Ginyu extended his left hand toward Jeice, who was still floating nearby, accompanied by Burter. Had Goku not been in so much pain, he would probably have done the flying equivalent of jumping up in startle, as he had forgotten Jeice and Burter were there during the recent turmoil.

"My scouter, Jeice," Ginyu demanded crisply.

Wordlessly, Jeice gave the scouter back to Ginyu, who fit it back over his left ear.

"Let's go back to the ship," Ginyu said. "Lord Frieza is most likely about to return."

Jeice inched to the left as if to fly off, but remarkably, Ginyu didn't show any intention of leaving. Instead, he locked his eyes on Burter, who was still where he had been during the Body Change.

"But before that, I'll take care of a few loose ends," Ginyu said in an airy, casual tone, locking his eyes on the blue alien, the sadistic gleam in his eyes intensifying.

Before any of the other three could react, Ginyu raised his hand, and a massive purple beam was fired from it, quickly making its way toward the reptilian-looking soldier.

To Burter, everything around him seemed to go in slow motion, as the energy wave ever so slowly filled his vision field. But while the speed of it seemed more than low enough for him to have been able of dodging it – thanks to how time seemed to have slowed down – he was unable to dodge, as he simply couldn't move. Ginyu's attack seemed to have put him under some sort of hypnosis, rendering him immobile until it hit.

But in spite of knowing how his death was approaching, Burter did not feel angry, afraid, or revolted. He just felt confused.

Was he really so worthless at the end of the day to not even deserve to stay alive? Had this been everything for which he had stood by and allowed Captain Ginyu to switch bodies with this Saiyan, regardless of how much part of him actually felt guilty at doing so? So that he could end up being destroyed by the body of the only person who actually seemed to believe he had some potential.

It wasn't fair. All he had done ever since joining Lord Frieza's had been to please those he worked for, and that had remained as true as ever when he finally joined the Ginyu Force. And yet, after messing up just once for a reason whose guilt couldn't actually be attributed to him, he was taken out like he was less than a piece of junk. For the first time, he realized what the Saiyans would have felt if they had ever discovered after death that they were destroyed by the one they tried so hard to serve.

Then, his thoughts were cut off, as the blast engulfed and devoured him, and his vision was turned off, and all feeling in his body was over.

Standing less than two meters away from the massive blast that was taking the life of one of his best friends, Jeice could do nothing but look in disbelief at the outline of the figure at the center of that energy wave. Part of him desperately wanted to step in, hoping that somehow his interference would be enough for Burter not to be killed, but his survival instinct held him back. He knew that if he stepped in, he would just end up dying as well. And, while part of him couldn't help but to think that at least he wouldn't be abandoning Burter yet again if he did so, the thought of feeling his whole self burning away under an energy blast was enough for him to feel overwhelmed by horror, unable to move. So instead, he tried to make some sense of the situation, hoping that somehow doing that would decrease his shock.

Why had Captain Ginyu done such a thing? Burter had always been a loyal soldier, and even if he hadn't been the best of the force – not entirely due to his own fault, Jeice couldn't help but to think now – he was still better than lots of other soldiers in Lord Frieza's army. Then why kill him? It was true he had failed in defeating the Saiyan, but was one failure enough to overshadow dozens of useful deeds?

After several painfully long moments, the blast dissipated, revealing Burter's body falling down to the Namekian soil. It was still very much in one piece, but it was covered in serious burns and long, deep cuts, with his armor blown off and his trousers ripped in several places. But the parts that stood out the most to Jeice was Burter's eyes, which were staring blankly into eternity, and the traces of a shocked look still on his facial expression.

Feeling such a pang in his heart that it actually seemed to him that his air supply had been cut off, Jeice closed his eyes, unable to believe that, after all they had been through, Burter would meet such an end.

Moments afterwards, a strange glow visible even through his closed eyelids made Jeice open them up again.

This time, Captain Ginyu was extending his right arm, while gathering another energy wave at the palm of his hand. For the briefest of moments, Jeice wondered if Captain Ginyu intended to kill him as well, but that thought left his mind almost as soon as it entered it, for one simple reason: if Captain Ginyu was going to kill him, he would be aiming his blast at him, which he wasn't doing. He also wasn't going to kill the Saiyan who now had his old body, as the blast wasn't aimed at him as well. Instead, it was pointing downwards, as if its target was on the ground.

But then who…

As if he'd listened to Jeice's unfinished question, Captain Ginyu fired the second blast, which didn't go toward either Jeice or the Saiyan, but instead went down diagonally. Turning his head, Jeice's followed the route of the energy wave, which, with the aim of a homing missile, went straight toward a black dot on the green Namekian ground. Recoome.

When the blast hit its target, a sizable explosion was released, causing a very obvious mushroom cloud. And yet again, although part of Jeice wanted to step in and do something, his whole body froze over from shock, except for his mouth, which was open in a silent gasp as his other best friend was annihilated as ruthlessly as Burter had been, and yet again without Jeice himself doing anything about it.

Why had Captain Ginyu done that to Recoome as well? Ever since he had joined it, Recoome had always been an integral part of the Ginyu Force, as he was the second strongest member right after Captain Ginyu when it came to raw power. And he always had, until today, done everything requested of him without uttering a single complaint, more so than any other member of the Ginyu Force. Like with Burter, the only thing Recoome hadn't managed to do had been defeating that Saiyan, but it hadn't been his fault – or Burter's, for that matter – that the Saiyan was so strong. Why was Captain Ginyu punishing them just because they hadn't been better than this Saiyan? Hadn't both of them been better than several others in many different aspects, even if not in all of them?

Ever so slowly, Jeice turned back to Ginyu, trying his utter best to look him in the eye, thousands of questions plaguing his mind.

"Why, Cap'n?" Jeice asked in a whisper, regardless of how much a tiny part of him told him that he looked absolutely pathetic by now.

Captain Ginyu didn't mock him for the tone in which he spoke, but his urge to do so did not seem to be missing in any manner.

"I realized that those two simply aren't up to the Ginyu Force's standards," Ginyu stated in a scornful tone. "And I'm not the sort of person that keeps failures or spare pieces around. So I just dealt with the problem."

Had Jeice been less shocked or braver he probably would have exploded in fury at Captain Ginyu. But, as much as he hated to admit it, he had never been the brave sort. And now, with Ginyu inside this Saiyan's body, his survival instinct seemed to be on overdrive, as he knew his Captain was now more dangerous than he had ever been before. So, all Jeice could do was mutter, "But sir…"

Before Jeice could reply any further, Ginyu disappeared from where he had been and reappeared right in front of Jeice, causing his heart to jump inside his chest at how quickly he had done so. Even when Ginyu had been in his old body, Jeice had been unable to track his movements, but now, that seemed to have been raised to a whole other level.

A quite irritated look on his face, Ginyu grabbed the collar of Jeice's armor and pulled him to himself.

"Jeice, you should know more than well by now that I hate it when my underlings question my decisions," Ginyu said in a very slow tone that fully displayed his irritation. "However, as I am in a good mood today, I'm going to answer your question. But I will only say this once, so you better get it right the first time, do you understand?"

Jeice nodded wordlessly, already sweating buckets at having Captain Ginyu in a much stronger body so close from him and as upset at him as he was.

"Then listen properly," Ginyu said. "Those fools messed up, and in my force, there's no room for that. In fact, you should feel very lucky that you aren't joining them right now, as, considering the cowardly behavior you showed earlier on, I have more than enough reasons to deal with you as well. Had the situation been any different, you can be sure that you would have been joining them. Fortunately for you, as I already said, I am in a very good mood today, which means I will give you one more chance, as after all, you still are marginally less useless than those two were. But be warned: you mess up just one more time, and you won't even have the right to the sort of quick death I gave those two: get it?"

Almost before Ginyu had finished speaking, Jeice started replying.

"Yessir, o' course sir, right away sir," Jeice said as quickly as he could, willing to do just about anything to get as far away from Ginyu as possible.

The answer brought a bone-chilling smile to Ginyu's face.

"I'm glad we're speaking the same language," Ginyu replied with a sneer, pushing Jeice away.

"How could you have done that?" a voice suddenly shouted.

Yet another time, Jeice's heart seemed to jump up inside his chest. He had completely forgotten that the Saiyan was still here.

Judging from the look on Ginyu's face, the same seemed to be valid for him.

"They were meant to be your soldiers!" the Saiyan carried on shouting. "It's more than bad enough that you put them down as you do, but killing them like insects has no excuse!"

Seemingly unaffected, the Captain simply shrugged his shoulders.

"So?" he asked in a too casual tone.

"So you're a bastard who clearly doesn't give his soldiers any value, except maybe for the fact they can do the dirty work," the Saiyan said, seemingly having forgotten about the pain he had to be feeling as he glared contemptuously at Ginyu. "In fact, I don't even know why you go through the trouble of having them and training them in that so-called Ginyu Academy if you kill them off so quickly. Are you just one of those guys who has such a low self-esteem that he has to constantly pick on and kill those weaker than him to feel he's superior? Or do you simply enjoy picking on those weaker than you so much that actually went through the trouble of opening that academy just so you can humiliate them and then kill them once they don't give you enough amusement?"

Although he knew that this Saiyan was supposed to be an enemy, Jeice couldn't help but to look in awe at him, for yet another time. He had already been extremely surprised when the Saiyan had jumped in to defend Burter moments before, but the fact he now didn't make any attempt to hide what truly was going on inside him from Ginyu, regardless of how he had lost his powerful body and had to be in extreme pain, was even more astonishing.

Regardless, Ginyu simply seemed to think this was annoying, as stated in a tone that conveyed nothing but that very feeling, "You know, I'm starting to regret that I didn't cut off that body's vocal chords in opposition to simply sticking a hand into its chest."

Some of the annoyance in his tone slowly changing into what looked like irritation, Ginyu shouted, "What I do and how I am is none of your business, and whatever I do or however I am from now on, there's nothing you can do about it!"

His irritated look suddenly replaced by a wicked one, Ginyu said, "And just so you have a deeper understanding of that particular fact…"

Leaving his sentence hanging, Ginyu disappeared from right in front of Jeice, and reappeared in front of the Saiyan, yanking his left hand away from the gaping wound on his chest. Then, taking the time to gather as much energy as possible, he delivered a hard punch to the spot, making the Saiyan shout in pain as the blow reverberated through him. Not satisfied, Ginyu delivered another punch to the same spot, making the Saiyan utter another scream of pain, which actually caused Jeice to wince.

While he had killed countless people before, he had never been the sort who would prolong the suffering of his victims, save for a few rare exceptions, which only took place if he for some reason hated the person he was fighting against. He had long ago learned to deal with killing people, but torturing them had never been his strong point.

Still finding two punches weren't enough, Ginyu delivered a third one. This time, although the Saiyan opened his mouth, no scream came out, as if his throat had gone too tight for him to scream. By now, there was a huge purlish-blue stain on the armor of the Saiyan's new body.

Ginyu seemed to find three punches were enough, but he clearly didn't seem to think this was the end of it, as he grabbed one of the black horns of the Saiyan's new body in each hand, and spun him around five times, before throwing him down at the ground, and firing an energy blast at him. But unlike the ones he had used to kill Burter and Recoome, this one was deliberately low powered, clearly meant to not kill the Saiyan, but simply to hurt him even further.

"There," Ginyu said, his eyes locked on the falling body that had been previously his. "That should help you to reflect on how your goody-two-shoes tendencies did you no good in the end! And have a nice journey to hell, IMBECILE!"

After seeing what Ginyu had done, Jeice couldn't help but to feel sorry for the Saiyan. For long, he had looked down on their race, finding them no more than a bunch of uncouth monkeys who were glad to be in Lord Frieza's forces as long as they got to kill as much as possible and had such big egos that not even their Great Ape forms could have contained them properly. But with this particular one, it was different. Clearly, rather than looking down on those weaker than him, he had obviously tried to improve himself, and didn't behave like an asshole or had a huge ego, in spite of the few sarcastic comments he'd thrown at them. Also, he had stood up for Burter when he'd had no reason to do so, simply because he believed that Ginyu's behavior was wrong and had no fear of saying so, regardless of how others would think of him. Even when he'd lost his advantage, he'd had no hesitation about saying a few things to Ginyu.

The realization made Jeice's heart sink with the shame that weighed down on him. That Saiyan was meant to be the enemy, and he had done something that Jeice, who had been a best friend to both Burter and Recoome, had been unable to do. All because he hadn't possessed the bravery required to do such a thing. The shame he felt at that knowledge was so big that by now part of him almost wished that Ginyu would have just destroyed him as well, as at least he wouldn't be dealing with this problem if such a thing had happened.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Ginyu barking an order at him.

"Let's go, Jeice," Ginyu commanded. "We have lost far too much time here."

With that, a white aura erupted around Ginyu's body as he rocketed away, back to Lord Frieza's ship. After a slight hesitation, and one last look at the fallen bodies of his now dead comrades, Jeice flew off after him.

Although the pain on the right side of his chest was soaring to all new heights after the new blows he had taken from Ginyu, Goku eventually managed to recover focus enough to stay airborne, although by that time he had already fallen so much that he was only five meters away from the ground. However, that didn't mean the pain had lessened in any manner, as it was still so overwhelming that he could scarcely move.

For what was probably the first time ever, Goku regretted not having killed an opponent when he knew that he still could do so. If he had wanted to, he could easily have killed Ginyu in one strike after using the Kaio-ken, and then all problems would certainly be solved, as it didn't seem like Burter and Jeice would wanted to fight him again. But no, Goku had actually tried to make Ginyu become a better person. And now, because of his attempts at being merciful, he was trapped in another being's body, said other being had taken his old body and was about to and on top of it all there had already been two victims claimed by Ginyu after having taken his body. He knew that those two were far from innocent, as they certainly had already killed countless people themselves, but that still didn't mean they deserved to die as they did, killed by someone they had served so loyally.

In spite of the extreme pain he was feeling, thinking about Ginyu's recent actions made Goku growl. Even though he had seen Vegeta doing exactly the same thing to Nappa back on Earth, he still couldn't help but to feel outraged at having seen Ginyu do exactly the same thing.

Not for the first time, Goku wondered how evil Frieza was, if his soldiers were already as ruthless as this. Could he truly be even more evil than his soldiers were? If he did, Goku simply could not see how. And probably he would never be able to until he met Frieza, which he currently didn't look forward to doing, no matter how much he ordinarily valued a good challenge.

Either way, now was not the time to think about the tyrant that King Kai had told him to avoid at all costs. He had to get to Ginyu and his henchman so that they wouldn't kill Krillin and Gohan, which would make the whole journey to this planet just so they could resurrect the Saiyans' victims have been completely in vain.

Summoning every bit of determination he could, Goku started flying on the general direction he had seen Ginyu and Jeice taking, trying his utter best to focus on their energy signatures in spite of the burning pain on his right side, and of how, in spite of all the focus he was trying to put into his flight, he was moving extremely slowly. But he knew he couldn't stop now, as that would mean certain death for Gohan and Krillin. He didn't know how the three of them were going to kill Ginyu while the bastard was in what had been his old body, and he was certain that attempting it would somehow end up on his death. In spite of that knowledge, however, he wouldn't give up from trying. He would only consider this over if he died.

Summoning every bit of strength he could, Goku carried on flying ahead at the snail's pace he found himself unable to increase, determined to get to Frieza's ship on time to help his son and best friend, and hoping that somehow, he would be able to do it.

Up next: As Goku, trapped in the injured body of the last foe he faced, bravely trudges forward to help Gohan and Krillin, Jeice, still following Captain Ginyu to Frieza's ship, thinks back on the recent events, and on some not so recent ones. What will happen? Find out next!

Hoping you enjoyed the chapter,

Genescritor