Generations Between
Tao fired another round into the office, landing three bullets in his secretary and killing her mercilessly. Gochu groaned.
"What's this guy's beef anyway?" she asked.
She peered over the desk that she and her friends hid behind. She ducked back behind the desk when Tao riddled the room with bullets again.
"Phoenix!" she said amongst Tao's gunfire. "I need you to put up an energy shield for me so I can subdue him!"
Phoenix proceeded to generate the energy shield. Peatree snuck around to another desk, hiding behind it and the shredded body of Tao's secretary. Gochu felt Phoenix's energy in front of her – a hexagonal, golden wall of increasing endurance capability. As she stood it filled out and glistened slightly. Phoenix focussed his attention on his friend, thinking only about her safety as she stood. Tao smiled and targeted her with a flurry of bullets in such amounts that one would mistake the reflected, embedded bullets in the walls for a fancy tiling job. The wall of reflection also stopped the sneaking Peatree cold in his tracks.
Finally, after Tao realized his attacks were futile, he ceased attacking, swallowed and reattached his arm. He sighed.
"That damn Roshi…" he muttered.
Gochu walked right up to him and smiled. "Hi! I'm Gochu."
Tao glared at her. "Won't you descendants of Goku just… die!" he demanded.
Gochu shrugged. "I don't know what that's supposed to mean, but I need to ask you a few questions."
Tao looked at her quizzically. "Since I can't kill you yet, humour me… What is it you want to know?"
The girl held up the picture. "Who are they?"
Tao looked at the picture and screamed. "These are the people I could never beat! Just like you… you are one of their descendants!"
"Well, you caught me by surprise," Gochu protested. "Good fighters never try to catch someone by surprise!"
Tao grew incredibly cross with her. "How dare you judge my fighting ability!"
Gochu sighed. "Then there's no other way to do this, is there…?"
The android raised his arms. "Whenever you're ready to come out of your cowardly shell, please do."
"Let it die, Phoenix," she said, sighing. "I'm going to have to find out about my heritage another way."
Tao smiled. This way I'll kill her for sure!
As the energy wave in front of her dropped, she didn't even prepare a defence. She simply raised a hand. As soon as the energy wave dropped, Tao threw a punch. The punch connected with Gochu's hand. The punch was stronger than Gochu expected and she quickly brought her other hand up to steady the blow. She quickly directed her attention to the leg coming at her from the side, defending by blocking with her shin. She countered with a swift left knee to the stomach and a right-to-left roundhouse kick to the face, knocking Tao out of his office into the cafeteria to Gochu's left. She dove after him and set upon him again, fists flailing, as she quickly took control from the android.
In the midst of her flurry, she asked, "Can we stop and talk for a second?"
Tao growled. He tried to punch her, but he quickly found himself kissing the earth with his neck stomped on by her foot.
"Since you had to go and attack me, talk," she demanded, whipping out the picture from her pocket. "Who are these people?"
Tao cringed, having been defeated once again by a member of Roshi's school. "Let me up and I'll tell you everything."
Gochu sighed. "Next time, just tell me, please…"
"Yeah, yeah…" he muttered bitterly.
She got off his neck and he stood up. Taking the picture from her, he looked it over. He grimaced at the remembrance of these people.
"The only ones I know for sure," he said, "are the big guy in the middle…"
"…the one in the funky suit?" Gochu interjected.
Tao shook his head. "No, the one in the orange suit beside the one in the funky suit. His name is Goku, and he was the person I feared and hated the most. He was an incredible man and a brave fighter."
"Goku?" she asked.
Tao sighed. "The last time I heard anything about him, he was battling a guy named Buu… I left for the stars for a few years after that."
Gochu pinched her chin in thought.
"If I'm not mistaken," she said contemplatively, "the one in the strange green suit is Goku's son, and that little red-shirted kid is Goku's granddaughter."
"Pan." Tao named the face. "She was a mean fighter in her day, especially her and that Majuub kid… their exploits were legendary. I heard that Goku tried to stay out of the limelight as much as possible, but Majuub, Pan, and their friends Arceus, Winkkit and Lowshorts made up a crew of fighters known as the 'Chargekeepers'."
"They came up against my crew a lot during their lifetime, in addition to saving the world from four very strong opponents. Pan often took the lead role, until she became pregnant by Majuub with her first child, a boy named Axle. She retired from the main crew after that, raising and training Axle to take over the Chargekeepers. Unfortunately, the following invader after the four, a man named Hero, killed Majuub and Arceus of the Chargekeepers, forcing Pan to step in again. Unfortunately, the battle would cost her Lowshorts, who sacrificed himself to save her and her kid after she escaped. She finished off the fight shortly after being caught."
"Years later, she had her second kid by Winkkitt, a boy she named Dartiz, the day before her first son was to marry his bride. These two would give birth to the second Son Goku the day before the world's peace was shattered again, this time by yours truly, as I took the world by storm. However, the new Chargekeepers, which included Axle, a sassy boy named Rent, a proud teen girl called Roulette and a dog-man named Surge, interfered with my plans and ended my empire, but not before I ended Axle's pathetic life!"
"Shortly after Pan heard of his death, she and Winkkitt pursued me to the ends of the world. However, I managed to kill Winkitt and escape. Later I heard that Dartiz had succumbed to a severe illness – the same heart virus that I heard Goku was battling before he took on that monster Cell."
He gripped his arms behind his back and began slowly twisting his wrist.
"The Chargekeepers would continue on without Pan as she retired and took her grandson Goku deep into the mountains, where she would train him in the ways of her grandfather Goku. Their band would last for seven more years and pass down the teachings of Roshi before World War III struck – a severance of the international kingdom and a battle not seen since World War II, 145 years prior to the arrival of Goku on Earth. This was a non-nuclear war – a vicious battle that nearly turned nuclear before the world was embalmed in peace once more. Most of the Chargekeepers were killed, but the two that survived continued to pass the training – and the Saiyan genes – on."
Gochu's head cocked. "Saiyans?"
"Those were the origins of Goku, the one referred to in the history books as the Third Golden, that I learned during the torture I put Axle and his buddies through before his death. Goku was not human, but a Saiyan, and all Saiyan genes on Earth passed through him. In fact, the research about the Saiyans is incorrect in these history books. Vegeta, the vertical-haired Saiyan mentioned in history as the Original Golden, was not. Goku was the first to achieve the feat in his generation, but he was not the first. Even Broly was in fact not the first either. The first Super Saiyan – and I learned this only after meeting with a long-lost branch of Saiyans during my travels between the attack of Cell and after the assault on Earth by a group of demented dragons – was a Saiyan by the name of Seed, a long-dead ancestor of Goku and Broly."
"So then I descend from Goku," Gochu realized.
"At one point, descendants from the two lines married," Tao informed. "It may have been during the lull after the heavily nuclear World War IV, but I was absent then, too. All I know is when I came back, there was a 'proud Saiyan prince' on the throne and he had a 'proud Saiyan princess' at his side."
Just as Tao began to expose a ridiculously long, sharp blade, three warning sirens exploded with sonic fury.
"What the hell?" Tao shouted. "What is it?"
Gochu growled, upset at being interrupted. "Now what?"
Phoenix and Peatree immediately darted outside to see if they could help.
Engines, shots, screams, and violent grunts were heard from the courtyard of Tao's dojo. It sounded like a large number of fighters had descended into the centre of the building! As Gochu was distracted, Tao quickly picked up his arm and disappeared into the next room.
Suddenly, a shout exploded amidst the chaos, aided by a megaphone.
"The Dodon Dojo is hereby closed by the decree of the new king of Earth, Rokotaz the Invincible!"
Gochu, Peatree and Phoenix darted outside to a chorus of laughter and an image of enslaved fighters. Fear gripped their hearts and their tongues swelled in their mouths.
All were kneeling before one man – a giant of a quadripede. He appeared as a centaur, a being with a man's torso and a horse's body. Four giant, bony horns protruded from his shoulders. His rump's fur was a vibrant, flame orange. His tail and hair were a rich black. His eyes were a deep forest green.
His torso was clad in solid steel armour, plated with gold and interlaced with emerald silk. His lower half was covered with the same double-layered steel plate mail, arranged so it could not be penetrated. His head was cuffed in a large, Roman-style centurion's helmet, forged in the same way as the armour and padded with two layers of cross-threaded, twice-woven silk. A movement of the arm revealed he wore the same material under his armour, making his armour virtually impossible to penetrate.
He had planned well.
He had the eyes of a warrior.
And he had complete command over those now in control of the Dodon Dojo.
There was no mistaking it. That centaur was Rokotaz!
