The Wretched - Part II, Chapter 6
NCDavis
They flew in silence in the early morning air toward the battle site. The best plans were the simple ones. Broly thought her family dead. What self-respecting daughter, sister and honorary niece wouldn't give them a proper burial? He'd pointed out, rather delicately considering the source, that they may not be able to find the bodies. She assured him they'd die on this planet of old age before leaving them to rot.
They landed on the nearest still-standing hilltop. "Holy..." War had been too kind of word. The once green, peaceful mountaintops were mounds of scarred, charred barren rock. It's amazing they really weren't dead, and no wonder he'd been concerned about finding intact remains.
Real shock overcame acting, so much so that without being asked, Broly offered to start the search for her. Talk about shock. How he could be so ruthless and yet so considerate was the eighth wonder of the world. He flew towards the valley, the same one -- she could tell by the blast pattern -- she almost fell to her death in. Where her family could've died. Where Broly could... She shuddered. Too many twists of fate for her liking. She'd felt some mad, mad surges out there. Guts, instinct, intuition, whatever you wanted to call it told her this was it. Dad and the others had their ace. Broly would be at peace. He'll be dead. She shushed her thoughts. This was the only way. It was for the best.
Yeah.
"You there, Dad?"
"Mm-hm. And we know where he is. Take cover."
The next mountainside over sported what looked like a cave. She floated that way, careful to make it look like she was looking for her folks in case Broly decided to check on her. The cave could hold maybe five people, keep 'em from getting wet in a rainstorm, and was as good as a front row center seat at a tournament. "'Kay. I'm clear."
"Stay that way." And then silence for what seemed like forever. And then the world shook as a yellow-hot explosion erupted from the valley. She ignored the dirt and pebbles rattled loose from her nook, the dust plume seeping her away, contaminating her breathing air.
A taiko drumbeat of power in every cell, every breath. She didn't bother to look. She didn't need to. The battle was on and there'd been no warning or warm up rounds. No need to feel out the opponent. Broly had his glorious war at last, and it sang itself through the atmosphere, every blow a resonance. There'd been a staccato of anger, briefly, towards her. But it shifted to, dare she say, delight?
The other waged with equal pleasure and ... no way. Their powers were equal too. Minor fluxes here and there, but as even as it could be.
Pause. A brief parting of contestants. No words were being said, she knew. Their battle was beyond such paltry things. A moment to measure, recalculate. The other drew her attention. She'd known deep down it was fusion, but it wasn't Gogeta. This one had way more watts than Gogeta. He was a couple of inches shy of Broly's height. Similar clothing. Blue boots, loose black pants, black vest trimmed in blue and orange rolls at the shoulder. Longer, fuller hair than Gogeta -- and black -- though nowhere close to the puff ball of a Super Saiyan 3.
Gogenta.
It carried on the mind's wind a breath before the battle resumed in whirls of motion that made their last fight, or rather, Broly and Gogeta's fight, look like a turtle race. It was easier to feel their fight than to watch it. Each side of her tapped into a warrior's mind, feeling the aftershocks of each blow, the surge of each blast. A shockwave landed outside her shelter, stunning her into opening her eyes. Gogenta had been slammed into the mountainside near her. She blinked, 'cause she couldn't quite believe her eyes, or what it meant. That expanse of long, black hair was accented by a streak from the middle of his hairline, sweeping down his face. A pale lavender streak. She struggled to wrap her mind around it. "Trunks?" He smirked. He was in there with them. She held his gaze the moment before he rejoined the battle. Heavy brow ridge, black-rimmed eyes bearing irises of blue-violet. Eyes glittering with the madness of the hunt. He was toying with his prey
As they raged on, there came a chink, slips in Broly's punch, a tiring. But he was reaching down. Did he sense a final end? If so, he was preparing to go in a supernova of glory. The other surged with him, the heat of their raw energy scorching even where she stood. But there was something wrong. It was better to say Gogenta was the supernova. Magnitudes of power, but there was slippage in its core.
The fusion was running out.
They were locked into a reverse tug-of-war, each letting out energy beams that were deadlocked where they met. She diffused Broly's beam, Gogenta's beam blowing him into the next mountain. But he regained his form and was charging back in. They could do this all day, but Gogenta didn't have that kind of time. Broly's consciousness bumped the door inside her mind, his way of saying he'd known what she did. She had to do a lot more and fast, but what?
Energy is energy.
More than a thought. An unknown voice, no time to analyze whatever it was, but it gave her the craziest idea she'd had yet. "Dad— Gogenta, get ready to hit him with every thing you've got left." She took a deep breath, quickly created another metaphysical room adjoining hers and Broly's space. Stepping into the new room, she visualized the door to Broly's place, sent up a prayer, and threw the door open wide.
"Kame--"
Wait for it.
"Hame--"
Wait for it.
"HAAAAAAAA!"
She could see Broly's conscious link, saw the path to his power through it. She balled up every strand of power of his she could get her hands on and yanked, a big psychic vacuum funneling everything she could into the new room. She leaped back into her haven, slamming both doors as she went. The fusion was failing on the kamehameha's trail, and Broly...
She couldn't feel him.
Correction. She couldn't feel his consciousness. His power, however, was a pressure cooker inside it's new home. She worked on reinforcing the walls as she made her way to the battlefield. One now lay as three. Her family was worn out, but alright. Broly lay half a world away on the rumbled flat of a freshly re-destroyed hill. She flew to him, his unconscious form battered and bloody. She hadn't meant to take so much, just enough to tip the scale. Once again the peace he found only in this way was not lost on her. So vulnerable. So unfair.
A footfall landed beside her. Her father. "Step aside, Princess," he aimed his palm at Broly, "we need to finish this."
He wanted to die, after all. It was for the best. For everyone.
She stood up, planted her feet square in front of her father. "No."
"Excuse me?"
"I can't let you kill him."
Stunned didn't quite describe her father's face, but he quickly regained his composure. "Look, I don't know what captor/captive fantasy you've developed here, but I'll let the shrinks on Earth deal with it. You. Move. Now." He grabbed her, tossed her over his shoulder like a 50-yarder from Peyton Manning. She put on the brakes in time to dispel the beam shooting from his hand. She had just enough time to erect a force field around Broly before he launched his next shot. It glanced off the barrier, nearly giving him a buzz cut before he ducked out of the way.
The stray firepower had Trunks and Uncle Goku over in a heartbeat. Neither one was sure what was going on. She quickly filled them in.
"You're frickin' nuts," Trunks chimed in. "After what he did to you? He isn't some stray cat you can take in and make better. He won't stop maiming and destroying until he's forced to stop."
"I don't disagree with you. I just think there may be another way to stop him. I'm not naive. He has a mean streak. Not uncommon for a Saiyan from what I've heard. But it's the power that drives him insane. What if we give him a chance to almost literally start over? Minimal power at best, certainly nothing even normally Super Saiyan. Train him to control the rages--"
"It can't be done," Her father answered. "He destroys everything in his path. You've seen what it's taken to stop him. This is our only chance to end this."
"Can I ask you something, Daddy?" She hated what she was about to do, but by the looks on their faces, the other two were in total agreement with him. Desperate times... "How many races have you destroyed? How many beings out there wouldn't hesitate to kill you where you stand?"
Trunks hissed. She kept her eyes on her father. "Bulla," he finally answered, the weight of the galaxy in his reply, "I made conscious choices, wrong as they were. He's a rabid dog. No control, no ability to make a choice. There's no saving him."
She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "I won't accept that, not without trying. I'm Wretched. If things had been different at my birth, I would've been hunted, destroyed or thrown away. Your father tried to throw him away once. I won't let the house of Vegeta abandon him a second time. You help me, or I do it alone."
"You'll do it--" He rubbed his temples. "By the gods, you're your mother's daughter."
"And my father's."
He finally lost it. "If you were thinking like my daughter, we'd be leaving his carcass to whatever carrion birds this backwater planet has!" He ran his hands down his face. "Let's go with your insanity for a moment. Just how do you propose to 'train' him? I don't see him demurely going along with your grand makeover."
She ignored the rolling power within her. This was not a good time for the truth. "The headbands," she blurted as it came to her. "I can use the master to control his power levels."
He whispered, "And if he refuses?"
She looked away. "Then so be it."
Dead silence. And then, "What say you, Kakarrot?"
She peeked out of the corner of her eye. Uncle Goku and Trunks glanced at each other. "It's your call, Vegeta."
He snorted. "Sure. The first time in your life you've ever deferred to me.
"I guess some lessons your child has to learn the hard way. Look at me, Bulla. We'll try it your way, assuming you're prepared to live with the consequences. Allof them. People could die. Or worse."
She hesitated. Worse? But she couldn't let Broly have his wish, not without a fight. She nodded.
"Fine, then the first consequence is you get to explain this mess to your mother."
All characters, and fusion concepts, herein are the property of Akira Toriyama and used without permission. This work of fanfiction is for entertainment purposes only.
Author Note: Though a Google search on the name "Gogenta" found it in a Dragon Ball Z-based fan RPG, a forum screen name and, mostly, as a misspelling/misuse of "Gogeta," the character as he exists in this story and his description are my own design, though I still bear no legal rights to the character.