BIG INFORMATION: I HAVE PUT UP A POLL ON IF I SHOULD HAVE A SEQUEL TO THIS STORY. I REALLY NEED TO GET AN IDEA ON WHETHER THERE SHOULD BE ONE OR NOT BECAUSE HAVING OR NOT HAVING ONE WILL EFFECT THE STORYLINE SOME. PLEASE VOTE AFTER READING THIS CHAPTER IF YOU HAVE NOT ALREADY.

I don't really have anything to say before I begin, but I thank all of you for sticking through with me to this point on chapter thirteen. I have something special planned for this chapter, as you readers are about to find out. Please excuse my lateness and shortness of the last chapter, but this time I just had the inspiration and had to get it out in one chapter. So, I decided to treat you guys and gals. Onto the disclaimer, then the story. (Remember Z-Z-Z for page breaks! There is a lot in this chapter. ^_^)

Disclaimer: I only own Pia, Retasu, Kabocha, Nasu, Midori, and Mame. Nothing from DB, DBZ, or DBGT is mine. NOTHING!

"Normal talking…"

Thoughts, emphasized words, sounds, and dreams…

"Talking in dreams…"

Thoughts in dreams…

Quote for this chapter:

"Live so that you friends can defend you but never have to."

- Arnold H. Glasgow

Chapter Thirteen:

Nightmares and Reality

When Chi Chi and the other got back to the Capsule Corporation building to say that Chi Chi was simply mad was an extreme understatement. The woman was furious, livid even, and somehow managed to conjure up her frying pan out of thin air as she screeched at Pia for leaving suddenly. The chibi saiya-jin right then was having the hardest time in trying to not even cower slightly in fear, but somehow pulled it off for a little while. That was until Chi Chi's deadly frying pan swung towards her head.

The duo then commenced to run around the Capsule Corp. grounds. Pia fleeing for her life from the hideous weapon called "Chi Chi's frying pan of death", easily staying ahead with constant bursts of speed. Chi Chi chased the saiya-jin, waving her weapon, screeching all the while. In the end though, somehow the angry woman managed to catch up to Pia, and whack her on the head. This was due to the intervention of Videl and Bulma for inspiring their daughters to jump in and stop Pia, which they did with great difficulty and a greater deal of luck. In the inspiration of revenge given to them by their mothers the two girls managed to trip Pia in the split second that she turned her head to look back at Chi Chi, making the young girl fly forward, rolling quite a distance before stopping completely. Giving Chi Chi enough time to catch up to the chibi.

After this fiasco, Pia was nursing a large red welt on her head, glaring at her two friends that had very Vegeta-like smirks on their faces. Goten had been clutching his sides in laughter, while Trunks, who had come outside hearing the ruckus, sweat-dropped with a nervous, and almost sheepish, smile on his face. Goku and Vegeta, who had ended their spar upon feeling their wife's ki signatures, stood off to the side. Vegeta, like Goten, was laughing, but not to the same extent as the demi-saiya-jin, but still displaying his mirth, and Goku stood there scratching the nape of his neck with a large sweat drop on the side of his head, unsure of what to do.

All this Pia reflected as she lay on her bed, back at the Son house once more. Staring at the ceiling, the saiya-jin sulked. Chi Chi had sent her to her room to "think about what she had done" as the semi-elderly woman had put it. She had also warned that if Pia decided to go outside or leave her room before dinner she wouldn't be able to train for a month and would be forced to stay inside and do housework all day up until school started in about a week. And, with much mumbling on her part, the young fighter had complied, only so she could continue to train with Goku.

"Ugh…" Pia complained in a groan as she heard the TV going in the den and voices from outside. "I hate this! Why did Chi Chi really have to punish me. I hate crowds, let alone crowds in cramped spaces. All I wanted to do was get out of there, and yeah, I didn't ask her if I could go, but still…" She trailed off with a sigh, closing her eyes.

After a few seconds had passed she whispered, "Dang… My ears are still ringing…"

Z-Z-Z

(Later, after supper.)

Pia clambered into bed, exhausted. With a quick pull, she jerked the blanket over her. Only ten minutes earlier did she have her dinner, but her body and mind were sluggish from being so tired—Instant Transmission four times in a day could really do that to a little girl. The chibi was glad that Chi Chi had calmed down considerably during the time that she had spent in her room, and she guessed that Goku had a hand in calming his wife down. But right then none of this mattered as Pia's head hit the pillow. Almost immediately she went off to sleep.

At first her sleep was dreamless, then visions of memories filled her head. Little did she know was that everyone else was asleep too and it was around midnight. As the dreams started to come, Pia started to squirm, getting hopelessly tangled up in her blanket.

Once again Pia watched helplessly as her teammates were killed before her very eyes.

First was Midori and Mame, fighting the blue dragon-humanoid monster whose face was still blurred, each of the twins were drenched in sweat, buzzed hair damp. Together they barely held their own, and the monster effortlessly blocked or dodged their combined attacks. All Pia could do was watch, clutching the left side of her chest in pain with her right hand as they fought.

Sparing a quick glance at each other the two nodded almost imperceptibly. With that slight cue they both began to charge a ki ball, the attacks a bright golden color. The twins fired at the same time, crying out the names of their attacks, but it was lost on Pia as if it had fallen on deaf ears. Not even moving the monster stood there as both of the blasts headed for him. At the very last second he swiped both arms through the air, and flung both of the attacks into the atmosphere where they exploded in a bright flash. Pia's jaw dropped open, and her eyes widened in disbelief. Those attacks were the twins' strongest. The chibi's shocked expression was mirrored on both boys' faces, but there was also traces of fear.

Suddenly, the monster's demeanor changed and became really, really serious and cold. It phased from the spot it was at and in front of the twins. The two stumbled back in shock, tails unwinding from their waists, and looked at the creature with fear filled eyes as a clawed blue hand came up, directed solely at the both of them.

From her distance away, Pia barely picked up a cold voice say "Die…" before the monster gathered blood-red ki around its outstretched hand. With a sick, evil feeling permeating the air as its "prey" turned around and tried to flee, the gathered ki was flung at the boys. The attacked quickly swallowed them up, annihilating them before they had time to scream.

"NO!" Pia cried as she prepared to confront the monster. She felt arms wrap around her, making the sun pendant of her necklace bite into her skin, pinning her own arms to her side, trapping her right hand between her arm and chest, and holding her back as she tried to go confront the creature. At her cry the murderer turned towards the place that Pia and her "captor" were. Feeling the cold eyes concentrated on her she froze in fear, her heart pounding in her chest like a drum. As fear threatened to consume her, the monster let out a blood-chilling laugh and flew away. Before she could sigh in relief the scenery went black.

With a flash a new surrounding came into being. Nasu and Kabocha stood off to her right as Pia glared at the blue monster not even ten yards away. Up close the creature's skin was actually millions of pebble-like scales, that from far away were nonexistent as they were unnoticeable . Two large, darker plates were on its chest and stomach. A tail waved lazily behind it, a spiked club on the very end. On its back two folded wings were easily visible as they peeked over his shoulders, a large spine on each of the visible folded joints. Its arms were folded across its chest, and a miniature spine poked out at each of the elbows. Pia figured that horns adorned its head as well, but couldn't see because of the haze that was over its face.

"So you think that a pathetic little girl like you could defeat me?" The monster asked in a wavering voice that displayed confidence, not fear, as it alternated from deep and masculine to high, cold, and feminine to low, scratchy, and gravely.

"Yes." Pia replied clenching her fists hard enough for her nails to dig into her palm and draw blood. She was happy that her voice didn't betray the fear that she really felt in her core. Unconsciously her tail tightened around her waist.

"Pia… Don't…" Kabocha warned from the sidelines as Pia glared at the monster. At a quick glance from her he became quiet immediately.

"Oh, really…?" The creature, that Pia figured was a he, taunted. "Then keep up with this!" He gloated before he phased away.

Closing her eyes, Pia experimented to see if she could feel out his power level. After she had spread out her own ki in a large circle, the power came into focus and stuck out. Snapping her eyes open, the chibi swiveled around in the direction that the signal was coming from. Her eyes widened as a purple ki blast came flying towards her. With little time to react, she took the blast head on, barely blocking, and was flung backwards by the force holding the attack barely at bay. A loud BOOM! sounded as the ki blast exploded sending Pia away and into the ground, flipping and rolling wildly.

When she finally stopped, Pia managed to get into a kneeling position, but barely. The trench she had dug into the ground was so uneven that it was hard for her to keep her balance, not to mention she was injured from the beating she had received from the ground. Burns covered her arms from where she had crossed her arms in defense, and cuts covered her body, blood trickled out of the minor injuries and speckled the ground in little drops. Movement caught her eye in the form of a blue blur, and the monster's ki blazed to dazzling life, stunning Pia for a moment when she felt the amount of energy he had. Then she realized what was going on when her mind finally caught up to what her opponent was about to do.

"Kabocha! Behind you!" Pia screamed as she saw the bright ki blast heading towards her comrades. But she was a hair too late. The raven-haired boy spun around and froze at the sight of the incoming ki blast. For a moment, from Pia's perspective, he was a shadow as the attack illuminated his form from the other side.

"Kabocha, move!" Nasu yelled, and in the split millisecond after that she realized that he wasn't moving she shoved him as hard as she could, her long black hair trailing after her.

Kabocha went flying from the force of the shove, and skidded four yards before stopping. Pia's eyes widened even more when the blast was about to hit Nasu dead on, leaving no doubt as to what would happen next. Without pause Pia dropped down covering her head, and closed her eyes, but still, through her eyelids, she saw the blinding flash that seared itself into her retinas. The shock wave drummed her eardrums, leaving her ears ringing, and rumbled the ground while rocks flew through the air.

Cracking open her eyes, Pia peered at the devastation and gasped. Where Nasu had once been there was now a smoking crater about fifteen yards in diameter. Kabocha was nowhere to be seen, but after an urgent ki search she found him twenty feet away from where he had landed when he had been shoved. Anger filled Pia's heart, as she saw the triumphant monster float down to the crater.

"I'll let you live." He stated. "For now. So cherish your life. Until we do 'battle' again!" He joked sarcastically, emphasizing the word battle, before he disappeared.

Pia growled, as she made it to her feet. Her growl turned into a cry as she let out all her fear and anguishes over her comrades' deaths all at once, aura flaring to life around her in a white flame. Kabocha didn't stop her, he felt the same way, but he was too stunned to do anything. When she calmed down, Pia dropped to her knees and cried before the scenery faded and changed.

Now Pia was with Kabocha, both looking anxiously at the monster as it stood there in the waning light of the twilight of whatever planet that they were on. Neither of the saiya-jin children spared a glance at each other as the stared down their opponent, stances set, tails wrapped around their waists securely. Pia's heart was fluttering in her ribcage like a trapped bird trying to fly away as her saiya-jin genes kicked into overdrive, slowly wiping away her fear of the fight for anticipation and adrenaline. She could feel the sun and moon necklaces resting on her chest.

The monster started to laugh. It was almost hysterical laughter and made the fur on Pia's tail fluff up. After at least a minute and the laughter still hadn't stopped Pia started to grit her teeth in annoyance. As it reached its peak, Pia's temper finally snapped.

"What are you laughing at you overgrown reptile!" She snarled despite Kabocha's warning gaze that she felt. Her patience wasn't her best quality unless it was training, and even then it was fairly short.

"Oh, just that you two children think that you stand a chance against me when last time we met I easily wiped the floor with you." He chuckled, making Pia narrow her eyes. "So you two pests still think that you pose a threat to me. You are entertaining so I'll prolong the inevitable."

With his final words, he brought up both his hands pointing three fingers on each hand at the children, his thumb and pinky down. (A.N.: Yes he has five fingers. Thumb, index, middle, ring, and pinky.) Each of his three extended fingers glowed a different color as ki flooded into the three different tips. The index finer glowed blue, the middle finger gold, and the ring finger blue. Pia's eyes furrowed as she brought her ki up higher, and watched the charging attack.

Finally charged, the attacks were released with a cry of "Try this!" The three colors of each beam twined together forming one spiraling, multicolored beam of ki going at each of the children.

Smirking, Pia wondered what the point of the attack was. I was too slow in her opinion, and not powerful enough to actually hurt her, so she decided to dodge out of the way to show off her speed that she had gained while on the planet training with Kabocha. Kabocha on the other hand settled down and prepared to slap the beam away. Right before the beam directed at Pia struck her she phased, leaving an afterimage in her wake. Kabocha smirked as he moved his hand to slap the beam away, but as soon as the beam struck his skin it was absorbed into his hand, and his smirk became a look of pure panic before he froze.

Alarmed, Pia directed her attention to her friend. "Kabocha? Kabocha, are you—" She started before her friend turned to her and attacked her.

Stunned and even more alarmed, Pia didn't block the attack, but stared at her friend, as she stumbled back from the punch to her chin; she didn't grab at her now-bruised jaw. He was settled into an unfamiliar stance, and his face was screwed up in hatred. But his eyes told another story. They glistened with fear, pain, and surprise. They were the Kabocha that she knew. The Kabocha that matched the three small spikes of hair that stuck up on the front of his head. Not the Kabocha that seemed to be there now; a foreign person.

When their gazes met Pia saw Kabocha try to send a message to her. It was panicky and fading quickly, as if Kabocha was fading. Like he was being trapped within his own body.

"What did you do to him?" Pia hissed, asking the monster as the last of the Kabocha she knew faded from his black eyes and they became feral and evil. The Kabocha she knew was gone.

"Heh! Take a wild guess you little monkey." The monster taunted, stretching his wings lazily, and in a bored manner.

Pia growled at the insult, but didn't surge up to the bait. Taking a deep breath to clear her mind, she pondered over what information she did know, all the while keeping her attention on both Kabocha and the monster. Kabocha wasn't acting right and was in an unfamiliar stance. Not to include that his eyes weren't right they were…

"No…" Pia whispered, eyes growing really huge as she figured out what the monster had done to her friend. Numbness spread from her head to her toes as the realization hit.

"You finally figured it out…" The monster's voice chuckled high, low, and gravely as it faded out with the scene around Pia. Not even a second later the same landscape came back around her, but it was now a little more ravaged than before.

This time Kabocha was at the bottom of a crater, with Pia at the very edge barely able to stand, and she fell down so her knees and blood trickled out of the cuts she had. Kabocha was bleeding from the multitude of burn marks and cuts that were everywhere on his body, his right arm was bent at an unnatural angle, showing a serous break in his bone. His armor was tattered up from battle, and the top half was missing. Wearily he opened his eyes and they made their way to Pia, and when their gazes locked she saw his pain clearly in them, but also the message telling her—no ordering her—to run. The real Kabocha was back and free again. But this simple connection was immediately broken when the monster filled the empty air above Kabocha, redirecting the boys gaze to him so he wouldn't give away Pia's position.

"Pathetic…" The monster said almost disappointed. "You weren't even worth the effort of fighting. Now tell me where the girl is." Kabocha remained stubbornly silent, refusing to talk, even if he could, according to the huge bruises on his chest. When the saiya-jin didn't answer, the monster let out a rough sigh, before killing intent permeated the air like the already present stench of blood, and malice laced his voice when he next talked. "Very well then."

A thin beam of white ki shot from where the monster's eyes should have been, piercing Kabocha in the chest. A loud bubbling, gurgling yell escaped the boy's lips along with a cough that spat blood and spittle over his chest as blood from the wound flowed out of it as well. As the light in his eyes started to dim, Kabocha locked his gaze once more with a shocked Pia. His eyes once more said run, but also something else that Pia couldn't place, then the light faded after he gave one last shuddering cough, mouthing the sentence "Escape, Pia, and live."

"N… N-No… K-K… K-Kabocha…" Pia spluttered. She stood up, without a care in the world as she felt her mind slipping from her consciousness and grip. Her heart was filled with indescribable pain. She had lost her comrades, her friends, and had watched them all die before her very own eyes. Now she was alone, and something said that it was in more way than one, but that was intuition from her gut.

The pain she felt slowly transformed into a burning anger in her stomach. An anger that was directed at the monster that had murdered her friends in what she called cold blood, but she was also angry with herself. She finally understood how the occupants of purged planets felt. They felt helpless to do something, anything. She was angry with herself for being helpless to do anything to protect the ones that she considered family and helpless to defeat the one that had killed them.

Her ki flared to life around her, burning a bright white. Faintly in her shell-shocked, angry, pain-filled, state she heard laughter. Cold, sick, evil, laughter. This only fueled her rage as her ki flared. For some reason the laughter abruptly stopped.

Little did Pia know was that the cause for the stop was herself. Her hair was starting to get forced up by her ki, but she hadn't noticed the lack of it tickling her neck in her anger-induced state. While she stared into the crater before her she didn't realize that her normally ebony eyes were flashing from onyx to sea green to onyx to sea green and back again. Unconsciously her tail had unwound from her waist and was currently flicking side-to-side in her fury.

While her opponent watched her fury with interest, wondering if what he guessed was happening was actually happening; Pia stayed in this in-between, fury-induced state. As Pia's fury reached its peak, her hair spiked up, defying gravity, flickering gold before falling back into an almost normal position; and flashed from black to gold, gold to black in a repeating sequence of up and down with the changing colors. Her aura sparkled with gold on and off, the flares of gold appearing when her hair flashed gold and her eyes changed to sea green, but faded slightly when her appearance went back to how it normally was.

Suddenly she screamed her anguish and anger to the planet, throwing her head back as she did so. With a flash a golden light, her hair finally settled on gold and spiked up, her aura flared to a golden flame, and her eyes chose to stray from onyx to sea green. Along with this transformation came a raging torrent of heightened emotions that clouded her mind.

Turning her now sea green eyes on the semi-startled monster, Pia narrowed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was filled with rage that was laced with pain. "You. Are. Going. To. Die." She snarled softly and slowly as she prepared to fight. Mind set on killing the blue freak.

"Finally, some good competition…" The monster muttered. Then the scene changed and became eerily familiar.

Once more Pia was running in defeat. Tripping, getting up, hearing the voice gloat. The attack coming at her as she let her own charged one go. Her blast overwhelmed by the oncoming one. Falling on her belly. The fierce, cold, merciless, fiery red eyes appearing suddenly in front of her…

With a semi-loud yell, Pia shot up in bed, her eyes flying open. She, the sheets, and the blanket were soaked in sweat. Frantically, she looked around the room, trying to calm her racing heart and worries. Five minutes passed before her dream finally caught up to her mind. Half of it was forgotten or hazy, but the other half wasn't. The pain returned full force and Pia broke down sobbing. Curling up into a fetal position she cried into her knees. Totally unaware that her ki was fairly high.

Z-Z-Z

Goku's eyes snapped open and he heard a muffled yell, but that wasn't what had woken him up. He had been having a weird dream. The entire time he was standing off to the side watching Pia and other saiya-jin children fight a blue dragon-humanoid creature. Only Pia had managed to survive, but he didn't know how. The dream had strangely been vivid, almost as if it wasn't a dream he had been experiencing, but an actual memory.

"Of course…" he muttered as the realization hit him. "The connection… So she dreamed that too…?"

For two minutes he lay there, thinking about what had happened in the dream, but it evaded his grasp like fog as the memory that wasn't his slipped away. So he went to thinking about how he hadn't told Chi Chi about the small connection, but this lasted for only a minute before he went back to the dream for another two minutes. Then he noticed that there was an above sleeping level ki. Drawing his eyebrows together as close as they could go, Goku felt out the ki and realized that it was Pia.

Wanting to find out what was wrong with his sister, or better yet confirm his suspicions, Goku carefully got out of bed without disturbing Chi Chi who merely shifted in her sleep. Quickly he pulled on a pair of his gi pants over his underwear and slipped on one of the blue undershirts that he wore underneath his signature orange gi top. Walking silently down the hall, Goku made his way to Pia's room. With a deep breath he opened the door quietly, and peered inside.

Pia was curled up into a ball sitting up, and he could hear her soft sobs as she cried. Immediately his heart broke seeing his sister like this. He could barely withstand it at all. Going over to the bed he sat on it, but Pia didn't respond.

"Pia," he murmured, placing a large hand on her back, "are you ok?"

She flinched slightly at the contact, her head snapping around to look at who had their hand on her shoulder, but upon seeing that it was Goku she relaxed instantly. So quietly that even Goku had a hard time hearing, she breathed, "Nightmares…"

"Oh…" Goku whispered back before pulling Pia into an embrace. She didn't resist, and instead continued to cry; now on Goku's gi as her tried his best to comfort her. "It's ok, Pia. They're just nightmares…" he said, trying to comfort her as well as himself, and push away the gnawing at the back of his mind telling him that it wasn't just a dream.

Z-Z-Z

In some nameless point in space a lone ship drifted slowing as the engines propelled it forward. It was strangely shaped like an egg but around the middle part of the ship a large portion stuck out and was the reason the ship was peculiar. On the inside of the ship nothing really moved, and all the lights were dimmed down, the sounds of at least a dozen sleeping creatures crept down the hallways. Only a handful of the occupants were awake, and one of them was running almost silently down the hallways.

The one that was running was a strange bird-reptilian creature, but mainly reptile. Its skin was pebbled with scales as dark as the void outside of the ship, and the only thing remotely birdlike was the beak that was located on its angular face. The cat-like amber eyes glowed in the sparse light, and were the only things visible. Impatiently, it waited for a metal door to slide open, and when the door finally opened, it scurried into the room.

"Master! Master!" It hoarsely cried in a soft voice to a dark figure in the shadows. In response red eyes suddenly appeared out of the darkness. The small creature cowered at the merciless gaze, and after an audible, terrified gulp, it spoke once more. "M-Master. The planet that you request for us to go to is about two years away, but also as you requested I increased our speed so we could reach it in around a year and a half."

"A year and a half…" The figure growled, and what appeared to be wings flared out behind it, making the shadow more intimidating by making its size look bigger. Suddenly, a tail shot out and wrapped itself around the poor bird-reptile's neck, and the black scaled creature spluttered as it clawed at the limb, a spiked club dangerously digging into its neck. As sudden as the attack was the creature was dropped, gasping for air on hands and knees, and the attacker's tail withdrew back into the shadows. Once more the figure spoke, his—for it was obviously a he—voice was more cold, high and feminine this time.

"Well then…" he said, red eyes glinting cruelly, "…You die!" Again the monster's tail shot out and this time, instead of wrapping itself around the bird creature's neck, the club smashed into the side of its head. The dark-scaled creature didn't have time to even cry out as one of the deadly spikes bored into its temple and the club caved into its head. When then tail withdrew back into the shadows within the millisecond after impact the creature crumpled to the floor. Its eyes were now glassy, dully reflecting the little light in the room, as dark blood poured out of the wound, all this pointing to the creature being dead.

Turning to the wall, the shadow pressed something there, and a red button started to faintly glow. The red light started to blink as a voice asked in a military-like manner, "Yes, sir?"

"Find someone new to increase our speed. We need to reach a certain, far away, planet within the span of a year, no more." The shadow ordered before repressing the glowing button, which extinguished the light that it was emitting.

Whirling around, the shadowy figure stepped over the dead body of one of his henchmen and half into the light. All the way up to his navy chest plates was visible. His scaled skin was a royal blue, and the folded wings on his back made his form oddly lumpy looking from the right angle. Looking out of the large window in the room, he waved his tail lazily behind him.

"I'm coming little girl…" He said to himself, his red eyes gleaming from the miniscule lights from faraway stars. "You had better prepare because you have a little less than a year left to train, and the seconds are ticking by one by one." There was a white flash of teeth as he smirked, and a feral light came to life in his eyes. "I'm ready for round two."

Author's Notes: How in the HIFL did I get this chapter written so fast you may ask. Well, let me tell you. I stayed up to 2:30 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, and let me tell you it was worth it. I know that you, my readers agree too. But don't expect this from me for the next month or so because the only reason that I got this chapter done so fast was because of some severe inspiration. So now let me dabble at starting the next chapter. Oh, and don't forget my poll. Please vote and review or I'll start going to where I note so many reviews to post the next chapter, even if it is already written. I will do it, so please vote and review.

REVIEW!

l

V