Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Ball Z or its related characters. All is the property of FUNamation, Toei Animation, Fuji TV, and Toriyama Akira. I'm just borrowing them for some light-hearted entertainment.

Water Sharing

Chapter Fourteen: The Savior of Earth

The work camp was once Orange Star City. A young but flourishing metropolis just north of Mount Paozu and south of East City. But that was before the Saiyan occupation. Now it was a work camp. The monarchy having cleared much of the tall offices and dense towers away and replaced them with refineries for the ores their mined from the planet. Blast furnaces, brick molds, cooling stations, store houses, loading docks, vehicle hangars, and short flimsy barracks for the workers.

As one of the few humans that still managed to retain his body's muscle mass and strength, Hercule Satan's assigned job in the camp was to feed the fuel, ore and flux in through a funnel at the top of the furnace.

High up, perched near the top of the central grid work, Mr. Satan did the job of three men. Operating the freight elevator that carried the supplies to the top, unloading the heavy fuel tanks, unrefined ore, and limestone blocks that would be used as flux, then feed all of it into the furnace at a stead pace. The work was hard and it was hot, and sometimes Mr. Satan thought he would be just as happy if the stupid thing blew up instead. He didn't know much about metallurgy or all that sciencey stuff. He didn't know what the limestone was fore, or why the ore had to be put in with other stuff. But he did know that he handled a great deal of fuel every day, and he wondered what might happen if he just shoved the highly combustable fuel and nothing else inside the furnace instead.

Would it blow up? Killing him and taking out a chunk of the Orange Star work camp in the process. Or would it just gum-up the works a bit and piss off the evil alien overlords? Mr. Satan didn't know. He didn't mind dying all that much. He didn't know what happened to his daughter, but she was probably already dead by now. Joining her and her mother in the afterlife didn't sound to bad. But if the furnace didn't blow up and just stopped working right for a few hours, the Saiyan wouldn't punish just him. Everyone in the camp would share in the blame. So, not for himself, but for everyone else who shared in his fate, Mr. Satan didn't try. He just did as he was told. An obedient slave of the monarchy.

He hated the monarchy. But then, that was not a unique feeling. Everyone born on Earth hated the monarchy. Everyone remembered exactly where they were and what they were doing the day the aliens arrived.

Hercule Satan had been at a match.

He remembered it clearly. Videl wanted him to postpone or reschedule the fight so that he could come to some school thing of hers. A sports festival, or maybe a fundraiser? He hadn't payed that close attention at the time, now he couldn't remember. But the bottom like was, the last time Mr. Satan spoke to his daughter was over the phone and they both were angry. She called him a 'self-centered attention whore', and he said she was a 'spoiled brat that needed to grow up'. That was the last he heard from his little girl. The hadn't even entered its second round when the lights in the stadium went up and what sounded like typhoon sirens began blaring. Then only thing Mr. Satan could think of was that it wasn't typhoon season and that the emergency alert system was malfunctioning. Later, he and everyone else realized that the oncoming storm was much worse than any typhoon could ever be.

The invasion, if in fact, you could call a boot stamping an ant hill an 'invasion'. Did not last long. Only a day. One very confusing and terrifying day.

When it was over, a spokesperson for the invading Saiyans broadcasted over the entire planet that they were now the property of the monarchy and layer out how things were going to be from now on. At the end of the message, all Mr. Satan could think of was that he had no idea where his little girl was or how he was going to manage to find her under the new martial law. He hoped they would cross paths and find each other when most of the citizens of Orange Star City were sequestered and ushered into the work camp. But there was no Videl. Only him. And working up at the top of the furnace gave him plenty of time to think on and dwell on that fact.

One benefit of his post, however, was the view.

It was not a nice view by any stretch of the imagination. All steel and concrete. Dirty piping caked with grime and soot. Beneath it all the lowly and down-trodden wearing the tattered remains of what were once fashionable clothes. Going about their days carrying out the tasks assigned to them by their masters. That was not the benefit of the view.

The benefit of Mr. Satan's view was that he could see when any vehicles were coming or going from the camp. Freight carriers coming to collect their quota. Cattle cars to transfer workers between camps. Meat wagons to remove the dead. Even individual Saiyan guards flying off on or returning from personal errands.

At first, that was what Mr. Satan thought he was seeing when the three figures flew close enough to be identified as human-shaped, not birds or other manner of flying critter. But then, two other flyers rushed up to join them. Two Saiyan guards, as was evident by their armor and absurd hairstyles. The five of them got into a short skirmish before both were finished off by one of the three. A warrior dressed all in orange.

The three figures drifted closer and Satan saw that he was just a boy. The one that defeated the Saiyan guards was just a kid, no older than his daughter's age. But he must have been very powerful to defeat two Saiyan warriors so easily. Dressed in an orange dogi with an unfamiliar emblem on his and a short red staff resting in a bamboo sheath strapped to his back. He had a look of determination about him that rather reminded Satan of his own daughter, but there was a sullenness beneath the expression. Almost like he didn't really want to be here. Then again, who would want to be here?

His companions were equally strange. A man who looked like he had a third eye in the middle of his forehead and a long haired man with a bright orange handkerchief. Next to the deceptively strong kid in the orange dogi and the three-eyed man, he didn't look so odd, but he had an air of minis around him that made Satan pause and think twice about calling to the trio.

But he didn't need to call out to them. The boy in the orange dogi noticed him watching them and flew right up to Mr. Satan's catwalk.

"Good morning." He said politely, as if this were an ordinary school day and he a crossing guard. "Things are about to get a bit dangerous around here, Ojiisan. You might want to get clear."

For a moment Satan wasn't quite sure what he'd just been told. He was to thrown by the boy's neat manners and calm demeanor. Then his brain finally caught up to his ears and realized that these guys must be some of those rebels he sometimes heard rumors about. He didn't think they actually existed! After all, what human could take on a Saiyan warrior? They had all those weird alien tricks like flying and pointing at things and blowing them up. But here was this kid, floating in the air just as the Saiyans did with two other people behind him doing the same. Maybe the rebels were real after all. Maybe these guys were them! So then… did that make this a rebel attack?

Yeah. Suddenly, getting down from the furnace and finding a safe hiding place sounded really good right now. "H-hai, Rebel-san."

Mr. Satan began to slowly back-up towards the fright elevator -still half-full of limestone and ore.

"Or," added the one with three eyes, "if you want to try and make yourself useful, you could help our ground team free the rest of the workers in this camp. You don't look like much, but you still look more fit than the average person. Make yourself useful, or stay out of the way. The choice is yours. C'mon, Gohan. We have a mission."

"R-right." Nodded the kid and the three of them flew off towards the command complex.

Mr. Satan stood there for a moment longer, watching the trio fly head-on towards a host of reenforcing Saiyan warriors. Something about this felt so surreal. Unreal. Like that first hateful day. The day of the invasion. The first day of the occupation. Unreal. Unbelievable. It left him wondering if this was some sort of dream or hallucination. Something brought on by the heat of the furnace or exhaustion from shlepping heavy ore and fuel all day on little sleep and little food.

But then the shockwaves from their battle shook the complex and Mr. Satan thought maybe not. Maybe it was real, and maybe he should find a decent hiding place. Or, if he could, get out of the camp and away from the fight all together.

Satan jumped in the fright elevator, still half-full of limestone and ore, and practically slammed the DOWN lever.

When he got to the bottom, he was not surprised to find that most of the workers in the complex had stopped whatever it was they were doing to either stare up at the battle taking place over them, or else to run full bore in the opposite direction. Not that they could get far with the inhibitor collars they wore. As soon as any one of them was more than ten miles away from the complex the collar gave the wearer a small shock that would paralyze them. If they were not collected and brought back to the camp, or if they continued to travel away from the complex, the collar would give them a second -stronger- shock meant to kill a full-grown man.

Keeping that in mind, Mr. Satan decided that running away might not be his best option just yet. Hiding seemed most prudent for the moment. He dashed down an access walkway in search of a shortcut to the old Orange Star Highschool.

The work camp was built over the ruins of the old Orange Star City, the city itself having been completely destroyed. But some old building foundations still existed. Satan hoped that the gym's foundation was one of those because under the gym used to be a bomb shelter. It was one of the reasons he supported his daughter continuing in the public school system rather than moving her to a private school. While money was no object to him before the Saiyan occupation and he could afford to send Videl anywhere, not every private school took precautions to plan for the worst. Public schools, on the other hand, were required to.

Sometimes, he liked to imagine she might even have survived or gotten away because of it… But those were just nothing more than a father's dreams. He had no idea what happened to his little girl.

Then he heard something that made him freeze.

It was a sound he hadn't heard since the invasion. A sound he didn't think he would hear ever again on account o them being utterly useless against the Saiyans. It was the sound of a gunshot.

Satan paused in his step. Inched closer to the wall and peeked around the corner of the building he was using for cover.

A woman, around his own age, was pulling the inhibitor collar off of one of the human workers, a smoking gun still in her hand.

"There now." She said. "Told you I knew what I was doing. Now, who's next?"

She scanned the other gathered slaves, humans and Animals, looking for someone else willing to have their collar removed by a crazy lady with a gun. She turned, hooking her long dark hair behind her ear and spotted Satan peeking around the building.

"You. Get over here. Lets get that collar off while we can."

Mr. Satan stayed where he was. His face melting into a blank expression of innocent ignorance. He pointed one thick finger at himself, silently asking, "You mean me?"

"Yeah. C'mere." The woman crossed the distance between them and grabbed him by the collar of his brown gi. The same damn go he'd been wearing since the day of the invasion. She backed him up against the wall and shifted the collar around his neck so that the control clasp was to one side. "Now hold still. I know what I'm doing, but you still shouldn't move."

Satan began to tear in the corners of his eyes. He had no idea what was going on. Some guys with powers like the Saiyans were battling in the skies over the complex, it shook the ground and lit the air. But if that wasn't scary enough, some crazy woman was down here offering to remove people's slave collars, but doing it with a gun. If this was a prison break, then it was one hell of a psychotic prison break! Satan closed his already watery eyes.

There was the sound of a gunshot. The creak of metal. The crack of a bullet impacting the wall behind him. And the clank of a metal ring hitting the floor. Bits of dust and shrapnel from the wall behind him hit Satan in the back if the head and his neck burned on the side slightly. But the collar was gone. Satan blinked in disbelief.

"Now was that so bad?" Asked the woman.

Before Satan had the chance to answer, a dog-man appeared from the opposite end of the alley and shouted, "Mai, I've finished D-block, but Lunch sneezed and is now useless. I'm out of pepper, have you got anything on you?"

"Flash-poweder?" The woman -Mai- suggested. She tossed her pistol and a spare magazine to Satan. "As a thank you for freeing you, make yourself useful and help the rest of these people. I need to bring back a blond psycho."

They left.

All Satan could do was stand there staring, the chaos of the fight above him and the confusion of the people around him forgotten while his brain tried to process what in the world had just happened. This was all so unreal. Like something out of a bizarre dream. Was this a rebel strike, or a prison break, or both? What was he supposed to do now? He was free to fun and hide. Get away from here. Far away. Find some place where he would be safe from the battle and -win or louse- the Saiyans wouldn't be able to find him again.

He looked down at the gun in his hands. It wouldn't do much good against a Saiyan warrior. Maybe he could pass it off to someone else on his way out…

Satan looked up at the nearest person to him. He held out the gun. "Here."

They nodded and held out their hand to accept it. Their eyes met and Satan realized that it was a teenager, no older than Videl's age. Or rather, around the age she would be assuming she was still alive. The teen nodded.

"Never think on this place." He said.

For some reason those words cut him more than any scathing or damning words would have. The kid knew he was planning to run. His collar was off, the guards were distracted. He had no reason to stay. The teen knew this just as well as Satan did himself and did not begrudge him not wanting to stay and help. That struck something within Satan. He remembered Videl's final words to him over the phone.

'You're nothing but a self-centered attention whore! If there's no benefit for you, you have no time for other people!'

Satan withdrew the offered gun. Instead checking the barrel and cocking the weapon. "Stand still." He said. "I have no idea what I'm doing and I don't want to kill you."

The teen nodded, closed his eyes, and raised his chin.

Satan never really fired a gun before. Waterguns, bee-bee guns, and paintball guns in his youth. But never a real gun. Never anything that could kill a person. He hears somewhere that the best marksmen shoot with both eyes open. That when you focus on your target with both eyes open instead of closing one, a double image of the gunsight will appear and you should aim for right between the two images. He didn't know if that was true or not. But it seemed to make sense. So, Satan took aim. Took a breath to calm his nerves. Took another moment to steady his hand. Pulled the trigger.

The gun fired. The kick-back was more than he expected. But when he looked at the teen, the kid's inhibitor collar fell right off.

Satan sighed and again decided to pass the gun off to the kid. "This is a young man's job." He explained. "Shootin' at people is to hard on my nerves."

"Right." The kid nodded. He turned to the next nearest person to them and asked them to stand with the wall to their back. Then turned back to add, "Mr. Satan, I used to watch your fights on TV. You were the best. Live well."

Satan didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded before dashing down the ally. This time he actually was going to get out and get to safety. But as soon as he turned a corner there was another one.

Another rebel taking the collars off the camp prisoners. Another girl. Short blond hair. And when she turned around, Satan thought she looked a bit familiar. Younger than the first woman, Mai. In fact, she was just a teenager. No older than the boy he just left Mai's gun with. No older than the age Videl would be if she was still alive. When she saw him, her whole face lit up with recognition and Satan thought he definitely recognized her. He just couldn't put a name to the face.

Then she said, "Mr. Satan! Ohmygosh! I can't believe you're still alive! This is such great news! Videl will be so happy!"

In that instant the world dropped out of beneath his feet and stopped being important. The girl's name that he still only barely recognized stopped being important. The battle over head stopped being important. The fact that he spent the past eight years of his life in a Saiyan work camp stopped being important. All he heard was that his daughter would be happy he was still alive. That mean that she was still alive. His little baby girl lived through the invasion and all these years. She was safe. -Well, relatively safe. There was no such thing as safe on a Saiyan occupied world.

"Mr. Satan? Mr. Satan are you okay?"

If was only after the blond girl knelt down in front of him that Satan realized he must have fallen to his knees. Through his joy and his shock he managed to croak out, "She- she's alive?"

"Yeah! Videl, me, Sharpie… we're all still alive. Because of her, in fact." The girl smiled reassuringly and offered him a hand back to his feet. "You probably don't recognize me, I was a bit shorter and flatter back when you knew me. I'm Eresa. Videl's classmate. We went to school together. We were at school when they came. The teachers all told us to go to the shelter, but Videl refused, said we'd be trapping ourselves. Ran back outside and hid in a culvert behind the school. Sharpie, Angela and I followed her. And the four of us- well… the three of us now, have been together ever since."

"I'm… so glad." He was crying like a woman but didn't care. "Where is she now? Is she here?"

Eresa nodded. "Help me with my part of the mission and we'll all see each other at the rendezvous point when its over."

Satan nodded.

Eresa turned back to the prisoners and workers gathered around them. "While Gohan and the others keep the Saiyans busy up there, we're supposed to free all the slaves down here. This is the first really bold move we've made since deciding to fight back. I'm a little nervous. I'm glad you're here with me now, Mr. Satan."

"Ah-huh…" He replied, trying to follow everything she was saying. "Gohan… he's one of those three guys who can fly like the aliens can. Was he the one with the extra eye? Or the scary brunette with the bandanna?"

"Gohan? Oh, no. He's the cute one with the spiky hair." Eresa informed him as she examined the collar of the person closest to her. "Yamcha says these things were made at Capsule Corp and he showed us how to get them off, but I'm having trouble doing it. I heard over the radio that Lunch and Mai gave up and just started shooting them off with their guns. I haven't got a gun."

Satan wasn't exactly a tech-type person either, and he had also already passed off the gun he'd gotten from Mai to another prisoner. So he didn't think he would be of much help in freeing the other slaves. But he still leaned in anyway to examine the collar's locking mechanism. He knew it would not be easy to get off just by hand. If that were the case than any prisoner could just remove the collar of any other prisoner and they'd all be free within an hour. But he also had been wearing an inhibitor collar for the past eight years and knew a thing or two about them.

"Yamcha said that the old Dr. Briefs, before the monarchy killed him, used to program an emergency release in all his inventions." Explained Eresa. "Now these weren't made by him, but they were made by the same Earthling scientists that used to work for Capsule Corp before the occupation. Saiyans have no patience for science, and so all of their technology is stolen from and built by the races they conquer. Since these were made by Dr. Brief's people, Yamcha thinks the release code should be the same."

Eyeing the lock, Satan found what looked like a tiny number pad. So small that the buttons would have to be pressed by a paperclip or similar small poking tool. "What's the code?"

"Its supposed to be the day Dr. Brief's daughter was born. Bulma Briefs."

Satan thought back. He wasn't really much onto science or science geeks. But he had still heard of the infamous Bulma Briefs. Mostly just what was said about her in the media. Satan could not count the times he opened a magazine or tabloid, looking for articles on himself and come across a coulomb or two, heck, sometimes even a full article, about the young and wild genius. She had been really attractive for a nerd too. Slender but curvy, with all the right things in all the right places. Had they ever met, he definitely would have tried to pick her up. But he had no idea what her birthday was. Things like that weren't exactly what he was looking at when he saw her in the paper.

"Well, did this 'Yamcha' at least say what her birthday was?"

"Yeah." Eresa nodded. "November 12th, '33."

Satan nodded and, taking a pin that was in her hands, punched in 11 12 33. Waited. Nothing happened. He looked at the tiny lock again. Tried instead typing in 11 12 733. The lock beeped and popped open.

"How'd you do that!?" Eresa asked.

"You have to type in the whole year." He explained. Then smiled. "Sometimes it pays to try the common dumb-guy stuff."

Working together, Eresa and Satan managed decollar well over two-dozen slaves. Then, something inevitable happened.

The Saiyans noticed that the attack on the camp was just a distraction from the rebel's true goal of freeing the workers. When that happened, Satan, Eresa, Mai, Lunch, and all the others working to free the slaves became to focus of the aliens' rage.

Satan threw Eresa out of the way just as he noticed a beam of white-hot light streaming towards them. By sheer dumb luck, the shot did not kill Satan, but instead propelled him several feet into the air before gravity took hold of him again, pulling him back earthward and slamming his head on the ground. Good thing he was so hard-headed.

"Mr. Satan!" Eresa screamed.

"Run!" He told her. "Eresa, take everyone that we've already freed and get them out of here!"

"But what about you!?"

That was an excellent question. What about him?

Satan was no match for a Saiyan, he was already well aware of that. Once upon a time, he thought himself to be the best fighter in the world. Once upon a time, he would have believed that 'ki' was nothing more than fancy light effects and trickery. But time and events proved both to be wrong. Satan was not all that strong after all. Ki was very real and very deadly. He was no match against something like that. Running and hiding would be the smarter action. Running and hiding was something he was good at. Saving himself.

'You're nothing but a self-centered attention whore! If there's no benefit for you, you have no time for other people!'

Videl's voice once again echoed through his head.

Videl… his little baby girl. He thought she was dead. These past eight years, he thought the Saiyans had killed her. But she survived after all. Not just survived but saved other people. Her classmates. Joined up with this group. Became the rebels. Was working to free the world of these monsters. She was a hero.

'I used to watch your fights on TV. You were the best. Live well.'

He was not the best. Not even close. He was not the best father. He had not been the best husband. Hell, he wasn't even the best fighter. But he could give a good show. If nothing else, he could give a good show.

"I'll distract him!" Satan finally answered her. "Just take the others and go! Don't look back, Eresa! Run. Run now! …And- and tell Videl I would have loved to see her."

Not just now, after this. But eight years ago. For her school's event. Whatever it had been. Sports festival. Fundraiser. It didn't matter. He would have liked to see her.

Eresa nodded soberly. "I will."

That was the last she saw of Mr. Satan.

…

It was some time later. Long after the final showdown at the rendezvous point. After Videl, Kuririn, and Yamcha popped up out of the sand to cover their retreat. After they, and the fretted slaves that chose to join them, returned to the caverns of Dragon Rock. After the debriefing. After everything was said and done, that Eresa finally got the chance to talk to Videl.

She had no idea what she was going to say. Videl was her friend and Mr. Satan was her father. She barely knew the man, only meeting him a handful of times when she was over at their house for playdate and study groups. He was usually away at matches or training at his gym. But Videl… Videl lived with him, was raised by him. Eresa tried to think of her own parents. The last time she saw her mom was when the left for school the day of the invasion. Her dad she hadn't seen for several days before that, only getting to see him on the weekends. She tried to channel her feelings when she reconciled the fact that they must also be dead by now.

Finally, she began, "Vi- Videl… hey."

"Hey, Eresa." Videl blinked back. "You okay? You look a little sick."

"I… you should know… I found someone during the mission, but- he saved me, Videl. You should be proud of him. He's so proud of you! He wanted to see you. He wanted me to tell you that he would have loved to see you."

"Who?"

Eresa wrapped her arms around Videl in a preemptive hug before sobbing. "Mr. Satan. Videl, I saw your dad! He survived! He could have escaped! But… but he stayed behind instead. He saved me. If it weren't for me I wouldn't have gotten out. He wanted me to tell you that he wanted to see you!"

It took Videl some time to process what her friend just said. But when it did finally hit her, Videl began to tremble in Eresa's arms. "I was so mad at him…"

…

Later, Videl was done crying. Here eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy. But her cheeks were dry. There was a time for crying, and a time for fighting, and a time for training. Now it was time for training. She was on her way to meet up with Master Roshi to resume her practice with the Kamehameha.

As she passed through the common area, she passed Son Gohan starring at the posters of his father.

She was about to pass right by him, but something made her pause. For the first time since she heard their plan to bring him to Earth, she thought she might understand him a little bit.

Videl had never seen a hansaiya before. Only ever just heard of them and knew that they were a forbidden abomination. Because of that, she always imagined them to look a little grotesque. Something between a normal human and the giant ape-monster the Saiyans transformed into. That was what she first imagined when they talked of bringing Son Gohan here. An ape-man. Half-man, half-beast. But when he arrived he looked so normal, it was a little disorienting. He would have fit in just fine in her old school.

But she still didn't trust him. As the actual Saiyans themselves proved, having a human shape did not make a person human in spirit. Videl maintained her distance from him because she did not want to become to comfortable around him. She did not want to trust him. He was part Saiyan and she did not trust anything with Saiyan blood.

Watching him now, though, staring at the posters of his late father that Kuririn had posted, she began to wonder if they might be more alike that she first thought. From what Eresa had told her, Dad had died a hero's death. And Gohan's father… well, everyone knew about him. Call it a moment of emotional weakness, but for the first time since he arrived on the planet, she felt for him.

As if sensing her eyes on him, Gohan turned his head. "Oh. Hi. Videl… Did, uh, did you need something?"

"No." She said very quickly and turned to leave. Then paused. "Just… never mind. Sorry to bother you."

She left.

...