DragonBall Out of Place
AN- Just a reminder, the character Q&A is still up as I've only received two questions so far. If you want to ask a character a question, give em' a shout out in your review.
Chapter 20- Aftermath part 2
Last time on, DragonBall Out of Place…
Hiro was forced to spill the senzu beans on him being in that reality, and everything he knows. Things did go somewhat better than expected. But now he must deal with the aftermath of the choices he made in the saiyan fight. He must now decide who to bring to Namek, who must stay behind, and how to deal with a certain saiyan princess…
Seven minutes later…
Saint Wukong Hospital…
The Doctor had led those of us who could walk, and Goku, who was in a wheelchair being moved by Roshi, to the room Amary was in.
"You're incredibly lucky you brought her in when you did. If it had taken any longer we might not have been able to save her." he explained.
"Oh no, what a terrible tragedy that would have been." I was slowly growing more, and more unhappy with my decision.
We entered the room to find the saiyan still out cold. She was covered in almost as many bandages as Goku was. A heart rate monitor was beeping close-by, telling us that she was, in fact, stable, just as the doctor said.
"You said she'd recover completely. Do you have any idea how long it will take?" I asked, hoping she'd be to injured to do much damage to anyone. At least for a while.
"Hard to say exactly. For most people that had taken injuries like that it would take weeks, or even months before they could walk. But my time treating martial arts fighters has taught me that it could be significantly reduced." so, this guy knew about that kind of stuff. At my look of surprise he explained-
"I used to work as a medic at the world's martial arts tournament in my younger days. I've seen some fighters recover from ordinarily devastating injuries in a few weeks. It almost defies medical science actually." he noted, looking a bit frustrated at trying to understand such things.
"So… can you at least hazard a guess?" I needed to know in order to formulate something resembling a plan.
"'sigh', If she's unlucky, two months before she can get out of bed. If she's not, two weeks." considering her saiyan physiology, I'd place my bet around the latter. Well, that and Murphy's law.
"And how long until she wakes up?" Krillin asked, looking nervous.
"She's resting now, so I don't think she'll awaken in the next few hours. Shouldn't be longer than a day or two." he explained.
"Thank you doctor. Can you give us a minute?" Roshi asked him, to which he obliged.
"Of course." He left the room, leaving me, Goku, Roshi, Krillin, and Korin to think about what we ought to do.
"So, we've got around twenty four hours to think of what we're going to do about her. Any ideas?" I asked, hoping someone could think of something.
"..."
"..."
"...Well don't you all speak up at once…" I said, at a loss of ideas.
"It's not like you've got any bright ideas…" Krillin jabbed.
"... if her pod was still in one piece I'd suggest loading her up in there, and sending her home, but that's not really an option anymore." Roshi thought aloud.
"Is there any way we can keep her contained? At least until we can figure something out." Krillin asked.
"There is the mafuba…" Korin realized.
"Mafuba?" I asked.
"It's the technique we attempted to seal King Piccolo away with. It only failed because the object used to contain him was cracked." Goku explained.
"It doesn't feel right." Roshi said, confusing us.
"The mafuba technique is only used on those with hearts of pure evil, and for good reason. When contained one is forced to confront their worst fears. The mafuba will keep it's prisoner alive in this state of constant fear forever. It is a deeply traumatic experience. The only reason I considered using it against King Piccolo was because there wasn't any other choice." he explained the ability in-depth. I cringed at the 'living in constant fear' part. If it were for only a little while I'd be totally on board with it, but I didn't know for sure how long we'll be gone. Certainly longer than two weeks.
"Since she can't fight back, she won't be able to resist the technique, but… putting her under constant mental torture isn't what I have in mind." I don't think even she deserves that fate.
"So… can we just… is there anything that can keep her unconscious, at least until we all get back?" Goku asked.
"Nothing that will last as long as we need it to without risking some kind of permanent damage." Korin said.
"Is there anything we can do that will be a good option?" I asked, but none could offer anything.
We thought in silence for a few moments.
"No, no there isn't." Roshi said, looking downcast.
"...I don't suppose we can just convince her to just stop, can we?" Goku offered his idea, though even he thought it felt pretty weak.
"I don't think she'll be very open to the idea of a truce. Besides, she's loyal to her brother. Getting her to go against anything he says is probably pretty deep into the realm of impossibility." I shot that idea down. She was pretty adamant about fighting. Didn't seem that big on talking things out. At least, not in any way that didn't involve destroying earth.
"Still, we should at least give it a try." Goku said, sounding hopeful.
"How exactly would we convince her not to fight us? She refused every attempt I made to talk her down… although I'll admit neither of us were trying that hard to de-escalate things..." I didn't stop to think whether or not talking things out was an option at the time. It probably wasn't… but maybe I should have at least tried.
"Well, what exactly does she want? Maybe we can figure out some kind of deal, or compromise." Roshi suggested.
"What she wants is to fight. I don't think we can convince her to not to." I told them.
"We have to try. I can't accept that our only other options involve hurting her." Goku stated, hating the other ideas.
"There's got to be something I can work with… something she's said that can give me a hint as to a way to get her to stop…" I tried to think back to the fight. To think of something I could say that might get her to just talk.
"To be honest? I hate my job. I only want to fight people who can fight back. Real warriors."
"No one can face him alone. But if we work together…"
A lightbulb went off above my head.
"Frieza." everyone turned to me.
The one thing, the one goal we share in common. Stopping him.
"He's just as much her enemy as he is ours. Maybe… maybe we can convince her to work with us, at least to the point where we fight him."
"But what about the dragon balls? Won't she and Vegeta try to steal them at the first opportunity?" Krillin made a good point.
The light bulb flickered out.
"Besides, aren't we just trying to keep her out of trouble, and not involved?" Roshi added.
The aforementioned light bulb shattered.
"...damn. their right." I dropped my shoulders in defeat.
"Maybe not." Goku spoke up.
"If this Frieza guy is as strong as you say he is, we'll need all the help we can get." he continued.
"But, they're going to try to steal the balls Goku. Assuming we can convince her to work with us, she'll stab us in the back the minute we get to Namek." Krillin reminded him.
"True, but then she'll be at least on Namek, and not on Earth." Korin said.
"And if she isn't on earth, we can send as many people as we need to Namek without needing to leave someone behind here." Roshi carried on the thought.
"But she'll kill us on Namek! There's got to be a way to stopher if we need to. Especially if she refuses to come with us." Krillin continued.
"If she's doesn't cooperate we're just going to have to use the mafuba. Not forever, just until we get back." I wasn't a fan of the idea of locking her up with her nightmares for nearly a month, that is if this trip lasts as long as I remember it does. But if I'm left with no choice…
"And if- when she betrays us on Namek, she's going to have bigger fish to fry than us. She, and Vegeta will keep our enemies busy while we sneak around and grab the balls for ourselves. Who knows? She might actually prove to be helpful in that regard. If nothing else we'll be keeping the balls out of their hands long enough to come up with a plan." it seems like a sound plan.
"Wouldn't be hitting as many snags as it was if I'd just let her die where she lay."
"So, that's the plan? Drag her along with us, and hope for the best?" Krillin asked incredulously.
"Do you have a better plan?" Roshi asked him. He didn't have an answer to that.
"We should bring it up as a vote with the others. Besides, with her injuries being what they are, she might not even get out of the hospital in time to go. So… I guess that possibility makes half this conversation a moot point." I realized.
"If that seems to be the case, we can send her along with Goku. Say what you want about Goku, but he'll be able to take care of himself, even with her around. 'hmph', With that boy, that situation might just push him to get stronger." Roshi continued. Probably right.
She then seemed to twitch around in her sleep. Apparently having some kind of nightmare. We all quieted down for a moment until it passed.
"So… why exactly are we having this conversation here? You'd think we'd talk about this somewhere further away than here right?" Krillin wondered aloud. Thinking that our conversation might wake her, or be eavesdropped on.
"Well… we had to check on her, and I guess I just kinda brought it up cause it seemed relevant? Still you're right, let's get back to everyone else." probably for the best. Hopefully with her alone she'll be unconscious long enough for me to come up with some kind of idea…
Three hours later...
Well, it took a while, and I'd gotten a headache in the process, but eventually the group decided that our plan was probably for the best, although for most begrudgingly.
We were all resting now, and I had almost passed out. I told you I was tired!
The only thing keeping me awake was the fact that I had to prepare myself for an argument at any time.
Unfortunately, I seemed to be keeping someone else awake with my 'loud thinking'.
"You're making it too tense to sleep right."
I turned to Goku, who was currently in his hospital bed.
"You're absolutely right! I'll just turn down my worry dial to zero. Maybe not thinking of any possible argument that could come up in our inevitable talk with her is a bad idea-!... sorry." I quieted down when I realized I was getting snippy with him for no reason.
"It's ok, we're all tired after all that. That's why I'm saying you ought to take a break." he recommended.
"Yeah, because I really can afford slacking when I've got some mad woman that can destroy the earth sleeping not a hundred meters away from here, a race for the dragon balls with an extremely powerful space emperor coming up, along with his entourage of unknown bad guys backing him up, and an entirely other bad guy running around that I don't know what he's doing, and I don't have a well laid out plan for any of them. The plan I tried setting up for the saiyan's was screwed up entirely by something completely out of the blue, and worst of all...I'm not even sure I can trust what I do know about what's going on to be true-" Goku cut off my rant.
"Stop, I've been thinking. something I realized a while ago about you, but I never brought it up." he thought aloud. "You really overthink everything you do."
"I… overthink?" this is rich coming from the man infamous for completely under thinking everything.
"Hiro. You've been fighting constantly for almost two years now. Always worrying about the future, pushing yourself beyond your limit for what lies ahead. It's impressive that you've pulled through, but if you don't stop, and relax for a few minutes, you're going to run into a wall." he warned me, worried.
"... you do nothing but push yourself beyond your limits Goku. It's literally your life's dream to seek out stronger enemies " I told him. 'ring! ring! hello pot, this is kettle…'
"Yeah, but the difference is, I get excited by the challenge, and see it as an opportunity. You seem to get worried about the dangers that come with loosing, and see the fight as a burden." ouch. That's… not wrong. Seeing my shoulders drop at this point he continued.
"That's not… necessarily a bad thing though. When you have something you need to protect, remembering what you have to lose can be a big motivator. Like back in the fight. Your power rose to an unbelievable level when Gohan was going to be hurt. Thanks for that by the way." he said, enamored by the power he remembered feeling then.
"All I'm saying is, remember what your fighting for, but remember that stressing out over things you can't really control won't get you anywhere. And always remember, you got the rest of us for help. You don't have to do anything alone. Do you understand?" I nodded at his answer and took it to heart.
"Thanks… I guess I just… knowing what's going to happen in the next few weeks…'yaaaawwwn'... it's been getting to me." I lied back down.
"I'll bet. Just get some rest." he advised. But I was already out cold.
And it was the best sleep I had in two years.
Eleven hours later…
"It is not a child, it is a monster sent to kill us all!"
"C'mon monkey girl! Come out, come out wherever you are…"
"You are weak. You will always be weak. The monster will always be slain by the hero."
"B-be strong…"
"Hah! Stick with us kid, you'll do just fine."
"'GASP'!" Amary awoke startled. Heart racing a hundred miles an hour.
"Just… just a dream?" she took a deep breath, and tried to call down.
She turned to the source of an annoying beeping noise. Some kind of medical machine? She was tempted to blast the damn thing, but thought for just a moment that she'd be forced to pay for it. That's when she noticed that it seemed to be connected to her heartbeat, and focused on slowing it down.
That's also when she looked around and had to ask herself-
"Where the hell am I?" this clearly wasn't hell. So she wasn't dead.
"I'm wrapped in bandages… so a medical center probably. But why would I… right." she remembered the fight from earlier. And still felt a stinging pain all over her body that was probably being numbed by pain meds.
"The Nishok. I knew it was a risk but...wait… this place… it's not…" Something was off.
Vegeta had to have won. He'd beaten that low-class to death, and came over to kill the damn fool, and decided to grab her and retreat to Frieza Planet 1015 (the closest medical facility). Otherwise, she wouldn't be alive.
It looked like no Frieza Force medical center. Even the most backwater facility would help a few healing pods. And with her injuries, and Vegeta ordering people around she'd be on the priority list if the place was busy.
Nothing was adding up.
She tried to get out of bed, but barely succeeded in sitting up before her injuries forced her back down.
Someone in the medical staff seemed to have noticed, and a… no.
A human man entered the room.
"Good morning-... 'hm'? 'boots breaking glass sound' One of the lights seems to have broken… oh, my apologies Ms... Amary was it?" she glared at the man.
"Who are you, where am I?!" she demanded to know.
"There's no need to be angry. You're in Wukong Hospital recovery wing. As I understand, you've been in some large battle yes?" Amary nodded.
"If you'd like, I can explain in detail what happened to you, and how long it will take to recover..." The doctor offered.
Meanwhile…
"'Snore'..." Hiro was taking his break to the fullest. Passed out on his hospital bed.
Goku, on the other hand, was talking with Krillin over news they'd just gotten from Bulma.
Kami's ship was repairable. That was the good news. Bad news was, after hearing about Frieza, the only person willing to go to Namek was Gohan. Much to Chi-Chi's frustration.
Krillin wanted to go, but knew he was totally out of his league. He did feel pretty shitty knowing that Gohan, a five year old, was being braver than him. But, he just knew for sure he wouldn't make it out of this one.
"Sorry guys… I just don't think I'm cut out for this…" Krillin said, disappointed with himself.
"It's alright Krillin. This Frieza guy sounds like no joke." Goku reassured him.
While Goku was saying this, his wife was trying to come to terms with the fact that she wouldn't be seeing her son for an even longer period of time.
"I can't believe I raised such a stubborn child…" Chi-Chi lamented. Couldn't Gohan see that this trip was dangerous?
Gohan, in fact, fully realized how dangerous the trip was going to be. But… Piccolo had died for him. He had to try to bring him back. Hiro said himself that he couldn't win this fight on his own, he needed someone to back him up, and it was seeming more, and more like no one else wanted to go. Even with the danger… Gohan couldn't abandon him.
That's when a nurse entered the room.
"I'm sorry for the intrusion, but the other patient in your group has woken up." she was a bit surprised at the sudden looks of fear, or surprise of the group.
"Oh crap, thought we would've had longer…!" Krillin moved over to Hiro's bed. With Goku in his condition Hiro was the only one that could stop her if she got violent. "C'mon man! Time to get up."
"'snore'... five more minutes…" Hiro complained, not really grasping the situation, and waved Krillin away.
"The princess is awake." Krillin deadpanned in annoyance.
Hiro nearly jumped out of bed in surprise… and fell because of his injuries and banged his head on the floor.
"... owwww…."
Two minutes later…
Now nursing an entirety new injury, and a visible bump on my head, I was hurrying my way over to Amary's hospital room before she tried anything.
Yeah, I don't take to rude awakenings. Then again, who does?
I was muttering about pretty much everything I had to bitch about on my way over to the wing when Krillin finally managed to catch up.
"Hiro! Wait up a second!" I slowed down for him. "Do you have any idea what you're going to do? She's not gonna just talk it all over you know." he reminded me, to which I was very much aware.
"... where's Roshi, and Korin?"
"Roshi's heading back to Kame house. He's going there to grab what he needs to do the mafuba. … you're planning on using that then?" Krillin didn't seem proud of the idea of using such a prison.
"Only as a last resort. She's in no condition to cause too much damage, so if worst comes to worst we have more than enough time for the mafuba. I'll try the diplomatic approach first… but I don't have my hopes up." In truth, I thought that this could only end poorly. But, some part of me held out hope for a peaceful resolution.
"Alright… but, do you even have a plan thought out?" I paused for a second.
"... No, but sometimes, over thinking ones plans can be bit detrimental. And besides, my planning things out haven't worked out all that great so far so... I think I'mma wing this one. See how that works out." I shrugged. It probably won't work well, buuut, improv might just be a hidden skill of mine. "Just let me in first. Too many people might make her feel more trapped than she is." we stopped in front of her door.
And that's when I heard the least likely thing on earth.
"'Hahahahahaha!'"
"'Hahahahahaha!'"
Suffice to say, me and Krillin were surprised at the unexpected laughter. After taking a moment to check to see if this was the right room (it was), I cautiously opened the door to find the Doctor from our room, and the saiyan laughing like old friends.
"'ahahaha!' and that's when he said- "What's your blood type? Ragu?"" she finished to another bout of laughter.
"'hahahaha!'... that's 'heh'... Oh, um… 'erhem!'." The Doctor paused when he realized I was standing there. "Well, like I was saying, I can get those scans in by the end of the day."
"That'll be fine Doctor… Franklin was it?" she responded casually. Like I wasn't even here.
"Yes, that's right. If you need anything just ring the buzzer." he moved to leave.
Of all the things I was expecting to be happening here, a casual conversation, a good joke, and a… not raging saiyan weren't any of them.
So I stood there in silence for a moment. Then I regained my composure enough to turn to the saiyan who was… I wouldn't say 'glaring' at me. More like a cautious stare.
We just waited there for nearly a full minute of awkward silence.
"Maybe should have at least thought out an opening sentence, 'huh'?"
"Soooo…" I break the silence. "... you're… looking... not dead." I internally cringed at my butchering of an opening.
"..." The not-glare continued.
"Not one for small talk then? Strange, you seemed quite chatty during our fight."
"..." Status quo.
"... Alright, I'll cut to the chase. I spared your life. But I didn't do it because I want any favors in return. Got that?" I figured that dancing around the elephant in the room wasn't going to get me anywhere.
"..." what? Is it something I said?
"... C'mon, give me something to work with here." Just say something damnit!
"... why then?"
"Oh good. I was beginning to wonder if you'd forgotten how to talk."
"I was beginning to hope you would." ouch.
"Hey lady! I-!... 'sigh' look, I'm not here for a fight, or an argument. I just want to make sure you won't go around killing people or anything. If you can promise me that, then we can talk about a mutually beneficial deal that gets you back with your brother, and the hell off my planet.." she raised an eyebrow in curiosity at this. "He's alive, if you were wondering. Go-Kakarot beat him, and he's on his way to Namek now… or at least the nearest space hospital, and then Namek."
"Bullshit! There's no way Vegeta lost." she was having a hard time believing that.
"Would I still be alive if he didn't?" she wanted to argue back but couldn't think of a good answer to it.
Vegeta lost.
It… didn't really seem possible. Not against this… low-class trash.
He's always pulled through before, even against enemies that were stronger than him. The idea that Kakarot could possibly win was just ridiculous.
But… here she was, recovering on earth. With a very much alive Hiro trying to get her to promise not to kill anyone.
It astounded her she was even conscious at this point. She couldn't start a purge here even if she actually wanted to. Not that she'd admit that.
However, a few details came to her attention while she was having a conversation with that doctor. (Of course, she also realized it was probably a bad idea to threaten the man who could choose whether to treat her injuries or not. So she turned up the charm a bit.)
For one thing, it was well within Hiro's power to end her right here, and now. So outright refusing whatever offer he was planning on making was rather foolish. Though she could use the threat of killing everyone in this hospital while he's not in the room as bargaining power in order to get some demands met.
For another, she has no idea whether Vegeta knew she was alive or not. Her scouter was gone, so she couldn't get in contact with him to confirm. So there was a 50/50 chance that he wouldn't come back to pick her up from the planet. She was essentially on her own.
And finally, on the subject of being on her own, this planet was a complete mudhole. There were no FTL capable ships here besides her own, and there was no telling where her pod was. There was a chance that hers, or Nappa's were where they left them, buuut, she wasn't gonna bet good credits on that. She was in all likelihood stuck here. And while she could maybe build a bucket of bolts out of the remnants of this civilizations greatest scientific achievements that could fly, she wasn't sure if she could build something from scratch that could take her to Namek in the next century. Not to mention it would probably take years of work to get it running.
So, she made a decision.
"... fine."
"Excuse me?" she zoned out for a minute before speaking up again.
"Fine. I won't kill anyone." I was caught off guard once again. I was not expecting her to agree without more of a fight… or at all.
"Oh, er… well then… moving on… we are willing to bring you to Namek with us. We have an old ship that with some repairs will take us there. And we're going to build a ship that can bring more people if we need to. Now I know what you're thinking, "Why would I want to bring you with us, where you can steal the dragon balls, and probably kill my entire group?""
"That was my general line of thought. Yes."
"Well, for the simple reason that with what we're both going to be up against, it's in our mutual best interest to work together."
"As long as we're being honest, what is on that planet that could possibly convince me not to blast your head off the minute we get there?"
"Frieza." that name silenced her once again.
Meanwhile…
Elsewhen...
"And that's about it." Trunks finished his report to his boss.
"... just… a few questions." The female voice said confused, and frustrated.
"Shoot." the time traveling saiyan nodded.
"First… I couldn't help but notice a number of grammatical errors in the report. That and an inconsistent format for almost each update. This seems a little out of character for you Trunks." she noted.
"Well, I normally would take the time to make sure everything was right, but we're a little busy lately, so I've tried basically cramming the whole thing to give you the update at a reasonable time. Plus, I've only recently discovered some of the features of our main system, so I wanted to try to experiment with the available features." he answered, embarrassed at making such sacrifices that were really unbecoming of him.
"Fair enough, but I expect better from you in the future!" She scolded, and he nodded in understanding. "Secondly, I can't help but notice you mainly seem to attempt to follow Hiro around. I know he's a person of interest, but we ought to get a look at the fallout of his being there, and how it affects the others in the group." she reminded him.
"Yes Ma'am." he knows he could have done better in that department.
"And one more thing before you go, I just want to know… why exactly are you recommending we don't get involved? Good intentions or not, this Hiro's very presence is altering history. We should have removed him from the equation at the earliest opportunity." she wondered.
"Maybe. But then we wouldn't know what was causing any of this. Hiro is a total unknown. Having come out of nowhere, we can't know for sure if he is the root, or a symptom of the problem. What we do know, is that he is central to "Yaku's" plan. I'm thinking we let that plan play out." he put on a proud grin at his plan.
"Let it play out?" his boss looked at him funny.
"Yaku will be running around regardless of whether we restore the timeline, and he's going to cause problems without us having the ability to track where he's going. But with Hiro still around…" he let his boss work it out.
"We can use him to keep an eye on Yaku's plans." she realized.
"He's the closest thing we have to a mole in this situation. He's also inclined to keeping the timeline as similar to the original as possible, so Hiro himself is no imminent threat. We can afford to keep him around, at least until we figure Yaku out." the prince reasoned.
"'hmm'... very well. We'll stay hands off for now. That will be all Trunks." he nodded and turned to attend his other duties.
"Oh, and Trunks?" he turned back for a moment.
"If Hiro does become a problem…" she let the implication hang, and he nodded grimly before leaving.
While the Time Patrol is usually on the side of good, and justice, to protect the timeline they often have to make tough calls.
Hell, Trunks had to make a comrade seek therapy sessions because they had to fix a certain change to the timeline. Basically, they had to lend a genocidal maniac a hand in a fight. Missions like that were rare, but they happened. And they always left him wondering if what they were doing was the right thing to do.
Still, considering the consequences of allowing a new timeline to exist… at the end of the day, they were necessary evils.
So when it comes down to it, if he proved to be a problem, Trunks won't hesitate to do what he must.
To stop The End, he'd kill Hiro.
So, it looks like Hiro might have more than just Yaku to look out for. Will he ever have to face this Time Patrol? What is this End they are worried about? Can he fully convince Amary to work with the Z-Warriors? Or will she make her own plans? Find out next time on, Dragonball Out of Place!
Part 3 to come out... whenever it's done. In the meantime I'll have a little treat ready within the week...