DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball GT, Dragon Ball Super or Dragon Ball Heroes.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: In this story you will see names and characters that will be familiar to some of you, please keep in mind that some of these characters have completely different upbringings to their canon counterparts. Some things may not make clear sense at first, there's a good chance that's intentional. I will try to not be overly descriptive, nothing paints a clearer picture than your own imagination after all. Other than that, please enjoy my first ever published chapter!
Chapter 1: The Story Begins, an Unidentified Falling Object?!
The Moon lazily drifted across the desert sky, full and bright, showering the vast expanse of cool sands and rock formations with its light. An old man, still proud and vigorous like he was in his youth, sits atop one of the many stone architectures in meditation. All was peaceful in the Diablo Desert, until something streaked across the sky akin to a shooting star!
The old man, a martial arts master with the ability to sense a living creatures life energy—their ki—feels a great power coming from the unidentified falling object. He stands up from his disrupted meditation, the disturbed winds of the desert whipping through his hair, and flies towards the rapidly descending object. It's a large, spherical shaped object that flies across the still desert at terminal velocity, intent on cratering anything in its path as it approaches land. The aged martial artist reaches the falling sphere and, by unleashing his inner ki and reaching beyond superhuman levels of strength, catches the falling object.
The old man grits his teeth and pulls on the large sphere, doing his best to slow its descent and prevent anymore holes or craters in his homeland. Drawing upon his inner power, the old warrior manages to slow their fall to a complete stop in the middle of the night sky. Sighing in relief at catching the sphere, the elderly warrior descends with the object, inspecting it as they gently fall to the ground.
The sphere is large, easily reaching the man's collarbone in height, made from a type of metal very similar to steel in appearance and has a circular, red window. It's hard for the warrior to see anything through the heavily tinted glass. As soon as the spherical object touches the ground there's a hiss of pressurized air as the pod begins opening. The desert hermit jumps away from the metal pod, crouching low and readying for battle, but what he sees inside the object confuses and surprises him.
A naked baby, almost an infant, lies cradled in the seat of the now open space pod. He looks remarkably similar to a normal human child—if it wasn't for the full head of hair and the monkey tail. The warrior knew what this baby was, a Saiyan—an alien—a warrior race from beyond the stars! He had fought Saiyans before and knew how ruthless they could be in adulthood, but the old fool had also seen what good Saiyans were capable of under the right circumstances.
"You have arrived at your destination, user Beet." a mechanical, vaguely female voice from the spacecraft breaks him from his thoughts. At the toneless, robotic words of the spacecraft, the Saiyan child—Beet—starts to move, shivering in the cold desert air. Coming to a conclusion on what to do, the elderly hermit bundles the freezing Saiyan babe in his shirt before flying home.
In the heart of the Diablo Desert, under the light of the full Moon, stands a stone fortress with four giant red kanji painted across the front.
The old hermit, still bundling the infant Saiyan, lands at the entrance to this intimidating fortress and heads inside. Pushing aside a large cloth meant to keep the desert winds at bay and stepping out of the cold, the hermit took stock of the inside. The inside of the stronghold is a complete switch from the outside; lit paper lanterns hang off the walls casting a warm and inviting glow, two vehicles—a hover scooter and a dune buggy—are parked nearby facing the exit, capsules of various sizes lie scattered on workbenches and a large collection of tools sit next to the stairs leading upwards.
The elder, ascending the stone staircase, breathes deeply and makes his presence known to the other inhabitant of the fortress.
"Cat loves food ye-yeah-yeah-yeah cat loves food ye-yeah!" the cheeky old man sings as loud as he can, knowing his companion further inside the stone building hates it.
And, true enough to what the aged warrior believed would happen, his best friend and confidant came flying down the hallway—feet never touching the ground. A tiny cat-like creature, barely bigger than his head, with dark blue fur and a cream underbelly flies angrily towards the far-too-amused hermit.
"Yamcha!" The cat-thing screamed in a high-pitched voice, clearly angry about Yamcha's stupid song.
"Hey Puar," the old warrior Yamcha replies with a shit-eating grin, "I've gotta keep my singing voice in shape ya know?" Yamcha is completely unapologetic with a smile so wide it's starting to hurt him.
"You've got some nerve, you know I—" The cat-thing, Puar, is unfortunately unable to continue her tirade as the little bundle in Yamcha's arms chose that moment to bite down on her tail.
Yamcha, for all his years of training and his numerous battles, is ill-prepared for the loud and shrill scream that comes from his friend of 51 years, one month and two days. Wincing at the pain his best friend is in and with ringing eardrums, the experienced fighter dislodges Beet from Puar's abused tail—only to succumb to a similar fate as Beet bites down on his hand instead!
A couple of hours later a bandaged Puar and a heavily bandaged Yamcha had just managed to put a no-longer-hungry Beet to sleep in a small bed. Saiyans were amazingly violent when hungry after all, and Yamcha used that time to explain the situation to his companion. Throughout the explanation the warrior was making himself comfortable; taking off his boots, scarf, lavender bracers and seating himself in a nearby chair. Puar had already lit a fire in the stove and was preparing tea, so Yamcha simply wiggled his toes and enjoyed the warmth.
"I'm thinking about keeping him." The bandaged veteran says after a silent minute.
"Raising a child takes a lot of work Yamcha."
There was something not right about the way she said that. Yamcha looked towards the kitchen area of their home to see his familiar twitching and trying to fight off a huge grin. The old fighter's eyes narrowed in suspicion, it seemed like Puar was holding in her laughter at something, but what? Yamcha was not the sharpest tool in the shed, so it took him far longer than he would've liked to figure it out.
"Hey!" The insulted desert hermit yelled with indignation.
"Consider that payback for your stupid song!" She was floating in front of the open fridge while talking, wondering what to make for dinner while the tea was brewing.
Puar glanced to the dining table in the middle of the room to see Yamcha still sulking. It was kinda refreshing how after so many years he was able to stay the confident, cocky and immature self he was since she first met him. He's matured, of course, but his core personality is still there and she was eternally grateful for it. Puar wouldn't know what to do if Yamcha let that terrible break-up long ago keep him down. Speaking of Yamcha, the old hermit was no longer relaxing and looked solemnly into the fire.
"Tomorrows the anniversary, huh?"
Puar stopped pouring the tea to process his words.
"...yeah." Her response was very quiet. She never liked thinking about it and the years didn't make it any easier.
She was snapped from her thoughts when Yamcha pulled her into a hug. Puar didn't fight it and cried into his chest, muffling her sobs. The old fool did this every year for her, simply held her as she cried fresh tears. His own tears ran dry years ago, but it still hurt every year. It was after his shirt resembled a giant wet mark on his chest more than it did fabric that she finished crying. Yamcha rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head.
"Feel any better Puar?" The warrior asked.
"A little."
"Come on, let's finish up dinner and we'll talk about the squirt tomorrow."
She didn't reply verbally, simply nodding against his chest. The rest of the night was a blur; the tea was drank, dinner was eaten, the desert winds batted against the fortress and Beet woke up in the middle of the night crying and needing to be fed again. That was probably a sign of things to come. Hopefully good things… hopefully.
"The room's going to be ruined when we get back."
"It won't."
"It will—"
"It won't Puar!"
Puar had a big smile has she sat on Yamcha's shoulder. The fighter could fly faster than the speed of sound but still insisted on taking the dune buggy Mighty Mouse whenever possible.
"How confident are you in that room you padded?" Puar asked as Yamcha drove across the desert.
"100 zeni." The aged combatant didn't even turn to face her. It became a pass-time for the two around 30 years ago to bet on just about anything. What else would they use the large sums of prize money for?
"You're on!" Puar was already giddy at her assured victory. It wasn't the sum of money that mattered—100 zeni was chump-change after all—but another win was another win in her eyes.
The Sun was high in the sky by the time they arrived. The excruciating heat was unbearable to anyone not used to such high temperatures. A lone obelisk stood defiant against the desert, the winds could not erode this towering stone and the heat could never truly scorch it. This obelisk was the destination Yamcha and Puar traveled to, having left the infant Beet in a—hopefully—Saiyan-proof room.
The obelisk had the same red paint used on it as the fortress, only the purpose and characters were radically different. The kanji on the fortress are motivational, combining together into a phrase that helps teach improvement through repetition. The kanji here though mark this obelisk as a memorial. They knew they weren't really gone, the friends they lost were now in another dimension called Other World. But they weren't here on Earth, and they had been gone for so long.
If only they still had the Dragon Balls! Magic spheres that summoned a wish-granting dragon when you gathered all seven. But the dragon was gone now, called away by some higher power, and the Dragon Balls had become useless stones.
The old warrior cast those thoughts aside and stood before the obelisk, his companion floating beside his head. Every year on the same day Yamcha and Puar would come to this immortalized gravestone to pay their respects. The two hermits climbed back into Mighty Mouse, driving away from the memorial where they mourned their fallen friends. At home they would celebrate the 49th anniversary of the day their lives changed for the better, the day they met a strange child by the name of Son Goku.
Puar was happily counting her 100 zeni while Yamcha observed the completely devastated room; all of the padding Yamcha had painstakingly set up was torn to shreds, the crib they had on hand from one of their many capsules was nothing more than a pile of splinters, the backup fridge they put in the room was missing its door and at the center of it all was the Saiyan child happily munching on the uncooked slabs of meat that used to be in the fridge.
Yamcha sighed heavily, a migraine most certainly in the future for the old desert hermit, and approached Beet. The young Saiyan had swallowed whole a slab of raw meat bigger than he was by the time he noticed the old man. The aged warrior and the infant alien stared at each other, a disapproving glare meeting an innocent smile—a loud belch destroyed whatever tension was in the room. Yamcha slumped his shoulders with another sigh, he really hoped this wasn't going to be his life now. Just as he was beginning to lament his decision he felt a weight attach itself to his legs. Beet had wrapped himself around one leg and wrapped his tail around the other one, looking up at Yamcha with sparkling eyes and a wide smile.
Yamcha felt a small smile form on his face as he ruffled the infant's hair. A very familiar cloud of smoke drew Yamcha and Beet's attention. Where Puar was floating now stood an elderly woman with deep laugh lines, a cream colored dress, blue hair, a smile full of life and a camera. The shutter snapped, immortalizing the scene in front of her. Puar was looking at the photo when she felt an arm around her waist. The sly Yamcha swiped the camera while pulling her into a side hug, angling it just right to fit all three of them in frame. Puar was laughing as Beet had jumped into her arms while Yamcha smiled for the camera, one arm around his best friend and confidant with their new bundle of joy and headaches nestled between them.
The shutter of the camera snapped taking the first of many group photos for the new family, the raising of a new warrior had begun!
~2,000 words