Chapter VI - The Balance
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This part shows the first sign of AU. This takes place after the Cell Saga, but Mirai Trunks is not there, Gohan is 20 but has not yet met Videl, Trunks and Goten are 15, and Goku is still alive.
--------------------
After he had journeyed,
And his feet were sore,
And he was tired.
He came upon an orange grove,
And he rested.
And he lay in the cool.
And while he rested,
He took to himself an orange and tasted it,
And it was good.
And he felt the earth to his spine,
And he asked.
And he saw the tree above him,
And the stars,
And the veins in the leaf,
And the light,
And the balance,
And he saw magnificent perfection,
Whereon he thought of himself in balance,
And he knew who he was.
Just open your eyes and realize,
The way it's always been.
Just open your mind and you will find,
The way it's always been.
Just open your heart,
And that's a start.
And he thought of those he angered,
For he was not a violent man.
And he thought of those he hurt,
For he was not a cruel man.
And he thought of those he frightened,
For he was not an evil man.
And he understood,
He understood himself.
Upon this he saw that when he was of anger,
Or knew hurt,
Or felt fear,
It was because he was not understanding.
And he learned compassion.
And with his eye of compassion,
He saw his enemies like unto himself.
And he learned love.
And then, he was answered.
Just open your eyes and realize,
The way it's always been.
Just open your mind and you will find,
The way it's always been.
Just open your heart,
And that's a start.
-----------------------
"You thought you could cast out the darkness and strengthen the light, but you were wrong. The stronger the light grew, the stronger the darkness became. I have been to the Dark World, I have seen it. The beauty of this world is an illusion built to hide the shadows. I was sent to be the balance of light and darkness. There are two waning dark powers in this world. Those two are you, Vegeta and Piccolo. However, your darkness has been giving way to light, thus disrupting the balance." Kakarika began.
"Are you saying they should go back to being evil and destroying things?" Gohan interrupted, a note of anger in his voice.
"No no, that's not it at all. Just as I am a servant of the Dark Power, those two are as well. It was determined by the Fates when they were born. They have been shunning their heritage, forgetting what they were born to be. Vegeta, your Final Flash is an attack born of the Light Power, that is why it drains your energy so much. The Dark Power is not evil, it is merely... dark. Just as the shadows of a sunny day... are those evil? Compassion, love, those belong to both the Light and the Dark Powers. I was sent to be the balance, as I said. And when the time comes, it will be too late to choose sides. Pick your affiliation, and start training under that." With that, Kakarika stepped out, leaving the others stupefied.
---------------------
later on that day...
---------------------
Kakarika was digging through her backpack once again, taking out objects that had seemingly magically appeared. She dug out a small handheld communicator, which instantly switched on once she had it in her claws.
A middle-aged man appeared on the screen. Kakarika recognized it as the man from the cube that had sent her the original message.
"Hello, Kelli." The man said, "Feeling well?"
"Yes..." Kakarika snarled, "What do you want?"
"To talk, Kelli..." The man smiled, "Just to talk..."
----------------
Vegeta had been thinking. Maybe Kakarika wasn't so bad after all... she sure was a hell of a lot better than Cell or Frieza. Hell, maybe she could actually be telling the truth... though all that alternate dimension shit was surely hard to swallow. Vegeta was going to go *shudder* apologize to her for acting the way he had. The nightmare he had had was very possibly this evil's idea of a plot to keep him from trusting 'Rika. Vegeta stopped at Kakarika's door, listening. He heard her conversing with someone. The prince decided to listen for a while.
----------------
"You've been getting too close to the Z Fighters. They are just allies, not friends. I advise you to keep your distance. You're telling them too much." The man said.
"I trust them." Kakarika snarled.
"Don't. Don't trust them. They'll only get in your way when you have to kill them to use your ultimate attack." The old man sighed, "As to who I am, I am Aladar, the person who sent you on this miserable quest."
Kakarika was about to say something when Aladar continued, "You need to find your elemental gemstone. It looks like this."
Aladar's image was replaced by the image of a polygon shimmering blue, decorated with what looked like droplets of water contained in the gem. Next to that appeared a dark purple gemstone, with swirling black and purple inside of it.
"The one on the left is the Water Gem, it harnesses the power of Water. The one one the right is the Cosmos Gem, it harnesses the power of the Cosmos." Aladar's voice came through.
Kakarika was mesmorized, touching the screen lightly, in a daze, "An Icosahedron and a Dodecahedron... beautiful."
"You must use these two gems to destroy the Z Fighters, steal their power, and destroy the evil." Aladar said seductively.
Vegeta chose that moment to enter.
-----------------
Vegeta burst into the room, powered up and ready to kill.
"So, you wanted to gain our trust and then wipe us out?" Vegeta raged. The screen went black and Kakarika snapped out of her revirie.
"No, Vegeta! I never intended that! This is news to me as well! I wanted to befriend you guys, not kill you!" Kakarika, despite the fact that her power made Vegeta's look like a kitten's, she was shaking. Not from fear, but from anger. Anger at herself, at Aladar, at Vegeta, at the world in general.
Vegeta stopped, looking at Kakarika. She sighed heavily, and Vegeta noticed tears in her eyes.
"Come on, kid... I'm..." Vegeta struggled to say the word he had avoided his entire life, "I'm... sorry."
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Kakarika laughed, but the tone wasn't one of glee or relief, but held a hysterical note to it.
Vegeta, struggling between emotions and his own typical attitude, held Kakarika in his arms, "Come on, kid... we'll get through this, somehow. Stop crying."
Kakarika sighed, pulling away from the saiya-jin, "I can't bring myself to kill any of you, but I realize that in order to use my ultimate attack, I have to destroy you all and take your power. This monster knows it too, that's why he's trying to kill you Z Fighters. If I were to leave, it's a good bet that he'd follow me. That way you'd all be safe."
"You can't leave, Kakarika." Vegeta sighed, "Much as I'd love to see you out of here and out of my life, I understand that we need you to destroy this creature. Us Dark Power servants need to stick together."
Kakarika smirked, "Somehow I thought you were a little more evil than you're acting right now."
"We're very much the same, lizard." Vegeta smirked, "We're both dark fighters who are lost in this world, just wandering around and looking for our destiny. I know what it's like to be alone, without a family or a home, just trying to find a way out of this nightmare come true. We're like two shooting stars, kid, and nothing can stop us from reaching our goal."
Kakarika smirked, "Good, now go train or something, and create some Dark attacks. We'll need them if we want out of this nightmare."
-----------------
Kakarika tied her bandana tightly around her head, gazing out at the sunny, clear day. She took a look at the pictures of her family that she had shown Trunks earlier. She had noticed earlier that they had changed. They too had wings and a tail, just like her new form. Somehow, they didn't look like her family anymore. A lonely tear ran down her cheek.
*I know what it's like to be alone, without a family or a home...* Vegeta had said. But he didn't know what she was feeling, because she hadn't told them yet.
She hadn't told the others how she had a family and a home, but was torn away from them against her will. She couldn't even recall their voices. Her brother had once said to get a tape player and record his voice saying different phrases such as "Hello", "I Love You", and other things so that he wouldn't have to say them again. Now, this didn't seem like such a bad idea. What Kakarika wouldn't have given to hear Shawn say her name, even to tell her to shut up.
A streak of black light zipped past her window, startling Kakarika. She narrowed her eyes in annoyance, teleporting outside.
-----------------
Vegeta had just created a new attack he called Kural Flash. It turned out to be twice as powerful as his Final Flash, but drained much less power. Vegeta, pleased with himself for developing such a powerful attack, had been practicing it over and over. Suddenly, he was interrupted by Kakarika appearing inches away from his face.
"When I said to practice, I didn't say RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW!!" Kakarika roared the last four words, the decibals pounded at the saiya-jin's sensitive eardrums like a timpani.
Vegeta merely smirked and started concentrating his power to a single ki blast, "Kural... FLASH!"
The dark beam of pure energy ripped through the air, straight towards the Alcoan. Kakarika snarled, her wings glowing with a purplish light akin to that of a black light.
"Black Wing!" Her wings flapped hard, curling around in front of her light a shield. Not only did the wings protect Kakarika's body, but they also sent out a sort of shock wave made of ki, flattening Vegeta to the ground and obliterating his attack.
Vegeta stood up, dusting himself off and cursing in Saiya-go, calling Kakarika several names that included "damn lizard", "creepy reptile", "winged whore", and "flying asshole", among others. Kakarika merely yawned and flew back inside, muttering about "moronic monkey princesses" (thank you DaSSJVegeta420!).
Vegeta snapped to attention hearing that particular insult. He whirled around, but a greenish claw clamped over his mouth. Vegeta powered up, but felt a heavy collar clamp around his neck. His power dropped to just enough to keep him alive. The prince yelled, but the sound was muffled by the creature's claw. Suddenly, something hit against the back of his head. Bright lights exploded in front of his eyes shortly before darkness rushed in to claim Vegeta.
-------------------
Dinnertime came, with no word from Vegeta. Bulma wasn't worried, however. She stated simply that he often was nowhere to be seen when she was cooking. Kakarika, having hunted her meals earlier, decided to give Bulma's cooking a whirl. However, after hearing that the temperamental saiya-jin avoided her during dinnertime, the young Alcoan was beginning to wonder just what she had gotten herself into.
After several small fires (conveniently put out by Kakarika), thousands of curses compliments of Bulma, and complete embarassment for Trunks, dinner was served. It was impossible to tell what it was, because it looked like tentacles in toe-jam sauce with a side of earwax, and smelled even worse. Dessert looked like belly-button lint and smelled like a rotting corpse. Kakarika poked at one of the tentacle-looking things with a fork, half expecting it to reach up and grab her fork from her claws. Having completed her analysis, concluding that the meal was, in fact, dead, she sliced off a chunk and speared it onto her fork. Hesitating only for a moment, she shoved it into her mouth. An incredibly horrible taste filled her mouth. So as not to insult Bulma, she swallowed it and gave her a strained smile.
"Well?" Bulma asked.
"... Good... !" Kakarika said, not very convincingly.
"Don't encourage her." Trunks said dryly. Bulma shot Trunks a deadly glare.
"You sound just like your father... and speaking of Vegeta, where is he?" Bulma sounded worried, "He's not in the gravity room."
Trunks waved his hand dismissively, "He's probably sparring with Goku."
Bulma sighed, "Those two..."
But Kakarika knew in her heart that something was wrong. Her dark powers were strengthening, and she couldn't sense Goku or any of the other Light Powers. Night had fallen, and it was still way too early. Kakarika frowned. Something was wrong, the balance of power had somehow been shifted to the Dark Side (no, not Star Wars).
"Stay in the house, Bulma." Kakarika said in a low voice, "Trunks, you come with me."
Startled at Kakarika's change of attitude, Trunks nodded and followed Kakarika out the door and into the night.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This part shows the first sign of AU. This takes place after the Cell Saga, but Mirai Trunks is not there, Gohan is 20 but has not yet met Videl, Trunks and Goten are 15, and Goku is still alive.
--------------------
After he had journeyed,
And his feet were sore,
And he was tired.
He came upon an orange grove,
And he rested.
And he lay in the cool.
And while he rested,
He took to himself an orange and tasted it,
And it was good.
And he felt the earth to his spine,
And he asked.
And he saw the tree above him,
And the stars,
And the veins in the leaf,
And the light,
And the balance,
And he saw magnificent perfection,
Whereon he thought of himself in balance,
And he knew who he was.
Just open your eyes and realize,
The way it's always been.
Just open your mind and you will find,
The way it's always been.
Just open your heart,
And that's a start.
And he thought of those he angered,
For he was not a violent man.
And he thought of those he hurt,
For he was not a cruel man.
And he thought of those he frightened,
For he was not an evil man.
And he understood,
He understood himself.
Upon this he saw that when he was of anger,
Or knew hurt,
Or felt fear,
It was because he was not understanding.
And he learned compassion.
And with his eye of compassion,
He saw his enemies like unto himself.
And he learned love.
And then, he was answered.
Just open your eyes and realize,
The way it's always been.
Just open your mind and you will find,
The way it's always been.
Just open your heart,
And that's a start.
-----------------------
"You thought you could cast out the darkness and strengthen the light, but you were wrong. The stronger the light grew, the stronger the darkness became. I have been to the Dark World, I have seen it. The beauty of this world is an illusion built to hide the shadows. I was sent to be the balance of light and darkness. There are two waning dark powers in this world. Those two are you, Vegeta and Piccolo. However, your darkness has been giving way to light, thus disrupting the balance." Kakarika began.
"Are you saying they should go back to being evil and destroying things?" Gohan interrupted, a note of anger in his voice.
"No no, that's not it at all. Just as I am a servant of the Dark Power, those two are as well. It was determined by the Fates when they were born. They have been shunning their heritage, forgetting what they were born to be. Vegeta, your Final Flash is an attack born of the Light Power, that is why it drains your energy so much. The Dark Power is not evil, it is merely... dark. Just as the shadows of a sunny day... are those evil? Compassion, love, those belong to both the Light and the Dark Powers. I was sent to be the balance, as I said. And when the time comes, it will be too late to choose sides. Pick your affiliation, and start training under that." With that, Kakarika stepped out, leaving the others stupefied.
---------------------
later on that day...
---------------------
Kakarika was digging through her backpack once again, taking out objects that had seemingly magically appeared. She dug out a small handheld communicator, which instantly switched on once she had it in her claws.
A middle-aged man appeared on the screen. Kakarika recognized it as the man from the cube that had sent her the original message.
"Hello, Kelli." The man said, "Feeling well?"
"Yes..." Kakarika snarled, "What do you want?"
"To talk, Kelli..." The man smiled, "Just to talk..."
----------------
Vegeta had been thinking. Maybe Kakarika wasn't so bad after all... she sure was a hell of a lot better than Cell or Frieza. Hell, maybe she could actually be telling the truth... though all that alternate dimension shit was surely hard to swallow. Vegeta was going to go *shudder* apologize to her for acting the way he had. The nightmare he had had was very possibly this evil's idea of a plot to keep him from trusting 'Rika. Vegeta stopped at Kakarika's door, listening. He heard her conversing with someone. The prince decided to listen for a while.
----------------
"You've been getting too close to the Z Fighters. They are just allies, not friends. I advise you to keep your distance. You're telling them too much." The man said.
"I trust them." Kakarika snarled.
"Don't. Don't trust them. They'll only get in your way when you have to kill them to use your ultimate attack." The old man sighed, "As to who I am, I am Aladar, the person who sent you on this miserable quest."
Kakarika was about to say something when Aladar continued, "You need to find your elemental gemstone. It looks like this."
Aladar's image was replaced by the image of a polygon shimmering blue, decorated with what looked like droplets of water contained in the gem. Next to that appeared a dark purple gemstone, with swirling black and purple inside of it.
"The one on the left is the Water Gem, it harnesses the power of Water. The one one the right is the Cosmos Gem, it harnesses the power of the Cosmos." Aladar's voice came through.
Kakarika was mesmorized, touching the screen lightly, in a daze, "An Icosahedron and a Dodecahedron... beautiful."
"You must use these two gems to destroy the Z Fighters, steal their power, and destroy the evil." Aladar said seductively.
Vegeta chose that moment to enter.
-----------------
Vegeta burst into the room, powered up and ready to kill.
"So, you wanted to gain our trust and then wipe us out?" Vegeta raged. The screen went black and Kakarika snapped out of her revirie.
"No, Vegeta! I never intended that! This is news to me as well! I wanted to befriend you guys, not kill you!" Kakarika, despite the fact that her power made Vegeta's look like a kitten's, she was shaking. Not from fear, but from anger. Anger at herself, at Aladar, at Vegeta, at the world in general.
Vegeta stopped, looking at Kakarika. She sighed heavily, and Vegeta noticed tears in her eyes.
"Come on, kid... I'm..." Vegeta struggled to say the word he had avoided his entire life, "I'm... sorry."
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Kakarika laughed, but the tone wasn't one of glee or relief, but held a hysterical note to it.
Vegeta, struggling between emotions and his own typical attitude, held Kakarika in his arms, "Come on, kid... we'll get through this, somehow. Stop crying."
Kakarika sighed, pulling away from the saiya-jin, "I can't bring myself to kill any of you, but I realize that in order to use my ultimate attack, I have to destroy you all and take your power. This monster knows it too, that's why he's trying to kill you Z Fighters. If I were to leave, it's a good bet that he'd follow me. That way you'd all be safe."
"You can't leave, Kakarika." Vegeta sighed, "Much as I'd love to see you out of here and out of my life, I understand that we need you to destroy this creature. Us Dark Power servants need to stick together."
Kakarika smirked, "Somehow I thought you were a little more evil than you're acting right now."
"We're very much the same, lizard." Vegeta smirked, "We're both dark fighters who are lost in this world, just wandering around and looking for our destiny. I know what it's like to be alone, without a family or a home, just trying to find a way out of this nightmare come true. We're like two shooting stars, kid, and nothing can stop us from reaching our goal."
Kakarika smirked, "Good, now go train or something, and create some Dark attacks. We'll need them if we want out of this nightmare."
-----------------
Kakarika tied her bandana tightly around her head, gazing out at the sunny, clear day. She took a look at the pictures of her family that she had shown Trunks earlier. She had noticed earlier that they had changed. They too had wings and a tail, just like her new form. Somehow, they didn't look like her family anymore. A lonely tear ran down her cheek.
*I know what it's like to be alone, without a family or a home...* Vegeta had said. But he didn't know what she was feeling, because she hadn't told them yet.
She hadn't told the others how she had a family and a home, but was torn away from them against her will. She couldn't even recall their voices. Her brother had once said to get a tape player and record his voice saying different phrases such as "Hello", "I Love You", and other things so that he wouldn't have to say them again. Now, this didn't seem like such a bad idea. What Kakarika wouldn't have given to hear Shawn say her name, even to tell her to shut up.
A streak of black light zipped past her window, startling Kakarika. She narrowed her eyes in annoyance, teleporting outside.
-----------------
Vegeta had just created a new attack he called Kural Flash. It turned out to be twice as powerful as his Final Flash, but drained much less power. Vegeta, pleased with himself for developing such a powerful attack, had been practicing it over and over. Suddenly, he was interrupted by Kakarika appearing inches away from his face.
"When I said to practice, I didn't say RIGHT OUTSIDE MY WINDOW!!" Kakarika roared the last four words, the decibals pounded at the saiya-jin's sensitive eardrums like a timpani.
Vegeta merely smirked and started concentrating his power to a single ki blast, "Kural... FLASH!"
The dark beam of pure energy ripped through the air, straight towards the Alcoan. Kakarika snarled, her wings glowing with a purplish light akin to that of a black light.
"Black Wing!" Her wings flapped hard, curling around in front of her light a shield. Not only did the wings protect Kakarika's body, but they also sent out a sort of shock wave made of ki, flattening Vegeta to the ground and obliterating his attack.
Vegeta stood up, dusting himself off and cursing in Saiya-go, calling Kakarika several names that included "damn lizard", "creepy reptile", "winged whore", and "flying asshole", among others. Kakarika merely yawned and flew back inside, muttering about "moronic monkey princesses" (thank you DaSSJVegeta420!).
Vegeta snapped to attention hearing that particular insult. He whirled around, but a greenish claw clamped over his mouth. Vegeta powered up, but felt a heavy collar clamp around his neck. His power dropped to just enough to keep him alive. The prince yelled, but the sound was muffled by the creature's claw. Suddenly, something hit against the back of his head. Bright lights exploded in front of his eyes shortly before darkness rushed in to claim Vegeta.
-------------------
Dinnertime came, with no word from Vegeta. Bulma wasn't worried, however. She stated simply that he often was nowhere to be seen when she was cooking. Kakarika, having hunted her meals earlier, decided to give Bulma's cooking a whirl. However, after hearing that the temperamental saiya-jin avoided her during dinnertime, the young Alcoan was beginning to wonder just what she had gotten herself into.
After several small fires (conveniently put out by Kakarika), thousands of curses compliments of Bulma, and complete embarassment for Trunks, dinner was served. It was impossible to tell what it was, because it looked like tentacles in toe-jam sauce with a side of earwax, and smelled even worse. Dessert looked like belly-button lint and smelled like a rotting corpse. Kakarika poked at one of the tentacle-looking things with a fork, half expecting it to reach up and grab her fork from her claws. Having completed her analysis, concluding that the meal was, in fact, dead, she sliced off a chunk and speared it onto her fork. Hesitating only for a moment, she shoved it into her mouth. An incredibly horrible taste filled her mouth. So as not to insult Bulma, she swallowed it and gave her a strained smile.
"Well?" Bulma asked.
"... Good... !" Kakarika said, not very convincingly.
"Don't encourage her." Trunks said dryly. Bulma shot Trunks a deadly glare.
"You sound just like your father... and speaking of Vegeta, where is he?" Bulma sounded worried, "He's not in the gravity room."
Trunks waved his hand dismissively, "He's probably sparring with Goku."
Bulma sighed, "Those two..."
But Kakarika knew in her heart that something was wrong. Her dark powers were strengthening, and she couldn't sense Goku or any of the other Light Powers. Night had fallen, and it was still way too early. Kakarika frowned. Something was wrong, the balance of power had somehow been shifted to the Dark Side (no, not Star Wars).
"Stay in the house, Bulma." Kakarika said in a low voice, "Trunks, you come with me."
Startled at Kakarika's change of attitude, Trunks nodded and followed Kakarika out the door and into the night.
