Untitled Document

Dragonball Z: Unlikely Romance
A Dragonball Z FanFic By Eric Jacobson
Chapter 7 -- The Kidnapped Saga
Episode 12 - Rico's Victory

High atop Korin tower, the Brief family sat huddled together, hanging on Korin's every word as he relayed it from King Kai. At this point, the story they were hearing still sounded grim, but the fact that the boys were progressing was something of a comforting notion. When they were down, Mrs. Brief would begin to bawl her eyes out, but stop when she'd hear that it was back to a level playing field. The rollercoaster had been going on since they had arrived sever hours before.

At the end of Snake Way, yet another vigil was being held. King Kai, Gregory and Bubbles found themselves doing something they'd never thought they ever would: cheering for Vegeta. Now, he and Krillin were the only hope of stopping the menace that threatened both this dimension and the other from which the Saiyans had come. King Kai was relaying information on two fronts, one to his companions and the other to Korin tower, and the fatigue was showing.


The hallway exploded as the two enemies, one Saiyan, one Amazon, fired back and forth at each other, the whole time charging down what seemed to be a neverending corridor. When they caught up with each other, punches would take the place of Ki shots, but then the Amazon would pull a fast move and get a leg up on Rico, causing another blast battle.

"Damnit! Get back here and fight me, slimeball!" Rico was outwardly angry, showing his relation to Vegeta quite well.

"Yeah, right. Come on, monkey, is that all you've got? If that's it, there's no way you can complete your mission!"

"I'll complete it, along with your boss's destruction for killing my brother!" Rico shot off another Ki blast as he finished the sentance. His blasts were getting bigger and bigger as his rage swelled within him.


Not far behind them, Krillin and Vegeta sped towards the sound of the blasts and screams coming from up ahead. Krillin, hearing Rico scream about his brother, looked at Vegeta and thought to himself. 'Man, Vegeta has no clue that it's him Rico's yelling about up there. If he knew... Damn I'd hate to see how Vegeta would react. He's used to being the only child, literally.'

"Turn up the juice, baldie! Bulma and your Mizuki are in here somewhere, and the faster we find them, the faster we can put this behind us and go the hell home!"

Krillin was surprised by Vegeta's newfound sense of urgency in rescuing the girls. Before, Vegeta wouldn't have lifted a finger to help anyone, much less Bulma. But now here he was, going after her, and another girl he barely even knows. And going with such determination! The only time Krillin had seen Vegeta this determined had been in the recent months when he was training to become a Super Saiyan.


The fight between Rico and his Amazon rival spilled into a huge antichamber, filled with monitors and terminals. There were no other exits other than doors opposite the hallway. The two combatants slowed to a halt and continued to battle hand to hand within the room. To any normal human, their fight would have been nothing more than a blur. Punches, kicks, elbows, knees, even the occasional head but, all moving at blinding speed. After a few moments, the two came to a dead stand still.

"Well, Rico, you've made it this far alive. But this is where your little journey comes to an end. I figured I'd give you a few moments to reflect on your life and soak in the scenery. After all, it's the last thing you'll see, aside from me standing over your dying carcass laughing."

"You think? Do you honestly thing that you can defeat me?" As Rico spoke, Vegeta and Krillin arrived at the entrance to the room and stopped short, watching what was taking place. "You just don't know, do you. Even if you manage to kill me, my brother will stomp you and your boss into a bloody pulp!"

"Oh, your brother, huh? I highly doubt he could beat us. He's not even a Super Saiyan like you and your friends! How could he possibly defeat us? We've always been superior to the Saiyan race. And once we have your precious DNA, what we create from it will be your people's destruction! Our finest hour is at hand, Rico, and there's nothing you or that repulsive brother of yours can do..."

"VEGETA IS NOT REPULSIVE!"

Vegeta's face froze in shock. He couldn't believe that Rico had spoken his name in context to being his brother. "What in the blue hell are you babbeling about, you idiot? I don't have a brother! I am the only son of King Vegeta, and I have no other family!"

Rico and the Amazon looked over and finally noticed the Saiyan Prince and his human companion standing in the room's entrance arch. "Maybe not in this dimension, Vegeta, but in ours you do. We had the same father, and when he was killed by these monsters we both swore that we'd get our revenge. But that revenge was doubled for me when these freaks ambushed you and killed you after you destroyed Freiza. They took advantage of your weakened state and... and..."

"And what? What exactly did these bafoons do to me?"

"They tortured you for the public to see. They brought in so many prisoners, women and children, to see their Saiyan Prince humiliated and ultimately destroyed. They hoped that it would break our resolve, seeing our fallen leader die. When father was killed, the job of King fell to you, being the older of us two. They thought killing the new King would be the straw that broke the camel's back. But they were wrong. They only created a new menace. They created me. From that moment on I swore that I'd hunt these creeps down and destroy them. And now I'm going to. Vegeta, Krillin, you guys might want to take cover..."

"Take cover? Cover from what?" Immediately, Vegeta began to feel the power welling up inside of Rico. He knew he had felt power like this before, but he couldn't remember when or where, or from who. Noone in his past, aside from Kakkarot, had ever displayed this much power, power that seemed to equal his own when he charged up for the... "Oh shit! Krillin, we need to take cover, now!" He grabbed the little monk by his Gi and took off down the hallway, looking for anything that would give them shelter from what he knew was coming.

The Amazon was intrigued by the Rico's growing energy. "Go ahead. Take your best shot, monkey. I'm willing to bet that it won't even dent my armor."

Rico looked over at the Amazon and smiled. "Oh, this is going to dent more than just your armor, you jackass. I've got a little present for you. Before you killed my brother, he managed to create a technique that would finish off any rival. The only one to ever feel it was Freiza, before you killed Vegeta. But now you get to be number two. And remember, second place is the first loser."

"Well, after you finish with the little lightshow, I'll get my jollies making you the second banana, hot shot."

"I don't think so." Rico's Ki exploded in flashes of bright yellow and blue, and began swirling around him as if in a blender. "Here's a gift from beyond the grave, Amazon! A message from my brother! GALLET GUN!" And with that, he released a blast that nearly filled the room.

The Amazon could only stare in horror as the energy wave sped toward him and eventually swallowed him, vaporizing his armor and slowly vaporizing his cells. He could only scream in pain as the blast picked him up and smashed him through the wall, breaking what was left of his bone structure.The blast continued through into the next room, taking with it any trace of the Amazon opponent. This battle was over.


Down the main hallway, Vegeta and Krillin emerged from a side room when the dust had settled. "Damn, Vegeta, what the hell was that? That must have been some blast."

"It was more than just 'some blast,' baldie. He unleashed a Gallet Gun attack. My own personal attack, and he knew it. I can only guess that my counterpart in the other dimension had invented it himself, and then taught it to Rico before he was killed."

"A Gallet Gun? Isn't that the blast you were going to use to destroy Earth?"

"One and the same. But his Gallet Gun wasn't as powerful as mine, since we're all still here and in one piece. Let's get back in there and survey the damage. I'm sure that blast took alot out of him, and he'll probably need me to step in and clean up after him."

Moments later, Vegeta and Krillin arrived back in the room where the battle had ended, only to find it much differant from how they had left it. Everything was either tossed about on the floor, partially burned, on fire or completely destroyed. There was a large hole in the wall accross from the entrance, leaving no need to open the door that was there. The hole led into another, larger room. They crawled through it and found themselves in a cavernous space the size of a football field. The hole, it turned out, was near the back of this new room. In the front, there were hundreds of monitors, control panels and terminals, along with a giant Red Ribbon logo on the floor.

"This is a Red Ribbon base?" Krillin's thoughts traveled back to when he and Goku were young, and he remembered the Red Ribbon's attempt at world domination. "This thing must have been abandoned after Goku finished them off, and the Amazons found it when they came to this dimension."

In the middle of the room, they saw Rico, standing silently, staring at the monitors and things ahead of him. "So now you know, Vegeta. Yes, I am your brother. And I've hunted these bastards down to avenge you and our father. When I learned that they were coming to this dimension to find you and enact their insane genetics experiment, I had no choice but to follow. I couldn't let them capture you and do that sort of thing to you."

"Well, if you really are my brother, and you are doing this to avenge my death, then the only things I can do are thank you, for starters, and help you end this."

"Ending this is exactly what I had in mind. And it ends here, it ends now..."


How will it end? Will Rico locate and smash the Amazon leader? Will Vegeta and Krillin save the girls? Will the Amazons' twisted plan succeed? Will I stop asking these "Will" questions? Find out in Episode 13: Lost... And Found! Coming Soon! Check out all my fics at Eric's Writer's Lounge. And of course, stop by the DBZ:UR Home Site and visit the Message Board! Shameless Self Promotion RULES!