AUTHOR'S NOTE: Violence alert! Let the beatings begin...

Chapter 6

Vegeta hung in the air, his breaths coming and going in great heaving rasps. His left arm was tweaked, and his right leg battered, but the wounds only added to his desire to continue. He looked over at his opponent bobbing up and down in the air like a buoy, who to his satisfaction was showing an almost equal amount of wear and tear.

Kakkarot had ascended twice, just as he had. So far it had been the most satisfying battle of his life, and up to this point he had no regrets.

"I see you've maintained your skill in the afterlife, Kakkarot," Vegeta conceded in between breaths. "But it still won't save you."

Kakkarot's green eyes flared, and he smiled with acid cheer. "No. I'd say 'maintaining' certainly wouldn't have been sufficient to beat you, Vegeta," he said in a mocking, confident tone that sent subliminal red flags waving in Vegeta's head. The prince angrily pushed aside his sudden reservations, but held his tongue as Kakkarot started to centralize his power.

But he's already ascended twice, he thought wildly. He can't go any higher…

"That's why I took my training a step further," he grated in an evil tone that seemed to come more naturally to him than to Vegeta himself. A surge of energy concentrated around Kakkarot suddenly, and Vegeta had to pull back to keep from being sucked into the whirling vortex.

His stomach dropped out as Kakkarot began to spasm and twitch, the crackling electricity dancing about his rigid form. He's ascending again? Impossible! Vegeta's survival instinct told him to run, but a voice much louder made him stay.

His pride…

Taking advantage of Kakkarot's distraction, Vegeta summoned his ki in a white-hot concentration that bubbled the skin on his palms. It only took seconds, but each second longer would make it that much more difficult. Finally satisfied with its destructive force, he ejected it at Kakkarot's transforming frame…

…only to watch it be lapped up like water by the radiating energy.

Shit!

An explosion sent him hurling back, and when he righted his tumbling body, Kakkarot hovered before him - completely transformed. Fear took a back step to amazement as he beheld his opponent's awesome state.

Kakkarot was a monstrous size, his vibrant, golden hair having lengthened to his ankles as it trailed behind him like the tail of a comet. His brow was protruded and menacing, while his malicious expression stole the breath from Vegeta's lungs.

The Saiyan started to laugh, a malignant, piercing cackle that chipped away at Vegeta's courage, and for the first time ever, the prince saw his own death in Kakkarot's eyes.

"Why Vegeta!" Kakkarot jeered, his once-kind face twisted with evil. "You look absolutely terrified!" The delight in his opponent's mocking tone sparked defiance in the prince. It might be the end, but there was no way in hell he was going down without a fight.

A cry gurgled in his gut and worked its way up and out his throat in a soul-quaking roar. Vegeta cocked the fist back on his good arm, and hurled himself at the third-level Saiyan, only to be caught by his neck from behind and dangled forcefully until his ears were filled with the sound of his own snapping neck.

No!

He lost all feeling in his body, and Kakkarot's laughter followed him as he was flung to the earth, no less limp than a marionette with the strings cut. He landed on his face and couldn't even flip over to keep himself from inhaling sand. He could barely make out Kakkarot's feet as he landed in the sand before him.

"You know, Vegeta," he grated. "I was going to kill you outright, but seeing you so helpless like this moves me."

Suddenly Vegeta found himself lifted by his damaged neck so that Kakkarot's vicious grin was directly in his line of vision.

"I think death is too easy an ending-"

Vegeta spat at him, the only offense he had left. "FINISH. IT. KAKKAROT!" he pushed through his teeth. "Don't…leave me…like this!"

"A life of paralysis. To live the rest of your days unable to wipe your own ass, because you were, as always, too weak to beat me."

"No!"

Kakkarot carried his limp form over to a palm tree, which he promptly snapped in half with his free hand. He then none-too-gently hung Vegeta by his ruined shirt on the splintered stump, leaving him to dangle, undignified and helpless.

"Ah. There we go. Just like a Christmas tree decoration. I can't wait to see their faces when they find you like this."

Vegeta felt the water sting his eyes. "KAKKAROT!"

"Now if you'll excuse me," the mighty Saiyan bantered in a dark wickedness that seemed to suit his voice so much better than his prior kind-heartedness. "I've got some unfinished business to attend to with an old friend."

And with that, he disappeared, discarding the despairing prince with all the respect and disregard of a smashed cockroach.

.

Piccolo felt him before he saw him; a horrible, soul-sucking presence that slammed into his back like a ki blast. He couldn't stop the tension from stiffening his shoulders as he turned slowly to face the man who had come to kill him.

What the namek saw snapped him out of his practiced reticence, and he gaped with all the indignity of stupefaction. "Goku…"

The third-level transformation that had made Gohan look like a God, fitted the boy's biological father as a menacing, unnatural, acolyte of death.

"It's Kakkarot now, Piccolo," he said in a tone that Piccolo didn't recognize. The Saiyan's smirk seemed forced, as though in an effort to draw out the sweetest revenge of his life before his rage took over and ended the moment. "In a way I should thank you," he continued, his grin twitching. "If you hadn't stolen my family from me, then I would have never pulled out of that annoying good cheer that plagued my life."

"Did you actually think they'd wait around for you to come back?" Piccolo asked, hoping against all the precedents of an angry Saiyan that he could delay his imminent death by conversation.

Goku's attempt at banter suddenly lost to the humiliation he'd suffered at Piccolo's hands. His face contorted in fury, and as the fight commenced, Piccolo could only be grateful that he'd sought him out first instead of Chi Chi.

.

Gohan spun around when he felt it, and ran to the front of the cave to look at the sky. His fists clenched at his sides and he began to tremble.

Chi Chi gasped, and collapsed to the floor with Goten's frightened form in her arms. "Is that him? Oh, Gohan! Is that HIM!" He was unsurprised that even his mother could sense his father's horrible power. Gohan nodded wordlessly, concern for Piccolo skyrocketing past all his promises to stay grounded.

He felt Piccolo's power surge. They weren't that far away…

"Gohan. He's going to kill him!" Chi Chi cried in near hysterics. "Forget about me. Go save Piccolo! If you beat him now he'll never make it to us!"

Gohan gritted his teeth and looked down. In her panic, his mother sounded unexpectedly rational. As a matter of fact, he couldn't agree with her more… He turned to her, and grimly nodded.

"Hurry!" she barked.

Needing no more encouragement to break his word to Piccolo, he shot into the air, shifting quickly through all three levels of transformation until he felt his hair stretch out behind him like radiating backdrop. Wish me luck, he thought in a moment of crazed morbidity. I'm off to kill my father…

.

When Gohan arrived, what he saw almost shocked him into paralysis. The triple-ascended Saiyan that had been Goku was hovering over Piccolo's dismembered body, slapping the namek's battered, blood-soaked face with his own arms. Gohan gave way to an unconquerable rage and before his father could even turn around he slammed into him with a globe-shattering force, sending the powerful man crackling through several layers of the planet's crust.

Gohan didn't even bother to wipe the moisture from his eyes as he looked down at his mentor and best friend. "Piccolo!"

The namek's eyes kept rolling back in his head, having lost all four limbs to Goku's beating. Gohan knew that to regenerate it all would be near impossible, depending on energy that Piccolo no longer had. The teenage boy grabbed his shoulders and shook him, the emotion cracking his voice.

"Regenerate yourself, Piccolo!" He slapped the namek's face in an effort to stun him out of his incoherence. "Try! You must try!"

Piccolo sputtered, and then cried out as the pain hindered his awareness anew.

"Come on, buddy," he whispered as he cradled Piccolo's gimped form in his arms. "Don't die on me…!"

Suddenly, Goku appeared before him, his body as bloodied and ripped as his clothes. He was panting heavily and Gohan found that it was easier to see his father as a monster in his ascended state. The man, quite simply, looked nothing like the father Gohan had loved.

Goku wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and a teeth-baring smile split his face. "You don't need him anymore, son. Your real father is here."

Gohan glared up at him, "Goku was my father," he hissed. "Not the maddened devil who possessed his body!"

Goku quirked an eyebrow. "Oh no? My blood runs through your veins, boy. What you see before you now is an intrinsic part of your genetic make up," he grinned.

"I'm not evil!" Gohan cried.

"You can argue with me all day long, but wouldn't you rather fight it out? After all, it's in our nature-"

"Shut up!"

"Now move aside already. Let me finish with the namek before we settle our differences-"

The Saiyan nearly bit his own tongue off as a powerful blow knocked his jaw up into his skull and sent him flying backwards. Gohan followed suit, and blasted him with a handful of well-aimed and immensely potent ki blasts. You're not my dad, he kept telling himself over and over, to keep from losing momentum. You're not!

Goku flipped back and grunted in pain at the onslaught. He caught Gohan's hand and spun him around only to find the boy's heel imbedded in his kidney on the rebound. He yelped and fell to his knees, nearly losing consciousness as another well-placed kick cracked the back of his head.

Gohan pummeled him, and blocked the retaliations. But his element of surprise had passed, and soon Goku had him in a throat-crushing headlock. The teenager's fingers dug at the man's bulging forearms as he tried to break free.

Suddenly, the sky went black… Completely black. Goku gasped and immediately loosened his hold. Gohan took advantage of the moment and elbowed the man's gut, flinging him backwards. As he turned, he saw Goku doubled over slightly with a hand up to cease the battle. He was breathing heavily when he spoke.

"If you'll…excuse me, son," he managed in between breaths. "I've got a feeling that…this is about…me. I'll be right…back."

With that, the Saiyan pointed two of his fingers in between his eyes, and stared at them. In an instant, he was gone. Realizing that it was now out of his hands, Gohan eagerly descended to the nearly-dead namek on the ground below. He gently lifted what was left of Piccolo's body out of the blood puddle, and shot off in the direction of the lookout, hoping against all hope that he'd make it there in time for Dende to heal him.

.

"Shenlong!" Krillin cried at the great, serpentine dragon that snaked up off the lookout, high into the midnight sky. "We wish for you to remove Goku's evil nature-"

"No!" Bulma barked at him. "You worded it wrong-"

Her words were abruptly ended as Krillin went sailing across the tiles. Bulma fell back and tried unsuccessfully to stifle her scream. Standing in his place was a monster of a man; radiating hair cascading down his massive back like lava. He was battered, but no less furious, and her breath caught in her throat when she saw his face.

DAMN that instant transmission!

He looked up at the dragon, malicious intent tweaking his broadened features.

"I cannot grant that wish," Shenlong bellowed out.

Goku turned on them all, fixing on Krillin. "Any wish here that concerns me is going to be MADE by me," he grated, still panting from whatever battle he'd come from.

Eighteen ran over to Krillin and helped him to his feet, while Master Roshi backed slowly away from the whole scene.

Bulma was closest to Goku, and she knew that to open her mouth for a wish was to get the same treatment as Krillin, but in her case, his blow would probably kill her. Terror paralyzed her. What now!

Goku stared up at the dragon, and Bulma could almost see the wheels turning in his head. "It was very generous of you to summon the dragon for me," he said as he turned to her. "The question is, what do I wish for?"

If I could only distract him long enough to let Krillin get a wish in, she thought madly. But what could I…use… Her gaze fell on her own bared legs in front of her - a feature Vegeta had always appreciated immensely. She gulped. No sooner had the ridiculous thought entered her head than she was up on her feet and placing herself between Goku and the dragon.

He glanced at her and gave her all the attention of a hovering mosquito, but he didn't bat her away. I'm not a threat, huh? She thought snidely. Praying that Krillin would see his opportunity, Bulma quickly slid her hands up Goku's chest. His malicious smirk was replaced by blatant confusion as he frowned down at her. Then, before she had time to talk herself out of it, she clamped her hands behind his head, stood on her toes. Ignoring Goku's wide-eyed stare, she aggressively locked her lips onto his.

She felt his quick intake of breath, and slight flinch at the unexpected move. She heard Krillin's voice in the background but it was only static noise to the blood roaring in her ears. She felt him resist when Krillin started speaking, and quickly deepened the kiss, feeling the smooth texture of his teeth against the tip of her tongue. The taste of blood only added to the frenzied moment, and she thought she'd never felt such an adrenaline rush in all her life.

I can't believe I'm doing this, she thought crazily. I can't believe I'm kissing Goku! And then more significantly. It's working! I can't believe it's working!

Somewhere in the middle of it all Goku seemed to release the evil tension that was bunching up his muscles, and then Shenlong spoke.

"YOUR WISH HAS BEEN GRANTED."

Still caught up in the chaos of the moment, Bulma was unsure whether or not it was safe to pull away. It wasn't until Goku hesitantly touched her sides, and began to gently kiss her back, that she knew Krillin's wish had worked. Kakkarot would not have been so subtle…

She finally fell back on the balls of her feet, and looked up at the angular face of a stupefied Goku, who was looking at her for all the world as if he'd never seen her before.

She blinked, then remembered to unclasp her death grip on his head. She took a reluctant step back, not taking her eyes off his face.

"Goku…?"

He brought a hand to his lips and looked at her with a dumbed down expression that was typical of the little boy she'd met all those years ago. "You kissed me…"

Bulma felt the blood rush to her face as the awkward embarrassment she felt gave way to something much more familiar.

Rage.

Clenching her fist, she hauled off and hit him in the face. It didn't phase him much, but he did take a step back.

"Of COURSE I kissed you, you weak-willed lummox!" She went up and jabbed a finger in his chest, unable to stop the flow of invective that streamed forth from her frothing mouth. "Do you realize what you almost did to me on the beach down there? HUH? Just because you gave into the depression?

"Well, I'll tell you WHAT mister! I'm OUT of psychological Band Aids, you hear me? So you'd better knock off this misery bullshit," she fumed. "Chi Chi was a WIDOW, you egotistical butthead! What makes you think she'd still be around just in case you decided to come back, eh?

"You still have us, and you still have Gohan - who loves you more than anyone in the world. So stop wallowing in your sorrows, and make amends where you still can!" she barked and then stood on her toes again and got in his face. "If I see another frown on your retarded face, I WILL send you back to the afterlife! Got it?"

He just gaped at her as if her verbal daggers hadn't penetrated one iota; the words 'You kissed me…' still written all over his face.

"GOT IT?"

He nodded mutely.

"Good. Now considering you didn't kill Piccolo or Vegeta, I strongly suggest you transmit yourself and bring them back here to be healed."

At those words, his face DID transform. And it shifted into anguished panic. Two seconds later he had disappeared.

Having lost all momentum, Bulma sat down, burying her face in her hands. All the belligerence in the world wasn't going to erase the fact that it made her knees weak to kiss him like that. And it wasn't going to erase the fact that the LAST thing she wanted to do was to pull away from him. But what truly threatened her grip on reality wasn't the passion he stirred in her, or the immense relief at his well-being…

It was that kissing Goku, quite simply, felt right.