Took a while to get this part out, (work and school and various evil things including muses) but yay for me!! Thanx for nice reviews!!
Disclaimer: *Muses look relieved. Melora just looks pissed* I don't own DBZ sadly enough, but the stuff not owned by Toriyama-sensei is mine, so no swiping or I will set my Buu and Frieza muses on you. (And they're annoying, believe me.)
(A/N: Daniel of Lorien: I know Brolli is supposed to be the Legendary Super Saiya-jin, but he is only the Legendary in the movie timeline, which does not fit into the anime or manga timeline. Goku was the first Saiya-jin to fulfil the legend in the anime and manga. I live in the UK, which means I haven't seen any of the movies, and I don't like Brolli anyway; so for the sake of the story, Goku is the Legendary Super Saiya-jin.
Keios Thiori: I'm taking the review as a great compliment, so don't be mad at how bad this part is!!)
Sins of the Fathers Part 8/?
'You're being too hard on yourself. For only four months at this level of training, you've made incredible progress.' After three further, failed attempts to transform, Kitara had finally landed herself in one of the medical bay's regeneration tanks, floating angrily in a sea of synthetic DNA while Trunks and Reizoku berated her through the internal mike.
'Easy for you to say oniisaan. You've been a Super Saiya-jin for as long as you remember, and Rei doesn't even have a legend to fulfil.'
The changeling feigned a look of hurt as he glared at his friend and rubbed his aching temples. 'I think I'm already fulfilling one of the lesser known changeling legends.'
'Which is?'
'The legend of the changeling who gets so pissed off at his best friend's attempts to become stronger by trying to kill herself that he unfortunately strangles all thoughts of ascension out of her while trying to get some sense into her stubborn, irritating, irrational brain. Ever heard of it?'
Trunks repressed a smirk as he deactivated the regen tank's power system. 'Remind me never to ask you for a character reference.'
'Reminder noted.' The changeling prised the door of the tank open while Trunks found a change of clothes for his sister. Much like Vegeta, she had taken to wearing Saiya-jin armour while training; both for protection and a naïve wish to emulate her father and his training methods. Even he, however, thought she was taking her training too far, and had actually told her to train less intensively. His entire family had been rendered speechless at the sudden change in attitude.
The lavender haired demi Saiya-jin had little time to ruminate on his father's apparent personality swap before he sensed a highly agitated ki signal rapidly approaching them from down the hall. He barely moved out of the way in time before the Prince of the Saiya-jin barged into the medical bay, grabbed Reizoku by the neck and pinned him against the wall.
Kitara's eyes got progressively wider as she watched Vegeta choke the life from her friend. 'What the…Dad, what are you doing!?'
If Vegeta heard the yells, he chose to ignore them. His grip around Reizoku's neck tightened as the changeling struggled to breathe.
'How long have you known!?'
'Known what!?'
'So you made a deal with them that you would escape before they destroyed us…You're as cowardly as your father!! I knew you couldn't be trusted!!'
'What have I done now!?'
'They're coming…and I so wanted to be the first to kill you.' His snarl turned into a sadistic leer.
His vision was starting to blur along with his patience…'Two things Vegeta; one, what's going on? And two, who are 'they'?'
'The Ionia-jin…Kami, you can't even sense them from here…weakling.' He reluctantly let go of the changeling's neck; Reizoku collapsing onto the tiled floor, wheezing and rubbing his neck while Kitara crouched over him anxiously.
Trunks looked at his father with a mixture of confusion and rapid, unwelcome understanding dawning on his features. 'Are you sure it's the Ionia-jin? Couldn't it be something else?'
'The ki is familiar, but far stronger than I remember…' The Saiya-jin prince looked down at his daughter, remembering the extent of her injuries after she had arrived on Earth. Realisation hit him like a Final Flash Attack. 'You could sense them as well, couldn't you brat?'
She stood up and glared at Vegeta. 'I have a very strong denial reflex. You'd understand that, Mr.'I'm-the-strongest-of-my-entire-race-and-still-get-my-butt-kicked-by-Kakarott'.'
He chose not to eviscerate her and settled for snarling in rage instead.
'I knew they'd probably try to find us, but I didn't know they could track us down from this distance. Either they learned how to sense ki, or there's someone else who knew where we are. I guess we'll find out soon enough.'
'So…how long do we have?' Trunks quickly found the outgoing phone extension and started dialling in Goten's number.
Reizoku stared straight ahead, his dark blue eyes glazing over in shock as he sensed the ki signatures. '…They'll make planet fall in two days.'
'And that's a bad thing because…?' Trunks paused long enough to look at Reizoku.
'…We're screwed.'
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After three hours fruitless efforts, she still couldn't sleep. Time and time again, her thoughts kept coming back to the impending invasion. For her father and brother and the others, this was probably nothing compared to Frieza or the jizouningen or Cell or even Majin Buu. But if a pure blood Saiya-jin warrioress and the prince of the changelings couldn't even harm the weakest of the Ionia-jin Tri…She closed her eyes and tried to sense if anyone was still awake.
One floor below, Vegeta and Bulma were oblivious to the mental probe, their thoughts seemingly untroubled by what would happen tomorrow. Down the hall, Bra was sound asleep, while a loud snore from next door told her Trunks was dead to the world. Rei however…
Like his father before him, Reizoku had three things he couldn't easily cope with. Prejudice against his race, apocalypses, and… /No. I don't need distractions. Not now. Not even that…/ It was the second of these that was causing him to toss and turn sleeplessly in his bed. A raised ki signature, albeit a friendly one, caused him to abandon any attempt at rest. The door hissed open as Kitara crept into his room, wearing a rumpled nightshirt and a look of pure fear on her face. He didn't need to ask why she couldn't sleep. He could feel her antagonised emotions from across the room.
He wordlessly shifted over in the bed so that she could curl up beside him, wrapping his tail around her shivering form as a vague gesture of reassurance. Until the time of change had occurred, they had slept like this for almost eight years. After that they rested apart, curling together purely for warmth, almost never for comfort. No words were needed between them as Kitara burrowed closer to him, resting her head against his chest as she surrendered to her exhaustion.
It took a great deal of restraint on his part not to pull her closer, as he had always done when either of them felt scared or alone. It would only get too complicated. He settled for simply holding her as he started to feel the rush of drowsiness through his body.
It fleetingly occurred to him as he succumbed to sleep himself, that she maybe, just maybe wouldn't have minded if it had become complicated…
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An apocalypse would have been preferable to the number of emotions swirling around inside her. Part of the wish was due to her seeking Rei's company in the dead of night, and the rest was due to the emotions swirling against her breakfast, making her feel twice as nauseous.
The fear of death was one reason why she had needed Rei's comfort, but there was something about the way he could assuage her fears. Added to that, it had felt…right, for lack of a better word, to stay with him. He had always pulled her right next to him if they shared body heat; last night, she had wanted him to pull her closer, but not just because of that…and what she hated was that she wasn't even sure why she had wanted it. Whether it was due to her fears or whether it was due to…she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. /Not now./
/Two hours now. Two damn hours of sitting round, waiting for an Ionia-jin invasion fleet to come and slaughter us all./ Goku and Vegeta were keeping a lookout on the skies. Piccolo and Gohan stood off to one side, apparently meditating, while Goten and Trunks were throwing small ki blasts at a nearby rock formation. She remained in the shadows of the overhanging cliff, while Rei was perched on the rocks above, his senses attuned to the kis in orbit over the planet.
All of them felt the surge of raw ki in a heartbeat. Taking observation positions on top of the cliff, they waited in unpleasant anticipation as the prow of the Ionia-jin craft pierced through the bank of clouds.
Like all Ionia-jin ships, this craft didn't look so much built as congealed together, parts cannibalised from other travel craft until it looked like a vaguely spherical mass. Squinting slightly at the battered exterior, Vegeta identified several ship parts as belonging to the Bas-jin, with Sakana-jin markings in various places. The critical systems appeared to be the work of the changelings and Saiya-jin however; he relaxed imperceptibly seeing that none of the sleek Neko-jin craft had been pillaged for this bastardisation of a ship.
The beings inside the ship were what currently concerned him. For a supposedly weak race, their ki signatures were dangerously high. He was beginning to realise that his firstborn hadn't exaggerated about the strength of these people. A sense of deja vu overwhelmed him. 18 years ago, he and the other Seishi had faced an almost identical situation as they had watched Frieza's ship landing on Earth. Only this time, they would fight outright, instead of watching a more powerful fighter do their task for them.
They would land within a minute. Time to greet some unwelcome guests.
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Fire raced through Goku's mind as he stared in awe at the Ionia-jin emerging from the craft. These people…they looked like living flames. He might have been able to fight fire, but it was near the top of his 'Things to be avoided unless you really want your otherwise good day to be wrecked' list, just under needles and indigestion.
'How can they do that?' Gohan's question was aimed more towards Kitara and Reizoku than anyone else. Due to the pattern of their movements, the Ionia-jin were unable to sense ki, and hadn't spotted the huddled fighters in the shelter of a convenient cliff face.
Kitara leaned on a small outcrop and studied the small group below. 'They're a race of elemental fighters. Their element is fire, so they can manipulate it as they see fit. But the difficulty with fighting them is that simply trying to counter with the opposite element only drops their defence a little. Otherwise, they're fairly invincible.'
'Fairly invincible means they have a weakness; it just hasn't been exploited yet.' Piccolo gazed out over the ledge with a seemingly bored eye.
'If they have a weakness, we didn't stick around long enough to find out.' The Saiya-jin female looked over towards her father.
Who, conveniently, had disappeared.
'Dad? Where'd he go?'
Trunks looked relatively unfazed. 'Hey, I don't control him.'
'True. His ego does however. Look down there.' Reizoku nodded towards the assembled throng, who had halted their actions as soon as Vegeta had appeared before them. His words were ripped away by the wind, but his gestures were more than enough to punctuate whatever the hell he was saying.
And apparently, whatever he had said constituted a response from the commander. Deciding to make their presence known, the Z-Seishi floated down to stand by the Saiya-jin prince, Gohan and Goku berating him telepathically. The changeling stood slightly to one side, eliciting nervous glances and shocked whispers from the Ionia-jin. Kitara's presence next to him only increased the volume and intensity of the fear in their faces.
'Well.'
Only one word. It sounded like the rumble of an earthquake, but the natural disaster was a lot less dangerous than the one behind the voice.
'To what do we owe the honour of meeting the great Saiya-jin prince Vegeta after all these years?'
Vegeta refused to be intimidated by a nameless voice. It was one of the first lessons his father had taught him as a child. 'Show yourself, unless you are a true coward as I believe you to be?'
A figure slowly moved in the gloom, the ethereal glow of the living flames surrounding its body a beacon in the darkness. The low rumble again. 'Are you sure you want to see me, o prince?'
The glare was answer enough to a fairly idiotic question. The figure moved elegantly into the light as each of the warriors stared at it.
Goku and Goten both wore the same expression of total amazement.
Gohan looked wary, well learnt from his life as a warrior.
Trunks brilliantly demonstrated a look of utter confusion.
Piccolo remained stone-faced as always. Only his eyes belied his surprise.
Reizoku's upper lip was curled back in distaste and recognition.
Kitara's eyes filled with hatred and recognition.
Vegeta simply stared at the figure, as if trying to decide how to react. He went with his gut instinct.
A laugh of pure disbelief echoed around the mountains.
TBC
Crap I know. But I tried!!!!