DEATH IS SOFTER THAN LIFE
Chapter 3 - Just a Nightmare
Everything had been just a nightmare.
Trunks had seen all the recent events in a flash who had lasted half a second in reality. A flash so real that he was still feeling some cold inside of him.
At the moment the Ditmaga was falling, a last push on the door made it break, and Trunks could rush inside, while the prisoners were running outside the laboratory in total panic. He reached his mother when the Ditmaga hit the floor in a blinding, bluish, light explosion. He couldn't get his mother and him back to the door in time, so instead, he used his own body as a shield for her and created another ki-shield to protect them both from the worst of the inferno. The next moment, he was piercing the ceiling with his mother in his arms and was flying away from the hell that had become the lab.
Of course they had been both hurt and burned, but they were alive. Most of the technicians had perished in the explosion, and some of them, at the door, had absorbed most of the shock, allowing those already a few feet away, and Bra, to escape unharmed.
A few hours in the regenerating tank for Trunks and a few days for Bulma had healed them almost totally. Bulma had started an investigation afterwards, from the videos and the records of electrical tensions, and had found the flaw in the device. It was something to do with the metal of the ring which had absorbed the energy, instead of simply conduct it, as it was planned at that period of the test. She decided to combine the initial metal with the metal the saiya-jins were using in a stronger but more flexible alliage.
After a few months, another test was conducted more carefully and this time, the result had proved to be what Bulma was expecting.
A few days after Trunks had turned 15, they had decided to send a small group of warriors in recognizing team into the parallel world that Bulma had been studying for a few days. After she was sure it was Earth and that the atmosphere was allowing life, Trunks, Vegeta, Goten, Gohan and Goku had been sent.
They had arrived in an alternate version of their world where the Saiya-jin never existed. The Capsule Corporation and Doctor Gero had associated their knowledge and technologies to face some powerful alien enemies invading the Earth. Goku and his team had joined a small group of powerful cyborgs created by Gero, and the aliens had been wiped away from Earth after a few months of fight. Gohan had been killed in the fight, but hopefully Piccolo's father and Kami were still on Earth, and so were the dragon balls. Gohan had been wished back, and after a year, another wish had been made to repair the dragon ball of the Z-warriors' Earth.
The years following that event, the Ditmaga between those two worlds remained almost all the time open. The Bulma's of the two alternative worlds were sharing their knowledge and technologies, and the Z-warriors were always ready to go into a fight to defend the two worlds; especially since the alternate world had no pointy-haired psychopath Saiya-jins to defend them...
For the first time in ages, the Earth hadn't faced any wars for years and the humans were meeting a prosperous time. Even if born-to-be-fighters as Vegeta and Goku were feeling annoyed and were going into sparring sessions for any reasons, the others were really enjoying their time and seizing the day. Trunks had married Mercedes, Gero's daughter in the alternate world, while Bra was constantly after Goten who was still thinking of himself as too old for her. Trunks was amused to see how Goten was trying to escape Bra all the time, and had given her some useful tricks to make things even more difficult for his best friend.
Trunks had already a 3 years old son named Subaru and another one was on his way when Bulma received the Peace Nobel Price for one of her best invention: a device which could create food from pure energy. It was not really food, but some kind of liquid containing every elements necessary, proteins, lipids, glucids, mineral salts, ... And many kind of different types of composition could be created.
With devices like these, no one would never be hungry. Bulma had already finished the device a month earlier, but she had worked out to improve it so that it could also take its energy from the sun or the moon-light. She didn't want to present something half-done to the Scientific Congress.
The day where she received the Peace Nobel Price at the ceremony, all the team was gathered. Trunks was standing between his wife and his sister. Vegeta was behind them. When Bulma was called by the president of the Scientific Congress, Trunks turned to his sister: "I was sure one day all her work would be recognized."
Bra had tears in her eyes, and whispered back while their mother was reaching the podium: "I know how she has been committed in her work. It must be the most beautiful day of her life".
Trunks pressed her arm gently and turned to talk to his father. Whatever he wanted to tell him, he forgot it when he saw the look on his father's face. An horrified look. Vegeta turned to his son, then to the podium.
"Look", Trunks heard his father screaming, "Her hat.... Her hat is BURNING!"
Trunks jerked away from the linen of his bed, almost screaming.
Almost.
His heart was pounding and he was breathing hard, more like gasping for air. He ran a hand thought his hair and found them soaked with sweat that was running on his forehead. He looked around and recognizes his room.
His new room, in his new house.
All the cruel reality came back to him. Bulma, the explosion, the decision of his father to move to another place, closer to Goku.
He curled up and put his hands on the side of his head and closed his eyes to try to chase away - without success - the pictures always coming to his mind.
How long his sister had been standing by the open door in the middle of the night, he didn't know, but it's her voice who snapped him out of his mental torture.
"I miss mummy too, Nii-chan", she said softly. Trunks almost jumped in the air. He hadn't felt her entering his room. Her voice was so calm, yet loaded with sadness. In the semi-darkness of the room, she looked much more older than 6 years old. An adult expression on a child's face. Trunks smiled to her slightly and opened his arms so that she could come near him. He couldn't stay in his silence like that. He had to take care of her. He knew his father was not the king of tenderness and would perhaps not be able to comfort his daughter correctly.
Bra sit on the bed near him. She was holding something, a picture. She was looking down at it. Trunks glanced at the picture and recognized it. This picture had been taken two years ago, when the whole family had gone to an amusement part. On the picture, taken by Chichi, Bulma was holding her two kids tenderly. Vegeta, in some hawaiian shirt was standing away, his hands in his pocket, acting as if he liked as well being shot in picture as a kid can like eating spinach.
"Why can't we go back in time?", she whispered with a weak voice. Trunks instantly thought about the time-machine Mirai- Trunks was using, but remembered what the latter had told. He turned to his sister: "because this would just create a world where she's still alive, but our world would still exist", he whispered back to her, in the same calm-wanna-be tone. He hugged her, acting responsibly for the first time in more than a month.
"Remember that time", she started on a more joyful tone, "Tousan and Goku-san had been into a hammer contest and broken the whole machine", she had a sad laugh. "Mom was so angry with Dad that day, she was cared we would all be thrown outside the park".
Trunks remembered at that time something from his childhood, when his father was going to sacrify himself to kill Buu and save the world. "Take care of your mother. I love you both". That's what he had said. It was a painful yet revealing moment for a 8 years old kid. He turned his attention back to his sister. "They were fighting all the time, but I know Dad was caring about her", he whispered. Bra nodded.
He went silent for a moment, then continued: "Dad couldn't do more than he already did for her.
*He wasn't there when she died. *I* was! *, he thought with a violence that surprised him.
Bra turned to him, "Can I stay with you tonight? I'm scared of sleeping alone in my room...", she added, almost ashamed of her own fear. Trunks understood, she wasn't exactly afraid, but she was feeling alone. "Sure, you can stay here.", he replied softly, moving to the side of the bed so that she could have some place to lie down. "But tomorrow, you'll have to sleep in *your* room", he added, playfully, looking at the ceiling.
Bra lay down on his side and stared at the ceiling too.
"Are we going to stay here forever?", she asked with her sweet and high-pitched whisper.
Trunks frowned slightly. "Nope", he whispered. "It's just for a little while... We'll be back..."
He thought deeper *even if I have to go back alone, *I* will be back. I will not flee*.
[to be continued ;) ]
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And the lesson of the day is:
"Never trust me when in a story of mine, you read a fast summary for events that took years to happened. It's never real :p "
*lets go an uncontrollable and psychotic evil laugh :D *
Legolas, to Trunks: And *your* lesson of the day is: "Ar-row"
Trunks: - What?
Legolas: - well, yesterday you managed to say "elf" and I told you today would be a two-syllab word :p
*Trunks turns SSJ*
Roselyne (with a falsetto voice): - "Oh, but it's Goku's fighting outfit! Look at this WONDERFUL ORANGE color. I wonder how it would fit with someone with purple hair… :D "
*Trunks runs away screaming insanely*
Legolas, shouting after him: "Remember tomorrow we do a three-syllabs word: Ba-zoo-ka ! :D "
Roselyne: Man, you are becoming as evil as me… :)
Legolas: ^^;