Dragonball Z: The Borg Saga
an original fan-fiction by Demon-Fighter Ash
based on characters created by Akira Toriyama
based on Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek"
Part 1: Arrival
Chapter 1: Out of the Shadows
Vegeta sprinted over the metal floor and leaped into the air with a harsh scream, the soles of his boots slamming against the curved wall; he kicked himself back into the air and twisted around, hovering silently for a moment as he scanned the chamber for the mounted laser-turrets. His eyes burned, his thin black hair soaked with sweat, and he squinted his dark eyes, clearing away the drops of perspiration and the slight trickle of warm blood running down his brow. Nothing could've hoped to match his strength, and even a blast of ki strong enough to destroy the Earth would've posed little more challenge than a housefly for him. But the laser's needle-thin beams, microscopic except for the red glow, had been focused tightly enough to cut through his own aura, and each of them flew at the speed of light, far faster than he could possibly dodge. At least, far faster than he could dodge without becoming a super-saiyan.
Bulma didn't even think he could dodge them as a super-saiyan; she'd said something about the laws of relativity and the light-speed limit, but none of that mattered to him. He would prove her laws and theories wrong, he would transcend the bounds of science itself and break all the limits it tried to impose on him. His heart still burned with rage at the thought of his last real battle, almost three years ago. Cell had barely even noticed his attacks, the monster's only focus had been the son of Kakkarot. A mere child, Vegeta fumed silently, who had surpassed him, just as the brat's father had surpassed him. There was a time when he would've killed them both for such impertinance, but not anymore. He wanted them to live, so they could someday bow before Vegeta, and acknowledge him as their rightful prince...
Vegeta's eyes suddenly widened in surprise as one of the steel panels on the opposite wall slid open and another platinum-white laser gun jutted out of the darkness, the red dot of the tracer beam hitting him in the chest. He jerked sideways just as the laser fired and the crimson beam sliced through his left shoulder, leaving a tiny pinpoint tunnel cut right through the muscle and bone, the laser emerging from the back of his black training suit to bounce off the reflective wall behind him. He screamed in pain, bobbing up and down slightly in the air, and quickly stretched out his right hand; a white orb of ki flew forward and the laser-turret exploded into a shimmering fireball. He wrenched around and unleashed a quick strafing burst of ki-attacks along the wall as three more box-like turrets popped out, all three of them instantly dissolving beneath the blinding white blasts, leaving gaping pits and cracks in the metal wall.
"Oh Vegeeeetaaaa!"
The wide round chamber suddenly spun around Vegeta and he felt blood rushing into his head. The blanket of invisible ki that, under the pressure of 500 times Earth's gravity, had barely held him off the ground now catapulted him into the ceiling. He slammed headfirst into the reinforced ceiling and tumbled back onto the ground, his concentration broken by the impact, his head ringing as he slowly hoisted himself back onto his feet. The artificial gravity of the training room had been turned off and he glanced around for the intruder; he snarled under his breath as he finally saw her, a ditzy blonde-haired woman gripping a silver platter filled with tea-cups and smiling idiotically at him from the open doorway.
Bulma had left the facility earlier that afternoon for some camping trip, and she'd even taken their son with her, to visit Kakkarot's wife and younger child while she was gone. But, of course, also getting rid of both her parents for the week was too much to hope for...
"How is your training going," she prattled quickly as he simply glared at her, "I was taking some tea to your father, and I just know how worked up you get, so why don't you join us for a break?"
His clenched fingers dug into his white gloves and Vegeta stared at her with a blind rage. Ever since the ridiculous ceremony Bulma had insisted on having--some absurd ritual meant to prove to the world feelings that he thought should've been kept private--her parents had insisted on pretending that they were now also his parents, due to some obscure Earth role that Bulma and her parents referred to as "in-laws."
On the saiyan homeworld, there would have been no greater honor for his father, the king of the planet Vegeta, than to be killed by his own son in a fight, but on Earth children kept their parents alive even to the point of infirmity. It seemed pointless to him to keep feeble old people alive, to let them wither away when they could have been killed at their peak, preserving their honor and the memory of their strength even while proving the superiority of the next generation. But Bulma and the other humans felt differently, and he had promised her that, no matter how alien it seemed, he would try to adjust...
"Fine," he hissed after taking a deep breath, "I will accept your offer."
Vegeta skulked through the archway and paced quickly along the small path running beside the frog pond. A small green red-eyed frog with short round antenna gave a startled yelp and leaped off its lily-pad into the water at the sight of Vegeta's scowling face, and the saiyan warrior glided past the pond and through another doorway into the large darkened, windowless computer-room, where Doctor Briefs stood before a huge wall filled with a grid of flickering television screens and computer monitors, scribbling notes down on a clipboard as his black cat clung to his shoulders and gave Vegeta and Mrs. Briefs a wide-eyed stare.
"I brought your teeeeaaa," Bulma's mother called out in a sing-song melody that seemed to rattle Vegeta's spine, "and just look who came out of his room to join us!"
"Oh, hello Vegeta," Doctor Briefs replied with a quick glance over his shoulder, his thoughtful eyes blinking beneath his thick glasses, then looked back at the blurred black-and-white images on most of the screens, "you might want to take a look at this. It's astounding, it'll probably revolutionize the whole field of astronomy. I never would have even guessed it, at least not until..."
"What is it," Vegeta asked sharply, wanting to get this rambling conversation over with.
"It's a tenth planet," the doctor nodded to himself, his mumbled reply seeming to answer Vegeta's question simply by accident, "somewhat small, probably smaller than our moon--at least, our old moon anyway, but still pretty big. And it's actually getting closer as we speak..."
"What," Vegeta gasped to himself as he suddenly felt something. He stared intently at the screen, making out little more than a small white blur against the blackness of space, but he definitely felt a living presence out there, a life-force with a ki unlike anything he'd sensed before...
"In fact," Doctor Briefs jotted down a few quick diagrams on his clipboard and nodded decisively, "its orbit is carrying it in a straight line toward Earth, and it's moving with incredible speed. Comparing the pictures that the probes sent back through tachyon-transmissions with the telescopes on Earth, it actually looks like it's moving near the speed of light itself. It's already crossed Pluto's orbit, and in just a few more hours it'll probably reach Earth. This is an astounding astronomical discovery, unlike anything..."
"Is it alive," Vegeta asked softly, and then quickly raised his voice, "tell me, is it inhabited?!"
"I can't tell," Bulma's father shrugged as the cat mewed nervously at the screen, "but the images are getting clearer every moment and I don't think it's a natural planet. The reflection of the sunlight on its surface is all wrong for a sphere. I think it's more like some kind of giant box."
Vegeta silently glared between the doctor and his wife, then back up at the wall of screens, at the dark blurry image now almost filling the computer monitors. Whatever this thing was, it definitely wasn't a planet, and he smirked slightly to himself; whatever it was that he sensed from the object, whatever it was that seemed to even make the cat uneasy, it might finally pose a worthy challenge...
* * *
The drooping fronds of the palm-tree rustled back and forth in the warm tropical breeze and a flock of seagulls scattered across the blue-white sky. The small island and simple pink house began to tremble, ripples spreading out from the beaches into the deeper ocean and a low rumbling sound rising from the back of the house to fill the otherwise-silent air. 18 stood on the beach, her spread feet planted on the ground and her palms cupped loosely over each other behind her back, both her arms stretched over her right side. She stared at the horizon through narrowed ice-blue eyes, her short blonde hair rising and falling in waves of invisible ki, and then she closed her eyes tight...
"Kammmeeee..."
The palm-tree's trunk began to shudder, waving left and right like a reed swept in a windstorm, and a single coconut tumbled to the ground, then began bouncing slightly within the wave of energy rippling steadily outward from the beautiful young android...
"...hammmmeeee..."
The waves grew higher, crashing outward from the shallow waters around the island into the ocean, white foam churning and spinning into frothing whirlpools as the ripples spreading out from the island grew into towering crests and billowing, heaving waves...
"...HAAA!!!"
She threw her hands forward, fingers spread and wrists pressed together, and a blue-white orb of flickering ki erupted from her open palms. The ball of energy hummed and swelled within her clasped hands for a second and then lashed outward in a huge stream of energy so bright that even the sunlight semed to fade into night around it. It swept away from the island, cleaving the ocean itself into a canyon of solid water, and finally vanised into the horizon. The parted sea seemed to hang suspended above exposed ocean floor for an instant, and then crashed back down with a single ear-piercing roar, as the young woman gave a deep exhausted sigh and looked back over her shoulder.
"How," she panted, bent forward with her hands gripping her denim-clad knees, sweat tracing down the fine strands of her hair and rolling along her cheeks, "how was that?"
"Not bad," a cracked rapsy voice answered, and she glanced around at Master Roshi, sitting with his legs crossed beneath him beneath the palm-tree, his eyes hidden beneath his cheap red sunglasses, "but that kamehameha was a little too powerful for the amount of ki you were using."
"I know," she sighed, looking back to the still-thrashing waves, "the machines take over whenever I try to gather any real ki. It's hard to keep them from amplifying my attacks."
"But you know those devices will only limit you," Roshi answered as he stood up and hobbled across the beach on his walking stick, "they can't ever be improved, and if you rely on them, you'll never become any stronger than you were the day Gero switched them on."
"I know that," she replied irritably, with an annoyed sideways glance over her shoulder at the squat old man, "that's why I asked you and Krillin to start teaching me how to use my natural ki instead of the implants. Now are you going to help, or just keep repeating the obvious?"
"I was just being helpful," Roshi retorted, and then stepped behind the young android, grabbing both her wrists and pulling them over her right side, "alright, now listen up! I noticed that you're using your wrists instead of the base of your palms. That drains some of the energy from the wave, and it's probably why all those gears and machines in you keep trying to kick in to pick up the slack."
"Alright," she nodded, pressing her hands closer together and closing her eyes tight once more, then she suddenly opened her eyes wide. She looked down to find Roshi's scrawny hands clutching her breasts through the thick black fabric of her shirt, and she quickly twisted her head around, her cold blue eyes narrowing in silent rage as the dirty old man gave a short snicker of perverse delight.
The island suddenly rang with a quick series of high-pitched yelps and screams, the shouts rising into a single wheezing shriek of agony. Roshi suddenly flew through the air and slammed against the side of the house, his arms and legs spread out like a snow-angel and his broken glasses dangling from one ear as he fell onto his back. He gazed dizzily up at the sky, the leering smile still plastered on his face despite the bruises and black eye.
"I was only," he cackled, lying motionless on the beach, "I was only checking your implants..."
"For your information, old man," 18 snarled back from further down the beach, having not moved one inch from where she'd stood during training, "THOSE are real!"
He gave another lurid chuckle and then seemed to notice something in the sky above him, staring at the clear tropical sky above him with a confused tilt of his head. He stared a moment longer, and then finally spoke aloud as 18 walked silently up the beach, passing by his still-limp body on her way back to the house.
"What is that," he murmered to himself, "there's something out there..."
"The only thing you're seeing after a beating like that," 18 rolled her eyes skeptically, "are stars."
"Heh, I'm used to those," he grinned, and then his smile dropped away into a perplexed frown once more as he lay on his back watching the sky, "no, this is something different. There's some sort of power out there, right at the very edge of the solar system. But it feels like it's getting closer..."
"You mean aliens, " she asked him as she looked up at the cloudless blue expanse herself.
"I'm not sure," he replied, "whatever it is, it's definitely not a namek's ki, or a saiyan, or a human, or even one of Frieza's kind. I've never felt any power quite like this one...
"Whatever it is," Roshi said as he sat back upright, "I'm sure Goku can handle it..."
* * *
"This looks like a good place for our tents," Gohan remarked as he slid his backpack onto a small boulder and looked around at the campsite. They'd picked out a small clearing in the thick shadowy forest, along the mossy banks of a deep still river of clear shimmering water, and he watched as Bulma surveyed the grotto, dressed in her khaki camping outfit. Krillin and Goku emerged from the shadows of the forest a moment later and Bulma smiled at the sight of them, then yanked a small metal case out of her own backpack.
"Ohhh no," she replied quickly as she yanked out a white plastic capsule from the case, "I've had enough of sleeping bags and campfires for one lifetime. THIS time we're camping in style!"
She pressed a button on top of the cylindrical capsule and tossed it several feet away, into the middle of the clearing; the tiny capsule exploded into a thick choking cloud of smoke, and the dust quickly cleared to reveal a large white igloo-like cabin perched in the center of the grove, yellow electric lights streaming out the windows and the sounds of the television set and stereo-system within the capsule-house filling the forest.
"Bulma," Krillin shook his head as he dropped his backpack down his shoulders, "that kinda defeats the whole purpose of roughing it out in the wild, doesn't it?"
"You can still sleep out by the river if you want," she shrugged.
"Are you kidding," Krillin quickly replied, "my favorite show comes on tonight!"
Goku instantly slipped out of his own backpack and suddenly ran past the other three, sprinting to the water's edge with a happy cry. He leaped over the rocky bank and dived headfirst into the water, disappearing for a moment before suddenly emerging with a huge silver-scaled fish in his arms.
"That takes care of dinner," he shouted joyfully to the group as he carried the flopping fish back to the bank, his spiky black hair dripping with water, "and boy am I starved!"
"I'll get some firewood," Gohan volunteered as he tugged on the stuck latch of his backpack.
"I'll help," Goku replied as he dropped the gigantic fish at the front door of the capsule-cabin, and he suddenly tilted his head, his dark eyes clouded in thought as he made his way to the small granite boulder that Gohan had set his backpack atop, "wow Gohan, you're getting really tall...you're almost taller than I am!"
"Mom says it's a growth spurt," Gohan shrugged awkwardly.
"Looks like you're reaching that special age," Bulma teased the young boy.
"Hey Goku," Krillin asked with a sly squint of his eyes, "have you had that talk with Gohan yet?"
"Oh yeah," Goku suddenly replied, "I almost forgot! Okay Gohan, this is important..."
"Um," Gohan glanced around nervously as Goku looked him seriously in the eye, "that's okay dad, you don't have to explain it to me. I think I've read about most of it already..."
"No, this is important," Goku answered, "you're probably going to notice a lot of girls treating you differently now that you're older, and there's one very important thing I want you to know."
"What's that," Gohan asked uneasily.
"If a girl ever asks you," Goku nodded, "if you want to get 'married,' it doesn't mean food."
Bulma and Krillin both suddenly dropped flat onto their faces with embarrassment, and Gohan glanced sheepishly over at them from behind Goku's shoulder, then back at his father's face.
"Anything else I should know?"
"No, that's about it," he answered, not noticing Bulma and Krillin struggling to stand up behind him.
"Man, it's hard to believe," Krillin shook her head, "that Gohan's almost the same age that we were when we started training with Master Roshi for the tournament..."
"Really," Gohan asked eagarly, "you must have had all sorts of great adventures!"
"We had a few," Goku smiled, "but none of them even came close to what you've accomplished. You've gone to Namek, become an ascended saiyan...you even beat Cell and saved the world!"
"I guess," Gohan nodded modestly, "but when you died at the Cell Games and we thought you weren't coming back...I don't ever want to go through anything like that again!"
"Oh yeah," Bulma answered as she sat down on a log near the two saiyans, "I almost forgot about that time when Goku thought he was doing the world a favor by not coming back. But then I reminded him that Pilaf would've found the dragonballs and taken over the world if it weren't for him..."
"And that the Red Ribbon Army," Krillin joined in, "would've taken over if he hadn't been here..."
"And that Frieza would've sent the saiyans to destroy the Earth if Goku hadn't been around to stop all of them," Bulma continued, counting out the times Goku had saved the world on her fingers.
"And that," Gohan cheerfully interrupted as he finally yanked the backpack loose, a huge pile of thick schoolbooks tumbling onto the soft mossy banks of the stream, "even in the future timeline where you really were dead, the androids still ended up destroying everything..."
"Alright, alright," Goku laughed, and then spoke quickly as he finished the story for them, "and then I realized that I was wrong, and so I let you wish me back. What can I say, staying dead seemed like a good idea at the time," and he grew a little bit more serious, "but I'm glad all of you talked me out of it. I can't imagine living in the afterlife and not being here to see Gohan grow up. And I probably wouldn't have even known about Goten..."
A high-pitched electronic beep filled the air, then another beep, and then a third, as Goku and Gohan looked curiously around. Bulma's face suddenly lit with realization and she bent back over her backpack, digging through the endless piles of hair-brushes, make-up kits and clothes, until she finally yanked out a small silver-gray portable cell phone, the device shuddering with each beep.
"It's just my cell phone," she called out, and then flipped it open and pressed it to her ear.
"A house, a phone," Krillin muttered to Goku and Gohan under his breath, as Bulma began to talk on the phone, "you wonder why she even bothered to come out here..."
"Are you sure," she said over the phone, and she suddenly lifted her right hand for the other three to stop talking, "dad, we just set up camp! Uh-huh...well, I'll have to drop Goku, Gohan and Krillin off and pick up Trunks first...you want me to bring them along? Well, what about Trunks?!"
"Alright," she finally sighed, "see you in a little bit.
"I guess we have to head back," she sighed as she switched the phone back off and turned to the other three campers, "let's pack up, my dad wants us to hurry back to Capsule Corporation."
"Awww, what for," Goku pouted, "we just got here!"
"I'm not sure," she replied as she stuck the portable phone back into her backpack and began to pull the huge bag onto her shoulders again, "he wants us to look at a spaceship he discovered, or something like that. Anyway, you don't mind if we stop by Capsule Corp before you go home, do you?"
"No, that's fine," Krillin answered, and Goku and Gohan nodded as well.
"All I can say," Bulma shook her head with exasperation as she tapped a few buttons on a panel beside the cabin's door, and the dome-shaped house responded by suddenly vanishing again to leave only a tiny capsule lying on the ground, "is that this had BETTER be good!"
* * *
The hovering island of the lookout floated silently in the turquoise-blue sky, ghostly wisps of white clouds gliding beneath it, the ethereal foam of a wide ocean of shimmering air drifting beneath the floating bowl-shaped palace. Four rows of green cone-shaped trees formed the edges of the vast white courtyard that stretched atop the island, in front of the golden-domed temple. Two green-skinned nameks stood in the center of the courtyard, one dressed in the long white robes of the planet's guardian, the other wearing a fluttering white cape and thick turban atop an otherwise dark suit, both their eyes closed.
"Focus, Dende," Piccolo said, his eyes still closed, "open your mind and empty all of your own thoughts. You have to be absolutely calm, even the slightest distraction can cloud your vision."
"I'm trying," the younger namek replied uncertainly, his eyes closed tight and his muscles straining, "I think I can feel something...yes, I've got it, I can hear them!"
"Good," Piccolo nodded, still not opening his eyes, "but don't let your enthusiasm distract you, stay focused on their thoughts and feelings. Try to hear each one seperately."
"There must be billions," Dende sighed, then closed his eyes tighter, focusing inward, "but I think I can sort them out. That group is Pepper City, that one's Satan City, there's Metro West..."
"Now pull back from their individual thoughts," Piccolo continued, "and try to see the whole pattern of all their minds. The sum of all their feelings reflects the state of the planet itself. If you allow yourself to see all of their minds at once, you can sense the Earth and all its people, along with anything that doesn't belong."
"I can sense it," Dende replied calmly, trying to control his enthusiasm, "all of them together, one world and one people," the young namek smiled softly, "and they seem to be fine."
"You've done well," Piccolo opened his bright white eyes and nodded with approval as he momentarily broke the telepathic link the two had shared during the meditation. He could still remember Dende growing up as a shy, but compassionate child on the planet Namek--Piccolo had never lived on Namek himself, but the memories of Nail, the Namek warrior and friend of Dende who had given up his own life to fuse with Piccolo, had long since become part of his own memories, and Piccolo felt the same warmth toward the young guardian that Nail had felt during his life.
Piccolo also sympathized with Dende, remembering how hard he'd also had to struggle to learn the role of Kami, the sacred guardian of the planet. That had happened long after Kami had split himself into good and evil counterparts, and technically Piccolo, the offspring and rebirth of the evil that Kami had exorcised from his own being, had never experienced the same training that he now gave to Dende. But when Piccolo had finally rejoined with Kami three years ago, the goodness of Kami combining with the nobility of the once-evil Piccolo, to become a single being again, he had gained Kami's memories and feelings. He had, in a sense, become whole again, and now he was training Dende to fulfill the role, just as he, as Kami, had once been trained for this role.
"We're almost done for the day," Piccolo reassured Dende as he closed his eyes once more, "now I want you to focus outward, away from the Earth. There's just as much danger among the stars as there is on the planet. Don't try to reach too far with your mind, just to the edge of this system..."
"Piccolo," Dende suddenly asked nervously, "I can sense something out there...it's faint, but..."
"No, it's not faint," Piccolo answered seriously, closing his eyes tight as he began to focus on the new presence emerging out of the shadows beyond the light of the sun, emerging from somewhere beyond the furthest planets of this star system, "it's just distant."
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure," Piccolo admitted reluctantly, then he focused back on his psychic awareness of the alien ki hovering at the edge of his awareness, "I've never...I've never felt a power like this before..."
"Are you sure," Dende asked skeptically, "we do have a lot of powerful fighters here on Earth."
"No,' Piccolo replied, still focused on the seething, pulsing energy that he sensed, "I don't mean strength, at least not strength alone. This is different, it's vast. It's almost like," he paused, his closed eyes twitching anxiously, "like a living planet...no, like a living galaxy!"
"Is that possible," Dende asked in surprise, his eyes opening wide for a moment before he quickly closed them again, "I guess it must be, I'm sensing exactly the same thing. But I can't tell if they're good or evil at all..."
"It's neither," Piccolo answered, his deep voice lowered with confusion, "it's more like a storm or an earthquake, a force of nature. But whatever it is," he suddenly opened his eyes, his tone growing grimly serious, "it's coming straight for Earth."
"What should we do," Dende asked quickly as his eyes flew back open, and he saw Piccolo walking toward the edge of the lookout and giving a quick glance down at the endless miles of forests, deserts and cities beneath them. Piccolo looked back at the young guardian over his left shoulder, his white cape fluttering against the constant high-altitude breeze and his white eyes narrowed slightly in deep thought.
"I'm going to find Goku and the others," he answered quickly, "we'll figure out our next step from there."
Without another word, Piccolo leaped over the rim of the lookout. His plummeting body suddenly swooped back up into the cloudless sky and he quickly flew toward the western horizon, his body enveloped by a cocoon of crystal-white ki that left a long streaking trail of light behind him. Piccolo clenched his fists as he raced through the air, the sharp green angles of his face tensed with determination, and he suddenly bolted away from the lookout in an explosion of white light, quickly vanishing into the deep blue sky.
an original fan-fiction by Demon-Fighter Ash
based on characters created by Akira Toriyama
based on Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek"
Part 1: Arrival
Chapter 1: Out of the Shadows
Vegeta sprinted over the metal floor and leaped into the air with a harsh scream, the soles of his boots slamming against the curved wall; he kicked himself back into the air and twisted around, hovering silently for a moment as he scanned the chamber for the mounted laser-turrets. His eyes burned, his thin black hair soaked with sweat, and he squinted his dark eyes, clearing away the drops of perspiration and the slight trickle of warm blood running down his brow. Nothing could've hoped to match his strength, and even a blast of ki strong enough to destroy the Earth would've posed little more challenge than a housefly for him. But the laser's needle-thin beams, microscopic except for the red glow, had been focused tightly enough to cut through his own aura, and each of them flew at the speed of light, far faster than he could possibly dodge. At least, far faster than he could dodge without becoming a super-saiyan.
Bulma didn't even think he could dodge them as a super-saiyan; she'd said something about the laws of relativity and the light-speed limit, but none of that mattered to him. He would prove her laws and theories wrong, he would transcend the bounds of science itself and break all the limits it tried to impose on him. His heart still burned with rage at the thought of his last real battle, almost three years ago. Cell had barely even noticed his attacks, the monster's only focus had been the son of Kakkarot. A mere child, Vegeta fumed silently, who had surpassed him, just as the brat's father had surpassed him. There was a time when he would've killed them both for such impertinance, but not anymore. He wanted them to live, so they could someday bow before Vegeta, and acknowledge him as their rightful prince...
Vegeta's eyes suddenly widened in surprise as one of the steel panels on the opposite wall slid open and another platinum-white laser gun jutted out of the darkness, the red dot of the tracer beam hitting him in the chest. He jerked sideways just as the laser fired and the crimson beam sliced through his left shoulder, leaving a tiny pinpoint tunnel cut right through the muscle and bone, the laser emerging from the back of his black training suit to bounce off the reflective wall behind him. He screamed in pain, bobbing up and down slightly in the air, and quickly stretched out his right hand; a white orb of ki flew forward and the laser-turret exploded into a shimmering fireball. He wrenched around and unleashed a quick strafing burst of ki-attacks along the wall as three more box-like turrets popped out, all three of them instantly dissolving beneath the blinding white blasts, leaving gaping pits and cracks in the metal wall.
"Oh Vegeeeetaaaa!"
The wide round chamber suddenly spun around Vegeta and he felt blood rushing into his head. The blanket of invisible ki that, under the pressure of 500 times Earth's gravity, had barely held him off the ground now catapulted him into the ceiling. He slammed headfirst into the reinforced ceiling and tumbled back onto the ground, his concentration broken by the impact, his head ringing as he slowly hoisted himself back onto his feet. The artificial gravity of the training room had been turned off and he glanced around for the intruder; he snarled under his breath as he finally saw her, a ditzy blonde-haired woman gripping a silver platter filled with tea-cups and smiling idiotically at him from the open doorway.
Bulma had left the facility earlier that afternoon for some camping trip, and she'd even taken their son with her, to visit Kakkarot's wife and younger child while she was gone. But, of course, also getting rid of both her parents for the week was too much to hope for...
"How is your training going," she prattled quickly as he simply glared at her, "I was taking some tea to your father, and I just know how worked up you get, so why don't you join us for a break?"
His clenched fingers dug into his white gloves and Vegeta stared at her with a blind rage. Ever since the ridiculous ceremony Bulma had insisted on having--some absurd ritual meant to prove to the world feelings that he thought should've been kept private--her parents had insisted on pretending that they were now also his parents, due to some obscure Earth role that Bulma and her parents referred to as "in-laws."
On the saiyan homeworld, there would have been no greater honor for his father, the king of the planet Vegeta, than to be killed by his own son in a fight, but on Earth children kept their parents alive even to the point of infirmity. It seemed pointless to him to keep feeble old people alive, to let them wither away when they could have been killed at their peak, preserving their honor and the memory of their strength even while proving the superiority of the next generation. But Bulma and the other humans felt differently, and he had promised her that, no matter how alien it seemed, he would try to adjust...
"Fine," he hissed after taking a deep breath, "I will accept your offer."
Vegeta skulked through the archway and paced quickly along the small path running beside the frog pond. A small green red-eyed frog with short round antenna gave a startled yelp and leaped off its lily-pad into the water at the sight of Vegeta's scowling face, and the saiyan warrior glided past the pond and through another doorway into the large darkened, windowless computer-room, where Doctor Briefs stood before a huge wall filled with a grid of flickering television screens and computer monitors, scribbling notes down on a clipboard as his black cat clung to his shoulders and gave Vegeta and Mrs. Briefs a wide-eyed stare.
"I brought your teeeeaaa," Bulma's mother called out in a sing-song melody that seemed to rattle Vegeta's spine, "and just look who came out of his room to join us!"
"Oh, hello Vegeta," Doctor Briefs replied with a quick glance over his shoulder, his thoughtful eyes blinking beneath his thick glasses, then looked back at the blurred black-and-white images on most of the screens, "you might want to take a look at this. It's astounding, it'll probably revolutionize the whole field of astronomy. I never would have even guessed it, at least not until..."
"What is it," Vegeta asked sharply, wanting to get this rambling conversation over with.
"It's a tenth planet," the doctor nodded to himself, his mumbled reply seeming to answer Vegeta's question simply by accident, "somewhat small, probably smaller than our moon--at least, our old moon anyway, but still pretty big. And it's actually getting closer as we speak..."
"What," Vegeta gasped to himself as he suddenly felt something. He stared intently at the screen, making out little more than a small white blur against the blackness of space, but he definitely felt a living presence out there, a life-force with a ki unlike anything he'd sensed before...
"In fact," Doctor Briefs jotted down a few quick diagrams on his clipboard and nodded decisively, "its orbit is carrying it in a straight line toward Earth, and it's moving with incredible speed. Comparing the pictures that the probes sent back through tachyon-transmissions with the telescopes on Earth, it actually looks like it's moving near the speed of light itself. It's already crossed Pluto's orbit, and in just a few more hours it'll probably reach Earth. This is an astounding astronomical discovery, unlike anything..."
"Is it alive," Vegeta asked softly, and then quickly raised his voice, "tell me, is it inhabited?!"
"I can't tell," Bulma's father shrugged as the cat mewed nervously at the screen, "but the images are getting clearer every moment and I don't think it's a natural planet. The reflection of the sunlight on its surface is all wrong for a sphere. I think it's more like some kind of giant box."
Vegeta silently glared between the doctor and his wife, then back up at the wall of screens, at the dark blurry image now almost filling the computer monitors. Whatever this thing was, it definitely wasn't a planet, and he smirked slightly to himself; whatever it was that he sensed from the object, whatever it was that seemed to even make the cat uneasy, it might finally pose a worthy challenge...
* * *
The drooping fronds of the palm-tree rustled back and forth in the warm tropical breeze and a flock of seagulls scattered across the blue-white sky. The small island and simple pink house began to tremble, ripples spreading out from the beaches into the deeper ocean and a low rumbling sound rising from the back of the house to fill the otherwise-silent air. 18 stood on the beach, her spread feet planted on the ground and her palms cupped loosely over each other behind her back, both her arms stretched over her right side. She stared at the horizon through narrowed ice-blue eyes, her short blonde hair rising and falling in waves of invisible ki, and then she closed her eyes tight...
"Kammmeeee..."
The palm-tree's trunk began to shudder, waving left and right like a reed swept in a windstorm, and a single coconut tumbled to the ground, then began bouncing slightly within the wave of energy rippling steadily outward from the beautiful young android...
"...hammmmeeee..."
The waves grew higher, crashing outward from the shallow waters around the island into the ocean, white foam churning and spinning into frothing whirlpools as the ripples spreading out from the island grew into towering crests and billowing, heaving waves...
"...HAAA!!!"
She threw her hands forward, fingers spread and wrists pressed together, and a blue-white orb of flickering ki erupted from her open palms. The ball of energy hummed and swelled within her clasped hands for a second and then lashed outward in a huge stream of energy so bright that even the sunlight semed to fade into night around it. It swept away from the island, cleaving the ocean itself into a canyon of solid water, and finally vanised into the horizon. The parted sea seemed to hang suspended above exposed ocean floor for an instant, and then crashed back down with a single ear-piercing roar, as the young woman gave a deep exhausted sigh and looked back over her shoulder.
"How," she panted, bent forward with her hands gripping her denim-clad knees, sweat tracing down the fine strands of her hair and rolling along her cheeks, "how was that?"
"Not bad," a cracked rapsy voice answered, and she glanced around at Master Roshi, sitting with his legs crossed beneath him beneath the palm-tree, his eyes hidden beneath his cheap red sunglasses, "but that kamehameha was a little too powerful for the amount of ki you were using."
"I know," she sighed, looking back to the still-thrashing waves, "the machines take over whenever I try to gather any real ki. It's hard to keep them from amplifying my attacks."
"But you know those devices will only limit you," Roshi answered as he stood up and hobbled across the beach on his walking stick, "they can't ever be improved, and if you rely on them, you'll never become any stronger than you were the day Gero switched them on."
"I know that," she replied irritably, with an annoyed sideways glance over her shoulder at the squat old man, "that's why I asked you and Krillin to start teaching me how to use my natural ki instead of the implants. Now are you going to help, or just keep repeating the obvious?"
"I was just being helpful," Roshi retorted, and then stepped behind the young android, grabbing both her wrists and pulling them over her right side, "alright, now listen up! I noticed that you're using your wrists instead of the base of your palms. That drains some of the energy from the wave, and it's probably why all those gears and machines in you keep trying to kick in to pick up the slack."
"Alright," she nodded, pressing her hands closer together and closing her eyes tight once more, then she suddenly opened her eyes wide. She looked down to find Roshi's scrawny hands clutching her breasts through the thick black fabric of her shirt, and she quickly twisted her head around, her cold blue eyes narrowing in silent rage as the dirty old man gave a short snicker of perverse delight.
The island suddenly rang with a quick series of high-pitched yelps and screams, the shouts rising into a single wheezing shriek of agony. Roshi suddenly flew through the air and slammed against the side of the house, his arms and legs spread out like a snow-angel and his broken glasses dangling from one ear as he fell onto his back. He gazed dizzily up at the sky, the leering smile still plastered on his face despite the bruises and black eye.
"I was only," he cackled, lying motionless on the beach, "I was only checking your implants..."
"For your information, old man," 18 snarled back from further down the beach, having not moved one inch from where she'd stood during training, "THOSE are real!"
He gave another lurid chuckle and then seemed to notice something in the sky above him, staring at the clear tropical sky above him with a confused tilt of his head. He stared a moment longer, and then finally spoke aloud as 18 walked silently up the beach, passing by his still-limp body on her way back to the house.
"What is that," he murmered to himself, "there's something out there..."
"The only thing you're seeing after a beating like that," 18 rolled her eyes skeptically, "are stars."
"Heh, I'm used to those," he grinned, and then his smile dropped away into a perplexed frown once more as he lay on his back watching the sky, "no, this is something different. There's some sort of power out there, right at the very edge of the solar system. But it feels like it's getting closer..."
"You mean aliens, " she asked him as she looked up at the cloudless blue expanse herself.
"I'm not sure," he replied, "whatever it is, it's definitely not a namek's ki, or a saiyan, or a human, or even one of Frieza's kind. I've never felt any power quite like this one...
"Whatever it is," Roshi said as he sat back upright, "I'm sure Goku can handle it..."
* * *
"This looks like a good place for our tents," Gohan remarked as he slid his backpack onto a small boulder and looked around at the campsite. They'd picked out a small clearing in the thick shadowy forest, along the mossy banks of a deep still river of clear shimmering water, and he watched as Bulma surveyed the grotto, dressed in her khaki camping outfit. Krillin and Goku emerged from the shadows of the forest a moment later and Bulma smiled at the sight of them, then yanked a small metal case out of her own backpack.
"Ohhh no," she replied quickly as she yanked out a white plastic capsule from the case, "I've had enough of sleeping bags and campfires for one lifetime. THIS time we're camping in style!"
She pressed a button on top of the cylindrical capsule and tossed it several feet away, into the middle of the clearing; the tiny capsule exploded into a thick choking cloud of smoke, and the dust quickly cleared to reveal a large white igloo-like cabin perched in the center of the grove, yellow electric lights streaming out the windows and the sounds of the television set and stereo-system within the capsule-house filling the forest.
"Bulma," Krillin shook his head as he dropped his backpack down his shoulders, "that kinda defeats the whole purpose of roughing it out in the wild, doesn't it?"
"You can still sleep out by the river if you want," she shrugged.
"Are you kidding," Krillin quickly replied, "my favorite show comes on tonight!"
Goku instantly slipped out of his own backpack and suddenly ran past the other three, sprinting to the water's edge with a happy cry. He leaped over the rocky bank and dived headfirst into the water, disappearing for a moment before suddenly emerging with a huge silver-scaled fish in his arms.
"That takes care of dinner," he shouted joyfully to the group as he carried the flopping fish back to the bank, his spiky black hair dripping with water, "and boy am I starved!"
"I'll get some firewood," Gohan volunteered as he tugged on the stuck latch of his backpack.
"I'll help," Goku replied as he dropped the gigantic fish at the front door of the capsule-cabin, and he suddenly tilted his head, his dark eyes clouded in thought as he made his way to the small granite boulder that Gohan had set his backpack atop, "wow Gohan, you're getting really tall...you're almost taller than I am!"
"Mom says it's a growth spurt," Gohan shrugged awkwardly.
"Looks like you're reaching that special age," Bulma teased the young boy.
"Hey Goku," Krillin asked with a sly squint of his eyes, "have you had that talk with Gohan yet?"
"Oh yeah," Goku suddenly replied, "I almost forgot! Okay Gohan, this is important..."
"Um," Gohan glanced around nervously as Goku looked him seriously in the eye, "that's okay dad, you don't have to explain it to me. I think I've read about most of it already..."
"No, this is important," Goku answered, "you're probably going to notice a lot of girls treating you differently now that you're older, and there's one very important thing I want you to know."
"What's that," Gohan asked uneasily.
"If a girl ever asks you," Goku nodded, "if you want to get 'married,' it doesn't mean food."
Bulma and Krillin both suddenly dropped flat onto their faces with embarrassment, and Gohan glanced sheepishly over at them from behind Goku's shoulder, then back at his father's face.
"Anything else I should know?"
"No, that's about it," he answered, not noticing Bulma and Krillin struggling to stand up behind him.
"Man, it's hard to believe," Krillin shook her head, "that Gohan's almost the same age that we were when we started training with Master Roshi for the tournament..."
"Really," Gohan asked eagarly, "you must have had all sorts of great adventures!"
"We had a few," Goku smiled, "but none of them even came close to what you've accomplished. You've gone to Namek, become an ascended saiyan...you even beat Cell and saved the world!"
"I guess," Gohan nodded modestly, "but when you died at the Cell Games and we thought you weren't coming back...I don't ever want to go through anything like that again!"
"Oh yeah," Bulma answered as she sat down on a log near the two saiyans, "I almost forgot about that time when Goku thought he was doing the world a favor by not coming back. But then I reminded him that Pilaf would've found the dragonballs and taken over the world if it weren't for him..."
"And that the Red Ribbon Army," Krillin joined in, "would've taken over if he hadn't been here..."
"And that Frieza would've sent the saiyans to destroy the Earth if Goku hadn't been around to stop all of them," Bulma continued, counting out the times Goku had saved the world on her fingers.
"And that," Gohan cheerfully interrupted as he finally yanked the backpack loose, a huge pile of thick schoolbooks tumbling onto the soft mossy banks of the stream, "even in the future timeline where you really were dead, the androids still ended up destroying everything..."
"Alright, alright," Goku laughed, and then spoke quickly as he finished the story for them, "and then I realized that I was wrong, and so I let you wish me back. What can I say, staying dead seemed like a good idea at the time," and he grew a little bit more serious, "but I'm glad all of you talked me out of it. I can't imagine living in the afterlife and not being here to see Gohan grow up. And I probably wouldn't have even known about Goten..."
A high-pitched electronic beep filled the air, then another beep, and then a third, as Goku and Gohan looked curiously around. Bulma's face suddenly lit with realization and she bent back over her backpack, digging through the endless piles of hair-brushes, make-up kits and clothes, until she finally yanked out a small silver-gray portable cell phone, the device shuddering with each beep.
"It's just my cell phone," she called out, and then flipped it open and pressed it to her ear.
"A house, a phone," Krillin muttered to Goku and Gohan under his breath, as Bulma began to talk on the phone, "you wonder why she even bothered to come out here..."
"Are you sure," she said over the phone, and she suddenly lifted her right hand for the other three to stop talking, "dad, we just set up camp! Uh-huh...well, I'll have to drop Goku, Gohan and Krillin off and pick up Trunks first...you want me to bring them along? Well, what about Trunks?!"
"Alright," she finally sighed, "see you in a little bit.
"I guess we have to head back," she sighed as she switched the phone back off and turned to the other three campers, "let's pack up, my dad wants us to hurry back to Capsule Corporation."
"Awww, what for," Goku pouted, "we just got here!"
"I'm not sure," she replied as she stuck the portable phone back into her backpack and began to pull the huge bag onto her shoulders again, "he wants us to look at a spaceship he discovered, or something like that. Anyway, you don't mind if we stop by Capsule Corp before you go home, do you?"
"No, that's fine," Krillin answered, and Goku and Gohan nodded as well.
"All I can say," Bulma shook her head with exasperation as she tapped a few buttons on a panel beside the cabin's door, and the dome-shaped house responded by suddenly vanishing again to leave only a tiny capsule lying on the ground, "is that this had BETTER be good!"
* * *
The hovering island of the lookout floated silently in the turquoise-blue sky, ghostly wisps of white clouds gliding beneath it, the ethereal foam of a wide ocean of shimmering air drifting beneath the floating bowl-shaped palace. Four rows of green cone-shaped trees formed the edges of the vast white courtyard that stretched atop the island, in front of the golden-domed temple. Two green-skinned nameks stood in the center of the courtyard, one dressed in the long white robes of the planet's guardian, the other wearing a fluttering white cape and thick turban atop an otherwise dark suit, both their eyes closed.
"Focus, Dende," Piccolo said, his eyes still closed, "open your mind and empty all of your own thoughts. You have to be absolutely calm, even the slightest distraction can cloud your vision."
"I'm trying," the younger namek replied uncertainly, his eyes closed tight and his muscles straining, "I think I can feel something...yes, I've got it, I can hear them!"
"Good," Piccolo nodded, still not opening his eyes, "but don't let your enthusiasm distract you, stay focused on their thoughts and feelings. Try to hear each one seperately."
"There must be billions," Dende sighed, then closed his eyes tighter, focusing inward, "but I think I can sort them out. That group is Pepper City, that one's Satan City, there's Metro West..."
"Now pull back from their individual thoughts," Piccolo continued, "and try to see the whole pattern of all their minds. The sum of all their feelings reflects the state of the planet itself. If you allow yourself to see all of their minds at once, you can sense the Earth and all its people, along with anything that doesn't belong."
"I can sense it," Dende replied calmly, trying to control his enthusiasm, "all of them together, one world and one people," the young namek smiled softly, "and they seem to be fine."
"You've done well," Piccolo opened his bright white eyes and nodded with approval as he momentarily broke the telepathic link the two had shared during the meditation. He could still remember Dende growing up as a shy, but compassionate child on the planet Namek--Piccolo had never lived on Namek himself, but the memories of Nail, the Namek warrior and friend of Dende who had given up his own life to fuse with Piccolo, had long since become part of his own memories, and Piccolo felt the same warmth toward the young guardian that Nail had felt during his life.
Piccolo also sympathized with Dende, remembering how hard he'd also had to struggle to learn the role of Kami, the sacred guardian of the planet. That had happened long after Kami had split himself into good and evil counterparts, and technically Piccolo, the offspring and rebirth of the evil that Kami had exorcised from his own being, had never experienced the same training that he now gave to Dende. But when Piccolo had finally rejoined with Kami three years ago, the goodness of Kami combining with the nobility of the once-evil Piccolo, to become a single being again, he had gained Kami's memories and feelings. He had, in a sense, become whole again, and now he was training Dende to fulfill the role, just as he, as Kami, had once been trained for this role.
"We're almost done for the day," Piccolo reassured Dende as he closed his eyes once more, "now I want you to focus outward, away from the Earth. There's just as much danger among the stars as there is on the planet. Don't try to reach too far with your mind, just to the edge of this system..."
"Piccolo," Dende suddenly asked nervously, "I can sense something out there...it's faint, but..."
"No, it's not faint," Piccolo answered seriously, closing his eyes tight as he began to focus on the new presence emerging out of the shadows beyond the light of the sun, emerging from somewhere beyond the furthest planets of this star system, "it's just distant."
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure," Piccolo admitted reluctantly, then he focused back on his psychic awareness of the alien ki hovering at the edge of his awareness, "I've never...I've never felt a power like this before..."
"Are you sure," Dende asked skeptically, "we do have a lot of powerful fighters here on Earth."
"No,' Piccolo replied, still focused on the seething, pulsing energy that he sensed, "I don't mean strength, at least not strength alone. This is different, it's vast. It's almost like," he paused, his closed eyes twitching anxiously, "like a living planet...no, like a living galaxy!"
"Is that possible," Dende asked in surprise, his eyes opening wide for a moment before he quickly closed them again, "I guess it must be, I'm sensing exactly the same thing. But I can't tell if they're good or evil at all..."
"It's neither," Piccolo answered, his deep voice lowered with confusion, "it's more like a storm or an earthquake, a force of nature. But whatever it is," he suddenly opened his eyes, his tone growing grimly serious, "it's coming straight for Earth."
"What should we do," Dende asked quickly as his eyes flew back open, and he saw Piccolo walking toward the edge of the lookout and giving a quick glance down at the endless miles of forests, deserts and cities beneath them. Piccolo looked back at the young guardian over his left shoulder, his white cape fluttering against the constant high-altitude breeze and his white eyes narrowed slightly in deep thought.
"I'm going to find Goku and the others," he answered quickly, "we'll figure out our next step from there."
Without another word, Piccolo leaped over the rim of the lookout. His plummeting body suddenly swooped back up into the cloudless sky and he quickly flew toward the western horizon, his body enveloped by a cocoon of crystal-white ki that left a long streaking trail of light behind him. Piccolo clenched his fists as he raced through the air, the sharp green angles of his face tensed with determination, and he suddenly bolted away from the lookout in an explosion of white light, quickly vanishing into the deep blue sky.