Disclaimer: Well, if I owned DBZ, then this wouldn't be a FAN FICTION!
A/N: A new chapter at last! Not that anyone read the first one... Oh well! Thanks to the two people (besides Dylan, and he doesn't count) that reviewed it up to now. I can't write with no prodding, ya know!
Chapter 2
Bulma and Vegeta were locked in a staring match. Or more accurately, a glaring match. Its cause was this: Vegeta had emerged back into the main cave from his wash with a towel around his waist, demanding fresh clothes. Upon learning that the only fresh clothes Bulma had that could possibly fit him were spares of Goku's, he had declared that he would rather go naked. After a spirited argument about what he would and would not wear, he had been forced to put on the pants, at least, and had spent his time since then glaring at the angel, who glared right back at him. Vegeta flattered himself that his glare was the more frightening, but any bystanders would have been unable to tell the difference, since if anyone with less mastery of glaring had been on the receiving end of either of those smoldering stares for more than a few seconds, he or she would probably have gone up in smoke.
They glared. And glared. Every now and then one or the other would snort, but no blinking could be observed in either party. And, since they seem set to continue glaring until sometime in the next century, let's move on to someone who's involved in a bit more action at the moment.
* * *
Goku awoke in darkness, with a pounding headache. He attempted to move and realized that his head wasn't the only part of his body that was, or had at least taken, a pounding. Disregarding this, he tried to move a bit more and abruptly fell off the stone slab that had been supporting him.
"Oww..." he moaned, but no one seemed to have heard him. He looked around a bit more, and decided that he was in a cell. Damp stone walls, dark, iron bars in the door and windows, manacles on the wall...yep, definitely a cell. The question was, where? And who had put him there? Goku took stock, using not only his eyes but his ears and nose as well. At the end of his inspection, he came to a very unwelcome conclusion. All around him was the smell of demons. A few of them were even familiar demons. So, he was surrounded by demons, he was in a cell... this could only mean one thing. He was in the dungeons of the Lord of Hells.
"Damn," he growled to himself, and wondered briefly if they had located Vegeta. After all, the prince had been in the same general area as Goku, if his estimates of how far the demon could have flown were correct. Abandoning this fruitless line of inquiry after only a few seconds, he wandered to the door and looked out. A vitally important realization had just come upon him, and he desperately needed to share it with someone.
"Um, hey," he called to the guard, who was half-hidden in shadow at the end of the hall. "I'm really hungry in here, could I get some food?"
The guard shifted position, coming nearer to Goku's cell, and the angel gasped as he saw the figure's face. The scarred demon smiled humorlessly.
"Hello, son. Long time, no see."
* * *
"WHERE IS SHE!?"
The shout came from an angel, a tall, black-haired, scarred young man, who at the moment wasn't looking very angelic at all. His face was dark with anger, and he held a shorter, blond boy pinned against the wall. The boy was looking scared, and with good reason.
"I-I d-don't know, Yamcha-san! Honest! I just saw her fly off, but I thought she was headed back to the palace!"
Yamcha still looked suspicious, but he let the boy go. However, the youth did not immediately run away, but instead gave Yamcha a sympathetic look.
"I'm sorry, Yamcha-san. Maybe you could ask Kuririn-san?"
Yamcha grunted, and the boy left. The battle-scarred angel slumped against the wall of the corridor, sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. Where could she be? It was the day after the battle, and still no sign of Bulma, or General Goku, for that matter. Search parties had, of course, been dispatched, but so far no one had found anything, and Yamcha was worried. What if she had been captured, or worse, killed? With another sigh, he sent a mental plea her way.
`Bulma, please...be safe.'
* * *
At the moment, the last thing on Bulma's mind was `being safe'. She was engaged in yet another fight with Prince Vegeta.
"You can't go back yet! You can barely even move! How do you expect to get all the way to the Demonlands?"
He glared at her murderously. "I'll manage. Just get the hell out of the doorway, stupid woman! I've got a score to settle with Kakarott!"
She glared right back at him (whoa, big surprise there!). "I will not get the hell out of the doorway! You get the hell back into bed! And who is this Kakarott you keep yelling about, anyway? Last time I checked, the guy who nearly killed you was Son Goku, not some dude named Kakarott. Sounds like a demonic name to me."
"Idiot. `Son Goku'," he spat the name as if it were too dirty to hold on his tongue, "is Kakarott! Don't you know anything?!"
Her eyes narrowed. "I know plenty. I've known Goku since he was ten years old, and I've never heard anyone call him Kakarott. Care to explain?"
"Hmph." Vegeta, more that willing to reveal his superior knowledge to this stupid, stubborn, angel, reseated himself on the edge of his cot. Bulma successfully suppressed a triumphant smirk, and settled herself on her own cot. Sitting on the floor would have put her at a lower level than the demonic prince, which she would not allow.
"This is top secret information," he informed her haughtily. "I'm only telling you so you'll shut up and stop hurting my ears. Anyway..." He sat for a moment, apparently getting his thoughts in order, then nodded sharply to himself. "Kakarott is the youngest son of a middle-ranking demon named Bardock. When Kakarott was born, he was a proper demon, tail, wings, and all, but as he got older he began to change. It was rumored that Kakarott's mother was an angel, since Bardock simply appeared with him one day and announced that he was his son. Bardock's first mate had died in battle a few years after bearing his first son, Raditz, but since the new, `mystery child' looked demonic enough, we all assumed he was illegitimate, and the mother didn't want questions asked. However, after a few years, it was obvious that Kakarott couldn't be a full demon. His wings metamorphosed, first into white demon wings, and finally into full-fledged angel wings. He began to glow, faintly at
first, and then more and more brightly. Only his tail remained as proof that he was, indeed, at least part demon. And that wasn't all. When he first appeared, his power level was weak, in the bottom levels of potential, but as he changed it grew higher. By the time he was six, his power was the same as mine had been at the same age. Naturally, everyone was shocked, but we would have let him stay. We would have...but he would not. At the age of ten, he ran away. We thought that would be the end of it, but a year later he appeared in the ranks of the angels. Since then, all demons who know the truth have cursed him for what he is... a traitor of the worst kind!"
Vegeta spat the last sentence venomously, and Bulma stared at him in amazement. She wanted to deny it, to burst out laughing and ask him if he thought she was a fool, but she didn't. She could tell that he was telling the truth, and now that she thought about it, it made sense. She had seen Goku sometimes, right before a battle, and there had been something...frightening about him. He never let anyone see his eyes when he became really angry, and Bulma knew from experience that demon's eyes glowed red when they were battle-mad. Yes, when she thought about it, it explained a lot.
Vegeta smirked at the stunned look on Bulma's face. So, that piece of knowledge had come as a surprise to her, at least. Maybe now, she would be quiet. The angel had a singularly piercing voice when shouting, and his sensitive demonic ears still smarted when he recalled it. She was right about one thing, though, he thought angrily. He was still far too weak to fly, or even walk, back to the Demonlands. It would be at least a week before he could even make the attempt, and in the meantime he was stuck in this cave with a stubborn, loud-mouthed angel. Even if she is rather attractive...Vegeta gave himself a mental slap. This was no time to be thinking of such things!
Bulma, meanwhile, was lost in her own contemplations. She reminisced about Goku, the way he had been as a child. Always happy and carefree, even if he was rather clueless. Very strong, too. He and Kuririn had been trained by the great Kame'sennin himself, the first to receive such an honor in over two hundred years! She would never have suspected him of having even a trace of demonic blood. Of course, there had been that time, when she had first met him...
~Flashback~
"Who are you, kid?" Fourteen-year-old Bulma asked. "What are you doing, hiding out in these caves? Don't you have any parents?"
The spiky-haired ten year old looked vaguely panicky as he replied. "Um, I'm...Goku! Yeah! Son Goku! And..." another pause as he thought frantically. "I don't have any parents. My grandpa lived in these caves, but he, um...died! Yeah!" The kid looked at her warily, expecting questions, but Bulma only shrugged.
"Okay, whatever." She caught a glimpse of something moving around his knees. "Hey...what's that?"
"It's nothing!" he said hastily. Bulma shrugged again. The thing, whatever it was, had vanished. The kid's story was obviously bogus, but he was an angel, and he did seem to be all alone...
~End Flashback~
Bulma smiled as the old memory resurfaced. She had taken young Goku home with her, intending to interrogate him further, but somehow had never gotten around to it. Things had been so busy! First there had been the loner demon, Piccolo, to fight, and then all-out war with the Hells...come to think of it, Vegeta had known Goku right from the start...and now she was stuck here, in a cave, with a stubborn, spoiled, annoying, really hot demon prince...Bulma frowned. Where had that last one come from? Vegeta was a demon, he wasn't hot, he was...Bulma snuck a glance at him, where he sat, brooding, on the edge of his cot, and tried to think of an adjective to describe him. After long moments of fruitless search, she settled (lamely) on...not hot. Yes. Definitely not hot. After a few more moments of staring at him, Bulma shook herself, pulled a book out of her pack, and began to read, pointedly turning her back to the...not hot...Demon Prince.
* * *
Meanwhile, in the dungeons, Goku was enjoying a little family reunion. For a few moments all he did was stare, and then he got a grip on himself and stuttered, "F-father?!"
Bardock leaned cooly against the wall opposite his son's cell. "What's the matter, don't you recognize me?"
"Y-yes, I do, but..." Goku trailed off. Bardock was giving him That Look, the look Goku and Raditz had dreaded as demonlings. It was the look that said, "You've got some explaining to do, and it had damn well better be a good explanation." Bardock spoke quietly.
"Why did you run away?"
Goku lowered his gaze to his feet as he tried desperately to remember, to think back. Why had he run away? At last, he spoke.
"The others...none of them ever said so to my face, but I could feel it. The whispers, the pointing. `There goes the half-breed!' I started going on explorations because it was a way I could be by myself, without any of that." Goku raised his eyes again. Bardock was still looking inscrutable.
"Why didn't you come back?" Why did you betray us?
The last question remained unspoken, but Goku still heard it, as plainly as if his father had shouted, and he cringed inwardly. This time, his gaze only went halfway down as he considered his answer. "I...I met an angel. She was older than me, and she asked me who I was. I couldn't tell her the truth, so I lied. I panicked and told her I was an angel, with nowhere to go. She offered to let me come home with her, and I thought it would be fun. So I went...and it was such a relief! No one pointed, no one whispered. For once, I fit in."
"So you stayed." Bardock's expression was still unreadable.
"Yes." Goku looked shamefaced. "I kept telling myself, `You should go back,' but I never did. Then there was Kame'sennin's training, and the tournament, and Piccolo, and by the time the war started, I couldn't leave. I had too many friends, too many obligations and debts." The angel/demon raised his eyes at last to meet his father's steely gaze. "You taught me to honor my obligations, and repay my debts. Would you ask me to break an oath?"
He held his father's gaze for endless seconds, until Bardock's eyes softened slightly. "You always did take things to heart, although I would have preferred it if you had, just this once, been dishonorable. Or perhaps not." The older demon shook his head. "Decisions like these are always hard." He looked back at his youngest son. "Your brother is on guard duty next. We've been put in charge of you, to `prove our loyalties', although we've never done anything remotely traitorous." He sighed and shook his head again. "Enough of this. Did you say you were hungry?"
"Yes," Goku said, but his reply was almost overpowered by a thunderous rumble from his stomach. Bardock smiled.
"I'll see what I can do."
* * *
Kuririn sighed and rubbed his forehead, roughly where the bridge of his nose would have been, if he had had a nose. He was developing another headache, and this one threatened to be a real migraine. General Son Goku was still missing, along with Bulma, and that left Kuririn, as the second-highest ranking general in the Heavens, in charge. He wondered how Goku managed it. He had to attend meetings with the lower ranking officers to discuss strategy, he had to decide how to deploy troops, and it seemed like no one could get anything done without his personal approval. At least he had a secretary to do paperwork for him, since Goku wouldn't have lasted five minutes if he had attempted to do his own.
Kuririn had known Son Goku and Bulma from childhood, but right now he was wishing for Goku's return less out of friendship than out of longing to return to being only second in command. And he didn't know what they would do the next time Vegeta appeared on the battlefield. Usually, he and Goku fought to a standstill, and if this meant that the General couldn't fight anyone else, it meant that the Prince couldn't, either. But now Goku was gone, and although Kuririn was very strong indeed by normal reckoning, he wasn't that strong. Vegeta would flatten him!
Kuririn sighed again, and sent a silent plea to his best friend, not unlike the one Yamcha had recently addressed to Bulma.
"Goku, come back safe, please."
A/N: A new chapter at last! Not that anyone read the first one... Oh well! Thanks to the two people (besides Dylan, and he doesn't count) that reviewed it up to now. I can't write with no prodding, ya know!
Chapter 2
Bulma and Vegeta were locked in a staring match. Or more accurately, a glaring match. Its cause was this: Vegeta had emerged back into the main cave from his wash with a towel around his waist, demanding fresh clothes. Upon learning that the only fresh clothes Bulma had that could possibly fit him were spares of Goku's, he had declared that he would rather go naked. After a spirited argument about what he would and would not wear, he had been forced to put on the pants, at least, and had spent his time since then glaring at the angel, who glared right back at him. Vegeta flattered himself that his glare was the more frightening, but any bystanders would have been unable to tell the difference, since if anyone with less mastery of glaring had been on the receiving end of either of those smoldering stares for more than a few seconds, he or she would probably have gone up in smoke.
They glared. And glared. Every now and then one or the other would snort, but no blinking could be observed in either party. And, since they seem set to continue glaring until sometime in the next century, let's move on to someone who's involved in a bit more action at the moment.
* * *
Goku awoke in darkness, with a pounding headache. He attempted to move and realized that his head wasn't the only part of his body that was, or had at least taken, a pounding. Disregarding this, he tried to move a bit more and abruptly fell off the stone slab that had been supporting him.
"Oww..." he moaned, but no one seemed to have heard him. He looked around a bit more, and decided that he was in a cell. Damp stone walls, dark, iron bars in the door and windows, manacles on the wall...yep, definitely a cell. The question was, where? And who had put him there? Goku took stock, using not only his eyes but his ears and nose as well. At the end of his inspection, he came to a very unwelcome conclusion. All around him was the smell of demons. A few of them were even familiar demons. So, he was surrounded by demons, he was in a cell... this could only mean one thing. He was in the dungeons of the Lord of Hells.
"Damn," he growled to himself, and wondered briefly if they had located Vegeta. After all, the prince had been in the same general area as Goku, if his estimates of how far the demon could have flown were correct. Abandoning this fruitless line of inquiry after only a few seconds, he wandered to the door and looked out. A vitally important realization had just come upon him, and he desperately needed to share it with someone.
"Um, hey," he called to the guard, who was half-hidden in shadow at the end of the hall. "I'm really hungry in here, could I get some food?"
The guard shifted position, coming nearer to Goku's cell, and the angel gasped as he saw the figure's face. The scarred demon smiled humorlessly.
"Hello, son. Long time, no see."
* * *
"WHERE IS SHE!?"
The shout came from an angel, a tall, black-haired, scarred young man, who at the moment wasn't looking very angelic at all. His face was dark with anger, and he held a shorter, blond boy pinned against the wall. The boy was looking scared, and with good reason.
"I-I d-don't know, Yamcha-san! Honest! I just saw her fly off, but I thought she was headed back to the palace!"
Yamcha still looked suspicious, but he let the boy go. However, the youth did not immediately run away, but instead gave Yamcha a sympathetic look.
"I'm sorry, Yamcha-san. Maybe you could ask Kuririn-san?"
Yamcha grunted, and the boy left. The battle-scarred angel slumped against the wall of the corridor, sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. Where could she be? It was the day after the battle, and still no sign of Bulma, or General Goku, for that matter. Search parties had, of course, been dispatched, but so far no one had found anything, and Yamcha was worried. What if she had been captured, or worse, killed? With another sigh, he sent a mental plea her way.
`Bulma, please...be safe.'
* * *
At the moment, the last thing on Bulma's mind was `being safe'. She was engaged in yet another fight with Prince Vegeta.
"You can't go back yet! You can barely even move! How do you expect to get all the way to the Demonlands?"
He glared at her murderously. "I'll manage. Just get the hell out of the doorway, stupid woman! I've got a score to settle with Kakarott!"
She glared right back at him (whoa, big surprise there!). "I will not get the hell out of the doorway! You get the hell back into bed! And who is this Kakarott you keep yelling about, anyway? Last time I checked, the guy who nearly killed you was Son Goku, not some dude named Kakarott. Sounds like a demonic name to me."
"Idiot. `Son Goku'," he spat the name as if it were too dirty to hold on his tongue, "is Kakarott! Don't you know anything?!"
Her eyes narrowed. "I know plenty. I've known Goku since he was ten years old, and I've never heard anyone call him Kakarott. Care to explain?"
"Hmph." Vegeta, more that willing to reveal his superior knowledge to this stupid, stubborn, angel, reseated himself on the edge of his cot. Bulma successfully suppressed a triumphant smirk, and settled herself on her own cot. Sitting on the floor would have put her at a lower level than the demonic prince, which she would not allow.
"This is top secret information," he informed her haughtily. "I'm only telling you so you'll shut up and stop hurting my ears. Anyway..." He sat for a moment, apparently getting his thoughts in order, then nodded sharply to himself. "Kakarott is the youngest son of a middle-ranking demon named Bardock. When Kakarott was born, he was a proper demon, tail, wings, and all, but as he got older he began to change. It was rumored that Kakarott's mother was an angel, since Bardock simply appeared with him one day and announced that he was his son. Bardock's first mate had died in battle a few years after bearing his first son, Raditz, but since the new, `mystery child' looked demonic enough, we all assumed he was illegitimate, and the mother didn't want questions asked. However, after a few years, it was obvious that Kakarott couldn't be a full demon. His wings metamorphosed, first into white demon wings, and finally into full-fledged angel wings. He began to glow, faintly at
first, and then more and more brightly. Only his tail remained as proof that he was, indeed, at least part demon. And that wasn't all. When he first appeared, his power level was weak, in the bottom levels of potential, but as he changed it grew higher. By the time he was six, his power was the same as mine had been at the same age. Naturally, everyone was shocked, but we would have let him stay. We would have...but he would not. At the age of ten, he ran away. We thought that would be the end of it, but a year later he appeared in the ranks of the angels. Since then, all demons who know the truth have cursed him for what he is... a traitor of the worst kind!"
Vegeta spat the last sentence venomously, and Bulma stared at him in amazement. She wanted to deny it, to burst out laughing and ask him if he thought she was a fool, but she didn't. She could tell that he was telling the truth, and now that she thought about it, it made sense. She had seen Goku sometimes, right before a battle, and there had been something...frightening about him. He never let anyone see his eyes when he became really angry, and Bulma knew from experience that demon's eyes glowed red when they were battle-mad. Yes, when she thought about it, it explained a lot.
Vegeta smirked at the stunned look on Bulma's face. So, that piece of knowledge had come as a surprise to her, at least. Maybe now, she would be quiet. The angel had a singularly piercing voice when shouting, and his sensitive demonic ears still smarted when he recalled it. She was right about one thing, though, he thought angrily. He was still far too weak to fly, or even walk, back to the Demonlands. It would be at least a week before he could even make the attempt, and in the meantime he was stuck in this cave with a stubborn, loud-mouthed angel. Even if she is rather attractive...Vegeta gave himself a mental slap. This was no time to be thinking of such things!
Bulma, meanwhile, was lost in her own contemplations. She reminisced about Goku, the way he had been as a child. Always happy and carefree, even if he was rather clueless. Very strong, too. He and Kuririn had been trained by the great Kame'sennin himself, the first to receive such an honor in over two hundred years! She would never have suspected him of having even a trace of demonic blood. Of course, there had been that time, when she had first met him...
~Flashback~
"Who are you, kid?" Fourteen-year-old Bulma asked. "What are you doing, hiding out in these caves? Don't you have any parents?"
The spiky-haired ten year old looked vaguely panicky as he replied. "Um, I'm...Goku! Yeah! Son Goku! And..." another pause as he thought frantically. "I don't have any parents. My grandpa lived in these caves, but he, um...died! Yeah!" The kid looked at her warily, expecting questions, but Bulma only shrugged.
"Okay, whatever." She caught a glimpse of something moving around his knees. "Hey...what's that?"
"It's nothing!" he said hastily. Bulma shrugged again. The thing, whatever it was, had vanished. The kid's story was obviously bogus, but he was an angel, and he did seem to be all alone...
~End Flashback~
Bulma smiled as the old memory resurfaced. She had taken young Goku home with her, intending to interrogate him further, but somehow had never gotten around to it. Things had been so busy! First there had been the loner demon, Piccolo, to fight, and then all-out war with the Hells...come to think of it, Vegeta had known Goku right from the start...and now she was stuck here, in a cave, with a stubborn, spoiled, annoying, really hot demon prince...Bulma frowned. Where had that last one come from? Vegeta was a demon, he wasn't hot, he was...Bulma snuck a glance at him, where he sat, brooding, on the edge of his cot, and tried to think of an adjective to describe him. After long moments of fruitless search, she settled (lamely) on...not hot. Yes. Definitely not hot. After a few more moments of staring at him, Bulma shook herself, pulled a book out of her pack, and began to read, pointedly turning her back to the...not hot...Demon Prince.
* * *
Meanwhile, in the dungeons, Goku was enjoying a little family reunion. For a few moments all he did was stare, and then he got a grip on himself and stuttered, "F-father?!"
Bardock leaned cooly against the wall opposite his son's cell. "What's the matter, don't you recognize me?"
"Y-yes, I do, but..." Goku trailed off. Bardock was giving him That Look, the look Goku and Raditz had dreaded as demonlings. It was the look that said, "You've got some explaining to do, and it had damn well better be a good explanation." Bardock spoke quietly.
"Why did you run away?"
Goku lowered his gaze to his feet as he tried desperately to remember, to think back. Why had he run away? At last, he spoke.
"The others...none of them ever said so to my face, but I could feel it. The whispers, the pointing. `There goes the half-breed!' I started going on explorations because it was a way I could be by myself, without any of that." Goku raised his eyes again. Bardock was still looking inscrutable.
"Why didn't you come back?" Why did you betray us?
The last question remained unspoken, but Goku still heard it, as plainly as if his father had shouted, and he cringed inwardly. This time, his gaze only went halfway down as he considered his answer. "I...I met an angel. She was older than me, and she asked me who I was. I couldn't tell her the truth, so I lied. I panicked and told her I was an angel, with nowhere to go. She offered to let me come home with her, and I thought it would be fun. So I went...and it was such a relief! No one pointed, no one whispered. For once, I fit in."
"So you stayed." Bardock's expression was still unreadable.
"Yes." Goku looked shamefaced. "I kept telling myself, `You should go back,' but I never did. Then there was Kame'sennin's training, and the tournament, and Piccolo, and by the time the war started, I couldn't leave. I had too many friends, too many obligations and debts." The angel/demon raised his eyes at last to meet his father's steely gaze. "You taught me to honor my obligations, and repay my debts. Would you ask me to break an oath?"
He held his father's gaze for endless seconds, until Bardock's eyes softened slightly. "You always did take things to heart, although I would have preferred it if you had, just this once, been dishonorable. Or perhaps not." The older demon shook his head. "Decisions like these are always hard." He looked back at his youngest son. "Your brother is on guard duty next. We've been put in charge of you, to `prove our loyalties', although we've never done anything remotely traitorous." He sighed and shook his head again. "Enough of this. Did you say you were hungry?"
"Yes," Goku said, but his reply was almost overpowered by a thunderous rumble from his stomach. Bardock smiled.
"I'll see what I can do."
* * *
Kuririn sighed and rubbed his forehead, roughly where the bridge of his nose would have been, if he had had a nose. He was developing another headache, and this one threatened to be a real migraine. General Son Goku was still missing, along with Bulma, and that left Kuririn, as the second-highest ranking general in the Heavens, in charge. He wondered how Goku managed it. He had to attend meetings with the lower ranking officers to discuss strategy, he had to decide how to deploy troops, and it seemed like no one could get anything done without his personal approval. At least he had a secretary to do paperwork for him, since Goku wouldn't have lasted five minutes if he had attempted to do his own.
Kuririn had known Son Goku and Bulma from childhood, but right now he was wishing for Goku's return less out of friendship than out of longing to return to being only second in command. And he didn't know what they would do the next time Vegeta appeared on the battlefield. Usually, he and Goku fought to a standstill, and if this meant that the General couldn't fight anyone else, it meant that the Prince couldn't, either. But now Goku was gone, and although Kuririn was very strong indeed by normal reckoning, he wasn't that strong. Vegeta would flatten him!
Kuririn sighed again, and sent a silent plea to his best friend, not unlike the one Yamcha had recently addressed to Bulma.
"Goku, come back safe, please."
