Rewoven Tapestry

The Searches Saga: Prologue

by Contrail

Disclaimer: Dragonball was created by Akira Toriyama. The American translation is done by Funimation.


Time's passage weaves a tapestry out of the lives of people, animals, creatures, and even worlds... The redirection of a crucial thread distorts the pattern that was to be woven. Friendships, loves, the course of battles, even who lives or dies... All of these things change in response to the thread's absence, as the tapestry tries to adjust to the alteration.

The difference was a small one. So small that normally it would have no significant impact on the events to come. A computer glitch marked a backwater blue-green planet named Earth as having had someone sent to purge it, when in fact no one had been sent. This mistake would not be noticed until many years later, when some race wanted to buy this unimportant world. The Saiyan infant named Kakarot who would have been sent to Earth is instead sent to a different world shortly before the destruction of the planet Vegeta at the hands of Frieza. A fateful encounter with an old legendary martial artist never occurs, and Kakarot never hits his head and forgets his mission. Instead he successfully clears the planet he was sent to of all life and becomes a simple soldier in Frieza's army, albeit one of only four Saiyans who still live. Son Gohan continues to live for years past the night he was destined to be killed by his rampaging adopted grandson.

But while the absence of a certain abnormally strong monkey-tailed child affects the paths of the threads that would have crossed his, they continue on as they would have until that time. A short blue man with delusions of grandeur still seeks the power of the Dragonballs. A giant king still sends his daughter in search of a way to put out the flames that surround their castle. A dark-haired young man and his cat still try to rob travellers who pass through their desert. A shapeshifting pig still terrorizes a remote village. A short ex-monk stills seeks to gain strength and recognition by training with the legendary Turtle Hermit. The Turtle Hermit's pet turtle still becomes lost on land. A young woman still shifts between blue-haired and docile and blonde and aggressive every time she sneezes. And a socially-challenged teenage genius still wants to wish for a boyfriend...


Author's Note

I know that Kakarot/Son Goku not coming to Earth (either because Vegeta-sei doesn't get blown up or for other reasons) isn't exactly an uncommon subject for DBZ Alternate Universe fics. However, many of them seem to ignore the fact that the enemies Goku faces during Dragonball (Pilaf, the Red Ribbon Army, Demon King Piccolo) wouldn't vanish just because Goku isn't there. So what would happen to the human warriors who'd still be around? Would they be able to rise to meet the challenges that face them even without Goku around? Or would one of the villains manage to take over the world? Those are the questions the Rewoven Tapestry series of stories intends to explore (along with non-canon romantic pairings and the occasional character background that was never told in the series).

I'll be trying to cover a very long span of time, which is why I'm breaking Rewoven Tapestry up into 'sagas' like the show does. The first stories will be posted here in the Dragonball section of Fanfiction.net because they deal with events that happen during the Dragonball time period, although illuminated by the knowledge of what happens in the later anime series. If the cast manages to survive to reach it ;^> (and my will to write doesn't give out), sagas dealing with events in the DBZ time period will be posted in the DBZ section.

Anyway, I'd love to hear any feedback about this story, either through FF.net's review system or e-mail.