Chapter 12; DBE, meet DBZ
Within the large living room of the Briefs household, most of the Z-fighters had gathered. Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu sat on the couch, with Krillen and Bulma in the loveseat. In Bulma's arms, baby Trunks was whimpering. Eighteen and Vegeta leaned against the wall. Master Roshi and Oolong sat near the T.V., shifting their attention from the conversation in place with the exercise video. Puar sat on her friend's shoulder.
All attended had been listening to Goku and Piccolo, as they regaled the rest of the group on the recent events around the Son family and the basic ideas of the events in place. This included Mori, the four guardians, Gohan and his connection to them, how the other three became involved, and their progress so far. From the look among the group, faith in their words were slim to nill.
"So, let me get this strait," Oolong said as a commercial appeared on the television. "You're working with four people-who are younger than we are- and who claim to control all the elemental forces on the planet, TO STOP A DERANGED GOD?!?" He started waving his arms about at the last part, almost knocking over the coffee table.
Goku scratched his head. "Actually, they only look younger than us… but yeah, that's about it." He flashed the classic Son grin. The others glanced from one to the other. "I know that this whole thing sounds far-fetched, but it's not like we haven't seen weird stuff before, like with Cell, right?"
"We were able to fight those weird things," Tien spoke up. "We didn't really succeed, but we still fought. With what you're telling us, we can't even fight this thing. These people could be lying. They could be the real enemies, and just want to throw us off guard-" He suddenly stopped short as the sound of the doorbell rag through the complex. Everyone went quiet, glancing to the direction of the front door, about two rooms over. They heard as Naki greeted the expected guests, leading them in.
For a moment, Yamcha thought, That Naki acts more like Bulma's servant than her assistant. His train of thought, however, was quickly lost when the seven (Naki included) entered the room. Gohan was talking with four teenagers, who turned quiet as they looked around at the crowd. A tough crowd at that. In an attempt to break some of the tension, Naki and Chi-Chi, who just entered, went over to Bulma, standing up and shifting Trunks in her arms.
"Bulma, it's wonderful to see you again!" Chi-Chi glimpsed at the baby. "What's wrong with Trunks?"
"He's teething. Poor thing. Poor us, in fact; he'll bite anything he gets his hands on," the scientist replied. As the sentence faded, so did the little relief of tension it provided. On one side of the room, Brian's tail swayed limply at his side, as Chris stretched one of his wings to the side. He had taken off his trench coat and given it to Chi-Chi. On the other side of the room, Master Roshi tilted down his sunglasses, and Eighteen pulled a loose strand of hair from her eyes. On both sides, stares shot back and forth without a moment's break; not a single eye wavered. To anyone else watching, time was standing still, and those there when time came back would be in deep trouble.
In the still room, no one noticed the tiny Saiyin baby as he wormed his way from his mother's arms to the floor. Trunks looked up at the newcomers, and started to crawl toward them. Being so young, he saw no threat in these four. Now at the base of the one wearing the big black shoes, he looked up again; no one paid any attention to him. The young one started to whimper, both for not having anyone pay attention to him, plus the pain in his mouth from his to-be teeth. In front of his face, he noticed something gold dangling to the ground, lazily waving in front of his face. Intrigued, the baby grabbed the thing, opened his mouth, and-
Everyone reacted as Chris' eyes went wide. Slowly, he lowered his gaze to his wing, which baby Trunks was making an attempt to chew on. Bulma hardly had time to call out before the fire guardian spread his wings out, blocking the baby, Gohan, and the other three guardians. Then, he folded back his wings, Trunks now in the hands of the water guardian. Beside the three elemental students, all the Z-fighters stood up and tensed as Andre looked from them to the bundle in his hands. Confused blue eyes looked back on focused brown ones. Andre's face was tense.
Then, he puffed his cheeks and wiggled his ears.
Immediately, the baby started laughing, and Andre chuckled behind him. Soon, Gohan and the other four guardians started laughing as well. Everyone else kept themselves stiff.
"Aww, look! He likes you Andre," Danielle cooed. She leaned over Andre's shoulder to see Trunks. Brian, in front the water master, smiled as the baby tried consistently to make a grab for his tail, which the earth guardian waved in front of his face. Chris was slightly off from the huddle, massaging the spot that had fallen prey to a demi-saiyin's powerful gums.
"Yes, well, I'm such a likeable person." At this, Brian really laughed. Passing him a look, Andre strolled across the room, baby in tow. At first, Bulma became startled when he walked up to her, yet his light smile reassured her. Slowly, he presented Trunks to the scientist and whispered, "Try rubbing ice on his gums. That should help."
Vegeta sneered at this action, and crossed the room to Andre. "So, you four are the all-powerful guardians Kakkorot has told us so much about?" Nodding, The water guardian's face turned grim. Slowly, the saiyin prince looked from one guardian to the next, studying them. The one with wings and the one with a tail, though relaxed, seemed to carry themselves with pride; like soldiers. The other two seemed far more casual; the blue one like his third-class rival, the girl fragile-looking, much like how he depicted most of the women of this race.
These were the so-called guardians of fire, earth, water, and wind.
The proud Vegeta prince threw back his head, and laughed.
The light blue of the planet Neptune shined against the dark backdrop of space and it's glitter of stars. Slowly, the planet's seemingly inhuman gleam started to darken and dull. The cause belonged to the Jargal, Mori's prized battle cruiser. Behind it, other large transport ships followed suite. The invading ships pressed on like a swarm of locusts.
"Master Mori, entrance to the Solar System has proven successful. We will pass into the system's inner ring in five minutes." Jara turned from her control panel to the command chair behind her. Confused at what she saw, she stood up and walked to the center of the control room to the chair. Of course, seated upon it was the god Mori; it was his form that had caught her eye. In light of the occasion, Mori took the form of a human, a thirty-year-old looking man with an afro, a muscular body, and a thick mustache. Any human would recognize it in a second; the so-called hero, Hercule Satan.
Despite the seriousness of their situation, what being so close to the set destination, it took Jara all within her willpower not to release even the slightest indication of amusement. "Um… sir… if you don't mind my asking, where exactly did you acquire the idea for your current selection of a form?"
The human smiled. "As I went over the last reports on this planet, the form you see caught my interest. This human seems to be very well-known amongst his people." Even if there was no intent, the voice was thick with bravado. To Jara, it seemed whoever owned that body lived with an ego bigger than that animal on the human's head, resembling hair. In her thinking, the purple-clad warrior almost didn't hear Mori's next words. "Speaking of which, what is the most recent report from our scouts?"
Jara recalled the transmission from the planet. From what she had seen, the Earth was not as inadequate for their needs as she had first assumed. "From what we gathered, the planet does have a variety of powerful warriors that will be useful to the army. As a matter of fact, we have found that there are approximately nine warriors who possess the power of energy manipulation, the highest number on any planet." She watched as the master rubbed his chin in interest and excitement. "Unfortunately…" his expression faltered. "Something rather unexpected has come up. Apparently, like some of the higher level planets, some of the Earth's beings have made contact with their elemental guardians."
The high-ranking officer closed her eyes and turned away, afraid of her master's wrath. She knew how Mori reacted when he found out that the guardians were involved in a takeover. Sure, it didn't help the defending planet much, but still… When nothing occurred, Jara slowly opened her eyes to see Mori back in the chair. With a knowing smile, he clicked away at some of the buttons in his armchair. Curious, Jara moved to the chair, yet was stopped as a large view-screen materialized in front of her.
Four separate screens appeared in front of Mori. After a moment, an image came into view on each one; the elemental guardians of Earth. It showed not only their current appearance, but other statistics, such as Chris' wingspan, Brian's tail's sensitivity and function, and previous monumental events caused by the guardians, such as memorial weather disasters, were shown. The god passed his gaze from one guardian to the next, before pressing another button. Now, three of the four screens faded, leaving Chris' screen in front of Mori. Suddenly, he started to shift, but Jara couldn't see why. Then, she understood; two gold wings appeared from behind the screen.
The last view screen faded, and their on the alter stood Christopher, the fire guardian. He smirked as the gold wings stretched to the sides. "You know, fire guardians always were the most fool-hardy of the four; they always thought they could lead their planet to victory. Well, no matter. These guardians will be no problem, just like all the others." He ran a hand through a wing. "And when this planet is completed, we shall release my army on the four vast galaxies."
Jara did a double take. Her voice caught in her throat. He's finally decided to go all-out? No more gathering soldiers from planets? NOW?? Why now? What the heck is so important about that Earth?
Gazing as if lost in his own, Mori forgot for a moment that his subordinate was still there. Snapping back into reality, he turned his face to her. "You can leave now." Though he said it as though liberating a child to the outdoors, Jara knew what he meant; You will leave now. And she did.
Something still bothered her three minutes later, and three floors down from the barge's main center. Normally, it was used to test samples of new species, to see analyze their physical abilities/limitations. Currently, she was going about her routine exercises. As she landed after her high crescent kick, she almost lost her footing. The woman fumbled on her feet, but soon stabilized herself, pulling a stray strand of hair from her face. Her mind strayed to the planet Earth, faster than the Jargal could have gotten her body.
As far as she had worked with the god Mori, the main objective had always been to find a new planet, with new interesting creatures. And once and a while, he would always bring up the planet Earth. When they went to Yardrat, the master underwent a fit of cackles when I gave him the coordinates for Earth found in the planet's medical banks. Since then, the fleet has been ordered on a beeline, stopping only at a few other planets on the way. She knew that this had something to do with one carrying the name "Eltori", but that was all she knew.
She continued to push her body, in attempt to put aside her nagging mind for now. Kick. Jump. Punch. Crouch. Kick. Uppercut. Heel drop. Block. Strike. Flip. Kain. Kain!?!
Shocked, Jara couldn't reposition her body to land. Fortunately, she landed right in a pair of strong arms. She glanced up to see Kain, an officer like herself, grinning from ear to ear. As he put her down, Jara also saw Stary, another officer. This one giggled into her hand. Mori collected four major commanding officers, one from each Galaxy. These four, Mori spared them from the fate as all his other recruits. Kain was from the west, Stary the east, Jara herself the south, and the one from the north galaxy was currently stationed at Earth, leading the undercover part of the attack on Earth.
"You gotta watch ya' self, Ja." Kain replied; he loved using that accent. "You know to watch ya'self. Whaz wrong?"
Sighing, Jara shrugged. "It's the whole Earth thing. I know he's after this Eltori person, but I don't see why that calls for all the heated attention to a place that's hardly in the universal computer banks."
"You mean you don't know?" Jara and Kain turned to Stary, who rang her ponytail impatiently. "You obviously forget; Master Mori has been invading planets long before we came along."
Kain placed his hands on his hips. "Meaning?" But before Stary could answer, the whole ship started to rock wildly; the armada was moving through the asteroid belt.
The four guardians glared at the saiyin prince as his arrogant laughter rang like a bell through the room. Everyone else was glancing warily from Vegeta to the four. They all knew that Vegeta was-once again- going into territory he shouldn't tread in.
"You really expect a grand warrior like myself to simply stand aside as these four do their little parlor tricks?" He smirked. "Even if you four do have the powers of this planet, I could destroy the planet in an instant."
Yamcha spoke up. "Though I hate to agree with Vegeta, he's right. I think even without energy abilities, you four should leave this to those with a little more battle experience. We have done this sort of thing before." A note of pride was evident in his voice.
Bad Idea.
Immediately, the group noticed a sudden increase in the temperature of the room. The guardians were infuriated. As Chris slowly stepped forward, he unwillingly began exerting his power, causing the room to heat up. The red gem shined on his head.
"How. Dare. You." Christopher was starting to shake, and he closed in on Yamcha. "We guardians serve, and work, and suffer, and oversee this entire planet, and have done so for longer than you have ever imagined." He waved his arm, and the couch facing away from him was moved forcefully to the wall; not thrown, but it had a few scorch marks. Yamcha, Chiaotzu, and Tien all jumped up and backed away, a little nervous at the sudden increase in heat. Yamcha started to sweat. "And you have the nerve to think that in your-puny-lifetime, you could do what we canno-"
"Now, Chris," Danielle interrupted. "I'm sure they have reason to think what they do. After all, they've never actually seen what we are capable of." Before Chris could react, his eyes went wide. Slowly, he turned to Danielle, her green gem on her forehead. They turned to Brian and Andre, and after a moment, their gems appeared as well. Then, grinning, they all turned their heads toward the Z-fighters.
The group became nervous, but calmed down as the heat in the room faded, and Brian smiled. "How's about this? We understand how most of you like to think. Especially you, Vegeta." Before he could say anything, he continued. "You think your power is greater than our own. So tell me; why don't you prove it?"
Everyone else stood still; Vegeta looked intrigued. "Um, Brian?" Gohan cut in. "Are you sure you guys should do this?"
"Oh yes, Gohan. We're sure. The ki dampers aren't up yet, so you all can fight with your normal powers. What do you say; Elemental Guardians vs. Earth's Special Forces?" Each fighter carried the same look on their face; curiosity. These fighters need to learn a little about modesty; even if they all worked to fight Cell, they are not as great as they think.
"Very well then. I look forward to seeing what you children can do." Vegeta looked around at the four. "Well, how do you want to break off the fighting?"
The guardians glanced smugly to themselves.