Chapter Nine: Dead Rock
Aranza was as much the dead rock as Vegeta had deemed it to be, Trunks decided. The ground was cracked and dry and no water was to be found anywhere. Here and there ruins and dust littered the planet's surface, but they were scarce and they had mostly crumbled or vanished. The wisps of violet haze that trailed the night sky were all that was left of Aranza's once so breathable atmosphere. The atmosphere had been ignited and burnt out during a blood feud between powerful nations on the planet; governments uncaring or unknowing about what they were doing to their planet, or so Vegeta claimed. The idea intrigued Trunks immensely. Was honor really so important that they would use weapons on their enemies so powerful and dangerous that it could end up killing both parties? How insane did you have to be before you would decide to take such measures? Why would you do it? Of course, he did not know anything about Aranza's inhabitants and why they had chosen to annihilate themselves in that war (besides the little information that Vegeta had provided) but his mind kept musing and speculating as he breathed deeply into the oxygen device that Bulma had given him.
His past mother was standing next to him, her colorful presence looking very much out of place in the desolate environment. Vegeta was trailing a little behind them, taking everything in. He had refused to let Bulma and Trunks explore the mines of Aranza all by themselves but did not make a secret of his disgust towards the mission.
Using tracking devices, Bulma had managed to locate the supposed location of the mines. They had flown already for a while, Vegeta again insisting on carrying his mate, but Bulma had asked for solid ground under her feet for a bit, saying something about ruins of a city nearby. She was cursing under her breath about the shifty magnetic poles on the planet, focusing on her compass and frowning at the pieces of paper in her hand. "Damn pieces of crap," she uttered, and looked up. "Well then. The mines are supposed to be a little south from here if my compass isn't betraying me again," Bulma said, gesturing vaguely in the southern direction. "I estimate an half of an hour walk, unless one of you boys would be so sweet to carry me again?"
Vegeta grunted. "Anything that gets us out of here faster."
"Are you still planning on exploring the city?" Trunks asked.
"That's my intent. Depends a little on how everything goes; I need some information beyond the minerals that we can find here. We have oxygen for a little more than," she checked her watch, "five hours."
Vegeta scooped her up and glared at her. "Stubborn bitch," he told her and gestured at Trunks to follow him. They arrived at their destination in less than a minute. The mines were largely underground and consisted of ink-black rock with silvery flecks. "That's our mines all right," Bulma commented with a satisfied grin on her face.
"Then get the hell in, take what you want, and come out again." Vegeta turned their back to them, looking out over the rocky nothingness around them. "I'll keep watch. If there's anything..."
Bulma waved her hand dismissively. "...We'll call for you."
"Good."
Trunks took his flashlight out of his pocket and beckoned for his past mother to follow him. He was as concerned as his Vegeta was, but had chosen to swallow his anxiety and go into the cave with his mother. Maybe it would take his mind off his worries. He turned on the light and felt his jaw drop. This was unexpected! He expected caverns and darkness... not... "...the hell?"
"Looks like this mine has been quite the lucrative business," Bulma commented dryly, taking in the plated hallway. "It looks as if it's been deserted for quite a while now," she judged, looking at the dust gathered everywhere. The hallway took a few sharp turns, progressively descending deeper and deeper into the caverns. It took them a while, but eventually they reached some sort of control center. Trunks felt more than a little disturbed as he inspected the remains of the room. It was a high, domed room with a ceiling that must be fifty feet high. It also looked as if a battle had been fought here. There was a lot of broken equipment, half-molten steel and holes in the wall that indicated ki-blasts or some hi-tech blasters. One of the pillars had cracked and looked suspiciously as if it would crumble at the slightest touch. Not much seemed to have survived the fray that had taken place, but at a second glance he noticed that there were a few computers that might still work.
It seemed only logical that within a minute Bulma was wiring the electricity to get one of the computers to work, and it surprised him even less that within another minute it was functioning properly. The computer sprang to life simultaneously with one of the two unbroken lamps in the ceiling. The control room bathed now in a clean white light. He had lived with his mother all his life, and he knew he himself was far more intelligent than the average person, but the sheer brilliance that his mother possessed never ceased to amaze him.
She seemed to be downloading information, he judged from an offhand look at the screen. Never mind, that was not his business now. He was supposed to guard her. He'd deal with the information later. He closed his eyes for a second and reached out with his ki. Nothing, besides the suppressed ki of his past father. Vegeta seemed impatient. Well, that was certainly nothing new. He was impatient too. He wanted to get out of here as soon as he could.
Aranza seemed very desolate, but he was anxious that the Terror would return for whatever reason, and that they'd all be blasted into hell anyhow. Despite what Piccolo or Vegeta or Goku or who the hell else claimed, they were not ready to take on the Silver Terror. They were in space for a little under a year; there was no way that they'd even stand a chance. Of course they had all progressed, they'd mastered some techniques, boosted their ki levels, and now they thought it was all fine and dandy? Well, no. Not by far.
He could understand that his mother wanted to study the armor of the Silver Terror; it could give them some valuable advantages over the killing machines. Or at least it would give them something to practice on. More importantly, they would get to know the perils that faced them. It would give the other warriors a bit of a reality check. Know thy enemy, right?
He was gnashing his teeth again. Nasty habit, he should really stop doing it; it was something he picked up soon after... everything... had happened. He was not sure what it meant; maybe it was a sign of his anxiety and his frustration. Bulma berated him about it constantly. Like now.
"Trunks, we'll get some food as soon as we're back on the ship. Don't eat your own teeth in the meantime," she said absently. She did not even look at him, her fingers were busily dancing over the keyboard, and her eyes were still glued to the screen.
He sighed and opened one of the numerous doors in the far end of the room. More plated hallways greeted him silently. This place was like a damn maze!
"According to what I've found here," his mother's voice suddenly sounded behind him, "we're supposed to find some half-delved rough material down the hallway you're looking at right now."
Trunks shrugged. "Then let us get us some."
She came to stand next to him but did not move or speak. He did not even need to use one of the mental tricks Piccolo had taught him, he immediately knew something was wrong. He really knew his mother too well. "What is it?"
Bulma looked up at him with large,
liquid blue eyes. "I know what killed this planet." Her lower lip trembled
suspiciously. This was not good.
"What?"
She looked away. "It was the people. The inhabitants of Aranza."
"We knew that," Trunks shrugged, entering the hallway. He walked away from her, because he already suspected the answer. He did not want to know. He could already guess the horrible truth of this blasted dead rock, he did not need his teary-eyed mother for that. And he did not want… to know. He just wanted to get that damn mineral and hightail out of here.
"Wait, Trunks," his mother protested, running to keep up with his long strides. "It's so sad and so logical at the same time, you know." She sounded nervous. He refused to meet her eyes. The flashlight danced through the narrow hallway. When had it narrowed that much? Or was this one just not a main hallway, and therefore not that wide? And what did he care anyway?
Bulma chose to ignore his sullen silence and continued: "I haven't seen much, but what I've gathered of it is that the Terror was bred as a weapon for some war the Aranzians were fighting. A war between countries, it was. But when the Terror was unleashed, they pretty much destroyed everyone and everything, nothing or no one excluded. Much like Gero's androids would have in our world, really," she mused. "Anyway, the people of Aranza tried to fight them, but they failed miserably. I suppose that explains much of the destruction we've found."
And there it was. He had known all along deep down inside, he had seen the truth and he had refused to believe it. He had fucking known all along. He had not wanted to know, he had tried to trick himself into not suspecting or finding out, but here it finally was. He could not fool himself anymore.
It was another damn parallel. The final parallel, the final truth. His horrible theory was proved.
He thought he had shaken off his destiny by escaping into the past, but it seemed like it was true after all. When the future changed the first time and the Earth was not destroyed by androids because the Trunks from the future had prevented it all from occurring, Destiny and Life had joined their forces and tried to patch up their predestined future, by creating just another patch of indestructible androids set on destruction.
It was almost funny. Trunks wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to run in circles and tear his hair out. Instead, he just kept walking with those long strides and tried to cancel out his mother's voice. And naturally, it was to no avail. Maybe it was some morbid part of him that wanted to listen to this doom story, because damn him if he wasn't paying attention!
"The Aranzians knew they had made a fatal mistake," his mother continued, her breath a bit labored because she had to keep up with him, "and so they decided they'd do anything, everything to stop the suffering. They tried and utilized all kinds of horrible weapons and tactics, that they were destroying their planet bit by bit. They knew they were losing the war against the Terror and in the end they tried a weapon so dangerous and so powerful... it was all they could do now, it was the only possibility left. So they knew there was a big chance that they'd kill themselves with it as well, because the weapon was yet untested and unstable, but time was running out. It was all they could do. They knew the Silver Terror would not stop at Aranza, and they knew this was their only chance. So they used their weapon. I guess it was a nuclear one or it was a chemical one, causing a chain reaction... The blast that occurred was horrible, and it burnt up their atmosphere. It rendered Aranza to the dead rock we're walking on now, as far as it wasn't already, and… everyone died. Except the Silver Terror."
"Figures," Trunks spat. He could not bear to say anything more, as he was too busy controlling his anger and frustration.
They walked on in silence.
***
"About time," Vegeta's irritated voice reached them as they exited the cavern. "I began to worry that I'd freeze my ass off out here."
It was indeed very cold out here, Trunks thought. Dark, too. The sun had set, now shining merrily on the other side of the dead planet, and because of the lack of atmosphere the air around hem had cooled off dramatically. He was glad he was wearing protective clothing. Of course he could stand the most extreme weather conditions, from scorching heat to piercing cold, but it never hurt to be comfortable, he supposed.
"I'm ready," Bulma said, holding up her case of capsules. "I got myself nice amounts of mineral, enough to study on." She smiled radiantly.
"I'm glad you're so excited about it, woman," the Saiya-jin Prince drawled. "Now can we leave here before I die out of sheer boredom?"
"Whatever you want," she smiled at him, ignoring his jest. Playfully she extended her arms and waited to be picked up again. "Let's go to the ship, I've had enough of the Aranzian planetviews by now."
"And that while you've been in the caves all the time. You did not have to stare at it for three hours," Vegeta protested.
Bulma just laughed as they took off, back to the ship.
Trunks followed suit, silent and brooding. He did not understand how Bulma could remain so calm and lighthearted through all of this. Was it just a façade to mask her insecurity and her inner pain, like he was trying to mask his own inner turmoil, or did she really not see the things he saw? Had she truly not realized the parallels and the hopelessness of it all? Or was he just doing the old doomsday thinking again, and did she foresee a bright and beautiful future he thought was out of reach? Was he possibly missing something?
He really did not want to be that negative. He never used to be a pessimist. Not before what happened in the future, anyway. Before all this, he had never really thought about the future; he took the things one day at a time, and never had anything to worry about. And that changed. It only took one reality check, one moment of disillusion as he stared at what was left of the girl he had kissed only minutes ago, and now he was unstable and pessimistic. Not that strange of course, considering the circumstances, but he did not want to be a liability. He did not want to teeter at the edge of an emotional breakdown. He desperately wanted to have hopes for the future, but things were looking bleak if he took said further future in account.
Say that they would, by some miracle or extreme power-up or a streak of brilliance or luck – say that they would defeat the Silver Terror (that was already so mind-boggling that Trunks had a hard time concentrating on this particular scenario; it made him chuckle a little as he sped through the Aranzian sky after Vegeta and Bulma)... then the Earth wouldn't be destroyed by androids of whatever sort. Hurrah for this particular time. But then... would a different, stronger set of androids arise in a couple of years, and give it a go again because it was simply the Earth's destiny to be demolished, its people diminished? And would again everything be destroyed around him (or an alternate version of himself, like the younger Trunks in the spaceship right now, perhaps) and would he again take a time machine into an alternate past to fight the future? And would he win there, creating another timeline, endlessly looping time around itself and himself, thus trying to outsmart Destiny time after time and failing? Should he even dare to challenge Destiny like that if it would prove to be so utterly hopeless?
The paradox was horrible.
Trunks gnashed his teeth and tried not to believe in it. He could not afford to; it was too awful to be true. He had to believe in the light in Marron's eyes, in the beautiful twinkling sound of his little sisters delightful laughter, into the unspoken affection between his parents, in the quiet strength of the Son family – that's where he had to draw his strength from. Because all of those things were just as true as this… atrocity he was thinking of right now.
Hope should be his strength, not fear and uncertainty. He needed all of his strength for this.
It was too late for Aranza, but there was still hope for Earth. Maybe he truly was the Earth's only hope. Maybe he would change the future forever so that Marron could grow up into the beautiful woman she deserved to become and smile at him sweetly, captivating all the goodness and the light of the world in that one smile.
He had to believe in that.
A/N: I fear another chapter before the end of the year will be a tough call, but I'm working on it. Merry Christmas everyone!
~ LL
