Disclaimer: Yes, you guessed it. It is I, Akira Toriyama! And for some unknown reason I have went insane and have decided to immerse myself in the wonderful world of fanfiction instead of publishing it and making loads of money off of it, even if it sucks. *blinks rapidly* Uhhhh, where did that come from?! Of COURSE I don't own DBZ!

Author's Note: I'm warning you, this is where it starts to get weird! RAYOR: Read At Your Own Risk!

***

It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny. -Jean Nidetch

The two suns pounded their heavy light upon the scorched earth of Namek's only desert, causing Trunks's Capsule Corp jacket to cling limply to his moist skin. He stared up at them with half-closed eyes, his arms crossed and his hair slightly ruffled from the scalding breeze, praying for the ritual to end and for his part to be over.

He was anxious, more anxious than he had ever been in his life. His heart was pounding rapidly. His palms were sweaty. His knee joints felt like they had ceased to exist hours ago. Nervousness and shock really COULD end up killing a person, he thought as he attempted to suppress the idea that his heart was actually throbbing in his mouth.

The long, monotonous chant of Dende rang loudly in his ears, a chant that had been going on for what seemed like centuries. The shaman stood nearby, the Dragonballs resonating at his feet, looking upward in expectation of Porunga.

Trunks's feet ground forcefully into the gritty desert sand. (It's been awhile---seems like it's been days since he started. Seems like a century since I woke up this morning and we flew out here. Does it REALLY take this long?!)

He tried to reason with himself in an attempt to calm his nerves. (Well, like I would know; until now I've never seen a Dragonball in my life. Kami, I wish Mom would have TOLD me something about this before.)

(Maybe I should have just told Mom. This was stupid---lying and coming all the way out here.)

(Hell, what am I doing here anyway?! Maybe this was a mistake; all of it. Maybe the dead should be left dead. Maybe-)

His thoughts were violently cut off when suddenly a resounding roar filled the desert, causing him to jump and almost lose his footing. In awe he watched as the Dragonballs, now glowing almost red, were lifted high into the air, and as the sky appeared to grow dark and stormy. In what there before had been empty air appeared a gigantic round dragon with unblinking crimson eyes, his tail thrashing angrily around as he stared at the trio in front of him.

Dende ran up closer to the dragon, bowing several times. "It is great to see you, Porunga!" he called out upwards. "We have not summoned you since the great famine that occurred eight years ago!"

Porunga rumbled in reply, "What is your first wish, Namek?"

Dende stared over at Trunks, indicating for him to voice the first wish. "I-I wish for-for Son Gohan to be revived!" he called out as loudly as he could, his voice wavering slightly. His legs felt like jelly now. He honestly felt like he was about to faint.

Porunga did a brief motion, causing the sky to brighten up with shards of lightning a few seconds later. After a moment... "Your wish has been granted. The one called Son Gohan is now alive and nearby."

Trunks stared over at Dende, puzzled. "Here? He's HERE?! I thought that you were revived wherever you happened to be killed."

Dende shook his head, still gazing unceasingly at Porunga. "It's been so long that probably even his remains are gone, Trunks. In that case the revived is usually just placed at the site of the wishing."

"Well, where is he, then?"

"Probably nearby. We'll find him after we're done."

"What is your second wish, boy?" Porunga growled impatiently. "Speak now!"

"Um---I-I wish for those that died at the Kame House sixteen years ago to be revived!" Trunks called out, the nervousness still apparent in his voice. Again, the sky immediately lit up, eventually darkening back down to such an extent that the stars started to peep out.

"Those that call themselves Chi-Chi, Muten Roshi, and Oolong are now alive and nearby. Voice your third and final wish, earthling."

Trunks was on the spot. His legs now feeling like liquid and his nerves to the point of no return, he opened his mouth to say the last wish, the wish that he had been waiting for for so long---

"Trunks! TRUNKS!!" A desperate-sounding but very familiar voice was suddenly calling out to over him from nearby, from behind a dune. Trunks stopped short, fumbling with his words as his brain worked to remember, to recognize it. His heart rose considerably. If he was right then the voice belonged to-

Gohan finally climbed over the dune, almost tripping in his haste as he sped towards Trunks, panting like crazy and his arms flailing wildly, as if he wanted to stop the ritual. "Trunks, NO! Trunks, listen to me! LISTEN TO ME!! I think I know what you're doing! Please don't do this! DON'T!! Not yet! If you do you'll regre-"

"I wish for those that died in the first battle with the Androids sixteen years ago to be revived," Trunks stated clearly, ignoring Gohan's cries as he watched the sky lighten up a third time. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that his older friend had slumped defeatedly to the ground.

Porunga bared his teeth. "Your third command has been granted," he rumbled as the sky brightened back into day and the Dragonballs, now looking dead and lifeless, dropped back to the earth. "Those that call themselves Yamcha, Piccolo, Krillen, Prince Vegeta, Tien, and Chaioztu are now alive and nearby. You have had three wishes. I shall now take my leave." Trunks watched astonished as the dragon's solid form began to waver back into nothingness.

All was silent as the day went back to normal as if nothing had happened. It took a few seconds before Gohan lifted his head back up and stared at Trunks, still looking as if he had failed miserably in something. "Well, it looks like you accomplished something while I was dead," he finally rasped, his voice hoarse from the yelling. Trunks stared at him in disbelief, practically unable to comprehend that his old friend was standing right in front of him, alive and well. He looked the same as ever, immortalized perfectly from the time in which he had died, right down to the ruffled hair and tattered clothing, though his arm now had a terrible brown scar running widthwise across it. He was actually not much older than Trunks now, with his youthfulness preserved since the time of his death.

"Gohan, old friend! Good to see you!" Dende was ecstatic, grinning broadly as he saw his old playmate for the first time in decades. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

Gohan looked up at the young Namek in wonder. "Dende?" he questioned, his mouth slightly open. "Dende, is that you?!" He paused and glanced around at the scorched landscape. "We're not on Earth, are we?"

Dende grinned. "We're on Namek, of course! Your friend there certainly has ambition; he flew out here all by himself!"

"I'll say," Gohan replied dryly, that tormented look creeping back onto his face. He gave Trunks a piercing stare. "Do you realize what you just did, Trunks?"

The other boy sighed. He had forgotten all about Gohan's festering cynicism. The Gohan from this world had always been like that; he supposed it came from all the terrible things that had happened over the years. "Yes, Gohan," he replied firmly, "I know what I just did. I flew out here on a spaceship and revived everyone."

Gohan kicked at the sand. "No! You know what I'm talking about, Trunks! This half-assed little scheme of yours was dangerous! Not only dangerous to you, but dangerous to everyone on Earth as well! For all you know the Androids could be playing keep away with the remains of West City!" Another thing about Gohan...he wasn't what you'd call a risk taker.

Trunks smiled. He had completely forgotten about how fun it was to make Gohan upset. "No, Gohan, the Androids are dead. Dead. I didn't revive all of you just to get you killed again!" His mentor gave him a puzzled look. "Listen, it's a long story, but they are dead. I eventually got strong enough to kill them myself." He shook his head in exasperation. "Honestly, I'd think that you'd be happy to be alive. What happened to you, anyway? You were such a cute little kid-"

"And how would YOU know?!" was the sharp reprimand. "And I'm not sure whether I'm happy or not. I can't even remember what I was doing in Otherworld...But the fact remains!" His voice grew louder again. "You could have been injured! You could have died! And then where would we all be in terms of keeping the Earth safe?!"

"Well, not we then, I. 'Cause then you wouldn't be here to argue with me!"

Gohan was obviously not impressed. "Very funny, Trunks, very funny. As much as I'm glad to be seeing you here and not in the Otherworld, I have to wonder just what is going to happen now, with everyone back. Just what were you thinking, anyway?"

"Nothing! I just wanted everyone alive again!"

Gohan sighed in exasperation. "I wonder if you'll be saying that line a few weeks from now!"

"Just what's wrong with you, anyway?! It's not like I opened Pandora's Box or
anythi-"

"Um, you two?" Dende cut in, looking a little frazzled from the duo's intense exchange. "I think we'd better go look for the others now. It's not exactly safe for them to be wandering around in the desert."

Gohan stood up. "You got that right. I'll be surprised if they haven't killed each other off by the time we get there. C'mon." He gestured at Trunks, and they both set forth into the wasteland, leaving Dende and the shaman to wait for them back at the site of the wishing.

Trunks made as if to take off into the air, but Gohan stayed his arms. "No, we don't need to fly. We should be able to find them on the ground."

Trunks looked at his friend quizzically. "So we'll just feel out their Ki or something?"

"No, I'm sure that everyone's Ki is weak." Gohan craned his neck to look over a dune. "I'm not feeling like a billion dollars at the moment myself, so I'm sure everyone else isn't either."

"So...how? We could be here all night, the way it's looking."

"Nah...we should be able to hear them before we see them. I don't want the possibility of them seeing us before we see them anyway."

Trunks gave him a hard glance. "Hey, Gohan?" he questioned after a moment.

"Yeah?"

"Did something...happen before they all died? The way you're talking, it sounds like something did."

Gohan sighed. "Yeah..." He kicked at the piping hot sand underneath him. "Yeah and no, I guess. You don't know half the story, Trunks, you were too young back then."
He paused to think for a moment. " There was a lot of pain involved with this whole ordeal. Most of us dead...and all of us injured. I'm not sure what Bulma's told you, but to tell the truth, most of us in that last fight...we just couldn't do it. We just didn't have the strength to pull together and fight for a common cause. We were so disorganized without my father, and we hardly had a thing in common. We argued and argued and argued about strategy and how to fight...and it cost us on the battlefield. We were all too different. Without Goku, we were sunk." He shook his head sadly. "And as much as I'm happy to be walking around and to see Piccolo and everybody again, I-"

Trunks felt taken aback. "You mean...you couldn't even fight together?" he interrupted.

"Our lack of teamwork was really what got us in the end, Trunks. As I said, Goku was the one thing that we all had in common, for one reason or another, and when he died...well..." He cleared his throat. "Finally it was your mother that got everyone together and told everyone to either fight together or stuff it. She was friends with almost everyone, and she couldn't figure why they all couldn't just get along."

"So you're saying that everyone can't stand each other, Gohan?" Trunks asked carefully.

Gohan shielded his eyes to look on the horizon. "No...I didn't say that. It's currently a totally different situation. Everyone is confused right now. They-" He gazed over at Trunks piercingly, deciding to say aloud what had been on his mind ever since he had figured out what was going on." It's just that...I don't know...I think you're expecting too much out of this. You're expecting to have this great reunion and for everybody to be happy, but it's not going to be that way. No one died feeling happy. Everyone died feeling bitter and sad, and they've had no time to recover from it. It's like time stopped for a long while and then started back up again. It's confusing."

Trunks thought back to the party, where everyone had been laughing, talking, and enjoying each other's company. Was this really the case? It was really hard to believe that teamwork had been the problem here; even his father had managed to cooperate with the rest in the battles he had seen. Could Goku's death REALLY have changed that much? And was death as big a matter as Gohan was saying, even if you were revived? He didn't remember much about his own death; just that he had been killed swiftly and revived equally as fast.

"So yeah...in a way, something DID happen," Gohan went on. "Or rather, didn't. So don't be surprised if no one's hugging or kissing each other when we find them. They're going to feel the same way about certain people as they did at the time of their death, and a decade in the Otherworld that they don't even remember isn't gonna change it."

Trunks nodded and walked on in silence. Maybe things had changed in the other timeline more than he had actually thought...He would have to tread lightly around these people; it was actually almost like meeting a bunch of total strangers. Was this just the beginning of what the Namek shaman had warned?

Oh well. It was worth it. Totally worth it. To see his mother and father together for once was worth any trouble for a few months.

***

The twin suns beat mercilessly down upon the northern edge of the desert, causing the motley group of the newly-revived to squirm restlessly around. Staring curiously at the barren wasteland around them, they all sat and waited for some kind of sign, each and every one of them wondering just what the hell was going on.

It would have been a strange sight to the casual observer. Chi-Chi, Vegeta, Roshi, Piccolo, Yamcha, Krillen, Oolong, Chaiotzu, Tien...they were all there. All looking weak, dazed, and confused, all huddled together on the scorched desert sand and panting from the heat. Piccolo and Vegeta, though separate from the main group, both stood impassively nearby under the shade of a monolithic dune; even they looked a little winded from the revival. Winded but alive. The stiffness, the weariness...their pain showed them that they were very much back in the land of the living.

Chi-Chi was the one who decided to break the silence that had been reigning for the past ten minutes. "W-what's going on?" she voiced a little shakily, tears forming in her eyes. "What happened? Where are we and what are we doing here?!"

Krillen shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine, Chi-Chi. Last thing I remember...one of those bastards had me in a damn good headlock."

"Tch...I remember that!" Vegeta broke in scornfully. "He snapped your neck like a twig, weakling!"

"You mean to say...we all died?" Chi-Chi, deciding to pointedly ignore him, looked around at everyone in awe. "Yes, that's exactly it!! Last thing I remember----" She trailed off, caring not to finish saying what she last remembered. "But- but who revived us? And how long have we been out of it?"

Everyone immediately looked around, trying to deduce who hadn't been revived along with the rest. "Well, I see that Bulma isn't here," Oolong finally broke in after a moment. "She probably did it."

Yamcha appeared to look upset. "Well, where is she, then?!" he exclaimed, desperately looking all around him. "I thought she was staying with you guys!"

"Oh, don't blow a fuse, Yamcha!" Roshi was the one to calm him down. "She left after awhile to check out the battle. And it was a darn good thing she decided to leave when she did, otherwise-" This was the second time that someone did not care to finish their sentence.

Chi-Chi's eyes grew wide. "And where's my little Gohan?! Wasn't he fighting? Oh nooooooo...." With a moan of despair her head sank into her lap and she began to all out bawl.

Piccolo wasn't too happy himself. "Gohan...he was right there when I died," he muttered quietly to himself. "There's something about this that I don't like..."

A flurry of noise and activity rippled through the group, everyone saddened and confused. Just how long had they been out of it?! What had happened since then?! And what had become of Bulma, her newborn child, and Gohan?! A lot of questions were in desperate need of answering...

Finally Vegeta, who had stood in disgusted silence for about five whole minutes, was the first to hold everyone's attention. "You fools can stay here and die of heat exhaustion," he spat, kicking at the sandy ground. "I'm getting out of here!"

He stood up straighter, outstretching his arms as he powered up and his normally jet black hair turned to a bright gold, scowling as his ears picked up the cries of "Good riddance!" and "You'd probably kill us anyway!" coming from the rest of the group. Just as he was about to take off and leave them forever...

"Hey, look! People!" It was then that Yamcha had spotted something, causing Vegeta to power back down and to stare at the faint but very much people-shaped figures trekking in the heat towards them.

Chi-Chi shielded her eyes to stare at them. "Oh, my," she muttered, turning to Piccolo, who she knew had twice the eyesight of anyone. "Are they aliens, Mr. Piccolo?"

Piccolo stared on for a moment before answering gruffly, "No, they're humanoid. And they seem to be looking for something."

"Maybe...us?" Chaioztu cut in hopefully, floating up in the air to get a better look.

Piccolo shook his head. "Perhaps...but they don't look familiar. To me, at any rate..."

Chi-Chi leaned back down. "Oh, I hope they know something," she fretted miserably. "Just how long has it really been since we all died?!"

Everyone sat uneasily in the parched desert afternoon, wondering about a little of everything as they impatiently waited for Trunks and Gohan to get closer.

Author's Note: A chapter or two yet, and then Part II begins! Part II meaning that the B/V begins and then the genre of this story will do a complete turnaround. To romance, that is. I wish I could have implemented romance from the beginning, but I couldn't because of what I was actually writing about. (Oh, and to wild child: yeah, I kinda realized that. Bulma is forty-three years old in my story, but she probably could use the Dragonballs to get a little makeover, since all her friends are the same age as when they died anyway. So yeah, I'll write that at some point. And as for her finding out about them, I've written far ahead enough to know that she'll be getting a little surprise with the Dragon Radar...Thanks!)

Anyway, another chapter down. I'm not sure when the next update will be, only that I know I will. Thanks for the wonderful reviews, of course, and especially to my regular reviewers. You guys let me know that my story hasn't gotten increasingly bad!

~Y-G~