I wish I owned DBZ, but I don't. I own DVD's and tapes, but it just isn't the same. I also don't own the right to Starcraft or any of the music pieces you see selected, just copies of merchandise, such a shame. The artists that created them are geniuses and we all must bow to them.
A/N: I won't go into extreme detail with this chapter, even though it would be very easy to do so. Most new characters in this chapter are real people that I've met and know personally, in which they gave permission for their appearance in this story.
Chapter 21: Help from Home
Fasha didn't exactly hold true to her word, though she was prepared to. Once Vegeta broke in and yelled at us for making so much noise after eleven, we decided to stop, and thankfully that got me some more sleep. That though didn't stop her from waking me up, rather originally I might add. My dreams were pretty pleasurable, and then I saw why, she had been adding to the effect as I slept. When I gave her the half grin and half crazy look, she let go of my tail in surprise, and the other body part she was holding.
"What?" she asked with a falsely innocent face.
"Just can't get enough can you?" I chuckled into a smirk.
"Well Mister Sawing Logs, since the prince cut us short last night, I decided to catch up a little bit. I don't really care whether you were awake or not!" she grunted slightly and rose back to her position on the bed beside me. I glanced towards the clock, catching a bit of the sun coming up in the process.
"Well its dawn anyway, might as well get up for the day," I muttered and wondered over to my dresser for clothes.
"Oh don't wanna wake the house up?"
"And suffer ultimate embarrassment again, no thanks," I grinned and slipped on a pair of shorts, poking my tail through the cut out hole and wrapping it up. My grin didn't last though, I had a lot to think about, a lot of old memories were streaming through my head, and most of them revolved around a certain blue planet blowing up. I slipped an aqua capsule shirt on and searched around for my shoes, which were hiding underneath my bed next to my training boots.
"What's wrong love?"
"Nothing," I said.
"Yeah, like I'm gonna believe that! You're emitting more of that mopey sadness than Shugesh eats in a day, you're feeling guilty about something, lemme see!" I hadn't realized that I had been blocking her connection, or maybe my extreme emotions had just done it since we weren't mated yet. Whatever the case I didn't really want to show her my past.
"Fine, if you won't show me, then tell me. Just my luck I hitch onto an emotional Saiyan," she folded her arms and snorted.
"It's just that I miss my old world, my old friends and family are there. It'll be hard to go back and leave again, but then if I don't leave again I'll just end up hurting them more by failure," I stood up and shook the emotional tirade from my head, shifting it to determination.
"There we go, about time!" Fasha said, poking my side. The door swung open, revealing Vegeta, dressed in a red shirt with a black jacket and blue jeans. Yeah the pink shirt might be a bad thing today.
"Let's go boy, get this over with," he said, leaving the door open. I waved a slight goodbye to Fasha, and followed him down the stairs. I caught up to him quickly as he was going slow.
"The woman made one more of those return bracelet things so we can get back. She's been up all night working on the Zerg scouters, with luck she'll have those completed soon," he explained. I didn't answer, knowing that he didn't require a response.
"We will keep our energy suppressed. We will also be going back about two years before Trunks appeared to you, will that be enough?" he asked.
"Yeah, that'll be good. Since we going for information, we should be able to avoid going anywhere near the other me. It'll be easier for me, though we may need to get close so I know where to go," I said softly.
"That will be fine, any particular location once we get there?"
"Yeah, I think I know a place. When I was playing this, game, I had a few friends that all lived in a certain area, and we played it over the networks. They're probably some of the best strategists when it comes to that addicting game, and we can trust them not to speak about us," I said, following into the lab where Mom was sleeping with her head rested on the table. Vegeta and I didn't make a sound as he slipped on the return device and stepped toward the chamber.
"Do we need to wake her?" I whispered.
"No, I told her we would be leaving promptly. She'll expect us to be gone, get in!" he rasped. I stepped into the time chamber with him as he punched in a familiar looking code and hit the big red and repaired button on the console. The machine started to whirl and the blue force field appeared in front of the door. The machine sound built and got rather loud, enough to wake Mom from her sleep. She only smiled and waved as Vegeta held up his wrist, showing he indeed had the return device with him. Then he suddenly bent over in slight pain, just as a wave of nausea hit me as well. The room went black and nothing could be seen or heard, except for the machine's dying sounds. Then a bright light filled my vision and the ground was replaced with dirt and very tall grass.
"She needs to work on that machine, that blasted thing about made me lose my breakfast!" Vegeta growled. We landed in a field just as before, only it was grassy and wooded. I took in a deep breath, and the fresh air filled my lungs and made me smile.
"I'm home," I said happily.
-
"Where are we boy?" Vegeta asked.
"No clue, other than on Earth. Looks like she landed us in a deserted area in the middle of the woods," I pointed out the tall trees that surrounded us.
"I figured that part out on my own, do you mean you never traveled your own planet?"
"I did, just not much and not that far. I couldn't always fly you know," I shrugged.
Vegeta grunted, "Well quit standing around, we need to find out where we are." He rose into the air slowly. Not five feet into the air, just above the top of the grass, loud bangs went off and a saw a few bullets go by Vegeta's head. He was down on the ground in an instant, his fists clinched and scanning around for trouble. I sensed low ki around us, human ki all around, but low regardless.
"Great, now what?" he grumbled.
"Must be hunting season. Wherever we are it must be summer time, look there goes a duck into the air," I pointed and kept my voice low. Sure enough a duck flew into the air in a flurry, another shot rang out and it dropped from the sky quickly.
"Humph, let's see those weaklings pick a Saiyan out of the air with their inferior weapons!" Vegeta challenged the air, ki rising.
"I thought we were going to keep our power suppressed? I'd rather Frieza didn't show up early you know, it would make it a little DIFFICULT!" I rasped at him. Whatever power Vegeta had let slip was quickly gone when he realized that mistake.
"Just find out where we are boy!" he growled. I led the way through the brush, scaring several animals into the air, and watched as they were shot down. I heard some rustling ahead of us, about fifteen feet. I pushed apart some weeds to see a large dog sitting there hunched over a dead duck, growling at us.
"Heh, duck doesn't sound to bad. How long would the dog last not using any power?" Vegeta smirked and cracked his knuckles.
"No wait, we should let it take the duck and follow it out for information, unless of course you want to get shot at again. Then we'd be on the six o'clock news, oh I can see that headline! Redneck hunter shoots a superhuman and doesn't even phase him!"
"Your jokes are going to get you into extra training, zip your lip!" Vegeta barked.
"Hey is someone out there?" a younger voice called out from ahead of us. The dog's tail wagged slightly as what must have been his owner came up and petted him.
"Hey folks, get stuck out here? Need any help?" He was a young guy, probably about twenty-five to thirty years of age. He wore a flannel checkers jacket, jeans and a baseball cap; and was sporting a good-sized rifle. Most noticeable though, his accent was very American, a good sign to me.
"Yeah, were a bit lost, we've been walking out here for a few days and were not sure where we're at exactly, could you tell us?"
"Oh, damn, how'd you get stuck way out here, on the road from Seattle or something?" Washington huh.
"Yeah, the car kinda blew up on us and we had no phone and no compass. We were heading southeast towards our cousin's place. Could you point out the directions please, its hard to tell with these woods here," I quickly thought up a lie, and judging by the grunt that followed from Vegeta, it wasn't a very good one since the sun could clearly be seen.
"Yeah north is that way, east there and south there, ain't much West you can go, other than the coastline," the hunter pointed the directions out for us. Vegeta phased out behind me and chopped him on the neck in the blink of an eye. The dog started to bark, until Vegeta gave it the death glare. It shut up pretty quick and checked over its fallen owner, who was not dead, just out cold.
"We can't have anyone seeing us take off, you know where to go boy?" he asked, brushing off his black biker like gloves.
"Yeah, we go that way," I said pointing to the south and east.
"Good, take off. But do it quickly so these weaklings don't pick it up. Try not to fly too fast but not too slow either, I'll provide a distraction," he said, lifting a hand. Oh boy, I got into a take off position. He let loose a very weak ki wave, not even visible, but enough to make the trees around us shake a bit. With that done I tore out of the field and high into the air. I heard a few shots go off and outran a few bullets that came close, before getting into the clouds. Vegeta appeared a few seconds later, examining the bullet hole in his jacket.
"Damnit, I just bought that too!" he whined a bit.
"Guess the weaklings have a better eye than you thought," I said folding my arms.
"Shut up brat! Get going!" I shrugged and jet off to the east, careful not to release too much power for an aura to show. We rose up to about twenty-five thousand feet or so. It was enough to see a few jets above us but we stayed within the clouds when possible. Below I could see most of the state outlines, mostly highlighted by rivers. We hit Montana in about ten minutes, and I picked up on what had to be the Missouri river and started to follow that through the air.
"Where exactly are we boy? Are you sure you know where to go?" Vegeta asked as he flew up beside me, within listening range anyway.
"Yeah, we're west of my home. My friends are to the east of it. I'm following this river because I know it borders my home state on the west," I explained as we flew over the mountains.
"Are there any security systems that may detect us?" he asked while glancing around.
"You said two years right?"
"About two years boy," he grunted. Good, that's before nine-eleven, should be easy.
"No, shouldn't be any radar or anything that would care to track us down at this point," I said calmly without detail. But knowing Vegeta like I do, the inquiry is on its way.
"Why would that matter boy, a few years shouldn't make a huge difference?" Yep there it is.
"I left in the year two thousand and three. There was a disaster in some of the big cities of this country two years before that, but it was late in that year. I left in the middle of that year so two years is slightly beforehand," I said.
"What kind of disaster?" he asked, curious.
"Terrorists, they suicide bombed a couple of big areas and killed a lot of people. After that security was way high and every little detail was looked into. This country's authorities would have been in the process of hunting down those responsible for it and their eyes would be open everywhere," I said, shrugging a bit.
"So a bunch of cowards took out a bunch of weaklings because they didn't like it here, pathetic!"
"Yeah that's just about right," I replied. I suppose as long as he thinks along those lines, its close enough then to try to explain the holy war thing too. I know the subject would eventually lead there. We came up on the North and South Dakota borders, as I was flying high enough to watch the river trail from the north. We passed over to the north of the black hills, which didn't show off much detail since we were so high up anyway. The river turned south a bit more, and we hit the end of the Dakotas a few minutes later, I followed the river until I felt I saw the highway I was looking for, before turning straight east.
"I thought we were following the river?" Vegeta asked, confused.
"Yeah, down there it cuts the border of my home state and then bends around again later on, I recognize the land area here!" I called back to him. We flew through Iowa and kept along the highway going through the middle of the state. I started slowing down as we approached Des Moines, and started to descend.
"Boy, we're not going to your home! It's too risky!"
"Do you want to find out when it is? And never mind that but I will need some directions. I couldn't always sense ki either, if you recall you're the one who taught me. I remember the city and maybe the house but not the exact route to get there, I'm trying to make this easy!" I shouted back. He grunted and complied as we came to the outskirts and flew over the city slowly. Maybe a rest area on the highway would have been better. I spotted a nearby gas station that looked familiar and dropped quickly so hopefully no one would notice.
"I'll meet you back up here when you get finished!" Vegeta called down to me, though I barely heard him. I landed behind the station, glancing around for any sign of notice, none. I made sure my tail was wrapped up good, before pulling my shirt over it to help cover it up, especially in the back where it looked like a badly tied knot. Then I walked around the place casually, taking notice that it was quite busy. I walked into the store and right away stole a glance at the newspaper shelf to get the date. It read: July Eighteenth, a Wednesday.
That's a good sign, right in the middle of the summer. And it's a weekday so I would most likely be working. So I shouldn't run into myself when we find my friend's house. A few faces glanced in my direction, and unfortunately I thought I recognized them from high school. I disregarded them and looked for a road atlas quickly. Finding one, I parked myself by the back wall near the restrooms and opened it up. I followed the highways to my destination, and then looked for the city name. I found it a minute later, hiding underneath my finger at the time. Excellent, now I just need to remember how to get to their house and hope nothing changed. That's when a low ki stopped in front of me, gasping slightly.
"Dave is that you?" a familiar voice asked. I glanced up and about blew my cover when I recognized him. It was a friend of mine from high school named Matt, he and I were both on the football team. Even though my face had changed slightly, my body greatly, he still recognized me. I thought up an answer slowly, trying not to make it seem as though I responded to that name.
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"Aren't you Dave, D.T. I mean?" Yep, he definitely recognized me, that was an old nickname.
"Damn you lost a ton of weight, looking good man!" I quickly bit my tongue, not sure what to say, but it had to be a lie.
"Sorry, you must have me confused with someone else, I get that a lot," I said quickly, crossing my fingers in hope. Looks like its time for complete bullshit to come out of my mouth.
"Oh sorry, yeah must have mistaken ya. Man that voice is even the same! For someone that looks like the guy I'm talking about anyway. He's an okay guy, a bit naïve though, never could open up on anyone, and he always got some rough treatment!" Matt said with a smile.
I smiled back, "That's okay, got mistaken for an actor one time and got pulled onto the set, that was odd," I said, making it up very fast, in full bullshit mode to help get him off the trail.
"Did the actor ever show up?"
"Yeah he did, looked nothing like me either, strange huh?"
"Yeah, well sorry about that. Catch ya another time!" Matt turned and headed for the cashier desk. I sighed heavily, that was close, better get a move on. No sooner than I had retraced my path on the map, a void in the ki around me appeared. It was strange though, it was like a sudden hole just opened up that I couldn't sense into, but the air around it was fine. What the hell?
"Hey Dave, what's up man!" I heard Matt say around the door. Oh shit, the other me. Good going Verto, you sure can pick your spots! I dashed behind a snack counter and peered over to see what looked like me walk through and head in my direction without seeing me, and I couldn't sense him. Damn, no wonder Matt recognized me, I need a haircut bad! I quickly circled around the counter and cashier desk, getting out of the store before the void in ki made of me came around to pay for whatever I had bought at the time. I walked quickly behind the store, slightly fearful that I was almost seen by the other me, it was almost like looking in a mirror.
"Nice going brat!" A voice behind me shouted, making me jump. Vegeta laughed at my dismay as I had landed in a fighting stance, another habit by now.
I relaxed though, "I thought you were gonna wait on me?"
"I got mixed up there momentarily, another source of strong ki showed up and I felt compelled to investigate. I figured you would notice as well, until I realized that you would not sense it. I'm sure you saw him," Vegeta kept his smug look.
"Yeah you could say that. First I got recognized, then actually saw the other me walk through the door, he didn't see me though," I explained, watching his amused look with disgust when he started laughing.
"What?" I asked, frowning.
"You were quite the bulky one weren't you?"
I blushed slightly, "You know I lost a bunch of that shortly before Trunks showed up! Why does it matter anyway? Let's just get going!" I sighed and rose into the air, blasting off quickly.
"I suppose you could blame a lot of that on the appetite, were you that big before you grew up?"
"I was actually pretty damn small at fourteen years. But then I grew out fast afterwards," I explained, not happy with his questions.
"I noticed. I wonder if that's a trend in the making," Vegeta chuckled some more while following as we rose high again.
-
I passed over my home city quickly. As bad as I wanted to stop, it would only bring more pain and suffering if I did. I concentrated on keeping my ki low for the whole time while watching the roads below. According to Vegeta, if I kept it around the twenty-two hundred level we established on planet Vegita, then Frieza would probably not pick us up. He kept his lower than mine in the same manner. We reached the end of the city and I picked up some speed, ducking in and out of clouds. We reached what I called the muddy Mississippi a few minutes later, and I spotted the highway I wanted to follow next. Another twenty to thirty minutes went by and we entered the airspace above Ohio, where I had to keep a good eye peeled.
"How far now boy?" Vegeta asked, as he had been quiet for a long time.
"It's not far now, I'll have to drop lower though to see the exit sign on the highway. All these little towns look the same you know," I said.
"Humph, nothing but weaklings with no ki."
"Weakling that are going to help us, stop whining!" I said as I dropped from the high sky. After we passed the largest city and I was back to following the highway, I held a position about five hundred feet off the ground for two reasons. First of all, I couldn't see the road signs worth a damn if I was any higher, and secondly, someone would see me if I was any lower. Then I sped up a little bit, reading the exit words quickly as I flew over them. Now if I recall, it's almost exit number two hundred exactly. It wasn't quite that, more like two hundred and two, but it was fine. I turned to fly over that road, as twisty and crooked as it was. I kept above the trees that grew in that area, but kept close enough to watch the road. One town passed by, but I knew it wasn't the one I wanted. Another few minutes passed and I came up to a big turn in the road, a big brown sign had Woodsfield written all over it.
"Excellent," I said aloud, before passing over the big hill that the road went around. On top of the next hill, I found the McDonalds I expected to find, and the street I was looking for was only a little bit away. Sure enough I passed over the small town full of bars and found the street I had turned on so long ago, spotting the large white house a few blocks down quickly.
"See that white house Vegeta, that's where we need to go!" I said, looking up at the sun and seeing about what time it was. Since we had crossed a few time zones it would be different. It looked to be later afternoon, and if memory held true, they would be home and gaming by now.
"Well hurry up boy, I'm getting hungry!" Funny he should say that, because then my stomach growled violently.
"They have any decent food around here?"
"Probably not and not enough to even hold us over," I said, dropping out of the sky.
"In that case, keep your ki where it is. I'm going to get some food somewhere!" Vegeta announced, his aura appeared and he blasted off in another direction. So much for hiding power. Something felt oddly familiar about this whole routine though, even though I knew I had never done it. That and I was a bit nervous on how they would react.
-
I landed outside the white house, sensing several low ki signals inside. I ducked around the side and listened in on a familiar looking window. I heard three distinct voices, and thankfully all of them I recognized right away. Good maybe this will be easy, then again, maybe not. I walked around the back to the door I knew they used more often, and slowly knocked while shouting through the open screen.
"Hello, anyone around?"
"Dave, is that you?" I heard an answer right away.
"Yeah," I called back.
"Damn, I just talked to you on the phone a while ago! Did you lie when you said you were at home or something?" I cringed, Shitty timing again! I sensed the person I was speaking to get up and come around the corner.
"It's not exactly what you think okay?" I said.
"What's that?" he asked, and then he turned the corner and saw me by the door.
His eyes shot open a bit, "What the hell happened Dave? Have liposuction or something?"
"No John, I wouldn't put it that way. You might need to take a seat for this," I sighed. The other two extremely familiar people rounded the corner and dropped their two jaws.
"Eric, Glenn, what's up?" I asked with a smile.
-
Needless to say, it was a long explanation, and none of them bought what I said until I made a ki ball and let it float around the air for them to see.
"Believe me now?" I asked. I had filled them in with the full details, warning them not to say a word about it to anyone, especially the other me.
"Whoa, dude, I thought you were just fuckin with us!" Eric said, looking for the nearest beer bottle and taking a swig of it.
"No, I'm totally serious. You've watched the anime before haven't you?" I whispered, though Vegeta was nowhere around.
"Yeah once or twice, but damn I never thought anything like that could be real," John said, looking quite perturbed.
"Well, alternate dimensions and realities do exist, as well as dragonballs. Hell, I've died once already and come close several other times," I chuckled slightly.
"It's just so hard to believe that's all, sure that little light ball was real enough, but still hard to believe," Eric said, taking another sip of his beer.
"Would you believe this then?" I asked, lifting my shirt a little and letting my tail loose, watching it swish into the air and pull around to the front in full view. Eric and John paled, Glenn fainted on the spot.
"It's official, I drank too much!" Eric said, putting down his beer.
I smirked slightly, "No, I've seen you drunk and you're not even close yet." Eric backed up a step, as did John in the other direction.
"Guys, I'm not going to hurt you or anything. I'm still the same Cobra you always knew, and I came here for a reason. Instead of just hitting home, I needed your expertise on something!" When I said the name Cobra, both of them relaxed a bit. It was my old nickname whenever I played internet games with them, and sometimes they had called me by that instead of my regular name.
"What is it you need our help on? How to hack a computer system instead of destroy it with a touch?" Eric muttered. Well, this is going real smooth, now I'm getting the freak treatment.
"No guys, all that alternate universe stuff I just said, well there's one for the Zerg too. You know, the ones off Starcraft. I've fought some of them too! And they're nasty, I just can't remember the different types and shit since it's been so long since I played that game!"
"You actually fought Zerg huh? Beat em to a pulp right?" John said.
"Not exactly, their tough to fight, I've got scars to prove that. Zerglings are the size of big dogs with big claws and teeth, I can tell you that. The Hydra's do spit green shit at you also, and they are huge, you guys gotta believe me!" I was almost begging now.
"Show us your scars then," John said, looking interested and disgusted at the same time. I lifted my shirt again to expose my muscled up chest and stomach, and revealed the two still healing deep scars that were easily an inch wide. That particular Zergling had really torn a chunk or two out of me.
"Whoa, bet that hurt!" Eric said, looking at it closer.
"Yeah it did, I almost bit the big one again when that happened a few weeks ago. The little bastard that did it got his though," I said.
"So you just need a refresher on the Zerg, that's all?" John asked.
"Yeah that's about it, I suppose I could play a few rounds if I can remember how," I grinned slightly and rubbed the back of my head.
-
I was amazed to find how much I remembered on how to play Starcraft. It was almost too good to be true as my hand took the mouse like a pro.
"You sure you needed a refresher?" John chuckled from another computer in the room.
"Yeah, I need to see how these things fight again, they are hard as hell to predict when you're fighting them for real and not by computer. I don't wanna be hit by another Kamikaze Zerg and get taken out of the air again!"
"You mean a Scrounge?"
"Yeah whatever they are," I said in disgust. It only took a game or two to see and remember how to do everything again. Then just because I was being nice about it, I played a few more with them to prove I really was the person I said to be. That was confirmed finally when John attacked my city on the screen and it backfired in his face.
"Damn, you really are Dave. Only he would know that I was going to do that and have an answer like that one!" Eric finished the game a few minutes later, catching me with my pants down so to speak. Glenn still hadn't woken up from his nap, and lay passed out on the floor.
"You got it down now?" John asked.
"Yeah, but could you burn me a copy of Starcraft, I'll need it!"
"Yeah sure, no problem, should only take about ten minutes," John said, exiting the game and getting out a pack of disks to copy with.
"So where's the guy you came with?" Eric asked as we stepped over Glenn's corpse.
"He's hunting down something to eat, we both kinda eat a lot and we haven't eaten yet today. At least I haven't," I explained. As if on cue, I sensed Vegeta approach and touch down just outside the door.
"Brat, come here! I've got food!" I heard him shot through the door. My stomach growled at the word food, and it took into autopilot and went straight for the door.
"Is that who I think it is?" Eric whispered.
I nodded sharply, "Hey, don't mention anything about the anime. He doesn't know about that!" I whispered back. Eric followed me towards the door, John soon after once he had started the burning process.
"I see you found your acquaintances, get anything done while you were here?" Vegeta asked as we stepped out. He had opened a capsule just as we came out, and there were several dead animals, mostly deer, lying in the grass.
I stepped out un-fazed by the animals there, "Yeah, got a complete refresher on the Zerg."
"Everything?"
"Just about, the only thing of course is actual size of the blasted things. It is after all a two-dimensional view from the top," I said, taking a seat and grabbed the nearest deer he had set out. I concentrated my ki into nothing but heat and fired a blast onto the deer, cooking it instantly and leaving smoke and steam behind. I tore off the upper skin and bit into the now cooked meat rather harshly, my stomach was driving me now. I polished off all the meat on the deer in about ten seconds, leaving a few jaws on the ground when I started on the next one.
"Holy shit!" Eric said as he stared.
"What, you got a problem with Saiyan habits?" Vegeta asked, death glaring.
"No, it's just a little excessive!" Eric claimed as he backed up a step, fully realizing exactly who this was.
Vegeta smirked at the fear coming off of Eric, "I thought not." Eric was the braver one of the group, saying whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted, much like myself. But he was smart enough to realize what would happen if he crossed Vegeta. The meal was finished quickly; Vegeta had brought back about twenty deer and ten large rabbits. Not that it made a difference, we were still hungry, but not as bad now. Then Vegeta wanted to see us play Starcraft, interested with seeing the rest of the Zerg types. So we showed him, but he never played a single game, only watched.
"Humph, those are the disgusting creatures alright," he snorted when he saw a Zergling on the screen. The next two hours or so was spent on games, with Vegeta watching and slowly catching on. He even pointed something out that I missed, and ever the brilliant strategist that he was, he was right on the money with it. Eric was not too pleased as it was the back entrance to his base, and I wiped it out quickly.
"Were you looking at my screen?"
"What? No! Basic strategy was drilled into me at a young age. The boy is pretty good as it is, but he wasn't taught to look for hidden things, like how to strike when your opponent does not expect it, and with what he doesn't expect!" Vegeta death glared at Eric, who just turned back around and salvaged what he could of a losing game. A few more games after that, Vegeta was almost an expert at it, from a Zerg and human standpoint anyway. There was a third race on the game called Protoss, but neither Dabura nor Shin had warned me about them. I relearned them anyway, remembering that they used artificial Psi for power and the Zerg homed in on that kind of energy. It kind of made sense in a way. After Vegeta was somewhat satisfied, he demanded we leave, but not before giving a harsh warning to John and Eric, Glenn was still not awake.
"Listen you two, you did not see us or our abilities here. It would severely alter the future if you spilled beans, especially to the other version of him. He needs to know nothing! Understood?" Two grim and nervous nods followed as Vegeta walked out the door.
"Sorry, he's a bit rough around humans, but don't say anything okay? We need to get going now, for all we know the Zerg are getting ready to attack again. They have this obsession with getting me out of the way first," I rolled my eyes slightly.
"No problem, take care of yourself. We'll see you again right?" Eric asked.
"Hopefully, but the next time you do, it won't be this version of me. Try to act somewhat surprised about the whole thing okay?" I asked with a smile, turning around.
"See ya!" John called out.
"Yeah, later!" I said, walking out the door with CD in my hand.
"Oh wait," Eric said suddenly.
"What's up?" I asked. He handed me a thick book with the title Starcraft.
"This might have better information, it even has their sizes in there!"
"Oh thanks, we'll need that, I'll see ya again sometime, I promise!" I said.
"Think you can teach me some of this stuff sometime? You know, the whole fighting and flying thing? I mean I can kick-box and stuff but it doesn't even compare," he asked.
"We'll see," I said with a slight grin. Outside Vegeta stood with a scowl that seemed to tear the evening air.
"Done with your sentimental rubbish boy?"
"Yeah, let's get going, hopefully the time travel won't screw these up!" I said, holding up the burned copy of Starcraft and the book.
"Strange though, when I visited them with Trunks, well they didn't seem that surprised. Guess that was why," I muttered, then frowned in sadness, as right after I had seen them, the Earth had been destroyed.
"Whatever boy," Vegeta grunted, putting a hand on my shoulder as he activated the return device.
-
The return trip was almost the opposite of the first run. The bright lights appeared alright, then the nausea, then pitch black, then bright again as we saw a blue barrier spinning around as we had come to the inside of a metal chamber. Well it least my appetite is gone now.
"Hey you're back!" Mom called and waved as we stepped from the time chamber. I took a quick glance at the data disk, and saw it remained unharmed, at least from what I could tell.
"You're just in time, I just finished the Zerg scouters! Want to test them?" she looked hopefully despite Vegeta's scowl of death. She held a few of them out, I took one with a green screen, Vegeta a red one. I turned it on as I relaxed a bit and let loose my hidden ki as we were back on the Z Earth. The scouter beeped a few times, running what seemed to be a diagnostic on itself for the user, then it circled around something and pointed to the west.
"Zerg signals located, about twenty-five thousand miles to the east-southeast. Be careful babe!" the computer voice sounded like Mom.
"So I added my own personal touch to it!" Mom giggled slightly.
"Woman, do you have a long range sensory device you could scan for Zerg with?"
"I thought you would never ask. I already made the correct modifications to my old one, I can have a readout in a jiff!" Vegeta and I followed her to her main super computer and she began punching random buttons. A huge ki popped up in the room, belonging to Goku and Gohan via Instant Transmission.
"Hey guys, we sensed you return, all go well?" Goku asked in his cheerful tone.
"As well as expected Kakarot, we're scanning for Zerg signals in space presently," Vegeta said sharply, not taking his eyes off the screen. A picture of the solar system popped up, and then a large purple dot appeared not far away. Somewhere between Saturn and Jupiter and moving just slightly.
"Oh no guys, according to this, we only have five days until the Zerg forces on the screen there arrive. My gosh there must be close to a million of them!" Vegeta's scowl deepened, Goku switched to confused and Gohan to determined.
"So that's what that little dot is huh?"
"Shut your incompetent mouth Kakarot, and you three come with me to the gravity chamber! We have some training to catch up on and some planning to do. Woman, contact everyone to meet here tomorrow after we summon Shenron and use the wishes, we will discuss battle plans there! Get all the information you can, concerning weaknesses in the known Zerg and where they may land at, I would like to know if conventional earth weapons work on these blasted beasts, come you three!" Vegeta ordered, walking out of the room.
"Go on guys, I can handle things here!" Mom said, shoeing us out in a hurry as I handed her the disk and the book.