Here's the next update, sooner than ever before!
Thanks to all reviewers:
Chibi Goten-chan - I am SO sorry that I am confusing you, but I really don't know how to explain it unless you tell me what is confusing me, because I dunno if I can re-explain the entire thing. I guess I can send you an e-mail with the synopsis of the first few chapters if you want, but for some reason it won't let me see what your e-mail is so I need you to tell me what it is. Thanks for reading it, or at least attempting to, and for leaving the review, I really appreciate it.
animeprincess1452 - Yeah, well I know you will keep reading this, and have no idea how you understand this either, it's kinda weird, I'll admit it, but at least you like it. And wouldn't you wish for a monkey too?
Next chapter is right ahead:
Ha Ha! Fooled you!
Okay, okay, here it is:
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Part 2 - Accepting Destiny
"Our brightest blazes of glory are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks."
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), British Writer and Lexicographer
"A bird can only soar if the sky has no bounds."
The Bhagavad-gita
"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
William Jennings Bryan (1860 - 1925), US lawyer, orator, & politician
Chapter 1: December 2, 2002 - What Lies Inside
Surprisingly, I woke up feeling a bit normal for once. At least I felt like I had slept a week, and I was so refreshed I felt good enough to take on an elephant and tear it apart. But still, something was wrong, I thought.
"It was just one crazy dream, that voice isn't talking to me anymore and there are no massive dragons floating around my yard! This is great; I'm not really a freak!" I said, happy again that my 'destiny' had finally gone away.
I walked slowly to the mirror on the wall, wondering why my subconscious had decided to have me dream that crazy long-ass dream. Starting with that stupid symbol, and the madness went on from there, on and on into the depths. I frankly didn't think that I was creative enough to come up with all that stuff, because I thought dreams were based upon real things that a person thought, but that didn't make sense. I hadn't experienced any of it, it was all a foolish dream, a fantasy, a nothing, and I was glad it was over. But what did it mean?
I didn't even look at my finger; I knew it nothing would be there. As my eyes adjusted to the dim, early morning light, I stared at my hair, confused.
"I must have slept funny; I don't think my hair has ever been that...spiky," I muttered to myself, ruffling my hair and smoothing it down, after which it promptly stuck back up when I removed my hand.
"That's odd," I said with a shrug, "well nothing a good shower can't fix."
As I stepped into the bathroom and shut the door, I thought I felt something touch me. I turned around quickly but I was a good couple of feet from the wall. I then saw something behind me, I was sure this time, and I turned quickly and saw a flash of brown.
But there was still nothing.
I peeked out of the corner of my eye and saw it again, as I turned it moved away out of my sight.
"Goddamit! Who's there?" I screamed in frustration, turning around as fast as I could and punching at the shadowy shape. I cratered the wall but didn't hit what I kept seeing there. Now I was getting pissed. I looked at the bathroom mirror, feeling a bit uneasy in my stomach as I admired my naked reflection. But then I turned a bit to the right and saw what had been following me, and I screamed.
I had a tail.
Now I was sure, I was losing my mind to whatever had happened to me, and in horror I realized that that crazy dream wasn't one.
'Rise and shine, Jake, time to...yeah. We should discuss that,' came the sound of the Voice in my mind, back with a vengeance.
"Holy shit," I wailed, tripping over my own feet and falling face-first to the ground. "I'm turning into a fucking monkey!"
I was glad my mother wasn't home. If she saw me writhing naked on the floor screaming, she would freak. If she saw the tail, she would die. Maybe she wouldn't, after all, according to her this has happened before.
"What is going on?!" I said, regaining some of my previous composure, but still sounding freaked.
'Don't worry; it's just some of that darn Saiya-jin coming out, which also explains the condition of your hair. And don't get scared if you can start reading minds, that's a Kalltorran capability.'
I have got to be crazy for believing you, I thought.
The voice was right though, that was no dream, I had really wished to a mile-long dragon to unlock a secret power in me, and it was coming out quicker than I would have thought.
"Well this is all fine and dandy, but the kids at school are gonna freak over this!"
'Tell them it's a very late Halloween prop!
I really hoped he was joking.
'Seriously, you should just cut it off, you don't need it and by the time I would be grow back you-'
"No fucking way! I have had it cut off before; I'm keeping it this time. I'll just wrap it around my waist and put on a long shirt or something like that."
'Suit yourself; just bring a knife in case you change your mind.'
This time I didn't care if he was joking, I thought it looked cool wrapped around my middle. I walked back to my room, completely forgetting about the shower, and threw on some clothes.
I really hope no one sees this damn tail, what could possibly happen next? I wondered to myself.
Honestly, I didn't think that things could get any more bizarre, or worse.
I was wrong, dead wrong, for that was the day I would learn the most valuable lesson in my life, the day I would learn that fear is the most powerful emotion of all. That didn't mean I was scared for myself, I was scared for the people of Earth; whatever was coming, it was here, somehow I knew, I just knew.
I could still feel them.
- - -
The cold air stung my skin, and my cold thoughts stung my mind as I walked to my next class, in constant worry, unsure of what was going to pass.
"Hey Jake! You look worried, what's up?" David asked, walking up and then hopping around me like a starved puppy.
"Nothing, I'm fine," I said with a small sigh, "you would never understand."
David responded, but it sounded like he was muttering something, and it was garbled like a bad radio transmission.
"Speak up will you?" I said, gathering a confused look from my friend.
David just shook his head, saying: "What? I didn't say anything."
I had scarcely enough time to realize that I might very well had taken that last thing I heard from his mind, when I suddenly felt an embrace from behind and a pair of soft hands encircled my eyes.
"Guess who, Jakey!" came the expected message of someone trying to sound like someone they were not, with no success whatsoever.
"Katy, will you knock off the grade-school stuff, I'm not in the mood," I said, slightly annoyed.
"Ohhh," came the gushy reply from David, "looks like Katharine and Jake are in looooooveeeeee!"
I shut him up with a little push out of the way. Of course for me, a newborn Kalltorraiya-jin since this morning, I suppose, there was no such thing as a 'little' push, and he went flying into some bushes while some of the nearby students looked on in utter shock.
Katharine didn't even notice.
"So, where were you yesterday?" she asked, looking concerned. "I called your house and all I got was static..."
Uhh, yeah, the Dragon, I thought to myself.
"...and is that a bulge under your shirt, or are you just glad to see me?" she continued flirtatiously.
"Um," I responded with a bit of hesitation, "that's nothing, I gotta go!" and with that I left her speechless and walked quickly to my next class. As I sped into my next class shortly before the final bell, my tail wriggled out of my shirt and I tucked it quickly back in and took my seat.
- - -
"Repeat after me: "Un caballo es un caballo, por supusto, por supuesto!" The Spanish teacher went on pointlessly."Un caballo es un caballo por supuesto, por supuesto!" the class groaned out.
I looked at my watch, there was only a few minutes left until next period, which was probably gonna be worse than Spanish. The announcement came over the PA system to turn on the television to watch the daily news bulletin put on by the hopelessly under-funded Journalism department.
But when the TV was switched on, the hair on the back of my neck prickled, something about where the news report was freaked me. A few people in the class cocked their eyebrows and looked in wonder at the caption on the bottom of the screen, above which a man was seen, walking through snow flanked by several other cameramen:
Unidentified Flying Object Seen Landing in Western Siberia
"Oh, shit," I said, getting some strange looks from nearby students.
The camera shifted to a several small, dark things on the horizon, and then back to the same man that was there before, bundled up in several layers of fur-lined clothing.
"As you can see it is now the dead of night," said the reporter, "about 3:00 in the very early morning, and we are close to a small town in the Central Siberian Uplands."
I looked over and saw the teacher about to switch the channel, and with all my will I wished she wouldn't. She paused, her hand stopping its movement.
Go sit down! I thought, wishing she would go away.
And to my utter amazement she did stop, and turned right around and sat down at her desk, to which a few students looked confused, wondering why we were watching this instead of the bulletin. I bet they thought it was all some kind of hoax anyway.
"Locals here have reported a ship of extraterrestrial origin landing here just a few minutes ago," the reporter went on, after he nearly lost his balance in the snow and then kept walking forward at the same sluggish pace toward the shapes in the distance.
The bell rang unexpectedly, and everyone rushed out the door towards their next classes. Easily outpacing the rest of them, I ran ahead, doing a fancy front-flip over a few freshmen when they got in my way (and probably scaring the crap out of them as well) and landed neatly in front of my next class with hardly a sound, and I was easily inside before the third and final toll of the bell sounded.
"Good morning," greeted the teacher as I walked past my seat and switched on the TV without asking, completely ignoring him.
"Mr. Threshard, did I say you could turn on the TV?" he said displeased, hands on his hips trying to assert his teacher powers on me.
Shut up and go drink some coffee you twit! I thought to him, thoroughly pleased when he did exactly that and left me alone.
The rest of the class soon ran in, but I didn't care. I looked back to the TV, and the camera was sloppily focusing on a few odd-looking...things. They looked kinda like people in very weird costumes, tall and...a bit spiky; but that was them, the evil, I could feel it.
The rest of the class watched in silence as they counted ten aliens, and one bigger one that seemed to be the leader. The camera focused back to the reporter, who gulped, and then approached the lead alien fearlessly with a microphone and read from a piece of paper:
"Greetings, I am a representative of the Planet Earth. Where are you from? Are you their leader? Can you understand me?"
He then proceeded to recite the same thing in a few other languages with very bad accents for all of them.
"Les salutations, je suis représentant de la Planète Earth. D'où vous sont? Etes-vous leur dirigeant? Vous pouvez me comprendre?"
"Los saludos, yo soy un representante de la Planeta Earth. ¿De dónde está ustedes? ¿Es usted su líder? ¿Puede entendérme?"
"Begrüßungen, ich ist ein Vertreter Erde des Planeten. Von sind wo Sie? Sind Sie ihr Leiter? Können Sie mich verstehen?"
"Hilsener, jeg er en representant av planetJorden. Hvor er De fra? Er De deres leder? Kunn De forstår meg?"
And then he started to say the same in what sounded like Russian, but the lead alien refused to let him finish.
"Uvejkjk wxist qrfgors omn zylmbc efars iors ide klwx uvuwx, qrrsomnebc fgoklulm mneaaba ide qrfgers!" the alien said in an incomprehensible language.
With no response coming, it lifted an appendage and struck the man square in the chest. The poor guy never so much as had a chance as he was split messily in two, blood splattering all over the snow. The cameramen apparently took off running as the camera fell to the ground, tilting sideways. There was a crunching sound, and a head rolled past the view of the camera trailing a piece of spinal cord and leaving a grisly red path. I watched in utter horror as the aliens flew off, yes - flew, and disappeared from view into the lights of the nearby town. A split second later, there were a few crashes and an immense red explosion came out of the center of the town, throwing buildings and bodies into the air. One alien appeared in a flash of light before the camera and pointed a hand at it. It then seemed to laugh and a red glow emitted from its hand. The camera suddenly turned to static and the screen sputtered, hesitated, and turned back to the news studio, showing the anchorwoman, fainted dead away on the table.
- - -
After the almost incredible events of that day, I wasn't the least bit surprised that there was some suspicion; I don't blame people for thinking that the news report was a big fake, like some kind of War of the Worlds all over again. After all, I only knew for sure that it was real because the fact was I could feel those aliens, and the death they caused. I was so scared at that point that I forced myself to ask that stupid voice what the hell he expected me to do.
"So, what makes you think I can deal with that? They can fly; they can cut people's heads off with one hit, and blow things up with a point of a finger!" I yelled at him as I biked back to school the next day.
'I don't think you know what you are capable of, he said.
"I don't think you know what I am NOT capable of, dammit!" I shot back.
'Wait until later today, you will see.'
So later at school, although nobody around the school believed it had happened, we were going to watch the said 'aftermath' of the destruction, as it was reported that the aliens had moved on to Moscow.
"So, David, you actually think it happened?" I asked of him, playing as if I was not sure as we walked on in tandem to the last class of the day.
"I'm pretty sure it was, I don't think someone could make that up," he answered quietly.
"Well, I hope someone comes to save the day!" I said half jokingly.
David turned, a bit angry, saying: "Come on Jake, knock it off! This isn't one of your crazy anime shows; this is real! Shit, we might all be dead tomorrow!"
"I know..." I answered slowly.
We walked into the class together; being the only one we shared, to watch the next news report. Just as we entered the bell rang and the teacher turned on the TV and started to write up the day's schedule. The news report had already begun.
"...ou can see what has happened here," said the man, a new reporter.
Several groans came up from the classroom; evidently some skeptics thought that whoever had come up with this sick joke were playing it too hard. The reporter continued to narrate as the camera panned over the town's remains, burnt and blasted into pieces and there were dead bodies everywhere. Just then one of the aliens appeared in front of the camera crew, stepping forward menacingly. The cameraman seemed to be scared beyond belief as the camera looked as if it was moving backwards and then the carnage began anew as the alien began to fly about, slaughtering the helpless crew and by now I was so numb I couldn't care. I looked over, seeing that David's eyes were as big as saucers, and feeling pity for his fright.
But then, in the middle of the melee, I noticed a small boy, perhaps 6 years old, climb out of a pile or rubble and run past. The alien turned, and nonchalantly blasted the child to bits. I didn't care about the crew, I didn't care about the run-down Russian towns, but this was too much. I had a complex in my extremely twisted mind that held children as the only reason that this planet and its people deserved to be saved. Children meant too much, they were naive and innocent. They were sacred.
I felt my anger rise, just as before, but this time it felt different, I couldn't explain it, I wanted to take the table that my fists clenched underneath and tear it to shreds. I thought I heard the Voice, telling me to let my anger go. It didn't matter, I was going mad, I couldn't control myself, my rage had no bounds. Though I wasn't making a sound I could hear a screaming din in my ears. The rest of the world closed around me, my vision clouded with rage that truly was blinding. I thought of all the injustice in the world, all the killing and senseless destruction, and compressed it all into that image of the boy being killed. My mind broke, and all I saw was a fire from within and I pushed it out.
The floor began to shake beneath my feet, the windows rattled and a warm wind started to blow in the room. I felt my rage peak and for the first time in my life I didn't just turn and shatter an object, I pushed it all out of my body to the outside. It was much more than I could have ever dreamed of. The class turned into a maelstrom of chaos, books and papers flew, desks overturned, the TV tube burned out and the screen went black. There was a rumbling sound and all the class seemed to be tossing in a tornado. I let it all go. POW! A light above my head exploded. POW! POW! POW! POW! The rest of the lights in the room followed suit filling the area with smoke and sparks. The windows shattered, the door broke off its hinges and flew across the outside hall, everyone but I was screaming. They thought they were all going to die. I let up and stopped, my anger subsided, and the class fell silent. Endless silence.
- - -
"Man, that was wicked!" David cried out, as we walked on toward home, "you ever seen something like that?""No," I said playing very dumb, "it must have been some kind of freaky miniature hurricane, or something like that."
Katharine was tagging along, too. She hadn't been home after all and her class had been across the hall from where I was. She had witnessed the sheer power I now held, as the door had gone flying into her class' wall. But she was still at least as puzzled as David.
"Well I have to be going the other way," she suddenly spoke up.
I watched her leave, and not soon afterward, David went off as well, leaving me alone, still unsure what to do with what I now knew I was. I looked inward for an answer and before I knew it I was home, David and Katharine and destroyed Russian towns gone out of my thoughts. As usual, my mom wasn't home so I walked into my backyard, marks left by burning dragon-matter still barely visible on the grass.
I just don't get it, I see now that I'm powerful, but I am not powerful enough.
The Voice reassured me, giving me some points on fine-tuning this mysterious Ki that I could now understand after having been told about it for so long. I wanted to do it again though, and I was told how so I clenched my fists and attempted to push out my energy like in the classroom while yelling and to my amazement an ethereal white glow surrounded me, and my hair seemed to lift upwards. The ground shook a little and leaves blew around.
'That's good; now keep raising your energy higher.'
I kept going and I saw out of the corner of my eye two small boys, one with blond and neatly parted hair and blue eyes and the other, a bit younger, with dark eyes and unruly spiked black hair. Recognizing them as the kid from next door and his older friend, I ignored them and kept going, forgetting for just a second what I was doing. They stood transfixed, watching carefully over the fence when I concentrated a tiny bit too much and my tail flew out from underneath my shirt, the ground suddenly shook more, felling a nearby tree.
The two boys looked at each other, screamed, and took off down the street, and I stopped to watch them go, barely noticing my feet touching back down to the ground. They disappeared into the distance, and I let out a sigh, wishing I hadn't scared them like that. Still, feeling that Ki running through me, and all that power I now held was addicting, I wanted to do it more and more. It was almost going to be fun to fight those aliens, and no matter how powerful they looked, I was sure I could easily dispose of them in a few short minutes, and that would be that. But I still wondered about one thing.
"What about that energy they were shooting from their hands?" I asked out loud.
The Voice stayed silent.
Deciding that it must just be an extension of the same Ki that made me that energy flow around me, I stuck my hand forward and wrinkled my nose in effort, trying to visualize the Ki shooting from my outstretched palm. After a few minutes of nothing, I started realizing it wasn't going to work. So, taking a hint from what I had once learned from the Voice about my Ki repository in my middle, I tried to imagine the Ki flowing out of there and into my hand, and was rewarded with a small glow and a feeling of heat. Satisfied that it would do, I pushed it away from me and toward a nearby rock, there was a flash of light and the Ki seemed to dissipate into the air instead of going anywhere.
"Crap!" I said, getting frustrated, and angry.
My energy started to rise a little with my anger, and instead of just pushing it out of my hand, I gathered a soccer ball sized amount of the whitish-green glowing stuff that made my hand all tingly and concentrated it into a smaller ball that pulsed with power. Pointing my hand back at the rock, I pushed the energy away and it shot toward the rock, retaining its shape and hit with a flash and a terrific explosion. The dust cleared and the rock was gone, along with a three foot chunk of dirt around it, the edge of the crater looked melted, and when I touched it, it was hot.
"Whoa," I said, surprised at how little effort that had taken.
Believing that I had done enough for one day, I walked back inside to meditate, feeling my tail swishing about in the light wind, while hoping for the best for tomorrow. I didn't know what my fate was, or what the next day would bring, but I was sure that my life would never be the same again.
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Thanks for reading, and I'm REALLY sorry if it isn't making a whole lot of sense, but I will do my best to make it clear in the future. Oh, and just who were those cute little boys watching Jake?! Only the human forms of the two cutest chibis in the whole world: Trunks and Goten!!! That's my little thing, every one of my stories are gonna have them in it, in one way or another, and they might come back as cameo characters later if you want, so tell me if you like that idea. Please review.