Bulma stared round at the three teenagers.
"And they won't wake up?" she asked. Emily shook her head and stared worriedly at her brother. She wasn't sure of what was going on but she knew it wasn't good. Bulma watched her closely.
"Are you alright, Em? You seem a little off." The older woman pointed out. Emily looked up at her.
"It's nothing. I guess I'm just worn out." She replied and Bulma nodded.
"Well go home and get some rest then. I can look after Goten here. We can set up some beds in the gravity room. That is shielded enough so it won't get ripped apart if Goten powers up anymore." Bulma said softly. Emily stared at her.
"You sure? I don't want to leave you alone if there's a problem." Emily said but Bulma shook her head.
"Don't worry about it. Vegeta can handle the kids. Just go home and get some rest." She said. Emily nodded and reluctantly disappeared. Vegeta frowned and moved to leave. Bulma stopped him.
"And where do you think you're going?" she asked. Vegeta grunted then turned to face her.
"The gravity room. If this is a new threat then I'll have to be prepared." He said gruffly before leaving. Bulma glared after him.
"He was supposed to help me move these guys in there. Oh, that man! Well hopefully they'll be ok until he gets out…" Bulma said aloud then stared at the teens.
Jacina smirked.
"We have acquired the second saiyan!" he exclaimed and Findla smirked as well.
"Good. Move on to their friend then we'll do the female saiyan." He ordered. Jacina hesitated.
"Sir…there's something about the girl I think you should know…" he began. Findla frowned at his brother.
"What?"
"She…um…according to the read out she has strong psychic energy. It maybe a lot harder to snare her even with her being asleep." He said. Findla scoffed.
"I doubt that. No one has been able to break a dream hold."
"But Findla, the dream may not be real enough to her and she may break out!"
"Don't give excuses!" Findla snapped, "Just do as you are told!" Jacina flinched then hung his head, turning back to the panel.
"Yes sir"
Zara found herself inside a large, dark room. She looked round then found herself having to quickly jump to the right as a kai-blast blew up in the exact spot she had just been kneeling in seconds before. Zara quickly looked up at her attacker. He was a middle-aged man with blonde hair that was tied back and two thick strands framing his face. He had golden eyes just like hers.
"Father…" she muttered. The blonde scoffed at her then floated down to the door that had seemed to appear out of nowhere.
"Spar's over." She heard him mutter before he walked out. Zara frowned at where he had been.
"What on earth was he doing here?" she wondered aloud before following him out.
When she shut the door behind her, she was surprised to find a busy kitchen instead of the long grey corridors she was used to. She stared back at the door.
"But wasn't that…the training deck?" she asked herself quietly and opened the door again. Instead of the large, dark room was a garden much like Trunks's. Zara blinked a few times in confusion then shut it before looking back at the kitchen. At the table sat Vegeta but instead of his usual spandex training outfit he was wearing the attire you would expect the father of in a 50's sitcom to wear. He even had the pipe and everything.
Zara raised her brow and looked round the room to find the entire Briefs family were wearing a similar style. Bulma was wearing a classic 'Suzy home maker' outfit complete with big hair. Trunks and his little sister Bra were at the table with Vegeta wearing similar clothes to their parents.
Ok…if this isn't a dream then the whole world has gone crazy…Zara thought as she made her way across the kitchen. She quickly went through the door on the other side to find herself in the exact same room she had just come from. What the…? She thought and looked back through the door to see the garden.
"Are you all right Zara?" an uber happy Bulma asked making Zara jump.
"Err, yea…fine…" Zara muttered and Bulma quickly went back to the table with the large plate of waffles she had been carrying.
Zara watched her go and went to follow when she was overcome by a feeling of nausea. She had to grab the counter for support and when she looked round for a split second everyone else in the room disappeared and a grey man with a stick thin body a rather large head seemed to replace them. Before she could get a good look at him he had gone and the others had reappeared. Zara pushed herself away from the counter and looked wildly around. Something was definitely not right here. To her it felt like all of her telepathic abilities were screaming at her to wake up or get away.
A hand placed itself on to her shoulder and she whirled round immediately, sinking into her defensive stance. The hand belonged to Trunks but it wasn't the one she had seen a few moments before. This one was wearing the kind of outfit she expected Trunks to wear: jeans and a black t-shirt.
"Slightly jumpy today huh?" he asked. Zara blinked and straightened up looking around. Everyone else had vanished so she was now alone with him.
"I…I guess so." She said, glancing round at the empty room. She still had a strong urge to run out of there but she couldn't see anything.
"I think I have just the thing for that." Trunks said, taking her hand. She looked back round at him and blinked.
"Oh really?" she asked. He nodded and led her outside, into the night. Which was odd since only a few minutes ago it had been a beautiful summers day.
"So where are we going?" she asked. He smiled and held her closer.
"You'll see." He said and they slowly began to rise. Soon they were above the clouds, underneath a blanket of stars.
"Oh…wow," she whispered as she stared at the view. It wasn't like she had never seen a night sky like that before but for some reason it just seemed more breath taking this time.
The dream version of Trunks leant in closer.
"Thought you'd like it." He said before moving in for a kiss. Zara's eyes went wide and she pushed him back slightly.
"Whoa, what are you doing?" she asked. Trunks looked slightly embarrassed.
"I was just…um…" he started but she put a finger over his mouth.
"You surprised me. I didn't think you liked me that much. You've always gone on at Goten about how it's not like that and-" she stopped in mid sentence and leant forward, kissing the dream version of her childhood crush. It was incredible for her and for a moment she wished it wasn't just a dream.
Finally they pulled away and stared at each other, their foreheads touching and they were both breathing heavily.
"I can't believe you fell for that." He mumbled. Zara tried to move back but she couldn't.
"What do you mean?" she asked. Was that whispering she heard? She tried to glance round and thought she caught a glimpse of grey but Trunks made her look at him.
"This." He said. She stared into his eyes but they weren't his. They were slowly turning blacker and his complexion was slowly growing a lilac colour with greenish scales down his neck. Zara's eyes went wide.
"No…" she said in a voice that was barely audible. She was no longer string into the eyes of her childhood friend but her worst fear. They had fallen below the clouds and she couldn't escape from him.
"Now I finally get a taste of your power. Every last bit of that untapped inferno." He was saying. She looked around for something she could use to get him off. Anything at all to pry him away but there was nothing. She couldn't see anything. There was a flash of grey in the corner of her eye but that was it.
She could hear him laughing and she knew it was too late. She could already feel him setting to work on making the small source of energy inside of her grow.
She tried to fight it but it was too late. Her violent read aura erupted; covering them both and her screams pierced the now blood red sky. She couldn't stop and he couldn't do anything either as she watched him burn away in the flame like aura that kept growing, tearing up the mountains below and shaking the heavens themselves. The planet was being ripped apart by what her nightmare man had opened within her and she couldn't stop it. All she could do was scream.
In the real world, Vegeta stepped out of his gravity room. It was well past midnight and he knew Bulma would be annoyed with him for coming in so late but he didn't care. He welcomed the prospect of a verbal spar with the onna.
He walked through the kitchen then stopped outside the living room. Was that Zara he sensed? He stared wide-eyed at the door before throwing it open. He couldn't believe his eyes.
Zara was floating in the middle of the room, powering up with her eyes tightly shut. Her aura had pushed the boys to the far side of the room and her telekinetic abilities seemed to be going haywire, sending ornaments and other objects flying round the room.
"Girl!" he yelled but Zara couldn't hear him. "Zara!" he yelled again but still nothing. He growled in frustration and pushed his way forward, pushing against the energy that was trying to keep him back. He had to power up to get by, as it was so strong. Least she had been training. He thought grimly as he took to the air and grabbed her. He stared at her and shook her hard. She's still asleep? He asked himself and kept shaking her. Eventually her eyes fluttered open and everything fell to the floor. She jerked forward and grabbed her head, gasping for breath.
"What the devil was that, girl?" he asked, dropping her. She stared wide-eyed in front of her.
"He was here…but it wasn't right…something…in my head…messing with my dreams." She muttered then turned to Vegeta. "And you were smoking a pipe."
The saiyan decided to ignore the last comment and concentrate on the other thing she had said.
"Someone was in your head? I thought you were supposed to be strong enough to stop that kind of thing." He commented but Zara ignored him and stared at the boys.
"Who ever it was is still here. We have to wake them up." She said. Vegeta got up and tried to wake his son but to no effect.
"Strange…" he muttered as he shook him harder. Zara frowned and crawled closer to Trunks and went to place her index finger on his forehead but Vegeta stopped her.
"You're tired. That'll be too much of a strain." He said as he stared at her.
"Since when were you an expert on telepaths?" she asked.
"After all the years you and your mother were next door I had to have learned something," he replied
Zara rolled her eyes at his comment and proceeded to do what she was going to. She closed her eyes and her face contorted in concentration. Vegeta frowned and went to check on Goten. Before he was even half way across the room though, Zara was flung across the floor. He met her eyes.
"Something's in there and its strong. But I sensed that it wasn't all there…" she said Vegeta stared at her then at his son.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I can sense it in Goten as well from here but it's somewhere else as well. Like it's jumping from consciousness to consciousness and leaving a barrier of some kind." She said Vegeta looked concerned and went to shake his son again. Zara watched him then left the room. She'd have to get more focused and fast if she wanted to see her friends again.
Alarms started to go off inside the spaceship that mad Findla jump out of his chair."
"What happened?" he asked. Jacina bit his lip as he stared at the screen.
"She…broke out. Luckily we wore out her telepathic abilities so she couldn't free her friends but she still knows."
"She doesn't know anything. We'll just have to make the dream holds stronger and proceed as planned." Findla said and sat back down. Jacina frowned and turned back to the monitor.
"Aye sir." He said as an image of a sleeping Emily tossing and turning appeared on the screen…