(Disclaimer: I don't own DB. I don't own DBZ. I also don't own DB:GT. However, I do own several of the DBZ manga volumes, and several badly dubbed movies shudders . Anyway, on with the story…)
Raditz appeared with a blue flash of light, and a soft thump as he hit the cold stone floor. The conversation around him stopped as the large warrior appeared out of thin air in the middle of a busy barber's shop.
"What the hell was that!" the head barber cried, the sharp blade of his razor biting into the jaw of his customer.
"Ai!" the customer shouted, clasping his hand over the cut. "Watch what you're doing with that thing!"
"Sorry senior," the barber apologised, wetting a towel and dabbing at the wound. "on the house, how's that, ay?"
"Hmmm, I suppose."
"Hey boss, what about this big guy?" one of the other barbers asked, gesturing to Raditz with one of his sheers.
"Him? My-my… he certainly has a lot of hair…" the barber said, his eyes glazing over.
"Yes… long, thick black hair…" one of the assistants added.
"Think he'll mind if we cut it for him?" a third asked.
"What do you think, Dente?" the lead barber asked. "Dente?"
"Has anybody seen Dente?" one of the others asked, looking at the faces in the shop.
There were a chorus of "no"s and "nuh-uh"s, before one of the assisstant barbers spoke up.
"Say… isn't that big guy wearing Dente's clothes?"
"Can't be… Dente was only a small fellow."
"Look! That's his neckerchief!" the assistant persersted.
"Well blow me, it is as well!" the head barber said, peering closer. "So is this big guy Dente?"
"He can't be! Look at the size of his muscles! Dente was never that big."
"Maybe he made a wish?" one of the assistants suggested.
"What, he wished for muscles bigger than a bull's?"
"Well, he was a little guy."
"Look, are we going to stand around here all day and gossip like a bunch of maids, or are we going to gut some damned hair like the barbers of Seville that we are!" the Head Barber demanded.
"Let's cut some hair!"
"Some long black hair!"
"YEAH!"
"Right on!"
"Keep the hell away from me!" Raditz cried, shuffling backwards.
"When did he wake up!" the Head Barber asked, startled.
"Never mind about when I woke up, where the hell's Seville?"
"Oh come-on, Dente. Stop goofing on."
"I'm not dente! I'm Raditz!"
"A radish? Stop playing about and let us give you a hair cut."
"Not radish, Raditz. RAD-ITZ," the Saiyan said slowly.
"Whatever Dente, we're not falling for it, you know. Now just stay there like a good chap and let me have a look at that hair."
"No! Keep away from me you crazy Spic!"
"Now look! There's no need for that!" the Head Barber said, looking offended.
"I'm getting the hell out of here!" Raditz said, picking himself up off the floor and running out of the door. Well, technically, that isn't quite accurate. Raditz picked himself up off the floor, that's true. But then what happened was he ran at the door expecting it to become a mass of small splinters as his body tore it apart. What he didn't expect was to rebound off with enough force to cause him to see little flashing lights in front of his eyes.
"Uh…" one of the customers started, "the door opens inwards, Senior."
Gohan and Bulma looked down at the man lying unconscious on the floor, and Goten and Trunks took good use of this distraction to quietly sneak out the lab.
"Who the hell is that?" Turlus asked, pointing a finger at the guy.
"I… have no idea…" Gohan said.
"He just appeared out of thin air," Turlus said.
"We noticed that."
"Just like the others vanished into thin air."
"We noticed that too," Bulma said.
"Exactly like the way the others vanished," Turlus added patiently.
"And?" Bulma asked, getting frustrated.
"I thought you were supposed to be the intelligent one?" Turlus said with a smirk. Bulma and Gohan both shuddered to see such an expression on a face that looked so much like Goku's. "Look. Obviously somebody is displacing the time of this individual, so the timeline is dumping him here. Haven't you guys ever seen 'Quantum Leap?'" More blank looks. "Heathens."
"Well, if what Turlus is saying turns out to be… accurate… this means that all we have to do is find out where this one is from and we can get one of the guys back!" Gohan said excitedly.
"But which one? There are several I'd rather leave back there."
"But what about the timeline!" Gohan asked, horrified.
"Relax, nothing will happen here. Trunks already proved that with the androids."
"Hmm. I'm just not too keen on leaving a Saiyan in the past. Any past."
Bulma sighed and threw her hands into the air. "Fine! We'll bring back the bald one!"
"Que?" asked Dente, who had woken up quite obliviously to the arguing Saiyans and woman.
"Oh, hello!" Gohan said cheerfully, extending a hand. "Welcome to the future."
"Excuse me?" Dente said in Spanish.
"Huh?"Turlus said in Japanese.
"Don't look at me, I don't speak… whatever it is he's speaking." Gohan replied.
Dente looked at the three of them and creamed in Spanish. Bulma looked back at him and screamed in Japanese.
"CALM DOWN!" screamed Turlus. Then Dente legged it.
Raditz stirred out of unconsciousness and fidgeted on the reclined barber's chair, stretching some of his smaller muscles, before rearing back and giving his entire body a great stretch to wake him up.
"Man, I just had the craziest dream…" he murmured to himself.
"Se, senor?" asked a barber. Raditzed opened an eye and peered at the cluster of heads above him and groaned.
"It wasn't a dream after all…" the Saiyan said with a sigh. Resigned to his fate, Raditz picked himself up off the floor and looked about at the others in the room. It was quite small, and the only light came in through a small window high on the wall near the door. Three barbers stood around him, and two customers looked curiously from their chairs, some mid-shave.
"Are you alright, senor?" asked one of the barbers.
"Yeah, just fine, considering." Raditz replied gruffly.
"Se, you hit that door running pretty fast. We thought maybe we would have had to send for the doctor."
Raditz looked wearily at the barbers. "I don't need any idiot doctors… in fact, I feel much better. I think I'll leave peacefully…"
"Don't you want a haircut first, senior?" Asked one of the Sevillians.
"No thank-you," Raditz answered, backing towards the door.
"Are you sure?" asked another barber as the trio pressed forward slowly around the Saiyan.
"Quite sure!" Raditz growled, then felt his broad shoulders thump off the wooden door. It didn't feel very strong, and he shouldn't have had any trouble barrelling through it. Raditz gave it an experimental shove, which hurt.
"But such… long… thick hair…" the first barber said, his eyes glazing over as they moved up and down the large Siayans hairy features.
"Keep away from me you freaks!" Raditz cried, scrabbling for the door handle.
"WE NEED TO CUT YOUR HAIR! AIIIIIEEEEEE!" cried the barbers together and pounced at Raditz, who closed his eyes and braced himself for the attack behind large arms. Then vanished with a blue flash to be replaced by a running Dente. After a brief scuffle and several large glasses of gin to calm Dente's nerves, the four never spoke of the event ever again…
"…" said Turlus, looking down at what appeared to be a man-shaped tin can.
"Is it some sort of robot?" asked Tomatta, wrapping his knuckles off the lid.
"It's a suit of armour," Gohan said looking at the pile of metal.
"Doesn't look very comfortable to me," Turlus said, looking at his own armour.
"Or very practical," Tomatta seconded, matter-of-factly pushing his finger through the breastplate.
It groaned.
Everybody leapt back, Turlus readying a kai-bolt in his hand.
"Don't shoot!" cried Bulma, running between the armour and the Saiyan. "You might blow up the lab!"
"And the knight," Gohan added.
"Oh yeah, there's him too," Bulma conceded as an afterthought.
"Wow! A real-life knight in shining armour!" cried a voice from the doorway.
"Doesn't look very shiny to me, Goten," said Trunks as the pair of them walked towards the group of adults. "Looks kinda tarnished actually."
"Yeah? So? Have you any better examples of a shining armoured knight?"
"Uh…"
"Hah! NYER!" Goten cried, triumphantly sticking his tongue out at Trunks.
"Never mind who he is, where the hell did he come from?" Bulma demanded. "One moment the spaniard is running off, the next he vanishes, the next this… this… person-"
"Knight in shining armour." Corrected Goten.
" - appears where he was standing." Finished Bulma, ignoring Goten. "What on earth is going on!"
"Quantum Leap," muttered Turlus. They all looked at him. "What!"
Raditz awoke (again) with a groan (again) and looked around. He was lying on what appeared to be a table. It was a particularily impressive table, and was large enough to hold a considerable feast for upto twenty individuals It was also round. At the moment it held, apart from one quite confused and bewildered Saiyan, twenty swords, pointed in towards the centre of the table. Where lay Raditz. Behind the hilt of each of all but one of the twenty large swords sat nineteen large men wearing large bulky metal suits. They didn't appear to look very pleased. In his right hand, Raditz noticed, was the twentieth sword. It looked razor sharp and was quite heavy.
"What the hell is this!" one of them asked.
"Merlin! Somebody fetch Merlin!" another voice shouted out. Still feeling groggy, Raditz looked up at a man wearing gold-inlayed armour. There was a crown atop his brow, and in his hand rested a sword, glowing with a feint aura of power.
"My Lord, look how much hair he hath!" A voice shouted.
"Tis veribly a fine amount of hair, whould not thee say, Lancelot?" spoke a knight.
"Indeed! It makes thine hair appear short, Radaghast." Lancelot replied with a smirk.
"Take thine arse and swivel, Lancelot du Prat" Radaghast replied, flicking Lancelot the bird.
"Dost thee want a quarrel of thine insult!" Lamcet shouted, jumping to his feet and snachting his sword from the table.
"Indeed I doth!" Radaghast cried.
"Damsels, damsels!" King Arthur, said smoothly. "Why must thee always bicker amongst thineselves like a bunch of auld grannies? We foth hath more important matter at hand."
"Mordred?"
"No."
"Dragons?"
"Um… no."
"The holy grail?"
"Definitely not! Ye knowest what happened the laste time we searched for that!"
They all winced at the unpleasant memories.
"I'm never going to look at another chicken ever again…" Percival moaned.
"Then what is it O'King?" asked Lancelot.
"T'is shearing time!" Arthur cried joyfully, pulling a pair of over-large scissors seemingly out of nowhere. The rest of the knights around the round table cheered also, each of them brandishing their own pairs of scissors and all, apart from Lancelot who had already leapt to his feet, leapt to their feet.
Raditz moaned. "Oh no… not again…" and ran. The knights cheered again and gave chase. The Saiyan bolted out of the table-room and out the nearest open door, into a flag-lined corridor that stretched away several yards. A loud clattering noise was following, and when Raditz looked back, the most astounding sight greeted him. All the knights, lead by King Arthur, were all running after him, though their gait was impeded by the armour. So he was being pursued in a sort of lurching waddle; they made up for their lack of speed with pure determination, and they were slowly but surely gaining. Panicking, Raditz ducked through another door and found himself in a small room filled with un-used furniture and large ornaments, and only one other exit. Thinking quickly, Raditz pushed as much heavy furniture against the doorway as he could and bolted out of the room through the other door.
He was back in the table room.
"Shit…" Raditz murmured and ran towards the door when he heard the clattering stop and the rattle of a door handle.
"He hath barred the door!" After a few shouts of "HEAVE!" (Clatter-thump!) "HO!" (Clatter-thump!) "HEAVE!" (Clatter-thump!) "HO!" (Clatter-thump!) another voice cried "The only way out of yonder cupboard is into the Roundroom!"
"Back to the table!" cried King Arthur,
"HOORAY!" Cheered the knights, and the ponderous clattering of their running was soon heard again. Raditz looked around desperately and found nowhere to hide. The room was dominated by the large, round table…
Raditz blinked. That was it! The table! He dived under it and scooted all the way into the middle, and prayed to any gods who might be listening.
The clattering grew louder and louder until eventually he saw twelve pairs of feet round the corner and pour into the room with a loud (you guessed it) clatter. The all milled about the room for a while, then split up and wandered the room. A pair of feet stopped directly in front of him and Raditz bit back a whimper, hoping the knights wouldn't think of such a childish manoeuvre as hiding under the table.
"Where hath he gone?" asked the King, scarcthing his head.
"Truly, he hath vanished!" cried one of the other knights. And verily twas I looking forward to a shearing!"
"Aye! Has been an age since we hath a sheering." Said another. A loud laugh pierced the room. Raditz scuttled around under the table to turn and face a thirteenth pair of feet obscured by a grey robe.
"Merlin!" Cried Arthur with joy, and stepped towards him.
"Arthur, Arthur," Merlin said soothingly. "What have I always told you, m'boy?"
Arthur paused. "Don't toucht hat, you'll go blind?"
"Er… yes…"
"My brains will fall out if I keep picking my…"
"Indeed."
"That's where things come out so stop putting things back up that w…"
"Yes, I do say that quite often. Quite a bit more often since Lancelot has arrived…"
"Don't dothat in public."
Merlin sighed. "You're quite right, I do. But what I mena right now is: 'Arthur, stop acting like a bloody child!' But in these circumstances, I would ask that you ignore my advice this once."
Arthur gave Merlin a puzzled look. "You've never said that to me."
Merlin hesitated. "I did."
"You never."
"I did too!"
"Did not!"
"Well If I didn't then I had aught to!"
"Fine!"
"Just look under the sodding table!" Merlin screamed.
"Shit!" Raditz cried, and scurried forward as fast as he could. Merlin laughed again, then noticed that this rather large, muscle-bound figure was heading straight towards the nearest available exit. Which Merlin was standing in the way of.
"He's getting away!" Cried Radaghast, and the ominous clanking sounded again.
"Scissors at the ready!" a knight cried.
"AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHH!" Raditz bellowed as he charged towards the door, barging Merlin out of the way with a shrill cry and a lot of loud curses. He had just made it through the doorway when a gauntleted hand grabbed him by the shoulder. Raditz open his mouth to yell something, when that now familiar blue aura enveloped him. He vanished, and was replaced by another knight.
Bulma and the Saiyans stared into empty space.
"He vanished… again!"
"Well I understand now why people call you genius." Turlus said with a nod.
"Be quiet, you!" Bulma snarled, hefting a large piece of equipment.
"Or what, you'll irritate me to death?" Turlus asked, smugly turning his back on the irate technical wonder. Gohan, Tomatta, Goten and Trunks all backed away slowly. Moments later, a loud clang permiated the air around Capsule Corporation headquarters, and Turlus slumped to the floor, his eyes crossed over and a large lump protruding out of his black mass of spikey hair.
Bulma twirled the frying pan in her hand by the handle and smirked. "Saiyan-proof metal forged into a non-stick frying pan used to cook last night supper. The only thing that can rival Chi-Chi's Pan O'Doom." Goten and Gohan shuddered; just mentioning the pan had brought back painful memories.
"Where do all these people keep vanishing to!" Bulma cried, exasperated. She slung the frying pan down onto a near-by workbench (the 'clang' the pan made when it struck the hard surface making Gohan and Goten flinch out of nervous habit) and started to pace up and down. After a few laps of the room, Turlus rolled over onto his side, murmured something inaudible, and started to snore. Bulma kicked him heavily on her way passed.
Suddenly, Bulma stopped, her eyes lighting up as she got an idea. A second later, a naked man fell on her.
Raditz opened his eyes. He was sat ata long table, and several hard-faced men were staring at him. He felt uncomfortable, like he was being squeezed. Looking down at himself, he noticed that he was wearing a tight grey-blue uniform that had split at the seems of the shoulders and along the inner thigh; other than the rips, the uniform was identical to that of every man sa there, other than one shallow-faced bespectacled bald man who was wearing a black variation.
"Whatup?" Raditz asked uncertainly.
"What is… this!" the man at the end of the table roared. He was skinnier than the rest, his hair lop-sided and slick, and a small impertinent moustache sat on his upper lip.
"I do not know, Heir Hitler, but he has a lot of hair…"
Everybody in the room's eyes glazed over, and they all got that specific look. Raditz groaned; any minute now they're going to pull shearing scissors out of somewhere and try and cut his hair.
"Yes… yes he does have a lot of hair…" Hitler replied. He reached into a back pocket and produced, Raditz swallow, a set of electric clippers. Raditz screamed: they were going to take off all of his hair.
"I don't want to be a skin head!" he shrieked and leapt onto the table. Running along it as fast as he could, he jumped into the air. Everybody's faces rose up as they all watched him. Then they winced as he planted a foot square in Hitler's face and used the leverage to spring up and away towards a high-placed window.
"MEIN GOTT!" shrieked Hitler clutching at his face. "THAT HURT YOU PIGDOG!" But Raditz was already hauling himself through the window.
"DON'T JUST STAND THERE! GET AFTER HIM, YOU WEASELS!"
The entire Third Reich, lead by an angry Adolf Hitler with a bootmark on his face, stormed out of their conference room deep in the Reichstag up into the courtyard. They were just in time to see a large figure scurrying away into the shadows of one of the building.
"CHARGE!" Hitler cried, and off they went.
Bulma looked down at the member of the Reichstag that was sprawled across the workstation. He was large, had chisled features with blonde hair and blue eyes, and wearing a dark grey-blue uniform with a black cap which bore an insignia.
"Hey, that's one of those guys we blew up!" Goten said with a grin.
"Which guys?" Bulma asked.
"You remember when all the dead came back to life?" Trunks promted.
"Yeah?" said Bulma.
"Well, this guy was part of the army me and Goten busted up. He was right at the front with the weird dude with the moustache." Trunks explained. Gohan looked at him critically.
"Are you telling me," he began, "that you fought the nazi army led by Hitler himself?"
"Uh… I guess so," Trunks said.
"I dunno," shrugged Goten. "But all I know is it was fun!"
Bulma sighed and kicked the unconscious German in the side. "Well, at least we know when one of them is now. So that leaves the question, who goes back there to get him?"
"Not me!" cried Turlus. "I'm unhappy enough as it is here! I don't want to get stuck in some backwater history of this dirt ball!"
Bulma turned her eyes on him and smiled evilly. "Oh is that so, mister almighty Saiyan! Planet Earth not good enough for you, is it? To let you know, the Earth is the greatest place in the universe, buster! So if you want to continue living here, under my roof, eating my food, you'd better change that attitude of yours!"
"Yes'm!" Turlus whimpered.
"And to start with," Bulma shouted, pushing ever closer to Turlus until she had her finger jabbing into his chest, "you can bloody well go back in time and find my husband!"
"But… but…"
"But what!" Bulma screamed.
"How do I findthem?"
"… good question," Bulma said, her eyes widening from the viscious slits they had been, as she let her mind tackle this new problem. "Well, I suppose I'd better make one of those watches for you."
"Right, let's get to it then!" Tomatta said, hauling the nazi off the bench and tossing him aside, hitting the wall with a soft thud. The nazi slid to the floor, and soon began snoring as Bulma and Tomatta began making a new watch.
"This is getting ridiculous…" Raditz panted as he hurried away. He moved randomly between the buildings, ducking into shadows and hiding in doorways until it was clear to leave. A larger, ornate doorway loomed ahead of him now, filled with deep shadows, and he ducked through into a busy foyer bustling with people. They all stopped and stared at him, making Raditz cringe, and then saluted.
"HEIL!" they all cried. Raditz was at a loss what to do.
"Um… just… move along, folks," he tried. The crowd looked at each other questioningly. "Now!" Raditz yelled. The crowd fled back to what had previously occupied them, just as the sound of perfectly synchronised running feet shot past the door.
"HE MUST BE HERE SOMEWHERE!" Raditz heard that voice cry. "KEEP LOOKING!"
"Does he ever stop shouting…" Raditz murmured to himself, then began to count under his breath After he reached five, he risked peeking out of the door, and saw nothing but an empty street. He quickly bolted, heading away at random until he found another handy pace to hide for a short while.
"THERE HE IS! AFTER HIM! GET HIM!"
"Oh fuck this!" Raditz snarled and turned to confront them. Several soldiers charged forward and Raditz automatically dropped into a fighting stance. The first soldier raised the butt of his rifle and smashed it towards Raditz' head, but the Saiyan moved aside and swung his knee up and into the nazi groin. The soldier dropped to his knees making little squeeking noises. With a smirk, Raditz turned to the others.
"Who's next?"
The crowd parted, and a big burly German stepped through.
"Ya! I am Hans! And I will crush you!" the big Nazi said, stepping forward and blotting out the sunlight.
"Oh good grief…"
"There! That's it!" Bulma cried triumphantly, handing Turlus the finished watch. "Here, test this out!" Turlus held the thing gingerly, and carefully strapped it to his wrist, then looked at it this way and that.
"It's pink…" he said lamely.
"It's the only one the market vendor had left! Now stop moaning and press the button!"
Turlus lifted a finger, and carefully guided it towards the small red button on the watch's side. He paused, and looked up towards the others. Their eyes were glued to him, and Gohan nodded encouragement. Taking a deep breath, Turlus jabbed the button with his finger. There was a slight electronic whine from the watch, and then:
"The time is eight-thirty-two pee em," rasped an electronic voice.
"Uh…" Turlus said, looking at the watch. He pressed the button again.
"The time is eight-thirty-two pee em."
"Bulma…?" Turlus asked, looking up at her.
"I… I don't understand it! We made the watches exactly as we did before! It should have worked!"
"Um… not exactly miss Bulma…" Goten said, tapping his fingertips together guiltily.
"Goten, you dummy!" Trunks hissed.
"Boys… just what exactly where you doing in here?" Bulma asked, smiling deceptively sweetly.
"Well… we just-"
"Shutupshutupshutup!" Trunks hissed again.
"- we just kinda tinkered with the watches a little bit…" Goten went on.
"A little bit?" Bulma narrowed her eyes at the pair of them.
"Yeah…" Goten reached into his pocket and produced several compents. "We took these out. We just thought it would make the watches not work! We didn't know we would send our dads back through time! Honest! Please don't withhold supper from us!" Goten was nearly in tears.
Bulma looked at the components Goten was holding. They were the chronoic-stabbelisers. But all they did was align the watch with local time… didn't they?
"Oh no…"
"What's wrong, Bulma?" Gohan asked.
"I think I know what's happened. The watches work by detecting the space/time fold we encounter, right? Well, those are the components that keep the watch localised to that specific fold. Without them, I think the watches have grasped a strand at random, and sucked themselves into it. The boys with them."
"So… how do we find them?" Turlus asked, looking at his pink watch.
"Oh that's easy," she said with a wink. "Now I understand what's happened, I can make a tracking device to find them."
"You can do that?" Turlus asked.
"I sure can! Hey, I invented the dragon radar remember!" And with that, she cleared a space at a work bench and got straight to work.
Will Bulma be able to create her device? Will Raditz ever escape with his hair intact? And will the Saiyans make it home to their own timeline? Find out, in DEATH SAIYAN!
AN Heya! Sorry fans and fansettes. I have no excuse for not updating DS for a while, and I apologise profusely for my absence. However, the lack of an internet connection didn't exactly help matters and I had a major case of block for this chapter. I knew what I wanted to happen, I just wasn't sure how to bridge the sequences or how to word them. But, this new chapter is posted and I'll try to update once a week, or once every two weeks (work/fiancée permitting).
Hope you are all well, and I'm glad you are enjoying this story.
Ja ne!