Chapter 2: the hive

Chico yawned as she watched the upside down image on the TV switch as her brother continued to channel surf. The three Son cousins were at the twin's house as school was out for the next week. Chico was sitting upside down on the sofa with Goro on the floor and Fry lounging on the sofa besides her.

A raven-haired man with his hair cut into short spikes looked in on them as he leant against the doorframe. His onyx eyes swept over the three of them before settling on the TV.

"Not a lot on I see." He commented as he donned the famous grin of his family. The twins shock their heads in unison. Fry was the only one to speak.

"Not really uncle Goten."

Goten nodded and looked over at his daughter just as she swung herself upright again so that she was kneeling on the sofa instead.

"This is so boring…" she complained. Goten chuckled and quickly looked down at his watch.

"I think we have time for a quick spar before I have to leave for work." He said but then looked up as the doorbell sounded. It was a long and urgent sound that made Goten frown.

Odd, who'd be calling now? He wondered before walking to the front door and opening it wide just to meet a pair of angry golden eyes that were slowly getting redder.

"Where is he?" the brown haired woman who they belonged to asked. Goten blinked in surprise.

"Zara? Where's who? What's going on?" he asked before he was shoved a side and the woman rather rudely walked past so that she could check the lounge. Goten stared bewildered after her before looking over to stare at the lavender haired man that had taken her place.

"Trunks, what is this all about? What's got Zar so worked up?" Goten asked the older demi-saiyan. Trunks sighed deeply as Goten allowed him to enter the house.

"Don't worry too much about Zara, her mood has been swinging all over the place lately. And our son isn't helping any." He replied in a lowered voice. Goten raised a brow.

"What's Eli done now?"

Trunks didn't answer. Instead he looked up to watch his wife walk back into the room, her hair dancing round her shoulders as she sensed out any other ki-signatures in the small, suburban house.

"He never showed last night, that's what." Zara said bluntly when she was finished, her expression turning from anger to worry.

"And his school rang up this morning saying he didn't go to any of his lessons yesterday either." Trunks finished.

"That's weird," Goten mumbled before continuing, "Have you tried Capsule Corp?"

"First place we tried. Bulma doesn't know anything. Vegeta was out." Zara replied just as the cousins appeared in the doorway. Goten and Trunks looked down at them suspiciously.

"We haven't seen him." Goro defended almost immediately. Chico bit her lip.

"Actually I saw him last night but he was on his way home." She said slowly. Instantly she could feel the familiar poking feeling of someone reading her mind. Chico swallowed hard before running out the door and taking to the air. Goten called after her but was stopped from chasing after by Zara.

"Let her go, she doesn't know what happened last night." She said, staring after the young girl.

Chico stopped over the place she had last seen Eli. There was no sign of a ki blast fight or anything of the like around her. She sighed and looked down to find a small area where the ground looked as though it had been pressed in, possibly by some one powering up. Chico flew down to it and inspected the area around it. There had definitely been a struggle here recently.

"Hey Chico! Where'd you go?" a voice called from above and Chico glanced up to see her brother and cousin floating above her. She raised her ki level to get their attention and went back to looking at the ground.

The boys landed behind her and quickly took in their surroundings. Fry bent down to look at the broken earth whilst Goro rested a hand on his sister's shoulder.

"We'll find him." He said softly. Chico only nodded as she got up, making Goro frown lightly. It wasn't very often that Chico got worried.

"Well Eli was here alright. And he wasn't alone." Fry announced, attracting the attention of the others. They stepped around him and looked down.

"How can you be sure?" Goro asked.

"Simple. Whenever you use excessive amounts of ki, it coats the surrounding area. I can sense Eli here and it feels like there were six other people, but they're pretty weak." Fry explained.

"Well if they're so weak then where is Eli?" Chico asked, clearly annoyed. Fry shrugged.

"I don't know but his ki signature stops a little way over there. Then the others seem to take to the air. Looks like they flew."

The twins looked up as they stretched out their ki senses to find what Fry was talking about. Chico found it first and took to the air, following the ki trail as the boys struggled to keep up.

The beeping of a heart monitor echoing around the small, stone chamber slowly awoke the sleeping prince. Eli's blue eyes fluttered open and the sight of a dark ceiling greeted him. He blinked dully at it before attempting to sit up, only to find that he was strapped to a table. Eli frowned and tried to increase his power but nothing happened. Instead he ended up feeling slightly weaker.

What in the- his thought stopped as he noticed a chunky device on his right arm that he immediately recognised as a ki suppressor: a device that absorbed ki to force the wearer to stay at a certain power level. His grandmother had made a similar one when he was younger and had a problem with flying off when grounded.

The noise of a tin tray clattering against a trolley made Eli look up. The same girl he had met the night before was at the foot of the table and was setting down several surgical tools next to some cybernetic components.

"Hey." His voice seemed to startle the little girl as she stepped backwards defensively. She seemed to calm down when she noticed he was awake.

"What's going on here?" Eli asked her calmly. She didn't answer. The only part of her that made a move was her bionic eye that was constantly sweeping down his body, probably taking scans.

Two metal doors slid open and a tall man wearing a lab coat and gloves walked in, his face almost completely covered in metal and circuitry.

"So you are awake. Good. It is time for you to join us." The man announced as he approached the trolley. Eli narrowed his eyes as he watched him.

"What do you mean?" the boy asked, tugging on his restraints. The man lifted up a scalpel that he inspected.

"You'll just be having a small operation. Children have a high success rate and yours is much higher then average as you have a strong life force." He put the scalpel back down.

"Are you going to turn me into a cyborg?" Eli asked, a lump gathering in his throat. The man stopped what he was doing and glanced at the boy.

"Professor Kisho's dream is to create a perfect race." He explained, not really answering the question. Eli thought over the name, not really recognising it before he lowered his head.

"That's all I wanted to know."

The cyborg man had no idea what hit him.

An unseen force sent him flying into the wall, the trolley following close behind and slamming into his chest. He looked up just in time to see the ki suppressor on Eli's right wrist get yanked off and broken. Eli smirked as he raised his power level enough to break his restraints.

"H...How?" the man stuttered.

"Telekinesis doesn't work through ki." Eli explained, smirking before he phased out of sight and dealt a blow to the back of the man's neck, knocking him into unconsciousness. The little girl gasped and ran out of the room. Eli frowned as he watched her before following her out. What he found made him gasp.

He was standing on a balcony in the edge of a large, oval room that was 20-odd floors high. The walls were made out of rock and all Eli could see above or below him were balconies, bridges and stairwells that all connected to a giant central tower that connected the roof with the floor. And on everyone of the vast number of balconies and bridges were large groups of cyborg drones that added up to hundreds. Hundreds of drones that were all looking up at Eli.

"Oh crap…" Eli muttered as he prepared for the hundreds of attackers.

The cousins had been following the trail for what had seemed like hours. It was so faint that they had lost it several times and it was getting fainter all the time. They were now somewhere in the northern deserts, nothing but sand and rock below them.

"We have to nearly be there now…" Goro muttered as he wiped away some sweat from his brow caused by the desert's heat. He was so focused on keeping cool that he didn't notice the others stop. He bumped into Fry's back and blinked.

"Hey, why did you guys stop?" he asked.

"…I can't find the trail we were following." Fry explained, looking round everywhere for a glimpse of it.

"There are so many trails and they all feel about the same. This place has been really busy lately." Chico added before dropping her head.

"Oh, where the heck did it go!" she cried, frustrated now. Goro blinked and put a hand on his sister's shoulder.

"Hey, calm down. Since when do you get stressed?" Goro asked her, puzzled by his sister's odd behaviour as she blushed.

"Hey! What's that over there?" Fry cut in, attracting the attention of his cousins. They looked to where he was pointing and could clearly see smoke pouring out from the ground no less then a mile away. It was closely followed by the skyrocketing power level of-

"Eli!" Chico cried and was on her was over to him before the boys could work out what was going on. In a matter of seconds they had all arrived at the site and there was Eli, slowly raising his power level as he blasted apart some cyborgs. He noticed his friends as the drones fell away.

"Hey guys! You mind lending me a hand?" he asked just as his hair turned golden and his eyes turned teal, signalling the super saiyan transformation. As soon as his power levelled off, he was back in the fray, fending of attacking cyborgs. The cousins all transformed after a moments pause and then helped their friend, despite their growing confusion.

The drones were all pretty weak, most not much stronger then the first saiyans to arrive on earth since Goku. Only the fact that there were so many made them dangerous to the saiyan kids. But soon enough the real danger revealed itself.

The five cyborgs that had abducted Eli slowly raised themselves out of the giant hole that had once been the underground hive. As soon as they were out, all of the drones backed off, leaving the four super saiyans confused. The lead cyborg swept its scanner over the group of children, assessing their strength.

"Take them." Came the order and the cyborgs sped towards their chosen targets at a speed the saiyans had only seen their relatives reach. Straight from the first attack, the saiyans knew they were in trouble.

Chico, Eli and Goro were all sent flying by their attackers where as Fry was knocked into a second attacker. He flinched as he was caught before he powered up to super saiyan two, pushing the cyborg attackers away as ki bolts flowed down his body. He then began to attack his opponents. Alone, the cyborgs were no match for him but together they posed a threat. They worked in perfect harmony, blocking for each other as they pressed an attack. Fry grit his teeth as he threw attack after attack at them, eventually beating them with speed as he sent one flying so he could corner the other. Below him something similar was happening with the twins. The cyborgs they were facing were trying to force them to split apart, failing for he most part. The twins had developed an airtight defence over the years, which was now being put to the test. A punch went flying towards Chico that Goro blocked before Chico axe kicked the cyborg and bent over to allow Goro to roll over her back and kick the second cyborg. Both cyborgs drifted back before firing simultaneous beams at the twins who went back to back to block them. The cyborgs rolled off the beams and teleported next to the twins as they pushed away the beams, kicking them apart. The twins yelped in surprise and Chico found herself without her twin to aid her. She was still a powerful fighter on her own but these cyborgs were so much stronger then a basic super saiyan.

Chico began to dodge as the cyborg sent a flurry of punches at her, weaving between every attack with only seconds to spare. She gasped as she miss calculated the cyborg's next move and received a hard blow to the stomach. The cyborg's eyes narrowed before it continued with it's attacks, hitting every square inch of Chico's body before ending the combo with a blow to the back of the head. Aching all over, Chico couldn't do a thing as she was hit, darkness filling her vision as she lost consciousness and plummeted to the floor. Eli stopped in mid-punch as he spotted her falling.

"Chico!" he tried to get to her but his cyborg opponent blocked his path, hitting him hard in the stomach. A mixture of anger and desperation filled Eli as all he could see was Chico falling. He had to get to her but the cyborg was blocking him. He couldn't do a thing.

Then something inside him snapped. Energy began to radiate off his body until it became an inferno of gold and red. He could feel his body transforming as the energy kept coming, giving him more power then he had ever used before. And all he could focus on was the falling form of Chico.

He flew towards her in a red blur, grabbing her just before she hit the floor. Chico's eye fluttered open and she gasped at what she saw.

"Don't worry, I'm going to make them pay."

A/N: Sorry it took so long, I've just been finding it hard to write fanfiction lately. ButI will try and type up chapter 3 of this sometime during the holidays. So that's one cliffy ended and another started.I need to re-think the cliffiness...

Anyway, all reviews welcome. I'm not too happy with this but maybe the next one will be better. Until next time.