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.
Chapter 14: A Well Deserved Break
"So how do you turn your hair colors like that? Does that mean your getting old or something?" Raynor asked. I rolled my eyes in tune with Kerrigan's, except she smacked him upside the head with one of her talons.
"No Jim, its just a side effect when he uses his full power, that's all," she explained briefly.
"So what now?" Raynor asked.
"Well, me and the boy need to get back to the main hive and then report to the Overmind. You should go back to your ship and try to call for a ride off this planet," Kerrigan suggested, drawing a scowl from both of us. I said nothing though; she more than likely had a pretty good idea why I didn't like half of that plan.
"My transmitter is busted. Got shelled during the attack by those weird critters, might only take a few days to fix it with your help Sarah," he said, glancing down.
"Sorry Jim, I can't help you anymore than I already have. If we stay any longer, the others are going to find out about you being here. I don't think I need to tell you what will happen then. Be prepared for anything, if in a two weeks time you are still here, I'll see what I can do. Until then, goodbye Jim," she said, turning the other direction and walking towards an Overlord that was slowly coming to the ground.
I glanced back at her questioningly, "Wait a sec Kerrigan, shouldn't we try to fix his ship or something? We could use it to send me home; I'd like to get back home to my family! Kerrigan!" I shifted slightly to run after her.
"Sorry kid, looks like you're staying here for awhile. Besides, it would take a good while before my ship is fixed, even with her skills. You should go with her, with these things she tends to know what's best, I'll see ya around!" Raynor said, walking the other direction, across the new dust plain that used to be mountains before I blasted them apart during the battle. I growled slightly and dashed after her, climbing into the Overlord's transport area and sitting across from her.
"Are you going to answer me or not?" I asked, my power rising up a notch with my irritation. No doubt she noticed that, but she merely sighed slightly.
"We wouldn't make it out of here now, he has eyes everywhere. We had to leave Jim now otherwise he was going to send forces out here to handle it. Jim is a tough guy, he can survive out here. As for us, we need to make our report by telepathic message back at the hive, I'll show you how to do that when we get there," she seemed to stop herself in mid-phrase, probably realizing that she didn't need to teach me anything.
"Oh silly me, you have a bit of ability with that don't you, I forgot that you had that Namek as a teacher. No matter, you just need to connect with me and I'll do the transmitting," she said, causing my eyebrow to go up.
"Connect with you?"
"It isn't anything too special, so don't get excited."
I rolled my eyes again, "So, what do I need to say? If anything."
"Only if he asks you something, which will probably happen. As for your current state, I'll do what I can to slow your progress," she said, prompting me to ask another question before I figured it out by myself. She must mean the infestation process.
"Exactly, since your Psi energy enables you to command Zerg in battle, he may just allow you to stay this way. If so, then you can work on your powers. You said yourself you've wanted to train some right?"
I nodded, "Yeah, otherwise this great power he speaks of will go to waste!"
"Okay then, if he chooses not to, well don't get too angry okay? He can fully infest you at pretty much any time if he so chooses. Especially now that you've been pretty close before you managed to hold it back, good job on that by the way," she said. I nodded grimly, sitting down and taking a breather, letting my power level rise a bit more to hold my Super Mystic form.
"Why don't you take a break? You feel like your starting to get exhausted!" she suggested.
"Nah I'm good. Besides, if I drop out of this form, I'm probably not going to wake up for awhile considering how much damage I took out there, and using this power tends to wear me out pretty quick as it is," I explained.
"But your body looks pretty healed now. All I can detect is minor scrapes and bruises. All of the open cuts and broken bones appear to be regenerated. That is a bit odd because you had reversed some of the infesting process. Is that some sort of ability you have?" Kerrigan asked.
"Well, it appears you don't know everything, lucky me. When we turn Super Saiyan, minor injuries tend to heal themselves so we can fight better. Happens with Super Mystic also I guess, its kind of automatic. I know how to heal myself if need be, Piccolo taught me that one too. There's a catch though if I choose that path, the sacrifice of energy. Self-healing will drain me just as much as any bad injury. Not usually something I like to do if I'm in a tight battle," I explained.
"Well we're not going to be back at the hive for a good while, at least a few hours. You did get pretty far out here before I managed to track you down, you should rest now," she almost sounded concerned.
"I'm also doing an exercise to master my form. The longer I hold it, the easier it is to call it up and I can start getting used to the energy output. Learned that a long time ago before Buu showed up," I explained further.
"Let me guess, the Saiyan prince Vegeta taught you to do that, right?"
"More of a self-taught thing really, but he suggested it. How is it you get to know so much about me and the others?" I asked.
"We have spies everywhere remember?" she said with an arrogant grin.
I growled, "How could I forget?" The Overlord rumbled a bit, something that sounded like a belch.
"Well anyway, I'm going to get some shuteye. You're welcome to join me," she winked suggestively. I passed, meditating in my Super Mystic form, slowly making it easier to hold.
-
By continually summoning my combined energy, which was easy since they were basically fused themselves together now: I kept my transformed state much longer than before, despite the fact I had burned so much of it up and was very hungry. Kerrigan tossed me another gator-like creature to eat, which I eagerly devoured despite the horrid taste of it. Eventually I had to drop out of Super Mystic, but I didn't pass out this time, just rubbed my eyes like crazy as I wanted to sleep pretty bad.
"Looks like you need to recharge those batteries again," Kerrigan said with a grin.
"Sleep and food and I'll be ready to go again in the morning," I said, leaning back against the Overlord's wall. An abrupt drop in altitude shook me, causing my sleepiness to vanish much like an airplane ride would.
"Well, looks like we're here. Feels a little weird on the descent eh?" she asked.
I glared slightly, "And they wonder why I prefer to fly myself." Kerrigan then led me to the center of the base where the primary hive cluster building stood. The base had drastically changed while I was gone. It had been practically nothing but ash, dirt and mineral deposits before. Now the purple creep was everywhere, the buildings were all constructed and just as massive as I recalled. There were Zerg troops everywhere, most of them patrolling or burrowed. The worker drones were also running about, collecting resources. We entered the hive cluster and I marveled on how much it looked like the Super Hive we had stayed in before, only there were more minions running about. We trudged down a ramp of some sort that seemed to spiral downwards for about a hundred feet around the center of the building. It got a bit colder, but the humidity increased, as did the level of darkness.
The walls seemed to illuminate themselves, but it was still dark in there. We reached the bottom level after a few minutes and I followed her into some sort of chamber that I had never seen before. Inside there was some sort of large brown creature with a purple aura surrounding it. The energy I felt coming off this thing was impressive, but it didn't seem to be able to move. On the side of it, a hole opened up and a purple eye slid in to fill it, I then recognized it to be the Cerebrate. I still noticed the Cerebrate in the back of my mind, but it had been leaving me alone ever since my first battle with the Terrans back on Tarsonis. Its presence seemed to cast some sort of soothing energy into the air, and I felt refreshed.
"Sit here," she pointed to a spot right in front of the eye. She and the Cerebrate seemed to have some sort of telepathic conversation going on that I wasn't invited to, but that was fine, I didn't care.
"Now close your eyes and take my hand, I'll do the rest. And remember not to think about anything you shouldn't!" I did so, wondering what exactly was going to happen in the next few minutes.
-
I walked out of the Cerebrate's chamber along with Kerrigan just a few minutes later. The experience of being connected with her was, very enlightening. I felt that I could see into her thoughts and memories without interruption, and she could see into mine. Whether she did so to me or not I don't know, I didn't spend that much time in that state. We had connected to the Overmind rather quickly, and the conversation that followed barely lasted five seconds. I had been in telepathic contact before, but never at such an advanced level of thought. I heard once that the human brain could process nine hundred words a minute. Whether that was true with a Saiyan brain or not, I wasn't sure, but I know reaction time is much slower than that, unless it came to fighting. Since Kerrigan did all the talking, err thinking in this case, I didn't have to worry. She told the Overmind a slightly edited version of what had been happening, leaving Raynor completely out. I didn't know if he could pick up on that fact that we were hiding him or not, but my thoughts never turned that way until contact was broken. She then turned my request over, getting a surprising approval from him. I was somewhat relieved when he didn't say anything more to the contrary, but she did send him a few mental pictures of my fight with the queen, so that must have sold him over.
"Well, I suppose you'll want to train tomorrow, so you better get some rest. I'll work on breeding you another pet, how does that sound?"
"Nah, that's ok," I said sadly.
"You sure?" she asked.
"Well he did come in handy and I was a little attached to him, but it might get in the way of my training. I'll tell you when I want another one, good night!" I said, heading for the room she had told me to sleep in. Truth was I wanted to get off the subject; it tore me up just to think about it. I had my suspicions that she had sent him in to help, or that I had accidentally done it when I was controlling the Zerg. She probably knew which one and wanted to make it up to me. I climbed into the slimy Zerg-like sleeping bag and passed out right away, the day had been long and hectic.
Interlude 14.1 –Other Happenings-
"Ha, I finally got you, dirty little ape!" Videl cheered as she held the furry monkey in her grasp. Bubbles switched himself around so he was on her back as she got up and dusted herself off. It had been a bit more than two months since she died, and she had been training with King Kai ever since then. She hadn't been able to catch Bubbles nearly as fast as Goku and the other Z fighters did. She should have been able to had she been going at it twenty four hours a day, except she had to do dishes a lot when King Kai cooked. Not only that, but when she slept, well that's exactly what she did, usually for most of a day. Also, there were some other factors that came into play and slowed her down. First she wasn't a Saiyan, being mated to one didn't count either. Secondly, King Kai kept increasing the weights of her training garb, which remained her white top with black shorts and a pink undershirt. Only the pink shirt had kept going up from five pounds to about one hundred, something she was not aware of. Third, it was ten times Earth's gravity up there, so the added weight had a greater effect. The final factor was West Kai. He never seemed to stop showing up just to give King Kai a lot of crap about being dead, having weak fighters and training a rookie girl that looked like she was fresh out of diapers. The last comment usually got Videl into a stew about it and pushed her harder to catch the monkey so she could chase West Kai down and splatter his head with a piece of heavy mining equipment.
"Hey Videl, good job! Ready for the next test?" King Kai called from his new house. It was new because Goku hadn't been there for about eight months, and therefore it could be rebuilt without the fear of it being blown up by one of the Saiyan's sparring sessions.
"Well, I was wondering how well I've come so far? This training has been kicking my ass ever since I got here, I never thought it would be this hard to catch a monkey!" Videl admitted.
"Hehehe, you probably would have caught him by the end of week three if I hadn't been increasing your weights every day. Allow me to take them off and you can try a jump in the air or something," King kai said, flipping his antennae around and causing them to glow. Instantly Videl felt much lighter, then jumped as high as she could into the air. She had to power up very quickly just to slow down before she was in orbit. In one way she was happy that she managed to release her ki so fast, on the other hand, it wasn't that good of a joke.
She slowly descended with a slight frown while King Kai was giggling like crazy, "And the High Jump gold goes to Videl Satan, daughter of the world champion!"
"Very funny, where's that monkey at? I bet I catch him in three seconds!" Videl boasted.
"Now now, you can chase him later. Your next test is more difficult, here's one hundred pounds of clothes back!" King kai said as his antennae glowed. Videl right away dropped a little, but she had been through it before and stood up easily. Then King Kai tossed her a large hammer weighing in about two hundred pounds by itself. While she struggled to pick up the huge hammer, he whistled for Gregory. When the cricket arrived with lightning quick speed, Videl immediately knew that this, like Bubbles, was not going to be a cakewalk.
"Here's another recruit Gregory, do your stuff until she can hit you. Take breaks when necessary of course, I'll be around if you need me!"
"Well little girl, you ready for the lesson from the supreme martial arts master Gregory?!" the cricket chirped.
"Shut up and bring on the noise bug boy!"
This got a chuckle or two out of King Kai, to the cricket's dismay, "Fine, you asked for it little girl, no crying when you get hurt!" Videl cringed as the tiny little bug blasted by her before she could get the hammer into the air, Damn, now I see why this training is so effective!
King Kai watched her chase Gregory around, swinging rather wildly the first few times due to the extreme weight. Within a few hours she had worn herself down and began to get a bit angry at the cricket who constantly insulted her. King Kai then detected something within Videl as she got up and came closer to sending Gregory into the distance. So she has hidden strength as well, shouldn't be too hard to bring it out now.
-
"Here is your new baby girl Miss Briefs, congratulations!" a nurse said, handing a tiny bundle to Bulma, who lay exhausted but relieved in her bed. A crying Chichi sat in the corner, but only out of happiness. Trunks and Goten were then invited in by Yamcha, who had driven everyone to West City hospital.
"Where's my new brother?!" Trunks came in excited.
"Shhhh Trunks, you'll wake her!" Bulma hissed at him. Trunks quieted down, but didn't decrease his excitement as he peered over the rail to see his new sibling.
"And it's a girl Trunks, she's your new sister," Bulma corrected him. Trunks was right away saddened, he had wanted a new brother so he could be the training master instead of having to put up with Gohan, Verto, Vegeta and Piccolo all the time. Granted he didn't have to train with the Namek that much, but sometimes he thought Piccolo's tactics were a bit on the frightening side. He wanted to be the one handing out the ass kicking for once. But then he thought about it some more, and grinned at the thought of the many pranks he and Goten could pull since it was a girl.
"Have you thought of a name Bulma?" Chichi asked, ushering the kids back a little.
"Actually, Vegeta and I agreed that since I named Trunks, he would name our second child if we had one, and he was oddly particular about the naming. First off, if it was a boy, there were several different names he came up with, I mean besides another Vegeta if it looked just like him and what not. Most of which I'm told had to do with eye color, hair style and other things. I don't think I could remember them all if he didn't write them all down," she explained.
"Dad said it was tradition, the royal bloodline is only renamed if the next boy in line is an exact replica upon birth. It all sounded too weird anyway," Trunks filled in for the confused Goten.
"What's a replico? Ow!" Goten asked while Trunks smacked the side of his head.
"And what about the name for a girl? She does look a lot like you!" Yamcha clued in.
"Well if it was up to me, I would name her Bulma Leigh. But Vegeta only came up with one name to match her: Bulla. It sounds close enough so that's your name you little scientist!" Bulma cooed at the newborn, who didn't really respond due to the fact she was partially asleep. A tiny brown tail managed to slide up the backside of the newborn and nestle into the child's mouth, who then sucked on it.
"Still stinks its not a boy," Trunks whined a bit while he and Goten sat down next to Chichi, who was marveling with Yamcha and Bulma on how much Bulla resembled her mother despite being less than an hour out of the womb. Outside, next to the window but well out of sight, Piccolo floated nearby as a guard. It was something Vegeta asked of him while they were away. Normally Piccolo would barely regard doing a favor for Vegeta unless it was a threat to the earth, but the recent war had set everyone on better terms with each other.
Piccolo sensed the tiny half-Saiyan girl's energy, and smiled to himself, "At least this one won't be an arrogant prick, huh?!" he muttered before gasping in shock. The Kami part of him always had the gift of foresight, and some of it had remained when they had fused, but not much other than what the next few days might be like. When he touched the child's energy field, he caught a glimpse of her all grown up. She would indeed be just as beautiful as her mother, and a strong Super Saiyan like several of their friends. But that wasn't what caught Piccolo's attention, it was the vision he saw her in. The world's sky was red and black. She was along side what appeared to be an unknown girl that resembled Chichi and Videl. Next to them were three figures that resembled Trunks, Verto and Vegeta. Trunks seemed different somehow, and he was wearing earrings that seemed to glow golden. Vegeta's aura was crackling with power, but his hair was black and he had red fur across his shoulders and covering his arms, shoulders, sides and stomach. His tail was also red, and the fact that he had a tail was amazing for Piccolo to think about. He looked even more menacing with teal colored eyes much like a Super Saiyan's eyes would.
Then the memory switched to Verto, who was in the middle. Piccolo's eyes widened to the boy's appearance. His face and eyes were older and wiser with knowledge and experience, though the glare from the boy would make Vegeta flinch. He still greatly resembled Gohan except for the two thick bangs that hovered over his face and slightly shorter hair. His hair was a bright silver color; almost white and standing on end like most Super Saiyans. His eyes were glowing bright blue, occasionally dulling enough to make out a duller blue pupil. Piccolo recognized this as the Super Mystic form, but it was far stronger than before. His power felt lower than Vegeta's high form, but not by much. They seemed to be staring something or someone down. Something that alarmed Piccolo was that he didn't see Goku or Gohan around, nor himself, or any of the other fighters. As quickly as the vision came, it was gone, leaving him gasping for breath. The last piece of the vision showed a set of dark figures laughing as they rushed at it in battle mode. Piccolo silently thanked the Kami part of him that whatever that might have been was several years into the future. That left more than enough time to prepare for whatever that was, assuming everything went right until then. His mental triggers were then flipped again as he picked up on a telepathic message. It was faint and the source distant, and he couldn't even tell whom it belonged to, but he had a pretty good clue.
"Help me!"
A/N: I didn't quite mean for the chapter to be that long, but there was a lot of stuff I needed to get out of the way since some of the major events are coming up soon, for such reasons I summarized the Overmind/Verto/Kerrigan conversation.
Bulma Leigh is the English dubbed name for Vegeta Jr's mother in the final episode of GT, I figured that would be a better name then Bikini or something like in the Japanese version. Even though I had Vegeta was picking the name Bulla, which is tons better then Bra in my opinion, it will be the same overall character. Honestly who needs to name their kids after underwear anyway? It fit Bulma since she was the babe queen, but the only cool one was Trunks, the rest of it you can toss out the window. I'll give Funimation its dues for that. As for Piccolo/Kami's vision, that is way into the future.