Back again with another exciting chapter. We left off with Lily, Frieza, Goku, and Vegeta reuniting. After months of separation since they encountered the sorcerer. Here, they will explain their adventure on this new world and what they endured the last several months. Enjoy :)
They traveled all day before stopping at night to rest. Vegeta argued with them, wanting to keep going. But he was outnumbered three to one with the decision. He finally gave in and began unloading the few things they had with them. Lily grabbed her bag, while Frieza grabbed the barricade rods and started setting them up. The area they were in now was no longer the desert. It was a large coniferous forest with huge pine trees. Goku and Lily began gathering as many sticks as the could find to start a fire.
Vegeta stood off to the side scouting their surroundings for danger. When he turned to watch Frieza. He noticed he was sticking small metallic rods in the ground. But he wasn't really focusing on the task at hand. Instead Vegeta noticed he never took his eyes off of Goku? No, it was Lily. He kept her in his line of vision as he finished up with the rods. Vegeta found this quite strange. Why would he be watching her so closely? He figured it mainly had to do with the fact that their lives were tethered together and he wanted to make sure nothing happened to her that would jeopardize himself.
But he can't help but feel there's another reason behind it. Being the straight forward person that he was. Vegeta headed towards Frieza. Normally, he wouldn't want to speak with the bastard, but he was concerned for Lily's safety. Vegeta also did not like the way he was looking at her. Even though they hardly spoke to each other while on Lord Beerus's World. He still viewed her as a friend. He will never admit it; but like Goku, she too kind of grew on him. One who was completely lost to their universe and needed their help. Just because Frieza couldn't kill Lily, doesn't mean he wouldn't entertain other ideas on hurting her in other ways. He lived under the Little Shit's rule for most of his youth and knew there were never limits to what he can do to others.
"Why do you keep watching her?" Vegeta wasted no time getting to the point.
Frieza just glared at him. "Whatever are you talking about now?"
"Who else? I'm talking about Lily. I know you Frieza. You did something to that girl. You will stay away from her from now on." Vegeta said.
Frieza wasted no time getting in his face. "That is not your decision to make monkey. I do what I want, and you don't tell me what to do." He said through gritted teeth.
Vegeta narrowed his eyes. "Kakarot and myself will watch Lily from now on. She doesn't need to waste another day being around filth like yourself."
He wagged his tail back and forth in a state of agitation.
"Like hell I do, you have encountered the demons have you not? You've witnessed how lethal they are. I'm not going to sit idle while she gets ripped apart from them ending both our lives." He lied convincingly.
'Truth is, if they're life forces haven't been tied together, he actually didn't care what happened to him at that point. Frieza just wanted her to remain safe and alive. But he would never tell this imbecile that.'
"As if we would let that happen. It's a shame your lives are tied together though. Otherwise, I wouldn't mind watching you get ripped to shreds by these nocturnal monsters." Vegeta sneered.
"Don't worry Vegeta, there will be plenty of time for me to rip 'you' apart once we get out of this mess and back to our universe." Frieza said.
He was about to let this overgrown lizard have it, when Goku and Lily returned with a bunch of sticks.
"What's going on here?" She asks.
Vegeta crosses his arms. "Hmph, nothing. Just laying some new ground rules here for Frieza."
Vegeta then turned his gaze to Lily. "You will being staying close to Kakarot and myself for tonight, and for the rest of the trip."
"Say what? Vegeta that is not just your decision. It's mine to make too. And I say No Thanks, I'll be fine. Been taking care of myself just fine so far on this little road trip. I don't always need some macho male's protection you know." She told him.
Frieza would have found her little outburst amusing had the others not point out the new reality to the situation. If one thing was painfully true, he couldn't be near her all that much anymore. Sadly, that meant they couldn't continue resting together at night like they use to. It would only raise a large amount of suspicion from Goku and Vegeta. Though he can't help but feel Vegeta already is suspicious. Though if there is one thing those monkeys are wrong about, is Lily being helpless. Now that the Goddess Gaea inhabits her body, Frieza knew it gave her much better odds against the demons.
If her effectively pinning him down the first night was any confirmation. Then Lily has become inhumanly strong herself. In fact, Frieza wouldn't be too surprised if she now was the most powerful of them all. If anything, she'd be the one keeping all of them alive and safe and not the other way around. But he couldn't tell them about her secret. He figures she would tell them when she was ready.'
"Look, see these rods that surround the camp. I don't know if you know what they are. But they are portable barricade rods. They will keep us safe within this perimeter while keeping the demons out. So let's just start the fire and eat some dinner. You two have a lot of explaining to do about your own trip since we got here." Lily stated.
At the mention of food, Goku rushed over to the food supplies and got started. Lily smiled, shaking her head as she brought her pack over and started pulling out some food. They got a nice steady fire going. Goku came over with a small bundle of meat that looked a lot like hot dogs. He gave a few to Lily and Frieza to cook over the fire with extra sticks.
"Okay Goku, so spill. What happened to you guys after the sorcerer sent us all spiraling through that vortex? Did you guys lose your power too? Were your life forces also tied together?" Lily asked.
He rubbed the back of his head figuring where to begin. "Well, we landed in some desert not far from a mountainous terrain. We were busted up pretty bad. Which confused us because we both no we have taken much harder falls than that in the past. Luckily, I still had a few of the sensu beans on me. I took one, then made my way over to Vegeta, who landed about several hundred feet from me and gave him one. We were taking in the new surroundings trying to figure out where we were. When out of nowhere that sorcerer guy appeared.."
Then Vegeta cut in to talk. "He told us we have in fact landed on this dimension's version of earth. I went to take a swing at him. But my movements were unusually slow and he easily deflected and forced me back with the staff. Didn't take long to notice something strange happened to us. He confirmed it when he told us we were now powerless and no more powerful than ordinary humans. He then told us if we want to make it out of here alive, we had to trek to the other side of the world to a place called the 'Sacred Area'."
Goku butted back in. "Before he left, I asked where you were and if you guys were here too. But he wasn't very helpful, and just told us we'd have to find out for ourselves. It was very difficult that first month. We had no idea which direction to go to get to this place. We also didn't have any food on us so we had to rely on outdoor skills and catch our own food. We learned really quickly during the first night that there was something very dangerous out here. We ran into these weird large animals. No matter how hard Vegeta and I tried fighting them off, they just kept coming. Like our hits had no effect on them."
Lily's eyes widened. "How were you two able to get away?"
"We ended up jumping off a cliff into a large river below to get away. It took us a few miles downstream, before we swam ashore. We trekked for another three miles before finding a small cave to duck into and rest." Exclaimed Vegeta.
"Yeah, as the nights went on we sadly realized we couldn't beat these things and had to find ways to avoid them when we stopped to rest at night. Luckily, there were a lot of shallow caves around the area. We even took refuge in a slightly uprooted tree once. Which was a lot more smaller than I thought it be. When we both got in, we had to sleep pressed up against each other. It was horrible Lily, Vegeta kept kicking me in his sleep." Goku whined.
Lily tried stifling a laugh and even Frieza was finding it hard to keep a straight face.
Vegeta growled. "She could've done without the details Kakarot! I don't even know why you had to explain that miserable experience. It wasn't bad enough you kept grabbing me in your sleep, but I woke up with most my shoulder saturated with your constant drooling!"
That did it, Lily busted out laughing at the mental image of that. Even Frieza began snickering.
"It's not that funny!" He shouted.
While Goku just joined in with the laughter. "It kind of is funny Vegeta, when you think of it."
After composing themselves, Goku continued on with the story. "So as we said, that first month was rough. But then we came upon a settlement just outside the woods that had this great big barrier around it. At first we weren't sure on how to get in, but someone on the other side spotted us. They told us to come on in. He told us just to step through the barrier. The people there were very friendly and they gave us food, water and a place to sleep. There were about a hundred of them there. Many of them said they were geografists and biogists..."
"That's geologists and biologists, you clown." Cut in Vegeta.
"Yeah, what he said. Anyways, we stayed for about a few days. We asked them about those strange animals we've encountered and that's when we learned they were called demons and practically indestructible. They told us to avoid them as much as possible. Luckily, they said they only come out at night and we were safe to travel during the day." Goku exclaimed.
He inhaled what must've been his fifth hot dog before talking again. "On our last day there, they gave us a couple of these neat bottomless bags with food and water supplies in it. They also carried blankets, a small first aid kit, and some small compact weapons. In case we came across some dangerous wildlife. Oh, and they also gave us this neat thing called a flash card.."
"It's called a fast card." Vegeta said, cutting in again.
"Yeah, anyways they said we can use it to get all the supplies we wanted. Unfortunately, they couldn't spare us what they called a hover car. But they said if we headed a little ways west we'd hit a road. There they said travel about a few miles south and we hit a town called, 'Grizzly Falls'. They said there, we could get even more supplies and get a hoover car." Goku told them.
Vegeta sighed, not bothering on correcting him this time.
"We made it there by noon. It too had those barriers that those people back at the settlement said were there to protect populated areas from the demons. We entered town and began looking for a place that had those hoover cars. We weren't looking long when someone pointed one out to us and we were finally able to get one.
It's so much fun to drive and very fast. We then asked for directions to the Sacred Area and the guy that sold us a car said, just type it into the car's Navigation System and it would give us the directions. We did just that, and the Navigation System Computer thingy spoke and said we had just over five months to get there. That's the second time Vegeta threw a fit after hearing that. He said if we had to, we would travel day and night for as long as we could without resting. He believed we'd get there sooner if we traveled that way." Goku stated.
After what seemed like forever Vegeta started to talk again. "I still say we would've been there a lot sooner if this fool learned on how to ration the food supplies. But of course, he didn't and we had to stop and restock the supplies way more often. Which in turn, slowed us down quite considerably."
Goku guzzled down some water. "I don't agree, I still say we are making good timing. And with luck, we were able to find you guys. Everywhere we stopped I asked if anyone seen or heard of you guys. But unfortunately, we kept coming up empty. It wasn't until we ran into this guy entering a place called Passiah on the way here, that they said they knew of you and said you passed by not too long ago."
Lily stopped him there for a moment. "Did you get the guy's name?"
"Uhh yeah, but it was a while ago. Can't quite remember. I think it was something like Crater...?" Goku said scratching the back of his head in thought.
"It was Carter, dammit Kakarot get with the program here." Vegeta snapped.
"Yeah, that was it. Anyways as soon as I said your name Lily, he knew right away who you were. He said you were with a short grumpy lizard guy named, 'Freezy' and that you just left about a week prior to us coming there." Goku finished.
A vein pulsed on the side of Frieza's head on the description given. Vegeta of course got a good chuckle out of it. It was at this point they finished their story and then asked for Lily's and Frieza's in return.
Frieza let Lily do all the talking since he wasn't one for telling stories. She started all the way back to the time they crash landed, facing the sorcerer, their travels to different places, meeting Carter along with his friends and family, their own close run in with demons, and Frieza being poisoned. Things got a little emotional when she got to the parts on when she was kidnapped and taken to an underground lab to be experimented on. Goku and Vegeta frowned at this and asked if she was okay?
She assured them she is fine and Frieza along with some help from Carter, and Xander were able to get out. Freeing the other prisoners in the process and Carter calling in the authorities to incarcerate the scientists and guards. Then came the most difficult part in the story. How to explain to them that while she was down there' they brought in an ancient jar that contained this dimension's first and oldest god in existence. Who happened to break free from the shattered jar and entered her body and still resides there now.
Lily tried explaining it as best as she could. Goku thought it cool and asked if he could see this god. While Vegeta remained ever the skeptic.
"That's just it, this goddess seems to come and go as she pleases. Don't know if she'd come if you just asked." Frieza informed them.
It wasn't long after Frieza finished that statement, he noticed a startled yet amazed look on both Goku and Vegeta's faces as they stared at Lily. Frieza turned himself to look and was met with the Goddess herself sitting among their presence.
"I am Gaea Goddess and Creator of all you see. You requested an audience with me?" She asked.
"Uhhhh?" Was all Goku could get out at first.
Vegeta was the first to speak. "So your really a god? Why is it that you reside in this woman's body?"
"I can take whatever form I wish. But as of now, I simply choose to reside here in this young woman's being. I'm fully aware that neither of you reside within this realm. So I stay to offer guidance. But on the way, I must resolve this problem with the demons and the gods currently at war. Afterwards I can return you all safely to your own realm." The deity replied.
Vegeta let's out an audible gasps. "Really? You can do that?"
"Of course my child. As supreme goddess, I have no limits. As I said I will correct the mistakes being done here and afterwards I will return you." She reassured them.
For the first time during this exchange Goku was finally able to speak. "Oh Yeah! Awesome! Thanks a lot Supreme Lady!"
The goddess found his response rather amusing. "Your welcome, and from what I understand you wish to go to the Sacred Area? I can easily transport you all there now if you wish."
This baffled Frieza a bit. "Excuse Me, but if you could do that all along then why haven't you done it for us sooner?"
She gave him a smile. "Because Lily wanted to wait. She wanted to see if you two could find your friends here first. She didn't want to leave without them and leave them behind. Her plan was to wait and see if we could find them within the time it originally took to get to the Sacred Area. If we hadn't found them by then, I would've used my power to locate them and retrieve them myself."
'It made some sense. And Frieza should've known Lily wouldn't leave without knowing where Goku and Vegeta went.' But he pressed on anyway.
"Couldn't you have just saved us all the extra time and just located them sooner and bring them to us?" Frieza added.
She smiled at Frieza again. "There are other reasons involved."
Then she telepathically communicated to him. 'She wanted to spend as much time with you as she could. That is also the reasoning behind her decision.' Frieza's eyes widened in understanding and nodded.
"You look weary my children. I recommend you get some rest first then. I can take us all there in the morning as the sun peaks over the horizon." She told them.
"But what about your dealings with the demons and gods? I thought you said you want to handle them first? There is also the issue with the one who sent us here to begin with." Said Vegeta.
She just smiles. "All in good time child. I feel the Sacred Area is the best place to settle all affairs that need to be corrected."
With that she retreated back into Lily. "She rights you know, we should finish up here and rest. I have a feeling there are going to be challenges upon our arrival to the Sacred Area."
They finished their dinner, which was started rather late to begin with as it was now 10:30pm. And settled down to sleep. Goku and Vegeta tried keeping Lily closer to them and away from Frieza . But she settled for sleeping halfway between them and him. Goku and Vegeta fell asleep first. Lily took advantage and crawled just a little closer to Frieza. She outstretched her hand to him and he met hers in the middle briefly, gently stroking her knuckles.
"Good Night." 'I Love You', she mouthed just in case the other's heard.
"Good Night, Little One." And he quietly mouthed an 'I Love You Too', back. Then they both retracted their hands and went to sleep.
Well, that was a whopper of a chapter to right. But I'm all for being thorough in explaining things. And wanted to explain Goku and Vegeta's story enough to let everyone know how their journey went and how it eventually lead them to being reunited with Lily and Frieza. We are getting quite close to the end now. Only a few chapters left with an action packed showdown! Until Next Time ;)