Disclaimer
I do not own Dragon Ball Z. This is a work of Fanfiction using the Dragon Ball Z world. Dragon Ball Z is owned by Akira Toriyama.
Gine was riding on a boat down the breeze somewhat enjoying the ride. It was rather refreshing after the needless killing of Oolong.
"Hey mom, why did you run off for a little while, after you killed the porker?" Asked Kakarot from the back seat.
Gine frowned, she'd gone into the woods for a little while to sit right after she'd killed Oolong. She hated killing, it was the entire reason she had quit the army. Killing for food was different, she didn't understand how but it didn't feel the same.
"I hate killing, Kakarot." She replied after a moment. "There isn't anything I hate more than killing. I can do it, and I will in self-defense, but I hate doing it. And I haven't had to kill anything except animals for food in years. I just needed some time to come to terms with killing again."
Kakarot nodded, though Gine could tell he didn't understand. He's just like his father. Bardock never did understand my reluctance to kill.
"You were in the army?" Asked Bulma, looking at Gine curiously. "I would've thought you were too gentle to be a soldier."
Gine smiled at her. "Well, I wasn't in an army on this planet."
Bulma looked confused.
"Me and Kakarot are aliens." She explained. "We are Saiyan's and we come from Planet Vegeta. Saiyan's are a warrior race, and most of us are in the army. We are mercenaries, hired to protect planets or take them over, depending on the price. We were recently hired by a lizard named Frieza, to conquer planets for him."
Gine clenched her fists thinking about Frieza. She hated the stupid lizard with a passion, but she wasn't strong enough to face him. And even if she was, if she failed to kill him, he would find Kakarot and kill him. Gine would not risk that.
"So, you two are here to take over Earth?" Asked Bulma, looking frightened.
Gine sighed, she hated telling this story. "No, Planet Vegeta was destroyed by Frieza. We were sent off the planet by my husband before it was destroyed. I've been trying to keep a low profile on this planet."
"Oh." Said Bulma quietly. "I'm sorry."
Gine smiled at her, or attempted to. "Don't worry about it, you didn't know."
They were quite for the rest of the trip down river. Gine looked into the water, she'd always found this planet beautiful. But she loved the water especially. Water had been scarce on Planet Vegeta, which was one of the reasons most Saiyan's drank ale. Especially the low-class's.
They got out of the boat when they reached a dessert. Gine looked around, seeing just dessert for miles in front of them.
"That looks like home." She said.
Kakarot looked at her for a moment, then back at the dessert. "Was our entire home-world like that mom?"
Gine nodded. "Yep, it was a really big dessert. It also had ten times the gravity of this planet, which is one of the reason's I'm considered so strong on this world, while on Planet Vegeta I was one of the weaker Saiyan's on the planet."
"You were considered weak?" Asked Bulma incredulously.
"Yeah, I had a power-level of roughly 2,000 when I was in the army. But after I retired it dropped to around 1,500. Which I guess is pretty high for this planet, considering Gohan was one of the strongest warriors this world has to offer but I'm way stronger than he is."
"Since you lived in a dessert, how do you purpose we get across then?" Asked Bulma.
"Well." Said Gine thoughtfully. "If it was just me and Kakarot, since we're running, I'd say it would take us around six hours from looking at you're map. But with your machine's being so slow and us having to stop for water for you, I'd say around a day. If it was just me I could make it in an hour, flying."
"So me and Bulma are just slowing you down? That just means I need to get stronger." Said Kakarot irritably. Gine rolled her eyes, only the son of Bardock could take an assessment like that and turn it into a power scale.
"Actually Kakarot." She said turning to her son. "That would be a difference in speed, not strength. And you're built bigger than I am, which gives me a lighter weight, which gives me a slight advantage when it comes to my speed. I may have been pretty weak in the army, but I was one of the fastest." Bardock always said I needed to be so fast, so I could run from the stronger opponents. She thought smiling.
"Let's start." Said Gine. "It'll take us even longer if we stand here talking."
Bulma and Kakarot nodded, and they started running, or in Bulma's case driving through the dessert. I wonder if there's a way we could get Bulma's vehicle to go faster. If she has a way to tie the thing to me I can drag it, and those wheels will allow it to follow me without damaging the vehicle itself.
Gine stopped abruptly, causing Kakarot to skid to a halt, and Bulma to slam on the brakes.
"Mom, what are we stopping for?" Asked Kakarot.
"I have an idea that can allow Bulma's vehicle to move faster so it doesn't take all day for us to get across the dessert." She explained.
"How?" Asked Bulma.
Gine opened the trunk, and found a chain, which she attached to the front of the car. She then wrapped the chain around her shoulders, creating a harness.
"I'll pull it. It's not to heavy, so I should be able to pull it without losing to much speed."
Bulma nodded, deciding to take the Saiyan woman's word for it. Gine and Kakarot started to run at as fast a pace as Kakarot could keep. They were moving much faster now.
They kept this up for a few hours, until some miniature blasts came and hit the ground in front of Gine, causing her to halt. She looked around trying to locate the source of the blasts, but she couldn't find anything with a high enough power-level to shoot energy blasts.
Then a projectile slammed into the left side of her head, knocking her head to the side. She recovered quickly and whirled in the direction the blast had come from, simultaneously attempting to sense energy in that direction rather than all around them.
She found something with a power-level higher than normal, but not high enough to shoot energy blasts. Well maybe this power can shoot blasts. It's so small the blasts would do about as much as those little things did.
She took off, flying straight toward the power. It was hidden behind some rocks. She hesitated before the rocks trying to decide whether it would be a greater risk to smash through, or to go over them.
"Oh, what the heck." She muttered, then she proceeded to smash the rocks to pieces with a single blow.
What she found behind the rock's surprised her. There was a man in a green and orange kung-fu uniform, with long wild black hair, and a little blue floating cat. The man was holding something that Gine had come to recognize as a gun.
"What are you two doing here?" She asked, frowning. She had no idea how to tell if he was the one who'd shot at her, and she'd hate to fight the wrong person.
"We-we." The man looked at his gun and laughed nervously.
Humans are so weird sometimes.
"Well can you come with me and bring you're projectile launcher, I need to check something."
The man nodded, then looked around uncertainly. "Um, it'll take us a little bit to get down miss..."
Gine looked down then nodded. I keep forgetting that humans don't learn how to fly as easily as we do. "My names Gine, and just hold on to me and I'll fly you over to where we're going."
"H-Hold on to you?" Asked the man, sounding scared. Gine raised an eyebrow. Am I that scary looking.
"Yeah, is that a problem?" She asked.
"N-No, it's just a little high off the ground." He replied, though Gine thought he was lying. Whatever, If he doesn't want to tell me that's his own business, I don't want to pry.
Gine pulled one of his arms over her shoulder, and flew toward Bulma, going slowly so he wouldn't fall off. For someone that's scared of heights he's got a really loose grip.
She landed in front of the car, and the man backed off hurriedly. Gine turned to face him.
"I never got your name."
"Yamcha." He replied, still sounding nervous.
Gine just shrugged. I wonder if he's scared because he's never seen someone fly before.
"Bulma, I found someone with a projectile launcher, and I need you to come make sure that it's the same one that was fired at me." Said Gine, looking into the car.
Bulma opened the door, stepped out, and walked over to them. She looked at Yamcha and stopped gazing into his face. Yamcha looked at her with a moonstruck expression on his face. Is this how human's court each other? This is really weird. How does staring at each other help someone express how they feel?
Gine was broken out of her musings by Kakarot's approach. He came sprinting down the road, and he stopped a few steps away from her.
"Is this the one that shot you mom?" He demanded, glaring at Yamcha.
"I'm not sure yet." She told him. "If those two can ever stop gazing at each other as if they want to mate then maybe we can find out." She raised her voice slightly so Bulma could hear that last bit.
Bulma broke the gaze and glared at Gine, blushing. "Yeah, let me see that gun." She took it from Yamcha's hands and looked over it for a moment before looking at Gine.
"I don't know much about guns." She said. "But I think this is the one that was fired at us."
Gine glared at Yamcha, and put her fists on her hips. "It's fine if you want to fight me, but if you're going to fight someone you do it with honor. You don't sneak up on them and fire weapons at them when they aren't looking. That's the cowards way to fight, and I don't think you want to be a coward." She scolded.
Kakarot sighed, seeing his mother go into lecturing mode. She'd done it rather often with him, usually when he did something fun like jumping off cliffs. It's not like a little fall would really hurt him, and it was really annoying when she lectured him.
"Mom, I think he gets it." He said, interrupting her mid-sentence. "I'm sure he'll never do something like that again." As he said the he gave Yamcha a look that said. 'You'd better agree'
"Y-Yeah." He stammered. "Next time I'll fight them with honor."
Gine nodded sharply, seeing that she'd gotten her point across.
"You may look really young to be a mother, Gine." Said Bulma. "But you can lecture like one."
"Huh?" Was Gine's reply. What does she mean? Most Saiyan women don't really raise their children at all. Much less lecture them.
Bulma sighed. "Anyway, to make up for shooting at us, you will travel with us and help collect the remaining Dragon Balls."
"W-What?!" Yamcha sounded horrified at the idea.
"Yeah, you owe us something. I mean you were planning to kill us and take our stuff, right? So you should do something to make up for it. And you can spend more time around yours truly." Replied Bulma.
Yamcha couldn't find anything to say, so he simply nodded.
"Alright." Said Gine. "You two get in the car and we'll keep going." By the time Gine got the chain harnesses around her Bulma and Yamcha were in the car.
"You ready Kakarot?" She asked turning to her son. He simply nodded. "Then lets get going, if we can go at top speed we should make it to Fire Mountain in just a few hours."
They started off going straight across the dessert, making really good time. The weight of the car was nothing to Gine, and Kakarot was able to keep the hard pace his mother was setting. They were able to cross the dessert and get in sight of Fire Mountain in four hours, without stopping.
Gine stopped running when she saw the mountain looming up in front of her. "Wow." Was all she could think to say.
The mountain was quite literally on fire. She couldn't even see the mountain itself, all she could see except for fire was the outline of a castle shrouded in flames.
"Mom, I think the mountains on fire." Said Kakarot, pointing out the obvious.
"Ya think?" Replied Gine absentmindedly. How are we supposed to get a Dragon Ball from that?
"Bulma!" Called Gine. "You should come see this!"
Bulma came out of the car and walked over to Gine. "What is it?"
Gine simply pointed in the direction of the mountain. "Is that a problem for you?" Asked Bulma after a moment.
Gine frowned thoughtfully. "Well I could put out the fire, but the hard part would be putting it out without destroying the mountain. I think I may be able to do it, though. I've always been pretty good at controlling my energy."
"Right then." Said Bulma. "We'll go on as planned." Then she got back into the car.
"Mom do you really think you can do that?" Asked Kakarot as Gine put her harness back on.
"Well, I'm not entirely sure." She admitted. "If you're father taught me one thing, though. It's that if you put in enough hard work you can do anything. He even surpassed most of the elites through hard work, something a low-class shouldn't be able to do by normal standards. But your father did, and you can do the same."
Kakarot nodded, and was about to reply when foot slammed into him, knocking him backwards. A little girl was standing there, roughly the same age as Kakarot. She was around average height for her age, and was slender, somewhat reminding Gine of herself, albeit with different hair. She had a light skin tone, and her hair was black, spiky on the top and framed her face, while the back was in a ponytail. She was dressed in a sleeveless blue dress with slits all the way up to her thighs to allow for greater range of movement, a pair of brown leggings, black boots, and she had a set of black finger-less gloves. The thing that stunned Gine the most was the girls brown tail.
"No one steals our treasure!" She shouted as she glared at Kakarot, completely ignoring Gine. I hope Kakarot doesn't hurt her to bad.
Kakarot stood up and glared at the girl. "Alright, I'm going to beat you to a pulp!"
"You'll never take our treasure!" Shouted the girl as she sprang at Kakarot.
Kakarot met her halfway and the two started to fight. Gine was impressed by the aptitude the girl was showing. Even though Kakarot was clearly the stronger of the two, she was able to keep up using her speed and flexibility.
The two appeared evenly matched, though it was clear the girl was wearing out quickly. Kakarot's going to win this one.
Gine's opinion changed quickly when Kakarot overextended a punch. The girl took advantage of this mistake and launched into a barrage of punches and kicks that ended with a roundhouse kick, that sent Kakarot flying across the ground leaving a trench.
"It's time to finish this!" Shouted the girl.
Gine's eyes narrowed as the girl formed a pink energy sphere in her right hand. And threw it skyward. That looks exactly like Fasha's move.
"Hunting Arrow!" The girl shouted as she kicked the energy ball toward Kakarot.
Gine moved faster than the speed of light, and deflected the energy ball, sending it flying into a nearby mountain, where it exploded.
The girl dropped to the ground and was about to rush at Gine when a sharp voice from the side stopped her.
"Celera! What did I tell you about attacking random strangers?" Gine turned recognizing the sound of the voice. It can't be…
"Hey Gine, long time no see." Said Fasha.
Does anybody want power levels? If a few people do then I'll put them in through the Frieza Arc, but I won't go any further than that.
Reviews are always appreciated. Thanks for reading.