A Place in Time
Chapter Two: Mishaps of the Time-Traveling Kind
By: Caelestis Dulcis
"This place is such a mess…It looks like a tornado has been through here…"
Trunks was only half-listening to his wife's mumbles about the state of his mother's lab. For hours, she had been going through the scattered blueprints and paperwork that littered the consoles and floor. Musume, Gohan, and Vegeta had gotten bored only about fifteen minutes into Pan's search and had decided to see what they could find in the rest of the East Wing of Capsule Corp while they stayed in the North. There were sure to be remnants of his childhood there and thus they had gone on a scavenger hunt for any sort of entertainment or toys they could find.
He however, for the past two hours, had been completely still. He leaned back in a desk chair, his cerulean eyes scanning the many broken pictures hanging on the walls. Three stuck out in his mind in particular; those were the ones that he had been concentrating on.
The first was over the computer, and the one that Bulma had kept closest to her at all times. It was a picture of a very young her and Vegeta, taken in a human photo studio. She had her arms around Vegeta, who seemed to be about ready to shoot a ki blast off at the camera, dared it do anything suspicious. That was one of the only pictures that there was of his father and that it why she had treasured it so much while she was alive.
The second was one of her lying in bed with a lavender-haired infant settled snugly in her arms, sleeping. That was also a very important picture to her; the picture of the newborn Trunks. However, it was difficult to bring himself to look at the photograph, for it brought a grim feeling to his stomach.
Vegeta wasn't in it. He had died a month before it was taken.
He promised himself before he came that he wouldn't cry, and that was the cause for the sudden shift in his eyes to the last picture of interest. If he had allowed his thoughts to settle on his deceased father, it would do him no good, and so he would have to take his mind off away from that fooling photo. This next one though… This one was a good picture. This one he liked.
This certain picture was one that he himself held close to his heart. Standing in front of the Capsule Corp. building was a group of people—Gohan, Goku, Vegeta, Bulma, Tien, Yamcha, Piccolo, Chaotzu, ChiChi, Krillin, and himself—smiling happily (well, most were) and waving at the camera. When he came back to his own timeline, he had given this picture to his mother. She had cried. When he asked her why she was crying, she simply drew a circle with her finger around her past self, Vegeta, and a baby that was in-between the two.
He realized, she wasn't crying out of sadness. But the overwhelming satisfaction that she felt when she realized that she had somehow helped to prevent the hell that they lived in for a future generation—and that she and her son had helped give his past self a father—was enough to make her break down. Deciding that he had been useless for too long, Trunks arose from his seat and carefully lifted the picture from the wall.
Startled by his sudden decision to move, Pan looked up at him questioningly. "What's that?" she asked him, putting down the stack of blueprints she had been holding.
"This is where we need to go," he replied, taking the photo from the broken frame and handing it to her. "We need to get to this timeline… This is where I went the first time to destroy the first group of androids, and if I come back around the same time frame, nothing much will have changed. It'll just make it easier."
She nodded. "I think you're right. But also… if we go too far into the past, we'll be in even more trouble than we already are because we'll have to deal with—Cell, was it?—as well. If we go too far into the future, we might really mess up the flow of time, not to mention some peoples' lives."
Trunks held out a hand to her, and helped her off of the floor. They both contemplated the time machine in the middle of the room. It was a second model that Bulma had been working on prior to her death. It had five seats, the interior the size of a small car, and the controls were much more advanced than the ones that were in the old model that he had used. There wasn't really much work to be done on it itself; their real challenge lay in learning how to use it and replacing any parts that may have become rusty from lack of use.
It sure would be nice if Mom could just pop out of thin air right about now and explain this… he thought wistfully.
"Anata, why don't we start by telling me what you remember of the old version of the time machine? Or better yet, do you know where it's kept? I think it would help us out a lot if we could see it and compare the two," Pan asked him.
"Sure, she always kept it in one of these capsules…" he went over to the biggest drawer in her desk and trailed off as he searched through the plethora of storage devices she used. "Here," he finally concluded, producing a purple and white capsule that read TMV1.5.2BBC.
"Are you sure that's the one?" she inquired as she read over the label. "Your mother's labeling system is sorta odd…"
"It just stands for 'Time Machine, Version 1.5.2, Bulma Breifs, Creator'. That's how she labeled everything, so that she could always find which projects were hers and which ones were Grandpa's."
"I see…" she said, nodding. "Well then, here goes…"
Pan clicked the button on the device and threw the capsule to the floor, where it disappeared in a cloud of grey smoke and re-emerged as a very old, vine-covered time machine.
"Didn't you guys clean this thing after you were done with it, honey?" Pan asked in distaste, throwing a few vines and leaves from the entrance in an attempt to get in. He smirked.
"Nope, not really. We didn't think we'd need it again, and it was broken beyond repair anyway. I think the only thing that still might work is the radio," he answered. "Mom just kept it as a keepsake. She was really proud of this thing."
"I'll bet…" the woman said in awe, sitting down in the one seat and surveying the control panel. "This is a real piece of craftsmanship; I can't believe she got a time machine to work…"
"Yeah, well it wasn't exactly easy."
"I can imagine. Look at the care she must have put into it! It's just…amazing…." Like a little kid with a new toy, Pan began turning a few knobs and toying with the buttons. Trunks allowed her to play around for a few moments before he called her out—and it was quite a fight—of the machine so that they could continue with their 'project'.
"Alright, we've got the blueprints and the machines," he summed up. "So do you think you can--"
Abruptly, his words were cut off by a large booming sound. Pan collapsed backwards into Trunks as the house shook violently. He caught her by her shoulders and steadied the shaken Saiya-jin. They both looked around in a mix of fear and curiosity at the walls and the ceiling as plaster fell down like dust onto their heads. Kaeida stirred and let out a cry from her carrier and her mother went over to get her to calm her down.
"What the hell was that?" Trunks asked, worry evident in his voice.
"I don't know…" she replied. Just then, another, louder boom sounded, causing the house to quake even more dangerously. A thought seemed to cross her mind just then, as she fought to keep her balance, and a look of panic stuck her features. "Trunks… The kids are still over in the East Wing… They might be hurt!"
"Shit," he cursed loudly, and ran out of the basement lab, with Pan and Kaeida close behind him. Pushing up his ki, he ran faster than he had ever run in his life, hoping all the while that nothing had happened. It's the androids…It's those fucking androids…If they even laid a finger on any of my kids, I'll fucking massacre them.
From the ki signatures floating around Capsule Corp., Pan could also tell who was behind the attacks, but unlike Trunks, who she could see was furious beyond anything she had ever witnessed, she was more frightened than anything. She didn't know what she would do if she lost Musume, Gohan, or Vegeta. The thought was unfathomable.
Skidding to a stop at the beginning of the hallway where they said they would be, the young parents frantically searched all the rooms up and down. But no sign of the children.
"They're not here, Trunks!" Pan yelled at him, on the verge of a panic attack. Kaeida cried louder in her arms than she ever had. "Where are my children!? Where are they!? Tell me where they are!" She took his shirt in her fist and shook him for lack of not knowing what else to do. There were tears streaming down her face, and even he was hiding tears under his curtain of lavender hair. He hung his head and squeezed his wife tightly, also at a loss. He knew he should be still searching for them, but it was something nagging in the back of his mind.
It was the house. This house, which held so much sadness for him, was what stopped him. It reeked of discouragement, it made him feel helpless. He couldn't bring himself to look for them; it taunted him, chanting to him that hope was lost. That they were gone.
"Gohan, I'm scared…" Musume whispered quietly to her younger—yet older in so many ways—brother. She held onto the cloth of his training uniform as if for dear life. With her other hand, she held Vegeta's, wanting to make sure that all three of them were together at all times.
The hallway was dark. She hated the dark.
Having become bored, the three siblings had decided to explore the North Wing instead, and that was when the explosions had gone off. They had cut off the power in that part of the house and left a gaping hole in the side of the room they were in. They had run for it, and found themselves on the basement level, in the pitch blackness, alone.
Gohan didn't stop walking or even look at his sister. Through empathy—a special trait that he had been born with—he could feel it without her saying anything. "I know," he replied, his voice serious.
Vegeta sighed and felt along the walls with his free hand, trying to get a feeling for the hallway they were in. Suddenly, he stopped, his skin running over something like a frame. "Wait," he told them. "There's a door here. Let's go in." They all turned to what Vegeta was feeling and squinted their eyes to allow them to adjust to the lighting. Sure enough, it wasn't long before they could make out the dark outlining of a doorway. There was a plate on the door, but the kanji was advanced and it couldn't be read by any of the young children.
"Wait, be quiet!" Gohan hushed his brother and sister, suddenly tense, and the three fell completely silent. "Lower your ki signatures," he instructed them as quietly as possible after a few moments. They didn't know why they were doing it, but to see the usually happy and carefree boy of four so solemn, they complied without question.
As soon as they did, they heard what he must have heard long before. It was the sound of footsteps—metal clanking against metal—and they were getting louder by the second.
"Let's go!" Gohan whispered, and nodded to Vegeta. His twin took the handle and turned the knob, but to no avail. The door had was locked tight, probably by a security system. Musume whimpered and glanced at her brothers in pure hopelessness, looking for an idea in either of their eyes.
"We've got to break it down," Vegeta told them solemnly. "We have to get in somewhere before they come down here."
"But they'll know where we are! That'll make so much noise!" the young girl said.
Gohan gave off something caught between a growl and a hiss. "Not as much noise as you're making right now, Musume!" His intense glare caused her to back up a step and bow her head in apology. The boy never meant to be rude to his sister, but he was under the stress that they needed him to figure out a plan.
"Should we try it?" he asked, turning to Vegeta, who nodded in return.
"Let's hurry on with it, then…"
With hesitation attempting to be hidden, both Gohan and Vegeta rammed the door with their sides, causing it to fly off its hinges and for an extremely loud clanking noise to resound throughout the hallways. After that sound had rung itself out in their eardrums, they could once again hear that other metallic sound, that ominous metal-against-metal, this time progressing faster.
Musume was the first one in the room, her shaking legs making her for some reason scuttle even faster than she normally would have. The brothers rushed in after her and quickly gathered up the mangled door and pushed it up back against the frame. Vegeta used a white-hot ki blast of some sort—"Where did he learn that?" Musume whispered to her other brother—to weld the frame to the door again, assuring that it would be kept there for at least a short time.
When he finished his work, he found a light switch on the wall and flipped it on and the three children got a good look of their surroundings for the first time.
The first thing they saw was a huge and complex-looking machine sitting in the middle of the room. Scattered around on the floor, only semi-sorted, were papers and blueprints of all sorts. There were a bunch of capsules scattered along the desk, mixed in with tools and assorted other interesting objects.
"I think we're in Grandma Bulma's lab, guys," Vegeta observed, but if the others had heard him, they didn't say anything.
Gohan was preoccupied being the first to admire the machine. He put a small hand up to it and brushed it against the metal, but jumped back when the glass roof flew open at his touch.
"What is this thing?" he asked no one in particular as he regained his wits. "Is this the machine that Mama and Daddy were working on?"
Musume frowned at it and looked at the dirty machine in distaste. "Well, for all the talk they did about how good it was, it sure looks beaten down to me."
"Yeah, I guess so… Maybe it isn't aft-," Gohan stopped mid-sentence as all of the kids' sensitive Saiya-jin hearing picked up on the footsteps, which were now just outside the doorway. In the midst of surveying the lab, they had momentarily forgotten just why they were there.
Musume whimpered for the umpteenth time that day, and Gohan's onyx eyes got a scarily serious look to them. Vegeta stayed indifferent and simply suggested,
"So, I'm thinking that hiding might be a good idea right now," to the others.
Musume nodded wildly and looked around for a place to hide herself. The footsteps had now stopped, and the android was banging on the door, attempting to knock it down with minimal effort. However, it was taking him longer. Vegeta felt proud that the energy he had embedded in the metal was strong enough to hold up this long.
Gohan and his sister searched through cabinets and behind objects, but all of the room was layered in clutter and there was no room for them. Finally, a light bulb went off in the young boy's head and, without a word, he yanked his siblings by the arms into the open door of the time machine.
Being a one-seater, it was rather cramped quarters, but none of them spoke a word about it. Quickly glancing at the control panel, he began to push buttons, more and more as the banging grew louder, trying to find which one would close the capsule's door.
Then, just as they heard—and felt, for that matter—the door fly back off the wall, Gohan brought his hand down on a large, green button, and something happened… The door closed and the whole machine was seemingly engulfed in a white light. With a great and unexpected jerk, all three were immediately thrown back against the hard seat, knocking them unconscious on contact.
"Woman!" the voice of none other than the Prince of Saiya-jins shook the Breifs' household. The stature-deprived man stood at the top of the stairs to the basement, knowing that his mate was in her lab as usual.
"What do you want!?" Bulma yelled back, annoyed. He smirked at her tone. She was the only one that had ever had the nerve to talk back to him like she did; that was one of the things that he liked about the 'weak female human'. "I'm busy, Vegeta, can't you tell!?"
"Feh, put your things aside, woman! I must know where the brat has gone!"
With his acute audio senses, he could hear her slam her tools onto her desk in frustration over him and he almost snickered. He always got his way…well, almost always. Soon enough, he could see her as she stomped up the stairs, huffy and glaring.
"He is outside, Vegeta, if you would just care enough to look!" she said, exasperated, stopping right before him. "You're out there half of the time anyways; you'd think you'd notice."
"Don't accuse me, wench; I already searched for him outside!" He called her by the rude term, knowing that it ticked her off. "He's not out there."
She gave him a cold stare for a long time while she thought, then a light bulb clicked on in her head. "Oh, that's right…" she said. "He called me an hour ago and told me he was at the mall with his friends. I must have forgotten in the midst of those repairs I had to do on your Gravity Room."
Once again, she glared accusingly at him and for a moment she thought she saw his mouth twitch up into a smirk at her expression. However, if it was a smirk, it was very short, as it didn't take long for her words to sink in.
"Wait, which friends is the brat with?" he asked slowly.
"Goten, Bra, Pan… I think they said they were going to pick up Marron and Uub too…"
"You mean he's with Kakkarot's third-class spawn!?" he exploded. Unlike most people would do in this situation, Bulma didn't even wince at his loud voice. She was used to it. "And my daughter; she's with them too!? Their affiliation with them gives our family a bad name!"
"Oh, stop it, Vegeta," the blue-haired woman replied with a roll of her eyes. "Bra and Panny are best friends and so are Trunks and Goten; you know that. Calm down before you disturb the whole neighborhood…again."
He growled and spun around, ready to stalk away, when she stopped him with her voice,
"Vegeta Briefs, don't you dare think of going and disturbing them on their day out! Trunks needs the time off work to relax with his friends and you know how much Bra loves shopping." --And being with Goten, for that matter, she thought with a little smile—"Let your kids be before they begin to think you don't want them having any fun."
"I don't want them having any fun!" he said in defiance. "At least that brat; I want him training! He's been slacking off his skill-building since you saved him the trouble with that stupid executive job! Saiya-jins aren't meant to live sorting papers, they're meant to fight all their lives!"
"Well, for your information, I need someone to take over the company when I retire and as Bra is too young and is still in high school, I've got no choice but to hand the CEO job over to our son," she said, crossing her arms. "Or would you rather us become poor and live out on the streets? Would that be a more fitting lifestyle for you, your Highness?"
"Feh," he scoffed, gaining a smirk from Bulma. They both knew that he had lost the fight, no matter how he tried to hide it.
"That's what I thought," she said smugly, and without another word to him, the woman walked back downstairs and into her lab.
He turned around and was about to leave to go into the kitchen, when he heard a shocked scream emanate from the direction that his mate had walked in…
"So, where do you suggest we go next, guys?" Bra asked, looking around at her friends. She walked close by Marron and Uub, who were holding hands with the girl's free hand. Bra and the blonde were the only ones that actually had bags with them, as they were the shop-a-holics of the bunch. Uub had only agreed to come along because Marron was there and it was a chance to hang out with his friends. Trunks and Goten stood slightly behind the three in front, talking and occasionally smiling smoothly at a few of the women who swooned over them as they walked by. Pan herself was right beside Trunks, but she wasn't in his conversation with her Uncle. She was off in her own world, so to speak.
"—Panny?"
The lavender-haired man's voice reached out to her and she shook herself out of her trance-like stare. "What?" she inquired. "I'm sorry, I was out in space."
"He just asked if you were planning to do anything special for your birthday," Goten informed her. "Only a week away, so we figured you must have had some sort of idea about what you were gonna do."
"Of course I am!" she exclaimed. "It's my sweet sixteen; you think me—or Mama and Grandma, for that matter—are going to let that go uncelebrated?"
Goten laughed and looked down at his niece, whom he had to admit was coming close to being about shoulder level with Trunks and himself now. "Yeah, I suppose that Mom came to you with plans months ago, huh?" he asked, knowing how much ChiChi pampered her only grandchild.
Pan nodded. "Of course. In typical Grandma ChiChi fashion, we're going to have a party at our house, with lots of homemade food, friends, and fun." She grinned; that was usually the gist of a party at the Son household.
"Who all is invited?" Trunks asked.
"Well, of course, the usual gang of people are coming. Then there are a few friends of Bra's and mine from school, but only about five or so of them. I hope they won't be too scared of the sort of people they see there."
The guys nodded, knowing exactly what she meant.
"Heh, I'm looking forward to seeing your friends' reactions to Dende and Mr. Popo. I mean, they aren't exactly the most normal-looking people." The lavender-haired man added, "I remember when a couple of Bra's friends came over one day and met my dad's temper. He was angry because he broke his Gravity Room again and stormed into the house, right through her and her group, yelling for Mom and cursing the whole time. Bra-chan said that he broke a couple vases and when he kicked the kitchen chair, it flew into the wall and shattered."
He retold this whole story with laughter. "Apparently, they were so shocked that they ran away out of the house and refuse to come back while he's at home."
Pan grinned. As much as she was over at CC, she was used to Vegeta and his common temper tantrums—she was usually the one he made spar with him to get rid of the anger anyway—and it wasn't all that weird for her to see a few things demolished on a normal day over there. But then again, she was a Saiya-jin, even if only demi so. For a human—not counting people like her mom, grandmother, and Bulma, who had lived with it for a long time—it was probably pretty shocking to see such a strong man and frightening to see him lose his cool.
"Well, I hope they recover soon," Goten commented as they got into the car and prepared to go back home. "I would hate to see Bra lose all her friends because you guys have an extra-temperamental dad like Vegeta."
Bra slid into the seat by Pan and heard what Goten had said. "You're lucky, Panny; your dad acts like a normal person. I love Daddy to pieces, but I'm going to have to have a talk with him if doesn't stop scaring everyone away from us."
She pouted and Trunks had to chortle at his sister. He knew all too well, if Bra wished it to be, Vegeta made it that way. It was different with him because he was the boy—his life had always been stricter—but she was his darling daughter and he would always listen to her. He would do anything for her. He would do anything for Trunks too…just not in the same sense.
The group took off from the shopping mall's parking lot as the sun set slowly behind the horizon, none of them in a hurry to get home really. They were just enjoying each others' company, telling stories and anecdotes, catching up like they hadn't done in a while.
About halfway to Capsule Corp., Bra's cell phone went off loudly, interrupting the friends' conversations. Silencing it, she pressed the button to receive the call and held it up to her ear.
"Moshi moshi; Bra Briefs speaking," she said.
"Bra, darling," Bulma's voice came over the line loudly enough for the people sitting near her to hear, "Where are you and your brother?"
"We're close to home; we just got out of the mall. Why?"
"Well, please hurry home. There's something here that I need you two to see."
Bra's brow creased at the anxiousness in her mother's voice. "Alright Mama, we'll be there soon."
She flipped the phone off and leaned from the backseat so that she was in between Trunks and Goten's heads. "Bro, step on it. We need to get home. Mom wants us there, now."
"Why?" Trunks asked, confused.
"I don't know. She didn't give me any details," she replied, shrugging.
"Alright…" He turned to his companions. "You guys don't mind flying home, do you? Apparently we're having some sort of 'family emergency' or something."
"No prob," Goten replied as Trunks stopped the car and they all got out. "It was nice to go out with you again."
"Yeah, tell Bulma we said hi!" Pan exclaimed as she and her uncle took off in the direction of the rural areas outside of the city.
Marron and Uub also waved their goodbyes in turn and he picked up the blonde gently and took off, flying back in the direction of her house before he went home himself.
Still rather perplexed, but now anxious as well, Bra slipped back into the car and she and Trunks took off at top speed for home…
A/N: Eh…nothing to say …heh. ; Well, actually, I do have something: if you read it, review it! Pretty please!?
Reviewer Responses:
Miki23: Yes, exactly what I was thinking. Hee
Fan-Fic-Addiction: Yes, they have four children, not counting the deceased Gaila. Some background: they only meant to have two kids in the first place. They had Musume, and tried for a second one, which is when they ended up with twins Gohan and Vegeta. Then her second set of twins was purely by accident! I can imagine Trunks' face when he found out. XD
And yes, they pretty much tell each other everything. There are reasons why they trust each other so well, which I'll get into in later chapters.
Beau Vampa: Thanks for the review! Keep readin'.