Warning: Dragon Ball is the property of Akira Toriyama. I'm just an amateur who writes this Fan-fic in my own free time. This is not professional or paid work but the work of a fan-made available to other fans.
The role of the Time Patrol is to protect history and prevent time manipulation and changes in chronology. Follow the adventures of the new TP member... Gine, Son Goku's mother.
Time Hiatus
When one is a child and one raises one's eyes to the night sky, when one discovers the stars and the moon, one is amazed by the beauties and mysteries of the universe.
Unfortunately, when one grows up, this magic fades away, and the beauties of the universe become ordinary. One forgets how beautiful the night is. One focuses only on his daily life, the struggles, and the difficulties of life. Worries engulf you in the present, you forget to look around, at what is really important.
And then one day you realize that tomorrow could be the last day of your life. And it's only then that you realize that this very ordinary, mundane night is really one of the important things. And that - on the contrary- your ambitions, your small problems were futile.
The rocky desert was an abandoned country where the Saiyans almost never ventured. Yet, the Demoiselles Coifées (1) formed picturesque alignments. The sky was clear of clouds, offering to the gaze the velvet carpet stitched with stars of the cosmos, and this in all directions.
One of the two Saiyans flying in the night did not care about the beauty of the heavens, the melody of the wind in the rocky maze, or the freshness of the air. He was carrying a space pod where a child cried.
The male Saiyan was muscular and very tall, with loose hair with multiple spikes. On his left cheek, he had an X-shaped scar. He was dressed in the classic Saiyan weave in extensible and shockproof rubber. His was beige with large rectangular epaulets. The arms were not protected, but he had wrist guards covering the entire forearm.
Behind him flew a very pretty young Saiyan, with huge eyes - like perpetually wide open- that gave the impression that she was constantly astonished. Her hair was as messy as her husband's, but without spikes, and down to her shoulders. She was wearing armor without shoulder straps, leaving her arms bare. Strangely, this pink and green armor was flaring from the waist to form a sort of skirt.
Unlike her husband, who was focused on the mission he had set for himself, the Saiyan woman turned her head to look around her with an unusually gloomy expression... Usually playful, she had at this moment only gloomy and anxious thoughts.
Bardock, the Saiyan warrior, turned his head slightly to watch the space Pod where the child continued to cry.
"Calm down, Kakarrot."
Gine looked at her husband.
"I don't understand you're not the type to worry about your kids."
Despite the tragic situation, Bardock smiled.
"I must be sick, a disease called 'Gine's softy' has contaminated me," he ironically said. But he quickly resumed his seriousness. "Why did Frieza bring all the together on planet Vegeta? He was up to something and this is probably not good for the Saiyans. Even though the Saiyans have always been loyal to the Emperor, we have accepted the toughest missions and had many losses in his service, Dodoria, and Zarbon only call us 'monkeys' and they don't hesitate to mock us in front of their master They wouldn't treat us like that if Frieza did not approve."
Bardock landed on the ground and laid the space pod between two rocks with jagged shapes. As Gine joined him, he turned towards her.
"In fact, I feel that death is upon us... I don't know how to explain it, it's a gut feeling and a warrior learns to trust this kind of impression."
A drop of sweat slipped over Gine's head. She nodded before looking up. But it was a simple reflex... because Frieza's ship was above the capital, in the other hemisphere. It was precisely to avoid any risk of detection that the two Saiyans had gone so far into the desert.
"We should all run away... at least the three of us and warn Raditz!"
"No," replied Bardock. "Frieza's men have Scouters. They will spot us and kill us. But Kakarrot can escape if he's alone. His fighting strength is so weak that they won't spot him."
Gine laid her hands on the window of the space pod. Inside, little Kakarrot looked at his parents with tears in his eyes, but he had stopped crying. The child looked like a small-scale model of his father with the same face and especially the same hair, but he had inherited his mother's eyes... which made him look a bit dazed.
Bardock rejoined his wife, passing an arm around her shoulders before placing his hand on the window.
"I programmed the space pod computer. Our little Kakarrot's destination is planet Earth... at the limit of the space explored by Frieza's patrols. The inhabitants are humanoid, but gravity is ten times weaker than on Vegeta and their fighting power is pitiful, nothing on this planet can threaten a Saiyan... even a three-year-old one. I sent a message to Raditz. One day, even if the worst happens, the two brothers will be reunited."
He hugged his wife, for a Saiyan it was a very rare gesture of tenderness.
Gine nodded, fighting the sobs. She turned to her little one.
"If your father is wrong, we'll go after you as fast as we can."
"You have to stay alive," added Bardock.
Crying, Gine concludes with a few awkward words:
"Take care..."
The pod wrapped itself in light and rose to an altitude of five meters in a melodious whisper. Suddenly, it left like a meteor. Rushing into the sky and leaving an ionized trajectory behind it, then disappearing in the distance.
Gine and her husband remained motionless for a few moments. Then the young Saiyan woman looked at Bardock.
"And... and now?"
The warrior turned around without looking at his wife, eyes always facing the sky... but this time towards Frieza's ship position.
"I'm going to ask Frieza for an audience." He used the word 'audience' sarcastically.
"But... the emperor will never agree to meet with a mere Saiyan's lower-rank team leader."
Bardock clenched his fists furiously.
"He will receive me. I guarantee you that I will reach him... "
Then he looked down at his wife's weeping face.
"Gine, whatever happens, we'll meet again soon. In this world or... in the other."
Without listening to any possible response from the young woman, he took off, almost instantly crossing the sound wall.
"Frieza!"
Surrounded by white light, Bardock rushed towards the Emperor of the Galaxy's ship. Behind him, the planet Vegeta was shrinking. On the contrary, the strange flying saucer grew bigger. The warrior could now recognize the huge half-globe-shaped porthole so characteristic.
While the Saiyan warrior had made half the way to the saucer, multiple gates opened all around the ship, and hordes of soldiers left. They belonged to a dozen alien races. Some had laser weapons; others could handle ki and didn't need it. But all wore armor of a design similar to that of Bardock himself. Their left ear was hidden by a small electronic device that displayed data on a screen on their left eye, a Scouter.
It was the Frieza Force, slaves' soldiers idolizing the galactic tyrant, but also fearing him, mere disposable tools.
A dozen golden rays flew straight at Bardock. But the Saiyan warrior had instantly changed heading while accelerating and the shots got lost in the void. The instant after his fist struck an alien in the belly. The soldier cried out with pain and was catapulted away.
"Frieza" repeated Bardock.
What happened next deserved to be among the annals of the most desperate battles. The Saiyan warrior was alone, he faced hundreds of men, and yet... yet nothing seemed to stop him.
The soldiers of the Frieza Force attacked him in small groups. He dodged the shots with ease, rarely taking blows. His responses were quick, precise, and incredibly powerful. In one fell swoop he killed or seriously injured multiple opponents, letting the bodies fall into the gravity shaft of planet Vegeta, without interrupting its advance toward the flying saucer.
When a larger group came upon him, he seemed overwhelmed for an instant. The slaves clung around him, grabbing his arms and legs to try to immobilize him but... in his hand, a ball of ki began to radiate an intense white-blue light and...
The explosion was so violent that about twenty soldiers were disintegrated and just as many were thrown away.
Like a cannonball, Bardock came out of the fireball, haloed with yellow light, accelerating again.
"Frieza show up!"
One of the soldiers he had overtaken, however, was even faster than him and was chasing after the Saiyan. However, while he was about to catch up to Bardock, a dark X haloed with an ominous violet aura was drawn before the soldier. There was a kind of explosion and... The alien disappeared into a kind of dark tear that immediately closed.
Simultaneously a voice was heard.
"Watch out!"
Bardock turned around.
A man had just appeared. He had purple skin and pointed ears. His white hair was capped in a ponytail and he had sunglass with yellow glasses. He was wearing a black T-shirt marked 'IXI' on the sleeves and yellow pants. The man held a black sword surrounded by a purple aura.
"And you who are you," asked Bardock.
"I'm an ally. I came to help you defeat Frieza"
"If that's all you can do, color me NOT impressed."
The purple skin man began to laugh.
"Come on, come on, that's not how you welcome an ally."
He jumped forward and very quickly attacked two of Frieza's slaves. The targets of his attacks disappeared in a time gap.
Bardock frowned. His instinct cried out that this... 'ally' was more a problem than a solution.
"Why are you helping me?"
"Well Frieza is a bad guy and he wants to destroy your planet. Isn't that a good reason to help you?"
Yet Bardock hesitated.
"That's it? It's not your planet. It's not your people. You have no reason to help me. Are you stupid?"
"I always get involved in things that are none of my business. Isn't that exciting? A great legendary fight. Protagonists fighting to the death. And such an imbalance between the poor Bardock (the sole defender of planet Vegeta) and the overpowering galactic evil emperor Frieza (with all his army). And suddenly... Ding! Ding! ...the nice Fu appears, and this is an opportunity to change the course of events. Isn't that exciting?"
Frieza's soldiers, who were witnessing the strange discussion with incomprehension, suddenly turned around. The upper door of the ship was opening. Respectfully, the aliens moved away. Their movement brought Bardock's attention to the flying saucer.
Sitting in his hoverthrone, surrounded by Zarbon (a handsome teal-blue humanoid) and Dodoria (a fat humanoid with a spiky head), his two lieutenants, Frieza had just made his appearance.
"Frieza! Why are you attacking us? We Saiyans have always obeyed your orders! You never had more devoted servants!"
And the cold demon turned to the Saiyan.
"I find this Super Saiyan story suspicious."
Beside the tyrant, his lieutenants began to laugh loudly.
"Don't you understand, monkey?"
"That was Frieza-sama's plan all along."
Bardock took a few seconds to understand.
"What?! You... you used us?!"
Zarbon smiled with a gaze of unflappable superiority.
"Yes, you and the other filthy monkeys died in the service of Frieza-sama and now the emperor of the galaxy no longer needs you. So you're going to disappear. It's about time, Saiyans are an insult to good taste."
Fu watched the scene smiling, his fingers forming a frame, like a filmmaker imagining the impression the scene would make on a TV screen. He seemed as happy as a kid meeting the heroes of his childhood.
But Bardock exploded with anger.
"If you think I'm going to let you do as you wish you're wrong. Frieza, I'm going to destroy you and change the future! I'll blow you away!"
In his hand appeared a ball of blue-white ki which began to grow.
"THIS ENDS NOW!"
The Saiyan violently threw the ki ball which turned into a powerful comet heading straight toward the tyrant.
Frieza's reaction was simply to lift a finger. A small ball of red light appeared before suddenly growing and metamorphosing into a gigantic supernova that the tyrant launched... with a simple movement of the index finger.
The comet hit the gigantic ball of fire and disappeared creating a simple swirl like a rock thrown into a lake. Frightened, Frieza's soldiers saw the fireball fall towards Vegeta accelerating... a dozen of them disappeared immediately, swallowed by the sphere of destruction. The others did not even try to flee, paralyzed by fear.
"What?!"
Bardock's face reflected disbelief but also terror. His mind was in disarray. What could he do to stop such a gigantic attack? Despair gripped his heart.
Fortunately, Fu knew of course what was going to happen... since he came from the future. He leaped before the Saiyan and, with two movements of his sword, he created an X of darkness in front of the fireball. The space-time rift swallowed Frieza's attack, which... disappeared from this plane of existence.
Fu had just changed the course of history, saving the planet Vegeta.
There was a moment of silence.
Frieza's soldiers, his lieutenants, Bardock, and even the tyrant himself, all watched Fu. The latter smiled, visibly happy with all this attention.
"You know, it's nothing to me. I do it every day!"
Frieza looked at Fu with a frustrated almost furious expression.
"You ruined my beautiful fireworks display."
"Oh, I plan on ruining a lot more."
He turned to Bardock hanging a black crystal.
"Take this crystal, my friend, and it will give you the strength to fight the tyrant."
"No!"
All turned to the origin of this cry to discover that a new character had just appeared on the battlefield between Fu and Frieza. He was a handsome young man with purple bob-cut hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in a kind of military uniform under a black gabardine with a fur collar, and the pommel of a sword was above his right shoulder.
Everyone was stunned, except Frieza, who seemed on the verge of exploding in devastating anger. And except Fu, of course...
"Ah, the Time Patrol! Nice of you to come to see me, Trunks. How things went in Conton? How is the time Kaioshin? And the old scag... sorry... I mean to say the Elder Kaioshin..."
"Fu, I did not come to listen to your nonsense. I came to prevent you from altering the course of time."
Fu touched his chest in a dramatic gesture as if struck to death.
"How cold of you, I thought we were friends. We have so much in common."
"I'm certainly not your friend."
"Ah, yet you understand what I'm trying to do. Didn't you go back in time to save Son Goku? How can you now blame me for wanting to save his father? And if Frieza dies now, how many people... no, entire worlds... will be saved? I only do what you should do."
Trunks clenched his fists, looking for a moment at Bardock, who was listening to the conversation without understanding it. The Saiyan warrior looked so much like his son, Goku...
"Ever since I met the Kaioshin of time, I know that changing the past can cause disasters that can go up... to the destruction of the world!"
The warrior of the future felt filled with anger as he looked back on Zamasu and Black Goku. They never would have existed if he hadn't changed the course of history.
Trunks drew his sword.
"Either you go now, or I force you. It's up to you, Fu."
Bardock had listened to the conversation without understanding one single word. Trunks had saved his son? Who were they talking about? He had no son named Son Goku!
But, unlike Trunks and Fu, the Saiyan had not forgotten Frieza's presence. When the tyrant reached for the back of the purple hair young man, Bardock reacted without even thinking. Just as the red ray was being fired, the Saiyan jumped forward, jostling the Time Patroller to push him out of the kikoha trajectory.
This movement surprised everyone and even more Bardock who looked at the blackened impact that had just formed at the location of his heart.
The Saiyan coughed up blood and smiled. Why didn't he let Frieza kill that stranger? Still a gut feeling... He had the intuition that his death would have been a catastrophe. Perhaps he had been contaminated by Gine... spending so much time with someone so kind had devastating effects on the Saiyan warrior... now he was sacrificing his own life to save a perfect stranger.
Bardock closed his eyes. His body was already falling into the atmosphere of Vegeta to be consumed. But Goku's father felt nothing, he was already dead.
Trunks was almost as shocked as Bardock. He felt... at first anger. He turned to Frieza. The desire to kill this despicable little runt burned his belly. But the warrior of the future had already killed Frieza once, changing the course of time and the result had not been the much-hoped-for happy end. However, he had to fight his fury to lower his sword.
As for Fu, he watched the scene with disbelief, shouting the name of Bardock before being silent, both sad and dreamy. Understanding that he could no longer change the course of time, the demon used his sword to trace an X in the air. Then he jumped into the time gap that had just opened.
When Fu left, Tunks followed his example, called back in the future by the scrolls of time.
As the strangers from another time disappeared, the scrolls of time erased any memory of their existence, repairing the 'wound' that their presence had caused to the time fabric. Some people later remembered that there had been someone other than Frieza's soldiers or Bardock in orbit of Vegeta, but this remained a confused impression. None remembered their names or their appearances. Very quickly, they completely forgot this impression.
As for Frieza, he remained for a few moments to fix Bardock's body. Ah, this monkey was dead but... had he not launched a Death Ball on the planet Vegeta? Where was it? Troubled by this blackout, he looked at the planet for a few moments then... Ah yes, destroy Vegeta. The sardonic smile returned to the lips of the galactic tyrant. He raised his finger creating a new sphere that began to grow before heading toward the planet and slaughtering hundreds of his soldiers that were still standing on the Death Ball trajectory.
The gigantic explosion cracked the continents. Lava erupted from the faults and the earth's crust broke.
Protected by the energy shield of his flagship, the evil emperor looked at the exploding planet Vegeta. Like a child, he applauded.
"Oh, Oh, Oh... what a beautiful fireworks display!"
He had completely forgotten the intervention of Fu and then that of Trunks. The course of time had been corrected.
Normally, Bardock would have died killed by the Death Ball that destroyed Vegeta. But history had been slightly changed by Fu's intervention. The planet had existed for a few more minutes and Bardock had died differently.
The role of the Kaioshin of time was precisely to rewrite the parchments of time to minimize the effect of this kind of divergence.
But it remained a tiny anomaly. And like all that was foreign to the normal course of the chronology, this anomaly was expelled from the fabric of time and reappeared in Conton, the city that extended around the Time Nest, the place where the parchments of time were preserved.
The world seemed to swirl around Gine.
She had a terrible headache and was very thirsty.
Then the Saiyan heard a groan and understood that it was her own moan.
She hardly opened her eyes and looked at the blue sky... the clouds... and the immense dragon that surrounded the planet with its serpent body, looking at the world below him with two huge and luminous eyes.
In awe, Gine lay on the ground with her mouth open and her brain completely blocked. Planet Vegeta had a red sky... and there was no dragon... what happened? It was some kind of weird dream? No, she wanted to vomit and her head hurt so much that she couldn't be sleeping. She had not felt so bad since the day after her marriage with Bardock... Given her husband's popularity, all the lower cast warriors had come to buy her a drink. Of course, Gine couldn't refuse. Later, she had the worst hangover of her life.
But the memory of her husband was associated with a sense of loss and sadness...
Something bad had happened. She still couldn't remember what, but for some Gine felt down.
What was her last memory? She frowned, seeking to pierce the opaque veil that surrounded her memory.
Oh...
Gine was returning to the village at the foot of the king's castle. But as she flew over the desert, a violent shock wave had thrown her against a rock. Then the ground began to shake, dislocating the mountain chains. Before losing consciousness, the young Saiyan remembered seeing a wall of fire in the sky moving toward her like a hurricane. The oxygen in the air ignited in an inextinguishable chain reaction. This ball of flame had cremated the desert and it was her last memory: the heat, the pain... the nothingness. Probably she was cremated alive.
"Am I dead?"
"Well, technically... yes... but practically no, you're alive."
Surprised, Gine turned her head to discover a little petite (teen?) woman with purple-pink tone skin and pinkish-red hair. Her ears were pointed.
The Saiyan straightened her hand on her forehead, while around her the trees and the air seemed to describe a waltz.
"Who are you? Where am I?"
The teenager smiled and made the V sign with the fingers of both hands.
"My name is Chronoea, the Kaioshin of Time."
"Kaioshin?"
A little upset Chronoea proudly crossed her arms on her chest.
"I am a goddess!"
The idea that the gods could look like someone like Chronoea seemed so absurd, but Gine had no desire to talk about something complicated... not with such a headache. She preferred an answer to a slightly more... down-to-earth question.
"Where am I" she answered again.
"You are at Conton City. It's not on the planet Vegeta, but you've probably already figured it out. More importantly, the planet Vegeta no longer exists. it was destroyed in the year 737... and the current year is 851. You are a time wreck. There are often time cracks in Conton City. People, objects, even vehicles, or fragments of planets (a district of a city, for example) appear from time to time. Among other phenomena. The fact that the time scrolls are kept in the Time Nest near Conton City explains these kinds of events."
Chronoea was posing as if she was proud to live in the midst of what she described as a permanent catastrophe.
But Gine lay down in the grass with a big sigh... her headache was too much to listen to the ramblings of a madwoman.
This was not to be the reaction that the Kaioshin of Time expected, because she began to wave her arms like a windmill, tapping her foot on the ground.
"I am a very important person, you must respect me!"
After a Namekian healer treated Gine, she found enough strength to visit Conton City. The place was strange. To begin with, the city was built on a plateau from which emerged a very high steep mountain, a natural stone spire with sides arranged terraces covered with trees. The plateau was surrounded from every side by cliffs with, far below, a forest wrapped in mists. Other smaller stone spires could be seen coming out of the forest all around the plateau.
The city itself was divided into several neighborhoods. The Ajisa District (where it had appeared) reconstituted part of the planet Namek. There were only huts and farms where Namekian farmers grew food and Ajisa trees.
The Bamboo Forest District was... a bamboo forest with a simple hut and a small lake.
The Business District reproduced a district of a large city on planet Earth; Besides a few shops, restaurants, and apartment buildings, there was the Time Patrol HQ and the Time Patrollers Academy.
Mushroom District was a desert planted with giant mushrooms.
The Recreation Plaza was surrounded by shops selling clothes, HoPoi Capsules, food, medicines and many other things. The square was decorated with the statue of the Future Warrior, the winner of the demon-god Demigra, and the demon Towa savior of Time and the whole universe.
The Dragon Ball pedestal was used to make appear something that the robot serving as tour operator called the 'sacred dragon' or Shenron... this dragon would be able to grant a wish provided to gather 7 'Dragon Balls'.
Gine was not so sure... a fantasy or... she looked at the dragon encircling the planet... the real deal?
The Time Machine Harbor was the starting point for the Time Patrollers' secondary missions. Offices occupied by robotic clerks provided the Patrollers with secondary missions. They would then take a time machine and leave for correcting the past.
The immense stone spire that dominated the plateau was occupied by two important localizations, first the portal to the Time's Nest. This temple housed the scrolls of time but also the bird of time Tokitoki. Higher up, a temple of martial arts allowed the Patrollers to compete in tournaments.
The last district was located on a rocky needle near Conton City rather than Cotton City itself. It was a small island retreat where the Patrollers could relax after their bets.
The inhabitants were as strange as the city where they lived, there were Namekians, humans, Saiyans, people belonging to the race of Frieza and even Majins... creatures of such an ancient race that appeared only in the legends. Some of them wore typical Frieza army armor, others gi from various martial arts schools, 'ordinary' clothes from the Earth, extraterrestrial clothes, or a mix of all that. It was an incredibly mixed and colorful population.
She even saw a young woman wearing a mushroom as a hat, a cold demon proudly holding a staff adorned... with poop, a Majin with some sort of strange-looking glass and wearing a classical tuxedo with tie and a Saiyan dressed in traditional armor gilded with gold leaf. People dressed funny, as if they had taken the first clothes they had found in a pile of dirty laundry.
When the robot guides her back to the Business District to show her the apartment she was assigned. Nothing very luxurious, a bedroom/ living room with a bed and desk, a tiny kitchenette, as well as an equally tiny bathroom.
Sitting on the bed, Gine thinks about this strange and eventful day.
The Time Kaioshin had offered to join the Time Patrol. When the Saiyan replied that she was a butcher, not a warrior, Chronoea smiled.
"You underestimate yourself completely, Gine-san. You have far more S-Cells than most Saiyans."
But Gine had never heard that term.
"S-Cells? What the hell is that?"
The Kaioshin keep smiling.
"Have you ever heard of the Super Saiyan legend?"
"Frieza destroyed my planet because of this stupid legend!"
Gine's anger seemed to surprise the Kaioshin and confuse her.
"Oh yes... I forgot. I'm sorry it's probably a painful subject. But it's much more than a legend. A Saiyan who trains enough to reach a certain level of combat, can transform in terrible anger. But the more S-Cells a Saiyan has, the greater his chances of achieving his first transformation. The S-Cells multiply in a Saiyan's body when he... acts of kindness."
Goku's mother seemed surprised
"So, the nicer a Saiyan is, the more powerful he is. Is that what you mean?"
"Yes, in short."
It made Gine laugh... bitterly.
"I only have a force of 300 units. I am proof that you are wrong."
Chronoea took a few moments to reflect on her answer.
"What is strength to you, Gine-san?"
"The ability to crush your opponents, I suppose... and I have always been the person underneath, abused even by other members of the lower castes."
"Here you will find martial arts specialists, Gine-san. They will teach you that force is not crushing your enemy... the real force is the force to grow. The only real opponent of a martial arts student is his own limits. The Saiyans of your time lived in a warmongering and merciless society. The only question you need to ask yourself is what you're going to do next time a bully threatens the people you love. Wait for someone to save you or defend you?"
"Someone I love," asked Gine with a sort of bitter satisfaction." My husband is dead, and my children too, since more than a century has passed since the destruction of the planet Vegeta. I'm alone, so the question is more."
The Time Kaioshin smiled waving her finger to say 'no'.
"Where are we now?"
"In Conton City... " The young Saiyan interrupted before adding after a brief frown "to the Headquarters of the Time patrol... you... you... mean that I have chances to see them again, is that Chronoea-sama?"
"For Kakarrot it is even a certainty. He is still alive. If you get to a sufficient level of training, I could invite him to serve as your teacher. As for Raditz and Bardock, you're not unique. Individuals from other eras always end up appearing here."
The Kaisoshin was smiling.
"If you join the Time Patrol you will certainly have the opportunity to find them."
Sitting on her bed, Gine bit her lips. She had never been a good fighter, but if she wanted to see her husband and children again, the young Saiyan woman had to become an elite Time Patroller.
If Gine had quickly given up being a Saiyan warrior, after a brief stint at the Bardock Team, it was because the most ordinary mission in the Frieza Force was planetary population massacres.
Except - for the first time in her life- Gine was really motivated to fight.
(1) Rock formation created by erosion. The upper layer (made of hard rock) is more resistant to rain and wind than the lower layer (made of soft rock like limestone). So you end up with limestone stalagmites with a wider hard rock 'hat'.