I want to lay like this forever, until the sky falls down over me.
"Let me get this straight," Vegeta pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned on the table. "You've got the Black Moon Clan trying to take over your throne, Kooler and Kold have threatened us with revenge for Freeza's death, I've got a civil war brewing on my hands, and you," Vegeta glared across the table at Piccolo, "are babbling about space time continuum fluxuations?"
"Something is trying to come through from another world," Piccolo shrugged his shoulders. "Look, I'm not the expert, I'm just repeating what the healers have been saying. I've heard literally the same story from all the healers I've got stationed on all of your worlds. Something is trying to tear into this world, at this time, and they can barely heal the rifts that are being left behind."
"What can we do about it to begin with?" Serenity asked, one hand resting on her swollen belly.
"Nothing, really. Wait for it to tear its way in, then kill it, and wait for the next time something tries to tear its way in." Piccolo shrugged. "It might be in six months, or six years. I don't know. But its going to be strong, and we'll lose a lot of good men, if we don't all die."
"Well, that's pretty optimistic," Endymion said it so causally that it was hard to tell if he was being sarcastic. Bulma hid her smile, just in case, and bounced Trunks on her knee to keep him from fussing.
"Look, if I can quell my civil war before you can kill off the Black Moon Clan, you get all the planets trying to clamor for Sayajin trade to back off. If you kill off the Black Moon Clan before I can get this civil war under control, I'll pay for that new space port you're building on Earth." Serenity agreed to the bet without thinking about it terribly hard; Vegeta, now that he was King of the Sayajin, tended to make bets on who could get what done first. It worked for his staff, in that he tended to reward them well for a job well done, and while Serenity didn't necessarily agree, it was a good tactic that worked for Sayajin.
"We'll get together when that's done and figure out what to do about Kooler and Kold. You don't think they'll attack us directly, do you?" Bulma asked, trying to peel the little brown tail off of her wrist before Trunks broke her bones.
"After we decimated Freeza in less than forty eight hours? No, they'll arrange a peace treaty off world somewhere, and they'll attack us once we're all down on the ground, with a small fleet. They wont take us on full strength, since that was Freeza's big mistake." Vegeta shrugged, and hoped they listened to him this time.
"So what we need is a concentration of our best and strongest warriors to be with us when we go off world." Serenity mused, subconsciously rubbing her belly.
"The Sailor Scouts and the Z-Senshi, definitely, and some of the Namekean and Sayajin warriors that were with us on the Moon." Bulma tried to feed Trunks a piece of meat from her plate, and barely caught it as he spat it out.
"It's a good start." Vegeta steered back to the more immediate issues. "Do you need Sayajin back up for the Black Moon Clan?"
"I don't think so, Bardock tends to throw himself at just about anything these days. I think all we really have to do is take the offensive, and just send Bardock and the Sailors in there. Do you need any diplomats? I've got a handful I can send you; I'm sure by the time you're done with them, they wont know which way is up, but they're good at getting people to listen to them for more than thirty seconds." Endymion leaned on the table, and was careful to avoid the splatter of food that Trunks had created.
"Yeah, send 'em over," Bulma tried to pry a thoroughly mutilated, now unrecognizable, vegetable away from her son. "We can use more people who talk things over before leaping into a fight."
"Do any of you feel that?" Piccolo stood up, cocking his head to the side as he edged toward the throne room. "There's something going on in there that shouldn't be happening." Piccolo took off at a dead run, Vegeta and Endymion on his heels.
Bulma helped Serenity stand and waddle toward the throne room; whatever it was, the men would take care of it if it were blatantly dangerous, and poke it with a stick if they didn't know what it did. When they got there, Piccolo was edging close to a huge rift that had opened up in the throne room; Bulma could only assume that it had something to do with what Piccolo had been talking about. There was a ring of black energy, and in the ring, there was a battle.
Two women in Sailor suits, flinging glowing arches of energy; the younger was wearing pink, with her hair up in pink odangos. The older, wearing a glittering gold headdress and plated armor as her suit, was wrecking havoc, despite the purple-haired warrior in Sayajin armor making full out attacks with his sword.
The golden Sailor held both of her opponents at bay, and still managed to look over her shoulder at the spectators. Her grin was malevolent; the ease with which she flung both of her opponents through the portal was apparent as they crashed into the red sandstone walls and left dents where their bodies hit. The portal collapsed, and the bodies hit the floor across the throne room.
Serenity was the last to waddle over to the duo, huffing at the effort. Just as she made it to them, the purple-haired warrior hauled himself to his feet, and pulled his sword out of the red sandstone where it had embedded itself.
"Looks like that one hurt," Bulma commented, wondering if the young man would react to her at all.
"Yeah, just a little," He swayed badly, then sheathed his sword. "Where'd she go? There she is," He leaned down and tried to scoop up the girl in the pink sailor suit, and ended up collapsing on top of her.
"Well, lets get them in regen tanks," Bulma shifted her son to her other hip and tapped her scouter. Within ten minutes Nappa had appeared, scooped up both warriors, and hauled them off to the medical bay.
"You think that's what was trying to tear through?" Vegeta turned to Piccolo.
"No. Those two aren't trying to do anything malignant. Its that other one we saw that I'm worried about." Piccolo crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. "Six months, six years. More like six minutes. Like talking about it calls it forward."
"Then shut up." Vegeta turned to Serenity and Endymion. "Her uniform looks like yours, and she was waving around that stupid stick you used against Freeza."
"She also had the Silver Moon Crystal," Endymion frowned as he said it, as if there were something horribly off about that. "But you're still wearing it, so that cant be right." The king touched the brooch on Serenity's chest, watching it sparkle.
"This isn't right either," Bulma held up the sword the young man had been carrying, and unsheathed it. "Vegeta, look at this. I know I've seen it before, not the actual sword I mean, but paintings of it." Bulma thought for a moment, "In that long galley that no one goes down anymore, in the southern quarter of the palace. At the very end, there are a bunch of paintings of different Sayajin holding this sword up. I tried to translate the runes on it, but its old, really old. Something about honor, and see this symbol here, it's the one Bardock burned into his leg. Chaos, right? Isn't there something else? The Code of Pain, right?"
"Silence." Bulma didn't look overly offended or hurt by Vegeta's order; she merely snapped her mouth shut and waited for him to speak. "The Code of Pain is not something to be spoken of lightly. Sayajin honor the warriors of the old battles, and that is what the Code is; honoring the dead. This symbol is the Mark of Chaos, and only those who have lost everything in battle wear it. Never pick a fight with a Sayajin who wears the Mark; he's got nothing left to lose." Vegeta took the sword and fingered the runes inscribed down the blade. "And this…this was only supposed to be a legend."
"What, like Excalibur?" Bulma asked, cocking her head.
"It depends on whether or not Excalibur was meant to destroy whole worlds with a single swing."
"Yeah, different concept, then. Um. So, it's a famous magical sword. They usually have names, don't they?" Serenity reached out to touch the sword, accidentally nicking her finger on the sharp edge. She popped the finger in her mouth immediately.
"Joyeuse Sang." Vegeta resheathed the sword, "It means Joyful Blood."
Piccolo scowled hard, arms still crossed over his chest. "I think we need to have a talk with those two as soon as they wake up." The tone of voice implied that it would not be a pleasant conversation.
They stationed themselves just beyond the regen tanks in the medical bay, and continued to discuss other matters of the Alliance. It was a two hour wait, before the purple-haired boy was released from the tank, and they used the time well, as only politicians can.
When the boy came out of the tank though, no longer covered in blood and mild abrasions, it was painfully obvious that he couldn't be more than seventeen. He dried himself off and pulled on a jumpsuit as if there weren't a crowd of people watching him, and finally reached for his sword, as if he weren't even thinking about it. Vegeta put his palm down over the sword, and the boy stopped to look at him questioningly.
"You have a lot of explaining to do," Vegeta told him.
"Oh? And how is that?" The young mad didn't take his hand away from his sword; in fact, he didn't move at all, only holding Vegeta's gaze with wide, patient blue eyes.
"Why don't you start with your name, boy, and we'll work up from there." The young man looked around at the rest of the group, taking in Bulma and Trunks, Serenity and her swollen belly, and Endymion.
"Papa," the young man snapped his blue eyes back to Vegeta, "You already know my name." Vegeta didn't gape, but his eyes bugged, and he made a very small choking noise.
Trunks pulled his sword out of Vegeta's grasp and slung the baldric across his shoulder. He checked the draw, then let the sword settle back into its sheath, not taking his eyes off of his father.
"I think you'd better explain how you got here," Piccolo stepped close to the table and took his seat, sipping at the glass of water he'd retrieved. His voice was low and menacing, but Trunks didn't seem perturbed.
"How the hell should I know? I was kind of in the middle of the ultimate battle for control of the universe with the biggest bitch in the history of said universe." Oh, definitely Vegeta's son, with a mouth like that.
"Watch your mouth," Bulma warned, not even realizing her motherly instincts had kicked in.
"Yes, ma'am." The response was soft, immediate, and submissive.
"And your friend, who is she?" Serenity asked, fingers laced over her stomach.
"Um," Trunks said, his eyes dropping to the swell of her belly. "Um." He said again, although weather it was for emphasis or lack of anything better to say, it was hard to tell.
Endymion looked down at the swollen belly of his queen, and then up at the young demi-Sayajin.
"Our little girl?" Trunks nodded, and blushed heavily. Guiltily.
No one had time to ask him what the matter was, though, as the second regen tank went off. The pink-haired girl stepped out of the tank and dried and dressed herself quickly and efficiently; even as the jumpsuit settled on her body, the ring of teeth marks wasn't hard to miss with her hair pulled up and away from her neck. She smiled largely though, and rushed Trunks. She landed in his arms, arms and legs wrapping around him, mouth clamped firmly over his. He set her down carefully, pulling back to look her in the eye.
"Did we win?" she asked still smiling; the expression faded quickly as she saw the sober look on his face, and turned to look at the gathered members of the Alliance.
"I think we're in deeper shit than we were before," Trunks said, as his tail wrapped around her waist.
"Yeah," Princess Serenity pushed her wet bangs out of her face, "No shit, Sherlock. So besides being about sixteen years in the past, are there any more bright ideas?"
"Get home. Kill the bitch." Trunks shrugged, his Sayajin logic rock solid.
"Yeah, that's the goal, idiot, but the how and the when are some big issues. Am I coming up with all the big ideas here, or do you want to spare some muscle and help? Your brain is a muscle, by the way, so it shouldn't hurt your Sayajin ego too much to use it."
Trunks merely smirked, and stepped away from her so that she could speak to the entire group.
"Look, I'm just guessing here, but it seems like Kooler, Kold, and the Black Moon Clan are the least of your worries. There are some significantly bigger fish to fry in the not so distant future." Princess Serenity smiled, and Bulma shivered at the hardness of it; she'd never seen a Lunarian so vengeful.
A/N; NOW I'm getting somewhere! Savage Garden lyrics again. I've been listening to them for three straight days. I've pumped out another three chapters today, too. God, I feel like some kind of fiend...I honeslty have no idea how many chapters this is going to take, because I'm trying to cut to the bare minimum. Well, good thing I'm on spring break!