Kera:

Kera arrived at Dende's house completely out of breath. He looked at her with irritation. He quickly conjured up new clothes for her so that she no longer had to run around in a towel while she spoke haltingly. He asked her into the familiar room with the bed where her children had been born.

Gently he laid his hands on her and concentrated. After a while, he disengaged and stared ahead.

"Dende, what's wrong?" asked Kera anxiously. She didn't want to hear his answers, but she had to.

"You were intimate last night," he said softly.

Kera swallowed. It all had to be a bad dream.

"And there's something else," Dende continued.

How much worse could it get?

"You're pregnant."

Kera was pretty sure she heard glass shattering. She didn't know how to breathe for a moment. Or was it hours? An uncomfortable pressure formed on her ears. "What?" she asked in a whisper after what felt like an eternity.

"There is no doubt," Dende replied.

"When ...?" Kera felt unable to ask whole questions.

"In about a year."

"But that would mean that during my time in space ... with Vegeta ..." She broke off. This was absurd. Then it slowly seeped into her mind that she couldn't really remember being in space. Violently, she shook her head. She felt herself on the verge of completely losing it. "This can't be. It can't be!"

She didn't know whether to scream, cry or laugh because it was all so absurd.

"Kera, please calm down," Dende tried to soothe her.

Kera interrupted her fit of laughter and pulled her legs to her body. She rolled to her side and sobbed. "What am I going to do?"

Dende stroked her shoulder and remained silent. Probably he didn't know a solution either. After a while Kera breathed more calmly again. "Who is the father?" she asked haltingly.

"I can show you a picture," Dende replied.

She nodded, turned on her back and waited until Dende could work his magic to show her the child. When the picture had materialised, she looked at it.

The baby had its knees drawn to its torso, one arm was wrapped around its legs, the other raised to its mouth and its thumb was stuck between its lips. The baby's skin was pale, like her own. A fuzz of black hair, the beginnings of a tail, no pointed ears. That left no doubt.

Slowly, Dende lowered his hands again. He waited patiently for Kera to say something.

"It's unlikely that Piccolo is the father, is it?" she asked quietly.

Dende nodded. "At least as we can see it so far. We can't rule it out completely. You can never accurately predict a child's appearance beforehand."

"But it's also unlikely that it was anyone else, is it? When Vegeta and I were in space ... we couldn't remember for a few months. Maybe there ..." She didn't finish the sentence.

"That's not out of the question either. After the child is born, we can determine it exactly."

"What do I do now, Dende?"

Dende sighed. "I don't know. I think it would be best if you talked to Piccolo about it."

Hesitantly, Kera nodded. "And with Vegeta."

Kera straightened up, thanked Dende with a smile, and left his palace without another word. For a moment she stood on the edge of the platform, wondering where she should fly to now. Her heart and body pulled her towards Piccolo. Her head pulled her towards Vegeta.

She called out in her mind to Piccolo, who answered her immediately. 'I'm at Dende's right now and I need to talk to Vegeta again. Then I'll come home.'

'Is everything all right?" asked Piccolo.

Kera would like to shout a no at him, but she swallowed it down. 'I'll tell you later.' Before Piccolo could ask again, she blocked the connection.

It hurt herself, but she had to concentrate on one thing now. She flew to Bulma's house, hoping to meet Vegeta there. But she only met Bulma.

"You still dare to come here?", Bulma hissed at her when she spotted Kera.

Kera went down on one knee. "I'm so sorry, Bulma. Vegeta and I ... we don't have a thing. There's something in our heads. Ever since we were in space we've been having blackouts, sometimes we can't remember where we've been for hours. Dende has examined us, but he doesn't know what's happening to us either. He says he senses a dark presence, but that's all. We just didn't know what to do. It's never been as bad as last night." She broke off. She didn't dare look up at Bulma.

Bulma sobbed. "I want so much to believe you. But ... it hurts so much." She only whispered the last words.

"I understand that you can't forgive me right away. I'm sorry."

She turned around. She had to get out of here. She was aware that she was fugitive, but she wasn't ready to continue talking to Bulma.

Kera ran into the small patch of woods bordering the property. She knew Vegeta liked to retreat there. She was right. He was sitting leaning against a tree, staring at the ground. She let her energy flare up so she wouldn't surprise him.

He looked over at her only briefly, then stared at the ground again. She sank to one knee in front of him. "My prince."

"What do you want?"

Kera swallowed. His words sounded so cold. "I went to see Dende. I wanted him to examine me. To find a reason why we can't remember half a day this time. Why it's so much more than a few hours now. Why ..." She broke off. It seemed so pointless to her to say anything at all. Vegeta didn't look at her. Didn't show any remorse if he had even noticed anything she had said.

"And he found out nothing," Vegeta said after a while.

"Nothing to the cause. Only that the darkness has grown stronger. He found out something else for that."

"Your dramatics are misplaced here," he snapped at her.

"I'm sorry. It's hard for me to say it." She took another deep breath. "I'm pregnant."

Vegeta raised his eyebrows. "I suppose congratulations are in order? Why aren't you with your mate celebrating?"

"He's almost certainly not the father."

If at all possible, Vegeta's eyebrows drew even higher. "I wouldn't have expected you to ..."

"I conceived while we were in space."

There, a first reaction from Vegeta. He propped himself up on one hand and leaned forward towards her. "Are you implying that I ..." he growled.

"I'm not implying anything at all. We're months short. Who knows what's happened in that time," she growled back.

"Bulma can't know about any of this."

"That's your only concern?"

"What else?"

"Think about the prophecy: '...she will conceive from her brother to give birth to Chaos to enslave the universe.'"

Vegeta:

"I don't believe in that crap."

"I don't want it to be true either, but it all seems to fit," Kera replied.

"You can make it all up to fit."

Kera opened her mouth to say something back, but then closed it again without making a sound.

He looked away from her. Far too much he felt reminded that there was so much he couldn't remember when he looked at her. He felt helpless. Something could be done about attackers, they were recognisable as a threat, but what was happening to him and Kera was invisible. They knew something was wrong, but not even Dende knew what it was. What could they do?

As if by itself, his body rose. Vegeta wanted to take two steps away from Kera, but his body turned and faced Kera, who was sitting on the ground. He wanted to speak, but his mouth remained silent. As if he was just a spectator in his own body without the possibility to intervene in the actions.

Kera trembled and stared stubbornly straight ahead. It was as if some invisible force was forcing her to look up and Kera fought against it.

Vegeta's lips parted and spoke a word Vegeta didn't know: "Malaha." The voice sounded foreign to his ears, as if it were not his own.

Slowly, Kera turned her face to him. Her eyes were closed. The corners of her mouth lifted briefly into a grin, then lowered again, only to lift again into a smile.

"Malaha." That strange word again. Vegeta wanted to shout at Kera to run away, but his body remained silent.

As if in slow motion, Kera opened her eyes. Vegeta let out a scream without a sound passing his lips.

The whites of Kera's eyes had disappeared. Blackness glared at him, the smile on her lips grotesque. This was no longer Kera.

He - his body - reached out to help Kera up. "Malaha."

"Aitor." That was not Kera's voice. It was darker, more threatening. As if this person was incapable of any affectionate utterance.

Kera's lips came to rest on his, but Vegeta felt no touch. He could only watch. He wanted to turn his head away, to scream, to do something, but his body did not obey him. He had been banished to the farthest corner of his consciousness.

Gently he stroked the cheek of the woman who was clearly no longer Kera. His other hand rested on her stomach. He wondered if she was trapped in her own body too.

"How much longer do we have to wait?"

"This little Namekian said about a year, but that doesn't have to mean anything. It will be a magical child, after all." She laughed. Vegeta felt a chill run down his spine at the sound. A laugh made his body tremble.

"This no-good guy is just wondering what's going on," his voice, foreign to him, said.

"Mine is all confused too."

"Then I will gladly enlighten you, so that you do not die quite stupidly. I, Aitor, and my beautiful Malaha are the mages this little Namekian told you about. Malaha separated our souls from our bodies when she saw no other way out. We knew we would come back one day. Stronger than ever, for we would seek bodies that were true warriors. We wandered restlessly, always on the run from the clutches of the underworld, which wanted to purify our souls to enable them to be reborn. At some point, Malaha discovered the twins in the body of a Saiyan, who radiated a strong power. This was perfect for us. That way we would be able to grow up together."

Kera – no, Malaha – took over the narration. "We had to go into the bodies of children, adult souls would have rejected us immediately. We slept at first. We had to wait until the children were old enough to be independent. During this time, we rarely took control. We were used to waiting. However, when Kera flew away from Vegeta and lost her memory, I became locked in a corner of her consciousness with Kera's memories and was only slowly able to free myself when Kera regained her memory."

"I had voluntarily retreated to a corner of Vegeta's consciousness until Malaha finally stood before me again. On Namek. When Vegeta died, I clung to his soul and managed to be reawakened with it. But Vegeta was so powerful at that time that I could hardly control him."

"I once had Kera almost to the point where she wanted to give up. I had captured her soul, but then that creep Piccolo came and freed her. Through that bond he gave her mental strength again and I had to fight again to gain the upper hand. When she was pregnant with the twins, she had weak moments, but at the same time another power kept preventing us from taking complete control."

"The one baby, the girl - what was her name? Oh yes, that's right. Menka. She had such great mental strength even in the womb that she actually managed to stop us every now and then, didn't she?" He laughed. "She'd make an interesting ally, too."

Vegeta growled inwardly. This guy dared to talk about his niece like that.

Malaha continued speaking. "We were always especially strong when Kera and Vegeta were together. After the twins were born, however, they saw little of each other, so we didn't get to show up often. But when they left for space to train and search for more Saiyans, we seized the chance and were finally able to be complete again. Finally take over a body again. It felt so good."

Aitor kissed her long and hard. Moaning, she returned his caresses. Vegeta had to suppress a gag reflex.

Gasping, Aitor continued to speak. "We had so hoped that she had conceived. For through a child, what inherits both physical strength and our magical abilities, we will be invincible. Someday, though, we had to return to Earth. Piccolo and Bulma would not have given up until they found us."

"On Earth, it was harder to maintain control because there were too many around us to give Kera and Vegeta mental strength. The moment Kera found out she was pregnant, though, upset her so much that she didn't fight back. Now she squats there, trapped in a corner of her own consciousness. Unable to control her own body." A mirthless laugh echoed through the trees.

"My beautiful Malaha, I will now free you from those terrible things for now." Malaha's outline blurred for a moment. When she was clearly visible again, she was wearing a black floor-length dress with a wide neckline. "Come, let's find some shelter where we can await the birth of the child."

Hand in hand, they strolled to the edge of the forest and then took off.

Vegeta wanted to scream as he saw his house fly away below them. He thought of Bulma and Trunks. What would happen to them? He had to get free somehow. Or send a message to someone about the danger these mages – he and Kera – now posed. He had to do something. Then he heard laughter again.

"Oh, Vegeta. You don't stand a chance. Resign yourself to the fact that you are now only a spectator in your body. Your soul will gradually wither away until it dies. No rebirth for you."