CHAPTER III: Daylight

 

"Bra-chan? Wake up, sweetie."

Bra opened her eyes and stretched like a cat. Had she over-slept? Her mother's face gazed anxiously down at her. She remembered.

Her new invention was a bust. Bra could not remember when she had been in a pissier mood. She had just come to the bitter conclusion that She had been going down the wrong theoretical path since square one, and the device she had spent every waking moment working on for the last two weeks was a boat anchor. She sat in the disaster area that was her room on a pile of technical manuals, books on quantum mathematics, and the latest Paris fashions, most still in their dress bags, surrounded by dirty coffee mugs and plates of food her mother had shoved in the door, and ground her teeth.

If the eternal dragons were merely super powerful inter-dimensional beings, she had reasoned twelve days ago, there would have to be a way to mimic their inherent psychic abilities. Obviously, they could manipulate space, matter and time as easily as she could reshape clay on a potter's wheel. She took a sip of cold coffee, and her hand froze in mid-air as something suddenly occurred to her. There had to be the added factor of causality!

Allowing that causality itself might be a physical component of the universe, and that the dragons stood outside of it, as they stood outside of matter, space, and time----Yes! Yes! Yes! That would be the missing "probability" factor in the equation, and given sufficient time, she thought excitedly, she could come up with an algorithm to ferret out the missing aspect of causality and conceivably construct a set of dragon balls without---

Don't.

Was she hearing things? She drew a hand across her brow feeling the heat there. On top of everything else, she was getting sick!

"Don't what?" She asked the air. She suddenly recognized the voice, though it wasn't one she knew well. "Dende-sama?"

If you get even a minute, infinitesimal part of the equation wrong, you could warp the fabric of reality.

"Oh."

There are scholars on New Namek who could teach you what you want to know…

"New Namek?" The thought sounded intriguing.

A loud crash shook her out of the mental contact. It was followed by a muffled whimper.

Huh. Goten.

The big dummy sounded like he was crying, she thought without sympathy. Probably over the loss of Paris-chan, when he had been the one to break it off. He always did when it started to get serious.

She had adored him as a child, she thought idly. She began tearing the metal plating, circuitry, and hard discs out of the shell of her dragon engine, ripping these things as though they were paper, throwing the pieces in all directions. He'd seemed so big and kind and strong, and always paid special attention to her, something her brother never did. How the hell had he grown up into such a shiftless, inconstant…weenie? He was nearly ten years older than her eighteen, but he seemed younger than her now. He didn't work. He didn't train. She wasn't sure what he did. Probably a whole lot of nothing. Or maybe she was too harsh a judge. A woman's concept of what a man should be in strength and purposefulness, constancy and seriousness of mind, was built around her perception of her own father. Who had written that? One of the Bronte's probably. There weren't many men in the universe who could measure up to Poppa.

Another harsh sob, this one louder, and Bra rolled her eyes. She was angry and restless and her parents behaving like a couple of randy teen-agers all afternoon hadn't improved her mood. If either of them suspected the full extent of her telepathic abilities, so strong recently that she often found it difficult to shut out the thoughts and feelings of her family, they would probably move out. She uncurled her long legs and stomped down the hall to where Goten lay groveling on his belly at the head of the stairs. She nudged him with one foot, irritably.

"Goten-kun," she snapped. "Hey."

Something wasn't right, she suddenly realized. He was hurt somehow, though there wasn't a mark on him. The broken threads of his thoughts, always so airy and flitting, were sharp as a knife's point, hard and direct and completely unlike him. Even his ki felt different. If she'd picked up his energy patterns at a distance, she wouldn't have recognized him as the same person. The floor wobbled beneath her and she sat so she wouldn't fall. She was getting sick! He was curled into a fetal ball. She touched his face and the light skim she'd run along the edges of his thoughts a moment before deepened into full contact, and she saw…

The smiling leering white face, one bleached hand locked around his throat, holding him aloft, as the other drew one black-nailed claw down one side of his face, shredding the skin, gouging out the eye that lay beneath. "You will address me as Lord Frieza, child."

She pulled back with a cry, tears forming at her eyes. What had happened to him?! He sat up without warning, arms clutching at her like a drowning man, and she held him, still shaken by what she had seen in his mind

"Goten? Goten-kun, tell me what happened to you!"

"I…Bra-chan…oh Bra-chan!"

"It's okay." She said gently. "You don't have to speak…it's okay…"

He smelled of scented soap and cold sweat and pain…and something else she couldn't place. She pushed another surge of dizziness away and suddenly felt his hand tighten on the back of her neck, tangled up in her hair.

"Gods, you smell good…" His voice was low and rough, the way a man's should be, so unlike his old boyish tenor. It made the pit of her stomach flip- flop, and his hands on her skin set off a flash of heat that burned its way down between her legs. He tried to take a deep, steadying breath, and his eyes caught fire as he inhaled her. He growled, a low rumble in his chest. She stared in to those red-hued eyes…and lost herself.

Her ki flared up around her like a blue flame and she ripped his collar, tearing the shirt in half, and sank her teeth into his shoulder at the base of his neck. His blood in her mouth, hot and sweet and salty, his hands on her body, shredding and ripping off every stitch of clothing she wore, as he bucked and writhed against her in pleasure. He broke the bite, pushing her down roughly, and tore off the rest of his own clothing, kneeling above her.

"Don't start something you can't finish, little girl," he whispered savagely, and reached for her.

She wanted him. Oh Kami, how bad she wanted this! But for reasons she would never be able to fathom, she dealt him a blow that sent him smashing back through the wall behind him. "Come and get me if you're man enough!" She spat gleefully. He howled with rage and launched himself after her. And the chase was on. She crashed up through the ceiling, feeling the brush of his fingertips as he narrowly missed grabbing her foot. She shrieked with mocking laughter, hurling blasts behind her, as they slammed through the infrastructure of the house, walls, ceilings, floors, and hapless gravity rooms, as though they were paper. She was burning alive with the need to be caught, but damned to hell if she would let him claim the prize if he spared even one ounce of energy in the pursuit.

What the hell is wrong with us? One last coherent shred of thought, doubt and fear wafted through her head, and fled like a ghost when his hand snagged her elbow. She whirled in a flurry of fists and feet and baby pink lacquered nails, beating him back. She vaulted up through the ceiling and up into the night. She shot through the cotton meringue of white nimbus and the unfiltered face of Tugol burned away the last scrap of reason as she stared up in mesmerized wonder. A strong hand wound itself in her long blue hair and she was pulled roughly backward against Goten's lean, hard-muscled body. She slashed and writhed in his arms as he held her tightly.

"Caught you," he whispered harshly. Sharp teeth sank into her shoulder, and she howled with fury and pleasure. He shoved her thighs apart. His chest rose against her as he took a slow deep lung-full of air, breathing her in, filling himself with her scent. He thrust into her from behind, driving deep inside her, into that place where no one had ever gone before him.

She came instantly, screaming, and began moving with him in a revolving, spinning arc, insane with the need for more of him, all of him. She hurled her mind like a spear thrust into his, and their thoughts swam together, meshing and blending, until it was impossible to tell where her body and soul began and his ended. He was in deep inside her and she was full of him, even as she filled him up with herself. How long they went, again and again and again, she would never remember. She knew nothing at all but the feel and smell and touch of his body until the moon began to dip low in the sky, beckoning daybreak. They drifted lower, down through the wrecked dome of her father's gravity room. One last time, face to face now, and gentle, they labored against each other, before sinking into an exhausted tangle of arms and legs. Just before sleep claimed them both, he kissed her for the first time, warm and sweet, and she felt something tug at her consciousness and heart. There was a new band of thought and feeling stretching between them now, flexible but unbreakable and permanent.

"You're mine, Bra-chan," he whispered, and she smiled. "Mine forever."

They slept.

The cold tiles of the gravity room floor were cutting into her backside. Bulma silently handed her a long fluffy bathrobe and she put it on, not meeting her mother's eyes. There were probably not words for how much trouble she was in right now. Goten was gone. Her mind searched wildly for him, found the link, and rushed down the invisible circuit, reaching out, receiving a strong, gentle caress, before receding. Her eyes began leaking like a stupid baby's all of a sudden, in some kind of emotional over-load, and her mother's expression grew even more distraught.

"Momma, are you mad at me?" She managed to ask.

"No! Gods no, baby!" Bulma hugged her, carefully, angry shock at the sight of the bruises and bite marks she'd seen covering Bra's bare body still playing around her eyes. "Bra-chan, did he---he didn't---?"

"No, Momma," Bra shook her head emphatically. "He didn't hurt me. Well…actually, he did, but I…"

"Enjoyed it?" Bulma finished. Bra nodded, her face burning. Her mother sighed heavily. "Well, you gave as good as you got, anyway. Goten looks like he's been mauled as well. Your Poppa said that this is normal, but it's still a shock seeing it."

"Poppa?" Bra said in a small voice.

"He's talking with Goten right now."

"Oh no! Momma, he'll kill him!" Bra scrambled to her feet frantically.

"No, he won't," her mother said firmly. "I made him give me his word."

Bra slowly relaxed. Poppa never ever broke his word once given. "Poppa told you it was natural? Momma, what happened to us?"

Bulma took her hand and stood. "Let's get you cleaned up and I'll tell you everything."

 

 

 

Vegita hauled Goten up to the top of Capsule Corp's corporate tower by the scruff of the neck and sat him down on the roof with ominous gentleness. Goten watched him warily. Vegita eyed him a long blood-freezing minute before hurling a light-colored pair of gi pants in his face. Goten gratefully put them on, still sure in the knowledge that his life depended on what he said and did n the next few minutes. His mouth set grimly, and he eyed the older man expressionlessly. He was not, in a very literal sense, the same callow, sheltered boy he had been this time yesterday. He would not die easily, if Vegita meant to kill him.

"You," said Vegita-san icily, "have mated above your station, above your blood, and above your seriously limited intelligence…" He paused. "And for the rest of your life, boy! If you fail her in any way, form or fashion, I will tear you into so many pieces, not even Shen Lon will be able to reassemble you!"

Goten returned his stare unflinchingly. Then he slowly sank to his knees and spoke in a low, formal voice. "My life is hers to do with as she wills, Otoussama." Vegita stared at him, startled by the sound of his native tongue.

"Where the hell did you learn Saiyago, brat?"

"From Surita, the royal chronicler on Tsiru-sei. He spoke over a thousand languages and taught Trunks and I Saiyago because it amused him, I suppose."

"You as well?" The dark immobile features did not change, but the older man's eyes seemed to soften slightly.

Goten's heart sank. "'As well'? He did the same to Trunks?" His father-in-law looked bleak. "How is he?"

"Bad enough," was the terse reply. "What about you?"

"I'll live," Goten said in almost the same tone. "It's like…I'm both Gotens now. The sum of both my lives. She makes it better though---Bra, I mean."

He felt her mind touch his briefly and his heart leapt in his chest. In the black, cold eyes of her father, he thought he saw a kind of understanding, and realized that he now understood this man better than he would have ever been capable of before today. "I will live and die for her, Ouji-sama," he said quietly in the Saiyan language. "I swear it." Vegita-san's touched his head lightly in formal acceptance of his oath and his fealty to Bra.

"Get up, boy," Vegita said after a moment. "Go and check on Trunks if you wish." His mouth curled minutely. "Then go see to your mate."

 

 

Gurasia sat curled up into a ball, rocking back and forth. Father, Father, Father…Gone. He was alone for all time, and that feeling of caring and acceptance, of complete, unconditional love, would never return. The Namek had been right about Tsiru-jin nature in general. They did not love, except in the season during and directly following childbirth. What the Devil did not realize, was that he, Gurasia, had never been born. The timeline of his conception had been revoked, Frieza had never given birth, and had gone into eternal torment still carrying lodged within his mind for all time, the love of a parent heavy with child. And Gurasia…

He was unnatural, he knew. He should not exist, yet he did. He should not love, yet he did, against all that was considered decent among his race. In his earliest years, his caretakers, the highest order of his own priesthood, had shrunk back from him in distaste at the least sign of the affection. He had learned very early to hide all such feelings. Let them all be damned. He was their Lord and their God. He was and would be a law unto himself. And he would give the Father he loved the satisfaction of victory, though it cost him his life. He wiped away the tears angrily, and ran through each step of the campaign his parent had laid out for him. The blue-haired bitch should be given back her memories of the time that was not if possible, but this was not mandatory. His father had a better, special fate in store for her.

He had made each studied move, spoken each memorized word his father had given him. There was one last piece to set on the board, to change beyond recognition with a touch, and set in motion with an oh-so-plausible lie. Then, there was only to sit back and watch events unfold. He tittered shrilly. Tonight should be quite a rowdy show.

 

 

 

Gokou stepped into the wreck that had once been Capsule Corp, and took a deep cautious breath. Bra's scent from the night before was everywhere, but it did not send a shiver a guilty desire shooting through his body as he'd feared it would. A musky odor, a mix of male and female wound together like the tangled roots of a twin sapling, growing stronger by the minute, hung thick in the air. It was as Vegita had said. Bra was mated now, bound to his son and he to her for all time, and the new scent negated all desire of other Saiyan males for her. Bra and Goten. He smiled at the thought in spite of himself. Bulma cracked the door to Bra's room, letting Chi-Chi peek in to where the two lay like exhausted children in Bra's bed. Goten twitched in his sleep and moaned faintly in the grip of some kind of nightmare. Bra's arm wound its way around him gently and he quieted, drowsing again. His smile faded. He knew Chi-Chi and Bulma didn't fully understand yet what had happened to Goten and Trunks, how different they would be now. He did---And he could feel something black and murderous rising up inside him at the thought.

In the living room, Krillan and Juuhachigou were working furiously on the devices Bulma had momentarily abandoned to show them in. The android's cool voice was berating her husband mildly as he fat fingered one component for the second time. Vegita and Gohan stood nearby, grim and tense.

"I just took Pan and Videl…away an hour ago," Gohan told them. "We can leave with Bulma-san and Kassan as soon as the reflector's are finished--Toussan, your tail!"

"I thought keeping it might be a bad idea tonight, " he replied. "Moonrise is 6:41pm, moonset is 3:57am. That's a long time to gamble with all your lives. The reflector's first test is going to be a field run…What?" They were all staring at him again, the uneasy look of change's insecurities. "How long til they're done?" He asked, nodding at the partially assembled reflectors.

"It's noon now," she said. "Three more hours, maybe four to finish them all."

"You have two," Vegita said flatly. "Then you go, finished or not." She eyed him dangerously, but did not argue.

"Juuhachigou and I can keep on working on them. And Bra should be able to read your designs well enough to keep working when she wakes up," Krillan said.

Juuhachigou shook her fair head. "We should go with Gohan and the others. If the reflector he wears fails or is damaged for any reason, he will need our help."

"I can continue working on them," said a quiet voice. Trunks looked like he'd just taken a month long vacation to Hell, but his eyes burned with alertness and lucidity. "I've been watching you work all morning, Kassan. They'll either work or they won't---in which case Bra and Goten can burn down the other half of the house while I go tear the top off of a mountain somewhere."

"The first two are done," said Bulma, handing the small, collar-like devices to the two Saiyans. They fastened around the neck like chokers and locked with an unnerving 'click'. "Don't try to take them off until tomorrow. I've designed them to give you shock painful enough to knock you out for a few minutes if you try."

"Everyone raise your hand who thinks we look stupid in these," Gokou said. Krillan raised his hand with a grin, and dropped it quickly at Vegita's dark look.

Two more hours trundled by, then a third amid Vegita's angry protests,

as Bulma and her makeshift crew hammered out three more of the devices. "Who gets these?" She asked.

"Pan definitely," said Gohan taking one.

"And you," Vegita told him. "You must be clear-headed tonight. We don't have any way of knowing what the moon will do to half-Saiyans---how strong its pull will be on your blood. It may vary from person to person. But of all the half-bloods, your Saiyan nature runs the strongest."

"I should have one as well," Trunks said hesitantly. He eyed his sister and his closest friend sitting side by side, not touching, but inextricably bound together at the same time. "Bra doesn't need it anymore. She and Goten won't do anything tonight they didn't do last night. I doubt they'll do much of anything else." Bra reddened and leveled a baleful gaze at her brother.

"I…I was on the point of madness in that other timeline that Goten and I remember living now. Maybe past the point. Which means I'm not the most stable guy around now." He met Gohan's eyes steadily. "It's more than three hours til the moonrise and, already, all I can think about is Pan. I can smell her all over your clothes from here. If I don't have one of the reflectors, I'll come looking for her tonight. I won't be able to stop myself."

Gokou felt rather than saw the smoking wave of irrational rage that enveloped his oldest son. Gohan silently gave the last reflector to Trunks. "If I see you tonight, Trunks-kun," he said quietly, "I won't pull my punches." There was a long tense moment. Krillan nervously tapped two sets of pliers together and everyone jumped as though he'd fired a gun.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. His wife, smiling her cool not-smile, took the pliers away from him.

"It is past time for you to leave," Vegita told Bulma sternly. She looked at her watch with concern. It was nearly 4 o'clock. "You and I as well, Kakarott."

Kakarott. You're name is Kakarott…

"You're right," he paused, trying to think of a diplomatic way to phrase his next suggestion. There wasn't one, he decided. " There's one other thing you should do first, Vegita."

The other Saiyan narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "Is there?"

"You'll be less dangerous without your tail."

"The reflectors will work," Vegita snapped.

"I don't know how well," Bulma put in hesitantly. "None of us knows how strong the pull of the moon will be. You're the only one who's seen anything remotely like it, and you were little more than a baby. We don't know what to expect. It might be a good idea---"

"No one's taking my tail, Woman," he said flatly.

"Vegita, you're being a big baby! I can grow it back tomorrow with the brute ray."

"No!"

"Vegita, does it mean more to you than your family's safety?" Gokou said in exasperation. He regretted it instantly when the other Saiyan tensed in fury.

"Do not presume to tell me how best to protect my house, you low-class imbecile!"

Gokou was suddenly nose to nose with him. He had moved across the room without thought. "I don't like being called that," he said with deceptive gentleness. "I don't think I ever did."

"Get out of my face, Kakarott," Vegita ground out. "Or I will not wait until tonight to beat you unconscious."

"Since when," Gokou growled softly, "have you ever been able to do that?"

A short, sharp knife's point of pain lanced up out of the reflector and into his brain, and he doubled over. Beside him, Vegita knelt, also gasping. Bulma took her finger off a small control device the size of a TV remote and sighed with relief. "That's about all the testosterone I can handle for the moment," she said firmly. "At least I know the fail safe controller works if either of you comes calling tonight."

Vegita turned his homicidal gaze from Gokou to his wife, and his face slowly softened, reason over-taking pride. "I will take off my tail," he said finally. He kissed her quickly and left the room.

"I suppose the loss of one's tail is a private thing," Juuhachigou remarked in her sotto-voice off hand way.

 

 

 

He would have to learn, he thought grimly as he made his way up the main stairway to the suit of rooms he shared with Bulma, to treat Kakarott---this new man who was indeed Kakarott---with respect. The very idea sparked an almost uncontrollable flare of rage mixed with shame. Shame that he had thought of only himself initially, as he had so many times in his life, putting his pride before the lives of those he loved. Rage that Kakarott had called him on it so openly, then thrown his greater strength in Vegita's face like a fistful of mud.

He pulled off his clothing, tossed it in the incinerator, and showered quickly. There was no time for such things, but his shirt reeked of Gohan's girl-child from where she had touched him the night before. He shuddered with horror at how strong his reaction to her tiny hand on his chest had been. It had taken every ounce of control he had not to---

If he caught her scent tonight, he thought blackly, he would hunt her.

His stood dressed and clean before the mirror, hands clenched furiously, and he closed his eyes, willing calm. No more outbursts. No more posturing or belligerence. He would slice off his own tail and both legs if he thought it would keep his woman and his children safe. Besides, he grinned suddenly, he would be beating Kakarott bloody soon enough tonight. There would be more than ample opportunity to make the other Saiyan regret his words.

He aimed a backhanded blast at his tail and fell foreword with a half scream as the agony struck. He saw the boy behind him. Saw the pale Tsiru-jin face, red lips curled maliciously. Had one brief fraction of a second to feel a grudging admiration that the boy had timed his attack so perfectly, in a moment when he would be vulnerable. The child kicked the raw, cauterized stump where his tail had just been with torturous force, and Vegita blacked out. After what seemed like only a few seconds, the Tsiru-jin dropped his half-paralyzed body onto the hard rocky banks of a mountain riverside.

"There's nothing you can make me remember, you little bastard!" He smirked through the pain. The icy river water around his hands began boiling as he started to power up. When he got up, he would take a very long time killing this little monster.

"I know," said the boy's piping voice, as he touched the Saiyan Prince's temple. "Forget."

Vegita grimaced with pain and rolled up to all fours with a snarl. His tail---! Some sneaky, cowardly piece of shit had cut off his tail!

"What is the last thing you remember, Saiyan no Ouji?

He stared blankly at the Tsiru-jin. "We were about to make planetfall. Where's Nappa? And who the fuck are you?" He tried to stand and fell.

"Nappa is long dead. And I am Gurasia, our gracious Lord Frieza's son and heir."

"Frieza doesn't have any brats," he spat, taking deep breaths, trying to force down the pain.

"He does now. It has been over thirty years since you first landed on Chikyuu. My Lord Father would have sent a rescue sooner, but you neglected to report where you were going, so we didn't know where to look."

"Thirty---thirty years?" He stared down at his reflection in the water in slowly dawning horror. The planes of his features had shifted subtly, broadened, giving him the look of a man grown into the fullness of his strength, very unlike the angular, boyish face he knew as his own. His body was bulkier, more muscular, and strong. Very, very strong. And what the hell had happened to his hair?!

"When you crashed on this world," the boy explained. "You were immobilized and taken prisoner. You have been a captive on this planet half your life, Vegita." He paused, watching the Saiyan's face, letting his words sink in. "Chikyuu is run by merchant princes. Kakarott, your comrade Raditz' brother, serves the most powerful of these houses. He betrayed you into slavery. The Chikyuu-jin woman who has held you for all these years used mind-altering technology to control you. You were a willing servant in her house." The boy shrugged. "I imagine you were treated well enough. She bore two children of you."

"Children?" He asked, deathly soft.

"Oh yes. You have been her whore for three decades." The boy sneered. "But then you came to that occupation with prior job experience, did you not?" Vegita hissed with fury and lunged for the Tsiru-jin, but the boy darted out of reach. "I have wiped your memory of all your long exile, Vegita. I don't imagine you mind."

"No," he whispered, trembling with rage and self-disgust. A woman's plaything!

"We should leave now," the boy said amiably. "But the Prince of Tsiru-sei is not without compassion. You may stay this night and settle your debts, if you wish."

"I wish," Vegita said, standing shakily.

"The woman, Bulma Briefs, is in hiding now, fearing for her life now that you are free. I have removed her mind control device, but you still wear the collar that will bar you from using the power of the moon." Vegita's fingers clamped around the band encircling his neck and felt a wave of pain shoot out of the hateful device. The Tsiru-jin boy smiled and tore off the collar for him, sending answering spikes of agony spearing into his brain. Slowly, the pain eased, and he was free. "Kakarott will very probably be where the woman is. Guarding her from you, no doubt."

Vegita bared his teeth. "I will find them."

 

 

 

"He's nowhere in the house, Kassan," Trunks said worriedly.

They had waited half an hour for Vegita to return before searching the entirety of Capsule Corp.

"Something's wrong," said Bulma unnecessarily.

"It doesn't matter," Gokou said. His voice was low and strained. "You all have to go. Now!" It was one hour until moonrise. He could feel something building inside him, violent and terrifying. "I'll go and find him."

"I'll come with you," Trunks said, looking off to the north where his sister and Goten had just disappeared over the horizon. His mother had suggested tactfully that they not carry out a repeat performance of the previous night's activities at Capsule Corp. They might wake the next morning to find the entire West Capital burned to the ground. "None of us should be anywhere near any populated areas tonight anyway."

Gokou grunted something in agreement. He turned back to Chi-Chi. She looked miserable and afraid and he wondered sickly if she was afraid of him. He tried to smile reassuringly. "It'll be over in ten hours." He kissed her goodbye, something he would have never thought to do before, savoring how sweet her lips were, how good she felt pressed against him. She was soft and fragile, and she still smelled of the apples and cinnamon she cooked for breakfast. So easy to take without resistance, to crush her to him, breaking and slashing----He pushed her back. "Go!" His voice was shaking. He looked around at the pale frightened faces of the people he loved. "Take care of her," he told his son, Krillan and Juuhachigou. "Take care of them all." He left while he still felt he could, and Trunks followed silently.

 

 

The extravagant hunting lodge belonged to an old friend of Gohan's from University. Videl sat on the wide wooden porch swing that looked out over the cool green mountains of northern China, her drowsing daughter's head in her lap. The drowning heat that had washed the West Capital in sluggish miserable humidity was absent here.

"Poppa's on his way," Pan sighed.

"Is he close?" Videl stroked the girl's brow gently. Her fever was rising.

"They'll be here in a few minutes. Poppa and Bassan and Krillan-san and Juuhachigou-san." Pan fidgeted slightly. "Marron's not with them. Good. I don't like her much anymore."

"No? Why not?"

"Huh. She's catty. And she likes Trunks."

Videl smiled. "How long have you had this crush on Trunks, Honey?"

"It's not a crush!" Her daughter said plaintively. "I'm not a baby. Everybody treats me like one and I hate it! I spent a whole year away from home, fighting and traveling around the whole galaxy, and almost another running and hiding and fighting when all of you were possessed by Baby, and nobody remembers that!" Pan's voice, teary and weak before, had grown angry and strident before tapering off into a low vibration in her chest that Videl realized with faint horror, was a soft growl.

Gohan, hurry up! I need you!

"You're all trying to keep me away from him, to keep me a baby!" Pan said accusingly, sitting up. "It was okay for Bra to have Goten! That's not fair!"

Videl returned the girl's gaze steadily, trying to think of something, anything that would keep her calm. Oh Kami, if she tries to leave, I'm not strong enough to stop her!

"There's a bigger difference between fifteen and eighteen that you can imagine, Pan," she said finally. "Nobody's saying you can't…marry Trunks one day. We just want to see you finish high school first."

Pan blinked rapidly, her eyes suddenly filling with miserable tears. "That's what Vegita-san said."

"He did?"

"Uh-huh. Last night after Trunks ran away from me, he told me Trunks would still be waiting for me when I grew up."

Videl was surprised. It was hard to think of that cold, stern man doing anything as kind as comforting a lovesick teenage girl. She had always been a little afraid of him. "That sounds like good advice from an inside source, sweetheart."

"Then I made a pass at him."

Videl swallowed hard. "At Vegita-san?"

Pan sniffled. "He pushed me back and told me it wasn't my fault. But, Oh Momma! This whole thing is so embarrassing! And I'll never be able to look at Vegita-san again! Or Bulma-san!"

"He…Pan-chan, he was raised Saiyan. And this happened to all Saiyan women. He probably doesn't think any more of it than your Poppa does when I get irritable and crave chocolate once a month." She kissed Pan's hot face. "It'll be okay, sweetie. I promise."

Gohan and the others soared out of the glowing afternoon sky and landed gently on the overgrown, untended lawn. Videl breathed a heavy sigh of relief that was cut short by the look on her husband's face. "Vegita-san is missing," he said grimly.

 

Gokou searched the immediate area for some trace of Vegita's energy signature. "Nothing," he said angrily. "Dammit, he better be in trouble! If he's just gone off in a huff---"

"Maybe it's like what happened to Goten and myself," Trunks said anxiously, straining to keep up with the bigger man's greater speed. "And you as well, for that matter. If this boy has…altered him in some way, his ki may have changed." Trunks frown deepened. "What could he have done to Tousaan, Gokou-san?"

"What do you mean?"

"Goten and I lived years in the timeline we remember now. Toussan has only three or four days of memories from that time. Would anything that happened during the whole mess just…wreck him? You remember the whole thing, don't you?"

"I do," Gokou stopped in mid-air and Trunks drew up beside him. "Let's think this out. What?" He looked curiously at the boy's poorly hidden grin. "Oh. Me saying, 'Let's think this out.' Ha ha."

"Sorry, Gokou-san."

"There's lots of things from that time that would hurt him, but nothing that would change him. As far as I know, Vegita remembers every detail of every bad thing that's ever happened to him…" A glimmer of some terrible insight danced around the edge of his thoughts. "There's a distinct pattern to everything this boy's done so far to each one of us. He seems to be trying to arrange a set of circumstances that will pit us against each oth---"

"What is it?" Trunks asked fearfully, reading the look on his face.

"Kami, I hope I'm wrong!" Gokou whispered. He was hating the Tsiru-jin boy's 'gift' to him more with each passing moment. "Hang onto me," he told Trunks, and closed his eyes in concentration, trying to recall the exact subtleties of ki and thought patterns of a man who no longer existed. He latched onto something almost instantly, and swore softly, grieving for the loss of a friend. They winked out of the smog pall that hung above the suburbs and into fresh icy mountain air half a continent away.

Before them, on the edge of the flat rocky mesa top, stood Vegita, eyes burning red as the fires of Hell. His tail was gone. So was his reflector collar. He stood with his arms raised and spread wide, gazing upward in rapt murderous joy. They had jumped an hour eastward with shunkan idou, and the sky was noticeably dimmer. And the moon had risen.

 

 

"T-toussan?" Said the younger of his two enemies. He snarled at the word and the sight of the face so like his own. This was one of the half-breed bastards he had sired off the Chikyuu-jin woman.

"He doesn't remember being your father, Trunks," said the other, who too closely resembled Raditz to be anyone but his brother.

"Kakarott…" he purred. "I will kill you and all your house for betraying me."

"Betraying?" The other Saiyan tried to brush his thoughts and he dealt the low class mongrel a vicious mental blow that made him wince. "Gurasia took away all his memories since he first came to Chikyuu," Kakarott said, and the half-breed paled.

"The moon is risen," Vegita breathed. "There is no better time for Saiyans to kill one another, Kakarott. Don't you feel it burning in your blood?" They both stared at him like lummoxes, and he suddenly saw the collars they both wore. "Ah. The Chikyuu woman has enslaved you as well. I can take them off if you wish. We can kill her together before we fight."

"No!" Cried the boy. Vegita could feel the rage of the moon building inside both his enemies, straining at the limits of the collars they both wore.

"Toussan, try and remember! Try---"

Vegita shot forward and struck the fair-haired abomination he had been forced to father, driving him into the black shale of the mountain's flat peak. The pitiful weakling hadn't even defended himself. Kakarott was on him in an instant. And it was good! Gods, it was good to fight with this madness raging through his blood, driving out the shame and humiliation and having been bound and controlled for thirty long years. He silently thanked the Tsiru-jin brat for scrubbing his memories, though some flickers of recollection still lingered. He would have lost his mind, he thought, living with the memories of his time here. He saw Kakarott beginning to grin as well, teeth bared, tasting his own blood in his mouth from Vegita's blows.

He was strong. Stronger than Frieza, stronger than Cold-sama, stronger than Vegita had ever conceived a mortal being could become. And Vegita was his equal! They powered up through the stages of Super Saiyan, and Vegita screamed with joy, the first real happiness he could remember feeling since childhood. Otoussama! Can you see me from the Halls of Eternal War? You were right, Father! You were right! I am the Legendary, the Super Saiyan! He and one other, he corrected with a twist of jealous greed. And you will soon be dead, Kakarott!

The moon rose still as they fought on. With no warning, both Saiyans cried out sharply and dropped to the ground. Somewhere nearby, Vegita could hear the boy gasping in pain as well. A vise had closed around his spine, from the base of his brain stem down to the wound where his tail had been, and began pulling, tearing at nerves and bone and muscles, forcibly rearranging his body. He rose panting, hissing and snarling through razored fangs as the pain subsided. His tail had grown back. All their tails had grown back, even the half-breed's. He had recovered first, probably because they both still wore their slave collars. He staggered over to Kakarott's still-writhing body. Low class warriors were always at the mercy of their tails. He grabbed the bigger man's tail and twisted it at a particular angle, a dirty trick he had learned almost as soon as he could walk. Kakarott's eyes rolled back in his head and he sagged, unconscious. Damn, the man was powerful!

He would not kill this opponent until they were both on equal ground again. Only then could he prove himself the stronger. But first, the woman. His eyes caught sight of the half-breed boy's still face, and he rasped again as he saw how strong the resemblance ran. He set one foot on the bastard's defenseless head, preparing to crush the life out of this living proof of his shame, this pollution of the blood of kings with---He stopped.

Fuck it.

There were no more Saiyan women. What the hell had he assumed he would eventually do when it came time to father an heir except sire a half-breed? He knew Radditz had four or five half-blood by-blows scattered here and there on different worlds. He had made it his business to learn that they were all male. Saiyan births tended to be overwhelmingly male, nearly twenty to one. He withdrew his foot. Saiyan blood was precious. Too precious to spill without reason.

The brat was strong, very strong, for all that he was out of shape and training. That could be fixed. He noticed the mind controlling collar around the boy's neck and tore it off with a hiss of fury. No son of Vegita-sei's royal house would be bridled so! The young man opened his eyes and Vegita watched as the moon filled them up, burning out the hateful tepid blue, filling the brat with the truest sense of who and what he was, with freedom. Probably for the first time in his life.

"When you can stand, brat," he told the younger man, "Follow me. We will take our revenge on the bitch who has held us both enslaved."

He shot upwards considering. He only had another hour or so before the madness took him completely. He sharpened his concentration and scanned randomly, wonder with a twinge of unease where he had picked up such a skill---to scout without a scouter. There! Far away, but clear and distinct, he sensed a collection of extremely high power levels all clumped together. The woman's servants, no doubt. Gathered together to protect her from him. He raced toward the source of the ki signatures, growling like an animal with rage. "Ready or not, bitch. Here I come!"

* * * * *


Table of Contents
Chapter 2
Chapter 4