DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN DBZ OR AND OF THE CHARACTERS THEREIN. I AM NOT RECEIVING ANY MONEY FOR THIS. THIS FICTION IS PURELY FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY.

WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS VIOLENCE AND PROFANITY. IF THIS OFFENDS YOU, DON’T READ.

Haven was a lush, green world. They made landfall at dawn, the yellow sun was just peeking over the horizon, illuminating the sparkling, pre-fab new city outside. Zarbon had placed the travelers from Chikyuu in a large, comfortable waiting room in one of the makeshift city’s main admin buildings. He was currently involved in a heated debate with the under-ground’s other elders. They were more than a little leery of trusting Saiyans of any description.

Bulma leaned forward studying the technical schematics on the console before her in rapt wonder. Some subdued voice of propriety told her she should not be finding any sort of joy in anything when her life had justcome unraveled overnight. But the perfect mathematical beauty and scale of the mechanism before her was almost unimaginable.

"It’s wonderful, isn’t it?" Bra said shyly. The girl had edged nearer to her mother by slow degrees as though she thought Bulma might object to her closeness.

"Zarbon said something about hiding whole worlds," Bulma said breathlessly, "but…Kami! The crazy thing is, I’ve been working on something just like this." Her hand strayed to the encapsulated silver rings of her transport invention on the capsule tool belt around her waist. "I wasn’t quite able to work out the kinks. I would put things in the entrance ring port and sometimes it would come out the other ring, and then sometimes it would just be…gone. But looking at your SPE specs, I can see now where I went wrong."

"I helped configure the Spatial Phase Engine for this planet," Bra said proudly. "And I developed this as well." She held up a hand-sized replica of the massive engine displayed on the view screen before them. "It’s a personal SPE. We use them for espionage. You activate it while wearing it and, just like this planet, you are neither here nor there. You’re halfway teleported between one point in space and another. Keep it, Mama," another shy smile. "You’re not as strong as the rest of us, not physically. It’ll help keep you safe—invisible and untouchable."

"Not quite invisible," Zarbon said from the doorway. He looked liked he’d developed a serious headache in the last few hours. "The SPE’s give off a faint ripple of energy from source and destination coordinates, and once every 2 hours, we must fully materialize at the destination coordinates and rephase. It’s only 3/100’s of a second that we’re visible and solid, but that would be all Frieza would need if he knew our secret." He eyed the men. "The elders have agreed to let you stay, but they’d ask you to keep out of sight as much as possible. Most of the refugees are terrified of Saiyans, either from old stories, or…" He stopped awkwardly.

"Or from having their planets demolished by Trunks and Goten," Vegita finished tonelessly. He stood gazing out the window at nothing in particular. Chi-Chi looked him in the eye, something she couldn’t remember ever having done. She had been uncharacteristically subdued since leaving Chikyuu. Now she held the gaze of this man she’d never thought to have anything more than a flat dislike for, and asked the question she had told herself she would not.

"How did he do it, Vegita? They were good boys. They loved to fight, but they weren’t killers, and they knew right from wrong. My Goten…What did he do to them to change them so much?"

Vegita stared at her a long moment before answering. "Everything," he said quietly. If he expected the satisfaction of seeing her crumple into a sobbing mess, he was disappointed. She set her jaw. "They’re still the same boys we raised."

"They are men," he said flatly. "They have slain the population of Chikyuu a hundred times over by now. Don’t expect your baby boy to come running into your arms when he sees you, because that boy is dead. Frieza killed him 15 years ago."

"Your own people, the Saiyans, taught you to be a killer long before Frieza ever did!" Chi-Chi heard her own voice rising in anger. "If you can manage to live a halfway normal life, they can be completely normal and happy! So don’t you tell me there’s no hope, you cold-hearted asshole!"

"Chi-Chi!" Gokou took her in his arms and pulled away from Vegita, afraid she might attack him physically. "I’m all right!" She said fiercely, burying herself in her husband’s embrace. "I’m all right," she said,softer.

After a moment, Gohan spoke in a quiet, shocked voice. "Kassan just said ‘asshole’." And they all, except a scowling Vegita, erupted into near-hysterical laughter.

Zarbon was also frowning in confusion. "Chikyuu-jin are mad," Vegita muttered. "Don’t ask me to explain it."

Zarbon nodded. "I told you before I thought we could help each other. Time is a factor now that our secrecy has been compromised, so I’m taking you to see our prisoner now. Follow me."

As they traversed the huge complex of the base world’s central offices, Bulma was amazed at the variety of different life forms gathered together on one planet. She lost count at some point of the number of species she saw. A low roar of space ship engines shook the building. "We’re evacuating the families first," Zarbon explained.

"Could they attack so soon after getting the information from Madran?" Gohan asked. Zarbon nodded grimly.

Bulma hung the personal SPE Bra had given her from her tool belt and began to lose herself again in the blueprints she’d downloaded into her own minicomp as they walked along. Bra hovered close to her, offering bits of information and answering her questions on this and that.

Zarbon grinned as he strode beside Vegita. "I knew Bra hadn’t gotten her brains from you."

Vegita glanced back at his wife and daughter. "Thank you," he said quietly.

The blue-skinned man eyed him. "Where is Prince Vegita of Vegita-sei and what have you done with him?"

"Smartass," Vegita snorted.

"You’re welcome," Zarbon said seriously. "She changed me, you know. Wormed her way right into my cold, reptilian heart in the first day. It’s amazing how one thing in the universe you actually give a damn about can open you up to giving a damn about everything and everybody else." Vegita grunted something that might have been an agreement.

They arrived at their destination after an almost endless elevator ride downward. The oppressive feeling of being miles beneath the surface of the planet was all around them. And something else as well.

"Evil," Gokou hissed. Vegita glanced at the other Saiyan curiously as they stepped out of the elevator car into the dimly lit lab beyond. Kakarott was tensed like a cat with its back arched, every nerve on edge. "There’s something terrible in here, Vegita," he said. "Can’t you feel it? It’s so strong!"

"What is it, Zarbon?" Vegita asked.

Zarbon’s face was a study in the artfully blank mask of the courtier and whore who had survived fifty years in Frieza’s service. He did not answer, only turned and strode toward the dull red glow at the center of the great bunker-like room. There was no choice but to follow him.

Bulma felt her hand go numb as Bra seized it in her own. The girl’s frightened face didn’t reassure her. "Bra, you’re breaking Kassan’s hand," she said gently.

The younger woman looked sheepish. "Sorry, Mama."

Hand in hand, they followed the others to the center on the room, where a hunched figure sat surrounded by the laboratory’s single light source. He was old beyond Bulma’s previous understanding of the word, frail and almost skeletal. He emanated a pervading sense of bad, of wrongness, so strong even Bulma’s weak human senses could detect it.

"Daruma," Vegita said softly.

"We thought he would be able to tell us the secrets of his dragon balls," Zarbon said. "Then we might have some kind of an edge against Frieza. No such luck."

"He’s told you nothing?"

Zarbon shook his head. "Just ravings and nonsense. He’s mad. We tracked him down few weeks ago and imprisoned him here. He’s pretty docile—just sits there like a lump most of the time. Then two days ago, he became coherent for a few minutes. He asked to speak to the "blue machine wright from Chikyuu." I thought it was meaningless until you showed up," he told Bulma. "I think he meant you, Mistress." She started. "If there’s any chance he could tell us anything that might be of use—"

"She’s not going anywhere near that thing!" Vegita said sharply.

"He can’t get out, Poppa." Bra said. "I have two SPE’s rigged to loop back on each other. If he tries to move out of the circle of red light, he’s instantly teleported back inside." She checked the readouts on the small control console that sat just outside the light cell. "It’s working. He can’t go anywhere."

Vegita regarded her and his angry scowl softened slightly. "All right," he said finally.

Bulma carefully approached the edge of the prison of red light. Vegita moved to stand beside her, tensed like a spring. Gokou stepped up on her left as well, hovering protectively. She didn’t resent it. The waves of… of blackness issuing from the emaciated Namek were almost overwhelming.

"Daruma?" Her voice sounded too loud into the hollow room. The thing in the cell twitched at the sound of her voice, and scuttled slowly to the edge of the circle.

"The craftmistress from Chikyuu." The voice was like the rustle of dead leaves. "Blue is my favorite color…"

"Did you want to speak to me?" She asked.

"Your son…the fair haired Saiyan warrior with the sword…visited me in my tomb years ago…I was sealed in stasis in the bowls of the caverns beneath the Royal Palace of Tsiru-sei by Frieza. To keep me from any misfortune, you understand. Should harm come to me, the Red Dragon Balls would be useless."

"You saw Trunks—" Bulma began.

"Years and years ago, I think it was…time is not as is was to me before I wrought Red Soraku’s dragon balls. I was greedy, and impatient and very, very stupid. Dragon Balls take a measure of the craftsman’s soul, essence, and ki in their forging. The mightier the dragon conjured, the more they require. Five wishes…." He cackled softly. "Half my soul is gone, Lady. And still I live on. Hell will seem a mercy to me, for there at least, I will be whole." He raised his head and met her eyes. She would not have thought that anything this side of Hell could look so damned.

"Trunks," she prodded gently.

"He found my tomb—how, I do not know—and awakened me. He asked me for my secrets as you do now. He wept, and spoke of all that he had loved and lost, and asked how he might regain it. He spoke of his father, the great Saiyan warrior prince, and of his mother. Is it true what he said, Lady? Can you craft and build any mechanism within the scope of your imagination?"

"I…"

"She can," Vegita said firmly.

"So then…" Daruma bared his sharp, yellowed teeth in a death’s head smile. "The boy was discovered in his pilfery, and in the confusion, I escaped. I imagine it went rather ill for him. The Lord of Tsiru-sei is most inventive in his punishments." Dry, hacking laughter.

"You rotting, green fuck!" Vegita snarled.

This only seemed to amused the Namek more. "I owe the boy my freedom. So, I will tell you what I did not have time to tell him."

A seismic rumble rolled through the room, knocking Bulma to the floor. A sound like depth charges detonated underwater shook the bunker’s foundation a second time.

"Tell me," Bulma said.

The others were looking up as though they could see through the ceiling.

Gohan gasped. "Is that---?"

"Yes," Vegita’s bleak voice.

"Unmake them, Chikyuu woman," the green rictus head grinned at her. "Unmake the Red Dragon Balls and all of Red Soraku’s wishes will unravel."

Another depth charge, this time closer. "Destroy them?" Bulma asked, desperately. Whatever was going on above ground, this little interview was about to end abruptly.

"Get ready," Gokou told the others.

"What is it?" Chi-Chi cried. "What’s happening?"

The ceiling began to buckle above their heads as though it were being bored through with a giant jackhammer.

"My death is coming," Daruma smiled. "Unmake them, craftmistress. Devise a way to make them be not. Do you understand my meaning? Then all the wishes and all the events that resulted will unravel as though they never happened. Including Frieza’s resurrection and and his theft of your young."

"Toussan," Gohan was saying, "We can’t fight them!"

"We may not have a choice," Bra said angrily. "Right now they’re butchering all those refugees you just saw above ground!"

"Here they come," Vegita hissed. He grabbed Bulma and threw her to the floor, covering her body with his an instant before the ceiling dissolved into a shower of molten shrapnel. On the floor beside her, Bulma saw that Gohan had done the same to his startled mother. A huge chunk of glowing steel struck the console that held Daruma’s cell intact, smashing it to pieces, and the red light surrounding the Namek winked out. He did not flinch or make any move to run. Through the pall of heat and smoke, two luminous figures emerged and strode toward the ancient Namek, both burning inside halos of Super Saiyan light.

"I’ve come to hear the rest of your story, old man," Trunks told Daruma.

"Trunks," Bulma gasped.

Both young men’s head snapped around in unison, and Bulma found herself staring into the eyes of the stranger that was her son.

And everything seemed to stop.

No one moved or spoke, they simply stared at each other in shock.

Then Goten broke the silence as his eyes fell on his mother. "Kassan." He took one hesitant step forward. "Kassan?" He said disbelieving.

"Goten," she said softly. He was beside her so quickly she couldn’t follow the motion, shaking his head slowly as though he did not believe his eyes. His eyes… "Oh, Goten-chan," Chi-Chi whispered sadly. "Your poor little eye…" Her finger traced the scar that ran from under the eyepatch.

"How, Kassan?" He glanced around, seeing the others, suddenly. Something like a smile was beginning to tug on the corner of his mouth.

"It was all true," Trunks voice was low. It was so much like his father’s Bulma shivered.

"What’s true?" She reached out trying to place one hand on his face. It had suddenly begun to twist horribly.

Goten was already turning apprehensively, recognizing the note in Trunks voice.

"Trunks, don’t---"

The air around Bulma seemed to ignite, and she had a brief sense of vertigo as Vegita snatched her up like a rag doll and threw her out of the path of the oncoming blast. Then nothing.

Vegita deflected a second burst, this one aimed with deadly accuracy at himself. The energy pod ricocheted off his clenched fist and struck the ancient Namek where he had sat patiently awaiting his own death.

"You left us!" Trunks screamed, and launched himself at his father, who met him midway with a hoarse cry of anger. "You all saved yourselves and left us to Frieza!!" Trunks began shrieking, writhing in Vegita’s stronger grip. He held onto the younger man grimly, thanking all the powers that were that the boy had not yet achieved Super Saiyan 3.

Slowly, methodically he began sending bursts of ki into his son’s body, just strong enough to disrupt his power and wear him down. This unthinking rage couldn’t last for long. If he could deplete enough of Trunks ki, they could all hold him down and tell him---Without warning, Trunks seemed to collapse in his arms. It took him a few seconds to realize what had happened. In the micro-second before the last restraining blow Vegita had dealt him, Trunks had suddenly powered down completely. Vegita stared in numb horror at the scorched whole he had just put through his son’s heart.

"Poppa, why?" Trunks whispered. And died.

Vegita sank to the floor, holding his son’s lifeless body in his arms, and wailed like a broken-hearted child.

* * * * *