Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction / Fan Fiction ❯ Beginning ❯ Vegeta-Sei ( Chapter 3 )

A/N: Sorry for the confusing end last chapter, but it gets even more confusing in this chapter. Please be patient with me, I have to introduce all strings first before I can weave a plot out of them (Don't worry, there IS a continuous plot, but it wouldn't be any fun if I told you now how the parts are related)! This story is probably going to be some kind of Crossover in the later chapters, but I am not sure yet which characters I'll introduce.

By the way: I have said that this story is about 2 years after the Cell games. In the manga, Gohan participates in the Cell games at the age of 9, so he should be close to 12 by now. Enjoy it!

Disclaimer: None, the DBZ characters belong to Akira Toriyama, the other characters to their according owners.

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Vegeta-Sei

Just keep walking. Put one foot in front of the other. It isn't far anymore, you are almost there. And keep walking. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

With those stupid phrases, I am trying to cheer me up, trying to keep myself going, trying to stay sane in that endless, red, empty desert that is bursting from heat. I know that if I would stop to rest for a while, I would never get up again, so I have to keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot, breathe. Look on the ground before you put your foot down, you can't afford getting hurt. That would be your end. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

Blood red sand as far as I can see, the air wavering madly, the pale blue sun burning down mercilessly on my shoulders, dunes rippled by the hot breath from hell's doorstep. You are almost there. Keep going and going and going.

Going where? I don't know. Left foot, right foot, breathe.

I can smell nothing else than heated stone and my own sweat that leaves white, salty marks on my forehead. Thirsty, so thirsty. Don't even think about cold, fresh, soothing water running down your dry, aching throat and giving you new energy. Just keep walking. One foot in front of the other. Left foot, right foot.

Breathing is an endless torture, the hot gusts of air sear my lungs and make my eyes water. I cannot afford to loose any more liquid. Soon my body will be dried out and shriveled like a mummy, lying beneath hot layers of blood red sand. Keep going. Keep going. It isn't far anymore.

The cloudless sky is an unfamiliar glassy purple that matches the hostile environment, and the sweltering blue sun is enormous, reaching down to the blazing sand as if it wanted to devour the whole scenery. Living beings are clearly not meant to survive in that cruel oven designed by nature herself. Nevertheless, I am here. I do not know why, but I am here and I leave marks which show that there has been one single boy. Every footstep leaves a mark to show that nature has not defeated me yet. Left foot in front of the right foot. Right foot in front of the left foot. Keep walking, don't stop.

My head is throbbing under the fiery assault of the star which is only slightly dampened by a thin layer of cloth and my thick, spiky, black hair. The heat is pounding down on me, making me slightly dizzy, and I got a strange taste in my paper-dry mouth. My sore eyes are half closed, but even then the bright reflected light still hurts my pupils, it is so hot, searing, seeming to burn me to a crisp. Don't think, just keep going. Put one foot in front of the other. It isn't far anymore. You are almost there. Left foot, right foot, breathe. Keep walking, walking, walking, walking, until you are no more.

Suddenly, the sound of a huge detonation almost busts my eardrums, and burning hot red sand spatters everywhere. I choke on the thick dust cloud and swallow a mouthful of hard stones and dirt. They are scratching down my dry throat in an agonizingly slow pace and leave an aching chest and stomach. I have to cough again, hurting my throat even further.

Only then I realize that I'm lying flat on my stomach, the heated ground burning through my scarce clothing. Way back, too far to remember it, I have shed my over-shirt, using it as a make-shift turban against the blazing sun, leaving me in a tight, yellow-white muscle shirt and a pair of brownish-green, tattered jogging pants. When I have started walking, my clothes have looked quite new, but now they are torn, dusty, wrinkled, and smelly; the folds are filled with tons of sand and itching in all the wrong places.

Another explosion, this time much closer. The spattering rocks and the sand are shredding my shirt and are scraping my back raw, but I have enough common sense to thrust my aching head into my arms to avoid getting another mouthful of dirt.

When the red hot dust-cloud settles, I manage to convince my sore muscles to get up again and continue my aimless wandering. Put one foot in front of the other. Right foot in front of the left foot. Left foot in front of the right foot. It isn't far anymore, you are almost there.

You are almost there.

Almost there.

But this is only a kind illusion of my dehydrated brain, just a way to keep me walking. In reality, I have no idea where I am, so I cannot know where I am going. I just know that I cannot possibly keep this up any longer, it is too hot and too dry. My reddened eyes are burning, my dry tongue is swollen and feels like wood in my mouth, and breathing is a constant agony.

Nevertheless, I keep on stumbling despite the repeated explosions. Sometimes they are closer, sometimes they are further away, as if somebody quite powerful was fighting. I can almost feel the tension and I can hear the energy crackle in the burning hot air, and the thought of fighting makes me restless even in my weakened state; my sore body is telling me that I want to participate although my mind does not consciously remember fighting. My senses, heightened by my urge to fight, are telling me a lot, especially my sense of smell; and I discover that I have some kind of sixth sense which gives me some information about their fighting-energy.

There are two male combatants in their prime, they are closely related, and it is just a good, rough, but friendly spar instead of a full-scale war. Both are sweaty and must have been fighting for quite some time, and although both are still holding back, one is already covered in sweet, metallic blood while the other one, the stronger one, is as good as fresh.

I am trying to keep my senses on the vicious fight as good as I can as I don't want to get hit with whatever kind of energy is causing those detonations, and it seems to me that if I just would concentrate hard enough, I would be able to actually see the two who cause all that ruckus.

A sudden feeling in my guts tells me to look up to the blazing purple sky, and not one moment too soon. Shielding my eyes, I am confronted with a well-toned, black-haired figure plummeting right towards me. The quite heavily built man is falling lifelessly down to the hot, red desert-sand, only a furry, brown tail is fluttering freely behind him in the wind rushing past his muscled body.

So the man has a tail.

I am wondering why I find that fact strange; after all, I have a tail on my own, it is just curled around my waist to keep it out of harm's way.

When I have woken up in this god-forsaken desert, I have almost stepped on my furry appendage, and it has felt really awkward to have one at first. But later on, after a few tiring hours of pointless walking, my body has adjusted to the new feeling, and I have found out that the fuzzy brown extension of my spinal chord helps me keep my balance.

I just wonder why I had to adjust to my tail, it clearly is meant to be there. I found that one out when I accidentally tripped over it while walking, and it hurt like hell. From that point on, I have always had it tightly curled around my waist. Still, why does that tail feel new to me, additional limbs usually do not appear out of thin air, do they?

The tailed man is falling straight towards me, and as he comes closer, I can see the cuts and bruises, the burns and the blood covering his entire body. He is clearly the weaker one of the two. Strangely, I don't even think about moving out of the way, there is just something inside me which tells me that the injured man is not defeated yet, but just waiting for the right time to break his controlled fall.

Curiously, I watch him come closer, not afraid of him. That something inside me also tells me that he could not hurt me even if he tried to. He is wearing some blue full-body spandex, and some kind of white and yellow armor, which is slightly cracked, is covering his upper body. His hair is just as unruly as mine, but none of his slightly shorter spikes fall in front of his eyes. Instead, they point away stiffly from his chiseled face, defying gravity, and reminding me of a hedge-hog. His lively black eyes are open and have a taxing expression, strengthening my speculation that he is just pretending to be weaker than he actually is. He is still in the battle, and his injuries are not too serious, barely deep enough to draw blood. Only the two or three broken ribs could cause him some trouble, but it doesn't look as if they had punctured his lung. The most fascinating thing about him though is his tail. It has a rich, chocolate-brown color, and is waving in the air like a flag signaling 'Here I come'.

My previous assumption has been correct. Only about 12 feet from the ground and a split-second before he impacts on me, the brawny man suddenly darts away at blinding speed, leaving me to face a round, glowing orb that rapidly descends towards me. The sphere feels like pure energy confined in a small space, and it all but screams 'dangerous' at me.

I know that I have no clue of how to deal with something like that, so I let my instincts take control. A strange tingling comes over me, my heart-beat is accelerating, my breathing is quickening, my brain seems as sharp and clear as never before, my formerly tired muscles are bursting from energy, and I know that I am now ready for combat. In my rapidly moving eyes, the orb seems to slow until I can easily trace its illuminated track through the air. It has a 1-foot-diameter and radiates energy and heat, but it does not scare me any more.

I extend an arm and just let it bounce off like a volleyball, and it shoots in the direction the falling man has flown away.

With my immensely heightened vision, I have no trouble finding the man, he is battling furiously with the other one, a taller man with the same kind of spiky, black hair. The smaller one is so caught up in the fist-to-fist-fight that he not aware of the oncoming energy ball I have redirected, the taller one though has easily spotted my action and tries to maneuver the smaller one to a position where the energy ball would hit him dead on.

Suddenly, I get a strange feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. I become dizzy, and it feels as if somebody would mess with my body, disrupting all kinds of necessary functions. It is a really uncomfortable feeling, it is starting out as a slight tugging in my muscles, but it is soon getting worse. My whole body seems as if it was on fire, the pain is so strong that I can't breathe any more, and it feels like I was torn from the inside out.

Just as the pain lessens a bit and I open my eyes, I realize that I am somewhere else. I am floating some twenty feet in the air, face to face with the tall warrior, and we both are locked in fierce hand-to-hand-combat. I am so stunned that I momentarily let down my guard, and the tall one manages to hit me square in the face. I can feel my nose break, and the blood is spraying like a crimson fountain as I plummet towards the rippled desert sand. But before I hit the ground, something very hot and very burning smashes into my shoulder, denting a nice and bloody, fist-sized hole into it.

The pain is unbearable, and it shrouds my mind in a pulsating red veil. All I can feel is the same pain as before, the pain that set my body on fire and that ripped me apart from the inside. I get lost in my own timeless hell of agony, not aware of anything except my pain.

Then, after an eternity, the pain is ebbing down somewhat and I am able to feel my body again. It gets gradually better, until I am able to lift my heavy eyelids. I am lying on the hot, red desert sand, staring into the glazed, sparkling purple sky adorned by the pale blue sun. The sand is burning, burning through my clothes, burning my raw back, burning away all the momentary strength I have found.

Despite my weakness, I slowly get up again like I have several times today, suppressing the pain that throbs through my right shoulder and my nose. Keep going, keep going, one foot in front of the other.

What in the world has just happened?

First, I have been at a safe distance from those two fighters, then some gut-wrenching pain consumes me, then I am suddenly fighting the tall one, then the horrible pain comes again, and then I lie on the ground with a bloody shoulder and a broken nose. Think, think, think. There has to be some logical explanation for it.

Finally, I notice the powerful presence of the two black-haired warriors over my thinking. They are standing in a relaxed stance about a hundred feet away, but I have a feeling that they would be ready to fight in the fraction of a second if I made a wrong move. They are curiously eyeing me, and they are talking softly among themselves.

I swallow hard with my dry throat, gathering my courage. My voice is hoarse and raspy, but I manage to choke out:

"Who are you?"

Their heads perk up at my question, turning all their attention towards me, but I can read from their puzzled expressions that they are thoroughly confused, especially the smaller one. He shouts something to me in a strange guttural and grumbling language which I cannot understand, and I shrug my shoulders, hopefully signaling that I have no clue what they have just said. What the hell is going on? Where am I, and, more importantly:WHO AM I?

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Normally, it would be way under Marduku's dignity to spar with that third-class-weakling that called himself his brother, but today he had accepted the challenge, eager to let out some steam by beating down on his younger sibling. They had agreed to spar without scouters and confined their fight within the Crimson Desert, and he was pleasantly surprised how well Toroku fared against him under those extreme weather conditions. Toroku had even done some real damage to him, he was sure that a few of his ribs had at least been cracked. That was when he had stopped holding back and had mercilessly dealt blow after blow.

Soon it was too much for the weaker Toroku, and his previously tight guard became lax and flawed.

Jumping at the chance, he snuck a powerful drop-kick past his brother's defenses, and his foot connected with his shoulder and sent Toroku plummeting towards the ground. He was well aware of the fact that a simple kick would not take his brother out of the game, so he sent a concentrated Ki-blast after him.

Just before it hit him though, his brother managed to dodge out of harm's way, only to reveal a small boy of 11, maybe 12, directly in the blast's path. The brat was dressed ridiculously, some unidentifyable piece of cloth was covering his thick, black mane; a formerly white muscle shirt was clinging to his upper body; a brownish pair of training pants was tucked into some dusty, black combat boots; and every inch of his tanned skin was covered by a thick layer of sand.

Remarkably, the dirty kid showed no fear of the oncoming blast and swatted it away carelessly as if it was an annoying insect. Marduku was quite impressed, the kid must surely have a considerable amount of Ki to handle the situation so easily.

Turning his attention back to the fight, he looked for Toroku, and a devious smirk spread over his handsome features. The kid had diverted the blast exactly in his brother's direction, and he intended to use it to his advantage. He sped up and appeared right in front of Toroku, engaging him in fierce hand-to-hand-combat.

Suddenly, his brother's sloppy fighting-style changed for a split second, his heavily flawed moves became very exact and precise, and he seemed to perform a technique that was utterly alien to Marduku. He couldn't recognize his brother anymore, all of Toroku's attitude had changed, and his hardened eyes had become different, softer and more innocent. Then, Toroku let down his guard completely with a stunned expression on his face, and Marduku struck him in the face pretty hard so that his brother went flying to the ground yet again. But this time, he had forgotten about his own energy blast, and it hit his brother dead on, making one of his shoulders a bloody mess.

That was when the strangest thing in his life happened, even stranger than Toroku's change of behavior: From one instance to the other, Toroku's broken nose and injured shoulder were as good as new again, no mark left from their vicious battle, even before his unconscious body hit the sand; and a young voice, too young to be his brother's, screamed out in pain.

Looking around, he saw that it was the strange kid who had yelled, and the kid had a broken nose and a bloody shoulder. He looked back to Toroku. His brother was healed and already getting up again, and the kid had the exact same injuries that Toroku had had before. What the hell is going on?

The kid twitched a little bit, first opening his eyes, then pushing himself up without seeming to notice his deep wounds. Marduku's respect for the kid grew, in a few years, the young fighter would be an extraordinary warrior of the first class or even higher.

He cut the energy flow that was keeping him suspended in the air and landed softly about a hundred feet behind the kid, right by his brother's side. The boy must have heard him, as he turned around. Not removing his contemplative gaze from the strange kid, he whispered to the now uninjured and standing Toroku if he was ok.

"Yeah I am, but what happened? All I can remember is that I blackened out for some time, and then I am on the ground and my injuries are gone. You did not put me in a Regen-Tank, did you?"

Marduku shook his head no in an answer, but was stopped dead when the kid's small voice sounded to them through the maddeningly hot air. The boy spoke in a melodious, soft language that neither of them could understand. Probably some brat that had been sent off as a baby to purge planets and that had just returned from his first mission. He called over to the kid.

"Hey, brat, do you understand our language?"

The kid merely looked at them confused and shrugged his shoulders.

He cursed. The teaching program of the space-pod must have mal-functioned. They would have to get the brat a language chip before Marduku could get any information on that strange incident out of the kid. Waving his hand in a rough gesture, he signaled the brat to come closer. Wearily, the kid took a few hesitant steps towards the them, wincing slightly from the pain in his shoulder when his arm was moved. The small boy didn't show any fear however, he just seemed very cautious and not very sure of the situation.

Ten feet in front of the men, the brat stopped, close enough to be polite, but far enough to have some measure of safety. Marduku thought this would be as close as the boy would come, so he took slowly to the air, Toroku always by his side. Looking back, he saw that the boy did not follow him but merely stared at them curiously.

Waving his hand again, he told the kid to come closer, waiting for what the brat would do. Considering his rotten luck, the brat probably would have no clue how to fly, let alone keep up with them. Trying to assess the boy's abilities, he watched as the brat got a very concentrated expression and managed to hover a few feet over the ground, but then the kid collapsed and fell down to the heated red sand again, landing in a crumpled heap on the ground.

This time, it took the brat quite a while to get up, and when he finally stood, his pained face was covered in thick beads of sweat and he was as white as a wall, only his injured arm was red where the blood was constantly trickling down in a steady stream.

The kid looked up to them and shrugged again as if to say sorry. Marduku began to wonder, how long that kid had been out there in the Crimson Desert, because he clearly was too weak to fly, and the big wound on his shoulder must have taken a lot of his remaining strength. The dirty and torn clothes indicated that it must have been a very long time, and the boy's slightly cracked lips revealed how desperately in need of liquid he was. No wonder the brat had no energy left.

Cursing his truly rotten luck, he swept down to the kid and picked him up in a fluent motion. The boy stiffened at first, but then relaxed in his arms and closed his eyes. Ignoring his brother's taunts about getting soft and weak, he studied the brat closer and noticed that his skin was too hot and too dry to be healthy. The boy was panting irregularly, and the kid would have to get cooled down very soon, or he would suffer a bad case of heat stroke.

Frowning, Marduku sped up until his disappearing figure vanished over the horizon, leaving the blazing red, hot oven heated by the pale blue sun behind.

-----<<<<<>>>>>-----

I feel like I was run over by a semi-truck, my shoulder and my nose hurt like hell, and I am so thirsty and weak that I can barely move. At the moment, I am lying in the arms of the taller guy, and he is carrying me who knows where, but strangely I trust him. My weird sixth sense doesn't perceive any vibes of danger from him, and so I relax completely, closing my eyes. I don't know if I fell asleep, anyways, some time later we loose height very fast judging by the fluttering feeling in my stomach and land softly on the ground. I open my tired eyes again when he puts me on my feet, and I realize that we are in what seems to be a market place.

Countless people with black, spiky hair and furry brown tails like mine are everywhere, talking, shouting, screaming in that unintelligible language of theirs. They squeeze through a maze of stands covered with white canvas, where a huge variety of different goods is being loudly praised by their various owners. They offer strange-looking, purple fruit, yellow, pointy vegetables, red juicy meat, clothes in all different colors and styles, many kinds of dangerous weapons, and a sweet scent of fried fish is penetrating the air, making my hungry stomach rumble loudly.

The tall, slender houses surrounding the busy market place look regal and very expensive; they are covered with white polished marble so that they are glittering and gleaming in the sunlight like pearls, almost reflecting the buzz of activity in front of their facades like a mirror. The wooden doors and window-frames are painted a deep blue, complementing the white-washed walls nicely and adding a southern flair. Everything here is so clean, the people are happy, and the cloudless purple sky is adding to the cheerful atmosphere.

It is a pity that the tall man who has brought me here has to interrupt my view of the place. I would have loved to trace down all the different impressions which overflow my senses, but he motions me to follow him again. My companion seems to know exactly where he is going, and I have some serious trouble keeping up with him in the crowd. Every time somebody bumps against my injured shoulder, a hot flash of pain shoots through my nerves, and I have to concentrate very hard so that I don't loose sight of my tall guide. Finally he stops at one of the beautifully carved blue doors and waits for me to catch up with him.

We both enter without knocking or unlocking the door, and I find myself standing in a long, cool hallway which is semi-dark, many closed blue doors leading to even more rooms. I follow the tall man through a confusing maze of intersecting hallways and openings to a big, plain door that is adorned by a single black triangle with two s-shaped white lines on it.

He enters without knocking yet again and motions for me to follow him. The sight being revealed before me surprises me greatly. The big, stuffed room seems like some kind of very advanced chemistry laboratory or a mad doctor's den; everywhere are tall shelves bursting with beakers, test tubes, tongs, and countless jars with strange contents ranging from green powder to modern micro-chips; there is even some kind of bed in the far corner, but the durable brown leather straps secured on the white bed-frame make me nervous. Why would they have to strap anyone down on that bed?

My companion is leaning against a shelf filled with beakers containing bubbling liquids and he is looking around lazily, but makes no move to do anything. We have been waiting for maybe 10 minutes when a small door previously hidden behind a table and some cupboards opens and another man steps in. This one is wearing a white lab coat and clear rubber gloves, but otherwise he seems as built as a fighter. He lifts a curious eyebrow towards me and then looks at my companion for an answer.

They talk quite a while in that growling language, then the doctor or whatever function he has, takes a small, grey chip out of a jar from the table. He is letting me inspect the chip, then he turns his back to me, lifts his hair, and shows me a similar chip at the base of his head, embedded securely in his skull.

I can see that my companion has the same kind of chip in his neck, and I am able to guess that they want to give me one, too. Slowly, I nod, a little bit weary of what they are going to do. My companion picks me up effortlessly and lays my stiff form face down on the bed. He is spreading my legs and arms and starts strapping me down.

I am getting nervous, panic begins to rise in my throat when I feel busy hands working on my body. They have already immobilized my limbs, and they have just tied my waist to the bed-frame. My whole body is starting to shiver, my hair is standing on edge, and now they want to tie my neck. I am shaking with all-consuming fear; somehow I know that I have been in a similar situation before and that something horrible has happened.

I am straining against my bonds, desperately whispering -no, no, no- into the hard, white mattress over and over again. I hear some low, angry growls and a second pair of strong hands is coming to hold me down, hurting my shoulder, suffocating me. My bucking movements in order to free myself become more frantic despite the pain, and a sickening wave panic threatens to overwhelm me. My confused mind is loosing the fight and my panicked instincts take over, reducing me to the state of a frightened animal.

Suddenly I am free again. I am standing at the other end of the room, huddled in a dark corner between shelves of jars and tools, slowly calming down. The surge of adrenaline is gradually disappearing and leaves me weak with trembling knees, my breathing hard and labored. Hiding my face behind my arms, I am waiting for my troubled mind to form coherent thoughts again.

When I am finally back to my old self, I lift my eyes to look at the two men. They are lying sprawled out on the floor, unharmed, a few feet away from the bed. Or at least the remains of the bed. It looks more like a smoking pile of trash than a usable bed.

I feel sorry, I shouldn't have caused such a mess, somehow I know that they only wanted to help me.

I inch closer to my lifeless companion, but he doesn't react. He must be out cold because I know that I have not killed him. I nudge him tentatively with my foot. He just sighs and rolls over, bumping against one of the legs of the table. I kneel down and reach out for him, this time with my good arm, and I am shaking his shoulder until he wakes up. When he sees me, his hard, black eyes grow wide, and the strange expression on his face is so funny that I have to laugh uncontrollably.

He stares at me as if I had lost my mind. On seeing that I won't stop anytime soon, he just shakes his head in disbelief and moves to waken the doctor. The doctor is staring at me oddly, too, and I have to laugh even harder.

While I am trying to regain my composure, they are talking some more, probably trying to figure out if I am still sane. Then, suddenly, I feel the same pain as in the desert, and my laughing is cut off immediately. It starts out deep in my muscles and sets my whole body on fire. I can't think straight anymore because of the pain, a red haze is drawn in front of my eyes, and all coherent thoughts are swallowed to leave a endless agony.

When the pain is fading, I feel myself standing, looking down at ... me?

Yes, that is my body, lying on the floor with the tattered and ragged clothes and the bleeding shoulder. Confused, I look to my right. There is my companion staring at me, but I can't see the doctor at all. Looking down at my current body, I discover that I am wearing a white lab coat and clear rubber gloves. Putting one and one together, I come to the conclusion that I have the ability to switch bodies and that I am the doctor at the moment.

I am not letting this revelation disturb me, but try to use my limited time to its full extent. I am looking for the chip, and my keen eyes soon detect it on the messed-up floor. When I take it in my palm to inspect it closer, I suddenly know what it is and how it works. It is a translating device that connects directly to the brain and feeds it all the knowledge of different languages. It can also connect to the Regen-Tanks, telling them the DNA which has to be synthesized to heal the body. But to connect to the brain, it has to be implanted first, and for that, the patient isn't allowed to move his head. Thus the strapping down on the bed. Well, that chance is gone, I will have to do this the hard way.

I realize that it must be the doctor's memory that I am accessing, and I find just enough time to look for a sentence before I get drawn back into my body. The red hot pain engulfs me completely into an endless torture, but it soon fades away, leaving me in my body on the floor, completely spent. This body-switching is really exhausting, I will have to learn how to control it later on. But first things come first.

When I feel that I have enough energy back, I get up again and walk towards my stunned companion. Standing by his side, I motion for the doctor to come closer. By gesturing to the chip and to my neck, I try to make them understand that I want him to go on. At first, he doesn't seem to understand, but finally, he nods hesitantly.

Then I turn around so that I can face my companion, and I look into his deep black unreadable eyes. I am reaching for his hand, and he flinches away. Nevertheless, I catch it and put it on my good shoulder. It is time to try out the sentence that I have found in the doctor's brain.

A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I couldn't find a better place to end this chapter. So what do you think? Good? Bad? Plz write a review!!