Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Confessions Of A Believer: II ❯ Mirror, Mirror On The Wall... ( Prologue )

Confessions Of A Believer: Part Two

A Dragonball Z Fan-fiction by

Ami E. Bowen

Six months had come and gone since my weird experience with that dream I'd had the night before my boyfriend, Shawn, and I went to the anime convention they were holding in my city; Spokane, in the state of Washington. I spent a great deal of that time thinking about it, and running my fingers over the slightly raised area of skin where the scar on my shoulder lay.

I was standing in the middle of Wal-Mart, my grandmother's tall, slightly hunched back in front of me as she pushed the cart down the aisle. She wore a light blue button-down shirt and pair of white slacks, her curly white hair bounced as she walked. Laughter and sudden chatter next to me told me that my mother, shorter than me and plump with short dark brown hair and dancing brown eyes that matched my own, was walking holding my nephew, my sister's kid, Gavin, in her arms.

Stephanie, my sister, olive-skinned, large-eyed and much larger than she had been before Gavin had come along, though she'd always been a little too thin so the change looked good on her, walked behind us with her husband and one of my friends; Nathan. I had another brother, Robb, but he wasn't with us. Stephanie is seven years younger than me and Robb is three years younger. Stephanie I have different fathers, but the same mother, though Robb and I are full-blooded siblings.

My brother also suffers from a mental illness and, a few years before, had taken a rock into a hotel and attempted to rob the place with it. I'm assuming he threatened to bash someone's skull in with it or something. He spent a long time behind bars and then in a hospital after they'd realized it wasn't his fault he was acting out, where they started to give him certain medications.

If doesn't take his meds, Robb can get way out there and start in on aliens from space being the cigarettes in his pack who are all disguised as God's heavenly angels and things of that nature. I used to argue non-stop with him when he got in these weird moods, but now I realize it's not his fault and just agree with whatever he says until he takes his meds.

It was early evening, chilly outside. Grandma and Mom had both decided to come to Spokane for a visit at the same time. Mom lived in Kennewick, Washington with her husband, my stepfather, John, (She met him online about six years ago and married him a month after they'd met He'd proposed to her on the first day he saw her in the flesh.), who plays the guitar and writes songs for his church.

They looked so cute together being as they were both about the same height, 5'3" or so and stubby-legged. Watching my Grandmother's long-legged strides made me fairly certain of what I'd inherited from her side of the family.

My grandmother; my mother's mother, lived in a town near Walla Walla, Washington called Milton-Freewater. It was located over the border between Washington and Oregon, but it was situated in Oregon. She lived with my Grandfather, a retired logger and their one cat, Ticker. (All my Mom's and Grandmother's cats have been named Ticker, Tick for short. This started a long time ago due to my Mother reading a children's book about a cat named Ticker when she was little.)

"What are you looking for, Ami?" My Mother, her name was Kris, asked me, looking at a blouse that was twenty percent off, "How about if I just give you a twenty and you can go find something?"

I didn't need to be told twice! It was rare that my Mom actually gave me money. A little bit about my Mother; She's very good and nice to us kids to our faces, but once she gets back to Kennewick and has some distance between us, she tends to forgot anything we ask her to do as favors, even if it's just a small one like sending something in the mail. She's always full of excuses and I've come to accept her that way. I don't rely too much on anything my Mom says she's going to do for me and neither do Stephanie or Robb.

Smiling and thanking her, I took the crisp twenty dollar bill into my hand and headed towards the rear of the store. I all ready knew what I wanted. In my house we only have two mirrors. One was the medicine cabinet mirror over the bathroom sink, the other belonged to the other medicine cabinet we had that was located in the small laundry area right outside the bathroom. Both of which were too small to see your entire form in and was a pain in the butt when you wanted to see if a certain pair of pants went with a certain blouse.

So, twenty-dollar bill in hand, I was searching for a mirror to hang up somewhere in my house.

I found one I liked, a full-length one that was slightly less tall than wide. That was okay, I could always hang it up and see more-or-less all of myself within the reflection. It had a black frame about it that shined like polished onyx. I tend to be drawn towards darker colors rather than lighter ones, so it appealed to me more than the one my Mom probably would have chosen; one with a white frame. Or hunter green. She's a thing for hunter green for some odd reason.

I rejoined my family and we paid for our purchases. Deciding to have them drop me off at my house, I felt around in my black purse for my house keys as I sat in one of the seats in my Mom's van with the seatbelt clasped around my waist and shoulder. Finding them by the tinkling noise they made when I held them, I zipped my purse back up just as we pulled up in front of the small, gray-blue house that was mine.

My house has a wooden fence with a gate that was in desperate need of a new paint job surrounding the front yard, which changed into a chicken-wire-metal fence around back near the grass-and-gravel driveway we shared with our neighbor, a nice little old lady in a small yellow house to the left of us, and a high wooden one on the right of us. The front yard had patches of dirt where the grass wouldn't grow and tufts of grass and weeds growing wild and sparse around the two huge maple trees growing out of the ground flush against the front fence next to the trash bin. The back yard was rather large though and if you were to walk at a steady pace from my backdoor to the end of my back yard it would take you at least ten or twenty seconds.

The grass also grew higher and more dense in the backyard. It held a small aluminum shed with junk packed behind it that we needed to take to the dump someday, and a swing that had belonged to my Mom before she'd moved away from Spokane to Kennewick. One of my cats, Poseidon, enjoyed sunning himself on the seat in warmer weather.

The sky had darkened completely on the ride and I said goodbye to my family, chucked Gavin under the chin and kissed his sweet baby-scented head and got out of the van. My Mom pulled away and drove off around the corner towards Mission street. I lived on a street called Tilsley. Turning, I carried the bulky mirror, covered in brown packing paper, towards the front door. Bracing it against the house next to the painted dark green bar-stood on our porch next to the door, I dug out my key and shoved it into the lock.

The porch light was off, since Shawn never remembers to turn it on at night, so I had to this all more-or-less by feel. My blue heeler, Clover, barked once before I got the door open and tried to jump up on me as I entered. Pushing her down and scratching one of her funny-looking handlebar angled black ears, she wagged her white and black spotted tail happily.

"Okay, you dumb mutt," I said, with affection, "Let me get this inside and I'll take you out."

I struggled with the covered mirror, being careful not to bump it against the doorframe as I did so, and looking around, laid it on the table for a moment. Grabbing Clover's chain, I hooked it to her choker and led her outside. She caught sight of the only outdoor cat I have, Poseidon, about to pounce on a hapless bird and launched herself at him, jerking me forward as well. Pulling back on her leash, I scolded her sternly and headed towards the backyard where I unhooked the leash from her choker and attached the chain tied around a tree.

I had only been back inside the house for three minutes, if that, unwrapping the mirror when she started to bark, letting me know she wanted back in. I grabbed up her leash once more and walked back around my house to bring my dog inside. We had to start tying her up when she goes out because after she got a bigger she started springing up over the fence and would run down the street to the house at the end of the block where my boyfriend's parents' live to play with their dog; A white pitbull/shar-pei mix named Lily. She was a pain to catch too because while she looked dumb, but she's actually really smart and thinks it's funny to tease us.

Jumping up to catch the handle of the leash that was wrapping around my hand, Clover bounced all the way back to the house. I had left the front door halfway open so she jumped up and pushed it into the house, thus making an entrance large enough for both of us and ran into the house, smiling that huge dog grin like she hadn't been inside the house for ages. I held her still to unhook her leash and she wagged her tail at me, yawned and went to curl up under my computer desk.

My cat Imzadi, a black and white female that Shawn likened to a rather large rat with yellow-green eyes, lay on her side on the monitor, sleeping with her mouth half-open making cute little wheezing noises as the warmth from the computer lulled her into a deeper catnap. Scratching her head, she opened one eye and flipped over, I cooed at her and leaned down so she could kiss me with her sandpapery tongue. Zadi will kiss on command.

I heard a low meow and walked over to door that led to the two bedrooms in the house, we actually three but one is being used as a place to store Shawn's comic book collection, opened it to reveal the stairwell and looked up to see my calico, Flukie, on her back with her head looking at me upside-down on the fourth to the bottom step. "Hey, Fluke." I greeted and she meowed again, purring and rolled again. I left the door open in case she wanted to come downstairs.

Clover saw this and chased her back upstairs. This is a daily ritual for my pets, in turn Flukie would be chasing Clover and back and forth. I ignored it because I knew neither animal was in danger and turned my attention on where, exactly, I wanted to put my new mirror. Glancing at the clock on the stove in the kitchen I realized that it had only been an hour since Shawn had left for work. He worked as a Ziptrip trainer at different stores each night, from 10:30 in the evening until 7:30 in the morning.

Hmm, I thought, as I looked at my Dragonball Z poster hanging on the wall above my computer, I need to get started on those dishes. One thing about me, I hate housework. I mean absolutely hate it with a passion and I am the world's worse...best?...procrastinator. If I can find some way of avoiding to do something for as long as I can, I will find it. I also have a horrible time finishing something I start. I think perhaps because I tend to put all of myself into something at first and wear myself out before it's even close to being completed.

I still don't understand why I do that, I think maybe it's just one of my weaknesses, back in high school I had trouble sitting still until I begged my Mom to arrange for me to just take a few classes at a time until they became shorter and shorter until I was only going once a week for five minutes to turn in some assignment and receive the next weeks'. I did graduate with my class however.

The last teacher I had, who I would go see every week, used to be my English teacher, about the only area in school I excelled in, had a soft-spot for me and basically turned me into a teacher's pet all during high school. She pulled some strings and got me to graduate with my class, even though by all rights I really should have been held back. I wonder, now, if she didn't do me more harm than good by letting me always have my way in class and letting me get off with not doing the same work as the other students and pushing me out into the world with an unearned diploma. Thinking about the days I spent in school reminded me of how bad I am at math. I never really learned anything after sixth grade, to be honest.

Whenever I told a teacher that I was having problems understanding a math problem, he or she would just switch me to an easier level and give me dittos of math problems that they knew I all ready knew how to do and that was that. As a result, I am twenty-nine years old and have never attempted algebra, fractions give me a head-ache and times are so confusing to me that I will space out rather than try to understand them.

People have told me that they can't understand why I have such a hard time with numbers, but to me, when I look a math problem that's over the four grade level, it's like trying to decipher ancient Arabic with no prior knowledge of that language. No matter how anyone tries to explain it to me, I still don't get it.

Shaking my head to bring my thoughts back to the present I leaned over to the side of my computer near the window and started to remove the pictures of Boba Fett from Star Wars I'd tacked up there previously. I had decided to hang the mirror next to my Dragonball Z poster. (Shawn's Mallrats poster hung in it's frame next to the Dragonball Z one) My living room, in fact, my whole house, is filled with action figures, toys and other odds and ends. Every surface is covered and little kids love to come over to play with our stuff.

In fact, my goddaughter, whom I just refer to as my niece since she calls me Auntie Ami, always wants to hold my Piccolo doll, the one I keep next to my computer with the vinyl head and clothe cape and gi. The arms and legs of the doll are multi-jointed so it's easy to pose him in different ways. I have two smaller plastic Piccolo action figures flanking it, one where he's wearing his cape and his turban that comes off and another without his cape and turban with his mouth open; yelling. A Krillin figure, a christmas gift from my uncle who is clueless about Dragonball Z and didn't know which character I liked best, stood on one of my speakers over the Piccolos.

Over on the top of the entertainment center I had fat Buu, the dog; Bee (hehe, Buubee...Sorry, I have a very immature mind...) An SSJ Vegeta action fgure that alot of detail went into and my Trunks, Tien, Goku and Piccolo plastic action figure models. A copy of the video game, Budokai, sat next the playstation 2 waiting for me to get around to playing it again. I have carpel tunnel syndrome due to years of typing and drawing so I can't play that game as often as I would have liked.

As I was saying, my niece, Dominique, who is five, never fails to tell me every time I babysit her that she loves Piccolo. It's so cute. She even falls asleep cuddling my Piccolo doll when she stays over on the sofa. We have this routine where I say; "Who do you love?" and she yells while jumping up and down; "Piccolo!" Yes, I think my influence on her was for the best. I smiled at that thought and went about hanging up my newly acquired mirror.

After it had been hung, I stepped back to see if it were straight and smiled slightly. Good enough, I thought, then reached down to unplug my phone cord from the wall and plug in the one that led to the computer so I could go online for a bit. Piccolo's glowering visage stared back at me from the desktop and I clicked on the icon that would connect me and waited while it went through a series of clicks and whirring sounds. Finally, connected, I clicked the Explorer icon and waited while the browser flooded my screen, blocking Piccolo's face.

I checked my email, frowning at all the spam, smiling when I saw one from my friend Vicky, and typed in the address for one of my favorite fan-fiction sites. I was in the process of reading a particularly engrossing one that was just too long to read all at once and I was anxious to get back to it. My heart sped up in anticipation of finding out what was going to happen next.

As I read, my thoughts kept turning back towards that afternoon at the convention and, almost of their own accord, my fingers found the scar marring the creaminess of my right shoulder. It had seemed like a dream, but it wasn't. I knew it wasn't! The scar on my shoulder was all the proof I needed. I wondered if I should try to contact the author the fic I reading. Her name was Cyndi and by her story it would seem she and I have a lot in common.

As I struggled with myself for a few moments, not wanting to tell anyone what happened to me only six months ago, but needing so badly to share and know that I wasn't alone in my experience, that there were and are others out there who have had similar things happen to them, I found myself clicking on my writing program and begin typing. I felt as if in a kind of trance, I couldn't see anything but that day, everything else faded into the background, even the sound of the keys clicking as I typed seemed far away.

When I had finished, I reread what I'd written, it was a recount of the events which took place during the anime convention when I'd met someone who I thought was just a guy in a costume. Clicking Save As, I titled the story and, before I could chicken out, emailed it to Cyndi, hoping against hope she wouldn't think I was a nutcase.

Suddenly, just as I'd hit backspace to go back to reading her own story, I saw something flicker from the corner of my eye. My eyes were drawn towards the mirror and what I saw made me gasp. Standing up so fast that my chair, which had a broken wheel anyway, fell backwards with a thud, scaring Zadi and Flukie back upstairs. I stared in wide-eyed horror at the strangely rippling mirror.

Clover was growling at it and cocking her head to one side. I looked at her and my hand trembled as I grabbed her leash to keep her from launching herself at the oddity. I didn't know what was happening and I didn't need my dog smashing into my brand new full-length mirror. She whined and pulled against my hold, but we stood back and waited. I could see what looked like trees and a lake shrouded in a misty fog within the mirror, only everything looked...cartoony...drawn...it's was hard to explain but my thoughts dove backwards towards the story I was just reading and, belatedly, I put two and two together.

"C-Cyndi?" I asked, uncertain, knowing that she could travel between the dimensions as long as she had that miniature fourteen star dragonball with her. But the hand that came through the glass was definitely not Cyndi's petite one! An muscular arm, shoulders, one leg, head with midnight black hair defying gravity all moved through the glass as if through liquid metal, until the one who stood before me turned and stepped easily over my printer and looked down at my dog, who was barking at him.

"V-Vegeta!" I knew I looked stupid, with my mouth hanging open, leaning down to hold my dog. But, I couldn't help it. Those moments we shared together in his and Bulma's hotel room during the afternoon of the convention came flooding back, only...at the time I'd not believed it was really him. I thought it was just some guy playing a part, albeit a very well-played part, but I had had no idea it was the real thing until he surprised me by flying away into the sky afterwards.

Now, facing the real Saiyan Prince, I felt...well, there really isn't any other word to discribe how I felt. Terrified. He could kill me as easily as snapping a twig underfoot. I backed away, letting go of Clover, who sniffed his boot, wagged her tail once and rolled over on her back at his feet. Sneering at the animal, Vegeta stepped over her and looked at me.

"Ami." He greeted, his eyes flicked to the scar on my shoulder, showing where the material of the tanktop I was wearing left off, "It's been a long time."

"S-Six...months..." I said, not knowing what to do, how to react.

"Only in your world," He said to me, crossing over and perching on the armrest of the sectional sofa, "Much more time has passed in mine. Trunks is grown and Bra is in college..."

"Oh..." I said, then asked, "H-how did you get through? I thought only Cyndi and Piccolo could..."

His head snapped my way as I said that and I told him about the story I was reading. He nodded, then reached into the waistband of the light blue sweats he was wearing, pulling out a small orange glowing orb. "I borrowed it for awhile. Don't worry, they know. I know how important this thing is, no one is going to get a hold of it."

"Why are you here?" I asked, curious, but still scared, for someone so short, he has a lot of presence. I could feel the power issuing off of him as I sat down next to him on the sofa. I saw his hands clench into fists before he spoke; "It's that baka woman!"

"Who?" I asked, thinking he couldn't be talking about Cyndi, could he?

"Bulma! That's who!" He yelled, "She's driving me insane and it's all I can do to keep myself from blasting her into a million pieces! If I'd known human females were going to be so...so..." His words faltered as he turned to look at me, dark eyes like ebony beneath his heavy brows, "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

I blinked, waited for him continued, feeling heat rise into my cheeks and across my nose.

"I can still taste your blood on my tongue," He went on, "I can feel you, smell and taste you in that blood..."

Without warning, he reached over to trace one finger across the scar he'd left on me. His touch left a hot trail of sensation across my skin. "Bulma's always too tired..."

Seeing the raw animal lust in his eyes made me instantly aware of the true reason for his arrival and I jumped back and stood up, barely eluding his grasp. That did not matter, however, as I soon found out just how strong a saiyan could be as he grasped my wrist and pulled me roughly back down towards him.

"Wait!" I gasped, before he could kiss me, "Let me go."

"I want you." He said, atter-of-factly, as if that was all that needed saying.

"I have to tell you something first." Growling, he released his vice-like grip on my wrist and I sat back, saying; "Vegeta, you need to know that you can't just barge into my house anytime you want expecting me to be at your beck and call whenever you feel like your wife is neglecting you."

He glared but I went on, quickly, before I lost my nerve; "I won't be used, Vegeta, I demand respect the same as any human being, just because I had a moment of weakness with you before doesn't mean you have any right to expect..."

He interrupted me with his trademark smirk; "Woman, I could give a rat's ass what you demand right now." He reached for me again and I saw his hand shake slightly as he held my wrist once more, huskily, he whispered against my ear where I could feel his breath near my skin; "Please, just...shut up. Remember what I told you about saiyans? It's been so long since Bulma's let me touch her...I was going crazy...Please, just let me...." I felt his hard body trembling like a leaf against me.

His voice took on a pleading quality that was so out of character for him that I felt myself melt, my resolve slipping fast out the window along with rational thought. I was empathic, to a degree, and normal human emotions around me affected me. Vegeta's emotions, his need to slack his thirst and fill himself with me as a starving man needed food, filled my senses, and reacting the only way I knew how, I offered what comfort I could.

He wasn't gentle, like last time. Maybe it was the length of time he'd gone without, maybe it was just his saiyan blood rushing to the surface, I did not know. I felt a desperate urgency to his searing kisses, as he bruised my mouth beneath his own. I hardly had time to react as his hands fairly tore my clothes from me, until they lay in pieces upon my livingroom floor. I opened my eyes once to see his own looking down at me with an expression of lust mixed with slight annoyance, as if he was silently berating himself for his weakness.

Then without a word, he flipped me over onto my knees, I felt the back of his thighs, muscular and warm, against my buttocks as his hardness pressed up against me. I gasped at the rough treatment as he guided himself into my womanhood from behind and slammed me hard into the ground, nearly breaking my nose upon the carpeted floor.

"P-Please!" I cried, as I lifted myself upward, Tears in my eyes, stinging, "Y-your hurting me!"

He slowed down, but didn't release me, grasping a handful of my long, dark hair and licking a trail up my spine. I heard him grunt wordlessly as he thrust himself deeper inside me from behind. Slowly, the pain spiraled upwards until it could not longer be distinguished from the tight, tingling pleasure that was beginning at the center of my body. I felt his hand reach around under me, touching me in that most private place, that most sensitive area and I felt myself buck wildly backward into him, matching his movements thrust for thrust.

Finally, just as my own climax was winding down, I felt him stiffen his hands in my hair and shudder behind and slightly above me. Pulling his now flaccid member from my orifice, I felt his seed seep from deep inside me down my thighs and the crevice of my buttocks. I sat up and turned around to see him sitting on the floor, arms at his sides, mouth open slightly as he panted for air. His face was slick with sweat and the dark blue of his muscle shirt showed patches of discoloration where he'd perspired through the material.

As he looked at me I saw the half serious, half mocking apology in his eyes. It was unnatural for him to lower himself to anyone, so I didn't make him say it aloud. I knew that he really didn't mean to be so rough with me, he didn't mean to hurt me. I shrugged and let it go, telling myself as I washed up in the bathroom a moment later, that what I had just done wasn't disgusting or abnormal, that I was helping a fellow being in need.

It was all right. I repeated that to myself like a mantra as I brushed down my hair and changed my clothes in to pair of loose fitting lounge-around-the-house dark blue sweats, which didn't really go with my light blue flowery tank top, but I had never been a fashion bug.

I returned to the living to find him dressed and sitting back on the sofa. He spent the rest of the evening complaining about all those baka people where he lived who failed to recognize him for the great Saiyan Prince that he was. He talked about how irritating a mate like Bulma could be, how he didn't understand his son half the time and hated how Goten, Kakkarot's, brat kept hanging around with his kid. This went on for sometime, I didn't speak very much, just listened and let him know I was there.

Faint glimmers of sunlight had been slowly filtering through the blinds when he decided that it was time for him to go. As he stepped back through the mirror, he mentioned something about needing to get the little dragonball back to Cyndi and Piccolo, and vanished from sight, leaving my mirror once more just a mirror.

I saw my own face staring back at me. I wanted to break the glass, smash my face in, I didn't want to look at myself!

A wave of nausea overcame me with the guilt that pushed up from my stomach to wrap about my heart. What had I done? I screamed inside my mind, wrapping my arms about myself and trembling. I had cheated on my boyfriend. Not once, but twice. Both times it had felt out of my control, but I knew that was just an excuse. I've never cheated on him once in all our ten years together...not once. I felt sick. Physically sick.

Clutching my stomach, I vomited all over the living room rug.