Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Fathoming Love ❯ Chapter 13 ( Chapter 13 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

“And so I waited.” He said. “Waited to die. Waited to live. Just waited. Perhaps in a content balance between this world and the next, drifting between the beats of my heart and the hard and cold breaths I took through stubborn will alone.

“Looking at Zarbon proved impossible, as my eyesight began to dim, a strange black cloud drifting over my eyelids and pouring like a sort of placid water into my pupils.

“ “We’re losing him!” I heard the voice of Zarbon cry, sensing the warmth of his body near to me, maybe even his hands being placed on my skin. But understand, I couldn’t feel it. Pain, hurt, touch. These were gone. They were just thoughts, random memories like so many I was drowning in. Times when I was younger, trying to impress my father. Times when I was older, trying to impress Zarbon. Times now, when I tried to kill Frieza, knowing I was doing absolutely no good.

“Crazy thoughts mind you. Very crazy in fact. And as you can imagine, plagued by a sense of regret that I never knew in life. A sadness in fact, that I never, mind you NEVER, would have allowed myself to endure. The sadness brought a logical sense of loss, of inevitable regret of all the things I’d done. Guilt, assuredly. But mostly, a regret of all I could have achieved, or more so, all I could have been. Selfish ideas of avenging my people, of being the strongest, the best of everything.

“And through all these thoughts there came a knowledge that I’d known and pushed away more times than any before it. That I loved Zarbon. That I loved him more completely than anything the universe had shown me. And that without him, I’d be as I always pretended I was.

“I’d be alone.

“And for those minutes I spent, literally dying in his arms, I realized just how much him being there was all I could ever have asked for. For who of us doesn’t wish to be mourned for when we pass on? To be remembered, to be accepted, or more importantly, to be loved before I died.

“But I heard his words through all the fog, felt his breath as though given one last chance to do so.

“ “And in my feverish, flurry of dreams,” he prayed, as he had done so many times. “I vanquish my ceaseless enemies. My swords, my spears, along my side, taking them one by one as I stride.”

“He paused, letting his small kisses, accompanied by hot, wet tears, brush my face.

“My Angel,” His voice cracked, his lips moving along my cheek. “always follow behind. Whisper promises into my mind. My cherub, my angel, my sweet boy you. My sorrow, my courage, my Valique.”

“I let the poem flood me once more with memories, wanting my parched lips to open the words of thanks that they contained, but knowing even as I slipped deeper and deeper into death, that they could not obey me.

“ “You know I could never live without you Valique.” I heard him say, I think. “You know you hold my heart.”

“And then he said the one word that sealed our fates forever with each other.

“ “Muneral.”

“And it was done. The blackness over came me as Frieza’s face lit with victory, his cackles accompanying me to my death, as I believed it to be. As it was, I was rushed to a medical facility, my body being worked on for the hours it took for Muneral to be discovered and the planet itself to be virtually destroyed. As they began prosthetics and skin graphs on my back, Zarbon remained in his room, concealed from the universe.

“Praying I imagine. Praying for the mission to be successful, and my life to be handed over to him. Or perhaps praying for it to be a failure, for the last Aqualians to have remained only for a little while and to be gone from the surface as it was searched. Though our lives would have been forfeit, it would be out of his hands entirely.

“But fate was with me it seemed, and virtually crawling on all fours, I managed to find him in his chambers, laying upon his back, hands on his chest as if in death. He stared at the ceiling in a daze, his eyes as clouded as mine had been hours before hand, tears occasionally dropping unhindered from his golden, marble eyes.

“The mission had been successful, and like myself, Zarbon was now the last of his kind. A dying breed. And as I was, alone. Utterly and entirely, alone.

“I couldn’t say anything. Was I to thank him for saving me and thus condemning his race? Was I to feel a sort of hatred that it had been such a difficult decision, that the time it took had nearly sent me to my death? But as it turns out, my silence was as golden as his eyes and gave him what time was required to form the words his heart couldn’t hold.

“ “They found the Aqualians.” He said in a voice I’d never heard before. “They were leading a rebellion against Frieza. My son, Hemnock, was with them.”

“I was on him before I even realized what I was doing, my body thrown over his as I held him tightly to me, feeling the coldness of his drying tears on my neck as he sobbed into it, letting out the pain as I’d so seldom heard him do. Letting it out as he never had before until his voice was simply too raw to do it anymore. And even then, he let out painful gasps, his arms wrapped around my middle and absentmindedly digging into my sore, freshly renewed back.

“But I didn’t protest, even as he twisted my shirt, tightening it around my aching flesh, or the new substance that caused my muscles and nerves to spasm in pain, for the skin on my back was never returned to me, and what is there now is nothing more than a foreign, man made creation.”

“I want to see it.” I said selfishly, unable to stop myself.

“Huh?” he asked dumbly.

“I want to see your back. I want to see the prosthetics.”

“They look just like skin you realize,” he said calmly, standing up and facing towards the window opposite of me. “Only poreless, as my face seems to you. Ah, don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying Tazial. You do. My flesh isn’t made of the same material as a human’s. There are none like me, save for one on this planet.”

As he lifted his shirt, I was amazed to find he was entirely correct. The skin, though from a close approximation was as he said, completely poreless, was entirely compatible with that on his shoulders, save for the cuts and scars that showed absolutely no signs of healing as normal skin would. And a circular scar, far far down his back caught my attention, as if it had been purposely made.

“Yes Tazial,” He sighed. “The prosthetics don’t heal as would normal skin, and so any cut or wound I sustain will be there permanently, though the pain still registers quite normally I can assure you.”

“This scar here,” I commented, pointing to the circular one that had caught my attention, even as he strained to see it. “It isn’t like the others. It’s almost as though………”

“Almost as though it was meant to be there?” he commented with a smirk. “As it should be, if not for some fat, obese bastard and a lucky sword.”

My raised eyebrow spoke more than my mouth ever could have.

“I didn’t tell you about my tail?” Vegeta asked suddenly, plunging my devotion in him as he had before when confessing his status as an alien of Earth. I found myself suddenly questioning why it had been so easy for me to buy the story when there was no REAL evidence of its truth, and why now, when he professed to having a “tail” of sorts, that my belief in him dwindled so greatly.

“Ah, but I truly am the worst storyteller of all time. Oh well, you would have heard soon enough. Saiyans are born with tails. Simple, easy enough. And I bore of the subject. No need to explain it for I suppose there really never was much of a purpose and trying to convince you would be like pulling teeth. Humans are stupid. Enough said. If you truly doubt my words so much, visit the asylum doctor, that useless nerd. I’m certain he could give you proof enough once he’s finished jerking off to Barney and Friends, the nut job.”

“You seem to hold a bit of resentment towards him.” I commented, trying to sort this all through.

“Well when the fool isn’t poking me with cold needles and a twitchy hand, commenting a thousand times on how “hard” my skin is, he’s insisting that he needs to invade my ass with a probe of sorts which, I’ll tell you, before I’m dead, will never happen.”

“It’s a precautionary medical procedure.” I informed him, trying so pathetically to hide my smile. “All the patients have to be subjected to it for their own good.”

“Well, my own good tells me that I don’t need some freezing cold chunk of metal imbedded in my colon. Believe me, I’ve had more people in this universe trying to stick it to me than RuPaul. I have no need of it, trust me. I’m all good.”




After our discussion, I went immediately to the medical lab, located at the far end of the asylum, searching the numbers on the closed doors until I found the one I desired, rudely clambering in rather than knocking.

And as should be expected, Vegeta’s calculations of the doctor were quite right, as a small, square television in the corner played the disturbing children’s program Teletubbies, and the man himself presently in the corner finishing off a tiny piece of Twinkie.

Glasses that could have passed for telescopes peered at me, magnifying the eyes behind them and giving the ruddy, pimpled face of the doctor a bizarre, unearthly look. His teeth were simply too big for his mouth, hanging stupidly over his lips. But why do I go on in details? It was as Vegeta said. The man was a nerd, through and through.

“Can I help you?” He asked, chewing his little bits of Twinkie with an open mouth and sounding all too like Steve Erkel.

“Yes,” I said rather quickly, offering my hand and being received by a sticky one in return. “My name is Doctor Tazial Camden and I need information on one of my patients. I was wondering if you had his file on hand.”

“Hmm…..” He said, scratching his chin predictably. For all his strange quirks I was already beginning to hate, he was quite young for a doctor, his knowledge apparently making up for what the rest of him so obviously lacked.

“I might be able to help ya’ there Mr. Camden,” he said, flashing me a comical grin. “Have a seat.”

I chose to stand, weary of the stacks of magazines and ridiculous amounts of useless gadgets and unidentifiable gizmos he had around in piles. The man’s work place was like a pig sty, forgive me for the over used analogy.

“Now,” he said, opening up one of the many filing cabinets. “Who am I looking for?”

“His name is Valentino Briefs.” I stuttered. “A new patient of mine actually. He was committed not a month ago.”

“MmmHmm, MmmHmm,” He mumbled, sorting clumsily through endless files. “What is it that you need to know about him? What kind of information are you looking for?”

I faltered, unsure of how I would exactly word this. Blurting out, “My patient claims to have had a tail,” didn’t exactly seem the most couth thing to say. In fact, at this rate, it was bound to have me cooped up in a cell right next to him, if things went their absolute worst, which tended to happen lately.

“Valentino has expressed some…… unusual concerns about his body. Or…….. his bone structure really. I was only wanting to see some of his X-rays if I could.”

“Okey Dokey,” he said, pulling out Vegeta’s file and laying it on a cluttered desk. “Lets see what we have here.”

As he opened the yellow folder, his eyes widened and shot up towards me, a smile shaping his ugly mouth.

“Valentino Briefs?” He said, though it wasn’t so much a question as a statement he felt the need to voice. “My Darth Vader? My Captain Kirk of the Star Ship Enterprise? My E of the freaking T’S?!!”

“Uhh….”

He got to his feet in excitement.

“My epitome of scientific research?! My mysterious GOD?! The visitor from another planet?! Oh tell me you don’t jest!”

Before I could answer he grabbed me by the shoulders, and with uncanny strength, yanked me to my feet, clasping my lab coat with a thin hand and hauling me towards the X-ray projector.

“Do you realize the kind of man you have on your hands here Doctor Camden?” He demanded in an ecstatic voice. “This guy is a medical mystery! A scientific wonder! An unanswerable question of the universe!”

Flipping on the projector, light filled the X-ray revealing what appeared to be a far away picture of someone’s back. Just a big blob, shaped in a man’s form.

“What kind of X-ray is this?” I said, my mouth twisted in confusion and annoyance.

The doctor, or as his name tag read, Norton, appeared with a licorice stick in hand, munching on the end and shaking his head in poorly hidden bliss.

“Just a normal one,” he mumbled, eyes wide behind the thick glasses. “Standard version. Notice anything……. Strange? Unusual about it?”

For all his quirky, unpredictable ways, he kind of reminded me of Jim Carrey.

“Yes,” I answered, pointing. “It sucks. It’s a mistake. X-rays are supposed to take pictures of someone’s insides. This one apparently didn’t.”

“Uh uh!” he said, laughing with tiny red specks of licorice on his tongue. “That’s just what I thought too, but no!” he laughed crazily. “No no no Doctor Camden. Look at this one, and this one, and this one!”

He laid out several more X-rays, all in the shape of a man, nothing more. No bones. No veins. No organs. Just the form of a man.

“This is your Valentino Briefs,” he said. “Or as I like to call him, my extra of the terrestrials.” He snorted at his own joke, clearing his throat as I didn’t join him. “What you’re seeing here, and what appears to be a 5 year old’s drawing of a guy, is an actual X-ray, standard edition, of your patient.”

“So……So those are his bones?” I stammered in disbelief.

“No!” he chuckled, shaking his head, that goofy smile plastered on his face, along with a few free chunks of food. “And that’s just what I thought again, we’re so alike me and you!” He jabbed me in the shoulder. “But no! Errrr! Wrong again! At first glance, I, like you, was convinced that this condition was none other than Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressive.”

“Fibrodybro Osifer WHAT?” I mumbled, eyes wide.

“NO!” he laughed, throwing his head back dramatically. “No silly! Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressive.”

“That’s a word?”
“Not a word,” he said, raising his finger for emphasis. “A condition. A disease you could say. And a real nasty one at that. Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressive, or as we’ll refer to it FOB, is a genetic disorder, appearing in childhood. A bone-building gene that normally shuts off when a kid is born starts all over again, strafing the body with bone in the same sequence a baby’s skeleton-…”

“Lets try English Norton.” I commanded, hearing a gasp of frustration at my misunderstanding.

“Ok,” he said, taking of his glasses and cleaning them with greasy fingers. “Lets say you’re in the womb, you body still being developed, your skeleton being formed with time. First comes your head, your shoulders, arms and then eventually your legs. Now normally when you’re born, the gene that makes these bones build shuts off. But with FOB, its basically like having your entire skeleton structure formed again. Only, your original is still there, getting in the way.”

“So with SOB-”

“FOB.” He corrected.

“FOB, whatever,” I grumbled. “Its simply put, like having your entire body become bone.”

“More than that,” He said, smiling rather sadistically. “Ohh.. much more than that Doctor. Your muscles beCOME bone! It’s a nasty thing I’ll tell you. Eventually your jaw locks up so much that you cant talk. Your body becomes twisted, bone forms around your throat, slowly suffocating you, making it so you cant swallow enough to live on, starving you. Ohhhhh! The possibilities are endless!

“But no, Camden, no no! This one is special. I knew from first glance there was something….. odd about this one!”

He pointed at the X-ray, tracing the outsides of what appeared to be finely shaped arms.

“This guy’s muscle mass is so dense, so perfectly thick, its utterly impenetrable, even with a standard X-ray. It’s the equivalent of bone, if not stronger. Its like his entire body mass is nothing but metal, like iron! He’s the walking Robo Cop! A bus could hit this guy and possibly tear itself down the middle without him even knowing!”

“You’re telling me that his muscles are so condensed that even an X-ray can’t see through it? That his muscles are like bones?”

“Ahhhh but even bones can be transparent with an X-ray!” he said, nearly jumping up and down with his enthusiasm. “Look at this!”

He threw up another X-ray, one that seemed a bit more accurate, showing, though foggy, the ribs and spine of Vegeta.

“Now this is where an even weirder part comes in,” Norton blabbered, tracing his finger down the back bone of the X-ray.

“You see this?” He asked, pointing to the tail bone and gnawing on his candy. “You see how it…………….extends farther than yours or mine would?”

Without waiting for my answer, he threw up another X-ray, directly next to it.

“Now this, this is a normal tail bone, coming down from the spine and ending just about here. Compare it to your Valentino’s and you can see a remarkable difference. Its like, his extends, WITH REASON! Like it had some purpose to be that way! Not just some mutation! Not a mistake! But a good damn reason to extend itself from the spine. Like a missing limb, like a…….. like a….”

“Tail.” I finished for him grimly.

“A tail!” he said, as though the word were one he’d only recently discovered from the dictionary. “A tail yes! Like, like a tail was an extension of his back bone, able to move, connected, just like any other body member! A piece of the whole! I’m telling you, if I could just get my HANDS on this guy for longer than 5 minutes! The things I could find! He’s a scientific wonder! A universal mystery I tell you!”

But I was tired of his eccentrics. I was tired of everything. I needed away for the moment, pushing passed him and wearily finding the door, overcome by this new discovery. Yes, a piece of the whole. A piece of the proof behind Vegeta’s wild story. A piece I don’t think I’d been ready to find.