Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Sarie Mue ❯ Krillen ( Chapter 3 )

Author's Notes: Ha-ha! We're back, ready to continue the epic quest of Sarie Mue. Howler Wolfe and I have been working extremely hard… well… relatively hard on this installment, and we must say that we're particularly pleased with it.

Thanks to out reviewer Silentchylde. I think you'll find that Krillen is probably the one to be pitied more, and that Shatner WILL have his hands full.

Speaking of pop culture references (and we weren't), we weren't kidding when we challenged you to list all the pop culture references. It would just make our day to see if anyone can get all of them.

So, with the blessings of Howler Wolfe and UnromanticPoetess, you may begin the chapter.

Disclaimer: WE OWNS DRAGONBALL Z, MY PRECIOUS! (gollum) IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT! IT'S MINE! MY OWN! MY PRRRRECIOUS… *sounds of a skirmish and muffled cries of "gollum!"*

What we means of course, my precious, is that we do not owns Dragonball Z. We be nice to you if you be nice to us, yes, my precious? (gollum) We no copywrite infringe…no my prrrrrecious…no…

Prologue: An ominous Howard Shore orchestral chord, accented with vocals by Enya, resounded over the blackness. A rich, full female voice began to speak:

The world is changed
I sense it in the inking
I see it in the penciling
I hear it in the soundtrack
Much that once was is changed

For some silly fangirl has changed it…

A starfield with delicate white arms appeared over the black backdrop. "Watch it, Missy!" she threatened. "I didn't bring you here to editorialize."

The speaker, a barefoot woman clad in a shimmering white dress, her long, blond flowing hair barely hiding ears curving back into graceful elvin points, came into view, looking rather flustered.

"Sorry," Galadriel said. "Fanfics really aren't my thing. I'll try harder…Hang on a sec'." She looked over her shoulder, "ENYA! CUT IT OUT!" she shouted.

Pausing and letting out a relaxed sigh at the newfound silence, she continued her narration.

"It began with the forging of a self-insertion romance... Sadly, the story does not really include the elves, immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings…"

"AHEM!" the Great Will of the Cosmos interjected loudly.

"But moving on," continued Galadriel quickly, "it did feature a young girl named Sarie Mue. Her simple quest was to find her fabled true love, for Sarie Mue, above all else, desires…Do I really have to read this?" she asked the floating starfield.

"Well," the Great Will mused, fingering a tiny gold ring casually, "I suppose we could just drop this whole fic idea and I could move on to tinker around with OTHER works of fantasy…like…oh, let's see…." For a split second, Galadriel could have sworn she saw a particularly bright red star appear wreathed in flame in the middle of the otherwise calm starfield that was the Great Will.

"Where did you get th…" Galadriel began, looking back to the oddly familiar ring the Great Will turned idly in her slim, pale fingers… "Um…No! No! This is a GREAT fic idea…REALLY! I love it!

"Anyway," continued Galadriel, resolute not to give the Great Will any more ideas, "Sarie Mue desires, above all, a happy romance with a studly DBZ man. Our story takes place in the bright, happy land of Fanfic, where rabid fangirls chase after the poor, unsuspecting hunky heroes. Into this story, she pours her desperation, her lack of original or interesting plots, and her will to dominate..."

Chapter 3: Krillen

Sarie Mue, rabid fangirl on the rampage, once again in the real (or fake, or made-up or…hmm….) er…once again existing in a state of consciousness and matter, took in her new surroundings. Gone was the soothing starfield she had been floating in, and in its place was a sparkling, sandy white beach, under a perfect, cloudless blue sky. The waves crashed onto the shore in time with the happy Jamaican steel-drum music coming seemingly from nowhere.

Turning, she spied a familiar rickety, old shack, the word "KAME" written in large letters on the roof.

"Oh no!" she whispered in mortal terror. "Not him! The Great Will hasn't set me up with…" Backing away from the shack in horror, she tripped over something sticking up out of the sand. Crashing onto the beach, she looked to see what she had tripped over and was blinded by a radiant white light.

Standing, guarding her eyes with her arm, she carefully maneuvered herself around the object, so the sun reflecting off of it would not blind her. She was shocked to see the object was no `object' at all, but rather a human head!

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!" Sarie shrieked at the top of her lungs.

"Yeah, I know," the head said. "I'm hideous. That's the response I get from most women… Why me?"

"Y..y..you're not a severed human head at all, are you?" Sarie Mue asked, now beginning to recognize to whom she was speaking. "You're Krillen!"

"Actually, my name is Kuririn, but none of my so-called friends have ever gotten it right. I don't bother correcting them. They'd probably just get mad and abandon me like everyone else," he said, letting out a long sigh.

"Abandon you?" she asked Krillen's head. (The rest of him appeared to be buried in the sand.)

"Yeah…" he replied. "My girlfriend…my…M..M..MARON LEFT ME!" he cried, tears erupting from his eyes in gushing streams, making him appear like nothing so much as an unusually-shaped garden sprinkler.

"Oh!" exclaimed Sarie Mue. "You were dating your own daughter?!! That's sick! That's just…wrong!"

Krillen paused his blubbering to look at her, confused. "Daughter? Maron was barely my girlfriend. We certainly didn't have any kids, and I would never…Ew! That's disgusting!"

Sarie Mue realized she had landed not in the Buu Saga as she had at first assumed, but rather between the Frieza and Cell sagas…perhaps around the Garlic Jr. episodes.

"Umm….sorry," she apologized. "I must have been thinking of someone else."

Pausing, she looked closer at her reflection in Krillen's shiny head, realizing she'd not yet seen herself in this reality. Her hair, an unnatural red, stood out in stark contrast to her fair skin and deep green eyes. She wore a short, pleated white skirt and a matching yellow tank top over her stunningly rounded figure. In her red hair, she wore a bright orange bow.

"Um…Why are you staring at me?" asked Krillen. "And who are you?"

Sarie Mue felt a blush fall over her pale cheeks. "I didn't mean to stare…" she said. "It's just that you're so…ah…handsome! Yeah!"

"You were checking your reflection in my shiny head, weren't you?" Krillen asked dejectedly.

"Uh…ah…that is…" she stammered.

"It's okay," he said. "I notice people doing it all the time. In fact…my… MARON USED TO DO THE SAME THING!" he began to blubber again.

"But you asked who I was," she said quickly, hoping to stop him from watering the surrounding beach again. She took a moment to brush her red hair behind her ear and turned her large green eyes on him.

"My name is…Sarie Mue…" she cooed.

"Oh," was his only reply. "That's nice."

A look of determination came over his features. "Well, if you don't mind, I'm kind of busy dying here. I got my old teacher, Master Roshi, to bury me in the sand, so I can drown when the tide comes in, which should be about five minutes from now. So, if you'll just be on your way, I'd like to spend my last few moments in peace."

Sarie looked to the sea and noticed the shore was slowly disappearing under the approaching waves as they crashed closer and closer…

"No!" shouted Sarie. "You can't die! You have so much to live for!"

"Really?" asked Krillen. "I'm a four foot tall, noseless, bald-headed ex-monk turned useless fighter with bowling ball finger holes tattooed on my forehead. What exactly do I have to live for? And, by the way, just what sort of a ridiculous name is Sarie Mue?"

"Well…" ignoring the comment about her name, which she thought was perfectly fine, she thought desperately, trying to find a reason why Krillen should live. Reflecting on what little she knew of him, only one great motivator came to mind. "I think noseless, short, bald-headed men are kind of cute. And your bowling ball hole tattoos are really, really sexy! Don't you at least want to get to know me better before you drown yourself?" She flashed him her most plaintive, doe-eyed, anime-girl stare.

Krillen gazed upward at her, appearing to reflect on that thought for a moment. "Alright," he finally assented. "I guess getting to know you a bit couldn't hurt."

Luckily, Sarie Mue didn't notice that Krillen, with his low vantage point and her short skirt, was already "getting to know" certain aspects of her better than she might approve of. She quickly set to work digging him out as the tide crept closer and closer.

Just as she had loosened the dirt enough to offer him her hand to pull him up, a particularly large wave crashed over him.

"Krillen!" she screamed, worried he might be dragged away by the current.

Sputtering and coughing out seawater, Krillen found himself covered in seaweed, with several crabs latching onto his more tender parts with their sharp pinchers.

"Boowaahayayah!" he cried suddenly, jumping and hovering several feet in the air, pulling off crabs here and there and scooping seaweed out of his underwear. "What am I, a California roll?"

Sarie Mue, not a fan of sushi, didn't quite understand his comment, but assisted in pulling off the remaining crabs.

"Wow!" said Sarie Mue. "That's the worst case of crabs I've ever seen!"

(We apologize for the sophomoric sexual humor contained in the last paragraph. Apparently the Funimation editors missed the connotations included in that particular comment. We will now include the Funimation revised version of Sarie Mue's last statement. Thank you for understanding.)

"Wow!" said Sarie Mue. "The crustaceans pinching you must have caused great pain. I am sorry for your suffering!"

Soaking wet and still sore from crab bites, Krillen sat in a heap on the beach.

"Why me?" he asked.

"Oh Krillen!" chirped Sarie Mue. "I'm so glad you're not dead. I just know that you'll love getting to know me! I mean, I almost feel as though we were meant to be! You might even be my soulmate! I mean, you are really short…"

Krillen's eyes flashed angrily toward her.

"But," she continued quickly, "you're really, really muscular!"

"Thanks," replied Krillen uncertainly. Then, trying to pour on a little of the old Kuririn charm, he added, "You're not so bad-looking yourself. "

"Oh!" she giggled happily. "Thank you!"

"Well," Krillen said. "If you're not going to let me kill myself, I guess I should introduce you to some of my friends. I'm sure you'll love my best friend Goku, he…"

"NO!" Sarie Mue shouted, interrupting him, "I DON'T WANT TO SEE THAT STINKING PIECE OF…" seeing his shocked expression, she stopped, realizing this was a different reality, and years before the point in time she met Goku, anyway. "I mean," she began more quietly, "I'd really just like to spend some time alone with you before we bring anyone else into it."

"Really?" asked Krillen, surprised. "No woman has ever wanted to spend time alone with me…well except…"

"Na..ah…ah," Sarie interrupted. "No thoughts of our past failures…er …relationships. This is a fresh start for both of us. Deal?"

"Deal," answered Krillen. And for the first time in a long time, he actually smiled.

Taking her hand, they began to walk down the beach. Looking up at her, he failed to realize there was a pile of discarded kelp at his feet.

"WoaoaoaoaaaAAAAH!" he shouted slipping on the slick seaweed. His sudden downfall dragged Sarie Mue down with him. "EEEEEEEEEEK!" she squealed, falling on the sand.

Landing on top of him, she suddenly found herself reminiscing about that classic love scene…in her mind, she was Debra Kerr, and Krillen was…well…short, bald, noseless, and ugly… But he did have great muscles, and he seemed really nice. Acting on impulse, she leaned in to kiss him… Just as another gigantic wave crashed on top of them.

Five minutes later, as they finished de-kelping and de-crabbing themselves, Sarie Mue took a moment to try to remove sand from places where sand just shouldn't be.

"What the hell was Debra Kerr thinking?" she said.

"What?" asked a confused Krillen, a sea snail crawling across the barren desert of his head. "Why me?" he muttered as he removed it with a loud, slimy-sounding POP!

"Never mind," Sarie replied, thinking it best to just keep walking.

Continuing, hand in hand, along the warm beach, they began to dry off in the pleasant tropical sun. As the loud Jamaican music began to slow into a pleasant romantic theme, Sarie found herself smiling.

They talked about many things. Krillen shared with her his hopes, his dreams, his numerous fears… Sarie liked him more and more, finding they shared many things in common - many of the same insecurities, humiliating experiences, psychoses…

As the sun shifted into rich, red hues and sank beneath the horizon, tones of pink and violet radiated warmly in the sky, creating a soft glow around the newly-formed couple. Looking to the south, Sarie saw a brilliant full moon beginning to shine as the day waned into night.

"Did I ever tell you about the time Master Roshi used my head as a full moon to help a werewolf?" Krillen asked.

"Yes," she said. "But please tell me again! You're just so fascinating."

Krillen laughed, and looked down at his feet, embarrassed.

"Oh look!" he said. "What a lovely seashell." Stooping to pick it up, he smiled at her. "I know we're already on the beach, but I love listening to the sound of the ocean inside shells."

He began to place the shell against his ear…

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Meanwhile, the Great Will of the Cosmos smiled at her handiwork. "I've finally done it," she said with a contented sigh. "Aaaah…young love. And just on the third try, too. He adores her, she adores him. The shallow little twit even got over him being short, bald, noseless, and ugly. Look at them gazing into each other's eyes! He's picked up a seashell for her…It's very pretty. But…uh-oh…isn't that the shell of the…"

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The spiny screaming crab of death was sleeping peacefully inside its shell. The grotesque creature had spent a busy day screaming and…being spiny. It had even had the pleasure of slaughtering a pesky sea turtle that had knocked over its shell earlier. The exquisitely painful venom of its spines had disintegrated the pathetic animal's heart in only a few moments…but not before its piercing scream had caused the turtle's brain to rupture. The spiny screaming crab of death had smiled, in its spiny, screaming way, as the turtle's eyes had exploded out of its sockets and it began bleeding simultaneously from every orifice. Yes. Life is good when you're a spiny screaming crab of death.

However, the monstrosity's rest was again being disturbed…looking out of its shell it saw…the moon approaching? No…that would be impossible. It looked like the cavernous shell of another spiny screaming crab of death approaching to challenge his territory! Fine then…if it wanted a fight, it would get a fight…

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"Just listen to that ocean," Krillen said, holding the shell against his ear. He let out a happy sigh at the peace of the moment. "AaaaaaAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

His scream of agony mingled with the piercing screech of the spiny screaming crab of death rose and echoed across the night sky.

"RRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECK!" The spiny screaming crab of death, hearing Krillen's scream, interpreted it as a challenge and redoubled its efforts.

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKCKC KCKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECK!" its scream seemed to go on forever.

Krillen, falling to the ground and covering his ears, felt a wet sticky fluid covering the ear he had put against the shell. Pulling his hand away, he saw his ear was bleeding from a small wound. That's when he felt the burning, acidic poison flowing through his veins, down his neck, spreading like a blanket of perfect agony across his whole body.

Sarie, having immediately run away upon hearing Krillen's scream, was safely out of fatal distance of the cry of the spiny screaming crab of death. She looked in horror from afar, as Krillen's body twitched and writhed in agony before finally becoming dead still. She saw the shell crawl slowly away from his inert form, kicking a little sand in Krillen's face before waddling off.

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One month later, Krillen was pushing Sarie Mue onto a boat leaving the island.

"I don't care," he said. "I know you spent weeks nursing me back to health, but believe me when I said it was a bad idea. Now go away so I can die in peace!"

With a final shove, despite her indignant protests, he pushed Sarie Mue onto the boat, and gave it a solid kick, sending it jumping across the water like a skipping stone before she could even get seated.

"Finally," he said.

He quickly hopped into the hole he had prepared. He buried himself as best as he could, and prepared to bite down on the capsule in his mouth. If it worked properly, it should paralyze him completely, lest he have second thoughts as the ocean covered him and took him to sweet oblivion. He awaited the coming tide with a sense of gleeful anticipation.

"There'll be no more getting humiliated…no more bad romances…no more getting beat up by aliens. No more Maron…no more Sarie Mue…and most of all, no spiny screaming crabs of death," he said, biting down on the capsule.

He stared blankly forward as the tide came in. It should only be another half hour or so. Then it was bye-bye Kuririn.

As he could not move his eyes, he failed to notice a shell shuffling up behind him. It was time for the spiny screaming crab of death to molt and find a new shell. It had decided it liked the shiny round shell sitting on the edge of the beach. So large, so round, so inviting…

As the creature entered its new home, the motionless Krillen was screaming inside his head…screaming louder even than a spiny screaming crab of death…but no one heard him. Yes, it was bye-bye for Kuririn.

Meanwhile, back on the boat, Sarie sat in a true huff. It had been so perfect. Well, there were the pratfalls… and the spiny screaming crab of death… and the hiding from Master Roshi, who never figured out she was on the island, while simultaneously caring for Krillen…

Ok, so it hadn't been so perfect.

But the nerve of him! I'M the one who cared about him when he was sick. I'M the one who actually took him seriously. I'M the one who saw past the fact the he was short, bald, noseless, and ugly. And he just pushes me off the island in a rowboat. Well, he and that $%##@#$% (Funimation translation: meanie) Goku deserve to be friends.

Sarie sniffled to herself, drawing her long fair legs to her chest, and waited for this reality to end. All right, Great Will, let's see if you got anything better.

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Far from hearing Sarie Mue's plea for a quick change of venue, the Great Will of the Cosmos had more pressing problems to deal with.

"I should have never loosed such a formidable force," she said to herself dolefully, still twirling the tiny golden ring around in her slender fingers.

"I warned you of the corruption of the One Ring," Galadriel said, clutching at the strings of her dignity and superiority.

The Great Will turned in surprise. "Are you still here? Didn't I send you back? And what are you talking about, pray tell?"

Galadriel's eyes seemed to radiate mystical force as she levitated, wrapping herself in blue-black fire as her voice echoed, "One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to…"

"What, you mean this old thing?" the Great Will said offhandedly, effectively ending the elvin witch's impressive display of special effects. "It doesn't have any effect on me, silly. I'm already all-powerful, and you know it. I was just borrowing it to go along with the theme… and to piss you off. Besides, it's pretty. I think it just gets a bad rap."

If Galadriel had been an anime character, huge sweatdrops would have been hanging from various part of her face and she would have face-faulted. As it was, she was a character in the most influential fantasy/mythology books ever written, so she merely gave her best "freaky wide-eyed Elijah Wood/Froddo" impression.

"No," the Great Will continued, fortunately not looking at the lady elf. "This is a force far greater than the One Ring, for none can escape or destroy. I was wrong to free it from its reality, and already someone has paid for my lack of foresight."

At the women's feet… well… at Galadriel's feet and the bottom of the Great Will's starfield laid the body of one James T. Kirk… er… William Shatner. Strewn about the floor around the body were ornate Japanese hair-sticks, the partially-written manuscript of his latest book based on Star Trek: Generations, and a frying pan with the perfect replica of Shatner's face imprinted on it and the label "Overused Fanfiction Characterization Device."

Galadriel gasped, her face blanching to a whiter shade of pale (cue organ music). "That isn't…"

"Yes," the Great Will answered. "Chichi has escaped."

She sighed and picked up the frying pan, glancing down at the now-deceased sci-fi has-been. "Oh, well. It's not all that bad. She did get rid of that annoying twit, and I think they can use this pan to make the mask if they do another Halloween movie."

Before Galadriel could object, or even comment, the Great Will of the Cosmos did away with the pretentious nuisance, as well as the shiny bauble she'd been playing with for the entire chapter. "Now, where was I… Ah, yes. Krillen should be waking up by now."

Kirk's corpse melted away, changing into a small white cube, making way for the Great Will of the Cosmos to check on her handiwork.

"Oh, my," she exclaimed. The scene before her showed yet another corpse… that of Krillen, the noseless wonder. "I suppose I should have gotten rid of that spiny screaming crab of death after all. Well, better bring Krillen back to life. That timeline is about to get plenty screwed up without his… well… another of his untimely demises," she mused.

The scene skewed out into the ocean, where an emaciated, painfully sunburned Sarie Mue sat in a nearly submerged rowboat, patiently waiting for death. The Great Will of the Cosmos sighed. The disaster of Chichi would have to wait.

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As the hours turned into days, Sarie Mue slowly withered from lack of food and water, though Funimation wouldn't allow the effects of dehydration and starvation to get too graphic, and she became fully acquainted with the inconveniences of having fair skin in a tropical climate as her skin became fully acquainted with how many shades of red that exist.

Finally getting fed up, Sarie stood up in the rowboat, ignoring the nearly overbearing sting of her skin. "All right, Great Will! Enough! Send me somewhere else, already!"

Unfortunately, after days of floating in an endless ocean, the already rickety rowboat was on its last legs (oars?). Giving one final creak, the boat relinquished its burden and began a new life as driftwood.

Sarie, on the other hand, began her new role as a drowning victim. She sank further and further into the sea, ignoring the small red crab and the yellow and aqua striped guppy, who seemed to have her confused with someone else. But before she could correct them, the red-headed fangirl lost consciousness.

Fortunately, it was this precise moment that the Great Will of the Cosmos decided the step in. The cold wet oblivion of the ocean disappeared, and Sarie felt the warm comfort of the now-familiar starfield. She smiled slightly, thankful to finally be out that predicament, and ready to seek a new soulmate, maybe someone not so pathetic, maybe try…

Chapter 4: #17