Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Cousin ❯ Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim to own DragonBall Z or any of it's characters. All original characters and fanfiction are © ErieDragon 2002.

Author's Note: This is an Ona's POV of her recounting a story told by her mother, Khune later in life. A basic tale told with Ona's own input, I hope this is a proper introduction to the second part of my saga.

~*~

The Cousin

Prologue

My name is Ona.

I know that isn't important, but it has relevance. My life is a ride through time and space of spectacular proportions, so perhaps I play a small role in the universe.

I always like to believe so.

I am a Saiyan, a member of a proud, nearly extinct race. My tail is a physical proof of this, my mind and pride real truths. Power was always a valued trait among us, but I have learned to realize that power, strength, is not everything.

Sometimes the heart and mind are more deserving of trust.

"It was those warm nights during the dry season when my mother would stand in the endless meadows of tall grass. She would gaze at the stars, her eyes glazed, her face tainted with longing. As a child, I always felt something missing inside me when my mother would stand in the prairie outside our tent, her tail a sullen snake.

"When I was small, my mother once told me my father's name. Radditz. I would repeat it, the rolling 'Z' a sweet comfort to my less-than two-year-old mind. I said it over and over, the name making my mother growl at me and leave the village for the rest of the night.

"As I grew older, I became curious. It was a discomfort to see my mother stargaze at night, a morose statue against the deep black sky. Once I asked her why all my Letan friends had fathers, and I didn't. I expected a harsh reproach, but she instead picked me up and told me how I came to be.

"My mother spoke fondly of papa, I was surprised to discover. They were best friends even as small children, she was six years old if I remember correctly, who grew up together on my home world of Vegeta-sei. She would grin and tell me of their adventures, getting into trouble with short-tempered neighbors and even each other.

"I never knew for sure what happened to my mother's parents. She never once spoke of them. Perhaps she just had never found them again, or was an orphan. She was raised by her sensei, who I believe to this day made her different from other Saiyans.

"When I lived on Leta as a child, I did not so much mind the hairy aliens that were my friends (who also wore silken robes that generally masked the unpleasantness) as the loneliness. It was well and good to live with my iron-willed Saiyan mother, but the two of us were on our own. I remember seeing my mother's head droop as memories flooded back to her during the story.

"My mother lived in a time when the Saiyan race and most of the conquered universe was under the control of the great tyrant, Frieza. She can rightfully hold the pains of her life against him.

"When my mother was twelve, she was assigned a mission to leave Vegeta-sei and cleanse a "hostile" planet. To Frieza, she was just a tool, another minion... My mother's sensei was not like other Saiyans, and it rubbed off on her when she encountered the Letas. Perhaps it was her knowledge that she would have nothing on Vegeta-sei except my father, and he was not guaranteed to still be there, or maybe it was just her nature that encouraged her to protect the vulnerable race.

"I don't think I'll ever know, I didn't really know my mother that way. To me, she was just an iron-willed mother and fighter, I never saw her sensitive side until... Well, that's later in my story.

"Papa only a few times discussed his past with me, and very briefly. He knew I was smart enough to understand, but delving through his memories was painful to him. I remember my father setting me on his shoulder one evening as we watched a herd of Horned Gigglers pass by. He told me about growing up with my mother, but lost his nerve when he reached the reminiscence of her leaving him as a teenager.

"Vegeta-sei was destroyed only days after my father left, I was told. I never saw my home planet myself, so I did not have the deep attachment that my parents did... My mother more than papa, I think.

"My grandfather, my papa's father, told him that my mother was dead. This was an assumption, of course, but it allowed my father to think past her and go on to grow up under the rule of Frieza.

"My mother had one amazing quality about her I admired; her ability to manipulate the weaknesses of others to her own advantage. It was a definite fighting skill, one I wish I had inherited. She would toss about her hair and dress up in leaf-and-branch armor, blasting away Frieza's puny warriors. She let a few escape, for the sole purpose of telling Frieza and their fellow minions of what one called her, the "Kami Ghost."

"Papa always enjoyed a challenge. He usually sparred my mother, and battles between them could become so heated that a decent part of the landscape would become a rocky devastation. He enjoyed training me, teaching my four or five-year-old self ancient Saiyan energy techniques.

"The challenge this "Kami Ghost" presented to him was enough. My mother stared at the moon, her eyes clouded in sadness when she recounted her reunion with my father. I knew that although she swore his name and relinquished her bond with him every night, she missed him.

"I wish I could have been there to see his first encounter with the Letas. My mother told me about my father wearing the long, white Letan robes, complete with lightning-like stripes across it. But they couldn't stay there forever, and papa knew it.

"There was only one way to save them, and that was to undermine Frieza. My mother always was a technology buff, one for building and rewiring things. They only knew one way to save the Letas...

" "The Ship of Horrors," my mother always called it. Frieza's ship, I think she had a few displeasing experiences there. She hacked into his mainframe and deleted all knowledge of Leta, but the rebuke came soon after I was born.. But that's later in the tale.

"Frieza never questioned my mother's existence, for they had an elaborate tale ready in case they were questioned... But the tyrant underestimated them as Saiyans and believed they were too unintelligent to construct a faux pas. So, my parents began their lives as minions of Frieza, planet "cleansers..."

"My mother never told me much about how she and papa got together. The best relationships begin with friendship, she said once. I suppose she felt herself lucky in love at first, although he was not an ideal mate at to begin with. She said that being with him was purely instinct to her, and actions always spoke louder than words.

"I think once my mother attempted to teach me about Saiyan bonding. She was modest, but would also add that it was nature, and when the time came it would come to me. I never minded the way she kept me in the dark, always for my own good I suppose.

"When I was still unborn, my parents were actively working. Neither me nor my mother could ever figure out how I survived such jostling, a miracle within a miracle. Of course, mum would never admit something like that, she always portrayed me as a curse. But, of course, this was trademark Saiyan pride at work, which flowed through my very blood.

"This same Saiyan pride largely affected my father, but papa once said that when my mother was in danger, every thought of pride disappeared. All that mattered was her and my survival, and I know he truly loved us, especially my mother.

"She always found my need to draw amusing. Once, she described a race of aliens she called the Ceruleans. My mother described one of them which she had known while I was still inside her, and he was perhaps the reason I made it. Her vivid narrative allowed me to draw a small sketch of a creature she called "Jan-sun," a picture which she hung on the inside of the tent before a wind devil blew it down.

"My mother would tell me about the various aliens she had met throughout her life, and the only one she actually trusted was one of Frieza's medical minions. This surprised me at first, but he was yet another reason I made it to infancy at all. Papa, of course, was even more protective of my mother while she carried me. He forced her to stay hidden until he had done enough "overtime" to take a few months off. This surprised me more than anything I think, even at a young age when I didn't even know my father.

"Believe it or not, I am really an Earthling. I was born here, in a small mountain valley I have yet to find. My mother was very fond of the place, where she and my father spent some of their best days. She spent hours describing the air, the grass, the trees, the animals...

"I've always felt sad about being born so late, in a world without my own people besides my mother and father. There were others, but none of them I knew of or would be allowed to meet. This, perhaps, was for the better, if my mother was one of the supposedly gentler Saiyans.

"Sometimes I wonder if my parents' life would be different without me. My mother would still be alive, perhaps my father too. She would've knocked some sense into him before he got himself killed by his own brother... I'll never know. I asked my mother once, but she gave me a good verbal beating then embraced me, telling me I was all she had left and nothing else mattered. It was probably one of the few times she was emotional, for she always said that emotions were a Saiyan's worst enemy.

"Although I could tell she was saddened by the risen memory, it pleased her to remember. She described my father's blatant insanity during my birth, and then the spine-chilling calmness afterward. My mother said that I was probably the best thing to happen to papa as well, for he even stared down a deer when it approached him while he paraded me about. Sometimes I wish I could still be with him, even though I only knew him for one small year of my young life...

"As a baby, I imprinted his face into my mind. My parents returned to Frieza's ship, and apparently he had figured out my mother had tampered with his mainframe computer. She would be tried for treason, and executed.

"I remember how my mother tore her eyes away from her steady stargaze, her cheeks moistening from the uncontrollable tears. My father denied being associated with her, and she saved herself only by fighting free of her guards and leaving with me in a pod where she wouldn't be followed.

"Papa told me once about the Nageki, which means the Sorrow. Saiyans may be prideful killers, but true love attachments run deep. My mother bore deep hatred for my father after that, and he knew it. He described in horrific detail how it impaled his very heart, and all he remembers from that blistering time was being pinned to a bed with metal bonds and feeling himself howl to a universe without mercy. I hope never to have to experience such a Saiyan curse.

"My mother raised me among the Letas, which was the place I called home for the first five years of my life. She kept my father pretty much a secret from me, and I never bothered to ask about it until I learned reason at about four years.

"Papa searched the universe for us for a very long time. When he came back, I remember him telling my mother he had come to Leta looking for us five times. That's when I recalled my mother grabbing me out of my friend Em's tent and tucking me away, dropping her energy level and watching everywhere intently, as if there was a dark, immediate danger lurking.

"The was scared at first when I saw my father. But suddenly, it registered... I remembered him, even from my brief connection with him as a baby. I think the only reason he stayed was because of me... My Letan friend and I had a small part in my parents rebonding.

"A single year we were together, us, as a family. Papa was proud, irritable, and downright dirty, but he was my papa nevertheless. He would pester my mother endlessly, and vice versa, but you could tell from a glance they enjoyed each other. When I watched them on warm nights, sitting in the prairie grass outside our tent, they were not just mates but best friends. Their tails mingled, and they were comfortable just in each other's presence.

"My mother became sick. A Letan disease called the Shivers. I found out of mum's imminent death only a month before the village healer estimated that it would occur.. But to this day, I believe my father was more devastated than I ever was.

"My parents became so close in those last few weeks, I never had the nerve to see my mother while papa was there. It scared me, gave me spine-chills, seeing him kneeling over her day and night.

"Then the day she asked to see me, and said goodbye. She wasn't due to leave this world for another week, but I think some deep recess of me knew I was going to leave before she did.

"I can't remember my father's words, as if they were a faint dream. I know now it was merely a goodbye."

I finished my story, sighing and sitting down to rest my tired feet. My mother and father were a strange love story with a sad ending, a tragic lovers' Romeo & Juliet. Sometimes, even now, I wish they were still with me. But at least I have the knowledge they are together in the next dimension, and through all their bickering they are happy.

But even with my Saiyan pride, I can't say I don't miss them.

~*~

I know it isn't much, merely a summation of "Even the Ruthless Fall in Love..." But I feel it has extremely significant value to the story of Ona.

Dedications - Vegeta's Gyal, thank you so much for all of your input. The picture reviews are great, and your fanfics always bring a smile.

- Mizu Megami, thank you as well. Here is the sequel you asked for.

- All my FanFiction.net reviewers, my last but not least gratitude. Your many reviews to "Even the Ruthless Fall in Love" were helpful and encouraging.

My New Schedule - I feel having a deadline is the best way to get things done. I'll try to post a 10 page chapter once a week, and sometimes more time may be required. The next chapter should be out by Monday, April 22 if all works out well. I'm taking Saturday, April 20 off (4/20, if you don't know what that is, don't worry about it) and I may get a little behind.

Something to Check Out - You can see my drawings of Ona and Khune by checking out my attached fanart.

Also, see the fics by Vegeta's Gyal: Something More, a creative A/U story about Pan and Daikon (Vegeta's youngest son). Unexpected Love, also an intriguing Bulma/Vegeta get together.

See my other fics, My Way, a songfic to "My Way" by Limp Bizkit, and my take on the Bulma/Vegeta get together.

And of course, read Even the Ruthless Fall in Love! Thank you everybody!