Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Fall Of The Lost ❯ The Lost One ( Chapter 1 )

Chapter One: The Lost One.

~You'd better,

Loose your self in the music..

The moment, you own it,

You better never let it go..

You only get one shot,

Don't miss your chance to blow..

This opportunity comes once in a life time..~

Two hundred and fifty years earlier..

I sat listlessly in class. The hot summer heat was making me drowsy and it was impossible to concentrate on the teacher's droning monotonous voice. Kami! If only Gohan had learnt to animate his classes then maybe I may have been learning something.

Sweat trickled down my forehead; my soft lilac fringe was matted to my temple. Goten groaned beside me and leaned back in his desk chair. His head hung back, his eyes closed lightly and his short black hair falling to gravity's whim. His arms hung limply at his sides. "Kami.. Gohan is so boring.." he muttered as one hand levitated up to swipe at his brow. He looked as hot as I did.

"Ready to melt into a pile of biological goo as well huh?" I questioned knowing full well what the answer was. Let me tell you now, I hated biology. It was interesting up to the point where the long Latin names for everything started to blur together in my cranium. The worst part was trying to concentrate on biology when you had a heat wave as intense as this one. I wondered vaguely what the Latin name for a demi-Saiyan was.

"Goo? I think I'm about to evaporate.." moaned Goten. The worst part about being in Gohan's class was the fact he always singled us out to do stuff. We were his stupid little lab rats. And we could never fool around cause he never took his eyes off us. I saw him pause in his lecture and look pointedly as us. The glare very obviously told us to shut up. I had to admit. I did respect Gohan more since he had got rid of those dorky glasses. Apparently the damage to his corneas which he had sustained from a surprise Solar Flare from his dad not that long ago in a sparring match, had healed. While he had eye trouble he had to wear these ridiculous glasses that apparently he had hated as much as I did. When he wore them, it was like he was mocking something. I understood injures sustained in sparring matches, but if Gohan hadn't gone slack in his routine in the first place, his eyes wouldn't have suffered for it. Oh well, no matter, they were gone now and certainly Videl seemed happier for it.

Scank.

I barely heard the knocking at the door. My head felt floaty and intoxicated. Gohan paused in his ramble once again with an irritated huff. I frowned at his reaction. He must be in a bad mood. I smirked when I thought of a reason. Poor Gohan didn't get any last night. Boo hoo.

The messenger spoke hurriedly to Gohan and then Mr Son, I snicker at that, looked up at us with a rather pale and shocked expression. I sat up, Goten followed me, his eyes wide and both of us immediately thought the worst. Some big monster had attacked the city, or a tyrannical alien was attempting to take over Earth. Gohan asked the class to excuse him for a moment and beckoned to us to follow. I grumbled and forced my lead legs to move as Goten shoved past me to walk down the stairs to the front. Scowling darkly I followed, my intentions focused on revenge for Goten rudely bumping me like he did. Nothing serious you understand, nothing in my intentions were in any way sinister. Then.

The other people ignored us as we left and started talking amongst them selves. They didn't care of course. Why should they?

Once Gohan had lead us out into the hall, he bit his lip lightly and sighed. "Vegeta's gone missing." He muttered, it was obvious he didn't really care. And in truth I wondered why I was being told this in class, dad went missing all the time. He eventually came back or Bra went and got him from that stupid cliff he liked to stand on in the desert wastes. That's where he usually was. Either that or out in the wilds sparring with Goku.

Though as I understood it, Goku and my dad seemed to be distancing them selves of late. But I did begin to worry after what Gohan said next, "He's stolen one of your Grandfather's ships and taken off into space." This puzzled me. Why did he go off world?

I knew he use to before I was born but he hasn't done it since. I was about to speak when I paused. I was thinking back to this morning at breakfast. My father had been acting odd then as well. He had seemed distant and almost.. depressed. I suppose that wasn't that unusual. He had been rather down lately. I had no idea why, but I had sensed some tension between mum and dad. It seemed like mum had picked up dad's usual bad temper and they had barely been speaking. But for dad to take off into space was rather unusual, but not really that worrying. I was sure he'd come back. He'd probably just gone off for a break.

The message had been from my mum, asking me to come home straight away. Since Goten tagged along with me everywhere, he followed.

~*~

Mum hurried out of the house, a grave expression on her face. She gave a quick glance at Goten and then hurried us inside. "Oh Kami.. I can't believe this has happened." She panted as she threw her self into a chair at the kitchen table. A worker drone carefully deposited a latte in a large white mug in front of her. I slowly lowered my self into a chair opposite her. I now had a strange feeling in my gut that things were worse than they appeared. Damn my accuracy. Mum collected her self and took a quick sip of her caffinated latté.

"What's going on? I don't see why this is such a big thing mum. Dad goes off all the time, you know he'll come back." I was worried mum might be thinking he had abandoned her. Once she wouldn't have cared, but over the years a deep loving bond had grown between my parents. I instantly regretted my earlier thoughts that they were having relationship problems. How could I have been so thoughtless?

Mum looked at me sadly. "Oh Kami Trunks, if only it was that simple!" she took a breath and her words chilled me to the bone. "The space craft Vegeta took was a prototype of Grandfathers." I knew the one she was talking of. It was that very nice looking sleek silver ship that Grandfather had installed that new bio-energy engine into. I nodded, still not understanding what was wrong. "Well you see Trunks, Grandfather still hadn't installed a TSCM yet.." her voice faded off to a mournful whisper. *(Refer to chapter one of Distant Light Years for clarification.)

A TSCM, I knew what a TSCM was. It stood for Time Space Continuous Movement device. Grandfather was tipped to get another Noble Prize for it. A shiver ran through me as I began to understand the ramifications. "Oh holy fuck." I gasped, staring at mum in horror. The TSCM made a spacecraft with it installed fall in to unrelative time in sync with Earth's. In the essential it was like a time modifying device that stopped any ship that left Earth falling into the relative time fame of the universe. It meant that if a ship left Earth for a week and came back a week later. Then only two weeks would have passed on Earth and only two weeks would have passed for he ships passenger. With out the device, a trip that may feel like only two weeks long to the passenger may in fact be more like two years of Earth time. It was very confusing and complicated but it worked. And the ship father had taken did not have this device attached to it.

I was blinking rapidly. Sweat, which at first had been for the heat, now came from a deep nervous fear. I jumped to my feet. "Do you know where he's going?! We have to communicate with the ship and stop him! How long has he been away!" I saw the strength of steel come to mother's eyes

"Your right Trunks. I'll get on to the ships communication device and you go get your Grandfather to get one of his old capsule ships ready for launch!" Mum instantly took control of the situation. She was great like that. That was something I admired strongly about her, in times of stress she could always keep a level head. She takes all her emotions and stores them away to deal with later. As she went down to her lab me and Goten raced outside to find my Grandfather.

~*~

It took us ten minutes to eventually find Grandfather. He was standing quietly in the observatory looking through his giant telescope. The device was huge, about ten feet long and over three feet wide at its largest point. It was excellent for viewing distant objects.

"Ah, Trunks, there you are." His voice was tinged with nervous excitement, though I saw worry in his pale grey eyes. He gestured to the telescope. "I've been watching your father's progress with my ship. It works better than I ever dreamed though unfortunately this won't help us in retrieving him.." he ended. The small black cat was missing from his shoulder, I wondered vaguely where it could be. "I've been monitoring him, this telescope is the only means of following him that I have. Neither of you touch it or we'll loose sight of him."

I nodded and sighed slightly. I was sure we'd be able to get him back easily enough. I didn't think there was any need for all this fuss and worry. "Mum's asked if you could get a capsule ship ready so we can intercept him."

Grandfather blinked at me for several seconds. "Intercept that ship? I don't thing so Trunks. She's far too fast, but you can hope to catch up to Vegeta if he lands some where." He was looking slightly nervous. "Hmmm.. mean while we have to keep tracking him." He gave me a reassuring grin. "Don't worry Trunks, I'll just go get Capsule 3 ready to go." He gave me one of his usual cherry smiles and wandered off humming to him self. I felt a brief moment of anger. My emotions were so confused. One moment I felt sure of my self and what we were doing and the next I was frightened that dad had gone off for good. I gave a sigh and turned to Goten. He rapped his arm about my shoulder as we walked back to where mum was in the com-room.

"Don't worry dude, your dad will come back you know." He grinned at me and I couldn't help but return it. Goten's always had that infectious grin.

"I know Goten.." I smiled.

~*~

As I left the observatory, Yamcha, oblivious to the recent frantic occurrences, wandered into the large room. "Whoa, why is it there's always something new to see at this place." He muttered as he walked around the titan-sized telescope. He noticed the screen beside it showing the image of a small white thing. "I wonder what that is?" he tapped the screen but nothing happened. With a frown Yamcha walked over to the small eyepiece of the telescope and peered through. "Ha! Man, it's a little ship! It must be light years away!" He stood back with a look of admiration skimming across his face. "Dr Briefs really knows his mechanical stuff." A naughty hentai look suddenly crawled onto his face. "Heh heh heh.. if this thing can see a space ship millions of miles away I bet I'll be able to see that cute Blondie's house from here!" He glued his eye to the eyepiece and pushed the buttons on the control panel nearby to swing the huge tonne weight of the telescope around the view madly. There was a loud creaking noise from the joints of the large telescope's suspension as it was not use to being moved so fast to another position. Yamcha frowned when he couldn't see anything of Blondie's house but a big white blur and stood back with a scowl. "Damn thing! Why won't it work right?!" He whined.

From where I was in the hall I suddenly heard a large painful groan from the observatory. Goten looked up. "It sounds like some ones moving it!" he yelped and we both turned around to run back to the observatory. I gasped and froze when I saw Yamcha playing about with it.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!" I cried, running over to shove Yamcha out of the way so I could see the view screen. It was just as I feared. The tracking of father's ship had been lost. "You jerk!" Cried Goten, the usual happy-go-lucky Son reduced to rage in the face of Yamcha's bonehead stupidity. "That was following the ship Vegeta took off in!"

Yamcha blinked in surprise. "Ah, so that's what that little white thing was." He mumbled scratching his chin.

"Yeah that's what that 'little white thing' was." I growled walking stiffly to stand beside Goten. Shoulder to shoulder. My eyes narrowed, I felt a huge rage within me, a rage licked with the fear of despair. "That was the only way we had off following him and you RUINED IT!" I raged, I could feel my blood rushing through me like molten hot lava. Quicksilver would have melted on my skin. Little golden sparks of Ki sprung about me as I lost my cool. I clenched my fists, leaving crescent shaped creases in my palms. "You complete moron!" I swung my fist and with a cloud of dust, sent Yamcha through the wall.

Goten blinked. "Whoa hey Trunks, I know what he did was stupid but there's no need to get that worked up over it." He rested his hands with a light restraint on my back. I twisted around angrily.

"What do you know! We could have lost him now because of that fool! We could have lost him forever!" I shoved Goten out of my way and ran out of the observatory. I had to tell mum what happened. What a complete and utter idiot! How could he have been so.. so.. AH! Thoughtless! I wondered slightly if I was now thinking about Yamcha or Vegeta.

Goten sighed slightly and glared at the white powdered human. He shook his head in silent disgust and then ran after me. Goten caught up with me soon enough and said nothing. His silence strengthened me.

I found mum in the com-room, trying repeatedly to contact the ship. As I walked in she dropped the mic with a sigh and leaned forward in her chair to cry silently into her arms. I watched her before making my self known. She jumped slightly. "Oh Trunks! You startled me.." she sniffed and dried her face with a quick swipe of her sleeve.

"Mum.. something's happened to the telescope.." As soon as I said the words she interrupted me with a gasp.

"Oh my Kami! What's happened?!" She cried, pushing past me to run down the hall to the observatory. I winced when I heard the angry shriek. "YAMCHA! YOU BASTARD!"

Goten and I both sweatdropped. "Man, I sure as hell don't want to be him right now." Quipped Goten with a pale nervous look to the observatory door. I sighed. Another day in the Brief House hold. From shrieking harpy-woman to moronic Yamcha's and Vanishing Princes.

"Trunks! Did you make this hole in the wall!" Came another high vocal noise. I really wanted to be a Vanishing Prince right then.

I was about to mention some sly comment to Goten only to find my best mate had bailed on me. "SEEYOULATERTRUNKS,MYMUMWILLWANTMEFORDINNER!" he yelled in a flurry of Saiyan speed as he grabbed his bag and sprinted out the door.

"COWARD!" I yelled after him as I gave a laugh. Trust Goten to throw me to the wolves. I went red in the face and walked into the observatory with a clever excuse on the tip of my tongue. "Don't worry mum," I smirked at the bruised Yamcha. "He did that to him self." I scowled slightly. "You know he's the one who knocked off the telescopes alignment so he could purve at some slag's house."

Mum went red in the face. "You lost me my husband you jerk!" She screamed at Yamcha. And back through the wall he was punched. "Get your sorry looser face out of my wall and off my property Yamcha!" Considering the baka human's reaction was too slow for me I happily grabbed him by his shirt and threw him bodily out the nearest window.

"By Kami! That man continually vexes me!" Hissed mum as she turned about and attempted to find father again.

Two hours later there was no success. This didn't stop mum though and she continued to scan the skies with the telescope late into the night. At about 11pm I brought her a cold roast dinner and she ate it silently with out looking up.

As the days past and she continued to search, my worries grew. She left it to me to get Bra and me ready for school in the mornings. Every morning Bra would wake to see mum working hard at the observatory, dark rings under her blue eyes. Bra would frown with worry. "Where's daddy Trunks?" She would sob and I would often carry her to school so she could cry on my shoulder.

Days soon turned into weeks, and weeks into months. It was six months before mum decided she wanted to physically go out and look for Vegeta. The ship had been prepped long before and she asked Goku and Gohan to go with her. She left me in charge at Capsule Corps. Mum promised to be back in a year's time if she had not found him.

The day she, Goku and Gohan left, I stood silently. Speaking only to reassure her every thing will be okay here on Earth. I held Bra's little hand as she watched with large watery blue eyes as mum left us behind as well.

~**~

TBC..