Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Second Chance ❯ Unanswered Questions ( Chapter 4 )

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

Four

~Goku~

After our training, Ellery had gone to the lab with Bulma to work on whatever she was making to alter human DNA. I had no idea how that could be possible, but if anyone could do it, it would be Bulma!

Gohan was employed as a doctor in the medical sector of Capsule Corps., so he stopped by before he went home to Videl and Pan. I was surprised, considering I hadn’t even known that he was stopping by.

I was emptying a bowl of rice when Gohan appeared in the kitchen. I greeted him excitedly with my mouth full. The words were muffled, but he got the point.

“Hey, Dad.” He sat down at the table with me. “How’s Ellery been adjusting?”

I shrugged. “She seems fine to me. I trained with her earlier.”

Gohan brought his eyebrows together. “She let you train with her?”

“Well, yeah.” I looked at my son, a bit confused. “She tried to use the gravity chamber last night, but Vegeta told her that he’d have to teach her so she wouldn’t hurt herself, so I just joined her.”

“Vegeta must be warming up to her.” Gohan had crossed his arms and leaned against the table. His glasses fell down his nose just a little bit, causing him to push them back into place. Personally, I didn’t understand why he even wore them. Because of his Saiyan genes, he wouldn’t need glasses. His eyesight is perfect. I think it may just be to make him look more normal at work.

I nodded. “Of course he is! I think he likes having another daughter. Besides, he and Ellery are a lot alike. You know, like father like daughter?”

I watched as my son tried to figure out exactly what I meant. I didn’t want to come right out and tell him that she had suffered the same abuse as her father at the hands of Frieza and that they shared the crippling terrors that captured them at night. It wasn’t any business of mine to tell Gohan.

“I saw that they were both a little stuck up, but I didn’t see many similarities at all. I don’t know, you have been with her a lot longer than I have. You’ve probably seen her in better situations than I did.” Gohan always reasoned with himself out loud. It was something he’d picked up from Chi.

I chuckled. “She’s really strong too, and her pride is definitely intact. I’ve known her for less than twenty-four hours and she’s already beat the tar out of me.”

“Your spar got that intense?” Gohan knew that I took sparring and training very seriously, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew that I wouldn’t take it so far as to seriously injure my partner, and I wouldn’t allow for them to do the same to me, either.

“No, that was a different situation. I was defending Krillin and I got carried away.” I tried to explain. I didn’t really want my son to see Ellery as a bad person, so I kept her fiery temper out of my explanation.

Gohan nodded. “How long do you plan to stay? I know you said you didn’t think it was safe for her to be so close to Bulma and the kids without you here, but I wasn’t sure how long you planned to stay.”

I looked to my empty rice bowl, and then back to my son. “I haven’t really thought about it. I guess I’ll know when the time is right.”

“That makes sense. Videl was worried about you getting hurt trying to fight her off by yourself.”

“No way! Vegeta is here, I’m only here for back up in case we’d need to get her down.”

My son nodded. “Where is she, anyway?”

I gestured toward the door that led down to Bulma’s lab. “She’s down working with Bulma. Don’t worry, I’m watching both their ki.”

Gohan crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “It does put my mind at ease to know that you’re paying such close attention to the situation. You think she has good intentions?”

“She hasn’t given me any reason to believe that she’s hiding anything. Like I said, she’s a lot like Vegeta. She is private, but she’ll answer any question you ask.” I picked up my bowl and walked to the sink to wash it. Gohan came over to stand near me to continue our conversation.

“What about this whole ‘continuing the Saiyan race’ thing?” Gohan leaned against the counter beside the sink.

“What about it?”

“Do you think it’s possible?”

I shrugged. “I’d assume. Bulma is definitely trying to make it happen. It will be one hell of a breakthrough if they can make it work.”

“It will be a miracle. It could mean restarted other species, extinct or not. As long as they can figure out how to manipulate the DNA, how to morph it in a living organism, we can completely change the world. Bulma will go down in the history books.” Gohan seemed more excited than he had been before. Biology was his thing, though. I’d never liked it as much, but as long as he was happy, he could talk circles around me.

“I think that’s what makes Bulma so excited about it. She isn’t as interested as continuing the Saiyans as she is breaking through this wall that the world has built.” I dried my hands on the towel beside me. I looked toward my son. “Ellery’s arrival could change everything and the earth hasn’t even realized it yet.”

I heard a vibration and Gohan looked down at his cell phone, cringing. “That’s Videl. She’s probably worried.”

I nodded. “You can go, you can always call later.” I said.

“Wait, Gohan!” Bulma came up the stairs, running and tripping over herself. Gohan looked over to the woman. “I need you to come down and look at this!” She grabbed his arm and started pulling him with her. I had to admit that it was amusing, especially since Gohan could have easily overpowered her.

I followed them down to the lab where both Ellery and Vegeta were firmly planted. I knew why Vegeta was down here. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ellery, but Bulma was his mate, and she was much weaker. She couldn’t defend herself if something were to happen. Vegeta was just supervising, and would only involve himself if he absolutely had to.

Bulma ran, with my son in tow, over to her desk where a computer sat. She was showing Gohan something, but I didn’t move close enough to see what it was.

“I can’t figure out how to make it more stable.” Bulma went off and explained a bunch of things that I didn’t understand in the slightest. I always just nodded whenever I didn’t understand what she was saying.

Gohan sifted through the file on the computer. I watched as interest crimped my son’s features, and it quickly shifted to realization. “We need to find out exactly how closely Saiyans and humans are related, and how Saiyan DNA differs between each individual. Once we figure that out, we can use just the similarities. This is so close.”

Bulma got excited all over again, looking over at Ellery, who was just staring at her expectantly. I knew that she’d been as involved as she could be, but she couldn’t do nearly as much as Bulma could.

Gohan kept looking around at all the little things that Bulma had sprawled out on her desk. “I can’t believe that you’re already almost there.”

“Ellery did most of the work!” Bulma shouted. “She came with the basic outline already written out, but she couldn’t figure out how to combine everything, or how to stabilize it. The only thing we have to figure out now is how to make it safe for use on humans. Right now, I have no doubt that this would kill someone.”

Gohan nodded. “Definitely.”

Ellery tilted her head to the side slightly. “You’re one of Kakarot’s cubs?”

Gohan wasn’t sure who she was talking to at first, but he looked over at her. “Oh, yeah, I guess.” I hadn’t been surprised that Gohan wasn’t familiar with the term. I hadn’t been until Vegeta had explained that Saiyans often referred to their children as cubs. He couldn’t tell me why, but he just knew that’s how it had always been.

Ellery stood, stepping closer to Gohan. I tensed for a moment, but kept my ki level. I wouldn’t involve myself unless she attacked Gohan.

“Would you relax, Kakarot?” Ellery snapped. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

I swallowed and continued to watch her as she got close to my son and sniffed where his neck was exposed. She wrinkled her nose in the same why that she had when she’d inspected Bra the same way. “You barely smell Saiyan.”

Gohan nodded. “I know. I’m half human.”

Ellery looked confused. “I already knew that.” She pondered for a moment, and leaned back to look at Gohan’s back. “You don’t have your tail either.”

“No, it was cut off when I was young.”

She looked back at myself and her father. “None of you have tails.”

“It was a liability.” I told her. “Being able to transform into the great ape always caused more issues than it solved.”

A look of anger crossed her face. “You’re telling me that none of you could even control the transformation?”

“Vegeta was the only one.”

She rolled her eyes. “You earth-raised Saiyans are worthless. I have to find a way to get your tails back, and I’ll teach you how to control it.”

“Why does it matter if we have our tails?”

“That’s part of why I’m so much stronger than you, Kakarot. A tail isn’t just an appendage, it’s a key to power. It keeps us connected to our roots.”

Vegeta nodded. “She’s right. I’ve been missing my tail for that very reason.”

I nodded. “So, we could just wish them back.”

“You have dragon balls on this planet as well?” Ellery seemed even more confused than she had been before.

“Sure, after all, the planet’s guardian is a Namekian.”

“How long will it take to find them?”

Bulma scoffed. “I already have four. It’s a security measure we like to take.”

“I still have the four star ball.” I liked to keep the ball that I’d had when I first met Bulma, the ball that Grandpa Gohan had given to me.

The princess nodded. “Perfect. Now, will this serum grow the tails for the humans?”

“The tail is part of the genetic make-up, so yes.”

“What about the mutts?”

Gohan pulled his eyebrows together. “What about us?”

“Will it be able to change you from half-bloods to pure-blooded Saiyans?”

Gohan’s face softened. “I guess we’d have to test it, but I wouldn’t see why not. All it does is parts human DNA, takes out anything that isn’t shared with Saiyans, and it will bond it with Saiyan DNA, which will completely morph it.”

Ellery nodded. “Perfect.” She turned to me. “Kakarot, let’s go find the other dragon balls.”

I guess that was the best option. I didn’t want to leave her with someone who couldn’t at least hold her down until help would come.

I grabbed the dragon radar from Bulma’s desk and we headed off. Ellery stayed beside me, fighting her urge to shoot ahead. I wanted to take my time. I saw no need to rush.

“What was your mate like?” Ellery asked suddenly.

I looked over at her. “She was beautiful, and a good mother to my boys. We were married young, but I did end up falling in love with her during our time together. Being a fighter herself, she understood that I needed to protect my home, but she didn’t like the boys fighting. I guess I understand. She wanted more for them than I had been.”

Ellery nodded. “How long were you mated?”

I thought for a moment. “A little over forty years.”

“So you were close.” She’d come to the conclusion herself. I didn’t feel a need to confirm it. “How did you meet her? You would have had to be much stronger than her.”

“I was a child, barely thirteen, and I met her when her father asked me to find his daughter. She’d been looking for Master Roshi, who later trained me, to borrow a special fan to put out a fire that was destroying her father’s home. She made an odd first impression by grabbing my tail, but it was an honest mistake. We didn’t see each other for a long time, and met again at a martial arts tournament, and were married a few days later.” My chest hurt as I thought back to when Chi Chi and I were only teenagers, love-struck and jumping into marriage.

“How young were you?”

I shrugged. “I was seventeen when we got married, I think.” I lowered myself to the ground, looking around the landscape for a dragon ball. The radar had told me that it was directly below me, but I didn’t see it on the sandy landscape.

“It’s probably buried, Kakarot.”

Before I could move, Ellery shot a ki blast at the ground beneath my feet. I yelped in surprise and jumped away from the sand that shot up around me. I immediately saw the orange glow of the five star ball. One ball down, one to go.

I grabbed the ball and put it into my backpack.

“Have you ever had another mate, or was Chi Chi the first?”

Her question caught me off guard. I wasn’t sure why she had a sudden interest in my wife, especially since she didn’t like humans to begin with. “Uh.” I paused, unsure of how to answer.

“It’s not a hard question, Kakarot.”

I looked to her. “I know that. Chi was the first. I never saw a need for a mate before then.”

Ellery nodded, taking off into the air. I followed her, knowing she’d continue her questions.

“You were mated young. Normally, a Saiyan would try out several mates before settling on the one he liked best. Most weren’t mated until my age.” Ellery trailed off slightly at the end of her statement.

I nodded. “That makes sense.”

Ellery looked over at me again with a slight smile on her lips. “You must have really loved her. That’s rare for Saiyans, you know. Many of us just mate to reproduce, and don’t find someone we love until much later, and no way to pursue it.”

I smiled to myself. “I must have been pretty lucky to have been raised here.”

We flew in silence for a long time. The other dragon ball was pretty far away, so it would take a little while to cover the ground.

“How did your mate die?”

Her questions were few and far between, but they definitely packed a punch. “Uh, I don’t really know. The day before she died, I noticed that she was sick. She passed out and I took her to the hospital, but there was nothing they could do. No one knew what was going on, not even our sons.”

“She was ill and didn’t tell you?”

“I think she knew she was going to die and didn’t want me to worry.” I looked down at the radar, trying to keep my emotions in check. I didn’t want her to see me weak. Something about her made me want her to think of me as something strong and dependable.

“I’m sorry for that, Kakarot.”

That was the only time that I heard sympathy pass through Ellery’s voice. The Saiyan princess had actually been very upset to hear of the story of my wife. It was something I wasn’t used to.

“It’s alright. I mean, I’ve been dead and it’s not too bad.” I tried to keep my voice even. I hated to think of Chi all alone in Otherworld, no one to keep her company. Her father and her mother were there, though. Maybe it was okay.

“She was your mate, Kakarot. Regardless of if she is happy being dead or not, you miss her and it’s obvious. Beating yourself up like this isn’t going to help you. It’s not going to help her, either. Loss isn’t easy, and it isn’t fun, but you have to accept it.”

“You don’t know what it’s like, Ellery.” The words escaped before I could stop them. I shook my head in frustration. I hadn’t wanted to do this in front of her. I’d fought this back effectively for two months. I couldn’t let it happen now.

“Of course I don’t. I have never lost a mate, or even had one. I have no idea what is going through your mind. I don’t like to see a warrior that I know is strong be held back by his unwillingness to deal with emotions.”

“I’m not avoiding dealing with it.”

Suddenly, Ellery was standing in front of me, blocking my path. She had her arms crossed over her chest and an angry scowl was haunting her beautiful features.

“You are avoiding it. You avoided your entire family and group of friends for months before I came along. You didn’t even discuss any of this with them.” Ellery was shouting at me.

“Like you didn’t discuss your issues with Frieza with anyone? Didn’t you ever think that there’s a reason you have those nightmares, Ellery?” I didn’t want to say any of that. I didn’t like that she was getting in my face about Chi, but wouldn’t handle her own problems.

She hovered closer to me. “Who the hell do you think you are? We aren’t talking about me. I was talking about you.”

I clenched my jaw. “My wife is none of your concern.”

“Perhaps, but you are. You’re the only suitor to sire my children. I won’t have you destroying yourself from the inside.”

“Do I not have a choice in this?” I shouted at her. “What if I don’t want to have children with you?”

Ellery looked offended. Her ki flared as she became angry again. She flew off in the direction of the dragon ball. I sighed loudly and followed her.

I didn’t try to approach her. I knew it would only cause more problems. She was upset, and so was I. I hadn’t meant to make her so angry, but I hated that she was trying to make me out to be a bad person when I was just trying to keep from making my problems into everyone else’s.

I found the dragon ball easily. It was sitting on the bank of a river, just under the edge of the water. I dried it and put it into my bag again.

“I have to stop by Mt. Paozu to grab the last ball. You can go back to Capsule Corps. if you want and I’ll meet you there.” I told her, looking to her for confirmation that she’d heard me.

She nodded. “I’ll stay with you for now.”

I went to take off toward the house, but Ellery grabbed my hand. I turned to her quickly, taking aback by the contact. She looked upset, her normally stern face drooping with emotion.

“I’m sorry, Kakarot. I never should have made you feel like you had an obligation to have any children.”

I nodded. “Thank you, Ellery. I’m sorry I got angry with you.”

That was the first and only conversation that I could actually feel Ellery’s emotion. It was like she finally dropped the wall for a moment.

This was progress.