Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Time's Folly; A Bittersweet Symphony ❯ Decisions ( Chapter 1 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

By: cyzay

*I haven't seen the new ova that I heard takes place in about the same timeline, as this was written years ago and I'm not about to change it for that. So for the purposes of this story, those events don't exist and are to be disregarded.

*Disclaimer - It ain't called fanfiction for nothing. This saga, and all extra characters that don't exist in the anime/manga/ova's are my creation. Everything else - Akira Toriyama's creation of course.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Chapter 1*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Over in the horizon, the sun was setting, leaving in its wake vibrant hues of orange and yellow in picturesque fashion across the sky. Accompanying the picture was the lightest of breezes, carrying with it a hint of chilled air, all signifying the coming of nightfall. Two long, silky purple strands were guided out of the way by the breeze as a pair of searching blue eyes surveyed their surroundings.

The barren land before him was empty of all but what it had always been filled with - rocks and dirt. Although, it did contain one additional feature: a deep, wide crater made by the exchange of immense powers that had battled there earlier in the day. The owner of the eyes sighed.

“At least it was here and not in any of the rebuilt cities,” he said softly to himself.

He looked up into the sky one last time before standing. “Here I come, Mother,” he said softly as he turned his back on the crater and flew home.

<><><><>

Trunks spotted the long aqua hair of his mother as he walked inside the rebuilt Capsule Corp. home that they shared. She was in the kitchen, standing in front of an opened refrigerator door. She turned around at the sight of her only child and greeted him with a smile.

“Trunks!”

Trunks gave her a soft smile as he walked up to her and kissed her forehead. “Mother.” Bulma closed the door as Trunks' eyes moved to the cooking pots on the stove. He grinned.

“I was expecting you a little sooner,” she scolded half-heartedly.

“Yes, I'm sorry.” Bulma nodded for him to sit down at the table. She dished out food for Trunks and herself before move to sit across from him.

The conversation took a pause as the two ate, enjoying their food and the fact that they could eat much more heartily than they could before. In the past few years, the Earth had finally started to gain ground in recovering from the android destruction that nearly wiped out the planet and its inhabitants almost ten years ago. The population of Earth still had some time go before it could return to half its previous number, but there were survivors, and at least some of the cities and smaller towns that had been destroyed had been re-established.

As her son was finishing his meal, Bulma was already starting on the tower of dishes in the sink. She turned her head around when she heard Trunks heave a little sigh. Returning to the task at hand, she asked, “Trunks, why did you stay out there so long?”

“Just thinking.”

“About...?”

“Everything that happened the past couple years, what happened in the past two days, what could happen in the future...” and after a pause “...and what it will be like going back to the past.”

Bulma paused in her work to turn fully around to look at Trunks. His eyes showed a mix of curiosity, anticipation, and fear. Drying her hands off, she moved and sat across from her grown son at the table. “Mother, I don't want to leave you again by yourself -“

“Now, Trunks -“ Bulma cut him off, raising her voice and turning her tone slightly condescending. “Don't think that just because I'm not young anymore that I'm too old to watch out for myself. I am not that old! And don't you worry about me. You worry about what will happen if you don't go!”

He gave a small smile, holding up an open-palmed hand in his defense. “Not at all! You're not old in the least, Mother!”

Bulma gave a smiling huff, followed seconds later by, “I'll have to reconfigure that machine since it hasn't been used in about…ten years?” Trunks nodded. “Wow!” She commented with a remembering tone. “That means that Gohan should be what…about twenty now?”

“And I'll be ten,” Trunks said a little distantly. Then he looked directly at his mother. “Well, I should be, unless something happened and everyone died.”

“Trunks! Don't think like that, ever!” Bulma snapped. Trunks jumped slightly and flinched at the sudden change in her tone.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” Pause. “Still, Mother, that is -” A death glare from his mother told him to stop. “I don't want to think that way either!”

“Good! You shouldn't!”

Trunks gave a small sigh before speaking again. “Mom, could you come and work on the machine with me? We can leave the bots to do that,” he said, pointing to the remaining dishes. “Besides, only the best could tune it up properly,” he added with a sweet smile that rarely graced his face. Bulma loved seeing that rare smile and returned it with one of her own.

<><><><><><><><& gt;<><><><><><><><><> <><><><><><><><><>< ;><><><>

Darkness engulfed the insides of the spade-shaped ship as it rode horizontally through the vast barrage of wild colors that encompassed the void of time-travel. Five figures sat in the cockpit of that inner darkness. Despite the lack of light, they could all see perfectly fine; they were highly attuned to the dark, yet were somewhat sensitive to light. The five travelers were of the Augin-jin race.

Each of their body structures were similar to humans but with some variations. Their alien skins were of a maroon-ish color, with differing hues and patterns. Coming out of their back shoulder blades were two tentacle-like appendages that ran the lengths of their backs and were rounded at the tips. Each alien also had a thick tail that trailed behind them on the ground, the ends tipped off with six spikes, lining the edges of the tails side-by-side. The eyes were pupils colored a deep black/maroon and black irises. In the middle of their foreheads were small diamond-shaped dents, in which sat a kind of stone, no bigger than a half-inch in length.

Noses were constituted of two small, inch-wide holes and their lips were thick and colored a dark dull shade of maroon. At the base of their otherwise bald heads grew hair of all different lengths, textures, and colors ranging from a mix of browns, deep maroons, and blacks. No other visible parts of the body sported hair of any kind, except for the eyelashes on the females.

Like others of their species, the Augin-jins were dressed in loose, long-legged, sleeveless bodysuits of varying dull hues (these five in particular wore black, blue, green, violet, and sea-green). Each uni-suit had a pouf-y collar and a black sash that tied about the waist. Their forearms were covered with hard, metallic-like armbands, the colors of which matched those of the uni-suits.

A light flashing from the side of the cockpit's dashboard was noticed by the Augin-jin dressed in the black uni-suit.

“We're back.”

Gruff, deep, but pleasing; that was the type of voice that originated from the very tall and big Augin-jin. The other four automatically straightened up in their seats.

“Wait a second,” questioned the female wearing the violet suit a few seconds later.

They had come out of the time warp a couple minutes prior to entering the atmosphere above a misty black/blue planet. Violet looked at Black questioningly.

“We weren't supposed to come out of this time warp into the space above our own planet!”

Before she or anyone else could do anything, their cruiser started to shake violently, signaling that the reentry into their planet's atmosphere was off-balance.

The Augin-jin in blue, the small, skinny pilot of the ship, had already grabbed the central stick that controlled the vessel and forcefully moved it from side-to-side in order to regain control of the wild ship, but even with `Black's' help efforts were to no avail.

Seconds after initial reentry, everything locked in place; each control, each blinking light, and all sounds ceased their activity.

“What the hell is going on?!” Blue exclaimed.

“We need to guide this thing as much as possible to the ground and worry about that after we've landed!” The one in sea green spat and instructed hurriedly, as the vessel continued to rapidly lose altitude. All nodded as they outstretched their hands in different directions inside the cockpit. The tips of their fingers lit up slightly, and a warm current of air filled the cockpit. In reaction, the ship started to slow down and make itself almost parallel to the ground, but it was still dropping at a rapid pace. No matter what they did, they would still experience a rough landing.

“Brace!” came the short command from Violet as seconds later the vessel landed hard onto soft earth, creating a five-foot deep gash in the ground where it now rested.

The crew inside the ship was unharmed; roughed up at the very most, with minor cuts and bruises resulting from being thrown about the cockpit, and from small, jagged pieces of the ship that had come unhitched or had broken off from their surroundings.

The left half of the ship is above ground, while the remainder is buried, was Violet's first thought. As the general of the crew, she was the first to really assess their situation.

“Ah…well, what just happened?” Blue asked curiously, smoothing out his long, curly black/maroon-mixed hair.

Sea-Green, the darkest hue of the group, shook her head and rolled her eyes. “We crashed,” she answered bluntly.

Blue raised an eyebrow. “But why?”

“Because, not everything was set properly” the low and always calm voice Blue's older brother, wearing green, answered, while surveying a piece of the cockpit dashboard with a close eye.

“Blau, you were supposed to make sure that everything was in place! You are lucky that other shit didn't happen, you incompetent fool!” Blau, the one in blue, cringed slightly at Violet's harsh words.

“But, I swear that I did!” he answered with a slight whimper.

“Ilchen, look” Violet turned around the calm calling of Sea-Green, who was hovering in the air looking out of one of the windows.

“What is it, Veru?” she asked as she moved to hover next to her. What they saw astonished them.

Curious, the other three crewmates also went to an adjacent window. Blau was confused. “What is so shocking? It's our home world; just like it was when we left it.”

“And when did we leave it last, Blau?” his brother asked, trying to make him see what the big deal was. As the two were conversing, Black moved over to a corner of the ship where a door was and began opening it. The others all turned their heads in his direction when they heard the loud creaking of bending metal.

Ilchen moved up and into the space next to Black in the opened doorway to take a look for herself. The other three stayed silent and looked at each other, waiting for something to be said by one of them. Finally, Sea Green spoke up to Green,

“Grun, we are in the wrong place, aren't we?”

“What do you mean, the `wrong place'?” Blau asked, a little confused.

“We are in the past,” Grun affirmed.

“But we're supposed to be in the past!”

“We're in the wrong past. We went back too far.”

“And how far is `too far'?”

It was Veru's turn to answer. “We are on our planet Augine - the original Augine. Suika and her team are here,” she added coldly. Blau was stunned. A quiet “oh” was all that he could say in reply.

<><><><>

“It is just how I remember it being, right before `they' landed.”

Ilchen looked at Black. “Charze.”

They were looking out onto a barren landscape. The sand was a tan color tinted with a hint of purple due to the atmosphere. Little chunks of rock were scattered everywhere, apparently from rock formations and broken buildings around the area. It was evident that a great fight had destroyed it. Or a direct attack, as they knew it was. Ilchen had called Charze's attention away from the present landscape to the distance. “Recognize that?” she asked.

He nodded. “Those are the assholes from Suika's group.”

“And that means that Suika hasn't been sent into the dimension hole yet. This could actually be a good thing.”

Charze looked at Ilchen. “You have a plan?”

She nodded. “Let's go back into the ship.”

<><><><>

Grun looked up when he saw movement from the door. Ilchen and Charze were coming back into the ship, with Charze closing the door behind him.

“You are aware of where we are?” Ilchen asked the other three. They nodded, as Blau slightly hung his head. Ilchen looked at Blau's hung head with a slight smile. “I have found this to actually be something of a gift to us.” Blau lifted his head in curiosity.

“How so?” Grun asked curiously, but doubtfully. Veru had already figured it out and a small smile crept onto her face. Ilchen caught her crewmate's smile and nodded, smiling herself. The males looked at the two, waiting to be let in on the females' mutual secret.

“You see, since that fucking Saiya-jin hasn't been sucked into the dimension hole, we can rework the spell so that she comes back into this dimension on the Earth planet. We won't have to waste time searching for her when she returns, because we will have the advantage of knowing where she is going to appear. In that way, Neuem-Augine won't be destroyed!” Veru explained.

“Just because our spell will force her to emerge on Earth, doesn't mean that she won't be able to escape the planet!” Blau interjected.

“We've been to Earth, remember? They don't have an abundance of spaceships just lying about. Besides, Saiya-jins don't have the intelligence or ability to build spaceships. It's unnecessary to worry about that”

“As a security that it won't happen,” Ilchen added. “We can also arrange it so that she loses her memory while she's in the other dimension. When she does appear, she won't immediately remember what or who she is. That way, we'll have an easier time with her. By the time she regains her memories, it won't matter. She won't have the chance, or the time, to build up her power level to where she once was.”

“We know `where' she will be returning to, but we still don't know `when',” Charze pointed out.

“To insure this plan's success, one of us has to go back with her,” Ilchen simply stated.

“But, then the same fate will meet whoever goes back!” he countered.

“No…” The crew looked to Grun; who was deep in thought as he continued, “I believe that is a problem we can get around.”

“So, this is the plan then?” Blau asked for confirmation after a moment of silence had followed Grun's announcement. “Which one of us will go into the dimension hole?”

“I'll do it,” Veru stated firmly, looking at Ilchen. “I'll give her hell while the two of us are in that other dimension, and when we come back…” she trailed off with venom dripping from every word.

Ilchen saw the determination and the seriousness in Veru's eyes. The crew's leader nodded to her after a brief hesitation before announcing to the others, “Let's get on with this. We have a couple hours before that bitch of a Saiya-jin gets sucked into the hole”

*~*~*~*