Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Time's Folly; A Bittersweet Symphony ❯ Reuniting Moments ( Chapter 7 )

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

By: cyzay

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*Chap 7*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Goku noticed that during today's spar Vegita was more in control of himself; his form was still only slightly off, but it was a huge improvement from the day before, for which Goku was relieved and grateful.

Over these past years, his own love for battle and fighting knowledge always found its best match in Vegita, with whom he could get the most out of sparring. Lately, however, the wildness in Vegita's sparring was bordering on irritating. Goku wondered at the sudden change yet again. He also wondered briefly if it had something to do with Vegita's “Majin experience”, or some other kind of side-effect left over from that chaotic time, but that idea was quickly discarded.

What he did know, much to Vegita's great agitation, was that his friend had been having disturbing and recurring dreams about his past. Although, what specifically about these dreams was bothering Vegita, he didn't know (and Vegita stubbornly refused to say), but Goku had eventually figured that they were the source of his sparring partner's erratic behavior and the disruption of his concentration. Pulling back on his wavering attention, Goku looked at Vegita again, but now it was Vegita who was the distracted one, staring up into the sky.

<><><><>

Then Vegita felt it: a dark aura, a strong ki. It was very quick, and very faint, but he definitely felt it, only because he was acutely aware of why he was feeling it. He wasn't absolutely clear if it was from the same source, but either way, it did something to greatly arouse his curiosity. Vegita turned to face the bigger Saiya-jin. Apparently, the other had not felt it, for other than looking puzzled, he showed no sign that he did. Vegita didn't give Goku an opportunity to ask any questions; instead, he gave Goku a wicked grin.

Uh-oh, thought Goku, as soon as he saw that grin emerge on Vegita's face. This isn't good. It immediately reminded him of the same one that Vegita had plastered on his face right before he effortlessly “remodeled” the stands in the martial arts tournament stadium on that horrible day when allowed his evil self to come back and revisit his old ways.

“Vegita...” Goku murmured with a mix of curiosity and nervousness.

“Kakarrott,” he stated, his eyes gleaming with a kind of renewed excitement, tinged with a hint of animalistic glee, “Shall we…commence?”

Goku quickly reoriented himself into a fighting stance, unsure exactly what to make of this new turn of events. The manner in which Vegita had just spoken to him and that dark expression on his face, both mirroring his behavior from that day.

Vegita sensed his indecision and smirked. “Come on now, clown! Don't stand there like some frightened child!”

Goku frowned a little before giving a little smirk of his own. “Hn.” If something was up with Vegita, no doubt he would eventually find out about it. Goku gave a quick nod then flew at Vegita.

<><><><>

Well, there it is, Mirai Trunks thought as he, the boys and their two unconscious burdens came into view of Capsule Corp. He landed alongside the two boys, all three making sure to touch down as carefully as possible. Shifting the limp girl's weight a bit in his arms, Mirai reached out with a free hand and opened the front door, stepping back to let Trunks and Goten enter before him.

“Mom!” Chibi Trunks called out to the house as he and Goten walked inside.

Hearing his shout, Bulma and Gohan both looked up from the kitchen table. “Trunks…” Bulma began then gasped when she saw what her son and Goten were carrying into the room.

“What happened? Who is she?”

“We found her,” Goten answered simply, as if that would be explanation enough.

“She's unconscious mom,” Chibi added in a hurried tone.

Now it was Gohan's turn to gasp when he realized who had also entered into the room behind the two boys.

“Trunks?”

“Gohan,” Mirai greeted him with a nod and a smile.

“Trunks!” Bulma exclaimed upon seeing her future son and smiling as only a mother could.

“Mother,” he replied, a soft, pleased smile on his face.

She began to walk towards him, her arms ready to embrace him, but stopped upon seeing that he too was carrying an unconscious girl in his arms. A worried expression crept onto Bulma's face as she looked at all of them. She quickly put aside her happiness at having her future son with her again and announced, “Okay, follow me so we can take care of these girls.” Then she turned around and nodded at the boys to follow her.

<><><><>

Bulma directed the three boys to lay the two girls down onto two cots located in the corner of a workroom, near a row of computers. She also appointed to Gohan the task of setting up a regeneration tank in another part of the room, just in case.

“Other than being unconscious, they seem to be fine,” Mirai remarked aloud.

“There's not a serious mark on either of them,” Bulma mused, giving both girls a visual once-over.

“We found `em that way,” Chibi commented, hearing his mother's mumbled statement.

“Well, actually, this one,” Mirai said, pointing to the girl with the ponytail, “was partially conscious, but she fainted soon afterwards,” he added.

Bulma looked up at the older Trunks with the same motherly sparkle that had come into her eyes the moment he walked back into her life.

“I'm so glad to see you again! My gosh, you look so grown up!” she gushed, pausing for a moment to look him over. “And so strong, too!” She beamed up at him.

“It's good to see you again,” he said, grinning back at her.

“It's been a long time, Trunks,” said Gohan to Mirai as Bulma continued with her own examination of the girls, while using the nearby computer's search function to scan for recent listings of “missing persons” that would match any of the girls' descriptions. Mirai turned to look at him.

“Yea,” he answered, pausing to do a mental comparison of the Gohan from his timeline with the one standing in front of him, “I see that you're all grown up, as well.”

Smiling a carefree smile, accompanied by a sly chuckle, Gohan nodded. “Yup.”

Goten carelessly added,“Gohan goes to school now, and has a girlfriend, Videl!” Giggling, he joined Chibi Trunks as his friend snickered softly behind his hands.

Unflustered by the younger kids, Gohan just smiled shyly. “Ah, yea, I guess so.”

Mirai chuckled as well, giving the other a teasing, but harmless smirk. “Well, your mom finally got what she wanted for you, Gohan.”

“Heh-heh, yea, I guess she did.”

Instinctively sensing the arrival of someone, the four Saiya-jins all turned around to face the doorway a couple seconds before hearing a soft and deeply male voice say, “Trunks.”

“Piccolo!” Gohan said with surprise at seeing his friend and teacher.

Mirai Trunks nodded in greeting. “Hello, Piccolo.”

Curious of what Piccolo was carrying in his arms, Goten and Chibi quickly edged themselves in front of the two older boys. The others in the room also noticed the same thing.

“What...who's that?” Gohan asked.

“I don't know, but she's barely alive. She's been roughed-up pretty bad,” Piccolo replied as Gohan walked up to him.

“Well, let's get her into the tank!” Bulma ordered upon looking the injured girl over.

Mirai looked down at the girl, whose long hair hid her face from him as she was shifted carefully from Piccolo's arms into Gohan's. Noticing that his younger self was staring up at him with a puzzled expression, Mirai's attention switched to the little chibi and answered him with a silent “what?” shrug. Frowning a bit in concentration, Chibi turned to look at Goten, whose attention was on his older brother at the moment, before returning his gaze to his older self.

“Hey, Trunks…” Chibi began to say but stopped when he spied Mirai's face break into a slight smile, followed by an amused chuckle. Sensing the shared humor of the situation, Chibi smiled brightly. “If you don't mind, I'll just call you `brother', so I don't have to call you by my name, which would get weird.”

Mirai chuckled again and grinned down at the little boy's suggestion. It would be equally weird to be called `brother' by myself, but hey…I guess I could get used to it! “Sure, I suppose that would be okay.”

<><><><>

After he gave the girl over to Gohan, Piccolo removed himself to a back wall of the room. Hn. Something important must be going on if he's here. I'm certain that his was the other `ki' I sensed earlier. But, that coldness… could that had come with him? No, that felt… His thoughts were interrupted by Gohan posing an expected question to him.

“So, where did you find her?”

“I didn't find her. She fell from the sky.”

Astonished, Trunks and Goten simultaneously asked, “The sky?!”

Piccolo grunted in response. He looked questioningly at Mirai, who replied with an equally mystified shrug.

“I don't know. I only brought myself, no one else.” With that reminding him, he turned around to address Bulma, who had been sitting at the computer while listening to their conversation. “Something interfered with me coming into this timeline, and it messed up my machine. I tried to figure out what went wrong, but I haven't been able to find anything.”

“Well, that's my specialty!” she said with a confident wink. “I'll take a look at it.”

“Hey, everyone!” Everyone turned around to see Goku and Vegita stroll into the room.

“Daddy!” As soon as he saw his father, a delighted Goten ran up to greet him and wrapped his arms around one of Goku's legs in a happy hug.

Goku chuckled and reached down with his hand to ruffle his little son's hair. He looked up, noticing Mirai's presence. “Wow, Trunks! You're back! It's been a long time!”

“Goku?” Mirai Trunks asked, pausing for a second to remember what the boys had told him. “Oh, right,” he continued, a little softer with a knowing chuckle, “It's good to know that you're also back. I heard the story of what happened with Majin Buu.”

“You did?” The older Saiya-jin asked as he scratched the back of his head. “How's that?”

“Me and Goten found him after he crashed,” Chibi Trunks chimed in.

“Yea, and then we told him all about Majin Buu,” Goten added, nodding his head.

Gohan smirked a little. “In that case, most of it was probably exaggerated,” he said, directing his remark towards Mirai. Hearing that, Chibi snorted in annoyance and Mirai chuckled.

At least I'm not a nerd that dresses up in a stupid superhero costume, Chibi mumbled to himself, folding his arms in a mirror image of his father. At the moment, Vegita was just silently standing there, his eyes darting from the girls on the cots to the girl floating in the tank, then finally to his older son.

<><><><>

My son, Vegita thought to himself when he first spotted the tall, lavender-haired person standing in the room. He is definitely stronger now then he was when he last left. Good! Vegita's sharp eyes then moved to look dead-straight into the blue ones that belonged to his older son and his questioning gaze was sharply answered by those same blue eyes. Whatkind of shit happened in your time that has caused you to come back to ours, my son?

Mirai met his father's gaze the moment he felt it coming at him. He couldn't stop the feeling of nervousness washing over him. He had been so anxious to meet with his father again; it was one of the things he wanted most out of this trip. Now the time had finally come to see Vegita again, and all he could feel was unnerved and he wasn't quite sure why.

When he had last departed from this timeline, he had left with a better understanding of his father's deeply complicated persona. Mirai strongly believed that he had earned some respect from his father before he left. And for him, that was the greatest gift that he had ever received, which had made his trip back in time all the more worthwhile.

With a start, Mirai realized what was making him so edgy. He's sizing me up! He knew with a certain amount of confidence that he had improved quite steadily over the past ten years, but because it was Vegita who was doing the scrutinizing, he continued to feel un-easy. Why the hell am I still so nervous around him? I shouldn't be. Notat all! Of course, I've improved. But, would he be impressed by how far I've come? Well, maybe not impressed...but, I'm sure he wants to see for himself how I measure up now compared to all those years ago. This is Vegita, after all!And he still has his drive to compete…I can feel it! Other than his increased power level, which I can sense is way higher than it was before, he hasn't changed at all.

Gathering himself, Mirai looked steadily back at his father. I wishI could better sense what heis feeling! Damn! Could he actually be...happy to see me? And, wait a sec…is that worryI see in his eyes? Of course! He must know that something has happened to me… to my time… Mirai mentally sighed. Why am I acting like this? Why would I feel like this, given how we parted last time?

<><><><>

”So, then, who are they?” Goku asked of no one in particular, once he noticed the presence of the three unfamiliar people in the room.

Bulma pulled her attention from the computer screen in front of her and turned around in her chair to answer simply, “We don't know.”

“Goten and Trunks found two of them out in some deserted clearing - ” Gohan began to explain, pointing to the two girls on the cots.

“- and Piccolo found her, “Goten finished, pointing to the figure floating in the tank, “out where he was.”

“Piccolo?” Goku cocked his head to the side. He turned around and saw the infamous being, in his customary position, leaning with his back against the wall, looking back at Goku with amusement. The Namekian's response was a non-verbal grunt. “Ah, Piccolo! There you are!”

Bulma had been studying the computer screen with a curious expression on her face. Seeing this, Gohan, followed by Goku, walked over to see what she was doing.

“Hey, Bulma?” Gohan asked in an inquiring tone.

Without looking up at him she replied, “This is bizarre. There's no record of any of these girls showing up as `missing' on any of the database searches that I've done so far…” Bulma punched up a new display and, after a few moments' study, frowned at the information scrolling on the screen. “What's even more curious, these life energy scans that I've been running on her” - Bulma motioned with her head towards the tank -“and on them…are very strange.”

Though he didn't physically show it, that piece of information got Piccolo's full attention.

This also piqued the curiosity of the rest in the room, as they all turned as one to face the girl floating in the tank.

<><><><>A few minutes earlier<><><><>

Something stirred deep within Vegita. He had felt it earlier that day sparring with Goku, but it had come and gone. Now, that dark feeling was back, but this time it was not as intense as before. Almost reluctantly, he tore his thoughts and eyes from his older son, to stare at the girl in the tank and scan her over quickly with his senses. Nothing but a mere- his train of thought halted as he felt…and then it was gone.

What?! Shit! Was my mind playing tricks on me or did I feel what I just felt? He thought with annoyance as his eyes returned to the tank again. Through the glass he stared once more, taking deliberate care to really look at her. Her facial features were hard to make out since her head was tilted downwards and her long hair was floating freely around her face. There is something about that girl…His thoughts returned to those few hours before; to his spar with Goku when the feeling of a dark aura and a strong ki had intruded upon him.

I'm certain that the strong ki belonged to my future son, but that disturbing aura definitely did not. His aura could not possibly be dark, period. He glanced over at the two girls on the cot and scanned them over as well. Human. He again looked at the girl in the tank. I can detect that she is fully human, but no… something is not quite right with that one. And Kakarrott's youngest brat said that Piccolo found her. Butthese humans don't normally venture out that far and most certainty not on their own. Hn.

In the middle of his ponderings, he heard Bulma say that the life energy readings she was getting from the girl in the tank and her companions were rather strange. Although he didn't move any closer to the screen, he somehow knew what it was showing. She's healing fast. And her ki is rising…

The dark aura suddenly forced its way back into his consciousness. And this time, everyone in the room felt it, but as quickly as it had come, it vanished.

<><><><>

Piccolo snapped his eyes open in sudden surprise as the two younger Saiya-jin boys gave each other a questioning look. With suspicions running through his own head about the girls, Mirai arched a lavender eyebrow at Vegita. Gohan and Goku glanced worriedly at each other, then towards Vegita. Once he saw where those two were looking, Piccolo also turned towards Vegita, who instantly became agitated from all of the unwelcome attention.

“I know what you all are thinking,” he snapped in irritation. “That's not fucking me!”

“Vegita! Watch your mouth, mister!” Bulma scolded angrily from her spot next to Gohan. Vegita ignored her, refusing to acknowledge that she had said anything. Chibi and Goten could only look at the grown-ups in confusion, then at each other.

Gohan remained slightly doubtful however he could tell that Goku and Piccolo were convinced about Vegita's innocence in all of this. He looked over at Mirai. The older Trunks had been keeping his own eyes trained on Vegita, who was standing with his customary scowl, which seemed to be a little deeper than normal.

Piccolo decided to shift gears and question Mirai. “You said something happened when you came into this timeline, what was it?”

“I don't know. All I know is that once I came into this timeline, some kind of… force, for lack of a better word, hit me head-on. All the controls in the machine seized up, the engine temperature quickly rose, and the internal pressure decreased and oxygen level inside the cabin dropped. I could feel that the whole contraption was going to blow at any moment, so I blasted my way out of the canopy just to avoid getting caught in the explosion that followed. The next thing I knew, I was outside and falling towards the ground. It all happened so fast that now I'm not really sure what could have caused everything to malfunction at the same time.” Bulma creased her eyebrows, deep in thought as she listened carefully to Trunks' story.

Goku thoughtfully cocked his head to the side. “Hmm, Trunks? Do you believe that all this happening with your time machine has anything to do with why you came back to us?”

All eyes were now on Mirai as he visibly considered this. Of course, that would make sense. Oh, no! What if…NO! Mirai Trunks frowned, concern clouding his young face before he answered.

“Yes, Goku, I think it does.”

Vegita's eyes widened for a second then narrowed in thought, as the other adults in the room nodded slowly. Chibi and Goten continued to look at each other, both pairs of eyes sparkling with wonderment at what that last statement really meant. The sound of soft moans coming from the cots put a halt, for the moment, to any more discussions about Mirai's reasons for returning to the past.

*~*~*~*