Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Whatever the Weather ❯ Heatwave ( Chapter 1 )

A/N: As I've written so many stories featuring Jeice as a main character over a spell of eight years or so, I decided to get down to a story purely about him or more precisely his origins in DBZ. This will follow canon as closely as possible.

 

Jeice is 12 years old in this chapter.

 

 

Whatever the Weather

Heatwave

 

The white hot sun glared relentlessly down on his neck and shoulders, burning the skin there from orange to scarlet. It came as no surprise to Jeice that the symbol of the sun was universally accepted as a symbol of war. He dragged one foot painfully after the other down the dusty red dirt road. Miles of grassy plains, partially tinged with yellow where the stalks had been dried out by the sun, stretched towards a hazy horizon where red valleys squeezed between the rolling hills.

`Same old, same old,' Jeice thought restlessly. `Nothin' ever happens to me.'

He whipped at the trickling stream running beside him with the feathered tail of a reed and imagined he was fighting one of the seven-headed Hydra serpents on planet Saur.

 

“I heard some Saiyans from the Planet Trade attacked Vega in the Gorse system yesterday,” his friend proclaimed excitedly beside him. “Two million people they slaughtered!”

 

“Those Saiyans are mental,” Jeice muttered and slashed again at the sparkling water. “What did Vega do to them? They're witless cowards!”

 

Barack shook his head stubbornly. “Frieza announced Vega was planning a massacre on its neighbouring planet for fossil fuels. They deserved what they got.”

 

Jeice flipped his long hair out of his eyes and smirked. “Yeh're out your freakin' noggin' mate. You do know what Planet Trade means right? It means Frieza and his fat henchmen invade systems and auction them off to the highest bidder.”

 

Barrack glared. “That's only the holo-press talking garbage. They're just afraid of Frieza.”

 

Jeice squinted up at the sun and laughed. “They should be! He looks like a Paedophile.”

 

“Real mature,” Barrack rolled his eyes. ”Well me dad says Frieza's got the right idea. Everyone knows the Space-Trading routes are crawling with pirates. Somebody has to take control, why not him?”

 

Jeice flashed him a brazen smile. “Well ah'd rather be a pirate any day! They've got it real sweet. No rules, no responsibility, no slaving away on a boring farm all day,” Jeice said, expertly twirling the long reed in one hand before flipping it up in the air and catching it with the other. “Only fighting and adventure! That's my idea of fun.”

 

“That's not a goal,” Barrack said sullenly and leaned into a splintered sign post at a fork in the road. “That's just copping out, Jeice. A farm hand is an honourable position.”

 

Jeice grunted disdainfully. “It's bloody boring is what it is.”

 

“I wish you'd be more open-minded,” Barrack stated quietly.

 

“About Frieza?” Jeice threw the reed away and shoved his hands into his torn pockets. “Why are you so sore about this?”

 

“I'm not sore,” Barrack muttered. “But you're hardly taking this seriously.”

 

Jeice spat at the ground and shrugged his shoulders. He hated politics and the afternoon heat was beginning to warm his temper. “What's to take seriously? C'mon, you don't really believe them Ice-jin are going to come down here and save your sorry ass do you?”

 

“What's so wrong with Frieza anyway?!” Barrack snapped. “Dad says he's just what this system needs.”

 

“Frieza's a bloody nut just like you're old dad,” Jeice retorted testily.

 

“He's not a nut!” Barrack cried, his temper rising. “And at least he ain't a drunk like your dad!”

 

That remark hit a nerve. Jeice swore and threw all his weight at Barrack, the force propelling them both to the dusty red ground where they wrestled, kicked and punched at each other until both were bloody and bruised from their exertions. Jeice was exhausted but still too enraged to stop. He grabbed Barrack's arm and twisted it around until the other screamed in anguish and wriggled frantically away from his grip.

 

Barrack gaped at his arm in shock - it was bloody and bent at an awkward angle.

 

He glared at Jeice, his blue eyes wet with unshed tears. “You're bloody crazy Jeice!” he began to scramble away down the road, clutching his arm to his chest. “Your dad's going to kill you for this! I'll make sure of it!”

 

Jeice wiped the back of his hand across his face which was wet with perspiration and blood from his many scrapes and cuts. “Gutless coward,” Jeice grunted and stared coldly as his friend's back as he ran towards town. He cursed and kicked at the path, sending up clouds of dust. The news would get back to his parents in no time.

 

`Dad's goin' to be pissed,' he thought with a shiver, `real pissed.'

 

Taking the path on his right, Jeice began to limp his own way home towards Scarlocke Ranch. The great shaggy armaks grazing in the field at once raised their horned heads as he passed by; a couple even bellowed their greeting. He had spent the entirety of his young life herding these creatures.

 

Jeice leaned on the rickety fence surrounding his modest home and closed his eyes for a moment. However much pain he was in now, he knew it wouldn't compare to the pain he'd feel by next morning. With a grunt he pushed himself towards the back door.

 

The bare stone slabs of the backdoor entrance hall were uneven and soothingly cool against his bare feet. He remembered how the crooked slabs had irritated him as a small toddler playing spin-top on the kitchen floor. His mother had laughed at the way his face scrunched up when the spinning top hit a crack in the slab and toppled over.

 

A few drops of dark liquid caught his eye as he headed further into the kitchen, but it was the silence and the smell of over-cooked meat, followed by billows of hot steam that first alerted him. He jumped with a start at the sound of a loud crash coming from the barn.

 

`Bloody Watto musta knocked over the crates again,' he told himself, hand against his beating heart, `stupid beast.'

 

When his breathing returned to normal he moved further into the room. “Mum, ah'm home,” he announced, looking around. “Did Barrack cal…”

 

Words failed him as his green eyes took in the scene before him. A pot of stew was boiling over on the stove. A couple of plates had smashed on the worn worktop. Blood spattered the white-washed stone walls and his mother lay in a dead heap below the sink, blackened bruises around her neck.

 

A stab of terrible pain tore through his chest as a vague realisation hit him.

 

Jeice stumbled towards the backdoor without another thought and picked up a spade before running full pelt across the dusty yard. He stopped abruptly in front of the bolted barn door, heat and rage consuming him entirely. He held one palm towards the door concentrating all his grief and anger into energy. The long grass at his feet began to sway violently as gusts of wind radiated from his body, and a small orange orb glowed at his outstretched palm. He fired it at the door which exploded violently, sending a herd of armak in a neighbouring field stampeding.

 

Jeice charged into the barn outside, choking, screaming and crying in gabber of incoherent speech - and came face to face with his father swinging back and forth below the rafters. His neck was broken and his foot was twitching spasmodically.

 

Tears flooded Jeice's green eyes and his lip began to quiver wildly as his father mouthed wordlessly at him; a pleading, an apology.

 

“You bastard…you bloody bastard,” Jeice choked, staring the hanging man in the eye while his own green eyes hardened with burning hatred. “You ain't dead yet.”

 

He lifted the spade high above his head and brought it down, one swift strike after another.

 

 

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Please review! I'd like to think there are still some Jeice fans out there haha