Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Wish For The Past ❯ Wake-up Call ( Chapter 15 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: If I owned DBZ, I'd make this story into a special. A long special (not limited to just 1 hour or less, like most of the specials). Better yet, I'd make it into its own Saga! Then I'd sell it on video/DVD. No commercials. No crappy translations. No censoring out the blood! MWAHAHA! Wouldn't that be neat? But I don't own DBZ *sigh* so you all just have to use your imaginations as you read.

At that moment, the only things Goten felt were peace and safety. And warmth. Someone's warm, strong arms were wrapped around him. They felt familiar, but he couldn't figure out whose they were. They couldn't be his dad's, because his dad was in the future. They couldn't be grandpa's, because grandpa was....

The peace and safety he'd felt vanished like a pricked bubble and he started to cry again. Grandpa was dead. Taking advantage of the comfort that the person holding him was offering, he buried his face into the other's shirt and sobbed. In response, the man hugged Goten even more closely, one hand stroking his spiky black hair soothingly.

"Shhh... it's all right, Goten-chan," the man murmured softly. The voice was so warm, so... familiar. Why was it familiar? Goten opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was green. Sea green. The same green as his gi. The same green as the shirt Bardock wore. Goten's numb mind couldn't comprehend what this meant, so he slowly lifted his eyes. Blood. There was blood on the shirt. Some of it was dried and brown, some of it was sticky and red. Not fresh blood, but new enough that it hadn't had time to dry completely. Maybe the man was hurt, or maybe he'd been in a fight and someone else's blood had gotten on him. Seeing the blood on the sea green shirt tickled something in the back of Goten's mind, but the boy couldn't grasp it. Every time he tried to catch the thought, it slipped away like smoke through his fingers. He still didn't know who the man was, and he would find no answers in the blood on his shirt. He tilted his head to look at the man's face.

Breathing suddenly became difficult as his throat constricted. His heart rate increased and his eyes dilated to tiny points. Then the invisible force that had his throat in its grasp eased up and he found that he was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating. He knew that face. Those strong, angular features, the black eyes, the spiky hair. Only three people looked like that. Himself, his father, and.... his grandpa. The scar on the face told him that the person he was looking at could only be Bardock. But grandpa was dead. He'd felt the life leave him, had seen his eyes close, watched as he stopped breathing, heard the heart inside him still its beating.

Had it only been his imagination? Could it possibly be true?

The face smiled and Goten realized that he was trembling. His vision became blurry, then cleared slightly as tears fell from his eyes. He tried to say something, but nothing came out.

"Hello, Goten," Bardock said, ruffling Goten's hair.

Feeling as though his heart was about to burst inside of him, the chibi gave a strangled cry that sounded like an odd mix between a laugh and a sob. He reached up to touch the scar on Bardock's face as though he couldn't believe his eyes. Bardock's smile only widened. It was then that Goten finally realized that it wasn't a dream, that his grandfather really was alive and smiling down at him. He wasn't dead. He. Wasn't. Dead!

"GRANDPA!!!"

The tears came freely, now, but they were a different kind of tears than the ones he had been shedding earlier. He wrapped his arms around his grandfather's neck and hugged him fiercely, sobbing in relief and joy, now, instead of grief. "Grandpa, you're alive. You're alive!!!"

"Erk... Goten... you're choking me," Bardock gasped, turning slightly blue in the face.

Goten sheepishly loosened his hold on the warrior's neck, but grinned as he wiped the tears from his eyes with one hand. "Grandpa, I thought you'd died!"

"So did I," Bardock chuckled ruefully. "But those senzu beans really work wonders, don't they, Goten-chan?"

"Hai!" Goten laughed. He looked around the cave, which was lit by a small camp fire. Outside the cave it was pitch black, though that might have been because the roaring waters of the waterfall outside hid any starlight that might have been shining down from the sky. There was no sign of Trunks. "Grandpa, where's Trunks?"

"He and Vegeta went outside to... discuss some things. I told them they couldn't make a lot of noise inside the cave because you were asleep."

"Oh." The chibi-Saiyan paused, then looked back up at Bardock. "When did Vegeta join us? Last I saw, he was gonna fight Trunks."

Trying hard, and failing, to keep a straight face, Bardock replied, "That's probably still true."

Stars speckled the night sky like diamonds on a black satin backdrop. In the east, a small sliver of the moon was visible, shining faintly silver and blue. A whisper of a breeze stirred the air, which had cooled considerably since the sun had gone down. Night birds and insects chirped and buzzed to each other while nocturnal predators hunted their prey with speed and stealth. Nearby, a waterfall cascaded over a cliff to crash onto the rocks below.

The serenity of the scene had no effect on two creatures who stood a short distance from the entrance to the cave where Bardock and Goten were. Trunks's face was the picture of exasperation, while Vegeta only looked pissed off.

"You're lying," he growled, his tail lashing back and forth behind him. "I refuse to believe that you are some half Saiya-jin, half..." he paused here because Trunks hadn't told him what race his mother was, "half whatever-you-are child from the future, who just happens to be my son!"

"Why would I lie to you, baka?!" Trunks yelled angrily. "I have nothing to gain by it! I certainly don't want to train under you or anything like that. And I don't wanna usurp your throne, either! If I am from the future, like I say I am, and I am trying to get back home, then it wouldn't even be in my interest to pretend to be your son, now would it? Besides, if you hadn't noticed, I tried not to tell you who I was!"

Vegeta fumed. Kuso, he makes too much sense. But it can'tbe true! It just... can't!

Sighing in annoyance, Trunks threw up his hands in a sign of defeat. "Listen, you don't wanna believe me, and I can't make you believe me. I don't have to make you believe me, nor can you make me tell you the so-called 'truth', so there really isn't any point to this conversation. So why don't we just go back into the cave and get some sleep?" Vegeta looked like he was about to protest, but Trunks would have none of it. He was tired of listening to the bratty prince try to deny the truth, tired of arguing with him, tired because, well, it was getting late and he needed sleep. "You don't have a choice in the matter, Vegeta. You can either go back to the cave on your own, or I can knock you out right here. Which is it going to be?"

Glaring, the little prince angrily stomped off towards the cave, waiting until the last minute before taking to the air. It was much more satisfying to pound the ground than to just glide silently. How can he be my son? I am the Saiya-jin no Ouji! I would never mate with anyone who wasn't Saiya-jin! Or anyone with hair as ridiculous as Trunks's! And I notice that he's been avoiding telling me how he and Goten supposedly came to the past in the first place. Why is that, I wonder? Two reasons. Either he doesn't want me to be able to use whatever method of time travel they used, or.... he never traveled through time in the first place.

But if he didn't travel through time, and he is trying to trick you, then why wouldn't he just make up some lie about how he was able to travel through time? an inner voice in Vegeta's mind argued with him.

Maybe because he's too stupid to be able to think up a good lie, he retorted.

If that were true, the voice said, then wouldn't he be too stupid to think up these other 'lies' in the first place? And you said it yourself. He makes too much sense.

Shut up!! Vegeta snapped. Just... shut the hell up!

Surprisingly, the voice listened to him. But the Prince of all Saiyans was unable to dismiss what it had said. It was a very troubled Vegeta who stalked his way into the cave and sat down in a corner.

Trunks followed Vegeta back into the cave, his mind lost in thought as he tackled a problem that he'd just discovered. How am I going to get any sleep tonight with Vegeta here? If we all go to sleep, then what's to stop him from escaping? We need him if we're ever going to get off this planet! Maybe Bardock will know what to do....

A gurgling from his midsection caught his attention and he decided he would talk to Bardock after they ate dinner. Searching through his pocket, he pulled out one of the capsules with food from his mom's pantry. "You guys hungry?" he asked, looking in Bardock and Goten's direction.

"Yay! Food! I'm starving!" Goten chirped happily. Bardock simply smiled. It amused Trunks that, even as the two stood up and Bardock set Goten on the ground, they maintained physical contact by holding hands, as though they were afraid to let go. He supposed he'd act that way, too, if someone close to him had nearly died, only to be saved at the last second. It was still funny, though.

"I don't see any food," Vegeta grumbled from where he sat. "Where are you going to get it from? Pull it out of thin air?" The sarcasm in his voice was sharp enough to cut steel. He, too, was hungry, and he didn't appreciate being teased like this.

"Something like that," Trunks said, smirking in a very Vegeta-esque manner. He pressed the button on the capsule he had chosen and tossed it onto the table. It was only after the capsule had finished decapsulizing the food that he realized he probably should have thrown it to the ground. There was so much food within the capsule that it spilled off the table and onto the floor around it. "Oops."

Bardock and Goten immediately launched themselves at the food, letting their hands go so they could use both hands to eat. Vegeta just stared open mouthed, glancing from the food to Trunks and back again. Where did all that come from? He pulled something out of his pocket and when he threw it down, all that food appeared. But I've never even heard of any technology such as this! What if... what if he is telling the truth and he is from the future?

"Hey, Vegeta," Trunks called, interrupting the prince's thoughts. "You might wanna eat before it's all gone." He, too, sat down to attack the food and satisfy his hunger.

After another moment of gawking, the chibi-prince sat down and started eating mechanically. His thoughts were still trying to cope with this startling revelation. He ate without looking at what he was eating... that is, until he came across it.

The substance was unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Semi-transparent red, it was held within a bowl and almost seemed... alive. It quivered whenever the rock table was jostled, looking like it was trying to escape the confines of its prison. Vegeta stared at it in fascination. Hesitantly, he reached out and poked it with a finger. The stuff jiggled and bounced back, causing the ten year old to jump in alarm. Was it trying to attack him?! He jabbed it again, determined not to let the creature win. Instead of bouncing back, the 'creature' gave way, letting his finger slip into the soft, slick stuff it was made up of. His eyes widened in horror as he realized what was happening. He'd heard of creatures that could do this. It was trying to absorb him into its body!

"Yaaaah!!!!" he screamed in alarm, yanking his hand away from the thing. His other hand formed a ki blast which he quickly launched at the deadly creature. The red mass exploded, sending bits of itself all over Vegeta and the others - though mostly on Vegeta, since he was closest. The prince screamed again, thinking this was another form of attack. It had divided itself into smaller replicas of its original form, harder to target and destroy, and now it was going to absorb him! He started swatting the jelly-like creatures off him, hoping that he could kill them all before it was too late. This only made things worse. Instead of falling off him like most creatures would when swatted, the jelly-creature only smeared itself all over Vegeta, staining his arms and clothes red. It's sucking my blood!!!

He looked desperately at the others, hoping that maybe they could do something to defeat the monster that had been hiding in the food. All three were staring at him as though he were insane, and Goten was beginning to giggle hysterically. "What the hell is so funny?!" Vegeta roared, angered by their reaction.

"Hee hee Vegeta hahaha it's just hehe jello! Why are you hahaha attacking it?" Goten managed to say through his laughter. Trunks, too, was grinning ear to ear, while a smile was tugging at the corners of Bardock's lips. Bardock had already encountered the jello, but he hadn't reacted like this!

"It's a monster that's trying to absorb me and suck my blood!" the distressed prince yelled. How could they take this deadly monster so lightly?!

Trunks burst out laughing at this statement. "HAHA!! It's only jello, Vegeta! It's not alive! My mom makes this stuff all the time. It's one of the few things she knows how to make without messing up." Grinning, he reached out and wiped a small blob off of Vegeta's arm and stuck it in his mouth. "Mmm... cherry. My favorite!"

Hesitantly, Vegeta licked a finger that still had some of the stuff on it. He didn't recognize the flavor. Cherry, did he say? It actually tasted rather good, even after being ki-blasted. Flushing with embarrassment, he sat back down, refusing to look up until he had finished eating. I thought it was alive! I thought it was a dangerous animal when it was only a type of food! I think I'm going to die of embarrassment. That was no way for the Saiya-jin no Ouji to behave!

Remaining silent the rest of the evening, he was able to overhear the conversation between Trunks and Bardock. They were discussing how they would prevent Vegeta from trying to escape during the night. The prince snorted. He held no illusions about being able to get away during the night. In a way, he almost wanted to stay with the trio of Saiyans. To find out for certain if they were really telling the truth or not. And to find out what else they were hiding. There was more to their time traveling story than they let on, of that he was certain.

In the end, it was decided that Bardock and Trunks would take turns keeping watch on Vegeta. Goten wasn't even considered, because they both knew that he wouldn't be able to keep himself awake. Vegeta just lay back and closed his eyes. Somehow, he knew that he would be needing the energy in the morning. Goten once again was using Bardock as a pillow, with Bardock's arms wrapped protectively around him. Trunks remained awake, vigilantly watching over the others and feeding the fire. In a few hours he would wake Bardock up. In the meantime, everyone else fell asleep, dreaming of the days to come.

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