Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Wish For The Past ❯ Ice Cream Buckets ( Chapter 55 )

I made reference to Frozenflower's "Misunderstandings--Goku and Vegeta--they're NOT!?!" Don't own that, either.

I also don't own the anime that I *coughs* misquoted in this fic. *evil grin* I have nothing against it (am actually something of a fan of it) but it's just so much fun to spoof it!

Twenty minutes later, Goten and Trunks sat down on the sidewalk, giggling hysterically as they licked the last traces of ice cream from the last two buckets. It had only taken them so long because ice cream was cold, after all, and if eaten too quickly it tended to cause brain freeze. Nonetheless, after twenty minutes of eat ice cream, the result was the same. The sugar in the boys' blood was slowly congealing, their little hearts beating faster and faster each second as sugar-coated energy coursed through their veins. Neither of them noticed the strange looks that passers-by gave them. What did they care what they looked like? So they were two chibis sitting in a mountain of ice cream buckets with the remains of fudge ripple ice cream splattered everywhere. Big deal!

"Hee hee, Trunks, look at me!" Goten giggled happily as he placed a bucket over his head, then punched two holes in the side so he could see. "I'm the Great Saiyaman!!" He jumped up off the sidewalk and began doing the poses he'd seen his brother do so many times in front of a mirror.

"Hahaha!! You're right, Goten! You do look like him!" Trunks snickered, then caught sight of a green grocery bag with black letters printed on one side. "Wait! Wait a second, Goten!" he gasped, eyes dancing with sugar-induced mischief. Grabbing the bag, he punched out head and arm holes, then shoved the bag over Goten's bucket-covered head. "Come on, stick your arms out the side. Hehehehehe!! Now you'll really look like Saiyaman!"

Only too happy to comply, Goten's little arms popped out the sides and he tugged the bag into a more comfortable position before jumping back into his 'super hero' stance. "Ha ha ha! I'm the suspenders of love and justice!" he crowed as he planted his fists on his hips. "Evil bad guys beware! I'll show bright thongs an' trip over evil! An' that means you!" Ending the speech with another hyper-active giggle, he pointed a finger at the pile of ice cream buckets and shot a small ki blast at them, promptly turning them into a puddle of bubbling plastic. Only one bucket had escaped the wrath of 'Saiyaman,' and that was because it was in Trunks's hands. He had spotted a last glob of sticky sugar in the bottom and had rescued it before the bucket could suffer the same fate as its friends.

After the little light display that the black haired chibi had just given, a small crowd of people was beginning to form around the two demis, many of them pointing at the small lake of plastic or at the cause of self-same lake. Oblivious to the attention they were receiving Goten and Trunks continued to chatter away about everything from Saiyaman to squirrels and lizards to the last prank they'd pulled on Vegeta and Goku.

"Hee hee! We had to hide for a month, Trunks! I don't think I've ever seen your dad so mad!" Recalling the look on the Saiyan Prince's face, Goten collapsed to the sidewalk in helpless laughter, nearly losing his bucket-helmet in the process. Fortunately for his 'secret identity,' the bucket had a handle that tucked neatly under his chin and prevent it from coming off.

"Well, we did make the Z Senshi think our dads were in love!" The very thought of that actually being the case sent the lilac haired demi into peals of laughter and he, too, was soon rolling on the sidewalk and, coincidentally, in the cooling puddle of plastic. The semi-liquid stuff meshed with his clothes so that when he rolled away from it, it strung along after him, firmly stuck to his purple shirt and blue jeans.

"Truunks!!! Hahahaha!! You look like you got cotton candy stuck on you!" Goten howled with laughter, kicking his little legs with mirth. Gasping for breath, the eight year old climbed to his feet and straightened his costume, becoming as serious as a sugar-happy demi-Saiyan could be. "Hey, Trunks! I need a cape! Saiyaman has a cape, so I need one too!"

"So go find one, Goten!" With a small smirk adorning his lips, Trunks grabbed the sole surviving ice cream bucket and pulled in on over his head. "Hey, Goten! I'm gonna be Saiyaman, too!" His voice was muffled and distorted by the bucket as he turned to face what he thought was his best friend. However, he'd forgotten to poke holes in the ice cream bucket before donning it, so what he ended up doing was stumbling into the fire hydrant. Normally, this wouldn't have been cause for concern, but when a super-powerful, sugar-crazed chibi does it, that's another thing entirely.

"Hey, cool! You made a water fountain, Trunks!" Goten giggled as the hydrant broke away from its position and smashed into the glass window of a nearby toy shop. As the water spewed outwards in all directions, the crowd of citizens that had formed suddenly scattered, anxious not to be doused by the cold water. While Goten was partially protected from the artificial rain because of his plastic bucket and 'tunic,' Trunks had no such luck and was soon thoroughly drenched. In an attempt to escape the miniature geyser, the boy dashed blindly away from the source of the water only to trip over Goten's prone body, who still lay on the ground laughing his head off, and crashed to the sidewalk next to the younger boy. For some reason only comprehensible to drowned worms, peed on squirrels, and drunken gods, he found this immensely hilarious, howling with glee as the sugar in his blood rushed through his brain and altered his perceptions of humor and reality.

"But Truuuunks!" Goten suddenly whined, tilting his head so he could look at the other boy. Finding that Trunks had no eye holes in his bucket, he reached out and roughly yanked the accessory off. "You can't be Saiyaman! I'm the Great Saiyaman!"

Taking the opportunity to poke holes in his 'helmet,' the nine year old demi glanced at his fellow crime fighter. "Okay, then, I'll be someone else! Umm... what's a good name for me?"

"You could be Cotton Candyman!" Goten giggled, pointing at the strings of plastic draped all over Trunks's body. "That's what you look like!" The thought of cotton candy made the sugar-crazed boy drool, though it was impossible to tell because of the water that continued to fall on both boys.

"Naaah," Trunks shook his head. "That sounds sooo lame! Hey, I could be the Super Saiyan! There aren't any Super Saiyans in this time, so no one would know what it meant!"

"Except Vegeta an' my grandpa an' Uncle Radditz an' Goku!" Goten quickly corrected, pushing himself up to a sitting position as he continued to ignore the water falling from the sky. "Oh, and Master Roshi an' Bulma and Yamcha and Krillen! They saw you go Super, too!"

"Darn!" Rising to his feet, the lavender haired chibi hit his palm with an open fist. "It has to be a secret identity! Umm..." Once again, the sugar in his blood took control of the nine year old demi and he grinned as he stuck his chest out proudly. "Super Duper Sugar Boy!" he crowed, mashing the bucket back on his head. Once he had successfully tucked the plastic handle under his chin, he turned to Goten impatiently and waved him towards the sky. "Come on, Goten... I mean, Saiyaman! We're crime fighters, so let's go find some crime to fight!"

"Hee hee yay!!!" Goten cheered, blasting off in the direction of a cloud that looked coincidentally like Hercule Satan's afroed head. "An' we can help save all the sugar of the world! An' captive toys, too, right Sugar Boy?"

A demented grin plastered itself on Trunks's face, invisible because of the bucket over his head, and he took to the skies after his friend. "Right! Those crooks better watch out, 'cause here we come!" Chortling as only a sugar-high son of Vegeta can, the lavender haired super hero did a loop-de-loop in the air, then put on a burst of speed to catch up with Goten.

After their sparring session had ended, Bardock had gone back inside the house to get cleaned up and start lunch. Vegeta had opted to stay out in the forest and meditate, or so he had told the older warrior. Now he sat on a rock, surrounded by trees and silence, staring at his hand with a mixture of feelings. This hand had thrown ki blast after ki blast, killed countless soldiers and innocents, destroyed cities and lives at the same time... with this hand, he had dominated everyone around him. He had also used this hand to push away anyone who had dared to get close to him, had ruthlessly shoved aside any and all help that had ever been offered to him. It had always been beneath his dignity and pride to accept assistance from anyone. And yet...

Curling his hand into a fist, he watched the muscles underneath the skin move, the graceful dance of light and shadow that played across the valleys and mountains of his fingers, the faint whitening of his knuckles. He thought he should feel betrayed by this hand for what it had done, but, strangely, that emotion wasn't present. He was merely puzzled. Puzzled because he didn't feel angry with himself for accepting Bardock's help. Puzzled because, even though he had taken Bardock's hand, he didn't know why he had done so.

He opened his hand and experimentally positioned the fingers to where he was holding an imaginary hand, recalling the feeling of Bardock's skin against his, trying to reconstruct in his mind what it felt like to accept help from someone. Suddenly feeling guilty, he dropped the hand to rest on the rock beside him, fixing his attention on the furry brown tail that twitched in his lap. Father would be ashamed to call me his son, Vegeta thought bitterly, bowing his head in shame. All his life he had looked up to his father, had sought to please him, make him proud of the heir he had produced, and Vegeta knew that putting his hand in Bardock's was something that would more than displease his father and king.

And yet he had wanted to take Bardock's hand, to have his hand accepted by the other Saiyan and be pulled to his feet. Something inside him had tugged at his heart when Bardock had reached out to him, and all the barriers he'd placed between himself and the world and people around him had cracked, allowing him to respond as he had. Even though the scarred warrior was only a third class, Vegeta somehow found himself looking up to the man. Almost like... a mentor. Except Bardock couldn't be a mentor, could he? He wasn't training Vegeta, and he had only sparred with him once, so why did the young prince think of the older warrior as a... teacher? No, not a teacher... something else... There was a word to describe his perspective on Bardock, but it danced tauntingly on the edges of his mind, unwilling to show itself to the confused little boy.

Sighing in frustration, Vegeta slid off of the rock and began to walk aimlessly through the forest, still lost in thought. Instead of curling around his waist like it normally did, his tail trailed behind him freely as it unconsciously waved through the pattern of his troubled thoughts. I don't know what to think anymore, he despaired. Father would hate me for what I've become. Soft, weak, allowing my emotions to influence my actions. I cried in front of Trunks, I wanted to play with him and the others, and now I'm accepting help! But... Trunks doesn't seem to think those are bad things... And neither does Bardock, since he does them, too...

He blinked in surprise at that last thought. There it was again. Why do I care what Bardock thinks? I mean, it's one thing to consider Trunks's opinion, since he is my future son. He'd know what future me would do, and what he would like future me to do, but... Bardock? Why-

"Hey, Vegeta!" Goku's seven year old voice broke into his train of thought, and it was with a start of surprise that the ten year old prince realized that he had unwittingly walked in the direction of the clearing where Goku and his brother had been training. Now Vegeta found himself facing the two Saiyans as they sat in a patch of singed grass, Radditz staring at him curiously and Goku brightening with excitement. "Guess what?! Radditz showed me how to do this neat trick called ranzoken energy dance," Radditz winced as Goku mangled the name, "and he helped me make little ki blasts better and this other really cool thing where you can shoot energy from your mouth!!" The little boy scrambled to his feet and grinned proudly, his tail wriggling with glee. "Oniichan said I'm learning really fast! He says I need to work on my mouth blast, though," he confided sheepishly. "It keeps coming out of my nose."

Radditz smirked at this. "At this rate, Goku's going to have the deadliest sneeze on the planet," he teased, standing up as he spoke. Absentmindedly flicking a few leaves and twigs off his maroon gi, the teenager glanced in the direction of the house. "I'm gonna go check to see how far dad's coming with lunch. Goku, why don't you keep practicing that mouth blast until it's time to eat," he suggested.

"Okay, niichan!" Goku agreed happily, anxious to please his older brother by mastering that technique. Maybe if he worked hard enough, he could surprise Radditz the next time they sparred. Then maybe he could convince his brother to go back to that rambokill energy den technique! That had looked sooo cool!

Satisfied with his brother's response, the wild maned teenager blasted into the air until he was above the canopy of trees, then took off in the direction of the house. Teaching Goku hadn't exactly been strenuous, but the little Saiyan had accidentally singed him enough times that a bath would be appreciated. He also wanted to talk to Bardock about a few minor points in Goku's training... and maybe snitch a little food before lunch. That last thought brought a fierce grin to the teen's face, and he sped up just a little more so as to get home that much sooner.

Back in the clearing, Vegeta was debating whether or not to follow Radditz back to the capsule house as Goku prepared to sit back down and practice his mouth blast. He didn't particularly want to go back just yet, but it didn't look like anything interesting was about to happen anytime soon, either. However, looking at the younger boy, he felt a nagging thought skitter across the surface of his brain, as though there was something he was supposed to do but had forgotten. Frowning, the prince furrowed his brow in concentration as he tried to catch the elusive thought.

A small sigh escaped Goku's lips as he began to gather the energy he would need for the mouth blast. It was a lot more fun to practice when you had someone else with you, but Radditz had gone, and it looked like Vegeta was going to follow him soon. Glancing briefly in the older boy's direction, he suddenly perked up as he thought of a brilliant idea. He could practice his attacks and have fun, if only...

"Vegeta?" he asked hopefully, drawing the other boy's thoughts away from whatever had been holding his attention. Vegeta glared at the chibi in annoyance, but Goku ignored the look, plunging directly into his perfect plan. "Do you wanna spar?"

Reading back over the chapter, I think I should clarify that the relationship slowly forming between Vegeta and Bardock is not one of love. Won't say what the relationship is just yet. It'll become clear in time.

Anyway, reviews are very much appreciated. They're the duct tape that holds my fragile ego together. *points at a much-cracked and much-mended glass squirrel labeled 'Ego'* And thanks in advance. ^_^