Fan Fiction / Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dragon Ball - Journey ❯ Journey 0 - Prologue ( Prologue )

Dragonball is the creation of Akira Toriyama. In no way do I claim to own any of his characters. The original characters appearing in the story belong to me.

Dragon Ball: Journey

Prologue

The young man sat on the couch in the waiting room of Satan City Hospital. It felt odd to him that despite the times he'd been there and sat on the same couch, the place still felt alien to him and uninviting. Maybe it just came down to the fact that he didn't like hospitals because of what they meant to him. Few nurses on a break nearby were whispering to each other and taking glances at him. He was a pleasant sight for their eyes. Around 5'9" with a muscular body that was the product of years and years of training, deep red hair with natural black streaks running from his temples to behind his ears and piercing grey eyes, he was fit to be on the cover of a magazine. He looked up from the floor at the nurses, who quickly turned around so he wouldn't notice them staring.

He glanced at the clock on the wall, which showed also the date. 2:47 PM, 6.6.2174. He'd been waiting here since 10 in the morning. Next to him laid a pile of read magazines, most of them he had read through at least twice. The waiting was the worst part of being in a hospital. The waiting and uncertainty of what you would hear when the doctor finally came to talk to you. The doubt just kept nagging at you, making you imagine things, making you wonder what was wrong with you. Dozens of reasons what of ailed you crossed your mind, each one worse than the last.

Then he noticed the doctor finally coming to the room and he glanced at the clock again. 2:59. He'd been deep in his thoughts for a little while. Before he could ask what their analysis said, the doctor sat down next to him with a look on his face that he didn't like. Not wanting to wait any longer, he made a simple question.

" What's wrong with me?"

The doctor explained to him and he nodded, slowly beginning to look at the floor. Slowly the doctors words began to die out, like they were something that came from faraway, like from another life. He felt something building up inside of him, beating at his head, like his head was about to burst. Bitter tears began to form in his eyes, burning his skin like his frustration burned inside of him. He barely noticed the doctor calling his name, telling him to relax, that they'd work something out. Opening his eyes, which he hadn't even noticed he had closed, he brought his fists down on the table before them, shattering the table and screamed in impotent anger.

Yasa walked down the street of the city, hands tugged in the pockets of his loose green pants, a carefree smile spread on his face. The handsome young man had short black hair that was neatly combed to either side from over his left eye and he wore a black shirt with green sleeves and sneakers. With his green eyes he had a very friendly face and smile, the kind that tended to disarm people and make them feel like they could trust him even when they didn't know him that well. Luckily the first impression was mostly correct.

" Hmm… I still haven't found a way to do it. I guess its beyond the current technological level, but there has to be another way."

The fact that he couldn't figure out a way to solve his problem had been bugging him for a while now and it was beginning to take a toll even on his nerves, though you couldn't see it from looking at him. It was important for him to figure it out, a matter of life and death.

Yasa was snapped out of his thoughts when he started hearing yelling coming from around the corner and he blinked in confusion. He could hear the angry screaming getting louder by the moment and dozens of feet stomping the ground, but oddly the voices all sounded female.

" It almost sounds like a riot."

Looking around the corner, Yasa didn't have time to react when someone ran right into him, bowling them both over into the ground. Reflexes kicking in, he rolled with the fall and was back on his feet in a second, looking down at the figure rubbing its head on the ground. It looked like a human if it wasn't for the long pointed ears that stuck through the long rich blonde hair that almost reached the waist. It was a he, judging by the lack of any chest and despite the fairly pretty face, but Yasa had no idea what race the creature was. The man had on boots, loose dark blue pants and a body tight shirt that had no sleeves and left the shoulders bare, with a horizontal slit on the chest. Strangely, the man wore "separate" sleeves that started from halfway between the elbows and shoulders and ended at his palms. A bag he must have been carrying lay on the ground next to him.

" Ouch, ouch, ouch… hmm? Aaah! They're right behind me! Quick! You got to hide me!" the man cried after he managed to shake his head clear from the collision with Yasa. The yells were getting really loud by now and seemed to come from right around the corner. Reacting to the request more by reflex than actually thinking of why he'd help this stranger, Yasa grabbed the mans shoulders and jumped up and started to slowly fly up, holding the stranger. Deciding that they'd be safe enough on the roof of the building he had been walking next to, he dropped the man on the roof while hovering in the air himself and looked down on the street. What seemed to be a mob of about 50 angry women, waving different items from pitchforks to various sharp kitchen utensils to other makeshift weapons, rampaged right past where the two had been standing just a moment ago.

" Where'd that pervert go?"

" He must be somewhere around here!"

" Let's go get him girls!"

" Perverted peeping tom!"

Yasa slowly turned to look at the man, who just let out a nervous chuckle and stood up, dusting himself.

" It was an honest mistake! I thought they had unisex changing rooms at the hot springs hotel." The man explained and before Yasa had time to reply, the man had grabbed his hand and shook it, smiling broadly, " Thank you for saving me. The name is Furu Tsuponchi, but just call me Furu. Come on, let me offer you dinner for rescuing me…. …"

" Aah, Yasa… Yasa Soba. It's a pleasure." Yasa said, little bit taken back by the man and surprised, but he did feel hungry and the man didn't seem like a bad person and Yasa couldn't detect any malicious thoughts or energies coming from the man.

" Yasa… alright then! Let's go, I know this good restaurant nearby. You have nothing against chinese right?"

" Mmmmm! I love the food here! Just can't get enough of it!" Furu mumbled through a full mouth while Yasa ate slowly in peace, watching his companion stuff his face like there was no tomorrow. Well a healthy appetite was a good sign but he had to admit that this was getting close to ridiculous. The other people in the almost completely packed Chinese restaurant were staring wide-eyed at the strange pair and specially at the alien man whose stomach seemed to be some sort of a black hole designed to make food vanish. Their waitress though didn't seem to be surprised or shocked at all, which lead Yasa to believe that Furu had been eating here before.

" So… Furu-san. What is it that you're doing here?" Yasa asked, trying to start a conversation. It retrospect, he'd come to remember that little innocent question as what dragged him into a whole new world of adventure.

" Hmm? I'm searching for these objects called Dragonballs." Came the reply right after Furu managed to swallow the food in his mouth. Wiping his mouth, he set the empty platter on top of the dozens of others resting on the table.

" Dragonballs? It sounds like the name for some kind of jewels." Yasa wondered. He'd never heard of anything called the Dragonballs before, but the name did raise a lot of questions in him.

" Oh you're quite close. Dragonballs are red stones, big enough to fit pretty well in your palm. There are a total of seven of them, scattered around the world. I found out about them while digging through some old legends of Earth when I learned about a man named Son Goku. Apparently Goku was great warrior in his time and the story told how he and his friends collected the seven Dragonballs to summon the dragon Shen Long." Furu explained, his hands moving around making gestures as he explained, as he obviously started getting into the story.

" I see. So you're planning to summon this Shen Long?" Yasa asked as he reached for some rice.

" Oh yes. You see, who ever summons Shen Long, gets to make a wish and the dragon will then fulfil that wish."

Somehow time seemed to slow down suddenly for Yasa as the words sunk into his brain. Make a wish come true. Make any wish come true. This was it! A solution to his problem! If he could just gather the seven Dragonballs and summon Shen Long, he could solve everything with a wish.

" Umm… the rice couldn't have been that bad, right?"

" Huh?" Yasa blinked, snapped out of his reverie by Furus voice. Furu was staring at him, his hand frozen midway as he was about to stuff more food into his mouth, his face and chest covered in half-munched rice, which Yasa had spit out in surprise without even noticing after hearing about the wish.

" I'm sorry Furu-san! I was just so surprised." Yasa explained, his face red with embarrassment as he reached for a napkin. As Furu tried to tell the other man that it was all right and that he could clean himself, a young man with red and black hair in the next table listened to the conversation with great interest.

" Dragonballs…" the man muttered to himself before quickly standing up, leaving enough money for the food he'd eaten, and leaving. Yasa and Furu blinked both and looked at the sudden departure.

" Perhaps he didn't like the food." Yasa offered, to which Furu just sneered before returning to his food with renewed vigour.

" Impossible."

The room was dark except for the light emitting from the several computer screens scattered around and the silence in the room was cut with the sound of someone using a keyboard with incredible speed. A figure in a lab coat sat in front of one of the monitors, typing with a grin on her face. She was quite pleased with how things were working out so far and raised an eyebrow in irritation when the door to the room opened, flooding the room with light.

" You're going to go blind working in the dark like that." The man stepping inside commented, to which the woman just shrugged and adjusted her glasses, a stray strand of her sharply cut blue hair falling in front of her face.

" Did you come to check on the projects or just to annoy me? I'm quite busy." She asked as the man walked closer, looking over the various readouts on the monitors. He wore a smart business suit, his hands tugged in the pockets of his pants, his face revealing that he was someone who was in charge and liked it that way.

" Neither, though I might as well as hear how the project is going. Thought you might find it interesting that the offspring of the S Project has began to look for the Dragonballs."

The comment brought her full attention to her superior and her brow furrowed as she again adjusted her glasses out of habit, a small frown forming.

" And the subject himself?"

" Unaware. The two haven't talked to each other in years. Your average dysfunctional family. And the current projects?"

" S2 is going on schedule and will be finished on time. Project A is suffering some slowdown though, because of problems with the power sources, but a solution is being created. We might miss the mark by a week, maybe less. We were lucky to have found the dear doctors data quite intact." She commented, lazily standing up and stretching, heading for a table covered mostly with research notes and a coffee machine to get herself a cup.

" True. But I will leave you to your work now. I need to prepare our forces to gather the Dragonballs. Don't disappoint us." The man told her as he turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him. She just chuckled at the last comment and shook her head. She had never disappointed anyone in her field and wasn't planning to start.

" Kyoushi You. It'll be interesting to see what you'll do in the coming time." She wondered to herself as she poured herself a cup of coffee and looked at the picture of young boy with spiky red and black hair, dressed in white pants, a t-shirt and black belt, with the text " New World Champion Only 16 Years Old!" The picture was obviously torn from an old newspaper article. The woman kept staring at the picture, sipping her coffee.

" Kyoushi-sama…"

End of Prologue

Next Chapter:

The red and black haired young man, Kyoushi You, begins his hunt for the Dragonballs. After some research into their nature, he begins his search, which leads him to an old orphanage out in the middle of nowhere. A young kid there possesses the three star Dragonball, but refuses to give it to him.

Meanwhile, Furu Tsuponchi and Yasa Soba start their own hunt for the Dragonballs, their search eased by the mystical Dragon Compass, which always points in the direction of the closest Dragonball.

But both group remain ignorant of the forces working in the dark to gather the Dragonballs for themselves and the dangers ahead.