Fan Fiction / Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Saiyasaga ❯ The Hitch-hikers ( Chapter 2 )

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

The Great Super Saiyan 5: I hate disclaimers, but I do 'em anyway. Speaking of which...

Disclaimer: I only own Kaerlos and this story. Not the subject material.

Kaerlos: In other words, he don't own Xenosaga, DBZ, or DBGT.

TGSS5: *sarcastically* Thank you for the clarification.

Kaerlos: *oblivious to sarcasm* No problem!

TGSS5: Anyway, you can probably figure out what happens in this chapter from its title.

Kaerlos: What is the title, anyway?

TGSS5: Wait and find out, O impatient one.

Kaerlos: That's a funny title.

TGSS5: It's not the title. Also, I forgot the description of the Elsa so I'm going by what I think it was, and if I'm wrong, well then it looks different in this fic. By the way, I got Shion's dress style wrong. I got the yellow right, unfortunately, but... Well, I don't wanna change it so I won't. Let's go!

-----------------------------------------------

Last chapter ended with:
The humans nodded despite not being satisfied with his answer. Bardock set Shion down in front of the pod and she and Virgil climbed in. Cherenkov put his helmet on and launched the pod. After the pod was launched and the bay door closed, Kaerlos blasted it back open, to KOS-MOS' and Cherenkov's surprise. Then the six remaining on the ship hurried out the hole and onto the pod, the Saiyans proving that yes, they were capable of breathing in space. Kaerlos shivered a bit on his exit though.

-----------------------------------------------

" ___": Normal speech
'___': Signs and other writing
*___*: Thoughts
*"___"*: Telepathy
"/___/": Saiyago (Saiyan language, for those that haven't guessed)
*"/___/"*: Telepathic Saiyago
*~~~~~~~~~~~~*: POV change

-----------------------------------------------
Chapter 2
The Hitch-hikers

*"Someone's coming,"* Kaerlos reported. It had been almost half an hour since the ship, which the humans had identified as the Woglinde, had exploded. KOS-MOS had planted a beacon on one of the whale-like Gnosis that had attacked the ship after she had landed on the escape pod. All conversation had gone through Kaerlos's telepathy except for between Shion and Virgil. There was little conversation from Shion except a near-constant lament about Allen's death, though.

*"So go check it out!"* Vegeta ordered Kaerlos, forgetting his fear of the bigger man. The Saiyans had learned to trust his feelings, but the humans and KOS-MOS had their doubts.

*"I woulda done that anyway, even if you told me not to,"* Kaerlos replied before floating away from the pod and moving away in a certain direction. After a short period of time the pod and its passengers began following him at a speed identical to his.

*"How did we change direction?"* Cherenkov asked curiously.

*"I'm telekinetic too,"* Kaerlos informed them; most didn't know what question had been answered, but all understood the reply.

A few minutes later the group saw another ship. This one looked to Kaerlos like a giant pistol with wings, or maybe an impossibly big, jet propelled arrow. *Funny looking ship,* Kaerlos thought privately. The other Saiyans shared his sentiments. Kaerlos stopped the pod before flying towards the front of what must have been the cockpit.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

"It looks like the core broke into four main pieces and one smaller piece," Matthews, the captain of the Elsa, said. He was a fairly burly man in a white shirt, jeans, and a red ball cap. "Let's go pick them up."

Hammer, a stereotypical gadget geek, said, "I dunno... No ship's core has THAT much output..."

"Let's see here, where is it... WHAT THE?!" Captain Matthews said, ending in a shout of shock as something hit the front window and stuck there. It turned out to be... "Aah, it's just a corpse. Get it off."

The 'corpse' suddenly pushed itself slightly away from the window and opened its eyes. It was a man, about 8'4", with red hair that went straight back- little surprise considering the lack of gravity, what was surprising was how orderly it was- and red eyes. He was wearing a red body suit, leather gloves without fingers, red-toed boots, and padded torso armor with shoulder pads. After the bridge crew calmed down some, a thought rang through their minds, like someone speaking mind to mind: *"Excuse me for the scare. Answer by thinking your reply slightly harder than normal while I'm out here. Speak if it helps. If I ask a yes or no question you can just nod or shake your head to say yes or no, respectively."* The man made a show of putting the fingers of one hand to his head in typical psychic fashion.

Matthews looked at the others to find them looking at him expectantly. He nodded to them before thinking, *"No hard feelings. We were just wondering how you could still be alive in space unprotected."*

*"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you,"* the giant answered, smiling, almost smirking. *"Anyway, can some friends of mine and myself come on board? If you do, I'll let you judge the believability of my secret to space survival for yourself."*

"What?!" the captain said before thinking, hard enough to be considered telepathic shouting, *"No way! For all I know you guys could be aliens!"*

*"Four humanoid aliens, three humans, and an android, counting myself. Anyway, I'm coming in whether you like it or not, it's just a question of whether I've got permission."* The giant's thoughts had acquired a darker tone, and he was glaring in at whoever was in range.

"Why don't we let him in?" Tony, the pilot, asked the captain. He was wearing clothes identical to the captain's except for the lack of a hat.

"Why should we?" Matthews demanded.

This continued until the giant turned translucent and entered the cockpit.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~*

Kaerlos engaged the crew of the ship in a polite dialogue at first, but on the apparent captain's refusal to let him and his allies on he got a LOT less polite. He listened to them arguing until he got bored. Then he phased through the window. When he was right above the floor he phased back in, landing gently.

This caused all three men to panic, of course. Kaerlos was considering leaving them alone until they calmed down, but a young man with silver hair and translucent blue eyes wearing an orange, black, and silver ship suit entered the room through a door opposite where he came in. The man seemed hostile, so Kaerlos entered a defense-only stance. The man walked towards Kaerlos, glaring all the way, but stopped halfway as he seemed to realize something. "You aren't an enemy, are you?" he asked quietly, no longer glaring.

"No, but does my not being human count against me?" Kaerlos said, not nervously.

"Not really. So what brings you to this sector of the universe?" the young man queried.

"Myself and three others were kicked off the planet we lived on so we've been wandering space for over ten years. We saw a fight here and decided to get rid of some stress by getting involved. You guys?" Kaerlos answered.

The man said, "We're salvagers. We go to wrecked ships and look for anything that's still usable. This is where we plan on salvaging right now." By now his friends had started to calm down.

Kaerlos decided to introduce himself. "I think we should introduce ourselves. My name is Kaerlos."

The man nodded and said, "I'm chaos. Nice to meet you."

After the other men introduced themselves, Kaerlos said, "Sorry about scaring you like that. Anyway, about the passenger thing, could we discuss terms? I don't know if any of my friends have money, but I don't. How about something like helping you salvage?"

After much consideration, Matthews said, "Okay, but all the passengers'll have to take a share of the chores."

"/That means we'll do twice as much work as you guys,/" Kaerlos complained in Saiyago.

"Huh? Repeat that in English?" Hammer blinked, confused. He'd never heard that language before!

After looking around to see if anyone understood his complaint, Kaerlos said, "Nothing... I'm gonna go get my friends now. Could you guys find a way to let them in and let me know about it while I get them?"

"Sure, I think I know how to do it," Hammer said. At that Kaerlos phased back through the canopy. He flew off to where he had left the escape pod, grabbed it telekinetically, and followed Hammer's directions to bring the pod inside. KOS-MOS had brought her maintenance bed with her, not that anyone minded, but Kaerlos did wonder where she found it and how it stayed intact.

On getting inside, they found a robot waiting to guide them to the bridge. As they followed it up a floor and onto an elevator they conversed and gossiped, except the ones not so inclined. The exceptions simply looked around or stared straight ahead, depending on their tendencies. Kaerlos was one of the two who simply stared straight ahead.

After the passengers entered the bridge Kaerlos started introducing his 'friends' to the crew, pointing them out as he did so. "This is Virgil, she's Shion, the other woman's KOS-MOS, he's Cherenkov, a commander in some army I don't know the name of, shorty here is my brother Vegeta, that one's Bardock, and his lookalike is his son Kakarot, better known as Goku."

"Well, which ones of you're the aliens and which one's the android?" Matthews asked after he and his crew members had introduced themselves.

"Kakarot, Vegeta, Bardock, and I are Saiyans, which is our species of aliens. KOS-MOS is an android," Kaerlos answered. "Fair warning, we Saiyans have exceeded all known limitations through our training and have even picked up what you would consider to be supernatural abilities, though where we're originally from some of them are extremely common. For example, most to all Saiyans can fly."

"Hey Kaerlos, you said you got 'kicked off' the planet you lived on. Which one was it?" chaos asked.

Kaerlos sighed, shook his head, and said, "An alternate Earth, though we were born on a planet called Vegeta." This stunned the humans and even KOS-MOS. The thought of another Earth that had powers like Kaerlos had displayed was almost beyond belief- almost because he had demonstrated a couple for them. He didn't seem inclined to talk to the crew anymore, so after a few unanswered questions they gave up and started chatting with the other passengers, though KOS-MOS and Vegeta also refused to answer.

Eventually Shion asked, "Do you guys have a psych ward? I'd like to give Kaerlos a neural checkup. He seems unstable."

"No, but we recently salvaged enough equipment to set one up," Matthews answered. "We'll get on it right away."

After the psych ward was set up, Shion dragged Kaerlos away for a checkup, though Kaerlos was obviously willing since he went along. Everyone shifted around restlessly. Several attempts at conversation were made, but they fell flat. A few minutes later Kaerlos and Shion returned. She then announced the results: "Kaerlos is partially insane. He says that he was alone through most of his life. Psychoanalysis indicates that this is the cause of his insanity. The recommended therapy is continuous friendly companionship. Any questions?"

Goku raised his hand, just like a school boy. "What's ther-uh-pee?"

"Disregard that question; he's an idiot," Kaerlos advised Shion.

"Therapy is treatment," Shion answered Goku, ignoring Kaerlos's advice.

"Huh?" Goku asked stupidly.

"Nevermind," Shion said, realizing that Goku was one of those oblivious people. They were way too common these days. "Let's just say that Kaerlos needs varied company."

"Oh. Okay," Goku said with what Kaerlos called his I'm-an-idiot grin. The crew and other passengers shook their heads at Goku's idiocy.

"Well anyway, I think we should show these guys to their rooms. Waddya say, guys?" Matthews suggested.

"I will take a room on the bottom floor. That is all I require," KOS-MOS said.

"I won't fit in any beds, so I might as well stay in the same room as KOS-MOS," Kaerlos said, wondering where that urge came from.

"All right, room 1 on the top floor is for Shion, room 2 has Virgil, Cherenkov, Bardock, Goku, and Vegeta, and KOS-MOS and Kaerlos get the engineering bay," Matthews said, not seeing a problem with having an android and an alien stay in the same room. "Is that all right?"

Everyone agreed with this, so the passengers were escorted to their rooms so they could get settled in. Acting on one of his whims, Kaerlos 'helped' KOS-MOS bring her maintenance bed into the engineering bay. That is to say that he carried it for her.

"Why did you carry my maintenance bed for me?" KOS-MOS asked.

"I felt like it," Kaerlos answered.

"You are a peculiar specimen. Even insanity cannot prevent you being kind. How do you manage it?"

-----------------------------------------------

TGSS 5: I know KOS-MOS is getting a little out of character, but I'm going to make her more human in personality. I'm making the process as slow as I can, which is still pretty fast. However, right now it's only a slight change. By the end of this fic she'll be using slang and contractions!

Kaerlos: Big change from her stiff an' formal talk at the beginning.

TGSS5: Yup. Next chapter will be transitional, but the one after I'll try to put fighting in.

Kaerlos: Hope you power up the attackers cuz from what I've seen they're wusses.

TGSS5: Of course. You'll also power up KOS-MOS so she won't be useless. And I've got plans for Virgil... *evil grin*

Kaerlos: Good. I can't stand a worthless ally. *maniacal grin... go figure, huh?*

TGSS5: Okay. By the way, I don't know any psychology, so I made up a treatment. Next chapter (unless I can think of a better name): The Tune-up!