Post
by ekrolo2 » Fri Feb 09, 2018 4:43 pm
4 Hours Later Post West City Invasion
"Come on, come on... Please pick up..." Bulma practically cursed into the phone for what felt like the hundredth time that day. No matter where or how she called, at Gohan's house phone, his cell phone or the cell phones of the boys or Videl or even Satan, she couldn't reach anyone. Well, besides Marron and Chi-Chi. The little girl was all alone (besides Oolong and Turtle) and Bulma didn't have the heart to worry her about her mom and dad. Chi-Chi, expectantly said she would head out for Gohan's house herself, despite Bulma's objections.
That was a few hours and several hundred kilometers ago, back when she, Yajirobe and the rest were still just getting out of West City as it literally exploded right behind them. She hadn't heard from anyone out of there either. The only things that helped her put her at ease were the facts her family relocated out of West City months ago and that Goku and Vegeta would show up eventually to fix everything.
Why weren't they already here? She couldn't damn well figure out.
With a long, suffering sigh, Bulma tried smacked her phone against the inside of the truck just hard enough to let some of her frustrations go without actually breaking the thing. Hopefully.
"You're worryin' over nothing," Yajirobe said from the co-drivers seat, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead of them and guzzling down another bottle of water. "Goku and Vegeta are probably cleaning up this mess right now. We'll be partying and laughing about this by the time dinner rolls around."
"So then why haven't we heard from anyone yet?"
"You know how Goku is," He shrugged and Bulma couldn't figure out if he was actually calm or just faking it. "That guy would probably forget to come back home if Chi-Chi wasn't that damn good at cooking. Hell, all those meatheads get carried away when the fighting starts. They're probably breaking the planet in-half someplace right about now."
Bulma wanted to point out how those "meatheads" stayed behind to actually do the fighting while he opted to get out of dodge. But she couldn't do that because Yajirobe was actually useful. He helped get a lot of people to the transports faster and his skill with that katana hanging around his waist allowed him to cut the dozen or so Senze Beans so expertly that well over a hundred people were fixed if not outright saved even from those minuscule scrapes he managed to make. All while a whole city was being blown up all around him.
Instead, she opted to shrug too and keep her eyes on the round. Thankfully, they could see Blaze City off in the distance, behind her, she could see the line of cars and trunks and anything else with wheels she had on her following their lead. Hundreds of people all just as cramped, angry and tired as she was. Probably more so since they had no clue who Goku and Vegeta are for comfort, as far as they knew, the whole world might've been ending.
And as the old saying goes, speak of the devil and he shall appear. Or rather, they both will.
"Finally! We're back- Holy crap!"
The loud thud of her truck smashing against Goku caused a stir throughout the whole line with more and more vehicles smacking against one another. For a second, Bulma just sat there and stared at the two of them there and with an energetic relief, practically blasted through the glass and hugged both of them as hard as she could.
"Ow! Bulma! You're choking me!"
"Damn it! This isn't that time for sentimentality-"
"SHUT UP AND LET ME BE HAPPY FOR A SECOND!" Her screech promptly shut the two of them up, and for another whole second, everything seemed right with the universe again. Goku's eventual, childish chuckle along with Vegeta relaxing against her arm made her feel 20 years younger than she actually was.
"Look out! One of those aliens is here!"
That along with a few more shots of the frightened people behind her peering out of the cars and trucks put an end to her relief. Ending the hug, Bulma could see several of the people rushing out of with pistols, riffles and all sorts of weapons towards the three of them, and all of them were aimed squarely at her husband.
Goku and Vegeta's shocked cries carried were carried across the destroyed wasteland where West City once was. All over the place they found blown up buildings, burning car rubble and things that could be called bodies, if someone wanted to look close enough. Vegeta did, but not the ones belonging to the people of Earth, it was the aliens that caught his attention, specifically what they were equipped with.
"Lady! Get away from I'm! He'll kill you for sure!" One of the older men at the front practically shoved his shotgun into Vegeta's face and would have gotten it rammed down his throat in response if Bulma hadn't slapped it, then him, away.
"Don't do that!" She shrieked once again and everyone instinctively shrank back. "He's one of the good guys and a friend of mine!"
"A friend?" A younger woman at the back of the ground yelled back. "He's wearing the suits of those guys who attacked us!"
"What did you just say," Vegeta took a step forward and would have done quite a bit more if Bulma hadn't kept her hand pressed firmly against his chest.
"Explain yourself!" He roared, barely held back anymore. "What men wearing my armor?"
"S-s-s-some aliens..." The old man with the shotgun stammered out, rubbing his red cheek on the ground. "There were all kinds of em! Big, mall, purple, blue,..."
"Freeza's army..." Her husband growled with a voice as cold as steel.
"Is that why we can't find anyone?" Goku asked from over her shoulder. "We've been trying to lock on to the others but we can't find them."
Bulma froze when he said that, her genius mind, usually fantastic at imagining all sorts of possibilities for technologies and innovation working overtime to try and grasp what the implications of that were. To hastily keep herself calm, Bulma managed to cool tensions and told the rest of the caravan to go on without her.
Then, for the next few minutes, she explained everything she knew. Of how alien invaders, wearing Vegeta's armor, modeled after Freeza's Empire, chose to attack West City. Of how Piccolo, 17 and 18 were pinned somewhere in the outskirts and how she, Yajirobe and everyone else available tried to evacuate the city as quickly as possible.
When she got the part of how the entire city blew up, with Krillin, Yamcha, Tien, and Chiaotzu in the middle or how she hadn't been able to contact the boys, their reactions didn't help her feel any better.
Goku looked like a frightened and angry boy, not quite able to look her in the eye while Vegeta, in contrast to his usual self, looked almost disturbingly calm. Looked being the keyword. Just from the almost minuscule shaking of his hands, she could tell he was ready to explode. Even as someone who was used to his temper and could shrug it off, Bulma found herself afraid.
"I'm going to the city," He said through clenched teeth. "You get her to Blaze then head for the Lookout, I'll meet you there shortly."
"Now wait for just a-"
Without another word, he blasted off with enough force to almost knock her down. She glared at the trail of his energy across the sky and wanted to shout at him for being... him. She wanted answers, why hadn't they come sooner? Why hadn't they felt the attack on Earth?
"Come on, Bulma," Goku placed a hand on her shoulder with a gentler tone. "We're gonna fix this Bulma, just as soon as we figure out who's done this."
She sighed again and let him pick her up. "Just tell me what took you so long, I'm sick of being in the dark."
-----
West City Ruins
Vegeta never expected to find himself unnerved by the sight of a war-torn city. As the prince of all Saiyans, war, and conflict was in his blood, rumors even circulated that he was even conceived in the midst of a great battlefield and cost his mother her life in the process. That didn't matter to him, Saiyans cared little for family. They weren't supposed to care.
But Vegeta did. He cared when his father was lost to Freeza's mad obsession though he was loathed to admit it and as he flew across the wastelands of the city that once served as his home on this seemingly insignificant planet, the same place where he played with Trunks and argued with Bulma for so long, where he took the boy to the park and suffered Bulma's shopping sprees... He felt his fury intensify.
All around he found bodies, or what was left of them, scattered around, some human, others very distinctly not. The smell of blood and burnt flesh was ever present, only made worse thanks to the intense sense of smell afforded to his warrior species. He once thought of it as the smell of victory, of a job well done. His old self would laugh at how soft he'd become if he could, Vegeta might've laughed with him, before punching him in the face to vent his frustrations.
Unfortunately and much to his chagrin, Vegeta couldn't find anyone alive enough to interrogate... or to rescue. For now anyway. According to Bulma, the vast majority of the city was damaged by a collision of ki blasts exploding outward near the edge of the city. The massive crater from it was easy enough to spot and so he headed there, landing near the center.
As he did so, Vegeta smelt more blood, but familiar blood belonging to those he could, to himself at least, consider his allies. Fresh blood at that. Hovering just over the crater, Vegeta felt the smell intensify there, joined by the odors of Piccolo, 18 and... someone else, 18 perhaps? He also felt the smell leave the creator and head upwards, away from the city. In the direction of the Lookout.
For the first time in hours, Vegeta felt a smile tug at his lips. It was a good sign, and he hadn't realized how much he needed one.
Then, however, he remembered the reason for their woeful delay and smiled no more. Instead, he cursed a great many people, Kakarot and the so-called Supreme Kai for not being able to teleport them there, cursing whoever was capable of shielding the planet from detection and his... master, Whis for declining to journey with them, citing Beerus' imminent awakening and needs to fulfil as an excuse not to shirk his duties.
Vegeta cursed them all a thousand times, but none more so then the perpetrators behind this all and he would have his answers.
The idea of Freeza's army arriving here and doing this much damage seemed preposterous, but inspecting their handiwork, an old part of himself, the ruthless conqueror, had to begrudgingly admit a certain genius behind the scheme. Particularly the clear research done to execute it, whoever organized this invasion did not do so recklessly as Freeza's did during Gohan's wedding. A fact he found most troubling of all.
Abandoning the crater, Vegeta continued to survey the ruins from the sky, flying at different altitudes and keeping his senses sharp for anything or anyone left alive. For a time, he thought he'd find nothing, as the ki collision blasted away much of the city and anyone in it. Then, he noticed a movement near a ruined school bus, movement from one of the invaders.
For the third time, Vegeta was reminded of his old self and this time he would re-live some old glory by interrogating the maggot in-question. He recognized the soldier as a Litt, a low-class bird-like species with the appropriate beaked faces, brown, leathery skin and diminutive stature. This one clung to the school bus door for support, trying desperately to get back on his feet. When the feeble metal broke off and sent him crashing back down, Vegeta couldn't suppress a chuckle.
It got his attention quickly, and judging by the widening of his eyes, the Litt recognized him well enough, which would serve Vegeta's purpose quite nicely. Before he could even speak, Vegeta's heel landed on his back, pinning him to the ground and denting the back of his chest piece. The creature gasped then coughed for air.
"Who sent you here?"
"Isn't it... Obvious-Ahh!"
"Don't play games with me!" He pressed harder. "I want answers and you will tell me all I wish to know!"
Vegeta expected to get answers, instead, the soldier started convulsing horribly. Like a trout dragged out of the sea, he trashed violently and began foaming at the mouth. Vegeta removed the heel of his boot and tried to find the cause, only for the man's spastic movements to die along with him.
Throwing the body back into the dirt in disgust, Vegeta cursed the perpetrator a thousand more times before scavenging the bodies equipment. It looked intact, relatively speaking, but was inoperable. Vegeta first assumed it was damage done from the fighting itself, however, a faint but fresh whiff of smoke and charred wiring revealed the truth: it was just destroyed by someone far away, someone still monitoring this desolate place.
Checking the Litt more closely, he detected a similar, fresh odor coming from the man's ears. Both his brain and his various electronics were shorted out on command by the leader of this invasion.
Whoever this mysterious leader was, he was shrewd and very cautious, if not entirely paranoid. Freeza would never have gone so far to keep his information safe, what difference would it have made? He was always too powerful for anything petty such as an information leak to stop or slow him down. This leader was different, that much was clear just from this small evidence. He didn't want anything to be left to chance and was probably following Vegeta and who knows what else from someplace far away and safe.
The Empire of Freeza had improved, and Vegeta didn't like it one bit.
Most infuriatingly of all, he could do nothing to stop it. He found more bodies of troops lying about, but all were either too damaged from fighting or similarly shorted out. Leaving nothing and no one to give him the answers he needed. Not here, at least. It was at that moment that Vegeta noticed something that slipped his notice, so caught up was he in his hunting and mental cursing and speculating that he failed to notice that Kakarot had vanished as well.
Without a moment's hesitation, Vegeta blasted off towards the Lookout, letting his fury mixed with desperation and even fear to guide him towards the structure used often as a base of operations by their motley crew. In no time, he had flown across the vast expanse of the planet and could see the structure rapidly growing as he approached.
Just as he was about to land and demand where Kakarot had gone to when the whole damn thing exploding like a supernova into him. Only his trained warrior instincts allowed him to try and block at the last possible moment, letting him shield himself from the brunt of the explosion of ki as he plummeted towards the burning ground underneath the Lookout.
It wasn't just the sudden randomness of the Lookout being destroyed that kept Vegeta frozen at the base of the tower, his gaze fixed on the explosion hanging overhead, it was the feel of it. There was absolutely no mistaking what had caused it: God Ki. One belonging to Kakarot and the other... belonging to someone eerily familiar but simultaneously, completely foreign to him.
Amongst the rubble and trees crashing all around him, Vegeta's attention was turned to one particular object landing nearby, leaving a trail as his body smashed against the ground and loud coughs of pain and fatigue clear against the ongoing carnage.
Vegeta wasted no time in heading over there and froze once again when he found the cause: Kakarot, beaten, battered and panting on the ground, transformed into a Super Saiyan empowered by the power of a God. Shaking his shock, Vegeta jumped towards his fellow Saiyan and wasted no time in getting him back to his feet with mixed results. If he didn't keep his hand around his neck, Kakarot would've tumbled back down.
"Kakarot! What the hell is going on?! Who did this to you?"
"I've... been fighting... him... for hours now... I can't..."
"Days? How can that be?! We just split up!"
"On the outs, de it would appear so, Vegeta, but inside the Room of Spirit and Time, well, the usual rules don't apply."
For the third time, Vegeta was caught off guard by that voice. A voice he could recall even from some of his earliest memories, mocking, posh and commanding. The voice he wanted to silence oh so many times across his life but never got the chance, and one he thought was permanently erased by Gohan years ago.
The next thing he heard was Freeza's mocking chuckle and that was enough to snap him out of it. Glaring in the direction of the laugh, he saw Freeza, so familiar but so different. Golden and shining, as though he had become a Super Saiyan himself. But the truth was far worse, as Vegeta let his sense perceive the power flowing out of his one-time commander and very quickly wished he hadn't.
Freeza not only had God ki but so strong was he with it, it felt as though he had become power itself.
"You... bastard..."
"My, my, such a foul way to address your superior," He spread his hands and smirked down at him. "Have you forgotten your courtesies when dealing with me? Yes? Pity, you always were exceptional at groveling at my feet. I look forward to seeing you do it again, before I end you, of course."
----
I figured this would be a fun way to get back in the swing of Dragon Ball fics and to (from a certain point of view) expand this little universe I've made here. I expect this to last 2-4 chapters at most, hope you guys like this alternate scenario from me!
When someone tells you, "Don't present your opinion as fact," what they're actually saying is, "Don't present your opinion with any conviction. Because I don't like your opinion, and I want to be able to dismiss it as easily as possible." Don't fall for it.
How the Black Arc Should End (by Lightbing!):
