Dragonball Super Z http://hometown.aol.com/juuhachigouda/dbszfic.html By: Juuhachi-gou and MiraiBulma Dragonball Z Freshmen: Part Two "What Made Us Think That We Were Wise?" My best friend took a week's vacation to forget her His girl took a week's worth of Valium and slept And now he's guilt-stricken, sobbing with his head on the floor He thinks about her now and how he never really wept ~*~ The picnic had been ChiChi's idea--both families, hers and Bulma's, gathering in the newly-seeded flower meadow behind Capsule Corporation. The weather, crisp and cool, was perfect, and the seeds Gohan's class had scattered all over the city had grown into a patchwork of wildflowers, a living rainbow of gorgeous colors that waved in the breeze, a delicate mix of fragrances that lured bees more intent on gathering honey and spreading pollen than attempting to sting anyone wandering past. The meal was, of course, of primary interest to the males in attendance. Gokou showed his habitual complete lack of table manners, a sight which might spoil any other appetite than a Saiyajin's. Gohan and Trunks didn't waste any time themselves, although their respective mothers had instilled something resembling table manners in each of them. Vegeta, as usual, sat apart from the others, hunched over his plate like a starving mastiff, eating small bites in rapid succession while his eyes kept constant watch. Carrying her own plate, Bulma paused behind her husband, and with a small, wicked smile, she reached a tentative hand towards the edge of his plate. He growled at her, hunched lower and kept eating. Giggling playfully, she went to sit with ChiChi and Videl under the shade of a force-grown oak tree. "So, Videl, which would you rather have, a boy or a girl?" ChiChi was asking her daughter-in-law. "Oh, it doesn't matter to me," Videl answered with assurance. "All I ask is that we have a healthy, happy baby." ChiChi nodded. "You're right, of course. If it's a boy, it's sure to be like Gohan--and he was such a good boy. The best." Bulma sighed. "I feel the same way about Trunks. Of course, it would have been nice to have a daughter..." "Yes," ChiChi agreed wistfully. "A lovely little girl, to dress in ruffles and ribbons. If only there'd been time..." "Um...?" Videl ventured. Both women looked at her. "Excuse me, but...if you want more children, why don't you have more? I mean, I know it's not my business, but...both your sons are grown, and you're both young again. In fact," she said, smiling a little, "going strictly by physical age, you're both younger than I am." Bulma and ChiChi looked at each other with dawning wonder. Well out of earshot--beyond the range of normal human hearing, anyway--Juuhachi-gou sat alone in the meadow, half-concealed by a clump of meter-high sundaisies. She knew she should be back at the party, but she didn't really need to eat for sustenance, and while he was stuffing his face Trunks had time and attention for little else, even her. It was the nature of his blood, she supposed--eat when you can, fight when you must, and spend the rest of your time doing less important things like cultivating relationships. *Stop that, Juu!* She chided herself. It wasn't Trunks' shortcomings as a dinner conversationalist that was really bothering her, and she knew it. She was as overjoyed by Videl's and Gohan's news as anyone, but it did make her all the more aware of her difference from the other women. All of them. Juuhachi-gou was a cyborg. Even before Trunks had destroyed her and her twin, there was very little of her original human body left. Since her regeneration--her rebirth, in every sense of the word--she was even less so. She was capable of emulating most human functions-- she could move, she could speak, she could eat, she could sleep, she could feel, she could dance and cry and laugh and love--but there were some things that were denied her, and she had no doubt that reproduction was one of those things that was forever out of her reach. Did Trunks even realize that, she wondered. Had he even thought about it? Had he considered that marrying her would mean giving up any hopes of having a child in the normal, accepted fashion? They could always adopt, of course--there were orphans everywhere (and who was there to thank for that, hmm?)--but blood ties were important to Trunks, partly because they were important to his father. Oh, and there was another consideration--would Vegeta allow his son, the son of the Prince of the Saiyajin, to form a lifelong bond with a biomechanical construct, something Vegeta didn't even grant the courtesy of treating like a person? Particularly when the all-important royal line was at stake? She thought about her counterpart--the Juuhachi-gou of the Other Time, the one who had married Kuririn (of all people!). They had a child, didn't they? Marron, her name was. She certainly resembled Kuririn strongly enough--but even if she was that other Juuhachi-gou's natural child, that other Juuhachi-gou hadn't been almost totally destroyed and regenerated, as she herself had been. Juu smiled to herself, a thin bitter thing, and brushed cornsilk hair from her eyes. Her primary concern during the three years she spent reassembling herself under that pile of rubble where Trunks had left her had been excluding her self-destruct mechanism from the rebuild. The massive stresses of regeneration and reactivation had temporarily wiped her surface memory, and precious little of her original human body was left now--most of it was either reconstructed from fragments of the body Trunks had destroyed, or synthesized from trace elements while she'd been incapacitated. If she had ever been capable of having children like an ordinary woman, surely she wasn't capable of such a miracle now. A shadow fell across her, blotting out the pastoral scenery behind her. "So what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" a gruff voice asked. Juu looked up, unstartled. "Hello, Piccolo." The former Demon King towered above her, his wide white cape spread out around him like half-folded wings, moving with the stirrings of the wind. His black eyes drilled unrelentingly into hers. "Shouldn't you be whooping it up with Wonder Boy and the others? Looks like they're having a great time over there." She didn't flinch from his unabashed scrutiny. She didn't answer his question, either. "Funny, I didn't think family picnics were quite your scene, even if they do include your pet human." Piccolo's upper lip twitched, exposing one gleaming white fang. "They're not." "So what are you doing here? If you don't mind my asking." "If I minded, you'd know it." He raised one arm and pointed with a taloned finger in the direction of the Capsule Corporation building. "I was just wondering what was up with that." Juuhachi-gou turned around, glancing in the direction he indicated--did a double-take, and gasped. "Chikusho!" "Yeah, that's what I was thinking too," Piccolo remarked wryly. "Bulma!!" Juu leapt to her feet and started running towards the oak tree. After a dozen steps she took a leap into the air and flew the rest of the way. Her shout alerted everyone in the area with its note of sudden agitation. By the time she'd reached the women, the Saiyajin were already there. Vegeta pulled Bulma to her feet and behind him. "What do you want, Jinzouningyou?" he snarled. "Vegeta!" Bulma protested. Juuhachi-gou shook her head, unfazed by the familiar 'artificial doll' insult. She pointed at the sky over Capsule Corporation. "Look!" Bulma looked, and squealed. ChiChi gasped, "What in the world??" "Piccolo-san!" Gohan called as the Namekseijin arrived. "Did you see?" "Sure did, kid. Pointed it out to the tin girl myself." "Oh...my," Videl whispered, moving closer to Gohan, eyes wide and fixed on the spectacle. "Oi," Gokou mused, scratching his head, "these storms blow up quick, don't they?" "That's no storm, Gokou-san," Trunks muttered, reaching out for Juu's hand. Vegeta finally risked taking his eyes off the Jinzouningen to look at the sky above the building. The air had gone strangely still. The vault of the heavens above them was still a deep, clear, bottomless blue, except for the area directly above the golden Capsule Corporation dome. There, a tight vortex of blackness spun lazily, a spiral of dark clouds holding a commotion of lightning at its heart. "Is it a tornado?" Videl wondered, knowing it wasn't, but searching for some explanation. "I've never seen anything like it," Gohan said. "Got a news flash for you, kid," Piccolo said, "neither have I. And I was here when this dirtball wasn't occupied by anyone else." "Gokou-san! Wait!!" ChiChi cried, but Gokou paid her no heed. He took off towards the building. Vegeta followed, catching up to him. Halfway there both Saiyajin took off and flew up towards the roiling darkness. "Be careful!" Bulma shouted. "That lightning looks dangerous--!" As if confirming Bulma's caution, a spear of electric energy darted out and struck snakelike at the approaching warriors. They both dodged barely in time, but Gokou's tail got singed in passing, and he fell with a yelp out of the air, landing hard on the ground. "Tou-san!" Gohan was already airborne and rushing towards his fallen father, and Piccolo took off right behind his protege. When they reached him, Gokou was already sitting up, blowing on his smouldering tail-tip. "Owowow!!!" he wailed. "My poor tail!!" "Something's happening up there," Trunks said as the vortex suddenly spun faster. "Papa, look out!!" Vegeta kept what he considered a safe distance as he studied the motion of the clouds, wishing fervently for his scouter so he could identify the energies he could feel emanating from its core. He heard Trunks shout and was about to fire back a tart reply when the vortex suddenly seemed to explode in a burst of white light and power, like a gigantic ball of lightning. Vegeta was thrown violently backwards; he struggled to right himself against the wave of force and landed on his feet, but the momentum drove him back at least a dozen meters, and he dug two knee-deep trenches in the front lawn. "What happened?" Videl gasped. "It's gone," ChiChi assured her. "Whatever it was, it's over." Bulma frowned. "Maybe...but what was it? That didn't conform to any storm pattern I recognize." Juuhachi-gou nodded. "Even Piccolo didn't know what it was." "What did you make of it, Juu-chan?" "It was...confusing," she admitted. "A lot of electrical discharge, and it's hard for me to scan through all that interference, but..." "But?" Bulma prompted. "It was like...it was like there was no center to it." "You mean it had an eye, like a miniature hurricane." "No, that's not what I'm saying. In the middle of the vortex, there was...nothing. A complete absence." "A vaccuum? That's strange." "No, not a vaccuum. Nothing. Not even empty space." Juuhachi-gou shook her head. "That's what I was getting, anyway. It just doesn't make sense." Bulma watched Gohan help Gokou get to his feet; the elder Son's wounded tail was flicking pensively. Piccolo stood nearby, arms folded, a scowl deeper than the norm stamped on his alien features.. No one else had been hurt; Vegeta was already back in the air, scanning the area for any other disturbances. A flicker of movement on top of the Corporation dome caught her eye. At about that time, ChiChi wondered aloud, "Who's up there on the roof?" Gokou, intent on brushing himself off and assuring Gohan he wasn't badly hurt, never noticed the figure that slid off the curved top of the dome until a skull suddenly cracked against his own and he was knocked to the ground again. "Tou-san?!" Gohan reached for the stranger that had seemed to attack his father, but the form was limp and unresisting as he pulled it away. "What happened?" Gokou asked, more curious than anything else as he sat up and rubbed his head. The rest of the group arrived, Trunks and Juuhachi-gou in the lead, the other women following in a tight knot. Piccolo bent over Gohan, staring at the face of the unconscious newcomer. "Who's he?" he muttered. "I...I don't know," Gohan confessed. "It's funny, I feel like I should know him, but..." "Ara?" Gokou knelt up and peered into the slack face of the young man lying on the ground. The youth was about Trunks' age--twenty years old, perhaps. His hair was a wild tangle of straight black locks that grew in a dozen different directions, surrounding his squarish face in a spiky corona. He wore a simple blue gi with dark pants tucked into plain brown boots. "Aaaa..." Gokou leaned closer, his nose almost touching the boy's. "Goten da!" "Nn?" Gohan looked at his father. "Goten? Who--oh, you mean the little boy from..." He trailed off, looking at his mother. "What are you talking about?" ChiChi prompted. "Gohan-chan?" "He...Goten...ahh..." Gohan wasn't quite sure how to tell his mother about the second son she'd never have. Instead he watched his father, who was looking down in the face of (Goten) the other boy with a little smile playing about his lips. No; more than that even. With... with memories, somehow. Not as if the boy was an absolute stranger, but as if Gokou had been expecting, looking, for this moment to happen. Before Gohan had time to puzzle over that too much, the youth's eyes suddenly opened--wide, dark eyes, the mirror of Gokou's, so much like Gohan's--and fixed immediately on the broad, inquisitive face above him. "TOU-SAN!!!!!!" Goten howled, and flew into his father's arms. "Wh--wh--whaaaaaaat??" Gohan and ChiChi chorused, in almost perfect cadence. Gokou ignored them both for the moment, patting Goten's back reassuringly. "Aaa...daijoubu, Goten. I'm here, it's all right now. Yosh' yosh' yosh'. Shinpai shinai de, chiisai senshi." "Guh-Goten?" Trunks gasped. "But--but how? He...he never..." "Who," Bulma demanded, "is Goten?" "He's from the...alternate time," Juuhachi-gou explained. "You remember, the one where Gokou never died. The one Trunks created when he went back to the past. In that world, Gokou and ChiChi have two sons." "Two..." ChiChi breathed, wonderingly. She studied the face of the sobbing man-child in her husband's arms, saw the stamp of both their features on his face, and nodded slowly. Goten looked around, saw his mother, and struggled to his feet. "Kaa-san...you're here too! It's a miracle! You're alive, you're really alive!" He enveloped her in a huge bear-hug, picking her up off the ground. "I--ahh, Goten...chaaan..." ChiChi hugged him back, not knowing what else to do. "And Gohan-oniisan, it's really true!" Goten tackled Gohan, pounding on his back, laughing and crying at the same time. "Ahm...hai," he responded, looking over Goten's shoulder at Gokou with a questioning expression. Gokou shrugged; he couldn't explain it either. Juuhachi-gou glanced upwards, and without a word launched herself into the air, flying to the top of the Capsule Corporation roof. "Juu-chan?" Trunks called after her. He started to go after her, but she reappeared moments later, carrying two other people, one in the crook of each arm. She set down beside Trunks and laid both unconscious forms--both girls--carefully on the ground. "Why...why, she's just a baby!" Bulma cried softly, kneeling beside the smaller girl. She took one look at the face and gasped. "Oh, my--she...she's me?!" Trunks bent over Juuhachi-gou, who was kneeling beside the other girl--this one older, sixteen perhaps. "What's going on?" he asked softly. Juuhachi-gou shook her head. The girl who lay on the ground before her had long blonde hair like hers, done up in twin ponytails high on her head. She wore black jeans and a faded red T-shirt several sizes too large for her. She also wore a battered denim vest. Juuhachi- gou fingered the distressed material and said, very softly, "This is mine." "Nani?" "My old Red Ribbon vest," she murmured. "That's what this is. But where did she...?" The girl's eyes fluttered open. They were round and wide, a different shape, but their color was the same as Juuhachi-gou's. She looked up into the face of the Jinzouningen and let out a shriek that made everyone else freeze in place. "KAA-SAN!!!!" End Chapter Eighteen