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Dragonball E	By : Manjoumenyah Category: Dragon Ball Z > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1675 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragonball Z or it's characters and I make no money off this story.

Chapter List
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Author Notes : My Gods! ‘Shadows Within’, rewritten? Yessir. Why? Dunno, I looked back recently and wondered to myself ‘What was I smoking?’. So, in any case, here is the beginning to a revised ‘Shadows Within’ under a different title and significantly better, if not more pulled together and hopefully better in-character detail. I do not own Dragonball Z or any characters within, except Jaxom Windrunner and any others who are OC-non-canon types.

Warnings : Yaoi, male/male for those who don’t like it and violence. There will be hints at smut but no detail, implied noncon situations and torture.

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Dragonball E

Chapter 1

By B. Amos (formerly Reppa)

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His heart raced, his breath was fast and heavy. There was an alien feeling as if something dark and frightening was slithering it’s way along in his direction. He shuddered, sensing some unseen foe lurking in the shadows that enveloped the dreamscape. At least he hoped it was a dreamscape, even though it seemed so much more like a nightmare though nothing really bad happened. It was like he was being stalked in the blackness of sleep. And while it felt frightening and foreign, what really twisted the knot of fear in his stomach was the familiarity of it. It was like something close to him, a part of him yet not. Not quite an extension, but something connected.

At times in the past, he had experienced the…nightmare-dream a few times, though those times were few and far between and he had overgrown, galumphing Raditz to press into. But recently, alone in this cold bed on a still foreign planet, it seemed to happen more often than he liked.

Vegeta broke himself from sleep with some effort. He shivered, feeling cold. Yet sweaty. The saiyajin removed himself from the slightly dampened blankets of his bed to make his way to the bathroom for a towel. His bare torso glittered slightly from the outdoor lighting that just barely made it into his room. Sighing heavily, he dabbed the beads of sweat away with the acquired towel while he moved to glance out the window. It had to be somewhere in the middle of the night, he didn't bother to check for a time on the clock. The expansive home of the Briefs was delicately lit outside by assorted street and building lights.

His obsidian eyes drifted upward to eye the lopsided Cheshire crescent of the moon. When he had first arrived on the planet, the damned thing had been missing. A few years ago he had succeeded in nagging Bulma with his arguments of how obscene it was to be moonless that she used the Dragonballs to wish it back. Like she could deny that it was a good idea.

Unfortunately she insisted then that any half-saiyajins born had to lose their tails, like she had done with Trunks when he wasn't looking. Initially, Vegeta had thought to argue it but he gave up the good fight. There was no point to fighting it. They were half and half, and as things stood, they would grow up embracing their human halves more than their inherent primal half which would be glanced over fondly from time to time, but never truly nourished. It would surface sometimes, but then they would smother it back down and the thought depressed him greatly.

Sometimes he wanted to scream and thrash, just lay something to waste. Being the last pure Saiyajin alive was maddening. Damn Kakarot and his dying nearly seven years ago. Vegeta was convinced the third-class moron had done it just to spite him somehow. Idly, he pondered wishing Raditz and Nappa back to the world of the living just so he could avoid the loneliness and oppression. He would have companions then, instead of the humans wanting to coax him into assimilation, which he resisted absolutely. One demonstration of his resistance unwrapped itself from his waist, his beloved tail, to swing idly behind him. He even wished, with some disdain, that Kakarot was back.

He stared at the sky for a few moments more, his eyes felt like they had wanted to moist over but he repressed the feeling. He pushed back the urge to tear up, privacy or not. They'd be wasted tears anyway. They had been wasted in solitude over his home, alone over Raditz where Nappa couldn't notice, openly before Kakarot before he died, and the countless times he'd done it since being stuck on Earth with his struggling.

His shoulders slumped slightly as his gaze drifted downward to stare at nothing in particular. The prince returned to pondering over the recurring nightmare-dream that had decided to rear it's foul head in it's seemingly infinite tenacity. Something felt amiss, somehow. He had that unnerving feeling that something was happening of which would reverberate to great, unknown proportions but he couldn't understand what. Everything was peaceful, just like Kakarot wanted. He gave a shuddering sigh, the loneliness feeling more profound, just what Kakarot died for.

~+~

When the morning came around, Bulma had come around, banging on his door and being the nagging woman he had come to tolerate. She was bleating something about soon to arrive company and him needing to hurry with his breakfast, or some nonsense to that effect. The prince stared at the door, half of his face masked by the pillow he was gripping to his chest. Muttering into the plush object, he tossed it down before kicking away the one he kept between his knees and swatting away a few more. So much for sleeping late in royal comfort.

He debated briefly whether to make use of the shower, taking a moment to check with a sniff or two. It could wait till after he trained with Trunks. Throwing on a black tank-top and a pair of gray sweatpants, he left his bedroom to meander down for the kitchen. He arched a brow when he started on his way past the living room where it seemed Bulma was already entertaining some guests. The bandit, triclops, the android woman and the bald one were there, chit-chatting. Krillin glanced his way and gave a nervous wave out of politeness, but Vegeta turned his nose up and continued on to the kitchen.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Ice King, hurry and eat up. Gohan and the others should be here soon." Bulma tried to herd him over to the table where an ample supply of food had been laid out. She faltered slightly, seeing his face, "You okay?"

He scowled at her, growling low like some disgruntled animal before he took a seat at the table, across from Trunks who was finishing. "Why wouldn't I be?" The saiyajin realized how hungry he really was after sniffing the air a few times and settled to start making a dent in the pancakes. The gears were already turning in his head as to whether he would be able to wrangle Gohan into a training session, even though he was convinced the boy had probably gotten soft during his human studies. Vegeta doubted he had done much training. "And why are all these people coming here again?"

Bulma shrugged, leaning in a little closer than he really liked while he was trying to eat. She took note that not only was he not quite as ravenous as he normally was with eating, but it looked as if he was having issues sleeping. The darkness around his eyes was fairly evident on closer inspection. "Some announcement...Have you been having a hard time sleeping?"

He growled low, a small bite of pancake and syrup in his right cheek. His dark eyes stayed fixed on the table as she pulled back. She gave him a look of genuine concern, "You know you can...'you know what', if you feel like it." Meaning 'you can crawl into my bed if you need some company'...without it sounding like it was either charity or him sounding in need. Vegeta gave her a wordless look, expression hard. Trunks blinked at the exchange from the other side of the table before the sound of Goten's voice had him dashing from the kitchen. After Bulma left him to join their son, the saiyajin slowly frowned, then shivered. That feeling was coming back, filling him with mild alarm.

Hearing the chatter die as Gohan asked for their attention, Vegeta stood and cared his small plate of food with him so that he wouldn't miss what it was they were there to announce. 'Maybe Kakarot's skank has another man and she's pregnant again...' He stopped in the doorway, surprised with himself. He wasn't sure where that thought had come from, why would he think of something like that? The prince frowned to himself, wondering if that was just something random that had crossed his mind. He didn't care one way or another for Kakarot's woman, so why was he denouncing her in such a manner? He dismissed the thoughts as quickly as they surfaced when Gohan spoke.

"...My dad's coming back for keeps, guys! And in time to participate in the World Tournament! Isn't that great?!"

Kakarot's coming back. For the World Tournament and...Vegeta gave a loud, abrupt gasp and dropped the plate he had in his hand. The others, who had just started to get into a buzz about the news all stopped and eyed the saiyajin who looked as if he saw a ghost out of the blue and gotten a good electrical shock at the same time.

"Uh..." Krillin blinked, he grinned nervously. "You okay, Vegeta? I figured you'd be glad to have your rival back, huh?"

Vegeta blinked, feeling cold after that image had flickered across his mind's eye like a flash of lightning. What the hell was that? He couldn't quite get the image out of his head and as he came into focus, he realized he had made more of a scene than he had liked. Frigid and still very much alarmed, the saiyajin wet his lips. There wasn't really much of anything he could do to save face after that particular reaction, so he turned away and made a hasty exit for the gravity room.

The others all glanced at each other. Gohan made his way over to Bulma who was cleaning up the mess and he knelt down to help her. "Hey, what was that about?" He questioned, walking with her into the kitchen to dispose of the broken glass and all that came with it.

"I...I'm not sure. I've never seen him be so weird as I have the past couple days. And I think he's not only been having a hard time sleeping, I don't see him eat nearly as much as he normally does." Her brow knit together in confused worry. Vegeta had yet to physically display signs of any starvation but at the rate it was going, there would be something showing eventually. "He looked more like he reacted to something he saw than what he heard...I know Goku coming back wouldn't do that to him. If anything, he would be all 'So when is the clown coming back so I can kick his ass?!'!"

Despite the alarming news about the prince, Gohan chuckled as she puffed her chest out and imitated him. It was too spot on. He cleaned his hands, "If you want, I can go check on him. Maybe a spar will do him some good."

"Thank God, yes, I'm sure it would. He says Trunks acts like such a baby and holds out on him so much, at least he stopped saying that to the poor kid." She smiled with some mild relief, letting the eldest Son go and take care of her royal charge while she went back to visit with the others and reassure them everything was all right.

~+~

Inside the gravity room, the settings and drones were still off. It was merely a retreat at the moment while the saiyajin tried desperately to push away the gruesome image that had relentlessly plastered itself into his mind. Kakarot, at the World Tournament...impaled and dead on a weapon that looked like it had been forged out of darkness itself. The news had caused it to assault him out of nowhere and with no warning. And that darkness was again...frighteningly familiar. Vegeta wondered if this was some dire premonition to be watchful off at the Tournament.

"Vegeta?" The saiyajin nearly jumped from his skin, stifling an undignified yelp. He turned and glared daggers at the door he had pressed his back to.

"What do you want?!" He bellowed.

"I wanted to see if you were all right...and maybe if you'd like to spar."

He breathed quickly, heavily. He was too on edge at the moment to deal with anyone, not even someone as good tempered as Gohan. The chill was back, causing him to wrap his arms around himself for some kind of warmth. On the other side, the half-saiyajin frowned softly. Normally Vegeta would chomp feverishly at the bit for a spar. Now he seemed hesitant. He began to understand Bulma's mounting concern. His answer came through after a moment, "Not right now...We'll do it another day! Now leave me!"

Gohan began to try and mount an argument to convince the older man otherwise but he decided against pressing him. Vegeta was like a wall anyway. "All right, well...I'll come by tomorrow then."

Vegeta sighed lightly. He could do that. "Fine!"

"The Tournament will be in a couple weeks! Make sure you sign up. My dad'll be pretty disappointed if you don't."

"And when is the clown coming back?"

"A few days...I'll go ahead and leave you alone, I'll still be here for a little bit if you need me for anything!"

The saiyajin relaxed, going back to leaning on the wall as he felt Gohan's ki move away. He was pretty sure that he wouldn't need anything from the half-saiyajin for the day. With a great effort after a few minutes, he pushed himself off the wall to go to the control panel. His stomach was gnawing at him in aggravation, wanting to be satisfied but that would wait till when the house was clear so he could eat in peace. Instead, he set the gravity high enough that he could feel the air press down on him so he could begin training. He prayed that keeping his focus on wearing himself out would not only banish the horrifying image from his head but make it all the easier to sleep when the night came.

End of chapter 1
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Dragonball E