Beautiful Stalker

Disclaimer: We don’t own DB/Z/GT or any of the characters found in this fic. They are the property of TOEI ANIMATION in Japan and FUNimation in the U.S.A. We are not making any profit from this.

Beautiful Stalker

Chapter 17 - …Of Epic Proportions by Jay Goose


He was a little annoyed with the whole thing really. He’d never had even the slightest inclination to learn any new techniques. Well, not since giving up the whole fighting thing and taking up the profession of a general all purpose woodsman.

Despite what his sister said, it was a profession.

But at this moment Seventeen wished his twin had at least taken the time to learn the art of ki location. If she had, he wouldn’t be practically flying all over the globe looking for her missing husband.

It figured that the one day out of the year he decided to pay a visit to Eighteen and her little family that she would send him out on a wild goose chase.

He wondered if she was having any better luck. The cell phone she’d given him hadn’t rung once since they’d parted.

Not that he minded. He hated the things. It wasn’t like they had done Eighteen any good in her search for her husband anyway. The bald man hadn’t even bothered to answer his own phone. In fact, he’d cut it off entirely.

Seventeen scoffed at the barest thought that the spineless little man would even attempt to stand up to his sister.

He couldn’t even say no to the woman, and Krillin stood a chance? The dark haired android groaned in annoyance. Who else besides Eighteen would rally care where Krillin was anyway?

He’d already been all over West City looking for that stupid store she’d supposedly sent Krillin to in the first place and come up empty. It only made sense to try Capsule Corps. before he headed back. That’s where all the ‘gang’ liked to congregate most of the time, right?

It wasn’t until he touched down a few feet from the front door that the android figured out why exactly no one had answered the phone when he’d called ahead earlier.

A perfect brow raised in surprise.

There, right in the front yard, was what seemed to be what was left of Bunny Briefs and the body of her husband, Dr. Briefs.

“Well… this is certainly a surprise.”

He examined the corpses of the couple with vague interest, “I suppose Vegeta finally snapped and took it out on the poor fools,” he said, obvious and weary boredom dripping from every word.

Cold blue eyes snapped up to the front door of Capsule Corps. He wondered if Bulma had been foolish enough to get in the way of whoever had done this as well.

There was only one-way to find out he supposed.

~o0o~

There was not much that got a rise out of Mrs. Chestnut.

When Marron was born it had been well established that it was definitely Krillin and not her that was the screamer in the family. Actually, that had been established well before then, but it was just the first thing that came to mind.

But finding the grotesquely mutilated bodies of Goten and Bra at the Son home had almost been enough to pull at least a gasp from the blonde android. Though, she had been able to keep her cool for the most part, she nearly stumbled in her haste to get back outside.

Chichi was still nowhere to be found. And where was Goku? Off training somewhere so intensely that he didn’t even know his son had been slaughtered?

What on earth had happened here? Who could have possibly done something like this right under the strongest man on the planet… no universe’s nose?

Maybe whoever this guy was had gotten rid of Chichi too. And possibly even Goku as well. It was just about the only explanation that Eighteen could come up with at the moment. If she was actually right, this was definitely not a good thing.

Eighteen stood just outside of the house and got her thoughts under control. Her blue eyes narrowed as she suspiciously took in her surroundings. Something was very wrong…Obviously. She couldn’t shake the feeling that this was not the only place where such oddities were occurring.

Where in the bloody hell was her husband? She really hoped that he hadn’t gotten himself killed as well. That would really piss her off.

Eighteen reached in her purse for her cell phone and dialed her brother’s number. Maybe he had found out something to explain what was going on around here.

~o0o~

“Yes?”

“….”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one confused here, sister dear.”

Seventeen leaned into the side of the oak he was standing next to. It just happened to be right in front of the pinned up body of a certain lavender haired demi saiyan. How convenient for him.

“It looks like we can add the rest of the Briefs to that list as well.”

He pushed a few strands of hair out of his eyes and listened to his sister ramble on. An irritated frown on his pale face, it was killing him to stay quiet, so he didn’t, “How the hell would I know… It’s not like we’re having any luck with this on our own… Fine… I’ll meet you at the Look Out.”

The dark haired cyborg rolled his eyes and looked down at the dragon radar loosely clutched in his hands, “Looks like we will be needing this,” he muttered before taking off with an aggravated huff. He wasn’t certain why he had looked for it in the first place, when he had been at the Briefs’ home, but it was fortunate he had.

This day was just getting better and better.

~o0o~

With a raged cough and a puff of red-misted saliva, his chest heaved. He began to breathe again. And with the first blessed intake of oxygen Gohan’s bodily functions began once again. Had he actually been dead? He didn’t recall even losing consciousness let alone standing in some ridiculously long line in Other World.

He released a pained groan and immediately decided that moving was not the best course of action at the moment. His chest hurt like hell. Well, the inside of it anyway. At the moment he couldn’t even feel the skin that was supposed to be there. But the sickeningly smell that was assaulting his nostrils told him what was left there was pretty much charred.

He choked back the bile that rose in his throat.

Gods, had Vegeta been trying to kill him?

At that thought, Gohan’s eyes popped wide-open, dark pupils shrunk back down in an attempt to focus. It didn’t matter much in the end however, they were so blurred with pained tears he could barely make out the floor in front of him. He blinked a few times, trying to focus on the loose piece of ceramic tile just a few inches away from his nose. He soon realized that it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks on him, but that the tile was actually shaking. Vibrating in time with the pulsations of the massive auras that his body was slowly coming attuned to.

He succeeded in maneuvering a seemingly boneless arm in a position suitable for hoisting himself upright. He hissed out a painful wince when a good portion of the damaged skin on his chest decided to stay attached to the floor underneath of him. It took everything in him to roll over and sit up. He stayed in that position, hunched over and wheezing for breath. There, not far off in the distance the demi saiyan could make out the source of the huge power spikes.

Apparently, that bastard who was perpetrating himself as his father had grown tired of Vegeta’s games. Or maybe the Prince had finally gotten tired of pretending. But whatever the reason, the battle taking place not very far from him was one of epic proportions.

In the flash of light and power almost too quick for his heightened saiyan senses to keep up with, Vegeta was sent flying backwards. A sickening arch of crimson fluid was the only thing to signal is descent. By the time Gohan’s tired eyes had caught up, the smaller saiyan was already pulling himself up from the crater in the once pristinely white floor.

The Prince’s golden hair was looking a bit more limp and frayed than Gohan was used to seeing. By the looks of the Chamber floor the two of them had been at it for some time. But while Vegeta’s power level was a wavering but stubborn level 2, Kakarott’s was still strong and confident, even pushing towards 3.

He was toying with him.

Gohan watched as Vegeta charged forth once again with a flurry of punches. Kakarott dodged every jab the prince threw, but an uppercut worked its way through. The taller saiyan’s head snapped back with enough force to break a lesser man’s neck. Kakarott skidded back with an ear-piercing shriek on the glossy tiled floor.

Vegeta moved to follow up the blow, but the other man was upright before either of them knew it. The Prince stopped in mid flight. The hair on Gohan’s neck stood on end. The looks the two men were trading were making his skin crawl.

Kakarott licked the trickle of blood away from his mouth. And before the younger male knew it he was being pinned down with one of the psycho’s glares, “Glad to see you’re awake son,” Kakarott produced a bastardization of one of his father’s grins.

Gohan’s stomach turned at the sight, but the look was gone as quickly as it had come, “Come on Vegeta,” the deranged saiyan smirked, “Let’s give the boy a real show.”

The Prince growled in outrage and shot forward in a blind fury, but it didn’t matter; Gohan already knew that he didn’t stand a chance. He was just fighting the inevitable now. The demi saiyan would be damned if he just stood by and let this happen. He figured Vegeta wouldn’t be thrilled about his intervention, but he had to do something.

In a fit of great effort, Gohan wobbled to his feet. Pain shot throughout his whole body. It was obvious now that what Vegeta had done had been an attempt to keep him out of commission for quite a while. He hadn’t wanted him to interfere, but the Prince had underestimated him.

And so had Kakarott.

Now if only he could call on that awesome power he had locked in him somewhere just one more time, he could get Vegeta and himself out of this mess.

~o0o~

He had seen the movement out of the corner of his eyes, but he had been too slow to react. And he was going to pay big time for that lapse. Kakarott’s fist came crashing into his left side. He could feel his ribs giving into the massive amount of pressure put on them. He bit back a wail of pain and lost his grip on the handful of hair he had been holding. Vegeta was flung to the side by the force and sent barreling into the ground once again. Jet-black strands of hair fell from loose fingers.

Kakarott was on him again in an instant. Thick fingers wrapped around his throat before he knew it. The other saiyan used the impact of his decent to send the Prince further into the floor, kicking up more jagged shards of tile into the flesh on his back.

Vegeta strained against the man’s grip, but it was no use. His power was fading and he could do nothing to hold on to it. Against his will his golden locks faded back to normal shade, once again dark eyes were barely able to stay open.

“It was fun while it lasted, Vegeta, but it’s over. You lose,” the larger saiyan whispered maliciously, “Let’s stop this non-sense and get to the best part, shall we?”

The prince snarled in defiance, despite his position. Though in his weakened state, one would not have guessed of the seething rage that burned within him. No matter what the situation, this third class clown was still his better. He would not just lay here and be defeated, but it did not seem as though he had a choice. This was not the man he had fallen for and it would not be this man to take him.

No, he would rather die first.

“Get away from him, you sick fuck!”

“Gohan?”

But before anymore thought could be put into it, Vegeta found himself roaring out I pain as the bruised flesh around his neck was ripped away by Kakarott’s blunt finger nails. The larger saiyan was launched somewhere off to the right of him by some unseen force. This was the last thing that registered in the Prince’s mind before he passed out.

~o0o~

Out side the Room of Spirit and Time, the planet’s young guardian and his caregiver had yet to figure out the best course of action they should be taking in finding the dragonballs. Just as Dende was about to lose his fragile grip on his composure, just when it seemed that all hope was lost, the answer to all of his prayers appeared out of thin air.

A narrow shadow fell over the form of the green skinned guardian.

“Alright, short stuff, I think it’s about time you told us what the hell is going on around here.”

That tenor sounded quite familiar to the boy, but it had been a long time since he’d heard it last, could it really be? “Seventeen?” The young Namek turned around in a whirl of red and white robes, “Eighteen?” Dende’s eyes immediately went from the blonde woman to an object clutched in the gloved hands of the male android twin, “Oh, thank the Kais, you’re here!”

Eighteen raised a brow in surprise. No one had ever been that happy to see them.


TBC

A/N- This was the second to last chapter. Hope you folks enjoyed!