Chichi's Breaking Point

"How?" Chichi whispered as she stood back from her husband. Now the gold vanished from his hair and he stood as his handsome self, wearing a white tuxedo that her father the Ox King had made for them. Chichi glanced down to see herself wearing the beautiful white wedding dress her father risked his life to save.

"I remember our Wedding feast," Goku said softly, taking her hands. Around them stood the ruins of the castle, a huge blanket spread out with all sorts of food. A priest had pronounced a blessing and Goku and Chichi were both alone in the meadow near a ruined tower which was all that remained.

"You can be romantic when you want to," Chichi whispered, hugging him tightly. "But what is this bonding?"

"I'm not sure, but Raditz an' Stellari are trying to explain," Goku said softly. Holding her around the waist he suddenly felt his reality shift. Chichi screamed and clung to him as the ground dropped from under them.

"I've got you, hold onto me! Trust me!" Goku urged, reaching out in the mindscape. "Raditz what are you doing?"

"There is far more you must face together. Forgive me for what I am to do, Brother, but your horror has only just begun," Raditz voice echoed. Chichi buried her face in her husband's gi, as he levitated in silent darkness. Around them rose a ruined city, and Goku drew in his breath sharply to see where it was.

"Where the hell is this?" he mouthed, seeing crumbling buildings collapsing under their own weight. "It looks like that place Kami said he sent the other Z fighters when I was training…"

"I can't… stand…" Chichi gasped as she clung to him. She dropped to her knees under crushing weight.

"Chichi, think hard! Imagine you're as strong as I am! Your mind… remember when we were chasing the Bansho fan?" Goku urged, reaching down. She felt his strength surging through their rapport and allowed the golden radiance to shoot between them. Explosions sounded in the distance and she gripped his hands tightly.

"You're a fighter, Chichi. Don't deny that part of who you are," came a voice. Standing there near them was a figure in Red Ribbon army garb, the guise of Stellari as a soldier face smudged with dirt. Chichi suddenly saw the explosions of war echoed all around, and squeezed Goku's hand.

"You're the Ox Princess. You learned to fight. How can you cut yourself off from that part of who you are?" Stellari asked, grabbing her hand. Chichi saw Goku suddenly spin and hold up his hands to fend off an energy blast.

"Damn," Goku whispered. Suddenly hovering shapes came into view and their gleaming armor looked almost like Raditz did. However their eyes gleamed with the eager light of the hunter chasing its prey.

"Look out!" Stellari cried. Chichi suddenly saw Goku hurling rapid blasts as he levitated up. Stellari formed a shield on her arm of plastic and then hurled spikes. Gritting her teeth Chichi gasped, "ALL RIGHT!"

Suddenly she stood in her pink and purple armor, flapping her cape back. Angrily she stared at two more Saiyans that had materialized. But they were not Saiyan but some sort of lizard being wearing Saiyan armor. One fired at her. She ran away, then sent her blade whirling forwards to slash at him. Flipping over she retrieved it as it cleaved him in two.

"Chichi catch!" Goku said, hurling his Powerpole to her. Kinto Un appeared and she leapt onto it, whirling her husband's pole. Now she was on equal footing to fight the unknown marauders Raditz must have conjured from his dark memories.

"Chichi, you take those two!" shouted Goku, pointing. Chichi nodded, seeing Stellari levitating and fending off blasts.

"Use your armor you idiot!" came the voice of Raditz breaking in as he zipped into focus near Stellari and Chichi. He wore the old brown and black armor he sported as a purger, and focussed his energies on his palm into a purple sphere.

"Raditz, is this YOUR idea?" Goku panted, hurling more blasts to pick off more of Freiza's soldiers.

"You and your wife must learn to fight as one. This is how Saiyans train when we cannot fight in reality. The mental training…"

"Ah like Kami had me do, and Gohan and Krillen did on the way to Namek," Goku nodded. "Yes I should have known!"

"Except the enemies you conjure are wimps compared to mine," said Raditz.

"Ya think?" Goku laughed as both brothers pressed back to back hovering over the ruined city. "where IS this?"

"Our home idiot! When the Tuffles and Saiyans first fought. I was only whelped a few years after. But this is when Freiza's soldiers tried to conquer us. Before we became planet brokers," Raditz explained.

"Oh right," Goku blinked. "But I can think of something pretty nasty too!"

Suddenly the ground shifted and they all fended off the blows of strange reptilian beings. Goku suddenly had regressed to the small boy with the tail and whirling staff as he landed on the cloud with Chichi, now a child herself. Whirling his powerpole he staved off the hordes of King Piccolo.

"What's this?"

"King Piccolo's dream and our nightmares!" the child Goku laughed. "Hold on Chichi!"

"You're insane! This is a game to you?" Chichi howled as she lifted her hands to fire her laser at a lizard being aiming a machine gun at them.

"Damn," Raditz grumbled as suddenly his own aspect changed, and he was a teenager. Stellari changed as well, as a red Ribbon army trainee. Both were only a few years older then Goku and Chichi aged 12, so that made them 18 perhaps?

"Even the odds a bit," Goku's laughter came. In this form he couldn't fly, but he was still packed with power. Raditz realized he had done this for Chichi's benefit. Dealing with an enemy known on earth was much less disorienting.

Yet to Raditz they were still fighting Frieza's soldiers. Stellari kept to his back, hurling shards of plastic that drove into t hem. "Stellari, don't use plastic, use ki!" he gritted. "Like I showed you!"

"Dammit what's going on, Raditz?"

"Someone ELSE seems to have taken charge of this… this…" Raditz panted. "I can't stop it…"

"Can someone ELSE join this game?" asked a strange voice, and suddenly Raditz saw another figure materialize on Stellari's other side. Wearing green and black armor with red wristguards he adjusted his green lensed scouter and fired several emerald blasts past them. Then he whizzed around behind one of the minions and flipped him over after breaking the man's spine on his knee.

"Father, really stop showing off!" Raditz growled.

"Why not take the chance to see how it could have been," Bardock said as he closed ranks on Stellari's other side. She blinked at her husband in shock. Goku and Chichi were still fighting but they seemed to have grown more distant fighting minions that were like mythical demons.

Both Freiza's soldiers and king Piccolo's minions attacked from all sides. Goku's enemies were easily dispatched with the whirl and jab of a powerpole, and Chichi's boomerang helmet blade. She also held the bansho fan, using its power to blow back anyone stupid enough to come forward. Stellari suddenly found herself in an armored vest and hipguards, much like a lower class Saiyan guard a rank below Raditz, but still she was human.

Dripping with blood that seemed all too real, Chichi hung tightly to her young husband's form. "This makes no sense…"

"I agree. It's getting out of hand," the child Goku said looking over his shoulder at her.

Then the landscape again changed. All four of them were standing back to back in adult forms again, standing in the middle of the desert plane that Chichi remembered when she first arrived. Wind whipped around and they regarded one another with confusion. "What was that, Raditz?"

"I don't know, Brother. I saw Father for a moment, and then…" Raditz whispered.

"It's like someone else's mind invaded the four way," Goku commented. "But now it's gone. I don't like this."

"It's all so… strange," Chichi whispered, still wearing her armor as she moved close to her husband. He draped a protective arm around her, holding her to his hip. Raditz blocked Stellari partly with his body, so she was back to back with Goku and Chichi. Her fingers twisted in his fall of long spiky hair.
***
"I think this has gone on long enough," Raditz mumbled. A feeling of rising and bobbing to the surface passed over Chichi and then she was blinking in the light of her own candlelit living room. Gasping she found herself sitting in her husband's lap. His strong arms wrapped around Chichi, shushing her as she clung to him trembling.

"That… I was so scared Goku. Did we have to do that?" she asked. Stellari felt Raditz pulling her close to him, still shaking with the intrusion of things not theirs.

"That wasn't me, Brother," Raditz said quietly. Goku blinked at him in anger and shock.

"I believe you, but is that SUPPOSED to happen?"

Then they heard the voice echoing behind their temples, which surprised Goku. It was one they both knew well for different reasons. "You idiots need to be more careful if you're going to do that!" Vegeta's mental voice echoed.

"Sire… how did…"

"You forget I can sense the thoughts of any Saiyan living?" Vegeta's voice snorted in disgust. "You third class clowns need to work on your shielding!"

"Sire, forgive me," Raditz mumbled. Chichi could swear she heard the echo of that horrid Saiyan who had saved Gohan on Namek, but it was as if she were listening in on a conversation.

"Don't tell me it took you THIS long to discover what the HELL you had to do, Kakkarot," Vegeta's voice smirked.

"Knock it off, Vegeta. Goku didn't know," came Bulma's voice.

"Bulma, how on Earth?" Goku said aloud. He blinked in shock. Chichi was sure her husband had lost his mind as he leapt up and chased something unseen in the living room.

"Brother, he can sense us. It was the Prince that entered our four way mental session. It's the privilege of Royalty to have such power," said Raditz. "The fact that you hear him so well is proof that you've tapped into your Saiyan heritage."

"Damn clown. Do try and explain in SIMPLE words, Raditz," Vegeta's mental smirk came.

"Vegeta, be NICE!" Bulma's thoughts fluttered like a blue butterfly. "Goku, he's just messing with you. We were to… I mean napping and Vegeta somehow sensed this big spike in ki."

"I guess I didn't know my own strength," Goku scratched his neck.

"Put a lid on it. You wield your power like a clumsy tool!" Raditz telepathed.

"Be sure to show him the RIGHT way," Vegeta answered. Then the voice left. Embarrassed Goku glanced at his older brother glaring at him.

"I'm not used to this," Raditz admitted sheepishly. "I've only ever done this with Nappa and the Prince. I'm not used to shielding for four minds."

"You could have TOLD me. I could have helped," Goku pouted.

"What are you babbling about?" Chichi asked. "Does that mean that Vegeta guy can drop in…"

"The Prince must have sensed the mental battles. His sense is attenuated to all Saiyan mental activity. He didn't explore that power very well till recently I see. Nappa was trying to help him develop it, but Freeza put a stop to it," Raditz explained.


"Damn," Goku said.

"That's why he didn't know about Turles attacking your world," Raditz explained.

"I always DID wonder about that," Goku blinked.

"He has no love for the prince. The Saiyans that survived didn't necessarily agree that the Royal family had protected them. Working for Freiza some of use felt the ability to go beyond our servile roles," said Raditz with an uncomfortable cough.

"This is all interesting, but I still don't see what it has to do with Goku and me? Have we…"

"Bonded?" Stellari asked. Raditz nodded.

"But it takes much more then one time. I've only given you a taste of its possibilities. The rest you must do yourself Brother. The power of both our minds in synch can be dangerous," Raditz said.

"And you're only 'third class'?" Chichi snorted. "That Vegeta guy… needs to learn some MANNERS if he's a Prince!"

"You should be careful," said Raditz.

"I'm not scared of him when Goku can kick his ass," Chichi laughed. "Besides, I AM a princess. And if anything that makes GOKU royalty cause he's my husband."

"I um… never thought of that," Goku chuckled as he sat down next to Chichi and kissed her brow. Raditz and Stellari exchanged dumfounded glances.

"Even though the castle burned down Pa's STILL the Ox King," Chichi said patiently. "and I'm STILL a princess."

"That explains your royal attitude," Stellari snickered. Chichi blushed and Goku rolled his eyes as Raditz elbowed his wife sharply.

"You should show respect!" Raditz hissed.

"Says the guy who wanted domination over everything?" Stellari sweetly blinked at him. Raditz had the good grace to blush bright red at her admission. Goku was giggling and holding his sides as Chichi looked at him.

"Oh man, wait till Vegeta gets wind of this! Here he's going on and on about being Royalty and I guess I'm a Prince too!" Goku laughed.

"Ox Prince? But on Vegetasei mating only made one a consort unless the…" Raditz started.

"Don't bog him with the details," Stellari thumped the side of his head. She could get away with it because he was so thick skulled. Both brothers exchanged a knowing look and rose, walking down the hall to Goku and Chichi's bedroom.

"Where are they off to?" Chichi asked Stellari, tying her bathrobe shut once more.