Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Amnesia ❯ Something Wicked This Way Comes ( Chapter 1 )

“Something wicked this way comes”* A twenty-seven year old Goten whispered into the wind. He was standing on the front lawn of Capsule Corp. as he looked into a sea of gray, white, and blue. Wind began to pick up and whip at his spiky pitch-black hair - hair that always seemed to point sharply in the direction his head is turned. His skin was fair - just one shade darker than pale. Today, he wore blue jeans that were long enough to cover even his feet and a white, long-sleeved shirt. Attached to his belt line was his cell phone, which is not normally covered by his shirt, but now is by his untucked threads. Goten had on an expressionless face, a face so blank, nobody would be able to decipher the codes running amok in the databases of his noggin. His black eyes stared deeply into the vast blue world of clouds, airplanes, satellites, etc.

“Hey Goten, aren't you coming in or what?” A voice behind him said. The voice belonged to Trunks, the one and only best friend Goten had since they've been infants. Trunks, unlike Goten, had a bowl-shaped haircut (resulting in the nickname “Coconut head” Goten gave him years ago). Trunks' hair was a shade of lavender - the kind of color that mesmerized any girl unfortunate enough to look into the intricate design of the cascading waterfall Trunks calls “his hair”.

“Hellllooooo?” Trunks tried again. Unfortunately, Goten was so buried into his thoughts, that even though Trunks was standing a few feet apart from his best friend, it seemed to Goten that Trunks was a dimension away from him. The telephone call from Trunks was a long-distance one to Goten, a distance so great, the telephone on the other side did not receive a signal and didn't bother to ring, leaving Goten to never pick up and answer the call.

Trunks shook Goten out of his thoughts and sucked Goten back into our dimension. The phone in Goten's world finally rung - Goten picked it up and answered.

“Goten, why are you looking up at the sky? You do know that it isn't safe out here now that Super Typhoon Grace is on her way.”

“I know… I'm just watching the ships sail across the blue sea we call a sky.”

“Alright, Ray Bradbury*, let's go inside.”

* * *

In just a matter of hours, the calm, peaceful, static world turned into a windy and treacherous plane in the typhoon's wake. What used to be a world dominated by calm and peace became a torture chamber of ice-cold bullets raining down upon our world horizontally - the world seemed to become Kami's wind tunnel as masses of air raced at speeds clocking at more than 135 miles per hour. If one were to obliviously go outside into this radically transformed world, they would be picked up by the fatal and lethal hands of the most powerful winds on this planet, thrown into any direction with brute force, drown in the sea of pelting comets of water, and stung by the power of one raindrop racing faster than a car on the freeway. The momentum of these air masses is more than enough to skin any person. They will die at the hands of a storm powerful enough to supply six months of power to New York City.

While the power was still running, Goten and Trunks were playing a poker card game as the brute force of the storm raged on and on. A girl named Bra sat beside a window as she stared out into a world of obliteration. Due to being kin to Trunks, Bra had blue, mesmerizing eyes (mesmerizing enough to be as effective as Trunks' hair) with blue cascading hair falling down her back, with color which matched her eyes. Her skin, the same color shading as her mother's, was a cream colored skin. Her skin was smooth to the point where it actually felt good if you (successfully) touched her skin. She finally took notice of Goten and Trunks' card game and reprimanded them.

“How could you two play a stupid card game while this typhoon is making news?”

“How could you talk while we're concentrating?” Trunks contested.

“How does your mind remember how to speak in complete sentences?” Goten followed up, insulting Bra's brain.

“Excuse me?!” Bra shouted.

“You heard me, dumbass girl. All you know how to do is spend money on things you'll never use. In fact, all that crap in your head takes up so much space, you don't even know how to work the toaster…or worse - you don't even know what two and two add up to.” Goten went overboard this time.

“Oh, you tell her, boy!” Trunks encouraged.

Bra became even more angry…anger so powerful, it instantly took up 100% of her emotion, leaving no room for hurt feelings. It was a monster grudge that began to grow inside of her, and any more insults directed to her will just fuel the fire within her to turn into an uncontrollable brush fire.

Goten and Trunks high-fived each other and returned to their game of an endless sea of possibilities as Bra tried to vent any steam built up inside her.

* * *

A new day has dawned upon our world while Goten, Trunks, and Bra were sleeping. With the typhoon long gone, a new sunrise dominated the blue, vast kingdom of sky. The king shows off his magnificent glory by showering his powerful swords of light, piercing his kingdom and turning it into an orange/yellowish sea of splendor. The king assumes his throne first thing in the morning and gradually makes his way up through the sky, traveling from one end of his vast empire to the other end, where he shall rest. His reign ends when nightfall occurs, in which the queen moves across the now pitch-black kingdom of glitter sprinkled across her land. With the queen in the theater of paper-white stars, the sky is not completely illuminated as it was when the king was traversing through his kingdom, but the queen still gives off significant rays of miniature swords of beauty.

Goten and Trunks were sleeping on two couches in the living room, one for each of them while Bra was nowhere to be found, but is bound to be found in her room, sleeping in her comfortable bed. Both Goten and Trunks were sleeping on their stomachs, as their legs sprawled across the couch, weaving in and out of their blankets Bulma gave them. Goten woke up as a beam of light hit his face. He woke up, but didn't decide on opening his eyes. After a few minutes of wishful thinking about returning to his dream land, Goten decided to get out of the couch since he knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again with shards of light flooding the living room. Goten got up and stretched his arms. He felt a thousand ants crawl up his right leg - his leg fell asleep on him.

“Damn it!” Goten shouted as the prickling grew sharper each time a second passed by. Goten stomped on the ground with his right leg, which made it feel worse - for now. Goten finally got rid of the annoyance, and saw Trunks snoring as loud as hell. He went over to Trunks' couch and whispered the words “medium-rare steak” in his ear. Trunks immediately jumped out of his dream and into reality. He got out of his couch at the speed of light and asked “Where!?”

“Nowhere…you're too easy to wake.” Goten teased.

“Damn! Why do I always fall for the same trick each day you sleep over?”

“Like I know. Check out what happened outside - the typhoon left devastation in its wake!”

Trunks took a look out of the sliding door that lead to the porch. The porch itself was battered to nothing but rubble…but if you thought that was bad, you should recheck your eyes and see the rest of the city. Here, there, everywhere, you wouldn't be able to find a building or skyscraper that hasn't been salvaged from the typhoon in any way. The city was damaged to the point where it wasn't functional…at least for a week. The only salvaged building in the city was Capsule Corp., which was still standing tall and proud, with its shell gleaming in the morning sun's rays of light. Trunks opened the sliding door and checked out how much crap was blown into their lawn by the horrific nightmare we call typhoons.

“This must be the worst typhoon to hit this area in Japan for ninety years!” Trunks exclaimed.

Goten was wordless. There was heaps of rubble everywhere. A sea of building remains surrounded the Capsule Corp. building, where the house itself formed an island of safety. The shrubs that were once standing that served the border between Bulma's property and the next were thrown and ripped into the wind. It seemed like a monster with tremendous strength visited the city and mercilessly obliterated anything in its path.

Bra decided to take a look after she discovered the power being served to their house was cut off. Not only did the typhoon destroy everything in its path like a barbarian, it was smart enough to cut the power lines and cause mayhem the next day as people will try to restore power to their customers. The entire city plunged into a blackout…but not only is having no electric a discomfort, having downed power lines is an even worse problem as kids will play in standing water…and if they do play in standing water where a power line is nearby, the kids will have the shock of their life.

“Look who decided to get some fresh air.” Trunks pointed out as Bra made her way to the two Saiyans.

“Look out, you might break a nail if you trip and fall on one of those `big rocks'.” Goten chimed, teasing both Bra's pathetic vocabulary and her sensitivity at the same time.

Both Goten and Trunks howled into laughter after Goten sarcastically said “big rocks”.

“…you do know she even spells `rocks' `r-o-x'?” Trunks asked.

“Nope…” Goten said…and they both screamed into another round of lung-crushing laughter.

Bra felt steam build up inside her again, the grudge transformed into a treacherous beast within her, the fire embedded in her mind grew stronger as thousands of gallons of gasoline were accidentally spilled into it, exploding on contact. It was exactly how she felt; explosion. As she continued watching Goten and Trunks howl at the sky like wolves, her mind began to race…she couldn't take it anymore; her cup was filled to the brim - a cup filled not with water, but with rage and discontent. Bra walked up to Goten, who was still standing on his two feet, and came face to face with him. Goten took a minute to examine Bra's face, a face etched with rage all over it - in her eyes burned the brush fire of sharp and uncontrollable anger, her mouth was closed, but Goten could see that Bra was clenching her teeth to the point where the teeth themselves were being crushed into a fine powder.

“Don't take this personally, but you do know that you need to learn more vocabulary words…and how to spell them!” Goten shouted in her face the last five words with ecstatic emotion mixed with comedy. Goten couldn't hold it any longer…after he spoke his sentence, he broke into yet another timeless laughter attack. Trunks, however, did not join Goten's laughing spree as he has never seen Bra in this emotional state before. “Usually small insults would bounce off her, and the big insults would make her mad only for a few hours. Insults such as Goten's wouldn't make her mad to the point where you could see fire burning in her eyes. I guess Goten has gone overboard; He sure has been insulting her for weeks without giving it a break.” Trunks thought to his self.

“You know what Goten?” Bra begun. Trunks scanned the area for shelter in case Bra blew her cool. “It's not good to insult people who can keep their cool for so long.” Bra continued.

“Oh no…is that all you've got? Because if it is, it would be more than I expected from a dumb jackass like you.” Goten obliviously insulted Bra again, seemingly not noticing the fire burning in her eyes now.

“A person like me can only hold their cool for so long. But once their cups have been filled to the brim, where they can't take any more water, they let it all out. For me, I've been overflowing for a long time.”

Goten didn't take this seriously, but was still intrigued by the way Bra talked.

“You are just a moron in everybody's point of view. You have no life - but you try to make one by insulting me. You still live with your mommy - you have no work, so you don't pull your own weight in your household - you just hold the Son family down. You let everyone pull your weight for you. Tell you what Goten, get a Kami-damned job, you smartass, and maybe you won't be a burden everybody has to take care of. You're just like a baby who doesn't know how to feed his own stomach, who doesn't know how to walk on his own, who doesn't know anything about the mechanics of this perfectly flawed world. A garbage man is less of a burden on their mom than you are. I bet that's the reason why Chi-Chi looks so disgusting these days. When I was age four and saw your mom for the first time, she was a beautiful woman who still looked like she was in her thirties. Now she looks like she's in her seventies. A person doesn't age from thirty to seventy that fast unless they have something that stresses the hell out of them. I'm predicting that would be you…and I am right because I can prove it. What does your mom do to compensate the burden you place on her every day? I don't even know how your parents cope with you. I don't even know how they could wake up with a smile on when you're in their household. You need to stop worrying about me because my vocabulary is fine, I get decent grades in school, and I keep my parents happy by saving money nowadays. You need to stop insulting me - it's a requirement that you start insulting yourself because you clearly suck at life.” Bra gave a speech to Goten.

Trunks gaped at his sister with so much surprise about her insults towards Goten…his jaw dropped to the glistening grass. “I didn't know she had it in her! Where and when did she learn how to diss like that?” Trunks asked his self. The aftermath of the insult left a very devastated Goten indeed. In Bra's speech's wake, Goten felt like he was reduced to nothing. How could one paragraph full of strong insults dehumanize a man like him? Goten doesn't know either. Goten took it personally…the entire speech was stuck inside his head - and it directly hit his heart like a monster typhoon heading for Tokyo. He felt like he just wanted to die on the spot right now.

“She's right - I am a burden on both the Briefs family and my family.” Goten thought. His eyes were still planted on Bra's eyes. He had a hurt and shattered look etched into his face. A comfortable, calm, peaceful breeze picked up for a few seconds and died down. Goten felt the breeze and thought he was too unworthy for even a simple breeze like this.

“Did you get everything, or do I need to repeat it again? `Cuz if you want me to, I can so that you can open your eyes to the harsh reality of this `perfect' world. Yes, everything is perfect to you in this world…it is so perfect, you don't need to do anything. Everything is unlimited to you. Everything you want is always brought to you. If it was a notch lower than you expect, you go a mile, thinking it isn't good enough for you to have…you should -“

“Stop, Bra.” Goten said, with a hurt and cracking voice. “I…I - I need to have a walk around the city.” He stammered.

Goten left immediately, leaving Capsule Corp.'s grounds. He literally ran right off the grass as if the grass itself was going to do harm to him. He didn't see the elderly woman that he was about to run into, so he kept going until he came too close to the woman for comfort. Goten stopped in his tracks and excused himself for being rude to the woman. Soon Goten was out of sight…and out of mind.

“Wow…you've really outdone yourself.” Trunks said as he saw Goten's figure running into the forest of tall buildings in the distance - into the downtown area.

“I know I've outdone myself…because if I didn't, he wouldn't have said `excuse me' to that woman he almost ran into. Instead he would have said `move out of the way, you geezer' or something like that.” Bra replied to Trunks.

Vegeta saw Trunks and Bra in the backyard and called to them, saying breakfast is ready.

“Hey! You two! Breakfast is ready…also, keep in mind to stay off the backyard until we clean it, you brats. Got it?!” Vegeta shouted.

Trunks and Bra gave Vegeta an “okay” and walked to the sliding door, which led back to the Capsule Corp. house. Vegeta noticed someone was missing from this party.

“Where's that Goten boy?” Vegeta interrogated with brute rudeness in his voice.

“He decided to take a walk around the city.” Trunks answered.

“When a city always gets struck by a storm, why does everyone abruptly become interested in seeing the destruction of the city?” Vegeta asked.

“Don't know…maybe Goten is a fan of seeing building remains.” Bra said with her cute voice.

“Fine. I guess that's more food for me.” Vegeta replied.

It was well after breakfast (like 10:00 AM) and Goten still hasn't returned. Trunks became more worried by the minute, and Bra became more intrigued at why Goten hasn't returned yet.

“Maybe I gave Goten a new perspective of the world - and he sees it as it is for the first time…maybe that's why he's taking his time to `smell the roses'.” Bra commented.

“Maybe…I just hope nothing bad has happened to him.” Trunks replied.

“What could hurt him…he's a Saiyan!” Bra exclaimed.

“You. You hurt him.” Trunks replied.

Meanwhile, Goten was leaning against one of the skyscrapers in the downtown area, staring into the sky. Unlike the last time he has done this, Goten had a face of sadness on instead of blankness. He recalled what Bra told him. It hurt him so bad - so bad he seemed to become obsessed with it. And the more he became obsessed, the more he became hurt to think he was even unworthy to exist as a person on this planet.

“I'm even unworthy to breathe the air I used to breathe.” Goten thought silently.

It seemed like the gloom of old age has come early in life for Goten. Goten sighed silently and began walking home slowly, with his head hanging. He was too deep in thoughts to become aware of the dangers of his surroundings such as rubble and downed power lines. Goten sulked his way back to Capsule Corp. He didn't want to go back, but he had to sooner or later. Bra was the biggest reason on Goten's mind as to why he should not go back. He was just a few yards away from the skyscraper he leaned on a few minutes ago when a huge truck came to town. Driving it was a drunken driver that was being chased by a dozen police cars. Goten didn't hear the sirens behind him, since he was too far deep inside his own world. The truck was going to pass him any moment anyway, so why bother, right? However, the truck had to face so many obstacles like rubble on the road for starters. Even that was a hard task to accomplish for someone who wasn't drunk because the road was so full of rubble, it was completely impossible to maneuver through the road. The truck, if you were wondering, was carrying more than a thousand gallons of gas - which poses another danger to the police had the truck slam into a skyscraper. The truck driver lost control of his truck through the obstacles and his truck tripped over a pile of rubble on the street, causing it to, you guessed it, fly in Goten's direction. A person who was on the other side of the street saw Goten in the path of the gas-filled truck.

“LOOK OUT, KID!” The person shouted.

Too late. The last thing Goten remembered was being engulfed in white light, which abruptly turned into a burning sensation. Goten was immediately obliterated and engulfed in a fireball powerful enough to melt the tar off the pavement of the road. It all happened in just a matter of seconds. Now you know that even two seconds of your life can spell life or death. The fireball was still fueled by some remaining hundreds of gallons of gasoline, which overdosed it, causing it to explode. There's no way anybody could have made it through that event alive. After every drop of fuel was burned, the police got out of their cars to inspect the damage.

“I believe the truck driver didn't survive.” A cop said.

“I thought I saw a bystander get engulfed in an explosion, who was walking on the sidewalk.”

After conversing about this “mystery man”, the police inspected the scene. Where Goten was standing was replaced by a crater large enough to fit a room in it. Some of the pavement was melted right off the road. Nothing remained of the truck and its driver. The police put a tape around the scene which said “Danger - do not enter.” A few policemen were digging through the crater to find any remains of Goten or the truck driver. What they did find, however, was Goten's presumed corpse in its entirety. No limbs were miraculously separated from the body. They hoisted Goten out of the crater for the other policemen to inspect the body. In the crater, the police returned to work and found the remains of the truck driver - which were bones.

“How odd…this dude's body is still intact, but the truck driver's body is reduced to nothing but a pile of bones.” A cop stated.

“How does that happen?”

“How do YOU happen?” A cop joked.

“Henry, this is not time for joking, you hear!?”

“Anyway, let's send this poor guy to the hospital to identify him.”

“Right, but before that, we should get the press so we can get news about this crash out as fast as it can.”

The press arrived shortly afterwards, taking pictures of Goten's body, the crater, and the bones. Reporters from several different news studios reported the same thing; an intact body, and remains of bones. Back at Capsule Corporation, Bra and Trunks were forced to watch news as Bulma wanted to watch it.

“This is News Channel Seven reporting live with Karen Sanders and Tim Malloy.”

“Mom, can we change the channel, even the intro is boring.” Bra asked with exasperation.

“Not now!”

“Today, Typhoon Grace has passed and is no longer a threat to Japan. But what is a threat is the usual; rubble, downed power lines, a few spotty tornadoes, etc. So far we have had twenty-nine…excuse me…thirty-one deaths related to the storm. Two more people have died in West City (Bra, Trunks, and Bulma gasped) today due to a car accident related to the storm. You might think `how could you get involved in a car accident when there's nobody on the road?' well, as we said before, rubble is on the road. We turn our cameras…and our attention to Julie, our reporter at the scene of the accident to get a scope on what has happened.”

“Thank you Karen. Well, as you know, two people died today, but why? Because of a police chase. What seemed to be a chase to pacify a drunken truck driver turned into a nightmare for a bystander who isn't here with us today. That bystander is an unknown man, whose body seemed to stay intact even after the fireball engulfed it - he is one of the two people who died. However, the other man - the truck driver - did not have his body intact after the crash. What is left of him, though, is bones. The truck was carrying more than a thousand gallons of gas, which helped burn the bystander's body to a crisp, well-done steak. The events are as follows: Police chase truck, truck trips on a pile of rubble, innocent bystander has no time to get out of the way, and finally gets hit by the truck, engulfed into a fireball hot enough to melt the pavement. Here is a picture of the bones of the truck driver.”

The television set shows a set of bones which once belonged to the truck driver.

“So what if you show bones, nobody cares unless those bones bonk you on the head.” Trunks said with a bland sense of humor.

“And this is a picture of the innocent bystander who was killed in the crash.”

The television set showed a picture of a man - a man who definitely looked like Goten. Goten's face suffered a few first-degree burns, his clothes were tattered, and a few of his limbs were bent the wrong way. One of his arms was dislocated as well. Despite the grotesque feature, you could clearly tell the corpse belonged to Goten due to the way the hair was styled. Wait a minute, it IS Goten! Bulma, though sparingly does it, fainted. Trunks dropped the spoon he was eating yogurt with. Bra, on the other hand, stared at the TV set as if it was teasing her…or lying to her. She couldn't believe Goten was dead. If it weren't for her, Goten wouldn't have taken the walk through downtown and would have been safe at Capsule Corp.

“…The body of the bystander will be sent to Satan Memorial Hospital, where he will be examined. Back to you, Karen.”

“Thank you, Julie. In other news…”

Bulma, Trunks, and Bra stared at the TV for another few moments…believing or not believing in what they've just seen.

“That…was Goten, wasn't it guys?” Bulma asked Trunks and Bra.

“It sure looked like him.” Trunks said, still shocked at the news.

“This is a big-screen TV. I swear it was Goten!” Bulma said.

“What was Goten?” Vegeta asked, coming from the shower.

“Goten is dead because a truck crashed into him while he was taking a walk.” Bulma answered.

“Hm.” Vegeta replied. He didn't know what to feel, since he didn't really care about Goten. But it was a Saiyan he was talking about - one of his lot.

Bulma and Vegeta began a discussion about how Goten died and why. Bra stayed out of it and kept on the couch. Trunks got up and went to his room to mourn.

 

 

 

Disclaimer & Footnotes

* - Reference to real-world items; I do not own any of these, along with Dragon Ball in its entirety.