Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Beneath the Surface ❯ Scratching the Surface ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter 4: Scratching the Surface

Trunks spent over two hours pecking away meticulously at the tiny keyboard linked to the gigantic screen before he made his discovery. Goten sat back and watched, getting bored at times, drifting off to the monotonic clicking of the keys as Trunks fiercely tried to come up with something useful. After about 30 minutes, the screen suddenly turned dark in contrast to the brightness of the previous background. This automatically awoke Goten and he realized once his eyes were focused, that he was gazing into deep space.

"Wow Trunks what did you do?" Goten asked as he gawked at the awesome site.

"The satellite has a camera on it," Trunks answered. "It took me a while but I just now figured out how to turn it on." Trunks gave Goten a sheepish smile then went back to work.

"So what are you doin now," Goten asked.

"Gonna see if we can possibly get a glimpse of anything that might resemble a probe and see if it emits a signal. If so then I'll try to tap into it."

"Cool."

Trunks entered a command for the camera to begin searching a wide radius of space . As the screen changed pictures, Trunks and Goten studied it intently to see if they could catch something, anything, that looked out of place. Once the camera appeared to have scanned the entire region, Trunks sent the satellite into orbit to see if they could catch anything from further off. Twenty minutes had elapsed before Goten detected a probe that was definitely not anything the Earth had sent out.

"There, you see it," Goten exclaimed, as he jumped off the table and pointed radically to the upper left hand corner of the screen.

"Where," Trunks said, squinting to see what had appeared to Goten.

"Does your camera have a zoom, up there, zoom in up there," Goten said in a rush.

Trunks keyed in the command for the camera to zoom in on the strange probe floating amongst machinery much unlike its own. It was made of an orange metallic material, and in the shape of a water molecule, one big sphere in the middle and two smaller spheres off to the side connected to the larger by some cables. "Oh my god," Trunks exclaimed once he brought the camera in focus, "what the hell was this guy thinking!" The probe looked plain ridiculous.

"Ha ha ha," Goten laughed, falling into the floor, overtaken with snorts and giggles.

"Well that is definitely what we were looking for," Trunks said. "No way in hell anyone from Earth made that." Trunks guided the small satellite closer towards the alien probe until it started detecting a signal being relayed. Trunks positioned Bulma's satellite to intercept the information, but for about five minutes, nothing happened. Goten looked up in confusion, knowing that something was supposed to take place, and Trunks just looked on in disbelief. I've done everything I know to do, he thought to himself. Is this thing malfunctioning?

Then, all of a sudden, the screen was bombarded with foreign characters and several photos, one right after the other. The screen was filling up so fast Trunks thought the computer might explode! "Oh shit!" he yelled, not sure if he should run for cover or not.

"Make it stop Trunks!" Goten yelled back. He too was wondering if the computer could handle the over load.

"I don't know HOW!" Trunks exclaimed. He wanted to go over to the keyboard and play around with it to see if he could miraculously come up with something to stop the machine from frying, but he was frozen in fear and apprehensive about the thing blowing up in his face. As Trunks was getting ready to hide under the table and wish for death since his mother would murder him for breaking her computer and possibly her satellite, the massive load of characters on the screen began to slow down. "It's slowing down," Trunks said with a sigh of relief. Goten was already under the table, and hesitantly poked his head out to have a peek.

"What is that stuff Trunks?" Goten asked as he noticed that the only thing he recognized on the screen were the few pictures. Everything else looked like a foreign script.

"Well shit," Trunks said when he realized that the characters were indeed letters from some sort of alien alphabet. "Its their language Goten, I hadn't counted on the information coming back in their language." Trunks sighed and leaned against the table. This was no good, he couldn't read what appeared on the screen so it was totally useless.

"What are those pictures of Trunks?" Goten asked, finally easing himself from up under the table and studying the photos that appeared on the screen. "Scroll down, there were some before those too, what are they?"

"I don't know, lets see," Trunks replied. There were indeed several photographs of several different places around the world. They were of large spaces too, not just a house or a neighborhood, whole towns and cities. It didn't really make much sense. Each picture also had small writing in the bottom right-hand corner, but of course it was foreign to them so not much help. "Just looks like random cities to me Goten, maybe they were planning on attacking them?"

"Too bad we can't really tell where they are huh," Goten replied glumly. "And it really sucks that we can't read that stuff the satellite sent back to us…"

"Maybe…we can," Trunks slowly said, appearing to have an idea brewing in his head. Goten just stared at Trunks, wondering what he could possibly do to make those characters legible. "I can position my mom's satellite in front of this orange piece of junk, and change the direction of the initial signal, reverse it I mean. If I do that, then that means that I will be in control of the issuing signal, then I can change the language to ours and receive their signal in our language!"

"What in the hell!" Goten exclaimed. "You sure it will work?"

"Its worth a shot, because if it doesn't then this whole thing was worthless." Trunks followed through on his plan, and in about 45 minutes, it appeared to be working. Soon they were receiving words they could comprehend, but hardly any of it was good news.

"Oh my God," Goten gasped as he absorbed the dismal info. "This is bad Trunks…"

*****

"They are shape-shifters Mom," Trunks said, relaying his story to Bulma. "We tapped into their database and it pretty much gave us the sequence of their mission. These Jepidians have the ability to assume the shape of any living thing, and generate the same level of ki as whatever they turn into so that they can't be sniffed out. According to the information we got, there is a ship with about 1500 of those creatures headed our way, with orders to just assume a human shape and make homes here. So the ship we got our information from is not the mother ship after all, its one of the smaller ships. The space probe we found also relays messages back and forth from the Jepidians already stationed here to that ship and the mother ship which still seems to be years away."

"Wow," Bulma gasped, not really knowing what to make of the whole situation. "Hold on Trunks," she said as she switched the phone over to speaker phone so that everyone that had crowded around her desperately wanting to know what was being said could hear. "Ok now continue on honey."

"As I was saying," Trunks began, "the mother ship isn't anywhere close, but according to their records, they sent out a fleet that supposedly arrived here about 18 months ago. The photographs that we have here are of the places that these beings scattered and settled to, the dates on the photos are how we know how long ago it was. They seem to only have photo's of their fleet from 18 months ago, but there is information here on ships that landed here about a year ago and six months ago. I think this probe specifically monitors the Jepidians from the fleet that landed 18 months ago. There are probably other probes around the Earth's orbit that relay information between the other groups. No info on where the latter groups are located though. This new ship is due to arrive anytime now, they seem to be making six month intervals.

"This is Iriyoku's army stationing themselves here, they were all looking for the kids of course, and they have finally located all of them. A special ship is due to arrive right after the new flood of immigrant, that is lightning fast and has a special army that will capture the kids and take them back to the mother ship for their two year training and whatever other experimentation Iriyoku had in mind for them. Once the kids were taken back though, Iriyoku would keep sending waves of his army here to disguise themselves until he arrives and come straight for us. But he was gonna sneak up on us, seeing as he can shape shift too and we wouldn't have suspected a thing until they struck. He actually wants to force us to become part of his army and help him gain control over other planets, and of course if we refused we would be destroyed."

"Why would Iriyoku want his troops landing here and not really doing anything?" Bulma inquired.

"I think," Trunks answered, "its because once Iriyoku had gotten us to side with him, or defeated us, he was going to carry out his plan to try and take over the Earth. He would already have his armies strategically placed in various areas to control rebellions and other acts against him. In the end he always gains control, but sometimes it costs lives for those who are unwilling to succumb to his power."

"Good grief…" Krillin whispered.

"You say you know where the kids are?" Piccolo asked, frightening Trunks for a brief moment since he wasn't aware that he was on speaker phone.

"Uh-um-yeah," Trunks stuttered. "Yeah we have some photos here with different labels, they say Child one, Child two, and Child three, and where they were located six months ago. They are the only half way recent photos we have here. They could have moved since then, just no photos of where they might have re-located, and I haven't come across any data that contradicts what I already have."

"Well that's good news, at least we know where to look," Goku said. "That cuts down a lot of time."

"Do you have any information on whether this special ship that is supposed to take the kids away has arrived yet Boy?" Vegeta huffed.

Trunks winced and quickly brushed it off, but not before Goten noticed. "No, I don't."

"Well that isn't helping us much, they could already be here, and gone before we even get a chance," Vegeta replied coldly.

Bulma sighed loudly, and gave Vegeta cold gaze in return. Why can't you just give him a chance Vegeta, Bulma thought to herself. He is really trying to help and all you can do is complain. Jerk…

"Well Vegeta does have a point," Piccolo replied. "All we know is that they are due to arrive anytime. Anytime could have been yesterday, or could be next week, though I think we would have sensed the activity if it had already occurred. I don't think they would have just walked off the planet with those kids, not without a struggle or fight, which would raise ki that we would have noticed."

"Well how come Dende hasn't said shit about any of this!" Vegeta barked. "I mean, don't you think its strange that these creatures have been landing on this planet for over a year and Dende hasn't even peeped a word about it to us?"

"Since when does Dende willingly just tell us things?" Piccolo asked calmly, though slightly agitated at the little respect Vegeta showed for the guardian of the Earth. "When we get information from Dende, it's usually us that go to his lookout to seek it. Since we haven't noticed anything strange lately, we wouldn't have a reason to go there."

"But their ki output would have been weak since the kids don't train," Gohan protested. "We could have still missed it."

"I don't know Gohan," Krillin supplied. "When you were just a wee kid you were pretty weak to begin with, but when you got scared or upset your ki soared. If some stranger just shows up and tries to kidnap one of them, I'm pretty sure it would bring out a surge of hidden energy, and we would feel it."

"Good point Krillin," Piccolo said. Gohan nodded in agreement.

"So are we agreeing that they are still here?" Tien asked.

"Yes, unless of course these guys are tactful and drugged 'em before they dragged 'em off," Yamcha said. He got an audience of blank stares. "Hey it could happen," he said uneasily.

"Well he has a point," Tien replied. "I hadn't thought of that."

"Though it's possible, its highly unlikely," Piccolo answered. "I'm sure King Kai would have notified Goku if anything like that had happened."

"We can still wait until tomorrow to go after them then," Goku concluded. "Piccolo is right, I'm sure King Kai would have told me if they were already gone. But now it won't take nearly as much time to find them."

"So should we stay in our groups?" Krillin questioned. "We don't really need four groups anymore…"

"Hmm, hadn't thought about that," Goku answered, scratching his head.

"You wouldn't," Vegeta replied with a sneer. Goku was taken aback by Vegeta's rude comment. Chichi looked and matched Bulma's glare at Vegeta. No matter what, Vegeta was not going to make this easy for anyone, not even his own son.

"Well whatever we decide," Gohan piped up, "we need to figure out what we are actually going to say to these guys. I mean, what, we're gonna just fly up to one of them and say 'hey kid, Lord Iriyoku from Planet Jepido found out that your father was the Legendary Super Saiyajin and that you are extremely strong. He wants to take over the whole galaxy and is coming to kidnap you and force you to fight for him. If you come with us you can help us save the world.' It's too far-fetched, I don't think they are gonna buy it."

"Well," Goku sighed, "well if we mention the Majin that Iriyoku is going to use on them, then that might convince them. They remember Buu…oh wait, they don't remember…"

"These kids are kinda young too," Tien added. "Its not them we have to convince, its their parents." Silence. No one had thought of that either.

"Well all we can do is tell them the truth," Piccolo finally said. "They are coming with us regardless, and that's that. It's us or Iriyoku, and I'll be damned if we just walk away from them and let Iriyoku whisk them away because their parents said no." Everyone seemed to agree with Piccolo. "But since we know their exact locations, it would probably be best if we all traveled together instead. If all of us show up with this story it might make it more believable. We do need to be as peaceful as possible about this. I'd rather use force as a last resort, but hopefully it won't be needed."

"Sounds like a plan," Goku agreed.

Before each member retired for the evening, it was decided that everyone would meet back at Master Roshi's the following morning before taking flight on their mission to save Planet Earth yet again. Everyone left, forgetting that Trunks and Goten were still on the phone. They eventually hung up.

*****

She was in a void. Total darkness, she couldn't see, nor hear, or feel anything. It was the kind of stillness that was so frightening, it was sickening. She concentrated hard, trying to sense any sort of movement, or adjust her eyes to the darkness. Nothing, nothing was happening. She just, was. This wasn't right. She tried to move, but her feet did not appear to be touching the ground, and she couldn't feel her body. 'What the fuck!' she thought to herself, panicking. 'Am I dead?' Tears began to well up in her eyes and brim over the tiny lashes decorating her fearful eyes. A tingling sensation, fear, began to creep up her spine. It was cold. She could see her breath in front of her. 'I can see,' she thought to herself. 'Maybe I'm not dead.' Up ahead of her was a spark of dim light. Instinct told her to go to it so she began to run towards it, her escape from this abyss of nothingness, what was this? She couldn't shake the feeling that something eerie was lurking in the unknown dark, pursuing her, chasing her, waiting to pounce on her. No matter how fast she ran, the dim light did not seem to be getting any closer, but "it" seemed to be very near. She did not tire from running either, but it seemed she had been running for quite awhile before she realized she wasn't making any progress.

'What…' she thought to herself. 'What am I supposed to do?' She stopped running. As soon as she stopped the vague patch of light ahead of her suddenly zoomed closer at lightning speed. Before she knew it, she was back home, in her tiny living room, laying on the couch. 'Ah it was just a dream,' she thought to herself. 'What kind of fucked up dream is that though?' She sat up on the sadly disfigured couch her mother got on sale at a flea market. She casually grabbed the remote control that was always on the arm rest of the dismal piece of furniture and pressed the power button. Nothing, just blackness. 'What in the world,' she pondered, agitated that things just didn't seem to be working around here. She got up and circled around the television set, looking for signs as to why this piece of shit wasn't obeying her command to come on. Everything seemed to be in order, and it was plugged in. She re-inserted the plug into a different socket incase the prior one had blown a fuse. Still no juice. "Hmph," she grunted, angrily yanking the plug from the outlet. That's when the TV decided to come on. 'Great,' she thought to herself as she slowly made her way to the abnormal device. 'I just had to fall into the Twilight Zone.'

She positioned herself in front of the television screen and was greeted by the agonizing face of her mother. "Mom!" she screamed wildly, grasping the TV. "Mom what's wrong?" No reply, only shrieks of terror and screams of pain. Suddenly, she was there, with her mother, within arm's length. Everything was red, the floor, the sky, if it was a sky. It was hazy, blurry, but she could see her mother clearly in front of her. 'Mom,' she cried out, 'what's wrong?' Then she saw them, large cuts and tears in her mother's beautiful skin. They kept appearing as if some invisible force was slashing away at her mother with a butcher's knife. "STOP IT!!!!" she screamed, reaching out for her mother, wanting nothing more than to ease her pain. But as she reached out, her mother was pulled away from her, out of reach. She then saw them, the monsters that were brutally torturing her mother for some nameless crime. She couldn't see their faces, but they were leading her away, taking jabs at her body with their cruel instruments whenever they could. They were disappearing in the scarlet haze, when she noticed that her efforts to run to her mother and save her were again hindered by some unknown force. She put all of her strength and will into trying to run, but to no avail. The screams of her mother were still loud, but fading and she just remained in her position, trying to run like a fool but getting no where. "Mommy!!" she cried out in pain, in fear, in angst. "Mommy!!"

She then noticed hands on her arms, holding her. So that was it, these things were invisible, holding her down. "Let go of me!!" she roared, trying with all her might to break free of the death grip they had on her. She just remained, listening to the dreadful and heart-wrenching screams her mother was creating. Her mother was everything to her, they only had each other. There was no one else after her mother. She could do nothing, nothing to save her mother from this cruel punishment. Death seemed to be the only thing on the menu. Death was so unfair, her mother did not deserve this. She could no longer hear her mother. Was she dead, or just out of range? No matter, she going to die anyway. She felt empty inside, then she noticed that she was blacking out. No, they were shoving her into a hole, a black hole. She tried to struggle, but yet again, they held her down easily, how could she be so weak! She watched helplessly as they pushed her inside of yet another abyss, or maybe it was the same one. She had watched helplessly as they murdered her mother. What was it like to have your life taken away? What was her mother thinking of before she drew her last breath? What's it like…she could never imagine. Death was so unfair…she looked up to see the same dim light that she had seen earlier. She was back where she started, it was cold, but the light was fading away into nothingness. Back in darkness, not feeling, not hearing, not seeing. She screamed, for herself, for her mother, she screamed. She had numerous emotions running through her mind, she couldn't grasp any of them, they just kept jutting back and forth, pain, anger, sorrow, grief… She couldn't even hear her screaming, she wasn't totally sure if she was screaming but it felt like it. She then wasn't even sure she felt it, she was so alone…..screaming in the dark…where no one could hear…

She awoke with a start. She had gone off the side of her bed and bumped her head on the corner of the nightstand located right next it. She already had a headache from earlier, but it appeared to be dissipating, despite bumping her head. She still couldn't see straight and her stomach was queasy. Great, she thought to herself. Dunno if I'll make it to the bathroom this time…

Her vision being unclear, she felt her way around the rather small room, in the direction of the door leading to the narrow hallway. She couldn't quite remember the dream she had just had, but she was sweating profusely and breathing heavily, her stomach was slowly recovering from the butterflies that had gathered in the middle, yet it was also growing sicker. Whatever happened, it had scared the shit out of her. Clumsily, she felt the door in front of her and reached up to the knob. Using the knob she slowly dragged her body into a sloppy upright position, the door groaning at the excessive force being applied to it, already weak from previous fits of sleep. Once she was up, she hesitantly took a step forward, as if she were an infant uncertainly taking its first steps. She still couldn't see good, her headache was going away, but it was still throbbing as if there was nothing else in the world but headaches.

Mom, she thought, hazily remembering the horrifying nightmare she had just awakened from. I have to make sure she's alright. She had falsely thought she was out of the dream before, it would only make sense if she was still in it, awaiting more torture. But her mother's room was further away than the bathroom, she may not have the time to take a peek then go to the bathroom. She really had to throw up. As her focus began to clear, she made out that her mother's door was slightly cracked. Just a peek, she thought to herself. Just to make sure she's…her stomach heaved. It would have to wait.

She had finally made it to the bathroom. The door was closed so she leaned on it rest a bit, it had seemed to take a lot of energy just to make a 30ft trek from her room to the bathroom. Unfortunately, the door was not fully closed so when she placed all of her weight on the door it gave way. She already didn't have proper balance so she gave way with it, landing with a sickening thud on her back, knocking the wind out of her and starting yet another headache in the back of her head to accompany the one raging in her temples.

She lay on her back for about five minutes, dazed and unable to move a muscle. She wasn't quite sure where she was. She just stared at the light fixture on the ceiling, slowly re-gathering her senses. Everything was so white…her stomach heaved again. Oh yeah, I'm sick, she thought as she rolled over onto her belly. She looked up and saw the bathroom sink just above her head, realizing that she had narrowly missed it when she fell. The toilet was only inches away so she crawled towards it like a helpless baby, her throat tightening as it prepared. She almost didn't make it on time as the vomit refused to stay down any longer. Well there goes dinner, and probably lunch too, she thought to herself. Just means I'll be extra hungry in the morning. Mom hates that.

Her body was trembling when she finished. She was freezing, and the cold sweat that was clinging her nightgown to her body wasn't helping. She felt a lot better after she puked though, so she slowly brought her body to its upright position. She walked feebly over to the sink, and without so much as a glance in the mirror, turned on the hot water. Once the water heated up she began splashing it on her face in an attempt to warm up. It wasn't working though, she was shivering uncontrollably now and on the verge of getting sick again, with a flaming headache to top it off. She made way for the shower and turned it on, waiting for the water to warm up before she hopped in. Once the water reached a suitable temperature, she hauled herself into the tub and sank in the bottom, letting the hot water run over her body, nightgown and all. Once the shivering stopped, she curled herself into a small ball and cried. Memories of the horrific nightmare were swimming in her mind. What irked her the most was her inability to save her mother, or herself. She seemed to have no power whatsoever, it was devastating. She dreaded the day when this dream would turn into reality and someone would come and strip her mother out of her life. She knew it was coming, she didn't know why or how, but she knew. She kept having varied versions of this nightmare, though the latest one was on the top of her worst nightmare list.

Something bad was bound to happen since she kept having this nightmare right? Maybe not, she hoped not, but deep down she knew something was amiss. This was the third time in two years that she had had a dream this scary. She had nightmares continuously, but every once in a while it seemed that they flared up into dreams of this measure. She uncurled her body and reached for the handle to turn the water off. She had stopped trembling but now she was soak and wet. She hadn't actually realized she had climbed into the shower with her clothes on. Plus her hair was extremely long and thick, it wouldn't be dry by the morning and it would take over an hour to blow dry right this minute so she would more than likely have the sniffles when she woke up the next morning. Stupid, she chastised herself. She had most of her strength back now so she easily climbed out of the tub and made her way to her room to change.

Once she had replaced her sleeping clothes, she made way for her mother's room. There was no way she was sleeping alone tonight after that. She knew she was too old for this, but she couldn't help it. She was quite relieved when she saw her mother sleeping peacefully as she was supposed to be when she entered her room. She crawled under the covers on the empty side of the bed and was fast asleep in a matter of minutes. No matter what happened, she always felt safe in the presence of her mother, even after that awful dream, even when she knew that she and her mother were powerless to stop anything that might endanger them.

Author's note: I have virtually no knowledge about how satellite's operate, but seeing as the DBZ world is far more technologically advanced than the real world, it could happen that way ;)