Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dragonball Infinity ❯ Chapter Thirteen: Fallen Embers ( Chapter 13 )

Vegeta's heart stopped as he watched her head smash into the wall, the dull thud of her body hitting the floor resonating through the ship. He suppressed a shudder, and waited for her to rise again. Yet she did not, and though he knew her to not be dead, Vegeta still felt his beat skipping heart sink.

The Icejin said with a light laugh, "What's wrong ... King Vegeta?"

"Shut up," he said woodenly. If she's ... if she was ... would that kill it? Is it all right?

"You look so shocked though," Kooler said, and walked over to Kakarotto's prone body. "Shocked to see her alive maybe? Or did you just lie to me?"

Hesitant, Vegeta reached out in his mind, Kakarotto?

"My king?" Paragus spoke up cautiously when Vegeta appeared to not want to answer.

"I just said to shut up," he murmured. "That means you too, Paragus."

"But, my lord-"

Vegeta swung first, without thinking, and backhanded the man away from him.

"Shut ... up ..." the Saiyajin didn't look back as he strode to Kooler who had been about to lift up Kakarotto - his purple hand already grasping the loose back of her shirt, like handling the loose skin of a tiny kitten. "And you. Stay away from her."

Kooler began to smirk, "I was only going to get rid of one monkey today, but I don't mind killing five." He picked her up regardless of his threatening glare, and glanced out a porthole of the ship. "Perhaps there is a planet near by so that we may duke this out properly. What do you think, Saiyajin?"

"That would suit me just fine," Vegeta said, hearing Paragus finally rise with a soft groan.

"Ah," Kooler then exclaimed, "there seems to be a planet right over there." He turned to one of the men who had followed him in, "Go see if our monkey friends can breathe on it."

Gokuu groaned softly, and then sat up slowly while clutching to her aching skull. It was a dull pain, so she knew that she could endure it, but it was still pain.

Cracking her eyes open, she began to notice that the ground beneath her was shaking. Almost like an earthquake, but more uneven feeling - it was as if the ground was crumbling inward right under her feet. After a moment, she realized that her right leg was buried to the knee in the ground. The ground looked like it was made up of a bunch of crumbling rocks that were alive, and would not cease shifting and grinding. Son Gokuu was slowly sinking!

Hurriedly, she pulled out her leg, and lurched to her feet, but then felt lightheaded after. Taking a deep breath, she found herself grasping for more air only a few moments later. The air was too thin for her to breathe!

Eyes darting around at her surroundings just as things started to spin, she caught sight of a plastic mouth starting to become buried into the moving sands and rocks. It looked like the lower half of a gas mask that she saw in old war pictures. Taking a chance, Gokuu dove for it, and put it on after shaking it clean quickly.

Air – stale, but still air – was sucked into her lungs when she inhaled, and she smiled lightly in relief.

When she had her breathing under control, she took the mask off to get a better look at it, and realized that the strap was broken. Perhaps, someone had put it on her, and it broke. She took another breath from the mask, and then tied the strap back together before looping it around her head so that the mask could remain on her face without the help of her hands.

Gokuu studied her surroundings again. Since she wasn't worried about breathing anymore, she began to ponder over what had just happened, and why she was where she was.

I saw Vegeta-kun ... but was it just a dream? But then why am I in this place? Her eyes widened in shock, What is this place?

There was no sky. Just a blanket of stars and a white sun which cast out dim light onto the gray rock in a soft black and white sunrise. If she were to hold out her fist at arm's length, her fist would be about the size of the sun and the resulting rays around it which would not stop moving.

The lack of sky, however, was not a clear, beautiful, picturesque painting. The night - or possibly late day - sky was littered not with just stars, but debris of all sorts. Gokuu could see the glitter of gold-, bronze-, and silver-colored metals floating high in space, and pieces of what appeared to be gargantuan rocks with smaller rock fragment infused with it all. In a continuous stream, a few would slowly fall to the ground before starting to burn brightly as they fell faster, and then impacted into the ground.

That was, if they did not burn away into nothing

Swallowing hard, she listened to the crashing meteorites. After a moment, she heard something which sounded much more familiar to her ears, and she looked back over her shoulder to see the dancing lights of energy being traded back and forth. Her jaw would have dropped if it weren't for the constricting mask, but her mouth did part in a bit of awe.

It was Vegeta's golden energy from his Super Saiyajin form.

Gokuu watched the fight a bit longer, trying to determine just what was happening. Vegeta seemed desperate - attacking his assailant with a fervor that she could not rightly read from her vantage point. Flying over quickly, he and his opponent became larger and larger, so that when she was close enough to really see the fighters, she stopped in shock.

Is that Freeza? It can't be. Freeza's dead!

His body was scorched. Not all over though. His hands stung - dry - even under his white gloves, and his face felt like someone had scraped a star against the right side of it, and he knew that there was a trail of blood dripping from a wound just above his eyebrow. It was not the only one.

An abrasion along his shoulder itched like mad, and was likely already starting to become infected from all of his wrestling with Kooler and his intimacy with the ground.

A newer, charred wound across his back aggravated him with every twist and turn of his torso. Even his arms stretching out for a punch or dealing energy blasts to Kooler made Vegeta want to cringe. However, he persisted through the pain for it was inconsequential and meant nothing when he had sustained much worse. He had felt more pain when Freeza had killed him. Thus, he fought on.

Besides, he was still unsure as to whether Kakarotto was with his child or not.

He had to live to know the answer.

Panting hard, the Saiyajin male watched as the newly transformed Kooler chuckled darkly behind the visor over his mouth, "You look like you've seen better days, my King."

"Actually, I was just thinking that I've seen worse. Your little brother was not as gentle as you."

The dark red eyes narrowed dangerously, and he said, "You'll be begging for my brother to beat you before I'm through with you."

It was Vegeta's turn to laugh at that, "Go ahead; make my day!"

He shouted, and Kooler threw a barrage of yellow energy blasts after Vegeta felt his energy skyrocket. Grimacing, Vegeta crossed his arms in front of his face to defend himself, the balls hitting his crossed arms, and repelled easily, but the intense heat from the attacks couldn't be avoided as easily.

There was always heat in battle - from the warmth of another body to the searing waves of energy. Heat ruled in combat, and Vegeta fought the heat.

Before the dust could settle, Vegeta charged through it, bringing his fists upon Kooler's unprotected stomach. The Icejin grunted, and came to his own defense, making Vegeta try to settle the fist match which resulted. His opponent was fast, however he was confidant that Kooler’s speed was nothing compared to his own. Vegeta knew it to be a fact actually.

Yet, speed wasn't everything - just as strength wasn't.

For the moment – in the midst of the flying punches – it was what he needed. An abrupt uppercut to Kooler's chin caused the Icejin to fly back a meter or so, allowing Vegeta to backpedal for some time. Vegeta's elbows bent back at either sides of his torso, gathering energy into his hands, and then he shot his fists forward to join them together before a beam of white-hot energy erupted into Kooler's face.

Watching with grim apprehension as the beam engulfed the reptilian creature, he spit at the ground when the beam disappeared with Kooler still alive - if not annoyed, and battered.

"That hurt, monkey king," said Kooler, and he raised his hand up to blast a larger orange energy ball at him.

Bringing a thin layer of energy to his hand, Vegeta knocked it back, and then followed it quickly. When the blast smacked into Kooler, he didn't wait for the resulting heat wave and smoke to settle. Vegeta dove into the acrid smell of burnt flesh, and brought both fists down onto his back.

Crying out in surprise, Kooler spun around as he fell, and screamed as he shot a red beam from his finger toward Vegeta's chest.

After attempting to dodge, Vegeta felt the singing heat before the pain became apparent, and he spun away, groaning as he clutched his shoulder.

Slowly dropping to stand on what looked like a solid rock, Vegeta gazed up at him with narrowed eyes, assessing the situation. A charge in his condition would wear him down faster - especially if the charge was energy based - so he opted to stick where he was to wait for his attack instead.

Adjusting the breathing mask on his face, Vegeta took a deep breath to make sure that he wouldn't faint from blood loss.

This planet ... the one that Kooler had pointed out to - it wasn't a true planet in the sense of the word. In actuality, it was a collection of asteroids all crammed together by the force of gravity.

Upon destroying planets, those sent on purging missions were required to inform the base of the action so that a special team could come in and clean up the mess. Any nuclear leftovers were swept clean, and then a simple machine was left behind. It's only function was to spin - to spin millions of kilometers an hour. The resulting pull of this spinning machine would attract what was left of the annihilated planet around it.

Selling, destroying ... and creating worlds had been Freeza's family's business.

From what Vegeta had gathered about this certain lump of rocks was that it was near to two thousand and five hundred years in the making. The fact that it had an atmosphere after so little time was astounding. The maker of this planet was unknown, as was the technology used to help create it, but it was surely developed by a mastermind. No other planet was known to have developed an atmosphere that early.

A brilliant array of colors then flashed on the horizon, and, startled, Vegeta turned to look at the source.

The white sun of this system had found a prism of sorts from all of the metal. From his vantage point, the sun's white rays became scarlet, gold, indigo - the whole rainbow glimmered from the sun, lighting up the dull, gray, young morning.

Kakarotto would love this ... the thought came unbidden, and he didn't think odd of it.

"Vegeta, watch out!" A familiar voice shouted, startling him into action.

Leaping into the air, he dodged the first blast, and then fell because of the next, groaning as his charred back scraped up hard against a pile of sharp stones. He looked upwards, only to see Kooler who had started a course for him. With a cry, Kakarotto slammed her fists into Kooler's back, causing him to smash into the ground with such force that he was buried into the swirling, grinding rocks.

She settled onto the moving ground, glowering at the swirling mass of rocks that Kooler was still inside of, and Vegeta heaved himself to his feet. Landing in front of the girl, he grabbed her shoulders, looking her over carefully.

"Vegeta, what's going on? Was that Freeza?"

She looked just fine, "Just stay out of this. He wants to kill you."

Her lips turned down into a pout, and he felt like kissing them, "Don't do this. You know I can fight too."

"Yes, but you don't need to."

"What?" Her pout disappeared gradually, and her head tilted to the side. "But why?"

"Just let me fight, Kakarotto." If anything happens to anything in there ...

Kooler erupted from the ground in a spray of gray rocks, and snarled, "It's certainly charming how you're protecting her, King Vegeta, but this little game has gone on long enough. It’s about time that I finally kill you both!"

Kakarotto looked up at them, and seemed about to protest before Vegeta covered her mouth, "For once, stay out of my fights."

"... For once," she said.

As the Icejin started to power up again, Vegeta watched the lights from his swirling, rising energy dance over her round face, and then he faced away from her, "Now get out of here."

"I missed you, Vegeta," she said. "Don't make me miss you more."

With that said, the Saiyajin female flew away to a safe distance. Feeling better that Kakarotto was letting him do this, Vegeta charged his own energy up, the golden lights crackling over his frame, and he felt the surge rush through his veins as it always did. And the heat was there.

Suddenly, Kooler shot up into the sky, raising a finger into the air, and a Death Ball grew rapidly atop it, "I'll just get rid of you all in one shot – no use playing the fool. I've heard of Saiyajin males protecting their females, and I've heard what happens when the male is done mauling the attacker. It's not a pretty sight."

Grimacing, he powered up further, trying to control all of the energy swelling inside. When the Death Ball was thrown, Vegeta braced himself for the impact. Though it was still a ways away from him, he could feel its baking mass come closer, and when he caught it, his hands felt as if they were on fire. Grappling with the great energy ball, Vegeta grunted while attempting to press it back – the trick was to use his strength to push it away enough so that he could prepare a retaliatory energy blast to send it all the way back.

He had to keep Kakarotto and their child safe!

To let out all of the pressure building inside of him due to the amount of exertion used for pushing it slowly back, the male Saiyajin screamed. Vegeta charged an energy beam when he knew it to be far enough away, and shot the Death Ball, "Final Flash!"

The change in its course was immediate. As he kept his powerful beam pumped with pure energy, the Icejin was too shocked to move. Or maybe he didn't know how hard it was to block something of that size when one didn't have something to brace back against. Vegeta had learned that the hard way in his first battle with Kakarotto.

Kooler was hit by both explosions of energy with such force that Vegeta got to watch him and the energies disappear into the white sun.

Gokuu smiled as she tapped on the tank glass, and waved to the man who was floating ... naked inside. He gazed back – partly amused, yet annoyed. She splayed her fingers out to outline his figure, smiling brighter as he stiffened when she traced over his penis through the glass. Scowling, he lifted his arms up in the green substance, and mimicked twisting her nipples, making Gokuu flush a red hue.

She stopped her teasing with a grin.

Dropping the arm that had the wounded shoulder, he placed the other hand against the glass that was up to her waist level. She put her hand over the glass between them where his would was, but Vegeta shook his head, and then began to point at her waist.

"Huh? What is it?"

... Are you pregnant?

Her jaw dropped, and she covered her mouth in surprise, "You can-?"

Don't say anything. Just nod or shake your head.

I was with you

And ... another Enya song. I was going to do this other song that dealt more with fighting, but I changed my mind. I do that a lot when I'm picking out songs.

XP I didn't even realize that I had done a cliffhanger in that last chapter, and here's another one! Course, she just might not even know ... hell, I don't know yet.

From FanFiction:

FireFly: And ... here's another update! XP Thanks for a review!

Kohaku Hoshi: No! My Burori! ... Oh, broccoli ... that's mine too.

Malimillions: XP Thought you'd like that. You'll see them all again next chapter!

From MediaMiner:

WEEEE: *scratches head* Never heard of a cliffhanger before, have you? And you get to find out if Gokuu-girlie wakes up or not in this chapter, so what's the matter? Anyway, thank you for the review!