----Forwarded---- Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime.stories Path: news2!newshub!news.sprintlink.net!news.neca.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.math.psu. edu!psuvax1!news.cc.swarthmore.edu!netnews.upenn.edu!dsinc!newsfeed.pitt.edu!ga tech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!world!megazone From: nkjem@aol.com (NKJem) Subject: DBZ: The Last Warrior Pt. 9 [Fanfic] Message-ID: <4ib4fp$6lk@newsbf02.news.aol.com> Followup-To: poster X-World-Archive: Dragon-Ball/Last-Warrior/db.the-last-warrior.9.gz Sender: megazone@world.std.com (MegaZone) Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364) Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 05:11:08 GMT Approved: megazone@world.std.com Lines: 438 While Shiatar is playing "I Spy," Trunks is wrestling with some issues of his own. And Bulma begins to make her own plans . . . Once again, drop me a line, love it or hate it. Arigato gozaimasu! =) NKJem Dragonball Z: The Last Warrior Episode 9 TRUNKS-SENSEI?! WILL HE MAKE HIS CHOICE? Trunks' mother stared at him in the wake of Shiatar's departure from the lab. "Is she serious, or just pretending to be unconcerned about this?" Trunks stared after Shiatar, shaking his head. "I don't know her well enough to read her. But I think she's a lot more bothered by this whole situation than she's letting on." He sighed, and reached up to brush a stray strand of hair from his eyes. "For that matter, there's a lot more going on inside of her than I can guess at. She's not exactly the transparent type." "Hmmm. Maybe we are overreacting." Bulma stood and walked over to the gate, looking up and down at the carbon-scored metal arch. "She is right about one thing. If someone else is trying to come into this world, there's nothing we can do to stop it." Trunks frowned. Defeatism wasn't in Bulma's nature. "Are you sure? If you can build a machine that crosses dimensions, can't you build one that blocks off ours?" She shook her head. "I started thinking about that, of course, as soon as I realized what had happened here. But I can't think of any real way to block travel from other dimensions; I could only close off a specific area, and if they entered this plane at a different spatial coordinate---" She broke off. Trunks smiled. "I understood. You can't be sure they'll always come through the gate in the same place, and you could only protect one place at a time. I *did* listen to some of your lessons, Kaasan." She smiled apologetically. "I see. Anyhow, there's no truly effective way that I could do it. Even if I somehow dredged up a few million workers from somewhere, I couldn't build a big enough shield to close off the whole planet. Not without a few hundred years of overtime. That would be the only way to be sure." He sighed, resigned. "Then she really did have the right idea. We might as well go on as if nothing will happen. But there are some precautions we can take." "Oh?" "Yes. One: we set the motion-alarm in the lab when you aren't working here. That way we'll be alerted if anything changes in the chamber." "That makes sense." "Two: you must stop working in here alone." *That* did not sit well. "What?" Bulma turned to face him, angry. "What do you mean? That I have to be chaperoned?" He folded his arms. He would not budge on this. "Okaasan, what if someone had come through that gateway that formed in here earlier? You've heard Shiatar's descriptions of the Saiya-jin on her world; what kind of treatment do you think you could expect from one of them, if a soldier came through?" She paled at the thought, but not for long. "That was only a pseudo-gate," she snapped. "Nothing could come through it." "And now that they've established a pseudo-gate, it's only a matter of time before a real gate can be formed. Right?" Reluctantly, she agreed. "Right . . . But how am I supposed to work? You know I work best alone. And you and Shiatar have lives of your own; I'm not going to impose on you to act as my babysitters!" He considered for a moment, then sighed. "There's no way to be sure, I know, but if they have a machine like yours they're likely to test again in the same location. And if they come through, it will probably be here. I'll help you move the DITMIX to a different chamber, and we can keep monitoring this one. Would that help?" Slowly he saw her relax. "Yes. That might work." He sighed in relief. He knew, from long experience, that his mother loved danger, and sometimes even sought out risky situations to get herself involved in. He'd been afraid that she wouldn't be willing to listen to reason. "The third thing is this; I want you to carry the alert beeper again." Bulma stared at him, her expression unreadable, and he regarded her evenly. The alert beeper simply allowed her to send a signal to him via his own matching beeper, if she was in danger; however, they hadn't used the devices in over a year, since he'd finished off Cell. She'd even joked about using the beepers as paperweights. He knew that he was alarming her by insisting that they use the devices, but he meant for her to understand how seriously he had taken this incident. His mother was the only person he had left, and he would not lose her if he could prevent it. After a moment, she looked away, and nodded wordlessly. He could almost feel her loathing of the idea and all that it implied, and in truth he agreed; the destruction of Dr. Gero's monstrous creations should have freed them from the need for such restrictions. However, Shiatar's arrival---and whatever might have followed her---had changed things. For a moment he found himself resenting her presence, but then dismissed that petty thought; fate, not design, had brought her into their lives. Apparently the same train of thought was running through his mother's mind. "Poor Shiatar. To finally find sanctuary from her troubles and then have them follow her here." She sighed, and turned back to the DITMIX archway, reaching up to finger the hand-print Shiatar had left in the metal the day before. Trunks folded his arms and lowered his head. "She's strong. A survivor." Bulma turned back to face him. "Like you?" He looked up, frowning. She smiled and shook her head, turning to go over to the wall controls. "Never mind. I was just noticing that she's kind of like you in a lot of ways. You've both had harder lives than you should." For a moment, her face clouded with a different expression. "Would that I could have prevented that." He moved over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "We did, remember? There's another world out there where I've probably grown up spoiled and obnoxious, thanks to you. Maybe you should be glad I'm not that Trunks." He smiled, and was pleased to see that he'd managed to coax an answering smile out of her. He tried to drive away her dark moods whenever he saw them coming. She set the room's alarm and they left, walking back toward the kitchen. Trunks was pondering the cryptic remark his mother had made about Shiatar being like him when he felt her eyes on him, and turned to catch her looking away surreptitiously. Amused, he pretended to ignore her and felt her turn to gaze sidelong at him again. This time he didn't look at her, and asked, "So what is it? Have I suddenly broken out in spots?" She jumped, and chuckled a little. "I hope not. I'd hate to try to deal with some kind of Saiyan measles right now." "Mmm." He waited, and finally, she gave up. "Oh, all right, you caught me. I was just looking at how much you've changed in the last few years. I barely recognized you when you came back from the past." "I only aged a year or two in that time." "Yes. And in that year you got taller, bigger, and grew long hair. You were just a boy when you left. You came back a man." He couldn't help flushing a little. It was high praise, from the woman who still tried to mother him even now. "I didn't really change that much." Another sidelong glance. "You changed more than you think." He almost stopped in the corridor, startled. "What do you mean?" "You're just . . . quieter. More within yourself. More like . . ." She trailed off, then glanced at him. "If I didn't know how you felt about him, I'd say you're more like your father than you were." He felt a wave of anger pass through him, and continued walking, head lowered. "That's not something I really wanted to hear." "I know, I know. But it's true." "Hmmph. I wasn't aware that I'd become an arrogant, self-centered bastard. You should have told me." "You haven't." She stopped, turning to face him, and reluctantly he turned as well. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Whether you saw it or not when you met him, there was a lot of good in Vejiita. He had a lot of traits that made him admirable, or just an individual. It's those things that I see in you now, not the side of himself that I know he showed you." He frowned, puzzled by her choice of words. " 'You know?' " She shrugged. "Vejiita was a proud man, and when you met him, he was just getting used to a lot of things---being on Earth, being second to Son-kun, being one of the last of his kind . . . and then along came his son, fully grown and more powerful that he was. How would you have felt, if you'd been him? He was only a little older than you are now. How would you have reacted, in that situation?" He tried to imagine being confronted with his own son (would he look like me? he wondered idly), and could not. But he could imagine what had gone through his father's head when he'd learned the truth about the strange pale-haired youth who had appeared out of nowhere one day; a youth who had harnessed the powers of the Super Saiya-jin while Vejiita had yet to do so. A youth who warned of Vejiita's impending death. Yes, he could well imagine the morass of emotions that his appearance had provoked in the cool Saiyan prince. He sighed. "I don't know how I would have reacted in his place. But I don't think I would treat my own son like an enemy." "Vejiita treated damn near everyone like that, Trunks. Even me, sometimes." He couldn't dispute that. Still . . . "I can understand how he might have felt, and maybe even why he reacted the way he did, but I don't have to like it. I still don't understand why he did half the things he did." She chuckled. "That's better than most people, who didn't understand *any* of what he did." Then she sobered. "All I was saying was that you've become a little more like him. The best part of him. What I see in you is the part of him that I loved." Trunks threw his own glance at her, but she was smiling at him in the half-rueful, half-proud way she did sometimes. Hesitantly, he smiled back; he was still uncomfortable with the idea that his mother, whom he had regarded as a genius since he was a boy, had fallen in love with someone like his father. It made little sense; Bulma was hot to Vejiita's cold, warmth to his distance, comfort to his harshness. How in the hell had they ever produced a son together? But he had to take her word for it that there had been more to the Saiyan prince. He'd seen only the barest glimpses of it . . . They resumed walking again, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. "I suppose it could be worse," he admitted. "My father could have been Shiatar's Vejiita. It sounds like that one has no redeeming qualities whatsoever." Bulma nodded, frowning. "Your father might have become that," she said slowly. "He was well on his way when he came to Earth. It's really surprising how powerfully one event---in his case, being defeated by Son-kun---can affect a man's personality for the rest of his life." He nodded, thinking of the day he'd been killed by the monster Cell. An instant of terrible pain---and then nothing. He still didn't recall much of it; apparently he had only been dead a short time. It was simply the knowledge, the understanding that he'd been *dead,* that had changed him in some way that even he couldn't fathom. He hadn't told his mother about his death during that battle. Perhaps that was the difference she had sensed in him upon his return from the past. Abruptly Bulma folded her arms, apparently latching on to another subject. "So, what do you think of our guest?" The question caught him off guard. "Ko-san?" Where the hell had that question come from? "She's . . . like I said earlier. A survivor." "Mmm-hmm. That's not what I mean." He shrugged to cover his sudden discomfort. "I don't know what else you mean. She's a good fighter, very quick. If I weren't a Super Saiya-jin, she might give me a run for my money." He glanced at her, and then turned away to avoid the hard gaze she cast upon him. "I *mean* what do you think! Come on, do you think she's pretty? Do you like her?" Great Kaios of the Four Galaxies . . . "I-I never . . . that is to say I . . ." Damn it, he was blushing. He took a deep breath. "I don't know her well enough to say if I like her yet. And I hadn't given her looks much thought." Unbidden, however, an image of her rose into his mind: Shiatar standing in his room in front of his mirror, the slight but perfectly proportional and athletic frame she displayed even when she wore his outsized clothing . . . "Ha! Liar!" Bulma exclaimed, reading his face even though he'd kept his expression neutral. Sometimes mothers just *knew* things. She waggled a finger at him; irritably he looked away. "You *do* like her!" "Oh, yes, she tried to kill my mother, did her damnedest a few hours ago to maim me, and brought a whole other world's worth of troubles with her through the gate. Not to mention her lovely personality. Of course I like her." "Hmmph." Bulma folded her arms. "You can try to dismiss it all you like, but I know it when I see it. You're attracted to her, aren't you?" The answer came into his mind before he could consider the question: *Yes.* It startled him. He'd met girls who were prettier and nicer and a whole lot of other "-er's;" why would he be attracted to a short, too-thin female with haunted eyes and a vicious left hook? Maybe there was some masochistic defect in his character that made him interested in a woman who could punch the hell out of him--- "Well?" Bulma asked. "What do you want me to say?" he asked, holding up his hands. "That she's ugly? That I can't stand being around her? Neither of those is true." "There's a big difference in seeing someone as 'not ugly' versus 'pretty.' I just want to know which you think she is." He sighed. She'd never stop until he told her. "All right. I think she's pretty. Is that enough for you?" She subsided with a smirk, as if she'd won a battle. And perhaps she had, for she'd certainly stirred one up within her son. He considered this as he walked. It was only natural, he decided, that he feel some attraction to Shiatar; after all, she was the only woman with Saiya-jin blood he'd ever met. It made for a heady combination of strength and innate sensuality that he'd never previously encountered; he'd reacted like any healthy young man might in his situation. And he had to admit, she *was* pretty, although she seemed completely unaware of it---her obliviousness was attractive in and of itself. So it was of no real consequence that he felt some interest in her; mere physical attraction was perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about. *But is it just physical attraction?* a small voice whispered in his mind, and he frowned to himself. Bulma's hints were getting to him. He joined her for lunch, and inhaled a few pounds of food while she watched. His Saiyan appetite never failed to amuse her. "I'll be going back to Dakon village today," he told her around a mouthful. "Were those capsules I asked for completed?" "Yes. The generators and heating units should be enough to get them through the winter." She watched him a moment longer. "Trunks, when are you going to tell Shiatar the truth?" He almost choked on some noodles, and took a few much-needed seconds to clear his mouth before answering. "You mean about my father?" "And being Super Saiya-jin. You can't hide your background forever, and she needs your help if she's to survive when she returns to her world." He sighed, and put his bowl and chopsticks down. "I haven't decided yet." Bulma scowled and folded her arms. "She doesn't have a lot of time." He frowned. "I don't know if I trust her yet, Kaasan. She's hiding something about herself, not the least of which is her power. How can I be sure she's not Super Saiya-jin already? She could be lying to us." Bulma shook her head. "She's not lying, Trunks. I can feel it. There's something in her eyes when she speaks . . ." He looked away, disturbed. So his mother had seen it too. "Anyhow, I don't know how she would react if she knew who I was. Her hatred of her world's Vejiita is so strong that I don't think she'd take kindly to finding out that I'm Vejiita's son. She might not care for you, either, if she realizes that you were once involved with him. Remember how she acted when she first woke up, and thought she was surrounded by enemies? I don't know how strong she really is; could I stop her if she went on some kind of rampage?" Bulma stood, putting her hands on her hips. "Trunks, even I can tell that you're stronger than she is. *That's* not a problem. Anyway, she doesn't seem the type to lose it and level the place." He stared at her, surprised at how vehement she was. It seemed that Shiatar had gained an advocate . . . And she was right. Shiatar was far too controlled and cautious to threaten them without good reason and careful consideration. But for that same reason, he had cause for concern: if at any point the young demi-Saiyin woman concluded that Bulma or Trunks constituted a threat to her, she could---and quickly would---become very dangerous. He sighed. "I just need more time to figure her out," he said. "Anyway, I'm not sure if I could teach her. She's got the power, but . . ." "What?" "It's just like you said; she's too controlled. Even when she loses her temper, it's calculated. It takes a lot more than just power to become a Super Saiya-jin. She has to be able to feel pure, unrestrained rage, so much that she loses all control. I don't know how to teach that kind of anger to someone." Bulma began clearing dishes, a frown on her face. "How did Gohan-kun teach you?" He looked away, remembering. "It wasn't feeling the anger that was my problem," he admitted, remembering the fury he'd felt at the Cyborgs' wanton destruction. "It was feeling enough of it. It's more than just getting angry, Okaasan---I can't even describe the feeling to you. It's like . . . being so furious that even your heart turns to fire in your chest, that you feel able to kill just by willing it alone. It gets a lot easier every time you make the transformation, but that first time . . . I don't even know if it's possible, without some kind of trigger. For me, it was seeing Gohan's body . . ." He closed his eyes against the memory, and Bulma was silent, pausing in her removal of the dishes. But Gohan and the others had been avenged. He'd seen to that. "That was the trigger I needed," he said. "For Gohan, it was thinking about what the Cyborgs had done to his friends. For Shiatar . . ." "She may have a trigger," Bulma said softly. "We don't know what her life was really like. You can almost feel it . . ." It was true, and he'd felt it also. There was some terrible event lurking in Shiatar's eyes, and whatever it was had been powerful enough to change her for all time. Her training, if he took up the task, might only be a matter of discovering that event, and getting her to use its emotional power. A simple enough task . . . and in order to accomplish it, he might have to hurt her as badly as whatever event that still shadowed her eyes. He sighed. "I'll think about it," he told her, rising from his chair. "Just trust me, Mother. I'll tell her when the time and circumstances are right." He stretched, feeling his food settle, and patted his still-flat stomach. "The food was great. Thank you." "You're welcome." She smiled a little. "Now get out of here; do you know how insecure it makes a middle-aged woman to watch you eat like that and never gain a pound?" He grinned, and left the headquarters after stopping to pick up the capsules he'd ordered, gliding leisurely toward Dakon. He hadn't missed the slant of Bulma's questioning a few moments before; she'd been hinting more and more of late that he needed to settle down with someone. It had been amusing at first; she always asked about the number of young women in the villages that he visited, and every once in a while she wistfully mentioned grandchildren. Now, however . . . he'd never given the matter serious consideration. Until lately, his sole driving goal had been accomplishing the destruction of the Cyborgs, but they were gone now, and he had time to consider other things. But even now, he had little desire to make a life with any of the village girls he'd taken a passing interest in. But Shiatar? Bulma seemed to like the idea, but . . . Ko Shiatar was nothing like the pretty-but-flighty village girls he usually dallied with. She wasn't his type. And Bulma seemed to have forgotten that the young warrior-woman intended to return to her world as soon as the DITMIX was repaired. So Trunks smiled, and pushed the notion out of his mind. Bulma could hint all she wanted, but wishing couldn't make it true; Shiatar was not about to become her daughter-in-law any time soon. Dakon was below, and he deliberately circled before landing so that their sentries could identify him. The days when people had to be afraid of any humanoid that flew were over, but old habits died hard, and Trunks didn't fancy getting shot. If he wasn't in Super Saiya-jin mode, bullets had the most annoying sting. But the people of this village knew him; when the sentry waved in greeting, he slowed and dropped lightly to the ground. The villagers came to gather in the square at once, and he smiled as familiar faces approached. They were looking better than they had during his last visit, and he was pleased to see it; their new houses and facilities were doing them good. "Trunks-sama!" Wincing, he turned to see the village's Elder, old Balon, hurrying toward him as fast as his cane would allow. Smiling, Trunks bowed to the old man as he approached. "Balon-sama," he replied. "Please, Elder. There's nothing great about me. I've told you before, it's just Trunks." "We should call you Lord Trunks," said the old man, flashing a toothless grin. "You are the one who saved us from those artificial monsters. And look at what you've done for our village!" He gestured around at all the new structures. "It would have taken us weeks to do what you did in one day." Trunks shook his head, as others began to gather around him in a little knot, whispering and giggling and talking animatedly around them. "I couldn't have done it if your people hadn't shown me how. I didn't know the first thing about building houses until they taught me." Off to the side, one of the other villagers laughed, and Trunks turned to meet the grin of the blacksmith, Kuhio. "And once we taught you, you built twenty houses in one day!" Trunks smiled back, lowering his head in embarassment. "Not counting the five that were unliveable, old friend." Kuhio laughed heartily and clapped Trunks on the shoulder, startling the Elder with his familiarity, although Trunks preferred that to the old man's reverence. "Just practice, son, just practice!" "Trunks-san!" He turned to catch a bundle of energy that bounded into his arms, and laughed as Kuhio's youngest daughter threw her little arms around his neck. "Keita-chan, you're getting big," he told her, and she giggled. "It will be a long time before I'm as big as you," she replied. "When I grow up, I'm going to fight, like you." Kuhio laughed, and reached out to pluck the girl from Trunks' arms. She snuggled against her father, tugging on his beard happily. "You won't have much to do," said Kuhio to his daughter. "Trunks-san has gotten rid of anyone that you could fight against!" "Oh." Keita blinked, not put off for a moment. "Then I can be your wife, huh, Trunks-san?" The gathered villagers laughed, and Trunks tried very hard not to do the same; he didn't want to hurt the child's feelings. "By the time you're old enough to marry him, he'll probably have children of his own, silly girl," Kuhio said, grinning at her. "Maybe you can marry his son." Trunks felt himself blush, and cursed inwardly. It seemed that everyone was determined to settle him down today. He hadn't been aware that his bachelorhood was of such importance to so many people. Hiding his annoyance, he turned to the Elder again and presented his case of capsules. "I came to bring you these. The first two are generators; you can use them to power the heating units in the other capsules. The generators are solar-powered, but they have a gas backup for days when there isn't enough sun. You'll have to scavenge the ruins for gas." The old man took the case and bowed deeply, offering so many thanks that Trunks almost blushed again. He left then, before the other villagers could start in, while he could still keep his dignity about him. As took off, waving goodbye to them, he sighed to himself. As much as he liked his human friends, he could never live the rest of his life among them; their monotonous existence of farming and labor, their gregariousness, was not for him. He'd spent his life in one sort of fight or another, and although he enjoyed helping the villages, that sort of work would never truly make him feel fulfilled. He skimmed at tree level again, letting the wind whip his hair about. Perhaps he was as much like his father as Bulma said. Abruptly, he sensed that he was being watched. Tensing, he looked about; at first seeing nothing, he then spied a telltale ripple in the long, wavy cirrus clouds, parallelling his course and speed. He could feel no warning *ki,* but if his follower was who he suspected, he expected as much; Ko Shiatar was too experienced at subterfuge to be easily detected. Smiling to himself, he kept going, keeping his own *ki* even so that she would not realize she had been discovered. She may have been following him for some time, perhaps even since he'd left the Capsule Corporation. She was good, *very* good; he'd had a good bit of practice at spying himself during his days of hiding from the Cyborgs in between fights. If not for that, he might not have sensed her at all. He was torn between admiration for her skill and anger at her invasion of his privacy. Abruptly he made his decision. It was time for the truth to come out. Then he would train her, if he could. With such gall, how could she be anything but worthy? Hmm . . . they hadn't finished their sparring match earlier. Perhaps now it was time to conclude what had been interrupted. And if he was going to be training her . . . *Perhaps it was time for the first lesson---a lesson in respect---to begin.* *****Shiatar learns the truth about Trunks, and the battle begun earlier continues in earnest! In the next episode, it's Trunks versus Ko Shiatar, Part Two! "FACE ME OR DIE, SON OF VEJIITA!!" ONLY ONE SHALL WIN!! *End Pt. 9 -- THE SPY! CREW OF THE SPY! NETWORK-A bunch of people who share the interest of all Japanese music, entertainment, anime, the language and culture, learning new dance moves, singing karaoke and at the same time...being cool about it! Honto dayo!...Tanoshii yo!!!! [SPY! 96-^_^] 4MoReInFo, WrItE To: kennedy@kingsnet.com. "ToMoRRoW NeVeR KnOwS"!!