*@* Dragonball SU *@* It Begins

[Master of Paradox]

[Van Osiku]

One person in North City, now in his seventies, recalled meeting Van Osiku in a newspaper article about a local bar that was changing hands.

According to Mr. Holseff, he was playing piano in the bar when Van walked in. After a few moments, he took the guitar off of his back and sat on the end of the bench.

"He tuned his guitar, looked at me, and said 'Play "Stars in Another Heaven"', Mr. Holseff recounted. "So I did, and he picked it up on his guitar a second later. We went through the song once, and then he played it again, singing along this time.

"I asked him how he knew that song - it's a really old one - and he said, 'I... don't know.' He blinked, and I swear to God he teared up.

"But then he shook his head and he was back to normal."

About an hour after finding the strange ball, Van had sat down on a tree stump, just looking into it. Something about the ball confused him, and he turned it over and over in his hand, raising an eyebrow. His normal calm faded, and he shook his head, tossing the ball in the air and catching it.

The three stars were burned into his vision, and as he looked up, trying to work out what about the ball got to him, the stars seemed to expand, filling the entire sky...

A great city by the sea, dotted with massive towers, electricity dancing between them...

"I still say Great Brother Mastiu does not take this seriously enough..."

A woman in a shiny black robe, speaking before a crowd of hundreds...

Himself, wearing a robe of blue satin, and a young boy casting a net into the waters...

Three men with black streaks in light hair, doing battle against a single man in armor... and losing...

Blood along the floor, in a room with countless sealed chests, and a feeling of pain...

Van Osiku dropped the ball, which bounced once and rolled away, and put his head in his hands, his breathing heavy. Why was he seeing these things?

A moment later, he retrieved the ball and started into it again, wondering what it had to do with the visions.

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...WHADDA TWEEST!

[Master Rudy]

Shitagi Summers
How do you proceed when failure seems to be the only option?
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Following my battle with Rothax, Kuji and Furuto had managed to use their powers to tend to my wounds. However despite my hunger I had opted to excuse myself for the moment. There were currently those of us that could not help themself. As a result it fell upon me to try to get Gamma back in one piece. The android was in pretty bad shape but fairly lucky. Rothax missed what appeared to be some kind of power core by mere inches. Had he hit that then there was no doubt in my mind that it would have resulted in an explosion that would have totally destroyed him. I knew that if I could at least piece him back together enough to power him up that with his help maybe we'd be able to get him fully operational again. My scouter was loaded with the blueprints to Androids #16 and #17. However aside from helping with the more basic connections and repairs it was going to be a pretty long job. #16 was fully robotic while #17 was a human interfaced with cyborg parts. Gamma seemed to be more like #17 in that respect. However I was dealing with blueprints that were easily anywhere from 115 to 130 years old. Trying to repair a newer android on old blueprints was almost like trying to fix a hovercar based on the blueprints of a ground model with wheels. It wasn't something that was suppose to be done. However I didn't really have any other options on the matter.

After about ten minutes of working on him I was eventually joined by Retasu. With all things I knew about her considered I was still a little concerned about trusting her fully. However she proved to me that even she was full of surprises. From what I could gather she was simply trying to end all the fighting and destruction that was happening back on Planet Vegeta. The fact that they had been reduced to this without effective leadership was no surprise. My grandfather had learned of these facts from the first group of exiled Saiyans that landed on Earth. As a result we knew full well what was happening there. However due to Vegeta's age upon first learning these facts he wasn't exactly able to go home to set things right. The same held true for my mother. From what I knew of her younger days she also had a desire to see what she could do to help. However due to living and growing up in peaceful times she lacked the power and training to be able to bring true peace and order back to the planet. As a result she mainly focused on running Capsule and helping the exiled Saiyans that showed up every few years or so adjust to life on Earth.

There was something else she said that caught my attention. It was in regards to putting the race ahead of her own survival. It was almost like she seemed ashamed of that. I could have been wrong on that however. Retasu was a very hard person to read and despite her recent show of support to protect the planet as well as her talking about these matters I couldn't help but feel there was still something else pushing her. Despite all this I still wanted to give her advice that I hoped would help her. "There's nothing wrong with putting others ahead of yourself" I told her. She gave me a confused look that almost seemed like it was asking me for more info. Before she could ask the question however I continued. "Near the end of his life one of the exiled Saiyans asked Vegeta where his power came from." This story seemed to have Retasu's intrest. Without missing a beat she asked "What was the Prince's answer?" I set my tools down for a moment and looked right at her as I told her the rest of the story. "His response to him was 'When you fight only for yourself and selfish goals you will one day find yourself unprepared for the day that you meet someone who is truely better and stronger than you. A selfish warrior will eventually hit a limit. Despite all the training and power increases in the world you will always find someone stronger. Remember that there is nothing wrong with fighting for those who can't fight or see the big picture. The day that you set unimportant matters aside will become the day that you truely have no limits to your power.' Vegeta managed to become a Super Saiyan and still lost battles. No matter how hard he trained he was always surpassed by my other grandfather. It wasn't until he stopped fighting for just himself that he finally managed to close up the gap with him. In the end Vegeta never was able beat Goku in a battle. However at that point it wasn't about winning or losing to either of them anymore. It was merely a desire to make sure that nothing could defeat their combined power or threaten their families while they were alive."

I was about to tell her more about the history behind Goku and Vegeta when a sudden power spike on my scouter caught my attention. Judging from it's direction it was actually coming from the forest we left Rothax in. Running to the edge of the Lookout I could see a faint glow on the horizon in the direction of West City. This is absolutely unreal! I thought to myself. Did our escape with our two Dragon Balls really anger him this much? At this point everyone else had also joined myself and Retasu. "He's so strong!" Sandor said sounding a little bit scared at the prospect that Rothax was no doubt toying with us back in the forest. Basawe showed no fear but appeared to be very concerned about the matter. "This can't be good. What the hell is he doing to generate so much power?!" Kuji seemed to be trying to clear his mind in order to get a sense of what was going on before opening his eyes and giving us a somewhat grim look. "It would seem your enemy is able to transform somehow. This does not bode well at all." Meanwhile I just stood there dumbstruck as I watched the numbers on my scouter rise.

8,123
8,842
9,561

"Dammit! It's over nine thousand!" I said to no one in paticular while watching the numbers continue to climb.....

11,101
12,452
14,099

Just as Rothax hit the fifteen thousand mark my scouter started to beep again. He seemed to be preparing an attack of some sort. That's odd. As far as I can tell he's not fighting anyone. Why would he...... Suddenly the cold horror of the situation hit me as I remembered exactly what city was closest to the battle site. Without wasting another moment I hit a few buttons on the side of my scouter and hoped that I could get my message out to Capsule Corp's emergency frequency before it was too late. "Shitagi to Capsule Corp! Emergency!" I shouted hoping my mother would get the message. "This is not a drill! Evacuate the building! GET OUT OF THERE NOW!!!" Out of the corner of my eye I saw Basawe rip off his own scouter. Due to the changes I made he would up getting the message as well and needless to say the shouting most likely didn't help his ear at that moment.

Without warning however a bright flash appeared and an explosion that resembled an atom bomb appeared in the distance where West City was. All I could do was let out a pained scream for my mother and the millions of others living within the city. As the cloud in the distance widened and grew I just let my depression overtake me as I turned and walked away from the group. I stopped walking when Rothax's full power level made itself known:

22,332

Feeling powerless to do anything all I could do now was once again let my anger surge to the surface and scream. "DAMMIT! How in the blue FUCK are we suppose to beat THAT?!" I heard a few gasps behind me which I assumed were related to my outburst. I was about to go on about how this was an impossible task when a voice from behind me caught me off guard.

"How are we going to beat that? Well you yourself can start by watching your mouth!"

My eyes widened since I wasn't expecting to hear that at all. Turning around quickly I saw that it was none other than my mother! While still feeling obvious grief over the other loss of life in the city it relieved me to no end that she got out of there. As I threw my arms around her in a big hug I could see that everyone aside from Mr. Popo and the Namekians seemed dumbfounded as to how she got here so fast. Deep down I knew however. Instant Transmission......seems like mom still has her fair share of secrets and tricks as well. As I let her go she turned to the group as a whole and with a serious expression on her face said "I'm sorry I didn't join up with the rest of you sooner. I got worried and was about to come as soon as I felt Shitagi's power level bottom out from his overuse of Kaio-Ken. Before I could get there however I sensed you were all transported here. I had just enough time to get a few supplies together before that maniac destroyed West City." Reaching into her jacket she pulled out two capsules and tossed them to the ground. One exploded and became a small supply crate that was stocked with more gi's, clothing and armor. I desperately needed to get out of my torn clothing so I grabbed some jeans, a white tank top and an orange jacket with black sleeves. I froze for a moment when I saw what the other capsule contained however. It was a small cargo jet about the size of a city bus. Not even bothering to hide my contempt for it I said "I seriously hope we weren't planning on taking a trip in that thing." On cue my mother opened the rear door which revealed that the cargo area had been converted into a small mobile lab. "Well you won't be riding in it obviously" she told me as she looked inside and checked some of the tools she had on the wall. "However you don't grow up being the head of Capsule and a daughter of a Z Fighter without being prepared for these sorts of things. I will need some help getting the bits and pieces of your android friend loaded inside. It doesn't look like he's doing too well. In the meantime if you guys can fill me in on everything that's happened since the tournament then I think we can start to formulate a plan to stop all this."

All I was able to do for now was help my mother load Gamma up onto one of the tables as the group took various turns explaining the events of the day to her. I hoped that once she was up to speed that she'd have some kind of idea I hadn't thought of......
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Rather than go through the whole deal of healing Shitagi, waking him up, ect. I just cut to the chase and skipped ahead to him attempting to fix Gamma. Ditto for Retasu's speech. No sense in me typing it out twice. As for Vegeta don't worry about it if he seemed slightly OOC. You have to remember based on what we saw during Z's eplouge that he had softened quite a bit. As a result one can assume that more years may have eased him up even more.

Finally as a note to Brandy. With Victoria there you now have her, Shitagi and Retasu working to fix up poor Gamma. Don't think you lost your chance to steal the programming/info on his search abilities. In fact Retasu could potentially be aided by something in the mini lab! XD