This goes out to a number of people:
The members of the newbie forum list: We're open!
Lonely? Depressed? (Sounds like a pick-up line)
So are we! (That good enough a plug, guys?)
Those of you who think there are too many Ranma fics around:
I don't, but hey, we've got some other stuff, too.
Those who think that "Nikholas F. Toledo" is "Switch": nope.
Those who care whether "Nikholas F. Toledo" is "Switch" or not:
Not enough to make two lines worth it.
Those who think good DBZ fics are about Trunks or Vegita:
so does Don Juan.
And so: the fic goes. C&C are the spice of life.
Make mine spicy!
Switch
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The Three-fold God's Path
by Nikholas "Don Juan" F. Toledo
notice: This fic plays with the concepts of Dragonball (and Physics) a
LOT. Don't be surprised if strange things that defy the series' logic
(as well as logic of other types) occur. Additionally, Dragonball GT may
as well not exist as far as this fanfic is concerned. If I have my way,
this is going to be a loooOONG, ongoing series. If. Be gentle. It's my
first.
Why Don Juan? Because Don Quixote is too long. <blink, blink>
The Spectacled Man
The screen loomed large before the thin man, the brief flashes of
light streaking his spectacles a rainbow of colors and tinging his thick
black hair with purple highlights.
"There! Stop. Review the moment from just before the energy
readings go off the scale. Play it in slow-motion. Overlay the sensor
scans and put the IR and MRI imagery up on the other screens. Where does
the power build up first?"
The flickering monitors focus on a man, with wild, dark hair
dressed in an orange gi with heavy black boots. The man's dark eyes
flare and smolder as they slowly shift to a fiery green and his black
hair becomes candle-bleached blond as he is surrounded by a burning
golden aura.
The spectacled man murmurs in awe, "Kakarotto... Where does your
power lie? What is it about that Saiyajin blood of yours that makes you
so powerful?"
A half-dozen workers, nondescript and asexual, scurried through and
about heavy cables and instrumentation in the room, like so many lab mice
through a bizarre obstacle course.
"What about the tapes of his assuming SS 3?"
The clicking sound of metallic fingers tapping keys rapidly shot
through the silent room.
"Sorry sir, but the electromagnetic interference scrambles
everything when he does that. Too much energy flying around. The very
earth shakes when he calls up that much power, and we don't have any
sensors that can deal with it. Hell, the sensors are stressed to their
limits already with normal Super Saiyajin. Studying this one has wiped
out a fleet of our monitor robots that got caught up in the middle of his
fights. Why are we so interested in him anyway, sir? He's a bloody
hero. Saved the earth several times."
There was a sudden tremendous screech, and the thin man's glasses
trembled as a powerful booming echoed through the room. "GOD DAMN IT.
Henry, what happened to the audio mufflers? We don't want to HEAR one of
his cursed fights! My eardrums are going to burst! Shut that off!"
The thundering stopped.
"Thank you," the thin man muttered softly.
A gaunt face with a shock of white streaking through the rest of
its dark brown turned to the thin man, metal eyes whirring as they
focused on him. "That's a fair question, Arien. Why are we studying the
Z-soldiers? Most specifically, why Son Goku? It's not as if our
organization could afford to do anything with him. There's no single
assassin of ours - what am I saying? No army powerful enough to deal
with him or his kind. We may as well be glad that they're on our side."
"Henry, my friend, what happens to humanity if the Saiyajin should
turn against us? What if they should all grow tails one night and lost
control? We can't always depend on them to defend our world. You've
seen the gene-projections. After a few generations, the Saiyajin trait
will thin out so much that they may as well be ordinary humans. What
happens then? Humanity has to be able to defend itself. Even if we
revived Dr. Gero's work on the Jinzouningen, they would become so
mentally unstable from the cybernetic conversion that they'd destroy the
world on a whim. This project is about finding a solution to the
problem."
"Why not clone the Saiyajin? Surely we could condition clones
based on their DNA?"
Arien wiped his glasses as he replied. "You haven't been with the
project for very long, Henry. We've tried that. It seems that the power
comes from more than just a particular combination of genes. There is
some sort of non-physical trait passed on with Saiyajin blood that allows
them to channel all that energy which also destabilizes any attempt to
copy the genes. It's a wonder that they've been able to interbreed with
humans at all. It's all about chi, my friend. Spirit forces. Martial
arts techniques purified and extended to their ultimate potential.
Something about the mental make-up of the Saiyajin affects their
physiology and makes them what they are. It's not just in their DNA..."
The other shook his head. "Surprising hearing such a mystical
explanation from you. That's not a thing a Physics professor would
say... You've been immersed in the martial arts world for a little too
long. It's not hard science, Arien. We need more than myth and theory
to explain them. We need facts, quantifiable data. It's just a
different form of energy, that's all. Nothing magical about it, we've
even devised instruments that can measure it..."
"I'm not just a Physics teacher, Henry. And it is something more
than can be accounted for by Science, at least at our level of
technology. Where does the energy come from? We've even calculated the
energy produced if Saiyajin were 100% efficient at converting the food
they consume into energy, and that's still not enough. They defy
everything about the most fundamental laws we have about Physics today.
Mass, energy, inertia - they play with them as though the properties of
Physics did not apply to the Saiyajin. Even without converting to Super
Saiyajin, each one can contain and produce more energy than all the
atomic weapons humanity had constructed combined at the height of the
nuclear age. Doesn't it bother you that forces great enough to
completely vaporize this planet are possessed by a handful of aliens
walking around?"
Henry shrugged, stroking his beard. "You have to keep things in
perspective, my friend. Some centuries ago, humans were at the mercy of
the weather. We couldn't do anything about it and just prayed to our
primitive gods and idols that are crops might be spared and that the
summer might not be too hot. Then we learned a little, and could predict
the weather to some extent. Then we learned more. And today weather
satellites control every aspect of the weather - appropriate amounts of
rain where crops are grown, snow in the mountain resorts... We'll
understand them one day, you'll see."
"That's what this project is all about." Arien nodded. He
scratched his battered, once-broken nose. He'd gotten that in a
tournament, from long, long ago...
Since childhood, he'd been fascinated by them. Beings that could
crush mountains and they defended the earth. He'd thrown himself into
his family's ancient martial arts, wanting to one day match them, face
them in a tournament, and win. Except that, with Goku in lead, all of
them became stronger, and stronger, and... stronger. The greatest human
martial artists in the world, now legendary names - Klilyn, Yamcha - and
they were no longer capable of lasting five seconds with a Saiyajin in a
serious fight.
He found them interesting subjects, and made their power the focus
of his life. Researching martial arts style after martial arts style,
he'd concluded early on that if humanity had a prayer of matching the
Saiyajin, that the technique to doing so either did not exist, or had
been lost long ago. In truth, he'd suspected the legends and myths of
human gods to be vague racial memories of the ascension of some humans to
true power. But there were only fragments... and he needed to learn.
So he'd thrown himself into the sciences next, studying the properties of
the Saiyajin. And his family's fortune now helped to finance this, his
great obsession in life - uncovering the secret of the Saiyajin.
He'd nearly lost hope, but when he learned of the cyborgs, his hope
was restored. If artificial entities - machines - could come close to
Saiyajin in strength, created out of simple materials fashioned with
intelligence but somehow attaining more than the inherent strength of the
materials themselves - than there must be some way to expand a human's
potential to the same. The Saiyajin had not always been so powerful and
if they could increase their powers, then humans could do the same.
He wondered if people would be so calm in accepting them as their
guardians if more of them knew just how strong the Saiyajin actually
were. Their true levels of strength were hidden by the human governments
from the general population, to prevent panic and keep a backlash from
happening. It wasn't even common knowledge that most of the Z-soldiers
were not fully human. There were still problems between human
ethnicities. Most people were still too small-minded if they needed to
accept aliens.
Aliens. So funny that the only defenders humanity could count on
were not human.
We'll learn your secrets one day Saiyajin. When that day comes,
humanity will take control of its own destiny once again, and not be
subject to your whim and mercy.
"AaaAAAAAH! Sensei, give me a break... I won't learn to reach
beyond Super Saiyajin if you cripple me first!"
Vegita paused and stopped crushing Goten's hands.
"Pfeh. You wanted to learn; I'm teaching you. Your father's too
busy with other things, off gallivanting on some quest, so if you want to
learn, you'll learn my way, ungrateful wretch. Be glad I've mellowed a
little with having another child or I would not be this gentle."
He resumed crushing the teenager's hands.
Goten screamed, his metacarpals on the verge of shattering. Tears
streaming from his eyes, he kicked at his blond tormentor's throat. He
missed. And promptly got himself thrown a hundred feet down as a reward
for his efforts, the wind screaming in his face.
"Better," Vegita sneered. "Perhaps not all of Kakarotto's sons are
tame and useless. At least you've some fight."
Goten dazedly crawled out of the crater that now decorated the
mountain he'd happened to land in.
"Damn it, child! You may be the son of a low-class soldier but at
least your father's gotten past that limitation! If your exhausted
already you can't hope to reach beyond Super Saiyajin! You need to burn
with Saiyajin hatred, bloodlust and fury! The warrior's spirit is
infinite and that is his true source of his power! Are you just an
animal without spirit? Perhaps your mother is too weak. That's it! Is
it because you've gotten your weak animal nature from her?"
That might have done it, Vegita thought. Goten actually looks
angry for once. He was so sensitive about his mother. But was he angry
enough to reach for the power? Was he desperate enough to prove himself?
That was what Vegita was looking for. A blind, all-consuming madness was
required to draw upon the power of the Saiyajin spirit - at least the
first time. He'd needed it himself to reach Super Saiyajin, and only a
hated insult from Trunks had been enough to drive him past the edge and
reach for the level of power that Goku had needed against Majin Buu. Was
Goten angry enough at last?
Goten was streaked with dust, dirty, tired, and frustrated. He'd
wanted this so that he could maybe show his father that he was a worthy
student... But he didn't realize he'd get such a pounding for it.
Vegita may have claimed to be mellower, but he was still a vicious
fighter, and this had become the longest summer of Goten's life, filled
with pain, a continuous barrage of insults regarding his bloodline, and
more pain. His ribs were bruised in several places, he'd wrenched his
shoulder, and his hands' nerve endings were on fire. This was on top of
several other injuries he'd sustained earlier that still hadn't fully
healed.
So at Vegita's goading, he reached, and reached, and reached.
Power burst from every pore, and his hair lifted as though caught in a
hurricane. He burned with it, and howled.
Not enough, Vegita cursed mentally. He was losing it already. No
focus. Too much energy was being wasted in the light-show and the
scream. He could feel the burst of energy in Goten sputtering and waning
already. As he expected, Goten's hair darkened, and the boy collapsed,
unconscious. Why the Hell did I agree to teach Kakarotto's kid anyway?
I have enough trouble teaching Trunks and Bra...
That thought brought nearly brought a smile to Vegita's stern
countenance. What a magnificent son I have! He reached Super Saiyajin 3
before his father... Truly a son of royal blood.
It must have been boredom, he decided. Everything was just so
insufferably peaceful. He needed some excitement now and then or his
administrative position in Capsule Corporation (Bulma's stupid idea, not
his, he reminded himself) would drive him crazy. Bra was still too young
for him to be this rough on her, and he'd already taught Trunks all he
knew, so he'd been willing enough to take on another student.
He sighed. Unbelievable. I, the Saiyajin no ouji, a mere teacher.
What has my people come to? A race of conquerors reduced to guarding a
backwater planet in the middle of nowhere. This is Kakarotto's fault, in
truth. He's somehow infected even me with his insufferably peaceful
nature. How did such a peaceful, simple-minded idiot of a low-class
soldier achieve such incredible power? There's no justice...
He de-powered, hair turning black, and flew home. Let him fly home
himself when he wakes up. I may have been infected by 'humanness' but
I'll be damned if I have to be nice to Kakarotto's child. It's hard
enough being nice to my own. He didn't know why Bulma would still get so
upset at him sometimes. He'd done his best. He hadn't even killed
anyone at work yet. Humans. So demanding in things that don't matter.
The golden aura of the Super Saiyajin, Arien reminded himself. His
power surrounding him in a fierce glow, he attempted, once again to shift
it to the type the sensors had detected coming from the Saiyajin. His
body ached with the strain of containing it. Surrounded by a growing,
coruscating vortex of multi-hued energies, he concentrated. His power
flared up as it intensified further, driving him almost mad with its
sweet song of destruction in his ears, and suddenly left him as he
exhausted his resources. Losing control, the walls of the room nearly
overloaded in absorbing the deadly forces he'd let loose. He fell to his
knees, gasping.
"Closer, Arien, but not quite. It seems as if it will take more
than trying to imitate the conversion process. On the bright side, you
registered a 20% increase in power since the last time. Plus, I think we
need to invest in a stronger testing chamber. If you do succeed in the
chamber we've got now, and make a mistake, there won't be anything left
of this installation."
Arien did his best to ignore the immense headache that he'd gotten
from charging up and losing it all so quickly. He thought hard about
Henry's words. 20 %. The calculated increase between Saiyajin power
levels is exponential - I'm not even marginally close. The process must
be very different for humans... if there is one. There's something
missing in the human physiology that can't take the power increase. At
least not this way. But how?
"After the medics finish checking you out, you'll have just enough
time to shower and change before your scheduled lecture at the
university. I've set aside the cream-colored suit and the black tie.
Afterwards, you have a meeting with some of the government officials
interested in our work. The chauffeur will be waiting for you
upstairs..."
Henry handed him a towel.
"Give Mr. Fiennes the day off. I think I'll drive today. Have one
of my antiques ready - the red Ferrari, I think."
Arien usually found driving to be a relaxing experience, and his
cars were the only indulgence he permitted himself. It was easy to lose
himself in the simple flow of action, passing vehicles and swearing
drivers on the road in his modified roadsters. It's almost sexual. He
smiled.
Soon he was zooming down the highways of the Outer City. It's just
not as enjoyable today. Must be the latest failed attempt. All this
stress is finally starting to get to me.
Reaching the inner levels of the city, his mind preoccupied, Arien
was barely able to stop the car in time as a huge truck stopped directly
in front of him. Tires screaming, he stopped half a foot away from the
truck.
He leaned out the window to curse at the truck, and heard the
attack a few seconds before it was too late. He blurred.
The car exploded in bright blue flames.
The driver of the truck stepped out, red eyes whirring and seeking
potential targets as it brought up its arms. Two more appeared out of
the alleyway fifty feet behind where Arien had been stopped.
Plasma. Antitank round.
Arien ached from moving at the intense speed, but with his
attackers armed so heavily, he could take no chances. He took down the
truck driver first, severing the head with a chi-charged backfist. He
sensed incoming projectiles tracking his movements, and threw half a
dozen energy blasts to intercept them. Ruby light lanced from the
fingers of his right hand, vivisecting the second while a force wave from
his eyes vaporized his glasses, going on to crush the third into so much
bloody pulp.
His left hand was still free to deflect a second antitank round
that had originated from a building further down the street. It struck
the truck instead, which exploded in a sphere of force. He stood his
ground, shielding his flesh from the pressure wave and the shrapnel with
his Will. He widened his sense-scan.
They can track my movements at this speed? They can't be ordinary
humans... Cyber-enhancements? Hmm... Except for the assassin, the top
floors of the building don't register any presences right now. No choice.
Must minimize civillian casualties. If this battle goes on for much
longer, someone else is bound to get caught up in the crossfire.
He built up the killing energies in his hands as he dodged about
the wreckage of the truck and his car, trying to keep his attacker from
establishing a target lock. There you are, you naughty boy. Aren't
those things illegal? They'll blow up in your face, you know.
"Now!" he shouted, extending his arms as he released the energy in
a pencil-wide beam of tightly-focused death. Gotcha! It sliced through
the assassin, and several floors above it. Unfortunately, the rocket-
launcher got caught, and its explosion triggered the extra rounds beside
it, wreathing the top four floors in flames.
Police sirens were approaching rapidly. Oops. An everyday,
ordinary Physics professor doesn't need the publicity... Much as he
disliked the necessity, Arien blasted the remains of his car, melting it
down to an unrecognizable, untraceable slag. Then he took off, flying at
full speed for the emergency pick-up point. He was starting to feel
tired. Damn. I really liked that car.
Vegita raised his head from the inventory on his desk. What was
that? I felt a strong chi-surge... Human? He opened his office window,
and to the profound shock of his secretary who was walking in, he jumped
out, streaking for the disturbance.
She spoke shakingly as she sat down, "I'm never going to get used
to that..."
Vegita gracefully touched down on a lamppost above the slag that
used to be Arien's Ferrari.
"Officer, what happened?" He tried to remember his manners. Bulma
would get upset again if he blasted one of this world's silly policemen.
The blue-suited cop gaped at Vegita while his elderly partner
nonchalantly bit his pipe in two.
"I'm a concerned citizen. A... reporter." Vegita glared at them
in his best you-are-dirt-inconveniencing-me-a-prince-of-the-Saiyajin
manner.
"Yes, well... Err. Best guess is that someone was tagged for an
assassination here. Deep stuff. What's left of the attackers indicates
that they were very well-equipped - smart weapons, cybernetic weapon
links to the weapons, expert skillsoft targetting systems. Very deep
stuff. The target must have been a Hell of a lot tougher than expected
to do this. Then he melted down what a witness said was his car and took
off, moving too fast for proper identification. Ahh... We haven't
gotten to that building yet," the elderly one with half a pipe pointed,
"the fire trucks got caught in traffic getting here."
"I see. Well. Thank you." Vegita flew up into the air, vaguely
disturbed. If it were one of his friends, they would have stayed to
cooperate with the police being the goody-two shoes that Goku had turned
them into. And if it were not one of Vegita's friends, then it could, he
decided, be an enemy. Then he smiled, a thin, cruel, cruel smile.
Finally. A little excitement again. He remembered something and
altered his course to pass by the marketplace. Bulma wouldn't like it if
I forget to buy the groceries again. Curse it. I have mellowed. Maybe
I'll skip the groceries today. Give them a taste of the old me for a
couple of days. He considered it. Better not. Bra doesn't like it when
Bulma and I fight. God, I feel whipped.
Arien's breath was coming in deep, painful gasps. I'm blown. He
didn't like the implications of that admission, but it was necessary.
There had been more assassins at the pick up point. Fully alert and
prepared, Arien had been able to detect and disable them before they had
detected him. It was a crowded mall. No telling how many would have
gotten killed if they'd opened fire on me.
He wouldn't have panicked if it was just the first pick up point,
but when he'd found more at the next one, he knew he'd been betrayed.
One of the fucks even got lucky... He kept pressure on the wound in his
side, and wondered if his being charged up for so long was what was
keeping him from coughing up blood. He had a punctured lung, he was
fairly certain.
He ran in the shadows, dodging from building to buildiing, keeping
out of line of sight of the street. It was a tiring way to move, and
Arien was unsure how much longer he could keep it up.
Why? Except for me and a handful of other test subjects with close
to my level of skill, there are not yet any military applications for the
project. And just who's the traitor? Too many possibilities. I
should've tightened up security long ago. It doesn't make sense.
Where can I go? My home and the university are almost certainly
watched. Returning to the facility may just endanger the project.
Still, I'd better go ther and pull up copies of the data. It's safer
that way. Now how am I going to get back? I'm too tired to keep going
like this...
He glanced up to the sight of a Capsule Corp. helicraft. He ducked
into an alleyway and jumped, bouncing from wall to wall up to the roof.
I'm sooo tired. I wonder if I've enough left to fly up to that heli?
He flung himself up and flew as fast as his exhausted resources
could manage. He clambered up the side of the heli and started pounding
on the side hatch.
"Errhmm. Missus? There's a guy knocking on the side hatch..."
"Must be my husband."
"Nope. Looks too tall and skinny. He's bleeding too."
"Well let him in then!"
"Don't worry, Mom. I'll keep him from being any trouble if its
necessary."
Bulma nodded, brushing her hair to one side. It was sometimes
comforting to have some of the strongest beings in the universe as her
loved ones, especially with all the weirdos going around.
Trunks carried him in, and Bulma noted the thin man's pale coloring
and the wound in his side. "Trunks, the medikit. It's under your
chair."
Arien had been shocked when the side hatch was opened by a
Saiyajin. He must have been exhausted to only detect him now. The power
had flowed from him, and Arien had identified him after a few moments.
The son of Vegita. Is here. With me. Fantastic. Wish my constitution
was as tough as theirs. I wouldn't have to worry about a wound like this
if I did.
"Hey, watcha doin' out there?"
"Look, kid, I'm having a really rough day. Go easy on me." Arien
slowly drifted into unconsciousness, and had been about to fall when
Trunks grabbed him. Trunks muttered, "Interesting aura. About as strong
as Klilyn, maybe a little more. There aren't many things that can hurt
someone that tough..."
End episode 1 of The Three-fold God's Path
Professor, what about our test scheduled for today?
"Head for the hospital." Being the take-charge sort of person that
she was, Bulma was not even mildly surprised by the sudden appearance of
the thin man, or that he had appeared a hundred feet above the ground.
Actually, she admitted to herself, it probably had more to do with the
fact that every other close friend she had could fly. And she'd seen
far, far worse injuries than this stranger's punctured lung.
Blood began to ooze slowly out of his mouth and nose. Arien
whispered, "No... No hospitals... They'll be watching the hospitals..."
Bulma shrugged. "Very well. We'll bring you to my house. I've
got some medical equipment there - we're used to having injured people
about. It kind of happens a lot." She thought of the past couple of
months, Goten dragging himself to their door in bloody bits and pieces
after his practice sessions with her husband.