Any variations in continuity are minor, but probably intentional.

                              Dragonball: The Cure
                                by Ken Arromdee

    "Gokuu!  Are you all right?" asked Chichi?

    "Not really", murmured Gokuu.  Of course I'm not all right, he thought.
I've just fought Piccolo Daimaoh.  I'm almost dead.  But as long as I'm alive,
there's hope.

    "Don't worry, we'll get you to a hospital soon", said Yamcha.

    "No need", said Yajirobei, bounding onto the scene now that the fight was
over.

    "Yajirobei..."

    "Oh, I just came to check things out."  He popped a magic bean into Gokuu's
mouth.

    Gokuu smiled at his friend and swallowed it, feeling the magic, as flesh
that suffered under a barrage that could destroy mountains repaired itself.
Suddenly, he was no longer nauseous.  His head stopped spinning, and he felt
his broken bones snap back into place and mend.  The spots swimming before his
eyes faded away into a view of the blue sky above.  He was back!

    After talking to his friends, Gokuu had one request.  "Yajirobei, will you 
give me one more magic bean?"

    "You mean one wasn't enough for you?" answered his friend.

    Everyone watched as Gokuu took the last bean, and walked over to...
Piccolo?  He leaned over and pushed the bean into the green demon's mouth.
"Eat this.  It'll be good for you."

    "What are you doing?" shouted Gokuu's friends.  Piccolo was evil, and Gokuu
was helping him after a fight like that.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    The first time Gokuu had encountered the magic beans was a long, long, time
ago.  He was just a kid then, a little kid who believed he could go up against
an army, and win.  And that was what he was going to do.  The enemy of the
month was an assassin named Taopaipai, an incredibly powerful, and evil, man
working for the Red Ribbon Army.

    Taopaipai thought he had killed Gokuu.  Only a fluke had saved him, when
Taopaipai's blast hit the Dragonball in his shirt pocket.  Gokuu was knocked
out, but he still lived.

    Most youths think themselves indestructible.  At the time, Gokuu did too.
He was more powerful than anyone else, but he also faced more dangers than
anyone else.  Yet nothing fazed him, as each win lead him to believe that he
could continue to win in the future.  All he had to do was train.  If he
devoted himself to his training, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish.

    Gokuu looked at the tall tower above himself.  He could fly up there, on
his magic cloud.  But he wasn't supposed to fly up there, he was supposed to
climb the tower.  There he would get the magic water that would give him a
chance to defeat Taopaipai.  It had to be an impossible feat; nobody had ever
done anything like that before.  But, thought Gokuu, those people who couldn't
get up must not have trained as hard as he did!  Well, he'll show them.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    A considerably more exhausted Gokuu found himself at the top of the tower.
He looked around and found strange clay pots of water, but none seemed to be
magic water; and nobody was around except a funny little white cat.

    "Hey, Mr. Cat", yelled Gokuu.  "I need to speak to Lord Karin!  I want to
get his holy water so I can become really really strong!"

    "Right this way", said the cat.

    Gokuu merrily followed along, though exhaustion took its toll and he found
himself leaning on the wall.  The cat just watched him.  "Hey, stop watching
me!  I need to speak to Lord Karin!"

    "I'm Lord Karin."

    "You?  But you don't look like Lord Karin."

    "Believe me.  I know why you're here.  You seem to be a good person.  But
you can't just ask for the holy water.  You'll have to get it from me!"

    The cat grabbed a flask and held it out of Gokuu's reach.  Gokuu lunged for
it, only to slam into a wall.  "Y...  you!" he exclaimed.  "You're Lord Karin!"

    "Didn't I just get finished telling you that?"

    At about that time, Gokuu's baser instincts kicked in.  "Lord Karin, do
you have any food?  I'm hungry.  And a bed.  I'm tired."

    The cat showed Gokuu a bag.  "Eat this", he said, tossing an object from
the bag to Gokuu.

    Gokuu looked at it.  "A bean?  That doesn't look like that much food.  I
want some real food!"

    "Ah, but it is real food.  It has ten times the nutrition of an ordinary
meal, and it will heal all your injuries too!  I wouldn't ask you to fight me
when you're not ready to fight, after all!"

    "Oh, okay", said Gokuu, and swallowed the bean.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    Suddenly Gokuu felt full.  His stomach was still empty, but he wasn't at
all hungry.  His aching muscles no longer ached, the pain disappearing like dew
under the morning sun.  He felt a sudden pressure in his head.  "Lord Karin,
My head.  I'm..."  Gokuu collapsed on the ground.

    "That's strange", said the diminutive cat-god.  "All your injuries should
be healing."

    "I...  I...  it's so confusing.  My head."

    Karin hopped over to Gokuu and poked his head.  "Looks okay to me.  Was it
injured?"

    "No!  I mean yes.  Grandpa told me that I hurt myself on the head when I
was a little boy."

    "But that should be gone now.  The magic beans heal all injuries."

    "Lord Karin, go away", growled Gokuu.  "Please..."

                                *   *   *   *   *

    It was like Gokuu had been half asleep forever.  Suddenly he was much more
alert, much more able to think.  And he felt like there was a monster inside
him.  He had been conditioned as an infant to destroy....

    No!  He was Son Gokuu, he was a good kid who only wanted to become the
strongest man in the world someday.  But the images kept floating through his
mind.  Of himself as a baby, destroying things, running out into the woods when
the moon turned full and becoming a huge monster, who knew nothing more than to
lash out at the world around him, who didn't care about friends or family or
anyone.

    But that was him too.  He could remember even before that...  Gokuu must
have had an excellent memory, and now that the magic beans had healed his old
head injury he had one again.  He was in a city, not a human city, but one
somewhere else.  They were training him, machines poking him with model trees
and buildings so that when he became an ape he would treat those things as
hostile.  Sometimes he was left in an incubator.

    Men had come by, different men.  One of the men had stood over him, looking
much like he did now, but older.  He wore something over one eye, and he was a
stern and unforgiving man who seemed disappointed at Gokuu.  His father.  Gokuu
had never remembered his father before.  But even with his brain finally whole,
it was so difficult to recall.  It was just too long ago, and he was too young
then.

    There was another man, young, but an adult.  He was short and he looked at
Gokuu with a mixture of pity and contempt.  This man too had lingered over his
incubator for minutes, looking at him and shaking his head.  Gokuu knew who
this man was.  His brother, Vegita.

    Gokuu remembered something else, too.  Another incubator...  no, it wasn't
an incubator.  It was a capsule.  He was put in it and given subliminal tapes,
to accompany him on the long voyage.  He was taught of the history of his
people, about Bardock, his father, and about his brother Vegita.  He was told
that he should destroy what he found and conquer the planet for the glory of
the Saiyajin race.  The words had echoed in his head while he travelled
light-years and he had found them irresistible; no human infant that young
would have even understood them, but Gokuu knew now, recalling these memories
for the first time in twelve years, that he wasn't human.

    Was that his purpose in the world?  To annihilate whatever he ran across?
Was he only in existence to be the advance party for the destruction of the
Earth?

    Gokuu felt the Saiyajin blood in him.  He understood, now, why he wanted to
become the strongest man in the world.  It was how his people were.  They were
a warrior race, but they were thoroughly evil.  He had lived his life all
wrong.  Almost the opposite of what Saiyajin did.  He had friends, people even
respected him, and hardly anyone respects a teenager.  But... by doing all
that, he was rejecting his heritage.  He wasn't supposed to make friends with
Earth people, he was supposed to murder them, to grind their cities to bits
and seize the planet as property for his people.

    Did Gokuu want to do that?  It wasn't hard to answer that.  He may have
been trained to destroy when he was a child, but he'd lived his whole life
since then without it; peace and justice and helping his friends had taken on a
far more important place in his life.  Now that he had twelve years with his
mind dulled, but free of Saiyajin influence, he knew the meaning of good.

    Besides, there was no reason a Saiyajin had to be that way.  There were
good and bad humans.  Couldn't there be good and bad Saiyajin?  Maybe even
Vegita, some day, could learn what it was like to be liked and respected by
others.

    There was one thing in Goku that was still Saiyajin, though.  The
exhiliration of the fight.  The striving to be better than anyone else.  And
that, he knew, was something he would never let go of.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    "Lord Karin!" shouted Gokuu, leaping to his feet.

    "You're awake, Gokuu!"

    "I'm going to get your holy water and defeat Taopaipai!"

    "Well, good luck.  Only one person has ever done it before."

    "But there's one thing I have to do first", said Gokuu.  He yelled
"Kintou", summoning his magic cloud through the air.  Gokuu had to try this,
just to see.  Because after that experience, he felt a lot less innocent than
before.  Gokuu jumped into the air, aiming the jump so he would land on his
faithful magic cloud.  Hoping it would not turn into smoke under him, hoping
that being a member of a race of killers wouldn't mar his soul forever....

    Gokuu made a perfect landing on the cushiony surface.  "That's nice", said
Lord Karin.  "But I'm already familiar with...."

    "Never mind", replied Gokuu, laughing as he lunged for the water.

                                *   *   *   *   *

    And that was Son Gokuu's first encounter with the magic beans.  

    "You fool!  What are you doing?" asked Kuririn.  Piccolo was evil, and
Gokuu was helping him.

    The Saiyajin were supposed to be evil too.  But Gokuu had given that all
up.  And he knew, too, that one day the Saiyajin might come to the Earth, maybe
even his brother Vegita.  On that day, he would need help.  And Piccolo was the
only person on the Earth who could stand a chance against them.  He'd keep a
watch on Piccolo, prevent him from causing any real harm.  Maybe even convince
him to join the side of good someday.  But there was no way he could explain
this even to his closest friends.

    The explanation came easily to Gokuu, the explanation that everyone would
expect from a famous, but slightly dull in the head, fighter.  "Well, if he
dies, there won't be any Dragonballs.  And besides, I'd get bored without a
rival!"

    Piccolo yelled threats at him, but knew better than to fight.  He flew away
instead.

    Someday would be the confrontation with Vegita, thought Gokuu, but until
then, his fighting career was over.  Gokuu had achieved his goal of being the
strongest man in the world, and he could finally rest for a little while.  His
fiancee was waiting for him, and maybe in the future, children.  And hopefully
a few years of peace and quiet, just so he would know what that was like before
the fighting that was his life began again.