Once Upon a Dream

This is the third time I've had to do this one over since for some odd reason part 15 either causes a saving error or keeps deleting itself. The last time I was 3/4ths of the way finished too.

Part Fifteen

"Now, if we're quite finished here, I have a universe to destroy." Astor began to turn himself into dark mist once more but Kat, with an almost desperate look on her face, stopped him.

"Wait! Isn't there some other way?"

Astor's expression was unreadable. "Haven't you done something without thinking? Doing it only because it felt like the right thing to do?"

She nodded slowly, wondering where this was leading off to. "Of course. It's following your gut instinct."

"Yes. I am only following an instinct that has existed since the day of my creation. Surely you won't fault me for that?"

"But people ignore their urges all of the time!" Bra protested. "You just enjoy hurting others."

He pretended to consider. "There is that too." Eventually the mist dissipated and some of the tension fled the room.

Sighing deeply, Kat settled herself onto the ground. Vegeta began to pace impatiently and even Goku was looking a little uneasy.

"What can we do now?" he asked.

"What else can we do? I must find the creator!"

***

Upon returning to the castle, all of the commanders as well as Kat and her crew met again in the meeting room. It may have been a relaxing, casual room but the mood was not bright and neither was the outlook. From face to face, looks of fear and despair reigned supreme over the usual expressions of joy and happiness. The silences were deep just as the discussions were long. But no one, not even Katrinka, had any idea where the Creator would be.

"Did he just abandon us to evil then?" Odin asked quietly while studying the polished surface of the table. He hadn't wanted to bring it up, but it was weighing on his mind. He felt the stares of everyone seated on his person and he flinched involuntarily. He spoke quickly to put them at ease. "Um, I guess not. Nevermind then."

"Wait a minute," Kat held up her hand . "Guys, Odin has a right to say what's on his mind. You shouldn't be glaring at him like this!"

"But he is speaking ill of the Creator!" A man said angrily. "It's wrong!"

Camell sighed. "No, Cael. A person should be able to say whatever is on their mind without fear. One person's view may not reflect the views of someone else."

Outwardly Vegeta was as impassive as always, but inwardly he was proud of him. It really would have been foolish to allow his brother to rule but fate had a way of making everything fall into place.

Suddenly Kat stood, knocking over the chair she had been sitting in. "I've got it!"

All eyes turned to her. "Got what?" Trunks asked. "An idea?"

She smiled. "No. A solution." She righted her chair and strode to the front of the room in one smooth motion. "We need to kill Astor, right?"

Everyone nodded.

"And the High God can't do it, right?"

Again she got their agreement.

"And we know for sure that the Creator can, right?"

Cael frowned. "Where is this headed?"

"Yeah, Kat-chan," Bra sighed, "just tell us."

Kat actually pouted a bit at the interruption but continued anyway. "I can just ask Michael where he is!"

There were small agreeable murmurs all around.

She continued to smile until it slowly faded away and her face got slightly red.

"What's wrong?" Bulma asked her.

Her blush became even brighter until it was almost the same shade of red as her hair. She mumbled something and then looked down, trying to ignore their scrutiny.

"What was that?" Trunks asked loudly. "Some of us back here in the cheap seats can't hear you!" Goten elbowed him in his side and he shut up.

"I, uh, don't know how to contact him." She repeated louder. "Incredibly bad thing at a time like this."

"What about that weird looking book?" Vegeta questioned her. "It's what got us here in the first place."

"If you hadn't noticed, when we crossed over the book vanished." She crossed her arms. "I guess I could use my mental power to contact him..." She trailed off. "Nevermind, it won't work. We're in another dimension." She suddenly brightened as soon as her thought ended. "I have it!"

No one asked her what was it exactly that she had but she told them anyway.

"Michael once told me that I was the Time Warrior. I can use whatever abilities a Time Warrior has and cross over again to speak with him. It shouldn't take very long." Taking a deep breath, she unknowingly assumed a position in mid-air that was quite similar to Piccolo's mediation pose. She closed her eyes and actually began to hum softly.

Vegeta blinked at her. "Is this actually supposed to help?"

Everyone shushed him at the exactly same time. Looking a little surprised, he fell silent and waited for Kat to complete whatever it was that she was doing. Several minutes went by before she opened her eyes again.

"Well?" Vegeta asked her.

She yawned and stretched, a little cramped from being that way since she hadn't meditated in a while. "Well what?"

A low growl crept from his throat. "You were supposed to be looking for that advisor of yours!"

She nodded. "I know that."

A vein began to throb by his temple. "Well, did you find him?"

She shot him a strange look. "I've already told you that I couldn't do it mentally. Why did you think I was contacting him that way?"

Vegeta's left eye began to twitch and he barely kept his temper in check. "I'm not going to ask you again. Did meditating like that help this damn situation?!"

She shook her head and frowned slightly. "Unfortunately, no. I didn't find what I was looking for."

"Vegeta," Bulma said at last. "Will you calm down? It's your own fault that you didn't understand what she was trying to say!"

"Onna..." he said in a warning tone. Bulma glared at him, her blue eyes reflecting her annoyance.

"If you call me onna one more time..."

Not one to get in someone else's domestic disputes, Camell stood and cleared his throat. "This meeting is dismissed. Katrinka pleased see me outside for a moment." He and everyone else fled the room even though the (un)happily married couple didn't even notice.

Five minutes later, Vegeta and Bulma were finished glaring at each other. Bulma looked around in shock and then flipped Vegeta off.

"Look what you did, Vegetable Brain! They left because of you!"

He jumped to his feet. "ME?! You're the one who started this whole argument!"

As their bickering continued on, Katrinka came up with a plan to find the Creator.

***

He was waiting for her when the darkness and silence cleared but she was just glad to see another face, mortal or not.

"You have questions," he said to her once she emerged into the bright sunshine. She blinked and nodded.

"Yep. And guess what? This time I'm not even going to ask how you knew that."

He smiled. "I am the High Priest."

"And that answers a lot of my questions."

They both fell silent for a few moments, but before it could become profound, Michael broke it.

"Fortunately your friends did not come with you," he began to walk down the path with her trailing after, "it simplifies things."

"What do you mean?"

"What if I told you that we were going to see your parents?"

For a moment her face remained blank but slowly a huge grin took over. She began to bounce with barely contained excitement and her tail mirrored her mood.

"Do you mean it? I can see my parents?"

He nodded. "It's time."

She continued to smile until the vagueness of his response registered in her mind. "What to you mean 'it's time'?"

The advisor began to walk once more, motioning for her to follow. "In order for you to find the Creator, you must understand yourself. In order for that to happen, you must meet your true parents.

"You are not a demi-god, in a way. Though your father was mortal, he was a god in his own right.

"He was Kami."

This left her cold and shocked on the path. "Kami?" Then her face paled and her mouth dropped open. "Please don't tell me that he's kami of Chikyuu!"

"Kami of Chikyuu?" Michael began to laugh, the sound strangely soothing. "Child, of course not. Your father is not Namek-jin."

"But you said..."

"I merely said that he was Kami. Your own imagination took that and ran off wildly with it."

"Is he the kami of Vegeta-sei then?" She asked him. "A dead man?"

"Exactly."

She stopped and looked at him. "Run that by me again."

"Your father is, or was, the kami of Vegeta-sei. He watched over the planet and was its guardian. Your father was a saiyan. Where do you think you got that tail from?"

"But-but-but," she stuttered trying to make sense of all of this.

"Any other questions that you have will be answered once we reach your mother's realm."

"Just one more! Please!" She gave him a puppy dog look and he relented.

"Alright, one more."

"How are we supposed to see my tousan if he's dead?"

"I didn't tell you what your mother was goddess of."

She nodded. "Nope. You didn't."

"You know that Enma-sama is the God of the Dead, right?" She nodded again. "Well, your mother is the Guardian of the Dead."

"What the heck are you talking about?"

He sighed in frustration. "While your mother doesn't check the dead in to their afterlife, she watches over both the ones in heaven and the ones in hell to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Because your father went to heaven, she is the one you would find to talk to him. Do you understand now?"

"Yes. Thank you."

"Anytime."