The New Age Empire v2: Book 2

~Chapter 5: Of Magical Springs and Hidden Catches~

A huge crowd gathered about the king and his commander as everyone heard about the match. Bulma, ChiChi, and the kids took seats right in front and took bets from the surrounding onlookers. Around sixty percent bet on Goku, and the remaining forty percent were all Vegeta's.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Goku asked with concern. He would never hear the end of it if Vegeta was humiliated.

"Of course I am, Kakarott!" He said with a smirk. "I can't lose!"

"Vegeta, this is your first time. I can let you win..."

"You better not, Kakarott. I am able to win *without* your help."

"Okay..." he trailed off with a very worried frown. "Go ahead. It's your turn."

Vegeta aimed for the middle arrow, drew his arm back, and let the ball go as hard as he could. No one could see it rolling and it knocked the pins over into the neighboring lanes coming to a stop only when it created a hole in the wall and hit a parked car in the lot. Everyone peered through the hole it created out into the sunshine and Goku groaned.

"I should have told you *not* to throw it hard."

Ten minutes later they had another lane. This time Vegeta threw it with only a fraction of his strength and it went straight into the gutter. His second try wasn't much better.

"Hey Papa!" Trunks shouted from the audience. "Do you want bumpers?" Goku explained at his confused look.

"Bumpers are things they inflate in the gutters for children so that the ball doesn't go into them. I'd say it would be embarrassment level three for you." Goku had invented a humilation rating scale for his king since no one wanted Vegeta to freak out and kill someone. Things like babysitting and washing dishes were only at one while the most extreme, holding lacy underwear for Bulma in the lingerie department, was level five.

"Then forget it then," he said as Goku took his turn and got a strike. "Vegeta-oui will not be using 'bumpers' to keep his ball out of the gutter." He lined up the ball again, squatted down, and before Goku could stop him pushed the ball with both hands down the lane.

"You thought *that* would be more dignified than the bumpers?" the commander asked with amusement as four pins fell over.

He blinked in surprise. "You mean I can't do that?"

The larger saiyan waved his arm at the crowd and Vegeta could hear the smothered snickers and the outright laughs from his family. "Ya think?"

"Kakarott," he growled. "Explain what I need to do to keep myself from looking stupid."

"Win," he answered simply.

"That's all?"

"That's all."

***

Vegeta wandered around the huge room with his mouth hanging open in the most unprincely manner. He had grown up around technology all of his life so seeing what other planets and cultures had invented was extremely interesting.

Some things that they had on Chikyuu like cooking devices, sound transmitters, and media recorders were the same although slightly different. You don't change a good thing, you should only improve on it.

In the back, among booths for waterproof clothing and fire resistent aprons, was a lone booth that not many people stopped to look at. In fact, many people were giving it a wide berth. A fierce looking, dark-haired man sat behind the large display of armor and weaponry and the look he was giving passerbys were so frightening it was obvious why he had no customers. Vegeta wasn't afraid, though, and he stopped by to look over a piece of tough-looking leather-like armor.

"What do you want?" The tall, slightly overweight man grunted. He asked the question in a hostile way but Vegeta sensed that it just came out that way. As if the speaker had no control over his tone. The young man brushed it away and motioned to the breastplate.

"What is that made of?" The big guy looked a little puzzled so a smaller, thinner man pushed him slightly out of the way with a smile. He had large, friendly eyes with no frown lines between them and wore a casual outfit of shorts and a tee-shirt.

"Go sit over there, Jas, you're frightening away all of the customers. He turned back to Vegeta with a smile on his face. "I'm sorry about that, sir. I was on my coffee break and I left him here to guard our merchandise. No one in their right mind would try to steal something with him around." He lifted the breastplate from its hook and ran his hand across the material.

"This is from a now extinct animal from the third planet in the Ryu System. It was a quadrupedal, furry creature with a *very* tough hide."

Vegeta nodded along as if he understood what the heck he was saying. Eventually his voice became background noise as he studied his features.

'He doesn't look that much like Goten,' he thought. 'The only thing they have in common is the hair color and the eye color.'

"Um, sir?" The man waved his hand in front of his face. Vegeta blinked once and shook his head.

"I'm sorry. But anyway, I was just curious because I've never seen anything like it."

"Where are you from?" he asked with interest.

"Chikyuu. It's in the Milky Way Galaxy in the norther part of the universe. This is my first trip to space and I only came here at first to pay a traffic ticket."

The man made a face. "Yeah. Those Space Police do too good of a job."

"VEGETA!" A voice shouted from behind. He turned to see Kallen and Goten dodging people and running in his direction.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"Kallen said it was urgent. Something about Agalar. She- Huh?" Stopping in mid-word, he looked down to see the young man that was formerly behind the counter hugging him around the midsection. Goten scratched his head and shot Vegeta a look that clearly read, 'What the heck is going on?'. His friend shrugged and everyone turned to the sobbing dark-haired man.

"Um, why are you hugging me?" he asked him.

"Papa! At last I meet you!" This really put a confused expression on Goten's face.

"How can I be your father? I'm only twenty-three! Besides, I don't have any kids!"

Sniffling, he looked up. "I have a picture, right here." Digging into his back pocket, he pulled out a wallet and showed them all the faded, black-and-white photo. "My mother told me about you. How great of a warrior you were, how you always lead your men to victory, how-"

"I may be a warrior but I never had an army. Besides, that looks like my tousan!" He glanced at Vegeta. "Doesn't it?"

"Hai, it sure does. But it also looks exactly like you."

"Tousan?" the man asked, confused.

"It means father," Goten explained. "By the way, what's your name?"

"Taura," he smiled. "This really looks like *your* papa?"

"Uh huh," he nodded. "Everyone says I look exactly like him."

"This is touching but I *really* have something to tell you guys!" Kallen finally spoke up after holding back her urgent information.

"Oh yeah that's right!" Goten exclaimed. "I forgot all about that!"

"You baka!" Both Vegeta and Kallen cried out in unison.

He cringed. "I wish you were never told the meaning of that word, Kallen."

She pulled them both closer to them and took a deep breath. "In the Academy I had a class called Myths and Legends of the Universe. In it we studied all of the strange things people pass on from generation to generation. Well, the professor made us do extensive reasearch and a large report on the Springs of Agalar." She shook her head. "What I found out doesn't sound too good for you two."

"Nani?" Vegeta asked, accidentally slipping into Japanese. "I mean, what?"

"The Springs can give the drinker certain abilities and powers depending on which one they drank from. But there are catches."

"Go on," he said, not sure he wanted to hear how many.

"First of all, you have to complete trials in order for the true Springs to be revealed to you. If you decide to skip them and take a drink from the Springs that you *do* find, you will die."

"No problem! What else is there?"

"Two, an hour after the true Springs appear the water becomes completely useless and the drinker finds himself holding a glass of plain water. In order for the water to retain it's power, you must only bottle it in special containers."

Both demi-saiyans nodded with understanding. Goten spoke. "Then we'll buy the containers. How much to they cost?"

"Sad to say, no one has been able to find them in at least a millenia. That's one of the reasons why the Springs still have their power. The second is because no one can find the map either."

"We have the map!" Goten said excitedly. "The Lyz'da gave it to us!"

"Oh really?" she clearly didn't believe him.

"Goten, be quiet!" Vegeta looked around quickly to see if someone had been listening. The only one besides them was Taura and he looked easy enough to hurt. He never saw the dark figure slip back among the crowd of the Trading Floor.

"Look," he said as low as he could against the noise of the crowd, "meet us at our spaceship at Dock Ten at twenty-hundred hours. We'll talk then."

"Can I come too?" Taura looked so eager Goten didn't have the heart to say no. Besides, he wanted to keep tabs on him after the whole 'you're my father' thing. Did his own tousan have another child he wasn't telling anyone about? It didn't seem very likely. Besides, the man in the picture wasn't wearing Goku's familiar orange gi. As if anyone could tell what color his clothes were in a black-and-white photo.

"Fine but be quiet and stay out of the conversation," Vegeta told him. "I don't want to have to 'enforce the rules'. You get what I'm saying?"

Taura look from the prince's expression to the muscles in his arms and swallowed, hard. "Uh yeah. Sure."

"Good."

***

Goku was leading his king by sixty-nine points in the fourth frame and those who had bet on Vegeta were regretting it completely. Vegeta sat next to Bulma glaring at his bowling ball in the return wondering if something was wrong with the thing. After Goku got a spare in the fifth frame, Vegeta pulled him aside out of earshot of even the demi-saiyans and asked him to lose on purpose.

"Are you sure?" Goku asked. Vegeta nodded impatiently. "Are you *really* sure?" Again, he nodded. "Are you ultra super positive?"

"I'M REALLY SURE BAKAYARO!" This caused everyone in their area turned their heads to see where the shouting was coming from.

Goku grinned. "I just don't want you mad at me later, my king." He thought it couldn't hurt to add a title. As it were, Vegeta practically swelled up with pleasure.

" 'My king'," he repeated. "I could get to like that." Picking up his black bowling ball from the return, he aimed and let it go for his first strike of the evening. He fought the urge to jump for joy and instead smirked at the crowd as Goku stepped forward for his turn.

"If I get zero points from frames six to ten, you still need to get at least three strikes to beat me."

"Damn it," Vegeta cursed softly. "I should have taken up your offer in the beginning. Curse my pride."

Goku almost dropped his ball in awe. "I can't believe you just said that."

"Believe it," he growled.

The taller saiyan moved up to the lane and appeared to be carefully lining up his shot. Then he let it go and angeled it on purpose so it went straight into the gutter. No one could believe that it happened.

"Oopsie," he said with a small smile. "I guess I'm slipping."

Both Bulma and ChiChi knew immediately what was going on and neither liked it. In their opinion, Vegeta was acting like a spoiled royal brat by whining about winning and Goku was making himself look foolish by suddenly getting scratches after so many strikes and spares. But this would probably be on the news and in the paper by the looks of the reporters that showed up halfway through and it would be best if Vegeta *did* win. But then again, maybe if the people saw that their king wasn't perfect, they would feel closer to him. There wasn't a clear answer.

"What should he do, ChiChi?" Bulma asked with concern.

"He should do his best but unfortunately that involves him beating Vegeta."

"But if Vegeta sees that something good can come from loosing, he wouldn't mind if it happened."

"You mean *when* it happens," the other woman corrected.

"Hai," Bulma frowned at her. "When." She walked over to them right before Goku used his second ball and drew them together. "Look, we don't think it's right that he's letting you win Veggie-chan."

He frowned. "What do you mean? I'm the king around here!"

"Exactly that! Just because you're king doesn't mean you should automatically be the best at everything. That's just not how it works." He opened his mouth to object. "I don't care how they did it on Vegeta-sei! If you haven't noticed by now, you aren't there!"

"If you lose Vegeta," Goku began. "and be a good sport about it then everyone gets to see how wonderful a person you are. There *are* such things as bad winners."

"And you would be one of them," Bulma informed him dryly

"I don't understand."

"If you won, Vegeta, you would be pointing fingers into Son-kun's face and shouting 'I'm better than you are! I'm better than you are!'. Is that how you want those people out there *and* the media to see you? The king who can't win gracefully but must rub it into the loser's face?"

Now that she put it that way, that didn't seem like a good idea to her mate. "Iie, I guess not."

"Good!" Goku grinned. "Then it's settled. I can win." He returned to the lane and bowled a spare before Vegeta could do little more than sputter.

"I didn't say that!"

"Doesn't matter," Bulma called over her shoulder as she returned to her seat. All Vegeta could do was fume silently.

***

The dinner with Lizza had gone surprisingly well. Even though they had no idea what they were eating most of the time, it tasted pretty good seeing as it was similar to wait they ate on Chikyuu. They said goodbye to her at nineteen and made their way back to Dock Ten.

"Take a shower," Vegeta told Goten while holding his nose. "You're becoming unbearable."

He sniffed himself. "I don't smell anything."

"Maybe your nose is becoming as senseless as your brain."

It took him a moment to get that but when he did it wasn't pretty. "Screw you, bastard." he growled and stomped off toward the bathroom. Vegeta merely shook his head in faint amusement and walked over to the computer console.

"Don I need you to do a scan of the map and save it into the system. Just in case someone who shouldn't gets their hands on the ring." He took the point of a ink pen and pushed the button and the projection appeared against the wall. "Can you cut the lights in this room down to one percent of their power and use our faces for visual recognition?"

"Done and done. No one other than you and Goten will be able to access the record."

"Thank you," he smiled as the pale yellow rectangle with black print appeared on the wall. He studied it for a moment, hoping that they hadn't missed something important, and found nothing. By this time Goten was finished with his shower and making his way toward their gravity chamber to train.

"Goten!" Vegeta called out to him, hoping he still wasn't angry at him. "Do you want to spar until Kallen and that boy gets here?"

The other hybrid nodded and a small smile appeared on his face. "Are you done callin' me a baka?"

"Hai. For today."

"Good. That's all I can ask for."

Less than an hour later Taura and Kallen were allowed inside the ship by Don who, after scanning their thoughts, found no harmful intent whatsoever. The sudden lowering of gravity alerted both Vegeta and Goten to their presence.

"Oh hi!" Goten smiled at them as he grabbed a towel. "Is it twenty already?"

Both Kallen and Taura had seen them sparring before the Don lowered the gravity. Sort of. Neither of them could explain what they were after seeing them though. There was a tribe of warriors in a southern galaxy that were amazing but Vegeta and Goten were beyond even that. It left them speechless.

"What's wrong?" V.J. asked as he pulled on his shirt.

"What are you?" Kallen asked in awe. "I thought Goten was similar in physique to Taura and Jas but..."

After sighing, Vegeta led them from the room and into the kitchen. He sat down at the table and focused on the wood. "You might as well know. It's not as if we're ashamed or anything..."

"Nope, it's not that." Goten agreed.

"We're hybrids," he told them, "Saiyan hybrids. Of course, no relation."

"Hopefully."

"Ah, I see." Kallen said. "I read about them. There are a lot of rumors regarding the old saiyan race of Vegeta-sei."

"Yeah it's no big deal." Taura said this with a smile. "My papa's one." He said this casually but this made Goten and Vegeta look at him in shock."

"How many people look like my tousan?" Goten asked no one in particular. "I've got to talk to them."

Rushing over to the console, he proceeded to dial Chikyuu.

 

I'd finished chapter four of book two Friday but since fanfiction.net has been down since then (today's 7-29) I decided to go ahead and write chapter five. Six will be coming soon! (And this time the tournament *will* end.)