The Power Of Love

SUMMARY: Kakkarot retells a horrible memory. King Vegeta and his crew find the Prince.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Dragonball Z and am in no way connected to them. I only wish I was, than I'd have at least SOME $$$. I also do not own and am in no way related to the creators or producers or anything of the song Power of Love by Celine Dion. Please don't sue me. Seeing as how I am broke, sueing me would do you no good. =Þ

AUTHOR: Hidden Angel

Last time on Visions:

She watched as the image of Toruo waved goodbye to her. "No!" She ran towards him again, wanting him to stay even if it wasn't real. She thrust out her hand trying to grab onto some part of him, any part. Nothing. She watched the image fade slowly and dissipate until it was nothing.

With a sudden jerk, Fate sat bolt upright from the oak tree. A dream. It was nothing but a dream. Or was it? Was this Kami-sama's way of telling her something? What did it all mean?

*****

Vegeta abruptly stood up. Something wasn’t right in the outside world. There were several extra power levels. Who could they possibly belong to? His heart nearly froze as he recognized his father’s ki. Impossible! His father? On Earth? No. It couldn’t be true.

As his mind raced to try and comprehend what was going on, he felt a minuscule voice nagging at him, trying to tell him something. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind marking it as unimportant. He growled in frustration. Did he want to go out and face his father, or would it be better to remain in the state that he was in now? Pondering his options, Vegeta decided to remain where he was. If need be, later on, he could return to the outside world.

One thing that Vegeta failed to notice was the fact that the little space in his mind was shrinking while the darkness which encircled it continued to grow.

*****

Bulma walked dazedly around the castle. Something wasn’t right. She could sense it. There was something amiss yet she had no idea what it was. She felt the hollow emptiness in her heart continue to grow and consume her. To make matters worse, her head hurt and her stomach felt queasy. Moaning in pain, she leaned against a nearby wall. She took slow, deep breaths and tried to make the world stop spinning.

Growing more upset by the minute, she hurried to her room and slammed the door behind her. Without another thought, her emotions too much for her to take, she flung herself onto the bed allowing the tears to trickle down her cheeks. Why did she have to fall in love with such an impossible guy?

*****

Kakkarot yanked roughly on Toruo’s armour as they neared the landing site of the intruders. Mouthing silently, he told Toruo to mask his ki. He wasn’t sure yet, but if what he thought he saw was correct, then things were going to get really complicated, really quickly.

Backing out of hearing distance, the two Saiyan warriors dropped to the ground. Kakkarot kept all his senses alert, feeling every movement, listening for every sound within a ten mile radius. He wouldn’t let them be caught off guard or it could mean goodbye to them both.

"Why’d we stop?"

Toruo was clueless and had no idea what was going on. He had thought they were going to meet the intruders head first in a battle, but that obviously wasn’t Kakkarot’s plan. Kakkarot took one last, long look in the direction of the intruders and motioned for Toruo to follow him. Together, they made their way to the nearby woods, the same one that Toruo had been held captive in.

After stumbling around in the woods for awhile, Kakkarot finally deemed that they had gone far enough. Sighing, he plopped himself onto a large boulder. He had seen correctly afterall. King Vegeta had come to Earth. It wouldn’t have been so bad had he come by himself, but he had brought along some friends. One friend in particular scared Kakkarot and made him wonder what the future held for everyone.

"Kakkarot, tell me what is going on. I feel so confused now. Why did we stop?"

Kakkarot looked up at the naive, young warrior. "I guess you wouldn’t know since you didn’t go to Aster with us."

"Aster?"

Toruo thought for awhile. Aster? Where was that? Still unable to remember, he looked quizzically at Kakkarot.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

Moving slowly off the boulder, Kakkarot closed his eyes and tried to remember all that had happened.

"Three years ago, a group of our best fighters were sent to a planet called Aster. King Vegeta deemed that it was a nice planet and the planet’s inhabitants were not worthy of it. Only the best of us were sent. Our scientists and researchers told us that these Asterians had mind-boggling powers that normal warriors would never be able to defend themselves against." Shaking his head with a gleam in his eyes, Kakkarot continued. "Boy were they ever right. I went as a guard to Prince Vegeta who was to over-see the mission. It was horrible. I have tried to forget that battle, but I can’t seem to do it. Sometimes, it still haunts my dreams at night."

When Kakkarot didn’t continue, Toruo prodded him for more information. He would not be left hanging in such a manner. He had to know what happened, what was so horrible about that incident.

"Go on." He tried to sound reassuring, knowing that this probably wasn’t something easy for the slightly older warrior to discuss.

"Most of our warriors didn’t heed the warnings given to us. They attacked thinking that this would be like all their other battles: an easy victory. They were brash and over-confident. They didn’t even obey Prince Vegeta’s orders to be cautious."

The wind howled with sudden rage, rustling the leaves on the trees, almost as if it sympathized with the events of that dreadful day. The woods went silent, commemorating the souls of the lost.

"They attacked head on, no back-up plans, not even a real plan either. All they wanted to do was destroy all the Asterians and return to planet Vegeta as quickly as possible. They split up into groups of five, each heading to the major cities of the planet. It wasn’t a large planet and had only twelve major cities." Shaking his head, Kakkarot continued. "They flew into each of the cities, yelling and screaming as if there was no tomorrow. Any chances at a sneak attack were eliminated. A few of the Asterians fell due to the speed of our attackers, but once they knew we were there...that’s when things got bad."

Toruo’s interest was now peeked. He had never heard of or learned any of this on planet Vegeta.

"Asterians are weak physically, but their true power lies in their ability to mentally control people. Our warriors were totally unprepared for their retaliation. All sixty of them became walking zombies and eventually killed themselves on orders from the Asterians. They fought each other, ripped each other to shreds." Looking down at the ground, Kakkarot continued in shame at what his fellow warriors had done. "By the time I returned to inform the Prince, they were all dead already. Between the two of us, we left Aster as quickly as we could. Both of us had witnessed more than we cared to know and neither of us wanted to lose control of our minds. Once at a safe distance from the planet, the Prince and I created a large ki ball and destroyed Aster, leaving it as nothing more than crumbs."

Toruo took all this information in. Of course he hadn’t heard of it. The Saiyans were a proud race and would never admit to having lost so many warriors in a battle. All traces of such a battle would have been covered up to make it seem as if it had never happened. When he thought about it, he realized that he had heard something about it awhile back. He had been training one day when some of the older warriors began talking about missing elite warriors. At that time, he had dismissed it as nothing important, but now, now he thought he knew what had happened to them. Still, he felt as if his question had gone unanswered.

"What a tragic lose." He closed his eyes to honour his fellow dead warriors. After a few seconds, he asked the question that plagued his mind. "What does that have to do with our current situation?"

"I thought we had killed them all when we blew up Aster but I guess there were some Asterians off-planet. It only makes sense for that to be the case." Still receiving a questioning look from Toruo, he continued. "One of the people who came with King Vegeta is an Asterian."

Toruo’s eyes popped open in shock. "Are you saying that...."

"Yeah. I think our King might be under her influence."

"Her?"

Kakkarot nodded. "Didn’t you see her?"

"No."

"It doesn’t matter. We have to get back to the castle to warn everyone of her potential power. I will not allow the people here to perish like our warriors did on Aster."

Without waiting for a response, Kakkarot retraced his flight and flew back to the castle, ki still masked, senses still alert.

*****

"Are we going to stand around here like this all day?" The Asterian female’s agitation was obvious in her voice.

"No, of course not Anon. That is, unless you want to stay here all day." King Vegeta made an un-Saiyan like bow to the female.

She waved her hand in dismissal at him. "Well then, let’s get moving. I haven’t seen my Vegeta in almost three full years now."

Anon, the female Asterian, batted her eyelashes at King Vegeta and immediately, he picked her up and headed in the direction of his son’s ki, all thought lost to his clouded mind. Frieza hung back a bit, eyes narrowed at the Asterian.

She thought she had power over him and could control him, but she didn’t. He was merely toying with her mind, waiting for the time to strike. Her powers were strong and he liked that. For the kind of power that she possessed, he could wait forever if he had to. After all, in order to conquer the entire universe, one needed more than just sheer, physical power.

Anon took a peek from out of King Vegeta’s arms at the planet her dear Vegeta seemed to have taken a liking to. It wasn’t a bad looking place, but she preferred the barren look of planet Vegeta itself.

A scream of terror echoed through her thoughts and brought her out of her trance-like state. Looking down, she saw a Saiyan-like guy standing over a pathetic, blue-haired, earth-woman. From her birds-eye view, it appeared as if the Saiyan was about to kill the woman as his ki ball continued to grow in the palm of his hands.

"Down."

Almost immediately, King Vegeta began to descend upon the unsuspecting strangers. Once his feet touched the ground, Anon jumped from his arms landing perfectly on her own two feet.

Bulma looked up in shock at the new arrivals. She didn’t like the looks of them and wondered why she hadn’t heeded Yamcha’s warnings when he told her not to go wandering off. She quickly got up and brushed herself off, knowing that she looked a mess but not caring. She decided that silence, for now, was the best approach to the situation.

Lumo also turned around, anger flowing through his veins. He had come so close to killing the source of his problems and now these strangers suddenly dropped in. His eyes nearly popped out as he dropped to his knees in front of King Vegeta.

"Your Majesty! I..."

"Shut up you worthless piece of..." King Vegeta raised his arms, ready to finish Lumo off.

"Wait."

Anon interjected. "No." She circled Lumo, snickering the entire time. "Don’t kill this worthless scum yet."

A low growl emitted from Lumo’s throat as he glared at her. "Little, ugly bitc..."

Her horrendous face smiled down at Lumo who was still on his knees. Making a few small gestures with her hands, she almost laughed as she watched his face change from one of anger to one of pure stupidity. He was now under her control, nothing more than a mindless zombie under the influence of her magic powers.

Already feeling sick, Bulma fainted in shock as Lumo reached over to Anon and kissed her hand. "My loyalty lies only with you."

Anon smirked at her newest zombie. Pulling her hand away almost immediately, she looked at the weak, human female lying on the ground and wondered what this Saiyan wanted with her. Deciding that it wasn’t worth her time to question the matter, she looked once more to King Vegeta.

"Let’s go. I don’t have time for all this. I miss my Vegeta."

Without a second glance at Bulma, the little band of warriors took off with Anon in tow.

NEXT TIME ON POWER OF LOVE: Vegeta meets Anon.

Chapter19