Ghost From the Past

Choices

chapter 18:

Choices

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We find Goten training alone, on an island, miles outside of West City. A glowing light forms in his outstretched palm and shoots out like a laser into a tall, rocky formation in front of him. If he hadn't been actively using his ki, pinpointing his location wouldn't have been so easy. The rocky formation explodes as his ki blast makes contact with it, and millions of pebbles rain down on us as we land on the flattest surface we could find.

Goten senses our arrival and glances over his shoulder at us. His eyes narrow when he spots Trunks. I'd never seen my uncle look upon his best friend with such disdain before. Without so much as a greeting, Goten propels himself with his ki, flying far away from us, and unleashes multiple ki blasts on the rocky terrain below him. The message is clear: Go away!

"It's impossible to talk to him when he gets like this," Trunks sighs." Goten hardly ever gets angry, but when he does..."

"Gee, I wonder who could've possibly made him this angry," I reply sarcastically while rolling my eyes." We don't have time to wait for him to calm down. He hates you, but maybe he'll talk to me." My legs tense as I prepare to launch myself into the sky after my uncle, but Trunks holds his arm out to stop me.

"I'll talk to him. This whole mess is my fault. Wait here for me where it's safe," Trunks commands. His hardened blue eyes fix upon mine. "I wont let anything happen to our family. It might get messy out there, but whatever happens, trust in me. Don't interfere."

"I trust you." I nod, and I mean it.

Trunks' hair flashes gold as he transforms into a Super Saiyan. His aura glows with golden power as he pushes himself into Super Saiyan 2. The transformation gives him the boost of speed he needs to catch up to Goten within seconds.

I clasp my hands together with worry, unable to do anything more than wait.

Trunks gestures with his arms and hands as he speaks, trying his best to reason with my uncle, but how can he expect reason or forgiveness after sleeping with Goten's first love? Goten yells back at Trunks, but I'm too far away to make out his words. Goten's hair and aura turn gold to match Trunks. He punches Trunks so hard that his body flies out of view. The sound of Trunks' body smashing into the rocky terrain below sounds as awful as a plane crash.

Had Goten's attack caught Trunks off guard, or was he simply allowing Goten to unleash some of his rage?

Goten shoots through the sky like a missile, dead set after Trunks. Their battle was far from over.

"Trunks," I whisper, holding back the painful urge to run to him and protect him in any way that I could." Don't die on me, or else I'll wish you back to life and kill you myself."

I had filled Trunks in on everything that happened in the future on our way here. I told him about his and Valese's daughter,Fable, who we were raising together. I told him about how Goten and I had inherited the power to travel back and forth between time like our grandfather, and how Dende had taken that power away from us so we could live normally again. I told him about the last words I had said to Fable which is why we needed to find Valese and stop her from terminating her pregnancy. I couldn't let that be my last memory of Fable. I couldn't bare the thought of never seeing her sweet face again.

Trunks had quietly listened to me tell my story. Unlike his future counterpart, he didn't start a debate about time travel or mention how unrealistic it was to do so without a time machine. He was still smug, though, when he asked," So, does this mean you want to recreate the future that you saw? Are you saying you want to raise a child...with me?"