Author: Mirai

Disclaimer: The characters don't recognizably belong to Akira Toriyama yet… but they will.

Warnings: Yaoi Tr x Gt, OOCness, AU, and very very plotty! Eventual lemon?

Author's Note: I have no idea where this came from; this is my first ever DBZ fic, so be kind. Yes, I know this first chapter isn't very interesting, but bear with me. It'll get better!

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The boy tapped away at the keypad, his eyes flashing back and forth between the computer and the writing on his hand, copying the code from skin to screen. Dropping his hand, his eyes scanned quickly over the screen. Nodding once, he pressed the final key and the screen went blank. Turning to the thick metal door on his right, he bit his lip expectantly. As planned, the door slid open with a hiss, and the boy sat back on his heels, a small sigh of relief coming from his lips. Grinning goofily, he turned around and made a signal with his arm. To the casual observer, it would seem he was gesturing at nothing. Fortunately, however, there were no casual observers. Slowly, several dark figures began to make their way out from crevices across the worn cobble stone street.

The boy paused, hand on the doorframe, and took a moment to admire the city around him. Tall metal towers jutted towards the darkening sky, gleaming where their silver peaks met the dying light of the sun. Most of the buildings were a savage dichotomy of organic and unnatural shapes. It was beautiful and cruel, much those who ruled it. With that thought, the boy's eyes strayed to the keypad. "Not again," he whispered quietly to himself. His hand slid back to the keys and hovered there a moment, but in his mind's split second of indecision, his fingers were already transcribing a message. His eyes closed to slits and his breathing slowed, the only thing going through his mind the rhythmic monotone of the keys. Suddenly he stopped. Taking a deep breath, he looked down at the results of his work, wondering what he would find. As the words blinked once, then disappeared, he managed to catch a few bits: "palace," "prince" and "demand." He pursed his lips, his eyes widening slightly. 'Did I really send it there?' This had been the third such note he had sent in the last few weeks. It must be important. He sighed; at least it was encrypted. He wouldn't allow himself to be caught, no matter what It wanted from him. They wouldn't catch him, not for a while, anyway.

He was startled back to reality by someone tugging on his faded black tee shirt. Looking down, he saw a small girl. She was a full 12 years old, but appeared to be far younger. Dressed in baggy black clothes, her pale skin and bony structure made her look like death himself. He smiled slightly, a genuine look of tenderness on his face as he looked down into her wide black-brown eyes. "Hey Freak," he murmured, and she nodded back at him, the sort of response he was used to getting from her. Her eyes reflected concern, or he thought they did, and she was still clutching at his shirt. He patted her pig-tailed head, her mousy brown hair soft under his fingers. "I'm all right," he reassured her, and her hand dropped from his shirt, satisfied with his answer, he supposed. She nodded again and walked into the building through the door, barely making a sound as she did. But, that was Freak.

He waited for the rest of his crew to enter before following quickly behind and shutting the door with a few taps on the small console in his hand. He felt along the wall in the dark (after all, he wouldn't want anyone noticing lights in a place where no lights should be) and found a door to, presumably, the kitchen. And of course, it was the kitchen. Sometimes It came in handy, but he would trade it in for a nice warm bed in a second. Setting the pack that was lazily slung across his shoulder on a counter, he typed the code for the metal cupboards, and began loading boxes into his pack.

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The boy returned to the hallway he had started out from with a considerably heavier load than when he began. Dropping his bag to the floor with a thump, he looked at the other dimly lit faces in the room. He could make out three… four. Freak and Jezebel, the two girls, and Alaric and Asthore (they were brothers, he thought – he wasn't sure if they even knew), two of the boys, were both there. Two were missing.

"What's going on?" he asked Jezebel worriedly, his eyes drifting over to Freak and the two boys as they quickly, but quietly, pushed objects into sacks on the floor.

Jezebel shook her black curls, her bright red lips turning downward into a frown. He couldn't see her in the dark very well, but she just reeked of worry. "I don't know Ten," she said, her normal husky purr laced with concern. "They said they were going to get as much as they could. They said there were some things in the vault, and-"

He stared at her a moment in disbelief. "Jez, they must have heard me say we couldn't do that. There isn't time!" He looked out the ceiling-to-floor window, noting that the last traces of light were disappearing. "Until sundown…"

She nodded, biting down on her thumb and nibbling worriedly at the nail. "They know. I told them! I don't know why they're not here yet." Her eyes flickered up to his face and she said softly, "they know that you're always right. But, Urel, he said… he said he was sick of listening to you. He said they didn't have to listen to you, cuz you're younger than them." She looked down at the ground, aggravating her nail, this repetitive motion testimony to her inner turmoil.

The boy shook his head and opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it. He tossed his bag lightly to Jezebel, and she caught it with a bit of a grunt. "All right," he said to her quietly. "You four are going to wait here, and I'll go get them." At her slight nod, he walked quickly down the hall of the room, bumping into foreign objects he couldn't claim to recognize every now and then. It got considerably darker as he walked away from the windowed main room, and he began to feel along the smooth metallic wall, even his excellent vision not good enough in this darkest of blacks.

Turning a corner, he saw the bluish halo of light coming from a screen, and he quickly typed in the entry code, the door opening at his command. He blinked slightly, shielding his eyes as he looked around, coming into a large room that was brightly lit. There were materials of a technical nature scattered all around the chamber, and he knew most of them intimately, down to the smallest metal bolt. One window let the last rays of sunlight in, and he looked around for his lost companions, finding them noisily packing several components to a ship's drive into two bags. He turned to the key panel by the door and turned the lights off, getting two grunts of surprise for his efforts. They both turned to glare at him in the dark.

"What are you doing?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "There's a window in here… someone could have seen the light, and-"

He was cut off as a hand grabbed his throat and pushed him against the wall, lifting him up off his feet. He wrapped his own hands around those on his neck, pulling them away enough so he could speak, and more importantly, breathe. He looked down into the dark, angry eyes of a boy who could have been only a few years older than himself. "Look, Urel," he said, a tinge of sadness in his voice. "I'm not going to fight you. We're working together, remember?" 'Besides,' he added savagely, but silently, to himself, 'I'd win.'

Urel laughed bitterly. "Look, kid, I'm sick of listening to your crap, your telling me and Reshen what to do all the time." He dropped the boy to the floor and nodded at Reshen, who was hefting a sack onto his shoulder. "Let's go, we've got everything." He spit on the floor next to the boy, who was slowly standing up and rubbing the back of his head. "Now we can get off this damned planet, no thanks to-" he was suddenly cut off as a siren sliced through the air, and all three boys froze, rapid heartbeats and quiet breaths the only sounds made.

The boy looked at the two through slitted eyes. "Run," he whispered harshly, then followed his own advice, dashing down the hall, his hand on the wall helping to steady him in the dark hall. He could hear the sound of metal on metal and muffled curses as the two older boys tried to take what they had with them, and he shook his head as he ran down the maze of hallways.

He ran down the narrow passageways with incredible speed, considering the lack of light. They'd never make it in time… He analyzed this thought as he ran. In time for what? As usual, the part of his brain that should tell him this remained elusive. Turning a corner, he could see a light from around the next bend, and he ran towards it, his heart clenching fearfully in his chest. Rounding the final corner, he slowed, his shoes making an unnatural screech in the silence as he skidded to a halt.

The room was flooded with light, and he shielded his eyes with an arm. The four members of his crew stood still, fists raised, the lines of their bodies determined. They didn't turn to look at him, but each of the four relaxed slightly, almost imperceptibly, as he took a stance next to Freak.

The youth sized up his opponents, his eyes flickering over them, a half smile forming on his face. Not too tough. There were eight of them, burly men, all dressed in the royal purple livery of the king. Swords drawn, they sneered at the small band of outcasts. They were big, strong, and far more well equipped than his lot… but nothing they couldn't handle.

There was a pregnant pause as both sides waited for the other to make a move. The boy watched a dust mote float past his nose. Then, suddenly, one of the wardens darted forward towards him. The boy avoided the man's sword easily, sliding to the side, and the man pushed past him in surprise. He dropped his elbow and slammed it into the man's back with all the force he could muster, and the man slumped to the ground. He groaned, and the other guards looked down at him in disbelief. Another pause, and the whole bunch of them chose that moment to charge at them. The boy slid in front of the four members of his group and prepared to defend them. He raised his fist, and suddenly the room wavered in front of him. He blinked, and suddenly he felt himself falling towards the ground, almost in slow motion. 'No!' his mind screamed, 'not now! NO!' He heard a shout, and then his head was connecting with the wall.

He lay slumped against the wall as if paralyzed, and he could only watch in horror as Aloric and Asthore went first, managing to take out two of the men, but they were taken down by a third and a fourth. The two conspirators, Urel and Reshen, sneaked past the fight and outside, but from the sudden loud shouts, the boy could tell there had been more waiting outside. 'I could have told you that!' he mentally screamed in agony. Then, suddenly, Jezebel was falling to the ground right in front of him, a look of surprise on her lovely face. Freak jabbed viciously forward, her hair whipping through the air, and a man fell over with a scream. She couldn't last long, he knew. He could tell. She was fighting with everything she had left, and it couldn't be much. Then she, too, slumped to the ground, a final word coming and dying on her lips. Ironically, although the boy was in no position to wonder at it at the moment, it was Freak who had died, yelling for him, while Jezebel, ever the chatterbox, had been completely silent.

His eyes closed without permission, and he fell into unconsciousness, unshed tears stinging at the back of his eyes. "It's not fair. Damn fate," was his last semi-conscious thought before the blackness overtook him.

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He was being dragged roughly… somewhere. "Gerroff, Ric, Thore," he muttered sleepily, "I can walk by myself."

He heard an unpleasant laugh, followed by a equally unpleasant, rough voice. "Har, the king'd have our ears if we let you do that..."

He was dropped unceremoniously on a hard, flat floor. He opened his eyes slowly and looked down at his red, chafed wrists, rubbing them with a grumble. Blinking slowly, he looked around in the dim room. Cell, actually. There was a bed, blanket and pillow, and a door, all equally drab and gray in the little bit of light coming through the tiny window. That was it. He stood up and walked to the door, trying the handle, and finding, with little surprise, that it was locked. He didn't even need It to tell him that. He felt around, but unfortunately, the door hinges were on the outside, and the door was made of something heavy. Some sort of rock? Wasn't metal or wood… Stone. Wasn't the palace made of marble? Several curse words came to mind, and he made a point of saying them each, loudly, several times into the silence.

He backed away from the door and plopped down on the bed, covering his mouth as he yawned. The shock of his new surroundings combined with his sudden tiredness of body and spirit made the earlier events fade distantly into the back of his mind. He curled his arms around the pillow, which, fortunately, smelled reasonably clean. His eyelids fluttered close, and he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Two moons shone brightly down into the tiny room inhabited by the boy. Dark, strange shapes floated around his sleeping head, the final futile cry "Ten!" echoing through and haunting his dreams.

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An: First chapter. I know, I know. "What was that load of bull?" Don't worry! I've got plans for this thing! Any reviews/comments/hate mail are appreciated. Goten was terribly OOC; he gets better, I promise! So if you survived through this chapter, give it another chance when you see the next one up. I'll try to make it worth your time. Yep, this is Goten x Trunks, even though you can't tell yet. Where is Trunks, you ask?? No worries, he's coming. Worth continuing? Thanks for reading!

~~Mirai