Alatrunks, Chapter #11
Summary: What happens when two reckless writers mix Disney’s Aladdin and Dragon Ball Z. ^_^
Author’s Notes: Chapter Title: A new Sultan
Trunks paced his room, his new room, one much more grand than a guest room fit even for a prince. This room was meant for Prince Gohan’s chosen one and the future co-ruler of Truhania.
“Sultan,” Trunks muttered, the word a curse on his tongue. Five days ago, if someone told him he would be the co-sultan of Truhania he would have laughed, not believed it, but then would have been thrilled when he discovered that the person telling him this was perfectly serious.
He was going to be sultan. Trunks threw off his jacket, the fine fabric was making him itch.
“I don’t know anything about being a king.” Trunks clenched his teeth and smashed his fists into the wall. “Damnit!”
The action jarred Piccolo from his cooker. He slid out, floating on air like he rode on a hammock. A lazy grin on his face.
“Ready to make your final wish?”
He opened his eyes and looked up. Trunks walked in the opposite direction with his shoulders down and back hunched.
Piccolo stiffened and flew after him. Trunks leaned against the rail and observed the pink flamingos that grazed only a few feet away. He didn’t acknowledge Piccolo beside him.
“Kid?” Piccolo touched his shoulder with a clawed hand. “You alright.”
Trunks shrugged him away. “I’m the most horrible person in the world. They’re going to make me sultan.”
“That’s a *good* thing. You’ll never have to worry about food or money again, long after I’m gone.”
Trunks flinched. “They want to make Prince Ali sultan, not Trunks.”
Piccolo raised a brow and looked him up and down. “Maybe you should wish for my freedom now.”
Trunks looked at him, his eyes that of a hurt dog, and Piccolo understood. His green face turned red and lips pulled up to reveal horrifying incisors. “You’re not going to do it. You lied to me.”
His rage filled face paired with a calm tone of voice made the accusation stronger. Trunks looked away from him.
“I’m nothing without you. You’re my only friend.”
“IDIOT! Do you think I want to be here? That I would be nice to you if I wasn’t your slave?”
“Piccolo I’m so sorry.” Trunks reached out to touch his arm, to make him understand. Piccolo yanked himself away.
“Don’t touch me. I’m tied to you but I don’t have to speak to you unless you wish it!” He laughed shortly. “You lied to everyone else, I shouldn’t even be angry because I should have known this was coming.” Piccolo slid back into his rice cooker, the lid slamming behind him.
Trunks watched the cooker, waiting for the genie to come back out so they could speak. He waited there for ten minutes before he grabbed a pillow and threw it at the cooker. The impact jarred the cooker from its place on the chair and knocked it on the floor. “Just stay in there then, fine!”
He turned to march out of the room and halted at the sight of Yajirabu, still in elephant form, staring at him over the rail. The tiny elephant eyes were wide and the mouth slightly open. Trunks knew he’d scared his friend.
“Yajirabu,”
Yajirabu turned and walked away.
“No! I’m sorry, please!” He chased Yajirabu out into the garden but the pudgy elephant didn’t look at him. He sat down under a tree in the shade and threw his trunk over his eyes.
“Yajirabu, I’m sorry, I just need him around a little longer. I’ll let him go, I will.”
Yajirabu turned his head away and tightened his ears to his head so he wouldn’t have to hear anymore.
Trunks nearly collapsed, Nimbus hovered around his shoulders, observing the scene, and would likely catch him if he did, but he held himself upright and clenched his fists.
He marched in a circle, glaring at his friend and glaring towards his new room where Piccolo hid from him. “Why can’t either of you understand? I don’t want to lie to everyone.”
Trunks stopped and looked down at Yajirabu who pretended to be asleep. “I don’t want to lie anymore.”
He looked back to his room where the curtains floated in the breeze, behind them Piccolo still lay in his cooker, steaming over what Trunks had done to him.
He called himself a slave. And it was true, he was, and Trunks hated himself for giving the green man hope and then taking it away like he did. “What am I doing?”
He took two steps towards his room, stopped, then went in the opposite direction. He needed to speak with Gohan first. Let Gohan know what kind of man he was attaching himself to, then, regardless of the decision the prince made and what would happen to Trunks if Gohan threw him out, Trunks would set Piccolo free as they agreed.
***
Oolong couldn’t feel his legs, and when the purple haired imposter finally left he breathed a sigh of relief and stretched. Sitting on the stilts in the flamingo costume hurt like Hell.
Carefully, he glanced over his shoulder, the elephant was down for the count, and that strange cloud thing had gone with him when he left the garden.
The cooker was exposed, and the genie within completely helpless.
“This is too easy.” He laughed out loud as he climbed the steps and hobbled through the curtains. Leaping off the stilts, he surveyed the room.
His eyes didn’t land on the cooker immediately. He searched under the bed, in the stone dressers, under the pillows until he finally found it hidden on a chair.
“That fool! He practically left it out in the open!” He hugged the cooker to his piggy chest. “I can see the look on Vegeta’s face!” He twisted his form to sprout a flame of black hair off the top of his head. “‘Excellent work Oolong!’” He laughed out loud again, shifting from a pig with the head of Vegeta to a giant eagle. He wrapped his talons around the cooker and took off into the air with it, escaping into the sky when he was free of the room.
***
Trunks jogged along the palace walls, the sound behind them suggested a massive group of people had gathered in front of the palace, and above the noise of their cheers and murmers he heard the Sultan’s echoing voice announcing something or other to them.
“Gohan?” He turned a corner and finally saw him. standing on the top of a staircase carved into the wall and peaking out of a curtain.
“Gohan!”
Gohan turned, his eyes lighting up at the sight of him. He rushed down the stairs two at a time and grabbed his hand when he got to the bottom. “Ali, where have you been?”
Trunks didn’t understand why Gohan was so intent on pulling him up the stairs. “Did I forget something?”
“I told father that you’re my chosen last night! He’s announcing it right now!”
“What!” Trunks tried to pull back but Gohan towed his along, too excited to notice as he grabbed a spare turban off a chair and put it on top of Trunks’ head.
“Gohan wait, you don’t understand! I need to tell you something!”
Gohan kissed his lips, silencing him. Trunks was frozen, he couldn’t move. Gohan manipulated his mouth open and slid his tongue inside. Trunks melted and responded. He grabbed Gohan’s waist and pulled him tightly against his body.
If he told Gohan the truth he would give this up. A prince could not be with a street urchin, a poverty stricken, thieving rat like him.
Trunks fought for dominance of the kiss. Surprised, Gohan had no choice but to give it. He took control, lifting his hands to touch Gohan’s face and flinging off the turban so he could thread his fingers through that black hair of his.
Trunks released him for air and gasped like he did when Piccolo rescued him from the ocean.
Gohan didn’t move to pick up his turban. He touched Trunks’ face much the same way Trunks touched his. His eyes no longer excited, but worried. “You kissed me like you were planning on never kissing me again.”
Trunks’ lips lifted slightly. “I’ll always kiss you.”
‘In my dreams.’ He thought.
Gohan’s grin returned, and mistaking the softness in his voice for passion he returned to his excited state. “Then get out there and tell that to Truhania.”
Gohan shoved him out the curtain. Trunks stared down at thousands of cheering dots in the distance, all cheering for him.
Gohan held his hand and waved politely to the crowd, resting his head on Trunks’ shoulder.
“Oh boy.” Trunks lifted his hand, but couldn’t bring himself to smile. Everything just got ten million times worse.
***
Vegeta fell to his knees when Oolong dropped the cooker into his hands. He clutched it like a father holding his newborn child. “I have waited decades for this. Get away!” He swiped his hand at Oolong, who stood too close for Vegeta’s comfort. He needed to do this himself, to have space
He rubbed the side of the cooker with his sleeve, careful not to scratch it.
It shuddered in his hands before a green smoke sifted out. Piccolo took form before him, scowl on his face before it melted into shock.
His head turned around in the room they were in, no doubt searching for Alatrunks, before his eyes travelled down to see that the man before him held the cooker in his hands.
“Where’s the kid?” He asked gruffly.
Vegeta frowned. “I am your master and you will not stand higher than me.”
Piccolo squared his shoulders and lowered himself so that he floated at eye level with his new master. “Where’s the kid?” He asked again.
Vegeta pulled his hand back and launched it forward, slapping Piccolo with enough force to knock him to the ground. The smokey trail leading to his lamp disappeared, and his legs replaced it, but he did not attempt to use them to scramble away.
He glared at the man instead. Despite what he told Trunks earlier about not having to put up with his master unless it was wished so, he had to tolerate any abuse inflicted upon him, wished or not. Just not with a smile.
Vegeta put one foot on his face and leaned down. “He is of no concern to you any longer, now grant my wish.”
Piccolo grunted under the man’s weight. “And what is your first wish?”
Vegeta smiled, baring his teeth. “I wish to rule Truhania as sultan.
***
The sky above them flooded with heavy clouds, blocking out the sun as though it were night. The cheering stopped suddenly and the wind picked up.
The people in the crowed screamed, turned tail and ran in the other direction like a stampeding herd. Trunks didn’t understand why until he turned and looked up.
Piccolo’s green hands descended from the sky, his yellow claws driving into the earth around the palace. The structure shook around them and Trunks and Gohan collapsed to the floor. Trunks twisted his body so that Gohan would fall on top of him and not on the hard ground, then as the palace floor rolled he reached his hand out to grabbed the balcony rail before they could fall off. Goku held himself firmly in place beside them.
“What’s happening?!” He yelled above the roaring thunder of running and screaming peasants and earth crumbling around the palace.
Trunks couldn’t explain to him because he didn’t know. Why was Piccolo doing this? Because he didn’t wish him free?
Butterflies attacked his stomach. Trunks felt like he was being lifted into the air and feared he would vomit.
A crash followed and the pressure in his face and stomach vanished.
“What was that?” Gohan asked, picking himself up from the ground and pulling Trunks with him. “Ugh, I nearly got sick there for a second.”
“Me too, Nimbus was never that quaky.” He said. Turning his head, he sighed at the sight of the sultan, standing in one piece and looking out over the balcony.
His pale skin and open mouth put Trunks on edge. “Your Highness?”
Gohan saw it too and stepped forward. “Father?”
Goku raised his arm and pointed his finger, confused, Trunks looked out and nearly fell again.
Gohan turned his head and gasped.
They were on top of the mountain that shadowed Truhania. Far below them the city was as small as a table cloth laid flat out before them, and at the head of the city was a rectangle of dark, fresh earth from which the palace had been plucked.
Trunks looked up, the genie was nowhere in sight. “Piccolo, what are you doing?”
“Confused, street rat?”
The three of them spun, Vegeta stood above them on the roof, leaning over and resting his elbow on his knee as he smirked. Trunks felt like a caged animal, but he refused to let it show.
“What have you done? Where’s Piccolo?”
“Who?” Gohan and Goku asked simultaneously.
Vegeta laughed. “So many questions and not all of them mine to answer, isn’t that right, you little pretender!”
Trunks tensed and Goku stepped forward. “Vegeta I order you to stop!”
Vegeta’s eyes blazed and spittle flew from his mouth. “I’ll be the one handing out orders from now on!”
A green cloud enveloped Goku, surrounding him from head to toe.
“Father!” Gohan rushed forward but the cloud disappeared by the time he made it to him, along with all of his fine clothes save for the underwear.
Goku looked down at himself and his body changed color in mortifying embarrassment. Gohan removed his shirt to spare his father’s dignity, but the sultan’s anger prevented him from noticing the offer. “Give me back my clothes!”
The clothes floated towards Vegeta, who held his arms out waiting, as though he were about to embrace them. When the fabric of the sultan touched his own robes, they merged. Vegeta stood before them wearing the sultan’s robes and turban.
“I am the sultan now! Bow before me.”
“Never!” Gohan yelled, the vein in his neck ready to pop, his fists shaking as though he were getting ready to hit something. “Just because you’re wearing my father’s clothes does not make you a sultan!”
“Oh, but you’ll find someone here who disagrees with you. Your Ali certainly believes that to wear the robes of a prince is to become a prince.”
Trunks stiffened when Gohan looked towards him, the line between his eyes drawn together in confusion.
“What’s he talking about.”
Trunks’ throat refused to work. Two minutes ago he was ready to tell Gohan everything, but now he couldn’t. it couldn’t be like this!
“Ali?”
“Alatrunks.” Vegeta corrected. Piccolo appeared at his side, strong arms crossed and stone expression on his face. “With the help of his slave genie, he wished to be a prince, to win your hand.”
Gohan shook his head. “It–it’s not true!”
“It’s true.” Trunks said quietly. He straightened his back to meet the gazes of the people he lied to, the Sultan, whom he’d grown so fond of, and the love of his life, whom he would never have. “The boy you met in the market place was as poor as he looked. I’m nothing, I don’t even know who my father was.”
Gohan rushed to him, stood before him to see the truth in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, I tried to tell you.” Trunks said. Piccolo snorted, and Trunks winced at the disbelief he heard there.
Gohan stiffened. “I don’t care. Do you hear me!” He spun on Vegeta. “I don’t care!”
Trunks could hardly believe his luck. He spun Gohan and wrapped his arms around him, crushing him, refusing to let him go, and delighting when Gohan returned the embrace.
Vegeta watched, an unamused expression on his face, then he shrugged one shoulder. “It matters not to me. He will be leaving and you and I shall be married before the night ends.
Gohan stiffened in Trunks’ arms. Trunks turned his head, murder directed at the man for his audacity. “What?”
Vegeta snapped his fingers. “Slave, I wish for you to transform me into the most powerful sorcerer in the world.”
“No, no Piccolo don’t.”
Piccolo raised two fingers, a splurge of green power ready to hit Vegeta and grant him his wish. “Sorry kid, I’ve got a new master now.”
The green energy hit Vegeta square in the chest. Vegeta sucked it into himself, draining the power, his face twisting in ecstasy. “Yesss! I can feel it coursing through my veins!”
“Piccolo I wish for your freedom! I wish you free!”
“Too late, you little fool!” Vegeta bellowed. A snake staff that Trunks had never seen before appeared in his hand and he pointed the teeth end at Trunks. Yajirabu rushed him to stop the attack but a red light appeared at the end of the staff, hitting him and turning him back into a monkey.
More red light emerged from the staff, Trunks tried to jump out of the way but if he did he would have directed the light towards Gohan and he didn’t know what it was.
The light hit him. Trunks’ body went limp and his feet left the floor as he was lifted into the air. Yajirabu leapt onto his body and tried to shake him awake, but
“Put him down! Vegeta, stop it!” Gohan yelled. Trunks could hear him following after him, but he knew Gohan could do nothing to save him.
Trunks’ heart popped into his mouth when he went over the side of the palace. The ground was far beneath him and littered with giant rocks. He thought Vegeta meant to throw him over but he stayed floating in the air towards one of the towers.
He still heard Gohan calling to him, screaming at Vegeta to show some pity, to bring him back, when he was lowered to the floor of the empty tower that was good only for men to watch for intruders on palace grounds. He could still not move, even when the tower shook and trembled, the same way the palace shook before lifting into the air.
A gold cloud drifted into his vision. Nimbus! But the cloud couldn’t help him, they were already in the air, off to he didn’t even know where.
