4Author's Notes- Hey guys, I've got another one shot today. I didn't originally plan on this, but some things happened and I ended up writing it. It should be noted that this is in the same continuity as "What's In His Heart". Well, enjoy!
I don't own any of the characters or anything.
Predator's Perspective
Yamcha sat back against the lounge chair in the backyard of Capsule Corporation and made himself comfortable. He had been invited to another one of her get-togethers, and right about now, he was kind of bored. It was about two years after the Cell games, and right now, Yamcha was kind of missing Goku. He knew the Saiyan would engage anyone in conversation who wanted it, but many of the other warriors didn't seem to share that quality with him.
"Hey Yamcha, what are you doing all by yourself over here?" A voice asked. Yamcha turned to see Krillin walking up to him.
"Oh, I was just relaxing. You were busy earlier and I didn't want to interrupt you." Yamcha responded. It was then that Eighteen came to stand beside Krillin, looking rather annoyed.
"Oh, hey Eighteen." Yamcha attempted.
"Hmph." Eighteen scoffed, as she always did when it came to him.
Krillin and Eighteen had been seeing each other for a while now, and this was one of the reasons Yamcha hadn't talked to Krillin too much yet. Yamcha had gotten over his fear of the android, but something else bugged him about her. With her looks, it was really no surprise that Yamcha would have loved to go out with her himself, and had harbored some feelings for her, but he never acted on it. As Krillin was his best friend, he would never even dream of pursuing it. No woman was worth ruining his friendship with Krillin over, so he resolved to just be happy for them. At least he'd get to know her as a friend. But that wasn't all. Obviously, being that she had a tough time trusting people, Eighteen had been a bit rough around the edges when it came to interacting with Krillin's friends, and at first, she treated them coldly. However, little by little, she started to open up. By now, she seemed to have a strong connection with Chi Chi and Bulma, and she was okay with almost everyone else. Almost. Guess who the one person she still treated coldly was? That's right, it was Yamcha. Why him of all people? It depressed him a little. So Yamcha figured he'd just kind of stay away from her, as he'd rather not torture himself.
He watched her walk away towards Chi Chi and engage in active conversation with her. Seriously, why does she treat them nice and not him?
"So, uh, how you been Krillin?" Yamcha forced out, trying to turn his attention back to his friend.
"Oh, I've been good. Eighteen and I actually just got engaged. We met with her brother last week. I was scared at first, but I tell you, the guy's more of a softie than I expected. I had a lot of fun hanging out with him." Krillin said with a smile. "How's baseball going for you?"
"It was a pretty good season, but it ended last month. It doesn't start up again for like six months." Yamcha explained. "I've been bored."
"Why don't you come over to Master Roshi's place and we can spar?" Krillin offered.
"Uh, no thanks, you'd just beat me." Yamcha lied.
"Huh? Yamcha, are you okay? It's not like you to turn down a spar, at least with me. I could see Gohan, though. He's way too strong for either of us. But seriously, I might have to actually use that key to your house that you gave me if you keep this up." Krillin said. It was true, Yamcha had given Krillin a key to his home if he wanted to check on him. That was kind of how Krillin was with his friends, always worrying about them.
"Well, um..." Yamcha started.
"Hey guys, over here!" Bulma suddenly called.
Yamcha and Krillin looked over and saw Bulma sitting by her laptop computer. They and the others gathered around her.
"Look at this. Some people actually know who we are. They know you guys as the protectors of Earth. And on this website here, they're writing some kind of stories about us." Bulma explained. "People seem to like me and Vegeta as a couple the most."
"So it's called fan fiction?" Gohan asked, reading the screen over her shoulder.
"Yep. You guys should check some of them out." Bulma told them.
"Who exactly is writing it? I don't think many people know who we are." Tien asked.
"I'm not sure, actually. It's kind of weird." Bulma admitted. "But who cares? Lots of people apparently want to see me and Vegeta together!"
"Woman, why are you looking at that crap?" Vegeta said, suddenly making an appearance.
"It's fun to read, Vegeta. Don't tell me you're still mad about those couple of… disturbing stories you found." Bulma said.
"Disturbing indeed! It made me and Kakarot become… intimate! I'd never do such a thing with that clown!" Vegeta spat.
"Come on Vegeta, they're just a bunch of stories." Yamcha said cockily.
"You wouldn't be saying that if you found one that painted you in a disturbing light, you fool." Vegeta fired back.
"Alright, alright. Let's break it up, guys." Bulma said.
"Meh. I guess I'll check them out when I get home." Yamcha said.
"Count me out of this nonsense." Piccolo said about reading the stories.
"Oh, I hope there's some about me having a good time with the ladies!" Master Roshi said lecherously. Bulma looked at him with disgust.
"I haven't seen a single one of those. Thank goodness." Bulma said.
The rest of the gathering passed as usual. The group shared stories about Goku, ate and drank to their hearts' content, and just generally had a good time.
After a few hours, it was time for many of the guests to get going. Yamcha was the first to leave, planning to go home and check out this fan fiction that Bulma had talked about. Upon arriving at his house, he promptly turned on his computer and searched for fan fiction. Instantly, a website popped up. He clicked on it, and was seeing a list of stories, and adjustable filters.
He quickly scrolled through the list that was on the screen by default, and nothing really looked that good. Most of it was about Goku and Gohan, or Bulma's and Vegeta's relationship. He found a rather short one about Gohan and Piccolo and decided to click on it. As he started to read it, he realized that these people actually wanted to see Gohan and Piccolo interact romantically. It caught him off guard but didn't really freak him out. He was a pretty tolerant guy after all. He had also seen some reviews, in a section where people could say what they thought about the story. For this one, people seemed to like it very much.
It was interesting to read about someone he actually knew. But, had anyone written anything about him? He put his own name into the filter, and another list popped up. He took a look at the first one, which was about Bulma's and Vegeta's relationship. They made him cheat on her shamelessly in the story. He was kind of appalled. He clicked away hastily after seeing that.
As he scrolled and skimmed the stories, he found some common themes in the ones about him. Many, like the first one, had him basically being a jerk to Bulma so that she could leave him for Vegeta. This angered Yamcha. They put all of the blame on him and it wasn't fair. Other themes included 'what if' scenarios where Goku doesn't come to Earth or doesn't hit his head, him and Tien as a couple, and him as a couple with some other guys, like Seventeen or even Vegeta. Some of them had him with unknown females.
He also noticed some that had people who weren't listed on the summaries. Curious, he wondered if there were any with him and Eighteen being together, where he wasn't listed. He put Eighteen's name into the filters. Hey, if neither she nor Krillin knew he was doing it, then what was the harm?
The list he found seemed to contain everything but what he was looking for. Of course there were many with her and Krillin, but there were also ones that involved her being with Gohan, Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks. Many of them treated Krillin the same way the ones about Bulma and Vegeta treated him. Frustratingly, he even found quite a few stories about her having totally hot sex with other women, like Chi Chi, Bulma, Launch, and even Krillin's ex-girlfriend Maron. Some of them had her and one or more of the other woman having sex with Goku or Gohan at the same time. But none were of her and him.
There were sex stories of her and other women, but none of her doing it with Yamcha. Or Roshi, or Tien, for that matter. Still, Yamcha found this humiliating. Getting desperate, he clicked on one of her and Bulma, figuring it would at least be hot. But throughout the fic, the women constantly threw shade at him. There was a quote by Eighteen saying that she would take Bulma over Yamcha any day.
This was just depressing. He forced himself to look at one about him and Tien. After the ones he read that said all of the bad things about him, this didn't seem so bad. Sure, it was pretty weird since he didn't see Tien that way at all, but at least people were nice to him in this one.
He looked at his clock after finishing that story and noticed that it was eleven at night. Yikes, he needed to get to bed. He quickly shut his computer down and retired to his room for the night.
The next morning, he got up, brushed his teeth, took a shower, made himself some breakfast, then hopped back on to the fan fiction website. He was totally hooked on this. He started to read one about him and Vegeta, but he just wasn't feeling this one. He figured he'd try to find one where he fights alongside Krillin and Tien like in the old days, but he had trouble finding those too.
He decided to take to google searching to find one with him and Bulma that the previous searches may have missed. He had already looked for them on the website, but didn't find anything. There were only three in which they were specifically classified as a pairing, and the ones that didn't specify involved her and Vegeta. He found one where the text mentioned them both stepping onto a platform, and he clicked on it.
And that was when he saw it. The one story he wished he had never found. He scrolled through that section of the story and made a gruesome discovery. This story had some sort of weird prisoner facility run by Dr. Gero. And for some reason, it featured Yamcha as someone who was working with Dr. Gero. And raping Bulma. Yamcha was featured as a sadistic rapist in this story. He scrolled to the later part of the story, and saw the women, and Goku and Vegeta, brutally murdering him. And another part where Krillin says that he was a monster.
He looked to the reviews, hoping some of them would tell this person how sick in the head they were. But no. People were praising the person for their work. They even said that they loved when everyone killed Yamcha, and that they hated Yamcha.
He exited the story and clicked on the next one in his search. Turned out that he was featured as a rapist in that one too. And he was killed by Vegeta. The next one he clicked on had him being violent and abusive towards Bulma. Vegeta kills him in that one too. One after another, he stumbled on story after story of him being abusive and a rapist. And it wasn't limited to Bulma. Stories had depicted him raping Chi Chi and Eighteen in some of them too.
Seriously? Eighteen? She was so much stronger than him! He couldn't rape her if he wanted to! One of those even went into her point of view and said something like, 'He forced her to enjoy the sensations on her body'. In that one, Krillin slices his head off with a Destructo-Disc.
Yamcha felt sick. He immediately closed the laptop and stepped away from his desk. The others he had seen the previous night had him cheating, but these were much worse.
He wasn't a rapist! He would NEVER do those things! Why would someone write that about him?! What had he done to deserve a person to hate him so much? The questions formed in Yamcha's mind faster than he could even process them, but there were no answers. Just a horrible hurt that seemed like he would never get rid of it.
He felt himself gag, and instinctively ran to the bathroom. He brought himself down to face the toilet on his knees just in time. The vomit came spewing from his mouth. It stopped after a few seconds, and no more came after that. He sat over the toilet for a few more minutes before getting up, flushing the toilet, and walking back to his room.
'Come on, Yamcha. It's just some dumb stories.' Yamcha thought to himself. He felt like he was overreacting, yet he couldn't stop the horrible feeling in him.
'He forced her to enjoy the sensations on her body.'
That was the absolute worst part for him. Those were the words that made him into a predator of the most sick and twisted sort. It made him sick in a way he couldn't even describe. He would never even dream of such a thing!
He got back to his laptop, turned it on, and tried to just read another gay fic about himself. He hoped that it would get those horrible thoughts out of his mind. He read another one about him and Tien, and he even read the sex scenes. He had never been so happy to see a depiction of himself sleeping with another man.
But the relief didn't last long. A few minutes after he started reading, his mind found itself being pulled back to one of those horrible stories where he was a rapist. Frustrated, he opened another one with him and Vegeta as a couple. It didn't help. He closed his laptop and went to his bed, shutting his eyes tightly and trying to imagine himself and Vegeta in the throws of passion. It would be disturbing, but even that was better than what the other stories had been like. But all he could see when he closed his eyes was himself, laughing and raping various women in the prison like facility.
He suddenly heard his phone ring. Maybe it was one of his friends. He didn't feel like talking to them, but he would go crazy if he continued to be by himself. Making up his mind, he went over and answered the phone.
"Hello?" He answered, trying to keep the distress from his voice.
"Yamcha." The voice on the other end was one that Yamcha didn't recognize. In fact, it sounded like the person was using a voice distorter. He couldn't even tell if it was a male or female. "So, how did you like those fan fiction stories? It seems you don't like the idea of being a sadistic rapist or a violent abuser."
"Are you the sick fuck who wrote those stories?" Yamcha demanded.
"Hehehe, you think they're just a stories? Those are our plans." The voice sneered.
"Plans? Wait, how did you even know what I was reading?" Yamcha asked.
"You don't think we're watching you Yamcha? We're always watching you. We're always watching all of you. How do you think we even know who you are, or how you cheated on Bulma? Do you really think you deserve anything better than what you saw?" The voice said.
"What does my relationship with Bulma have to do with any of this?" Yamcha demanded once again.
"Well, it's one of the reasons we have these plans for you. You see, we're going to reshape your world as we see fit, and that means that you'll be a predator, just like in those stories. You'll be hated by the people you call friends. You'll be even worse than Frieza. Do you get it, Yamcha? You'll be cast out!" The voice snarled.
"No!" Yamcha screamed. "I'll never do that!"
"You won't have a choice, Yamcha. Our long range influence isn't something you can resist. Face it, you're a loser now, and you'll be a monster later. That's all you will ever be able to be when we're through. You'll be seeing life from a predator's perspective! HAHAHAHAHA!" The voice screeched.
Yamcha quickly slammed the phone onto the receiver and ran to his bed. He sobbed uncontrollably, tears streaming down his face. He curled himself under his covers and continued to cry. Was someone really coming here? And they wanted to make him do those things?
He suddenly heard pounding on his door, and this caused panic in him. He didn't want to answer it. It might be whoever called, hoping to somehow force him to carry out their deranged fantasies. But the pounding didn't stop. Yamcha just covered his head with the pillow, holding his ears shut tight and hoping that whoever was at the door would just go away.
But he heard his front door being pushed open. There was an intruder in his house. At this point, his absolute fear overruled any of his rational thought, and he began to scream. He let out one terrified scream after another, tears coming down his face even more than before.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" He screamed.
"Yamcha!" He heard a voice call.
But he didn't hear the tone in which his name was called. Instead, he ended up hearing a sinister teasing tone. As such, he continued to scream. Pretty soon, he felt his arms being forced from the sides of his head, and he tried to fight, eyes squeezed tight in terror.
"Yamcha!" The voice called again, and this time, Yamcha could make out both the concerned tone and the familiarity of the voice. He opened his eyes.
"Krillin?" Yamcha stammered, finally starting to calm down.
"Yamcha, what has gotten into you? It's just me!" Krillin told him, standing back up.
"I… sorry Krillin." Yamcha answered, getting his breathing under control.
"Yamcha, why are you so panicked? You haven't been coming to the Kame house like you used to, and now this. What's going on, buddy?" Krillin inquired. "And don't try to tell me everything's fine."
"Remember that fan fiction Bulma told us about yesterday?" Yamcha started, still sniffling a bit.
"Yeah, what about it? Is that what's got you so upset?" Krillin asked incredulously.
"There was a whole bunch of them that turned me into this horrible rapist, and all you guys hated me and killed me in all of them!" Yamcha wailed. "It was so sick and twisted!"
"Oh my gosh! A rapist? That's even worse than some of the ones I found about me." Krillin admitted. "But Yamcha, they're just stories. You can't take them so seriously."
"But you don't understand. I got this phone call from people who knew I was reading them, and they said they were going to use some kind of long distance hypnosis to turn that into a reality!" Yamcha cried.
Krillin sighed. "Yamcha, these stories you read upset you a lot, right?"
"Yeah. I can't believe it said 'He forced her to enjoy the sensations on her body' about me! What kind of freaky person do they think I am?!" Yamcha exclaimed.
"Man, that would make me cringe too, honestly." Krillin sympathized. "But, listen, about that phone call you talked about. Sometimes when you're distressed and traumatized by something, your mind can play tricks on you."
"You think I just imagined the phone call? Krillin, it was real. I know it was. It just happened!" Yamcha said desperately.
"Maybe someone called, but you imagined them saying those things. I mean, you didn't recognize me a few minutes ago when I came in because you were so upset." Krillin explained.
"I… I don't know..." Yamcha trailed off.
"Yamcha, no one has any kind of long range hypnosis. I know you hated the way you were painted in those stories, but the reality is, it wasn't you. It never will be you, and all of your friends know that. We would never hate you or kill you. It's just a bunch of deranged stories, but that's all it will ever be, okay?" Krillin said, trying to console him. "Look, I don't think you should be alone for the next few days. Why don't you come stay at the Kame house for about a week or so? I know that for some reason you don't want to go there, and I'm not going to try to pressure you into telling me why, but I really think that you need to be around friends tonight, and not think about those stories anymore."
"But..." Yamcha started.
"Come on, Yamcha. It'll be good for you." Krillin pressed.
"Okay. Just let me get a few things together." Yamcha relented.
"Trust me, we'll be laughing about this in a few days." Krillin assured him.
…
- Three days later -
Krillin walked into the Capsule Corporation's front yard, where he found Bulma waiting for him. She turned and saw him, and she smiled.
"Hey Bulma." Krillin greeted.
"Hey Krillin, thanks for meeting me." Bulma said. "How have you been?"
"Oh, you know, same as always. I think Roshi and Eighteen are finally starting to get along. It seems like he stopped being such a pervert to her, so that's good." Krillin said.
"That's an improvement for sure." Bulma agreed.
"Yeah. You know, Eighteen and I have been talking about when we want the wedding to be. I was thinking about six months from now. What do you think?" Krillin asked.
"As long as you're both ready, I say go for it." Bulma said. "Anyway, how's Yamcha? From what you told me, he seemed pretty wound up."
"He's doing great. He hasn't talked about any of those crazy stories since he's been at our place. I'd say give him a few more days before he goes back home, though." Krillin told her.
"That's good." Bulma said, but she looked down.
"Bulma, what's wrong?" Krillin asked.
"Krillin, the reason I told you to meet me without Yamcha here is that I didn't want to scare him and make things worse. But, there's something I figured I should tell you." Bulma started.
"Okay, well what is it?" Krillin asked.
"When you told me that Yamcha talked about getting a phone call, I used my tech to check his land line. Krillin, he did receive a phone call about five minutes before you came." Bulma explained.
"Okay, but were you able to trace where it came from? If it wasn't one of us, it was probably just one of his baseball buddies." Krillin said.
"That's what I initially thought, but I traced the call, and it didn't come from anywhere local. In fact, and this is going to sound crazy, but it came from space." Bulma finished.
"He got a call from space?!" Krillin exclaimed.
"It looks like it came from another planet." Bulma said grimly.
"Wait, so do you think there really is someone out there with some kind of long range hypnosis that wants to hurt Yamcha? Or make him do all those crazy things like in one of those stories?" Krillin asked, now worried.
"Well, I certainly hope not. But it wouldn't be the first time we've had to deal with extraterrestrial creeps. I should know, my husband was one of them." Bulma said.
"Oh man. I wish Goku was here." Krillin said.
"There's more. I pinpointed the call to a planet that's a bit far out east of Earth. I was able to figure out that someone traveled to Earth from there and then left. They were here around the time when the Cell games happened." Bulma explained.
"Well, they didn't do anything yet, so we have time to prepare, right? Besides, Gohan can take care of any threat that comes our way. I'm sure of it." Krillin insisted.
"I hope you're right, Krillin." Bulma told him. "Well, I need to go take care of Trunks. I think Vegeta's going to go crazy if he has to watch him for too long. He's really not good with kids."
"Oh yeah, I bet he isn't." Krillin laughed. "Alright, well I'll see you later, Bulma." Krillin said, turning to fly away.
"Later, Krillin!" Bulma called as she retreated inside.
Author's Notes- Okay, so that's the end of the fic. I had to edit this from what I had originally written because it was being a bit aggressive. This way, I tried to make it not seem like it was targeting a specific story or author, as most of the examples I used were some that I could see happening, but didn't actually find one about. Hopefully this doesn't come off as rude. Also, the ending teases an upcoming long fic that I started working on, but probably won't post for a while. Anyway, reviews are appreciated.