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Vegetto walked along the beach, carrying his sandals in his hand so he could walk ankle-deep in the ocean waves. Gogeta hadn’t come along with him this time, so he strolled along slowly and just enjoyed the natural sounds. Crashing waves, the sea breeze, seagulls, and . . . screaming?
The Saiyan’s eyes snapped open, and he stopped where he stood. Screaming!? He instinctively looked toward the water. Was someone drowning? Being attacked by a shark? No . . . the water was empty, save for a few boats out in the distance and beachgoers much further down. He couldn’t even hear them from where he currently was. So then . . . who?
The screams sounded again, followed by a chorus of seagull cries.
“What the hell?” He did see a large gathering of seagulls a little ways from the water, but . . . oh! Maybe someone had been buried in the sand and the birds were attacking his head! Vegetto nodded, feeling rather intelligent for that deduction. “Don’t worry, I’m coming!”
He wasn’t sure if the person heard him, as the screaming persisted.
“Get away from me! Heathen giants! Beasts! You smell filthy! You shall not consume me!!”
Vegetto’s brows furrowed as he approached. That voice and manner of speaking was awfully familiar . . . where had he heard it before? “Shoo!! Shoo!” He swung the sandals at the birds, sending them away in a flurry of white feathers and awful screeching. “There! You’re . . . you’re . . .” The words died on his lips as he stared down at the ‘person’ he’d just saved.
“. . . a crab?”
“I am not a crab! I am a god!” The crab had a light green body, red claws, and a full ‘head’ of spiky, white hair. Its tiny black eyes looked angrily up at him as it turned around and then it quickly leapt backward. “YOU!!! You filthy Saiyan!! You’ve come after me in this life as well!? I have finally been born anew! I will not allow you to-“
“ZAMASU!?!?” Vegetto’s face contorted as he stared down at this crab in disbelief. This crab . . . looked, sounded, and spoke just like Zamasu! “. . . I must be dreaming. It all feels so real, though.”
“Do not ignore me, mortal! Why are you gigantic!? Why is everything gigantic!? What planet is this!?” Zamasu-turned-crab waved his claws around, his legs moving quickly as he scuttled from side to side in apparent panic.
“This is Earth – one in a timeline that you didn’t destroy.” He sharply glared down at the crab, then quickly felt like a fool for doing so. “Nothing around here is big – you’re just really small. You’re a crab.”
“I am not a crab, you filthy mortal! I am a-“
“A crab! Crab, crab, crab!!” Vegetto leaned over, hands on his hips as he yelled at the crustacean.
“Uh, sir? Are you okay?” A timid voice called to him from closer to the water. A middle-aged husband and wife were taking a stroll down the beach, but they stopped now and were looking at Vegetto with great concern.
“Oh, uh . . . ahaha . . . yeah! I’m fine! Um . . . hey, what does this look like to you?” He pointed down at Zamasu, ignoring his angry rambling. The couple wasn’t reacting to him at all. Could they not hear him? Did they not see him?
The husband looked at Zamasu, then back to Vegetto, his brows still furrowed as he did not dare move closer to the Saiyan. “Looks like a crab to me. He’s kind of a big fellow, but a crab all the same. I’m surprised the seagulls haven’t taken off with him – maybe he’s too heavy to carry.” He offered a nervous laugh, still not sure about Vegetto’s mental state.
“He is calling me overweight!?” Zamasu raised his claws into the air, ready to teach that mortal bastard a lesson! But Vegetto brought a foot down right in front of him, stopping him in his tracks.
“Y-yeah! Isn’t it crazy!” Vegetto watched the two finally move on, waiting until they were out of ear-shot before he finally looked back down to the world’s strangest crab. “Why am I the only one who can see and hear you?” Maybe he’d eaten something weird that made him see crabs as his past foes? Would there be a Majin Buu crab, too?
“Mortal . . . have I truly been reincarnated as a crab?” Zamasu’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. Vegetto would even go as far as to say he sounded depressed.
“Haven’t I been saying that all along?” Vegetto also softened his voice, but only because he didn’t want any more passersby to think he was insane. He still wasn’t too sure if this was real himself, but he’d been through enough nonsense by now that this was entirely possible.
“. . . there must be some mistake. I can keep my beautiful body in Hell, but not here? If I return to Hell, can I get it back and try again?” He sounded devastated now, much like he did when his body had begun to decay in the other timeline.
“And just how exactly do you plan to get back to- hey!” Vegetto watched as Zamasu scurried (sideways) toward the same flock of Seagulls that had been trying to eat him earlier, “Seriously!?” Was he really going to let them eat him in hopes he could ‘try again’? What did that even mean!?
“Feast upon this dreadful body, foul beasts! Free me from this mortal prison! Ah!” His tiny legs continued to move, even after Vegetto had scooped him up from the sand. “What are you doing!? Do not interfere, mortal!”
“I won’t let you get eaten – maybe this is fate’s way of punishing you for what you did in the alternate timeline! Though . . . this is nothing compared to your crimes.” He really did not know the reason Zamasu came back to life as a crab . . . or how he even got to this timeline to begin with. Really, he didn’t even know if any of this was actually happening. He’d be relieved if he woke up and it was all just some weird dream.
“What I did was not a crime! I was punishing the mortals for their grave sins! They sullied the-“ The loud squawking of the seagulls interrupted his speech as they once more began to go wild about something. “Throw me to them, mortal!”
“Not a chance, Zamasu! Or . . . maybe Crabmasu.” Vegetto smirked, the smirk stretching wider when the crab god gave him an absolutely appalled look. His face wasn’t like that of a normal crab. It was more like a very small version of his usual face . . . with tiny black eyes . . . and no nose . . .
“You filthy heathen!!” Zamasu pinched Vegetto’s hand with one of his claws, prompting the Saiyan to yelp and drop him back to the sand. Well, that at least ruled out the possibility that this was all a dream. That hurt like hell!! “Ha! May that injury serve as a reminder that you should never go against me!” Zamasu scuttled sideways toward the flock, but they all seemed too preoccupied with something to notice him.
“WHAT IS THIS!?!?” A tiny voice cried out amongst the seagulls.
. . . again.
“Did you bring someone with you?” Vegetto rubbed at his hand that had been pinched as he got back to his feet and, yet again, chased the birds away.
“No! There wasn’t anyone else that would have been resurre- Ah!! Ex-mortal!! You were also resurrected!?” Zamasu quickly rushed to the small creature that had been in the center of that chaos.
“Ex-mortal?” Vegetto stared down at what Zamasu was referring to. There, laying in the sand, was what looked like a very small shrimp.
. . . a shrimp with Gogeta’s blond head.
“You’ve got to be shitting me. Zamasu is a crab and now Gogeta is a shrimp!?” Vegetto slapped his hands over his face, dragging them slowly down to pull at his skin. What the hell was going on!?
“I’m a shrimp?” Gogeta looked thoroughly unamused, “Bring the seagulls back-“
“No! Stop it! Just . . .” Vegetto really wanted to pull his own hair out in frustration and confusion, “Both of you stop trying to go back to Hell! Just . . . just . . . Gogeta, we can use the dragon balls to wish your body back, maybe!” That was the blond Gogeta. He’d met him a while back because of his Gogeta that he currently lived with. So, he and Zamasu knew each other? Were they . . . friends? Zamasu had seemed particularly concerned when he realized it was him, but he couldn’t imagine Zamasu getting along with anyone who wasn’t himself.
“Wish mine back too, mortal!” Zamasu plucked shrimp Gogeta up from the beach, careful not to crush him with his claw, and plopped the tiny crustacean onto his back . . . head? Back? His hair, really.
“Hah, I don’t know . . . maybe if you prove you can be good. I think Beerus would destroy me if I resurrected a genocidal god. Besides . . .” He picked up Zamasu, glaring at him as if daring him to try and pinch again. “Bulma just used the dragon ball wishes recently. You’ll have to wait a while before we can wish your bodies back anyway.”
“. . . bring the seagulls back.” Gogeta looked completely defeated atop Zamasu’s hair.
“Come on, don’t be like that! You can stay at my house if you behave yourselves.” Vegetto spoke quietly to them as he walked back in the direction of home. He already had several people looking at him weird for carrying a crab and a shrimp on his palm. “If you die and try again, who knows what you’d come back as. Maybe you wouldn’t even come back on Earth! You might be resurrected as like . . . a tree or something. Isn’t this better?”
“Hmph . . . I guess even you are capable of making a good point every now and then.” Zamasu squinted at the Saiyan, “I suppose we will wait out the reset of the dragon balls . . . but you had best wish back my body as well, or I will kill you in your sleep!”
“. . . I’d eat your legs before you could kill me.”
“My legs!?!?”
“With melted butter.”
“VULGAR!!”
Explaining this situation to Gogeta was going to be interesting.