Hair dark as midnight, eyes so cold you would hardly see the colour before you died, and a temper most foul. These are what describe two people from different worlds, who are about to collide in a very unusual way.
Who is that man?
Chapter two
…Botan didn't come to until night had settled into the sky, and again when she opened her eyes cautiously, she came face to face with the young boy. "Ahhh!" She screamed again and tried to backup, resulting in her pushing herself off of the couch. When she hit the ground several people rushed into the room, and two people went to block the exits so she couldn't run outside and wind up hurt.
She saw the eight people surrounding her and the two guarding the doors and began to panic. 'Oh no! Where am I? What happened?!' Her eyes traveled over everyone until they locked onto a woman who looked almost identical to her. If she weren't as smart as she is, Botan might have thought she'd been looking in a mirror. Only two words made it through her thoughts and to her mouth despite all the questions she wanted to shout, "Holy shit."
"Where did you find her again Goku?" The look-alike woman asked the man who had called Botan that weird name earlier, "In the forest, she was being chased by a pack of dinosaurs." Botan's eyes went wide as saucers when she heard that. "D-dinosaurs?! B-but I thought those were all dead…. Oh…. Lord…. Koenma…Where have you sent me?!" If Goku hadn't had such good hearing, he might not have even heard her, she was mumbling so low. "Who's Koenma?"
Botan didn't even think before answering, because this was just an automatic thing, "He's Enma's son." By time she even realized she'd answered, she was shaking again. 'I probably shouldn't have said that, now they'll look at me like I'm nuts.' She thought sadly.
Nobody said anything for a couple minutes, as they all thought about what she'd said. They didn't know whether to believe her or not. "Why did you have all those dinosaurs following you? They are usually very spread out in packs of two or three." Botan's eyes snapped to the young boy and she almost, almost sighed, "I ran into three at an oasis in the desert, I ran and they followed me. I have no idea where the other four came from; I ran a long way."
"Okay, now that's got to be a pile of crap!" The new voice, suddenly annoyed, came from one of the guards at the doors. He was short and fat, and it she didn't know better she'd say he was a pig; a walking, talking pig. 'What a jerk. He reminds me of Hiei. Stupid little jerk.' She thought bitterly as she rolled her eyes. 'If he says one more thing, I don't care if I'm surrounded by strangers, I'll beat the shit out of him!' She was fuming silently to herself when the piggy-man, as she had decided to call him, decided to test his luck. "She's obviously delusional. Maybe she fried her brain in the sun."
'THAT'S IT!' She stood up angrily, and pushed past the people in front of her and stalked up to the piggy-man (whom looked like a real pig up-close) and shot him a glare even Hiei would have been scared of. "Shut up you little porker! I think I'd know when I'd been running from things that aren't supposed to still be alive, for god knows how long! I was trained better than that!" To top of her angry shouting, she punched him on the head and knocked him out.
The whole room was quiet for about two point zero seconds before the boy started shouting, "She hit Oolong!" Botan didn't bother to remember the name, figuring she'd probably just be dead in the next minute or so anyway. "She's got spunk. I like her." Botan felt her eye twitch as one of the grown men began approaching her, he had a scarred face, and his hair looked almost like Yusuke's when it wasn't slicked back.
The man held out a hand and proudly announced himself; "I am the desert bandit Yamcha. What's your name?" Eye still twitching, Botan took a step back, "Not interested." His face fell a bit at her blunt response while a couple people behind him snickered. He reached out to put his hand on her shoulder, but she stepped back again, and glared at him, "I wouldn't go around touching women you don't know if I was you buddy." He didn't seem to hear her warning, or see her glare, as he took a few more steps towards her and successfully captured her arm with his. "Quit playing hard to get, you know you want me."
His words successfully made calm, reasonable Botan disappear to be replaced by violent Botan. "Get your filthy arm off of mine or I'll break it off." He chuckled at her, and everyone else in the room backed up a bit, "You couldn't if you tried girl. I'm the strongest man on earth!" His words appeared to bother only a few other people in the room besides Botan. "Oh really. Strongest on earth?" She asked, almost sincerely, and he nodded happily; "Then I suppose that this won't hurt?" She stomped on his foot, and swept it behind him so he lost his balance, "Or this?" Using her elbow, she whacked a nerve just below his neck, knocking him unconscious.
She reached into her pocket and pushed a button on her communicator, the panic button that Koenma told her to use if she needed help. "Um…thanks for the hospitality and all, but I really have some important business to take care of…and um…my associate isn't a very social person. And he's waiting and umm…He has a violent temper! Really bad…so…um…just point me back towards the desert and I'll leave…" She was trying to pull some believable lie out of her hat as she inched towards the door slowly. "The desert's east." Was the only reply she got before she bolted out the door and in some random direction; accidentally going north.
The conscious group of people watched her leave, and the blue haired woman blinked once, "She's not going east."
Botan knew this was the wrong direction when she only encountered more forests and mountains, but she didn't care. She just kept running until she hit something that was oddly soft. She waited for the ground to connect with her back, but it didn't and she opened her eyes to see very familiar green ones. "KURAMA!" She jumped up and threw her arms around him like he'd just saved her life. "Oh my god you have no idea what I've been through today! They have dinosaurs here! DINOSAURS!" She pulled back from her bear hug when he chuckled, "I would like to see that; but alas I can't. Koenma only sent me to tell you that due to the dangers here, he's sending Hiei as soon as we find him."
Her face dropped instantly, "But he hates me! He'll just let them kill me!" He chuckled again and she pouted, pushing him away. "Why does everyone laugh at me when I say that?!" "You'll see." He ran a hand through his long red hair and continued to chuckle at her for several minutes. It's awful, being left out of an inside joke, when every one except you knows it.
He put his arm around her shoulder when he composed himself and gave her a serious look; "Do you like him?" The question took her by surprise. Did she like Hiei? 'Do I like him enough to tell his best friend?' She thought for a moment, counting the pros and cons of telling Kurama and sighed. "So what if I do. He doesn't like me at all." "Don't be so sure. But I can't say anything because I'll be endangering my health if I do. I'm sure it'll all be fine, just try and be nice." She smiled at him, "Oh great advice, I'll end up dead for sure. Thanks." He chuckled again and smirked, "You're welcome, now go find somewhere safe to sleep, and in a couple hours, Hiei'll be here with you so you can finish this mission quickly." After a quick hug, Kurama left through a blue portal, and Botan was alone again.
She glanced around, looking for a place to sleep, but decided she didn't particularly feel very tired, although she could use a bath. She walked for almost an hour and a half before she heard running water, and she almost cried from joy when she saw it was a hot spring, and empty. In fact, it looked like no one had ever even been to it before. "Yay!" She stripped off her shirt and shorts, and set them down on some dry dirt before jumping into the hot water.
The heat soothed her sore muscles, and she felt her body relax. She sat in the water for over an hour as she scrubbed the dirt off her skin, around her bra and underwear (having not trusted the water enough to be completely nude) and she had begun humming a lullaby.
"Mmmmhhhhmmmmmhhhhuuuuhhhhhmmmm…" She almost didn't notice the rustle in the bushes beside her, until a figure swathed in black stepped out of them. He had just been shoved through some weird blue portal, in the middle of the night by his baka toddler boss and his baka best friend in order to protect the baka onna from baka extinct animals. He was surrounded by baka's.
When she saw Hiei come out of the bushes, and stand there starring at her, she growled, "You pervert! I'm half-naked! Turn around or leave so I can finish bathing!" She would have screamed and freaked out at him, but she was so tired of screaming it wasn't even funny. He even seemed slightly surprised she didn't scream, and he even liked this change! Not that he was about to say that out loud.
"Hn. Whatever, just hurry up baka." He left the clearing to contemplate the disturbing thoughts that had popped into his head when she had mentioned something about being half-naked. Once he was out of sight, she sighed and sank down under the water until it was just below her eyes. 'Stupid Hiei. Stupid Koenma. Stupid Kurama. Stupid, stupid BAKA'S!' She thought angrily before climbing out of the water, she pulled her clothes on, after realizing that she didn't have a towel because her bag was missing, 'It's probably back at those people's house. Damn.' She wrung her hair dry and walked through the bushes looking for Hiei.
She found him sitting in front of a small fire, roasting a large fish, while glaring at nothing in particular. "What are you so mad about? This was supposed to be MY mission." He didn't even dignify her with a proper response, he just Hn'ed and took the fish off the fire, giving her a piece of it. Under threat of being imprisoned, Hiei was being forced to be nice and considerate to the baka onna, but of course, if Koenma weren't so thick, he'd see that Hiei didn't even need to be threatened.
She took the fish from him, hoping it wasn't raw or poisoned, and she bit into it. Hiei was a good cook; that wasn't something she'd expected. Most demons couldn't cook a carrot, let alone a fish. "Thanks Hiei. I know the last place you want to be is beside me in the woods of some other dimension full of weenies and baka's. I don't know how Koenma convinced you to come, but I'm still glad." She was rambling and she knew it; but she couldn't help it. She really was happy he was here and making a half-assed effort to be civilized with her. Although, he'd only been here ten to fifteen minutes, so maybe it was a little early to be thanking him.
Once she was finished with the fish she laid back onto the ground and yawned. It had been a long day. She watched Hiei stand up and go over to the closest tree, he was just about to jump into it when he turned and looked at her. "Onna, do you really want to sleep on the ground with all the animals around here?"
She jumped up and scrambled over to the closest tree, she certainly didn't want to wake up dead. "Looks like I'm not the only loser who has to sleep in a tree." He disappeared into the leafy branches and she shook in silent anger. She definitely shouldn't have thanked him just yet.
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When the morning sun rose over the mountains, Botan woke up to a pair of dark eyes staring right at her. She blinked a couple of times, realized she was still in the tree and screamed pushing herself away from the floating thing with eyes. She felt the branch slide out from underneath her and waited for the ground to connect with her body, but it never came.
Meanwhile, Hiei had gone off training almost an hour ago, and was just starting to relax when he heard her scream. Rolling his eyes, he headed back to where she was, not running his fastest, but running none the less. When he arrived he saw Botan falling out of her tree, and landing in the arms of some green skinned guy.
"Piccolo! Is she okay?!" His eyes were drawn back towards a small boy who seemed to be flying towards the green man. He blinked a couple times, deciding to wait and see what happened, as long as the onna wasn't being hurt he didn't have to step in; but then, why did he want to hit the green man for touching her?
Botan opened her eyes and screamed again. "Put me down! Let me go! HIEI!" She pushed herself out of Piccolo's (the green man's) arms and started backing up. She stopped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, hoping it was Hiei's (although realizing somewhat that it wasn't) she turned around and groaned. It was that kid from yesterday. "Why are you following me?"
The kid blinked and grinned, "You went the wrong way and my mom told me I should come and help you and you left your bag at our place and mom said I could help you get where ever you're headed, s'long as I still study!" Suddenly she felt very stupid for always screaming when she saw the kid. "Oh…. um…I'm sorry about screaming…on all three occasions…I'm just a very jumpy person…" "Hn. You can say that again baka onna." She jumped and turned to her left, where Hiei was leaning, bored, against a tree.
"Oh shut up Hiei." She stuck her tongue out at him, collected herself and turned back to the kid. "My name's Botan. I'm afraid I never caught yours…" He grinned even wider and gave a small bow, "My name's Son Gohan. My dad's Son Goku and my mom's name is Chi Chi. My dad's the strongest fighter ever, and that's Piccolo!" He pointed behind her to the green man, "He's my teacher and he's from Namek!"
She took in all the information surprisingly well for what they thought to be an ordinary human. "I see…Namek? Hiei, ever heard of it?" She turned to her stubborn demon friend and he snorted, "How would I know of some stupid ningen country baka onna." She rolled her eyes at him and shook her head, "I guess that's 'Hiei' for 'NO'." She turned back to the boy when she heard him giggle, "Namek's a planet, not a country. What planet is your friend from? He almost looks like a Saiyan. Is he from Vegetsai?! He could be Vegeta's long lost twin brother!"
Botan sweat dropped at the kid's rambling. Should she stick to calling Hiei a fire demon, or maybe call him a Saiyan…whatever they are. "Um…no…" 'Better stick as close to the truth as possible.' "He's from Makai…it's way out on the edge of the galaxy…I'm actually from there too." Okay, it was technically half true. She didn't have to stick to the WHOLE truth.
"Woah…cool…no wonder you could beat up Yamcha! He's strong and you beat him so easily!" She chuckled a little nervously and nodded, "Yeah…Every one on our planet's pretty strong…Our gravity is umm…probably like 50X Earth's." Okay, now she was fudging the whole story. But what the kid thought he knew couldn't hurt her, right? "Isn't that right Hiei?" She shot him a threatening look, at which he rolled his eyes, and he nodded once.
Inside, she felt like she could jump him and kiss him for playing along, although to actually do such a thing would only result in her head being chopped off so she held back her urge. She was about to bid Gohan and Piccolo farewell when a thought struck her. It was a total shot in the dark but it was worth a shot. "You said you could help us get where we're going right? Well…I'm not sure of the city I'm supposed to go to, but I'm looking for a Dr. Briefs…I heard she came up with some really amazing technology…my b…King sent me here. Koenma…We're in the middle of this big war on our home planet and he umm, wanted me to ask for help…" She was starting to feel bad about all these lies…Koenma a king, HA! He's barely a prince…but whatever got her where she was going, right?
The boy grinned at her through her whole speech, "I know who you mean. That's Bulma! She was at the house; she looks a lot like you. She went back to West City last night, but I can take you there right now if you're ready." Botan felt dumb. Very, very dumb. Here she was supposed to be going west, and she had gone east. The opposite way. "You're kidding? WEST? And here I went east for two days…" She smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand and felt Hiei's heated glare on her. She could have been safely in the city, and he could have been sitting in his tree spying on the oaf and his sister right now. Upset was an understatement, he was pissed.
"Baka onna! You were going the wrong way! I got pulled away from my busy schedule because YOU went the wrong way?!" She flinched at his tone, trying desperately to fight the urge to yell at Hiei and run away, "I'm sorry Hiei. The king never told me where to go! He gave me a name and shoved me off the planet okay!" Okay, so she couldn't NOT yell at him, but at least she wasn't running for her life now.
Gohan watched the two with mild amusement, they bickered like Bulma and Vegeta. It was so cute to him; mind you he's only twelve. "We should go now, so you can catch Bulma before she has to start making Vegeta his lunch. It'll be real quick if we fly, can you guys fly?" Botan and Hiei looked at the kid like he'd grown another head, how were they going to fly all the way out here? There wasn't any planes or anything, and Botan's oar wasn't working.
"I could try summoning my oar again I suppose." She held out her hand and concentrated as hard as she could, until she felt something soft appear in her hand. She starred at the fluffy golden cloud with great confusion, "That's not my oar…but as long as it flies…" Gohan and Piccolo stared at her in awe, she'd just summoned a nimbus cloud out of thin air. "You can ride a nimbus cloud? Those are very picky…" Hiei snorted at the soft looking cloud, surely that thing couldn't fly or hold someone. "Baka onna quit fooling around and summon your baka oar."
She glared at him and tried again to summon her oar, only to make the nimbus cloud, as it seemed to be called, glow brightly with a golden light. "Alright…I guess on this planet, my oar is a…erm…'nimbus cloud'…" She removed her hand from the cloud and jumped on, finding it surprisingly soft and fluffy, yet strong enough to support her weight. "Wow…this is much more comfortable than my oar. C'mon Hiei." She patted the cloud next to her and he rolled his eyes.
"If you're driving, I'll just run." Sure he was sounding tough, but really, Hiei sensed something odd about the cloud. It had this really pure energy to it, much in contrast to his own energy. Gohan was staring at her like she was his new role model. "Wow, you're lucky, you've got a pure heart! The nimbus only lets those with a pure heart ride it." Upon hearing the child's praise Botan grinned, "Oh, really? Good thing Hiei didn't try to get on then, he would have fallen through it. He's about as pure as the d…" She stopped joking when Hiei shot her one of his famous death glares.
"Okay, um Gohan, lead the way. Hiei's a fast runner, he should be able to keep up fine." The boy nodded, inwardly laughing at the short, black clad man whom could not ride the nimbus. Jumping into the air, he floated about ten feet in front of Botan, while Piccolo did the same behind her, so they could make sure she wasn't lost along the way; Kami knows how bad her directional skills seemed to be.
They took off slowly at first, until Hiei was complaining and threatening to hurt someone, and they made it to West City, at exactly one PM. Gohan led them towards the biggest building in the city, where they could hear minor explosions and yelling even from blocks away. "There's Bulma's place. Don't mind the explosions, they just mean Vegeta's not going to be there to yell at her." Botan glanced back at Hiei, she was so glad he was here now. This Vegeta guy had her worried.
"Thank you so much Gohan. Do you think you could just check and make sure she's not busy or anything first please? We don't want to interrupt anything important…" Gohan smiled at her and nodded before zipping off into a window on the third floor. He returned the same way and gestured to the window, "Go ahead, she's just fixing one of Vegeta's robots. She's got plenty of time." Botan took a deep breath and headed towards the window, with Hiei, Gohan and Piccolo following behind her. They couldn't just let some strange aliens stay alone in there with Bulma, specially not if the seemingly weaker one had knocked Yamcha unconscious.
End of chapter two.
The spelling and grammar should be pretty good. Every time I went to add onto this fic (in total, it's 48 pages long) I read what I already had and fixed any mistakes. R&R