Oh ya, I forgot to say that I don't own DBZ! Kinda obvious but have to say it anyway.
Chapter 2
Both Piccolo and Vegeta were flying at top speed, from different directions, to the Son's house. Earlier, they had both felt Gohan's ki rocket, before dying down quickly. It was so unusual for Gohan to power up these day, he didn't even train anymore, that both fighters knew that it was bad.
They nodded to each other, as they landed outside the house, neither of them needed to ask why the other was there, they knew. Piccolo started for the door, and Vegeta's arm shot out to block his path, Piccolo looked at him, Vegeta looked worried.
"What is it?" Piccolo asked, the saiyan. Vegeta was staring at the house. Piccolo could sense that there was only one ki in it.
"Blood." Vegeta said, sniffing the air. "It's fresh and there's a lot of it." Piccolo looked from Vegeta to the small cottage he knew so well, the observation he'd made earlier about there only being one ki in the house, started to take on more meaning. Piccolo examined the ki, it felt vaguely like Gohan's but he refused to believe that, couldn't believe it, because of the the other thing he recognised from the ki; evil.
Both fighters started down the path, towards the door, both of them bracing them selves for the worse. Now he was closer Piccolo could smell the blood, it was rank, the house stunk of it. Vegeta paled, at the smell, as it approached his limit to withstand. Piccolo reached for the handle, and paused unsure if he really wanted to see what was behind it. He took a deep breath and opened the door.
Nothing could prepare them for what they saw in that normally immaculate kitchen. The first thing they noticed was that the whole place was covered in blood. The second was the body on the table, the only thing that could identify it as once being Goten was that it was the right size and the mattered black hair. The third was Gohan, he was covered in blood, but that wasn't the worst part, his eyes were dead, there was none of the normal Son-ness in them. He was standing by the sink, his mothers body at his feet, and her head held by the hair in his left hand. Gohan looked at them, with a 'how dare you interrupt me' glare.
Vegeta felt sick, never in his life had he seen anything like this, even in all the years he'd been a prisoner of Freiza. In fact that thought made things worse, because the way Gohan was looking at them, reminded Vegeta so much of Freiza that he had the wild thought that Freiza had taken Gohan's body. But Freiza was dead, they'd all seen Trunks kill him.
"Gohan!" Piccolo said. Gohan looked at him, and his face split into a smile with no emotion.
"Gohan's not available at the moment." He said. "If you'd like to leave a message after the tone, I'm sure he'll get back to you." He chuckled. "Tone!" He tossed his mothers head at them, it bounced and hit Vegeta's boot. Vegeta took a quick step back away from it, and a soft chuckle came from the kitchen, they looked up to see it had been Gohan, no, not Gohan there was no way that was Gohan.
"Who are you?" Piccolo gasped in barely more than a whisper. The one that had been Gohan cocked his head.
"Don't you recognise me? Piccolo." He said. "You were there when I first came into being." He stepped lightly over his mothers body and started towards them. Both fighters couldn't help moving away from him. He smirked. Piccolo shook his head, there was no way!
"No...no it can't be!" Piccolo said. He was now outside. Again there was that emotionless smile.
"That's right! It was me who sent Garlic Junior to the Dead Zone! It was me who attacked Raditz! It was me who destroyed the Cell Juniors and beat Cell up! It was me! Not that pathetic Gohan! That guy can't even catch a cold without needing someone else's help!" There was emotion in his eyes now, it was anger mixed with pride. He pointed a finger at both of them, and smirked. "I am Kortus! Remember that name for it is your death." He said, then smiled. "Oh and Piccolo, catch." Kortus said and threw something at Piccolo, who caught it without thinking. Then dropped it when he realised what it was. It was a finger, so small that it must have been Goten's. Before either Vegeta or Piccolo could react to that Kortus shot up into the sky.
Kortus flew with no destination in mind. His plans had been ruined, Vegeta and Piccolo were his greatest threat, he'd planned to take them out first, by catching them off guard. But them interrupting him during his masterpiece with his family means that they were now on guard, it was going to be harder to finish them.
He'd learnt a lot from watching Freiza and Cell, mostly that frontal attacks on fighters like Gohan's friends never worked. He grinned, that means he'll be making a little visit to West City. He turned and increased his speed. He felt the ki's rapidly approaching behind him. Great! He thought, they're following him! He wasn't ready to face them, not yet! Wait, somethings wrong, he thought.
Kortus blinked, and Gohan found him self floating in the air. What! He thought, he'd never had two episodes so close together before. He felt Piccolo's and Vegeta's ki's coming up fast behind him. Gohan turned to face them. Vegeta and Piccolo stopped in front of Gohan. Vegeta looked enraged, but he was used to that. The worse thing was how Piccolo was was staring at him, he hadn't looked at him that way since he'd trained him after Raditz. Gohan felt uncomfortable.
"Right, you fucking filth!" Vegeta spat at him. Gohans eyes widened at that, what had he done? Piccolo looked surprised, and looked at Vegeta who'd raised a hand.
"Vegeta, wait." He said, and turned to Gohan. "Gohan?" He asked. Gohan looked at Piccolo, but kept giving Vegeta wary looks.
"Yeah." He said. "What's up with Vegeta?" Piccolo sighed, and looked relieved, and Vegeta relaxed just a little, but he did lower his arm.
"Mum!" Gohan said suddenly as he remembered the last thing he'd heard. "She screamed, I have to go home!" Gohan moved forward. Both Piccolo and Vegeta looked panicked. As Gohan passed him Piccolo grabbed his arm. Gohan turned to look at him.
"Let go Piccolo, I have to go home!" He said.
"You don't want to go home." Vegeta sighed, puzzled by that, Gohan looked at Piccolo, who looked sad.
"Vegeta's right, you don't want to go home." Gohan couldn't believe what his old teacher was saying, why wouldn't he let him go to his mother, he didn't understand.
"Let go." Gohan said, trying to free his arm from Piccolo's grip. Piccolo grabbed Gohans other arm. Gohan struggled more. "Let go Piccolo please." He pleaded. "She screamed! She needs me! Let me GO!" Gohans hair flashed gold but only for a second as there was a dull thud. Gohans eyes rolled up and his head fell forward to reveal Vegeta still with his arm raised.
"He doesn't need to see." Is all Vegeta said, in the way of explanation, but Piccolo understood why he'd done it. "Get him back to Capsule Corp. Maybe that woman will know what to do." Vegeta said, and took off back to the Sons house. Piccolo couldn't understand why Vegeta wanted to go back. He looked down at the unconscious body of Gohan. At least he hadn't noticed he was covered in blood, Piccolo thought as he flew to West City.
