Everyone headed back to Goten and Gohan's childhood home and their eyes widened when they saw it. It had collapsed and was on fire. They landed on the ground, too shocked to move.
"N-No" Gohan murmured.
"Mom!" Goten yelled, climbing on the pile of debris. He threw bits of wood everywhere, searching for her. "Mom, mom!" Goten cried. Everyone else hurried to help him.
"Guys…" Pan cried out. Everyone headed to her. She had removed a large bit of the ceiling and found the pole covered in blood with a dried up puddle of it on the floor surrounding it.
"She was…" Gohan didn't finish. 18 grabbed the pole and used a bit of strength to eventually pull it out of the ground. They saw the end has white stuff on it.
"What's that?" Krilin asked.
"Bone dust" 18 answered. Everyone paled. "Judging from this, I say she saw the attack coming and dropped to the ground. When the attack hit the house, bits of the ceiling fell, including this small metal pipe. It pierced through her and into the ground" 18 said.
"If that were true, then there wouldn't be blood at the top of the pole" Trunks said.
"True but that's what makes me think she's alive" 18 said.
"How?" Bulma asked, looking like she was gonna throw up.
"When I tried to pull the pole out, I had to use a bit of my abnormal strength. Of course, Chichi wouldn't have been able to do the same seeing as she's weakened by her age and injury. She probably knew she would die if she stayed there and decided to move her body off of the pole" She said.
"So she slid off the top?" Krillin asked. 18 nodded.
"I wouldn't put it passed Chichi" Yamcha said.
"So if she did this, then there should be blood leading to where she is" Videl said. 18 nodded.
"Follow this floor. There should be blood somewhere" 18 said and they all stared moving wood and metal alike.
"Hey everyone, I found the trail" Marron said. Everyone went to her and indeed, there were blotches of blood on the floor. They followed that trail to the side of the house and to a tree where the grass was stained red.
"She must have collapsed here" 18 said.
"Then where is she?" Goten asked, angry. Gohan bent down and took a whiff. He ignored the smell of his mothers' blood and found another scent. If 17 hadn't told them about Dr. Gero's plan, he wouldn't have recognised it as his.
"I smell Dr. Gero's scent" Gohan said, standing.
"This bastard is going down when I find him" Goten hissed.
"What do we do now? We don't know where the hideout is and I can't sense either of their Ki after this. That damned doctor covered their sent, the clever bastard" Gohan said.
"There's not much we can do. Hope that my brother helps us out again" 18 said.
17 heard Dr. Gero laughing as he entered the base with Chichi in his arms. She looked pretty bad.
"You brought her here? I thought you were going to kill her" 17 said.
"I was but when I saw her will to live, to fight, I thought I could use her" the deranged doctor said. He placed her in one of his healing tanks and turned it on.
"What do you plan to do with her?" 17 asked.
"I'll be testing my new remedies on her and hopefully, get an obedient little puppet to work with" He said as he started typing into the computer.
